(The above, in case you're wondering, is a QR [as in Quick Response] Code for mobile phones equipped with the Kaywa QR Code Reader, which allows you to read The Exaggerator on mobile phones enabled to access the Information Stuporbahn. It's free to download. Now you know.)
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You can do so right here, come to think of it--by way of e-mail, RSS feed readers, social-networking sites, what have you:
(Remember that you can always cancel your subscription @ any time. I won't hold it against you.)
New shopping, new life: (Which is intended to help Your Correspondent supplement his disability benefits, for the most part, as well as Some Good Causes, foremost among them being Reduction of the U.S. National Debt):
PLEASE NOTE: This blog's offering online shopping involves affiliate relationships with various online retailers, whence Your Correspondent can receive commissions based on your purchases therefrom.
For your protection, you are strongly advised to exercise due care and dilligence on such e-tailers you choose to shop with before making any purchase online; in the United States and Canada, this can be done by way of your local Better Business Bureau.
(part 2):
If you're a blogger or webmaster looking to add value for money to your blog/website, please take a look @ these worthwhile options:
And why not take a moment to look @ PayPal as a way to add online shopping to your website, or otherwise raise funds.
THAT MAY BE PUTTING IT A LITTLE HILARIOUSLY, MIND YOU, especially considering where this will be the last post for 2009 here @ The Exaggerator; in line with an established tradition on my part, Your Correspondent will be taking a break from blogging over the Christmas-New Year's holiday fortnight after this post goes up.
More on this presently.
ONE THING THAT WILL CERTAINLY BE MISSING FROM THE COMMERCIAL BREAKS DURING THE SUPER BOWL XLIV WORLDCAST: Pepsi has announced that, for the first time in 23 years, they will not be buying ad time during the Super Bowl, traditionally the haven of legendary one-off adverts that people quickly talk about--and, in some cases (notably Apple Computer's "1984" such), become icons in their own right.
Cited as reasons therefor were the desire to "test the waters" of new media such as the Information Stuporbahn (where Pepsi is preparing a new online campaign), as well as Pepsico's involvement in a Corporate Responsibility initiative as would provide $9 bln in microfinance to regenerate culturally-deprived environments.
Which has you wondering just who in the soft-drink industry would be willing to take Pepsi's place in Super Bowl worldcast advertising, especially considering where a 30-second spot can set companies back as much as $2.5 million (and they want to make every dollar count all the more); by contrast, time rates for infomercials (especially so overnights and on slow weekends) is almost like winning MegaMillions.
CONSIDERING THE PREDICTABLY DRY, ALMOST FORMULA-WRITTEN, TONE AND NUANCE COMMON TO CONSERVATIVE AND OTHERWISE RIGHT-WING-LEANING BLOGS, Your Correspondent wonders if there must be some class of a subscription-based e-mail or RSS feed service conservative bloggers have available to them as supplies prepared, scripted and carefully-nuanced "talking points" to feature consistent with the Prevailing Conservative Line ideologically.
Which, when you get right down to it, are expected to parrot the "big lie" that conservative articles of faith seem to hold dear as one with Truth, especially when the expected target audience is composed, by and large, of the Ignorant and Unwashed Masses as are easy suckers for "tea party" "movements" and suchlike appealing to their simple patriotic emotions and feelings.
Emotions and feelings, it turns out, rooted in nativism, racism, xenophobia, isolationist self-sufficiency not unlike North Korea's Juche Idea and emotional excesses acting as a binder of sorts.
STOP ME IF YOU'VE ALREADY HEARD ABOUT THE 4-YEAR-OLD BOY OUT CHATTANOOGA WAY who drank up the beer in his father's cooler ... broke into a neighbour's house, stealing all the Christmas presents in so doing ... broke into another house, stealing a girl's dress (which the boy promptly put on) ... and was seen by police walking in an inebriated state for a 4-year-old boy.
And the boy's explanation therefor: "He wanted to go to jail just so he could see his father," who is now in penal servitude.
IS IT JUST ME, OR HAVE THERE BEEN FANTASIES OUT THERE ABOUT BACK WHEN SMOKING WAS CONSIDERED SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE, and someone had the (in hindsight, not-so-)bright idea of lighting up their after-dinner cancers with the flames of the burning brandy per the Christmas pudding ... or, for that matter, the cherries jubilee ... and managed to get away unscathed?
(Even when the cancers involved were "roll-your-own" types, and the tobacco of choice went by such names as Bull Durham, Bugler, Duke's Mixture, Kite, Top, Prince Albert, Velvet, Edgeworth, Half & Half ...)
Oh, yeah, and Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer....
AS I MENTIONED @ THE BEGINNING OF THIS POST, READERS, Your Correspondent is now on hiatus from blogging, by and large, for the holiday fortnight. Inevitably, he needs some time away from blogging to not only celebrate the holidays, but also to recharge his creative batteries in the process.
Accordingly, he will resume blogging, Deo volente, on 4 January 2010.
However, in the interest of maintaining "brand awareness," so to speak, for this particular blog, he may engage in limited-scale Entrecard dropping in the interim; as for yourselves, I trust that your holiday season experiences, however they be celebrated--Christmas, Kwanzaa, Festivus, New Year's, whatever--are enjoyable in their own way. And best celebrated responsibly and in moderation, as Your Correspondent would like to see you returning in 2010.
Not to mention taking some time to get last-minute holiday shopping out of the way here in this blog's online shopping section--which, for the most part, may have to mean gift cards or vouchers because merchandise orders placed now and requiring holiday delivery will require expedited shipping (which costs accordingly; be sure to check the shipping section of the relevant e-shops for details).
And, lest I forget, using this opportunity to thank all of you for your loyalty, devotion and support of The Exaggerator throughout the rather interesting times as have marked 2009, with the sincerest hope that such will continue into 2010 and, perhaps, beyond.
