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IF YOU THOUGHT MICHAEL "LIBERALISM IS A MENTAL DISORDER" SAVAGE'S RECENT CRACKS ABOUT AUTISM WERE RATHER AWFUL AND DISGUSTING, consider the lead-in remarks to such as are now causing him no end of headaches, as aired on his show of the 16th instant (as transcribed by Media Matters for America):

...For a long while, we were hearing that every minority child had asthma. Why did they sudden--why was there an asthma epidemic amongst minority children? Because I'll tell you why: The children got extra welfare if they were disabled, and they got extra help in school. It was a money racket. Everyone went in and was told [fake cough], "When the nurse looks at you, you go [fake cough], 'I don't know, the dust got me.' " See, everyone had asthma from the minority community. That was number one.

Which begs the question of where Mr. Savage got the notion of asthma epidemics among National Minorities being staged or faked just to attract more in welfare benefits--or, for that matter, his own warped delusion of the world: Al Cohol, perhaps?

Mary Jane Weaver?

Seymour Butts?

I. P. Daley?

Snidely Whiplash?

The Kanker Sisters?

Corporal Punishment?

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SUCH IS THE PRICE OF EXPOSING THE REMARKS OF THE WEIRD AND UNWHOLESOME TO AIR AND SUNSHINE: Media Matters for America's continuing coverage of l'affaire Michael Savage vis-a-vis the "fraud [and] racket" of autism reveals where Mr. "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder" may be resorting to projection in a misguided attempt to save his career, what with several major advertisers having pulled their advertising therefrom (insurer AFLAC being the most recent such) and a talk-radio station in Mississippi having cancelled his show from the other day:

On the July 21 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage repeatedly attacked Media Matters for America, calling the group a "Stalinist," "anti-family," "illegitimate, dangerous fascist group[]," and asserted that Media Matters "ha[s] no place in America." His comments came after Media Matters documented, with transcript and audio, his July 16 remarks describing autism as "[a] fraud, a racket." Those comments have sparked protests and generated widespread media attention.

Throughout his three-hour broadcast, Savage asserted:

• "I'm very fatalistic at a certain point. I may have invested 15 years of my life in radio and 40 years of my life in defense of the helpless children of the world--and I have--but if the irony is that I am attacked by gay men who do not have children, in the group called Media Matters, and they win and the children lose, I said, 'Then, it's God's joke. And if that's what God wants, then that's the way it is.' "

• "[M]y comments were taken out of context by this radical, Stalinist, left-wing group, Media Matters that has done this before. They did it with the Muslims. They did it with the immigrants, and they do it of course each and every day as was done in the Stalinist Soviet Union. They have no place in America."

• "Unless you actually listen to a man, it's very easy to crucify him. Remember there's mob--there's a mob mentality out there. We live in very dangerous times where people are taken out of context and crucified in the media. It's interesting to me that I've devoted my entire adult life to defending the defenseless, and here I am, being attacked by those who do not have children, who hate children, who are anti-family in Media Matters, who take a statement that I make out of context and send it to the poor parents of autistic children and have them believe I'm their enemy. It's very, very clever, the devil. The devil is very clever, indeed. Don't underestimate your enemy is all I can tell you."

• "[I]t's ironic that people who hate families and children--a group called Media Matters, filled with anti-family individuals who do not marry; they're men who like men--would take out of context comments that I made last week directed at the misdiagnosed, the falsely diagnosed, and the outright fakers in the autism field and try to make you, the parents of the truly autistic, attack me."

• "If you permit illegitimate, dangerous fascist groups like Media Matters to get away with this, you will be living in the ex-Soviet Union in your own lifetime."

• "[I]t's ironic that you would take the bait from an evil group like Media Matters, which is filled with men who hate families, men who hate children, and men who hate particularly conservatives who believe in borders, language, and culture. Those are the enemies of the truth. Those are the enemies of your children, not me."

