SO MUCH FOR THE LITTLE OLD LADY FROM DUBUQUE: Article II, section 5, of Iowa's Constitution provideth that "No idiot, or insane person, or person convicted of any infamous crime, shall be entitled to the privilege of an elector."

One should remember, too, that Iowa's state Constitution was drafted and written @ the same time as Iowa's statehood back in 1846--when terms like "idiot" and "moron" were generally accepted as terms for varying degrees of mental disorder.

(Nowadays, of course, "idiot" and "moron" are terms of contempt and offense against those having, or suspected of having, mental illnesses, defects or diseases.)

When will The Hawkeye State get around to actually making the necessary revisions to reflect current circumstances?

Or should we accept that most of the American electorate are "idiots" or otherwise "incapable of making wise decisions or judgements" @ the ballot box?

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SO HOW DO YOU DEFINE AN "UNREGISTERED BUSINESS"? In response to the so-called "Unregistered Church Movement," itself known to have weird and unwholesome associations based on its belief that churches have an ur-Soverign Immunity from obeying laws and regulations of the State and its agencies, you have to wonder how much longer it will be before we see as an "Unregistered Business Movement" with connexions to--you guessed it--weird and unwholesome elements.

The whole being dominated by such scions of capitalism with American characteristics tending to the weird and unwholesome--especially so the ilk of the disreputable, the kind the Better Business Bureau would not recommend as being outright frauds and swindles, the sort as would have especial appeal to the socioeconomically vulnerable and easily-influenced not expected to have any wise sense of consumer education skills.

All in all, holding dear among its articles of faith the belief in "undue and unnecessary regulatory burden" being only "counterproductive" to the free-market capitalistic system and its interrelationship to the "antient and pecuilar soverignty and soverign identity" of the United States--replete with the inevitable anti-Semitic "straw men" and bromides, not to mention veiled notions of suing the Council of Better Business Bureaux, for and on behalf of the Greater BBB Movement, under Section 6 of the Sherman Antitrust Act 1890 (Unlawful Restraint of, or Interference in, Interstate or Foreign Commerce).

Yes--the same Section 6 that certain "spammers" were fond of invoking a few years back to scare innocent e-mail users out of complaining about "spamming" or what was being promoted through such "spam," contending that such complaints were thus actionable (along with the usual platitudes about common-law "rights" to Commercial Free Speech, Conducting a Trade or Livelihood and Privacy of the Person being "jeopardised" by charges of "spamming").

But expect the courts to throw out such a challenge, invoking, more than likely, the suggestion that such was likely to be "frivolous or vexatious" to the point of needlessly depleting court time and resources. Let alone the likelihood for where the "Unregistered Business Movement" is really nothing more than a poster child for cartel behaviour acting under the guise of defending free-market capitalism by trying to equate same with American soverignty and soverign identity.

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With that in mind, let me call your attention to Article XVII, clause 20, of South Dakota's State Constitution ("Monopolies and trusts prohibited--Combinations in restraint of trade--Legislative powers") as an example of why unrestrained cartel behaviour excused as one with the defence of capitalism being that of soverign identity, and vice versa, poses a clear and present moral danger notwithstanding the inevitable invocation of the "Great White Father" Mickey Mouse likely to be deployed:

Monopolies and trusts shall never be allowed in this state and no incorporated company, copartnership or association of persons in this state shall directly or indirectly combine or make any contract with any incorporated company, foreign or domestic, through their stockholders or the trustees or assigns of such stockholders, or with any copartnership or association of persons, or in any manner whatever to fix the prices, limit the production or regulate the transportation of any product or commodity so as to prevent competition in such prices, production or transportation or to establish excessive prices therefor.

The Legislature shall pass laws for the enforcement of this section by adequate penalties and in the case of incorporated companies, if necessary for that purpose may, as a penalty, declare a forfeiture of their franchises.

MEMO TO FOX FROM THE GREAT UNWASHED: Even with some small-scale hype now abroad ahead of American Idol's eighth series debut, methinks we are getting sick and tired of it to the point of where we want to vomit.

After all, the last series thereof saw a rather awful crop of contenders that would make Nelson Eddy sound like Scooby-Doo, come to think of it ... in turn, translating into ratings as were much lower than the previous series in the franchise.

In other words, American Idol may be starting to look less attractive, perhaps about to cross the line into boredom of the highest order. Only made all the worse because of the Writers' Guild strike essentially ending for the season the lion's share of entertainment series and their replacement by all manner of predictably awful programming such as game and "reality" shows which can quickly leave viewers bored to the point of switching off their sets to make their feelings known.

Hence, don't be surprised if we choose to boycott the new series of American Idol wholesale, even if it means a wholesale dilution in the Neilson audience numbers to the point where advertisers start complaining about not getting value for money and advertising revenue dries up faster than a mirage in the Mojave Desert--forcing you to take the loss and offer "make-goods" during the least-attractive parts of the season.

