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FOR THOSE OF YOU IN THE UNITED STATES AS ARE UNAWARE OF IT, this happens to be the Memorial Day Long Weekend.

And for our British friends, this is the Spring Bank Holiday Long Weekend (which replaced the traditional Whit Monday holiday some years ago).

Here in the Minnwissippi, it just so happens to be cool and @ once breezy with thin, hazy cloud muting the sun in its own way ... not to mention our seeing the likelihood of serious storms Sunday afterlunch into evening, with maybe a slight recurrnce on the holiday Monday.

(Speaking of Monday, look for a special treat in this space in recognition thereof.)

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AND DOESN'T IT SEEM AS IF WELD COUNTY, COLORADO HAS BECOME TORNADO CENTRAL IN RECENT YEARS, what with National Weather Servce data noting where the general area thereof has seen more tornadoes than anywhere else in the Continental United States over the last 50 years?

Just yesterday, in fact, that reputation was reaffirmed when a series of tornadoes struck Weld County, causing substantial property damage and @ least one known casualty.

Sorry, Dorothy--Kansas isn't all that infamous for tornadoes as it used to be....

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SO THE TERRIBLE-TEMPERED MR. BANG OF INDECISION 2008 HAS RELEASED HIS MEDICAL RECORDS ahead of the holiday long weekend--as if wanting some sort of cheap and cheerful disractionary from potentially more distressing news likely to develop throughout.

Confirming the likelihood of its distractionary intent is Media Matters for America, which hath it:

In a May 22 article, The New York Times reported that Sen. John McCain's campaign "is set to release 400 pages of medical records, including documents related to his melanoma surgery in August 2000, to a tightly controlled group of reporters on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend." On that day, according to the Times, "the campaign will allow a small pool of reporters access to the records from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. Pacific time in a conference room at the Copper Wind Resort in Phoenix, near the Mayo Clinic Scottsdale. The reporters will be allowed to take notes but not remove or photocopy the records." In separate appearances on MSNBC Live on May 22, NBC News political director Chuck Todd suggested first that the McCain campaign timed the records' availability to minimize coverage of them and later that the campaign would, in fact, be successful in that endeavor. But, in fact, it is within NBC's power to prevent such a strategy from working by actually covering the issue adequately.

During the 9 a.m. ET hour of MSNBC Live on May 22, discussing the scheduled gathering of potential Republican vice presidential candidates at McCain's Arizona ranch this weekend, Todd stated: "I sort of call it a 'shiny object' timing. You know, it's like, pay no attention to this other news that's coming out tomorrow, and that is Senator John McCain's medical records, which could end up becoming a dominating story line for a couple days. Instead, very smartly, the McCain campaign or somebody leaked out the fact that three potential running mates ... are going to be going to the McCains' ranch." Later in the day, during the 1 p.m. ET hour of MSNBC Live, Todd said, "I think it's very helpful to McCain, frankly, that there is going to be a focus on the veep stuff, when the -- so that there isn't obsession on the medical records."

Separately, during the 1 p.m. ET hour of the MSNBC Live, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell said of the announcement regarding the medical records: "That news is likely to get buried at the start of the Memorial Day weekend." 

One issue as still needs to be addressed vis-a-vis The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang's medical state would have to be his mental capacity, considering his prisoner-of-war past and the psychoemotinal cruelty, harm and other indignities suffered @ the hands of the North Vietnamese which could come back to haunt him.

Especially if he unintentionally lets slip some Bad Words or otherwise goes into a spontaneous tantrum live and on camera--or otherwise winds up on YouTube.

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AND STAYING WITH THE TERRIBLE-TEMPERED MR. BANG FOR THE NONCE, it appears as if he may have already lost serious support from the Religiopolitical Right's "hard core," if not already, thanks to his disavowing the endorsement of Rev. John Hagee following some rather infamous remarks tending to trivialise the Holocaust the other day.

Now, if he would only distance himself from his other "spiritual advisor," by name and stylee of Rev. Rod Parsley....

