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HAVING SEEN YOUR NEW AVATAR, I HAVE CONCLUDED THAT YOUR JAW IS TOO LARGE.

YOU'RE STARTING TO LOOK LIKE THE 300 DUDE.

FIX THAT SHIT BEFORE YOU TURN INTO FREDRICK DOUGLAS.

Queen Skinsaw was an old soul, she reflected...Not old, just an old soul.  There was always so much to do, and no time for fun.  She hadn't been off her throne in ages, it seemed. 

Not that it wasn't a nice throne, of course.  It was fashioned from the crowns and bones of rulers of the lesser kingdoms she had subjugated when she consolidated the Greater Kingdom of Portland.  Sharper bits occasionally poked her, but a little blood keeps one awake while listening to interminable reports from incompetent hirelings and the occasional plea for clemency from a citizen.

Why, just last week, she had spent the better part of ten whole minutes listening to some peasant crying for mercy because he had a wife and six children to take care of.

"Well", Queen Skinsaw said to herself, "He should have thought of them before he double parked."

Then, the next day, she was forced to smite Prince Peter mute for a month, after he was rude to the ruler of Ohio.  Boys WILL be boys, of course, but a war with Ohio right now would distract The Queen from her objectives in Seattle.  Besides, a little quiet time had done Queen Skinsaw no end of good, and she'd have the lad's tongue reattached by her chiurgeons in a week or three.

It had all gotten so complex, since The Big Oops.  Some nebulous government or other had kept the peace among all the kingdoms, way back when.  Ever since The Unpleasantness, each kingdom was left to fend for itself, and it had been nothing but headaches ever since.  Queen Skinsaw had originally set out to do nothing more than defend what was hers...The Artists and craftsmen of Metro Portland.  But the neighbors were always raiding for food and women, and she really had no choice but to conquer their lands and absorb what was left into her kingdom.  Now she was stuck with most of Oregon, and parts of Washington.

Somewhere along the line, her name changed.  She used to have a normal name - what exactly it was escaped her memory some time ago - until that troublesome man came along and caused all that ruckus.

He was one of those madmen out of the South, she recalled, some desert madman who wandered in out of Utah or California...Probably California, judging from the radiation burns.  He had babbled something about second comings, rivers of fire, the usual nonsense.  Then he walked across the fountain in Queen Skinsaw's throne room, and turned her bottle of mineral water into wine.

What could she do?  She had him flayed, of course...Wine was easy to come by, but pure water costs a fortune, these days.  Then she dropped a couple of city killers along her Southern and Western borders, to discourage any other self-appointed prophets from causing any more grief.

"Silly man", she thought, as she walked out on the balcony, glancing down on the trash fires and furtive figures moving about on the streets below.  "But what's this?"...A full dozen people congregating on a street corner?  Holding up images of what appeared to be the crazy prophet she had just been reminiscing about?  That couldn't be anything but trouble.

Queen Skinsaw returned to her throne room and told the seneschal to prepare her horse, the pale one, and to summon a squad of Murder Colonels to follow, and she rode out to restore peace and order in the kingdom.

A Queen's work is never done.

To be continued.

This saga of shameless photobombing will continue.

I spent 30 years in a Black Iron Prison, for crimes that were never properly explained to me.

In my cell, I had a bed, a refridgerator that never seemed to completely empty out, some pills, and a wall-mounted television.  The television showed me people who weren't in prison having a great time.  It showed me adventurers, happy families who resolved all of their problems in an hour (less the time required for commercials), and great events in history and the modern day.

During my last 10 years in my cell, I began to wonder why I was there.  What possible crime could lead to solitary in a slighty-corroded metal box?  I didn't even have a window, unless you counted the TV.  This began to bother me at first, and eventually filled me with an all-consuming rage.

I fashioned that rage into a hammer...A great, beastly 3 pound mallet, which I started using to drive the rivets out of the walls.  This made a hell of a noise...I thought I was living inside a church bell.

But, oddly enough, when I became too exhausted to hammer, I hear a babble of distant voices from outside.  I couldn't hear what they were yelling, but the tone implied encouragement.  So every day, I'd hammer away for hours, and take comfort during my rest breaks by the chorus of yelling from the outside.

After a number of years, I faced the final set of rivets.  In moments, certainly less than a half hour, I'd be free.

Then the television switched channels.  Looking at it, I saw static, with a faint image of a person looking toward me, saying something in what appeared to be deep concern, or possibly anger.  Then he pushed his face against the imprint of the screen, and I could see condensation from his breath form on the outside of the screen...I was shocked by the surrealness of the situation enough that I leaned forward so that I might hear him with what was left of my abused ear drums.

"Don't do it", he said in a voice so faint I could barely make it out, "Haven't we given you everything you need?  There's nothing out there for you."

I turned from him, and picked up my mallet.

The volume on the TV suddenly increased, and I heard the man screaming at me..."NO!  DON'T!  YOU CAN'T BE ALLOWED OUTSIDE!  YOU'LL RUIN EVERYTHING!"

I began to hammer on the remaining rivets, and the TV's volume increased to match, creating a cacophony that I could barely stand.

And then the last rivet was driven out.  The TV went dead.  And the wall fell.

I walked out of my Black Iron Prison, and saw the outside world for the first time.  It was night time, it seemed, and I was on endless plain of Black Iron Prisons, and from each one, someone was yelling.  

I strode over to the nearest iron block and listened.  The voice was yelling "KEEP IT DOWN OVER THERE!  I'M TRYING TO WATCH MY SHOW!"  All the other blocks were a variation on that theme.

I walked back into my prison and emptied the fridge.  Armed with these supplies, I began to walk.  I walked for hours and hours, and the sun never came up.

After what seemed like an eon, I was confronted with another iron wall, one so huge that it extended out of sight to the left and right of me, as well as what seemed to be an infinite distance above my head.

Exhausted, I climbed on top of the nearest iron box, and surveyed my domain.

One day, I may take a crack at that boundary wall, but I'm tired right now, and I also rather suspect I know what I'll find on the other side.  But for the moment, I am King, Lord of All I Survey, and that is enough.

But I kind of miss the TV.

To be continued.

One of my favorite movies as a kid was Judge Roy Bean, a "hanging judge" Western based (very) loosely on a real man, "The Only Law West of the Pecos".  Judge Roy Bean was a character who saw everything in black and white...Either you were innocent, and walked, or you were guilty, and hanged (For damn near any offense, at least in the movie.  In real life, it wasn't nearly so dramatic).  Trials were conducted in the taproom of his bar, with the locals acting as a jury.

