Lech Walesa-Was He A Communist Informant?

This is actually an old story that was supposedly settled, but it seems to have roared back to life. Two brothers have written a book detailing what they insist is proof that Lech Walesa, in the early to mid seventies, worked as a spy for the Polish communist State Security Services and informed on many of his fellow Solidarity members, resulting in the arrest of as many as twelve or thirteen of them. They go on to insinuate that Walesa might have gone on to lead Solidarity in it's opposition to the Polish government government with the support of many in the same security services who might have had their own reasons for wanting to overthrow the communist regime.

From the article in the timesonline-

In The State Security Service and Lech Walesa, Slawomir Cenckiewicz and Piotr Gontarczyk make two central claims. The first is that Mr Walesa was an informer for the secret police between 1970 and 1976 under the codename “Bolek”. The second is that as President from 1990 to 1995 he borrowed his police file from the Interior Ministry archives and returned it with key pages missing.

Walesa still denies the charges, of course, in no uncertain terms, but the writers of the book insist that they have gained access to previously sealed records that point to him as being the mysterious "Bolek", in addition to the aforementioned charges of evidence tampering.

Walesa is threatening to sue the writers, and insists his political opponents today (including the present day head of the Polish conservative party) are behind the charges, much the way he earlier claimed that the incriminating documents were forged by enemies within the Polish State Security Service in order to decimate his standings with the people and within Solidarity.

Coming on the heels of all this is the news that just this last Sunday, another former high ranking Solidarity official, Bronislaw Geremek, himself later a high ranking cabinet minister in post communist democratic Poland, was killed when the car he was driving was involved in a head-on collision with another vehicle. No word on the condition of the driver of the other vehicle. Geremek, curiously, served in the administration of the successor to Walesa, who defeated him for re-election.

Geremek was a Nobel nominee and in fact was responsible for moving Poland into the EU, while remaining himself a staunch nationalist at the same time. He also proved instrumental in overturning a law, since held to be unconstitutional, that stated any aspirant for public office in Poland had to swear to never have been involved in any undercover spy capacity for the former communist government's secret police. Any found to have been so involved were denied the right to serve in any official capacity for a period of ten years. Geremek refused to make such a pledge, and challenged the law in court, leading to its eventual repeal.

Of course, Geremek's unfortunate demise might well be coincidental, and the charges against Walesa might turn out to be, at most, the proverbial tempest in a teapot. For now, though, it is certainly a strange brew.

Aztlan Myths

I guess I'll add what should be an obvious disclaimer here-just because I link a site doesn't mean I agree or disagree with the mission of the site in whole or in part. Nevertheless, some sites are just of enough interest to warrant their inclusion. As such, I have added the Aztlan website on the Myth-ing Links section.

They are an open borders advocacy group, and honestly, I have to tell you, they are quite extreme in some regards. They are also anti-semitic according to most standard definitions of the term, while claiming of course to be merely "anti-Zionist". Some of their posts in this regard are disingenuous at worse, unintentionally hilarious at best. Take this, for example.



This is supposedly a picture of religious Jews in the aftermath of an assault perpetrated on them by Israeli "Zionists", whom the Aztlan site claims are all about taking land from the Palestinians.

Now, admittedly I'm no expert, but unless I'm mistaken, these are probably religious Jews in the aftermath of an assault by Israeli Defense Forces who, in fact, were forcibly removing them from Palestinian lands in the Gaza strip (or maybe the West Bank) that they occupied illegitimately.

In another bit of obviously unintentional humor, the site derides the Zionist Jews as the descendants of Eastern Europeans who converted to Judaism one thousand years ago and who now have immigrated to Israel for "opportunist" reasons. I'm glad I wasn't sipping a slurpee when I read that one.

To be fair, this site has a lot of good (if questionable) articles, and in today's current angst over immigration, it pays to keep up with both sides of the issue. For one thing, I learned something about the term Aztlan itself from reading this site, from this post in particular.

Aztlan is not necessarily a place-it's a state of mind. Aztlan is anywhere it's people are, and the old myth that described the Aztec origins as a group of hunter-gatherers and part time agriculturalists, and their subsequent migrations from Aztlan, their mythical homeplace, to their eventual destination in Mexico, need not be taken to infer a claim on anyplace, including in the United States. It is more accurately, at least according to this site, viewed as a reminder for the people to be true to their roots and culture-wherever they might happen to be at any given time.

I also found out that the Aztlan advocates are quite distinct (though you can expect there would be some overlapping, of course) from the people who make up the group LaRaza. Whereas Aztlan are an all-together open borders advocacy group, LaRaza, contrary to popular belief, actually support border security and strong but compassionate (their words) immigration enforcement.

LaRaza also does not mean "The Race" (although that can be a technically correct definition) but "the people" or "the community". More on them later.

Like I always say, if you have to be for or against something, or even anywhere in between, it never hurts to know what they really stand for-or what they say they stand for, anyway.

Another Giant Sucking Sound South Of The Border

Though I tend to doubt this, I guess anything's possible. According to this post from the Aztlan website, American oil company giants Chevron, Shell, and British Petroleum, are engaged in a project to siphon oil from under Mexican territorial waters by way of a floating oil rig platform on American waters near the border. The diagram below tells the story.

Hey, isn't this what the Kuwaitis were supposedly doing to Saddam's Iraq that led to the first Gulf War? Or so Saddam claimed, at least. Like I said, I guess anything's possible. Curious.

Baltimore Prostitutes Targets Of Special Attention

This post I did about the murder of the step-daughter of the former Baltimore Police Commissioner seems to be the tip of what might end up being a very big iceberg by the time it's over. Although the Baltimore Police Department is as of now saying it is too early to tell if there is a connection between the murders by strangulation of five women-four of them prostitutes-they have appointed a special squad of four veteran detectives to investigate the crimes.


The implication seems to be that Baltimore might well have a serial killer(s) all its very own. At least there's no discernible link to all the other prostitute/women murders over the last ten years, the cops assure us, but is that really a good thing? Doesn't that mean there's even more killers out there?

As for these recent murders, which have occurred over the span of the last four months and in different parts of Baltimore, if it does turn out to be the work of the same killer(s), then what are we dealing with here? Even Jack The Ripper stuck to the Whitechapel section of London when he committed his infamous so-called canonical murders one hundred twenty years ago. This guy(s) really gets around. The last victim was found in an alley behind a church in West Baltimore, but he seems to be spreading the love all over the city of Poe.

So let's round up the usual suspects-

A delivery person
Cab driver
Cop
City maintenance/sanitation, etc. worker.
Housing inspector
Social worker
Did I leave anybody out?

Prostitutes of course make convenient victims. The perpetrator need not be anti-whore. After all, hookers make their living to a degree by providing a convenient sexual outlet, but also by fulfilling otherwise unattainable fantasies in a great many cases.

Well, nothing says "I loved you, you fucking dirty bitch but now I hate you, you cunt you" quite like two hands around a throat.

Unfortunately, it has been noted that the prostitutes of Baltimore don't seem to be taking the situation seriously enough to modify their behavior or otherwise exercise appropriate caution. Then again, what can they do? Many if not most of them are drug addicts, or otherwise in a desperate situation, and the counseling and charity services that try to help them can only do so much for them.

