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WITH YOUR CORRESPONDENT HAVING BEEN BUSY MUCH OF THE DAY ALREADY with the likes of crushing down aluminum cans for recycling @ the motel here in Winona ... followed by some shopping for stamps, a replacement bicycle seat and some bathroom cleaner and liniment from Watkins' outlet here in Winona ... it seems as if he was unable to get to this blogging duty.

Even with the news that His Fradulency has given his John Hancock to an improved(?!) version of the Paulson Plan to Save Our Antient and Pecuilar Banking and Socioeconomic Model from Danger of Collapse, which, in the end, could mean that Joe Sixpack's leding options will, once again, more than likely be Morris Plan reincarnate.

(Morris Plan, in case you ask, was the brainchild of a Norfolk, Virginia lawyer named Arthur J. Morris [1881-1973], who perfected the pioneering system of consumer finance with the first such bank opening in 1910 based on these articles of faith:

1. Character, plus earning power, is a proper basis of credit.
2. Loans made on this basis of credit must carry the privilege of repayment over a period long enough to match the earning power of the borrower.
3.Money so borrowed should always be for some constructive and useful purpose.

(In any case, loans made under the Morris Plan required the would-be borrower to have two co-signers guarantee the loan, which iself would be secured on the purchase of Installment Thrift Certificates repayable on a weekly basis equal to the value of the loan.)

And, in any case, is certain to guarantee that the runup to Indecision 2008 will certainly be hot and vitriolic.

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AND SPEAKING OF LAST NIGHT'S VICE-PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE, methinks the approach the GOP's choice therefor, Sarah Palin, may have been too perky for her own good, belieing the prospect of her only regurgitating GOP talking points to carefully-prepared scripting long enough to wonder if she was becoming little better than the Chatty Cathy of the Vice-Presidential debate.

That, and her repeating nothing more than the same platitudes of the McCain/Palin ticket suggesting that Complete and Final Regulatory Relief would be the Last and Only Hope for Empowering the Fundamentals of the American Economy (as in the Working Classes, by and large poor, undereducated or homeschooled and easily-influenced, especially so by the likes of Fox Prolefeed and other less-than-reputable media outlets) into a New Golden Age of Industry, Self-Reliance, Personal Responsibility, Thrift based on Cash Economy and a Wholesome and Simple Home Life rooted, methinks, in poverty, fecundity and stupidity.

That, and the fact of Ms. Palin's pastor being perhaps the biggest fan of witches and witchcraft since the Salem Witch Trials of 1690.

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BACK TO THE IDEA OF USING THE FREE MARKET AS A WAY OF EMPOWERING THE SO-CALLED "FUNDAMENTALS OF THE ECONOMY:" Hasn't the GOP actually gone on record pushing the mutual self-help model as the best way of empowering the Working Classes towards Industry, Self-Reliance, usw.?

(That, of course, before the Unfortunate Events of 9/11 distracted everything to the point of setting the framework for nothing short of an ur-RAHOWA to not only whip up enforced patriot love, but also keep especially the Lower Classes scared and paranoid.)

Hence, what exactly would preclude giving serious consideration to a revival of classical concepts of mutual self-help as tools of empowerment among the Fundamentals of the Economy, such as mutual savings banks, building societies and friendly societies? Fear, perhaps, that such concepts would be "inconsistent with American experience and values" by their supposedly "tending to Communism" solely by virtue of mutual ownership and shared responsibility?

Fear that the "elect***entitled as of right" would lose "certain antient and pecuilar rights, privileges and powers traditionally entitled them by the Unwritten Law, the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God"?

Fear based on the old-school psychiatric belief that Knowledge is some class of a Loathsome Social Disease which, left "unchecked" (preferably through highly-sedating medications), could only "blossom into full-blown insanity" as could bring down such in Positions of Power, Authority, Confidence and Trust? (Hence, so this line of thought goes, requiring "a thorough and constant application of Proper Mental Hygiene" preferably based on a "fight-fire-with-fire" approach essentially tending all too heavily to a mix of fear and medications just to keep costs all the cheaper. Not to mention all manner of false hopes suggesting that medications are the magic bullet towards sanity, especially so a supposed New Generation theoretically expected to "control mental disorders more efficently, with far fewer side effects than medications now in use," and supported on anecdotally glowing-sounding reports of clinical trials involving one or two such "New Generation" meds.)

Or what sort of fear exactly?  

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Ashes to ashes, Jah's too funky,
We know Major Tom's a junkie,
Strung out in Heaven's high,
Hitting an all-time low....

--chorus from "Ashes to Ashes" by David Bowie

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THE RELIGIOPOLITICAL RIGHT, IN ITS DESIRE TO ATTRACT ATTENTION REEKING OF TROUBLEMAKING WHICH THEY EXCUSE OFFICIALLY AS "CHRISTIAN WITNESS," enjoys playing the meme of "Christian Persecution!" from time to time to advance their flawed proposition that America is, was, and will forever be, a White European-American Christian Nation, the defence thereof being that of her Antient and Pecuilar Soverignty and Soverign Identity as a Pecuilar Among the Nations ... and, in a way, that of free-market capitalism with American characteristics.

As if suggesting where the three were interrelated and intertwined, with barely any substantiation.

