BEING THAT MINNESOTA WEATHER CAN BE RATHER FICKLE AND @ ONCE UNPREDICTABLE, Your Correspondent can't help but be surprised to learn where the Minnwissippi region could be seeing a fresh (howbeit lighter) round of snow later this afterlunch as he prepareth this item.

But then again, March is usually the worst month for snowfall, and a wetter, heavier variety thereof @ that. Yet there's the likelihood of another false thaw or two in February to deal with beforehand....

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IT LOOKS AS IF GETTING PEOPLE TO DEVELOP HEALTHIER LIFESTYLES MAY NOT BE GOOD VALUE FOR MONEY after all.

So says a Dutch study just out which you may or may not have heard of on the news.

But then again, conservative articles of faith against the Lower Classes hold, inter alii, that same can't make wise decisions anyway--blame it on "G-dless public education" and "tendencies towards Socialism" promoted by State welfare, or so the claim hath it (notwithstanding lack of credible substantiation).

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STAYING IN THE HEALTH POLICY DEPARTMENT FOR THE NONCE, His Fraudulency's interim FY 2009 budget calls for sharp cuts in Medicare and Medicaid funding for the greater glory of maintaining a failed and failing Holy War on Terrorism as could really be closer to an ur-RAHOWA.

In effect, forcing greater onus upon the several states to provide cost-efficent health care services for the poor and needy.

Expect the forces of hyperconservative Zealotry and True Belief to recommend as an ideal "value-for-money" approach nothing less than a vendored-pay scheme to "open the magic doors to free markets, healthy competition and freedom of choice in health insurance" to an essentially vulnerable and easily-influenced element of Society--as in forcing those on Medicare and/or Medicaid or state equivalent to buy health insurance on the open market or (better yet, to conservative minds) opening Medical Savings Plans they're unlikely to understand or comprehend.

In turn, only opening the doors to bedlam and confusion thanks to all manner of potentially misleading advertising, not to mention related high-pressure sales campaigns, taking unscrupulous advantage of an already-vulnerable element of society. And what's more, IIUC, I am unaware of any existing schemes as "advise" those on State welfare to buy vendor-paid private health insurance, subject to the doctrine of caveat emptor ("buyer beware") prevailing (as in expecting the Great Unwashed to play along and keep their mouths shut vis-a-vis misleading, illegal or otherwise dangerous sales practices, under pain of their welfare benefits being stopped without notice).

All with His Fraudulency's Great Within "asleep @ the switch" all the while, leaving the Better Business Bureaux with a potentially heavy burden to bear for such who dare to stand up and take issue with the deceptive and/or exploitative.

Write Your Congressman.

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ONE JUNK E-MAIL CHAIN DEFINITELY WORTH DELETING, according to the BBC:

The UK government is taking the unprecedented step of writing to every embassy to stop a false e-mail rumour about Holocaust teaching being banned.

A widely-circulated e-mail has falsely claimed that schools in the UK will stop teaching the Holocaust because it might cause offence to Muslims.

Schools Secretary Ed Balls says he wants to "put an end once and for all to the myth" spread by the e-mail.

He says teaching the Holocaust remains "non-negotiable" in England.

This formal government rebuttal of a hoax e-mail has been prompted by a persistent rumour that "UK schools" are set to remove the Holocaust from the curriculum.

'No evidence'

The e-mail claims that this is a response to fears of offending Muslims - and it calls for the e-mail to be distributed in a "memorial chain" in protecting the memory of the Holocaust's victims.

There are also versions of the e-mail claiming that teaching of the Holocaust has been banned at the University of Kentucky - presumably in a confusion over "UK".

The e-mail continues to be published on many blogs and websites.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families says the department regularly has to handle inquiries about this hoax - and that it wants to put a stop to the confusion.

The BBC News website also repeatedly receives e-mails, many from international readers, asking about the validity of this supposed curriculum ban.

The government is now acting to refute the e-mail, sending a statement to embassies and the "world media".

"I want to put an end once and for all to the myth that the Holocaust is not being taught in schools or is being removed from the curriculum," writes Mr Balls.

Auschwitz visits

"I am pleased to confirm that this is absolutely not the case. Teaching of the Holocaust is compulsory in all secondary schools between the ages of 11 and 14.

"We are clear that there are certain non-negotiable subjects, which are protected in schools; one of those is the Holocaust.

"There is no evidence that schools are breaking the rules and not teaching the Holocaust.

"We also fund visits for young people from every secondary school and college to go to Auschwitz."

The UK has four education systems with separate curricula. This compulsory teaching of the Holocaust applies to schools in England - but there are no suggestions of a "ban" on the subject in other parts of the UK either.

The starting point of the e-mail is believed to have been a report from the Historical Association in April 2007, which warned that some teachers appeared reluctant to teach areas of history which could be considered controversial with some pupils.

This included concerns about teaching the Crusades to Muslim pupils - and worries that teaching the Holocaust could prompt an anti-Semitic response.

But then again, you have to wonder how various "Christian Homeschooling" programmes approach the Holocaust, let alone the depraved excesses of apartheid South Africa, die Voortrek and the British "concentration camps" of the 1899-1902 Boer War.

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IF ONLY WE "MORALLY SUPERIOR" AMERICANS WERE AS SUPPORTIVE OF HIGH-SPEED RAIL AS THE "MORALLY INFERIOR" EUROPEANS: French engineering group Alsthom has unveiled the next generation of its already-successful TGV high-speed train.

Known as the AGV, such is essentially a glorified railcar with motors under each car and operating cabs @ each end--as well as a top speed of 225 mph (360 km/hr), meaning that a 600-mile journey could theoretically take three hours between city centres. Helping things along for the AGV is an aerodynamic design and use of graphite composites, further reducing weight and power consumption while allowing for faster speed than the current TGV/Thalys variants, which are only capable of just under 200 mph (320 km/hr).

In fact, French President Sarkozy is drawing comparisons between the AGV trainset and the A380 superjet as examples of European innovation @ their finest in the transportation industry.

