Month: July 2012

American Man-Gods Intentionally Foul, Bringing Woe

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A Lawless Nation Reformed
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Augusta, GA

By Al Gray

This week the long-awaited and much-dreaded Freeh Report came out on the horrible child molestation cases at Penn State University, with particular emphasis on the enormous cover-up on the part of the coaching staff, athletic department, and administration. The guilt was universal. It was deep. It was inexcusable. It was disturbing.

It was American hero worship perfected. Coach Joe Paterno was revered across the land. Lauded and praised without limit and without cease. Paterno became a god among men.

It should not have taken these revelations to put the lie to the notion that any man is a god. There is one God and HE is about to render judgement on us all.

America is collapsing before our eyes.

The Rule of Law is DEAD.

The elites are utterly corrupt and they strengthen their grip on the good and honest folks every day.

There is nothing new under the sun and we find guidance readily in the Bible in Habakkuk 1.

1 The [a] oracle which Habakkuk the prophet saw.

2 How long, O Lord, will I call for help,

And You will not hear?

I cry out to You, “Violence!”

Yet You do not save.

3 Why do You make me see iniquity,

And cause me to look on wickedness?

Yes, destruction and violence are before me;

Strife exists and contention arises.

4 Therefore the law is ignored

And justice is never upheld.

For the wicked surround the righteous;

Therefore justice comes out perverted.

5 “ Look among the nations! Observe!

Be astonished! Wonder!

Because I am doing something in your days—

You would not believe if you were told.

Yes, the law is ignored. It is ignored in Washington, DC. The law is disregarded under the Gold Dome in Atlanta. The law is antithesis to the government of Augusta, Georgia.

Justice is never upheld. Justice comes out perverted. This political season the burgeoning Liberty Movement succeeded in bringing forth the votes to carry many state and local conventions, yet they were denied victory by unethical, blunt naked power plays. In finance, a Federal Reserve primary dealer – a bank empowered to buy and sell US Debt as a government agent – stole $1.5 billion from customer accounts, an action met with no arrests. Last week Peregrine Financial Group was alleged to have done the same thing to the tune of $200 million. This month has also seen Liborgate, a global interest rate scandal that victimized billions of people, implicate the central banks of England and the US Federal Reserve. Justice is never upheld.

The wicked surround the righteous. Look at the Penn State mess. Those who notified authorities saw no investigation, only greater accolades heaped on the perpetrators. Who would believe their words against the man-gods of national champion football staff? Here in Georgia, the legislature is designated the most corrupt in the USA, this in a “Bible Belt” state replete with prayer breakfasts and notions of the “religious right.” We are horribly gone wrong at the hands of these people.  God will not be mocked. In Augusta, we see a government adrift, one that has only functioned over the last 4 years by wave of deceit, duplicity, and horse trading of largesse bestowed on the connected of the two warring factions.  This is happening in the face of a Greatest Depression. The parasites have multiplied and grow more aggressive in their demands for appeasement.

Something has to give and it will.

Observe! I am doing something in your days. Yes, the Lord is doing something. In the day of Habakkuk, it was the Chaldeans who swept out the corrupt. Tomorrow it will be the kids in the Liberty movement. The corrupt are old and weak. The lovers of Liberty are youthful and principled. They might have been overcome this time by deceit and strong-arm thuggishness, but the next time they will be stronger, more numerous, and more experienced. The judiciary may be co-opted by the forces of deceit, but judges and politicians have to live in society. Facts and truth forcefully presented will make even a judge fear to take the side of wrong. We are not there yet, but that day will come.

There is an awakening across America. Woe be unto the deceivers. Their power is built upon lies and lies disintegrate in the face of truth. The ugly truth may terminate Penn State football. It should, just as it should sweep out nearly every politician in the land.

We are not there yet. The corrupt are still in power.  They still control vast portions of the media, nationally and locally. They can still destroy the reformers. The Paterno-god was not the only fake deity. Locally we have more than our share.

The awakening  is happening. The awakening will not be denied. Sooner than most can understand, forces will align and the evil will be swept away.

Matthew Henry’s Commentary sums it up well.