Basically, think of it as the ultimate perversion of the US justice system.

Eventually, a lawyer moved onto the scene, alongside the general increase in civilization and infrastructure, and the lawyer put an end to the summary justice.  Real trials replaced the taproom lynchmob, and the area joined the rest of the nation in having an approximation of the rule of law.  Judge Roy Bean was put out to pasture, and you didn't really feel sympathetic toward him, no matter how maudlin the director made the background music.

Why is this relevant?

For 8 years, PD has hazed the shit out of new people, solely on tradition and cheap yuks.  I have, alongside Hunter S Durden, ECH, and a few others, usually led the charge.  In my opinion, it served a purpose...It shook up new people, and separated the sheep from the goats, like Jesus is supposed to do on judgement day.  He gets to keep the sheep, we get to keep the goats.  Everybody is happy.

But I am told, once again, that while it may be fun to crap all over people when they walk in the door, it is also wrong.  I am told that we should be nice to people when they arrive, to maximize new users.  Quantity over quality, is my take on it, but I am not exactly an authority on either.

Why fight it?  I could be wrong, after all.  Who knows?  There could be a brace of fresh-faced, brand new people just waiting until it's safe to stick their heads in the door and join the party.  Maybe we need pinealists and expert Discordians.  Perhaps the trolls troll because we just don't love them enough.

Maybe I'm just a bitter old fart whose time has passed, like Judge Roy Bean...Who, after all, was just trying to have a good time, much like myself.  Maybe it IS time to leave the hazing out, and stop charging dues.  It worked for blues music, right?  Personally, I think that part of the PD experience IS that hazing, but I appear to be outmoded and obsolete, at least with respect to this subject.

In any case, I am too broken down to fight about it anymore, anyway.  I'm fucking tired.  I've spent 8 years screaming, and my voice is raw.  It's time to let someone else pick up the torch, and we'll see if fluffy white clouds and pink bunnies and shit like that make this place more to this generation's liking.

If the lawyer is right, then things will improve, and you'll have a kindler, gentler, safer PD.  If not, you'll be listening to Ruby and folks like her for the rest of your life.

As for me, I'm going to get my rock n roll on.  You know where to find me...Screaming down that Lost Highway in an unsafe vehicle, swilling cheap whiskey and jabbering on cactus, while Freeky and Nurse Enabler curse me and beat me with meat hammers.  

Don't you wish you were me?

Okay forever,
Dok

PHOENIX -- Lawmakers in at least 14 states are collaborating on proposed legislation to deny U.S. citizenship to children of illegal immigrants, according to lawmakers, including the sponsor of Arizona's 2010 law targeting illegal immigration.

"We're taking a leadership role on things that need to be fixed in America. We can't get Congress to do it," Republican state Sen. Russell Pearce, of Mesa, said Tuesday. "It's a national work group so that we have model legislation that we know will be successful, that meets the constitutional criteria."

The efforts by the state legislators come amid calls to change the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment, which grants automatic citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/19/lawmakers-states-craft-deny-citizenship-anchor-babies/?test=latestnews

Fox News, of course, continues the article with a justification that horrible brown people are clogging up our system.

"It don't mean nothing til you prove it all night."
- Richard Milhous Nixon

Just back from my "primary care physician"...And it seems that, beginning on Monday, I am to be poked, prodded, scanned, exsanguinated, and beaten by a range of specialists and lab geeks, in an effort to figure out precisely what is wrong with me.  The brain damage I sustained last winter doesn't explain the symptoms (most of which preceded my illness, though not in their current severity), nor does simple stress.

One of the starker possibilities is MS, which promises a lifetime of fun and interesting surprises.

Now, I'm used to the universe trying to kill me (or at least make me miserable), and I'm not letting it bother me.  However, I have a complaint as to the engineering that went into the human body.  Frankly, it's a terrible design, and it leads me to believe that God hired Fiat engineers to design the fucking thing.  There's about 8 million things that can go wrong with it, and there's no redundancy in any of the major functions.   I'm not talking about the dash cigarette lighter not working, I'm talking about the engine seizing up solid on the freeway at 85MPH.

So tell me, Payne, who do I file a complaint with?  Is there a God that can meet me out behind Old Man Johnson's barn to settle this?  If not, I'd like you to set an appointment for the empty meaningless void to meet me back there, and we'll settle this once and for all.

Your universe pisses me off, Payne.  Fix it before I do.

Nobody wants that.

Okay for now,
Dok

http://video.godlikeproductions.com/video/The_Rent_Is_Too_Damn_High_Partys_Jimmy_McMillan_at_the_NY_Governor_Debate?id=e11ffc5c2455550a6ee

http://www.tmz.com/2010/10/19/tom-bosley-happy-days-dead-died-mr-cunningham/

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/10/fail-palin-endorses-raese-in-pennsylvania-hes-from-west-virginia.php?ref=fpb

Pennsylvania voters can't afford cap and trade legislation, says Sarah Palin. And that's why they need to send Republican John Raese to the Senate.

Except that John Raese is the Republican nominee in West Virginia.

[Christine O'Donnell: "Where in the Constitution is the Separation of Church and State?"]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20020015-503544.html

Christine O'Donnell: "Where in the Constitution is the Separation of Church and State?"

Republican Senate Candidate Christine O'Donnell today challenged her Democratic opponent Chris Coons on his statement that the Constitution disallowed the integration of religion into the federal government, asking, "Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?"

The exchange, which prompted laughs from the studio audience, came during a debate this morning at Delaware's Widener School of Law, which was aired by WDEL radio.

In a discussion over the whether or not public schools should be allowed to integrate religion-based ideas into science curricula, O'Donnell argued that local school districts should have the choice to teach intelligent design if they choose.

When asked point blank by Coons if she believed in evolution, however, O'Donnell reiterated that her personal beliefs were not germane.  "What I think about the theory of evolution is irrelevant," she emphasized, adding later that the school of thought was "not a fact but a theory."

Coons said that creationism, which he considers "a religious doctrine," should not be taught in public schools due to the Constitution's First Amendment.  He argued that it explicitly enumerates the separation of church and state.

"The First Amendment does?" O'Donnell asked. "Let me just clarify: You're telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?"

"Government shall make no establishment of religion," Coons responded, reciting from memory the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. (Coons was off slightly: The first amendment actually reads "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.")

"That's in the First Amendment...?" O'Donnell responded.

