JUST AN ANNOUNCEMENT TO LET YOU KNOW WHERE THE EXAGGERATOR HAS, JUST TODAY, CROSSED THE 10,000-VISITOR MARK since its launch towards the end of last year to supplant the daily phosdex as Your Correspondent's blog of record.

All this over the space of eight months, one week and one day!

And thanks to all of you for actually making this possible--although I do acknowledge that there hasn't been any revenue from the online shopping angle; would that it were otherwise. In fact, I'd greatly appreciate some serious online purchasing among you weblog visitors; after all, disability benefits on my part can only go so far month after month, and what's more, it's unlikely I will be coming into money within measurable distance.

And if you needed another reason to shop online with The Exaggerator, it's that I intend to donate part of the proceeds I generate in commissions as come only from your purchases to Good and Worthwhile Causes. Need I say more?

With that in mind, I'd especially welcome it, for the sake of not so much Your Correspondent as the environment (even if gas prices have been falling in recent weeks), if this blog's visitors, both new and old, took the time to get any online shopping they need completing completed here as a gesture of convenience.

THERE SEEMS TO BE THIS OVERWHELMINGLY HARD-WIRED BELIEF INHERENT AMONG THE RELIGIOPOLITICAL RIGHT AND THEIR DROOGS as implies that the Lower Classes, especially so the "chronic and habitual welfare basket cases," are somehow "lacking in healthy respect for morals and decency" to the point of having this overzealous fondness for the crudest and most explicit forms of pornography known.

Especially so such as goes beyond "schoolboy" soft porn in the likes of Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler to the point of full-on hardcore--the which these same specimens of Zealotry and True Belief would just love to deploy as a means of cheap and cheerful pacification most extreme, espeially where such can be displayed in its most explicit form possible (and especially so where children and animals are involved).

Talk about your doublethink right there....

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MEANWHILE, PERHAPS IT WAS TIME TO SHOW THE REAL, JANUS-FACED, SARAH PALIN FOR WHAT SHE REALLY IS, AND WHAT SHE REALLY REPRESENTS--first, by way of the American News Project, ultimately via Brave New Films, showing just how hard-wired (as it were) the Elmer Gantry element is in parroting out nothing but a carefully-scripted series of hagiographic paeans:

And, for the sake of "fairness and balance," Fox Prolefeed notwithstanding, Comedy Central's Daily Show has the following, starting @ about 3:08 into the following:

And Another Thing:

In reply to Ms. Palin's unflattering attack on those unselfishly giving of their time and talents to the community in the name of a perverted ideal of a Greater Collective Good as is up there with what totalitarian regimes see thereof, may I call your attention to these immortal remarks of Theodore Roosevelt in his speech entitled "Citizenship in a Republic" @ the Sorbonne in Paris on 23 April 1910 (by way of the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Society), remarks as relevant today as they were shorly after Teddy picked up his Nobel Peace Prize for brokering the Treaty of Portsmouth as ended the Russo-Japanese War in 1907:

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

In a similar vein as above are these much earlier remarks of Theodore Roosevelt before he acceeded to higher things (credit as above):

...the man who really counts in the world is the doer, not the mere critic-the man who actually does the work, even if roughly and imperfectly, not the man who only talks or writes about how it ought to be done. (1891)

Criticism is necessary and useful; it is often indispensable; but it can never take the place of action, or be even a poor substitute for it. The function of the mere critic is of very subordinate usefulness. It is the doer of deeds who actually counts in the battle for life, and not the man who looks on and says how the fight ought to be fought, without himself sharing the stress and the danger. (1894)

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MEANWHILE, THE GREATER CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT'S FEAR, LOATHING AND CONTEMPT FOR ELITISM, WHAT WITH ITS SUBTLE TURNS TOWARDS ANTI-SEMITISM and other displays of paranoia, suggests to Your Correspondent what may best be described as Producerism, pure and unadulterated.

