I don't usually blog on Saturdays. I have more important things to do, like, nothing. About all I do on Saturday is grocery shop and every now and then go to Home Depot for home and garden stuff. Then on Saturday evening, I grill a steak, pop a nice bottle of red wine and kick back and enjoy life here at GOC Central in Beautiful Dunwoody, Georgia. In the winter, I finish off the meal with a nice glass of cognac. In the summer it is grappa or lemoncello. But today, as I was reading the paper, three items jumped out at me. Nay, they screamed for attention.
The first item was an article on the front page of the Urinal and Constipation titled Taxes driving out Lynwood's old-timers. The gist of the article is that due to gentrification in an old black neighborhood in north DeKalb County. Housing values have more than doubled in a year. One example is a house appraised at $32,000 last year was appraised at $82,500 this year. The particular home owner is quoted in the article.
"It will be very hard for me," said Henderson, sitting on the front porch of a house she doesn't want to sell because her mother lives across the street.
Aw, you're breaking my heart here. Just like me, her taxes are going up due to rising housing prices. Whenever I read a story like this I know that there is gonna be a hue and cry for Government to do Something! Unfortunately, whenever Government does Something!, I wind up getting screwed.There are now gonna be calls for tax breaks for senior citizens. It's already happening. So says Patricia Martin, 70, who has lived in the neighborhood since she was 7 years old.
Seniors deserve break
If that is not feasible, Martin suggests that property taxes remain at the previous
year's rate for seniors. "They ought to get a break," Martin said.
County officials are sympathetic. Rising property taxes for seniors was an issue
mentioned at a recent meeting among elderly care providers to discuss ways to
better serve DeKalb's older residents.
Awright, do you know what that means? It means my taxes are going up! Every fucking time Government does Something! my fucking taxes go up! Here's a novel idea: Why not cut the County budget and lower everybody's taxes? I guarantee there is not a city, county, state, or federal budget that cannot be cut. I have to balance my budget. If my income goes down, I have to cut expenses. The company I work for, TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name), has to cut expenses when its revenue decreases. It did so again this past week with layoffs. How come we don't have gummint layoffs? Because too many politicians look at the gummint as a jobs program for their constituents. A fine example. The city of Atlanta had to increase property taxes this year by, are you ready for this? 50%!! Atlanta has more city employees per capita (approximately 50% more) than any other city of a comparable size in the US. What is wrong with this picture? And the politicians are upfront about this. City Councilwoman Debi Starns, stated that she was elected to provide jobs for her constituents. She wanted property taxes increased even more! And guess what? In Atlanta, due to exemptions, guess who pay most of the property taxes? Yes, you way in the back? That's right, those evil hated, rich white folks.
My friend Cindy just came by and we went to Home Depot. She needed pine bark. I have a truck. After that I went grocery shopping and was afraid I wasn't gonna get back in the mood, but not to worry. Stand by for a screed within a screed
At the store, I got in the checkout line where the checker was ringing up the very last item for the person in front of me. Unfortunately, he was a booger eatin' moh-ron on a goddamned cell phone. He also had his kids running up wanting to buy more chips. Arrggghhh! What is so fucking important that you have to be on the fucking phone in the fucking checkout line? I'm sorry for the language, but this shit really pisses me off! He yelled at the kids to just get the chips, signed the credit card slip, without getting off the phone and then just stood there in my way! Finally, after a not so gentle nudge from my shopping cart he moved away. I was just waiting for him to say something, but he just kept talking on the phone and walked off with one of the kids pushing the cart. The kindly old gentleman bagging my groceries remarked that cell phones were gonna be the death of civilization. I replied that they were almost the death of the asshole in front of me. I think if I would have beat him to death with my crutch the checker and the bagger would have supported me in my plea of justifiable booger eatin' moh-ronicide.
Now where was I? Oh yeah, government.
Georgia's public schools rank about 47th out of the 50 states, and the Atlanta public schools are the worst in the state. The new mayor of Atlanta asked the public school system to try to find somewhere in their budget to save money. Guess what? They couldn't find any savings anywhere. This from a public school system that spends over $13,000 per pupil! That is not a typo. Thirteen-fucking-thousand dollars per pupil in a failing cause! Jesus! Shut the schools down and send them all to private schools. Unfortunately, there are not enough private schools and the Teachers' Union would not allow it anyway.
