If every piece of trash could be traced back to its owner, we’d never see an empty cup or wrapper on our roads. -Lady Bird Johnson

Oh… I didn’t see you there. Please just turn away, click to another page or ignore the obvious…

Oh well, you decided to look anyway.

What you see is just one small example of our local roads here in Lee County, Alabama. While the area around us - Columbus and West Point (Georgia), not to mention Opelika, Auburn and Valley (Alabama) - are growing, we here are stuck in something of a time warp… and the result is just plain ugly.

In another age, the notion of having collection points for garbage was probably quite logical. In fact, it wasn’t all that long ago that our little corner of Alabama paradise was very rural. We would load up our refuse in the back of the truck or family sedan and then tote it to those collection points where it was/is then compacted into what are known as ‘roll-off’ containers for a trip to the landfill.

But things have changed, and changed in a big way around here. In just the last decade alone, southeast Lee County has gone from that simple rurality to becoming hardcore suburbia.

Today’s undeniable truth is that our roads are blighted with so much litter from fallen bags and boxes that never made it to the compactors, that an entire army of weekend warriors (Read: County prisoners) couldn’t begin to make a dent in it.

Fairly, I know many people, both friends and family, who find a measure of freedom in being able to haul their garbage at their own liking. There is nothing wrong with this but the reality trumps the comfort because the result is what you see on nearly every single roadway in our area.

Whether we like it or not, our area has outgrown the current method of garbage collection.

In all honesty, if our local roads were presented to those large corporations that are now making parts of Lee County home, they might well consider somewhere both a little less backwards and certainly a lot less anal in how the taxes for this lack of service are so often enforced upon those home owners who find it completely without genuine representation.

It’s time we either grew up and began curbside pick-up or… perhaps began to place some serious enforcement upon those who so often and so carelessly leave their garbage along the side of our roads.

 
* * *

Kilometers are shorter than miles.  Save gas, take your next trip in kilometers. -George Carlin

Where does it end? Or better yet, when does it begin going down again?

Well, the answer to both questions is, probably, that it won’t ever do either.

For all that really matters, your budget is under the authoritarian rule of oil. In its old age and final decline, it has become quite mad you see. The ancient and once glorious empire is crumbling and the peasants are in revolt so, it has locked itself away in its death chamber, where it has vowed to take as many of you with it as it can.

There have been other empires that came before it. King Coal was once the mighty ruler of the industrial age. Along side it was the Railroads that worked hand-in-hand to build a great nation. But then the young usurpers came along. Oil, the internal combustion engine and the age of flight displaced the sooty king and his army of the Iron Horse.

Great ages do not pass into history peacefully. The births and deaths of these eras are often painful and sometimes even violent and the passing of oil will be no exception. But on the bright side, there are a few glimmers of what lies ahead just now sprouting from the fertile soil of human ingenuity.

Necessity is indeed the mother of invention.

A little over a century ago, every would-be inventor and garage tinkerer were building contraptions that would replace the horse and buggy or lift men into the air in powered flight. In today’s world, these same types are finding ways around the fuel crisis by applying some of that same inventiveness…

I had to ask him what in the world was on the back of his truck. It was a wood-burning oven that catches the combustible fumes from the wood coals, condenses any moisture, then feeds the fumes into the engine to make it run. I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it.

Apparently this is a concept that was engineered back in WWII when there were fuel supply shortages.

From “A Truck That Runs on Wood”
- Coast to Coast AM - 11 May 2008

This could be a good idea, especially if you were inclined to increase your potential profits by making the contraption double as a rolling still. On the downside, you won’t be making any friends in the ‘green’ community because this monster has a fairly hefty carbon footprint.

If you aren’t into cooking untaxed whiskey, how about ethanol?

A Silicon Valley start-up called E-Fuel is showing exactly how ethanol can live up to its name as “the people´s fuel.” The company recently announced that it will soon start selling a home ethanol system, the E-Fuel 100 MicoFueler, which will allow anyone to make ethanol from sugar, water, yeast, and electricity in their own backyard.

