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FOR THOSE OF YOU IN THE UNITED STATES AS ARE UNAWARE OF IT, this happens to be the Memorial Day Long Weekend.

And for our British friends, this is the Spring Bank Holiday Long Weekend (which replaced the traditional Whit Monday holiday some years ago).

Here in the Minnwissippi, it just so happens to be cool and @ once breezy with thin, hazy cloud muting the sun in its own way ... not to mention our seeing the likelihood of serious storms Sunday afterlunch into evening, with maybe a slight recurrnce on the holiday Monday.

(Speaking of Monday, look for a special treat in this space in recognition thereof.)

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AND DOESN'T IT SEEM AS IF WELD COUNTY, COLORADO HAS BECOME TORNADO CENTRAL IN RECENT YEARS, what with National Weather Servce data noting where the general area thereof has seen more tornadoes than anywhere else in the Continental United States over the last 50 years?

Just yesterday, in fact, that reputation was reaffirmed when a series of tornadoes struck Weld County, causing substantial property damage and @ least one known casualty.

Sorry, Dorothy--Kansas isn't all that infamous for tornadoes as it used to be....

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SO THE TERRIBLE-TEMPERED MR. BANG OF INDECISION 2008 HAS RELEASED HIS MEDICAL RECORDS ahead of the holiday long weekend--as if wanting some sort of cheap and cheerful disractionary from potentially more distressing news likely to develop throughout.

Confirming the likelihood of its distractionary intent is Media Matters for America, which hath it:

In a May 22 article, The New York Times reported that Sen. John McCain's campaign "is set to release 400 pages of medical records, including documents related to his melanoma surgery in August 2000, to a tightly controlled group of reporters on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend." On that day, according to the Times, "the campaign will allow a small pool of reporters access to the records from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. Pacific time in a conference room at the Copper Wind Resort in Phoenix, near the Mayo Clinic Scottsdale. The reporters will be allowed to take notes but not remove or photocopy the records." In separate appearances on MSNBC Live on May 22, NBC News political director Chuck Todd suggested first that the McCain campaign timed the records' availability to minimize coverage of them and later that the campaign would, in fact, be successful in that endeavor. But, in fact, it is within NBC's power to prevent such a strategy from working by actually covering the issue adequately.

During the 9 a.m. ET hour of MSNBC Live on May 22, discussing the scheduled gathering of potential Republican vice presidential candidates at McCain's Arizona ranch this weekend, Todd stated: "I sort of call it a 'shiny object' timing. You know, it's like, pay no attention to this other news that's coming out tomorrow, and that is Senator John McCain's medical records, which could end up becoming a dominating story line for a couple days. Instead, very smartly, the McCain campaign or somebody leaked out the fact that three potential running mates ... are going to be going to the McCains' ranch." Later in the day, during the 1 p.m. ET hour of MSNBC Live, Todd said, "I think it's very helpful to McCain, frankly, that there is going to be a focus on the veep stuff, when the -- so that there isn't obsession on the medical records."

Separately, during the 1 p.m. ET hour of the MSNBC Live, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell said of the announcement regarding the medical records: "That news is likely to get buried at the start of the Memorial Day weekend." 

One issue as still needs to be addressed vis-a-vis The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang's medical state would have to be his mental capacity, considering his prisoner-of-war past and the psychoemotinal cruelty, harm and other indignities suffered @ the hands of the North Vietnamese which could come back to haunt him.

Especially if he unintentionally lets slip some Bad Words or otherwise goes into a spontaneous tantrum live and on camera--or otherwise winds up on YouTube.

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AND STAYING WITH THE TERRIBLE-TEMPERED MR. BANG FOR THE NONCE, it appears as if he may have already lost serious support from the Religiopolitical Right's "hard core," if not already, thanks to his disavowing the endorsement of Rev. John Hagee following some rather infamous remarks tending to trivialise the Holocaust the other day.

Now, if he would only distance himself from his other "spiritual advisor," by name and stylee of Rev. Rod Parsley....

(But then again, if the Religiopolitical Right, in its hard-wired Zealotry and True Belief, starts disassociating themselves with TTMB en bloc, they might want to start reassessing their electoral options, even if it means a wholesale boycott of Indecision 2008 for want of "correct" Presidential material who can kowtow to their articles of faith.)

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AND THE PROMOTERS OF THAT PATHETICALLY AWFUL SINGSONG MEME "CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION! CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION!!" will doubtless be celebrating in the streets of Branson this Holiday Long Weekend @ the news that a Texas state appeals court has thrown out proceedings filed by child-welfare authorities against members of the so-called "Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" @ their Yearning For Zion compound in West Texas.

"Highly incredible" claims were cited in dismissing the charges ... but then again, the "Christian Persecution!" meme crowd will want to take a more cautious approach for the nonce, pending the likelihood of appeal to the Texas State Supreme Court.

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OPEC'S SECRETARY-GENERAL HAS GONE ON RECORD AS SUGGESTING THAT THE HIGH OIL PRICES OF LATE ON THE SPOT MARKETS (reaching a new record of US$135/bbl. just yesterday before settling lower) are not so much the result of reduced crude-oil production (especially among such states not in OPEC) or fields going out of production, or close to it, as speculation among investors.

In evidence, there was cited the Asian socoeconomic meltdown of the mid-late 1990's triggering an outright freefall of crude oil prices within measurable distance.

Which has Your Correspondent wondering if we may be seeing nothing short of Hunt Brothers-stylee behaviour in the crude-oil, natural-gas and refined petroleum products markets involving His Frudulency's Great Within and/or dear and close droogs thereof, unaware all the while that a significant margin call may be coming within measurable distance as they will be unable to cover.

Which, in its turn, will translate into an outright collapse of the petroleum futures markets and, in its turn, crude oil and refined products futures sometime before the July 4th Long Weekend--just as the Hunt Brothers' attempts to corner the silver markets in early 1980 to devious advantage ended when they were unable to meet margin calls.

And you'll never guess what the Great Within and/or their dear and close droogs are using to dommo the petroleum futures markets (or try to):

You guessed it: Ander Mense se Geld.

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IN ANY CASE, APART FROM THE SPECIAL TREAT PLANNED FOR MONDAY TO MARK THE MEMORIAL DAY HOLIDAY, Your Correspondent will essentially be on blogging hiatus throughout the long weekend.

During which he hopes to be setting up his new social networking site for such having connexions to The Waterpark Capital of the World in the form and fashion of:

• such having direct involvement or connexion with the "water business" (as in tourism) on a personal level;
• such residents of the Waterpark Capital as have to deal with the tourist hordes, yet have no direct "water business" involvement (or @ least an indirect such);
• families as have a long-established tradition of vacationing in the Dells region (even before becoming the Waterpark Capital, come to think of it); and
• current and past summer employees of the "water business."

Such, hopefully, being up and running ere the Holiday Long Weekend winds down. Further details as to its readiness will be forthcoming.