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MOTHER'S DAY WEEKEND IS HERE, AND IN THE MINNWISSIPPI, IT'S CLOUDY, BY AND LARGE. With maybe some rain possible heading into the evening.
Which the farmers and planters would rather not have any more of so they could get the spring fieldwork done for once. And seriously, even if they're hesitant about planting corn or soybeans because of high fuel and fertiliser costs.
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STARTING IN THE MID-1970'S, MANY SOFT DRINK MAKERS SWITCHED OVER FROM SUGAR TO CORN-BASED SWEETNERS to cut costs and keep prices down.
Now, with so much of the corn being diverted to biofuels, it looks as if many soft-drink makers are about to return to real sugar before the summer is out. Which could be a blessing in disguise, what with much of the complaints about obesity aggravated by soft drinks having come since corn sweetners began to be in widespread use.
As for biofuels, sugarcane waste is a pretty reliable source--particularly so in Brazil.
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SOME OUT THERE HAVE BEEN WONDERING IF THIS SUMMER MAY SEE SOME CLASS OF AN INFAMOUS TERRORIST ATTACK WHICH COULD THEN BE USED by His Fraudulency's Great Within to justify extending the Iraqi Theatre of the ur-RAHOWA Against Terrorism into Iran.
As was the case with Iraq, the justification therefor being based on flimsy or incredible evidence.
How do we know this "terrorist attack," if it comes off, won't really be some class of a "false flag" action which the Great Within can cook up to whip up another round of the crudest in forced patriot love not seen since the Unfortunate Events of 9/11, especially when a "redemption for value" blackmail scam vis-a-vis illicit "militias" and "lone wolf" sleeper cells can be deployed for deceptive purposes?
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NEWEST TARGET OF THOSE IN THE ELMER GANTRY CAMP WHO LOVE TO THROW OUT THAT SINGSONG MEME OF "CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION! CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION!" for no purpose other than selfish vanity and warped patriotic delusion, by way of the LaCrosse (WI) Tribune (ultimately via the Wisconsin State Journal of Madison):
NECEDAH, Wis. — Two people have been charged after a Juneau County sheriff's deputy found a family living in a home with the body of a 90-year-old woman decomposing on the bathroom toilet.
Tammy D. Lewis, 35, and Alan A. Bushey, 57, both of Necedah, each were charged with two felony counts of causing mental harm to a child, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday. Lewis also faces one count of obstructing police.
The two, who are also known as Sister Mary Bernadett and Bishop John Peter Bushey, along with the dead woman, Magdeline Alvina Middlesworth, were part of a small Bible-based church led by Bushey, Juneau County Sheriff Brent Oleson said.
Investigators are trying to determine if they were defrauding Middlesworth, Oleson said, and additional charges against the two are "a very real possibility." He said there is evidence Middlesworth provided financial support to the church and to Lewis and her family.
Lewis and Middlesworth were not related, he said, but had been living together with Lewis' 15-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son about 3 1/2 years.
Oleson declined to call the church a cult but said "I guess in my mind I don't know of any faith that sanctioned his teachings."
Bushey had been living in the area about 11 years, Oleson said, did not have outside employment and had built a chapel on the back of his home, which is about a half-mile from where Middlesworth and Lewis lived. He said Bushey's church had few members; only eight were at a Mass about two months ago.
He said Bushey's church was not affiliated with the Queen of the Holy Rosary Mediatrix of Peace Shrine, which is less than a mile from Middlesworth's home. The shrine itself is not a recognized part of the Catholic Church.
[***]
According to the criminal complaint, the sheriff's office was asked Wednesday to check on Middlesworth's welfare by her sister, Bernice Metz, because Metz had not heard from her in "some time."
Lewis initially told a deputy Middlesworth was on vacation, but after the body was discovered admitted she had been dead for about two months, according to the criminal complaint.
Lewis said she had been helping Middlesworth put on an undergarment when she passed out in her arms, then left the elderly woman propped on the toilet after Bushey, whom she referred to as her "superior," said to leave her there and pray.
Lewis claimed to authorities that "God told her Alvina would come back to life if she prayed hard enough." Bushey told the deputy "Lewis was obedient and served the Lord just as she should."
The complaint states incense was used to cut down on the stench in the home, and Lewis said she and her children were using a bucket in a closet as a bathroom.
The 12-year-old boy later told investigators that after Middlesworth died, Bushey told him her appearance "was the result of demons attempting to make it appear that Alvina would not come back to life."
