A Fisk For Bob

Here we are at the start of a long weekend and I just feel terribly lazy tonight. And what do I do when I feel terribly lazy? Why I fisk someone. And who is the easiest person on the planet to fisk? Why Molly Ivins of course.

I had a nice e-mail exchange from Bob in North Dakota. I remember when I fisked an insipid Robert Jenson op-ed and mocked his analogy about Canadians invading North Dakota. I poked some good natured fun at North Dakota and I told Bob I hope he didn't take offense. Bob said no and also said the Canucks weren't likely to try and invade North Dakota because there is just too much military up there. He also agreed that the Nodaks and the Canucks would just get a few cases of Moosehead and have a big ol' party. Somewhere in the exchange he asked me what fisking meant. Well Bob, this fisk is for you.

Let's see what pearls of wisdom Molly has for us this week.

Here we are, playing hawks and doves again on the matter of Iraq - war or no war?

I vote war. Sooner rather than later.

- with particularly peppy exchanges from our more excitable brethren on the right concerning "appeasement"

Appeasement never works. Remember Neville Chamberlain?

and lack of patriotism on the part of anyone who isn't ready to nuke Baghdad now.

We're not questioning patriotism, just common sense. Better to nuke them before they nuke us. What will it take Molly? Another 9/11?

Bubba and Joe Bob have a question: "Why don't we git Oh-sama bin first?"

Bubba. Joe Bob. What makes you think we haven't got Oh-sama bin? Heard anything from him lately? He didn't look too good on that last video.

I bring this up because it seems to me that what the right wing is fond of describing as "the media elites" are so absorbed in their own tong warfare

Also known as the politics of personal destruction which was perfected by the Democratic party. When your only ideas involve seizing money from successful people and giving it to unsuccessful people ya gotta muddy up the waters so no one realizes that all your ideas are nothing but socalist bullshit. I know. Socialist bullshit is redundant.

that they quite forget the American people have a great deal of uncommon good sense.

Some of us do. The ones who watch Oprah, Jerry Springer, and MSNBC and vote for Democrats don't.

Does life in Washington actually resemble an endless round of Crossfire, or does it just seem that way from the boonies?

For once Molly has stumbled onto the truth. Even a blind squirrel can sometimes find an acorn. Life in Washington does resemble an endless round of Crossfire with the Democrat Carvilles and Begalas ranting and raving and saying absolutely nothing. Shut the fuck up!

At last count, we were already involved in military actions in seven countries, counting Colombia, which is either a different set of terrorists or a civil war.

Molly conveniently omits the fact that only one of those military actions, Afghanistan, started during the current administration. The other six started during the administration of her buddy, Bubba Clinton.

Seems like that's a lot on our plate now. Under the new Bush doctrine of "unilaterally determined pre-emptive self-defense," we get to go around attacking anyone we want without provocation. Not so much as a "Remember the Maine!" or a Tonkin Gulf resolution.

Where do you live Molly? Howza 'bout we let 'em nuke your city? Would that be provocation enough? I really don't want that to happen since I think Molly lives in the Dallas Fort Worth area and I know some people there. I would not like to see Rachel and Kim go.

Did anybody ever get to vote on "unilaterally determined pre-emptive self-defense"?

OK. Let's vote. I vote yes. All in favor of killing them before they kill us raise your hands.

According to published reports, the administration is also contemplating the use of earth-penetrating nuclear weapons in Iraq.

Works for me. Saddam, you better hope your bunker is deep enough.

Whatever happened to the no-first-strike policy"?

9/11

Did anyone ever get to vote on that?

Let's vote now. I vote yes.

Has anyone studied the consequences of violating it?

Molly. Before, when we were dealing with the Russians they didn't want to die. Mutually Assured Destruction worked. We're dealing with fanatics. These dudes think they get to go to paradise and get to bang 72 virgins. You can't reason with the bastards. Gathering around a campfire and singing Kumbaya ain't gonna get us anywhere. I don't think you realize that war was declared against this country.

Hard to find a soul in this country who doesn't think that getting rid of Saddam Hussein is a good idea,

Oh, I don't know. Walk on to any college campus. Call up James Zogby, the Arab buttboy apologist. I bet he doesn't think it's a good idea. Remember, Islam is a religion of peace.^TM

but there are lots of people wondering why it's up to us to do it,

'Cause we're the only country with the balls and the ability to do it. Jesus, do you think the French would do it? Bwahahahaha!

and also asking, "What happens then?"

The other Arab countries will be falling all over themselves to be our friends or they could be next. Maybe the Saudis would quit sponsoring terrorism. Maybe the Palestinians would quit blowing up. The possiblities are endless. Use your imagination. The Middle East couldn't be any worse than it is right now.

Given our experience with George W. as governor, that's a particularly relevant question.

And what would a Molly Ivins column be without a little Bush bashing? And are we also gonna hear about the neverending 2000 election?

Not that it's on par with a nuclear first strike, but Texas now faces a deficit of $7 billion and rising.

Molly. We happen to be in a recession. Did ya hear about that? It's been in all the papers.

As governor, Bush inherited a surplus, pushed through two big tax cuts

And I'll bet the people in Texas are happy about that.

and left virtually nothing in the Rainy Day Fund, so now we're not just broke but in the hole.

Maybe the Texas gummint might want to think about cutting spending. That's what us common folk do when our income drops. Why can't the gummint?

As witness the case of the charter schools in Texas,

I don't have a clue as to what Molly is talking about here. Maybe someone from Texas can 'splain to me what the charter school thing is. At least in Texas y'all don't have the lowest SAT scores among the states. In Georgia, We're number 50! We're number 50!

the man does have a habit of coming up with not-very-bright ideas and then wandering off to leave someone else to clean up the mess.

He's no where near as good at that as Jimmy Carter. And Clinton did a great job of destroying our intelligence agencies. But hey, even if we had known 9/11 was coming, we couldn't have prevented it because you politically correct dimwits would not have allowed us to single out men of Middle Eastern descent for extra security because it might hurt their feelings.

Speaking of cleaning up messes, how smart is it to get involved in a war with no allies?

So the reasoning here is we let Saddam nuke us because we have no allies?

Canada announced Tuesday that it won't support a war.

And this affects us how?

That means, among other things, that we have to pay for all of it ourselves, unlike the Persian Gulf War.

OK. Let's let some madman nuke us because we can't afford to go to war. Great logic Molly.

Our fiscal house is not in good order now. Bush and Congress both blew the surplus in record time and will leave us with $742 billion and rising added to the national debt by the end of the decade.

At least she assigns part of the blame to the Democrats.

That's without a war.

OK Let's declare peace. I feel better now.

Joseph Nye argues in his new book, The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone, that anti-Americanism thrives on the perception that we don't give a rat's behind how the rest of the world feels about anything.

I don't know about y'all, but I don't really give a rat's ass about how the rest of the world feels about anything. They're jealous of us and they hate us. Fuck 'em!

That's the famous "arrogance" for which we get criticized.

Yet still they come, hats in hands, begging us for money and protection.

On that count, a war with Iraq could play right into terrorist hands.

Oh?

It's apparent that our ally Saudi Arabia has a far stronger connection to Sept. 11 than our enemy Saddam Hussein,

Molly, you need to talk to Maureen Dowd. She thinks we oughta attack Saudi Arabia first. I read it in her column this morning.

so attacking Saddam makes us look like hypocrites willing to sell out our foreign policy for oil.

Saudi Arabia does not have weapons of mass destruction. Iraq does. Don't ya just wonder what passes for logical thought processes in a liberal's brain?

That we'd also have to kill a whole of lot of innocent Iraqis

War is hell. Better innocent Iraqis than innocent Americans.

(next guy who uses the words "precision bombing" has to eat them)

Precision bombing. Yum. Yum. How many Afghanis did we kill with our precision bombs? Not too many. Certainly not as many as the hypocritical human rights groups claimed.

should count for more than it probably does with all those hard-nosed Bush foreign policy advisers who have never seen war.

I have seen war Molly. You haven't. But we both saw 9/11 when 3000 innocent civilians were killed. I'd much rather see an Iraqi civilian die than an American civilian die. War is hell. Tell the Iraqis to overthrow Saddam. We didn't start this war, but as long as we can keep dumbshit liberals like you out of power, we'll finish it.

The ideological struggle over foreign policy - unilateralism vs. internationalism -

How about survivalism?

is in danger of becoming one of those futile -ism fights, where people get so engaged in putting down their opponents that they lose sight of reality.

I often wonder how Molly can successfully put one foot in front of the other. Everytime I read one of her columns I think that she lost sight of reality a few years back. We're talking about taking out a madman who may unleash nukes or biological weapons against us and we have to get the rest of the world's permission to protect ourselves? And we have to listen to wimps like L'il Tommy Daschle and L'il Dickie Gephardt sayin' that we need to negotiate with Saddam Hussein. Molly, you're sounding loonier than Cynthia McKinney fer chrissakes.

We used to give an award for it in the Texas Legislature: "If He Votes Yes, Then I Vote No."

Molly was in the Texas Legislature????

It's smarter to stick with what works.

Ya mean like what worked in Afghanistan?

Life is not Crossfire

If it were, Carville would have been shot by now.

- there are more than two sides. So is there a better way? Nye thinks there is.

I await with bated breath.

Since terrorism flourishes in the "failed states," why not support international efforts to get these wretched places on their feet?

This sounds like that shit they're talkin' about down in South Africa. 'We're poor because we screwed up our countries. Give us money so our corrupt dictators can screw up our countries even more while they squirrel the money away in their Swiss bank accounts.' Yep. That works.

There was a poll of foreign affairs experts and scholars at the end of the 20th century, and it found widespread agreement that the single most effective American foreign policy effort of the century was the Marshall Plan.

But with the Marshall Plan we were rebuilding developed industrial democracies. We weren't trying to rebuild third world feudal countries living in the Tenth Century.

Seems to me that the lesson of Sept. 11 is that we cannot afford to ignore what the rest of the world thinks.

No the lesson of Sept.11 is having some pussy president like Bill Clinton bite his lip, feel our pain, promise to hunt down the bastards who blew up our embassies and the Cole and then go get a blowjob by an airhead intern only shows the rest of the world that we're all talk and no action. Overthrowing the Taliban, taking Saddam out and going after any one else who fucks with us will prevent future 9/11's.

