Is This Detroit Or Swaziland?

Perhaps you remember the episode of Monica Esters Conyers, councilwoman extroidinaire in Detroit, as she tried to shout down the council meeting then scream that she ain't "gonna be disrespected". In case you don't, here's a little refresher:



Now here's a story about her brother, violent felon Reggie Esters, and how Monica committed abuse of power to have him hired under fraudulent means, then laughingly try to deny relation to him when confronted by a reporter. She has the intellect of a child. A stupid, savage child, at that:

Conyers Got Ex-con Brother City Job

Building official says councilwoman recommended him; she denies it
David Josar / The Detroit News

Detroit --A top city official says City Council President Monica Conyers pulled strings to get her brother, an ex-con with a violent record, a job in the building department that was to last only 120 days but was extended for two years.

"She came up to me, handed me his resume and said 'You should hire him. He's a good guy,' " said Amru Meah, director of Building & Safety Engineering.

Reggie Esters, 38, was fired from the $30,500 job last summer on claims of chronic absenteeism. About the same time, he was charged with 10 felonies stemming from allegations he brandished a shotgun at two people, according to court records. He pleaded guilty to one count and faces sentencing April 17.

Records obtained this week by The Detroit News show Esters submitted a resume showing he worked continuously for two construction firms from 1999 to 2006. State records show he was incarcerated for assault and weapons charges for much of that time.

Meah said Conyers wanted her brother hired as a $50,000 inspector, but he wasn't qualified and wouldn't pass a license exam. Instead, he was hired as an investigator who checked if businesses are properly licensed.

Conyers, whose maiden name is Esters, said Meah is wrong. She denied that Esters is her brother, despite papers filed in Wayne County Probate Court in 1976 that identify them as siblings with the same parents, Robert H. and Alice Esters.

"I have no idea what Mr. Meah is talking about," Conyers said.

Calls to Marlon Evans, Esters' attorney, were not returned.

The city has no rules against hiring felons and Meah said he didn't know of Esters' record until a reporter told him about it Thursday.

"Human Resources is supposed to check that," he said.

Daniel Cherrin, spokesman for Mayor Kenneth Cockrel Jr., said Esters' position did not require a background check although Human Resources "looks for inconsistencies and other red flags."

Esters' resume "was reviewed and he met the minimum requirement for the position," Cherrin said, but added that the person who headed Human Resources a the time, James Tyler, an appointee of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, was fired shortly after Cockrel took office.

Cherrin did not know if any references were checked. None was listed on Esters' application.

According to records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Human Resources fast-tracked Esters' hire as a commercial and residential investigator after Meah wrote that there was an "immediate need" to fill the position.

"Mr. Esters has the experience that we require for this position. Please see attached resume for your review," Meah wrote in an Oct. 27, 2006, letter to Tyler. Conyers was elected to the panel 11 months before.

Meah said he fired Esters last summer after he was repeatedly missing from work.

"I said, 'He's not around. Fire him,' " he said.

A provisional employee does not get benefits and can be terminated at any time.

Esters, who records indicate is one of Conyers' three brothers, has been arrested at least 14 times since 1988, when he pleaded guilty to shoplifting in Redford Township and was put on probation for one year. In 1990, he was charged with first-degree murder but was acquitted after a jury trial. In 1998, he pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed weapon, according to Wayne Circuit Court records.

On his one-page resume, Esters stated that he had graduated from MacKenzie High School in 1988 and had worked as a "FORMAN" for Jenkins Construction in Detroit from 2000 to 2006 with responsibilities that included "Plan, organize and manage the overall construction development."

But on Sept. 20, 2001, Esters was incarcerated by the Michigan Department of Corrections after he pleaded guilty to assault with intent to cause great bodily harm and being a felon in possession of a weapon. He began his sentence in prison but was then transferred to a boot camp until he was released on May 30, 2006.

That was about the time Meah said Conyers approached him about finding a job for her brother.

Esters was reappointed five times to the post even though he had signed a statement saying he knew the job would last 120 days.

