WHICH MUST NO DOUBT BE THE REACTION ON BOTH SIDES OF THE WINONA INTERSTATE BRIDGE on the news just announced that said bridge will be reopen to passenger cars, vans and light trucks from about 08h Saturday.

And will remain closed to pedestrians, bicycles and heavy trucks until repairs on the bridge deck can be completed, which should begin sometime later in the summer; during said repair period, traffic will be reduced to one lane with flagger.

Which will also mean the discontinuance of an interim shuttle van and ferry service to accomodate Wisconsin employees in Winona businesses from Friday evening's last run.

In any case, Winona should no doubt breathe a little easier.

Now, if only someone were to launch a viable campaign to have Governor Pawlenty recalled from office on the grounds of mental incapacity....

more cat pictures

TO THE MINNWISSIPPI REGION--AND, FOR THE MOST PART, A GOOD CHUNK OF SOUTHEASTERN MINNESOTA, NORTHEAST IOWA AND WESTERN INTO SOUTHWESTERN WISCONSIN--such would likely be the plea in the rain department, what with substantial flooding over a number of streams and creeks.

Especially so the Kickapoo River in and around Gays Mills, Wisconsin.

Turtle Creek, Dobbins Creek and the Red Cedar River in and around Austin, Minnesota.

The Zumbro River and Bear Creek around Rochester, Minnesota.

And the Cedar River in the Waterloo/Cedar Falls connurbation of Iowa.

Now, we could use a serious dry spell for once to let all this rain water percolate into the topsoil and get things back to normal.

Not to mention some donations on your part to the Red Cross and/or The Salvation Army for helping flood victims. And, since our supposedly "morally superior" society is pretty much on the verge of socioeconomic collapse thanks to His Fraudulency's Great Within and their mad delusions of grandeur seeing America as Lord and Master of the World, the Universe and the 28 Known Galaxies, maybe some foreign aid, come to think of it.

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MEANWHILE, WITH REGARDS TO THE RECONSTRUCTION OF LAKE DELTON, Mein Innkeeper Friend is of the opine that the drainage period--so long as it's an extended period of dryness--might be as good an opportunity as any to allow the exposed lakebed to settle as part of its restoration.

Not to mention having a new dam constructed @ the newly-formed channel, with provision for generating hydroelectricity and a navigation lock to allow pleasure craft to move for once between Lake Delton and the Wisconsin River; this along with a bridge on County A over the new-formed channel.

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"TERRORISM SUSPECTS," 1; HIS FRAUDULENCY'S GREAT WITHIN, 0 AND RED CARD: Such the result of the Supreme Court's freshly-issued ruling which holdeth that so-called "terrorism suspects" in detention @ Guantanamo Bay's Camp Xray detention facility are subject to the same Constitutionally-mandated rights, privileges and powers entitled ordinary, run-of-the-mill criminal suspects in forthcoming criminal proceedings, or "reasonable" (to the Great Within's collective mind) facsimilies thereof.

Which, to the Great Within, could likely be as good a time as any to cook up "accidents" as can dispose of the remaining inmates there to try and get around the ruling--and cook up the most incredible of explanations in case suspicions are aroused in the blogosphere, let alone the Dark Satanic Mills of Conservative Propaganda.

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IMAGINE THE FOLLOWING SCENARIO OCCURING IN THE RUNUP TO INDECISION 2008 HERE IN THE "MORALLY SUPERIOR" UNITED STATES," as per the BBC:

The BBC has obtained documents suggesting that Zimbabwe's military is actively involved in running Robert Mugabe's re-election campaign.

The documents outline plans by ruling party Zanu-PF to harass and drive out opposition supporters, especially from rural areas.

A run-off presidential vote is due to take place later in the month.

More than 60 people have been killed, thousands beaten and many more driven from their homes in related violence.

Testimony from eye-witnesses and victims from across Zimbabwe as well as internal party documents show that violence and intimidation are being used to try to guarantee the re-election of Robert Mugabe against the challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), on 27 June.

The documents suggest that the Joint Operations Command (JOC) is now running logistics and operations.

The JOC is made up of the heads of the military and state security organisations.

