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SOMETHING WHICH YOUR CORRESPONDENT CAME UP WITH BY ACCIDENT, AS IT WERE, while imagining material for this blog post:

"Beck" (as in Glenn, who's announcing further fresh and fascinating ways to stoke up the hate of the Great White Unwashed as are all the more Unlikely to be Retrained in the New Socioeconomic Paradigm) happens to rhyme with "dreck," the Yiddish for "trash," "dirt" or "garbage."

Which, all in all, is what Glenn Beck is and hath become.

Hence, imagine "Glenn Beck" as rhyming slang for "dreck," as in "Please take out the Glenn Beck, will you, dear?"

(Please share this with your friends ... responsibly. Besides, you ain't whistling "Tzena Tzena" or "Mein Yiddishe Mommeh" for nothing.)

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WHILE FAMILIES ARE EXPECTED, IN LINE WITH ESTABLISHED TRADITION, TO REMAIN TOGETHER @ TABLE ON THURSDAY in deference to Thanksgiving Day, you can just imagine the Friday following (known in the retail game as "Black Friday") to be the sort of day that children, in the minds of some parents, should expect to be out of the house "lest [the parental units] have a nervous breakdown" by their lazing around doing nothing, watching TV or surfing the Information Stuporbahn "in idleness and sloth."

Which, unfortunately, could too easily be code for having the kids out of the house so the parents can look up child pornography or worse online, with "nervous breakdown" being code for this. (And there actually being a genuine, copper-bottomed nervous breakdown when the police start asking questions, especially when mall security starts asking the kids why their parents aren't exactly with them on a rather busy day which can see substantial crowds ... and security starts getting suspicious about the answers being coached or scripted to avoid arousing suspicions.)

As can too easily be commonplace during school holidays as much as on weekends.

So, parents, why expect your children to be out of the house during the lion's share of the day when it's unlikely that you're all that sick, or @ risk of a nervous breakdown?

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YOUR CORRESPONDENT KNOWS NOT THE FITNESS OF THE PRECEDING IMAGE TO WHAT I'M ABOUT TO DISCUSS, especially among you with Black Friday shopping plans in the more traditional stylee "out of common sense:"

CNNMoney.com has Some Inconvenient Truths You Need To Know About regarding those "amazing deals" featured in retailers' flyers as announce special early opening hours this Friday ... the which you ought to read in the face of prolonged queues likely to ensue, and of a sort as could have police called out in case bedlam and confusion crosses into disorder and violence.

(The which I will spare you @ the expense of giving away spoilers.)

Moral: Consider shopping the Information Stuporbahn ... especially so the several e-tailer affiliates of The Exaggerator as well as its e-boutique, The Exaggerator Collection (powered by CafePress.com); it's online shopping with a conscience (as in donating part of the proceeds which Your Correspondent can generate therefrom to Reduction of the National Debt, among Other Good Causes, in case you need explanation).

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SOMETHING WHICH YOUR CORRESPONDENT WOULD LIKE TO SEE, to borrow from the occasional mock "department" Mad magazine was fond of doing in the heighth of its glory: Having a small (and preferably independent, "mom-and-pop") motel essentially dumping TV altogether as a guest amenity and convenience, never mind that it's FreeVee, cable or satellite.

Preferably in some "shoobie trap" of the sort favoured by the lowest sort of so-called "Real Americans" that, for all of Fox Prolefeed's excesses of hagiographic idealism, may be of the lowest breeding and intellect--the ilk revered by "tea party" campaigns and others with weird and unwholesome connexions and associations taking advantage of their want of critical thinking skills and their primitive, easily-exploited patriotism and xenophobia.

The better, shall we say, as a protest against the overdone choices available as are probably too much for the average guest to fathom, not to mention the deteriorating quality of programming as is sure to raise the hackles of the Elmer Gantry crowd pushing the American Cultural Exceptionalism card seeing Die Bransoner Muzikschaukultur as its ur-acid test as much as Das Realkultur von der Amerikanischer Volk.

"...and that is is a way."

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IN THE INTEREST OF MAKING THE "TWIDGET" (TO COIN A NEW TERM FOR THE TWITTER WIDGET IN CONNEXION WITH THE ADJUNCT TO THIS WEBLOG) ALL THE EASIER TO VIEW, please note that I've tweaked it so that the "tweets" (and any related links thereto) are easier to read than previously.

I hope it's to your liking, and as always, your comments would be welcomed.

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PROOF THAT THE REAL AGENDA OF AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM IS BASED ON "FLAG FIRST, MORALS AFTER", as Mein Innkeeper Friend put it, by way of this recent item from Truthout.com:

It wasn't unusual that Rush Limbaugh went ballistic on his show on November 13. He does that several times a day.

It wasn't unusual that he mixed a few facts with opinion and outright lies in his three-hour daily show. Fact checking for the man who calls himself "America's Truth Detector" is as rare as union organizers working for Wal-Mart.

What is unusual is that Rush Limbaugh, whose web site shows a picture of him carrying a large, gold-fringed American flag on a six-foot staff, spoke out against the Constitution of the United States.

Because logic and reason avoids his black-clad, bouncy body, he may not have even known he was attacking the history of the United States and its Constitution. But on this Friday the 13, the forces of evil spewed forth from his unfettered microphone mouth.

The United States had announced it was removing five persons accused of plotting the 9/11 terror from Guantanamo Bay and putting them into the federal judiciary system. Attorney General Eric Holder, at a press conference in Washington, DC, had announced, "After eight years of delay, those allegedly responsible for the attacks of September the 11th will finally face justice ... I am confident in the ability of our courts to provide these defendants a fair trial just as they have for over 200 years [before] an impartial jury under long established rules and procedures." He announced that the Department of Justice would "prosecute these cases vigorously," and would seek the death penalty in each case. President Obama had said earlier that day he was "absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheik Mohammad [the alleged mastermind behind 9/11, and the other defendants] will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice. The American people insist on it, my administration will insist on it."

Limbaugh called the decision a "disgusting travesty perpetuated here by Barack Obama." That was just the beginning of his rant. Over the next few minutes, Limbaugh said the decision to bring terrorists to trial was solely "to satisfy the rabid, radical, far left that hates this country; that hates George W. Bush; that hates the US military."