(But then again, if the Religiopolitical Right, in its hard-wired Zealotry and True Belief, starts disassociating themselves with TTMB en bloc, they might want to start reassessing their electoral options, even if it means a wholesale boycott of Indecision 2008 for want of "correct" Presidential material who can kowtow to their articles of faith.)

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AND THE PROMOTERS OF THAT PATHETICALLY AWFUL SINGSONG MEME "CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION! CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION!!" will doubtless be celebrating in the streets of Branson this Holiday Long Weekend @ the news that a Texas state appeals court has thrown out proceedings filed by child-welfare authorities against members of the so-called "Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" @ their Yearning For Zion compound in West Texas.

"Highly incredible" claims were cited in dismissing the charges ... but then again, the "Christian Persecution!" meme crowd will want to take a more cautious approach for the nonce, pending the likelihood of appeal to the Texas State Supreme Court.

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OPEC'S SECRETARY-GENERAL HAS GONE ON RECORD AS SUGGESTING THAT THE HIGH OIL PRICES OF LATE ON THE SPOT MARKETS (reaching a new record of US$135/bbl. just yesterday before settling lower) are not so much the result of reduced crude-oil production (especially among such states not in OPEC) or fields going out of production, or close to it, as speculation among investors.

In evidence, there was cited the Asian socoeconomic meltdown of the mid-late 1990's triggering an outright freefall of crude oil prices within measurable distance.

Which has Your Correspondent wondering if we may be seeing nothing short of Hunt Brothers-stylee behaviour in the crude-oil, natural-gas and refined petroleum products markets involving His Frudulency's Great Within and/or dear and close droogs thereof, unaware all the while that a significant margin call may be coming within measurable distance as they will be unable to cover.

Which, in its turn, will translate into an outright collapse of the petroleum futures markets and, in its turn, crude oil and refined products futures sometime before the July 4th Long Weekend--just as the Hunt Brothers' attempts to corner the silver markets in early 1980 to devious advantage ended when they were unable to meet margin calls.

And you'll never guess what the Great Within and/or their dear and close droogs are using to dommo the petroleum futures markets (or try to):

You guessed it: Ander Mense se Geld.

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IN ANY CASE, APART FROM THE SPECIAL TREAT PLANNED FOR MONDAY TO MARK THE MEMORIAL DAY HOLIDAY, Your Correspondent will essentially be on blogging hiatus throughout the long weekend.

During which he hopes to be setting up his new social networking site for such having connexions to The Waterpark Capital of the World in the form and fashion of:

• such having direct involvement or connexion with the "water business" (as in tourism) on a personal level;
• such residents of the Waterpark Capital as have to deal with the tourist hordes, yet have no direct "water business" involvement (or @ least an indirect such);
• families as have a long-established tradition of vacationing in the Dells region (even before becoming the Waterpark Capital, come to think of it); and
• current and past summer employees of the "water business."

Such, hopefully, being up and running ere the Holiday Long Weekend winds down. Further details as to its readiness will be forthcoming.    

READER, YOU MAY RECALL WHERE, YESTERDAY, I TOOK NOTE OF A PARTICULAR CHAIN LETTER WHICH MAY MAKE THE ROUNDS AGAIN before too long, thanks to the imminence of high unemployment and/or major socioeconomic dislocation which makes such chain letters all the more widely circulated--especially so among lower-income and socioeconomically-vulnerable circles.

The which I posted as a warning more than anything of what to watch out for in your e-mail in case that which is being whispered around does come to pass.

All of which, for the most part, can ultimately be traced back to the folly of His Fraudulency's Great Within.

Notwithstanding where those behind the letter will love to invoke the majesty and authority of 18 USC 1302 and 1341 to create an aura of legitimacy among the unsophisticate, nonetheless the exact opposite is the case.

