CREDIT IT, PERHAPS, TO THE STRESS OF INDECISION 2008 AS MUCH AS TRYING TO SHAKE OFF EVIL HABITS ... but "The Oxycontin Cow" himself, t/n Rush Limbaugh, could be about to make that One Fatal Error as could be not only his own downfall, but also that of conservative talkback radio and its abuse of the medium's power and intrusion upon especially weak-minded and vulnerable elements of the community who can be considered its hard-core audience and support base.

The following YouTube video (ultimately via Brave New Films) demonstrates why:

IT JUST SEEMS SURPRISING THAT THE MINNWISSIPPI REGION HAS BEEN SEEING MORE THAN ITS FAIR SHARE of unusually cold weather in the mornings, and today turns out being no exception to the rule.

For what must be the fourth or fifth time this winter, Your Correspondent has been compelled to remain in his apartment compiling this weblog because of extremely cold conditions precluding his usual morning routine of doing the coffee service @ a motel here in Winona (name on request).

And trying to stay sane as well; remember, he has a history of serious mental disorders complicated by past abuse and cruelty. Fortunately, though, he chooses not to seek Al Cohol's assistance.

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SPEAKING OF REMAINING IN ONE'S APARTMENT, United States troops on the Japanese islands of Okinawa are confined to base until further notice in response to local unease over the arrest of another Marine by local police on charges of Indecent Assault and Rape.

Friday has been declared a Day of Reflection on all United States military bases on Okinawa, which have become a sore point with the locals since after World War II (since 1972, as a Japanese prefecture) for all manner of real or imagined social and moral ills in what, socioeconomically, is the poorest part of Japan.

No wonder the armed forces are having a difficult time trying to attract halfway-decent troops....

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OBAMAMANIA SHOWS NO SIGNS OF SLOWING DOWN, what with Barak Obama's Presidential campaign having won Democratic caucuses in Hawaii and primaries in Wisconsin last night.

Which has no doubt stoked the GOP's paranoia even further, considering where their Presidential wannabe apparent John McCain has a history of mental illness and psychological abuse attributable to his treatment by North Vietnamese troops as a Prisoner of War which could only get worse if McCain suddenly has a psychological episode or series thereof during a campaign appearence that could make Big Jim Folsom's televised misadventures which cost him the Alabama governor's race in 1962 look like The Muppet Show by comparison.

Witness what The Sunday Times of London had to say @ the weekend of the GOP's developing strategems to weaken Obamamania:

Leading Republicans believe they can trounce Barack Obama in the presidential election by tarring him as a shady Chicago socialist. They are increasingly confident that his campaign could collapse by the time their attack machine has finished with him.

Grover Norquist, an influential conservative tax reform lobbyist, said: "Barack Obama has been able to create his own image and introduce himself to voters, but the swing voters in a general election are not paying attention yet. He is open to being defined as a leftwing, corrupt Chicago politician."

Norquist's comments will be music to the ears of Hillary Clinton, Obama's Democratic rival, who believes Obama has not been sufficiently "vetted" for the White House. She has been unable to attack him too vociferously without risking a backlash from Democratic primary voters, but Republicans may salvage her campaign by doing the job for her.

Obama has the voting record of a "hard-left" socialist, according to Norquist, from his time in the Illinois state legislature to the US Senate. He was recently judged by the nonpartisan National Journal to have the most liberal voting record in 2007 of any senator.

"It will be easy to portray him as even harder-left than Hillary," said Norquist. "Hillary could lose the election, but Obama could collapse. People already know Hillary and she is not popular, but the disadvantage for Obama is that Republicans can teach people who don't know him who he is."

Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House and Republican guru, recently described Obama as the "most leftwing candidate to run since George McGovern" – a reference to the anti-Vietnam-war Democrat who lost 49 states out of 50 to Richard Nixon in the 1972 election. Norquist believes Obama's questionable Chicago connections will stir things further.

[***]

Mark McKinnon, a top adviser to John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said last week he would resign in the event of a contest against Obama as he did not want to participate in tearing him down.