From “Make Ethanol in Your Own Backyard”
- Physorg.com - 9 May 2008

Sugar, water and yeast, huh? Forget the wood stove. Just mount this on the back of your F-150 and it’s fuel & foolishness on wheels. From there, you could add one of those loud speakers - like an ice cream truck - to play ‘Tequila Sunrise’.

You do have to appreciate the mind of Yankee Ingenuity, even when it misfires a little!

And now for a few efforts that do appear to have some promise…

The WaterGas Green Machine works by adding a small amount of a mixed hydrogen/oxygen gas, called Brown’s Gas, into the vehicle’s fuel system. This enriched mixture of hydrogen, oxygen (oxyhydrogen) and gasoline is bonded together molecularly and magnetically. The combined fuel results in better fuel economy and an increase in miles per gallon. Usually this increase is in the range of 25%-50%!

From “Water To Gas”
- Watertogas.com - 2008

When we first heard of this, our first impression was that it had to be a rip off. I mean, turning plain water into gas would seem to border on medieval alchemy.

But as we researched the science of it, we found that the extraction of a form of hydrogen, HHO (or ‘Brown’s Gas’) is actually an old process. In fact, with a comparatively small investment, most any automobile can be converted to burn HHO as a supplement to regular gasoline, using only a few ounces of tap water.

NOTE: While we have looked into the science of the actual substance (HHO), we haven’t actually tried applying the process to any of our cars here. If you or anyone you know have, please feel free to let us know if it works as well as advertised.

Finally, there’s this fully electric car that will soon be available to the commoner…

With a 80mph top speed and 100-mile range (soon, the optional capacity-boost battery pack will add 25%), sustainable living is real possibility. In fact, this zero-emissions vehicle has the extra advantage of being allowed in the carpool lane with only a single occupant. Charging takes 6 hours to go from zip to full, and is as simple as plugging in a toaster.

 

From “The Juice” (Triac)
- GreenVehicles.com - undated

It’s very clear that these small totally electric cars are being marketed more to the ‘Save the Planet’ types than those of us who are just trying to get back and forth to work without burning our entire paycheck in the cost of gasoline. But be that as it may, it is the electric car that will someday own our roadways and this looks to be one of the first to stake a real claim to it with a vehicle most everyone can afford.

So… plug in, charge up and, get off the gas!

* * *

“Imitation is the sincerest form of television.”
- Fred Allen

Tired of politics? Same here. So tired in fact that we began the morning by making a purposeful effort to avoid the national news. Instead of watching Diane Sobber, Matt Liar or Meredith Viagra whine and blither over porcelain breast implants or some such, we spun up the old remote control unit and began randomly surfing the great television wasteland.

Ahhh yes, channel after channel of program-free commercials specifically designed to sicken you so severely, you have no need of a diet.

One of the worst is a Bowflex commercial with this pinheaded nitwit talking about how his wife gives him a little wink. (She’s probably not winking so much as wincing in regret for marrying this egotistical simpleton!)

The worst purveyor of this ad is the History Channel, which shows it on average of about 43 times an hour.

Mister Smirk goes on to talk about giving all his fat clothes to his fat friends, but what you won’t see is the part where all the special effects are removed and the mooncalf is bared… minus those threads he’s just given away.

Oh well, time to move on and explore more of the outer reaches of cable broadcastdom…

You know, someday it will happen that TV and the PC will merge into a single device and then, you’ll be able to get your daily dose of doofus demagoguery and professional prevarications in one place.

Whoa! Here’s another good one (please note sarcasm)! The ad opens with a nice little old lady playing with her pet kitty cat by watching it chase a light/shadow across a far wall. Just in case you have been lucky enough to miss this one, this woman could be your grandmother (or depending on your age, even your mom).

