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JUDGE FOR YOURSELF, READERS, whether the packaging of Obama Waffles or an old ad for Aunt Jemima pancake flour is the more racially offensive:

As if the initial flap over "Obama Waffles" wasn't sickening enough, it's now emerged that the so-called "Family Research Council," as co-sponsored the "Values Voter Summit" with Focus on the Family about a fortnight ago, has come to its senses (or are they?) about the whole flap (courtesy of Right Wing Watch):

It has now been more than two weeks since it was reported that vendors at the Values Voter Summit were selling the offensive "Obama Waffles" and Focus on the Family's Jim Daly, who spoke at the event  which his organization also co-sponsored, is just finally getting around to issuing an apology ... while saying that FOF had nothing to do with it and blaming the Family Research Council:

You should know we were appalled by the product, and embarrassed that it was sold at an event bearing our name. Although we did not have direct responsibility for reviewing or approving vendors for the Values Voter event (that was the duty of the chief sponsor, Family Research Council Action, which has acknowledged its mistake), the truth is we should have done more to ensure the appropriateness of the displays. We apologize for our failure to do so in this instance, and have already taken steps to ensure similar things do not happen again — either in our event sponsorship or in our ministry alliances.

You should also know that Dr. Dobson had absolutely nothing to do with the product, despite some misleading media reports he cited in his radio broadcast. The truth is, Dr. Dobson was 3,000 miles away working on his latest book when the Values Voter Summit was held — and he only heard about “Obama Waffles” when references to them turned up in the news with Focus’ name attached. When he learned of the product, he was outraged by its ugly, racial stereotypes.

Racism is a blight on the American conscience. As Christians, we must also call it what God calls it: sin. Those who speak or act in racist ways, such as those who engage in any form of sin, must seek restoration through prayer and, of course, full repentance.

It is disturbing, even if not surprising, that we have seen an increase in racist public statements coinciding with Sen. Obama becoming the first African-American to win a major party’s presidential nomination. Racism is always deeply hurtful and offensive; but in the midst of a presidential race, it also detracts from the kind of substantive debate needed in the public square. It has no place even at the fringes of our political discourse.

Let me reassure you again that Focus on the Family Action will do everything in its power to prevent another such unacceptable situation in the future.

(But then again, there are anecdotal reports of racist pamphletting drives by weird and unwholesome elements in certain areas of the country in the election runup, all the more designed to question the loyalty and patriot love of Barack Obama among Right-Thinking Voters--especially so the poor, undereducated or homeschooled and easily-influenced who are likely to vote Democratic by tradition. And remember, too, that the notion of "American culture" which the Religiopolitical Right loves to project is an obviously racist one in and of itself--one which sees Branson's Muzikschaukultur as the Acme and Perfection therefor.)

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IN ANY CASE, RACISM IS RACISM, NO MATTER HOW IT'S PACKAGED or how it's presented--even as "healthy patriot love."

And should be challenged @ any and every opportunity.

IN CASE PEOPLE NEED ANOTHER CLEAR AND COMPELLING REASON NOT TO SUPPORT JOHN McCAIN IN INDECISION 2008, consider the following ur-campaign commercial (hat tip to Brave New Films):

Which can only mean that our "morally superior" nation risks all the more becoming prey to the so-called "New World Order" under a McCain/Palin ticket more so than under Obama/Biden, exploiting that One Fatal Mistake as can bring down Our Antient and Pecuilar Soverignty and Soverign Identity as a Pecuilar Among the Nations....

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AND TALK ABOUT POOR JUDGEMENTS IN POLLING WHEN IT COMES TO INDECISION 2008: Media Matters for America calls to your timely Notice and Attention what could be a miscued "opt-in" text-message poll as could be Indecision 2008's version of that infamous Presidential Straw Poll of 1936 as doomed The Literary Digest in the end:

Following the first presidential debate, on the September 26 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, co-host Sean Hannity promoted the results of a Fox News text-message poll that found that Sen. John McCain won the debate, but did not mention that viewers were allowed to begin voting just minutes into the debate. Hannity announced, "[W]e have gotten around 50,000 text votes so far. Eighty-two percent are correct: They say John McCain won." But during Fox News' broadcast of the presidential debate, an on-screen graphic invited viewers to vote on "who [they] thought won" the debate as early as 9:12 p.m. ET, 10 minutes after the candidates began responding to the moderator's questions.

