What can you do with twenty-six dollars?

You can hack into vital information feeds on our nice high tech Predator drones.

Somebody in the IT shop has made a big boo boo. That enemy hackers sitting in double super secret bases in isolated sections of China or Russia breaking into live satellite feeds on Predator drones is one thing. But to have low tech terrorists using twenty-six dollar software and off the shelf laptops break in such information feeds is something from a very bad spy thriller or cheap movie. Well, we are not talking about the national priority of greedy bankers and investment types who trashed the economy but yet receive billions. This is just weapons systems that we depend on to properly identify and attack our enemies.

I sure as Hell wish I could laugh about this but with everything else about our screwed up government its just sad.

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

Splotchy strikes again

The great and mighty god Splotchy has saw fit to look kindly on us mortals and set us upon the path of righteousness and mediocre (that would be me) story telling. The holy premise as set in the unwritten scriptures is that Splotchy will set in motion a story through the use of one blessed paragraph and then select a series of prophets to expand and then pass on the blessings to yet another grouping.

The great god Splotchy beginnings were as such:

The mall was crowded. There were happy people, angry people, people in a hurry, even a few people sleeping on benches. To the security guard, they were a blur of coats, hats and scarves. He was just beginning his second eight hour shift. He yawned, leaning against a pillar in the food court, the aftertaste of terrible mall cookies lingering on his tongue. His eyes abruptly snapped open with the loud sound of glass shattering behind him.

Let it be written that it was good with the first prophet Cormac the Great:

The glass landed on the main concourse floor and the strung Christmas lights around the mall made the floor glitter like a field of glittering gems. Out of Hot Topic came a huge tasseled-shod foot and the glass cracked like ice under the foot's immense weight. Above that antiquated shoe was a massive muscular leg, clad in green tights.The elder Mrs. Hajba knows what this creature is and she screams out its name, yet no one understands her. Mostly because everyone else is too busy screaming, but also because the only person would understand, her daughter Anastasia, is across the mall at T.G. McFunster's...trying to find husband number four, lest her, and her mother be deported.This being that apparently is unknown to America, stands some sixteen feet tall in bright green and red clothing that would be more suitable to the Renaissance. The brute is muscular and misshapen, with veins that bulge and throb at a preternaturally speed. Its skin is bright white, and its teeth silver and black like tinsel. The eyes of the beast have no pupils or irises to speak of. They could best be described as giant red, opaque Christmas ball ornaments.Mrs. Hajba summons every brain cell that American TV soaps haven't manged to destroy yet and she yells at the security guard, "It's Ghost of Kreestmass Disappoint-ted!"

The second prophet, MRMacrum the Fantastic, was dazzled and was able to pass along:

Christmas was especially hectic here at the largest Mall in the Universe. Jenkins had been temporarily transferred over from his normal eight hours of checking doors at the local high school to double shifts here at the mall. On any given day starting in November, as many as 1,ooo,ooo shoppers a day flocked here to drop their credits in one or more of the 3000 shop til you drop stores found inside it's ten story 5000 acre complex. Increased traffic meant more shoplifting, assaults, and an uptick in the usual run of the mill bag thefts and purse snatchings. Jenkins definitely did not consider the quarter an hour raise to be enough compensation for what he had to put up with here. Nodding off sitting on a hard chair at the high school seemed like heaven about now."Base. Come in Base.""Jenkins, that you? What's the problem? Jeezus guy, hold the mic away from your mouth some. I thought we went over that. The feed back is terrible.""Uh, well okay, gotcha Base. Seems one of those new Tron androids got loose. Looks like the big one in the window display as a matter of fact. He's headed for food court 23.""Jenkins, that display cannot move. They promised us that it was completely non-functional. Get your shit together and check it out.""Base, that display maybe is supposed to be inoperative, but I tell you something big has just made a helluva mess from Hot Topic to the big tree display here on floor five. I see some woman up ahead waving at me. Maybe she has a clue. Jenkins out.""Lady, lady." Jenkins shook the woman on the floor. She turned her head in Jenkins' direction. Panicked shoppers continued streaming by them in the opposite direction of the commotion closing in on food court 23."It's Ghost of Kreestmass Disappoint-ted!" That's all she said. "What's that mean lady? Tell me."Her eyes suddenly fixed on something over Jenkins shoulder. Jenkins turned........