The boy also reportedly said Bushey told him if Middlesworth's death was discovered, he and his sister would have to go to public school and get jobs because the woman, whom the boy referred to as his "grandmother," paid the bills.
The girl made similar statements to investigators, according to the complaint.
Both children are in protective custody, Oleson said, and physically healthy.
In court Friday, bond was set at $50,000 cash each for Lewis and Bushey, and they were ordered to have no contact with the children or each other.
(BTW, the Queen of the Holy Rosary Mediatrix of Peace Shrine is connected to the schismatic American National Catholic Church, an Old Catholic group whose supporters--mostly poor, undereducated and easily-influenced--contend that one Mary Ann VanHoof saw Our Lady in the summer of 1950, and in the process supposedly received messages warning that the Soviets were preparing to set off World War III within measurable distance via the Pacific Coast. Messages as were quickly dismissed by the Roman Catholic Church as "insincere" and designed solely to attract the tourist trade, even if substantial crowds arrived in Necedah on August 15th that year to see the supposed apparitions, which were dismissed as little better than a bluish haze.
(By that fall, Miss VanHoof began losing substantial support, especially after she collapsed and hit her head on a statue of Our Lady of Fatima during a Rosary procession and radio stations in Milwaukee were asked by Church authorities to stop carrying VanHoof's broadcasts. In 1975, her supporters were placed on interdiction, one step short of out-and-out excommunication in terms of Church sanctions, meaning they could not receive any Church sacraments save that of pennance.
(Miss VanHoof herself died in 1984, heretic to the last.)
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HAVE YOU SEEN THOSE COMMERCIALS FROM THE SO-CALLED "AMERICAN COALITION FOR CLEAN COAL ENERGY" DEPICTING SUPPOSED AVERAGE JOE/JANE TYPES voicing their "support" for energy self-sufficency based on increased construction of power stations using so-called "clean coal technology"?
I, for one, would have to treat such as suspicious, especially when you consider these supposed "True Believers" are really actors coached into reading from carefully-nuanced scripts (in which case FTC requirements, under more conventional circumstances, would require the on-screen disclosure "actor portrayals" or suchlike).
In view of where both the National Advertising Division (a consilium of the Council of Better Business Bureaux and major advertising-industry groups) and the FTC regard issue or advocacy advertising as outside their purview because of possible First Amendment conflicts, perhaps it was time for the Secular-Progressive Blogosphere to raise their objections to the ACCCE's advertising because of the deception issues I have just addressed.
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COME TO THINK OF IT, THE EXAGGERATOR IS PROUD TO CONSIDER ITSELF part of the Secular-Progressive Blogosphere, never mind Bill "No-Spin Zone" O'Reilly's contentions about Secular-Progressives somehow in league with His Satanic Majesty.
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AND IT LOOKS AS IF THE GOP WILL LIKELY FACE SERIOUS CASH-FLOW PROBLEMS in trying to "swift-boat" Barack Obama's Presidential campaign, never mind where they claim to be acting for G-d and Country: Ongoing financial irregularities with the GOP could mean that broadcasters may require the GOP's campaign committee to pay for their ad time in cash, especially when it turns out that all except a hard-core "inside of the inside" can be trusted to keep the GOP afloat.
Until it emerges that they're probably a "fifth column" seeking to undermine the GOP from within.
In any case, perhaps it was time for the GOP to open its books for once and reveal the extent of its financial problems--especially before creditors demand cash payments (and no, they won't accept so-called "Liberty Dollars" "secured" by lead ingots from the Monongahela Metal Foundry spray-painted to look like gold or silver).
RIGHT WING WATCH AND BRAVE NEW FILMS WOULD LIKE TO CALL YOUR ATTENTION TO THE FOLLOWING VIDEO of recent remarks from the "spiritual advisor" to The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang of Indecision 2008 (otherwise known as John McCain) as invoke His Name to discredit those on welfare, as well as imply that "no Good Christian would go on welfare," let alone put themselves @ risk of moral lapse if they went on welfare:
Which, methinks, is up there with a popular illogical fallacy of equivocation and begging the question commonly known as the "No True Scotsman" such, the workings of which Wikipedia thus explains:
Imagine Hamish McDonald, a Scotsman, sitting down with his Glasgow Morning Herald and seeing an article about how the "Brighton Sex Maniac Strikes Again." Hamish is shocked and declares that "No Scotsman would do such a thing." The next day he sits down to read his Glasgow Morning Herald again and this time finds an article about an Aberdeen man whose brutal actions make the Brighton sex maniac seem almost gentlemanly. This fact shows that Hamish was wrong in his opinion but is he going to admit this? Not likely. This time he says, "No true Scotsman would do such a thing."
