more the engrish!

SOME WORTHWHILE QUESTIONS WORTH ASKING THE CONSERVATIVE TALKBACK RADIO CROWD for once when they start crying "Havoc!" and letting slip the dogs of hate and bigotry in response to Barack Obama's taking the Presidential oath of office--even if it means bordering on pestering to get answers which We, the Right-Thinking deserve:

• How can we be sure that the information you're providing is authentic and not forgeries in the Protocols of Zion stylee?
• How can we be sure that your "sources" can be considered credible and trustworthy, and not such considered among the Dregs of Society (who, traditionally, have never been considered credible sources of information by especially the police)?
• What sort of tests or background checks do you apply to the "information" you furnish, considering that your core audience is, by and large, ignorant and socioeconomically marginalised?
• How do we know that your mental faculties are not afflicted in any way by drugs, alcohol, gaming or Loathsome Social Diseases, which can raise questions about credibility right there and then?
• What would preclude your providing credible background information about your claims, especially such which can be cross-checked against two independent and credible sources?
• How do we know your researchers (or reasonable facsimilies thereof) are not among the Dregs of Society, or close to it? How much are they paid for providing "information" which you probably know is less than credible, or otherwise tends to prolefeed?
  
• Is money or other consideration offered to your "sources," especially such which can provide highly sensational, lurid or otherwise tasteless charges, without due regard for credibility or truth?
• Do you receive any payola (as it were) to influence the content of your programmes (as in prepared, scripted and/or otherwise nuanced "talking points") on a regular basis? If so, what prevents your disclosing the details to listeners, let alone exercising the common courtesy thereof?
• Have you a known history of alcoholism, drug addiction, problem gaming, sexual addiction (especially if such resulted in contracting a Loathsome Social Disease), mental disorders or dysfunctional upbringing as may affect the tone of your programme?
• Are you not consciously aware that the vast majority of your listeners are poor, undereducated to the point of ignorant, easily-influenced to the point of guillability, have limited job and career options beyond unskilled, labour-intensive positions and, in the process, are @ clear and present risk of socioeconomic marginalisation to the point of exploitation by the weird and unwholesome?
• Have you no sense of Decency, Sir, @ long last?
• Have you left no sense of Decency?

more the engrish!

"ANOTHER YEAR OVER, AND A NEW ONE JUST BEGUN," as the songwriter phrased it.

Which Your Correspondent essentially slept through, what with Winona not being the sort of town to provide much in the way of decent amusements with value for money to mark the New Year's welcome. And was the case in recent years.

Which, in any event, means no risk of hangover--which you can't get on soft drinks like iced tea or Dr Pepper such as Your Correspondent prefers of late. (And from what I've heard, one of the more legendary cures for hangover, Mexican stylee, is a bowl of menudo--which, for the uninitiate, is a stew of tripe and hominy.)

Just keeping it quiet for the most part is probably the best approach to welcome in the New Year @ my 47 years of age.

Which, in Motherdear's case (she's 87 and requires cane or walker to help get around), can tire her out (as is the case, by her own telephonic admission, over the Festive Season, with the hope that such will pass by Twelfth Night on 6th January. Or will it?)

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IN OPPOSING SOUTH AFRICA'S NEFARIOUS AND NOTORIOUS POLICIES OF RACIAL SEGREGATION KNOWN AS APARTHEID during its 46 years of high carnival (1948-1994), there was no racial monopoly on the opposition therefor.

Come to think of it, there were actually white South Africans, otherwise expected to regard themselves as "privileged" and "entitled as of right" solely on warped racial grounds, who were as vehemently opposed to the depravities of apartheid as much as blacks were.

And one of the more prominent names in white opposition to apartheid was Helen Suzman, perhaps the only legislative voice which the South African Parliament had in opposition to apartheid's excesses aimed @ keeping the black-majority population all the more down @ heel in the name of White Racial Honour--especially so following elections in the wake of independence in 1961, which split her Progressive Party to the point where she was the de facto opposition to the overbearingly dominant National Party.

Which, for its part, was the acme of Afrikaner hubris as sought to keep alive the feeble flame of "white superman" thought which the defeat of the Nazis in World War II theoretically extinguished, reinforced by overzealously Calvinist religiopolitical influence.

