Napster

Napster may have just earned a permanent home on my Links section. Cehck it out. Five songs, for free. No, no, you can’t download them. You can however listen to them. Okay, clarification. There are more than two million songs in Napsters archives. Each one of those songs-yes, each and every one of them-you can listen to, for free, a total of five times each.

Yes, five times each. After that, if you want to listen to it again, yes, you have to pay, and I guess you pay even more for downloading. So what? If you like a song so much that you just have to listen to it more tan five times,. isn’t it worth it to dowmload it?

If not, hell, listen to it five times, then listen to something else five times. Shit, there are, like I said, two million plus of them, and more and more will doubtless be added in time.

Plus, there’s a forums section. I guess that’s been there for awhile, I don’t know. What I do know is, Napster seems to have hit on a winning formula and has pulled out of it’s legal troubles in a way which is compatile to it’s own interests, evidently, as well as to the interests of the recording artists.

I for one intend to check out some of the newest offerrings from Pink, who is these days attracting notice as something of a socially conscous performer and critic of the Bush Administration inher own right. I am of the hopes that she is better than your average troubadour, I know for a fact she is cuter.

You Can't Hide Balls The Size of Colberts

Okay, I know I don’t usually jump on bandwagons, but desptie the fact that you hav already heard about the performance of Steven Colbert at the Washington Correspondents Dinner a zillionth time, I feel compelled to make it a zillionth and one. Colbert accomplsihed something few true journalists, even of the reputation of Bob Woodward, have the balls to do, which is to criticize George Buish to his face, and in the presence of his wife at that.

More than that, he criticized the mainstream press for not really doing it’s job, for the most part. While you can point to individual examples of exceptions, such as Helen Thomas and David Gregory, in addition to NBC’s Brian Williams first rate coverage of the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita disasters, most of the press seems to have been cowed. Even Chris mattews, once ferocous as any bulldog in his coverage on Hardball of the Scooter Libby/Joseph Wilson/Valerie Plame/Patrick Fitzgerald, et al., controversy, now seems to have been strangely neutered.

One of the most telling moments of the evening came when Colbert advised the press to go home, spend some time with their families, write that book they’ve always wanted to write, about that fearless reporter standing up to the powerful and corrupt politicans. “You know-,” he said in mock encouragment, “fiction”.

Very few people laughed that evening, including Bush and Laura-or most members of the press. Nor should they have.

I have provided a link in the title, courtesy of “Pissed Off Patricia” of the blog “Morning Martini” (a good politically oriented blog, by the way), in which you can write a word of thanks to Mr. Colbert. My note is, if I remember correctly, number 17,006. I have don’t yet know how many other notes have been written since mine, but by all means, please add to the number.

What We The People Need

It looks like Mexico President Vincente’ Fox has decided to nullify any law passed that would legalize possession within his country of small amounts of marijuana, which, had it come to fruition, would have been an obvious ploy designed to pay off campaign debts to drug lords and at the same time increase Mexican tourism, at a time when it is desperately needed. As someone who would like to see marijuana legalized-and regulated-here in this country, I personally had no problem with the proposed law. Yet, it was quickly squashed, and I have no doubt that objections from the Bush Administration, and especially the Justice Deparments and State Departments, played more than a minor role, and in fact may have been the crucial factor in Fox’s change of heart.

This is very telling, and what it tells me is American diplomacy, if capable of overruling the significant and powerful interests of drug lords and tourist resort operators, can accomplish much more. So, if this is the case, why can’t they induce more cooperation with Fox on the issue of illegal immigration? They might try to suggest that the imigration situation is precisely why the U.S. has this influence over Fox, but I ain’t buying it. Instead, it seems to me that the US and it’s politicians, of both parties, are determined to deny the wishes of the American people to bring the chaotic immigration situation under control, to put an end to illegal immigration, to secure the borders, and not reward those who flout our laws by coming here illegally by letting them profit by becoming American citizens ahead of, and at the expense of, those who come here legally.

The wishes of the majority of Americans are clear on the matter, but we are being denied our voice. Oh, we are being heard, believe that. But we are being defied, and will continue to be defied. We are every day inching closer to becoming a full fledged capitalistic feudal society with pretensions of democracy in the form of bread and circuses, a mere colony of a corporatist elitist commecial empire. The peoples wishes are adhered to only so long as this furthers the agendas of the politicians and their corporatist elites and a handful of political actions committees, many of whom are ostensibly the opponents of the elite, but in reality are merely a diverse variety of dog and pony shows that seek no more than enough contributions to justify the obscenely high salaries of their chairpersons, and influence over the workings of the opposition party.

The majority of American people themselves would like to see marijuana legalized and regulated, or at least the largest plurality do, while a signficant pecrentage of the others do not care, but for the most part even they can not justify the excessive amount of tax dollars wasted on the drug war, at least not so far as marijuana goes. Certianly the majority are in favor of medical marijuana, but this too is a wish denied the people by those leaders who are their elected representatives.

So it should come as no surprise that, as long as business owners can reap huge profits by employing illegal aliens at low wages for nasty and in some cases back breaking and dangerous work, and as long as politicians are influenced by these corportists and by dizzy dreams of hundreds of thousands, in some cases, of new and grateful voters, they don’t care what you or I think or say. They are going to do what is best for them. If the country goes to hell, they don’t care. Remember, they probably have the money to go anywhere and live quite well.

