Stimulate this!

Not much time to write of late. I’ve been working a lot. I’ve been working in the rain a lot, but that’s a whole other dilemma.

If you’ve been paying attention at all, you’ve probably figured out on your own that this so-called “stimulus package” bullsh*t is just that--bullsh*t. The great majority of these funds are being funneled into projects that benefit the, quote/unquote, “low to moderate-income residents.” Those would be the voters who vote based on their wants rather than what the country needs.

That’s code for one of the largest and most loyal democrat voting blocs--the perpetually underachieving poor. And almost all of the so-called ”shovel-ready” projects that are receiving stimulus funding directly benefit both unionized tradesman, and black entrepreneurs; two other very large and extremely loyal democrat voting blocs.

And yet, the lame brained are on WILK most days telling republicans what they must do to reenergize their party. I say, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Or in this case, do what the democrats did as in mortgage the future for the benefit of one’s political party right now. Oh, and in 2010 when those mid-term elections come due. You know the disingenuous drill: create some emergency, create the solution, and then reward all of your voting blocs.

From the Times Leader:

12 county projects funded

Luzerne County officials are spending their $1.3 million in stimulus funding on 12 projects, including a new outdoor reading area at the Hoyt Library in Kingston and renovations at the new site of Ruth’s Place women’s homeless shelter.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding must be spent on projects that will be completed by Jan. 31.

The projects must also principally benefit low/moderate-income residents, eliminate slum and blight or meet an “urgent need” as defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said county Community Development Director Andy Reilly.

County commissioners designated a team of seven employees to rank the 25 applications.
So far, so bad. Basically, they formed the local version of the Goodies R Us Advisory Panel. Thank you, Jesus. Sorry. I meant to say, thank you, Barack. We love you, even though you keep apologizing for “your” country every time they fire up the teleprompter.

Andy Reilly? Is he still living on the taxpayer's dole? Man! Some people. Some people have no respect for themselves, nor do they deserve any.

On with the financial idiocy, i.e., the financial/political gamesmanship.

“The committee worked diligently to fund the best projects that were submitted, and we look forward to seeing completion of these worthwhile community development projects,” Reilly said.
Ruth’s Place will receive $25,000 for move-in renovations at its new leased location at rear 425 N. Pennsylvania Ave., Wilkes-Barre, Reilly said.

The shelter has been housed at the First Baptist Church on River Street since November but serves only as an overnight shelter. Once the shelter moves into its new home, it will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to better help women overcome problems that led to their homelessness.

“This money is invaluably helpful to Ruth’s Place,” shelter board President Bill Bolan said on Tuesday.

The shelter is still seeking more donations to complete renovations, so an opening date has not been set, Bolan said. The work funded by stimulus money must be bid out, Bolan said.

And I ask you, what better way is there to stimulate the economy of Wilkes-Barre and Luzerne County than by pouring “free” money we do not have into yet another feel-good pet project of the politicos? What, exactly, will that $25,000 stimulate other than calls for police assistance from the neighbors of that drunk tank posing as a quasi social service agency?

And no opening date has been set? Well then, I guess Bolan was telling a major league fib when he testified before the Zoning Board on April 15th that, if the zoning variance were to be approved, the new and improved drunk tank would be open within 30 days--by May 15th.

And I guess he was simply in error, not lying, when he testified that the drunk tank’s tenants would not have easy access to alcohol. Thing is, if you stand just outside the front door of the new location, you can see the neon signs at Mahon’s Pub just across the boulevard.

And this one gets me to slapping my surgically-reconstructed knee. The following knee-slapper is from a Times Leader story published on April 16, 2009:

“Bolan said the women who stay at the shelter are required to participate in drug and alcohol counseling and other treatment on site. The shelter has a “zero tolerance” policy of drugs and alcohol, and finds other facilities for women who do not obey the shelter’s guidelines.”

Really? Fine, then name for me another women’s shelter in the greater Wilkes-Barre area. Better yet, name for me one willing to take the drunken rejects from the competing (for grant monies) homeless shelters. That’s right. You nailed it. There ain’t any.

