TRY AVOIDING ANY OF THESE WORDS IN YOUR DAILY CONVERSATION: For the 33rd consecutive year, Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan has come out with its Annual List of Words, Phrases and Expressions Henceforth to be Banned from the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness.

Which, for 2008, comprises:

• "perfect storm"
• "waterboarding"
• "webinar"
• "organic"
• "wordsmith/ing"
• "author/ed"
• "post-9/11"
• "surge"
• "give back"
• "[A] is the new [B]"
• "Black Friday"
• "back in the day"
• "random"
• "sweet" (especially in youth-culture usage)
• "decimate"
• "emotional"
• "pop"
• "it is what it is"
• "under the bus"

Additionally, "truthiness" has been "restored" to the list. As those entrusted to the annual compendium explain:

This comes after comedians and late-night hosts were thrown under the bus and rendered speechless by a nationwide professional writers' strike. The silence is deafening.

Try figuring out approriate Newspeak replacements therefor.

After all, Newspeak was created as deliberate gibberish to maintain an unswerving and unyielding allegiance to a corrupt and misguided agenda.

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TELL ME IF SOMETHING'S GONE WRONG HERE: A recent trend in "spam" e-mails promoting adult websites Your Correspondent has discerned is where every second word in the Subject line of same will be some class of a made-up nonsense word containing random characters.

An attempt, no doubt, as per usual among the "spam" fraternity, to pervert filtering software programmes among Internet Service Providers (ISP's) and online e-mail services when it comes to "spam," usually consigned to a specially-nominated folder or (in some cases) directly to the trash.

But then again, the e-mail servers will recognise such for what it is: Spam, pure and simple.

Unfortunately, though, such may be an overt violation of the Adult Content Labelling Rule provisions of the CAN-SPAM law in the United States, requiring that unsolicited e-mail containing sexually-explicit or otherwise pornographic material be flagged "[SEXUALLY EXPLICIT]" "up front" in the message Subject line. Your Correspondent, in fact, has not seen the "[SEXUALLY EXPLICIT]" tag in any of the recent crop of "bulk e-mail marketing" for adult sites he's received--and promptly deleted, I will have you know.

And you wonder what kind of defences are being deployed by those so engaging in "spamming" for the sake of depraving the Lower Classes in particular to avoid possible action--one likely such being the patsy that, as the site(s) in question is/are hosted outside the United States' soverign territory, they are not subject to such requirements.

So what is the Federal Trade Commission doing in this instance?

Are they, somehow--and perhaps on the lettres de cachet of His Fraudulency's Great Within--being asked to practice a rather crude form of doublethink (as in promoting themselves as being "For The Consumer" while, in practice, playing footsie with such specimens of "the Four Hundred" as gave substantially to His Fraudulency's campaigns, and expecting rewards for Good and Loyal Service)?

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LET'S JUST HOPE ARKANSAS ISN'T SUDDENLY HOME TO A CLANDESTINE KINDERPORN INDUSTRY: With some in the blogosphere suggesting that GOP Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee may have given pardons to Certain Notorious Criminals for purely political reasons, only to commit sadisto murder and rape soon afterwards (and showing no remorse to date), Your Correspondent wonders if The Natural State may suddenly be home to a clandestine child-pornography industry with the sub rosa protection of Governor Huckabee's Administration.

Not unlike that on the Japanese island of Hokkaido as was the subject of this recent "WaiWai" item from Japan's Mainichi Daily News, never mind where questions need to be raised as to its credibility:

Shockwaves continue to reverberate months after the arrest of public elementary school vice principal Takayuki Hosoda on kiddy porn charges, according to Weekly Playboy (12/24-31).

Hosoda is on remand awaiting trial on a charge of violating the law banning child pornography following his arrest in October last year for allegedly paying a 16-year-old schoolgirl ¥6,000 for sex.

A subsequent police raid on the vice principal's home is said to have unearthed photos of 260 underage girls, 330 DVDs featuring obscene images and a brace of schoolgirl uniforms. Police say Hosoda took obscene photos of over 600 underage girls and sent the images to various lowbrow publications, earning over ¥18 million in the seven years from 2000.

Hosoda's arrest shocked Hokkaido and some of the more unsavory elements of Japan's publishing industry.

"We adored Hosoda because he'd send us absolutely loads of photos of cute young girls. Photos from Hosoda almost guaranteed better sales," the editor [of] one magazine, made up of readers' photos, tells Weekly Playboy.

There's nothing illegal in taking erotic photos. That is, unless the subject is underage and, like Hosoda is accused of doing, also lured into having sex. Magazines that publish photos of girls under 17 are also liable to prosecution and in the ensuing months since Hosoda's arrest, his apprehension has made the magazines re-think how they do business.

"Frankly speaking, the only way you can tell if a girl in a photo is over 18 is by looking at her. It's a fact that this case has made police look much closer at what we're doing. If we do run a photo of an underage girl and the police can find out exactly who she is and how old she is, that's the end of our magazine," another editor of a readers' contribution magazine says. "Even if we know a girl is 18 or 20, we won't run her photos now if she even looks younger than that because it's too risky. Hokkaido, where Hosoda came from, has traditionally been a great supplier of young girls' photos. I think one reason may be because the girls in the wide open spaces of Hokkaido are a bit more relaxed than in other parts of the country. So we've made sure we pay extra special attention to any submissions we get from Hokkaido."

One man--described only as "M", a Hokkaido resident and a reader of the magazines of the type that Hosoda used to contribute to--says teenage girls in the northernmost island prefecture are ripe for plucking by predators.

"Once women reach their 20s, they've picked up a bit of knowledge about how the world works and they'll very rarely let you take photos of them in the nude. Considering the likelihood they could be used against them, by being posted somewhere or to blackmail them, it's an understandable situation. But girls in their teens are defenseless and will soon strip off for about ¥5,000 in cash," "M" tells Weekly Playboy. "If someone goes to a matchmaking cafe, they can confirm with their own eyes whether a girl is cute and then negotiate a price if they want to. Since Hosoda's arrest, though, the police have been much stricter on matchmaking cafes. The cafes themselves are also stringently checking the girls' IDs.

"The magazines are still attractive, though. If they run one of your photos, they'll pay around ¥5,000 for it. Send in a few photos of the same girl and you can get around ¥20,000. That's enough to pay for the girl, the entrance fee to the matchmaking cafe and a love hotel afterward. It's one way to be able to mix business and pleasure." 

BARNEY FIFE TYPES NEED NOT APPLY: Lewiston, Minnesota (population some 1,500 people), "The Heart of Winona County," has an urgent need for police officers @ this time.

