IT'S NOT ALL THAT OFTEN THAT YOUR CORRESPONDENT POSTS MATERIAL HERE @ THE EXAGGERATOR on Sundays, unless compelled to by force of events or whatever else on his mind prompts him to post material.

Like this morning.

As for what can trigger such postings, I know not. Just suffice it to say that I'm the kind who tends to post material impromptu, or on whim without much in the way of prepared notes.

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IT'S THE END OF ONE ERA--AND THE BEGINNING OF ANOTHER--JOURNALISTIC down Madison way:

Just yesterday, The Capital Times ended nearly 91 years of print publication as an afterlunch gazetta in Wisconsin's capital city ... and began what could be a closely-watched transition to "virtual" form (as in a constantly-updated online gazetta) in the hope of maintaining a Secular-Progressive voice as did considerable editorial damage to war profiteers, the Ku Klux Klan in its 1920's resurgency, Senator Joseph "I have here in my hand" McCarthy and his "patriotic" anti-Communist campaigns, environmental polluters, Big Business, the Four Hundred--and, in this day and age, sugar-coated Fascist tendencies among neo-conservative Zealots and True Believers, and their use to whip up enforced patriotism to, in its turn, justify ur-RAHOWA.

(Which is not to say that The Capital Times will pass from the printed page altogether: Twice-weekly tabloid editions--a Wednesday such as will cover news and commentary, and a Thursday amusements review and guide to be called 77 Square--will keep the flame lit, or try to, by way of supplements to their respective daily editions of the surviving Wisconsin State Journal, as well as stand-alone free distribution in and around Mad Town.)

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A BIT OF IRONY AS SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING FOR RIPLEY--OR, FOR THAT MATTER, SNOPES.COM, which The Capital Times duly noted in an article marking its end as a traditional daily gazetta:

The very day the first Cap Times hit the streets [13 December, 1917], Life magazine published a cartoon in its "Traitors" section of Kaiser Wilhelm pinning dozens of medals on [Senator Robert] La Follette.

(Readers, the Life magazine referred to as above was a satirical weekly published from 1883 until 1936, when Henry Luce purchased the title for his new pictorial weekly, itself continuing as a weekly until 1972 with intermittent revivals in the years since--particularly so as a monthly from 1978 until 2000, and from 2004 until 2007 as a rotogravure weekly supplement in several newspapers across the country.)

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HAVING BEEN ONE DIAGNOSED IN PAST WITH "PARANOID SCHIZOPHRENIA," AND PRESCRIBED HIGHLY-SEDATING MEDICATIONS as did little, if anything, to control same, Your Correspondent would like to acknowledge where, in posting certain especially critical items to this blog--or, for that matter, having a "letter to the editor" published in local gazettas--he imagines the prospect of responses from the Neocon/Fascisti element in the "Freeper" vein via e-mail in particular.

Said responses heavy on obscenity (in particular the "Seven Dirty Words" and their variants), questioning my loyalty and/or want of True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command (even if it means resorting to McCarthyist suggestions or "tendencies" that I was somehow "Communist" or otherwise "disloyal"), suggesting that I should "get my head examined" and quit blogging "for the Greater Collective Good of the Nation," stuff like that.

I'll say this again: I am what I am, and I'll blog as I want to blog.

And besides: Where do you get the idea that only conservatives are "entitled as of right" to a Government-Protected Monopoly on the marketplace of news and ideas, even to the extent of deliberately "dumping" trashy and pornographically tasteless prolefeed upon culturally-deprived environments for no useful purpose other than pacifying the poor, undereducated and easily-influenced--usually little more than sport, crime, astrology and celebrity goss?