With each passign day, I am becoming more and more a fan of Robespierre.

We're All Sick And Fucking Tired

Bay Buchanan, conservative talk show guest and pundit, and sister of former conservative Preisdential aspirant Patrick Buchanan, has an interesting take on the Gulf Coast disasters of last year. We are all sick of hearing about it.

I agree with Ms. Buchananan. I am sick of hearing how the federal government failed to appropriate the money needed to shore up the levee system, and how what money was appropriated to New Orleans in paritcular was wasted to such a large degree by the stae of Louisiana and city of New Orleans, that the end result was not only the failure of the levees, but the simultaneous failue of the pumps that could have otherwise pumped the water out of the New Orleans flooded areas reatively quickly.

I am sick of hearing about how Bush and his Administration denied the scope of the disaster in public, while every day the mainstream media conveyed images of the horror and disasters.

I’m sick of hearing Republican apologists constantly defend the incompetence of the Bush Administration. I am sick of hearing so many people engage in blaming the victims for not getting out of the area, even though many of them had no place to go, and no way to leave if they had a place. I am sick of hearing them being accussed of purposely staying behind for purposes of looting, or out of hopes of filing lawsuits. I am sick with the knowledge, that, in reality, most of them had no way out.

I’m sick of heaing how Federal bureaucratic red tape held up rescue efforts resulting in needless deaths and countless numbers of homelessness and suffering among the people of new Orleans, as well as Mississippi and Alabama. I am sick of how this bureacratic bungling resulting in drowning, starvation, dehydration, and myriads of other disasters visited on the poverty stricken, the elderly, the infirm, the children, the animals.

I’m sick of hearing of how Bush and other politicians have promised New Orleans will be rebuildt, yet the reality seems to be no money is being made availiable for this effort, and how still yet the homeless former residents of New Orleans are denied so much as a temporary trailor in which to live, while in the meantime they are constantly threatened with eviction by the same Federal agencies that should have prevented or at the least greatly alleviated this sufferring to begin with, yet failed to do so.

I’m sick of thinking about how evidently this is just another excuse to justify yet more no-bid contracts to companies that hire nonunion workers, and illegal immigrants, while the city of New Orleans seems to be earmarked for development at the expense of it’s former residents, the heart and soul of the city.

I am sick of hearing that it is just another two months or slightly less now before the onset of the next hurricane season. I am sick of hearing about how, in all probability, neither New Orleans or theGulf Coast is ready yet to handle another storm of the scope and magnitude of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

I am sick of so much it is hard to keep track of all of it. But the thing I am most sick of, Bay Buchanan, is people like yourself.

Smoking In The Boys Room

The May 16^th primary is soon approaching, and I have one thing to say to the voters of Lexington Kentucky. That is, if you vote for Theresa Isaacs, or are planning to do so, I have one thing to say to you. If you all had one neck, I would hack it. No, that is not original, that is a quote from the histories of the Roman historian Tacitus, which he attributed to Gaius “Caligula” Caesar.

The last time the former Lexington City Council member ran for mayor, I defended her against charges that she was unfit, based on the fact that she had lost her children and was behind on her child support payments. It was said that this was a sign of a deceptive person, a person of bad character.

In her case, at least, the charges were correct. As soo as Issaacs won the election for mayor, for which she is now running as incumbent, she lost no time in pushing through a law that would ban cigarrette smoking in all bars and restaurants and all other public buildings. Not even a small smokers section was allowed. Funny, I don’t recall her campaigning on this issue. But so it goes. This is a perfect example of the philosophy of the American politician. Sometimes you have to make a clear cut decision, one way or another. Sometimes you either have to uphold the wishes of the majority, or you have to defend the rights of the minority. In many cases, there is no middle ground, suppossedly anyway. So, what to do in these cases?

The wishes of the majority-uphold them if it furthers your agenda

The rightsof the minoriy-defend them if it furthers your agenda.

Get the picture? I do, I think it’s called the old bait and switch. Whichever position is most convenient for you at an given time, you have a ready made excuse to fall back on. And so it goes in this case. Only here, the issue is, well, shrouded in smoke, as it is incresingly unclear who is the majority and who is the minority.

Oh well, who cares? Restaurant and bar owners, perhaps? Sure, they will make it, I guess, the better financed and established ones will anyway, the ones who can afford to adapt, the ones who can cut corners to make up loss profits. The higher class restaurants for the most part, of course, will still do fine. Perhaps more will come to take up the slack, I don’t know. Lexington does have some first class places, but there is always room for more. Perhaps a nice French restaurant. Humm, what should we call it?

Hey, I know- Robespierres.

Blush, War Geek Ogre

Here’s a bit of fun you can have if you are bored, and actually this can be quite addicting. Take a phrase or any persons name, and see how many annagrams you can find. Ahh, but now comes the tricky part. You have to find an anagram that is descriptive of the person or phrase, as much as is possible.

For example, the phrase, “Blush, War Geek Ogre” is itself, as you mght guessed by now, an anagram-for George Walker Bush.

For William Jefferson Clinton you have “Jilts nice women. In for fall.”