Flew's original example may be softened into the following:
Argument: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."
Reply: "But my uncle Angus, who is a Scotsman, likes sugar with his porridge."
Rebuttal: "Aye, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."
In putting forward the above rebuttal one would be employing an ad hoc shift in argument. The proposer initially treats the definition of "Scotsman" as fixed, and says that there exists no predicated case that fall inside. When one such case is found, the proposer shifts to treat the case as fixed, and rather treats the boundary as debatable. The proposer could therefore be seen prejudicially not to desire an exact agreement on either the scope of the definition or the position of the case, but solely to keep the definition and case separate. One reason to do this would be to avoid giving the positive connotations of the definition ("Scotsman") to the negative case ("sex offender") or vice versa.
Formally the argument is an informal fallacy if the predicate ("puts sugar on porridge") is not contradictory to the previously accepted definition of the subject ("Scotsman"), or if the definition of the subject is silently adjusted after the fact to make the rebuttal work.
As another example, a layman may be debating the merits of different video camcorders. He might assert that: "Any video engineer will tell you that the Matsushiba KYX300 format is vastly superior to the Magnasonic VBX2000." If someone points out, many engineers are on record as saying that the VBX2000 is actually the superior system, the original speaker may modify his premise to state: "Any video engineer who knows what they are talking about."
This is really another form of begging the question. His assertion is essentially self-nullifying, in that, not being an engineer, he is hardly in any position to judge the credentials of people who are.
This is connected to the widespread attempt in debate to assert that positive terms (good, decent) imply, naturally or by definition, the characteristics argued for (opposition to capital punishment, pornography, smoking in public), rather than actually making an argument why they are connected. "No decent Scotsman" can be considered the moral (practical) equivalent of the theoretical "No true Scotsman".
For example, it may be asserted that "No decent person would support hanging", "watch pornography", or "smoke in public". This is an abbreviated form of the fallacy: compare "he may take salt in his porridge, but no true Scotsman would" and "(some people may support smoking in public), but no decent person would." Often the speaker seems unaware that he is, in fact, coercively (re)defining the meaning of the phrase "decent person" to gain tactical advantage in the argument. The use of this technique shifts the debate away from the merits of hanging, pornography, or smoking (or whatever controversial subject that may be at issue) by attempting to establish, without basis in logic, that anyone disagreeing with the speaker is, in fact, "indecent".
The word "real" may be substituted for "true" and still commit the same fallacy in different plumes. For example, when General George Patton said, "All real Americans love the sting of battle" to his soldiers, he was implying that they were un-American if they shrank from combat.
Which is enough to wonder if John McCain's attutude towards the Lower Classes is nothing but one of contempt and revulsion, preferably as objects of sick humour. And enough to start thinking about pushing mutual self-help initiatives as one towards helping these same Lower Classes help themselves against such a shift in welfare policy.
Unless, however, such can be shown as "perpetuating dependency" as opposed to "industry, self-reliance, personal responsibility, thrift based on cash economy and a Wholesome and Simple Home Life."
BOASTING AND EXAGGERATION, PERHAPS UNDER AL COHOL'S NEFARIOUS INFLUENCES (THOUGH NOT ACKNOWLEDGING AS MUCH OPENLY), seem to be popular weapons in the arsenal of those Dark Satanic Mills of Conservative Propaganda.
Especially so that specialist in "winning of hearts and minds" to a xenophobic and isolationist agenda expected to be conditioned by an unyielding orthodoxy to free-market capitalism with American characteristics being the Great White Father (so to speak) of the Lower Classes as "are in clear and present need of empowerment towards industry, self-reliance, personal responsibilty, thrift based on cash economy and a Wholesome and Simple Home Life" after "generations of unhealthy conditioning towards Socialistic or otherwise un-American tendencies" through State welfare.
Case in point, thanks to ConWebBlog:
An April 25 WorldNetDaily article regurgitates the results of a "poll" by the right-wing American Policy Center claiming to find that "overwhelming majorities opposing the concept, plans and ideas" of the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Security and Propserity Partnership/North American Union. But it wasn't a real poll at all, despite WND's efforts to portray it otherwise as it cribbed from the APC's press release about it:
The poll of one million American households revealed that 58 percent of the households contacted had not heard of the SPP.