The prophet complains to God of the violence done by the abuse of the sword of justice among his own people and the hardships thereby put upon many good people (v. 1-4). II. God by him foretells the punishment of that abuse of power by the sword of war, and the desolations which the army of the Chaldeans should make upon them (v. 5-11). III. Then the prophet complains of that too, and is grieved that the Chaldeans prevail so far (v. 12-17), so that he scarcely knows which is more to be lamented, the sin or the punishment of it, for in both many harmless good people are very great sufferers. It is well that there is a day of judgment, and a future state, before us, in which it shall be eternally well with all the righteous, and with them only, and ill with all the wicked, and them only; so the present seeming disorders of Providence shall be set to rights, and there will remain no matter of complaint whatsoever.

Tomorrow will be bright in America, but for now some of us must gird for battle like modern day Chaldeans on a mission from God. In verse 6, the Lord says “behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans.” Reform won’t come by any foreign Chaldeans, but from us, all of us, arising to take American back.

The Legend of Squaw Alice

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Squalling Tires Braking for Wildlife on the Winston Circuit?

Saturday, July 14, 2012
Augusta, GA

By Al Gray

The first time anyone met Alice Babe it was unforgettable. Alice was gruff. Alice was tall. Alice had big arms – with tattoos in a time in which you just didn’t see women with tattoos, especially a contracts payable clerk in a Fortune 50 corporate accounting setting.

Alice was a biker chick in an outlaw motorcycle club, who spent her weekends riding from Winston Salem over to Wrightsville or Myrtle Beaches, generally in the company of her husband, Butch, and a crowd of others who were most certainly not accounting types. Every Monday she would come in with her eyes looking like red-rimmed slits of malevolence. The woman had me intimidated so badly that I avoided her until Tuesdays.

The tattoo on Alice Babe’s arm was of a fierce Amazon warrioress astride a stallion clutching a bow. She muttered something about being of Cherokee descent on one of the rare instances she did more than grunt or issue profanities. Maybe it was from working with contractors, who knows. At any rate the tattoo, her size, and her bouffant hairdo were really domineering.

Photo by Henry Orr on Unsplash

If you had to pick which one of the apparel group accounting clerks who would have really turned outlaw, it would have been Alice Babe, but that dubious honor went to her friend, Windy Hawley. Windy set up a dummy bank account in the name of one of the company’s vendors. She then would take accounts payable checks to deposit into the fake account. This rocked on pretty well for Windy, until one day she encountered a replacement bank teller who knew that the company, payee to the checks, did business with Wachovia, not First Union. After a few visits from the company Certified Fraud Examiners, guys who fittingly always seemed to have 5 o’clock shadows and were from New York, the story came out that Windy had stolen $775,000 and had a very large boat docked in Fort Lauderdale. Alice stormed, “You mean that witch had a yacht down in Florida and didn’t invite me once? I hope she rots!”

Windy went to prison. Alice was aghast, only because she was wondering, “Why haven’t I had the nerve to try that?”

Strangely, we got to be friends. She and Butch lived around the corner off of Reynolda Blvd. in a white, wood-framed house with an enormous garage full of Harley motorbikes. I didn’t visit much, because they were gone nearly every weekend and I was on one of three mega project sites during the week.

Alice reveled in her tough woman persona. I was actually intimidated by her and Butch. After one weekend war, Butch came home all sliced and bruised up, without part of his left ear, lending credence to their braggadocio about being outlaws.

All of that intimidation vanished in a flash. Late one Sunday night in May 1993, my phone rang. It was Alice. She was screaming in anguish, hysteria, and genuine fear. “HELP!!!!!!” she yelled, “there is some horrible MONSTER in our house!!!! You are a woodsman guy, right?” I admitted to being prone to visit the woods now and then. “COME OVER AND DO SOMETHING with this AWFUL ANIMAL!” Alice squalled.

I threw on some clothes and took off for the Babe house. When I got there, Alice and Butch were quivering in the yard. She prompted me to enter the house. I said, “Where is this creature?” She said, “In the bathroom.” I had a big stick, but really didn’t now what to expect, for surely anything fierce enough to turn Butch and Alice into tubs of jelly was something to be respected.