The need being necessitated by the City Council, in special meeting just last night, having fired incumbent police chief Mark Dungy for a series of incidents in the second half of last year tending to insubordination, false witness and conduct casting discredit upon the City of Lewiston. Said meeting eventually collapsing into disorder, forcing the Minnesota State Patrol and Winona County Sheriffs' deputies to maintain order until the mayor adjourned the meeting early

As if that weren't good enough, Lewiston's only other constable, Robbie Floerke, resigned consistent with a prior categorial pledge in the vein of "if [Chief Dungy] goes, then I go."

Thus, leaving The Heart of Winona County @ the potential mercy of elements weird and/or unwholesome styling themselves as a Vigilance Committee--and perhaps attracting the unwelcome Notice and Attention of Fox Noise seeking to whip up The Great Silent Majority's disgust @ the supposedly sorry state of post-9/11 Law and Order in Middle America, same more than likely to undermine any serious opportunity to attract jobs or industry (especially labour-intensive models serving no useful benefit other than arrogant hubris towards a nil unemployment rate within free-market capitalist paradigms).

Making the situation all the more urgent is where the Winona County Sheriff's Department is pleading "limited resources" precluding their being able to provide police protection in the interim.

Hence: Those of you in the Long Arm of the Law, or are otherwise new to same, looking for police positions may want to consider this a Worthwhile Opportunity for a change to a new, happier life in Rural America. However, with Lewiston being a small town, don't expect the pay or benefits to amount to much cf. "the big town."

If interested, please send a feeler with curriculum vitæ and qualifications to the City of Lewiston, PO Box 129, Lewiston, MN 55952-0129, or fax same to a/c 507-523-2306 ASAP. Race, colour, sex, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and ethnicity should not matter; all that matters is a willingness to do your job, and do it well.

(Just so you know: Applicants will be subject to background checks and drugs testing as part of the screening process. And may I add that the likes of Ku Kluxers, John Birchers, misguided pseudoreligious, so-called "Minutemen" and other "militia" types and others weird and unwholesome--including such seemingly straight out of Reno 911--need not apply.)

(All police departments are encouraged to copy.)

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FRESH OUT OF TRUCK-DRIVING SCHOOL? STILL CAN'T FIND A DRIVING JOB? Before blaming NAFTA or the nascent "North American Union" for such circumstances you're whining about, consider where a number of motorcoach companies operating scheduled intercity services are seeing a serious shortage of drivers to meet current schedule requirements.

(As if increased fuel and insurance costs weren't bad enough for the industry....)

One such I can think of is Jefferson Lines, the largest regional motorcoach company: A recent item in the LaCrosse gazetta noted where, citing driver shortages inter alii, the one daily round trip they have will be cut back for the time being so that Madison, WI is served only thrice weekly (daily service will continue out of LaCrosse to and from Rochester and the Twin Cities).

Which is where ye with Commercial Drivers' Licences come in (along with a clean driving record and can pass a drugs test): In view of the driver shortage, many scheduled-service operators are likely to be issuing urgent hiring calls for new drivers who can spend plenty of time on the road away from kith and kin, can deal with all manner of weird and quasi-wholesome characters as make up your typical motorcoach passenger--and can do so safely. And because of the shortage, expect many such operators to offer pay bonuses just to fill available vacancies.

Just visit the Jefferson Lines website (link thereto q.v.), go to the Employment section, and find out all you need to know, including how to apply.

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IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: The above items announcing job opportunities are purely unofficial, and are based solely on news reportage seen by Your Correspondent. Further, Your Correspondent is posting them solely as a favour and public service to such who may be reading this weblog, and has received no pay or consideration of any kind. Furthermore, this weblog is not an employment agency, nor does it intend to be; it just comes across this information "in the wake of the news," as it were, and feels it worthwhile to make note accordingly, hoping interested parties will do their own research and heuristics.

Said employment opportunities are offered, in compliance with State and Federal equal-opportunity laws, without regards to colour, race, religious belief, sex, sexual orientation, familial status, welfare dependency or national origin. In certain instances, women, veterans and National Minorities are especially encouraged to apply.

Applicants may be required to submit to police background checks, credit-bureau checks and drugs testing.

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CAN AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND ENVIRONMENTALLY-FRIENDLY DESIGN REALLY COEXIST? Even with the housing market in disarray because of the "sub-prime" and "Alt-A" mortgage crises, Your Correspondent understands where there will be a talk @ 17h30 on Saturday, 9 February @ the Eagle Bluff Environmental Learning Centre, 28097 Goodview Dr., Lanesboro, MN 55949-8290, discussing Eco-Friendly Affordable Housing.

Dinner will be served as well; however, reservations are essential.

They can be made by contacting the Centre on freecall 1-888-800-9558 or (if that doesn't work where you come from) on a/c 507-467-2437 during business hours in the Central Time Zone of the United States (UTC-6 hours).

"Wise Use" Zealots and True Believers (especially such with weird and unwholesome associations) are advised not to attend, lest the whole be reduced to disorder and chaos under the right circumstances (especially when Al Cohol comes into the equation).      

TALK ABOUT "STORIES IGNORED BY THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA," OR CLAIMS THEREFOR: As if Project Censored's annual selection of the top 25 news stories which the Mainstream Media is deliberately ignoring under all manner of excuses concealing fear of exposure and scandal, the ConWebWatch blog reveals what may be the hyperconservatives' answer (as if suggesting that the aforementioned Project Censored was "too liberal leaning" and, hence, "could lead [its readers] to serious error"):

It's that time of year again, and you know what that means (and not just the Slanties, which will arrive next week): Time for another WorldNetDaily "Operation Spike" list of the most "underreported stories" of the past year. But as happened last year, WND's list ignores certain facts that hint at why they deserved to be underreported.

Topping the list, as it did last year, was "developments moving U.S. and continent closer to a North American Union." In second place was the case of the Border Patrol agents convicted of "shooting an admitted drug smuggler as he fled across the border after smuggling into the U.S. a load of 750 pounds of marijuana in a van," a description that curiously omits the fact that the agents tried to cover up the shooting and that the person they shot was unarmed.

For the third-place entry, "Research refuting man-made global warming," WND cited "a lawsuit by a father, Stewart Dimmock, who claimed the film ['An Inconvenient Truth'] contained 'serious scientific inaccuracies, political propaganda and sentimental mush.' The British court pointed to 11 inaccuracies in the production." But as we noted (and WND has yet to note), Dimmock's lawsuit was backed by oil and mining interests, even denier Noel Sheppard has pointed out that the British court ruling found only nine inaccuracies, and also found that many of the claims made by the film were fully backed up by the weight of science.

