The Conspiracy Theory Blogger

IndyMac is dead, Jim

2008-07-11T21:25:00.001-04:00

Fuck, had I thrown this rumor out there in this afternoon's post, I'd look creepy level precognitive. Then again, they've been reportedly circling the bowl for a while, with the signal to noise ratio jumping this week.

2nd largest US bank failure in history, FDIC will need 4 to 8 billion US$ to fix this one, approximately 10,000 customers with the bank had uninsured deposits.

Fuck me running.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=atrd9_l.GrL8&refer=us

It's a long way down.

2008-07-11T12:21:00.001-04:00

The week is closing with a double whammy. This could be a touchstone week; one we will be able to look back on in the upcoming months and years as the week where the tide turned. The real law is being laid out for us and the true nature of our government is crystal clear.

We started the week with our government providing us with the facts of how the laws of the United States really work. There are two sets of rules and laws in this country. One, which applies to the citizens and another, which applies to government and corporations. We have to follow our rules; they have no rules.

By giving the telecom industry total immunity for their complacency in spying on American citizens the government has told us loud and clear that our rights are nothing but a shadow. We have ”rights” as far as the government deems we deserve them and none of them are absolute. The telcos are immune because they were/are in effect, agents of the government by allowing the alphabet agencies into their COs.

I swear, if I could ditch the phone and an Internet connection and all means of communication other than face to face, I would. Why make it easier for the masters to keep tabs on me? Why add more of my data to their database? While I don’t subscribe to the philosophy of removing one’s self entirely from “the grid”, I do believe on lowering your footprint in the grid. Then again, a void of information on a person could, in itself, spark even more curiosity on their part.

Based on this outcome with the telcos, don’t be surprised in the upcoming years when you live down wind of a toxic energy plant, spewing God knows what into the air, and they have immunity from the government for polluting your air because the government deemed it vital. If the government deems it necessary, tough shit for you and me. You and I aren’t the shareholders in this country and we cannot command resources the government deems vital.

The double whammy is rearing it’s head this morning. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have been clinging to life for months, today the shit is hitting the fan in regards to their financial health. Rumors are flying, with even Charles Schumer piping in, that the feds are set to take control of both. When this happens our national debt doubles at the least…least.

What happens if this occurs? We fall off the cliff we have been toeing. All shares of stock in Freddie and Fannie would be worthless with shareholders getting jack shit in return, and who owns this stock? Every financial institution in America. Think the Bank of America buys stocks in $100 blocks? Hell no. They buy stock, bonds, commodities and derivative packages in blocks of hundreds of millions of dollars.

If this happens our government will take every mortgage under these financials into their portfolio. You will be paying your mortgage directly to the Federal Reserve. If this happens our government will double the national debt overnight and the value of the dollar will plummet. Think gas is high now? Wait until these fuckers bail out Freddie and Fannie. Think food is outrageously priced now? Just wait. The dollar and all treasury bonds will truly be Monopoly money at this point.

Who gets fucked? Everyone. Worldwide fucking. The largest owners of US Treasuries are China and Japan, bye bye Asian market values. The majority of OPEC nations peg their currency and the price of oil to the US$, their inflation skyrockets and the price of oil in dollars will inflate like a puff adder about to be stepped on. This snake will bite us all.

Pissed off because the Arab nations have been burning through money like it was cheap generic cigarettes? Don’t worry, they were spending dollars for all these years and Dubai bought the Chrysler Building with those same worthless dollars. If you own the largest pile of horseshit in the world, you might have a lot to spread around, but in the end you own a lot of horseshit.

What happens if Freddie and Fannie collapse with no government intervention? A lot of the same. The government will still take receivership of their assets and try to sell the crap to other financial companies, or like the Bear Stearns sweetheart deal, they’ll fund someone to take over the pieces of the pie that once was Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. We still pay for it, national debt still skyrockets and the dollar still plunges in value.

Time to put on that scratchy old 7” mono copy of Floyd Cramer’s “Last Date”, brace for the fall out and wait for the music to end. It is coming.

Titties, guns and Butts County. The Eldrin fuckin' Bell redux.

2008-07-02T12:39:00.001-04:00

I was looking at my logs Monday evening and found myself scratching my head as to why so many people were searching for and landing on my entry about Big Brother’s Little Helper, Eldrin fucking Bell, from last year. Sometimes an old post will get numerous hits out of the blue, sometimes because of events in the news, but usually for no apparent reason. It’s like a flock of people just appear for no reason and then disappear. Then I caught last night’s 11 O’clock news and found out why so many people were looking for blog entries on Bell, starting as early as Saturday night.

Apparently Eldrin was at a private 4th of July party on Saturday, thrown by a titty bar baron who lives down in Butts County. No pun intended. While at this party Bell fucked up his thumb and it appears that rumors started flying that he (or someone else?) had shot off his thumb. Now it appears he just burned the shit out of it while shooting an unspecified large caliber handgun at the titty bar magnate’s indoor shooting range.

Before I go any further, let me get a couple of stories out of the way before addressing Big Brother’s Little Helper. I’ve been to a titty bar on two occasions in my life. Both times I was with my best friend of almost 25 years. This guy used to sell cheap jewelry to strippers in Philly from the back of his car when he was 18 years old so his perspective on the whole titty bar thing is completely different than mine. The guy is a riot and he’s actually an amazing guy, even though he thinks titty bars are a hoot. His name is Mike.

The first time I ever went to one of those joints was back in the early 80’s, long before they became “gentlemen’s clubs”. Back then, they were dangerous dives with dangerous patrons and they employed dangerous women who looked hard from the road they had traveled. So here we are in this titty bar in Pensacola, Florida; five of us in total and we are all young sailors. I was sitting between Mike and one of my favorite all-time wild men, a guy I worked with whom I’ll ID only as Steve.

Steve was a wild fucking mess of a bastard and one of the greatest free spirits I’ve ever known, he ran with total abandon through life. God bless the Steve’s of this world for they make the daily drudgery of existing more colorful, exciting and interesting. One time he lost a brand new rented Iroc Camaro in Ft. Lauderdale during Spring Break. The ship we were all crewmembers of made port visits to Ft. Lauderdale every spring and on one occasion Steve rented an Iroc while we were there. Dude walked down the brow of the ship one afternoon and suddenly realized he didn’t know where he parked the car. In fact he realized that he didn’t remember how he did get to the ship the night before or what he had done after about 5PM the night before. Lost a brand new, 1987 model with the T-top, rented Iroc. Gone baby. Lost. Forever.

So here is Steve, sitting to my right at the end of the dancing area. This dancer came up to me, looked down while she was shaking the moneymakers and I noticed that she had crossed eyes, tattoo’s on her tits and was wearing a gold lame bikini. Unlike Bob Dylan, I didn’t look a little bit uneasy and she didn’t bend down to tie the lace…of my shoes. I just stared at one of her eyes, beer bottle frozen half way between bar top and my lips. She sensed no dollar tips were coming from me so she sauntered over to Steve, who I now noticed was leaning on the bar with both elbows, that Wildman gleam in his eyes and a big grin on his face. “Oh boy..” I thought.

Mike is sitting to my left and talking with one of the guys he worked with and I’m staring straight ahead at the distant wall. The next thing I know the stripper screams and I look to the right to see Steve right at the tail end of something that I’d never seen before. As she was shuffling away I could see this large shiny streak of saliva running up the crack of her ass and Steve was cackling with that killer laugh he had. As the stripper bent over in front of him, Steve related to us later, he licked her from somewhere in the vicinity of the taint all the way up to somewhere close to her tail bone.

The stripper chick was also moonlighting as a biker chick and guess who was playing pool on the other side of the titty bar? Yup, the boyfriend and members of the motorcycle gang he was with. Back then; bikers weren’t stockbrokers or even guys who made a good living doing general contracting construction work. Back then, bikers were rough bastards who used to slit people open with knives and date strippers. We were in deep shit.

Long story short, we escaped with a few minor pushes and shoves and only a punch or two thrown by the bikers. Steve had given us a brush with death all because he thought it would be great fun to lick a cross-eyed stripper’s ass crack. I miss crazy ass Steve and often wonder what became of him through the years.

The second trip to a titty bar came a year or so after Dave Attel had a show on Comedy Central where every week he would traipse around a different city, showing what happens there at 3AM. He had visited Atlanta and showed the world the joys of the Clermont Lounge down on Ponce. Mike was visiting and he simply had to see the bar where the bartender crushed beer cans with her tits and see the mother and daughter strippers. This time we got out without danger of being shiv’d by a biker but middle age had robbed us of much of the rambunctiousness of our Navy days. Still, it was an experience to be had.

With the stories out of the way let me say that while I don’t think those types of clubs return something worthwhile to the community, I certainly will back up anyone’s choice to own, visit or work in one. It’s all about freedom of choice and letting people make their own decisions in life. Hey, if you can find no inner light, no sense of self-realization or sense of human decency from our existence in this temporary and ethereal realm, go for it and enjoy Tammy on the center stage. Besides, it’s only a fucked up rationalization of human sexuality and lack of love for themselves or their fellow man that drives people to such places. It’s not like they are doing something that destroys communities and lives, like selling heroin to 8 year-olds or becoming a politician.

So, Eldrin fuckin’ Bell is at the palatial estate of this titty bar mogul on Saturday and he fucks his thumb up while shooting a gun. Let’s go a few layers deeper here. While I have never been to a party thrown at the palace of a titty bar empire owner, I do expect there would be several things I could count on if I did:
1) There will be lots of expensive booze to drink for free. (Or maybe it’s rotgut placed into Top Shelf bottles?)
2) Got Cohibas? Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.
3) Like easy women with big fake boobs? Plenty of those too.
4) If I’m someone who the titty bar owner wants to curry favor with, or show appreciation for, I can expect to have wild and naughty sex with a (several?) of his employee(s). i.e…the girls who show their titties.

Look, I’m not saying it’s cool, I’m just saying that if I’m supporting and backing a titty bar owner in a county where the sheriff is 100% against this guy’s business and that sheriff is my enemy…Well…I’d be expecting his employees (the strippers) to provide me with some lovin’ I can’t get at home…if you know what I mean.

You can say I’m a bad person for saying that but hey, I’m not in that position and I am not looking for that and I am not condoning it. I’m only telling you how these sort of things sometimes work out in the real world. No one in their right mind backs a titty bar owning scumbag, lowlife bottom-feeder unless they are getting SOMETHING in return, even if said titty bar looser is an enemy of your enemy. It may be illegal to offer or take a money bribe but if your bread and butter is the exploitation of women, you don’t even need to worry about the dreaded “B” word. Just send the more impressionable and easy of the girls over to give away a free blowjob and you are all set.

I’m not saying Eldrin fuckin’ Bell is getting stripper blowjobs for his support of the low life strip club vermin. What I’m saying is if he’s at a 4th of July party, that is invitation only for the mucky-mucks, with all those young and sexually free women around and free booze is flowing like the river Jordan….what in the fucking hell is Eldrin doing wasting his time shooting fucking guns for fun? Seriously, is Bell into some sort of weirdo power trip thing where the only way he can pop usable wood, is after he fires off some rounds at the shooting range? Why isn’t he in some hidden bedroom, getting really funky stripper sex while guzzling straight from the Chivas bottle?

Man, Eldrin. Go back to making seriously fucked up analogies of George Orwell’s novel and fucking with the public’s expectations of privacy and stay away from the titty bar gun range. Use your thumb for more useful purposes like resting inside your rectum.

Jane Goodall needs to study us.

2008-06-25T11:42:00.000-04:00

Two of the distinct advantages to living in a big city are the variety of people you meet and the fantastic odds that you will see some of those people freak out while in public. Don’t get me wrong, small town America has it’s fair share of dingbats who wig out at the slightest perceived slight. But living in the big city compresses even more people into stressful conditions that evoke the freak out episodes on a much more frequent and intense order.

There are three main reasons why you should never go ape shit in a public place:

1) The cops might show up and throw you in the hooskow for being a nut.
2) You really look like an asshole.
3) Folks who see your tantrum WILL tell their friends and family what they saw and your own freak out might get back to you, Friend of a Friend style.

Most instances of asshole behavior in the city just get ignored, or brushed aside as part of daily life. For example:

“He couldn’t get behind me in this lane so he cut me off to get on the off ramp AND he gave me the finger when I honked my horn. What an asshole.”

“She wants to argue with the customer service desk monkey because she can’t get her freaking laptop to connect to the hot spot at Starbucks. Jesus Christ…”

“They think it’s fun to blast their music at 3AM on a Wednesday morning after getting home drunk from a night at the club. Must be nice to not have to worry about getting to work in the morning.”

Same shit, different day, different city. That sort of thing doesn’t really draw a bit of attention in any town, no matter how big or small. But big city freak-outs, thrown by big city freaks, on a big city scale, can be impressive. The best stick with you and become stories that you pass down from friend to friend and co-worker to co-worker. They become legends in their own right.

A few years ago I was in Publix. I was heading down the cereal aisle to get grits or oatmeal or Lucky Charms, whatever it was that I needed. I became aware of “something” happening down the aisle because of yelling and the blurry peripheral vision of movement by a rather large man. When my attention focused I spied the “Comic Book Guy” from The Simpsons, freaking out. “46 cents! Another God Damn 46 cents! I’m sick of this greed!” Dude was slamming boxes of cereal into his shopping cart and I do mean slamming them. He threw two in like he was John Smoltz, freezing a batter with a quick moving fastball. “Greed! Greed! All this GREEEDDD!” and he was slamming one box into the side of the cart, over and over until it split open and Cocoa Puffs sprayed just like in that scene in Flashdance, the one where Jennifer Beals’ body double sprayed water off her body while writhing to music, making this-then teenage moviegoer a very aroused young man. I was awestruck by this beast of a man.

So, as he tossed the remains of Cocoa Puffs into his cart and high heeled it out of the aisle, I followed in hot pursuit. I simply had to see what happened next. It’s a bit like watching an action movie. You simply wait for the next action sequence. I get to the end of the aisle and Comic Book Guy has moved directly to the checkout line and he’s got no one in front, so he’s slamming crap onto the conveyor. “Sir, sir! Please don’t throw your food.” The checkout lady was begging. Dude was mumbling and slowing down with the hardcore slamming. I guess he sensed he was walking a line between checkout and County lockup for a couple of hours. I didn’t hear everything that was said, but he made it out of the store and I got to see the lady at the checkout providing classic relief.

With one hand on her hip, weight shifted to one foot and an up curled lip sneer, I could hear her “Tsk, tsk, tsk.” sounds from 10 feet away as she watched him leave the store. She looked my way for a brief moment, locked eyes with me and I saw the words floating in her head, “What an asshole!”

Another favorite is my best impatient yuppie on the interstate story. I was stuck in morning rush hour traffic on 285 one morning. This was after we had several days of serious soaking rain and the DOT had been doing some work in the section of road we were on. It’s stop and go traffic. The kind that takes 20 minutes to go one mile. I’ve got the radio going and sipping my coffee, thinking of how deep the shit is going to be for me getting to work late that morning and it suddenly occurs to me that the person behind me is laying on their horn. Not honking or tooting it. They are laying on it in long blows.

So I look in the rear view mirror and see a visibly flustered guy. The dude suddenly scoots off into the shoulder and as he’s going by I can see he’s calling me the child of an illegitimate consummation of love. He shoots onto the gore separating 285 and a surface street onramp and cuts off another car, disappearing into the distance and beyond other cars in front of me. “Wow, what an asshole.” I thought.

Traffic creeps ahead and a few minutes later I come to the point where the onramp has merged with 285. Up ahead, on the soft shoulder, which has been drenched with pouring rain for days and is now a mud bog, I see the guy who just went berserk behind me. His gorgeous maroon BMW sedan is resting bumper deep in mud, wheels spinning furiously and going nowhere. By time I get window to window with him I can see he’s on the cell phone and yelling like a mad man at someone, arms flailing. What an asshole, indeed.

So, where am I going with this? What is the point of this post? It’s a simple reminder to all of us to chill out over the day-to-day bullshit and not freak out in public. If you are going to go ape shit let it be for something worth going ape shit over. Go ape shit over the economy, the war, the failed leadership of this nation. Go crazy when you talk about how it’s like playing Russian Roulette every time you go to the grocery store to get food to feed your family. Don’t go into a rage because your latte wasn’t mixed just so by the Barista monkey. Don’t act like you have fire ants eating your rectum because the line at the post office is 12 people deep and you don’t even have your Delivery Confirmation slip filled out when you do get to the front of the line.

The difference between being an asshole and having a legitimate gripe isn’t always in the way you present your case or even about the context of what you are bitching about. The difference is in how the folks around you perceive your actions. Yes, you may be totally pissed off that you can’t get that wireless router to work, but then again, most of us have dealt with the same problem and we know the problem wasn’t Customer Service monkey related, it was the monkey looking in the mirror causing the problem.

So, tell me. Why do I need this Frigidaire?

2008-06-23T15:08:00.001-04:00

Spare cash. How many of you have it right now? Raise your hand if you have some…boy, not a lot of hands. The period of time we are entering is something we shouldn’t fear, but we should be very cautious, concerned and level headed. If everything goes to hell and the powers that be flush the toilet, we will all sink. This power is in their hands, not ours. Keeping your head above the water while we circle the bowl is the key. Can we keep up with inflation and can we keep our heads about us? Can you do those things?

I’ve mentioned in many posts in the past that we all need to re-evaluate how we live and how we survive on a daily basis. The way we shop for the necessities of life such as food, and how we get from point A to point B are examples. Some of it is just simple frugal living and some of it is just common sense. The chances of more drastic and desperate changes are possible if you read the tealeaves.

Economists have been giving a lot of conflicting reports on the health of the economy over the past few months. The same economists who just 6 months ago were telling us the housing crisis had “bottomed out” are now saying they don’t understand why the American public is so “negative” toward the economy. Eleven months ago, the Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, Mr. Edward P. Lazear said, “We believe that the economy is back on track” and that the economy was “recovering and robust”. Just last week the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) warned investors that there is a 25% chance of a total crash of the stock, bond and commodity markets within the next 90 days.

The eggheads, waterheads, knuckleheads and greedheads that comment on the state of economic affairs we find ourselves in today, are the same people who led us to this point. None of them can tell us the truth of the matter since the truth is rarely factored into their equations. Get them all into a room and ask them if de-coupling has occurred. They don’t know who’s lying, who’s covering up and who’s hedging a bet or trying to cover a short.

If it weren’t apparent to you when New Orleans drowned, let me clue you in. We are all on our own. Big Daddy isn’t going to step in and save our collective hides. Big Daddy is taking care of himself and will be protected no matter which way the wind blows in the upcoming shit storm. The rest of us Joe 6 Packs will get by as long as we have clarity of thought, and put thoughts into action with a deliberate purpose.

If you have flour, beans, spices and seasonings in your pantry; if you can cook from scratch and don’t mind eating small portions where nutrition is the emphasis. You will survive the worst. If you don’t mind riding a bike, doing manual labor or fixing it yourself; foregoing career for a living wage and having multiple irons in the fire for earning money. You will survive the worst. If you can do those things and have the balls to run in the opposite direction that everyone else is running, you have an opportunity to create the foundation of wealth.

What I am saying is that we have not seen this sort of harsh economic outlook for generations. The prepared will not only survive, but will flourish. Too many people are desperately trying to maintain a lifestyle that they could not sustain in the first place. One by one those people are falling off the cliff into financial ruin. The rest of us are cutting corners, and using those proceeds to prepare ourselves for the upcoming months and years. Until cash as we know it is dissolved into some other form of currency, cash is still king. Those FRN’s will still buy goods and services. Fools are dropping cash into precious metals right now. The demand is high, the cost is high, they are paying with a devalued dollar and they don’t see that. The speculation for food and oil futures isn’t so much a cash cow of the wealthy, as it is a last ditch effort for the worlds financial houses to cover their losses right now.

Go back in history, find the people who made the foundations of their wealth in troubled financial times and you will see the path through this. When everyone is selling, you should buy. When everyone is running to the car lot to buy a hybrid, sit tight on your own car. When everyone is trying to dump their McMansion in the burbs, look at renting, renting to own or buying an unaltered, un-remodeled ranch house. When everyone is grabbing Bisquick and instant rice off the shelves, buy powdered milk, instant potatoes and dry beans. Go against the flow, you’ll pass a lot of scared herd occupants who have no clue of where they are heading.

If you are an “outsider” or have lived an alternative lifestyle for decades, the world is about to come to your level of existence. Be prepared for questions from the newbies. If you are an old hand at thrift stores and yard sales, be prepared for the former Saks Fifth Avenue buyers invading your territory. If you are about to enter our world, leave your attitude and upscale lifestyle stories at the door. We won’t help you with advice if you come to us acting like assholes. I’ve been seeing yuppies acting haughty in the very places they loathe but now rely on to survive.

I hit yard sales and thrift stores every week. I’ve been doing this since the 80’s. Over the years I have picked up antique and vintage furniture for pennies on the dollar. The only new pieces of furniture I have are the mattress I sleep on and the vintage styled La-Z-Boy in my living room. I pay for my gas, food and most of my utility payments every month by selling things I have bought over the years at these sales. I’m saving my best stuff for brighter days, just as I did in the 80’s and 90’s.

The difference between my past yard sale and thrifting experiences and today is that the best stuff is harder to come by than it once was. That will be changing very soon as the folks who paid outrageous money for some things 10 years ago, are trying to dump them in a down economy. I’m waiting for all those Deco armoires that people bought and made into home entertainment centers, to flood back on the market. They think they’ll get $600 for them, just like they paid for it in 1998, but they are in for a surprise when dealers tell them, “You ruined it when you cut a hole in the back to run electrical wires. I’ll give you $50 for it.”

I’m already seeing northside suburban women horrified to learn that the Jadite they bought in 2000, because Martha Stewart had it, is actually worth 1/10th what they paid for it originally. They have no concept that Anchor Hocking made a TON of Fire King and the Jadite line just isn’t rare. It’s actually a bit eye opening to see an educated and apparently intelligent person, look tight lipped and terse when someone walks away from a $160 Jadite compote. I actually saw that at a yard sale. Another dealer who was there with me told her she was being optimistic on her price and said he would give her $15. When she acted mortified the rude bugger told her she shouldn’t try to run an antique store from her garage as he walked back to his van. I wouldn’t have said it, but it was pretty darn funny to see and hear this exchange go on.

Just a few weeks ago I was digging through several boxes of records in someone’s driveway on a Saturday morning. I bought one record for $0.50 and passed up oodles of 1950’s Columbia Masterworks LPs priced at $5.00 each. I asked the owner why the other records were five bucks and the one I found was two bits, the guy said the others were old and you could sell them on eBay, the one I had was new and everyone had it. I gave him two quarters and walked away with a copy of the banned cover version of the “Some Girls” album by the Rolling Stones. How the dude missed the actual value of that album, and how it came into his possession are beyond me. At least it’s now in the collection of someone who knows what they have.

This is the new direction we are heading. Folks are getting desperate, think they can sell things they bought at an over-inflated price for the same price or better, and get pissed off when dealers clue them into reality. The new direction is that anger is building and we have an abundance of over-inflated egos and sense of self in a lot of our fellow travelers. A lot of people bought into the lie that the American Dream is owning stuff and moving up some ladder to more stuff in a bigger house every year or two.

The American Dream, in my mind, has always been the freedom to choose which direction you want to take in life. No guarantees, no promises and if you are willing to take the risk, no safety net. Success has been a greatly distorted word in American society. Success has become a word meaning riches and possessions. Success in my definition simply means raising yourself above your conditions or situation. A man or woman who tries to start and run an honest business, but fail, are successes in my book. They tried, they took the risk and they gave it a shot. The final outcome isn’t always as important as the actual act of trying to make a go of it.

By the end of summer as we feel the first cool winds of autumn arrive, the ladies who are selling some of their mementos of their days at Brown and a $160 compote, the man with the Columbia Masterworks LPs with split seams, the folks who had a condo foreclosed on and are trying to get rid of the damaged Armoire, will begin to sense that a cold winter and bills and upcoming holidays are looming. They will sell those possessions to pay the bills. The good stuff always gets sold first. The crap gets pulled out later. Unfortunately, the folks who had good money and spent it on crap are selling crap. They don’t even know what the “good stuff” is because they never knew in the first place.

All the while, we have been picking up their Mercury Living Presence and “Shaded Dog” S1 pressing RCA albums for a buck here and there, a quarter each on a good score. The folks with climate-controlled storage are snagging pieces of Heywood-Wakefield at used Broyhill and unfinished furniture prices. Now the pawnbrokers are changing their names and MO. They advertise on late night TV, rent commercial space in trendy zip codes and call themselves “Gold Services”.

Too many people, who are being dragged down in the depths of this economic upheaval, are doing so because they never understood the true value of education. What I mean is that for all of my life the value of education has been stressed to a point where it becomes a droning noise. The value of that education was earning a better living; at least that is what we were told. I agree with that statement but too many of us have ignored the true gift of education. That gift is the ability to learn and hone the skills necessary to research, study and evaluate data. Even some cat working the Starbucks cash register, who has an MFA in Drama should understand how to research and prepare for a part in a local theater. Those skills can port over to the “real world” but few people placed an emphasis on honing that skill. Now, we have a nation of highly educated people who don’t know the difference between propaganda and news, or the difference between fact and opinion.

It’s no wonder we spent so many billions of dollars on NASCAR collectables, DVDs sets of crappy TV shows and a plasma screen TV for kitchen viewing of the Today show. If we don’t know the difference between junk investments and investments into things with intrinsic value, how can we complain about the state of our economic affairs?

The great sloughing off of quick money has been going on in earnest for well over a year, we still have a long way to go before we hit bottom. Grab their crumbs as they fall to the way side as they will find their way back up again after things hit the cellar. Keep your head about you. Don’t fall for bullshit propaganda. Think about what service or goods you can provide to earn a living. Identify the things of real value in your life and learn to tell the difference between those things and the things that are truly valuable. Always remember that your loved ones are the most valuable part of your life.

Take the best advice I can give you as we move forward through and past this. If you want to follow trends and be fashionable, you are going to pay an inflated price for that fashion sense. Once the trend meets it’s apogee, values plummet till they find their perigee. Those fashionable things won’t rise in value until they begin their cycle to their next apogee; and if you factor in inflation and a lower sales base, that apogee will be smaller than the first. This applies not only the material things you buy; they also apply to the financial institutions we all depend on to operate efficiently in the background of our lives and they apply to the central components of our daily lives.

What I am saying is that we all need to think twice before we take drastic action in our daily lives. That gas guzzling SUV you bought in 2006 might drain a C note from you every week at the gas pump, but is it cheaper for you in the long run to ditch it for absolutely no resale value and take on another 5 year car payment, with a big maintenance expense for the battery around the time your car will be paid off? Is it worth dumping another $35K on a new car from now until 2013 when gas might reach $250 per barrel? If gas is $8 per gallon, how much is that damn hybrid still going to cost you at the pump? How much will groceries cost?

Pump and dump. The trendmakers are pumping the hybrid cars, the dump happens after they reach the end of the line with that meme. They did it with the land yacht SUVs. They did it with the McMansions. They did it when they sold us on re-education as an advantage of NAFTA. They did it with Reaganomics. They did it with winning the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese. They did it over and over and over and we always bite the hook with the big fat worm. We need to become the proverbial Eskimos and let the trendmakers become the refrigerator salesmen.

“So, tell me. Why do I need this Frigidaire?”

Where have all the good times gone?

2008-04-23T13:01:00.001-04:00

Payday comes and you are thrilled the floater checks are covered and you hit the grocery store and gas pumps on the way home from work. You sit down and look at your checkbook and hardly anything is left. It’s going to be a hard two weeks until the next payday and a year ago it wasn’t like this.

It’s costing you $9 or maybe $18 per day to pay for gas to and from work, so you think this is to blame, but then you think about the few sacks of groceries you bought and those cost you $75 when a year or two ago they would have only cost you $45, so you think the food is to blame. Then it hits you.

Food is higher because gas is higher, and food is also higher because there is more demand for corn and rice and wheat and soybeans and now there is a shortage. Corn is more in demand for ethanol production, which was supposed to offset rising oil costs and make the fuel cleaner to burn but now it’s driven up the cost of food, food is in short supply and gas went through the roof anyway.

Fuel is higher because the dollar is far weaker than it was even 6 months ago and the people who have true wealth are moving their money into commodity speculation, so they are driving the cost of a barrel of oil higher and higher. Demand is still high for oil and refinery capacity has been decimated since the late 90’s when the big oil companies were given the green light to merge unabated.

Your monthly bill to pay for gas in the car has skyrocketed, the bill for natural gas in your home has skyrocketed, and the electric companies are chomping at the bit to sack your earnings too. Water bills are rising, food is getting expensive and in short supply, insurance keeps going up year after year.

How have your earnings looked over the past 8 years? If you charted it out in a graph you would most likely see two big dips and a flat or slowly rising line between the two dips. Earnings have not only failed to keep pace with inflation, the average and median incomes of US workers have actually fallen. Your spending power is not what it was in 2000.

No one in the government dares even say the truth; we are in a deep recession. Economist eggheads flutter around the subject without saying it but some brave souls in the ether world of economics have been saying we are in an immense recession. Slowly but surely, some are leaning their language toward the big “D” word, the word that no one dares write or say in such circles.

On April 1st of this year the stock market rallied like crazy. The cause was an email from a respected economist who’s opinion is regarded like God’s truth. His outlook was Rosy Jack and upbeat and the market responded. Then the truth got out, his email, all comments in the writing, were an April Fools joke. He was being a sarcastic fucker like your humble blogger and the moneybags on Wall Street took off on a wild spending spree.

So, I have to ask you this question. Who and what really controls our economy? It’s not wise and learned men and women, for if they did the April Fools rally would have never happened. The cyclic dependencies that have brought us to this precipice would not have been allowed to operate had wise people been at the helm. What really controls our economy? Is it optimism? Greed? Blind luck?

I can’t answer those questions; I don’t have the foggiest clue.

Economics is a strange creature. Off and on for more than 20 years I have followed economics as an occasional, novice spectator. I’ve read various reports, books, journals and it’s all led me to a point where I see economics as a multi-headed Hydra. No precious gemstone could be cut with enough facets to equal the number found in economics.

Every now and then a small door will open and then shut just as abruptly that will lead me to a new realization of what is going on behind the scenes. The drive mechanisms of the economic bus are mysterious. These can be large or small revelations, some occur just by looking into the past.

If you sat down and read as many volumes as you can find regarding the touchstone moments of economics over the past 100 years you would have a heavy reading list and dear God, is it ever boring. It would take years to read the main books and journals, assessments and deconstructions, editorials and academic research. In the end you would be no closer to understanding the real foundation of economics. You would, however, keep seeing the same façade to the subject. Credit, payment of interest and control of resources. Those are the three subjects that maintain the façade.

Take the 1971 events where Nixon told the world to pack sand as an example. Credit in this case would be Federal Reserve notes and the valuation of currency. Interest on credits would have been the US gold reserves. Control of resources is the gold stockpile and the valuation of currency. It never changes. Credit. Payment of interest on credit. Control of resources. Thirty-seven years later and it’s still about those three subjects, only the players and the medium of credit and resources have changed.

Maybe the unrest in the economy is natural; perhaps it is not. I don’t know. I do know a few things. Level heads will prevail if and when things get messy. Level heads do not lie down on the floor and throw a tantrum. Level heads do not go out and try to assert some sort of flawed alpha type personality trait. Level heads do not wonder where the good times have gone and ask what they should do now.

Do you own a bicycle? If not, get one on the cheap through Craigslist or at a yard sale. Do it pronto. Get spare parts for it too. Do you own a small backpack or a large duffel or Navy sea bag? If not, get those items pronto. Do you know how to make a crystal radio? Download instructions on the web and try it out and commit it to memory. Do you own real work clothes, a real pair of work boots and the ability to snuff out your ego? If you say no to any of those things, get busy on them. You will need all three.

Did you ever talk to your older relatives about the Great Depression when they were alive? If you did, you better start plucking the wisdom from what they told you. If you have no idea what they did to survive that event, here is the short answer. Be prepared and ready to do whatever it takes to survive from day to day. I’m not talking about rioting and causing mayhem. I’m talking about being prepared to work for pennies and be so afraid of letting that money out of your hands that you are willing to go to bed hungry at night, for many nights, over many years.

Could you go to bed on an empty stomach after a hard day of manual labor and know you will do it again tomorrow if it means your child or elderly family member can have one small bowl full of mush? Would you be prepared to do that? Do you even know what mush is? Find out what it is and learn how to make it.

Are we heading down that path or am I just a crazy old paranoid fool? Maybe, maybe not. I do know this. We have not seen the bottom of the economic woes in this country; we are not even close to being able to see the bottom. We have only begun to start our fall into the hole.

In one regard money follows a rule in physics. Money, like water and electricity and high pressures, will follow the path of least resistance. In the case of money, the path of least resistance is the path that will yield the highest return on investment. i.e. the payment of interest on an investment. Water will not flow uphill, electricity will flow through copper wire instead of steel cables and a failed seal on a vacuum chamber will always allow a higher pressure to enter the chamber.

