AS ONE WHO SUBSCRIBES TO THE BELIEF IN THAT UNOFFICIAL NATIONAL HYMN of Disneyland and Walt Disney World that "it's a small world, after all," Your Correspondent feels it his duty to use this weblog to call attention to the interesting side of the world-at-large.

Even if, sometimes, it means the "WaiWai" column of the Mainichi Daily News, the English-language edition of the Mainichi Shimbun, one of Japan's top-selling daily gazettas (top-seller, it turns out, is also the world leader in this respect, the Yomiuri Shimbun) as features some rather bizarrely interesting articles from some of Japan's trashier and more disreputable magazines.

(Correct me if I'm wrong in noting where the Japanese magazine Sunday Mainichi, articles from which oft turn up in "WaiWai," has no business or other connexion to Mainichi Shimbun.)

Anyway, Your Correspondent was reminded of the trend among American megachurches (many of them with connexions to the Martext model of evangel) to include outright shopping malls in spotting the following "WaiWai" item as makes note of the concept not being an exclusive American monopoly:

Growing numbers of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines have recently begun pursuing eccentric side businesses like beauty salons and restaurants to make it through tough times, according to Nikkan Gendai (1/11).

While it has been common in the past for the religions to run businesses with socially redeeming characteristics--kindergartens and schools are common choices--now the clergy is hitting on more profitable enterprises aimed to tap into the elderly and women markets, the lowbrow weekly says.

Bald bonzes are now plugging Buddhist-style beauty in Kyoto, while a Shinto shrine in Saitama Prefecture is making a killing operating a hot spring resort where everybody strips off and bathes together.

Buddhist and Shinto priests are no longer simply sitting around in the lotus position and pondering their navels. Instead, more and more of the clergy are getting out into world of business and hustling up some valuable cash they hope will secure their futures.

"It's become harder to find sponsors, for such reasons as people drifting away from religion or simply getting older, which in turn has cut into revenues from pilgrimages. Apart from the famous temples in tourist areas where money flows in easily, most temples and shrines across Japan can barely keep afloat," Keio University Prof. Takanobu Nakajima, also the author of "O-tera no Keizaigaku (Economics for Buddhist Temples)," tells Nikkan Gendai.

"Many of the people heading temples or shrines nowadays have inherited them from their parents and have developed a real sense of crisis about the future of the family business. These people are at the forefront of the move to make religion more profitable and have come up with some unique business plans that may help keep them afloat. They're into things like providing spiritual care for the elderly worried about the afterlife or sutra readings and Zen mediation workshops for women who've never done these kinds of things before, all of which are proving fairly popular."

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YOUR CORRESPONDENT PROBABLY HAS SOME SORT OF IDEA ABOUT WHAT WHITE SUPREMACISTS HAVE IN MIND about the "cultural heritage" they so overzealously claim to be defending in their propaganda:

For starters, a male-chauvinistic cultural model which excuses misogyny, wife-beating, rape and the occasional rounds with ladies of the night being "healthy."

Not to mention looking for ways to justify incest as one with "safe sexual introduction."

As well as the usual exercises in male bonding and machismo expected to reinforce traditional ideals of masculinity and "male honour" as will tend to involve smoke-filled beer parlours or backyards with coolers full of beer cans--and, regardless of the milieu, will include plenty of obscenity-laden jokes and stories involving sex, bodily organs and functions (mostly scatological) and National Minorities of the sort not seen since Capt. Billy's Whiz-Bang, when racist and ethnic jokes were seen as a normal and natural part of its monthly "Explosion of Pedigreed Bunk."

(Not to mention a few in the travelling-salesman-and-farmer's-daughter vein, as well as some playing on the presumed looser morals traditional to rural areas, almost all of them sexually-oriented.)

Plus the inevitable boasting about weird sexual exploits as would make Glenn Quagmire (per Family Guy) look like an amateur and drink-fuelled designs on mayhem and violence against National Minorities which, considering the secretive nature of these ur-smokers in the name of "masculinity made manifest," are unlikely to reach the attention of the police. Something about male honour, I believe.