So I'm sorry Carrie Henderson. I won't shed any tears for you. Sell your house, take the profit, and move to Bartow County where the taxes are cheap. Don't ask me to pay your share of DeKalb County taxes. Mine are already high enough, thank you.
But I'm not done. There was another article in the paper titled Fear taints urge to help poor for metro Muslims Some excerpts follow:
Many Muslims in metro Atlanta fear to write "Muslim" or "Islam" on a check. Their
worry: They could be accused of supporting terrorism.
That's because they probably are.
Groundbreaking for a larger mosque to replace the Al-Farooq Masjid of Atlanta on
14th Street is due in four to eight weeks, but members are worried the project
won't be completed because only 30 percent of pledged donations have come in.
You're breaking my heart.
Plans to build a Muslim Community Center, including a mosque and school, in
Roswell have been put on hold. The Muslim community could not afford the rent
for a temporary community center while they planned the construction project.
Quit it! You've got me crying real tears!
In Lawrenceville, a Muslim school due to be completed in August is not expected
to be finished even by the end of the year, the director said, citing the sluggish
economy and people's "fear that they'll be incorrectly associated with a terrorist
group."
That could be due to the fact that we've discovered lots of Muslim schools in this country that have been teaching their students hatred of America. Oh and this next part really tugs on my heartstrings.
"I want to put money in the right place because when you put on a veil, it's
enough for people to think that you're a terrorist. It's no longer a war on
terrorism but a war on Islam," Abdalla said.
All right Abdalla, lets get one thing straight right here and now. We did not declare war on Islam. Islam delared war on us! And I'm still waiting for the Islamic leaders to denounce terrorism. I've heard a lot of root cause bullshit and a lot of Islam is a religion of peace bullshit. But the fact remains that it was Islamofascists who killed 3000 innocent people on 9/11. Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar do not think Islam is a religion of peace. The Islamofascists who are about to start World War III over Kashmir do not think Islam is a religion of peace. Tehran and Baghdad do not think Islam is a religion of peace. Yassir Arafat and his thugs do not think Islam is a religion of peace. Those crazy bastards think it's holy to brainwash a sixteen year old kid into blowing himself up and taking a bunch of women and children with them. Oh, maybe they mean it's a religion of piece. A piece blown here. A piece blown there. So pardon me if I don't believe the Islam is a religion of peace bullshit.
And another thing Abdalla. Contrast the almost total lack of vandalism against mosques here with the attacks on synagogues in France and other countries. You hypocritical bastards drive me crazy. If you want to be respected in this country start acting like Americans. You can maintain your religion and still condemn terrorism against this country and the rest of the world done in the name of Islam. We're all waiting. And finally, from Khalid Siddiq
"We have to do the right thing ourselves and leave the rest to God and the
integrity of the government. We hope the government will maintain integrity
and no bias against any particular group," he said. "Islam shows us that
there's a lot of value in decency and integrity."
And that is the way we feel in this country. Contrast that with Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and many others who will tolerate no other religion but Islam. We are the most tolerant nation on this planet. We are the most tolerant nation in the history of this planet. So quit your bitching and start acting like Americans. And if you don't like that you can take your Islamic asses and get on a plane and go back to the sorry countries that you came from. Just hope that none of your Islamic friends hijack the plane and ram it into a building.
And finally on a lighter note, Dr. Sumeet Bhushan, wrote a letter to the editor complaining about the airlines charging him a fee for rescheduling a flight. The part of the letter I found most amusing was the following:
I am a physician, and I can imagine the turmoil if I were to charge my patients a
fee for rescheduling their appointments.
Ha Ha Sumeet. Good one. Just like the airlines, you overbook and think nothing about keeping a patient waiting two hours or more for a scheduled appointment. Maybe you should refund some of your fees for keeping me waiting.
I hate it when doctors bitch about anything.
Time to go pour myself a Stoly on the rocks and fire up the grill.
Have a nice weekend!
Posted by denny at June 1, 2002 11:22 AM