Real money, not like what you and I have, will always move along to the next area to speculate, causing a bubble. This bubble ratchets up demand for that ‘thing’ and drives the prices to un-naturally high levels for that ‘thing’. Credit and real estate were speculated upon and a bubble formed. Prices inflated well above the intrinsic value of those things and rose many times higher than historical prices and what inflation could provide. The bubble is leaking; the higher pressure is entering that chamber. The path of least resistance is taking the money to food stocks and other commodities like oil and precious metals. When those have once again been pillaged beyond the last drop of interest, the money will flow out to another speculative bubble like water from a broken dam.

30 years ago the purchase of a house was a safe bet. You could expect a nominal increase in value over time along with the rise of inflation to provide you with a decent profit when you sold ‘if’ you made a wise purchase and kept your home maintained. Take a look at your county tax commissioner’s website and look at the graded and assessed build quality for homes. Check out the number of new homes that are only graded as Good when compared to the number of homes 40 years ago that were built to a higher quality standard and get an Average rating. There is your value in a McMansion. Only a Good rating for quality of materials and construction on your McMansion with a mudroom and Jack and Jill bathroom while a ranch house in the same neighborhood, built in the 1960’s is better constructed with better materials. Yes, infill was a bright idea. Actually, it was a bright idea for the speculators who made a killing on the gullible and the folks who misinterpreted the “American Dream”.

If you think a 20% or 30% drop in home values is the bottom, think again. This market has another 30% in it at the least. Look at the historical values of homes before the speculation began and you will see a modest increase yearly to compensate for inflation and demand and that is all. The ‘value’ of homes over the last 30 years has been driven by speculation and when there was no driving force to raise speculation the financiers created a credit bubble to facilitate a house speculation bubble.

We are still waiting for the Alt-A bubble to begin crumbling, we are waiting for the Put Option ARMs to begin resetting, we are still waiting for the credit markets to shrug off the excess credit load with write offs. We are still waiting for the fall out from lack of cash flow that will affect commercial real estate and retail far more than the credit collapse. Remember, right now we are seeing only the early effects of a so-called credit crunch. The credit was based on ether. It was money that never existed in the first place and a massive block of the economy was being driven by this credit. When credit is gone only cash is left.

When the cash is devalued like we are seeing now, inflation really sticks it to those who have cash. When credit is gone only those with cash can maintain the economy and when uncertainty and fear permeate the economy you won’t let a penny out of your hands unless you really have to. This is the direction we are heading toward. Cash did not keep the failed and failing companies alive, credit kept them afloat. Cash did not put people in million dollar McMansions, credit put them there. The credit is going away and the speculators are looking for cash only resources such as oil and gold and corn and wheat and soybeans.

I’m not saying the end is nigh, I am saying that we all need to be prepared and we all need a plan. I’ve got a bike, work clothes, some food socked away, some cash and no qualms about letting my ego take a kicking just to make enough money to eat a bowl of rice and beans or some sort of pancake concoction. Are you willing to do the same thing?

Three Steps To Heaven

2008-04-07T16:12:00.006-04:00

In 10 days, on the 17th of April, a milestone will pass which few outside of a narrow swath of subculture enclaves in the American south and mid-south will memorialize here in America. The date marks the 48th anniversary of the passing of Eddie Cochran. Since my teenage years I’ve had a longtime fascination with Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and the rest of the rockabilly artists. The ill-fated 1960 tour of England, which took Cochran’s life and forever changed the dynamics in the lives of passengers Gene Vincent and Sharon Sheeley, seems to have morphed into nothing more than a footnote in the recent progression of popular music. This has less to do with the importance of the tour or the importance of those 3 people and it has everything to do with the evolving nature of the corporate popular music scene in America.

The winter of 1960 found Cochran, Sheeley and Vincent touring England, to a newfound and appreciative audience for the two rockers. Sheeley has been relegated through time and less appreciative writers, to being forever known as Eddie Cochran’s girlfriend at the time of the accident, but she was much more than that. Sheeley made a name for herself as a songwriter in the 50’s having penned hits for Ricky Nelson and Brenda Lee. She was collaborating with Eddie at the time of his death and had already co-written one of his hit songs in the States. It is one of those ‘what might have been’ questions to think of what a long-term collaboration between the two could have created. Cochran’s music was evolving along a path, which I believe is not far from the direction that Buddy Holly was taking before his early death in a frozen Iowa field. Had Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly lived the direction of the American pop culture scene would have been radically different.

The impact of Cochran and Vincent on today’s music can be seen indirectly if you trace influences of those who came after them, but it can be seen directly if you know where to look and how to look for it. On the subject of their influence with other musicians you have to look no further than the British Invasion bands. Every member of every one of those bands cite both artists as having an enormous impact on their decision to become musicians, and for many of them seeing them perform on this tour is cited as one of if not the single most important touchstone moments in their musical careers.

There are few instances where a specific tour or concert or performance has had a direct impact in the upheaval of popular music, less than a handful have actually been the primary driver for cultural upheaval in America. The Beatles first appearance on Sullivan is, of course, one of the most notable of these events. Punk had a double dose of this in 1976 and 1977 when the Ramones and Johnny Thunders toured England. If you look back at every one of the early punk acts from England they all cite these two tours as the point where they turned on and the first performance of the Sex Pistols in Birmingham, as famously shown in the film 24 Hour Party People, was a breaking point for the English punk movement. Henry Rollins likes to tell his own story of seeing the Ramones in a DC club and every person who he was with that night in the car leaving the show started important bands. The Cochran and Vincent tour of England in 1960 was one of these moments in music history.

Looking back almost a half a century with eyes tainted by corporate music and corporate radio makes it difficult to gauge the works of the early rock pioneers. What seems quaint now, almost comical at times, is to look back at something that was genuinely dangerous and had the ability to alter the perspectives of the teenage mind. Many of today’s teenagers, especially the white, middle class kids, who listen almost exclusively to rap artists; have absolutely no concept that the idea of so called ‘race music’ was considered dangerous to white America. To them it may seem laughable but this was a deadly serious topic in the 50’s. Remember that in the summer of Emmitt Till’s horrifying death; segregation was the norm and in that year of 1955 Rosa Parks was arrested and Bill Haley and the Comets were immortalized in film with Rock Around The Clock’s release. This was just 5 short years before the death of Eddie Cochran and Elvis was still unknown outside southern music circles.

In April of 1960, the American pop music scene was undergoing a taming and polishing by the corporate masters. Elvis had already been neutered by Columbia Records and the Army. Jerry Lee Lewis was clinging on the fringes of music after the debacle following his marriage to his 13 year-old cousin. Little Richard was no longer dropping not-too-subtle hints at his sexuality to audiences and was instead singing secular music in churches. American teens were not being led astray as they had been in the 50’s, the game was closing and the powers that be had done a good job of stemming the tide. But we are talking about music and the undercurrents of culture…it is impossible for them to seal off every avenue of creative expression. In England, the ripple effects of the American music scene were just beginning to cascade across their shores.

Imagine for a moment that you live in that time, as a teenager. You may have started a skiffle band and were becoming slightly more confident in playing a banjo or some cheap guitar, a guitar that is so poorly made that the strings sit more than a ¼” off the fretboard…but you still keep playing and learning how songs are created, their structure and the hidden language and meaning behind music. Onto your scene drops Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran and a wave of music being imported from America and almost all of it has happened, under your radar, for years before they got there.

Now you are grooving out to Elvis, Buddy Holly, a mysterious style of music called the blues, sung by wild voiced and wild strumming guitarists. There is music about death and infidelity and loneliness and pain and uncertainty and it’s all against a backdrop of wild joy and youthfulness. This speaks to you, literally and figuratively. Somehow there is light coming from the deadly songs about alcohol; somehow there is wicked fashion and unspeakable style in their clothes, their language and their vocals. You see them for the first time at some theater in England and you see something wholly dramatic and American, you see the stage presence and the performing styles that are so unknown to you that your entire life changes in the blink of an eye out of some natural reflex.

Without this tour and the ending of Cochran’s life, we still would have had the Beatles and the Stones and The Who and The Kinks, but they would have been different, less effected by the artists they saw in that winter, 48 years ago. Jimmy Page would have still joined the Yardbirds, most likely, and Led Zeppelin would have still ground out their retelling of the American blues masters’ songs, but something would have been missing. Everyone who ever tried to play a Keith Richards riff would have still tried it, The Replacements would have still tried to be the Faces and the Stones, The Minutemen would have still adored The Who and Creedence. The Pixies would have still written weird songs and Kurt Cobain would have still offed himself at the worst possible time. Every miserable, smirking male vocalist in a band today would still be trying to sound like Eddie Vedder and that awful singer from Creed. But something would have filtered through this matrix in a different manner without Cochran and Vincent inspiring the beginning. The formula would have been altered.

Would The Who’s ‘Live At Leeds’ had such a signature song as Summertime Blues had it not been for Eddie Cochran? Maybe they would have been satisfied with playing Fortune Teller as their big cover song of the show? But then, would the blistering cover of Young Man Blues been so vicious without the input of Summertime Blues?

Would Elvis have made himself into a sex symbol for a second time had he not worn that black leather outfit in the ’68 special? Would Jim Morrison had worn those leather pants or would the Ramones worn leather jackets if it were not for Gene Vincent making that outfit his signature look? Maybe, maybe not. I seriously doubt that Michael Jackson would have thought up the single glove look on his own and that was also a direct steal from Vincent. But of course, Gene took liberties with his singing style by listening to Elvis.

Would low grind songs cook over onstage if Gene Vincent and his Blue Caps had not shown everyone how to properly do it onstage when they did Be Bop A Lula? Maybe they would have, after all, James Brown did it with his stage show and a cape. The trick of taking one of your hit songs, slowing it down more and more during the verse and playing with the audience until you kick them in the balls with the chorus and some massive power of sound can be heard in live performances all across the Rock genre. Even Tom Petty made the live version of Breakdown much better than the studio version by employing this trick. Gene Vincent was the master of it, even if he didn’t invent it. Jerry Lee was wowing audiences with this when he broke out and in fact his shockingly great European TV appearances in the 60’s show him doing this like it’s second nature and it smokes.

We stand where we are today because someone or a group of people, in the past, led us to this point. Knowingly or unknowingly they spun us down a new path and spiraled off into their own universes. Eddie died. Gene tried to carry on but his health failed him. Sharon continued to write hit songs but the spark and connection she had with the early rock pioneers was lost as the music industry changed.

So where do we stand now? How did we get to the point we are now, where music is just thought of as a free file to load onto an iPod? Why does the herd still lead the trends of youth and why do kids with such incredible savvy and insight and with access to information that should empower them, still not ‘get’ the past and how it actually relates to their life today? How and why does radio still play the same shitty 2 dozen songs when we have hundreds of thousands of songs from the past 50 years to listen to? Want to know why? Really know why?

Music is inherently dangerous as a medium of expression. It doesn’t take money to make music, it doesn’t take money to promote music and it doesn’t take money to disseminate music. Music is, at it’s most basic level, a form of communication. The rhythms, the lyrics, the stories, the emotions and the actual act of performing songs are communication at its purest level. Dangerous messages aren’t always explicitly told in song, they are usually cloaked as something else and peek into your mind on a different level, once there they work on your subconscious and that is incredibly dangerous to those who hold power. This Land Is Your Land is one of the greatest American songs, ever. Woody Guthrie’s greatest gift to humanity comes in the form of that song. Look at the lyrics not with the eye of the average American but through the filtered lenses of the people who truly hold the reigns of power and you will say, “Uh oh.” And all of this subversion is offered up in an easy to know Baptist hymn, ‘When The World’s On Fire’ so you’ll know how it’s supposed to be sung.

Music has a way of seeping through the cracks and controls put in place by our corporate masters. When Napster first hit the scene I thought it would herald a new direction since all the recorded music to date could be easily accessed by anyone. With the flow of thoughts and ideas and inspiration I honestly believed the new revolution, to steal from Pete Townshend, was about to take place and music would lead us there. It didn’t happen and it won’t happen with file sharing and it won’t be happening until there is another, more fundamental sea change in American life.

Music is not a file on your computer. Music is not a tradable commodity like the pictures you took at your birthday party or of your friends when you were doing Jell-O shots on Spring Break. Music isn’t an overly compressed and void of dynamics world of sound, it has depth and variables. Your music doesn’t define you; it’s the other way around. Music is not a snapshot of who you are that is broken down into bits, music is a complete canvas of massive dimensions, telling many stories and you aren’t in all of those stories. It doesn’t fit on an iPod and no matter how large your collection it doesn’t fit on the shelves at home. Other than the philosophical teachings of Christ it may be the greatest support tool a person can have in their home.

Music is like math; it is a universal means of communication. Music has an advantage though as you don’t need to be able to count to ‘get’ it and even the most abstract musical ideas can be comprehended by a person with no formal training. Even if you have no formal training or even care about music as being more than background noise, you can still hear something, by someone, that will make you happy or tap your toes.

Music is our gift from God. Music, in my opinion, is proof that God exists.

The powers that be did not cause the crash that killed Eddie Cochran. They didn’t hide Gene Vincent from the public. The powers that be didn’t unleash the Beatles, to usher in decade and cause unrest among the teens. The powers that be made money off them, loads of money. They did, however, alter the music scene to lessen the impact of wild spirits like Elvis and Jerry Lee and Gene and even Wanda Jackson. They did this to make the ‘product’ more compartmentalized, predictable, sellable and less unstable. Artists like Beatles and Nirvana slipped through the cracks, their true nature unknown to the powers.

Now I know someone is saying this doesn’t make a bit of sense. Why would a company try to limit their market share and limit the variety of musical acts they sell? It doesn’t seem smart in the game of making money. Well, the short answer to that is artists like I have described cannot be controlled by the corporations and sooner or later they infect the minds of their fans and the next thing you know there is chaos on the market.

Think of it this way. Artists like Elvis and Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins started on small independent labels, in this case, Sun Records. They were absorbed into the larger corporate labels but their influence and the influence of Sam Phillips spawned generations of new labels and new artists, each bringing with them new perspective on what has come before and what they want to bring the world. This evolves over time. From the time that Eddie Cochran died until Greg Ginn founded SST Records, only 18 years had passed. From SST Records an entire generation of influential artists became realized and some of them lived, not just talked about, doing everything without the support of corporations or their support mechanisms.

“Paint your own picture. Write your own book. Start your own band.” That was the battle cry of The Minutemen. I’m sure many of the suits laughed at this idea, the smart ones would have looked over the rim of their glasses and understood they have a problem if that sort of idea gets around too fast. This is the thought process that has navigated behind the scenes in corporate America for decades and decades. We stand at the point where it has been perfected. The corporations not only control what you see and read and hear, they control all entry to these areas of communication. This was the threat imposed by the Internet. If enough artists took advantage of the medium and the technology, the corporations would be left out of the loop. The Internet is dying because of corporate governance and greed, the seed of creativity and DIY ethic is lost even with tools lying around that artists can really use.

There was a time when a 4-track recorder could make demos but they weren’t capable of dynamic and highly professional recordings, and they were expensive. Today, a kid with a PC and some software can make music that is dynamic, polished and they have no filtering of a producer or engineer who may steer them in a more commercial path. A guitar, a USB connected device, software and a microphone and you could become the next Jeff Buckley or George Harrison or James Brown. You could shake the tree of music and watch the nuts fall from the branches. This is what the labels and multi-national conglomerates did not want to happen.

They dumbed all of us down. It started in the 50’s when they took away Elvis’ mascara and marginalized Jerry Lee for marrying a 13 year-old cousin. They dumbed us down some more by dumping sub-standard pop to compete with highly polished pop in the aftermath of the British invasion. They took us down a notch further when they signed any band with a synthesizer and funky clothes in the 80’s or any band with a lot of hairspray and a guy playing scales on a Super Strat. They kept clearing the breech by making the dirge and pain of Grunge into a fashion statement to be bought at your mall. They eroded the direct finger pointing and calling out of Ice T and NWA by telling every suburban kid that it’s all about the Benjamins and sex and dope and nothing more and that all is well as long as you don't call the powers that be for their bullshit. That is shit the kids today should have known better to pursue simply because they are more worldly than we ever were.

The corporate masters want us dumb, they want us compliant and they want us to stay in our place and do what they expect us to do. This is why the exchange of music over the Internet, coupled with inexpensive and powerful recording software and dirt-cheap musical instruments didn’t deliver a musical revolution. Quite frankly, we don’t have it in us to rebel or stand up. Too much snarkiness to cut through and the ‘serious’ musicians don’t get the dope and babes that the dumbasses get.

Gene Vincent died for nothing, and in pain. Eddie Cochran died for nothing in an English hospital. Their deaths were and still are tragic. Their lives…perfect. They lived for something and left an inspiration that created much more than they were able to create in their short life spans. Somewhere there are two beautiful souls singing, one strumming a gorgeous Gretsch guitar with hot pickups and an amp full of warm tone. The other is wearing a black leather suit and looks ready to steal your girlfriend if you aren’t careful. Godspeed to the souls of Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent.

Camp will break soon enough

2008-03-14T16:51:00.001-04:00

The season is just around the corner and I'm feeling the itch for another year of ball games. As I get older, I feel grateful to see another season of baseball start up. It is comforting and a wonderful way to pass time, even if you have the game droning on an AM station while you work. The crack of the bat is always a good way to snap back into reality.

No waxing nostalgic and going all George Will on you. That would be a cop out. I present instead a list of the 10 worst things to ever happen to baseball:

10 – The strike of 1994/1995

It is amazing that when bad things happen in life, no one blames the Devil for being himself, they swear at God for not stepping in. The owners and the players both took the rap for this when it happened but time has festered against the players in the eyes of casual and diehard fans alike. The owners were still pissed over the collusion fiasco and the players were pissed over the salary cap proposal. Both sides dug in, the owners decided to start withholding millions of dollars slated for the players association and the fight was on and we didn’t get a World Series in 1994. Scabs were brought in for the 1995 spring training and only a court injunction got the players back on the field.

Fan sentiment for the sport is still waning as a direct result over this episode. The feel good story of the McGwire-Sosa home run chase helped in the healing process for a brief while but the recent steroid scandal has killed that buzz. If the strike were the Buddy Holly plane crash and the Maris home run chase were the Beatles on Sullivan, steroids are Altamont. Sympathy for the Devil, anyone?

9 – The Yankees of the 90’s

David Wells’ flabby ass in pinstripes. Roger Clemens’ two-day stubble in pinstripes. Wade Boggs in pinstripes. No, wait. Wade Boggs riding a horse in pinstripes. Scratch that, make it Wade Boggs wearing pinstripes, while riding a sway back nag around Yankee Stadium and a New York cop is the one holding the reigns, after a World Series victory. No further explanation needed. The only thing more stomach churning is the typical Mets fan originally from Long Island but relocated to Atlanta and keeps talking up the Santana deal like he’s sitting in the bleachers at Shea. Even mooks like that can’t top the dominance of the Yankees in the 90’s as being a bad thing for baseball.

8 – Segregation

Can you imagine the numbers that Cool Papa Bell and Satchel Page alone could have racked up if they hadn’t been limited to just the Negro Leagues? No segregation means there wouldn’t be a separate exhibit in Cooperstown ‘honoring’ the Negro League players today as just a sidebar to baseball history. There would be no what if questions. They would all be in their rightful place alongside Feller, Ruth, Cobb, Wagner and Mathewson; treated as equals and the legends would be even larger than they are now. Dear Lord…the legends that would have been created and the fables of their feats. It’s staggering

Aaron could have been signed to a contract 1 to 2 years sooner, and his career might have started as early as a mid-season call up in 1952 instead of starting with the ’54 season. Looking at his first two seasons in the show, Aaron could have added as many as 300+ hits, 40 homers and 175 RBIs to his career stats if the league had not been segregated. Henry was a ball player we will never see the likes of again.

7 – The Tragic Phenom/Precautionary Tale/Would’ve, Could’ve Nexus

Tragic Phenoms – Tony Conigliaro, Lyman Bostock, Thurman Munson.
Precautionary Tales – Denny McClain, Dwight Gooden, Darryll Strawberry, Bob Welch
Would’ve, Could’ve – Mark Fidrych, Nick Esasky, Roy Campanella.

6 – Intraleague play
The joy and novelty of seeing the “other league” and how it compares to “your league” is diminished to nothingness because of this hair brained scheme. The World Series is watered down even more. The Crown Jewel looses a bit more of it’s shine.

5 – The loss of the blue collar fan at the ball park

Get yourself to a game these days and the fans are dressed in their Abercrombie & Fitch, J. Crew and Docker slacks. They read the latest Oprah recommendation in their club level seats, dine on cuisine and cut business deals in the suites. Virtually no one scores a game from their seat and even fewer seem to know how to do it at all. They leave by the seventh inning stretch because of the long drive back to the cul-de-sac in the burbs. They turn their faces into a look like they’ve eaten a lemon and smelled a fart when someone calls the shortstop a real horsehit cocksucker wearing pink lace panties, who ought to be providing oral service for a fee to the sailors down on the pier, rather than disgracing their beloved palace of green grass with their lackadaisical work ethic and absent talent. They call security in to toss out the bohemians with potty mouths and faint hint of body odor.

There was a time when men wore suits to the ballpark but not because they were businessmen; that’s just what men wore every day in those long ago times 40 and more years ago. They drank warm beer, chain smoked Chesterfields and nickel cigars in their seats, ate hot dogs slathered with onions and kraut and yelled obscenities at the shortstop for not turning that double play, which would have ended the inning instead of giving those other rat bastards wearing visiting team’s grey flannels a chance to score 3 runs off a tired and dogged pitcher. Don’t get them started on that pitcher. The fan’s mother in law has a better curve ball than he does and she can stare down a man better than you would believe. She’s got gas and that bum doesn’t even have air left in that 2 bit arm of his. Cleveland raped us with that trade.

I wish I could go to a Braves game again and hear the fan in the row behind me calling the Met’s outfielders a circle jerk of chimps and baboons, lacking a pivot man or a director, and wondering who would clean up the mess the primates left behind on the field. Or inviting the umpires to a semester or two at a school for the developmentally challenged; of whom they came from a questionable husbandry of species and doubtful parental legitimacy. Instead I hear Larry the salesman telling Vance the salesman, how the new marketing VP on the 8th floor has some tight connections since she is a Wharton alum, in between the both of them bitching about not being able to take the boat out on Lake Lanier because of the drought and how awful their hedge’s are performing in their portfolios. I want to turn around and smack Larry and Vince in the nose and mouth while calling them Yankee cocksuckers who need to go back to Long Island because their mothers are driving the prices down for the other street walking whores. I want my fellow fans to join in with furious shouts of ,”Goddman right! I’m sick of you fucks. Go back home in Alpharetta and let the men watch the goddamn game.” As we drag them through the stands and out to the main concourse of the Ted, both lose their Itallian loafers, which we toss at them after stomping them with our workboots and well worn Chuck Taylor hightops…black, faded and worn from years of wear. “Fucking Larry and Vance…don’t drag your sorry ass back here unless you want more of the beat down.”, we shout as they crawl away to the Gold parking lot to find their Hummer and Benz and drive home.

4 – The ascendency of Rotisserie Baseball and the decendency of intelligence

These days people think that looking at a box score will tell you that Ichiro went 3 for 5 last night against the A’s. That isn’t how you read a box score, kids. Yes, Ichiro’s stats for the night are there but if you know how to read a box score you’ll be able to recreate the game as it was played and you would know that the two times he didn’t get a hit were with men on base and one man in scoring position.

My Grandpa taught me how to read a box score when I was still in Elementary School and was too young to stay awake long enough to hear or see the west coast Braves games. With his imparted wisdom and knowledge I could get the next day’s newspaper and recreate the game in my head and on paper with a pencil. I knew that Roland Office’s 0 for 4 performance at the plate wasn’t for naught, that one of those outs was a sacrifice fly in the 5th inning to bring Cheney across the plate with the winning run. Roland was the hero of the game and he let his batting average dip so we could score a run and win the game.

Put away the spreadsheet’s for a few minutes and read the box score the way it is intended to be read and you won’t make mistakes like you did the year you had a failed hunch that JD Drew was going to bust out.

3 – Rookie Card syndrome

Sports Memorabilia should actually mean something other than how much it’s worth in terms of dollars and cents. Back in the early 90’s I was browsing an antique store and had the breath taken out of me by an old Textile League uniform for sale in a glass booth. I’d never seen one before in person and I have studied the Textile Leagues of Georgia for about 30 of my now-41 years on this earth. I know former players on a personal level, some who went to the bigs and the old Southern League, some have passed away and some are still alive but very advanced in age. It was a small uniform for a player on the old Lindale Georgia team, blue, and in beautiful wool complete with stirrups. Price tag said $500.00 and I felt betrayed by my passion and the wind came out of my sails. A piece of history, meaning so much to one person (me) for it’s history and symbolism, reduced to a sum a half a grand, which was almost as much as two week’s worth of my labor as a skilled tradesman at that time. I’ve never seen a Textile League uniform since that day and probably never will again. God only knows where that old Lindale uniform wound up.

The expense of buying things that have no obvious intrinsic value may be determined by demand and the vague whims of men, but the true worth of things can be found elsewhere. My hope is that uniform and the rarest trinkets of the sport are not losing their stories at the expense of financial speculation while they sit in safes and containers.

2 – The stroll to first base and taking away the inside corner

Few things have altered the attitude of the sport as the acceptance of a hitter strolling down to first while admiring their towering home run. Few things have enabled that attitude change as the league’s policy to take away a pitcher’s right to dominate the inside of the plate and knock a player back.

Back in the day, if you gazed at a big homer there was an unwritten understanding that the pitcher, who was being shown up with such disrespect, was fully within his right to park a fastball between the shoulder blades of either you or one of your teammates. Possibly both depending on how lovingly you watched the old horsehide sail into the bleachers.

This kept the “look at me” factor to a minimum, maintained a certain level of diplomacy on the field and it kept kids from looking like spoiled little brats when they emulated their heroes on the field of their Pony League game. When I was a kid, we wanted to hustle and play rough, hard and fast like Pete Rose. We wanted intensity and focus like George Brett had. We wanted to be the kid who held back the tears over a split lip and a shitload of blood pouring out when they got hit in the mouth with a ball because when Freddie Patek got spiked in the ’77 AL Championship series, he didn’t miss a beat and went back on the field to play short with a torn sanitary and stirrup sock, both soaked in blood. Schilling wasn’t the first bloody sock player to roam the diamond and Patek’s clutch playing after that awful spiking to the shin wasn’t turned into a feel good Good Morning America fluff job by the media. Patek got some camera time before the inning started and got called a tough cookie with guts and fire by the NBC announcers. After that, he played the position and didn’t even wince. We wanted to be Patek because he was tough. By God, Freddie Patek was exactly what a man was supposed to be when he played baseball.

Now days, if a batter doesn’t get the ball in his power zone and the ball comes within 2 feet of his thigh, he’ll stare down the pitcher like he’s John L. Sullivan ready to go 80 rounds. These pussies couldn’t turn on one in their wheelhouse if their lives and their baby’s mama’s lives depended on it, and getting plunked in the wallet with a 95mph fastball goes from being a free shot at stealing second in revenge for a sore ass, to becoming a shot at bowing up and puffing your chest out like the pitcher had the balls to steal the tampons out of your wife’s purse.

I wish to God that Drysdale, Gibson and Grimes were pitching today. There’d be a whole bunch of batters with sore backs from being hit by pitches and sporting black eyes from being hit by the pitchers.

1 – No more Name Game

Other than Chipper Jones, who in the league has a baseball sounding name? No one. We need some guys with names like:

Chief Bender, Waite Hoyt, Nap Lajoie, Connie Mack, Tris Speaker, Rube Waddell. Satchel Paige, Enos Slaughter, Orlando Cepeda, Rollie Fingers, Catfish Hunter, Goose Gossage. Vida Blue, Blue Moon Odom, Joe Rudi, Nellie Fox, Jimmy Foxx, Robin Roberts, Cesar Cedeno, Warren Spahn, Johnny Sain, Burleigh Grimes, Rabbit Maranville. Rube Marquand, Kid Nichols, Ducky Medwick. Dizzy Dean, Daffy Dean, Pepper Martin, Honus Wagner, Three Fingers Brown, Dazzy Vance.

There is a zip to names like that. Those sound like ball player’s names. Those names sound like Old Style beer and popping gloves and pepper games where someone takes a baseball in the throat because they didn’t move fast enough. Those names sound like they can handle themselves on a high and tight fastball. Names like that can turn a double play and make it look like workmen doing ballet. Names like that scream for a 20 point headline.

When your name is Rube, no one will bat an eye if you cuss out a fan because you are hung over and they keep razzing you about last night’s extra inning loss. With a name like Goose or Catfish, no one will think twice if you get caught in bed with three flight attendants by your wife while you were on a road trip to Cleveland. Hell, it’d be expected of you to horse around. If they call you Pepper, no one will expect anything less from you than a damn good game and a dirty uniform when the day is done, and when your day comes to retire, men with fists the size of hams will tear up and say they always liked you, felt a certain kinship with you. No one says that about guys named Drew or Todd or Jeremy.

Guys with the name Nap or Tris don’t get invited to White House functions. Guys named Burleigh don’t wind up bare chested in Cosmo or with a long line of silicone enhanced strippers out for a quick buck and some Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses for their effort. Guys who answer to the name Rabbit aren’t going to wind up on TV, mugging smug for you to buy their new line of designer clothes, Rabbit Gear for the New Urban Sophisticate. If you sign the checks with the name Dizzy, Daffy or Dazzy; you never have to worry about paying for your lunch for all your days on earth because the Rotarians, Lions Club and Jay Cees are always looking for a knee slapper over their roast beef and a story for when they get back to the office.

You’d never plunk a cat named Chief in the earhole unless you wanted the field mopped up with your ass. Only a fool would mosey down to first base after Satchel gave up a pop fly with the wind blowing out and you lucked into a dinger. He’d kill you the next time you stepped up to the plate. Hearing the PA announcer call out the names Slaughter and Grimes would add a serious tone of danger. Slaughter wouldn’t walk to the plate to 5 seconds of a Madonna song, Grimes wouldn’t have anything to do with a bad Bon Jovi song. No musical introduction is needed for those men…the name and the reputation would say all there is to say.

The good ole days were good not because we were all innocent and goodly. They were good because men acted like men and they did what men do. They worked. They had personality. They were tough. We wanted to be like them whether they were baseball players, movie cowboys or the guy who drove the fire truck and had forearms bigger than Popeye. They were men and you could not wait to grow up and be a real man too. The worst thing that ever happened to baseball, in the long run, was mistaking youth for childishness and immaturity. Sooner or later the brats and babies will spoil the game. They did and we let them.

Client 9

2008-03-11T10:32:00.000-04:00

While the media falls over themselves for the sex angle in the Spitzer case, the real story is being ignored. It makes good copy to report the Governor is going down in flames for some paid fucking, it’s even better on the hypocrisy meter since he’s busted prostitution rings. It’s not good copy to get into the financial disaster that awaits us and Spitzer was hip deep in brokering deals to prop up the bond insurers market.

Ambac, one of the AAA rated bond insurers on the verge of losing it’s rating and being a huge domino in the already falling world economy, was ‘saved’ last week after more than a billion USD were pumped into it in a deal headed by Spitzer. Ambac’s stock from yesterday looks like fingerprints at the scene of a crime. A spike in price shortly after the bell rang followed by a huge drop, before news of the Spitzer fuck-fest hit the street. Ambac went down 23% before the bell rang. Spitzer was brokering more deals in an attempt to save the bond insurers.

What happens when these bond insurers go tits up? It’ll be worse than the ongoing sub-prime crisis. Those insurers were there to back the banks for losses from a variety of disasters all of which are looming larger on a daily basis. What else ties in with these insurers? Everything under the sun from hedge funds to 401k investment portfolios, who have loads of money sunk into them for ‘security’. They are among the items traded in portfolios for these kinds of investments. Look at your 401k plan and look for the plans that focus on ‘safe’ investments, there you will find them lumped in with muni bonds, T-bills and other low interest ‘safe’ investments.

When the dust finally settles, Client #9 may be the side bar note that reminds us all where it really picked up steam. Time is a major liability in this economic landscape and we just lost a bunch of it with Spitzer’s bust. The powers that would benefit from a larger meltdown of the financial system have just gained time on their side with his bust.

So I can’t help but wonder…did Eliot Spitzer’s trail of Wall Street blood lead to this or did he lose his bona fides with a certain group of players because he decided to play a different game? Did he lose his usefulness to a group of people or did he become a threat to them? Of course the Feds say they were alerted to Spitzer as an ancillary target stemming from an investigation into large sums of cash being moved. Of course they are going to tell us that. All I can say is that I am sure the NSA was having a ball peering into his voice and data stream for quite some time.

The IC is linking everything about us into neatly packaged containers in their databases. Public officials have got to be targets of their monitoring simply because they are keeping tabs on their own players. They know what the weaknesses and strengths are for their own people. I have not doubt that sitting somewhere, on some server, in Ft. Meade is a matrix which the IC community can run and see what methods they can use to force a person to toe the line, and what method they can use to remove one of their people.

I think Spitzer’s downfall wasn’t his love of hookers…it was some agent or DBA within the Intelligence Community.

If you unfold a street map, you can never refold it in the same way again.

