WHAT CRITICS OF "IMMIGRATION REFORM" REALLY DON'T WANT YOU KNOWING ABOUT THEIR AGENDA: With racists and white supremacists having largely won the propaganda war over designs on reforming American immigration laws, and invoking some of the crudest stereotypes known for "winning of hearts and minds" purposes on the subject, in recent months, there seems to be one thing missing in this propaganda skirmish.

And perhaps by deliberate omission more than anything, come to think of it.

As in seeking to dust off the Natal Dictation Test (in which intending immigrants from especially "inferior" or "undesirable" groups were required to translate from dictation by the examining officer, and sight unseen, a short test sentence into a "civilised"--preferably European--language as part of the screening process), originally created by the Natal government (now part of South Africa) in 1897 but made infamous by the Australians' "White Australia" immigration policy (of which the same was an integral part and parcel thereof bewteen 1902 and 1958), as part of American immigration policy vis-a-vis "inferior" and "undesirable" peoples.

Put simply, the Natal Dictation Test was designed as a deliberate setup against "inferior peoples" (particularly from racial or religious standpoints) in favour of what were then seen as "morally superior" White Christian European such (who were not otherwise subject unless questions were raised of their holding "dangerous" political views) when it came to immigration.

Witness, as example, the test statement administered by immigration examiners in Western Australia in 1908:

Very many considerations lead to the conclusion that life began on sea, first as single cells, then as groups of cells held together by a secretion of mucilage, then as filaments and tissues. For a very long time low-grade marine organisms are simply hollow cylinders, through which salt water streams.

(As will be seen, such test statements was designed to push a subtle message of whites being seen as "preferred" immigrants over such regarded to be "inferior.")

Regrettably, though, those pushing "immigration reform" these days are afraid to acknowledge among their articles of faith:

1. Their pushing a racist ideal and message; and
2. Their seeking to use discredited standards and tests (among them the Natal Dictation Test) to weed out "undesirable" immigrants solely on racial or religious grounds.

In any event: Maybe it was time to ask the Lou Dobbs crowd whether their calls for "immigration reform" include the Natal Dictation Test being applied arbitrarily against "inferior" and/or "undesirable" groups.

And whether such a test would require the translation into "civilised" languages from the English (including, we may safely assume, Afrikaans, Vlaams, Breton, Manx or even Yiddish).

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HOW BEST TO GET THE LOWER CLASSES AWAY FROM THE VIDIOT'S LAMP OF DIOGENES: It's well-established that the poor, undereducated/homeschooled and easily-influenced are all the more susceptible to holding anti-Semitic viewpoints and articles of faith.

Not to mention watching some of the trashier specimens of TV programming, never mind their belief that Jews are somehow secretly controlling the New York-Hollywood Axis of Evil "to weaken and undermine Traditional Christian Moral and Familial Values," so a pet platitude used by such Who Should Know Better hath it.

As if somehow thinking that the electromagnetic rays coming off the TV screen were in the same league as "schizophrenic germs" as a suspected agency of "mind control" @ its crudest. (Remind you of the 1950's-era "ministry" of Oral Roberts, who claimed that G-d charged Roberts to channel radio/TV broadcasting waves for faith-healing purposes?)

Which brings to mind this suggestion:

In such instances of TV programming where a Content Advisory (along with ratings information) is deemed necessary (because of excessive levels of language, sexual subjects or violence which "right-thinking families" would be expected to object to pro Deo, patria et familia)--same usually presented @ the start of the programme, and also coming out of commercial breaks--might I suggest that the Content Advisory be broadcast in Yiddish, both aurally and on screen (in the latter instance, using its traditional written form of the Hebrew alphabet).

After all, Yiddish is a common language among European Jews, particularly in everyday situations as opposed to the sacred (where Hebrew would take precedence), and besides, not many among the Lower Classes harbouring anti-Semitic feelings would be expected to understand Yiddish save for some colloquialisms as have worked their way into English.

What could be a better way, then, to get the Lower Classes away from the vidiot's box and making better use of their lives for once--preferably away from beer parlours and other dives of lowest repute which the Lower Classes would traditionally expect to frequent? 

IF YOU CAN'T BE EXPECTED TO TRUST THE NEW YORK TIMES, THEN WHO SHOULD YOU TRUST? Think Progress makes note of some rather condescending remarks conservative mouthpiece and shill Bill Kristol has directed @ The New York Times in past, in the wake of the "newspaper of record" having hired Mr. Kristol as a conservative-leaning essayist.

