IN THE NAME OF STIMULATING THE ECONOMY BEING ONE WITH "NATIONAL UNITY AND IDENTITY," leave it to His Fraudulency's Great Within to come up with what may best be described as illogical and misguided ideas.

Especially when you stop and consider that the Great Within may have engaged in some of the worst fiscal mismanagement of any soverign state in world history since the German hyperflation following World War I (with only Zimbabwe becoming a serious rival right now, where Z$60 million buys a tube of toothpaste).

Mismanagement complicated by a misguided War on Terrorism as is all too quickly turning into ur-RAHOWA (though they're probably under lettres de cachet to not acknowledge it openly, For Obvious Reason), equally-misguided "ideological reasons" excusing the tacit endorsement of "new and innovative" mortgage-loan products for those with marginal or non-established credit (especially so welfare "basket cases") and an overzealous belief that keeping taxes as low as possible was necessary for the sake of National Unity and Identity.

The latest example of good concept, but no sense:

Offering advanced tax rebates of as much as $800/person by summer, hoping that the Lower Classes especially as qualify for the same blow the whole on misadventures in predatory consumerism @ the nearest Wally World, having no respect for practicality, utilitarian value or common sense. And quickly, too, they hope, they hope.

Not to mention persisting in their hard-wired belief that making tax cuts from the first term Complete, Final and Binding will actually translate into consistent streams of tax revenue and prompt employers "out of the goodness of their hearts" into hiring more from the Lower Classes especially.

Seems His Fraudulency has some serious maths errors to answer for, especially considering where the National Debt has ballooned to over $9 trillion throughout His Fraudulency's tenure in office and his Zealotry and True Belief in maintaining tax cuts only making matters worse.

No doubt explaining the attraction of some to GOP Presidential wannabe Mike Huckabee's support of the "FairTax" model--as in scrapping income taxes altogether in favour of a consumption-based tax; here again, you have to wonder just how much revenue consumption-based taxes would generate to sufficently supplant income taxes.

@ least until Huckabee makes that one fatal slip which could be the Waterloo for his designs.

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

THE SAME SMALL-TOWN/RURAL AMERICAN ARCADIA beloved of certain specimens of conservative Zealotry and True Belief as the one which would save the Great Silent Majority from Themselves, unfortunately, has a Dark Side its supporters would rather you not know about.

As in a latent and inbred tolerance for racism, bigotry and xenophobia by and large.

Case in point: Chosen Valley High School in Chatfield, Minnesota is coming to terms with a Possible Hate Crime in the form of a noose being displayed with a black doll dangling from same after classes resumed following the holiday break; two students as were involved have received discipline, although some parents wonder if it was adequate enough, especially in light of a poster for a white-supremacist group being found in the locker of one of the disciplined.

Olmstead County sheriffs' officers are looking into possible hate crimes charges as a byproduct (never mind where the students' names were not disclosed as they are considered Juvenile Offenders).

Such is the state of affairs in a rather warped vision of Arcadia where support for anti-government movements (especially so "Wise Use" and other pro-business such) is rather notorious and Die Bransoner Muzikschaukultur is looked upon as the Acme and Perfection of American People's Culture, or what passes for it.

Seen, it turns out, through beer goggles rather than the rose-coloured glasses producerist types prefer.

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

THE DIGITAL TRANSITION, THOUGH NEARLY A YEAR AWAY, is providing broadcasters on FreeVee channels what could be an unlikely opportunity they don't quite realise exists: Videlicet, selling what amounts to surplus time on their multicast channels to such broadcasters wanting to fill up otherwise wasted digital-TV bandwidth, not unlike such outfits buying air time on talkback radio stations on the weekends when not much else is available.

(Consideration, of course, having to be given to the FCC's public-service mandates of broadcasters, not to mention the Electronic Programme Guide, the V-chip and the TV Ratings Scheme.)

Making such all the more viable (especially for such who would still prefer to receive their TV programmes free-to-air, as opposed to cable or satellite services) would have to be the FCC's rejection of Sinclair Broadcasting Group's "Multicast Must-Carry" petition (which would have obligated cable systems to carry all multicast signals of TV broadcasters so transmitting) a few years back, citing where the multicast programmes were unlikely to carry enough programming to meet public-service obligations.