Further, Hannity had previously dismissed text-message polling--which is non-scientific and produces no reliable results--as "just a lot of fun" when the results were favorable to former Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (TX). After a Fox text-message poll put Paul in first place following the October 21, 2007, Republican presidential primary debate, Hannity said to Paul during an interview, "Oh, this poll is--you've got all your supporters calling." Paul responded: "What, you mean your own poll isn't any good?" Hannity then said: "No, it's just a lot of fun."

Come to think of it, Fox Prolefeed may want to be reminded of what they would regard as Ancient History--as in The Literary Digest Presidential Straw Poll of 1936, discussed previously in this blog.

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IS IT ANY WONDER THAT WE, A SUPPOSEDLY "MORALLY SUPERIOR" SOCIETY (AND EXPECTED TO HOLD THIS DEAR AS AN ARTICLE OF FAITH), are now all the more likely to be looked upon as a "gangster state" thanks to the ur-RAHOWA Against Terrorism, and related misadventures, only giving al-Qaeda greater credibility and respect in the Arab World especially?

Such, methinks, may be the findings of a newly-released survey commissioned by the BBC of 23,000 adults across 23 countries as noted where, among other things:

• 30% of those surveyed said that the ur-RAHOWA on Terrorism may have only strengthened al-Qaeda's hand and influence, while 29% felt there was no discernible effect; 22% felt that al-Qaeda's influenced had been thus weakened.
• 49% of those surveyed felt that the ur-RAHOWA had no clear winner (an ur-Mexican Standoff, as it were), as opposed to 22% claiming the "morally superior" United States was claiming Total and Complete Victory, and 10% saying al-Qaeda was winning.
• Only 22% felt that the ur-RAHOWA Against Terrorism had weakened al-Qaeda.
• Egyptians and Pakistanis surveyed were especially likely to hold positive opinions or sympathies for al-Qaeda, especially considering where al-Qaeda has substantial numbers of members or sympathisers from both countries.

Is it any wonder that we "morally superior" Americans, pronouncements from the Elmer Gantry crowd from time to time notwithstanding, have become all the less so thanks to a fatally-flawed and misguided ur-RAHOWA based all along on lies, deceit, forgeries and trick? And should we not be ashamed of ourselves for stooping ourselves to such depths, or what otherwise prevents this?

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AS IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL, OR SO THE QUASI-NATIONAL HYMN OF DISNEYLAND AND WALT DISNEY WORLD REMINDS US, perhaps an interesting lesson and warning to would-be voters comes from the weekend's balloting in Austria, according to the BBC:

The leaders of Austria's two far-right parties have hailed the results of snap general elections, which saw their support doubling since the 2006 polls.

The Freedom Party and the Alliance for the Future of Austria took nearly 29% of the vote, preliminary results show.

The Social Democrats won the polls with 30%. But they, and the conservative People's Party, with 26%, suffered their worst results since 1945.

The shape of a possible coalition will now be hard to predict, experts say.

A total of 183 parliamentary seats were up for grabs in Sunday's election.

The early polls were called after the grand coalition between the Social Democrats and the People's Party collapsed this summer amid internal fights and personal feuds.

'Difficult situation'

"Today, we are the winners of election night," Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache said.

Mr Strache also suggested that he was interested in becoming the next chancellor, according to the Associated Press news agency.

Joerg Haider, the leader of the Alliance for the Future of Austria, told the BBC that both the Social Democrats and the People's Party were now in "a difficult situation", predicting that any coalition talks between them would fail.

"Therefore I think after some talks between these two parties, we will have the opportunity to negotiate the new government."

The Freedom Party had won 18.01% of the vote, Interior Minister Maria Fekter said.

The Alliance for the Future of Austria - which split from Mr Sprache's party in 2005 - had 10.98%.

The rise in support for the far-right parties is the result of protest votes on a variety of issues, the BBC's Bethany Bell in Vienna says.

The resurgent far-right can be attributed to a mixture of anti-European Union sentiment, some anti-immigrant positions and a general sense of discontent with the two traditional centrist parties, our correspondent says.

The far-right showing was even stronger than in 1999, when the Freedom Party won 27% and gained a place in the coalition government with the conservatives.

The nationalists could now re-enter government but only after all other options are exhausted, analysts say.

'Worst result'

The most obvious solution would be another grand coalition between the Social Democrats and the People's Party - an option most Austrians oppose, our correspondent says.

Social Democrat leader Werner Faymann on Sunday reiterated that he would not be joining forces with either of the two far-right parties.

Wilhelm Molterer, who heads the People's Party, has so far made no public comments on his possible coalition allies.

But referring to Sunday's polls, he said: "This is the worst result in the history of Austria's People's Party."