AND NOW, A MESSAGE OF IMPORTANCE DIRECTED IN PARTICULAR TO SUCH SPECIMENS OF CONSERVATIVE "WINNING OF HEARTS AND MINDS" claiming to represent what you call "Real Americans" who, for the most part, are poor, undereducated, ignorant, socioeconomically-displaced to the point of being deemed unsuitable for worker retraining and easily-influenced, known in the common vernacular as "poor white trash" (which, come to think of it, is what they are), let alone their Honour and Virtue (or what you think passes for it):
If, as you love to claim in your radio and/or TV broadcasts, you sincerely care for the interests of your beloved "Real Americans" who are regular viewers and listeners of your programmes (as the case may be)--many of them small-town/rural and lower working class "white trash," as a matter of record--I would like to pray ask you @ this time:
What justifies your maintaining an arrogant, haughty, Robin Leach-stylee culture and lifestyle such as you forever condemn as "elitist" and "arrogant," not to mention "out of touch with Real America"?
What justifies the five houses you have (@ least two of which have to be vacation houses) as are largely in mothballs for extended times, let alone being rather ostentatious in and of themselves?
What justifies the stable of fuel-inefficient automobiles (SUV's, for the most part) you have as opposed to more proletarian models? Is it, perhaps, your toadyism to the so-called "Wise Use" crowd using same as patsy to excuse the wasteful as one with the Defence of Our Antient and Peculiar Sovereignty and Sovereign Identity?
What justifies the private helicopters and/or executive jet aircraft as are more than likely sitting idle @ some general-aviation airport save for the one or two times a year same are more than likely to be used?
What justifies the first-class airfares you forever insist on being "entitled" to while suggesting that your audience should waste fuel driving around in less-fuel-effieicent automobiles made all the more so by deliberately deferred maintenance?
What justifies the servants, maids, chefs, gardeners, even concubines on your staff when you're probably capable yourselves of doing much the same things you hired them for (never mind their probably being here illicitly or otherwise overstaying their J-2 student visas)?
What justifies the ostentatiously garish to the point of arrogant displays of Savile Row (let alone Brooks Brothers) tailoring, the Rolex watches, the Asprey's or Tiffany's diamond jewellry, the charge accounts @ the likes of high-end retailers like Lord & Taylor, Saks Fifth Avenue, Harrods, Tiffany's, Selfridge's, Galeries Lafayette--or, for that matter, the mysterious cartes noire from VISA and/or American Express, and the cachet so associated, all the while expecting your legions of the easily-led to depend all the more on Wally World and charity thrift shops?
What justifies the high-end vacations in Palm Beach, Sedona, Montserrat, Monte Carlo, Cancun, wherever, and your insistence on no less than the most expensive suite available while expecting your working-class droogs to get by on deliberately reduced wages pacified by the crudely jingoistic brand of True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command such as you enjoy promoting?
What justifies the offshore bank accounts and investment funds you stash your proceeds away in--"tax reasons," perhaps, or is that too easy a platitude which could unwittingly get you in trouble if what you see as "the wrong channels" got word, all the while scaring your less-sophisto audiences into buying gold "till it hurts" for fear of Major Socioeconomic Collapse in the face of the "New World Order" which you know, and I know, and I know, and you know, to be an Emmanuel Goldstein to keep the "morons and idiots" in line?
What justifies the likelihood of your escaping the Reality which you're only compounding on what you see as your Happy Little Vegemites, so to speak, with debauched excesses of alcohol, narcotic or hallucinogenic drugs, chronic and habitual excesses of potentially wasteful and unnecessary shopping, gambling @ the high-roller tables in Las Vegas, Monte Carlo and Macau (and maybe losing your fortune without warning) and other "anti-social tendencies" you forever rail against to your legions of the ignorant and unaware? Is it, perhaps, your own dysfunctional upbringing and background (including, perhaps, episodes of incest or other forms of sexual abuse)?
What justifies, all in all, your selfish, heartless, arrogant contempt of the very same "Real Americans" you forever insist on representing the "best interests" of, never mind that the policies you represent (and excuse as one with Saving America From Herself) have actually posed clear and present harm, and then some, to those you so dearly cherish (howbeit privately) as "suckers" and "dumb idiots" willing to parrot the bumper-sticker-slogan "talking points" you hash out every weekday, not caring a whit about the Greater Collective Good of the Poor and Marginalised you see as easy prey, even if it means causing serious psychological harm or distress which you'd easily dismiss as "the price of being The Voice and Conscience of Real America"?
And One Thing More: "Have you no sense of Decency, Sir, @ long last? Have you left no sense of Decency?"
As if that weren't enough: As Example and Warning from History about how your kind sees your audience as nothing more than dupes who can be easily-manipulated, I call your attention to some interesting insights into one Norman G. Baker (1882-1958) vis-a-vis his pseudo-medical "institute" for treating cancer "without X-ray or knife" in Muscatine, Iowa, vintage 1930, as noted by Eric S. Juhnke in Quacks and Crusaders: The Fabulous Careers of John Brinkley, Norman Baker, and Harry Hoxsey (University Press of Kansas, 2002, pp. 46-48, op. cit.):
Since Baker lacked a licence to practive medicine himself, he claimed to leave the supervision of treatments to the discretion of his doctors. However, in 1930 the Iowa State Board of Health acquired a series of notes he had written to his staff that suggested otherwise. In addition to chastising doctors for not purchasing gas at his filling station, he instructed them to administer castor oil to all patients, mix powder and liquid formulas according to his guidelines, and peddle new items available in the hospital's pharmacy. "Let's get these going quick as possible," he urged, after receiving a shipment of herb medicine for rheumatism, Hodgkins' disease, dropsy, stomach ulcers, and goiter. "If you have cases in the hospital, let's try them out here." Baker also directed treatments for particular patients. "Put Donald Dericks on the white powder also the No. 109 tea," he wrote. "Take his urine now and in two weeks and four weeks and give me [a] report." Baker ordered his doctors not to dismiss patients who were unable to stay in the hospital "without taking a home treatment of medicines.... This will bring good revenue," he noted, "and help the poor souls."
(The gas station referred to was among several other business enterprises in Muscatine under Baker's umbrella, legendary for offering gas @ prices 1/3 less than the "chain" gas stations--or so it was advertised. Baker also ran a cut-price department store with mail-order service; all promoted, as with the Baker Institute [as the pseudo-hospital was officially known], over radio station KTNT ["Know The Naked Truth"], the affiliated TNT Magazine and the weekly tabloid gazetta Midwest Free Press. Federal Radio Commission action forced KTNT off the air in 1931, citing excessive signal interference with other stations and excessive self-promotion.
