Reason and Liberty Central

Gunpowder Tea, Chapter One, Part Three

2012-01-03T21:32:00.005-05:00

Begin with the beginning.

When Traynor was about to detour through that flower-filled strait between the low rises of the British Empire Building and La Maison Française, he stopped short and stepped over to the balustrade above the Sunken Plaza in front of the GE Building, his favorite spot in Midtown Manhattan. His gaze swept across the sunshades of the cafe in the plaza below, to the golden figure of Prometheus soaring above Mount Olympus and the zodiac, bathed in the waters of the fountains and the shine of the spotlights, holding high the sample of fire he had stolen from the gods. "Prometheus, teacher in every art, brought the fire that hath proved to mortals a means to mighty ends," stated the inscription on the granite wall behind the statue. Faced with the skyscrapers around him, Traynor could not but agree.

Another drink? After what had just happened, maybe not tonight. If he got kicked out of his other favorite hangout as well, he might start to feel drinks jinxed. He started to hum again.

Mine eyes have seen the number of the coming of the lord:
It is trampling out the vintage years whose heads are less than scored;
It hath loosed the fateful lightning of its terrible swift sword:
This truth is marching on.

Traynor just had to do something special before the summer and the millennium were over. Sure, the bean counters claimed the old millennium had another year's worth of blood in it, but someone who believed that the change from 2000 to 2001 would be more special than that from 1999 to 2000, someone who would not see the obvious, could not be trusted. Who cares if there was a year 0?

Anyway, whatever he did, whenever he did it, maybe he should not do it in the city, state, or even country where he tentatively intended to read law to one day help make it a little less asinine. If his rap sheet grew much longer, even his parents would not be able to protect him from getting disbarred before he ever got barred, uh, admitted to the bar. Five Flag Theory… He needed a place to play, a place where it would not matter if he ended up being a wanted man, uh, juvenile delinquent, in short, a place where he would never go again.

At the ass end of the Channel Gardens, Traynor turned north onto Fifth Avenue, his back to the Gothic pile of St. Patrick's Cathedral, and his head up at Atlas heroically propping up a hollow world below the International Building. One street crossing and one avenue crossing later, he (Traynor, not Atlas, although Traynor sure had an ego big enough for both) arrived at the bronze-colored box of Olympic Tower, now a black silhouette dotted with diamonds of light. His dad's duplex condo was on the upper floors. When Traynor entered the library off the living room on the upper level of the duplex, the red light of the answering machine on the desk was flashing. He pressed the appropriate button.

It was a message from his girlfriend. "Hi, you still recognize my voice? I'll be back soon, and then you can take me to that… Yadda, yadda, yadda."

That did not exactly make him a happy camper, as she was only a placeholder girlfriend. At first he had thought she looked all right and had a pleasant enough personality. However, it had not taken him long to decide that she was dull, unintelligent, a mees-tick, a dinner whore, jealous, and worst of all, not blond enough. Ah, hair the color of… He lost his train of thought.

She sounded like she expected him to pop the question, and failing that, would pop it herself. Would he go steady with her? Would he commit to an exclusive relationship? Well, he'd rather be committed.

Blech.

Did he look that stupid?

Traynor went over to the huge globe in a corner to play Atlas: He made the globe spin, closed his eyes, and stabbed it with his index finger, stopping it. He had stabbed some hole in the wall called Sidi Ifni, Morocco. Yet he let on he hit Casablanca. Sounded more romantic. Why not see Casablanca in color? Plus, Casablanca reminded him of his mom's latest entry in her series featuring Isabella, the white slave of Timbuktu. Let's pay Isabella a visit and see about those more or less oriental delights. He sat down at the computer to help put some travel agents out of work (as the looters would put it), or speed the transition to a new economy with better jobs for all (as the sane people put it).

Down in his room, a packing Traynor also packed the .45 Colt 1911 automatic pistol his dad had given him for his birthday some months before. Officially, the gun was still the property of his dad. Traynor senior had the connections to get any firearms license he wanted from City Hall. He was literally and semi-officially above the law. Hell, he could probably have gotten a license to drag a howitzer down Fifth Avenue, with the mayor and the police commissioner blocking traffic for him.

His son was not content to muddle through by gaming the system. He would do something about it. Either the system would change, or it would be overthrown. Traynor junior believed that all people should be equal before the law, and that you should not have to have connections to have the law recognize your rights. Those stupid laws better be changed pretty damn quick. However, he was not stupid enough to obey them while they were still in force, particularly not if obeying could get him killed. Change the law if possible — bend or ignore it if necessary. And he sure did not believe in sucking up to its custodians. The law was an ass. Fuck the law. He would be the most lawless lawyer in legal history.

He hid his Colt, some spare magazines, and some boxes of cartridges in cutouts in the foam padding between the inner and outer shells of his suitcase. Better safe than sorry. The checked baggage would not be screened. Chances that Casablanca customs would find these items were near nil. And if they found them, it would be a welcome opportunity for them to demand a small baksheesh. Or maybe not so small.

Traynor went up into the kitchen to leave a note mesmerized to the refrigerator for his mom and dad to find when they got back from a book tour and some sort of mercenary mission, respectively.

Folks:

Gone traveling. Will be back soon enough. (Don't hold your breath.)

Love and stuff,

Kevin

Traynor had a deal with his parents. They would not try to parent him as long he would not try to educate them. Savages said, "It takes a village to raise a child." The Traynor clan knew it takes no one. Only in a dysfunctional family, Traynor was sure, can you grow up to be a decent person.

Gunpowder Tea, Chapter One, Part Two

2012-01-03T21:10:00.003-05:00

Begin with the beginning.

Nursing his Bostonian blue law blues, a cross Traynor crossed the cavernous elevator lobby and took one of the spacious express elevator cars down. Under his breath, he kept whistling "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
I have tortured every teacher — I have broken every rule
Us boys are playing poker and the girls are shooting pool
The school is burning down!

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
Offed Miss Pettigrew with a mousegun .32
And that old bat don't teach no more!

He left the cathedral-like tower lobby and marched through the subterranean mall to the subway station.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
I have tortured every teacher — I have broken every rule
I have shot the secretary and I hung the principal
The school is burning down!

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
Met her at the gate with a loaded .38
And the teacher don't teach no more!

The 1 train roared into the station; the doors parted. "This is a Bronx-bound 1 local train. The next stop is Chambers Street."

Traynor boarded the enemy vessel and stared down the passengers. The doors clicked shut, steel squealed on steel once more, and the train rumbled into the tunnel.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
I have tortured every teacher — I have broken every rule
I have bound and gagged the principal and tossed him in the pool
The school is burning down!

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
Shot him out the door with a Magnum .44
And the teacher don't teach no more!

"This is a Bronx-bound 1 local train. The next stop is Franklin Street."

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
I have tortured every teacher — I have broken every rule
I slowly killed the principal at a quarter after two
The school is burning down!

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
Took his fucking life with my old Colt .45
And the teacher don't teach no more!

"This is a Bronx-bound 1 local train. The next stop is Canal Street."

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
I have tortured every teacher — I have broken every rule
I have barbecued the principal, destroyed the PTA
The school is burning down!

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
Shot her up to heaven with an AK-47
And the teacher don't teach no more!

"This is a Bronx-bound 1 local train. The next stop is Houston Street."

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
I have tortured every teacher — I have broken every rule
I have sliced the English teachers and have drowned them in their blood
The school is burning down!

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
Shot him in the bean with my favorite M-16
And the teacher don't teach no more!

"This is a Bronx-bound 1 local train. The next stop is Christopher Street – Sheridan Square."

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
I have tortured every teacher — I have broken every rule
I am killing all the teachers — I am breaking all the rules
The school is burning down!

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
Met her at the bank with a cool main battle tank
And the teacher don't teach no more!

"This is a Bronx-bound 1 local train. The next stop is Fourteenth Street."

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
I have tortured every teacher — I have broken every rule
I have broken every piece of chalk as well as every rule
My truth is marching on!

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
Blasted him real mean with a nuclear submarine
And there ain't no teacher no more!

Unlike his truth, Traynor stopped marching around the subway car. Boy, he sure needed a vacation. He got off at Fiftieth Street and Broadway, turned east, and walked crosstown through Rockefeller Center. The dark canyon between the big boxes that were the Exxon and Time-Life Buildings lay deserted. He felt a bit naked without a gun. Even between the setback-riddled limestone slab of the GE Building and Radio City Music Hall the tourist count was low. Like moths, the few passersby were drawn to the bright floodlights of the Channel Gardens.

Read on…

Person of the Year: John Boehner

2011-12-31T14:30:00.002-05:00

Well, I haven't noticed that many feats of strength this year and I'm running out of time, so Reason and Liberty Central's Person of the Year 2011 is John Boehner for standing up to Obama's insane spending. Hate to give that award to a politician, but I can't think of anyone better right now.

Gunpowder Tea, Chapter One, Part One

2011-12-29T22:21:00.004-05:00

Chapter One

Where Nobody Knows Your Name

New York City, the last summer of the millennium.

The setting sun shed its last golden rays on the little Statue of Liberty far, far below, out in the harbor. Big black ships and little white boats, both as tiny as matches, crisscrossed its waters with their wake trails. Beyond the harbor and the twin black blotches of Liberty and Ellis Islands, the as black flatlands of New Jersey, intersected by inlets and waterways, stretched into a golden infinity.

On the other side, a vast rectangle of sun-gilded silvery columns stretched out and down until they too blurred into rows of matches. Atop Tower Two the tourists' cameras started to flash, and would not cease until the observation decks closed for the night. There sure was a reason why the southeastern quadrant of the one acre of Manhattan real estate that was the 107th floor of One World Trade Center was called The Greatest Bar on Earth and why it was Kevin Traynor's favorite hangout in all New York.

This side of the narrow floor-to-ceiling windows was pandemonium. Actually, it wasn't really pandemonium. Even on this Friday night, the bar was only moderately busy at this early hour. There were still some seats and barstools available, and only a couple junior investment bankers released from their cubicles were doing their antics on the small dance floor. It only felt like pandemonium to a Traynor who did not feel like dealing with people tonight. But like the game was safest below the barrel of the hunter's rifle, the multitude of the eight million constituted the best guarantee of anonymity for Traynor. Give or take a cougar or two to be dodged.

Tonight, a tequila sunrise and Traynor were celebrating the night his high school had closed for the summer. As far as he was concerned, it ought to be closed down and burned down for good. He raised his glass to its eternal burning in the hell of nasty institutions.

Yet for Traynor, favorite spot or not, The Greatest Bar on Earth was no safe bet, either. He constituted a decidedly endangered species up here. While the tourists atop the tower's twin continued to flash their cameras across the canyon, Traynor flashed the fake ID his dad had given him in recognition of passing grades.

"You don't look twenty-five." The waitress frowned formidably under her frizzy black hair tied into something midway between a sloppy bun and a severe pony tail.

"Not the first time I hear that, not the last." Traynor looked at the ID. He found it quite convincing and would almost have believed he was an adult.

She stormed off in a huff. Fortunately, the tower had been designed to withstand hurricanes, so there was little damage she could do.

But to Traynor she could cause no end of trouble: She returned without his second drink, but with a little something or rather someone else. "I'm sorry, but my supervisor has to examine your ID."

Supervisor. In a fucking bar. Even if it was, in name and in fact, the greatest bar on earth. A fucking bartender. The fucking bartender following on the fucking heels of the fucking tequila dolly held out his fucking hand, demanding Traynor's fucking ID.

Traynor cocked his head. "What?"

"Could I see your ID?"

"I showed it to your little friend."

"You'll have to show it to me, too, and good, if you want another drink. After all, you don't look twenty-one, much less twenty-five."

Traynor flashed the waitress a grin. "Hey, I told you it wouldn't be the last time."

Now the bartender frowned forebodingly as well. "Please?"

"I can't."

"You just showed it to me."

Shut up, dolly, I'm talking to your "supervisor," thought Traynor. "Uh, I swallowed it. I don't believe in IDs. It's an un-American concept."

"Then I believe your next drink will be orange juice straight. You swallow your ID, you don't swallow alcohol. Underage drinking is un-American, too. "

"No. It's America's number one teen sport. It's just un-puritan. Puritan is un-American."

The bar boss looked at Traynor like he was not sure whether to call the pigs to have him arrested for un-underage activities or the men in white coats to have him hauled off to a nice, safe padded cell. Public order was sure to collapse once Traynor's views took hold.

Traynor shook his head. "Maybe you can't see Boston from here, but you sure can smell it."

"Huh?"

"Don't bother. The check, please."

Read on…

Introducing Young Kevin Traynor

2011-12-28T22:05:00.000-05:00

Over the next couple months, I will write and serialize in these pages Gunpowder Tea, the first story in the Young Kevin Traynor series, which will reveal how everything began.

Stay tuned for Kevin Traynor's very first adventure!

Kevin Traynor, Warrior Prince?

2011-12-14T19:12:00.002-05:00

Been reading up on Beowulf last night. Looks like those Dark Ages warriors had a more enlightened idea of corporate identity than today's wage slaves.

Although Hrothgar and Beowulf are portrayed as morally upright and enlightened Pagans, they fully espouse and frequently affirm the values of Germanic heroic poetry. In the poetry depicting warrior society, the most important of human relationships was that which existed between the warrior — the thane — and his lord, a relationship based less on subordination of one man's will to another's than on mutual trust and respect. When a warrior vowed loyalty to his lord, he became not so much his servant as his voluntary companion, one who would take pride in defending him and fighting in his wars. In return, the lord was expected to take care of his thanes and to reward them richly for their valor.

This is actually quite a good description of the relationship between Kevin Traynor (and his thane colleagues, like Nick Parker) and his bosses at First American Corporation.

Wage slaves of the world, arise! Fire your pointy-haired bosses and live like warrior princes!

Satan Claus Is Coming to Town

2011-12-12T20:55:00.006-05:00

A song of Satan Claus, Santa's sexy but earthbound brother.

You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm telling you why
Satan Claus is coming to town
Satan Claus is coming to town
Satan Claus is coming to town

He's making a list,
Checking it twice;
Gonna find out who's naughty, how nice.
Satan Claus is coming to town
Satan Claus is coming to town
Satan Claus is coming to town

He sees with whom you're sleeping
He knows you're on the make
He knows if you've been bad or worse
So be good at it, you rake!

With little red horns and plastic toy bums
Rooty toot toots and rummy tum tums
Satan Claus is coming to town
Satan Claus is coming to town
Satan Claus is coming to town

He sees with whom you're sleeping
He knows you're on the make
He knows if you've been bad or worse
So be good at it, you rake!

You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm telling you why
Satan Claus is coming to town
Satan Claus is coming to town
Satan Claus is coming to town

Satan's a busy man, he has no time to play
He's got millions of stockings to nick on Christmas day
Satan Claus is coming to town
Coming to town
Satan Claus is coming to town
Coming to town

He sees with whom you're sleeping
He knows you're on the make
He knows if you've been bad or worse
So be good at it, you rake!

You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm telling you why
Satan Claus is coming to town
Satan Claus is coming to town
Satan Claus is coming to town

The kids in girl and boyland
Will have a jubilee
They're gonna build a toyland
All around the Christmas tree
Satan Claus is coming to town
Coming to town
Satan Claus is coming in town
Coming in town

The Ayn Rand Curse

2011-12-05T17:44:00.002-05:00

(Today we'll take a well-deserved breather from reason.)

Don't fuck with The Fountainhead. Ever since the movie Dirty Dancing smeared The Fountainhead in 1987, the cast and crew of the former has been dying premature deaths. The curse has been observed before, but to my knowledge, its cause has never before been identified.

Let's keep track of the cast here:

Max Cantor (Robbie Gould) died of heroin overdose in 1991, aged 32.

Cantor's character was the one that mischaracterized The Fountainhead as a Nietzschean affair that teaches "Some people count, some people don't." Coincidence that he was the first to die?

Anyway, the Dirty Dancing curse didn't stop there. For the curse, guilt by association is sufficient for a death sentence.

Jack Weston (Max Kellerman) died of lymphoma in 1996, aged 71.

Jerry Orbach (Jake Houseman) died of prostate cancer in 2004, aged 69.

Patrick Swayze (Johnny Castle) died of pancreatic cancer in 2009, aged 57.

In 2010, Jennifer Grey (Frances "Baby" Houseman) survived a bout with thyroid cancer only because she happened to get a medical checkup for Dancing with the Stars.

Director Emile Ardolino died of complications from AIDS in 1993, aged 50.

Executive producer Steven Reuther died in 2010, aged 58.

The studio, Vestron, went bankrupt in 1990.

Honorable mentions:

Charles Coles (Tito Suarez) died in 1992, aged 81.

Paula Trueman (Mrs. Schumacher) died in 1994, aged 93.

Alvin Myerovich (Mr. Schumacher) died in 1996, aged 89.

However, those can't be called premature deaths, given their ages.

Ayn Rand herself had died of heart failure in 1982, after a bout with lung cancer years before. Is it a coincidence that so many of the curse's victims died of cancer?

In any event, thanks to the curse and the fact that its origin has now been discovered, you can pretend you can cheat death by simply not insulting The Fountainhead while keeping your bad habits, like smoking.

Are you a believer in the curse now?

Never Talk to the Police

2011-11-14T17:46:00.001-05:00

(HT to Trisha Davison.) Maybe the best legal advice you'll ever get at YouTube.

Update (HT to Coyote).

Big Gaffe Eats Small Gaff

2011-11-10T15:40:00.001-05:00

"Perry gaffe overshadows defiant Cain, Romney scrutiny," opines MSNBC writer Michael O'Brien.

He goes on to elaborate:

While a CNBC debate featured the most scrutiny to date of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's economic plans, and was highlighted by Herman Cain's first debate appearance since the emergence of sexual harassment against him, a gaffe from the Texas governor took center stage and threatened to crystallize Republicans' concerns about his candidacy.

True, what is going on is the sexual harassment of Herman Cain at the hands of some deluded women. But I suspect O'Brien did reveal this truth only involuntarily. He probably meant to write: "since the emergence of sexual harassment charges against him."

This one typo would be funny and ironic on its own, but O'Brien continues:

"The American people deserve better than someone being tried in the court of public opinion based on unfounded accusations," Cain said to wild cheers in the early moments of the debate. "This country's looking for leadership, and this is why a lot of people, despite what has happened over the last nine days … the voters have voted with their dollars, and they are saying we they don't care about character assasination -- they care about leadership and getting this economy gooing and all the other problems that we face."

I'll overlook the fact that he can't spell "assassination," but I submit that the economy is already gooed up enough as it is.

Looks like MSNBC shortened its deadlines way too much lately. I wonder whether they are keeping their writers chained down in the dungeon now?

And they call us pajamas media. At least I'm wearing my pajamas. MSNBC's word slaves are probably naked in their dungeon.

Debacle: Failing to Rebuild the Twin Towers at Amazon.com

2011-11-01T18:50:00.000-04:00

The dead tree edition of Debacle: Failing to Rebuild the Twin Towers is now available from Amazon.com or direct from the book's online store. This edition contains two bonus essays that are not found in the present Kindle edition.

Tea Party vs. Flea Party

2011-10-30T15:20:00.000-04:00

Insanity is… this. Sigh. The fleabags need a padded cell more than they need to get maced.

So, I corrected it. I guess they can be glad I didn't grade it, too.

Tea Party	Flea Party
(Grassroots movement)	(Astroturf)
Most events ignored by the media, except by Fox News.	Left-leaning mainstream media cheer looters on.
Participants revolt against the sick and poor who use need as a claim.	Participants provide free food, healthcare, and emotional support to everyone present, then claim they cannot pay their student loans and call for another round of looting.
Anti-union, anti-moocher, anti-looter, anti-government, anti-Obama ("racist"); I grant you bigoted and xenophobic — the fundies insisted on tagging along.	Strives for inclusion and participation of every moocher, looter, and rotter in the world, but xenophobic when "American" jobs are "exported," as if America or any country collectively owned jobs.
Funded by the Koch brothers. Avoids leaders — decisions made by the market, i.e., by the people who worked for their money.	Funded by Buffett and Soros. Decisions based on consensus imposed by Ivy Starnes and her comrades.
People show up with "assault rifles," shout and spit at members of congress (boy, do they deserve it), and the police take no notice. Why should they?	People show up committed to looting and violent overthrow of capitalism, and get maced and beaten by the police, as they deserve.
THIS IS WHAT LIBERTY LOOKS LIKE. DON'T TREAD ON ME!	THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE. THIS IS WHY THE FOUNDING FATHERS EXPLICITLY REJECTED DEMOCRACY.
Benefits the 53%.	Benefits the 47%.

Open Letters to Two Fleabaggers

2011-10-24T14:12:00.000-04:00

(1) Fleabagger complains that Ayn Rand stylized murderer William Edward Hickman into a Nietzschean superman for his sociopathic qualities, i.e. for his standing against society.

How is Ayn Rand's idealization and idolization of William Edward Hickman any different from you all's idealization and idolization of Che Guevara?

That was short and sweet. BTW,

Rand also wrote, "The first thing that impresses me about the case is the ferocious rage of a whole society against one man. No matter what the man did, there is always something loathsome in the 'virtuous' indignation and mass-hatred of the 'majority.' … It is repulsive to see all these beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives, virtuously condemning a criminal…"

Sounds familiar, you lynch mob?

Now for some of your fleabagger sound bites:

"There's something deeply unsettling about living in a country where millions of people froth at the mouth at the idea of giving health care to the tens of millions of Americans who don't have it, or who take pleasure at the thought of privatizing and slashing bedrock social programs like Social Security or Medicare."

Yeah, how dare those who are forced at gunpoint to pay for those programs to froth at the mouth.

"It might not be so hard to stomach if other Western countries also had a large, vocal chunk of the population that thought like this, but the U.S. is seemingly the only place"

So if all Western countries have a democratic vote on it, it's OK, whatever it is?

"where right-wing elites can openly share their distaste for the working poor."

One thinks that if the "working" poor gang up to loot, distaste is the least they deserve from productive individuals. So you'd like us better if we concealed our distaste?

"It turns out, you can trace much of this thinking back to Ayn Rand,"

Who had the temerity to tell productive individuals that they have a right to the wealth they produce.

"One reason most countries don't find the time to embrace Ayn Rand's thinking is that she is a textbook sociopath."

Newspeak for individualist = sociopath. And of course Rand isn't popular in the socialist peoples' states.

"…including the key architects of America's most recent economic catastrophe…"

The key architects of the "recent economic catastrophe" are you, the looters and moochers, who clamored for and got free money from criminal governments Republican and Democratic.

(2) Fleabagger wants to be friends with Randians.

You reach out to us to live in your community, yet in the header call our beliefs "nonsense" and in the second paragraph, our viewpoint irrational. Looks like we Randian loners still have better social skills than you fleabaggers.

Anyway, it is your viewpoint that doesn't make rational sense:

"Why are you so obsessed with being separate from everyone?"

We are only obsessed with being separate from looters that rob us at gunpoint.

"we must also live in community with others, care for others and participate in a dynamic and nurturing society."

A society you expect us to build for you, at the point of a government gun, at no cost to you. Build your own society, if you can. We're on strike. Drop dead.

"You have no morality."

We have the best morality in the world, the one that recognizes that we have no obligations to looting, mooching scum. "Hakuna matata: a problem-free philosophy."

"You can be lazy."

You are the lazy ones. We build things for ourselves, for our friends, and for those who ask us for our help. You build nothing for no one, but demand that we help you, without a word of thanks. If we give you something, all we get is ingratitude and a mob that comes back to demand more.

Get lost. The party is over. Get a job, or start your own business, if we find you unemployable.

"Please help me understand rather than attacking me the way those who have a Rand fixation often do."

Said the skilled networker that started hurling insults in the header.

"Together, my friend, we are greater than the sum of our parts."

I am not your friend since the header. Plus, we are great and you are the parts/tools.

"I'm honestly trying to understand"

No, you're not. We already covered that. You start hurling the insults, you're intellectually dishonest by definition.

"why you feel it heroic to cast aside morality,"

Because the only purpose of your counterfeit morality is to permit you to steal from us, to enslave us, and to murder us if we don't comply.

"renege on your obligation to others"

We have no obligations to looting scum, slave drivers, and jackbooted thugs.

"and, most of all, lose out on all the benefits of community."

Your community has nothing to offer to us. You're intellectually, morally, and financially bankrupt. Get out of the way. Drop dead.

"Why do you waste your life so?"

Et tu, brute?

"Step out into the warmth of the sun, into the warmth of community and LIVE."

We are in the sunlight. It is you that is benighted. We neither need nor want the fug of your community. We are alive. You are mindless, lifeless zombies.

"Life's too short to be stuck in an invented narrative."

Life's too short to be stuck in your dream, uh, nightmare world. Life's too short to be your slave.

Sic Semper Tyrannis

2011-10-20T18:50:00.001-04:00

Hey, Uncle Sam put your name at the top of his list,
And the Statue of Liberty started shaking her fist.

— Toby Keith

Saddam Hussein — check.

Osama bin Laden — check.

Muammar Gaddafi — check.

Sic semper tyrannis.

Freedom fighters. Making the world a better place, one bullet at a time.

Those Racist Republicans

2011-10-13T06:51:00.000-04:00

Cain's numbers are sky-high among Republican primary voters. Fifty-two percent view him favorably, versus just 6 percent who see him unfavorably. Among Tea Party supporters, his favorable/unfavorable score is 69 percent to 5 percent. And among Republicans who identify themselves as "very conservative," it's 72 percent to 2 percent.

Only 2% of very conservative Republicans and 5% of Tea Partiers view Herman Cain, a black man in case you haven't noticed, unfavorably. Yet anybody who disagrees with Obama and his communism is a racist. GO(P) figure.