Latest example of such a pathetically distracting meme in action, thanks to Right Wing Watch:

"We as Christians, We are Persecuted and Oppressed"

That was the entirely predictable message at [Wednesday's] press conference, organized by Chaps Gordon Klingenschmitt in Richmond, VA to protest the "forced resignations" of six police Chaplains who refused to deliver non-denominational prayers at department-sanctioned, public events:

The ministers and the Family Foundation of Virginia held a news conference yesterday to assail [state police Superintendent W. Steven] Flaherty's directive and Kaine for backing it.

"The recent decision by Superintendent Flaherty and its subsequent endorsement by Gov. Kaine is an act of anti-Christian hysteria based on a flawed decision by a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court that has yet to be upheld and is, in fact, in conflict with other circuit court decisions from around the country," said Victoria Cobb, Family Foundation president. "The policy clearly violates the First Amendment-protected rights of free speech and religious freedom."

Cobb and the ministers said that barring the state police chaplains from using the name Jesus Christ is, in effect, a violation of those chaplains' rights because their religion calls upon them to pray to Jesus Christ.

"In our belief, it's not even a complete prayer" without appealing to Jesus Christ, said Rev. Rob Schenck, of the National Clergy Council ... ["So how do we end a prayer unless in the name of Jesus Christ? We are pleading with the governor . . . to reconsider the magnitude of this thing."]

Former Navy Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt, who said he was discharged from the Navy for praying to Jesus Christ, sent Kaine a letter signed by 86 ministers, asking him to revise the policy for state police chaplains.

Klingenschmitt told Kaine that the policy amounts to religious discrimination and "anti-Christian persecution."

...

Hashmel Turner, the Fredericksburg councilman and minister whose prayers to Jesus Christ sparked the court case, attended yesterday's press conference.

He said he has given up leading prayers before council meetings because of the court's ruling.

"We as Christians, we are persecuted and oppressed," Turner said. "We have to support these chaplains that are being persecuted."

Those in attendance also announced that they intend to follow through on Klingenschmitt's threat to hold a pre-election rally that "could impact the national election" and will be doing so with a "statewide prayer rally" outside the Executive Mansion on Nov. 1.

Not bad for the same element likely to identify themselves with the "persecuted and oppressed" Afrikaner Peoples of South Africa to the point of raising funds for their "evacuation" and "resettlement" in the "morally superior" United States, the hope being one of reestablishing honest and simple lives as farmers and pastoralists as were "disrupted" by the Voortrek, the gold and diamond discoveries, and the Boer War, only to reclaim some glimmer of hope under apartheid--and, so the story goes, faces new "disruption" by a "Communist-inspired regime***in reprisal for apartheid," or so the official story will go.

(Never mind the likelihood of their fundraising efforts having to be "diverted to more pressing needs" @ the last minute, thus dropping hints of the whole "noble and glorious effort" being a sham.)

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ON THE OTHER HAND, MAY WE BE REMINDED OF GEORGE WASHINGTON'S FAMOUS 1790 LETTER TO THE CONGREGANTS OF TOURO SYNAGOGUE (CONGREGATION JESHUAT ISRAEL) in Newport, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, which speaks for itself:

To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport,
Rhode Island.

Gentlemen,

While I receive, with much satisfaction, your Address replete with expressions of affection and esteem; I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you, that I shall always retain a grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced in my visit to Newport, from all classes of Citizens.

The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet, from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security. If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and happy people.

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my Administration, and fervent wishes for my felicity. May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.

G. Washington

more the engrish!

IN SEEKING REPUBLICAN SUPPORT IN CONGRESS FOR HIS FRAUDULENCY'S LAST HOPE FOR A GRAND DELUSION-AS-LEGACY, otherwise known as the $700 billion bailout of what he and his droogs in the Great Within wrought for purely ideological purposes and ends, they may be forgetting something from their own platform of articles of faith for Indecision 2008.

Which The Capital Times (cyberspace, via Madison, Wisconsin) would like to call your attention to editorially (with emphasis added):

Republicans were divided over how to respond to an economic crisis of their own making. John McCain's economic guru, Phil Gramm, successfully deregulated the financial services industry; President Bush and Tom DeLay's Congress implemented the plan, and then, with the 2008 election approaching, the economy they created was tanking.

After years of reading from the same tattered page of discarded free-market theorizing, the Grand Old Party seemed suddenly off message, with McCain saying he would fire Bush appointees and--depending on the hour--either backing or opposing a $700 billion bailout of banks proposed by the Republican president's man at the Treasury Department.

Republican senators and members of the House are all over the board, so much so that Democratic candidates were beginning to exploit the divisions.

In Oklahoma, for instance, Democrat Andrew Rice, a state senator who is mounting an aggressive challenge to veteran Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe, embraced criticisms of the bailout plan by Inhofe's Republican colleague from Oklahoma, maverick conservative Sen. Tom Coburn.

"I couldn't agree more with Senator Coburn," declared Rice. "And we should all be asking ourselves, what has Jim Inhofe, who's been in Washington 22 years, done to avert this crisis?"

All this Republican-on-Republican warfare could get a little confusing for a party loyalist.

Where to turn for clarity?

How about the freshly approved Republican platform.