Another document lays out the party's tactics, including the use of scarce food supplies as a political weapon.

"Basic commodities should be sold from either people's shops or pro-Zanu-PF shops," it says. "Emphasis should be in party strongholds."

It talks about giving the notorious and feared war veterans, responsible for much of the violence in Zimbabwe, a "leading role in Zanu-PF campaigns".

Fight for survival

The document also outlines the use of covert operations against the MDC including harassing supporters and driving them out of Zanu-PF strongholds and declares a "no-go area" to rural constituencies for the MDC.

The BBC is banned from reporting in the country, which makes it difficult to authenticate some of this material but our investigations found that all of the tactics mentioned in the document are being used by Zanu-PF and its supporters.

The Zimbabwean Deputy Minister of Information, Bright Matonga, denied that the ruling-party is responsible for the violence and he refused to comment on what he described as "illegal documents."

But speaking anonymously, a Zimbabwean police officer confirmed to the BBC that officers had been given orders to support Zanu-PF and turn a blind eye to violence perpetrated against MDC supporters.

We met in a dark car park in Harare. He told me: "We're told to vote for Zanu-PF and they told us it's not now a secret vote, you have to vote in front of your commanding officer."

He complained that the police were no longer independent: "Our police is now politically motivated, whereas it is supposed to be an organisation that stands for not taking part." 

Zimbabwe's deputy information minister denies military involvement in the election

Posters supporting Robert Mugabe are plastered across the walls of the capital. The party has brought in private PR consultants to give the campaign a far more positive image.

It is a slick strategy that promotes sovereignty, independence and empowerment. But under-writing the campaign are the resources of the central bank and a monopoly of air-time in the state-controlled media.

Often the MDC and its supporters are portrayed as the perpetrators of much of the violence but all the evidence points the other way and that is also the conclusion of many observers.

The US ambassador to Harare insisted that Robert Mugabe wants "to retain power through any means possible".

He said Zanu-PF, the military and the war veterans were responsible for most of the violence against those who voted for the MDC in the first round, "ensuring that, number one, they'll be too afraid to vote and, number two, that they're not in their district and cannot vote".

I asked him whether there was any way you could conclude that this election was either free or fair. His answer was swift: "Absolutely none."

We met people across Zimbabwe who all had almost identical stories to tell. Many had been beaten or burnt, many had broken limbs, some had relatives killed, thousands had been driven from their homes.

They were all targeted because they voted for the opposition.

Robert Mugabe has called this an "all-out war". He and his supporters are engaged in a fight for survival and what is now clear is that they will use any means necessary to achieve that.

Now imagine the GOP--no, make that the Constitution Party--deploying the resources of so-called "citizen militias" and so-called "Christian Patriot" groups to harrass and intimidate would-be Democratic (as in Barack Obama) voters "by whatever means necessary" (including fear and violence), and then deny any and all knowledge thereof when asked in debriefings.

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FIRST, IT WAS THE AUSTRALIANS ... AND NOW, IT'S THE CANADIANS' TURN: As in officially apologising and expressing regret for official policies sanctioning the removal of indigenous children from their families and "resettling" such in "mission schools" under the guise of "assimilation" into the Canadian mainstream.

Only it turned out to be sanction for abuse, maltreatment and even episodes of LeTourneauism as an agency of maintaining power, control and fear. All excused in the name of G-d, Queen and Empire.

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AND WHAT DO THESE SO-CALLED "ISSUES" HAVE IN COMMON WHEN IT COMES TO INDECISION 2008:

• Abortion, contraception and family planning.
• "Defending the sanctity and purity of marriage."
• Homosexuality and homosexuals.
• "Defending Traditional Christian and Family Values."
• Die Kulturkrieg.
• High gas prices being complicated all the more by "environmental zealots***with known Communistic tendencies" "preventing" further oil and gas exploration in known environmentally-sensitive areas as would "promote energy self-sufficency."

Answer: They're all non-issues which the Zealots and True Believers in Neoconservatism (and their droogs @ the Elmer Gantry Institute for Religiopolitical Theology) want American voters to think about all the more for Indecision 2008.

