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THE TITLE OF THIS ITEM TRANSLATES FROM THE AFRIKAANS AS "It's Monday ... so what is there to seriously write about?"

Which leaves Your Correspondent wondering how best to approach this point of the week in terms of weblog content which can be readably interesting for once.

Especially when the Minnwissippi saw some off-and-on snow(!!) this morning as was limited to solid surfaces such as car hoods and house roofs; the ground is a little too warm for any fresh accumulation, and said snow has, for the most part, melted. Not to mention the likelihood of milder weather making a serious return as the week progresseth.

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AS IF THE WET EARTH WASN'T WET ENOUGH TO DISRUPT THE FIELD WORK AMONG FARMERS AND PLANTERS, along comes word that some farmers are giving serious consideration to not planting corn or soybeans this year, in effect taking farmland out of production (and, in the right circumstances, entitling them to Federal payments for such ends).

Cited as reasons therefor are the high cost of diesel fuel (currently $4.27/gallon--$1.13/litre--in these parts), fertilisers and insecticides, the whole likely to translate into major losses once the crops come in.

Which is enough to leave such farmers wondering what kind of crops to plant instead, let alone collect subsidies for taking farmland out of production.

One I could think of is Jerusalem artichokes (Helianthus tuberosus), which, from what I read, is supposed to be more viable as a biofuel source than the cereal grains currently diverted; the Purdue University Centre for New Crops and Plants Products confirms as much.

Or, if there was a decent enough market for such, switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), itself proven by recent research as another viable biofuel source--and, like the aforementioned Jerusalem artichoke, more effective than cereal grains. (In case you need the details, see here, here, here, here, here, here and/or here.)

However, you have to wonder if existing biofuels production facilities as are designed to produce ethanol from purely cereal grains can be cost-efficently modified to produce such from Jerusalem artichokes and/or switchgrass in socioeconomically viable quantities.

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WHAT THE RELIGIOPOLITICAL RIGHT WOULD SECRETLY CONSIDER AS "FAMILY VALUES:" Austrian prosecutors have laid charges against a 73-year-old man, by name of Josef Fritzl, found to have forcibly kept his daughter in the cellar of his house for 24 years, having issue of no less than seven children (an eighth died stillborn).

All of whom never saw the outside world all this time.

And it took a TV news bulletin (of all things!) to break the case; as the BBC elaborates:

The case came to light when the eldest of the children in the cellar, 19-year-old Kerstin, was seriously ill and had to be taken to hospital. 

A television appeal by medical staff for the patient's mother was seen by Elisabeth on a TV set in the cellar and she urged her father to let her go to hospital.

Police arrested Mr Fritzl shortly afterwards and took all the children into care.

"If you look at him today, you would hardly believe he was capable of doing these things. This man led a double life for 24 years," said Mr Polzer.

He said it was incredible that it had been kept secret for all that time.

Both the father and Elisabeth say no one else had access to the cellar, according to police, who are appealing to anyone with information about Mr Fritzl to contact them.

Asked why the captives had not tried to escape before, Mr Polzer said one had to consider the fact that the woman was small and weak and even the eldest boy, now 18, was "a small boy, a weak boy".

"You have to put yourself into the situation of these people," he said. "They led a completely different life to ours, they do not know what we know. These children were born into the jail, they knew nothing else."

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AND IF HIS FRAUDULENCY STILL THINKS THAT THE NEW ROUND OF SOCIOECONOMIC STIMULUS PAYMENTS WILL ACTUALLY STIMULATE CONSUMER SPENDING to the point of preventing clear and present danger of socioeconomic recession, perhaps it might have been better to have said payments loaded onto specially-issued gift cards from Wally World clearly labelled ISSUED FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, not unlike certain sham cheques sold by anti-government elements a few years back in hopes of manipulating a major socioeconomic collapse.

