I did not think it was terrible at the time. My plan was that, on the last day…we would go into the [congressional] offices…we would schedule the most hard-core hawks for last-and we would shoot them all.” L: “Were you serious about this?” C: “I was serious. I felt that I spent two years killing women and children in their own fu*king homes. These are the guys that fu*king made the policy, and these were the guys that were responsible for it, and these were the guys that were voting to continue the fu*king war when the public was against it. I felt that if we really believed in what we were doing, and if we were willing to put our lives on the line for the country over there, we should be willing to put our lives on the line for the country over here.--Scott Camil, former Vietnam Veterans Against the War leader, in a 1992 oral history of the anti-war movement still on file at the University of Florida

Yikes! The ultimate political opportunist, John Kerry, keeps telling us he's proud of his days as a VVAW rabble rouser, but he never mentioned the VVAW members having voted on a plot to kill any elected officials. Much has been made of Kerry's association with Hanoi Jane Fonda, but some of these other folks he was conspiring with are downright scary. Camil's "plan" to kill congressmen actually came to a vote and was scrubbed in favor of the protest where John Kerry tossed someone else's war metals onto the Capitol steps in April 1971. From the New York Sun in it's Friday edition:

"Mr. Kerry denies being present at the November 12-15, 1971, meeting in Kansas City of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and says he quit the group before the meeting.

But according to the current head of Missouri Veterans for Kerry, Randy Barnes, Mr. Kerry, who was then 27, was at the meeting, voted against the plot, and then orally resigned from the organization."

Another member of the VVAW, Terry DuBose, told the paper he remembered Kerry being present for the vote. And two additional witnesses confirm that the assassination plot was on the table, without confirming whether Kerry was there."

What we have here is a case of "He said, he said," but the entire sordid affair exposes the VVAW organization as the radicals that they were. And John Kerry was that groups chief fund raiser.

Here's more from Scott Camil in an excerpt from John Kerry's own 1971 book "The New Soldier:"

If I was at Kent State when it happened, and if I would have gotten my hands on a rifle, I would have shot back. I would have tried to kill and I'm sure I would have killed. Even though I realize that the National Guard people at Kent State were being used just like I was being used in Vietnam ... I still know I would have tried to kill them.

We were led to believe by these guys that they were horrified by their own mis-deeds, their atrocities, that they were supposedly ordered to commit, but once back in this country, some of them apparently had no qualms about committing a few more.

A recent e-mailer took me to task for suggesting that the VVAW had ties to commies and commie sympathizers. Oh, really:

John was also very anticommunist. He made it very clear one night in the office.

I do these photo spreads for the Liberation News Service.... I just give it away like to the New York Press Service, and so there was a spread on VVAW in the Daily World, an American communist newspaper, and my sh*t got in there. We pinned it up on the wall. At that same time, Al Hubbard received a peace award from the Soviets. John went off. He says, "That's a communist newspaper. Isn't that prize a communist prize that Al Hubbard got there?" He's got his feet up on the desk and he's a little nervous, which is making him think, “Maybe I should leave this radical organization." But we had no political philosophy; it was just a mixed bag of rednecks all the way to Maoists.--Sheldon Ramsdell, a former VVAW member, from Winter Soldiers - An Oral History Of The Vietnam Veterans Against The War | 1997 | Richard Stacewicz

So Kerry was not a commie himself, but he knew the VVAW was being cheered on by groups with a decided anti-American agenda. VVAW also had close ties to The Black Panthers and The Weather Underground, both of which had perpetrated what would now be called acts of terrorism against the U.S. government.

More from that same book:

That was also where there was actually some discussion of assassinating some senators during the Christmas holidays. They were people who I knew from the organization with hotheaded rhetoric.

They had a list of six senators ... Helms, John Tower, and I can't remember the others, who they wanted to assassinate when they adjourned for Christmas. They were the ones voting to fund the war. They approached me about assassinating John Tower because he was from Texas. The logic made a certain amount of sense because there's thousands of people dying in southeast Asia. We can shoot these six people and probably stop it. Some of us were willing to sabotage materials, but when it came to people ... I mean, there were a lot of angry people. They had been in Vietnam, they had lost friends. This had gone on for years; some of them had been protesting for five or six years. They were cynical, nihilistic, and some of them did talk real tough rhetoric, but nobody ever got shot by any of these people. It was just talk.