Why does she make it so easy?

Denny Explains to Aaron

Well damn! I haven't gotten any referrals from my good buddy Aaron lately and I found out why. He's been going after my real good buddies Kim Dutoit a white African-American, who oddly enough came here from South Africa and Toren Smith whom he called a psychopath for some reason. Since, as usual, he knows nothing about Toren or Kim, he missed the entire point of what they were saying. I've noticed that about Aaron.

I first came across Aaron, when Carl, one of my readers sent me a link of Aaron commenting on an article I was gonna fisk. It was too delicious to pass up seeing Aaron's comments and inserting mine. See, according to Aaron, all of us warbloggers are 'racist motherfuckers'. And if you read what he says about Toren, Toren needs a full-contact "diversity training seminar". I guess Toren's wife, who happens to be Japanese should attend also to see how to deal with people like Aaron.

So the insults passed back and forth. I made a joke about my Netscape 4.7 browser 'performing an illegal operation' and shutting down and Aaron came back with the retort that my sister was my mother (No Dude, she's my cousin) since I live in Georgia and must be an inbred Georgia goober. I got a good blog out of that called Stereotypes. Also, he and his friends said my sister and I must be AOL users. They must have gone to either DC schools or Atlanta schools, since my e-mail address ends in mindspring.com and not aol.com. Hello! What were your SAT scores?

Besides being inbred Georgia goobers we also didn't have any marketable skills. This pissed off my sister, but I thought it was funny. My sister and I grew up in Webster Groves, a suburb of St. Louis. My sister, being smarter than I, did well in school and won a four year scholarship to Washington University in St. Louis. She was on the Dean's List every semester but one (I think ... knowing her, it was probably every semester). She graduated with a degree in Computer Science and has been a software engineer since 1964. She's still working and will retire in January. Bet she wishes she had some of those marketable skills Aaron was talking about. By the way, she's a millionaire.

I don't have any marketable skills either. I flunked out of a junior college and joined the Navy and learned electronics. I went to college on the GI Bill and burned out in my junior year. I'm in good company. Stephen Den Beste didn't finish college either. I started working on computers in 1977. The big 'uns. The ones that used to drink water. I started teaching computer repair in 1985. In 1988 I broke my back and moved to software. Since then I have been an instructor/programmer and have written and delivered computer training courses. Four-and-a-half years ago, I became a full time software engineer. Just think how much better I would be with marketable skills.

Nope. I don't know Linux. The programmers at my shop who do, make less than I do. If TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name) wants me to learn Linux, they can pay me to do it. I'll get me some books, take two days off, and learn it. I mean, how hard can it be? Aaron knows it.

And then, in his last slam, since I chided him about not being able to come up with any good insults without using family ancestry or profanity, he called me an asshole (which I am by the way. That's no insult. It's a fact.) and said something about how he couldn't feel sorry for me because I couldn't walk. Well, I can walk with braces and crutches, but I have never expected anyone to fell sorry for me. I got my open water SCUBA certification over the weekend. I can fly an airplane. If the FAA didn't approve of some of the drugs (all legal) that I take, I would have my private pilot's license. Since my accident, I've been to England, Spain, Germany, Turkey, Egypt, Finland, and Russia. Piss on pity!!!! Does he want me to feel sorry for him because he is an 'uppity-negro'? I don't. I do feel sorry for him for being a bigoted leftist.

When I went back to work after I broke my back, after seeing so many people work the system ('I didn't get the promotion because I was a female.' ' I got kicked out of that account because I was black'), I didn't want anyone to say that the only reason I had a job was because I was disabled. I outworked all my co-workers, and guess what? The raises and promotions came, not because of Diversity(All Hail Diversity!), but because I worked my butt off.

So now we get to talk about that waste of time Earth Summit in South Africa. It's sole purpose is to have the richer countries, like the United States, throw more dollars into that cesspool called the Third World. Stephen Den Beste as usual, has the best analysis. This is nothing more than world socialism. Those that can subsidize those that can't (and won't).

Everywhere socialism has been tried it has failed. And don't throw Sweden at me. In case you haven't noticed, Sweden isn't doing too well. How about that worker's paradise, Cuba? Free medical care. Yeah, as long as you don't get any infections. Of course, people like Aaron probably think that the only reason socialism has never worked is because

• The right people have not been in charge.
• Not enough money has been thrown at it .

I guess this paragraph by Toren is what made Aaron call him a psychopath:

One can only look at the professional whiners, NGO-ticks, worthless EUnuch bureaucrats, aid parasites and other assorted riff-raff gathered in South Africa like a vast glob of idiocy and wish those black market nukes were just a little easier to come by.

Aaron, Aaron, this is nothing but white hyperbole. Ya know, sumpin' like the black hyperbole you black dudes like Charles Barron put forth when he said

"I want to go up to the closest white person and say 'You can't understand this, it's a black thing' and then slap him, just for my mental health,"

It's just a white thing. Charlie want's to slap people, Toren wants to nuke people. More from Charlie

I think everybody knew there that was what we call improvision - oratorial improvision and black hyperbole. And y'all wouldn't understand that 'cause you're uptight and you're gonna take it where it was not intended.

See Aaron. Toren was just using oratorical improvisation and white hyperbole and you're gonna misunderstand it because you're uptight and gonna take it where it was not intended. We discuss this shit at the secret white folks meetings we have. It's a white thing.

But then Toren continues

The sight of pompous liars like Mbeki, who took a stable, relatively peaceful, and prosperous nation and turned it into a economic basket case rotten with crime and paralytic with corruption telling us to clean up our act is sick-making. Yes, there's no more apartheid in South Africa. Except now the blacks there have a lower life expectancy and a reduced per capita income, among other miseries. Don't get me wrong--apartheid had to go, but the reality is that the end result has been a worse life for the average South African black, including a nearly doubled chance of being murdered by members of another tribe.

Well this really pissed Aaron off. He comments:

For a minute there, I was getting him wrong. It almost sounded like he was saying the lives of blacks were better under apartheid.

No, wait, that is what he's saying. Oddly, I got that link to Kim (old boy in the next entry) from Toren's site. Can you figure out what these two have in common?

Well Aaron, you're right, he is saying that the lives of blacks were better under apartheid, and, they were. During apartheid, blacks were immigrating to South Africa, because, even under apartheid, it was a better place to live than anywhere else. But, and here is the dirty little secret: it wasn't apartheid that drew them, but capitialism. Kim, my companion grouch points this out. Nelson Mandela, who was a pragmatist, didn't make too many changes. His successor, Thabo Mbeki, a socialist has already started to destroy the South African economy and, yes, blacks are worse off, because of socialism which never has (except in primitive societies and the Israeli kibbutz) worked, and never will work.

Let's look at another example of socialism in action. Zimbabwe, which used to be a net exporter of food, now is facing famine. Robert Mugabe's socialist experiment has failed. How long will it take until Mbeki and the ANC does the same thing to South Africa? This is not a black/white thing like Aaron would have us believe, but a capitialist/socialist/communist thing. Let's raise the spectre of racism where none exists.

I know Aaron thinks I'm just another white racist bigot, but, I really am upset at the fact that the public education system is failing black students in this country and the NAACP is worrying about the freaking confederate flag. They changed it in Georgia. Now we got some goobers who want to make that an election issue. It wasn't an issue before they changed it. It isn't an issue now that they changed it. There are more important things to worry about.

So what do we do about the 'economic apartheid' (and if that isn't a truckload of bullshit) in the Third World? We ain't gonna fix it by throwing money at it. If the Third World wants our aid, they have to clean up their gummints. Start with democracy. No socialism. No communism. The most important resource of any country is people so we'll help you with education. We'll help you with health care. Quit being in denial over the AIDs epidemic. Quit having so many kids. But don't come to us and say everything is all our fault. It's not. Get up off your asses and do sumpin' about it. We'll help ya. We ain't gonna support ya.

So I really hope I've helped Aaron out here. And another thing, I got a note from another blogger who told me that Aaron's two favorite songs were Lola by the Kinks and Dude looks Like a Lady by Aerosmith. I don't know why that's relevant, but maybe another blogger can let me know.

Bye Aaron.

We're Number 50! We're Number 50!

Arghhh! My back itches. Sunburn from last weekend. Have you ever noticed that the worst itch is a spot just barely out of reach? So you find yourself looking for corners to rub your back across. Ahhhh! Relief. Some of you have significant others. I have cats. Doofus! Ashley! Come here and scratch Dad's back. Yawn. Dammit Doofus, you scratch the furniture. Why not my back? Yawn. Are you speaking to me?

Warning! The following commentary will have lots of adult language. If you are offended by that type of language please leave. I am very pissed off. It's either profanity or my keyboard.

I opened the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation and this article was on the front page. I love living in the South, but at times like these, I kinda wish I were back in Missouri.

Georgia educators can no longer exclaim, "Thank God for South Carolina."

Which Georgia just passed for worst SAT scores among the states. Jesus H. Christ! Georgia is lower than Arkansas, Alabama, and Mississippi. Does anyone wonder now why Jimmy Carter was such a lousy president?

The Palmetto State, long the doormat of SAT rankings, passed Georgia this year, bringing finger-pointing and promises of change from embarrassed state officials in Atlanta. Only the schools in the District of Columbia scored lower this year on the college entrance exam.

A shining city on a hill, Washington DC, has the lowest SAT scores in the country, and we expect the Department of Education to fix our schools. Hey buttheads! Why don't you start with the schools in your own fucking city?

Georgia's 50th-place ranking left parents with another sign that, for all the talk of reform, many students are struggling.

No shit!

"We have not been preparing our students adequately because they haven't had access to a rigorous curriculum and certified instruction, particularly in math and science," said Cathy Henson, state school board chairwoman and the mother of a Walton High School student who will take the SAT in October. "We have inflated grades and mediocre work."

Walton High School has the highest SAT scores in the state. It's one of the few schools that is performing well. We'll find out why later.

Georgia's average combined math and verbal score is 980 this year, the same as last year. The national average also remained unchanged, at 1,020 out of a possible 1,600.

But I bet the students all have high self esteem. They're real big on teaching that self esteem bullshit in the Georgia schools. I feel real fucking good about myself Miss Jones. That's nice Johnny.

