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WITH SO MANY GAZETTAS FROM MAINE TO HAWAII ENDORSING BARACK OBAMA OVER JOHN McCAIN FOR THE PRESIDENCY in tomorrow's oh-so-crucial elections, you may want to know about the McCain/Palin ticket's biggest (and yet most unlikely) supporter.

We'll let Dave Zweifel, Editor Emeritus of The Capital Times (cyberspace, via Madison, WI), explain for you:

Nicholas Kristof, one of the New York Times' op-ed columnists and an expert observer of world trouble spots, remarked last Sunday that al-Qaida has endorsed John McCain for president.

It was a bit of useless information, except for one glaring fact. The terrorist organization that is responsible for causing death and destruction at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon figures that if McCain becomes president, the U.S. will continue George Bush's Iraq policy, thereby making it easier for al-Qaida to recruit more members.

If the American military begins to withdraw from Iraq, a policy favored by Barack Obama, the anti-U.S. sentiment would cool down and the numbers of young men and women willing to blow themselves up for the cause would diminish.

That isn't just Kristof's theory. Richard Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism director, and Joseph Nye, the former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, both said they weren't surprised that al-Qaida prefers McCain.

"From their perspective, a continuation of Bush policies is best for recruiting," Nye said.

"In contrast, an African-American president with a Muslim grandfather and a penchant for building bridges rather than blowing them up would give al-Qaida recruiters fits," the columnist wrote.

Kristof compared the McCain policy of staying in Iraq indefinitely to some of the blunders we've made in other parts of the world, including the catastrophe we know as Vietnam.

There it was an exaggerated fear of communism that led us to a disastrous occupation that tore our own country apart.

Now we have an exaggerated fear of "Islamofascism" that causes us to overreact and damage our own interests, Kristof said. In Somalia, for instance, we became alarmed that an Islamist movement was taking hold among the political factions there, so we jumped in on the side of Ethiopia, giving it a green light to invade. The result has been a humanitarian crisis that some claim is worse than Darfur.

The result has been yet another region furious over U.S. involvement. Islamic militancy and anti-Americanism are rampant, further assisting terrorist recruiters.

McCain, Kristof claims, would amount to four more years of "blindness to nuance in the Muslim world."

And that, he adds, would be a tragedy for Americans.

Which makes you wonder, then, whether supporting John McCain is one with supporting International Terrorism, howbeit discreetly.

Not to mention unwittingly. 

more the engrish!

FIRST OFF, A COUPLE OF CHANGES YOU MAY WANT TO MAKE A NOTE OF if you're something of a regular to this blog:

• The background music has been dropped.
• The BlogRush widget has been removed inasmuch as they are now winding up operations (and if you have a BlogRush widget on your blog, please remove same ASAP).
• On the side, as if to more than compensate for the preceding, there's now a signup box for my proposed e-newsletter, which will be an adjunct of as much this blog as my e-boutique, The Exaggerator Collection; as soon as reasonable numbers can be collected, I hope to launch same. (I should note also @ this time that the RSS feed for this blog can also be subscribed to by e-mail, or even incorporated into your own site or blog.)

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MEMO TO FORMER MEMBERS OF MYROOMIE.NET: You may have received an e-mail recently announcing where they have been acquired by BlogWeekends, who invites you to join them and pick up where MyRoomie left off when technical faults began plaguing them.

Equally interesting is where BlogWeekends has a 120x90 thumbnail banner swap, in the tradition of MyRoomie; for best results in creating a thumbnail of your blog for this purpose, BlogWeekends recommends your using Thumbalizr.com, saving the thumbnail (@ 120 pixels, using the customisation tool) to your hard drive, then transferring same to the files section of your blog account.

Therefore it waits for what?

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WHEN JOHN McCAIN SPAKE OF "CREATING NEW WEALTH" IN RESPONSE TO BARACK OBAMA'S "SPREADING THE WEALTH" CONCEPT the other day, Your Correspondent had to wonder if he was sounding like some class of a "make money fast" (MMF) mountebank of the kind targeting the McCain/Palin campaign's weird, unwholesome and socioeconomically-marginalised groupies.

Same unaware that they will have more to lose under a McCain/Palin Presidency in the face of all they love to claim about a New Golden Age of Empowerment, Self-Reliance, Personal Responsibility, Thrift based on Cash Economy and a Wholesome and Simple Home Life awaiting ... not to mention being all the more open to exploitation by swindlers and mountebanks promising all manner of panaceas promising "a new happier life" and "as much income in a month as others earn in a year" which turn out being anything but.

