THE RELIGIOPOLITICAL RIGHT'S KULTURKRIEG WING IS NO DOUBT REJOICING @ THE ADMISSION by the chief executive of the naughty lingerie company Victoria's Secret that they've become too sexy for their own good.

And are taking worthwhile steps to tone down the risqué image built up over recent years.

Never mind that some of Victoria's Secrets most blatant critics pro Deo, patria et familia would rather prefer "right-thinking American families" doing their shopping @ Wally World.

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HOLOCAUST-DENIAL ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS ARE CERTAINLY DANCING IN THE STREETS, AND THEN SOME, over the news that Misha Defonseca's best-selling Holocaust-survival memoir-turned-film Surviving With Wolves was really a fabrication of the Belgian author, whose real name is Monique DeWæl.

And who, it turns out, was not really Jewish, acknowledging where her parents were deported by the Nazis for their involvement with the Belgian Resistance during World War II.

The admissions came to light in the Belgian daily Le Soir after questions began to be raised over some of the claims made.

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AN OBJECT LESSON FOR THE "MORALLY SUPERIOR" AMERICANS HEADING INTO INDECISION 2008 comes by way of admissions by Vladimir Churov, head of Russia's state electoral commission, to the BBC. Quoth they:

The head of Russia's electoral commission has admitted media coverage for Sunday's presidential election has been unequal.

Vladimir Churov told the BBC not all candidates had enjoyed equal access to the media, but he still believed the coverage had been fair.

Critics say TV channels have given too much time to Vladimir Putin's chosen successor, Dmitry Medvedev.

He is expected to win by a wide margin when Russians vote on Sunday.

Mr Putin himself is expected to address the nation on Friday to bid farewell to the public as president after eight years, Russian media say.

'Fair but not equal'

Mr Churov characterised coverage of the campaign as "fair but not equal".

"That's a problem not only for our country but I can agree that not all candidates have an equal number of news items," he said.

However, the election chief argued it was legitimate for news programmes to focus on the activities of Mr Medvedev in his current capacity as first deputy prime minister.

Vladimir Churov added that he had no regrets that the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Europe's main election monitoring body, had decided not to send an observer mission.

He said that the world would form its own opinion on the legitimacy of Sunday's election.

Which brings to mind these observations by Jamison Forser of Media Matters for America on how conservative propagandists seek to write the rules for the news media as are insightful in their own right:

In the wake of this week's controversy surrounding John McCain's dealings with lobbyists, and his honesty about those dealings, it is impossible to avoid thinking about how differently the media would have handled the news had it been about Bill Clinton or Al Gore rather than John McCain. Three consistent rules of media coverage of purported scandals involving progressives come immediately to mind:

If any part of an alleged scandal turns out to be true, the media behaves as though the entire story is true.

Take, for example, Gennifer Flowers. In 1992, Flowers claimed that she and Clinton had a 12-year affair. In 1998, during his deposition in the Paula Jones case, Clinton acknowledged having had "sexual relations" with Flowers, one time. Under the definition of "sexual relations" at use for that deposition (at the insistence of Jones' attorneys, not Clinton) Clinton's acknowledgment didn't mean much: It could have meant that he and Flowers slept together, or it could have meant that he briefly placed his hand on her thigh in a bar. Clinton didn't explain what had happened, and--significantly, one would assume -- the Jones attorneys didn't ask him to.

For the past 10 years, the news media have portrayed Clinton as having acknowledged that Flowers' story was true. He did nothing of the kind--and Flowers is just about the least credible accuser you could imagine, having lied about the place her supposed affair with Clinton began, about her education, about her career as an entertainer, about having been kidnapped, and about having a twin sister.

Yet because Clinton acknowledged there to be a sliver of truth to Flowers' wild claims, the news media pretended her entire story was true.

Similarly, despite the fact that example after example of Al Gore purportedly lying or exaggerating turned out to have been made up (or, perversely, exaggerated) by the news media as part of what Bob Somerby has rightly called their "War Against Gore," the media continued to pretend that the entire line of criticism of Gore had merit simply because they could point to one example that supported their case. Gore didn't tour Texas with James Lee Witt--so the whole years-long smear campaign against him must be true!

Media parse every statement by progressives in response to controversy, looking for something to ridicule--whether the ridicule is fair or not.