Consider:

"It's no accident that The New York Times has to have a special reporter assigned to the conservative beat. They cover it sort of like a foreign country, to explain to the editors and the readers of The New York Times what's going on in that strange world of conservative America, which is two-fifths of the country." [Fox News, 5/30/04]

"I'm not sure, if you're against a war in Iraq, that you want The New York Times carrying your cause," Mr. Kristol said. "Because it's like, 'Oh, great! The Upper West Side doesn't want a war!'" [NY Observer, 9/15/02]

"Colin Powell is not a New York Times liberal, you know. Colin Powell is for a strong, assertive American foreign policy." [Fox News, 7/28/02]

Not exactly strong enough meat? Consider this item from the Weekly Standard, a close ideological relative of Fox Noise targeting the intelligentsia, or what conservatives would make of them (cf. Fox Noise being in the mold of the Nazi-era tabloid weekly Der Sturmer, as took a "written-so-you-can-understand-it" approach to anti-Semitism which appealed to the Dregs of Nazi German Society--schoolboys especially).

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Let's not forget where "the Dirty Digger" "himself," by true name Keith Rupert Murdoch, has this fondness on the Anglo-Australian front for offering a "two-track" approach to the old Fourth Estate.

As in a broadsheet "quality" paper appealing to "the Four Hundred" types, tending heavily to a more intellectually-leaning editorial line ... and a tabloid "red-top" pandering to the hoi polloi, appealing heavily to the crudest and most latent of prejudices so inherent with liberal doses of carefully-scripted sensationalism having little or no relation to The Big Picture. (And did I mention the soft-porn Page Three cheesecake?)

All in all, enough to ask:

If conservatives don't want us regarding The New York Times as the Newspaper of Record on ideological grounds especially, then what would they recommend as the ideal "right-thinking" alternative? Der Sturmer, perhaps?

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HOW'S THIS FOR PUTTING CHRIS GRIFFIN'S "EVIL MONKEYS IN THE CLOSET" TO WORTHWHILE USE FOR ONCE? With so much having been written about the likelihood of a roomful of monkeys being able to generate the works of Shakespeare, given the opportunity, Your Correspondent was thinking the other day whether this could have applied in the glory days of Old Time Radio.

In particular, said roomful of monkeys being able to come up with an episode of the radio drama series Dr. Christian, which, unique among radio programmes in the genre's glory days, actually invited listeners (starting in the 1941-2 season) to submit scripts for possible broadcast--and for which listeners could win cash prizes of up to $2,000 for their best adventures revolving around the show's milieu of River's End, Minnesota, where the good doctor's office and surgery were located @ Oak Street and River Road.

The title character itself was played by Jean Hersholt, a Danish-born actor who was well-qualified for the role, having played a character loosely based on Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe of Dionne Quintuplets fame in two movies as starred the Quintuplets, The Country Doctor (1935) and Reunion (1936). If anything, Dr. Christian drew much inspiration from (and plenty of parallels with) Dr. Dafoe and his north-country rural medical practice, what with the stories involving plenty of interaction with the local folk and all they were going through in their lives.

Which made the show especially popular among Bible Belt listeners for some reason or another, never mind where the show, title notwithstanding, didn't include religious messages in the plot or storyline.

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THOUGHTS WHILE CRUSHING ALUMINUM CANS FOR RECYCLING: Unusual among TV-station signoff messages would have to be the following, by way of CFPL-TV London, Ontario:

IF IT'S AN ELECTION YEAR, THEN THERE'S BOUND TO BE TROUBLE: If recent rioting in Pakistan in the wake of Benazhir Bhutto's assaination (perhaps one which Your Correspondent is likely to see as some class of an "inside job" by the forces of the Pakistani status quo) and Kenya in the wake of delayed election results as gave victory to the incumbent (and raising questions of State-sanctioned vote-rigging and fraud) is any indication, Your Correspondent just has to wonder whether the United States won't be immune from such a scenario.

Especially when you consider the kind of candidates the established political parties have lined up, and the GOP's offerings tending to include some weird and unwholesome types, including @ least one amen-snorter type who still sees homosexuality as a Serious Mental Aberration as much as a Moral Risk to Our Antient and Pecuilar Soverignty and Soverign Identity as a Nation and a Reconstructed Libertarian (or so he thinks), who, it turns out, happens to have a racist past that he hesitates to openly acknowledge unless the Hansard act comes into play--let alone his fundraising prowess by way of an element who may be unaware of the "real" candidate to whom they're supporting fiscally, let alone morally.