Especially when it emerges that they're being targeted for the likes of Ponzi schemes, "make-work/fake-work" Mickey Mouse and "cashflow gifting" scams in guises such as "Æroplane," "Dinner Party," "Pit Stop" or some other permutation on the "Friends Helping Friends" theme (and in particular such using PayPal to avoid suspicions in some circles).

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SO, WITH THE PROSPECT OF LONG QUEUES AND ALL MANNER OF SECURITY CHECKS EXPECTED TO BE IN PLACE TOMORROW, Your Correspondent feels it best to remind all of you to be vigilant @ your designated polling station for all form and fashion of vote suppression, intimidation and "caging" likely to be carried out by well-meaning, howbeit weird and unwholesome, elements claiming to act in the name of "protecting electoral purity and integrity."

As well as problems with certain voting machines of the touch-screen variety known to "flip" votes or otherwise lack a "paper trail" for the sake of checks and balances.

If so encountered, freecall 1-866-OUR-VOTE posthaste to speak to a trained Election Protection volunteer. Or, if you have access to the Information Stuporbahn, file an online report.

And speaking of flaws with touch-screen voting machines, BradBlog has the following worthwhile item for such jurisdictions using the notoriously-flawed Diebold or Premier touchscreen termini as itself uses the GEMS programme:

Just in time for the elections, the Pima County, Arizona, Election Integrity Committee has developed computer tools to examine election databases created by the Diebold/Premier system. The EI group is offering to examine data from any jurisdiction in the country that uses Diebold's faulty GEMS (Global Election Management System). GEMS will tabulate about half the nation's votes on November 4th...

Last year, the Pima County EI group won a groundbreaking legal case which gave it access to all the county’s computer-generated databases since 2002. Recently, computer programs were completed to examine the databases. They have already revealed problems and inconsistencies that warrant further examination. For example, they found that a few dozen memory cards from optical ballot scanners were uploaded twice, causing changes in vote counts. (A document by Tom Ryan gives more details about the capabilities of these tools and possible problems they have uncovered.)

The programs search for such things as unusual increases in vote tallies, changes in configuration information, and similar indicators that could point to vote flipping or other inappropriate activity. They go through the election from start to finish --- from the Logic and Accuracy tests to the early voting and election day counting to the final wrap up. The results can then be displayed in a spreadsheet.

Anyone interested in more information should email ElectionIntegrity@earthlink.net.

This program isn’t a magic bullet that will prove an election has been rigged. By pinpointing specific problem areas, the results allow investigators to focus on the portions of the GEMS database where possible election fraud is most likely to have occurred.

When the Pima County EI group won access to GEMS databases dating back to 2002 in a court ruling, it was also granted access to all databases from future elections. As a result, it’s likely that Pima County will have the most carefully monitored elections in the nation.

Election Integrity groups outside of Pima County that suspect election fraud have a huge hurdle in front of them – gaining access to the GEMS databases. Hopefully, the newly available tools will encourage them to put pressure on local officials to make the data available.

The long term objective of the Pima County EI Committee is to distribute the programs widely, but currently the data examination is only being done in Tucson. The programs are still evolving in their scope and sophistication, and the analysis team in Tucson is still learning how to use the tools to maximum advantage. Years of work has given the team a familiarity with the GEMS systems that usually isn’t available elsewhere.

This PDF goes into more detail about the computer tools. The Pima County EI group can provide more information, including technical details about the GEMS databases. Please email questions to ElectionIntegrity@earthlink.net.

(Hence, election judges in such areas afflicted by Diebold/Premier's GEMS software flaw will want to download the PDF haste posthaste for the sake of "electoral integrity and purity.")

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AND SO MUCH FOR THE "ACORN VOTING FRAUD" AND "COMMUNITY ORGANIZER" DISTRACTIONS THE GOP HAS TRIED PUSHING as "winning of hearts and minds" canards earlier in the campaign cycle--last Thursday's edition of Comedy Central's Daily Show had the following report deflating same:

(Especially interesting is the admission that the whole thing about "voter registration fraud" is nothing but a distracting "side issue" towards the greater GOP article of faith known as "divide and conquer" which targets especially the Lower Classes and others too dependent upon Fox Prolefeed for their informational requirements.)

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SPEAKING OF "DIVIDE AND CONQUER," the one element as is especially fond of the possibilities inherent in such a devious and @ once dangerous strategem and device would have to be Neo-Confederacist types believing that so-called "Confederate Southern Americans" (as in whites resident in, and/or otherwise descended from, such whites resident in the Confederate States of America during their soverign existance concurrent with the Civil War--especially such of Scots or Scots-Irish descent) are entitled "as of right" to a "natural right of self-determination" as a soverign pecuilar (cf. certain Afrikaners down South Africa way otherwise out of touch with Reality seeking to establish Die Volkstaat Orania as an Afrikaner Homeland within soverign South African territory).