The Great Unwashed are starting to get wise to the notion of American FreeVee being "morally superior" to all other television broadcasters in the known and knowing world. Make no mistake about it.

(Memo to readers: Be sure to pass along the word as above. But do so responsibly.)

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WHAT DO THESE NAMES HAVE IN COMMON?

Benny Hinn.

Creflo Dollar. (Obviously no relation to Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.)

I.V. Hilliard.

Jesse Duplantis.

Give up?

They're all stars of PrayTV, with a nasty little repute for diverting viewer donations (the lion's share thereof coming from the Great Unwashed) to personal use, enough to prompt one Senator to open enquiries into whether certain pseudoreligious ministries may be perverting their tax-exempt status.

As well as former Regents of Oral Roberts University down Tulsa way, itself caught up in serious financial losses to the tune of $50 million (much more, methinks, than the actual value of the real property making up its campus) and a scandal involving misuse of ORU funds for the personal use of the Roberts family, not to mention sexual debaucheries not supposed to exist in a conservative Christian university.

All of which was the byproduct of a pseudoreligious sky pilot who went around claiming that G-d directed him to channel electromagnetic broadcasting energies used in radio and TV broadcasting for purposes of faith healing that even Mary Baker Eddy, The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, would find hilariously distasteful.

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AND SOMEHOW, "SITTING UP FOR A SICK FRIEND" WASN'T QUITE GOOD ENOUGH AN EXCUSE:  Your Correspondent hath it that a father from the Twin Cities faces Child Endangerment charges in the wake of his 1½-year-old son being found in his minivan as was parked @ a strip club opposite Stillwater, Minnesota.

The explanation the father gave? He was "going to the store to buy some groceries."

As if that weren't enough, out of Florida comes a story about a Dirty Old Man type seen riding bicycle in close proximity of a municipal swimming pool, only to disembark, take off his clothes and abuse himself, leading to charges of Indecent Exposure that could have been more serious had children in the swimming pool seen what was up.

(The man's explanation: He was out birdwatching, prompting the judge to ask why he needed to go deshabillé for such purposes.)

*************

EARTH TO HUCKABEE: SHOW US YOUR FACTS, PLEASE! Your Correspondent feels compelled to so ask in the wake of GOP Presidential wannabe Mike Huckabee boasting on CNN this morning that there's "wholehearted" support among small-business owners for his campaign, largely because its articles of faith call for replacing income-based taxation with a "fairer, simpler" consumption-based tax.

Does he have any survey results (preferably such as are, @ the expense of sounding like a broken record, "fair and balanced") that would support such a contention as above suggested?

"Show us your facts, please!"

*************

SUGGESTED READING TO HELP YOU BETTER UNDERSTAND CONSERVATIVE PROPAGANDA, AND THE TECHNIQUES INVOLVED: From PublicEye.org, an analysis of the dynamics commonly used by conservatives styling themselves as "populists" or promoting populist articles of faith.

(They acknowledge where such is, for now, a "work in progress;" however, they provide some valuable insights to help you better understand the conservative populist paradigm towards encouraging overt challenges of the claims.)

TRY AVOIDING ANY OF THESE WORDS IN YOUR DAILY CONVERSATION: For the 33rd consecutive year, Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan has come out with its Annual List of Words, Phrases and Expressions Henceforth to be Banned from the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness.

Which, for 2008, comprises:

• "perfect storm"
• "waterboarding"
• "webinar"
• "organic"
• "wordsmith/ing"
• "author/ed"
• "post-9/11"
• "surge"
• "give back"
• "[A] is the new [B]"
• "Black Friday"
• "back in the day"
• "random"
• "sweet" (especially in youth-culture usage)
• "decimate"
• "emotional"
• "pop"
• "it is what it is"
• "under the bus"

Additionally, "truthiness" has been "restored" to the list. As those entrusted to the annual compendium explain:

This comes after comedians and late-night hosts were thrown under the bus and rendered speechless by a nationwide professional writers' strike. The silence is deafening.

Try figuring out approriate Newspeak replacements therefor.

After all, Newspeak was created as deliberate gibberish to maintain an unswerving and unyielding allegiance to a corrupt and misguided agenda.

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TELL ME IF SOMETHING'S GONE WRONG HERE: A recent trend in "spam" e-mails promoting adult websites Your Correspondent has discerned is where every second word in the Subject line of same will be some class of a made-up nonsense word containing random characters.

An attempt, no doubt, as per usual among the "spam" fraternity, to pervert filtering software programmes among Internet Service Providers (ISP's) and online e-mail services when it comes to "spam," usually consigned to a specially-nominated folder or (in some cases) directly to the trash.

