PERHAPS ONE OF THE MORE LURID YOUTH ORGANISATIONS KNOWN TO YOUR CORRESPONDENT would probably have to be the Kremlin-sponsored youth organisation Nazhi.

Whose articles of faith can best be said to be xenophobically nationalist in ways not seen since the Former Soviet Union's collapse, with overtures to racism, anti-Semitism and homophobia of a most overt type--in some instances, leading to outright ultraviolence with the police looking the other way.

Whose agenda appeals to the disaffected youth of post-Soviet Russia with appeals to a "Mother Russia" mentality reinforced by deliberate and crude isolationism of the highest order.

Whose meetings have reputedly included outright orgies in a stylee not unlike that of the Hitler Jugend and Bund Deutscher Madel back in Nazi Germany, reinforced with appeals to "repopulate Mother Russia" and yet disapproving of contraception.

In other words, the kind of youth organisation which certain religiopolitical conservatives would love to see pushed upon Right-Thinking American Youth, all the while seeking to "promote a healthy patriot love for the Nobility of America" along hatemongering and xenophobically isolationist models of Nazhi. That, and the occasional orgy for the Greater Glory of Maintaining White Racial Honour and Glory.

The which needs to be watched because of its clear and present danger for brainwashing especially vulnerable youth, in particular such as are forced into membership by dysfunctional and uncaring parents wanting a cheap and cheerful way to get the kids out of their hair while the parental units perouse the Information Stuporbahn for kinderporn.

Especially so by way of fear, violence, intimidation--and unprotected procreation in the name of G-d, Country and Race.

And yet these same elements in the Nazhi vein speak of "defending Traditional Christian Family Values" all the while!

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WITH @ LEAST ONE NEWS PORTAL CLAIMING THAT "LEAKED EXIT POLLS" SUGGEST A "SURGE" FOR MIKE HUCKABEE'S PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRATIONS IN THE SEVERAL SUPER TUESDAY PRIMARIES, particularly so in the Bible Belt (but then again, polls could be wrong before the final numbers come out), the Right Wing Watch blog of People For the American Way makes note of what could be a rather pathetic tactic on the Huckabee campaign's part--whining and harping on and on about "Christian persecution," itself a non-issue in Indecision 2008 if ever there was one:

Aside from presenting himself as the one true "Christian leader" best prepared to be the nation's first "Pastor in Chief," Mike Huckabee's primary campaign strategy seems to be whining about how unfairly he is being treated.

So far, while his supporters have been demanding recounts of straw polls and proclaiming that he is the victim of anti-evangelical bias, he has been busy complaining about other Christian leaders refusing to back him, saying that his faith is receiving undue scrutiny, and suggesting that there is some sort of anti-Huckabee conspiracy at work. Lately, he has begun whining that Mitt Romney is engaging in "voter suppression" and saying that Romney ought to drop out of the race because he is stealing his votes.

And now he has taken to blasting "establishment Republicans" who want him to drop out, saying that social conservatives are sick of being told to sit at the "back of the bus," complaining that they've paid their dues and deserve to sit at the head of the table for once:

One day before Super Tuesday, when he hopes to regain some much-needed momentum in the South, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee told Baptist Press that the GOP must not relegate social conservatives to the "back of the bus," as he says some "establishment Republicans" have done.

…

"What we're beginning to find out now," he told BP, "is that some of the establishment Republicans were more than happy to have social conservatives, as long as we would make sure we helped provide the vote margin to get Republicans elected and we were willing to hammer in yard signs and attend rallies and scream. But when we actually wanted to not just have a seat at the table but sit at the head of the table, make decisions on issues that are very, very important to us and always have been, suddenly we're not welcome anymore. We've been asked to go to the back of the bus.

"It's been very revealing. Either this is a party that social conservatives have a home in or we don't.... We've paid our dues."

Who knows, maybe whining is a winning electoral strategy.  But since Huckabee plans on staying in the race even if he gets trounced on Super Tuesday, maybe he'll have time to try out a campaign strategy that doesn't involve playing the victim and that expands beyond his right-wing Christian base. 

WITH GOP PRESIDENTIAL WANNABE MIKE HUCKABEE MAKING NO SECRET OF HIS SUPPORT BASE being, by and large, what could best be called "Wally World Republicans" as opposed to "Wall Street Republicans," perhaps it would be best to define what constitutes a "Wally World Republican."

For the obvious, expect such to be low-class "white trailer park trash," to use the vernacular.