Post Note: Remember that Mother’s Day is this Sunday!

Anyway, the kindly lady is laughing as her cat plays just before you are pounced upon by the moron from hell and in a voice that could be coming from a 5-year old child, he shouts, ‘Wun Fwag’! The scene then shifts to a roller coaster, and the same waterhead shouts ‘Sicks Fwags! Mo Fwags, Mo Fung!’

Okay, I know Six Flags is a lot of fun for the younguns and parents certainly get a workout too because by the end of any given visit, you will have walked somewhere in the neighborhood of 21 miles. But here is another example of how advertisers aim for the least common denominator. I mean, just who in the heck is this ad really targeted at? Residents of the state mental health facility? 

There are others that are just as annoying… or perhaps even worse. But it’s a fairly simple process to avoid them. All you have to do is to click the channel. In fact, it’s so easy, even a cave man could do it…

* * *

“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.” -Groucho Marx

It has been an eye opening primary. Since it began, we’ve learned a number of things, not the least of which is that any remaining notion that our news media is anywhere near unbiased, or fair and balanced as it were, is out the door and down the hill floating belly-up in a political cesspool.

For their most recent act, they have begun harmonizing that Hillary Clinton should now call it quits… regardless of the fact that she commands the loyalty of somewhere in the neighborhood of half the Democratic Party’s voters and that she had just won the Indiana primary.

Of course, it could be argued that even Hillary’s legions see the writing on the wall but her supporters are demanding… not asking, but demanding she stand firm all the way to Denver!

Earlier in the year, in a parody of the obvious media tilt, Saturday Night Live ran a spoof. In it, a panel of mock media moderators were very concerned with Obama’s happiness with the stage seating and cushions, though not necessarily the fairness, or the seriousness of the debate. It was both funny and, at the same moment, just too true to be anything but depressing.

So, what lies ahead? Should Hillary quit or should she fight on to the convention? If she chooses to remain in the race, it should lead to one of the most interesting, if not rancorous political conventions in decades. Not since the Democratic National Convention of 1968 in Chicago has there been this degree of chaos and infighting.

For the Holy Democratic Emperor, Howard Dean, there is the all-too-real prospect of having his political empire split completely asunder by the warring Obama and Clinton camps. He knows that as it stands right now, the nomination of either candidate will not be a moment of glorious unification but a split second of resounding and thoroughly devastating division.

As you read this, Hillary’s supporters are plotting an insurrection. Most of it consists of pledges that have Clinton voters promising to vote for John McCain rather than their previous opponent, Barrack Obama. And this is not limited to a few radical break-aways either. There are groups of mainstream Democrats forming right this very moment at sites like Yahoo Groups and elsewhere on the web, with memberships that are in the hundreds, if not thousands.

Make no mistake, these people are dead serious… and now to a point to where even Hillary herself might not be able to bring them back into the fold on behalf of Barrack Obama. Mr. Dean knows that unless the Democrats can mend the cold, bloody rift between the camps, they don’t stand a chance in November.

To save the party and the election, he has two fundamental choices…

1: Marriage by decree - Clinton/Obama, with the ticket stack based solely on Hillary’s seniority in both age and overall experience.

2: The drafted horse - (probably) Al Gore - who will NOT select either of Clinton or Obama for a running mate but more likely someone like John Edwards.

It could be very interesting.

Now, let’s take a closer look at the media’s darling candidate, Barrack Obama. But before we do, a brief review of our…

Standard Political Disclaimer:
Sin City Inquisition & Bar B Q does not support or endorse any candidate of any party for any office. It is our view that in this field of endeavor, the choices are most always between Bad and Worse. And so it is for just this reason that we do, however, reserve the right to OPPOSE any or all of them at our leisure.

Mr. Obama’s candidacy has been a study in negativity from the very start. And though his campaign slogans applied words like ‘Hope’ and ‘Dream’, it quickly veered off on an ugly course by immediately labeling his detractors as everything from bitter gun nuts to being racists. In other words, there were no honest American voters who simply had a different view.

