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.

Hey kids, rock and roll. Nobody tells you where to go, baby.

I’m a fatality on the side of the fashion highway and I’m too damn old to want to dress like a twenty-something. The baggy pants culture has mystified me since it began, especially when baseball players began wearing their pants as though they were track pants but, to each his/her own. Now the kids have attracted the faceless bureaucrats and power mad creatures that lurk in the halls of government.

Atlanta City Councilman C.T. Martin has sponsored an amendment to the city’s indecency laws that will target clothing styles in which the wearer’s undergarments are exposed. Under fire would be baggy pants worn by young men and boys as well as styles favored by some young women and girls where their bra strap or the strap of their thong is exposed. Of course this amendment will get shot down for it’s extremist idea but the seed is planted. The tree expected to bear fruit is one of control over you and I and powerlessness to defend ourselves against an oppressive state.

I hate to say this but we have evil fucking rednecks all over the place that detest the baggy pants hip-hop culture styles that have found their way out to suburbia. It’s not because they don’t like the style or because they are too old to “get it” the anger and hatred is much more simple to understand. The stereotypical young, urban, and black thug epitomize this style. Don’t think for one second that we in the south have a monopoly on ignorant rednecks. Some of the biggest rednecks I ever met lived in Connecticut. Ignorance and hate know no geographical boundaries.

The point is this amendment will get support from the super radicalized extremists of both the left and the right. This leaves the other 60% to 80% of us asking ourselves what in God’s name does the city government have to do with policing the clothing we chose to wear or express ourselves with? The ultimate resting place for this amendment is in our minds. It is a reinforcement we have to subconsciously process. The government, ultimately, controls everything about you and your life and if it chooses to, it controls what you can and cannot wear.

A few years ago the City Council passed amendments to chase homeless people off the streets. They criminalized panhandling and began rounding up and shipping violators all over the metro area. Why did they do this? Complaints from the forces of downtown gentrification who were offended by the homeless asking for help. Some went as far as to say the homeless would “get pushy” sometimes. The idiocies of statements like that don’t even need to be addressed, they are self-evident.

Homeless rights advocates fought back but the groundswell was too much for them to overcome. Now, you are a criminal in Atlanta if you have no home and try to ask for money or help from folks on the street. The Atlanta Police Department will take you to jail for it. Now, a City Councilman doesn’t like the way young people dress, so he wants to amend the laws to absorb his fashion sense. What is next? If I wear a t-shirt down near the capitol that mocks our Governor’s “Sonny Do” list, will I spend nights in lockup at the Fulton County jail? If I put a bumper sticker on my car stating that Police Chief Pennington needs to go back to New Orleans, will my car be impounded and will I suddenly find myself in the backseat of a patrol car, at the mercy of the cop who is offended by my exercise of free speech?

Time and time again we have seen the rights of decent, regular Americans stomped on because they had something negative to say about their leaders. The current masters of government have turned it into an art form. To be honest, I wonder if I will ever get a visit at my front door for what I write here in this blog. We all know that all of our email, web traffic and phone calls are being monitored by the agents of our government. We are at their mercy because we allowed them to take control of our lives.

First they will tell us what we cannot do. They will tell us we cannot question authority, we cannot dress a certain way, we cannot say certain things. Once we are beaten down far enough, and live in constant fear and dread for the government targeting us for seemingly innocent “violations” of their codes, we are then ready for them to begin the real "control" phase. The final phase of control is not to tell us what we cannot do; it is the phase where our behavior is guided based on the mandates of government. Government sanctioned clothing, government-sanctioned entertainment and government sanctioned lives for its citizens.

High Weirdness Drifter

Its been a while since I last gave a roundup of stuff found on the web, so here is a short list:

It seems the private investigator industry has taken a page from the FBI’s COINTELPRO folder. An Atlanta minister is suing Progressive insurance and a private investigator service for infiltrating and secretly taping weekly group support meetings that were held at the minister’s home. The minister was suing Progressive following a 2004 auto accident and the investigators hired by Progressive to get the insurance giant off the hook decided to follow the yellow brick road of what could be argued as highly unethical behavior. It’s always nice when a private firm uses the federal government as an example, isn’t it?