When I got back from that meeting, I couldn't get up the enthusiasm any more.

The meeting in Kansas City brought in a new steering committee. John Kerry, Craig Scott Moore, Mike Oliver, and Skip Roberts resigned from their leadership positions and were replaced by several new members. Al Hubbard and Joe Urgo remained in office and were joined by John Birch, Lenny Rotman, and Larry Rottman.

The meeting in Kansas City brought in a new steering committee. John Kerry, Craig Scott Moore, Mike Oliver, and Skip Roberts resigned from their leadership positions and were replaced by several new members.

Again, that's the meeting that Kerry has denied attending. And the beat goes on.

This is from a review of Mark Lane's book "Conversations with Americans," by Neil Sheehan, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter from The New York Times:

This book is so irresponsible that it may help to provoke a responsible inquiry into the question of war crimes and atrocities in Vietnam. "Conversations with Americans" is a lesson in what happens when a society shuns the examination of a pressing, emotional issue and leaves the answers to a Mark Lane.

Check this deserters convoluted story from that very same book. Bayonets inserted into vaginas? This is exactly the type of garbage that was entered into the Congressional Record after Kerry and his merry band of mostly dis-credited non-warriors testified under oath:

Chuck Onan says he was in an elite Marine long-range patrol unit, that he went to parachute, frogman and jungle survival schools and received a special course in torture techniques. "How were you trained to torture women prisoners?" Mr. Lane asks. "To strip them, spread them open and drive pointed sticks or bayonets into their vagina," Onan replies. "We were also told we could rape the girls all we wanted."

Onan says he deserted after he got orders to go to Vietnam and put his knowledge into practice. "I was pretty gung-ho until the last phase of the training. Then it all began to seem so sick. They just went too far."

Now here is some information that Mr. Lane did not include in his book. Marine Corps records say the only combat training Onan received was the normal boot camp given every Marine. He then, according to the records, attended Aviation Mechanical Fundamentals School at Memphis, Tenn., and next worked as a stock room clerk at the Marine air base at Beaufort, S.C., handing out spare parts for airplanes. He left Beaufort on Feb. 5, 1968, with orders to report to Camp Pendleton, Calif., for shipment to Vietnam after 30 days leave. He deserted. There is no indication in his records that he ever belonged to a long-range patrol unit and received parachute, frogman and jungle survival training. The Marine Corps contends it does not give courses in torture.

John Kerry's shocking "Winter Soldiers" speech he gave in 1971 was based on testimony from guys such as Chuck Onan.

What's the point of all of this? For starters, if we're going to demand that Dubya document where he was and what he was doing over thirty years ago, we might as well demand the same from the folks demanding that he do so in the first place.

Secondly, the always growing laundry list of accusations headed Dubya's way are outrageous as well as completely unsubstaniated. But the fact that John Kerry was at one time clearly and undeniably associated with a loose-knit group of commies, deserters, liars, perjurers, fledgling terrorists, and folks contemplating assassinations goes uninvestigated by a mostly Democratically registered national press corp.

Dubya's obviously slimy opponents sought to dredge up the distant past in a shameless attempt to destroy his credibility in the eyes of the mostly lazy and politically ignorant electorate. So be it. If it's the past they want, let's take a long cruise in the time machine. After it's all said and done, they'll be sorry they ever wished to make the past an issue at all.

…we would schedule the most hard-core hawks for last-and we would shoot them all.

The folks we choose to associate with speaks volumes about our own character.

It's seems that the scratching of tiny heads has become the rage up in the Heights. A good capitalist recognizes an opportunity to make a quick profit, where others see only gloom and doom. For a nominal fee, this week only, wifey is willing to shave your kids head completely bald.

Here's the gig. The bagging of coats won't get it done all by itself. If you're really worried, when junior comes home from school, have him strip and then throw his clothes in the dryer for a half hour. If you don't have a dryer, a chest freezer will do the trick. You can't stick his head in the dryer, or freezer for any length of time, but you can follow the guidelines provided below.