"It is important to note that APC did not select households that might represent specific ideological positions," the group said. "The chosen households represented neither conservative nor liberal positions. Instead the recipients were a wide [variety] of Americans who live in the direct path of the proposed Trans Texas/NAFTA Corridor, from Texas to Minnesota."
Normal polls don't contact "one million American households." What this tells us--though WND and APC don't explicitly bother to do so--that this poll was merely a mass mailing in which people had to respond to be counted--that is, an opt-in poll, which are notoriously unreliable.
The APC press release sheds a little more light on how the "poll" was conducted:
The survey, titled "Do Americans Support a North American Union" asked a series of questions concerning the SPP and the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC). The survey package also included a four-page report prepared by APC entitled "NAU Fact Sheet," providing details about the SPP, the TTC and how these programs are being implemented quietly, behind closed-door meetings like the one just completed in New Orleans.
So the only information these respondents had at hand regarding the SPP/NAU was information supplied by the APC itself--which opposes the NAU. (APC chief Tom DeWeese belongs to the Coalition to Block the North American Union.) Nowhere that we could find does APC make public the materials it sent to those "one million American households," nor does it state what percentage of those households responded to the survey.
Which makes the survey's key claim--that 58 percent of those who chose to respond to the survey had not heard of the NAU prior to APC's mass mailing, but 90-plus percent oppose its provisions--even more bogus than the rest of the survey. The only thing that 58 percent had to make judgments on the issue was APC's "fact sheet" attacking it--which, by the way, concludes:
The SPP is an invastion of our culture and our economy. It's about the redistribution of American wealth and industry. It will represent the end of over 250 years of an historic experiment--unless Americans across the nation say no--now.
Given that, is it really surprising that 90-plus percent of respondents oppose the NAU? After all, angered people are the ones likely to be motivated enough to mail back the APC's survey.
Nowhere does WND mention that APC opposes the NAU; rather, it benignly portrays APC as "a grassroots activist group in Washington that asked a series of questions about the SPP, the Trans Texas Corridor transportation project and other issues."
But then again, there's always the possibility that the "survey" in question contained loaded questions tending to exploit latent prejudices and hatreds ... required receipents to pay their own postage to mail same back ... and were more than likely sent to lower-income or otherwise socioeconomically-disadvantaged ZIP+4 areas, the better to take unfair and/or unscrupulous advantage of the latent xenophobic feelings among the vulnerable.
And how could they have paid for the costs of printing, mailing and tabulation of "survey" results as above suggested?
One million Americans supposedly seeing themselves as "right-thinking" could be wrong, and not consciously know this for a fact.
TOMORROW, PER THE CALENDAR, WILL BE MAY THE 11TH--THAT DAY IN THE YEAR 1858 which saw Minnesota admitted into statehood as the 32nd of the United States of America.
And 150 years.
With that in mind, Your Correspondent feels it best to extend best wishes to Minnesota on this milestone anniversary of anniversaries.
Yes, Minnesota has gone through quite a lot all this time....
SOMETHING WORTH THINKING ABOUT HEADING INTO INDECISION 2008, courtesy of the website Armchair Subversive, as should be shared with all your friends and contacts:
Republican Hypocrisy Revealed
STOP REPUBLICAN PÆDOPHILIA
Republican presidential campaign official Matthew Joseph Elliott was convicted of sexual exploitation of a child.
Republican Party Chairman Donald Fleischman was charged with two counts of child enticement, two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a child and a single charge of exposing himself to a child.
Republican prosecutor John David Roy Atchison was arrested for soliciting sex from a 5-year old girl, then killed himself three weeks later. At the time of his arrest, Atchison was an "assistant U.S. attorney" appointed by President Bush's attorney general.
Republican city councilman John Bryan killed himself after police began investigating allegations that he had molested three girls, including two of his adopted daughters, ages 12 and 15.
Republican legislator Ted Klaudt was charged with raping girls under the age of 16.
Republican city councilman Joseph Monteleone Jr. was found guilty of fondling underage girls.
Republican Congressman Mark Foley abruptly resigned from Congress after "sexually explicit" emails surfaced showing him flirting with a 16-year old boy.