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RECOMMENDED READING AND REPOSTING AMONG THE "SECULAR-PROGRESSIVE" BLOGOSPHERE, of which The Exaggerator is a proud part of: Videlicet, transcripts of an exchange the other day between Congressional Representative Robert Wexler (D/MI) and FBI Director Robert Mueller as is rather revealing to the point of embarrassing (and then some) for His Fraudulency's "inside of the inside," populated as it is with weird and unwholesome elements (in particular pædophiles, sex perverts, closet Fascisti and worse who are prepared to sell out American soverignty "antient and pecuilar" to the same "New World Order" as their extremist droogs forever regard as a Clear and Present Danger, up there with Esau selling his birthright to Jacob for bread and lentil soup):

Robert Wexler: Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Director, in January of 2006, the New York Times reported that the NSA wireless wiretapping program had produced thousands of leads each month that the FBI had to track down, but that no Al-Qaeda networks were discovered. During a July 17, 2007 briefing, FBI deputy director John Pistole indicated that the FBI was not aware of any Al-Qaeda sleeper cells operating in the United States. In August of 2007 Congress passed the Protect America Act, giving the intelligence community greater access to electronic communications coming into and out of the United States. I have two questions in this regard.

RW: Has the FBI found any sleeper cells yet? One…

RW: Two. Has the NSA’s wireless wiretapping programs either before the Protect America Act or after led to the prosecution and conviction of any terrorists in the United States?

Robert Mueller: Well, as to your first question as to whether we have found affiliates or, as you would call them, cells of Al-Qaeda in the United States, yes we have. Again, I cannot get into it in public session, but I would say yes we have. With regard to the relationship of a particular case or individual to the terrorist surveillance program, again that is something that would have to be covered in a closed session.

RW: Alright, Mr. Director. An LA Times article from October, 2007 quotes one senior federal enforcement official as saying [quote] “the CIA determined they were going to torture people, and we made the decision not to be involved” [end quote]. The article goes on to say that some FBI officials went to you and that you [quote] “pulled many of the agents back from playing even a supporting role in the investigations to avoid exposing them to legal jeopardy” [end quote].

RW: My question Mr. Director, I congratulate you for pulling the FBI agents back, but why did you not take more substantial steps to stop the interrogation techniques that your own FBI agents were telling you were illegal? Why did you not initiate criminal investigations when your agents told you the CIA and the Department of Defense were engaging in illegal interrogation techniques, and rather than simply pulling your agents out, shouldn’t you have directed them to prevent any illegal interrogations from taking place?

RM: I can go so far sir as to tell you that a protocol in the FBI is not to use coercion in any of our interrogations or our questioning and we have abided by our protocol.

RW: I appreciate that. What is the protocol say when the FBI knows that the CIA is engaging or the Department of Defense is engaging in an illegal technique? What does the protocol say in that circumstance?

RM: We would bring it up to appropriate authorities and determine whether the techniques were legal or illegal.

RW: Did you bring it up to appropriate authorities?

RM: All I can tell you is that we followed our own protocols.

RW: So you can’t tell us whether you brought it; when your own FBI agents came to you and said the CIA is doing something illegal which caused you to say don’t you get involved; you can’t tell us whether you then went  to whatever authority?

RM: I’ll tell you we followed our own protocols.

RW: And what was the result?

RM: We followed our own protocols. We followed our protocols. We did not use coercion. We did not participate in any instance where coercion was used to my knowledge.

RW: Did the CIA use techniques that were illegal?

RM: I can’t comment on what has been done by another agency and under what authorities the other agency may have taken actions.

RW: Why can’t you comment on the actions of another agency?

RM: I leave that up to the other agency to answer questions with regard to the actions taken by that agency and the legal authorities that may apply to them.

RW: Are you the chief legal law enforcement agency in the United States?

RM: I am the Director of the FBI.

RW: And you do not have authority with respect to any other governmental agency in the United States? Is that what you’re saying?

RM: My authority is given to me to investigate. Yes we do.

RW: Did somebody take away that authority with respect to the CIA?

RM: Nobody has taken away the authority. I can tell you what our protocol was, and how we followed that protocol.

RW: Did anybody take away the authority with respect to the Department of Defense?

RM: I’m not certain what you mean.

RW: Your authority to investigate an illegal torture technique.

RM: There has to be a legal basis for us to investigate, and generally that legal basis is given to us by the Department of Justice. Any interpretations of the laws given to us by the Department of Justice….
(talking over each other)

RW:  But apparently your own agents made a determination that the actions by the CIA and the Department of Defense were illegal, so much so that you authorized, ordered, your agents not to participate. But that’s it.