Limbaugh opposed the use of lawyers; several times he branded them as leftist and Marxist, disregarding the reality that membership in the American Bar Association skews to the right. Although he came from a family of lawyers, he disregarded constitutional guarantees that require even the most heinous of criminals to be assured their rights, including the right to be represented by an attorney. While erroneously claiming that terrorists have no rights, Limbaugh also objected to providing the defendants "fairness," because in what he called the "new America," fairness is something created by "a bunch of radical leftists." He claimed that the defendants didn't even deserve lawyers because, in the world of Rush Fairytale Logic, the lawyers would use the courts to attack the United States.

He attacked the federal judiciary, claiming, "There are a bunch of radical leftists on our federal bench," all of whom apparently, if you believed the Mouth That Roared, are governed by such mundane and useless rules like - well - the Constitution of the United States. What Limbaugh didn't say, possibly because the facts didn't agree with his own distorted version of reality, is that there are more conservative judges than liberal judges in the federal judiciary. About one-third of all federal judges were appointed by George W. Bush, with a majority of all judges appointed by Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes. Limbaugh, in his deliberate distortion of facts, also didn't point out that 62 percent of all appeals court judges were appointed by Republican presidents, and that conservatives are the majority on 10 of the 13 appeals courts. He also failed to point out that six of the nine Supreme Court justices were appointed by Republican presidents. The Republican-dominated federal courts have cut down several unconstitutional provisions of the Patriot Act; the Republican-dominated Supreme Court has twice rebuked the Bush-Cheney administration for procedures that are blatantly unconstitutional. In one major decision, conservative Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, speaking for the majority, ruled, "Any process in which the Executive's factual assertions go wholly unchallenged or are simply presumed correct without any opportunity for the alleged combatant to demonstrate otherwise falls constitutionally short ... [T]he constitutional limitations safeguarding essential liberties ... remain vibrant even in times of security concerns."

Like most conservative radio hosts and their teabag-party followers, Limbaugh several times had blasted the Department of Justice for even thinking about bringing the terrorists onto the mainland, claiming the men were so evil that they would endanger all Americans. Unsaid by the talking mouths and empty heads was that the Department of Justice successfully prosecuted numerous gangsters, serial killers and terrorists, and then successfully imprisoned them without danger to civilians.

For emphasis about how he thought a trial for the 9/11 terrorists would be unfair, Limbaugh threw veiled anti-Semitic attacks upon a possible jury pool. "Before it's all said and done you're going to find some whack nut jobs on the Upper West Side of Manhattan that are going to be on this jury," said Limbaugh. The Upper West Side is largely identified as a community that was settled by refugee Jews, and which still has a significant percent of Jews.

Several times, Limbaugh stated that since the defendants had already "confessed," the need for a trial was not necessary, and would only embarrass the US, placating those "leftists," and exposing the entirety of the American intelligence community. This, said Limbaugh, is the "hidden agenda" of the Obama administration. "They want the United States on trial," Limbaugh cried out. Disregarding the absurdity of his own remarks, Limbaugh never acknowledged that the "confessions" were made only after severe torture. Bringing criminals, who have been subject to torture, to trial, who have confessed, said Limbaugh "is yet another internal assault on the fabric, the traditions, the institutions that have made this country great," he told his equally rabid listeners.

Having attacked the president, the attorney general, lawyers, judges, the Department of Justice and Jews, Limbaugh put Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pennsylvania) into his crosshairs. Sestak, said Limbaugh, is "a dangerous left-wing radical ideologue." What drew Limbaugh's rage was that Sestak not only supported the prosecution of the 9/11 terrorists in federal court, but that on "Fox News," he argued, "Most studies have shown that [torture] does not give you evidence as readily or as credible as other means." Persons who are tortured, said Sestak, raising concerns about the legitimacy of the terrorists' "confessions," will often confess to anything in order to stop the torture.

What Limbaugh didn't tell his audience was that Sestak was a graduate of the US Naval Academy, a retired vice-admiral who had led a carrier battle group, and was the first director of the Navy's anti-terrorism unit after 9/11. Sestak's views are the same as John McCain's, also a Naval Academy graduate, who had led an air squadron. Listeners could now choose between two war heroes, one of whom had suffered torture as a prisoner of war, and a college drop-out who, said his mother, flunked almost all of his classes in his only year in college, was declared 4-F in the draft and now hails on 600 radio stations as the mouthpiece for the right-wing fringe.

"We are in the process of destroying American ideals; we are in the process of subordinating America's greatness, America's exceptionalism," Rush Limbaugh wailed.

The reality is that flag-waving, fact-impaired Rush Limbaugh has no idea what American ideals are, nor does he have respect for the legal history of the United States or the power of the Constitution.

Come to think of it, how do we know Meneer Limbaugh didn't have a few drinks and/or joints before going into the aforementioned exercise in "patriotic" psychopathia, (un)consciously (un)aware of the prospect that his words, in the right set of circumstances, pose Clear and Present Danger to the Peace, Safety and Good Order of the Nation?

(Even better yet, I'd just love to have this pathetic tirade redone so that the old "Deutschland Uber Alles"--or, better still, "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika"; in either case, using the worst-possible recordings known in a rather strident and clipped military staccato--serves as the background to The Oxycontin Boar's comments ... the better so listeners can best understand whence the mind of this self-appointed "Truth Detector" really lies.)

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AND HOW'S THIS FOR A WAY TO DISTRACT ATTENTION FROM SARAH PALIN DURING HER CARNIVAL OF HYPERACTIVE PERKINESS for the GOP's benefit vis-a-vis Indecison 2012: Having a loudspeaker some distance away playing "Oh, What a Circus" from Evita when Evita Reincarnate's message gets a little too glowingly perky, as per her habit all the while.

The lyrics thereof (whose melody line also turns up in "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina"), for the interested, are as follows:

(Che Guevara:)
Oh what a circus, oh what a show,
Argentina has gone to town
Over the death of an actress called Eva Peron;
We've all gone crazy,
Mourning all day and mourning all night,
Falling over ourselves to get all of the misery right

Oh what an exit, that's how to go,
When they're ringing your curtain down,
Demand to be buried like Eva Peron;
It's quite a sunset,
And good for the country in a roundabout way;
We've made the front page of all the world's papers today!

But who is this Santa Evita?
Why all this howling, hysterical sorrow?
What kind of goddess has lived among us?
How will we ever get by without her?

