Ludlow in your face

To fight the forces of loom and doom, I Scholared last month around Ludlow and Bromley, an event that yielded 27 biptacular photos.

Peep 'em now before they peep you...

http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/ludbro25.html

Have no fear, the April ish is here!

An ish! Wow!

The April edition of The Last Word is pub, and it's as important as all the rest! This issue talks about a college town's poorly attended events, people vandalizing a luxury apartment complex, Donald Trump's Sesame Street obsession, tons of people acting up at school, highway surveillance cams, the New York Post's crusade to replace gum with wood, a school donation box getting thrown at a ceiling fan, flatulence of professional golfers and TV sports reporters, and more!

So point your pooper here...

https://www.scribd.com/document/844606017/The-Last-Word-4-2025

If that doesn't work, bip on over here...

http://bunkerblast.info/lastword/lw2504.pdf

Contract with America: still fascist after all these years

The substance of new congressional bills is usually bad enough, but sometimes they can only pass because of past congressional wrongdoing.

There's a regulation by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that rightly limits overdraft fees to $5, but Congress is taking an axe to that. Yet the Senate bill to overturn this commonsense rule passed by only 52-48.

What about the filibuster? Whenever any good bills come along, we have to listen to how it needs 60 senators to pass. Why is this bill different?

It turns out that it doesn't need 60, because it was approved under the Congressional Review Act, a stale relic that's part of the Contract with America Advancement Act of 1996.

We're still dealing with the Contract with America? Congress did lots of Nazi things under the Contract with America, but we shouldn't still have to put up with any of them. Yet President Clinton actually signed the 1996 bill into law, so we can't count on the Democrats to clean up the rubble.

We're ruled by unconstitutional laws passed by a Congress that hired an open apologist for the Nazis and the KKK as its House historian. It's just like how we're still affected by Reagan, who supported Francisco Franco and South Africa's apartheid dictatorship.

The Contract with America was America's Nazi moment. But for it, there might not have been so many Nazi moments since.

It's the Cincinnati Reds playin' basteball again!

Today I went to the parade for baseball's opening day!

It's recovering a little bit from the malaise of the past few years. People beered, and the airy vapors of a certain smokable herb wafted through the air!

Also, I saw 3 - count 'em, 3 - people who were in such a festive mood that they bubbled.

Elmwood Place in your face

It's time for yet another batch of Roads Scholaring photos!

This one is from last month when I went to Elmwood Place and the north side of Cincinnati. This event yielded 49 photos. It would have been funnier if it was 48, so I could do a Sesame Street voice, but it's 49.

So point your pooper here...

http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/cinnorth25.html

What a beautiful world this will be if we had more celebrity look-alikes

Today at the friendly neighborhood Krogie-Wogie, I saw some guy who strongly resembled Donald Fagen of Steely Dan.

Facebook connived with China to censor content

Here's a story that the BBC recently reported. We have to rely on foreign media for this story. The American media won't report it, because the American media is so closely tied to the Chinese government.

A former senior exec for Facebook said the social media behemoth worked "hand in glove" with China's ruling regime to censor content. Mark Zuckerberg himself considered agreeing to hide posts until Chinese authorities could approve them. This took place in the mid-'10s.

Facepoo also considered allowing Chinese officials access to users' personal data.

A complaint with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission even alleges that Zuckerberg and other Facebook execs made "misleading statements" to respond to congressional inquiries about collusion with China.

Facebook's parent company Meta then accused the whistleblower who exposed all of this of being paid off by "anti-Facebook activists." But Facebook is so bad now that pretty much everyone who has ever used it has become an "anti-Facebook activist." Maybe Facebook needs to stop censoring posts, fix its broken notifications, and start respecting the privacy of those who don't want their friends list revealed.

Censoring content at the behest of China is like when Yahoo ratted out journalists to the Chinese government - which caused the journalists to be imprisoned for years.

America also has a record of suppressing dissent lately. Cities try to close theaters if they show movies they don't like (in addition to illegally searching bags of people on the beach), and government officials have coerced social networking sites into removing content they disagree with. The U.S. has lost a lot of credibility in its claims to be a bastion of personal liberty. But in addition to ending its online censorship program, the government should also pass a law promising stiff punishment for American websites that collude with the Chinese government.

Scholaring in The Big D again!