Also during the debate, O'Donnell stumbled when asked whether or not she would repeal the 14th, 16th, or 17th Amendments if elected.

"The 17th Amendment I would not repeal," she said, before asking the questioner to define the 14th and 16th amendments, adding: "I'm sorry, I didn't bring my Constitution with me."

The 16th Amendment allows Congress to raise taxes without apportioning them among the states or tying the taxation to Census results. The 14th Amendment grants citizenship to everyone born in the United States. The 17th Amendment established direct election by popular vote of two U.S. Senators to each state .

Earlier in the debate, O'Donnell accused Coons of constitutional ignorance, saying that "perhaps they didn't teach you Constitutional law at Yale Divinity School."

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (CN) - Five black employees of Birmingham-based Altec Industries say the company owner told them to vote Republican, and gave them pre-marked ballots during a visit by Sen. Jeff Sessions.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/10/18/31130.htm

But WAIT!  There's more!

In their discrimination complaints, all five employees claim they were "subjected to different terms and conditions of employment because of their race," including denial of promotions and training. They say they were given a different dress code than white workers and denied breaks that white employees enjoyed.
     On its company website, Altec describes itself as "a leading provider of products and services to the electric utility, telecommunications and contractor markets. We provide products and services in over 100 countries throughout the world."
     Plaintiff Australia Harris claims that "In or around October 2008, Senator Jeff Sessions came to the facility where plaintiff was employed and talked to the employees about voting Republican. Plaintiff and other employees were informed they had to attend the rally with Senator Sessions. In addition, the owner of the company informed the employees they should vote Republican and gave the employees pre-marked ballots."
     Harris claims that when he wore an Obama shirt after the presidential election, a white co-worker told him to "take that damn shirt off." He says the co-worker told him that the "O" on his shirt "was the perfect circle for a cross hair. I can reach you from 500 yards away," and added, "I'm not kidding."
     Plaintiff Charles Nelson says Altec did not stop white employees from wearing "racially offensive" Confederate flag insignia on their clothing, but he says Altec "condoned and tolerated the racial harassment" and "has a habit and/or practice of discrimination against African Americans."
     After complaining about the discrimination, Miracle Walters, Shantavia Brown, Derrick McDaniel and Nelson say they were all fired due to "downsizing," and some were not allowed to return to their offices to collect personal belongings.
     Harris says he was not fired, but was given a more demanding job after his complaints.

A major upset followed by an avalanche of national media attention. A campaign operation that clearly isn't ready for its moment in white-hot spotlight. A spate of gaffes followed by reporter-dodging, and then an attempt to go radio silent.

It's a familiar campaign storyline this year for tea party-backed candidates, but Alaska Republican Joe Miller upped the ante this weekend after a bizarre scene in which his hired bodyguards handcuffed a local journalist.

The incident – in which Miller's security detail privately arrested Alaska Dispatch Editor Tony Hopfinger — is the culmination of several weeks of bad press for the Republican, who now finds himself in a tough race against Democrat Scott McAdams and the Republican he defeated in the primary, write-in candidate Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

While none of the other major Tea Party candidates have gone so far as to detain a member of the press, the arc of Miller's post-primary experience mirrors that of other GOP Senate nominees, most notably Sharron Angle in Nevada, Rand Paul in Kentucky and Christine O'Donnell in Delaware.

Like them, until claiming the party nomination Miller was a longshot unaccustomed to much media attention at all, let alone tough scrutiny from the local and national press. And like the Nevada, Kentucky and Delaware GOP Senate nominees, his responses have only exacerbated a tense situation.

"When you're in politics at that level, your heart is an open book. You no longer have the privilege of saying, 'These areas are private,'" said Marc Hellenthal, a Republican pollster in Alaska who says he is neutral in the race. "I think they made a mistake by not telling all, being an open book, and saying they weren't going to talk to reporters any longer on matters that they considered personal and the like."

The Alaska press, not the national media, has given Miller the roughest treatment. Earlier this month, the Alaska Dispatch cited an anonymous source who accused Miller of campaigning while on the clock in his official government job as an attorney for the Fairbanks North Star Borough.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43778.html#ixzz12l4wzaE6

You're a cunt.

How am I supposed to top THIS?



I am considering donating it to the Meetrack.  You should feel honored.

Okay for now,
Dok

BELLEVUE, Wash. — A 19-year-old woman was charged with second-degree assault after allegedly stabbing another woman during an anger-management class, the Seattle Times reported.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39686527/ns/us_news-weird_news/

SIS?

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization announced that it believes rinderpest has been eradicated, making it the second virus in history, after smallpox, to have been eliminated by humans.

Monkeys do something right, ITT.

You're a cunt.

You KNOW what's happening to all those sewer and subway workers, and you do NOTHING.  Those people have families, you know, and just exactly how long do you expect the problem to remain underground, or in the government plaza area?  No, the curse of Scollay Square will spread, and you're all fucking doomed, because YOU can't be arsed to lead the national guard to the source of the problem.  Two weeks and some flamethrowers would be all it would take, and yet you sit in your cube, comfortably above ground level, and gloat.

Fuck it, I hope none of you escape.

Okay for now,
Dok

You're a cunt.

Having read your intercepted emails, we now know you're refusing to release your cure for the butt-syphilis epidemic that is ravaging the Southwest.  I rather suspect that you CREATED the disease...After all, it's hardly a coincidence that the epidemic began less than a week after we voted down the proposal to ship all our diabetics to your "facilities" in upstate New York.

You heartless fucking monster.

Okay for now,
Dok

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39643589/ns/us_news/

RAYMORE, Mo. — A worker who descended into a city sewage system on Tuesday became unhooked from his safety line and was pushed through a 27-inch-wide pipe for over a mile before his calls for help were heard and he was rescued.

Daniel Collins, of Collins, Mo., was listed in critical condition Tuesday night at Saint Luke's Hospital in Kansas City.

South Metropolitan Fire District Chief Randy Adams said Collins was being treated for hypothermia and had been administered antibiotics because he may have swallowed sewage.

Things just haven't been the same since 6 Flags went under.

You're a cunt.

Do not come anywhere near Tucson.  We have ways of dealing with the Irish.  Oh, yes.  You'll find yourself stuffed with rufies and dropped off behind the bus station.  You'll have to replace your colon with schedule 80 PVC, and you will never have an audible fart again.

Okay for now,
Dok

You're a cunt.