And yet white supremacists call the preceding "cultural heritage" that they seek to "defend and uphold"! Have they no shame?

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NO WONDER THE PSEUDORELIGIOPOLITICAL RIGHT'S ARTICLES OF FAITH HOLD HOMOPHOBIA all the more dear and important, what with their still holding the discredited notion that homosexuals are Freaks and Travesties of the Natural Order and Threats to Morals, Decency and Common Sense.

Witness where the so-called "Traditional Values" wing--so long as they're not doing the Lindbergh Terminal Tap Dance--is calling upon "right-thinking White Christian families" across California to pull their children from public schools and, instead, homeschool them (preferably based on the apartheid South African syllabus of Nasionale Christen Opverdoing, what with its placing an all-too-unhealthy emphasis upon Morals, Values and True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command over core skills necessary for success in later life) or otherwise place them in "Christian Academies" where homosexuality is still seen as a Perversion and Travesty of the Natural Order.

Jews are seen as a Clear and Present Danger to Christendom by their "overzealous and unscrupulous control" of banks, business and finance, the media, etc., etc., to "weaken and undermine Christendom," reinforced by the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion as Required Reading, notwithstanding its having been repeatedly shown to be forgery.

Asians are seen as the Yellow Peril.

And the likes of blacks, Hispanics, Arabs and Native Americans are to be regarded as "inferior peoples***lacking any respect for morals and decency" expected to prevail among the "Aryan Master Race."

In short, a warped and outdated Weltanschauung regarding the ilk of Hitler, Mussolini, Hendrik Verword and Ian Smith as "great heroes" because of their "respect for the purity and sanctity of the Master Race" as a Holy of Holies.

And the likes of such Supreme Court cases as Mendez v. Westminster School District (1947), Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), Engel v. Vitale (1963), Loving v. Virginia (1967) and Roe v. Wade (1973) as "conspiring to undermine our traditional and Divinely-Ordained Precedence among the Nations," not to mention "our antient and pecuilar soverignty and soverign identity."

Which, it turns out, may conceal a rather sinister "dark side" involving mandatory "paramilitary training" with live rounds ... Fight Club-stylee "discipline" and threats thereof (with wagers among teachers and administrators on the outcome thereof) ... even swimming instruction in puris naturalibis which is actually a front for aquaphile kinderporn, the whole expected to be kept hush-hush "for reasons you will understand." Not to mention taking considerable pains to avoid attracting "unwelcome attention as could lead to scandal."

All this to perpetuate in the minds of children the discredited belief that homosexuality is a Perversion and Travesty of Nature ... and as but the small part of a larger whole as turns out excusing racism and White Supremacy as being pro Deo, patria et familia!

En 'n Ander Ding:

How many children as have been taught about homosexuality in a positive and factual manner actually wound up "suffering serious moral lapses" as opposed to those taught that homosexuality is a Perversion and Travesty of Nature? 

THE GREATER CONSPIRACIST COMMUNITY CAN'T WAIT FOR WHAT THEY SEE AS "THE PROPER SIGNS" to start unleashing their latest sensationalised conspiracies about yesterday's Unfortunate Events @ Northern Illinois University in DeKalb (Exits 92-94, inclusive, on the Reagan Tollway, a/k/a I-88, in case you need some reference) as saw eight dead (including the gunman, who chose Death Before Dishonour--or so the "happiness is a WARM gun!!" crowd would love to see his case packaged for the sake of martyrdom) and 65 injured and wounded.

Now it's emerged that the gunman was off his medication for some reason or another for some days previous, thereby aggravating the impact of the tragedy.

In any case, The Exaggerator sends its condolences to the greater NIU community, especially the families and close friends of those afflicted by these tragic events. And would like to ask especially the so-called "Westboro Baptist Church" to please, for the sake of the afflicted, avoid exploiting this fresh specimen of collegiate tragedy for your own warped purposes of "Christian Patriot Love."

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SO MUCH FOR WELFARE CASES BEING SEEN AS "RECKLESS SOCIAL PARASITES," AND THEN SOME: Australian police authorities are reporting an upsurge of gas drive-off thefts in recent weeks among working poor families caught up in the ever-increasing squeeze between high gas prices and a need to put bread on the table.