Final results will not be released until 6 October after absentee and postal ballots, making up about 10% of the votes, are counted.

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IN ANY CASE, THIS IS THE SUNDAY CHOSEN BY THE SO-CALLED "ALLIANCE DEFENSE FUND" FOR RELIGIOUS TO MAKE UNLAWFUL POLITICAL ENDORSEMENTS for the sake of creating nothing short of frivolous test cases in the Federal courts challenging the Tax Code proscriptions on non-profit religious entities (as in churches) making political endorsements of candidates for Constitutional offices.

And the argument they'll likely bring up is that churches have a Religious and Moral Duty to "advise" their penitents on who they see fit and proper for elected office come Indecision 2008. A Moral Duty based on Biblical Authority, or so they will claim--but expect the courts to dismiss such a pathetic defence in the ensuing legal actions designed solely for the particular benefit of Fox Prolefeed's giving unhealthy attention to over even Indecision 2008.

Not only Fox Prolefeed, but also certain pseudoreligiopolitical "ministries" playing along all the while. Especially when a carefully-measured and yet scripted tone and nuance are used, the kind guaranteed to conceal a psychopathic intent on the part of such involved throughout.

And which numerous studies confirm.

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COME TO THINK OF IT, THE NOTION ABOUT "THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY [BEING] A FRIEND OF MINE" used by anti-Semitic and other weird and unwholesome types to support Palestinians over Jews vis-a-vis Israel sounds rather illogical.

Fatally flawed, even, does it not? (Leave comments on this point.)

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LATE-NIGHT THOUGHTS WHILE LISTENING TO "MAIDEN JAPAN" BY THE RUMBLERS, an obscure little classic among surf-rock standards from the early 1960's, when the genre was particularly popular:

I could just imagine as a music video therefor the several specimens of Japan's storied "bullet trains" on the Tokyo-Osaka-Kyoto Tokkaido line passing by that vantage point made famous in travel posters from the mid-1960's or thereabouts showing one of the first examples of the same passing within view of Mt. Fuji--howbeit speeded up and time compressed for the sake of not so much brevity as showing all three varieties of "bullet train" now in service:

• Nozoni ("Hope"), the newest genre of "bullet train" (as in super-fast, with top speeds of 200 mph);
• Hikari ("Lightning"), the Mother of All Modern High-Speed Trains (as makes the Tokyo-Osaka run nonstop, though not as fast as the Nozoni type); and
• Kodama ("Echo"), a slower cousin of the Hikari in that it makes several stops in transit, but still makes good time.

(Just so you know: In case any of you planning to visit Japan plan on using the Japan Rail Pass, be aware that said pass is not valid on Nozoni-class high-speed services, as opposed to the Hikari and Kodama such. This applies equally to Green Class and Ordinary Class versions, Green Class being a more luxurious type of service.)

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SOMETHING WORTH THINKING ABOUT AMONG THE ANTI-SEMITIC ELEMENT THINKING THE CURRENT AMERICAN SOCIOECONOMIC CRISIS IS SOME CLASS OF A JEWISH PLOT to "weaken and undermine White European-American Christian honour and prestige," by way of this editorial from the Israeli daily Ha'aretz (Hebrew; "The Land"):

It is said that in 1929, when the stock exchange on Wall Street collapsed, hundreds of speculators jumped to their deaths through the windows of the Manhattan skyscrapers in which they worked. In reality, only a few suicides actually occurred. The real blow was felt three years after the stock exchange fell, when a large-scale crisis in the banking sector plunged the U.S. economy into an economic depression that nearly lasted until the end of the decade. In 1932, the number of suicides in the U.S. reached a record high.

Nobody is committing suicide now on Wall Street. Those who are not economists are treating the chaos in Congress and the collapse of the financial institutions as just another event. The absurdity is that in 1929, a minority within a minority of U.S. citizens invested in the stock exchange. In 2008, almost every American worker is invested either directly or indirectly, and is thus affected by the ringing collapse of the banks, insurance houses and investment firms. Thus it is difficult to understand the indifference in which this past month's economic developments have been received. After three days of tense negotiations, the U.S. Congress this past weekend blocked an emergency bailout plan proposed by the treasury. In fact, it was the Republicans who opposed the series of measures approved by President George W. Bush. Meanwhile, another banking giant collapsed - Washington Mutual.

The repercussions of these developments are immediate and painful also for Israel. Losses in the stocks and bonds market hurt investors as well as anyone putting aside money for retirement. The forecast for the intermediate term is no less threatening: higher unemployment, less growth, a drop in the standard of living, a decline in the real estate market. The situation here is as it is there.