Meanwhile, we "morally superior" Americans will continue to be asked to accept arbitrarily cheap gas (and arbitrarily low gas taxes) as one with "national unity and soverign identity" and the defence thereof--not to mention a cheap, fuel-inefficent commuter vehicle modelled on the East German Trabant 601 being "preferred" (and excused as "patriotic" all the while)--unless--?

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EUROPEAN CUT-PRICE AIRLINE RYANAIR JUST CAN'T KEEP ITS FILTHY HANDS OUT OF TROUBLE when it comes to the nature and extent of their advertising exploiting current events.

Recent case in point: A French court has ordered Ryanair to pay €60,000 in damages to Carla Bruni, bride of French President Sarkozy, for unauthorised use in advertising of a photo showing the pair to promote its cut-price fares; Mme. Bruni had sought €500,000, which she claimed was her standard fee for modelling work.

(M. Sarkozy received a symbolic €1 payment for damages.) 

MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA HAS UNCOVERED ANOTHER GEM OF CONTEMPT BY NEAL BOORTZ, himself a rather banal conservative talkback radio host, towards New Orleanians as were afflicted by Hurricane Katrina's destruction in 2005 (especially so the Lower Ninth Ward), as deserves to be taken to task (emphasis supplied from original transcript):

I'm reading here about John Edwards. Oh, what a wimp. You know what he's gonna do now? He's gonna, he's going to continue work with Habitat Humanity, or for Humanity, at the volunteer-fueled rebuilding project at Musicians' Village. Where's that? Oh yeah, New Orleans, is that New Orleans? I like this: "Edwards' campaign will end the way it began 13 months ago, with the candidate pitching in to rebuild lives in a city still ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Edwards embraced New Orleans as a glaring symbol of what he described as a Washington that didn't hear the cries of the downtrodden." Cries of the downtrodden, my left butt cheek. That wasn't the cries of the downtrodden; that's the cries of the useless, the worthless. New Orleans was a welfare city, a city of parasites, a city of people who could not and had no desire to fend for themselves. You have a hurricane descending on them and they sit on their fat asses and wait for somebody else to come rescue them. "It's somebody else's job to get me out of here. It's somebody else's job to save my life. Not mine. Send me a bus, send me a limo, send me a boat, send me a helicopter, send me a taxi, send me something. But you certainly don't expect me to actually work to get myself out of this situation, do you? Haven't you been watching me for generations? I've never done anything to improve my own lot in life. I've never done anything to rescue myself. Why do you expect me to do that now, just because a levee broke?"

And then Edwards said, yeah, it was Washington's problem, it was all Washington's problem, it was all George Bush's fault. You had a city of parasites and leeches, and that's George Bush's fault? So, boy, I need to slow down. I'm saying too many of the things I actually believe today. Let's see, I'm gonna start, who's been waiting the longest? Well, that would be you, Mr. Ed.

[***]

I mean, I am sick -- here is this John Edwards character announcing, admitting to the world that he's a complete failure as a presidential candidate in New Orleans. Now he's gonna go build Habitat for Humanity homes. Well, isn't that just so sweet and warm and fuzzy. If he walks by here before he drives in the next nail I'll kiss him right on the mouth. But the fact of the matter is, you know, he's doing good work, fine.

But I am fed up with this conventional wisdom that Katrina and the disaster that followed was George Bush's fault. It was not. The primary blame goes on the worthless parasites who lived in New Orleans who you -- couldn't even wipe themselves, let alone get out of the way of the water when that levee broke.

But then again, this is nothing new for Mr. Boortz: In past, he suggested that a Katrina refugee in Atlanta turn to Mrs. Warren's Profession as a quick ticket out of welfare dependency ... and referred to the diaspora caused by Katrina as (yes, these are Boortz' exact words) "complete bums, just debris. Debris that Hurricane Katrina washed across the country."

Which is enough to wonder if Mr. Boortz' mindset is that of apartheid South Africa and its agencies of the Group Areas Acts and the Tribal Homelands Acts to maintain White Christian Supremacy and excuse same as necessary to defending national and soverign honour ... or, for that matter, Victorian England's attitudes towards the poor and otherwise vulnerable being one of "suggesting" their emigration to such outposts of the Empire Upon Which The Sun Never Sets as Canada, Australia or New Zealand, all the while excusing such as being "necessary" because of their "chronic and helpless dependency" upon relief; ergo, by resettling elsewhere, such should be seen as "doing the good taxpayers a favour" as well as being one with "social betterment."

Which, @ times, oft resorted to coercion, threats or simply being given passage on the next ship to Canada.

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WHICH BEGS THE QUESTION OF HOW MUCH LONGER BEFORE "POLICIES" OR "GUIDANCE" ARE IMPLEMENTED  where such "chronic and habitual" welfare cases as are deemed "leeches and parasites" will be blackmailed into "resettling" in Canada under false, misleading or otherwise questionable pretexts.

More than likely involving the "dumping" of whole busloads of said "leeches and parasites" in such ways to try and avoid attracting the suspicions of Customs and Immigration Canada, let alone provincial welfare agencies, by dumping such in especially:

• one-horse towns across the Prairies (especially so Alberta and Saskatchewan, plus western Manitoba) "in clear and present risk of depopulation;"
• smaller communities in northern areas of Ontario (as in the 705 and 807 area codes) and Québec (as in the 819 and 418 area codes, with preference being given--and deliberately--to communities where French is the prevailing tongue);
• isolated coastal settlements in Newfoundland and Labrador whose access is only by coastal boat services (and then subject to weather and tidal conditions); and
• isolated areas along and close to the Alaska Highway.

In other words, deliberately avoiding the major cities (especially so Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver) "to avoid putting added unnecessary burden" upon welfare authorities, let alone "risking moral danger" or arrest for "vagrancy."

All the while not expected to receive any help, mercy or compassion, let alone substantial remittances issued conditional upon silence (as well as "advice" against returning to the United States) and patsies to memorise in case Canadian authorities start getting suspicious to the point of attracting the attention of the United States Embassy in Ottawa.

Is this any way to deal with the "leeches and parasites" of Society, shipping them off to Canada under false pretenses and excusing them as "chronic welfare cases***we want no more of"?

