Intemperate musings

10-20-2005 Intemperate musings

Is George Bush drinking again?--Kevin Lynn

I don't know. Why don't you tell us, Kev. You know what they say, don't you? It takes one to know one. Heyna?

Wow! After hammering Makowski, Pizano, Skrep and Vondertodd for years on end over the sea of red ink Valley Crest has been hemmoraging, all of a sudden, Dr. No wants to save the facility from an abrupt closure notice.

Standard Speaker, 12/3/2004

Minority Commissioner Steve Urban said he wouldn't support the budget until he gets "more detail on some things."
Urban said Valley Crest is "a huge drain due to the large staff compared to other nursing homes." He said he recommended a year ago that a management consultant be hired to look at staffing and operations. Urban said if a private nursing home can operate efficiently with fewer people, Valley Crest should be able to do likewise.
Instead, he said, "We got a committee" and a proposal to build a new nursing home.
"Building is one thing. Staffing and running a facility is another," Urban said, repeating his request for a consultant.

Times Leader, 10/19/2005

Republican minority Commissioner Stephen A. Urban said he would support closing the home if the county’s transition to Complete HealthCare failed, but he thinks there is still room to negotiate with the union. Majority commissioners say they offered what Complete HealthCare was willing to take.
“Cooler heads have to prevail,” Urban said. “It’s too early to throw in the towel.”
Urban’s critics say he seems to be playing both sides because he’s the one who for years has loudly pushed for an end to subsidizing the home.

Have no fear there Dr. No. Those union types won't blame you for the closure during the next election go-round. No, rather, you can point out how you fought for the unions, while those majority commissioners will be reduced (?) to pointing out that they fought for the taxpayers.

Your true colors are showing, Dr. No. There was no way any reworking of that facility was going to produce any black ink in our lifetimes, but, when the toughest of decisions was finally made you chose the union over the taxpayers. I see that as a gross miscalculation on your part that can be easily exploited when you square off against another election year challenger. Face it, Ed Mitchell you ain't.

And what of the 77 unbending union types who amazingly and stupidly voted against the county's stated final contract offer? You sure f>cked that up, dintcha? Unemployed adults know only one thing while the bills continue to roll in: It is better to be employed.

I actually heard some mild criticism from the hoi polloi today that was directed at the majority commissioners, and I could only shake my head in response. Fact is, we've been clamoring for that facility to be closed for a decade as far as I can recall. So, now that Skrep and Todd did what needed to be done, why the bitchin' and moanin'? Kwitcherbelyacin you silly sods!

Actually, in light of recent events, I could really do with a bit of commentary from Fred Williams today. Fred, give us a hollar, will you?

The following letter is proof that some people will never be able to unf>ck themselves.

The Citizens Voice
Bicycle rider hit by car shows need for laws, lanes
10/19/2005
Editor:
I'm writing this letter about a hit and run that occurred recently.
A child on a bike was hit by a car. This is a terrible accident, but I think there have got to be laws addressing people on bicycles. Please don't get me wrong, I don't condone the actions of the hit and run driver. Leaving the scene of an accident is totally wrong, unthinkable. However, too many times I have had a close call with a person on a bike on the road. I think that there should be very strong laws put in force to prevent any person on a bicycle to ride on a road unless there is a lane for bicycles. Bicycles do not belong on the road, period. If a rider is on the road, he should receive a stiff fine. If there is an accident between a bicycle and a car, on the road, the bicycle rider is in the wrong. Period. Lanes should be made on the shoulder for bicycle riders, but until they are, either ride where the bicycle lanes are or don't ride. I don't know how many times I have encountered bicycle riders on roadways that are so narrow and blind that you don't see them until you are right on top of them. If there is another car coming on the other side, you come around a corner, and there they are, in the middle of the road. Most bicycle riders act as though the roadway was made for them and they have the-right-of-way. It is getting worse all the time, more and more people are riding bicycles. And now with the expense of gas, I am sure the number will increase drastically. I, too, would like to ride a bicycle to work, but not on a roadway and the road to work does not have a bicycle lane so until they do, I will have to stick to driving a car to and from work. Please make the roads safer for bicycle riders by putting bicycle lanes in the shoulder of the road and get the bicycles off the road. I'm tired of dodging bicycles.
P. Crowley
Harvey's Lake

Geez oh whiz!!! Something very minor annoyed me today. I demand that it be stricken from daily life forever more here in the land of the formerly free. Where's my double-donger?

