A FEW INTERESTING AND WORTHWHILE CHANGES OF NOTE HAVE BEEN MADE TO THIS WEBLOG IN RECENT DAYS that you might like to know about:

• The Chitika eMiniMall is now in a more convenient location for such among you wanting to do some online comparision shopping (with search facilities as well)--viz., @ the top of the page--regardless of what you're looking for.
• Note, too, where you can also recommend this blog to any friend(s) you have online that might like awful weblogs such as this ... or see a daily cartoon for to replenish your giggle glands every day.

In any case, I'd welcome all the support I can get.

Especially that known in the argot of the streets as "bling-bling"--money.

As in donations to the Virtual Tip Jar or commissions from your online purchases.

Bloggers can't like on traffic alone, you know....

THE VEST-POCKET PRINCIPALITY OF LIECHTENSTEIN HAS WHAT MAY PERHAPS BE THE STRICTEST LAWS ON BANKING SECRECY ... laws which turn out to be rather appealing to the likes of "the Four Hundred" needing "to protect [their] wealth from undue and onerous taxation" and others weird and unwholesome needing to avoid detection by the Long Arm of the Law--terrorists and swindlers in particular.

Such laws, in fact, putting Liechtenstein right there with Andorra and Monaco on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) blacklist of soverign states deemed Uncooperative Tax Havens.

And which are being tested by tax authorities in ten countries--Germany, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden and the Czech Republic--after an employee of the Liechtensteiner "brassplate" bank LGT Treuhand turned over CD-ROM's containing sensitive information on 1,400 accountholders seeing in Liechtenstein a cheap and cheerful place to protect their fortunes from tax collectors to German authorities in exchange for €5 million.

Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, the British tax agency, confirmed that it had received similar information, but would not disclose how much was paid.

Which the Principality (and its ruler, Crown Prince Alois--who, it turns out, owns LGT in part) contends is "blood money" and is asking German authorities to stop the investigation on the grounds that such is an illegal intrusion of privacy cherished by the Principality (never mind where German tax authorities have located 163 customers on the list and collected some €27 million in past-due taxes therefrom--an average of €165,644.17/customer, by my calculations), let alone its "antient and pecuilar" soverignty.

Let's just hope where some of the American names on the "little list" turn out to include major GOP supporters from the ranks of "the Four Hundred," especially where pre-1929 Crash "old money" comes into the equation.

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IT SEEMS RATHER IRONIC THAT SOME OF THE MORE BLATANT SPECIMENS OF RACISM, WHITE SUPREMACY AND ANTI-SEMITISM would turn out to be supporting the Palestinian side of the Israeli issue, based on the rather illogical argument that "the enemy of my enemy is a friend of mine."

Notwithstanding where Palestinians would technically be considered by such unlikely supporters to be "inferior peoples" practicing a "heathen" religion (Islam) for the most part.

And all the more likely to support a Palestinian National Fund modelled on the Jewish National Fund, responsible for the economic and infrastructural development of Israel even before the State of Israel came about in 1948--until it turns out that the Palestinian National Fund was channelling donations towards terrorist movements rather than developing the Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank through projects of infrastructural development.

Speaking of Palestinian infrastructure, the Israeli blockade of Gaza has prevented shipments of chlorine, fluoride and water-treatment chemicals from reaching the water-treatment centres there in the interim, prompting a Boil Order being issued for drinking water supplies until further notice.

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IN RESPONSE TO THE MINNESOTA LEGISLATURE'S VETO OVERRIDE OF TRANSPORTATION-FUNDING LEGISLATION AS RELIES ON FUEL EXCISE INCREASES, Governor Pawlenty went into paranoia mode warning about "a major taxpayers' protest" ensuing as a result.

How do we know it won't be Governor Pawlenty "himself" leading the "spontaneous and wholehearted popular protest," thereby raising questions of possible abuse of power--not to mention further raising the likelihood of his being mentally incapable?

Besides:

How many of you Minnesota readers to this blog would be the sort to protest what may be essential and necessary (if painful) tax increases to maintain roads, bridges and transportation infrastructure generally, even if the Governor were to invoke the majesty and authority of his office in so leading? (Leave your comments in the relevant section.) 

From time to time, the "WaiWai" feature @ the Mainichi Daily News of Tokyo provides some interesting source material for this weblog as can tend to the insightful on the state of the world--considering where this weblog is a firm believer that "it's a small world, after all," as the quasi-official National Hymn of Disneyland and Walt Disney World hath it.

Never mind where the ultimate source material for "WaiWai" comes from trashy and disreputable Japanese magazines appealing largely to the Dregs of Japanese Society.

But then again, you have in "WaiWai" material the gem of possible news fodder which many are likely to scoff @ until too late.

Case in point: The following recent "WaiWai" piece warning(?!) where the forthcoming Beijing Olympics might be a major carrier for illness and disease to the point of pandemic, and for reasons which Beijing is likely to address with nothing short of slapdash measures in the days approaching the opening ceremonies (if @ all):

Fans of thriller fiction have probably read novels in which an evildoer aspires to terrorize the world by introducing a biological weapon into a packed sports stadium. The spectators then depart and board planes before any symptoms appear, resulting in a virus being spread to their fellow passengers: and ultimately setting off a massive epidemic spreading to the far corners of the globe.