Drawing it out some, your typical "Wally World Republican" can expect to be:

• Lower-working-class socioeconomically, usually blue collar unskilled or semi-skilled with little or no realistic potential for advancement.
• More than likely resident in lower-income or otherwise economically-disadvantaged communities with latent socioeconomic complacency in unskilled blue-collar manufacturing as the socioeconomic foundation, or otherwise unlikely to attract real jobs for fear of "destabilising the established industrial base." Said complacency making these same communities all the more vulnerable to exploitation by carpetbagger types in the "home business," "work-from-home" and "gifting club" arenas.
• Unlikely to come to terms with the changing socioeconomic paradigm, having been brought up more than likely in a time when unskilled manufacturing jobs predominated and the socioeconomic paradigm favoured export-based models "to protect American jobs."
• Educationally-speaking, more than likely to read and comprehend @ a 4th- to 6th-grade level, and all the more likely to have their children homeschooled based on apartheid South Africa's syllabus of Nasionale Christen Opverdoing, placing idealised "values" above core skills with clear and present risk of developing warped ideals.
• Unlikely to have due regard for "getting their money's worth" (as in emphasising the useful and practical) in their shopping, as opposed to getting what they want cheap above all else.
• Especially likely to have been brought up in an abusive, broken or otherwise dysfunctional home, with episodes of physical and/or sexual abuse (including incest) inflicted by parents and/or siblings and all the more likely to wind up abusing wife and/or children themselves, excusing such as "Christian Love" if and when pressed to explain. Said upbringing also developing a latent contempt for State welfare based on such only "contributing to moral weakness and lapse" notwithstanding repeated studies disproving such an interconnexion.
• Notwithstanding latent objections to homosexuality, "Wally World Republicans" are all the more likely to bond with fellow males for the sake of their own hubris-laden machismo, drinking beer, swapping dirty stories and discussing all manner of lurid "conspiracies" brought up on conservative talkback radio over recent days, among other adventures in political incorrectness.
• Holding Amerikanischer Realkultur to be Morally Superior to All Other Kultur, notwithstanding their objections to violence, "obscenity," "indecency," "miscegenation" and "unscreupulous Jewish control and influence upon the New York-Hollywood Axis of Evil;" more than likely to regard Branson, MO to be The True Centre of Amerikanischer Realkultur in a "pure" and idealised form.
• About their only interests the "Wally World Republican" is likely to have on their horizon are DIY home and automotive projects, trashy films and TV shows, sport (especially so NASCAR and so-called "professional wrestling"), sexually-suggestive jokes and stories, beer, junk food and xenophobically jingoistic patriotism.
• Patriotic feelings in the element are all the more likely to be such which regard Old Glory to be some class of a Holy and Sacred Icon With Supposedly Sacred and Mystical Powers (cf. Nazi Germany's treatment of the swastika flag as an icon of Hope and Salvation for the Aryan Master Race) and America being the Portal and Gateway to Heaven, not to mention Center of the World, the Universe and the 28 Known Galaxies--in other words, a xenophobically isolated brand rivalled in depravity only by North Korea and the so-called "Union of Myanmar" (a/k/a Burma).
• Regarding deliberate ignorance and stupidity as virtuous.

Thus defines the "Wally World Republican."

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AND TALK ABOUT DIVINE JUDGEMENT OF THE HIGHEST ORDER, come to think of it: Hours after GOP Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee won "Super Tuesday" primaries or caucuses in Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee, those same states (not to mention parts of Louisana and Mississippi as are all the likely to support the Huckabee campaign) were hit by a series of tornadoes as have caused (to the moment I write this) some 50 deaths, hundreds of injuries and considerable property damage.

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SOMETHING FOR THE ELMER GANTRY CROWD TO THINK ABOUT IN EXPLOITING LATENT HOMOPHOBIA among these same "Wally World Republicans" in particular, by way of Britain's Advertising Standards Authority taking issue with a mobile billboard campaign by the "Christian Congress for Traditional Values:"

Ad
A mobile poster for the Christian Congress for Traditional Values (CCTV) showed a family consisting of a man, a woman and a young son and daughter.  Body copy beside it stated "GAY AIM: ABOLISH THE FAMILY."  CCTVs website address was printed beneath the body copy and a banner across the picture of the family identified CCTV and showed a logo.

Issue
The complainant believed the ad suggested all gay people were against families and family values.  He challenged whether:

1. this was an accurate representation of the views of gay people and

2. the ad was likely to cause serious or widespread offence or condone anti-social behaviour.

Response
1.  CCTV said they believed the common understanding in the UK of what constituted a family was a married man and woman, both of whom had been born in that gender, and their children.  They believed this understanding stemmed from the UK being a traditionally Christian country with the concept of a family being rooted in Judeo-Christian principles.

