"...juvenile in its approach" and "awful in its journalism," adding that some of his claims are so easily dismissible that "Fahrenheit" serves as "a warning to the Democrats to keep the loony left at a safe distance.--Richard Cohen, Washington Post

Well? Are you still in possession of ten fingers? I am. No Tony Iommi thimble slides for this lover of all frets. Gage Andrew and his fifteen month-old partner in crime headed back to Pottsville early last evening, so this deranged soul did not feel the need to wander anywhere near Kirby Park. Maybe next year. I'll put that on the bikeabout calendar.

Last night was not a good night to be a Wilkes-Barre cop. Based on what I heard coming from my scanner, we had a dozen or so folks forced to control 43,000 other drunk folks howling at the moon, roughing up the "old lady," blowing the hell out of the neighborhood, and generally, just embracing near lunacy only because they could. Aren't extended holidays the freakin' rage?

Conversely, when I rose at 6 am this morning, I grabbed my copy of the Times Leader and turned the scanner on. Before very long, I wandered over to the scanner to check the squelch knob. There was no possible way a scanner could be silent for so long in this city. Yet, it was silent, and it was adjusted correctly. Around 8 am, a county dispatcher hailed one of our copper dudes. I suspect that the county folks were simply checking to see if the copper dudes were still awake.

See that? Being a cop is somewhat tolerable when the entire populace is severely hung-over, or retracing their steps in an attempt to find the fingertips they managed to blow off, yet not even notice while doing so. Which leads me to the inherent dangers that fireworks present to all of us silly enough to steadfastly stick with time-tested American traditions, silly or otherwise.

Fireworks, at least the lame-assed, garden variety that we have access to, are touted by those public service ads as being even more dangerous than venturing into the town square in Tikrit and doling out a healthy verbal dose of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. You'll shoot your eye out, kid. Oops! You'll shoot your fingers off, kid. There. That's better. It's mostly inaccurate, but it makes the do-gooders of the world feel ultra-important when they mistakenly think they managed to save us from ourselves. Those prying save-the-whatever jerks.

These are the people that protest when the circus comes to town. They should stick to what they do best, which is nothing of note other than trying to impose their whacked-out beliefs on all of us. You'll shoot your fingers off, kid? Big f**king deal! That's why I pay those obscene health insurance premiums to a company sitting on a $400 million slush fund. If I ever blow any of my little tootsies off, I'll take it out on the nearest circus animal. For whatever reason, I'm picturing copious amounts of cigarette burns on the bottom of Jumbo's enormous feet. Cool. That sure beats shooting innocent Starlings.

So...I spent the past ten days or so listening to the insulting ads generated by the good folks at gov.org telling me that I'm either too completely stupid, or too thoroughly inbred to light a few wicks and not kill myself during the entire drunken process. Did I submit to their all-knowing, anti-freedom will? Did I do as I was told until the rights to me are eventually sold out? You already know the answer to that complete funking gibberish. Nope. I said "To hell!" with the folks that simultaneously guard my freedoms, and seek to incrementally delete them at he same time.

I'm moronic, i.e., a Republican, I'm an American, and I reserve the constitutional right to maim myself any way I damn well see fit. I'm sorry, but if I'm too stupid to operate a gun, and too stupid to operate a fire cracker, maybe the folks that specialize in grabbing their ankles should simply suspend the constitution and bring on the Marxist nanny-state already. Oddly, I'm suddenly picturing myself sporting a well-worn John Deere cap, a gun rack in the back of my pick-up truck cab, a rebel flag flappin' in the breeze and some Molly Hatchet blaring loud enough to frighten away even the most devoted, nonsensical do-gooders. I'm flirtin' with disaster! So what?

I'm told that I'm supposedly too young and too stupid to operate even .5 ounces of Chinese gun powder, yet, the knowledgeable folks officially sanctioned by the "powers that be" went and showed the good folks from Pittston what it feels like to have a C-130 Spectre gunship raining down on their position. F**k Iraq! An RPG is one thing, but a wayward shell large enough to cripple a German Panther is a whole other thing. Oh, Jeez! Time out. Time for a pre-emptive strike. Don't bother to e-mail me and stupidly attempt to correct me. Panzers were certainly nasty beyond all belief, but the Panthers, introduced during the last, waning moments of the world war to end all wars (as if), the heaviest tanks ever built, were freaking lethal. And now you know.

Anymuck, the all-knowing boobs that managed to secure a few votes in some rust-belt podunk told us repeatedly that we need to be protected from ourselves and they were just the folks to do just that. And then they went and launched some rather lethal missiles at the hordes of trusting folks that have not seen anything much more dangerous launched in their general direction other than a few seriously over-ripe tomatoes.

If I remember it correctly, as spelled out by Bill Clinton's "living, breathing document," these elected types were supposed to defend us from foreign threats to our safety, and then provide for the general welfare of the common bloaks. Nowhere was it written that they should assume that their having been elected meant they were somehow smarter, or more important than the gullible, average folks that voted for them.

The "smart" folks in charge of things can stick to launching completely hostile projectiles in the name of public safety, but I'll be back here at the adobe still trying to figure out just how much beer it takes to facillitate the blowing off of one's favorite finger. Or fingers. And be assured that I will keep you up to date as my exhaustive research continues.

Freedom? True freedom means we have the right to act stupidly whenever we so choose, so long as we don't harm anyone other than ourselves. Based on what I'm seeing and hearing as of late, freedom amounts to whatever our namby-pamby politicians say it amounts to in an increasingly fluid and sadly, a politically correct political environment.

Never one to espouse the oft belittled motivation that drove most Southern Rock bands onward a few years back, I am slowly beginning to identify with what made them tick so well. Give me a curvey local girl, a rusted pick-up truck, a well-storied gun handed down through the generations, a six-pack or two, some reckless abandon and I'll give you what freedom was defined as 200-plus years ago.

Flirtin' with disaster.

And having the freedom to do just that.

The good word is...

...John F Kerry is going to announce who his running mate will be, although, he has to keep it a well-guarded secret for the foreseeable future, because that's the only way he can get noticed once the Clinton/Moore center-left media tickle-fest subsides. Once a spud, always a spud. But he's the annoited "Anybody-but-Bush" candidate, so the obvious mediocrity that he brings to the table will have to do while we face the greatest challenge ever presented to us during the rather short history of our superior country.

The CNN part-time pundits are saying that Kerry will draft Hillary Clinton as his Veep. I say that's total bunk, and if it isn't, Kerry is even dumber than I previously gave him credit for being. If Kerry were to choose Mrs. Polarization herself, one Hillary (Marxism) Clintonista as his Veep and then ascend to the oval office, he would not survive his first term in office, one way or another.

If a Kerry presidency comes to pass, and if he rides the coattails of the wicked witch, remember this when he either crashes or burns due to a "sudden" scandal generated by those illustrious, missing FBI files that the Clinton's can't seem to find, (until it suits their purposes), or, if he suddenly takes up residence in Fort Marcy Park in the long shadow of where Vince Foster was once moved to. I say he's not stupid enough to even entertain the thought of giving Hillary and Billary an inroad to the power they covet more than life itself, but we shall see. Heyna?

There's my prediction. If he in fact becomes our next president, and if he chooses to dance with the Marxist devils that the Clintons obviously are-Kerry will not serve out the entirety of his first term.

Write that down.

Me gotta go.

Molly Hatchet is suddenly my new fave.

Hey there! Ho there! Huh, huh, huh! Stay in Milwaukee and die!

Figure that one out!

Flirtin' with disaster?