However, South Carolina saw its average jump seven points, to 981. Washington, D.C., came in 51st, with a score of 953.

953! 953! Dontcha get 600 points just for signing your name?

Georgia scores have risen 32 points in the past decade, and South Carolina's have gone up 43 points as both states have jockeyed to stay out of the SAT basement.

We're Number 50! I'm so fucking proud!

Georgia School Superintendent Linda Schrenko showed her disappointment Tuesday when she announced this year's results.

Bet the Republicans were glad she lost in the primary race for governor. The Democrats would have had a lot of fun with that.

"Where the scores started is abysmal. Where we ended is abysmal," said Schrenko, who leaves office in January. "I'm now fearful we're on the wrong track."

No shit Linda. Congratulations on the excellent job you did while in office. Granted, in Georgia, the state School Superintendent does not have much power and she was outnumbered by Democrats on the state School Board. There's plenty of blame to go around.

The College Board, which administers the test, warns against comparing states because different numbers of students take the SAT in each state. Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, in which a high percentage of students take the test, generally have lower scores. States where only the top high school students take the SAT, like North Dakota, Mississippi and Iowa, are typically among the highest-scoring.

Mississippi? Mississippi? We were beat out by fucking Mississippi?

Nonetheless, politicians, real estate agents and corporate and community boosters use SAT scores to sell their wares.

Come to Georgia where the schools really suck.

"When you're at the bottom, it kind of hits you in the face," noted George Engelhard, an Emory University education studies professor.

Emory University, home of Michael Bellesiles, he of the shoddy research.

The poor showing on the SAT is such a hot political issue that former state Sen. Sonny Perdue, the Republican nominee for governor,

And aren't they glad it isn't Linda Schrenko?

held a Statehouse press conference less than two hours after the scores were announced. He blamed the dismal performance on Gov. Roy Barnes' recent education reform laws

That obviously haven't done too fucking much.

and Democratic political dominance in general. Perdue said, "135 years of one-party rule has failed the children of this state."

And the NEA (teachers union) hasn't been a big help either. Oh, they're all Democrats? Ya don't say.

Barnes said the low SAT scores could be blamed on past inaction.

Roy's been governor for four years now. Before him was Zell Miller. Yep. That Zell Miller. And before him was Joe Frank Harris. They were all Democrats.

"You're paying now for what they failed to do years ago," said the governor,

Democrat governors, Democrat legislatures, and teachers unions working together for mediocrity. Yesterday, number 49. Today number 50. They're your fucking people Roy.

who claims his long-range improvement plan will bring higher scores.

Long range probably means after he leaves office.

The SAT is seen by some experts as a good indicator of how students will do during their first year in college.

Georgia students ain't gonna do worth shit! And here comes the bullshit that's gonna send my blood pressure through the roof.

Critics say it is culturally biased and a poor measure of what students have learned in high school.

Culturally biased! I swear to Christ, everytime I read that I just want to find one of these asshole critics and have them explain to me just what the fuck they mean by culturally biased. What fucking culture are they talking about? American culture? That's the culture we have here. That is the culture we have always had here. The first generation of immigrants brings their language and culture with them from the old country. We then take parts of their culture and their language and integrate it into our culture and language. The second generation becomes Americans. We are all richer for it. It wasn't until this liberal bullshit of multiculturism was introduced that we started seeing enormous breakdowns in American culture. Now it's OK to not learn English. We'll teach you in your own language. Of course, when you get out of school you won't be able to get a job because you can't speak a fucking word of English. Thanks you fucking liberal dickheads for fucking up another person and making me pay to support him because he has no fucking skills.

How about black inner city culture? Here goes that racist bastard bitching about black folks again. No. What I'm bitching about is an anti-achievement mentality in the inner city that says learning to read and write English and succeeding in school is acting white. So do we want the SAT to be written for this culture?

Question 1: Jamal is planning a driveby shooting and has a ten round magazine. He only has 6 bullets in the magazine. How many more bullets does he need to have a full magazine?

Culturally biased? To succeed in this country you have to learn to live in the predominant culture. I'm sorry, but that's how it works. I'm not going off on black folks. I am going off on their leaders, like John 'spitting' Lewis and the NAA fucking CP who think getting the Confederate flag off the grounds of the statehouse in South Carolina is more important than changing the anti-achievement mentality in the inner city. Getting the state flag of Georgia changed was more important than preventing fourteen year old black girls from having babies. Calling George Bush and John Ashcroft racist Nazis was more important than doing something about the crack epidemic in the inner city.

The most important asset of any country is its people. I rail at people like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Cynthia McKinney because they preach the tired old gospel of hate whitey and the only reason poor black people are not getting ahead is racism, racism, and racism. The only people they are enriching is themselves. I do not like seeing people in poverty. The solution is not throwing money at the problem. We have thrown $5 trillion at poverty since the Great fucking Society and we still have just as much. The solution to poverty is education, a work ethic, and not having children one cannot afford. In America it is as simple as that. That is American culture. If the SAT's are culturally biased they are biased on an un-American culture.

Several factors play into Georgia's low SAT scores.

And these factors are ... bet they have sumpin to do with Diversity (All Hail Diversity!)

The state has a more diverse group of test takers than many other states.

What did I tell ya? But ... but ... I thought Diversity (All Hail Diversity!) was supposed to be a good thing.

North Carolina has a similar population, a similar number of test takers, and higher overall scores. But Georgia has a higher percentage of African-American students taking the test, and they tend to score lower.

And why is that? They're either dumber (I didn't say they were) or there's another reason. Could it perhaps be the anti-achievement mentality of the inner city. Where the fuck is the outrage about this? I'm fucking outraged because we are wasting a whole shitload of people. There are lots of black men in jail because our education system is failing. I'm waiting for the hue and cry from the black community. Oh, right, I forgot. It's racism. It's always fucking racism.

Students generally do better if they come from families in which parents have a college education. Georgia has one of the lowest college attendance rates in the country, according to the Board of Regents.

Yeah, because those parents start reading to their children at an early age. Shameeka can't be reading to her babies when she's on crack. Also, these parents make their children study. They go to parent teacher meetings. Kinda hard to do when stoned on crack or tending to the other five rugrats Shameeka had 'cause she couldn't say no. C'mon NAACP, where the fuck is the leadership?

Georgia's curriculum is also a problem. An independent report earlier this year suggested the state's curriculum is wide but shallow, with teachers expected to cover many subjects but few in depth.

But the students have real high self esteem.

That shows up in Georgia's college-bound seniors. Those who took four years of high school math scored 966 on the SAT, according to the College Board. Nationally, such students scored 1,020.

Probably has sumpin' to do with the student not necessarily having to have the right answer but to feel good about the answer he has.

Henson has a committee working on curriculum revisions, and part of the aim is to eliminate "equivalent" classes. An example is a class considered the equivalent of algebra when the state counts a student's credits, but that isn't algebra.

Equivalent to algebra? What the fuck is that? Who thinks up this shit?

Schrenko says not enough Georgia students take advanced placement tests and course work, which features college-level courses during high school. Barnes wants the 2003 Legislature to increase funding for the program.

It's kinda hard for them to take advanced courses when they can't even pass high school courses. And maybe they oughta think about ending social promotion.

But SAT gains don't come quickly.

Especially when the schools and the teachers suck.

South Carolina School Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum said her state began moving on the SAT four years ago because state leaders, educators and parents wanted to dig the state out of the basement. The state pays for students to take practice SATs and kids get after-school primers on reading and math concepts likely to be on the test.

So they're teaching the test. At least they're teaching sumpin'.

Students also were given an incentive to do well because the state's lottery-based scholarship is based partly on SAT scores. And South Carolina developed an annual tournament in which schools compete in test-taking skills instead of sports.

Stressing academics? What a novel concept.

In addition, Tenenbaum said South Carolina rewrote its curriculum to stress higher academic standards.

Stressing higher academic standards? Another novel concept.

"You have to count on incremental improvement," Tenenbaum said. "There is not going to be a big jump at once. There are no gimmicks."

No gimmicks? Ya mean this is gonna involve work and shit like that? Ya mean teachers are gonna have to start doing their jobs and maybe, just maybe, be held accountable? Nawww. Too much fucking work.

There is another article that contrasts two schools: Walton, the school with the highest SAT scores and Carver the school with the lowest scores. Here is the link. Walton is in an upscale suburb of Atlanta. Carver is in the inner city in an area that is being redeveloped. One excerpt about Walton.

Parents expect excellence, said Judy McNeill, associate principal.

"They're expecting their children will do well," McNeill said. "And if they're not, and we call, we have the parents' support."

And Carver.

Carver has the lowest average SAT score of all public schools in the metro area: 677 out of a possible 1,600. That's a 10-point gain over last year, when the school had the lowest average in Georgia.

A former principal said Carver has deteriorated over the years. It has became a dumping ground for unwanted students, and a school that many students have fled in recent years. Just 42 seniors earned diplomas last year.

Remember, Carver is in the city of Atlanta that spends $13,000.00 per pupil. That is not a typo. That is thirteen fucking thousand dollars per pupil and Atlanta has the worst schools in the entire state.

More on Walton.

At Walton High, administrators, teachers and students talk about the importance of getting better still.

Walton added two advanced placement courses this year, bringing its total to 23.

Debbie McWilliams, who teaches multivariable calculus, has to prepare herself for the 15-student class. "They'll ask the 'why,' " she said. "They won't take it at face value. It's a lot of fun. These kids are eager."

Isn't is amazing that when excellence is expected excellence usually occurs?

Ron Dietel of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing, based in California, said it's unfair to compare schools that serve students from different backgrounds and make judgments about school quality.

"Two-thirds of student achievement is accounted for by the parents' socioeconomic status," Dietel said. "That's true in every research study you conduct. Wealthy, affluent schools almost always have higher performance."

Yeah, Ron, but it has been proven that poor black kids can learn just as well, especially when challenged and removed from the peer pressure that 'acting white' is bad.

The district plans to pour $40 million into remaking Carver into a state-of-the-art school with a strong vocational program. The transformation should coincide with the redevelopment of the Carver Homes public housing project into a mixed-income neighborhood.

Good luck. But unless attitudes change, the students are challenged and the parents get involved we'll be throwing forty million bucks down the drain.