The which Wally World would consider as just reward for Good and Loyal Service to His Fraudulency's Great Within. Targeting (and deliberately, no doubt) those in lower-income or otherwise socioeconomically-disadvantaged ZIP+4 codes which lack chequing accounts thanks to the banks' being all the more selective in the kind of customers they want.

Which brings up the idea of maybe having our Postal Service follow the lead of Royal Mail in Great Britain and issue to the "unbankable" a debit card as would be used to deposit welfare, Social Security and other social aid benefits, and would allow cash access through ATM's and local Post Offices (in the former instance, with ATM fees absorbed) ... not to mention use @ retail establishments displaying VISA or MasterCard logotypes.

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AND IF THERE ARE STILL THOSE WHO WANT THE LOWER CLASSES TO MAKE "WISE USE" OF THEIR MONEY THROUGH THRIFT as opposed to lotteries and alcohol, what would preclude their encouraging the establishment of mutual savings banks towards such ends?   

SOMETHING FOR THE HUBRIS-WEIGHTED CROWD HOLDING DEAR AS AMONG THEIR ARTICLES OF FAITH The Great (Mis)communicator's argument that "government the solution, is not the problem which is government," may want to think about after seeing the following video:

As in:

"How do you expect to finance the government without taxation?"

Something to think about--but don't come crying to meme; it's for you to figure out, as you brought up the notion in the first place.

THOSE WHO HAVE READ OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES' IMMORTAL POEM entitled "The Deacon's Masterpiece; or, The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay: A Logical Tale" especially closely will note the allusion between the construction of the deacon's wagon and the earthquake of November 1, 1755 as destroyed Lisbon, Portugal wholesale in what many saw as a display of Divine Judgement upon what was then known as "the Sodom of the South" because of its wide-open prostitution.

And, towards the end, the "one-hoss shay" falling apart exactly one hundred years to the day (and, even more interesting, the precise hour) of the aforementioned Lisbon earthquake, just as the deacon was working out his sermon for the following Sunday.

WELL--!!!!!

Methinks there are probably some among the Elmer Gantry element who would just love to see serious earthquake devastation upon The Biggest Little City in the World (as in Reno, Nevada), with significant and measurable destruction and loss of life, within measurable distance--particularly so considering a series of minor tremblors whose epicentre was close to beautiful downtown Reno over recent days, the strongest such measuring a Richter-scale reading of 5.2 (enough to send bottles @ a wine store crashing to the floor).

The which they would then quickly use for their own selfish propaganda as a show of Divine Wrath and Judgement upon Nevada for allowing wide-scale casino gaming and prostitution, among other "deviant behaviours"--and hoping such results in wholesale isolation to the point of disease and illnesses ensuing thanks to relief supplies being unable to come into Reno.

Said disease and illness being seen as another sign of--what else?--Divine Judgement.

Methinks those who spread such Divine Wrath and Judgement propaganda following wholesale disasters resulting in loss of life and/or property are deserving of their own medicine, come to think of it. Especially when such can be manipulated to for their own warped "patriotic" delusions (as in America being now, tomorrow and forever a White Christian Nation).

Delusions, methinks, fuelled by drugs, alcohol and/or sexual excesses as may have (howbeit unconsciously) underlying causes in childhood abuse, neglect or psychoemotional traumas those involved are reluctant to face.

IT'S NOT ALL THAT OFTEN THAT YOUR CORRESPONDENT POSTS MATERIAL HERE @ THE EXAGGERATOR on Sundays, unless compelled to by force of events or whatever else on his mind prompts him to post material.

Like this morning.

As for what can trigger such postings, I know not. Just suffice it to say that I'm the kind who tends to post material impromptu, or on whim without much in the way of prepared notes.