KYOTO, JAPAN, 1950: An overly-obsessed Zen Buddhist monk sets fire to the Golden Pavilion temple, destroying the nearly-600-year-old temple in the process in what he would claim was a show of his weakness in the face of the beloved temple's æsthetics.

The monk was found too mentally unstable to stand serious charges, yet the destruction of one of Kyoto's most beautiful of structures from its glory days as the imperial capital of Japan aroused considerable outrage across Japan that, in time, would be channeled into fundraising towards constructing an exact replica of the original on the site.

Novelist Yukio Mishima, himself tortured by his own imperfection in the face of what he preceived as the loss of Japanese national honour and glory in the defeat of World War II, would use the Golden Pavilion's senseless destruction as the backdrop of his widely-acclaimed novel The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (1956). (Mishima himself would commit suicide in 1970 following an unsuccessful coup which he organised.)

With that as backdrop, then, you just have to wonder if there are some elements weird, unwholesome or otherwise corrupt in the ranks of His Fraudulency's Great Within or his droogs as would just love to find a cheap and cheerful(?) patsy from among the ranks of the seriously emotionally disturbed who could be counted on to carry out the equally-senseless destruction of some class of Holy and Patriotic Shrine that can "officially" be blamed on al-Qaeda while the real perpetrator turns out to be too insane to go to trial (cf. Ed Gein's cannibalistic misadventures, vintage 1957, and Albert DeSalvo's acknowledging his being The Boston Strangler of the early 1960's, only to be found too insane for trial in both instances--and eventually stabbed to death in a prison riot in DeSalvo's case, whereas Gein would be tried ten years after the fact, eventually found guilty but insane).

The "real" "terrorist," in effect, actually being someone deliberately kept off his medications for an extended time just to develop the right aura of mental instability long enough for the sake of "redemption for value" as could only backfire on those involved.

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AND SPEAKING OF ANTI-PSYCHOTIC MEDICATIONS, and the false hopes some misguided elements seem to have in their being a "magic bullet" out of insanity, Your Correspondent has rather vivid and emotionally-troubling memories of a Vocational Rehabilitation counsellor denying his file for services being reopened in 1990 as being "a troublemaker prone to critical attacks***likely to undermine public confidence and trust in essential agencies, institutions and schemes of Our Beloved Minnesota," particularly in the context of an election year for State Constitutional Offices.

In suggesting an exceptionally thorough and comprehensive programme of psychiatric counselling through the local Mental Health Centre--to include approriate "courses" in "attitude adjustment" and "behaviour modification" as would be "complemented" by "approriate medication"--as a prerequisite for later reconsideration, the VR counsellor may have created a (deliberate?) sense of false hope in anti-psychotics by relating where "a whole new generation of anti-psychotic medications" was under development, "showing significant promise and potential for treating psychotic disorders more efficently, and with far fewer side effects, than medications now prescribed" for such conditions.

Talk about creating a false sense of security in medication as the most cost-efficent model for dealing with "attitude problems" or other "mental disorders" likely to promote "anti-social tendencies" all along!

Especially so the notion he would have, looking back, of his having "preliminary results" from early-stage clinical trials of two of these "New Generation" meds suggesting where both "show significant promise and potential" for "more efficent treatment of mental disorders, and with far fewer side effects" (which, he would add, were to be expected with any medication; however, with the "New Generation" anti-psychotics, said side effects were more likely to be mild and, @ worst, transient).

Especially so the potential of "controlled-dosage" forms (as in "timed-release" pills and capsules that would release metered dosages of the active components throughout the day, expected all along to take just before breakfast every morning) allowing one to "remain awake and alert" all the livelong day @ work and in therapy.

(Yet again, there was also the "advice" to seriously consider applying for later shifts @ work, not so much because employers needed to fill such vacancies so badly, they had to offer premium pay rates to get people to apply, but "to free up [my] days for therapy" and avoid serious disruption to daily routine by "making more efficent, and hence, wiser use of time" all along.)

So much for "better living through chemistry...."

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THERE MAY ACTUALLY BE A DARKER SIDE TO CALLS FOR PRIVATISATION of what certain conservative Zealots and True Believers would call "failed and failing social experiments***unlikely to deliver taxpayer value" unless euthanised "to put the good taxpayers out of their misery," or so the preferred official patsy would have it:

When all is said and done, the interconnexions between conservative-leaning political regimes and "think tanks" holding dear free-market-driven articles of faith so influencing could reveal a tangled and yet dangerous web of racism, bigotry, intolerance, socioeconomic xenophobia and polarisation of class against class best encapsulated in one word:

FASCISM.

To be further reinforced by "giving formal recognition to the unique and pecuilar role and place of the free-market capitalist system" by way of a Constitutional amendment--in effect, an official endorsement of the Greater Corporatist Agenda as the foundation of American Soverignty and Soverign Identity Antient and Pecuilar.

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THIS MAY SOUND LIKE ANATHEMA TO SURF-ROCK INSTURMENTAL FANS on first reading; however, I could just imagine where some surf-rock insturmentals (especially the kind with heavy guitar riffs and reverbs, Dick Dale and the Deltones in particular) might have possibilities when it comes to background music for certain railfan videos.

Especially such which feature steam locomotives in all their bombastic glory, with plenty of driver action and smoke billowing forth wholesale.

Come to think of it, the syncopation could be an interesting fit.

But don't try to ask Reggie Belafonte.

THOUGH NOT GETTING AS MUCH ATTENTION OF LATE AS PREVIOUSLY, HIS FRAUDULENCY'S GREAT WITHIN still has these designs, largely for the sake of a self-serving vanity he wants packaged as legacy, on "pre-emptive war" against Iran by way of opening a new offensive from the Iraqi Theatre of the ur-RAHOWA Against International Terrorism.

However, judging from the following article from The New York Times about the frail and only getting frailer state of the Iranian economy of late (and its ensuing hardships upon the Lower Classes), the Great Within may want to start having second thoughts, if only to escape the clear and present danger of Congress opening impeachment proceedings and/or public pressure calling for His Fraudulency and his droogs to resign for the greater good of the nation:

A Frail Economy Raises Pressure on Iran’s Rulers

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

TEHRAN — In one of the coldest winters Iranians have experienced in recent memory, the government is failing to provide natural gas to tens of thousands of people across the country, leaving some for days or even weeks with no heat at all. Here in the capital, rolling blackouts every night for a month have left people without electricity, and heat, for hours at a time.

