By Tribune-Review

Published: Thursday, December 27, 2012, 9:03 p.m.
Updated: Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Laurel: To Khalid Hussein. When a would-be robber tried to stick up the Allentown Dairy Mart on Christmas Eve, Mr. Hussein, the cashier on duty, nailed him with pepper spray. Police say the alleged thief, Mark Givner of New Kensington, debilitated by that spray, was easy to spot trying to shed his coat as he hobbled away. Here's to Hussein being the first and better shot.

Lance: To the Pittsburgh Steelers. Lots of highly paid “talent.” Lots of public support (from fanatics and taxpayers). And this is what we get — a badly broken team that's not playoff bound and one that needs a win Sunday against Cleveland just to have a .500 season. Here we go? There they went. Here's to lots of off-season retooling.

On the “Watch List”:

• A convention center hotel. More than a few of Pittsburgh's “leaders” continue to push for a new (and publicly subsidized) hotel at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. It's supposedly “needed” to make the center “more attractive” for convention bookers. But all manner of hotel rooms are being added in Pittsburgh proper and, dare we say it, more and more are being privately financed. There's a market for new hotel rooms, all right — the kind only the free market should build and support.

• The I-576 extension. Pennsylvania Turnpike officials say that, beginning in 2014, they'll resume construction of the highway (better known as the Southern Beltway) from Route 22 in Washington County to the Washington-Allegheny county line at I-79. The price tag — now — is nearly $633 million. While the project might be worthy, the agency's financial position is not: It's nearly $8 billion in debt. Adding to that debt outweighs the project's benefits.

1. Sunday pops
2. Missile defense: Enabling Russia
3. An inconvenient truth: The CO2 scare
4. The IRS attacks: A scandal grows
5. The race for Pittsburgh mayor: Bill Peduto’s problem
6. The poster ruling: A necessary slap
7. The SEC & Harrisburg: A sad fraud
8. For Westmoreland County Common Pleas judge: Vote for Bill McCabe
9. Primary 2013: 4 for Common Pleas
10. Primary 2013: Elect Sue Means
11. Saturday essay: Banana bike curls

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