God willing, the end of America is imminent.--Osama bin Laden in December 2001 after his escape from Tora Bora

I dredged this quote up because it was widely rumored that our former mayor had fled to Tora Bora right after we fired him and demanded the keys to the scummy, filthy Green Impala. Then all of a sudden, and without any warning at all, he reared his deflated ego in this week's Sunday Voice.

Trust me on this, I was kinda hoping he would never be heard from again. If he sold everything he owned and moved to the Falkland Islands (The Malvinas to those of you who are illegal aliens), that would have suited me just fine. But after reading McGroarty lands civil service job in the Voice yesterday, I quickly came to realize that I miss him somewhat. Well, I miss busting his nuts. Ah. Just like old times.

Okay. According to the Voice, he is going to be some sort of part-time EMS program specialist for the state. 37.5 hours a week? Sh*t! Our freakin' trainees work more hours than that. Whatever. Anymuck, check this quote from the former golden one:

As mayor of the city, people could not say I wasn't involved in a few emergencies and disasters. I think people know I made the city's emergency management systems better. I helped create a health department.

He's f**kin' with us, right? He was involved in a few emergencies and disasters? Oh, boy, you could say that again. How many emergency Tax Anticipation Notes did we average during the last two disasterous years of his "Math for Dummies" administration?

Would the holeplex qualify as an unmitigated disaster? How 'bout the still vacant call center?

Emergency management systems? What, the twice repainted construction trailer or the used truck with the 307 Radio Shack antennaes stuck all over it? Whup! I forgot about WPUU, but then again, so has everyone else. But we do have those solar powered sirens posed here and there. Why, I don't know, but they sure look cool. And...they did generate a few useless press releases for Mr. EMS.

And he claims he is "done with politics." Nah. It's more like he couldn't get himself elected Head Horse Scooper unless he changed his identity (Mullah bin McGabdu) and moved to the Waziristan region of Pakistan.

His mostly useless shenanigans have a toxic half-life for many city residents that will last long after the litany of damage he did to this city is undone.

I never thought I'd say this, but I miss him. I miss Soupy Sales too. And Tommy Smothers. And (insert fool).

I was out the door...

...at 6 this morning and found myself whizzing through O'Karma Terrace on the Stomper. I passed a thirty something lady and her daughter. It took me a few seconds and about twenty-five yards, but I squeezed the brake levers with both hands and skidded to a dead stop. I glanced back thinking to myself: "Did I just see that?"

I did a quick U-turn and sure as hell, I did see exactly what I thought I saw. This lady was desperately clutching a half open storm door with both hands and both legs and her daughter was standing on the very top of the storm door and leaning against the side of the building. And mom was not holding that door very steady. As I neared them, I heard the girl say: "Mom, I'm scared." Duh! I guess.

They explained that they were locked out of their apartment and were trying to climb in through the second floor window. The only problem was, the girl, about 13 or so, could not reach the open window from the top of the storm door. Being that mom could not hold the door very still, the girl was about ready to freak.

I asked her to jump down so I could catch her, but she wasn't buying into that program, especially after being suggested by a complete stranger. Some weirdo wearing a "Hose Dudes" shirt and riding a bike, no less! So I dragged some lawn furniture over, stood on it and pushed her feet skyward until she dumped herself through the window and onto the floor of the second story bedroom. After my daring rescue mission, I rode away.

You never know what you'll run across in this city, but I may have saved the paramedics a trip out this morning. That is, unless they got a call for a girl that smacked her puss off of an end table. I did not have my scanner on this morning.

That's my amazing life-and-death rescue experience.

Here's a classic from today's installment of the Sue Henry show on WILK:

The right-wing of this country are the rich people.--Kurt "From Scranton" Shotko

That's the segment of the show that Sue should call "Spot the Whacko."

So much for Kurt's oft-repeated claim of being a "critical thinker." He's critical alright. Flatline. Brain dead. Hopefully, he'll beat Don Sherwood this go-round. How'd that last election challenge go? 93%-7%???

So...they found Sarin gas in Iraq today. Isn't that a weapon of mass destruction?

Can we press forward and win this thing already, or will John "F-bomb" Kerry and his merry band of socialists continue to see Iraq as their electoral playground? Wanna play in the sandbox until the polling numbers go up?