2008-03-07T11:44:00.001-05:00

It’s been weeks since I’ve made an entry to the blog. Not because there haven’t been news stories that are pertinent to the subjects I discuss or for a lack of thoughts on the world around us. The reason is simply time management and outside interests.

Of all the things that keeps me going every day, dragging my beleaguered ass into the office to make more money for someone above me in the income food chain, isn't one of them. Having and maintaining a day job is what it is; a way to pay bills and advance down the professional road as far as I wish to take that road. Being paid wages for labor and services rendered is enough for most people and to those who do it and ask for nothing more, my hat is tipped to you.

What gets me up and keeps me going every day is the knowledge that once I am done with the 9 to 5 white collar job, I can go home and focus on the jobs that I do to make extra money. The work that I do for me, and my own benefit, are what keeps me going. Up until recently I looked at the home based business process as just a way to help pay bills and get me through the rough spots that modern life throws all of us. Now, I am in the middle of one of those life-changing phases that strike folks like me from time to time.

After I left the Navy in 1992 I began a cycle of working a wide range of jobs and trying different professions, not because I couldn’t maintain a single job, but because my mind is prone to jumping to new interests at an alarming rate. In the first 5 years after rejoining the civilian world I worked construction, been a full-time student, worked as a machinist and did testing in an R&D shop for a company in the alternative energy field. I’ve been in the IT industry since 1997 and have plied this trade in 4 different industries; hospitality, mechanical services, marketing research and credit card processing. I’m about to move in a new direction and this one is going to be strange and interesting.

There is a certain critical point where your perception of what you have been doing and what you perceive to be a potential new career, flips. Like an iceberg rotating itself to maintain it’s mass in relation to the earth’s gravity and it’s own buoyancy, this is the point where all things are heaved over. Even the most simple and mundane things such as driving down the road become filtered through a new set of eyes and you no longer see things the way you did before. Now I see opportunity where I once saw ‘nothing’ and the way I used to think in this area seems overly simplistic.

This is not to say that I am moving away from the blog. I will still comment on the events and news that connect to Conspiracy Theory and the High Weirdness subjects. I’m only saying that for the time being, maybe until late summer or early fall, my posts will be far less frequent. I hope you will still stay with this blog as I do foresee many things worthy of comment and I humbly appreciate the positive and kind words I’ve had from so many of you who have “stumbled” onto this blog in the last year. I will still post, I will still rant and rave, I will still call out politicians on their bullshit. I will still do what I have always done, just in smaller doses.

Change is never bad when it is welcomed and comes on your own terms. Some people spend their entire life changing but never seeming to make headway. Making headway in this old world is all about following the paths that you see fit to follow. One of the people I link to from this site and have mentioned before in previous postings is the artist Mack White.

Mack has recently retired from his job at the University of Texas and is pursuing his work full time. The university job, he has written about, paid for his support through the years so he could continue to create. Now he has retired from that position and his work, his own energy and his own direction is his focus. Mack should be very proud of the route he is taking. Any creative soul who stays on their path and does what it takes to maintain that outlet is one worthy of praise.

That is the kind of change I am talking about. Following the path that you create, the path you see illuminated and the path you know is true. While my new path isn’t going to follow a creative endeavor it is still one that I will be proud of when I get to the next turning point. God only knows where that next turning point will come from and what it will be.

So, for the time being hold on to your hats and don’t delete that bookmark for this blog. It isn’t curtains for me. I still have thoughts and weird subjects to mine. It’s time for me to adjust to the new surroundings, get my bearings and call back to you from the wilderness from time to time.

Helpful hints for the regular guy if faced with a radioactive and toxic spy satellite.

2008-02-20T09:30:00.000-05:00

I realized last night that with all of the senior officials of our government being out of the country for the satellite shootdown, and the quiet approach by FEMA, that someone needs to give the average American some advice on what to do if this thing comes down in their back yard. Now, I’m no rocket scientist, health care professional or NSA spook, so take these bits of advice with a grain of salt.

What you should do if the satellite falls in your back yard:

Run like a scalded dog.
Run very far away.
Run very fast.
Don’t look back.
Screaming at the top of your lungs is optional.
Run so fast that the soles of your shoes begin to smolder.

What you should not do if the satellite falls in your back yard:

Don’t poke around the debris field with a stick.
Put visions of YouTube fame out of your head.
Don’t put pieces of the wreckage in your mouth, even if they do look like Charms Blow Pops.
Don’t call your cousin to come over to take pictures.
Don’t let your hounds sniff around the wreckage.
Don’t say, “Lookie what I found, fellers.” when the Army arrives.
Don’t tell your kids that Santa finally made it to your street and he left a jungle gym out back.
Don’t think about how much money you are going to make at the recycler.
Don’t call NASA or the NSA, cover the mouthpiece of the phone with a handkerchief and say, “I’ve got something you lost…fer a million, billion, jillion dollars I’ll give it back to ya.”
Don’t call 911 and tell the dispatcher that you’ve got a crashed UFO in your yard.
Don’t blame it on Osama.
Don’t sit in front of the TV watching the Fox news report coming from a helicopter camera and tell your wife, “Damn if that don’t look a lot like our place.”

Wow. The sky really is falling!

2008-02-19T10:36:00.001-05:00

If you’ve followed this blog for a given length of time you know that I love analogies. The more absurd the analogy the better and every time I turn around the Government gives me more material for new analogies. This Thursday the Navy is going to try to shoot down one of the NRO’s spy satellites. This is a satellite the spy agency at first told us is nothing to worry about, even though it’s loaded with about 1000 pounds of highly toxic fuel and, if that weren’t enough, somewhere between three quarters of a pound to almost a pound and a half of plutonium. So, now the Navy gets to “test” it’s new missile defense shield system on this bus sized beast.

Folks, Imagine you are sitting in your apartment and there is a knock at the door. You open the door and there is your neighbor with smiles for you and a slightly sheepish look on his face. “Hey, I hate to bother you but I just wanted to let you know that if you see a snake in your apartment you should get away from it and come see me.” You ask your neighbor why and he says, “I’m a snake collector and one of them…well…sort of got out and I can’t find him in my apartment, so I’m afraid he’s going to show up unannounced in someone’s apartment. He wouldn’t have slithered away outdoors since it’s winter and too cold.” Your neighbor leaves with the reminder, “DON’T go near the snake if you see it, just come get me. Okay?”

Away your neighbor runs and you are flipped out over the snake news. A few days later he knocks at your door again wearing snake boots, heavy protective clothing, carrying a shotgun with bandolier strapped across his chest and a pack of insane and fierce ferrets in a box. “I have a plan for getting the snake. Can I come in for a bit?” Now your neighbor tells you he needs to kill the snake because it’s just too dangerous to allow a surprise appearance. “Look, I hate to tell you this but it’s a deadly black Mamba that got out. He last ate a few weeks before he turned up missing and I think he’s hungry, pissed and aggressive. I need to set the ferrets loose and dig around for this thing and kill it.” You ask if it’s safe to be in your apartment and your neighbor tells you, “Um…yeah…sure. Just sit down and do what you normally do at home. Oh, and if the snake slithers out in front of you I need you to yell for me immediately.”

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what our government is up to these days. There is a highly toxic bus soaring out of control over our heads, which also houses the latest and greatest electronic spy secrets the NRO can lift into outer space. Something has spooked (no pun intended) the spooks so badly that they have let the cat out of the bag with other alphabet agencies and the danger posed by this is so great that the Navy is going to shoot it down.

Let’s be honest, the government doesn’t really care if toxic substances poison 100% of the world’s population. Even recent history shows that they lied their asses off about the levels of toxicity in the World Trade Center debris and dust clouds. Before that we have above ground atomic bomb tests, the spraying of biological pathogens on the city of San Francisco and we still have a massive arsenal of chemical and biological weapons sitting in bunkers, still not destroyed. The government isn’t worried a bit about people dying if this thing crash lands smack in the middle of Times Square or even on an elementary school in Somewhere, USA. To paraphrase Stalin, one dead person is a tragedy, a million dead bodies is a logistics challenge.

So why are they all hot to trot at shooting this thing down? Is it the equipment onboard that has them shaking like crazy? Are they afraid the thing will wind up in the middle of China, spilling secrets willy-nilly like a missing Los Alamos hard drive? This would still be a lousy “real world” test of the missile shield defense system since the parameters of the test would be uncontrollable.

I have to wonder if there are not other secrets onboard this craft that the government does not want the world to know about? I have to assume that the NRO’s satellites have a defensive system onboard with several sub-systems and ancillary systems supporting the mission. A “gun” system would of course be needed to disable or destroy anything that is trying to destroy the satellite. I doubt it’s a real gun with ammunition that packs a high kinetic kill capability, due to the weight issues of carrying a magazine of high-density slugs. An energy-based weapon would be more in line with I assume it would have and it also makes me think there may be more plutonium onboard than first mentioned. I’d say the pound and a half, while quoted as the high end, is actually on the low end.

I assume it would have an electronics package for target assessment, target assignment and weapons tracking. This would be a big loss to the spy agencies if it fell into foreign hands, as it would give them the blueprint for jamming the defense systems. I also assume it is carrying the most recent mods for the actual surveillance payload. The imaging system is perhaps far beyond what any of us can imagine and there have been hints before that the newest generation of these satellites can see through dense material. In other words, it can see through walls and roofs. I have always assumed they have advanced these systems to a point where they can actually pick up sound as well.

Let’s keep an eye on this one, it could be interesting and even if the Government says all was a success and the satellite was shot down and is now sitting in harmless chunks on the bottom of the Pacific, I’d still be suspicious of what has actually occurred. Consider a news story that just came to light yesterday with the Dallas DA’s office announcing the release of 15 boxes of secret info about the Kennedy assassination. In the more than 40, and approaching 50 years since that stockpile has been sitting in a vault, every Dallas DA had decided to keep those documents and their existence, a secret. If the Dallas DA’s office can keep a secret squirrel stash of over a dozen boxes of evidence after the millions of man hours, maybe even billions, spent by researchers and enthusiasts to study the Kennedy Assassination, we have to automatically assume the Feds know far more than they are letting on. We can apply this same knowledge to our current governmental agencies and personnel.

Keep looking to the skies…keep looking.

The Baskin-Robbins of Politics.

2008-02-08T14:23:00.000-05:00

The mainstream media has spoken and made up our minds for us. Here we are nine months away from the big election and they’ve whittled down the field for us. Thanks to the fourth estate the horse race is now down to a handful of sway back nags, frothing at the mouth for the finish line. Too bad we are still in the first corner and have a long backstretch to look forward to. At least our summer won’t be ruined with all that ‘perlitikel’ junk.

Now that the Un-Fab Four are set, it’s time to do what any other red-blooded American should do. It’s time to take the piss out of the surviving bathing beauties so we can focus on the important races that the average American might actually have a chance of determining the outcome for; such as who will be the dog catcher in their county. I’ve got my eye on Billy Bob but I’m not certain if the CFR or the Trilaterals have given him the green light to pick up our strays. There are actually five candidates in the race but the press corp is ignoring Ron Paul as though he's the guy who shows up stag for the senior prom and hangs out at the refreshment table. I'll give him some love here but remember, this is a take the piss out of them post. Don't flip out on me.

Here, for your enjoyment, is a look into the future. I’m going to tell you what will happen to each candidate 10 minutes after being sworn in. This way, when the CFR makes it’s final decision and the Diebold machines get their new logarithm uploaded, you won’t be surprised by what happens in the dreary year of our Lord, Two Thousand Nine, on a depressing afternoon in January:

Ron Paul – Ten minutes after being sworn in he breaks out a gigantic blackboard eraser and he wipes the slate clean. Everything gets reset and he mobilizes the National Guard to clear the halls of every government agency and locks the doors shut. We will all be on our own, which wouldn’t be bad since he would probably have the courtesy to go on TV and tell us to pack sand and figure out what to do on our own. Hey, the system is already broken, let’s just Mad Max it and be done with the foreplay.

Mike Huckabee – Ten minutes after being sworn in he looks to the heavens, says “Thank you, Jesus! I’m commin’ to see ya’!” and asks which button he’s supposed to push to kill everyone. Nukes fly, billions die, Mikey Boy has to be removed from office by force and the rest of his un-natural life is spent endlessly rocking back and forth while singing Amazing Grace under his breath and out of key; occasionally interrupted by his shouts of “Why’d yew fersake me, sweet Jesus?” or “Just give me one more missile to shoot? Please? I won’t be bad again. Honest, I won’t”

John McCain – Ten Minutes after being sworn in he orders the Navy and Air Force to “Bomb the living shit out of any place that isn’t America.” When confronted by his aggression during his first press conference, President McCain will look and point toward the TV camera and ask, “Is that thing on?” after being told the camera is indeed working he’ll stare right into it and say, “Tough titty. Suck it, Uncle Ho.”

Barak Obama – Ten minutes after being sworn in he’ll be given secret papers out of the White House file labeled ‘BUSH, GEORGE W – LIST OF BROKEN SHIT FOR THE NEXT PERSON TO FIX’ For the first time he gets to see just what it is he’s dealing with, which prompts him to ask the closest Secret Service agent, “Okay, who’s got Marlboros and a light?” While browsing the stack with a smoke dangling from his mouth he can be heard to mutter, “What the fuck, man?” and after a few more pages, “Bull shit!” and upon finishing the last page, “Goddamn, man… I should have stayed in Illinois. Motherfucker! Go get me a carton of Marlboros!” Ultimately gives in and becomes one with the system after he realizes that “Change” is something you carry in your pocket, not something you make the real leaders of this country do.

Hillary Clinton – Ten minutes after being sworn in she has to tell Bill to get the fuck away from her desk, shoo away two of Bill’s groupies, investigate what’s going on with Bill after things get too ‘quiet’ in the Lincoln Bedroom. Spends the first day in office correcting heads of state by saying, “No, this is Hillary.” when they call to send their best wishes, and she answers the phone by saying, “President Clinton speaking. How can I help you?” and they say, “Bill? You sound funny. Are you alright?” Things go downhill from there. Richard Mellon Scaife, however, has a field day. Fills her evenings drinking whisky with John McCain and contemplates contacting Rush Limbaugh to see if he’ll take a blow job to back off a bit so she can “get my head together”.

Personally I am disheartened that Mitt Romney dropped out of the race. I had a feeling that sooner or later the stress would get the best of him and he would break out into his Sylvester the Cat imitation when asked his thoughts about some tragedy or some other inappropriate moment. Let’s face it, any country club lizard that has the balls to lie his ass off by declaring he saw his father marching with Martin Luther King and then have his campaign manager try to defuse the ramifications of that bullshit by saying, “He was speaking metaphorically” is a force of nature to be reckoned with. Romney’s metaphors are quite interesting and remind me of one uttered by the great Formula 1 racer Mika Hakkinen years ago when he was asked his thoughts over fellow racer Jaques Villeneuve, who said that driving his car through the Eau Rouge turn at Spa was like sex. Hakkinen thought about it for a moment and in all sincerity said, “I think he’s shitting in his pants and mixing the two emotions.”

President Mitt Romney…my head is slowly splitting apart beginning at the part in my hair just thinking about that scenario.

Uncle Sam's wire cutters

2008-02-06T09:32:00.000-05:00

“To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.” Oscar Wilde.

In the span of less than a week, four major underwater telecommunications cables have been “cut”. Can you imagine being in a car wreck on Monday and the ambulance you are riding in after the wreck is also involved in a wreck and on Tuesday you wreck the rental car that the insurance company got for you and when you leave the lot with a second rental car, that one gets totaled too? Telecoms, governments and the media all want us to believe the car wreck story. That’s what they are force-feeding us when they aren’t busy trying to ignore the story.

What would be the reasons behind taking down an entire region’s communications grid in this way? There are several possibilities and I think the wilder ones could carry the most weight as this is an extraordinary set of equipment failures.

Some people are postulating that this is an opening salvo before Iran opens its oil Bourse. The latest given date for the opening is February 11th and it will be interesting to see how the communications situation is resolved and if there are other problems popping up when the Bourse opens. It is possible that the cables were taken down as a warning to not only Iran, but also the rest of the world, that their main means of operating in the modern financial world could be taken down with a moment's notice. I think this explanation carries the most weight as the timing and the “signal” of this communications outage is most prescient.

There are a few “I don’t know about that…” twists with a warning shot theory. Namely, the dollar is already being unpegged from Middle East oil producers and let’s face it, the US economy is already fucked six ways to Sunday. Sending some SEALs to the Med and the Gulf, armed with wire cutters and spare air tanks seems a bit like overkill. Then again, subtlety isn’t a trademark of the US Government.

There is also quite a bit of speculation that the outage is a byproduct of the US Government carrying out a large-scale surveillance program. I assume the NSA is capturing data streams en masse and in real time on most if not all international communications lines, so this seems less likely unless there were specific traffic routes that they had no access to. I have wondered, from an IT professional’s perspective, if the cables were cut to corner or head off a stream of communication that had the potential for damage. The idea of taking an all or nothing course of action with a dangerous communications link by cutting all traffic seems more damaging to the overall picture than helpful so I am not crazy about this idea either.

Time will tell what the real deal is behind the communications outage but we should keep in mind that if or when the shit really hits the fan here in the US we would never be able to find out in real time, from alternate sources, what has transpired. If the powers that be decide to pull the plug on our Democracy they’ll do it under the cover of night and we’ll all wake up to a glossy doll’s eyes version of the normal life we have become accustomed to. It will be as though surreal pixies remade our world overnight. The news will report that “something” has happened but we will not be privy to the reality. It will be as though someone snipped our transatlantic cables and satellite communications with the rest of the world. We will be blinded and unable to find content other than what they allow us to view. At this very moment, Iran is in that exact position.

One other thing to consider is the similarities of this outage and what ATT customers experienced during the transition periods when the NSA installed it's equipment in their COs. Add the BellSouth customers who couldn't get email when ATT "transitioned" those customers into their network and you have an interesting case study in how things don't flow when the feds snoop. To this day there are latency issues with email coming from BellSouth where looking at the header info will show an outbound email from a BellSouth customer, bouncing around like a pinball within ATT's network.

Downard's example

2008-02-05T12:18:00.000-05:00

Back in the early 90’s I became quite interested in the works of James Shelby Downard through various Feral House publications. While the vast majority of his writings flew over my twenty-something head, I was still able to comprehend that Downard was tapping into certain methodologies that could be used by anyone on any subject. Want to know why watching TV can make you feel depressed? Pay closer attention to the real nature of what you are watching and you will find out why you feel so rotten. Understanding the nature of TV broadcasting forces you to use some of Downard’s methodology such as understanding the language and use of symbols and words, the etymology of words, the way we really communicate and the way we truly perceive. Downard even saw the lay of the land, geography, as a form of communication.

If you have lived or spent any good length of time in Atlanta you probably know a set of high-rise office buildings on the north end of the perimeter known as the King and Queen buildings. I’ve driven by them for years, even lived within viewing distance of them and could see them out my bedroom window for years. Imagine my surprise recently as I was stuck in traffic on 400 southbound and saw them for the first time in a new light. The official name for the buildings is the Concourse Towers. Locals know them as the King and Queen buildings due to their unique open beam construction at the top of the buildings, which makes them look like King and Queen chess pieces. Downard probably would have found the symbolism and place marks of his trade in a matter of moments, for me it took years to open my eyes.

The beam structures at the top of these two buildings are white and if they were lined up on a chessboard, the white player would be facing south, with the Queen to the left of the King. I wondered, “Who is playing chess and who is their opponent?” The black opponent, it would seem, would be the city of Atlanta itself.

There is no such thing as accidental design in architecture. All aspects of a building’s design are well thought out from the colors to the shape and there is meaning behind these and many other things on large structures. Look at the very old buildings in your city and look closely for details the architect placed into them. The idea that an architect or a firm commissioning a design for a multi-million dollar building would throw symbolism into a design with no real meaning behind those designs is absurd. Symbolism is a form of communication; even a company logo is a form of communication. Even if the logo’s real meaning is to simply elicit an emotional response in the public it is still there by design. It was talked about, thought out and debated by a group of people.

Let’s look at these buildings and the overall lay of the land in Atlanta. The buildings themselves are known as the Concourse Towers and they sit immediately on the outside center of the I-285 perimeter interstate and immediately east of the GA 400 toll road which bisects 285. If we look at the opposite end of I-285 and to the immediate west of where I-75 bisects 285; just inside the perimeter is Hartsfield-Jackson airport. There is a northern “concourse” and a southern “concourse” represented in these two locations. There is the coming together or merging of the rural, suburban, exurban and urban at the perimeter.

But there are no chess piece representations of these two buildings around the airport. The King and Queen buildings are figurative representations of a chess game being played by the northern end of Atlanta against the city of Atlanta itself. Well known as a city represented by, led and governed by African-Americans, the black chess pieces are the leadership base of the city itself. It is the white suburbs against the black inner city.

Where are the other chess pieces? This one is a bit more awkward as there is not even a grid style layout to Atlanta streets. You can still see symbolic relationships to chess pieces if you look at other landmarks around the city.

To the west of the Concourse in the position for King’s Rook you will find the Dobbins Air Reserve base and the main Lockheed aircraft assembly plant where the F-22 fighter is built. In King’s Knight position you will find the location where the Chattahoochee River makes an L-shaped bend, similar to the move that that Knight can make. In Knight’s Bishop you will find two very interesting places just a few thousand feet apart, Arlington Cemetery and the Sandy Springs Masonic lodge #124.

So, beginning in the west we have a military base and a major Military-Industrial Complex facility representing the Rook, the Castle, the Siege Tower. Three miles to the east of that facility we have a natural landmark where the river bends in an L-shape like the move made by the Knight, the only piece from the back row that can be moved before the Pawns (people), and in light of our recent water woes in the southeast where the movement of water is at issue, it is interesting to note this idea. Three miles to the east of the bend in the river we have Arlington Cemetery and the Masonic lodge representing the Bishop. Two miles to the east of the Bishop are the King and Queen buildings.

Atlanta has had it’s black King; the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. His tomb at the King Center represents the black King in this game of chess; the queen is the tomb of his late wife, Coretta Scott King. His Queen’s Bishop is represented by his church, Ebenezer Baptist Church, to the west. His Queen’s Knight could be symbolically represented by I-75-85 at the “Grady Curve” which makes a long arcing turn around the east side of downtown Atlanta, somewhat similar to the L-shaped move of the Knight. His Queen’s Rook would be the Auburn Ave. district, a “stronghold of black culture in Atlanta. If his late wife is buried to the west of his body at the King Center, I would not be surprised. This is something I would like to investigate in the near future.

Even more enlightening is to take a map of Atlanta and mark the King Center and the Atlanta Masonic Temple and draw a line between the two. If you look to the west of the King Center you will see Washington Park. Draw a line between the King Center and the park and then draw a line between Washington Park and the Masonic Temple. You now have a triangle. If you turn this triangle into the All Seeing Eye and look to the center of the eye you will find the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology. The exact center of this eye is the corner of 4th Street and Fowler Street. If you look at a map of the Tech campus you will see that this is the center of Greek housing on campus - the fraternities.

Atlanta sits on the 33rd degree of latitude. 33 being a major number with Freemasonry and leads to all sorts of interesting ideas. The main Masonic Temple of Atlanta sits on the north side of I-85 at the Brookwood interchange, across the street from the Atlanta Amtrak station at the corner of Deering Rd. and Peachtree St. If you take 85 north it is impossible to not see the temple. Fraternal orders, secret societies, hidden symbolism..it is all-present even in my city.

Look around your town a bit, look for the odd and unusual but by all means, please keep your eye out for the obvious. Sometimes secrets are best told by leaving them completely in the open, where all can see the plans of the Grand Architect.

Tick...tock...tick...tock

2008-01-30T11:42:00.000-05:00

If I had four arms, I’d need a fifth. If there were 48 hours in a day, I’d need 50. Being busy and staying active is a great way to live your life but I’ve been way overloaded with things to do for months and weeks. Between my salaried job, my side jobs, taking care of personal business and the day-to-day of modern life I’ve had hardly the time to even sit down and clear my thoughts of late.

A little less than 8 years ago I was introduced to the Franklin-Covey system of day planning. I used the system sporadically and half-heartedly for the first few years but found a way to make it work for my own life about 3 years ago. Now I use it to plan not only my salaried job workday but also my personal life. The problem, for me at least, is that I tend to become a bit too efficient with this system and I’ll get too much done and from time to time I overanalyze my planning and goals. I’m trying to shake myself free from one of those events right now. I’m not having a lot of success.

I do sometimes wonder if I have OCD or ADHD, as some of the symptoms I can relate to and sometimes find myself noticing that I have several of the symptoms. Then I realize one of the reasons why my life is and always has been like it is, can be traced to what I do with my day and not so much how my mind works. I’ve always had trouble balancing personal and professional interests and goals. Since leaving the Navy I’ve always worked in places and had responsibilities that tended to make me want to actually be at work in the morning. Since I was a boy I’ve had personal activities that have made me want to rush off to them when I am on my free time.

By time I get home in the evening I have been gone for 10 to 12 hours. I take care of my two wonderful dogs and any business that needs to be tended to such as cooking dinner and bill paying. When that is done it’s time to start working on my home based business and playing with the pups while I work. By time 11 PM rolls around I’ve been on the go since waking up at 5 AM and its time for bed and hitting the stack of books at my bedside if possible. The dogs just want to go to bed and lie next to me at this point; even they are exhausted and they sleep all day. Weekends aren’t much different except I fill the day with home business work and some fun. Usually, these two areas mix as I rely on hitting yard sales, thrift stores and estate sales to buy inventory for one part of my business.

This is where it all gets interesting, the personal interests and the home based business and how they blend. I sometimes find stuff that I don’t want to resell. It could be a piece of furniture, a book, a piece of California pottery or a record. Even when I’m at work, I’m thinking of my personal interests and even when I am enjoying a personal interest I think of how to use it with my work. It is frantic at times and I have to constantly switch mental gears between the two. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by work and my personal life or I will obsess on “getting work done” and the next thing I know my days are so full of keeping busy that I can’t find the time to relax or enjoy what it is that I am doing. Sound familiar?

Yet with all this work it is still a struggle to stay on top of things and getting ahead is more like a hurdler, blasting down the track and in the lead only to nip the last two hurdles and fall into third place. I seem to clear hurdles all the time and get ahead, only to trip up and wind up holding on in the end, not gaining and maybe falling behind a little bit at a time. The hard work comes to naught. Sound familiar?

I’ve rarely had a problem with having initiative or motivating myself. When I have had those problems it’s been because I was worn out physically or mentally unfocused. Age has given me some wisdom and experience to notice when that is happening and do something about it. But initiative and motivation are not all that is needed to get ahead in life. Having some inspiration, time and a good idea can be hard to find all at the same time, let alone motivation and initiative. Sound familiar?

I’ve heard before that sometimes a person’s life is simply to be the “cautionary tale”, I’ve also heard differing opinions on the hand that luck plays in life and I know there is always a killing to be made by book publishers when it comes to self help books. As I’m getting older and my ways are becoming more and more set and I struggle to keep fighting the good fight in life and I have always tried to be what John Lennon described in his song ‘Working Class Hero’. Sound familiar?

I realize that the only “success” I will ever see are the many small battles of life that I win. I have become what I was going to become. I made myself into what I am today and the only time I feel like I haven’t amounted to much is after I have been watching TV for too long. Those commercials and the blathering of talking head gibberish is always geared toward making us feel like losers unless we live in the McMansion, drive the Hummer and lead a vapid existence with a head full of propaganda. Sound familiar?

I sometimes think what has kept me going and not becoming one of the burned out victims of our society is a deep-seated fear of being typical or being “just like everyone else”. When I was growing up I didn’t seem to fit in and when I visit my family in the Appalachian foothills of north Georgia I often wonder just how in the hell I wound up like I am. This leads me back to where I began this post, being overloaded with work and staying active in a healthy way.

Hope has always been the key. Hope will keep you alive. Hope will keep you going. Hope, in spite of the world you see in front of you, is what matters. Hope got me out of the hills and hope makes me admire the simple life of my hometown instead of being embarrassed or condescending of the place I came from and the people I cleaved myself from. Hope is what tells me I can be myself, do my own thing and keep searching for more and meaning to it all without having to be exactly like everyone else in an Atlanta office. Hope tells me it is okay to do this and hope tells me it will be okay in the future.

Hope is directly connected to faith, belief, charity, vision, wisdom, coping with reality and ultimately; life itself. Lose hope and you lose the reason to live. Lose hope and you’ve lost the ability to think through the obstacles of life. Lose hope and you can have no faith in God, your brothers and sisters or yourself. Hope is what keeps me going; hope that I can make my small mark in life, hope that I can overcome what lies ahead. I don’t know if overloading myself is a sign that I am desperately in need of something to be hopeful for or if it is simply a sign that I am just optimistic.

I hope for a better future and I hope I can get my life running in a slightly less hectic pace. I hope you are doing well and I hope we will all see a brighter day ahead in spite of all these dark clouds. Afterall, we do have hope...

Train rolls on...

2008-01-23T15:08:00.000-05:00

Wheezing along like an asthmatic marathon runner in Denver, the economy chugs away. Billions upon billions lost, fiat money that never had backing, never had more value than the inflation that keeps it afloat. Sphincter muscles pucker along every latitude and longitude of the globe. Some poor bastard on a Micronesian island paradise is probably shitting himself over the falling value of his coconuts and the rising cost of maintaining his topless beauties in fish meat right about now. All except for the 946 billionaires who walk the earth. I still wonder about the possible existence of a so-called “Top Out of Sight” overclass and how many of them could make Bill Gates look more like a socio-economic version of me.

At this point it appears that even the egghead economists aren’t too sure of what’s going to happen next. It’s a bit like a thousand people discussing Global Warming or God, or a thousand baseball fans discussing steroids and record books. No one, and I mean no one, seems to have a clue as to what is about to happen and when it will happen.

I’m a worrier by nature. I “borrow trouble” as the old southern saying goes. This is one thing I don’t worry about for 1 second. Simple reason; I can’t effect change in the market and what little money I do have would be wiped out for a glimpse of a slice of stale white bread if inflation grew to a point it once was in Germany post World War I. I’m stuck with what the bastards do and change never comes when things are running smoothly like a big V-8 driving a Powerglide transmission down an empty stretch of winding road. Change comes when the engine seizes or the toque converter self-destructs and you are stuck on the side of the road.

I worry about what happens next but ya’ know what, folks? If the other shoes does drop and we all lose our jobs and a single egg costs $1000.00 USD, fuck all will be done to remedy the problem immediately. What did Reagan say in the early 80’s? He had the balls to say, “People who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by choice.” Fuck all will be done to make sure you don’t freeze at night. Nothing has every really been done to solve the poverty problem in this nation for ages.

Think the Washington fat cats will go into an emergency session because a bunch of C++ coders got evicted from their apartments and have to sleep in their Accords? Fuck all will be done no matter what will happen. There aren’t many homeless folks who stand in line at their polling location on Election Day and we are in an election year. The politicians have their asses covered already; they don’t give a fuck about me and mine or you and yours.

What happens, happens. Now, what is very important is how you and I react if all hell breaks loose. I’m not talking about rampaging and rioting in the street. Shit, I’m in my 40’s, have a back that goes out when the weather gets too cold and damp and I’ve got dogs to feed every day. I’m in no mood or shape or mental state to go on a crazed Viking rampage through the burbs, scarfing up loaves of bread, gallons of milk and bags of Nutro dog food. Hell no.

I do, however, have neighbors. You do too. I’m sure most of us work in similar fields, are in similar situations and have similar backgrounds. All of us will be in this together so we need to stick with one another. Why not commandeer the green spaces of your apartment complex and start a community garden. What is management going to do? Call the cops on Mr. Green Jeans and his helpers? I think the local Barney Fife’s and Sheriff Andy’s are going to have bigger fish to fry than a bunch of vegetable garden growing apartment dwellers.

Why not say enough is enough and back yourself completely out of the credit and banking system we all see and get ripped off by? Why not say to hell with Exxon and Sheik’s making a killing of my labors and take the bus and or subway a few times a week? Why not tell lying fourth estate imposters to take a hike and not watch their TV “news” programs, turn off the talk radio and ferret out those alternative media sources and weigh what you read, judge the source and make your own judgment from facts?

For things to get “better” in this country, we, the people, need to take a look at what goes on in our individual lives and then fix the problems. When powers greater than us affect change in our own realms, we can find the focus and direction to take in beating them back out of our lives. Politicians won’t save us, Ministers won’t save us, and the riches of the world won’t save us. As individuals, we can save ourselves and help our neighbors. I’d give my neighbor a $100 before I dared dreaming of giving a fucking millionaire politician a penny of my money, an ounce of my labor or a second of my time.

If you want to know the best way of protecting yourself in the coming economic collapse, look to yourself and your neighbor. Don’t look for a Knight in shining armor who has a flag bearing an elephant or a donkey.

There Will Be Boos

2008-01-21T13:41:00.000-05:00

I was able to catch the new PT Anderson film, There Will Be Blood, this past Friday night with a small and mixed audience. A few couples, two groups of twenty-somethings and the rest of the audience were comprised of folks like me, middle aged and seeing the film alone. As the end credits came up one of the twenty-somethings stood and to no one in particular and everyone in particular, stated, “That fucking sucked” before leaving with his buddy. I guess he was expecting Boogie Nights on an oil rig.