Bill Clinton's statement about "what the meaning of the word 'is' is," Al Gore's reference to "no controlling legal authority" in response to questions about his fundraising, Hillary Clinton's explanation that she has always been a Yankees fan, John Kerry's comments about voting for Iraq funding before voting against it--all have been the subject of literally years of media ridicule. Never mind that Bill Clinton was making the correct point that the tense of the question he was asked, and of his answer, was directly relevant to the issue of whether he was lying about something that happened in the past. Never mind that Gore's point, which was basically that he hadn't broken any laws, was right (he was never charged with, never mind convicted of, any crime). Never mind that Hillary Clinton really has always been a Yankees fan, as the comments of her childhood friends--not to mention old photographs of her in a Yankees hat--demonstrate. Never mind that Kerry was talking about two different versions of the bill, not about flip-flopping on one version--and never mind that President Bush had said he would veto one version, then signed the other. To this day, the media mock them for these statements. And they don't just mock: These comments are depicted as evidence of character flaws.

Allegations that turn out to be unproven, or even false, are used by the media as evidence in support of future allegations.

Again, Flowers is a perfect example. Not long after she first sold her story to a supermarket tabloid, Flowers had been shown to be a liar. And she thoroughly failed to support her allegations against Clinton--the audiotapes she produced were reportedly spliced, and, as Joe Conason and Gene Lyons have noted, "Flowers never produced a single paragraph, valentine, or birthday card as evidence of her twelve-year affair with Clinton; no witness ever came forward who had seen them together. Indeed, she would eventually write an entire book, Passion and Betrayal, without stating a specific time and place where she and her famous lover were together."

Perversely, Flowers' unproven (and in large part debunked) allegations against Clinton were subsequently invoked by the news media as proof that other allegations of infidelity by Clinton were true.

Such absurd standards played a role in the spread of the Gore-as-liar narrative. Examples of Gore as a liar or exaggerator were trotted out by the media, shown to be false, then later recycled as evidence of a pattern when some future bogus example was invented. Al Gore didn't actually take credit for having discovered Love Canal--it simply didn't happen; it was made up by reporters at The New York Times and The Washington Post. It was conclusively demonstrated to be a made-up story, and the newspapers (eventually) ran corrections. Then what happened? Love Canal, alongside the equally bogus allegation that Gore had claimed to have invented the Internet, was regularly invoked by reporters to bolster subsequent depictions of Gore as a liar and exaggerator.

The media's apparent belief that it is acceptable to say any damn thing they want, true or false, as long as they say it about the Clintons, has become known as the "Clinton Rules of Journalism." Those rules, however, apply to progressives broadly, not just the Clintons. They have applied to Al Gore, as indicated above, and to John Edwards (witness the nonsense about his haircut). And there are signs Barack Obama may soon have to deal with these rules, if it hasn't started already. The New York Times' (truly bizarre) recent attempt to portray Obama as having used drugs as a teenager less than he suggested in his autobiography is one such example. As The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg observed:

The news here is--what, exactly? That Obama, who now appears grounded, motivated, and poised, formerly appeared grounded, motivated, and poised? That his inner uncertainties, such as they were, were more apparent to himself than to others? That he was marginally less of a pothead than he has made himself out to be? ... For a candidate to stand accused of exaggerating his youthful drug use is something new indeed.

The Clinton Rules are, on their own, a clear indictment of modern political journalism. It should go without saying that making up quotes in order to depict a politician as a liar is horrible journalism. It should go without saying that repeating long-ago debunked claims is, too.

But as bad as these things are, they are made even worse by the contrasting treatment that leading Republicans have gotten from the media in recent years.

* * *

Not only have the three rules discussed above not typically been applied to the likes of George W. Bush and John McCain, the media also have often taken the opposite approach.

While Democratic "scandals" have been treated as true if any individual element has turned out to be accurate, allegations against Republicans have been deemed false if any individual element turned out to be wrong--or even questionable.

The clearest example of this is the 2004 controversy around Bush's National Guard service, or lack thereof.

The national media spent years ignoring documentary evidence that Bush didn't fulfill the requirements of his National Guard commitment, and attacking those who raised the issue. In 2004, for example, ABC's Peter Jennings called Michael Moore's assertion that Bush was a "deserter" a "reckless charge not supported by the facts" and suggested it was an example of poor "ethical behavior" for Wesley Clark not to have contradicted Moore. In fact, there was ample evidence that Bush had not bothered to show up for required Guard duty--evidence Jennings and ABC had been carefully ignoring for years.

Later that year, when CBS News aired a report about Bush's Guard service, conservatives seized on documents used in that report that they claimed were fake. The media immediately acted as though the entire question about whether Bush fulfilled his commitment to the National Guard came down to whether or not the CBS documents were real, ignoring voluminous other evidence. When a consensus emerged that they were not, the media treated this as vindication for Bush and his campaign--despite the fact that, with or without the CBS documents, there is overwhelming evidence that Bush skipped out on his Guard duty. (It should be noted that though there emerged a consensus that the documents were not real, this was not proven, and former CBS anchor Dan Rather is suing the network over its handling of the matter.)