But then again, the e-mail servers will recognise such for what it is: Spam, pure and simple.

Unfortunately, though, such may be an overt violation of the Adult Content Labelling Rule provisions of the CAN-SPAM law in the United States, requiring that unsolicited e-mail containing sexually-explicit or otherwise pornographic material be flagged "[SEXUALLY EXPLICIT]" "up front" in the message Subject line. Your Correspondent, in fact, has not seen the "[SEXUALLY EXPLICIT]" tag in any of the recent crop of "bulk e-mail marketing" for adult sites he's received--and promptly deleted, I will have you know.

And you wonder what kind of defences are being deployed by those so engaging in "spamming" for the sake of depraving the Lower Classes in particular to avoid possible action--one likely such being the patsy that, as the site(s) in question is/are hosted outside the United States' soverign territory, they are not subject to such requirements.

So what is the Federal Trade Commission doing in this instance?

Are they, somehow--and perhaps on the lettres de cachet of His Fraudulency's Great Within--being asked to practice a rather crude form of doublethink (as in promoting themselves as being "For The Consumer" while, in practice, playing footsie with such specimens of "the Four Hundred" as gave substantially to His Fraudulency's campaigns, and expecting rewards for Good and Loyal Service)?

*************

LET'S JUST HOPE ARKANSAS ISN'T SUDDENLY HOME TO A CLANDESTINE KINDERPORN INDUSTRY: With some in the blogosphere suggesting that GOP Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee may have given pardons to Certain Notorious Criminals for purely political reasons, only to commit sadisto murder and rape soon afterwards (and showing no remorse to date), Your Correspondent wonders if The Natural State may suddenly be home to a clandestine child-pornography industry with the sub rosa protection of Governor Huckabee's Administration.

Not unlike that on the Japanese island of Hokkaido as was the subject of this recent "WaiWai" item from Japan's Mainichi Daily News, never mind where questions need to be raised as to its credibility:

Shockwaves continue to reverberate months after the arrest of public elementary school vice principal Takayuki Hosoda on kiddy porn charges, according to Weekly Playboy (12/24-31).

Hosoda is on remand awaiting trial on a charge of violating the law banning child pornography following his arrest in October last year for allegedly paying a 16-year-old schoolgirl ¥6,000 for sex.

A subsequent police raid on the vice principal's home is said to have unearthed photos of 260 underage girls, 330 DVDs featuring obscene images and a brace of schoolgirl uniforms. Police say Hosoda took obscene photos of over 600 underage girls and sent the images to various lowbrow publications, earning over ¥18 million in the seven years from 2000.

Hosoda's arrest shocked Hokkaido and some of the more unsavory elements of Japan's publishing industry.

"We adored Hosoda because he'd send us absolutely loads of photos of cute young girls. Photos from Hosoda almost guaranteed better sales," the editor [of] one magazine, made up of readers' photos, tells Weekly Playboy.

There's nothing illegal in taking erotic photos. That is, unless the subject is underage and, like Hosoda is accused of doing, also lured into having sex. Magazines that publish photos of girls under 17 are also liable to prosecution and in the ensuing months since Hosoda's arrest, his apprehension has made the magazines re-think how they do business.

"Frankly speaking, the only way you can tell if a girl in a photo is over 18 is by looking at her. It's a fact that this case has made police look much closer at what we're doing. If we do run a photo of an underage girl and the police can find out exactly who she is and how old she is, that's the end of our magazine," another editor of a readers' contribution magazine says. "Even if we know a girl is 18 or 20, we won't run her photos now if she even looks younger than that because it's too risky. Hokkaido, where Hosoda came from, has traditionally been a great supplier of young girls' photos. I think one reason may be because the girls in the wide open spaces of Hokkaido are a bit more relaxed than in other parts of the country. So we've made sure we pay extra special attention to any submissions we get from Hokkaido."

One man--described only as "M", a Hokkaido resident and a reader of the magazines of the type that Hosoda used to contribute to--says teenage girls in the northernmost island prefecture are ripe for plucking by predators.

"Once women reach their 20s, they've picked up a bit of knowledge about how the world works and they'll very rarely let you take photos of them in the nude. Considering the likelihood they could be used against them, by being posted somewhere or to blackmail them, it's an understandable situation. But girls in their teens are defenseless and will soon strip off for about ¥5,000 in cash," "M" tells Weekly Playboy. "If someone goes to a matchmaking cafe, they can confirm with their own eyes whether a girl is cute and then negotiate a price if they want to. Since Hosoda's arrest, though, the police have been much stricter on matchmaking cafes. The cafes themselves are also stringently checking the girls' IDs.