=============

AND THERE'S ALSO THE MIRACLES OF WARPED SCIENCE that certain deluded conservatives with nothing but fear, contempt and loathing for the Lower Classes would love to sneak upon same as part of the multicast opportunities made possible by the Digital Transition and plenty of bandwidth which broadcasters fear would otherwise go to waste from time to time:

Videlicet, perfecting an automatic tuner that would trigger nothing better than the finest exercises in sick humour @ the expense of the Great Unwashed in their want of sophistication, morals or decency (or so the conservatives must be thinking all along), otherwise known as switching the signals of certain multicast channels viewed among the Lower Classes (and in such sets so owned) when "inapproriate" programming is about to be broadcast--only to direct them to channels broadcasting, and deliberately, nothing but pornography lacking plot, story or morals, let alone production values.

No wonder conservatives must have this fetish for unleasing sick humour as a way of further loathing the vulnerable and marginalised of society, and excusing the whole all along as "pacification." 

BRITISH PRIME MINISTER GORDON BROWN WAS RECENTLY OVERHEARD calling for the development of initiatives by Her Majesty's Government to develop Internet-based instruction in English as a Second Language.

(This, Your Correspondent understands, would mean the British version, as is quite different from the American such.)

With that in mind, what exactly would prevent we "morally superior" Americans from competing in kind by developing a rival platform to teach English via the Information Stuporbahn? (In our own case, expect it to be based on "real life," as opposed to a more "polite," Noah Webster-model platform, emphasising the likes of colloquialisms, slang, cant/argot, similie and metaphor rooted largely in the likes of various subcultures--urban "hip-hop," beach/surf, rural, various regional colloquialisms, American football, baseball, gambling, xtreme sports, GLBTQ and even drugs--and with liberal doses of sexual, scatological and "white trash" argot.)

=============

COME TO THINK OF IT, perhaps such as are seeking to preserve the Jewish dialect known as Yiddish might want to consider looking into using the Information Stuporbahn as a way of teaching and promoting the use thereof.

Especially the written forms, as traditionally use the Hebrew alphabet.

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

IT'S EMERGED THAT POOR, UNDEREDUCATED AND EASILY-INFLUENCED SPECIMENS OF BRITISH "WHITE TRASH" may have been led astray into the Evil Influences of International Terrorism (al-Qaeda in particular) thanks to the Information Stuporbahn, prompting appeals by British authorities to other nations to take "all reasonable measures" to prevent misuse and perversion of the Information Stuporbahn for purposes of recruiting and exploiting the vulnerable and marginalised of society.

And such should be applied equally against all enemies of the State and People, as much from within as from without.

And not just against International Terrorism: Neo-Nazis/Fascists, racists, White Christian Supremacists, militant homophobes, xenophobes, neo-Confederacists, apologists for Jim Crow/apartheid, "citizen militia" and other anti-government extremists (as in the likes of the Montana Freemen and "Wise Use Movement" types), even militant anti-abortionists, all having in common clear and present threats from within as could appeal all too easily to the vulnerable and others in close proximity to the Dregs of Society with Information Stuporbahn access.

Which, no doubt, will start out sugar-coated, with all manner of saccharine appeals to G-d, Country and Christian Values as the "set-up," gradually progressing all the lower into more militant rhetoric, including appeals to fear and violence, keeping a low profile as much as possible (the "lone wolf" approach, as it were), and even offering "guidance" on what to say in case of arrest or other police enquiries.

Too, you have the danger of "hate rock" bands offering an especially attractive message to vulnerable teenagers and youth in particular--for all the wrong reasons, it turns out, what with their glamourisation of the Nazi regime and its leaders, their "Aryan" racial ideal, their loathing of Jews, immigrants, Blacks, homosexuals and "chronic and habitual" welfare cases, and the justification for using violence towards their aims.

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

AND YOU'VE PROBABLY ENCOUNTERED ALL MANNER OF SPAM FROM SO-CALLED "CHRISTIAN" BUSINESSES in your e-mail Inbox (or, in some cases, a Junk Mail folder) offering all manner of products and services "based on Christian Principles," among them:

• home mortgage loans and refinancing;
• debt consolidation/factoring;
• dating and matchmaking websites;
• travel and tourism;
• remodelling and renovation services; and
• satellite-TV services.

Which, to reinforce the "Christian" angle, will incorporate various displays of Christian iconography such as the dove, the cross, the fish symbol and even the Greek letters Chi and Rho intertwined.

