The electronic pogrom rages on

Sad, I am.

Gallery of Sound: Tits up

There was a reason why my mom went all silver-haired at such a young age. Basically, I was that reason. And Joe Nardone was my enabler.

Remember, if it ain't loud, it ain't worth a fu>k.

Sez me.

Later

'Gadget brawl' season

Merry effing nonsense!

Watching the impatient multitudes act badly always makes me gleeful, reverent and introspective.

Next year, to a very large degree...I will opt out of this sophistry.

'Til the next 'gadget brawl' season.

Later

Video flapdoodle ( on steroids)

Live Leak's 2013 year in review.

This is wicked, so if you're not real big on death, destruction, dismemberment and property damage, sit this one out.



Later

#4 is histoire

Weis Markets went and ripped down the former Franklin's Family Restaurant in Dallas.

I did a tour there in 1983. Being that the ownership of Franklin's lived up on the hill a ways, and being that most of the employees were tributes, I went over like a DEA agent in a stash house. Blunt, crude, theatrical and driven by company policy---no exceptions.

I'll never forget sitting in the "Blue Room," both Wifey and I enjoying our dinner when then-toddler Peace decided to stick her fork in an electrical socket.

Once upon a time, Franklin's ruled: "Quality food, quality service in a clean environment."

The big boxes rule over commerce now.

Enjoy your microwaved pig slop.

Buh-bye

Parsons Santa parade

Being new to the neighborhood, this was our 2nd go-round with the Parsons Lions Club annual Santa parade.

Even though Wifey is not a kid, we scored two grabs bags full of candy.

In my denuded mind, this is a pretty neat undertaking.

Later

The fallout

From Like your senator?



Nice.

Hey, what happened to Pure Bunkem? Threats? Lawsuit?

I tried to contact the author to no avail.

Later

Stop the pigeon!

Warning: The following video contains filthy language that would make even Nancy Pelosi blush.

Embrace the fu>k.



S.H.A.R.K.

Wow! The world is so completely upside down, even pigeon abuse is offensive.

What the do-gooders apparently don't get is that pest control operators from sea to Sargasso sea are trapping and euthanizing, or flat-out poisoning pigeons day-in and day-out. If only they knew, they'd have a whole mission to embark upon.

Later

Go figure

From CBS News...


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/high-fracking-areas-have-high-levels-of-endocrine-disrupting-chemicals-study/

 "More than 700 chemicals are used in the fracking process, and many of them disturb hormone function," study's authors Susan C. Nagel, an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and women’s health at the University of Missouri School of Medicine in Columbia, Mo., said in a press release. "With fracking on the rise, populations may face greater health risks from increased endocrine-disrupting chemical exposure."

So, doctors tell fibs, too?

Later

Barry on Barry

It’s official — the government of the United States of Obama consists of boobs and bores and is led by a narcissist. It is no consolation that Great Britain joins us in racing to the bottom.

How the West was lost by the selfie president
 

A "community organizer."

Talk about being screwed.

Later

Video flapdoodle

Once again, the only limit to your ability is your imagination...

Avery Molek, the little (6-year-old) drummer boy.



Back to shoveling the sidewalks.

Later

Radioactive

Been busy.

Been busy paying for the plethora of freebies the growing multitudes of slackers are enjoying courtesy of the Democrats. 

Too busy for this sort of malarkey.

Anyway, the following is the best music video I have seen since the heyday of MTV. If you don't watch it to the very end, you will have screwed up.



Before I go, can you believe that POTUS from Kenya once bunked here in the U.S. with an illegal alien?

Good call, commies. Er, I mean, lefties. Dems. Whatever. Feckless plunderers of the treasury. 

Talk at you soon.

G'nite

Pet bowling

I'm beginning to suspect that the aging process is forcing the obligatory "mellowing out" thingie upon me.

Case in point: Wifey's 5-pound "dog."

There was a time (if my brother was still alive, he would attest to this), there was a time when I would have stuffed this bulked-up Ewok into a hamster ball and rolled for plastic bowling pins. Uh, just the depraved thought of such an awful thing would lead one to believe that the animal-in-a-hamster-ball bowling event is something that I am fully capable of when bored and out of beer, wine and after shave. I plead the 5th.

In any event, , fu>k off you P.E.T.A. bed-wetters. Go and protest outside a circus for hours on end and see if anybody gives a flying funk.

Anyway, Wifey doesn't understand why I chortled and choked after the big brown step-van delivered the new "puppy" coat just in from some far-flung corner of Tibet.

 Yeah, that's my pathetic life these days. Making sure Lala, the Ewok/Hamster mix is comfortable.

God, what I wouldn't give for just one more drunk and disorderly customer after the bars had closed.

Whatever, I'm gonna go drool on myself for a spell.

Buh-bye

The changing face...

...of Wilkes-Barre.

When this one is all said and done, I think it's going to amount to a noticeable improvement. 

It's been kind of quiet of late, you know, without drug scums executing rival drug scums.

Keep buying those illicit products, kiddies. And then bitch and moan about the mayor and the chief of police as the violence continues. Keep cutting your noses off.

Later

"Jim from Wapwallopen"

This is a good one from WYLN’s “Topic A,” hosted by L.A. Tarone, soon to be of full-time WILK fame.

During these two segments, Tarone mixes it up with “Jim from Wapwallopen,” as he is known to WILK listeners. Jim is a member of the National Motorists Association (www.motorists.org) , and will provide you with some facts and figures that will surprise you.

What you are about to see is Traffic Engineering 101. Or, Traffic Engineering For Maximum Profit. Oh, and for reduced safety...your government at work.

Post by WYLN Late Edition News At 10.

Post by WYLN Late Edition News At 10.

I have been busy as all get-out. Nursing a work-related injury that is now in the rear-view mirror. Watching the BLUE WALL---The New York Football Giants defying the gloom-and-doom prognostications of the so-called experts. Enjoying just being.

Later

One-liner circumlocuting

I keep hearing this reflexive, oft-repeated question regurgitated over and over again, first by the suddenly flailing Democrat party operatives, and now by the local myrmidons.

