ANOTHER COLD MORNING HERE IN THE MINNWISSIPPI REGION WHERE YOUR CORRESPONDENT resideth compels him to remain in his apartment out of safety concerns caused not just by cold weather per se, but also wind chill as makes things all the worse just being outside.

Not to mention the likelihood (though not much) of snow.

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

YESTERDAY'S SHOCK DEATH OF ACTOR HEATH LEDGER FROM CAUSES YET UNKNOWN (though prescription sleeping pills were found by the corpse) is certain to be cause for rejoicing and prayers of thanksgiving (or a perversion thereof) among the Cultural Studies Department of the Elmer Gantry Institute of Religiopolitical Theology.

I say this in view of where the Pseudoreligiopolitical Right, in line with their droogs in Fundamentalist/Primitive Christian theology, took issue with Mr. Ledger's breakthrough film role in Brokeback Mountain a few years back because of its "positive depiction of an unnatural, immortal and perverted lifestyle" (otherwise known as homosexuality), and are hoping that Mr. Ledger's soul will be committed to such sections beyond that gate which proclaims (per Dante Aligheri) "ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE" as are seen to be reserved for "deviants" and "perverts."

Not to mention calling upon Hollywood to ask that homosexuals be depicted only as Objects of Ridicule and Contempt in the name of G-d, Country and Family. 

But then again, official opposition to "perversion" is nothing new.

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

AS IF GOP PRESIDENTIAL MIKE HUCKABEE'S EQUATING HOMOSEXUALITY WITH BESTIALITY THE OTHER DAY wasn't awful enough, perhaps he should consider where there might be outposts across the Ozark and Ouachita mountain ranges of his native Arkansas of deliberate isolation, poverty and ignorance where sexual promiscuity holds high carnival--especially among adolescents seeing the old actus coitu as one with "coming of age."

Not to mention bestiality (as in sexual acts with those of another species) being thus predominant.

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

AND DID YOU HEAR WHAT DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL JOHN EDWARDS said to David Letterman the other night about Bill O'Reilly's reportage?

See it for yourself (and thanks to AMERICAblog for the tip, as it were):

Now into the homestretch is this informational series of actual clauses from the several State Constitutions as mandate:

• establishing systems of free public education; and
• proscriptions on the use of public monies for religiosectarian education,

the better to challenge certain arguments on the part of the Pseudoreligiopolitical Right challenging the legality as much as the constitutionality of the foregoing points, and who would love to use "taxpayer lawsuits" towards such ends.

I hope that, with the several parts thus far published, such will have served its purpose in laying bare the actual clauses of the several State Constitutions mandating as above--and will have opened the eyes of the forces of Zealotry and True Belief questioning same.

Now to continue with:

RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS:

• The diffusion of knowledge, as well as of virtue among the people, being essential to the preservation of their rights and liberties, it shall be the duty of the general assembly to promote public schools and public libraries, and to adopt all means which it may deem necessary and proper to secure to the people the advantages and opportunities of education and public library services. (Article XII, section 1, Rhode Island Constitution)
• The general assembly shall make all necessary provisions by law for carrying this article into effect. It shall not divert said money or fund from the aforesaid uses, nor borrow, appropriate, or use the same, or any part thereof, for any other purpose, under any pretence whatsoever. (Article XII, section 4, op. cit.)

SOUTH CAROLINA:

• The General Assembly shall provide for the maintenance and support of a system of free public schools open to all children in the State and shall establish, organize and support such other public institutions of learning, as may be desirable. (Article XI, section 3, South Carolina State Constitution)
• No money shall be paid from public funds nor shall the credit of the State or any of its political subdivisions be used for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution. (Article XI, section 4, op. cit.) 

SOUTH DAKOTA:

• The stability of a republican form of government depending on the morality and intelligence of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature to establish and maintain a general and uniform system of public schools wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all; and to adopt all suitable means to secure to the people the advantages and opportunities of education. (Article VIII, section 1, South Dakota Constitution)
• No appropriation of lands, money or other property or credits to aid any sectarian school shall ever be made by the state, or any county or municipality within the state, nor shall the state or any county or municipality within the state accept any grant, conveyance, gift or bequest of lands, money or other property to be used for sectarian purposes, and no sectarian instruction shall be allowed in any school or institution aided or supported by the state. (Article VIII, section 16, op. cit.)