The middle aged folks stayed to watch the credits, the younger generation left like their feet were on fire; dropping snarky comments complete with giggles. I think the non-graying folks missed the two main themes of the film, at least what I saw as the main themes. You can never judge or trust a person by their words but you can always count on their true nature coming out through their actions. The other theme being we learn by observing and teaching will always be our truest legacy, not what we said or did in our lives. Listen to the experienced, watch how they act, let your actions speak for themselves and pass down your wisdom. In showing us these ideas, Anderson has succeded; and has created a new template to view American life. It felt a bit like Peckinpah, looked a bit like Ford and still has the Altman sensibility. This is his answer to the Kubrickean question.

Daniel Plainview is Ouroboros, this film is Ouroboros, we in turn are Ouroboros. Listen, learn and teach comes full cycle between teacher and student, child and parent. This story and the characters are cyclical in our reality and our history and in the world of film. There is the reality of the corporate state in the early 20th century and the loop we have made in return. The Plainview character should remind us all of someone we have worked with or for, and in him we should see our own nature. Oil has always driven us to bloodshed. The symbolism is almost too much and can at times overwhelm the story.

I should have seen this one coming when I read the reviews that mention Citizen Kane and noticed that the first 16 minutes resemble 2001: A Space Odyssey, while the ending reminds me of Lolita, a film which Kubrick began and ended with the same scene. Ouroboros. No wonder the twenty-somethings smirked as they left and the middle aged sat and watched the credits. They had no frame of reference and whatever they expected when they walked into the theater, it appears they didn't get what they came for.

There is the mixing of religion and the “Church of the Third Revelation” which is taken almost entirely from Spiritism and the Third Revelation movement, a sly reference to evangelist Billy Sunday, we even got a curve ball out it, maybe even a spit ball if you count Plainview's assaying technique. Cain and Abel, a variant of the name of God as spoken in Hebrew and Aramaic, the duality of man. Anderson reached very high with this film. He’s becoming a great storyteller and he’s entering a new phase of originality. Is he shooting arrows too far over our heads?

Perhaps this film will be a touchstone of our time, a representation of where America was in the early 21st century. Individualists with singular focus staking their own places out of society, while the business savvy corner the markets we all depend on. Raving lunacy for the spirit of God coming from false prophets of our time and their followers pointing pious fingers at the “weakness” of others while unable to hide their own hypocrisy and lusts.

As the old saying goes, those who fail to heed history are doomed to repeat it. Students of the Bible can tell us about “Generational Curses”. As for me…I’ll keep watching ATT gobble up all that they once divested, while staring at the Lucent logo and wondering if the National Recovery Administration logo looks dated.

A young 73

2008-01-09T10:33:00.000-05:00

Yesterday would have, or should I say could have been the 73rd birthday for Elvis Presley. With the complete pimping of his legacy and the passage of time, Elvis looks quaint and comical in this, the end of the first decade of the new century. The sparkled and colorful jumpsuits with massive 6” belt buckles, the shows in Vegas and the ultimate ballooning of weight before death took him. They all combine and make Elvis the cautionary tale for gluttony and the passing fancy of clothing styles. He wasn’t the jumpsuit or the fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, and he wasn’t the cat in the movies. He was something else, entirely.

Late June 1954 saw the recording of his first hit with the great Scotty Moore on guitar and the late Bill Black working the slap bass and almost fifty-eight years have since passed but the immediate and lasting effect Elvis had on southern culture and the national obsession with pop culture can still be found. Regardless of how you view his place in music history or view the credit he has been given over many black artists of his era, Elvis still carries the flag for being the first wave of modern pop culture icons. He was the first wave of leaders for the youth of America who unappologeticaly flew his freak flag, allowed his true inner self to be seen and showed the kids a glimpse of what freedom was really all about.

Consider this, like Frank Sinatra Elvis was a teen idol. Elvis had something else working on the periphery of his fame; the danger associated in the 50’s with race, leadership of American youth, the promotion of self-realization and blistering overt sexuality. Unprepared and realizing much too late that he was not a fad, it is easy to understand the dread Elvis struck in the minds of the American power base. He could muster thousands of screaming, out of control teenagers at the mere mention of his presence. All this at a time when the CIA was hip deep in MKULTRA and J. Edgar Hoover initiated the COINTELPRO program. He was a threat to the systemic control over the minds of Americans that government agencies and business and financial leaders were fighting for.

Two short years after becoming a national presence, Elvis was drafted into the Army and while stationed in Germany his long affair with dope began. In 1960 the Army discharged Sgt. Presley to a pop culture landscape that was becoming much more corporate controlled, a career in Hollywood movies that would sap the power of his presence and an American music scene that was beginning to fracture. The Army and corporate America quelled the danger he posed to their agendas. He never shook the core of American consciousness again on the same level as he had between 1956 and 1958. He wasn’t allowed to recreate himself as he had while touring the south between 1954 and 1956.

Look at the early pictures of Elvis before Sam Phillips sold his contract to RCA. Look very closely at his eyes and you can see that he wore eye shadow and mascara. Elvis was wearing makeup not as a stage effect or as a sign of an alternate sexual nature. For a young truck driver who loved wearing amazing Lansky Brothers suits this was a radical thing to do. This, coming from a young man who was actually unpopular and bullied while in school, is even more amazing. In 2008, a teenager in high school who is bullied might go on a killing spree. In the early 50’s it was a different beast, a different and dangerous path to follow, even in a wild southern city like Memphis.

My God, those suits and those clothes. The Lansky Brothers made wearing black pants with a pink shirt something even a street fighter could wear and pull women while tipping back a bottle of Schlitz. Roll collar shirts, pegged pants, you name it and he made it look good. Once Elvis hit, those guys couldn’t keep anything on the shelves long enough to go out of style.

That is the Elvis I think of when his name is mentioned. Not the stoned and obese tragedy. I think of the young man fresh from a truck route and the Memphis projects who made the men carrying the weight of power shift uncomfortably with concern as they realized he wasn’t going to simply go away. Elvis was the epitome of the poor white trash southerner who doesn’t seek revenge but finds it when he becomes a success on his own merits and with absolute freedom. Freedom is the true reason he was dangerous to the CIA, Hoover and the establishment. He showed the kids of the 50’s that being yourself and doing your own thing was far greater than following the pack.

2007 - Long, long gone.

2007-12-31T09:30:00.001-05:00

The year of our Lord, Two Thousand Seven; is in it’s final hours. The year’s end is a time of reflection and a chance to look forward, reassess where we stand now and where we want to go in the future. It’s a time to make plans, set goals, hope and learn. Some just get loaded. Aye… even I have resembled a Jello Biafra song, too drunk to fuck, indeed.

It’s been a year of tumultuous events but hardly anything seems to have changed in the world for the better. The scope of this past year’s craziness is so vast that I’m going to miss some events while writing, which is probably a good thing as I don’t want this to be a 5,000 word essay. So here they are, the stories of 2007:

Politics:

The Democratic Party assumed control of both houses of Congress and immediately proceeded to turn into stone. The 110th Congress has done fuck all regarding the issues they were elected to remedy. About as useful as a screen door on a submarine, they are a shameful lot of rats, all of them.

Scooter Libby was found guilty of obstruction of justice in the Plame Gate case. Big Daddy Bush commuted his sentence and Florida land baron/mind control enthusiast Mel Sembler headed an effort to raise the money to pay for poor little Scooter’s fine. The media has taken a holiday since Bush said, “Bad Scooter! No! No!”

It was learned that 7/8ths of the Republican Party are closeted homosexuals.

Half of the Republican Party who is closeted couldn’t sneak a blowjob or two without getting caught. We learned that wide stance is an affliction suffered by flaming Idaho Mary’s who love to play footsie in airport shitters.

The DC Madam story broke open, then closed. The 1/8th of the Republican Party who isn’t a closeted homosexual seems to like sex with hookers more than their wives. I guess wives get a little touchy when their husband wants to dress up in a diaper like Louisiana Congressman David Vitter does. I wonder why?

Georgia Governor, Prince Sonny the First, declared war against invertebrates as mollusks and the Army Corps of Engineers faced his wrath. Sonny boy prayed for rain, sat on his ass and appeared as lucid and insightful as a drunken chimpanzee on the national news. Go, Sonny! You are a beacon for Georgia tourism, especially on a double bill with screenings of Deliverance. You make us seem so smart.

War:

The US is still at war. We have always been at war. War brings peace and prosperity. War is…holy shit. What am I saying? $10 billion USD gets flushed down the toilet every week; along with arms, legs and eyes. General Dynamics, Lockheed, Haliburton, etc…get fatter and fatter.

The bloodthirsty vampires still want war with Iran, North Korea, Syria, China and Russia. That type of psychopath has always wanted war.

No end is in sight as the 110th Congress is afraid of the spin the vampires will use against them and God only knows they are afraid of losing that cushy DC job and their health care. Fucking douchebags.

The Economy:

Our economy is melting down faster than Britney Spears with a bottle of Zanax and a couple of jugs of Two Buck Chuck. Mortgage companies have gone tits up. Banks have gone tits up. Property values have gone tits up. Greenbacks have gone tits up. Gas is never going to sell for less than $2.80 again and $10 will get you a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk and a bottle of store brand aspirin and nothing else. Hot air is all that is keeping us afloat.

Conspiracy Theories:

April brought us the VaTech Massacre. This event was a major Black Op that pulled in many disciplines of Conspiracy Theory research; Mind Control experts, Assassin studies, Illuminatists, the Theocratic researchers. Everyone saw something in this event that made their eyes open wide and gasp. Even Lorne Coleman was able to write about it as copycats sprang up in places as interesting as NASA headquarters in Houston. This story will return in the future as some researcher will dig much deeper than any of us already have.

Tainted products – This is a story that is still with us. Beginning with poisoned dog food in the spring, we have had one horrifying story after another involving tainted food and consumer products imported from China. At one point the Chinese government official in charge of ensuring product safety was executed after it was learned that he had accepted bribes to look the other way. This story will follow us into 2008 and beyond as our food and product safety watch dog has been all but put to bed forever.

Youtube – There was no specific Conspiracy Theory associated with YouTube, it is interesting to take note at how this site has become front and center in an interesting way for this area of research. Black, white and gray propaganda can be found in all it’s forms with “user submitted” videos. We saw supposed UFO videos, viral marketing campaigns and now we are seeing alternate videos of the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. This is a site we should all take with a grain of salt and be wary of the authenticity of the short videos posted. Don’t assume a YouTube video is as it seems to be, just as you would do with Wikipedia.

Benazir Bhutto Assassination – This is a massive story and could become a history turning point. Bhutto wasn’t killed by simple minded and singularly focused Islamic extremists, as the media and the governments would have you think. Follow this story as it develops as this may very well be a high-water moment in the current direction of world events.

The American Police State – We started the year with indignation over the Atlanta Police Department storming the home of an elderly women, murdering her in cold blood, attempting to plant evidence and cover their tracks and we have ended it with sensory overload regarding the seemingly random use of the taser against innocent American citizens on an almost daily basis. The fire departments in America are being asked to spy on their fellow citizens. City leaders try to tell us how to dress in public and we have no more privacy. It is all gone…forever. Power that our government currently has will not be relinquished.

Sports:

I’m waiting to hear reports that Braves announcer Skip Carey and the batboys for the Detroit Tigers are on performance enhancing drugs. In years past that would have meant beer for the announcer and Bazooka gum for the batboys. I don’t know if Clemens really did the juice or not but I have to say that I saw and heard Rog’s fastballs in late 1990 when he came back from arm problems, saw his decline through the 90’s and a mysterious return to form in the late 90's with a sudden pop, movement and velocity that he didn’t even have back in 1990. If that was the Flexall 454 I would be surprised.

Barry Bonds – All-Time Home Run King.

Barry Bonds – Indicted for perjury before a federal grand jury.

Barry Bonds – Waterhead.

Michael Vick will be able to enjoy his sabbatical in the federal pen by focusing his enormous brain on the problems associated with quantum mechanics, more specifically with issues surrounding the theory of quantum decoherence. He will, however, have to keep an eye out for an aggressive blitz by the welcome wagon who are looking at taking a blind side shot at his ass. The main question I have regarding Michael Vick’s possible return to the NFL is whether it is possible to scramble out of the pocket efficiently after 23 months of being forcefully poked in the butt with a (several?) penis? MV7, was it worth it to watch your dogs fight?

Formula 1 – A summation of the F1 season in one sentence: “There was a spy scandal, mind games between a rookie and the World Champion, overall craziness and a wild drunken Finn won the World Championship.” How was that for understatement? Major congratulations to Kimi and here’s hoping that 2008 is an even more exciting season. A big “Fuck You!” to Bernie Ecclestone for screwing the US fans out of the US Grand Prix.

That is the year that was. It almost is no more. What a year it has been and may the next be a little less stressful for all the average, workaday, Joes and Jills all around the world. We could use a break for a change, couldn’t we?

Happy New Year to you and yours and I hope you ALL have a very special year in 2008!

Babushka Lady, Umbrella Man and now we have Hatman

2007-12-28T11:36:00.000-05:00

Two of the more curious visuals of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy have long since entered the realm of conspiracy theory folklore: The Babushka Lady and the Umbrella Man. The Bhutto assassination it seems has it’s own version of this visual. While no one has yet discussed it, if you look at the photos from her last minutes a man can be seen wearing a very strange, colorful hat.

I assume, and assuming is dangerous, that this man was a member of her security detail as he is seen in many of the photos taken immediately prior to the attack. Was the hat a "GO" sign in the operation to take her life? Was the hat a type of landmark to help guide the assassin to his target?

Of course I can't help but think of the late Robert Anton Wilson when I look at the above photograph. The open palm of Bhutto, that could be seen not as a hand wave, but instead as the Indian symbol of the departed. Wilson gave us Discordia and theories about the number 23 and how all things are connected if you simply look hard enough and are clever enough to find them. The license plate on the car in which Bhutto died was 7772. Seven plus seven plus seven plus two equals twenty three. I'm not saying that I am clever or looking very hard, only that Wilson was telling us to open our eyes and look around a bit at our world, question our perspective and consider what we see when we do this.

And so it goes...

More pics of "Hatman":

...and so the year ends.

2007-12-28T10:37:00.000-05:00

We close out a year of terrible violence with an assassination. While I wish this could be a trend that is about to reverse I have suspicions that the opposite is about to happen. Another age of assassins is upon us. Another age of the CIA running wild on the planet is upon us. 2008 will be bloodier and more bold than 2007.

The lead up to the Bhutto assassination and the actual act, stink of CIA involvement from beginning to end. Many are deflecting the attention by pointing the finger of blame at “Islamic extremists” and by doing so are brushing aside centuries of Pakistani involvement with foreign intelligence, allegiances that are never set in stone and opportunistic grabs for money. It was never in the best interest of the powers that be, the current administrations of both Pakistan and America, the Military-Industrial Complex, the drug smuggling trade or the intelligence agencies to allow Bhutto a shot at becoming the leading politician of her nation.

It is a thinly veiled secret that the White House pushed the Bhutto situation down the throat of Musharraf and the Pakistan power base. They had great fear of her because of her populist agenda and her stated plans once she was re-elected as Prime minister. Had she been elected her plans were to attack every institution and operation that men like Musharraf and the US Intelligence Community make their living with. She was made cannon fodder by the White House and now the muckraker is gone. The script can continue as written.

Bhutto made no secret that she would declare open warfare on the Taliban and allow the US to enter Pakistan and begin rooting out Islamic extremists that have been given a safe haven in northern Pakistan. The safe haven that Musharraf created is the training and breeding ground for the pawns in the game of terrorism. Agencies like the CIA, MI6 and the ISI may fund, train and have a hand in terrorist groups but the rank and file soldiers are comprised of confused, angry young men who are turned into the suicide bombers and gunmen, looking for paradise promised to them by handlers trained by CIA men. Bhutto planned to shut off the fuel supply for a part of the IC machine.

The agency had much to gain from her death; Musharraf and his Persian cronies had much to gain. There is also the vague warning to Musharraf to not become a pain in the ass that wanders away from the script supplied by the US Intelligence Community. Noriega went off the script and is in a US prison. Saddam decided to become a free agent and he is dead. Bhutto is dead and if you don’t learn your lines and stick with them you’ll either wind up dead too or we will fund and woo the Generals who currently answer to you. Guatemala, Vietnam, Chile; all provide Musharraf with many examples of how the US Intelligence Community operate when the leash has been put away and after more than 6 years of the leash being removed, the agency is a well oiled machine now. Someone has hidden the lever that slows the machine, and the switch that kills the power to the machine was removed long ago.

Fifty years ago this sort of thing was happening in South America and on the fringes of Eastern Europe. The cold war was the driver for the coups and terror campaigns in the 50’s. Forty years ago this sort of thing was happening in Southeast Asia. The cold war was the pretext for the mayhem but big money and insatiable thirst for power was the driver. Thirty years ago the hangover began and the leash was applied to the Agency.

In 1978 and 79 the focus began to shift, a sea change was about to get underway. President Carter initiated an energy plan that was to have removed our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and a covert operation to combat the old Soviet Union was underway in Afghanistan. When Reagan was elected President and the former CIA chief with money, connections and power became Vice president, the gears were set into motion that has brought us to this day and age. Reagan gutted Carter’s energy plans, the CIA was sent out in the field with money to smuggle dope and guns and the death squads of Central America whetted the thirst for blood and torture. The Agency and the Reagan administration funded Saddam, Usama and the Mujahadeen with weapons and money bought and paid for with drug money earned from heroin and cocaine.

Today, the CIA, the powers that be, the Military-Industrial Complex, the real money makers of this world; are hip deep in Persia and Arabia, rampaging and playing games and having the time of their lives. Bhutto’s assassination is another power grab and chapter in the long history of the worlds most notorious and accomplished terror organization: the CIA.

Happy New Year.

Persian Poker or: What's the deal with this new NIE report?

2007-12-05T15:17:00.000-05:00

If you play card games of any type you know there are three things that guide your strategy: 1) The cards you can see. 2) The odds for the cards you can’t see. 3) Understanding the habits and strategy of your opponent(s). There are a finite number of cards, a finite number of plays and a finite number of players in any card game. If you are playing with or against someone with whom you have played before, you know how they play the cards, the odds and how they play against or with you. Politics, of any sort, bear a close resemblance to card games, the only real differences being there are fewer rules in the polemic game but the stakes are much higher. The recent revelations regarding the NIE report on Iran’s nuclear programs have brought the card game analogy to my mind.

In the spring of 2005, NIE reports that trumpeted an increased determination and focus in Iran in regard to their nuclear programs. This led the Bush administration to apply heavier pressure and increase the rhetoric against Iran. Now the NIE is rescinding that assessment stating:

“"We judge with high confidence that in the fall of 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program." Furthermore, “Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005." As well as, "Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure indicates Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs."

Taking the circumstances of this new NIE report at face value is a dangerous maneuver. To take them at face value is the equivalent of the US government directly telling the Iranian intelligence apparatus that at least two sources of intelligence have contradicted each other, and the results point directly to the source. Regardless of how the intelligence was gathered it would lead the Iranians to a strategy of back tracking their own steps to see what caused these two NIE report findings.

To take this at face value from the perspective of the Iranians would be equally dangerous. It would result in a change in their methods, a new emphasis on information security and would provide the US Intelligence Community with an opportunity to see the Iranian Intelligence Community hard at work. The best way to learn about your opponent’s methodology is to simply sit back and watch him work. Observation of the world is how we learn about the world.

We need to ask ourselves a few questions about this turn of events:

1) What are the specifics regarding the 2005 estimate that led the US government to overestimate the Iranian nuclear program?
2) What new intelligence brought to light the incorrect assessment from 2005?
3) What lessons can be learned about Iran’s strategy and tactics since they have sat back for the last two years, watching the US watch them, while knowing all along that the NIE report was wrong?
4) What lessons did Iran learn about the US Intelligence Community and it’s strategy and tactics over the last two years?
5) Did the Iranian IC manipulate the US IC into thinking it had an ongoing and active program underway? i.e. Did they give the US a red herring? What caused the US to finally realize it was a red herring?
6) Does looking at the white, black and gray propaganda from the last two years shed light into the inner workings of the Iranian and US IC?

With the exception of point number 6, details will certainly be hidden from the public. There is simply no chance in hell that this administration or any government agency would willingly tell the world the specifics of how it gathers, analyzes, disseminates and reacts to the intelligence it sifts through. Point number 6, the study of propaganda about the Iranian nuclear program(s), is one we can study.

In February of 2005, when threats of a US attack on Iran were high, Iran conducted a media campaign that threatened the use of asymmetrical warfare in the event of a US attack on it’s soil. This came only a matter of months after they conducted a massive war game exercise that increased tensions in the gulf, Washington and Tehran. The effect of this threat of guerrilla warfare stirred a series of op-ed pieces that threatened and warned American citizens that Iran has sleeper cells throughout the Persian Gulf and possibly here in America.

It also had the effect of contributing directly to two consecutive rises in the futures trading price for oil. At the end of 2001, with US forces on the ground in Afghanistan, the yearly average price for a barrel of oil was $23. At the end of 2002, when the war drums were beating heavily, the average price had dropped a little less than 1% to $22.81. At the end of 2003, with the US in Afghanistan and Iraq and the early drumbeats of war against Iran were beating, oil rose in price 21% and stood at $27.69. In 2004 oil rose another 36% to $37.66. By the end of 2005, with Washington rhetoric high and an Iranian “bring it on” style response to the Bush administration, oil had risen to $50.04, an increase of another 32%. In just 4 short years the price of oil had risen 117%.

I’m not saying that the NIE overestimate was done solely to boost oil company profits, after all the profits of every single defense contractor has also skyrocketed in this period of time as a direct result of waging two wars on two fronts, so there are other factors. Still, it cannot be overlooked that the increased uncertainty in that region that has driven the price of oil to incredible levels is directly tied to the instability created by both the incorrect NIE report and the unnecessary saber rattling by the Bush administration. This, in turn, has had an enormous and negative impact on the US economy and placed an even greater strain on the budgets of US citizens. In other words, the Bush administration has caused greater harm to the paychecks of Americans in this period of time than the government of Iran.

In this case, the white propaganda meted out by the Bush administration and it’s sycophants can be viewed as advancing the interests of the oil industry. Both the corporations and the government’s that profit on the production of oil benefited greatly by this white propaganda. The effect and the source of this propaganda cannot be overlooked.

A more recent series of events can be looked at as having a possible connection to this recent NIE report and it has a direct influence on the white and gray propaganda currently being spread regarding the situation in Pakistan. Is it possible that the sudden change in the NIE assessment of Iran’s nuclear status has less to do with Iran and everything to do with the evolving situation in Pakistan?

In August of 2005, when the initial wave of propaganda swept out from the NIE report that stirred this hornet’s nest, the IAEA released a widely under-reported piece of news. Their inspections uncovered a key piece of evidence regarding the Iranian bomb-making program. Their tests showed that the enriched uranium particles found on Iranian equipment came not from Iran, but from Pakistan. Pakistan is where this equipment was illegally imported from, all in secret.

Now, we all know that Pakistan has the bomb and we can safely assume that their nuclear program now consists primarily of making more bombs, designing higher yield bombs and honing strategies for future use of those weapons in time of war. The problem in Pakistan in regards to it’s nuclear secrets has been directly tied to Abdul Khan, the government official and nuclear scientist who admitted in 2004 to selling nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea and was exposed in 2003. Iran bought this equipment from Khan in secret and there has been no dispute over that sale.

Recent events in Pakistan have given us the return of Bhutto, assassination attempts on her life, major abuses of freedom following Musharraf’s crackdowns and we have the threat of a nuclear power losing control of it’s weapons due to political turmoil. This could also lead to the release of more information regarding Abdul and his connections if the political conditions deteriorate further. Considering the probability that Abdul operated within the full knowledge and light of the major Intelligence Communities of the world, the last thing the US and other governments need is the threat of their secrets in this arena being exposed.

These pieces of information and the evolving nature of Pakistan’s power base and connections are interesting when placed against the backdrop of her history and the direct connections she has had with the underworld of smuggling, covert operations and varying loyalties based on financial considerations. Pakistan held a vital place in the British East India Company’s holdings with the production of opium and the illegal smuggling of opium into China during the Opium Wars. The great fortunes of the leaders in international finance today were based on the fortunes gained by the opium smuggling trade. CitiGroup, ING, HSBC and others own the booty that was gained as Bostonian smugglers and well-heeled Englishmen plundered the wealth of China and addicted a full quarter of her male population 200 years ago. Pakistan was the proving grounds and classroom for the CIA’s future drug smuggling schemes.

The US/Pakistan relationship has been hot and cold since it’s formation in 1947. The 50’s, 80’s and this first decade of the 21st century have placed them in close contact and with a location that provides perfect base of operations for covert operations, it is not difficult to see Pakistan being a covert ally to various components of the US Intelligence Community even in the worst of times.

Which leads me back to the possibility that the reason for the new NIE report being tied somehow to events in Pakistan. If there is fear that the US/Pakistan relationship will sour, and very soon at that; and concerns that Pakistan is on the verge of collapse, would it not make sense to downgrade the trumped up assessment of Iran to ensure that any change in the status of Pakistan does not expose more than the Bush administration wishes to be known?

All of this, of course, is speculation. However, it is most curious that the only major development in world politics of great significance in the months prior to this reversal is the turmoil and upheaval in Pakistan. What cards does Bhutto hold, is Musharraf bluffing or will he be forced to fold? Has Iran been playing it straight all this time simply to see how the others at the table are showing their hand? One thing is certain; this administration has the worst poker face ever seen. They bluff when they should fold, raise when they only have a pair of twos, they fold with a king high full house and Bush can’t even do an overhand shuffle without the cards flying all over the table.

Presidential Bathing Beauties -- Round Two -- Dried up fruits and nuts

2007-12-04T09:28:00.000-05:00

Candidate Gravel relaxes on the outdoor chaise lounge as candidate Tancredo attempts to "witness" before him.

This round of Presidential Bathing Beauties features Mike Gravel (D) and Tom Tancredo (R).

Who - Candidate Mike Gravel

Qualifications – Former Alaska state representative and US Senator for 12 years, left the Senate in ’81.

Platform – Would get all US troops out of Iraq within 120 days of taking office. Advocate of diplomatic approach to Syria and Iran. Wants to abolish the IRS and move to a national sales tax on goods and service and source carbon taxes for sources of air pollution. For the guest worker program, against the “war on drugs”.

What’s the deal? – Gravel is the clichéd “crazy old uncle” who shows up in the movies to add charm and humor to family get-togethers during the holidays. He’s cranky, funny, out on a limb and doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

What in the hell sparked this man to run for the highest office in the land after being away from public service since 1981? Was it anger at the direction of this country? Was it a final and all consuming desire to try to save the country? Out of the blue he came and he’s been quite an interesting candidate, especially in the debates where the man lays down napalm on the podium and for the most part speaks the mind of the “average man”.

Trivia – Served in the Army Counter Intelligence Corp (1951-55) and has dyslexia. Couldn’t make that one up. Inserted over 4,000 pages of the famous “Pentagon Papers” into the Congressional Record.

Bathing Beauty Quals – None, absolutely none. This makes him the perfect candidate if the system was torn down and we were to rebuild from the ground up but fat chance in hell that is going to happen.

Can he get the nomination? – Only if he chooses me to be his running mate.

Can he become PotUS 44? – Not if he does choose me to be his running mate.

Conspiracy Theories? – The man is pretty steeped in 1960’s politics and seems to have an open mind at the ripe young age of 77. Chances are he would be able to talk a lot about events of the 60’s and how they tie in with the study of conspiracy theories. His experiences in the Intelligence Community would undoubtedly be an eye-opening subject were it broached, especially in light that he served in West Germany. I think he would be a fantastic interview subject on the Military-Industrial Complex.

Who – Candidate Tom Tancredo.

Qualifications – Colorado State Legislator, US Congress since 1999. Loves Jesus.

Platform – Hates abortion, loves Jesus. Hates rich people getting taxed, loves Jesus. Hates judges that “legislate from the bench”, loves Jesus. Hates lawsuits against medical malpractice, loves Jesus. Loves Jesus, hates atheist commie peaceniks that want us out of Iraq. Loves guns, loves Jesus. Did I mention he LOVES the Jesus?

What’s the deal? – He drank the Jesus Juice because it’s more holy than Kool Aid. Will say anything that he hopes and prays will get him into office. Hates government so very much that he wants to be a civil servant and continue to be a civil servant. Hates socialized health care so much that he’s willing to bring small business into the mix since illegal immigrants are the cause of all our health care woes, but he loves the health care plan that Congress has.

This man is so shameless in his pandering to the ignorant and sore of knees from praying that if someone told him he would win the office if he would only recreate the Passion Play, with real nails, in the Washington Mall, he’d ask, “Ten penny nails or spikes?”

Trivia – Tancredo was a College Republican who spoke publicly in support of the war in Vietnam, but told the draft classification Doctors that he had been “treated for depression”. He got a 1-Y deferment for his efforts and took a job teaching junior high school immediately afterward. I wonder if Tom thought Jesus would say he was depressed too?

Bathing Beauty Quals – Wants to bomb the hell out of Mecca because that’s what Jesus would do and God knows that Tom loves Jesus. Over-compensates for his shame at being a hawk in his head and a coward in his heart and inability to come to terms with that disparity by wanting to bomb the holy living fuck out of anyone who isn't as WASPy as he is.

Can he get the nomination? – Only if Jesus REALLY loves him.

Can he become PotUS 44? – Only if Jesus REALLY hates us.

Conspiracy Theories? – A full-blown, right wing, paranoid, Jesus freak; Tancredo’s head must be as full of conspiracy theory’s as a snakes den is full of the heebie jeebies. I peg Tancredo as a neo-anti-communist nut who still thinks the word “hippies” apply to any draft dodger who doesn’t stare back from his own mirror?

Most likely consults the seminal work of anti-communist conspiracy buffs, “None Dare Call It Conspiracy” to this very day, looking for new angles on how those Godless Ruskies are still plotting to overthrow the US from within, just like that Godless Karl Marx said.

Summary – Fruits and nuts; that sums these two. Gravel being the old nut and Tancredo being the old fruit. No one can hate “teh ghey” like Tancredo does without feeling shame for a pecker or two that he might have sucked in his early hormonal days of adolescence, and not act like he does. Fruits and nuts are great in a bowl of cold cereal, not so great in positions of enormous power.

Presidential Bathing Beauties -- Round 1 -- The wide hips candidates.

2007-11-28T10:45:00.000-05:00

Presidential Bathing Beauty hopefuls Duncan Hunter (R) and Chris Dodd (D) enjoying the view.

Who - Candidate Duncan Hunter

Qualifications – He’s a lawyer and has been in the House of Representatives since 1981.

Platform – Wants to amend the Constitution to define “personhood” at the moment of conception and make an amendment to define marriage as being between man and woman only. Believes in slashing taxes, slashing budgets (except DoD related budgets) and making sure the NEA doesn’t get a penny. Wants to build more border fencing, create a national employment verification system and reform birth right citizenship.

What’s the deal? – Seems to be parroting some of the neo-con and traditional GOP talking points (War on Terror, gays – bad / pro life - good) but appears to buck the trend on trade (one way street analogy). Right wing extremist “pundits” Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham and Michelle Malkin lust for him in that polemic sort of way. What a crazy 4 way that would make.

One of the things that has all but destroyed American manufacturing and crippled the financial prospects for the lower-middle class and working class in this country, is NAFTA. I give big props to Rep. Hunter for taking an anti-NAFTA stance. In the close bond between big business and big government, this is a stance that I understand can be a relationship killer for a politician.
In the shattered world of defining political leanings, Rep. Hunter is being labeled a “conservative” Republican vs. a “liberal” Republican (Giulliani, Huckabee). I just see him as being a cross between a Goldwater conservative (fiscal, trade), a Reagan Conservative (social, military) and a Moral Majority conservative (right to life, anti-gay). In other words, he’s a Gumbo Republican.

Trivia – Served in Vietnam for the 75th Ranger Regiment, 173rd Airborne as a First Louie, not a ring tapper either.

Bathing Beauty Quals – Give Pat Buchanan a Valium, or give 4 Valiums to Ron Paul, and you have summed up his Bathing Beaty qualifications. He can’t seem to express passion and serious ideas because he cannot elicit passion and seriousness. Good intentions, some good ideas but something seems “off” in his delivery. I have a feeling that if you sat with him, off the record and talked about issues he would be able to express, one-on-one what he believes in. I believe you could disagree with him and the discussion wouldn’t teeter from a wedge due to the differences.

Can he get the nomination? – Only if Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham and Michelle Malkin do a 3 way lez fest on pay-per view to raise campaign money.

Can he become PotUS 44? – Not if Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham and Michelle Malkin do a 3 way lez fest on pay-per view to raise campaign money.

Conspiracy Theories? – If you sat down with him, off the record, I have a feeling he would give you the blank stare if you asked his thoughts about conspiracy theories. I think he knows about them in a general sense, meaning he thinks they are kooky and theorists are kooks. “Next question.” Would be his response.