"The magazines are still attractive, though. If they run one of your photos, they'll pay around ¥5,000 for it. Send in a few photos of the same girl and you can get around ¥20,000. That's enough to pay for the girl, the entrance fee to the matchmaking cafe and a love hotel afterward. It's one way to be able to mix business and pleasure." 

BARNEY FIFE TYPES NEED NOT APPLY: Lewiston, Minnesota (population some 1,500 people), "The Heart of Winona County," has an urgent need for police officers @ this time.

The need being necessitated by the City Council, in special meeting just last night, having fired incumbent police chief Mark Dungy for a series of incidents in the second half of last year tending to insubordination, false witness and conduct casting discredit upon the City of Lewiston. Said meeting eventually collapsing into disorder, forcing the Minnesota State Patrol and Winona County Sheriffs' deputies to maintain order until the mayor adjourned the meeting early

As if that weren't good enough, Lewiston's only other constable, Robbie Floerke, resigned consistent with a prior categorial pledge in the vein of "if [Chief Dungy] goes, then I go."

Thus, leaving The Heart of Winona County @ the potential mercy of elements weird and/or unwholesome styling themselves as a Vigilance Committee--and perhaps attracting the unwelcome Notice and Attention of Fox Noise seeking to whip up The Great Silent Majority's disgust @ the supposedly sorry state of post-9/11 Law and Order in Middle America, same more than likely to undermine any serious opportunity to attract jobs or industry (especially labour-intensive models serving no useful benefit other than arrogant hubris towards a nil unemployment rate within free-market capitalist paradigms).

Making the situation all the more urgent is where the Winona County Sheriff's Department is pleading "limited resources" precluding their being able to provide police protection in the interim.

Hence: Those of you in the Long Arm of the Law, or are otherwise new to same, looking for police positions may want to consider this a Worthwhile Opportunity for a change to a new, happier life in Rural America. However, with Lewiston being a small town, don't expect the pay or benefits to amount to much cf. "the big town."

If interested, please send a feeler with curriculum vitæ and qualifications to the City of Lewiston, PO Box 129, Lewiston, MN 55952-0129, or fax same to a/c 507-523-2306 ASAP. Race, colour, sex, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and ethnicity should not matter; all that matters is a willingness to do your job, and do it well.

(Just so you know: Applicants will be subject to background checks and drugs testing as part of the screening process. And may I add that the likes of Ku Kluxers, John Birchers, misguided pseudoreligious, so-called "Minutemen" and other "militia" types and others weird and unwholesome--including such seemingly straight out of Reno 911--need not apply.)

(All police departments are encouraged to copy.)

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FRESH OUT OF TRUCK-DRIVING SCHOOL? STILL CAN'T FIND A DRIVING JOB? Before blaming NAFTA or the nascent "North American Union" for such circumstances you're whining about, consider where a number of motorcoach companies operating scheduled intercity services are seeing a serious shortage of drivers to meet current schedule requirements.

(As if increased fuel and insurance costs weren't bad enough for the industry....)

One such I can think of is Jefferson Lines, the largest regional motorcoach company: A recent item in the LaCrosse gazetta noted where, citing driver shortages inter alii, the one daily round trip they have will be cut back for the time being so that Madison, WI is served only thrice weekly (daily service will continue out of LaCrosse to and from Rochester and the Twin Cities).

Which is where ye with Commercial Drivers' Licences come in (along with a clean driving record and can pass a drugs test): In view of the driver shortage, many scheduled-service operators are likely to be issuing urgent hiring calls for new drivers who can spend plenty of time on the road away from kith and kin, can deal with all manner of weird and quasi-wholesome characters as make up your typical motorcoach passenger--and can do so safely. And because of the shortage, expect many such operators to offer pay bonuses just to fill available vacancies.

Just visit the Jefferson Lines website (link thereto q.v.), go to the Employment section, and find out all you need to know, including how to apply.

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IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: The above items announcing job opportunities are purely unofficial, and are based solely on news reportage seen by Your Correspondent. Further, Your Correspondent is posting them solely as a favour and public service to such who may be reading this weblog, and has received no pay or consideration of any kind. Furthermore, this weblog is not an employment agency, nor does it intend to be; it just comes across this information "in the wake of the news," as it were, and feels it worthwhile to make note accordingly, hoping interested parties will do their own research and heuristics.

Said employment opportunities are offered, in compliance with State and Federal equal-opportunity laws, without regards to colour, race, religious belief, sex, sexual orientation, familial status, welfare dependency or national origin. In certain instances, women, veterans and National Minorities are especially encouraged to apply.

Applicants may be required to submit to police background checks, credit-bureau checks and drugs testing.