Last month, I went Roads Scholaring in Dayton, Kentucky. The main purpose was to investigate an attempt to illegally barricade a public right-of-way, but there was some other assorted biperoony.

So point your pooper here...

http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/dayky25.html

Louisville weakens housing regulations because Tea Party legislators told it to

Quick! Call the Unnatural History Museum! The Tea Party is still around!

Most cities have regulations on residential properties that are designed to protect residents. Louisville has regulations to fight lead hazards and to maintain a list of residential property owners. This isn't to pick on owners, but to help make sure they maintain safe properties. Everybody has to follow rules. I do too. That's part of living in a society.

But now city council - led by Democrats - has gutted most of the city's regulations, not because of any new laws, but because of a bill that hasn't even become law. A bill in the Kentucky legislature called H.B. 173 was introduced a couple months ago by a Tea Party Republican but has been languishing in committee ever since because it's so unpopular. This bill would ban local governments from creating such regulations.

Gee, what a big lesson in courage by Louisville Democrats!

The bill itself defies the principles of local control, but the main point here is that the so-called Democrats who run our cities cave at the snap of a finger. That's because they actually support the Republican bill and just won't admit it and care only about raising money off the issue. The Democrats are in power in Louisville and still do what the Republicans want. They can't say they don't have the power to do any better.

Someone on Twitter posted today, "The same Democrats who spent their Obama & Biden admin majorities crying about all the reasons why a majority isn't enough to pass legislation people want now want us to believe they're powerless to stop Republicans because they're out of power." But the Democrats still have a majority in Louisville and are using it to do what Tea Party Republicans want.

Both major parties use executive orders to enact bad ideas at the stroke of a pen, yet they always complain that they don't have the power to enact good ideas. The reality is that they don't want to enact good ideas. The parties have different priorities, but have become practically identical in their policy stances.

Have no fear, the March ish is here!

March into March with a brand new 16-page ish of The Last Word!

This edition discusses NBC's disinformation, our fight to reopen a local street, a school getting mad because I worked at the library, the FCC's UHF-only cities, making art out of broken glass, splicing a Pink Panther cartoon into an "educational" film, and more!

So point your pooper here...

https://www.scribd.com/document/833529373/The-Last-Word-3-2025

If that doesn't work, gallivant over here...

http://bunkerblast.info/lastword/lw2503.pdf

Newspaper ordered to remove critical editorial

We've just crossed yet another terrifying threshold.

Recently, the Clarksdale Press Register in Mississippi published an editorial that dared to criticize Clarksdale city government. The newspaper charged that the city hadn't properly notified the public about a meeting regarding a resolution sent to the state legislature.

The city sued the paper over this editorial. Even more unbelievably, a judge sided with city officials and ordered the paper to remove the editorial from its website.

You can't make this stuff up.

We live in an era of the most extreme censorship we've seen in our lifetimes. School boards yank books off the shelves. Some books aren't even allowed to be published at all anymore, even though they were considered inoffensive in my youth. Federal officials have been caught coercing social media sites into deleting true information - and the Supreme Court let them do it. But the latest incident is a whole new frontier for censorship.

The plague of democratic backsliding is very real.

This is exactly like if the Campbell County Schools sued me for all the true statements I've made. I know they wanted to, but their lawyer probably laughed in their face. But this case sets a bad precedent that could open the floodgates and silence all but the biggest news outlets.

Scholaring is back! Circus Vargas, Circus Vargas!

A couple weeks ago, I went Roads Scholaring for the first time since my recent heart surgery. This time, I went to the west side of Cincinnati and explored some small roads I hadn't covered yet.

This outing yielded 18 photos. So point your pooper here...

http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/cinwest25.html

Have no fear, the February ish is here!

The month of Febrewery is getting under way!

That means it's time for the February edition of The Last Word! This ish talks about how I had to have heart surgery because of our totalitarian rulers, a public alley in Cincinnati being limited to wealthy residents, movers stealing items, Uncle Al chewing bubble gum, and more!

So slog on over here...

https://www.scribd.com/document/822434754/The-Last-Word-2-2025

If that doesn't work, float on over here...

http://bunkerblast.info/lastword/lw2502.pdf

I had a dream where someone farted at a bookstore

I had another funny dream last night.