Christian symbolism alone does not make a business "Christian" automatically, mein friend: Your Correspondent is one to wonder if the "Christian" angle is really cover for Affinity Fraud targeting especially the vulnerable and marginalised seeking cover in the guise of faith, and especially so the Fundamentalist/Primitive stream of Protestant Christian thought.

That, and the prospect of such "Christian" businesses being Christian In Name Only (ChINO's), if Truth be known.

As if that weren't awful enough, there's also the likelihood for such "spamming" in the name of "Christian" business interests, CAN-SPAM notwithstanding, likely to be excused as "Christian Witness," "evangelistic" or "mission" work when no such evangelistic intentions came about in the first place. In other words, an attempt to buy an alibi and avoid possible "martyrdom" in the courts by invoking His Name for what may really be blasphemous ends.

So much for operating on "Christian principles" by what are really nothing short of disreputable purposes these same ChINO's would blame on Jews, as if the irony wasn't obvious....    

THE REGIONS OF SOUTHEASTERN MINNESOTA WHERE YOUR CORRESPONDENT RESIDETH are under a Wind Chill Advisory through much of today, forcing him to remain, by and large, in his flat.

Where, among other things, he prepared the essay you are now reading.

And, in the process, is trying to stay sane (he has a history of mental disorders complicated by episodes of emotional abuse and cruelty in his adolescence) all the while.

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

"All you have to do is look at me, and know
that everything I say is true...."

--"Don't Cry for Me, Argentina," from Evita

AS IF GOP PRESIDENTIAL WANNABE MIKE HUCKABEE'S designs on remodelling the Presidential role into one of "Prophet, Seer and Revelator" endowed with superhuman powers and superdivinity wasn't anathema enow to Right-Thinking Americans (not the perversions Fox News wants you and me to think exist in this repsect), it's now emerging that Governor Huckabee has been speaking to neo-Confederacist causes whose articles of faith are, for the most part, racist and xenophobic (per the Southern Poverty Law Centre) heading into today's South Carolina GOP Primary.

Not to mention said causes seeing in the Confederate battle flag, essentially a travesty of the Scots saltaire, an icon of National and Racial Identity somehow endowed with superdivine powers.

Care to explain yourself, Governor Huckabee, for such associations weird and/or unwholesome?

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

NOW WILL BILL "NO-SPIN ZONE" O'REILLY ACKNOWLEDGE HE HAS NO SHAME, or will he keep on being a wind-up toy in the pay of "the Dirty Digger"?

I say this in light of the following fresh-released video from Brave New Films disproving Bill O'Reilly's contention that homeless veterans in the United States do not exist, nor should his "right-thinking Americans" as fall for this pablum have "any worthwhile interest" in the same:

Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome -- good government. They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.

Continuing this informative public service of The Exaggerator designed to challenge certain specimens of illogic on the part of the Pseudoreligiopolitical Right challenging the right of the several States to:

• establish systems of free public education; and
• proscribe use of public funds for religiosectarian instruction,

by way of the actual relevant clauses in the several State Constitutions:

MARYLAND:

• The General Assembly, at its First Session after the adoption of this Constitution, shall by Law establish throughout the State a thorough and efficient System of Free Public Schools; and shall provide by taxation, or otherwise, for their maintenance. (Article VIII, section 1, Maryland Constitution)
• The School Fund of the State shall be kept inviolate, and appropriated only to the purposes of Education. (Article VIII, section 3, op. cit.)

MASSACHUSETTS:

• Wisdom, and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislatures and magistrates, in all future periods of this commonwealth, to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them; especially the university at Cambridge, public schools and grammar schools in the towns; to encourage private societies and public institutions, rewards and immunities, for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings; sincerity, good humor, and all social affections, and generous sentiments among the people. (Chapter V, Section II, Massachusetts Constitution)
• All moneys raised by taxation in the towns and cities for the support of public schools, and all moneys which may be appropriated by the commonwealth for the support of common schools shall be applied to, and expended in, no other schools than those which are conducted according to law, under the order and superintendence of the authorities of the town or city in which the money is expended; and no grant, appropriation or use of public money or property or loan of public credit shall be made or authorized by the commonwealth or any political division thereof for the purpose of founding, maintaining or aiding any other school or institution of learning, whether under public control or otherwise, wherein any denominational doctrine is inculcated, or any other school, or any college, infirmary, hospital, institution, or educational, charitable or religious undertaking which is not publicly owned and under the exclusive control, order and superintendence of public officers or public agents authorized by the commonwealth or federal authority or both, except that appropriations may be made for the maintenance and support of the Soldiers' Home in Massachusetts and for free public libraries in any city or town, and to carry out legal obligations, if any, already entered into; and no such grant, appropriation or use of public money or property or loan of public credit shall be made or authorized for the purpose of founding, maintaining or aiding any church, religious denomination or society. (Article XLVII of Amendment, section 2, Massachusetts Constitution)

