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NO DOUBT THE LEAD-IN PICTURE IS RATHER APROPOS TO THE SITUATION @ HAND, WHAT WITH NO POSTING YESTERDAY owing to server upgrades on BlogDrive's part as were, for some reason or another, not timely announced beforehand.

(Access to this blog, fortunately, was unaffected. Only the BlogDrive site proper was offline.)

If there was any inconvenience suffered by not offering material yesterday under the new arrangement of immediate posting, my apologies.

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ANOTHER REASON WHY ONLINE SHOPPING TO HELP REDUCE THE NATIONAL DEBT MAKES SENSE, OR SO YOUR CORRESPONDENT THINKS: You may have heard on the news where, between 1992 and 2005, a significant number of the Fortune 500 companies were found not to have paid any corporate income tax whatsoever.

The fact of which is mitigated by where many such either claimed substantial tax credits (perhaps such as they weren't entitled to, methinks?) or losses on capital, thereby negating tax liability.

And leaving you wonder how best to compensate for the ensuing loss to the Treasury while stll keeping taxes all the lower "in the national interest" (as in the Club For Growth's argument and patsy about low taxes=jobs=social stability).

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THERE ARE DOUBTLESS SOME OF A CERTAIN GENERATION, OR HISTORICAL FASCINATION, who would probably draw parallels between Russia's goose-stepping it into the Lower Ossetia and Azkhazia regions of the Republic of Georgia "to protect Ethnic Russian nationals" or such otherwise holding Russian passports and Hitler's excusing the German "occupation" of the Geman-speaking Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia (so awarded under the Versailles Treaty), eventually to overtake to the point of rapine the whole of Czechoslovakia, "to protect ethnic Germans" supposedly entitled, per Nazi thought, to German Ethnonational Identity and Citizenship.

But that was back in 1938.

And yet again, there are weird and unwholesome types wanting Barak Obama elected all the more in the hope of such being a "call to arms," so to speak, among "European-American peoples" to "defend Our Racial and National Integrity and Honour" all the more in a stylee not unlike such in post-apartheid South Africa having lost contact with Reality and, as their "last and only hope," see the concept of Die Volkstaat (literally, "the People's State") as a means to an end.

Which, on closer inspection, is really closer to back-door apartheid.

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AYN RAND AND HER DISCIPLES MUST BE LAUGHING @ THIS NEWS FROM SOUTH KOREA VIRTUALLY FROM THE GRAVE, by way of the BBC:

South Korea's president has pardoned the Hyundai Motor boss Chung Mong-koo who was found guilty of breach of trust and embezzlement last year.

Mr Chung was given a three-year jail term, which was later suspended.

He was one of 341,864 people pardoned by President Lee Myung-bak to mark Liberation Day on Friday.

SK boss Chey Tae-won, who had been convicted of accounting fraud, and Kim Seung-youn of Hanwha Group, found guilty of assault, were also pardoned.

All three businessmen had received suspended prison terms and are still active in their companies.

Critics have accused South Korea of being too lenient on corporate criminals.

The Justice Ministry said the pardons were meant to help South Korea "break through the serious economic difficulties" it faces.

Of the other pardons, the vast majority were for minor offences committed by civil servants, although 10,416 were for people who had committed criminal offences.

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WITH STATE FAIR SEASON PRETTY MUCH ABROAD THE COUNTRY, BY AND LARGE, YOU JUST HAVE TO WONDER HOW MANY PARENTS WILL USE SAME as a cheap and cheerful means for asking the kids to leave the house from breakfast until the evening hours, expecting them to take lunch and supper @ some food stand(s) there.

Especially when handed advance-sale tickets, bundles of cash and sheets of Midway ride tickets, not to mention bus fare, and told to just leave the premises and not come back until late. (Which the parental units will excuse as being one with their "needing some fresh air and sunshine" as much as "making wise use of their time" rather than lying around the house wasting time watching TV, playing video games or going online.)

