I see that all of the left-leaning bloggers are besides themselves angry being that Dubya decided to commute Lewis Libby’s prison sentence. It’s funny how myopically selective some folk’s memories can be, ain’t it? Yep, those that profess to loathe the counterproductive orthodoxy that dogged partisanship is purported to be are spinning this development along strictly narrow-minded and absent-minded partisan lines.

Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution states that the president “shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.” Other than the impeachment exception, the pardon power is absolute and unreviewable; neither Congress nor the courts can overturn a president’s decision.

Sorry there my left of center blogging brethren, but party first, country second is getting old. Very, very old. You know, when Bush leaves office, you mental incontinent types aren’t going to know what to do with yourselves. Hopefully, another Republican demon straight out of the burning pits will emerge, giving all y’all conspiracy theorists someone new to despise to the point of ridiculousness. Despise? Sounds too nice. How ‘bout, someone new to hate?

George Bush ate my children. That’s what you birdbrains sound like.

I think we’re done here.

Smarten up.

I was sitting here yesterday doing what I was doing, and I didn’t even realize that the electronic background noise suddenly sounded a helluva lot like that super hero of super heroes, the Great Corbett himself.

I pressed on with the tasks at hand, but reached for the volume knob when I heard a familiar voice that I haven’t heard in many a moon. Could it be? Tim? Tim? No way, man. That’s “Kurt from Scranton,” NEPA’s certifiable moonbat extraordinaire. Once banned from WILK, he somehow managed to sneak his way onto the airwaves, right past the Great Corbett. Awesome.

And, I have to say, he certainly did not disappoint.

Oh boy, he didn’t. The dreaded Neo-cons brought down the twin towers with thermite charges, so the Bushies could launch an invasion over much of the rest of the world. Yeah, and he had proof, too. He said to Google “WTC7” and read that proof for yourself. Imagine that. One measly internet search and all of the world’s ongoing conspiracy theories are revealed. Who knew it could be this completely easy?

He was so upset, so beside himself sick, he sounded as if he was ready to burst into tears. Oh…my…God…what has George W. Bush done to us?

Getting back to all of this readily-available “proof” on the internet, I just Googled “JFK” and “Frisbee,” and guess what? This is soooo shocking. Turns out, Dick Cheney shot JFK with a sawed-off bazooka. Not twice, but once.

Oh, the far, far left. What are we going to do with these Prozac-deprived people? You can’t live with ‘em, and you can’t have ‘em declared legally insane. Whatever. Unless they happen to reside in Forty Fort, they can’t be arrested for abject stupidity. You see, even the simpletons drooling uncontrollably amongst us have rights.

WTC7? Who knew? Apparently, if it’s published on the internet, it must be true. Makes about as much sense as linking to Wickipedia, the preferred reference hub of the habitually factually inaccurate.

The Great Corbett and Kurt from Scranton together at last. Between the two of them, they couldn’t think their way out of a Super Elastic Bubble Plastic bubble.

After seeing that recent RiverFest video of mine, Kayak Dude suggested that I’m going all Green on him all of a sudden. I knew he was going to say as much. I’m not so pompous as to suggest that I can save the entire world, but I can work to save the nearby river. All politics is local. So, in some respects, I’m coming around. I’m getting all “liberal” to some degree. And with these far-left imbeciles going all berserk all the time, I’ve also come around on the abortion issue. Personally, I find abortion to be totally abhorrent. But, with what’s become of my country during the past few decades, I firmly believe the offspring of America’s Worst generation, the drug-addled hippies, should have been aborted.

See, I’m a centrist.

How about this one. Talk about your unfair, totally biased gobbledygook. This from a guy who’s been living in Northern Mexico, formerly California, for 5 years. Here’s what the great one had to say about Mayor Tom Leighton’s performance:

“Ninety percent of what he does isn’t real good, uh, ten percent is okay.”

Boy, it's really, really, really irking his fat ass that Leighton won't return his calls, isn't it? Yet another good reason to reelect him!