Have you considered using public transportation for once?

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CHINESE AUTHORITIES, IN THEIR DESIRE TO PRESENT A GLOWING IMAGE OF THEMSELVES for the Beijing Summer Olympic Games, have announced that 144 gas stations in the Beijing metropolitan connurbation are to be closed forthwith, with the remaining such having their bowsers refitted with new fuel nozzles to reduce the release of emissions caused while fuelling.

Several fuel depots will likewise be closed, as are a number of industries deemed to be heavy air polluters.

Who are they kidding, the International Olympic Committee?

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GOP PRESIDENTIAL WANNABE MIKE HUCKABEE SEEMS TO BE USING "WALLY WORLD REPUBLICANS" AS NOTHING BUT A CHEAP PATSY when it's emerged that he's had to suspend campaign appearences for this weekend ahead of forthcoming primaries in Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin because of "prior commitments."

Said "prior commitments" being a speaking engagement in the Cayman Islands, a rather notorious offshore banking, insurance and financial centre popular among what Huckabee called "Wall Street Republicans" for the sake of his religio-populist message--and certain elements weird and unwholesome calling themselves "patriots."

Which is enough to start sounding alarms in Certain Influential Circles as to where Mike Huckabee's allegiances really lie--with the "Wall Street Republicans" he openly loathes or the "Wally World Republicans" he covets (and desperately--especially considering their being poor, undereducated or homeschooled and easily-influenced, a plum target for the Pseudoreligiopolitical Right as is pulling the Huckabee campaign's strings by and large).

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THINGS WHICH SHOULDN'T HAPPEN WITHIN THE SACRED CONFINES OF A CHURCH, according to the following press release from the Anti-Defamation League:

ADL Calls On Polish Catholic Church To Denounce Anti-Semitic Meeting In Krakow

New York, NY, February 13, 2008 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today called on the Polish Catholic Church to denounce "in the strongest terms" an anti-Semitic meeting reportedly held in a Krakow church and to take steps to ensure that churches will be made "off-limits to hate."

About 1,000 people reportedly attended the February 9 meeting at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which was convened by Radio Maryja and the Committee Against Defamation of the Church and For Polishness.  The meeting, widely reported by the Polish press, allegedly was publicized with posters that declared, "The Kikes will not continue to spit on us!" and featured virulently anti-Semitic speeches.

"We were deeply disturbed by reports that an anti-Semitic meeting was held in a Krakow church," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, a Holocaust survivor who was born in Poland.  "Such sentiments are a troubling reminder that anti-Semitism is alive and well in Poland, and that the memory and lessons of the Holocaust, while still fresh for survivors of the war, is fading for ordinary Poles."

At the Krakow meeting, virulent anti-Semitism reportedly was the order of the day.  A man identified in news reports as Professor Bogoslav Wolniewicz reportedly told the gathering: "The Jews are attacking us! We need to defend ourselves!"  Radio Maryja, one of the meeting's organizers, is a right-wing Polish Catholic station that has a history of anti-Semitic broadcasts.

In a letter to Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, Archbishop of Krakow, ADL called on the local archdiocese and the Polish Bishops conference to speak out.  "One of the great lessons the world learned from Pope John Paul II is that ignorance and bias are never remedied unless all of us are willing to challenge them at every turn," wrote Mr. Foxman.  "We ask Your Eminence and the Polish Bishops Conference to publicly denounce these words and this group in the strongest terms, and to take steps to ensure such gatherings never again take place in the holy space of a church."

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The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.

And speaking of Radio Maryja: What exactly are the Polish broadcasting regulators doing (if anything) about same, especially considering their repute for broadcasting anti-Semitic language and programmes?

As well, such may want to be a warning to such among the Pseudoreligiopolitical Right as are perennially harping about "Christian Persecution!" (in the key of "Ring around the collar!") and "conspiracies ... to prevent the Church from playing its rightful role and place in politics," patsy of patsies right there....