In the extensive section on the economy--which opens with a pledge to "empower" the "Sabbath collection plate"--there is actually a rather prescient section on how best to respond to mortgage meltdowns and economic turbulence.

"We do not support government bailouts of private institutions," the platform affirms unequivocally. "Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself. We believe in the free market as the best tool to sustained prosperity and opportunity for all."

So there you have it: the official, if now all but forgotten, Republican line on the bailout.

An article of faith no doubt seconded by Fox Prolefeed and Fox Prolefeed II, let alone various conservative-leaning blogs and "news portals" as include the Usual Suspects (viz., WorldNetDaily, NewsMax, Drudge Report, Accuracy in Media, NewsBusters, Media Research Centre, OneNewsNow) seeing as their ultimate desire "the final acme and perfection of the free market" in a "pure" form.

You guessed it--a free-market based solely on self-regulation which only excuses cartel behaviour through manipulation of certain clauses in the relevant codes, while officially regarding the free market as the Great White Father Empowering Those Heretofore Enslaved into Socialist or Otherwise Un-American Thought By Way of State Welfare with Greater Choices, Wider Selection and Lower Prices.

Can the GOP, perchance, Please Explain this state of doublethink?

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AND IT SEEMS RATHER IRONIC FOR CULTURAL CONSERVATIVES TO PRACTICE WHAT AMOUNTS TO DOUBLETHINK in their regarding Amerikanischer Realkultur to be The One True and Morally Superior such (howbeit absent a clear defining standard save its seeing Branson's music shows as the "acid test" therefor, so to speak) ... yet, on the other hand, taking exception to the "unhealthy excesses" of sex and violence, usually reinforced with sugar-coated anti-Semitic pandering.

But then again, take a look @ the following excerpt from a Japanese game show (hat tip to the Brog @ Engrish.com) and try not to think for a moment "There but for the grace of G-d go I," as the Zealots and True Believers in American Cultural Supremacy want you and I thinking:

(Never mind, of course, where certain aspects of what I refer to from time to time as Die Bransoner Muzikschaukultur in this blog are replete with dog-whistle appeals to racist jingoism in the "home folks" stylee, the better to appeal in particular to the same types regarding Fox Prolefeed to be the only credible source of news and information available. Who, it turns out, are Branson's target audience, mostly on cheap bus tours.)

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SO, IN ANY EVENT, THIS MARKS THE 47TH BIRTHDAY OF YOUR CORRESPONDENT, having come into the world by way of Caledonia, Minnesota on 2 October 1961.

The Big Story of that day was Roger Maris of the New York Yankees deflating the great Babe Ruth's record of 60 home runs in a Major League Baseball season by hitting his 61st such the day previous--which, until recent years, was qualified by an asterisk in the official records as took note of the expansion of the major leagues with the expansion Los Angeles Angels, New York Mets, Houston Colt-45's (since restyled the Astros) and the "new" Washington Senators (now the Texas Rangers), the original such becoming the Minnesota Twins.

Thus explaining the title of the HBO original movie 61* a few years back as reconstructed the race to beat what many baseball fans regarded as a Holy of Holies in the record books.

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AS IF THAT WEREN'T ENOUGH, OCTOBER 2ND IS ALSO THE NATIONAL DAY in the African nation of Guinea, which became soverign in its own right three years to the day of my birth previous (1958, to be exact)--which became rather legendary for the remark of Guinean independence leader Sekou Torre to then-French President Charles deGaulle suggesting where "we would rather have poverty in freedom than riches in slavery" (i.e., French colonial rule).

BBC reporter Will Ross had these erstwhile observations on the state of the first French-speaking soverign state in sub-Saharan Africa marking its 50th year soverign in its own right:

Nowhere illustrates Guinea's recent demise better than the train station in Conakry.

Completed in 1914, the construction of the 700km (435 miles) track to Kankan was a French project partly to aid with the export of fruit.

But the trains ground to a final halt in May 1995.

They may have stopped 13 years ago but several of the workers still sit around the station, which now hosts a variety of businesses from tailoring to welding.

"When we left school the railway was in good condition and it was a great way to get around the country," recalls Fode Bangoura, who still runs the defunct depot.

"My father worked on the railway and it was a good job and that's why I also joined, but as it fell into disrepair it became more and more difficult to keep it going."

Despite this setback, Mr Bangoura is still proud of the country's history.

"We are very proud of the 50th anniversary. I was seven years old at independence. Our parents danced all night and so we joined in."

However, 89-year-old Mohamed Bashir Toure was not dancing or singing at the time.

"I was very happy with the French," he said with some frustration.

"Life was good then. We had all we needed and I voted to stay with the French.

"Now we lack electricity - everything is ruined."

Mr Toure would even welcome the return of the French - a comment that brings giggles and cries of "colonialist" from his relatives.

It seems he is not alone.

"I would welcome them back with open arms," says Fanta Kande who runs a food canteen in Conakry.

"I think independence was a huge mistake. If the French came back and worked with us and ran things in order to help us then why not?"

Guineans are by and large extremely proud of their independence history but people are sick and tired of bad governance and the problems that brings.

"We have no electricity or safe water," says medical student Oscar Loua Tokpagnan.

"We are in a difficult situation because when the students complete [school] it's almost impossible for them to get a job."