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CAN AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND ENVIRONMENTALLY-FRIENDLY DESIGN REALLY COEXIST? Even with the housing market in disarray because of the "sub-prime" and "Alt-A" mortgage crises, Your Correspondent understands where there will be a talk @ 17h30 on Saturday, 9 February @ the Eagle Bluff Environmental Learning Centre, 28097 Goodview Dr., Lanesboro, MN 55949-8290, discussing Eco-Friendly Affordable Housing.

Dinner will be served as well; however, reservations are essential.

They can be made by contacting the Centre on freecall 1-888-800-9558 or (if that doesn't work where you come from) on a/c 507-467-2437 during business hours in the Central Time Zone of the United States (UTC-6 hours).

"Wise Use" Zealots and True Believers (especially such with weird and unwholesome associations) are advised not to attend, lest the whole be reduced to disorder and chaos under the right circumstances (especially when Al Cohol comes into the equation).      

TALK ABOUT "STORIES IGNORED BY THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA," OR CLAIMS THEREFOR: As if Project Censored's annual selection of the top 25 news stories which the Mainstream Media is deliberately ignoring under all manner of excuses concealing fear of exposure and scandal, the ConWebWatch blog reveals what may be the hyperconservatives' answer (as if suggesting that the aforementioned Project Censored was "too liberal leaning" and, hence, "could lead [its readers] to serious error"):

It's that time of year again, and you know what that means (and not just the Slanties, which will arrive next week): Time for another WorldNetDaily "Operation Spike" list of the most "underreported stories" of the past year. But as happened last year, WND's list ignores certain facts that hint at why they deserved to be underreported.

Topping the list, as it did last year, was "developments moving U.S. and continent closer to a North American Union." In second place was the case of the Border Patrol agents convicted of "shooting an admitted drug smuggler as he fled across the border after smuggling into the U.S. a load of 750 pounds of marijuana in a van," a description that curiously omits the fact that the agents tried to cover up the shooting and that the person they shot was unarmed.

For the third-place entry, "Research refuting man-made global warming," WND cited "a lawsuit by a father, Stewart Dimmock, who claimed the film ['An Inconvenient Truth'] contained 'serious scientific inaccuracies, political propaganda and sentimental mush.' The British court pointed to 11 inaccuracies in the production." But as we noted (and WND has yet to note), Dimmock's lawsuit was backed by oil and mining interests, even denier Noel Sheppard has pointed out that the British court ruling found only nine inaccuracies, and also found that many of the claims made by the film were fully backed up by the weight of science.

In sixth place was Peter Paul's dubious accusations of "felonious fundraising" against Hillary Clinton that fail to mention (as WND frequently fails to do) that Paul is a convicted felon who's vainly trying to keep his butt out of prison after pleading guilty to his role in a $25 million stock fraud scheme.

And so on. WND should try not underreporting these stories itself--you know, by telling its readers the entire truth--before it accuses others of underreporting.

And as we all know, the conservatives' ideal of "objective journalism" is really nothing short of a "two-track" approach, with the Lower Classes targeted for nothing better than trashy "red-top" tabloids specialist in nothing better than sport, crime, astrology and celebrity gossip--not to mention the obligatory Page Three softporn pinup.

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AN INCONVENIENT WARNING FROM HISTORY WHICH THE CONSERVATIVES WOULD RATHER HAVE US IGNORING: The Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution reminds us that

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Which, put another way, means that any and all such rights enshrined in the Constitution must be applied equally.

Yet, there have been rather sorry episodes in our history where some, in the name of "patriotism," have sought to keep certain classes down to reinforce "whipping-boy" delusions those in power sought to perpetuate.

Case in point: During World War I, our very state of Minnesota was caught up in a rather draconian exercise of enforced "patriotism" in the name of the War Effort as sought to ensure Total Victory and nothing less in the form of the Minnesota Commission for Public Safety.

In whose name a 100% Americanism effort was sought out of all Minnesota residents, reinforced by all manner of fear and loathing to be directed in particular against German immigrants and their children; the fear being the likelihood of whipping up support for the German cause.

And to that end, the Commission for Public Safety was entrusted to act on all complaints of "disloyalty" so received, no matter how suspicious or spurious they may have been--as well as enforcing what became known as the "Work or Fight" order directed in particular @ "vagrants," real or suspected (as in either find work in preferably war-related jobs or enter the military).

Towards Germans, a "show no mercy" attitude of contempt and loathing was sanctioned: Use of the German language in schools and churches was forbidden, German-language newspapers were subject to extreme censorship by Post Office edict, Germans were forced to learn English, houses and farms of Germans were painted yellow (the traditional colour of cowardice) by what could best be called "goon squads" acting under the Commission's (supposed) authority, sauerkraut became "liberty cabbage" and Frankfurters "liberty sausage" in polite circles, and Germans were forced to buy more in Liberty Bonds (as financed the United States campaigns in the War to End All Wars) than such deemed "loyal Americans."