TENNESSEE:

• The State of Tennessee recognises the inherent value of education and encourages its support. The General Assembly shall provide for the maintenance, support and eligibility standards of a system of free public schools. The General Assembly may establish and support such postsecondary educational institutions, including public institutions of higher learning, as it determines. (Article XI, section 12, Tennessee State Constitution)

TEXAS:

• A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools. (Article 7, Section 1, Texas Constitution)
• The available school fund shall be applied annually to the support of the public free schools. Except as provided by this section, the legislature may not enact a law appropriating any part of the permanent school fund or available school fund to any other purpose. The permanent school fund and the available school fund may not be appropriated to or used for the support of any sectarian school. The available school fund shall be distributed to the several counties according to their scholastic population and applied in the manner provided by law. (Article 7, Section 5(c), op. cit.)  

UTAH:

• The Legislature shall provide for the establishment and maintenance of the state's education systems including: (a) a public education system, which shall be open to all children of the state; and (b) a higher education system. Both systems shall be free from sectarian control. (Article X, section 1, Utah Constitution)
• No religious or partisan test or qualification shall be required as a condition of employment, admission, or attendance in the state's education systems. (Article X, section 8, op. cit.)
• Neither the state of Utah nor its political subdivisions may make any appropriation for the direct support of any school or educational institution controlled by any religious organization. (Article X, section 9, op. cit.)

VERMONT:

• Laws for the encouragement of virtue and prevention of vice and immorality ought to be constantly kept in force, and duly executed; and a competent number of schools ought to be maintained in each town unless the general assembly permits other provisions for the convenient instruction of youth. (Relevant provision of Article 68, Vermont Constitution)

***TO BE CONCLUDED***

(AS IN THE MARTIN LUTHER KING, JNR. DAY SNOWSTORM here in southeastern Minnesota, making a general mess of things as disrupted travel alongside cold weather in general.)

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

PERHAPS IT WAS TIME THAT THOSE WHITE SUPREMACISTS AS WERE MARCHING THROUGH JENA, LOUISANA yesterday in protest of the Martin Luther King holiday, all the while bellyaching that "poor white trash" had been losing their "traditional rights, privileges and powers" for some time now to the point of their risking "marginalisation" as "second-class citizens" they had always wanted blacks and other National Minorities considered, started to get a life for once.

Notwithstanding their inevitable invocation of Holy Scripture and all manner of bromides and platitudes about "unwritten law" entitling whites to a "privileged" status above all other peoples such specimens of hard-wired Zealotry and True Belief enjoy using, perhaps it was time they realised that "it's a small world, after all," and that they should realise that the only race which matters is the human race.

Even considering their arrogance-laden hubris made all the more so by their poverty, ignorance and unwillingness to recognise change being inevitable. Not to mention their dependency upon Al Cohol perhaps making things worse (has anybody considered just such a possibility among racist and white-supremacist elements from the ranks of the poor, undereducated and easily-led?).

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

IF EVER THERE WERE ARGUMENTS FOR APPLYING THE "MORAL HAZARD" LABEL to such making unwise decisions all the more, perhaps His Fraudulency's Great Within deserves it all the more.

For it's their misguided delusion of offering advanced tax rebates from $800 in the name of socioeconomic stimulation and, in turn, National Unity and Identity (or so the Great Within must be thinking) as is sending the equities markets into heartburn mode, and then some. Especially so yesterday, where bourses in Australasia and Europe took advantage of the Martin Luther King, Jnr. holiday in the United States to the point where local market indices fell in some of their steepest one-day dives since the Unfortunate Events of 9/11.

Wall Street's reopening after the Holiday Long Weekend even saw them reacting to such misguided thought following further market declines overseas on the overnight, not to mention the Federal Reserve Board being forced to cut a key interest rate by 0.75%: In just the first few minutes of trading, the DowJones Industrials index slipped some 420 points, barely enough to trigger a halt to trading. (The Dow has since recovered most of the losses, but still, the same is off and then some.)

How do we know that His Fraudulency's "inside of the inside," perhaps, isn't secretly profiting on the fringes of propriety by way of short-selling as only profits from the whole morass?