Likewise, when news broke this week that John McCain may have done legislative favors for a lobbyist with whom he may have had an affair, countless journalists quickly declared that the alleged affair was all that mattered. If there was no affair, they asserted, McCain would be vindicated. Never mind the indications that McCain may have done favors for lobbyists--exactly the type of image-incongruous behavior the media pounce on when the subject is a Democrat.

How many times were we sanctimoniously told by journalists that the reason the Edwards haircut got so much media attention was that it supposedly conflicted with his image as an advocate for the poor and middle class? Well, no politician in recent memory has had an image as well-developed as McCain, who (thanks largely to the news media that adore him) is seen as a reformer, a man of principle, a tireless warrior against the influence of special interests. But this week brought explosive allegations that, in contrast to this image, McCain (who was, remember, one of the Keating Five) may have been doing favors for lobbyists. It also brought a reminder that he has essentially turned his presidential campaign over to some of the nation's most powerful lobbyists. Yet, rather than seizing on this tension between McCain's carefully cultivated image and his actions, many journalists swiftly moved to declare it a non-story: All that mattered was the alleged affair, and if that didn't happen, McCain must be innocent of everything, the victim of a "smear."

In contrast to their treatment of Democrats, in which they declare a "scandal" true if any element of it is true, the media have moved to declare the entire McCain story a "smear" if any element of it is false.

And rather than examine whether McCain reacted to the stories with false claims, contradictions, or absurdities, as they have done to countless Democrats in the past, much of the media simply noted his denials and behaved as though the story is all about The New York Times' behavior in breaking it. Just as they had with the Bush National Guard story, other media quickly made the Times the story, rather than McCain's actions and statements. (One notable exception: a Newsweek article by Michael Isikoff that begins: "A sworn deposition that Sen. John McCain gave in a lawsuit more than five years ago appears to contradict one part of a sweeping denial that his campaign issued this week to rebut a New York Times story about his ties to a Washington lobbyist.")

Yesterday, John McCain's presidential campaign sent out a fundraising email (from lobbyist/McCain campaign manager Rick Davis) that claimed, "Objective observers are viewing this ... as a sleazy smear attack from a liberal newspaper against the conservative Republican frontrunner." The email quoted four such "objective observers," including right-wing Fox News host Sean Hannity, former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough, and "Washington attorney Bob Bennett, who was the Democrat counsel during the Keating investigation."

The description of Hannity and Scarborough as "objective observers" is funny enough, but Bob Bennett is John McCain's personal attorney in this matter. He is the exact opposite of an "objective observer"--he is a paid advocate on McCain's behalf. When he defends McCain, he isn't doing so as an "objective observer," he is doing so in exchange for hundreds of dollars an hour.

McCain's campaign manager's portrayal of McCain's personal lawyer as an "objective observer" defending McCain isn't merely a breathtaking display of chutzpah, though it is certainly that. It is also precisely the kind of thing that, had it been done in defense of Bill Clinton or Al Gore, would have led to a cascade of ridicule from the news media. We would constantly hear about how they were hurting themselves with such transparently dishonest defense, which not only calls their character into question, it suggests that the underlying allegations must be true. Tucker Carlson would have a field day mocking the defense, and he wouldn't be alone. And, for once, he wouldn't be wrong.

Yet, when this transparently dishonest defense is made on John McCain's behalf, the media ignore it.

The hinted-at-but-not-proven (and thus, perhaps not real) affair between McCain and the lobbyist is, in many ways, the least important and least interesting aspect of this week's revelations. As Media Matters' Eric Alterman noted yesterday, "[I]t's none of our business and does not belong on the front page of The New York Times, regardless of timing. What's more, the sex gets in the way of what is really important about McCain's behavior."

But the media's reaction to this element of the story is very interesting--particularly in contrast to their treatment of allegations of affairs by Democrats. McCain left his first wife for his current wife--a fact that was notably absent from yesterday's cable coverage of the McCain controversy. Whenever some new allegation of an affair by Clinton popped up, the media were quick to invoke previous (unproven and in many ways provably false) claims, like those of Gennifer Flowers, as evidence of a pattern that made the new allegations likely to be true. Yet here we have the media ignoring McCain's history with women, even as they discuss the possibility of an affair between McCain and a lobbyist.

Then there's the reaction to the New York Times article. All day yesterday, a firestorm raged in the media over the Times article, as journalists from other news organizations denounced the paper for suggesting, based on unnamed sources, that McCain had an affair. It was denounced as a smear, and reckless journalism.

Some of the same people who were challenging the Times' reliance on unnamed sources, and its printing of what amounts to rumors of an affair, praised the Times for doing exactly the same thing nearly two years ago.

Well, not quite the same thing: Back then, the victim of the Times' crude innuendo was Bill Clinton, not John McCain.