The United States, the largest political, economic and military superpower since the Roman Empire, is undergoing an existential crisis. In economic terms, the scope of the crisis is the largest since Franklin Delano Roosevelt entered the White House. In ideological terms, it is the largest since the Civil War. The house of cards that rests on the pillars of financial witchcraft - lies based on the assumption that what goes up will continue to go up, and that one may extend loans on an unlimited basis and not have to pay them back by the end of the month - came crashing down before our very eyes over the course of the past year. The layer that is now collapsing with the nationalization of mortgage and insurance companies together with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, is the one which serves as the foundation of the financial system in the U.S. and its capitalist ideology.

Capitalism is not dead, yet the way it was practiced in America this past decade is fading away. The emergency unit treatment that the U.S. government is now proposing is highly problematic. The rescue plan being championed by the treasury secretary includes the same troublesome measures of the kind that gave birth to the crisis, yet it appears that there are not that many options available. America is on the path to decline, together with those who shared in the fraudulent belief in free credit.

How ironic it is that the president during whose term the credit bubble burst and the crisis hit, is the son of the president who promised a new world order. That promise is being realized, yet in a manner not intended by Bush senior. In November, a new American president will be elected. The challenge awaiting him is monumental - to heal the empire, whose arteries are becoming clogged having just undergone a heart attack. The time has come for America to rediscover the best it has to offer - the creativity, the industriousness, the freedom and the strength for innovation that made it a role model for the rest of the world.

(Too, readers, let's not forget that Iranian President Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan majordomo Chavez have been quoted themselves as suggesting that our supposedly "moral" misadventures in the ur-RAHOWA Against Terrorism may have helped aggravate the socioeconomic turmoil thanks to His Fraudulency's post-9/11 insistence of maintaining normalcy as one with preventing further terrorist attacks, not to mention insisting that sustained socioeconomic growth and arbitrarily-low taxes "to help create jobs" will finance the ur-RAHOWA to the point of Complete and Final Victory--as in nothing short of an American Colonial Occupation of Iraq "for as long as necessary," as in subject to "the proper signs" being discerned by fortune-smellers working for the Great Within. Fortune-smellers, it turns out, of a highly disreputable sort.)

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THOSE OF YOU LOOKING FOR A CONVENIENT WAY TO FIX SWEDISH MEATBALLS WITHOUT WASTING NEEDLESS TIME might want to consider this interesting little recipe of mine:

• 32-35 frozen Swedish-stylee meatballs (Burke's or Rosina brand, depending on where you live)
• ½ cup prepared sodium-free chicken broth OR, alternately, 1 tsp. chicken bouillon granules dissolved in ½ cup hot water
• 1 10¾-oz. can condensed fat-free cream of mushroom soup
• 1 4-oz. can sliced mushroom stems and pieces (drain liquid)
• Few drops Worcestershire sauce or Maggi Seasoning
• ½ cup (half of an 8-oz. tub) prepared snack dip (any flavour)

Spray non-stick cooking spray into a 2-qt. slow cooker.

Place the frozen meatballs into the slow cooker.

Combine chicken broth/bouillon and cream of mushroom soup in the same measuring cup, blending well. Add a few drops Worcestershire; stir into the meatballs in the slow cooker.

Add mushrooms; stir to blend.

Cover and cook on Low heat for 4-6 hours (or, if time is of the essence, on High for 1½-3 hours.)

Half an hour before serving, add snack dip, blending well.

Serve over cooked cholesterol-free egg noodles or rice. (Remember to refrigerate leftovers.)

I hope the recipe agrees with you.      

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FOR SOME REASON OR ANOTHER, YOUR CORRESPONDENT WAS THINKING ABOUT FURTHER POTENTIALLY FALSE OR MISLEADING STATEMENTS used by the likes of case managers or supervisors in sheltered workshops, Vocational Guidance Counsellors in Vocational Rehabilitation, even Community Mental Health psychiatrists, used as a means to keep our types "in line" (in theory, know) for the sake of "improving our chances of getting work in the community"--especially so during periods of economic uncertainty or otherwise limited job openings.

Not to mention find ways of keeping as many sheltered-workshop clients as possible just to maximise subsidies based solely on their own greed as opposed to a sincere desire to help the disabled find decent jobs in the work market.

