Pennsylvania: Today a beautiful, open, sprawling state filled with history and strong folks with hearts of gold; tomorrow a state littered with broken garbage trucks purchased form NY junk yards, large wholes in the ground, and two-man hovercrafts entangled in every mile of guard rail. "EMS Specialist?" What in the world is that? One thing is for sure, it will be great to have his one liners and expletives in the newspapers again. "Breaker 1-9, we got some dumpy little guy drivin' an old dump truck, blowing his horn, East bound on I 80 headin' towards the rockslide and the sumb*$ch won't let any of the rescue vehicles or heavy equipment pass him. Frank you gotta see this nut, swearvin' all over the road, swearin' his head off about some guy named Leighton."

Well, allow me some time to gloat over the kids again. My oldest daughter, soon to be nine, won several awards Tuesday night at her schools awards banquet. The one most important to her was winning the library award for most books read-39. And we are not talking about "Dick and Jane." She read all the "Little House on the Prairie" books, "Redwall", "Great Illustrated Classics"-we're talking 150-350 page books. Her library teacher had some great words for her. I was so proud of her because she just missed it last year and she worked so hard to get this award. I would find a crack of light coming from under her door at 11:30 at night and there she would be laying on her bed reading. It's hard to yell "get to bed" at a kid that does that. She also had 65 perfect papers this year, finished 3rd in the whole school for grade point average, and got a perfect score on every one of her bible memory tests-saying between 7-10 verses at a time. My other daughter, age 7, also won an award and a reading certificate and finished with a 98% average in first grade. The reading award was great for her as last year she was in about the 50 percentile and this year she was in the 93 percentile-a huge improvement. I was so proud of both of them. I wish I could say they take after their old man, but….Next year sonny-boy starts. I am starting the phonics game with him.

Mark and Kayak-Dude, thanks for the invite on your Riverfest Ship. But baseball season still beckons and between practice and games, my schedule is just loaded. I really would have enjoyed it. Perhaps next year I can do it and bring my son. He would probably like to play with Gage.

The Pioneers are still kicking tail-one loss. Folks, get out there and support your team. It is a great night out. Fast moving, lots of action, inexpensive, and you just might get to see Kim Martucci doing the rodeo dance again. Man she's a cutie.

Of course I would be remiss if I didn't put forth some food for thought on the election, otherwise known as "The get Bush campaign."

Recent flip-flops by Kerry (you might have heard of these already-there are so many it's hard to keep track of them all):

"We may still find WMD," a recent quote. Hard to believe that he still runs around also saying Bush lied and that there are no WMD, even after all of the WMD we have been finding since week one as I wrote about in an earlier posting.

He said he would also consider appointing pro-life judges, after saying there would be no way on Gods-gre…oops, sorry, check that, Allah's-green Earth he would ever appoint a pro-life judge. Man, the pro-abortion crowd must be ticked off, but only in a huge way.

He also stated that we "must stay the course in Iraq" and that we may need to send in more troops. Shouldn't he now be labeled a "Hawk." Perhaps a miner bird would be better as it seems he is fond of repeating whatever point of view would get him votes depending on the crowd he is standing in front of. (Oooo, I ended a sentence with a preposition-sorry.)

He also stated that Dean was not the man to lead the nation at the time when both of them were in a race to see who could be more anti-war. But remember that Dean also stated that Kerry couldn't win the election, nor could he run the country-that is until now.

How dare President Bush be consistent in his stance on the war on terrorism! We would be so much better with someone like Kerry.

Not sure if you caught this, but here it is from a man who knows Kerry inside and out:

***THE REAL KERRY
By HOWIE CARR
February 5, 2004 -- BOSTON

ONE of the surest ways to get the phones ringing on any Massachusetts talk-radio show is to ask people to call in and tell their John Kerry stories.

The phone lines are soon filled, and most of the stories have a common theme: our junior senator pulling rank on one of his constituents, breaking in line, demanding to pay less (or nothing) or ducking out before the bill arrives.

The tales often have one other common thread. Most end with Sen. Kerry inquiring of the lesser mortal: "Do you know who I am?" And now he's running for president as a populist.

His first wife came from a Philadelphia Main Line family worth $300 million. His second wife is a pickle-and-ketchup heiress. Kerry lives in a mansion on Beacon Hill on which he has borrowed $6 million to finance his campaign. A fire hydrant that prevented him and his wife from parking their SUV in front of their tony digs was removed by the city of Boston at his behest. The Kerry's ski at a spa the widow Heinz owns in Aspen, and they summer on Nantucket in a sprawling seaside "cottage" on Hurlbert Avenue, which is so well appointed that at a recent fund-raiser, they imported porta-toilets onto the front lawn

so the donors wouldn't use the inside bathrooms. (They later claimed the decision was made on septic, not social, considerations).

