YESTERDAY AFTERLUNCH INTO EVENING GOT QUITE RAINY TO THE POINT OF THREATENING here in the Minnwissippi--so much so that a Tornado Warning was posted for around the dinner hour yesterday evening here in Winona County.

Whether a tornado actually touched down or no is not known to Your Correspondent; nonetheless, sirens were wailing in and around Winona @ the dinner hour as a potent storm passed this way.

And its effects can be felt as I write this: The rain has moved on, with cloudy skies and cooler conditions prevailing.

And staying in Winona for the moment, the town could be heading for a brief period of quiet with last week's commencement exercises @ Winona State University followed by those of St. Mary's University of Minnesota this Saturday and, before too long, those of Minnesota State College/Southeast Technical's Winona campus. I say "brief," readers, inasmuch as we will be seeing the Minnesota Beethoven Festival and the Great River Shakespeare Festival later on this summer for the culturally-sophisticated ... and Steamboat Days for the Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin types.

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NOW TELL ME THIS ISN'T THE KIND OF REPORT that the GOP's super-secretive "dirty tricks" squad would love drooling(!!!) over for cheap and cheerful ways by which to:

• intimidate especially lower-income and National Minority groups from voting in November, especially considering the recent Supreme Court ruling allowing states to mandate photo-bearing identity documents being shown as part of the electoral process; and
• ensure "guaranteed" victory for The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang among the "right-thinking" sort of voters (read: White Male Christian Freeholders) on Election Day.

Especially when you have the ilk of "citizen militia" and "lone wolf" operatives who can be trusted to do the pis aller all along ... and, @ the same time, can be trusted to keep quiet about the whole being for G-d and Country in exchange for substantial payments from super-secret "pure trusts" based offshore.

Know-Nothings, in other words, expected to know all along that they are acting in the GOP's name and behalf, all along walking a tightrope known as doublethink.

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WITH NEW RUSSIAN STATE PRESIDENT (AND DROOG OF THE PREVIOUS SUCH, VLADIMIR PUTIN) DMITRI MEDVEDEV HAVING TAKEN OFFICE, perhaps it was time to start asking if Mr. Medvedev is the real McCoy when he speaks about liberalising business and socioeconomic policies and easing restrictions on media freedom and freedom of speech as part of his agenda.

Or whether he's really the Charlie McCarthy, as it were, to Putin's Edgar Bergen.

"Actions speak louder than words," President Medvedev....

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SOMETHING FOR THE ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS IN THE PHONY KULTURKRIEG SERVING NO USEFUL PURPOSE but fuelling the Dark Satanic Mills of Conservative Propaganda, by way of Yahoo News (ultimately via Agence France-Presse):

Singer Cliff Richard was robbed of victory in the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest because Spanish dictator Francisco Franco rigged the vote, a documentary to be aired Thursday claims.

Richard's song "Congratulations" was the runaway favourite but was beaten in the contest, held that year in London, by just one point by Spanish contestant Massiel, who sang "La La La".

According to the documentary, music and television executives sent by Franco bought the rights to series that never aired and signed little-known acts in other European nations in return for Eurovision votes.

Spanish public television journalist Jose Maria Inigo told the documentary that the Franco regime "had a great need to win recognition, even if it was only in one area."

The documentary will be aired on Thursday night on La Sexta channel but excerpts were available on the Internet.

At the time, the winner of the competition--in which musicians from nations across Europe compete each year--was decided by a jury comprised of members from each of the participating countries.

Richard said he was pleased at the possibility of being declared the winner four decades later.

"If, like they say, they believe there is evidence that it was I that was the winner, there won't be a happier person on the planet," he told newspaper the Guardian. "It's never good to lose, never good to feel a loser."

"I've lived with this number two thing for so many years, it would be wonderful if someone official from the contest turned around and said: 'Cliff, you won that darn thing after all,'" he told the Guardian.

"Congratulations" topped the charts in Britain and several other countries, selling over one million copies.

Eurovision, launched in 1956, has evolved onto an annual music extravaganza with a television audience of 100 million. The contest has helped lift artists from obscurity to celebrity.

Swedish band Abba won in 1974 with "Waterloo" setting them on the path to global stardom. Canadian singer Celine Dion's win in 1988 for Switzerland, singing "Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi" or "Don't Leave Without Me", helped to launch her career.

The winner of the contest is now selected by votes cast by telephone and text messages by television viewers. 

As reminder, folks, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is STILL dead!!!

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CALL ME A BIT SCREWY, READERS, but for some reason or another, I was imagining the other day what it would sound like if the slogans of Homer D. Poe's ("You can do it. We can help.") and Lowe's ("Let's build something together"), the two biggest of the "big box" homecentre chains, were translated into Engrish.

And thanks to PigeonD.net's wonderful English=>Engrish Translator, Homer D. Poe's "You can do it. We can help" becomes "It is possible to do that. As for us it is possible to help."

And Lowe's "Let's build something together" becomes "What probably will be made together."