AS IF THE AFGHANI THEATRE IN THE UR-RAHOWA AGAINST INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM WASN'T RATHER DIFFICULT and trying already, along comes word of another rather bizarre cause which Afghanis are protesting for in the streets.

Witness the following Agence France-Presse item via Google News (hat tip to The MMF Hall of Humiliation):

Around 3,000 mostly young Afghan men marched through Kabul Sunday to demand the government lift a temporary ban on an international money-making scheme.

The protesters marched to the gates of the palace of President Hamid Karzai, where they read out a resolution demanding the government lift a temporary order on the Afghan version of the Internet-based QuestNet pyramid scheme.

The scheme, in which people encourage others to buy a product over the Internet to become a member, started in Afghanistan two years ago with 600 members and now has about 21,000, head of the Afghan Quest Union, Najmudin Fayaz, told reporters.

"We are here to ask for our rights," Fayaz said. "We have been active here for two years and have been given a licence for our business."

Kabul issued the scheme a licence two years ago but withdrew it last week, saying it needed to draw up an operating law, leaders of the demonstration said.

"If you cannot provide us jobs, don't take our jobs," read one of the banners held up by the demonstrators, many of whom wore Western dress.

"Fight corruption, drugs, and warlords--not IT and information technology," said another, referring to the scheme's use of the Internet.

One of the participants, Karim Wasal, said it had rescued him from poverty and helped "make my dreams come true."

Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world after three decades of war.

There is high unemployment--although the government releases no figures--and the development of industry is held back by insecurity, including linked to an extremist insurgency, and the lack of basic infrastructure like electricity.

The QuestNet website (www.quest.net) says the scheme, also known as GoldQuest, was set up in 1998 and has a presence in 160 countries.

Critics say it is a scam in which few people make any money.

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AND TALK ABOUT YOUR "DIVERSIONARY" NEWS STORIES HAVING LITTLE OR NO REAL NEWS VALUE, yet which certain conservative elements enjoy pushing for no reasonable purpose save the distraction of Kankerdom from The Big Picture: Judging by the following item per Media Matters for America, it appears as if we may be seeing the makings of a cheap redux of that 2004 non-story about then-Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry's asking for green tea during a campaign appearence with the Little Old Lady from Dubuque:

On the February 11 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, senior political correspondent Candy Crowley said that the "affluent, well-educated white voters" who were part of Sen. Barack "Obama's voting bloc" were the "so-called latte liberals." Similarly, during Fox News' coverage of February 9 caucuses and primaries, U.S. News & World Report senior writer Michael Barone suggested that Obama would do well among "latte liberals." Moments later, co-host Alan Colmes challenged Barone's description: "Is there--are there latte conservatives? I'm just curious. Do they--conservatives may like that drink, too. It's a very lovely drink." Barone responded: "Well, I think it seems to be a pretty universal drink these days."

Crowley's use of the term "latte liberals" recalls her reported 2004 suggestion that green tea is unfamiliar to "most of America." According to a November 16, 2004, Palm Beach Post article, Crowley gave a speech in which she said that in January 2003, she and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) "met for breakfast at the Holiday Inn in Dubuque, Iowa. 'I'd like to start out with some green tea,' Kerry told the waitress, who stared at him for a moment before responding, 'We have Lipton's.' " The article reported that Crowley said: "There were many green tea instances ... There's a very large disconnect between the Washington politicians and most of America and how they live. Bush was able to bridge that gap, and Kerry was not." In fact, as Media Matters for America noted at the time, according to Lipton's product locator, green tea was available (and still is available in 2008) at the Dubuque, Iowa, Kmart.

Additionally, on the December 14, 2007, edition of The Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer cited a December 12, 2007, Associated Press article, in which the presidential candidates answered questions about their coffee preferences, part of the AP's "series of questions about [the candidates'] personal side," and announced, "[L]ook at this--Hillary Clinton is a flip-flopper. Sometimes she takes it black, sometimes with cream." Yet, Blitzer had offered no characterization of either Rudy Giuliani's or Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) coffee preferences, noting only "Giuliani prefers low-cal sweetener, any brand will do" and "McCain is fond of cappuccino, or coffee with cream and sugar."