I have an idea that when they finally catch the person responsible it will turn out to be another example of someone no one would have ever suspected, but probably should have.

Don't Cry

She's not gone, she's just moved down to the bottom of the page. The one in her place is at least as hot anyway, at least in my opinion.

Other changes-

Sidebar rearranged. and two new links, plus an old one I want to draw your attention to.

The old one is Religion Clause, a blog by Milton Friedman, professor of law at Toledo University, that deals with the legal implications of religious matters. So frequently posted I have to wonder if he assigns the blog to his students for extra credit. I don't see how he could possibly find that much time to blog otherwise. However he does it, it's worth a look.

I recently found Scientific Blogging quite by accident when I noted an article listing on Technorati about Kumbachka tea. I probably haven't spelled it right, but it's a fermented tea with purported near miraculous health benefits. I've lost track of that particular article in this also frequently updated blog, but it covers a wide range of different scientific fields.

Finally, our friend Rufus and his associates from Grad Student Madness have started a new website called Another Sky Journal. He had to put it on hold due to a recent trip to France, but he is now in the process of reviving the effort. Check out the articles on Graz Austria in particular from Greg. I put this one on the Myth-Ing Links section. Rufus is trying to make it more like a magazine format, and I wish him luck.

I actually thought of trying to do the same thing once, and still do, but it took me days to just get around to changing the damn sidebar here around. I'm still wanting to add more good websites under more categories-like something dedicated to hedonism, for example, with this cool picture of a fat, drunken Bacchus. I might get around to it in a year or two.

Obama-Jesse Jackson Wants To "Cut His Nuts Off"

Fox News takes a lot of flack from the left, and sometimes from the right, and they are taking it again for simply reporting the truth of what Jesse Jackson said in anger about Barak Obama-something most of us might consider-let's see-oh, yeah, NEWS!

They should be above that, I suppose, and not be so quick to point to the obvious proof of what most of us have known or at least strongly suspected all along-i.e., Jesse Jackson is a piece of trash. What other kind of person would say the following, as reported on the Fox website-

Jackson was speaking at the time about Obama’s speeches in black
churches and his support for faith-based charities. Jackson added to
the reporter, “I want to cut his nuts off.”

Jackson is seemingly enraged that Obama is "talking down to blacks" and seems to think his time would be better spent engaged in the same type of demagoguery that made him such an icon of racial harmony.

Instead, Obama has the gall to suggest that blacks do something to encourage respect for families in the black communities, keeping them together, supporting their children, and becoming overall better role models to them.

In other words, he is not "talking down" to blacks. He is "talking up" to whites.

Jackson knows that, of course, and what is really driving him so nuts that he would love to get his hands on Obama's nuts is that-uh oh, it might be working.

Nor is this the first time Jackson has insinuated himself in Obama's campaign in a negative manner. Here is an account of how Jackson went ballistic over Obama's refusal to become involved in the controversy last year involving the so-called "Jena Six". Evidently, Jesse Jackson thinks it's proper for elected officials and candidates for public office to insinuate their opinions in the middle of court cases that have not yet been decided, or that are being appealed. Most of us would prefer they stay out of it, or at least not take any specific side.

In Jackson's opinion, Obama was "acting like he's white".

That statement on it's own should be enough to show the world what Jesse Jackson is about. Think about that, slowly and carefully. Let it languish in your consciousness for just a few seconds.

"Acting like he's white."

Jackson's son, a current Democratic Representative from Chicago, had at least the good sense to public disavow his father's rhetoric.That's understandable, more than it is admirable. The junior Jackson knows his father, in his rapidly approaching stages of dementia, has revealed the inner workings of the Jackson machine and the persona that is its spiritual foundation.

Jackson said the latest remark off the cuff, at the end of an interview, thinking the microphone was cut off. This is turning into a trend.Sometimes I wonder if it might be intentional, and that Jackson might actually be sending out signals to his more radical, hard-line supporters, telling them in effect, hey-this guy is not really one of us.

Check out how Jackson tries to play it off when confronted over the remark-

"Then I said something I regret was crude. It was very private. And very much a sound bite," he also said.

A sound bite? Isn't that basically the same thing as an overgrown slogan? Something you say that you hope will stick in people's minds, that they will remember in the days and weeks to come? Something that basically amounts to a distillation of the essence of your position on a particular matter?

Well, congratulations, Jackson. We get it. You want to cut a man's nuts off. I think that's pretty much an accurate reflecion of your position over the last forty years.

Keep the black man emasculated as a statististical group, he and his families helpless and dependent on government handouts, with yourself among the most elite beneficiaries of that sad and regressive philosophy-the straw boss on the Democratic Party plantation.

The really scary thing is this guy might be named to an official cabinet position, something like Secretary of Health And Human Services, under an Obama Administration.

Whatever he's put in charge of, let's just hope they keep him away from sharp objects.

The Others-Old Movie Review

The Oxygen Network recently went through a period of showing old Nicole Kidman movies, and I decided, since there wasn’t anything else on worth watching and I didn’t have anything any better to do with my spare time-why not? I caught two of them-Cold Mountain and The Others.

Both of them are worth your time, but this particular post is a review of The Others.

I’ll say from the outset, many people wrote this movie off from the beginning as nothing but a copy of a wildly successful earlier movie with a similar theme, despite the fact that the movie, and in particular its director, won some awards. Perhaps there is something to the criticism. Hollywood has a bad habit of latching on to successful formulas and making you sick of them. On the other hand, how many totally original movies can there be?

I’ll add one more point. I saw the other movie in question quite a while back and, in my opinion, this one is superior. The atmosphere is gloomier, the setting is more macabre, the acting is at least equal, and overall, the movie is scarier-especially the end of the movie, which is actually quite chilling. It will stay with you for a while and, to make sure I make myself clear-this is not a movie for the kiddies. I am very serious. I was disturbed by the end of this movie, and if you are one of the very few that read much of the first draft of the novel I published on this blog, you will know that it goes without saying that it takes a hell of a lot to disturb me.

This one did the trick.

That is not to say the movie is flawless-far from it. It requires quite a few leaps, in fact. What we are dealing with here is the spirit world, which of course always requires some suspension of disbelief and an acceptance of certain precepts in order for everything else to follow along a logical course from there.

The most obvious one is a requirement for belief in ghosts to begin with, of course. Going from there, you must make the equally obvious leap in a belief that the spirit world can interact, however tenuously, with the world of the living. This movie takes it a step further and requires a belief that that same spirit world exists in something very much like our own linear time, with mornings started rising from bed, going through the day-to-day routines, the preparing and eating of meals, the chores, the studying, the conversations, on through to the retiring for bed at night. That is the major problem here, but in this case, it is one not so easily dealt with.

Nicole Kidman plays the role of an apparently widowed mother raising two disabled children on the British island of Jersey immediately following the end of World War II. Her kids suffer from what she describes as a photo-sensitive allergy. They must avoid all kind of light but a mild candlelight, and in order to insure non-exposure to the sun, she must insure that every door of every room is immediately shit when going from one room to the other.