Occasionally, of such, such "loyalty" exercises risked getting out of control from time to time.

How do we know, readers, that such potentially dangerous designs to whip up True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command aren't secretly being formented in the minds of conservative Zealots and True Believers against Muslims, Arabs and even those suspected of "liberal" or "Progressive" views to maintain support for a deluded cause such as ur-RAHOWA in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Remember these words of George Santayana: "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

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A NEWS CHANNEL WE'D LOVE TO SEE, ESPECIALLY AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO FOX NOISE: Mein Innkeeper Friend, some while back, was of the notion that his ideal news channel on the vidiot's lamp of Diogenes would be nothing better than an off-screen announcer reading the news headlines while images of Earth, as seen from space (by way of NASA and the Russian space programmes), appeared on screen.

The news, it turns out, being in the stylee of "rip-and-read" off wire-service copy more than likely.

The delivery being in an annoying-sounding, Sonovox-stylee monotone prone to computer breakdowns from time to time as results in occasional lapses into strings of random dictionary words, not unlike certain specimens of "spam" trying to pervert junk-mail-filtering software.

And I understand there are several satellites in Earth orbit as are transmitting live TV images of the planet from space, more than likely involving polar orbit as opposed to the geostationery such whence the broadcasts would be transmitted.

(As for the weather reports, I could just imagine such being delivered in the stylee of "Miss Monitor" back on NBC Radio's storied weekend "kalediscopic phantasmagoria" known as Monitor--slightly seductive, but without the raw suggestiveness of Mae West, delivered over a soundtrack of easy-listening insturmentals in the Mantovani/101 Strings stylee. To give you an idea of what I mean, provided you have RealPlayer installed on your computer, click here to listen.)

Take that, Fox Noise....     

QUESTIONS WORTH ASKING THE "SOUND MONEY" CROWD, RON PAUL INCLUDED: The so-called "United States Taxpayers' Party," with articles of faith and known connexions to racist, white supremacist and other weird and unwholesome elements, advanced as part of its 1992 campaign platform the refinancing of the National Debt (currently estimated @ some $9 trillion) through a series of debt-security issues backed by gold reserves held @ the Treasury's gold vaults in Ft, Knox, Kentucky and other gold depositories (including those @ West Point, New York as supplanted the New York Subtreasury several years back).

I'm not sure if such is still held dear as an article of faith by the post-9/11 "patriot" crowd for the sake of Indecision 2008, but you never know.

Which prompts Your Correspondent to raise some questions rather interesting--questions worth asking your local "sound money" Zealot and True Believer:

• How much in gold reserves do you know of as are currently in storage @ Ft. Knox and elsewhere, expressed in monetary terms based on spot metals market prices?
• How sure are you that the entire gold reserves of the United States, as above, could be more than enough collateral for such a refinance of the National Debt as you envisage?
• What sort of interest payments would you envisage on such a debt-refinance issue? Are we to assume that interest would be payable in gold coin?
• How sure are you that such a debt-refinance issue would actually attract private (let alone financial-market and government) investors, stateside as much as overseas?
• What have you in mind to guarantee the repayment of interest in gold coin without having to sell gold holdings from time to time (e.g., to cover foreign-currency reserves)?
• How many others among the developed soverign states of the world do you know of as still issue government notes and debt securities backed solely by gold reserves, let alone the full faith and credit of the issuing governments? Have they missed any interest payments or otherwise gone into default on said issues, let alone having to sell gold holdings to meet interest payments? How many such securities are open to United States investors as dollar-denominated "yankee bonds"?
• Are we to expect that only "Christians" should be expected to underwrite a massive debt-refinance issue? What authority justifies such thinking?
• Would your agenda also include a call for reinstating the gold standard as the foundation of world monetary policy? How sure are you that such a mandate would actually control inflation, stabilise consumer prices and "encourage morality"?
• Over how long a period of time would you expect such a debt issue to last, especially when backed by gold reserves?
• How do we know you're not really selling us a bill of goods in Ponzi-scheme form, using "patriotism" to cover up Certain Weird and/or Unwholesome Indiscretions on your part (including alcoholism, dependency on narcotic or addicting drugs, sexual indiscretions or suffering from a loathsome disease)?

You know where to leave the answers.

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"EARTH TO GOP! EARTH TO GOP!!"

"...[I]t is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics, akin to those of a god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behavior."

Thus then-Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev opened his "Secret Speech," otherwise entitled "On the Personality Cult and Its Consequences," in closed session of the XX Communist Party Congress on 25 February 1956--the beginning of the end, as it were, for the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact/COMECON satellites, laying bare the worst excesses of power and authority carried out under Josef Stalin's regime (1929-53), invoking the Greater Glory of Socialism more often than not.