In sixth place was Peter Paul's dubious accusations of "felonious fundraising" against Hillary Clinton that fail to mention (as WND frequently fails to do) that Paul is a convicted felon who's vainly trying to keep his butt out of prison after pleading guilty to his role in a $25 million stock fraud scheme.

And so on. WND should try not underreporting these stories itself--you know, by telling its readers the entire truth--before it accuses others of underreporting.

And as we all know, the conservatives' ideal of "objective journalism" is really nothing short of a "two-track" approach, with the Lower Classes targeted for nothing better than trashy "red-top" tabloids specialist in nothing better than sport, crime, astrology and celebrity gossip--not to mention the obligatory Page Three softporn pinup.

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AN INCONVENIENT WARNING FROM HISTORY WHICH THE CONSERVATIVES WOULD RATHER HAVE US IGNORING: The Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution reminds us that

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Which, put another way, means that any and all such rights enshrined in the Constitution must be applied equally.

Yet, there have been rather sorry episodes in our history where some, in the name of "patriotism," have sought to keep certain classes down to reinforce "whipping-boy" delusions those in power sought to perpetuate.

Case in point: During World War I, our very state of Minnesota was caught up in a rather draconian exercise of enforced "patriotism" in the name of the War Effort as sought to ensure Total Victory and nothing less in the form of the Minnesota Commission for Public Safety.

In whose name a 100% Americanism effort was sought out of all Minnesota residents, reinforced by all manner of fear and loathing to be directed in particular against German immigrants and their children; the fear being the likelihood of whipping up support for the German cause.

And to that end, the Commission for Public Safety was entrusted to act on all complaints of "disloyalty" so received, no matter how suspicious or spurious they may have been--as well as enforcing what became known as the "Work or Fight" order directed in particular @ "vagrants," real or suspected (as in either find work in preferably war-related jobs or enter the military).

Towards Germans, a "show no mercy" attitude of contempt and loathing was sanctioned: Use of the German language in schools and churches was forbidden, German-language newspapers were subject to extreme censorship by Post Office edict, Germans were forced to learn English, houses and farms of Germans were painted yellow (the traditional colour of cowardice) by what could best be called "goon squads" acting under the Commission's (supposed) authority, sauerkraut became "liberty cabbage" and Frankfurters "liberty sausage" in polite circles, and Germans were forced to buy more in Liberty Bonds (as financed the United States campaigns in the War to End All Wars) than such deemed "loyal Americans."

Occasionally, of such, such "loyalty" exercises risked getting out of control from time to time.

How do we know, readers, that such potentially dangerous designs to whip up True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command aren't secretly being formented in the minds of conservative Zealots and True Believers against Muslims, Arabs and even those suspected of "liberal" or "Progressive" views to maintain support for a deluded cause such as ur-RAHOWA in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Remember these words of George Santayana: "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

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A NEWS CHANNEL WE'D LOVE TO SEE, ESPECIALLY AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO FOX NOISE: Mein Innkeeper Friend, some while back, was of the notion that his ideal news channel on the vidiot's lamp of Diogenes would be nothing better than an off-screen announcer reading the news headlines while images of Earth, as seen from space (by way of NASA and the Russian space programmes), appeared on screen.

The news, it turns out, being in the stylee of "rip-and-read" off wire-service copy more than likely.

The delivery being in an annoying-sounding, Sonovox-stylee monotone prone to computer breakdowns from time to time as results in occasional lapses into strings of random dictionary words, not unlike certain specimens of "spam" trying to pervert junk-mail-filtering software.

And I understand there are several satellites in Earth orbit as are transmitting live TV images of the planet from space, more than likely involving polar orbit as opposed to the geostationery such whence the broadcasts would be transmitted.

(As for the weather reports, I could just imagine such being delivered in the stylee of "Miss Monitor" back on NBC Radio's storied weekend "kalediscopic phantasmagoria" known as Monitor--slightly seductive, but without the raw suggestiveness of Mae West, delivered over a soundtrack of easy-listening insturmentals in the Mantovani/101 Strings stylee. To give you an idea of what I mean, provided you have RealPlayer installed on your computer, click here to listen.)

Take that, Fox Noise....     

QUESTIONS WORTH ASKING THE "SOUND MONEY" CROWD, RON PAUL INCLUDED: The so-called "United States Taxpayers' Party," with articles of faith and known connexions to racist, white supremacist and other weird and unwholesome elements, advanced as part of its 1992 campaign platform the refinancing of the National Debt (currently estimated @ some $9 trillion) through a series of debt-security issues backed by gold reserves held @ the Treasury's gold vaults in Ft, Knox, Kentucky and other gold depositories (including those @ West Point, New York as supplanted the New York Subtreasury several years back).

I'm not sure if such is still held dear as an article of faith by the post-9/11 "patriot" crowd for the sake of Indecision 2008, but you never know.

Which prompts Your Correspondent to raise some questions rather interesting--questions worth asking your local "sound money" Zealot and True Believer:

• How much in gold reserves do you know of as are currently in storage @ Ft. Knox and elsewhere, expressed in monetary terms based on spot metals market prices?
• How sure are you that the entire gold reserves of the United States, as above, could be more than enough collateral for such a refinance of the National Debt as you envisage?
• What sort of interest payments would you envisage on such a debt-refinance issue? Are we to assume that interest would be payable in gold coin?
• How sure are you that such a debt-refinance issue would actually attract private (let alone financial-market and government) investors, stateside as much as overseas?
• What have you in mind to guarantee the repayment of interest in gold coin without having to sell gold holdings from time to time (e.g., to cover foreign-currency reserves)?
• How many others among the developed soverign states of the world do you know of as still issue government notes and debt securities backed solely by gold reserves, let alone the full faith and credit of the issuing governments? Have they missed any interest payments or otherwise gone into default on said issues, let alone having to sell gold holdings to meet interest payments? How many such securities are open to United States investors as dollar-denominated "yankee bonds"?
• Are we to expect that only "Christians" should be expected to underwrite a massive debt-refinance issue? What authority justifies such thinking?
• Would your agenda also include a call for reinstating the gold standard as the foundation of world monetary policy? How sure are you that such a mandate would actually control inflation, stabilise consumer prices and "encourage morality"?
• Over how long a period of time would you expect such a debt issue to last, especially when backed by gold reserves?
• How do we know you're not really selling us a bill of goods in Ponzi-scheme form, using "patriotism" to cover up Certain Weird and/or Unwholesome Indiscretions on your part (including alcoholism, dependency on narcotic or addicting drugs, sexual indiscretions or suffering from a loathsome disease)?

You know where to leave the answers.

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"EARTH TO GOP! EARTH TO GOP!!"