That behavior then led to the question of how candidate Obama might handle the heat of being President Obama. Would every American citizen, or member of the press or congress who criticized him as president, then also be tagged as a racist?

And speaking of racism, no review would be complete without Obama’s longtime minister, friend and confidant, Jeremiah ‘Goddamn America!’ Wright.
Mr. Obama had plenty of occasions to divorce himself from this arrogant, bigoted man but he chose to remain close until it simply became so much of a burden that it was threatening his candidacy.

So, what exactly does Mr. Obama believe in?

He has shown a tendency towards obfuscation of the facts surrounding his political and nationalistic beliefs, even refusing to place his hand over his heart for our National Anthem. And though he is free NOT to do so, some of us might like to have a president who holds to higher values.

And finally, on top of this mountain are the unanswered questions surrounding the allegations being forwarded by Larry Sinclair, who may have shared both illegal drugs and sex with the senator and presidential candidate from Illinois. More serious and far, far more troubling than even this, though, is the allegation that Mr. Obama may have been either directly or indirectly involved in the murder of a man named Donald Young in 2007.

These are serious, serious allegations that should be answered in full view of the public but to this point, so far as we can find, there has been very little official investigation and even less media coverage.

For the last 40+ years, we as a nation have suffered scandal after official scandal coming from Capitol Hill and the Whitehouse. The result is that the American public has become entirely cynical when it comes to their government.

And even in an election year when the numbers of voters reporting to the polls are at historic highs, our candidates are not nearly of the caliber capable of restoring that lost confidence.

As if to highlight this national tragedy, we are now faced with the possibility of a President Obama, who seems just as content as his predecessors to continue this sad legacy.

* * *

“Modern man lives under the illusion that he knows what he wants, while he actually wants what he is supposed to want” -Erich Fromm

I often and truly find reasons to hate this modern world. For all our technology, we can’t escape our own stupidity and the ancestral need to inflict pain and duress on our fellow humans.

Yeah, technology. If left to the users, it could be such a good thing… but in the hands of the mindless purveyors of aggravation, it becomes a torture device that drives blood pressure up and life spans down.

Just this morning, I tried to access a bank/card account on-line. This usually involves entering the card number and then a password. This is good technology because I have that card number committed to memory and so too the password. But in the name of security, this institution has installed a series of traps and pitfalls that are designed to take so long to navigate that any criminal would die of old age before getting to the other side. Trouble is, they offer the same depressing outcome for the legitimate consumer.

Thank you Chase Bank!

Here’s how it went.
6:59 AM: There is a need to check the account balance and I don’t have a lot of time so I go to the account interface page, enter my account number and password, just like I have done 6,497 times previously with no problem.

7:00 AM: Instead of taking me to my account page, I am being asked, “What is your dream car?”
I immediately recall sometime… maybe a month ago, being asked to provide answers to security questions, just in case someone tried to pretend to be me. Unfortunately, I don’t remember what I used for answers because I was in a hurry then, just as I am now.

7:01 AM: Well, now I am locked out of my account, completely unable to access anything that is mine… and I can feel my heart thumping in my ears.

7:04 AM: I am on the phone with customer service, which basically means that I am speaking with someone in India named Derrick. Oh yes, and they also have others like Sam, Linda, Debbie and Mike there too… though nary a single one of them can pronounce them clearly enough to be mistaken for someone with those names.

7:08 AM: I am told that the account will be rest in about 10 minutes and that I can try again.
NOTE: This is a bit like basic training in the US Army. They set up this obstacle course, you see, full of neat things like rolling logs, 16 foot walls, ankle-deep sand traps and barbed wire frontiers that you have to negotiate in a certain amount of time. If by chance you fall off the logs or wall, get bogged down in the little sandy desert or tied up in that delightful barbed wire, you have to do it all over again.