Which, simply put, holds as follows:

• The Working Classes, as of unwritten right, custom and tradition, are entitled to special rights, privileges and powers by virtue of their role and place; however,
• Said rights, privileges and powers are under constant threat of being compromised and undermined,
• on the one hand, by banking, financial, media, Hollywood and Wall Street elites, dominated for the most part by Jews working as part of an Evil and Sinister Conspiracy to undermine Christians and Christendom (per that infamous forgery known as the Protocols of Zion), and
• on the other hand, by National Minorities of "inferior races," "chronic and habitual" welfare cases, "freaks and travesties of Nature" (as in homosexuals and transsexuals) and other "troublemakers"generally; hence,
• Using "whatever means necessary," no matter how loathsome, offensive or repugnant--and excusing such as True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command if and when pressed to explain--to protect as much as defend the "antient and pecuilar rights, privileges and powers that the Working Classes are entitled to as of right and custom."

Which, given this same element's fear and loathing of the Establishment Media Elites as being part of a Greater Liberal Media Conspiracy ("Liberal," methinks, being anti-Semitic code), is also enough to wonder if the messengers thereof have this warped nostalgia for the likes of gazettas such as Grit, Comfort, Capper's Weekly and the National Weekly Edition of The Kansas City Star ... or, for that matter, the populist-leaning programming overnights on high-powered Mexican "border-blaster" stations whose calls invariably began with XE. And looking upon them with a maudlin sense of emotional nostalgia rivalled by certain specimens of German Heimatroman such as the Nazi regime was fond of pushing in cheap editions.

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CLOSING OUT THIS EDITION, WE HAVE ANOTHER ROUND OF "THE SCOOP" from the back page of the Minnesota State Fair Daily News for Day 5 (Monday, 25 August):

Rachel head of sellers at gate 5 won silver for marching ask her

Thank you Liz F for the VERY special treat just when I needed it! Mary M.

Thanks to Leia from Sales for helping us out in a last minute bind. Much appreciated. Admin. Dept.

WBIII, like I said they will be lining up!!!

Mary at Gate is old but awesome

KF, you just made a families [sic] day!

BD: are we going to have some kick butt tan lines tomorrow! Wear them with pride!

TD, your announcement skills blow my mind!

BES you are just a ball of fun!

Fairchild and Fairborne you did great work!

WEN sometimes we don't know what to do with you down here ... but I guess you've been here for four years we'll take you for another fair!

Teflon: your left arm is going to be so muscular from lugging that gorgeous piece of jewelry around

RG the handshake is beyond awesome it is beloved by all

AH you are one heck of a gal ... fair secrets and all!

Oh those dogs at the Pet Center were a hoot!

Anyone tired yet??

Man oh man that pie was out of this world

Frisky as a puppy ... yeah I dig it

WE LOVE THE FAIR!!!

Andrea: nothing wrong with multiple fair friends....

FoN stage ... what a hoot

I would love to learn how to carve a beautiful flower out of some fruit or anything really

Who's up for a ride in Adventure Park!?!

Sleep in eight days!

Who thinks it's time to go eat? Andy we know you're in

I'm ready to rumble Peter!

Backstreet is back and ready for action!

AH I heard you tried to rush the stage last night ... how'd that turn out for you?? I always felt that you could be a really good groupie for some lucky band

Teflon: My ovs are burnin!!

Continued tomorrow....

more the engrish!

OPENING THIS TIME AROUND (HOWBEIT A LITTLE LATER THAN USUAL FOR REASONS WHICH WILL BE EXPLAINED SHORTLY) is new video from Brave New Films as could best be entitled "Same Tactic, New Target."

As in Fox Prolefeed's use of "swift-boating" the Democratic Presidential candidate to the point of getting voters to vote not so much for their own best interests as for an idealised Greater Collective Good which may only be selling out Our Antient and Pecuilar Soverignty and Soverign Identity to the "Evil Empire" of the "New World Order"--all the while excusing such as "perfectly moral:"

Which raises the question of whether the GOP as much as Fox Prolefeed is receiving "consultations" from the so-called "Church of Scientology" on how best to deploy the "Fair Game" weapon of Scientologists and Scientology for corrupt and depraved political purposes, and excuse all as "winning of hearts and minds."

As if that weren't enough, the Media Matters Action Network has this interesting display on how the conservative propaganda masheen is using all manner of interrelated memes against Barack Obama to advance the One Greater Meme of "Obama is Not One of Us" to whip up support for the McCain/Palin ticket "by whatever means necessary," scruples and decency seen as "unnecessary."