It's a wonderful life these days for John Kerry. He sails Nantucket Sound in "the Scaramouche," a 42-foot Hinckley powerboat. Martha Stewart has a similar boat; the no-frills model reportedly starts at $695,000. Sen. Kerry bought it new, for cash.

Every Tuesday night, the local politicians here that Kerry elbowed out of his way on his march to the top watch, fascinated, as he claims victory in more primaries and denounces the special interests, the "millionaires" and "the overprivileged."

"His initials are JFK," longtime state Senate President William M. Bulger used to muse on St. Patrick's Day, "Just for Kerry. He's only Irish every sixth year." And now it turns out that he's not Irish at all. But in the parochial world of Bay State politics, he was never really seen as Irish, even when he was claiming to be (although now, of course, he says that any references to his alleged Hibernian heritage were mistakenly put into the Congressional Record by an aide who didn't know that on his paternal side he is, in fact, part-Jewish).

Kerry is, in fact, a Brahmin - his mother was a Forbes, from one of Massachusetts' oldest WASP families. The ancestor who wed Ralph Waldo Emerson's daughter was marrying down.

At the risk of engaging in ethnic stereotyping, Yankees have a reputation for, shall we say, frugality. And Kerry tosses around quarters like they were manhole covers! In 1993, for instance, living on a senator's salary of about $100,000, he managed to give a total of $135 to charity. Yet that same year, he was somehow able to scrape together $8,600 for a brand-new, imported Italian motorcycle, a Ducati Paso 907 IE. He kept it for years, until he decided to run for president, at which time he traded it in for a Harley-Davidson like the one he rode onto "The Tonight Show" set a couple of months ago as Jay Leno applauded his fellow Bay Stater.

Of course, in 1993 he was between his first and second heiresses - a time he now calls "the wandering years," although an equally apt description might be "the freeloading years."

For some of the time, he was, for all practical purposes, homeless. His friends allowed him into a real-estate deal in which he flipped a condo for quick resale, netting a $21,000 profit on a cash investment of exactly nothing. For months he rode around in a new car supplied by a shady local Buick dealer. When the dealer's ties to a congressman who was later indicted for racketeering were exposed, Kerry quickly explained that the non-payment was a mere oversight, and wrote out a check.

In the Senate, his record of his constituent services has been lackluster, and most of his colleagues, despite their public support, are hard-pressed to list an accomplishment. Just last fall, a Boston TV reporter ambushed three congressmen with the question, name something John Kerry has accomplished in Congress. After a few nervous giggles, two could think of nothing, and a third mentioned a baseball field, and then misidentified Kerry as "Sen. Kennedy."

Many of his constituents see him in person only when he is cutting them in line - at an airport, a clam shack or the Registry of Motor Vehicles. One talk-show caller a few weeks back recalled standing behind a police barricade in 2002 as the Rolling Stones played the Orpheum Theater, a short limousine ride from Kerry's Louisburg Square mansion.

The caller, Jay, said he began heckling Kerry and his wife as they attempted to enter the theater. Finally, he said, the senator turned to him and asked him the eternal question. "Do you know who I am?"

"Yeah," said Jay. "You're a gold-digger."

John Kerry. First he looks at the purse.

Colorfully yours,
Howie Carr--- a Boston Herald columnist and syndicated talk-radio host, has been covering John Kerry for 25 years.***

Man, I'm glad I didn't write that-it would be called hate speech. I don't begrudge Kerry for all of the finer things he has, not even because he married rich women. I hope to someday have my own wealth-I think everyone does. But what I do find appalling is how he bashes the rich, bashes big corporations, bashes executives, bashes special interests, and expects you and I to pay more. By the way, if there are any rich women out there that want marrying-give me a call.

However, in a recent speech he gave to a roomful of liberal students at a liberal college, he did get one thing right when he said that it was true was that the American gratitude for our soldiers was genuine. Twenty seconds out of an hour long speech-not bad.

By the way, I can fully understand how there was no race-baiting in the new ads out of the Missouri democratic party-the ones that state a vote for a Republican is a vote to cut school lunches and education, a vote for a Republican is a vote to cut Social Security and Medicare, a vote for a Republican is a vote for the great satan. There is no racism here because the ads were made by liberals and read by a black man. Never mind that Bush has spent more on education than any President in history and that the last education bill was written by Teddy *hic* Kennedy. Never mind that these are the same claims made by the left when Clinton ran against Bush and also against Dole. Amazing how there were never any problems with school lunches, education, welfare, SS, Medicare, or homelessness in all eight years of Clinton's mockery of the office. Never mind that none of this is true. Never mind that this stuff can get air time, but Don North's amazing documentary can't (forthcoming). It's just the liberals way of showing how tolerant, inclusive, and fair they are. Remember-the facts don't count. It all just depend upon what the definition of "is" is.

Keep the faith.
Private Sector Dude.