Even @ the expense of More Pressing and Serious Issues such as:

• The consequences of His Fraudulency's misadventures in the ur-RAHOWA Against Terrorism, and their socioeconomic byproducts.
• The growing and worsening disparity between rich and poor.
• The inability of many high-school graduates to find work in a socioeconomic paradigm seeing free-market capitalism as Great White Father.
• The worsening fiscal deficit, made all the more so by the Great Within's misadventures.
• The inability of the poor to obtain a decent standard of health care, job security or even a standard of living within free-market paradigms and algorithms.
• Deteriorating and collapsing infrastructure, and its socioeconomic consequences.
• "Regulatory relief" for businesses @ the expense of consumers, especially such on limited incomes as have to live from paycheck to paycheck.

So: What "issues" would you base your electoral decisions on?

Those that really matter?

Or those manufactured only to distract attention from those that matter?

IF THERE'S ANYTHING THAT HISTORY TEACHES US, IT'S THAT IT PROVIDES LESSONS AND WARNINGS TO GENERATIONS WHICH FOLLOW in its footsteps.

In the case of the Dark Satanic Mills of Neoconservative Propaganda, perhaps the finest lesson/warning from history about the dangers of attacking otherwise harmless and blameless individuals, organisations and media outlets for suspicion of "disloyalty," "Fifth Column" activity and even "giving aid and comfort to terrorists and terrorism" would have to be this 1952 editorial from Collier's, a popular weekly magazine of the time, as took issue with Sen. Joseph McCarthy's attacks on leading magazines and newspapers for playing footsie with Communists and Communism--or so he thought:

McCarthy Cries Again

A couple of years ago Senator Joe McCarthy buckled on his armor and, like a twentieth-century Don Quixote, set out to slay the dragon of American Communism singlehanded. His intentions seemed noble as those of the good knight. But also like the good knight, who attacked a procession of monks and a flock of sheep under the impression that they were brigands and ogres, he got a little confused about the targets of his sallies.

Thus it has come to pass, as his crusade continues, that anyone who takes issue with him assumes the look of the Red dragon itself. Disagreement becomes lies or crookedness. An adverse editorial comment is automatically a "left-wing smear." And the senator charges treason against a countryman as recklessly as Don Quixote charged the windmill.

Mr. McCarthy has had a busy time of it, because there are a great many people who approve the purpose of his crusade, but object strongly to his methods. There are many publications which feel the same way. One of them is Collier's. Another is Time. And we at Collier's feel just a little discriminated against because, so far, the senator has ignored us while singling out Time and accusing it of "twisting and distorting the facts about my (McCarthy's) fight to expose and remove Communists from government."

This charge apparently grew out of a Time cover story on Senator McCarthy. The senator had earlier attacked it as a "vicious and malicious lie." But recently he employed a new tactic which was definitely not cricket.

Backed by the prestige of his office, he sent a letter to "practically all Time advertisers," according to his own statement, which, while it did not come right out and ask them to take their business elsewhere, suggested that they were doing their country a disservice by their continued support of the magazine.

Since some of these advertisers were "not aware of the facts," the letter stated, they were "unknowingly helping to pollute and poison the waterholes of information." Still swimming along in his aquatic metaphor, the senator said that "it is much more important to expose a liar, a crook or a traitor who is able to poison the streams of information flowing into a vast number of American homes than to expose an equally vicious crook, liar or traitor who has no magazine or newspaper outlet for his poison."

The source of the senator's "facts" was an article from the American Mercury and a reprint from the Congressional Record. On the basis of these, the gentleman who complains about distortions and smears virtually accused Time's editors of dishonesty and treason in so many words.

Naturally Mr. McCarthy anticipated some criticism. "I realize," he said, "that bringing these facts to the attention of Time's advertisers will cause some of the unthinking to shout that this is endangering 'freedom of the press.'" But, he added, "To allow a liar to hide behind the cry 'You are endangering freedom of the press' is not only ridiculous, it is dangerous."

To this we can only answer that when a man hides behind the cry "You are a liar" before anyone has accused him of endangering freedom of the press, he must be feeling rather insecure. And when he tries to intimidate a critical publication by seeking to alienate its chief sources of revenue, he is something less than courageous.