Now the third prophet being a hopeless slacker yearning for beaches and scantily clad ladies dancing in the surf but stuck all weekend at the house grabbed his new Jimmy Buffett CD, a couple of slices of cold pizza, and a two liter bottle of diet Coke and presents his offering to the Holy Spoltchy:


Jenkins was a fan of all sorts of zombie and horror movies often sitting up late at night alone watching some horde of monsters, ghosts, or demons attempt to cause as much destruction on earth as possible. For him such movies had long since become untangled from the base fear and dread they were made to cause and were more enjoyable from the nearly subconscious fantasies he entertained about his ex-wife and her rich new husband being chased, then eaten by one of the evil creatures.

Until now that is, turning away from the babbling woman and focusing his eyes on the insectoid creatures streaming from the mega-Tracy’s department store into the mall concourse Jenkins felt a fresh rush of terror that paled all others in his life. The creatures were about two to three feet high, walked on four legs with an identical front pair that was being used to catch and hold whatever unlucky human had remained too close. Even now Jenkins watched a blond woman replete with excessive jewelry dangling outside her expensive coat still struggling to hold onto her full shopping bags be lifted and fed into pair of over sized mandibles.

The spasm of blood that followed at least slightly camouflaged the woman being ingested. The creatures until that moment had only been entering the mall concourse grabbing whatever people were nearby but once the blond lady had completely disappeared chuck by bloody chunk the rest of bugs made quick work of those they had caught.

The first people to scatter upon the arrival of the sixteen foot Tron android had long since made their way to whatever exit they could find but more than a few had either been too stupid to move or frozen in fear now panicked as the insect creatures now flooded down the concourse grabbing the old and whatever foolish types refused to drop their loads of Christmas booty. It was then the giant android raised his arms, his veins throbbing ever faster, and began moving in the direction of the over sized roaches.

“Base, this is Jenkins,” the still stunned rent-a-cop said. “You guys better get down here quickly and call the National Guard or the freaking army because not only do we have a loose android but the cockroaches we have been bitching about to management have broken out of the basement.”

“Jenkins this is base, the shift supervisor is on his way,” Jenkins heard the kiss ass Thomas say over the radio. Thomas had accidentally left his microphone keyed and Jenkins could still hear the conversation going on back at base. “Someone call the exterminators again and tell the bastards we need them to bring the good stuff, not that bargain crap management insists on them using, looks like we might have another Omaha incident on our hands.”

Mrs. Hajba had been strangely quiet during all this and Jenkins noticed from the look on her face more than slightly smug. “The Ghost of Kreestmass Disappointed is exacting its revenge on you petulant Americans.” Was all she said and with that she pulled out her cell phone and by all appearances once the person she was calling answered began speaking in a language Jenkins could not understand and to the best of his knowledge have never even heard spoken before.

The giant android had been busy through all this and after it had reached the leading element of the over sized cockroaches had begun to do a stomping dance with its big feet flattening the bugs as a surprising rate given its size and initial slowness. The mall background music was playing a soft version of "Beat It" with the android keeping keeping in step withe the music.

The bugs, angered by the android’s attack, swarmed all around forgetting for the moment all the shoppers they had been snacking on and did their best to bring the American made automaton down.

Jenkins watched as Mrs. Hajba continued to talk on her cell phone and the bugs try to get a footing at the base of the android to crawl up. If the situation couldn't get any more surreal a lovely young woman was now walking toward Jenkins and the old crazy woman from one of the branching concourses dragging a young boy by the ear. The boy was holding a fancy stick in one hand and with the other a shimmering book that Jenkins could clearly see had the title of “East Salem Community College of Magic and Wizardry: Advanced animation and transformations 210”.

Jenkins stomach sank down to his knees while his balls launched themselves into his throat. Dealing with the loose android was one thing, the bugs another, but throwing in some kid playing with a magic textbook from those East Salem losers was a whole new world of shit. I better get a freaking raise after all this shit is over he thought.

The third prophet's duty is to now appoint another to add to the holy Scriptures. While the Beach Bum is usually not blessed enough for such an endeavor choosing to let someone pick up the mantle on their own but just for shits and giggles I pick and double dog dare: Madmike, Stimpson, Doc, and Utah Savage. Whether any will answer to the Spoltchy call I do not know but I will not be held responsible for the lightening striking them down.

Feline Fixations

“Cats are dangerous companions for writers because cat watching is a near-perfect method of writing avoidance”
Dan Greenburg

While I'm sure that is the case Spock the cat when he is not fascinated with the swirling waters of the toilet does spend a good bit of time watching me type. Not so much lately since with me on third shift and the associated duties of being a dad and a personal serf to my wife both the time and inclination to write has been greatly diminished. Right now Spock the cat is sitting on a very rarely used piece of exercise equipment watching me with an interest that if it was a person I was find extremely unnerving. If only Spock could be useful, or had interest in doing it, editing my prattle I'm sure the quality would greatly improve.