Who – Candidate Chris Dodd

Qualifications – A Lawyer and has served Congress since his election to the House of Representatives in 1975 and the Senate in 1980. 32 years in DC…holy Jesus, Dodd.

Platform – Parrots the end the war in Iraq line, but doesn’t define where troops will be “redeployed”. Talks the talk on energy but only offers tax incentives for consumers to buy new energy efficient cars. How about the working poor, for whom buying a Prius just isn’t an option? Follows the standard Roosevelt and Great Society beliefs on social issues.

What’s the deal? – Dodd is one of those unknown factors. He talks the talk on a lot of issues but his total number of years inside the Beltway seems to have worn off on him like it has John McCain. I think Dodd is politically savy and knows what lingo to throw out there. I just don’t think he can walk the walk, be a ball buster when it’s needed or pull people together when he needs to.

Trivia – 2nd generation Senator, his father was one of the prosecutors at the Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal. Spent two years in the Peace Corp and six years in the Army Reserves and National Guard.

Bathing Beauty Quals – If this were the Miss America pageant, Dodd would be a 1940’s version of Miss Idaho or North Dakota; personable and nice and likable but not a lot of beauty or substance or depth. He’s a wide hips sorta politician. He chose a role (stereotypical social cause Democrat) and stuck with it instead of being a visionary. It’s a shame because with his background he could have easily become one.

Can he get the nomination? – Sure, if the rest of the Democrats jump out of the race.

Can he become PotUS 44? – Sure, if he runs un-opposed…across the board.

Conspiracy Theories? – I have a feeling if you sat down with him in a cabin out in the boonies of Connecticut and a case of beer, he’d laugh it up for a while with you. If there are any conspiracy theories that Dodd might have a thought over it would be the JFK assassination. I doubt if he would follow a single theory belief in the JFK assassination, he probably just believes “someone” was behind it all.

Summary - Bet good money on Dodd to spend another 3 decades in Congress. Bet good money on Hunter getting uber rich on a lobbyist salary when he decides it's time to call all those favors back home when he leaves office. Don't bet a penny that either man will have a shot in hell at becoming the next President...thank God for small miracles.

Viral marketing and propaganda -- The Cloverfield campaign

2007-11-27T15:02:00.000-05:00

The upcoming release of the film Cloverfield has provided me with a fun distraction of late. The back-story that apparently is included with the film is interesting and deep, there is mystery surrounding the entire project and driving the online chatter about the film is a series of websites that are directly connected to main and subplots of the story. Following the story online we have the chance to see the present day in a past tense manner. It is also a chance to see a well-tuned online viral marketing campaign in action.

Viral marketing interests me because it works by exploiting social networking and the desire of people to conform and follow what is popular. It is a method of social control even if the goal is to simply make millions of dollars on a movie. The thing that fascinates me the most about these campaigns is that many people will still follow the marketing script even if they know for a fact that it is a manufactured process. When government propaganda is exposed for what it really is, the effect upon the citizenry is opposite; they feel duped and begin to swing their beliefs in the opposite direction. I often wonder if that point of critically, the point where citizens turn against the propaganda fed to them, has also been engineered. In this day and age, there is very little difference in the methodology between creating and waging a viral marketing campaign to advertise a movie, and creating and waging government sponsored propaganda to advertise going to war. The only real difference is the subject matter.

Viral marketing relies on people disseminating information about the product to people within their social network. Propaganda relies on the citizenry discussing the points of the propaganda with people within their social network as well. Viral marketing relies on peer pressure to help sell their product to people within the network because they want to fit in. Propaganda relies on citizens not questioning the “right” nature of what the propaganda sells by threat of ostracization from American society and the dreaded taunt of treason being thrown around.

When I was growing up this was simply called a fad. That is probably what it was called when you were in your teenage years. Clothing, music, language and pop culture tastes were determined by the sine wave of fads. Now, the medium for disseminating information has changed and we have the Internet and text messaging to speed the process and make it all encompassing. 23 years ago all it took was one Bruce Springsteen video and everybody simply had to have a jean jacket. Even then it still had no effect on people living in the suburbs and rural America, people who had no access to cable TV. Now, even my Mother can surf the web and she does indeed surf, even if it is only a dialup account.

The term viral marketing is itself a new term. First coined in 1996 by a Harvard Business School professor, it’s roots lie with media critic Douglas Rushkoff who wrote about advertisers infecting susceptible users and spreading the infection among other users. The spread could be charted long before the actual “infection” took place by using statistical analysis and the entire process could be tweaked for maximum effect by the marketer, even as the campaign was being run. Our self-awareness, or rather, the awareness of us by marketers and advertisers, is astounding.

Of course the irony of this posting is that I may be contributing to the viral marketing process by advertising the film and giving my reasons for wanting to follow the campaign. In effect, I could be feeding the beast intentionally. Then again, some unknowing traveler in cyberspace may see this posting and become enlightened to the interconnection of marketing campaigns and propaganda. Who knows?

Will I be a big fat hypocrite and see the movie? Probably. I have had a life-long love of horror movies featuring giants that goes back to my days of watching Shock Theater on WTVC in Chattanooga. I saw all of the giant monster movies on that show; King Kong, Son of Kong, The Mighty Joe Young. It Came From Beneath The Sea, Konga and all the Godzilla movies. I even remember seeing The Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman and feeling that pre-pubescent attraction to actress Allison Hayes in the title role. Talk about great legs. I even use my old VCR from time to time just so I can watch War Of The Gargantuas.

I’m also a big time sucker for any movie or book that requires in-depth study of specially written and complex encyclopedias and bibles to follow the back-story. I often wonder if this is the prime reason why I follow conspiracy theories and the high weirdness subjects. There are tons of back-story in them to sift through and in the end there is a monster to face.

The downtown connector is no place for scaredy cats

2007-11-26T11:17:00.000-05:00

I’ve always felt a particular pain for folks driving through Atlanta for that yearly visit to Granny’s house at Thanksgiving time. This city is full of psychotic drivers on even the least traffic heavy days, and when Thanksgiving rolls around a large chunk of the population flies back home to whatever city they are originally from, leaving the remainders with a less congested road and the muscle memory for driving like a loon. The things these travellers must think became painfully obvious on Saturday night as a family of Floridians tried to navigate the Brookwood interchange while it was plugged from an accident and the Battle of Georgia was being waged nearby on the Georgia Tech campus. I had a front row seat to it.

After the Thanksgiving visit with my family I came back to town since I had to work on Friday. All weekend I had the opportunity to see out of state plates and Georgia tags bearing the county names for places far flung to the four corners of the state. Seeing those folks drive on Atlanta roads and the Interstate roadways was painful and eye opening, as always. The old saying is “country come to town” and I can get away with saying it because of my hillbilly roots.

They are easy to spot. Just look for the center lanes and there they are, puttering along at the speed limit or just below the limit and as you pass you can look over and see the absolute fear in their eyes, both hands tightly gripping the steering wheel. Why they stick to the center lanes was a mystery to me for years until I finally figured it out. Normally the center lanes here are a DMZ of sorts. It’s the no-man’s land where one will normally see wrecks originate. The slower drivers should be in the far right lane but I think these folks are scared that right lane will become a turn only lane and they won’t be able to merge back into a left lane, so they would be forced to take the off ramp in some unfamiliar area. I wonder if they are terrified thinking that waiting at the end of every off ramp is a pack of 2 dozen crazed city folk, high on crack or God knows what; just waiting to pick off the easy prey.

So, on they drive, in the middle lane with folks passing them at speeds higher than the pace car for the Indy 500. Everyone blasts by them and sometimes they will cut right in front of them as a way of telling them to get the hell out of the middle lane. The looks on their faces as they near the downtown connector is one of panic and pure primal fear and I got to see one first hand on Saturday night.

I was up in the Marietta area late in the day and decided to come home via 75 and then on to 85 north at the downtown connector. I had the Georgia v. Georgia Tech game on the radio and as I neared the city the traffic update signs warned of the 4 left lanes being blocked by an accident at 10th St. I continued on and thought it would just give me more time to enjoy the game on the radio. Just below Northside Drive the traffic turned into a parking lot and we crept up to the north side of the Brookwood split.

At the exit ramp for 85 north some poor soul was completely lost and freaked by the mass of humanity as he tried to go from the HOV lane to the main body of traffic. I suppose he thought the HOV would take him and his family off course from I-75. When Georgia scored as Southerland ran it in near the end of the 3rd quarter, Bulldog Nation was well represented in the traffic jam and all of us were easy to spot. We began honking our horns and flashing our lights, hands and arms flailing and pumping in the air. The poor bastard with his family in the minivan in front of us was freaked beyond limit. He had no idea what had transpired, the family was convinced the display was anger being pointed at them for blocking two lanes of traffic.

I’m not talking about run of the mill freaked in this case, it was obvious that the whole scenario was freaking out the kids in the backseat too because they were bawling like they had just woke up on Christmas morning with huge lumps of coal to greet them and no toys. It was hitching sobs time from the backseat of “young uns” and Dad was sawing at the wheel, looking like he was going to blow a gasket with everyone honking and flashing their lights at him…or so he thought. The wife was in full-blown panic mode and after years of reading the lips of baseball players I could see she was mouthing the words, “Oh dear Jesus! Roy! They’re gonna kill us all!” Little did Dad and Mom and the tykes know that the lights and horns were for a touchdown that had just happened only a mile or so away in the spacious bowl that is Bobby Dodd Stadium.

It was easy to feel bad for them for having such a terrifying moment on their way back home to someplace in Florida. It was also quite funny to see a carload of Floridians so petrified at the experience. I will guarantee you that someplace down in Florida; a family who owns a white Dodge minivan complete with the LCD screen for the kiddos in the backseat is telling everyone about the nightmare that is Atlanta. “Those people in Atlanta are out of their damned minds! We almost got killed in a traffic jam and ALL of them were flashing their lights at us, honking their horns and waving their arms. I wouldn’t live in that dump for all the money in the world!”

Helpful advice for those travelling through Atlanta for vacation, business or moving: Stay to the right, and above all, don’t panic.

Even a cynic like me can be grateful.

2007-11-21T12:03:00.001-05:00

It’s the day before Thanksgiving and I thought I’d put up a list of things I truly am grateful for this year. I bitch and moan a lot but this really is a holiday where reflection, contemplation and appreciation are worthwhile, especially these days when there is much to be unhappy about.

I am grateful that my older relatives are somewhat healthy and still alive to enjoy the holiday for another year. As I age I appreciate family more and more.

I am grateful that we have no one in our family serving in the military and away from home and in danger. I hope I will have been the last member of our family to have worn the uniform. It’s an honorable profession but commanded by un-honorable politicians.

I am grateful for my health, which even though it is not as good as it was in even recent years is still not serious enough to cause hourly concern on my part.

I am grateful to have a job.

I am grateful I have a simple little place to live that I call home. I am grateful that it feels like home as well.

I am grateful for the small group of men and women whom I call friends. The fewer the number the stronger the bond.

I am grateful to have the lessons of my late Grandmother, still in my thoughts. Every year I learn more and more about how to live life by contemplating her example and words of wisdom.

I am grateful to have such warm and happy memories of my late Grandfather, who I loved like a real father. I still feel a great deal of guilt for not being more like him, but I feel proud to know that I try to live up to his example. I hope he’s thinking that I am doing okay with my life.

I am grateful to have known my girlfriend’s Father before he passed away. One of the most interesting men I have ever known, he had adventures in life and I feel we had a short bond. Even though I wish I could have known him longer and better I am still grateful that he let me into his life.

I am grateful to be able to maintain a “to be read” stack of books and the desire to read them all and add to them.

I am grateful to have a girlfriend like I have. I fully understand that.

I’m grateful to know that I have one more day, one more Thanksgiving, to be with my family and talk with them. I can’t wait to hear my Uncle’s stories and get his tips on life. I can’t wait to hear my Aunt talking about food and recipes. I can’t wait to see my cousin and hear how he is doing and talk about the old days with him. I can’t wait to give my Mom a big bear hug and say the words I’ve said for years, “Happy Thanksgiving, Mom.”

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

Signs on the road, sign of the times.

2007-11-20T09:11:00.000-05:00

My trip to and from work every day takes me through quite a few contrasting areas and neighborhoods. I start out in the residential area just north of the Decatur city limits; work my way past Lavista, I-85, Buford Highway and Peachtree Street. I head north through the tawny and wealthy neighborhoods of Buckhead and cruise up to the north end of the perimeter where I hop on 400 north and feel the adrenaline rush of driving with the hogs of the road until I am finally able to escape the high speed and substitute it with the stop and go of a red light every 100 yards in Alpharetta. The path is flipped around in the late afternoon for the gas burn home. I have alternate routes for when the traffic plugs due to a wreck or water main break or God knows what.

The trip is interesting in the morning as I can cruise very well and make it through many red lights before I finally have to stop. I can see the neighborhoods as I pass and get a look at my surroundings for a little while. The OCD aspect of my personality is best suited for the drive as I count things while I drive. A trick to pass time that I picked up years ago when I would drive home to visit family when I was on leave in the Navy. I count red lights, mileage, elapsed time and a wide range of other things. If I run out of obvious things to count I’ll turn my attention to car makes, models and colors.

The other week I found myself counting For Sale and For Rent signs along the side of the road. I tallied 25 homes for sale and 7 for rent. Of the 25 homes listed for sale, 16 of them were in the upscale Buckhead neighborhoods. This didn’t include the numerous condo projects that are still being built and the ones that have recently been completed. 16 multi-million-dollar homes for sale just between Peachtree Street and Pill Hill on the northside, and this was seen on one road, Peachtree-Dunwoody. Think about that for a minute, I’ll come back to it.

When financial “bubbles” burst, they do one of two things: 1) A sudden and widespread deflation. 2) A slow and prolonged leak. The mortgage crisis is a bubble that leaks like the latter, it’s a slow and drawn out process. The highest number of sub-prime loans that had a reset has just come and gone. October was the month that saw the highest number of interest rate resets. The fall out from those resets will not be seen for quite a while. The folks who have already been caught up in the crisis were those who got on the bandwagon early. The ones who jumped on while it was in full swing are just now being pulled through the wringer.

As I drove north on Peachtree-Dunwoody that morning and caught myself admiring the many older, more lovely homes I noticed that it was the newer infill style McMansions that had the for sale signs and very few of the older homes were for sale. I thought about the millions of dollars spent to buy the land, paying crews to tear down the old homes and build the new houses. I thought about what some of those places will look like after they have sat vacant for months. I thought of the stories we are hearing out of Cleveland and the Slavic Village neighborhood.

Slavic Village, for those not familiar, is an old, established neighborhood in Cleveland that was settled by European immigrants starting back in the 1800’s. It has been the most severely effected neighborhood in the entire nation, by this mortgage crisis. The last figure I saw stated that about 800 homes are vacant in this area and the director of a foreclosure prevention center in Cuyahoga County stated that it takes approximately 72 hours after a home is vacated before the looters break in. The looters are stealing recyclable materials such as copper and aluminum.

I don’t think this would happen in Buckhead as there is too much concentrated wealth and power living there to allow it to happen and I don’t think “white flight” is going to be an issue like Detroit saw decades ago. The housing trend in Atlanta has reversed in recent years with more people moving back inside the perimeter. Still, the thought of massive McMansions sitting vacant all through this upscale and power laden neighborhood is chilling.

Reports across the board show that the worst is still yet to come. An analogy would be that what we see now is simply the salad being brought to the dining table and the main course is only now being put in the oven. We are being bitten by commodity inflation and a trip to get groceries carries it’s own sticker shock. The earned wages of Americans have not kept pace with inflation over the last 6 years and now we are in a spot where the dollars is breaking records on an almost daily basis for all-time lows in value. Money doesn’t stretch because it is becoming worthless. Where will this end?

Like those homes in Buckhead, there are people who have massive personal wealth, the sort who can survive this economic slide with no problem. There are also people who are on the periphery and barely making it, even in the higher income brackets and even in those tawny neighborhoods. We, like our nation as an entity, are getting close to the breaking point. How much longer it will last before the rubber band snaps is beyond my knowledge. The fallout is going to be massive and it doesn’t take an economist to see that.

All any of us can do is hold on and wait to see when the other shoe drops.

Back to the grind

2007-11-13T10:44:00.000-05:00

Yes, I am back and thinking about the future while dressed as sharply as the gentleman to the left.

I’m almost unpacked and I’m settling into the new digs. The neighbors are quiet and the new place is comfy. The only drawback so far is the commute to and from work, which has lengthened a great deal. I still have some organizing to do and I haven’t even hung my pictures and paintings but things are falling into place rather nicely. As an extra advantage, the layout of the new place looks more “homey” and inviting than my old place. My Victrola and most of my furniture never really seemed to “fit in” at my old apartment, now they all look more natural and organic in the new place. I feel more comfortable now.

There has been an added bonus to the whole move process that I didn’t expect. Before the move I was feeling a bit more eager and motivated to write longer essay style postings for the blog. I’ve fallen away from that in recent months. I will be returning to the format I was using last spring of longer posts interspersed with the short, reactionary postings on current events. I’m mulling some ideas on topics to write about but you can expect a more structured flow to the subjects and content. Politics plays a massive role in Conspiracy Theory but I feel that I have strayed a bit into Political Commentator territory and I don’t want this to be a political-centric blog.

I know that saying that seems a bit at odds with my last posting but I just couldn’t pass up one more chance at getting a dig on the Governor. I also recognize that my response, and the response so many people have these days in regards to politics, is so negative and derogatory because there is an aspect to the world of politics that veils the activities of those who hold positions of power. If you divide the electorate and foster the reactionary feelings they have in troubled times, the less likely they are to notice the shenanigans being pulled behind the velvet curtain of government. This is the essence of so many of the Conspiracy Theory and High Weirdness subjects; there is an undercurrent in our lives and our world. To hide this undercurrent it is sometimes best to create a ruse, a controversy or fear that consumes the public and provides cover for the activities best suited for darkness.

I am also looking at digging into my old news clipping archives for some inspiration and subject material. There is a wealth of information and source material to go over and it has been quite some time since I dug into those with gusto. Keep an eye out for more frequent and in-depth postings as I sort through these things and get back into the groove of writing. I may make some non-CT related posts over the next week just to get my brain and fingers back into gear.

Item #1 on the Sonny-Do list -- Pray that the Razorbacks whup the Vols.

2007-11-13T08:57:00.000-05:00

For years I thought we Georgians would never see a Governor as lazy as Joe Frank Harris. Governor Harris, while intending to do good things, couldn’t have gotten less done during his tenure in office even if he had slept 23 hours a day. Yes, his education reforms were positive at the time and we have the Georgia Dome, but that’s about it for Governor Harris’ legacy. Now we have a real malingerer residing in the Governor’s Mansion. Sonny Purdue’s mastery of laziness is so powerful that when I recently drove down West Paces Ferry Road, I had to pull into the shopping center at the intersection of Northside Drive and take a nap. It's as though simple geographic proximity to the Governor will induce a deep state of lazy bones.

Other than trying to sue the living shit out of the Army Corp of Engineers and giving us an idea of how high the IQ’s of the Governor’s of Alabama and Florida really are when compared to his, Sonny has done little more of late than schlump his way through a prayer vigil for rain. Instead of action and leadership, Sonny will bow his head and pray for rain. I guess it’s easier for him to ask God for rain than it is for him to lead the state through this crisis. Now don’t get me wrong, I may be a member of the Church of No Permanent Abode but I do have faith and I am not mocking prayer or believers. The thought of our Governor wasting his time in a glad-handing public display rather than addressing the problem and making hard choices is just too ripe for me to pass up.

If we get a big gulley washer and the reservoirs all over the southeast fill to the brim, does this mean Sonny has favored son status with the Almighty? If that is the case, why did Sonny wait so long before he prayed for rain? If the prayer thing backfires and the drought worsens, does this mean Sonny is on God’s bad side? Should the Governor pray for something more attainable? For instance, how about a loss by Tennessee this weekend and a UGA win over Auburn? Can he get more mileage by praying that McKay and Blank can shore up the offensive line?

I’ll be praying today. I won’t be praying for rain, I’ll be praying that these stupid elected officials like Sonny Perdue don’t flush the damn toilet that this country is sitting in. I’ll pray to see a PSA on TV, with a brown and sun scorched lawn in front of the Governor’s Mansion and our bald headed, chubby boy named Sonny telling all Georgians that we have to rethink how we use this finite and precious resource known as water. I’ll pray that Bonaire’s favorite son will not embarrass us more than he already has.

Was moving as difficult for Uncle Jed as it is for me?

2007-10-24T15:32:00.000-04:00

No new posts will appear for a few weeks. I'm in the middle of moving and will be back with new posts after I am settled in at the new place. Asprin, Wild Turkey and good humor are what I am living on right now. All three are becoming short in supply.

Good thoughts go out to all in southern California.

Peace.

Why do mollusks hate our freedoms?

2007-10-17T11:18:00.000-04:00

Par for the course, the 100-year drought and looming water catastrophe for the metropolitan Atlanta area, is turning into a political mud fling (no pun intended). They did this and they did that, they said this and they said that. That’s the cream that is rising to the top. Meanwhile, Lake Lanier is dropping 1.7 inches per day. Rains are forecast for tonight, Thursday and Friday so we shall see if a drop of cool water will fall on us.

All day I face the barren waste without the taste of water,
Cool water.
Old Dan and I with throats burned dry and souls that cry for water,
Cool water.

Sons of the Pioneers, Cool Water, verse 1

This problem has been brewing for years, long before I was born and possibly before you were born. The problem can be read about in James Dickey’s novel Deliverance, it can be seen in the distinct shift in Georgia politics since the flawed Governorship of Joe Frank Harris and it can be told when you talk with a person who lives in Georgia regardless of what town or city they live in regardless if they are native or transplant. The problem, to be blunt, is hatred, hurt feelings and selfishness. We are all to blame, native Georgian and Yankee transplant living in Buckhead. All of us are to blame and no one wants to tell the truth about it. I am to blame as well as I have been apathetic to the fights even though I do not waste water.

The story should really start back in the post-war days of the mid and late 1940’s. The south as a whole was still in the process of coping with being an agrarian society that was converting to an industrialized society. The major cities of the south such as Atlanta, Birmingham, New Orleans, were all growing and basic resources were needed. Birmingham, along with Chattanooga, were the great industrial cities of the south, with steel being king. TVA was creating electricity for every type of manufacturing plant you can think of, and the horrendous flooding of the Tennessee River was a long ago trouble that only your Granny remembered well. Atlanta and New Orleans at one time fought backroom deals and pulled every old boy that could be found into the network to get the Federal Reserve Bank. Atlanta eventually won and got the bank but the bad feelings from the fight are still felt.

The night are cool and I'm a fool each stars a pool of water,
Cool water.
But with the dawn I'll wake and yawn and carry on to water,
Cool water.

Sons of the Pioneers, Cool Water, verse 2

Atlanta’s future growth was tied to two things, water and electricity. Atlanta was out of the TVA grid so Georgia Power was tasked with ramping up projects to make more electricity. Water could be provided through a reservoir system, which could also have the side benefits of creating hydroelectric power and provide a new middle-class with recreational facilities. Land was surveyed, families were chased away and before the 60’s arrived, Atlanta had a reliable water supply and power generating capabilities that would last for decades of growth before new plants needed to come online.

Quite literally, Atlanta had positioned itself as a city with growing room. The city had the utilities in place to support the massive population of today long before it even had a million residents or before the Interstate Highway System had snaked it’s way through the city. City leaders, businessmen and politicians recognized this early on and the big push was on. The catchy slogan came out, Southern Bell ran more and more wire out into what was then known as the suburbs and under the gold dome of the state capitol more and more funds were shipped to the metropolitan Atlanta area for projects tied to economic growth.

Keep a movin' Dan, don't you listen to him Dan,
he's a devil not a manand he spreads the burnin' sand with water.
Dan can't you see that big green tree where the waters runnin' freeand it's waiting there for me and you.
Water, cool water.

Sons of the Pioneers, Cool Water, chorus

The construction of the I-285 perimeter roadway is the embodiment of what Georgians have felt for generations. There are two Georgia’s, one in the city of Atlanta (Inside the Perimeter, or ITP for short) and one that comprises the rest of the state (Outside the Perimeter, or OTP for short). Old festering grudges have built up over the years. It has been “our way vs. their way” on both sides of 285 for a very long time and the resentment for a long line of real or believed slights has deepened.

In the meantime growth in Atlanta has skyrocketed beyond what anyone had envisioned. The city’s infrastructure is unable to handle the load. In some areas such as the storm water and sewerage systems, the advanced age and condition has been known about for decades but has only been addressed in recent years but is still not fixed. The land use issues have escalated between landowners and local/state regulators. The claims of overbearing laws and regulations are shouted whenever a developer is not allowed to completely cover acres of land or a homeowner is fined for cutting down trees. When real estate developers are told they cannot create massive infill housing in older, established neighborhoods they claim interference from government bureaucracy.

Whenever the serious problems have been discussed and brought out into the open the old and tired chants were given once the cost of fixing the problems was told. "We are taxed to death! We can't keep paying OUR hard earned cash to keep that city afloat." "Why should Georgians pay for Atlanta's luxuries. If they need to fix their system, let them pay for it." "Why should I not have control over my own future and give Atlanta the control over my business, my residential area and my zoning laws?" "No wonder Atlanta has so many problems, it's run by nothing but blacks. Whites moved out to the suburbs in the 60's and 70's and those cities are growing nicely." Yes, we have heard it all and they have said it all. It's the same old excuses, the same old stories and the same old lines they have been saying for more than 5 decades.

The shadows sway and seem to say tonight we pray for water,
Cool water.
And way up there He'll hear our prayer and show us where there's water,
Cool Water.

Sons of the Pioneers, Cool Water, verse 3

Our massive over-development has reduced the amount of land able to absorb rainwater and our water table is not being replenished as a result. The over development is not centralized in Atlanta it covers the whole state. Storm run off is increased and is funneled into the Chattahoochee with pollutants such as oil, fertilizer and pesticides. No water restrictions were put into place until the crisis loomed. There has never been a water conservation and awareness program in the state and no tax incentives are given to home and business owners who do conserve this precious resource.

Now, a triple whammy has hit us. We are in the midst of a 100-year drought and predictions of a drier than normal winter lies ahead. Our growth has taxed the capabilities of Lake Lanier to supply us. The last hurdle is two species of mollusks, which inhabit the down river areas of the Chattahoochee before it dumps into the Gulf of Mexico. The Army Corp of Engineers is bound by federal law and federal mandate to supply enough water from Lake Lanier to maintain the species with a specific flow of water every day. Now we have the chants that little old ladies will go without water all because of a couple of stupid muscles down in Florida.

Dan's feet are sore he's yearning for just one thing more than water,
Cool water.
Like me, I guess, he'd like to rest where there's no quest for water,
Cool water.

Sons of the Pioneers, Cool Water, final verse

So here we are. Living through an event we have no control over, the drought; and living under conditions of our own making, a water crisis. The muscles in Florida are endangered in part because of the low water conditions created by Lake Lanier’s construction and other water grabs along the path of the Chattahoochee River. Lake Lanier was constructed to control flooding, create a water reservoir and generate electricity. The people came to the area Lake Lanier supports with no strings attached and they have overloaded the system. Now that a real emergency is just around the corner whom do we blame? The muscles.

Why do mollusks hate our freedoms? I need a drink of cool water.

The skinheads have their foot in the door -- slam the door.

2007-10-16T11:38:00.000-04:00

Sometimes memories can come back and seem so real that I can taste sweat and blood in my mouth or smell diesel fuel exhaust on a cold dark morning where any sound rings like it’s inside a glass bell. When it happens an event will come to me in flashes with brief moments of visual and tactile clarity. A flurry of movement and I’m on the ground, a brief moment where I can see a flattened beer can on the asphalt and I can hear the sound of air rush just before the big Doc Martins’ begin stomping me. Another flurry of movement and the sensation of being pummeled followed by a vision of the hair on the side of a young man’s hand, a young man no older than me, just before I sink my teeth into the fleshy part of his hand and the pinky. I feel the resistance of his flesh and with the next two kicks I feel my teeth sink and embed deeply into his hand. Once my teeth have solid bone between them, I smell copper and then remember a flurry of arms and wails as I let go and they leave me under a bright and noisy light.

I remember lying on the ground with two sharp pains in my chest and side. One sharp pain when I inhaled and one when I exhaled, two pains with every breath. Each time I breathed I could feel the sensation of my breath being taken away by the pain. It felt like my side was cut open, but it wasn’t; it was the two freshly cracked ribs scraping flesh and muscle from the inside. I could see my breath and hear the idle of a garbage truck in front of the dumpster behind a business. The diesel smelled comforting to me, almost as sweet as honeysuckle, the diesel meant someone sane was there to help me. An older black man, older for me anyway since I was only 20 and he looked to be in his late 40’s, leaned in and asked if I was okay. His truck scared them away and from his cab and headlights he saw the final moments of my beat down. A half hour later I was in an ambulance and a few hours later I would be in a white duty van, being taken back to the ship with lots of questions awaiting from the duty officer when I arrived.

Yes, I remember skinheads.

They never went away, folks. They have always been with us; the last 6 years of xenophobia and Muslim hate have brought them converts. Now they feel emboldened and they are coming soon to a political rally near you. Stormfront, Aryan Nations and White Supremacists of all stripes are on their way to infiltrate and stand behind Presidential candidate Ron Paul. For the first time since Ross Perot ran for the office in 1992, we have a major not-by-the-books candidate, one that has something Perot never had; experience with the machine of Washington politics, and he’s gaining steam. The problem is the skinheads are out to wreck the party with their support.

It’s easy to say, “Well, I’m not racist and I don’t prescribe to their beliefs and supporting Ron Paul doesn’t mean I’m one of them or support them.” That sounds good but the truth is when you find common ground with groups of extremists as fucked up as the skinheads, it’s time to break that common ground and push the freaks to the gutter where they belong. It’s time for Ron Paul, and more to the point the Ron Paul supporters, to tell the neo-Nazis to go fuck themselves under threat of beating the holy living fuck out of every last one of them. I’m not a violent man, but I am all for beating skinheads shitless.

My experiences with these inbred shitheads were two fold. One was that they loved to show up at punk shows to see if there were any “easy pickings”. Easy pickings were either confused kids that were vulnerable to their recruitment. The other was people they could fight with. I had many physical scrapes with them over the years and only once, the experience I opened this post with, did they do real damage to me. The other area where I saw them was with the Klan. On more than one occasion did I run into Klansmen who were out doing their thing in packs, like wolves. Both the skinheads and the Klansmen have one thing in common. If their numbers aren’t good at the moment, they turn into pussies and won’t dare say shit even if they have guns or knives. Once they see they have the numerical and size upper hand, they’ll start the taunt and the beat down always follows the taunt. It’s like the playground in the 3rd grade on steroids with roid rage involved.

I’m not a large man; I stand all of 5’ 7” and weighed about 150 lbs back in the day, all of it muscle. But I have always “looked” like I can handle myself, which I can, and when they saw the discolored calluses on the ridge of my knuckles back then they looked at me differently, they assessed the situation and my skills more seriously. They always knew I was more trouble than was worth it unless they had a numerical advantage over me.

In the worst beat down I ever had in my life, I was surrounded by three of them, when I was alone and stranded after seeing a Minor Threat show. My old Dodge pickup died as I was leaving and I was forced to walk all the way back to the ship. I knew I was in trouble when I heard a low idling sedan cruising up behind me and low hushed voices inside the car. I stopped, stood my ground and in the end the fuckers might have sent me to the hospital but I can at least guarantee that some dumbass, if he’s still alive, has a God-awful scar and some nerve damage in his good hand, thanks to me. Wasn’t worth it, was it you fuckers? I got my licks in too.

The skinhead movement wants to prey on our frustrations with everything. They want to take advantage that we are frustrated by the lack of action by our government when it comes to immigration and border security. The longer it goes unchecked and the more angry we feel, the better the conditions are so they can start busting skulls unfettered and uncriticized by the good people of America. They want us to become so tired of the bullshit being done to our government that we are willing to jump on the same bandwagon as them when it comes to supporting a Presidential candidate. I’m not going to act all buddy-buddy with those fuckers and I hope you will shun them and point them out for the racist scum they really are.

The White Supremacist and Christian Identity movements have desperately wanted to be viewed in a more mainstream way for a long time. The conditions in this country have gone so far in the toilet that good people are now willing to lie in bed with a bunch of flea ridden shitheads just to get some change out of their government. Folks, if you lie with dogs, you will wake up with fleas. Don’t let the skinheads have a peek at the inside of the mainstream. Shoot them down and expose them whenever you get the chance.

To any skinheads out there who don’t like this post; go fuck yourselves. Fuck the Goddamn skinheads and fuck their bullshit ideas.

High Weirdness Drifter

2007-10-12T13:01:00.000-04:00

The week is coming to a close, the weather is cooling off a bit and even though I haven’t had a lot of free time to make blog entries I certainly feel more energetic. I’m going to need that energy as I am in the process of moving to a new apartment in a few weeks. To all the visitors and feed subscribers out there, you can expect new postings but bear with me until early to mid-November. I hate the process of moving.