The practice is not uncommon in Detroit. (source)

Here's a funny cartoon someone produced and put up on youtube:

Barry In Charge: “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks”

It's dizzying, isn't it? Barry and his ACORN thugs blackmailed the biggest banks to make cancerous loans in the 90's, then after it all catches up with the real estate industry/lending institutions with a thunderous crashing of the DOW, Barry has the audacity to point a finger at the men who are left standing.

This no class, Chicago-style mafia don is fooling no one but the idiots in our country who don't pay attention to what's going on around them. But, unfortunately, it is just those miscreants in our midst who will take to the streets in demand of Barry's form of "social justice".

And when they start throwing bricks through shop windows and at truck driver's heads, it will be up to us to correct their thinking. And, of course, we will have the MSM's cameras only showing pictures of our answer to their mayhem. We will be portrayed as "racists" for trying to stem this flow.

The picture is getting more bleak every day.

You can read Barry's latest outrage here.

Ann Coulter Can Get Between Friends...And So Be It

Two months ago, I received a letter in my Myspace inbox. It was an insulting criticism of Ann Coulter, whom I list there as one of my heroes. I didn't respond to it then, because I considered it not worth my time. Plus, I live with my pre-Alzhiemer's grandmother. (she has dementia, and was diagnosed with atrophy of the brain 6 years ago. She's 86 now) Some days are worse than others, and lately they haven't been very good. So I just didn't have the energy or care to deal with it at the time.

But just the other day, I did respond to it. Keep in mind that the sender was anonymous, as the Myspace account he/she sent it from didn't say the real name of the sender, and there were no pictures visible to identify them.

Here's the entire email exchange:

From: [witheld]
To: John Galt
Date: Feb 14, 2009 7:01 AM
Subject: Ann Coulter, hero?


WTF are you thinking?
...are you thinking?

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From: John Galt
To: [witheld]
Date: Mar 30, 2009 2:09 AM
Subject: RE: Ann Coulter, hero?


Perhaps you always start off conversations with insults, I don't know. What I do know is why I have the principles and standards I possess after 42 years of experience. After reading your page, I can tell that your life isn't like mine, and I'm not surprised that you have trouble greeting people with a zen-like lack of assumptions.

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From: [witheld]
To: John Galt
Date: Mar 31, 2009 8:48 PM
Subject: RE: Ann Coulter, hero?


Damn John, I obviously hit a nerve.
You can take that as an insult, or a joke or you can take it as a question - whichever frame of reference dominates your thoughts.
I can't imagine Ann Coulter and "principles" even being in the same room. Her best attack is the ad hominem and she never backs up her arguments. She gets eaten alive every time there is a debate. Anyone who says the war in Iraq is going "swimingly" should be sent to Iraq to experience just how swimingly it is going.
You don't have to automatically think that a disagreement is an insult, do you? Old friend.

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From: John Galt
To: [witheld]
Date: Mar 31, 2009 11:00 PM
Subject: RE: Ann Coulter, hero?


Whoever you are,
You didn't hit a nerve as much as you swerved into something you weren't prepared for. There's a difference.

Judging by your silly estimation of Ann Coulter, I'd say that I hit a nerve with you, without even trying.

If indeed you are an old friend of mine, why don't you:
A) Know me better than to assume that I am a person who doesn't think about what I say/print ("WTF are you thinking?
...are you thinking?") before I say/print it? [It is insulting to me to start a conversation off with a stupid assumption about me such as what you did.]
B) Reveal yourself and try to show some social graces by starting a friendly conversation instead of the way you did?

The reason you can't imagine "Ann Coulter and "principles" being in the same room" [whatever that means] is because you take soundbites as a full disclosure of her thoughts. (you even got the famous off-handed remark about "swimmingly" wrong. If you care to know what the actual quote was, I suggest you look it up before launching into a half-baked rant. But, then again, why let the facts get in your way?)

I recommend that you actually pick up a book before you try to argue with me about her. Give it a try--it won't hurt. You may even learn something about her standards.