"...[I]t is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics, akin to those of a god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behavior."

Thus then-Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev opened his "Secret Speech," otherwise entitled "On the Personality Cult and Its Consequences," in closed session of the XX Communist Party Congress on 25 February 1956--the beginning of the end, as it were, for the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact/COMECON satellites, laying bare the worst excesses of power and authority carried out under Josef Stalin's regime (1929-53), invoking the Greater Glory of Socialism more often than not.

Replace "Marxism-Leninism" in the original with "Americanism," and you get a good idea of what the GOP under His Fraudulency, and its designs on maintaining a monopoly on power for all time (and excusing such as being for G-d and Country), is likely reducing America to. And what Mike Huckabee seems to have designs on in his Presidential aspirations, only with the added element of imagining himself as a super-divine up there with Imperial Japan until just after V-J Day (as in the Emperor being regarded as a divine figure in mortal form, upon whose person the common people were not allowed to gaze upon under pain of Divine Judgement).

The old "Prophet, Seer and Revelator" nonsense, as it were--which, come to think of it, could be a ruse for his achieving the proper aura of superdivinity by way of carrying three red lights.

@ least until Some Inconvenient Truths about Huckabee are exposed all the more to air and sunshine, eventually bringing about his campaign's collapse in disgrace--and leaving the Elmer Gantry Institute of Religiopolitical Theology @ a loss trying to come up with someone new who they can support as "Prophet, Seer and Revelator"-designate. And, unable to find someone within the two-party mainstream, likely turning to the backwaters of third-party fringe politics to find their Presidential ideal, which could serve only to throw Indecision 2008 into serious disarray, and then some. 

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COULD EVERYTHING OLD BE NEW AGAIN? In the wake of the meltdown in the "sub-prime" and "Alt-A" mortgage markets made all the more infamous by His Fraudulency's warped Zealotry and True Belief in capitalism with American characteristics as Great White Father, perhaps an old idea worth thinking anew might want to be the building society concept as a way of financing home mortgage loans to the working classes.

In particular, the "old school" concept based on installment shares (traditionally priced @ $1/share, payable monthly and repayable once payments and dividends equal $200/share), thereby ensuring a steady supply of funds as would cover mortgage-lending requirements.

Something worth thinking about as part of Indecision 2008-related thought.

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PROOF THAT "IT'S A SMALL WORLD, AFTER ALL," ALL THE MORE THESE DAYS: It's emerged that Australia's "Big Four" banking houses (ANZ, Commonwealth, NAB and Westpac) could stand to lose an aggregate A$850 million (about US$750 million/C$755.4 million/£382.26 million/€510.26 million/¥81.825 billion, all @ prevailing exchange rates) invested between them in American "sub-prime" mortgage lender Countrywide Home Loans, already awash in serious losses from loan delinquencies--and claims that they resorted to devious business practices in dealings with borrowers.

Which have led some "Down Under" to wonder if deposit runs could ensue within measurable distance.  

IT WAS ABOUT TIME HOLLYWOOD AWARD SHOWS BECAME MORE SENSIBLE FOR ONCE: The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, in solidarity with the Writers' Guild of America, has announced that this year's edition of the Golden Globe Awards will not be as glamourous as before owing to the current industrial action by the Writers' Guild.

In other words, the Golden Globes will be presented in a press conference stylee format rather than the more traditional high-class awards show worldcast.

Let it be a beginning, Your Correspondent thinks, for some common sense on the part of Hollywood when it comes to awards shows during the current awards silly season. Especially such as are traditionally worldcast on a massive scale, including the Academy Awards, the Grammy Awards, the American Music Awards, and both the Daytime and Prime Time Emmy Awards.

Meaning, in effect, that Hollywood ought to consider showing some solidarity with especially the Great Unwashed and make said awards shows more logical for once. As well, the respective organisers would do well to donate any savings thus realised by way of downsizing the awards shows to Reduction of the National Debt.

Likewise with any FreeVee networks carrying said awards shows; in this instance, should there turn out to be scenarios where advertisers are claiming dilution of audience numbers to the point of broadcasters having to offer "make-goods" to compensate, may I suggest that broadcasters donate an equivalent value of the advertising "make-goods" accordingly.

Such would be a good way for Hollywood to show some sense of Corporate Responsibility and Good Corporate Citizenship in the wake of certain misguided elements making highly-dubious claims about "reckless and utter disregard for American ideals and values" through subtle means in films and television programming, never mind the lack of any viable substantiation.

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WHY G-D'S OWN PARTY SEES CAPITALISM AS NECESSARY TO NATIONAL UNITY AS MUCH AS IDENTITY: Right Wing Watch, People For the American Way's blog as tracks developments on the Pseudoreligiopolitical Right, has this to say about GOP Presidential wannabe Mike Huckabee's notion of a "FAIR tax" (read: Goods and Services Tax/GST) supplanting income tax as one with "tax fairness:"

Mike Huckabee’s first-place finish in the Iowa Republican caucus was a victory for the Religious Right, after the combined efforts of a number of lesser-known right-wing figures eager to nominate one of their own. But while James Dobson and Richard Land issued cautious statements endorsing the victory if not the candidate, other national religious-right activists remained aloof, maintaining that Huckabee jeopardizes the vaunted right-wing coalition by alienating some of its partners, especially allies on the economic Right.

“I'm still skeptical that Mike Huckabee is the right man to speak for them because of his views on economics and foreign policy,” said Gary Bauer. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council said Huckabee supporters “overlooked the fact he was not attractive to other members of the conservative coalition, and they said they don't care about us, and we don't care about them."

Indeed, these prominent religious-right activists are echoing people like Patrick Toomey of the Club for Growth, who called Huckabee the “John Edwards of the Republican Party,” FreedomWorks' Dick Armey ("Huckabee undermines the GOP's longstanding unity between its traditional and economic wings"), or American Enterprise Institute Vice President Harry Olsen. Toomey’s Club has done the most to convince Republicans of Huckabee’s alleged tax-hiking heresy, running anti-Huckabee ads heavily in Iowa since the summer.

(Your Correspondent would like to ask @ this time where the defence of free-market capitalism with American characteristics is to be seen as that of Traditional Christian Moral and Familial Values, not to mention the "antient and pecuilar" soverignty and soverign identity of the United States, and vice versa, consistent with the conservative belief, Orwellian stylee, that slogans can be made reversible as circumstances require.)

Huckabee himself has played up this reputation as a populist, deriding the “Club for Greed” and talking about “the growing angst in the middle class.”

While many pundits seem to have accepted this presentation, it’s important to separate style from substance: When it comes to economic policy, Huckabee has arguably been running to the right of any of his major opponents.