She had her moments, she had some style,
The best show in town was the crowd
Outside the Casa Rosada crying, "Eva Peron"
But that's all gone now;
As soon as the smoke from the funeral clears,
We're all gonna see and how, she did nothing for years

(Crowd:)
Salve regina mater misericordiae
Vita dulcedo et spes nostra
Salve salve regina
Ad te clamamus exules filii Eva
Ad te suspiramus gementes et flentes
O clemens o pia
Hail, oh queen, mother of mercy
Our life, sweetness, and hope
Hail, hail, oh queen
To you we cry, exiled sons of Eve
To you we sigh, mourning and weeping
Oh clement, oh loving one

(Che:)
You let down your people Evita
You were supposed to have been immortal
That's all they wanted, not much to ask for
But in the end you could not deliver

Sing you fools, but you got it wrong,
Enjoy your prayers because you haven't got long,
Your queen is dead, your king is through
And she's not coming back to you

Show business kept us all alive
Since seventeen October, 1945,
But the star has gone, the glamour's worn thin,
That's a pretty bad state for a state to be in

Instead of government we had a stage,
Instead of ideas, a prima donna's rage,
Instead of help we were given a crowd,
She didn't say much, but she said it loud

Sing you fools, but you got it wrong,
Enjoy your prayers because you haven't got long,
Your queen is dead, your king is through
She's not coming back to you

(Crowd:)
Salve regina mater misericordiae
Vita dulcedo et spes nostra
Salve salve regina Peron
Ad te clamamus exules filii Eva
Ad te suspiramus gementes et flentes
O clemens o pia

(Eva:)
Don't cry for me Argentina
For I am ordinary, unimportant
And undeserving of such attention
Unless we all are, I think we all are
So share my glory, so share my coffin
So share my glory, so share my coffin

(Che:)
It's our funeral, too

Must we expect Our Holy and Beloved America to become thus reduced?

"...and that is is a way."

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REX BABIN, EDITORIAL CARTOONIST WITH THE SACRAMENTO BEE, PROBABLY HAS THE RIGHT IDEA in suggesting as above that bookstores would be better off putting Evita Reincarnate's pseduo-memoir Going Rogue: An American Journey in the Fiction shelves for the sake of Truth in Advertising.

As if that weren't enough, it's worth noting that you-know-who's religious beliefs are of the apocalypto sort as brings to mind:

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KEITH RUPERT MURDOCH, A/K/A "THE DIRTY DIGGER," SEEMS TO HARBOUR A KNOW-NOTHING BRAND OF DOUBLETHINK in response to recent suggestions that he may have pulled off a major flip-flop vis-a-vis whether News Corporation's corporate, let alone editorial, policies condone racism, bigotry and intolerance--especially the sort which can be excused as True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command if and when pushed.

We'll leave the details to the weekly roundup e-newsletter from Media Matters for America, as discussed this under a most alliterative heading of "Rupert's 'racist' revisionism":

Last week, Media Matters chronicled News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch's humanitarian efforts to help recuperate ailing Fox News superstar Glenn Beck by going on TV and announcing that Beck was right to call Obama a "racist." It was a curious comment for several reasons -- Fox News had already dismissed Beck's statement as an expression of opinion and not the position of the network, and people were already painfully aware that Beck hadn't faced any repercussions for his outburst. So in throwing his lot in with Beck, all Murdoch did was essentially confirm that outlandish attacks on the Democratic president are nothing short of official policy over at Fox News.

Then, of course, came the inevitable denial, in which Murdoch's spokesman stated without elaboration that his boss "does not at all, for a minute, think the president is a racist." Perhaps he was unaware that when you say things on TV, lots of people see it (unless, of course, you say it on Fox Business Network).

So you can understand why we were feeling a bit confused. Does Rupert Murdoch think President Obama is a racist or not? Well, there was only one way to get an answer -- ask Rupert himself. And that's exactly what we did. Confronted by Media Matters and asked which comment of the president's he considered racist, Murdoch responded: "I denied that absolutely. ... I don't believe he's a racist."

Well, that clears things up.

Wait. Actually, no ... it doesn't.

It's funny, in a way, to watch all this play out. Murdoch and his Fox News underlings know that even they have lines they can't cross, such as lobbing accusations of racism at the president, but they do it anyway, seemingly unable to help themselves. And when they do get in trouble, their response is always the same -- deny you said that thing that millions of people saw you say, make sure absolutely no one faces any consequences whatsoever, and move on to the next ridiculous story about Obama, which this week was the hyperventilating obsession over Obama's bow to the Japanese emperor.

Fox News would like everyone to believe that they operate under some sort of journalistic standard. If you want to be extremely generous and grant that this standard does in fact exist, then it's irreparably broken. Misbehavior is rewarded, accountability is nonexistent, and the ethical cues coming from upper management are hardly worth emulating.

(But then again, let's not forget that such racism and misogyny on News Corp's part may be global in nature, going back to his Australian mass-circulation tabloids whence Page Three originated ... and eventually moving to Great Britain following his purchase of the long-established [and rather ironically-named] Sunday gazetta News of the World in 1967, to be followed two years later with his purchase of The Sun ... @ about which time Page Three was introduced to British readers, eventually becoming a household term for soft-porn cheesecake imagery having no valid editorial value other than distracting attention.

(Not bad when the target audience of what the British call "red-tops"--as in mass-circulation tabloids specialist in little more than sport, crime, astrology and celebrity goss--is largely poor, undereducated, less sophisto and easily open to ideas which, unbeknownst to them until too late, may be dangerous to public interest or could otherwise conceal connexions to weird and unwholesome elements acting against the Nation. Which pretty much describes Fox Prolefeed's core audience here in our "morally superior" United States as much as those buying The Sun and/or the News of the World in Great Britain or even News Corp's mass-circulation tabloids "Down Under" such as the Herald-Sun in Melbourne, the Daily Telegraph in Sydney or the Courier-Post in Brisbane.

(And, for that matter, comparable to Monty Python's "Whizzo Butter" sketch as introduced the rather obnoxiously loud elderly women known to Old Pythonians of all nations as "Pepperpots":)

COMEDY CENTRAL'S STEVEN COLBERT NO DOUBT HIT THE PROVERBIAL NAIL ON THE HEAD when he reviewed Evita Reincarnate's just-issued memoir Going Rogue: An American Life on "The Word" segment of his Colbert Report Wednesday evening, and called it not just "a steaming pile of [N4BSK]," but also suggested that "True Americans are going to love this book because True Americans know that True Americans are the True Victims."

(Which, IIBC, seems to be the conservative trope du jour in seeking to whip up racially-disguised hate for President Obama, as if suggesting that the Greater American Agenda, to paraphrase George Wallace, is "Conservatism Now, Conservatism Tomorrow, Conservatism Forever!"--so long as the conservatism is of the Reagan stylee, one as holds dear, among other things, free-market capitalism to be the Great White Father Saving the Lower Classes from Themselves and Empowering Them into a New Golden Age of Industry, Self-Reliance, Personal Responsibility, Thrift based on Cash Economy and a Wholesome and Simple Home Life.)