Replace "Marxism-Leninism" in the original with "Americanism," and you get a good idea of what the GOP under His Fraudulency, and its designs on maintaining a monopoly on power for all time (and excusing such as being for G-d and Country), is likely reducing America to. And what Mike Huckabee seems to have designs on in his Presidential aspirations, only with the added element of imagining himself as a super-divine up there with Imperial Japan until just after V-J Day (as in the Emperor being regarded as a divine figure in mortal form, upon whose person the common people were not allowed to gaze upon under pain of Divine Judgement).

The old "Prophet, Seer and Revelator" nonsense, as it were--which, come to think of it, could be a ruse for his achieving the proper aura of superdivinity by way of carrying three red lights.

@ least until Some Inconvenient Truths about Huckabee are exposed all the more to air and sunshine, eventually bringing about his campaign's collapse in disgrace--and leaving the Elmer Gantry Institute of Religiopolitical Theology @ a loss trying to come up with someone new who they can support as "Prophet, Seer and Revelator"-designate. And, unable to find someone within the two-party mainstream, likely turning to the backwaters of third-party fringe politics to find their Presidential ideal, which could serve only to throw Indecision 2008 into serious disarray, and then some. 

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COULD EVERYTHING OLD BE NEW AGAIN? In the wake of the meltdown in the "sub-prime" and "Alt-A" mortgage markets made all the more infamous by His Fraudulency's warped Zealotry and True Belief in capitalism with American characteristics as Great White Father, perhaps an old idea worth thinking anew might want to be the building society concept as a way of financing home mortgage loans to the working classes.

In particular, the "old school" concept based on installment shares (traditionally priced @ $1/share, payable monthly and repayable once payments and dividends equal $200/share), thereby ensuring a steady supply of funds as would cover mortgage-lending requirements.

Something worth thinking about as part of Indecision 2008-related thought.

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PROOF THAT "IT'S A SMALL WORLD, AFTER ALL," ALL THE MORE THESE DAYS: It's emerged that Australia's "Big Four" banking houses (ANZ, Commonwealth, NAB and Westpac) could stand to lose an aggregate A$850 million (about US$750 million/C$755.4 million/£382.26 million/€510.26 million/¥81.825 billion, all @ prevailing exchange rates) invested between them in American "sub-prime" mortgage lender Countrywide Home Loans, already awash in serious losses from loan delinquencies--and claims that they resorted to devious business practices in dealings with borrowers.

Which have led some "Down Under" to wonder if deposit runs could ensue within measurable distance.  

IT WAS ABOUT TIME HOLLYWOOD AWARD SHOWS BECAME MORE SENSIBLE FOR ONCE: The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, in solidarity with the Writers' Guild of America, has announced that this year's edition of the Golden Globe Awards will not be as glamourous as before owing to the current industrial action by the Writers' Guild.

In other words, the Golden Globes will be presented in a press conference stylee format rather than the more traditional high-class awards show worldcast.

Let it be a beginning, Your Correspondent thinks, for some common sense on the part of Hollywood when it comes to awards shows during the current awards silly season. Especially such as are traditionally worldcast on a massive scale, including the Academy Awards, the Grammy Awards, the American Music Awards, and both the Daytime and Prime Time Emmy Awards.

Meaning, in effect, that Hollywood ought to consider showing some solidarity with especially the Great Unwashed and make said awards shows more logical for once. As well, the respective organisers would do well to donate any savings thus realised by way of downsizing the awards shows to Reduction of the National Debt.

Likewise with any FreeVee networks carrying said awards shows; in this instance, should there turn out to be scenarios where advertisers are claiming dilution of audience numbers to the point of broadcasters having to offer "make-goods" to compensate, may I suggest that broadcasters donate an equivalent value of the advertising "make-goods" accordingly.

Such would be a good way for Hollywood to show some sense of Corporate Responsibility and Good Corporate Citizenship in the wake of certain misguided elements making highly-dubious claims about "reckless and utter disregard for American ideals and values" through subtle means in films and television programming, never mind the lack of any viable substantiation.

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WHY G-D'S OWN PARTY SEES CAPITALISM AS NECESSARY TO NATIONAL UNITY AS MUCH AS IDENTITY: Right Wing Watch, People For the American Way's blog as tracks developments on the Pseudoreligiopolitical Right, has this to say about GOP Presidential wannabe Mike Huckabee's notion of a "FAIR tax" (read: Goods and Services Tax/GST) supplanting income tax as one with "tax fairness:"

Mike Huckabee’s first-place finish in the Iowa Republican caucus was a victory for the Religious Right, after the combined efforts of a number of lesser-known right-wing figures eager to nominate one of their own. But while James Dobson and Richard Land issued cautious statements endorsing the victory if not the candidate, other national religious-right activists remained aloof, maintaining that Huckabee jeopardizes the vaunted right-wing coalition by alienating some of its partners, especially allies on the economic Right.