Be they local radio talk show hosts, or local bloggers, they demand to know what the Republicans propose as an alternative to the heavily listing Affordable Care Act debacle. What better ideas do those evil republicans have?

I’ll answer that swill-laden question with a question. Where is it written that any political party should have an alternative plan for a heavy-handed government takeover of one-sixth of the private sector? Freedom-erasing coercion is a plan?

Seriously, are you deluded people kidding me?

Obviously, partisan-based ideology run amok---idiocy---begets even more idiocy!

And what’s up with the two local newspapers allowing the nonstop parade of anonymously affixed libel, defamation, slander, mischaracterizations and out-of-context attacks otherwise known as “readers comments?”

How does that useless twaddle penned by blithering, cowardly idiots somehow pass as further discussion of the issues?

So, we have another shooting at Sherman Hills, and the predictably mental incontinents are calling for the heads of the mayor and the chief of police.

Honestly, I fail to see how the elected and appointed in Wilkes-Barre should be on the carpet simply because the out-of-town minorities seem completely incapable of resolving any dispute without gunplay?

Yep, minorities. Black-on black mayhem.

You wanted diversity…you got it!

Without an iota of doubt, this is the most entertaining radio talk show throughout all of NEPA.

Zane, Free Beer and Hot Wings.

Juvenile? Definitely. Outrageously funny? Ditto that aforementioned ‘definitely.’

WILK is fast losing me. I no longer listen to Webster & DNC Babe in the morning. I quit on the Irish, polka, I-can-kill-you, karate free-for-all dysfunction from 3-7 PM. I don’t see the point in Rush’s show, since nobody works, votes, pays taxes, stays sober, contributes or cares anymore.


But, I still love our down-to-earth Sue Henry, and probably always will.

Other than all of the above, I got nothin’.

Later

Done my civic duty

"That means that no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what." – President Obama, speech to the American Medical Association, June 15, 2009, during the debate over health insurance reform.

No…matter…what?

Can you say…Prevaricator-in-Chief?

How ‘bout Soviet-style central planning?

Regulatory overreach?

Continued, coerced uncertainty during an economic depression?

Or how about eight and a half dollars for two measly pounds of ground beef?

Barry is a destructive, incompetent charlatan.

Sez me.

Well, I visited the new voting hall today.

I arrived at the usual time, five minutes before the polls opened. Inside and out, there was much more activity than I was used to at the old Nord End voting haunt. I figure the busier atmosphere is the result of the closure of the former polling places in both Parsons and Miners Mills because they were not easily accessed by handicapped folks.

Uh, would that be yet another argument for online voting options?

I have yet to take a picture of an electronic voting machine that did not come out all fuzzy looking. Uh, would that be yet another argument for bringing back those gargantuan metal voting machines we so recently tossed on the junk heap? Maybe not.

In any event, tell that there Bureau of Elections honcho we need some voting machines that are more Kodak-friendly. Get a Fedrule Govmint grant or some such thing. Gaming proceeds. I dunno.

So, I did my civic duty as I saw fit. But, as a white, gainfully employed, traditionalist American, my opinion no longer matters according to the executive order tyrant.

Whatever.

Second term shopping list: ammo, batteries, water, canned goods and beer.

Later

Lisa Kelly

A rework of the masterpiece...Brown Shoes Don't Make It.



I think I'm in love.

Or something.

Later

Election Day: I can vote in ten seconds

In review, Wifey and I left the Nord End behind last year and turned up here in scenic, quiet, boring Parsons. And we couldn’t be more content.

Thing is, since neither of us speak Spanish, gibberish or gang speak, we were starting to feel like outsiders in our own longtime neighborhood. With few exceptions, the Nord End is now home to those who loiter on front porches with alcohol in hand all day long. It’s what I call an Access Card neighborhood.

This past May, I was bounced out of the polling place on Austin Avenue and sent back to my old Nord End voting haunt…Dan Flood School. Then in July I received a new voter card listing the Austin Ave church as my polling place. But in October I got me another voter card telling me to vote at Holy Savior in East End. Somebody get me a map.

And all of this for an unremarkable election offering far, far less than a remarkable slate of candidates.

This is what  I’ll be on about tomorrow…

I can vote for four of the six candidates in the Wilkes-Barre Area School board race, but I will select only two: Kathy Grinaway and Sam Troy.

Neither have any connection to the current wasteful, insipid, insider-only, corrupt morass that fails to pass as education in this city, and that makes them the logical choices.

As far as the Luzerne County Council race is concerned, we can vote for 5 of the 11 hopefuls. Again, I’ll vote for two, and two only: Harry Hass and Linda McClousky Houck.

I have my reasons, but it’d take three-to-four thousand words to explain it all. Screw that.

The most important race for the taxpayers of this county is the controller throw down featuring Democrat Michelle Bednar and Republican Carolee (no last name necessary).

While Bednar seems to have the full backing of the reconstituted local Dem machine, Carolee usually lacks the backing of her own party. Bednar seems as if she could be elected and seamlessly fit right in, while Carolee usually does nothing of the sort. And since the controller is the county’s only true elected watchdog, the following sums up my support of Carolee, which I copped from Facebook...Home of the Illiterate.

Independent, tireless, combative when necessary and abrasive enough to give the elected and the appointed under the rotunda dome a 4-year case of heartburn.

Now get up and vote like a champion tomorrow. If you’re a Democrat, vote as many times as you can get away with in lieu of a voter I.D.






Oh, and Oblahblah blows!

Later

Pics

Work has been nuts.

Fantasy football rules!

My week in pics...

Don't be a dork. Grab that half-full bag of Jolly Ranchers and turn your porch light on!

Later

Isolated vocal tracks

Fred Space hated this stuff...



Kirby...1974...blew the headliner---Blue Oyster Cult---out of the water, and then invited the entire crazed throng to the hotel (Arena?) where EFO now sits behind Denny's.

We took a look, but the cops were already on scene.

Later

To KD

Fathom this!

Taking kayaking to a whole new, uh, depth?



Torpedoes, anyone?

Later

Flo sez...

Oblahblahcare?

NO DISCOUNT!!!

Nice job, Ebon.

When they make "Flo vs Aliens," you're gonna make for one kick-ass stunt double.

