3-20-2004 McGo-Carts


AH!!! JESUS H. PASSION!!! Don't sneak up on me like that. I got out of bed this morning, made myself a cup of tea, and then reached for the power button on this 'puter thingy. I then went to my favorites file, clicked on the link to the Voice, and the "McG-word" leapt at me from out of nowhwere. That's not funny, man. Some of us are still suffering the effects of Post-Mcg Syndrome. Next time, create a warning page, or something. Put up a disclaimer. It's very unsettling to start the day like that without having some holy water or a cross within reach.

So much for the PENNDOT job, heyna? Mr. Bridge Burner is apparently getting quite the dose of reality. I read this story in the Voice, McGroarty denied jobless benefits, and I immediately thought to myself, "Is that not classic McG?"

Article X, section 2002, of Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Law 48 states specifically that elected officials are barred from receiving benefits. Under that law, they are not considered employees.

Rules, schmules. It's just like the federal and state grant money that came our way during the past eight years. Why can't we just bend every rule ever written to benefit the all-knowing one? Rules? We don't need no stinking rules. I'm suddenly unemployable. Let's rewrite those stinking rules to benefit moi.

Despite what John "F-Bomb" Kerry is spewing these days, there are plenty of jobs out there needing to be filled. Within seconds I found these ads in the classifieds.

Call center? Who better is there to hire than a guy who actually built a call center all by his lonesome and practically bankrupted his city after having done so?

Why not be a snack bar worker? He's got experience with snack bars. He converted a pool snack bar into a radio station (WPUU) that not a single city resident listens to.

How about a go-cart attendent job? Granted, they're not nearly as sexy as a hovercraft, but they're just as big. Go for it!

The man who would be king can't find himself a job? Does he even want to? I think the owners of our one and only McDonald's are blowing a rare opportunity. Put this guy in a monkey suit, stage him at the drive-thru window, and Wilkes-Barre residents will flock in droves to that store for an opportunity to tell the all-knowing one to "Super-Size" their lunches.

At the very least, some of us would pay under the table to have someone show up on a fairly regular basis and scoop up after our dogs.

It's an option.


From the e-mail inbox, once again, those "Dare to Caresters" who refuse to tolerate uncaring property owners.

*******I read that you have issued the call to arms in the effort to be a clean city. Wonderful!! Let's do it!! We have armed ourselves with our own brooms, rakes, shovels and garbage bags. No point in waiting for a donation of equipment. Whatever is needed, "Dare to Care" is ready. We routinely take the first block of Wyoming Street along with Beaumont Street between Penn Ave. and Washington so you can consider those areas "marked".

Took a picture of this dumpster located in the area of 90 Beaumont Street (same location as last week's disgusting pile up of open garbage at the curb). You can clearly see that there is an open black bag of garbage in front of the dumpster but CHECK UNDERNEATH!! Looks like onions or maybe potatoes strewn on the ground. Since the lids of this dumpster remain constantly open what would it have taken to throw this through the lids of this dumpster. This mess has been there for at least 5 days!! Does it belong to Memphis Blues? Probably so. How 'bout getting this cleaned up, Mr. Izzo? Or should I just forward the pictures to the appropriate City department and let them check it out?*******

Fly Central

You "marked" your areas, heh? Do I need to buy some spray paint and mark my areas? Clean-up gang grafitti, anyone? If I catch anyone from Wyoming on my turf with a broom or a shovel in hand, I'm gonna cap a few off, man. You gotta be wearing the right colors if you wanna clear my storm sewer of months old debris.

Warmer weather is on it's way. With rotting produce lying here, there, and everywhere, you Wyoming street folks can look forward to an army of maggots and swarm after swarm of house flies. Very nice. No biggie. Fly strips and fly swatters are still relatively cheap to procure. Sounds like a call should be made to Hank Radulski.

I hears ya. Let's rock! I tried to get a hold of J.J. Murphy yesterday, but he was not available. I really don't feel that we should have to clean our own streets, but with things being what they are, I'm more than willing to try to make some small difference. With that said, let me also say that I don't think that I should have to shell out forty, or fifty bucks down at Main Hardware for a large shovel and a narly push broom. I'll donate all the sweat it takes to make our neighborhood somewhat pleasing to the eye and maybe even a couple of drops of blood, but I have to draw the line there. If I have forty, or fifty bucks to waste, I'm heading for the Gallery of Sound and Musical Energi. Sorry, but that's where I'm at wherever the hell that is.

