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FOOD FOR THOUGHT, BY WAY OF CONVERSATION THIS MORNING @ THE MOTEL I DO FOR IN WINONA, with a guest out of Austin, TX heading towards Wall Drug and Deadwood:

Having acknowledged where this was his first time in the Midwestern part of the country ever, he took note of where guests @ motels in his part of the country wound up receiving questionable solicitations claiming that they had received "free vacations" to Florida, Chicago or wherever of three days' duration--provided they advanced a "deposit" of some class "to cover administrative and paperwork fees."

Whereupon Your Correspondent promptly pointed out that any "free" offer asking for money in advance was more than likely to be an out-and-out scam, and should therefore be avoided. To which Mein Innkeeper Friend added that the motel didn't sell or share customer names and addresses to anyone, acknowledging that the banks handling credit-card processing for said motels may have so engaged--and to what extent they may have profited from sale of customer lists and databanks.

Not to mention wondering if the practice in question is more likely to involve "cookie-cutter" chain motels more so than smaller, independent "mom-and-pop" such ... and, for that matter, target all the more such holding high-rate and high-fee "sub-prime" VISA and MasterCard accounts.

In any case, the old adage about "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" should still apply in this case.

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METHINKS RECENT DECLINES IN GAS PRICES ACROSS THE COUNTRY (in Winona's case, the prevailing price per "gentleman's agreement" is now $3.599/gallon for regular unleaded, $3.619/gallon for super unleaded and $3.719/gallon for premium unleaded) should also be looked upon as "too good to be true," considering the likely involvement all along of His Fraudulency's Great Within (especially so its "inside of the inside") in the crude oil, natural gas and refined products futures markets all this time, and profiting handsomely in the process.

That, and a group of pseudoreligious in St. Louis holding a prayer service the other day @ a Mobil gas station thanking Elohim for recent gas-price reductions through the agency of His Fraudulency and His Divine Intermediary on Earth and in America, which is probably taking things to the extreme deep end of incredulity and fatousity.

In any case, I would still be the one to recommend maintaining current habits of reducing non-essential auto use ... switching over to more fuel-efficent automobiles ... using public transportation where feasable, and suchlike, as a show of arrogance in and of itself towards the Great Within.

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WITH IRAQ AWASH IN OIL REVENUES TO THE TUNE OF US$71 BILLION IN THE LAST YEAR ALONE, Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki has gone on record as suggesting that the American Colonial Occupation let Iraqi authorities handle its own monies when it comes to infrastructure reconstruction and development, especially so in light of recent notorious scandals involving American contractors having weird and unwholesome types among their ranks.

No doubt nicely playing into the hands of the Zealots and True Believers in xenophobic isolationist articles of faith all along, holding all this time that America=The World, and vice versa; "that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know," as Keats put it in his "Ode on a Grecian Urn."

And staying with Iraq for the nonce, the International Olympic Committee is finally allowing Iraq to send a team (or reasonable facsimilie thereof--as in two, both competing in athletics events) to the Beijing Olympic Games.

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CAN ANY OF YOU SPOT WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE FOLLOWING COMMENTS from self-proclaimed (and hubris-laden) "capitalist pig" Jonathan Hoenig, as overheard recently on Fox Prolefeed (hat tip to NewsHounds for the remarks):

There is a belief now that individuals, especially young people, should essentially ... "devote themselves" to something greater than themselves--sacrifice their own wants, their own interests, to serve the common good, whatever they happen to believe it is at the time. To me, that's very un-American.

Come to think of it, could we have some Scriptural justification for the argument that serving the greater commonweal above selfish interest is incompatible with Christian Values and Teachings?

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WITH FRIDAY BEING THE ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE I-35W BRIDGE COLLAPSE IN MINNEAPOLIS, PERHAPS IT MAY BE WORTH NOTING @ THIS TIME that construction of its replacement is progressing @ a faster-than-normal rate, meaning that the contractors involved may be eligible for a special early-completion bonus if same is completed ahead of the November target date.

But then again, Your Correspondent has to wonder if the construction work is being needlessly rushed ahead of schedule for "political reasons" above those of public interest, even to the point where sub-standard construction materials are deliberately being used to expedite completion and, perhaps, influence voters to vote Straight Republican pro Deo, patria et familia come November.

Or, for that matter, whether construction crews are being secretly given some class of drug in the vein of morphine, heroin or D-IX to boost work performance to unusually-Herculean levels so as to expedite the task @ hand (and expected to keep the drug rations hush-hush all the more).

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HOW WOULD GLOBAL-WARMING SKEPTICS, ESPECIALLY THOSE IN THE PAY OF OIL AND GAS INTERESTS, REACT TO THIS INTERESTING ITEM: Bhangladeshi researchers have found that any impact global warming supposedly hath on the land mass of Bhangladesh may be underrated--as in the coastal plain of Bhangladesh actually increasing in land mass thanks to sedimentation from the drainage basins of several major rivers producing, on average, 12.5 square miles/year of new land in the Bhangladeshi delta region over the last 32 years.

In its turn, translating into an estimated 620 square miles of new land mass in some 50 years' time.

Which, given the frequency of cyclones and monsoonal storms across Bhangladesh, may result in such new lands being all the more prone to the ensuing flooding unless steps are taken to ensure their stability, let alone become productive.