And still, there's one thing that unites the GOP as an article of faith: That abortion=murder.

That Life Begins @ Conception.

Never mind the same crowd thinking that sex education only warps Easily-Influenced Juvenile Minds and Promotes Sexual Promiscuity, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

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SOMETHING ANTI-ABORTIONISTS OUGHT TO EXPECT, if not the complete and final reversal of Roe v. Wade, might want to be the ghost of a certain Nicolae Ceauçescu making his presence known when they least expect it.

Never mind that the Weekly World News is no more, the anti-abortion element may want to consider just such a possibility.

Ceauçescu, after all, was the ultimate basket case of the Warsaw Pact and COMECON states in the salad days of the Evil Empire propaganda we were expected to accept as paranoia in the name of G-d, Country and Morality during his 1966-1989 rule as Romanian Communist Party leader. Not only that, Ceauçescu had "pro-life" policies that would make the GOP giddy, notwithstanding the anti-Communist legacy the GOP maintained:

• A mininum of five children per married couple.
• Pregnant women required to under monthly gynecological examimations and "political instruction" (as in reminding them where their pregnancy should be seen as one with Serving the Greater Glory of Socialism).
• Large families being given preferential treatment in apartment assignments, lower rents and better ration allowances. As for such not wanting to bear the burden of caring for their offspring, there were State orphanages as were willing to take the unwanted in, no questions asked.
• A blanket ban on sex education, family planning, contraception--and, obviously, abortion and pornography--all of which were seen to "promote decadent bougeois tendencies contrary to Socialist Victory."

And for what?

Ceauçescu hoped to achieve the Final Onset of Pure Socialism well ahead of the Soviet Union and its "compliant" Warsaw Pact/COMECON satellites--never mind evidence suggesting that such a "pro-life" policy would only produce a labour surplus over time, dangerous to a politicoeconomic agenda which saw mass unemployment and idleness as among capitalism's failings and undoings.

Perhaps it was time to ask your local anti-abortion activist just what they hope to achieve by having the United States reestablish a blanket ban on abortion. Especially so from a socioeconomic standpoint, considering where the same element holds dear as an article of faith free-market capitalism being the Great White Father of the Lower Classes.

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WHAT STUPID TRICKS WOULD YOU DO TO GET HANNAH MONTANA TICKETS DEPARTMENT: You may have heard about where a Dallas mother may have coached her six-year-old daughter into cooking up an essay sure to guarantee plenty of weeping and wailing and boohoohooing on the part of the judges in a recent prize contest as offered tickets to a forthcoming Hannah Montana concert in Big D as prizes.

The essay in question made much about how the poor family's paterfamilias had recently been killed in combat in the ur-RAHOWA Against Terrorism in Iraq.

Only it just so happened that the paterfamilias didn't exist, especially after a close check of military casualty records from the Iraqi Front didn't turn up the name in question.

Meaning that the tickets she won had to be forfeit to another contestant ... and the mother has egg on her face.

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And speaking of the ur-RAHOWA being a Major Election Issue in Indecision 2008: Notwithstanding recent opinion polls ahead of the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire Primary suggesting where "pocketbook issues" (as in such brought about by the Subrpime Mortgage Meltdown and its aftereffects on the Greater Conservative Agenda) may matter more among intending voters than ur-RAHOWA, John "Big Story" Gibson @ Fox Noise wants us "right-thinking Americans" begging to differ. As quoted by NewsHounds (emphasis added):

So even though today's carnage was on the other side of the planet, it really did strike close to home, and all Americans should be worried about what happens now. The way Americans can deal with this crisis is to carefully consider their vote. This election is about the same issue the last election was about... the War on Terror. It's not about health care, and as important as our economy is, it's not about that either.

(Never mind that these remarks were in the wake of Pakistani opposition leader Benazhir Bhutto's assaination.)

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SO YOU'D LIKE TO COMMENT HERE IN "THE EXAGGERATOR"? Well, that's welcome and appreciated.

In fact, Your Correspondent would appreciate it if you, readers, left your two cents' worth to these items here @ The Exaggerator; such is, perhaps, one of the best ways to show support for what Your Correspondent has to say.

But then again, Your Correspondent would appreciate it if you avoided the following in your comments; he intends to delete such outright if he discerns any of the following, know:

• Obscene or indecent language, especially so the so-called "Seven Dirty Words" and variants thereof.
• Ethno-racial, ethno-religious and sexual slurs, insults and taunts.
• Pandering to latent bigotry, hatreds and prejudice, never mind where the larger desire is "patriot love," by appealing to negative or otherwise offensive stereotypes.
• Messages containing linkbacks to adult-oriented, sexually-explicit and hatemongering websites.
• Messages of a purely commercial nature, or which are likely to be construed as "comment spam."

