more animals

YOUR CORRESPONDENT GOT WORD FROM JESUS' GENERAL (A/K/A PATRIOT BOY) ABOUT THIS PARTICULAR BILLBOARD spotted along US 63 somewhere in the Ozarks region of Missouri, one of the more traditional bastions of latent and inbred poverty, fecundity and stupidity which helps fuel racist, nativist, xenophobic and jingoistic feelings, as studies have confirmed:

(According to the local gazetta in those parts, by name of the West Plains Daily Quill, nobody has come forward to accept liability for said billboard, replete with much the same stereotypically racist image Obama Waffles made infamous.)

In any case, doesn't the rather crass caricature of Barack Obama on the billboard remind you of the old-school, stereotypically-racist image used for Darkie toothpaste, now known as Darlie? (See below:)

Or, for that matter, this sign for Aunt Jemima Pancake Flour?

Or, come to think of it, these packets of soap powder playing up the "mammy" stereotype?

(Those last three images are from the collections of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia @ Ferris State University. So try not to laugh, what with these being from a time when racism was considered "patriotic" and "healthy.")

No wonder there are some among us who will never learn that "it's a small world, after all"--especially so the poor, undereducated or homeschooled and easily-influenced, the kind who would regard Branson's "music shows" to be a more realistic sample of Amerikanischer Realkultur than Disneyland or Walt Disney World, let alone Weeki Wachee Springs--and regard Fox Prolefeed to be The One True and Infallable Source of News and (Mis)information.

more the engrish!

THIS PARTICULAR SPECIMEN OF "ENGRISH" IS FROM THE PACKAGING OF AN ALERTNESS ALARM of the kind used by the likes of bus, taxicab and train drivers in Japan working late shifts to maintain mental alertness by sounding a high-pitched tone in case the user becomes drowsy.

Such also said to be especially popular among "cram school" and university students having to do their homework well into the late hours.

I mention this because it's emerged that Fox Prolefeed is nothing short of a sewer and conduit of hate which the vulnerable and easily-led can excuse as "healthy patriot love" if and when pushed by police or other approriate channels. Especially such where Hate Crimes Enhancements may apply under certain circumstances, let alone Fox Prolefeed trying to play the sammy act in case they're implicated.

Case in point:

Which, in any case, is enough to recall what Fox Prolefeed's real "secret desires" are. 

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

AS IF FOX PROLEFEED'S OBVIOUS CONTEMPT FOR THE LOWER CLASSES WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH, even with their playing the "home folks" card, consider these rather tasteless remarks of Neal "Your World" Cavuto on 16 September in an exchange with House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer (GOP/MD), as transcribed by Media Matters for America:

HOYER: Well, we see the subprime problem. You know, we passed legislation on the subprime, and, frankly, Alan Greenspan didn't enforce it. Bernanke now has. We passed legislation on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in April of '07. It languished in the Senate. Mr. Shelby was opposed to it, on regulation. Secretary Paulson was for it.

CAVUTO: But do you think --

HOYER: And, in any event, the question is, going forward --

CAVUTO: -- all I'm saying, Congressman, all I'm saying is, do you think that -- obviously, there's enough blame to go on both sides --

HOYER: Sure.

CAVUTO: -- that -- that you wanted to encourage minority lending -- obviously, a lot of Republicans did as well. There was a lot of -- expand lending to those to get a home. Do you think, intrinsically, it was a mistake, on both parties' part, to push --

HOYER: I think --

CAVUTO: -- to push for homeownership for everybody?

HOYER: I think clearly what happened is, Fannie and Freddie got caught up in trying to do what the Congress wanted done.

Which was followed upon two days later, on the same show, with Rep. Xavier Becerra (D/CA) trying to match wits with Mr. Cavuto (again, via Media Matters):

CAVUTO: I just wonder, you know, with Congress holding all these hearings -- and you're right, there are a lot of them planned -- does anyone hold hearings on what you guys knew or didn't know or whether -- or whether you were ignorant or not? I mean, does anyone look at -- I know the buck stops with the president -- but at least it stops by you guys. What were you doing?

BECERRA: Well, we were trying to get answers from the administration. Unfortunately, it didn't seem like they were giving us a complete picture of what was going on. We can only know what the administration tells us about their administration of the government. But you're right.