All the while invoking the Balfour Declaration as precedent, howbeit with risk of these respective claims to "self-determination" being held as suspect (inasmuch as the Balfour Declaration's principle of Jews being entitled to a soverign "national home" in Palestine was based on valid religiohistorical claims and precedent).

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STAYING IN ISRAEL FOR THE NONCE, the Israeli Government's announcement that it would withdraw funding for what are technically illegal Israeli Jewish settlements in the Palestinian West Bank ("outposts," as the Israelis prefer to call such) could be, IMHO, a "blessing in disguise" for the Jewish National Fund's ongoing Blueprint Negev initiative, aimed @ reclaiming the Negev Desert area of southern Israel through sustainable agriculture in the kibbutz stylee and constructing several new settlements and kibbutzim.

One obvious aim of Blueprint Negev, as has been a long-cherished dream of the Zionist movement, is to ease the pressure on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv-Haifa region of northern Israel as translates into high housing prices for especially such emigrating to Israel and making aliyah under the Law of Return.

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AND IS IT JUST ME, OR ARE THERE PARTISAN MOTIVES FROM THE KULTURKRIEG ELEMENT ESPECIALLY behind a new report suggesting that teenagers watching TV shows containing sexually-suggestive language, themes or story lines are all the more likely to risk having a nine months' dropsy than those watching supposedly "wholesome" programmes? 

WOULD ANY OF YOU LIKE TO SEE AN E-NEWSLETTER ON AN OCCASIONAL BASIS, as would cover not only developments with this blog ... but also Your Correspondent?

Please let me know.

I'd like to launch same @ the earliest opportunity.

more the engrish!

"The curtain falls on the first act of our Lone Ranger story. Before the next exciting scenes, please permit us to pause for just a few moments."

--traditional message announcing intermission on the radio version
of The Lone Ranger

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IF YOU THOUGHT FEARS OF ELECTION FRAUD WERE THE EXCLUSIVE MONOPOLY OF A "MORALLY SUPERIOR" UNITED STATES in this election cycle now winding down, consider that in the African state of Zambia, which held elections Thursday to fill the unexpired term of Levy Mwananasa (as died in August following a stroke), charges of electoral fraud have been raised by opposition candidate Michael Sata (Patriotic Front) in response to official results giving acting head of state Rupiah Banda (Movement for Multiparty Democracy) a three-point edge on Mr. Sata.

The which has resulted in near-rioting prompting a state of emergency being declared in the Zambian capital of Lusaka and riot police put on standby alert.

No wonder the Neoconservative/Fascisti element wants to see riots in major cities if Barack Obama wins Tuesday, using poor whites as agents provocateur while officially blaming "black radicals" for same--and sending off the real goons into safe harbour to avoid scandal. Let's just hope the police are on alert for just such a possibility, let alone the Black Legion.

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CANADA'S LEGENDARY "MASKED AVENGERS"--AS IN MONTRÉAL RADIO HOSTS MARC-ANTIONE AUDETTE AND SEBASTIAN TRUDEL OF CKOI, famous for their wind-up calls targeting the rich and famous, pulled one on GOP vice-presidential wannabe (and likely electoral albatross) Sarah Palin by impersonating French President Nicolas Sarkozy in a "windup" par excellence.

Which, among other things, extended to an invitation to do some aerial thrill-killing of Alaskan wildlife just for cheap thrills (by the standards of the Robin Leach crowd) and little else. Never mind where that $150,000 wardrobe of hers was nothing more than a sick attempt to out-Evita Evita for purposes of instilling shame in the ranks of Kankerdom especially.

(As for the "why and wherefore" of M. Audette's telephonic pranking targeting Ms. Palin, listen right here.)

Speaking of albatross--

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AS THE RUMOURS PERSIST IN INTELLIGENCE AND DIPLOMATIC CIRCLES ABOUT NORTH KOREAN "GREAT LEADER" KIM JONG IL BEING ILL HIMSELF (no pun intended, boys and girls), North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released photos showing "Great Leader" attending a recent soccer match--or so the official line wants the world to believe in the face of the aforementioned rumours of incapacity from diabetes and/or a stroke.

How do we know the KCNA wasn't using Photoshop to trick or deceive world opinion for the sake of "Great Leader" and his supposedly saintly image?

(As if that weren't enough, it's been noted that "Great Leader" was conspiciously absent from Thursday's funeral for Pak Song Chol, one of the "founding fathers" [as it were] of the so-called "Democratic People's Republic of Korea," to use North Korea's official name and stylee.)