Gage signed-up for the Fire Department's new Youth Hockey League. He really likes the part when you throw down the gloves and have at it, but he needs to practice a bit. Or grow some more. Also, Gage Andrew is not responsible for any damage to city property.

From the e-mail inbox:

*******As always I try to read anything and everything about important issues of the day. Thought this was a good one and maybe you haven't seen it yet. Still not sure as to the right course in my mind for my country, but the more I read the more I know at least. Just sorting out the BS is the hard part. I wish we had a third viable party in this counrty. Good reading.*******

THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS AND THE GREAT CALIPHATE

by Larry Abraham, January 29, 2004

I urge all of my readers to make copies of this report and send them to your friends and relatives. The information is too critical to be over looked in the madness of this election year.

Watching and listening to the Democrat Party candidates is tantamount to enduring the Chinese water torture. The blah, blah, blah goes on and on and nothing of value comes out except the pain of listening to the same nothingness over and over again. I won't take the time or space to repeat what you have heard so many mind numbing times but what you have not heard is crucial.

President Bush and his administration spokesmen are not telling the American people what they really need to know about this "war." If they don't do that between now and November it may cost them the election.

The war against terror did not begin on September 11, 2001, nor will it end with the peaceful transition to civilian authority in Iraq, whenever that may be. In fact, Iraq is but a footnote in the bigger context of this encounter, but an important one none the less.

This war is what the Jihadists themselves are calling the "Third Great Jihad." They are operating within the framework of a time line which reaches back to the very creation of Islam in the seventh century and are presently attempting to recreate the dynamics which gave rise to the religion in the first two hundred years of its existence.

No religion in history grew as fast, in its infancy, and the reasons for the initial growth of Islam are not hard to explain when you understand what the world was like at the time of Muhammad's death in 632 AD. Remember that the Western Roman Empire was in ruins and the Eastern Empire, based in Constantinople, was trying desperately to keep the power of its early grandeur while transitioning to Christianity as a de facto state religion. The costs to the average person were large as he was being required to meet the constantly rising taxes levied by the state along with the tithes coerced by the Church.

What Islam offered was the "carrot or the sword". If you became a convert, your taxes were immediately eliminated, as was your tithe. If you didn't, you faced death. The choice was not hard for most to make, unless you were a very devoted martyr in the making. At the beginning, even the theology was not too hard for most to swallow, considering that both Jewry and Christianity were given their due by the Prophet.

There is but one God-Allah, and Muhammad is His Prophet, as was Jesus, and the pre-Christian Jewish prophets of the Torah (Old Testament). Both were called "children of the book"-- the book being the Koran, which replaced both the Old and New Testaments for former Christians and Jews.

With this practical approach to spreading the "word" Islam grew like wild-fire, reaching out from the Saudi Arabian Peninsula in all directions. This early growth is what the Muslims call the "First" great Jihad and it met with little resistance until Charles Martel of France, the father of Charlemagne, stopped them in the battle of Tours in France after they had firmly established Islam on the Iberian Peninsula.

This first onslaught against the West continued in various forms and at various times until Islam was finally driven out of Spain in 1492 at the battle of Granada.

The "Second great jihad" came with the Ottoman Turks. This empire succeeded in bringing about the downfall of Constantinople as a Christian stronghold and an end to Roman hegemony in all of its forms. The Ottoman Empire was Islam's most successful expansion of territory even though the religion itself had fractured into warring sects and bitter rivalries with each claiming the ultimate truths in "the ways of the Prophet".

By 1683 the Ottomans had suffered a series of defeats on both land and sea and the final, unsuccessful attempt to capture Vienna set the stage for the collapse of any further territorial ambitions and Islam shrunk into various sheikhdoms, emir dominated principalities, and roving tribes of nomads. However, by this time a growing anti-western sentiment, blaming its internal failures on anyone but themselves, was taking hold and setting the stage for a new revival known as Wahhabism, a sect which came into full bloom under the House of Saud on the Arabian Peninsula shortly before the onset of WWI. It is this Wahhabi version of Islam which has infected the religion itself, now finding adherents in almost all branches and sects, especially the Shiites.