They believed the homosexual community was represented in the media and in the consciousness of the population at large by a public campaign for legislative and moral change, and that the ad represented their views in a factually accurate way.  CCTV believed it was legitimate for them to state their opinion that these were the views of the public campaign.  They did not believe the ad suggested that all gay people shared those views.  They believed the campaigners who sought same-sex marriage did not do so simply to achieve the same domestic situation that was available to heterosexuals but also because they aimed to redefine and abolish the traditional family.  They said it was that aim to which the poster referred.  CCTV cited the 1971 Gay Liberation Front Manifesto documents which described the traditional family unit (husband, wife and children) as working against homosexuality, and which stated "We must aim at the abolition of the family."  CCTV said that other aims listed in the 1971 Gay Liberation Front Manifesto and which had resulted in legislative or social changes included the teaching of homosexuality in schools; equalising the age of consent for homosexuals and heterosexuals; using the media to detract from the traditional family as the norm and introducing legislation to prevent discrimination against homosexuals in the workplace.  CCTV cited a similar manifesto published by the National Coalition of Gay Organisations in the USA in 1972, and several authors, individual campaigners and organisations who had publicly stated similar aims in the UK and abroad to illustrate how widely held they believed the views were.

2.  CCTV said their claim was their genuinely-held belief for which they believed they had provided adequate substantiation.  They believed it was legitimate for them to highlight their concern that traditional Christian family values and religious liberty were threatened by the legislative changes homosexual groups campaigned for, and that there was a place in a democratic society for views both for and against to be expressed.  They believed the potential for the ad to cause offence was minimal because the aim to redefine the concept of the family was so widely and openly acknowledged by the homosexual community.  They acknowledged the ad might have caused offence or irritation or was unwelcome to people who disagreed with the statement but they did not believe the reaction was so widespread as to make it unacceptable.  They said they did not intend the ad to result in violent reaction or antisocial behaviour.

Assessment
1.  Upheld
The ASA noted CCTV's argument that they believed it was legitimate that their ad represented their point of view and considered CCTV was flagged clearly as the author of the ad.  We considered, however, that in the absence of information to the contrary, the statement was likely to be understood to represent the prevailing view of the gay community.  We noted the evidence CCTV provided indicated that some sections of the gay community had spoken out strongly against the traditional concept of the family.  We also noted, however, that the evidence was based mainly on a document published by the Gay Liberation Front, a radical gay group which disbanded nearly 30 years ago.  We noted that the language used and claim made in the ad did not appear to reflect the stance taken by today's mainstream campaigns by the gay community which expressed a desire for the responsibilities of gay people caring for children to be equal with those of heterosexual people.  We also noted that a family unit today was increasingly less likely to necessarily comprise a married man and woman and their children.  We considered CCTV had not supported the claim.

On this point the ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 8.1 (Matters of opinion).

2.  Upheld
We noted CCTV's argument that they believed it was legitimate that they were permitted to express their genuinely held beliefs.

As noted in point 1 above, we considered the statement was likely to be understood to represent the prevailing view of the gay community when that was not the case.  We considered the statement and the way it appeared was likely to cause offence both to the mainstream gay community and supporters of equality, and was likely to be seen as controversial and possibly inflammatory by a significant number of people who saw the poster in an untargeted medium.  We concluded that the poster was likely to cause serious or widespread offence and might lead to antisocial behaviour.

On this point the ad breached CAP Code clauses 2.2 (Social responsibility), 5.1 and 5.2 (Decency) and 8.1 (Matters of opinion).

Action
We told CCTV to ensure future campaigns were not presented in a way that could cause serious or widespread offence or which might lead to antisocial behaviour.

Next thing you know, expect the Pseudoreligiopolitical Right to scream (in the key of "Ring around the collar! Ring around the collar!") "Christian Persecution! Christian Persecution!!" in their obviously idiotic stylee, and lacking credible substantiation, as ever.

NOT MANY ARE AWARE OF THIS--EVEN IN MINNESOTA--but 2008 is the sesquicentenary (150-year) anniversary of Minnesota's becoming the 32nd state of the United States.

No doubt a time for much rejoicing and historical reflection, even if Governor Pawlenty has called for the observance to be conducted @ cut prices for the sake of "taxpayer value," howbeit warped.

In any case, for the sake of a Sesquicentenary Project, I would like to name a few people from Minnesota history who, in my personal opine, I would be willing to invite to dinner if given the opportunity. Not to mention providing a challenge to bloggers across Minnesota to think along the same lines in the name of the Minnesota Sesquicentenary.