In any event, "clowns can get away with the truth."

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SO MUCH FOR THE SCARE TACTIC SOME THIRD-PARTY CHANNELS ARE USING TO INDIRECTLY DISCOURAGE SMALL BUSINESS FROM SEEKING LOANS OR FINANCE through traditional banking channels by claiming banks aren't making new loans to small business "because of new Federal banking laws:"

May I be one to suggest considering the study and development in our "morally superior" society and nation of rotating mutual savings and credit societies of the sort known among the Koreans as wichin gyu, and among South African blacks as stokvels, wherein its members agree to make monthly subscriptions of a set amount over a set period of time, the proceeds thereof being used to make loans among its member/owners, usually and traditionally from the lowest socioeconomic ranks.

And, amazingly, without any default ensuing for a mutually-based microfinance model.

(Especially so if such societies are advised to invest their proceeds in such conservative investments of the type traditionally expected of mutual savings banks, such as through a Central Reserve Fund scenario not unlike the Mutual Savings Central Fund for and on behalf of mutual savings banks in Massachusetts ... or its cooperative bank counterpart, The Cooperative Central Bank.)

So what stands in the way, pray?

"...and that is is a way."

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IT'S PROBABLY JUST MOI, BUT WITH EVIDENCE OF SARAH PALIN'S CORE AUDIENCE BEING HUBRIS-LADEN "WHITE TRASH," AND THEN SOME (as RawStory.com has duly noted), such could be evidence among this ilk of the power and influence of Fox Prolefeed and conservative talkback radio crossing into the unhealthy.

Which, in its turn, brings to mind--

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MEANWHILE, IF EVER THERE WAS A MORE COST-EFFICIENT AND COST-BENEFICIAL WAY TO REFORM HEALTH CARE POLICY in our "morally-superior" United States, just watch the following:

TOO BIZARRE FOR EVEN RIPLEY TO IMAGINE, AND THEN SOME, by way of the BBC:

Four people have been arrested in Peru on suspicion of killing dozens of people in order to sell their fat and tissue for cosmetic uses in Europe.

The gang allegedly targeted people on remote roads, luring them with fake job offers before killing them and extracting their fat.

The liquidised product fetched US$15,000 (C$16,000/£9,000/€10,095/CHF15,270/ILS57,255/INR700,000/¥1.34 million/PHP706,000/A$16,410/NZ$20,725) a litre and police suspect it was sold on to companies in Europe.

At least five other suspects, including two Italian nationals, remain at large.

Police said the gang could be behind the disappearances of up to 60 people in Peru's Huanuco and Pasco regions.

One of those arrested told police the ringleader had been killing people for their fat for more than three decades.

The gang has been referred to as the Pishtacos, after an ancient Peruvian legend of killers who attack people on lonely roads and murder them for their fat.

Human tissue

At a news conference in the capital, police showed reporters two bottles containing human body fat and images of one of the alleged victims.

One of the alleged killings is reported to have taken place in mid-September, with the person's body tissue removed for sale.

Cmdr Angel Toledo told Reuters news agency some of the suspects had "declared and stated how they murdered people with the aim being to extract their fat in rudimentary labs and sell it".

Police said they suspect the fat was sold to cosmetics and pharmaceutical companies in Europe, but have not confirmed any such connection.

Next thing you know, expect similar tactics to make their way into the United States, officially excused as being one with "dealing with the obesity problem" in what turns out being an attack on the Lower Classes.

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AND IT SEEMS BEYOND PARADOX TO IMAGINE OPRAH WINFREY, IN THE SAME WEEK SHE INTERVIEWED EVITA REINCARNATE, manufactured perkiness and all (for the sake of the GOP, methinks), announcing (on today's show, know) that her show, perhaps the top-rated chat such in the United States, will leave the air when the current contract runs out in 2011.

One factor being cited in the announcement is the declining audience share for her daytime show, especially among women as are the traditional daytime chat show demographic advertisers in particular cherish. Not to mention such being a major loss for Chicago, where Harpo Productions (Harpo is Oprah spelled backwards) produces her show (and remember, Chicago has a major legacy of network radio and TV production lasting until Don MacNeill's long-running Breakfast Club show on ABC Radio left the air on December 29, 1968).

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AND WHEN IT COMES TO ROLE MODELS THAT HYPERCONSERVATIVE ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS WANT REVERED among Right-Thinking Americans, the so-called "American Association of Physicians and Surgeons" can easily recommend none other that Dr. John R. Brinkley of goat-gland implant notoriety ... Norman G. Baker, who first pushed the meme equating aluminum cookware with cancer, as well as pushing dubious cancer treatments himself ... and Harry Hoxsey, an early protegé of the aforementioned Baker who also promoted cancer quackery well into the early 1960's.

All of whom were equally legendary @ using high-powered Mexican radio stations of the sort known as "border blasters" to promote extreme Religiopolitik of pseudo-populist nature to appeal to--you guessed it--"Real Americans" overnights for a generation and more, interspersed with first-generation country and bluegrass music, religious paranoia in the guise of "ministries" and all manner of weird and dubious offers. (In the cases of Brinkley and Baker, being forced to move south of the Rio Grande after their respective stations stateside, KFKB ["Kansas First, Kansas Best" or "Kansas Folk Know Better"] Milford, KS and KTNT ["Know The Naked Truth"] Muscatine, IA, were forced off the air by Federal edict.)

And all of them subject of Eric S. Juhnke's omnibus biography Quacks and Crusaders: The Fabulous Careers of John Brinkley, Norman Baker, and Harry Hoxsey, which would be well worth recommending to anyone needing some insight into the Right-Wing Prolefeed Masheen and its byproducts (and their appeal to vulnerable and easily-influenced persons in the community) by way of historical precedent and insight.

As for the whole "border blaster" phenomenon generally, I recommend your reading Border Radio: Quacks, Yodelers, Pitchmen, Psychics, and Other Amazing Broadcasters of the American Airwaves by Gene Fowler and Bill Crawford. Both, as you will note, available from the good people on Amazon.com (of which The Exaggerator is an affiliate).

"...and that is is a way."

