2-24-2005 Back to the grind


If a kid calls his grandma 'mama' and his mama 'Pam,' he's going to jail.--Chris Rock

After what seemed like nine years away, I returned to the workforce in earnest this past Monday morning. Wanna know what? Wanna? I am frickin' beat off my ass. I am dead tired. Basically, for the past few days, I've been too pooped to post. The days of watching Conan O'Brien followed by two hours of X Files are definately over for me. And that fargin' alarm clock has been banging away on me at unGodly early hours. Much like that totally phony baloney Injun' chief/commie professor, Ward Churchill, that alarm clock deserves whatever unspeakable carnage happens to come it's way. Anyways...I'm back.

Check this out:

From the e-mail inbox Where did Harvick finish on sunday? He was so far back behind Jimmie Johnson I forgot he was racing.

Hurt me, hurt me. Big surprise there. He wrecked his car during the week, had to switch to an alternate car, and didn't get to practice at all on Friday night. Jeez, I really figured he'd be prancing around on top of his car in Victory Lane come Sunday afternoon. NOT!!!

Oh, by the way, did we notice how Jimmie Johnson ended his race on Sunday? Jimmie was soooooooo outraged by Harvick's having spun him out during the week, but poor, frustrated Jimmie decided to play a little demolition derby at the conclusion of the Daytona 500. So much for taking any of his girlish whining seriously from here on out.

That big meanie Kevin hit me. Boo hoo hooey hoo hoo.

Hey, Jimmie...f**k off and grow a pair!

I snagged this from the "What happened to Walzer?" web site where the employees of the Times Leader have been ripping former coworkers to shreds as of late. Not that I have a problem with any of it. I don't. It's made for some really interesting reading.

But this particular post had me wiping some fermented hops and barley off of my 'spensive 'puter monitor. When I read this and almost died laughing, all I could picture was the severely ugly mug of a cretin that recently ran for and failed to win a council seat here in Wilkes-Barre.

Date Posted: 03:21:25 02/22/05 Tue
Author: Anonymous
Subject: Re: Iseman hearts Sayso
In reply to: 's message, "Iseman hearts Sayso" on 00:27:09 01/30/05 Sun

Let's call a spade a spade here. The reason Iseman likes Say-So (Not only Iseman but anyone at the TL) is that when the great unwashed masses call in one of their annoymous hatchet jobs they then buy the paper for days hoping to see their pearls of wisdom in print. Profit, not community service, is the big motivator at the TL. It'd be refreshing if someone there would admit that.

Even the folks that play host to the dreadful SAYSO column take giant dumps on the negative people that call it.

I do love it.

Does anyone have any comment to make on the Voice's Wilkes-Barre firehouse series? No? That's what I thought. I'm sure that was all breaking news to the folks that rely on the newspapers for the latest info and whatnot, but I think we, that's we, previously examined the firehouse brouhaha to death here on the internet.

From the e-mail inbox "The ability to outcycle experienced bike cops"???

Fuquez Vous, Senor.

As I recall, we traveled together at all times, once I got my legs back.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I tried calling you today, but your damn phone was busy all day. We have a copy of "Emmitt Otter's Jugband Christmas" if you wish to borrow it.

Later.
Copper Dude

I know, I freakin' know. I was just making sure that you were paying attention out there in cyberville. Ya done just as good as I done. Hell! I'd let you sip from my Main Bike World bottle anytime provided that you bring your own lemon wedges and salt.


From the e-mail inbox MARK,

IF YOU HAVE ANY PICTURES OF THE 109TH HOMECOMING PARADE THAT YOU DIDN'T POST ON THE WEB SITE I WOULD APPRECIATE IF YOU COULD E MAIL THEM TO ME.

TXX
PARKING DUDE

Coughlin Cheerleaders

I got rots and rots of them. I took 48 pictures that day and only a few turned out to be stinkers. A couple I took of the buses passing by turned out poorly. I couldn't see anyone inside the buses due to those fargin' tinted windows. And the ones I took from the inside of the police car sucked bigtime. My approach is to just keep firing away with the camera because a couple of them would have to turn out to be keepers. Or so you'd think.

I received a few e-mails like yours and a guy in work even inquired as to whether I took any other pics of the Alpha Battery boys. So, I posted six or seven the other day. Let's do the same here today.

By the way, at both the Bravo and Alpha Battery homecomings, I was wearing that nifty 109th Field Artillery T-shirt you laid on me.

Apparently, the Citizen's Voice either caught up with us internet goobers today, or those folks have been viewing this site while trolling for story ideas. Oh no! According to Uncle "Deflatable" Paul, we are in danger of losing any future CDBG grant monies. Didn't we cover this about a week ago? Whatever.

Sue Henry also covered this story and she had the phone ringing off the hook up at WILK. And I've never heard so much wild speculation being tossed about by her callers. Here's a real short overview direct from the Housing and Urban Development web site for cripes sake. No, this is not a conspiracy theorist's next hard-on hatched up somewhere in Washington. And no! It's not some scheme by which Uncle Paul can rescue our not so endangered pork dollars as the next reelection go-round nears.

I had a history teacher in college who said that it's hard enough to keep up with what actually happens, rather than speculate on "what ifs.--Lee Montgomery

It's a thirty year-old program that has done a ton of good for communities of various sizes from all across this nation of ours. And as our cash-strapped cities all seem to be facing the same problem these days-not enough money-now is not the time to tinker with this program. Sue seems to think that the Congress will not allow Dubya to put any of these funds on the chopping block as the coming '06 budget battle looms. In my opinion, they'd be smart not to.