The recent upswing in Ron Paul mania has me think a lot more about the Republican and Democratic bathing beauties that have been trotted out for us to vote for. Now that we have had many debates and have been able to see these waterheads in action for a while there is a much better picture to look at with each candidate. I’m planning on writing a series of posts which will look at each candidate with an eye toward the topics that I blog about. To be honest, the cutting sarcasm and humor I often use is going to be unavoidable. Fair warning to all on this but at the least I can assure you that there will be some humor involved.

Let’s take a look at the news of late and see what is being overlooked by the mainstream press and what is odd, ominous and just plain goofy:

Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions in the field of global warming awareness and education. I guess the selection committee overlooked my idea on how to combat global warming – leave the door to your refrigerator open. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/13/world/13nobel.html?ref=us

Speaking of the environment, your illustrious blogger may need to ask for donations of water by time 2008 rolls around. Lake Lanier, which supplies the water for the metropolitan Atlanta area, is 3 months away from going dry. Overdevelopment, piss-poor water management and a 100 year drought has transformed us from a “City among the trees” to a city drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds. I’d do a rain dance but the last time I danced in public folks thought I was having an epileptic seizure. http://www.ajc.com/search/content/metro/stories/2007/10/10/wateruse_1011.html

If it weren’t bad enough that only a handful of Americans support the crap happening in Washington, now the country of Turkey is pissed off at Congress too. They’ve recalled their ambassador and they are threatening to cut logistical support to our bases in Iraq and Afghanistan because of a vote to declare the Armenian Massacre as genocide. It’s a sad state of affairs when even a legitimate issue is cause for a pile on of this proportion. I haven’t been able to find a news article that explains what prompted this timely resolution. Afterall, it only happened nearly a century ago. Why now? http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2007/10/12/turkey_swift_to_admonish_us_over_vote

The CIA is ticked off at it’s own Inspector General for blowing the whistle on numerous fuckups and nightmare activities. What has the CIA decided to do about it? Investigate him. Yes, that’s right, folks. When you have a shitload of power and don’t like fair criticism you don’t have to change your ways when your criminal and negligent behavior is exposed. All you have to do is sic the dogs on the critic. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cia12oct12,1,318772.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&track=crosspromo

If your kids are sick and you are a middle-class worker fighting like hell to not fall into a financial cesspool, the President thinks you should go fuck yourself if you think you are going to get a lifeline thrown to you. The waterheaded water carriers of the Sociopath in Chief think it’s a case of basic economics, common sense and a question of people thinking they have a “birthright to unlimited benefits”
http://www.timesonline.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18902955&BRD=2305&PAG=461&dept_id=478566&rfi=6

Bush is also pitching a hissy fit over the safeguards that have been added to legislation that covers the programs that spy on American citizens. Once Bush throws himself on the floor, begins screaming at the top of his lungs, kicking and telling Congress that he hates them, they will cave in and give the baby his bottle. Yes, the Constitution is important but with all the wailing and embarrassment they will give in and give him what he wants. I guess we are living in a nanny state. http://www.rttnews.com/sp/todaystop.asp?date=10/11/2007&item=24&vid=0

What sort of black programs are the spy masters using to create robotic spy insects? Get those fly swatters at the ready folks! http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/11/131214

Marion Jones has boo-hoo’d her way into our hearts for admitting that she is a lying, cheating, convicted felon. Like Don King always says, only in America. One down, many more to go. http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20071011/cleisure/cleisure1.html

Last but not least…I have been on a serious reggae kick of late. It’s a genre that has held a special place in my heart since my early teenage years when I thought The Clash was the end all, be all of rock and roll. Those cats got me into it and it was so hard for me to find and buy reggae back then. This was pre-Internet and the little mountain town I was raised in had no record stores. The closest record store, in fact, was 30 miles away. I had to rely on mail order and buying stuff sight unseen, artist unheard of.

Back then I would find out who influenced who and tried to buy records from artists who’s name constantly cropped up in this interview or that article or those reviews. Sometimes I ordered stuff that I instantly hated, sometimes I found gems that made my innocent little eyes grow large with glee within two measures of the first cut. I often look back at my teenage years and the hoops I jumped through to get new and good music and I feel nostalgic and amazed at the whole process. The thrill of the hunt is gone with downloads and the act of sitting down to listen to music is a ritual that few even know of, let alone those who still do it. Times change and this is an area where I have stayed isolated and within my routine.

So, for your enjoyment and my own selfish pleasure, here is the marvelous, incomperable, unstopable, untopable and roots deeper than your own soul; Prince Buster live at Club Sombrero in 1962!

Oil, food, money and the dope addled brains of the GOP.

2007-10-10T12:03:00.000-04:00

To make 1 gallon of gasoline you need to start with 2.15 gallons of crude oil.

Under optimal conditions it takes approximately 1.24 gallons of fuel to perform a single farming task on 1 acre of land.

You can make 230 gallons of ethanol per acre of corn.

Most bio-diesel made in the United States comes from soybeans, which yields only 70.13 gallons per acre.

The average steer produces 568 lb of beef.

To produce 1 lb of beef it requires between 2.6 lb to 16 lb (depending on data source) of feed.

A 1200 lb steer, from which 568 lb of beef is harvested, requires between 13.83 and 284 (depending on data source) gallons of oil.

Soybeans cost $10 per bushel, up from $7 per bushel in January of this year.

Corn costs $3.50 per bushel, up from $2.00 per bushel two years ago.

A bushel of wheat now costs $9.50, up from $5.00 per bushel in January.

A recent study in Montana shows that for a single adult the minimum living wage needed without asking for public assistance is $10.32 an hour, $20.97 for a single adult with two children. 40% of all job openings in the state pay less than $10.32 per hour. The study also found that the state’s median wage has risen by 9.1% since 2002 but the cost of health care has risen by 44% and the overall cost of living has shot up 19.7%.

Of the 56 counties in Montana, 46 have an average population of 6 or fewer people per square mile. In Chicago the population density is 12,000 people per square mile, average. In 2006, the City Council of Chicago attempted to enact a Living Wage Law, which would have required all employers to provide its employees with pay that would at least equal the minimum living wage for the city.

According to the US Census Bureau, in 2006 earnings dropped 1% and for the third straight year earnings lagged behind inflation. The number of uninsured Americans also increased in 2006 by a total of 2.2 million.

In yesterday’s GOP debate, candidate Fred Thompson said things look “rosy” when asked to describe the economic state of affairs in America today and "We have the second-highest corporate tax penalty in the world. We need to do better than that.” Rudy Guiliani said, "The possibilities for America in this global economy are endless”. Mitt Romney said, "It's inexcusable that Michigan is undergoing a one-state recession, that the rest of the country is growing”.

National Household Survey on Drug Abuse found in 2001 that more than 4.6 million Americans--a much higher number of individuals in need of professional help than had previously been thought--did not recognize their problem and were “in denial”.

The question is—will someone do an intervention for the Republican candidates about the economy and it’s effects on 90% of the American public?

AT&T -- Ruler of airwaves. Seriously, they now own it all.

2007-10-10T10:37:00.000-04:00

The fat cats keep getting fatter, the mega-corporations keep expanding and choices for the consumer continue to dwindle. AT&T, the behemoth that keeps on gobbling up all it sees with no interference from government agencies, has just announced a deal they have worked out with Aloha Partners that will give them access to a massive block of wireless spectrum. http://www.newratings.com/analyst_news/article_1626635.html The move will position AT&T in a way that they will now be the provider of 700Mhz for 196 million people. The deal is subject to regulatory approval but let’s face the facts, the feds are going to give AT&T anything they want.

The Chairman of the FCC, Keith Martin, has officially announced that they will not investigate AT&T on grounds that they illegally allowed the NSA to spy on Americans. The reasoning behind this is the stereotypical “National security” bullshit and lies. Of course the Telco spy scandal is a massive and multi-layered story that is being well covered by some media sources but woefully understated by the major media outlets. The old “National Security” line has been abused for a long time by the current sociopaths in DC but reports from yesterday cleared the air even more on this subject.

Remember the recent Osama Bin Laden video? The one where an obvious imposter was employed? Well, it appears that the White House once again threw intelligence national security down the toilet by releasing the video to Fox News long before giving copies to the law enforcement and intelligence agencies and in the process destroyed the network access capabilities of SITE Intelligence Group. How many fools are left to believe this administration when they have been caught so many times in lies?

This of course harkens back to the Plame affair, The Military Commissions Act of 2006, Patriot Acts I and II, the suspension of Posse Comitatus with the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007…all just a long line of enabling this administration with the keys to the nation. To return to AT&T, of course the federal agencies that oversee the Telco’s like AT&T will allow them to do whatever they wish. They are letting the NSA peer into the raw voice and data streams, unfettered. The return for this ultra risky maneuver is free run of the candy store.

What AT&T has risked is their very lifeblood. In sane times, with sane leaders and a sane judiciary; AT&T would be liable for being a part of the largest breach of privacy and un-Constitutional behavior known to the American public. Since AT&T, and the companies they have purchased since 2001, maintain almost complete control over the voice and data networks every American uses, their liability would be to virtually every American man, woman and child who has spoken on the phone, emailed or surfed the web since 2001.

The civil suits are queued up and the Telco’s are pushing the halls of Congress with a passion to get a free pass, a legal written in law pass, for their digressions against the American public and their very own customers. Yet this level of power isn’t enough. They want more power, more bandwidth and more money. The government is all too happy to comply with their desires and allow them to expand, unchecked, as long as they keep that stream open for them.
Adding to this power grab are two recent issues of censorship by AT&T. The first was a blatant editing of a live concert streamed by AT&T of the band Pearl Jam. At one point in the performance lyrics critical of President Bush were cut out. When the issue was publicly spoken about and word began to spread, AT&T, of course, blamed a contractor for censoring on content. However, a recent change to the Terms of Service that customers of AT&T must follow states that they can completely sever your communications links if at any time you criticize AT&T. In other words, this is the fallout of the Pearl Jam censorship case. AT&T has decided to kill the messenger and the message.

Every day, at every step of the way, we are being watched, analyzed and categorized by our government. They took Nineteen Eighty-Four and looked at it as a wet dream, a template, for the future. Since most of us are familiar with the story even if not all of us have read the novel, can we break their plans and refuse to be their Winston Smith?

Don't be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the Jesus Party!

2007-10-08T12:55:00.000-04:00

Coming soon to a ballot in your district, The Jesus Party. I can easily see this happening following the comments by James “The Dachshund Beater (http://www.nospank.net/dugan.htm) Dobson; that he will back a third party candidate if the Republican Party doesn’t pick someone who is, “conservative enough.” Talk about balls.

I think it’s time for the radical religious freaks to form their own political party, the Jesus Party. Where free spirits and those who live life without lies or shame are called heathens and are cursed. It’s time to put the extremists in a position where every American can see just how fucked in the head some of our worst fellow citizens are. No reason to pussyfoot around and pretend to be a “compassionate conservative”, just show the world how full of hate and contempt you really are. The rest of us can see what those folks are really all about and make some serious choices.

The current crop of 4th tier bathing beauties who are running for President are too afraid of telling hard truths and making hard choices. The Congress is locked in it’s own paralysis of doing the right things for fear of being branded as one thing or another. They are afraid of the consequences. The consequences being the loss of their cushy job in DC and that fear is something that shouldn’t be a part of the job because we all know those lobbyist positions are lined up after a career in politics. We need men and women to make the hard choices and say the things that have to be said to get us on the right track. Instead they’ll talk the talk that they believe is the talk we want to hear.

There was a time, even in the small north Georgia town I grew up in, that getting a bit too full of the Holy Spirit would bring about the response of the common sense most of us have. There was a time that we did not suffer fools gladly and it was encouraged to call things exactly as they appear to be. The fundamentalists had a side role in local politics and social issues, the role of the lunatic fringe. This was the case up until the early and mid 80’s. What precipitated this change from sanity to all-out goofiness? The fear of satanic forces.

Starting with the whole back masking phenomenon in the early 80’s I saw the attitudes in my small town change. First it was the satanic influences upon the young with rock music. Then they added the “epidemic” of drugs and they brought it full circle in the early 90’s with fear of the Clintons and the supposed hidden agenda of one-world secularism. As if the whole scene weren’t enough, my little hometown newspaper began operating a program where they asked the local citizens to rat each other out over who was selling drugs. Honest to God, they instilled fear into the citizens and then asked readers to send in their reports of suspicious activity to the newspaper, which would be forwarded to the local law enforcement authorities. The editor of the paper at that time was a former aid to radical right wing Congressman, Larry McDonald.

How did they frighten and change the minds of these simple country folks who had always maintained country smarts? Fear of everything that sits on the other side of the mountain and fear of it invading and taking over their small town, that’s how they did it. In a town like I came from, there are two mountains that separated us from the rest of the world. Nothing good or positive happened on the other side of those two mountains. To add to it, one mountain was where the drug dealers had their crops and the other housed devil worshipers. I am serious.

Lookout Mountain was where, according to rumor, pot growers had clandestine fields of dope, guarded by men with hunting rifles and woe to anyone who happened upon them. The other mountain was where two Satanists lived in their estate named Corpsewood (http://theconspiratorsnest.blogspot.com/2007/04/from-archives-look-back-at-corpsewood.html) . The mountains were more than just geological boundaries for the community; they became symbolic of barriers to keep the rest of the world at bay.

This is was a microcosm of the path we as a nation have gone down in the past 6 years. Fear of anything beyond the boundaries of our coastal areas and fear of anything beyond the borders that separated the countries we are sandwiched between. Everything on the other side is evil and satanic and we are constantly being infiltrated by demonic forces that threaten us.

In many ways, the field of Conspiracy Theory studies is similar to this phenomenon. We, the CT enthusiasts, are constantly trying to warn everyone else of the dangers we see. Dangers being guided by unseen forces, forces of evil. The problem with both CT studies and extremists religious causes is that far too often we both go into extremely radical territory. I myself understand that I have ideas that stray into the fantastic. However, there is a difference between the two groups. The radicalized religious want to alter the way we all live. They wish to enforce their beliefs upon all of us. The conspiracy theorists only want to broaden their, and your, horizons and expose the false idols around us.

It is easy to see the far religious right wishing to enslave all of us while the conspiracy theorists are trying to free us by exposing the plots. What is most surprising to me in this process is how many conspiracy theorists wind up like Texe Marrs and become caught in anti-Semitism and I really believe there is a trigger point which starts this conversion. Once they head down the “Jewish conspiracy” path there is rarely an outcome other than far right-wing political extremism.

So let’s all cheer for the formation of the Jesus Party. Perception and reality, ideaology and truth rarely meet in the center. Sooner or later the far right-wing of this country will need to show their true colors, on full display for all to see. After all, if you are going to be a full blown fascist you might as well wear the t-shirt that shows you were there for the party.

Forget the Wall Street Journal, drive around town to understand what the economy is like.

2007-10-08T10:49:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite Saturday activities is to hit the yard sales and thrift stores. Sometimes I score some real finds in the areas that I collect and to sell on eBay. The real scores aren’t frequent but they do occur. This year I can claim among my finds; some 1st pressing Kinks LPs in astounding condition, the obligatory stash of great books and a Heywood-Wakefield end table. There is a side benefit to hitting these spots each weekend and that is a chance to gauge the market and financial situation among my fellow Atlantans.

Last summer I began seeing a noticeable rise in for sale and house for rent signs on my typical routes. As this summer has come to a close I have seen a serious drop in those signs along the road but the homes are not being sold. They sit empty, the yards beginning to look un-kept and messy. Next will come random vandalism as the homes sit, unsold and unused. The vandalism will ruin the homes and bring down the values of the surrounding houses even more.

The thrift stores are seeing more and more shoppers. I’ve noticed this as the summer has progressed. I’ve been used to a mix of three distinct groups of people at these stores over the years. One, the group I am a part of, is the dealers who sell on eBay or have booths at antique malls. Two is the group of folks who just love to find bargains and the thrill of looking for a serious “find” at the stores. The last group is the folks who really do benefit from buying clothes and household items at thrift stores. I think the latest upswing in shoppers at the thrift stores is comprised of folks who have suddenly felt the pinch of the economic downturn. I see more new cars parked in front of the store and more folks who are dressed like the stereotypical suburbanite.

Even at the farmer’s market I am seeing more folks who drive cars and are dressed differently than the people I normally see. Among the chores I had to do this weekend was a trip to get some groceries, so off I went to the International Farmer’s Market in Chamblee. Normally I see an interesting mix of folks at this market, this time I saw more middle class, suburban white folks than I am used to seeing there. They were all over the fresh produce and fruit aisles and to be honest I am actually very happy to see this development. These stores offer the best buys and the produce really is tasty like fresh from a backyard garden. I’m all for supporting independent stores and giving the middle finger to the big chain stores.

People are frugal for only one of two reasons, they want to or they have to. I am trying to live a more frugal lifestyle and I’ve straddled the fence between living more along my means and higher than I should have for years. I seem to go in cycles where I wise in managing my money and blowing it. Blowing it has always led me to feeling depressed after a while. When I reach the cusp of realizing what I am doing I have been able to back down and live a more reasonable lifestyle but by then the damage has already been done. On comes the depression.

I think there is a sudden increase in people who now have to live a more frugal lifestyle and I don’t think they are too happy either. Imagine losing your home and winding up back in an apartment? Imagine going from buying the latest plasma widescreen TV to hitting church and charity thrift stores looking to buy a used washer and dryer? I see those folks shopping at these places, their faces are new, their clothes are new and they drive cars more expensive than my Jeep. They don’t look very happy to be shopping at St. Vinnie’s.

We are being given warning signs by even the mainstream press that the economic downturn is just going to get worse in the upcoming months. I’m not an economist but even I can sense and see things that lead me to believe that we are only seeing the early stages of things getting hard in this country. I have a feeling I’ll be seeing more unhappy folks at the thrift stores. I’ll be there looking for good deals and things I know I can sell on eBay. I’m afraid they will be there not out of choice but out of necessity and that bothers me a lot. To all of the new shoppers at the thrift stores who aren’t happy with this new twist in life all I can tell you is buck it up, it could always be worse and stay out of the record bins. I’m the cat who buys the vintage vinyl for his collection.

Finish the week with Half Pint

2007-10-05T10:02:00.000-04:00

Some weeks make my Mormon cash cow (Franklin Covey planning system) look like the journal of the busiest man on earth. Tasks get completed on time, I'm able to pull jobs forward and complete them ahead of schedule and my monthly task list shrinks almost overnight. I feel happy, productive and on the ball.

Some weeks turn out like the one we are finishing.

There is only one thing you can do in these circumstances.

Drop the dub.

Half Pint - Cost Of Living

Mel Sembler, The CIA, Mind Control and Scientology. What a lovely tea party that makes.

2007-10-01T13:54:00.000-04:00

Here is an odd and enlightening set of timelines for a group of notable events. Do the folks of DeKalb county really want someone with such a notorious past, with such unseemly connections, to have such a major impact on the county's future as Mel Sembler might have if the Sembler Company's plans go ahead? Talk about a wild set of parallel connections.

1832 – Skull and Bones is founded at Yale University.

1875 – Beginning in San Francisco, opium trafficking by Chinese immigrants is outlawed in the United States.

1880 – The US and China sign an agreement that prohibits the shipment of opium between both countries.

1914 – The Harrison Narcotic Act is passed into law requiring sellers of opiates to become licensed.

1917 – Prescott Bush tapped for Skull and Bones.

1937 – The Marijuana Tax Act is signed into law.

1948 – George H.W. Bush tapped for Skull and Bones.

1950 – The CIA begins the MKUltra program.

1953 – The Church of Scientology is founded. Founder L. Ron Hubbard forms special Celebrity Centers to cater to and recruit celebrities, musicians, artists, politicians and various professional positions.

1953 – Zapata Oil is founded.

1955 – The Peoples Temple is founded by Reverend Jim Jones in Indianapolis, Indiana.

1958 – Charles Dederich founds Synanon in Santa Monica California. Synanon was created to provide drug addicts with a recovery program. It eventually turns into a cult that used violence and “tough love” against its members/patients.

1961 The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, an international treaty banning the illicit manufacture and trafficking of narcotic drugs, is adopted.

1964 – The CIA renames MKUltra to MKSearch.

Mid 60’s through mid 80’s – Future President George W. Bush is reported to have suffered substance abuse problems (alcohol and drugs).

1966 – The Church of Scientology creates NARCONON, a drug rehabilitation program that is based on the writings of Hubbard and was tested on drug abusers in the Arizona State Prison system.

1967 – The Peoples Temple moves from Indianapolis to Redwood Valley, California.

1968 – George W. Bush tapped for Skull and Bones.

Late 60’s and early 70’s – Youth offenders on drug charges are routinely sent to Synanon by court order. Celebrities, musicians and various professionals are recruited and openly invited to Synanon properties and events.

1969 – The State of New Jersey releases a study that shows only 10% to 15% of Synanon’s participants actually end their addictions.

1970 – The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 is signed into law.

Early 70’s – The US Government funds a program known as “The Seed” that follows the tactics and example of Synanon, located in Florida.

Early 70’s – The Peoples Temple makes attempts at becoming mainstream by creating a state licensed facility for developmentally disabled persons, community outreach programs, drug and alcohol abuse treatment programs and Jones’ involvement as a community social and political leader in San Francisco.

1971 – President Richard Nixon coins the phrase, “War on Drugs”

1972 – George H. W. Bush is named Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

1973 – CIA Director Richard Helms orders all MKUltra files destroyed. The US Government claims that the program has ended.

1973 – The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is created as a law enforcement agency within the Justice Department as a result of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. The position of “Drug Czar” is created by President Richard Nixon.

1974 - Filmmaker Robert Altman uses members of Synanon as extras for the making of his film California Split.

1974 – Investigations begin into the inner-workings of Synanon. Cult activities begin to appear at around this time. Women are forced to shave their heads, men were given forced vasectomies and there is a communal lifestyle with multiple compounds in possession of the organization.

1974 – Sen. Sam Ervin presents a report to Congress titled, “Individual Rights and the Federal Role in Behavior Modification”. Among the findings were that programs like The Seed, “begin by subjecting the individual to isolation and humiliation in a conscious effort to break down his psychological defenses.” and such programs are “similar to the highly refined brainwashing techniques employed by the North Koreans in the early 1950’s.” Funding for The Seed is soon cut off.

1975 – Synanon files to revise its tax status, attempting to make itself a church, The Church of Synanon.

1976 – The Church of Scientology locates its “Worldwide spiritual headquarters” in Clearwater Florida. The Church of Scientology has since become a major landowner in the Clearwater area.

1976 – Mel Sembler and Joseph Zappala found a program known as Straight Incorporated, using The Seed as it’s guide and former Seed employees to staff the new company. Funding for the program comes from the same federal agency that funded The Seed. Sembler bases his operations out of Clearwater Florida, also the new home of The Church of Scientology.

1976 – George H.W. Bush becomes the Director of the CIA.

1978 – First reports surface of child abuse at Synanon facilities and the money flow to its founder is exposed. Synanon begins a campaign of threats and physical attacks on outspoken former members and whistle blowers as well as filing lawsuits against media outlets that expose the activities of the organization.

1978 – US Congressman Leo Ryan is among the more than 900 victims of the Jonestown Massacre. Ryan’s assassination at the order of Jim Jones precipitates the ordered mass suicide of the congregation.

1978 – George W. Bush unsuccessfully runs for Congress, campaign managed by brother Neil Bush, who lives in Lubbock, Texas. At the time of this political campaign, John Hinckley Jr. also resides in Lubbock.

1979 – The Church of Scientology incorporates the World Institute of Scientology Enterprises. Among the organizations that later will fall under the WISE umbrella is the Clearwater Business Association.

Late 1970's - Mark David Chapman works with Vietnamese refugees at Fort Chafee Arkansas.

1980 – In an eerie mirroring of the plot of Robert Altman’s classic film Nashville, John Hinckley Jr. is arrested in Nashville on firearms charges. He later admits that he had already formed a plan to assassinate President Jimmy Carter to impress actress Jodie Foster and had come to Nashville because of Carter’s appearance in that city.

1980 – George H.W. Bush announces plans to run for President of the United States. Among his political and financial supporters are John W. Hinckley Sr., Chairman and President of Vanderbilt Energy Corporation, formerly Hinckley Oil.

1980 - George H.W. Bush is elected Vice President of the United States.

1980 – John Lennon is assassinated by Mark David Chapman.

1981 – Assassination attempt on the life of President Ronald Reagan. Would be assassin John Hinckley Jr. is held. On the date of the attempt on Reagan’s life, the brother of John Hinckley Jr., Scott Hinckley, and the son of Vice President Bush, Neil Bush; were scheduled to have dinner together.

1981 – Son of President George H.W. Bush, Jeb Bush; enters the real estate industry in Florida, eventually becoming a partner with Cuban immigrant Armando Cordina. In later years Bush would become a real estate consultant for Cuban exile Miguel Recarey, who assisted the CIA in attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro.

Early 80’s – The CIA provides weapons, training and money to the Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. The trained and funded fighters ultimately organize the Taliban, who take control of Afghanistan in 1996 after seizing the capital, Kabul

Early 80’s – The CIA decides to fund their overt war in Afghanistan by assisting in the production and smuggling of opium made from Afghanistan poppy production.

Mid 80’s – Florida developer and co-founder of Straight Incorporated, serves on the White House Conference for a Drug Free America.

1988 – Mel Sembler serves on the National Steering Committee and the national Finance Committee for the Presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush.

1988 – George H.W. Bush is elected as the 41st President of the United States.

1989 – The state of New Jersey bars Synanon from doing business with NJ casinos after it is discovered they had a contract with Showboat Casino to provide a “Motivational program” to it’s employees. Through ADGAP, Synanon also sells about $30,000.00 worth of pens, pencils, key chains and other items.

1989 – The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations reports that members of the State Department provided support for the Contras by the use of drug trafficking.

Early 90’s – Military style “boot camps” for youth offenders become an option for the courts to send troubled kids. A 1997 Justice Department report finds that these boot camp style treatment programs are no more effective than juvenile prisons.

1992 – Bill Clinton defeats George H.W. Bush in the Presidential election. Clinton becomes the 42nd President of the United States.

1992 – The World Literacy Crusade is formed as a non-profit organization devoted to study technologies and drug rehabilitation technologies developed by L. Ron Hubbard.

1993 – Federal funding for Straight Incorporated is halted and the organization goes out of operation. Key employees and staff members immediately create new programs identical to Straight Incorporated and in some cases re-open in the same location as Straight Incorporated. Straight Incorporated becomes the Drug Free America Foundation. Board members of the Drug Free America Foundation include former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

1994 – One million Americans are incarcerated yearly on drug related offences.

1994 – Republican Mark Foley is elected to Congress. Before being elected to public office, Foley was involved in Florida real estate in the 80’s and later spearheaded Congressional work regarding laws against the sexual exploitation of children.

Mid 90’s – Synanon dies out as an organization.

1997 – Charles Dederich, founder of Synanon, dies.

1997 – The Wall Street Journal reports on the use of Mena, Arkansas in the trafficking of illegal drugs by the Contras, the CIA and the cover-up of these activities by then Arkansas Governor, Bill Clinton.

1997 to 2000 – Mel Sembler operates at the Finance Chairman for the Republican National Committee.

1998 – The CIA Inspector General published a two-volume report that describes the contra and contra-related entities that were involved in drug trafficking and protected by US law enforcement on orders from the Reagan and Bush administration.

2000 – George W. Bush is elected 43rd President of the United States.

2000 – The Taliban issues a decree banning opium poppy cultivation. At the time of the decree, Afghanistan supplied 75% of the world’s supply of opium.

2001 – The US Government gives Afghanistan $48 million dollars for reducing their opium production by 99.89%.

2001 – 9/11 attacks lead to the invasion of Afghanistan.

2001 – The Taliban are chased from power in Afghanistan.

2001 - Mel Sembler named US Ambassador to Italy.

2003 - The infamous forged Nigerian uranium yellowcake documents were reportedly recieved in a Rome apartment by an Itallian agent, Rocco Martino.

2003 – World Wide Association of Specialty Programs (WWASP) reports revenue of $80 million dollars. The WWASP Dundee Ranch Academy in Costa Rica is raided by child welfare authorities. The owner of the facility is arrested on charges of human rights violations.

2003 – Florida Congressman Mark Foley is given a special dinner by the Clearwater Business Association at the FLAG Land Base of the Church of Scientology.

2005 – The cost of waging the “War on Drugs” for the year 2005 totals $12 billion dollars, the cost of incarcerating drug law offenders is $30 billion dollars, $9 billion dollars for police protection, $4.5 billion for the legal expenses and $11 billion for state and federal correctional facilities. The total for all these activities is over $45 billion dollars.

2005 - Mel Sembler heads up the Scooter Libby defense fund raiser efforts. Several million are netted, Scooter walks on the charges after President Bush commutes his sentence.

2006 – The supply of opium from Afghanistan has increased dramatically. Before the rise of the Taliban, Afghanistan supplied 75% of the world’s opium supply. As of 2006 90% of the world’s opium comes from Afghanistan.

2006 – Florida Congressman Mark Foley resigns from his position following a scandal in which he solicited sex from young male Congressional Pages. Foley claims he has an alcohol problem and was molested by a Catholic priest when he was young.

2007 – The Taliban is in resurgence in Afghanistan.

Odd synchronicity -- Fossett, the Minot B-52 incident and the Syrian nuclear incident

2007-09-27T11:39:00.000-04:00

During last night’s debate among the Democratic Presidential candidates, the question was put forward to Sen. Clinton regarding the mysterious Israeli airstrike in Syria that has reportedly involved a secret nuclear facility. Sen. Clinton’s tone, demeanor and delivery noticeably changed as she discussed what happened and from reading her body language it is obvious she has been let in on a certain amount of confidential information regarding the strike. The rest of us, meaning the rest of the world, is operating in a vacuum on this story. The silence is actually beginning to draw attention to itself.

Coupled with this event is the recent oddness of missing billionaire aviator Steve Fossett and the incredible story regarding the possibility that nuclear-armed Tomahawk cruise missiles have been moved in a manner that circumvents the control procedures for maintaining custody of nuclear weapons. Is there a connection between all or some of these recent events? Was the attack on the Syrian facility a component of a larger operation in which Iran was to have been attacked as well? Is the Fossett story cover or a sign of a much larger story?

First of all, we are operating with a certain ammount of unknowns for all three of these stories. The most open of the stories being the Fossett search. This hasn’t captured the imagination of the American public for a simple reason; we have already been desensitized to any missing aviator/person of wealth/under strange circumstances stories. Our obsession with missing women and children has also taken the interest level down a notch for Fossett. The McCann story updates alone are enough to push the Fossett story aside.

The areas that Fossett overflew are near quite a few airbases of extreme sensitivity to the US Military. The areas are remote with hidden canyons and areas where persons could operate in a clandestine mode if they wanted. Is it possible that Fossett’s plane was forced down or taken down out of concern that he may have observed something occurring on the ground?

Details, including timelines for the Minot-Barksdale incident are virtually impossible to find via mass media reports. The most curious aspect and one that I believe is being overlooked is the supposed 10 hour timeframe that the B-52 sat on the Barksdale tarmac, loaded with a dozen Tomahawks, half of which were armed with a nuclear payload. Could this 10-hour timeframe actually be cover for a trip from Minot southwest toward the Nevada-California border, followed by a quick eastern flight to the base in Shreveport?

Rumor and theories get started because of news blackouts, silence, stonewalling and disinfo like we are seeing in varying degrees with all three of these stories. The trick in trying to understand these stories and trying to find out if they are interconnected is to ask basic questions, the old Five W’s of reporting. Who? What? When? Where? Why? If answers cannot be found by following those guidelines and using them in follow-up questions it is then obvious that there is a problem with the official story.

The most curious aspect of the Fossett disappearance, in my mind, is the side story that Google released recent satellite images of an area that Fossett may have been in at the time of his disappearance and allowed users of Google Earth to assist in the search for the aviator. Information, in any investigation is crucial. What is most important in an investigation is not the quantity of the leads but the management of that information. Any time there is a massive flood of “tips” from the public in an investigation there is an added chance that the investigation will go in the wrong direction simply because the investigative team will be swamped with an avalanche of info.

Was this an example of a disinfo campaign or an attempt to overwhelm the investigative team so a covert operation could be run out in the open? The covert operation being the cleanup or removal of debris from an incident involving the Fossett plane.

In the case of the Tomahawks situation the most troubling aspects are the when and why of the matter. Timelines cannot be established without hitting odd inconsistencies. For example, the Air Force states that the plane sat, unguarded and open for more than 10 hours at Barksdale while senior officers attempted to establish whether or not nukes were sitting on the tarmac. An hour I can understand, but a 10-hour window is not reasonable. The answers for why this was the case is not satisfactory and leads us to question if this 10-hour window is truthful.

Why pilots flew from North Dakota to Louisiana, almost the entire longitudinal length of the contiguous United States, without knowing they were carrying live nuclear weapons and why the weapons officers allowed this to happen fly completely in the face of the accepted and required procedures for the storage, handling and release of weapons from the nuclear stockpile. This isn’t like a person making a mistake at the grocery store and picking up a low-fat version of some food product instead of the regular version.