Did you notice the incomplete signature? "P" as in I'm afraid to list my full name while I all but demand that your freedoms be reigned in. Bicycle lane this you freakin' constitutionally illiterate chucklehead!

Take it awaaaaay...Mr. Sowell!

From Townhall.com:

Spoiled brat politics
Oct 11, 2005
by Thomas Sowell
An editorial in a recent issue of the National Geographic's "Traveler" magazine complained that kayakers in Maine found "residential development" near national parks and urged its readers to use their "influence" to prevent such things.
"You are the stakeholders in our national parks," it said.
Really? What stake do kayakers and others of like mind have that is not also a stake held by people who build the vacation homes whose presence offends the kayak set? Homeowners are just as much citizens and taxpayers as kayakers are, and they are even entitled to equal treatment under the 14th Amendment.
The essence of bigotry is denying others the same rights you claim for yourself. Green bigots are a classic example.
The idea that government is supposed to make your desires override the desires of other citizens has spread from the green bigots to other groups who claim privileges in the name of rights.
In California a group of golfers in wheelchairs are suing a hotel chain for not providing them with special carts that will enable them to navigate the local hotel's golf course more comfortably and play the game better.
According to a newspaper account, the kinds of carts the golfers in wheelchairs want "have rotating seats so a golfer can swing and strike a ball from the tee, the fairway and on the green without getting out of the vehicle." If golfers want this kind of cart, there is nothing to stop them from buying one -- except that they would rather have other people be forced to pay for it.
One of the golfers in this lawsuit has been confined to a wheelchair as a result of a diving accident and another as a result of a gunshot wound. Apparently the hotel had nothing to do with either.
There was a time when people would have said that the hotel is not responsible for these golfers being in wheelchairs and therefore it has no obligation to spend additional money for special carts in order to help their scores on the links. But that was before the Americans with Disabilities Act, under which the hotel is being sued.
If the government wanted to do something for the disabled or the handicapped, it could have spent its own tax money to do so. Instead, it passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, which created a right to sue private institutions, in order to force them to spend their money to solve the problems of individuals with special problems or special desires, whether serious or frivolous.
It was a lawyer's full-employment act, creating another legally recognized victim group, empowered to claim special privileges, at other people's expense, in the name of equal rights. Nor could such legislation make the usual claim that it was coming to the defense of the poor and the downtrodden. Golf courses are not the natural habitat of the poor and the downtrodden.
One of the plaintiffs in the golf-course lawsuit is a former managing partner in a large law firm. He says, "I just want the same opportunity as everyone else" to "get out and play 18 holes with my friends and colleagues."
Equal opportunity does not mean equal results, despite how many laws and policies proceed as if it does, or how much fashionable rhetoric equates the two.
An example of that rhetoric was the title of a recent New York Times column: "A Ticket to Bias." That column recalled bitterly a time before the Americans with Disabilities Act, when a woman in a wheelchair bought a $300 ticket to a rock concert but was unable to see when other people around her stood up. This was equated with "bias" on the part of those who ran the arena.
Even now, decades after this incident, the woman in the wheelchair declares, "true equality remains a dream out of reach." Apparently only equality of results is "true" equality.
A recent publication of the American Historical Association shows this same confusion when it says that doors "are largely closed" to people who want to become historians if they didn't graduate from a top-tier college. In other words, unequal results proves bias that closed doors, according to this rhetoric.
Confusion between equal opportunity and equal results is a dangerous confusion behind many kinds of spoiled brat politics.

The idea that government is supposed to make your desires override the desires of other citizens has spread from the green bigots to other groups who claim privileges in the name of rights.

Here, here!!!

Some folks should stick to making mediocre music and forget their super inflated sense of self-importance.