(For the sake of the "One of Us" argument as above, Your Correspondent has to ask if the propagators thereof mean White Male Low Church Christians, especially so those of the Primitive Churches such as Independent Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Cumberland Presbyterians, Plymouth Brethren and other Fundamentalist or Primitive Christian churches without synodical affiliation "to maintain the purity and integrity of Our Faith." The kind that would rewrite the chorus to the hymn "Faith of Our Fathers," a staple of Low Church types, to read "Faith of our Fathers, sacred [holy] faith;/We shall [will] be true to Thee 'till death.")

=============

AND SPEAKING OF JOHN McCAIN'S APPROACH LAST NIGHT (WHICH I HEARD ABOUT SECONDHAND; I DIDN'T LISTEN TO OR WATCH SAME, KNOW) tending to the soft-spoken, it may be worth reminding us all that there are psychological studies as show where a soft, measured tone and approach may belie unwitting psychopathic tendencies on the messenger's part.

Especially coming from someone who used "change" no less than ten times in the acceptance speech, by one count, as if suggesting where his approach amounts to nothing less than a Government-Protected Monopoly on Conservative Thought reinforced by a sadisto "iron heel" mindset.

As if that weren't enough, might I suggest that McCain and Palin be scheduled for appearences on the Faux "reality" series The Moment of Truth, where the targeted are subjected to a standard polygraph test to "winkle out" any fraud, deceit, lies or tricks.

*************

TIME NOW FOR THE SCOOP FROM THE MINNESOTA STATE FAIR DAILY NEWS from Day 4 (Sunday, 24 August):

Congratulations to Tessa in marketing who got engaged after the Paisley concert on Friday!

Who was that gorgeous State Fair employee on 5 News this morning??

Why would anybody drag a cane and pretend its a baton? You should feel sorry for him!!

Quirk/Birk are back on Machinery Hill. Just don't ask any question on John Deer's [sic].

Thanks to the guys and gals who do such a great job of taking care of our every need at the camgrounds [sic]. Mark and Mike are the best!--#247 and #248

Bizzle Dizzle, I heard KTTC needs a reporter. Thoughts?

Monkeys--the flowers regret to inform you we are out of bananas. You may want to try the farmers market.

Nick K. you have the longest ID # of anyone!

Congrats to Betty and Frank Moon in the Ed Building on their 51st anniversary.

CV thanks for saving me from the Mouth Trap!

Rapture you are my one B only HBC+TPB

Mike G., Algene L., Peg J., and Terri B. you guys rock!

Bill--are those complaints gettingto you??

Have you seen the Bazaar? WOW! Welcome back to all of our old neighbors and welcome to the new ones. George, it's going to be tough to enlarge by Hawaiian vocabulary with you so far away. Happy Birthday Nancy!

Yum ... pronto

Thanks to everyone who helped with the motorcycle parade. It went off without a hitch!--KF

BD those arms of yours are crazy

More where these came from tomorrow, folks....

*************

TELL ME THIS ISN'T AN INDIRECT BYPRODUCT OF THE IRAQI THEATER OF THE UR-RAHOWA AGAINST INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM: UNESCO has announced that the southern Iraqi marshlands along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which have been suggested as being the site of the Biblical-era Garden of Eden, have been designated as a World Heritage Site.

Which is no doubt appealing to the Iraqi Ministry of the Environment, which has done considerably to reverse attempts by the former Ba'athist regime to drain substantial amounts of wetland acreage in question to create new agricultural lands (cf. the Fascist regime under Mussolini draining the Pontine Marshes in the 1920's for these same ends).

*************

THE RELIGIOPOLITICAL ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS MUST BE PRAYING ALL THE MORE FERVENTLY FOR HURRICANE IKE WREAKING WRATH-OF-G-D-STYLEE DEVASTATION wholesale upon Cuba in the hope of generating enough devastation as would be beyond the efforts of the Communist regime to attempt any manner of reconstruction.

The which would, hopefully, be enough to spark Spontaneous Popular Uprisings against the regime's delays in providing anything remotely resembling relief as the Great Within can exploit for "October Surprise" purposes to sway the vote for the McCain/Palin ticket--as in whipping up a Popular Rebellion (coverage provided exclusively by Fox Prolefeed) that would bring about not so much democracy as a Corporatist-Scientologist regime with "reality show"-stylee coverage serving nothing but "winning of hearts and minds" purposes in expecting the Lower Classes to see free-market capitalism in a "pure" (self-regulated) form as their Great White Father, their Hope and Salvation towards Complete and Final Empowerment after years and even generations of "habitual enslavement bordering on dependency" via State welfare.