[***]

President [Lansana] Conte's independence anniversary message on state radio was only marginally more audible than his predecessor's address 50 years ago, and it gave little reason for renewed optimism.

Reading his script tentatively, Mr Conte promised to use dialogue in order to find what he called the appropriate solutions to the country's difficulties.

It was neither passionate nor convincing.

In Conakry's port I realised there are trains that still work in Guinea - bringing the country's minerals for export.

Guinea has enormous mineral wealth and the country's fortune over the next 50 years depends to a large extent on well these resources are managed.

But the track record on that score is appalling, with alarming levels of corruption.

The lack of enthusiasm for this 50th independence anniversary is hardly surprising.

Guineans continue to hope for a change of leadership and fortune.

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ONCE AGAIN, THE VICIOUS LIPS OF MICHAEL "LIBERALISM IS A MENTAL DISORDER" SAVAGE AS CONSTANTLY SEEM TO DROOL WITH HATE AND DESIGNS ON ULTRAVIOLENCE against liberals, welfare "basket cases," National Minorities, homosexuals, liberals, Secular-Progressives and others who, in his twisted Weltanschauung, are "selling out Our Beloved Nation" just as Judas betrayed the Christus to the Roman authorities for thirty silver pieces, keep drooling with hate.

And with potentially Reckless and Utter Disregard for the Consequences in case his words translate into acts, deeds and exploits carried out by one of his mentally-unstable listeners who will not only try pleading insanity as a copout, but will implicate Mr. Savage's remarks, which could have him held indirectly liable.

Witness these remarks from his very lips, mind you (so don't get any ideas, Mr. Savage, denying that you said them) on his broadcast of the 26th of last month as sound almost right out of apartheid South Africa from the Afrikaner perspective:

My value system is from another world -- I'm like Rip Van Savage. I grew up with parents who went through the Depression. And I went through a sort of depression in my own life as a result of liberal social activism. They imposed affirmative action on me and stole my very birthright simply because I was white. They stole my birthright, and I could have gone under.

I'm telling you now, I'm telling you, like, from the Savage confessional something, then I'm gonna get back to executive compensation and the yuppie punks on Wall Street who went to Harvard. I'm not jealous of them -- I don't need what they have -- I'm a better man than they are, 'cause I never stole from anybody. I never sacked a pension plan. I never robbed a person's retirement fund. OK, so don't think I'm talking from the point of view of bitterness here.

And, for that matter, from the same show three days later:

REP. JOHN CULBERSON (R-TX) [audio clip]: We're not gonna load our kids up with an unaffordable debt burden that'll bankrupt this nation and turn us into the Weimar Republic. We've got to be careful and --

SAVAGE: Well, here in San Francisco, we're way past the Weimar Republic. They had in the midst of all of this a so-called Folsom Street Fair, where naked men cavorted with whips and chains and leather yesterday. I noticed that our Italian grandmother, Nancy Pelosi, had nothing to say about values. This went on in the sickest city in the world. We're way past the Weimar Republic. I only pray that there's no Hitler in the wings.

[...]

Now, I want you to go to MichealSavage.com, go to the middle of the page on the right, and you'll see a man in a leather mask -- a man, a grown white man, standing at a leather parade yesterday. A leather festival, so to speak, in San Francisco, where people were walking around with their private parts exposed beating each other up with whips, while others stood around in a drunken stupor, or a drunken orgy, witnessing men being whipped in public. And my headline is, "The Devil Runs San Fransicko," and that's what I said to Representative Culberson.

It's interesting to me that you mention the Weimar Republic, because this country today is far beyond -- has gone far beyond the excesses of the Weimar Republic, which led to Adolf Hitler. God forbid that should ever happen here. But the German people, who were not all Nazis prior to Hitler's arrival on the scene, were shocked by the degenerates of Berlin. They were sickened -- the average person in Germany was sickened by the perverts; they were sickened by the artistes; they were just sickened by the leather fetishists; they were sickened by the degeneracy; and they couldn't handle it.

Now, you know, leather and this and that is, you say, someone's business. I may agree with you. If someone does so willingly, I could look the other way. But it shouldn't be permitted on a public street. When this occurred last September, I voiced opposition to it. Nancy Pelosi had the nerve to say that, as a Catholic grandmother, she's not offended by it. I said, "If she's not offended by this, what would offend her?" Well, apparently, nothing offends Nancy Pelosi except Republicans who don't go along with her iron gavel.

No, this shouldn't be permitted in public. They should be arrested by the vice squad. But we have a sick mayor -- a useless, sick piece of spaghetti. He's not even al dente, you know, he's al softy. We have a mayor that's al softy in this city, not even al dente. The vice squad is now only looking for people who do not burn American flags rather than people who burn American flags. Everything's upside-down. It's "Alice in Wonderland." I guess what I'm getting at is this: At the same time we have the largest financial meltdown in our time, these sickos go to a leather parade and whip each other in the streets -- still doing what they do because they're sick, they're mentally ill. Every last person there is a mentally ill person, in my opinion. And what they were doing in the streets was an example not of wholesomeness but of sickness.

[...]