(Following prolonged legal action, Baker would attempt to regain past glory by relocating his cancer clinic to Laredo, Texas--and, across the Rio Grande in Nuevo Laredo, his new high-powered radio station, XENT. Still later, he attempted to return to past glory, a la Muscatine, by reopening his "hospital" in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, complete with the same old claims of "Cancers and Tumors Cured Without Surgery, X-Ray or Radium***We Do Not Cut Out Any Organ." By 1940, Mexican broadcasting regulators would force XENT off the air, eventually forcing Baker into obscurity; towards the end, he had designs of reclaiming past radio glory by way of an offshore radio station in "pirate ship" stylee off the Florida coast.)
ALL IN ALL, THEN, I HAVE THIS MUCH TO ASK: What defence do you have for all your arrogance @ the expense of the ignorant and the easily-influenced as make up your Secret Squadron as can be counted on, or so you hope, to Reclaim America From Herself? (And PLEASE, we can do without your usual noblesse oblige platitudes in circumstances such as this.)
(Memo to Readers: You're strongly urged to pass this along through the several social networks you subscribe to, as well as through e-mail circles you may have--but do it responsibly; "spam" will only cause this appeal to backfire and be turned against Your Correspondent, who has limited income and resources for a legal defence.)
SOMETIMES, IT'S PROBABLY BETTER TO AVOID ANY SERIOUS ATTEMPTS @ NEWS DISCUSSION, AS IS THE USUAL PRACTICE OF THIS THINKING(?!) BLOG, especially when you're posting somewhat later than usual.
As is, again, the case today, what with not just the usual morning routine @ the motel I do for, but also a meeting to set up resumption of mental-health therapeusis and some business to take care of uptown (as in picking up a rather interesting book from the biblio via Interlibrary Loan), followed by another specimen of lunch buffet @ Sammy's Pizza.
Whereupon I returned to my flat, and started the laundry.
Which, in any case, translates into the inability to go into the regular strain of business common to this blog today; I trust, readers, that you will accept this. And that you'll finish off some new holiday shopping for new beautiful life, such as here:
MEANWHILE, YOUR CORRESPONDENT WOULD LIKE TO SAY "THANK YOU" TO SUCH as have been shopping by way of this blog's Twitter adjunct over recent days ... and will continue doing all in his power to make your new shopping for new beautiful life possible.
As reminder, he hopes to contribute part of the proceeds so generated, for one, to Reduction of the National Debt in the United States, in case you need good cause to do your online shopping here, for the holidays or otherwise.
THE RELEVANCE OF THE PRECEDING PHOTO TO WHAT I'M ABOUT TO MENTION is probably best left to you, reader.
As in a just-released study from "Down Under" which hath it that having about two cups of coffee or tea per diem (this included decaffeinated such) could actually help prevent the onset of Type 2 diabetes.
But then again, as Yates's Wine Lodge in Blackpool reminds us, "moderation is true strength"--and this could apply to coffee and tea for the sake of this item.
IDEAL SUGGESTION FOR DEFLATING THE OVERZEALOUS EGOS OF FOX PROLEFEED HOSTS WITH PARTICULAR APPEAL to Those Who Should Know Better, especially so the ilk of Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity:
Videlicet, having the aural portions of the more pathetic segments of their respective shows replaced with the likes of such illustrious(?!) musicians as Alessandro Moreschi, the only known Castrato to have his voice recorded for posterity (but then again, remember that the recording technology used in 1908-09 was rather crude and primitive by modern standards) ... and for those unaware of what Castrati were, they were male singers who were deliberately emasculated @ a tender young age in the (howbeit discredited) belief that castration would ensure such fine and pure singing voices that church choirs and operatic companies were in demand for between the 17th and mid-19th centuries, when the Vatican outlawed the "abominable practice" by Papal Edict.
(Those wanting to know more about the whole Castrati phenomenon are kindly directed to this interesting website as explains it all for you.)
Alternately, imagine The Glory(????) of the Human Voice, as exemplified by Florence Foster Jenkins, without question the single worst operatic diva ever to (dis)grace the stage, giving Fox Prolefeed its just desserts as vocal mashup. (Especially so when you consider that a New York City record shop, as shall remain nameless, has this repute for playing Miss Jenkins 15 minutes before closing time every evening as a warning of sorts for shoppers still inside the premi to clear out.)
HOW NOT TO EARN A VIABLE LIVING OFF EBAY AND SUCHLIKE WEBSITES: Your Correspondent understands where three people involved in a British-based eBay scam vis-a-vis cheap Chinese-manufacture golf clubs and requisites being palmed off as top-end goods, defrauding consumers to the tune of some £375,000 in the end, have been convicted in a London court of Consumer Fraud and Online Fraud.
As if that weren't enough, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division of the Department of Homeland Security has announced the results of a series of raids over recent days in 41 major cities across the country, as well as a parallel operation by Mexican authorities, code-named "Operation Holiday Hoax"--as in the seizure of 700,000 specimens of counterfeit goods to the value of $26 million, including consumer electronics, DVD's, Christmas ornaments, clothing and other consumption goods.
IN THE INTEREST OF CLEAR SOCIOECONOMIC RECOVERY AND JOBS CREATION WITHIN PREFERABLY MEASURABLE DISTANCE, President Obama is now pressuring banks (stopping short of out-and-out blackmail--for the moment, FYI) into making more small-business loans and offering small-business credit.
And applying what could best be called a quid pro quo best described as "Look, you got financial help from the Good Taxpayers to avert serious socioeconomic collapse; now, we expect you to do your part and make loans available to small business all the more."
And we know the GOP's scripted response: Insisting that only "complete, final and binding" tax cuts and regulatory relief (the latter expected to encompass arbitrarily "safe-harboured" Industry-Based Self-Regulatory Codes of Good Practice unwittingly excusing cartel behaviour) will create REAL jobs (unskilled, labour-intensive positions, with incentives to actually discourage investment in new equipment and plant "just to protect jobs") as pay REAL money (gold-backed, following discreet "currency reforms" expected to "promote personal responsibility" by forcing thrift all the more among the Workers through "savings plans" paying, @ best, less than 1% p.a.)--yeah, right.
