The Exaggerator

Incidental #1,298

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:45:00 GMT

PERHAPS THERE IS A BIT OF IRONIC RELEVANCE IN THE SPECIMEN OF "ENGRISH," VIA ROME'S SUBWAY, LEADING OFF THIS POST TODAY: Entrecard, as is normally responsible for the lion's share of the weblog traffic, had technical problems yesterday as made them unavailable to many of the regular visitors here.

In any case, the problems have since been rectified, and Your Correspondent regrets any inconvenience suffered.

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NEWS WHICH CERTAIN MISGUIDED "PATRIOTS" AND "TRUE AMERICANS" IN OUR "MORALLY SUPERIOR" UNITED STATES WOULD CERTAINLY TAKE TO HEART, by way of the BBC:

Tens of thousands of people in Mali's capital, Bamako, have been protesting against a new law which gives women equal rights in marriage.

The law, passed earlier this month, also strengthens inheritance rights for women and children born out of wedlock.

The head of a Muslim women's association says only a minority of Malian women - "the intellectuals" as she put it - supports the law.

Several other protests have taken place in other parts of the country.

The law was adopted by the Malian parliament at the beginning of August, and has yet to be signed into force by the president.

One of the most contentious issues in the new legislation is that women are no longer required to obey their husbands.

Hadja Sapiato Dembele of the National Union of Muslim Women's Associations said the law goes against Islamic principles.

"We have to stick to the Koran," Ms Dembele told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme. "A man must protect his wife, a wife must obey her husband."

"It's a tiny minority of women here that wants this new law - the intellectuals. The poor and illiterate women of this country - the real Muslims - are against it," she added.

Is it any wonder that the Fox Prolefeed crowd is all the more insistent that law and public policy in our "morally superior" United States be based on what they regard as "Christian Principles" which, when read between the lines, may not really be Christian after all (especially so the sort as excuse sexism, racism, homophobia, xenophobia and "social parasitism")?

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THE OFFICIAL DAILY GAZETTA OF THE YOUTH LEAGUE OF CUBA'S COMMUNIST PARTY GOES BY THE NAME OF JUVENTUD REBELDE, which can be translated loosely as "Young Revolution" (although @ least one online translator I used gives "Rebellious Youth" as the English translation).

Over the weekend, said Juventud Rebelde published what are officially claimed to be photos of former Cuban Communist leader Fidel Castro meeting with Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa; later on, Cuban state television showed footage claiming to show Fidel meeting with Venezuelan law students on a goodwill mission.

All expected to strengthen National Unity and Cohesion, methinks, in the mindset of the "Great Within" in Havana.

Never mind the prospect of the real Fidel Castro (who turned over the reins of power last summer to his son, Raul, in a fit of ill health) perhaps being in a super-secret polyclinic and rather ill all the more, with a lookee-likee for Fidel being used to create the illusion thereof.

As Your Correspondent has been suspecting all this while.

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IT LOOKS AS THOUGH THE SUSPICIONS OF WHOLESALE FRAUD, CORRUPTION AND INTIMIDATION IN LAST WEEK'S AFGHANI PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS may be valid enough for the Electoral Commission to take action on some 225 complaints so directed in this regard.

Especially considering the likelihood of electoral fraud and irregularities potentially impacting the final vote count.

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"YOUNG PEOPLE HAD BETTER NOT GET MARRIED WITH LITTLE MONEY," according to Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso (Liberal Democrats) in a stump speech heading into to Sunday's elections for the Japanese Diet that could see the Liberal Democrats (who, ideologically, are quite the antithesis of that implied by their name and stylee) heading for a major crash-and-burn.

Which, in any case, is the latest in what seems like a recurring string of foot-in-mouth gaffes that are making Japanese voters uneasy (and then some) about the long-standing quasi-monopoly on power held by the Liberal Democrats--in this case, alluding to recently-passed labour law reforms allowing employers to hire workers on short-term Independent Contracts which may be unstable @ best vis-a-vis job and career prospects for the newly-unemployed and those as have left school and are only now entering the job market, not to mention pay levels.

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NEWS THAT CERTAIN HYPERCONSERVATIVE ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS SEEING CHILD LABOUR LAWS AS "OUTDATED, INEFFECTIVE AND COUNTERPRODUCTIVE" (among other specimens of legislation along such perceived lines in our "morally superior" United States) may want to think about:

Plan International, a child-welfare organisation, has come out with a report as finds where Malawian children working on tobacco farms there (some as young as eight!) wind up getting as much nicotine as an average smoker gets from smoking 50 cigarettes or 10 cigarillos.

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CERTAIN RIGHT-WING GROUPS, ESPECIALLY THOSE ON THE "PATRIOT" RIGHT, ARE NOT GOING TO LIKE THE FOLLOWING NEWS, by way of the BBC:

People with conditions such as HIV, TB and malaria should not rely on homeopathic treatments, the World Health Organization has warned.

It was responding to calls from young researchers who fear the promotion of homeopathy in the developing world could put people's lives at risk.

The group Voice of Young Science Network has written to health ministers to set out the WHO view.

However practitioners said there were areas where homeopathy could help.

In a letter to the WHO in June, the medics from the UK and Africa said: "We are calling on the WHO to condemn the promotion of homeopathy for treating TB, infant diarrhoea, influenza, malaria and HIV.

"Homeopathy does not protect people from, or treat, these diseases.

"Those of us working with the most rural and impoverished people of the world already struggle to deliver the medical help that is needed.

"When homeopathy stands in place of effective treatment, lives are lost."

Dr Robert Hagan is a researcher in biomolecular science at the University of St Andrews and a member of Voice of Young Science Network, which is part of the charity Sense About Science campaigning for "evidence-based" care.

He said: "We need governments around the world to recognise the dangers of promoting homeopathy for life-threatening illnesses.

"We hope that by raising awareness of the WHO's position on homeopathy we will be supporting those people who are taking a stand against these potentially disastrous practices."

'No evidence'

Dr Mario Raviglione, director of the Stop TB department at the WHO, said: "Our evidence-based WHO TB treatment/management guidelines, as well as the International Standards of Tuberculosis Care do not recommend use of homeopathy."

The doctors had also complained that homeopathy was being promoted as a treatment for diarrhoea in children.

But a spokesman for the WHO department of child and adolescent health and development said: "We have found no evidence to date that homeopathy would bring any benefit.

"Homeopathy does not focus on the treatment and prevention of dehydration - in total contradiction with the scientific basis and our recommendations for the management of diarrhoea."

Dr Nick Beeching, a specialist in infectious diseases at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, said: "Infections such as malaria, HIV and tuberculosis all have a high mortality rate but can usually be controlled or cured by a variety of proven treatments, for which there is ample experience and scientific trial data.

"There is no objective evidence that homeopathy has any effect on these infections, and I think it is irresponsible for a healthcare worker to promote the use of homeopathy in place of proven treatment for any life-threatening illness."

Homework

However Paula Ross, chief executive of the Society of Homeopaths, said it was right to raise concerns about promotion of homeopathy as a cure for TB, malaria or HIV and Aids.

But she added: "This is just another poorly wrapped attempt to discredit homeopathy by Sense About Science.

"The irony is that in their efforts to promote evidence in medicine, they have failed to do their own homework.

"There is a strong and growing evidence base for homeopathy and most notably, this also includes childhood diarrhoea."

The UK's Faculty of Homeopathy added that there was also evidence homeopathy could help people with seasonal flu.

Dr Sara Eames, president of the faculty, said people should not be deprived of effective conventional medicines for serious disease.

But she added: "Millions die each year as those affected have no access to these drugs.

"It therefore seems reasonable to consider what beneficial role homeopathy could play. What is needed is further research and investment into homeopathy."

(This largely for such who feel that our "morally superior" United States is "suppressing" information about "safe and effective" homeopathic treatments for Loathsome Diseases and Illnesses, in particular HIV/AIDS, cancer and TB, "to protect funding for wasteful, ineffective and unnecessary research" into conventional drugs-based treatment approaches.)

But, on the other hand, those wanting to stock up on homeopathics ahead of the imminent flu season (especially considering the 2009 H1N1 virus and its potential for havoc) may want to consider these possibilities from Smallflower.com (as are ready to purchase online, and in aid of this weblog):

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AND BEFORE I GO TODAY, I JUST THOUGHT IT WORTH MENTIONING that I'll be going on the annual State Fair break with this post, notwithstanding where I'll leave therefor on Wednesday; I need the time for preparation and everything of that sort.

Look for me again sometime @ the weekend, and in the interim, your support, however insignificant it may be (especially so the online shopping), would be greatly appreciated.

"...and that is is a way."

Talk about what's on your mind--or, for that matter, about this item--in The Exaggerator Forums; come join the discussion! And I'd like to see your support for this blog by voting here! (N.B. One vote/day, please.)

Incidental #1,297

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 16:45:00 GMT

WITH THE BBC TRADITIONALLY BEING A PUBLIC-SERVICE BROADCASTER, FUNDED IN LARGE PART BY THE ANNUAL LICENCE FEE, killing time between programmes usually meant showing the likes of scenic interludes scored to soothing music, or otherwise announcing upcoming programmes.

One of the more legendary specimens in the former was "London to Brighton in Four Minutes," originally produced in 1953; such was intended to show, through trick photography and film editing effects, a typical train trip between London Victoria station and Brighton (51 miles as the crow flieth) distilled down to four minutes' time--equivalent to 765 mph. (In two instances in the original, you can see the driver thereof handling the train; this to conceal the fact that the cameraman had to reload the film magazine, a rather cumbersome task.)

Exactly 30 years later (1983), the same trip was repeated, this time in colour.

And, as a visitor on YouTube, where Your Correspondent found this video, noted, there are major differences in the camera angles between the two (as are evident in this version, which shows the two side-by-side): In the original version, note where the camera points a bit to the left (as it was mounted right of centre), while in the updated such, the camera points straight ahead (as it was mounted dead centre). (As matter of fact, this explains why Your Correspondent chose this particular version.)

If this same video were to be done today--let's just hope for it--it may be worth knowing that, since the denationalisation of British Rail in 1989 and reinvention of passenger rail based on Thatcherian free-market models between Land's End and John O'Groats, the London Victoria-Brighton services are currently operated by Southern Railway, with additional services from London Bridge Station handled by First Capital Connect over much the same route from Clapham Junction southerly (including Gatwick Airport).

(For the record, Network Rail, which handles the track and infrastructure angle for the denationalised British rail network, operates London Victoria Station, in common with the other major London termini.)

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YOUR CORRESPONDENT UNDERSTANDS WHERE THE FOUR LEADING HMO'S IN OUR "MORALLY SUPERIOR" UNITED STATES, in the interest of further cutting health-care costs, are quietly advising certain of their members to seek treatments for certain ailments overseas, with said HMO's covering the expenses (except for travel and passport fees, unless the HMO's were to use collective passports).

This as certain specimens of warped hyperconservative Zealotry and True Belief are running atrocity propaganda claiming that single-payer health care schemes in the "morally suspect" likes of Canada and Great Britain are denying essential or badly-needec care in certain instances, and that such a prospect awaits Our Holy and Beloved Nation if ObamaCare is adopted--much of it taken out of context, as it turns out.

(It may be interesting to note, while I'm @ it here, that the French Social Security allows those receiving benefits therefrom to receive spa treatments in such instances where a doctor feels that hydrotherapeusis may be the most medically-beneficial option among all such available; as well, second-class rail fare and modest accomodations may also be covered.)

I could well recommend a worthwhile "pre-emptive" approach: Mandating extended paid vacation time, and expecting employees so entitled to "use it or lose it." Not to mention such entitled to certain Social Security benefits receiving an annual lump-sum allowance for vacation expenses; the better in the belief that an extended break may actually be of physical and mental health benefit, as confirmed by research.

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DID I HEAR CORRECTLY ABOUT FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY TOM RIDGE (HIMSELF A DEAD GIVEAWAY FOR HERMANN GOERING), in a just-released memoir, claiming that His Fraudulency's Misadministration wanted to raise the Terrorism Threat Level ahead of Indecision 2004 "for purely political reasons" rather than reason?

Which makes you wonder if the Misadministration previous had designs on using essentially "false flag" attacks using goons being offered "redemption for value" in mitigation of certain low-level crimes (including having conviction records sealed) to carry out same, then being given offshore "safe harbour" while official blame fell upon International Terrorism.

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MEANWHILE, EXPECT THE SO-CALLED "PATRIOT MILITIA" MOVEMENT IN OUR "MORALLY SUPERIOR" UNITED STATES to start coming to the aid and comfort of their droogs in the far-far-right Hungarian Guard, three of whose members stand accused of a series of Open and Notorious Attacks against ethnic Roma peoples over recent weeks across Hungary.

Followed just yesterday by police breaking up an encampment and initiation ceremony therefor near Budapest, which could send the illicit paramilitary group into disarray (especially considering their connexions to far-right political movements which successfully sent candidates to the Hungarian and European Parliaments in recent elections holding extreme nationalist articles of faith based on racism, nativism and xenophobic hypernationalism).

Remember, "it's a small world, after all."

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A TALE OF TWO LOTTO JACKPOTS AS WENT INTO NINE FIGURES just this past week:

On Wednesday, a US$259 million PowerBall jackpot (played in 30 states, the District of Columbia and the US Virgin Islands) went to a single ticket sold @ a convenience store outside Columbia, South Carolina. (The prize is based on a 30-year annuity, what with lottery winnings in our "morally superior" United States considered as taxable income.)