RM: I’ve told you what our protocol was, and I’ve indicated that we’ve adhered to our protocol throughout.

RW: My time is up. Thank you very much Mr. Director.

Remind you, readers, of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trials (1945-6) and the frequently-repeated patsy of "I was only following orders," itself reinforced by the argument that disobedience meant a more-than-likely sentence of death, let alone official disgrace?  

THE ALLUSION IN THE SUBJECT LINE, IN CASE ANY OF YOU READERS ASK, is to the blurb used on packaging a few years back for a Japanese brand of breath mints.

In English, mind you!

As a matter of fact, things are rather windy here in the Minnwissippi as I prepare this--so windy, in fact, that it can blow over the recycling bins of a neighbour in "the projects" where I live, who chooses to keep said bins outside rather than inside. Not to mention the occasional peek of sunshine in the bargain.

Things, it seems, can only get worse weather wise before they can get better.

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THE BLOG OF WAKEUPWALMART.COM DESERVES KUDOS FOR RECOMMENDING THE FOLLOWING VIDEO of a recent item off HDNet's Dan Rather Reports programme revealing the extent of power and intrusion Wally World will go to for the cause of Realpolitik according to Wally World.

Equally worthy of note is that it used actual videos from the Flagler Production archives as were made under informal agreements with Wally World, thus making the case all the more brazen. See it for yourself, boys and girls, and don't come crying to meme:

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AS IF THAT WEREN'T ENOUGH, IT'S EMERGED THAT WALLY WORLD EXECUTIVES may have been some of the biggest cheerleaders for the Latest Grand Delusion of His Fraudulency's Great Within--as in those sham Economic Stimulus Payments starting @ $300 in the hope of encouraging wasteful and frivolous consumer spending with little or no real regard for value for money.

Again, we turn to WakeUpWalMart's blog:

Jack Shewmaker, Wal-Mart Stores director, has confirmed what we've been saying for quite some time. He said that President Bush's economic stimulus plan, which will send $600 checks to millions of Americans will give Wal-Mart a "real boost." He also talked about the 2008 economic forecast, suggesting that Wal-Mart will have a strong year as it 'repositions' itself. This all just backs up what we've been saying for quite some time. Wal-Mart profits from the country's poverty, and Wal-Mart desperately wants your rebate check. We think its rather disgusting that Wal-Mart is all giddy about the shaky economy, but then again, Wal-Mart has always profited off the backs of their associates, so why shouldn't they do the same with all of America?

Here's the story from the Bloomburg News Service via Asbury Park Press:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. director Jack Shewmaker said a U.S. economic stimulus plan that includes tax rebates for 130 million households will give a "real boost'' to sales at the world's biggest retailer.

Customers who cash rebate checks at the discount chain will probably spend them there, Shewmaker said in an interview in Barcelona Thursday. He joined Wal-Mart's board in 1977 and is a retired vice chairman of the company.

The rebates start in May, part of a $168 billion government package to spur the economy. Sales at many U.S. retailers have slowed as consumers grapple with fuel prices, and soaring oil costs will make the industry "reconsider its model," Shewmaker said in a speech today. Wal-Mart raised its profit forecast Thursday after its price cuts lured cash-strapped shoppers.

"I think Wal-Mart has repositioned well," Shewmaker said in the interview, adding that 2008 will be a "strong year."

[***]

The Bentonville, Ark.-based company said yesterday that March sales at stores open at least a year increased 0.7 percent, while clothing retailers Limited Brands Inc., Gap Inc. and American Eagle Outfitters Inc. posted sales declines that exceeded analysts' estimates.

Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley declined to comment on Shewmaker's remarks.

Wal-Mart fell 12 cents to $54.54 in early New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares gained 15 percent this year through Thursday, compared with the 3.5 percent drop by the Standard & Poor's 500 Retailing Index.

Spending by U.S. consumers, which has sustained the economy during housing's worst slump in a generation, rose at the slowest pace in more than a year in February, stoking concern the country will enter a recession.

A close relationship with suppliers and daily sales updates for store managers enable Wal-Mart to adapt quickly to changes in demand, Shewmaker said.

