The following news snippet was snagged from today’s Times Leader:

Posted on Mon, Mar. 13, 2006 McClatchy to sell Philadelphia Inquirer, Wilkes-Barre Times Leader and 10 other papers From CDT staff and wire reports NEW YORK -- Knight Ridder Inc., the parent company of the Centre Daily Times and 31 other newspapers and the country's second-largest newspaper company, has agreed to be sold to rival publisher McClatchy Co. for about $4.5 billion in cash and stock, the companies said this morning. McClatchy announced on its Web site today that it plans to sell 12 Knight Ridder newspapers, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Times Leader of Wilkes-Barre, the Philadelphia Daily News and the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News.

Face it, we’ve been somewhat blessed to be a two-newspaper town with the population being what it is. Cities in the 43,000 range are just not home to two newspapers in this day and age. Call me spoiled, but I don’t want to lose The Times Leader.

Somebody speculated today that the Times-Shamrock folks from Scranton might be interested in buying the Times Leader, but that sounds like a stretch to me. I’m not even sure it that’s legal. I dunno. All I know is, I don’t want to be reduced to having one newspaper, let alone a newspaper that decides to decline on the breaking story when some blonde bimbo accuses the local Congressman of boinking her, beating her and choking her when he feels the need to. When it comes to whitewashing the news to benefit local, state, and national Democrats, The Citizens’ Voice has no plausible deniability. How about when the Citizens’ Voice bothers to endorse local candidates for political office? Talk about a joke. Like it’s not completely predictable that every horse they back will be a well-connected, if not well-entrenched Democrat.

There are those times when I think The Times Leader needlessly muckrakes where no political muckraking is necessary. I also think the Times Leader folks are lazy in respect to how thoroughly they cover city political brouhahas, even countless non-issues, versus how little coverage our neighboring communities receive when controversy rears it‘s ugly head. But the Leader typically stirs the political pot a helluva lot more than the Voice ever will. And the Leader folks seem to be a bit more all-inclusive whereas the internet and bloggers are concerned. Also, the Leader’s web site is awesome, while the Voice’ site is basically lame compared to what 13-year-olds can post on the web in little more than a few hours.

Recently, I sent a letter to both newspapers that ripped Paul Kanjorski’s farcical deflatable dam to tiny rubber shreds. I knew it was lengthy as letters to editors are concerned, but I sent it just the same. The Times Leader published it in it’s entirety. It was nearly as lengthy as some of the articles from the paid political pundits they decided to print. The Citizens’ Voice chose to pass on it. Why? Well, because the Voice folks seem eager to perpetuate the destructive one-party system that has retarded this entire county for decades. In my mind, the Voice is no friend to the residents of this county. In a one-newspaper town, a Voice-only town, criticism of Paul Kanjorski’s proposed projects would not be allowed. Pardon my gutter parlance tendencies, but fu>k that and fu>k the Citizens‘ Voice! The stupid pricks didn’t even understand that they were being tested when I sent that letter their way.

If The Times Leader were to go away, you’d have two news sources in this city. The Citizens’ Voice and the internet. No, I didn’t forget WBRE and WNEP. It’s just that their actual value as credible news sources is next to nil while they continue to report the weather, nasty car accidents, the weather, stubborn structure fires, the weather, accidental drownings, more weather, mini-market robberies and more on the weather.

It is my opinion that the residents of this city and this county will be much better served if The Times Leader is purchased and continues to operate pretty much as it always has. I’ve got my fingers and toes crossed.

Join me.

Wanna know what? Piss off with that Leighton bit already! You tell me what Tom Leighton has gotten wrong, and I’ll give you my entire collection of Bazooka Joe comics, okay? Piss off!

And don’t give me the well-worn drivel about potholes. You wanna see potholes? Take a frickin’ ride through Nanticoke and then get back to me about potholes, champ! The streets in Wilkes-Barre are paved with gold when compared to Nanticoke’s broken and battered streets. You’ve been listening to Walter too much.

And spare me the griping about the shooting incidents in the city. As if anyone can put a complete stop to totally random shootings. Stop buying the dope and the dealers will pack up and move onto another town ripe with dopers.

Look, it’s no secret that I’ve grown weary of the borderline hate speech, the ridiculous conspiracy theories, the constant, often baseless accusations, and the complete lack of any alternative plans coming from the left, but ripping into a president during his second term doesn’t make too much sense to me. And it’s not like I’ve got his ear or anything. Is Bush doing a great job? No.

He’s allowing this country to be totally overrun by illegal aliens. Although, it seems as if most of the politicians on the national level, Republicans and Democrats alike, don’t give a damn either.

He’s turned his back on the school choice issue and I see that as a grave error that can only help to prop up the public school system that isn’t getting the job done. Again, he is not alone on this issue.

He signed the McCain-Feingold travesty, even though he acknowledged that it was unconstitutional. But, neither party seemed to have much of a problem with that.

Under his watch, record government spending has become the ‘norm, yet, he has never vetoed a single bill he was presented with. Now, now, he’s talking about line-item vetoes. To little, too late, dude. Should I complain about that situation when the Democrats want to nationalize all sorts of cradle-to-grave entitlements?

Is Bush doing a great job? Not at all. Is it necessary for me to pile on with every bed-wetter this side of Height-Asbury carrying on like mutated hyenas with their assholes on fire? Methinks not.