Senator McCarthy has set himself up as the final authority on loyalty and Americanism. He insists that his accusations are not to be doubted, and his judgment is not to be questioned. Yet, a few weeks after he wrote his letter to Time's advertisers, he testified in Syracuse, New York that the Washington Post and the New York (Communist) Daily Worker "parallel each other quite closely in editorials." And when he was asked whether he would consider the Christian Science Monitor a "left-wing smear paper," he replied, "I can't answer yes or no."

Those are the statements of a man who is either woefully unperceptive or wholly irresponsible. And when such a man asks that his wild-swinging attacks be accepted without question, he is, to borrow his own words, not only ridiculous but dangerous.

We are not concerned that, on the basis of this editorial, the senator may now add us to his company of "left-wing smearers," or that he may also warn our advertisers of the danger of supporting another publication which pollutes the waterholes of information. What does concern us is the real danger of Communist infiltration in government, and the fact that this danger is too serious to be obscured and clouded by Senator McCarthy's eccentricities, exaggerations and absurdities.

Meanwhile, in the good Senator's home state of Wisconsin, the likes of The Milwaukee Journal and The Capital Times of Madison were taking staunch and courageous anti-McCarthy editorial stands which risked their being looked upon as "local editions of the Daily Worker" by Sen. McCarthy, yet won considerable attention in The Fourth Estate.

Even if neither won a Pulitzer for their efforts.

As for Collier's, it would be the first of the great popular-interest weeklies to go out of business, coming out for the last time in January of 1957 after its publishers experienced serious financial problems for several years running as would be the undoing of its sister titles The American Magazine previously (June 1956) and Woman's Home Companion in due course (November 1957).

Look, a pictorial fortnightly, would take over some assets of Collier's, but would itself go out of business in October of 1971 ... and would be revived as a fortnightly between 1979 and 1982 after another publisher acquired the title and related assets and trademarks.

In February of 1969, The Saturday Evening Post discontinued weekly publication, but its title and assets would be acquired by an Indianapolis firm reviving same on a limited scale starting in 1971.

Life would end weekly publication @ the end of 1972, but would return as a monthly between 1978 and 1999.

In any case, Collier's had some good points to make as still ring true today--even if it's now Fox Prolefeed and AM talkback radio as are taking Sen. McCarthy's place in attack mode.

WITHIN MEASURABLE DISTANCE OF YOUR READING THIS ITEM, AMTRAK WILL BEGIN AN OUTRIGHT SHUTDOWN OF 156 MILES OF THE NORTHEAST CORRIDOR between South Station, Boston, and New Haven, Connecticut, inclusive, over four days.

The which, Your Correspondent understands, is for two primary reasons:

1. Final testing and bringing into service of a new vertical-lift span on the Thames River drawbridge @ Groton, Connecticut, replacing a superannuated and life-expired bascule-lift span.
2. A wholesale "maintenance blitz" of the Boston-Providence-New Haven section of the Northeast Corridor to improve ride quality and track structure.

I've been figuring it out, and Your Correspondent estimates that this four-day shutdown over 156 miles of railroad line would mean crews working 39 miles per day--unless, of course, it were to occur in the collective wisdom of those responsible for Amtrak maintenance-of-way in the Northeast Corridor to have crews stationed throughout the line in question working continuously throughout.

Even if it translates into insomnia-producing noise from the likes of backup alarms from construction machinery, rail-grinding and welding equipment, even ballast tamping machines. That, and light pollution from light towers set up for the sake of safety in the case of those assigned night duty.

Which, for all we know, could be felt as far as 13 Spooner Street in Quahog, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, come to think of it.

And the successful completion of which being dependent upon the weather, no doubt prompting some among weird and unwholesome specimens of the Elmer Gantry element to pray for Wrath of G-d-stylee weather conditions as would essentially sabotage the effort ... said sabotage, in due curse, "officially" to be blamed on International Terrorism rather than the Act of G-d that such would obviously be for lack of credible evidence of "terrorist sabotage" save that which may have been planted or otherwise fabricated, in time guaranteed to attract the notice of the Weird News crowd.