Later

The end is near

Even the usual suck-ups are starting to get it...

Cat on a Hot Stove

Three more years of this? The long, national, economic nightmare continues.

We can't hurt the poor. We can't hurt the seniors. We can't hurt the marauding hordes of illegals. We can't hurt the teachers or the other destructive public sector entreaties, but we can expect the dwindling private sector work force to suck off, pay more for energy and commodity essentials, shut the fu>k up and pay their fast-escalating taxes on time. 

Comrade Barry is incompetent. Barry is a self-absorbed loser. Barry yammers on and on and on, while America goes down the drain. Barry is forever encapsulated by his threadbare legacy: that having potential means you haven't done anything yet.

Whether you want to believe it or not,  we're in real trouble here, kiddies. It's time to acknowledge that we've finally been defeated from within.

The clueless, easily-led democrats continually offer us that which we spent a King's ransom defeating...destructive communist collectivism.

Later

Busy as all get-out

As you may have guessed, I haven't had much time for this gibberish of late.

Not only did I take on the structural and commodity fumigation responsibilities at work, the lone termite technician in a neighboring county quit with no notice. So, I am busy and then some. Besides, what good is blogging with the out-of-control Democrats rushing us headlong into financial insolvency?

Anyway, I'll see you around. In Luzerne County. In Lackawanna County. Wayne. Wyoming. Susquehanna. Monroe. Carbon. And last but not least, Schuylkill.

But, before I go, give this blog post a look. The dude is...well, you tell me what's up with this dude.

About The Girl I Want

Kingston

Eckley

Eckley

Cow pasture in W-B

Later

CSO time trials?

Call me crazy, but I'm thinking we should reconsider the re-figuring of our Combined Sewage Outflows, if and when our cities, states and Fedrule overlords deliver themselves from insolvency.



Yeah, I know I'm nuts.

And I also know that cheap thrills beat lying on a couch watching morons being moronic at the behest of a moronic director.

No biggie.

Later

Welcome to the entitlement revolution or; Eff You Justice Roberts!

Here's a big boy.

Note that it took on the color of the cinder block.

Well, tomorrow’s the big day. Tomorrow, the U.S. economy begins the long, arduous journey by where it gets turned on it’s pointy little head by the (supposedly) Affordable Health Care Act.

Don’t listen to the rhetoric from either side. Fact is, nobody knows what’s about to happen. Not the politicians, not the economists, not the health care professionals, and not even the Surgeon General of the United States…Dr. Barry H. Oblahblah.

History teaches that when government seizes on any part of the economy, said part goes tits up. And, as fate would have it, we’re about to repeat some painful history.

According to the paid shills, I have health insurance that I‘m happy with, so I won’t have to do anything. No insurance exchanges, no nothing.

Yeah. As in, not yet.

Seems to me that the only player with any preexisting conditions in all of this needless muckity-muck is the Fedrule Govmint.

Good luck. You’re going to need it.

Later

Markie: Who?

This past workweek was brutal. I’ll not go into detail, but if you can get me to admit to dragging ass on the tail end, the admission alone is proof of the depth of the endeavor.

I was going to lower my standards by attending the latest installment of Blogfest, but a not-so-chance WILK radio encounter blew that all to hell. We’ll cover that later.

The problem with Blogfest?

Uh, what was I quoted as saying during my one and only appearance? It was, “They only want to use us.”

They---the glad-handing folks promising rainbows and unicorns---tolerate bloggers so as to generate some positive campaign press. And then the star-struck, gushing bloggers, flush with look-at-me photos, provide that expected positive campaign press to incumbents and pretenders alike.

The way the bloggers spin it, they write about local politics…(meaning they do just enough to not get sued for all the good stuff, defamation, libel, and the like.) You know, they publish the candidate-approved press releases and candidate-approved photos. Wouldn't want to bite that hand they've shaken?

Fact is, there hasn’t been any hard-hitting local poliblogging in these parts for many a year. And the hard-hitting stuff went by the wayside just as soon as the local bloggerati sought out fame, publicity and affirmation from the elected and the soon-to-be elected.

All that aside, as I had previously alluded to, I was this close to making an appearance with Walter Griffith as my trusty wingman. Or, with me as his trusty wingman. His bodyguard. I dunno. Something like that.

Although, I’d be his bodyguard in an instant at his most whimpered behest.

But, on Thursday, one of the organizers of Blogfest made an appearance on Sue Henry’s WILK talk show, basically promoting the soiree.

Sue asked him when he started blogging. 2005, was the retort. Sue asked him why he started to blog. Wait…for…it: Because “nobody else was writing about local politics” was the wildly offensive, wholly inaccurate revisionist history response. 

Uh, anybody remember this electronic relic…Wilkes-Barre Online?

Seriously, what is it with the left-leaning and revisionist histrionics?

Whatever.

Here’s the scoop.

Y’all can pose for pictures with the pretenders, the clueless wannabes, the bald-faced liars, the former and the future corrupt, plus the folks who would gleefully raid your personal treasury by executive fiat for their own pursuits, but me, I’ll take a pass.

Me? I seek no fame, no fortune nor no affirmation. I’m a big boy with a big boy job in a big boy world, a reality most bloggers will never happen upon. I’m all good to go with the “pedal, paddle and dumbbell” lifestyle. I care not, I wish not and I want not. I spent my entire life chasing a distant memory, and I am over it.

But, the blatant disrespect was duly noted.

Further proof that I was right to discorporate myself from the entire look-at-me program.

G’nite

The day the Earth stood chilled

This is must-see video shot by some guy wandering around ground zero with a video camera.

The most compelling video from 9-11-2001 I have seen to this day.

It's a bit long, but stick with it. The embed code is screwed, so click on LIVELEAK and then the "never before seen" video.



Later

'That giant sucking sound' on steroids

The...wait for it...the so-called "economic recovery."  Yeah.

Uh, yeah.

Okay, whatever claptrap they're offering today.

Daily Job Cuts

It is what it is, despite how the flailing Dems are trying to spin it.

Face it, lil' pencil-neck geek Barry is a clueless asshole.

And you went and reelected him.