MICHIGAN:

• The legislature shall maintain and support a system of free public elementary and secondary schools as defined by law. Every school district shall provide for the education of its pupils without discrimination as to religion, creed, race, color or national origin.

  Nonpublic schools, prohibited aid.

  No public monies or property shall be appropriated or paid or any public credit utilized, by the legislature or any other political subdivision or agency of the state directly or indirectly to aid or maintain any private, denominational or other nonpublic, pre-elementary, elementary, or secondary school. No payment, credit, tax benefit, exemption or deductions, tuition voucher, subsidy, grant or loan of public monies or property shall be provided, directly or indirectly, to support the attendance of any student or the employment of any person at any such nonpublic school or at any location or institution where instruction is offered in whole or in part to such nonpublic school students. The legislature may provide for the transportation of students to and from any school. (Article VIII, section 2, Michigan Constitution of 1963)

MISSISSIPPI:

• The Legislature shall, by general law, provide for the establishment, maintenance and support of free public schools upon such conditions and limitations as the Legislature may prescribe. (Article VIII, section 201, Mississippi Constitution of 1890)
• No religious or other sect or sects shall ever control any part of the school or other educational funds of this state; nor shall any funds be appropriated toward the support of any sectarian school, or to any school that at the time of receiving such appropriation is not conducted as a free school. (Article VIII, section 208, op. cit.)

MISSOURI:

• A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, the general assembly shall establish and maintain free public schools for the gratuitous instruction of all persons in this state within ages not in excess of twenty-one years as prescribed by law. (Article IX, section 1(a), Missouri Constitution of 1875)
• Neither the general assembly, nor any county, city, town, township, school district or other municipal corporation, shall ever make an appropriation or pay from any public fund whatever, anything in aid of any religious creed, church or sectarian purpose, or to help to support or sustain any private or public school, academy, seminary, college, university, or other institution of learning controlled by any religious creed, church or sectarian denomination whatever; nor shall any grant or donation of personal property or real estate ever be made by the state, or any county, city, town, or other municipal corporation, for any religious creed, church, or sectarian purpose whatever. (Article IX, section 8, op. cit.)

MONTANA:

• (1) It is the goal of the people to establish a system of education which will develop the full educational potential of each person. Equality of educational opportunity is guaranteed to each person of the state.
  
  (2) The state recognizes the distinct and unique cultural heritage of the American Indians and is committed in its educational goals to the preservation of their cultural integrity.
  
  (3) The legislature shall provide a basic system of free quality public elementary and secondary schools. The legislature may provide such other educational institutions, public libraries, and educational programs as it deems desirable. It shall fund and distribute in an equitable manner to the school districts the state's share of the cost of the basic elementary and secondary school system. (Article X, section 1, Montana Constitution of 1972)
• (1) The legislature, counties, cities, towns, school districts, and public corporations shall not make any direct or indirect appropriation or payment from any public fund or monies, or any grant of lands or other property for any sectarian purpose or to aid any church, school, academy, seminary, college, university, or other literary or scientific institution, controlled in whole or in part by any church, sect, or denomination.
  
  (2) This section shall not apply to funds from federal sources provided to the state for the express purpose of distribution to non-public education. (Article X, section 6, op. cit.)

***TO BE CONTINUED***   

YOU READ THAT RIGHT, DEAR READER: This is the 50th posting of Your Correspondent into this his new blog, The Exaggerator--committed to not being quite the worst blog online, but trying hard to create a healing time and space beyond reality for you.

@ least it's attracting some traffic, thanks to BlogMad; however, I'd welcome your greater support. Especially so by recommending this to your online friends as are into blog reading.

