Sunday, February 14, 2010

More political blogs

I've been remiss in sharing links of sites that have caught my attention.

First up is Scranton Public Policy Examiner written by my friend Steve Urbanski of Kingston. Steve seems to know just about everybody involved in local politics and gets many of them to sit down for an interview.

Pike County based Political Pike started out strong covering the PA 10th Congressional race but has slacked off latelty. Let's hope a listing on NEPA Blogs is not the kiss of death like it has been for so many others.

WILKWATCHER is another blog in a long line of now defunct efforts devoted to listening to WILK during the day and then commenting on Sue, Kevin & Nancy and Corbett. I'm a night shift worker so I never get to listen to the morning news and I'm usually on my way to work when Corbett is on so I only catch the beginning of his show. Recently I found that I can take about 4 minutes of his ranting and raving before I switch on one of the college stations. If I'm up early enough I always tune in Sue Henry.

Mike Avery is a former broadcaster, advertising exec & sales and marketing pro, who has owned and operated a small trucking company for the last 15 years. He is based in East Stroudsburg and shares his thoughts at Power of 5 USA for You

I don't know where Scappled is based but it sure has a lot of commentary about NEPA politics.
From the header
Where "Pennsyltucky" is really an insult to Kentucky.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Coo Coo 4 Coupons

I received this as a comment a while ago, but I'm just remembering it now. From occasional mentions of Weis Markets and Scranton you can tell that Coo Coo 4 Coupons is a NEPA-based blog, though the offers presented there would probably be of interest to people anywhere coupons are accepted.

http://coocoo4coupons.blogspot.com/

From the "About Me":
I am addicted to finding deals but most of all FREEBIES! I guess you could say that my addiction started when my Aunt Susan told me about her free magazine subscriptions. Ever since then i have been searching the internet for samples, freebies, legit survey companies as well as legit WOM (word of mouth) companies. Last year i did pretty well with Christmas on survey companies alone! As time goes by you learn what companies are legit and which ones are pure spam. I am here to help you with that.

Friday, February 12, 2010

The Green Athiest

From the email box:

Hello, I'm Justin Vacula from NEPA. I manage my own blog here:

Justin Vacula : The Green Atheist
www.GreenAtheist.Blogspot.com
"Follow your common sense. You cannot hide yourself behind a fairytale forever and ever. Only by revealing the whole truth can we disclose the soul of this sick bulwark forever and ever. Forever and ever." Epica - Cry For The Moon

Please sure to check it out.

Karla Porter's Blog

I have been following Karla Porter on Twitter now for at least a half of a year. As stated in her Twitter Bio, she is NEPA's go-to authority on all things human capital, career, recruiting and new media... maybe more. She is a perfect fit to our NEPA Blog community, and we are glad to add her to the mix.

Get on-board the change train and enjoy the ride” ~Karla
http://karlaporter.com/
On Twitter: @karla_porter

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Forty Fort First and My Quill Pen

Two new blogs, one by way of email, the other through a comment:

Forty Fort First
http://fortyfortfirst.com/
From the email:
"The blog provides video coverage of Forty Fort Council meetings and Work Sessions. We'll also be providing commentary regarding Forty Fort political issues as required. The site also provides a growing library of municipal documents and links to a discussion forum. "

My Quill Pen
http://myquillpen.blogspot.com/
From the introductory post, from March 3 2007:

I call this blog “My Quill Pen” because I’m an old fashioned writer. What does that mean? Writing should be clear, concise and compelling, but above all, it should be correct. Writing correctly seems quaint today; email, IM and blogs make communication instantaneous. Do we sacrifice quality in the bargain?

I’m not much for acronyms and emoticons, but I’m even less for run-on sentences, subjects and verbs that don’t agree, misspellings, improper usages and the like. It’s scandalous that in the 21st Century, we have business executives, lawyers, teachers and community leaders whose writings can’t match those of Civil War soldiers’ letters home for clarity, vigor and thoughtfulness.

I hope my scratchings live up to my ideals.

Saturday, February 06, 2010

Frack Mountain

From the Back Mountain - a beautiful area of Northeastern Pennsylvania just northwest of Wilkes-Barre - comes the latest blog to tackle the issue of environmental damage caused by irresponsible natural gas extraction: Frack Mountain.

http://frackmountain.wordpress.com/

From the blog's "About" page:

I live in an area called the Back Mountain. It is upland northwest of a large and populated valley. The Back Mountain comprises over 100 square miles and is home to approximately 27,000 humans. It is a verdant and pastoral quilt of relatively thriving communities and two college-sized universities.

Recently, EnCana Corporation was given permission to drill three exploratory natural gas wells in the Back Mountain. This could have major long term consequences for our good community. We need to educate ourselves and our decision makers.

I will be posting information, opinion, and links. I invite your submissions and comments.

Thanks for reading, hope to hear from you

Thanks to Mark Cour of Circumlocution for Dummies for the link.

Friday, February 05, 2010

The Susquehanna River Sentinel - now with added features!

For over ten years the clean water enthusiast known as Kayak Dude has been running a site called The Susquehanna River Sentinel, bringing to light all sorts of problems that afflict the Susquehanna River, diminish the ability of people to use and enjoy it, and threaten its ecological and economic future. From the folly of the Inflatable Dam to the dumping of raw sewage directly into the river just upstream of Wilkes-Barre's new riverside recreational facility to the mass poisoning of millions of gallons of water in the hydrological fracturing process of natural gas extraction from the Marcellus Shale formation and the consequent contamination of groundwater near extraction sites, The Susquehanna River Sentinel has covered it all.

Only...you probably can't find any of that stuff.

In its original form, The Susquehanna River Sentinel didn't have an RSS feed, so there was no easy way for readers to be alerted whenever a new entry was posted. It didn't use permalinks, so there's no way to link directly to a specific entry. And, as far as I can determine, it didn't archive entries. Once a few new entries elbowed their way onto the page, the old entries vanished into the aether.

It's not all gone. Mark Cour has diligently covered a few of the entries on his blogs Wilkes-Barre Online and Circumlocution for Dummies. And it was there that that Mark posted Kayak Dude's announcement of a new version of the site in an entry called KD goes mainstream. This new, reference-ready version of The Susquehanna River Sentinel is now online. A link to the RSS feed has been added to the NEPA Blogs sidebar.

Kayak Dude isn't wasting any time. He has already used the new site to announce a major event happening in less than a week. Check it out here!

If you live in Northeastern Pennsylvania or have any connection to it, this is a blog you should be reading!

The Susquehanna River Sentinel (new version)
The Susquehanna River Sentinel (old version)