And with that in mind, may I provide you, as a public service, with the text of 18 USC 1302:

Whoever knowingly deposits in the mail, or sends or delivers by mail:

Any letter, package, postal card, or circular concerning any lottery, gift enterprise, or similar scheme offering prizes dependent in whole or in part upon lot or chance;

Any lottery ticket or part thereof, or paper, certificate, or instrument purporting to be or to represent a ticket, chance, share, or interest in or dependent upon the event of a lottery, gift enterprise, or similar scheme offering prizes dependent in whole or in part upon lot or chance;

Any check, draft, bill, money, postal note, or money order, for the purchase of any ticket or part thereof, or of any share or chance in any such lottery, gift enterprise, or scheme;

Any newspaper, circular, pamphlet, or publication of any kind containing any advertisement of any lottery, gift enterprise, or scheme of any kind offering prizes dependent in whole or in part upon lot or chance, or containing any list of the prizes drawn or awarded by means of any such lottery, gift enterprise, or scheme, whether said list contains any part or all of such prizes; or

Any article described in section 1953 of this title -

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both; and for any subsequent offense shall be imprisoned not more than five years.

(No doubt providing plenty of opportunities for Philadelphia lawyer types to drive coach and horses through, especially with respect to the word "knowingly," by which criminal-defence lawyers hope to derail any case ensuing.)

On to 18 USC 1341:

Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, or to sell, dispose of, loan, exchange, alter, give away, distribute, supply, or furnish or procure for unlawful use any counterfeit or spurious coin, obligation, security, or other article, or anything represented to be or intimated or held out to be such counterfeit or spurious article, for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice or attempting so to do, places in any post office or authorized depository for mail matter, any matter or thing whatever to be sent or delivered by the Postal Service, or deposits or causes to be deposited any matter or thing whatever to be sent or delivered by any private or commercial interstate carrier, or takes or receives therefrom, any such matter or thing, or knowingly causes to be delivered by mail or such carrier according to the direction thereon, or at the place at which it is directed to be delivered by the person to whom it is addressed, any such matter or thing, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. If the violation affects a financial institution, such person shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both.

As if that weren't enough, such who perpetuate a variant of this scam using PayPal or similar online payment services will likewise invoke these same statutes to, again, create an aura of legitimacy. Unfortunately, though, such would come under 18 USC 1343, which provides as thus:

Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. If the violation affects a financial institution, such person shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both.

(Come to think of it, the Internet would be considered an agency of "wire, radio or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce" for the purposes of this section, inasmuch as the Internet relies on telephonic or CATV wirelines for the transmission and dissemiation thereof.)

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AS IF THAT WEREN'T ENOUGH, you need to consider the likelihood that many versions of The Letter in question will include glowing-sounding testimonials seeking to further the false aura of credibility for the whole, particularly so from the standpoint of earnings likely to be realised.

In matter of fact, however, such making these claims are probably nothing more than "singers" for and on behalf of the real perps behind the scheme, all expected to follow a carefully-prepared and -nuanced script.

Making things all the more difficult to verify is the fact of these endorsers being identified only by a generic city and state address, with no further specifics such as street or other postal address.

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EQUALLY WORTHY OF YOUR RAISING SUSPICIONS ABOUT THE SINCERITY AND EFFECTIVENESS OF THE SCHEME AS A QUICK WAY TO MAKE BIG-BIG MONEY is the use of flawed exponential maths to further create an aura of misplaced credibility.

First, what those who are the "real" distributors of the scheme don't want you to know is that actually earning the sums advertised is conditional upon all who receive the letter actually responding as expected.

And what's more, the odds are stacked against you, as well as any chance on your part of "earning $50,000 in just 90 days with little or no effort:" Considering where you have to send this same letter to five people, who, in their turn, are expected to send same on to five others, and so on ad infinitium, the following will serve to demonstrate what I am saying here:

5
25
125
625
3,125
15,625
78,125
390,625
1,953,125
9,765,625
48,828,125
244,140,625
1,220,703,125
6,103,515,625

Herein lies its fatal flaw and tragedy.

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YOUR CORRESPONDENT WOULD LIKE TO OWE A DEBT OF GRATITUDE TO FINDLAW.COM for providing the texts of the relevant statutes.