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2007/08/21/invasion_0822.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab

Hurricane Dean, the 3rd most powerful hurricane ever recorded to have struck land, is aiming for Mexico’s one and only nuclear reactor and has been tearing across the Bay of Campeche, home to Mexico’s most productive oil producing zone, the Cantarell oil field. Go figure the odds of that 7-10 split. Sales of Viagra to energy traders have plummeted to pre-Enron levels.

Blogger was down this morning for what I can only assume was an indeterminate amount of time. Being the good little conspiracy buff that I am, I spent all of 30 seconds to 2 minutes evaluating the possibility that the shit was about to hit the fan. Remember folks, the revolution will not be televised. First signs that something is about to happen won’t be a “Breaking News” title card on TV, it’ll be a major communications outage, most obviously noticed will be a failure of online communication sites such as Blogger, WordPress and message boards. We are, for the moment, safe; I think.

If you think I am insane, I can assure you that even I have nothing on the lunatics who are part of the Center for Security Policy. Those fucking loons make even me seem un-paranoid. Several left leaning blogs have recently exposed some of this groups more wacky members. Included is a wildly disturbing essay by Philip Atkinson where the author promotes not only a Bush, President for life strategy but also claims our Fuhrer in Chief should…I’m sorry…Commander in Chief should just “slaughter Iraqis until they comply with his demands” as this would be the “wisest course.” Never call me a crazy mother fucker…there are plenty of morons like Atkinson who on their most sane days are still a million times crazier than I, or the proverbial shithouse rat, could ever be. Check out some of these goofy ideas.

Quitting smoking - 1 week - The mind altering effects of cigarette addiction.

I’m now a week into the process of quitting smoking. Some things have gotten easier, some have gotten harder, and some things are still the same. Oddly enough, I still want a cigarette. I don’t want tobacco, as I am not craving a pipe or a cigar, I am craving a cigarette still to this day. It’s worse when I am idle. Whatever you bastards at the big tobacco companies put in your cigarettes, it works and I hope you all fucking go to the 7th ring of hell for it. This is not a simple case of nicotine addiction.

I’ve come to realize something about the smoking addiction; it isn’t tobacco alone that causes the problem, it’s whatever the cigarette manufacturers do to hook us. I loved premium cigars and smoked those for years along with cigarettes. I don’t want a cigar at all, what I want is a cigarette. Now, this may simply be because I have smoked cigarettes since I was 15 years old but I find it interesting that it is a specific product that I want considering the physical, mental and emotional reaction I am having.

Sleep? Ha! I am still suffering through the worst insomnia I have ever had in my life. Last night I was able to pull in a whole 2 hours of fitful and restless sleep before the weird and spooky nightmares woke me up. After that I didn’t sleep, I just laid in bed in a sort of trancelike state, tossing and turning like I was in some sort of wild and bad movie. I haven’t had more than 4 hours of solid sleep in more than a week and those 4 hours were not restful.

My head still isn’t processing information properly. I am having trouble concentrating and remembering everything about my day. Sometimes I feel trapped and sometimes my sense of time flies away. I’ll look at my watch or the clock and think an hour has passed since I last checked the time and will be confused to see that only 10 minutes have passed since I last looked. I now understand what folks talk about when they discuss the phenomenon of lost time in alien abductions. This is a very disconcerting effect and it has made me wonder more than once if I will regain sanity or my grasp on reality, as I knew it.

Did the tobacco alter my entire perception of the world? Is this similar to a psycho reactive drug experience?

A new day, a new spy program and another massive database to write a DTS package for.

Never be foolish enough to think that just because the feds say they are shutting down a controversial program that it means an evil entity has gone away. Take this recent piece of news from the Pentagon. The DoD has announced that it will shut down an anti-terrorist database that was associated with the TALON program. This database was criticized widely because among it’s targets were peaceful anti-war demonstrators such as the Quaker group, American Friends Service Committee.