"Partnership with suppliers is more important during these times," he said in the interview. "If your suppliers are negative or inefficient, then guess what you're going to be."

Retailers' same-store sales fell 0.5 percent last month, the biggest decline in almost a year and the worst March since 1995, the International Council of Shopping Centers said, based on a survey of 37 chains. The trade group had predicted sales would be little changed.

There are "hundreds of things" Wal-Mart should consider doing differently to cut costs, Shewmaker said in a speech at the World Retail Congress in Barcelona today. Soaring oil prices will be a "huge factor" for all retailers, he said.

The earliest Easter in almost a century may have brought forward seasonal spring sales, distorting revenue figures Wal-Mart reported Thursday, Shewmaker said.

Easter has "kicked off the spring season early" and April sales data will bring a "clearer picture," he said.

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SOMETHING COULD GET ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA HEADING INTO INDECISION 2008--as in the Secretary of State certifying petitions authorising a second go-round for a plebiscite seeking to impose a "complete and final" blanket ban on abortions.

Which, you will recall, was rejected back in 2006.

Known officially on the ballot paper as Measure 11, the campaigning therefor is no doubt expected to get emotionally down and dirty, what with the emphasis behind the plebiscite suggesting that abortion is as much about the murder of human life (which, the anti-abortionist crowd is forever contending, "begins @ conception") as it is about psychological and emotional harm for the materfamilias who undergoes same.

Especially when the weird and unwholesome element from interstate seeks to exploit the Vote Yes campaign vis-a-vis Measure 11 for no useful purpose save to attract attention.

That, and perhaps the likelihood of supporters for Measure 11 as collected the signatures in question using subcontractors from interstate, which could raise questions of the measure's legality and, in the right circumstances, be enough to remove same from the final ballot paper (cf. a trio of Montana ballot plebiscites sponsored by Wise Use Movement sympathisers stricken from the 2004 ballot paper after irregularities in signature collection were uncovered).

And let's not forget the possibility of invoking Luddite articles of faith in certain weird and unwholesome circles to justify banning abortion (cf. the Communist regime of Nicolae Ceauçescu in Romania--about as "pro-life" as it got, and then some, enough to inspire some closet adoration among anti-abortionists, no?).

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AND TALK ABOUT GOING INTO FULL-ON BALLISTIC "WINNING OF HEARTS AND MINDS" MODE over to a highly-controversial cause, and its defence: Such seems to be the case of late with the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) in response to the removal to care of 429 girls from their Texas compound.

Which, to the FLDS, amounts to nothing short of that "Christian Persecution! Christian Persecution!" meme being repeated to pathetically ridiculous effect, especially their invoking the suggestion that a hoax call from interstate using VoIP technology may have actually been responsible for the intervention.

Hopefully, the DNA testing of all the principals should sort out just how complex the FLDS bloodlines can get, even considering where FLDS articles of faith tacitly excused the preening of youngsters as nothing less than sex machines serving not so much Christian as racial duty.

And still, though, how many others on the Pseudoreligiopolitical Right have been playing along with the "Christian Persecution!" meme that the FLDS is playing so eloquently all this time?

THERE ARE PROBABLY SOME OF YOU REGULAR READERS TO THIS BLOG AS ARE ASKING THEMSELVES WHO I'M TALKING ABOUT when I allude to the likes of Al Cohol, Mary Jane, Auntie Em and Old Lady Snow.

To answer any such questions on your mind, they are the colloquial personifications for, respectively, alcohol, marijuana, morphine and cocaine.

Even if they do sound rather like the targets of Bart Simpson's crank calls to Moe's Tavern from time to time.

In any case, it's just my way of making this blog "stand out" through the agency of colourful language, challenging the convention suggesting that "mental defectives" should have no opinions of any kind lest their welfare benefits suddenly be cut off or sharply reduced, or their names wind up on blacklists discreetly circulated to employers.