But other members of McCain's team have already gone for the jugular. A testy exchange last year between the two senators over the Iraq troop surge led a senior aide to take aim at Obama's former drug use by claiming he "wouldn't know the difference between an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] and a bong [smoking pipe]".

[***]

Christopher Ruddy, chief executive of the conservative journal NewsMax and an arch tormentor of the Clintons over the Whitewater property scandal in the 1990s, believes Obama is "an old-style Chicago politician" who will nonetheless be difficult for Republicans to undermine.

"People are already gearing up to take on Obama, but there is a lot of apathy among the Republican ideological base. You don't see a level of energy there," Ruddy said. "If they go too far in their attacks, it will backfire."

Portrayals of Obama as an irresponsible tax-and-spend liberal are already under way. Lawrence Kudlow, a former adviser to Ron-ald Reagan, put Obama's "spend-ometer" at $800 billion by costing his proposals for extending health insurance, implementing green energy plans, setting up an infrastructure investment bank and other initiatives.

Obama has also said he may tax people earning more than $97,000, a potentially unpopular move that Clinton is now seeking to make a campaign issue.

However, Obama's chief economics adviser, Austan Gools-bee, a professor at the University of Chicago, is a supporter of the free market. Obama has also been endorsed by Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Robert Wolf, the chief executive of UBS Americas, the financial group, is a big donor. "When I sat down with him, I found him to be unbelievably refreshing and smart and thoughtful," he said.

Obama was introduced to Wolf by George Soros, the bil-lionaire financier and philanthropist who is a favourite target of the right for his sponsorship of leftwing groups and antiIraq war stance.

Obama's pledge to withdraw troops from Iraq is a key point of difference with McCain, who believes a hasty withdrawal could provoke genocide and let Al-Qaeda regain its footing.

Patrick Murphy, a Democratic congressman and Iraq war veteran, said: "I'm proud to be a fiscal conservative and, in my opinion, Obama is a moderate. He wants to partner with businesses and corporations."

He also believes Obama will withdraw responsibly from Iraq. "He has laid out a timetable fora 'pull out and strike strategy' – pull the troops to the border and strike against Al-Qaeda."

Obama has managed to draw support from the most leftwing elements of the Democratic party, such as MoveOn.org, while winning over independents and disillusioned Republicans. Jim Kessler of Third Way, a centre-left Washington think tank, said: "He has managed to make an argument for postpartisanship in a way that appeals to very liberal Democrats because he is such a gifted orator."

Just as Republicans will seek to tarnish Obama as a leftwinger, so Democrats will make sure pictures of McCain with George W Bush are everywhere.

Only now are Republicans beginning to ponder seriously which Democrat will be McCain's strongest election opponent, after assuming for a long time that Clinton would be the easier target.

Ruddy thinks Democrats might be preparing to ditch the "dreaded Hillary" only to replace her by the "most leftwing nominee in memory". Even so, he believes President Obama is a distinct possibility.

Incentive enough, no doubt, for the Democrats and all right-thinking Americans to break out the heavy ammunition (so to speak) against McCain, in particular the likelihood of any "swift-boating" campaigns targeting Obama on the McCain campaign's part being formulated while insane or otherwise mentally incapacated.

And, of course, the likelihood of McCain's mental incapacity, especially if he "drops hints" @ campaign appearences.

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

EMBARRASSING BARAK OBAMA IS ONE THING ... but not unlike that which is giving Hong Kong cinema star Edison Chan a hard time: Seems when he brought in a laptop computer for service to a repair shop in Shenzhen recently, technicans couldn't help but notice all manner of sexually-explicit photographs on the hard drive showing Chan in suggestive positions with a number of prominent actresses.

Enough so as to post them all over the Internet, attracting considerable attention as much as the ire of the online censors in Beijing as see online pornography as a Clear and Present Moral Danger to the development of a "healthy society."

In any event, ten technicians @ the shop in question are under arrest for Distributing Obscene Material Online and Mr. Chan has apologised for any embarrassment the flap may have caused.

