TSA screeners trained to be con artists on your dime

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

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

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

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The state of music chart

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?

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

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

(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?

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

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.

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

“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

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

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

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

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!

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

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!

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

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?

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

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."

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!

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.

"Big Brother is helping." - Eldrin fucking Bell is still an idiot par excellence

(NOTE: For folks looking for my comments on the latest news about Big Brother's Little Helper, Eldrin fuckin' Bell; here is the link: http://theconspiratorsnest.blogspot.com/2008/07/titties-guns-and-butts-county-eldrin.html )

If this doesn’t just take the cake. Twice in one week we have seen metropolitan Atlanta officials thumbing their noses at any thought of civil liberties for its citizens. First it was the idea of controlling the masses by restricting the style of clothing a person can wear, now we have former Atlanta Chief of Police Eldrin Bell wanting to do mass background checks on it’s citizens by demanding all landlords in Clayton county turn over the lease agreements with their renters to the county.

Bell argues that an unsavory population has been dumped on Clayton County by the Atlanta Housing Authority and in an attempt to clean up the streets he wants to basically spy on every single house and apartment renter in Clayton County to see who is living there, under what conditions and report back to the landlord whether their renter has been naughty or nice. For those not from Atlanta, if you have ever traveled to the Atlanta airport, Clayton County is the area immediately south of the airport. If you could roll down the window next to your seat and chuck an empty Coke bottle, you’d be tossing it into Clayton County.

Bell’s comments on this are actually terrifying, "This is not to say Big Brother is watching," he insisted. "It says Big Brother is helping." The folks in Clayton county need to seriously address the lunatic ramblings of Bell and get his ass out of office. Don’t say you had no idea he was a nut, you all watched him on the evening news for years when he was the Atlanta Police Chief. Bell’s desire is proof positive that bastards who wield power are never satisfied until they have probed and prodded every single corner of control. There is only one distinction between dictators, are they large or are they small?

Will someone down in Clayton County please take the bottle away from the lips of Eldrin Bell, I think he is drunk enough with the power and doesn’t need more.