KUDOS AND A TIP OF THE GIMME CAP TO THE SNARKY VIEW FOR HAVING BEEN AWARDED THE SNARKY LEMONADE AWARD (as above) just today in recognition of being "absolutely a Snarky blogger!", so joining the Virtual Trophy Case here @ The Exaggerator.

As it is that a condition of receiving this award is having to name ten nominees therefor (as well as linking to same, not to mention including the logotype therefor), here's my nominees therefor:

1. Up on the wrong side of the bed
2. Engrish.com Brog
3. NewsHounds (We watch Fox so you don't have to)
4. ConWebBlog
5. All Spin Zone
6. Right Wing Watch from People For the American Way
7. Starbucks Gossip
8. Weird Universe
9. Gorillas Don't Blog
10. Disneyland Nomenclature

1. Copy the award image and display on your blog or blogpost;
2. Nominate @ least ten blogs showing great attitude or gratitude;
3. Link to your nominees within your nominating post;
4. Inform them where they have been thus awarded; and
5. Link back to this post.

more the engrish!

WITH THE MINNESOTA CANVASSING BOARD'S RECOUNT IN THE SENATORIAL RACE BETWEEN NORM COLEMAN (GOP) AND AL FRANKEN (DEMOCRATS) HEADING TO A STATUTORY DEADLINE of midnight tomorrow (as the new Congress is to be seated Tuesday), and with Al Franken leading by 46 votes per the latest available numbers (before some 1,200 improperly-ignored absentee and postal ballots came into the picture), the Republicans still can't get over the clear and present danger of losing a Dear and Loyal Droog in the Senate to a rank greenhorn like Al Franken.

So paranoid has this become, in fact, that Norm Coleman is prepared to play the role of Junior, The Mean Widdle Kid through the courts to reclaim his Senatorial seat "entitled [him] as of Natural Right," or so he thinks--based on some rather obnoxiously pathetic arguments about recounted votes for Franken being "double-counted" and that the Minnesota Canvassing Board is too biased towards the Secular-Progressive camp and its (howbeit perceived) threat to Our Antient and Pecuilar Soverignty and Soverign Identity as a Nation. Not to mention Governor Pawlenty (a Republican himself seeking to curry grace and favour with the national GOP ahead of the 2012 Presidential elections, let alone his obvious droogs with the so-called "Club For Growth" and other Zealots and True Believers (Good Christians All, remember?) in the flawed ideology of low taxes=jobs=social order and stability) supposedly being "asleep @ the switch" in his powers and duties, as if he was expected to toe the GOP line without question or reservation, parrot the GOP's latest bumper-sticker slogans in the proper (as in idiotic-sounding) tone and stylee--in short, nothing more than a windup toy in the GOP's service, placing all the while Ideology above the Greater Collective Good.

The whole no doubt being seconded by the Greater Conservative Prolefeed Masheen, still insisting that America is, was and will forever be a White Christian Conservative Nation, the Shining City on a Hill, Jerusalem of Gold, Civitas Dei, all that Neocon/Fascisti pablum. (Witness analysis of the issue by Media Matters for America here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.)

Meanwhile, for those still hard-wired in their Zealotry and True Belief in this carefully-scripted meme of distraction, I have but one thing to ask, in the immortal words of Las Vegas Sun founder, and its longtime editor and publisher, Hank Greenspun's immortal response to Senator Joseph McCarthy's charge that Greenspun was a "Communist" in what turned out to be a drunken lapsus linguĉ on the Senator's part (he had meant to say "convict," it turns out; Greenspun had been convicted of violating the Neutrality Act for sending firearms in aid of the Israeli War of Independence in 1948, but received a suspended sentence and was ultimately pardoned by then-President Kennedy):

"Show us your facts!"