Year of the Yat

2011-10-12T08:14:00.002-04:00

(With apologies to Al Stewart.)

On a morning from a Wyler movie
In a city where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Henry Fonda
Contemplating a mime

She comes out of that fun in a soaked dress sweating
Like the water cooler on the train
Don't bother asking for explanations
She'll just tell you that she came
In the year of the yat

She doesn't give you time for questions
As she locks up your arm in hers
And you follow till your sense of which direction
Completely disappears

Midst the disrepair down near Congo Square
There's a hidden door she leads you to
These days, she says, I feel my life
Just like the river running through
The year of the yat

Why she looks at you so cruelly?
And her eyes shine like the moon in Dupre
She comes with gumbo and etouffee
So you take her, to find what's waiting inside
The year of the yat

Well, morning comes and you're still with her
And the boat and the Yankees are gone
And you've thrown away your choice and lost your ticket
So you have to stay on

But the drumbeat strains of the night remain
In the rhythm of the new-born day
You know sometime you're bound to leave her
But for now you're going to stay
In the year of the yat
Year of the yat

Kevin Traynor 4-for-3

2011-10-06T15:53:00.000-04:00

At the moment, all books of the first Kevin Traynor trilogy are part of the Amazon.com 4-for-3 promotion. Buy all three Kevin Traynor books plus another book (how about Democracy Society?) and get the cheapest one for free.

Here the qualifying editions:

Torch in the Night

Phantom Train

Mysterious Boat

How about Democracy Society as the fourth book? If you like Traynor, you're probably gonna like this one, too.

Meet Ellis Wyatt

2011-10-05T19:06:00.002-04:00

Ellis Wyatt went to Washington, met Mr. Thompson; it didn't work. Anyone surprised?

Harold Hamm, the Oklahoma-based founder and CEO of Continental Resources, the 14th-largest oil company in America, is a man who thinks big. He came to Washington last month to spread a needed message of economic optimism: With the right set of national energy policies, the United States could be "completely energy independent by the end of the decade. We can be the Saudi Arabia of oil and natural gas in the 21st century."

…

The other reason for America's abundant supply of oil and natural gas has been the development of new drilling techniques. "Horizontal drilling" allows rigs to reach two miles into the ground and then spread horizontally by thousands of feet. Mr. Hamm was one of the pioneers of this method in the 1990s, and it has done for the oil industry what hydraulic fracturing has done for natural gas drilling in places like the Marcellus Shale in the Northeast.

Chicago, DC: More Guns, Less Crime

2011-10-05T18:36:00.002-04:00

The evidence from Chicago and DC is in, and more guns do indeed equal less crime.

More guns, that is, in the hands of would-be crime victims who had been disarmed by the criminal government.

Reporting Evil Patriots to Attack Watch

2011-09-18T17:10:00.002-04:00

Hey, Obama, I want to snitch on my parents. They say you're a communist.

Hey, Obama, I'm looking for the office of the Thought Police.

Hey, Obama, they say your IQ is 70, 35 in the morning and 35 in the evening.

Hey, Obama, they say you need an ear job.

Hey, Obama, they say you're dumber than either the shrub or Palin and have done more to destroy America than both of them together.

Hey, Obama, my fellow entrepreneurs say they won't hire anybody as long as they don't know what Obamacare will cost them.

Hey, Obama, they say you defrauded investors and handed GM to your union buddies/sponsors.

Hey, Obama, they say you fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.

Hey, Obama, they say you fell out of the idiot tree and hit every branch on the way down.

Hey, Obama, all my friends are libertarians, i.e., by your definition, domestic terrorists. Where can I report them?

Hey, Obama, I'm an anarcho-capitalist. Where can I report myself?

Hey, Obama, they say there are gremlins in your computer. Watch out!

Hey, Obama, they say you're dumber than you're ugly.

Hey, Obama, they say you, Papa Smurf, and Karl Marx are one and the same person.

Hey, Obama, my telescreen is on the fritz. You can't see me anymore. Help!

Hey, Obama, there's plenty of stuff on right-wing blogs that needs to go down the memory hole.

Hey, Obama, do you know that your new website sports the nazi colors?

Hey, Obama, you're late: 1984 has come and gone.

Hey, Obama, my neighbor Winston Smith has smashed his telescreen.

Hey, Obama, they say you should read a book called "Atlas Shrugged."

Hey, Obama, I want to report my latest book, "Mysterious Boat." It's full of evil anarchic right-wing stuff. Can you refute it?

Hey, Obama, the paper your book is printed on is way too tough.

Hey, Obama, they say you should publish your scribblings on toilet paper, so it has some use.

Hey, Obama, the exchange rate fluctuations caused by your insane policies have hurt my business. Will you give me a refund? After all, you have money for this here kind of shit.

Hey, Obama, they say you're second only to FDR as the worst president ever.

Hey, Obama, they say you could benefit from economics lessons from a Valley Girl.

Hey, Obama, they say you believe in shovel ready projects.

Hey, Obama, is this the website for Nobama for America?

Hey, Obama, I want to donate to your cause. I have a snail shell and two pieces of pocket lint.

Hey, Obama, I want to thank you for solving the immigration problem. Since you ruined the country, no one wants to come anymore.

Hey, Obama, I'll be rooting for you in 2012. The Republican candidates are all bigger morons than you.

Hey, Obama, where can I join the Junior Spies and the Youth League?

Hey, Obama, they say you look like the backside of a donkey.

Hey, Obama, they say it's impossible to smear you: Whatever one says, the truth is worse.

Hey, Obama, the rich say you're already looting enough of the wealth they produce.

Hey, Obama, the rich say they will move to a place called Galt's Gulch.

Hey, Obama, the rich say they're gonna do some seasteading. Let me explain this to you: They all move on a big cruise ship, which means you and the other losers can then go tax each other.

Hey, Obama, the rich say they're gonna pay their fair share. Here it is:

Debacle: Failing to Rebuild the Twin Towers Out Now

2011-09-11T13:20:00.001-04:00

Friends, Americans, civilized humans, lend me your eyes; I come to praise the WTC, not to bury it. The evil that men do lives after them; the good should not be interred with their bones: nor should it be with the bones of the Twin Towers. The vile Caesars have told you the Twin Towers were ambitious: If it was so, it was not a grievous fault, but their noblest virtue. But grievously hath Caesar answered it.

World trade means world peace… The World Trade Center is a living symbol of man's dedication to world peace. Beyond the compelling need to make this a monument to world peace, the World Trade Center should, because of its importance, become a representation of man's belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his beliefs in the cooperation of men, and through cooperation, his ability to find greatness.

— Minoru Yamasaki

Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window — no, I don't feel how small I am — but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would like to throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body.

— Ayn Rand

Those awesome symbolic towers that speak of liberty, human rights, and humanity have been destroyed. They have gone up in smoke.

— Osama bin Laden

Ten years ago today, murderous terrorists crashed jetliners into the Word Trade Center Towers, realizing their plan that the Twin Towers that stood for rational man's achievement, capitalism, freedom, free trade, and world peace should no longer grace the New York skyline, aiming to extinguish the twin beacons of liberty and enlightenment, so that the forces of darkness should rule the world once more.

The terrorists have failed, as rule by faith and force must always fail. They have not brought about another Dark Age. But they murdered 3,000 human beings, wrecked four jetliners, prompted people to sacrifice priceless liberties to fear, caused economic damage in the trillions of dollars, and destroyed two landmark building complexes.

Some of these battles are battles for another day and not the primary subject of our book. But on September 12, 2001, there was little doubt as to what had to be done about one of these points. The landmark complex less completely destroyed, the Pentagon, was quickly restored. To this day, people from around the US and the world are shocked to learn that what is built at the WTC is not new Twin Towers, taller, stronger, and safer.

For ten wasted years now, the worst of contemporary politics has made sure that no towers of comparable stature are rising at the WTC, thus kept the killers' legacy intact and respected their wish that New York and America be cut down to size, never to rise again.

Groups that favored drastically different philosophies of urban design, groups that saw professional opportunities for themselves, and groups that saw any pool of funds dedicated to relief of the needy as best devoted to their own priorities swooped in to claim they spoke for all.

Allied to this was the most vocal proportion of those who had lost loved ones in the attacks, casting about in their grief for solace. Whether seeking to blame someone for their loss or seeking maximum public recognition of their loss, they made pleas of a kind rare in previous historical disasters that often amounted to leaving the site as the killers of their loved ones had desired rather than permitting it to be reclaimed for the purposes to which and for which their loved ones had given their lives.

To the vulture-like opportunists seeing an opportunity to remake the city, and to the emotionally devastated seeking to see its unmaking left as a tribute to the victims, the officials listened. To the wider nation anxious to see the restoration of what could be restored, they paid no heed.

— Louis Epstein, World Trade Center Restoration Movement

WTC leaseholder Larry Silverstein has been determined to rebuild the office space, but lacks the vision and vigor to rebuild the towers he had once said he lusted for, towers he could only buy, but not create. He prefers the bulk of the iconic Twin Towers to be broken down into a bunch of buildings each half the size of a Twin Tower, to be built at a pace that minimizes his economic risk.

Moreover, he won't permit any new building at the WTC to have nearly as many occupied floors as the 110-story Twin Towers, as he now believes he has to protect the people who would work there from themselves.

All new WTC buildings now planned or under construction are much smaller and shorter than the Twin Towers, with the exception of the antenna on the new One WTC, which will be slighter taller than the old antenna. Thanks to officials' incompetence, there will not even be a new Windows on the World restaurant.

While politicians made sure that the public was never offered a poll pitting the stunted designs preferred by the interests they catered to — victims' families, urban utopian planners, and Silverstein — against restored Twin Towers, any poll there was soundly rejected the official offerings, which never managed to beat "none of the above" and usually took a shellacking from "none of the above."

Results on Imagine New York (the LMDC's official poll):
Libeskind: 205 votes / 26%
THINK: 260 votes / 33%
None of the above: 323 votes / 41%
Total: 788 votes

Results on NY1:
Results since February 4, 2003
Libeskind: 6,853 votes / 21%
THINK: 4,615 votes / 14%
I don't like either of these plans: 20,892 votes / 64%
Total: 32,360 votes

Results on CNN:
Which of the two finalists' designs do you prefer for the World Trade Center site?
Libeskind: 33,050 votes / 32%
THINK: 34,867 votes / 34%
Neither is good: 35,747 votes / 34%
Total: 103,664 votes

The incompetent and intellectually bankrupt officials have seen their WTC plans fall apart again and again for ten years because they treated the WTC rebuilding as a random office development with a memorial plopped in and failed to heed the most fundamental advice for great architecture:

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably will themselves not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die.

— Daniel H. Burnham

The human beings we lost were bold. These people deserve majestic new towers as bold as they were. One of the best ways we can honor them is to carry on their work. Safer, taller towers will be a living testament that complements our memorial and helps make it one of the seven modern wonders of the world. We need a skyline that does justice to the wonderful people we lost. We will not sell these people short.

— Jonathan Hakala, tenant, One World Trade Center

In the words of New Yorkers from all walks of life, Debacle: Failing to Rebuild the Twin Towers chronicles their love of their city and their towers, their hopes for rebuilding, their experience with the corrupt official rebuilding process, and the blueprints that can still restore tall Twin Towers to the WTC.

Debacle: Failing to Rebuild the Twin Towers is now available for Amazon Kindle. Dead tree edition coming soon.

Debacle: Failing to Rebuild the Twin Towers Is Coming

2011-08-25T20:04:00.000-04:00

Why aren't the World Trade Center Twin Towers being rebuilt taller, stronger, and safer? Why is what pretty much everyone took for granted on September 12, 2001, not coming true? Why are iconic 110-story Towers being replaced with a bunch of shorter buildings topped by pointless spires?

Ten years after the original disaster and ten years into the disaster that is the rebuilding process, New Yorkers and out-of-towners from all walks of life come forward to tell the story of the second destruction of the World Trade Center, not at the hands of terrorists, but at the hands of politicians, builders, and activists, who sacrificed the world's most famous landmark to their own narrow interests and thus perpetuated the destruction wreaked by the terrorists.

The tales they have to tell are not pretty: stories of corruption, venality, opportunism, greed, short-term thinking, irrationality, incompetence, cowardice, and betrayal. Keeping the Twin Towers destroyed did not even require a grand conspiracy. All it took was the business as usual of New York politics. The twin behemoths of City Hall and Albany were all it took to make sure that rebuilding the icons of New York, America, and the free world was sacrificed to the personal gain and the short-term political advantage of a few politicians pandering to vocal minorities and well-connected builders.

Together, these essays mesh into a kaleidoscopic epic of how the worst of mankind was first met with the best of man, only to be thwarted by the worst of contemporary politics.

Due out September 11, 2011.

Economic Freedom

2011-08-18T17:15:00.000-04:00

Watch this or watch Big Brother on your telescreen!

Follow instructions below; freedom will ensue.

Economic Freedom | Support the 500,000-View Video Campaign

Let's get 500,000 views for the video by Labor Day (Sept 5th) to educate as many Americans as possible about the keys to creating jobs, fighting poverty and improving human well-being. If we get enough views, the video may be turned into a TV commercial seen by millions.

Leaving It As I Found It

2011-08-17T13:03:00.000-04:00

"I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. It's yours."

— Sign left by Ellis Wyatt at the foot of the burning hill of Wyatt Oil in Atlas Shrugged.

The moon bats claim Wyatt did not in fact leave it as he found it. He extracted some oil and left a major conflagration that was not there when he found it.

(I suspect the new left would probably worry more about how the oil spill will impact those poor birds and fishes, and less about the property damage, as the old left would when Ayn Rand wrote this.)

Yet Wyatt spent his money and part of his life on the oil field, money and time that no one will refund him.

So your point was, moon bats? Thought so.

AA+

2011-08-14T16:17:00.000-04:00

"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it becomes marked: 'Account overdrawn.'

— Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

The day of AA+ has come and gone.

The Looters Hoist with Their Own Petards

2011-08-12T12:28:00.000-04:00

There's warrants seal'd: and my Brit schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way
And marshal twofold knavery. Let it work;
For 'tis the sport to have the vile looter
Hoist with his own petar; and 't shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines
And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet,
When in one line two brutes directly meet.

— William Shakespeare

Huge Pair of Jug Ears

2011-08-11T14:14:00.001-04:00

AKA An Ode to Emperor Barrack I on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Unfortunate Event of His Birth

(Without apologies to Jimmy Buffett.)

Now they make new riots on old black and white
No happy endings, everybody fights
So if you are looking at that nostalgic rage
Sheeple, jump right up and break your cage

I wish I had a pencil thin mustache
The Henry Waxman kind
A two toned Barrack Obama hairdo
And an autographed T-Bill from Benny the swine

I remember bein' happy and wealthy
Back when the economy was healthy
Oh, I wish I had a huge pair of jug ears
Then I could print some money, too

Then it's bailout, stimulus, blowin' up fast
Spendin' on a crank idea
Yeah, Obama of the bungle is every bat's bwana
But only Billy Clinton was smokin' marijuana
Yeah, I wish I had a huge pair of jug ears
Then I could print some money, too

Now it's flat broke, dirty job, cops lend a heel
Grindin' you into the livin' room floor
Yeah, they sent him off to college, try to gain a little knowledge,
But all he learned to do is how to cry fore

Yeah, but now he's gettin' old, on the emperor
You don't find no clothes, and he don't dye his hair
But you can go to movies and see it all there
Just the wealth that there used to be

That's why I wish I had a pencil thin mustache
The Henry Waxman kind
A two toned Barrack Obama hairdo
And an autographed T-Bill from Benny the swine

Oh, I could see anyone I wanted to see
Kidnap suave Errol Flynns, shoot the Sheiks of Araby
If I only had a huge pair of jug ears
I'd send Tomahawks cruisin', too

Yeah, Brylcreem, a little dab'll dye yah
I'd send Tomahawks cruisin', too

Obama Torched London

2011-08-10T15:15:00.000-04:00

Obama said he wanted to "spread the wealth around."

The London looters say they're redistributing property.

As long as socialist politicians claim they have the right to redistribute property, freelance looters will take that "right" into their own hands every time government loses control.

Are you happy now, Barry?

Socialist Men Under Red Father

2011-08-05T12:20:00.002-04:00

Birth mystery solved! Obama's true identity revealed!

Evidence that Smurfs are evil.

Plus, more evil Smurfs!

CreateSpace 1, Lulu 0

2011-07-21T18:31:00.000-04:00

From Lulu Press via Facebook:

Share the Savings on us through Aug. 15th with our forward to a friend discount, good for 15% off up to $100. Coupon Code: MYBOOK325 Tell your friends!

Sorry, not a deal I can recommend. For example, Mysterious Boat is $9.99 through CreateSpace at Amazon.com, but $13.99 at Lulu.com.

The latter is already discounted from a whopping $19.99 list price. With the additional MYBOOK325 discount, that works out to $11.89. Still almost $2 more than through CreateSpace.

Why is Lulu so expensive? From the proofs I've seen, quality is about the same at CreateSpace. The royalties I get from CreateSpace are a bit lower, but not that much lower.

Bahama Republics

2011-07-11T15:11:00.006-04:00

AKA Banana Republics (John Galt Edition)

(With apologies to Jimmy Buffett.)

Down to the Bahama Republics,
Down to the tropical sun
Go the ex-patriotic Americans,
Hopin' to find some fun
None of them go for the sailing,
Caught by the lure of the sea
They know too well what is ailing
Livin' in the land of the "free"

Some of them are running from ex-wives,
Leaving no forward address
Some of them are running from their drug terms
Most are running from the IRS

Late at night you will find them
In Freeport hotels and bars
Hustling the blond turistas
While they dance beneath the stars
Spending those renegade pesos
On a bottle of rum and a line
Singin', "Give me some purpose to live for
"Or another chick to wine."

First you learn to lie to customs
Soon to dodge a tax law or two
You know that you cannot trust Sam
As Sam knows he can't trust you
Ex-patriotic Americans
Feelin' disgust for Sam
Telling them sheep the same lies
That they told before the lam

Back from the Bahama Republics
Things aren't as free as they seem
None of the looters is getting
Any second-hand American dreams

In Detroit you will find them
With el cheapo meth dubbed malt
Hustling the two-bit hookers
While they ask, "Who is John Galt?"
Spending those renegade pesos
On a bottle of rum and a line
Singin', "Give me some purpose to live for
"Or another chick to wine."

Down to the Bahama Republics
Down to the tropical sun
Go the ex-patriotic Americans
Hopin' to find some fun

Happy Birthday America!

2011-07-04T12:14:00.003-04:00

Happy 235th, and long may you wave, in spite of the shrubs and Obamas!

Tags: Independence Day, Martina McBride, Martina McBride Videos

Now I ain't sayin' it's right or it's wrong
But maybe it's the only way
Talk about your revolution
It's Independence Day

Let Freedom ring, let the white dove sing
Let the whole world know that today is a
Day of reckoning
Let the weak be strong,
Let the right be wrong
Roll the stone away,
Let the guilty pay,
It's Independence Day

Unselfish People Are Most Selfish

2011-07-03T13:14:00.000-04:00

Today it struck me that of all the people I have met, the unselfish ones are the most selfish. (In the traditional sense, not Ayn Rand's reframe.)

It's the most "liberal," left-wing, avowedly meek and tolerant moon bats, unselfish by their own accounts and only out to help others, that are most intolerant (of everything but left-wing stuff), opinionated, pushy, arrogant, touchy, resentful of criticism, entitlement-minded, greedy (for donations and tax money for their pet causes), and the first to call for a law that attempts to exterminate any of their pet peeves with psychotic violence. The same is true, to a lesser degree, of the wing nuts and Jesus freaks. (Maybe it seems to me to be to a lesser degree just because I never go to Utah or Mississippi and slum with the hardcore Jesus freaks.)

It's the people that in your face are warmest, friendliest, kindest, and most mild-mannered that will explode into a fireball of rage once you scratch the surface and question the beliefs they take for granted and regard as universal. Let's call it the Mother Theresa syndrome, after the bitch that believed that for helping those who were dying in agony find Jesus (instead of giving them medicine) she was entitled to free flights, at the expense of airlines.

It's not so much the objectivists (except for Rand herself) that defriend people for disagreeing with them. It's the moon bats, and to a lesser degree, the wing nuts. And while the objectivists / Rand fans I know can be jerks, just as Randians reputedly are, they pale in comparison with the moon bats.

True, there is quite some repudiating going on, but that's nothing against what happens if you question the principles of a liberal. And it's not because my opinions are closer to objectivists and libertarians than to moon bats and wing nuts. I've fought with all of them, and it takes much less to provoke a more psychotic reaction from a moon bat than from a libertarian.

I'd say I'm selfish (in the Randian sense of caring mostly about my own affairs), and that entails some of the above qualities commonly considered negative, like arrogant, opinionated, intolerant (of intolerance), greedy, etc. But compared with the unselfish people, I'm Gandhi (as are most objectivists and libertarians).

So while selfishness in the Randian sense can turn someone into a major jerk, that's nothing against the unselfishness of the moon bats. Given that observation, it's little wonder that the state is so ready to threaten and use lethal force to "protect people from themselves." The unselfish, the moon bats and the wing nuts, make sure of that by voting the way they do, for fascists like Obama and the shrub. Unselfishness is preached as a virtue, and observe the results.

And no matter how controversial Rand's reframe of "selfishness" is, she was right. Unselfish people are indeed no good.

The unselfish may be saccharinely friendly in your face (at first), give to the poor, and volunteer for the community, but if you disagree with their socialism and/or Jesus crap, at best you're dead to them, and at worst they call for a law to send you to a concentration camp. In fact, I think I can formulate that as a general rule: If someone I meet is unbearably saccharine, chances are she will explode into a fit of psychotic rage the first time I disagree with her.

This rule can be expanded beyond moon bats and wing nuts to include all second-handers, even libertarian ones. As a second-hander bases her self-respect on the number of her friends instead of on her own achievements, she will try to ingratiate herself with everyone she meets. But if her second-hander beliefs are questioned or once she is frustrated by the unworkability of second-handedness, she will react with all the negative qualities that are stereotypically associated with the straw man of the selfish person, although a truly selfish person has much less of them than an unselfish person.

The meek shall destroy the world. It makes sense: As there is no way their delusions can be defended rationally, flight and psychotic violence are their only weapons in an argument.

Objectivists, compared with the moon bats and wing nuts, you are gold! (You may want to copy and paste and treasure this one, as I'm not going to say that often.)

Alex Saves the World Wide Web

2011-06-07T12:36:00.001-04:00

It has been brought to my attention thatthe English-speaking world wide web is being bogged down by the fact that thewww abbreviation takes six to nine syllables to pronounces, twice to thrice theamount it takes to pronounce the original word. As www is an ubiquitous elementthat needs to be pronounced whenever a URL is given, the English-speaking worldwide web and the economies built upon it are at a serious disadvantagecompeting with economies whose languages pronounce www as only three syllables.Furthermore, the US being the world's foremost economic and cultural power, acollapse of the American internet would precipitate the world back into theMiddle Ages, or at least the 1950s, which is the same.

So what is to be done?

In my infinite generosity, I give you"three shrub," which is how www is to be pronounced in English fromnow on. Now, at only two syllables to the www, English-speaking countries willbe able to easily out-compete Continental Europe and Asia.

No, don't thank me all at once.

Ramble, Christian Soldiers

2011-06-06T12:38:00.000-04:00

Andre the Giant may have a posse, but Sarah Palin has a new campaign ~~hymen~~ hymn:

1. Ramble, Christian soldiers, murder as in war,
Bomb abortion clinics like we done before.
Faith, the ancient horror, fights against the mind;
Forward into battle, see our jackboots grind!
Refrain:
Ramble, Christian soldiers, murder as in war,
Bomb abortion clinics like we done before.

2. At the sign of Sarah sanity doth flee;
Ramble, Christian soldiers, on to lunacy!
East and West Coast quiver at our web of lies;
Mortify your brain cells, belt your moron cries.
(Refrain)

3. Like a zombie army moves the church of god;
Brothers, we are treading where fascists have trod.
We are not gratified, all no body we,
Only desperate doctrine and insanity.
(Refrain)

4. Crowns and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane,
But the state's guns do the status quo maintain.
The real world can never 'gainst that church prevail;
We have Sarah's promise, and that cannot fail.
(Refrain)

5. Onward then, ye people, join our moron throng,
Blend with ours your voices in our insane song.
Glory, laud, and honor unto god the king,
This through countless ages fools and killers sing.
(Refrain)

"When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the Flag and waving a cross."

— Attributed to Sinclair Lewis

Palin's Non-Sequitour

2011-06-05T14:16:00.000-04:00

History professor, would-be candidate for next village idiot, and past her shelf life Miss Potato Sarah Palin discovered startling new facts about original tea partier Paul Revere (AKA OG T).

(No turkeys were harmed in the making of this video.)

As you cannot both be a human being and part of one nation with Palin, her surreal tour de force across America and through history has now been renamed the non-sequitour.

Ramble on, Christian soldier.

Ristorante Ecoli Hamburg Now Open!

2011-06-05T14:02:00.002-04:00

First we took Staunton — now we take Hamburg! Ristorante Ecoli Hamburg is now open for business!

Unfortunately, we had to get rid of the sniper rifle on the balcony due to local gun laws. But you can try our fresh bean sprouts at half price! A little complimentary surprise with every dish of bean sprouts!

Or visit us on the web:

http://www.grandtheftwiki.com/Ristorante_Ecoli

Dude, not funny? Well, then take it as a public service announcement.

Don't eat sprouts. Ever.

If you eat sprouts, you're asking for E. coli. (If the feds have to outlaw something, they should outlaw sprouts instead of weed. But I digress.)

Who eats that shit, anyway? I mean, really.