She has had many other profoundly serious problems. Her husband went off to the war, only recently concluded-but he never returned, his whereabouts unknown. While he was there, the Nazis invaded the little island, and she had to constantly guard against the very real possibility of them taking over her house during what brief interval they were on the island.

After the war ended, and it looked like her husband might yet never return, her servants inexplicably abandoned her, and she is in the desperate process of trying to hire replacements when three people arrive, claiming to have worked in the old, remote mansion years in the past. They are an old woman, an old man, and a young mute girl, whose lack of ability to communicate is explained by the old woman as a consequence of an earlier exposure to tuberculosis.

The old woman soon has something else to explain. How is it she and the other two just happened to come looking for work just when the woman and her kids needed it most, despite the fact that the advertisement was never delivered. She produced the undelivered advertisement. Taken aback, the old woman explained that she had always loved working at the residence, as had the other two, the former owners having treated them very well.

The mother agrees to let the three stay on, but over time, other mysterious events involving the unseen presence of a little boy named Victor cause her grave concern. No one seems to communicate with the alleged boy besides the daughter, who swears by his existence, alone with that of an adult man, woman, and an old woman who “smells bad”, the little girl going on to say she thinks the old woman in question is a witch. Yet, the little girl swears the people are not ghosts, explaining to her little brother that ghosts “wear sheets and rattle chains”.

The mother is angered at her daughter’s stories, all the more at her stubbornness at refusing to admit she is lying. She compels her to study the Bible even more than is her regular wont. Finally, the woman finds evidence of the “others” in the house. She hears voices, and once hears the playing of a piano, tracing the sound to an empty room, the piano silent and unattended. She closes the lid over the keyboard, and leaves, only to hear more voices and further playing. Returning to the room, she discovers the keyboard cover once again open.

Apologizing profusely to her daughter, she seeks an explanation from the old woman, who helps her search the house, an endeavor that turns up yet no sign of any other inhabitants, though it does reveal one possibly vital clue. She discovers a series of old pictures of various people, seemingly sleeping. The old woman explains to her that these are pictures taken of people immediately upon their deaths, something done at one point in time in order to keep the memories of the people alive.

Not too long after this, the little girl disappears, and the mother looks over the house for her. When she finally finds her in the room in which she sought out Victor, then dressing in what looks to be something like a white gown with a veil, the little girl appears transformed into an old woman, chanting some strange ditty while dangling something that looks like a puppet on a string. Horrified, the mother demands the creature tell her what she has done to her daughter, only to hear an otherworldly voice exclaim to her that she is her daughter. The woman grabs the little girl by the throat and almost strangles the life out of her, though regaining control of herself just in time.

She determines to take it on herself to travel to the village and bring back the Vicar of the Church in order to bless the house, despite the fact that the Vicar has seemingly ignored her earlier requests to come to the home. She sets off through the woods while telling the old man, who has settled into his position as gardener, to find what graves might have been disturbed that might account for the bizarre occurrences. As she walks on, we see the old woman telling the old man to cover the graves, which he does, with piles of dead leaves, while wondering whether they should try to stop the woman from walking to the town.

“The fog will stop her,” the old woman reminds him.

“Oh, yes, of course,” the old man replies. “The fog.”

As the mother proceeds through the woods as nightfall approaches, she is indeed met by an increasingly dense fog, which soon obscures her vision, its failure to dissipate with her movements leaving her stymied as to how to proceed. Suddenly, at one point, the fog does dissipate upon the approach of a masculine figure dressed in a military uniform, which the woman recognizes, both to her surprise and her delight, as her long missing husband. She falls into his arms in a mixture of joy and unbridled relief.

“I bleed sometimes,” he tells her strangely, which elicits a winsome smile from the woman as she proceeds to walk with him back to the house, passing up the old man and woman along the way, as they remark quietly to themselves, concerning the man, that he doesn’t seem to know what’s going on.

The son and daughter are overjoyed to see their father, and rush to his arms. He speaks to them, has dinner with them, and seems ready to resume the old life, but the little girl tells the father of what her mother had done to her. From that point on, the man stays in his bed, lying on his side, his eyes open and his face a terrible expression of confusion and grief. Assuming that he has trouble with his memories of the front, the mother tells him he must pull himself out of his despair. They go to bed that next night, whereupon he reaches over and embraces his wife.

Later, he tells her he must return to the front, a bit of news that leaves her dumbfounded and outraged.

“The war is over,” she insists.

“The war is not over,” he informs her. He leaves, whereupon the woman falls into a state of despair that is only broken when one day, to her horror, she discovers every single curtain removed from ever window, the entire house now flooded with the light of the sun so poisonous to her two allergy afflicted children. She rushes them from one room to another until she finds something with which to cover them.

She demands an explanation from the three servants, whereupon the old man offers that the light is a good thing. Incensed, she demands all three of them leave the house and never return, at one point even threatening them at gunpoint.

Later that night, the little girl informs her brother that she has put up with enough of this, and climbs out her window, and down to the ground below. At her urgings, her little brother follows her. They have not made it far, however, before they see the three servants heading their way. Happy to see them again, the little boy waits as the girl, having now discovered the graves uncovered of their leaves by the wind, warns the little boy to run, that the three are ghosts. At first, he is confused. After all, neither of them wears sheets and rattles chains, but she finally prevails on him to run.

Meanwhile, desperate for some clue, the mother looks inside the room of the former servants where she finds, hidden under a bed, an old picture of the three servants-taken of their corpses, after their deaths. She runs in a horror, all the more so when she discovers the children have left the house, when she sees the three servants standing at the front door. She commands them to stay outside, which they do.

Suddenly, the daughter appears at the top of the stairs, telling her to come to a certain room. She follows her, desperate to save her and her son, and so she goes into the room, and-

That’s when she finally sees them-“The Others”.

Who are they? Are they evil, vengeful spirits? Are they demonic entities? Are they something worse-much, much worse?

I’m not about to give the answer away. I’ll just say it’s worth your time and, on the off chance you haven’t figured out the mystery of the Others-there are clues as to their identity, but you have to watch for them-be warned:

It will FUCK YOU UP!!

The Waxman Dummy

Check out this bit of unintentional hilarity from dipshit Representative Henry Waxman (d-CA), courtesy of The Hill-

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who has primary jurisdiction over the executive branch, is considering legislation to eliminate Karl Rove-type advisers in future administrations.

The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hints broadly that such a bill could ban the use of federal funds to finance such a politically partisan office.

“Why should we be using taxpayer dollars to have a person solely in charge of politics in the White House?” Waxman said in an interview. “Can you imagine the reaction if each member of Congress had a campaign person paid for with taxpayer dollars?”

Waxman says the White House operates under looser political ethics rules than does Congress, where chiefs of staff and other high-ranking officials are prohibited from using government phones, computers and facilities for political purposes.

Of course, what he doesn't mention is that, in fact-that is HIS JOB. That is the job of practically all Congressman, and for that matter, probably most Senators-to run for re-election. Their staff does all the real work, and pretty much tells them what to say or do. They spend the bulk of their time campaigning and raising money.