What do you think God was saying through Isaiah: "What part shall they be stricken, as you stray away more and more?" Well, God was talking about the Folsom Street sadomasochistic fair in San Francisco. He's saying to those people, "What part will you be stricken of your body, seeing as you stray away more and more?" And they keep whipping each other, saying, "I condemn God. I don't believe in God. That's for the fools. That's for the right-wing Christians. We don't believe in that." And yet, they get sick and they die, and they don't even understand they're getting sick and die -- dying from their own behavior.

(Thanks to Media Matters for America for the hat tips on these transcripts and audio clips, lest I forget.)

I ask you: Are these the rational remarks of a sane man?!

more the engrish!

HOW THIS PARTICULAR SPECIMEN OF "ENGRISH" WOULD QUITE RELATE TO THE FACT OF TOMORROW BEING YOUR CORRESPONDENT'S 47TH BIRTHDAY is anybody's guess.

But the fact is that I turn 47 years young tomorrow.

And what a long, strange trip it's been, to quote the songwriter--even if today turns out to be cloudy and chilly enow in the Minnwissippi to have me turn on the heating system in my flat. Too, I admit sometimes to being hesitant to acknowledge certain facts of my own life publicly.

Dad died in 1993 and Motherdear, 87 herself, is in her loneliness (save for the regular visits of Home Health Nurses or Aides) in Caledonia, Minnesota, insisting on staying home all the longer "to maximise the value of the estate" on her decease, never mind her having no equities investments and still insisting on a basic bank account being all the more satisfactory ... and occasionally having to subsist on toast, leftovers or frozen toaster waffles for dinner unless she's recovering from a substantial dinner such as during a wedding or other occasion involving close friends or relatives; blame that on her limited Social Security benefits.

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IN ANY CASE, EXPECT SARAH PALIN TO LET SLIP JUST WHAT CLASS OF A FLOOZIE SHE REALLY IS IN THE VICE-PRESIDENTIAL DEPARTMENT in tomorrow evening's Vice-Presidential debate.

Not just as a floozie, but also as a psychopath who may be trying to channel "dog-whistle" messages to her droogs among the weird and unwholesome.

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EVEN THE SAME JEWS TRADITIONALLY EXPECTED TO BE SEEN AS NOTHING LESS THAN EVIL AND SINISTER CONSPIRATORS working in secret to weaken and undermine Christendom to the point of the "New World Order" following close behind aren't taking too kindly to His Fraudulency's Grand Delusions known as the Paulson Plan to Save Our Pecuilar Socieconomic Model and Paradigm.

Case in point: The following editorial from this week's Forward entitled "Taking Back the Street:"

For all its malodorous air of refueling a getaway car, the upcoming federal bailout of Wall Street is a lifesaving emergency operation, and it must go forward. It could become a fat giveaway to the rich, as progressives rightly fear, but it doesn’t have to be. Handled properly, the emergency measures will douse the fire that is threatening to consume the American economy, without rewarding the arsonists in the executive suites. With wisdom and luck, the intervention might even lead to a rebuilding of the financial markets on a safer, fairer, more structurally sound foundation. For that to happen, though, progressives must plunge into the details of the rescue so that their values are reflected in the repair.

Tempting though it might seem, we can’t just leave Wall Street to suffer for its sins. Financiers perform a public service no less essential than farmers or truckers. Farmers grow our food. Truckers deliver it to market. Bankers produce the financing that truckers need to fill their tanks, and farmers to buy next year’s seed. Without functioning capital markets, the economy grinds to a halt. That’s what is happening now.

But if the current crisis teaches us the necessity of markets, we should consider the broader implications. Farmers aren’t allowed to sell food that might be poisonous. Nor do good intentions matter; the government steps in at every stage of growing to protect the public. For that matter, truckers aren’t allowed to speed, run on worn ties or drive all night without rest. There are rules.

By the same token, financiers should not be allowed to package finance deals that might leave the rest of us broke and hungry. They need rules and oversight as much as farmers, truckers, pharmacists and electricians. Otherwise, they will end up doing — well, what they just did.

Bankers should not be allowed to package mortgages that lure buyers in with easy terms and then blow up in their faces a few years later. Traders should not be allowed to hide fake mortgages and other flimflams inside opaque pyramid schemes. Firms shouldn’t be permitted to shower billions of dollars on their managers and investors, and then run to the public trough when they lose billions. Companies should not be allowed to raise easy capital only to dismantle their factories and ship the jobs overseas.

All that should be illegal. But it isn’t.

How could that be? It’s illegal for builders to build homes on quicksand. Why are banks allowed to finance them that way?

The answer is simple: fad ideology. Call it the trickle-down theory, or Reaganomics, or the Chicago School or the Washington Consensus. Whatever you call it, it remains a crackpot theory sold to us by generations of snake-oil salesmen: the notion that businesspeople, unlike pharmacists or teachers, can be trusted to police themselves, magically shepherded to wisdom and virtue by the Invisible Hand of the Market.

And if they don’t behave intelligently — and here is the key — it’s nobody’s business but theirs. After all, they’re engaged in private enterprise.

It’s nothing of the sort, of course. As noted, finance is an essential public service, like airline safety. When it goes bad, the public must step in and fix it. If things fall apart, the public suffers. In case of catastrophe, the whole world suffers. Public affairs are everybody’s business. A democracy that governs everything except for what matters most is no democracy.

