NO WONDER THE POLICE TRADITIONALLY DISTRUST THOSE WITH KNOWN POLICE RECORDS as credible witnesses to notorious and infamous criminal acts, deeds and exploits, even as informants.

Case in point, from the ConWebBlog, an adjunct of ConWebWatch:

An April 30 NewsBusters post by Brad Wilmouth runs to the defense of Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx, who in a speech on the House floor called the claim that the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard was a hate crime (Shepard was gay) a "hoax" and insisting it was merely a robbery gone bad. Wilmouth cited a 2004 segment of ABC's 20/20 which, in Wilmouth's words, "made a credible case that Shepard was targeted by Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson not because of anti-gay sentiment, but because McKinney was high on methamphetamines, giving him unusual violent tendencies as well as a desire for cash to buy more drugs." The main proponents of this claim are the killers themselves.

But Wilmouth overlooks a couple things conflicting with such a conclusion, which, as we've detailed, has been embraced by right-wingers in an effort to oppose giving hate-crime protections to gays.

First, McKinney attempted a "gay panic" defense during his trial. Second, he has given multiple, conflicting accounts of what happened the night of Shepard's murder. Third, he's a convicted felon and a murderer--not exactly the most trustworthy guy.

As a Wyoming police detective who worked on the Shepard case said: "Only three people know what really happened that night.... One of them is dead and the other two are known liars and convicted felons--murderers."

Further, as the Matthew Shepard Foundation has stated, the ABC report omitted the contents of McKinney's in-custody interview a few days after Shepard's death. That transcript shows "an un-rehearsed and unemotional anti-gay account of the events before, during, and after leaving Matt tied to the fence," according to the foundation.

We've detailed how numerous right-wingers have chosen to trust a convicted felon and murderer rather than examine all the facts of the Shepard case. Add Wilmouth to the list.

But then again, remember that the Nazis were teaching German schoolchildren in their time never to trust Jews with the truth just as they wouldn't trust a fox on the heath. Not to mention condoning the publication of children's picture books depicting Jews in the vilest and most disgusting forms known (one particularly memorable scene from the book--titled, ironically enough, The Poison Mushroom--depicted a Jewish child molester offering candies to schoolchildren on their way home).

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IF YOU GET INFORMATION PACKETS FROM CERTAIN COMPANIES PUSHING GOLD AS A "SAFE INVESTMENT" IN THE FACE OF WHAT THEY CLAIM IS "IMMINENT SOCIOECONOMIC COLLAPSE," expect to wind up on the mailing lists of extreme anti-Semitic and bigot groups using "patriotism" as cover for their nefarious excesses within measurable distance.

Especially so the sort fond of advertising on right-wing talkback radio shows in paranoid contexts.

Making it even more galling: The lack of clear and compelling privacy policies on the part of such companies selling "investment grade" gold coin @ inflated prices--only it turns out being lead ingots purchased on the cheap @ the Monongahela Metal Foundry's Liquidation Sale and sprayed with cheap gold paint such as you can find @ any auto-supply store--and the want of an "opt-out" option vis-a-vis mailing lists offered for resale and exchange.

IF I MAY EXPLAIN THE DELAY IN POSTING TODAY'S ITEM, READERS, YOUR CORRESPONDENT WAS RATHER BUSY WITH A FEW THINGS as sidetracked him for the first of the month.

Not just the usual about paying the rent, but also getting some supplies like air freshener, stationery, printer ink cartridge refills and spray-on sunblock.

That last one being delayed, it turns out, by an afterlunch replacement of the tube in the front tyre of my bicycle, as somehow went flat--and, to make it a little safer (hopefully), having a substance called Slime added to both front and rear tyre tubes to (in theory) create a "preemptive" seal against future punctures and flats which can only serve to delay things on the bicycle (and, by extension, make things a little frustrating).

So: Any of you bloggers had any experience with Slime or similar products as a tyre sealant as is worth discussing in the comments section?

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DEFINITELY DESERVING OF THAT ANNUAL LIST OF WORDS, PHRASES AND EXPRESSIONS "BANISHED FROM THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH" issued annually by Lake Superior State University of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan in the inter-holiday slow-news period would have to be that "bend over, grab the ankles" platitude of a certain Rush Limbaugh used in connexion with certain actions involving the Obama Administration.

Such, if you ask me, is little more than allusion to sodomy or homosexual acts generally, never mind The Oxycontin Boar claiming to be a defender of morals and decency on his radio programme.