"I have noticed that what cats most appreciate in a human being is not the ability to produce food, which they take for granted-but his or her entertainment value."
Geoffery Household

Leaving the debate alone between fanatical dog and cat owners about which is the better pet this quote is very true. Watching Spock watch the normal activities of the family I often wonder if cats in fact are not only far more intelligent than humans suspect but in actuality more intelligent than humans themselves. True, most of the chaotic crap we humans have trapped ourselves into doing only raises our blood pressure or in a strange inverse relationship deadens our brains at the same time. The prime example of this is most people who are alternately driven to rage over the verbal garbage that issues forth from any Fox News show and come away after the fact losing several IQ points. Which explains that while channel surfing and momentarily stopping at Fox News during a Glenn Beck rerun that Spock begins watching me intently with the cat-like expression wondering when in the Hell I was going to turn that crap. Stay too long on such brain draining garbage he starts playing with the remote again seemingly saying that if he had an opposable thumb not only would he turn the channel but would beat me aside the head with it. On the other hand I have seen Spock enthralled by one of the fishing shows and from reactions when a large mouth bass is caught he could have been named Ahab.

“Watch a cat when it enters a room for the first time. It searches and smells about, it is not quiet for a moment, it trusts nothing until it has examined and made acquaintance with everything.
”Jean-Jacques Rousseau

One of the things that has worked to increase the alliance between Spock the cat and myself is the obvious distaste Spock shows for many of the local residents of Rightwingberg, the town I find myself marooned in. A couple of weekends ago we were visited by one of the locals who through casual, and inappropriate, conversation informed us of her personal distaste not only with the president but with his wife. Both my wife and I looked at each other as this lady explained how she felt both the Obama's were bad examples for "true American values".
The lady was on what amounted to a recruiting mission for her nearby church and while I would have never let her in Dragonwife has had repeated talks with me about not being a complete dick, that I actually need to get to know some of the people before coming to a conclusion about how insidiously evil all these people are. Upon revealing her political views Spock, who until that moment, had been very comfortable laying in her lap and being stroked suddenly jumped up and leaped across the room digging his claws into her to get away. The howls of surprise and pain from the subconsciously racist lady promptly ended the visit with Spock not coming back into the room for several hours.

“Who among us hasn't envied a cat's ability to ignore the cares of daily life and to relax completely?”
Karen Brademeyer
The last thing that firmly binds the alliance between Beach Bum and feline Spock is that while everyone else in my house can have episodes of near panic on any number of items both he and I can calmly lay on the couch and watch in curious disinterest. In my opinion nothing beyond preventing the death of someone or the immanent destruction of the new 42 inch high definition television and the loss of chips, salsa, and beer is cause for panic. Truthfully this is one item that all people could learn something from cats. Quite frankly most of what people fret about to the point that they often need a pill to get relief from the daily fears and concerns that come close to overwhelming them are just illusions that Madison Avenue and social peer pressure impose in hopes of selling something or keeping us all tied up like unthinking lemmings.

Of course once the litter box needs cleaning even a cool, calm cat can get a little freaky. As for me the resulting look I get from my wife and kids about needing to clean out said litter box can get me freaky and nauseous.

One of the reasons why I hate suburbia

There use to be a time in this wonderful country when a home and yard were nearly sovereign territory for the owners. While in some neighborhoods there were justifiable limits on what a family could do on their property, just about anything was okay as long as it did not interfere or harm the people living next door. These were people that bought a house for it to become a home, not some strangely considered investment believing that while they maxed out the credit cards the house would be their piggy bank.

Now in these wonderful preplanned and highly regimented suburban developments full of little drones whose sphincters pucker up to microscopic sizes the moment an errant leaf has the audacity of landing on their prized hunter-green colored lawn spoiling the carpet like flow. Such situations automatically results in the drone mounting his or her equally prized riding lawnmower with vacuum attachment and padded insulated cup holder bringing it to life and spewing forth all sorts of carbon dioxide from the four-stroke engine so the obsessed homeowners can cruise across the lawn to that misguided leaf so that it and any of its brethren will be sucked up, bagged in a non-biodegradable trash bag, and then be dropped off in a landfill to spend several centuries buried.

Making things even more ridiculous these insidious little drones are not only obsessed with keeping their precious yards, despite the near hazardous levels of fertilizers used, pristine. But like some bad example of an East German informant network with neighbors spying on neighbors on violations of the smallest of rules these drones run off and report possible acts of independent thought to the Homeowners Association which in turn acts like some damn Orwellian suburban Big Brother forcing the offender through threat of lawsuit to tow the party line.