The nukes were released from the stockpile for a specific reason. Officers, who have spent most if not all of their careers, certified in the world of tactical nuclear weapons, authorized this release and were satisfied that their orders were correct. For the last 39 years there has been a ban on flying nuclear weapons on combat aircraft and the only acceptable means of transporting nukes by air has been through specially built transport planes. Nuclear weapons are not marked like conventional weapons. All weapons are marked and color coded in a manner so there is absolutely no way of mistaking whether a weapon is live, inert, conventional, chemical, biological or radiological in nature.

In short, there could have been no mistake involved, starting with the lowliest E-1, E-2 or E-3 all the way up the chain of command. The missiles were intentionally released from the stockpile, loaded onto the B-52 and flown off the Minot Air Force Base. What became of them, where they went, when they arrived, who took possession of them and why this was done is not known to us but we can say without reason that the Air Force’s explanation for the who, what, when, where and why this happened neither makes sense or is reasonable.

This leads us back to the action in Syria. Our elected officials in America respond with vague answers that allude to absolute secrecy when questions are asked. Israel is keeping their mouths shut. Syria is keeping itself quiet. No one wants to talk about it. One thing that has come out is the legendary Israeli General Staff’s Reconnaissance Unit, aka Sayeret Matkal, may have taken nuclear materials out of the location before the air attack occured, disguised as members of the Syrian Army.

Why the deafening silence over this action? Did a nuclear accident occur during the ground raid or the air attack? If a nuclear accident did occur it is safe to say that remote monitoring stations would have detected the presence of radiation, so I think it’s safe to say that an accidental release of radiation from the air attack did not occur. It would also be foolish to attack the facility, with the fuel rods present, and not make an effort to remove them from the site. Even if they were buried under tons of debris they would still be present and make a tempting prize for anyone willing to remove them. Assuming they did remove nuclear materials from the site, does this mean they removed bundles of fuel rods from the site? Wouldn’t activity of this nature have drawn massive amounts of attention at the site? It certainly would have.

Bombing the site, with the fuel rods present, would have caused a release of radioactive materials, which would have been detected; therefore it is safe to assume that the Israelis did in fact remove the fuel rods before the airstrike since no release of radioactive materials has been observed. Other than slaughtering the entire group of people present at the work site, there is no way they could have removed bundles of fuel rods for a nuclear reactor without drawing a massive amount of attention. You couldn’t walk onto a job site anywhere in the world and simply commandeer a crane and steal a pile of rebar without a large group of workers, foremen, supervisors and project managers noticing and raising hell. It's safe to assume that a group of commandos couldn't remove fuel rods without generating a similar reaction from witnesses.

Something ominous has happened in Syria, something so serious and terrifying that government officials are afraid to talk about it. Something ominous has also happened to the American nuclear stockpile, something so serious and terrifying that government officials have created a cover story that is easily seen through as a lie, which foretells that it was created in haste, because they are afraid to tell us the truth. Something has also happened to Steve Fossett. Was he collateral damage, a pain in the ass innocent bystander who saw too much, or did he simply take one too many flights and the roulette wheel of statistics finally caught up with him when he bet red instead of putting all the chips on black?

Peeking into the memory hole

2007-09-26T11:04:00.000-04:00

The memory hole is deep, dark and quiet. With our short attention span and constant need of being stimulated by something new, story after story has been cast into this hole, rarely discussed even on fringe sources of commentary or research. Save for bloggers, a few devoted online researchers who maintain specialized websites and the occasional reference in non-fiction books we lose the story and no one seems to question the timing or the effect of these stories. Time marches on, as the old saying went.

Here are three stories that have fallen into the memory hole but have been on my mind in recent weeks. These stories were like the month of March – in like a lion, out like a lamb.

The al-Qaeda chemical weapon test video.

Soon after the invasion of Afghanistan and just in time for the holiday get together with your family, the government released video excerpts of a supposed chemical weapon test that was performed by members of al-Qaeda. The tape showed a small dog enclosed in a room where a chemical weapon was released. Of all the somber and serious things being discussed at that time, the contents and inherent threat of this tape was very chilling.

So, have there been any more tapes like this discovered over the last 6 years of war? We have seen neither hide nor hair of a new tape. Considering the absolute fear this tape struck at the heart of every American and the speed in which it was found in Afghanistan, one would assume that if new tapes were found the intelligence agencies and the White House would want them declassified and released ASAP.

The ever changing terror alert levels.

You know the drill. All through 2002, 2003 and 2004 we had to live through various and vague warnings from the government that chatter was high or a specific threat had alarmed them sufficiently to raise the terror alert level. Every time it happened we had the living shit scared out of us, and the ominous feeling of the other shoe about to drop was on everyone’s mind.

Keith Olbermann of MSNBC has done one of the greatest services to this country that we can ever imagine by piecing together his “Nexus of Politics and Terror” pieces for his show. Unlike every Bush apologist in the country, I am not going to make a cause and effect correlation between the abrupt ceasing of these raised terror alerts and Olbermann’s work but it is interesting that once his story made it into popular culture of America the terror alert tweaking, stopped.

The kidnapping and beheading videos.

Daniel Perl and contractors galore were kidnapped and their executions videotaped in the early stages of the Iraq occupation. While the mainstream media refused to show the actual executions, the unedited tapes could be found for download online at various mayhem sites. The violence in Iraq has been dynamic. It has gone from being focused on the occupying forces to a Sunni on Shiite/Shiite on Sunni massacre. The number of contractors who are kidnapped and murdered has decreased but it’s not a sign that it’s safe for contractors or anyone in Iraq.

What is curious about these videos is how they solidified an idea into the collective minds of Americans that the invasion of Iraq was just and necessary at a time immediately after major combat operations had ended and it was obvious that there was absolutely no plan for “what next?” in Iraq by the White House. Instead of the media probing the coalition plan for rebuilding the nation the media could not stop talking about the kidnappings and brutal executions.

It is very interesting to me that these instances and other like them, have come and gone so quickly and considering the level of discussion they provided the American public, no one seems to wonder why they stopped. In the case of the chemical weapon tape it is curious to note that there has been no other instances of similar tapes being discovered. I’m quite sure that if tapes like this had been found we would have seen them as the fear and worry they produce is effective beyond belief in advancing the White House agenda and justifying their occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

What is the real mechanism of a story jumping into and off our radar? Our memory has always been short and with few exceptions even the worst of tragedies are forgotten and life goes on. Military disasters are forgotten; no one remembers or talks about the Forrestal flight deck fire even though Sen. John McCain was involved. Two nuclear powered American submarines lie at the bottom of the Atlantic, the only references to these sinking’s are related to the threat of radioactive materials. When was the last time you read or heard a reference to the hundreds of soldiers who died in the Gander air disaster?

Do these stories have a valid connection to current events? In the case of the chemical weapon test video, yes, that does have a connection with current events. The continual wolf cry of the neo-con operatives allude to the threat of CBR (Chemical, Biological and Radiological) attacks on American soil. So why has there not been another video of these types of tests released?

Over the years I have found it interesting to go back and look at my personal journals and see what newsworthy events of the day were noted. It is not often that a story that is not directly affecting my daily life is mentioned. The three stories I have mentioned in this posting were stories of the day that prompted an entry in my daily journal. It all leads me to wonder what other people think about their own memory hole.

Sleepers awake

2007-09-24T11:11:00.000-04:00

Click the image for a closer and more detailed view.

It is important for all of us to be concerned about Iranian President Ahmadinejab’s visit to the US, in particular the guarantee of his safety by US Law Enforcement. I believe that sometimes we can gauge the overall mood or concerns of the country by doing a scan of keywords from local and national news outlets, whether they be print, televised or electronic. With this in mind pay close attention to this headlines screen capture of the MSNBC website this morning. Do you see keywords and an overall tone that can be gathered by this screen cap?

Of course the graphic and the Newsweek story concern religion and more to the point, evangelicals. Is there a more radical Christian group in America than evangelicals? Look to the “More Top Stories” banner and check the content/tone of those headlines. US, Baiting, Insugents, Iraq. Angry, Welcome, Awaits, Iran. Strike, Deadline, Today. DEA, Nabs, Crackdown. More, Funerals, Home. Halo, Satisfying, Finale.

The keywords, even if not intentionally chosen with an agenda; incite or reflect fear, certainty of death and violence in their placement and order. Is this an example of the media instilling thoughts in the minds of the reader or is it just a coincidence? Would this be a message for a Manchurian Agent, a call for a sleeper to awake and move forward? The age of the assassin is returning, I have no doubt about that, just what would be the fallout if Iran lost it’s leader on American soil to a “lone nut gunman”?

Be on your toes and keep an eye out, folks. The signs are all around you.

60 Minutes interview with Iranian President Ahmadinejad -- Black propaganda in its most obvious form.

2007-09-24T10:27:00.000-04:00

Is CBS correspondent Scott Pelley jonesing for a job at Faux News? Or is he simply trying to out-Stossel John Stossel? After viewing Pelley’s interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last night I was thrown aback at several comments made by Pelley and the overall effect of the Neo-Con puff piece. I even wondered which White House flunky was given the task of briefing Pelley before his trip to Tehran.

The propaganda of Pelley’s interview was in plain view, complete with faux outrage and the Neo-Con talking points showing themselves at various points. The aggressive tone of Pelley at times made me wonder out loud, “Would Pelley have the balls to be this direct with his own President, or would he just cave and kiss his ass?” What is more frightening to me than Iran’s nuclear intentions or Pelley’s lapdog story is how many people may have watched the interview and not recognized the black propaganda at work.

At one point Ahmadinejad appears to recognize the tactics of Pelley as being propaganda and he jabs back at him by equating his questions and tone with the work of the CIA. It’s foolish and naive to think that the Agency would not be interested in talking with Pelley or his crew after their return to the states, or to see the raw tape of their trip. With this in mind it’s interesting to note his sly smile and measured pacing of his responses and the comments themselves.

I’m not going to put my head in the sand and declare Ahmadinejad an innocent because he is not an innocent. This man is a carbon copy of our own President. Both are radical extremists with no conscience and they manipulate religious extremists into following their dangerous, hateful example. Neither man will be satisfied until the world is engulfed in flames.

What is depressing about the Pelley piece is the way it highlights the continual slide our Fourth Estate makes as it toes the corporate line; and the loss of insight that we cannot gain because our press stays on topic to suit the politicians and corporations and their agenda. At one point Pelley has the gall to tell the Iranian President, “I am just a reporter. I am a simple average American reporter.”

No Mr. Pelley, you are not just a simple average American reporter. I’m sure that if we compared your yearly salary with 95% of the American press corp we would see that you aren’t average. You would be in the financial elite of the class. As for proclaiming yourself as simple, please spare all of us the ridiculous self-depreciation. Show me a talking head who is not self-obsessed and far too complicated and I’ll show you a talking head who works the news in Chattanooga or Sioux Falls or a Class II or III or IV market.

TSA screeners trained to be con artists on your dime

2007-09-19T10:43:00.000-04:00

First we discovered that DHS Secretary Chertoff’s guts were the tool of choice to gauge whether or not a terrorist attack is immanent; now an article from the Washington Post, and posted on MSNBC’s website, give us a look at the latest security tactic, cold readings. A cold reading, for those who aren’t familiar with the phrase, is a technique used by con artists, salesmen and psychics as a method to manipulate a person into believing that the cold reader holds a special power. One of the skills involved in cold reading is identifying the meaning behind the body language of their mark.

Our tax dollars are now being spent on training TSA employees in the art of cold reading. At the moment there have been 600 trained in this skill with another 1000 that will be trained by the end of the year. The success rate for their work? An abysmal rate of less than 0.75%. Of the 40,000 travelers detained because a government trained cold reader spotted something, less than 300 were found to be guilty of any crime. I think it’s safe to say that a cop could pull a random sample of folks off the street, frisk them and run a warrant check and get a higher rate of arrests than this program.

What are the TSA employees looking for? Well, that’s a secret (what isn’t a secret these days?) but according to the article former screeners, current screeners and consultants say they are looking for, “people traveling without bags, sweating and constantly checking out every person passing by, especially those with badges and guns. People who avoid eye contact or veer away when police approach also draw their attention.” They just described a large number of folks at an airport on any given day.

Since the airlines started becoming major dicks about carry-on bags, a lot of travelers don’t have bags to carry on unless they have their laptop with them. Sweating? Well since we have to race across the airport in an attempt to make flights because the screening lines take so long to get through and connecting flight times are synchronized far too closely together, of course we are sweaty. Try running from the T concourse in Atlanta all the way over to the B concourse because your plane leaves in 20 minutes and tell me your ass won’t sweat.

Constantly checking out every person passing by. That is one I do all the time. I’m always looking at the women who pass and I always look to see if I see someone of celebrity status or a level of importance. The airport is one of the few places where the unwashed masses like me have a chance of seeing someone big. I once saw former baseball player Rickey Henderson at the Atlanta airport, waiting to get on the same plane as me. Then again, doesn’t our government heavily promote that we civilians “stay vigilant” and watch everyone closely? Don’t they want us to spy on one another? So we are put in a Catch-22 situation. Do we bury our head in the paperback we brought with us or do we people watch for entertainment and “National Security” purposes?

This also leads me to wonder if any of those TSA employees will use the knowledge they gain from the training for purposes outside the workplace. While the training period itself is too short to be of any real value it does give them the foundation to learning the ropes of the con game. OJT is a part of this program, where they can hone their skills and become good at it. Possibly even attaining a degree of skill to actually manipulate the thoughts, beliefs and actions of a person. Will the less than ethical and immoral members of the TSA use these newfound skills to run confidence games?

Once again the disappointment of our government in action is just depressing when you dig deeper into what they are doing. I’m waiting for the President to perform a séance and bring forth the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. Knowing these sociopaths it wouldn’t surprise me if they tried.

The hypocracy meter

2007-09-17T13:22:00.000-04:00

Click the image below for a full sized .jpg image:

New definition of an escrow account -- A piggy bank begging to be cracked open.

2007-09-17T10:34:00.000-04:00

An article posted on the Baltimore Sun website offers a true example of a nightmare for any homeowner. Baltimore City and Baltimore County tax officials are acknowledging that property tax checks from American Home Mortgage that were meant to pay property taxes for their customers, are bouncing. The situation is so serious that Baltimore County is no longer accepting corporate checks written against the bank accounts of American Home Mortgage. All payments from them will have to come in the form of a certified check. Just as troubling in this report is a comment by a senior financial analyst from Bankrate.com that property tax checks are not even being sent.

Regardless of the financial situation faced by a homeowner in this day and age one thing any homeowner would expect is for the mortgage company to have maintained the funds necessary in the escrow account for each borrower. It appears that this has not happened. Unless American Home Mortgage has failed to deposit the funds given to them by the buyer into the escrow account, I simply can’t see a reason why these checks would bounce. There has been a suggestion that their escrow bank account has been frozen for protection while it undergoes Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

This also does not ring true with me. Unless the account was frozen out of concern that AHM would dip into this account to keep itself afloat or rob the coffers. So, where does this story stand? Has American Home Mortgage failed to live up to its side of the legal agreement it made with its customers by not depositing funds into their escrow accounts? Have the escrow accounts been frozen because there was withdrawal activity seen which set off red flags? Is it just a simple mistake?

All postulation aside the most troubling story behind this is that if the property taxes are not paid by American Home Mortgage the homeowners will be the fall guys. The taxes will still be due and if they are not paid by AHM the homeowner will be hit with a late payment penalty and if they can’t pay that bill their property can be put up for auction at a tax sale.

Imagine you’ve paid your mortgage payments and you are just holding on and keeping your head above water and this hits you. Or, just as horrible, the mortgage company doesn’t pay your homeowner’s insurance and you suffer a fire or, since the mortgage terms always state that you must maintain insurance, they cancel your insurance for non-payment and order you to pay for insurance on your own?

The scandals involved with the housing conspiracy continue to deepen. Coming up in the mix…insurance companies get shafted and lay off employees, lose their income stream and fail. Also in the pike are stories about the “winners” in this conspiracy, the financial institutions that gain control of large swaths of American property. Just beyond that, homelessness for former homeowners who can not find affordable rental property or cannot find an apartment leasing company that will rent an apartment to them because of their foreclosure. Down the road…vacant homes, American suburbia becomes a ghost town.

High Weirdness Drifter

2007-09-14T10:46:00.000-04:00

This has been an exhausting week for me and my head feels like my brains were replaced with meatloaf by demented pixies while I was sleeping last night. With all that has been in the news over the past 2 or 3 weeks it’s a wonder that all of us aren’t oozing ketchup from the cranial cavity. Instead of a long rant today, or poking fun at the politicians it’s time for a news roundup of the scary, worrisome and goofy news of the day. I'm so lazy and frazzled that I'm not even going to go through the effort of embedding the links. Ya'll will either click, or you won't. It's not important to make it look all "pretty" today. Cope.

Remember the E-coli fears last year because of tainted spinach? The feds just shrugged their shoulders and haven’t increased inspections of the food we eat. http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070912/salad_safety.html?.v=3

Our Sociopath in Chief is too busy with vacations to resolve the Iraq mess and has finally just moved everything into a box that will be left in the Oval Office for the next President. The box will be marked as “Some shit you might want to clean up. Love, The Dubster” Of course, this is dependant on whether or not King George let’s go the coat. http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1444654620070914

Hurricane Humberto continues to give scientists the heebie jeebies as some of their computer models show the storm turning south, re-entering the Gulf of Mexico and taking the shape and form of a masked Mexican wrestler. What next? Will Godzilla stomp around NYC? http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN1435031420070914

Disgraced former football player OJ Simpson is at the center of an incident in Las Vegas. No, there are no dead white women involved. In this instance it’s a bunch of sports memorabilia. Go figure. http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_6893101

A suspicious package was found at Detroit’s Metro airport, http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070913/GPG0101/70913054/1206/GPGnews, a post office in Sandy Springs Georgia, http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/northfulton/stories/2007/09/14/postoffice_0915.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab, and in my swim trunks, http://www.bulgereport.com/pix/bulge-24.jpg

About a million big earthquakes have shook Indonesia over the past few days. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6994386.stm

Burj Dubai is now the worlds tallest free-standing structure. Base jumpers are salivating. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/14/africa/ME-GEN-Dubai-Tallest-Structure.php

McLaren F1 has been tossed from the Constructor’s Championship, been stripped of points and fined a whopping $100 million USD! Three time Champion Jackie Stewart’s comment, “Fookin el! http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/formula_1/article2447754.ece

I believe I am still the only person in the world who sees a resemblance between Jean Todt of Ferrari, http://dominioferrari.files.wordpress.com/2007/03/jean-todt.jpg , and this Itallian dude, http://www.philadelphia-reflections.com/images/Mussolini.jpg .

The Director of National Intelligence (HA!) Mike McConnell, a.k.a. the US Spy Chief, admits he lied his ass off when he testified before Congress this week. http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7008507377

The state of music chart

2007-09-13T11:12:00.000-04:00

Too much doom and gloom today, even for me. I need a pick me up post. Here is my chart showing the current state of popular music.

Does lightning strike twice?

2007-09-13T10:27:00.000-04:00

The Sunni tribal leader who is credited by most reliable news sources outside the US as being the true reason behind the decrease in violence in the Anbar region of Iraq, has been killed in an explosion. Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha was the leader of the Anbar Salvation Council and was able to pull together what was once a loose group of more than 30 Sunni tribes and began making a change in the violence in that region. Two things are striking about this situation and are reason to pay close attention.

For starters there had been inner political turmoil brewing in the group and in June a breakaway group of 12 tribal leaders occurred, with those 12 vowing to destroy the Anbar Salvation Council and Abu Risha. Second, history has shown to us that assassinations like this can precede major events.

On September 9, 2001 Ahmad Shah Massoud, the former Defense Minister of Afghanistan before the rise of the Taliban, was assassinated by an explosion. The theory floated to explain his assassination has been that his death would assist the Taliban in maintaining their control over Afghanistan following what would be the expected US response after the 911 attacks.

Could the Abu Risha assassination be a precursor to another major event which would lead to an increased presence in Iraq or the Middle Eastern region? Abu Risha had formed a strong Sunni coalition that had chased AQI from the Anbar region, his creation of the Anbar Salvation Council was pure grass roots and shocked the US when it occurred, and as a Sunni leader he was in the minority in Iraq where Shiite is the predominant sect. It should also be noted that the religious majority of Iran are also Shiite and if there is war with Iran, Shiite support would almost certainly flow across the border into Iran from Iraq.

With the Conspiracy Theory boards and websites abuzz with tomorrow’s Air Force stand down and concern that something is afoot all the way out to the 18th of September, it is somewhat odd that this assassination occurs in a manner so similar to what occurred two days before the 911 attacks.

The Conspiracy Theory "Who benefited from 9/11?" chart

2007-09-11T11:47:00.000-04:00

Click the image for a full sized .jpg.

Fossett, the B-52 story and the 9/14 Air Force stand down

2007-09-11T10:09:00.000-04:00

(Note from the CT Blogger 9/27/2007: for more commentary on this story please follow this link, or click the subject tags at the end of this post.)

Several of the conspiracy theory message boards and websites with original content have been hotly discussing the nexus of missing aviator Steve Fossett, the B-52 nuke incident from last week and the announced stand down by the US Air Force on the 14th of this month. Some of the theories range from the Fossett disappearance is the cover story for a missing nuke from the B-52 incident, to ideas that a false flag event could occur on the 14th with what suspiciously seems like a missing nuke since Air Force reports can't agree on whether 5 or 6 Advanced Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles were aboard the bomber.

This does bring to mind the curious story of professional golfer Payne Stewart, who died in a plane crash in 1999. Many 911 theorists have made note that the planes used in the attacks may have been remotely piloted and Stewart's crash has been pulled into the theory. Their belief is that Stewart's plane was a test run for remote piloting an aircraft for a long distance and under conditions that would have alerted NORAD and the FAA.

Did the B-52 incident result in an Empty Quiver for the Air Force, as has been discussed on the boards? We'll never know, unless a nuke just so happens to go off at an unlikely place at an unlikely time. How would we know something is fishy? We wouldn't as it is known that in a martial law situation the Government will sieze all communications capabilities in the US. The odd and most unexplained issue about the B-52 incident is the source.

We know nothing of the source, I cannot even locate the original story online which began this intreresting event. The general belief is that a whistleblower from within the military got the story out but to whom it was reported to is a mystery to me. It seems this simply showed up on the AP newswire and everyone ran the story. We know that the AP doesn't do investigative journalism and their reporters aren't the sort of visible faces one would expect a whistleblower to seek out.

In some ways I believe the who, what, when, where and why of the act of reporting this story is just as odd as the actual story itself.

9/11 -- Weren't we supposed to be somewhere by now?

2007-09-11T08:57:00.000-04:00

We are now six years past the 9/11 attacks. We are still in Afghanistan and the political situation there is deteriorating at a worrisome rate. We are still in Iraq and the political situation there is beyond terrifying. We are on the cusp of an enormous economic meltdown. 32% of Americans approve of Bush’s policies and only 18% approve of the “work” being done by our anemic Congress.

We have been cast adrift by the psychotic and the evil who rule and control this nation. We float down a river of money that is quickly becoming a dry riverbed and the boats that store the money are bulging at the seams. The rest of us are walking in the mud-covered banks. Facts of what has been done, and is being done, in the name of America and all Americans are known to anyone who will take 30 minutes of their life to scour the web for information. Millions are slowly realizing this but millions more ape the slack-jawed intrigue of celebrities and their substance abuse problems as though it were more important.

On September 10th, 2001, stock in General Dynamics sat at $37.99 per share. Today their stock sits at $78.70. Like all members of the Military Industrial Complex, GD has made the proverbial killing off the literal killing. Why end the war when money is there to be made? The easiest way to trick Americans into forking over the cash to military contractors is to parrot the old lines of “support the troops” and “give the troops the best equipment available.” These lines of propaganda address neither the true welfare of the “troops” nor does it address the necessity of maintaining a well armed and well trained armed force. It only makes a great sound bite that gurantees the military contractors get fat and rich off our national treasure.

The CIA is no longer relegated to having one hand tied behind it’s back. It can torture and tarnish our good name as a nation with both hands and a little extra help from the powers that be. Stripping the CIA of many of it’s powers following the Church Committee in the early 70’s was a great first step. Daddy Bush kept the company afloat during the Carter administration and came within a hairs breadth of unleashing it to 60’s level of power when the attempt to assassinate Reagan almost succeded. The CIA may have been raked over the coals in the GAO report on the agency’s handling of the 9/11 attacks but it does not matter to them. They have carte blanche rule again and this time they will not let the power slip through their fingers like they did in the 70’s.

Life in America is worse than it was six years ago. Not because of the attacks, but because of the government that Lords over us like livestock and its actions. Nothing about this country or its path post-9/11 is promising or American. Brussell’s found fascists bred, multiplied and have taken over the asylum. They are our masters and if Mae were alive today she would be telling all of us what to expect in the coming years. We would be reading about what the year 2010 will bring us if her sharp mind were alive to look at our present state.

The America we were taught in school is long gone. Probable cause, civil rights and the Bill of Rights have been thrown away like so much garbage. No longer are we a free society but instead we are a fee society. The fees are the prices we pay to be avoided by the feds and their evil little eyes. The average American is afraid of everything, given no breathing room and pushed into submission every single day. We have no say over who represents us and no means of educating ourselves with facts that can be digested in an easily understood way. We are left to the cryptic legalese of our masters and the withholding of information we need to make informed and just decisions about the world we exist in.

We have no Teddy Roosevelt type politician to untangle the mess of our generation’s own, evil version of William McKinley. All we have are think tanks and special “Democracy Institutes” who’s sole purpose is to drive the public’s perception of what America means into their prefab concoction. These prefab ideals of America, freedom and democracy are guided by ultra-conservative industrialist ideals. They have no bearing or resemblance to the reality of American life.

The Powell Manifesto spreads its demon seed across this nation, like a weed that chokes the life from average Americans and hypnotizes us into believing we are being enslaved by our own freedoms and not big business. The Project for the New American Century gave us the playbook for the new chapter in the story of our downfall and its mad monks still drive this nation to the edge of the cliff while convincing us that the precipice ahead is simply the crest of a hill and there will smooth coasting down the other side. The Christian Coalition is an abomination of the teachings of Christ.

As Hunter S. Thompson once wrote about Richard Nixon, “he appeals to the werewolf in all of us.”; we should say that the new way appeals to the masochist in all of us. We apparently wish to be enslaved otherwise we would use the 14 oz. of soft tissue and chemicals that resides in our collected skulls and stand up to this disaster of life called America. The politicians who run for the upper echelons of office in this nation understand less about us than we do about them. They neither look, talk, dress or think like we do.

A favorite slogan of the rabid overlords and their monkeys is that “September 11th changed everything.” September 11th did change everything; it threw away the cloak of decency and humanity that the powers that be had to wear for so long. No longer restrained by the sake of appearances they run wild and free. We are frozen in thought and logic, paralyzed by the realization of what we allowed to happen. All because we were scared. Scared of what?

For less than pennies on the dollar we are bought and sold by faceless men and corporations on a daily basis. We have no say in the quality and safety of the air that we breathe, the water that we drink, the food we consume or the trinkets of childhood that we give to our own beloved children. When we speak up we are shouted down, told we are hindering the progress of business, told that what our eyes see are lies and if that doesn’t work we can now be disappeared by our very own government at the discretion of some bureaucrat with whom the President has delegated this power to. Was it Bob Jones University or Liberty University that shaped this public servant drone’s worldview? Will Jesus forgive their sins?

The vague scent of political assassins are at our door. They have been absent from the national scene since the early 80’s and there are signs they will be returning over the next 14 months. We had the mind control subject named Cho at Virginia Tech, there has been an odd instance of threat to Democratic candidate Barak Obama and now the pop culture is being pre-conditioned with a recent video of Ted Nugent ranting against the liberals with weapons and sexual innuendo. The assassins are being primed and even Arthur Bremmer, the attempted assassin of George Wallace, will be released soon from prison.

Is this what has changed since 9/11; our mental state? We are being prepared for assassinations, more wars, more economic disparity, more sickness and more death. We have been conditioned by the TV, the newspapers, the magazines and in some cases we are being conditioned by websites and Astroturf movements to accept what is coming as inevitable. The glee of William Kristol when he speaks of nuclear armegeddon over Iran is unmistakable. The disconnect of our President when he speaks of matters of American life is sickening. The hate of those who claim to be washed by the blood of Christ is blasphemous. The lies of the falsely pious choke us.

The darkness of 2007 makes the confusion of 1967 seem quaint. The despair of 1937 seems simple when compared to the ponzi schemes and 3 card monte of international finance when your home is part of some convoluted bond/fund structure. As 2007 nears an end, 2008 seems less hopeful. Even the upcoming month of October seems ominous with over $50 billion dollars of ARM homes being prepared to reset rates. Even the shenanigans of Enron and the bogus California energy crisis of the summer of 2001 sounds more like a innocent scheme than a crime when compared to the pillaging that is going on unabated in 2007.

We will reach a snapping point in this country, when that point is met will we have any power to fight back? Will we even have the heart to stand up?

A little more than 2000 days later

2007-09-10T11:29:00.000-04:00

In a world that seems to be spiraling out of control it is hard to nail down one solution or one area that could be addressed to stop the full bleed out. The Iraq war will not end and the President is opening small cracks in the door of the plans set out by the powers that be. Socially our nation is getting closer to the full split with everyone at each other’s throats because of race or religion or ethnicity. We have a daily dose of fear and we can’t find the energy to shrug it off and laugh at the people who force feed us with that tactic.

Just looking at the economic situation is enough to make the hair stand on end. Washington Mutual bank has now claimed that the housing market is in a “Near perfect storm” as one financial institution after another sounds warning sirens over the current state of the economy. The worst is yet to come and I am not certain if even the masters of this system are even in control of what will happen. When the brightest economists say they don’t know what will happen, it’s a sign we should hang on.

At this point the only optimism we can afford is the occasional “feel good story” on the evening news but even those are tainted by dark and disturbing circumstances that result in a feel good story. Finding our way through the lies and deceit of our leaders is becoming even more difficult as they no longer attempt to cover their tracks. They even swear up and down that the new bin Laden videotape is who they say he is even though the man seen in the video is obviously not bin Laden. They have pulled this trick on us before with fake OBLs who are right handed as well.

Our boogy man, our haint, our campfire story of men with hooks for hands are the creatures our leaders give to us. A generation ago it was the evil empire of communists. Two generations ago it was the Godless communists and civil rights “instigators”. Three generations ago it was, for Americans, the entire outside world, with Europe festering and Japan stomping across Asia like a machine. We are fed fear from all fronts, all the time and it’s no wonder we react the way we do.

The timing of these scares and events is always convenient for the real and puppet leaders of this country. Between the last week of August and this week, the 6th anniversary of the 911 attacks we have seen the resignation of the worst attorney general in US history. The sex scandal engulfing a senior US Senator, the release of a book that catches our President in full bald faced lies regarding the future of the Iraq war. A new OBL tape has been released and the General who is overseeing the Iraq debacle is in Washington this week to report on the status of Iraq, except he has no report.

You can rest assured that the teat suckling beasts of General Dynamics, Lockheed and every other defense contractor is out in full force too, with their lobbyists, to prod and poke Congress into seeing things their way over the so-called Global War on Terrorism. Same with the numerous private contractors like McNeil Technologies, who are making billions on their “work” in Iraq. There is still wealth and power to grab from the deserts of the Middle East for them to let it go now.

The mechanisms of war and the bottom feeders that grease the gears and supply fuel to the engines of war do not turn off so easily. The open door and blank check were laid out immediately after the 911 attacks. We are told to shut up when we dissent to the atrocities done in our name and we are targeted as un-American when we point out the reality of the situation. Words like love, understanding and compassion become the vulgar and mockable descriptions for supposed left-wing kooks who are just touchy feely freaks. You cannot even say enough is enough without being labeled, red flagged and spied upon.

Americans seem to be slowly waking from their sleep of fear but there is still a long way to go. The beast has grown to a size that is almost unimaginable and the mountain that needs to be climbed to bring this beast under control seems insurmountable. On this day before the 911 attacks, a day that we should be angry, life seems to be going on with less attention to the bigger picture than what we are giving to the smaller things. We fail to focus on the bigger forest because the trees we are looking at in the small corner of the woods are the only ones on fire.

Sembler Co., DeKalb County and the billion dollar disco ball.

2007-09-07T11:55:00.000-04:00

Did I ever mention to you that I hate developers, more to the point Atlanta developers, with a passion? I also hate the infill folks and the “urban pioneers” who completely erase the historical legacies of the neighborhoods that they feel they are gracing with their presence, bad taste and bad manners. Cabbagetown is a shell of what it once was, the Oakhurst district is threatened and the newest threat to the way things are is the Sembler Co. looking to redevelop the North Druid Hills Road area just south of I-85.

Sembler has given us a new wrinkle to this mad money grab in the area of the traffic problems. If you have ever driven through that area at rush hour you know how it goes, for those not familiar with what happens here is the 411. If you are heading south on North Druid Hills Road, heading in the direction of North DeKalb Mall, on the worst day traffic will back up at Buford Highway. It’s a stop and go crawl all the way down to the Target Super Store across the street from the school. Traffic will thin out a little until you reach LaVista, where it’s stop and go all the way down to Clairmont. I have no idea how bad it stays past Clairmont but I am assuming it does follow a similar routine all the way down to the mall and Stone Mountain Parkway.