Not to mention looking for fresh and innovative ways to avoid attracting suspicions on the part of police as much as child-welfare agencies in case concessionaires, ride operators and suchlike on the fairgrounds start asking questions, let alone imagining the prospect that the parents want the kids out of the house so they (the parents) could look for, and download, child pornography, among other specimens of weird and/or unwholesome debauchery ... and, once the kids are back home, coming to a loud and chaotic police raid over child pornography downloads.

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AND, COME TO THINK OF IT, THERE ARE PROBABLY GOING TO BE CERTAIN DYSFUNCTIONAL PARENTAL UNITS WHO WOULD JUST LOVE TO SEE IN THE MIDWAYS of the several state fairs now running, or soon to, cheap and cheerful ways for "building character" in their children by way of such rides as involve high speeds, constantly-changing G-forces and other sensations incidental to their operation and experience.

Preferably by "dumping" the kids onto such parts of the Midway as feature such rides tending to the stomach-churning, and expecting them to "have fun" while the parents go off wandering the fairgrounds along more conventional lines of amusement and distraction, unaware of the height and safety restrictions pecuilar to said rides and the risks so ensuing to life, health and/or limb.

Which is enough to bring up the advice about not forcing kids onto especially scary or otherwise sensation-seeking rides unconscious of the safety risks or unaware of the possibility that their being frightened or tricked into so riding could have them scared all the more when the ride stops--the fact of which ride operators and Midway superintendents may want to watch all the more for during the state fair season.

Especially if there are signs that the kids are about to blow lunch within measurable distance or otherwise show signs of fright as should be reported as much to the police as to child-welfare agencies; the latter all the more so as such a notion could raise questions of child abuse or harm.

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AS PER USUAL, YOUR CORRESPONDENT JUST HAS TO WONDER IF THE IDEA OF "NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND" IS ACTUALLY SUBJECT TO SICK QUALIFICATION in the minds of its neoconservative architects.

As in looking for ways by which especially "chronically and habitually welfare-dependent" families could be blackmailed into accepting, and without question or reservation, tuition vouchers giving undue or unfair preference to such private schools or homeschooling programmes whose syllabus is modelled on the apartheid South African such known as Nasionale Christen Opverdoing (National Christian Education).

Which, basically put, places Traditional Values (more than likely tending to racism, xenophobia, isolationist self-sufficency within the parameters of a "pure" free-market capitalistic model and paradigm and, for good measure, regarding poverty, fecundity and stupidity as "virtuous" and yet "patriotic") above Core Skills, never mind the prospect for serious psychoemotional harm in the process thanks to the inherent excesses of fanaticism reinforcing all.

Besides: Since when did "pure" free-market capitalism in the Ayn Rand stylee become one with the Low Church Christian stylee as is inherent in the Nasionale Christen Opverdoing syllabus?

And since when did Ayn Rand and the Christus become equals for the sake of religioeconomic ideology?

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TELL ME THIS ISN'T TAKING "WISE USE" TO PATHETIC EXTREMES: Minnesota Governor Pawlenty, himself perhaps the best droog the so-called "Club For Growth" has among the governors of the several states from the standpoint of shill and mouthpiece, thinks that reopening and renovating the former St. Paul Union Depot would be best use of resources when it comes to interlinking future commuter-rail and high-speed passenger-rail development with the reborn Interurban light-rail line along University Avenue for the most part.

Governor Pawlenty, what about Amtrak's Midway Station on Transfer Road? Are you simply just going to let it go to waste in the name of "Wise Use" delusions on the part of your political droogs as much as yourself?

And where does this leave Minneapolis, come to think of it?

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GETTING BACK, AS IT WERE, TO THE MINNESOTA STATE FAIR: For all the attention which proper tyre pressure, for one, has been getting in recent days as one with greater fuel economy--ad nauseum, as some would think--perhaps it might be better to consider using public transportation to reach TGMnGT for the sake of fuel economy, notwithstanding recent declines in NYMEX crude-oil prices to around $120/bbl. creating a potentially illusory aura of lower gasoline prices translating into a return to past wasteful habits in the guise of "Wise Use."