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

MEMO TO THE MINNESOTA LEGISLATURE:

Perhaps it was time to start enquiries into whether Governor Pawlenty's hard-wired Zealotry to, and True Belief in, discredited socioeconomic thought (notably the "supply-side/trickle-down" theory as expects keeping taxes low to create jobs all the more down the socioeconomic ladder) may be a sign of, or otherwise suggests, serious mental incapacity to continue holding gubenetorial office and discharging its powers.

And having such mental incapacity used as grounds for his removal from office.

Just one lapsus linguć too far will do it.       

ONE OF THE MORE PATHETICALLY NAUSEATING THEMES COMMON TO FAUX NEWS' BRAND OF PROLEFEED is that which sees free-market capitalism as the Great White Father and Saviour of the poor, undereducated or homeschooled and easily-influenced that Faux is forever seeing to be their target audience.

Especially such regarded as "chronic and habitual welfare cases," among other Threats to Morals and Decency which Faux enjoys subjecting to nothing less than ridicule and contempt (as if suggesting that the only hope the Lower Classes had for "wholeheartedly" accepting a greater sense of personal responsibility was to, to paraphrase a novellist, "stop worrying and love capitalism with all your heart").

But then again, the only sort of capitalism which Faux sees as the Great White Hope for the "welfare basket cases" is nothing less than "pure" capitalism--nothing less than laissez-fare based on self-regulatory Codes of Good Practice which turn out to excuse cartel behaviour and its worst excesses by all manner of coded "outs" appearing to protect free-market competition and free choice.

Not to mention "reinventing welfare" based on a "mutual self-help" model which, lacking any clear specifics as to what is implied, suggests adoption of the English friendly society model based on Faux's belief in self-reliance, personal responsibility, thrift and a Wholesome and Simple Home Life being the pillars of empowerment. (Provided, of course, that the Lower Classes used their own resources to make such possible; any attempt @ seeking even technical assistance or advice is to be seen as "promoting dependency" to the point of "undermining healthy respect for self-reliance and personal responsibility.")

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WITH THAT IN MIND, THEN, FAUX NEEDS TO BE ASKED some serious questions in this regard:

• How and where do you get the argument that a "pure" version of free-market capitalism is the last and only hope the Lower Classes have towards their "empowerment"?
• How do you base the contention that only a "pure" form of capitalism is best towards "empowering" the Lower Classes out of "enslavement" to State welfare?
• Have you any viable historical precedent to support such a contention? How can such be adapted to 21st-century circumstances?
• Have you any documentary evidence proving an interconnexion between dependency on State welfare and Social Security benefits and unconscious support of Communist or Socialist beliefs among the Lower Classes?
• Is deliberate anti-Semitism expected to be part of your greater design towards the final perfection of "pure" free-market capitalism? Why?
• With regards to mutual self-help as the future of social welfare, how can you expect the poor thus expected to "benefit" thereby to develop such initiatives solely on their own initiative and resources? Whence the argument that seeking even technical assistance towards such an otherwise noble end "leads to dependency"?
• Can you show how mutual self-help can work within the parameters of a free-market socioeconomic model and paradigm such as you claim to defend to "empower" the Lower Classes?
• Can you cite any viable examples of mutual self-help here in the "morally superior" United States as are actually empowering the Lower Classes? What otherwise prevents your disclosure?
• How do we know that you're not subtly suggesting illegal or otherwise questionable "empowerment" strategems such as "cashflow gifting" clubs deliberately manipulated to benefit only an "elect***entitled as of right"? (This would include schemes packaged under such guises as "Friends Helping Friends" and related affinity-based permutations, "Aeroplane," "Pit Stop," "Dinner Party" and similar.) What would be your defence towards "gifting clubs" as a form of "mutual self-help," notwithstanding their illegal nature?
• Have you no sense of Decency, Sirs, @ long last?
• Have you left no sense of Decency?

SINCE 1987, THE SWISS RESORT COMMUNITY OF ST. MORITZ HAS REGISTERED ITS NAME AS A TRADEMARK, the better to protect the good name and repute of the Alpine Diva.