Our current troubles are not the result of greedy Wall Street executives breaking laws to make a fast buck at everyone else’s expense. Our problems begin with the fact that what they did was perfectly legal. In fact, it was encouraged by the tax code. Washington manufactured this crisis in a three-decade, slow-motion abandonment of the public welfare.

Partly, it was well-intentioned. Changing technology — the Internet, satellite communications, container shipping — rendered old financial regulations obsolete. But instead of reforming the rules, Washington largely abolished them. And now the taxpayers must step in and clean up the mess.

This is the moment to change the rules of the game in the public interest. As Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told Congress, the Treasury must intervene in the markets and inject nearly a trillion dollars — roughly equal to the entire national debt when Reagan first took office — to buy up the banks’ junk and let them get back to the necessary business of finance.

And, as Congress has told Paulson, the bailout must help the banks, not the bankers. Executives must not be allowed to skim the money we provide to save the system. The rescue must help poor folks losing their homes, not just the bankers who set them up. A process must be launched — beginning now — to rewrite the finance and tax codes so that they serve the public’s interest and not just the bankers’.

Above all, the rescue must be managed by a team of honest, competent, intelligent people. That means it can’t be run by the current administration, with its impeccable record of ideological blindness, cronyism and incompetence. Congress should create an independent commission with the authority to manage the bailout-fund and put things right.

Which, come to think of it, is mainstream opinion across the board--well, except for what Fox Prolefeed considers "mainstream," as in "home folks" (think, reader, of an earlier generation more than likely getting their news and information from the likes of Grit or Capper's Weekly as opposed to the more "sophisto" Time or Newsweek, with the former representing idealised "hometown" and "home folks" values sometimes tending to glowing generalities.)

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FOR THOSE EXPECTING WINONA TO BECOME A RAILROAD TOWN OF THE 21ST CENTURY WITH THE CANADIAN PACIFIC'S ACQUISITION OF THE DAKOTA, MINNESOTA AND EASTERN having been approved (howbeit conditionally) by the Federal Surface Transportation Board--I wouldn't bet the farm on it just yet, boys and girls.

Especially considering where the STB's approval of the merger included a provision that prohibits carriage of Powder River Basin coal over Canadian Pacific lines until such time as a proper Environmental Impact Assessment is completed; the better to pacify especially the concerns of Rochester, Minnesota, fearing the likes of some class of a chemical or fuel leak from the rail yards midtown essentially afflicting especially the Mayo Clinic. (But then again, it's just as likely that the CPR is unlikely to proceed with the DM&E's Grand Proposal to construct a new line from near Wall Drug to the Powder River coalfields in Wyoming.)

On the other hand, the CPR is pledging substantial investment of time, money and resources in the reconstruction of both DM&E and Iowa, Chicago and Eastern (IC&E) lines which, for the most part, don't quite meet accepted industry standards for long coal trains roaring by on streetcar-like headways. Especially so the former, with a nasty reputation for frequent derailments known to disrupt service as recently as last week, when a derailment near Minnesota City had one tank car leaking soybean oil.

Let's just hope that such reconstruction could be a major bright spot socioeconomically in what may otherwise be depressing socioeconomic times, creating jobs and then some. 

IF WE'RE TO BELIEVE ERIC BOEHLERT @ MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA, it looks as if the Neoconservative/Fascisti "new media," or reasonable facsimilie thereof, may be about to backfire on itself in Indecision 2008 after claiming moral victories in Indecision 2004:

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Nearly four years ago to the week, right-wing bloggers were basking in the glow of their CBS Memogate caper.

They were being toasted in the mainstream press for their dogged detective work (even though it was suspect) and tapped as the next great resource of the conservative movement in America.

Fast-forward to the autumn of 2008, and the same bloggers are almost unrecognizable in terms of their shrinking clout and the almost complete un-seriousness with which they operate.

Rather than using the CBS story as a stepping stone to launch serious online investigative work and to grow the right side of the blogosphere into an alternative and insightful newsgathering source, the bloggers--how do I put this politely?--have pretty much become a joke in terms of original reporting, with many of them throwing away any legitimacy they accidentally acquired in 2004 when they stumbled across the CBS story.

And boy, it must irk them to look around and see what the liberal blogosphere has been able to achieve over the same four-year span. To see how the netroots community responded to that heartbreaking John Kerry loss and to see that it now enjoys unbridled success and growth, and how its efforts often crackle with enthusiasm. How they're helping, in modest but unmistakable ways, to change the debate in America, especially this election season.

Note that it was liberal bloggers who pressured Democratic candidates to pull out of primary debates scheduled to be hosted by Fox News, an unprecedented campaign feat. They were the ones who put the Associated Press on notice for shoddy reporting, helped elect a new breed of Democrat to Congress, and almost single-handedly elevated the issue of warrantless wiretapping. It was the progressive bloggers who forced John McCain to repudiate Pastor John Hagee and who created their own convention-within-a-convention in Denver this summer, an off-site hot spot that drew high-profile politicians, speakers, and journalists. (How did GOP bloggers pass their time in St. Paul?)