(Said elements secretly in it, methinks, with the Zealots and True Believers in Pure Captalism seeing Amtrak as a Failed and Failing Social Experiment Unlikely to Generate Taxpayer Value ... and which should be, "to spare the further misery of the Good Taxpayers," euthanised to the point of private operators taking over per Open Access Policies in the British stylee. But obviously hesitate to openly acknowledge as much.)

THE HATEWATCH BLOG OF THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTRE IS TAKING NOTE of what could be some rather unlikely supporters of Democratic Presidential candidate-presumptive Barack Obama--best to let them explain (and I should caution where the following may contain some rather strong language which some may find N4BSK):

With the nomination of Barack Obama as the Democratic presidential candidate clinched, large sections of the white supremacist movement are adopting a surprising attitude: Electing America's first black president would be a very good thing.

It's not that the assortment of neo-Nazis, Klansmen, anti-Semites and others who make up this country's radical right have suddenly discovered that a man should be judged based on the content of his character, not his skin. On the contrary. A growing number of white supremacists, and even some of those who pass for intellectual leaders of their movement, think that a black man in the Oval Office would shock white America, possibly drive millions to their cause, and perhaps even set off a race war that, they hope, would ultimately end in Aryan victory.

"He will make things so bad for white people that hopefully they will finally realize how stupid they were for admiring these jigaboos all these years," "Darthvader" wrote on the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network web forum.. "I believe in the motto 'Worse is Better' and Obama certainly fits that description." Just last week, Ron Doggett, a Virginian who has been a key activist in the Klan, the paramilitary White People's Party and the neo-Nazi National Alliance, chimed in with this: "I hope Obama wins because in four years, white people just might be pissed off enough to actually do something. … White people aren't going to do a thing until their toys are taken away from them. So things have to be worse for things to be better."

"Oh man," enthused "Centimanus" on the white nationalist Stormfront website. "I am gleefully, sadistically looking forward to Obama as president. … It will be a beautiful day when the masses look at the paper and truly realize they have lost their own country. Added "Fulimnata": "To the average white man and woman, they could look at Obama and see plain as day that whites are not in control." Another message, from "TheLastOfMyKind," agreed: "Could it be that the nomination of Obama finally sparks a sense of unity in white voters? I would propose that this threat of black, muslim [sic] rule may very well be the thing that finally scares some sense back into complacent whites throughout the nation." "Actually," said another poster, "if Obama were to win, it would be the best thing that ever happened to the Klan. They would have massive growth." And "TeutonicLegion" said that "a whole bunch of people will join us and find these boards" if Obama becomes president.

Even David Duke, the neo-Nazi and former Klan boss who is the closest thing the movement has to a real intellectual these days, sees clear advantages in an Obama victory in the fall. "Obama will be a signal, a clear signal for millions of our people," Duke wrote in an essay entitled "A Black Flag for White America" last week. "Obama is like that new big dark spot on your arm that finally sends you to the doctor for some real medicine. … Obama is the pain that let's [sic] your body know that something is dreadfully wrong. Obama will let the American people know that there is a real cancer eating away at the heart of our country and Republican aspirin will not only not cure it, but only masks the pain and makes you think you don't need radical surgery. … My bet is that whether Obama wins or loses in November, millions of European Americans will inevitably react with new awareness of their heritage and the need for them to defend and advance it."

Opinion on the radical right is far from unanimous on the topic of a possible Obama victory. Many of those writing on the topic—perhaps half of those who have posted recently—think an Obama presidency would destroy the country and oppose it mightily. On the other hand, there is virtually no enthusiasm on the radical right for presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, who is widely seen by white supremacists as a sellout, particularly on the issue of nonwhite immigration into the United States. But increasing numbers think that a bad situation with a black president will be good for their movement.

"Thomas Dixon Jr.," a Stormfront poster using the name of the racist author who wrote the classic novel The Clansman, put it like this: "As WLP [William Luther Pierce, the late leader of the neo-Nazi National Alliance] would say… 'What is bad for the system is good for us.'" "Obama," added "The Patriot" in the same thread, "would be better for our cause in the long run, no doubt about it."

IMHO, this whole notion of "defending European-American Heritage" is nothing more than a bunch of dangerous Mickey Mouse. Which, come to think of it, needs to be challenged.