When The New York Times ran a 2,000-word article about the state of the Clintons' marriage in May of 2006, the paper passed on gossip about Bill Clinton and a Canadian politician named Belinda Stronach. According to the Times, "Several prominent New York Democrats, in interviews, volunteered that they became concerned last year over a tabloid photograph" of Clinton and Stronach.

Chris Matthews, among others, loved--loved--the article. He discussed it again and again and again on Hardball. He--approvingly--described it as a warning from The New York Times to Clinton that "he better watch it" and "behave himself." Interviewing Clinton aide Ann Lewis, Matthews added, "I think it'd be great for the country if ... we were not once again distracted by what you call private life. And I think the way to avoid getting distracted is to have nothing there to distract us. ... I want to have some assurances from people that I trust and like to spread the word that he better watch it."

In short, Matthews did not criticize the Times article; he endorsed it. He didn't complain about it being based on unnamed sources, or about the paper trafficking in gossip it couldn't prove true.

Now, how did Matthews react to the Times article about McCain, a man Matthews has said "deserves" to be president? Did he repeatedly ask if McCain would "behave himself" during the campaign? Did he approvingly note that the Times had sent a warning that McCain "better watch it"? Of course not.

Instead, Matthews turned on the Times for the same type of reporting it had employed in the Clinton article. Again and again he used his perch at MSNBC to rail against the Times not only for using unnamed sources in the McCain article, but for failing to explain why it was granting the sources anonymity, which, as Matthews pointed out, is inconsistent with the Times' guidelines.

But Matthews expressed no such concern about the 2006 article about Clinton. Here's the Times' passage about Stronach again--a passage the Times' public editor at the time said should not have appeared in the paper:

Because of Mr. Clinton's behavior in the White House, tabloid gossip sticks to him like iron filings to a magnet. Several prominent New York Democrats, in interviews, volunteered that they became concerned last year over a tabloid photograph showing Mr. Clinton leaving B.L.T. Steak in Midtown Manhattan late one night after dining with a group that included Belinda Stronach, a Canadian politician. The two were among roughly a dozen people at a dinner, but it still was enough to fuel coverage in the gossip pages.

Why had the Times granted anonymity to the "New York Democrats"? The Times didn't say--and Chris Matthews didn't give a damn; he was just thrilled that the paper had issued its "warning." Of course, back then, the targets of the Times' article were the Clintons, and Chris Matthews very much does not like the Clintons. Now the subject of a Times article relying on unnamed sources is McCain, who Matthews thinks "deserves" to be president. And so Matthews now righteously denounces the same sourcing techniques that he didn't mind at all when the subject was Clinton.

And Matthews has repeatedly railed against the Times for running the McCain story on the front page, above the fold--right where the Times' article about the Clintons' marriage ran.

Not that Matthews has cornered the market on blatant double standards. His MSNBC colleague Tucker Carlson kept insisting that the Times' reference to a possible affair by McCain was inappropriate because, according to Carlson, the media collectively agreed not to focus on such things post-Monica Lewinksy. To his credit, this is not the first time Carlson has been outraged by discussion of a candidate's marriage: He frequently opposes such discussion--when Republicans are the subjects.

* * *

The point here isn't that the Times article about McCain was flawless. It wasn't. The paper could have run, as many have noted, a much stronger article that focused on McCain's actions on behalf of lobbyists, without including unnamed sources asserting that unnamed aides believed McCain to have had an affair. But I don't remember Chris Matthews or Tucker Carlson or the countless other journalists who have denounced the Times over the past two days leveling a similar complaint about unnamed sources talking about Clinton and Stronach. To the contrary; they embraced that article.

Regardless of the merits of the Times article, particularly its treatment of the affair question, it is important to recognize the blatant double standards media employ to hype stories damaging to Democrats and downplay and dismiss those damaging to Republicans.

The Clinton Rules make for lousy journalism, as we've seen over the past two decades. But the media's rush to dismiss serious questions about prominent Republicans is no better than their repeated peddling of bogus stories about Democrats.

And of course we know what "conservative journalism" is expected to consist of: Highly-sensationalised tabloid prolefeed pandering to the crudest and lowest of stereotypes among a target audience of the poor, undereducated or homeschooled and easily-influenced.

With an unhealthy emphasis upon sport, crime, astrology and celebrity gossip. Not to mention the obligatory distraction in Page Three form.  

YOU WILL NOTICE BY THE CALENDAR THAT TODAY IS FEBRUARY THE 29TH, that once-in-every-four-years phenomenon as is designed to bring the calendar year all the closer into sync with the astrological year.

And what better time than this to mark the 100th posting into The Exaggerator since its launch towards the end of last year, supplanting the daily phosdex as Your Correspondent's primary blog.