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NONE OTHER THAN "THE DIRTY DIGGER" HIMSELF, BY NAME OF KEITH RUPERT MURDOCH, IS PARROTING THE SAME LINE FOX PROLEFEED IS PUSHING about free-market capitalism as Great White Father to save Australia from clear and present danger of socioeconomic collapse.

In a lecture delivered @ the Sydney Opera House as part of the Boyer Lecture Series, Herr Rupert explaineth (as quoted in excerpts published by The Sydney Morning Herald):

[We] need to reduce dependency on government … to reform our education system … to reconcile with Australia's Aboriginal population and to maintain a liberal immigration system. At a time when the world's most competitive nations are moving their people off government subsidy, Australians seem to be headed in the wrong direction. In a recent paper [the director of the Institute for Private Enterprise] Des Moore pointed out that while real incomes had increased since the end of the 1980s, about 20 per cent of the working aged population today received income support, compared with 15 per cent two decades ago. While a safety net is warranted for those in genuine need, we must avoid institutionalising idleness. The bludger should not be our national icon.

Traditionally the Liberals have been more free market in their outlook than their opponents. But Labor has also recognised that central planning does not work. The larger the government, the less room for Australians to exercise their talents and initiative. That is why this year we heard a Labor Prime Minster, Kevin Rudd, declaring that his government was unashamedly pro-market, pro-business and pro-globalisation.

That is a good start. But being pro-market, pro-business and pro-globalisation means working for a society where citizens are not dependent on the government. That means ending subsidies for people who do well. It also means sensible targeting and persistence - so that when subsidies are given, they help those passing through a rough patch or born into abject poverty build themselves up to a point where they can provide for themselves. And it means smaller government and an end to the paternalism that nourishes political correctness, promotes government interference and undermines freedom and personal responsibility. We need to reform our education system. It is a scandal that we are spending more and more and getting less and less in return. For those still in school or just entering the workforce, the opportunities a global economy offers are greater than at any time in our history - provided you have the right skills.

Australians have always been a people who stress equality, who believe that what you make of yourself is more important than where you came from. That is still a good philosophy for a frontier society. But let's be honest: tens of thousands of people are going to be deprived of these opportunities if we continue to tolerate a public education system that in effect writes off whole segments of society.

Cf. these remarks on Bill Cunningham's show of the 23rd ultimate, as transcribed by Media Matters for America:

[T]he work ethic, shall we say, is lacking. The reason people are poor in America is not because they lack money, it's because poor people in America lack values, character, and the ability to work hard. And it's got nothing to do with race, it has everything to do with color ...

Which were echoed five days later on the same show in an exchange with Steve Malanga of the Manhattan Institute and senior editor of the City Journal:

[W]hat community in America is better off with more Section 8 housing and more welfare and more food stamps? Because, unlike many countries in the world, Steve, we have fat poor people. We don't have skinny poor people. Ours are fat and flatulent. So what city in America's been helped by Section 8 housing -- more food stamps and welfare?

[***]

...The war on poverty was declared in the 1960s. It was lost in the 1970s. The funding continued for poverty. You know, people are poor in America, Steve, not because they lack money; they're poor because they lack values, morals, and ethics. And if government can't teach and instill that, we're wasting our time simply giving poor people money.

(Back to "the Dirty Digger's" remarks, the full lecture can be listened to here ... and here can be read the full transcript of the same.)

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LATE-NIGHT THOUGHTS ON LISTENING TO "CATCH THE WIND" BY DONOVAN, vintage 1965:

Mid- to late-afterlunch drive, sometime around the summer or fall colour period, somewhere in the Bluff Country or the Coulee Region of western Wisconsin. No--make that late autumn, as the last of the leaves have left the trees.

Just driving around to nowhere in particular. 

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SUCH COMMENTS AS THOSE REFLECTED IN THE PHOTO ABOVE THIS ITEM, with certain necessary modifications, could be well applied to the ilk of such behind all manner of Nigerian "419" scam and "lottery winning notification" "spam" such as you doubtless receive in your Inbox every day.

Especially considering where the Nigerian versions contain such pathetic-sounding specimens of subject line as:

• NOW CONTACT MY SECRETARY
• URGENT BUSINESS PROPOSAL
• PLEASE READ AND GET BACK TO ME SOONEST
• TREAT AS URGENT AND CONFIDENTIAL
• URGENT BUSINESS
• I NEED YOUR URGENT ASSISTANCE
• FOR MUTUAL BENEFIT
• PLEASE, I NEED YOUR HELP
• URGENT PLEA FOR ASSISTANCE
• CRY FOR HELP
• PLEASE CONTACT ME

Which can get to be rather pathetic when you stop and consider where the same or similar e-mails are likely being sent to millions of others, and to the point of all manner of multiple "claims" being received @ some of the most unlikely of locations across Nigeria, especially so in Lagos (the former capital and commercial centre) or Abuja (the new capital).