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IT'S THE END OF ONE ERA--AND THE BEGINNING OF ANOTHER--JOURNALISTIC down Madison way:

Just yesterday, The Capital Times ended nearly 91 years of print publication as an afterlunch gazetta in Wisconsin's capital city ... and began what could be a closely-watched transition to "virtual" form (as in a constantly-updated online gazetta) in the hope of maintaining a Secular-Progressive voice as did considerable editorial damage to war profiteers, the Ku Klux Klan in its 1920's resurgency, Senator Joseph "I have here in my hand" McCarthy and his "patriotic" anti-Communist campaigns, environmental polluters, Big Business, the Four Hundred--and, in this day and age, sugar-coated Fascist tendencies among neo-conservative Zealots and True Believers, and their use to whip up enforced patriotism to, in its turn, justify ur-RAHOWA.

(Which is not to say that The Capital Times will pass from the printed page altogether: Twice-weekly tabloid editions--a Wednesday such as will cover news and commentary, and a Thursday amusements review and guide to be called 77 Square--will keep the flame lit, or try to, by way of supplements to their respective daily editions of the surviving Wisconsin State Journal, as well as stand-alone free distribution in and around Mad Town.)

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A BIT OF IRONY AS SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING FOR RIPLEY--OR, FOR THAT MATTER, SNOPES.COM, which The Capital Times duly noted in an article marking its end as a traditional daily gazetta:

The very day the first Cap Times hit the streets [13 December, 1917], Life magazine published a cartoon in its "Traitors" section of Kaiser Wilhelm pinning dozens of medals on [Senator Robert] La Follette.

(Readers, the Life magazine referred to as above was a satirical weekly published from 1883 until 1936, when Henry Luce purchased the title for his new pictorial weekly, itself continuing as a weekly until 1972 with intermittent revivals in the years since--particularly so as a monthly from 1978 until 2000, and from 2004 until 2007 as a rotogravure weekly supplement in several newspapers across the country.)

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HAVING BEEN ONE DIAGNOSED IN PAST WITH "PARANOID SCHIZOPHRENIA," AND PRESCRIBED HIGHLY-SEDATING MEDICATIONS as did little, if anything, to control same, Your Correspondent would like to acknowledge where, in posting certain especially critical items to this blog--or, for that matter, having a "letter to the editor" published in local gazettas--he imagines the prospect of responses from the Neocon/Fascisti element in the "Freeper" vein via e-mail in particular.

Said responses heavy on obscenity (in particular the "Seven Dirty Words" and their variants), questioning my loyalty and/or want of True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command (even if it means resorting to McCarthyist suggestions or "tendencies" that I was somehow "Communist" or otherwise "disloyal"), suggesting that I should "get my head examined" and quit blogging "for the Greater Collective Good of the Nation," stuff like that.

I'll say this again: I am what I am, and I'll blog as I want to blog.

And besides: Where do you get the idea that only conservatives are "entitled as of right" to a Government-Protected Monopoly on the marketplace of news and ideas, even to the extent of deliberately "dumping" trashy and pornographically tasteless prolefeed upon culturally-deprived environments for no useful purpose other than pacifying the poor, undereducated and easily-influenced--usually little more than sport, crime, astrology and celebrity goss?

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RECOMMENDED READING AND REPOSTING AMONG THE "SECULAR-PROGRESSIVE" BLOGOSPHERE, of which The Exaggerator is a proud part of: Videlicet, transcripts of an exchange the other day between Congressional Representative Robert Wexler (D/MI) and FBI Director Robert Mueller as is rather revealing to the point of embarrassing (and then some) for His Fraudulency's "inside of the inside," populated as it is with weird and unwholesome elements (in particular pædophiles, sex perverts, closet Fascisti and worse who are prepared to sell out American soverignty "antient and pecuilar" to the same "New World Order" as their extremist droogs forever regard as a Clear and Present Danger, up there with Esau selling his birthright to Jacob for bread and lentil soup):

Robert Wexler: Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Director, in January of 2006, the New York Times reported that the NSA wireless wiretapping program had produced thousands of leads each month that the FBI had to track down, but that no Al-Qaeda networks were discovered. During a July 17, 2007 briefing, FBI deputy director John Pistole indicated that the FBI was not aware of any Al-Qaeda sleeper cells operating in the United States. In August of 2007 Congress passed the Protect America Act, giving the intelligence community greater access to electronic communications coming into and out of the United States. I have two questions in this regard.