Last night, trans-Atlantic, Italy's SuperEnalotto jackpot of �146.9 million (about US$211.8 million) was finally won after 87 draws running without a winner emerging, setting a new European lottery jackpot record in the bargain. The winning ticket in this instance was sold @ a coffee bar in the Tuscany village of Bagnone, and was purchased for but �2.

In any event, the ever-climbing SuperEnalotto jackpot attracted lottery players from all over Europe, aided and abetted in substantial measure by the current socioeconomic recession and much of Europe now on their summer vacations. (And it turned out to be a major windfall for the Italian government, whose Treasury coffers were enriched by collecting half the ticket sales in lieu of taxes assessed the operators of SuperEnalotto.)

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WITH THE THURSDAY OPENING OF TGMnGT 2009 (AS IN THE MINNESOTA STATE FAIR) drawing ever closer now, it's worth knowing that TGMnGT is a major shopping centre in its own right, with retail space housed under the Grandstand (a/k/a Varied Industries) and in the Merchandise Mart, Modern Living, Home Improvement, Ag-Hort and Creative Activities buildings, not to mention Heritage Square.

And while some of the merchandise offered may be rather tacky to the point of grotty (and others having some practicality), there were times in the past when the major Twin Cities retailers--Dayton's, Donaldson's Glass Block, The Emporium, The New England, The Golden Rule and Atkinson's--had displays of the merchandise available on offer @ their downtown Minneapolis or St. Paul locations (Dayton's was said to be rather imaginative to the point of impressive with their State Fair displays, @ one time having space under the Grandstand ramp). And, to the chagrin of small-town retailers, Sears and Montgomery Ward's also had State Fair presences in past, mostly taking names and addresses for their mail-order catalogues and offering gifts for referrals.

(Not to be outdone, the Minneapolis Artificial Limb Company's State Fair exhibits encouraged visitors to share the names and addresses of friends who may be in need of their products in the hope of better living.)

And let's not forget Machinery Hill, TGMnGT's traditional bivouac for farm-equipment and machinery manufacturers to display their latest products and allow visitors to climb aboard and get the feel therefor. (As a matter of fact, for years John Deere and Minneapolis-Moline were the only companies to have permanent display structures there, with the other companies--International Harvester, Case, Oliver, Massey-Ferguson, Ford and Cockshutt, among others--content to have tent displays; today, only John Deere still has a display presence on Machinery Hill, with their new building distributing flyers and selling John Deere-related ephemera.

(Classic example of unvarnished State Fair understatement on Machinery Hill: Ferguson Tractors, before merging with Massey-Harris to become Massey-Ferguson, proclaimed themselves @ their 1951 display to have the "World's Most Copied Tractor" available, and this @ a time when they were still in a major legal fight with Ford over patent infringement.

(Close rival in the same department: Case's State Fair displays, back when "farm tractors" were rather awkward and gawky-looking steam engines to power threshing machines via belt drive, demonstrating their durability in simulated hill climbs using a modest ramp set up @ their display.)

And you could just imagine the volume of not just sales, but also sales leads, generated over the 12 Days of Fun Ending Labour Day year after year on those hallowed grounds @ Como and Snelling....

"...and that is is a way."

Incidental #1,296

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 00:45:00 GMT

THE FOX PROLEFEED CROWD, CLAIMING ALL THE WHILE TO BE THE VOICE AND CONSCIENCE OF THE GREAT SILENT MAJORITY (otherwise known as the Working-Classes) in our "morally superior" United States, refuse to accept the old proverb that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" and, instead, accept that holding that "an idle mind is the Devil's Playground."

All in the insistence that the need to keep working is one with the defence of Our Antient and Peculiar Sovereignty and Sovereign Identity; hence, any deviation therefrom is to be seen as one with Moral Weakness and Disloyalty, dangers of overwork upon health be d***ed.

Which, if anything, amounts to a xenophobically crass sort of jingoism as is unlikely to Save America From Herself, Fox Prolefeed notwithstanding.

In any event, as if to give Mr. "No-Spin Zone" and his xenophobically-misguided ilk the psychological Middle-Finger Salute, I offer proof that our (so we're expected to accept) "morally weak and corrupt" European working-class brethren may, thanks to extended paid vacations, actually be all the more productive than we "morally superior" Americans are expected to subscribe to as a Holy of Holies--which we "morally superior" Americans may need to think about embracing if we're expected to regain any sense of pride and honour in terms of worker productivity, rather than controlling immigration of "inferior" or "sub-human" peoples or otherwise imposing a "Fortress America" mentality vis-a-vis trade in the name of "morals and decency."

Gimme-cap tip to RawStory.com for this English item from the German newsweekly Der Spiegel ("The Mirror", for those interested in its English meaning all the while):

Do Longer Holidays Translate to Greater Productivity?

By Mark Scott

For all their extra vacation days as compared with the US, workers in the EU are keeping pace--or better--in terms of productivity.

Much of Europe closes up shop in August. From steelworkers in Spain to technology consultants in Germany, the European Union's workers head for the coast or other vacation hot spots, forgoing the sweltering heat of Europe's cities for some rest and relaxation.

Europeans on average pocket almost 10 more vacation days than their US counterparts. That's the findings from research by consultants at Mercer, which analyzed the minimum number of vacation days that companies across Europe must provide to staff with 10 years' service, as well as the number of national holidays in each country.

The study reveals the average time off in European Union countries is now 34.4 days, compared with just 25 in the US. Overall, employees in Lithuania are entitled to the greatest amount of paid leave, with 41 holidays per year. France and Finland come a close second, with 40.

"In Europe, time off is enshrined in government legislation, so employers are forced to hire more staff to cover the gaps," says Matthew Hunt, a principal in Mercer's international team. "The US takes a different view; there's a focus on maintaining productivity."

Conflicting Data

Americans may take less vacation, but are they really more efficient than their European colleagues? Figures from the World Economic Forum certainly show the US remains the world's most competitive country. Yet other data, including countries' GDP per hours worked, reveal Europe still gives America a run for its money. That means many parts of the Old World are at least as productive as the US, if not more, with the added bonus of up to eight weeks off a year.

Europe's top performers include some of the region's smaller nations. Leading the way are the Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg), which outperform the US based on gross domestic product per hours worked each year. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development, Belgium and the Netherlands, which mandate 30 and 28 annual vacation days, respectively, are almost 2 percent more productive than the US. And Luxembourg, with its highly competitive financial services industry and 32-day yearly vacation allowance, is a staggering 27 percent more efficient.

Even France proves it can compete with America's world-leading economic productivity. By focusing on high-value manufacturing, such as luxury goods made by the likes of Louis Vuitton, France is a mere 2 percent less productive than the U.S., based on the OECD's analysis of GDP per hours worked. That comes despite the French taking 40 days off a year, and working, on average, 37 hours a week. And in Germany, Europe's largest economy, productivity is only 7 percent behind that of America, predominantly because of the country's export-oriented manufacturing sector. The Germans also work five fewer hours per week than their US counterparts, take five more days vacation each year, and have an unemployment rate almost two percentage points lower than the comparable US figure.

There are signs that Europe's largest economies may rebound faster than the US On Aug. 13, French and German policymakers revealed a 0.3 percent increase in the countries' second-quarter GDPs, far outperforming economists' predictions. That came after governments pumped billions of dollars into the economies to prop up domestic manufacturing. Overall, the European Union's economy shrank at a modest 0.3 percent over the same period, while US GDP also dropped the same amount between April and June of 2009.

Eastern Travails

To be sure, while some European countries match America's productivity, others remain far outgunned. Eastern European countries, for instance, are struggling under mountains of debt, and have had to turn to the International Monetary Fund and other international bodies for help.

Unlike the US, many of Europe's eastern economies lack a well-established technology industry to help improve efficiency. According to Peter Tergeist, an economist in the OECD's employment analysis and policy division, the US benefits from world-class technology, particularly in its services and manufacturing sectors. "That is a big advantage," he says.

Yet as many Europeans sun themselves on beaches from Croatia to Corsica, economic productivity will be the last thing on their minds. And by taking so much time off this summer, Europe's workers are sure to be well-rested just as the economy begins to show signs of recovery.

So tell me: Since when did giving the working-classes extended paid vacation time (and actually expecting such to use it for once) actually become one with moral lapse or weakness as could affect productivity?

And what can we "morally superior" Americans learn from the Europeans out of all this?

Incidental #1,295

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 20:25:00 GMT

"WE NEED TO PRESERVE OUR WAY OF LIFE."

Thus did Houston Astros owner Drayton McLane encapsulate the mindset of "the Four Hundred" and its articles of faith in opposition to Change We Can Believe In @ an "astroturf" rally in Houston, TX the other day as was sponsored by the so-called "American Energy Alliance" (in Reality, a consilium of Chevron, Anadarko Energy, ConocoPhilips, Halliburton and other major oil companies set up to oppose energy-policy reforms aimed @ minimising climate-change effects and creating sustainable socioeconomic development).

Which seems to be the same mentality Fox Prolefeed likes to push upon its core audience of poor, undereducated, socioeconomically-displaced, easily-led and psychoemotionally-disturbed "white trash" types in expecting the Great Silent Majority to play along with the False Equivalence implying that what's best for "the Four Hundred" is best for Our Holy and Beloved Nation.

Which, in any case, brings to mind the July 3, 1956 episode of the classic radio thriller series Suspense entitled "The Music Lovers" (as is offered in the interest of insight); its plot, which was British in tone throughout, revolved around the kidnap and murder of an aircraft factory executive over highly-classified plans for a new type of jet aircraft ... and its connexions to a low-profile extremist sect fond of passing out pamphlets in the "G-d and Country" vein.

A sect whose extreme agenda was seen to pose Clear and Present Danger to the Peace, Safety and Good Order of the Community notwithstanding the low profile it was expected to observe lest suspicions be attracted in certain circles (as witness the title, suggesting where its membership was fond of "good music" as a cover for their sinister designs). That, and use of the children through subtle indoctrination risking serious psychological and/or moral harm.

Come to think of it, such might have been lifted right out of Dixon of Dock Green, a long-running BBC Television police drama set in the London Docklands.

Isn't Old-Time Radio insightful when you least expect it?

"...and that is is a way."

Incidental #1,294

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 17:30:00 GMT

CERTAIN ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS ON THE RELIGIOPOLITICAL RIGHT WHO SEE VOTER SUPPRESSION AND INTIMIDATION AS "HEALTHY" AND "NECESSARY" towards their articles of faith--and, in the end, excusing such with their "ends-justify-the-means" folderol--must certainly be drooling in their Luscious Glory over news that wholesale voter suppression, harrassment and intimidation was commonplace in Thursday's Afghani Presidential elections.

This according to international monitoring groups making sure that the whole was free, fair and transparent--yet, according to emerging reports from election monitors:

Talebani militants harrassed voters outside polling stations, and in @ least one instance, cut off two fingers from a voter just having done his civic duty.
Election judges showed inherent signs of bias or favourtism towards particular candidates in certain precincts.
Minors were allowed to cast ballots, while other registered voters were prevented from voting because of whimsical "irregularities" in voter-registry documents.
Illiterate voters were "advised" (with cash inducements in certain instances) to vote for specific candidates, exploiting their lack of knowledge in the democratic process.
Talebani staged or provoked fights in queues outside polling stations to distract attention and delay the voting process.

In any case, it's enough to wonder whether vote-suppression movements among the Elmer Gantry crowd and their John Bircher droogs, claiming all the while such are necessary to "protect democracy" (as if such were seen as the exclusive franchise of white Low Church Christian males "entitled as of right") are looking @ such tactics, and how best to adapt them to American conditions heading into Indecision 2010.

Which should be of especial interest to the FBI, unless they're somehow preoccupied with "priorities" not otherwise explained except for the catch-all "reasons you will understand" explaining their unwillingness to go into detail.

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CAPITALISM WITH AMERICAN CHARACTERISTICS--ISN'T IT WONDERFUL? (Unless you happen to be a right-leaning talkback radio or TV host of notorious or questionable repute, especially where racist, xenophobic, misogynistic or otherwise jingoistic comments pandering to the weak and vulnerable triggers alarm bells on the part of sponsors as may or may not be influenced by pressure groups.)

Media Matters for America illustrates what amounts to doublethink in this respect in their weekly roundup thus:

Last week we noted:

There was an encouraging development in the ongoing campaign to get hate off our public airwaves. After a host of progressive groups, among them Media Matters and ColorOfChange.org, publicized Beck's recent rant accusing [President] Obama of racism, multiple companies announced that they would no longer advertise on his program--among them: ConAgra, Roche, Sanofi-Aventis, Radio Shack, GEICO, Travelocity, and Sargento. Reflecting on the development, The Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart said that it might "pump the brakes on some of these wild statements." We can only hope.

Well, Beck's advertiser exodus continues. This week, Farmers Insurance reportedly said it had "ceased placing [ads] on Glenn Beck a week ago." Likewise, GMAC Financial Services, parent company of Ally Bank, announced that it, too, had "ceased advertising on the Glenn Beck program."

The conservative media chattering class is none too pleased with these developments. Radio host Rose Tennent called GEICO "idiots" for pulling Beck's ads, while radio talker Jim Quinn said Color of Change has "kowtowed" advertisers into ditching Beck. On his radio program, Fox News' Sean Hannity even claimed that accusations that radio hosts want the president dead (I, for one don't, remember anyone of prominence making this charge) were part of a "strategy to silence," like "people go[ing] after advertisers."