Let these be understood by one and all. 

FOR SOME WEEKS NOW, THE EXAGGERATOR HAS EMBRACED AS ITS MOTTO an adaptation of that which was used by the Canadian pulp men's magazine The Colonel, as was published during World War II out of Toronto to take advantage of wartime import restrictions by the Canadian Government of "non-essential" American goods such as pulp magazines of a disreputable sort:

"Don't read the headlines; read The Exaggerator:
Smartness, with a hint of pretension."

(Never mind that The Colonel's forte was raunchy, double-entendre-laden humour in form of jokes, stories and cartoons that were considered hot stuff for their times. Not to mention chauvinistic, come to think of it.)

In any case, back to the point of this essay--which Your Correspondent will let NewsHounds take up (italics from original):

FOX and Friends [on] 5/20/08 continued the story of Ed Gillespie's letter to NBC in which he accused them of deceptively editing an interview by Richard Engel of Bush. This furthers the meme pushed by Bill O'Reilly that MSNBC, NBC News, NBC, and General Electric are part of the liberal media and shouldn't be trusted, the biggest Talking Point of all: Don't trust 'the media,' just US.

Doocy introduced that the interview aired, he believed, on the Today Show on Monday, neglecting to tell viewers it had already aired twice, once with the edited remarks, on Sunday. Alisyn Camerota appeared momentarily to be defending NBC, saying that Bush gave a complicated answer (actually a non-answer) to interviewer Engel and NBC "boiled it down" for the presentation. That said, she added that she thought if you have an exclusive sit-down with the president, you air the whole thing. Oh really? When Bill O'Reilly has had his "exclusives" with Bush they were pre-recorded and edited, as is everything O'Reilly says. (And we know why, don't we?)

Geez, even Brian Kilmeade understood what Bush was saying, and voiced another inadvertant truth: if Bush had just answered the question directly (was he talking about Barack Obama when he made the "appeasement" comments?) this wouldn't be an issue. But like Camerota before him, he didn't let it stand; he added that "there's a problem with the NBC track record and there's a problem with the cable network. It leans way to the left."

Steve Doocy enthusiastically agreed and dredged up another issue, courtesy of Gillespie's enumeration of FOX talking points in his letter to NBC pres Steve Capus, specifically NBC labeling Iraq's internal fighting a civil war. Doocy also noted that David Gregory's program is simulcast on AirAmerica - helloooo! And if you've been watching the Factor, you know O'Reilly has been taking parent company GE to task for doing business with Iranians.

They didn't mention that the interview originally aired on Sunday's "Today" show, including the sentences edited out. It was (still is) available in full on the MSNBC website. The edited version to which Gillespie objects appeared on "Nightly News" Sunday and the "Today" show Monday. Why this is any different than FOX using edited clips of the Hillary Clinton or John McCain interviews has not been made clear. It seems the White House is fully immersing itself in the 2008 election process and using its considerable power in the media for partisan purposes. Just as FOX News has long been the mouthpiece for the administration, the White House is now returning the favor. Distort and amplify, the echo chamber now includes the Oval Office.

How much of this recent ramping up is in response to Howard Kurtz's expose of the scope of the hostilities between the two corporations? Unfortunately for democracy, this kind of narcissistic infighting passes for news and gets good ratings, and it IS sweeps month.

The moral of this story, boys and girls?

"Don't read the headlines; read The Exaggerator:
Smartness, with a hint of pretension."

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IN ANY CASE, YOUR CORRESPONDENT WOULD APPRECIATE YOUR SUPPORT, ESPECIALLY THAT of the fiscal kind.

Which you can do by way of:

• the Virtual Tip Jar (fully encrypted for your safety);
• the online shopping available (featuring Amazon.com, Amazon.ca and Amazon.co.uk);
• joining PayPal (so long as you use it for good, remember); or
• joining one of the following affiliate programmes, especially those of you with a blog or website of your own:

Any way you slice it, Your Correspondent ... and The Exaggerator ... both win in the end.