(Up there, no doubt, with Don Quixote's charging @ the non-existant windmills.)

And if you're asking how to go about it, Metro Transit (the transit agency in the Twin Cities) explains it all for you with the likes of:

• non-stop State Fair Express buses from Park-and-Ride lots on the outer edges of the Twin Cities Metro Area to the State Fairgrounds and return, with services every 15 to 30 minutes, depending on where you board;
• free Park-and-Ride shuttles linking selected parking lots in the Hamline and Midway districts of St. Paul with the State Fairgrounds; and
• pre-existing regular-route services on the 3, 84 and 960 such as already serve the State Fairgrounds (the 3 and 960 via Como Avenue; the 84, via Snelling Avenue), and with bicycle racks as well.

(Further incentive to use transit to get to TGMnGT: The Wednesday thereof--this year, the 27th August--is "Ride Transit Day," during which such using Metro Transit services in that direction will receive a $2 discount voucher towards gate admission on the day. On the same day, the normal $5 fare on State Fair Express buses will be reduced to $3, to compensate for the voucher offer. Said discount vouchers cannot be applied to discounted admission tickets purchased prior to the Fair, nor to the free Park-and-Ride shuttles.)

In any case, perhaps what TGMnGT and Metro Transit ought ponder is just how much fuel was saved by such using Metro Transit's several sevices to reach TGMnGT instead of their cars ... and not just on Ride Transit Day; I would rather such consider the whole 12-day run as a whole, although Ride Transit Day could receive particular emphasis in these calculations.

And don't forget the Blue Ribbon Bargain Book, which can more than pay for itself with the amazing value-for-money offers throughout.

(But then again, there was a time when TGMnGT actually awarded a $50 premium to the one who travelled the furthest distance to reach same. Back when a dollar was worth a dollar, so to speak; in today's purchasing power, that $50 premium would be worth something like $1,125.) 

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THE SO-CALLED "PARENTS TELEVISION COUNCIL," FOR REASONS AS WILL BE OBVIOUS SHORTLY, should probably be considered as "none of these."

And should more accurately be considered as "racketeer-influenced" or otherwise weird and unwholesome, even with significant financial and/or moral support from "the Four Hundred" and the movers and shakers of Die Bransoner Muzikschaukultur such as cultural conservatives want to epitomise as the "acid test," so to speak, of their ideal for Amerikanischer Realkultur--which, on closer inspection, has overtures of Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa.

OK, cut to the chase--as in what Right Wing Watch reported recently:

The Parents Television Council, the right-wing television watchdog group founded by Brent Bozell, is dedicated to “documenting the dramatic increase in sex, violence and profanity in entertainment.”  With that as its mission, it was not much of a surprise when they released a new report saying that they don’t like what they see:

Today’s prime-time television programming is not merely indifferent to the institution of marriage and the stabilizing role it plays in our society, it seems to be actively seeking to undermine marriage by consistently painting it in a negative light. Nowhere is this more readily apparent than in the treatment of sex on television. Sex in the context of marriage is either non-existent on prime-time broadcast television, or is depicted as a burdensome rather than as an expression of love and commitment. By contrast, extra-marital or adulterous sexual relationships are depicted with greater frequency and overwhelmingly, as a positive experience. Across the broadcast networks, verbal references to non-marital sex outnumbered references to sex in the context of marriage by nearly 3 to 1; and scenes depicting or implying sex between non-married partners outnumbered scenes depicting or implying sex between married partners by a ratio of nearly 4 to 1.

How exactly does the PTC quantify such things, you ask?  Good question:

But, our personal fave is the Sept. 24 episode of NBC's "Journeyman," in which time-traveling journalist Dan has traveled back to a time when his now-presumed-dead wife, Olivia, was still, um, alive:

Olivia comes home and begins to change clothes. She is shown in her underwear. Dan and Olivia lie down on the bed and begin to kiss. Dan, who travels through time, notices his wedding band, apparently considering the fact that he is married to another woman in the future.