And in the case of "lottery winner" such, there's always the issue of your being expected to regard yourself a winner when you don't recall buying a ticket in same in the first place (after all, laws in the United States still ban sending lottery tickets through the mails or import thereof into the United States), let alone the insistence of the senders that utmost secrecy be maintained "until we can confirm that you are indeed our winner, and we have deposited the monies into your nominated bank account," supposedly to "prevent duplicate and/or fraudulent claims."

In either case, such should still be treated with suspicion. Deleted, even.

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WHY IT'S ALL THE MORE IMPORTANT TO LISTEN ALL THE MORE CAREFULLY TO CAMPAIGN NEWS AND SPEECHES IN THIS THE FINAL CAMPAIGN WEEKEND, as demonstrated by Democratic candidate Barack Obama in a speech of the sort which Fox Prolefeed would just love to edit out of context for their own warped ends and purposes:

(As if that weren't enough, such is also a worthwhile demonstration of how satire can be an effective vehicle for deflating attacks and hate by the opposition--especially where questions are raised about character, loyalty or want of True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command.

(A True Patriot Love, know, which is hard-wired and unyielding so as to raise questions of such tending to what Orwellian Newspeak calls "goodthoughtful"--as in naturally orthodox, accepting the Prevailing Line without question or reservation as if thinking that any deviance thereof could "get you in trouble," especially so in hyper-conservative areas of the sort the Sarah Palin crowd calls "Real America.")

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REMINDER TO ALL OF YOU IN THE UNITED STATES (EXCEPT FOR AZ AND HI) AND CANADA (EXCEPT SK): Summer Time ends for the year @ 02h local time overnight; hence, be sure that clocks are set back by one hour sometime today.

Consider this an opportunity to also replace the batteries in your smoke and carbon-monoxide detectors as are on battery power.

Summer Time resumes @ 02h local time Sunday, 8 March 2009.

But then again, a new study suggests that the whole notion of extending Summer Time by four weeks overall (as has been the case in the last two years) to increase energy conservation may actually be negated by the increased demand for electricity for home heating and cooling.

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AND JUST SO YOU DON'T FORGET, remember to remain all the more vigilant for attempts @, or signs of, voter intimidation and suppression heading into Election Day--and on the day proper @ the polling station.

If you so encounter, be sure to freecall 1-866-OUR-VOTE posthaste, never mind the Neoconservative/Fascisti notion that they have a "natural right" to "protect electoral purity and integrity***by whatever means necessary."

Lastly, apology for being late with the posting: I had to get some spokes on my trusty bike replaced, which took a good part of the morning (not to mention picking up some stamps as well). 

more animals

THE TERM "MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE" IS A PET TERM AMONG THE CONSPIRACIST ELEMENT to refer to such candidates for political office suspected of having their "official" (public) agenda unwittingly influenced by "brainwashing" influences of certain weird and unwholesome types, especially such suspected of harbouring "Communist" or "Socialist" beliefs and articles of faith--and (so this conspiracist line goes) hesitant to acknowledge such "dangerous" associations overtly lest his campaign go into scandal.

ConWebBlog has this interesting item which reveals where the ConWeb can't quite make up its mind over who the real "Manchurian Candidate" of Indecision 2008 is:

Earlier this year, David Kupelian set the tone for WorldNetDaily's rabid, falsehood-laden anti-Obama jihad by endorsing John McCain. Kupelian is back, declaring in an Oct. 30 column that Barack Obama really is the Manchurian candidate:

Barack Obama was programmed for years by his atheist, Muslim father, by the communist sex pervert Frank Marshall Davis, by con man Tony Rezko, by domestic terrorist Bill Ayers and others – most of all by black liberation theology screamer Jeremiah Wright. Obama's resume is largely manufactured. There is a total blackout on his college years. His campaign obscures what he did as a "community organizer." All his radical associations are denied or minimized. His miserable legislative record (voting "present" over 100 times to avoid taking a stand), his lack of achievement, his radical views and so on – all have been laundered through the magic of public relations into the near-sacred saga of "The One" who has been sent to serve, and to save, America.

[...]

America has a choice Tuesday between a genuine war hero and a genuine Manchurian candidate.

The funny thing is, just a few years back, WND was promoting the idea that McCain was the Manchurian candidate. 