This database isn’t simply going away, as it should be. In a perfect world the Pentagon would see the error in it’s ways of spying on the citizens they provide protection for and delete the whole database and destroy the backups, with stern warnings in place to never repeat such an awful crime against it’s own citizens. This is not the case. The DoD will simply turn the database over to the FBI to be integrated with their database system known as Guardian.

First of all we have the issue of our own military spying on, and most likely running counter-intelligence operations against it’s own citizens. Second, will the FBI weigh the DoD data after running it through many matrix’ and filtering processes? You and I know they will never do that. They’ll just import the data and be off on their fat happy way. God only knows how many alerts will be generated once they pull in the new data.

This doesn’t mean the DoD is done with you and I either. The Pentagon has said they have a new system, not necessarily a database, which will streamline their “threat reporting.” This makes me wonder how much of Poindexter’s TIA system is accessible to the DoD. Isn’t it wonderful to know that we throw insane amounts of money at the DoD so they will spy on you and I and call all of us a threat?

For the final slap in the face, a faceless Army officer speaking for the Pentagon said that the TALON database isn’t being shutdown because of “public criticism of how it was used.” That is a nice way of saying the public’s anger at such a program as TALON wasn’t something the DoD gave a fuck about. Sometimes I think the Pentagon and all the demonic generals and admirals who suck at the teat of our taxes will be delighted to turn their weapons on us.

Another day, another spy program.

The stock market plunges, the powers that be light another cigar

When the stock market still drops like a stone days after the fed jams $17 billion into the banking system, what does it mean? Countrywide, the largest mortgage lender in the nation, was the trigger for this latest plunge after they announced they are pulling money from their $11 billion credit line just to fund operations. I’m not an international businessman but even I know that taking loans to keep the day to day operations of your business going is a horrible sign.

Once the dust settles on this mortgage situation a very small number of people are going to be in the most prime position ever seen to scarf up a huge amount of real estate. Homeowners are still falling further and further in their payments. Credit card interest rates are doubling because of the state of the market. Once those homeowners who are barely making it start paying those higher credit card rates, even they will begin to fall behind in house payments and the number of homes in foreclosure will jump again. Worsening the cycle with each twist and turn.

A very select few are going to wind up on the money making side of this catastrophe, the vast majority of us are going to be burned and the gap between the richest and poorest keeps widening. Can the middle class even afford to buy and keep a home in this day and age? The answer is no, the middle class cannot and the middle class loses even more ground and power in the process. Who benefits? The powers that be benefit.

Last night I had MSNBC’s Hardball on while I was making my dinner. I heard a talking head say the most stupid and bullshit thing I have heard on there for quite some time. The subject was the Chinese goods scandal and this pro-business “Reaganite” had the gumption to say that if Americans didn’t want to buy toys and products from China, stop shopping at Wal-Mart. Matthews, like a lap dog, didn’t jump on this stupid comment.

We cannot find goods that are not made in China. There are so-called “specialty” products that are not made in China, but we are talking about boutique level products. They are neither priced nor available in numbers for mass consumption. The jobs that were on American soil even a decade ago to manufacture clothes, toys, household goods, etc… are no longer here. The globalists wanted these jobs sent to China for the slave wages and maximized profit margins. The fall out, lead based paint, shoddy construction and toxic substances, are part of the end result.

This, the Chinese scandals and the widening credit debacle, are exactly what the PTB have wanted to happen. Power and money is consolidated into their hands and out of ours.

Quitting smoking - Day 3 - Crying jags and holier than thou assholes

I’m so tired. Man, I’m beat. I think the worst of the cravings for a smoke are gone now. Dear Lord, I hope they are. I actually don’t want a smoke today and I am not thinking about smoking with nearly as much frequency as yesterday. I am, however, tired, sleepy and depressed with wild and vivid dreams occurring. Last night I had a sensation of tears welling up in my eyes, like I was going to get all weepy and go on a crying jag like a little girl, for no apparent reason. This sucks big wieners.