What time they spend making speeches and appearing on committees and actually voting amounts to a bit of filler in what is otherwise a facade with little meaning and less actual accomplishment.

In fact, most of the time that they do actually vote and otherwise do what passes for work, we're better off if they didn't.

Henry Waxman has to be one pretentious piece of shit.

Dawahares-What Went Wrong?

Dawahares, a family owned clothing store chain, founded in 1907 by a Syrian immigrant, will close all its stores, the last closing as of September 30th. Of all 33 stores, there were only nine initially to close, but it didn't take long for the family to realize the plan they had worked out in the face of mounting bankruptcy was not sufficient to prevent their total loss of funds by October.

Dawahares founder, who left Syria in order to ecape religious persecution, started out as a worker in a sweat shop in Mew York. At the urgings of a brother-in-law, he moved to Kentucky, ostensiby to work in the mines. Instead, he became a clothing and fabric salesman. Eventually, he opened his first store in Eastern Kentucky, long the most economically depressed area of the state.

Over the years, he opened several other stores in the area, but it was one of his sons who opened the crown jewel of the family business in Lexington, in the 1930's. Dawahares over the years gathered the reputation as the place to go for University of Kentucky Wildcats clothing and paraphernalia. The business continued to grow and prosper, until soon there were stores spread out across Kentucky, as well as West Virginia and Tennessee.

Unfortunately, it became somewhat of a dinosaur and may have been doomed to extinction by adherence to a business plan that was no longer economically feasible, while getting away from its roots at the same time.

Many see Dawahares as a Kentucky tradition. Others-quite a few others, it would seem-see it as a place where you go to pay top dollar (at least from a working class perspective) for second rate (at best) merchandise. In a good economy it might work, although even at that the UK contract may have been the only thing that kept the business profitable over the last thirty years.

In today's economy, a business plan that puts you at a disadvantage against places like Goodwill and other such thrift stores needs to be scrapped. The worse the economy gets, after all, the more those kinds of stores draws in an expanded clentelle, from the poor and working class, on up to the middle class.

When that happens, it is businessess like Dawahares, that never appealed to upper class folks to begin with, that suffer. What middle class folks continue to patronize such a business do so less frequently and spend less when they do. The poor and working class shoppers are now all but out of the picture, and what picture they are in involves old black and white stills.

So, why is this story so important I feel the need to blog about it? Well, it's a good barometer by which to measure the current political as well as economic climate. A bad economy tends to favor Democrats to begin with. When the country has been under a Republican Administration for the last eight years, and a Republican majority Congress for the last twelve out of fourteen years, that is all the more true.

There are other closings of other establishements coming, such as Goody's and a jewelry chain. Times are not good on the homefront. That means the GOP is actually fighting a three front war with most people scared to death they're itching to open a fourth.

I guess some might consider it ironic that this involves practically the one hundredth anniversary of a store chain founded by a Syrian immigrant,one you might consider a religous refugee, forced to close due to an economy battered in no small part by the direct and indirect effects of a war in the Islamic world. Well, that is true, but at the same time, remember, this was a business that started out in one of the poorest sections of rural Kentucky, became an American success story, and even managed to stay profitable and grow throughout the years of the Great Depression.

When I hear politicans tell us that our best years are yet in front of us, forgive my skepticism.

Guest Blogger-Baphomet The Demon

I was just about ready to get off my blog last night, after deciding to do a blog post about the recent death of comedian George Carlin. I couldn’t seem to decide exactly what to say, when all of a sudden, the strangest thing happened. I felt eerily light-headed, and dizzy, and I could sense the presence of an infernal entity. I could actually feel him taking over, and the next thing I knew, it was as though I was outside my body, watching as it typed furiously, yet at the same time engaged in demoniac howls of laughter.

When I awoke the following morning, assuming I had merely had an unusually horrific yet realistic waking dream of some sort, I decided to look at some of my writings to decide what to work on next. That was when I made a most unexpected discovery. I had seemingly typed a new post, yet one that I could not remember.

Once I discovered the presence of this post on my Word program, I decided to go ahead and post it, though it is certainly not for the faint of heart.

At any rate, I feel I have no choice but to present to you a post by an uninvited though indisputably compelling guest-blogger. And so, without further ado, I give you-the great demon Baphomet.

I have hijacked this blog temporarily as a means of expressing my immortal wrath at the ultimate fate of the comedian George Carlin. Here was a man who was an expressed atheist, so you might suppose he is now my plaything. I waited and waited, and waited some more, and still no George Carlin here in my infernal abode. God, that trickster, has evidently given Carlin a pass, based on the so-called “joy” he gave to so many worthless humans, and the hours of laughter, and even inspiration, by which he uplifted so many.

I still puke rotten blood when I hear people say things like the following I overheard just yesterday, which I quote here-

“If there is a comedy club in heaven, George Carlin must surely be one of the headliners.”

Does such bilge not make you just sick to your stomach? Thankfully, such an ignorant statement, if made in seriousness, reveals a promising lack of knowledge about that insipid place known as heaven. In fact, so filled with the hideous emotion of “joy” is this horrible place, with it’s sickening condition called “peace”, that it is by its nature polluted by never-ending shrieks of “good-natured” laughter-so much to the point that a comedy club would be superfluous. No, George Carlin is, I am afraid, merely one of many destined to exist in an eternal abode of eternal, never-ending happiness.

Well, that is not going to ruin my day. Believe me, I have plenty of other prospects on whom I might soon vent my outrageous torture for eternity. One whom I trust will make his way to my eternal hell before too long is a man by the name of the Reverend Fred Phelps. He has been my faithful servant, albeit unknowingly, in the furtherance of spreading all the finer things of the universe-intolerance, hatred, and fear.

Just look at this wonderful website here, and the way he self-righteously condemns George Carlin to the eternal pits of hell. I wonder what the Reverend Phelps will say when, upon arriving at my humble abode, I look him straight in the eyes and tell him, “you lied, Phelps. Carlin is not here, as you can see.”

Then, the fun will begin. I have a special sharp rock over which I will bend Phelps, his naked spirit form bent over frontward with his ass sticking straight up into the air. He will hear the thousands upon thousands of the other unfortunates, those sexual perverts and rapists who finally, after many frustrating years of deprivation of their needs, will see that ass.

“Come and get it boys,” I will scream in that intimidating laughter I so love to affect. Phelps will surely scream for mercy, but to no avail, as thousands upon thousands of sexually depraved souls ass-rape him brutally. The worse part of it though, is a part of him will start to enjoy this, and will feel such great, all-encompassing shame, he will cry for mercy and for a deliverance that will never come his way.

When he has reached the absolute limits of human endurance, then it will be time for me to take my turn. My gigantic, thorn barbed, hardened cock shall plunge mercilessly into that already torn and bleeding ass as I unleash torrents of stinking, molten lava hot semen, with such force that it will shoot through his insides and out his impotently pleading mouth.

Then, I will have the pleasure of making him suck his own shit off my dick-shit that will in time be nothing but recently digested semen from various sources, not the least of which will be my own sulfuric emissions.