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

Understand, this will be an occasional series on my part, with pieces in this vein on an irregular basis--in other words, as whim and fancy permit.

So, might I start this little series of historical observation and whimsey by suggesting where one I would like to have dinner with from Minnesota history would probably be Dr. William Watts Fowell, longtime President of the University of Minnesota and, in his retirement, compiling and writing a four-volume History of Minnesota regarded by many as perhaps the most authoritative on the subject.

Staying with the University for a moment, I could also think of having over Maria L. Sanford, longtime professor of rhetoric @ the U as later became quite a popular lecturer in her own right.

The fact of Minnesota being the first state to offer troops to the Union cause in the Civil War would be enough to have me extend the invitations to Alexander Ramsey, then-Governor of Minnesota who had the foresight to be in Washington when Fort Sumter was attacked upon and made the offer to President Lincoln ... and Colonel William Colvill, himself distinguised in the battlefront after a stint as newspaper editor and certainly one to swap Civil War anecdotes with.

This round of dinner companions from Minnesota history could well include James M. Goodhue, who brought the Fourth Estate to Minnesota when he launched the Minnesota Pioneer in 1851, and brought a journalistic style which was as flamboyant as the times he was chronicler to--bombastic, yet tending @ times to be sentimental (as in promoting Minnesota for settlement). Plenty of stories and anecdotes worth swapping, even some as tended to out-and-out brawls with rival publishers.

Let's leave some room for Gideon Wealthy, an Eastern fruit planter who saw Minnesota's potential as a fruit-growing centre, devoting space in his orchards on Lake Minnetonka to developing such varieties of apples as could take Minnesota's harsh winters (including his namesake apple, the Wealthy) ... and Wendelin Grimm, the German farmer as developed a hardy variety of alfalfa that could take on Minnesota winters and @ once produce some decent hay which would make its way into making Minnesota a dairy leader.

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

That's it for now ... so watch for the next selection of such from Minnesota history as would be worth having dinner with during the Minnesota Sesquicentennial Year.  

BEING THAT MINNESOTA WEATHER CAN BE RATHER FICKLE AND @ ONCE UNPREDICTABLE, Your Correspondent can't help but be surprised to learn where the Minnwissippi region could be seeing a fresh (howbeit lighter) round of snow later this afterlunch as he prepareth this item.

But then again, March is usually the worst month for snowfall, and a wetter, heavier variety thereof @ that. Yet there's the likelihood of another false thaw or two in February to deal with beforehand....

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IT LOOKS AS IF GETTING PEOPLE TO DEVELOP HEALTHIER LIFESTYLES MAY NOT BE GOOD VALUE FOR MONEY after all.

So says a Dutch study just out which you may or may not have heard of on the news.

But then again, conservative articles of faith against the Lower Classes hold, inter alii, that same can't make wise decisions anyway--blame it on "G-dless public education" and "tendencies towards Socialism" promoted by State welfare, or so the claim hath it (notwithstanding lack of credible substantiation).

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STAYING IN THE HEALTH POLICY DEPARTMENT FOR THE NONCE, His Fraudulency's interim FY 2009 budget calls for sharp cuts in Medicare and Medicaid funding for the greater glory of maintaining a failed and failing Holy War on Terrorism as could really be closer to an ur-RAHOWA.

In effect, forcing greater onus upon the several states to provide cost-efficent health care services for the poor and needy.

Expect the forces of hyperconservative Zealotry and True Belief to recommend as an ideal "value-for-money" approach nothing less than a vendored-pay scheme to "open the magic doors to free markets, healthy competition and freedom of choice in health insurance" to an essentially vulnerable and easily-influenced element of Society--as in forcing those on Medicare and/or Medicaid or state equivalent to buy health insurance on the open market or (better yet, to conservative minds) opening Medical Savings Plans they're unlikely to understand or comprehend.

In turn, only opening the doors to bedlam and confusion thanks to all manner of potentially misleading advertising, not to mention related high-pressure sales campaigns, taking unscrupulous advantage of an already-vulnerable element of society. And what's more, IIUC, I am unaware of any existing schemes as "advise" those on State welfare to buy vendor-paid private health insurance, subject to the doctrine of caveat emptor ("buyer beware") prevailing (as in expecting the Great Unwashed to play along and keep their mouths shut vis-a-vis misleading, illegal or otherwise dangerous sales practices, under pain of their welfare benefits being stopped without notice).