Come to think of it: Something I'd like to hear is some station carrying Mr. Limbaugh's programme cutting those remarks short at "bend over" and instantaneously (the better to surprise and distract his loyal droogs among the Great Unwashed and Now-Unemployable in the New Economy) switch over to classic specimens of Old-Time Radio comedy (preferably with subtle tweaks in power and/or modulation levels)--or, even better still, classics of Old-Time Radio detective and police dramas (my own personal faves in this arena being Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons, Dragnet, Pat Novak for Hire, The Adventures of Philip Marlowe (as led by Gerald Mohr), Broadway Is My Beat, Crime Classics and the Sidney Greenstreet-led version of Nero Wolfe--for starters).

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THE RELIGIOPOLITICAL RIGHT AND THEIR MOST LOYAL RANKS AMONG THE GREAT UNWASHED MAY NOT KNOW THIS, BUT THE SAME CARRIE PREJEAN, Miss California USA, who's become the Poster Child for Defending the Purity and Sanctity of Traditional Marriage, is actually little more than a shill. A puppet. A tool of the homophobic community as could right now be undergoing all manner of quasi-Scientologist mind-control and "reeducation" techniques to primp her all the more into being made out as a Positive and Healthy Role Model Worthy of Study and Emulation Among Right-Thinking White Low Church Christian Youth of America.

Yeah, right--but remember that back in Nazi Germany, the Bund Deutscher Madel (the League of German Girls, the girls' branch of the Hitler Youth) and its "finishing school" of sorts, Glaube und Schoenheit (Faith and Beauty), expected young German girlhood to essentially reduce themselves to the role of floozies for any and all SS officers who asked, and in the name of an "Aryan Master Race" expected to carry onward the Fuerher's desire of the Thousand-Year Reich--marriage being seen in Nazi thinking as "antiquated" and "encumbering" towards the perfection of Racial Purity.

Not to mention the prospect of her speeches really being pre-recorded so that Ms. Prejean is basically lip-synching such, not unlike certain bad concert tours--the jinx of which could easily be up if she suddenly faints from exhaustion or the recording skips @ an especially crucual point for whipping up the emotions in Kankerdom's ranks unaware of her real intentions and strategems. (And, it turns out, deliberately.)

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LATEST SPECIMEN OF NON CAUSA PRO CAUSA GUARANTEED TO ATTRACT WHITE-SUPREMACIST AND BIGOT INTEREST WITHIN MEASURABLE DISTANCE: The BBC is reporting where British authorities hath it that the Zimbabwean Government has unleashed a major exercise in "ethnic cleansing" aimed @ scaring all remaining white farmers off their lands for eventual redistribution to good and loyal droogs of President Mugabe's ZANU-PF movement through corrupt and dishonest means.

Which, to the racist crowd, is casus belli for a "rescue operation" towards resettlement of White Christian Farmers in certain dirt-poor regions of the "morally superior" United States based on potentially insincere claims of "persecution" to try and "rebuild their honest and simple lives" by playing to crude emotions common to the mullet-head element in raising funds for the "rescue operation" as wind up being diverted @ the last moment to "more urgent and pressing needs," not otherwise identified.

In its turn, raising the clear and present likelihood of such fundraising being fraudulent by deliberate trick and design.

For the nonce, though, such appeals for funds will want to be ignored lest we have sincere and credible intentions. 

THE DILEMMAS THAT SEEM TO PLAGUE YOUR CORRESPONDENT TO THE EXTENT OF INFLUENCING THE TONE OF THIS WEBLOG could be put down, in substantial measure, to the brand of psychiatry he was made to accept through much of the 1980's in the Community Mental Health Clinic System.

A psychiatry as seemed almost right out of Nineteen Eighty Four inasmuch as it expected clients to:

• on the one hand, subordinate selfish interest to an idealised "Greater Collective Good" of the Community; and,
• on the other hand, essentially reject the evidence of eyes and ears and, instead, accept only a Sanitised, Approved Version of events.

THE PATHETITUDE OF SUCH AS ARE REALLY BEHIND ALL MANNER OF NIGERIAN "419"-STYLEE LETTERS PACKAGED AS EMOTIONAL APPEALS FOR HELP seems to know no limits in trying to get your attention.

Witness the following, under subject line of "DEAR FRIEND WE NEED YOUR IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE" (emphasis throughout from original) and received of Your Correspondent just today:

DEAR FRIEND,  GOOD DAY TO YOU. I AM IN A DESPERATE SITUATION WHICH I NEED YOUR IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE NOW.I CAN NO LONGER HOLD BACK FOR FEAR OF PEOPLE NOT BEING HONEST WITH ME;I HAVE RESORTED TO TAKE MY FAITH IN MY HANDS.