In other sponsor news, JC Penney reportedly said it has a "policy" that prohibits advertising on Rush Limbaugh's show--but Media Matters was able to produce audio from El Rushbo's broadcast containing an ad for the retailer. Home Depot also reportedly claimed it doesn't "support" Limbaugh's program, and Media Matters was also able to produce audio of a Home Depot ad airing during the conservative leader's show. We welcome the policies announced by JC Penney and Home Depot, but perhaps now would be a good time for them to state publicly that they will no longer run ads on Rush's show.

When PoliticsDaily.com claimed that "the pressure on advertisers has become a politically charged debate about the right to free speech, censorship and what constitutes hate speech," Media Matters' Eric Boehlert responded: "Do editors at PoliticsDaily.com not understand what 'censorship' means in terms of free speech? ... Of course, only the government can censor free speech." In other words, the First Amendment doesn't guarantee anyone the right to his own show.

Next thing you know, the Zealots and True Believers will be calling for a Constitutional Amendment giving what amounts to the "mere formality of legal recognition" to their deluded argument "based on unwritten tradition" (if ever they needed a patsy to excuse same to especially the Fox Prolefeed crowd) that the defence of America's "antient and peculiar" sovereignty and sovereign identity is intertwined and interconnected to that of the free-market, free-enterprise capitalistic paradigm socioeconomic.

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OUR MEXICAN BRETHREN, IN THE INTEREST OF FREEING UP POLICE RESOURCES IN THEIR WAR AGAINST DRUGS CARTELS and the Robin Hood-stylee cult of personality many such have in the poor and marginalised south of the Rio Grande, have announced the decriminalisation of possessing small amounts of common narcotics like cannabis, cocaine, heroin, morphia and methamphetamines.

Meaning that habitual addicts will be encouraged to seek drug-addiction treatment @ state expense, to be mandatory following the third arrest for possession or use.

But don't expect Mexico City to suddenly become the Amsterdam of the Americas (as in "coffee shops" being fronts for the sale of cannabis almost everywhere you go) as a byproduct of this liberalisation of drug laws anytime soon, if that's what you were thinking. Or, for that matter, Spring Break promotions for the popular Mexican resorts in this respect (especially so Acapulco, Cabo San Lucas, Cancun, Cozumel, Ixtapa, Mazatlan or Puerto Penasco) to have drug-law liberalisation figure heavily as a drawing card.

So what stands in the way of our "morally superior" society and nation to follow the lead of our Mexican brethren?

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ANOTHER DAY BEFORE TGMnGT'S OPENING, ANOTHER WORTHWHILE TIDBIT to whet your appetite thereto (as it were):

Historically, of all the eateries to grace their presence on the Minnesota State Fairgrounds during the State Fair, perhaps the most interesting and @ once imaginative ever was the Baitinger Rail O'Matic, which was in vogue during fairs in the 1920's.

Its drawing card was an "all-you-can-eat" affair, brought to you on small plates conveyed by miniature ur-railcars on an endless-belt system (hot foods kept warm by heated soapstone bricks in the wells thereof, cold such by bricks of ice)--choose what you like, as much as you want, for just 50� a head (about $4.50 in today's money), and don't forget to "Drink Our Good Coffee."

Such was the efficiencies and economy achieved that, by their own estimate, they were able to serve between 6,000 and 8,000 people in just five hours--which, by my estimate, would translate to between 1,200 and 1,600 an hour, or (further still) between 20 and 26 diners/minute. Figures not even Ripley would believe.

But then again, as with everything else, the Rail O'Matic was prone to drawbacks, the most obvious being where late-arriving diners were only able to get boiled cabbage in abundance.

Nowadays, anything and everything "on-a-stick" seems to be the in thing among TGMnGT visitors--so much so, in fact, that one souvenir T-shirt available has Fairborne, co-mascot thereof, asking "Got stick?" on the front, followed on the back by a checklist of such fare on offer available on-the-stick. (As if in response to the whole concept, one TGMnGT eatery next to the Visitor Plaza proudly proclaims on its front for all to see "Definitely NOTHING on a stick!")

"...and that is is a way."

Incidental #1,293

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:00:00 GMT

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

NO DOUBT THE SO-CALLED "WISE USE MOVEMENT" IS DANCING IN THE STREETS OF BRANSON on hearing the news that the Federal "Cash for Clunkers" scheme to encourage the purchase of more fuel-efficient automobiles will be wound up from Monday; the better to allow auto dealers to receive the requisite payments therefrom.

(As a matter of fact, only 7% of auto dealers have reported receipt of emouluments therefrom to the moment.)

*************

THOSE OF YOU WHO THOUGHT IRAN'S POST-ELECTORAL RIOTING AND DISORDER WAS RATHER DISGUSTING IN AND OF ITSELF may not have seen nothing yet:

Opposition Afghani Presidential candidate Abdallah Abdallah is claiming to the BBC that the campaign of incumbent President Hamid Karzai engaged in open and notorious harrassment, stalking and intimidation of voters in yesterday's elections having designs on supporting opposition candidates therefor, especially so in Khandahar province ... and, what's more, has threatened to disrupt the now-in-progress vote count to insist that every last vote be counted.

No easy task, especially considering where the ballot paper had some 30 candidates on offer, voting hours were extended due to heavy turnout, and final results are not expected to be confirmed before early next month, which may or may not translate into a runoff between the two biggest vote-generating candidates.

*************

BECAUSE THIS WEBLOG SUBSCRIBES TO THE BELIEF ENCAPSULATE IN THE QUASI-NATIONAL HYMN OF DISNEYLAND AND WALT DISNEY WORLD, as in "It's A Small World, After All," Your Correspondent feels it best to bring up a couple of items that perhaps resonate themes popular with the Elmer Gantry crowd holding dear American Exceptionalism as an article of faith:

New Zealand voters rejected a plebiscite question as would have allowed for criminalising parents using Corporal Punishment as a means of discipline for children--especially so Low Church Christians citing that widely-attributed-to-the-Bible wisecrack about "spare the rod and spoil the child" (which, in matter of fact, is actually from Samuel Butler's 17th-century work Hudibras; however, cf. Proverbs 13:24, "He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him often," also Menander's observvation that "the man who has never been flogged has never been taught").
And talk about wives "submitting graciously" to the will of their husbands (as per the Southern Baptist Convention): A United Nations committee hath it that Japan is by no means a leader among developed nations when it comes to gender equality, citing the likes of:

laws allowing girls to marry @ 16 years of age, while boys must wait until 18 years of age for marriage;
prosecutions for rape under what passes for the prevailing laws there are a farce more than likely (if that); and
the widespread availability of misogynistically violent and sadisto pornography in which rape, sodomy and incest are prominently featured and glorified (you can even find vending machines across Japan selling curiosa).

And when all is said and done, the Sanctii Sanctorum behind American Exceptionalism can best be encapsulated thus: "Flag first, morals after."

*************

NO WONDER HYPERCONSERVATIVES' PREFERRED MODEL FOR "SAVING PUBLIC EDUCATION FROM ITSELF" IN OUR "MORALLY SUPERIOR" UNITED STATES is homeschooling based on apartheid South Africa's National Christian Education syllabus, which tended heavily to racist platitudes seeking to excuse the enforced racial segregation as was the heart of apartheid as Divinely Ordained and Morally Justified, and that the Afrikaner Peoples were Divinely Ordained by G-d Himself to Dominion Over South Africa.

Especially so the ilk of WorldNetDaily, subject of the following recent ConWebBlog item taking issue with another WorldNetDaily screed questioning the validity and legality of free public education in a Secular-Humanist vein placing core skills above idealised "values" that can be easily digested in bumper-sticker slogans to be parroted out as required:

WorldNetDaily has long despised public education, and that hate shows up again in Molotov Mitchell's Aug. 19 video.

As per usual, Mitchell is long on hate and short on insight. After declaring that "public school teachers are killing America," Mitchell notes that Finland is rated at or near the top in math and science while the U.S. isn't in the top 25. The reason for this, he declares, is "vouchers. Finnish parents get tax credits so they get to send their kids to whatever school they want, public or private."

But there are other explanations that Mitchell fails to mention. For instance, the Toronto Globe and Mail reports:

Finnish children do not begin primary school until they are seven years old. But from the age of eight months, all children have access to free, full-day daycare and kindergarten. Finland has had universal access to daycare in place since 1990, and of all preschool since 1996.

Primary-school teachers all have master's degrees, and the profession is one of the most revered in Finnish society.
[...]
Students and teachers receive a free hot meal daily. Classrooms and hallways are so clean many students walk around in their stocking feet. There is only a minimal amount of homework, and students call teachers by their first names, says George Malaty, a professor of education at the University of Joensuu in Finland.

"There is a very informal relationship between teachers and students," Prof. Malaty says. "The children enjoy the socializing, the hot meal, it's a rich experience for them. School isn't only to prepare for the future. It's their life and they must have a good day every day."

By contrast, Mitchell is content, and indeed eager, to further denigrate public school teachers. To them, he claims, "unless you're talking about teen abortions without parental consent, choice is a dirty word."

Finally, Michell asserts that "the public education system cannot be reformed" because "the goal was never education, it was always about indoctrination. And that's why our kids know everything about sex and nothing about history."

But isn't homeschooling a form of indoctrnation and inculcation as well? Mitchell doesn't seem offended by that.

And IIBC, apartheid South Africa's National Christian Education syllabus was indeed one of indoctrination. Racist, misogynistic, hypernationalistic indoctrination which saw the "racially and morally superior" whites "entitled as of Natural Right" to a Life of Riley existance while the "inferior" and "parasitical" blacks and "coloureds" (as the regime called such of mixed race) were expected to be the power maintaining apartheid's wealth from everlasting to everlasting.

*************

SIX DAYS NOW UNTIL TGMnGT 2009 ARRIVETH, and it may be worth doting on that beverage concessions more than a century ago were prime fodder for hanky-panky @ the expense of hapless fairgoers.

Take pink lemonade, that old reliable fair and circus standby: Absent the presence of pink lemons to make such in its purest form (even allowing for sugar and water), there was a time when so-called "pink lemonade" was actually the finest blend of croton oil, tartaric acid and coal tar dye (for colouring) available, guaranteed to attract the suspicions of health inspectors prepared to shut its pureveyors down on the slightest suspicion of adulterated products being sold or offered (and plenty of Keystone Kops hijinks among the purveyors trying to dispose of concealed stocks before the inspectors seized them).

More often than not, stands selling "hop tonic" to cater to the temperance-minded were really ruses for selling beer under the counter, as inspectors often discerned on taste alone.

Even innocent-looking "soft drink" stands and "tea rooms" could be fronts for selling illicit liquor, so long as you knew the password or had the right connexions.

(As for the best way to identify real lemonade, one longtime State Fair vendor thereof was quick to tell a newspaper reporter back in 1947 that such should have a pale yellow colour, a discernible tartness of taste and should have no grittiness from undissolved sugar when you roll it around the teeth with your tongue. And this back when lemonade was mixed up in clean horse troughs with hundreds of hand-squeezed lemons, generous quantities of sugar and 50-lb. blocks of ice allowed to melt in the sun, after which the whole was mixed up with boat oars, ladeled out into glass gallon jugs and dispensed by Grandstand vendors @ 10� a glass.)

But then again, doesn't it seem a little bizarre to sell "German-Style Root Beer" @ TGMnGT in iced polystyrene cups when any root beer purist will tell you such should best be served straight? Nothing against the concoction, mind you....

"...and that is is a way."

Incidental #1,292

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:45:00 GMT

HOPEFULLY, THE TYPICAL VISITOR TO THE ONCE AND FUTURE WATERPARK CAPITAL OF THE WORLD can identify with the following test, the following being my own result therefrom (gimme-cap tip to Contrariness for suggesting same):

You Are Very Passionate

You tend to be a very social person. You live for your friends and family. You can get social burnout occasionally though. You aren't a total extrovert.

You have cold feet when it comes to love. You have a lot of uncertainty until you convince yourself to dive right in.

You are a passionate person. You are free wheeling, fun loving, and ruled by your emotions.

Your sense of humor is sarcastic, snarky, and realistic. You're not exactly happy-go-lucky.

The Beach Test

Why not take it for yourself, especially those among you fond of Wisconsin Dells?

Talk about what's on your mind--or, for that matter, about this item--in The Exaggerator Forums; come join the discussion! And I'd live to see your support for this blog by voting here! (N.B. One vote/day, please.)

Incidental #1,291

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:00:00 GMT

APOLOGIES, DEAR READERS, FOR THE DELAY IN POSTING MATERIAL INTO THIS BLOG TODAY, because of what could best be called Other Pressing Commitments earlier.

As in:

mental-hygiene counselling on my part due to latent mental disorders as precludes employment (in case certain readers among you still insist that I should "make wiser use of my time" by finding work), so explaining the inclusion of online shopping to The Exaggerator to try and supplement disability benefits I collect;
selling 109 lb. of aluminum cans from the motel I do for for $36 (working out to 33�/lb., thanks to a premium the recyclers we use offer for large quantities), getting $15 as my share therefrom;
taking lunch buffet @ Sammy's Pizza here in Winona (which is alright from time to time); and
getting a couple of groceries from the Hy-Vee here in Winona, including a $1 "print-n-play" lottery ticket for which I won $9 in the end.