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IN CASE ANY OF YOU WERE ASKING ABOUT THE RATHER CRAZY-LOOKING SCANNING IMAGE ON THE SIDE OF THIS BLOG OVER RECENT DAYS, such is the Quick Response (QR) code for Web-enabled 3G and 4G mobile phones (including, I can assume, Blackberrys and Apple iPhones) equipped with the free Kaywa QR Reader to access The Exaggerator ... and, in its turn, your being able to read this blog "on the go."

Which, in any case, continues the mission of The Exaggerator to constantly look for fresh and fascinating ways to serve you, its readers, as well as attract attention on the Information Stuporbahn. (In this instance, by going beyond traditional desktop or laptop computers as the only means to stay abreast of what goes on here.)

(And to get a free code for your own weblog or website, click here.)

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IN THE NEARLY MONTH NOW THAT I'VE BEEN ON TWITTER AS ADJUNCT TO THIS BLOG, I have reached the point where the ratio of Tweeters that I follow (160) to such as follow moi (143) is an enviable 1.12.

Now tell me this isn't impressive, especially when you have the likes of Ricky Martin, Senor La Vida Loca "himself," among those following The Exaggerator in Twitter. (But then again, you get your share of such as use Twitter to push deceptive, fraudulent or misleading schemes or even advance hard-wired Zealotry and True Belief, which I take the liberty of blocking or, in especially extreme cases, report for "spam" activity.)

Others that happen to make it a habit of following me in Twitter include such illustrious names as Pizza Hut, Culver's, Malt-O-Meal, Maxine (as in Hallmark's Shoebox Greetings line), Buzzflash.com, Tetley Tea USA, Kajeet, Tanger Outlet Centres, Media Matters for America (and its Media Matters Action Network), the NFL's New England Patriots, Blogthings.com, the Canadian Pacific Railway, CREDO Mobile, The Jim Henson Company and Ripley International (as in Ripley's "Believe It or Not!").

(As reminder, the Twitter adjunct can be found here ... as well as off to the side of the page, howbeit with the most recent Tweets.)

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TRY NOT TO LAUGH, FOLKS, WHEN I MENTION THAT TODAY IS--(DRUMROLL)--WORLD TOILET DAY! Which, in case you ask, is intended to call attention to public health and sanitation issues caused by lack of access to proper toilet facilities, especially in the developing world where Chic Sale seems to remain the rule more than the exception.

And among the interesting (and yet shocking) facts organisers expect you to learn in connexion is that more children across Africa die every year from diarrhea than from malaria, HIV/AIDS or malnutrition.

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YOU JUST HAVE TO WONDER IF THE INTELLECT, LET ALONE BRAINS, OF THE AVERAGE "TEA PARTY" SUNSHINE SOLDIER AND ZEALOT, coming as he does from a Lower Working Class background so lacking in realistic job or career skills to the point of being considered "unsuitable for retraining" (and yet hard-wired in seeing dependency upon State Charity to be one with Moral Lapse, never mind studies disproving the connexion), is on the same level as a certain Stretch Snodgrass on the Old-Time Radio sitcom Our Miss Brooks, if you're fond of the genre.

(Snodgrass, basically, was more into sports than scholastics, as witness his usually being the single-worst student in the Madison High English class of the namesake character, Miss Connie Brooks, as portrayed by Eve Arden.)

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AND SPEAKING OF OLD-TIME RADIO, WHICH HAPPENS TO BE AMONG MY LISTENING INTERESTS ON SATELLITE RADIO (THANKS TO ADVICE OF MEIN INNKEEPER FRIEND), those of you who still remember the classic Suspense episode "Sorry, Wrong Number" (repeated no less than seven times "by popular request", and every time starring Agnes Moorhead) might find equally gripping the "Long Distance" episode of The Chase, an NBC Radio dramatic anthology as aired between 1952 and 1953 whose stories involved "race-against-time" plots and scenarios in the vein of conflict between Hunter and Hunted.

In this instance, such involved the desperate attempt of a housewife whose husband was about to be executed for murder trying to contact the judge in the original case about newly-uncovered evidence which confirmed the husband's alibi that he could not have carried out the murder in question, thereby clearing his name ... and this back in the day when calling Long Distance required one's dialing 211 to reach the Long Distance Operator, with plenty of interplay ensuing trying to establish the oh-so-critical connexion between operators in various parts of the country.

(About a year after this episode went to air, Direct Distance Dialing [DDD] would be introduced in a suburban Pittsburgh exchange of the Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania, since evolving into Verizon after Bell Atlantic [who had earlier acquired NYNEX] and GTE, a leading independent telephone company, merged. In time, DDD would be rolled out across the country, aided all the more by rural telephone companies adopting dial systems from the mid-1950's on and culminating in the last manual telephonic exchange, Maine's Bryant Pond Telephone Company, being cut over to dial service by the Oxford West Telephone Company in 1983.)

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IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T HEARD, NESTLÉ, THE COUNTRY'S LEADING PUMPKIN CANNERS (MARKETED UNDER THE LIBBY'S BRAND), IS REPORTING that shortages of canning pumpkin caused by unstable weather this past summer cutting into the crop are translating into a more expensive pumpkin pie this Festive Season.

Not to mention supplies of canned pumpkin being quickly depleted across the country, meaning that you may have to drive a little further out of your way to find decent canned pumpkin for that Tradition of Traditions on the holiday dessert table. (And pay more than you normally would, not to mention enduring bedlam and confusion.)

With that prospect in mind, might I suggest considering in lieu mincemeat pie for the holiday dessert ... or that old reliable Southern staple known as pecan pie, known in some parts of Dixie as "Karo Pie" (as in Karo Corn Syrup, who originated the concept in 1933), for which the good people @ Karo have no less than 35 permutations on the basic recipe as are all worth considering. (And you ain't whistling "That's What I Like About the South" for nothing!)

"...and that is is a way."

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MEMO TO SUCH AMONG THE ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS IN A XENOPHOBIC BRAND OF AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM as expects all Americans not to salute any foreign leader or power, with the President expected to be Example and Role Model as much as "Prophet, Seer and Revelator:"

I think your harping too much (perhaps to the point of unhealthy) about President Obama's bowing to Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko @ the Imperial Palace in Tokyo during the recent visit to Japan when you think he shouldn't shows a woefully xenophobic intolerance on your part as implies that America is supposedly above all other nations, and that Divine Will and Ordinance justifieth.

Especially if your intention is to suggest that any American picking up "bad ideas" from overseas might wind up carrying some class of a Loathsome Disease known as Knowledge and Enlightenment which somehow "threatens to undermine Our Holy and Beloved Nation," but without any facts to substantiate. That bow of President Obama to what is essentially a figurehead "symbol of the Japanese people and nation" (to paraphrase the relevant section of Japan's Constitution--which, remember, we Americans helped write) was merely protocol in line with established local custom.