I wholeheartedly supported our mayor as he ascended to the city's top spot, and I never asked him for a freakin' thing for having done so other than a reinvigorated and proud Wilkes-Barre. For well over a year, I've read the e-mails from folks that thought I was angling for some sort of payoff for my tireless efforts, and I giggled at every one of them. Not all of us are looking to personally profit from having gotten involved in local politics. After he finally moved into that fourth floor office, I figured the time was right for him to do something for me. I officially requested that the City of Wilkes-Barre loan me one kick-ass push broom.

Spring is just about upon us and I couldn't be happier about that. And I'm also completely jazzed about Wilkes-Barre's suddenly upbeat attitude. I'm excited about our immediate future and I know I bet on the right horse. I'm more than ready to sweep some of our deplorable looking streets, but I'm not going to cut into my compact disc funds to sweep a single inch of Wilkes-Barre. I want the push broom that I was promised, and I want the taxpayers to pay for it. And if I don't get it, I'm going to join the Wilkes-Barre Taxpayers Association, show up at every single council meeting, and filibuster the council and mayor until they start fantasizing about mass suicide. It's either the push broom, or a grass roots political jihad. Al Coura has spoken.

Here's but a taste of the havoc I will wreak if my demands are not met.

A Texan walks into a pub in Ireland and clears his voice to the crowd of drinkers. He says, "I hear you Irish are a bunch of drinkin' mother f**kers. I'll give $500 American dollars to anybody in here who can drink 10 pints of Guinness back-to-back." The room is quiet and no one takes of the Texan's offer. One man even leaves. Thirty minutes later the same gentleman who left shows back up and taps the Texan on the shoulder. "Is your bet still good?", asks the Irishman. The Texan says yes and asks the bartender to line up 10 pints of Guinness. Immediately the Irishman tears into all 10 of the pint glasses drinking them all back-to-back. The other pub patrons cheer as the Texan sits in amazement. The Texan gives the Irishman the $500 and says, "If ya don't mind me askin' where did you go for that 30 minutes you were gone?". The Irishman replies, "Oh...I had to go to the pub down the street to see if I could do it first".

Rim shot, please.

This one is not politically correct by any stretch of the imagination:

Q. What's the difference between St. Patrick's Day and Martin Luther King Day?

A. On St. Patrick's Day, everybody wishes they were Irish.


From the e-mail inbox again. I don't normally post anything without knowing it's source, but this one goes into quite a bit of detail.

*******Check this out Mark, I got it sent to me this morning:

John Kerry

I was in the Delta shortly after he left. I know that area well. I know the operations he was involved in well. I know the tactics and the doctrine used. I know the equipment. Although I was attached to CTF-116 (PBRs) I spent a fair amount of time with CTF-115 (swift boats), Kerry's command.

Here are my problems and suspicions:
(1) Kerry was in-country less than four months and collected, a Bronze Star, a Silver Star and three purple hearts. I never heard of anybody with any outfit I worked with (including SEAL One, the Sea Wolves, Riverines and the River Patrol Force) collecting that much hardware so fast, and for such pedestrian actions. The Swifts did a commendable job. But that duty wasn't the worst you could draw. They operated only along the coast and in the major rivers (Bassac and Mekong). The rough stuff in the hot areas was mainly handled by the smaller, faster PBRs.

(2) Three Purple Hearts but no limp. All injuries so minor that no time lost from duty. Amazing luck. Or he was putting himself in for medals every time he bumped his head on the wheel house hatch? Combat on the boats was almost always at close range. You didn't have minor wounds. At least not often. Not three times in a row. Then he used the three purple hearts to request a trip home eight months before the end of his tour. Fishy.

(3) The details of the event for which he was given the Silver Star make no sense at all. Supposedly, a B-40 was fired at the boat and missed. Charlie jumps up with the launcher in his hand, the bow gunner knocks him down with the twin .50, Kerry beaches the boat, jumps off, shoots Charlie, and retrieves the launcher. If true, he did everything wrong.

(a) Standard procedure when you took rocket fire was to put your stern to the action and go balls to the wall. A B-40 has the ballistic integrity of a Frisbee after about 25 yards, so you put 50 yards or so between you and the beach and begin raking it with your .50's.