2009 SEEMS NOT TO HAVE BEEN THE BEST OF YEARS FOR ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER SILVIO BERLUSCONI, as if conflict-of-interest issues vis-a-vis Italy's public broadcaster RAI and his Mediaset cartel weren't distressing enough already to the Italian People and Nation:
First off, you had the Italian Court of Cassation ruling that Signore Berlusconi was not entitled to immunity, sovereign or otherwise, for Serious Crimes and Misdemeanors under Italy's Constitution, in effect restarting a Milan-based frauds trial in connexion with financial improprieties @ Mediaset.
Followed, soon afterward, by revelations in the Corriere della Sera (which, thankfully, is not a Mediaset property) suggesting that the Prime Minister had certain Dangerous Liasons with younger women while still happily(?) married, forcing his longtime wife to take steps towards outright divorce for Adultery.
And more recently by a wave of anti-Berlusconi marches across Italy with especial emphasis on the infidelity charges; additionally, one protester suggested that La Cosa Nostra was somehow in it with Signore Berlusconi all the while, thereby raising serious questions of his credibility as Italian head of state.
Just yesterday may have come the coup d'grace, as it were: A protester whom police described as "mentally unstable" ouside a political rally in Milan whence Signore Berlusconi spake moments before threw a ratty-looking souvenir sculpture of the Milan Cathedral @ the Prime Minister's face, sending him to hospital for observation.
As I write this, Signore Berlusconi remains in hospital, where medical staff suggest that he has difficulty eating as a byproduct of the attack; he's expected to remain in hospital for a while yet.
NO DOUBT THE AYN RAND CROWD IS CERTAIN TO BE ALL OVER THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF ECONOMIST PAUL SAMUELSON @ THE WEEKEND following a short illness; he was 94 years of age.
Winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize for Economics, and whose 1949 text Economics is still widely used in universities (with the requisite revisions every few years or so), the one thing as would have the Ayn Rand types (and their Fox Prolefeed II epistles) drooling in their Luscious Glory of Atrocity Propaganda For G-d, Country and Family (if and when asked to Please Explain Themselves) is their using recently-recorded comments from the BBC where Mr. Samuelson is quoted as saying that our "morally superior" United States has largely lost its traditional role of socioeconomic dominance, with China and India now expected to dommo the world's socioeconomic picture within measurable distance.
And America being seen as taking a minor role, anathema to such specimens of misguided Zealotry and True Belief forever seeing America as The Once and Future Lord and Master of the World, the Universe and the 28 Known Galaxies, with an Unswerving and Unyielding Defence of Capitalism Essential to the Defence of this Role--especially so that rooted in Self-Regulatory Codes of Good Practice as unwittingly excuses Cartel Behaviour ... and excusing it as being For G-d, Country and Family.
"Say nothing but good about the dead," as the proverb hath it. But when will Fox Prolefeed II in particular learn?
FROM THE FILE KNOWN AS "TO EVERY RULE, THERE IS AN EXCEPTION:" Chilean Presidential election results (@ least in the first round, as just concluded yesterday) hath it that the center-right candidate Sebastian Pinera, himself a prominent Chilean business tycoon, has won a not-so-clear (44%, to be exact) plurality in same.
Which, as it turns out, is forcing a second round ballot sometime early next year against Pinera's closest runner-up, former President Eduardo Frei; Frei's left-of-center agenda seeks to continue that of outgoing Socialist President Michele Bachelet--I say "outgoing" because the Chilean Constitution prevents Ms. Bachelet from seeking another four-year term right away.
In contrast, Pinera's business-driven agenda (itself expected to be based on his business experience and acumen, including a commercial TV station and part of its leading soccer club), calling largely for tax cuts and regulatory relief, expects Chileans to see "guaranteed" annual growth of 6% per annum during the four years of his tenure, which (if successful) would make it the first time since 1958 that Chileans have voted in a conservative-leaning President by peaceful means (in contrast to the use of military coup d'etat as Gen. Augusto Pinochet used in 1973 to topple the Marxist such of Salvador Allende-Gossens).
Here again, expect Fox Prolefeed to be slavishly drooling over Sebastian Pinera in what passes for international coverage thereon, and thereby expect Right-Thinking Real Americans to study and emulate Senor Pinera as one with Reclaiming America From Herself By Free-Market Principles.
NEED WE REMIND OURSELVES THAT WITH ZEALOTRY AND TRUE BELIEF (ITSELF ROOTED IN GROSS IGNORANCE) HOLDING HIGH CARNIVAL @ THE GOP OF LATE, we as "REAL Americans," as opposed to the imitation Fox Prolefeed and suchlike prefer trotting out on occasion, should realise that our abject enslavement to the GOP's agenda through fraud and trick on their part should serve as reminder that we need to recognise the power and majesty of the ballot paper as much as education and knowledge as essential and important to Democracy's defence.
Especially considering where the GOP and their "tea party" drookies are stopping @ nothing to reclaim that which they lost in the last two Congressional elections--and "by whatever means necessary," even if it means lies, distortions of truth, perverted invocation of patriotic icons and historic personages, manipulated propaganda (especially such intended as prolefeed) and emotionally-driven distractionaries such as Sarah Palin in particular personifies.
Not to mention the adoption of Communist/Fascist/Nazi/Christian Nationalist propaganda tactics and methodology in their support, as well as super-secretive internal admiration for the repressive tactics of late in the so-called "Islamic Republic of Iran" vis-a-vis reputedly staged "news footage" screened on state television over the weekend of "student protesters" supposedly "desecrating" the Holy and Sacred Portrait of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomieni (in essence, per Iranian thought, "desecrating [Khomieni's] name and memory") during recent rioting (and for which the "ringleaders" thereof are facing "trials" as may be perverting the principles of justice; in their defence, they claim the "footage" in question was staged and manipulate for propaganda ends).
