Kerry will implode over an intern issue.--Wesley Clark, with a supposedly off the record comment to reporters

If you haven't already heard the breaking news, you had better take a look at the Drudge Report.

RUTRO!, or not? These allegations may not be true, but would anyone be shocked to learn that a U.S. Senator has himself a walking sperm bank tucked neatly away? It seems that once you get to D.C. and your ego super-inflates, and after you find a suitable office, you then consult the official U.S. Government Guide of willing warm mouths. The folks in D.C. telling us how to live our lives are less than pillars of morality. Much like their socialist counterparts in Hollywood who also tell us what we should be doing while they're busy swapping whores. Oops. Did I say whores? I meant to say wives.

Why would you cheat on your zillionaire wifey anyway? Even is she was grosser looking than Rosie O'Donnell, I'd worship the ground she walked on and then some if my wife had $700 billion dollars at her fingertips. Did you ever see the Giancarlo Giannini flick Seven Beauties? That would be me if my wife had more money than Goldfinger. What-freaking-ever, man. What are we gonna be treated to this time? The semen-stained tank top?

By the way, remember that putrid flick, Swept Away, that her majesty herself, Madonna, butchered to box office death? Search the video stores for the original version starring Giannini and Mariangelo Melato (spelling). You will laugh your farging ya-yas off. A sexually-frustrated, ultra-rich capitalist female ship-wrecked with a poor as dirt, 'committed to the cause of the troubled masses' communist male. Trust me. It is a laugh-riot.

If you don't follow this link and read this letter to the editors of The Washington Times, you are making a mistake. Read it. Bush and I were lieutenants

While most of America was sleeping and Mr. Kerry was playing antiwar games with Hanoi Jane Fonda, we were answering 3 a.m. scrambles for who knows what inbound threat over the Canadian subarctic, the cold North Atlantic and the shark-filled Gulf of Mexico. We were the pathfinders in showing that the Guard and Reserves could become reliable members of the first team in the total force, so proudly evidenced today in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Socialism ... it's the only way.--Hanoi Jane

How about this one? John "F." Kerry claims that Dubya "f**ked-up" the program in Iraq. Really? Is that so? Read what one of the foremost foreign policy gurus has to say about George W. Bush--grand strategist

He observes that Mr. Bush "undertook a decisive and courageous reassessment of American grand strategy following the shock of the 9/11 attacks. At his doctrine's center, Bush placed the democratization of the Middle East and the urgent need to prevent terrorists and rogue states from getting nuclear weapons. Bush also boldly rejected the constraints of an outmoded international system that was really nothing more that a snapshot of the configuration of power that existed in 1945."

It is worth noting that John Kerry and the other Democrats' central criticism of Mr. Bush — the prosaic argument that he should have taken no action without U.N. approval — is rejected by Mr. Gaddis as being a proposed policy that would be constrained by an "outmoded international system."

I'm an internationalist. I'd like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations.--John Kerry, Harvard Crimson 1972

Oh, why stop there? Let's throw another log across the tracks of the out-of-control "Bush is the Anti-Christ" freight train.

Retired Col. Maurice H. Udell, GW's flight instructor back in the day, ranked him "in the top 5 percent of pilots I knew." Udell also ranked the president in the top 1 percent in the "thinking department."

How could that be? Wasn't the bloated Michael Moore, our Mr. Sluggo impersonator, in charge of the Air National Guard during the early seventies?

We gotta do our homework, folks. We've got whackers fantasizing about killing all of us, and now is not the time to start believing the same, tired lies no matter how many times they are repeated by the closet commies and their willing accomplices in the press. If I can easily find the words of folks that refute the charges that Dubya is the worst thing to ever happen to us, why can't the folks at CNN, ABC, or the New York Times do likewise? Why? Because they don't want to.

One of the things that disgusts me about the Democratic Party these days, is the fact that they have replaced civil discourse with rumors, lies, scandals, and scare-mongering. They are playing to the lowest common denominators among us. You know, the morons. Our model of government is a thing of beauty when compared to any other form of government. Freedom mixed with unchecked capitalism will work every time it's tried. As I see things, the achilles heel of our system is the disturbing fact that even the morons among us are blessed with the right to vote. They base their mostly ignorant political decisions on what Kevin Lynn, Barbara Streisand, Michael Moore, or Peter Jennings have to say. Never one to mince words, I see those voters as being morons. They're Democrats.