Having been a fan of hers since before she wrote her first book almost ten years ago, I have watched nearly every tv appearance she's ever been on. What you may consider to be an actual "debate", while she's trying to promote one of her latest books on one of the network pablum shows, doesn't qualify as an Oxford-style debate, or any kind of true debate, for that matter. Idiot "gotcha" talking heads couldn't hold a candle to her intellect, but they constantly scream and throw irrelevant arguments at her disguised as "questions". If you think that serves as genuine research into Ann's legal mind (she graduated from law school and was a legal clerk for a federal judge before becoming a writer...but you probably think that you could do the same, I'm sure), then you are obviously incapable of having an open mind.

"You don't have to automatically think that a disagreement is an insult, do you?" I wouldn't know. You haven't really given me a solid "disagreement" to go on. You just asked me if I was "thinking". Do you understand the difference?

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From: [witheld]
To: John Galt
Date: Apr 1, 2009 7:11 AM
Subject: RE: Ann Coulter, hero?

Anger is the most dangerous of all delusions. ;0)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Galt
To: [witheld]
Date: Apr 1, 2009 2:27 PM
Subject: RE: Ann Coulter, hero?


You should remember that when sending anonymous letters to old "friends".

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From: [witheld]
To: John Galt
Date: Apr 1, 2009 3:23 PM
Subject: RE: Ann Coulter, hero?


I thought you were my friend. Friend.
How many more buttons can I push before this get too boring? Let's see...is Ann Coulter still practicing law or did she quit because she was too easily flustered when confronted? Check out the YouTube videos, she got her lunch eaten more than once. You are guaranteed to find the one in which she claimed the war to be progressing "swimmingly." As I said before, her best attack is the logical fallacy, "ad hominem" - calling her enemies "godless" and such. To publicly say the widows of 911 victims are taking the government for a ride was unskillful at best and in reality, downright malicious.
I never attacked you and as far as disagreements, the one you said you missed is this: I'm sure Ann Coulter is a self-righteous, over-confident phoney and you think she's a hero.
Once again, I NEVER attacked you, I asked you a question. If you look back OBJECTIVELY you'll see this. Concerning the "rant," in comparison to my text, the pathetic appeal and verbosity of your disourse far exceeds mine. I wish you peace, health and happiness, old friend.
Smile man, life is too short to get pissed off over Ann Coulter. Aristotle as a hero, I can understand.
Doug Smith

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When sending this last note above, he finally revealed his identity. It was a dear old friend of mine I've known since high school, 25 years ago. Me, him, and about two other guys rode the roads a lot, partied a lot, and considered each other a tight bunch of friends. I won't bore you with every conversation we had even later through the years, but it suffices to say that we are (were?) old friends with deep ties.

Besides the above last email from "Doug", he simultaneously also sent this, separate email:

From: [witheld]
To: John Galt
Date: Apr 1, 2009 3:33 PM
Subject: By the way

Hope I didn't piss you off too badly!
Playing anoymous stalker was kind of fun...you know...remember the girl from the trailer park...I'M KIDDING!!

Pretty wild huh? Why would an old friend start off a conversation the way he did [anonymously] above? It bothered me a bit, I have to admit. I hadn't talked to "Doug" in 10 years, and this seemed like not only an odd way to rekindle a conversation with someone you call an "old friend", but kind of a hateful way to do it.

I mean, we're all a little older these days, life isn't always a bowl of cherries for all of us, and it seems only thoughtful and respectful to start conversations with someone who is dear to you in a friendly way.

But, that's how I was raised. I guess not everyone sees a need to be that way with people you call friends. They can make an opening stab at you, then say, "Why are you mad? You must have a problem!"

So, now that I finally knew to whom I was speaking, I first sent back this response:

To:

[witheld]

Date:

Apr 1, 2009 11:07 PM

Subject:

RE: By the way

Doug!
Good to hear from you, man! I've thought of you often over the years and wondered how you were doing. I hope all is well your way. I'm glad to see that you found someone who makes you happy and centered.

The last time we spoke was...ten years ago, wasn't it? I remember that you were making frequent trips to Indian spiritual centers for growth and well-being. I always respected that about you. Plus our long friendship.

As far as piss me off, no "you" didn't. The anonymous person I was speaking to seemed to forget the old adage, "ask a smartass question, get a smartass answer", because he started off with no indication that he was kidding or serious or what by asking, "what the fuck were you thinking...are you thinking?"