When I saw what it was, I started laughing.

Photo by Mikell Darling on Unsplash

The monster in Alice’s bathroom was a possum! I used to catch possums in my rabbit boxes as a kid, so I knew to grab him by the tail, but be wary that he would turn up on his tail and bite me if I let him. I threw the critter into a corrugated box, so I could release him over at Wake Forest University across the way, where wildlife fits right in. (‘Demon Deacons’ is right!)

Out in the yard, Butch and Alice were visibly relieved.

Something got lost, though, and it was my sense of intimidation from those two.

Turning to face them, putting my hands on my hips, I looked and started laughing. “Just look at y’all,” I said. “You had me fooled into thinking that you were tough people who could hurt me just as soon as look at me. Now THIS! Y’all were afraid of a lil ole possum? You, the fierce outlaws?” I laughed all the way to the car. I am pretty sure Mr. Possum was grinning, too.

Warrior Queen Alice existed no more in my eyes. Her frizzled hair wasn’t that way of of being deliberately unkempt, it was that way because of fear. The possum magically reduced her from an Amazon woman to the point that she was seen as a squalling basket case. Squaw Alice of the Hawg Rider clan she came to be for me. I never dreamed a possum could have that much power. Hoping for a reprise, though, I turned Mr. Possum loose at the trash chute of a girls’ dorm.

It never hurts to try to prolong one’s fun.***

A.G.

Al Gray Explains Why TSPLOST Must Be Defeated (Video)

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Originally posted on CityStink
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Lincolnton, GA
From CityStink.net Reports
Commentary

The author, Al M. Gray, was President of Cost Recovery Works, Inc., a provider of Cost Avoidance and Cost Recovery for America’s leading companies, businesses and governments desiring Superior Returns. Cost Recovery Works is no longer in business, as of December 31, 2020.

Al Gray, of ArrowFlinger Reports and a CityStink.net contributor, explains in this video presentation why the atrocity known as TSPLOST should be defeated at the polls on July 31st. Before voting on TSPLOST you NEED to watch this video.

Trickery Backfired on a Lincoln County Road

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Sneaky Snakes and Mars Rocks

 

Saturday, July 7, 2012
Lincolnton, GA
By Al Gray
 
Have you ever read a story about Mars rocks being found on earth, like this, and think, “How do they know it came from Mars?” and then wonder if it was some prank?
 
Some years ago, after an afternoon hunt in the Ogeechee River Swamp, your Arrowflinger was walking down a clay road through some South Georgia live oak forest – after dark, with a powerful light, but one which quickly drained its battery. He would shine the road, then cut his light off and walk a ways. The Arrowflinger had just flipped his light back on when a shuffling noise came from right over his right shoulder. When he swung the light around it rested on the form of a monstrous rattler, which apparently had slid down the road bank upon his passing.
 
After regaining his composure, old Arrowflinger started looking all around for a stick to kill the snake with. The road had been freshly graded, leaving only bare ground and some dirt clods. (Do you remember what a dirt clod is?) Nearby was a clod about the size of a basketball. It was beyond belief that this was the only thing available to kill the snake, who had probably crawled over his bow and arrows getting there. The clod was sun-baked and was sufficiently hard to break the snake’s spine. There was only one problem – the object was too big to hold with one hand and the other hand was needed to hold the light.
 
In the meantime, the rattler began to crawl away. Kicking some loose clay on him succeeded in getting him to stop and start rattling vigorously. Holding the light between his legs, your nervous Arrowflinger hoisted the dirt clod to his chest, then heaved it toward the reptile. It missed, shattering into fragments, leaving the larger piece about the size of a volleyball. Fortunately this piece had rolled away and was no longer within striking distance. The intensity of the rattling at this point was unnerving enough, when the unthinkable occurred. The 150,000 candlepower light was down to its last 50,000 candles and those were fading fast! After kicking his “weapon” away from the rattlesnake to retrieve it, and trying to focus the dying light on what was a tremendous snake, the Arrowflinger prepared for his final toss. This one found its target, breaking the rattler’s spine. A third attempt permanently disabled it. Then the light died completely.
 