Hence, my being unable to discuss the events of the day as I normally world; please bear with me.

*************

MEANWHILE, READERS, IF YOU HAPPEN TO BE IN THE GENERAL VICINITY OF TORONTO, CANADA TOMORROW, you can visit the opening day of the Canadian National Exhibition (a/k/a the CNE or, more affectionately, "The Ex") for the special one-day-only gate price of C$1.75 (US$1.61/�0.97/�1.13/CHF1.71/INR78.17/�152/IDR16,142.77/MYR5.66/PHP77.86/A$1.93/NZ$2.38).

The price being in commemoration of this being the 175-year anniversary of Toronto's legally acquiring city status.

And the price applies only if you're buying admission @ "The Ex," including the Prince's Gate, itself rather monumental.

=============

AND WITH THIS BEING EXACTLY ONE WEEK BEFORE TGMnGT 2009'S OPENING ITSELF TO THE WORLD, it may be interesting to note that, for many years (as in from well before the current State Fairgrounds opened in 1885 until 1918), the State Fair's schedule ran for six days beginning on Labour Day.

Starting with the 1919 Fair, and continuing until 1938, it had an eight-day run beginning the Saturday of the Labour Day weekend; as a matter of fact, the 1919 Fair, which was also a "Victory Exhibition" to mark the end of World War I, was the first time the Minnesota State Fair was open on a Sunday.

Realising that many schools across Minnesota began their school year immediately after Labour Day, from 1939 the Minnesota State Fair began the tradition of ending on Labour Day, the better to ensure that as many families as possible attended before their children returned to school for the fall; initially a 10-day run (in fact, the first such, in 1939, was promoted as "A Week So Big It Takes 10 Days!"), it expanded to 11 days between 1972 and 1974 before establishing the present 12-day run in 1975.

And come to think of it, having the Minnesota State Fair end its annual run on Labour Day may have helped contribute to its consistently attracting over 1 million visitors run-of-fair every year since 1955. (By one estimate, TGMnGT consistently ranks in the Top Five of the attendance league table among North American fairs and expositions; last year, in fact, one estimate placed TGMnGT's attendance numbers to be third behind only the State Fair of Texas and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.)

Equally noteworthy is that the Minnesota State Fairgrounds were originally the site of the Ramsey County Poor Farm, which became the State Fairgrounds in 1885 largely to settle a dispute over whether Minneapolis or St. Paul should be the permanent host city for the state fair; the site being chosen because it was practically "midway" between the Twin Cities. (Previously, the State Fair had seen stints in such cities as Red Wing, Winona, Rochester and Owatonna in addition to the Twin Cities themselves.)

Credit one Howard S. Fairchild, a longtime member of the Board of Mangers of the Minnesota State Agricultural Society (under whose auspices TGMnGT is conducted every year), for so settling one potentially hilarious dispute between the Twin Cities @ a time when the rivalry was starting to become dead serious (as a matter of fact, Minneapolis offered a site near Minnehaha Falls for the State Fairgrounds), eventually becoming the namesake for the original gopher mascot of TGMnGT, Fairchild, who debuted in 1966 (his nephew, Fairborne, came along in 1982).

And speaking of Fairchild, the pedestal on which his statue is located in front of the Leinie Lodge Bandshell (which was the original "meet-and-greet" site therefor) originally was that for a statue of The Pioneer Woman commemorating the Minnesota Statehood Centennial in 1958 (since relocated to between the Ramberg Senior Centre and the Territorial Pioneers Cabin); in 1959, an allegorical statue of Neptune, commemorating the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway, was placed on the pedestal, and remained for a few years until it was donated to the City of Duluth, its current whereabouts unknown.

In any event, Fairchild and Fairborne are dolled up in classic showmen's garb: straw hat, starched shirt, green pinstriped suit and pipestem trousers. And in this garb they make their "meet-and-greet" presence known in the Visitors' Plaza every day of TGMnGT @ 11am and 4pm, willing to pose for photographs as well as general clowning around. (One "must-see" attraction, according to those gophers: The 4-H exhibits.)

"...and that is is a way."

Incidental #1,290: Memo to such wanting CHI-MKE-MSP high-speed rail routed via Rochester, MN

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:55:00 GMT

IN THE ONGOING DEBATE ABOUT THE LIKELIHOOD, LET ALONE SOCIOECONOMIC VIABILITY OF, HIGH-SPEED PASSENGER RAIL between Chicago, Milwaukee and the Twin Cities (Minneapolis-St. Paul), certain interests are of the opine that Rochester, MN (as in the Mayo Clinic) deserves its fair share of the Jack Horner's Pie that is high-speed rail.

And we know why: The Mayo Clinic trade.

Unfortunately, though, new construction would have to be necessary to allow for high-speed rail to reach the Twin Cities via Rochester, which would arrive in the Clinic City by way of the Canadian Pacific's former Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern line from Winona (which is already identified as being on a preferred route therefor, using Amtrak's existing Empire Builder routing over the Canadian Pacific's former Milwaukee Road line), some even suggesting that the Rochester-Twin Cities line could be constructed over the existing US Hwy. 52 alignment. And in the current socioeconomic climate, new construction is just not viable.

Even more so, about the closest to a direct rail connexion Rochester had to the Twin Cities was over the Chicago Great Western Railway (since merged into Chicago and North Western, itself later merged into Union Pacific), and on a rather roundabout routing @ that, as you will see from the following CGW system map of 1955 vintage (via The Unofficial Chicago Great Western Page, which gets the gimme-cap tip):

As will be seen, the Corn Belt Route's Rochester-Twin Cities line was rather indirect and, what's more, dog-legged its way around, having to go via Randolph, MN (northeast Northfield, where the Great Western's line to Mankato branched off) to Red Wing, and then double back there to continue on to Rochester via Goodhue, Zumbrota and Pine Island, which didn't stop the Great Western's launching the Red Bird as a "fast motor train" and the non-stop Blue Bird in pre-Crash 1929, both catering to the Mayo Clinic trade to and from the Twin Cities.

(Eventually, a gas-electric railcar would provide the Rochester-Red Wing-Twin Cities service until its discontinuance in 1952.)

What's more, parts of the line as above have since become bike trails, as in the Red Wing-Cannon Falls segment (as the Cannon Valley Trail) and another between Douglas (near Rochester) and Pine Island (as the Douglas Trail); absent any effort by the Chicago and North Western (who acquired the CGW in July 1968) to "railbank" the lines in question against future reconstruction (perhaps the concept hadn't yet been developed), the Pine Island-Red Wing segment has since been taken up as farmland.

Now you know. (Or do you?)

=============

MORAL: Use the already-preferred-and-recommended "river routing" between Winona and the Twin Cities. And to pacify Rochester, there will want to be provided some sort of "regio"-type rail service as could continue to Chicago from Winona, over the routing previously explained.

Especially because cost-efficiency and value for money are the prevailing watchwords now, thus precluding new construction of the type Rochester is desperate for, but unaware of as being required.

"...and that is is a way."

Incidental #1,289

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:00:00 GMT

see more Engrish

AVERSION THERAPY HAVING BEEN DISCREDITED AS A MEANS OF "CURING HOMOSEXUALITY" (especially where a Low Church religious aspect is incorporated into the therapeusis), perhaps the same ought to be said of the politically iatrogenic disorder known as "Internet Addiction."

Especially so in the wake of revelations that a military boot camp-stylee "reeducation centre" in China's Sichwuan province aimed at "curing" teens and Other Vulnerable Persons therefrom was overdoing it on the old ultraviolence to the point where one 14-year-old thus "undergoing treatment" was punched severely to the point of his suffering chest pains and kidney damage, and is now in hospital for treatment.

Previously, you may or may not recall, several other "Internet Addiction" clinics in the so-called "People's Republic of China," presumably part of the Greater Desire of Beijing for a "harmonised" (as in heavily-censored) Information Stuporbahn as relied on electroshock therapy were ordered closed for lack of evidence as to its effectiveness.

Let this be a lesson to those of conservative Zealotry and True Belief (in particular on Fox Prolefeed) who must enjoy creating crude stereotypes of especially Secular-Progressive bloggers in the hope of creating similar measures (howbeit packaged as "reeducation" based on Scientologist models and techniques, in particular the old E-Meter) here in our "morally superior" United States with the desire being a Guaranteed Conservative Monopoly on public opinion.

=============

AND STAYING WITH THE SO-CALLED "PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA" FOR THE MOMENT, Your Correspondent understands that Spring Airlines, a local domestic carrier, is considering replacing many of the seats on its aircraft with what are essentially barstools; the better to further cut costs while maximising profits and load factor.

Chinese civil-aviation officials are unlikely to grant permission for the Noble Experiment, citing possible safety issues.

Come to think of it, Spring Airlines could be considering "twinning" arrangements with the ilk of Southwest Airlines and Ryanair within measurable distance.

*************

WORTH PONDERING WHEN YOU GET ANOTHER "SPAM" E-MAIL IN THE "419" STYLEE invoking the good name and majesty of the Central Bank of Nigeria: Said Central Bank has decided to "name and shame" such companies owing substantial amounts in past-due loans to the five banking-houses placed In Administration last week.

And you thought our "morally superior" socioeconomic bailout programme wasn't generating realistic taxpayer value for money (as in expecting such to generate consistent and "guaranteed" dividends in the preferred form of tax rebates).

=============

THE DARK SIDE OF MINNESOTA GOVERNOR PALWENTY'S FATALLY-FLAWED DELUSION ABOUT "LOW TAXES=JOBS=PROSPERITY=SOCIAL STABILITY AND ORDER:" Methinks such thought requires that the excise on liquor be kept all the lower so as to maximise their revenue stream thanks to increased consumption from especially lower-income, socioeconomically-disadvantaged and National Minority communities with few or no realistic opportunities for viable socioeconomic empowerment based on a "free-market-as-Great-White-Father" model.

Which, it turns out, may come back to haunt the Pawlenty Misadministration considering where "name-and-shame" lists of liquor licences have now been issued of such not having timely paid sales and excise taxes, requiring wholesalers and distributors to suspend deliveries thereto until such time as tax debts have been settled.

Even more likely is the prospect of discreetly calling for such communities still having municipally-owned liquor stores to essentially realise that such Noble Experiments in "limiting consumption" have no realistic social benefit and, further, are incompatible with free-market socioeconomics as are essential to America's Antient and Peculiar Sovereignty and Sovereign Identity--preferably through Moral Suasion rather than "blackmail" in form of "taxpayer lawsuits" which turn out to be supported by overzealous "astroturf" Zealots and True Believers in a "pure" form of Darwinian-stylee free-market capitalism taking willful and deliberate advantage of the Lower Classes otherwise regarded as "parasites" or "degenerates" per conservative articles of faith.

=============

MEANHWILE, THESE SAME LOWER CLASSES ARE EXPECTED ALL THE MORE TO "DO THEIR PART FOR THE ECONOMY" BY WAY OF WASTEFUL AND UNNECESSARY CONSUMER SPENDING through especially the likes of Wally World, Sam's Club, Costco Wholesale and BJ's Warehouse Club (all in the theoretical name and interest of "value for money," especially when pay is all the more limited and limiting and access to credit is becoming all the more constrained for the Fox Prolefeed crowd who, in an earlier time, were limited for the most part to Morris Plan vis-a-vis consumer credit).

Which, when it comes to the warehouse clubs, could be too tempting to the point of encouraging wasteful and unnecessary impulse shopping as negates any likelihood for getting value for money, per a study conducted by professors with Columbia and Yale universities (the fact of which is all the more likely to have Fox Prolefeed tearing into this story for "anti-Americanism" being promoted).

Which should be enough of a wake-up call to once again push for promoting responsible shopping such as epitomised by the Latin motto Utile Dulce ("the useful with the practical"), as opposed to such expected out of selfish vanity or otherwise unlikely to produce significant consumer benefit--especially so in the Wally World crowd.

*************

EIGHT DAYS NOW BEFORE TGMnGT 2009 (AS IN THE MINNESOTA STATE FAIR) OPENS HER GATES TO THE WORLD FOR 12 DAYS ENDING LABOUR DAY, and in the name of stimulating attention therefor:

If ever there were an Endangered Species among State Fair distractions (apart from the freak shows as are probably dependent upon fakes, victim of Science and Progress), it would have to be the church dining hall as allowed fairgoers to not only have a decent lunch, but also do something good for the community by virtue of the fact that their meals paid for various church projects.

Especially when the menu offered such dishes that were especially good enough to keep 'em coming back for more, year after year, served up by volunteers from the various church circles, youth groups, whatever.

I say "Endangered Species" vis-a-vis church dining halls because, in the last 30 years or so, such have fallen significantly in numbers thanks to such factors as:

Changing menu trends (especially away from the cheap, starchy menus as were especially popular with diners and more towards "comfort food");
Increasing costs for not only ingredients, but also utensils, appliances and compliance with health and food safety codes; and
Reluctance on the part of many church members to commit to volunteer work slinging hash, washing dishes or serving tables for the duration, especially because of work schedule conflicts.

Meaning, in effect, that there's emerged @ TGMnGT what amounts to a "last man club" of these three church dining halls this year:

Hamline United Methodist Church (whose speciality is ham loaf with a treacly-tasting sauce);
Salem Lutheran Church of Minneapolis (whose specialities are Swedish meatballs and Swedish Egg Coffee); and
the Church of the Epiphany (whose specialities are meatloaf and a "walking taco"--taco meat, salsa and sour cream in a baggie of tortilla chips).