In any case, the GOP needs to be reminded, especially so in the runup to Indecision 2010, that the ends don't always justify the means--especially such rooted in Glenn Beck's 9-12 Project mantra "WE Surround THEM" as has unwitting roots in the "encirclement," a/k/a "rural," strategy of Mao Zedong vis-a-vis the Communist revolution in the so-called "People's Republic of China." Said strategem was explained thus in a recent paper for the Combating Terrorism Centre of the U.S. Military Academy @ West Point vis-a-vis approaches to dealing with al-Qaeda and the Taleban:
Mao [Zedong] argued that the vanguard party needed to engage the masses, who in
China were predominantly “poor and blank” peasants. These peasants
provided the perfect launching pads for establishing pockets of
resistance in the periphery. Although Mao’s long-term goal was to
actually overthrow the urban centers of capitalist entrenchment, his
immediate objective was to encircle these centers with strategic
footholds and wage stealth, pinpoint strikes.
No wonder Glenn Beck's agenda for "reclaiming America from herself" has Communist antecedants and precedent, even when he whimpers "Communism!" under Mentholatum's influence on Fox Prolefeed night after night.
TO THE POTENTIAL CHAGRIN AND ANNOYANCE OF CERTAIN MISGUIDED "CULTURAL CONSERVATIVES" AND THOSE WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER, Walt Disney Pictures has written a new chapter in its history by welcoming to their Disney Princesses stable one of colour.
As in the just-released The Princess and The Frog, which has antebellum New Orleans as its setting in a new twist on the frog prince story ... which, come to think of it, is quite a leap for Disney, considering that their 1947 release The Song of the South was released @ a time when Jim Crow held high carnival across the South and South Africa was but months away from implementing apartheid in its Luscious Glory (or so they hoped, the eventual end result being, to the Afrikaner mindset, the Final Perfection of Civitas Dei on Earth), hence explaining what we would now consider offensive depictions of blacks that have prevented Disney from making Song of the South available on home video stateside.
No wonder cultural conservatives, in their deluded Luscious Glory of American Exceptionalism ("flag first, morals later," as Mein Innkeeper Friend explains it), must enjoy living (@ least in their minds) in apartheid South Africa, or see it as a model for what they really want America to be in the name of "reclaiming America from herself" in her Luscious Glory xenophobic.
DURING THE ZENITH OF THE "EVIL EMPIRE" OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE SOVIET UNION AND ITS WARSAW PACT/COMECON SATELLITES, it was not uncommon in the official propaganda of the Soviet regime to refer to "fraternal assistance from Our Sister Soviet Republics" with regards to socioeconomic and developmental aid that, in some extreme cases, involved the use of "guest workers" (more than likely "troublemakers" in their home countries) being "farmed out" to "our Fraternal Brothers" to settle balance-of-trade accounts, with most of the wages due going back to their home countries.
Can we expect Cuba and Venezuela, in the wake of newly-signed bilateral trade agreements (including agreements on offshore oil and gas exploration by the Venezuelan oil company off Cuba), playing the old "fraternal sister republics" patsy in their propaganda within measurable distance, and to such an extent that would have GOP Zealots and True Believers calling for super-secretive "wag the dog" ur-RAHOWA against Havana and Caracas as could also be seen as "preemptive" action to remove President Obama from office by back-door means requiring all manner of "dog whistle" measures to avoid attracting suspicions?
(Recall, readers, where Pat "700 Club" Robertson was calling for the CIA to take "preemptive measures" against Venezuelan majordomo Hugo Chavez a few years back, only to be called to task when he attempted to deny or disclaim the remarks in question.)
As if that weren't enough, Cuban goon squads with secret police connexions disrupted attempts to hold International Human Rights Day marches in Havana, excused all along as being one with its presumed Fidel-vintage "sovereign right to self-determination on its own terms and conditions."
THOSE NORTH KOREANS WILL STOP @ NOTHING TO AVOID AROUSING SUSPICIONS of their being a Notorious Exporter of Weapons of Mayhem, all the while forcing their peoples into starvation and ignorance placated by hagiographically glowing platitudes regarding "Eternal Leader" Kim Il Sung and "Great Leader" Kim Jong Il."
(Soon to include Kim Jong Un as "Dear Guide" in the official propaganda.)
Case in point: Airport security police and Thai customs officials @ Bangkok's Don Muang Airport intercepting a North Korean-registered cargo plane as was supposedly refuelling there in transit to Shri Lankha, finding a substantial cache of grenades, rocket launchers and missile components, all intercepted and seized ... as well as the crew, including North Koreans and a Kazakh, being detained for Weapons Smuggling.
AND TALK ABOUT WARPED PRIORITIES IN THE CONSERVATIVE ZEALOT AND TRUE BELIEVER MINDSET: I hath it on Twitter that someone was overheard on Fox Prolefeed suggesting that jobs creation is more important to the Nation than reduction of the budget deficit--and, for that matter, the National Debt.
Which, once again, suggests just what conservatives and their drookies in the so-called "tea party" movement REALLY want to steer America to: Nothing less than ex-lax and chaos as erupts in disorder and violence, the coverage of which on Fox Prolefeed will be little more than farce as the newsreaders (or what passes for them) laugh hysterically all the while as our cities are reduced to smoke and ash--let alone the prospect of atrocity paranoia about "New World Order" troops being called in to, if not restore order, "usurp Our Traditional Sovereignty and Sovereign Identity," thereby "hastening the Final Implenentation of One-World Rule by the New World Order."
Preferably to be reinforced by screenings of the last-ditch Nazi-era film epic Kolberg in the interest(?!) of "motivating all Real Americans into one last-ditch drive to Save Our Holy and Beloved Nation," never mind the propaganda tending to misguided hysteria and hysterics.
In any event, Your Correspondent would like to remind all of you that the online shopping being offered here @ The Exaggerator is online shopping with a conscience ... as in contributing part of any proceeds significant and measurable generated from said shopping thus towards Reduction of the National Debt. And with the holiday season being quite the online-shopping such, the idea of helping reduce the National Debt with online shopping may seem far-fetched to some of you.
Unless, of course, one of you out there on the Information Stuporbahn can Show Good Cause why the National Debt, and its Reduction, should be of No Worthwhile Interest to Real Americans, setting aside your likely bromides about "political reasons" justifying its perpetuation, let alone calls for its "refinancing" through "gold-backed" debt issues unlikely to be backed by all the gold now in storage @ Ft. Knox (and, to a lesser extent, @ West Point, New York).