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

ARE THESE THE REMARKS OF A SANE MAN, OR ARE THEY DANGEROUS FUEL FOR INCITING the mentally-disturbed towards Notorious or Infamous Crimes? (WAARSKUWING: The following video contains disturbing content which Mrs. Grundy would disapprove of:)

• Wyeth Consumer Healthcare (as in Advil, Centrum and Robitussin)
• Stamps.com
• GEICO Insurance
• TurboTax
• Chattem, Inc. (as in Gold Bond, Icy-Hot and Garlique)
• ITT Technical College

(Please visit NoSavage.org for contact links and freecall numbers for the aforementioned.) 

Continuing in this series of public service dedicated to challenging certain arguments of the Pseudoreligiopolitical Right as seek to challenge the legality, as much as the constitutionality, of free public education by way of actual clauses from the several State Constitutions which:

• mandate systems of free public education; and
• prohibit use of public funds for religiosectarian instruction.

We will now continue as follows:

ILLINOIS:

• A fundamental goal of the People of the State is the educational development of all persons to the limits of their capacities.
  
  The State shall provide for an efficient system of high quality public educational institutions and services. Education in public schools through the secondary level shall be free. There may be such other free education as the General Assembly provides by law.
  
  The State has the primary responsibility for financing the system of public education. (Article X, section 1, Illinois Constitution, 1970)
• Neither the General Assembly nor any county, city, town, township, school district, or other public corporation, shall ever make any appropriation or pay from any public fund whatever, anything in aid of any church or sectarian purpose, or to help support or sustain any school, academy, seminary, college, university, or other literary or scientific institution, controlled by any church or sectarian denomination whatever; nor shall any grant or donation of land, money, or other personal property ever be made by the State, or any such public corporation, to any church, or for any sectarian purpose. (Article X, section 3, op. cit.)

INDIANA:

• Knowledge and learning, generally diffused throughout a community, being essential to the preservation of a free government; it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to encourage, by all suitable means, moral, intellectual, scientific, and agricultural improvement; and to provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all. (Article 8, section 1, Indiana Constitution)
• The principal of the Common School fund shall remain a perpetual fund, which may be increased, but shall never be diminished; and the income thereof shall be inviolably appropriated to the support of Common Schools, and to no other purpose whatever. (Article 8, section 3, op. cit.)

KANSAS:

• The legislature shall provide for intellectual, educational, vocational and scientific improvement by establishing and maintaining public schools, educational institutions and related activities which may be organized and changed in such manner as may be provided by law. (Article 6, section 1, Kansas Constitution)
• No religious sect or sects shall control any part of the public educational funds. (Article 6, section 6c, op. cit.)   

KENTUCKY:

• The General Assembly shall, by appropriate legislation, provide for an efficient system of common schools throughout the State.  (Section 183, Kentucky Constitution, 1891)
• No portion of any fund or tax now existing, or that may hereafter be raised or levied for educational purposes, shall be appropriated to, or used by, or in aid of, any church, sectarian or denominational school. (Section 189, op. cit.) 

LOUISANA:

• The legislature shall provide for the education of the people of the state and shall establish and maintain a public educational system. (Article XIII, section 1, Louisana Constitution, 1974)
• The legislature shall appropriate funds to supply free school books and other materials of instruction prescribed by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to the children of this state at the elementary and secondary levels.(Article XIII, section 13(A), op. cit.)
• Local funds for the support of elementary and secondary schools shall be derived from the following sources:

  First: Each parish school board, Orleans Parish excepted, and each municipality or city school board actually operating, maintaining, or supporting a separate system of public schools, shall levy annually an ad valorem maintenance tax not to exceed five mills on the dollar of assessed valuation on property subject to such taxation within the parish or city, respectively.

  Second: The Orleans Parish School Board shall levy annually a tax not to exceed thirteen mills on the dollar of the assessed valuation of property within the city of New Orleans assessed for city taxation, and shall certify the amount of the tax to the governing authority of the city. The governing authority shall have the tax entered on city tax rolls. The tax shall be collected in the manner, under the conditions, and with the interest and penalties prescribed by law for city taxes. The money thus collected shall be paid daily to the Orleans Parish School Board.

  Third: For giving additional support to public elementary and secondary schools, any parish, school district, or subschool district, or any municipality or city school board which supports a separate city system of public schools may levy an ad valorem tax for a specific purpose, when authorized by a majority of the electors voting in the parish, municipality, district, or subdistrict in an election held for that purpose. The amount, duration, and purpose of the tax shall be in accord with any limitation imposed by the legislature. (Article VIII, section 13(C), op. cit.)