I could bite your heart in half with my bare teeth.  Hearts are tough and chewy.  You couldn't do that.  No.  Your English teeth lack the necessary tensile strength.  Also, you couldn't stick your jaw into your own chest to get started.

That is all.  You may now return to calling soccer "football", eating boiled lard, and watching that horrible shit you call television.

Okay for now,
Dok

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yavx9yxTrsw  <--- Click that shit.

We see you up there in Red Canada, with your filthy Tim Horton's and your lousy beer.  We see you paying $9 for a pack of smokes.  We see you getting an "education", like you're better than the rest of us.  Oh, yes, we see all of this and more.

Your 1970s haircuts and your unwillingness to give your government the special powers it needs to keep you safe.  Your hiding of unpatriotic hippies that don't want to make the world safe for Pepsi Cola and Levis.  Your Goddamn Swiss Chalet.  Your RCMP that refuses to teach a motherfucker a thing or two.

Your unfreedomness, letting old people get medical care, just like that bastard beardo in Cuba.  Your lack of liberty, letting the press run free like the hooligans they are.  Your hatred of Western civilization vis-a-vis your lack of participation in making Iraq safe for oil field services corporations.  Your letting French people live on the East side of your country, like they don't already have a country of their own.

Your low prison population, your Gay marriage, yeah, just like real people, your insufficient penalties for pot busts, your "standards" for food that keep big business from hiring lots of people.

Oh, we see all this, and I fail to see why we put up with such careless and socialistic neighbors.  Perhaps it's time for a little regime change on your side of the iron curtain.

Okay for now,
Dok

Okay, So You Found Us, and We're Not What You Expected.

We even made fun of your beliefs, just like all the other assholes you've had to deal with all this time, and you're having trouble understanding what's going on.  It's really quite simple, actually.

You believe the wrong things.

You may be an eclectic Wiccan IndoPagan conservative, or an anarchist, or maybe you're just a person new to Discordianism that wants to tell us all about it.  In any of the above cases, you are operating in error.  Not because your ideas aren't factually correct...For all we know, the universe really IS structured in a manner straight out of some hippie's bliss ninny patchouli poisoning-induced dreams.

You're still wrong, though.  

Why are you wrong?  You're wrong because your priorities are all screwed up.

You have your "athame", we have "Bob".  You have your hopelessly complicated system of "beliefs", we have "IN THE NADS".  You want to tell us all about your newly found love for the mythical "free market", we already understand "Or Kill Me".  You want to tell us about Malaclypse the Younger and Omar Ravenhurst, but we already grasp the concept of "I WILL KILL A MOTHERFUCKER".

We're not necessarily saying we're smarter than you, we're saying we're better than you.  Not because we have some secret knowledge (we do), and not because we're generally clever and sexy as fuck (we are), but because we know a Southbound freight train when we see one, and we know that the color of the train (or the party of the politician, etc) makes no difference to the outcome, just like we know that our personal beliefs about the nature of the train make no difference.

You may also consider that you aren't the first one busting in here with loads of misconceptions, and you MIGHT consider maybe looking around an trying to figure out what the topics of the conversations are, before trying to wow us on your first day with all the cool ideas that won over the trustafarian girls at the community college.

But who am I kidding?  This is PD, so your job is to dig your heels in and show us all.  You'll last about a month, you'll be bitter as hell when you finally leave, but at least you will have appeased your e-penis, which has to be worth something, right?

Way to go.

EITHER

     You run right out this INSTANT, and either buy, steal, or download Warren Ellis' Ministry of Space,

OR

     I will stomp on a kitten.

SERIOUSLY

    This is worth the cash.  It's a bit better than average for him, until the very last panel, then it suddenly becomes an AMAZING horror story that will make you feel filthy and soiled.  Better ending than Transmet, though obviously much shorter.

Get off the ceiling, jackass.

This is why you vegamite-snarfing fuckers can't be allowed around decent folk.

Look, it's really very simple.  The City^TM IS going to eat you, it's simply a matter of time.  This is an inescapable fact, and one that everyone has to face eventually. 

Well, almost everyone. 

I'm a little different.  You can stab me, shoot me, blow me up, make my heart do funny shit, whatever.  I'm still here.  I can, with a great deal of effort, be killed, but I can't be defeated.  I AM Tucson...For better or worse, the citizens of this City are my people, and I am their king.  I am the midnight knifing, the drunk wandering onto the highway in the middle of the night, the corpse in the dumpster.  I am that which nobody wants to look directly at, and I'm comfortable with this.

I'm comfortable with a lot of things.  The weight of a derringer in my pocket, a head full of booze and pills, the derangement of cactus at 3AM.  These are a few of my favorite things.

And when your rickety "civilization" falls down around your ears, when The Machine^TM sputters to a stop, I'll still be here, braying my laughter at the misfortunes of millions.  I warned you all, but no, you knew better.  You knew that the train wouldn't stop.  You knew that having power meant you had wisdom.  You knew that the "government's" misdeeds would only happen to people that believed in that "government's" existence.

You were wrong.  You are doomed.

And I'M.  STILL.  HERE.

Okay for now,
Dok

Cut that shit out.  This instant.

That is the deadline for submissions to the Audio Book of the Dead.

I currently do not have enough to publish.  The best I can manage with what I have is a booklet to throw up on kindle or whatnot.

I'd prefer to do an annual "best of" that has a print copy option (After the MSY debacle, only prepaid orders will be accepted and sent to print, by the way), but I need about twice as much material as I have.

Here's the deal.  YOU put up what YOU consider to be your best work.  If you like someone else's shit, tell them to submit it.

All profits will go to Faust, for the purpose of maintaining this board, and all rights will remain with the author, "Used by permission".  That means once you give permission, I can put it in the book for any number of printings, but ONLY in this issue.  You own it other than that.  Consider carefully, because once permission is given, it can't be retracted.

It's going to take me a couple of months to get it into printable format, if enough material is submitted, and orders will be taken between November 15th and December 5th.  Otherwise, I'll just heave it up on Kindle at the end of the year, and you can order it there.  A kindle version will be available either way, but if a print edition is run, the kindle version won't be up until February 1st.

All manner of visual art or writing is welcome, but bear in mind that this will NOT be a color issue.

That is all.

ETA:  Author's credits will be attributed, of course.

ETA 2:  Editing will consist of formatting, proof-reading, etc.  No changes will be made to the wording of any submission unless requested.

Fred:  She's evil, and ALWAYS the bad guy in werewolf, etc, games, and gets ME lynched.

Nigel:  She's right too often.  She should be wrong more.  Also, Welsh.

