A COOL, IF PLEASANT, MORNING UP HERE IN THE MINNWISSIPPI AS I WRITE THIS, having just come back from selling a load of 139 lb. of aluminum cans from the motel I work @ here in Winona.

Said load sold @ 57¢/lb., for a return of just under $80, of which I got $32 as my share of the proceeds.

Not to mention gas selling now @ $3.85/gallon ($1.017/litre) for regular unleaded, a jump of 16¢/gallon (4.6¢/litre) overnight.

And one factor explaining the high oil and gas prices of late, as have set an ongoing string of records, would have to be some nasty ultraviolence in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria by local clans wanting a greater share of oil revenue from the Abuja government--and expressing their discontent by sabotaging crude oil pipelines and terminals.

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

AND YOU THOUGHT WE "MORALLY SUPERIOR" AMERICANS WERE THE ONLY ONES WORKING HARDER ALL THE MORE WITH NO REAL PROSPECT OF TIME OFF, excusing such as one with National Identity as much as True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command:

The Japanese automaker Toyota has been ordered by a district court in Nagoya to pay compensation to the family of a 30-year-old assembly-line worker who collapsed on the line last fall, subsequently succumbing to karoshi ("death from overwork"), after working 106 hours of unpaid overtime in his last month on the job.

As well, Toyota has announced that it will increase overtime pay for such employees participating in "voluntary" quality-control discussions, up from a previous limit of two hours' overtime per month.

It's not known whether such steps will have an adverse effect on corporate profits, let alone applying to Toyota facilities only in Japan or elsewhere in the world Toyota has production facilities.

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

MEANWHILE, IN BILL O'REILLY'S ANSWER TO OCEANIA'S PREVAILING ENEMY OF THE HOUR (EURASIA OR EASTASIA, AS THE OFFICIAL LINE MAY BE), otherwise known as France, warning strikes and "work-to-rule" actions are bringing the Gaullic hexagon to a near-standstill over French Government proposals to denationalise workers' pension schemes and require employees to work 41 years (rather than the current 40) to qualify for full pensions, which can be procured starting @ 55 years of age.

Seems the Zealots and True Believers of Social Security denationalisation "complete, final and binding" in the United States are all the more afraid of such a prospect occuring here in a "morally superior" society such as the United States, especially should denationalisation be decreed. And especially so if some of the more vehement protesters are from the Lower Classes, which denationalisation supporters want to see as only "benefitting" from denationalisation.

Why? you may ask.

Simple, they will tell you: They need "a renewed healthy respect for industry, self-reliance, personal responsibility, thrift based on cash economy and a wholesome and simple home life" which the "failed and failing" State systems of welfare and Social Security "recklessly held to contempt and disregard."

And the preferred way for "winning of hearts and minds" among the working poor over to "wholeheartedly" embracing denationalisation?

None other than lies, half-truths and distortions, many of which are likely to employ anti-Semitic appeals tending heavily to the old ad hominem.

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

YOU MAY HAVE HEARD OR SEEN RADIO AND TV ADVERTS FOR LIFELOCK AS FEATURE THEIR BIG KAHUNA, TODD DAVIS BY NAME, giving out his "real Social Security number" to show how his company's programme supposedly prevents identity theft.

Now customers of LifeLock in three states are suing the company for non-performance, and consumer-protection agencies in two states are taking them to ask for deceptive and misleading advertising (one case challenging its $1 million guarantee, claiming such applies only if there is some class of a fatal flaw in its systems).

In other words, it looks as if LifeLock has become hoist by their own petard, so to speak. Especially considering where many of the same actions they claim to provide to deal with identity theft can be done by consumers free of charge or @ reasonable charge. Not to mention exercising common sense and prudential behaviours.

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

THERE COULD ACTUALLY BE A MORAL DEFENCE TO ANTI-WAR PROTESTS INVOLVING DISRUPTION OF BUSINESS @ MILITARY RECRUITERS' OFFICES such as occured back in March here in Winona.

It's called "claim of right," a defence being used by an anti-war protester who had been arrested to protest the ur-RAHOWA in Iraq and Afghanistan and faced charges of Trespass and Disorderly Conduct, only to have the court unable to come up with a verdict.

The Winona Daily News elaborates on the defence:

The facts in the case weigh heavily against him, [John Edward] Heid admitted. Two Winona Police sergeants, one officer and two Army recruiters testified Heid had blocked the entrance and refused to leave.

The case seemed clear-cut for Assistant City Attorney Brian Glodosky, even after Thompson dismissed the disorderly conduct charge for lack of evidence. Glodosky issued a closing statement, saying Heid repeatedly disregarded the law, and by his own admissions, refused to remove himself from the recruiting station door.

"Mr. Heid is guilty of trespassing," he said.

But behind the facts is a moral obligation, which Heid asked the judge to consider before ruling.

Heid said he did not act with criminal intent, but rather by a "claim of right," which means he acted in good faith with permission by a statute, rule, regulation or other law. Citing international law—namely the results of the Nuremberg Trials and the Geneva Convention—Heid told the court he believed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are illegal and the military is committing war crimes against humanity, which he intended to stop by preventing the enlistment of new, potential criminals.