The heating crisis in this oil-exporting nation is adding to Iranians’ increasing awareness of the contrast between their growing influence abroad and frailty at home, according to government officials, diplomats and political analysts interviewed here.

From fundamentalists to reformists, people here are talking more loudly about the need for a more pragmatic approach, one that tones down the anti-Western rhetoric, at least a bit, and focuses more on improving management of the country and restoring Iran’s economic health.

The mounting domestic challenges, the most serious of which is a grinding period of stagflation, with inflation growing and the economy weakening, have apparently deepened tensions between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the religious establishment he ultimately answers to. And they have helped spur a collective rethinking of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s stewardship as Iran prepares to celebrate the 29th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution this month and to hold parliamentary elections on March 14.

“I think the Islamic Revolution is going through an identity crisis, and is trying to mature,” said Nader Talebzadeh, a filmmaker who supports Mr. Ahmadinejad. “We are maturing, gradually.”

There are increasing signals, however, that the government is not interested in hearing other voices and is geared instead toward maintaining power by silencing critics. For the parliamentary elections, so far about 70 percent of all reform candidates have been disqualified.

While the president’s supporters say the rejections were based on legal standards, like a lack of loyalty to the Islamic system or the idea of having a supreme leader, reformists say the rejections are an effort to keep them out of power.

Last week, the government shut down Iran’s most important feminist magazine, which had been published for 16 years. The authorities also arrested a small group of students after a protest at Tehran University over poor conditions in their dormitory.

In the middle of a snowy, icy winter, women have been arrested for not wearing proper Islamic clothing. Hats over head scarves, boots over pants, can bring trouble.

“Their harsh reaction to everything shows they feel very vulnerable,” said Morad Saghafi, a philosopher and writer in Tehran. “They arrest 10 students because they think if they don’t, 100 will come. Yes, they feel vulnerable.”

In recent weeks, even Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme religious leader, changed his tone regarding the president, offering rare public criticism while reasserting his own standing as the steward of Iran’s foreign and nuclear policies.

“The present government, similar to any other government, has certain shortcomings which should be mentioned sympathetically,” Ayatollah Khamenei said recently before warning critics not to go overboard. “But some individuals attempt to criticize and insult every move by the government. The majority of these individuals are, however, negligent, that they are acting in line with the enemies’ propaganda.”

Sayeed Laylaz, an economist who was briefly a deputy minister in the former reform government, said: “The supreme leader realizes this economy, this country, doesn’t work anymore. He is trying to reconstruct it from within.”

An adviser to the supreme leader, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid a dispute with the president, added that “there is a consensus” on the need for better management.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s office refused requests to discuss events in Iran with the president or his advisers. The president’s new chief security adviser, Saeed Jalili, refused to be interviewed unless the entire content of the interview was printed in a question-and-answer format in the newspaper. Posting it on the Internet would not suffice, his office said.

But political analysts, politicians and supporters say that the president does not have to change as long as the mood for change stops with the political elite, and that the troubles so far have not undermined his support among the pious poor. He continues to be popular, they say, seen as a man of principle and good intention, though that may be wearing thin.

South of Tehran, near the Imam Khomeini International Airport, in a neighborhood called Robat Karim, people were without gas for days last month, and they continue to suffer cuts in power at midday and at night, residents said.

Iran’s natural gas shortage became a crisis when Turkmenistan, to the north, cut off supplies in December over a pricing dispute. Iran does not have the refining capacity to meet its own needs.

Robat Karim is a conservative neighborhood, wary of foreigners, and supportive of the president. But with streets that have not been cleared of snow, and the cold nights, nerves have frayed.

“I have a tenant in an apartment upstairs, and there was no gas for days,” said Nour Asadzade, 70, a shopkeeper in the neighborhood. “He asked me to help, but I said, What can I do, it’s in the hands of the government.”

Outside, a 52-year-old woman stepped carefully around the ice, the potholed road and the puddles. “I want to say, ‘No, they don’t pay attention to us.’ ” She said her name was Akram, then grew frightened and slipped into her house.

For years it seemed that Iran was evolving away from a state defined exclusively by revolutionary ideology. Former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, himself a father of the revolution, emphasized pragmatic economic ties. His successor, Mohammad Khatami, eased up on social restrictions and called for a “dialogue of civilizations.”

Then came Mr. Ahmadinejad, who rose from a new generation, a class of men who fought in the eight-year war with Iraq, and who have since moved to roll back Iran to a time when revolutionary ideology defined the state. For example, Kaveh Bayat, a historian, said the desire to export the revolution was back.

“The idea that you have to export the revolution or you will cease to exist is another deeply ingrained element — it was dormant during Rafsanjani and Khatami but it is awake again,” Mr. Bayat said. “We tried to forget it, but it is back.”

President Ahmadinejad so changed the direction of the state that it has led many to assert that three decades after the revolution, Iran remains a place defined by individuals, not institutions.

Nearly everyone seems to recognize that one of the biggest problems is the nature of the political system — divided as it is among multiple factions, each striving for access to power. It is not one devised to build compromise, and the internal fighting can send confused messages to the outside world. “It would make our job a lot easier, if only they could agree,” said a Western diplomat based in Tehran who spoke on the condition of anonymity, which is standard diplomatic protocol.

Another diplomat said, “I am stunned by their emotion and antagonism they demonstrate in their fighting with each other.”

At least two views exist about where this is leading. One view is that Mr. Ahmadinejad and his radical allies needed to come to power to see that ideology cannot be a successful guide to running a modern state like Iran. The economic hardships, according to this view, will ultimately moderate or marginalize them. “They come into the center of power and they realize running a country like Iran is difficult,” said a business consultant and political analyst in Tehran who asked to remain anonymous to avoid retribution.

“This specific topic, the management of gas resources, hits every home,” the consultant said. “I think with this, the system as a whole has reached a climax.”