I know it's been quite an uphill battle to get started and get the whole noticed for once ... but I think it best to use this occasion to say "thank you" for getting acquainted with this new weblog.

As well as this being a reminder for you to:

• recommend this weblog to your friends, especially where postings are found interesting enough to share;
• consider subscribing to the RSS feed of this blog, which you can receive by way of any RSS readers you now use or by e-mail in a convenient "one-stop" centrum;
• share these postings in any social-networking sites you are currently with (I offer this by way of "one-stop" in the FeedFlare as follows many of these items); and
• support this weblog and Your Correspondent financially as much as morally, by way of:
  • the Virtual Tip Jar and/or
  • your patronage of the several e-tailers The Exaggerator is affiliated with through online shopping; there should be something you're looking to buy, so why not buy it online as long as you're reading this blog?

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

ADDITIONALLY, I WOULD LIKE TO USE THIS OPPORTUNITY to note where I am thinking of launching a separate blog that I would use to discuss my food and dining adventures from the standpoint of the Minnwissippi region.

Which I am thinking of styling "TW2AMHITHA" (as in Lee Kanker's quote "The way to a man's heart is through his arteries," explaining the Kanker Sisters' penchant for corny slap-up meals involving the most unlikely creations such as fish sticks fried up in lard, squeeze cheese and ketchup, a/k/a "secret Kanker sauce").

As if that weren't enough, I also have designs on launching a weblog portal dedicated to The Waterpark Capital of the World, catering to such in the "water business" there and such "locals" as have to put up with the tourist hordes during especially the summer months ... and who have their own strange and wonderful tales to tell in weblog form to those on the Information Stuporbahn thus interested. (As they used to open every episode of the late-1950's/early 1960's police drama The Naked City, "There are eight million stories in the naked city ... and this is one of them.")

Your comments on these concepts would be appreciated before I proceed further.

Thanks again for your support of The Exaggerator ... creating a healing time and space beyond reality for you.

NOTWITHSTANDING THE LACK OF CREDIBILITY IN NEWS ITEMS WHICH MAKE IT TO THE "WAIWAI" FEATURE of the Mainichi Daily News from Tokyo way, there is sometimes a cautionary tale to be found.

In this case, proof that you can never really amount to much when you use "bulk e-mail marketing"--lily-gilding, methinks, among such engaging in "spamming" as a marketing tactic (howbeit unethical)--as a weblog marketing tool:

A Tokyo man who parlayed his spare time into an e-mailing operation that allowed him to send over 2.2 billion spam mails has been arrested, according to Nikkan Gendai (2/19).

Yuki Shiina, a 25-year-old man from Koto-ku, was arrested for sending an incredible 4 million spam mails a day, from May 2006 until December last year.

Cops say the part-time worker made a whopping ¥20 million out of spamming during that time.

Nikkan Gendai says the spam Shiina sent encouraged recipients to put ads up on websites, with ¥2,000 going back to him as a kickback for every time somebody did so. If the figure the police gave is correct, at least 10,000 people took up his offers.

How Shiina managed, allegedly, to send such a huge quantity of spam in such a short time may baffle some, but Net experts aren't surprised.

"You can easily get software that gathers e-mail addresses off the Internet and then allows them to be sent out at a rate running into the millions every day. Then, there's always high-speed mail sending software, too, which would make it really easy," a Net expert tells Nikkan Gendai. "I'd say all you'd need to get into the business would be an initial outlay of about ¥200,000. The hardest part of the job, though, would be finding a client who'd pay you to send all the spam. And it's illegal."

As The Shadow forever reminded listeners as his namesake radio series signed off, "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. CRIME DOES NOT PAY.... THE SHADOW KNOWS!!!!", followed by sinister laughter.

IS IT ANY WONDER THAT OPIUM POPPY CULTIVATION IS SO HARD-WIRED INTO AFGHANI SOCIETY AND CULTURE, in spite of repeated eradication campaigns with varying degrees of success?

Case in point: Taliban insurgents in Helmand province attacked an opium-poppy eradication exercise, only to be set upon by Afghani police, killing 25 such in the process.

And besides, it's well-known that the Taliban (who, by one Defence Department estimate, now control some 10% of Afghanistan; another 30% is controlled by the Kabul government, and local tribes control the remaining 60% of Afghan soverign territory) profited all the more from opium poppy cultivation and subsequent added-value processing.

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UNLIKELY CAMPAIGN IN THE IRAQI FRONT OF THE UR-RAHOWA AGAINST TERRORISM: Defence Secretary Robert Gates has suggested that the Khurdish peoples in northern Iraq and close-by regions of Turkey start considering peaceful means by which to deal with the socioeconomic problems and inequalities which makes the insurgency led by the Khurdistan People's Party (PKK) all the more attractive to the local populace.