During the October 19, 2006, edition of The Situation Room, Crowley asserted that Democrats have been "on the losing side of the values debate, the defense debate and, oh yes, the guns debate"; suggested that Democrats are out of touch with mainstream Americans because "[former Democratic presidential candidates] Al Gore and John Kerry lost every Southern state and most of the mid- and interior West"; and aired only negative opinions of the Democratic Party, such as an Asheville, North Carolina, resident who called the Democrats "losers."

Which begs the question of whether "real Americans" are expected to drink cheap, oily-tasting coffee (usually private-label store brands) as their beverage of choice. Straight, not "cut" with chicory, per the New Orleans stylee (as in Luzianne, CDM, Café du Monde and French Market; you can even buy roasted chicory to add to your own coffee supply, especially recommended for off-brand coffees known to have that G-d-awful bitter taste as may be the consequence of poor roasting and/or blending).

And speaking of coffee-and-chicory blend, you can buy it online if you can't quite find it @ your local supermarket or, for that matter, Wally World:

WITH THE STROKE OF HIS FRAUDULENCY'S PEN JUST YESTERDAY, Americans entitled to collect the special advance on 2008 tax refunds (otherwise known as tax rebates designed to protect socioeconomic cohesion and stability) will be given what amounts to a Government mandate to engage in wasteful, frivolous and unnecessary consumer spending orgies once the cheques arrive sometime before the Memorial Day long weekend.

In particular, the kind having no regard for the practical or utilitarian (especially so among the Lower Classes which His Fraudulency's Great Within expects to "benefit" from these advances on refunds all the more).

Might I suggest, for one, having said rebates put to practical use--as in a donation to reduce the National Debt, now $9 trillion and climbing (and being kept all the more so "for political reasons," but the Great Within doesn't want you to know this as fact, let alone Fox Noise).

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BECAUSE "IT'S A SMALL WORLD, AFTER ALL," HERE'S SOMETHING WE "MORALLY SUPERIOR" AMERICANS CAN IDENTIFY WITH:

The BBC's Urdu Service commissioned a public-opinion survey of 1,476 representative Pakistanis nearly a month ago, and found some rather interesting opinions among the Pakistanis as:

• 64% say the resignation of President Perez Musharaf would help improve the general stability of Pakistan;
• 49% think Musharaf's "election" in November was a sham and should be deemed null and void;
• 72% disapproved of President Musharaf's job performance in general;
• 44% believe that the upcoming Parliamentary elections will be free, fair and transparent; and
• 51% are optimistic that conditions could improve six months on.

Now, if the same general set of questions were asked of the Americans (with the necessary changes in questions), you could expect the GOP's propaganda machine to turn rather ballisto to the point of paranoid if the results turn out pretty much as in Pakistan's case.

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WHO AMONG THOSE IN POSITIONS OF CONFIDENCE AND TRUST ON THE RELIGIOPOLITICAL RIGHT will be the next to get caught in the Lindbergh Terminal Tap Dance?

Sen. Larry Craig (GOP/ID), perhaps its most infamous victim from last summer's entrapment arrest, was reprimanded by the Senate Ethics Committee for what it called "improper conduct which has reflected discreditably on the Senate."

As the Associated Press reportage on the reprimand adds:

The six members of the committee—three Democrats and three Republicans—told Craig they believed he "committed the offense to which you pled guilty" and that "you entered your plea knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently."

The panel said Craig only tried to remove his guilty plea after his attempts to avoid public disclosure had failed.

"Your claims to the court ... to the effect that your guilty plea resulted from improper pressure or coercion, or that you did not, as a legal matter, know what you were doing when you pled guilty do not appear credible," the letter said.

The panel also said Craig should have received permission from the ethics panel before using campaign funds to pay his legal bills. Craig, who is not running for re-election, has spent more than $213,000 in campaign money for legal expense and public relations work in the wake of his arrest and conviction last summer.

The committee said it had reached no conclusion about whether use of campaign funds was proper, but it said "it is clear that you never sought the committee's approval, as required," to use the money for legal expenses.