MY LATE FATHER MR GODWIN KUMBO IS THE FORMER FINANCE MINISTER OF SIERRA LEONE, ME AND MY MOTHER WERE FORCED OUT OF THE COUNTRY DISGRACEFULLY BECAUSE OF MY FATHER'S INABILITY FOR ACCOUNTABILITY.
MEANWHILE, MY LATE FATHER HAVE SOME OF HIS MONEY IN MY CARE LODGED INWEST AFRICA COUNTRY VALUED EIGHTEEN MILLION US DOLLARS($18,000 000USD).I AND MY MOTHER NEED YOUR ASSISTANCE TO RECEIVE THIS FUND IMMEDIATELY EVEN IF WE HAVE TO SHARE IT ON A 60-40 BASIS WITH YOU.

PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS A DESPERATE SITUATION THAT NEEDS YOUR ABSOLUTE CONFIDENCE. PLEASE LET ME KNOW YOUR INTEREST. SEND ALL YOUR INFORMATION,PHONE AND FAX NUMBER HOPE I CAN TRUST YOU.I AM IN GHANA WHERE MY LATE FATHER DEPOSITED THE MONEY IN A SECURITY COMPANY.TRUST IS THE WATCHWORD FOR EVERY SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP.

HERE IS MY PRIVATE EMAIL ADDRESS: [redacted]

REGARDS,
RICHARD KUMBO AND MOTHER,
BEST REGARDS

Besides, not knowing who this "Richard Kumbo and Mother" is until now, can you really trust such a display of manufactured emotion just to move money as may not exist in fact?

And just how do we know this is really a "desperate situation" requiring the assistance of a total stranger in the first place, you yourself not well acquainted with the likes of the Prudent Man Rule?

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TELL ME THIS ISN'T A CASE OF "ASTROTURF GOES MLM", even if "astroturf" (sham "grassroots" movements designed to mislead or confuse the Great Unwashed) is already rather pathetic for its excesses of stealthiness:

Your Correspondent has to wonder if the campaign of the so-called "American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity" (actually sponsored by a number of utility companies too dependent upon coal-based power stations for its own good as much as that of the general which they openly claim to represent) could be a "back door" by which to push for, in the name of "energy self-sufficency," the wholesale production of cheap and cheerful coal-based ersatz gasolines in the good old apartheid South African stylee likely to be held up as model therefor.

Never mind the possibility of South Africa (and its major cities--to wit, Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria, Johannesburg and Bloemfontein) having air-pollution issues caused by automotive exhaust that would make those of Los Angeles look like Disneyland, come to think of it, aggravated by said coal-based ersatz gasolines.

(And note my use of "the general" earlier: I use it in the sense Hamlet implied and intended in that "caviare to the general" remark of his in Act III, scene I of Hamlet; i.e., the general populace.)

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MEANWHILE, OVER IN THE NETHERLANDS, TODAY IS THE QUEEN'S DAY HOLIDAY, marking the official Queen's Birthday observance (which, incidentally, was originally that of Her Late Majesty Queen Juliana, who abdicated in 1985 to allow Queen Beatrix to ascend the Dutch throne; Juliana herself ascended the throne in 1947 when her own mother, Queen Wilhelmina, abdicated).

But it turns out to be a rather somber one in the wake of an attempt to crash into a Queen's Day procession in Apeldoorn, about 55 mile from Amsterdam, by way of a black mini sedan in an apparent assaination attempt, only to crash into a nearby monument after killing four and injuring 14 (the driver included; six, among them the driver, seriously).

Luckily, Queen Beatrix survived to address the Dutch people and nation on television with these remarks (as quoted by the BBC):

What began as a great day has ended in a terrible tragedy that has shocked us all deeply....

People who were standing close by, people who saw it happen on television, all those who lived through it, must have looked on with bewilderment and disbelief. 

We're speechless that something so terrible could have happened....

In any event, all flags on Dutch government buildings were lowered to mourning and all Queen's Day celebrations were ordered cancelled out of respect for the martyred.

Ironic as it may seem, news of the Queen's Day attack came on the heels of that about a confirmed case there of the Mexican swine flu, making the Netherlands the fifth European country to report known cases (the others being Spain, Great Britain, Germany and Switzerland).

The Exaggerator sends its sympathies to the Dutch Royal Household and, with it, the Dutch people and nation in this hour of national disbelief.