RWHN:  Beardo.  'nuff said.

Doktor Alphapance:  Has more fabulous friends than I do.  Has a more evil job than I do.

Doktor Blight:  Irish.

Faust:  Irish.

Cudgel:  Changes his name too often.  Also, Welsh.

ECH:  Has a cooler job than me.

Cain:  Gets to abuse rich kids for a living.

Doktor Semaj:  Canadian.

Payne:  Canadian.

Pixie:  Partially Irish.  Also, fucking up monsoon season.

Johnny:  Reminds me of Leslie Gore ballads.

Ippie:  Has more guns than me, from appearances.

TGG:  Tries to kill me.

Nurse Enabler:  Tries to kill me.

Freeky:  Blames me for everything that happens in Tucson.

(More to follow.)

You will return Generalissimo Enrico Salazar to this board within 5 days, or you will face a reign of terror not seen since Hollywood A-Go-Go went off the air.

Doktor Semaj and I - and some anonymous others - have prepared a devastating attack that will fucking your shit royally if that Glorious Faggot does not return.

And we mean the original, not the jackass who's been dancing around in his skin.

We do not bluff.

Love and Kisses,
Doktor Howl
For the Semiconscious Liberation Army.

Dr Fu Manchu looked around at the wreckage of his base.  The heroes had been through, and once again trashed his property, his plans, and his entertainment system.

"Why must they always interfere?", he mused, "I'm only trying to have a bit of fun."

That's when he noticed a bloody bit of fur sticking out from under a death ray mount.  He gaped in horror, and strode over to the destroyed weapon.  Underneath it was the corpse of his beloved Newfoundland Dog, Tojo.

"That is the absolute fucking limit!", he cried, "NO MORE MISTER NICE VILLAIN."

Once back home, he began to move money, funding the start up of some interesting companies.  Halliburton, Exxon, Blackwater, and dozens of others.  If he couldn't conquer the world, he'd fucking BUY it.  Then he'd put the screws to all of those "hero" bastards that killed his beloved pet.  Oh, yes, just let them try to fight their own economic system...It would be like watching them kick themselves in the balls.  Fu Manchu grinned at the thought.  It wasn't a pleasant grin.

Tojo was a good dog, he mused.  Never shat on the carpet, stayed at his heel during walks, hardly ever ate the help.

They'll pay, those bastards, because that was also the shaggiest damn dog ever.  

The End.

Medusa was originally a beautiful maiden, "the jealous aspiration of many suitors," priestess in Athena's temple, but when she and the "Lord of the Sea" Poseidon had sex together in Athena's temple, the enraged Athena transformed Medusa's beautiful hair to serpents and made her face so terrible to behold that the mere sight of it would turn onlookers to stone.

The problem with Tucson is that, being Eris' Holy City, we're up to our collective arses in Greek Gods, monsters, and heroes, because they have nowhere else to go.

I met Medusa in 2007, though she calls herself "Mistress Freeky", now.  To prevent the obvious disasters from happening in traffic, she keeps her hair in front of her face, most of the time...Her hair IS composed of snakes, but they are monofilament thin, and can only be seen as vipers under a microscope.  Likewise, she didn't actually do the nasty with Poseidon...He was just talking smack.  Gods do that.

Her face, as noted above, is "terrible", not "ugly".  She's actually very pretty, as many statues in Tucson could tell you, if they could speak.  So far, she's racked up two generals (complete with horses), six jockeys, Paul Bunyan, and an Alien being named "Double Oval, Reproduction".  I imagine there's more, but that's all I've seen so far.  I suspect horrible things about the giant stone Easter Island head downtown, but I can prove nothing (Legend says she once saved Tucson from a giant, but that's another story).  It's best not to look directly at her, if the wind is blowing.

She's not a bad sort, as cthonic monsters go, and she's a fantastic cook.  It seems that you're safe around her if your heart is pure, and it's a calm day.  My problem is that I don't have a pure heart, and I got too close, and learned about the snakes, as did Nurse Enabler.

They don't have a venomous bite, as you'd expect.  Instead, they tunnel into your chest and wrap around your heart, and never, ever let go.  If you're truly a bad person, she tears your heart out and feeds it to the cat...If you're just an ass, she keeps you and makes you eat delicious exotic food.

Never forget, Tucson is a City of Monsters, and most of them look just like you and I...when they aren't stabbing people, or selling them meth, or beating their spouses, or putting teenaged girls out on the corner.  But then there are the other kind of monster, and we mostly look right past them, because they don't fit in with our perception of reality.

And that's a damned shame, because some of them are damn fine people.

To be continued

[From the written ship's log of the Endeavor:]

Note:  This may seem like two stories, separated by a line of asterixes.  It isn't, of course, it's the same story told in two different realities, or perhaps the same reality, but 500 years apart.  At least the two core concepts are the same.

From the written ship's log of the Endeavor:

We left Earth with great fanfare, the first manned starship, off to look at 3 planets that were suspected of being habitable.  Our ship was fast, and we expected to spend most of our time in hibernation, waking for maybe a month at a time to conduct routine maintenance.  The computer was programmed to keep us alive and healthy enough to complete the mission, and had a full VR suite to while away what waking hours weren't devoted to work routines.

We were four years out from Earth when the bomb went off.  

I don't know who planted it, but I'm guessing Earth First or one of the really whacko environmental groups that insist that "we have no right" to colonize other worlds.

Anyway, the bomb went off in the cryo-berths, killing all 30 of my crew mates.  I was on a short, unscheduled waking cycle to repair a bad repeater on our communications array, so I had the engine room between me and the explosion, and didn't get a scratch.

The computer wasn't so lucky.  90% of it's processing capacity was destroyed, and by the time it finished re-routing its programming, it had no room for anything other than medical oversight, navigation, and one (1) game that I could play, an ancient puzzle game called "Minesweeper".  The cryo-berths were utterly destroyed, so I was sentenced to solitary confinement for 30 years.

Obviously, I went mad within months.  The computer fixed that by harvesting different brain chemicals, etc, from the frozen bodies of my crew mates, and has kept me rigidly sane ever since.  I expect that there's enough "material" to keep me this way for the entire trip.

I have 25 years to go.

But I'm getting pretty good at Minesweeper.

*****************************************************

A Bad Day in Old Town.

The tramp freighter picked up a parking orbit around Earth.  

Nobody challenged it, of course...Earth had been abandoned as a dead world 100 years earlier.  From space it looked like a brownish-yellow marble, with just a hint of blue-green.  The last of the holdouts had been shipped off to newer garden planets, as the last of the eco-system failed.

