Believe The IP, that easy-mortgage bubble burst here in the ATL just like other places.  Funny thing is, that reality hasn’t affected a growing real estate cohort around here; that is the one for 1-million + McMansion “communities.” 

The IP can’t drive a few blocks withoug running into new McMansion “farms” with their fast-growing crops of bizzare, McDeveloper monstrosities sprouting out of orange Georgia soil.  The above farm, known as Briarlake Heights, will be a “community” of “7 Luxury Homes $1.000.000 +”  WTF?  That really sounds like a diverse “community.”  The IP supposes that this type of high-end real estate monoculture will prevent any class wars from breaking out.  God forbid their buyers should have to put up with clothes hanging on a line or an un-garaged clunker car in the driveway.  

And check out the above McMansion.  Because the street-facing side of the house is not its front (again, God forbid the house would actually front a “generic” road), the side that does is usually a big, windowless expanse of brick.  Not wanting it to look like a factory building, the McDevelopers use a brilliant add-on element, A FUCKING FALSE, WINDOWLESS BAY SUPERGLUED TO THE SIDE OF THE HOUSE!  WTF?  The buyers of these places must have no sense of aethetics or architecture whatsoever.

But in the end, who really cares?  As long as all the neigbors in the “community” all have bad-or-no taste, it’s all good. 

The IP would have been surprised if the headline HADN’T read “Global warming dismissed by state officials.”  Here in Georgia, truth has no place in politics.  The tenor of yesterday’s alleged “hearing” at the Georgia State House, the substance of which was belied by its title “Climate Change: Fact or Fiction?” was perfectly captured by GA Republitard Jeff Lewis:

“In the media, we hear the gloom and

doom side. There is alternative information

out there.”

This would be the same type of “alternative information” like that provided by Creationists or the Holocaust deniers.   You see, some of the Georgian Legislators had gone up to that bastion of Liberalism, BOSTON, to attend the National Conference of State Legislatures, where they made sure their state was one of only eight to vote against a resolution in support of California’s right to pass more aggressive environmental laws than the federal government to reduce greenhouse gases.  Funny how these fucking Republitards pick and choose where “States’ Rights” should apply.

For their counter-“hearing,” they cherry-picked 3 global warming skeptics, one of which is from The IP’s sister’s school:

John Christy, director of the Earth System

Science Center at the University of Alabama

in Huntsville, said temperature data does not

support predictions that greenhousegases will

cause a massive warming of the Earth’s climate

over the next century. In fact, he said temperatures

in Georgia and Alabama have declined over the

past century.

To give the impression of open-mindedness, they included in their panel a single “normal” person in Dennis Creech, coincidentally the brother of one of The IP’s coworkers.

Whether it was intentional or not The IP can’t say, but the whole production was essentially “given away” by one hilarious sentence in the AJC article:

The hearing was followed by a lunch

for lawmakers, sponsored by Georgia

Natural Gas and AT&T.

The Republitard Jeff Lewis noted earlier is chairman of Geogia’s House Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications Committee.

Go figure. 

With all these coal mine disasters going on, it strikes The IP as a pathetic anachronism that “advanced” societies still send men into the perfidious bowels of our earth’s crust to harvest coal. 

It’s bad enough that this fossilized vegetation is the # 1 source of the world’s electrical energy, but its capitalist overlords continue to engage Middle-Age techniques for its extraction; basically, using men (albeit now with machines) to hack away, literally INSIDE the seams of coal.   This kind of deep coal mining can lead the most desperate (greedy?) mine operator to engage in retreat mining.  Basically, retreat mining is when they mine the pillars of coal that are there to support the “roof” of the seam in which the miners have successfully extracted the coal.  Most deep mine operators say “Good job boys” and never send them down again to mine the pillars because, guess what?  THEY KNOW IT’S NOT SAFE!  And that such retreat mining is even allowed is ridiculous. 

The IP suggests you talk to that secret cabal of energy asstards whose identities Cheney still won’t reveal. As The IP said before, some of the best government we’ve ever had in this country has come in the form of our regulatory agencies; sure, they suffer from bloatation and bureaucratic waste, but they don’t have to.  Bring back Harold Ickes!

OK.  The IP can’t claim to know everything about the guy, or the particular incident, but based on what he’s read, this California Representative Filner seems like a real dick.  Sure, The IP was hoping the dude was a Republitard, but it doesn’t really matter to him when it comes to asstarded behavior.

The guy’s luggage is a little late in arriving at the carousel and he has a conniption fit, busting into the employees-only baggage office and pushing aside some airport minion.  Then he’s alleged to have said the most patently stupid thing: “Your treating us like animals!”