(Or so those involved in the farce think.)

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Hanna's rains could be what the Carolinas have been hoping and praying for after nearly two years or so of considerable drought and water-use restrictions. (I should know; I have a brother--retired military, know--living in Fayetteville, NC who has had to cope with the whole while keeping a modest backyard garden.)

*************

MEMO TO DUCK HUNTERS WHO ARE TRYING TO PURCHASE THEIR DUCK STAMPS FOR THIS YEAR TELEPHONICALLY: The brochure for same quoted the wrong freecall number to that effect by way of typographical erratum.

It's actually 1-800-STAMP-24, not the 1-800-TRAMP-24 you've been quoted: The latter turns out to be a phone-sex service. (This information being presented as a public service, inasmuch as the Fish and Wildlife Service, as is behind the Duck Stamp scheme, has announced that, because of costs, such will not be reprinted with corrected information.)

Please pass this message along to your duck-hunting friends, who will need to buy a Duck Stamp along with their licence.

*************

NOW, AS PROMISED, I WILL EXPLAIN THE DELAY IN POSTING MY ENTRY FOR TODAY into this blog: Following my morning's work @ the motel here in Winona, Your Correspondent decided to take his bicycle to a bike shop downtown to get some broken or snapped spokes replaced, via a Kwik Trip store to treat myself to a mid-morning snack.

Once the velocipede was left with the repair department, and advice received that the repair would be somewhat delayed, he walked down to the Walgreen's here in Winona (on the east side, know, by the hospital) to stock up on some blue pain-relief gel, some body wash, some cookies and cough drops.

And walked back. And, after leaving his shopping with the bike shop's repair section, took lunch @ a Chinese restaurant in the downtown: Cashew chicken with fried rice, preceded by won ton soup and egg roll with sweet-and-sour sauce, with oolong tea to accompany the whole.

Following lunch, picked up some ink cartridges for the computer printer "just in case."

And spent some time @ the biblio to check on my e-mail.

In the end, three spokes were found to be broken and required replacement, not to mention a fourth as broke when the repair man tried to tighten said spoke. As well, while the opportunity presented itself, a new bicycle seat was purchased and installed.

Now you know. And I apologise for the delay.

(Come to think of it, in case any of you readers are wondering about gift ideas for my birthday on Wednesday, 2 October, I could welcome a heavy-frame bicycle; Mein Innkeeper Friend is of the opine that my girth would require something along those lines for a replacement bike.)     

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YOU'RE PROBABLY GOING TO WANT TO SHARE THIS PARTICULAR ITEM WITH THOSE AMONG YOUR FRIENDS AND E-MAIL CIRCLES who are still hard-wired in their Zealotry and True Belief in the John McCain/Sarah Palin Presidential ticket, seeing in the same the Complete and Final Triumph of the American Will over the forces of the New World Order's Evil Empire.

Especially considering these rather interesting revelations, originally by way of the forums @ Democrats.com:

As of this writing we have: (thanks to Chip for his valuable input!)

Palin's membership in an apocalyptic, militant, neopentecostal dominionist movement called Joel's Army  (unless she repudiates the group, which is unlikely, this could be an extremely serious liability!)

Palin's membership in a radical right stealth group called "Feminists For Life"

Palin's apparent sympathies for and possible connections to the Alaska Independence Party, a secessionist group

A brewing scandal involving her firing of a police chief

The revelation that Palin's 17-year old unwed daughter is 5-months pregnant (not likely to appeal to evangelicals who prefer abstinence to unprotected teen sex)

Brewing mini-scandals like "Broken Water-gate"

A news interview in which Palin asks, What is it that the VP does anyway?

Troopergate

Reports that she has made many enemies of both parties in the Alaskan state legislature

Reports that she is a poor administrator

The news (from Stephanopoulous) that she was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it.

Her assertion that "the founding fathers" put "Under God" in The Pledge of Allegiance

Her implication that energy independence can be achieved solely through domestic drilling.

Her questionable involvement with a 527 group for Sen Stevens

Palin's earmark requests: more per person than any other state

Clearly, this is not a candidate who was well-vetted, let alone qualified for the job of VP.