Especially the poorer sort as are attracted all the more to the PKK.

After all, the Khurdish regions of northern Iraq have managed to remain rather calm and @ once prosperous in the face of the ur-RAHOWA led by the "morally superior" United States based on absurd and misleading claims all along. Not to mention having been formulated while His Fraudulency may have been in a state of mental incapacity, technically making the war declaration null and void under common law.

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WITH ALL THE SNOW ON THE GROUND IN MANY PARTS OF THE UNITED STATES THIS WINTER SO FAR, you may be asking yourself "WHAT global warming threat?!"

As a matter of fact, many parts of the country as saw the heaviest snowfall rates could be setting new records for seasonal snowfall totals. That, and the National Weather Service estimating that the 2007-08 winter could be the snowiest since the 1965-66 winter.

Once the snow starts melting, let's just hope the ensuing meltwater percolates slowly and gradually into the topsoil, especially so in areas as are in or close to drought conditions. (As for where Your Correspondent is based, current estimates from the National Weather Service suggest a likelihood of moderate flooding on the Mississippi as April segues into May as the most likely scenario for this flood season.)

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HOW DO WE KNOW HIS FRAUDULENCY'S GREAT WITHIN STILL HAS DESIGNS FOR SABOTAGING AMTRAK "from the sidelines," as it were?

Case in point:

Cracks in the concrete track base along parts of the Northeast Corridor have prompted Amtrak to issue slow orders throughout, meaning its flagship Acela Express services will not be as fast for the forseeable future as the top speed of 135 mph.

Next thing you know, expect the "inside of the inside" to call for essentially denationalising Amtrak per the British model of having passenger rail contracted out to private companies, Amtrak's role being little more than a ticketing, marketing and informational agency based on Britain's National Rail.

As for serious coordination of ticketing and pass sales, what these operators ought consider is something on the model of the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) in Great Britain, which serves as not just the industry trade organisation, but also provides:

• a clearinghouse for ticket sales involving travel between the private rail operators; and
• a databank for establishing common technical standards for ticketing media (including issuance of tickets and passes) and passenger information (in turn supplied to National Rail for dissemiation to passengers in the various media).

Come to think of it, perhaps the several Presidential candidates in Indecision 2008 should be asked some serious questions about the future direction of passenger rail in the United States, let alone Amtrak as a state entity. Don't be shy....   

THE RELIGIOPOLITICAL RIGHT'S ARTICLES OF FAITH INCLUDE AN UNYIELDING AND OVERZEALOUS BELIEF IN FREE-MARKET CAPITALISM as being all the more essential to the "antient and pecuilar soverignty and soverign identity" of the United States.

Or are they?

In evidence of the latter, consider the following Right Wing Watch item:

Ken Hutcherson has had a busy winter. The football star-turned-megachurch preacher started off January by taking on one of the largest corporations in the world but ended up embroiled in a fight with his daughter's high school.

Hutcherson has made rabidly anti-gay activism his defining cause, especially as an advocate for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. In 2004 he joined James Dobson and other Religious Right leaders for an anti-gay rally on the National Mall, asserting that he represented "God's people" and that he knew exactly what was on God's mind: "There are absolutes and I'm absolutely right on this issue. God does not want marriage to be redefined."

And in his preaching, he makes clear that his views extend beyond "protecting marriage":

Reasonable people can disagree over whether gay marriage is a good idea. But Hutcherson goes beyond reasonable, at least to judge by the report of Seattle psychologist Valerie Tarico. … On a Sunday when Tarico was present, Hutcherson was preaching on gender roles. During his sermon, Hutcherson stated, "God hates soft men" and "God hates effeminate men." Hutcherson went on to say, "If I was in a drugstore and some guy opened the door for me, I'd rip his arm off and beat him with the wet end."

In early January, Hutcherson devised a creative plan to take control over Microsoft, the software giant based, like Hutcherson's Antioch Bible Church, in Redmond, Washington. In order to stop Microsoft's support for its gay employees—through a nondiscrimination policy and partner benefits, for example—Hutcherson launched a program to convince activists to buy Microsoft shares and donate them to his new AGN Financial Network. Then, according to the plan, Hutcherson could overturn gay-friendly policies at shareholders' meetings.

While creative, the plan seems pretty futile:

It's unclear what effect, if any, the initiative could have on the stock price. It would be difficult to influence company direction--just to gain a 1 percent stake in Microsoft, about 31 million people would each have to spend $104 to buy three shares. Microsoft has about 9.36 billion outstanding shares, and its largest holder is Chairman Bill Gates, with 858 million shares, or 9 percent of the total. Capital Research and Management Co. follows with nearly 557 million shares, or 6 percent.