Now, I do understand that in all likelihood, their intentions are honest. They are just trying to protect me from the hackers, tramps and thieves that prowl our cyberspace like gangstas in search of good crack rock. But if they were to gain access to my account page, the only thing they would find is that they were poorer for the effort.

Beyond that, why all the stupid questions, such as, ‘How long are your eyelashes on Tuesdays at 3 PM?’ or ‘Does your dog wag his tail to the left or to the right?’.

Why not something straightforward like, ‘What country do you expect to be taken to when you call customer service?’

Like I said, it’s easy to hate all this modernity and if I have the same problem trying to log in and publish this post, I’ll just meet yall for lunch in New Delhi.

* * *

“Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.” - Isaac Asimov

According to the 12th Street Rag, the state of Alabama is considering addressing childhood obesity by mandating more school-time PE. The downside to this is that the time will be stolen from elective classes…

… a bill before the Alabama Legislature could limit or eliminate choir and other electives from the curriculum in favor of more physical education time.
- Columbus Ledger-Enquirer - 6 May 2008 (Registration required)

This issue leads us to once again ask why our society is becoming more rotund and also, whether it is up to the state to mandate patterns of behavior design to combat it. But as to the why, there are probably a number of factors with not any single one being a decisive contributor:

The Food We Eat, Part 1 – It’s not hard to see that the return of the family dinner hour is actually no return at all. With outfits like KFC, Taco Bell, McDonald’s and others presenting their products as a genuine alternative to a home cooked meal, we can watch our waistlines expand in real-time.

The Food We Eat, Part 2 – Before you sit down to eat that burger or drink that glass of milk, you may want to consider all the various bovine growth hormones. The very things that keep those cows fat and/or full of that $4 per-gallon milk are then entering your body, making you just as plump and lactative.

All Play and No Play – Most folks downstream of 40 can recall their childhood in terms of climbing trees, swimming in the nearby creek or pool, riding bikes and playing pick-up games of ball in the nearest open spaces. Those upstream of that same mark can recall spending increasing amounts of their childhood in front of the TV and/or the video gaming console. Making this even worse is that Mom & Dad are often just all too happy to find their kids otherwise occupied and not bothering them for share-time at the park or rides to the swimming pool.

The Family Buffet – Eating out used to be one of those quality events that only happened on weekends or on Sunday after church services. Food was ordered from a menu with the portions limited to what you got on your first and only plate. And if you ate all that and wanted some dessert, there may have been a single slice of pie. Today’s version is the buffet and a sort of mass grazing that can go on and on until the diners are literally stuffed like a bed pillow.

The question is now whether we have become so irresponsible that we really do need a nanny state to step in and dictate our personal behavior regimen. Have we reached a point where our society is so mind-numbingly vegetated that we actually have to be forklifted around like some hormone-happy cow?

You tell me.

* * *

“Three weeks after God made Eve, the birds stopped singing. They were hiding in fear of their lives.” - Roland Gregory

Ever have one of them days?

Then… you understand.

Hope to have something up soon.

* * *

“Truth is not determined by majority vote.” 
- Doug Gwyn
 

As a matter of modern fact, most of us will acknowledge an election year can and will bring out the bugs from the woodwork. Some of these are the pets of Political Action Committees but regardless of their origins and who actually feeds them; they can and often do have an impact on the contest.

The value of any information is only as worthy as whatever truth it may contain. If there are issues that are otherwise being ignored by the media or obscured by a candidate, it then falls into the purview of the private citizen, or PAC, to act on them. One example would be the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004. Were they the genuine article or a designed political mechanism to alter public perception?

In lieu of a trustworthy media… it’s entirely your call.

One part of this blog’s charter is to forward the concept that the messenger is less important than the message. No matter who it is that may be speaking, we should take the time to weigh the product for its value in truth. So no matter what the Swiftboaters intentions, they certainly had the right to speak and we the people, a duty to hear them out.