“I'm still skeptical that Mike Huckabee is the right man to speak for them because of his views on economics and foreign policy,” said Gary Bauer. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council said Huckabee supporters “overlooked the fact he was not attractive to other members of the conservative coalition, and they said they don't care about us, and we don't care about them."

Indeed, these prominent religious-right activists are echoing people like Patrick Toomey of the Club for Growth, who called Huckabee the “John Edwards of the Republican Party,” FreedomWorks' Dick Armey ("Huckabee undermines the GOP's longstanding unity between its traditional and economic wings"), or American Enterprise Institute Vice President Harry Olsen. Toomey’s Club has done the most to convince Republicans of Huckabee’s alleged tax-hiking heresy, running anti-Huckabee ads heavily in Iowa since the summer.

(Your Correspondent would like to ask @ this time where the defence of free-market capitalism with American characteristics is to be seen as that of Traditional Christian Moral and Familial Values, not to mention the "antient and pecuilar" soverignty and soverign identity of the United States, and vice versa, consistent with the conservative belief, Orwellian stylee, that slogans can be made reversible as circumstances require.)

Huckabee himself has played up this reputation as a populist, deriding the “Club for Greed” and talking about “the growing angst in the middle class.”

While many pundits seem to have accepted this presentation, it’s important to separate style from substance: When it comes to economic policy, Huckabee has arguably been running to the right of any of his major opponents.

Key to jumpstarting Huckabee’s surge in Iowa, along with conservative homeschoolers, was his early embrace of a little-known right-wing group called FairTax.org, which proposes replacing all income taxes with a 23 percent national sales tax. FairTax sent at least 20 buses full of people to the Ames straw poll in August, where Huckabee finished a surprising second-place, and the group almost went broke in the fall working the campaign.

(Your Correspondent begs to ask, @ this time, whether FairTax's buses actually included substantial numbers coming from interstate, using pickup points in the border cities of Dubuque, Davenport, Muscatine, Burlington, Ft. Madison, Keokuk, Council Bluffs [itself right next to Omaha] and Sioux City--and coordinating such with as much precision as the traditional Japanese kabuki drama to avoid attracting suspicions in certain quarters.)

Huckabee sells the plan with a populist flair, promising to abolish the IRS and put in place a “progressive” system that would be less for everybody while rewarding “hard work and thrift.” However, the substance doesn't quite match the rhetoric.

Economists and observers on the right and left have mocked the FairTax plan as “politically unrealistic and mathematically impossible.” The 23 percent number, for example, seems to be an obvious ruse to disguise what is in fact a 30 percent tax. (Here’s how that works: adding a $30 tax to a $100 purchase is what anyone would call a 30 percent tax – but the “FairTax” folks say that $30 is only 23 percent of the new total cost of $130.)

Even that number is not sufficient to meet current government spending, which would also be taxed under the plan: Supporters include the tax government agencies would themselves pay when computing revenue but not when calculating spending. Other estimates put the required sales tax rate to meet current spending at above 50 percent.

But beyond the legerdemain and “fantasy” numbers put out by FairTax, the plan for a national sales tax—which would ignore corporate income and capital gains as well as wages—is most vulnerable to criticism that it hits the poor and middle class hardest. Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist who worked in the Reagan administration, wrote that under the FairTax plan, “there would be an enormous shift in the tax burden from the wealthy to those with lower and middle incomes.” As Money magazine explained:

Let's say a hedge fund manager has a good year and earns $1 billion. If he can somehow manage to scrape by spending, say, $100 million, the other $900 million is tax free. He'll have paid about 2% of his income in taxes that year.

Such a scheme is far more regressive than the current income tax, and no other candidate has proposed anything so radical. Nevertheless, Huckabee continues to employ the FairTax plan as part of his “populist” image, which pundits and his right-wing opponents alike—not to mention religious-right leaders—have bought into.

May I remind readers @ this time that no country which has implemented Value-Added Tax (VAT) or Goods and Services Tax (GST) to raise revenue has yet to generate sufficent revenue by this means to seriously consider having consumption-based taxation supplant income taxation--especially so where VAT is applied; evidence suggests that VAT, which is computed under a rather complex formula @ the several stages of manufacturing, warehousing and distribution, only worsens the potential for smuggling and the sale of counterfeit goods.

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FROM THE "THOSE WHO DO NOT REMEMBER THE PAST," USW., DOSSIER: Religious Right Watch calls our attention to these remarks of the GOP's star-crossed 1964 Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater about the consequences of Church and GOP becoming all too closely intertwined:

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible [N4BSK] problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.

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The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom.... I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are?... I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism." 

Have we forgotten, dear reader, the warnings of history?

(Think George Santayana's remarks that "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.")