An August 2001 WND column by Samuel Blumenfeld bashed "Republican liberal" McCain for contemplating an mavericky "Bull Moose" approach that would harm the Republican Party. Noting McCain's "sudden metamorphosis from conservative to liberal," Blumenfeld stated that "It is highly probable that McCain learned at least as much about the Marxist class struggle while undergoing forced communist indoctrination during his five years at Hanoi as any American student learns at a liberal state university." After citing a Camille Paglia column suggesting that McCain might be a Manchurian candidate, Blumenfeld writes:

The implication is that McCain subliminally absorbed communist doctrine as a result of his five-year captivity. If that is the case, then he ought to subject himself to deprogramming. The strength and vehemence of his liberal convictions, the fact that he considers himself to be a war criminal, would indicate that he very profoundly absorbed the communist critique of the American system. Is it possible that the communists have perfected a time-release form of indoctrination? That would account for the sudden switch in ideology at a very crucial period – a campaign for the presidency. Leaving speculation aside, however, we don't need conjecture to face this hard fact: The last thing America needs in the White House is a self-admitted war criminal.

As we've documented, virtually all criticism of McCain on WND's news pages disappeared when McCain became the de facto Republican nominee back in February. Thus, you won't see Kupelian referencing a column by Jack Wheeler WND published before McCain clinched the Republican nomination, in which he called McCain "psychologically unstable" and a "nutcase wack job," then asserted that McCain "collaborat[ed] with his Communist captors" while a POW -- not even to denounce it. Nor will Kupelian reference Blumenfeld's column calling McCain the Manchurian candidate.

Why? Probably because he hates Obama too much to remind their readers that he, despite all his blather about McCain being a "genuine war hero," secretly hates McCain too.

Not to mention the prospect of "Barack Obama is the Manchurian Candidate" quickly becoming the last-minute desperation meme among the Dark Satanic Mills of Conservative Propaganda and their droogs @ the Elmer Gantry Institute for Religiopolitical Theology.

Right Wing Watch has some interesting examples of that likelihood:

You know, the first five or six times you see right-wingers screaming that America will be doomed, cursed, or destroyed if Barack Obama is elected, it’s kind of entertaining.   But then it just starts to get annoying.

Here’s the latest [PDF] from Mat Staver and Liberty Counsel:

The future of America is at stake and its future rests with us … If we elect leaders who will not stand up for innocent unborn children, then America will be cursed. If we elect leaders who will not defend marriage as one man and one woman, the people will groan, and our great nation will decay … We could not have a more important election about America’s future than the one will we face this year. I am so burdened about this Country and our future that I cannot begin to express my concern. We already have the most liberal, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual Congress in the history of America. We cannot afford to unleash an unbridled leftist, secular, anti-religious agenda on America and our children. We must stand up now! … God has called each one of us to the Kingdom for such a time as this. Each of us are called to different roles, but all of us are commanded to be good citizens. To be a good citizen, we must vote. It is not an option. And, we must vote our Christian values. The future of America, our children, and grandchildren, are depending on us.

Fortunately we only have to put up with four more days of this … which will then by followed by four more years of it.

[***]

Last week Gary Bauer warned that at some point down the line, God will "take his hand of protection off of America" if the country doesn't get its act together and stop coddling gays, finally outlaw abortion, and elect John McCain.

And it looks as if that GOTV strategy is being picked up by others on the Right, judging by Jane Chastain's latest column in WorldNetDaily.

Chastain admits that many Christian voters might be confused about things like the economy, healthcare, or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and so they should just get "back to basics:"

Examine the stands of these two candidates —and more important, their records – on the moral issues, and vote accordingly. Then, you can rest assured that this country will be in good hands.

The Ten Commandments given to Moses are not suggestions. They represent God's moral law – and it has never changed. The first commandments are about honoring God and your earthly parents. Next comes God's law against murder. God leaves us no wiggle room when it comes to the shedding of the innocent blood of another human being.

It is no accident that abortion is the most divisive moral issue in America today. God's law may be inconvenient at times, but it is still God's law.

But just in case they are still confused over how to vote, Chastian concludes with a pretty straight-forward argument that God will destory America if Obama is elected:

If you call yourself a Christian and you are still flirting with abortion, or flirting with voting for a candidate who condones the taking of an innocent life, no matter how small, sick or vulnerable, you are only fooling yourself about your Christian commitment – but you will not fool God!

...

If 9/11 wasn't a wake-up call for America, then the financial meltdown of 2008 should be. How many more warnings will God give us before he lifts his hand of protection that has been over this country for more than 200 years? He did not spare the children of Israel. He will not spare the United States of America!