Your near-snakebite-victim pulled his deer stand out of the edge of the woods and sat on it there, alone in the dark with his scaly friend, waiting for his brother-in-law to come and pick him up. Every minute or so the rattler would start a faint buzz with its tail. Eventually some headlights appeared in the distance. It was Robbie, coming down the twisting road. He immediately pulled the truck in position to shine its headlights on the animal. Upon jumping out of the truck, he exclaimed, “This snake is not dead-only stunned!” Upon retrieving a piece of pipe from the truck, he promptly dispatched the reptile.

 

 
Next to be picked up on that dirt road was John, a guy with a tremendous fear of snakes. Robbie said, “Put that twitching snake right there in the corner by the tailgate on John’s side of the truck.” That done, the truck of hunters headed off to get John. Sure enough, John went to set his beltpack inside the truck and felt the still-moving scaly reptile. He let out a shriek, followed by a stream of less-than-adoring or complimentary description of our ancestries.
 
The snake stretched from one side of the pickup tailgate to the other. We took several pictures of it upon our return home. It was late, so there was no time to dispose of the carcass.
 
The Arrowflinger was hunting the next morning in Lincoln County, about 100 miles to the north. At the time he owned a tract of about 100 acres there. Upon going in the gate, it was realized that the dead snake was still in the truck bed. It was before daylight. He started to toss the snake in the bushes, then had a thought, “Maybe I can have a little fun with this snake!“
 
You see, there are almost no rattlers, other than pygmy rattlers, in that part of Lincoln County. This snake was really big! There is little industry in the county and most of the residents have to leave early to get into Augusta to work. So there were going to be a lot of cars coming by in the next half hour.
 
Your Arrowflinger picked the snake up and stretched him across the outbound lane, then hid in the bushes by his gate. Action was not long in the making. A car came around the curve, went WHUMP-WHUMP as it passed over the snake, and flashed its brake lights. They must have been late for work. A minute later Car No. 2 made the WHUMP-WHUMP noise, squealing its tires shortly thereafter. The driver stopped for a minute, then proceeded on. The driver of car number 3 must have had his morning coffee. It was an old, dark-colored Thunderbird. The driver slammed on the brakes to kill the snake, sliding by it in the process. Slowly he backed up until his headlights rested on the snake. He stopped the car, got out, and pulled something from the backseat. 

 

The engine was still running, so he could not hear your trickster laughing. Then the arrow flinging practical joker heard a metallic noise as he approached the front of the car. Suddenly the Arrowflinger realized that the joke was on him! This guy was going to shoot the snake and guess who was in the line of fire! The Arrowflinger!!! Quickly diving for cover just as the trigger was pulled – BLAMMM! – he heard bird shot ring through the trees over his head. Then the man picked the snake’s body up, put it in the trunk, turned that car around and took the snake back home. The shaken bowhunter dusted himself off, plucked numerous briars from his flesh, wiped away the blood and went hunting.

 
Well this story was not over. Your wayward archer was working on his fence the next July, when an old, black Ford Thunderbird pulled off onto the shoulder of the roadway. An old fellow got out and said:

 

“Mistuh, You sho bettuh be careful aroun’ ‘dis place. My bruther whut live down ‘dis heah road, he killed de biggest, meanest rattlesnake what ever been killed up heah in Lincoln County! One mawnin – Ah do believe it wur las Septembuh – he whur headed fo wuk down to Shapiro’s meat packin plant down yonder in Augusta when dis here rattlesnake crawled into dis road rightchere. Bo – he be my bruther – slammed on his brakes and tried to kill Mr. Rattlesnake, but dat only made him madder’n a wet hen! Dat snake threw hisself into a qurl and started to singin. Ole Bo he be lucky he had his ole 410 in de back o dis car. He shot de snake in de hed and brung him back to sho me. When he opened de trunk Ah dang neah went into a swoon. Dat snake he were a MAN! He looked lik he been eatin plenty o possums and rabbits. Ah do believe he wuh big enough to swaller a coon. So mistuh, ole Jake don’t wanna tend to yo bidness none, but you sho outta be careful around dis place heah. Dat ole big snake has a momma ‘roun heah fo sho’, ‘an you sho don’t wanna be bit by no snake dat big!“