By the time I am through with him, he will be glad for the opportunity to face an on-going, never-ending gang rape by mere once-human spirits and minor demons. His shame and torment shall be ever lasting.

In the meantime, I must cut short this blog post, for I have other plans that I must see to. For one thing, I am preparing very special accommodations for two certain bloggers who seem to go all over the internet tearing into each other, neither trying to come to any kind of accord with the other. I have a special phone booth sized room just for the two of them where they can enjoy the pleasure of each others company-

FOR ALL ETERNITY

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Back To The Broom Closet

This is probably the silliest example of making a mountain out of a molehill you could ever imagine. On a recent segment of The Today Show, co-host Kathy Lee Gifford took part in some sort of inane question and answer about the reason people wear their wedding rings on the left hand. One of the answers evidently had something to do with some kind of ancient pre-Christian pagan superstition inferring the other hand being used for other purposes. Gifford made some silly, throwaway remark about those “nasty, nasty pagans”-and all hell suddenly threatened to break loose.

You would think she called for a reinstatement of the Inquisition. A number of pagans with evidently no real time on their hands circulated this petition calling on NBC to issue an apology. Some have even demanded Gifford be fired, and have called for a boycott of the Today Show and/or NBC. Well, after all, offending that all-important pagan demographic might conceivably cost them a couple hundred grand over the course of a year’s time, right?

When I first became a pagan, one of my major goals was to become the best person I could be, and to constantly strive for self-improvement. I still hold to that goal. It is not an easy goal to achieve. In fact, you never achieve it, because you can never improve too much. No matter how far you advance, you can always go a little more.

One of the things I always strive for is self-empowerment, in addition to wisdom, knowledge, and independence of thought and action, and the courage to stand on principle. Many times, that precludes the herd mentality that is so prevalent in today's society, as in all past societies (and unfortunately, probably in all future societies).

Pagans should be above that. We should learn to be self-sufficient, independent, able to think on our feet, and for ourselves, while at the same time striving to build a community that values cooperation, yes, but also respect for the individual and his needs and rights.

It makes me sick when I see groups of pagans engaged in identity politics, in trying to get over by playing the victim card. Who gives a rat's ass when some bimbo like Kathy Gifford makes some off-hand remark-especially one probably not even intended to slur actual real modern-day pagans to begin with? Even if she did, so what?

Does anybody know how to laugh any more? Is everything a matter for a public outcry, or a ban, or some kind of boycott or embargo? Where does it end?

Are we so helpless, pathetic, and weak that we have to bitch and cry every time somebody says anything that is not to our liking? Are we supposed to demand some kind of special rights or privileges? What's next, are we going to sue for reparations over the "Burning Times"?

I suppose I should add here that, yes, I understand the so-called “Burning Times” is a myth, but it is every bit as real as the manufactured controversy over Kathy Lee Giffords “nasty, nasty pagans” remark. Of course some people persist in believing in fairy tales, so I guess I should stress that what I am saying is, there is no “there” there in either case.

The people that provided the inspiration for the myth (an awful one) of the Burning Times amounted mainly to old senile women or folks who otherwise displeased someone to the extent someone realized all they had to do to get back at them was accuse them of witchcraft.

The other, and even larger group, were indeed victims of religious persecution due to their faith, but they were in fact Christian heretics, members of one or another Christian sect whose beliefs did not meet the Papal (for the most part) seal of approval.

Even referring to these actual real-life victims as victims of “Burning Times” is a gross distortion. Most of those who died, due to either religious persecution or to witchcraft hysteria, did not die from burning, but from drowning, hanging, or beheading. May times, inquisitors put them to the rack, or subjected them to the heinous torture known as drawing and quartering.

Nevertheless, ask an old nineteen sixties or seventies era witch or pagan, or those who choose to believe them, about the “Burning Times”, and what you hear amounts to an article of faith. It is dogma. These are the exact people, by and large, who promote this petition against NBC and against Kathy Lee Gifford, a person who has raised the ire of the left before over her alleged support of child slave labor. This, I think, is the real story. It’s a situation where a person disliked by a segment of the radical left says something-anything-and they come along with a fine toothed comb and pick it apart. Kathy Lee Gifford probably has a vague at best notion of the existence of modern pagans and their beliefs and practices.

It’s like if George W. Bush one day promoted the elimination of pennies, and a group of people accused him of wanting to eliminate people with the name Penny. Yeah, I know that’s an absurd example, but this is an absurd “issue” that doesn’t deserve a sensible comparison. There are no sensible comparisons-that’s just the point.

Nevertheless, a great many pagans will jump on this bandwagon, because they want to fit in and “accomplish” something or “stand up for their rights”. What they are doing is making a laughing stock of themselves, and by extension the rest of us. I think there is actually a reasonably good chance that Kathy Lee Gifford might have at some point apologized if someone pointed out to her in a reasonable fashion that she might have unintentionally hurt some people’s feelings-or maybe she wouldn’t have. Whatever the case, let’s face it. Pagan practitioners, while they have supported various endeavors that are at best cottage industries-incense and hemp based clothing and accessories comes to mind-they are not exactly an advertiser’s dream, nor are they a potential nightmare. Advertisers barely regard them as a demographic, if they even regard them at all.

If you want to know what television studios, executives, and by extension, probably their sponsors, really think of actual modern pagans, an episode from four or five years ago of the Fox Sunday evening cartoon series King of the Hill will tell you all you need to know. We are nerds, geeks, and NUTS. A petition like this does not solve any problems or raise the public consciousness. It only provides more comic fodder.

To all you people wanting to play the victim-how do you expect to be regarded as possibly valuable members of society, as a part of mainstream American culture, as a viable force in the nation or the world, if you are going to go around claiming you need special consideration and protection. What is the whole point of magic and our expressed belief in our deities? Should we not strive to live as independent, self-empowered individuals with a valuable contribution to make?

If you really want to be important, and contribute as a pagan, both as a member of that group and/or as an individual, then you can do that, but this is something else again. Is this the sum and substance of your goals-to be a victim, to portray yourself as a victim of society?

There comes a time when you have to stand up and fight for your rights, I concede that much. Nevertheless, this play the victim identity politics is just another example of why most people look at pagans in general as just a bunch of loons engaged in a role-playing game, one not much more advanced than when their little girls play dress up.

Well, boys and girls, it is time to grow up.

If you really want to play the victim, and yet think you have the ability to be a bona-fide witch or practitioner of the magical arts, I can only think of one way in which those two stances can work together in ways that are complimentary as opposed to being contradictory, as they certainly are.

You might want to consider getting together for the purpose of conducting one massive, giant group ritual. Form a circle and cast a spell geared toward magically transforming yourselves into part African-American, part Hispanic/Latino/, part Indian, gay/lesbian/transgender, feminists, physical as well as mentally disabled individuals.

Then, after the spell is over, do all the rest of us a big favor-convert to Islam. You will, I am sure, find it more to your liking.

Then you can play the victim all you want. You can go around saying

OOOHHHH WOOEEEE IS MEEEEE IIIMM A VICTIM PLLEEEEASSSWE EVERYBBOOODDYY HEEEELPP MEEEEEE.