So, what is Sembler’s plan to relieve the already growing congestion to make room for the thousands of cars that will be added because of their billion-dollar project? They want to send the “regional” traffic (folks not stopping at their shrine to greed) underground. Yes, they want to make the rest of us mole people. There is a problem though. Have these knuckleheads ever seen the folks merge from the 85 exit onto N. Druid Hills? Have they ever seen people trying to scoot across 3 lanes of traffic to get onto Briarcliff? They expect us to believe their redesign of the roads will take that into account? Bullshit, I say.

What do they have planned for the “local traffic”, which would be those wanting to stop off at their greed shrine or at the Chik-Fil-A or the Target or Picadilly? Well let’s just throw a roundabout in the mix. These waterheads are convinced that a roundabout will solve all the traffic woes. Have those folks ever driven through a roundabout in America at a heavy traffic intersection? The fuckers don’t work in any way except to keep the auto body shops in business fixing sideswiping idiots.

A Sembler style project can work and be a benefit to the community if it is in the right place. Atlantic Station, for example, did a service to the community by cleaning up an abandoned industrial site and expanded an already expanding Midtown district. The area that Sembler wants to redevelop doesn’t need redevelopment. We need a better traffic plan but the answer isn’t building a billion dollar mixed-use development.

That area has numerous offices, thriving businesses and residential areas. I don’t see Loehman’s Plaza hurting. I don’t see the Picadilly, my favorite one in the Atlanta area, having trouble filling seats on any day or night. Guitar Center is PACKED on any given day. The Chik-Fil-A always has customers. The Target even expanded a few years back because the business is good. There is always a long line of cars at the QT waiting to fill up on their gas.

So, why does Sembler NEED to “redevelop” this area? It’s not needed, it’s unnecessary and it will make a horrible mess of an already congested area. Why does Sembler NEED to redevelop? Simple answer. They aren’t satisfied with just having a shitload of money, they want a king hell shitload of money. A billion dollar investment is one hell of a risk to take, especially in this economic downturn, and if they are willing to risk it they must have studies and reports sitting in their offices that show they can make a killing by doing a quick fuck job on the citizens of DeKalb County.

If you think this redevelopment plan is a good idea I think you need to talk with the folks who have seen how the Perimeter Center development has adversely affected the folks who live and work around that area. If you aren’t convinced you need to also ask yourself what is going to happen if this plan goes through and all the warnings you have been given come true. How would it even be possible to repair the sort of damage they want to do? How is DeKalb County going to pay for the upkeep of those tunnels they want to build?

If you think it’s a good idea, WHY do you think it’s a good idea? Is it because you want new places to shop? Go to Buckhead and shop, its only 15 minutes further away. Is it because you want the development to increase your property values? If your property values are so strongly tied to local commercial investments you should have moved your happy ass to Buckhead or Midtown and NOT the bedroom communities that surround this area. Is it simply because your easily distracted by shinny things? If that’s the case buy a disco ball and stare at it all you want.

Osama bin buying Just For Men, For Beards

2007-09-07T10:29:00.000-04:00

“What are you going to do when your style gets old?” Those are the immortal words of the great Bootsy Collins. It appears that the sociopaths of Washington are hitting the same delimma as the American public is slowly waking up and asking what the fuck, dude?! Now, 4 days before the anniversary of the 911 attacks, our old boogy man and all around scary olive skinned guy with a big beard is popping his head in the door, saying hello. He’s back, ladies and germs…you know him, you love him, you can’t live without him…Osama Bin Laden has dropped his newest CD.

There is a catch to this new video. It appears Osama bin buying Just For Men and has apparently done the rounds at the cosmetic surgeon offices of Jalalabad. Folks, this new and improved OBL is a red herring. Look at that picture comparison and tell me those are the same two men. The photo on the right is the fancy pants new OBL, fresh from his vacation at the Tora Bora Club Med. The one on the left? Well, maybe it is the Binster and maybe it ‘aint. The boys at the CIA say it’s so and who am I to disagree?

The CIA did get one thing right when they scotch taped this video together on a drunken weekend visit to Pakistan and that’s the Obi-Wan Kenobi robes. How many times did the boys at Langley look at the updated double trilogy before they realized that old Obi-Wan wears the same threads as OBL? Go figure!

Other than the costume they must be having trouble finding OBL look alikes. I assume the Rangers have bagged dozens of men that sorta kinda maybe looked like “Ossammer” through a long range scope just before Pvt. PoBoy from Louisiana went all kill crazy on them, thus making the supply of OBL doubles more and more difficult for the CIA to get for their gigs.

What should we make of this new video? Honestly, we need to spit this one back in the face of the masters. The shoddy production values have slipped further than the 4th movie in a Hollywood franchise and now the gubbmint is doing the old, “No really, it’s him! It’s really him! Why don’t you believe me?” routine. Just how fucking stupid do they think we really are?

The Conspiracy Theory Du Jour Chart

2007-09-06T12:22:00.000-04:00

Fun with charts once again today.

The clickable image below is a chart that shows what I see is the collective pulse of various Conspiracy Theory message Boards at the moment. A few historical CT subjects like the JFK assassination and recent historical shams like the Aussie Bloke are included to give you a frame of reference. Enjoy!

The B-52 story

2007-09-06T11:10:00.000-04:00

I’m still somewhat befuddled over the story about the B-52 loaded with strategic Tomahawks that has been vaguely described in the media over the past few days. There is a certain ominous feel to this that I can’t put my finger on. What has perked my ears up is that this was an apparent unauthorized movement of nukes. They may move nukes around at Manzano or Pantex like so much produce at the farmer’s market but when it comes to loading up a 52 with nukes and flying them down to Louisiana for “dismantling” something is not looking, sounding or feeling right about this story.

I wasn’t a weapons dweeb when I was in the Navy. I was a monkey with an attitude, turning valves and sweating my ass off in the engine room, but I was on ships where the Navy could “neither confirm nor deny the existence of nuclear weapons” and that was the line we had to repeat as squids out on the town looking for a few drinks and a lot of fun. In other words, yeah, we had them onboard the ship/boat but those of us who weren’t Weps types didn’t know which missiles and bombs were tipped with a big boom and which had a little boom.

I remember that the process for an onload or offload of weapons was a real pain in the ass procedure and there were storage lockers where the MarDet guard looked serious as a heart attack. They don’t store nukes like you and I store light bulbs. Nukes are kept in special ammo dumps and lockers that are secured by a perimeter and pissed off looking Marines. No one gets in or out without a serious once over and getting the weapons out of that place is a huge evolution that is planned and signed off on all the way up and down the chain of command. There are convoys involved, armed Marines who have nothing better to do than shine shoes and blow your head off take part in it and look at sailors in dungarees as target practice.

You don’t just roll up to a nuke storage facility in a pickup truck with some multi-colored papers on a clipboard and tell Joe Shit the Ragman of the MarDet unit, “I’m here to pick up a couple of nuclear tipped Tomahawk cruise missiles for Col. Hardass. What do you boys got in stock for us today?” Approval up and down the chain of command is given or denied and the teams of men involved are numerous. In other words, those nukes didn’t just hop on those Tomahawks and wind up bolted to the rail in the belly of a B-52.

Why would a nuke squadron at Minot send their weps to Barksdale for dismantling? Did Barksdale suddenly become the rehab or reclamation facility for the Air Farce’s nukes? I thought Pantex in Texas did the warhead work, and if the maintenance was simply meant for the missile bodies, what in the world are they doing being shipped down to Louisiana with warheads still bolted on? Too many questions and too much “national security” signal to noise ratio to figure this one out.

Considering the fact that the neo-con vampires are still rabid for laying waste to the middle-east with nuclear weapons, with initial target practice being Iran, the story makes the hair stand up on my arms when I really think about it. Is the Air Force possibly staging nukes to Barksdale for use against Iran?

Even Satan hates developers and McMansion dwellers

2007-09-06T10:13:00.000-04:00

Greased palms keep the gears of capitalism turning and all of us know that. To think otherwise, that big political donations don’t have a positive effect for the givers of such contributions, is foolish, deceitful and naive. Does big business give money away to politicians as though they were charity, just to be nice? No, they do not. Do they do it simply because they “like” someone’s political stance? No, they do not. They do it to buy favor even if favors are not explicitly promised since such a promise would make the contribution a bribe and illegal.

We rarely get to see this process exposed to the light of day. Even with campaign laws written so that we can search for political contributions, sometimes online, we rarely look to see who is giving money to whom. I fall into that category as well, and when I have searched I mostly do not recognize the names of the contributors. Occasionally our media will expose some of this and we are left to consider the ramifications. Today’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a story that lays out how a major developer is greasing the palms of DeKalb county officials to get what they want.

I cannot say these county officials have taken bribes by the developer, but I can say that this smells fishy and the appearance of improper conditions for campaign contributions are the first thing I think of. Can they really maintain integrity and an unbiased view when they vote for this thing? I can’t say that the developer has given them bribes, but I will say that it certainly smells fishy to me that a Florida based developer, who is facing a major downturn in the Florida real estate market, would donate thousands upon thousands of dollars to county officials in DeKalb County, Georgia; who just happen to hold the yes or no vote on a project that will make millions for them and contribute nothing positive to the quality of life in the area they wish to redevelop. It will in fact turn an already busy and thriving area, which suffers from horrible traffic gridlock, into an even larger traffic nightmare and it will destroy and transform yet another former suburban district into the new Mecca for the greedy and tasteless of Atlanta.

The North Druid Hills corridor that they wish to redevelop is an area I am highly familiar with, in fact I will be moving back to Decatur in a few weeks, away from the worst mistake I ever made which was moving to Sandy Springs in 2002. I will in fact be living on North Druid Hills Road, and their project will indeed effect me. I am intimately familiar with the area targeted for redevelopment and I already have a major experience dealing with a similar development to which is planned by the Sembler Co.

I live a little more than a mile from the Perimeter Place development in Dunwoody and that development has totally fucked the area in terms of traffic and quality of life. Before that development was begun, driving through the connector roads that slice across the northern side of Perimeter was the perfect means of getting around the plug of traffic associated with the mall and the many office towers that are clustered in the area. Now the area is hopelessly plugged with traffic, the task of running errands is useless, as the development has created a third bottleneck for the flow of traffic. The other bottlenecks are the location and heavy traffic of Perimeter Mall and the layout of the cross connecting roads themselves as they were designed in an “S” shape for their entire length and not as straight thoroughfares.

The Perimeter Place development will be nothing when compared to the monstrosity that is planned for the area between I-85 and Briarcliff on North Druid Hills Road. The Sembler development will destroy affordable housing in the form of apartments on Briarcliff. Affordably priced apartments within a few mile radius of the development will suddenly become “fashionable” and the average working man and woman will have to move to yet another affordable apartment complex. The neighborhoods of the area, which have been shattered by the trashy infill buyers and developers will finally be ruined as the last of the greedy with no tastes will want to scoop up the remaining ranch house properties to make them McMansion hell.

Sembler will in effect, destroy the final vestiges of a neighborhood and a district all for their profit. The average citizen is being chased away by greedy and tasteless fucks who have a shitload of money and absolutely no common sense, human decency or good taste. Sembler is not interested in the common good for the citizens of DeKalb County, it is not interested in the community itself and it is not interested in the long-term quality of life for the residents of DeKalb County. Sembler is only concerned with one fucking thing, making a bigger pile of cash and fuck anyone who stands in their way.

Sembler has no interest in the fair and honest workings of the local government, they do not give a shit who takes their money all they want is for those who accept their money to vote in their favor. Sembler is the epitome of what is fucking wrong in this country as whole, the greedy want more and the average citizen who is in their way gets trampled over and to ease their way through the system they give fucking cold hard cash to politicians as their means of exercising their first amendment rights.

If DeKalb County officials allow this travesty to happen, we can say without doubt that mere trinkets and baubles distracted them into selling the rest of us out; and the price was just a few grand. I wonder how easy it is for the Sembler execs to blow through the same amount of money that they have already donated to the Dekalb officials. Their monthly greens fees are probably cost more than what they slid into the pockets of these officials.

The Conspiracy Theory "Fear" chart

2007-09-05T12:48:00.000-04:00

Click on the chart to get a good idea of where I stand on believing in what we should be afraid of from my Conspiracy Theory centric worldview. For an explanation, I rate these items on what we should be afraid of and what we should not be afaraid of when weighed against what is a rational belief vs. what is an irrational belief.

Senator Craig pulls the Three Stooges Victim of Circumstance defense...out of thin air!

2007-09-05T10:07:00.000-04:00

Idaho Senator Larry Craig has taken a new and bizarre defense of his misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge for playing a round of party time footsie in a Minneapolis airport last June. His new strategy? The Three Stooges Victim of Circumstance defense. Unlike the Stooges, in particular, Curly; Larry Craig is a US Senator and the victim of circumstance (ignorance?) shouldn’t be a defense. Ignorance may be a partial requirement for US Senators but that only applies to cooked pre-Iraq war intelligence.

I guess ole’ Larry boy’s denial runs deeper than the Marianas Trench otherwise he would have done the Ted Haggard defense and checked himself into one of those homosexual rehab joints that claims to cure men of the gay. Is he so afraid of his true nature that he would rather drag this out in full view of the American public than to admit he’s gay? Or is he so addicted to the power and money grabbing position of upper echelon politics that he can’t let it go without one final desperate and pathetic attempt to hold onto his position, lobbyist money and beard?

I have a feeling that if he fights this the kiss and tell partners he has met will come out of the woodwork, one has already given details of an encounter they had at a train station. I can’t help but wonder if Sen. Craig is one of the politicians that pornographer Larry Flynt has gotten the goods on? If so I hope Flynt floats what he knows to the public.

In cases like this it is easy, I am afraid, to get an impression that there is a certain amount of gay-bashing and homophobia involved with my comments. I want to clarify that I have no concern what a man or woman does for sexual pleasure as long as it’s between fully consenting adults and none of the participants walk on hooves or paws. I may not get off on what someone else gets off on but hey, that’s the way the rubber gag ball bounces.

In Craig’s case my anger and frustration hit on several levels. One is that we should all understand that if a person in power exploits their sexual preferences yet hides them out of fear or shame, they open themselves up to blackmail. Sen. Craig was fully open to blackmail because of these two known sexual encounters with men in public places. In Craig’s case he also voted against the civil rights of homosexual Americans all the while he was engaging in homosexual sex. Sen. Craig claimed to be a fully heterosexual man with a family and derided the members of the homosexual community who wanted to start their own family, with the person they loved and were willing to commit for life to.

Sen. Craig isn’t a sad victim of “circumstance”, he is a lying, degenerate, hateful, ignorant old fuck who needs to go away and stay away. Hypocritical fucks like him do not deserve the honor and privledge of serving the people of this country and the state of Idaho. Sen. Craig needs to stop getting his excuses from the Three Stooges.

September -- Where sentimentalism and reality clash

2007-09-04T12:39:00.000-04:00

On this day next week the world will mark the 6th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. For me, September was once a lovely time of year with it's own feel, look and sensation. School would start back in session, the summer heat has broken, the leaves on the trees all have that dry and old appearance. Baseball has its pennant chases, or at least it used to. Football is in the air with the lonesome far-off comfort of a high school PA system calling the plays and players on Friday nights in Georgia, Saturdays were for Tech and the Dawgs. When I think of September I miss what it used to mean and feel like. Now there is dread and sentimentalism for the lost America

Evil stares us in the face each night when we watch the news, it has an American face and the face changes shape before our eyes. Hope is just a town in Arkansas and our gullibility to believe politicians is heartbreaking. Our money slips away like autumn leaves swirling around on almost empty back roads as we drive, aimlessly. Even half baked poets like Jim Morrison can be eerily prophetic, the future's uncertain and the end is always near. September is a month of dead and dread; a celebration for the bloodthirsty and satanic.

I have a longish posting prepared for 9/11 which I will post next week. I have a feeling the web will be loaded with cynicism and anger next week, as it has been growing, as it always has been. How can we be optimistic and hopeful with our blood, wealth, talent and compassion being wasted and squandered as it has been? To paraphrase, rearrange and steal a line from a former President, our long national nightmare is not over and I fear the darkest hour is still ahead.

Statistics Tuesday! Storms, great big beards and spam!

2007-09-04T10:24:00.000-04:00

Some interesting statistics for you to chew on this Tuesday:

There have been 31 Category 5 hurricanes in recorded history, Hurricane Felix being the latest, which is pounding Nicaragua at this very moment. 25% of those 31 hurricanes have come within the last 5 years.

In Uganda, their rate of inflation has dropped to just 2.7%. In Indonesia, inflation stands at 6.51%. The current rate of inflation in Slovakia is 2.5%. The rate of inflation in Zimbabwe currently stands at 7,600%.

There are 130,000 millionaires in Venezuela.

Merrill Lynch projects a 65% chance of a recession in the US.

Since May 21st, 1950, Ferrari has won 197 Grands Prix and 14 world championships.

Glen Hubbard was 5’7” and weighed 180 lbs. when he played for the Atlanta Braves back in the 70’s and 80’s. After he shaved his beard his weight dropped 15 lbs. He hit .264, made 4444 fielding assists, 2795 put outs and was credited with 975 double plays. The guy was a Hoover vacuum cleaner at second base.

There have been 308 reported cases of the West Nile virus in the US so far in 2007 with 11 fatalities. The virus had never been seen in the United States until 1999. Between 1999 and 2001 there were only 149 cases reported. In 2002 there were 4,156 cases reported.

Country club lizard, friend of Irish Setters worldwide and Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s finance committee co-chairman is facing a 23 count indictment including charges of money laundering, mail fraud, perjury and obstruction of justice. If Romney can get the CFR and Bilderberg thumbs up he will be the 44th President.

One in five Americans have genital herpes. 98% of all federal cases against dog fighting charges result in a conviction. Michael Vick played in 74 NFL games and never played in a Super Bowl.

The first spam email I ever got was from the golf ball spammer back in 1996.

Working man blues on Labor Day weekend

2007-08-31T14:05:00.000-04:00

In this day and age, the American working man and woman have very little to be happy about and more uncertainty regarding their future than ever. The holiday itself was created in order to give the working man a day of rest, it is a holiday that finds it’s origins in the unionized labor movement. Now our labor unions are toothless and the cards are stacked against them. The average American worker, who lives and sweats to live the “American Dream” is marginalized and no longer has a voice in government and little power at the bargaining table. Most are left to fend for themselves with no union to represent them.

We start the Labor Day weekend with a continuing war draining our resources and wealth from the public coffers into the bank accounts of the super wealthy who are making a proverbial killing off this war. Gas prices are still outrageously high, grocery shopping is enough to break the bank accounts of many Americans and the low hum of a President begging to nuke Iran still rings in our ears like the Taos hum.

We work longer hours, for less pay, smaller benefits and greater responsibility and workload than ever before. The pie in the sky isn’t sweet and the slices are smaller than our parents had to choose from. RealtyTrac.com predicts there will be over 2 million home foreclosures in 2007, which is 42% higher than all of 2006. Meanwhile, here in my hometown of Atlanta, the purchase of homes valued at over $1 million for just the month of May rose to 97, nearly double the number that were sold just two years ago, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The playing field hasn’t been level in this country for a long time. I don’t begrudge a person who creates wealth nor do I take offense at what they do with their money. On the eve of a national holiday that honors the average American worker, we have to ask ourselves why we as a nation allow this level of disparity and flawed thinking get to this point. The corporations and wealthiest among us have and will fight to maintain the power they have over our government and our lives. They will not give it up and if their power is diminished even slightly, they will not rest until they have gained back as much as they lost and more.

The most simple ways for the average American to fight back are:

1) Simplify your life to reduce the influence they have on your wallet and livelihood.
2) Reject as many corporate owned institutions as is possible.
3) Learn the voting record of your local, state and national leaders. Share what you find with politically minded friends, neighbors and co-workers.
4) NEVER believe what a politician, political operative or a “leader” tells you.
5) Raise a stink when your representative votes against your own best interests. Call, write a letter, send an email. Do anything to let him/her know they sold you out. Be nice though. Lunatic ramblings and rants don’t do you a lot of good.

Enjoy your three day weekend, folks. Take care, watch out for the drunk drivers and put the white clothing away until Memorial Day weekend next year. Think about how you can make YOUR life better, more productive and creative in ways that will mystify the powers that be and limit their control over you.

And above all, if you are traveling by airplane and need to visit the bathroom, beware of pervy Senators looking for a little bit of dick to suck.

Richard Jewel and random memories of the 90's. It's 11 o'clock, do you know where your kooks are?

2007-08-30T11:35:00.000-04:00

In many ways, for me at least, much of the 90’s seem to be a slow blur. Moments pop out at me when I look back, many good and many bad. An entire inner-connected series of memories have come back to me over the last two days with the passing of Richard Jewel. Jewel, you may remember, was the security guard at the Atlanta Olympic games whom the FBI attempted to scapegoat after the Centennial Olympic Park bombing.

In the summer of ’96 I was living out in the country but still a short drive into Atlanta. I watched those Olympic games and how they affected Atlanta, from afar. On the night of the bombing I was watching TV and followed the news reports closely, switching between the four local news stations and ESPN’s coverage. In the days after the bombing, when Jewel was rightly identified as a hero, I was happy to see what appeared to be a regular Georgia “country boy” making good in the city. That feel good moment was dashed only days later when the feds leaked the information to the news organizations that Jewel was the prime suspect.

One thing you develop as you get older is a prime eye for telling what is real and what is not real when it comes to people. In the case of Jewel, it was obvious the feds were lying. Their MO sounded credible until you looked at the man and how he was holding up to the insane media pressure. I wasn’t the only one who felt he was being railroaded. My co-workers, all of them “country smart” could see that something wasn’t right and that he was innocent. Jewel was eventually cleared and the investigation appeared to have reached a brick wall.

When I first moved to Atlanta we seemed to be the center of a lunatic bomber’s attention. The Olympic Park bombing, the Otherside Lounge bombing, the Sandy Springs abortion clinic bombing were making all of us more than a little uncomfortable with what was happening and where they would strike next. I remember several long lunchtime and water cooler conversations we had about who the killer could be. My pet theory was that we had a crazy redneck that was driving into town to kill Atlantans, but I was certain it was a Georgian.

When the Birmingham bombing killed a police officer and horribly injured a nurse in early ’98 all of the people I knew raised their eyebrows with attention. It was pretty obvious that the nut that was setting off bombs here in town was at work in Birmingham. The only question most of us had was whether or not the bomber lived in west Georgia or east Alabama.

When Eric Rudolph was announced as the prime suspect, all seemed to fall in place. Rudolph could be a poster child of the things that were wrong about us as a people in the 90’s and he was one of the precursor warnings of the type of lunatic fringe American that we would all see post-9/11. In a decade that gave us the Oklahoma City bombing and Eric Rudolph, we had more than enough signs of what we have become. The lunatics who weren’t satisfied with simply firebombing abortion clinics so they moved on to bombing them and killing abortion Doctors are the type of person who maintains the systems of control and power in America today.

I live in a large American city, with an international airport and high visibility facilities such as the CDC and the Federal Reserve. I am not at all worried about Islamic terrorists blowing my ass up. It’s possible but I think I am far more likely to be struck by lightning or win the lottery than to be killed by a terrorist in the city I live. I am, however, still worried about right wing extremists in America. I am, in effect, afraid of my own people. I admit this one day after posting an angrily worded entry regarding fear in America, so I do understand how this can be considered a hypocritical statement.

These extremists have always been here in this country. The south has always been the stereotypical home ground for such lunatics but don’t let that assumption steer you in the wrong direction. At the height of the popularity of the Ku Klux Klan, the largest population of members was not found in the south; Indiana was the state that boasted the highest concentration of Klansmen. Those extremists are not only down here; they are in your town too.

In the 90’s we had the rare opportunity to see these people up close and personal. We saw the militia movements and were able to hear the ideas of extreme nationalism that permeate throughout their communities. We saw the radical Christian identity movement followers who rationalize death and murder by killing abortion providers, homosexuals and non-Christians. We saw the far right anti-government radicals such as Randy Weaver and Eric Rudolph. But we also saw a more open and less afraid government who was willing to go to equally extreme ends with citizens who frightened it.

In the 90’s we had the chance to see our government up close and personal as well. The massacre at Waco, the Ruby Ridge calamity and strangeness surrounding the Oklahoma City bombing all added to a certain mistrust of the government. We instantly forgot all about those events, those radicals and those capabilities when the 9/11 attacks occurred. The faux-patriotism and “pride” in America swept through this nation in a way that was not purely spontaneous. The only genuine responses that we had to the attacks were gone within days of the attacks. Was anyone really acting “changed” when October 11 came around?

The death of Richard Jewel should be our reminder to us of what the government will do to an innocent person and Eric Rudolph should be a reminder that we have lunatics among us that compare unequivocally with the most extreme Middle East elements and are the product of America itself. Greed, hate, mistrust, fear, the lust for power and a narrow worldview are the food of American terrorists.

America -- 400 million pussies

2007-08-29T10:15:00.000-04:00

What a bunch of little scared rabbits we have become. Our grandparents and great-grandparents would be ashamed of us and rightly so. Everything scares us and we haven't a single collective backbone among us. What the fuck is wrong with us?

We are scared to death that someone is up to funny business at the Ikea. We are afraid of our true sexual nature and how people will react, so we lie.. We are afraid of fat men with beards. We are afraid of skinny men with beards.

We are afraid of the government. The government is scared of us. We are scared of our children. Our children are afraid of the Army. We are afraid of the toys we give our children. We are afraid of the food we put in our mouths.

The list goes on and on and on and on.

When did we begin to act this way? Why do we do it? Why do we keep chirping the same old bullshit lies that make us even more afraid? "9/11 changed everything." "We are fighting them over there so we don't fight them here." "Iran will have nookalar (sic) weapons." Fear, fear and more fear. We can't get away from it and we are afraid of white people, black people, brown people, all kinds of people.

We don't need a "leader" as President, we don't need a diplomat as President, we need a drill Sargeant to kick us in the ass, who will curse at us and tell us to act like we have a pair. What a bunch of silly little girls in pigtails we have become.

Why don't we all get pissed off and start demanding more and better of our leaders and ourselves. When someone starts playing the "terrorist" card let's tell them to shove that terrorist up their ass. When the government won't protect us from the truely insane capitalists who poison our food, let's put the fear of losing an election into their hearts. Let's tell the politicians to fix our food supply issues or their ass is fired. To their replacements let's inform them that we fired the last idiot who fucked us over and if they don't toe our line, their ass will be back out in the public sector too.

When you meet a politician in real life, give them a rash of shit for their failures and let them know you are their boss, not the other way around. Never praise a politician to their face, the fuckers are waterheaded attention whores and they aren't used to someone reading them the riot act. If you don't know the voting record for your Senator or Congressman, learn it. Find out where your local representatives stand and if your city councilman is farting around, let them and your politically minded neighbors know.

We all need to stop being so goddamn scared and we need to bitch and moan about how this country is circling the bottom of the bowl. Fear, in the heart of a politician or businessman, is a pissed off citizenry.

Fat cat mating call -- "Shut up and give me your money."

2007-08-28T13:41:00.000-04:00

I’m looking at a news report that Earthlink is slashing its workforce in half. Over 900 jobs are about to be shed and the concerns that yet another ISP could go by the wayside. Ten years ago you had a choice between using a local mom and pop style ISP, a larger regional ISP or one of the major national/international ISPs. Those days have been gone for quite some time. However, as a person who moved away from the horrible mess that ATT created when they slurped BellSouth into their clutches, I will be pretty much at the mercy of the mega-corporations if Earthlink sells out or is forced to close it’s doors.

This is another of those bad signs of what this nation has become. If Earthlink goes away, one way or the other, my choices are slim. I can go with Comcast, AOL or ATT. That’s about it. I have no other choice than to use Comcast for cable, unless I want to stick one of those stupid dishes on my balcony. I refuse to go back to AOLhell or give ATT a penny more than I have to because they will stick it up my ass with a complete disregard for my privacy.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why a “business friendly” government is bad for its citizens. This is why big business is NOT a good neighbor under any circumstance and this my friends is why the corporate lackeys in Washington, Republican and Democrat, need to be chased back into the private sector, post haste. They have allowed the large corporations to play ball in any way they choose and we, the consumer, are left with fewer choices, higher rates, sloppier service and a complete disregard for what is best for the consumer. The market does not weed out the weak; the market is a bloodbath where only the deepest coffers and least civility survive.

It’s not just the TelCos where this is found. It is the same in the financial sector, the health care sector, manufacturing, it is the same across the board and from what was once a wide variety of choices we are left with whatever they decide to throw at us. 10 years ago I had many choices for even the act of grocery shopping. From the corporate stores I could choose from Publix, Kroger, A&P, Harris Teeter, Winn Dixie, Sav-A-Lot, Cub Foods or Ingals. These stores were all located within 15 minutes of my apartment in Atlanta. Now that same 15-minute radius gives me Publix, Kroger and Wal-Mart.

Those are my only choices for typical grocery stores within that radius and even a small locally owned and operated store is no where to be seen. I shop for most of my groceries at one of the 2 farmer’s markets that I live between. Both are 20 to 25 minutes drives but they are well worth the trip even if it is out of my to get to either store. I would be spending approximately $100 to $150 per month in the corporate stores if I did all my shopping there, but instead I spend between $75 and $100 per month for the same food in those farmer’s markets. The money is much better spent there and it is one of my ways of saying no to big business.

I can’t really do that with Internet access, phone service, banking, health needs or when I need clothing. In the big war being waged against us by the big conglomerates we eventually loose the war but the consumer can win the small battles against their unethical practices.

Sociopath Tuesday! Politicians, athletes and the big toe of Big Brother!

2007-08-28T11:35:00.000-04:00

There is simply too much going on right now to pick a single subject. Within the last 24 hours there has been the resignation of AG Alberto Gonzalez, another senior GOP Senator has been thrust into a sex scandal, Michael Vick apologists have been in over drive and there has been a curious media blackout regarding the murder of the former leader of the GOP in Georgia. It’s just too much to digest and sift through in one sitting.

AG Gonzalez, the man who never met a spy program he didn’t love, will be trying to outrun possible perjury charges for lying before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Of course the Democrats will capitulate and not seek those charges, nor will they ever seek to bring to justice the liars and un-American bastards who have led our nation into a deep, dark sewer over the past 6 years. Gonzo will head back to Texas with the blessings of his President after a brief tenure as the head of the Justice Department and a history that will show him to have been the most destructive and least protective AG in the history of that cabinet position.

Senator Larry Craig of Idaho once again shows me that maybe the really wild sex fiends are the members of the Republican Party. I have no problem with the homosexual community, gays and lesbians are just regular folks trying to get by and live their lives too, in my eyes. I feel sorry for closeted gays who cannot tell the world how they really feel. However, I have no sympathy or patience for a hypocrite like Craig, who maligns and demonizes the gay community, all the while he is looking for kinky public sex in an airport. If Sen. Craig were to just come out and tell us that he does indeed suck dick and he was wrong for demonizing the gay culture and wrong for repressing his true sexuality, I’ll jump on the man’s bandwagon and back him 100%. Instead we get another bullshit lie that his toilet stance is a bit “wide legged”.

Speaking of lies, Michael Vick, the disgraced former star athlete is now getting the coddling he so desperately wanted all because he finally admits his guilt for torturing animals for the sheer pleasure of it. Hey Vick, I forgive you since you admit that you did it. Now, how about working on atoning for your cruelty and show us some action instead of words on how you will re-enter society as a normal human being. It’s not simply enough to say I’m sorry. You have to do a little more than that. I’m sorry only works when a 5-year-old get’s caught sneaking cookies out of the jar.

It’s was not “immature” what you did to those dogs, as you so innocently described it, it was inhuman, vicious and anti-social. MV7, I hope you realize that psychologists have found a link between children who torture animals and serial killers. Prove to us that you can contribute to society instead of producing more pain and suffering like you did and then we can start talking about you taking snaps again. You have a serious mental condition to not see the torture of animals to be disturbed behavior. To the apologists, leave the man’s dick alone and stop sucking it like it was candy. He fucked up and all the excuses you can muster do not make it all right. It’s not about race and it’s not about the victims being “just dogs” and it’s not about other crimes not being hotly prosecuted by the feds. It is about acceptable behavior in a civilized society. If you find nothing wrong with his actions or still believe in him regardless of what he has confessed to; please seek psychiatric help. You have a serious sociopath condition and need medical attention.

As for the murder of the former head of the Georgia GOP, Raphael Gonzalez, it’s difficult to gauge what did happen and the cause. Gonzalez was murdered along with another man in a 3-person murder suicide down in Orange County Florida. Even the Atlanta media has been tight lipped about this and only trickles of info have come out. What is known is that Gonzalez and the other victim were roommates in a house that was owned by Gonzalez. The killer was a former roommate and Marine, who took his own life after murdering them.

Strange tidings on this Tuesday morning. Sometimes there is too much for your paranoid blogger to fully comprehend and write about. I’m sure my ADD and OCD predisposition do not help.