(Additionally, the Hamline United Methodist and Salem Lutheran dining halls have church cookbooks available.)

In much the same charitable vein are the dining halls of Robbinsdale OES (Order of the Eastern Star, the women's branch of Freemasonry) Lodge 88 (specialist mostly in "comfort food") and the Midway Men's Club (specialist in sandwiches and soft drinks).

Definitely worth paying @ least one visit to when it comes meal time, especially with "paying it forward" being the vogue of the hour.

(And speaking of church dining halls from the past, one of the more embarrassing scenarios from the past came @ the 1922 State Fair; a gypsy fortune-smeller's tent had the misfortune of being located across the street from the dining hall of Golgotha Lutheran Church of Minneapolis, prompting its pastor to complain rather vocally and ask that the fortune-smellers' tent be closed or otherwise moved away from the general vicinity.)

"...and that is is a way."

Incidental #1,288

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:45:00 GMT

see more Engrish

THE SAME CAN NO DOUBT BE SAID OF THE "ASTROTURF" ELEMENT ACTING IN THE GUISE OF "AVERAGE MIDDLE-CLASS AMERICANS" to the point of disrupting Congressional "town meetings" to attract attention for especially their Dearly Beloved in Christ droogs @ Fox Prolefeed, as would just love(!!) to pay handsomely for the juiciest footage by amateur reporters-cum-stringers filing reports of such disruptives.

Especially the sort as can be spun out of control for "winning of hearts and minds" misled all the more, or otherwise easily open to suggestion most dangerous or questionable, to the Greater Conservative Agenda packaged all the more in hypernationalistic appeals, and worse.

*************

NEWS SURE TO BE EXPLOITED BY ESPECIALLY THE RON PAUL REVOLUTION CROWD, AMONG OTHERS CALLING FOR A "COMPLETE AND FINAL" RETURN to a gold-backed "sound money" policy concurrent with the equally "complete and final" abolition of the Federal Reserve:

Researchers have discovered where some 90% of all Federal Reserve Notes in circulation have minute traces of cocaine, which gets spread by way of note-counting and -sorting machinery among the banking-houses after such are rolled up and used to consume cocaine.

(Luckily, the doses of cocaine so discerned are unlikely to pose serious health or morals risks.)

=============

"ME AND MY BIG MOUTH" DEPARTMENT: Liechtenstein's Crown Prince Dowager Hans Adam II (who, technically, is on the sidelines of power, or what passes for it, in Vaduz, having handed over the regal duties to Prince Alois in 2004) is in Dutch with Jewish groups across Europe (Germany especially) for some wise-arse remarks as were attributed to him by way of the Liechtensteiner Volksblatt, the leading gazetta in the vest-pocket principality, over the weekend suggesting that bank-secrecy laws in not just Liechtenstein, but also in neighbouring Switzerland (which ovesees the Principality's foreign affairs), may have "saved" thousands of Jewish families during the Holocaust back in Nazi Germany.

Which is rather ironic when you consider that the Liechtensteiner royal house established full-time residency in the Principality only back in 1938, as the Nazis were goose-stepping it in the Anschluss through Austria, their ancestral and traditional home, eventually settling down in Vaduz Castle overlooking Beautiful Downtown Vaduz. That, and the fact of Prince Hans-Adam using the occasion of Liechtenstein's national holiday to display such insensitivity, adding as a Phil Harris-esque retort that "Germany should clean up its own act, and think about its past."

And in any case--well, let's have the Israeli daily Ha'aretz explain:

Germany's Jewish community - which last year condemned Hans-Adam II's description of modern Germany as a "Fourth Reich" - slammed his latest comments yesterday as another insensitive twisting of history.

"He is portraying a picture of the banks which is absolutely not true," said Stephan Kramer, general secretary of the German Central Council of Jews.

Kramer told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that the prince was falsely describing the role of Swiss and Liechtensteinian banks as pursuing "a rescue mission" of Jews in World War II.

He said the prince should not cite Jews' struggle to escape the Holocaust as "a defense shield against people targeting the banks and their practices today, hiding not only clean money but dirty money."

But Hans-Adam noted how some Jews were able to buy their safety during the Holocaust by using money they had deposited in Switzerland or Liechtenstein.

The prince said banking secrecy also helped people persecuted by communist governments. He said it can be a life-saver today for people who must shelter their savings from "Third World countries run by bloodthirsty dictators."

Hans-Adam said other nations' high tax rates - not Liechtenstein's money havens - are responsible for tax evasion.

"Germany and many other countries have an unbelievable mess with their state finances. These must first be put in order," he said.

Kramer said Hans-Adam's views were outrageous and insulting to Holocaust victims.

"This was not some search-and-rescue mission by the Liechtenstein banks or the Liechtenstein state or the Swiss state to help those poor Jews being persecuted," Kramer said. "This was their money in their bank accounts that they then took out to get rescued from the Nazis."

But then again, how do we know some, if not all, of the "sugar daddies" behind the "astroturf" movements here in the "morally superior" United States aren't secretly banking their monies in Liechtenstein "for tax reasons," in case they need to explain?

*************

AS THE 2009 EDITION OF TGMnGT (AS IN THE MINNESOTA STATE FAIR) APPROACHES, OPENING THURSDAY WEEK TO BE EXACT, perhaps it was time to offer up some worthy insights into the "hidden gems," so to speak, thereof from someone who regards TGMnGT, next to Wisconsin Dells, his best parts of summer.

Today, Your Correspondent will bring up the vest-pocket neighbourhood grocery and delicatessen occupying part of the ratty-looking, in-serious-need-of-repainting Commissary just north of the Sheep and Poultry Building off Clough Street since 1934 known as Steichen's (identified accordingly by a grotty-looking sign over the premi), whose premi would be about the size of your typical efficiency apartment in "the projects" in selling area.

Whose walls are plastered with cigarette advertisements of a point-of-sale sort now seen as out of fashion ... and whose shelves are, as a rule, stocked for the most part with essentials as would be useful to such among those spending the fair @ the State Fair Campgrounds or otherwise having bunks in the livestock buildings by virtue of their being exhibitors, concessionaires, operators of rides on the Mighty Midway and Kidway or just Fairheads.

Not to mention having constantly-freshly-ground hamburger and constantly-sliced delicatessen meats (the latter for such preferring to have a picnic lunch; they also have prepared box lunches available), and (for the early-risers or such needing what our British friends call elevenses) packaged sweet rolls, Danish and halfway-decent coffee.

And they still tell the story about the time John Denver played the Grandstand stage @ the 1972 fair, using some oranges from Steichen's brought in by a stagehand to do an impromptu juggling routine.

(Speaking of hamburger: It may be something that would have The Great Gonzo drooling in his Luscious Glory nowadays, among other fans of Weird News, but back in 1908, responding to ongoing complaints from fairgoers that the smell of frying hamburger distracted from the more typical aromas of the State Fair such as manure and orchard, the Minnesota State Fair ordered all hamburger stands restricted to an area just inside the main gate, back when visitors arrived on the streetcar--about where the CHS Miracle of Birth Centre today stands. Only to inspire a whole new round of complaints suggesting that the smell of frying hamburgers had become all the more concentrated, not to mention a little too obvious for comfort back when hygiene and sanitation weren't all that important and ptomaine poisoning was taken for granted.)

"...and that is is a way."

Incidental #1,287

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:00:00 GMT

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THE PRECEDING MAY BE AN APT SIMILIE AND METAPHOR FOR WHAT BUZZFLASH.COM recently editorialised on about the likelihood of conservative-leaning Zealots and True Believers probably having sympathies for the Confederate cause during the Civil War--in particular such seeing a "pure" form of free-market capitalism as Great White Father, Saviour, Eternal Hope, Dearest and Loving Father, Teacher, and Guide, that sort of thing in the North Korean stylee:

The Civil War may have been won by the North, but in truth the South never emotionally conceded.

The Town Hall mobs, the birthers, the teabaggers are all part of that long line of �coded� agitators for the notions of white entitlement and �conservative values.�

Of course, this conservative viewpoint values cheap labor and unabated use of natural resources over technological and economic innovation. It also � and this is its hot molten core � fundamentally believes that white people are born with a divine advantage over people of other skin colors, and are chosen by God to lead the heathen hordes.

That a Town Hall mob is itself a heathen horde would never occur to the economically stressed whites who listen to the lies of the likes of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs. Lies that confirm an emotionally reinforcing worldview � however heinous � become truths for those in psychological need of feeling superior and chosen.

Of course, when you start stirring the pot of race -- in order to preserve the status quo of entrenched power and wealth � you emerge with a stew of hate boiling over and ready to explode into full-fledged violence.

The other America, the North � led by Lincoln � stayed true to the values of the Constitution, the one ratified in Philadelphia, and the Declaration of Independence. The America that Hannity, Beck and Limbaugh so nostalgically yearn for is a bait and switch: what they want is the �old-fashioned� white entitlement values of the Confederacy and the short-lived Constitution of the Confederate states. (Although most of the right wing media hate talkers are really just in it for the money, paid to divert whites squeezed in the middle to blame �the others� [minorities and immigrants] for their financial problems and not the corporations who are stealing their jobs, or the wealthy who are stealing their incomes due to tax cuts for the rich and legal investment schemes that amount to looting.)

It doesn�t have to be this way. The corporations and �K Street� lobbyists are pulling the emotional strings and simmering frustrations of mostly Republicans, in order to intimidate already �in the tank� elected officials in D.C. (and regulatory agencies), and the re-emergence of the Confederate nation from time to time is meant to cause chaos, confusion and distraction from the vital issue facing America: who controls it, corporations and entrenched wealth or the American people?

So, as the health care reform debate gets bogged down in the tale of two nations, as the stoking of the coals of hate and division (by the right wing media on behalf of the corporations who own the outlets and corporate America in general) reaches a frenzied dangerous peak, the issues of importance to the Americans loyal to the Constitution ratified by the last state in 1788 fall victim to a sideshow.

Racism and the Neo-Confederacy are like a thermometer. The big media companies and their GOP allies can turn it up or down.

Right now, they have it up full blast. They are betting the house on wounding Obama�s presidency, just as they did to Bill Clinton.

In Philadelphia, the Liberty Bell is on exhibit. It has a wide permanent crack and can never be rung again as it would likely shatter in two.

Is this the fate of America?

Wasn�t this supposed to be resolved by Lee�s surrender in 1865?

Apparently not.

No wonder "poor white trash," dependent too heavily upon Fox Prolefeed and Wally World as a crutch for ignoring their emotionally-disabled state of affairs, is so detached from Reality as they are.

And detached from Reality to the extent of potentially harbouring latent neo-Confederate feelings rooted in a latent and prevailing Scots-Irish "cultural heritage" mindset prevailing across parts of the former Confederacy. A mindset which excuses and even justifies the old ultraviolence above all else as a means of resolving disputes, arguments and even conflict generally, disregarding peaceful means.

Which could be right up there with Japanese science-fiction potboilers with considerable appeal to Vulnerable and Impressionable Youth, airing as they do on Japanese TV networks in the early-evening hours (and no doubt influencing the followers of Shoko Asahara's Aum Shinrikyo cult behind the sarin-gas attack on Tokyo's subway network back in 1995) with plenty of ultraviolence galore, much to the chagrin of local critics of media violence and its psychoemotional effects upon Certain Vulnerable and Easily-Influenced Subpopulations such as children, those on State Aid, the mentally- and emotionally-disabled and others traditionally subject to "patriotic" socioeconomic marginalisation.

And yet, these same neo-Confederate Zealots and True Believers yearn for a "peaceful" reestablishment of the Confederate States of America based on "mutual self-help" models! Haven't they ever heard of friendly societies, cooperatives, building societies or even mutual savings banks, whose basic and fundamental principles have Scots-Irish roots?

(As a matter of fact, the earliest known attempt @ a friendly society in the classical sense on historic record was the Incorporation of Carters in Leith, whose original charter, dated 1555, is still extant. As for the mutual savings bank, as documented previously in this blog, it was the brainchild of the Rev. Henry Duncan of the Presbyterian parish in Ruthwell, Dumfriesshire, vintage 1810, to encourage thrift among the poorer members of the parish against hardship and adversity.)

=============

AND WITH NEO-CONFEDERACISM HOLDING DEAR THE ONCE AND FUTURE SUPREMACY OF WHITE LOW CHURCH CHRISTIANITY among its articles of faith, such can be expected to excuse all manner of (perhaps fabricated or otherwise exaggerated) atrocity tales in pamphlet form about the Clear and Present Danger of Catholics, Lutherans, Jews and Muslims Amongst Us, such as that summarised thus by ConWebBlog:

In her Aug. 13 Newsmax column, right-wing blogger Pamela Geller touts the story of Fathima Rifqa Bary, an Ohio teenager who ran away from home to a Florida pastor claiming that her parents planned to kill her for converting from Islam to Christianity:

Rifqa Bary is alive. She ran to Florida and escaped the fate her father had in mind for her � unlike Amina and Sarah Said, two Muslim teens in Texas who ran away but returned home at the insistence of their mother, Tissie Said, only to be brutally murdered by their father, Yaser Said, on New Year�s Day 2008.
[...]
Americans don�t understand because the �experts� aren�t telling them. I pray that Rifqa�s defenders bring to the court experts who know about honor killings. Family members who have lost their relatives to honor killings (for less) should be giving testimony.
[...]
Rifqa�s testimony is a plea to the free world to stand for its values and its principles. How far we have fallen when a young woman is pleading to be free in the land of the free, home of the brave.