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MEANWHILE, WINONA (AND, BY EXTENSION, THE ENTIRE REGION FROM LaCROSSE, WISCONSIN TO THE TWIN CITIES) along the Canadian Pacific's route used by Amtrak's Empire Builder between Chicago and the Pacific Northwest is calling for a show of Spontaneous and Wholehearted Popular Support to seize opportunity by the proverbial horns (especially while funding is now available) to make high-speed passenger rail between Chicago, Milwaukee, the Dells and the Twin Cities accomplished fact, and within measurable distance all the more.

As for Rochester, perhaps they should be satisfied with the possibility of a direct passenger-rail service to Chicago for the first time in over 50 years as would use the Empire Builder routing to Winona, thence switching to the DM&E's line into the Clinic City--even if it means some significant track upgrades and signals and communications work beforehand; besides, with funding preference being given to "shovel-ready" projects and initiatives, they shouldn't expect the possibility for construction of a direct rail link into the Twin Cities, time- and money-intensitive as it is, to come within measurable distance.

AS PREDICTED PREVIOUSLY IN THIS SPACE, READERS, BY YOUR CORRESPONDENT, the weird and unwholesome element tending to racism, white supremacy and nativist xenophobia are milking the Mexican swine-flu pandemic-in-progress for sick propaganda purposes galore, targeting Those Who Should Know Better (and, unbeknownst to them, all the more likely to succumb to the flu's effects themselves).

From the Hatewatch blog of the Southern Poverty Law Centre:

SOMETHING WORTH ASKING SUCH SPECIMENS OF CONSERVATIVE ZEALOTRY AND TRUE BELIEF as still insist that President Obama is really some class of a closet "Communist," "Socialist," "Marxist," "Nazi," "Fascist" or suchlike:

"Would you consider the GI Bill to be Socialist legislation? Why or why not?"

(Answers, please, in the comments section.)

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MEANWHILE, CERTAIN SCIONS IN THE CONSERVATIVE CAMP SEEING FREE-MARKET CAPITALISM AS A WORTHWHILE FUND-RAISING TOOL (as in donating a share of profits to conservative causes and articles of faith) would probably be envious of CREDO's success in raising monies from their cellular, long-distance and credit-card businesses for Secular-Progressive causes.

So envious, in fact, that they'd like "a slice of the action," so to speak, from the same class of business CREDO has made a name with--and use the Great Unwashed as easy suckers, especially considering where they lack access to decent credit channels (and, in conservative thinking, should pay cash for all their purchases--or, if entitled to credit, should pay a higher-than-necessary "fair share").

Their preferred routes?

None other than pre-paid cellular and wireline telephony marketed through the likes of Wally World and "dollar stores" expected to play along with the Greater Conservative Line, and @ prices deliberately higher than average for even pre-paid cellular leaders like Net10, TracFone, Kajeet and Virgin Mobile and pre-paid wireline leader Reconex.

The reason for the higher prices? "Guaranteed" pledge commitments to various movements and causes held dear to the conservative movement, never mind their being potentially harmful or dangerous to Our Antient and Peculiar Sovereignty and Sovereign Identity as a Nation, even to the point of further risking class warfare which these same specimens of Zealotry and True Belief want conflated into outright RAHOWA (RAcial HOly WAr), laughing sadistically in their arrogant hubris all along.

Even more likely: The cell phones offered for the conservative answer to CREDO really being rebuilt factory rejects as turn out not to be approved by the FCC for United States use, and of dubious sound quality.

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MEMO TO BILL "NO-SPIN ZONE" O'REILLY: So much for the "Patriots and Pinheads" segment of The O'Reilly Factor on Fox Prolefeed ... is it actually possible to be a Patriotic Pinhead?

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NO WONDER CONSERVATIVE CAUSES AND MOVEMENTS TAKE CONSIDERABLE PAINS TO INSIST ON UTMOST SECRECY in their policy-planning strategems, fearing "misunderstanding" in case details were to leak out--and there is clear historical precedent, as witness this "Looking Back" item in the Jewish weekly gazetta Forward from 75 years back (1934; original in Yiddish):

Although attempts were made to keep it quiet, an international antisemitic conference was held recently in Switzerland, including delegates from 24 different countries. A report in the ultra-right-wing Viennese newspaper Völkischer Front indicated that government ministers, politicians, professors, religious figures and business magnates participated in the conference, the goals of which were to discuss the following topics: 1) the battle against world Jewry; 2) organizational issues surrounding international groups attempting to root out Jewry; 3) new racial theories proving that contemporary Jewry bears no relationship to the Jews of biblical times, who were pure Aryans. In fact, a resolution declaring Jews of today to be "impostors" was passed.