I'm not a racist bigot. I want to see black children succeed. I want to see the black middle class continue to grow. I don't like paying for prisons. I don't like paying for children in poverty because their mothers are irresponsible and continue to have children they cannot afford. One of the cures is education and another cure is attitude change. Come on John Lewis. Come on NAACP. Lead on this issue. White folks are not the problem. Racism is not the problem. The anti-achievement mentality of the inner city is the problem. Fix it.

Let's see if we can make it back to number 49.

Argghhh! My back itches!

Goodbye Cynthia

Omigawd! The election was last week and she lost. Can't you let it go? Do you have to kick her while she's down?

Uh ... Truthfully? Yep!

Almost every day since the election, the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation (which, to its credit did everything it could to prevent Ms McPiggy's re-election) has had articles about why 'the cutest little communist in Congress' lost in the primary. They've also had articles about how Bob Barr, shot himself in the foot (sorry couldn't help that. For those of you who do not live in Atlanta, during a fundraiser at a supporter's house, Bob Barr was handed an antique gun which 'just went off' - gotta watch those guns with minds of their own - and blew out a sliding glass door.) and shot holes (sorry again, I just can't help it) in his chances to beat John Lindner in the primary.

The lamestream media all said it was the crossover Republican vote, not to mention the campaign contributions from, in Bill McKinney's words 'JEWS, J-E-W-S'. Billy McKinney, jihad Cindy's father, just happens to be a racist, anti-Semitic BIGOT, B-I-G-O-T. And isn't it delightful that he is in a runoff for his seat in the Georgia House? Maybe we'll be twice blessed. Anyway, back to the lamestream media. They have been talking about the out of state contributions from Jews and AIPAC, a Jewish PAC. Many of the stories fail to mention that the majority of McKinnney's contributions came from out of state Arabs and Arab organizations. There's still another dark secret that the media does not want us to know, which I'll mention later.

But first, let's have a little history lesson. In 1990, during the last gerrymandering redistricting, the Georgia Democrats wanted to set up three minority (code for black) districts. They succeeded. In the 1992 elections Sanford Bishop, John Lewis and Cynthia McKinney were elected to Congress. Unfortunately for the Democrats, they had done such a good job, that there weren't enough Democrats left over for the other eight districts and in a stroke of delicious irony, the other eight districts elected Republicans.

So fast forward to 2002. In this year's gerrymandering redistricting they did a much better job of marginalizing Republicans. Georgia picked up two more seats and in the gerrymandering redistricting, the Dems think they might have made them Demmo seats. We'll see. In Ms Big Mouth's district, they took some of the poorer black areas out of her district and gave them to John Lewis. They also took the Republican areas of Gwinnett County (where my friend Richard lives - the lucky bastard) and made that part of the new district that John Lindner and Bob Barr fought over. Us poor folks in Beautiful Dunwoody were stuck with jihad Cindy. Stone Mountain was added to her district. Stone Mountain, although black, consists of middle class and upwardly mobile black families.

Let's see what happened in the election. Jesse Jackson endorsed Cynthia. Jesse, your day has passed. You have become a caricature of yourself. Someone get a hook and get him off the stage.

Louis Farrakhan came to town. Now I know that got a lot of Republicans and Jews off their butts in Dunwoody.

Let's pause for a public service here. I present to you the Louis Farrakhan African Name Generator. My new name is Raheem.

Back to the election. In this Sunday's AJC, in yet another article about the election, after first mentioning as an aside that the Supreme Court handed Bush the 2000 election ...

Time out! Time out! Time out! Does anyone remember when the rule was facts on the front page and opinion on the editorial page? Now the rule seems to be keep telling lies and eventually the people will believe it. The Supreme Court did not hand Bush the election. They prevented the Florida Supreme Court, made up entirely of Democrats, from letting Algore steal the election. The Supreme Court told Florida to follow its own fricking laws! If there was to be a recount it had to be in every fricking precinct and not in selected precincts as the DemoRats wanted to. Since there was no time to do this, it wasn't done. And to top it off, all the recounts that the Rats wanted were done after the fact and guess what? Bush still won! I AM SO SICK OF THIS!!!!!

... it said that the reason McPiggy and Barr lost was that they were too extremist. Maybe so. But it turns out that even without the crossover vote, Cindy would have lost!!! She even turned off her base that she pandered to. In South DeKalb, where she was always strong, turnout was low. This in spite of the get out the vote buses to take people to the polls. Her outrageous antics and remarks even turned off the liberal Emoroids (the academics at Emory University). And, this is the telling point: The middle class blacks in Stone Mountain went for Majette. These are the people actually living the American dream.

At TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name) the black people I work with are hard working, intelligent, educated and articulate. They, as I do, realize that there is still racism in this country. They also realize that the practitioners of racism are usually dumb yahoos and are irrelevant. My black co-workers, may have got into the door via affirmative action, but they have stayed employed through hard work and dedication. Over the last few years, TCIDNN has had many workforce reductions (layoffs), workforce redeployments (layoffs), and (the current term) skill rebalancings (layoffs). Unlike in the 80's, now the people get cut without regard to race, gender, or sexual orientation. If ya don't do the job, outcha go. Here's your cardboard box. Knock, Knock. Who's there? Not you anymore.

So here's what the lamestream media won't say. To more and more black people, the Cynthia McKinneys, the Al Sharptons, and the Jesse Jacksons no longer speak for them. They don't need government. They're probably starting to feel, as I do, that they pay too much in taxes. These are the people who voted for Denise Majette. And that is what the liberal press does not want us to know. The black middle class is becoming more conservative. Maybe they're not ready to vote Republican, but they may be able to pull the Democratic Party more to the center. McPiggy was too far to the left and she was just too fricking loony!

I'm sure that Denise Majette is still too liberal for me and I will probably vote against her in the general election, but I don't expect her to blame all the problems in this country on white folks. She has promised to represent all the people in her district and I'm willing to believe her.

And now, if Cynthia McKinney will keep her big fat mouth shut until her term expires I will write no more about her.

Fat chance!

Denny's Amazing Dive Weekend

Warning! Warning! Warning! This is an honest to God weblog today. No ranting. No raving. Just a chronicle of my weekend.

This was the big event. My checkout dive. We had to go to a quarry in Alabama. So, I got up early Saturday morning and drove to the quarry in Alabama. It was 130 miles from my home. Got there half an hour early as did just about everyone else. This place was out in the middle of nowhere, but was evidently a popular spot for diving and snorkeling.

To get to the dock, I had to step up on a walkway. Got the first foot up, positioned my crutches and ... Bam! I fell. This isn't good. So I tried again with assistance (a helpful push from behind) and made it.

Got to the dock and unpacked my gear. Got everything ready: my exposure suit on, tank in the BCD (buoyancy control device), regulator in tank, inflator in BCD, air on, second stages checked, weight belt on, BCD on, and mask defogged. Let's go.

Into the water go our jolly band of five students and two instructors. First we work on buoyancy. Some of us descend too fast, others, after descending, got too positive and start to shoot for the surface. Oops. I have my own problems, but as the dive progresses my buoyancy control improves.

We arrive at an underwater platform, and practice mask clears and regulator purges. Also, more buoyancy practice. We have to stay on the platform. To make it a little bit harder, the platform has some gunk on it and slopes slightly, which means students slide.

After mask clears and regulator purges, we swim around the quarry for awhile. More buoyancy practice. Then, it's back to the dock. Dive one is done. Since we didn't go very deep, we didn't use much air, and we can use the same tank for dive two.

Here is where I make my first mistake of the day. ( Falling doesn't count. That's part of my life. Every step is an adventure. ) I take off my exposure suit. I wanted to go get my backpack where I had a couple of bottles of water. So, I took off my suit, put on my braces, and got ready to fetch my water. At that time, Ned, another student, asked if he could bring me anything. Sure, my backpack. He brought it. I sat in the sun and drank my water.

Before suiting up for the second dive, I noticed my shins were pink. Paraplegics have bad circulation below the level of injury, and we can sunburn faster. And, since I have no sensation in my shins, I didn't feel it. At least it was pink and not red. My shoulders and nose were slightly burnt also. Not unusual. My nose always burns. Anyway, time to get back in the water.

Back in the water. We practice ascents and buoyancy control. Off to another underwater platform. We swim past a sunken boat and a sunken car. This is Alabama after all. Now, we take off our masks completely, put them back on, and clear them. No problem. I was certified over twenty years ago so I'm used to taking the mask on and off underwater. Then we practice out of air. One diver signals out of air to his buddy who gives him his spare second stage (spare second stages were not required twenty years ago) and the two of them slowly ascend to the surface. After this we swim around more and go below the thermocline. Brrrr! It's cold down there. We swim back to the dock take the gear off and we're done. Getting me up on the dock is fun. Graham, one of the instructors, gets behind me and pushes me up the ladder and on to the dock, where I flop like a seal and bounce the rest of the way. I try to make seal sounds. Bark! Bark!

Get all the gear off, get my braces on, and head for the adventure of getting from the dock to the gravel walkway. Able to step off without falling. Success! Get up to my car and get ready to head back to Beautiful Dunwoody.

As I leave the quarry, I try to retrace my route back home. I screw up immediately by turning left instead of right. When that road runs out, I make another left and go to the end of that road and realize ... I'm lost. Omigawd! I'm lost in Alabama!

Wait a minute. I'm in Foggy Bottom (real name). I can ask one of the locals for directions. Foggy Bottom consists of one old style gas station with a small store. Think the 1950's version of Quick Trip. I get out of the car to walk inside and about that time someone walks out.

Me: Excuse me, could you tell me how to get to I-20?

Him:(Scratching head) I-20?

Me: How about 431?

A little interlude here for the requisite Alabama joke. The toothbrush was invented in Alabama. How do I know? If it had been invented anywhere else, it would have been called the teethbrush. (Rimshot) This next part is true. In Alabama they have dentists with one day false teeth services. I saw a sign offering this in Birmingham. This man, who was very nice by the way, had terrible teeth.

Him: To get to 431, you go back down that road until you come to a lttle bridge. Turn right on that road which will take you over the mountain, and that will run right into 431.

Me: Cool. Thanks.

Him: Oh, one more thing. You'll see a topped out tree right before the bridge.

