HUMAN NATURE BEING THAT IT IS, THERE CAN BE NO DOUBT THAT HUMANS, UNLIKE ANIMALS, CAN MAKE MISTAKES AND RECOGNISE ERRORS within due course.

Witness New York Governor Elliot Spitzer acknowledging the substance of an item in The New York Times yesterday in which he was implicated in soliciting the services of a woman of easy virtue, and apologising for any embarrassment brought upon The Empire State and his family.

Which his political opponents responded to with this ultimatum: Either resign within 48 hours, or face impeachment proceedings before the New York Legislature.

But then again, expect Mrs. Warren's Profession to be out in full force in the Twin Cities coincident with the Republican National Convention after Labour Day; you may recall a recent news item which suggested that Republicans (conservatives in particular) are perhaps the best customers thereof. And consistent, come to think of it.

Not to mention the arrest of several prominent and powerful specimens of conservative Zealotry and True Belief there for consorting with known prostitutes ... as well as the Lindbergh Terminal Tap Dance which brought Sen. Larry Craig's career into tailspin.

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IN A RELATED VEIN ABOUT ERROR BEING A HUMAN CHARACTER TRAIT, Japanese tax police in Osaka arrested sisters Hatsue Shimizu and Yoshiko Ishii after discovering some ¥6 billion (about US$58 million/C$57.8 million/£28.9 million/€37.8 million/Rs2.35 billion/CHF59.66 million/A$62.75 million) in bank notes stashed away in cardboard boxes across ten locations in the Osaka region.

The whole being proceeds of inheritance from their father's estate, as died in 2004 and left ¥7.5 billion (about US$73 million/C$72.75 million/£36.35 million/€47.555 million/CHF75.102 million/Rs2.95 billion/A$79 million) between them, paying much less than the ¥2.86 billion (about US$28 million/C$27.8 million/£13.95 million/€18.25 million/CHF28.82 million/Rs1.131 billion/A$30.29 million) assessed for inheritance tax.

And yet the Zealots and True Believers of conservatism here in the "morally superior" United States want estate tax abolished in the name of "economic stimulation," but without offering alternative means to compensate for the ensuing loss of tax revenue (remember their hard-wired belief in low taxes=jobs=social stability, since discredited).

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STICKING TO THE SAME FLAWED EQUATION OF LOW TAXES=JOBS=SOCIAL STABILITY BEING AN ARTICLE OF FAITH, Minnesota Governor Pawlenty is invoking the majesty and authority of his office for potentially inapproriate purposes vis-a-vis the current state budget legislation.

As in using "public service" commercial message to call upon the "right-thinking" peoples of Minnesota (as in the poor, undereducated and easily-manipulate) to ask their DFL legislators in particular to vote against any budget proposals as translate into tax increases.

The reason? You guessed it: "Low taxes=jobs=social stability."

In effect, parroting the Club for Growth's ongoing patsy.

But then again, perhaps it was time to ask:

• whether some of the worst job losses, especially in recent months, have come from low-tax-rate states (especially such where keeping taxes all the lower is seen as a Sanctii Sanctorum towards jobs creation--especially so unskilled positions paying mininum wage or piecework-linked rates); and, conversely,
• whether some of the best jobs-creation numbers during much the same time period are from high-tax-rate states (especially so, again, with unskilled positions); and
• whether there exists an interconnexion between tax rates and unemployment numbers (even allowing for such who have exhausted all job-search options following prolonged unemployment and those unable to owing to circumstances outside their direct control, such as age, disability, mental disorders, caring for elderly or infants and local economic conditions).

I believe there is research online on these topics; just do a Google or two.

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

YOU'VE PROBABLY HEARD BY NOW ABOUT THAT ASSOCIATED PRESS STUDY WHICH FOUND WHERE THE DRINKING-WATER SUPPLIES OF SOME 43 MILLION AMERICANS were contaminate with old prescription and OTC medications as were flushed down the loo consistent with prevailing advice for so disposing.

Or so it turns out.

In any case, absent buyback programmes which pharmacies and health departments may have for taking outdated prescription medications, such can only be expected to remain a serious problem--especially when some of the meds flushed down the toilet and into local water supplies happen to include powerful antibiotics and prescription-only narcotics.