If this doesn't reflect on McCain's poor judgment, and his sense of desperation, then I don't know what does.

Come to think of it:

Speaking of Joel's Army and suchlike threats to liberty and democracy based on warped and perverted interpretations of Holy Scripture, some interesting insights about the movement come from the Southern Poverty Law Centre's Intelligence Report, whose fall number features an item on the movement:

Those sounding the alarm about Joel's Army are not secular foes of the Christian Right, few of whom are even aware of the movement or how widespread it's become in the past decade. Instead, Joel's Army critics are mostly conservative Christians, either neo-Pentecostals who left the movement in disgust or evangelical Christians who fear that Joel's Army preachers are stealing their flocks, even sending spies to infiltrate their own congregations and sway their young people to heresy. And they say the movement is becoming frightening.

"The pitch and intensity of the military rhetoric of this branch of the global Dominionist movement has substantially increased since the beginning of 2008," writes The Discernment Research Group, a Christian watchdog group that tracks what they call heresies or cults within Christianity. "One can only wonder how long before this transforms into real warfare with actual warriors."

[***]

[Todd] Bentley is considered a prophet both by his followers and by other leaders of the Joel's Army movement, whose adherents claim to be reviving a "five-fold ministry" of prophets, apostles, elders, pastors and teachers, as outlined in the Book of Ephesians. Not every five-fold ministry is connected to the Joel's Army movement, but the movement has spurred an interest in modern-day apostles and prophets that's troubling to the Assemblies of God, the world's largest Pentecostal church, which has officially disavowed the Joel's Army movement.

In a 2001 position paper, Assemblies of God leaders wrote that they do not recognize modern-day apostles or prophets and worried that "such leaders prefer more authoritarian structures where their own word or decrees are unchallenged." They are right to worry. Joel's Army followers believe that once democratic institutions are overthrown, their hierarchy of apostles and prophets will rule over the earth, with one church per city.

[***]

The story of how an ancient insect invasion came to be a rallying flag for 21st-century dominonists begins just after World War II in Canada. Out of a small town in Saskatchewan, a Pentecostal preacher named William Branham spearheaded a 1948 revival in which he claimed that his followers lived in a new biblical time of "Latter Rain."

The most sinless and ardent of his flock would be called "Manifest Sons of God." By the next year, the movement was so strong — and seemed so subversive to some — that the Assemblies of God banned it as a heretic cult. But Branham remained a controversial figure with a loyal following; many of his followers believed him to be the end-times prophet Elijah.

Michael Barkun, a leading scholar of radical religion, notes that in 1958, Branham began teaching "Serpent Seed" doctrine, the belief that Satan had sex with Eve, resulting in Cain and his descendants. "Through Cain came all the smart, educated people down to the antediluvian flood — the intellectuals, bible colleges," Branham wrote in the kind of anti-mainstream religion, anti-intellectual spirit that pervades the Joel's Army movement to this day. "They know all their creeds but know nothing about God."

The Gates of Hell
Branham was killed in a car accident in 1965, but his Manifest Sons of God movement, the direct predecessor of Joel's Army, lived on within a cluster of hyper-charismatic churches. In the 1980s, Branham's teachings took on new life at the Kansas City Fellowship (KCF), a group of popular self-styled apostles and prophets who used the Missouri church as a launching pad for national careers promoting outright Joel's Army theology.

Ernie Gruen, a local pastor who initially promoted and gave citywide credibility to KCF pastors in the early 1980s, cut his connections in 1990. Concerned about KCF's plans to push its teachings worldwide, Gruen published a 132-page insider's account, based on taped sermons and conversations and interviews with parents who had enrolled their kids in KCF's Dominion school.

According to Gruen's report, students at the school were taught that they were a "super-race" of the "elected seed" of all the best bloodlines of all generations — foreknown, predestined, and hand-selected from billions of others to be part of the "end-time Omega generation."

Though he'd once promoted these doctrines himself, Gruen became convinced that the movement was turning into an end-times cult, marked by what he summarized as "spiritual threats, fears, and warnings of death," "warning followers to beware of other Christians" and exhibiting "a 'super-race' mentality toward the training of their children."