In any case, here's a few more I came across:

• "Companies really don't want to add costs; they really want to add value--but are unable to do so because of outdated and unnecessary laws as prevent this."
• "Even with tax credits and incentives to encourage hiring disabled people, employers don't want to deal with a wasteful and unnecessary burden of paperwork just to collect them."
• "Research has shown that disabled people are best suited to work in unskilled, low-profile manufacturing positions."
• "The only employment you really need is such as requires you to use your hands rather than your mind--and to use them wisely and constructively."
• "We could lose precious subsidies and tax incentives if we allowed you to find work on your lonesome. You should let us do the work for you, and save you disappointment."
• "Companies (or consumer protection agencies, or the Better Business Bureau) don't want to deal with your petty frivolous complaints as are long-winded; besides, they don't have time or resources to go through all your nonsense."
• "You would be better off if you just kept your mouth shut and nose clean. Employers don't like to hire troublemakers or rabble-rousers."
• "If you file a complaint, be concise in what you have to say; they don't have time to read long-winded nonsense. If possible, consider using Newspeak."
• "Various employers have been given a book containing certain letters to the editor of yours as a warning that you cannot be trusted with employment without posing a security risk."
• "Consumer-protection agencies already have a number of complaints against whom you're complaining about, whch will only delay things needlessly."

No wonder the traditional sheltered-workshop system is as warped as it has been.

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AND TALKING ABOUT THE WARPED POWER AND POTENTIAL OF LIES AND FALSEHOODS, Glenn Greenwald with Salon.com observes where racists are starting to use the Washington Mutual collapse last week for their own sinister and perverted purposes as suggest that only White Male European-American Christians are entitled to control of the "morally superior" American socioeconomic model and paradigm (with two updates as followed its original posting, and emphasis supplied):

National Review's Mark Krikorian notes that (1) Washington Mutual became the largest bank to fail in American history yesterday and (2) its last press release touted the fact that it was named one of America's most diverse employers, having been "honored specifically for its efforts to recruit Hispanic employees, reach out to Hispanic consumers and support Hispanic communities and organizations"; for being "named [one of] the top 60 companies for Hispanics"; for "attaining equal rights for GLBT employees and consumers"; for having "earned points for competitive diversity policies and programs, including the recently established Latino, African American and GLBT employee network groups"; and for being "named one of 25 Noteworthy Companies by Diversity Inc magazine and one of the Top 50 Corporations for Supplier Diversity by Hispanic Enterprise magazine."

While juxtaposing these two facts--(1) WaMu has a racially and ethnically diverse workforce and (2) WaMu collapsed yesterday--the National Review writer headlined his post: "Cause and Effect?" He apparently believes that the reason Washington Mutual failed may be because it employed and was too accommodating to large numbers of Hispanics, African-Americans and gays. Is that why Lehman Brothers, AIG, Bear Sterns and so many others also failed--too racially diverse of a workforce? Ironically, the night before, National Review's Mark Steyn and Hugh Hewitt agreed with one another that The Atlantic Monthly was forever destroyed as a journalistic entity because it employs Andrew Sullivan, whose writings about Sarah Palin are "a form of mental illness."

At roughly the same time, Law Professor Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds promoted this article by University of Oklahoma Professor David Deming, which described "Obama's thinly veiled hatred for this country's unique culture and institutions" and said he was "a hollow man that despises American culture," and the article predicted that "more Americans will come to this realization and elect McCain/Palin in a landslide." Professor Dunning explained that Sarah Palin compares favorably to Obama because she--unlike he--was "unassisted by affirmative action" and "is not embarrassed by being an American." Then, this shining light of the right-wing blogosphere lavished praise on that article in a post entitled "Alien Obama" and explained that "Barack Obama despises America and American values because he has never known or experienced them, as he did not grown up in a normal American culture"; that "Obama is un-American"; and that "[Obama] is not one of us" (Professor Reynolds then linked to that "analysis," too).

Yesterday, The Atlantic's Ross Douthat argued--more or less persuasively--that both presidential campaigns have decided, for different tactical reasons, that it's in their interests to ensure that the election entails no real substantive differences between the two candidates and that the election has therefore become "an election about nothing." Even if that's true, the need to banish the faction that has been driven by drooling, ugly cretins like these--the people whose twisted mentality brought us torture and rampant lawlessness and endless authoritarian destruction and who crave still more of all of that (and economic crises always exacerbate hatemongering extremists and render their bile infinitely more dangerous)--is, by itself, reason enough to care about the outcome.