(b) Did you ever see anybody get knocked down with a .50 caliber round and get up? The guy was dead or dying. The rocket launcher was empty. There was no reason to go after him (except if you knew he was no danger to you just flopping around in the dust during his last few seconds on earth, and you wanted some daring do in your after-action report). And we didn't shoot wounded people. We had rules against that, too.

(c) Kerry got off the boat. This was a major breach of standing procedures. Nobody on a boat crew ever got off a boat in a hot area. EVER! The reason was simple. If you had somebody on the beach your boat was defenseless. It couldn't run and it couldn't return fire. It was stupid and it put his crew in danger. He should have been relieved and reprimanded. I never heard of any boat crewman ever leaving a boat during or after a firefight. Something is fishy.

Here we have a JFK wannabe (the guy Halsey wanted to court martial for carelessly losing his boat and getting a couple people killed by running across the bow of a Jap destroyer) who is hardly in Vietnam long enough to get good tan, collects medals faster than Audie Murphy in a job where lots of medals weren't common, gets sent home eight months early, requests separation from active duty a few months after that so he can run for Congress, finds out war heroes don't sell well in Massachusetts in 1970 so reinvents himself as Jane Fonda, throws his ribbons in the dirt with the cameras running to jump start his political career, gets Stillborn Pell to invite him to address Congress and Bobby Kennedy's speechwriter to do the heavy lifting, winds up in the Senate himself a few years later, votes against every major defense bill, says the CIA is irrelevant after the Wall came down, votes against the Gulf War, a big mistake since that turned out well, decides not to make the same mistake twice so votes for invading Iraq, but oops, that didn't turn out so well so he now says he really didn't mean for Bush to go to war when he voted to allow him to go to war.

I'm real glad you or I never had this guy covering out flanks in Vietnam. I sure don't want him as Commander in Chief. I hope that somebody from CTF-115 shows up with some facts challenging Kerry's Vietnam record. I know in my gut it's wildly inflated. And fishy.

Keep smiling,

Mike*******

Once again, I harken back to Apocolypse Now!

"You never get out of the god-damned boat!"


Subject: Could our Fereral Courts be wrong

Somewhere along the way, the Federal Courts and the Supreme Court have misinterpreted the U. S. Constitution. How could fifty States be wrong? THIS IS VERY INTERESTING! Be sure to read the last two paragraphs. America's founders did not intend for there to be a separation of God and state, as shown by the fact that all 50 states acknowledge God in their state constitutions:

Alabama 1901, Preamble. We the people of the State of Alabama, invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish the following Constitution ...

Alaska 1956, Preamble. We, the people of Alaska,_grateful to God and to those who founded our nation and pioneered this great land ..

Arizona 1911, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Arizona, grateful to Almighty God for our liberties, do ordain this Constitution...

Arkansas 1874, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Arkansas, grateful to Almighty God for the privilege of choosing our own form of government...

California 1879, Preamble. We, the People of the State of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom ..

Colorado 1876, Preamble. We, the people of Colorado, with profound reverence for the Supreme Ruler of Universe.

Connecticut 1818, Preamble. The People of Connecticut, acknowledging with gratitude the good Providence of God in permitting them to enjoy ..

Delaware 1897, Preamble. Through Divine Goodness all men have, by nature, the rights of worshipping and serving their Creator according to the dictates of their consciences ...

Florida 1885, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Florida, grateful to Almighty God for our constitutional liberty . establish this Constitution...

Georgia 1777, Preamble. We, the people of Georgia, relying upon protection and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish this Constitution...

Hawaii 1959, Preamble. We, the people of Hawaii, Grateful for Divine Guidance ... establish this Constitution.

Idaho 1889, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Idaho, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, to secure its blessings ..

Illinois 1870, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Illinois, grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberty which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy and looking to Him for a blessing on our endeavors.

Indiana 1851, Preamble. We, the People of the State of Indiana, grateful to Almighty God for the free exercise of the right to chose our form of government....

Iowa 1857, Preamble. We, the People of the State of Iowa, grateful to the Supreme Being for the blessings hitherto enjoyed, and feeling our dependence on Him for a continuation of these blessings, establish this Constitution......

Kansas 1859, Preamble. We, the people of Kansas, grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious privileges, establish this Constitution....

Kentucky 1891, Preamble. We, the people of the Commonwealth of grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberties...

Louisiana 1921, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Louisiana, grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberties we enjoy....