All with His Fraudulency's Great Within "asleep @ the switch" all the while, leaving the Better Business Bureaux with a potentially heavy burden to bear for such who dare to stand up and take issue with the deceptive and/or exploitative.

Write Your Congressman.

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ONE JUNK E-MAIL CHAIN DEFINITELY WORTH DELETING, according to the BBC:

The UK government is taking the unprecedented step of writing to every embassy to stop a false e-mail rumour about Holocaust teaching being banned.

A widely-circulated e-mail has falsely claimed that schools in the UK will stop teaching the Holocaust because it might cause offence to Muslims.

Schools Secretary Ed Balls says he wants to "put an end once and for all to the myth" spread by the e-mail.

He says teaching the Holocaust remains "non-negotiable" in England.

This formal government rebuttal of a hoax e-mail has been prompted by a persistent rumour that "UK schools" are set to remove the Holocaust from the curriculum.

'No evidence'

The e-mail claims that this is a response to fears of offending Muslims - and it calls for the e-mail to be distributed in a "memorial chain" in protecting the memory of the Holocaust's victims.

There are also versions of the e-mail claiming that teaching of the Holocaust has been banned at the University of Kentucky - presumably in a confusion over "UK".

The e-mail continues to be published on many blogs and websites.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families says the department regularly has to handle inquiries about this hoax - and that it wants to put a stop to the confusion.

The BBC News website also repeatedly receives e-mails, many from international readers, asking about the validity of this supposed curriculum ban.

The government is now acting to refute the e-mail, sending a statement to embassies and the "world media".

"I want to put an end once and for all to the myth that the Holocaust is not being taught in schools or is being removed from the curriculum," writes Mr Balls.

Auschwitz visits

"I am pleased to confirm that this is absolutely not the case. Teaching of the Holocaust is compulsory in all secondary schools between the ages of 11 and 14.

"We are clear that there are certain non-negotiable subjects, which are protected in schools; one of those is the Holocaust.

"There is no evidence that schools are breaking the rules and not teaching the Holocaust.

"We also fund visits for young people from every secondary school and college to go to Auschwitz."

The UK has four education systems with separate curricula. This compulsory teaching of the Holocaust applies to schools in England - but there are no suggestions of a "ban" on the subject in other parts of the UK either.

The starting point of the e-mail is believed to have been a report from the Historical Association in April 2007, which warned that some teachers appeared reluctant to teach areas of history which could be considered controversial with some pupils.

This included concerns about teaching the Crusades to Muslim pupils - and worries that teaching the Holocaust could prompt an anti-Semitic response.

But then again, you have to wonder how various "Christian Homeschooling" programmes approach the Holocaust, let alone the depraved excesses of apartheid South Africa, die Voortrek and the British "concentration camps" of the 1899-1902 Boer War.

*************

IF ONLY WE "MORALLY SUPERIOR" AMERICANS WERE AS SUPPORTIVE OF HIGH-SPEED RAIL AS THE "MORALLY INFERIOR" EUROPEANS: French engineering group Alsthom has unveiled the next generation of its already-successful TGV high-speed train.

Known as the AGV, such is essentially a glorified railcar with motors under each car and operating cabs @ each end--as well as a top speed of 225 mph (360 km/hr), meaning that a 600-mile journey could theoretically take three hours between city centres. Helping things along for the AGV is an aerodynamic design and use of graphite composites, further reducing weight and power consumption while allowing for faster speed than the current TGV/Thalys variants, which are only capable of just under 200 mph (320 km/hr).

In fact, French President Sarkozy is drawing comparisons between the AGV trainset and the A380 superjet as examples of European innovation @ their finest in the transportation industry.

Meanwhile, we "morally superior" Americans will continue to be asked to accept arbitrarily cheap gas (and arbitrarily low gas taxes) as one with "national unity and soverign identity" and the defence thereof--not to mention a cheap, fuel-inefficent commuter vehicle modelled on the East German Trabant 601 being "preferred" (and excused as "patriotic" all the while)--unless--?

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EUROPEAN CUT-PRICE AIRLINE RYANAIR JUST CAN'T KEEP ITS FILTHY HANDS OUT OF TROUBLE when it comes to the nature and extent of their advertising exploiting current events.

Recent case in point: A French court has ordered Ryanair to pay €60,000 in damages to Carla Bruni, bride of French President Sarkozy, for unauthorised use in advertising of a photo showing the pair to promote its cut-price fares; Mme. Bruni had sought €500,000, which she claimed was her standard fee for modelling work.

(M. Sarkozy received a symbolic €1 payment for damages.)