Me: Thank you sir.

By the way. Real southerners (I'm from Missouri so I don't count) are usually very polite, so when I'm around 'em I try to be too. It's only booger eatin' moh-rons that I'm rude to.

Back down the road I go and looked for the topped out tree. Didn't see it and while looking, I cross the little bridge (and was it little) and missed the turn. Go another half mile and think, was that a little bridge I crossed? Didn't look like much of a bridge, Sho' nuff. It was. Go back to little bridge, turn on the road, and go over the mountain (wasn't much of a mountain either) and get to 431 and drive back to Atlanta. The trip was uneventful. Was tired. Went to bed early.

Get up early Sunday morning and drive back to Alabama. Ned, one of the divers, carried my stuff down for me. Ned, by the way, is from Bosnia, as is his wife. She's already certified and was there yesterday to refresh her skills. They're gonna go on a cruise in October and want to dive. She stayed home today.

Gear up. Graham wants me to put on my BCD in the water. Also, I discovered I can do a frog kick, so I brought my old fins with me today. Bert didn't laugh at them like he has at all my other old equipment. Into the water. Everything on. Let's rock! Today, Bert, the main instructor, wants us to try underwater compass navigation. I'm buddied up with Ned and Graham is right behind us like a shepherd herding his flock. Courtney and the other student (I never got his name) are on their own. We arrive at the dock and see bubbles about 20 yards away. Ooops! They missed. Graham, like a good border collie, goes over and herds them back to us.

Down on the platform we do more remove mask and put back on drills. We also go a little deeper today. It's cold below the thermocline. We come back up and do some controlled ascents. Careful, don't come up too fast. Look up.

We surface and then we do the tired diver tow. The qualification distance is 25 yards. I did it in the pool, just barely. Today we go from one dock to another and I get to tow Graham. Remember, I can only use my arms. I can't do a frog kick when I'm in an almost vertical position. I make it! That's more than 25 yards. It's somewhere between 50 and 75 yards. By now, I'm a very tired diver. Graham tows me back to the dock and we get out. One more dive to go.

Today, I only take the top of my suit off, put on a T-shirt, and put on a hat. I hate hats. I never wear a hat. I wore one today. My hair is not as thick as it used to be. Plus I want to protect my face. Drink lots of water.

Last dive of the day. The final exam. Off we go with some more underwater compass navigation. We all make it. Then we swim around some more. Look there's a truck. I mean a big truck. A big ol' truck trailer sunk in this quarry in Alabama. We find another platform and practice buddy breathing. Ned and I both live. Then we get to do controlled emergency ascents. You're out of air, but still don't ascend too fast. And exhale. If ya don't, your lungs will explode. We all make it with lungs intact. Then, we swim underwater back to the dock. We're all certified!

Even though Bert is giving me an open water certification (I passed all the skills), he's also certifying me HSA-B, which means I should dive with two other buddies. I'm on an honor system.

Get the car all packed up and I'm on my way. I make it to Anniston Alabama and my check engine light comes on. This can't be a good thing. I look at the temperature gauge and It's pegged. This can't be a good thing either. Better pull over to the side of the road, which I do and then Pow! and water spray on my windshield and steam coming from under the hood. I know this really can't be a good thing.

Pop the hood and get out of the car. Look under the hood. Hose from radiator hanging loose. This is really not a good thing. I have two cell phones. One from TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name) and one for myself. For some reason, I have neither with me. I'm right in front of the Seven Seas Super Buffet (all you an eat for $5.95), which is obviously a Chinese restaurant. I'm just getting ready to go in and call AAA, when a nice lady stops and lets me use her cell phone. (I love living in the South!) I call AAA. I could write an entire blog about that conversation. Basically I tell her I'm about one mile north of exit 185 off of I-20, on 431 heading south. It's a gray 1992 BMW 325is. Repeat. Repeat. Yes, on highway 431 heading south. Yes, one mile north of I-20, exit 185. Yes gray BMW. Repeat. Repeat. Even then, they usually get it wrong. Listen. Just look for the bloody Seven Seas Super Buffet (all you can eat for $5.95). The parking lot is packed on a Sunday afternoon. Everyone in Anniston should know where that is.

About this time, Bert and Graham come along. They look under the hood and think they may be able to fix the problem. I don't think so. We look and see that it's the radiator outlet and too much has broken off. I realize, it's either have the car towed to Atlanta or to Birmingham. I have a good BMW mechanic in Atlanta, so I've decided I'll just do that.

The AAA person said she'd try to expedite and have the tow truck there in less than an hour. Sho' nuff, in about 35 minutes the tow truck shows up and I tell the driver we need to go to Atlanta.

Him: Alanner?

Me: Atlanta

Him: All the way ta Alanner is gonna cost ya a bit.

Me: (biting the bullet)Yep. But I don't really have a choice unless ya know someone who can replace a BMW radiator on a Sunday afternoon in Anniston Alabama

Him: Don't reckon ah know no one who ken do that.

So Leon gets the car on his truck and off we go to Alanner. I know his name is Leon because it's written on his shirt. Leon is missing half of his teeth. This is Alabama after all. We start a conversation and since the truck is loud there are a lot of 'do what's. For those of you who do not speak Southern, when someone doesn't hear you he usually says either 'say what' or 'do what'.

Turns out Leon is a retired over the road truck driver. He started work at eighteen and worked driving big rigs for forty years. For the last four years he's been a tow truck driver. He told me some neat stories about his forty years on the road. He drove rigs to every one of the contiguous 48 states. By the time we got to Alanner, I was calling it Alanna. Couldn't quite lose that last a.

About now you're probably saying, 'You elitist butthead. How dare you make fun of these Alabama good ol' boys.' This is the way it works. Everyone in Georgia makes fun of Alabama. Alabama probably makes fun of Mississippi and Mississippi probably makes fun of Arkansas. Anyway, I wasn't gonna do any politics, but here goes.

I like Leon. Remember the map of the 2000 election? Ya know, the blue and the red? Leon is one of the people in the red. He worked hard for forty years. He's 62 years old and is still working. He is one of the people who has made this country great. He lives in a small town called Cold Water. I'll bet he doesn't have to lock the doors in his house. He grew up on a farm and helped his 'daddy' on the farm until he was eighteen and then got a job as a truck driver. He's hard working, honest, and never took a dime of gummint aid. We need a lot more Leons in this country.

There are lots of Leons in Georgia. Right now whole big bunches of young Leons are enlisting in the Army to fight our war against terror. During Desert Storm, a lot of Leons joined up to serve our country in the military. I met a lot of Leons when I was in the Navy in the late '60's. Leons are very patriotic. They are also very polite with lots of yessirs and yes'ms. Their mommas and daddies slapped the shit out of 'em if they smarted off and back then no one called the cops for child abuse when people were disciplining their children. As a result, children were better behaved. I even met some Leons from Missouri. They were all country boys. I always liked to be around Leons. I still do. What you see is what you get. It's a shame Bill Clinton wasn't a Leon. But then he wouldn't have become President.

Back to the story. We make it to Alanner. He unloads the car at GOC Central in Beautiful Dunwoody. I pay him $278. I thank him. He thanks me. I shake his hand and thank him for the nice stories and he leaves. I feel poorer for the $278 (it's only money), but richer for having met this hardworking son of the South. My friend Wahoo (don't ask...that's another blog) who's from South Carolina and my brother-in-law, also from South Carolina probably have met lots of Leons in their lives. They grew up with 'em and went to school with 'em. Wahoo is still somewhat of a Leon himself. He and Leon would probably go out together for a few beers and swap stories.

So now I'm stuck. I started out this blog with my amazing dive weekend and how nice it is to be certified and I ended up talking about an Alabama redneck. How do I end my tale? I don't have a good ending line like I usually do (or at least try to). How about (if this isn't too sappy) this?

This country will stay great as long as we have Leons.

No blog

I was gonna do a blog on the wonderful weekend of my diving open water checkout, including some info about Foggy Bottom Alabama, but, some events occured on the way back from Alabama today that got me home a little late, so Denny's Amazing Dive Weekend is postponed until tomorrow. As a bonus, you get to learn about Leon the tow truck driver.

See ya.

Beat

I was gonna do a recap on the election (Goodbye Cynthia!) and explain that it wasn't just the Republican crossover that did her in, but, I had to actually do some grunt work today. We're doing some reconfiguration on the floor and I had to help relocate some fiber optic cables. All right, I was only moving them from one switch to another and the switches were only two feet apart, but I had to get down on the floor to do it. Had to pull up two floor tiles. Anyone who has worked in a raised floor computer lab knows what I'm talking about. And, if they've been around long enough, they remember pulling big ol' gray bus and tag cables. Not those sissy blue cables they came out with later, but the big ol' gray ones. Back when men were men and computers drank water.

Anyway, I didn't actually pull any fiber. I suckered another guy into helping me. Go help that poor old cripple. Look at him sitting on the floor. All I did was plug in the cables when he handed them to me. But, it's more work than I've done in a while, so I'm beat.

Then I had to activate the new configuration and make sure all the I/O devices came up OK and were accessable from all the systems. Everything worked. Look. No one's looking. It's Friday. Time to sneak out early. Entered all my numbers into SHTS (Stupid Hourly Tracking System) before lunch so I had nothin' keepin' me there.

Went out to the parking lot and looked around very carefully. Had to make sure there wasn't some stupid socialist bastard waiting for me with a gun. (See yeterday's blog) I wasn't worried about myself. I was afraid the stupid putzhead would shoot himself by mistake and I'd have to wait around for the ambulance and I still had stuff to do.

Went by the dive shop and took my final exam. I passed. Had to fill out a bunch of paperwork. Had my picture taken. Tomorrow, I get to drive to Alabama for a checkout dive. Doing two dives tomorrow. I'm doing two more on Sunday. Then, when I go to Roatan next month, I won't have to mess with checkout dives and can just dive for fun.

So this is all for tonight. Got to get up early tomorrow. May write sumpin' Sunday night.

Glug. Glug.