Recent events have shown that such scenarios are by no means the stuff of thriller fiction. Now read this: "Overseas Chinese will be coming to Beijing from all over the world," Masahiro Miyazaki, a well-known author and commentator on international affairs, remarks in Shukan Jitsuwa (2/7). "Many of them won't be accommodated in tourist hotels, but will sleep 15 to a room in flophouses costing as little as ¥200 a night. Or else they'll be put up in the unsanitary homes of relatives. They'll serve as hosts for all kinds of noxious germs, which they might carry back to their home countries."

The worldwide outbreak of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2002-2003, which was believed to have originated from unsanitary food markets in southern China, was not, of course, a biological weapon. But due to poor public health practices and efforts by the Chinese Health Ministry to suppress reports of the initial outbreaks, SARS soon spread into neighboring Hong Kong, and from there to Southeast Asia. It then leaped the Pacific to Canada.

By the time the epidemic ended some 8,000 people were infected, of which 775 died--evidence of how quickly a lethal pathogen could spread before medical teams could identify it and mount effective countermeasures.

The SARS epidemic vanished almost as rapidly as it emerged, but soon afterwards physicians began warning of another scary disease--avian influenza--that's been killing birds by the tens of thousands. Since it's capable of killing humans as well, researchers are in a frantic race to perfect a vaccine before human-to-human transmission becomes endemic.

Still, all it takes for a catastrophe to occur is the right combination of circumstances, which seem to pop up frequently in China. On January 10, a case was reported of human-to-human transmission of avian flu in a Beijing family, resulting in a boy's death.

While this is no more than speculation, the media has widely reported that should an avian flu pandemic occur in Japan, with its high population density, several hundred thousand people might die before it is contained.

If only new and exotic diseases were the sole concern! But much more basic factors, like hygiene and sanitation, still can and do spread illnesses as well. Shukan Jitsuwa notes that in preparation for the Olympics, which will begin on August 8, a number of sports contingents from the U.K., Italy, Poland, Sweden and other countries have announced that their athletes will train at camps in Japan. The reason, the magazine says, is that public sanitation is still poor in rural parts of China.

"Big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, where many foreigners visit, are fairly clean, but in places the foreigners don't see, it's terrible," says a Japanese man who spent time as an exchange student in China. "You can find heaps of uncovered rubbish piled two or three meters high, and when it rains, the stuff dissolves and runs off in all directions.

"Except perhaps for the highest-class restaurants, the kitchens tend to be filthy," the man adds. "They're enough to make even Chinese want to throw up."

After devoting a paragraph to Beijing's notorious smog and its lack of safe drinking water--a potential source of type-B hepatitis--Shukan Jitsuwa warns visitors against rabies. Yes, it's still a concern: rabies is 100 percent fatal unless promptly treated and about 2,500 people in China die from it every year, so dogs are to be avoided at all costs.

"Rabies has been present in China since ancient times," notes Miyazaki. "But when people raised dogs for meat it wasn't much of a problem. More recently, however, they've been keeping them as house pets, which has made it more dangerous. The problem is that unethical dog breeders raise the animals in abysmal conditions. So rabies has become endemic."

Visitors to the upcoming Olympiad, which will run for 17 days beginning from August 8, will also need to be on their guard against AIDS. A 2007 report issued by the Chinese government estimated the number of HIV carriers at 700,000. The most likely method of contagion would be between Japanese male tourists and local prostitutes, who are said to number 20 million nationwide.

Miyazaki's advice for those who attend the games is, "For high-class hotels, maintaining quality is a matter of face. Stay and take your meals in these places and you'll probably be all right."

"The slogan of the Beijing Olympic Committee is 'One World, One Dream,'" Shukan Jitsuwa observes, adding that unless better health precautions are taken, when the world wakes up from this "dream," it might find itself confronting a host of genuine medical nightmares.

WHEN IT COMES TO HOW FOX NEWS CHANNEL IS DEPICTED THEREON, it seems that the line "whose bread I eat, his song I sing" (is it from some hymn, perhaps?) is a Sanctii Sanctorum of the highest order.

But there are times when the guard can be let down.

Witness on the weekend (hat tip to Think Progress), where liberal comedian Lee Camp tried to make a jerk out of Fox News (and almost got away with it):

HIS FRAUDULENCY'S "INSIDE OF THE INSIDE" IS NOT VERY HAPPY, METHINKS, WITH THE LATEST NUMBERS showing where wholesale inflation may be on the rampage, and with a venegance.

Witness where just-released, scientifically-calculated estimates show producer-price inflation to be @ an annualised rate of 7.5%, perhaps the worst since October 1981 (some ten years after the United States closed the "gold window" as essentially ended the last links to a gold standard vis-a-vis the dollar, it turns out).