CAVUTO: All right, but let me ask you -- but, Congressman, when -- when you and many of your colleagues were pushing for more minority lending and more expanded lending to folks who heretofore couldn't get mortgages, when you were pushing homeownership --

BECERRA: Neil, who did that?

CAVUTO: -- again, no, no, seriously, again with the best of interests --

BECERRA: Who did that?

CAVUTO: I'm not saying -- I'm not blaming one or the other. I'm just saying you and a lot of --

BECERRA: Yeah, but who did that? I'm not aware of anyone asking anyone to make a loan to someone who couldn't afford it.

CAVUTO: I'm just saying, are you -- are you totally -- wait a minute. Are you totally without culpability here? Are you totally blameless? Are you totally irresponsible of anything that happened?

BECERRA: Neil, if you can tell me what Congress did not do that it should have done, I'm more than willing to take a look at that, and -- and answer your question. But, as far as I can tell, with regard to what the Fed did, the Fed is -- is an entity, a body, that is under the administration, at least to some degree. We can only ask for oversight responses from the Fed or from the administration. But, again, if you can point out something that Congress did not do --

CAVUTO: But, no, it's your -- no, no, no, your hindsight, Congressman, is 20/20. I'm not denying that. I'm just wondering whether --

BECERRA: Yeah.

CAVUTO: -- did you warn or express concern about any of the things that happened? I'm not saying that one or the other is beyond blame --

BECERRA: Oh, absolutely, we did. Absolutely.

CAVUTO: -- I'm just saying, I don't remember a clarion call that said, "Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster."

BECERRA: Oh, Neil --

CAVUTO: Maybe if you said it, enlighten me.

BECERRA: -- oh, Neil, no, no. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely, we did. If you look at the record -- and if you want me to -- want to have me on again soon, I can bring you a record of time after time where members of Congress pointed out to a then-Republican majority that deregulating too many of these industries was going to cause this mismanagement and reckless-abandon activity that we now see by a lot of these money-changers. And, so, absolutely, Congress was alerted by members of Congress about what would happen if we stopped the oversight responsibilities that Congress has. So, absolutely, that's the case.

CAVUTO: All right, so --

BECERRA: And, if you want to have me back, I could bring you that evidence.

CAVUTO: I would look forward to that, Congressman.

Leaving Your Correspondent wondering if the "real" Neoconservative policy towards the Lower Classes and National Minorities is essentially resettling such upon "new town" travesties based on what the Nicolae Ceauçescu regime was envisaging for Romania in the mid- to late 1980's as the Communist regime was heading for all the more imminence of collapse; viz., nothing more than cinderblock-and-concrete eyesores of apartment towers furnished in a rather Spartan way (consistent with the Neocon/Fascisti ideal of a Wholesome and Simple Home Life based on poverty, fecundity and stupidity), with self-contained, energy-inefficent appliances "to protect guaranteed profit margins" on the part of local power companies and FreeVee systems featuring nothing but the crudest and most depraved of pornographic ultraviolence packaged as Wholesome Family Entertainment (consistent with another Neocon/Fascisti belief about the Lower Classes lacking any "healthy respect" for Morals, Decency or Common Sense, unlikely to change all along even if they wanted to). And the only shopping available, for the most part, being Wally World.

Go figure....

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

WORTHWHILE READING AMONG SUCH STILL HARD-WIRED IN THEIR ZEALOTRY AND TRUE BELIEF IN THE McCAIN/PALIN TICKET for Indecision 2008: This latest article from ConWebWatch revealing just how deeply John McCain is "palling around" with conservative talkback radio host (and infamous Watergate co-conspitator taking arrogant hubris in his role therefor) G. Gordon Liddy.

Yes, boys and girls, the same G. Gordon Liddy who called upon "patriots" to "go for the throat" of Federal law-enforcement agents on his radio show following the Oklahoma City Incident in 1995, prompting @ least one radio station to dump his show outright ... and who once told an interviewer for the British gazetta the Guardian that listening to Hitler's speeches on shortwave radio growing up (and know, these are his exact words) "made me feel a strength inside I had never known before," among other outrageous specimens of what the courts could consider as Criminal Syndicalism in the right circumstances.