RW: Has the FBI found any sleeper cells yet? One…

RW: Two. Has the NSA’s wireless wiretapping programs either before the Protect America Act or after led to the prosecution and conviction of any terrorists in the United States?

Robert Mueller: Well, as to your first question as to whether we have found affiliates or, as you would call them, cells of Al-Qaeda in the United States, yes we have. Again, I cannot get into it in public session, but I would say yes we have. With regard to the relationship of a particular case or individual to the terrorist surveillance program, again that is something that would have to be covered in a closed session.

RW: Alright, Mr. Director. An LA Times article from October, 2007 quotes one senior federal enforcement official as saying [quote] “the CIA determined they were going to torture people, and we made the decision not to be involved” [end quote]. The article goes on to say that some FBI officials went to you and that you [quote] “pulled many of the agents back from playing even a supporting role in the investigations to avoid exposing them to legal jeopardy” [end quote].

RW: My question Mr. Director, I congratulate you for pulling the FBI agents back, but why did you not take more substantial steps to stop the interrogation techniques that your own FBI agents were telling you were illegal? Why did you not initiate criminal investigations when your agents told you the CIA and the Department of Defense were engaging in illegal interrogation techniques, and rather than simply pulling your agents out, shouldn’t you have directed them to prevent any illegal interrogations from taking place?

RM: I can go so far sir as to tell you that a protocol in the FBI is not to use coercion in any of our interrogations or our questioning and we have abided by our protocol.

RW: I appreciate that. What is the protocol say when the FBI knows that the CIA is engaging or the Department of Defense is engaging in an illegal technique? What does the protocol say in that circumstance?

RM: We would bring it up to appropriate authorities and determine whether the techniques were legal or illegal.

RW: Did you bring it up to appropriate authorities?

RM: All I can tell you is that we followed our own protocols.

RW: So you can’t tell us whether you brought it; when your own FBI agents came to you and said the CIA is doing something illegal which caused you to say don’t you get involved; you can’t tell us whether you then went  to whatever authority?

RM: I’ll tell you we followed our own protocols.

RW: And what was the result?

RM: We followed our own protocols. We followed our protocols. We did not use coercion. We did not participate in any instance where coercion was used to my knowledge.

RW: Did the CIA use techniques that were illegal?

RM: I can’t comment on what has been done by another agency and under what authorities the other agency may have taken actions.

RW: Why can’t you comment on the actions of another agency?

RM: I leave that up to the other agency to answer questions with regard to the actions taken by that agency and the legal authorities that may apply to them.

RW: Are you the chief legal law enforcement agency in the United States?

RM: I am the Director of the FBI.

RW: And you do not have authority with respect to any other governmental agency in the United States? Is that what you’re saying?

RM: My authority is given to me to investigate. Yes we do.

RW: Did somebody take away that authority with respect to the CIA?

RM: Nobody has taken away the authority. I can tell you what our protocol was, and how we followed that protocol.

RW: Did anybody take away the authority with respect to the Department of Defense?

RM: I’m not certain what you mean.

RW: Your authority to investigate an illegal torture technique.

RM: There has to be a legal basis for us to investigate, and generally that legal basis is given to us by the Department of Justice. Any interpretations of the laws given to us by the Department of Justice….
(talking over each other)

RW:  But apparently your own agents made a determination that the actions by the CIA and the Department of Defense were illegal, so much so that you authorized, ordered, your agents not to participate. But that’s it.

RM: I’ve told you what our protocol was, and I’ve indicated that we’ve adhered to our protocol throughout.

RW: My time is up. Thank you very much Mr. Director.

Remind you, readers, of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trials (1945-6) and the frequently-repeated patsy of "I was only following orders," itself reinforced by the argument that disobedience meant a more-than-likely sentence of death, let alone official disgrace?