In fact, when St. Moritz took this unprecedented step, the same made headlines the world over.

As a matter of record, "St. Moritz" is so registered in some 50 countries the world over for up to 15 different categories of products and services.

Not to mention the St. Moritz community actually licencing its name for selected high-quality consumer products, earning them substantial revenue from licencing royalties in the process--many of which can also be purchased in the Official St. Moritz Fashion Online Store as is connected to the official St. Moritz website.

(IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: The link to that online store is provided solely for your information; I have no affiliation arrangement with same, in the absence of any formal affiliate programme they may have.)

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MY THINKING, AS SOMETHING OF A LONGTIME FAN OF WISCONSIN DELLS, has been that The Waterpark Capital of the World (itself a Registered Trademark of the Wisconsin Dells Visitor and Convention Bureau, responsible for calling the world's attention to same) might want to consider having their rather distinctive logotype (already trademarked itself) available for licencing and marketing; as with St. Moritz, the better to protect the good name and repute of the community, prevent possible perversions thereof, and provide the Bureau with additional income via the licencing royalty stream.

As suggested to the Bureau several times in past (inspired, no doubt, by window displays @ the Bureau's Visitor Information Centre in downtown Wisconsin Dells featuring the logotype on beach towels, beach chairs and even flip-flop sandals as make up same), said licencing should be done with a conscience.

As in consistent with the fact of Wisconsin Dells being a family-centered resort attracting an estimated 3 million shoobies last summer leaving some $1 billion in tourist spending.

In other words, don't expect the Wisconsin Dells logotype to be found on:

• Alcoholic beverages of any kind;
• Tobacco products of any kind;
• Sugar-heavy soft drinks (while still allowing its use in connexion with mixers like ginger ale, club soda and tonic water);
• Snack foods lacking inherent nutritional value;
• Sexual toys or other merchandise of a purely adult nature (including condoms and "marital aids");
• Other "disgusting stuff for adults" (as in, e.g., hemorroid suppositories, laxatives and feminine-hygiene products); and
• Products likely to have high appeal to children and other vulnerable or easily-influenced audiences, particularly where inapproriate    advertising is involved.

(Of note @ this time is where the Canadian province of Québec specifically bans all advertising aimed @ children, on the belief that children cannot make wise purchasing decisions without making a nuisance of their parents, undermining adult authority and other questionable practices.)

On the other hand, any licencing policies which Wisconsin Dells may want to consider for their logotype and name would want to consider the following articles of faith:

• Striking a balance between value for money and practicality, for one.
• Expecting the product to sell itself on its merits, allowing it to stand or fall in the marketplace accordingly, rather than resort to excessive advertising which can get annoying or inapproriate after awhile.
• Emphasising the practical and utilitarian over mere vanity, especially when it comes to beachwear, outdoor gear, personal hygiene and toilet items (as in don't expect the perfume counter of your local store to feature Wisconsin Dells cologne, body wash, after shave lotion and suchlike, if it were to come to it).
• Deemphasising processed sugars and white flour when it comes to snack foods in favour of honey or demerrara sugar and whole grain flours.
• Tea over coffee, especially considering the former's health benefits (this would include Rooibos, green and other herbal teas and chai lattes).
• All in all, expecting any and all such products proud to carry the Wisconsin Dells logotype to be in good taste, offer value for money and yet be practically stylish without the inevitable tackiness traditionally associated with tourist-trap souvenirs.

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NEXT THING YOU KNOW, YOU COULD JUST IMAGINE THE BRANSON TOURISM COMMUNITY cutting a deal with Wally World (who else?) to offer some of the worst specimens of licenced merchandise invoking the name and cachet (or want thereof) @ retail to the same sort of audience likely to regard Branson and the Tri-Lakes as their ideal and perfection of Amerikanischer Realkultur idealised.

The same ones who are too dependent upon Wally World for their shopping needs, it turns out--the poor, undereducated or homeschooled and easily-influenced, especially so by way of Fox Noise, the American Supermarket Tabloid Cartel and conservative talkback radio (and the propaganda machine making it possible, trying to keep any payola for the "talking points" kept discreet).