 
Fighting back tears, the Arrowflinger thanked Jake for his advice. He got into his car and drove away. It was hoped that he did not look into his rear view mirror. The Arrowflinger collapsed, howling, before he got out of sight. The sores on his tongue went away after about a week. He never thought that a dead snake would cause such an uproar and exaggeration. The Arrowflinger even heard about, “Dat big rattlesnake ole Bo kilt‘ up at the local store one morning.”
 
Could this be what happened with the Mars rock?***
A.G.

Special Report: Heerily Missing

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Friday, July 6, 2012

Augusta, GA

By Lori Davis

The photo above shows the floor of the Harrison Building, the old brick building shell preserved as an entrance to the TEE Center. This picture was taken on June 7, 2012, during a TEE Center hardhat tour by Convention and Visitor’s Bureau chief Barry White and Heery International’s Jacques Ware.

Heery is the program manager for the City of Augusta’s hundreds of millions of dollars in sales tax funded building project and Jacques Ware is the Heery project manager over the TEE Center.

Below is a photo of the TEE Center Exhibition Hall, the enormous 38,000 square foot open room that is to house the trade shows and various TEE Center exhibitions.

At the time of the tour, the CVB folks excitedly made the point that the floor was going to be poured the next week. This was on June 7.

Interesting.

R.W. Allen LLC’s progress billing number 24, through March 29, 2012 (Page 4, Item 10) shows that two whole months earlier, an incredible 84% of the concrete walls and slabs

were complete!

How can this be? The main exhibit hall room is a staggeringly large percentage of the total concrete slabs on the project. How can 84% of the slabs and walls have been complete back in March when the main floor was still dirt?

Isn’t Augusta put at risk, when subcontractors are paid so far in advance of the work performed? Isn’t the previously noted issue of $1.4 million of kitchen equipment that was paid for a nonexistent kitchen proof that Heery is just rubber stamping contract payments?

Let me see now. The commission relies on Fred Russell, who relies on Heery, who apparently sees construction completed that just isn’t there.

Unreliable fits and this time, it will be set in concrete…….eventually.***

L.D.

Augusta Being ‘Swept’ for $67,260?

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Mr. Simon, Backcharge your Attorney $67,260 

Friday, July 6, 2012
Augusta, GA
By Kurt Huttar
Mr. Paul Simon of Augusta Riverfront, LLC dutifully submitted a 2012 Operating Budget and Capital Budget to the City of Augusta early in the year, as required by the proposed Reynolds Street Parking Deck Management agreement. Included was the cost of a parking deck sweeper.

Houston, we have a problem. You see, the proposed management agreement only allows capital expenditures under pretty limited circumstances. It reads like this – “Capital Improvements” (Capital expenditures) shall mean one or more items or project(s) – i) the cost of each of which totals $5,000.00 or more, ii) that becomes part of the RSPD, and iii) the cost of which is required or allowed to be capitalized under the accounting guidelines of Augusta, Georgia and GAAP.

Since the sweeper is a piece of mobile equipment, it cannot be “part of the RSPD,” can it?

Hopefully, Augusta Riverfront, LLC has not purchased this sweeper under its interim agreement, because if it has, some citizen might demand Augusta’s money back from this purchase, as it is not allowed.

Since taxes and freight of 14% were added to the $59,000 estimated cost, the total would be $67,260.

Since Augusta Riverfront lawyers missed this point, shouldn’t Mr. Simon bill them for this cost?

For another thing, won’t this sweeper be used over in the TEE Center Parking Deck, where Augusta Riverfront is leasing the parking deck? Doesn’t it create an accounting conflict to have 100% of the cost of the sweeper born by the Reynolds Street Parking Deck, which is totally funded by city taxpayers, instead of the TEE Center Deck?

Here is one analyst who wants answers.***

K.H.