Naturally, there will be those still that will object, and even deride your efforts. That’s when you really assert yourselves. Simply print placards with cool slogans like-

DEATH TO THE ENEMIES OF PAGANISM

Then get together in large groups and go on a rampage. Well, after all, if paganism is going to be the next religion of perpetual outrage, why not go all out?

As newest members of every special interest group known to man, you can have the most all-inclusive group pity party on the face of the earth. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of supporters, sympathizers, donors, and never-ending reservoirs of pablum puking patronizers ready to promise you the world in return for your votes or support.

Meanwhile, the rest of us will just go about the process of living our lives, raising our families, and actually going about trying to improve the world by making a real difference and contributing to actual positive change or, in a great many cases, trying to keep things just as they are, thank you very much. That of course is as opposed to just trying to shout/kick/scream/beat/rip/stab/shoot/burn/hijack/blow everything to shreds, etc., and wondering why so many people hate us, or at the very least, want as little to do with us as possible.

Personally, I have better things to do with my time. How 'bout you?

This little girl was born with about the worse streak of bad luck a child can have. First, she was born in a small village in one of the most remote parts of India, where one might easily assume the people are more religiously inclined, and profoundly more superstitious, than most others. Then, she was born during a severe thunderstorm, which ceased on the day of her birth, which also happened to take place during a festival in honor of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi.

The icing on the cake? She was born with eight limbs-four arms and four legs. The goddess Lakshmi, it just so happens, is portrayed as having eight limbs.

Can you imagine what the result would have been had this little girl been born a thousand years ago? She would have been worshiped as a living goddess and honored with all manners of presents and sacrifices in her honor, and would have lived a life of plenty, though otherwise she would doubtless have been overly protected to the extent she might well have been one miserable little girl.

That might well have been her fate today. She was already declared an incarnation of Lakshmi, and the villagers were ready to honor and worship her as such by and large, although one enterprising soul, doubtless an outsider, offered to buy her for use as a circus freak performer.

Her parents, though wary, and even though they themselves believed the little girl was a goddess, decided instead to go the surprisingly sensible route of having the little girl operated on. The success of the operation will result in a normal life for her. A good thing, too. According to the doctor who performed the operation, she probably would have died in her teens from an infection.

It turns out her extra limbs were the result of a parasitic "shadow twin" that never developed to the extent it became a fellow siamese twin. The infection was the result of one of this twins limbs growing on her spine and protruding through her back.

She is now normal, and will more than likely even be able to raise a family of her own someday.

From The City That Gave Us Poe (And Other Stories Of Death And Destruction)

When I decided to set my novel in Baltimore I wasn't aware of the particulars of that city's crime statistics, though I knew it was pretty bad. Still, as the writing progressed, I got to thinking "damn, my murder rate in my fictionalized Baltimore is off the damn charts", so I decided it might be better to tone it down. I started inventing reasons to not kill off characters for the sake of some semblance of realism.

Now, come to find out, the novel might have been mild in comparison with actual recent statistics, even with the bombing at Johns Hopkins University Hospital and the marijuana laced with embalming fluid subplot thrown in for good measure.

500 year old vampires and baby eating vultures aside, Baltimore is a fucking horror story in its own right. So, what to do, hon?

There comes a time in the course of human events when things get so fucking bad that you have to do something about it, and that time seems to be now for the city of Baltimore.

Here is the story of Nicole Sesker, stepdaughter of former Baltimore Police Commissioner Hamm. Miss Sesker, a heroin addict and prostitute, is no longer among the living, strangled and murdered, her body discovered on one of those streets where she plied her trade for several years.

The real story though is the scope of the heroin problem in Baltimore, which according to various estimates has anywhere from 45,000 to 65,000 heroin addicts. Going by the more conservative estimate, that is roughly one out of every sixteen Baltimore residents.

You might wonder how one city could become so bad, that only halfway through the year there have been more than one hundred murders in a city with a population of under a million. Miss Sesker makes 108.

For a good blog devoted to keeping track of the dreary crime statistics of the city, this one pretty well tells the story.

Assuming the residents of Baltimore are not engaged in some bizarre endeavor to see their city crowned the next murder capitol of the world, something seriously is amiss. The city has fallen apart. I could conceivably point to an unhealthy alignment of the stars and, using this explanation, draw a correlation to the way the Ravens fell apart after their 2000 Superbowl win, but I seriously doubt that has much to do with anything.

A better idea might-mind you, just might-involve taking a good look at the way the elected and appointed leaders of the city run it. I have an idea Baltimore might prove a textbook case of how NOT to run a major American city.

Do I really have to point out that the Democratic Party has had a lock-more like a death grip, it seems-on running the city since at least the time of the Civil War? Somebody might want to point out to them they have a record that Robert Mugabe would probably find appalling, but I somehow doubt anything will change, unless and until Baltimore residents finally demand accountability-but I wouldn’t hold my breath for that to happen either.

Whether the problem is one of policy, of lax enforcement, or just plain incompetence, or some combination of these and other factors, it is unlikely to change. Baltimore residents may not want that title of murder capitol, but the majority of them, at least, might well deserve it.

The Supreme Court Gives Us Heller

Special note-you can download the Supreme Court's Heller Decision in pdf format from the Scotus blog here.

The best thing about the Supreme Court’s ruling on the constitutionality, or lack thereof, of the Washington DC ban on handguns in private homes, is that it conceivably puts to rest, for all time (hopefully) any prospect of lawsuits, class action or otherwise, against legitimate gun and firearms manufacturers.

This has been the last great white hope, though an understated one, of the pro-gun control movement. If a series of successful lawsuits against gun manufacturers produced a flurry of substantial damages awarded litigants at their expense, one of two things would result-

*Manufacturers would be forced into bankruptcy, and conceivably out of business

*At the very least, the resultant expense involved in the purchasing of any kind of firearm would be so prohibitive none but the upper middle classes and above could hope to afford them.

This decision demolishes that potential, or at least so significantly weakens it that any such lawsuit must now meet a considerably higher-much higher-burden of proof. For with this ruling, the Supreme Court has made it clear, gun ownership is one that puts the onus of responsibility on the gun owner, which is exactly where that responsibility belongs.

Put another way, if a private citizen who legally owns a firearm, misuses or abuses his right to own that firearm, he can as always be prosecuted, and perhaps held civilly liable-but not the manufacturer who produced the abused weapon, nor the dealer who in good faith sold the weapon to the private citizen.

This isn’t over yet, of course. There will be a flurry of lawsuits yet to come, some advisable, others not so much. I suggest gun rights advocates pick their fights wisely, the current political climate being as it is. It is one thing to challenge draconian laws forbidding the ownership of a handgun for the purposes of self-defense, either in a private home or for that matter in public housing (where many perfectly law-abiding citizens might have no other recourse than to live surrounded by human vermin).

It is something else all together to insist on a radical insistence that college and university campuses allow the carrying of handguns and the issuing of concealed carry laws on a first come, first serve basis, with little if any regulation or oversight. After all, remember that most colleges and universities are public property.