Public assistance awaits you.

Enjoy.

Later

Where's my exemption?

The push is on…big time.

The push to further paint Republicans as inherently racist, senior-killing, baby-starving sycophants bent on denying you and yours affordable health care is going full-steam ahead.

Yes, the folks who call themselves progressives and the like because doing so pumps up their emaciated chests are in lockstep: Republicans want to barbecue and devour your children. Or some such disingenuous screed.

Here’s the fatal flaw in the “law of the land”…the so-called Affordable Health Care act.

Ready?

If they pass a law, and then spend month after month after month exempting disparate groups (core voters) from the financial pain the law promises, then the law is not being equally applied. And if it’s not being equally applied to all, it’s complete bullspit.

All of which reminds me of the unconstitutional sin taxes the limp-wrested leftists feel so justified in arbitrarily and unilaterally doling out.

I should pay more in taxes because you do not approve of my new-found politically incorrect behavior? Really? Who the fu>k made you God’s attorney general?

In conclusion, if you are exempted from financial ruin and I am not, despite all of your name-calling, finger-pointing and soap-box proclamations from the supposed moral higher ground, you are not only lying to me, you are lying to yourself.

And, apparently, you don’t mind being a mindless partisan, a self-impressed prevaricator for the Prevaricator-in-Chief.

One….More…Time!!!

What suppresses economic activity?

Uncertainty!!!

Thanks for that.

Later

Father (Barry) knows best

Or does he?



Later

Quaker State enema

I haven’t been interested in any of this electronic tomfoolery since the NFL season got underway. Yep, while the world continues to spiral out of control, I’ve been off to fantasy football land.

They (whoever they are) told us that once we stopped carrying cash on our persons there would be no reason for anyone to attempt to rob us. Yet, last week, a King’s College student suffered a broken jaw after her MAC card and cell phone cell were absconded with.

 

I know that the young women of today feel all empowered, and that very many of them are athletes, they work out, they jog and all of that. But, with society being as sickened as it currently is, why in the hell are young women walking alone well after dark? Or anyone for that matter.

 

Last week our on-call technician was responding to an emergency here in the city when his windshield was shot at. He heard the shot. The police filed a report and confirmed that the vehicle was hit by a projectile. So, just by driving Pennsylvania Avenue after dark, you could be struck by a bullet.

 

Yesterday, two black males appeared at the front door sporting a laminated bill from PP&L. They said they needed to see my bill so that they could confirm that I was not being overcharged. I asked them what firm they were representing and they stayed with their spiel as if they had not heard what I had asked them.

They kept going and going about having to “confirm” when I told them I wasn’t interested. With that, one of the two laughed at me, and made some remark about not being very bright. But after I burst through the door, got up close and personal while repeatedly barking “Are you effing laughing at me?,” they were gone in an instant.

If that fu>k had said the wrong thing at that moment, he would have been launched down the front steps. You want to introduce your utter nonsense into my little world? Yeah, well, welcome to my world.


During the past two years, I have had two violent encounters, and a third that stopped just short of violence. And this was while I was representing my employer. Two occurred in Hazleton, while the latter was in Wilkes-Barre. One generated a police report. One resulted in a Hispanic male getting his head bashed all to hell. The last one was reported to the associated housing authority. The point being, I can’t even get through a workday without society’s dregs coming to annoy me.


Sorry, but the usual advice about “being aware of your surroundings” just isn’t going to cut it while the good people continue to be encircled by the growing number of lawless vermin that mistakenly count as card-carrying members of humankind.


People…arm yourselves, try to maintain some upper body muscle mass, and always take the first punch when violence is clearly about to happen.


Young people today have no concept of long-discredited things like the Ten Commandments, so until the police arrive on scene…you’re on your own.


So be a good little Boy Scout and be prepared.

Good luck with that.

 

Someone once said that “civility is the lubricant of society.” And it’s gone beyond being painfully obvious that our society needs a long overdue Quaker State enema.

 

Later

One

WTC...



Suck on that!

Later

Excelsior

Never being big on forgiving or forgetting, I'll bite my lip on this twelve marking of that fateful date.



But as I said on September 14, 2001..."If they hate us, let's hate 'em right back."

Gimme a multiple reentry vehicle with Mecca's name on it!

Later

Freda: Official Trailer

I will be buying me a copy of this when it's available...



Lovely Freda, fan club maid...

Later

The gas is coming

From Falls, through Orange, Centermoreland, Harding, across Carverton Road and up and over the mountain to Wyoming...the gas is coming. Or going to Japan.

Or something while I pay more and more for natural gas.

Feeling scammed? You...we should be.

Later

Gravity

Sandra Bullock...lost in space?



Looks like fun, er, entertainment to me.

So much for that hyper-velocity impact shielding, huh, Dad?

Later

By request

By request, I'm publishing the second letter I received from my long-lost father...the last I have heard from him.

I published the first letter---"Letter from my father"---back in June. And this is all she wrote as further attempts at contacting him have fallen flat.

I spoke to a member of the Benton County, Oregon Sheriff's Department just yesterday.  This would be the very same forest deputy who made the long-sought reconnection possible in the first place by arresting my father in late 2012 for criminal trespass.

According to him, my father is still out there in the local hills somewhere. And some of us are generally concerned about his well-being and suchwhat. But still, the communication has come to an abrupt halt.

I waited a lifetime to talk to him. And, as far as I'm concerned, I'm not done with peppering him with questions.

The way I see it, the very least of which he owes me is a couple of answers.

Later

'I, me, mine' no more

Seriously, kiddies.

It's time for the self-absorbed community muckraker to go back to Chicago and do something he's truly good at, like supervising a free condom giveaway at a public housing campus.







 

What is it that the left-leaning smoke during the run-up to an important election?  

G'nite

Frackquakes

No kidding?

Gee, how shocking.

Confirmed: Fracking practices to blame for Ohio earthquakes


Pull-freaking quote...

Scientists have known for decades that fracking and wastewater injection can trigger earthquakes. For instance, it appears linked with Oklahoma's strongest recorded quake in 2011, as well as a rash of more than 180 minor tremors in Texas between Oct. 30, 2008, and May 31, 2009.