Dubya wants another eighty billion for Iraq? Fine. And I want our meager pittance, our microscopic twelve million for all of Luzerne County.

Community Development activities include many different programs that provide assistance to a wide variety of grantees. Begun in 1974, the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) is one of the oldest programs in HUD. The CDBG program provides annual grants on a formula basis to many different types of grantees through several programs.

Community Development Block Grant Entitlement Communities Overview

Introduction
The program provides annual grants on a formula basis to entitled cities and counties to develop viable urban communities by providing decent housing and a suitable living environment, and by expanding economic opportunities, principally for low- and moderate-income persons.

Nature of Program
HUD awards grants to entitlement community grantees to carry out a wide range of community development activities directed toward revitalizing neighborhoods, economic development, and providing improved community facilities and services.

Entitlement communities develop their own programs and funding priorities. However, grantees must give maximum feasible priority to activities which benefit low- and moderate-income persons. A grantee may also carry out activities which aid in the prevention or elimination of slums or blight. Additionally, grantees may fund activities when the grantee certifies that the activities meet other community development needs having a particular urgency because existing conditions pose a serious and immediate threat to the health or welfare of the community where other financial resources are not available to meet such needs. CDBG funds may not be used for activities which do not meet these broad national objectives.

CDBG funds may be used for activities which include, but are not limited to:

acquisition of real property;
relocation and demolition;
rehabilitation of residential and non-residential structures;
construction of public facilities and improvements, such as water and sewer facilities, streets, neighborhood centers, and the conversion of school buildings for eligible purposes;
public services, within certain limits;
activities relating to energy conservation and renewable energy resources; and provision of assistance to profit-motivated businesses to carry out economic development and job creation/retention activities.

Generally, the following types of activities are ineligible:

acquisition, construction, or reconstruction of buildings for the general conduct of government;
political activities;
certain income payments; and construction of new housing by units of general local government.

Da Boys!


HOLY FLYING MONKEYS BATMAN!!! Spud Boy Zimmerman finally wrote something I like. You don't suppose he was completely straight when he wrote that, do you? Nah. Couldn't be.

BOB DYLAN has launched a withering attack on contemporary rock bands in the programme notes for his latest American tour.

"I know there are groups at the top of the charts that are hailed as the saviours of rock'n'roll and all that, but they are amateurs. They don't know where the music comes from," he wrote, adding, “I wouldn't even think about playing music if I was born in these times... I'd probably turn to something like mathematics. That would interest me. Architecture would interest me. Something like that."

Will somebody please say the magic word?

Someone, please. How about dismissed?


HOLY WARD CHURCHILL'S TWIN BROTHER BATMAN!!!

I snagged this from WILK's web site. Please swallow before you read this bilge. I don't want anyone choking to death over this.

Kevin Lynn's Thoughts

DEADLY FARCE

The term for it these days is "suicide by cop." It’s when some nut job decides to go out in a blaze of gory glory and headlines, and antagonizes police officers in such a way that they're forced to kill him to protect themselves. That happened earlier this week in the borough of Forty Fort. A man called 911 complaining of a heart attack. But when paramedics arrived they found him standing outside holding a chain saw. Police and state troopers arrived shortly after, and surrounded the man, but apparently that only enraged him. He fired up the chain saw, injured one of the officers, and apparently that’s when the shooting began. This is where the story gets ugly. During the 7-minute melee five of the officers opened fire. The others were, according to news reports, in the line of fire of fellow cops. Officers got off 30 rounds, and about 17 hit the man, who died shortly after. Suicide by cop, right? End of story, right? That seems to have been the initial finding of the local DA, who said the police acted properly. Sorry, but I’m not buying it, mostly because of other facts that have come to light. Turns out that several of the bullets that did not strike the dead guy hit homes on the busy street. No fewer than five different houses were struck, suggesting that the officers were arguably more dangerous to residents than the nut with the chain saw. It goes further of course, about as far as a 9-millimeter bullet can fly. They’ll travel up to 3 miles, which technically could have put people at risk as far away as Wilkes-Barre, two towns over. There are lots of problems with this story. Police should have used a shotgun, which would have knocked the man flat and not endangered anyone more than a short distance away. But instead the cops put themselves at risk, they put the neighbors at risk, and they missed nearly as many times as they hit the dead guy. The officers were wrong, the neighbors were endangered, and a man is dead. Suicide by cop is one term, but another comes to mind: the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. Or is it worse; is it the gang that didn’t think straight?

Once on the boycott list, always on the boycott list. But I couldn't resist peeking at Kev's web page. All of a sudden...he's a f**king Special Weapons and Tactics expert. Yup. Somebody down at the bar must've went and fired a pistol once and he told Kev all about it. And now Captain Kev would dare to tell our local cops and staties how to handle a life-threatening situation that can last a whole thirty seconds in many instances.

Why didn't those cops just call a time-out? Why didn't they regroup? Why didn't they holster their weapons and offer the chain saw guy a Teddy bear? Why?

All of this useless twaddle from a guy that would most likely fill his loafers with piss if I yanked his turtleneck up over his head and went nuts on his fat head.

Maybe Kev should be speculating about what would have happened to that one cop if his bullet-proof vest hadn't taken the brunt of the chain saw he was attacked with.

One last speech

Dis...missed!

Guess what? I'm tired. I gotta go.

Later