• "I want to actually conclude right now by saying again, at 3 o'clock in the morning, I woke up, and I said, 'Oh my God, not again--not those fascists again taking me out of context.' How do they get away with it? How can criminal fascists like those in Media Matters not be stopped by the government for doing this to people by twisting their words and taking them out of context? I said, 'Well, you're living in a quasi-proto-Soviet Union where people can be damned for half-truths.' "

Memo to Mr. Savage, after those of one Hank Greenspun directed @ Sen. Joseph McCarthy: "Toon vsa jou feite, asseblief!"

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THE PRICE OF "DEFENDING SOUTHERN CULTURAL HERITAGE AND VALUES," or so the neo-Confederate community is fond of using the term to the point of risking becoming hackneyed:

First comes word from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (ironically enough, based in Atlanta) that the South remains perhaps the single most obese region of the country, thanks to "cultural heritage" excusing a diet of high-fat/salt/sugar (HFSS) foods, frying almost everything in especially lard or palm-kernel or cottonseed oil--not to mention their preferred "quick lunch" of a Moon Pie and a bottle of RC Cola.

Now, it's emerged, thanks to the Natural Resources Defence Council, that the South is too dependent upon their cars (and, for that matter, @ higher risk of adverse effects from high gasoline prices) for their own good, considering where the Southern states spend more as a percentage of annual income for gasoline on average.

Add to that a mentality up there with the so-called Club For Growth as is forever insisting that low taxes=jobs=socioeconomic stability being all the more popular across the Deep South--especially so Mississippi, which has been rather notorious for offering tax holidays to labour-intensive manufacturers just to create jobs since the infamous Soverignty Commission sought to invoke "states' rights" as a defence to maintain State-sanctioned racism, and to use "whatever means necessary" towards those ends--excusing such as necessary for G-d, Country and Race.

(Incidentally, Mississippi ranked top of the league tables when it came to obesity as a byproduct of bad diets excused as "cultural heritage" and the percentile of income spent on gasoline.)

In any event, the Southern states have perhaps the lowest fuel tax rates in the country, which may explain why roads in many parts of the former Confederacy may be showing signs of deferred maintenance as are all too obvious (after all, fuel tax revenue is supposed to finance highway construction and maintenance).

No wonder many ill-advised types across the South are still fond of displaying the Confederate version of the Scots Saltaire and defend such as a show of "heritage, not hate" when, in their hearts, it's the exact opposite meaning.

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IN THE END, WHAT REMAINED OF LAKE DELTON--AND, FOR THAT MATTER, THE DEBRIS OF THIS PAST SPRING'S FLOODING ACROSS THE MIDWEST--had to go somewhere.

As in the likes of the Wisconsin, Rock, Wapsipinicon, Des Moines, Raccoon, Iowa, Illinois and Missouri rivers flowing into the Mississippi.

And the Mississippi, in its turn, flowing into the Gulf of Mexico.

Satellite photography has now emerged showing where all the debris from said flooding has resulted into an emerging "dead zone" in said Gulf of Mexico, where any and all form of aquatic life cannot exist owing to a want of oxygen and nutrtients.

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PAT "700 CLUB" ROBERTSON, HOPING JOHN McCAIN WILL BE ENSURED "CERTAIN VICTORY" IN INDECISION 2008 PRO DEO, PATRIA ET FAMILIA, was overheard the other day hoping for October Surprise-stylee attacks against Iranian nuclear-processing facilities to influence the electoral outcome (hat tip to Think Progress for the following):

On [Monday's] edition of The 700 Club, Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson sharply criticized the “moderate tone” the Bush administration has allegedly taken toward Iran and its nuclear weapons program. Robertson advocated that Israel look out for the “survival of its nation” and “make some kind of a strike” against Iranian nuclear facilities. He also predicted that it will likely happen before the 2008 elections:

But nevertheless, I think we can look in the next few months for Israel to make a strike — possibly before the next election — because I think George Bush—to use the term an “amber light”—he’s given the amber, the yellow light, saying, “Caution, but go ahead.”

The which, no doubt, some have suggested as a cheap and cheerful way to hasten the Final Onset of Armageddon, the Ultimate Battle Between Good and Evil. But then again, Your Correspondent has to wonder where Mr. Robertson has such an "inside track" on emerging events which, in the end, turn out not occuring @ all.

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