Maine 1820, Preamble. We the People of Maine .. acknowledging with grateful hearts the goodness of_the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe in affording us an opportunity ... and imploring His aid and direction....

Maryland 1776, Preamble. We, the people of the state of Maryland, grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious liberty..

Massachusetts 1780, Preamble. We...the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging with grateful hearts, the goodness of the Great Legislator of the Universe ... in the course of His Providence, an opportunity .and devoutly imploring His direction ...

Michigan 1908, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Michigan, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of freedom ... establish this Constitution ...

Minnesota, 1857, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Minnesota, grateful to God for our civil and religious liberty, and desiring to perpetuate its blessings....

Mississippi 1890, Preamble. We, the people of Mississippi in convention assembled, grateful to Almighty God, and invoking His blessing on our work.....

Missouri 1845, Preamble. We, the people of Missouri, with profound reverence for the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, and grateful for His goodness ... establish this Constitution ..

Montana 1889, Preamble. We, the people of Montana, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of liberty. establish this Constitution

Nebraska 1875, Preamble. We, the people, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom .. establish this Constitution ...

Nevada 1864, Preamble. We the people of the State of Nevada, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom establish this Constitution

New Hampshire 1792, Part I. Art. I. Sec. V. Every individual has a natural and unalienable right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.

New Jersey 1844, Preamble. We, the people of the State of New Jersey, grateful to Almighty God for civil and religious liberty which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a blessing on our endeavors ..

New Mexico 1911, Preamble. We, the People of New Mexico, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of liberty ..

New York 1846, Preamble. We, the people of the State of New York, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure its blessings. ...

North Carolina 1868, Preamble. We the people of the State of North Carolina, grateful to Almighty God, the Sovereign Ruler of Nations, for our civil, political, and religious liberties, and acknowledging our dependence upon Him for the continuance of those .

North Dakota 1889, Preamble. We, the people of North Dakota, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of civil and religious liberty, do ordain...

Ohio 1852, Preamble. We the people of the state of Ohio, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, to secure its blessings and to promote our common ...

Oklahoma 1907, Preamble. Invoking the guidance of Almighty God, in order to secure and perpetuate the blessings of liberty ... establish this

Oregon 1857, Bill of Rights, Article I. Section 2. All men shall be secure in the Natural right, to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their consciences..

Pennsylvania 1776, Preamble. We, the people of Pennsylvania, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of civil and religious liberty, and humbly invoking His guidance...

Rhode Island 1842, Preamble. We the People of the State of Rhode Island grateful to Almighty God for the civil and religious liberty which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a blessing....

South Carolina, 1778, Preamble. We, the people of he State of South Carolina. grateful to God for our liberties, do ordain and establish this Constitution.

South Dakota 1889, Preamble. We, the people of South Dakota, grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious liberties ... establish this.....

Tennessee 1796, Art. XI.III. That all men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their conscience...

Texas 1845, Preamble. We the People of the Republic of Texas, acknowledging, with gratitude, the grace and beneficence of God.

Utah 1896, Preamble. Grateful to Almighty God for life and liberty, we establish this Constitution ..

Vermont 1777, Preamble. Whereas all government ought to .. enable the individuals who compose it to enjoy their natural rights, and other blessings which the Author of Existence has bestowed on man ...

Virginia 1776, Bill of Rights, XVI ... Religion, or the Duty which we owe our Creator ... can be directed only by Reason ... and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian Forbearance, Love and Charity towards each other ..

Washington 1889, Preamble. We the People of the State of Washington, grateful to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe for our liberties, do ordain this Constitution ..

West Virginia 1872, Preamble. Since through Divine Providence we enjoy the blessings of civil, political and religious liberty, we, the people of West Virginia . reaffirm our faith in and constant reliance upon God ...

Wisconsin 1848, Preamble. We, the people of Wisconsin, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, domestic tranquility ..

Wyoming 1890, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Wyoming, grateful to God for our civil, political, and religious liberties, establish this Constitution ...

After reviewing these acknowledgments of God from all 50 state constitutions, one is faced with the prospect that maybe, just maybe, the ACLU and the out-of-control federal courts are wrong!

"Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants." ---- William Penn

********

Here! Here!

Time for some internet radio. Radio Free Zorcong, starring Gage Andrew and that crazy man he's directly related to.

Later