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

HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF YOU WERE SEEN ON SECURITY-CAMERA FOOTAGE FROM A SUBWAY NETWORK in a major city as was subsequently uploaded onto YouTube or similar websites, along with condescending comments on the side--and said footage managed to generate 15,000 hits within 48 hours of posting?

Embarrassed, come to think of it.

Which is exactly the case with a couple who are suing the operators of the Shanghai Metro network for Invasion of Privacy and Unwarranted Embarrassment after security-camera footage showing the couple in a romantic embrace on the platform of a Metro station was uploaded onto YouTube and a local knockoff in that vein, Ku6.com--along with snide remarks on the side.

The man in the controversial video was subsequently forced to resign his position after receiving embarrassing comments about the video ... and officials with the Shanghai Metro are reviewing the situation to see where official policies went wrong.

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

SUCH A PRECEDENT NO DOUBT BRINGS TO MIND the following (howbeit, for the most part, anecdotal) warning about potentially improper use of security-camera footage by way of the "WaiWai" feature in Japan's Mainichi Daily News, highlighting as it does the more interesting specimens of what pass for articles in the Japanese gutter press:

Watch out! In the surveillance society of Noughties Japan, during your most intimate moments, someone is probably watching you, according to Spa! (11/20).

Surveillance cameras are common throughout Japan and in fact because they have become so pervasive, they occasionally border on perversive.

"We have security cameras set up in our changing rooms, but only the men's," a man working at a public bathhouse tells Spa! "Sometimes we only set up dummy cameras, but usually they are installed in such a way that nobody even realizes they're there."

From bathhouses to [brothels] is not such a big step, and it's one that many Japanese sex joints have taken.

"We have security cameras in our reception area and waiting rooms," a spokesman for a handjob bar chain says. "All the footage is monitored at company headquarters and people working where the images are taken can't see them. Still, I'd say just about every sex joint is doing this nowadays."

Private booth peep shows are popular attractions for horny young men, but many don't realize that by visiting them could unwittingly be putting themselves before the cameras.

"Footage lifted from peep show booths are a staple for homosexual videos," the operator of a bar in Tokyo's gay quarter of Shinjuku Ni-Chome tells Spa! "It's really easy to find movies of guys in these booths as they [masturbate]."

Wataru Kobayashi, who takes sub-contracting jobs for cleaning Japan's ubiquitous love hotels, says cameras are no secret in these types of establishments, either.

"The owner of a love hotel in Shinjuku once took me out to a staff room in the back of his hotel and showed me the security area. There were all these monitors showing security camera footage, but it wasn't just the entrance area and elevators - they had footage taken from every room. And there were VCRs there recording all of it," Kobayashi tells Spa! "Apparently, they were taking the footage because lots of people who use them take drugs or smoke marijuana in there and the owners want to be able to present the footage as evidence in case they're raided by the police. At least, that's what the owner said. And other love hotels are apparently collecting footage from their rooms, too. But I think only the owners of these hotels are able to look at the images they've captured."

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

MEMO TO THOSE IN HOLLYWOOD ELIGIBLE TO VOTE IN THE POSTAL BALLOT FOR THE ACADEMY AWARDS from the shortlist announced this morning:

In the category of Best Animated Feature, may I suggest giving the vote to Surf's Up over Ratatouille, if only as a way of showing that feature-length cinema animation should not necessarily be the sole monopoly of Disney/Pixar, which can easily get to be hackneyed after awhile.

Not to mention Shrek the Third being slighted in this category, thereby opening the door for Surf's Up getting serious attention in this the Hollywood awards silly season--especially considering its "mockumentary" stylee, as in The Endless Summer meets This is Spinal Tap meets Happy Feet (that last one inspiring a well-placed jab very early on, where Cody Maverick, the subject of the whole, is asked whether he had other interests besides surfing, whereupon Cody replies "You mean, like singing and dancing?")

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

INTERESTING BIT OF TRIVIA ABOUT CODY MAVERICK: He happens to be a rockhopper penguin, as witness the characteristically curving yellow eyebrows in especially facial shots.