It's esthetically praiseworthy if you don't want to go the way of the beached whale, but steering clear of high-fructose corn syrup should be enough. Don't have to ingest those germ plants.

At least we know now why it's called Germany.

Quote of the Day

2011-05-29T20:34:00.000-04:00

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

— Ferris Bueller

God on Railroad Timetable, Camping on His Sword

2011-05-22T10:14:00.001-04:00

I mean, even if you believe in god and rapture and stuff, how can you believe that such a jealous, ancient god would schedule his apocalypse according to time zones drawn up by nineteenth-century railroads?

In other words, when we get to May 21 on the calendar in any city or country in the world, and the clock says about — this is based on other verses in the bible — when the clock says about 6 p.m., there's going to be this tremendous earthquake that's going to make the last earthquake in Japan seem like nothing in comparison. And the whole world will be alerted that Judgment Day has begun. And then it will follow the sun around for 24 hours. As each area of the world gets to that point of 6 p.m. on May 21, then it will happen there, and until it happens, the rest of the world will be standing far off and witnessing the horrible thing that is happening.

As I'm writing this, the rapture after party is winding down, and the birds are singing outside. Yet life is not good for the fundies Harold Camping defrauded.

"My mentality was, why are we going to work for more money? It just seemed kind of greedy to me. And unnecessary," she says.

And so, her husband adds, "God just made it possible — he opened doors. He allowed us to quit our jobs, and we just moved, and here we are."

Now they are in Orlando, in a rented house, passing out tracts and reading the bible. Their daughter is 2 years old, and their second child is due in June. Joel says they're spending the last of their savings. They don't see a need for one more dollar.

"You know, you think about retirement and stuff like that," he says. "What's the point of having some money just sitting there?"

"We budgeted everything so that, on May 21, we won't have anything left," Adrienne adds.

Nothing, except for the fervent hope that all of them will be raptured.

The Haddad children of Middletown, Md., have a lot on their minds: school projects, SATs, weekend parties. And parents who believe the earth will begin to self-destruct on Saturday.

The three teenagers have been struggling to make sense of their shifting world, which started changing nearly two years ago when their mother, Abby Haddad Carson, left her job as a nurse to "sound the trumpet" on mission trips with her husband, Robert, handing out tracts. They stopped working on their house and saving for college.

Last weekend, the family traveled to New York, the parents dragging their reluctant children through a Manhattan street fair in a final effort to spread the word.

"My mom has told me directly that I'm not going to get into heaven," Grace Haddad, 16, said. "At first it was really upsetting, but it's what she honestly believes."

Thousands of people around the country have spent the last few days taking to the streets and saying final goodbyes before Saturday, judgment day, when they expect to be absorbed into heaven in a process known as the rapture. Nonbelievers, they hold, will be left behind to perish along with the world over the next five months.

Well, it's the fundies that will perish now, starve to death, as they deserve, one might say. Or one might blame Camping for fueling their delusions.

While Ms. Haddad Carson has quit her job, her husband still works as an engineer for the federal Energy Department. But the children worry that there may not be enough money for college. They also have typical teenage angst — embarrassing parents — only amplified.

"People look at my family and think I'm like that," said Joseph, their 14-year-old, as his parents walked through the street fair on Ninth Avenue, giving out Bibles. "I keep my friends as far away from them as possible."

"I don't really have any motivation to try to figure out what I want to do anymore," he said, "because my main support line, my parents, don't care."

His mother said she accepted that believers "lose friends and you lose family members in the process."

"For those who were invested in this prediction, their world did end Saturday," said Rev. Jeremy Nickel, the minister at Fremont's Mission Peak Unitarian Universalist Congregation. "They thought they were going to heaven, and they didn't. They may have donated all their money. They're going to be in a world of hurt."

Billboards guaranteeing the end of the world Saturday were almost as ubiquitous as Starbucks outlets in the Bay Area and the world and just as galvanizing to followers, who donated more than $100 million over the past seven years and drove RVs all over the United States to alert people of the coming rapture. Oakland-based Family Radio, with 66 radio stations across the globe, was uncharacteristically quiet Saturday, its website down.

…

"Here's the takeaway," said Richard Hodill of San Mateo, who staffed the registration table at the atheist convention. "Learn to be a discriminating and critical thinker. Base your life on evidence-based reasoning. Religion exploits people to their detriment."

Others had risked a lot more on Camping's prediction, quitting jobs, abandoning relationships, volunteering months of their time to spread the word. Matt Tuter, the longtime producer of Camping's radio and television call-in show, said Saturday that he expected there to be "a lot of angry people" as reality proved Camping wrong.

Tuter said Family Radio's AM station in Sacramento had been "severely vandalized" Friday night or Saturday morning, with air conditioning units yanked out and $25,000 worth of copper stripped from the equipment. He thinks it must have been an angry listener. He was off Saturday but planned to drive past the headquarters "and make sure nothing's burning."

The retired MTA engineer poured his life savings — $140,000 — into an NYC Transit ad campaign. The signs reads: "Global Earthquake: The Greatest Ever! Judgment Day May 21, 2011" and is now plastered on bus kiosks and subway cars all over the city.

Because of those delusions, people quit jobs, wasted their last money, and what is worst, ruined their kids' social lives. It has been asked, "What should Camping do now?" In my opinion, he should do like Varus did and fall on his own sword. Suicide is the best option for him. Well, he's 89 years old and ugly like 110, so he'll probably be dead soon, anyway.

Why is it actually that the government can regulate interior designers, but not false prophets? The Second Amendment has been regulated well nigh out of existence, so the First Amendment could bear some regulating, too. After all, human sacrifice and (falsely) shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater is already banned, in spite of free religion and free speech.

There's all kinds of regulations of Wall Street, presumably to protect investors, but fundies may prey on the gullible at will. And why is it that gambling is banned or regulated, because people cannot make their own decisions about betting all their money on 13 black, but they may spend their life savings on fundie nonsense? Gambling would give them better odds.

At the very least, Camping should be forced to give all his money to indemnifying his credulous, faithful (a tautology, of course) victims. Then again, it's hard to commiserate if (fundie) scum is exploited by worse (fundie) scum. I'm just sorry for the kids.

So beware of false prophets. Hint: They all are.

If those people had donated their money to science instead of religion, maybe a cure for aging would have been found, eliminating people's need for the crutch of religion.

PS: Being left behind rocks!

PPS: Did you know that Camping was originally from England and was born Harold Tenting-Ground?

Calling All Fundies

2011-05-22T10:00:00.000-04:00

So have you been raptured? And if yes, from where are you writing?

Rapture 2.0

2011-05-19T15:43:00.000-04:00

Hey, fundies, don't you know that the rapture already happened? You just weren't in on the fun.

If you weren't raptured on September 6, 1994, that means god hates you. You will die and be eaten by worms instead of playing the eternal harp in heaven. Because god hates fundies.

Atlas Shrugged: Part 2 Exclusive Trailer

2011-05-18T20:11:00.000-04:00

Apparently certain people were right to worry that if a certain movie bombs, certain other people will laugh all the way to the bank.

Competition for Facebook

2011-05-18T18:21:00.003-04:00

Did you notice all those niche social networking sites cropping up all over the place?

Basebook for ballgame enthusiasts.
Bracebook for dentists.
Casebook for serial killers.
Chasebook for GTA players.
Dazebook for dreamboats.
Faithbook for fundies.
Glacebook for cooks.
Grazebook for cows.
Hazebook for bullies.
Lacebook for steam punks.
Lazebook for Dudeists.
Macebook for feminists.
Pacebook for runners.
Phasebook for trekkies.
Racebook for white supremacists.
Tasebook for pigs.
Tracebook for hunters.

From Hammerspace with Love

2011-05-18T02:15:00.000-04:00

Poor Newt Gingrich. He tries to please everybody and everybody hates him.

"I believe that creation as an act of faith is true and I believe that science as a mechanical process is true," Gingrich said at an afternoon session that preceded a more formal address. "Both can be true. I don't think there is necessarily a conflict between the two."

Now both the mystics and the scientists hate him.

"When he talks about god in government, then I believe if he's a godly man he should say that 'I believe god created the heavens and earth because that's in the bible.' "

For the fundies, he's not godly enough and likes the ladies too much. (I feel your pain, Newt.) For the liberals, he's ~~not gay enough~~ full of hate and likes the ladies too much.

Apparently, when you end up caught between all stools, ~~the heavens~~ hammerspace opens and showers you with glitter. Nice.

Trump: A Is Non-A

2011-05-15T12:49:00.006-04:00

With Fox Mulder nailed to his scalp, Donald Trump obviously forgot all about the law of identity, if he ever knew it.

Over the last few years, according to interviews and hundreds of pages of court documents, the real estate mogul has aggressively marketed several luxury high-rises as "Trump properties" or "signature Trump" buildings, with names like Trump Tower and Trump International — even making appearances at the properties to woo buyers. The strong indication of his involvement as a developer generated waves of media attention and commanded premium prices.

But when three of the planned buildings encountered financial trouble, it became clear that Mr. Trump had essentially rented his name to the developments and had no responsibility for their outcomes, according to buyers. In each case, he yanked his name off the projects, which were never completed. The buyers lost millions of dollars in deposits even as Mr. Trump pocketed hefty license fees.

Those who bought the apartments in part because of the Trump name were livid, saying they felt a profound sense of betrayal, and more than 300 of them are now suing Mr. Trump or his company.

"The last thing you ever expect is that somebody you revere will mislead you," said Alex Davis, 38, who bought a $500,000 unit in Trump International Hotel and Tower Fort Lauderdale, a waterfront property that Mr. Trump described in marketing materials as "my latest development" and compared to the Trump tower on Central Park in Manhattan.

…

"There was no disclaimer that he was not the developer," Mr. Davis said.

…

Alan Garten, a lawyer for Mr. Trump's company, said that, regardless of what Mr. Trump himself or any marketing materials had suggested, his role was disclosed in lengthy purchasing documents that buyers should have carefully scrutinized.

Make no mistake, Trump lied. He said he was the developer when he wasn't, which is proven by the disclaimers in the contracts.

He guaranteed these projects to his customers with his name, which to them stood for quality, and now he claims the disclaimer nullified that guarantee. It is an interesting legal and moral question whether you can make an oral guarantee and then simply go, "April fool!" and revoke it in the written contract. No matter what the courts decide, however, morally speaking, Trump should indemnify his victims at least to the amount that he profited from the deals where they lost.

Instead, The Donald cynically claims that, due to the crash of property values, his victims would have lost even more on the apartments if the developments had gone forward. This is completely immaterial.

After all, if his victims had made a killing with the apartments, he would have claimed it as being due to his "genius." Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.

If his victims had turned a profit, Trump would have taken all the credit for that. Now that they have lost money through him, he blames it on the market.

This kind of deception constitutes a worrisome trend I've seen growing worse over the last couple years. Marketing materials claim that a service is exceptionally A, only for the contract to painstakingly insist that the service provided is not to be considered A in any way, shape, or form.

Don't ever believe anything you see in an ad. All ads lie. (Except for my book ads on the right, of course.)

Read the contract. Read the fine print. That's where the truth is out there.

Trust no one. White-collar criminals will go through all the motions to appear legitimate and respectable to you. You can't go by appearances. Read the fine print, or you will be defrauded.

And no one has anything to give away. If it sounds too good to be true, it very likely is too good to be true. Stay the fuck away.

No, you don't need the government to protect you, even if you're not a Randian hero. In the fine print, there will be a very clear disclaimer saying that the service advertised as A is not in fact A and that you can lose all your money. If you read such a disclaimer, run like hell.

It's in fact those white-collar criminals that clamor to be regulated by the government, so they can advertise the fact that they're regulated. But all the government regulation in the world doesn't help you none if you sign a contract where you waive your right to receive the service you paid for. And once you sue them for deceptive advertising or the like, they're already in Brazil with your money.

"Trump. Owning here is just the beginning." What a threat. Do you really want to own a property that's infested with Foxes Mulder?

The sad thing is that even an unethical businessman like Trump would be a better ~~president~~ village idiot than Obama or the shrub. At least Trump can run a multi-billion-dollar business, give or take a bankruptcy or two, and not just commie unity organize. (*Wince.* Read: At least Trump knows how to successfully separate people from their money.)

Trump's borderline fraud is chicken shit against Obama defrauding auto company bondholders and thereby revealing that the village idiot has no clothes and that the "rule of law" was a myth all along. And at least Trump knows there's no such thing as "shovel-ready projects."

What's Trump's conduct compared with social security, the largest Ponzi scheme in history? What's losing a deposit compared with income tax?

Trump for president. A skyscraper on every corner. A dead cat on every head.

I mean that sincerely. No joke.

Well, a sad joke. Or rather, sad, but no joke. Or a joke, but not as sad or as big a joke as Obama.

At least things will not get boring with The Donald as village idiot. And you can make fun of him without the moon bats automatically bestowing the title "racist" on you.

Trump says that when he's elected village idiot, the world will no longer laugh at America. True. The world will be busy laughing at Trump.

The Donald Foxed

2011-05-11T13:54:00.000-04:00

Hey, I just realized where The Donald gets all those conspiracy theories from. The fox he nailed to his forehead — it's Fox Mulder.

How to Fix Farewell Ranch

2011-05-10T18:08:00.000-04:00

Many people see Medicaid as a program for low-income single mothers and their children.

But in fact most Medicaid spending goes to care of the elderly and disabled, not to single moms and their kids. More than eight million people over age 65 rely on the program, typically people in nursing homes or those getting long-term care from a visiting nurse.

Oddly enough, Medicare, which is supposed to take care of those over age 65, does not cover most long-term care, such as in a nursing home or assisted living facility. But Medicaid does cover such care.

Although they may not have thought about it when they were 40, many older people — without their adult children living nearby — will end up in such facilities. Grogan said people over age 65 "don't know how important Medicaid is until they need long-term services."

She added, "If you look at the elderly who end up relying on Medicaid, a lot of them were middle-class people their entire lives and they have children who are solidly in the middle class."

Long-term care is so expensive that "people spend down their resources and do estate planning" — thus shielding some of their assets — so that they can qualify for Medicaid, she explained. "There's absolutely no way a middle-class family can save adequately for the expenditures that are needed if you have a parent who needs that type of care."

Robert Saldin, a health policy expert at Harvard University, said Medicaid "is widely misunderstood and thought of as merely a program for the poor. In reality — and for better or worse — Medicaid has become a broad-based program with two-thirds of its spending going to the elderly and disabled. Many of the elderly on Medicaid spent their lives in the middle-class before they had to pay for a nursing home. But Medicaid's reputation hasn't caught up with this reality."

Now, with social security systems bankrupting the US and facing bankruptcy themselves in other industrialized countries, what can be done to fix this mess?

(1) No, Virginian, you can't retire.

Any social security system of the future can be nothing more than disability insurance. If you're able-bodied with two less than totally arthritic hands, and haven't made and saved enough money to support decades of idleness, you'll have to work past 65, 75, and 100.

Social security may have worked in a society where people worked from, say, age sixteen to age 65 and were worm food by 70. But you can't expect to retire at age 65 if you only finish college at, say, age 25, but live to be 80 or older. How do you expect to make enough money in forty years to live another twenty years with the same standard of living without working?

(2) Your social security check just bounced.

A dude accosts you on the street, "Hi. I'm a victim of Bernie Madoff. Give me my money back or I'll murder you."

Good idea?

The point is that those who paid into social security can only get their money back if it is robbed at gunpoint from others.

The criminal government is bankrupt, and no one has any right to get any more back from the government than what they can get out of the auctioning off of the government's assets.

(3) Your grandpa is your responsibility.

In 2007, the top 5% of income earners paid over half of the Federal income tax revenue. However, as of 2004, the top 5% hold 59.2% of wealth. The top 1% of income earners paid 25% of the total income tax revenue. Again however, the top 1% hold 23.5% of wealth. According to a conservative media group, it was "predicted" by an unnamed source that forty seven percent of Americans would pay no federal income tax in 2009 (though they still pay federal payroll taxes). Note, though, that this percentage does include some people without job income (e.g. children, retirees) along with the low-income workers to whom this applies.

So the rich pay the lion's share of taxes, and care for the elderly is the budget buster. Basically, we're all palming off our parents on Bill Gates and company.

But we can't go on doing that. It's just not sustainable demographically.

People live longer and have fewer children, so fewer young people will have to look after more old ones. It's doubtful that the wealth of the Bill Gates will increase fast enough to keep up with that.

Plus, if you raise taxes on them to pay for social security, it's bad for the economy and wealth creation. For every fool like Gates that works and pays taxes and lets you bully him into donating his taxed money to charity, too, there's one who goes Galt.

So people will have to look after their own parents, when there are children and they have the means to do the looking. Let's face it, our parents paid for us for eighteen years, so in their old age, it's time to give back. (One instance where the old bromide "to give back" actually makes sense.)

Anyway, you should be glad even if you're eighty, can't afford to retire, and don't have any children to look after you. Would you rather go back a century or two, when you would have been expected to raise twenty kids (most of whom would have died on you in infancy), would have toiled at backbreaking labor for fifty-five years, and then would have kicked the bucket at age sixty?

No? Well, I didn't think so.

And don't pull the "not kind to the elderly" card on me, or Ryan, or anyone trying to fix this mess. Social security systems and states are not quite bankrupt yet, in the sense that lenders are still willing to advance them money.

There's no majority to get rid of those systems before they are utterly bankrupt or the government is overthrown in Revolution 2.0. So today's elderly will not have to face the music in their lifetime.

It's the young that will have to live with the consequences of this mess, paying social security taxes and getting nothing back. So if I'm insensitive, I'm insensitive to my sort. It's the old people that are insensitive by not thinking of future generations.

Farewell Ranch. The only way to ride into the sunset.

Dead Foxes Are a Little Bit Racist, Too!

2011-05-09T22:30:00.001-04:00

Donald Trump shows off his newfound presidentiality by proving that he's not racist. You probably noticed long ago that The Donald doesn't exactly have the gift of the gab.

When it comes to racism and racists, I am the least racist person there is. And I think most people that know me would tell you that. I am the least racist. I've had great relationships.

…

In fact, Randal Pinkett won on The Apprentice a little while ago, a couple years ago, and Randal's been outstanding in every way. So I am the least racist person.

This, of course, does not follow. Even if "Randal Pinkett won on The Apprentice" did prove that Trump is not racist, how does it prove that there are no less racist persons than Mr. Cathead?

And not only is it illogical, it sounds stupid, too. "So I am the least racist person." Just about like a kindergarten kid or a total retard (a racist word, or just politically incorrect?) would defend himself. I've known a total retard who used to defend himself exactly like this.

In fact, his logic and language sound a lot like Sarah Palin.

Here's what Mr. Dead Fox should have said upon being called out for his racism:

And of course, I'm a little bit racist, too. Or in other words, gentlemen prefer blondes.

All Should Be Equally Poor, Says Cuban Commie

2011-05-09T20:11:00.000-04:00

Life imitating art — this pervert is like a certain character from my book Mysterious Boat.

Then there are people like Juan — a Communist Party faithful, also in his 70s, who doesn't want much to change. "Raul is playing with fire," he says.

He remembers the social inequities that plagued Cuban society before the 1959 Revolution and fears a return to what he calls "institutionalized inequality" if private enterprise is given the space to take root.

"Some people just think about what we don't have here without appreciating what we've built."

They've built — nothing. The commie motto: Not to each his own, but for all the same — even if it's nothing.

Inequality isn't institutionalized in the social system of capitalism — inequality is institutionalized in human nature.

Men are not equal in intelligence, rationality, ability, diligence, and productivity. In a free society, the more able will always prosper more than the less able. Material equality means robbing the intelligent to give to the stupid and robbing the diligent to give to the lazy. The only way to achieve a semblance of material equality in a society is by abolishing liberty — by looting — by resorting to the guillotine and decapitating those who refuse to obey — by cutting off the heads that house the ablest minds. In other words: socialism. (Torch in the Night, p. 126.)

The Simple Difference between Capitalism and Statism

2011-05-09T20:04:00.001-04:00

Here's a good article on how retailers try to sell you pointless gadget insurance. (Note the missing hyphen. Pointless-gadget insurance is as true an interpretation as pointless gadget-insurance.)

That's a good example to illustrate the difference between private, capitalist enterprise and the state. Of course there'll always be borderline-ethical companies trying to bilk you like the state does. But the simple difference is that you can opt out of such fraud by simply not buying it. You cannot opt out of taxation.

As long as you're not forced to buy, you're dealing with a business, and all is well. As soon as an entity aggresses against you to force you to buy or do something, you're no longer dealing with a business but with a criminal / a state, no longer with capitalism, but with fascism.

Calling All Fascist Pigs: I Opt Out of Government

2011-05-09T19:57:00.001-04:00

As I said before, what is the danger of a fire compared with the danger of a government-run firehouse?

An Alaska teenager jumped onto an ice floe, some altruist clowns believed he was in danger and called the government-run ~~fire~~ fascism department, and the latter "rescued" him out of his non-emergency, endangering their heroic "firefighting" lowlifes in the process.

The jackbooted thugs of the fascist US government, or the Palinist Alaska government, which is pretty much one and the same, then proceeded to kidnap him, charge him with the fascists' favorite catchall non-crime of "disorderly conduct," rob him of a sum in excess of $100, and sell him into slavery for fifty hours.

Or, in pig speak:

Poland spent the night in jail and resolved the case the next day. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail with all 10 suspended, 50 hours of community service and fined more than $100.

Fascists of all countries, listen good: I opt out of your racket.

Now, I don't want to steal or murder anyone. And I know that in this concentration camp of a fascist world you won't let me opt out of your drug laws or airport security theater.

But let's make one thing perfectly clear: If I (or anyone else on my behalf) ever call(s) 911 (or any equivalent fascist number) to summon you(r) tax-paid asses for assistance, I'll first ask whether you believe that my emergency is my own fault and you'll want to punish me for it after you "helped me," "rescued me," or "saved me from myself." If the answer is yes, stay the fuck away from me, no matter what the "emergency" is supposed to be.

You stay sitting in your government-funded firehouse and go on playing with your hose. I sure prefer slowly freezing to death on an ice floe over slowly bleeding to death because you fascist pigs shot me when I defended myself against your attempts to "cuff" me.

A statist sheep by the name of Steve ~~comments~~ bleats:

We pay taxes to provide emergency services… the key word there is emergency, not stupidity. By his own admission he made the choice to go floating off on a piece of ice which is dumb. What if you lived in the area and your house caught on fire from an electrical short and the firefighters response time was slowed because this idiot was taking up their time and equipment? He got off lucky with just the night in jail, 50 hours of service, and 100 dollar fine. I would have charged him for the use of time and equipment which I'm sure was more than just 100 bucks.

I mean, if he called for help, by all means bill him. But the article sounded like he neither needed nor wanted help. And in any event, there's no excuse to kidnap him, unless he refuses to pay.

What's next? Will the pigs kidnap all BASE jumpers, because BASE jumping is dangerous, and a BASE jumping accident could tie up a fire engine that then can't go to a house fire?

Oh, I know. I'll set up my own government. I'll waltz up to smokers, smack their cigarettes from their mouths, and then fine them for endangering my health because I had to breathe their smoke in order to help them.

Then, how does this sort of emergency service work out in terms of resources? Whether he wants help or not, you send him a fire engine, which then can't go to a house fire. So to punish him for that, you send a police car, which then can't go to a housebreaking or a murder, or for that matter, to a truly wicked crime like a drug deal or a statutory "rape." Now you've got a fire engine and a police car tied up, Sherlock.

I guess that's just the modern approach to police "work," huh? Never negotiate with terrorists, never give a window breaker a break, or as they put it in GTA: Liberty City Stories, "psychotic violence at the drop of a hat."

Real great work, Sherlock. Before we had the problem of being aggressed against by amateur criminals. Now we have the problem of being aggressed against by professional criminals that even get paid tax money. Real progress.

As I said, I'm making that real easy for you thugs, and I spell it out once over for you illiterates: If I ever get caught on an ice floe or any similar non-emergency of my own making, please ignore me and any pleas from moronic bystander sheeple to help me, and proceed directly to the house fire, house fires being the only excuse for your existence. (And only because the private fire insurance companies, whose responsibility firefighting is, palmed it off on the state in a nineteenth-century corporate welfare maneuver.)

Plus, as for El Presidente Steverino's argument, I'll have to point out that not all electrical fires are created equal. What if the guy with the house fire caused it by replacing a fuse with a hairpin? That would make him about as deserving or undeserving of help as a fool on a floe.

This just to illustrate how stupid the statists' examples usually are. They necessarily are, as there is no good argument for the existence of the state.

Ah, to think of the good old days of the Old West, when the danger that someone could call the government for help was minute.

Trump Pattern Baldness

2011-05-08T21:30:00.002-04:00

Trump pattern baldness (also known as reverse mullet or alopecia grandiosa) is a rare cause of hair loss in male humans. It also occurs in chimpanzees and orangutans. In classic Trump pattern baldness, hair is lost in the front, while the hair in the back grows forward to cover the bald patches.

Often, the final result resembles a dead fox plastered to the forehead or a dead cat nailed on top of the crown of the head. This is dubbed "developer's balding." Rarely, the condition may progress to complete delusion.

Pics or Osama Ain't Dead

2011-05-03T21:14:00.002-04:00

Carney also said the photograph of bin Laden dead is "gruesome" and "it could be inflammatory" if released.

The White House is mulling whether to make the photo public, but he said officials are concerned about the "sensitivity" of doing so. Carney said there is a discussion internally about the most appropriate way to handle the photo, but "there is not some roiling debate here about this."

Asked if President Barack Obama is involved in the photo discussion, Carney said the president was involved in every aspect of this issue.