(In that last instance, I'd cue up the "Sieg Heil" march, of Nazi vintage, as rejoinder; such, methinks, is rather apropos the Religiopolitical Right, no?)

(Interesting historical insight: Not many know this, but the "Sieg Heil" march is actually based on an old Yale University marching tune, with an old Eli adding the infamous lyrics. He would later lose interest with the Nazi movement, by the way. Take that, ye critics of "elitism"!)

more the engrish!

AS IS OBVIOUS FROM THE TITLE, THERE ARE NOW BUT FOUR DAYS UNTIL WE "MORALLY SUPERIOR" AMERICANS MAKE THAT FATEFUL DECISION as to where a 21st-century America ought go.

Which can only mean that the propaganda can only get all the more vile and disgusting from certain circles in this the final countdown.

Making this all the more relevant: Yesterday was the 60th anniversary of perhaps the single greatest demonstration of how radio's power and intrusion can be abused to the point of perverted--viz., the Mercury Theatre of the Air's dramatisation of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds under direction of Orson Welles, the pride(?!) of Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Said dramatisation being done in form of simulated radio news coverage and live remotes as sounded too realistic for many listeners to accept as drama, even to the point of mass hysteria ensuing throughout the country as listeners believed that Mars was invading Earth based on the various "bulletins" frequently heard throughout the first two-thirds of the drama.

Welles, however, waited until the end to "let the cat out of the bag," so to speak, with this dénoument explaining it all for you--or trying to in the face of the chaos outside:

This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen, out of character to assure you that The War of The Worlds has no further significance than as the holiday offering it was intended to be. The Mercury Theatre's own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying Boo! Starting now, we couldn't soap all your windows and steal all your garden gates by tomorrow night. . . so we did the best next thing. We annihiliated the world before your very ears, and utterly destroyed the C. B. S. You will be releieved, I hope, to learn that we didn't mean it, and that both institutions are still open for business. So goodbye everybody, and remember the terrible lesson you learned tonight. That grinning, glowing, globular invader of your living room is an inhabitant of the pumpkin patch, and if your doorbell rings and nobody's there, that was no Martian. . .it's Hallowe'en.

As it turned out, the Mercury Theatre's presentation of War of the Worlds in such a realistic stylee was deliberate. Payback, as it were, for one of the early episodes thereof being interrupted by a CBS newsflash announcing the infamous Munich accords (which brought, as then-British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain would say, "peace in our time"--howbeit on Nazi terms, as it turned out).

And, even more bizarrely, aided and abetted by a late programme change for The Chase and Sanborn Hour on rival NBC, which then dominated Sunday-night radio listening: The traditional early-show comedy sketch involving Edgar Bergen and his Little Wooden Pal, Charlie McCarthy, was cut back to accomodate an expanded musical interlude by resident vocalist Nelson Eddy. Frustrated listeners responded by twiddling their radio dials to find out what else was on the ether waves, and, more often than not, stumbled upon War of the Worlds--howbeit too late for them to know that it was a dramatisation (i.e., about ten minutes into the broadcast, when the first of the "bulletins" from the "Intercontinental Radio News" of the "Martian attack" was being broadcast), thus helping forment the belief among many listeners that Martians were invading Earth and laying all to waste.

And the furore wasn't exactly confined to New York and environs; as The New York Times reported on The Morning After, outbreaks of broadcast-related panic and hysteria were widespread:

Last night's radio "war scare" shocked thousands of men, women and children in the big cities throughout the country. Newspaper offices, police stations and radio stations were besieged with calls from anxious relatives of New Jersey residents, and in some places anxious groups discussed the impending menace of a disastrous war.

Most of the listeners who sought more information were widely confused over the reports they had heard, and many were indignant when they learned that fiction was the cause of their alarm.

In San Francisco the general impression of listeners seemed to be that an overwhelming force had invaded the United States from the air, was in the process of destroying New York and threatening to move westward. "My God," roared one inquirer into a telephone, "where can I volunteer my services? We've got to stop this awful thing."

Newspaper offices and radio stations in Chicago were swamped with telephone calls about the "meteor" that had fallen in New Jersey. Some said they had relatives in the "stricken area" and asked if the casualty list was available.

In parts of St. Louis men and women clustered in the streets in residential areas to discuss what they should do in the face of the sudden war. One suburban resident drove fifteen miles to a newspaper office to verify the radio "report."

In New Orleans a general impression prevailed that New Jersey had been devastated by the "invaders," but fewer inquiries were received than in other cities.

In Baltimore a woman engaged passage on an airliner for New York, where her daughter is in school.

The Associated Press gathered the following reports of reaction to the broadcast:

At Fayetteville, N. C., people with relatives in the section of New Jersey where the mythical visitation had its locale went to a newspaper office in tears, seeking information.