Rifqa Bary�s life hangs in the balance. The West should do everything in its power to save her.

But Geller is not telling the whole story. As Christianity Today reports (via Richard Bartholomew), Bary's story is being promoted by the pastor who whom she fled, Blake Lorenz, whom the girl found through Facebook, and the parents are telling a much different story:

The attorney representing Bary's mother told Orlando-based 10TV News that they were "allowing [Bary] to explore her Christianity," and that Bary wasn't fearful until she met Pastor Lorenz, who holds Bary tightly throughout the video.

Meanwhile, Sgt. Jerry Cupp with the Columbus missing persons bureau disputes Bary's claims, telling The Columbus Dispatch that Mohamed Bary has known about his daughter's conversion for months and appears to be caring. And today, the attorney for Bary's parents issued a statement that they have never threatened Bary: "If this case is perceived as a clash of religions, it is because Mr. Lorenz recklessly and without authorization put someone else's child in front of television cameras to publicly renounce her previous faith," McCarthy said in the statement. "The parents who love Rifqa are in the best position now to protect her from the mess that Mr. Lorenz has made."

Further, as Bartholomew adds, Lorenz "believes that he receives special personal messages from God about the imminent end of the world," which raises questions about whether he's exploiting Bary to promote his own ministry.

Christianity Today concludes:

Of course, believers can rejoice that this teenager has come to Christ in a cultural context in which it would be difficult to betray her parents' teaching. And if Bary's claims are true, we can also hope that her legal case is handled fairly and wisely, and that she finds support from Christian mentors and friends. But none of this requires that Christians be quick to use Bary's claims to prove that Muslims � in this case, her parents and mosque leaders � are intent on killing Bary because their beliefs make them inherently violent.

That last point is exactly what Geller appears to want to push by ignoring the full story.

That, and the apocalyptic "revelations" of one Mary Ann Van Hoof as promoted since 1950 by the so-called "Shrine of Our Lady Queen of the Holy Rosary, Mediatrix of Peace, Mediatrix Between G-d and Man" of Necedah, Wisconsin, including such implying that Interplanetary Craft piloted by the 1,200-year-old "Joe" will rescue the True Believers from Clear and Present Danger upon the Apocalypse.

"...and that is is a way."

Incidental #1,286

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:55:00 GMT

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FROM SHAANXI PROVINCE IN THE SO-CALLED "PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC IN CHINA" COMES WORD OF RIOTING AND DISORDER over news that a lead smelter of newish vintage (opened in 2002, to be exact) has been held responsible for accelerated levels of lead poisoning in some 600 children in the area, with two having tested positive for elevated levels.

(One such, a teenage girl, attempted The Other Way Out soon after hearing the news, but is now in hospital for observation.)

The news not having been taken very well by angry local peasants, who have marched upon the smelter, smashed down security walls and destroyed property before authorities intervened to restore order. One particularly galling area of contention was that local officials didn't exactly do their duty in establishing a 4-km. (about 2� mile) exclusion zone around the lead smelter site.

*************

GREAT UNWASHED 1, CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN 0--or maybe not, especially after officials of the Obama Administration began sending signals on the Sunday interview shows suggesting that a "public option" for health-policy reform (think Medibank Priv� from "Down Under" here, perhaps) may be off the table, with a cooperative-based model (think BUPA from England's Green and Pleasant Land here, perhaps; BUPA--as in the British United Provident Association--competes with the Evil NHS quite well, thank you and G-d Save The Queen) likely to be preferred.

Which is still all the more unlikely to appease the Fox Prolefeed-influenced specimens of "poor white trash" (or so we're expected to believe) disrupting Congressional "town meetings" throughout the August recess with their manufactured appeals to emotional True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command, still insisting that the free-market-based status quo is, was and will forever be Great White Father, one with American Sovereignty and Sovereign Identity Antient and Peculiar, never mind the clear and present danger upon the Lower Classes: They would rather prefer that Medicare and Medicaid be either:

converted into a vendored scheme to help said Lower Classes buy private health insurance or open Medical Savings Plans on the free market, thereby "promoting the healthy and beneficial effects of free enterprise essential to American National Identity upon such heretofore conditioned into unhealthy acceptance of State socialism and other un-American beliefs" (or so the official patsy is likely to run); or
essentially "block-granted" to the several states to allow their developing such health care-reform schemes "consistent with local needs, experience and traditions" (which would be comparable to the Canadian model of Medicare, as is conducted by the several provinces using Federal and Provincial funding--but then again, this news could raise Fox Prolefeed's paranoia alarms to a rather shrill pitch).

In any event, there's still the likelihood of "astroturf" guaranteed to send The Oxycontin Boar's litso drooling in its Luscious Glory towards his previously-stated desideratum of "hop[ing] that [President Obama] fails" and that his Good and Loyal Droogs among the Great Unwashed will vote all the more with their unmentionable parts into embracing the Greater Conservative (er, make that Fascistic) Agenda as One That Will Save America From Herself.

Which, unfortunately, is probably in the same league as apartheid South Africa's prolonged insistence to the "privileged as of Natural Right" white minority that apartheid will save South Africa towards the Once and Final Afrikaner Nation based on "wise use"-model energy self-sufficiency (as in coal-based ersatz gasolines, for one).

*************

NOT EVEN BOLLYWOOD STARS ARE IMMUNE FROM THE OVERZEALOUS SCRUITNY OF CUSTOMS OFFICERS, as Shah Rukh Khan, one of Bollywood's biggest bad-guy draws, learned to his chagrin while arriving the other day @ Newark Liberty International Airport on a promotional tour for his latest Bollywood blockbuster.

Which, ironically, is about the use of race profiling as one with National Security and Identity--even if Mr. Khan explained politely to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers @ EWR that Khan is a common Indian surname, the same sounded alarm bells almost on a par with those in Jack Benny's Basement Vault back in the salad days of radio.

In any event, New Delhi has lodged a Diplomatic Protest over the issue, but not before riots in several Indian cities over the news as included Old Glory (or reasonable facsimilies thereof) being torched.

*************

WITH JUST OVER A WEEK OR SO NOW BEFORE THE GATES OF TGMnGT 2009 (AS IN THE MINNESOTA STATE FAIR) ARE THROWN OPEN TO THE WORLD for its 12-day run ending, as per usual, on Labour Day, it may be interesting to note some worthwhile sidelights from a fan thereof in the run-up therefor.

For one, it ought to be worth noting that fairs in general here in our "morally superior" United States (and TGMnGT is no exception) are as much exhibitions of industrial progress as of the agricultural. Which, quite often, will tend to hilariously illogical cheapjack reinforced by demonstrations in the Billy Mays stylee replete with manufactured pep and vinegar suggesting that buying this or that particular miracle product is one with household bliss and ease.

And can sometimes result in humiliating embarrassment.

Case in point, a "blast from the past," as it were: Back in 1905, the Neo-Style Company out of St. Paul exhibited in the Women's Building a crude yet somewhat prototypical model of an electric washing machine--and as if that weren't good enough, offered a $100 prize to anyone who could come up with a safer such (and that was when a nickel was worth a dime, and then some, to paraphrase Yogi Berra there). Just four years later (by which time the Women's Building found new quarters in the none-too-successful Manufacturers' Building), the same company demonstrated a crude yet "new-fangled" electric clothes dryer which, on one memorable occasion, exploded and caused a small fire.

(It's not recorded if panic or hysteria ensued in consequence.)

=============

AND FOR TGMnGT VISITORS WHO ARE LIKELY TO THINK ALL CORN DOGS ARE THE SAME, especially since the Pronto Pup (first introduced in 1947, the first such fair after an enforced lapse of two years--1945 @ the behest of the wartime Office of Defence Transportation, then 1946 in response to a polio epidemic) is generally synonymous with corn dogs, consider:

Pronto Pups (and, for that matter, those "foot long" corn dogs) are traditionally made with cornmeal batter; and
Poncho Dogs, a more recent cousin of the former, are made with wheat-flour batter, presumably to make them lighter tasting.

Now you know.

And expect more of these TGMnGT Tidbits in coming days.

"...and that is is a way."

Incidental #1,285

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 15:32:10 GMT

THE DISRUPTIVE TACTICS BEING USED BY PAID "SINGERS" FROM THE GREAT UNWASHED FOR AND ON BEHALF OF "THE FOUR HUNDRED" AND THEIR DROOGS in various "essential" or "strategic" industries (including insurance and energy) probably has nothing on what the Nigerian jihadist sect Boko Haram ("Western Education Prohibited") had in mind vis-a-vis last month's riots and disorder as killed its leader, Muhammad Yusuf:

A memo released by its acting leader hath it that Boko Haram's desideratum in provoking the disorder and violence was to create a state of total and utter chaos as would make Nigeria "ungovernable" by any standard.

Could there be interesting parallels here? Besides, "it's a small world after all...."

=============

AND IMAGINE THIS AS AN EFFECTIVE WAY TO PSYCHOLOGICALLY DEPANTS SUCH SPECIMENS OF RIGHT-WING PARROTRY disrupting town meetings of late with manufactured appeals to True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command (or so it's hoped):

In case the comments start getting pathetically obnoxious, I'd play @ Maximum Volume "That's What I Like About the South" by Phil Harris and His Orchestra to drown out the pathetitude and, thereby, discourage any show of empathy for such "average Americans" as are really paid "singers" for "the Four Hundred" and their interests recruited from the ranks of Angry White Trash Eating Krispy Kreme Donuts to the Point of Gluttonry Ensuing.

=============

AND TALK ABOUT HATE BEING "HEALTHY", LET ALONE BEING A BADGE OF HONOUR UNWITTINGLY TENDING TO THE NARCISSTIC, an article of faith hyperconservatives who may unwittingly be pushing Fascist articles of faith all along seem to hold dear:

ConWebBlog has something to say about such being a pet WorldNetDaily article of faith of late:

Joseph Farah runs a news organization, WorldNetDaily, that has told repeated lies about Barack Obama. It has preached hatred of the president, likening him to Nazis and even the Antichrist. It employs reporters seemingly unable to tell a factual, unbiased story.

And somehow Farah has the sheer audacity to attack other news organizations for being "debauched, faithless, nefarious, reprobate and unprincipled"? And then to claim that "my little Internet-based news organization provides something of an antidote to this mind-control, liberty-denying poison all around us"?

We don't know what to say, except that Farah is apparently incapable of self-reflection. Or is so far down the rabbit hole that he no longer cares about the facts (or has decided that cashing in on his hate is more important).

Julius Streicher of Der Sturmer notoriety would probably be pleased that WorldNetDaily and suchlike of that ilk are keeping the flame of a "written-so-you-can-understand-it" brand of hate which Herr Streicher embraced alive.

And speaking of "mind-control, liberty-denying poison" claimed by Mr. Farah: Isn't he, perchance, guilty of projection in the psychological sense?

*************

YOUR CORRESPONDENT HATH IT THAT A CANNABIS-ERADICATION OPERATION IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA is to blame for a major wildfire there of late as has destroyed quite a bit of dry scrubland and forced property evacuations.

I just hope it isn't too near Magic Mountain, nor would the cannabis farm thus targeted before things got out of control be a preferred rendezvous of certain wild California Trolls in the Magic Mountain stylee (remember?) whose idea of "getting high on fun" is obviously the wrong such.

"...and that is is a way."

Incidental #1,284

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 16:30:00 GMT

FOR THOSE SUPPORTING THE PALESTINIAN SIDE OVER THE ISRAELI BASED ON FLAWED "ENEMY-OF-MY-ENEMY" ILLOGIC, something to think about:

The so-called "Warriors of G-d," a jihadist movement in the al-Qaeda stylee, tried to pick a fight with the Hamas-controlled regime in Palestinian Gaza by seizing a Rafah mosque during Friday prayers yesterday, whereupon its Supreem Leader, Abdul-Latif Moussa, declared a Muslim Emirate had been established with the "wholehearted support" of Muslims in attendance.

Said "Warriors of G-d" (or, to use its full Arabic name most sacred and profane, "Jund Ansar Allah") contend that Hamas has become "un-Islamic" and, hence, "corrupted Islam" by an overzealous embrace of Western ways and teachings which the radical movement sees as "infidel" to the form of Islam practiced by the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) favoured by Jund Ansar Allah.

Which, in any case, was enough to prompt the Hamas-led Palestinian Gaza police and security forces to take action, firing rocket-propelled grenades and machine-gun fire in a drawn-out battle as killed six and wounded some 200 before the whole was climaxed by Abdul-Latif Moussa's taking The Other Way Out to avoid police capture--some reports claiming that he blew himself up with an explosives pack strapped to his belt.

But then again, Hamas has not taken very kindly to Jund Ansar Allah, contending such are designed to whip up international provocation against the Palestinians (and not just from the Israelis, as in Operation Cast Lead late last year).