I'd like to credit the Obama with executing the other O*ama, but for that the former will have to satisfy my standard of evidence that Osama bin Laden is in fact dead. If there are photos of Osama dead and videos of Osama's death and dumping, I want see them. Sure, they could be faked just like anything could be faked, just like the other O*ama's birth certificate could be faked, but that's my standard of evidence here. Pics or it didn't happen.

Dumping the body into the sea, if there ever was a body in the first place, was a real stupid thing to do, particularly if you're the favorite target of the conspiracy theorists already. It's like a call for tenders to conspiracy theorists. So pics or it didn't happen.

Come on, you can do this, you big wuss. You did it with your birth certificate, after all. If you did in fact have Osama executed, I will credit you with having bigger cojones than the shrub has. But pics or it didn't happen.

Yet Another Reason Obama's Gotta Go

2011-04-28T19:20:00.000-04:00

In 2009 a Washington state high school teacher called for the removal of the novel from a school curriculum. The teacher, John Foley, called for replacing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with a more modern novel. In an opinion column that Foley wrote in the Seattle Post Intelligencer, he states that all "novels that use the 'N-word' repeatedly need to go." He states that teaching the novel is not only unnecessary, but difficult due to the offensive language within the novel with many students becoming uncomfortable at "just hear[ing] the N-word." He views this change as "common sense," with Obama's election into office as a sign that Americans "are ready for a change," and that by removing these books from the reading lists, they would be following this change.

If you have to choose between Huckleberry Finn and Obama, is that even a question? I mean, it's a no-brainer (as in, if you choose Obama, you've got no brain).

If many students become uncomfortable at just hearing the word nigger, they've got an awfully bad teacher. Making kids believe that there are evil words teaches them nothing about rights or about the fact that people have equal rights irrespective of their looks.

It only teaches kids that there are words they must not use, or even just think of, and that those happen to be the words that the black person that occupies the White House probably doesn't like. Big Barrack is watching you.

The Birthers Trumped

2011-04-27T17:28:00.002-04:00

Now that Obama finally deigned to release his original birth certificate, it doesn't look so good for the birthers, or for that matter, for my favorite conspiracy theory, that Obama's biological father was not Obama, Sr., but one Frank Marshall Davis . The latter conspiracy theory isn't refuted by the document, though. It just, contrary to the conspiracy theorists' expectations, doesn't show any blood types at all and thus neither proves nor refutes the theory.

We'd need someone who knows the blood types of all involved, or Obama and company would have to submit to DNA tests. But why should they?

An who cares? Obama's communistic enough as it is, and it's not like communism is inherited genetically, as far as I know.

As for the birthers' key claim that Obama was born outside the US, this should be the end of it. He showed the document he was supposed to show, and that's the end of the line.

Only that to the birthers, it won't be. Of course, there's always a chance of forgery. The certificate is a copy from some sort of a ledger, so there's an outside chance that some entries or further pages were cropped/omitted, but from the layout, like the numbering and the position of the signatures, that looks extremely unlikely. Then, for all we know, the whole document could have been made up by the CIA out of whole cloth.

Then again, Obama could be an alien, like Michael Jackson. If he were born at Area 51, would that make him eligible to rule the free?

The only two things you can know with absolute certainty are that you exist and that you are conscious. For anything else, there is less than 100% proof, and anybody can make up nonfalsifiable theories about it.

Who's to say god or the Flying Spaghetti Monster didn't tamper with all archeological evidence to make dinosaurs look millions of years older than the 6,000 years they are, to tempt men to doubt him? Who's to say there is no invisible, disembodied, mute, odorless, tasteless miniature Loch Ness Monster in my closet?

Good that Trump made Obama release it (the birth certificate, not the Loch Ness Monster), though. Obama shouldn't get a free pass just because he's black and can pull the race card whenever he doesn't like something he's got to do. Obama should have to provide the same amount of documentation that McCain would have had to provide for being born in Panama / the Panama Canal Zone / the Panama Canal / whatever.

Looks like Obama was just stubborn, after all.

Quote of the Day

2011-04-26T19:10:00.000-04:00

"I did have a test today. That wasn't bullshit. It's on European socialism. I mean, really, what's the point? I'm not European, I don't plan on being European, so who gives a crap if they're socialist? They could be fascist anarchists — that still wouldn't change the fact that I don't own a car. Not that I condone fascism, or any ism for that matter. Isms in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an ism — he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon: 'I don't believe in Beatles — I just believe in me.' A good point there. Of course, he was the Walrus. I could be the Walrus — I'd still have to bum rides off of people."

— Ferris Bueller

Big Sister, You Asked for It!

2011-04-13T03:37:00.000-04:00

Hahahahahahahahahaha!

Turns out big red sister is a greedy, exploitative, sweatshop operating intellectual slumlord. Arianna Huffington sold her red electronic rag to AOL for $315 million. Now her volunteer bloggers that believed they were working for brother love to advance socialism and not for big red sister's personal profit sue her, possibly under the commies' own Fair Labor Standards Act, which outlaws working for free, or for anything less than minimum wage.

Arianna, you asked for it!

"In my view, the Huffington Post's bloggers have essentially been turned into modern-day slaves on Arianna Huffington's plantation."

Could have told you so, comrades. If only you had enough sense in your empty heads to ask.

After graduation, she moved to London and lived with the journalist and broadcaster Bernard Levin, whom she had met while the two were panelists on the TV show Face the Music. In 1980, because of Levin's refusal to get married, she broke the relationship and moved to the United States. After Levin's death in 2004, she called him "the big love of my life, […] a mentor as a writer, and a role model as a thinker."

Any person that breaks up with their love because the latter refuses to be enslaved is less than scum. I hope you bleed her dry of the last red cent she's got within her.

"We are going to make Arianna Huffington a pariah in the progressive community," Tasini vowed. "No one will blog for her. She'll never [be invited to] speak. We will picket her home. We're going to make it clear that, until you do justice here, your life is going to be a living hell."

Don't worry, Arianna, you big red moon bat. You can always flip-flop back to being a big red state wing nut.

I hear Michelle Munchkin is still looking for interns. Unpaid interns, of course. And you've got to give her an apple a day.

If this ain't enough to be tickled pink, I don't know what is.

"Anybody blogging for the Huffington Post now is a scab," he says. "They're a strike breaker. They're producing content for somebody who is attacking workers."

Sorry, comrade, you make that sound very tempting, but I'm not gonna write for that rag, anyway.

Hahahahahahahahahaha!

Kevin Traynor on Kindle

2011-04-06T17:48:00.000-04:00

Now Torch in the Night, Phantom Train, and Mysterious Boat are available on Kindle.

So do not delay, download today your Kevin Traynor Ass Kicking Bar Association!

Kevin Traynor. The most lawless lawyer you'll ever meet.

Kevin Traynor. With the right to be politically incorrect.

The Measure of a Birther

2011-04-03T18:30:00.002-04:00

It seems wildly unlikely that the birthers' chief claim, Obama wasn't born in the US, is true. Why would Hawaii issue him a fake certificate of life birth?

Yet there still seems to be something wrong. Why would Obama otherwise be so secretive with his records?

It might be that he's just stubborn, too proud to give in. But why then give in as far as releasing the certificate of life birth?

There might be some other damaging information on his birth certificate, some information that doesn't appear on the certificate of life birth.

Of all the theories I've heard, this one looks like it fits the facts best (HT to Astute Bloggers):

Obama's biological father was not Obama, Sr., but one Frank Marshall Davis.

Evidence:

Obama looks more like Davis than like any of his allegedly biological relatives.

Davis wrote in some sort of an autobiographical novel that he and his wife had a threesome with a fourteen-year-old white girl by the name of Ann. Was that a fictionalized version of Obama's mother, Stanley Anne Dunham, then seventeen years old?

Obama's mother was pregnant when she married his alleged father. Had she been knocked up by some African-American guy and was looking for an African-American fall guy?

Obama's mother left him behind in Hawaii. Maybe she had no problem with that because she knew his real father was there?

Obama's grandfather Stanley Dunham took Obama to visit Davis regularly. Maybe because he knew Davis was Obama's real father?

It would explain why Obama moved to Chicago, Davis' hometown.

Obama had to have some connections to get into Chicago politics. His known relatives didn't have any, but Davis did.

Plus, in case you believe that Obama's Palin-level scribbling amounts to literary skills and that literary skills could be inherited genetically (!), it would even explain where Obama got his — from Davis, the commie "writer."

Obama's birth certificate would list his blood type, and that might disprove his alleged father's paternity.

This, of course, would help the birthers little. It wouldn't make Obama ineligible as the ruler of the US. It would merely show him to be less than forthright and concerned what the right would make out of the fact that he's the son of a notorious Chicago communist.

Would be interesting anyway. Hey, Obama, care to release some documents or submit to a DNA test?

Silverstein's Latest Lawsuit

2011-04-01T12:49:00.001-04:00

From The New York Times:

"Silverstein's Latest Lawsuit"

At a time when everything seemed to go on swimmingly at the World Trade Center, the new Tower One rising steadily past the halfway mark, the memorial on track, and an agreement for the other new towers in place, a new round of downtown trouble is afoot. Yesterday, World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein filed a notice of dispute, sending his troubled partnership with the Port Authority into arbitration once more. Moreover, a source close to Mr. Silverstein's lawyers, Grapsh, Snyder, Renner, said on condition of anonymity that Mr. Silverstein is preparing to file lawsuits against WTC master planner Daniel Libeskind and the World Trade Organization.

The bone of contention is once more the space allocation in the new WTC buildings, but this time with a twist. Mr. Silverstein alleges that he has been defrauded all along by the WTO, the Port Authority, and their master planner.

From the get go, Mr. Silverstein's complaint claims, the Port Authority conspired with the WTO and the architect, Mr. Libeskind, to keep the most profitable office space to itself. "From day one, they had this plan where four buildings wrap around the memorial plaza. And even when people rallied for rebuilding the Twin Towers, they held on to that scheme, come hell or high water," said the Grapsh, Snyder, Renner insider. "There was method to that madness."

The Twin Towers design was fatally flawed, as it kept disparate parties cooped up together, which led to insurmountable conflicts of interest that sunk the original World Trade Center in its intended function as a center of world trade. Consequently, the Twin Towers sat empty for years, until Wall Street firms could be persuaded to move in once other space downtown had filled up.

Conversely, the new World Trade Center will sort tenants by their affluence, with a First World Trade Center for those from developed countries like North America, Europe, and Japan, a Second World Trade Center for those from emerging economies like Russia and China, a Third World Trade Center for those from underdeveloped countries in the Middle East, South Asia, Latin America, and Africa, and a Fourth World Trade Center for those from the least developed countries and for government agencies, like the PA itself, which are notoriously cheap tenants with their tax dollars.

"When Larry couldn't build them all, the PA kept Tower One, the future First World Trade Center, to itself and saddled him with the less prosperous tenants. You might say, how comes a shrewd Manhattan developer like Larry could be kept in the dark like this for ten years, but this is the big league, WTO and international diplomats. He's a babe in arms among those global players," the lawyer said.

"If they didn't plan that from square one, why four towers? Doesn't make sense. Why did they move into Tower Four instead of the taller, more prestigious Tower One, like before? Those PA guys knew exactly what they were doing.

"Why do the towers decrease in height, size, and architectural quality as the building numbers increase? Libeskind designed it that way and refused to budge, no matter how impractical this design turned out to be in all other respects."

"The Twin Towers just didn't work," said Katharina Prilova, who worked in the Twin Towers when she was a foreign trade commissar for Russia. "You'd take the elevator down for lunch, and in the sky lobby some scrawny African would accost you for money."

"Once, I was in the cafeteria and that Polynesian trade commissioner tried to trade me one of his daughters for sweetener," said Jack Springshear, a former US delegate to the WTO. "You've got to understand, not an aristocratic statesman, but some money-grubbing, nouveau riche business type. Those daughters of him must have been fat like whales and straight from the pineapple fields. I'd rather keep my Sweet'n Low, thank you very much."

Faced with conditions like those, the capitalists at the WTO seem to prefer to keep diversity down and different people from different worlds segregated. Unsurprisingly, their promise of a diverse WTC turns out to not be worth the air it was spoken into.

The only inequality Mr. Silverstein seems to care about, however, is that he got saddled with the least prosperous peons. His office refused to comment on pending lawsuits. A spokesperson for the Port Authority didn't return calls, the WTO was closed for a Micronesian holiday, and Mr. Libeskind, according to his assistant, attended a garden gnome conference.

The Grateful Dead

2011-03-31T12:36:00.000-04:00

Or, an incentive to murder our employees.

[Acme Shit] is an equal opportunity employer and offers a comprehensive benefits package including: medical, dental, vision, 401k, paid time off, company sponsored life insurance, long term disability, flexible spending account options, and a pro-active and accessible HR department that focuses on the staff's health and happiness.

Company sponsored life insurance? Hmm…

Business life insurance can help you meet the needs of your employees. More often than not, employees are not only looking for better wages or compensation; they are also looking for better insurance benefits. One very cost-effective solution to this problem is to offer your employees life insurance through your business.

In fact, you'd be surprised how many people actually don't have any life insurance at all. [In my line of business, we call them "the sane."] Therefore, employer-sponsored life insurance can prove to be very attractive — for the purposes of employee retention or attracting new talent.

…

Most of the time, employees are grateful to have been offered any sort of life insurance coverage. [???]

…

Offering life insurance to your employees is relatively cheap and makes a very attractive fringe benefit that every employee will appreciate. So, if you're considering different methods to better retain quality employees, then offering company-sponsored life insurance should be one of the first benefits you offer.

Life insurance? Grateful? Why would I want life insurance? I might just as well tattoo "murder me" on my forehead?!

Alex = Cool History / Lit Geek

2011-03-29T13:49:00.003-04:00

(HT to Kent McManigal.)

My nerd test result:

From this time forward, you'll hold the title:

Cool History / Lit Geek

Carry it proudly!

No Bucks without Buck Rogers

2011-03-28T09:46:00.000-04:00

Here's a great article on the "heroic" folly that is human space flight.

Friends of Gaddafi

2011-03-27T15:20:00.000-04:00

In other news, the Libertarian Party (LP) officially renamed itself Friends of Gaddafi (FroG).

The French protested, as they are already called frogs and are not friends of Gaddafi.

The Immorality of Low Flow Toilets

2011-03-24T13:03:00.004-04:00

Rand Paul complained to the looters about invasive environmental regulation in general and that his low flow toilet doesn't work in particular. Now the hippies believe if they buy him a working low flow toilet, they're off the hook and he's bound to give in.

If he doesn't, it's allegedly not his toilet that's full of shit, but he. Turns out it's the hippies that are full of shit. Again, the hippies are trying to delude everyone, most desperately themselves, with green smoke and water mirrors.

Yet the problem is not clogged toilets or expensive, harmful light bulbs. This is not a mechanical, but a moral problem. Fascism — a nominally free system where all decisions are made and enforced by the state — is not OK, even if the toilets run on time.

And often, they do not:

Most waterless urinals however do not remove odor staining on the surface of the urinals, if not normally cleaned. Even when maintained according to recommendations, flushless urinals emit a fish-like odor that most people find unpleasant. In February, 2010, the headquarters of the California EPA removed waterless urinals that were installed in 2003 due to "hundreds of complaints" including odors and splashed urine on the floors.

As Ayn Rand observed, in the long run, the moral is always the practical and immorality always impractical. Even if you don't mind being told at gunpoint what to do.

Don't build another dam; lower the water in the toilet. The hippies say that for desirable innovation and progress, the government has to set the bar, and the market has to clear it. But what they do not tell you is what the producers would have done with their money, resources, and time if they had not been busy for years jumping through hoops, lowering the water in toilet bowls, getting those pesky low flow toilets to work.

Now, maybe the producers in question would have spent their resources going golfing, like Obama spends his worthless time. Or maybe these resources would have been allocated to finding a cure for cancer. (One presumes that Obama's and his taxpayer-funded leisure class' penchant for golf and madness bracketing makes them believe the former.)

We simply do not know. What we do know is that the decision was not made by businessmen, engineers, and scientists, but by the people's democratically elected representatives, whose concern is not the conquest of nature, but the conquest of men.

Those representatives in turn were chosen in an election where the sage and the village idiot have an equal vote. What's more, generally neither the people nor their representatives have any expertise in the fields where they presume to enforce their final solutions at gunpoint.

If water shortages do become a problem, like maybe in the Southwest, the solution has to be decided by the market, where the number of "votes" one person gets is determined by their productivity. In a democracy, every last moron gets an equal vote. In capitalism, productive people, being richer, have more power than unproductive people, and people who are affected by the problem, being more willing to spend money on it, have more say than carpet-bagging activists.

The first commenter who tries to refute that by anecdotal evidence wins a toaster. Only that no dead tree toaster will be delivered to you, as my contribution to cutting unnecessary "carbon." In the spirit of environmentalism, progress, networking, and replacing mechanics with electronics, I'll get you an e-toaster.

Obviously, democracy is not absolutely evil, and capitalism is not absolutely good. Even in democracy, the rich sometimes have more power than the poor. Even in capitalism, human beings make mistakes.

It's just that capitalism works way better than democracy. Do you generally get better service from private businesses or from your friendly neighborhood government?

In times memorial, there has never been a completely capitalist society. Even in the times of the Old West, which may have been the closest the world has come the capitalist ideal, there was a Washington, DC, and a federal government doling out subsidies and favors.

Yet in the past, the follies made were at least pro-man follies much of the time. The first transcontinental railroad, Hoover Dam, the Apollo program, the New York World Trade Center, the eradication of smallpox — railroads, dams, rockets, buildings, and medicines for which there was not yet a market. But if government-funded follies they were, they were nevertheless heroic follies.

From the follies the man-hating green government is sponsoring today, man won't profit in the foreseeable future. They're exclusively for the protection of Mono Lake and of hypothetical ice bears from a probably imaginary global warming.

If anybody wants to protect Mono Lake or the like, they should please spend their own money, resources, and time on it. I might even give them a twenty or so, particularly if that means I never have to see the government again.

And anyone who believes they have a human right to potable water without producing it or paying for it, or that anybody else has a duty to provide it to them free of charge: Go squeeze turnips.

Quote of the Day

2011-03-24T12:51:00.000-04:00

"Do what thy manhood bids thee do, / From none but self expect applause: / He noblest lives and noblest dies / Who makes and keeps his self-made laws."

— Richard Francis Burton

The Moral Lacuna of Libertarianism

2011-03-20T14:02:00.006-04:00

"We cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his own people that there will be no mercy."

— The Obama

Little did I expect I'd ever have to side with Obama against Ron Paul.

While nation building like in Iraq is not a good idea — the war there should have ended the day Saddam was caught — and it may be legitimate to speak of a welfare-warfare state in that context, the vicious, inhuman nature of the libertarian extremist anti-war attitude is now in plain sight.

While this was going on…

Meantime, hundreds of cars full of civilians headed out of the city, a Reuters correspondent said.

"Do we have to wait till he (Gadhafi) kills us all before the (world) acts. We are very disappointed," said Adel Mansoura, an air traffic controller fleeing with his family.

"When we heard the U.N. resolution, we were very happy and thought we had our freedom but now we have been left on our own to the killers," he said at a petrol station where dozens of other cars lined for fuel as they fled.

The head of the rebel National Libyan Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, said the international community must act swiftly to protect civilians from Gadhafi's forces.

"Now there is a bombardment by artillery and rockets on all districts of Benghazi," he told Al Jazeera television. "The international community is late in intervening to save civilians from Gadhafi's forces."

"Today in Benghazi there will be a catastrophe if the international community does not implement the resolutions of the U.N. Security Council," he said. "We appeal to the international community, to the all the free world, to stop this tyranny from exterminating civilians."

…Ron Paul had this to say:

"Last week we once again heard numerous voices calling for intervention in Libya. Most say the US should establish a 'no-fly' zone over Libya, pretending that it is a benign, virtually cost-free action,"

Yes, it is.

"…and the least we could do to assist those trying to oust the Gaddaffi regime."

You bet.

"Let us be clear about one thing: for the US to establish a 'no fly' zone over all or part of Libya would constitute an act of war against Libya. Establishing any kind of military presence in the sovereign territory…"

Glad to see that the mystic and meaningless title "sovereign nation" still is a license to murder.

"The administration has stated that nothing is off the table as they discuss US responses to the unrest. This sort of talk is alarming on so many levels. Does this mean a nuclear strike is on the table? Apparently so."

Behold the death of a weak argument from ludicrous hyperbole.

"In this case, I would like to make sure we actually follow the black letter of the law provided in the Constitution that explicitly grants congress the sole authority to declare war. …the president … would have no authority to engage in hostilities because we have not been attacked…"

If a government like Gaddafi's slaughters the people it pretends to protect, any other nation or any private organization has an absolute right to go in and help the victims defend themselves, while taking any reasonable measure to avoid collateral damage. This is a natural right stemming from every individual's human right to life, which takes precedence over any national or international law, which at this point becomes null and void.

Anybody who would put the law above human lives is less than a human being.

"This is not our fight."

Where have I heard that before? Ah, yes, appeasing the nazis. Now, that was a good idea.

So if you ever see Ron Paul assaulted, like when Brüno tries to ass rape him again or a Gaddafi terrorist aims a missile at his plane, don't help Paul. He wouldn't want it.

Boy, am I glad that clown didn't get elected. (Never thought I'd say that.) Obama may be even more cowardly than the French, but at least he's been shamed into action instead of clinging to his delusions. Turns out Obama is indeed a better, or at least a less evil, person than Ron Paul.

"We don't have the money for more military interventions overseas… We have to rely on the Fed's printing presses and our ability to borrow from China to fund these wars."

A couple missiles and some jet fuel won't drive the budget over the brink. But if it need be to help human beings being slaughtered while fighting for their freedom, keep the presses rolling and palm off another couple billion dollars in bonds on the Chinese.

As far as I am concerned, Paul and his ilk of Libertarian peaceniks have crossed the moral event horizon. If the French are braver than you, you're doing something wrong.

How, then, do minarchist libertarians and objectivists arrive at such delusions?

Minarchism and more narrowly objectivism hold that there must be governments, or else there would be chaos — which is somehow bad. Also, for some reason there's no world government — as would be logical if there were one "objective" set of laws — but mankind is arbitrarily divided into countries, or nation states, or rather tribes.

Every tribe has a government to pacify, arbitrate between the members of, and defend only its own tribe, as governments must be funded by enforced taxation, and it would be wrong to use that money forcibly collected for the "common defense" of our tribe to unselfishly and altruistically defend a foreign tribe.

What's more, our soldiers enlisted to defend their own families and tribesmen. Thus, they will readily fight for the worst scum, if only it belongs to our tribe, but it would be wrong to expect them to fight for worthless foreigners, be it defenseless women and children or whatever.

Thus, objectivism and minarchist libertarianism both evict themselves from the realm of morality. Belief systems that encourage their followers to idly stand by while a few miles away mass murder is committed, which they could prevent at little cost or risk to themselves, cannot claim to be moral in any way, shape, or form.

Ayn Rand, who founded objectivism and injected it with her mistaken notion of minarchism, correctly observed that a morality is a code to sustain human life, and that self-sacrifice is immoral. (Why would you value anyone's life more highly than your own?) Yet these two belief systems she shaped forbid saving life even if no self-sacrifice is involved and thus become self-contradictory and, at least in their politics, invalid. Minarchist libertarianism, which unlike objectivism is not a comprehensive philosophy, but merely a political ideology, is thus completely invalidated.

Now, what's the difference between minarchist libertarianism and anarchist libertarianism, between objectivism and (anarcho-)capitalism? Let's stick with the example of the Libyan civil war.

On an objectivist aircraft carrier, the captain would address his crew like this:

"As we get our funding from American taxpayers, and you enlisted to protect only America, we are not authorized to defend foreigners. Therefore, we'll sit here, waiting for a direct threat to America to emerge, enjoying the Mediterranean sun, and watching those bloody foreigners getting slaughtered. Their problem if they can't by themselves handle the dictator of the country allotted to them."

This is the moral bankruptcy of objectivism, or at least of libertarian politics. (In fairness I should point out that the better sort of objectivists finds a workaround for that dilemma by declaring that helping freedom fighters is in the US national interest or that every human life has an intrinsic value.)

On a capitalist aircraft carrier, the captain would address his crew like this:

"We get paid for defending our customers, and you signed on to fight on their behalf. However, every once in a while, we hand out free samples to people who are not yet our customers, like those Libyans over there. If anyone of you has a problem fighting for Libyans, there's the gangway."

This is the moral nature of capitalism.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Why I Am Not Worried about Japan's Nuclear Reactors

2011-03-13T14:36:00.003-04:00

(HT to Joshua Zader.)

Very timely. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, eco-terrorists!

And stop bitching either about your "global warming" delusions* or about your "nuclear energy is unsafe" delusions. You can have only one or the other.

Unless you want to return man to the age of the windmill. And it that case, you're truly insane.

Update: "Fukushima Is a Triumph for Nuke Power: Build More Reactors Now!"

"You might say that I was the only one whose health was affected by that reactor near Harrisburg. No, that would be wrong. It was not the reactor. It was Jane Fonda. Reactors are not dangerous."

— Edward Teller

* Or are you calling those delusions "climate change" now?

Chris Ward Couldn't Make Money with Plates

2011-03-10T02:17:00.001-05:00

Port Authority honcho Chris Ward couldn't make money if you sent him the printing plates in a gift box.

Developers of 1 World Trade Center have abruptly scratched plans for a Windows on the World-type restaurant on the top floors of the iconic, 1,776-foot-tall tower now rising downtown.

Plans for the eatery … were shelved due to concerns about design and construction costs and the difficulty of finding a restaurateur willing to run a likely money-losing operation, sources said.

"These things are always money-losers. We think we can achieve a far better financial return given the [quality of the] space and avoid all the complexities," Port Authority Executive Director Chris Ward said.