Remember the Spanish proverb: "He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry some knowledge of the Indies with him."

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WOULD YOU BELIEVE (WITH APOLOGIES TO DON ADDAMS, A/K/A MAXWELL SMART, CONTROL AGENT 66) ... that a German telephone directory actually helped an Austrian history student locate a 90-year-old Nazi War Criminal wanted for the sadisto murder of 58 Jewish forced labourers from Hungary near the east Austrian village of Deutsch Schuetzen towards the end of World War II?

In any case, the "retiree from Duisburg" (as court documents officially refer to the suspect) faces charges for the incident in question, with substantiation therefor having been provided by three former Hitler Youth members in the district who witnessed the grusome proceedings (a fourth such, now living in Canada, is assisting German authorities in their enquiries).

(Ripley, take note.)

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ONE OF THE MORE COMMONLY-HEARD PLATITUDES AGAINST THE INFORMATION STUPORBAHN GENERALLY, AND ITS EFFECTS ON IMPRESSIONABLE YOUTH SPECIFICALLY, is that social-networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, among others, have become too attractive for virtual bullying, harrassment, cruelty and taunting ... and when the police intervene, the damage may have already been done, with results horrible dictu more often than no.

Such is the complaint from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) in Great Britain, whose Jim Gamble was quoted on the BBC as suggesting that such sites adopt the practice of Bebo in installing a "panic button" linking to the CEOP website in case users (especially children and the vulnerable) get suspicious about certain contacts and invites; CEOP, in its turn, takes details and provides information and contact details for their local police and various protective agencies, Childline foremost among them.

Inevitably, conservative Zealots and True Believers will respond by going into their arsenal of Tools and Answers to suggest that parents "take more responsibility for their children's websurfing habits" by embracing what borders on a Big Brother mindset, that the police should be left alone when it comes to "petty frivolous matters" like online bullying and instead focus on "more serious offenses" (replete with the usual racist bromides and screeds implying that White Low Church Christians are "morally and racially incapable" of committing Infamous and Notorious Crime), etc., etc.

But still, care needs to be taken when navigating the Information Stuporbahn.

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AS IF THE ONGOING PRESENCE OF AMERICAN AND BRITISH TROOPS IN THE AFGHANI THEATRE OF THE UR-RAHOWA AGAINST TERRORISM WASN'T AWFUL ENOUGH for the average Afghani to stomach eight years on, a newly-released survey of 704 randomly-selected Afghanis conducted by the aid and development charity Oxfam earlier this year finds where, among other things:

• the top five root causes of the ur-RAHOWA were seen to be poverty, unemployment, government corruption and ineffectiveness, the Taleban's continued influence, and threats from Afghanistan's neighbours;
• since the Soviet Occupation began in 1979, one in five Afghanis claimed to have been tortured and one in ten imprisoned @ least once;
• one in six are currently giving serious consideration to emigrating out of Afghanistan; and
• three-quarters of Afghanis acknowledged having had to flee their homes since the Soviet Occupation.

"...and that is is a way."

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THE WORLD WAR II-VINTAGE CONTRIVED ACRONYM OF "JAAFU" (AS IN "JOINT ANGLO-AMERICAN FOUL-UP"), ITSELF CREATED IN THE WAKE OF "SNAFU" ("SITUATION NORMAL, ALL FOULED UP"), could probably apply in like measure to the Afghani Question, what with the presence of American and British troops in an ur-RAHOWA Against International Terrorism only making matters worse in the name of stopping Islamic extremist terrorism.

(As witness a number of al-Qaeda/Talebani terror attacks of recent days just across the Pakistani border, the lion's share of which were in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar or otherwise in tribal areas of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, of which Peshawar is capital.)

Which, in any event, has prompted British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to call for an International Conference on Afghanistan and the Afghan Question under United Nations auspices sometime around Hogmanay, what with his admitting that the Afghan Question may be too big for the British and Americans (even as part of NATO-command forces) to deal with alone. Especially so deeper issues like corruption and mismanagement to such depths as could, in the right circumstances, have the average Afghan in the street support al-Qaeda or Taleban elements as a show of protest against what Our Morally Superior Troops Brought In.

Especially considering that the Taleban gets a cut of the proceeds on the sale of opium poppies and its byproducts (heroin in particular), not to mention cannabis and its byproducts (hashish in particular)--those being pretty much the only profitable crops many Afghan farmers can be expected to cultivate in local soils.

Besides, as I'm fond of saying many times more often than not, echoing Disneyland and Walt Disney World's co-National Hymn, "it's a small world, after all." And sometimes, it may be better to have the Afghan Question be resolved through a purely cosmopolitan approach.

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NEWS THAT THE SO-CALLED "TEA PARTY" MOVEMENT MUST CERTAINLY BE DROOLING OVER(!!) IN THEIR LUSCIOUS GLORY MOST PERVERTO: Rescue services in Berlin have sent bills for about €250 each after being called out to a local fairgrounds to rescue 16 persons who got caught upside down on a carnival ride for 45 minutes after the power failed the other day.

Which these same specimens of misguided Zealotry and True Belief, coming for the most part from easily-led and ignorant backgrounds as may explain their lacking decent job or career skills as may preclude their being considered retrainable, would consider as "just what they deserve."

(Yesh, right ... and Evita Reincarnate, t/n Sarah Palin, tells Oprah that she has no designs for the moment on the GOP Presidential Nomination for Indecision 2012, instead concentrating on Inecision 2010 and hoping to be an ideological shill for conservative-leaning candidates, articles of faith and any ballot plebiscites seeking to advocate same, especially so-called "TABOR" (TAxpayers' Bill Of Rights), "takings" and "Wise Use" questions.)

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SEE IF YOU CAN SPOT THE FLAWED MATHS HERE: The Postal Service in our "morally superior" United States, despite cutting some 40,000 positions in the last fiscal year through contract buydowns and early retirement and the annual cost-of-living-linked postage rate increase to 44¢ for letters and 27¢ for postcards, has announced a net loss of $3.8 billion in the last fiscal year.

Which, in any event, leaves the Postal Service with a number of potentially unpopular options to try and cut losses further while still avoiding Government subsidies (not to mention resisting automation and other technological efficiencies as could translate into further cost savings within measurable distance), and protect its cherished monopoly on letterpost deliveries to every address in the United States--among them discontinuing Saturday carrier deliveries (a throwback to when many offices still had a half-day on Saturdays) and closing Post Office branches in major metropolitan areas.