My sense of taste is still not back but more strongly flavored things such as coffee, hard candy and chocolate are becoming more complex in flavor to me again. My sense of smell returns in spurts. I still have the jitters too. My hands and fingers are always moving and I can’t stop them. I must look like a mess. Oh yeah, I have a headache too and I’m all wheezy, like an asthmatic in the middle of a field of blooming wild flowers.

Considering what we know is a fact regarding what the tobacco industry does to hook and keep us hooked on smokes, is there any reason you should doubt that conspiracy theories are very real? They’ve tweaked the chemicals that they add to the tobacco over the years to create a scientific method of inducing extreme addiction. They denied this for years and kept it secret, which turns it into conspiracy fact, but in the end we all know what they have done.

I wish that smoking were healthy and not addictive. If it were, I’d still be smoking the Pall Malls whenever I wished. This shit is not healthy and I am such a hopeless cigarette junkie. I mean, Jesus H. Christ…I was smoking un-filtered Pall Malls, almost two packs a day, for almost a decade and Marlboro Reds, two packs a day for almost two decades. I have no fucking will power with smokes and I am going to struggle with it long after the physical effects have left me.

To those who still smoke, I will never, ever be one of those pinched face rat bastards who judge you. I know what it’s like to be hopelessly hooked and I know the physical pleasure that a smoke does indeed give…within seconds. All I can tell you is if you want to quit, get the nicotine gum (store brand to save dinero) and get ready for a crazy ride on the back of a bronco when you kick. If you want support, write me. I get it, I am one of you, I know how hard this shit really is.

To all those pinched face rat fucking bastards who do judge smokers, go fuck yourselves! Your little condescending attitude is horseshit and no one gives a fuck about what you think or about you! Lick my hairy balls and drop fucking dead! Go live with the Mormons and you cats can suck each other off like good little prunes and crones. This is some tough shit to get through and if you are high and mighty about the process it tells me you don’t know the first fucking thing about addiction. Piss off, eat shit and die, etc…Seriously, get bent. Your judgement of smokers if fucked and I don't give two fucks for what you think about smokers.

Can you tell I’ve already reamed one of those types of people today? Assholes...all of them are assholes.

Quitting smoking - Day 2 - No one has died...yet

O, you devil nicotine. I’m in the second day and I’m doing better than I was on Monday. Yesterday was awful. I was happy, I was sad, I was cranky, I was dizzy and hyperventilating. Today I just feel tired and sleepy, I still have the jitters and I feel really low speed. I’m still Jonesin' for an un-filtered Pall Mall but I’m hanging on tight.

I'm sucking so much hard candy that a little ulcer has erupted on the tip of my tongue, which always sucks. You know the kind I am talking about. You get it anytime you overdo hard candy. I've got a lot of healthy (and naughty) food treats at home to help me make it through this. I have a daily workout so that should help me keep the extra pounds in check. Then again, I've had a 30 inch waist ever since high school and that was 25 years ago, so I think I'll be fine.

The nicotine gum will save me. Instead of Nicorette I am using the CVS store brand nicotine gum, mint flavor. Does anyone know if CVS, Walgreens or Eckards sells store brand nicotine gum in flavors other than mint? I think I'm going to need variety in the gum but I won't complain if all I get is the store brand mint. Junkies can't be picky.

Honest to goodness, I think I will always miss my Pall Malls, like any junkie does when he gives up his dope of choice.

Of all the weeks I could pick to stop sniffing glue, it had to be this week.

Dear Lord, it figures this would happen. Your paranoid blogger is having a seriously rough time this morning as I’m in the first 48 hours of quitting smoking. If this weren’t enough, Karl Rove has resigned his position in the White House. The Illuminati better not be up to any tricks over the next few days. I actually want this to work out and not lapse back into smoking. If they throw a curve ball at me I’ll have a puff and it’ll be all over for me.

Will Musharraf get the Diem treatment?

