HONESTLY, THOUGH, YOUR CORRESPONDENT WOULD RATHER YOU DID SOME ONLINE SHOPPING THROUGH THIS BLOG, especially if you're the kind as considers yourself a regular visitor as needs to get some online shopping out of the way for once.

He could use the revenue, besides; after all, disability benefit can only go so far from month to month, and besides, he would rather make money online through honest means rather than wind up unwittingly giving aid and comfort to weird and unwholesome elements using "make money online" schemes as a fundraising front.

Weatherwise, thin high cloud expected to give way to thunderstorms from the evening on here in the Minnwissippi.

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THE RELIGIOPOLITICAL RIGHT'S KULTURKRIEG BRANCH IS NO DOUBT REJOICING IN THE NEWS OF WHOLESALE FIRE DAMAGE TO UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOLLYWOOD yesterday--as in a New York streetscape which many of you are well-acquainted with through numerous films and TV shows, the "King Kong" portion of the studio tour and storage vaults containing archive copies of thousands of films and TV episodes (in that last instance, however, they do have backup copies in storage elsewhere).

Considering where low water pressure may have only aggravated the efforts of fire fighters to bring the blaze under control, you can easily expect this particular element to play the Divine Wrath and Judgement card in their propaganda; remember, boys and girls, that the Religiopolitical Right only sees Hollywood as but an agency of the Evil Empire to "undermine and corrupt morals and decency."

The same ones, methinks, seeing Die Bransoner Muzikschaukultur as The One True Acme and Perfection of American Culture--one based on an idealised Arcadian vision straight out of the 1950's, come to think of it.

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MEANWHILE, THE SO-CALLED "WISE USE MOVEMENT" IS NOT VERY HAPPY @ BEST BUY'S ANNOUNCEMENT OF THEIR LAUNCHING A PILOT PROGRAMME to collect waste consumer electronics for recycling free of charge @ selected locations, including stores in Minnesota and parts of neighbouring states.

I say "free" because consumer electronics manufacturers are increasingly embracing electronics recycling schemes as one with good business and corporate responsibility, in effect subsidising the costs of collection.

Next thing you know, expect "Wise Use" Zealots and True Believers to be pushing a "taxpayer lawsuit" challenging the legality of kerbside and collection bin-based recycling schemes based on their own rather absurd arguments about "waste and inefficency," "incompatibility with free-market socioeconomic models and paradigms," even "Communistic associations" (and citing in evidence--unless disallowed by the court--all manner of "mismanaged" recycling programmes in Communist regimes as only proved "inefficent and counterproductive").

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WITH RUSH "TRUTH DETECTOR" LIMBAUGH SOMEHOW OBSESSING WITH EUNUCHS AND THE EUNUCH CULTURE AND LIFESTYLE in his taking issue with Hillary Rodham-Clinton's Presidential aspirations (@ least until he put "Operation Chaos" into effect, the aim of the whole being to ensure victory for The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang in Indecision 2008 by making Ms. Rodham-Clinton an easier aunt sally), Your Correspondent might want to enquire if The Oxycontin Bull is really a eunuch himself.

Let alone impotent.

Or, for that matter, a sufferer of loathsome veneral diseases, especially so such strains thereof as are resistant to antibiotics (remember where penicillin was widely prescribed for full-on cases of gonorrhoea after it first became widely available after World War II).

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WITH HIGH FUEL PRICES MAKING MANY START TO THINK TWICE ABOUT THEIR SUMMER VACATION PLANS, NEVER MIND AGGRAVATED CASES OF NEURASTHENIA LIKELY TO ENSUE in the process, some of you may be tempted to fall for all manner of online offers supposedly offering cut-price travel deals through the likes of "travel clubs" and suchlike.

After reading the following (via "Watchdog" of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, know), you may want to think twice, especially considering the hidden dangers behind such tempting-looking offers:

If you're making plans for a summer trip, be very careful if you think you're getting a hot deal online.

Some of the travel offers you may find in your e-mail inbox or in an online search could end up cheating you out of money, putting malicious software on your computer or sending you to a porn site rather than on vacation.

MarkMonitor, a company that analyzes online scams, reports that in the past few months, there have been a lot of travel "opportunities" that could get you into trouble.

A common one—with 150 to 200 listings out there on any given day—points you to a fake auction site supposedly selling discount vouchers, said Fred Felman, the company's chief marketing officer. He pursued one to see what would happen. For $23.99 on a site pretending to be eBay, he got a coupon that promised to get him $75 off an airline flight. When he tried to use the electronic voucher with the major airline he was buying the ticket from, the voucher at first seemed to work. But when he tried to conclude the transaction by giving the airline his credit card number, "they said 'no dice' and charged me the full amount for the ticket," Felman said.

Other e-mails try to entice you with offers of big savings on airline tickets if you click on a link, but those sites are fronts for malware, which can infect your computer with spyware, put a keystroke recorder on your computer or make your computer an unwilling part of a network used for illegal purposes.

Don't ever click "OK" on pop-ups that appear on your screen, Felman said, or "you're gonna get bit." Instead, get the pop-ups off your screen by hitting your escape key. Plus, you should run your own software that helps block malware.

Another trick is redirecting users who type in search terms such as "cheap flights" or "Europe travel" to adults-only Web sites. Unscrupulous people figure at least some of the searchers who get to these porn sites by mistake will pay the registration or per-click fee to stay.

As if that weren't enough, some so-called "travel clubs" (in particular such targeting "right-thinking" working-class trash) will bundle themselves as part of a so-called "consumer benefits programme" which, in and of itself, may be using multi-level marketing (MLM) to conceal the real intent of its being a Ponzi scheme in disguise--i.e., there is no real "consumer benefits programme" to be sold, as opposed to "distributorships" to further carry on the scheme.

Even if they offer a reloadable debit card, mail-order pharmacy, auto club or online "buying club" as part of a greater scam laden with glowing generalities about "increasing consumer purchasing power" among the vulnerable and marginalised of society "consistent with American experience, heritage and traditions" (read: free-market capitalism with American characteristics-as-Great White Father empowering "welfare basket cases" to Industry, Self-Reliance, Personal Responsibility, Thrift based on Cash Economy and a Wholesome and Simple Home Life).

Haven't they ever heard of the Rochdale Pioneers and how they saw the Industrial Revolution's "dark side" as an advantage to empower such among the working classes like themselves through cooperatives and the cooperative movement?