I also noticed that every time John Kerry jumps up on a stage and drones on and on about how Dubya is the anti-Christ, he's almost always flanked by guys holding "Firefighters for Kerry" signs. We already know that unions have donated their members dues to political campaigns, which would have me blowing smoke if that was my dues money being thrown about. You union members aren't blindly supporting whomever your union dons tell you to, are you? If so, feel free to lump yourselves in with the folks mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Check this e-mail that was forwarded to me:

*******Hi,

Not sure if you all know about this one, so apologies if you do.

Mine Country is holding a photo contest. Not only is there the chance of a prize, but the contest is going to be featured on WNEP 16 News and will lead to displays in libraries, historical societies, etc.

The theme is My Coal Country: People Defining Their Place.

Photos taken within the last five years are eligible. Categories include

1. People (for example: surviving miners, family, ethnic dancers, bingo players …)
2. Places (for example: home, church, colliery ruins, historic buildings, landscapes, streetscapes …)
3. Events (for example: ethnic celebration, religious ceremony, pierogie-making, sports event …)
4. Photo-story (your photograph with a 200-500 word narrative or poem about the picture.)

The deadline is April 9. Details and entry form at: Mine Country

I know many of you have some great photos -- here's the chance to get them some exposure.

Sincerely,

DXXXX********

This e-mail was originally sent somewhere by a member of the COALition for A Coal Miners Commemorative Stamp. I posted a link to their site a long while back after being approached via e-mail by one of their faithful, one Rhea Malone. She responded to some of my dribble titled "Culm County" which explored what it was like for a young boy to relocate to an area so dominated by the telltale scars, tales, and horror stories that coal mining so aptly provided. Rhea and I bounced quite a few e-mails off of each other, but sadly, she recently passed away. I would have liked to have met her in person. That's my loss, I'm sure.

Anyway, got any amazing culm county pics wasting away? Is there some coal mining nook, or serious cranny that still exists that hasn't been immortalized on film? Here's your chance to meet "Ping" in person and tell him to find a job he's good at.

Un-mucking-real. Thanks to this ill-advised internet adventure of mine, I've met tons of great people that I would have otherwise never met. And I've also gotten lots of freebies. Nothing I could sell on EBAY mind you, but nifty little trinkets nonetheless.

I've got enough "Hose Dudes" mugs and shirts to start my own retail outlet. I even have a Scranton firefighters T-shirt. I've gotten a small collection of Wilkes-Barre hat pins. I even got a capable replacement for the aging Huffy from a copper dude, God rest her worn-out soul. Do bicycles have souls? Whatever. Forget it. I've got the Dale Earnhardt "93 Champion" matchbook, and I've got the sexy Kevin Harvick booklet. I was treated to some Lebanese desserts during the 2002 Block Party, and quite a few free beers at political events. I have a "Pride of Midtown" patch from the firefighters that responded to the Twin Towers when they were attacked, and I have an "Adopt a Block" sign on my front porch. I still have my "Weakest Link" bumper sticker and I also have four tickets to see the little Pens face-off against the Philthydumpia Phantoms on March 2nd. I've been invited to ride in Plains Township Police cruisers, kayaks, hovercrafts, and also to explore the snow-covered wilderness on skis.

When Ebon fetched the mail today, I was initially confused when presented with a manila envelope. What the muck is this? Another lawsuit against Tommy Boy? Or maybe a letter bomb from the Wilkes-Barre Taxpayers Association? Anthrax from Walt's lone supporter? Then I caught the return address.

Jesus H. Cripes! Forty Fort. My Forty Fort Borough 2004 Recycling Calendar had arrived. I was resigned to the fact that I may have to bite the bullet and enter a Sprawl-Mart in search of a calendar, but a Forty Fort Borough Councilman (Council Thingy in gender neutral Wilkes-Barre) came to my rescue. Thanks to him, I will not be forced to visit the predatory retailers I abhore the most.

Another freebie. A Forty Fort Borough Calendar. You tell me, man. I just type here.