Hyperbole

Dammit! What the heck do I have to do to get hate mail? Rachel gets hate mail and she's a lot nicer that I am. Cuter too. It's not like I haven't tried. I know I've offended a bunch of people. I know some people hate what I write, 'cause I've checked my ratings. There are some Hate its. Golly, now I've even got someone who wants to shoot me. He calls it a modest proposal

To take everybody who mistakes common politeness for "political correctness", everybody who actually uses "political correctness" without any trace of irony and especially anybody who is proud to call themselves "politically incorrect" and thinks this is a brave thing to do outside to the nearest wall and shoot them.

Now this guy, on his site, right under his picture, has the phrase Screw you Eric, this is a gun free zone. Talk about irony. How's he gonna take me outside and shoot me? Where's he gonna get the gun? And we have another problem. I don't know how long I can stand up against the wall, being crippled and all. Maybe he can hold me up while the shootin's bein' done.

I thought liberals were against capital punishment. I thought liberals only wanted to kill babies. Don't worry. I'm not talking about abortion. You're not gonna get me into that discussion. I'm talking about infanticide. That's where they see how many angels can dance on the head of a pin by delivering just enough of a live healthy baby so they can collapse his head and suck out the brains and call it 'partial birth' abortion. Sorry bucko, that's infanticide.

It's funny how conservatives are supposed to be so mean spirited but so much hate speech comes spewing from the left. I mean here's a guy who thinks that someone like me, exercising his First Amendment rights and refusing to buckle under the tyranny of stupid political fucking correctness (sorry, have to save my keyboard) should be taken outside to the nearest wall and shot. Tell me who's the fascist here. I guess I should be flattered that an anti-gun nut wants give up his hatred of guns long enough to have me shot. If I've pissed off at least one bedwetting, anti-gun nut liberal, I've done my job for the day.

How about another example. That noted (sarcasm) compassionate (/sarcasm) liberal, Julianne Malveaux, a truly odious person, said of Clarence Thomas "I hope [Thomas’s] wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter, and he dies early, like many black men do, of heart disease. . ." Aren't liberals supposed to be against hate speech? Oh, that's all right as long as they get to judge what constitutes hate speech. Hoping someone dies of heart disease or is taken outside and propped up against a wall and shot is OK if a liberal says it.

And how about that towering intellect of the left, Alec Baldwin? On the Late Night with Conan O'Brien show, during the Clinton Impeachment, Alec Baldwin said We should go to Washington and stone Henry Hyde to death. And then we should go to his house and kill his family. He said it was meant to be humorous. Remember that the next time a liberal bitches about some conservative hate speech. It was meant to be humorous. HaHaHa! Cut it out Alec! You're killin' me. No, Alec, it's a figure of speech. At least Alec didn't want to use a gun. Unlike whassisface who wants to take me out and have me shot for exercising my First Amendment rights.

And how about Charles Barron? Here's another example of leftist humor. And who says liberals don't have a sense of humor?

New York City Councilman Charles Barron said Sunday that he was using "black hyperbole" when he told a Washington, D.C., crowd gathered yesterday to demonstrate for slavery reparations that he wanted to slap white people who didn't sympathize with the cause.

I guess I'd rather be slapped than shot.

"I want to go up to the closest white person and say 'You can't understand this, it's a black thing' and then slap him, just for my mental health," Barron announced as 2,000 to 3,000 reparations supporters looked on.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

As the New York official uttered his incendiary remarks, vendors from the New Black Panther Party, which provided security for the event, hawked T-Shirts that read "Kill Whitey"

You don't understand, they were just joking. Another example of 'black hyperbole'.

and "How did we get to America? Heartless Christian Buyer, Ruthless Jewish seller," the Washington Times reported.

Yeah, but who sold the slaves to the Christian buyers? How 'bout their black brothers on the African coast. Sorry guys, Roots was good TV but bad history. Whites never went inland. They didn't have to. And I don't think the Jews were in the slave trade. Your friends the Arabs were and they still are today.

Asked about his explosive slap-the-nearest-white-person comment, Barron told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg he was only joking, before the interview turned contentious.

Love a black guy with a sense of humor. Like Billy McKinney. 'It's the Jews. J-E-W-S'

The exchange went like this:

MALZBERG: How long have you wanted to slap white people?

Have you had this condition long? Is it contagious? Do you still beat your wife?

BARRON: Well, let me say this to you. It's interesting that they would take that out of my speech.

Since you were talkin' about slappin' white folks we wanted to know more about it.

I think everybody knew there that was what we call improvision - oratorial improvision and black hyperbole.

Some of us call that hate speech. But let's see if Charlie can dig himself deeper.

And y'all wouldn't understand that 'cause you're uptight and you're gonna take it where it was not intended.

But it's not all right for me to say 'Boy it's hot today!" and not even be talking to you and hear 'Don't call me boy!' and I'm a racist honkie motherfucker? Or someone voices a complaint about a niggardly budget and y'all run off and scream racism when niggardly has nothing to do with the 'n' word. (Look, I was politically correct and didn't say the actual word. Does that mean I won't be shot?) Which one of us is uptight?

Everybody at the rally laughed. White stage hands and camera people laughed.

Maybe they were laughing at you and not with you. Or maybe they were afraid that they'd get slapped if they didn't laugh.

When I came off the stage, I shook hands with whites who were there and they congratulated me on a great speech.

On a great hate speech. And, please don't slap me.

No one has taken that serious but you.

Wait a minute! I took it serious. That's two. My sister took it serious. That's three. My friends Michael and Cindy took it serious. That's four and five. I'll bet many of my readers took it serious. Should I forward the e-mail to you Charlie? What's your address? Now it gets good.

MALZBERG: Well, I'm taking it serious because it's presented as serious in the wire story. What in the world is black ...

BARRON: It's not serious. That's not serious. It's black hyperbole. Let's talk about reparations.

MALZBERG: Wait, wait, wait. If you'll be quiet for a second, I'm gonna ask you the question, what in the world is black hyperbole?

Let me interrupt here. Black hyperbole is an euphemism for hate speech.

BARRON: You don't know what a hyperbole is?

hyperbole, n. (fr. Greek, prop., an overshooting, excess, deriv. of hyper over + ballein to throw) Rhet. Extravagant exaggeration of statement; a statement exaggerated fancifully; as for effect

black hyperbole,n. hate speech

MALZBERG: Yeah, I do ...

BARRON: Let me break it down for you ...

MALZBERG: N-n-n-n-n-no, I do but you just ...

BARRON: Let me break down the parts of speech for you.

MALZBERG: You yourself - no, no, no, hold on. Now you're on hold because now you're insulting. Put him on hold because I want to - you said, "You won't understand this because you're white and uptight and blah, blah, blah but black hyperbole." So, yes, I know what hyperbole is. My question to you was: What is - what you said I wouldn't understand because I'm white - black hyperbole?

BARRON: It's a sense of humor. And we take things - we identify humor, they're gross exaggerations. That's a hyperbole. And it's a sense of humor that we have politically that our folk will understand and some other folk will get uptight and take it very seriously.

Like 'kill whitey' and 'death to the bloodsucking Jews'. It's not hate speech. It's black hyperbole. Hey, maybe what Julianne Malveaux said about Clarence Thomas was just black hyperbole. Now I understand. How come they never explained this shit to us white folks before? They jes' be funnin' wit' us.

MALZBERG: So if I made a joke before a white audience that I wanted to - just for my mental health - slap a black person, then I could always claim that that was white hyperbole.

Sounds like a good question to me.

BARRON: No. Because that's not how white people joke around.

How do you know? Have you been to the secret white folks meetings where we discuss this shit?

You're just trying to make a hypothetical to turn this into something it's not.

No, we're just trying to get you to admit that this was hate speech and quit throwing this bogus black hyperbole bullshit at us. If a white person were to say, I'm so sick of this stupid reparations bullshit that I just want to slap the next black person I see, the howls from the black community would be deafening. I wouldn't want to be between Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton and a TV camera. You wouldn't have to shoot me. I'd be trampled to death. And that reminds me. I'm due for another Bitch Slap column and you, Charlie, are gonna be in it. Back to the interview.

MALZBERG: Oh, so black people ...

BARRON: Let's talk about reparations.

MALZBERG: I will. Black people joke around by talking about ...

BARRON: Let's talk about reparations ...

MALZBERG: Wait a minute. Don't tell ...

BARRON: You could put me on hold again if you'd like.

MALZBERG: So you're just going to ...

BARRON: 'Cause I'm not entertaining no more of you wasting my time on black hyperbole you just don't get.

Yeah we white folks sure are dumb. No wonder we don't understand this reparations bullshit.

MALZBERG: Alright. Goodbye, city councilman. Thank you very much. I'm not going to be treated rudely and badgered on my show. (End of Excerpt)

So I think I got all this figgered out now. If a liberal like Alec Baldwin says we should stone an elected official for trying to uphold the Constitution, that must be liberal hyperbole. And the dude who wants to take me outside and have me shot must be using liberal hyperbole also.

I sure as hell hope so.

Hey dude! Have you met my friend Flip? He's a bird.

That's an example of Grouchy Old Cripple hyperbole.

I Wuz Wrong

What a great way to start the day! Cynthia McKinney is out! And, with what may be a twofer, her bigoted anti-Semitic daddy, is in a runoff in his reelection bid. Monday night, He was on TV and said sumpin' to the effect, that the reason the election was so close was due to 'Jews, J-E-W-S'. Nice to know Billy can spell.

I voted yesterday morning on the way in to work. The polling place is only about 1/2 mile from my house, and, it is right on the way to work. Didn't even have to make a special detour. And, in a related piece of symbolism, the polling place is a Jewish synagogue. Delicious. I walked in and went to the Democrat table and started filling out my paperwork and noticed that there were considerably more people getting Democrat ballots than Republican. I remarked to the lady sitting next to me, 'Didn't realize there were this many Democrats in Dunwoody.' She replied, 'From your lips to God's ears.'

So, now people are probably wondering what I'll find to write about. When in doubt, I could always write about Cynthia McKinney or fisk a Molly Ivin's column. Barrel. Fish. Gun. Done. Not to worry. There's still plenty to write about. Like today, I'm actually gonna admit I was wrong (at least partially) about sumpin'.

Last Saturday, I ate dinner with my friends Michael and Cindy. We usually wind up discussing politics and they have a nefarious plot to win arguments:

• Get me drunk.
• Gang up on me.

They also have an additional advantage, that since they are married, they get considerably more opportunities to practice arguing.