… When asked whether the new initiative is a ploy to make money for his church, Hutcherson said, "Absolutely."

"We're going to need the finances to go to the next companies," he said. "Anything you do successfully needs money."

Nevertheless, the "ploy" has the support of religious-right figures such as Gary Bauer, Richard Land, Paul Weyrich, Don Wildmon, and Harry Jackson.

But it seems the Hutcherson has had to set his sights a little lower, from the corporate board room to the school board meeting. While speaking at a local high school on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the preacher was confronted with a contradiction:

Hutcherson spoke for about 30 minutes, telling the 1,500 students sitting in the school gym about growing up amid racial prejudice and how that led him to hate white people, Taylor said. But, Hutcherson told students, he eventually came to accept King's teaching of acceptance and tolerance, and it transformed him.

As the assembly drew to a close, a female language-arts teacher stood and addressed Hutcherson with a rhetorical question.

"She said something to the effect of 'How can you preach a climate of acceptance and tolerance, but that doesn't apply to gays and lesbians?' " Taylor said. The teacher didn't pose the question disrespectfully, but it was not an appropriate time to begin such a dialogue, Taylor said.

The school apologized for the breach in decorum, but Hutcherson quickly threatened action, demanding that the teachers involved be fired:

"You can see the arrogance that's going on in our public school system with the agenda of making our schools just so open and available to what the homosexual agenda is all about," he remarks. "I'm absolutely amazed at the stubbornness that we've run into in our public education system, especially with teachers who think that nothing can happen to them." …

Hutcherson says the days of Christians just making a little noise and then going away are done. He shares that he told school officials "you are going to have to pay and pay dearly for your decisions in putting my daughter through the amount of stress that you have put her through in the last three weeks."

Meanwhile, Hutcherson has launched a campaign against the school's Gay-Straight Alliance, which he calls a "sex club."

IT WAS EXACTLY ONE MONTH TO THE DAY TODAY, BOYS AND GIRLS, that the rather arrogantly self-serving "Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies" drew the following unfair comparison between Bill Clinton and "Bull" Connor (as transcribed by Media Matters for America; emphasis supplied):

And greetings, my friends, and welcome. It's Rush Limbaugh, America's real anchorman. Kicking off a full week of broadcast excellence here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies and the Excellence in Broadcasting network--great to have you with us.

I called it. I told you the Clintons were going to play the race card. Not only did they play the race card, people have been asking me all weekend: So what do you think of this? I said it's very simple to explain. We have gone from "Bull" Connor to "Bull" Clinton, ladies and gentlemen. That's the way to express what has happened to the Democrat [sic] Party, now totally divided along the lines of race and gender--but particularly race. From "Bull" Connor to "Bull" Clinton.

And if you wonder why I say--Mike, grab audio sound bite -- I told him to stand by for Number 1 or 13. So, what do I do? Grab Number 2. Here is Bill Clinton Saturday in Columbia, South Carolina. This is outside a polling station and the president, the former president, is speaking with reporters. An unidentified reporter says: "What does it say about Barack Obama that it takes two of you to beat him?"

BILL CLINTON [audio clip]: Jesse Jackson won in South Carolina twice, in '84 and '88, and he ran a good campaign, and Senator Obama's running a good campaign--he's run a good campaign.

LIMBAUGH: Bill Clinton has compared Barack Obama to Jesse Jackson. We've gone from "Bull" Connor to Bill or "Bull" Clinton in one little nine-second sound bite. Now, you know, you remember that Clinton also took out Jesse Jackson. The Reverend Jackson was Sister Souljah'ed out there, so this is--look it, a lot of people are saying, and they say, "Rush, you were right. This is exactly what the Clintons wanted to happen. They wanted a big racial defeat so they could go out"--and their firewall's going to be Hispanics. Mrs. Clinton is going to go out there and try to shore up Hispanics now, playing the race card again. But I don't think they expected to be in this position. I don't think they expected Toni Morrison, who claimed that Clinton was the first black president, to endorse Barack Obama, and I don't think they expected the JFK side of the Kennedy family to endorse Barack. Now, Ted Kennedy has his endorsement speech coming up in a few minutes, in about six and a half minutes.

[***]

LIMBAUGH: Two more little clips here, or excerpts, from Senator Kennedy's endorsement letter, which I feel confident will be in his speech today. He said: "I remember another leader who inspired a nation, especially our youth, to fulfill a promise of change. Those inspired young people marched, they sat at lunch counters, they protested the war in Vietnam, and they served honorably in that war, even when they opposed it." Now that's a little veiled attack at Bill Clinton, too, and his loathe of the military letter. And then comes this from Senator Kennedy: "That leader challenged them to ask what they could do for their country, and together they changed the world. So, in the words of that leader, John Kennedy: 'The world is changing. The old ways will not do. It is time for a new generation of leadership.' " It's a full frontal on the Clintons.