Key to jumpstarting Huckabee’s surge in Iowa, along with conservative homeschoolers, was his early embrace of a little-known right-wing group called FairTax.org, which proposes replacing all income taxes with a 23 percent national sales tax. FairTax sent at least 20 buses full of people to the Ames straw poll in August, where Huckabee finished a surprising second-place, and the group almost went broke in the fall working the campaign.

(Your Correspondent begs to ask, @ this time, whether FairTax's buses actually included substantial numbers coming from interstate, using pickup points in the border cities of Dubuque, Davenport, Muscatine, Burlington, Ft. Madison, Keokuk, Council Bluffs [itself right next to Omaha] and Sioux City--and coordinating such with as much precision as the traditional Japanese kabuki drama to avoid attracting suspicions in certain quarters.)

Huckabee sells the plan with a populist flair, promising to abolish the IRS and put in place a “progressive” system that would be less for everybody while rewarding “hard work and thrift.” However, the substance doesn't quite match the rhetoric.

Economists and observers on the right and left have mocked the FairTax plan as “politically unrealistic and mathematically impossible.” The 23 percent number, for example, seems to be an obvious ruse to disguise what is in fact a 30 percent tax. (Here’s how that works: adding a $30 tax to a $100 purchase is what anyone would call a 30 percent tax – but the “FairTax” folks say that $30 is only 23 percent of the new total cost of $130.)

Even that number is not sufficient to meet current government spending, which would also be taxed under the plan: Supporters include the tax government agencies would themselves pay when computing revenue but not when calculating spending. Other estimates put the required sales tax rate to meet current spending at above 50 percent.

But beyond the legerdemain and “fantasy” numbers put out by FairTax, the plan for a national sales tax—which would ignore corporate income and capital gains as well as wages—is most vulnerable to criticism that it hits the poor and middle class hardest. Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist who worked in the Reagan administration, wrote that under the FairTax plan, “there would be an enormous shift in the tax burden from the wealthy to those with lower and middle incomes.” As Money magazine explained:

Let's say a hedge fund manager has a good year and earns $1 billion. If he can somehow manage to scrape by spending, say, $100 million, the other $900 million is tax free. He'll have paid about 2% of his income in taxes that year.

Such a scheme is far more regressive than the current income tax, and no other candidate has proposed anything so radical. Nevertheless, Huckabee continues to employ the FairTax plan as part of his “populist” image, which pundits and his right-wing opponents alike—not to mention religious-right leaders—have bought into.

May I remind readers @ this time that no country which has implemented Value-Added Tax (VAT) or Goods and Services Tax (GST) to raise revenue has yet to generate sufficent revenue by this means to seriously consider having consumption-based taxation supplant income taxation--especially so where VAT is applied; evidence suggests that VAT, which is computed under a rather complex formula @ the several stages of manufacturing, warehousing and distribution, only worsens the potential for smuggling and the sale of counterfeit goods.

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FROM THE "THOSE WHO DO NOT REMEMBER THE PAST," USW., DOSSIER: Religious Right Watch calls our attention to these remarks of the GOP's star-crossed 1964 Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater about the consequences of Church and GOP becoming all too closely intertwined:

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible [N4BSK] problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.

[***]

The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom.... I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are?... I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism." 

Have we forgotten, dear reader, the warnings of history?

(Think George Santayana's remarks that "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.")  

TORNADOES THIS EARLY IN JANUARY DOESN'T SEEM QUITE RIGHT: Just last night, a good portion of the Midwest was caught up in unusually-early episodes of tornadic activity for the time of year.

In a swath extending from Branson, Missouri to Kenosha, Wisconsin (for the sake of approximation), major tornadic activity was encountered last night alone in five states, killing two people in Missouri, reducing houses in Wisconsin and Illinois to foundations, disrupting a murder trial when the courthouse had to be evacuated and derailing a locomotive and 12 freight cars, two of which contained hazardous materials; leaks in one car as contained brake fluid caused fumes which forced the evacuation of a nearby unincoroprated community.

In any case, these were the first January tornadoes in Wisconsin since 1967 and the first such in Illinois since 1950, according to weather records.

Meanwhile, around the Minnwissippi region where Your Correspondent resideth, the situation has been fog aggravated by rapidly-melting snow in the face of unseasonably mild conditions--in turn, triggering the risk of ice jams on tributary streams aggravated by all-too-rapid snow melt conditions.

It makes you wonder whether we may already be seeing what Al Gore's been warning us about all along.

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CONSERVATIVE ZEALOT/TRUE BELIEVER PROJECTION ALERT: It's well-known that clauses in a number of oaths taken here in the United States require a willingness to support and defend the same "against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

On the latter do I wish to address this item.

For some reason, the Zealots and True Believers in the conservative propaganda camp love to claim that liberal- or Progressive-leaning causes and their True Believers should be seen as "sworn enemies" of the United States, and, hence, ought be regarded with fear, loathing and suspicion.

And, if need be, being subject to what may turn out being malicious prosecution for treason, especially when the conservative propaganda machine lacks compelling evidence to prove that the acts of "treason" in question meet the constitutionally-defined standard in Article III, section III(a) of the United States such (as in "making war against the United States, or, in adherence to its enemies, giving them aid and comfort").

Let alone the prospect that such "evidence" may be coerced, perjured or otherwise based on hearsay.

Which leaves Your Correspondent wondering if these specimens of hyperconservative Zealotry and True Belief, in questioning such as are exercising constitutionally-protected guarantees of free speech and press absent declaration of a State of Emergency dictating suspension of civil liberties, are actually engaging in projection--as in shifting blame on others to avoid attracting suspicion on themselves.

Somehow, the conservative propaganda machine should consider themselves as enemies of the United States for all they've been doing to sow discord and enmity in especially Those Who Should Know Better.

Not to mention suggesting that the hoi polloi should accept the conservative line "without question or reservation"--in other words, practice a willful and deliberate orthodoxy (or, in Orwellian Newspeak, being "goodthoughtful") as excuses stupidity, excusing said stupidity as necessary for G-d, Country and Family.

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Besides, it only takes just one mentally-disturbed person @ the likes of a conservative-sponsored media event (or, for that matter, some "music show" of the Branson model idealised by the forces of cultural conservatism as Amerikanischer Realkultur's acme and perfection) to cause trouble as can get out of hand and cause civil disorder, chaos--or worse.

History has shown this to be a fact.