To which the conservative Zealots and True Believers will probably respond by calling for the letterpost monopoly to be modified, a la Great Britain (so long as it weighs @ least 50g and costs @ least 50p/item) and Australia (so long as it weighs @ least 30g), thereby scaring the Postal Service into further efficiencies through the agencies of competition and free enterprise For G-d, Country and Family. (BTW, non-profit youth organisations such as the Scouts, the Boys' Brigade and the Girl Guides are allowed, during the Christmas/New Years' holiday period, to deliver holiday greetings between Land's End and John O'Groats in competition with Royal Mail. I'm not sure if the same policy would apply with the postal agencies in the Crown Dependencies of Guernsey, Jersey and Ellan Vannin.)

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THOSE WHO COUNTERFEIT FEDERAL RESERVE NOTES IN SPITE OF MAJOR REDESIGNS THEREOF IN RECENT YEARS TO DETER COUNTERFEITING, in addition to seeking the destabilisation of the economy towards armed insurrection and overthrow of the government (usually in army with weird and unwholesome types towards such ends themselves), no doubt see the annual end-of-year holiday season as The Most Wonderful Time of the Year to pass counterfeit notes into the financial system--and especially now in the current socioeconomic circumstances.

I say this because, per an item on CNN Headline News this morning, retail clerks having to deal with the crush of shoppers buying holiday presents are too busy with their duties to take the necessary precautions against counterfeit notes, especially such of the $20, $50 and $100 values (the last two being especially popular with counterfeiters to such extent that many small businesses refuse to take such @ the till lest they wind up getting in Dutch, so to speak).

And from what I've heard, fake $20 notes are starting to make the retail rounds with just over a week to go before the holiday-shopping season begins in earnest.

Which, in any case, is enough to recall this classic hybrid of moral tale and puzzle as makes the rounds every now and then (and which requires some serious thinking to arrive @ the answer):

Man goes into a hatters' to buy a $7.50 hat.

Man pays for the hat with a $50 note.

Hatter has no change for the $50.

Hatter goes to his neighbours' to get change on the $50.

Man gets the hat and $42.50 in change.

Few days later, hatter's neighbour learns that the $50 note given him was really a counterfeit such, and demands that the hatter pay good money on it.

Hatter is forced to make good the loss.

Your Jackpot Question: What loss did the hatter suffer?

If you think you have the answer, send me an e-mail posthaste and let me know. No prize of any kind is being offered; understand this in advance ... instead, think of this as an exercise in Applied Critical Thought as opposed to the Orwellian Doublethink which Fox Prolefeed and their droogs in "winning of hearts and minds" easily-led and ignorant prefer.

"...and that is is a way."

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ONE THING ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS WHO ASSOCIATE WITH THE ELMER GANTRY RELIGIOPOLITICAL ELEMENT IN PARTICULAR HOLD DEAR is a belief in the outdated and discredited as such that will Save America From Herself and Lead Her to a New Golden Age of Industry, Self-Reliance, Personal Responsibility, Thrift based on Cash Economy and a Wholesome and Simple Home Life.

All to be seen as the Five Pillars of the White Low Church Christian America thus envisaged.

This I bring up in the wake of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's formal apologies to such brought over as children from England in the (howbeit discredited) name of "social betterment" and "the White Man's Burden" between 1920 and 1967 ... and also such who were brought up in State-sponsored orphanages and industrial schools well into the 1970's.

Who, in either case, were subjected to abuse, cruelty and neglect based on rather spiteful and groundless delusions about "the need to save the Good Taxpayers from themselves" (as in having to "suffer needlessly" for the care of the less fortunate among us, as if expecting the Church or even mutual self help to provide better social welfare services to such in need), especially where recourse to lies, trick or deception was deemed necessary in the Crown's name to justify such placements as nowadays would be deemed illegal.

(For his part, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is expected to offer like apologies within measurable distance.)

And is it any wonder that certain White Christian Supremacists have this secret desire of "evacuating" as "refugees" (which may not exactly be the case in fact) all remaining specimens of Afrikanerdom from South Africa as "vlugtelinge in die vrees van vervolging deur 'n Kommunistiese-beïnvloed-regime" (or so the official patsy in Afrikaans would have it), and scaring up funds from Right-Thinking White Christian Americans per a "United Campaign" with connexions to bigot groups (and reminding them to "give till it hurts") until those involved decide to reallocate funds raised to "more urgent needs" @ the last minute?

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"NOBODY'S PERFECT, BUT I COME D*** CLOSE" was the message on a corny little postcard sold among "shoobie trap" resorts in the early 1990's and thereabouts.

I mention this because of an auction @ the close of the annual Royal Winter Show in Toronto over the weekend which saw a Holstein cow described as the acme of bovine perfection going under the hammer for US$1.26 million.

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SOMETHING WHICH EVITA REINCARNATE, T/N SARAH PALIN, OUGHT TO REALISE IN PROVERB FORM: "A lie has speed, but truth has endurance."

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IN A RELATED VEIN, GREEK MYTHOLOGY REMINDS US THAT PARIS OFFERED ATHENA, APHRODITE AND HERA A GOLDEN APPLE inscribed FOR THE MOST BEAUTIFUL, only to have the three brawling over it when Paris threw the apple @ this party ... but, in the end, Aphrodite was awarded the Golden Apple and won Paris' hand, in exchange for which Aphrodite had to cook up a plot by which Helen of Troy (the beauty of whose face, it was said, could launch a thousand ships) was to be kidnapped, thereby setting off the Trojan Wars.

By this analogy, Your Correspondent has to wonder if the GOP is using Sarah Palin as an ur-Apple of Discord with an eye towards maintaining loyalty and orthodoxy among the rank-and-file membership lest there be another Winona Speech (as it were) leaving GOP in such discord that the Democrats exploit same for political ends, with success. (In fact, the fallout from the Winona Speech, which had then-President William Howard Taft defending just-legislated tariff reforms, howbeit flawed and then some, as the best tariff legislation ever enacted, was a factor oft cited by historians in explaining how Democrat Woodrow Wilson was able to win the Presidency in 1912; its fallout opened all the more a wedge between the Stalwart and Progressive factions as threatened GOP unity.)

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LATEST UNLIKELY TUNE WORTH SILLY WALKING TO: "The Poor People of Paris" from Les Baxter and His Orchestra, by way of the 1958 version of Moulin Rouge.