But I see that you just wrote me another letter, explaining what you meant by the first, anonymous letter. I guess being a stalker is fun. I never tried that with people I call friends.

By the way, what girl in the trailer park? (there were so many, lol)

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And then I followed up on his previous letter with this:

To:

[witheld]

Date:

Apr 1, 2009 11:18 PM

Subject:

RE: Ann Coulter, hero?

"How many more buttons can I push before this get too boring?" I don't know--you started it. I hope you get bored with it soon.

"is Ann Coulter still practicing law or did she quit because she was too easily flustered when confronted?" Gosh, Doug, is that the best you can come up with? And you went to Oxford???

"Check out the YouTube videos, she got her lunch eaten more than once." That should make a peace-loving spiritualist like yourself happy then, right?

"You are guaranteed to find the one in which she claimed the war to be progressing "swimmingly."" But you said that the "swimmingly" comment was about Iraq. If I concede your point that she said "swimmingly", will you admit that you were wrong about the war to which she was referring?

I know you seem upset that someone might make a glib comment about a war in a hostile interview like Ann must go through in order to promote any one of her 7 best-selling books...but why do you get so mad? Don't you know that life is too short to get mad about Ann Coulter? Why do you watch her appearances if she makes you so angry? Are you taking any medication for this? You know, the hospitals are full of people who insist on doing things that make themselves upset. I thought you had more Zen-like peace inside yourself than that, Doug.

"As I said before, her best attack is the logical fallacy, "ad hominem" - calling her enemies "godless" and such." One would only think that her "best attack" is the ad hominem if you only watched a few of the "gotcha" interviews [do you know what that means, by the way? Have you ever been in a situation where the interviewer is trying to make you look a certain way? You seem to be stuck on stupid, here, my friend.
Those "ad hominems" are buzzwords to smoke out the brainwashed out there--those watching her on tv instead of reading. You see, "Godless" is only a title of a book--not the only arrow in her quiver. It refers to the liberal left and the way that they ridicule those of us who believe in a god creator. I guess you'd have to be one of those "readers" to know that, though. She throws them out to the delight of those fellow travelers like myself who have read her, and to the shrieks and squeals of the less tuned-in] in which she appears.

By the way, here's a link to a recent CSPAN Booknotes interview: http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/includes/templates/lib
rary/flash_popup.php?pID=284311-2&clipStart=&clipStop=

I know, I know...you've already got your mind made up about Ann and you only prefer to watch her in settings with interviewers who hate her, so that she looks like she has her "lunch handed to her". But, I'm a friend of yours, Doug, and I prefer to answer your questions in a respectful way. I take you and your remarks to me seriously, and as a show of thoughtful respect, I try to answer you honestly and unassumingly instead of just throwing out words that I'll regret later, like: what the fuck were you thinking...are you thinking?

"To publicly say the widows of 911 victims are taking the government for a ride was unskillful at best and in reality, downright malicious." She didn't say "the widows of 911 victims", Doug. She said the "Jersey Girls". See, the Jersey Girls were a subset of the widows of 911 victims--in other words, not all of the widows of 911 victims. Just the 4 who were trying to use their status in order to elect John Kerry and advance the conspiracy theory that Bush caused 911.

If it even matters to you, Doug, Ann had this quote about the 911 victims widows: "I feel sorry for all the widows of 9/11...[but] I do not believe that sanctifies their political message....They have attacked Bush, they have attacked Condoleezza Rice, they're cutting campaign commercials for Kerry. But we can't respond because their husbands died . . . I think it's one of the ugliest things the left has done...this idea that you need some sort of personal authenticity in order to make a political point..."

Now, speaking of authenticity, I know that you said something you believed about the war in Iraq, and how someone needs to go there before saying something about it.

Have you ever been in the military, Doug? Have you ever participated in a war? Take it from someone who wore the uniform as an infantryman paratrooper during both peacetime and Iraqi wartime: you don't understand war or those who participated in it if you insist she has to be in Iraq because she talks about Iraq, good or bad. I fought to give you the freedom to make your comments, and Ann's as well.