UPDATE: Yves Smith posts this informed speculation:

I understand that the explosion in the OIS spread is a reflection of the fear banks have for each others solvency. And it makes sense that it exploded right after the bankruptcy of [Lehman Brothers]--it was not the bankruptcy per se, IMO, but the that $110b of senior LEH debt went from trading .95 to .12 in a matter of days that concentrated the market's attention. If you include the less senior debt that is trading at essentially zero, LEH had $110b hole in its balance sheet. And just days before this, the market was being told and was believing that the $10b disposition of Neuberger was going to solve their funding problems.

Now is there a precedent in this history of bankruptcy--excluding cases of accounting fraud--where bonds collapsed like this once a bankruptcy court opened up the books? I'm thinking the answer is 'no.' Which then makes you re-evaluate the premise that there wasn't fraud at LEH in marking the value of their assets.

Now extrapolate this reasoning across the entire banking system and, voila, you have the seizure of the interbank lending market.

Now this leads me to the question: if the OIS spread represents eminently legitimate fears of inaccurate marks on banks books, how is a commitment from the treasury to buy hundreds of billions of distressed assets from the banks any assurance to a counterparty that that bank will not still become insolvent.

There are all sorts of reasons that led us to this financial crises--including, quite possibly, pervasive fraud at the highest levels of the financial world in how these "assets" were valued and, most certainly, a reckless institutional pursuit of endless profits by exploiting illusory financial instruments. Trying to blame it on the fact that home loans were made to racial minorities--or, worse, that these institutions employed too many racial minorities, as National Review's Krikorian did--is demagoguery so vile and reckless that it defies description.

UPDATE II: Digby has more on the Right's strategy--including from National Review--to blame minorities for the financial crisis, here and here.

And good for conservative Professor Stephen Bainbridge, who says about the likes of Krikorian and Malkin: "They make you embarrassed to be a Conservative" and: "the freezing up of the credit markets doesn't have anything to do with either affirmative action or illegal immigration, and people who believe it does are on a par with the conspiracy theorists who think flouridation is a Chicom plot."

(For "America's unique culture and institutions," think in terms of the idealised vision packaged in 1950's-model TV sitcoms ... and that which is epitomised by Die Bransoner Muzikschaukultur: a white, "European-American" model which unwittingly contains overtures to that which the Nazi regime's Kraft durch Frude ("Strength Through Joy") programme sought to promote in the name of national and racial unity through "folk culture festivals" under its sponsorship and direction, not to mention subsidised short-break vacations in beauty spots and spas.)

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SO MUCH FOR THE ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS @ FOX PROLEFEED AND FOX PROLEFEED II INSISTING THAT THE "MORALLY SUPERIOR" AMERICAN ECONOMY is "healthy" when facts suggest otherwise--in particuar unemployment approaching 6% and upwards, and many all the more unlikely to find jobs "despite reasonable efforts" to try finding work "for emotional well-being" as much as to maintain a healthy living.

Meaning, in effect, expect your e-mail to see the likes of hiring calls such as the following, which are unlikely to produce realistic employment for realistic pay or "emotional well-being" within measurable distance--and all because of His Fraudulency's Great Within (know, this is an actual e-mail which Your Correspondent received recently):

Hello,
We are a company that conduct surveys and evaluate other companies. We get hired to go to other peoples companies and act like customers in order to know how the staffs are handling their services in relation to their customers. Once we have a contract to do you would be directed to the company or outlet and you would be given the funds you need to do the job(either purchase things or require services) after which you would write a comment on the staffs activities and give a detailed record of your experience. Examples of details you would forward to us are

1) How long it took you to get services.
2) Smartness of the attendant
3) Customer service professionalism
4) Sometimes you might be required to upset the attendant to see how they react to clients when they get tensed (under pressure).

We turn the information (you gave us) over to the company executives and they would carry out their own duties in improving their services.
Most companies employ our assistance when people give complaints about their services or when they feel there are needs for them to improve their customer service. Your Identity would be kept confidential as the job states (secret shopper) you would be paid $100 for every survey you carry out bonus on your transportation allowance and funds would be given to you if you have to dine as part of the duty.
Your job will be to evaluate and comment on customer service in a wide variety of shops, stores, restaurant and services in your area. No commitment is made on this job and you would have flexible hours as it suits you. If you are interested do send in

(I)Your Full Name:
(II)Your Residence address:
City:
State:
Zip Code:
(III)Present work address:
(IV)Home and mobile Phone numbers:
(V)Email address:
(VI)Your Age and Current Occupation:
(VII)Your Gender:

So we can look at your distance from the locations which you have to put your service into, and your address would also be needed for your payments.
Thomas hiring manager.