To which I may add: "If you can't, can you Please Explain why they cannot be shown @ this time?" (And please, we can do without your rather lame and pathetic attempts to outdo Fibber McGee's arguments with Mayor LaTrivia--or, for that matter, those of Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve with "that old goat," Judge Horace Hooker.)

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"That's pretty good, son--but that ain't the way I heard it! The way I heard it, one feller sez to t'other feller, 'Saaaaayyy,' he sez--"

THUS DID THE CHARACTER OF "OLD TIMER" ON THE ICONIC RADIO COMEDY FIBBER McGEE AND MOLLY BEGIN ONE OF HIS RATHER CORNY-SOUNDING YARNS, usually poking fun @ the events of the day or the latest fads.

Meanwhile, on The Great Gildersleeve, whenever Throckmorton P. himself went to Peavey's Drugstore for advice on a difficult situation with Druggist Frank Peavey, the latter would often express doubts about Throckmorton P.'s point of view with a well-placed "Well, now, I wouldn't say that...."

Such, I think, might be well worth studying as excellent deflating rejoinders to freshest specimens of conservative prolefeed, especially where distraction of public attention from The Big Picture (rather easily done with a target audience of the ignorant and easily-led) is the goal @ hand. So long as such were carefully timed to maximise the ego-deflating effect.

(Another effective ego-deflater: Wallace "Hello, folks!" Wimple relating his latest tale of woe and misfortune @ the hands of his tough-as-nails wife, Sweetyface, per Fibber McGee and Molly.

(Even better still: Mel Blanc's "Happy Postman" character on Burns and Allen relating the latest cheerful talk in a sad monotone, usually closing with "Goodbye, Mrs. Burns, and remember--keep smiling!!")

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IT WOULD BE HARD TO SAY IF THE SCOTS GOVERNMENT MAY HAVE PICKED A RATHER POOR TIME SOCIOECONOMICALLY TO NAME 2009 as their Year of Homecoming--even if such coincides with the 250th birth anniversary of that immortal Bard of Caledonia, Robert Burns.

Especially considering where many of the Scots Diaspora and others of Scots descent the world over may be unable to afford airfare to Glasgow Prestwick to take part in the relevant observances in their Auld Home Patch, so to speak, under current socioeconomic conditions.

Still, though, there's been a push for Scotland getting its very own Top-Level Internet Domain of .scot, subject to what ICANN has to say on the subject; some within Scotia have suggested that a .scot Internet domain could help inspire Scots pride the world over.

Perhaps it would be best to close this item with the last stanza of "A Man's A Man for A' That," his ballad about the the inevitability of all mankind being one:

Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a' that,)
That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That Man to Man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.

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IN THE GOP'S ONGOING EFFORTS TO CREATE IN THE FORM OF SARAH PALIN THE REINCARNATE FORM OF EVA PERON FOR NO OTHER PURPOSE BUT INSPIRING SHAME AND GUILT on the part of especially the so-called "Fundamentals of the Economy," did they do some research into Evita and her character beforehand in coming up with that rather costly exercise in "winning of hearts and minds"?

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SUGGESTION FOR SUCH AS ARE CONSTANTLY FRUSTRATED BY ANNOYANCE AND NUISANCE CALLS, YET CHOOSE NOT TO HAVE CALLER ID on their wireline connexion out of concerns over cost, in the face of repeated such as involve overdone sales spiels or the Seven Dirty Words:

1. Press the switch hook or, if your phone has one, the "flash" button to end the conversation.
2. Wait for dial tone, then dial *69 (Last Call Return; charges will likely apply); meanwhile, have pen and paper handy.
3. A recording will follow giving you the area code and telephone number of the last party who called your number. Take down the number given.
4. Given the phone number, do a Reverse Directory Lookup online to find out the name and address behind the number. If this information is readily available in Reverse Lookup, take that down along with the phone number.
5. Make out a complaint to your police with as much detail as you can, including the name, address and phone number, and the date and approximate time of your call. (If your local police allows complaints to be taken by e-mail, so much the better.)