…

The former owners of Tavern on the Green, the Strip House chain, and Windows on the World itself were among many restaurateurs who expressed interest in taking on a reborn Windows.

"In 2000, its final full year of operation, it reported revenues of US$37 million, making it the highest-grossing restaurant in the United States."

Windows on the World is a license for printing money. If you can't make money with that, it's a miracle you can find the way to your refrigerator to ward off death by starvation. Does your wife keep feeding you, Chrissy Snow-Ward?

The only loser here is you, Chrissy. You couldn't find your own ass with a map and GPS.

I expect your immediate resignation. The only reason you don't is that you'd starve, as you couldn't even run a hot dog stand.

" 'We do not build vanity projects at the top of tall buildings,' said PA Executive Director Chris Ward."

But you do build vanity projects next door to tall buildings, huh? Like that pointless mega-memorial Disneyland of Death?

" 'We are committed to finding the highest, best, and most practical use for this space — one that does not require subsidizing a restaurant with public money for years to come,' he said."

So what do you morons want to put there instead? Thanks to that coward Silverstein, there aren't going to be any offices at a decent height like that.

So what are you going to put onto those floors? More mechanical and communications equipment, like you wasted the other upper floors on?

I want my restaurant back, you government-funded imbeciles!

Man to English Dictionary, Lesson One

2011-03-02T14:48:00.002-05:00

(The companion volume to the RLC Woman to English Dictionary.)

Man: "But you've got a boyfriend!"

English: "I don't find you attractive (enough to backstab a bro)."

Man: "What's your boyfriend got to do with anything?"

English: "I want to jump you."

That's Chutzpah

2011-03-01T21:55:00.001-05:00

When the mail hits your eye like a slap from blue sky
That's chutzpah
When the world seems to honk like something's gonna plonk
That's chutzpah

Certain friend of a friend snubbed me on Facebook, but put my email on his business email list.

There isn't even an unsubscribe link in that spam mail.

Plonk!

Wikipedia City Slickers

2011-02-20T19:57:00.000-05:00

"The episode makes frequent references to dialogue gaffes in the film, such as Luther Strickland referring to his farm as a 'walnut ranch,' and the gas attendant's pronunciation of 'homicidal' and 'fromokaidal.' "

Them there damn city slickers ain't got no clue nohow. Can't talk shop about no walnut ranching until you've broken in your first walnut.

Ornery little bastards. Have your both hands full just staying in the saddle.

I still remember my first walnut rodeo back in '86. The dust, the sweat, and the blood.

Was that little fucker or me in the end. He broke my leg; I broke hisn.

Had to shoot him. Did you ever try shooting a walnut bucking on three legs?

Emptied a whole mag of .45 ACP at him. Was all over the corral, that fucker.

Government should have bombed Wikipedia long ago. Little bastard commie compadres of that pinko traitor Assange.

Come to my walnut ranch and wrestle some bull nuts before you spread un-American stories about hardworking, taxpaying, god-fearing country folks. You go take yourself a leaf out of Sarah Palin's books. Never seen a cowgirl shoot them nuts quite like she does, no, sir.

'Cept maybe Dick Cheney. And before I had her books read out to me, we never had any toilet paper on the ranch nohow.

Cool Atlas Shrugged Trailer

2011-02-13T14:51:00.001-05:00

(HT to Joshua Zader.)

(Should rather be called a freight car than a trailer, 'cause the movie's not about trucking.)

Boy, am I glad they updated this one. With 1950s buildings, trains, and cars, the movie would not only have been uncool, but unwatchable. The plot theme is grim and dystopian enough, and this way there's at least some eye candy to make it bearable.

I don't care shit about the ass pull with the airline bankruptcies. It pales in comparison with the train wreck the alternative would have been.

For all the fan boys who disagree, go read that 1,000+ page doorstopper over and over until you turn into Officer Barbrady. :P

Oh, and it's us who move the world.* Welcome to the twenty-first century.

You could take the Twenty-First Century Limited to get here. But that's another story entirely.

* "Although the nominative case is traditionally required after the verb 'to be', even careful speakers say 'it is me' (or him, her, etc.) rather than 'it is I' in informal contexts."

— Collins English Dictionary

Usage Note:

Traditional grammar requires the nominative form of the pronoun in the predicate of the verb be: It is I (not me); That must be they (not them), and so forth. Nearly every speaker of Modern English finds this rule difficult to follow. Even if everyone could follow it, in informal contexts the nominative pronoun often sounds pedantic and even ridiculous, especially when the verb is contracted, as in It's we. But constructions like It is me have been condemned in the classroom and in writing handbooks for so long that there seems little likelihood that they will ever be entirely acceptable in formal writing. The traditional rule creates additional problems when the pronoun following be also functions as the object of a verb or preposition in a relative clause, as in It is not them/they that we have in mind when we talk about "crime in the streets" nowadays, where the plural pronoun serves as both the predicate of is and the object of have. In this example, 57 percent of the Usage Panel prefers the nominative form they, 33 percent prefer the objective them, and 10 percent accept both versions. Writers can usually revise their sentences to avoid this problem: They are not the ones we have in mind, We have someone else in mind, and so on.

Put that in your pipes and smoke it, grammar nazis.

No grammar for you! Come back one year!

These Boots Are Made for Vegas?

2011-02-03T15:14:00.000-05:00

Web page segment to edit: "Shop hoes"

Must have been meant to read: "Shop shoes"

Must have been embarrassing for certain conservatives if they happened to surf to that page.

"Willard Mitten Romney! So you're picking up hookers from the internet now?!"

"I swear, my dear, I was just trying to buy you a pair of shoes for your birthday."

"How stupid do you think I am? I'm leaving you! I'm getting a divorce!"

(Darn freaking interweb. Worse than gambling. I try it once, and my marriage is down the drain. Need to get those intertubes banned ASAP.)

"And don't think you'll ever be president! Don't even think you'll have a chance at any career in politics when this is over!"

(Must get this hell spawn banned now.)

Groundhog Day 2011 Prediction

2011-02-02T15:36:00.000-05:00

Staten Island Chuck has seen Ayn Rand's shadow.

That means at least six more months of heavy tea party effect precipitation.

Happy Ayn Rand Day!

Assange vs. the Galactically Stupid

2011-02-01T15:17:00.004-05:00

There's this galactically stupid letter on Julian Assange at The Atlasphere.

…

The government has a legitimate interest in the secrecy of negotiations, of its estimations of foreign leaders, things like that, because sometimes secrets like this are in our national security interest or help the government achieve needed goals.

Assange's wanton release of this information will do what he wanted, embarassment [sic] and damage to America's foreign policy endeavors — some of which are critical to our nation's very survival, such as the efforts to find allies against Iran's nuclear ambitions.

(Insulting your allies behind their backs and then hoping it stays secret is a good way to find allies?!)

As all things in the universe are connected, everything is remotely connected to national security in some way. By this fascist (or rather objecto-fascist*) "logic," the government could do anything, confiscate anything, kidnap anybody, assassinate anybody, as long as it cries "national security" while doing it.

BTW, the government would not even have to prove the tenuous connection to national security. The proof, you know, is secret, too.

By this "logic," the government might just as well shoot random people in Times Square that "look Iranian" because "they might be carrying nukes under their coats." That would serve the cause of nuclear security about as well as kidnapping or assassinating people who publish "secret" information on hopelessly inept government negotiations that may or may not tangentially concern nukes.

That's how today's neo-fascism or, in this case, objecto-fascism works: Blind fear of terrorism and nukes, blind faith in the government's ability to do something about it, and a willingness to give said government carte blanche every time it cries "national security." Disgusting.

As an added bonus, here another letter that is not quite as stupid and fascist, and that asks a question that deserves to be answered:

"Does Assange ever release secret documents from our enemies?"

Well, I guess Assange releases whatever he gets hold of. So why doesn't he release documents from axis of evil governments?

Probably 'cause he ain't got any. Why ain't he got any?

Probably because those governments are even more fascist and better at silencing, kidnapping, and assassinating whistleblowers than the US government, by several orders of magnitude. So the US government is several rungs in hell above virtually any other government. Does that mean that it should be given leeway to kidnap or assassinate an odd dissenter every now and then, just because other governments do it regularly?

Finally, for fascists' favorite fervor, the "hundred Afghans," whose identity and collaboration with US forces the leak allegedly revealed to vengeful taliban, and whose blood accordingly is according to Palin et al. on Assange's hands:

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said there is still concern Afghans named in the published documents could be retaliated against by the Taliban, though a NATO official said there has been no indication that this has happened.

…

The defense secretary said that the published documents do contain names of some cooperating Afghans, who could face reprisal by Taliban.

But a senior NATO official in Kabul told CNN that there has not been a single case of Afghans needing protection or to be moved because of the leak.

And…

Administration officials said they were not aware of anyone who has been attacked or imprisoned as a direct result of information in the 2,700 cables that have been made public to date by WikiLeaks, The New York Times and several other publications, many with some names removed.

…

A Pentagon spokesman, Maj. Chris Perrine, said Thursday that the military was not aware of any confirmed case of harm to anyone as a result of being named in the Afghan war documents.

Of course it would have been better if WikiLeaks had redacted those names. But as long as this kind of thing goes on, your average soldier of whatever affiliation — and every yahoo rooting for them like a Palin — has more blood on their hands than Assange.

The fascists didn't care shit about collateral damage among Iraqis and Afghans while US troops did the killing. Again, the core idea(l) of statism at work: States may cause any number of carnage, casualties, and collateral damage they want; an individual may cause none.

But morality does not come in numbers. Just because there are 300,000,000 of you, that does not mean you collectively have any more right to harm or kill anyone than any lone dude has.

Sarah Palin said: "Julian Assange has blood on his hands!"

Then she removed her hands out of the caribou carcass.

Not that caribous are humans, but that bitch really got a lot of nerve.

And finally, here the latest proof that truth beats secrecy:

The latest WikiLeaks revelation — detailing a memo which suggests that the British government advised Libya on how to secure the release from jail on compassionate grounds of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing — opens a can of worms on both sides of the Atlantic.

First, it puts David Cameron under renewed pressure. He has consistently adopted the line taken by the last Labor government that the devolved Scottish government took the decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in August 2009 independently and without pressure from London.

Today's leak appears to blows a hole in that story.

Second, it surely forces American politicians to rethink their view of Julian Assange.

US politicians — led by four senators from New York and New Jersey, where many of the families of the Lockerbie victims live — have been pushing for an inquiry into their deeply-held suspicions that the Labor government encouraged the release of Megrahi in order to open up trade with Libya.

If, as seems likely, today's leak pushes Cameron closer to such an inquiry, will Capitol Hill begin to realize that WikiLeaks can be a force for good?

Take that, dumb bitch, pee king, and all the other galactically stupid among you.

* Objecto-fascism is the use of objectivist arguments to promote fascism or in a way that might as well be used to promote fascism.

Quote of the Day

2011-01-30T15:55:00.000-05:00

"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."

— Voltaire

Oh, That's How Obama Does It

2011-01-27T18:19:00.004-05:00

In case you're wondering, the movie is The Ghost Breakers and yes, Bob Hope really said it. It's not dubbed or anything.

BTW, there used to be another line, "America has got Bob Hope, Stevie Wonder, and Johnny Cash; [insert socialist slave state as applicable] has got no hope, no wonder, no cash.

With the ballooning deficit and two of them dead (and the same year, too) I'm beginning to wonder…

God forbid that anything happens to Stevie Wonder.

Because even with Hopenchange in the White House (or more precisely, particularly with Hopenchange in the White House), America needs some sort of a wonder to get hope and cash back.

The Secret of the Lost Tribe, Chapter Two

2011-01-18T14:00:00.001-05:00

Begin with the beginning.

Chapter Two

The Hotel California

It was dark. It was night. It was late. At least too late to be riding around a highway winding through some Indian reservation, without any definite idea where they were going.

Before nightfall, Jennifer and Traynor had visited another tourist attraction, El Morro National Monument, also known as Inscription Rock. It was another ruined Anasazi village, this one atop a sandstone promontory that was covered with inscriptions left by the Anasazi, the Spanish, and American pioneers. However, tourist attraction or no tourist attraction, now the highway ahead and behind them was deserted.

"Where the hell are we?" cursed Jennifer over the country music wailing from the radio of the roadster.

"On some kind of a road or a state highway or some such thing called 53, according to this map," Traynor replied wearily.

"We might already be in Albuquerque if not for that stupid pileup and detour on the Interstate. Welcome to Gallup — The Drunk Driving Capital of America."

"So much for Amarillo by morning. But on the Interstate we'd have missed that El Morro Anasazi thing."

"Fuck the Anasazi."

He grinned. "Wasn't that funny when that ranger told you that you need 'sturdy walking shoes' for that trail? I'm not the kind to go, 'I told you so,' but I told you so."

"Shut up." She looked straight ahead.

"I mean, there's nothing funnier than two government agents duking it out. Former government agent, in your case. Can you tell me who exactly of you two had the monopoly on the legitimate use of force back there?"

"Shut up."

"Do you think he should have shot you for your own good when you simply ignored him and walked up that trail anyway?"

"Shut up."

"To play the devil's advocate: What about property rights? Doesn't the government get to make the rules on government property?"

"Shut the fuck up."

"Best thing is that the Interstate's got to already be open again. Otherwise we'd have more company. This is the only road paralleling the Interstate."

"Do you want me to turn around?"

"No. Sooner or later we've got to end up on the Interstate again, according to the map."

"To hell with your stupid map."

Traynor looked up from his stupid map. On the radio, Emmylou Harris observed, "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues." He looked around. Obviously, Emmylou was right.

He cocked a brow. "Not the end of the world. But if it weren't dark, we could see it from here."

If anything, the darkness was emphasized by the light of the full moon. It only made one think what might lurk in the shadows between the silvery silhouettes of trees and bushes. Ahead, beside the road, a butte rose steeply into the sky. On its apex, outlined against the white disk of the moon, stood the black silhouette of an Indian horseman, like a ghost from a time long gone by. Despite the deceptive moonlight, Traynor was sure it was an Indian, not a cowboy from a nearby ranch. The figure did not wear a war bonnet like a plains Indian, but he did not wear a cowboy hat, either. Traynor thought he got a glimpse of the savage garb. Most tellingly, however, the shadow held a bow instead of a rifle.

Traynor nudged Jennifer. "We've got company."

She blinked her eyes in fatigue. "Huh?"

He pointed out the silent, immobile figure in the sky.

She shrugged. "It's a reservation, after all."

"We've got to be a couple miles out of that reservation already."

"So do you wanna climb up there to tell Chief Moth Eaten he's out of area?"

"Not necessarily. It's a free country."

"By the way — how the hell did he get up there?"

"Maybe there's a path on the other side." He grinned wryly. "Still, a bit creepy with that bow — one would think today's Indians pack rifles. Like he's on the warpath, ready to command some unseen army to attack…"

That moment, a flaming arrow burned through the windshield of the Auburn, hitting Jennifer's eye. At least that was what she felt. As the automobile sped towards the needle of light, the needle grew into a speck, then into white neon letters advertising: "Hotel California." The sign sat on the roof of a single-story building. In front of it was another light, a flashing blue neon sign announcing: "Vacancy." It was not actually a hotel; Motel California would have been closer to the truth. From a row of rooms sprouted a more spacious wing, probably the office and maybe a restaurant, with two gas pumps and a diesel pump in front of it. That was all. Jennifer pulled into the parking lot between the vacancy sign and the motel.

"Gas. Food. Lodging." Traynor frowned. "Not exactly the Plaza."

"Let's get that real straight right now. I'm about to fall asleep at the wheel. And you're not exactly the world's greatest driver. You'll understand that I'm not too keen to have you drive my Auburn at night. So we're kind of running out of options. Either we'll be sleeping in my car or we take a chance on this Hotel California."

There did not seem to be too many guests. Only a handful of other vehicles sat in the parking lot in front of the rooms. Jennifer stopped the Auburn in front of the motel office.

When they entered, they found a middle-aged couple behind the front desk. Both of them stood a bit taller than either Jennifer or Traynor. Apparently, they were discussing some business matter. As Jennifer and Traynor checked in, the four of them got involved in a conversation. It turned out the other couple owned the motel. They said their names were Irv and Maxine Goldman. Eventually, Jennifer and Traynor realized they were not only very tired but also very hungry.

"Well, I've already closed the kitchen for tonight, but I can get you some apple pie," offered Maxine.

"That would be wonderful," Jennifer sighed.

They moved to a booth in the diner. Now the New York couple saw that there was more to this wing than just front desk, office, and diner. A spacious room next to the diner was a veritable general store selling souvenirs to tourists and groceries to the few locals living out here. This place had to be the supply depot and gathering place for ranches far and wide.

While Maxine got the apple pie, Goldman volunteered to mix them drinks. Some strands of his receding gray hair escaped from under his Stetson. His face was tanned like leather, and his stout frame was dressed in a flannel shirt and worn blue jeans.

"You guys are Eagles fans?" asked Traynor.

"Eagles? Oh, you mean because of Hotel California?" Maxine brought the apple pie and sat down at their table.

Her hair was still black — possibly dyed. However, the first thing one noticed about her were her big, questioning eyes that seemed to wonder at something inexplicable. She looked a little slimmer than her husband, although that was hard to tell due to her flowing floral-print dress.

The apple pie smelled delicious. However, Traynor knew that that meant nothing. But when he tasted it, it proved to be delicious, without that chemical aftertaste of factory pastry.

Goldman served the tequila sunrises Traynor had ordered, got himself a beer from the refrigerator under the counter, and joined them. "No, we were actually on our way to open a hotel in California when we came across this here place. The guy who had built it wanted to get rid of it badly, so we bought it for a song, and opened our hotel here instead of in California. But we named it for our formerly promised land. You know, we're originally from Chicago. As the saying goes, we saved our pennies and saved our dimes — to build our own hotel someday."

"Maybe we should have moved on… After all, when we found out why he had to sell…"

"Shush, Max."

"But…"

"Let's not worry our guests."

Jennifer frowned. "But? What is it?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all."

"Irv, you know it's one of these nights…"

"Max! Enough is enough."

Although he was curious himself, Traynor thought it more important to avert marital discord. "That reminds me… Could I get another tequila sunrise?"

Jennifer rolled her eyes. "Take it easy, desperado…"

Buy the full story.

A Fully Fascist-Free Airport

2011-01-17T15:32:00.000-05:00

Had enough of the jackbooted airport thugs? Try this:

But then it's a German model airport, so I bet they have miniature nazis somewhere in there.

Cool, though.

The Secret of the Lost Tribe, Chapter One, Part Three

2011-01-13T16:00:00.002-05:00

Begin with the beginning.

Some miles down the highway, Traynor was looking at the road map. "There are supposedly some kind of Indian ruins at the end of that dirt road over there."

"Yeah. Read about them in my guidebook last night. Wanna have a look?"

"Sure, why not?"

Jennifer turned onto the dirt road. "They were called the Anasazi. The Indians, I mean."

"How do you spell that?"

"I-N-D-I-A-N-S."

"Very funny. The other guys."

"A-N-A-S-A-Z-I."

"You sure that's not supposed to rhyme with nazi?"

"Quite sure. After all, I'm the language expert here. Anasazi means 'enemies of our fathers' in Navajo, I think."

"Yeah, I read about them. Some mysterious Indian tribe that vanished during the Dark Ages. They left ghost pueblos all over the place, but no one really knows anything about them: who they were, what they did, what they believed, how they lived, why they vanished, where they went, or what became of them."

Traynor unzipped the black leather jacket that protected him from the airstream. It was late fall, but unseasonably warm. When Traynor and his friends had busted a terrorists plot some months before, one of the instigators had confessed that he had invented the global warming hoax as a ruse to guilt Americans into submission to the world community. Now, Traynor was wondering whether that son of a bitch had merely been bragging. In any event, if this was global warming, he loved it.

They left the Auburn at the end of the dirt road and walked along the winding footpath that had to run to the ruins. The path meandered up to the saddle between two hills, overlooking the ruins on the barren moonscape. It was a fairly large complex of interconnected hovels or rooms, different shades of orange, brown, and sand in the sunlight. Their roofs gone, all the hovels were open to the sky. The walls, some of them half-collapsed, had been heaped up from thin stone slabs of irregular size. A perimeter of roughly rectangular rooms protected round ones in the center like shrines. They walked on, down to the ruins.

In her Indian outfit, Jennifer looked like one of the hippies who infested Indian ruins to seek some kind of ersatz spirituality. Like a vulture, one of the requisite gurus taking advantage of them swooped down on her. This specimen was a rather seedy old man with a white beard; he was wielding a pendulum.

"May I introduce myself? I'm Grunzgurk — Dr. Gregory Grunzgurk, energy scientist. I'm in charge of the archeological dig here. May I give a lovely lady like you a tour of the place?"

"You may," Jennifer replied icily, taking Traynor's arm.

Grunzgurk appeared a bit disconcerted at this turn of events. He looked from Traynor's cowboy boots up his blue jeans to his open leather jacket revealing a white cotton shirt — and a glimpse of the holster holding his .45 Colt M1911 pistol. Traynor sure was no hippie.

The witch doctor pointed out the round rooms. "We believe kivas were temples — our physicists found they were important shrines radiating concentrated fields of electromagnetic energies."

Grunzgurk waved to a buxom brunette in rumpled shorts and a brown deerskin jacket similar to Jennifer's. "May I present, Laura Popoff, the renowned investigating physicist — and fortunately, also my assistant."

The "investigating physicist" nodded a welcome to the visitors, then produced a dowsing rod, pretending to investigate something.

Grunzgurk continued his narrative. "All natural stones are polarized by the magnetic field of the earth. If they are assembled haphazardly into a building, this results in an unhealthy environment. Look at the size of these stones. Kivas are huge generators of negative energy. Sensitive people can feel that. In their hands, a pendulum will swing clockwise or counterclockwise, depending on the prevailing polarity of energy — positive or negative.

"I believe kivas were used for healing. Hundreds of people would assemble in them to radiate energy to the sick. The negative radiation of disease would go out, and the sick person's battery would get recharged."

Traynor snorted. "If the Anasazi were such great, um, engineers and such great, um, doctors, why didn't they even manage to build new towns when they had to move from here due to drought?"

"It was their own technology that did them in. Hundreds of kivas created a great energy updraft over the valley, which dispersed clouds, leading to the widespread drought."

"Surely, a supply of tinfoil hats would have saved them, poor things."

Grunzgurk gave him a quizzical look. "I don't believe that that would have helped in this particular case. Be that as it may, when the drought came, the Anasazi lost faith in their priests who had failed to predict the times for planting and harvest — and to preserve harmony with the gods. They lost faith in their religion."

"They lost faith in their religion? At least one step in the right direction."

"Do you think so? After all, it was their knowledge that failed them. They learned that nature is unpredictable. They found that their culture had grown too complex. They were afraid they had created a monster they could not control, and therefore they returned to a simpler way of life. There seem to have been numerous cultural collapses of this kind in America."

"Why don't you talk turkey? Whatever theories you come up with all amount to nothing more than to: Give up, give up, give up, give up. You're gleefully wallowing in the failure of the Anasazi 'civilization' and praising them for returning to a simpler life — to the primeval muck. You're insinuating it's happening again. You believe all that nonsense because our culture — which by my standards is not yet very complex — is too complex for a nitwit like you. The moral you're insinuating is that we all need to return to a simpler way of life — because you don't wish to confess to yourself that you're the only one who is so primitive that he has to return to a cave. In other words, your motivation for making up all this hocus-pocus is that you're an idiot too stupid to live."

Offended, Grunzgurk turned to Jennifer. "We can test that scientifically. Stretch out your arm horizontally — yes, like this — and make it very strong. You see how strong the field is here? Very strong!"

The "scientist" led Jennifer into a ruin. "Now make your arm strong again. You'll see here it collapses completely, upon the slightest touch, because of the negative field… I said it collapses completely!" The "scientist" tried to push Jennifer's arm down with all his strength, but could not make it budge.

"Doesn't work if I don't play along, huh? Maybe you can do that with your suggestible assistants, but not with me. Listen, you big wuss: You're not a doctor. You're not a scientist. You don't feel anything of any consequence. And people don't have batteries."

The big wuss still kept pulling Jennifer's arm, his pendulum oscillating frantically. "I'll show you, lady."

"Let go of my arm."

"Just another second," he smiled.

"Don't touch me."

"Don't worry. It won't hurt."

"It will hurt."

The big wuss gulped.

Traynor was steering the Auburn down the highway at speed. He looked into the rearview mirror. No highway patrol. He glanced for a second at Jennifer, who sat sullenly beside him. "I guess you had to make him swallow his stupid pendulum?"

"Shut up and drive."

Read on…

Or buy the full story.

The Secret of the Lost Tribe, Chapter One, Part Two

2011-01-12T14:05:00.002-05:00

Begin with the beginning.

Then, earlier today, they had seen Ship Rock, a huge reddish rock formation whose several peaks must have reminded early Spanish explorers of the masts and sails of their sailing ships. Now Traynor looked past the green weeds and brush near the shoulder of the highway, across the yellow, sandy desert, to the red and brown buttes and mesas in the distance, under the pale blue New Mexico sky. He snapped some pictures with his FirstAmCam digital camera. Time and again, he was fascinated by this dry wilderness that was so different from the skyscraper canyons of his native New York City. But this fascination never lasted long with him — before long he was longing to return from these wonders of nature to the even greater wonders of man.

He sighed at the miles and miles of Navajo reservation flying by. "This has got to be the highway to hell."

"You mean because it was once numbered 666, the Number of the Beast? In fact, they even used to call it the Highway of the Beast. But then they renumbered it for conceivable reasons. Still, there are all kinds of scary stories. Sometimes drivers see the ghost of a girl in her underwear…"

"In a nightgown, actually. You're not the only one who likes to read that kind of stuff."