End-freaking-pull.

Just in case you folks missed it, the epicenter of the quake that shook Wilkes-Barre not long ago was in Virginia and just happened to be surrounded by 'fracking' pads.

Google the orbital-generated images, I'm not making that up.  

So, let's keep fracking away, let's ignore the frackquakes and let's continue to eat those seemingly contradictory, yet steady increases to our natural gas rates.

If it smells like a BS scam, girlies, it's a BS scam.
 
Later 

How to win (?) an election

The Weiner King, vying to be NYC's next Sexter-in-chief.

Or: Buffoonery 101.



He's funny. Lame, but funny.

Later

Match to powderkeg

I see that Secretary of State John Kerry is promising that a military strike on Syria would be “a limited action.”

Really.

So, if the stated plan is to leave Assad in power, and that we admit we cannot eliminate the chemical weapons stockpiles with limited cruise missile strikes, then what’s the point other than the unstated goal of sending a message to Iran?

And what’s with the feigned outrage over the alleged gassing of a thousand after an estimated one-hundred thousand were purported to have been killed during the past two years?

This is sophistry borne of gross incompetence.

Today, the more dimwitted of the Republican lawmakers were banging the war drums while mouthing high-minded, morally-bankrupt platitudes. Democrats, the committed peaceniks when Republicans occupy the White House, were making all the usual noise about sending messages, doing the right thing, blah, blah, blah…now go and hump another one of your unpaid interns.

If and when the cruise missiles fly, if the scurrilous leader is allowed to remain in command, and if the chemical weapons remain intact for the most part, then our only real intention would be to assist the violent Jihadists posing as rebels, just as we did in both Libya and Egypt.

By the way, Libya is quickly devolving in chaos, mayhem and death. Egypt was headed down that path until the Egyptian military brought that country back from the brink of the 7th century. If Barry Oblahblah has a workable plan other than subterfuge and sabotage for the Middle East, frankly, I don’t see it.

In fact, it seems as if he’s always ready and willing to loan our military might to the Muslim Brotherhood, al Queda, et al.

Earlier today, America surface ships in the Mediterranean launched ballistic missiles in conjunction with the Israeli military as part of readiness exercise. A Russian listening post immediately detected the launch and alerted Russian naval assets---including it’s only carrier group---currently in the Mediterranean as well as those heading into it. In addition, the Russians have not evacuated their naval base at Tartus, Syria as previously reported, instead, they reinforced it to play host to Syrian dignitaries and military leaders during the expected bombing raids.

The Nimitz carrier group, which was on it’s way back to it’s home port in Washington, was ordered to turn around and steam back into the Red Sea. B-1 bombers have been redeployed to the theater. Two gigantic amphibious assault platforms have been forward-deployed. And stealth bombers have flown to Cyprus.
CIA-trained mercenaries have been inserted into Syria. Syria is dispersing it’s military assets in anticipation of the threatened missile bombardment, just yesterday rockets were fired at Israel from Lebanon and Iranian Revolutionary Guard units are in Syria. Plus, the sizable Israeli reserves have been mobilized.

Meanwhile, Iran, Hamas, Hizbollah and Syria are promising to spill this anticipated military dust-up well beyond the Syrian borders. Turkey to the north is reinforcing it’s borders. And Jordan---surrounded---is scared sh*tless.

So…Barry Oblahblah and John Kerry honestly believe an American air assault on Syria will result in “a limited action?”

Good effing luck with that.

Mark my Markie words, this one, this continued needless meddling is going to get out of hand.

Later

Pregnant Hills: 1979

We spent an uneventful year there.

We---my then 7-year-old brother and I---moved our pitiful pittance in there while Wifey was still in recovery mode after the birth of our firstborn---Peace Rebecca. No fooling. Peace was born, mom and kid were doing well, so I was off to the nearby U-Haul outlet.

I'd love to spin yarn after yarn about that year, but I was busily sponging up overtime pay from not one, but three local kitchens.

You see the stark difference between then and now, right? The ingrained work ethic?

Anyway, other than Ricky and Jill Schmidt (who we bonded with and can't believe they are both dearly departed), we never missed anything that Pregnant Hills provided us with, other than a grandma-provided starting point.

Not a single handgun in sight.

You know, the old days.

Later

From Ground Zero's neighbor

From Israel:
Obama’s climb-down on Syria attack spells “military nightmare” for allies Israel, Turkey, Jordan


US President Barack Obama’s about-turn Saturday night, Aug. 31 on the planned US military operation against Syria’s chemical weapons has shaken up the volatile Middle East balance of strength, spelling for Israel, Jordan and Turkey what Western and Israeli military sources called the day after “a military nightmare.”
Syria, Iran and Hizballah are let off the hook by the lifting of the imminent US military threat against Bashar Assad over his use of chemical weapons on Aug. 21. Not only that, but the threesome have won an unforeseen tactical advantage: President Obama’s turn to Congress to authorize that attack gives them at least a fortnight for launching a pre-emptive strike against US forces and its allies.


Syria and Hizballah’s defenses are already upgraded against the projected US strike and their forces on peak readiness. Rather than hanging around and waiting for the US Congress to go through with a debate, which only starts in the week of Sept. 9, they are fully capable of forcing the pace on their own terms, with the object of getting the US operation cancelled altogether.


Russian President Vladimir Putin, for his part, will not waste the opportunity for pursuing further advanced weapons transactions with Iran and Syria.


A high-ranking Israeli office commented Sunday that the three hostile allies, having achieved an indefinite postponement of the American military threat with Moscow’s help, can be expected to press their advantage with further diplomatic and military mischief. Trouble looms for Israel, Jordan and Turkey if Russian and Iranian intelligence experts estimate that an aggressive move will strengthen the hands of the US lawmakers opposed to US military intervention in Syria.


Syria's allies may deduce that high war flames in the Middle East will stoke the anti-military congressional faction’s pressure on the administration to keep American out of the region. They will argue that even the very limited action proposed by Obama would be enough to drag America deep into the Syrian mire.


Two Republican senators have already come forward as nay-sayers. Directly after the president’s speech, John McCain and Graham Lindsey said they would vote against any limited military action in Syria short of an offensive for toppling Bashar Assad.