But in the end, apartheid would be its own undoing, eventually giving way to multi-racial, multiparty democracy thanks to a new constitution which she helped to draft in 1994--which was but the culmination of a slow but painful unravelling of apartheid as began when the pass laws used to keep blacks "in their place" were repealed in 1986.

Ms. Suzman died @ 91 years of age @ her home outside Johannesburg as 2009 arrived across South Africa.

In keeping with this blog's belief that "it's a small world, after all," The Exaggerator sends its condolences to the Suzman family and to the South African people and nation, united in their loss.

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WOULD IT BE STRETCHING THINGS TO IMAGINE A VIDEO OF LeROY ANDERSON'S HOLIDAY-SEASON CLASSIC "SLEIGH RIDE" in an updated stylee--as in a snowmobiling party through the woods of southeastern Minnesota?

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WITH THE CONSERVATIVE PROPAGANDA MASHEEN'S DEPRAVED MISSION OF MAKING LIFE FOR THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION ALL THE UNEASIER, we the "Right-Thinking" need to remain all the more vigilant for clear and present signs of their propaganda crossing the line into dog-whistle code pandering to latent racist feelings in their target audience.

Otherwise known as the poor, ignorant (perhaps deliberately), easily-led and socioeconomically-marginalised to the point of exploitation by the carpetbagger mountebank community seeing only dollar signs in real or otherwise imminent socioeconomic dislocation and uncertainty.

Especially when such involves so-called "cashflow gifting" schemes whose algorithms are deliberately manipulated to pervert the whole notion of "mutual self-help" that is theoretically being promoted thereby, thus benefiting only those of the "Great Within" vis-a-vis said schemes.

"Five Reports" chain letters such as were popular a few years back, especially around the Unfortunate Events of 9/11 and the ensuing socioeconomic near-meltdown.

Even such "work-from-home" schemes using "spam" e-mail claiming as the Subject "I found you a new job" as are making the rounds of late, but are unlikely to produce the results advertised (especially if you're asked to send money in advance as a requisite of such "employment," which, notwithstanding claims that such is a "deposit" or "guarantee," should instead be seen as a "red flag" notwithstanding claims of big-big money likely to be made for just a few minutes' time online every day).

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AND WHILE ON THE SUBJECT OF "MAKE-WORK/FAKE-WORK" SCAMS EXPLOITING THE IMMINENCE OF MAJOR SOCIOECONOMIC DISLOCATION OR UNCERTAINTY, especially such as target those with few or no realistically marketable job skills beyond unskilled, labour-intensive manufacturing--who, ironically, are much the same target audience for conservative talkback radio--Your Correspondent still recalls where many "Five Reports" and "mailing-list generator" chain letters in "spam" form a few years back contained this feeble attempt @ creating a false aura of legitimacy:

If you have any questions, please refer to 18 USC 1302 and 1341 (U.S. Mail Fraud and Related Crimes Statutes); also refer to 16 CFR 255 and 436, which state that "a product or service must be exchanged for money received."

Which, as a matter of fact, was really closer to a sick joke @ the expense of the targeted vulnerable, knowing where they don't exactly have time to research the laws in question, especially as the senders didn't even bother with the common courtesy of including the texts of @ least 18 USC 1302 and 1341 in so invoking.

Why? you may ask.

Simple: Those two laws in question specifically proscribe use of the mails to, under pain of a fine and/or penal servitude:

• send lottery tickets or other matter relating to lotteries; and
• perpetuate any type of fraud or swindle, with enhanced penalties if a financial institution is ultimately involved.

more animals

WHICH, I HOPE, WILL BE THE CASE WITH ALL OF YOU, especially in such parts of the world (and, by extension, the Information Stuporbahn) where 2009 has now arrived.

Including per UTC time, which, considering the global nature of said Infobahn, is the standard by which this blog runs for the most part. And besides, as Disneyland and Walt Disney World's quasi-National Hymn remind us, "it's a small world, after all."

In any case, earlier today, Your Correspondent had luncheon with Mein Innkeeper Friend @ Timbers Steakhouse here in Winona, it being a worthwhile occasion to chat and schmooze over a lunch that, in my case, involved chicken-fried steak and mashed potatoes ... and, in Mein Friend's case, an elk burger.