(Which, come to think of it, could also be worth using as soundtrack to streetcar-enthuasist video.)

"...and that is is a way."

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glitter-graphics.com

BEFORE I GO INTO THE MEAT-AND-POTATOES, AS IT WERE, OF THIS WEBLOG, READERS, MAY I EXPLAIN A RECENT HABIT OF MINE in connexion with my using my Twitter adjunct in conjunction with my Amazon.com affiliation in the hope of attracting online shoppers, especially with the holidays coming up:

You may have noted on occasion my having certain online-shopping-related lead-ins read "Amazon.com will serve best to the needs of your [insert department of the moment here] whenever and whatever you are!!" or some such ... and you're probably asking about the inspiration therefor: It comes by way of the English-language product line page of the Japanese website for Mitsubishi Motors (since removed, IIBC) as proclaimed "Abundant product line of Mitsubishi Motors will serve best to the needs of your living whenever and whatever you are!!" (And it can get to be rather tricky trying to distill the Tweet, URL link included, into the 140-character maximum Twitter alloweth.)

In a similar vein as well, and also with the desideratum of attracting trade and custom, is the phrase "Looking for [insert product of the moment here]? We are just what you need." That being inspired by "spam" e-mails a few years back for counterfeit or pirated OEM computer software from dubious or spurious channels as asked "Looking for not expensive, high-quality software? We may have just what you need." (Here again, it can be a challenge trying to keep it within the 140.)

As well, I acknowledge allusion to Monty Python and/or the likes of the movie Surf's Up in so attempting to supplement disability benefits I get as income through Twitter's agency.

As the late Paul Harvey said, "Now you know ... The Rest of the Story."

So how about maybe buying something for once? I could use the income.

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AS WE ALL KNOW, THE BRITISH USED AUSTRALIA AS A DUMPING-GROUND FOR CONVICTS AND "TROUBLEMAKERS," REAL OR SUSPECTED, from the First Fleet in 1788 until the penal sentence of "transportation" (as the practice was officially referred to) was abolished in 1869 on the complaint of free settlers who claimed that convicts so sentenced were causing no end of trouble. (Especially so in Van Dienen's Land, a/k/a Tasmania, where the worst offenders were sentenced.)

In that same spirit(?), then, British welfare authorities, aided and abetted by the charity now known as Barnardo's, routinely removed white children from "culturally-deprived" or otherwise "dysfunctional" homes across England's Green and Pleasant Land under what turned out being false pretenses (all the while officially excused as one with "colonisation") between 1920 and 1967 ... in the end being subjected themselves to abuse, neglect and maltreatment in "resettlement homes" and, later, in foster care while being expected to play along with the official story of their being "orphaned" or some such. (Which would be deflated later on when it emerged that the real reason for their separation from birth parents was because of "unfit home," "alcoholics," "unwed mother" or other signs of "moral risk," all without parental consent more than anything.)

Now, with some 7,000 specimens of this so-called "noble experiment" in "social betterment" still around across Australia, there have been calls for some time for an apology vis-a-vis such displacement, their not being given a truthful explanation for same beforehand--and probably some compensation. Which Canberra is about to issue within measurable distance, and Great Britain likely to follow sometime around the New Year's holidays.

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OF LATE, "SAVE MONEY. LIVE BETTER" HAS BEEN THE SLOGAN @ WALLY WORLD IN THEIR ADVERTISING, which unwittingly conceals some Dirty Little Secrets as to how such can be possible (and which Bentonville wants to take considerable pains in concealing from public knowledge lest Public Confidence and Trust Be Compromised Adversely All The More, especially among such In Clear and Compelling Need of Wally World--as in the Working-Masses):

For one, collusion with manufacturers, importers and suppliers to such an extent that competitors, not to mention smaller "mom-and-pop" stores in the High Street, are unable to compete on like terms.

For another, the deliberate location of stores in lower-income and socioeconomically-disadvantaged areas to maximise tax benefits they're technically not entitled to, especially considering their own resources being more than adequate to build locations without tax assistance.

And for still another, much of the merchandise being made by deliberately-subsidised child, convict or forced labour in the so-called "People's Republic of China" especially--the last point being something of a fresh issue among especially discount retailers (including "dollar store" chains like Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Family Dollar, 99¢ Only and suchlike, again concentrating on lower-income and working-class areas being driven all the further into gross poverty, fecundity and stupidity thanks to the unhealthy influences of Fox Prolefeed and conservative talkback radio) in light of Customs considering a tightening of import restrictions and/or increased tariffs on consumption goods so manufactured.

(Yet so hard to verify, when you get right down to it.)

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ALFRED PACKER AND ED GEIN WOULD PROBABLY BE AMUSED DEPARTMENT: Police in the western Russian city of Perm are looking for someone who ate some human flesh recently following a Notorious Murder, only to sell the residue to a disreputable kebab shop in that city who, in its turn, may have served human flesh to patrons in a manner that The Plainfield Monster would have found hilarious.

Which, in any event, has caused police and health officials to look for anyone patronising the kebab shop in question over recent days for tests.

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FELIX THE CAT IS NOT AMUSED THAT HIS BELOVED BAG O'TRICKS IS BECOMING AN ESSENTIAL ARSENAL AMONG WEIRD AND UNWHOLESOME ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS in conservative propaganda targeting Joe Sixpack in particular.

The sort as requires use of an Emmanuel Goldstein-stylee "Enemy of the People and Nation" to maintain fear as well as loyalty and national unity through various Tools and Answers so contained to willfully and yet consciously mislead, deceive or otherwise confuse Boobius Americanus such as can be easily misled into supporting so-called "tea party" causes in the guise of "saving American workers from themselves," only to wind up parroting the line of "the Four Hundred" as are behind these "tea parties" through Scientologist-stylee techniques.

And not be expected all along to know he's being used and misled into expecting a "pure," Ayn Rand-stylee capitalism with American characteristics to be their Great White Father--preferably through unconscious use and application of cartel behaviour.

Methinks it was time to attempt a major reeducation of these Unwashed Masses towards explaining to them their actually being misled to think against their own best interests, all the while expected to hold dear an idealised vision of The America We Once Knew and Loved as one that will Save America From Herself ... one, it turns out, as never existed in Reality (refer to Stephanie Coontz' The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap for further details), yet all the while still seeing mutual self-help as among its articles of faith.

So what stands in the way, let alone ponder how best to approach it (and, perhaps, in the same sort of conservative stylee)?

"...and that is is a way."

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