For Ronald Wilson Reagan you get “No darling, no ERA law”

Richard Milhouse Nixon? What better than “His climax-ruined honor”

Not everything you get of course will be so descriptive, but a good lot of it will be eerily so. You can play around with them a bit as well. For example the phrase “President Clinton of the USA” will yield, in anagram form, the phrase “To copulate he finds interns”.

All this makes me wonder if you might be able to predict the future of a person by way of anagrams. Might there be some subconscous effect that certain letters in combination will have that is inherent in their overall structure, regardless of how they are arranged, which will manifest itself in a persons life. For the hell of it, I elected to do a prediction on the girls in the Aryan music band Prussian Blue. Their mother April, as well, who seems to be like an eagle, protective of her daughters, and aggressive in her desire to promote them, and through them herself, as a leader in the Aryan movement.

As for the girls themselves- Lamb will eventually come to have growing doubts about the Aryan movement, maybe even some regrets. Lynx, it seems, will eventually marry a man, possibly the former husband of a friend, who will turn out to be gay.

Of course, you can do all this the lazy way, as I did, and prefer to do everything, by clicking on the link in the post title. Many words contain thousands of anagrams, of course, but the site here will only give you one anagram per person or phrase. More than that, you have to pay for an account. But it is still hours of potential fun, and who knows, you might gain some insights into a persons nature. Some things just can’t be explained away as coincidence.

Under The Persian Rug

I think there might be more than meets the eye to the current Iranian crisis, but I am aving a hard time figuring out just what it is. They insist they want nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, yt everybody else it seems is up i arms about it. The UN, as impotent as ever, has treatened sanctios against them, but the Iraians are adamant, they will proceed with the project. They recently announced they had succeeded in enricing uranium.

They could obviously not hope to produce a nuclear device in any significant amounts in the near future, and large scale productionof nuclear weapons is unlikely even inte long trm, if they did produce some it would doubltess be more useful as a deterrent for invasion thananything else. Even this I believe is a secondary rationale, the main one being simply a patriotic drive to unite the country in asserting its national soveignty over it’s own internal affairs.

Of course, I do not want the Iranians to have the bomb-not even one. On the other hand, I find their possession of a handful of nukes no more troubling than those possessed by the highly unstable nation of Pakistan. Add to tis the possession of nukes by pakistans taditional enemy, India, and yo ave a recipe for eventually disaster, I am very muc afraid. All it takes is for the wrong people to ascend to power in Pakistan. Yet, this is seldom mentioned, probably for good reason.

The Iranians make a far better boogey man, and diversion. What if it were to turn out that they do indeed want nuclear energy, just for the purposes of producing electricity? If so, this could be nothing but good. This would be good for the environment, in at least a small way, as nuclear enegy,in additon to being cheap and efficient, is clean, so long as the facilities are safe. In addition, this would free up more, much more, crude oil to go onto the world market, which by all rights should help to decrease the price of home heating fuel and gasoline. It might additionally force other nations to follow suit, including the U.S.

Unfotunately, everyone has become aware of late of the influence of the multi-national oil compnaies on the global economy, and on the governments of the ever growing industrialized world. Is that really the true unwritten story behind all the international hand wringing?

Sacred Symbols

The current Pope, Benedict, has just recently passed the one year mark of his papacy,and so far the most controversial issue he has faced may well be a poster on a Roman cathedral which is an advertisement for the up and coming release of the movie “The DaVince Code”. Due to many protests voiced by several priests and bishops in Italy, it was decided the poster had to be removed.

I am not a big fan of the Roman Catholic Church’s history. They have, despite their propoganda to the contrary, been ever at the forefront of denying progress, in science as well as the arts, and even in the area or human rights of self-determination. There is little in Church history that is admirabe in these regards, though they have made some significant stides in recent decades to try to atone for this.

On the other hand, during the last few decades they have also demonstrated that,when it comes to equal rights for women and gays, they are still the same old ideologically extremist hirarcical organization. On the illegal imigration in America issue, they come down semingly on the other ideological extreme, self-servingly encouraging as many ilegal immigrants as possible, doubtless out of a hope for greater political and social power over the nation through these traditionally Catholic, to the point of superstition, followers.

They are still yet, after all these centuries,no friend to science, advocating the unfortunate position they do regarding the utilization of stem cell rsearch. Now, they are proving themselves the unobjective critic of popular culture as well, by their objections to the contents of Dan Browns novel.

I read the novel, and personally, I was unimpressed, though I am hopeful that Director Ron Howard will actually turn the movie into a work that will match the hype which the book, for me, did not live up to. Whether it does this or not, the Catholic Churc should grow up. It’s been around for going on two thousand years, so it’s about time, I would say. Their objections betray a fear of loosing power and influence, which is understandable seeing as how their power and influence is based on smoke and mirrors to begin with. Why else worry about something as trivial as a second rate (at best) novel? I mean, the book is a work of fiction, right? It’s not a true story.