In this dream, I visited some bookstore and buyed a book about Usenet from 1990. The store had an area in the back where people could sit down and have coffee, juice, and bagels. When I was back there, someone farted really loud. A bunch of very studious college students who were sitting at the tables burst out laughing.

Then, when the laughter was dying down, some older guy went, "It wasn't me," just like in the song.

What the critics are saying!

Say what you want about Twitter. Well, as long as it's bad.

I know the censorship isn't as bad as it was, but it's not completely gone. And the embedded timelines are now either broken completely or they don't show posts in order, which means some timelines start with posts from 10 years ago. I got a Bluesky account to use as my timeline instead, even though censorship on Bluesky is supposedly worse.

But there is something on Twitter I noticed that actually works. I accidentally clicked on some symbol on my Twitter page, and it actually came up with some coherent descriptions of my page, as if Twitter properly catalogs accounts somehow.

One of the descriptions reads...

"A vintage music enthusiast with a sharp political edge, lamenting the repackaging of political ideologies and celebrating the lost hits of yesteryears."

Another says...

"Bandit73's been skewering politicians left and right, from calling out Phil Gramm's gaffes to dubbing Andy Beshear 'Ant Farm Andy.'"

I don't quite agree with that though, because neither Phil nor Andy is on the left.

Biddle gibzz!

It's official: entire Senate more right-wing than the Tea Party

Yesterday, the Senate actually voted 99-0 to confirm Marco Rubio as Secretary of State.

You may remember that Rubio was a Tea Party favorite when he was first "elected" - but Tea Party members later abandoned him because he was too right-wing even for them. That was after he praised the Patriot Act and the NSA's illegal phone spying.

The most right-wing Senate in the country's history - by far.

Congress and Bush stole from Social Security

Presidents change, but their underwear never does.

Here's something we should talk about, even if we know it won't be remedied. Pundits say Social Security is facing a shortfall that will force more benefit cuts in the 2030s. Whether this is actually true remains to be seen, but it could just be right-wing propaganda to force cuts before then.

Or the shortfall could be real. If so, it's because of the actions of those who want cuts now. The fact is that Congress and the George W. Bush regime stole from Social Security to pay for their pet projects such as illegal wars. They did not borrow. They stole.

It is folly to say Social Security can't borrow to cover the shortfall because government agencies can't spend more than they have - though talking heads have said it. Have they been paying attention for the past 200 years? The government has been in debt for most of the time since it was founded. The Pentagon is always spending more than it has.

It's like having a Balanced Budget Amendment on steroids. It's as if there's an amendment that applies to everything except war spending. There actually was a version of the Balanced Budget Amendment that was proposed by some right-wing loudmouths that was like this.

Social Security costs money, but it doesn't lose money. Nobody dares to accuse the Pentagon of losing money, even though it has failed audits over and over again.

All of this is after steep Social Security cuts have already taken place. What the media calls the "third rail" of politics is always the first thing cut. Always. The retirement age was raised, and nobody has lifted a finger to restore it. It's also much harder to qualify for disability than it used to be. This is borne out by statistics that show that far fewer people collect Social Security disability benefits than they once did.

While anachronistic jizzumjaws like Phil Gramm continue to have op-eds published that laughably claim Social Security and Medicaid are forms of welfare, and that they should be cut further, the facts are swept under the rug.

This is why our brand of hard-hitting investigative journalism must be kept alive.

A Kroger elderbubbling

Today at Kroger at County Square in Cold Spring, some old woman bubbled.

Grandpa Walton goes Krogering

Today at Kroger (which was out of milk as usual), I saw a Will Geer look-alike.

Have no fear, the January ish is here!

As The Last Word slogs into 32 years of existence, we've put out our January issue!

This edition discusses a computer desk that kept caving in, austerity fascism on campuses, more illegal attempts to close public rights-of-way, the failure of "no pass, no drive", a person chewing bubble gum at the McKinley National Memorial, and more!

So beep your bipper here...

https://www.scribd.com/document/809672912/The-Last-Word-1-2025

If that doesn't work, slink on over here...

http://bunkerblast.info/lastword/lw2501.pdf

Listen to the roo gas cutting all around...Don't you love the sound of the farts coming down...

Today at Kroger, yet another LAP trouser sneeze was detected. This time, it originated from near the end of the pickle aisle.