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MEIN INNKEEPER FRIEND ALSO USED THE OCCASION OF OUR LUNCHEON TO MENTION WHERE HIS RESIDENCE, BEHIND SUGAR LOAF BLUFF in the West Burns Valley section of Winona, was purchased some years back from the same Michelle Bachmann who is now a rather infamous Congressperson representing areas near the Twin Cities.

(As in her associations with racists, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, "Wise Use" types and suchlike among the Dregs of Society.)

Which, as it turned out, was something of a rather notorious Little House of Horrors, or reasonable facsimilies thereof, when Mein Innkeeper Friend (and wife) purchased same some years back--which I say when you stop and consider that Mein Innkeeper Friend found a number of defects and deficencies that the original owners (as in the Bachmanns) chose to gloss over "for reasons [Mein Innkeeper Friend] would understand," or so the thinking could have went. Especially so the connexion to the sewer line, which was found on later inspection to have been grossly clogged and plugged up to the point of costly repairs being required.

The Chamber of Horrors @ Mme. Tussaud's in London would probably have nothing on the Bachmann house before Mein Innkeeper Friend purchased same, and the sellers took considerable pains for no other reason than their own vainglory to gloss over the deficencies.

Which gives you reason to pause over just what went through the mind of Michelle Bachmann before she entered Congress--all the while parroting the propaganda line of the bigot, the racist and the xenophobe (and hoping for mainstream attention, only to see her efforts cross the line into backfiring upon her name and repute).

Something for the media to look @ posthaste....

A TIP OF THE GIMME CAP TO KITCHEN RETRO (PICKED UP ON VIA ENTRECARD, BY AND LARGE, KNOW), for calling my attention to this classic attempt @ a sensible and coherent TV advert as illustrated on an episode of I Love Lucy which had Our Heroine attempt to be a pitchwoman for a tonic called "Vitameatavegemin," unaware all the while that said product also contained liberal doses of alcohol alonsgide the vitamins, minerals and meat and vegetable extracts.

As witness her getting so hilariously plastered when she attempts to run through the advert, slurring words and even spilling some of the tonic onto the set.

Which, to some of you, will probably recall the Art Fern character in the "Tea Time Movie" segment of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, poking fun @ certain mid-afternoon movie shows then popular in especially the Southern California area as included some rather unbelievable-sounding adverts for equally-incredible sponsors (as well as driving directions which included the Slauson Cutoff, otherwise known as California 90, to reach premi that were, for the most part, two gallons or so from Magic Mountain).

Or, if you're in the Upper Midwestern states and Of a Certain Age, perhaps recalling that time Cedric Adams was delivering a commercial for Taystee Bread on his Ten O'Clock News over WCCO Radio 8-3-0, "the Good Neighbour to the Northwest"--specifically, when Taystee was introducing to the Twin Cities market a Swedish-type rye bread known as "Svenska Limpa"--and he mispronounced the name to such an extent that he unwittingly generated such unbelievable demand therefor, demand that Purity Baking Company (as Taystee Bread's bakers in the Twin Cities were then known) was unable to keep up with, even running out of baking pans within days.

As a result, the whole campaign for Taystee Svenska Limpa had to be revised because of Cedric's mispronuncing "Svenska Limpa" late one night (remember, everybody called him Cedric)--but there was a happy ending: Soon afterwards, then-Minnesota Governor Luther Youngdahl, himself of Swedish descent and proficent in Swedish, was on Cedric's newscast and took time to coach Cedric on air as to the correct Swedish pronunciation of "Svenska Limpa."

(Incidentally, about the closest I could think of to Vitameatavegemin being available is Watkins Beef, Iron and Wine Tonic, intended primarily for such with iron deficencies. Swift's 3-S Tonic is similar.)

see more pwn and owned pictures

FIRST OFF, APPY POLLY OGGIES ARE IN ORDER FOR WHAT SOME OF YOU MAY HAVE EXPERIENCED YESTERDAY WITH THIS BLOG as precluded your viewing same @ times, let alone not being able to view new content: It turns out that Blogdrive, as makes this weblog possible, had some power-related problems forcing them to go on backup generators for a time.

Hopefully, things have returned to normal, and Your Correspondent regrets any inconvenience suffered in the process.

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TOO, I HOPE THAT THE LEAD IMAGE OF "SHATTERPROOF" CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS BEING SHATTERED is an apt commentary on the end of another year, a year certain to go down in the history books in more ways than one.