The whole tricked into accepting @ par Wally World's "Save money. Live better" line, yet having no sense of scruples when it comes to their shopping habits. And yet calling it "the American way!"

(What's more, expect Wally World's Branson line to carry the inevitable MADE IN CHINA label--an insult right there to a shoobie trap priding itself on exploiting the crudest and basest of patriotic feelings among the vulnerable and Those Who Should Know Better. Not to mention sure to fall apart within days of purchase, or otherwise subject to a recall.)

WORTH RECOMMENDING BY YOUR CORRESPONDENT: Doesn't it always seem like, when you buy more conventional mouthwash, you're not quite getting your money's worth (i.e., you're probably paying for water)?

Which explains why I'm recommending none other than Odol mouthwash concentrate, that old infallable German standby for oral hygiene morning and night. (I should emphasise the fact of Odol being a concentrate which you add to water before rinsing your mouth out.)

In fact, Your Correspondent felt compelled to try Odol after the brand he had been using, Watkins Mouthwash Concentrate, had been discontinued from their product line; being a "value-for-money" type, Your Correspondent prefers stuff which, though expensive @ first, goes a long way over time, adding value in the process. He was going to try Eau de Botot, the mother of oral rinse, but as it happened, Smallflower.comdidn't have any Eau de Botot in stock.

Hence, the next best thing: Odol, an old reliable German standby.

Which he's been trying for about a fortnight now on and off, and can say that his breath is rather pleasant. (About 5-10 drops to a small cup of water should do--no more than 10, please.) Both in the morning and when he brushes his teeth after dinner is when Your Correspondent makes use of Odol.

True, while it may be more expensive--$10 for a 5-oz. bottle--consider the value for money you can get over time cf. Listerine, Scope or even cheap Wally World brand by virtue of Odol's concentration and your adding your own water. I think you'll agree with me.

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IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: The preceding reflects personal experience and opinion only and was not paid or otherwise renumerated for by Smallflower.com (as in the Merz Apothecary of Chicago). Any pay he would receive, if @ all, would be as commissions on your purchase of Odol from this weblog (as in clicking on the picture @ the head of this item).

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HIS FRAUDULENCY'S GREAT WITHIN MUST STILL BE DESPERATE IN WANTING CUBA TO AGAIN BECOME A FREE AND DEMOCRATIC STATE, especially so in light of Fidel Castro's shock announcement overnight that he was stepping down from his Presidential positions after 49 years of outright power in Havana.

Meaning, in effect, that his brother Raul is now de facto Cuban head of state after serving in an acting capacity since Fidel's shock announcement that ill health was forcing him to step down for the interim in the summer of 2006.

But still, though, the Great Within and his K Street corporatist droogs, not to mention Fox Noise (with exclusive television rights), can't wait to converge upon Guantanamo Bay Naval Station and provoke "sponatenous popular uprisings" in a March Upon Havana expected to translate into "restoring democracy and liberty to a heretofore enslaved people"--but, in Reality, replacing one form of enslavement (as in Communism) with another (as in Fascism, which, in Benito Mussolini's immortal words, "ought really be called Corporatism, as it is a fusion of State and Corporate power").

Dominated, it turns out, by the Zealots and True Believers of K Street as regard free-market capitalism as Great White Father of the Lower Classes in particular--notably the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Club for Growth and--surprise! surprise!--the so-called "Church of Scientology," hoping to use the return of democracy to Cuba as agency for establishing a Scientologist State.

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MEANWHILE, BACK IN THE "MORALLY SUPERIOR" UNITED STATES, how do we know this "Church of Scientology" isn't really in bed with the GOP, looking for "creative and innovative ways" to incorporate Scientologist mind-control techniques into the War on Terrorism (especially if a State of National Emergency needs to be imposed)?

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

IF THE OUTCOME EMERGING FROM THE LONG-DELAYED PAKISTANI PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS is any indication, the GOP-dominated status quo could be in clear and present danger come November.