No wonder "everything old is new again" ...

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MEANWHILE, IT APPEARS AS IF "GROUND ZERO" IN THE MEXICAN SWINE FLU PANDEMIC-IN-DEVELOPMENT has been identified: Videlicet, a Mexican "factory farm" swine operation part-owned by Smithfield Foods, America's leading pork-products processor, near La Gloria, Veracruz, itself subject of considerable recent protests against pollutants and sicknesses in the local populace.

And it's also in La Gloria that "Patient Zero" thereof has been isolated: a four-year-old boy infected back in March, who has since recovered.

Meanwhile, with the approach of milder weather conditions as spring progresses into summer in the Northern Hemisphere and cold-and-flu season begins in the Southern such, it may be interesting to wonder just how the change of weather afflicts the swine-flu pathogen across the country and world.

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FURTHER GRANDSTAND ACTS FOR THE 2009 EDITION OF THE MINNESOTA STATE FAIR (TGMnGT, FOR SHORT) HAVE JUST BEEN ANNOUNCED, with details listed in the order of when tickets go on sale @ the Minnesota State Fair Box Office (and, concurrently, through Ticketmaster):

• From 10h Saturday, 9 May: Bon Taj Roulet (Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal--Alone and Together) on Thursday, 27 August @ 19h30; tickets $36.50.
• From 12h Saturday, 9 May: Kid Rock with Lynyrd Skynyrd on Saturday, 29 August @ 19h; tickets $41, $56 and $66, depending on seating location.
• From 10h Saturday, 16 May: Casting Crowns on Thursday, 3 September @ 19h; tickets $30.
• From 12h Saturday, 16 May: Kelly Clarkson with special guest Eric Hutchinson on Sunday, 30 August @ 19h30; tickets $35.
• From 10h Saturday, 30 May: O.A.R. with special guest Brett Dennen on Wednesday, 2 September @ 18h30; tickets $27.
• From 12h Saturday, 30 May: REO Speedwagon and Styx with special guests .38 Special on Saturday, 5 September @ 19h; tickets $34.
• From 10h Saturday, 6 June: A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor on Friday, 4 September @ 19h45; tickets $23 and $28, depending on seating location.
• From 12h Saturday, 6 June: Jason Aldean on Friday, 28 August @ 19h; tickets $29.
• From 10h Saturday, 13 June: Randy Travis with special guest Joe Nichols on Tuesday, 1 September @ 19h30; tickets $32.

OPPONENTS OF LA COSA NOSTRA (OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE MAFIA) ACROSS ITALY, AND ESPECIALLY SO IN ITS "HOME PATCH," SO TO SPEAK, OF SICILY have adopted the Italian expression Basta! ("Enough!") as a rallying cry in opposition to its overzealous domination of power and control in everyday life--in some extreme cases, to the point of significant and measurable public harm ensuing.

Now, perhaps it was time to say "Enough!" with the Greater Conservative Propaganda Masheen, as exemplified by Fox Prolefeed and Fox Prolefeed II ... not to mention all manner of nationally-syndicated conservative talk radio programmes (especially so the ilk of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage, to cite the more obvious basket cases in conservative prolefeed packaged as "winning of hearts and minds"--yeah, right: The "hearts and minds" of the ignorant, the vulnerable, the easily-influenced, the generally unemployable because of a hard-wired complacency vis-a-vis outdated socioeconomic paradigms; in short, "poor white trash" having among their neighbours @ the Park & Flush Trailer Park, so to speak, hyperjuvenile sex maniac sisters named Kanker).

In effect, just stop watching or listening to their programme, as the case may be.

Telling them (politely, of course) that you have had enough of their messages exploiting fear and uncertainty, appealing to the crudest and basest of True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command.

Likewise telling those who advertise on these propaganda exercises that, so long as they continue advertising on such exercises in obnoxiousness, you will no longer have their support.

"So where's the outrage?", to use a popular GOP bumper-sticker-slogan-crossing-into-platitude during the Clinton Administration; perhaps it was time to use the outrage against such whipping up the outrage @ the expense of such expected only to agree emotionally, all the while unaware of actual intent (cf. Fr. Charles Coughlin's base of support for his Fascist-leaning radio pseudoministry, "The Radio Shrine of the Little Flower," back in the 1930's).

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SO WHAT ELSE IS THERE TO WRITE ABOUT?