MISINFORMATION. LIES. HALF-TRUTHS. FLAWED OR FAULTY LOGIC. DECEPTION. Such are the weapons of the Dark Satanic Mills of conservative misinformation, which are thus considered "acceptable" so long as it serves their desire of "winning of hearts and minds" (especially the vulnerable and easily-led sort) over to conservative such.

And which ConWebBlog serves to expose through the disinfecting properties of exposure to air and sunlight.

Two recent examples of this as are of likely interest will serve to suffice.

For starters, the ongoing notion of the so-called "Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" being "persecuted" because of its polygamist teachings and their preening children into nothing short of sex machines serving a "holy and sacred" mission which turns out being nothing short of racist:

Joseph Farah keeps up his quasi-defense of polygamist cultists in his May 16 WorldNetDaily column. This time around, he's defending the idea that refusing to immunize one's children is a good thing. This is a major WND hobbyhorse; it has long engaged in anti-immunization scare tactics.

In railing against an apparent decision by Texas officials to have the children of the cultists that they have taken into custody vaccinated against the usual diseases, Farah asserted that the parents are "mothers and fathers made conscious and well-informed decisions not to immunize their kids because of the potential for dire health risks." Really? How does Farah know this? Indeed, he offers no evidence that the parents "made conscious and well-informed decisions not to immunize their kids"; in fact, one can plausibly argue that, given that they are members of a polygamist cult, they have a demonstrated history of not making "well-informed decisions."

And, like before, Farah refuses to offer any meaningful criticism of the cult, even though they have acted in ways he purports not to like: "Again, I don't like some of the things that went on in that community. I don't approve of them. There may even have been some laws broken. But there is no evidence being made public to suggest every single mother in the compound abused or neglected her children–or to suggest these poor kids would be better off with the state of Texas as their parent."

Again, as we've noted, it's more important to Farah that parents have the right to do what they want to with their children--including pawning them off into an illegal polygamist relationship--than actually punishing said illegal behavior. Farah is willing to condone the abuse of the cult's children to make an anti-government argument, just as he ignores the abuse of children in the Phillip Long homeschooling case in order to make Long a martyr to the homeschooling cause.

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ANOTHER ARTICLE OF FAITH THESE DARK SATANIC MILLS HOLD DEAR IN THEIR ARSENAL is that "acceptance" of homosexuals and homosexuality will lead to a "rampant and ammoral" spread of "acceptance" for other specimens of "sexual perversion" to the point of "undermining [America's] antient and pecuilar soverignty and soverign identity" so that it winds up becoming "usurped by the New World Order."

Case in point, again via ConWebBlog:

In a May 21 NewsBusters post, defending a South Carolina high school principal for resigning rather than presiding over a school that has a Gay/Straight Alliance Club, Warner Todd Huston baselessly attacked the club, alleging without evidence that it encourages sexual activity.

After citing the principal's objection that the club "implies that students joining the club will have chosen to or will choose to engage in sexual activity with members of the same sex, opposite sex, or members of both sexes" (again, no evidence is cited that this is the case), Huston adds:

This is exactly right on. Why are we promoting "clubs" in a high school based on sexual activity? Do we have a porno club at Irmo high school? Why not? How about a polygamy club? Maybe a bestiality club?

[...]

Like I said, if the kids wanted to form a "club" that supports pornography, would that be OK? After all, porn is legal. How about a "club" that promotes dancing strippers? A beer drinking club? How about a club that specifies support of terrorists? One that promotes Jew hatred, supports the KKK, the Nazis, gangs, the Black Panthers or Louis Farrakhan? Wouldn't the school have a vested interest in stopping these sorts of clubs based on hatred, anti-Americanism, and anti-social behavior? Is the school so bereft of moral convictions that they'd bend over for every socially backward and dangerous "club" to be formed just because the kids wanted it?

So not only is homosexuality is the same as bestality and polygamy (we're shocked he didn't throw incest in there), it's the same being a member of the KKK or the Black Panthers, and anti-American to boot.