Any future use of campaign money for legal bills will be seen as "demonstrating your continuing disregard of ethics requirements," the ethics committee wrote in its three-page letter.

The panel also admonished Craig for showing the arresting officer a business card that identified him as a U.S. senator. Craig has been reported to have told the officer at the time, "What do you think about that?"

The committee wrote, "You knew or should have known that a reasonable person in the position of the arresting officer could view your action and statement as an improper attempt by you to use your position and status ... to receive special and favorable treatment."

Your Correspondent would certainly love to hear of where Rev. Fred "G-d Hates F***" Phelps or GOP Presidential wannabe Mike Huckabee, among other specimens of religiopolitical homophobia claiming openly to be acting in defence of "Traditional Moral and Family Values," gets caught in that Lindbergh Terminal Tap Dance.

And unwittingly, never mind their use of the same "wide stance" patsy Sen. Craig tried to use as a "get out of jail" card.

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IF YOU'RE NOT FAMILIAR WITH MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (MSP), as is @ the heart of this item, the Lindbergh Terminal is their facility for domestic and North American flights.

Its counterpart for international flights and charters is the Humphrey Terminal, about a mile to the southwest.

Both Lindbergh and Humphrey Terminals have free shuttle connexions on Metro Transit's light-rail line between downtown Minneapolis and the Mall of America via Ft. Snelling and the VA Medical Centre Minneapolis.

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IF YOU FIND IT RATHER DIFFICULT TO KEEP IN TOUCH WITH YOUR PARENTAL UNITS, imagine how Japanese Crown Prince Naruhito feels when he's been advised by the Imperial Household Agency to spend more time with his parents, Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko.

As the BBC explains:

Japan's crown prince has been told by the bureaucrat who runs the Imperial Household to visit his parents, the emperor and empress, more often.

The Grand Steward of the Imperial Household Agency, Shingo Haketa, used a news conference to reveal his unusually frank advice for the Crown Prince.

A year ago the emperor mentioned that he had not had many opportunities to meet his granddaughter, Princess Aiko.

Crown Prince Naruhito responded that he would try harder.

Mr Haketa's latest announcement was unusual, although perhaps not surprising.

He revealed that there was still a problem, and that he had taken the crown prince and his family to task for not visiting his parents often enough.

He said he had raised the issue with the crown prince on several occasions.

Now he has gone public with his criticism.

Whispers

So little information about the imperial family is released here that an announcement like this always causes a stir.

Japan's imperial household is portrayed in the gossip columns and society pages as a rigid, traditional institution.

The emperor and his family, it is whispered, are told what to do and when to do it by courtiers determined to preserve the majesty of the institution.

The crown prince's wife, Princess Masako is ill, and cannot carry out royal duties.

The illness is thought to have been caused by the strain of adapting to the strict rules imposed by her minders in the palace since she married into the imperial family.

Now there will be even more pressure on her and her husband. And when their next news conference comes around, you can be sure they will be asked just how often they take tea with the emperor.

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THE ARROGANT EGO TRIP OF WORLDNETDAILY, a conservative-leaning "news" portal notorious for its well-documented feast of distortion, "spin," misinformation and exaggeration, seems set to become unwound.

Witness the following statement of WorldNetDaily, as quoted by ConWebWatch, announcing out-of-court settlement of libel, defamation and malicious prosecution charges in a case they were claiming would decide the future of investigative journalism:

A lawsuit for libel, defamation, false light and conspiracy was filed by Clark Jones of Savannah, Tennessee against WorldNetDaily.com, Tony Hays and Charles H. Thompson II arising out of a press release issued by WorldNetDaily.com on September 18, 2000, and articles dated September 20, October 8, November 24 and December 5, 2000, written by Tony Hays and Charles H. Thompson, II, posted on WorldNetDaily.com's website.

The original news release by WorldNetDaily.com of September 18, 2000, and the article by Hays and Thompson of September 20, 2000, contained statements attributed to named sources, which statements cast Clark Jones in a light which, if untrue, defamed him by asserting that the named persons said that he had interfered with a criminal investigation, had been a "subject" of a criminal investigation, was listed on law enforcement computers as a "dope dealer," and implied that he had ties to others involved in alleged criminal activity. These statements were repeated in the subsequently written articles and funds solicitations posted on WorldNetDaily.com's website. Clark Jones emphatically denied the truth of these statements, denied any criminal activity and called upon the publisher and authors to retract them.