And now he’s denigrating this city over a frickin' fistfight? What? They don’t have fistfights in Scranton, Steve? Further proof that Nancy Kman needs to attend a seminar on recruiting and retaining good people and soon.

What starts with a J and ends with a double S?

Why, Corbett, that's what!

“Ninety percent of what he does isn’t real good, uh, ten percent is okay.”

Now, no matter what sort of political axe you’re trying to grind, is that statement even remotely fair? Is it?

Does anybody remember the $5 million muddy pit, the empty call center draining the general fund, the $10.5 million in overdue, unpaid debts, or the police force that didn’t have enough manpower to sport a wiffleball team? Does anybody remember how dispirited this city was when the Great Corbett was gleefully cavorting all about with people who ignore our laws and our sovereignty? Do we remember the rotted-out fire engines? The failing firehouses? A city that could not even manage to cut the grass on the median strips?

Ten percent is okay?

If the Great Corbett hopes to retain any shred of credibility at all, he needs to issue a very public apology and right fu>king now. Jackass!

And then we have this outright gibberish whereby he claims he wants to see the new Michael Moore movie, Sicko. Another thinly-veiled attack on Wilkes-Barre.

Okay, so the great fat ass wants to see the fat one’s latest video filth. Fine. So, he claims he called Movies 14, right here in good ole Wilkes-Barre, and could not get an answer on when the movie will be playing, or even if it will be playing there. And, for a guy who has a purely personal bone to pick with our mayor, that’s a big problem.

You see, since the kid that answered the phone at Movies 14 is not privy to the info the Great One demanded, well, then Movies 14 sucks. And since Movies 14 is associated with Wilkes-Barre, then Wilkes-Barre must suck, too. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is. The mayor will not return his repeated calls, so Wilkes-Barre sucks. The Great One will bash and trash Wilkes-Barre until Mayor Tom Leighton finally relents and admits his blatantly obvious inferiority to the Great One. And then, maybe, the Great One will admit that his own newfound home town, Scranton, has even more festering warts than Wilkes-Barre does.

Here’s the fun part of all of this.

We’ve already established that, according to the Great One, Movies 14 sucks because Sicko is not listed in the “coming attractions.” And we’ve also established that he supposedly wants to see it real bad. But, if he lives in the shadow of Cinemark, then why the trip from Scranton to Wilkes-Barre to take in a movie? Why the road trip? I’ve never driven to Scranton to see a movie, so why is he so willing to add to the climate change the effeminate easily-led are so worried about by driving many miles he needs not drive?

Well, it turns out that his anti-Movies 14 diatribe was much ado about nothing, except bashing Wilkes-Barre until Tom Leighton starts asking how high when the Great One commands him to jump. Turns out, he did not call Cinemark wanting to know when, or even if Sicko would appear there. Nope.

He referred to Cinemark as being called “Cinemax,” and had to be corrected by his broadcast engineer. Oh, and he called Montage Mountain “Moosic Mountain,” and stood corrected once again.

The point is, he had no intention at all of calling Cinemark, and he wouldn’t be able to find it if they dumped his fat behind a mere hundred yards away from it. What he wanted was yet another weak excuse to tarnish Wilkes-Barre, or anything that lies within it. Sicko isn’t on the bill in Wilkes-Barre and that’s a problem. But it likewise isn’t playing in Scranton, but that’s not a problem.

His is a sanguinary pursuit, but thoroughly tainted by his illiberality whereas his overbearing browbeating ways are concerned. They keep telling us we need to think and act as a region, but, as demonstrated by this dolt-like all-knowing one, parochialism is apparently alive and well.

Chris Doherty returns his calls, so Scranton is just fine. Tom Leighton does not return his calls, so Wilkes-Barre is bottomless pit of a place never to be worthy of even purgatory. His less than clever deceptiveness is matched only by his speciousness.

Corbett’s back! they tell us.