*************

SOME POSITIVE NEWS FOR ONCE FROM THE CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA, as in a good chunk of the Nigerian "419" junk e-mails that you probably get in your e-mail invoking its name and authority for corrupt and sinister ends:

Lamido Sanusi, in his role as the Central Bank's Governor, has sacked the presidents of five leading Nigerian banking-houses (as in Afribank, Finbank, Intercontinental Bank, Oceanic Bank and United Bank) as were found to be carrying excessive bad debt, including 90% of outstanding loans made through the bank's discount window (as in borrowing on the Central Bank to meet short-term requirements), and were "grossly undercapitalised."

The move having been taken in the interest of protecting public confidence and trust in the Nigerian banking system; however, such should not be seen as out-and-out nationalisation, but rather as a stabilisation measure until such time as new management could be brought in.

In other words, it should be business as usual for the depositors of the afflicted.

For the record, all 24 banks licenced to provide banking services in Nigeria are expected to undergo Central Bank auditing within measurable distance; so far, ten such (including the five now In Administration) have been audited.

Meanwhile, in our "morally superior" United States, Colonial Bancorp, with offices in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Texas, was declared Insolvent by the FDIC @ close of business yesterday, with BB&T taking over Colonial's banking operations and deposits, after it emerged that Colonial had significant and measurable exposure to bad mortgage loans in the "sub-prime" and "alt-A" stylee as were subsequently brokered.

*************

AS WE ALL KNOW, BOYS AND GIRLS, MINNESOTA GOVERNOR TIM PAWLENTY HAS CHOSEN NOT TO SEEK ANOTHER TERM IN OFFICE IN INDECISION 2010--presumably, we are told, so he can be preened accordingly for a Presidential bid on the GOP ticket in Indecision 2012.

As in its desire to recast itself as The Party of No, all the while presenting themselves as Defenders and Saviours of Our Antient and Pecuilar Sovereignty and Sovereign Identity based on Free-Market Capitalism as Great White Father as one with Traditional Morals, Decency and Family Values in the face of recent morals-related scandals against several prominent GOP politicos, most infamously South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford (now a Life Member of the Sour Grapes Club, along with a Card-Carrying Cuckold).

Which prompts Your Correspondent's hometown gazetta, by name and stylee of the Winona Daily News, to thusly suggest that Governor Pawlenty may want to think twice about the GOP's Presidential overtures:

Hey, America, look at Minnesota!

Because we are what the nation could become.

Like Texas was to George W. Bush, many are beginning to wonder whether Gov. Tim Pawlenty can do for the United States what he�s done for Minnesota.

Let�s hope not.

For months now, Gov. Tim Pawlenty�s eyes have been set on issues a lot larger, a lot grander than just little old Minnesota politics.

After two other Republican governors basically self-destructed, Pawlenty has become the last GOP executive standing as rumors swirl about him making a national run at the White House.

But for conservatives and others who might not have had the privilege of living through the no-new-taxes pledge and the �U� word, unallotment, maybe they should look a little closer at the last-standing GOP golden child.

To wit: Pawlenty has slashed human services to the point at which people making less than $8,000 per year will not have health care.

He has the gumption to criticize the health care plans Congress contemplates while having only one solution himself � cut, cut, cut.

But cutting health insurance doesn�t mean ending disease. It just means shifting the burden to emergency rooms and letting the health care systems worry about how to pay for it.

For supposedly being fiscally responsible, Pawlenty�s approach to health care has been not only economically objectionable but morally bankrupt.

So much for compassionate conservatives.

His administration championed the idea of bonding for projects that were hardly capital. In fact, what few roads have been built were mainly the product of bonding, meaning the next generation of Minnesotans would be paying for roads that had long since been replaced.

How rich it was then when Pawlenty criticized Congress last week for �borrowing money to pay for a new program.� Yet that�s been his administration�s entire way of paying for any new roads.

And, just last week, Pawlenty ripped the �cash for clunkers� program.

Pawlenty apparently doesn�t know that Minnesota is fourth in the nation in taking advantage of the program. Pawlenty, who loves touting himself as such a friend to business, seems to not really care that Minnesota auto dealers may be breathing a sigh of economic relief because of the federal program.

And he doesn�t apparently care about Minnesotans or the economic climate of this state because Pawlenty�s eyes are fixed to the east � somewhere on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington.

As President Barack Obama�s approval ratings begin to sag, it�s easy to look for the next hero � the next savior.

But take a long, hard look at Pawlenty � the lack of crippling political gaffes doesn�t mean he�s the right choice for the GOP.

Pawlenty has been short-sighted with Minnesota�s future, so why do we think he�d be any different for our country?

(Especially so if the so-called "Club For Growth," perhaps the most ardent specimen of K Street Zealotry and True Belief in the capitalism-with-American-characteristics-as-Great-White-Father agenda, is all the more ardent in helping the GOP preen Pawlenty as 2012 Presidential material by parroting Grover Norquist's platitude about the need to see "government reduced to the point where we can drown it in the bathtub"--and then play the Andrea Yates card, as in "demonic possession," to avoid attracting suspicions.)

"...and that is is a way."

Incidental #1,283: The Privacy Disclosure

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 20:00:00 GMT

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Incidental #1,282

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:30:00 GMT

BLAME THE SO-CALLED "PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA," AND ESPECIALLY SO ITS OH-TOO-CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE EQUALLY-SO-CALLED "UNION OF MYANMAR", for the United Nations Security Council's resolution taking issue with the Myanmari junta's recent sentencing of Aung Sun Suu Kyi to extended house arrest being weaker than what especially our "morally superior" United States expected.

Which can get to be especially galling when you consider that both the United States and China have permanent seats on the aforementioned Security Council.

On the other hand, the European Union has announced that it will impose tighter sanctions en bloc against said "Union of Myanmar" over the handling of Ms. Suu Kyi in penal detention.

=============

AS IF EARLIER CHARGES THAT IRANIAN OPPOSITION LEADERS AND SUPPORTERS BEING SUBJECTED TO RAPE AND SODOMY WHILE IN PENAL DETENTION following their recent farce known as "Presidential elections" back in June weren't bad enough for Tehran to digest, along comes word of new and even more serious charges:

As in a number of opposition supporters so detained being sadistically tortured and beaten by militia officers until death ensued.

*************

IF THERE CAN BE ONE THING AS CAN BEST EXPLAIN THE OVERZEALOUS OPPOSITION TO BADLY-NEEDED HEALTH CARE POLICY REFORMS here in our "morally superior" United States, it would probably have to be outright fanaticism in form of a hard-wired and even xenophobic brand of True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command.

Fanaticism as is no doubt common among "poor white trash" with few or no realistic job or career skills, not to mention an unwillingness to accept 21st-century Reality by continuing to hold small-town 1950's-model mindsets and mentalities which, for all we know, were probably idealised to the point of hypocritical as being such as will Save America From Herself.

Fanaticism which explains an overzealous dependency on a par with the alcoholic, the drug addict, the sex maniac, the male chauvinist and the spousal/child abuser, howbeit for Fox Prolefeed and Wally World in particular.

Nothing but pure, unadulterated fanaticism on a par which characterised Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Japan as Lord and Master of a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" and apartheid South Africa.

Which, left unchallenged and unchecked, pose clear and present danger to liberty and Our Antient and Peculiar Sovereignty and Sovereign Identity even more so than the fantastically fatuous fantasies such hard-wired examples of "patriotic" fanaticism want you and I accepting.

=============

MALE CHAUVINISTS OF ALL NATIONS ARE PROBABLY GOING TO BE DISAPPOINTED @ THE NEWS that the International Olympic Committee has added Women's Boxing to the programme of the Games of the XXX Olympiad (2012) in London.

But are likely to reconcile it with the news that, from the XXXI Olympiad (2016; venue to be determined), Rugby Sevens and Golf will be included.

=============

STAYING WITH THE SUBJECT OF FANATICISM AND ITS ROOT CAUSES FOR THE NONCE, Indonesian President "Bambang" Sustano's Independence Day Address to the Indonesian People and Nation called upon Indonesians of all nations to unite against International Terrorism.

And especially so what President Sustano called "deviant ideas" being promoted into Impressionable Youth in especially rural and economically-distressed areas as can encourage the promotion of terroristic thoughts and tendencies, as well as the root causes for such "deviant ideas" being promoted, including poverty, fecundity and stupidity most rampant.

That particular point would likewise well apply here in our otherwise "morally superior" United States; besides, "it's a small world, after all."

*************

A MOST UNLIKELY FORM OF BIRTH CONTROL, IF EVER THERE WAS ONE: In the interest of reducing high birth rates in rural areas as can contribute to poverty, Indian officials are considering an initiative that would encourage couples to watch TV all the more as a disincentive to sexual activity--especially so during late-night hours.

Contingent, of course, on adequate funds being available to wire rural communities for electricity, not to mention constructing a network of low-power translator stations (usually between 10 and 500 watts maximum power, targeting specific areas for the most part) as would allow TV signals to reach remote or difficult-reception areas of such a large and geographically-diverse part of the world as the Indian subcontinent with decent reception quality.

Still, though, there may be room for expanding contraception, family planning and birth-control initiatives, especially should the late-night fare so offered tend to the predictably bland out of Bollywood.

*************

AND WITH JUST OVER A WEEK AND A HALF NOW BEFORE THE 2009 EDITION OF THE GREAT MINNESOTA GET-TOGETHER (AS IN THE MINNESOTA STATE FAIR) begins its annual presence @ Snelling and Como avenues in St. Paul over 12 days, ending Labour Day, perhaps it was time to whet your appetites with the recipe for the Swedish Egg Coffee as served @ the dining hall of the Salem Lutheran Church of Minneapolis:

Bring one gallon of fresh cold water to the boil.
In a separate one-gallon splatterware container, combine thoroughly 3 lbs. ground coffee, an egg and enough water as will barely moisten the mixture (some trial and error will be necessary to get it just right in the end).
Transfer the boiling water to the splatterware container as above, and return to the boil.
When thoroughly boiled, stir, strain through cheesecloth or filter paper and decant into a large coffee urn or carafe.

The whole being enough for about 48 cups, and especially recommended for a family reunion, picnic or other large gathering. (I predict that even Garfield, that coffee-swilling feline of the comics page, will actually like this coffee.)

"...and that is is a way."

Incidental #1,281: The REAL "average middle-class Americans" opposed to health-care reform

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 19:30:00 GMT

EVERY "RIGHT-THINKING AMERICAN"--AND NO, I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT THE IMITATION FOX PROLEFEED LOVES PUSHING FROM TIME TO TIME for purely distractive purposes--ought to watch the following video from YouTube (with gimme-cap tip to BartCopE!), ultimately from Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC the other night.

Which is revealing, and then some, of just who the real "average middle-class Americans" disrupting "town hall" meetings of the several Members of Congress throughout the August recess are: Nothing more than what confidence men like to call "singers" (read "shills").

"Singers" who, in Reality, are little more than parrots for the line of "the Four Hundred" and the "astroturf" causes they use in the name of We, The People to (again, in Reality) protect what they see as Our Antient and Peculiar Rights, Privileges and Powers "entitled them as of Natural Right," essentially amounting to borderline Fascism. (More on that presently.)

And after viewing this video, I just hope you realise who you're really shilling and parroting for if you oppose badly-needed changes and reforms to our "morally superior" health-care system--but don't come crying to me; you brought yourself into your own mess:

Now, for what I was saying about Fascism being the real and ulterior designs of "the Four Hundred" (though they hesitate to openly acknowledge as much) in all their platitudes about Our Holy and Beloved Nation Being Threatened as much as Our Traditional Rights, Privileges and Powers "entitled [them] as of Natural Right": Consider this letter to The Capital Times (cyberspace, via Madison, WI) that makes some rather valid points:

Dear Editor: Using different criteria than I used, Sara Robinson, in her Campaign for America's Future essay titled "Fascist America: Are We There Yet?" has arrived at the same conclusion that I arrived at far earlier than her. That conclusion is this: America is a fascist state.

The reason I arrived at the conclusion that America is a de facto fascist state on the verge of becoming a fascist military/police state far earlier that Sara Robinson is this: I understood the role the capitalist class plays in the creation of a fascist state.

Fascism occurs in capitalist states wherein overwhelming economic power is concentrated into the hands of a very small fraction of the capitalist class. This is because they own and control most of the capital. They use this overwhelming economic power to purchase political power to create a fascist state. They do this because they can no longer cope with the inherent internal problems within capitalism and the external problems confronting capitalism.

The function of the fascist state is to retain the economic and political power of the pro-fascist faction of the capitalist class, by brute force if necessary, when--and I repeat--the capitalist class and their political elite can no longer retain power on the basis of their ability to solve the problems confronting capitalist society.

It is as simple as that, folks.

John P. Stoltenberg

Elkhart Lake [WI]

Remember, then, these words of George Santayana: "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

And these of Josiah Quincy: "Liberty is not safe where the people are not watchful."

And, for that matter, of James Boswell (via his Life of Samuel Johnson): "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

And, for good measure, this Chinese proverb: "Without error, there could be no such thing as truth."

"...and that is is a way."

Incidental #1,280

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:30:00 GMT

THE MAYOR OF BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA IS CALLING FOR COMPLETE AND FINAL CLOSURE OF A RATHER INFAMOUS CHAPTER IN ITS HISTORY--as in the sadisto excesses of power and authority under the direction of Public Safety Commissioner "Bull" Connor against civil-rights demonstrators there in the spring of 1963, as epitomised by the likes of high-pressure fire hose, vicious dogs, unprovoked baton charges and general fearmongering--by calling for a pardon of such as were arrested for Jim Crow violations @ that time, and a rebate of fines as were paid for said violations.