"Whatever. Anyway, she'll vanish if you give her a ride."

"That's nothing. When the moon is full, a phantom truck will appear and try to force you off the road. It will bear down on you at a hundred-odd miles an hour with flames shooting from its stacks and sparks flying from its wheels. And if you stop to let it pass, a pack of demon dogs will eat your tires."

"I thought they're called hellhounds."

"Then, a skinwalker may pop up in the backseat of your car — out of thin air."

"That's why I bought a roadster!" laughed Jennifer. "A skinwalker, as in 'Indian werewolf'? Cute. I'll put him on a leash and dazzle my neighbor Lars, you know, the guy who walks his python every night."

"Actually, a skinwalker is a shaman with the power to shape-shift into animals. Not only into a wolf but also into a coyote, a fox, a bear, an owl, and a crow. Into any animal. Or into nothing. That's why you don't see him coming."

"I thought if you don't see it coming, it's a fast moving train."

"No, if you don't see it coming, it's Jennifer Jordan."

"No, it's Kevin Traynor. Be that as it may, this highway will take us straight to I-40 at Gallup — even if I've got to flatten a couple of shamans and ghosts to get there. From Gallup, it'll be a walk in the park to Oklahoma City, Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, and more photos."

"Amarillo by morning, huh?"

Jennifer braked. "Speaking of photos, I didn't buy any souvenirs at the Four Corners. Look there."

From some ramshackle stall beside the highway, a business-minded Navajo Indian was selling allegedly handcrafted pottery, wickerwork, and clothes.

"Well, we have got my photos."

She pulled onto the shoulder of the road. "They're only pixels on a chip. You know what happened to Dina Langdon. I'd like something tangible, too."

While Jennifer got out, Traynor remained seated.

"He'll cheat you. That stuff comes straight from some factory in Hong Kong."

Unimpressed with Traynor's warning, Jennifer looked over the displayed merchandise, and returned with an Indian deerskin jacket and a pair of moccasins. Everything was covered over and over with fringe and beads.

"What do you think?" she asked, still unperturbed by his warning.

"Would be OK without all those useless beads. To quote the gentleman we overheard on the riverboat in Pittsburgh, 'Who needs beads? I need beads like I need — cancer.' "

Back then, neither Jennifer and Traynor nor the gentleman and his companion had showed too much interest in the beads handed out at the nightly New Orleans themed party — Traynor, for one, had been more interested in nighttime views of the Golden Triangle.

She inspected the jacket in good light. "I rather like this stuff."

"You'll be sorry if you buy it. You'll never wear it, and have it gathering dust and mildew in some closet corner."

"Wanna bet?"

"Sure. If I ever see you wearing that pseudo-native junk, I'll gladly pay for it. I bet you won't wear it for a year. What will you do if I'm right?"

"Nothing. Because you lose." She took off her cowboy boots and her faded sweatshirt and stuffed them into the golf bag hatch. Then she slipped into the Indian jacket and moccasins. "Now get out and pay that gentleman."

Traynor snorted at seeing a glimpse of her "I Love New York" T-shirt under that savage garb. "Either you love New York or you love this kind of stuff. You can't have it both ways."

"I didn't say I love this stuff. Just souvenirs."

Traynor accepted the fact that he had been had. He walked over to the stall to pay the Indian.

Read on…

Or buy the full story.

The Secret of the Lost Tribe, Chapter One, Part One

2011-01-11T16:37:00.002-05:00

Begin with the beginning.

Chapter One

The Enemies of Our Fathers

Somewhere on US Highway 491, the twenty-first century.

Jennifer Jordan grinned.

"This time you won't escape me, Kev," she addressed Kevin Traynor, who sat beside her in her new Auburn.

The paint of the sports car shimmered as golden as Jennifer's hair. First American Motors manufactured these replicars. Its body was an exact copy of that of a 1936 Auburn Speedster. However, under its long, slender hood roared a supercharged Northstar V-8 engine, its pontoon fenders concealed a Chevy chassis, and its old-fashioned split windshield, tapered tail, and suicide doors belied its state-of-the-art safety features.

"You sure?" Traynor's angular face mirrored her grin, and his blue eyes below his dark-blond hair sparkled.

Back in New York, Traynor Tower was rising faster than the Empire State Building had gone up — as fast as First American Building had. As everything went swimmingly, Traynor had left his engineer, Steven "Steel" Gunnarson, in charge and taken some weeks off — as had Jennifer from her job as security boss of First American Corporation. They had been driving her new automobile across the country from New York to Arizona via Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Denver, to photograph new skyscrapers.

Somewhat against their nature, they had been cooped up in motels along the way. If experience was a judge, they would once more end up in a cramped motel room tonight. That was quite a change from their life in New York, where they both made sure they had enough breathing space and elbowroom.

That had provoked Jennifer's dig at the horrors he went through every time she facetiously suggested she might move in with him. She conveniently ignored the fact that she preferred to have her own place as well. Not having one would not have been a good idea. Girlfriend or no girlfriend, she knew she would be in for serious bodily harm if she ever damaged a vintage volume in his library. Of course, to be fair, she could not blame him — because, boyfriend or no boyfriend, she would do the same to him if he ever damaged a model in her toy, um, model ship collection.

Yes, Traynor was too cheap for two rooms. Almost every cent he made, he plowed back into his business. Most of the time one room was more than enough for them, and he figured that if push came to shove they could always get a second room when they were on the verge of killing each other.

Traynor grimaced. "I once knew a girl… I shared a hotel room with her for a week… When we checked out, our relationship was through."

"You probably didn't really love her when you checked in."

"And vice versa."

On their way west, they had not had time to visit the Four Corners or the Grand Canyon Dam, as they had been on their way to attend the opening party of the First American Mining Building in Jenkinsville, Arizona. It had gone up in a matter of months after Traynor had rescued the town from a phantom train. He had introduced Jennifer to Connie Chandler, whom she had been curious to meet. Jennifer had been wondering what her boyfriend's lover was like.

It had turned out that Connie was a lot like Jennifer. She had taken that as a compliment. Finally, they had toured First American's new Jenkinsville Railroad Museum. Afterwards, on their way back to New York, they had made a detour to finally visit the completed Grand Canyon Dam with its steadily filling reservoir, which Jennifer had not seen before, either.

And they had visited the Four Corners — the point where Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona collide. Standing in four states at the same time proved fun. Traynor wondered if anybody had ever made love in four states simultaneously. At any rate, the presence of other tourists — and of some Navajo and Ute Indians, who claimed ownership of the land — had prevented Jennifer and him from establishing a historical first.

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Louise May Slaughter Constitution, Republicans Not

2011-01-10T16:05:00.001-05:00

Three would-be members of Congress were never sworn in yesterday, including National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, which could have an impact on when the health care repeal bill is brought to the floor.

The Texas Republican is a member of the Rules Committee, which has been engrossed all day in debating how to bring the health-care repeal bill to the floor. Debate on the bill is supposed to begin tomorrow, and it is supposed to be voted on Wednesday.

But the news that Sessions — who participated in debate and votes today in committee — wasn't sworn in could throw a wrench into that timeline.

…

However, Ranking Member of the Rules Committee Louise Slaughter (D-NY) wasn't so sure the problem was fixed. Slaughter said that she was "anxious" about the process and did "not want to be in any risk on anything that could go against the Constitution." She told Dreier that the Committee should "recess and start over."

Hey, Louise, where was your respect for the Constitution when you voted for Obamacare?

No, wait, don't tell me, I know. You're keeping it in a Tic Tac box so you can draw it whenever it's politically expedient.

The Secret of the Lost Tribe, Prologue, Part Four

2011-01-05T13:00:00.002-05:00

Begin with the beginning.

Adams looked up from the corpse of his partner. He had heard hoofbeats again. The Indians were coming, all screaming their wild war whoops now. Once he saw them, he knew they were too many. He wanted to call out to the men, but it was not necessary. They had already taken cover behind the cabin, behind trees, and behind boulders, aiming their repeating rifles, which they fortunately kept handy.

The first volley erupted like a line of volcanoes. The Indian vanguards fell from their horses. While his men chambered new rounds, Adams dived into the cabin to get his rifle. Reemerging, he found cover behind a boulder, and they all fired again. Smoke wafted across the narrow canyon, beginning to fill it like fog.

Although most of the Indians shot arrows, some had rifles. The Adams party singled out the rifles first and succeeded at shooting all of them down before they did much harm, except for some flesh wounds. Still, no matter how many Indians the men shot, the archers kept coming. The Indian infantry had arrived. Maybe the tribe had run out of rifles and horses, but certainly not out of Indians.

A single arrow might not kill or incapacitate a man if it did not hit an artery or a vital organ. However, within minutes, several of Adams' party received multiple arrow hits. Those men still able to move about retreated into the cabin, running, limping, or creeping.

Don't do it… "No!" Adams shouted his warning. "Not into the cabin!"

But they did not listen. He knew that they were cornering themselves in a lethal trap: The rough cabin had no windows. The men would only be able to fire from the door. Behind their backs the Indians could do pretty much what they liked. Shooting everything that moved, Adams retreated as well — not into the cabin, however, but under the trees beyond.

Back in the cabin, the situation went from bad to worse: The men soon ran out of rifle cartridges and had to fall back on their revolvers. They shot as fast as they were able to reload their wheel guns. Due to the shorter range of revolvers, the Indians were able to move in closer. Even when the defenders scored hits, they usually needed more than one of the less powerful bullets to kill an assailant. A single hit did not even necessarily incapacitate an Indian, or shoot him from his horse. The only upside was that the archers did not know how to shoot a gun, so they did not pick up their fallen brothers' rifles.

When the Indians finally thought of a less suicidal plan than the good old frontal assault, there were still more than enough of them left to carry it out. While the archers in front of the cabin pinned down the defenders inside, other savages prepared flaming arrows in the woods behind it. Adams shot down as many of them as his supply of rifle ammunition permitted. Then he moved closer to the Indians and began to exhaust his revolver cartridges as well.

The warriors did not bother to expend many arrows on him. They remained absorbed in their task of preparing a rain of fire. The trees provided enough cover to convince them he could never exterminate them all. They simply absorbed his bullets, absorbed them with their bodies. Still, there were plenty of savages left, and more were arriving from above the waterfall.

Already, before Adams was able to shoot them, some archers had succeeded at lighting their arrows, shooting them, and setting the cabin on fire. Smoke began to rise from the shake roof, mingling with the gun smoke. Little had the prospectors thought about the danger posed by the highly flammable roof covering, particularly in Indian country. Now their lack of foresight, and the recklessness with which they had challenged the Indians, came back to haunt them.

With the materials the wilderness provided, they had not been able to build a structure that was fireproof in any way, shape, or form. Their inadequate arsenal of guns and ammunition could not cash the check their rash foray above the falls had written. Already, the roof was fully involved. Inside, it was getting hotter and hotter.

Both the fire and the situation were out of control, literally too hot to handle. Sheets of flame began to flow down the log walls of the cabin. The prospectors trapped in there were in for a fiery death, if smoke inhalation did not finish them first. They were running out of options.

One man after another sallied from the blazing cabin and ran for it, while those remaining in there provided covering fire. But invariably, each of the fugitives was shot down by the easily replenished line of archers in front of the cabin. Already, the ground was littered with corpses that looked like wire brushes.

Meanwhile, Adams had run out of ammunition. There was nothing left for him to do. Any unarmed attempt to help his partners would have amounted to suicide.

He turned to flee into the woods. There was no way he could escape on horseback. A single Indian was enough to block the narrow canyons they had come in through. The only way was to climb the canyon walls and hike for it. The cries of his wounded, dying partners haunted him, dying down behind him, as the distance increased, and they bled or were burned to death.

Suddenly, Adams thought he had heard a twig break — but not under his own boot. He looked around. From under the trees beside him, three Indians stepped forward. Two were half-naked like the others, but one of them was fully dressed in hides and bedecked with jet and turquoise gems. Adams realized he was faced with the chief of the tribe. While the chief's bodyguards were aiming arrows at Adams, the chief himself brandished an antique flintlock musket.

He glowered at Adams. "Medicine man tell me you leader of palefaces. You not sneak away. You die."

The chief aimed and fired the rusty flintlock. Adams wanted to try and get out of the line of fire, but he knew he was not faster than a bullet. It was all over.

With a big bang, the flintlock exploded into the chief's face. He fell to the ground like a felled tree. The two other Indians raised a dreadful hue and cry over their fallen chief. Adams took the opportunity to run away before they would recover and shoot him with their arrows. As he climbed the canyon wall, he was sure the murderous savages were still tracking him.

Yet, he made it to the desert beyond the canyon without seeing any Indians. Immediately, he set out on what he thought was the way to Fort Wingate. But without a horse or a guide it was a completely different matter. When he had worn holes into the thin leather soles of his old cavalry boots, and his feet were all blistered and bloody, he dropped to his knees. On hands and knees he crept on until they were raw and bloody as well. When he felt he had worn his hands and knees down to the bone, he dropped to his stomach and wriggled on like a worm, mile after mile. Hours — or days? — later, his shirt and jeans were all in tatters and he was leaving a trail of blood.

Finally, when he was about to give up and die, thirst-crazed, there appeared riders on the horizon. Indians? He was past caring.

As the riders approached, he saw they were not Indians. He recognized the blue and yellow uniforms of a Cavalry patrol. The Cavalrymen rode up to him.

The officer tipped his hat. "Lieutenant Standish, US Cavalry, at your service, sir."

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The Secret of the Lost Tribe, Prologue, Part Three

2011-01-04T15:38:00.002-05:00

Begin with the beginning.

Once, they crossed a wagon trail, which looked like it was hardly traveled at all. The Mexican warned them to memorize that spot, as they would have to follow that trail to get to "the fort in the Malpais rocks" on their way back to civilization. When the prospectors asked the name of the fort, he said he was not sure, maybe Fort Wingate. They continued, finally climbing to a plateau with abandoned Indian fields of corn, beans, and pumpkins. As the sun was setting, they decided to spend the night in the pumpkin patch.

In the morning, the Mexican led them across the plateau and into a canyon. Suddenly, the box canyon ended at the foot of a reddish bluff. Even without horses, climbing it would have been about as easy as scaling a glass facade.

But Gotch Ear just rode around a big boulder. It concealed a narrow passage opening into a zigzag canyon. Eventually, they arrived in a valley that tempted them to rub their eyes in disbelief. The sight of a stream framed by meadows and trees was such a change from the barren, hostile landscape they had traversed.

Now, the Mexican pointed out two rounded mountains towering beyond the far end of the valley. "See those two piloncillos? Those two sugarloaves?"

"The haystacks?" frowned Adams.

"Sí. From here, it's not far. The golden canyon is below them two mountains, above that waterfall at the end of the valley. We should get there tomorrow."

Adams led the party down to the creek to set up camp and water their horses. His eyes grew wide: Through the crystal-clear water sparkled nuggets, and the banks seemed to contain more gold than sand — it was the richest gold deposit any of the prospectors had ever seen. They rushed forward to the creek, into the water, snatching the golden nuggets. After a couple of minutes, each of them had gathered a sizable pile, and they assembled on the bank. There, they deliberated what to do now.

Eventually, Adams addressed their guide, who had been looking about rather restlessly since their arrival in the canyon. "Listen, you don't have to show us the mother lode. There's more gold in this here canyon than we ever hoped to see. You have more than earned the reward we agreed on."

The Mexican accepted the reward they had promised him. Wasting no time, he got into the saddle and rode away. To Adams he looked as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

The next morning, the miners began to chop down trees to build a cabin. While most of the Adams party were busy building the cabin, a group of half-naked Indians approached them from the waterfall. At first, Adams thought they might be Apaches — but then he was not so sure anymore. In good light, they did not look like any Indians he had ever seen. Adams wondered whether any white man had ever met this tribe before — and if yes, whether he had lived to tell the tale.

Adams addressed the lead Indian. "Hi, my name's Adams. Mighty nice to meet you, chief."

"I am no chief…" replied the Indian, who was the resident witch doctor of his tribe.

"Who or what are you then?"

"You do not need to know. You palefaces are too curious anyway. How do you say? Curiosity killed the cat? It certainly will kill you, if you do not obey. Compromise: You may stay here in Hot-Ta-Pi-Wit Valley as long as you desire and gather all the gold you wish. But listen, strangers: You must not — you must never advance past those waterfalls. Beware of the Sno-Ta-Hay! The revenge of the Sno-Ta-Hay is terrible!"

Adams did not know what to say, so he just nodded. Without another word, the Indians turned around and walked back towards the waterfall. He shook his head. Indians. What above the falls could be so important to them? The mother lode? But Indians did not care for gold, or did they? And what the heck was a Sno-Ta-Hay?

He resumed his work; so did the other men. When the cabin was finished, everybody started prospecting. Soon, they had amassed a hundred thousand dollars' worth of gold, hidden under the cabin floor.

Some days later, Adams was awakened early in the morning by a commotion outside the cabin. Tired from the hard work of the last few days, he only grumbled, tossed, and fell asleep once more. When he finally got up later that morning, he left the empty cabin. Outside, he beheld only a handful of his men working.

"Where are the others?" he yawned.

Davidson turned to look at him. "A wonderful good morning for you, too. Hope you slept well. The others? They're scouting above the falls."

"What? Those Injuns warned us to stay away from there!"

"Keep your pants on. A peek or two won't do no harm. They left in the early morning twilight — should be back any minute now. The Injuns will never know they were there."

"Sure, raise hell and put a prop under it. What if they do find out?"

"They'll turn them back, what else could they do?"

A young man, rather a boy, came forward. "Adams, I… I tried to keep them from… But they wouldn't listen."

"It's alright. I hope."

"You two cowards… Look there, they're back!"

Indeed, they all heard hoofbeats approaching from under the trees lining the creek.

"But… It's only one horse!" gasped the boy.

Indeed, it was only one horse, and its rider did not look like a human being anymore. He reminded Adams of a porcupine — he was bristling with arrows. The black stallion galloped towards the group of men, reared, and threw the body at their feet.

Adams stooped. The man was not dead yet. He tried to speak, but only bloody foam welled from his mouth. His face contorted, and his body writhed with convulsions.

Finally, he managed to force his mouth open once more. "The golden canyon… The city… The city in the sky!" His head fell to the side and he was dead.

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The Secret of the Lost Tribe, Prologue, Part Two

2011-01-03T12:37:00.002-05:00

Begin with the beginning.

The other customer frowned. "I'm no Injun, partner. My parents were Mexican. The Injuns murdered them. But they adopted me into their tribe and raised me as an Injun."

"What's your name — partner? Mine's Adams."

"I've got no name. Or rather, I've got four names. The Injuns called me Picked-up-by-the-Wayside. The Mexicans call me Injun, and the Anglos call me Greaser." The young Mexican touched his ear. "And some call me Gotch Ear." Obviously, he did not care for that moniker, either.

"Tough luck." Adams took another swig. "What are all those prospectors doing here? What the hell is up here?"

From a crate, Cash produced another bottle for himself, for his liquid lunch. "You can ask questions. What will draw prospectors? A gold rush, that's what."

The man with no name laughed. "Some rush. I don't know what they rush for."

"Nuggets. Gold. You think that's not worth rushing for? Have you vegetated among the Injuns so long you don't appreciate gold anymore?"

"I like gold well enough. Only that they get excited over those tiny nuggets… I know a place where the nuggets are as big as hen's eggs."

Several prospectors had joined them to buy their lunchtime whiskey from Cash. Most of them snickered at the Mexican.

"I thought you Injuns can fry in the sun all day long without any ill effects — but you sure got sunstroke," chuckled one of the newcomers. " 'Cause…"

"Not so fast, sir," interrupted Cash. "This man is not an Injun. He's a greaser, and he's exceptionally levelheaded for a greaser. Lemme tell you, sir, that this man is among the most honest people I know. Not that I know too many honest people."

"Damn right I'm honest. I do know a golden canyon. With the Injuns, I used to live in a canyon like from solid gold. You can take your pack horse there, load him up with gold where he stands, and go home as rich as Astor and Vanderbilt at night…"

The prospectors still did not believe him. "As rich as Astor and Vanderbilt in a day. Hah! I…"

And thus it went back and forth for some minutes, until Adams began to question the Mexican carefully and logically. It turned out the Mexican knew his tale well. He was able to describe the trail to the canyon and the geology of the latter without contradicting himself.

"Listen, senores," continued the Mexican. "I don't want no gold for myself. I will guide you to that canyon, and if I have spoken the truth, give me two horses, a saddle, a rifle with ammo, and a hundred dollars cash. And if you find that I lied to you," he added in half-jest, "I'll be at your mercy and you can kill me."

So much modesty and selflessness convinced the prospectors.

Adams, on the other hand, smelled a rat. "Well, compadre, why would you be willing to risk getting shot dead in case you get lost — only for the chance to get two horses and a rifle? After all, you might just return to the canyon alone, gather as much gold as you can carry, and retire to your own ranch. Even if it's too far to walk — why would you refuse to pick up a fortune for yourself once we take you there? Maybe you're a bit loco? Or suppose you don't wanna stick around that canyon 'cause you know it's a dangerous place for some reason?"

"If you have to know, I had to kill some Injuns during my getaway from the tribe. I reckon it'll be better for my scalp if I fight shy of Injun country these days. That's why I want that stuff from you, to get out of here rápido."

Was that really the reason why the Mexican was afraid of the gold canyon? Adams remained skeptical.

That afternoon, when Adams had loaded his horses with provisions, he saw that a bunch of prospectors had completed their outfits as well. Some of them had been with the crowd in the back room, but there were others as well. Apparently, some of Cash's customers had brought their partners, brothers, and friends. Back in the store Adams had recognized some familiar faces, but been too busy buying his own stuff to greet them. Some of them had joined the prospecting party. Now they were preparing to quit the village, but seemed to be short on horses. Those they had were already staggering under their loads, while additional sacks remained stacked on the ground.

"Adams, you old rattlesnake!" a voice boomed from the group across the street that very moment.

Davidson. Adams crossed the dirt street to greet him.

"Hey, Adams, why don't you join us?" asked another.

Adams nodded at the store. "Guess I better buy a pan then."

"Ain't got no pan to fry your chuck in?" wondered Davidson.

"I sure do. I mean a pan for gold washing, you greenhorn."

"According to Gotch Ear here, we ain't gonna wash no gold. You don't want a pan, you want a shovel and many, many sacks. We'll give you all you need, and an equal share of the gold, in exchange for horses."

Adams grinned. "OK — partners. I'm kind of, uh, underemployed anyway since the Injuns burned my wagons."

So the party of explorers set out into the wilderness. At first their guide headed east, up the Gila River. Adams saw peaks and mountain ranges in the distance. However, he did not recognize most of the landmarks. After all, he was a teamster, not a scout, and this was not his regular route to Tucson.

They traveled day in, day out. Up, up they went into the mountains, and back down again on the other side, crossing the Continental Divide. While they were traversing a plain, the Mexican suddenly turned north. The others wondered how he had known where to turn, as there were no landmarks or trails. But he only smiled.

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The Secret of the Lost Tribe, Prologue, Part One

2011-01-02T13:43:00.002-05:00

Prologue

The Lost Adams

Arizona, 1864.

"Yippy-ki-yay!"

Adams was awakened from sound slumber. What a morning. His camp was swarming with Indians — Apaches stealing his horses. How could that happen?

Well, it had to happen, as his shotgun rider had deserted him back in Tucson to prospect for gold. Adams kicked away his blanket, drawing one of his two .44 Colt Army Model 1860 revolvers from his belt. Some of the Indians packed rifles, but they all were much too busy unhobbling and rounding up his horses to pay much attention to him. Too bad for them.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

One rifle-wielding Apache had just been turning around to Adams. He shot that Indian in the chest, and two others in the back. All three fell from their horses.

Most of the remaining Indians started to ride around his wagons in circles. Taking cover behind the wagon that had protected his sleep, he shot down two more Indians. Adams holstered the empty six-gun, which had only contained five beans in the wheel, and drew its twin. He carried two of them not because he used to shoot them simultaneously, but on account of that pesky reloading process. With the other Colt, he shot the remaining armed Indians from their mounts.

Yet, already two Indians had reined in all his draft horses, making away with them. Another Apache had with difficulty subdued Adams' own mount, and was trying to get away as well. Adams whistled. His trusty stallion Pegasus threw the savage hijacker who had boarded him and kicked the Indian's head, smashing his skull. Holstering his other Colt and grabbing his double-barreled shotgun, Adams jumped into the saddle. Yes, keeping your horse saddled at night is a good idea, particularly in Indian country.

By now, the horse thieves had gotten quite a start. Spurring Pegasus into a gallop, Adams gave chase. The hoofs were thundering across the barren plain. Dodging the saguaro cacti infesting the place, their mad rush had them heading towards a towering red cliff.

When Adams came close enough for the shotgun, the Indians had already reached the mouth of a canyon bisecting the cliff. He pulled alongside the trailing Apache and, at close range, blew his stomach out. The Indian in the van was still too far away to kill instantly with the shotgun, but Adams at least succeeded at blasting him from his horse. When he had repossessed all his horses, and the two Indians' mustangs to boot, he turned back to his camp.

"Damn!"

Ought to have thought of that, he rebuked himself. A column of smoke was rising where his camp should have been. Those abominable savages he had failed to kill back there had taken their chances while he had been chasing the horse thieves.

"Gee up!"

When Adams got back to his camp — or rather to what remained of it — his wagon and trailer were blazing out of control. It had just been too good to be true. He had safely delivered his freight from Los Angeles to Tucson, without even seeing so much as a hostile Indian. Now, on his way back to LA, the inevitable had happened. His wagons were being reduced to ashes and his provisions had been stolen.