Another view holds that Mr. Ahmadinejad and his ideologically driven allies will not give up power, and will not be driven from power. “From a social point of view, we have a social structure in place for the emergence of fascism,” Mr. Bayat, the historian, said. “Like Europe in the 1920s, we have a dissatisfied proletariat looking for radical and extreme solutions. Ahmadinejad is not imposed on us.”

With regards to that pentultimate sentence above: Could the same be said to apply here in a "morally superior" United States in clear and present danger of stagflation themselves thanks to the warped and misguided notions of ur-RAHOWA already built on no less than 935 documented instances of lies, misstatements, falsehoods and distortions of fact?

AS IF THE END RESULT OF SUPER TUESDAY'S AGGOLOMERATION OF CAUCUSES AND PRIMARIES was likely to remain all the more unclear, owing to the sheer numbers of such voting or otherwise caucusing (Minnesota being in the latter category) en bloc in one day ... let alone the continuing troubles singer and actress Britney Spears continues to go through, in the process set to become the Frances Farmer of the 21st century (especially with her father's appointment by the courts as conservator--well, good luck in that respect!) ... Your Correspondent submits the following video per YouTube as evidence that appearences can be deceiving, and then some:

There is nothing that seems to anger the Religious Right quite like discussions of faith within the political sphere that do not coincide with their own right-wing agenda.  For example, Ryan Anderson of First Things attacked Catholics United for taking "its favored policy and baptize it in the name of the church" regarding the debate over SCHIP while Religious Right leaders were up-in-arms and accusing Democrats of "[hijacking] the language of faith in order to hide the truth about their real agenda" and confuse Values Voters.  Barack Obama's Christian faith, in particular, has come in for intense denunciation, being labeled "woefully deficient" while his church membership "suggests a lack of judgment."   

And now American Life League president Judie Brown has decided to add her voice to the chorus of those who think religion is solely the property of the Right:  

"It is one thing to profess to be a believing Christian, and another to, by your actions, either confirm that you are indeed a believing Christian, or that you are using your so-called Christianity for the purpose of political gain," says Brown.

Brown says that in many cases--such as Obama's and Clinton's--she sees politicians "using their professed Christianity for political ends, without even recognizing what it means to be a Christian, and I find that rather sad."

Rather sad, indeed.

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WHICH MAKES THIS AS GOOD A TIME AS ANY TO CALL YOUR ATTENTION to People For's special freecall hotline to report any instances of voter intimidation, interference, harrassment and suchlike you may encounter:

1-866-OUR-VOTE

Remember to keep this number handy in any case. And don't hesitate to be ready to call.

As well, contact your local law-enforcement agencies, especially if such campaigns of intimidation involve leafleting on windscreens, mass mailings and tasteless flyers displayed on the community notice board of your local supermarket.

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THE DEATH IS BEING REPORTED OF A RATHER INFAMOUS LOCAL GADFLY HERE IN WINONA by name of Sister Lillian Elezar Kral; she passed away the other night @ a local care facility @ 80 years of age after a prolonged period of failing health.

She gained some national media attention and notoriety in 1981 after making such a ruckus of her being expelled from a Catholic religious order for "insubordination" (or so she suspected), hoping to attract some help. Only it turned out that (and I base this on past acquaintenance) she had quickly become her own worst joke, particularly so following a Notorious Incident in 1982 as would see her arrested for Disorderly Conduct by disrupting Mass with her displaying two bottles of liquor and shouting epithets @ the celebrant.

It became even more obvious that she was on an even steeper slope when she began to associate herself with lurid anti-Catholic tract publisher Jack Chick (even having designs to sell her story to him for documentation in tract form) and, still later, with extreme anti-government movements--and using that frame on the back of her bicycle to say as much, displaying missives from the likes of Lyndon LaRouche, "Bo" Gritz (whose third-party 1992 Presidential bid got prominent notice therein) and the so-called "North American Freedom Council," an anti-tax group later evolving into NORFED (as in the so-called "Liberty Dollars" designed solely to destabilise the Federal Reserve System in the name of "reforming" same, supported on what turns out being lead ingots from the Monongahela Metal Foundry spray-painted to create the illusion of gold or silver).

Shed no tears for Lillian Kral, readers. Her associations with the weird and unwholesome were probably the final nail in her coffin vis-a-vis any credibility she had in the Minnwissippi.

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SOMETHING FOR PARENTS TO THINK ABOUT IF THEY HAVE DESIGNS on expecting their kids to make something of themselves on their own, as in not expecting any help or support from their parents:

There's a scene in the Oscar-nominated mockumentary Surf's Up where Tank "The Shredder" Evans, after showing off to the ur-camera his nine trophies in the Big Z Memorial Surf Classic, recalled that his mother had him surfing literally ab ovo (i.e., from the egg)--there's even a mock photo showing the unhatched egg of Tank "riding the nose" while his rather scowling mother (in curlers, note) can be seen in background.

(BTW, "The Shredder," himself shown to have a rather nasty repute for playing dirty--same even being suggested as a reason that kids should look to him as a role model of sorts--is a king penguin.)

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ONE THING MORE (AFTER PAUL HARVEY): Your Correspondent hath it that Bezeq, the Israeli telecoms company, is launching a new "kosher" wireline telecom service to meet the partucular needs of haredi (ultra-observant, Orthodox for the most part) Jews.

As in blocking access to the likes of sex-call lines and other "inapproriate" telephonic content.

For now, the kosher phone service will be available free of additional charge.

How much longer before we start seeing so-called "Christian" wireline telecoms services (Alternative Service Providers, more than likely) here in the "morally superior" United States modelled on Bezeq's "kosher" service (as in with automatic blocking to "inapproriate" or "indecent" pay-per-call services)?   

OVER RECENT MONTHS, CERTAIN RELIGIOUS FANATICS have been pushing the notion, reinforced by Isaiah 35:8, that Interstate 35 is somehow predestined as the Highway of Holiness thus prophesised.

Hence, dictating all manner of prayer drives and "Purity Sieges" aimed @ a general moral "reclamation" along its entire distance between Laredo, TX and Duluth, MN (including that section of the Kansas Turnpike between the Oklahoma line and Emporia), attracting the attention of The 700 Club and other conduits of pseudoreligious Zealotry and True Belief as are, perhaps, secretly funding the whole campaign.