WTF?  When was the last time an animal sat in First Class?  How is having your luggage arriving a bit late (probably with other people’s luggage) on the freakin carousel being “treated like an animal?”  If you ask The IP, Filner is the guy ACTING like an animal. What a fucking douchebag.

And in the past he’s steered major bucks to his wife for being his “assistant” in his campaigns.  It makes The IP hate ALL fucking politicians!  The IP just can’t trust anybody in a suit and tie. Simple as that…they can’t be trusted.   

And speak about being treated like animals.  

Some folks are surprised that Michael Vick’s dog-fighting buddies sang like birds to the Feds, noting the latest “Thugs Don’t Snitch” mores of the gangbangin culture.  Problem is, Vick was never a part of that culture, he only ACTED like he was part of that culture.  Pretty sad when a guy who has more than he could ever want feels compelled to play-act like he’s a “real” thug. Pathetic.         

It was hard not to notice, especially in an area where SUVs and Hip-Hop Hoopties predominate.  It’s the kind of car that piques the curiosity of The IP.  So he went up to it for a closer inspection.  He slowly walked around it and looked inside (it was a convertible model).  It had Ontario plates.  But other than its truly weird, if not kind of ugly appearance, it still had all the things a car should have.  Nice interior, nice amenities (a tachometer!), and… “Click Click” The owner had just used his keyless remote to unlock it, and without missing a beat shouted out to The IP “It’s got a 3-liter, turbo diesel with fuel injection!”

Clearly, this guy had been through this before, and he generously gave me the full stationary tour:

Check it out here.  The engine was amazing to behold.  Talk about efficient use of space; The IP will call it the car’s power-to-size ratio.  It’s all about the fuel injection, which pulses a fine mist of diesel fuel in a 3-phase sequence.  The damn injector has about 20,000 lbs of pressure!!  That’s nuts.

This is one NEW car The IP might actually buy.

Don’t forget to check out the latest record review at The IP’s other site.

Last Friday, the Regional Director of the government institution where works The IP just left, took off, flew the coop, with nary any former notice.  Oh, she did send a long, farewell e-mail message to us, but it remains a mystery as to why she exited in such a hasty manner.

Her departure was ironic, because several years ago she evidently hastened the equally abrupt exit of a Division Chief who did not mince his words when it came to his opinion of her.  The IP will never forget his bizarre, linguistically challenged “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina (he actually used that phrase)” letter that he sent to the entire office, a vitriolic lambasting of his perceived enemies.  It included the most curious accusations, such as how a previous RD had allowed an employee to “sell sweet potatoes out of a government vehicle,” and how this same person was part of a cabal of Jehovah’s Witnesses that were somehow out to get him.  But to the woman who left last Friday, he said (and The IP must paraphrase here): 

“No amount of hair relaxer or Bleach & Glow will change who you are.”  

If you think that the woman in question is what they call a “light-skinned” African American woman and that the angry man is of a darker tone, you are correct.  In fact, the “previous RD,” the one who allowed the sale of sweet potatoes out of a government vehicle, also exuded that golden Johnny Mathis glow.

The IP had read about this light-skin/dark-skin dynamic of tonal discrimination among black folk, but it really came into sharp relief in that guy’s letter.  It still exists in The IP’s workplace to this day, putting him in the odd position of having some of the darker-skinned AA employees confide to him their animosities regarding the “high yellows.”  It seems they trust The IP more than the latter; and The IP is about as white as one can be! 

All of which makes Hotlanta in the mind of The IP one of the most racially sensitive, color conscious, fucked-up cities in which he’s ever lived!   

Well, maybe The IP is not as white as this newly engaged couple:

BTW:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KENNETH BUTTERCUP!!

To say “It’s not even Christmas yet” is made even more obvious with this freakin heat (it was 100-degrees again today), but in some places Christmas is so important that an August school board meeting is the perfect place and time for Christian nut-jobs to cause a commotion. 

The place was New Hyde Park, NY, and the panic was created when the district school board had a vote to decide whether or not to change the name of the annual “Christmas Concert” to “Winter Concert” in deference to the increasing population of non-Christians that make up the residents of the district.  Most other NY school districts had already done that. 

The thing that really gets to The IP is that the board had already voted a month earlier to keep it the “Christmas Concert.”  Everybody in the town knew this.  But all these fanatics crowded the August meeting just so they could spew their piss and vinegar for the reason that the issue even came up.  WTF! Oh, and they were very “Christian” with their comments.  Check out what this asstard had to say about the district superintendent who merely suggested the change:  

“In the private sector, a person who is out

of touch with his bosses gets terminated,

and we are the bosses here — not bin Laden

over there,” said Brian Kerrane, gesturing toward

 Ms. Cohn. Mr. Kerrane, whose children attend

one of the four elementary schools in the district,

was cheered, just as the few people who stood

to defend Ms. Cohn and the proposed change

were loudly booed.