Too, there's also the fact of drug residues being passed in urine and no doubt likely to make its way into the water supply.

No doubt a dilemma which would vex even Throckmorton Gildersleeve in his role as Water Commissioner back in Summerfield, even with his being an ur-father for Leroy and Marjorie and the occasional battles of wits with Judge Hooker.... 

ONE THING THE ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS OF FREE-MARKET HYPERCONSERVATISM HOLD DEAR is the notion that the free market is best equipped to deliver certain government services, programmes and schemes as are otherwise deemed "non-essential" or "unlikely to generate taxpayer value" under current conditions.

Hence, requiring "the healthy and beneficial effects of free-market competition and freedom of choice" being brought in, reinforced by outright subsidies and "incentives" "to stimulate competition and innovation," to "save the good taxpayers from themselves."

Case in point: Job Service, as in state-run and -sponsored Job Centres providing employment opportunity information, referrals to counselling and job training services and Unemployment Benefits applications.

Which, to the conservative way of thinking, amounts to an "illegal and unhealthy State monopoly" when it comes to employment services for the Lower Classes "in clear need of employment" in particular.

Their preferred solution? None other than the free market, by way of "Approved Employment Agencies" operating in the private, free-market sector, funded by the same public funds currently allocated Job Service (and all the while expected to remain fee-based on the employer's part).

Not to mention offering "incentives" and "bonuses" for placing such traditionally seen as "unemployable" or otherwise "difficult to employ" under Job Service, with particular emphasis on "welfare basket cases," "troublemakers" and the disabled, all of which would attract special premium incentive payments.

And encouraging said "Approved Employment Agencies" to "spontaneously" generate "whispering campaigns" through paid "singers" delivering glowing generalities about "job openings" in such milieus that the Lower Classes congregate (especially bars, liquor stores, convenience stores, fast-food restaurants and bus stops), referring them to the "agency" handling the applications (and coaching the "singers" all along with regards to the proper tone and nuance expected to be used, saying things like "Have you heard? So-and-So Company now has an urgent call for--" in a somewhat discreet, yet prissy, tone of voice).

You'll never guess who will stand to benefit more: Close droogs and lackeys of the conservative establishment, "entitled as of right" (or so the ensuing bromide is likely to put it).

And with the rank-and-file jobseekers finding the ensuing bureauracy to be all the more closer to the Kafka stylee.

EXACTLY TWO MONTHS TO THE DAY OF THE 150-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF MINNESOTA'S STATEHOOD, perhaps it was time for Your Correspondent to go through another round of imagining what figures of Minnesota history he'd like having for dinner, were the opportunity to exist in this respect.

This time, perhaps some literary figures ought enter the menu, as it were:

For starters, I'd have to invite two obvious Minnesota-born literary luminaries as started to make their mark in the 1920's, Sinclair Lewis and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Both, no doubt, sure to liven up the dinner-table conversation with their stories about the literary world they revolved around, Fitzgerald with his Jazz Age flamboyance and Lewis with his "salt-of-the-earth" Midwestern iconoclasm.

Maybe bring in Wanda Gág to liven things up with her woodblock prints and that tale of hers about "millions of cats" that's sure to send the dinner party into gales of laughter (I understand she was quite fond of cats herself).

Margaret Culkin Banning also deserves a spot @ the dinner table of Minnesota history; a female Sinclair Lewis of sorts, shall we assume?

How about Garrison Keillor, for something more modern, yet slightly provincial? Or, for that matter, "Captain Billy" Fawcett, what with his repretoire of smoking-car stories and banter from Capt. Billy's Whiz-Bang guaranteed to generate plenty of bellylaughs.

I'd have to bring in August Wilson as well, with his stage plays making quite the mark reflecting growing up black. Not to mention Charles Schulz, whose long-running comic strip "Peanuts" could be considered literature on the funny page reflecting the foibles of daily life through his childish world.

More to come.... 

"MARTYRDOM MADE TO ORDER" SEEMS TO BE A JOURNALISTIC TECHNIQUE PREFERRED BY THE CONSERVATIVE PROPAGANDA MACHINE from time to time to serve their articles of faith--preferably where simple, easily-understood terms are used to better appeal to the Peter Griffin sort resident among culturally-deprived environments.