(N.B. Please don't contact me if you're enquiring about "mystery shopper" positions per the above; instead, you might want to contact local retailers for referrals to companies that would use "mystery shoppers" from time to time.)

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WITH THE ARREST OF PSEUDORELIGIOUS EVANGEL TONY ALAMO THE OTHER DAY FOR CHARGES RELATING TO THE OLD KINDERPORN, and his playing the rather lame-sounding meme of "Christian Persecution! Christian Persecution!" (all in the key of "Ring around the collar!") all the while in trying to excuse himself ... perhaps a psychopathic evaluation might be in order as part of the enquiries.

After all, showing sexual tendencies towards the pre-pubescent is a Serious Mental Disorder. And to have someone using the defence of being a religious to evade responsibility speaks volumes right there.

(Let's not forget where those of the so-called "European-American" community are also fond of playing this same "Christian Persecution!" meme vis-a-vis the "once proud, now persecuted by a Communist-inspired regime" Afrikaner Peoples of South Africa to whip up empathy towards an "evacuation" which could be cancelled just as suddenly as the fundraising appeals started.)

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TELL ME THIS DOESN'T SPEAK VOLUMES FOR IRONIC HYPOCRISY AND DOUBLETHINK: White Christian Supremacists who hold dear "healthy and patriotic" anti-Semitism as an article of faith sympathising with the Palestinian Arab cause based on the "enemy-of-my-enemy" argument.

And this notwithstanding these same Archie Bunker/Alf Garnett types seeing Arabs as "inferior peoples" and Islam as "a religion of terrorism and violence" all along!

Can they please explain this doublethink for once, or what otherwise stands in the way?

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BRIGHT IDEA FOR THE BLOGOSPHERE FROM MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA AS THE ELECTION ENTERS THE OH-SO-CRITICAL HOMESTRETCH, "October Surprise" department--as can target John McCain in the proverbial Achilles' heel of "public opinion" among the "right-thinking Americans" resident over @ the Park & Flush Trailer Park, never mind their neighbours including certain oversexed pre-pubescent sisters by name of Kanker:

Every few days, John McCain or his campaign lashes out at the news media, often focusing their ire on The New York Times, for alleged bias against the Republican presidential candidate. It's a strange claim coming from the politician who has enjoyed a cozier relationship with the national media than any other in memory.

Patrick Healy's article in this morning's New York Times provides yet another of the countless examples that undermine McCain's claim. Though most public polling--including the Times' own poll--shows that more people have confidence in Barack Obama's ability to handle the economy than in McCain's, and more people think Obama understands their needs and problems, Healy asserted that Obama is "out of sync" with the public and accused him of "convey[ing] a certain distance from the ache that many voters feel."

On Monday, the McCain campaign accused The New York Times of being "150 percent in the tank" for Obama. On Friday, the Times demonstrated the absurdity of that accusation by publishing an article that baselessly asserted that Obama is struggling to connect with the public on economic issues despite the fact that polling shows the exact opposite--it is McCain who is struggling. But that wasn't the only bizarre element of the Times article: Seemingly out of the blue, Healy invoked Obama's race:

He wants to appear fired up over the economy, but he has written before about wanting to avoid appearing like a stereotypical angry black man. Unlike Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton and other black leaders whose fulminations could scare white voters, Mr. Obama is not from and of New York, Detroit, or the segregated South; he grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia. To some degree Mr. Obama faces the opposite challenge from fiery black leaders who came before him: Is he too cool for a crisis like this one?

So, according to Times reporter Patrick Healy, Jesse Jackson is too hot, and Barack Obama is too cool. Presumably, Healy will let us know when he finds an African-American who is just right.

And this, remember, is the newspaper that the McCain campaign says is "150 percent in the tank" for Obama.

But the week's most striking indication that the media are inadequately scrutinizing McCain rather than, as he claims, unfairly doing so is that in the midst of a banking crisis, there is virtually no media examination of McCain's role in a similar crisis 20 years ago.

Sure, the Keating Five has been mentioned in news reports during this campaign. But when McCain's involvement in the scandal comes up in the media, it tends to be a brief mention--and often one that paints McCain in the best possible light. On Monday, Politico reporter Ben Smith gave a telling response to the Obama campaign's complaints that insufficient attention has been paid to McCain's relationship with Keating:

The Keating Five scandal, though, is hardly a secret. Indeed, the story is central to McCain's political narrative. He's called his actions a mistake, and the episode is what transformed him into a self-stylled [sic] reformer.