Or is it? Remember, Dan Brown recently won a lawsuit by the authors of a book which was a non-fiction work called “Holy Blood, Holy Grail”, said authors having acussed Bown of plagiarsing their work. It is based on the proposition that Chrisitanity was originaly a duolithic religion, and that Mary Magdalene was Christs partner, lover, and soul mate. They were, according to this theory, married. And that is not all. They had a child, a girl, whom Mary, following Christs crucifixion and eventual resurrection and ascension ito heaven, took with her to Gaul, now of course knwn as France. This girl eventually married and her descendants formed the Merovingian Dynasty of rulers, who were eventually all executed by the Church as heretics. From that point on, the remaining surviving descendants of Crist and Mary Magdalene have been forced to go into hiding, protected by a small cabal of followers that included, among other notables, Leonardo DaVinci. The Church, according to this theory, will stop at nothing to eliminate every last one of them as a means of protecting their hold on power.

Of course, I do not believe this, yet I find myself in a curious psition in that, if it were true, I would find myself for once on the side of the Roman Cathoic Church. As horrendous and at times as hideous as their excesses have been, I wonder what it would be like if it were suddenly revealed that Christ (whom I do not believe actually existed as a living person) did indeed have descendants living today.

Human natue being what it is, I have no doubt that this descendant, or descendants, would quickly amass a following, and a huge one. I have no doubt that the descendants of Jesus Christ would be themselves viewed as veritable gods in the flesh, whose every utterance would be treated as infallible, as a divine ordinance, to be adhered to without question, on pain of death.

Yeah, I would have to side with the Church on this one. The world has enough trouble as it is.

May Day! May Day!

So it looks like the May 1^st immigrant boycott is on, and has drawn support from a widely diverse sector of the American public. Not just from Latinos of both documented and undocumented status, but from others as well, notably from Islamic, Jewish, and Christian sources, in addition to some pundits and various sections of the legal community, specifically civil rights advocates.

As the old saying goes, two could play that game, unfortunately they probably won’t. The American public,including the conservatives, have been living in an unreal fantasy land for decades now. Very few Americas are willing to make hard sacrifices, which is one reason things have deteriorated to the level they have.

Yet, ironically, it wouldn’t really be that hard. What would happen, for example, if Americans were to boycott all employers who made it a practice to hire illegal aliens? I feel pretty confident this issue would soon pale into relative insignificance. How hard could it be to boycott products produced by these people? Okay, so you might have to cut back on some purchases, man of which are unnecessary to start out with, if not outright luxuries.

Even purcases of fruits and vegetables might be reduced, say cut in half. Of course, chances are you would have to maintain that level once prices rose, but on the other hand, maybe this would be a temporary result. If farm subsidies were given to farmrs who actually produce, based on their rate of production, and farmers were given sufficient tax credits, there might be no need for any price increases, but that is another story.

The point is, it is disingenous for immigration advocates to suggest that people like the Minutemen- and others who are oppossed to the swarms of undocumented Mexican workers who now number an estimated twelve million- are xenophobic bigots. While that might be true in individual cases, this is not always the case. In most instances, Anglos simply want immigration to be limited to reasonable levels, immigration laws enforced and respected, and the rights of American workers, including legal immigrants, to be upheld, which would include the payment of a fair wage and benefits.

And so I would suggest that, until this transpires, an effective counter measure to the currently proposed boycott by immigrant workers would be a similar boycott by American citizens against any and all products produced by companies that insist on hiring illegal immigrants. Sure, it would cause some pain, some discomfort, but nothing worthwhile is easy.

Vacation Withdrawal

Since I am on the subject of boycotts, how about a driving boycott? How hard could it be for American drivers to have a boycott on summr vacation driving. Do you really have to drive to DisneyWorld? The Smokey Mountains? Grand Canyon? Yellowstone? Why?

It has been my experience that vacations are more often than not more stressful than relaxing. And people that drive hundreds of miles to their destinations might well find that a good one fourth of their vacation is spent on the time it takes to get there and back, along with the inevitable navigation though traffic once you arrive at your destination. After you finally settle in and you have had a days rest, you are probably counting the hours you have left before you have to return.

What do you get for it all? A few pictures, and a handful of memories that almost never match your initial hopes. And you’ve probably blown at least a months worth of wages, all for the opportuity to get to wonder whether Tigger was feeling up your little girl.

The truth is, if you have to drive somehwere, you can probably find a place right in your own state where you can enjoy yourself at least as much for a fifth of the cost and a tenth of the stress.

The best thing about it is, if enough people actually did it, it would be by far the best way to really stick it to the oil companies.

Those Fat Ass Bulgarians

Condoleeza Rice has just made a deal whreby the great American Empre has been extended to the nation of Bulgaria. Is this what the great so-called Cold War was really all about after all? I remember back during the height of tensions between America and it’s allies with the former Soviet Union, Bulgaria was easily one of the most, if not the most, hardened and ardent communist dieards within the entire Soviet dominated Eastern European Gulag of Nations, known as the Warsaw Pact. Now, they are an erstwhile American ally, it seems. Rice has just signed a treaty that will make Bulgarian military bases accessible to American and NATO troops.

So that’s what all those billions of dollars were for. Funny, I was always of the hopes that after the fall of the Soviet Union, American troops could return from Europe, and from most if not all other places they are stationed. Well, you can just knock me over with a bowl of borscht right now, as it seems we are there to stay.