See, folks, this is why we devoted an entire article to Huston's whacked-out ravings. Looks like he's generating enough material for a second one.

P.S. Huston also gets the name of the paper he's ranting against wrong, calling it "a small paper in South Carolina called The Statesman." In fact, it's The State in Columbia, South Carolina's capital. According to its website, it has an average daily circulation of 107,153 and an average Sunday circulation of 139,521.

Well, he did get the fact that it's located in South Carolina correct... 

Are we to assume, then, that heterosexual relations are "American," let alone "Christian" and "natural"?

And that racism, White Christian Supremacy, intolerance and xenophobia are just as "American"?

The Rush Limbaugh Show
1270 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020

Premiere Radio Networks, Inc.
15260 Ventura Blvd. 5th Floor
Sherman Oaks, CA 91403 

Dear Mr. Limbaugh:

As a "right-thinking American" exercising his right to free speech and free expression through the agency of the Information Stuporbahn, I would like to take you to task for your frequent use on air of the term "femminazi" to mock supporters of womens' rights to the point of contempt or ridicule.

I, for one, feel your use of "femminazi" amounts to nothing less than a mocking trivialisation of, and contempt for, history, in particular the Nazi regime as held high carnival in Germany between 1933 and 1945.

As any history of Nazi Germany will clearly show you, Nazi attitudes towards women were based on the German expression Kirche, Kiche, Kinder ("Church, Kitchen, Children")--what tradition expected to be the German woman's sphere of influence, and little else; after all, the Nazis could be considered ideologically conservative--to a fault.

Especially when you consider that membership in the Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth) was, by and large, compulsory, in keeping with the Nazi belief that children were essentially State property--even if it meant nothing short of outright fornication on "campouts" in close proximity to its girls' branch, the Bund Deutscher Madel (League of German Maidens), in service to Adolf Hitler's desire to create what he saw as an "Aryan Master Race" as would ensure the continued existance of what the Nazis saw as a Thousand-Year Reich. (Later on, Bund Deutscher Madel alumnæ were expected to participate in the Glaube und Schoenheit--"Faith and Beauty"-- movement, seen as an ur-finishing school by which German women were expected to be all the more consciously aware of their role and place to Germany, the Nazi regime and its thinking, and the Master Race.)

Marriage, to the Nazi way of thinking, was seen as "outdated" and "a relic of the past," hindering the development of this "master race;" however, those who still wanted marriage out of formality were able to be thus wed--howbeit under a rite which the regime promoted as saw the name of Hitler replace that of G-d in the sacraments, church weddings being looked upon as suspicious.

As if that weren't enough, remember, too, that many a cartoon in the rather tastelessly pornographic weekly tabloid Der Sturmer depicted "Aryan" womanhood under threat from Jews, more often than not depicted as snakes, rats and suchlike specimens of vermin.

In case you want a clearer picture of what the Nazi regime expected of women (as in nothing short of stay-at-home floozies expected to suffer women's diseases and the byproducts of pregnancy as one with "racial duty and honour"), might I recommend studying back copies of Frauern Wacht ("Women's Watch"), the regime's official womens' magazine as came out fortnightly, for insights--so long as you can understand where much of the printed material in Germany under Nazi rule used Fraktur type. Better yet, do a Google search.

Summing up, your using "femminazi" is nothing short of a cheap and crass trivialisation of perhaps one of history's darkest and most desperate hours--the kind which saw women as nothing short of State property, expected to prostitute herself to all seen as "racially pure" to further maintain such a misguided and warped agenda.

And what have you to say for youself? Shouldn't you be ashamed?

Or what otherwise stands in the way of your failing to recognise such historical travesties and perversions, and the consequences we face for failing to heed its warnings?

sincerely,
ILUDIUM PHOSDEX
(die egte artikel--aanvaar geen plaasvervangers)

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MEMO TO READERS: Your Correspondent urges you to pass this along and share this with your right-thinking friends--but do so responsibly. "Spamming" only serves to dilute any potential impact of the campaign to hand.