Bush, Bono Have Lunch at the White House
Oct 19 11:40 AM US/Eastern
WASHINGTON
In town for a concert, U2 rock star Bono was invited to lunch Wednesday with the president. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the meeting at the executive residence would be a follow-up on talks he had with President Bush in July at the G-8 summit in Scotland.
"They had a very good discussion about some of our common priorities," McClellan said. "Both share a deep commitment to combating AIDS, preventing malaria and expanding trade to lift people out of poverty."
McClellan said Bono also planned to meet with National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley later in the day, before U2's concert at the MCI Center. The spokesman laughingly told reporters that Bush was not planning to attend the concert.

This aging rock star that stepped in sh*t a long time ago has more money than the fedrule treasury itself. But, still, here he was begging Dubya to commit my hard-earned money to saving some remote part of the latest asshole of the world that is probably beyond all saving. Why can't he donate the necessary monies all by his lonesome?

This e-mail came too late to help me, but you might want to give it a look.

From the e-mail inbox CAUTION!!!!
Don't be drinking anything when you read this.
The occasion was our 18th anniversary and I was looking for a little something extra for my sweet girl. What I came across was a 100,000-volt, pocket/purse-sized Taser gun with a clip. For those of you who are not familiar with this product, it is a less-than-lethal stun gun with two metal prongs designed to incapacitate an assailant with a shock of high-voltage, low amperage electricity while you flee to safety. The effects are supposed to be short lived with no long-term adverse affect on your assailant, but allowing you adequate time to retreat to safety. You simply jab the prongs into your 250 lb. tattooed assailant, push the button, and it will render him a slobbering, goggle-eyed, muscle-twitching, whimpering, pencil-neck geek.
Okay, so I was home alone with this new toy, thinking to myself that it couldn't be all that bad with only two AAA batteries, etc. etc. There I sat in my recliner, my dog looking on intently (trusting little soul), reading the directions (that would be me, not the dog) and thinking that I really needed to try this thing out on a flesh and blood target. I must admit I thought about zapping the dog for a fraction of a second and thought better of it. He is such a sweet pup, after all. But, if I was going to give this thing to my wife to protect herself against a mugger, I did want some assurance that it would work as advertised. Am I wrong? Was I wrong to think that? It seemed reasonable to me at the time. So, there I sat in a pair of shorts and a tank top with my glasses perched delicately on the bridge of my nose, directions in one hand, Taser in the other.
The directions said that a one-second burst would "shock and disorient your assailant", a two-second burst would "cause muscle spasms and a loss of bodily control", and a three-second burst would purportedly make your assailant flop on the ground like a fish out of water. All the while I'm looking at this little device (measuring about 5" long,less than 3/4 inch in circumference, pretty cute really, and loaded with two itsy, bitsy AAA batteries) thinking to myself, "No friggin? way!"
....Friggin' way!! - trust me, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
What happened next is almost beyond description, but I'll do my best. I'm sitting there alone, the dog looking on with his head cocked to one side as to say, "Don't do it buddy", reasoning that a one-second burst from such a tiny lil' ole thing couldn't hurt all that bad (sounded to me like rational thinking under the circumstances, wouldn't you agree?). I decided to give myself a one-second burst just for the hell of it. (Note: You know, a bad decision is like hindsight-- always 20-20. It is so obvious that it was a bad decision after the fact, even though it seemed so right at the time. Don't ya just hate that?)
I touched the prongs to my naked thigh, pushed the button, and HOLY*********! DAaaaauuuuuuMN!!! I'm pretty sure that Jessie Ventura ran in through the front door, picked me up out of that recliner, and then body slammed me on the carpet over and over again. I vaguely recall waking up on my side in the fetal position, nipples on fire, testicles nowhere to be found, soaking wet,with my left arm tucked under my body in the oddest position. The dog was standing over me making sounds I had never heard before, licking my face, undoubtedly thinking to himself, "Do it again, do it again!"
(NOTE: If you ever feel compelled to mug yourself with a Taser, one note of caution. There is no such thing as a one-second burst when you zap yourself. You're not going to let go of that thing until it is dislodged from your hand by violently thrashing about on the floor. SON-OF-A-***** that hurt! A minute or so later (I can't be sure, as time was a relative thing at this point), I collected my wits (what little I had left), sat up and surveyed the landscape. My glasses were on the TV across the room. (How did they get there???) My triceps, right thigh and both nipples were still twitching. My face felt like it had been shot up with Novocain, and my bottom lip weighed 88 lbs., give or take an ounce or two. By the way, has anyone seen my testicles? I think they ran away. I'm offering a reward. Miss 'em; sure would like to get 'em back.