Yet, it may turn out that this policy of coca colonization may hide a wisdom heretofore unknown to me. Who knows, seeing as how billions of dollars of American money is now going to hopefully insure, through our military, the dominance of American capitalism througout at least the Euopean world, maybe it is in the hopes that Eastern European children, and others througout Europe and Asia, become eventually no more healthy than our own American children. We just have to make sure they all have the opportunity to waddle their fat asses down to their local neighborhood MacDonalds every day, so that eventually they, too, can be lifted by cranes in and out of their desks at school.

A Change Of Heart

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. I have gotten so tired of extreme leftists trying to dominate liberal politics, and largely suceeding in doing so, I have finally come to the conclusion that the only hope for the Democratic Party in making any kind of a comeback as a viable option in American politics is if they have their asses handed to them one or two more times, maybe even three or four. Whatever it takes, I am game. Of course, it means the Republicans will further wreck the county, but hell, they are doing it anyway, why spoil the fun? Until the Democrats stop allowing themselves to be manipulated and influenced by the Far Left, it is a far gone conclusion, at any rate.

The Far left seems to have the attitude, the arrogant idea, that because things are going ever so badly now, the American people have no choice but to allow them to push their own whacky ideas down their throats. And they are wrong. But far be it for me to resist them, not any more.

And so, in that spirit, I present the first of many revisions of my offical position. The Far Left insists that we pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan immediately, well, so do I. And, like them, I insist that any Democratic candidate who gets my vote will have to take the position as well. Therefore, I must join in the efffort to insure that the man or woman who gets the Democratic nomination for president in ’08 is the one that will take that position. Having insured the nomination by taking this position, he or she will be then stuck with it for the remainder of the election cycle. That person will not be allowed to modify his position in the general election in order to “play to the center”.

No waiting around, we want out this minute, regardless of what the overall results will be on the country of Iraq. Bring our boys home now, immediately, none of this phasing out nonense.

In the meantime, I will join my new found far Leftist allies in pushing for the impeachment of George W. Bush. That is what the American people really want the Democrats to devote their time to. The American public doesn’t care about things like the environment, health care, minimum wage increases, education, strengthening social security, or any of those other things, and they don’t want their representatives in Washington wasting their time on them either. They want them to devote all their time and energies to impeaching the President of The United States, even if it means the nations business is otherwise ground to a completely halt.

After all, everybody knows that George W. Bush was the actual perpetrator of 9/11. The whole thing was a psy-ops operation. Those supposed “Live” shots of those planes flying into those buildings were a bit of Holywood trickery, an illussion. The buildings were actualy imploded by well placed explosive charges, the work of a highly trained demolition crew disguised as maintenance workers.

Was the news media fooled? Hell no, they were in on it, in fact, an integral part of the deception. Even the highly esteemed CNN was in on it. Why do you suppose Paula Zahn had just recently left Fox News for CNN? This was all part of the show, just more evidence of the culpability of the mass media, who are actually all controlled by the same corporatist capitalists, known collectively as Neo-Cons. That is why Ted Turner was pushed out of CNN. The one man who could not be bought and sold, so he had to be gotten rid of, as he could not be allowed to catch on to this devious plot. They knew he would never stand for it, and would spill the beans.

And so, our own government committed mass murder against it’s own citizens, and tried to blame an innocent bunch of Arab Muslims. They even invented a fictitous figurehead known as Osama Bin Laden-obviously a Right Wing conservative Hollywood actor.

The next time you see him, take a real good look at him. His height, the obvious fake beard, the hair dye and otherwise to make him look younger, much younger, than he actually is. Yes, Osama Bin Lade is none other than that god damned Charlton Heston. Who better to play a religious figure? What do you think he’s been doing all this time since making that faked announcement that he had come down with “Alzheimers”? Haven’t seen him around muc since then, ave you now? Uh huh. See?

I’m so glad I have finally opened my eyes and seen clearly the truth of what the Far Left has been saying for all these years. If only I had listned to them sooner. But it is hopefully never too late to make amends.

A Place Of A Skull

I've been sitting on this story for quite awhile, because frankly I really don't know what quite to make of it. It may be an incidental story, of little or no importance. It may have implications as bizarre as it appears to be on the surface. As far as that goes, there might not be a word of truth to it. But it is interesting as hell, so I repeat it here, with the admonition that, by all rights, I can not vouch for it's authenticity. It is certainly interesting, however, and worth looking into.

It involves a man by the name of James Wirt, a United States Atttorney General from the year 1817 until 1829, a man who argued more than 170 cases before the United States Supreme Court and who, in 1807, was the prosecutor in the conspiracy trial of Aaron Burr.

Wirt also, in 1832, was a candidate for President of the United States for the Anti-Masonic Party. Not too many years after this, Wirt died, reportedly from a cold. He was buried in a tomb, deep inside a crypt.

Until, that is, his skull was discovered sitting on a shelf in the office of Washington D.C. Council Member Jim Graham, where it had evidently been for some time. According to Graham, an openly gay D.C. Councilman and immigrant of as yet undetemined origin, he had gotten the skull from a book shop owner by the name of Alan Stypeck. Stypeck, in turn, said he acquired the gruesome souvenier from a cleaning supplies salesman by the name of Robert White, who died in 2003, and who used to have a John F. Kennedy Museum in his basement.