Otherwise ... feel free to share what you have to say.

Debate among yourselves.

It'll help keep this new weblog humming along.

As 2008 dawns upon the world, so does The Exaggerator.

And there can be no doubt about it, folks: The Exaggerator will certainly be a quantum leap over the daily phosdex (my former blog) as will be in the process of winding down about the time. So, those of you as were fond of the latter will, I hope, be equally fond of The Exaggerator once it gets to full strength.

I hope, too, that the more limited online-shopping selection will be an improvement, especially when it comes to download speed and times.

(In case you forgot what this blog is about, refer back to the Prospectus.)

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As for what this blog will NOT be:

For one, The Exaggerator will not be the kind to stoop to overdone "feel-good" saccharine exercises such as conservative Zealots and True Believers want presented in the news, and then solely to distract the attention of Joe Sixpack from The Big Picture.

For another, The Exaggerator will not kowtow to the latest cheap and cheerful entertainment fads overdone as news fodder; Hannah Montana and High School Musical easily come to mind here. Such are likely all the more to get hackneyed as time wears on, not to mention the prospect of such being perverted to, again, distract the attention of Joe Sixpack from The Big Picture.

Nor will The Exaggerator be the sort as will play the doublethink game solely for the sake of "patriotism" and "patriot love." Such clearly serves as nothing but cheap and disingenuous stupidity which could only serve dangerous ends, especially under the current state of paranoia America has been reduced to since the Unfortunate Events of 9/11/2001 ... not to mention the likelihood that said doublethink could be used solely to place the collective above the self in service to a dangerous agenda.

And One Thing More: The Exaggerator will not accept any criticism as suggests that "cretins, morons, idiots, paupers and mental defectives" are somehow behind much of the blogosphere, nor will it accept suggestions that such are "spreading schizophrenic germs" to the point of "misleading Americans away from her antient and pecuilar soverignty and soverign identity," let alone "the Greater Conservative Agenda***as will reclaim America and lead her to a New Golden Age of Industry, Self-Reliance, Personal Responsibility, Thrift based on Cash Economy and a Wholesome and Simple Home Life."

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Somehow, folks, weblogs can cost a pretty penny just to maintain.

Not to mention where Your Correspondent, who himself is on disability benefit for the most part (and, hence, cannot expect to find honest work, notwithstanding any calls you, dear reader, may have suggesting that I "make wise use of my hands for once"), could use some extra income.

Explaining, no doubt, why I have the Virtual Tip Jar and the online-shopping section off to the side of the page. I trust the selection of the latter agrees with you, and would especially welcome the patronage of such cybermallrats who would be willing to make their patronage a regular habit--especially if they make this blog a habit.

Killing two birds with one stone, so to speak?

Besides, disability benefit can only go so far, and what's more, it's unlikely that Your Correspondent will soon be coming into money.

Hence, explaining all the more the importance of your online-shopping patronage.

The same could be said of your tips, so to speak--and also your looking into signing up with some of the affiliate programmes I already happen to be affiliate with.

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In closing, might I suggest where the GOP's membership--and across the board, @ that--consider reading none other than Main Street by Minnesota-born novellist Sinclair Lewis, if only for the sake of reflecting on the complacency and closed-mindedness of their model of America and Americanism:

Videlicet, the small-town/rural Arcadia which seems to be a favourite Ideel of the conservative camp and its droogs when it comes to where America ought look for salvation and redemption.

Also worth reading among the GOP's ranks, primarily for the sake of Historical Lesson and Warning: None other than "On the Personality Cult and Its Consequences," a/k/a Khruschev's Secret Speech, as delivered in closed session before the 20th Communist Party Congress of the Soviet Union on 25 February 1956.

Need I say more?

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Well, I hope this agrees with you. Your comments are welcome. 

Just take a glance to the left-handed side of this page, reader.

You will kindly note where Your Correspondent, in getting this blog ready in its own way, has just added the following:

• An online shopping section, with much fewer e-tailers than previously (and, in the process, translating--hopefully--into a faster download when you visit this weblog);
• A section dedicated to e-tailing affiliate programmes, for those of you who (subject to the Terms of Service of your website or blog host) would like to make money off your website or blog by honest and legitimate means (and by signing up therefrom, Your Correspondent can get a cut of any sales you make in the process); and
• Subscription information for this blog's RSS feed, which you can do in a convenient "one-stop" venue. (You can also sign up to receive the RSS feed by e-mail in your Inbox every day.)