Whenever we get together for dinner, we always wind up drinking three bottles of wine. After that, Michael and I usually have some Grappa (Italian white lightning). Before attacking me, they usually wait until we're almost done with bottle number two. Saturday followed the same game plan.

But before I discuss that, let me tell you another strange thing that always seems to happen when I eat at their house. We usually start with a white wine or champagne with an appetizer, commonly smoked salmon. Then, we have another bottle of wine with the dinner, and finish off with a red wine with cheese. We usually eat the cheese in the den and watch television. This is where the weirdness sets in. Everytime I'm at their house on a Saturday, we stumble upon something beyond the fringe on television. I wrote about one of the programs we watched back on June 24. Sorry, links before July don't work, so you'll have to page down to June 24. It was about transvestites and transgenders. I wonder if Aaron saw it. What was weird, is one of the cross dressers works for TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name). I looked him up in our company directory, but couldn't find him. Must not have been his real name. He did give out some invaluable tips for men in drag. e.g. Pluck your eyebrows. Much easier to paint eyebrows on. I filed that away for future use.

On this particular evening we stumbled on to the Anna Nicole Smith show which is a direct ripoff of the Osbournes. Don't television executives believe in originality? Monkey see. Monkey do. I've only watched about five minutes of the Osbournes and I don't see what the big deal is. Of course, I don't see the appeal of Jerry Springer and the rest of the shows that show us dysfunctional members of the human race. Do people watch this stuff so they can feel superior? Don't know.

We wound up watching the whole show. We could not take our eyes off the spectacle of this overweight bimbo (who was once a Playboy Plamate of the Year) making a fool of herself. Cindy would say 'This is brutal'. And I would respond, 'And yet we continue to watch'. And then they blamed it all on me because we always stumble onto this bullshit while I'm there. I bet they secretly watch programs like this all the time and then when I'm there, blame it on me. At least the program on transgenders and transvestites was funny. Funny? It was hilarious! The Anna Nicole Smith show was just sad. Incredibly sad.

But back to where they ganged up on me.

A few months back I wrote a piece called Tax the Stupid! where I stated that I was for cigarette taxes, alcohol taxes, drug taxes (legalize and tax), and the lottery. My argument went along the lines that since all these activities were purely voluntary, the taxes were voluntary.

About this time, they decided to cheat. They used logic on me. They pointed out that since I was a Libertarian, I should be against all taxes. Well, um, uh, well Libertarians agree that there are some functions government should provide and these functions require money, so there has to be some form of taxation. For example, the federal government should provide for a strong military (the best in the world) and should provide for secure borders (not doing a very good job there). I am also a strong believer in the Interstate Highway system. A lot of the stuff the feds try to do could be done much better at the state or local level. Education comes to mind. So it now comes to a discussion of exactly what government at all levels should do and how we should pay for it.

That usually gets us going on the bit from The Life of Brian:

• REG: Yeah. All right, Stan. Don't labour the point. And what have they ever given us in return?!
• XERXES: The aquaduct?
• REG: What?
• XERXES: The aquaduct
• REG: Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that. Uh, that's true. Yeah.
• COMMANDO #3: And the sanitation.
• LORETTA: Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like?
• REG: Yeah. All right. I'll grant you the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done.
• MATTHIAS: And the roads.
• REG: Well, yeah. Obviously the roads. I mean, the roads go without saying, don't they? But part from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads--
• COMMANDO: Irrigation.
• XERXES: Medicine.
• COMMANDOS: Huh? Heh? Huh...
• COMMANDO #2: Education.
• COMMANDOS: Ohh...
• REG: Yeah, yeah. All right. Fair enough.
• COMMANDO #1: And the wine.
• COMMANDOS: Oh, yes. Yeah...
• FRANCIS: Yeah. Yeah, that's something we'd really miss, Reg, if the Romans left. Huh.
• COMMANDO: Public baths.
• LORETTA: And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now, Reg.
• FRANCIS: Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let's face it. They're the only ones who could in a place like this.
• COMMANDOS: Heh, heh. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh.
• REG: All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
• XERXES: Brought peace.
• REG: Oh. Peace? Shut up!

So now what they throw at me, is my real estate tax is a voluntary tax. I don't have to buy a house. I could rent. And, I'll have to admit, they do have a point. But, on the other hand, the government encourages me to buy a house by allowing me to deduct my mortgage interest and my real estate taxes. I'm still not convinced by their arguments.

But what has changed my mind somewhat on cigarette taxes is an argument made by my Companion Grouch, Kim Dutoit. I'm not against taxing cigarettes per se. I still think it's an excellent idea for the poor to pay some of the freight. I firmly believe that most poor people are that way because of lousy decisions like dropping out of school or having children they cannot afford. Another stupid decision is choosing to smoke when it says right on the pack that it's bad for ya. So, I don't mind the tax itself, only the amount of the tax. As Kim points out, in some areas the tax is now so large, that there is a black market for cheap cigarettes. Organized crime can now muscle in on the market of a perfectly legal substance. And once organized crime gets in, we start having turf wars and people get killed. What's next? Outlawing cigarettes?

Whatcha in for?

Smoking.

Smoking?

Smoking.

Bwhahahahahahaha!

I don't think government should be in the business of legislating morality. See, I'm back on firm Libertarian ground. I don't think crackheads are crooks. I think they're sick. They don't belong in prison, they belong in treatment centers. And if they can't stay clean, keep 'em locked up in treatment centers. Don't put 'em in prison with mother stabbers and father rapers (with apologies to Arlo Guthrie). Legalize pot and tax it. But not too much. Pot smokers don't belong in prisons or treatment centers. But keep 'em away from all you can eat places. Pot isn't even addictive, unlike cigarettes.

So, I admit I'm wrong. I'm not wrong about taxing cigarettes. Go ahead and do it 'cause it's a tax on the stupid. And, yes, I once smoked but quit because I couldn't breathe. I was stupid. I wised up. But don't tax the product so much that you create a class of criminals who don't want to pay the high taxes and will find a cheaper source.

Let the poor smokers puff in peace.

Just keep 'em away from me.

Reading Assignment

I've got company comin' over tonight for dinner. Afterwards, we're gonna break out guitars and see just how bad we (I) can sound. He's in a band. I should be banned. He plays soft rock. I play mostly accoustic stuff. I do have a Fender Strat that I haven't played in years, so we'll string him up and see how it sounds.

In the meantime, I have a reading assignment. Tomorrow, I'll actually admit I was wrong about sumpin'. See you then

Un-fucking-believable

Brian, I'm sorry. Sherry, I'm sorry. Rachel, you're right: lotsa cussin'. Lotsa adult language tonight. And to comment on a 180, Aaron slammed me (altho', not very well) without making any references to my ancestry and without using any profanity. The South Park reference was kinda cute. I will comment on his site and congratulate him for that.

We had a Sommelier Guild tasting tonight. The wines were not all that good. We were tasting wines made from the same grapes from different regions. The four grapes were riesling, pinot gris, chardonnay, and pinot noir. Three white grapes. One red grape. I don't think too much of white wines. Serve 'em cold enough and who cares. The best wine was the 1999 Girardin Pommard. For the uninitiated, that is a pinot noir from Burgundy. Nice wine. $22 a bottle.

My friend Michael asked me if I had heard the latest Cynthia McKinney ad. Nope. She said that Andrew Young endorsed her. Almost true. He did two years ago.

After the tasting I'm driving home and listening to the radio. Royal Marshall, Neal Boortz' (morning talk show host) engineer has a talk show from 9 to 11 at night on WSB, the major Atlanta talk radio station. Lest you think that Royal is a tool of the white man, Neal has a policy that Royal can turn on his microphone and disagree with Neal anytime he feels like it, and he does. Royal has issued an open invitation to both Denise Majette and Cynthia Mckinney to come on his show. Denise accepted. Cynthia did not.

On his show tonight, Royal played a recorded telephone message that was being sent to voters in the 4th Congressional district. The gist of the message was it is illegal to be a Republican and vote in the Democratic primary without proper documentation. What the fuck does that mean?

I got home and looked at the answering machine and saw that there were two messages. Message 1: 'Hi. I'm Robert Redford. In case you hadn't noticed I'm over the hill'. OK I made that last part up, but does anyone really give a fuck what Robert Redford, Alec Baldwin, Rob 'Meathead' Reiner, Susan Sarandon, and the rest of the empty headed Hollywood airheads think about anything? 'Cynthia McKinney really cares about the environment.' Yeah. I'll just fucking bet she does. The only environment she cares about is the congressional environment and she wants to be in it. Thanks Bob. But you're just peddling bullshit and I ain't fucking buying it.

Message 2: 'Attention Republican voters in the 4th Congressional district. (I am not making this up.) It is illegal to vote in the Democratic primary without proper documentation. (What?) There will be election officials on site to check documentation and enforce the law ... yada ... yada ... yada ... blah ... blah ... blah'. I cannot believe what the fuck I am hearing. Is the election this close? Is this an act of desperation? Be still my beating heart.

Dudes. Check any documentation you want. Georgia is an open primary state. I can vote as either a Republican or a Democrat. Tomorrow, I will be a (shudder) Democrat.

No blog tomorrow. I have a friend in town and he's coming over for dinner and then we're breaking out the guitars and jammin' until my fingers get sore, which might be early since I haven't been playing as much as I should. I will post a link to a previous blog for study purposes and we will discuss it and I will actually admit I was wrong about sumpin'. Tune in. This doesn't happen too often.

See ya then.

Stuff from the AJC

I'm posting today because we are having a Sommelier Guild of Atlanta function tomorrow night.

What's the Sommelier Guild of Atlanta?

It's a bunch of people in Atlanta who get together once a month for wine tasting. We meet at a restaurant and have a dinner or something light with each flight. Some of the members are in the wine business, like my friend Michael, who is the wine buyer for Greens Beverages (shameless plug) in Atlanta. If any Atlanta bloggers want to get good wine advice, go to the Greens on Buford Highway and ask for Michael Bishop and tell him the cripple sent ya. Trust me, he knows his wine and will do right by ya. I get no compensation for this plug.

OK, what do I want to talk about today? Howza 'bout reparations for slavery and Cynthia McKinney?