Republican executive Randall Casseday of the conservative Washington Times newspaper pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from a 13-year old girl on the internet.
Republican chairman of the Oregon Christian Coalition Lou Beres confessed to molesting a 13-year old girl.
Republican County Constable Larry Dale Floyd pleaded guilty to charges of soliciting sex from an 8-year old girl. Floyd has repeatedly won elections for Denton County, Texas, constable.
Republican judge Mark Pazuhanich pleaded no contest to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation.
Republican Party leader Bobby Stumbo was arrested for having sex with a 5-year old boy.
Republican petition drive manager Tom Randall pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 14, one of them the daughter of an associate in the petition business.
Republican County Chairman Armando Tebano pleaded guilty to fondling a 14-year-old girl.
Republican teacher and former city councilman John Collins pleaded guilty to sexually molesting 13 and 14 year old girls.
Republican campaign worker Mark Seidensticker is a convicted child molester.
Republican Mayor Philip Giordano is serving a 37-year sentence in federal prison for sexually abusing 8- and 10-year old girls.
Republican Mayor Tom Adams was arrested for distributing child pornography over the internet.
Republican Mayor John Gosek was arrested on charges of soliciting sex from two 15-year old girls.
Republican County Commissioner David Swartz pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
Republican legislator Edison Misla Aldarondo was sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping his daughter between the ages of 9 and 17.
Republican Committeeman John R. Curtin was convicted of molesting an underage teenage boy and sentenced to serve six to 18 months in prison.
Republican zoning supervisor, Boy Scout leader and Lutheran church president Dennis L. Rader pleaded guilty to performing a sexual act on an 11-year old girl he murdered.
Republican anti-abortion activist Nicholas Morency pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer and offering a bounty to anybody who murders an abortion doctor.
Republican campaign consultant Tom Shortridge was sentenced to three years probation for taking nude photographs of a 15-year old girl.
Republican racist pedophile and United States Senator Strom Thurmond had sex with a 15-year old black girl which produced a child.
Republican pastor Mike Hintz, whom George W. Bush commended during the 2004 presidential campaign, surrendered to police after admitting to a sexual affair with a female juvenile.
Republican legislator Peter Dibble pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl.
Republican advertising consultant Carey Lee Cramer was sentenced to six years in prison for molesting two 8-year old girls, one of whom appeared in an anti-Gore television commercial.
Republican fundraiser Lawrence E. King, Jr. organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.
Republican lobbyist Craig J. Spence organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.
Republican Congressman Donald "Buz" Lukens was found guilty of having sex with a female minor and sentenced to one month in jail.
Republican fundraiser Richard A. Delgaudio was found guilty of child porn charges and paying two teenage girls to pose for sexual photos.
Republican campaign chairman Randal David Ankeney pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault on a child and was arrested again five years later on the same charge.
Republican Congressman Dan Crane had sex with a female minor working as a congressional page.
Republican activist and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell admitted to an incestuous relationship with his step daughter.
Republican Judge Ronald C. Kline pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on his home computer.
Republican congressman and anti-gay activist Robert Bauman was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar.
Republican Committee Chairman Jeffrey Patti was arrested for distributing a video clip of a 5-year-old girl being raped.
Republican activist Marty Glickman (a/k/a "Republican Marty"), was taken into custody by Florida police on four counts of unlawful sexual activity with an underage girl and one count of delivering the drug LSD.
Republican legislative aide Howard L. Brooks was charged with molesting a 12-year old boy and possession of child pornography.
Republican Senate candidate John Hathaway was accused of having sex with his 12-year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media.
Republican preacher Stephen White, who demanded a return to "traditional values," was sentenced to prison after offering $20 to a 14-year-old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him.
Republican talk show host Jon Matthews pleaded guilty to exposing his genitals to an 11 year old girl.
Republican anti-gay activist Earl "Butch" Kimmerling was sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting an 8-year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her.
Republican Party leader Paul Ingram pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served 14 years in federal prison.
Republican election board official Kevin Coan was sentenced to two years probation for soliciting sex over the internet from a 14-year old girl.
Republican politician Andrew Buhr was charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a 13-year old boy.
Republican legislator Keith Westmoreland was arrested on seven felony counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition to girls under the age of 16 (i.e. exposing himself to children).
Republican Councilman and former Marine Jack W. Gardner was convicted of molesting a 13-year old girl.
Republican County Commissioner Merrill Robert Barter pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy.