Those not convinced of the depravities and perversions of Christian doctrine @ the heart of Joel's Army teachings may want to watch this actual YouTube video from a detractor, as appears in the online version of this particular article:

Not to mention the likelihood that the more fanatical specimens of religiopolitical zealotry generally are probably (and @ once unwittingly) close to the Dregs of Society, if not already there, using religion to hide their alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual mania (especially where perverted fetishes, homosexuality, pedophilia and animals come into the equation), propensities for violence against spouse and/or children (and prepared to excuse such as Christian Love Manifest), gaming or other "asocial tendencies."

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AS FOR MS. PALIN'S ABSURD NOTIONS ABOUT HOW THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE CAME ABOUT BY WAY OF THE FOUNDING FATHERS, especially so the line "under G-d," it may be worth recalling that it was the 1892 creation of Francis J. Bellamy, editor of The Youth's Companion magazine, as part of a suggested school programme to commemorate Columbus Day; its original form was:

I pledge allegiance to my flag, and to the republic for which it stands: One nation, indivisable, with liberty and justice for all.

By 1923, "my flag" was changed to "the flag of the United States of America," with "under G-d" added in 1954 as part of the enforced adventures in jingoistic patriotism brought about by the Red Scare of Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy and subsequent exercises in anti-Communist Zealotry and True Belief pro Deo et patria.

No wonder suchlike among her ilk have such warped visions of history as they do.

=============

ONE THING MORE: People For the American Way (PFAW) would like you to sign this Open Letter to Ms. Palin, to tell her that her real views do not represent those of the American Mainstream, but rather an idealised Bransoner Muzikschaukultur vision therefor.   

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WITH YOUR CORRESPONDENT WRAPPED UP AS HE WAS IN OTHER PRESSING TOPICS OF IMPORTANCE in the previous posting today, he forgot to include the daily dose of The Scoop from the Minnesota State Fair Daily News--today, coming from Day 3 (Saturday, 23 August):

Happy anniversary to Marek and Peggy Kopec of the Flavored Cotton Candy Booth--33 years of marriage and 23 at the fair!

Go ahead, Amy in competition get that foreign language henna tattoo and see what happens ...

Smalls--I'll put five bucks on it that you barely TOWER over five feet, 5' 1 no chance!--TJ

Brigid--Have you checked the gas lately--Anonymous

A great big State Fair thank you to everyone in Creative Activities for the Spam-tastic Buffet! From the Payroll Lady and Spam lover. You guys are the best!

How about posting "Recommended by Fairchild and Fairborne" signage in such venues so preferred?--L.E.R., Winona (Fairchild and Fairborne's fan)

The Education Superintendent is a "happy" man once again now that Patty is leading the daily parade!!

When Lyle Puppe vs. Karen Frost, Karen Frost wins

Steve Roland--you are my hero, a knight in shining armor. Thank you for rescuing me! Signed ... Damsel in a golf cart mess.

BD you get the good person of the day award!

Happy belated birthday Teflon from the silly girls in marketing who forgot to put this in yesterday's news!

BES your rain boots are sharp!

Jack Pixley missed the first day of the fair this year! For 30 years his chimney sweep booth has been in the Home Improvement building and rarely misses a day, especially the opener!

Go Bob Go! You rock!

(Hopefully, such will be back in the regular posting tomorrow. My apologies for having to make The Compleat Scoop a separate posting today because of oversight.)

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DID YOU HEAR WHAT PEGGY NOONAN AND JOHN McCAIN CAMPAIGN AIDE MIKE MURPHY WERE SAYING ABOUT McCAIN'S PRESIDENTIAL PICK SARAH PALIN on NBC the other night, live and on camera?

If not, here's the actual unexpurgated segment, thanks to YouTube (and, ultimately, MoveOn.org):

Not to mention a transcript of the proceedings, With Necessary Omissions:

Mike Murphy, former McCain advisor: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor work. Engler, Whitman, Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. And these guys, this is all like how you want to (inaudible) this race. You know, just run it up. And it's not gonna work.

Peggy Noonan, former Reagan speechwriter: It's over.

Murphy: Still, McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

NBC's Chuck Todd: Don't you think the Palin pick was insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too (inaudible)

Noonan: I saw Kay this morning.

Murphy: They're all bummed out.

Todd: I mean, is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

Noonan: The most qualified? No. I think they went for this, excuse me, political [N4BSK] about narratives and (inaudible) the picture.