The usual gripes causing the hyena types to go apoplectic crack me up on most days:

1. An unpopular war
2. High energy prices
3. Hurricane Katrina
4. The Patriot Act.
5. Port Security

Anyone purported to be sporting a half-brain knows full well that Iraq had plenty of WMD, the question us, where the hell did they hide them? When the director of the CIA calls the issue a “slam dunk,” I fail to see how Bush somehow got it all wrong. In addition, Saddam’s connections to and assistance to various and sundry terror groups has been well-documented, but the folks perpetually venting on the left seem to be very, very selective whereas allowable facts are concerned.

High energy prices? Even a precursory Google search would lead even a barely honest leftie to admit that as far as crude oil prices are concerned, the times and the market they are a changing. When demand equals supply, the prices are going to rise and rise and rise until some dramatic change occurs. Could George Bush affect a dramatic change while his political opponents freak out at the mere mention of a single new oil well, or a single new refinery being erected on American soil? Alternative energies? Right! We live in a county where the residents are fighting against evil Big Wind Power companies.

Katrina, the worst national disaster in a century? What a total farce that political hatchet job was. First the press crucified FEMA chief Mike Brown to make Bush seem guilty by direct association. Then, Brown does the talk show circuit pointing the finger of blame higher up the ladder, and that same press loves him. Cut me a break. If the govmint tells you to evacuate, but you choose to stay behind and loot the local dollar stores, you completely deserve what might happen next. Katrina was a joke. New Orleans and it’s bumbling fool of a mayor are a joke. And Louisiana’s inept governor is a joke. But…there were serious political points to be scored in advance of the ‘06 midterm elections.

Then there’s the Patriot Act. What a bunch of sissified bullspit I’ve heard regarding this act. Who’s kidding who? If Kerry or Gore ordered it, it’d be hunky dory in the eyes of the oft-outraged Halliburton haters. Clinton did it. Reagan did it. Carter did it. Even Nixon did it. But Bush is an evil incarnate denying us our God-given rights when he does it. The Waco, Texas human barbecue was acceptable to the lefties. The needless FBI slaughter at Ruby Ridge was copasetic. The Oklahoma City bombing rush to judgment based on half the readily-available facts was okay. But a phone call to Afghanistan being monitored is too much to bare and proof of Bush’s budding police state? There’s more very, very selective fact checking going on with this non-issue.

Port security. I said I’d err on the side of caution. But, the bed-wetters keep repeating this tired line about how only 5% of the containers coming into our ports are inspected. Again, do a simple Google search. To have to inspect the totality of the containers coming into our ports would put the brakes to the entire global system of free trade. If consumers head on out to K-Mart only to learn that the imported bunk beds featured in the latest glossy flyer are stuck offshore for a week or two, they’ll be whining to their bloated congressman about that. We’re Americans and we’re spoiled. Admit it. If given a choice between the two, port security would take a backseat to rampant consumerism.

Whatever. I’ll stop there. One of the things the Bush-haters so often stoop to when spraying their regurgitated phlegm is to suggest that the complex is not complex. No, the complex is really simple. Ask Hillary. She obviously knows everything since she gets away with playing both sides of every issue without being challenged by the press. Yet, when Hurricane Katrina came along and the evacuation orders went out, then those same screaming political banshees made something extremely simple sound complex. When the buck stops at Bush’s desk, run the fu>k away was just too hard to follow.

Who knew the “stolen” election of ‘00 and the “stolen” election ‘04 could cause so much long-lasting, deep-seated trauma and so much unconscious tension resulting in unchecked hysteria coming from approximately fifty percent of the more uppity of the populace? You people need some therapy, or some psychotropic drugs, or a loaded handgun pressed against your tonsils. Get over it already!

Meanwhile, Georgie Boy Bush got what he wanted all along. Namely, two conservative judges appointed to the Supreme Court. And he might even get a third appointed before you all figure out that no matter how badly you continue to savage him, he’s not running for reelection, and your worst fears have come true. You might win back the House or the Senate, but you’ve lost control of the Supreme Court. And the repercussions of that loss are likely to be felt for decades to come.

You can continue to try to rip his bloodied gonads off if you must, but where it mattered most to you, he kicked your asses. Roll that up and smoke it.

Hey, you asked.

Dude, if I invested my capital in a struggling downtown only to be reduced to removing spray paint from my investment, I’d be rolling some quarters and making with my very best Charles Bronson impersonation after dark. If some total slacker of a kid thinks it’s somehow amusing to my damage my place of business, I’m thinking all bets should be off when no one is looking.

Those brazen kids would likely piss themselves silly if they were ever to be confronted by an outraged businessman flying off the handle. Trust me, I’ve dealt with many just like them during my restaurant management years, and no one, nobody ever accused me of being diplomatic after being openly and wantonly provoked. There is definitely something to be said for putting the fear of God in the idiots running loose among us.

Being adults and suchlike, society demands that we make nice like on most days and, quite frankly, that sucks on most days. They say civility is the lubricant of society, but it’s got to work both ways for this societal shebang to work.

As I have previously stated, we can’t outlaw piss-poor parenting. But with that said, in lieu of responsible parenting, we should be allowed to roll a few unneeded quarters and bust a few unneeded heads.

Hmmm. Try throwing that proposed legislation past city council.

Lemme know how it goes.

Our fire department is spread too thin right about now. They are being assisted by Kingston, Wilkes-Barre Township and Hanover. The unthinkable finally happened: Two structure fires raging away at the same time. That ought to get the activists coming out of the woodwork again.

Oh joy.

Later