Equally noteworthy is where Pen Gu Island's resident lifeguard, Lani, is a gentoo penguin--as well as a close relative of Zeke "Big Z" Topanga, a/k/a Geek, a onetime penguin surfah hero fallen into disgrace, only to be "born again" by a chance encounter after sea-urchin spines get caught in Cody's feet during a rough wipeout.

In contrast, Reggie Belafonte, the bombastic surf promoter who, by his own admission, "made" Big Z (and has similar designs on Cody, were it not for his former protege), is a sea otter and his talent scout, Mort "I can't imagine a better day" Abramowitz, is a sandpiper.  

Moving right along with this public service effort to use the provisions of the constitutions of the several States to challenge an article of faith among certain elements of the Pseudoreligiopolitical Right challenging the legality, as much as the constitutionality, of:

• State authority to establish systems of free public education; and
• proscriptions in State constitutions on the use of public funds for religiosectarian instruction.

Your Correspondent proceeds with:

NORTH CAROLINA:

• The General Assembly shall provide by taxation and otherwise for a general and uniform system of free public schools, which shall be maintained at least nine months in every year, and wherein equal opportunities shall be provided for all students. (Article X, section 2(a), North Carolina State Constitution)

• The proceeds of all lands that have been or hereafter may be granted by the United States to this State, and not otherwise appropriated by this State or the United States; all moneys, stocks, bonds, and other property belonging to the State for purposes of public education; the net proceeds of all sales of the swamp lands belonging to the State; and all other grants, gifts, and devises that have been or hereafter may be made to the State, and not otherwise appropriated by the State or by the terms of the grant, gift, or devise, shall be paid into the State Treasury and, together with so much of the revenue of the State as may be set apart for that purpose, shall be faithfully appropriated and used exclusively for establishing and maintaining a uniform system of free public schools. (Article X, section 6, op. cit.)

NORTH DAKOTA:

• A high degree of intelligence, patriotism, integrity and morality on the part of every voter in a government by the people being necessary in order to insure the continuance of that government and the prosperity and happiness of the people, the legislative assembly shall make provision for the establishment and maintenance of a system of public schools which shall be open to all children of the state of North Dakota and free from sectarian control. This legislative requirement shall be irrevocable without the consent of the United States and the people of North Dakota. (Article VIII, section 1, North Dakota Constitution)

• The legislative assembly shall provide for a uniform system of free public schools throughout the state, beginning with the primary and extending through all grades up to and including schools of higher education, except that the legislative assembly may authorize tuition, fees and service charges to assist in the financing of public schools of higher education. (Article VIII, section 2, op. cit.)

• All colleges, universities, and other educational institutions, for the support of which lands have been granted to this state, or which are supported by a public tax, shall remain under the absolute and exclusive control of the state. No money raised for the support of the public schools of the state shall be appropriated to or used for the support of any sectarian school. (Article VIII, section 5, op. cit.)

OHIO:

• The General Assembly shall make such provisions, by taxation, or otherwise, as, with the income arising from the school trust fund, will secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state; but no religious or other sect, or sects, shall ever have any exclusive right to, or control of, any part of the school funds of this state. (Article 6.02, Ohio Constitution)
• Provision shall be made by law for the organization, administration and control of the public school system of the state supported by public funds: provided, that each school district embraced wholly or in part within any city shall have the power by referendum vote to determine for itself the number of members and the organization of the district board of education, and provision shall be made by law for the exercise of this power by such school districts. (Article 6.03, op. cit.)

OKLAHOMA:

• The Legislature shall establish and maintain a system of free public schools wherein all the children of the State may be educated. (Article XIII, section 1, Oklahoma Constitution)

• All proceeds of the sale of public lands that have heretofore been or may be hereafter given by the United States for the use and benefit of the common schools of this State, all such per centum as may be granted by the United States on the sales of public lands, the sum of five million dollars appropriated to the State for the use and benefit of the common schools in lieu of sections sixteen and thirty-six, and other lands of the Indian Territory, the proceeds of all property that shall fall to the State by escheat, the proceeds of all gifts or donations to the State for common schools not otherwise appropriated by the terms of the gifts, and such other appropriations, gifts, or donations as shall be made by the Legislature for the benefit of the common schools, shall constitute the permanent school fund, the income from which shall be used for the maintenance of the common schools in the State. The principal shall be deemed a trust fund held by the State, and shall forever remain inviolate. It may be increased, but shall never be diminished. The State shall reimburse said permanent school fund for all losses thereof which may in any manner occur, and no portion of said fund shall be diverted for any other use or purpose. (Article XI, section 2, op. cit.)