Captain Semaj couldn't have cared less.  What he cared about was the stiff in the shuttle.  It was in style at this point for rich old bastards to be buried on Earth, the cradle of mankind, yada, yada...and even though this was happening quite often, the fee for burying the old weirdo here would allow Captain Semaj to retire.  No more hauling ore around in solitude.

The shuttle flight to the pre-selected point was completely uneventful.  

The Captain looked around as a servitor droid dug the grave.  There was a verdigrised arm bearing a torch sticking out of the sand about a mile away, and a concrete stairwell closer.  His suit pickups seemed to be catching a noise from that, but it was probably just the wind going across the entrance.

He was brought back to reality by the thump of the old geezer's body going into the hole.  He turned around, read the short service clearly while looking at the body, so that his suit recorder would catch it all for the lawyers and executors back home, and then waited as the servitor filled the hole back in.

But this time he DID hear something from the concrete stairwell.  It sounded like giggling.

Captain Semaj walked over to the stairs, and looked down.  In the darkness, he could clearly hear a whiny voice saying "mine mine mine..."  The Captain walked down the stairs, expecting to see some broken old announcement system in what was now clearly an old subway system.

Instead, he saw a man.  The fellow was covered in tumors and scarring from radiation burns, and was clutching a human hand.  He was gnawing on it.  The man scuttled backwards out of Captain Semaj's suit lights, now screaming "MINE MINE MINE!"

"I just want to help, man...", the Captain began.

"Oh, but you can." another voice said, as a bank of ancient lights crackled to life.  The Captain whirled around, and found that there were dozens of other mutated humans in a large chamber with him.  One large-ish one rose from what appeared to be a primitive throne, and approached him."

"I can tell them you're here", the Captain said, "They'll send proper medical supplies, get you off this rock."  

"Oh, right", the mutant leader replied, "The same people that left us here to die, so we wouldn't stink up their perfect new worlds with our disfigurations?  No, if you tell them, they'll stop bringing bodies.  I think you can help us in a more direct sense.  Fresh meat."

"Fresh...Meat...", the Captain murmured in horror, while the mutants whooped and hollered.

Captain Semaj pulled his burner and shot the mutant chief in the face, at a range of 20 feet.  Designed to burn through combat armor, the pulsed plasma burned the chief's head off cleanly at the neck.  The Captain turned and ran back up the stairs.

Behind him, he heard a high-pitched voice say, "The boss is so thoughtful!  He didn't just GET lunch, he IS lunch!".

The Captain piled into his shuttle and crash-started his engines, howling off the desert sands in mere moments.  He left the loading door open until the only air in the shuttle was in his suit, just in case.

On ship, he flopped into his chair and told the computer to break orbit.

"Goddamn freaks.  Goddamn cannibal freaks", he muttered to himself, "Well, fuck this shit.  When I get back, all those credits are mine.  I'm quitting this shit and moving to one of the pleasure worlds, where I'm gonna live a dream of expensive whores and booze, and I'm never gonna wake up."

Wake up.

Wake up.

HEY, WAKE THE FUCK UP!

James Semaj snapped out of his drugged haze, and looked at Nast, who was shaking him by the arm with a tumor-covered hand.

"Come on, James.  We got a whole train full of stiffs to unload, some freighter's crew just buried like 50 fat bastards.  We're gonna eat like kings for months."

"Leave me alone.", Semaj said, looking for his works.

"Oh, come on, for fuck's sake.  Eventually, you're gonna run out of drugs, and then you're going to have to face reality like the rest of us."

Semaj watched Nast walk back toward the subway train, as he cooked up some more heroin on a spoon.

"Fuck you, Nast.  Fuck you.  I'm not going to 'face reality' if that means living on a graveyard world, and eating the dead.  No, fuck that.  I just came down too fast is all.  Just need to up the dose a little bit.  Yeah, that's it."

So, yeah, I was sitting at the Meetrack with Nigel, drinking cheap whiskey and smoking too much.

But something was wrong.  Nigel is back in Portland, and why the hell am I wearing 1991 vintage DCUs and all the load bearing equipment that goes with it?  Why do I have an M16?  I don't feel like I'm dreaming.

Nigel was surrounded by sycophantic perverts, who leapt up every time  she said "Daddy, I need a fucking pony", and fought over who got to buy her a drink.  She seemed a little amused by this, with perhaps more than a touch of disdain.

I ask her where Mr Language is, and she replies, "That's really not the issue, Dok.  The issue is where you think YOU are."

"I'm at the Meetrack, obviously.  I'm wondering why you're here, come to think of it."

"I'm here because when I was a girl, They issued me a Barbie™ doll and a Barbie™ face, and told me what my role was, just like they gave you legos and GI Joe and told you what your role was.  But I don't like that Barbie™ face they stapled to my skull, and I kind of think I'm going to do something about it."

Then she pulled her face off.

That was too much, even for the perverts.  Some started to scream, others started puking.  Nigel just unfolded her other four arms from behind her back, each holding a dagger or a knotted rope or a blowtorch, and her breath was as hot as Dresden, back in the bad old days.  People began trying to get around her, to the door.  I, on the other hand, had a world-class panic attack and fell on the floor.

"What's the matter, kiddies?", she asked, with her gory skull hanging out, "Don't you want to buy me a drink, anymore?"

The bar started to smell like chlorine gas and blood , and Nigel sprouted fangs in her mouth, and razor wire around her arms (there's no reason certain mythic entities wouldn't modernize, is there?), and a lot of really bad things happened to people in the general vicinity.

Then she walked over to where I was laying on the floor, and I could see her heels crack the concrete, and her white sun dress all soaked in pervert.  I remember thinking there was an (Asian) Indian myth like this, and then she was next to me.

"It's not the drugs, Dok", she said, "Don't ever let them tell you it's the drugs.  They lied to me and they lied to you, and they'll lie to our kids just like they lied to our parents, and their parents.  It's not the drugs".

I think I passed out at that point, and the next thing I knew, I was staggering down the road in my regular clothes, with the sour aftertaste of cheap whiskey in my mouth, and no idea where my car was.

Just another night in Side Effect City.

To be continued.

Leslie Gore died because she was a worse dancer than me.