Yet, Your Correspondent imagines the likelihood for this whole "revivalist" movement along the same I-35 corridor seen by the Greater Producerist Movement as the sinister NAFTA Superhighway-in-embryo perhaps backfiring upon those involved.

Especially when it happens that certain adult businesses as are targets of the occasional "Purity Siege" decide to turn the tables on such a campaign with claims of, among other likely such, Criminal Syndicalism, Conspiracy, Unlawful Trespass and Unlawful Interference in Interstate or Foreign Commerce--especially when exists the possibility of enhanced penalties for Racketeering or Syndicalism per RICO.

Not to mention the likelihood of certain prayer vigils perhaps being targeted by Divine Wrath.

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

PRODUCERISM, A VARIANT OF CONSERVATIVE POPULISM, holds dear as its articles of faith:

• The working classes (in particular poor, undereducated and easily-influenced "white trash") as are responsible for the development of capitalism with American characteristics, and its antient and pecuilar role and place in American soverign identity, are entitled to "antient and pecuilar rights, privileges and powers" "as of right."
• However, their privileged and traditional status is under threat and attack,
  • on the one hand, by the forces of Wall Street, Jews and Freemasonry as dominate the business and financial communities; and
  • on the other hand, by "inferior peoples" such as immigrants, blacks, other National Minorities and "chronic and habitual" welfare cases "having reckless and utter disregard for industry, self-reliance and personal responsibility."
• Therefore, it is to be seen as one with both national as much as racial duty and honour to defend the free-market capitalist system, and its special role and place in American soverignty, against the threats being directed as above, from within as much as from without, and "by whatever means necessary."

Excuse me, but doesn't it seem as if producerism has that certain sense of doublethink inherent--as in seeking to defend capitalism (on the one hand) and yet (on the other) challenge the same capitalist system's role and place as a threat to morals, decency and common sense vis-a-vis the working classes responsible for the same?

And what sort of alternative capitalist model would producerists have in mind--a so-called "pure" capitalism dominated, for the most part, by weird and unwholesome elements, only making matters worse for the same working classes which producerist thought seeks to defend by its embracing laissez-faire thought?

En 'n Ander Ding:

Have the Lower Classes, perhaps, heard of cooperativism as a means to an end of their own empowerment and salvation from the chains of free-market capitalistic excesses?

And what stands in the way of their accepting such a model?

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

WITH INDECISION 2008 CERTAIN TO BE ALL THE MORE CRITICAL to deciding the path which the United States will take in the 21st century--remaining the vanguard of liberty and democracy, or using such as patsies to cover for an emerging tendency towards Fascism--the account of Balaam's Donkey (see Numbers 22) may be worth recalling as inspiration for how to reclaim the nation and what it stands for.

(Basically put, Balaam, who was sent in by the Moabites to vex Israel, was riding on his faithful donkey in his mission when, on three occasions, the Angel of the L-rd spooked Balaam, each time prompting Balaam to beat upon the donkey. Only after the third such instance, as occured in a very narrow alley, the donkey turned the tables and rebuked Balaam to his face.)

Come to think of it, while Your Correspondent was having dinner the other day, he was thinking about whether Balaam's Donkey may have delivered that rebuke in a voice not unlike that of the Donkey character in the Shrek series--by way of G-d, of course, who, we are told, put words into the donkey's mouth to rebuke Balaam.

In any case, let's not forget Balaam's Donkey ahead of the elections this year.

Hopefully, reader, you will have figured out by now who, for the sake of analogy, was Balaam ... and who was Balaam's Donkey.

(BTW, did you know "shrek" is Yiddish for "monster"?)   

AS YOUR CORRESPONDENT WRITES THIS THE LATEST ITEM IN THIS PARTICULAR WEBLOG, it just so happens that the Minnwissippi is not only under a Winter Weather Advisory, but is also seeing "thundersnow."

As in heavy snow accompanied by occasional overtures of the old thunder and lightning.

Which, by later in the day, could include seeing the snow mix with freezing rain, straight rain and/or sleet, gradually segueing into a rain/snow mix of the finest(?) order. And which could mean schools having to let out early as a precaution.

Once all the snow melts in spring (as it eventually will), expect the melt to help ameilorate the quasi-drought conditions prevailing of late.

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

IT'S NO WONDER HIS FRAUDULENCY WANTS TO BE SEEN ONLY IN HAGIOGRAPHICALLY-GLOWING TERMS when it comes to his legacy, judging by the following recent editorial from The Capital Times down Madison, WI way:

President Bush does not use e-mail. The most secretive chief executive since Richard Nixon does not want to risk having his digital communications revealed as part of the official record of the republic he is sworn to serve and protect.

Other Americans do rely on the Internet, however.

Unfortunately, our off-line president has set the tone for a White House that is almost ridiculously disengaged when it comes to the challenge of preparing the United States for a digital future.

A Bush administration report released Thursday claims that high-speed Internet access is now available to virtually every American. This self-congratulatory document suggests that, during Bush's tenure, the United States has taken the right steps to ensure that we have "an environment in which broadband innovation and competition can flourish."

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

When George Bush assumed the presidency in 2001, the United States ranked fourth when it came to broadband penetration -- the measure of access to digital services.

Now, as Bush enters his last year in office, the United States has dropped to 15th place.

"Declaring mission accomplished won't reverse America's rapid disappearance from the ranks of world broadband leaders. Just ask the tens of millions of Americans still stranded on the wrong side of the digital divide," says Derek Turner, who has authored several reports criticizing failed U.S. broadband policies.

"Americans pay far more for much slower Internet connections -- when they can get service at all -- than the rest of the world. Too many people still live in areas that cable and telecom companies refuse to serve, and many more can only purchase slow and expensive connections that can't in all seriousness be called broadband," explained Turner, who serves as research director for Free Press, the nation's media reform network. "Yet while the Bush administration stands by and cheers over Internet connections barely faster than dial-up, countries like England and South Korea are bringing affordable and fast broadband to their citizens. Americans will be left on the sidelines as these countries reap the huge economic and social benefits of innovative technologies."

"What do these countries have that we don't?" asks Turner.

His answer: "A national broadband policy that goes beyond empty platitudes."