And don't expect such a possibility to be the monopoly of liberals or Progressives: Conservative Zealotry and True Belief, and the propaganda of same, can easily be enough to appeal to certain weird and unwholesome elements who could turn out being mentally unstable enough to disrupt things. Especially so those among the target audiences of the ilk of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and Fox Noise (as in poor, undereducated or homeschooled and easily-influenced "white trash") who could easily be set up to carry out disruptive acts, deeds and exploits which could "officially" be labelled as Notorious Terrorist Acts dictating a State of Emergency.

All the while taking devious or unscrupulous advantage of their mental state being easily subject to exploitation.

Followed by the real perp(s) being given safe passage into Canada, along with regular remittances conditional upon their silence in what transpired, paid off through "pure trusts" based offshore "for tax reasons," to use a rather lame bromide.

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LET THIS BE A WARNING, EVEN IF FROM "DOWN UNDER:" India's current test cricket series against Australia has been mired in a racist spat which nearly threatened to suspend the series after India's XI threatened to return home in the wake of racist comments from Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh directed @ Australian counterpart Andrew Symonds.

For which remarks Singh was handed a three-Test suspension by the International Cricket Council for conduct detrimental to the sport and racist behaviour, in whose wake the Board of Control for Cricket in India (the Indian governing body therefor) threatened to suspend their current Test series with Australia unless the suspension was reversed--until calmer heads prevailed.

(The Board of Control is appealing the ICC's ruling, mostly out of national honour.)

Let this be a warning for all of sport, never mind arguments about racism being necessary to the defence of "national honour and identity."  

MEMO TO CERTAIN ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS ON THE "EDUCATIONAL" FRONT: Especially so those among you questioning the legality, statutory or otherwise, of free public education just to push the likes of questionable supplantation in such guises as "school choice" and Christian homeschooling--

First off, may I remind you of the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Which extends, inter alii, to educational matters.

With that in mind, and for the sake of example, may I call your attention to the likes of clauses 1 and 2, Article XIII, of the Minnesota  Constitution:

Section 1. UNIFORM SYSTEM OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. The stability of a republican form of government depending mainly upon the intelligence of the people, it is the duty of the legislature to establish a general and uniform system of public schools. The legislature shall make such provisions by taxation or otherwise as will secure a thorough and efficient system of public schools throughout the state.

Sec. 2. PROHIBITION AS TO AIDING SECTARIAN SCHOOL. In no case shall any public money or property be appropriated or used for the support of schools wherein the distinctive doctrines, creeds or tenets of any particular Christian or other religious sect are promulgated or taught.

If you need another example, let me call your attention to Article X, clause 3, of Wisconsin's Constitution:

The legislature shall provide by law for the establishment of district schools, which shall be as nearly uniform as practicable; and such schools shall be free and without charge for tuition to all children between the ages of 4 and 20 years; and no sectarian instruction shall be allowed therein; but the legislature by law may, for the purpose of religious instruction outside the district schools, authorize the release of students during regular school hours.

As if that weren't enough, consider Iowa's Constitution, article IX, part 1, clause 15 (in perintent part):

The general assembly shall have power to***provide for the educational interest of the state in any other manner that to them shall seem best and proper.

What have you to say now, confronted with evidence by example?

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AND THEY STILL SAY AMERICAN CULTURE IS "MORALLY SUPERIOR" TO ALL OTHERS: The military junta who governs the so-called Union of Myanmar recently announced that it was raising the annual excise on satellite dish receivers from the equivalent of US$5 to US$800--this, perhaps, out of fear that Knowledge (especially coming from overseas) must be some class of a Loathsome Disease as threatens the antient and pecuilar soverignty and soverign identity of the Union of Myanmar.

(More than likely, such should be read as threatening the Divine Right of the status quo.)

For 2008, the BBC's annual licence fee for owners of colour TV sets between Land's End and John O'Groats is set @ £135.50 (equivalent to US$268.29; payable monthly, that works out to £11.29 [US$22.35]/month); black-and-white set owners pay a licence fee of £45.50 (US$90.08).

And yet the forces of cultural conservative Zealotry and True Belief see public television and radio as "failed social experiments***unlikely to continue generating taxpayer value"!

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NO WONDER THE LOU DOBBS CROWD MUST BE DROOLING IN ENVY: Russian migration authorities have announced where, in the interest of "protecting the jobs of native Russians," the annual quota for migrant workers from the Commonwealth of Independent States (as in the former Soviet Republics since becoming soverign in their own right) seeking work in Mother Russia in 2008 is to be cut by two-thirds; i.e., from 6 million permits last year to just 2 million this year.

How do we know the Zealots and True Believers aren't seriously considering similar measures when it comes to foreign guest workers on J2 student visas as part of their "hidden agenda" for Indecision 2008?

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AAAHHH, THE WONDERS OF PSEUDOSCIENCE (AND THEN SOME): When it comes to pseudoscience, or--for that matter--perversion of scientific thought and belief, perhaps one of the weirdest branches thereof would have to be the belief that the Soviet Union and its "fraternal sister republics" had about historical research being one with scientific such.

"Historical Science," as it were.

The which could be considered a likely defence among such engaging in Holocaust denial and their cousins among the apologists for apartheid South Africa and/or Rhodesia (the latter since restyled Zimbabwe), Nazi Germany and the Confederate States of America, in case questions start being asked in Certain Scholarly Circles.

Case in point for perverting science along "historical" lines: The so-called "Institute for Historical Review," itself rather notorious in its time for trying to pervert history based on "scientific" models to challenge whether Nazi Germany's "Final Solution to the Jewish Problem" (as in The Holocaust) ever happened, let alone whether some six million Jews from across Nazi-occupied or -controlled areas of Europe were killed off in the name of Hitler, Germany and an idealised "Aryan Master Race."

(I say "in its time" because, in recent years, the Institute has fallen into serious disarray following lawsuits charging that its true properitors--in particular Willis Carto, himself a major player in the cause of hate and extremism thanks to his so-called "Liberty Lobby" and the now-defunct hate tabloid weekly The Spotlight--misused Institute funds and diverted them to personal or otherwise improper use. As if that weren't enough, its pseudoscholarly journal, The Journal of Historical Review, has been in concurrent hiatus; likewise with their annual conferences featuring the creme de la creme of Holocaust denial, Nazi apologia and "patriotic" racism and anti-Semitism.)

How much longer before the Neocon/Fascisti element starts resorting to "historical science" as a propaganda weapon?  

SINCLAIR LEWIS COULD BE WRONG: Civil disorder and violence in Pakistan following the "insider" assaination of opposition leader Benazhir Bhutto has threatened to undermine the likelihood of Parliamentary elections within measurable distance without their being seriously undermined.

Meanwhile, in Kenya, a church was firebombed with some 30 people holed up inside to escape post-election violence triggered by rumours of the result having been rigged or manipulated by the Nairobi powers-that-be to favour the status quo and its climate of corruption, cronyism and worse.