Yes, this is the new America where brave men and women put their lives on the line even now to protect property values and "aesthetic guidelines" so the collective group of weasels, chickenhawks, and anal retentive mindless parasites are not visually disturbed by such horrible things as wrecked cars on cinder blocks, empty liquor bottle collection littered about the yard, and the American flag flying proudly in the breeze. What a wonderful country.

Veteran battles homeowners group on flag issue

By Zinie Chen Sampson - The Associated Press

Posted : Wednesday Dec 2, 2009 20:53:08 EST

RICHMOND, Va. — A 90-year-old Army veteran who earned the Medal of Honor during World War II is battling his homeowners’ association for the right to fly the American flag from a pole in his front yard.

Col. Van Barfoot says he erected the flagpole in September. The homeowners’ association at his suburban Richmond subdivision told him that the free-standing pole violates aesthetic guidelines and ordered him to remove the structure or face a lawsuit.

Barfoot earned his medal for actions in Italy in 1944 and is one of about 90 surviving Medal of Honor recipients. He’s also been awarded the Purple Heart and other decorations.

Neighbors have expressed their support, but ultimately it’s up to the nine-member association board on whether they will grant an exception to the rules.

A brief statement about the Tiger Woods situation

After listening to the news all day from several different sources ranging from NPR this morning, MSNBC, FOX, CNN, and later this evening NBC Nightly News I have one thing to say. With all due respect to Mr. Woods' very important ability to hit a small white ball into an almost equally small hole in the ground hundreds of yards away I frankly do not give a rat's ass about him wrecking his car backing out from his driveway. I also do not give a flying shit about the reasons this happened. Whether he got caught fooling around on his wife with her trying to beat his brains out because of it with one of his computer balanced carbon fiber thousand dollar golf clubs or if he was being kidnapped by Martians forcing his wife to defend her husband by breaking out several windows in his expensive SUV to get at the little green men, I simply don't care.

Anyone who has read my stuff would find it extremely easy to understand I have no love for the '"sport" of golf and in truth golf courses to me are an environmental abomination. The massive amounts of fertilizer being used to keep the grass green runoff into coastal waters around here killing the marshes in which much of the seafood we eat lives. I also find most avid golfers insufferable bores who I often daydream become afternoon snacks for the assorted gators that live in the small ponds that are a part of golf course architecture. The idea of loose wild pythons crawling up from Florida getting a hold of the obnoxious middle-aged white guy who has a nationally broadcast conservative radio talk show while he is practising his putting is another daydream of mine that often produces a few chuckles.

That being said the main reason for the illicit rant is the huge amount of time "journalists" have spent today speculating for the reasons this happened along with the banal babble on what this might mean for Tiger's billion dollar endorsements of everything from overpriced sweatshop made clothes to overpriced flavored water. Once again critical issues and problems that face the nation and world have been left by the wayside because at best some spoiled twit with far too much money can't drive his damn car and at worst the same twit couldn't keep his pecker in his pants despite a hot babe of a wife. If the latter is the reason expect further delays and interruptions in real news as the media has an orgasmic meltdown covering the divorce proceedings.

Thank you for your time, good night and good luck.

Modern American Slavery

When I was in elementary school learning about history not just in this country but all human history I was consistently struck dumbfounded by the idea of one person keeping other people in bondage. Something inside my head could not understand how it could be justified in any way that people could be viewed as property with every aspect of their lives being controlled by another person or group.

Many might be surprised how openly the discussion of all aspects of slavery were brought out down here in the South. While the most gruesome and explicit details about slavery didn't come until high school none the less as a young child my classmates and I understood that families were torn apart and bought and sold like farm equipment. Physical and sexual abuse could come at any moment with it later being laughed about by otherwise "pillars of the community." Even as something basic as learning to read could be a death sentence for both the person wanting to learn and the teacher. While slavery was a nightmare on all levels when you boiled it down what most got me was the simple idea that a slave had absolutely no control over what was done to them and had no recourse to correct it. That total inability to have even the most basic control over ones own fate still makes my skin crawl.

In my youth I could at least take some comfort with the belief that the institution of slavery was something had been confined to the past. Years later I would come to believe that while it had been abolished here in America that in other, less developed and enlighten parts of the world some form of it still survived. Much to my sadness my next revelation would have me find out that in far away and forgotten corners of America isolated pockets of what amounted to slavery was being practiced. Still I hoped and believed that these were exceptions to the rule and that shining the light of day on these hideous affairs would stamp them out. Now even that is gone with word that while the institution might be relegated to the past like some contagious virus the scourge of slavery has not only appeared again but is growing.