And then this: "Barack will be a president who refuses to be trapped in the patterns of the past. He sees the world clearly without being cynical. He fights for the causes he believes in, but refuses to demonize those who hold a different view." He has just accused, in this fundraising letter, in this endorsement letter, the Clintons of politics of personal destruction, the politics of fear, and the fact that they demonize those who hold a different view.

What this all means is that everybody in the Democrat establishment has long known exactly who and what the Clintons are, and as long as the Clintons were turning their venom on Republicans and conservatives, it was hunky-dory. It was fine. But now that Bill Clinton has become "Bull" Clinton--from "Bull" Connor to "Bull" Clinton--now that Clinton is turning, and his wife, are turning their tactics on fellow Democrats, particularly, a likable, young black guy, the Democrat establishment doesn't like what they see. We have the Kennedy wing in full -- it's a head-on assault against the Clinton wing, and it's delicious.

[***]

So, these divisions are going to continue to happen the longer this goes, and I think there will be some residual fallout for Democrats if it's Mrs. Clinton in November as a result of what's happening here with the blatant playing--I mean, look it. When I say that we've gone from "Bull" Connor to "Bull" Clinton, believe me, there are plenty in this audience, black voters, and they will spread--they know exactly what that means. And he looks like "Bull" Clinton. The only thing he doesn't have is the hose--you know, "Bull" Connor spraying the fire hose on these guys.

But Bill Clinton is doing his best to marginalize them, to say they're not important. That slam that Clinton made against Obama: "Well, I mean, he's just like Jesse Jackson." Jesse Jackson's a nobody in the Democrat Party without the Clintons. Jesse Jackson never got close to anything. What they're saying is: "Hey, now you people are getting all worked up about him. He's just another loser. He's just Jesse Jackson. He's just like Jesse Jackson. Jackson ran a good campaign. Now, what the hell do you expect to happen? A guy like Jesse Jackson comes in, Obama, with a bunch of black people in a state, what the hell you people think will happen? You think they're going to vote for a bunch of white people? Hell no!"

What he's saying is these blacks in South Carolina are a bunch of racists, and they're hanging together--don't doubt me on this. The black population in this country hears this, those that pay attention to this, and they are getting it.

[***]

LIMBAUGH: Now, I have been saying, ladies and gentlemen, that the Democratic race can be typified by the following statement: We've gone from "Bull" Connor to "Bull" Clinton. And Mr. Snerdly has suggested it might be helpful for me to tell you who "Bull" Connor was. Some of you may not know because of your age.

His real name was Eugene "Bull" Connor. He was a member of the Klan. "Bull" Connor was a member of the KKK, the Ku Klux Klan. "Bull" Connor was a staunch advocate of racial segregation, much as was Bill Clinton's mentor, Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. As the Public Safety Commissioner of Birmingham, Alabama, in the 1960s, "Bull" Connor became a symbol of bigotry. He infamously fought against integration by using fire hoses and police attack dogs against unarmed black protest marchers and even white protest marchers who were marching with the blacks. The spectacle--now all this was broadcast on television--the spectacle served as one of the catalysts for major social and legal change in the South and helped in large measure to assure the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Connor's tactics backfired dramatically into helping to bring about the very change that he was opposing.

The bottom line was, he was a member of the Klan; he was a sheriff, a police official, a staunch advocate of racial segregation--fire hoses and police dogs on protesters.

So, when we say we've gone from "Bull" Connor to "Bull" Clinton, what I mean is that "Bull" Connor lives in spirit today in Bill Clinton by virtue of his behavior in South Carolina and his dissing of Jesse Jackson when asked to explain Obama's victory. "Well, you know, Jesse Jackson that ran down here, too, he did good in two elections. He ran a good campaign, but Obama ran a good campaign, too, but I mean, what the hell are you gonna do? You got black people down here support black people; they support losers. They support--Jesse Jackson's a loser, but I had to go in--you know I had to Sister Souljah that guy in order to get elected myself. You can't get anywhere with these people. You can't get anywhere with these people." That's what he saying. And so: "Bull" Connor to "Bull" Clinton.

For compsrison, consider what Snopes.com has to say about some propaganda circulating among the so-called "patriot" element which claimed that the Clinton Administration secretly dispatched their critics, and resorted to all manner of cover-up tricks to avoid attracting suspicion.

How do we know His Fraudulency isn't secretly plotting similar sinister designs, perhaps fuelled by his own inner paranoia, to stall the elections and prevent the maintenance of the GOP's Natural Monopoly on Power and Authority?

In any case, The Oxycontin Sow's comparisons are disgusting and uncalled for.

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