So when would the government finally finish those savages for good? Fortunately, there were friendly Indians as well. The Pima, for example, were enemies of the Apache. In the nearby Pima reservation he would be able to supply himself with food.

A couple hours later, Adams got to a village in the reservation. He had a notion that this village was Sacaton, but he could not be sure. There were many Pima villages in this neck of the woods, geography was not exactly his strong suit, and there was no "Welcome to Fabulous Sacaton, Arizona" sign or anything. Of course, he could have asked a native, but actually he did not care what the place was called. He would buy supplies and be back on the wagon road to LA in no time. He would never have to come here again.

The Pima called themselves the Akimel O'odham, which means "river people." When white men asked them the name of their tribe, the answer was "Pima," which translates to "I don't know," or "I don't understand." They were not only friendly but also quite civilized. They irrigated their fields, and besides more than a hundred straw huts this village boasted some frame houses. Such a dome-shaped straw hut — which the Pima called a ki — consisted of a frame of bent poles, covered with woven straw, usually plastered with mud. Many occupants sat on their "porches" in front of the low entrances, preparing food. The Pima males wore breechcloths; the squaws, some sorts of skirts.

Presently, the village was bustling with strangers, most of them whites. Judging by the equipment Adams saw on their pack horses, most of them were prospectors. In one of the frame buildings he found what passed for a saloon in these parts; it doubled as the local trading post.

Giant letters on a huge false front proclaimed that this was Cash's Super Mega Hyper Emporium. Below these letters, an advertising slogan was painted: "If Cash ain't stock none of it, no one nowhere ain't liable to stock any of it — if it exists at all." Another sign warned: "No charge, no checks, absolutely no paper currency." That was why everybody called the trader Cash.

Adams tied his horses to the hitching post. He crossed the porch, thrust his body through the swinging doors, and walked up to the counter that doubled as a bar. Some customers, red and white, were sipping water, milk, or sarsaparilla. Others inspected the supplies for sale. The tall, buckskin-clad fellow polishing the bar had to be Cash.

"Bourbon," ordered Adams.

Cash's weathered face above his grizzled beard frowned. "Sorry, no firewater."

"No firewater — for the Injuns. What's your problem? I'm as white as you are."

"It's the law. No sale of liquor inside this reservation."

"That's a stupid law. There will always be some bootleggers selling whiskey to the Injuns. Such a law only boosts their profits. And when the Injuns do get a hold of alcohol, they'll get roaring drunk. How are friendly Injuns to become responsible citizens if they aren't even allowed to learn how to drink responsibly?"

"Maybe they aren't supposed to become responsible citizens. Or citizens at all. Want a sarsaparilla?"

"No."

"Anything else?"

"No. I guess I'm done here." Adams wanted to turn and leave; there had to be a more hospitable place to buy supplies.

"Hey, wait." Cash's voice turned into a whisper. "It's my principle to never sell alcohol to Injuns, but I always keep a couple of bottles in the back room for my white customers. But I don't want the Injuns in here to see I got whiskey."

Adams followed Cash into a back room piled high with crates, barrels, and sacks. A deeply tanned man with shiny black hair and a mangled ear sat at a table, drinking bourbon from a bottle.

"Much obliged," Adams nodded as he bought a bottle of the same: He really needed a drink after this morning.

Adams uncorked his bottle, took a swig, and then nodded at the man with the mangled ear. "But you do sell firewater to this here Injun?"

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Person of the Year: Julian Assange

2010-12-30T16:12:00.000-05:00

Proving that the government has no clothes + getting framed by the CIA + getting assassination threats from that dumb bitch Sarah Palin and other assorted fascists = Reason and Liberty Central Person of the Year 2010.

This year we had quite a few worthy contenders. At first I thought that Anjoum Noorani offending that offensive, man-hating cult leader, popy, would be impossible to beat. Then it looked like a tie with Mike Bloomberg recognizing the right to build skyscrapers in New York.

Now both the liberal clown and the liberal pol have clearly been bested. Assange has demonstrated that governments are nothing but petty criminals that declare their childish squabbles state secrets and frame, kidnap, and assassinate everyone who breaks that seal, shatters their authority, and shows that the emperor has no clothes.

That's why power lusters, like Palin and the pee king, and those who want to surrender to the power lusters everyone's liberty to gain a little perceived security hate him so much. If this be treason, make the most of it.

The Mystery of the Mysterious Boat, Chapter Two, Part Four

2010-12-29T12:26:00.001-05:00

Begin with the beginning.

"Isn't it possible that your parents told you some kind of a scary story when you were little — who knows what they'd seen themselves — and you just had a nightmare when you thought you saw the apparition?" suggested Parker. "You must have been very young then, bedtime and all. If you guys saw anything at all, it probably was nothing but those statues on the garden wall and all over the place. In a fog wafting, scudding, and swirling about, they've got to look like they were monsters moving around."

"No, Nick. My dad was not a lunatic, a fool, or a coward. Nevertheless, he kept seeing the boat for the rest of his life. He was a very reasonable man in most matters. Whenever he visited me, he was completely sane. He was not hallucinating. He had courage, too. When we had moved out, the creatures would get nosier and nosier, trying to get into the house. Dad just locked himself in his bedroom whenever the fog rolled in at night. They managed to get in eventually, and he let them have the run of the house. But in the morning, nothing was missing or damaged."

"Sorry to say that, but the complete absence of tangible evidence makes the whole affair look like your dad's personal mania. I mean, he told you they regularly broke into his house — yet they never left any evidence of their presence?"

"Yes, that's what I wanted to make myself believe when I inherited the house. Of course, I didn't dare to move in here. Yet, one evening, when I'd been to the beach and saw the fog coming in, I drove over here. I was determined to prove myself that it was nothing but dad's idée fixe. Of course, I was terribly uneasy — but the fog swallowed the house, night fell, and nothing happened. After a couple hours of sitting in the dark studio, I'd convinced myself that I'd been very silly. I felt relieved and free.

"I was just going to order me a pizza on my cell phone — the telephone is disconnected — when I thought I heard some thumping sound. No, it wasn't my heart. At first, I believed I was just imagining it, what with dad's stories and the dark house. Then it became unmistakable: the sound of rhythmic drumbeats from the ocean. I looked out the window and — there was just fog. I wanted to run, but forced myself to stand still. The drumbeats were coming closer. Finally, a breeze parted the fog for a moment — and there it was, my worst nightmare come true: the dark outline of a huge canoe beyond the surf. I ran out to my car, sped off, and didn't look back. I guess I can be glad that I didn't kill anybody speeding through the fog.

"So can you imagine why any human beings would want to stage such a show for more than three decades? There's no possible motive. Just don't tell me that some unknown enemy hates my dad and my family enough to make all that fuss. I've looked at this mystery from every possible angle. Lemme tell you, there's only one explanation: The house is haunted, and that's it. We can't help it — we've got to leave the house to the forces that have taken possession of it. We've got no means to fight them."

"Smugglers?" mused Parker.

"Why here? Why would they want us to see them? Wouldn't they beach their boat somewhere in the middle of nowhere? Their risk of being caught by the Coast Guard would be the same. But after all they don't have to have witnesses."

"Could you get me your spare keys for the house?" Traynor requested. "We'd like to spend one of those famed foggy nights in this dead mariners' watering hole."

"But it's too dangerous. I can't ask you to do that."

"No problem." Traynor opened his white summer jacket and patted his .45 Colt M1911 pistol, ready in its holster. This Colt and its many brothers in his collection back in New York had saved his life several times already. "This is my Ghost Buster."

"Well, gun or no gun, I wouldn't dare to stay here overnight."

"Just leave that to us. Another question: Did anyone besides us offer to buy the lot?"

"Well… There was one Winnie Creegeen-O'Neill. She's with some community organization — they want the land for some cultural stuff, a community center or something. But she wasn't able to offer nearly the market price. She probably thought she could get this spook house on the cheap. When I told her I wasn't able to sell, she must have thought I was trying to boost the price. She got very nasty, said it was my duty to contribute my land for the good of the community. I wouldn't know why we need a new community center, anyway. Then there was The Blade — Daniel Bladington, the TV actor. That's all the prospective buyers I can remember. All who made me any offers."

"OK — and was there anybody who wanted to buy it from your father?"

"I'd have to look that up. Fortunately, I've brought my house files with me. I've got dad's correspondence regarding the house in my car." Wheelwright went to get the files. When he came back, he was carrying a cardboard box. He deposited it on a table among the chairs, removed the lid, and produced a thick folder. "Lemme see." For several minutes, he kept leafing through the letters. "There's only one offer to buy the house." He handed some letters to Traynor.

The latter examined the documents, then handed them to the others. "One Rod Cardozo. Ever heard the name before, Ted?"

"No."

"Was that before or after the haunting started?"

"Not sure. The letters are all dated before mom and I left dad. But I was very little then. I can't tell exactly when the boat appeared for the first time or whether it was before or after Cardozo made his offer."

"May we talk to your mom?" inquired Parker.

"I'm sorry — she died of cancer fourteen years ago." Wheelwright rummaged in the box until he retrieved a set of keys, which he offered to Traynor. "Be my guests."

"Could we borrow your files, too?" Traynor asked.

Wheelwright dropped the spare keys back into the box, handing it to Traynor. "Don't get yourselves killed by ghosts or wendigos." He showed them to the door, locked it, and drove off in the Cadillac.

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The Mystery of the Mysterious Boat, Chapter Two, Part Three

2010-12-28T12:17:00.002-05:00

Begin with the beginning.

Most of the paintings on the walls depicted the sea and the beach. Others showed different kinds of palm trees. Many of the seascapes featured the California sun setting into the Pacific. To the observer it was immediately obvious that these were no ordinary sunsets, but that the artist had tried again and again to capture the perfect, the ideal sunset: Not the sun as it would look on any odd day, but as it looked on a perfect day. All the paintings were signed "Will Wheelwright."

"Yes, dad was a great artist. He lived for his paintings only. You must have seen that from the condition the garden is in."

"Indeed," answered Traynor. "If you could bear to part with some of these treasures, I'm sure my company would be happy to buy some for the lobby of our LA headquarters. But that's actually another business. First, we need to acquire this lot for our new marina. The spit of rock would be ideal foundations for the mall and the apartment building on top, plus we'd get great views from the eateries of the mall."

"Sure, Mr. Traynor…"

"Kevin."

"Sure, Kevin, of course I'd like to sell, otherwise I wouldn't have negotiated with your company. Really, I could never make myself spend just one night in here. I was this close to signing the contract — but I just can't take it on my conscience to saddle you with a haunted house. What if the ghosts or… creatures that ride in that… boat exact revenge on your patrons? I don't want to be responsible for that. It's not a question of money: When dad passed away last year, he left me enough money to live comfortably for the rest of my days."

"Ted, there is no such thing as ghosts."

"Great, and if you can prove that, and find an explanation for what's going on here, I'll be happy to sell you the house. But I don't see how you could solve this mystery. Dad couldn't for all his life. Lemme tell you something: If you can find a rational explanation for what has become kind of our family curse, I'll give each of you a painting."

"That's very generous," remarked Jennifer, who had been studying the artworks. She turned around from the pictures. "Then tell us about that strange boat."

Wheelwright motioned them out onto the deck, where they sat down in white metal chairs. Beyond, a crumbling wall separated the garden from the cliff dropping to the beach. The decorative pillars of the wall were crowned with deteriorating statues as well.

"Well, you see, my grandparents, dad's parents, were in the oil business — until they sold their company to Standard Oil of California. So they left dad quite a fortune when they died — that was before I was born. Dad bought this house so he'd be able to paint each day what he loved most: the sunset. He lived here quietly and happily for some years, married mom, and I was born.

"However, one foggy night, long after my bedtime, mom and dad thought they heard a strange sound from the ocean. When it wouldn't stop, but was even growing louder and closer, they went to a window and strained their eyes. Finally, when the noise seemed to be right at the foot of the cliff, they saw that there was a ghostly boat coming in from the Pacific. It was blurred by the fog, but it looked like a large old canoe. It seemed to be much too large for a canoe, but there were figures paddling, and someone was beating time on a drum. The boat came ashore. Ghostly figures climbed up from the beach and sneaked around the house.

"Dad called the cops, but when they finally arrived, the ghosts and the boat were long gone. The emergency dispatcher had not really believed the story. The officers didn't, either. They gave dad sly glances and asked some funny questions. Every foggy night, the boat and the phantoms would come back — but dad would not allow mom to call the cops. He was not a man to provide free entertainment to cops by becoming the butt of their jokes."

"Excuse me, but do you actually have any recollection of seeing that boat yourself?" interrupted Traynor.

"You think my parents were just hallucinating? No, unfortunately, it's not that simple. True, the phantom boat would only appear long after bedtime, but once I waked up in the middle of the night. I heard the drum, got out of bed, sneaked to the window… saw the boat landing, and the ghostly figures moving through the mist, up to the house. I probably don't have to tell you that I spent the rest of that night with my pillow over my head.

"The next morning, I must have been very distraught and asked my parents questions they could not answer to themselves. Anyway, when the haunting continued, mom wanted to get out of here, sell the house or just abandon it, just get the hell out of it. She was afraid of those creatures, even more afraid of what they might do to me, and probably most afraid of me becoming traumatized by those apparitions."

"If your mom was afraid for your sanity, why did your parents tell you all that?" Jennifer asked for the record.

"They didn't, at first. Most of what I know about that mysterious boat, dad told me over the years." It was the answer she had expected.

Wheelwright nodded. "Yes, dad was stubborn. Too stubborn to listen to mom. He was not to be forced from his land. Besides, it was the ideal location for his studio. As you may have observed, from this point one has the best view of the sunset in all Malibu. The ghost boat was driving him crazy, but running away from it was not an option. So mom one day simply had had enough, packed our stuff into her station wagon, took me by the hand, and off we drove to her parents in Pasadena. Dad gave her money, so she was able to buy a gift shop on Olvera Street. You know El Pueblo, the tourist trap?"

Collective nods.

"We got to live in a loft in a converted industrial building Downtown. Downtown was quite different back then. Fewer skyscrapers — and much more dangerous. You should have seen my high school. Anyways, despite their separation, dad kept visiting us Downtown. He'd take us to Disneyland or to a picnic. Dad always wanted mom to leave Downtown and move closer to Malibu, at least to Santa Monica or so. But mom would not go near the ocean anymore if she could help it.

"At first, dad tried to investigate the mystery. He even called in private investigators once. That is, he was on the verge of doing it. He'd read in a local newspaper about some upstart PI outfit that he trusted would be ready to deal with his… well, unusual assignment. They promised him they'd investigate his case. Then, one of the investigators called him back, kind of freaked out like, told dad that they had to look for a lost cat and therefore couldn't help him. After that humiliating experience, dad wanted no part of any private eyes. Really, those guys shouldn't have added insult to injury."

"Yeah, I read about them guys. They were quite well-known in their day. What's become of them? I think one of them is a reporter, another a lawman, and the third?" mused Traynor.

Wheelwright frowned. "I think I heard he's a typewriter salesman in Fresno."

"Do they still use typewriters in Fresno?" wondered Jennifer.

"Well, maybe it wasn't Fresno… Maybe… Fr… France. Yes, I think there was something about Europe to it. Do they still have typewriters in France, what do you think?"

"They eat frog's legs, you know," Traynor observed. "I know that. I've been there."

"Well, if they eat frog's legs, anything goes…"

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The Mystery of the Mysterious Boat, Chapter Two, Part Two

2010-12-27T15:33:00.002-05:00

Begin with the beginning.

The next morning, Parker got behind the wheel of the Mustang, while Jennifer and Traynor jumped into the back. The onramp of the Harbor Freeway was just next to the hotel. Off they went on the maze of Los Angeles freeways to find a way to Malibu.

As expected, the sky was sparkling with an immaculate blue, the sun was burning, and the palm trees along the freeway were swaying in the airstream of passing trucks. Jennifer's long gold-blond hair was flying in the wind. Traynor bent over, ran his right hand through her hair, looked her deep into her blue eyes, pulled her closer, brushed his lips over hers, and proceeded to nibble and kiss.

At the cloverleaf next to the convention center, Parker pulled the mobile make-out session onto the Santa Monica Freeway. About a dozen miles and a gazillion kisses later, the Mustang emerged from a short underpass near the Santa Monica Municipal Pier. The freeway had changed its name to Palisades Beach Road and was running parallel to the Pacific Ocean. They were now on the famous Highway 1.

Parker's nerves were wearing thin. "Don't you two ever need to come up for air? Why not have a look at the Pacific? You can always neck at home, can't you?"

Soon, the highway changed its name once more, to Pacific Coast Highway. The four-lane highway doubled as the Main Street of Malibu. Lined by low-rise buildings, the highway ran between brownish-green hills and the blue of the ocean. Some stretches of beach were no wider than a towel, the homes between beach and highway precariously perched on piles and rocks. Anyways, the beaches were as awash with sunbathers as the surf was awash with surfers. The threesome thought they heard the happy shouts of children splashing in the water through the noise of the traffic.

All lucky folks who did not have to work on a beautiful day like this. But Traynor and Parker would get their free vacation out of this one when their job was done. Perks. Besides, First American was getting Jennifer's services for free, so that would be only fair.

In the hills that made up the backwoods of Malibu loomed a rather short but extremely skinny tower. Into its narrow whitish facade a Christian cross had been burned, probably by fire and brimstone. What the hell could that mean? The three sinners in the Mustang beheld the meaning ahead. To the right of the highway a billboard proselytized: "Pepperdine University: Freely Ye Received — Freely Give."

The house they were looking for was located on the western outskirts of Malibu, south of Pacific Coast Highway, on a spit of rock above the beach. Parker U-turned and pulled over. A new crimson pearl colored Cadillac DTS was parked on the drive.

"The Caddy sure looks out of place," Parker commented after looking over the property.

They got out and followed the drive through a garden overgrown by lush subtropical vegetation. At the end of the drive lurked a not very large house, Spanish Colonial Revival style, with a red tile roof. Dirty, formerly white paint was peeling away from its walls.

"Yep — looks positively haunted," grinned Traynor.

A rustle came from to the left of the drive, from the rampant jungle. When they looked, there was a pale face staring down at them. Its grotesque, contorted features were covered with green slime and mold.

Jennifer frowned, walked over, stood on her tiptoes, and stretched her hands up to touch the lurid face. She parted the leaves, revealing the weathered, eroded head of a copy of a Greek marble statue. Its body, limbs, and pedestal remained unseen, veiled by the leaves of trees and bushes. The statue had probably once been white, but now it was covered with moss and algae. A sea gull that had preened its feathers sitting atop the statue took wing and soared into the sky. Now they saw that the whole garden was littered with loads of such statues, overgrown by out-of-control vegetation.

As they walked up to the door, they saw that there was no doorbell. Traynor knocked. No answer. He knocked again and again.

Finally, the door opened a crack. Slowly, gingerly, like a rabbit ready to retreat into its burrow, a clean-shaven face approached the crack. Below curly black hair, wire-framed glasses shielded the man's dark eyes darting right to left, left to right, as if he was more afraid of the room behind him than of the gang. Was it possible for a rabbit to be afraid of its own burrow?

Traynor tried to reassure him with a smile. "Hi, I assume you're Ted Wheelwright?"

An affirmative nod.

"I called ahead. I'm Kevin Traynor, First American Corporation, Vice President for Safety, Security, and Special Assignments. This is my colleague Nick Parker — and the lovely lady here is Jennifer Jordan, C… I mean, she works for just another government agency."

"A Virginia farm girl, huh?"

"Whatever." Traynor handed his business card through the crack.

Wheelwright looked at the card, removed the door chain, opened the door, and motioned them to come in. The short, slim man led them through the spacious living room. The curtains were drawn and the furniture was covered. Heavy beams supported the mahogany ceiling. There were many paintings on the walls, but it was too dim to see any details.

They entered a studio in the back of the house, fronting a deck overlooking the Pacific. The south and west walls consisted of tinted French windows. The two other walls were covered with paintings; there was not a blank spot. In the light streaming in from the ocean, the dazzling colors looked breathtaking.

In the northwest corner of the studio stood an empty bookcase. Paint drippings proved it had held not books, but art supplies. The door next to it looked like a closet door. In the middle of the room stood an empty H-frame easel. On a corner of the otherwise empty table next to it some paintbrushes and a palette remained. A thin layer of dust covered the table and the art supplies. Whoever had been tidying up or cleaning out the house had suddenly stopped for some reason.

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The Mystery of the Mysterious Boat, Chapter Two, Part One

2010-12-26T13:20:00.002-05:00

Begin with the beginning.

Chapter Two

The Legend of the Mysterious Boat

Parker looked from the screens beyond his controls to Traynor. "Boy, am I glad to be back home in good old mile high central. Nice as the Eclipse is, nothing beats this here flying apartment. No stopovers — and the johns and galley alone are priceless."

"Then thank Mike that this mission is to LA, 'cause there's no way you could land this baby in Jenkinsville. Heck, you could fit all the town in this cabin. Well, maybe you could land her. But you'd never get out of there again."

"What a horrible prospect…"

"Well, as long as Connie's there…"

"What the fuck's up in LA, anyway?"

"Don't wanna have to tell Mike's story twice." Traynor hit the intercom. "Jen, this is the captain of your heart speaking…"

Finally, the Gulfstream G550 approached Los Angeles International Airport. The California sun glistened on its golden winglets, its white fuselage with the blue and red First American markings, and its golden T-tail displaying First American's silver coin with the golden Sign of the Dollar. On account of the heat waves, the Theme Building, that famous flying saucer suspended from two intersecting arches, looked like it was about to lift off.

"Five hundred," said the Gulfstream.

Beat.

"Four hundred."

Steadily, the end of the runway kept approaching outside the cockpit windows.

"Three hundred."

The executive jet descended steadily, like a brick drawn down diagonally, not vertically by gravity, but as if attracted by the end of the runway like by a giant magnet.

"Two hundred."

Parker mostly let the Gulfstream do as she pleased.

"One hundred."

Now the runway filled the cockpit windows.

"Fifty. Forty. Thirty. Twenty. Ten."

Rock 'n' roll. Traynor and Parker, and of course Jennifer back in the main cabin, were shaken by the rumbling aircraft as it touched down.

Traynor arched a brow. "You've done better landings."

Parker looked straight ahead at the rushing runway and deployed the thrust reversers. "Any landing you walk away from is a good landing." He still seemed to be sore.

The roar of the twin turbofan engines below the T-tail of the executive jet softened to a steady whisper as Parker taxied across the tarmac. When he had accommodated their Gulfstream in First American's hangar, he, Jennifer, and Traynor went to rent a car. Parker glanced at a newspaper left on the rent-a-car counter. A headline screamed: "Wendigo Strikes Again!"

He nudged his friends, whispering to them, "There's nothing like a heartwarming welcome when you're far away from home."

"Incredible. What's next? A vampire strike?" Traynor quipped. "If all those bloodsuckers go on strike, maybe one day the government will walk out, too? That would be great news, for a change. Better than a garbage strike, anyway."

Jennifer wanted to reply something, but that moment the rental girl returned with their car keys. With the red Mustang GT Convertible that came with the keys, his friends in the back, Parker hit the 105.

Remembering something she had been wondering about, Jennifer leaned forward to Parker. "By the way, why didn't we take the Sonic Eagle?"

"I've got to replace the afterburner flints first."

She leaned back, pretending to be going through the bag next to her in the backseat. "That reminds me, I brought a bottle of prop wash for you."

Soon, they were rolling north on the 110, the skyscrapers of Downtown Los Angeles towering ahead of them. They were heading for the Westin Bonaventure Hotel. It was far and away Traynor's favorite hotel in Los Angeles, as it reminded him of his beloved First American Building. The floorplan was similar, except that the five glass-clad hotel towers were round, not square, and of course much shorter.

Parker grudgingly surrendered the Mustang to a valet, and they entered the six-story atrium lobby. It was the size of a city block, sky-lit, and complete with greenery, fountains, and veritable lakes. When they had checked in, one of the glass elevators running up between the towers whisked them up to their rooms, treating them to spectacular views in the process.

Jennifer had just finished unpacking her stuff when someone knocked at the door. She opened it. Parker stood in the circular corridor running around the building core. He stepped inside while she disappeared into the bathroom. He proceeded to the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking at the skyscrapers beyond.

That moment, Traynor hung up the phone. "We're gonna meet Wheelwright tomorrow."

"Fine with me," consented Parker. "What are you guys gonna do tonight?"

"I'll take some pictures of the newly completed buildings in the neighborhood while it's still light. Jen never rode the Angels Flight, so we'll seize the opportunity while we're here. Then dinner up at the rooftop restaurant, and after that we'll take this bed for a test drive."

"So you two wanna be left alone, I guess."

"Tact is your middle name."

"In case you need me, I'll be at the revolving bar. Need to make a scientific experiment. If I revolve around the building core, will that attract satellite chicks to revolve around me?"

"Good question. Good luck."

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The Mystery of the Mysterious Boat, Chapter One, Part Three

2010-12-23T18:04:00.002-05:00

Begin with the beginning.

On the way back to his office, getting off the elevator, Traynor ran into his old friend Nick Parker. Parker was short, burly, and able to pilot any ship or aircraft ever built.

"Morning, Nick. What are you up to?"

"Nothing, actually. That's the point. I've been up to the observation deck to see Miranda. She called me, invited me for brunch. Now all of a sudden she says she's too busy with her new job running the souvenir store." Following Traynor, Parker brushed through his shaggy, indomitable black hair with his left hand, to little avail.

"If she's playing games with you, maybe you should have heeded the Miranda warning."

"Very funny."

"Why don't you just take the day off, then?"

"And go home to an answering machine full of more pick up detritus?"

"Maybe you ought to have your phone disconnected. Or you might get an unlisted number. Or you might stop giving your real name and number to chicks."