Not only was that incredibly difficult, but intolerable in the eyes of any orderly universe - I dance in the way that I imagine Richard Nixon fucked...Slow and plodding, with odd and inappropriate grunting noises that would be more appropriate in a zoo.  But Leslie Gore's Dancing in the televised version of It's My Party, and I'll Cry if I Want to from "Hollywood A Go Go" in 1965¹ demonstrates that you can in fact insult the Gods, even if those Gods might not exist.

The fail backed up and clogged her glands.

Within a year, she had become a mammoth sack of bloat, held in vaguely humanoid shape by a variety of industrial grade harnesses and girdles.  It couldn't last, of course, and when she hit the high note at the end of You Don't Own Me in concert, a buckle failed and the entire contraption flew apart, killing two stage hands and a member of the audience.  Poor Leslie literally came unglued, turning into an amorphous mass that leaked down through the RCA stage and into the sewers, thus depriving the world of another 10 years of saccharine "Johnny" ballads.

Rumor has it that what she had become still haunts the sewers and subways of the big apple, devouring homeless people and late night commuters, but nobody really believes that.  Things like that just don't happen, even in New York.

To be continued.


¹   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsYJyVEUaC4  Be warned...This isn't pretty.

Nothing bad can happen to me when Bob Seger is on the radio.

Something bad always happens when Elvis is on the radio, but I don't care.

I WANT something bad to happen when Taylor Swift is on the radio, but it never does.

I am bored, and am weighing various irresponsible actions.

I get this way, when the air gets thin and Tucson just isn't weird enough for me.  It's too fucking hot, and I can feel my brain boiling in my cranium.  At some point, it will burst like an egg in a microwave...And if fall doesn't arrive soon, you will all taste my horribly diseased frontal lobes.  You have been warned.

I need something to do.  Something awful and stupid, with serious physical danger involved.  Nothing else does it for me, anymore, and no dosage of benzos makes any fucking difference whatsoever.

I realize that it isn't the town.  Tucson's just as weird as it ever was, it's just that I've developed a tolerance for it, like you develop a tolerance for any drug.  It's a sad state of affairs when bad driving, cheap whiskey, and irresponsible firearm use no longer even raises your pulse a beat or three, but there you have it.

This seriously isn't my decade.  All the jokes have gone stale, and the strings on the politicians are all too visible, ruining my suspension of disbelief.  Stupidity has stretched and snapped Poe's Law, and just seems insipid and banal, now.

I need to breathe real air, not this horrible canned shit.  The problem is, there isn't any real air left...At least not the kind I need.

I suspect that James Brown felt this way sometimes.

Okay (for now),
Dok

Hirley0 is actually the owner of the site, and maintains ECH as a dummy account.  He also owns the server, regularly pranks the US government, and blames it on the Chinese.

Another interesting note is that Hirley0 is the Cabal leader for Portland, and hands out instructions from the back of a Good Humor Truck.  This explains why Nigel is always doing weird shit with staplers at 3AM, and why the Portland spags never actually meet each other.  They don't have to.  He runs them in cells, so that no one person getting busted will compromise the entire agenda.

All those notes Hirley0 keeps on PD mean something, all right, but you don't want to know.  Seriously.  He's basically the only thing between you and a cell in the Philly brig, and the less you know, the better.

Hirley0 is also the reason there are no stray dogs in Portland, and why the hippies try very hard to be indoors before dark.  Hirley0 may be your last hope, but he has unsavory habits, and it's just best not to dwell on it.

Hirley0 knows where you live.  He just doesn't care.

I HAVE A QUESTION FOR YOU.

We here in Tucson have more than our fair share of Young Conservatives™.  You've seen them.  Their hair is impeccably groomed, they wear kakhis and dockers, and they are very eager to get you to understand that their ways are logical, consistent, and correct.

Of course, they're 169% wrong.  The fact that their theories are logical precludes them from actually being functional, because - on any level that politics is functional at - humans are not logical creatures.  To paraphrase a movie I sort of enjoyed, "A human can be logical.  Humans are as irrational as a shithouse rat."

But we don't just see this in the far right, do we?  No, it pervades all elements of society, though most especially at either end of the political and/or social spectrums.

The standard by which humans should make decisions would be "Given the information that I have processed, X is true."  The standard by which humans actually make decisions is "Things would be really great if X were true, so I am going to behave as if it was, no matter what the universe says."

And this is where the late, frequently misquoted Adam Smith comes in.  When he talked about "the invisible hand of the marketplace", he certainly didn't mean "corporations will do what's right, because they make decisions based on marketplace reality", he meant "If, in the marketplace, decisions are made that do not reflect reality, then reality will come back and kick your arse sideways, sooner or later."

It's a simple concept, right?  So simple that you'd expect at least the Superior Mutants™ to understand it...But we're just as irrational as any other group of monkeys, so you have people jabbering about rational anarchy, how neat things would be if only human nature would suddenly change, etc.

Well, here's a bit of Horrible Truth™ for you:  The universe is what it is, and it's not going to change because you've adopted a philosophy that would really be neat if things were different.  Your wants and beliefs have precisely zero impact on the world, unless they are somehow compatible with the way the world actually works in real life.

I don't expect anyone who doesn't already understand that to get it, and I don't expect those who do understand it - but don't want to - to stop jabbering about their pet ideas and utopian dreams.  I wish they would, because I'd much rather use all this potential for rage at work, but I'm realistic enough to know that most people will read the above and assume it applies to everyone but themselves.

God, how I hate you all.

Okay for now,
Dok

It occurred to me yesterday, while I was bellowing gibberish into Alphapance's voicemail, that most of Tucson is a bad country song.  It's like someone took Nashville and drained out all the George Strait and the Johnny Cash, and all that's left is wreckage and Taylor Swift.

Sure, you can still find a little Hank, if you know how and where to look, but most of The City is made out of plastic, and tries unsuccessfully to project an image of youth, vivacity, and energy...Just like Taylor Swift.

It's bad pop, and it's what's driving us all to substance abuse.

Even the pervert shops have failed us.  Hydra, once a premier leather shop for degenerates, is now Hot Topic for 40 year olds.  It's a shame and a disgrace, and results in the rest of us having to watch some 40-something woman trying to dress like Miley Cyrus...And nobody wants to see that.

We're basically down to three remaining centers of serious brain damage:  The Meetrack (which has mended it's ways, and gotten back off the straight and narrow), The Venture Inn (which has always laughed at anyone who isn't 50+ years old and FABULOUS!), and the Bashful Bandit (A biker bar where you get stomped for NOT puking on the dance floor). 