Especially with the price of gold potentially losing considerable value before too long, Glenn Beck's scaremongering notwithstanding.
FOLKS, YOU MAY WANT TO WATCH ESPECIALLY CLOSELY THIS PARTICULAR SCENE FROM THE 1957 FILM CLASSIC A FACE IN THE CROWD where Lonesome Rhodes (Andy Griffith), in bed and in his drunkenness, hath Delusions of Grandeur par excellence about how he imagines using his core audience of the poor, ignorant and easily-influenced to be ur-zombie shills for a right-wing, pseudo-populist Presidential candidate.
Which, as later scenes reveal, are but the seeds of Rhodes' destruction as the (presumed) voice of "Real Americans," vintage 1957.
And which, come to think of it, may be as insightful today vis-a-vis Fox Prolefeed host Glenn Beck, perhaps the closest the 21st century may have to a Lonesome Rhodes, and whence he obtains inspiration for his absurd conspiracies, aggravated all the more by brain damage brought about by past narcotic drug use, to use on both his radio and TV shows for "winning of hearts and minds" among the poor, ignorant, socioeconomically-dispossessed and too easily open to suggestion which, they won't realise right away (but will within measurable distance), are actually dangerous to Our Antient and Peculiar Sovereignty and Sovereign Identity.
Never mind what Glenn Beck whines about in his Mentholatum-induced crocodile tears every weeknight to his Good and Loyal Fans in the likes of Podunk Center, Doo Wah Diddy and the Park & Flush Trailer Park, all to be excused as one pro Deo et patria in case he's asked to explain in due course.
Even More Interesting to Note is just how hard-wired Glenn Beck is in pushing gold as a "safe harbour" investment which may not be so when you get right down to it, yet fails to disclose on-air (be it on radio or television) or online that he has interconnexions with Goldline to such nature and extent as may unduly influence tone and content, contrary to FTC and FTC Diktat of the sort Beck will just love to claim is "wasteful, unnecessary, anti-competitive and anti-free enterprise" in his Mentholatum-fuelled hypocrisy For G-d and Country:
MEANWHILE, MAY I BE FIRST TO CALL FOR ONE OF YOU READERS TO exercise the Common Courtesy of timely contacting the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)vis-a-vis Mr. Beck's conflicts of interests vis-a-vis his radio and television programmes and his connexions with Goldline as a sponsor and paid spokesperson, especially so in line with the new guidance on Testimonials and Endorsements (16 CFR 255, to be specific).
Likewise, a suggestion that the Better Business Bureau (BBB) do an Advertising Review of Goldline's advertising involving Mr. Beck, in line especially with provisions of Section 15 (Testimonials and Endorsements) in the Advertising Code as hath it that
In general, advertising which uses testimonials or endorsements is likely to mislead or confuse if:
[***]
*it contains representations or statements which would be misleading if otherwise used in advertising;
*while literally true, it creates deceptive implications;
[***]
*it is not clearly stated that the endorser, associated with some well-known and highly-regarded institution, is speaking only in a personal capacity, and not on behalf of such an institution, if such be the fact;
*broad claims are made as to endorsement or approval by indefinitely large or vague groups; e.g., "the homeowners of America" or "the doctors of America";
*an endorser has a pecuniary interest in the company whose product or service is endorsed and this is not made known in the advertisement.
And let it be preferably within measurable distance, taking due regard of the fact that Beck is allowed to do "live read" advertisements for Goldline on both radio and television per his contract ... not to mention his use of "insincere offers to sell" (proscribed under Basic Principle 2, inter alii, of the aforementioned BBB Advertising Code) to induce unwarranted fear in less-sophisticated and easily-influenced audiences to the extent of clear and present socioeconomic disruption and dislocation likely ensuing by scaring as many as possible into converting what little savings they have into gold, playing down or otherwise ignoring the possibility that all investments carry significant and measurable risks for loss of principal, and that one should seek competent and impartial advice beforehand.
So what stands in the way of some David (a "Real American") casting the proverbial first stone against Goliath (Glenn Beck) in this instance?
IT'S WELL-ESTABLISHED THAT THE MAIN RAISON D'ETRE BEHIND THE IRAQI PHASE OF THE UR-RAHOWA AGAINST INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM was to maintain unhealthy dependency upon imported fuels from the Middle East especially as one with American National Sovereignty and Sovereign Identity--especially considering where the high sulfur content of Middle Eastern-origin crude makes such easier and cheaper to refine into gasoline and diesel fuel than benchmark West Texas intermediate crude.
And notwithstanding the "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" platitude among "astroturf" elements disguising themselves as "patriots" all the while, it should be remembered that virtually all the major crude oil fields in the Lower 48 of the "morally superior" United States (concentrated, by and large, in Texas, Oklahoma, southern Kansas, east-central New Mexico and southern into central California, as well as minor fields in Ohio, Pennsylvania and extreme western New York best suited for motor oil and lubricants) have reached their production zenith and are already in decline, with older wells already being taken out of production ... let alone newer fields such as the Bakken Formation in northwestern North Dakota into northeastern Montana and the Powder River fields in Montana and Wyoming just coming into viable production.
Which, in any event, I bring up as sidelight into news that the Iraqi Oil Ministry has managed to sell exploration and extraction rights to a consilium of the Russian-based Lukoil and Norwegian-based Statoil in an untapped oil field in western Iraq estimated to contain some 5 billion bbl. of crude in the current round of auctions for exploration rights as also included rights in such fields located in notoriously unstable areas politically (and, regretfully for the Oil Ministry, didn't attract any serious risk-taking bidders).
WITH EVIDENCE HAVING EMERGED THAT A LONDON CAB DRIVER MAY HAVE BEEN RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT INFAMOUS CLAIM of supposed Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction per the Ba'athist regime of Saddam Hussin as justified the aforementioned Iraqi phase of ur-RAHOWA (let alone such having been discredited), it's now emerging all the more that then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair may have been duped by His Fraudulency, in the name of the Special Relationship, into going into ur-RAHOWA for what has now been proven a farce.
And duped through trick or deceit, methinks.