Case in point: WorldNetDaily's creating a "martyr complex" in a California family accused of not only refusing to send their children to the public schools and, instead, homeschooling same (citing "religious reasons"), but also of neglect and maltreatment. Some fresh developments in this non-story (and its treatment) come by way of the ConWebWatch blog as thus:

Another WorldNetDaily article by Bob Unruh on the case of California homeschooling parent Phillip Long, another effort to whitewash the behavior of the parents, and another failure to mention important issues in the case.

Why are Unruh and WND doing this? They're too close to the issue to tell the truth. Unruh and WND editor Joseph Farah have their children homeschooled, and they apparently don't want to admit--or let anyone else know--that there are bad apples in homeschooling.

But don't Unruh and Farah realize that by refusing to tell the truth to WND readers, they may actually end up harming homeschooling in the long run?

Unruh and WND have never mentioned the fact that, as court documents have detailed (as have we), the Long family was providing a substandard homeschool education to their children:

• The court described the education the children received at home as "lousy," "meager," and "bad," and that the supervision by the Christian school with which the family was affiliated was minimal at best.
• One child testified that she "was not taught geography or history. Asked if she can add, subtract, multiply and divide, [she] stated she cannot."
  

WND has also not reported the history of the father. From court documents:

• "Father has a long history of physically abusing the children and mother has a long history of not protecting them from father."
• "[F]ather dominates mother and dominates the children who live at home. ... He will not permit the children to attend school. He will not permit them to receive childhood vaccinations. He will not permit the girls to wear pants at home. He will not permit birth certificates."
• The court found the parents' home to be in "an endangering filthy, unsanitary and unsafe condition, and the minors were chronically filthy, and unsupervised late at night." 

There are good homeschoolers--and there are also bad homeschoolers. The court has found Phillip Long and his wife to be bad homeschoolers and the father to be an abusive parent. WND's failure to tell the truth about the Longs to its readers leads to the inescapable conclusion that it condones such behavior.

Do Unruh and Farah treat their homeschooled children the way Phillip Long is on record as treating his? We hope not. We hope they don't think that such behavior is acceptable. But by staying silent about it, Unruh and Farah leave the impression that they do.

Shielding the Longs' dysfunctional family from public scrutiny in the name of protecting homeschooling, as Unruh and WND have done, will damage homeschooling in the long run because it contributes to an image of homeschooling being the province of extremist wackos.

We can't imagine anyone who truly cares about education and homeschooling would subject their children to the substandard education the Longs are on record as providing to their children. So why won't anyone within the homeschooling community admit that bad education is bad education, even (and, perhaps, especially) when it happens at home?

Through his biased reporting, Unruh is aiding and abetting the further abuse of the Long children by their parents. Is that what he and WND really want to happen to this family--or any family? 

WND needs to decide: Will it shield and whitewash abusive parents so that they may further harm their children, or will it act as "fearless" as it claims to be and tell the truth? 

UPDATE: We see that Michelle Malkin has latched onto this issue as well. But, like WND, Malkin fails to note the father's abuse or the "lousy" home education the children have received. You'd think that, with her demonstrated eagerness to attack 12-year-olds, Malkin would be rushing to tell the full story of the Long family. Apparently not.

No doubt about it: WorldNetDaily may actually be an unwitting Fifth Column for the cause of Christian Homeschooling, especially such based on apartheid South Africa's Nasionale Christen Opverdoing syllabus ... and all because of their glossing over the case of a homeschooling family with a fondness for abuse and neglect on the side. 

AS NOTED ELSEWHERE, READERS, CAREFUL AND CAUTIOUS ESTIMATES SUGGEST THAT THE UR-RAHOWA IN IRAQ could cost $18 billion/diem this year alone.

Which can only make the National Debt much worse thanks all the more to His Fraudulency's misadventures.

And which explains why Your Correspondent intends to donate part of his share of commissions generated by your online shopping to reduction of the National Debt.

Until and unless someone can show valid cause why donations to reduce the National Debt are not wise use of money (and please, spare Your Correspondent any patsies and bromides you may have about "political reasons" justifying keeping the National Debt as high as it is), such is the way Your Correspondent plans to offer online shopping.

With a conscience.