By contrast, right-wing bloggers are now reduced to playing small ball. And even then, they're prone to Little League bloopers. Last week was a perfect example of how the conservative blogosphere's leading lights have been reduced to ridicule, simply because their efforts have become so thoroughly laughable. (See Sadly, No! for the ridicule part.)

For reasons that still elude me, considering the grave issues now facing this country and that remain in play in the unfolding election, the right-wing blogosphere's biggest names decided to rally around the monumentally trivial pursuit of trying to uncover who produced a little-known, anti-Palin YouTube clip that first appeared online earlier this month. And then without a shred of actual evidence (that's their favorite method), the bloggers deduced the Obama campaign may have had a hand in the long-forgotten clip. In fact, Obama himself may have "funded or knowingly supported" the online effort.

Can I just say for the record that when bloggers set out to create buzz about a big "investigation" and count down the hours until the bombshell is published online, and then a posted correction actually precedes the report itself, that's a sign that all may not be well in "investigation" land?

And that's what happened with the right-wing Jawa Report and its overexcited exclusive ("extensive research" was involved!) that set out to identify the person who was behind an anti-Sarah Palin video "aimed at discouraging people from voting for McCain/Palin" and that erroneously claimed she had once been a member of the Alaskan Independence Party.

Not exactly blockbuster stuff, we agree. (Misinformation spread via online clips? What next?!) But the Jawa Report's Rusty Shackleford seemed to have the goods on the person who posted the clip and where he worked: Ethan Winner, a vice president with the Los Angeles-based public relations firm Winner & Associates. (Shackleford noted that he used the same research techniques to out Winner that he'd previously used to uncover "the identity of online terrorist supporters," because Palin critics and terrorist supporters are sort of alike, I suppose.)

And sure enough, Winner quickly admitted to posting the clip. Or "confessed," in Jawa parlance.

So, yes, Winner posted a video that was inaccurate. Case closed and democracy saved, right? Wrong. Because the Jawa Report's completely circumstantial report also suggested the Obama campaign, or some other nefarious, left-leaning outside entity, may have helped peddle the video by either paying for it or by using Winner's P.R. firm in an effort to make it go viral. And that represented a hugely important story, a "scandal."

In that regard, the "investigation" was a laughingstock, drowning in layers of guilt by association but without the slightest evidence to prove anything. And certainly without any evidence to prove the central premise of the "investigation," which was that because Winner worked for a P.R. firm that had ties to the Democratic Party, Winner must have been paid to produce the clip and may have even been paid or encouraged by the Obama campaign.

Winner flatly denied the allegation, claiming he made the video himself. (It's called user-generated media, and apparently it's all the rage this campaign, even for political pros.) He also flatly denied that the Obama camp was involved in any way or that any other independent political action committee was either, for that matter. The Obama camp also issued a blanket denial: "This one ranks as one of the most outlandish conspiracy theories in a campaign that has had its share of them. Neither our campaign nor any of our consultants had any involvement with this YouTube video."

I chuckled when I read the countless right-wing posts about the Jawa Report's supposed blockbuster and discovered that in the course of the "investigation," right-wing bloggers practically begged the McCain campaign to join them in their little squirrel hunt. But the grown-ups inside the GOP (wisely) ignored the bloggers' request.

The pros might have kept their distance, but the right-wing blogosphere cheered Shackleford's "must read post." They all claimed he'd hit reporting gold with his insightful analysis and detailed detective work.

Michelle Malkin insisted it was the latest example of bloggers doing the real reporting that lazy mainstream journalists would not. (Malkin hyped the exclusive on Fox News, where the FNC regular butchered the facts of the story.) "It certainly appears that Barack Obama's campaign manager is involved if not orchestrating these efforts," announced blogger Confederate Yankee.

"It looks ... suspicious. And, do you know something? Right now Rusty's suspicions are pretty damn credible," cheered RedState.

"If all of this is true and the Obama campaign can be connected to it, it would represent a massive set of FEC violations," blurbed Ed Morrissey [emphasis added], who apparently didn't see the earlier memo that conceded there was nothing illegal about the making of the Palin video even if the Obama campaign paid for it.

"I think they're lying," claimed Ace of Spades, which saw an even bigger conspiracy at play: The Obama campaign had actually produced the YouTube clip itself and then pawned it off on Winner.

Can I just say that "I think they're lying" could pretty much double as the right-wing blogosphere's motto? Because whenever they come up against a set of stubborn facts they don't like or can't disprove, they just reach for the "I think they're lying" card and plow ahead, usually straight into oblivion, as with the Jawa Report's "investigation."

Don't just take my word for it.

"Trivial," is how Politico's Ben Smith described the right-wing blogosphere's sad, ill-fated production. "It's driven by theories that just aren't substantiated."

Added Marc Ambinder, blogging at The Atlantic: "What the evidence implies is that a liberal PR firm decided to gin up some anti-Palin viral videos. That's it."

It was telling that Smith and Ambinder were among the only journalists connected to mainstream outlets who even bothered acknowledging the YouTube "investigation." Ironic because just four years ago, many of those kind of mainstream media outlets were busy patting the bloggers on the back for their Memogate coup. Today, journalists seem to look at the bloggers with an odd mixture of pity and contempt. "This is your centerpiece contribution to the unfolding campaign?" they might be asking.