OREGON:

• The Legislative Assembly shall provide by law for the establishment of a uniform, and general system of Common schools. (Article VIII, section 3, Oregon Constitution)

PENNSYLVANIA:

• The General Assembly shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs of the Commonwealth. (Article III(B), section 14, Pennsylvania Constitution)

• No money raised for the support of the public schools of the Commonwealth shall be appropriated to or used for the support of any sectarian school. (Article III(B), section 15, op. cit.)

JUST YESTERDAY IN THIS SPACE, YOUR CORRESPONDENT SUGGESTED THE LIKELIHOOD for where so-called "cashflow gifting" schemes may be emerging in certain bastions of socioeconomic uncertainty or vulnerability before too long in the wake of an emerging round of socioeconomic dislocation.

Especially the kind as operate on the Information Stuporbahn, utilising the likes of PayPal in misguided efforts @ privacy and legitimacy notwithstanding 18 USC 1343 (Fraud by Wire, Radio or Television).

But then again, such "gifting clubs" may actually be a perversion (and deliberate) of the "mutual self-help" concept used to promote such in the first place. In evidence, MLM Watchdog has the following testimony of a participant in one such online "gifting" scheme, "5-Star Gifting," suggesting where the whole may be rigged by deliberate design (emphasis from original):

The person that runs this program who calls himself David Rosen which apparently not even his real name controls the software and has been manipulating the software such that gifts automatically go to him that should be gifted to others. He is basically using the software as an automated theft tool. Often people are not aware he is stealing from them because they either do not understand how the software is suppose to work or he just tells them that it wasnt working properly and it is fixed now after thousands of dollars have been gifted to him that should have gone to others. The software is routinely manipulated to route gifts to his position at the top. There are many people in this program that can verify what I  have written here. David whatever he calls himself is a thief that should be in jail. Right now he is making thousands of dollars a day off a program that is totally corrupt.

Which is enough to prompt Your Correspondent to challenge such involved in automated gifting scams generally to do the following:

1. Identify the specific software programmes used in connexion with these "gifting club" schemes, and where you obtained them. (This includes any open-source such.)
2. Identify the original scripting (as was intended to route funds thus "gifted" to those participating), and the manipulated such (as routes funds only to the "elect***entitled as of right), in these programs.
3. Identify such points in the program's scripting code and/or algorithm, as the case may be, where the manipulation occured.
4. Please Explain why you reconfigured the scripting code/algorithm in question to justify perverting "mutual self-help" in "gifting club" form towards Unfair Enrichment, and why you continue promoting "gifting" as "mutual self-help" in the circumstances.
5. If you use services like PayPal, Please Explain whether use of these payment services required manipulating the relevant scripting code/algorithm, and why.
6. Produce "clean" (i.e., without the deliberate inclusion of malware, other malicious scripting codes or other programming flaws) copies of the software in question (both "proper" and perverted forms) for analysis by law-enforcement agencies and (even better yet, though unlikely) such studying and promoting mutual self-help initiatives in name and in fact.

That last suggestion of sharing the "cleaned" software in a form as actually serves the cause of mutual self-help might be a longshot ... but nonetheless, I think such could actually be the foundation of a viable, and @ once worthwhile, online mutual self-help model as may interest such specimens of conservative Zealotry and True Belief looking for practical models of welfare-ersatz and denationalised State Social Security based on mutual self-help as its foundation.

Otherwise known as the English Friendly Society model, based on the Holloway Tables rather than flawed exponential maths and the Fibonacci Sequences commonly used by "gifting" elements.

But then again, how best to sell such to the Great Unwashed without attracting suspicions on their part that such may be a scam, while @ the same time expecting them to accept that the State may no longer be able to continue providing their safety net, placing more responsibility on their own part?

And doing so without pandering to latent racist stereotypes or feelings in excusing such thought?

Comments can be left in the relevant section.