Which is enough to wonder if America's Indecision 2008 could be marred by displays of Extreme Ultraviolence which turn out to have been cooked up by goon squads with connexions to His Fraudulency's "inside of the inside" (some sort of a "redemption for value" scam, perhaps?)--all the while officially explained as Notorious Terrorist Acts, never mind where the real perps are suddenly given safe passage to some third country on fake passports and substantial payoffs to keep the whole quiet.

In any case, compelling His Fraudulency to suspend the elections "in the interest of maintaining public order and safety," handing over law and order, in effect, to the inmates of the asylum--as in "vigilance committees" predominated by the weird and unwholesome and with mindsets up there with the Ku Klux Klan and The Black Legion as mandate their highly-secretive regalia in carrying out their exercises in racially-selective "law-and-order" sadisto under cloak of darkness.

Themselves paid off by--you guessed it--"the inside of the inside."

Remember, folks, "it CAN happen here."

And remember, too, that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

But such is no excuse to justify sadisto misadventures with racist overtures, especially where Al Cohol (usually "strong" beer) comes into the argument.

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

IF YOU THINK AMTRAK SHOULD BE EUTHANISED AS A FAILED SOCIAL EXPERIMENT ...: One of the pet arguments of the K Street crowd is that the national passenger rail operator Amtrak should be put out of its misery "for the sake of the good taxpayers***seeing no real or viable taxpayer value" in maintaining rail passenger service.

In the process, expecting the motorcoach industry, "out of the goodness of its heart," to step in and provide "more cost-efficent" services intercity.

Unfortunately, however, such thinking would only benefit, for the most part, Greyhound, which itself is seeing its motorcoach network truncated wholesale to save themselves any chance of profitability, leaving many smaller communities without other decent transportation options save for shared-taxi or van services as would provide connexions to the nearest city of consequence still lucky to have Greyhound services.

Or, for that matter, Megabus, which offers cheap (as little as $1 one-way, with advanced reservations) motorcoach services on "hub-and-spoke" networks in the Midwest (based out of Chicago) and West Coast (based out of Los Angeles).

And let's not forget the Chinese motorcoach services (known in the Chinese by a term which translates into the colourful-sounding "wild chicken trucks") operating along the Northeast Corridor, by and large.

What exactly would it take to force a forced-matrix brand of motorcoach competition as would satisfy K Street in these circumstances?

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GERMAN EFFICENCY IS WONDERFUL DEPARTMENT: One of the more popular character traits often cited among the Germans is that which holds where the Germans are masters of efficency to the highest degree.

And perhaps the best examples of German efficency I can come across would have to be in the oral-hygiene department, particularly when it comes to mouth rinse. When you get right down to it, the Germans have it worked out so that just a few drops of concentrated mouth rinse, added to water, does as effective a job in getting rid of bad breath (including "morning breath") as already-prepared brands like Listerine, Scope and Lavoris.

And you get value for money in the bargain: Just one bottle of mouth rinse concentrate, when diluted with water according to directions, will go longer than a large-size bottle of straight Listerine. And the compact size of the bottle means less to pack when you travel.

Fortunately for Your Correspondent, The Exaggerator is proud to be affiliated with Smallflower.com, the online version of Chicago's famous Merz Apothecary, where you can buy such esteemed German brands of mouth rinse concentrate like Odol and Nur 1 Tropfen (One Drop Only), which you can find out more about by clicking on the image as meets your fancy:

 

IN TERMS OF CONSERVATIVE ARTICLES OF FAITH FOREVER SEEING THE LOWER CLASSES as nothing better than parasites and Threats to the Morals and Decency of the Working-Classes, some of their more pathetic remedies towards "moral correction," if you can call it such, can be considered rather illogiocal in and of themselves.

Especially considering where the inevitable foundation these same conservatives have, almost always, is in free-market capitalism with American characteristics as the Great White Father, so to speak, that would "release [the poor, welfare-dependent and National Minorities in particular] from helpless enslavement to failed social welfare policies" as led, so this thinking goes, to "error and illogic" based on Socialistic or otherwise "un-American" beliefs.

Making things all the more difficult, understand, is the fact of the Lower Classes having few or no realistic consumer-education skills, all the while leaving them @ the risk of second-rate merchandise @ higher-than-necessary prices (the point of which Wally World and the "dollar stores" are likely to dispute), credit (if they're lucky) tending to be on less-than-favourable terms and their buying power being all the more limited and limiting.

No doubt making the Lower Classes all the more vulnerable to scams and misguided expectations from such who seek to take advantage of their circumstances. Even if Fox News Channel expects the Lower Classes to see themselves as Real Americans in their xenophobic closed-mindedness and limited purchasing power.

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

And all too often, these same conservatives just hope to see these same Lower Classes as no better than easily-manipulated guinea pigs for all manner of "social experiments" expected to show that free-market capitalism would save them from themselves--with a little Pavlovian conditioning, subliminal messages and other potentially harmful psychological techniques tending to exploit.

One likely such would involve their dearest article of faith: The "complete and final" denationalisation of State Social Security towards free-market models expected to "promote healthy respect for industry, self-reliance, personal responsibility, thrift and a wholesome and simple home life."

As in looking for ways to "advise" such finding work only because of workfare or other targeted job-assistance schemes (e.g., Job Corps, School-to-Work, Vocational Rehabilitation, Emergency Economic Redevelopment, Displaced Worker Retraining) that they should consider "retirement savings funds" based on Latin American models preferred by K Street because State Social Security "has failed to produce proper respect for self-reliance and personal responsibility among [their] kind" all along.

Which, it just so happens, fails to recognise that the Lower Classes have no idea of how the equities markets as would play an intergal part in private Social Security work save for latent anti-Semitic platitudes and patsies.

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

Another unlikely delusion in the same vein:

Cooking up all manner of "savings campaigns" only playing up the crudest of stereotypes suggesting where the Lower Classes can't make wise use of their money, instead wasting such on liquor, illegal drugs, junk food, lottery tickets and "wasteful and frivolous" purposes rather than "a wholesome and simple home life" based, these same Zealots and True Believers would suggest, upon "The Cotter's Saturday Night" by Robert Burns (Scots; 1759-1796).

Only to find ways to have such "savings" so "invested" diverted to improper or otherwise dangerous ends which result in nothing but loss of capital (as in so-called "High Yield Investment Programmes"), as well as looking for tools and answers to use in explaining:

• how such funds invested in response to these "savings campaigns" will be used;
• whether such funds will be used wisely;
• how much return can be expected; and
• how those so enrolled can access their funds, and when, without having to needlessly jump through hoops.