Parents Television Council has it filed under "Infidelity/Adultery."

Yet, for some reason, this new PTC report is generating all sorts of press coverage.  Apparently nobody in the media is concerned about PTC’s obvious right-wing agenda or, for that matter, bothered by the fact that, according to the FCC’s own estimates, the PTC has been responsible for nearly every indecency complaint filed in recent years:

In an appearance before Congress in February, when the controversy over Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl moment was at its height, Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell laid some startling statistics on U.S. senators.

The number of indecency complaints had soared dramatically to more than 240,000 in the previous year, Powell said. The figure was up from roughly 14,000 in 2002, and from fewer than 350 in each of the two previous years. There was, Powell said, “a dramatic rise in public concern and outrage about what is being broadcast into their homes.”

What Powell did not reveal—apparently because he was unaware—was the source of the complaints. According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003—99.8 percent—were filed by the Parents Television Council, an activist group.

This year, the trend has continued, and perhaps intensified.

Through early October, 99.9 percent of indecency complaints—aside from those concerning the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” during the Super Bowl halftime show broadcast on CBS— were brought by the PTC, according to the FCC analysis dated Oct. 1. (The agency last week estimated it had received 1,068,767 complaints about broadcast indecency so far this year; the Super Bowl broadcast accounted for over 540,000, according to commissioners’ statements.)

The prominent role played by the PTC has raised concerns among critics of the FCC’s crackdown on indecency. “It means that really a tiny minority with a very focused political agenda is trying to censor American television and radio,” said Jonathan Rintels, president and executive director of the Center for Creative Voices in Media, an artists’ advocacy group.

Which ought to raise alarm bells galore, even with the FCC now cracking down on identically-phrased and heavily-nuanced "cookie-cutter" complaints about "obscenity and indecency" lacking anything remotely resembling sincerity, let alone evidence that the complainant actually saw the programme in question and controversy.

Come to think of it, the FCC ought to pay more attention to the likelihood of remarks such as these from Chris Krok (filling in for John Gibson on Fox News Radio) on Thursday last crossing the line into indecency (as transcribed by Media Matters for America):

This whole thing, you know what it is? It is Christmas morning and you wake up and there is a beautiful present beneath the tree. And it looks so beautiful it is awesome. It's like you're so excited and you're so everything, you know, "Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama." You're cheering, you're cheering, you're cheering, "Obama, Obama, Obama." And then you open up the present and you go, "Oooh, I can't wait." Your mouth is salivating, and watering, and you're getting so -- "Ooooh." And you get the present, and you get your hands -- "Oh yeah." And you're going to rip it up. You open it up, and then what is inside is a sandwich. And you get excited, "Oh, a sandwhich." And you take a big bite of that sandwich. But what is it? What's inside of that sandwich? It is a stinking -- stinky, hot, steamy crap sandwich. It is a stinky, hot -- it is a steaming, hot pile of crap wedged between two pieces of bread. That is what Barack Obama is. He is a steamy crap sandwich. He is a fraud.

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You've made up your mind and because you lost your job, you'll be just like Obama, growing up African-American and biracial. And so you let that stuff take you -- take the negativity, take you negative, and you go negative. And so you're going to vote not for something, you're voting against something. See, and you lost your job, so you're going to vote against McCain. Not because -- you're not voting for Obama, you're voting against McCain because something bad happened to you. Let me tell you something, Obama is that stinking crap sandwich. He is a fraud.

Or, for that matter, these remarks from Rush Limbaugh in conversation with a caller to his June 23rd broadcast (emphasis added), again raising questions (@ least on my part) about borderline indecency:

LIMBAUGH: Kathy in Fort Worth, Texas, you are next.