WTF? Does that dude even consider that HE is the one shoving religion down people’s throat? Last time The IP checked, Bin Laden was against the kind of secularism proposed by Superintendent Cohn. What an ignorant jerk! Others wrote letters that said Cohn was trying to “cancel Christmas,” or “execute Baby Jesus in the arena of political correctness.”

The IP wants to puke.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

OK.  On to God’s wrath.  Just as God had it in for all those Farraguts and Transmusexuals in New Orleans, it looks like he’s now targeting Southeast Asia.  While we in America are watching tropical storms Dean and Erin, folks in the Philippines are watching “SUPER TYPHOON” Sepat: 

 Sepat is truly a “Super” typhoon.

The good news is that Sepat (Egay) is forecast to turn and head towards Taiwan, the latter being an island with a very meager population and no real infrastructure to damage.  God must know what he’s doing after all. 

BTW.  That fish on the header image is a Sepat.  The IP read that they named the SUPER TYPHOON after that fish.

The fact that American-paid, Chinese manufacturers are painting toys with lead-based paint shouldn’t be a surprise; heck, that’s what makes outsourcing their manufacture so cheap!  You don’t have to worry about pesky inspections or regulation…that is until some spoil sport here in the U.S squeals.  Let’s face it, until the EPA and FDA stuck their noses into our lives, kids here were eating lead paint chips for breakfast.

A small part of The IP’s heart does go out to Mattel, however.  It is such a stalwart brand.  It gave The IP Hotwheels, and eventually absorbed Fisher Price, another company that provided The (little) IP with hours of imaginative playtime.  And when you started to become an adolescent, you could even have Hasbro’s G.I. Joe kick the shit out of Mattel’s Ken and screw around with Barbie, or just throw him into the air real high and imagine he lost his parachute and watch him hurtle to the ground.  The IP always loved it when, on the way down, he caught his leg or arm on the phone line running to the house and then cartwheeled to his inevitable death…Cool.  The IP was the kind of kid that would enjoy and save insects but kill G.I. Joe on a daily basis.  Go figure.

The IP’s parents bought this thing one year after his birth.  Classic “Little People” Fisher Price.  Nostalgic baby boomers pay big bucks for this now.

It didn’t take much to entertain kids back in the 60s and 70s.  It was all pre-video games.  Hell, The IP and his brother could spend hours with their Hotwheels and Johnny Lightning cars.  We even figured out a way to race marbles (remember marbles?) between the rails of old Lionel train track.   

Cool, scary, and perhaps even prescient, this Johnny Lightning brand “Nucleon” had its own reactor to power it to victory over the Hotwheels competitors.  The IP and his brother always had an affection for the underdog Johnny Lightning brand cars. 

The IP feels lucky that he had Mattel toys instead of Grand Theft Auto, that he had G.I. Joe instead of SIMS.  And even the lead paint chips he ate fucked up his brain, they tasted pretty good going down.*  

*The IP doesn’t really think he ate lead paint chips…at least he can’t remember if he did.

While I think it was a bad choice, at least Pat Tillman had the courage of his convictions.  And he was a REAL “Man’s Man,” a big pro football player who said “Fuck Yeah!!” I’ll support my country like our Commander in Chief wants me to!  Fuck my big NFL salary; I’m going to fight!  He was almost a throwback to Elvis, or Ted Williams.  More impressive, there was no draft!!  He volunteered to go to Iraq when he could have stayed home and “supported” the troops while making big money on the pro gridiron; you know he would’ve had one of those ribbons on his Cadillac Escalade when he pulled up for practice.  

In contrast, take Mitt Romney, “winner” of that blown-out-of-proportion Iowa straw poll and the progenitor of FIVE strapping sons.  When asked by a woman (evidently a woman with large ovaries) if he was so supportive of the surge, why won’t he ask one of his FIVE sons enlist in the military, this was his reply:  

“It’s remarkable how we can show our support for our nation, and one of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping to get me elected, because they think I’d be a great president.  My son, Josh, bought the family Winnebago and has visited 99 counties, [not countries] most of them with his three kids and his wife[oh, the suffering and sacrifice]. And I respect that and respect all of those in the way theyserve this great country.”  

So let The IP get this right.  His sons are showing support for “The Nation” by working to elect HIM as President?  Let’s hope that Winnebago has extra armor. It’s already being hit by IEDs (Improvised Editorial Devices).  What an asstard!!