Otherwise known as John McCain's answer to William Ayers. 

more the engrish!

FOR STARTERS, CONSIDER THIS VIDEO OFF YOUTUBE (VIA BRAVE NEW FILMS) revealing a serious lapsus linguć on John McCain's part about five seconds into same:

As if that weren't good enough, consider this online ad (again, from YouTube) warning of the clear and present danger Sarah Palin poses were she to wind up in the Oval Office, especially considering her known and notorious associations to the weird and unwholesome:

Please share these with your friends--but do so responsibly, please.

more animals

FIRST OFF, A SLIGHT CHANGE IN THE ROUTINE OF DOWNLOAD, made in response to a rather kind and constructive suggestion of a visitor just the other day:

Out of deference to such wanting to watch videos such as are displayed from time to time, I have revised things so that the music (in this instance, "The Lonely Surfer" by Jack Nitzsche) no longer starts playing automatically when you visit this page; in other words, you need to turn it on beforehand.

I hope this is to your approval; should you have other questions, feel free to offer your comments. And thanks to he who made the suggestion.

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

MEANWHILE, IN THE VIDEO DEPARTMENT, BRAVE NEW FILMS HAS THIS REVEALING VIDEO showing just why John McCain deserves to be considered as The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang of Indecision 2008, posing as he does a clear and present danger to Our Antient and Pecuilar Soverignty and Soverign Identity that the "New World Order" will easily exploit in due course:

As if that video weren't revealing enough of how dangerously irresponsible a McCain Presidency would pose to Our Beloved Nation as much as Our Soverign Identity as a Pecuilar Among the Nations, consider this freshly-released report from Americans United for Change as reveals the clear and present dangers to social order that denationalising State Social Security poses--this even as McCain repeats his insistence on denationalisation as the Last and Only Hope for State Social Security in the face of recent share-market turbulence (via The Associated Press):

GREEN BAY, Wisc. (AP) -- Wall Street turmoil left John McCain scrambling to explain why the fundamentals of the U.S. economy remained strong. It also left him defending his support for privately investing Social Security money in the same markets that had tanked earlier in the week.

The Republican presidential nominee says all options must be considered to stave off insolvency for the government insurance and retirement program, and top McCain advisers say that includes so-called personal retirement accounts like those President Bush pushed in 2005 but abandoned in the face of congressional opposition.

The aides tried to soothe voters concerned about the bankruptcies, takeovers and bailouts on Wall Street by declaring McCain favored only the option of such accounts, just for younger workers, and most likely in a conservative investment vehicle such as bonds.

Private accounts for Social Security are "always an easier sell when the markets are going up instead of going down," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's. "I don't think this is a good week to sell that one politically, but you're looking at the long term here. You're investing your retirement funds for 20 or 30 years down the road."

A headline Friday in the Manchester, N.H., Union Leader, the leading paper in that battleground state, underscored the political challenge. "Pension funds for workers take a hit," read a story about a roughly $500 million decline the past three months in the state's public pension fund.

Democrat Barack Obama opposes the accounts and has warned they could be a precursor to eliminating the government entitlement program. Critics also note that one of McCain's top economic advisers is former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, a free-marketeer who pushed the idea of a privatized retirement system as far back as 1988.

Obama, a senator from Illinois, has suggested shoring up the program by imposing a Social Security tax of no more than 4 percent on earnings above $250,000; currently, only the first $102,000 in income is subject to the tax. Income in the "doughnut hole" between those figures would not be taxed.

McCain calls such a tax punitive and counterproductive. He also says refusing to discuss private accounts amounts to political posturing. He says his willingness to broach the subject is emblematic of his "Country First" campaign motto and harkens back to bipartisan discussions between President Reagan and Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill Jr. the last time the system was revamped in 1983.

"We have to have some straight talk for America. The Social Security system is going to go broke. It will not be there for present day men and women who are working. And we have to fix it and we have to do it in a bipartisan fashion," the Arizona senator said Wednesday during a town hall meeting with running mate Sarah Palin in Grand Rapids, Mich.