In order to determine whether the skull actually belonged to Wirt, forensic anthropologist Douglas Owlsley was called in. After swimming through an ocean of red tape, Owsley finally had the tomb opened. In addition to the skeleton of Wirt, reported with a large hole in the side of the skull, there were other bodies, including one that was not listed. Stuffed behind a metal ladder that leads down to the tomb was the skeleton of a baby, which Owsley believes to have been a recent addition. From here it was hinted strongly that there may have been some form of ritual sacrifice involving this infant, and Wirts anti-Masonic connections were further noted in this regard.

Graham insits that he is not in the habit of collecting skulls or other body parts, and that he knows nothing about the skulls origins or how it came to be in the possession of Mr. White, or why, or anything other than his presentation of it by the aforementioned Mr. Stypeck.

The origin of this story is actually quite vaque, and I have heard no references to it anywhere. It is worth noting, however, that Congressman Graham, in addition to advocating for the rights of immigrants to vote in local elections, and himself representing a district which has a heavy immigrant population, and which in fact has no single racial or ethnic majority, has made doubltess quite a few enemies.

In fact, he is an enemy of slumlords everywhere, and a perusal of his web-site (which is linked to by way of the post title) would reveal that he has probably made many wealthy and powerful enemies in this regard. He also takes a tough stance on businesses such as bars that don't enforce safty standards. He has even proposed that any bar where a murder has occurred should be closed.

Yet, he is pro-police, and has proposed additional hiring of cops, asking for more than 200 in his district. So, it is easy to see why some would consider him as much of a nuisance as he does a good many of the properties he would have either torn down or forcibly rehabilitated.

Yet, is this story a clumsy attempt by someone to embarrass him, or is it actually a matter of pure fiction?

Or, is there a sinister truth somewhere here that is hiding just below the surface, a truth that should have remained buried, lo, these last one hundred seventy years.

Whatever the case, it is worth noting, by the way, that next year-2007-will mark the 200th anniversary of the treason trial of Aaron Burr, the trial William Wirt prosecuted, albeit unsuccessfully.

Connection?

The Strange Case Of Mary Moses

One of the more detrimental negatives of a Democracy, which are considerable, is the insatiable need of public officials to play to their consttuents. In th case of District Attorneys, this oftentimes manifests itself as a need to prove beyiond al doubt that they are doing what they actualy do rarely, which is adminsiter justice in a fair and impartial manner. Mnay times this rsults in a phenomenon for which the old Soviet Union was often criticized,and rightly so-the spectacle of the “show trial”, that heinous exhibtion of perverse justice meant mainly for public consumption.

Such would seem to be the case with 53 year old Mary Moses, who, upon being inexplicably released from a mental institution, where she has been for a decade following the murder of her third husband, has now been decided is fit to stand trial for that murder. She had set the trailor on fire where he and she had lived while in an intoxicated state, intending, she said, to kill herself as well. She survived,whileher husband died of smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning.

She has had quite a hellish life. Beginning at the age of five or six years old, she was forced by her mother to engage in sex with adult menm, for money. At one point, in order to force compliance, her mother beat her with a baseball bat. Her father also sexually abused her. She finally ran away from home as a teenager,whereupon she soon met her future third husband, who at the time took her under his wing. He then got her addicted on drugs and also forced her into a life of prostitution, as well as forcing her to strip for money.

Sometime later she met her first husband, who in some way yet to be explained, used her for “target practice”. She watched her second husband, a diabetic, die in front of her eyes, loosing one limb at a time. Then, finally, she married John Moses, who at least once in their marriage forced her to have sex with a dog.

Due to all this, and who knows what all else, Mary Moses, according to psychologists, developed at least a dozen separate and distinct personalities, some of them children, some adult-some male, some female. Many of these personalities were in conflict with others. They did not always get along. It may have been the voice of one of these personalities that she heard tell her,while heavily intoxicated, to set fire to the trailor she was sharing with Moses, to kill him and herself, in order for her to join the spirit of her dead second husband in heaven.

Yet, now that she has been suddenly released, it has been deemed that she should be fit to stand trial, and after a two hour contentous hearing, over the strident objectons of her public defender, Kate Dunn, this was indeed the decision was made by Fayette County Circuit Judge James D. Ishmael. Yet, not even the psychiatrist who testified for the prosection, denied the history of Mary Moses, or that her education level is at roughly the second grade-only that she is aware of the charges agaisnt her, and so is fit to stand trial. He expressed some skepticism about the multiple personality disorder, saying she remembers the crime, eve thogh intoxicated, and therefore is criminally responsible.

When one of the defense psychologists questioned Free about the sordid past of Mary Moses, he did not dispute it, yet offerred no evaluation as to whether this changed anything, and in fact asserted that his evaluation was a competent one. A second defense witness, psychologist Peter Schilling, admitted that Moses could technically stand trial, and assist in her own defense, but that her condition might well deteriorate during the course of a trial, and that evaluation as to criminal responsibility might well be a differnet story.

In the meantime, there is every possibility that Mary Moses could face the death penalty for murder and arson, although Assistant Commonwealths Attorney Andrea Mattingly Williams stated that prosecutors have not decided yet whether to seek capitol punishment.

Obviously, this being an election year, they need to keep their fingers wet and sticking up in the air for a while before they make this decision. The sad thing, the scary thing, is that they needed to go to the extent they have so far to prove they are tough on crimes committed by crazy white female trailor trash.