Discovery has revealed to WorldNetDaily.com that no witness verifies the truth of what the witnesses are reported by authors to have stated. Additionally, no document has been discovered that provides any verification that the statements written were true.

Factual discovery in the litigation and response from Freedom of Information Act requests to law enforcement agencies confirm Clark Jones' assertion that his name has never been on law enforcement computers, that he has not been the subject of any criminal investigation nor has he interfered with any investigation as stated in the articles. Discovery has also revealed that the sources named in the publications have stated under oath that statements attributed to them in the articles were either not made by them, were misquoted by the authors, were misconstrued, or the statements were taken out of context.

WorldNetDaily.com and its editors never intended any harm to Clark Jones and regret whatever harm occurred. WorldNetDaily.com has no verified information by which to question Mr. Jones' honesty and integrity, and having met him, has no claim or reason to question his honesty and integrity. WorldNetDaily.com wishes him well.

(The suit referenced was settled out of court for undisclosed and confidential terms.)

But then again, as ConWebWatch notes:

This is yet another black eye for WND's reporting. It retracted two articles in 2005 for making false claims and has a long history of shoddy journalism.

The funny thing is that at the end of the article, it links to the donation page to WND's legal defense fund, which states that "WND has never lost such a lawsuit." Time to update that, guys.

THE WAY HIGH GAS PRICES HAVE BEEN SEEN AS A CLEAR AND PRESENT THREAT TO MORALS, DECENCY AND COMMON SENSE in post-9/11 America--let alone the "antient and pecuilar soverignty and soverign identity" thereof--have led @ least one Congressman to suggest resorting to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to increase the supply of cheap gasoline, diesel fuel and propane within measurable distance.

That Congressman is Rep. Ron Kind (D/WI), who backs up the suggestion with evidence that the Federal Government conspired to take numerous refineries out of production (and pay their owners accordingly) following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to "stabilise prices" while increasing consignments of refined fuels for the Reserve.

Which may appear to be all the more crucial considering recent threats by Venezuelan majordomo Hugo Chavez to cut off all crude oil imports to the United States in case ExxonMobil files legal action vis-a-vis the amount and quality of compensation received from the Venezuelan State for the nationalisation of their oilfields.

Likely to be followed by a reprise of Pat "700 Club" Robertson's rather tactless suggestion to the CIA of killing off Chavez, and excusing such as necessary for G-d, Country and Cheap Gasoline.

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SO MUCH FOR EVANGELICAL (READ: FUNDAMENTALIST OR PRIMITIVE) CHRISTIANS BEING LIKELY TO SUPPORT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES all the more in Indecision 2008.

Think Progress had the following to say the other day as is worth note @ this time:

Throughout the primary campaign, Faith in Public Life has noted that exit polls have failed to ask Democratic voters if they are Evangelicals, while consistently asking the question of Republicans. On Feb. 5, the group took action into its own hands, commissioning exit polls in Tennessee and Missouri, which found that "one in three white evangelical voters in Missouri and Tennessee participated in Democratic primaries." The group's exit polls also found that "evangelical voters want a broader agenda that goes beyond abortion and same-sex marriage."

After all, Your Correspondent has long been of the opine that the Pseudoreligiopolitical Right has been paying unhealthy attention for way too long on what are essentially "junk food" issues like abortion, same-sex marriage and "indecency" in film and television. And not paying enough on "nutritious" issues that really matter, such as the economy's effects on the socioeconomically vulnerable, the harm posed by capitalism with American characteristics upon said vulnerable of society, the environment, and suchlike.

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COME TO THINK OF IT, "JUNK FOOD" ISSUES AND "NEWS" (AS IN PROLEFEED, FOR WANT OF A BETTER TERM) are a pet staple of the conservative propaganda machine, what with their obvious targeting of the poor, undereducated or homeschooled and easily-influenced of the community.