He added: "We have to realize that the worst thing we can do is continue to allow these unfunded debts to mount, and to pass on to another generation of Americans a burden that we've imposed on them."

McCain aides bristle at talk of "privatizing" the Social Security system.

"He's not ever talked about outsourcing Social Security into the private sector," senior adviser Steve Schmidt told reporters Thursday. "What people talk about with regard to personal accounts is giving the American people an ability to have a greater return on an investment - it could be bond funds, for example."

Wyss, the Standard & Poor's economist, said the concept of supplemental private accounts is valid, but there are so many variables in constructing them it makes discussion difficult. He also warns that it's too late to make changes for the Baby Boom generation, which has begun retiring. That is reducing the number of workers paying into the system at the same time there is an increase in benefits being paid out.

By about 2020, more people will be drawing on the system than will be paying into it, and the government projects Social Security could be insolvent around 2040. Those projections change slightly each year.

"I think it's a good idea, but again, it doesn't solve the immediate problem," said Wyss. "And you also have to make sure you maintain an adequate safety net because you don't want people eating cat food in retirement."

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

MEANWHILE, WHEN IT COMES TO TARGETED JOBS-TRAINING AND ASSISTANCE SCHEMES SERVING SUCH WITH SPECIAL PROBLEMS precluding their being able to find work by way of traditional channels (among them Job Corps, School to Work, Vocational Rehabilitation, Displaced Worker Retraining and Veterans' Readjustment), expect the imminent socioeconomic meltdown to mean that such programmes are unlikely to have real work available (and, in the process, limited or no pay in the process, what with sheltered workshops, for one, traditionally using a piecework-linked pay scale).

And, more than likely, the time having to be filled in the wrong sort of way, as if having to justify their "guaranteed" subsidy and grant allowances with activities inconsistent or otherwise incompatible with their stated mission of providing jobs and career training and placement assistance to such having special requirements and needs vis-a-vis the jobs market--all because the contract and subcontract work they rely on is unavailable or otherwise severely limited in light of market conditions.

Especially dangerous: The prospect of lectures heavy on racist, anti-Semitic or otherwise obscene rants, bromides and screeds which risk causing emotional harm, suggesting where clients thereof should consider themselves part of a New Order which will "graciously and of its own free will" say No to "helpless dependency" on State welfare and Social Security in favour of a Renewed Healthy Respect for Industry, Self-Reliance, Personal Responsibility, Thrift based on Cash Economy and a Wholesome and Simple Home Life.

And embrace such without question or reservation as part of a New Order based on a "pure" free-market capitalistic model and paradigm to be looked upon as Great White Father of the Disenfranchised and Helpless Thanks to State Welfare (cf. North Korean propaganda depictions of "Eternal Leader" Kim Il Sung and "Great Leader" Kim Jong Il in supposedly hagiographic terms, notwithstanding their being in a sheer state of socioeconomic collapse already).

Which is something that the especially vulnerable and marginalised don't need, especially when seeking to exploit the limited and limiting availability of contract or subcontract work available to such "make-work" programmes and their being all the more vulnerable to outside suggestions likely tending to emotional harm. Harm which, in the end, may only make them all the more unsuitable for employment.

FOX PROLEFEED, FOR ALL OF ITS NOTORIOUS PANDERING TO RACIST, NATIVIST, JINGOIST OR OTHERWISE IGNORANT FEELINGS among its Target Audience of the Great Unwashed resident, by and large, @ the Park and Flush Trailer Park, must have this clandestine (yet dangerous) desire they hesitate to acknowledge openly:

Videlicet, their comments translating into Direct Action.

Especially such which manifests itself in Extreme Ultraviolence, even more so if death or serious injury ensues among such National Minority targets (including the disabled, such deemed "chronic and habitual" welfare cases, the homeless and the epicene) or substantial property damage ensues from the likes of arson, firebombing or gas explosion of deliberate origin.

Including all manner of witch-hunts and other specimens of mass hysteria among Fox Prolefeed's minions of the "right-thinking home folks" they claim to appeal to for news and information, preferably including torchlight marches featuring the Nazi swastika flag and/or the apartheid South African tricolour and the crowds singing the filthy, racist ballads of their fathers as well as the Horst Wessel and "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika" in rather loud voices that, under normal circumstances, would attract police suspicions for Loud Noise.