"Why should I? Why should I have to suffer the consequences of other people's stupidity?"

Bend over, here it comes again — time for Parker's pet peeve. Traynor must have heard that litany a million times over the years. He listened resignedly, but with only one ear.

"A chick's horny, she goes to a club, she wants to get laid, she wants a one-night stand. So I get her what she wants and what I want. Chances are that when I'm gone in the morning, and she's no longer horny, she'll start worrying she's a slut. What kind of a sexual revolution was that if the three evil ps — priests, parents, peers — can still make a sexually healthy chick feel bad about herself?

"So she tries to rationalize her actions. She makes herself believe she never wanted a one-night stand. It just happened because it was love at first sight. So she has to get me into a relationship to prove to the puritan majority and to her own deluded conscience that she's not a slut. Why can't chicks just pull a Mulligan and bear the title 'slut' proudly?"

"A Midas Mulligan? Well, some do. Why don't you just fly with me and escape from your groupies? How about that place where it never rains, Southern California? Without a copilot with a knack for devious humor, I'd sure fall asleep at the controls."

Back in Traynor's anteroom, Parker nodded good morning to Sue. "Cool nails. Are they real?"

"Why, of course, Captain Parker."

"Good for you."

A little later, in Traynor's office, Parker pocketed his cell phone, poured himself a Jose Cuervo, and lounged on the couch.

Traynor sat down in the black leather swivel chair behind his desk, shaking his head. "That line isn't aging gracefully."

"If she's dumb enough to go for that color, she's dumb enough to go for that line."

"You know, not five minutes ago you complained about all that pick up detritus, and here you are hitting on my latest bimbo secretary. If I were one of those profound spoilsports, I'd say you might want to check into the Betty Ford Center to get help for your sex addiction."

"Who'd want to get cured of an addiction to something that fun?"

"Well, I don't know. Not me. I said, if I were profound."

Parker hit the latest addition to his speed dial. "Hi, Sue. … Yes, I'm still next door. … Just making sure I typed your number correctly. … So if Kev hates it when you answer your cell at work, why did you answer? … Oh, it was ringing."

He felt tempted to shout, "She's sweet, ain't she? A ditz, but sweet!" for her to copy on her cell phone. Yet, one double-edged compliment was more than enough to get her kind off her high horse. A chick that still called him Captain Parker could not stand two blows to her ego. That would be too much of a good thing. Would make her feel like she wasn't good enough for The Nick. Man, how her insecurity kept showing under that camouflage of pink nail polish.

Need to cut back on them neg hits, he admonished himself. Bitterness. So what's her face got away. No reason to let her ruin his game.

"Sure, I'll call you when we're back from Cali. … Yeah, Kev just can't work without me. … Have a coffee, talk some more." And score another home run. "See you."

Traynor cocked his head and eyebrows. "Let's get one thing straight: There's no way you're bringing that fucking cell phone. Would drive me crazy."

"No problem. We gotta stop over at my place anyway. Not everybody keeps a packed suitcase in his office."

"Sure. Nobody expects you to make do with your overnight kit."

Traynor picked up the telephone receiver to call his girlfriend, Jennifer Jordan. He promised himself not to mention the identity of her employer, as that would only trigger a chain reaction of denial and citing national security. As for Jennifer, she had never heard of the CIA and did not admit to knowing what that acronym might possibly mean.

"Hi, Jen, how are you doing? … Fine… Listen, I'm off to California… Malibu… No vacation — work. … You wanna come along this time? Well, what does the CIA… I mean, what does your unmentionable employer say to that? … OK, if they told you to finally take your accrued vacations anyhow… I guess that means I'm stuck with you… No, stuck with you, not stucco. … Yeah, see you at La Guardia. You know where our hangar is? … Sure, you've booked with the 'First American Air Force' before. … If they ask, just flash your C… your unmentionable ID, OK? And, by the way, Nick sends his regards — he'll be along for the ride. … Yes, just like old times."

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The Mystery of the Mysterious Boat, Chapter One, Part Two

2010-12-22T18:59:00.005-05:00

Begin with the beginning.

As he reached the turnstiles controlling elevator access, Traynor spied a tan face matched by long, shiny jet-black hair. The woman who belonged to the face was heading for a different bank of express elevators. This one was not guarded by turnstiles, but by ticket counters.

"Yo!" he shouted. "Hey, Miranda!"

She stopped and turned. "Hi, Kevin."

"How's the gift shop doing?"

"Brisk sales. Particularly the Flags." She smiled. "Flags that have been flying over the tallest structure in the world are always in demand."

"So, how is the big city? Better than Mexico?" he bantered.

She grinned. "As you know, I was born and raised in Arizona."

"So it's better than Jinxville?"

"It's back to Jenkinsville, you know."

"Indeed, I should know. But that's another story. So, how is New York?"

"Much better. Of course. And I'm learning so much… Plus, one of these days I'm gonna get what I deserve."

When Traynor entered the anteroom of his office, his temporary secretary, a businesslike brunette not yet housebroken to the ways of First American or Traynor Land, welcomed him demurely. "Good morning, Mr. Traynor."

"Hi, Sue. May I remind you, it's Kev. I'm Kev. Every time you call me Mr. Traynor, I think my dad's back from the range."

Finally, she told him that Michael Berrenger, the chief executive officer of First American Properties, wished to see him in his office on the floor above. As she kept waving that yellow Post-it note about, he could not help noticing her fingernails. How the heck had she hit on that shade of nail polish? He would have bet his life that choosing between the two most unoriginal colors possible must have been quite an ordeal. Surely, campy, corny red would not have yielded to that garish, girly pink without a fight?

Whatever — both were equally unflattering. He would never understand what possessed chicks to run around looking like they had all their nails ripped out or like they had them replaced with candy. Or, for that matter, why some men seemed to find that sexy. Why did females have to have their nails eaten by aggressive chemicals to begin with?

The Rule of Traynor was about to kick in… Actually, it was only one of the many Rules of Traynor. Anyway, this section covered nail polish: The Ash approach was the only surefire cure for digits thus possessed. Must… control… Swiss Army Knife of death. Must… control… Swiss Army Knife of death. Before he could do something he might regret later, he fled his anteroom. He rode right up and rushed into Berrenger's office, waving good morning to Berrenger's secretary.

"Hi, Mike. Any trouble with the Tower? I've just dropped by at the construction site and everything was OK there."

The light-blond gentleman behind the desk in front of the plate glass wall, tall and a little older than Traynor, got up and flashed a smile. "Howdy, Kev. Good to see you. Take a seat." Mirroring his guest, Berrenger settled into his swivel chair. "No, this isn't about Traynor Tower. It's another story entirely. I sure wish it were just a trifling technical problem with a simple solution. No — it's a rather… odd matter. Rather mysterious-like, you know. So I thought you're the man for it. As First American's Vice President for Safety, Security, and Special Assignments."

"Say, Mike, if I'm a Vice President for all of First American, and you're the CEO of a division, who's in charge anyway?" Traynor repeated their running gag.

"Well, who cares who's boss as long as the work gets done…" Berrenger replied, as always.

"That said, what's on your mind?"

"See, we're going to build a marina cum retail mall in Malibu. But the owner of the key lot chickened out and refuses to sell, though we were this close to having him sign."

"Why would a holdout be mysterious? Maybe he figured you're not paying what his land is worth. If it's an ocean front property…"

"He doesn't want more money. He says he can't sell. He doesn't want to be responsible if something happens. Says he has to protect us from ourselves. Has to protect our tenants from our recklessness." Berrenger harrumphed. "What a schmuck. Well, you know, he believes there's some kind of a curse or a haunting on the land. Or some such thing."

"Now, that's beginning to sound interesting…"

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The Mystery of the Mysterious Boat, Chapter One, Part One

2010-12-21T18:32:00.002-05:00

Begin with the beginning.

Chapter One

The Developer

New York City

When Kevin Traynor stepped out of the lobby of his Art Deco apartment building in the East Forties, he was greeted by a beautiful blue morning sky. The building was a vintage 1930s office tower that had been converted to apartments. The sun appeared as a golden sphere in the eastern sky: It was going to be a hot day by noon. Yet, at this hour, a refreshing breeze still swept from river to river.

Although it was not hot yet, he felt like taking off his black blazer. However, he remembered his shoulder holster. Was today the right day to introduce the silver spoon socialists to open carry? Or for that matter, to any kind of carry? Probably too early in the millennium. As he rebuttoned his blazer, the wind blew his red, white, and blue striped silk tie over his shoulder.

The lawyer did not have any appointments this forenoon — so he decided to walk to his office at First American Building. He joined the crowd of pedestrians heading for work on the concrete sidewalk. The Manhattan traffic — the concerto performed by limousines, cars, cabs, and buses — swallowed him.

Traynor did not stand out from the crowd in any visible way; he looked like the typical businessman. People who saw him might think he was on his way to some Wall Street trading floor. He was of medium height and weight. However, there was more than met the eye at first glance. In his bearing, in the way he walked and how he approached people, there was determination, self-confidence, and pride. It left the impression that he was going to be in charge of things wherever he went. He looked around. In the plate glass window of a bank building he saw the reflection of his angular face, short dark-blond hair, and aviator sunglasses.

When Traynor turned south onto Fifth Avenue, First American Building met his eye. It towered above all other skyscrapers, beckoning him as a beacon — a beacon of direction as well as of purpose. Rising above Fifth Avenue at Twenty-third Street, it was still quite a walk away.

The five towers of First American Building soared from the center and corners of a huge cube housing Manhattan's largest indoor shopping mall. The whole complex was clad in dark solar bronze glass. Each tower rose to be a perfect prism without any setbacks, each floor a perfect square of exactly the same size. The central tower was twice as tall as the four surrounding towers; its top was crowned by a communications tower.

Traynor looked up at the tower, at his office, at the antenna mast above. At its very apex flew the Stars and Stripes. Frequently, the Flag up there got tattered by the high winds, but it was always replaced — and the worn Flags were sold in the souvenir store of the building.

Below the limestone mountain of the Empire State Building Traynor dropped by at the excavation for a new office skyscraper he was developing with First American Corporation. The immense void stretching to Sixth Avenue and down to bedrock was crawling with yellow earthmover ants (Caterpillarus americanus). Way down below, behind the chain-link fence, Traynor identified several subspecies: excavators, bulldozers, wheel loaders, and dump trucks, to name a few. With the trucks removing the surplus soil via ramps, they were making short shrift of this excavation job. He had always wanted an Ant Farm like this. Just that when you got closer to yellow earthmover ants, you realized there was no way you could get those giants into your bedroom.

In a security container at a gate, Traynor signed in. A guard handed him a hard hat. Outside, dump trucks roared and rumbled along. He walked down one of the ramps.

At the bottom of the crater Traynor passed some excavators whose scoops had been replaced with a giant's power tools. Those with hydraulic shears were cutting down steel columns of demolished buildings. Those with hoe rams were breaking up concrete foundations and bedrock. Rock trenchers, which looked like bulldozers with huge chainsaws instead of blades, kept cutting and planing bedrock.

Traynor walked through the staccato of hardworking construction equipment and the scent of diesel exhaust. Yes, he loved the smell of diesel exhaust in the morning. He was looking for Steven "Steel" Gunnarson, the engineer who had designed the tower. When he had located him among the hard-hatted workmen and talked with him, Traynor continued downtown.

Beyond the treetops of Madison Square Park rose the Met Life Tower, a scaled-up imitation of the campanile of St. Mark's in Venice, Italy. Across Fifth Avenue from First American Building stood the old Flatiron Building. Once, it had been among the tallest in the city, before it was dwarfed by the Met Life Tower, then the tallest building in the world. Now, the five towers of First American Building dwarfed both of them. That was the essence of New York, thought Traynor: Taller tower tops tall tower — even taller tower tops both of them.

Traynor pushed his way through one of the revolving lobby doors of First American Building. The multi-story lobby of the skyscraper was lined with tiers of stores stacked to the roof of the atrium. The roof of the east atrium spanned far above him between the facades of two of the outer towers. He passed between the stainless steel columns supporting the facade of the main tower above.

Here, in the central atrium around the core of this tower, four powerful fountains shot jets of water to the ceiling high above. The decorative marble mastabas forming the centerpieces of the fountains were inscribed in silver letters with the corporate motto: "First American Corporation — The Highest, the Greatest, and the Best." On top of each marble slab revolved a huge golden Sign of the Dollar, framed by water jets.

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The Mystery of the Mysterious Boat, Prologue

2010-12-20T18:19:00.002-05:00

Prologue

The Night of the Urban Jungle

Los Angeles

The half-human critter watched California State Senator J. Stephen Chen as he left his Downtown office. The senator had been working late — already, night had fallen. An elevator took the senator down to the garage. Chen's Lincoln Town Car exited the garage, climbed up the ramp to street grade, and merged into the westbound traffic on Wilshire Boulevard. Behind a Dumpster in the alley beyond the ramp lurked the thing.

The senator was lost in thought: His probe into the eco-terrorist activities of the California chapter of Attaque Verte was finally going somewhere. A few more days — and evidence would be watertight. The facades of the skyscrapers, covered with constellations of manmade stars, receded behind him. Ahead, red taillights blinked at him. Actually, there was not much traffic. When he had passed through MacArthur Park, he heard a bang.

The car started to swerve. With a curse, he wrestled the wheel to stay in control, braked, and pulled onto the parking lot of an office supply megastore closed for the night. Building, parking lot, and sidewalk were deserted. The sodium vapor lamps of the parking lot were off, leaving it in as much darkness as can be found in a metropolitan area.

Chen got out, walked around the car, and stooped to inspect the flat tire. "Damn. Should have bought those run flat tires."

At second glance, the flat tire was a strange and startling sight. The senator was so surprised that he knelt down beside it, oblivious of his expensive dress pants. An arrow shaft protruded from the wall of the tire.

Chen plucked it out. The arrow was handmade and appeared ancient: The arrowhead looked like obsidian, the shaft was made of wood, with feathers as vanes. He suppressed the horror rising within him, refused to permit his mind to make the logical connections with recent local news. It was nothing. Maybe some punk had looted an Indian weapons collection and found it amusing to try bow and arrow on passing automobiles. The senator rose to get tools and spare tire from the trunk. As he looked up, he beheld a ragged, somehow furry-looking figure standing behind the Lincoln.

A bolt of fear struck him. He could no longer deny the reality of those things. They existed, they existed right here in the middle of Los Angeles, in what was in fact the second city of the most civilized country he could imagine. Now they had come to get him, too. And he was unarmed, defenseless, helpless.

On the ill-lit lot in front of the closed megastore, it was hard to see any details of the tall, thin silhouette confronting him. But the half-human figure was handling something. Suddenly, Chen felt a stinging pain flooding his chest.

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Top Ten Ways to Get Rid of Holiday Callers

2010-12-19T14:08:00.000-05:00

Are you sick and tired of getting annoyed by surprise visits from uninvited St. Nicks, like nosy neighbors, self-appointed friends, and clingy exes?

Fear not, Scrooge McAlex got you covered with his top ten ways to caller abort them!

(10) "Do I know you?"

(9) "Did you have a name?"

(8) "Your babysitter just called. She was looking for you, 'cause she can't get junior out of the microwave."

(7) "Try this eggnog I made with the egg I found in the floor vent."

(6) "Sorry, you should have called ahead. I'm busy alphabetically arranging the tree ornaments."

(5) "You look like I feel."

(4) "Come back New Year's Eve, bring a hooker and a bottle of champagne."

(3) "Funny, I just tossed your gift. If you hurry, you can still catch the garbage truck."

(2) "You dare show up with nothing but that?"

And the single best way to get rid of unwanted holiday callers cluttering up your doorway is:

(1) *Slam!*

Phantom Train, Chapter Two, Part Four

2010-12-16T17:34:00.001-05:00

Begin with the beginning.

McGinnis had steered the huge Lincoln through a heavily guarded gate, onto the mine road, which branched northward off the highway. Now a couple of Caterpillar off-highway mining trucks rumbled past. Two enormous wheels on the front axle and four on the rear axle supported a wedge-shaped cargo bed, holding hundreds of tons of copper ore. The radiator looked as large as a small state. A metal stairway much like the fire escape of a medium-sized apartment building ran diagonally across the radiator. The cab looked disproportionately small atop the huge box of the radiator, sheltered by the wide canopy attached to the cargo bed. The mine road climbed up a mountain, which looked like a volcano: The entire mountaintop had been replaced with a huge crater.

"That's our mountain," McGinnis announced proudly as the road grew steeper. "Mount Custer it's called on the maps. But there won't be no mountain left when we're done with it. If we ever get a chance to carry on. Anyway, when all the copper ore's removed, including the low-grade ore of the rim, there'll be nothing left here but a huge hole in the ground."

The powerful SUV reached the rim of the crater. Looking straight down, it appeared even larger to Traynor than he had previously imagined. At the bottom of the pit, more than a thousand feet below, the fleet of giant mining trucks and heavy hydraulic excavators loading them appeared as small as toys. However, from the mining trucks they had encountered on the mine road, he knew that just one of their wheels was twice as high as the Navigator. The dump trucks carried the ore up to the crater rim via a system of ramps and terraces. Another half-dozen of these gigantic Caterpillar trucks pulled up to them, then rumbled down the mine road on the other side.

A row of several score dust clouds appeared on the opposite rim before a series of muffled explosions resounded through the mountains. The entire far wall of the crater seemed to crumble to the bottom in a languidly billowing cloud of dust. When the dust had settled a bit, wheel loaders, excavators, and trucks pulled over to tackle their new supply of ore. For millions of years, this mountain of copper had been lying around useless and idle, waiting to be put to use by the mind and hands of man. For Traynor, there could not be any better evidence that this place, like the rest of the universe, belonged to man, and not to ghosts. Another look at the old miner's face told him that that man was not so sure anymore.

McGinnis stopped the SUV in front of an assemblage of mobile homes and containers on one of the terraces. A slender woman of medium height opened the door of a trailer. Her blond hair fell to her shoulders. While her clothes were clean and neat, it was obvious that she did not care what other people thought about her. She wore blue jeans and a red and white plaid shirt. Due to the heat, she held her denim jacket in her hand. To Traynor, she looked like someone who was at home on a construction site or in an engine room.

When they got out of the Navigator, the woman smiled at Traynor. "Hi, you've got to be Kevin Traynor. Mac called me from the plane, said he'd bring you along. I'm Connie Chandler."

As Traynor approached, he was able to clearly see her face. She wore no makeup. Though she must have been working under the Arizona sun, she was not tanned. Her face had a ruddy quality instead. It was not young. It was not old. It appeared timeless, eternal. She was of the type of woman who does not change — she might be twenty, or thirty, or older. Frankly, he did not care. The timelessness of her face must have made her appear precocious when she had been a girl. It would make her appear youthful for the rest of her life. Her eyes were green; her nose was quite small. He was not sure if others would have called her beautiful. Anyway, what others found beautiful changed as quickly as the latest fashion. To him, she was pretty. He was glad she was there.

"Well, I've gotta leave you two alone now. Still got loads of back work on my desk." McGinnis got into the Navigator and drove down to the mining offices near the mills at the foot of the mountain.

Traynor smiled back at Connie. "So you've got the phantom train right next door?"

"Sure. I've got an apartment downtown, but for the time being, I've set up shop in an abandoned apartment building near the depot. When I heard those rumors that the train had been passing through town, I thought I should see for myself. But no luck so far. Except for some strange sounds out of the direction of the railroad — sounds that might have been anything — on my way home from the mine, I never witnessed anything spooky around Jinxville. That is, if you don't wish to call a whole town freaking out over nothing spooky. I guess you're staying at a hotel?"

"Holiday Inn."

"Why don't you stay at my place? I've got more empty rooms than I care for. And who knows, maybe we'll get to see the phantom train tonight."

"Great idea."

They walked over to a black Lincoln Navigator, identical to McGinnis', which was Connie's corporate car.

As she looked at him across the hood of the SUV, he winked. "If you're a stranger alone in a hotel room in a strange town, there's no better prospect than country hospitality, home cooking, and delightful entertainment in front of the fireplace with an enchanting hostess."

"Glad to get you out of the dumps, but all I can offer you is roaches, frozen food, and delightful entertainment in front of the microwave oven."

"Could be worse. As long as there's an enchanting hostess…"

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Phantom Train, Chapter Two, Part Three

2010-12-15T15:29:00.002-05:00

Begin with the beginning.

McGinnis was waiting for Traynor in the sleek hotel lobby. They got back into the Navigator and went to have a look at the mine before dark. The Holiday Inn fronted Main Street, which they drove up. When they reached the eastern outskirts, the last residences faded away, and the street turned into a highway. It passed between boulder-strewn hills and mountains, all covered with brush and a scraggly forest of sorts. The land between the mountain ranges was semidesert grassland. The Sonoran Desert — the real desert with the legendary saguaro cacti the state was famous for — was actually located farther west and south, explained McGinnis. There was little traffic on the highway except for First American trucks coming on.

Traynor thought it about time to ask some questions. "Did you actually ever see the phantom train yourself?"

"On that, I plead the Fifth. I saw something, but I'm not sure one way or the other what it was. See the chain of hills to the south? The phantom line runs behind them, roughly parallel to this road. When I was driving home late one night, I saw a kinda glare moving about there, between the hills, but I couldn't say what it was. I frequently heard train sounds too, though the line's abandoned. It used to connect towns and mines southeast of Jenkinsville to our town and to the Southern Pacific trunk line. It hits the Southern Pacific — or rather, after the takeover, Union Pacific — a couple of miles northwest of… um… Jinxville. However, those places farther east on the phantom line are in an even worse shape. The mines there are mostly played out, and being located in phantom train country didn't help matters much. All the mines are abandoned. The settlements all turned to ghost towns or at least nearly so."

"So there are absolutely no real trains running on the… um… phantom line?"

"Officially, the J.&E.A. — the Jenkinsville and Eastern Arizona. No, it had already been abandoned when I first came here. Still, the track never got taken up. The J.&E.A. bankruptcy court case was so involved that it never really became clear who held title to the track. Eventually, creditors figured they'd rather write off the steel than let those vultures, their lawyers, get even fatter on the remains of the railroad. Um, no offense, Kevin."

"No offense taken."

"Present company excepted, you know."

"Feel free to abuse my ambulance-chasing 'colleagues' any way you wish," grinned Traynor.

"Be that as it may — the upshot is, the rails are still out there, ready to use for any stray ghost or phantom — assuming a phantom train needs any rails at all."

"But the Zenith Mine is not connected to the J.&E.A.?"

"Fortunately not. Never was."

"Then how do you get the ore to the smelter?"

"Smelting is actually only a small part of copper refining. From the mine, the ore is trucked to the crushers." McGinnis pointed to a vast complex of buildings and dumps connected by conveyor belts, all protected by high steel fences. "Copper sulfide ore goes into crushers and mills before the copper is, well, washed out in floatation tanks, then smelted. When it enters the smelter, it is about thirty percent pure — when it comes out, more than ninety percent. Copper oxide ore is dumped on a heap leach pad, where the copper is dissolved in sulfuric acid. The product of either process is refined into pure copper in electrolytic cells.

"The copper sheets are trucked straight to the loading docks of the Southern Pacific trunk line in Willcox. See those trucks? They're all ours. Wouldn't make any sense to build a spur up the mountain or to build our own truck-to-rail loading facilities on the J.&E.A. Lemme tell you, I'm glad that neither the phantom line nor any spur of it comes near the mine. Otherwise, we'd already be out of business. Even the phantom line just crossing the highway or the mine road would be fatal. Can you imagine any of those cowards crossing the phantom track after dark for night shift? They won't even stay with the line separated from the road by that chain of — admittedly rather humble — hills."

"By the way, what do 'eye witnesses' claim the phantom train looks like?"

"Depends on whom you ask. Most people just saw strange lights and heard train sounds from the abandoned line. Some say they saw — from a distance — a train pulled down the phantom track by an ancient steam locomotive. God only knows what they really saw — if anything. But if you walk into the right watering hole in town and dig up one of the true believers, one of those too drunk to even find the way out of Jinxville… Well, they'll tell you the train is hell on wheels, driven by the devil himself, trailing fire and brimstone."

"Cute. Does the train actually ever enter the town?"

"Usually, it is seen east of Jinxville, except for two or three times when it allegedly ran through town. But the line passes just the southern fringe of Jinxville. There are only a few cabins and warehouses south of the track, and the old depot. This town never grew much in that direction, and practically not at all since the railroad went belly up. It's not a town the railroad built — mining did it. The few folks who lived around the old depot were of course the first to desert us when the phantom train came back, so you can't ask them about the apparition. You know, the neighborhood around the abandoned depot is our idea of a slum — unless you want to apply that term to all of Jinxville now. Most of those who lived there were uneducated or drunkards or junkies. But you should ask Connie Chandler. She's the best mining engineer I've got. She could afford the best apartment in town, but she moved there on purpose, to have an eye on the phantom train."

"You said 'when the phantom train came back' — when exactly was that?"

"That's impossible to say. As I told you, some fools would see the train time and again over the last century. There'd be a sighting every couple of years. Then more and more people began to hear and see the train on moonless nights. For some time now, it's allegedly been running most every night. It's hard to say when one stage of activity gave way to the next. All I know is that Greg vanished three weeks ago and Pete and Fred not a week later. That was the point when bad turned to worse and deserters from an annoyance into a stampede. From the day that Pete's mangled truck was found below Cold Creek Gorge trestle, we've been in a perpetual state of emergency and Jinxville's rapidly been approaching a ghost town."

"But how in the world can a phantom train and three missing persons depopulate a whole town?"

"It's kind of a snowball effect, or a self-fulfilling prophecy. Some of the deserters would be ashamed and move out at night. Next morning, neighbors would spread rumors that the phantom train got them. Some believe the train rides into town every night and 'gets' people."

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