But anyway, go read the whole Jawa Report mess if you must. I'm not going to address each tinfoil-hat point, but I will accentuate a couple of lowlights just to give a sense of the intellectual dishonesty that's rampant on the right, and that seems to be celebrated.

Jawa announced, way up at the top of the piece where the "investigation's" bullet points were breathlessly typed up, that it was "likely" that the [Winner] PR firm was paid by outside sources to run the smear campaign."

A weeklong investigation, and the best Shackleford could come up with was that it appeared "likely" the P.R. firm was paid? That strikes us as monumentally lame. But oh well. More important, however: What was the proof to even support the "likely" part? Answer: There was none. Invoices? Nope. Quotes? Original reporting? Nope.

An active imagination? And how!

That "likely" part was simply Shackleford's assumption because that's what seemed plausible to him. You know, the way it was "likely" that the Associated Press concocted a phony Baghdad police captain named Jamil Hussein in order to quote him and help the worldwide news agency spread the insurgents' propaganda. We all know how "likely" that turned out to be. (And then there was Shackleford's Bilal Hussein fiasco ... )

The question that weighed on Shackleford's mind was, "Why would any one hire a PR firm" to launch the clip? The hiccup was that he had uncovered no evidence that anyone hired Winner's P.R. firm. But that didn't stop Shackleford from speculating about who might have paid for the clip, even though there was no evidence anybody did. (See how liberating fact-free "investigations" can be?)

Shackleford thought maybe George Soros, MoveOn.org, or some other mysterious 527 footed the bill.

More intriguing, though, was Shackleford's announcement that the possibility was "open" that "Obama or the Democratic Party might also be the ones paying for the campaign."

The evidence in support of that tenuous Obama link was almost too funny for words, and we'll get to that soon. But here, it's important to emphasize that even if Jawa Report had uncovered black-and-white evidence of the Obama campaign's involvement, the still-unanswered question would be, "So what?" And that's what really made the whole "investigation" so painful and tiresome to read: knowing that even if the bloggers connected each very, very distant dot, the whole mess still wouldn't have added up to anything.

I mean, if tomorrow Shackleford unearthed a signed invoice from Obama media chief David Axelrod himself paying for the YouTube clip, I'd still be asking, "So what?"

As Time.com noted, "Even if the Obama campaign or the McCain campaign produced the ad, there is no requirement under federal election law that they disclose authorship, as long as the ad is distributed free online, not as a paid advertisement."

But it would look bad if team Obama were involved, the bloggers clamored. Maybe, maybe not. But I don't think it's up to them to decree that Democrats aren't allowed to play hardball if they want. And that seemed to be the gigantic gotcha that fueled the "investigation."

Speaking of, what was the evidence that led Shackleford to suggest the Obama campaign might be involved in the YouTube clip (and perhaps even paid for it), and what was the evidence that led other bloggers to announce the Obama campaign was involved? Answer: The voice-over artist who narrated the clip. She represented the key to the whole "scandal," according to the over-caffeinated bloggers. She might "provide direct linkage between the video and the Obama campaign."

Try not to laugh here, but identifying the voice-over artist became central to the whole soggy conspiracy theory, because when you stripped away the layers of conjecture and what-ifs that puffed up the "investigation," the bloggers were left grasping at the notion that the woman who worked on the Winner YouTube video kinda sorta sounded like a voice-over artist who had worked for one of the consulting firms associated with David Axelrod.

Do you follow? The entire conspiracy theory revolved around the premise that because the voice-over talent on the YouTube clip had (possibly) worked for Axelrod, it was only natural to tie the Obama campaign to the long-forgotten video.

If you say so, Rusty, although I think that's an almost comically inept way to build an "investigation." Because even if he proved who the Winner voice-over Jane Doe was, and even if he proved she'd worked for Axelrod in the past, those two facts would have advanced the plot line approximately one foot.

Nonetheless, check out the bullet points touted from Shackleford's "investigation":

• This same voice-over artist has worked extensively with David Axelrod's firm, which has a history of engaging in phony grassroots efforts, otherwise known as "astroturfing."
• The same voice-over artist has worked directly for the Barack Obama campaign.

Additionally, Shackleford announced, "We believe that the artist in the ... Palin smear video has also worked directly for the Barack Obama campaign."

Now, reading those proclamations, it sure seemed like Shackleford knew exactly who did the voice-over work for the YouTube clip, right?

Wrong. Because in truth, as the bloggers buzzed around the story last week, they did not know who did the voice-over work on the Winner video. Oh, sure, they had inklings and hunches and guesses. But a name? A confirmation? A direct connection between her and Axelrod or Obama? Sorry, you'll have to look elsewhere, folks.

And don't forget, even if the voice-over woman worked with Axelrod -- even if it were Axelrod's wife -- we'd be right back to the question of, "So what?"

Here's the bottom line for right-wing bloggers in 2008: Their hyped "investigation" failed to confirm a story that doesn't even matter.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Is it any wonder that the ConWeb must be whining and bawling and caterwauling and boohoohooing non causa pro causa about the supposed lack of "healthy and positive stories" serving, as it turns out, no practical benefit but to distract attention from The Big Picture (not unlike the kind of overly cheery stories which dominated the pages of rural weeklies such as Grit and Capper's Weekly years ago)?