Wahhabiism calls for the complete and total rejection or destruction of anything and everything which is not based in the original teachings of The Prophet and finds its most glaring practice in the policies of the Afghani Taliban or the Shiite practices of the late Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. Its Ali Pasha (Field Marshall) is now known as Osama bin Laden, the leader of the "Third Jihad", who is Wahhabi as were his 9/11 attack teams, 18 of which were also Saudi.

The strategy for this "holy war" did not begin with the planning of the destruction of the World Trade Center. It began with the toppling of the Shah of Iran back in the late 1970's. With his plans and programs to "westernize" his country, along with his close ties to the U.S. and subdued acceptance of the State of Israel, the Shah was the soft target.

Remember "America Held Hostage"?

Thanks, in large part to the hypocritical and disastrous policies of the Jimmy Carter State Department, the revolution was set into motion, the Shah was deposed, his armed forces scattered or murdered and stage one was complete. The Third Jihad now had a base of operations and the oil wealth to support its grand design or what they call the "Great Caliphate".

What this design calls for is the replacement of all secular leadership in any country with Muslim majorities. This would include, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia, all the Emirates, Sudan, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Malaysia, Indonesia and finally what they call the "occupied territory" Israel.

As a part of this strategy, forces of the jihad will infiltrate governments and the military as a prelude to taking control, once the secular leadership is ousted or assassinated. Such was the case in Lebanon leading to the Syrian occupation and in Egypt with the murder of Anwar Sadat, along with the multiple attempts on the lives of Hussein in Jordan, Mubarak of Egypt and Musharraf in Pakistan. Pakistan is a particular prize because of its nuclear weapons. (Please note al Qaeda call for the Islamic-militant overthrow of Musharraf in Pakistan on March 25.

The long-range strategy of the Third Jihad counts on three strategic goals. First, the U.S. withdrawing from the region just as it did in Southeast Asia, following Vietnam. Second, taking control of the oil wealth in the Muslim countries, which would be upwards to 75% of known reserves; third, using nuclear weapons or other WMDs to annihilate Israel. A further outcome of successfully achieving these objectives would be to place the United Nations as the sole arbiter in East/West negotiations and paralyze western resistance, leading to total withdrawal from all Islamic dominated countries

Evidence of the Bush Administration awareness of this plan is found in the events immediately following the 9/11 attack. The administration's first move was to shore up Pakistan and Egypt, believing that these two would be the next targets for al Qaeda, while Americans focused on the disaster in New York. The administration also knew that the most important objective was to send a loud and clear message that the U.S. was in the region to stay, not only to shore up our allies but to send a message to the Jihadists.

The attack on Afghanistan was necessary to break-up a secure al Qaeda base of operations and put their leadership on the run or in prison. The war in Iraq also met a very strategic necessity in that no one knew how much collaboration existed between Saddam Hussein and the master planners of the Third Jihad or Hussein's willingness to hand off WMDs to terrorist groups including the PLO in Israel. What was known were serious indications of on-going collaboration as Saddam funneled money to families of suicide bombers attacking the Israelis and others in Kuwait.

What the U.S. needed to establish was a significant base of operations smack dab in the middle of the Islamic world, in a location which effectively cut it in half. Iraq was the ideal target for this and a host of other strategic reasons.

Leadership of various anti-American groups both here and abroad understood the vital nature of the Bush initiative and thus launched their demonstrations, world-wide, to "Stop The War". Failing this, they also laid plans to build a political campaign inside the country, with the War in Iraq as a plebiscite, using a little known politician as the thrust point--Howard Dean. This helps to explain how quickly the Radical Left moved into the Dean campaign with both people and money, creating what the clueless media called the "Dean Phenomenon".

By building on the left-wing base in the Democrat party and the "Hate Bush" crowd, the campaign has already resulted in a consensus among the aspirants, minus Joe Lieberman, to withdraw the U.S. from Iraq and turn the operation over to the U.N. And, if past is prologue, i.e., Vietnam, once the U.S. leaves it will not go back under any circumstances, possibly even the destruction of Israel.

Should George W. Bush be defeated in November we could expect to see the dominoes start to fall in the secular Islamic countries and The Clash of Civilizations, predicted several years ago by Samuel Huntington, would then become a life changing event in all of our lives.