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BUT THEN AGAIN, THERE ARE OTHER INTERESTING AND YET COLOURFUL PERSONIFICATIONS for illicit substances in the English language:

• When it comes to liquor, "John Barleycorn" is perhaps the best known, made infamous by the prohibitionist and temperance movements to personify the evils of strong drink. "Al K. Hall" is a close variation on "Al Cohol."
• Personifying marijuana are "Mary Warner" and "Mary Weaver," along with "Mary Jane."
• Cocaine's personified guises include those of "Dr. Snow," "Dr. White" and "Old Lady White."

I hope, reader, that I have answered your question.

Now--any questions on your part?

ON NO LESS THAN THREE PREVIOUS OCCASIONS IN THIS WEBLOG--as in here, here and here--Your Correspondent was wondering how much longer it would take before the Religiopolitical Right would start playing their singsong "Christian Persecution! Christian Persecution!" meme towards the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) in the wake of Texas child-welfare agents removing no less than 425 women and girls from their Yearning for Zion compound in west Texas after charges were raised of Indecent Assault and Forced Marriage of Minors.

Now, it appears as if I have my answer, thanks to ConWebBlog, which is linked to ConWebWatch:

In his April 19 WorldNetDaily column, Joseph Farah offers a somewhat convoluted quasi-defense of the polygamist cult whose children have been taken into custody by the state as part of a child abuse investigation.

While he repeatedly claims that "I don't like polygamy. And I don't like child abuse," he seems willing to tolerate both in the name of religious freedom and to serve as a poke in the eye to what he considers to be overreaching government officials. 

Because the raid on the cult semmed from an "anonymous call" made by someone who has yet to be identified, Farah claims he is "left wondering if the action by the state was excessive." He adds:

I don't doubt that some horrendous abuses took place within the walls of the YZR Ranch. Please don't label me as an apologist for this false religion, which I detest.

What I do doubt is that it was appropriate and legal to seize more than 400 children on such skimpy and non-specific evidence of real criminal abuse.

Is there a community in America where child abuse is not taking place?

Don't we normally arrest individual suspects and try them for their crimes?

Do we normally and preemptively round up all the children in a community where it is suspected abuse is taking place without specific evidence?

When a government school teacher is arrested for abusing one student, are all the students in that school assumed to be victims?

That last point is a laugher, since WND arguably makes a similar claim about "government schools"--better known to the rest of us as public schools--on a regular basis by regularly and falsely portraying something as innocuous as showing students that homosexuals merely exist as irrefutable evidence of "indoctrination."

Farah essentially admits that. After claiming that "neither do I want to see children abused at the hands of the state," he immediately adds, "It happens in government-run schools." He then follows with the usual litany of liberal-and government bashing, concluding with "It happens when officials in states such as California actively try to ban homeschooling."

Two points:

1) Farah distorts the California court ruling to which he is referring. There was no "active ban" of homeschooling; it merely pointed out that California has no provision for homeschooling.

2) Farah ignores the fact that there was, in fact, child abuse happening in the family at the center of the California homeschooling lawsuit. As we've detailed, courts have found that the father, Phillip Long, "has a long history of physically abusing the children and mother has a long history of not protecting them from father."

But WND has virtually ignored the abuse aspect of the Long case. Why? Because it has decided that promotion of homeschooling is more important than the welfare of the Longs' children.

In the Longs, we have a perfect example of what Farah described as "crimes that need to be prosecuted individually." But he won't call for that to happen because Phillip Long is more useful to him as a homeschooling poster boy.

Instead, Farah complains: "But cults aren't illegal, and polygamy and sexual abuse are crimes that need to be prosecuted individually, not collectively on a community that may have allowed them to happen." Farah ignores the closed, insular society in which the polygamist cult operated, making it nearly impossible to gain knowledge about individual cases of abuse. When an entire society is based on that abuse, a collective approach may be the better one.

Thus, like the abuse of the Longs' children, Farah is willing to condone the abuse of the cult's children to prove a larger point. Which seems to put the lie to his claim that he doesn't like child abuse.

Which, no doubt, brings to mind a favourite patsy the Religiopolitical Right will love to use in answering to charges of child abuse tending to overzealous spankings:

None other than "Christian love."

As if that weren't enough, how many families as engage in homeschooling based on apartheid South Africa's Nasionale Christen Opverdoing syllabus actually resort to using incest as an agency of maintaining power and authority?