Now, as 2008 has rolled in with another crop of presidential hopefuls, there have been those who have again come forward with claims and stories regarding the candidates. And just as in 2004, we who are charged with choosing the next president are again tasked with sifting truth from the partisan political flotsam and jetsam.

Make no mistake; this is a very important function of the electorate and one that should not be summarily dismissed just because we would prefer not to dirty our hands. We don’t have that luxury because the legacy of even a single-term president can be felt for generations.

It may not be specifically spelled out in our Constitution but this IS, in our opinion, part of our job description as citizens and voters.

Okay, all that being said, you are now properly primed for what comes next…

We received a link to the following story several months back but have waited before speaking to it because we wanted to take the time to weigh the issue for its value in truth. Unfortunately, that value is still in question because the MSM has foregone any attention to it, one way or another.

The subject is presidential candidate Barrack Obama and what may have been a homosexual tryst with a gentleman by the name, Larry Sinclair. He alleges that in 1999, he and Mr. Obama together used illegal drugs and engaged in sexual relations. He has since taken a polygraph exam, the result of which is somewhat blurred by the circumstances that surrounded it.

Oh yes, the allegations are certainly fantastic but they still demand an appropriate public hearing… something that they have not yet received.

Here are a few excerpts from Mr. Sinclair’s website…

Larry Sinclair alleges that on 6th and 7th November 1999 in Chicago, Illinois he met Barack Obama for a social evening which included drinks in a lounge, followed by a drive around town in his hired limousine during which Obama supplied cocaine, smoked crack through his own glass pipe while accepting fellatio from Sinclair.

The next day Obama took the initiative to visit Sinclair’s Comfort Inn hotel room in Gurney, Illinois for a “quickie” version of the previous night’s activities. Both men were 38 years of age. Larry Sinclair was on parole visiting for a few days from Colorado. Barack Obama was a member of the Illinois Senate.
[…]

Larry Sinclair took a polygraph test in February confident that he would pass and he challenged Obama to do the same. The test was arranged by Whitehouse.com an internet site best known for pornography and anti-Clinton political satire.

The raw computer readings showed that Larry Sinclair passed the test with flying colours. But two testers hired by Whitehouse.com re-interpreted the readings to claim that they showed deception. One of the testers was Edward I. Gelb who has been exposed by specialists in the field for claiming a phony Ph.D.
[…]

When Larry Sinclair first reported his allegations to the Obama campaign in September 2007 he wanted Obama to correct his claim that he had stopped taking drugs in his teens and had never taken crack. He believes crack is addictive and difficult to shake off.

Over the following months until December, 2007 he was contacted several times by Donald Young who appeared to be Obama’s emissary. He was the choir master at the Trinity Church of Christ which was under the direction of Pastor Jeremiah Wright and where Barack Obama is a member of the congregation. Donald Young informed Larry Sinclair that he, too, had a sex and drugs relationship with Barack Obama similar to his.

At first he suggested that Obama was seeking the assistance of Jeremiah Wright in making a statement acknowledging his use of crack cocaine as recently as 1999. But he had second thoughts in early December 2007. Donald Young was murdered in his appartment at Christmas 2007.

- From “Larrysinclair0926 Official Obama Drug Scandal Weblog” (Main)

- Above excerpts from FAQ Page

In November of 2008, We the People will be choosing our next president. Regardless of whom it may eventually be, they will have a profound affect on both this nation and our world. It is no small thing to elect a president and it should not be taken lightly.

Since the Main Scream Media has practically forgone any honest review of this man, Sinclair, and his allegations, it behooves us as individuals to research the available data and then, if we deem it worthy, demand a more thorough hearing.

If these allegations are even partially true, then the American people do have a right to know.

We would encourage each of you to take the time to consider what is being said. If you find it without merit, then please dismiss it. But at the same time, if you find cause for concern, you should probably demand more than what can be offered here.

* * *