Go Not Quietly

Sally Jacobsen wanted her retirement as a professor in the language and literature department of Northern Kentucky University to be remembered. She wanted to go out with a bang. And so, she told a bunch of her students to stage a counter protest against a display erected on campus by a group called Northern Kentucky Right To Life.

This display, near the University Center, consisted of roughly 400 crosses, which were meant to represent a cemetary for aborted fetuses. Although it is unknown for sure whether Jacobsen herself actually took part in the vandalism, she did admit to encouraging it, and as a result has been placed on leave until that day of her retiement.

She did admit leading a group of graduate srtudents to the area. No word as of yet on what action may be taken against the students who took part in the vandalism. Whatever it might be, they certainly have Sally Jacobsen to thank for this blight on their records, even though they realy should have known better.

And pro-choice advocates everywhere can thank her as well for this stupid stunt, which should be seen by them as a public relations disaster.

The ones, however, who really owe her a debt of gratitude are the very Northern Kenucky Right To Life group she so opposses. These are the same bunch of fanatics who once blocked the helicopter landing of Paul Patton, the former Governor of Kentucky, on the grounds of a Covington Catholic Church, necessitating his return to Frankfort. It would be hard to imagine anyone making this bunch look reasonable by comparison, but Sally Jacobsen-just one old fool determined to make a name for herself-has actually suceeded in making them look mainstream, if only for a brief while.

A Splendid Time Is Guaranteed For All

Ramsey’s Diner, on Brian Station Road in Lexington Kentucky will no longer be holding happy hours at it’s restaurant, though owner Bob Ramsey promises the tradition will continue at the other four restaurants owned by him. His reasons for stopping the practice at the Brian Station diner are due mainly to liability concerns. According to him, happy hour drew a large crowd, especially on Friday nights, that was becoming increasingly boisterous. Additionally, though the diner was conceived primarily as a famiy type restaurant, it was, according to Ramsey, becoming more like a bar.

Before finally taking the step of ending Happy Hour for good, Ramsey had over the previous weeks barred a good many patorns from his establishemnt based on their conduct. A lot of these customers were black, though according to Ramsey, a good many of them were white as well.

So,naturally, as you might have guessed, Ramsey has been accussed-of course-of racism. “You could just tell it was a racial thing”,opined one black former patron. No word on any lawsuits, as of yet, due to the previous barring or for any other discriminatory policy, real or imagined. Still,of course, this story went public doubtless due to bitterness from former patrons who evidently have elected to play the race card.

Ramsey seems generaly unperturbed about this. He knows he will lose out on the licquor sales, but insists the liaility concerns were never worth it, to say nothing of the trouble it was causing. Moreover, he expects the restaurant buisness will pick back up. And, as stated, his other four establishments will continue the practice of Happy Hour.

Funny, I must have missed that part of the Constitution that made Happy Hour a constitutional and a civil right.

An Open And Shut Case

John Michael Montgoemry might get a reprieve on his coming day on court, despite the fact that, after leaving a lexington area bar, he war arrested for allegedly driving while intoxicated, and had in his possession, in addition to a concealed handgun, some prescription drugs out of their proper containers.

So why might he get off? Is it because he is a celebrity, a well known and admired Kentucky native, and so the prosecutors are inclined to give him a break?

No, it is because of five different Lexington police officers who made the mistake of posting jourals, some with photos, on the popular internet site MySpace. Not just personal stuff, either, but work related information as well. A good many of their posts contained derogatory views as to a lot of their suspects, in partcular noted was insulting comments relating to gays and the handicapped.

One of these officers, a Joshua Cromer, was the arressting officer of John Michael Montgomery, and he and his fellow officers openly discussed the case on Cromers journal, with the others congratulating him on such a high profile arrest.

Yet another officer, Gene Haynes, on his own journal, posted a photo of John Michael Montgomery, which had been altered by Cromers face being superimposed on the body of a fan in the picture.

As a result of these antics, Montgomery’s attorneys have stated that this could have a tremendous impact on the case, as the motives for arresting Montgomery appear to be questionable.

Haynes forrhis part has since apologized for the affair, though he and all the other five have been placed on leave and have been administratively charged.

One Hundred Years-A Lot Could Happen Yet

It has been one hundred years and a day since the great San Francisco earthquake that destroyed the city in the year 1906. According to official estimates, a similar quake today would result in property losses of hundreds of billions of dollars, though loss of lives might not be so great as one might expect, numbering potentially in the thousands, though not the tens of thousands. This is due in part to the stuctural improvements mandated by strict building codes, and even many of the older buildings have been refitted to meet these codes. Yet, a good many of them are behind, and so are vulnerable. Many more that have been “retrofitted” would doubltess still be damaged,some severely, and others doubtless yet destroyed, depending on the severity and the exact locsation of the quake. Then, of course, there are power lines, water lines, sewer lines, gas lines, roads, bridges, tunels, railroads, etc., wich would doubltess be impacted. Thankfully, due to improvements in the abilities of seismic measuring instruments to predict the onset of a quake, there is a better than just a good chance, I am guessing, that the Golden Gate Bridge could be cordoned off, and hopefuly emptied of traffic, befor the coming quake might well send it collapsing into the Pacific.

And when I say coming quake, make no mistake about it. It is coming. Acording to experts, it is not a matter of if,it is a matter of when.