"So where's the outrage?!"
WITH PLENTY OF OTHER WORTHWHILE NEWS STORIES TO DEAL IN ACROSS THIS WORLD SO WIDE rather than the manufactured boilerplate expected to be used as pacifying boilerplate (see l'affaire Tiger Woods, for one), The Exaggerator prefers to be of the thinking sort, something of a shining beacon in the face of what amounts to State-sanctioned Ignorance and Superstition packaged as prolefeed now holding high carnival.
Its guiding influence, know, has been the quasi-National Hymn of Disneyland and Walt Disney World, "It's A Small World, After All," in case any of you start asking questions. Your Correspondent prefers it that way, as there are doubtless More Important Things to Deal With Than What The Mainstream Media (Fox Prolefeed more notoriously than no) Expects Us to Play Along With.
In any event, Your Correspondent would like to use this opportunity to wish all its Jewish readers of this blog
(Which, remember, began @ sunset last evening, and continues until tonight week.)
In any event, Your Correspondent spent last evening on a bus trip with the Housing to see, along with Other Interested Residents of Shaffner and Valley View Towers here in Winona, the Rotary Lights in LaCrosse--and they just keep getting brighter and brighter every year, with an estimated 2.75 million bulbs this season (200,000 of them LED bulbs) festooning Riverside Park from 17h-22h every night until New Year's Eve (ending @ 20h on Christmas Eve and 00h30 New Year's Eve, coincident with the annual Skyrockers pyrotechnic display off Granddad Bluff marking the New Year's entrance).
(And though not required, Rotary Lights would appreciate a donation of non-perishable groceries among visitors, as is donated to several different area food pantries rotating every evening. As well as cash donations to Rotary Lights proper, to help with the costs of the display and purchase new bulbs.)
Preceding all was dinner @ the North Country Steak Buffet, a hybrid of steak house and buffet offering "all-you-can-eat" steak (or sirloin burgers ... or even grilled chicken breast, for that matter) as much as more typical buffet fare (including a separate taco/fajita bar, salad bar, soups and desserts) in a corny North Woods simulation that would be worth a visit if ever you're in the Coulee Region as made famous by Hamlin Garland's works (and, hence, worth trying in any event).
(Specifically, it's just to the north of Bridgeview Plaza off Hwys. 35/53 towards Onalaska, with easy access from Wisconsin Exit 3A off I-90; they welcome bus tour groups, and will serve tour organisers and drivers free with advance arrangements to [+1] 608-781-3464, or via letterposts to 2526 Rose St., LaCrosse, WI 54603-1614.)
(N.B. I am receiving no consideration of any sort from North Country Steak Buffet in exchange for sharing this information with especially tour bus operators and tour organisers who may come across this item, esp. if they're looking for "local colour," so to speak, in dining options, Duncan Hines-stylee.)
THOSE AMONG YOU REGULAR (AND, PERHAPS, NEW) READERS TO THIS THINKING BLOG WHO ARE SICK AND TIRED OF ALL THOSE "MAKE MONEY WITH GOOGLE" SCAMS across the Information Stuporbahn over recent months (as if to exploit ongoing socioeconomic dislocation in and among especially the vulnerable and unemployable) would probably be amused(?!) by the sight of Google brand paper towels from Vietnam (as per the above photograph)--obviously unlicenced, and which the online powerhouse may be unaware of.
Which makes you wonder if it be stretching things to imagine all manner of consumer products bearing the Google logotype--but then again, Google would obviously draw the line on licencing vis-a-vis tasteless, suggestive or otherwise "disguisting stuff for adults" such as laxatives, contraceptives, hemorroid suppositories, moist toilet tissue, products for Those Difficult Days of the Month, liniments and cold remedies.
Not to mention products with Obvious Appeal to Children such as "junk foods" with limited nutritional value, toys or games lacking healthy educational value or benefit, fashion accessories tending to ostentation or anything generally garish.
And, for that matter, corny "shoobie trap" T-shirts and ephemera which has Google's logotype alongside the name of well-known "shoobie traps" popular with Those of a Certain Class (usually low, and too reliant on Fox Prolefeed for their own good).
MEANWHILE, FOR THOSE OF YOU STILL DELUDED INTO THINKING "GOOGLE HAS BLESSED ME WITH A BIG-BIG MONEY JOB" OR SUCHLIKE GLOWING GENERALITIES, may I remind you of where two oft-mentioned Google schemes allowing bloggers and webmasters to earn money off their online presence, as in Google AdSense and Google Connect Commerce, are free to join.
(Provided, of course, that your presence meets "quality standards" that, in some instances--especially if the site has controversial or otherwise questionable content, e.g., extreme political opinions tending to bigotry, racism and xenophobia or adult content--could trigger significant delays in approval. The same can be said of affiliate programmes in general, including those of LinkShare.com and AffiliateFuture.com, which Your Correspondent uses to try and add value to this weblog.)
And what's more, it's up to you, the webmaster, to make an effort to promote your web presence--provided such is legal, ethical and tasteful.
AS IF THAT WEREN'T ENOUGH, YOU CAN DO JUST AS WELL IN THE WEBSITE SUBMISSION DEPARTMENT, not having to pay money to bring your online presence to the attention of search engines and portals or suggesting that one can earn big-big money acting in Google's (presumed) name and behalf to submit one's web presence for indexing and inclusion.
There are a number of free no cost services as will submit your website to the major search engines within measurable distance--not just Google, but also AOL, Yahoo!, Lycos, Excite and some rather obscure ones like Jayde, FyberSearch and Claymont. Just do a Google of "free website submission" in case you need help; alternately, two I can recommend from experience as are worthwhile are FreeWebSubmission.com and Igwanna.
Or download a free and invaluable SEO facility called WebCEO which does the work for you (and, for the uninitiated, walks you through the several steps necessary)--especially on a regular schedule (preferably once every 30 days; anything more frequent, and you may be subject to deletion for "spamming").