It seems to me as if that there Wilkes-Barre Zoning Board of ours is either totally incompetent, unable to think things through to a logical conclusion, or is easily swayed by the grant-dependent do-gooders armed with their make-it-up-as-you-go bullspit, bleeding heart stories.

Anyway, there you have it. There are your “stimulus” dollars at work: bringing the hapless, the incorrigible, the inebriated, the opiate-numbed, the paroled and the potentially violent to an otherwise peaceful neighborhood.

So, what the downtown soup kitchen did for it’s surrounding area--render it completely uninhabitable--so will the homeless shelter do for this minute part of Nord End. We’re using “stimulus” dollars to bring an unwanted idiot magnet to an otherwise quiet oasis here in the Nord End.

Stimulate this!

It irks me every single time WILK’s Steve Corbett says to a caller, “Why do you believe what you think you believe?”

Oh…isn’t that clever? Steve, you are so freaking clever. Did you think that one up all by yourself? Or did one of your Marxist, same-sex, America-hating college professors hit you in the chops with that one while you were nursing a hangover?

Point blank, it’s an insult. He’s basically saying you are too completely dumb to know what to believe. You know, you should believe the right things, the things that he believes. This insulting bilge from the man who frequently shouts, “I am a feminist.”

A feminist? Nah. More like thoroughly henpecked. More like easily emasculated.

Well, I’ve got one for him.

Steve, why do you believe only what your wife allows you to believe?

Answer me that.

I hesitate to say such a thing, but I was pleased to learn late yesterday afternoon that the Red Carpet Inn on Kidder Street was engulfed in flames. I hesitate to say such things because working structure fires translate into meaning that firefighters are risking their lives.

Then again, knowing that complex like I know the back of my hand, I figured it’d be a “surround & drown,” meaning, the firefighters would not enter the structure until the fire was well under control.

My history with this complex goes back to my restaurant management days. And somehow, continued until just about today. When the city’s health department shut the place down in 2006 due to the limitless zoning violations as well as the deplorable sanitary conditions, the threat to the public’s health, I was there for two long days.

And when I did my last police ride along on May 3, 2007, Officer Rolman and myself toured what little was left of the complex after a call came in that kids were mucking about in the wreckage back there. In less than a year, the inattentiveness of the owner combined with the recyclable-seeking homeless had left the place a vandalized shell of it’s former slipshod self. It was destroyed.
And don’t get me started about the owner, Patel, who is currently suing the city of Wilkes-Barre over the city’s forced closing of that sh*thole. His suit is groundless, baseless and laughable at best. To call it a frivolous lawsuit would be to grossly understate how completely absurd it truly is. It was ordered closed because he allowed it to become what it became under his ill-fated and lackadaisical ownership…a total sh*thole.

In conclusion, if that dump, if that idiot magnet burned to the ground and no one was injured in the process…that sounds like a plan to me. And the next time anything on that long-abandoned property bursts into flames, I’d have absolutely no problem with the fire department being ordered to stand down.

It’s time for the homeless to move on. It’s time for them to find a new place to ransack, vandalize and strip bare. It’s time for a new 10 or 20,000-square-foot toilet and empty beer bottle depository in which to bed down in. That is, assuming they won’t all be living directly across the street from this modest adobe.

That reminds me, before that ‘stimulating’ homeless shelter opens, I’ll have to get on over to Home depot and buy plenty of batteries for the portable police scanners.

Remember, I’ll be playing the fly to that excrement.

Times Leader, April 16, 2009 again:

About 20 people attended Wednesday’s hearing, many of them supporters of the shelter. Mark Cour, who told the board he lives “within 120 feet” of the shelter’s new location, said he’s concerned about crime and other problems that could occur because of the shelter relocating.“This is a neighborhood. They just about characterized it as an industrial park,” Cour said.

“I do not believe a neighborhood that has not been ravaged by crime (or reverse-gentrification) … is the right place for a 24-hour homeless shelter. The North End is a pretty peaceful neighborhood. We aim to keep it that way.”

Bye