September is a sensitive month in Israel because most of it is taken up with festivals, starting in Rosh Hashanah, followed by Yom Kippur and then the Feast of Tabernacles.


DEBKAfile’s military sources say that the government and military command decided in hectic overnight discussions to take no chances. Against possible negative repercussions from the US president’s bombshell, they decided to maintain the high state of security and military preparedness along Israel’s borders with Syria and Lebanon.


The three-tiered anti-missile system therefore remains in place and the gas mask distributions stations were reopened to the public Sunday morning.

The rush to British exports

Uh, yeah, so much for Oblahblah’s so-called coalition of the morally superior.


Revealed: Britain sold nerve gas chemicals to Syria 10 months after war began  

This ongoing, off-again "intervention" fraught with hesitancy, indecisiveness and a failure of leadership is a joke.  

Remember the president's words: "...tomorrow or next week or next month."  

Then again, maybe after Christmas. But definately after he explores a way to blame everything on the Republicans.  

Asswipe!  

Later

The Apologist Tour

From the comments...

D.B. Echo said...


Boy, Team IHateObama sure has it easy. You can curse out the President if he pulls the trigger, and you can curse out the President if he doesn't. The one you would consider an impeachable offense, the other an act of cowardice. Well, now the ball is in Congress's court, and they get to decide whether the United States is a nation of pussies that will give the O.K. to any tinpot dictator or world power that decides to use nerve gas against civilians, or whether we get involved in what may become a rapidly escalating war. Hey, we've given a pass to using chemical weapons against civilians before, under the senile idiot Ronald Reagan in 1988 when his good buddy Saddam Hussein used them in Iraq. And if Congress gives Assad the green light now, what's to stop Russia from using them the next time Chechnya or Georgia step out of line?

Your call, Congress. Cowardly acquiescence or possible war. Or, of course, they can just stay on vacation and do nothing. That's what they're best at.


September 1, 2013 at 10:55 AM



Mark Cour said...

Dude, seriously?

He's been drawing red lines in the sand for a year. And now that the red line has been mockingly kicked back at him, now that he's unilaterally forward-deployed massive amounts of military assets that are in Harm's Way, then he holds a press farce and announces to the waiting world that he wants to fu>k with Congress some more?

Vacations? Oblahblah takes more time off than those collecting 99 weeks of unemployment!

And he all but said that any use of chemical weapons will be addressed by our military. So, if and when the gas is let loose, are we committed to attacking China, Russia, North Korea and/or Iran?

He's a flailing lunatic one errant shot short of WWIII!

The pencil-neck geek is an empty suit. He is a foolhardy charlatan. He is dangerously inept.

And, "dictators?"

Have no fear, he's doing his level best and then some to have the dictators replaced by Islamic jihadists. See, Libya and Egypt for more on that.

Sorry, but threatening war and then pulling back so as to play politics is imbecility at it's most pronounced.

Congress didn't threaten anyone. Congress didn't play Stratego with our assets and our volunteers. And Congress didn't chicken out.

Oblahblah did all of that.

Nice try, though.


September 1, 2013 at 2:25 PM

Outgoing

Tom, with all due respect, Wilkes-Barre doesn't have a dilemna...Amerika has a dilemna.

W-B is but a microcosm among hundreds, perhaps thousands of microcosms of Amerika in it's current, deplorable state.

How do we fix a fallen country that has absolutely no respect for anything...authority, a higher power, the sanctity of life, or the now much frowned-upon Ten Commandments?

As for "druggies" relocating here from the nearby Big City, there's an old adage that goes as follows: The brown folks grow it, the black folks sell it and the white folks buy it.

So, until the white folks stop buying en masse, expect a steady stream of societal decay, reverse-gentrification, death, mayhem and more "white flight" from the financially-strapped cities.

And when the last of the folks who actually work and produce and generate taxable incomes finally abandon the urban centers, city after city after city will face the inevitable financial insolvancy that follows untold decades of liberal, well-meaning, but ill-thought out policies.

It's a huge sh*t and pimento sandwich, and we either take another reluctant bite and lower our lifestyles and expectations, or we head for the hills with ammo in tow, herd newts and live off the land.

Anyway, did we attack Syria yet?

Them's all we've begotten.

Later

He huffed...and he puffed...

And he chickened out all over again.

How many a "red line" can one charlatan draw and have eviserated before he comes across as a self-impressed, flailing jackass?

Another red line gone. His one deadline expired. Yet, he is on record as saying that any country that uses chemical weapons needs to be taken to task for having done so. Really? And what would young Barry Do-Wrong do if the Russians fired a chemical-laced shell or two into the Ukraine?

He---the sorry-assed phony---paints himself into corner after corner, and them wimps out and reinvents the corner.

  

Three more years of this jackassery?

Later

On sale now: Magnetic "I support the terrorists" ribbons

These are the sorts of folks the U.S. military is being forward-deployed to assist.

What's that?

Allah Akbar, you say?



Later

Dubya sighting

Now that Dubya is five years removed from the White House, he looks a helluva lot more youthful.

Wait for it. Not once, but twice.

Wait for it...



Later

Syria, here Barry comes!

His "Arab Spring" meddling has brought war and chaos to both Libya and Egypt, and now Barry Oblahblah wants to export further meddling, namely a stepped-up war and further chaos to Syria.

The only problem is, Syria, Iran and Hizzbollah are promising to quickly export said meddling by way of military adventurism to Jordan, Lebanon, Israel and all comers, percieved or otherwise.

And let us not forget that Russia is a staunch ally of Syria, with ground troops, advisors, missile forces and nearby naval units all on a war footing as of today. In addition, Iran has deployed an entire battalion of Revolutionary Guard troops to Syria in expectation of U.S. drone, cruise missile, or air attacks.

Seems like our overmatched president can't resist flirting with the causation of World War III.



What a freaking maroon!

Later

Bullet Hills: Chopping off the tail to kill the head?

Here’s a blog I’m hoping to hear more from.