As if that weren't enough, the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for February fell to 75.0, way down on a revised January reading of 87.3--exactly five years, it turns out, since said index fell to 64.8, its worst ever level.

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IN A RELATED VEIN, PERHAPS, IT APPEARS AS IF MINNESOTA GOVERNOR PAWLENTY HAS BECOME HIS OWN WORST CRYBABY with the Legislature overriding his own veto of essentially-needed transportation funding in the form of gas tax increases and authorisation of sales taxes to fund transportation initiatives.

Even if Governor Pawlenty's playing his Club For Growth-influenced bromide and platitude of "protecting families" from high taxes, let alone morals and decency, he needs to see Reality for once.

He needs to realise that the serious deterioration of roads and infrastructure across Our Beloved Minnesota cannot simply be repaired by all manner of "band-aid" quick fixes forever "just to protect families" based on his low taxes=jobs=socioeconomic stability argument--itself nothing less than lily-gilding discredited "supply-side" socioeconomic thought.

Not to mention dropping further hints of Governor Pawlenty's being an unconscious psychopath whose ability to discharge the powers and duties of his office may be seriously affected.

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THE GOP'S SUPER-SECRETIVE "DIRTY TRICKS" SQUADS, AS TRAINED BY THE "CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY," must probably be looking for ways to have whoever succeeds His Fraudulency (so long as the GOP has sure victory, which they hope to achieve "by whatever means necessary," no matter how corrupt or depraved) emulate the depraved excesses of outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin as discussed in the following BBC report:

Russian freedom of speech is "shrinking alarmingly" under President Vladimir Putin, says Amnesty International.

The murders of outspoken journalists go unsolved, independent media outlets have been shut and police have attacked opposition protesters, said the report.

It also said "arbitrary" laws were curbing the right to express opinion and silencing NGOs deemed to be a threat by the authorities.

The report comes ahead of Russian's presidential elections on 2 March.

The director of Amnesty International UK, Kate Allen, said: "The space for freedom of speech is shrinking alarmingly in Russia and it's now imperative that the Russian authorities reverse this trend."

She said dissent could be a matter of life or death in the case of outspoken journalists like Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot dead in Moscow two years ago.

The 52-page Freedom Limited report warned any opposition demonstrations could suffer heavy clampdowns in the coming days, as Amnesty said had happened in the run-up to past elections.

First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, whom President Putin has named his favoured successor, is expected to be elected in this Sunday's poll.

Which begs the question of what sort of patsies and platitudes would be resorted to to excuse such arbitrary measures of fear and intimidation on the GOP's part and parcel--measures, methinks, based on forgeries and crude stereotypes of the poor, homosexuals and other National Minorities.

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AND HOW SURE ARE WE THAT the photo showing Democratic Presidential wannabe Barak Obama wearing traditional African tribal dress currently making the rounds in Certain Weird and Unwholesome Circles isn't really a Photoshop-generated forgery solely to discredit the Obama campaign and its intending supporters?

(Let alone the possibility that the photo may have been the byproduct of racist and white-supremacist types.)

Speaking of which, the Southern Poverty Law Centre's Hatewatch blog notes where racists and white-supremacists are getting all the more nervous of the prospect of Obama's winning the Democratic nomination (note where certain necessary deletions have been made, for those of you who may accuse me of Bowdlerism):

With the selection of Barack Obama as the first black Democratic nominee for president seeming more possible by the day, racists and white supremacists are posting increasingly ugly and even threatening remarks on the Internet.

"OBAMA WILL DIE, KKK FOREVER," concludes a Feb. 15 post by "Rodney" to a blog run by a person identified only as Strider333. Above that signoff, Rodney wrote: "The KKK or someone WILL assassinate Obama! If we get a [N4BSK] President all you [N4BSK]'s [sic] will think you've won and that the WHITE people will have to bow to you[.] [N4BSK] THAT."

On traditional white supremacist and neo-Nazi sites, there are lengthy discussion threads about what would happen if Obama were elected president. Dozens of those posts are derogatory and employ all kinds of racist slurs. Others speculate that such an Obama victory would kick off a race war between whites and blacks. And some even raise the possibility that he could be assassinated. But talk like that is rare and extremely careful—probable evidence that the "white nationalists" who inhabit these sites are deeply concerned that their comments are being monitored by law enforcement for any criminal threat relating to the presidential race. In fact, Obama reportedly received federal Secret Service protection unusually early in the campaign season because of concerns about a racially motivated attack.

The most heated anti-Obama talk appears to be on Internet sites that allow people to post messages anonymously. One such site, JD Underground, is a list ostensibly devoted to lawyers, although further details were not available. It has carried a particularly venomous thread, entitled "[N4BSK] President," that has stretched from January into this month.

"I'm hoping someone will do his public duty of putting a bullet through Obama's head," said a poster identified as "Kill Da [N4BSK]." Another poster suggests "bring[ing] back lynchings" and concludes with a warning: "LOOK OUT [N4BSK]. THE KLAN IS GETTING BIGGER!!!!!!" And a third, using the screen name "amerikkkan," says only, "The deep south is making plans."