Murphy: I totally agree.

Noonan: Every time the Republicans do that because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at and they blow it.

Murphy: You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism and this is cynical.

Todd: And as you called it, gimmicky.

And in light of Ms. Noonan's use of a Bad Word on air in these remarks (and without electronic delay, besides!), how will the so-called "Parents' Television Council" respond to the FCC?

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THIS PARTICULARLY EMBARRASSING GAFFE FOR THE CONSERVATIVE-DOMINATED MAINSTREAM MEDIA brings to mind a discredited Urban Legend involving the well-known childrens' radio host "Uncle Don" in New York (with similar versions involving kiddie show hosts on stations in Philadelphia, Cleveland and San Francisco) who, after signing off on his show one evening, remarked sotto voce (thinking all along that his microphone had been switched off) "Are we off? Good ... I guess that'll hold the little bastards."

Yet, for some reason or another, the remarks were heard live on air, prompting all manner of indignant phone calls and telegrams to the station as led to the show's immediate cancellation and the host in disgrace.

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THE RELIGIOPOLITICAL RIGHT AND ITS DROOGS ARE OBVIOUSLY NOT VERY HAPPY ABOUT A RECENT FLORIDA SUPREME COURT RULING removing two Proposed Constitutional Amendments from the November ballot paper serving their misguided articles of faith and little else.

Let the following press release from the Anti-Defamation League elaborate further:

ADL Hails Court's Striking of Amendments 7 & 9 from Florida Ballot as a Victory for Religious Freedom

Boca Raton, FL, September 3, 2008 …. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today hailed a Florida Supreme Court decision which has "safeguarded the religious freedom of all Floridians."  The Court's ruling struck down two pernicious proposed amendments that would have substantially rewritten the Florida Constitution and its protection of religion. 

 

Andrew Rosenkranz, ADL Florida Regional Director, said:

 

The Florida Supreme Court has acted decisively to stop this onslaught on our religious freedom.  In rebuking the activist Taxation and Budget Reform Commission, the Court acted prudently and has safeguarded the religious freedom of all Floridians.

 

In this case, ADL acted as legal counsel in conjunction with the Florida Education Association and other like-minded organizations.

 

The proposed amendments that were struck down resulted from the 2007-08 term of the Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commission (TBRC).   The order underscores the Court's agreement with ADL's argument that the TBRC exceeded its constitutional authority in seeking to place Amendments 7 and 9 before Florida voters.  The TBRC has the limited authority to place on the ballot constitutional amendments addressing "taxation" and "state budgetary process." A formal opinion will be forthcoming from the Court.

 

Amendment 7 would have eliminated long-established religious freedom protections from the Florida Constitution. It would also have rewritten the Florida Constitution to require Florida taxpayers to support religious organizations, religious discrimination in hiring, and proselytizing.   Amendment 9 would have altered the Florida Constitution to authorize, if not mandate, the State to fund private schools through vouchers or other means.

 

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.

Let this be lesson to such seeing "educational reform" as a coded euphemism for "targeted" voucher programmes designed, first and foremost, as a blackmailing weapon against "chronic and habitual welfare cases***lacking Healthy and Proper Moral Compass" who are all the more resigned to free public schools for their primary education.

And, second, to favour so-called "Christian Academies" placing Traditional Values above Core Skills to the point where scholastic performance is likely to suffer, reinforced by mandatory paramilitary instruction and nude swimming which is nothing more than a ruse for aquaphile child pornography whose proceeds go back to the school (and for which all manner of ruses are deployed to avoid suspicions that a "Christian Academy" would engage in such untoward acts, deeds and exploits).

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COULD IT BE THAT THE WHOLE IDEA OF OUTSOURCING JOBS OFFSHORE MAY HAVE BACKFIRED to the point where companies are now having second thoughts about the whole idea in the first place?