A message from Providence, R. I., said: "Weeping and hysterical women swamped the switchboard of The Providence Journal for details of the massacre and destruction at New York, and officials of the electric company received scores of calls urging them to turn off all lights so that the city would be safe from the enemy."

Mass hysteria mounted so high in some cases that people told the police and newspapers they "saw" the invasion.

The Boston Globe told of one woman who claimed she could "see the fire," and said she and many others in her neighborhood were "getting out of here."

Minneapolis and St. Paul police switchboards were deluged with calls from frightened people.

The Times-Dispatch in Richmond, Va., reported some of their telephone calls from people who said they were "praying."

The Kansas City bureau of The Associated Press received inquiries on the "meteors" from Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Beaumont, Texas, and St. Joseph, Mo., in addition to having its local switchboards flooded with calls. One telephone informant said he had loaded all his children into his car, had filled it with gasoline, and was going somewhere. "Where is it safe?" he wanted to know.

Atlanta reported that listeners throughout the Southeast "had it that a planet struck in New Jersey, with monsters and almost everything and anywhere from 40 to 7,000 people reported killed." Editors said responsible persons, known to them, were among the anxious information seekers.

In Birmingham, Ala., people gathered in groups and prayed, and Memphis had its full quota of weeping women calling in to learn the facts.

In Indianapolis a woman ran into a church screaming: "New York destroyed; it's the end of the world. You might as well go home to die. I just heard it on the radio." Services were dismissed immediately.

Five students at Brevard College, N. C., fainted and panic gripped the campus for a half hour with many students fighting for telephones to ask their parents to come and get them.

A man in Pittsburgh said he returned home in the midst of the broadcast and found his wife in the bathroom, a bottle of poison in her hand, and screaming: "I'd rather die this way than like that."

He calmed her, listened to the broadcast and then rushed to a telephone to get an explanation.

Officials of station CFRB, Toronto, said they never had had so many inquiries regarding a single broadcast, the Canadian Press reported.

Even CBS wound up having to eat crow in explaining the situation; again, The New York Times explains:

The Columbia Broadcasting System issued a statement saying that the adaptation of Mr. Welles' novel which was broadcast "followed the original closely, but to make the imaginary details more interesting to American listeners the adapter, Orson Welles, substituted an American locale for the English scenes of the story."

Pointing out that the fictional character of the broadcast had been announced four times and had been previously publicized, it continued:

"Nevertheless, the program apparently was produced with such vividness that some listeners who may have heard only fragments thought the broadcast was fact, not fiction. Hundreds of telephone calls reaching CBS stations, city authorities, newspaper offices and police headquarters in various cities testified to the mistaken belief.

"Naturally, it was neither Columbia's nor the Mercury Theatre's intention to mislead any one, and when it became evident that a part of the audience had been disturbed by the performance five announcements were read over the network later in the evening to reassure those listeners."

Expressing profound regret that his dramatic efforts should cause such consternation, Mr. Welles said: "I don't think we will choose anything like this again." He hesitated about presenting it, he disclosed, because "it was our thought that perhaps people might be bored or annoyed at hearing a tale so improbable."

Within days, CBS issued this statement in response to the broadcast's producing such hysteria in extremis:

In order that this may not happen again, the program department hereafter will not use the technique of a stimulated news broadcast within a dramatization when the circumstances of the broadcast could cause immediate alarm to numbers of listeners.

It would also emerge in the ensuing fallout that H.G. Wells himself did not allow for such excesses of dramatic licence in allowing The Mercury Theatre of the Air to so dramatise War of the Worlds:

LONDON, (AP). H. G. Wells, whose "War of the Worlds" furnished the basis of the broadcast which spread alarm in the United States Sunday night, said that it was "implicit" in the agreement for selling the radio rights that any broadcast would clearly "be fiction and not news." The novelist added that he gave no permission whatever for alterations which might lead to the belief that the broadcast material was real news.

[***]

(From a later, related dispatch, under dateline of New York:)

Jacques Chambrun, literary representative for H. G. Wells, said the famous British author was "deeply concerned" that the radio dramatization of his book should have spread alarm in the country. Chambrun said Wells cabled him from London Monday morning, declaring that "the Columbia Broadcasting System and Mr. Orson Welles have far overstepped their rights in the matter***and should make a full retraction."

He said Wells cabled that the radio dramatization was made "with a liberty that amounts to a complete rewriting" and made Wells' novel into "an entirely different story."  

Has the McCain/Palin campaign in particular--let alone their close droogs in conservative propaganda prolefeed--learned these Lessons and Warnings from History?