As in the opposition Muslim League and Pakistani People's Party winning heavily in said elections, meaning they would have to form a coalition Government of National Unity in Islamabad which would be expected to ensure democracy and fight corruption, abuses of power and general socioeconomic mismanagement along with the clear and present danger of International Terrorism.

Which, come to think of it, may have been helped by quite a few among the eligible electorate staying away from the polls out of fear that violence and ballot-box-stuffing by the Musharaf regime's goons could predominate.

Is it any wonder, then, that the GOP must be anxiously studying all the news footage of pre-election violence and the emergency rule period for ways to disrupt the November elections as can "officially" be blamed on International Terrorism--but, in reality, may really be the work of brainwashed mentally-unstable elements acting as patsies (eventually given safe passage into Canada, say, before suspicions start emerging)?

(With, perhaps, a little help from the "Church of Scientology"?)

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

AND COULD IT BE THAT GOP PRESIDENTIAL WANNABE MIKE HUCKABEE may be closer in actual Presidential mindset to the late Turkmeni President-for-Life Saparmurad Niyazhev, himself rather notorious for his eccentricity fused with a despotic streak as would make Stalin look like Mickey Mouse?

(Howbeit unconsciously, mind you.)  

OVERHEARD ON THE INFORMATION STUPORBAHN:

Merely including the name of TV evangel Benny Hinn in a blog post is a sure-fire way to attract traffic off the search engines.

The Exaggerator now puts this theory to the test, as above.

(In the process, I hope you who were thus attracted to test this theory can also do some online shopping as a way to show your support for this nascent weblog. Which could use it all the more.

(Likewise with a donation to the Virtual Tip Jar.

(In any case, bloggers like Your Correspondent cannot live on traffic alone.)

AS YOUR CORRESPONDENT WRITES THIS, HE CAN'T HELP BUT IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITY for where you can count the last surviving World War I veterans on the fingers of one hand.

Or maybe less.

It's my understanding that in the United States, there are only two veterans of the War to End All Wars (or so it was hoped) surviving as this is being composed online, aged 109 and 106, respectively.

In France, the passing of their pentultimate survivor thereof, Louis de Cazenave, made headlines.

But in Germany, meanwhile, their last survivor of a war for which Germany was subjected to such depths scorn and contempt that Hitler would exploit to "reclaim German honour and glory," only to subject them to a second such, died New Year's Day without much notice.

His name was Erich Kaestner, who died @ 107 years of age in an old-age home in Cologne (and is no relation to the poet and novellist of that name); his family did not announce the death until about three weeks afterwards, and Germany has no central clearinghouse for tracking war veterans similar to the Department of Veterans Affairs in the United States.

Several years back, the last surviving Victoria Cross receipent from World War I died in Canada.

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MEANWHILE, THE NUMBERS OF WORLD WAR II VETERANS ARE IN RAPID DECLINE around the world, as witness where the opening of the World War II Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC a few years back was accelerated to allow for such veterans as were in frail condition to see the memorial for themselves out of concern that they would be unable to attend the dedication ceremonies because of death or illness.

And the numbers are in continuing decline every day.

Not to mention the numbers of such who survived the wholesale atrocities of the Nazi regime known as the Holocaust, which sought to achieve the final perfection of an "Aryan Master Race" by "culling" the "undesirables" from the German population--Jews, Roma, Slavs, Jehovah's Witnesses (known in much of Europe as "Bible Students," as if to confuse matters), homosexuals, war cripples, the "mentally defective" and others deemed to be "life unworthy of life."

Once the last Holocaust survivor snuffs it, then, such could prove to be too easy a triumph for the Holocaust Denial community, notwithstanding the records of numerous war crimes trials following World War II of such among the Nazi regime who carried out such inhumane and unspeakable atrocities against mankind and the testimonies of Holocaust survivors.

Such lessons of history should serve as a warning, unworthy of cheap trivialisation or footnoting for sick and perverted purposes.

===NEVER AGAIN!===