I consider myself a gun rights advocate and am in general agreement with the philosophy as a whole. However, there are certain factors when it comes to allowing gun ownership among university students, that all gun control advocates need to realize. Not among the least of these are-get ready for it, because it might be hard to take, but-

Most college students are fucking morons. Think about it. Of all the students that actually attend university, what percentage of them graduate? Moreover, within both groups-graduate and non-graduate-what percentage is actually sane enough to trust with as much as a sharp object, let alone something with the destructive capacity of your average gun. Think about this seriously for a minute, and drop the political equation. Would you trust your fourteen-year-old virgin daughter with a carload of drunken frat boys? Would you trust her with them even if they weren’t drunk? If you lived next door to them, would you go off for a week with a fully stocked liquor cabinet in full view and know in your heart of hearts that you would return the following week to find it undisturbed?

There are economic considerations as well. Unfortunately, most parents will be averse to sending their darlings to a university campus where the right of college students to carry guns to and from classrooms is a given.

I say unfortunately, because I am by no means against the idea of limited gun rights on university campuses, I just think it should be regulated and monitored accordingly. The implementation of certain requirements would contribute to a positive, safe atmosphere, hopefully with a minimum of problems.

* Restrict gun ownership to students twenty-one years of age or older. We do this in licensing drivers and in selling liquor, and now cigarettes. Why not do the same with guns? Yes, I recognize that the right to keep and bear arms is a constitutional right. So is the right to vote. There are reasons you don’t see many twelve year old kids going to the polling place to exercise that right, chief among them being it is a non-existent right as far as they are concerned. As far as I‘m concerned, they should limit it to twenty-one year old persons as well, unlikely though this is to occur. Still, the point is, anyone under twenty one, as a general rule, are rightfully considered sufficiently lacking in maturity as to justify limiting their rights until they reach a certain age. This would be a sterling example of such.

*Again, universities are public, not private, enterprises, and it is more than appropriate to insist that any person who applies for a concealed carry permit pass some kind of reasonable competency requirements, beginning with the requirement to maintain at least a 3.0 grade point average, or a 2.0 at the very least.

*Applicants for gun ownership and/or conceal carry permits must maintain a good record on campus and in the community. No, this does not mean the individual in question has to be the class president, dorm monitor, or a member of the social and/or academic elite. It just means they have to stay out of trouble. After all, eighty percent of the time, if you know of somebody’s existence, there is probably a reason for it-and not necessarily a good reason. It is more than sufficient that the individual regularly attend class, refrain from unnecessary fighting, sexual harassment, or any other inappropriate behavior, and otherwise get along reasonably well with his fellow students and the faculty and staff of the university in question. I mean, come on-this ain’t rocket science here. But, just in case-

*The student should have a regular, on-going relationship with his appointed counselor, or academic adviser, etc. After all, their training is such as to enable them supposedly to spot potential problem areas of potential concern.

*The student should have to take gun safety and training courses at their own expense, and demonstrate proficiency with firearms. Such training, conducted by qualified and licensed instructors, could begin at any age upon enrollment.

*Any confirmed problems or offenses can and should result in revocation of the license, particularly if the individual displays an on-going predisposition to such behavior.

As I said, this is just one of the many issues that are soon to arise from the recent ruling. There will be myriads of others, I’m sure, that I will touch on from time to time.

For now, I will just say that, here in America at least, an individual should be responsible for his own defense and the defense of his family. Isn’t that the way it should be? Who in God's name wants to trust the police to protect them from criminals-especially if you happen to live in an area where crime is more frequent that it should be, and where the quality of law-enforcement is dubious at best. Do you really want to wait ten years, or as more than likely the case, forever, before the police receive training sufficient to protect all it’s citizens, adequately and, by the way, equally, and to do so in a timely manner? Are you waiting for the invention of the Star Trek teleportation device in the meantime? I hate to say it, but you might as well be. Even in the best-case scenario, can the police arrive to your house (assuming you have the opportunity to call them) as quickly as you can empty your forty-five into the skull of a home invader and potential rapist/murderer?

The plain fact is that in order to encourage the atmosphere most conducive to the development, protection, and continuation of a relatively peaceful society, with limited violence and criminal oppression, there must be a mechanism whereby law-abiding citizens arm themselves for their own defense, and that of their families, homes, and businesses. That ideal is indisputable, and should not be open for debate. Some of the other things we can tinker with, I concede that much, and the idea of armed university students is profound enough in its potential implications that it calls for discussion-for open, reasonable dialogue, hopefully free of political pandering and demagoguery on both sides.

Remember, my fellow Second Amendment supporters, while a right is a right is a right, it also carries with it a grave responsibility, one that, if not recognized and even nurtured, is tantamount to inviting a situation where that right is held up to unreasonable scrutiny, and potentially lost forever.

Put another way, time does not stand still. Ask the dinosaurs.

Tension Between Obama And The Clintons? Nothing Ten Million Dollars Won't Cure

Of course Hillary Clinton will agree to support Obama's candidacy. Of course she will be willing to campaign for him. Of course, Bill will help as well. After all, Obama has asked his finance team to help Hillary Clinton pay off ten million dollars of her campaign debt.

Of course, he probably can't legally redirect money from his campaign to pay these debts, so if you're an Obama supporter, expect to receive, sometime soon, a request for a contribution specifically for this purpose.

And here you thought politics was a cutthroat business. See how quickly people of good will can come together-when the price is right.

The Democratic Party is just now on the verge of an actual "Kumbaya" moment. Enjoy.

Don Imus The Gelding Whinnies Again

Radio talk show host Don Imus is in the process of learning a bitter lesson, not only about race relations, but all areas of human relations. That lesson-the longer you kiss people’s asses, the more likely they are to shit all over you.

Here is his latest faux paus, a statement concerning the latest arrest of Dallas Cowboys cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones, the sixth such run-in with the law Jones has faced-

During a conversation about Jones' run-ins with the law, Imus asked, "What color is he?" Sports announcer Warner Wolf said Jones — formerly known as Pacman — is "African-American." Imus responded: "There you go. Now we know."

So, you can take this two ways-

*The law is targeting Jones for racial reasons
*Jones, being black, is an obvious troublemaker

Imus obviously meant the first, but the PC crowd, intent on reading the other definition into his remarks-whether they really believe that’s what he meant or not, by the way-have started yet another controversy. As for Imus, his response to the accusations is almost as sickening, if not more.

"What people should be outraged about is that they arrest blacks for no reason," Imus said Tuesday. "I mean, there's no reason to arrest this kid six times. Maybe he did something once, but everyone does something once."

No reason to arrest “this kid” (a professional football player) six times? Well, there might have been a reason. There might have been six of them, you fucking old fool.

A pretty good indication of Jones's character might be his own response to the controversy-

"I'm truly upset about the comments," Jones said. "Obviously Mr. Imus has problems with African-Americans. I'm upset, and I hope the station he works for handles it accordingly. I will pray for him."

So, I am sure, will Al Sharpton, who has "not yet decided" what he's going to do about this.

What the fuck ever.

