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I haven't forgotten: What a beautiful fall morning it was Driving into work and hearing that a plane had hit the Trade Center Watching on TV at work as the second plane hit. Calling friends and family, and rushing home. Watching the smoke plumes from a hill in NJ On TV, watching people waving out windows in the upper floors for help Watching people dive out the building choosing a quick death rather than die in the fire. Todd Beamer's "Let's Roll" that saved untold lives. Losing a good friend who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, who liked nothing more than...

No text, just click on the map for your area. Unhealthy air quality in much of Pennsylvania.

Federal Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair has said images of wildfires burning across Canada are some of the most severe ever witnessed in the country and the forecast for the next few months indicates the potential for continued higher-than-normal fire activity. The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre says there are 415 fires currently burning. About 2,285 fires have burned 37,000 square kilometres so far this year Here's a look at the current wildfire situation as of Tuesday afternoon: NOVA SCOTIA There are five active wildfires. The province has recorded 212 so far this year, about double the number in an...

I just watched this on Amazon Prime. Thought it was very well done. P.S. - I searched and did not find a thread on this.

OK, call me paranoid. Local charity was having a “penny war” fund raiser, so I decided to go through the change jar (an old 5 gallon water jug). Parsing out all the bottle caps, shiny stones, etc. that got thrown in. I put the quarters aside. Then started going through the nickels, dimes, & pennies. Growing up as a kid, we had coin collections, so with time on my hands decided to sift through them for wheat pennies, silver, etc. To my wonderment, I found very few coins from the 70s and 80s. Even the 90s were sparse. I understand...

Noir movie by Fritz Lang & Berthold Brecht (an avowed commie, but the enemy of my enemy and all that) about the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia and the underground resistance.

Questions arose Monday about which government agency organized charter flights filled with minors that landed at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport four times this month. Jim Gallagher, president of Aviation Technologies Inc., the airport’s fixed-base operator, said Sunday the flights were listed as “ICE flights” by private charter companies. “ICE” stands for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. However, ICE spokeswoman Mary Houtmann said Monday the agency did not organize flights that landed at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Dec. 11, 17 and 25. “These are not our flights,” Houtmann wrote in an email. The flights might have been organized by the Department of...

Over the summer, picked out an old sci-fi anthology I had on the shelf. The short story is reproduced at the link. A recommended read. My synopsis (no spoilers): In the future, a good citizen of the Empire takes up the cause against a weapons shop that appears in his quiet village.

The crisis in Afghanistan will resonate in Pennsylvania in the days and weeks ahead, as families fleeing the Taliban-led government will take refuge in resettlement areas here. In Pittsburgh, Jewish Family and Community Services (JFCS) has begun to resettle one family and is preparing for two more families that recently evacuated Afghanistan, said Ivonne Smith-Tapia, director of refugee and immigrant services for the Squirrel Hill-based JFCS. Thousands are evacuating the country following the withdrawal of American troops there, the subsequent collapse of the government and the Taliban takeover. In southcentral Pennsylvania, Church World Service Lancaster has sent four employees to...

HARRISBURG, PA - Wildlife health experts from the Wildlife Futures Program (WFP) at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine (Penn Vet) and officials from the Pennsylvania Game Commission are investigating more than 70 general public reports of songbirds that are sick or dying due to an emerging health condition that is presently unknown. As of July 1, 2021, reports from the public chronicle both adult and young birds exhibiting signs of the condition. The most common clinical symptoms include discharge and/or crusting around the eyes, eye lesions, and/or neurologic signs such as falling over or head tremors. Affected...

Recently, I was approached by members of the Coalition of Concerned Legal Professionals, who in addition to their verbal pitch, gave me one of their flyers. An objective stated in their flyer was to provide legal help to those who could not afford lawyers. They could have added the professions of doctors and dentists as not being affordable as well. Instead of focusing on why people can’t afford the services of professionals, the emphasis was on providing free or low-cost services to those in need. We are a nation that increasingly focuses on effects rather than on causes. Consequently, we...

For millennia, China has taught its citizens to embrace individual sacrifice for the greater good. Writer Huang Hung explains how this mindset allows the country to preserve safety during a crisis. (Video at link)

They put the guns in Guns and Roses. The Azerbaijan military has released a bizarre heavy metal music video touting their war weapons and featuring lot of explosions amid a violent dispute with its neighbor Armenia. The guitar-shredding propaganda tune “Atəş”— or “Fire” — was performed by a group of local heavy metal rockers dressed in combat uniforms, according to footage uploaded to the country’s military Youtube channel.

More than two dozen people who used prepaid debit cards to steal from ATMs at banks around New Jersey have been arrested, according to three law enforcement sources. The sources told NJ Advance Media this is a multi-jurisdictional investigation in several New Jersey counties and in New York. The scam appears to be exploiting a glitch in Santander ATMs where the people were able to continue to withdraw amounts using prepaid debit cards, two sources said.

The New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies will not play their Monday night game as scheduled, according to The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal. The game at Citizens Bank Park has been postponed. The game's status had been an open question since Monday morning, when the Miami Marlins were confirmed to have a COVID-19 outbreak on their roster.

Those pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters are far more precious due to a national coin shortage brought on by the coronavirus and resulting shut down. As a result, the Giant supermarkets chain is the newest member of a growing list of retailers limiting cash transactions and/or demanding exact change. “Due to the national coin shortage, select Giant registers can only accept credit, debit, and electronic payments at this time,” company spokesman Christopher Brand said in response to PennLive questions about coin shortages on Friday. As the New York Post reports, Lowe’s home improvement stores have posted signs urging shoppers to...

We previously discussed the double-talk from the administration of Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf on the issue of masks. Are they required or not? Getting a straight answer from anyone with any sort of authority – either the Governor himself or Health Secretary Rachel Levine – is basically impossible. Instead of giving a simple yes or no answer, anyone asking usually gets a lecture on the importance of masks. That’s the importance of masks, according to them, of course. You can do a simple internet search on whether cloth face masks are effective at preventing anything and you’ll get conflicting results....

I could not fact check this, so just putting it out there. This feed reporting D.C. with blocked cell phones, Instagram, etc., traffic cams blank or with old footage, etc.

...snip... Among the other protests planned in New Jersey: A protest in Trenton, “Justice for George Floyd,” is planned from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday, according to PlanetPrinceton.com. Demonstrators in Atlantic City are meeting at the Public Safety Building on Atlantic Avenue at 1 p.m. on Sunday. There will be a march in Long Branch on Sunday at beginning 1:30 starting at Pier Village by the ice-skating rink. In Burlington County, a vigil is planned for 7 p.m. Sunday on Walnut Street in Bordentown. Also Monday, a group calling itself “Asbury Park Justice for George Floyd” is hosting...

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf will announce the first group of counties expected to move into the yellow phase of coronavirus mitigation Friday afternoon, his office confirmed. A press release from Wolf's office said he and Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine will provide an update on coronavirus in the state at 2 p.m.