Keep watching this space for the opening of The Exaggerator--which, I trust, will be to your liking. Towards that end, may I suggest bookmarking this page in your web browser, so you can count on it to be among your regular favourites.

And tell your friends about The Exaggerator, come to think of it.

This space will serve, Deo volente, as the venue for my entirely new blog to be known under name and stylee of The Exaggerator--as in the "National Exaggerator" per A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, if you still remember that Scooby-Doo prequel series from around 1990.

The Exaggerator will try its hardest to become the acme of bombastically awful weblogs across the Information Stuporbahn. In other words, not exactly the worst weblog out there ... but trying its best to be. And will by an emphasis upon what could best be described as a cross between illogically schizophrenic ideas and some of the more bombastic rants in a blog form approaching that European editorial genre known as feuilleton--or close to it, for that matter.

More correctly, a hybrid of the European feuilleton and the American newspaper column, with my own personal approach to whatever may be crossing my mind. And even though the end result, or its byproducts, may be rather awful to read in the end, I hope the end result will be agreeable by you.

The Exaggerator, like the daily phosdex before it (and to which The Exaggerator continues), will be master to no one but the mind of Your Correspondent.

It will not kowtow to any political paymasters, conservative nor liberal. (And anyone thinking of such an idea might do better to make a donation to reduce the National Debt with any payola you may try to foist on me.)

Instead, The Exaggerator will have its own mind, expressing its own take on the world, one which opposes jingoism, nativism, xenophobia and even "patriotic" hate, bigotry and prejudice in any and all forms and guises. Even if the language can, @ times, tend to the bombastic (and the hope here being one of getting you to look up many of the words so used, discover deeper meanings beyond the aseptically sterile, and @ once narrow-minded, such as Fox Noise and suchlike of their ilk wants you and me to accept as Holy Writ, and not to question the same lest Serious Consequences ensue for the Antient and Pecuilar Soverignty and Soverign Identity of the United States as a byproduct).

The Exaggerator would rather prefer "ownlife" (Newspeak for individualism, eccentricity, deviation from the accepted line) over "goodthoughtful" (Newspeak, too--here, for orthodox by second nature, one willing to accept the prevailing line as Divine Writ without question or reservation), especially when the latter is expected to be reinforced by deliberate ignorance and stupidity (as epitomised by doublethink) for the sake of a warped and deluded patriotism, not to mention the perversion of patriotic symbols in furtherance of the same.

Your Correspondent, having had much in the way of experience as comes from abuse, cruelty and psychiatric maltreatment and misguided judgements, is perhaps rather qualified to serve the role. Especially when it happens that blogging serves as a form of therapeusis from all the abuse, cruelty and maltreatment, one which depended all too heavily upon medications and fear rather than compassion and dignity (and excusing the same as one with "cost-efficency," "delivering taxpayer value," etc., as if hoping that such overzealous and yet unscrupulous exercises in cost-efficency will translate into consistent "dividends" in rebate form, hoping such will be blown quickly @ the local Wally World).

As well, The Exaggerator has to make some money as well--especially when you consider where Your Correspondent is on disability benefit, by and large, and is trying to supplement same by honest means considering where he's otherwise unable to work under the meaning captured standard.

The fact of which places him @ clear and present risk and danger of exploitation by elements weird, unwholesome and unscrupulous claiming to offer all manner of "systems" on how one could consistently make big big money online--in some cases, unfortunately, tending to the dishonest and otherwise exploitative.

Hence, Your Correspondent is planning to offer online shopping here @ The Exaggerator to not only help pay the bills and supplement Your Correspondent's disability benefits, but also help make your time on this blog worthwhile. Howbeit with fewer e-tailers than previously @ the daily phosdex; the better to allow for faster downloads on even cable modems. Expect such to come on stream within measurable distance.

For the time being, take note of the virtual "tip jar," so to speak, along the side of this blog. In addition to the commissions from online shopping, I'd also appreciate your donations (sorry, Charlie--they're not tax-deductible), regardless of amount.

All in all, The Exaggerator hopes not to be just another weblog.

In other words, just trying to be the worst weblog online.

I hope this Prospectus gives you some idea of what can be expected here in The Exaggerator, and if you have any comments or suggestions to offer, just use the "contact me" link.

Enough said--?

 sincerely,
ILUDIUM PHOSDEX