Try and figure....

I HOPE YOU DON'T MIND, FOLKS, the fact that, heretofore, Your Correspondent had been posting most of his essays in this new blog on a "postdated" basis; i.e., for posting @ a later time.

Circumstances, though, prompt moi to try posting "on the fly," as it were.

The which I will get to shortly.

But first: I thought I'd let you know of an informative and worthwhile series forthcoming as will be of especial interest to certain scions @ the Elmer Gantry Institute of Religiopolitical Theology challenging the legality as much as the constitutionality of free public education, and proscriptions on the use of public monies to fund religious or otherwise sectarian systems of education (including, methinks, Christian Homeschooling curricular material), and hope to use the courts to make their case (unaware of the likelihood for same being dismissed as frivolous, vexatious or otherwise unwise use of court time and resources).

And the form of challenge? Actual clauses from the several State Constitutions on the points @ issue.

So do bookmark this site, and please tell your friends about this forthcoming series of importance. Remember: "The truth is mighty, and will prevail."

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COULD BRITNEY SPEARS BE THE NEXT FRANCES FARMER? Recent news reports about the mental and psychoemotional breakdown of singer Britney Spears, culminating in her current 72-Hour Hold for psychiatric evaluation in the wake of a recent court ruling forcing her to surrender legal custody of her children to her former husband, excesses of sensationalism and unhealthy attention in some prolefeed channels notwithstanding, may be enough to Your Correspondent's mind to recall the tragic life of actress Frances Farmer (1914-1970), once billed as a likely and promising rival to Greta Garbo ... only to see her career collapse all the more by virtue of psychiatric ill-treatment, cruelty and the overdomineering designs of her publicity-seeking mother.

Her notriety, if you could call it that, could first be traced to 1931, when, as a high school student in Seattle, she won $500 in an essay contest for her essay "God Dies," wherein she challenged the existance of The Deity openly--and, in the process, began attracting the attention of critics as were quick to label her as a "Communist sympathiser," "pinko" and worse.

Soon afterwards, Farmer would win a competition sponsored by the Communist-leaning magazine New Masses as included an audition on Broadway and passage to Moscow for a visit to a theater there. On her return, she would attract the affections of dramatist Clifford Odets, in time appearing in the stage version of his play Golden Boy on Broadway.

Hollywood quickly expressed interest, with Paramount signing Farmer to a stock seven-year contract as was common in Hollywood's Golden Age; too often, however, Paramount would farm out Frances Farmer to other studios, quickly earning resentment of The Hollywood System on her part. And before long, she would wind up getting rather forgettable B-picture roles until some misadventures with tequila on the set of the Monogram Pictures production No Escape earned her the wrath of the courts--and loss of plum roles.

By the end of 1942, a chain of headline-generating incidents would mean the end of Frances Farmer's Hollywood prospects:

• Her arrest for drunk driving, driving with high-beam headlights in a wartime dim-out zone and assaulting the arresting officer.
• Failing to meet with her probation officer led to her infamous arrest in the nude from her suite @ the Knickerbocker Hotel in Santa Monica, drunk and screaming Billingsgate. On arrival @ the police station, she used an obscene term in describing her profession.
• Following her sentence to penal servitude, with the judge essentially "throwing the book" @ Miss Farmer, she screamed obscenities @ police officers and press reporters, even kicking the camera of a press photographer to the point of causing damage.
• Her mother, back in Seattle, would essentially sign her death warrant vis-a-vis Hollywood by suggesting that she be placed in a private insane asylum for treatment, or what passed for it in those days.

In time, however, Frances Farmer would become a has-been, eventually being committed to the Washington state asylum in Steliacoom and, in the process, suffering all manner of psychiatric abuse, cruelty and indignities @ the hands of medical staff and orderlies, including witnessing episodes of lesbian rape as a means of asserting power and authority and being tricked into doing sexual favours. (Her own sordid account was, fortunately, recorded for posterity in her memoirs, Will There Really Be a Morning?, published following her death from cancer in 1970. Alone.)

Reduced to a shell of her former self following her undergoing an icepick lobotomy in 1948, it would be ten years before Frances Farmer would find the strength to return to Hollywood for one last film appearence in The Party Crashers; soon afterwards, she would move to Indianapolis, where she hosted a teatime movie programme on a local TV station until shortly before her decease.

So: Could it be likely that the ghost of Frances Farmer may be ready to haunt Britney Spears before too long, as if her younger daughter Jamie Lynn's being enciente wasn't making things difficult enough?

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THERE IS NO ROYAL ROAD TO ENERGY SELF-SUFFICENCY: Even with much of the attention in the oil and gas industries being drawn to the Bakken field across western North Dakota and eastern Montana, perhaps the single hottest area for oil and gas exploration right now, don't expect that area alone to be the "magic bullet" as winds up seeing oil prices falling below $100/bbl within measurable distance.

Which begs the question of whether certain elements of His Fraudulency's "inside of the inside" may secretly be playing the crude-oil futures markets with all the recent cuts in military pay and benefits, and hoping to make a cheap and quick killing in the process.

As if that weren't enough:

Parade, the Sunday rotogravure magazine supplement, had a rather embarrassing item recently about the real cost of developing energy self-sufficency based on maintaining dependency upon oil and gas--costs to health and environment, it turns out.

On the one hand, extraction of crude oil and natural gas ex-wellhead requires all manner of toxic chemicals as can affect drinking water quality, including benzene, arsenic and mercury. And in some of the older fields approaching the end of their productive life, producers have been known to add other toxic substances to boost what little output may still be extractable.

But, thanks to the petroleum industry's connexions in Congress, wellhead owners have exemptions from mandates in the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Air Act, among other environmental-protection laws; this extends to exemptions from requirements for reporting toxic-material releases.

Add to that complaints of many living close to oil and gas wells of all manner of health problems as include painful blisters, headaches, nausea, nosebleeds and even cancers, for which the oil and gas industry will likely suggest that complaints thereof are probably "hypochondria" or "psychosomatic" in the hope of avoiding liability.

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

Back to the Bakken field for a moment: For want of suitable facilities for processing natural gas ex-wellhead, flaring off gas therefrom seems to be more the rule than the exception, so explaining why the nighttime skies of western North Dakota especially might be a little brighter without the Northern Lights taken into account.

Even if it means wasting substantial quantities of natural gas in the bargain.

(Historical Sidelight: Following the Turner Valley naptha gas discoveries in the Canadian province of Alberta in the mid-1920's, flaring off wellheads was so common, it was said that one could read an evening paper on the streets of nearby Calgary without recourse to artificial light.)

There is no royal road to energy self-sufficency, Your Fraudulency....