Sherman Hills Apartments: a criminal element and incompetence

I was up before the crack of dawn, and switched my transistor radio from sports talk to WILK---our local talk radio outlet. And from 6 AM to this very moment, the Sherman Hills shooting has dominated the public discourse.

What people need to understand while advocating for the bulldozing of this complex is that most of the people that reside there are not bad actors. Most of the folks that reside there are there for a variety of reasons, but the great majority of them do not run around shooting at everything that moves.

You can speculate about the choices they’ve made, their lack of chastity, their education level, etc., etc., etc., but the undisputable fact is that some people just flat-out need our assistance. And as I have alluded to many times over on these electronic pages, as a youth, I was once one of those people that needed your assistance.

The truth is, if Sherman Hills is bulldozed, burned and paved over, very few of the bad actors will have been impacted. The questionable friends and acquaintances of ill-repute who visit the tenants may be impacted, but last I checked you can not regulate and legislate and control who a person chooses to hang out with.

Many are calling for a full-frontal assault from the City of Wilkes-Barre, which, as far as I’m concerned, is clearly called for depending on the layers upon layers of legalese and the like. But I think what is called for is for the Department of Housing and Urban Development to be deluged by concerned and outraged residents of Wilkes-Barre.

Because, at this point it’s obvious that while the ownership group of Sherman Hills is willing to accept millions in HUD money, it is not willing to provide for the safety of it’s residents. Instead, it defers to the city whenever the bullets fly, the medic units are tied up and the blood has to be hosed from the tarmac by the fire department.

When I lived in public housing on the public dole, not a single shot ever rang out. And if my mom had to face what the current residents of Sherman Hills have to face, she would have had a nervous breakdown and keeled over dead. She felt defenseless in a physical sense, with no man-of-the-house on scene. She was always afraid as it was with the racial tensions as they were. She was forever worried that the enormous chips on my widening shoulders would one day get me into big trouble. And she absolutely hated feeling so vulnerable all of the time, being that our meager “income” could not deliver us from even the slightest of economic setbacks.

The most pronounced difference between then and now being that none of us ever had to duck errant gunshots.

I am fully aware that a public assistance existence is much, much more lucrative than it was when it was our unwanted existence. But to evict hundreds upon hundreds of people, mostly poor women and children, is to punish the people who are already under siege.

The management and ownership needs to be held accountable, not the folks who for the most part are simply trying to keep their heads down in anticipation of the next eruption of gunfire.

Them’s all I got.

Later

Video doggie-do

Once again, LaLa, the less-than-amazing, vertically-challenged Ewok/Hamster mix...



Later

Bullet Hills

So I was sitting here playing Civilizations IV yesterday afternoon (being thoroughly annoyed by the drum-beating Aztecs) when a scream shot out of the police scanner at 1:45 PM…”Sherman Hills…shots fired.”

And what quickly followed was as upsetting as it was disturbing…


“Officers need assistance!”

“Put an X on it…child shot!”

“I got a gunman running around loose!”

“I need that medic unit yesterday!”

“Two children shot!”

“Tell those medics to get their ass up here now!”


And from the responding medics, “a baby shot in the neck, victims three and five,” and “5-year-old shot in the face…exit wound under left ear…in and out of consciousness.”

Sorry, but it’s time we curb the entitlements, take the savings and build more prisons. If endless gunplay really floats your listing boat, you need to rot in a cage.

Because of my specialty--wood-destroying insects--I spend an ungodly amount of time working in public housing projects as well as privately owned subsidized housing developments. Name a town and a project and I’ve spent days there. And in some cases weeks.

The reason for this is that these projects are slab-on-grade, meaning these structures have no basements. Basically, they poor a slab and then erect multi-storied structures on top of it. And when the inevitable stress fractures appear across the slab, termites move right in.

If you spend a goodly amount of time toiling away in these communities as I have, over time, you pretty much see everything. It runs the gamut, and a lot of it is downright bad, even deplorable. Plus, in my case, I actually resided in a public housing townhouse for 6 or so years.

Now, I’m not stupid. When I’m working in these sorts of environments, I am well aware of my surroundings at all times. It’s less of a head-down rush to completion and more of a scan-the-scene sort of approach. And depending upon which locale I am scheduled to work it, I arm myself accordingly.

On some occasions, I am given a master key so as to inspect apartment after apartment, something that gives me some degree of pause with so many handguns lying around in plain sight in your typical subsidized housing setting.

With all of that typed, there are relatively safe locales, while there are those places where you should probably be ready to take cover in an instant. No, I should say, a place where you might need to hit the deck. One. One single place. And that place is none other than Sherman Hills.

All of which takes me back to the management 101 days, where it was written on ancient stone tablets that the atmosphere and the condition of an operation is a direct reflection of the attitude and the approach of the management and ownership of said operation.

We have this one housing project gone Dodge City in this county. We have this one locale where gunplay is the norm. There’s but one place that appears to be spiraling out of control.

So, this leads us to conclude that the management and ownership of this project gone shooting gallery is incompetent, uncaring or both.

And while I’m no city solicitor, nor did I ever play one on television, it’s time that the legal hammer comes down and comes down hard.

Thirty-four years ago, while spending a relatively quiet year in apartment #813 with my wife and my baby, I dubbed that complex “Pregnant Hills,” which aptly described the demography at the time.

These days, it’s become Bullet Hills.

Later

Sarin? Why now?

Apparently, a certain charlatan here at home will not be happy until the entire Middle East is in the hands of the Jihadists.

Why the Sarin gas attack?

It was a reaction to the first insertion of U.S.-trained "rebels" into Syria.



Prepare for a broader conflict.

Later

Bastardy

All too often, drivers turn onto our street and make like Mongoose and Snake at a drag lodge. And, here and there, I’ve beckoned them to lay off the accelerator, earning myself quite a few stiffened middle fingers in the briefest of exchanges.

Immediately following any of those fly-bys, an angered driver could have done an about-face looking to settle scores with me. That’d be perfectly fine with me on most days, save for the disturbing fact that wholesale bastardy in this country has made knee-jerk ultra violence---gunplay---a way of conflict resolution for far, far too many of our younger males.

Or, as we had it in Plymouth of late, assault and battery and manslaughter by way of a bumper.