CALLER: Hello. I want to know how the Republicans don't need Christians and conservatives, and they think we're 30 percent. Twelve percent black people in the population. Ten percent--they claim--homosexuals in the population. Rush, honey, when did 30 percent get to be a small number?

LIMBAUGH: I don't--I think it's actually larger than 30 percent. But let me see if I can get your question right. You want to know why the Republicans are willing to say, "Screw you," to 30 percent or more of their voters and yet Democrats will bend over, grab the ankles, and say, "Have your way with me," for 10 percent and 2 percent of the population?

CALLER: Delicately, yes.

LIMBAUGH: Well, I--nothing delicate about me on these matters. These are just innocent figures of speech--

CALLER: I understand.

LIMBAUGH: -- that I was using. There is an answer to your--basic question is, "Why don't the Democrats say, 'To hell with you, you wacko nuts in the base,' like Republicans do?"

CALLER: Mm-hmm.

LIMBAUGH: The--there's a complicated answer to this and I'm going to have answer some of it in the monologue in the next hour, but one of the simple answers that will require some elaboration is that a lot of money is coming from these kooks--and I'm not talking about just the blacks--I'm talking about a whole kook-fringe base because George Soros is running it--

CALLER: It's true.

LIMBAUGH: --and they need the money. We'll be back after this. Stay with us.

(The issue I have with "bend[ing] over and grab[bing] the ankles," methinks, is that such tends to negative stereotypes about homosexuals and homosexual behaviour, as ought raise questions with the FCC about indecent references. And from a conservative propagandist, no less.)

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IN ANY CASE, CONSIDERING THE RECENT COURT DECISION AS ESSENTIALLY CANCELLED THE FCC'S FORFEITURE AGAINST CBS FOR THE "WARDROBE MALFUNCTION," perhaps the FCC ought to consign any and all "indecency" or "obscenity" complaints of sound-alike predictability, with attendant waste of time and resources on the FCC's part having to read basically the same pathetic and insincere drivel over and over again, to File 13.

As in having the so-called "Parents Television Council" placed under Rule 13 sanctions (i.e., requiring court permission and posting with same a $500 indemnity bond before filing any complaints in future) for a "reckless and habitual" pattern of filing "frivolous, vexatious or otherwise tortius complaints***resulting in needless waste and diversion of time and resources" on the FCC's part and parcel.

And what would likewise preclude the Justice Department from opening enquiries into the "Council" under the RICO Act?

(MEMO TO READERS: Pass this along to your friends and e-mail circle ... but don't "spam" recklessly; it can only hurt the cause.)  

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RIGHT WING WATCH HATH SOME FRESH AND INTERESTING NEW REVELATIONS into the mind and mindset of bioweapons researcher Bruce Ivins, who took The Other Way Out nearly a fortnight ago rather than face disgrace for the late-2001 anthrax attacks and the ensuing panic--especially if he were to play the Nuremburg card (as in "I was only following orders"):

The virulently anti-gay American Family Association generates buzz and media attention year after year by launching outlandish boycott campaigns–McDonald’s is the latest target. It also doesn’t hurt that their flamboyant founder and chairman, Don Wildmon, more than lives up to his name.

PR is the lifeblood of a group like AFA, so you might think that they’d be thrilled when a longtime supporter of the group rocketed to the top of the media charts. Maybe so, but not when that supporter happens to be the FBI’s only suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks–Bruce Ivins.

Indeed, the nation learned today that Ivins and his wife–who served as president of a local anti-abortion group–were strongly committed to the AFA:

Donations were made to AFA in the name of Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Ivins 11 times between 1993 and 1997. Another donation by the couple was recorded one month after an article about the Greendale incident appeared in the AFA Journal. The Ivins subscribed to the Journal until March 2005.

And his support for the AFA actually helped the FBI catch him:

Bureau investigators also connected the fictitious return address on the second round of anthrax letters–the "Greendale School" of Franklin Park, N.J.–to a charity well-known to Ivins. He had donated numerous times to a group called the American Family Association, which in 1999 had filed a lawsuit on behalf of parents at the Greendale Baptist Academy in Wisconsin in a dispute involving corporal punishment.