• For the effects and purposes of this Section, the Central community school system and the Zachary community school system in East Baton Rouge Parish, and the municipalities of Baker in East Baton Rouge Parish, Monroe in Ouachita Parish, and Bogalusa in Washington Parish, and no others, shall be regarded and treated as parishes and shall have the authority granted parishes. Consistent with Article VIII of this constitution, relevant to equal educational opportunities, no state dollars shall be used to discriminate or to have the effect of discriminating in providing equal educational opportunity for all students. (Article VIII, section 13(D)(1), op. cit.)

MAINE:

• A general diffusion of the advantages of education being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people; to promote this important object, the Legislature are authorized, and it shall be their duty to require, the several towns to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the support and maintenance of public schools; and it shall further be their duty to encourage and suitably endow, from time to time, as the circumstances of the people may authorize, all academies, colleges and seminaries of learning within the State; provided, that no donation, grant or endowment shall at any time be made by the Legislature to any literary institution now established, or which may hereafter be established, unless, at the time of making such endowment, the Legislature of the State shall have the right to grant any further powers to alter, limit or restrain any of the powers vested in any such literary institution, as shall be judged necessary to promote the best interests thereof. (Article VIII, part first, section 1, Maine Constitution, 2003 Arrangement)

***TO BE CONTINUED*** 

FOR SOME REASON OR ANOTHER AS IS BEYOND YOUR CORRESPONDENT'S GRASP, there seems to be a general lack of what can best be called Common Courtesy on the part of scam artists pushing questionable or misleading offers through "spam" or junk faxes.

As in failing to disclose a verifiable postal address by which one can quickly identify the promoters of the offer, the better so one could check its repute with the Better Business Bureau without needlessly jumping through hoops; I say this because too many scam offers so promoted quote only an e-mail or website address, or a freecall telephone number, making identification of the advertisers rather difficult.

(The likely patsy such would have: Having to reveal their trading name and address would "violate their rights to privacy and commercial free speech," the which are likely to be seen as intertwined.)

Hence, might I be the first to recommend contacting your Congressman and State Legislators to insist that certain advertisements be required to include the advertiser's trading name and stylee and a verifiable postal address (as opposed to mere mail drops which could be perverted by the Unregistered Business Movement's droogs for misguided delusions of privacy).

It's my understanding that in Great Britain, @ least, "work from home," "home business" and mail-order advertisers are required to disclose their names and office addresses under the relevant advertising codes--never mind that such disclosures are more than likely appearing in flyspeck type.

So what prevents us of the "morally superior" United States from asking for such a simple Common Courtesy as the true trading name/stylee and postal address (preferably an actual, physical office as opposed to a post office box or Private Mail Box facility, the latter having potential for abuse)?

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

HISTORICALLY, IT'S A PROVEN FACT THAT SWINDLERS AND CARPETBAGGERS are usually the first to cash in on the real or imminent likelihood of mass unemployment and/or major socioeconomic dislocation, especially when the vulnerable and marginalised of society come into the equation.

The current socioeconomic situation, aggravated by the collapse of the "sub-prime" mortgage market and its byproducts (complicated all the more by the warped ideology of His Fraudulency's Great Within seeking to excuse same), is no exception.

Your Correspondent, in fact, would like to illustrate by example the kind of things that the Great Unwashed especially can expect to look for in their e-mails within measurable distance (presented, for the most part, as originally received, with the necessary redactions):

This is a  Elite Gifting Program.If anyone would like to join please
click the link way below.
Elite Gifting Programs were starting a while ago,to help people help
other people. Call it pay
it foward. Remember that movie. This is better I think because the more
people get involved
the more people it touches and passes on to. To Get involved you must
send a $10 amount to every persons email listed below. Once you do that
move your name to the top of the list
and the other names down one. The person last on the list has already
received alot of money trust me. He/she won't mind trust me. Don't cheat
and be Honest. Pass the email
forward to as many as you can find.

Remember to Join the Elite Gifting Program you must have a PAYPAL
account,or you can get one by just click the link below. Remember you
must send $10 to each of the four email addresses listed below in order
to Join the Elte Gifting Program.

[e-mail addresses and original link redacted]

(BTW, PayPal's abuse team was alerted to this Ponzi scheme, and it's safe to say that approriate measures are being taken.)