I opened up the Saturday Atlanta Urinal and Constipation yesterday morning and I came across this article. For a change, I'm only going to comment on a few things in this article because most of it is bullshit and not worth the time to dignify it by repeating it.

The previous sentence was an inside joke and is understood by anyone who caught a spokeswoman for the Millions (?) For Reparations March on C-Span yesterday. Any time a caller asked a question about why, say, immigrants who came here after slavery^TM should have to pay for reparations, she responded 'I'm not going to dignify that question with an answer. Now that's a debating tactic I never thought of.

GOC, why do you think we oughta abolish the income tax?

Because it is too cumbersome, has too many regulations, and ... Oops, I forgot. I won't dignify that question with an answer.

"This rally is part of an overall strategy to obtain reparations for the black family in America," said (Ron) Parker, 49, a member of the non-profit Institute of the Black World, 21st Century. "We want to bring attention to all the vestiges of slavery in this country and then set up a foundation for alleviating all the problems."

Believe me Ron, we won't forget about slavery^TM because you won't let us! Look, slavery^TM ended almost 140 years ago. Don't you think it's about time you quit whining about it? Hey, in your words during all the Clinton scandals, 'That's old news. Can't we just move on?' I agree, Can't we just move the fuck on? (Sorry, I woulda done the starts with f, but that's an old joke and it's time to just move on) Jesus H. Christ, you'd think you guys have the freaking franchise on slavery^TM. And I got some news for you whining bastards, we've already paid reparations in spades (no pun intended). How many people died in the Civil war to free your whining sorry asses?

On my mother's side of the family, my great-great-grandfather, Charles Gruner, moved here from Germany in 1850. He joined the Union Army in 1860 and fought in the Civil War. There's some of your reparations. On my father's side of the family, my great-great-grandfather William Wilson, and my great-grandfather John Alexander Wilson, and his brother, all fought for the Union Army. (I hope I got this right. If not my sister will be all over me.) So there's some more of your reparations.

Since the advent of the Great fucking Society in the 60's we have poured over 5 trillion dollars down the black hole of poverty programs that haven't worked. I know there are more white people than black people on welfare, but let's just say we gave 1 trillion dollars to subsidize fight poverty in the black community. There's your reparations bucko.

Millions for Reparations was conceived by delegates at the world conference on racism in South Africa last September.

A waste of time. Cynthia McPiggy was there. They passed a resolution against Israel. We chose not to dignify it with an official delegation. So we were not officially represented. Screw you.

Mary Hoover, education chairwoman for the coalition, said most of the rally planning began about two months ago.

"We didn't want to go another year without making a statement," said Hoover, an education professor at Howard University. "We wanted to have this rally this month."

Good for you. No one cares. Shut up. Go home.

She also said they want to extend the reparations debate beyond African-Americans and slavery.

"We want to educate two groups of people, our own African-American community and the wider population," Hoover said. "We also hope this may spark a new movement for Native-American reparations and for reparations for other oppressed groups in this country."

OK Let's do the Indians too. How far back do ya wanna take this shit? I read somewhere that blacks claim they were the real Egyptians and built the Pyramids and all the Egyptian temples. They did a lot of that with Hebrew slaves. So lets have the blacks pay reparations to the Jews.

The call for reparations has ignited emotional debate in African-American circles and angered some nonblacks who believe the demand is unwarranted and divisive. Though proposals vary, most advocates say black Americans should receive some sort of financial compensation for slavery.

They already have. We've spent over 1 trillion dollars in welfare on blacks alone and that's just a conservative estimate. Bet it's a lot more. They have the highest standard of living for blacks on this planet. Even the poorest black person in America has a higher standard of living than a large majority of blacks anywhere else.

Rob Redding, a local radio talk-show host, said he hopes the rally forces Americans to discuss more openly the legacy of slavery.

The disproportionate number of blacks in prison, on welfare and behind in educational systems is directly linked to slavery, Redding said.

OK. Let's take this bullshit apart one by one.

• The legacy of slavery^TM - Up until 1967, black people in this country were making great gains. Then with the advent of the Great fucking Society, a large portion of those gains went right down the tubes. Illegitimacy went up. Black girls (white girls too, but it was worse for blacks ) were having babies at an earlier age. The nonjudgemental bullshit coming from liberals removed the shame of conceiving a baby out of wedlock. Currently, the illegitimacy rate among blacks is 80%! That is not a typo. 80%! All of this has happened since 1967. It has absolutely nothing to do with slavery^TM. It is all due to relaxed morals and the welfare state.
• The disproportionate number of blacks in prison - Point taken. I agree. Many are for drugs. If they're users of stuff like pot, they shouldn't even be in prison, but that's another rant entirely. If it's for heroin or crack, they should be in treatment centers and not in prison, and that's also another rant. But here's the rub. Most of these guys had no fathers. Single mothers in the ghetto breed criminals. Fix that problem first. Also, most of these guys are in for black on black crime. More crimes are committed by blacks on blacks than by blacks on whites. So, do you want to let them out to create more havoc in the black community? You're already pissed off at the cops. Let's just let all the dudes out and pull all the cops out. We'll only arrest the thugs when they commit crimes aagainst whites. Will you be happy then? Also, all this shit started in the 60's. It has nothing to do with the legacy of slavery.^TM
• Behind in educational systems - Where do I begin? Remember, it was a Democrat, Jimmy Carter, who created the Department of Education. Ever since, education has gotten worse. We have no accountability for our education system and the teachers unions are doing everything in their power to keep it that way. Nothing to do with slavery^TM there. And why do blacks do so poorly? Stephen Den Beste has a long post that discusses this, but I'll net it out. The reason blacks do poorly is because of the anti-achievement mentality in the inner city culture. A child who works hard and tries to learn is ridiculed by his peers for 'acting white'. Once again, this has absolutely nothing to do with slavery.^TM

"I really don't want to see African-Americans receive handouts," said Redding, who works for WAOK (AM-1380).

You must be the only one then. Wait a minute! I take that back. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Johnny Cochraon don't either. They want to set up a foundation. Guess who'll get most of the money? Just another shakedown.

"I just want to see African-Americans get closure on this issue."

I do too. Shut up. Go home. Move on.

And now on to Cynthia McPiggy. Ah Rachel thanks for giving her that name. This article was also in yesterday's AJC.

Washington --- Several contributors to Rep. Cynthia McKinney's campaign are among the alleged "enablers of terrorism" named in the $1 trillion lawsuit filed this week by families of some Sept. 11 victims.

Cynthia receiving donations from organizations tied to terrorists? I'm shocked! I'm not saying that she did anything wrong, but don't you think we should have an investigation as to what Cynthia knew about 9/11 and when she knew it?

Among the defendants are:

• Mar-Jac Poultry Inc., a Gainesville firm that the lawsuit claims has links to Saudi supporters of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorist network.
• Abdurahman Alamoudi, who contributed $2,000 to McKinney's campaign. The lawsuit says Alamoudi has "openly stated his support for Hamas and Hezbollah, both designated terrorist organizations." Alamoudi is secretary of the Success Foundation, which the lawsuit charges is part of the International Islamic Relief Organization, which is "al- Qaida's charity of choice to funnel money and weapons."
• Mohamed S. Omeish, who contributed $500 to McKinney's campaign. The suit says Omeish is president of the U.S. branch of the Islamic Relief Organization.
• Yaqub Mirza, president of Mar-Jac Investments, who also gave $500 to McKinney's campaign. He is secretary-treasurer of the Muslim World League, an organization named as a defendant in the lawsuit. "The MWL has numerous connections with al-Qaida operatives," the lawsuit alleges.
• Jamal Barzinji, a Mar-Jac Investments manager, who gave $500 to McKinney's campaign. Barzinji is president of SAAR Foundation, another organization named as a defendant in the lawsuit. "The SAAR Network financially supports terrorism and its main contributors, the al-Rajhi Family, has a long history of same," the lawsuit says.
• The lawsuit said the "co-conspirators, aiders and abettors of the al-Rajhi family" include Mar-Jac Poultry Inc. The al-Rajhi family was included among the Saudi Arabian financiers of bin Laden.
• Ahmad Totonji, who contributed $1,000 to McKinney's campaign. The lawsuit lists him among the "co-conspirators, aiders and abettors of the SAAR Network."

The lawsuit defendants who contributed to McKinney's campaign could not be reached Friday and did not respond to telephone messages.

But she's their 'strategic choice' for Congress.

Telephone calls on Friday to the McKinney campaign were not returned. The congresswoman faces former DeKalb County State Court Judge Denise Majette in the 4th District Democratic primary Tuesday.

Why not. Maybe we should have an investigation as to what Cynthia knew and when she knew it.

In a televised debate earlier this month, McKinney responded to questions about her donors.

"All of our contributions are legal," she said. "My opponent, on the other hand, has an awful lot of Republican money going into her coffers."

Republican campaign contributions are illegal? When did they pass that law?

In an earlier interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, McKinney had said, "My relationships with the Arab-American and American Muslim communities are based on the belief that they, like Americans of all ethnic and religious backgrounds, are full members of the American family."

Except Jews and white people.

But McKinney campaign coordinator Wendell Muhamad had played down FBI investigations of some of these same donors. He had said that the agency historically has hounded minorities and now is targeting Muslims and people with Arab-sounding names.

Yeah, 'cause that's where the terrorists are. All the hijackers were from Muslim countries and they all had Muslim sounding names. Now if we could just get our airport screeners to realize the obvious and stop hounding little old ladies in wheelchairs. Hey, remember the screener who made the lady drink three bottles of her breast milk because the screener thought it might be explosive? Wonder if she asked the lady, 'Ya want fries with that?'

About one-fourth of the individuals who have contributed to McKinney's campaigns over the past five years have names that appear to be Arab-American or Muslim, according to an informal study of Federal Election Commission records by the Journal- Constitution.

And a big bunch came in on 9/11. What did she know and ... oh , never mind.

Their contributions total $142,950, one-third of the money McKinney collected from individuals over the last five years, the AJC review indicated.

And whole big bunches (most) of it came from outside her district.

Arab-American leaders call McKinney a longtime supporter.

And I'm so proud to live in her district.

Two more days until the primary. My polling place is less than a mile away. I'll be there when it opens. For the first time in my life, I'm voting for a Democrat and looking forward to doing it. I'm voting for Denise Majette.

It will feel great.