So much for expecting a quick way out from State welfare and into wealth by way of Google; in fact, Google has filed numerous lawsuits against various "make money online" schemes invoking Google's name and repute charging Trademark Infringement, Unfair Competition and Dilution of Properties, among them:
Google ATM
Google Money Tree
Google Treasure Chest
Google Biz Kit
Google Home Biz
Google Cash
Google Success Kit
Google Money Profits
Fast Blog Income Through Google
Just because Google's name and logotype are used or invoked doesn't necessarily guarantee that Google in some way sanctions, endorses or approves of it; more often than not, many such schemes are illegal "negative option marketing" plans manipulated to essentially enslave the unwary and unsophisto into recurring monthly charges against one's credit card or bank account.
That, and offering what amounts to flawed or otherwise infected CD's having the same information readily available for much less--in some instances, available free of cost through your local library. So why pay (and pay dearly) in the end?
Please share this with your online friends, especially such wanting to make their mark online.
Oh, and One Thing More: A little later on today, I'll be joining a tour bus group watching the Rotary Lights display in LaCrosse this evening; the fresh-fallen snow should make the whole a little more interesting in atmospherics.
IN CONTRAST TO THE UNUSUAL EARLINESS OF YESTERDAY'S POSTING TO THIS THINKING BLOG, TODAY'S SUCH COMES A LITTLE LATER THAN USUAL, READERS: After yesterday morning's forced absence from the motel I do for owing to the blizzard prevailing in these parts, Your Correspondent made his return this morning keeping the watch and answering the phone, notwithstanding rather strong wind chills prevailing.
Which would be followed later in the morning by a sojurn to the local biblio to request a particular volume through the old Interlibrary Loan (as may take some time, know), followed by some shopping @ the local co-operative for some toilet items (as in tea tree body wash, shaving gel and mouth rinse) and luncheon buffet @ Sammy's Pizza (started up a little earlier than advertised in deference to the chilly conditions outside).
Hence, the tardiness of posting this item.
SPEAKING OF NONE OTHER THAN WISCONSIN DELLS, Your Correspondent has this fondness every summer's vacation there for buying as souvenir thereof a couple of T-shirts with "Wisconsin Dells" prominently displayed to attract notice to the Waterpark Capital among all who notice said shirts. For the last few seasons, tie-dye was more in my line; however, with such now falling out of favour, solid colours are "in," this year now waning seeing black as the "in" such.
As was the case this summer, with the hot trend being, thanks to Barack Obama's assuming the Presidency, a return to late-'60's/early '70's-type imagery of peace signs, daffodils and that sort of thing.
Which was not lost on the clerk @ the co-op downtown when I made my purchases; taking note of the winter storm yesterday into early this morning, he thought I made an excellent choice in shirts, adding that same "brought some colour into an otherwise drab day", bright, glare-inducing sunshine notwithstanding. (I say "glare-inducing" because fresh-fallen snow, under certain conditions, can be rather brilliant to the point of requiring sunglasses. Myself a little more so owing to my now being on the old hydrochlorothiazide [HCT] to deal with nascent high-blood pressure by diuretic means.)
As a matter of fact, any T-shirt I've worn in which Wisconsin Dells' name is given prominence has been guaranteed to attract positive attention from those willing to take the time to notice. Think of it, if thou wilt, as a sort of "walking billboard" for The Once and Future Waterpark Capital of the World, the Universe and the 28 Known Galaxies, with Noah's Ark and Riverview Park and Waterworld being the two faves of mine (although the latter is best considered for the moment as being "endangered"; hints have been dropped that same may not reopen for the 2010 season, or may reopen on a limited scale, in view of the current socioeconomic situation constraining access to finance).
Whether such actually gives credit to the local tourism-promotion agencies, current squabbles notwithstanding, is anybody's guess ... but then again, I could just imagine as a promotional gimmick someone sending over a Wisconsin Dells T-shirt for the statue of the Peeing Boy of Brussels, a/k/a Manneken-Pis; the better to attract intending American visitors from the European Union's headquarters city.
Or, for that matter, a T-shirt or sweater for the Eleanor Rigby statue in Liverpool, England (noting the obvious Beatles interconnexion there), with much the same purpose in mind.
And could you just imagine Wisconsin Dells emulating Wall Drug (which, BTW, is 667 miles/1,074 km from the Dells) in advertising on one of London's double-decker buses, especially such serving the major tourist haunts such as Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Mme. Tussaud's, the Houses of Parliament, Harrod's and the Oxford Street shopping district (which, you may want to know, has the flagship stores of such prestigous British retailers as Debenham's, Selfridge's, John Lewis, Marks and Sparks, British Home Stores, Virgin Megastore, Clifton Cards, Ryman the Stationers and HMV)?
STILL, THOUGH, SOME ADVICE FOR THE VISITOR AND CONVENTION BUREAU DOWN WISCONSIN DELLS WAY VIS-A-VIS ANY LOCALS travelling to the likes of Orlando, Myrtle Beach, Hollywood, Las Vegas or other winter resorts: May I be first to suggest that such heading to warm-weather spots over the winter months (the upcoming holiday season included) wear T-shirts proclaiming "Wisconsin Dells" as much as possible in the major tourist areas, not to mention pass out copies of tourist literature in the process to the interested.
In effect, making them cut-price ambassadors of the Waterpark Capital among the local populace willing to take the winter months in warmer climates. (Provided, however, that certain seedy or notorious districts are avoided as would give them unwelcome free publicity under the right set of circumstances--especially where brothels, gaming establishments, seedy-looking bars, adult-oriented businesses and other Places of Vice are concentrated.)
In closing, I thought it amusing to share this Red Bull advert (gimme-cap tip to Makes You Laugh--Cry Without It) whose premise escapes me, but probably might relate to the "donts and be carefuls" in having locals promoting Wisconsin Dells in the winter resort spots just discusses (especially a 12-year-old boy needing to go to an obviously Adults Only Establishment to satisfy his own curiosity):
, the only known Castrato to have his voice recorded for posterity (but then again, remember that the recording technology used in 1908-09 was rather crude and primitive by modern standards) ... and for those unaware of what 
, without question the single worst operatic diva ever to (dis)grace the stage, giving Fox Prolefeed its just desserts as vocal mashup. (Especially so when you consider that a New York City record shop, as shall remain nameless, has this repute for playing Miss Jenkins 15 minutes before closing time every evening as a warning of sorts for shoppers still inside the premi to clear out.)