Witness what the World Business Review on the BBC World Service earlier today had to say about the subject, noting where the issue had become an Indecision 2008 such in and of itself ... that, and noting where companies are now actually returning these jobs stateside thanks to such factors as:

• Increased fuel and transportation costs;
• Any cost savings presumed to ensue by moving labour-intensive operations to low-wage economies like those of China and India actually being transient and/or illusory over time, thanks largely to currency fluctuations and even political considerations;
• Resentment on the part of "right-thinking Americans" (usually those hard-wired in their acceptance of Fox Prolefeed as their main source of news and information) to offshore call centres and helpdesks staffed by such speaking heavily-accented English; and
• China, curently the major producer of export cheapjack for the "morally superior" American market (especially so Wally World and the various dollar-store chains), already seeing serious problems on its part which could make outsourcing less than viable without warning, among them:
  • threats to its power structure from within, or so anecdotal reports have suggested;
  • potentially serious disruptions to supply chains following large-scale earthquakes or other major natural disasters, especially where factories were constructed with sub-standard materials as could prove fatal in earthquakes such as those which struck Sichwuan province earlier this year; and
  • the likelihood of Beijing diverting essential resources to assisting North Korean refugees as their economy and society deteriorate all the further into chaos and ruin, not to mention uncertainty.

Which makes you wonder whether this news would be of greater benefit to the McCain/Palin ticket, or that of Obama/Biden. Reader, what would you think?

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NOU DIT KAN VERTEL WORD, as they'd say in Bloemfontein:

This past summer, The Big Story in the Waterpark Capital of the World (as in Wisconsin Dells) was the sudden drainage of Lake Delton following flooding in the wake of heavy rains back in June, forcing the Tommy Bartlett Show to remain landlocked for the first time in its 56-year run and resort owners on its shores trying to keep things afloat in the process.

Which got all the attention.

One story which, somehow, didn't get noticed in its wake was where a number of ticket offers for Noah's Ark (America's Largest Waterpark) could be had on eBay from time to time throughout the just-concluded season, notwithstanding where the tickets contained on the back, among other caveats to buyers, "void if resold."

Which was enough to prompt Your Correspondent to send e-mails from time to time throughout alerting America's Largest Waterpark to such acts, deeds and exploits unauthorised, whereby they were able to obtain the serial numbers of the tickets on offer through online auctions (or, in some cases, through the Buy It Now facility) and, in effect, void them so such could not be used for admission into Noah's. (In other words, if someone managed to have one of the tickets as had serial numbers on their "hot list," and tried to use same for admission, such was to be intercepted and the situation explained.)

As season went on, investigations by Noah's Ark and outside auditors discovered where a substantial quantity of admission tickets had been stolen in what amounted to an "inside job," with the stolen tickets "fenced" to a select group of eBay auction sellers for them to resell online under such ruses as "family emergency prevents our using them this season,""vacation plans changed," that sort of thing, to conceal the swindle. And as season's close approached, the ring was busted, with numerous such auctions shut down and charges likely to ensue in the courts.

And all because of some clever vigilance on Your Correspondent's part, never mind where misguided psychiatrists and sheltered-workshop supervisors were forever advising him that such actions as above summarised:

• were nothing more than "narking and invasion of privacy" as was "selfish and unwarranted;"
• "showed reckless and utter disregard for the traditional rights, privileges and powers of others, especially such in positions of authority, power, confidence and trust," said rights being "recognised by unwritten tradition and habit" (as in common law); and
• could be sufficent grounds to prevent my being able to find work, or otherwise revoke eligibility for welfare and Social Security benefits (as if suggesting that continued eligibility therefor requires an ignorant stupidity being exercised constantly for the sake of those in positions of power and authority).

It's my understanding that a Suitable Reward is being prepared by Noah's Ark to acknowledge my honesty and vigilance throughout.

(Similar procedures were applied when it came to offers on eBay involving Riverview Park and Waterworld and the Tommy Bartlett Show, the latter having to give tickets out to companies to give away to employees and loyal customers just to keep the name before the public. And similar actions are expected to be taken, with response likely to be forthcoming as well.)

Now you know.

more the engrish!

FIRST OFF, TELL ME IF THE RATHER ARROGANT-LOOKING GUY IN THIS BILLBOARD FOR A BEIJING HOSPITAL SPECIALIST IN CERTAIN LOATHSOME DISORDERS looks like one Rush Limbaugh in appearence.

In any event, Your Correspondent feels it noteworthy to mention where, for some reason or another, The Exaggerator has seen @ least two hits to this website today from that of the League of the South, a neo-Confederate seccessionist movement; this by way of traffic counts from SiteMeter.com, which this site uses to track weblog traffic.

Which is up there with:

more the engrish!