Biden commutes kids-for-cash judge's sentence

This event establishes Joe Biden as perhaps one of the 5 worst Presidents in the country's history.

Five years ago, just before he left office after being voted out, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin - a sociopath - pardoned several notorious criminals. Now Biden is doing almost the same thing.

Biden has now commuted the sentence of former Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, Judge Michael T. Conahan. Along with former Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., Conahan was convicted in a scheme in which the judges sent juvenile defendants to a for-profit prison in exchange for over $2 million in kickbacks. Over 2,500 children had their lives destroyed by this scheme, and some committed suicide.

Conahan was sentenced to 17½ years in prison for racketeering. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Conahan applied for "compassionate release" because he was afraid of catching COVID in prison. He had locked down 2,500 kids, and everyone else was locked down during COVID, yet he demanded early release. He was allowed to continue his sentence at home in Florida, but that was before Biden commuted his sentence.

It gets worse. The Biden regime's excuse for commuting Conahan's punishment was that he was sentenced under "outdated laws."

Huh??? Biden thinks laws against a kickback scheme that resulted in the deaths of many children are "outdated"??? I know our society has really gone backwards in its attitudes toward child abuse over the past few years, but I didn't think it was that bad. We've essentially witnessed the de facto legalization of child abuse before our very eyes. In brief, fighting child abuse is "outdated", according to the President.

This is such an obvious abuse of power by the President that we almost wish we didn't look at our news feed today.

When the kickbacks involving Ciavarella and Conahan were first discovered, a class action suit was filed against the judges by hundreds of families. Amy Goodman wrote that the actions of the judges constituted "an unprecedented case of judicial corruption." Sadly, we weren't too surprised by this scandal, after seeing firsthand how abusive confinement facilities boast about having judges on their side. The bigger surprise is Biden mollycoddling the corrupt judges.

Cut a fart at Kroger

Today at the friendly neighborhood Krogie-Wogie, someone cracked an LAP bunker blast in the pharmacy section of the store.

Minnesota! Iowa! Wisconsin! It's a great place to start!

Back in the ba-de-ya month of September, I went on a fact-finding mission to Minnesota and nearby states. The event yielded 237 photos of a Roads Scholaring interest.

Because Flickr recently disabled remote linking, I'm revamping my road photo site so the pages on my personal site link to Flickr albums where my photos are all captioned the crazy cool people way. So read 'em and bip...

http://bunkerblast.info/roadpics/mn24a.html

Have no fear, the December ish is here!

It's another December to dismember at The Last Word!

The December issue of The Last Word is published! This ish talks about the destruction of an Atari BASIC Reference Manual, political moguls and commentators who sold us out, a kid reading a newspaper in class, a blanket ruined by bubble gum, hot chocolate getting spilled, the frustrated groan in a N'ice commercial, Donna Shalala starting a Twitter argument, and more!

So point your pooper here...

https://www.scribd.com/document/798577960/The-Last-Word-12-2024

If that doesn't work, gallivant on over here...

http://bunkerblast.info/lastword/lw2412.pdf

House Fascism Caucus blocks Social Security bill

The Tea Party lives, and it's called the House Freedom Caucus.

The misnamed House Freedom Caucus is a handful of federal legislators who are 10 years behind the rest of the nation and still ree about government spending while glossing over the wastefulness in programs they support. Yesterday, during the election, they were commiserating in D.C. - probably stewing that Nikki Haley and Paul Ryan weren't on the ballot. But mostly they were there to try to kill a popular Social Security bill.

This bill has overwhelming public support, and was sponsored by a huge bipartisan coalition in Congress. It would allow some public workers to finally receive Social Security benefits. As it is now, many workers such as public school teachers and firefighters can't get benefits, because the far right had earlier screeched that this would be a tax on states. The bill would remedy much of this.

The House Fascism Caucus used some strange procedural trick to block the bill. They whined that Social Security was losing money.

Government programs like Social Security do not lose money. They cost money, but they don't lose money. Social Security isn't supposed to be a for-profit business. Nobody ever dares to say the Pentagon loses money, or that bailouts for big banks lose money.

The bill was blocked even after it seemed like it was headed for quick passage.

Fortunately, Rep. Bob Good (R-Virginia), a self-described "biblical conservative" who organized the effort to kill the bill, had already lost the Republican primary and won't be back in January.