Especially so the color bar having been shattered vis-a-vis the American Presidency with the election of Barack Obama to that position, notwithstanding potentially frivolous court challenges questioning Obama's fitness for the office under the Constitutional mandate that a candidate therefor be "native born"--to the forces of Zealotry and True Belief behind these rather inane actions, white, European-American and Low Church Christian.

And speaking of so-called "European-American issues" which are the latest distraction among Those Who Should Know Better, I would call upon such causes representing various ethnic- and national-heritage groups to resist pressure from the David Duke crowd to play along with a "United Front" canard based on the racist acronym ORION ("Our Race Is Our Nation") "to defend European-American culture, heritage and values from usurpation" under an Obama/Biden Administration (or so imagined).

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STAYING WITH SO-CALLED "EUROPEAN-AMERICAN VALUES" FOR A MOMENT, you have to wonder if the following item from Lima, Ohio qualifies in the minds of its Zealots and True Believers:

A state employee whose job is to prevent discrimination sent racist and sexist e-mails from his government account, an investigation found.

Robert Habern remains at his Ohio Department of Transportation position, despite being reprimanded last year for sending an e-mail joking about giving jobs to women with large breasts.

Jokes about men kissing and a woman's genitalia, as well as a racial joke and a caricature of Barack Obama, were in the latest e-mails sent by Habern, according to an ODOT report obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

Habern, 55, is the department's Equal Employment Opportunity contracts coordinator in the Lima office. His job is to ensure that vendors with agency contracts comply with federal and state anti-discrimination laws.

Habern, who makes $51,000, was suspended 10 days without pay in October for sending the new e-mails, which investigators said he confirmed sending. He received the verbal reprimand last year for sending the e-mail about women with large breasts, and was suspended 20 days without pay in 2004 for viewing inappropriate material online, including sexually explicit Web sites.

"Everything's all taken care of and squared away," Habern said in a brief phone interview Tuesday. "It's over with. I don't even want to bring it back up. It's done and over with."

Highway department investigators say Habern's e-mails, sent to fellow ODOT employees and non-state workers, are troublesome given his job as an anti-bias coordinator.

A "significant number of emails reviewed portrayed activities inconsistent with federal and state anti-discrimination statues," the Aug. 29 report on Habern said. "As such, Habern's activities are even more egregious in nature due to his position at the Department."

Department officials defended keeping Habern in his position despite the repeat violations, calling October's unpaid suspension "pretty harsh."

"We followed the appropriate disciplinary process," said spokesman Scott Varner. "He's been well aware that another infraction could lead to his dismissal."

Habern signed a statement in 2004 acknowledging he understood the agency's computer use policy. Nevertheless, he told investigators he wasn't familiar with the department's e-mail policies.

Varner said that statement was disappointing given the department's emphasis on appropriate computer usage.

In addition to signing the computer policy, for example, ODOT employees see a pop-up reminder about the policy each day when logging on.

The agency launched its latest investigation into Habern after receiving an anonymous tip about the e-mails.

Since when did "European-American culture and heritage," pray, become one with excusing racist and sexist jokes, songs and balladry?

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AS IS SOMETHING OF A TRADITION ON NEW YEAR'S EVE, THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF UNICORN HUNTERS @ LAKE SUPERIOR STATE UNIVERSITY in Sault Ste. Marie, MI have come out with their annual List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness--to wit:

• "Green" or "going green" (especially when used by businesses in environmental contexts)
• "Carbon footprint/offsetting" (again, with particular objection to use by businesses in environmental contexts)
• "Maverick"
• "First Dude"
• "Bailout"
• "Wall Street/Main Street" (and, methinks, its likely British counterpart of "The City/the High Street")
• "Monkey" (when used as a suffix)
• "<3" (as a texting avatar for "love")
• "Icon/ic"
• "Game Changer"
• "Staycation"
• "Desperate Search"
• "Not so much"
• "Winner of five nominations" (in the context of the major film-industry awards such as the Oscars, the Golden Globes, the People's Choice Awards, and more specialised awards such as the Writers' Guild and Directors' Guild Awards; could also apply to the several permutations of its television counterpart, the Emmys, especially so the Daytime and Prime Time such ... and, to a lesser extent, their stage counterparts of the Tonys and the Drama Desk Awards)
• "It's that time of year again"