What surprised the Jihadists following the 9/11 attack was how American sentiment mobilized around the president and a profound sense of patriotism spread across the country. They were not expecting this reaction, based on what had happened in the past, nor were they expecting the determined resolve of the President himself. I also believe this is one of the reasons we have not had any further attacks within our borders. They are content to wait, just as one of their tactical mentors; V.I. Lenin admonished..."two steps forward, one step back".

A couple additional events serve as valuable footnotes to the current circumstances we face: the destruction of the human assets factor of the CIA during the Carter presidency, presided over by the late Senator Frank Church. This fact has plagued our intelligence agencies right up to this very day with consequences which are now obvious. And, Jimmy Carter himself, the one man who must bear the bulk of the responsibility for setting the stage of the Third Jihad. Americans should find little comfort in how the Democrat contenders constantly seek the "advice and counsel" of this despicable little hypocrite.

Lastly, we should not expect to see any meaningful cooperation from Western Europe, especially the French. Since failing to protect their own interests in Algeria (by turning the country over to the first of the Arab terrorists, Ammad Ben Bella), the country itself is now occupied by Islamic immigrants totaling twenty percent of the population.

We are in the battle of our lives, a battle which will go on for many years possibly even generations. If we fail to understand what we are facing or falter in the challenge of "knowing our enemy" the results will be catastrophic. Imagine a world where al Qaeda regimes control 75% of the world's oil, have at their disposal nuclear weapons, legions of willing suicide soldiers, and our national survival is dependent on the good graces of Kofi Annan and the United Nations.

There is one final footnote which may be the scariest of all. Either none of the Democrats currently leading the drive to their party's nomination are aware of the facts of the Great Caliphate and Third Jihad or they do know and they don't care so long as their power lust is satisfied. But, I can guarantee you one thing for sure: some of their most ardent supporters are aware of this and will do anything they can to bring it about.

Larry Abraham’s Insider Report is the only investment newsletter which gives you an informed analysis of the political ramifications before it suggests which stock or sector of stocks you should buy. In short, Insider Report makes you think and, in the process, provides you with a confidence in your decisions you just can’t get any other way!

So, if you are not afraid to think then I believe you will find Larry Abraham’s Insider Report an invaluable tool in your personal war for financial independence. Remember Epicitus, a flood of information is not knowledge. There is a vital difference.

Gage and I wandered around on the bike a bit yesterday and we ran across the folks spiffin' the heck out of the Square Park. It's amazing to see so many folks out and about with work gloves on these days. Only a few short months ago, the center of the square was declared off limits to anyone daring to make it more pleasing to the eye.

These days, the Diamond City Partnership crews patrol the perimeter and the Chamber folks with their cast of a thousand volunteers have invaded the center of our once nearly dilapidated square. We've got some new Japanese cherry trees. New benches on the way. New garbage cans on the way. Grant money for new street lights. Larry Newman and the boys doing computer mock-ups of our new-and-improved canopy. All that's needed now is a regular police presence on foot or bicyles.

This volunteerism thing seems to be catching on. Why? It seems that progress, however how slight, somehow breeds more progress. It's infectious. Our city leaders have infected us. Call the CDC!

From the e-mail inbox:

*******Mark,

I participated in the parade yesterday and let me tell you of the pride and emotion I felt during the proceedings. I was honored to carry the Flight 93 remembrance flag which was designed by the nephew of one of our retired (deceased) Fire Fighters. I believe this Flag is usually at the crash site in Shanksville, Pa. I was proud of not only our Fire Fighters and Paramedics but those who chose to join us in this historic event. There were brothers/sisters from Scranton, Plains, Pittston, Wyoming, West Wyoming, Larksville, Edwardsville and others that I probably missed seeing.

Sept. 11, 2001 hit me pretty hard and made me realize more and more that although we are the Big Brother (not the Orwell version) to the world, there are those who, for what ever reason, don't appreciate that. My emotions run amok during events like this. Seeing those who came out to enjoy the freedom that we are fighting for, participate in such an event was overwhelming. Seeing the symbol of MY country and freedoms carried with such pride enmass was a sight to behold. I don't understand why or how anyone could have a problem with it. Yes I teared up.
Keep up the good work.

Capt William J. Ulichney
Wilkes-Barre Fire Dept
North East Station*******

Here! Here! BANG!

Me gotta go. I have a house full of kids and grandkids tonight.

Later