Republican City Councilman Fred C. Smeltzer, Jr. pleaded no contest to raping a 15 year-old girl and served 6-months in prison.
Republican activist Parker J. Bena pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on his home computer and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000.
Republican parole board officer and former Colorado state representative, Larry Jack Schwarz, was fired after child pornography was found in his possession.
Republican strategist and Citadel Military College graduate Robin Vanderwall was convicted in Virginia on five counts of soliciting sex from boys and girls over the internet.
Republican city councilman Mark Harris, who is described as a "good military man" and "church goer," was convicted of repeatedly having sex with an 11-year-old girl and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Republican businessman Jon Grunseth withdrew his candidacy for Minnesota governor after allegations surfaced that he went swimming in the nude with four underage girls, including his daughter.
Republican campaign worker, police officer and self-proclaimed reverend Steve Aiken was convicted of having sex with two underage girls.
Republican director of the "Young Republican Federation" Nicholas Elizondo molested his 6-year old daughter and was sentenced to six years in prison.
Republican president of the New York City Housing Development Corp. Russell Harding pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer.
Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, Richard A. Dasen Sr., was found guilty of raping a 15-year old girl. Dasen, 62, who is married with grown children and several grandchildren, has allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young women.
Republican Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the rape of children in Iraqi prisons in order to humiliate their parents into providing information about the anti-American insurgency. See excerpt of one prisoner's report here and his full report here.
Given this evidence, it's time to ask the same question the GOP asked during the Clinton impeachment proceedings:
HAZY SUNSHINE PREDOMINATES THE SITUATION HERE IN THE MINNWISSIPPI AS I PREPARE THIS THE LATEST EDITION of my take on the world in its own eclectic way in weblog form.
And before proceeding, a tip o' the hat (so to speak) to Brave New Films for attracting traffic to this weblog significantly yesterday (as in comments about the interconnexion between The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang of Indecision 2008 and Rev. Rod Parsley in Open "Please Explain" Letter form). Nonetheless, though, I hope that you visitors will make it a regular habit ... and that you can support it fiscally as much as morally (as witness the online shopping, both in the sidebar and @ the new online mall, Mallratz, and the Virtual Tip Jar).
Thanks again.
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FURTHER EVIDENCE OF HYPERCONSERVATIVE CONTEMPT FOR THE VULNERABLE AND MARGINALISED OF SOCIETY, as in these observations from People For the American Way's Right Wing Watch blog in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision allowing states to require photo-bearing ID as a formality to protect electoral integrity:
The Supreme Court's decision upholding Indiana's partisan voter-ID law, like other recent cases with conservative outcomes, received generous praise from the Right. "This victory continues conservatives' good run of Supreme Court decisions dating back to last term," wrote Human Events columnist Sean Trende, who called the case evidence that John Roberts's appointment as Chief Justice "mark[ed] a sea change" in pulling the court "rightward."
Paul Weyrich praised the Court and called objections to the law—which closes access to the ballot box for many otherwise eligible voters, primarily minorities and the elderly, in pursuit of the phantom threat of voter fraud—"overblown and sensational," adding, "We do not compel people to vote." (As Weyrich said in 1980, "I don't want everybody to vote. … [O]ur leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.")
And Gary Bauer boldly asserted that "all citizens have photo I.D.s, and the only people who don't are illegal aliens, who are, by definition, not allowed to vote. The only ones disenfranchised by the photo I.D. requirement are those who should not be voting anyway."
Of course, by the time Bauer sent that remarkable claim out to his e-mail list, the AP was already reporting on some of these people he said "should not be voting":
About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow sister because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph. …
The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn't get one but came to the precinct anyway.
"One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, 'I don't want to go do that,'" Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.
They weren't given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back within the 10 days allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. "You have to remember that some of these ladies don't walk well. They're in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts."
Speaking of which, Your Correspondent could just imagine certain forces of the Religiopolitical Right cooking up a scam royale come Election Day for no useful purpose other than electoral disenfranchisement of the Lower Classes, with the "generous help and cooperation" of "law-and-order" Zealots and True Believers playing the role of police officers from "Special Branch" or "Secret Branch" (thus explaining their supposedly acting incognito) who can engage in "caging" tactics reeking of crude intimidation.
As is reputedly likely to be the case with Zimbabwe's forthcoming Presidential runoff, as per the BBC:
Zimbabwe's "war veterans" militia plan to intimidate voters by posing as police officers during the presidential run-off, a policeman has told the BBC.