And as a result, Movies 14 suddenly sucks. And only because WILK’s resident sicko wants to see Sicko, a second-rate B-movie that will appear only after the truly entertaining movies finally lose their momentum. I will say this, it figures that the Great One would be so eager to see a movie that tears down yet another facet of America. Health care? Um, I have always been able to afford it, it has always there when I needed it and I have no complaints at all whereas health care in this country is concerned. Is it getting expensive? No doubt. Is it more expensive than the latest car, the latest newfangled phone, the latest 103-inch television, or the latest prohibitively expensive text messaging enhancement? Not at all. So get your fu>king priorities straightened out already.

Even when Wilkes-Barre is good, the guy with the unstated personal agenda will stretch to find the bad in it. His self-serving motives are multifarious, if not, downright sinister.

Tom Leighton ignores his bullying ways and his radio sophistry and as a direct result, Wilkes-Barre sucks.

As for the Great One, his is a moribund pursuit, a palpably inadept perpetration of his unbending self-aggrandizement upon the lot of unsuspecting, undeserving folk forever trying to separate the vitriolic wheat from the chafe.

Movies 14 sucks. That’s his latest contribution to the long-elusive cause. It’s enough to flummox even me. The guy is so in love with himself, he doesn’t even realize his usual and predictable shtick is all bollixed up to the point of approaching outright derangement.

They dumped Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly and all that I got in return was some unhinged old guy who mistakenly thinks he can still kick everybody’s ass? An earring adorned crackpot who grills tofu? A tattoo-sporting, long-haired, aging shell of a former donnybrook-prone rabble rouser hopelessly addicted to Geritol? That’s an improvement?

I don’t see it.

Yesterday I took my daughter‘s memory card out of her camera, jammed it into my ‘spensive ‘puter and downloaded all the pictures contained within. Crazy mucker, it sure took a while, considering that she had 500 pictures stored in there, spanning all of three years.

After they were firmly downloaded into this annoying gadget, I had me a blast while scrolling through what amounted to a ton of recent memories. Birthday parties, block parties, bicycle rides and plenty of pictures where people were just being weird for weirdness’ sake. I like weird. It fits me very well. I think it shows. And I’m good with that.

But when I happened upon some pictures from last year’s block party, there was Ray looking all chipper and, dare I say it, healthy. He did. He looked much better then he did when he was first diagnosed with some cardiac issues more than a year earlier. When his real problems began, I was scared and pessimistic. But, over time, he seemed to be doing much better, and at that point, it rarely occurred to me that he might not be around to pick on forever.

Despite the challenges he was facing, I was absolutely shocked to be stirred from a sound night’s sleep only to hear those three words I heard: “Mark, Ray died.”

And I’m still shocked. Stunned.

When I first laid eyes on those pictures of him looking so fit and happy but one short year ago, The Pretenders jumped right behind my eyes, as if my brain was America and The Pretenders were a Mexican rock group.

I saw a picture of you…those were the happiest days of my life.

The more I try to pretend things are proceeding quite normally, the more I am reminded that they can’t be, since such a gaping hole has been torn right through me. I miss Ray terribly, and I can’t do a damn thing about it. I’m mad, I’m equally sad and I’m tired of eulogizing practically everyone that was ever close to me.

With all of my decades-long crazy ways, and my obvious excesses, I always pictured those that have been eulogized eulogizing me after my untimely, but spectacular demise. As fate would have it, I’m like the keeper of the fleeting flame who shall grow old and look forlornly upon long-forgotten pictures. They say grief fades over time, but I’m not buying into that oft-repeated theory.

I dunno.

There’s an unseen fragility that penetrates my tough exterior, my veneer. I guess what I’m trying to say once again is that I miss my brother. I’d like to say that I’ll get over it one day, but I seriously doubt that I ever will. I can’t cry, but lately, there have been plenty of days when I wished I could.

Anyway, I snagged my daughter’s memory card. And the memories did flow forth.

True to form, I’m secretly inconsolable.

Later