There is a chilling report at the CNN website at this moment regarding the US Military Intelligence Community doing research to assess how Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal would be protected if President Musharraf were “replaced”. This sort of talk reminds me too much of what befell Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963. In the case of Diem, he was assassinated by ARVN forces in a coup which had the overt approval of the US government. Of course we all know how the CIA, the Military-Industrial Complex and the armed forces took his assassination as the green light to go ape shit for the better part of the next 10 years.

Is Musharraf in danger of becoming the next Diem? I think it is not only possible but probable. Already the parrots have begun screaming that without Musharraf in power an Islamic fundamentalist government will take hold in Pakistan and crazy Muslims with nukes are the biggest boogy man TPTB own. It does not matter that the Islamic power structure in Pakistan is actually in the vast minority. It matters not that Pakistani’s see India as their sworn enemies and not the west. All that matters is pulling out the scary doom and gloom of radical Islamists.

I do not feel comfortable with the status quo in Pakistan. The government is shaky at best, and they do have the nukes. TPTB may appear to be shaken in America by looking at poll numbers but they are as firmly entrenched as ever. The Democrats are still enabling them and in effect, condoning their actions. The mad end-times lunatics are still devoted to the idea of Armageddon occurring in our lifetime, the sooner the better. The xenophobic still thirst for the blood and death of brown, olive and black skinned humans.
The ideas have been floated in the mainstream press that something is going to happen in Pakistan, and the mantra is still fight them over there, blah, blah. blah. When the government is looking at contingency plans if Musharraf falls we should look at it as a warning of what the government wants to do.

The Oral Majority

I wonder if I am limiting my sexual enjoyment by only having sex with free spirited liberal leaning women? It seems that tough talking manly men in the Republican party are pretty adept at giving head based on current events. Should I stop chasing the wild east Atlanta bohemian women and start focusing on the guys wearing Brooks Brothers suits who haunt the state capitol?

Florida State House Rep. Bob Allen got busted last month for soliciting oral sex from “a pretty stocky black guy” in a public park restroom late one evening in July, for $20. The “stocky black guy” turned out to be an undercover cop and wham-o, Allen got hauled off to the pokey (no pun intended) for a little Q&A at the Broward County jail. Hmmm…even as a straight man I’ve always heard about these so-called cruising spots. Allen must have thought he was at Hartsfield-Jackson.

For Allen’s defense he says he was in no way at the park looking to give a quick, public BJ to settle his lustful little right wing heart. No, he says he was all askeered of the big scary black man and offered to give this man $20 to suck his hoo haa just to keep himself from being a “statistic”. You know, I’ve felt very nervous and unsafe in certain locations and times around Atlanta over the years. Defusing the situation by paying to give a dangerous looking man a wet sloppy hummer was the last thing I thought of doing.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-allentape0307aug03,0,1892734.story?coll=orl_tab01_layout

If that weren’t enough, the National Federation Chair of the Young Republicans, Glenn Murphy, has resigned his position after police reports have surfaced that accuse him of giving an unwelcome blow job to a young man while he slept. Ya know, I’ve woken up to the wonderful sensation of oral pleasure being performed on me while I was asleep on many occasions. Of course, it was being done by a Birkenstock wearing hippie chick who was being extra nice to this paranoid bugger with her reckless sexual abandon.

http://www.takingdownwords.com/taking_down_words/files/glennmurphy.pdf

What is it with these uptight, gay bashing, family values sort of Republicans giving BJs away like they are candy? Hell, they are even paying to give oral pleasure. No woman even gave me so much as a nickel if I let her go down. Maybe these moral high road fellas are onto something very progressive and forward thinking? Do Republican women act this way too?

Good Lord, have I been making a mistake for all these years by sharing my bed only with wild liberal women? Are the Republican women little sexual hell cats, who’s wiles are so great that they can drive 100% hetero dudes into paying strangers to give juicy oral action in public men’s rooms and on unsuspecting Young Republicans while they doze away? What sort of sexual pixie dust are these people sprinkling?