That's right, but it is only part of the explanation. Other countries also have leaders who read newspapers, watch television news programs and use e-mail.

America has George Bush.

Not to mention Fox Noise and its "reject-the-evidence-of-eyes-and-ears" mentality (a/k/a "pretend the problem doesn't exist"), as evidenced recently by Bill O'Reilly's contempt for homeless veterans and the poor, undereducated and easily-influenced of society.

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

IF YOU THINK OIL COMPANIES' SHOCK SPIKES IN GAS PRICES FROM TIME TO TIME are an exclusively American problem--consider the case of the Australians.

Consumer-advocacy groups Down Under hath it that the four leading gas retailers there (BP, Mobil, Caltex and Shell) deliberated spiked gas prices to coincide with the Christmas, New Year's and Australia Day holidays, only to roll same back once the holidays passed. Said groups contend that such arbitrary spikes were intended solely to maximise profits over these holiday periods, with little or nothing to do with supply and demand.

And with potential for consumer harm and detrius.

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

STAYING IN "THE LUCKY COUNTRY" FOR A MOMENT, Your Correspondent hath it that a number of local councils have been stashing away local-government funding from both the Federal and state governments to the point where the good taxpayers are not getting value for their tax dollars when it comes to government services.

More likely than no, stashing such in interest-bearing accounts without clear or proper justification for same.

Can the same be said to occur here in the "morally superior" United States?

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

IF I MAY EXPLAIN FOR A MOMENT WHY IT IS, @ TIMES, THAT I REFER TO THE UNITED STATES as "morally superior" in this blog:

Its intent is outright and deliberate sarcasm @ the expense of the so-called Religiopolitical Right (more than likely pseudo) and its belief that the United States was somehow "predestined" or otherwise "divinely ordained" to be the Portal and Gateway to Heaven, as well as the Center of the Earth, the Universe and the 28 Known Galaxies.

Especially so the rather contentuous contention that free-market capitalism with American characteristics, and the defence thereof, is that of American soverignty and soverign identity "antient and pecuilar," and vice versa.

Now you know.

After all, sarcasm can be a potent weapon of opine.  

READER, AN APOLOGY IS IN ORDER @ THIS TIME for the tardiness of posting the quasi-daily comments on the news.

Seems that Your Correspondent was rather tired after some shopping @ the Kmart here in Winona, followed by luncheon @ the Hy-Vee, same city, requiring his taking a nap following his return home. It sometimes hath to be that way.

So, if any inconvenience was suffered by you, my apologies.

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

"Mothers of River City! Heed that warning before it's too late! Watch for the telltale signs of DEGENERACY!!! The moment your son returns home from school, does he rebuckle his knickers ...BELOW THE KNEE?! Is there a nicotine stain on his index finger? Is there a dime novel hidden in the corn crib? Is he starting to memorise jokes ... from Capt. Billy's Whiz Bang?! Are certain words starting to creep into his vocabulary--words like "swell" ... and "so's your old man"?

THUS MEREDITH WILLSON HAD PROFESSOR HAROLD HILL WARN THE GOOD MOTHERS OF RIVER CITY, IOWA in The Music Man on both stage and screen that "Ya Got Trouble."

This after warning the community about the presence of a pool table in the community being but the first step towards the Moral Degeneracy of Youth--only to learn soon afterwards that the city's mayor operated the pool hall in question.

(The reference to Capt. Billy's Whiz Bang turns out to be anachronistic: While Mr. Willson's 1956 Broadway musical, becoming a movie in 1962, was set in 1912, it would not be until 1919 that Capt. Willard Fawcett would launch that particular magazine, quickly becoming popular for its "Explosion of Pedigreed Bunk" in the form of risqué and @ times scatological jokes, puns and cartoons.)

I bring up these lines from The Music Man to bring up the likelihood of the so-called "Parents' Television Council" perhaps being its own worst joke in trying to protect Right-Thinking American Families (as in white, middle-class, Levittown models) from "filth and degeneracy" in films and TV in the wake of their winning moral victory from the FCC last week (as in assessing a collective fine of $1.4 million against 52 ABC network stations for showing an episode of the since-decommissioned NYPD Blue as showed brief, out-of-context glimpses of bare buttocks notwithstanding warnings of content prior to the start of broadcast).

I say this because you have to imagine this council's frequent and repeated actions before the FCC perhaps:

• being insincere to the point of raising questions whether their complaints are being made in good faith and without prejudice;
• triggering outbrteaks of spontaneous hysteria exploiting to unfair advantage weak-minded and vulnerable members of the community (usually poor, undereducated or homeschooled and easily-influenced) liable to respond all the more to appeals of this ilk;
• designed solely to cause needless waste of time and resources on the FCC's part, diverting essential resources from more pressing matters (as well as created added work burdens for mailroom and mail intake staffs);
• based solely upon isolated, out-of-context passages;
• relying on identically-phrased, carefully-scripted, even heavily-nuanced, boilerplate messages sent in e-mail alerts; and
• belying the possibility of the PTC having interconnexions with weird and/or unwholesome elements to the point of raising questions of possible racketeering tending to exploit the vulnerable.

Which are questions enough to raise before the FCC, especially considering where it's been acknowledged that the vast majority of "obscenity" or "indecency" complaints so received are phrased almost identically (so raising questions of such being based on boilerplate) and tend, for the most part, to come from culturally-deprived environments (as in the Park & Flush Trailer Park and other bastions of "white trash" poverty, stupidity and ignorance) as are obvious plum targets for the Pseudoreligiopolitical Right's "winning of hearts and minds" efforts.

Never mind the likelihood that these same lower-income areas (@ least to these same Pseudoreligiopolitical Right elements so exploiting) are all the more likely targets for "dumping" campaigns the Extreme Right would love to engage in vis-a-vis pornographically depraved prolefeed.

And deliberate dumping of prolefeed, @ that.

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

COME TO THINK OF IT, THERE ARE MORE PRESSING AND OBVIOUS PROBLEMS CONCERNING THE LOWER CLASSES as are deserving your attention.