Here’s a scanned image of one of the envelopes:

Knowing more about Ivins’ background may help explain a great deal about the attacks, especially the targets. The anthrax letters were sent almost exclusively to prominent Democrats–Senator Pat Leahy and then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle–and large, New York media outlets. Interestingly, Senators Leahy and Daschle and the mainstream media have consistently served as punching bags for the AFA.

Sooo ... given these new-found interconnexions between Bruce Ivins and the so-called "American Family Association" vis-a-vis the anthrax attack campaign, what will be Mr. Wildmon's response?

Is he going to distract attention from the likelihood of scandal by attempting the Pilate act of (symbolically) washing his hands in denying any liability or interconnexion to the same?

Is he going to cook up some cheap attempt @ the sammy act to save face, only to realise it's too late now?

Suffice it to say, though, with the revelations of interconnexions between Bruce Ivins and the "American Family Association," it's not going to be very pleasant for the latter over the coming days. And for the Wildmon family, expect there to be some sleepless nights beyond the help of even hot malted milk. Or, for that matter, Ambien, Lunesta and Rozerem.

Maybe even Soma.

Especially if the FBI starts asking questions that have the Wildmons replying "I refuse to answer the question" over and over, forcing resort to "stronger means" such as waterboarding.

In the meantime, though, if you're already sympathetic to the AFA, you may want to disavow the connexions you have now and henceforth--especially before the freefall turns into a fireball destroying itself from within.  

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AS IF ANYBODY DIDN'T NOTICE, TODAY IS 8/8/08--A NUMERIC COMBI WHICH THE CHINESE IN PARTICULAR REGARD AS AUSPICIOUS from the standpoint of good fortune.

So much so, in fact, that the Registry Office in Sydney recorded no less than 90 civil marriages across the day, mostly among Chinese couples who saw marriage on 8/8/08 as being especially fortunate; expect plenty more across the day today.

As if that weren't enough, organisers of the Beijing Olympic Games, notwithstanding official Chinese Government opposition to "superstition" such as numerology, decided to schedule the Opening Ceremonies therefor on--you guessed it--8/8/08. In any case, let's just hope for the best for all the athletes in the face of potentially serious problems with air pollution and other byproducts of "developing socialism with Chinese characteristics" (to use an official ur-bumper sticker slogan of the regime) @ the cost of some US$40 billion in toto.

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TALK ABOUT INAUSPICIOUS BEGINNINGS: Yesterday, the opening day of the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines included among its events an attempt to set the record for the most corn dogs eaten @ one time and in one place (in this case, the Iowa State Fair Grandstand).

As it turned out, some 15,000 people showed up ... with only 8,400 corn dogs to be consumed. Talk about your logistical headaches!

In any case, such brings to mind something Your Correspondent read some while back about a onetime Minnesota State Fair concessionaire explaining some "tricks of the trade" in selling lemonade to crowds as were watching the afternoon Grandstand programme:

• For starters, get the crowd's palate dry and salty by selling popcorn galore.
• After awhile, switch to ice cream to get the palate conditioned with something cool and creamy.
• Finally, for the piece d'resistance, break out the lemonade (made in advance, no doubt, and poured out of one-gallon glass jugs on the shoulders of the hawkers)--but in this case, restrict the sales to the box seats up front (essentially ignoring the cheap seats), what with the quantity thereof being rather limited in the first place by deliberate design. (Which, IIBC, would be an Illegal Sales Practice contrary to public interest.)

In short, "make 'em thirsty first!"

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SPEAKING OF LEMONADE, WHAT WOULD A STATE FAIR OR CIRCUS BE WITHOUT PINK LEMONADE, never mind where the same was more than likely (@ least early in the last century) to be a compound of croton oil and tartaric acid (for that bitter flavour), colouring being provided by coal-tar dyes?