Never Touchin' the Taser Again!

I just finished reading Kevin Lynn's up-to-the-minute bullspit.

If he's told us once, he's told us a billion times that he believed in the Vietnam war until the day those hippy-dippy kids at Kent State should have been in class, but weren't, and got themselves shot up by some National Guard troops.

But, hold the presses. History has been revised in an attempt to paint George Bush as a habitual liar. Yup. Now, the new moment of truth goes like this: It was Nixon's trail of lies (Just like that evil bastard Bush) and the ill-advised Watergate caper that turned a, then, youthful Kev against the war. The "Four Dead in Ohio" fib has now gone by the wayside, while Kev's newest memory sounds more like something Ted Kennedy would belch forth. You know, lie after lie after lie after...

Nice try dingleberry, but us knuckle-dragging droolers ain't buying your latest bit of meandering, revisionist rubbish. This is what can happen when troll-like creatures escape from the exhibit on the far, far, far, far left side of the political divide.

And Kev, let's put this non-issue of FEMA's response to Katrina to bed once and for all, shall we? The hapless mayor blamed FEMA, the clueless governor blamed FEMA, CNN gleefully blamed FEMA, and so did partisan knuckleheads such as yourself. In response, a shell-shocked president stupidly blamed FEMA by scapegoating it's director.

Now, putting raving lunatics such as yourself aside, why would all of the politicos get on the same bandwagon and rush to blame FEMA? Why?

Well, Kev, it's like this. FEMA doesn't have to get re-elected, or prop up it's political party. As far as electioneering is concerned, FEMA is a nameless, faceless and party-less entity. So, why not deflect all possible criticisms towards FEMA and then get on with the perpetual re-election campaigns?

It wasn't anything any elected type from any level of government did. Nope. Gosh no! It was all FEMA's fault.

I'm glad I could 'splain it to you, dummy.

From the e-mail inbox Subject: Common Sense
Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm, life isn't always fair, and maybe it was my fault.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).
His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a six year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.
Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job they failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.
It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer Panadol, sun lotion or a sticky plaster to a student; but, could not inform the parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.
Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband; churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.
Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar can sue you for assault.
Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.
Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by three stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, Someone Else is to Blame, and I'm A Victim.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him pass this on. If not join the majority and do nothing

After the recent Sned incident on WNEP, this is a most interesting read.

Ah, Suzie Q! Baby I luv you...

RUTRO!!! What's this? A new local blog? Welcome to the revolution!

From the e-mail inbox Mark,
I really can't comment on the whole WBPD vs. Times Leader deal, for various reasons. But wow, it seems like Matt Golas, the TL's editor, likes to gallavant about with his "Wow, look at what we're doing for you!" routine. Talk about annoying!
He keeps harping about including a JPG copy of the TL's front page on their website like it's the cure for cancer. The News Item down in Shamokin, owned by TL rival Times-Shamrock, has been putting a JPG of their front page on their website for quite some time.
Golas makes much ado about nothing when it comes to his newspaper.
Howard Beale

Beales Bites

They should rename it The Police Blotter Leader. Do I really need to know that Billy from Jones Street had his Doobie Brothers tape ripped-off? Do I want to know which total dumb-asses left their purses in their parked cars only to have them go missing? Is it news when a half-dozen houses get egged? Oops! Sorry, I forgot. The Times Leader is waging a print vendetta against our police chief. The more stolen cassette tapes, the better the vendetta. Right?

This just in:

WILKES-BARRE- Police cited the following men for public drunkenness...

Who gives a flying farg anyway? The point is, the jerks were arrested.

As for your internet site, remember...content, content, and more content.

The blogfather has spoken.

Later