You got me, but they tell me if you visit this site and click on the "Feed An Animal In Need" link, you will be helping to feed some animals. Give it a whirl, man. Feed An Animal In Need

Alrighty then. Someone from Mountain Top, or is it Mountaintop, sent along these possible Janet Jackson song titles.

You just had to f**kin' go there, didn't you? Okay. Let's do it. If all of those songs soared to the top of the charts, would they one day end up on her compilation of hits? Most likely. And what might that collection be titled as?

How about Janet Jackson: Her Greatest Tits?

Let's go back there. You know, Bush lied.

In the town of Kalar, about a hundred miles northeast of Baghdad, Kurdish villagers recently reported suspicious activity to the pesh merga.

That Kurdish militia has for years been waging a bloody battle with Ansar al-Islam, the terrorist group affiliated with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and supported by Saddam Hussein in Iraq. It captured a courier carrying a message that demolishes the repeated claim of Bush critics that there was never a "clear link" between Saddam and Osama bin Laden.

The terrorist courier with a CD-ROM containing a 17-page document and other messages was Hassan Ghul, who confessed he was taking to Al Qaeda the Ansar document setting forth a strategy to start an Iraqi civil war, along with a plea for reinforcements. The Kurds turned him over to Americans for further interrogation, which is proving fruitful.

The Times reporter Dexter Filkins in Baghdad, backed up by Douglas Jehl in D.C., broke the story exclusively. Editors marked its significance by placing it on the front page above the fold. Although The Washington Post the next day buried it on Page 17 (and Newsweek may construe as bogus any Saddam-Osama connection) the messages' authenticity was best attested by the amazed U.S. official who told Reuters, "We couldn't make this up if we tried."

The author of the lengthy Ansar-to-Qaeda electronic message is suspected of being the most wanted terror operative in the world today: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, long familiar to readers of this space as "the man with the limp," who personifies the link of Ansar and Al Qaeda.

On Sept. 24, 2001 — not two weeks after 9/11 — Kurdish sources led me to report: "The clear link between the terrorist in hiding [Osama] and the terrorist in power [Saddam] can be found in Kurdistan. . . . The Iraqi dictator has armed and financed a fifth column of Al Qaeda mullahs and terrorists. . . . Some 400 `Arab Afghan' mercenaries . . . have already murdered a high Kurdish official as well as a Muslim scholar who dared to interpret the Koran humanely."

The C.I.A. blew off that report. Our National Security Council did not learn of subsequent warfare against the Kurds by the Qaeda affiliate doing Saddam's bidding until its members read it in The Times. After Jeffrey Goldberg of the New Yorker and C. J. Chivers of The Times developed the story from inside northern Iraq, it dawned on some intelligence analysts that a "clear link" was probable.

On Oct. 7, 2002, President Bush said "We know that Iraq and Al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some Al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior Al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year."

The leader whose leg was treated, perhaps amputated, in Baghdad was identified here in January 2003, as Zarqawi (twice, after one misspelling). The presence of this international terrorist for two months in a Baghdad hospital required the approval of Saddam's ubiquitous secret police.

In his U.N. speech the following month, Colin Powell publicly identified the Palestinian, born in Jordan, as one who oversaw a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan three years before: "Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden."

Now we have documentary evidence of Ansar's current operation: employing suicide bombers to foment a civil war in Iraq that would reinstate safe haven for terrorists. The notion that these serial killers are not central players in the global network that attacked us — that the Ansar boss in Iraq must be found carrying an official Qaeda membership card signed by bin Laden — is simply silly.

Of the liberation's three casus belli, one was to stop mass murder, bloodier than in Kosovo; we are finding horrific mass graves in Iraq. Another was informed suspicion that a clear link existed between world terror and Saddam; this terrorist plea for Qaeda reinforcements to kill Iraqi democracy is the smoking gun proving that.

The third was a reasoned judgment that Saddam had a bioweapon that could wipe out a city; in time, we are likely to find a buried suitcase containing that, too.

Be on the lookout for a 1992 green Grand Prix bearing a PA plate number of FJJ-9127. That would be the car driven by the goof that cut a woman's throat, shot her seven times, torched her apartment, and then stole her car this morning on S. Franklin street.

Gotta go. I was a bit long-fingered today.

Hang in there, Lar.

Later