RSPD Capital Equipment List

Breathtaking Events Engulfed Jonah

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Three Gulps

Sunday July 1, 2012
Augusta, GA
By Al Gray

Early last month, big government looked to strike again. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City proposed banning big sugary drinks with the hope of saving us from obesity and diabetes at our own hands. The Big Gulp came to mind for we know that staple of decades, an oversized 7-11 beverage, pretty well. A Big Gulp is the very definition of gluttony. Saint Thomas Aquinas said this about the matter – “Gluttony denotes, not any desire of eating and drinking, but an inordinate desire … leaving the order of reason, wherein the good of moral virtue consists.”

Jonah was a glutton for punishment, the fish that swallowed him was a glutton for a big gulp, and these days we all are gluttons for pushing a failed society beyond all bounds of prudent. Jonah might have wished that a commandment from a leader like Mayor Bloomberg carried the authority to save him from himself or hide him from the Lord. It wasn’t going to work that way.

Our scripture for today is Jonah Chapter 2. Jonah rebelled against the Lord’s instruction to go to Nineveh; he had gulped at the prospect to preaching to imaginably hostile crowds. Then the fish gulped down Jonah. In chapter 2 we read of Jonah gulping in anguish at being separated from the light of the world and the light of God. We get a sense of Jonah’s reality check at the seriousness of his position and his new-found faith that got him out of it.

2 1 From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. 2 He said:

“In my distress I called to the Lord,
and he answered me.
From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help,
and you listened to my cry.
3 You hurled me into the depths,
into the very heart of the seas,
and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
swept over me.
4 I said, ‘I have been banished
from your sight;
yet I will look again
toward your holy temple.’
5 The engulfing waters threatened me,
the deep surrounded me;
seaweed was wrapped around my head.
6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you, Lord my God,
brought my life up from the pit.

7 “When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered you, Lord,
and my prayer rose to you,
to your holy temple.

8 “Those who cling to worthless idols
turn away from God’s love for them.
9 But I, with shouts of grateful praise,
will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’”

10 And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

There are trinities all through the Bible.  The Book of Jonah is the story of the Three Gulps. The first gulp was one caused by Jonah’s imagination of the indifference, ridicule, and hostility he might receive at the hands of a foreign people, amongst crowds of strangers. Most folks we know are like that. They will do anything to avoid speaking in public, about anything, much less preaching about the one Lord in a pagan land.

The second gulp was that of the fish swallowing Jonah. While we can be sure the Lord summoned the great fish for the purpose of bringing obedience to Jonah, we can also imagine that a fish large enough to swallow a man would have a Big Gulp out of natural proximity to prey not too big to swallow.

It was the third gulp of realization in this story that is the most important. Gulping can be out of apprehension of the imagined, such as the prospect of preaching to a novice; it can be a physical act of taking an inordinate swallow, as the fish exhibited; and it can arise at a sudden very real assault on the senses, as the near-drowning, then engulfment of Jonah. There was a sudden need for breath, a desperation causing panicked swallowing of nothing but stale air. Then came realization, not just of his predicament of being in the belly of a fish, but the recognition of how wrong, sinful, and dismissive of God he had been, not just in avoiding Nineveh, but all through his life.

Lastly, the third gulp brought redemption. Jonah made peace with the Lord and promised to follow his commands, after his emotions had ranged from despair to calm assurance in the Lord’s presence and forgiveness.

Are we in this day and age so jaded, so conceited, and so consumed with gluttony from constant immersion in this corrupt society that it will take a massive shock to our senses to bring us to the conclusions to which Jonah was brought? Let us pray to the Lord that we might be mindful of the story of Jonah.

Three gulps there were. One arose from imagination. One arose from the aggressive gluttony of another, albeit that of a fish. One arose from physical assault on a fragile human body.

Mayor Bloomberg cannot save New Yorkers from a Big Gulp, nor can President Obama and Congress spare the American people. There will be no deliverance. Yet there will be redemption for those who believe in our Lord Jesus Christ.

No one had greater trials than Jonah, Job and Moses. Let us pray that, should the time come, the Lord will give us their

perseverance and focus on Him.***
A.G.