(That, and attempts by the sellers to evade health inspectors as would be suspicious of the whole concept all along, some extending to outright hilarity @ times.)

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PLANNED PARENTHOOD HATH IT THAT HIS FRAUDULENCY'S GREAT WITHIN IS LABOURING UNDER THE MISGUIDED DELUSION that contraception (a/k/a birth control) is somehow in the same class as abortion, and wants such presented as fact in the health-education syllabus @ middle- and high-school levels.

Or, put another way, having impressionable school-age girls coming into the menarche being fed the Religiopolitical Right's long-standing propaganda line that Life Begins At Conception, No Ifs, Ands or Buts.

Which, in effect, amounts to nothing more than a rehashing of the same sort of misguided and perverted agenda which Romanian Communist leader Nicolæ Ceauçescu decreed soon after coming into power in 1966, and continuing until his overthrow towards the end of 1989 in the wake of the Berlin Wall's collapse--only this time, instead of seeking to hasten the Final Onset of Pure Socialism (as per Marx and Engels), seeking to maintain a labour-intensive, Luddite socioeconomic model and paradigm based on an idealised "pure" free-market capitalism (per Ayn Rand) by forcing the married to hav children all the more.

And expect them to excuse such as one with National and Christian Duty and Honour, all being educated on tuition vouchers giving preference to so-called "Christian Academies" or, alternately, Christian Homeschooling curriculæ placing undue emphasis upon idealised Traditional Values through brainwashing-stylee drills amounting to little more than parroting out bumper-sticker slogans on command in a rather nauseating, even robotic, stylee of tone and delivery, over Core Skills.

Besides: How would training our children with fanaticism crossing into the potentially dangerous ensure socioeconomic success and stability, and especially so based on free-market models and paradigms? (Let alone the prospect of a values-based educational syllabus regarding deliberate and willful poverty, fecundity and stupidity as "virtuous" and "patriotic." Not to mention the difficulty of having to create jobs for such deliberately large families without resorting to the fraudulent or dangerous brand of "make-work/fake-work" opportunities as include Ponzi or pyramid schemes, Australian "one-up" games, and "multi-level marketing" selling only an endless-belt distribution system rather than a viable product or service having value for money.)

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WHY THE TERRIBLE-TEMPERED MR. BANG IS UNWORTHY OF YOUR VOTE IN INDECISION 2008: Iraqi and United States negotiators are said to be within measurable distance on a final agreement over United States troop withdrawals to the point where the last such could return home in two years' time.

And still, TTMB's remarks about a "100-year" presence of American Occupational Troops in Iraq reeks of nothing less than colonialism @ its crudest and most pathetic.

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METHINKS SUCH "ACTIVISTS" AS TOOK ISSUE EARLIER IN THE WEEK TO THE KIDS' MENU ITEMS OF FAST-FOOD CHAINS AS BEING "UNHEALTHY" from the standpoint of calories, fats and sodium are of that ilk seeing flatulence as a Badge of Honour--the louder and smellier, the better.

Especially in the corridors of elementary schools, what with their general age group being the core "kids' meal" target audience, IIBC; they would just love(!!!) the concentrated aroma of fumigation chamber in form of hyperjuvenile flatus--as well as flatulence jokes and humour in the Eric Cartman stylee galore.

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AND ONE THING MORE, something worth pondering:

When the denizens and doyens of the Conservative Propaganda Masheen are whining and caterwauling on and on about the supposed "irresponsibility" of the Liberal Media Conspiracy, consider the likelihood of their engaging in projection to cover for their own reckless and utter disregard of, and contempt for, journalistic responsibility. That, and the prospect of such being part of a "cash-for-comments" racket.

For those needing further insight, read what ConWebWatch has to say about the so-called "Media Research Centre" using what may best be described as projection in their attempts @ emulating the Old Testament prophet Job in pathetic lamentation about "liberals" somehow "undermining responsible journalism."