He said they would be based inside polling stations during the vote, whose date has not yet been fixed.
The report came as South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki, the lead Zimbabwe negotiator, prepared to hold talks with Robert Mugabe in Harare.
Mr Mbeki has previously played down talk of a crisis in Zimbabwe.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says its supporters are being systematically targeted by the "war veterans" and other supporters of President Mugabe ahead of the run-off.
A trade union official on Thursday said that 40,000 farm-workers and their relatives had fled their homes because of violent attacks.
The government has in turn accused the MDC of staging political attacks, while saying the extent of the violence has been exaggerated.
But a South African election observer has said that the violence makes it impossible to hold a run-off.
'Uniforms issued'
The BBC's Orla Guerin met the police officer deep in Zimbabwe's bush, as he was afraid of being identified.
"The war veterans will be wearing police uniforms," he said.
"They will be given ranks and force numbers. They'll be part and parcel of the police deployed in every ward. So when people come in to vote they will see war veterans from their area in among the police, and they will be intimidated."
He said that preparations were at an advance stage - that the order to issue uniforms had already been given by provincial police headquarters.
Though opposed to the plan he said he was powerless to stop it, because if he objected he would be risking his life.
"Anything can happen," he said.
"You can be abducted, or just disappear, or your family can be endangered. You never know who is watching you. You can't trust anyone in Zimbabwe."
He also said the police had been told to go out and campaign vigorously for Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party, and to remind people that they won the country's freedom with the barrel of a gun.
"They are trying to threaten people into voting for them, so they do not get off the throne," he said.
"Zanu-PF are determined to continue ruling the country, and continue destroying it."
According to this officer, there are many in the junior ranks of the police who talk privately about the need for change, but dare not speak out.
He said no-one could be certain of attitudes among the senior commanders, because they had benefited greatly under the ruling party.
Many of those who fought in the 1970s war of independence went on to become police officers and soldiers and remain deeply loyal to their war-time leader, Mr Mugabe.
But many of the so-called "war veterans" are too young to have fought in the war.
National unity?
The MDC has still not said whether it will take part in the run-off.
It says its leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the first round outright and should be declared president.
South Africa's leader is in Zimbabwe, after he sent a fact-finding mission there.
He is meeting President Mugabe and other Zanu-PF officials but not the MDC.
Mr Tsvangirai is in South Africa and has not been home for a month, amid fears for his safety.
The MDC believe Mr Mbeki favours a government of national unity.
They reject this, unless Mr Mugabe steps down and are unhappy with the South Africa-led mediation.
According to the official results, Mr Tsvangirai gained more votes than Mr Mugabe but not the 50% needed for outright victory.
The run-off is supposed to be held within 21 days of the publication of the results - last Friday - but the electoral commission head has reportedly said it could be delayed for up to a year.
And a reminder: If you get word of campaigns of electoral interference, intimidation, "caging" or other unlawful tactics, freecall 1-866-OUR-VOTE; also, contact local law-enforcement agencies. Such acts, deeds or exploits, regardless of the excuse, are penal offenses.
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IN A NUMBER OF MAJOR CITIES, CABDRIVERS ARE STRICTLY PROHIBITED BY LAW FROM RECOMMENDING SPECIFIC BUSINESSES to passengers out of concern that money may be too tempting an influence (as in commissions from "referrals" as may wind up involving the weird and unwholesome element).
In that particular vein, a Hong Kong jewellers' shop has been fined a substantial sum of money for paying commissions to travel agents as would direct tourist business to his shops, which is against local law as an Unfair Business Practice.
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AND WHAT EXACTLY, PRAY, WOULD DRIVE THE MILITARY JUNTA OF THE SO-CALLED "UNION OF MYANMAR" BALLISTO over a shipment of relief supplies from the United Nations in response to the recent devastating cyclone there, prompting their outright seizure for unspecified reasons?
Or would it have to be that @ the top of the page of late: "Don't read the headlines--read The Exaggerator: Stylish, with just a hint of pretension"?
The latter, in case you're asking, was inspired by:
The Colonel, a raunchy Canadian pulp magazine which was published during World War II (whose slogan was "Don't read the headlines, read The Colonel--sure cure for war nerves"); and
a Japanese product slogan in English found in a Zippy the Pinhead comic strip some years back as had the principals speaking in Japanese English product slogans.