To have the likes of Fox Noise expect the "right-thinking" to "reject the evidence of eyes and ears" (i.e., pretend they just don't exist--nay, should not exist in the One True Centre of the World, the Universe and the 28 Known Galaxies), as well as pretend to a gross and deliberate stupidity in the name of G-d, Country and Family Values, is nothing short of disgusting.

Yet, @ the same time, Fox Noise wants the Lower Classes to see free-market capitalism as the Great White Father, their Last and Only Hope and Salvation from Enslavement to State Welfare and its Promotion of Socialistic Tendencies.

Hence: Doesn't this make Fox Noise guilty of doublethink, pure and simple?

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

AS THIS WAS GROUNDHOG DAY, there is a great difference of opinion between Punxsutawney Phil (who saw his shadow this morning) and Sun Prairie Jimmy (who did not) over whether winter's exit will follow within measurable distance.

Being Midwestern, Your Correspondent prefers Jimmy's take on the situation.

Hence: Would you rather trust Punxsutawney Phil or Sun Prairie Jimmy? Comments can be left in the usual space, subject to their being tasteful and inoffensive. 

FOR YEARS, IN THE SEVERAL BLOGS YOUR CORRESPONDENT HAS PUBLISHED ON THE INFORMATION STUPORBAHN, he has been a firm believer in using the "open letter" device from time to time to call the widest possible attention to issues of serious import.

The hope, no doubt, of urging readers to share the "open letters" with any and all friends and contacts they may have as a way of getting action taken.

This time, my target in the "open letter" department is such among the Pseudoreligiopolitical Right who are rather slavish in their hard-wired acceptance of Fox News Channel as the One True, Pure and Reliable Arbeiter of News and Information for Right-Thinking Christian Americans (as in, more than likely, the poor, undereducated or homeschooled and easily-influenced).

Please read and pass along, preferably through the "send by e-mail" facility following. However, I will NOT tolerate spontaneously-generated "freeping" campaigns whose sole purpose is to cast discredit or disrepute upon this blog.

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

To whom it may concern:

In view of what may best be described as unswerving Zealotry and True Belief on your part in Fox News Channel being the One and Only Cable News Channel Worth Viewing among Right-Thinking Christian Americans by virtue of its being (to use their rather lame slogan) "Fair and Balanced" (as in presenting a conservative "counterbalance" to other news outlets seen as "liberal-leaning" and, hence--by your way of thinking--"leading to error") ...

And in view of your frequent campaigns crossing the line @ times into misguided or warped hysteria against real or suspected "indecency" or "obscenity" in films and TV programming, much of it designed, for the most part, to increase needlessly the Federal Communications Commission's burden of work to the point of harrassment by proxy with what may best be called baseless, frivolous or otherwise wasteful complaints based on isolated instances as may lack proper context....

Your Correspondent would like of you to consider the following:

First off, to ponder these remarks from the 1922 court case Halsey v. New York Society for the Supression of Vice, considered a landmark in censorship history for these remarks:

No work may be judged from a selection of such paragraphs alone. Printed by themselves, they might, as a matter of law, come within the meaning of the [obscenity] statute. So might a similar selection from Aristophanes or Chaucer or Boccaccio or even from the Bible. The book, however, must be considered broadly as a whole.

(In other words, a work being challenged as obscene or indecent must be considered in the context of the larger whole. The point of which would later be affirmed in the 1973 Miller v. California Supreme Court ruling allowing the use of a "prevailing community standards" test for obscenity, so long as the work in question was taken as a whole.

(That, and same clearly and unambiguously depicting sexual and/or excretory activities and/or organs in a "patently offensive" manner, appealing solely to prurient interest, and utterly lacking in redeeming educational, literary, political or scientific merit.)

Once that's out of the way, I would urge you to visit the websites Fox Attacks: Decency and Fox News Porn, and watch the videos so featured. Especially so on the latter, paying especially close and careful attention to the cut and styling of the dresses worn by female newsreaders.

After seeing the videos in question, I want you to think carefully of the following:

• Why would organisations like yours as speak out all the time about suspected "indecency" in films and on TV continue regarding Fox News as the only "reliable" cable news channel when their female newsreaders wear what you would consider "indecent" or "provocative" dress on camera?
• What prevents your organisations from launching "action campaigns" against Fox News Channel based on the suggestive cut of dress worn by female newsreaders?
• Are you receiving any sort of donations, "hush money" or payola from Fox News Channel, News America Corporation, or any "foundations" or "trusts" so affiliated, on a continuing basis? Is the receipt of such conditional upon your silence towards the same sort of "indecency" you frequently accuse the closely-affiliated Fox Broadcasting network of carrying?
• Why would you continue to support Fox News Channel as the only credible cable news channel worthy of viewing among those you call "right-thinking Americans," knowing consciously (and yet unconsciously) all the while about the "indecent" or "suggestive" dress worn by their female newsreaders?
• Does not your holding such double standards make you, in essence, guilty of doublethink? And what is your defence to the charge?
• Are you, somehow, secretly thinking that the Lower Classes must be somehow lacking in morals, decency or common sense? Have you no shame in this respect?
• Are you now, or have you ever been, an alcoholic, drug addict, sex fiend or maniac, spousal or child abuser, sufferer of loathsome social or mental disorders, chronic and habitual gambler or spendthrift, undischarged bankrupt, or have a record of prolonged time in jails and/or psychiatric hospitals?
• Were you abused in childhood? Was it sexual?
• Have you no sense of Decency, Sirs, @ long last?
• Have you left no sense of Decency--the same Decency you claim to be defending and protecting, and invoking G-d, Country and Family all the while?

Perhaps it was about time that you had some real shame for once, after cooking up manufactured such designed solely to whip up hysteric delusions in such among the poor, undereducated or homeschooled and easily-influenced (not to mention emotionally vulnerable) who you enjoy coveting as a bunch of easily-manipulated droogs.

What will you have to say NOW after you see the Harsh Reality of what you've been supporting all this time?

And what have you to say to the charge of doublethink--which is a rather obvious description of your mindset under these circumstances?

Awaiting your logical and sensible response (preferably through the Comments section), I remain

Disobediently yours,
ILUDIUM PHOSDEX
(die egte artikel--aanvaar geen plaasvervangers)