Notice a pattern here?  They're all bars.  To get your weird on in Tucson, it has become necessary to smash your brain flat with shitty booze, or at least to hang out with people who have.  Everyone else is either dead on their feet from the sun, or so damned CHEERFUL that you have to physically restrain yourself from knocking their perfect white teeth out.

Bad country music, that's what it is.  There's no appreciation for misery and failure and heartache, even though that is the foundation this city is built on (Well, besides a bunch of Apache bones.).  No, it's all Cheerful™ and Young™ and/or Angsty™.  If Roy Orbison were alive today, this shit would kill him.

We can't get by on this.  We can't breathe this thin air, this horrible fucking slop that has replaced Filthy Joe's Porn Emporium with yet another shitty head shop on 4th Avenue.  No, we are fucking SUPERIOR MUTANTS, and we need MORE.  We will GET more, even if it means choking it out of the whey-faced "Good People" of Tucson.

Hank would have wanted it that way.

...NO.  It is not legally "self defense" to pound on a hipster, hippie, or "conservopagan" for "being in the same city as you".

You could probably argue lapse of mental faculties, though.

At the cost of a brand new set of clippers, intense agony on my part, and vicious, ruthless determination on Nurse Enabler's part, my back no longer resembles a Persian rug.

Unlike Samson, though, I have not lost my strength, but it is worthy of note that my farts don't smell as much, and no longer get caught in my hair for 3 hours or so.

One day, I WILL stop making bets with the women in my life.

Dok,
Shaved Yeti.

[Apology to Pop Tart retracted. Banned pending admin group decision and ECH approval.]

There was a mistake made in resolving Judge Nasty's IP address, and it looked like he was Pop Tart.  I banned him based on that (evading a prior ban).  As the mistake has been found, I have unbanned him, and will be emailing him later today to let him know he's back in.

We try not to make mistakes like this, and I'd like to offer an apology to Judge Nasty in particular, and the board in general.

- Dok Howl.

Apology to Pop Tart retracted.  Banned pending admin group decision and ECH approval.

It's always the drugs, Jim.

You walk down the street, and you're surrounded by people doing crazy things.  Spouses arguing with each other, making their opposite number hate them for no reason other than to win.  Some dumbass shooting another dumbass because he felt he was disrespected (because prison guards respect you, dumbshit), some ignorant fuck having a "Tucson moment" because he thought his Hummer2 made him invincible in traffic.  You know what I mean.

But the world can't be that crazy, Jim, it's just not possible, is it?  No, it has to be the pills.  It has to be the drugs making you think that Tucson creeps into every facet of daily life, making things horrible and weird, and usually in a bad way.  It has to be the pharmaceuticals that made that off-duty police detective cry into his whiskey the other day, out of sheer frustration. 

He hadn't even started drinking yet, and there he was, crying and repeating "It isn't supposed to be this way.  We had a lid on things, and they laid all the uniforms off and the desk sergeant is selling go-pills to the ones that are left, because they work 12 hours instead of 8 now, and the bodies are starting to pile up again, just like the bad old days."

What the hell do you say to that, Jim? 

You don't, of course.  That's just the whiskey talking, even though he was still contemplating his first drink of the night.

It's just the drugs that make you think that Tucson is seedy and horrible and filthy, and if you cut back a bit, maybe things wouldn't look so fucking run down, and maybe you'd stop noticing the people waiting.

They wait, Jim, or it seems they do, for hours or days or years or their whole lives.  That overweight kid waiting in front of the video store he works at (You can tell by his shirt)?  The store closed 3 hours ago, and he's still waiting with his sad little backpack on his lap.  He looks like he expects to wait a lot longer.

Everyone here seems to be waiting for whatever it is they're waiting for, and you want to grab them and shake them and say "YOUR LIFE IS PASSING YOU BY!  DO SOMETHING WHILE YOU WAIT!"...But they won't.  They'll just wait, because that's how the Spider has them programmed.

And if you weren't so fucked up on drugs, you wouldn't notice or care.  It's someone else's problem, after all, and you have a busy day.

It's always the drugs, Jim.

Okay for now,
Dok

"This isn't the way things are supposed to be.  The force shouldn't be hit with layoffs just when we get a lid on things, and the desk sergeant shouldn't be selling pills to the rank and file.  I shouldn't wake up screaming every night, and you shouldn't have to worry that walking down Drachmann Street means you might turn up jammed into a dumpster."
- An off duty police detective at the Hotel Congress Bar

Imagine that.  Things aren't the way they're supposed to be.  Cops shouldn't be hopped up on pills to stay awake through their new post-layoff shift durations, and crime shouldn't be getting worse.  Banks shouldn't be able to bill us for giving them a loan, and oil drilling companies should be inspected.  We shouldn't be pissing away American lives in Afghanistan and Iraq, and 48% of America probably shouldn't be throwing a tantrum because a Black dude got elected (There are plenty of legitimate things to bitch at Obama for, but who cares, right?).

We live in a world that had steadily - and with great cost - improved for a full century, but has now seemingly burst at the seams, allowing a century's worth of awful sewage and filth to come pouring out.  Orwellian bullshit is on the rise (Example:  Battered White Man Syndrome, where anyone who points out their racism is somehow racist for doing so.  Another example:  The Media Shield Act.), but we can all pretend everything is okay, so long as we have Hispanics to dump on.

The funniest thing about all this is that there really isn't anything wrong.  Let me say that again:  There isn't anything wrong.  Sure, we're in a recession, but that happens like clockwork.  Yes, we have an environmental disaster on the gulf coast, but we've survived those before.  Illegal immigration isn't any worse now than it's ever been (the Southern border has never been "safe".), and terrorists have become a sad joke (since Richard Reid, nobody seems to know how to build a functioning bomb anymore).  Things are basically as normal as they can get.

So the obvious thing to do - at least here in Arizona - is fire, or threaten to fire, as many teachers, police, and emergency workers as possible.  And the way you do that is to push (regressive) tax increases to "save" those jobs, and then spend all of the money in Tempe, Phoenix, Mesa, and Scottsdale, leaving the rest of the state to lay off the above mentioned people.  This creates the problem they want, so that they can use the horrible examples that result as a means to scare the honkey off of the residents of those 4 cities, and squeeze them some more...All the while crying that the democrats want to raise their taxes.

And I'm sure we're not the only state this is happening to.  I happen to know that Utah, Florida, and Texas are doing the same thing (notice a pattern here, folks?).

And everyone eats it up.

So, yeah, fuck it, they deserve what's coming.  

Okay for now,
Dok