Here’s real the problem with Don Imus. He started out in the early seventies, with a cutting edge, take no prisoners approach to radio and, as one of the original shock jocks, built an audience based on skewering the establishment, which at that time was more or less relatively conservative. As he got older, the establishment became first more liberal, and then more mixed. To be sure, he has tried to stay relevant, and so keep his head above water, by going after such liberal luminaries as Ted Kennedy. Some of his comments pertaining to Chappaquiddick are in fact sadistically hilarious.

Nor has he been unfairly brutal to conservatives, in my opinion. He has, throughout his career, been an equal opportunity offender. This was true up until the time he crossed paths with Al Sharpton, who handed Imus his hat and his ass, but never quite relinquished his balls. Imus has never recovered, nor is he likely to do so.

In effect, Imus passed up a golden opportunity. He could have easily landed a spot on XM or on Sirius, at that time two separate entities, and used this as a vehicle to tear into the race baiting, racial hustling monolith run by the Sharptons, the Jackson, and others of their ilk, and his ratings would have been through the roof. He could have skewered the corporations, politicians, and other apologists who have enabled these two-bit con artists. He would have been controversial, of course, but Imus is used to nothing if not controversy.

So, why didn’t he do that? Does anybody really believe for a minute that he honestly, sincerely believes he was in the wrong, and that he feels compelled to make amends? Nonsense! The true reason is his attachment to the celebrity and the persona of a man who hobnobs with the great and the near great of politics and journalism, who would quickly turn their backs on him if he didn’t toe the line. In other words, this is a textbook case of a man selling his soul for all the world to see-or rather to hear, which is fortunate. To see it would be to see an old mangled, bloody and bruised wreck of a man, dismembered and scattered along the road to perdition. Hearing it is quite enough, thank you, if you can even stomach that much.

If Don Imus was a real man of integrity, he would stand up for himself and blast the Sharptons and Jacksons, and all their enablers, and do so with no apologies. He could easily find a format if he just had to start out on nothing but a web site and podcast. He would soon enough find another more traditional format, either on satellite radio or cable television, or both. His audience would quickly grow to much more than what it is now, and very likely to greater numbers eventually than he has ever enjoyed. Nor would he have to depend on Klan types for an audience. You don’t have to wear white robes and pointy little cone hats, or a swastika, to be profoundly sick of the race based and for that matter the myriads of other forms of political correctness that has turned American discourse into an exercise in walking on egg shells.

If he did stand up for himself, then he might one day finally be able to wear his grapefruit sized asshole like a badge of honor. Instead, unfortunately, he’s just going to do what all old cowboys eventually do, fade into the sunset and soon be quickly forgotten, while the herd just keeps grazing on in their abject stupidity.

River Sweep

This coming Saturday will be the annual River Sweep. Bands of volunteers will gather on both sides and the entire length of the Ohio River, from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania to Cairo Illinois, in order to clean the banks of garbage and debris. This usually results in the removal of tons of refuse. Overall, it has been a fairly successful volunteer initiative, conducted by the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission, and involving "public organizations, civic groups, recreational clubs, and the general public".

I wonder what percentage of that trash and debris is made up of dead fish. Maybe they should put two and two together and realize there is a reason they are dead, and it amounts to the same reason they would not be any safer to eat if they were alive.

But, you have to start somewhere, and this is as good a place as any. So come on, folks. Do your part. Be involved. Contribute to an improved quality of life. It's your Ohio River.

Speaking of civic mindedness, this might be a good week to skip the weekly body dump. If there's just no way out, a good rule of thumb is that a metal drum or barrel will likely keep them down longer than a simple weighted chain and pocket full of rocks.

Remember-if we all pull together, we can make a difference.

"Yes We Can".

Easy To Be Hard

There was a recent flap over campaign aids for Barak Obama not allowing two Muslim women wearing the hajib to set behind Obama while he was on the stage giving a speech. Obama later apologized to the women. He actually apologized to one of them directly, in person, and sent his sincere regrets to the other, expressing that his campaign was about bringing people together, and that he did not condone any kind of disrespect or exclusion of any minority races or religions. Apparently, the campaign workers involved were reprimanded.

Personally, I don't think Obama should be too hard on the campaign workers for not wanting the two Muslim women to sit behind Obama while he was on stage.

They were probably just afraid that things would get blown up out of all proportion.

But Ugly Goes Straight To The Bone

I find a good many areas of agreement with this article from the Christian Science Monitor. In fact, I've been sick for a good long time of hearing about how I should appreciate certain actresses because of their supposedly overwhelming beauty. In fact, it has the opposite affect on me from the original intent. I find myself not so subconsciously looking for their flaws. Some examples of this would be J-Lo. I got so sick of hearing about that bitch, every time I hear her name mentioned, my mind runs to Jello and I immediately think all right, what's so fucking sexy about that? Instead of seeing her as a sexy woman, I think about how goofy her fucking idiot nickname makes her sound, and I start to actually see her in that context.

Without going into a long list of obvious examples, and for that matter not so obvious ones, when I see certain actresses, the first thing I think of is, "okay, how bad does their fucking pussies stink after they've been fucked for about the thousandth fucking time in a year?

There's one bitch, she used to play Ally MacBeal and now she's on Brothers And Sisters and she's married to Harrison Ford. Give me a minute and I'll try to think of her name, as of this second all I can think of is "what's so fucking hot about that goddamnned anorexic bitch?" Take a good look at this ho, her lower left lip dangles like she's had a stroke. Is she sexy? Okay, if you fucking say so.

Then there's another woman whose name I won't mention who is supposed to be drop dead gorgeous. I would run from the bitch if she got to within arms reach of me. She looks like Satan jacked off and shot a wad of steaming, shit-stinking cum out of his dick, formed it into the shape of a woman, and said, "and men shalt call thee beautiful."

I could go on and on, but you get the point.

The whole point of the article is that Hollywood actors and actresses are chosen more for their looks than they are for actual talent. I guess the feeling is they'll grow into it. Not that beautiful women or handsome men can't be talented, of course, but if they aren't sexy or "hot", they don't have a shot, it seems-not in today's market.

It affects all areas of popular culture, including even music. Now there's a bunch of brothers who are taking the music scene by storm, not because they are good, because they are "cute". If they weren't you would never hear the little turds names mentioned, but since they are, suddenly they're "the new Beatles"? Give me a fucking break.

Me, I'm fucking sick of it. Of course, it will never change, because it's promoted by people who make a profit out of promoting various fashion trends and diet fads, and like the sheep they are, people swallow the schpiel hook, line, and sinker.

And what's so fucking sexy about those goody fucking twins anyway? Damn, I can't think of their names either. Okay, the Olsen twins, it just occurred to me.

Yeah, guys, they've been legal for a few years now, whoop de doo. Hell, if those two weren't famous they'd be seen as just another couple of skinny crack hos and nobody would give a shit if they were legal or not.

Tom Paine

Here is an interesting and well-written article on the life of Thomas Paine and his contribution to the cause of American rebels in the Revolutionary War, from the socialist blog Renegade Eye.

Paine was a great man who was shabbily treated, of which there is no doubt. A long article, but since Ren followed my good and seconded advice to increase the size of his font, well worth your time.