But you're apparently like a lot of other civilians who talk loud about it but never volunteered to do it. I've seen a LOT of them since I came back from the war. They always disappoint me, and I'm sorry that you turned out this way, too, Doug. Again, I wish you didn't have so much anger and hostility in your heart.

But I guess I'm being too "verbose" by going to this length to tell you that I still think of you as a friend, and I don't mind answering your opening question, "what the fuck are you thinking...are you thinking?"

"I never attacked you and as far as disagreements..." Doug, I never used such charged words as "attacked". I know what a real attack is. You didn't attack me. You started off the entire conversation with me with: what the fuck were you thinking...are you thinking? Again, I responded honestly to you , Doug--I said that was insulting. There's a difference between an "attack" and being "insulting".

"...the one you said you missed is this: I'm sure Ann Coulter is a self-righteous, over-confident phoney and you think she's a hero." There. Isn't that a lot better? You expressed specific feelings about Ann to me. If this had been the way you started our conversation, I wouldn't have perceived it as if it was just what it was: an insulting assumption of "what the fuck were you thinking...are you thinking?" That doesn't sound anything like what you finally offered here, after how many anonymous letters?

"Concerning the "rant," in comparison to my text, the pathetic appeal and verbosity of your disourse far exceeds mine." I can tell that you're a real truth-seeker, Doug. All I can say is, "I'm sorry" that I have angered you. I hope my "pathetic" thoughts and heartfelt response doesn't upset all of that peace and harmony in your heart. I never knew how deeply you care about friendship.

"Aristotle as a hero, I can understand." Identifying someone as a hero is a personal thing. Because of where I've been and what I've seen in my life, I recognize heroes of many sorts. One might even see a hero for spiritual reasons. One thing I don't do is ridicule someone else for their spirituality. I still think we'll be judged one day by the way we treat/talk to others. Anonymous or not.

Zeituni Onyango: Illegal Alien From Kenya Who Keeps Resisting Deportation

This story stinks to high heaven. When you think about how much Barry and Michelle and Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers and Father Phleagar all run this great country down, you would think that they would tell their loved ones to "stay away" from our racist nation.

But no.

Obama's aunt, Zeituni Onyango, has been living here illegally since 2000, and what's even worse is, she has received FREE HEALTH CARE (hip replacement, costing tens of thousands dollars, at least).

How ironic. I'm a war veteran, proudly served 5 years honorably in the Army for this nation, and even I wouldn't qualify for a free hip replacement. The VA now means-tests us veterans (war vet or not). I don't make over 35,000/yr, but that is too much to be treated in the VA for free.

When I was released from service after Persian Gulf I, the Army debriefers told us all, "Don't let anyone tell you that you won't have free health care for the rest of your life: you earned it." Well, seven years later, when my lower back was finally too much for me to ignore anymore, I had to go to the only doctor I could afford--the VA. They x-rayed me (charged me over 50 dollars for the screen), and said that my slipped disc and pinched nerve required back surgery.

I couldn't afford it, and said no. I live with the pain still, ten years after that. I've decided that I will deal with it until it cripples me. I do exercises to strengthen the muscles around those discs, but the pain is still there. Especially in the mornings, of course.

When I was in college, I paid my own way during the community college years. Then, when I had to enroll in a 4-yr state university to complete my bachelor's degree, I didn't earn enough in my radio career to pay for it. So I did the financial aid route. Of course I tried for ALL of the grants/scholarships that I could get. But being a white male, single, and an honorable war vet wasn't good enough to receive any. Would you know that I couldn't even get a Pell grant?

If you didn't know, Pell grants are given to almost anyone--even prisoners. It isn't much, (maybe a thousand dollars a year, back then. Ohio University cost 10,000/yr back then--off campus), but it would have helped, of course. Even though I served my country honorably, then was recalled back in for a war (which many vets didn't do when ordered), I still was told "no" for a Pell grant.

They told me that the income cut-off for a single man was $10,700/yr in order to qualify to receive that Pell grant. Well, I missed it by 200 dollars. Yep, as a full-time radio announcer, I was pulling in 10,900/yr in 1994, and they told me that I was making enough to pay my own tuition.

So, of course, I had to go on government loans for my college undergrad tuition. And I did. To this day, I still owe the government on those student loans. I graduated in 1996.