SO MUCH FOR FOX PROLEFEED'S WISHFUL THINKING BACK IN JULY OF THE JUST-ENDED YEAR, as explains the preceding video vis-a-vis the following NewsHounds item:

On July 1, 2008, a giddy Alexis Glick announced that Fox financial guy Gary B. Smith's prediction was that the Dow would "be above 13,000 by the end the year." Above 13,000? Yesterday - as in the end of the year (December 31, 2008) - the Dow closed at 8,776.39.

Comment: Would you trust your money with a guy who got it so wrong? Me neither. Yet another reason not to watch Fox, ahem, "business news."

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WHICH BRINGS TO MIND THE FOLLOWING CHALLENGE TO ESPECIALLY "THE FOUR HUNDRED," THE TRADITIONAL SCIONS OF POWER, WEALTH AND AUTHORITY: As a way of showing some semblance of True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command--preferably in good faith, and out of the goodness of your collective heart--I challenge your element to donate @ least $8,468.10 each towards Reduction of the National Debt as a show of moral as much as social responsibility.

(Which, for the record, is tax-deductible. And can be sent along with your Form 1040 as a separate cheque, payable to the Bureau of the Public Debt with notation of "Gift to Reduce Debt Held by the Public.")

As for the figure of $8,468.10 as a suggested mininum: Such, FYI, happens to be the value of this weblog, as will be seen in the approriate widget in the sidebar. Multiplied by 400, that would mean the National Debt being erased to the value of $3,387,240. Now you know.

So what obstructs? 

more the engrish!

WHAT COULD BE MORE ABSURD THAN TO HAVE THE ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS AMONG THE CULTURAL CONSERVATIVES exercising what amounts to doublethink--a crude and pathetic doublethink, @ that--when it comes to "recommended" reading and viewing among the so-called "Fundamentals of the Economy" (read: the Lower Classes, a/k/a Kankerdom of the highest order).

As in "suggesting" their reading "good" literature (especially so the classics so beloved by that ilk) and watching "good" films (especially such from when the Hays Office held sway over Hollywood with the Production Code) and TV series (think TV Land here) ... only to pull a fast one @ the last minute and trick the ignorant and vulnerable into essentially no better than "elegant pornoo!" lacking any semblance of plot, story or morals by virtue of featuring nothing but unrelated sex scenes (with occasional displays of animal sex for variety).

And all the while pushing the canard about the "moral superiority" of American culture (based on Die Bransoner Muzikschaukultur, as it were, being the "acid test" for conservative ideals therefor)!

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YOU'VE PROBABLY HEARD OR SEEN THE ADVERTS ON CERTAIN HIGHLY-DISREPUTABLE CABLE/SATELLITE TV NETWORKS OR EQUALLY-DISREPUTABLE RADIO STATIONS (in the latter instance, usually such specialist in conservative prolefeed or religiopolitical pablum) for companies such as Blue Hippo or Tronix Country as target such among the so-called "Fundamentals of the Economy" wanting a decent desktop or laptop computer for the home, but:

• on the one hand, lack acceptable credit histories or FICO credit scores to get one through conventional channels such as through retailers or ex-works; and
• on the other hand, are unaware of, let alone hesitant to recognise, programmes sponsored by various charitable organisations to provide decent (usually rebuilt) computers free of cost to certain low-income families (usually rooted in overzealous reluctance to ask for charity lest "moral danger" ensue within measurable distance).

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IN CLOSING, SOMETHING WORTHY OF A NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION, as long as it's the season therefor--especially with many expected to see 2009 as a rather promising year in more ways than one after eight long years of America being too close to the edge of falling into Fascism in the name of preventing further misadventures from International Terrorism, all the while wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross (as attributed to both Huey "Kingfish" Long and Sinclair Lewis):

Trolls of Magic Mountain, we hardly knew ye ...

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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....