I wish that I had the pwer to turn myself,just for tonight,into a million different people. I would send all one million different copies of myself out to all the various church denominations that meet on Wednesday nights, especially themor conservative churches. It would be interesting to hear just how many frothing at the mouth preachers would be preaching the words I know that at least a large percentage are going to speak.

San Francisco, that modern day Sodom, will one day be doomed, just as that great anient city was destoryed by fire,so too will San Fancisco, when all it’s gas lines erupt into a blazing inferno, burning people who are trapped inside their crumbling buildings, which cannot withstand the wrath of God’s holy judgement, no matter how well buildt they are, before they finally join all San Francisco as it tumbles into the ocean.

The only thing missing will probably be Lot’s wife, and who knows, she may end up in the scenario as well. But even if she does not, even if there are no angels for the evil denizens of San Francisco to attempt to rape, doubtless the Far Right Cristians can coneive of no other punsihment than for San Francisco to collapse, erupt into flames and burn, then slide into the ocean, completely destroyed with, as Sodom, no hope of ever being recovered, left with nothing whatsoever.

Of course, it just has to happen before Bush leaves office.

I Love A Tattoo

I would never get a tatoo my own self, but for some reason almost nothing turns me on like the site of a woman with a well placed tatoo. Whether it’s a snake coiling around an ankle and slithering coyly up a well shaped inner thigh,or a colorful hummingbird or butterfly on a flat and tight abdomen, or flowers or a fountain that spring up from, well, wherever. Darker, more ominous symbols are not unbecomming either.

Add to this the technique of piercing and you have a double turn on. It started out with nose piercings, in addition to multiple piercings of earlobes and upper ears, in rows, then came the tonque piercings, the nipples, and the navels, and I said to myself, okay now they’ve gone too fucking far. This is sado-masochistic to an unfathomable degree, and painful to look at, let alone what it must be to endure. Not for me. What about the threat, the very real danger, of infection of these most sensitive areas?

I will admit I did once entertain the notion, and sometimes I still do, of having my tonque split in two,up to about the halfway point of my inner mouth, between the lips and the tonsils. Not pierced,mind you, but split. Yes, like a snake. I wouldn’t do this just for the looks, mind you, but for the – well, put it this way, split tonques have an inherent functionality that can’t be matched in certain areas. I’ll leave it at that.

Nevertheless, I changed my mind. What if I lost my tongue due to a raging out of control infection that couldn’t heal? What of the inherent dangers of infection that might present themselves to perhaps some people more than others in any of the more unorthodox areas favored by the piercing faddists that abound to ever greater numbers?

It has always been at the backof my mind-what are they going to start piercing next? Their pussies? Wellll, make a long story short, the included picture is just one of a number that you can see in the link provided in the title of this post. It is by far the most atractive example of the photos therein, which includes more specific examples of piercings of the inner labia, the outer labia, the clitoral hood, and, yes, even the clitoris itself. Not for the feint hearted.

I have to admit though, if a woman were to present to me in real life a pussy as attractively tattooed and pierced as the one in the photo above, I would doubtless be unable to resist, after staring some time in appreciation, jumping all over it like a –like a-oh hell, never mind.

Smells Like Teen Spirit

The big time had come to my little town of Mt. Vernon Kentucky, in the form of “Silver Stars” a photography studio that had recently opened up under the ownrship and management of a photographer, a Martin, oriignally from Alabama. He seems to have specialized in teenage and pre teen youth, and seems to have had quite a lucrative business in preparing agency submission photographs of children whose parents had fuzzy little dreams of their little darlings becoming stars, the idols of millions, and, of course, rich enough to insure mommy and daddy would forever live in the comfy and cozy lifestyle of the rich and famous.

Unfortunately, he seems to have run afoul of the law when it turns out the media that his clients were aiming for were not exactly, shall we say, on the up and up. The up and in, now that’s a different story. Yes, Mr. Martin, as I’m sure you have guessed by now, made photographs of some of his clients engaginging in sexual acts. At least three of his clients, in fact, have been “victimized” in one way or another.

Of course, this begs the question, just how does a man from another state, not even a bordering one at that, with no apparent connections to the area, proposition teenage clients in this fashion?

“Hey, do you think you might be interested in making porno movies? Pays not the best to start out with, but it pays real well if you stick with it, you can even be rich and famous. Of course, you have to be willing to have all different styles and varieties of sex with anybody your boss tells you to.

Somehow, I doubt that it was quite that way, I have an idea that some of his clients, including possibly the parents, were casually shown, included amongst his portfolio, examples of his “art”. Having seen these examples of his work, doubtless of adults, I have no doubt that they then approached him, not the other way around.

Not that I’m excusing him, or suggesting that he be let off the hook. Fa from it. I am saying, however, that, despite what one interviewee in town stated, these girls are not going to need therapy. Not because of this anyway. They needed therapy a long time before this, and it is probably way too late for it now. They should be considered exactly what they doubtless were-willing particiapants, juvenile offenders who may indeed need help, but should not be coddled.

Of course, I can’t prove any of this, and I claim to have no proof, it is just my opinion. But if I am right, and if the parents of these teens were as well willing particiapants, what they need may well best be fitted in the barrel of a gun.