The bill might pass anyway. Congress could put forth a brand new bill that's identical to the blocked bill and vote on it.

The Tea Party is as discredited as the Democrats who sought support from Dick Cheney.

Have no fear, the November ish is here!

The November issue of The Last Word is pub-a-rooooooooooooooo!

This ish talks about my BASIC gerrymandering software, a substitute teacher's trash talk, getting worthless trinkets as a reward in 4th grade, a kid eating a candy bar in math class, an idiot who used a drone to harass homeless people, and more!

So point your pooper here...

https://www.scribd.com/document/785665158/The-Last-Word-11-2024

If that doesn't work, stink on over here...

http://bunkerblast.info/lastword/lw2411.pdf

Since when can corporations introduce bills?

We've crossed yet another threshold of fascism! Imagine that!

There's a right-wing effort afoot in Kentucky to limit cities from regulating short-term rentals like those offered through Airbnb. Some cities wisely prohibit owners from using properties they don't live in as short-term rentals - as it artificially drives up housing costs. Short-term rentals not only promote gentrification but also constipate neighborhoods by effectively turning them into commercial districts. Surrounding residents end up being forced to have their shit and eat it too. These existing neighbors end up paying more for a lower quality of life.

But it's not even known what legislators are behind the latest effort. Apparently, it isn't legislators at all. A new piece from WKYT-TV in Lexington says of Airbnb, "The short-term rental company introduced two bills."

Since when can corporations introduce bills? I don't remember ever voting for a corporation. At least not on purpose. I did vote a straight Democratic ticket when I was 18, but I didn't know yet that the party was actually a Fortune 500 company.

Meanwhile, in Berea, Airbnb was recently sued because only one of the 16 short-term rentals in the city was paying taxes like everyone else.

Some local cities will vote on medical cannabis

Starting on January 1, medical cannabis will finally be legal in Kentucky - after being hamstrung for decades. Each municipality will be responsible for zoning regulations governing cannabis-related businesses.

But counties in our area have decided to just ignore the new laws and ban medical cannabis anyway.

Yet some local cities are taking exception to that. A few have decided to remain dry, a few have opted to legalize medical cannabis despite what the county says, and a few have decided to bring the issue to the people by letting voters vote on it.

Bellevue is among the cities that will have a referendum on November 5 on whether to approve medical cannabis. One article says that other local cities where voters will vote on it include Alexandria, Crestview Hills, Elsmere, Florence, Independence, and Southgate.

It's about damn time our cities and the rest of our state legalize - which seems to have happened everywhere else by 2000.

3CDC costs local economy zillions with convention center closure

I've submitted a beautiful post to the "Greater Cincinnati Politics" group on Facebook that sums up the greed and incompetence of 3CDC, the unelected secret society that stage-manages policies governing much of Cincinnati. I don't expect the moderators to approve my post, because I'm making so much sense, but I'm reprinting it below.

(Begin post.)

Local political leaders should be doing something about 3CDC, which is taking 18 months to remodel the convention center - forcing the convention center to close all the while. This has forced the Cavalcade of Customs, the Cincinnati Auto Expo, and other events to cancel completely. This is costing the city and the whole area zillions of dollars in revenues from visitors to these events.

Who elected 3CDC? I don't know anyone who voted for them. 3CDC just decides to insert itself into every matter of public interest. They're as bad as the lockdown neocons at every level of government.

I'm a man of the people, and we shouldn't have to tolerate 3CDC's serial misrule and totalitarianism.

(End post.)

In short, 3CDC has launched an 18-month remodeling project for the convention center. How can a project like this take that long? This has forced annual events like the Cavalcade of Customs to cancel - costing the local economy dearly.

It's bad for recreation and jobs, and it encourages other economically costly projects in the future.

This was after the city already lost almost the entire early '20s to lockdown-related cancellations. But at least the Cavalcade of Customs was never canceled then, and in fact appeared practically normal (except for the 3 or so people who wore masks). Still, the city probably teetered on the brink of bankruptcy because of all the cancellations of events both inside and outside the convention center.

I fully expect my post to be rejected. If it is approved, I fully expect to be assailed by right-wing Republicans and right-wing Democrats equally. But it needed to be said. I've been in smaller rooms with bigger people, and I won't be bullied.