Deep Frying Turkey Dangers

Planning on deep frying your turkey this Thanksgiving?

BE CAREFUL!

Video Courtesy "Underwriters Laboratories"

More Info @ UL



Here's another humorous cautionary tale from
"State Farm Insurance" featuring William Shatner

Buy Local For Thanksgiving

DISCLAIMER: I have not nor will I receive compensation of any kind for the following. My sole purpose in posting the following information is to encourage people to support local businesses.

More Info @ Patch: "Talking Turkey"- Jaindl Farms
.. and here at Jaindl.com

If you'd prefer otherwise, how about Koch's Turkey Farm near Tamaqua?

Both of them feed their birds a vegetarian diet fortified with vitamins and minerals. The feed mill for both of them are located right on their farms from locally grown corn and roasted soybeans.

Both of their turkeys are never fed antibiotics or growth promotants at any time and have access to outdoor areas.

The Koch's are certified that they follow humane farm animal practices They have over 50 turkey products. They can purchased at either their farm location or at "Whole Foods".

Whichever one you decide on..

158 More "Buy Local" Businesses

Over-The-Top Trick or Treating

At the risk of sounding like a cranky old man.. Friday night was trick or treat night in Allentown.

Every trick or treat night here in the Westend of Allentown we get inundated with trick or treaters. I have no problem with the Halloween handouts. What I do have a problem is the huge numbers of them. There are a total of 4 kids who live in our half block on both sides of the street. So let's say there's as many as 15 more or so kids living to either side of our half block.

How then do you account for all these kids?

Video was taken from one of my surveillance cameras while we were away.

We go to our own kids houses each year for the last five to hand out our treats. One lives in Whitehall Township. The other in Coplay where both their neighborhoods have 10x's as many kids and yet 1/5th the number of trick or treaters. You may ask what accounts for this number of kids and why do we leave?

Well we used to burn through 15 bags of candy in the first hour alone even though we only handed one piece out to each. That's over the top. I've watched SUV's and/or vans pull up and unload 5 or 10 kids. They'd hit the houses, then pile back in the vans and go down to the next block. Then the next.

It's quite obvious downtown parents set about to go hit up the richie's in the Westend. I certainly can't blame parents for wanting to come out here where's it's safer. BUT on the other hand, we can't go through 12 lbs of candy in one hour either. It's taking advantage.

Blame it on the parents, I suppose, but I AM NOT WEALTHY. I AM ON Social Security and so are about 5 of my neighbors. If you will note in the video the guy handing candy out across the street on his front porch ran out about 45 minutes into this (around 6:45 PM).

So no hard feelings, but this is the choice we made for ourselves. It's a shame for the kids who actually do live in our neighborhood. But it does speak to the kind of attitude that seems to pervade in the culture of Allentown, does it not?

Bolshoi Theater Back In Business

One of the grandest gem of all the theaters in all the world is back in business.

The Boshoi Theatre in Moscow.

The condition of the theatre back on July 2, 2005 was deplorable. It was closed since that time in order to make over 700 million dollars in renovations.


One of the most beautiful of all theaters has been completely restored over the last 6 years and last night (Oct. 28, 2011) had it's grand gala reopening.

The theatre's first performance was on January 18th in 1825. The restored theatre removed a couple of hundred seats in order to expand it's huge stage. All the lightening and audio systems installed are now the latest state of the art.

The creme de crem from all over the world were fortunate enough to bear witness last night for the first gala performance after the completion of the renovations.

Behind The Scenes

* Tickets last night went for as high as $67,000!
a * Actual current prices now range from 2000-4000 Russian Rubles
($67-$135 American Dollars)Details Of The Reconstruction
Schedule Of Future Performances
Homepage for The Bolsho Theatre

On This Day: 1st Debate On TV

On this day, September 26, 1960, the first Presidential debate was televised.

According to the 'Commission On Presidential Debates', it was held on all three major TV networks. Over 66 million people watched Richard M. Nixon face off with John F. Kennedy.

Here is the transcript.

Videos of the 1960 debate:Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4Many of the issues in 1960's debates are similar to those in the current debates.* Nixon criticized Kennedy's lack of experience.
Today's, focus on Obama's lack of experience.

* Kennedy's defense of governmental controls (regulations). This issue was speaking towards farmers income and food surpluses diluting commodity market prices. Nixon favored farm subsidies. Kennedy, "intervention" / "effective production controls".

* National debt. Kennedy did not "advocate' debt reduction for 1961, 1962 or 1963. He advocated for Medicare under Social Security. Also further federal aide to education in an attempt to relieve the burden on local property taxpayers.

Nixon responded saying that because of the programs Kennedy's advocating that of course debt reduction would not be possible. As far as creating a Medicare program and taxing it out separately under a Social Security tax, Nixon said it's still tax increase.

On education Nixon stated he agreed with Kennedy and favored federal education money for construction. But made it clear it should not go towards teacher's salaries. The same as Kennedy's position was at the time.I could go on with a very long list of other similarities.

The point is, from the very first televised debate right up until last week's, most of the political differences have changed little between either party.

And that's how the televised debates have now
become a regular part of our election process.

The last couple of GOP debates attracted less then 6 million viewers

On This Day (Sept. 13)

Wired.com reports that on this day, September 13th in 1899 was the first time a pedestrian was killed by an auto in the United States. It happened at West 74th Street and Central Park West in New York city.

Since obviously there were no specific laws written, because it never happened before, what charges do you think were applied to the cab driver who hit him?

More Importantly, in 1814...