Especially when obscure or otherwise insignificant news stories are embellished to the point of bombastic exaggeration, consistent with the Josef Goebbels "big lie" philosophy:

If a small lie can be made big enough, and can be repeated frequently enough, within two weeks, the public will be expected to accept the lie as fact.

The Nazi regime's Minister of Propaganda and Enlightenment would no doubt be proud that his "big lie" ideal lives on in American conservative media. So would, methinks, Julius Streicher, publisher of the infamous anti-Semitic tabloid weekly Der Sturmer, whose editorial philosophy emphasised simple, easily-understood language and concepts which only served to heighten the extent of anti-Semitic depravity to the point where anti-Semitism was fully ingrained in the German national psyche--and served only to worsen the depravity of The Holocaust.

For which Herr Streicher was named among the several co-defendents in the Nuremburg War Crimes Trials in 1945-46 from the highest echelons of the Nazi regime charged with Crimes Against Humanity--and for which he was among such sentenced to death by hanging.

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YOUR CORRESPONDENT WOULD LIKE TO REMIND THE JOHN McCAIN PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, and its Zealots and True Believers, of his rather tactless remarks from last fall where Sen. McCain called the United States "a Christian Nation."

And to what extent he still supports same, or whether he now disclaims responsibility therefor.

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HIS FRAUDULENCY'S GREAT WITHIN MUST PROBABLY BE SEEING DOLLAR SIGNS GALORE IN THEIR EYES when they picture the opportunities galore in the Fiscal Year 2009 budget for the "complete and final" privatisation of such agencies, institutions and schemes deemed "non-essential" or otherwise "unlikely to continue generating taxpayer value" under current conditions.

Especially so Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, Amtrak and suchlike.

But before you have any delusions of grandeur about profiting from such massive corporatisations His Fraudulency must secretly have in mind (and yet is hesitant to openly acknowledge as much), you need to consider the possibility that such "privatisation" is more than likely to be rigged or manipulated to the point of such being on a par with the now-discredited concept of "spoils," whereby the ilk of corrupt or otherwise weird and unwholesome specimens of die Maschienpolitik reward close droogs for Good and Loyal Service by way of appointment to the likes of what are best described as "fake-work" positions.

As in the mandatory "competitive bidding" procedures being seen as "merely a formality" open to deliberate manipulation and perversion, not to mention all manner of tricks and strategems to avoid scandal.

Let alone the formality of public notice being ignored in any "signing statements" to Executive Orders which His Fraudulency will likely issue to authorise such denationalisation, thereby opening the door to "spoils" being used all the more. Same favouring especially loyal supporters all the more to rank-and-file enterpreneurs, invoking all form and fashion of platitudes and patsies lacking credibility.

Not to mention the likelihood of such being brought about while His Fraudulency was non compos mentis, technically rendering null and void any authorisations to those ends.

The likelihood of which needs to be brought before Congress.

Write Your Congressman.

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AND IF THERE'S ONE UNLIKELY ARTICLE OF FAITH WHICH THE CONSERVATIVE ELEMENT HOLDS DEAR above all else when it comes to the "moral superiority" of free-market capitalism with American characteristics requiring the utmost of contempt for the Lower Classes, it would have to be that which expects to achieve, "completely and finally," a nil rate of unemployment consistent with free-market capitalistic principles and disciplines.

Let's not forget where Communist regimes were forever boasting of having nil unemployment, all the while claiming that mass unemployment would be among the undoings of capitalism--never mind that such required creating all manner of "make-work/fake-work" positions just to create the aura of nil unemployment.

Which begs the question of whether achieving nil unemployment based on capitalistic socioeconomic models and paradigms is possible without recourse to waste, fraud, inefficency, mismanagement, corruption, lack of investment in plant and capital excused as "protecting industrial heritage" (talk about unlikely platitudes there!)--in other words, nothing short of outright cartel behaviour.

And would it be stretching things to imagine "the Four Hundred" being some of the biggest supporters of anti-abortion movements, hoping to see in same a means towards their desired ends of nil unemployment based on free-market capitalist parameters?