If you're looking for info on lice or lice removal, skip the dot.coms. Those sites are trying to sell you something. The dot.orgs are in the same boat to a large degree. This is from The Harvard School of Public Health.

Mechanical removal Mechanically removing lice and nits can be an effective but time-consuming method. Because most eggs will be non-viable, their removal is often impractical and unjustified. An infestation may be eliminated by combing each day to remove the live lice (including those that have hatched since the previous day). Comb daily until no live lice are discovered for about two weeks. Use illumination, magnification and a good louse or nit comb to locate and remove the offending insects. Although the hair may appear 'peppered' with eggs, there generally are fewer than a dozen active lice on the head at any time. Adult female lice usually cement each egg to the base of a hair shaft near the skin. As the hair grows (from the base), these attached eggs are transported away from the scalp. Eggs more than one-half of one inch away from the scalp are nearly always hatched and do not, by themselves, indicate an active infestation.

Louse or nit combs can be useful in removing lice and eggs. Diverse types of fine-toothed combs may be included within packages of pediculicides or they may be purchased from virtually any drug store, pet supply store (often at a discount) or via the web. Some louse combs are better than others; their effectiveness depends on a) their composition (metal vs. plastic) and construction (length and spacing of the comb teeth), b) the texture of the hair to be combed, c) the technique used to comb, and d) the time and care expended in the effort. Whereas straight hair is usually readily combed, tight curls may present an impossible and impractical challenge. Hair should be cleaned and well-combed or brushed to remove tangles before attempting to use a louse comb. Clean the louse comb frequently to remove any caught lice or eggs. It may require several hours each night for several nights to tackle the problem. An entertaining video may help keep the child occupied during this exercise. Sit behind the child, and use a suitably bright light (and magnification if available), to inspect and comb through the hair, one small section at a time. Repeat until no more active lice are observed. Some parents report that water, vegetable oils or hair conditioners help lubricate the hair and ease the combing process; others report that these lubricants make it more difficult to see the eggs.

"Electronic" louse combs that resemble small bug "zappers", or those with oscillating teeth would seem to offer little advantage, if any, over a well-designed traditional louse comb. Teeth of these devices may not effectively reach to the scalp and may not kill or remove eggs.

Hey? Did you start scratching yet? Hee! Hee!

34 Rear Thompson Street made the scanner again last night. It's nice to see that the idiots are getting more creative as they go. The frequent domestic violence calls were getting a bit boring. Let's see here, lately we've had the chickie ejected from a second floor window, then the windows were smashed all to hell, and last night, arson was nearly added to the ever growing file. Arson. Cool.

Yep. It seems our local parolee decided to spread some gas, or some other equally dangerous accelerant on, or in the dump. When the first copper dude arrived, one of the chickies was waiting in the street. Then another arrived. Then Engine 5. Is there a city cop, fireman, or paramedic that doesn't know exactly where 34 Rear Thompson Street is located? I sort of doubt it. As far as I can tell, it shouldn't be too much longer before a coroner (10-45) finds his way to Thompson Street. The incidents up there in the alley seem to be getting more and more serious with each passing occurance.

It was announced yesterday on WILK that Kevin Lynn will be marching in our St. Patty's Day Parade. Please...let's keep things somewhat civil. Limit your reaction to him to water balloons only.

This morning I dialed 1-800-SCH-ULTZ and Presto! Two Wilkes-Barre St. Patty's Day T-shirts were delivered directly to my computer chair. The former Sign Dude, thought to be semi-retired, has suddenly re-emerged as T-Shirt Dude.

By the way, I was approached last night by Former Nord End Dude and he wanted to know if he needed to re-apply after I posted the official Dude application. No. I own 100% percent of the stock in this internet company, and as it's hopelessly insane CEO, I reserve the right to bestow Dude status upon whoever I see fit. Rank does have it's priviledges, albeit very small ones in some cases.

Big parade tomorrow. Gage and I will be off early to Oh Yes for some bagels and a Voice. And then a bikeabout will eventually lead us to the bandshell. We even have some green to wear.

CYA there

Death Before Disco!