I'm just an honest war veteran. I'm not Zeituni Onyango, illegal alien from Kenya. She deserves free health care, not me, I guess. And if you try to tell me that she's only getting that special treatment because she's the president's aunt, that isn't very consoling. After all, she's been here illegally since 2000. Barry wasn't in national politics at that time. That's just our system. It was grown this way by the liberal "progressives" since the New Deal and the Great Society.

And the evil in a system that rewards people like Zeituni Onyango and leaves war veterans in pain every day because I am too honest to lie on the government forms and play the system like so many do, is why I think like I do. It is why I'm a Conservative. And it is why I fight the good fight.

Barry In Charge: Don't Think We're Not Keeping Score, Brother

Well, the honeymoon period is nearing its end. At least in Congress, among the Democrats, that is. See, they're worried about the administration's monstrous debt and government takeover, like us regular citizens are. The legislators have to face us for re-election pretty soon, you see.

Barry's approval rating for his stimulus packages is starting to wane. According to a recent Gallup poll, Obama's plan for economic recovery has dropped five points. How many Americans actually support it? Only 39%. Yet he plans even more disastrous spending and debt creation.

Hell, he even had Tim Geitner, tax cheat #1 in Barry's cabinet, go out and tell the world that more ceo's may lose their job at the Barry's hands. The Bolshevik revolution is just getting warmed up, apparently.

Now that he's seized control, he doesn't need a honeymoon period, of course.

But he does need his brown shirts to knock heads and canvass the neighborhood. Just recently, he sent out 13 million requests to the drones who have actually signed up for his Organizing for America. This is a special wing of the DNC, created to "persuade" us to get in line and support his (5-yr) plans.

Unfortunately, only 5% of those faithful drones re-pledged by answering his call-to-arms. Somehow, the luster is wearing off this tin pot dictator's charms. Either that, or his Democrat minions were too busy getting high and playing Grand Theft Auto IV.

So Barry is having to get a little rougher. He called in to his office one of the Democrat congressmen who actually had the temerity to vote against The Chosen One's latest stimulus package. It was Rep. Peter DeFazio, and Barry told him, in perfect Chicago-style political parlance, "Don't think we're not keeping score, brother."

You can read the story here.

When The Socialists Turn On The Communists

I wouldn't believe it if it wasn't staring me in the face. There is actually sympathy for GM CEO Rick Wagoner after Barry fired him by who?

THE UNIONS!

It turns out that the UAW local 602 has actually turned on their "worker's paradise" president, Barry O. Read about it here.

Ann Coulter's Guilty: Ann Finally Gets A Real Interview

Barry In Charge: Yet Another Cabinet Member Is A Tax Cheat

I believe this makes the total four. Or is it five? So hard to keep up, you know. When you're a Harvard grad, you're smart in all things except for ethics, apparently. Barry has been in office for barely 60 days, and he is showing us what it means to have the most ethical administration this country has ever seen.

Or so he told us for two years while he was lying, er, I mean, campaigning.

Governor Sebelius was Barry's pick for HHS. She took it gleefully, thinking that the press and a waiting nation would let her 7,000 dollars in unpaid taxes slide. And for a while, they did. But the web of lies catches up with all of us, even The Chosen One.

Read about Barry's latest tax cheat here.

When Drunk Car Salesmen Loose Their Jobs

Barry In Charge: Turning American Corporations Into Welfare Agencies

GM auto workers watch as Obama announces GM program for paying car bills for out-of-work customers.

The amount of fear in our free market leaders is very disturbing. In just 60 days, this administration has crippled the titans of industry. Would any of you have predicted that Ford and GM would pay your car payments before this Trotskyite was elected?

When 911 hit, and the economy was similarly affected, the big three started their 0 interest programs as a measure to stave off the lack of sales. It was only supposed to be on select models, and only for a brief window of time until the economy rebounded. I remember then thinking how desperate these merchants appeared to be.

In retrospect, that was nothing compared to what they are doing now. These entities aren’t “companies” anymore. They are welfare agents, plain and simple.

Goodbye, America, as we have always known it. Read about it here.