BUT:

Just in case the police start asking questions, Fox Prolefeed would likely be implicated by the ringleaders of such excesses of white trash debauchery palmed off as "patriot love," with Fox Prolefeed themselves having to find ways to avoid scandal "to protect our good name and reputation."

Especially if it happens that Fox Prolefeed is named as an Unindicted Co-Conspirator, so to speak, nonetheless prompting the courts to issue summonses against such reporters @ Fox Prolefeed whose remarks ignited such "spontaneous demonstrations of True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command," as would be so reported in a rather gleefully-suspicious stylee. And, for good measure, one Keith Rupert Murdoch, the majordomo behind Fox Prolefeed.

And, as it turns out, the rather-ironically-named British Sunday tabloid News of the World, whose "For Sarah" campaign for tougher laws against Notorious Pedophiles a few years back led to a series of vigilante marches and other Misadventures in Mass Hysteria rivalled only by the darkest excesses of McCarthyism in the 1950's between Land's End and John O'Groats.

In any case, Fox Prolefeed would love nothing better than to inspire exercises in "healthy patriot love" up there with the likes of Junior Anti-Sex League meetings which sought to eliminate carnal desire for the sake of Developing Ingsoc and Showing Healthy Patriot Love for Big Brother in His Kindness and Mercy. Only to be forced to play coward in case of implication by the ringleaders, resulting in those involved all along likely being "reassigned" to avoid giving potentially embarrassing evidence.

And yet go to great pains to avoid dropping any hints of the preceding being their real desideratum.

more animals

SO MUCH FOR GOP VICE-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE SARAH PALIN'S SUGGESTION THAT DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE BARACK OBAMA is "palling with terrorists" to the extent of letting slip his lack of True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command--as if suggesting that National Minorities were incapable of showing said Patriot Love cf. White European-American Christians: Can you say "projection," boys and girls?

Especially considering what Keith Olbermann had to say the other night, revealing the nature and extent of Palin's associations with the weird and unwholesome, notably the so-called "Alaskan Independence Party" and her ties with a Kenyan witch-hunter notorious for provoking hysteria in a Nairobi suburb a few years back ... and these Amazing Revelations Worth Exposing to the Nation from Right Wing Watch:

Since Sarah Palin decided to go after Barack Obama for his essentially non-existent ties to William Ayers, maybe now is the time to remind everyone about the McCain campaign’s ties to Rob Schenck, who has a long history of militant anti-abortion activism, fines, arrests, and run-ins with President Bill Clinton.

Schenck, who was meeting privately with McCain as far back as early last year, received a VIP pass to the McCain campaign event where he named Palin as his running mate and even got a chance to speak with both of them personally.  And last month, when he hosted a forum, the Obama campaign dropped out at the last minute rather than legitimize Schenck and his views, but senior campaign McCain advisor Robert Heckman still attended the event, where other speakers compared Barack Obama to Hitler.  

Schenck first came to prominence back in the 1990s when, along with his twin brother Paul, he began his career as a militant anti-abortion activist, for which he was repeatedly arrested, often targeting Dr. Barnett Slepian who was assassinated by an anti-abortion activist in 1998 by a man who, according to another pro-life activist, was probably known to both Schenck and his brother.

On top of that, as we’ve pointed out before, Schenck also has a history of harassing Democratic politicians, especially former President Bill Clinton:

3 Charged in Scheme to Thrust Fetus at Clinton
14 July 1992
The Associated Press

Three anti-abortion supporters were arrested Tuesday after thrusting a container with a 19-week-old fetus at presidential candidate Bill Clinton.

"By the grace of God, Bill Clinton has been brought face to face with a victim of choice," Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry said outside Clinton's headquarters at the Hotel Inter-Continental.

Clinton appeared unfazed by the incident.

"They tried to hand it to me but I wouldn't take it," he said. "It was no big deal."

The incident occurred as Clinton left the hotel around 8:30 a.m. for his morning jog.

Harley David Belew, 37, of Binghamton; the Rev. Robert Schenck, 34, of Tonawanda; and the Rev. Joseph Forman, 30, of Marietta, Ga., were charged with three health code violations: transporting a fetus into New York, removal of human remains from the place of death and improper disposal of a fetus.