"He has basically dedicated his career since that moment to the cleaning up of Washington," McCain aide Douglas Holtz-Eakin told me last week.

As Smith's reaction demonstrates, the version of the Keating Five story the media typically tell is the version that is "central to McCain's political narrative"--that the experience turned McCain into a political Mr. Clean, rampaging against corruption in the nation's capital. We are told McCain's tale of redemption--but little of what he did to make redemption necessary.

Take, for example, one of the most damning--and under-reported--facts of the case: Not only did McCain take campaign contributions and free Bahamas vacations from Keating, but his wife also invested more than $350,000 in a Keating real estate development shortly before McCain met with federal banking regulators on Keating's behalf.

Yes, John McCain's wife -- in whose houses McCain lives and entertains throngs of adoring reporters -- had a direct financial relationship with Keating. And according to The Boston Globe, one of the regulators who felt like he was pressured by McCain to go easy on Keating believes McCain intervened in part because of Cindy McCain's investment with Keating.

A New York Times editorial earlier this year touched on the investment in arguing for the release of Cindy McCain's taxes:

There is no question that Mr. McCain--the candidate--has reaped considerable benefits from his wife's wealth, including discounted use of her company's corporate jet to fly from state to state during this campaign.

Voters also deserve to know whether any of Senator McCain's official actions have benefited his wife, family members, or their business associates, as they did in the case of Charles Keating, the Arizona developer and savings and loan operator at the center of the Keating Five scandal two decades ago. A year before Mr. McCain's 1987 meetings with bank regulators on Mr. Keating's behalf, Mrs. McCain and her father invested more than $350,000 in a strip mall developed by Mr. Keating.

[...]

Senator and Mrs. McCain should show that they're both committed to open government and release Mrs. McCain's returns.

But Cindy McCain's tax returns still have not been released. And the news media (which obsessively demanded the release of Bill and Hillary Clinton's tax returns) have all but ignored the topic. And the fact that Cindy McCain was a business partner of Keating's has been treated as a state secret by the national news media. Since January 1, 2007:

• The New York Times has not mentioned the investment in a single news article, even though the paper's editorial board has explained its significance.

• The Washington Post has not mentioned the investment -- not once. The Post has run two separate profiles of Cindy McCain that mentioned the Keating Five controversy, each of which ran more than 2,500 words. But, incredibly, neither article mentioned the strip mall investment. Nor has any other Washington Post article during the campaign.

• Neither USA Today nor Time magazine has mentioned the investment.

• Neither ABC, nor CBS, nor NBC has mentioned the investment -- not a single time.

CNN has mentioned the investment in profiles of McCain that have aired several times. In one, the cable channel even aired video of one of the Keating regulators who felt pressured noting that "Senator McCain was unique among the five senators in having a direct financial conflict of interest involving direct investments.... On judgment, ethics and truthfulness, he failed this test as badly as you can fail." But CNN has been an exception among national media, not the rule.

In 1990, in the midst of the Keating Five investigation, the Phoenix New Times noted that the scandal had scuttled McCain's hopes at national office:

The stakes are incredibly high for McCain. There was a time, before the Keating bubble burst, when he was reportedly being considered for a spot on the Republican ticket as vice president.

Those days are over.

Now, with the nation in the midst of another banking crisis caused in part by deregulation, John McCain is running for president--and the national media are keeping the details of his involvement in the Keating fiasco a secret.

So why the need for keeping the interconnexion vis-a-vis John McCain and Charles Keating all the more secret heading into what may be THE single most important election America faces in its 232 years as a soverign entity, 220 such under the same Constitution--an election as could make all the difference in whether we remain a "gangster state" in the hands of low-lying Fascisti or whether we can reclaim liberty?

So, dear bloggers: Remind your readers that John McCain was among the "Keating Five" as sent the savings-and-loan community into outright ruin and disgrace. And insist that he come forward, fully explaining his involvement and interconnexions. The facts--pure, unadulterated facts. No exaggerations. No drunken fantasies. Hold back nothing.

Even if it means aggravating McCain to the point of spontaneously going into Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang mode, using Billingsgate without warning on live TV (especially so on Fox Prolefeed)--which, to the Great Unwashed, will be proof enough of just how much of a clear and present danger the McCain/Palin ticket may pose to Our Antient and Pecuilar Soverignty and Soverign Identity as a Pecuilar Among the Nations.

Said danger even reaching the level where the "New World Order" can suddenly usurp said Antient and Pecuilar Soverignty and Soverign Identity all the easier.