Said fines ranging from $10-$30, with some subjected to $100 fines (and remember, this was in 1963 terms; in today's money, such should be multiplied by a factor of eight).

In any case, such is long overdue, and should be deserving.

*************

AND YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHO'S AMONG SOME OF THE BIGGEST WHINERS ABOUT THE "CASH-FOR-CLUNKERS" SCHEME NOT "PROVIDING VALUE FOR MONEY" TO THE GOOD TAXPAYERS: Those among the so-called "Wise Use Movement" representing auto-repair shops who insist that many of the cars turned in for rebates of up to $4,500 towards the cost of more fuel-efficient models were still in decent running order and can still be made serviceable, even if it means ordering out for replacement parts:

AS IF NEWLY-RELEASED E-MAIL RECORDS FROM HIS FRAUDULENCY'S MISADMINISTRATION showing even deeper involvement of its Great Within in calling for the sacking of Federal judges on purely ideological grounds having no connexion to Reality weren't disgusting enough, consider that the Mexican Supreme Court has ordered the release from gaol of some 20 people as were so sentenced in the late 1980's for outrages against Indigenous Peoples as turned nasty.

And the reason therefor? The discovery that some of the evidence used to secure convictions was deliberately forged by state prosecutors.

*************

PROVIDENCE JOURNAL COLUMNIST FROMA HARROP, WHOSE ESSAYS ARE DISTRIBUTED VIA CREATORS SYNDICATE NATIONALLY, recently made some very worthwhile points designed to depants (as it were) the ongoing exercises in obnoxiousness known as "Red State/Blue State" which, for all we know, are borderline Red Herring distractionary.

And which are deserving of your timely attention:

In an entertaining but silly political game, partisans score points by comparing statistics of so-called red states and blue states. Conservative Ross Douthat does that in a recent column, "Blue-State Blues." Aroused, liberals came back with their own numbers, many of which did not prove much, either.

Douthat holds that conservative red states have managed their economies better than liberal blue states. His evidence: Of the eight states with unemployment rates 11 percent or higher in June, seven voted for Barack Obama last November.

Brother. First off, what makes them blue states? Of the more than 4 million votes cast in North Carolina, Obama received only 14,177 more than John McCain. George Bush handily won the state in 2000 and 2004. Nonetheless, Douthat counts North Carolina as a bastion of liberal attitudes.

Two of the other "blue states," Ohio and Nevada, also voted for Bush in 2004. One might further ask whether blame for their economic troubles � a dive in manufacturing in Ohio's case and the real estate meltdown in Nevada's � can be laid at any politician's feet. And isn't it possible that these two states moved from the Republican to the Democratic column in 2008 because their economies were already hurting and the voters thought a Democrat might do more for them? If they go for the Republican next time, do they turn into red states?

Much political hay has been made of comparing the relatively strong economy of "red" Texas with the weak one of "blue" California. Generalizations about super-states � California, Texas and Florida � are especially dicey. Each is really several states in terms of political culture. The Rio Grande Valley and the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex might as well be different countries. (They almost are.)

California may be "liberalism's favorite laboratory," as Douthat puts it, but the Golden State is also conservatism's beloved testing ground. The tax revolt started in California, and the state's voters recently turned down gay marriage. Fiscally, California suffers from the worst of two worlds, a liberal desire for active government and conservative restrictions on how much money it can raise in taxes. Small wonder its budget is a mess.

Texas, meanwhile, is not quite the red fortress of conservative legend. It is becoming less dependably Republican all the time, due in large part to immigration. As The Economist just pointed out (in a careful comparison of Texas and California), Texas' state politics are run in a truly bipartisan manner, unlike California's. And as for social stereotypes, two leading contenders in Houston's mayoral race are a black man and a white lesbian.

Douthat neglected to note that many "red" states supposedly dedicated to low taxes and small government follow that creed only on the local level. Many of the more "conservative" states live large off the federal dole in agricultural and other subsidies.

Unsurprisingly, these attacks on liberal governance stirred a liberal response. As supreme wonk Ezra Klein wrote, "If you look at the 25 states with the highest average incomes, exactly four of them voted for John McCain." That is correct, but let's compare the costs of living in Connecticut with those in Alabama. A $100,000 family income goes a whole lot further in Birmingham than in Stamford.

Every state has its unique mix of race relations, geology, immigration and history. Falling energy prices may hurt the economies of Louisiana and Wyoming and help those of Michigan and Massachusetts. Rising prices do the opposite. These changes happen regardless of who is sitting in the statehouse.

Yes, the red-states-versus-blue-states game can be amusing. But as a tool for promoting one style of governance over another, it's not very useful.

Besides: In how many instances among the so-called "red states" as hold dear the "low taxes=jobs=prosperity=social stability and order" mindset as an article of faith are we actually seeing real jobs being created, paying real wages as translate into a real standard of living--as well as a real reduction in the likes of:

those deemed "chronically and habitually dependent" upon State welfare (largely because of "workfare" mandates), unlike such deemed to be in need thereof owing to age, disability, limited job skills or the need to care for infants or the elderly @ home?
crime and other forms of "anti-social behaviour"?
what the Soviet Union, in its time, called "hooliganism" and "social parasitism" (as in alcoholism, drug addiction, gambling, petty crime, adultery, addiction to adult materials, violence against spouses and/or children, vagrancy and neglect)?

(But then again, remember that the Soviets used "hooliganism" and "social parasitism" as rather broad, "catch-all" terms used against such whose offences against the State and/or the economy were not otherwise defined in the criminal statutes. That, and charging real or suspected critics and dissidents with "homosexuality" notwithstanding lack of credible evidence that homosexual behaviours were discerned.)

=============

AND YOUR CORRESPONDENT UNDERSTANDS THAT @ LEAST ONE LOS ANGELES TELEVISION STATION (KABC-TV, TO BE EXACT) is refusing to air advertising from the Nevada Economic Development Authority exploiting The Golden State's ongoing socioeconomic situation aggravated by Proposition 13-mandated tax controls creating an artificial aura of stability helped by theoretically low tax rates.

(In other words, urging California businesses to relocate to Nevada, what with The Silver State's having corporate and personal income taxes, not to mention sales tax, @ nil rate--never mind that most of its businesses are concentrated in Las Vegas and Reno, about 450 mile apart as the crow flieth, with no serious incentives offered for businesses to locate in what could best be called "Greater Nevada," as in outside of Clark and Washoe counties.)

KABC's objections are that the ad seeks to encourage capital flight out of California @ the expense of California jobs, tax revenue (Proposition 13 notwithstanding) and, ultimately, tax base--and that it does so in an unfair and less-than-flattering manner.

Which, in any case, should have The Golden State's residents start to think twice about the whole delusion of Proposition 13 and its effects on public and social services thanks to mandated tax rates bordering on farce.

"...and that is is a way."

Incidental #1,279

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:00:00 GMT

see more Engrish

CONSIDER, READER, THE PARALLELS BETWEEN THIS "ENGRISH" POSTER FROM THAILAND ABOUT THE "EVILS" OF UNRESTRAINED SEX and the latent Puritanism among the forces of the Religiopolitical Right and their droogs among certain Zealots and True Believers in free-market capitalism with American characteristics as Great White Father (especially to the Lower Classes) vis-a-vis "winning of hearts and minds" over to President Obama's proposals to reform health-care policy.

Especially so in response to the continued and continuing orgies of disruptive appeals to True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command, howbeit warped and perverted, fearing that any change in the status quo will only mean the end of Our Antient and Peculiar Sovereignty and Sovereign Identity as a "morally superior" Peculiar Among the Nations--followed, we are expected to believe, by the Evil Empire otherwise known as "the New World Order" "usurping" said Sovereignty and Sovereign Identity "with reckless and utter disregard of, and contempt for, Our Heritage, Our Values and Our Traditional Way of Life."

(Yeah, right--one expected to see poverty, fecundity and stupidity as the Holy Trinity essential to the defence of National Identity and Honour, the kind subscribed to by Kankerdom who are perhaps the most afraid of Change We Can Believe In only because of their hyper-racist arrogance on a par with apartheid South Africa.)

=============

AND ANOTHER THING: May I remind these self-proclaimed "patriots" and "Real Americans" (howbeit in their deranged minds more than in Reality) that there is nothing in the Constitution which, expressly or by implication, holds that:

America is, was, and will forever be, a White Low Church Christian State, in which G-d and the Christus are considered the di jure head of state, the President is reduced to a superdivine "Prophet, Seer and Revelator" role and Congress essentially a "rubberstamp" of Divine Revelation which, for all we know, may have come under narcotic or hallucinogenic influences; and
the defence of Our Antient and Peculiar Sovereignty and Sovereign Identity is conditioned on, and interconnected with, that of free-market capitalism with American characteristics, and that the two co-exist For Mutual Benefit.

Nor am I aware of any Proposed Constitutional Amendments to the effect of either being seen as ex cathedra Supreem Law.

=============

AND WITH MANY OF THESE MISGUIDED PATRIOTS INVOKING THE TRAVESTY OF NAZI GERMANY as the likely fate America faces under President Obama's agenda and its articles of faith (in turn threatening Our Holy and Beloved Nation in a stylee which South Africa's apartheid regime was forever expecting the "privileged as of natural right" white populace to accept as a Holy of Holies), may I remind these same misguided Zealots and True Believers that it was the Nazi regime's Kraft durch Frude (KdF; "Strength Through Joy") initiative of the Labour Ministry that originated the idea of the Volkswagen car--or, as originally conceived, the "KdF-Wagen," a cheap and practical "people's car" inspired by Henry Ford's Model T making the automobile affordable to the millions.

To make the KdF-Wagen (priced @ RM1,000) even more affordable, the KdF offered 5-mark savings stamps which could be purchased out of one's weekly pay towards the cost; once RM750 worth of stamps were purchased and saved, purchasers were (in theory) expected to receive "order numbers" confirming their purchase--but with the onset of World War II in the fall of 1939 @ the Nazis' instigation, the entire production of the KdF-Wagen wound up allocated instead, in a massive "gotcha!" not uncommon to totalitarian regimes, to high-ranking Nazi officials, leaving the German workers as no better than State-sanctioned dupes. (But then again, after World War II, when the KdF-Wagen became Volkswagenwerk AG, the company felt compelled to honour all savings stamps so collected under the Nazi regime towards the cost thereof.)

As for fueling the KdF-Wagen: Since Germany never had any decent petroleum resources on its own account, they had to rely on ersatz coal-based gasolines made per the Fischer-Tropsch process @ the Leuta works in connexion with the Auschwitz concentration camp--coal-based ersatz gasolines which, as later experience in South Africa with the technique was to demonstrate, may have only worsened the environmental risk under the banner of "energy self-reliance."

So much for the Nazis being "champions of environmentalism."

*************

IF YOU THOUGHT FOX WAS ALREADY BAD ENOUGH IN THE FREEVEE ARENA HERE IN THE "MORALLY SUPERIOR" UNITED STATES with shows as are frequent targets of complaint by self-appointed "morals watchdogs" claiming to be acting for G-d, Country and Family (cf. the Stan Freberg sketch "Citizens' Radio Council Censor"), consider this news from Brazil, via the BBC:

Police have accused a TV presenter in Brazil of being involved in organised drug trafficking and ordering killings to get rid of rivals and boost ratings.

Wallace Souza, who is also a state legislator, says the claims are an attempt by rivals to smear him and that there is no evidence to back them.

But the police say he ordered killings in the state of Amazonas and alerted TV crews to get them to the scene first.

His TV show was halted late last year as police stepped up their inquiry.

If what the police say is true, then this is the TV show that not only reported crime, but was actually behind it as well.

Son charged

The authorities believe that Mr Souza commissioned at least five murders in order to get rid of drug trafficking rivals and to boost his programme ratings.

They say he wanted to prove his claims that the region he represented in the state of Amazonas was plagued with crime.

A local police chief told the Associated Press that the order to execute always came from the presenter and his son, and that TV crews were alerted to get to the scene of the crime first.

State Security Secretary Francisco Cavalcanti says the truth has now become clear.

"On several occasions they fabricated the facts, they fabricated news," Mr Cavalcanti said.

Wallace Souza faces a variety of charges, including drug trafficking and weapons possession, but remains free because for the moment his political role gives him immunity.

His son Rafael, meanwhile, has been arrested on charges of murder, drug trafficking and illegally possessing guns.

Lawyers for Wallace Souza, a former policeman who was expelled from the force, say the accusations are an attempt to smear him and that there is not one piece of material proof to back the police claims.

And yet we're still conditioned to accept the argument that the United States is a "morally superior" nation whose Antient and Peculiar Sovereignty and Sovereign Identity is Under Clear and Present Threat.

And those who are pushing such a meme and trope--as in those among the Low Church Christian Right who constantly push the paranoia about the likes of blacks, Hispanics, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, gays and "welfare basket cases," depending on who the Elmer Gantry crowd sees as the ur-Emmanuel Goldstein of the Hour, the Enemy of the American People and Nation, "seeking a disproportionate share of power and control," as if implying that White Low Church Christians were "entitled as of natural right" to a Natural and Guaranteed Monopoly in Power and Control--are probably using projection, methinks, as a means to an end.

A means which should be challenged (politely, of course) @ any and every opportunity.

"...and that is is a way."