The plain fact is, women can not handle young boys. Never could, never will. So when Johnny went beyond the accepted protocols during a spirited game of dodge ball, dad swiftly kicked his ass after promising the school principal it would never happen again.

Dad always handled the discipline because, as we all know, moms were prone to screaming and freaking and crying and slapping like a girlie…none of which ever impressed any boy worth his weight in mischievousness.

These days, men won’t marry so as to not have their lives ruined by the courts that always err on the feminist side. Our culture has taught young girls that it’s perfectly acceptable to be used like rubber fu>k dolls at age thirteen, which results in children raising children on the public dole.

Throw in lesbian couples raising boys as well as the school’s relentless pursuit of turning rambunctious little boys into well-behaved little girls, and we can see how rampant bastardy in it’s many forms leads to oft-deadly consequences for boys as well as those who dare to annoy them.

Confused? No? And neither are our children borne of bastardy.

And the result?

People acting badly, no matter where you go or what you portend to do. You see it every single day. In traffic, in line, in the big box store, on the streets, on the sidewalks and what have you and whatnot.

And no matter how badly people act out, if you’d rather not cause your own funeral to come about in a flash, you dare not, you cannot call anyone out on their obvious bad behavior.

Whether they act like a tramp, a vagabond, an idiot, a bully, a foul-mouthed blowhard or like Richard Petty, you ought not judge them and you ought not register a verbal complaint.

So mind your tongue and try to ignore all of that societal decay brought on by ill-advised social engineering.

Now go and enjoy your day.

Later

It can't happen here. Or can it?

Sue Henry gets the credit for the link...

Which Pennsylvania Cities Could Be The Next Detroit

Interesting numbers.

Later

Shhh! Libyan missiles to Syrian rebels

Looks like Barry Oblahblah has the Syrian version of the Iran/Contra affair--an impeachable offense--about to go all viral on his pencil-neck ass.

Uh, for the immediate future, stick to rail or Greyhound. It's just not a good time to take to the skies.



Later

Immigrant Song (pre-Oblahblah)

And no teleprompter, kiddies.



Later

Expedite!

From the Times Leader…

Mayor Tom Leighton announced at a press conference Thursday the city’s plans to set tough standards for rental property owners and renters eyed as the cause of a rise in violent crime. In the works is a “one-strike” policy related to gun and drug charges for landlords and tenants that will result in a six-month shutdown of an apartment or entire building. City council must approve the ordinance at two readings before it can be
enacted.

End Times Leader excerpt.

Despite the online criticism of this news, Pennsylvania has on it’s books a piece of legislation known as the Expedited Eviction of Drug Trafficking Act. Under this law, when a property is eligible for prosecution under the Expedited Eviction of Drug Traffickers law based on illegal drug activity occurring at the premise, the City and DA of Pittsburgh notify the landlord that they have 10 days to initiate eviction proceedings under that law.

The point being, our mayor and council are not peeing into any headwinds with this one-strike idea.
Much like other states, Pennsylvania has strict eviction laws. Failure to pay rent, excessive disorderly conduct, willful destruction or damage to property, habitual lateness in paying rent, violation of rules and regulations outlined in a lease or document, and the tenant's conviction for a drug offense are all legal reasons why a landlord can evict a resident. In fact, some states are quick to evict.

In some cities, tenants residing in subsidized housing are subject to an expedited eviction if they are found to be in possession of a firearm. And this has been upheld in the courts, with the rationale being that subsidized housing is a privilege, not a right.

It is common today for residential leases to contain language providing, “if resident, resident’s family, employees, agents, guests, or invitees engage in, permit or facilitate any drug-related criminal activity on or about the premises or within the apartment community, resident will be deemed to have substantially and materially breached its lease and such breach being grounds to terminate resident’s occupancy of the premises.”

Here’s an excerpt from the PA law…

The Act provides three eviction remedies to landlords -- complete eviction, partial eviction and conditional eviction. G.S. §42-63 provides that a Court may order the complete eviction of the tenant and "all other residents of the tenant's individual unit" named in the landlord's suit for eviction, provided the landlord can prove any of the following:

1. Criminal activity has occurred in the tenant's unit;

2. The tenant's unit has been used to promote criminal activity in any manner;

3. The tenant or any guest or household member of the tenant has engaged in criminal activity anywhere on the property where the tenant's unit is located;

4. The tenant has invited any person previously evicted and barred from the premises to return or re-enter any portion of the property where the tenant's unit is located; or

5. The tenant has failed to immediately notify law enforcement officials or the landlord upon learning that a person who was previously evicted and barred from the premises has returned or re-entered the tenant's unit or any portion of the property where the tenant's unit is located.

Commencement of an action in the Court of Common Pleas differs greatly than typical procedures at the local Magistrate District Court level. For instance, at the county level, the matter is commenced by filing a verified, fact-specific Complaint with the Prothonotary in accordance with the local Rules of Court, as opposed to a form-driven Landlord & Tenant Complaint. In most instances, the Sheriff makes service of the Complaint personally on the Defendant, who then has twenty (20) days within which to file a response. beginning stages of drafting the Complaint, to commencement of the action, and through to its completion.

End excerpt.

Look, in an urban setting, we’ve all got to follow the rules if we expect a fair measure of peace and tranquility. And we all know that one property gone public nuisance can negatively affect the quality of life on an entire street, or in a neighborhood. In addition, we all have that one rental property nearby that attracts loser after loser after loser, meaning the property owner doesn’t the vet prospective tenants very well, if at all.

I don’t care what the ACLU has to say. And I don’t care about the useless speculation coming from the mayor’s most ardent of critics.

People have rights, they say? Yeah, well so do we all. We all have the right to live our lives in a drug-free neighborhood and without bullets being haphazardly and carelessly sprayed in every direction.

With property ownership comes responsibility. And it’s high time that the absentee landlords step up and conduct their affairs in a responsible manner.

Mayor Leighton, the proportion of tenants to home owners in this city demands that you see this thing through. Take those chronic offenders, pack them up and expedite them all back to Camden. And tell them to take their f’ing slumlords with them.

Sez me, Markie in Parsons.

Later