Minister's advice to Clinton draws Secret Service scrutiny
Pro-lifer cited God's judgment
26 December 1996
The Washington Times

The Rev. Robert Schenck, a pro-life activist, gave President Clinton some Christmas Eve advice as their paths crossed at the Washington Cathedral.

"God will hold you to account, Mr. President," Mr. Schenck said he told Mr. Clinton as he walked by to receive Communion.

 …

Mr. Schenck, general secretary of the theologically conservative National Clergy Council, said he was inspired to remind the president of God's judgment on his pro-choice policies when he realized he would walk past him in a Communion line.

"At that moment I said, `Here we are,'" Mr. Schenck said in a telephone interview yesterday. "It was a rare moment when you are this close to the president. As I got closer to him I thought, No. 1, it had to be brief."

Mr. Schenck said his comment drew on a verse in Hebrews 14. "I said it respectfully, in what I would call my pastoral voice."

Mr. Schenck is no stranger to the limelight - nor to President Clinton. In 1992, he led Operation Rescue's protest of Buffalo abortion clinics and participated in handing Mr. Clinton a dead fetus.

If Palin and McCain think that Obama needs to explain his vague ties to Ayers from years ago, maybe now would be a good time for them to explain why they have palling around with Schenck several times in just the last few weeks.

With that in mind, perhaps it was time to start asking the McCain/Palin campaign about their interconnexions to the likes of such weird and unwholesome types with police records for "anti-abortion activism" tending to the vile and disgusting--especially in light of their once again playing the "swift boat" card to save what shred of public confidence and trust they still have into Indecision 2008 among especially Joe Sixpack types facing even further risk and danger of socioeconomic dislocation under continued and continuing GOP dominion.

Dislocation which the "New World Order" can easily exploit.

The prospect of which the public should consider as all the more likely, like it or no. Even those who call themselves "patriots" to conceal their intemperate, sexually-deviant and otherwise dangerous ways.

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

COME TO THINK OF IT, one question as ought be asked of John McCain @ tonight's Town Hall-stylee Presidential Debate (which appears unlikely) is just how long the esteemed Senator has been a confirmed and practicing monogomous heterosexual.

Especially considering whispers in Certain Circles suggesting that, back in McCain's days in Naval Aviation, he may have had affairs with multiple women, including, perhaps, those of the old demi-monde, before settling down to a "normal" married life (cf. the story line on the radio sitcom Life With Luigi, where Pasquale was forever suggesting to Luigi that he marry Pasquale's daughter Rosa for once and have a family just so he can settle down to a sense of normalcy).

more the engrish!

ANYHOW ... BEFORE LEAVING FROM MY MORNING ROUNDS @ THE MOTEL HERE IN WINONA, MAKING COFFEE AND KEEPING THE WATCH FOR THE MOST PART, Your Correspondent took it upon himself to get the annual flu shot @ the pharmacy section of the Hy-Vee supermarket.

Which, come to think of it, would be a good thing. Especially if you are in one of these subpopulations:

• All children from six months on, especially if they are on long-term aspirin therapy (in case of flu, there is the risk of contracting the rare but fatal Reye's Syndrome)
• Anyone 50 years of age or older
• Women who are or likely to become pregnant during flu season
• Those with prolonged health problems, especially heart, lung, kidney, liver or metabolic system disorders, asthma and Rare Blood Diseases
• Those with weakened immune systems because of HIV/AIDS, or treatments with steroids or retrovirals to deal with the side effects of chemotherapy
• Those with certain neuromuscular disorders
• Those resident in, or working in, hospitals, nursing homes or clinics, or otherwise caring for younger children or the elderly
• Those in essential positions, such as firemen, ambulance crews, law-enforcement agents and suchlike
• Those living in close quarters as are especially vunerable to large-scale flu outbreaks, including university dormitories, penal facilities and rescue missions
• Those in high-risk groups planning travel to the Southern Hemisphere between April and September, inclusive, or into the tropics or otherwise with organised tour groups @ any time of year

On the other hand, if you're allergic to eggs or have sensitivity to thimerosal (a mercury-based preservative commonly used in flu vaccines), or have had past bad reactions to vaccines, talk to your doctor beforehand. (There may be thimerosal-free vaccine available; just be sure to ask.)