CNN finds modern-day slavery in America

At least in my younger days I could consul myself that such things were lost in the past never to be brought back. As the years went on I was sadden to learn that while institution of slavery had been abolished in this country it still survived in other, less developed and enlightened, parts of the world. Now, I do not even have that comfort. I had long since learned that slavery existed here in America but at least, I thought, it was hidden in small pockets that never could stand the light of day. I wish that was the case.

Thirty Thai men who were "tricked into a life of forced labor" after being promised lucrative jobs in the United States are just one symptom of the problem of modern-day slavery, CNN reported Monday.

According to the State Department, there are as many as 200,000 forced laborers in the US, with some 17,500 arriving every year.

"This is a hidden crime," Louis C. de Baca, the State Department's ambassador for human trafficking, told CNN. "The very nature of this crime masks it from us."

CNN reported on the case of 30 Thai men, who were promised jobs picking tobacco on North Carolina by a company called Million Express Manpower. The company required the men to pay the equivalent of $11,000 for the necessary visa and transportation.

But when they arrived in the US, they discovered there were no jobs waiting, and their passports were seized. The men "realized they were trapped," reports CNN's Sean Callebs.

The men say they were taken to New Orleans, where they were forced to gut a condemned hotel without pay, while living on the premises. They say they had to cook pigeons for food.

"Some of the men were so stressed out they seemed suicidal," one of the men told CNN.

The men eventually won a lawsuit against the company, which did not respond to the allegations against it.

The case of the 30 Thai men is somewhat unusual, as human trafficking often focuses on women and children. The Guardian recently reported on the problem of women and teenage girls being trafficked to the United States for sex and servitude:

In one recent incident a 16-year-old Mexican girl was found to have been trafficked across the US border. Doctors noticed the heavily pregnant girl showed clear signs of physical abuse when she was brought into a hospital in Dayton to give birth. The police were called but the couple who had brought her had already fled. When the girl's story emerged, it became clear she had been kept against her will in the nearby city of Springfield and used for labour and sex. "I thought slavery ended a few centuries ago. But here it is alive and well," said Springfield's sheriff, Gene Kelly.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently launched a 14-city pilot project, "Hidden in Plain Sight," to combat human trafficking. The project involves setting up billboards across the city with an 800 number that victims of human trafficking can call to get help.

Yeah, its my birthday and all I got was a stupid hat

...and maybe something more tonight.

For several years now I have relegated my own birthdays to a back burner of sorts not really wanting to think about it less for reasons of mortality than just the idea I don't want to deal with the hassle. Previous birthdays during this present period had me laying very low avoiding the phone not wanting to try and make conversation with the usual manner of honest well wishers who would call and ask strange questions like what great gifts I had received and what new resolutions or epiphanies that might have suddenly appeared in my head.

Well for one, while I greatly appreciate them for their well meaning thoughts they represents, my collection of cheap Wal-Mart brand colognes is so enormous now I've had to apply for a permit to store hazardous materials here at the house. Not to sound like an ingrate but simply put I have no life-beyond being a chauffeur and loan office for my kids- and because of that I have next to no reason to wear a fragrance that at best smells like a newly scrubbed clean operating room, and believe me I know!

But such is the life of a middle-aged dad whose greatest desire, beyond a bikini clad supermodel walking into my life convinced I'm her long lost love, is spending time on a windswept beach and enjoy watching bikini clad ladies cavort in the sand. Hell, right now I'd just be satisfied to be on a beach with such visions being generated by my own gray, Swiss cheese-like, material that occupies the space between my ears. Thankfully I have a terrific family who goes above and beyond the call of duty to chase such thoughts away by having me running countless missions picking up and dropping off friends, doing insidious serf-like yard work, and assorted home repairs.

On the subject of being asked about birthday resolutions and epiphanies I have wondered if I was somehow delinquent for not pursuing some form of insight that might guide me better in my life. Usually when I respond that no, that no revelation or vision had come my way as I ate my birthday cake I get the this look of resignation as if such a thing was probably a long shot to begin with as far as I was concerned. Truthfully, those who read my prattle already know I ponder the meaning of life and belly button lent on a regular basis. Because of that I have long since come to the conclusion that I must be insane cause the world to me is clearly crazy and I know I can't be the only one sane.

For those reasons birthdays for me have become subdued affairs were quiet contemplation has taken the place of parties and elaborate celebrations. I don't need them and honestly such ostentatious affairs are better left for my kids. Though this morning when asked by my wife if I wanted at least one special thing for myself I answered sex and grilled cheese sandwiches to which after a few minutes she responded "maybe". So I may be having a party after all, I just better not get the melted butter on the bed sheets.