The vaccine, and its administration, are fully covered by Medicare and some private health-insurance plans; otherwise, such will set you back around $20.

In any case, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," as the proverb hath it. Which can be said for the flu shot.

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

SO MUCH FOR IGNORING THE LESSONS AND WARNINGS OF HISTORY @ OUR PERIL: The Barack Obama Presidential campaign has prepared the following video documentary to remind us all of the interconnexions vis-a-vis John McCain and Charles Keating of the now-defunct American Savings and Loan--a warning to Our Generation as much as posterity that a McCain/Palin ticket cannot be trusted without risking the "New World Order" compromising Our Traditional Soverignty and Soverign Identity as a Pecuilar Among the Nations:

If this won't drive McCain into Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang mode galore--especially with the Seven Dirty Words in abundance--then what will?

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

STAYING WITH INDECISION 2008 FOR THE NONCE, Your Correspondent would like to bring to your attention the following editorial from the Jewish weekly Forward as comments on the recent stunt by the so-called "Alliance Defence Fund" as sought to create test cases challenging Tax Code proscriptions on churches and religious organisations making explicit endorsement of the McCain/Palin ticket pro Deo, patria et familia (or so they hope):

It is tempting to shrug off the campaign known as Pulpit Freedom Sunday as a futile attempt to change settled constitutional law. After all, among the thousands upon thousands of preachers who took to the pulpit across America on the final Sunday of September—and thousands of other clergy who addressed their congregations at other times during that weekend—only 31 pastors chose to knowingly defy federal law and instruct their flock to vote a certain way come November. That final number is fewer than the 50 first recruited last spring by the Alliance Defense Fund in its attempt to overturn a 54-year-old ban on political endorsements by tax-exempt houses of worship. And it's far fewer than the 217 clergy who signed a public pledge from the Interfaith Alliance agreeing not to endorse a candidate on behalf of their churches, mosques and synagogues.

Plus, it's a safe bet that those 31 pastors preached to the choir. Many clergy, especially those who lead large, influential and therefore diverse congregations, are understandably hesitant to color their pastoral mission with the reds and blues of a political campaign.

Still, these few and far-flung protesting pastors poked a finger in the eye of the Internal Revenue Service and American law, and that should not be ignored. According to news reports of some of the sermons, there was no mistaking their intentions (or their political leanings). "As Christians, it's clear we should vote for John McCain," the Rev. Francis Pultro told 45 people in Philadelphia from the stage of Calvary Chapel on the King's Highway. "We must vote against the candidacy of Senator Barack Obama. Amen," was how the Rev. Richard Bacon closed his sermon at Faith Presbyterian Church in Rowlett, Texas.

These defiant words were wrapped in the rhetoric of free speech, but that's nonsense. The law is not stopping Pultro and Bacon from expressing their beliefs on the worthiness of presidential candidates in private or in public—only from the pulpit of an institution that enjoys direct support from American taxpayers and, in return, agrees to remain neutral in political races.

Nor is the traditional role of the clergy, to speak in a prophetic voice against the social ills and injustices of the day—be they war, segregation, child labor or the genocide in Darfur—compromised by this speech restriction, contrary to what the ADF argues. In fact, there is more than 200 years' worth of evidence that America's novel attempt to free religion from government and government from religion has enabled both to carry on their important work.

If those 31 pastors want to continue to use the power of their pulpits to directly influence the ongoing presidential election—or any election, for that matter—then their churches should forgo their tax exemptions and disentangle themselves completely from the limitations that come with such a privilege. If not, the IRS should appropriately pursue those who violate the letter of the law and the spirit that has maintained a healthy distance between worship on Sunday and voting on Tuesday.

(Too, you also have the potential for many of these same churches who went for this stunt to attract supporters from the ranks of the weird and unwholesome coming to their defence--especially so the kind claiming that America is, was and will forever be a White European-American Christian Nation ... especially so if "Christian" is interpreted in a Primitive sense such as the Calvinist stylee.)