To help his case, Heid presented Thompson with a set of jury instructions drafted by Hennepin County Judge Jack Nordby in Dec. 2004, when Heid was on trial for a very similar incident and made the same arguments to a jury. Nordby explained the claim of right to the jury, which subsequently found Heid not guilty of trespassing.

Heid said an angry juror approached him afterward and said he was guilty of trespassing but that the stuck jury had acquitted him because he acted in good faith on the claim of right.

Thompson recessed Wednesday to consider the document and arguments. When he reconvened court about 20 minutes later, he said he would take the case under advisement for a week so he could do more research and consider Heid's claim of right.

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

A GROUP OF BRITISH MENTAL-HEALTH PROFESSIONALS HAVE GONE ON RECORD WARNING ABOUT THE CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER of a new generation of anti-psychotic and anti-Alhzeimer's medications being perverted by weird and unwholesome types acting under the delusion that such would improve mental performance and boost memory.

Has that prospect actually been considered during the clinical-trials phase?

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

NO WONDER MINNESOTA GOVERNOR PAWLENTY WAS (AND, IN A WAY, IS) SO HARD-WIRED TO THE FLAWED ARGUMENT OF "LOW TAXES=JOBS=SOCIAL STABILITY" to the point where fiscal mismanagement may have played an indirect, yet significant, contributing role to the I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis last August.

Mismanagement reflected in the rather warped notion of keeping fuel taxes all the lower, not to mention discouraging conservation efforts, so that increased and wasteful consumption, not to mention automotive use @ the expense of public transportation in particular, would maintain a consistent revenue stream for the highways fund @ prevailing rates.

Is this not reason enough to call for the recall of Governor Pawlenty, let alone the Legislature having to go into special session to consider his removal from office for mental incapacity?

Or what exactly stands in the way? Machiavelli on steroids and amphetamines?

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

FURTHER TO REMARKS POSTED PREVIOUSLY COMMENTING ON PASTOR JOHN HAGEE'S FLIPPANT TRIVIALISATION OF THE HOLOCAUST (mit Video):

Trick and deception were Nazi hallmarks of the carefully-orchestrated campaign to decimate Europe's Jewish poplation in the name of "national honour [and] racial betterment."

As witness the main gates of concentration camps (Auschwitz and Dachau in particular) proclaiming (rather ironically) Arbeit Macht Frei ("work makes [you] free") or Jedem das Seim ("each for all"), as the case may be.

Shipments of the Zyklon-B cyanide gas to individual concentration camps being euphemistically referred to on shipping labels as "material for Jewish Resettlement."

And the victims being told before heading to the "showers" as would be their sadistic demise that they were being "deloused" or "disinfected" prior to their going to Palestine. (History reveals otherwise.)

Have you no shame, Pastor Hagee?

Have you no shame, John McCain, in having such a warped student of history on your campaign staff as "spiritual advisor"?

Or what otherwise stands in the way?

MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT: The Nazi regime's umbarge for Jews in Germany was manifested with the wholesale extermination of an estimated six million Jews in concentration camps across Germany and in areas under German occupation or control.

All because Adolf Hitler saw Jews as a moral and racial threat to reclaiming German national honour and glory, and threatened the "racial integrity" of what the Nazis saw as an "Aryan Master Race" which would maintain the continuity of the Thousand-Year Reich which the Nazis only saw themselves as establishing.

(For "Aryan," which has no ethnological validity whatsoever--racists and Nazi-worshippers, take note--read "a non-Jewish Caucasoid of Northern European derivation, preferably having Nordic characteristics." But then again, the word "Aryan" is of Sanskrit origin, and technically applies to those of Indo-Iranian descent.)

Now, thanks to The Carpetbagger Report, comes word in video form (ultimately via YouTube) about Pastor John Hagee, co-"Spiritual Advisor" to The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang of Indecision 2008, perhaps using his position and his message to trivialise the Holocaust--or in Hebrew, HaShohah--which no doubt will go down in history as the most depraved example (and, come to think of it, warning) of State-sanctioned bigotry crossing into genocide:

For those who need further elaboration on Pastor Hagee's condescending mockery of The Holocaust (not to mention concurrent British campaigns to prevent Jewish emigration to Palestine and the construction of Zionist settlements there, no doubt made infamous by the Exodus affair, later chronicled into a novel by Leon Uris and later becoming a movie), The Huffington Post explains all.

NEVER AGAIN!

THE RELIGIOPOLITICAL RIGHT HERE IN THE "MORALLY SUPERIOR" UNITED STATES MUST CERTAINLY LOVE TO INVOKE HIS NAME for the sake of their own misguided agenda, not to mention (especially so in recent years) their packaging a revisionist version of American History which suggests that America is, now and will forever be, a White Christian Nation.

And just in case Elohim hears about what People For the American Way's Right Wing Watch blog noted recently, He must certainly be jealous--or perhaps worse:

It is no secret that, heading into the 2008 election, the Republican Party's right-wing base is anything but energized about having to vote for John McCain.  Facing dim prospects, the McCain campaign is doing what it can to court the Right, as is the RNC, while Religious Right power-brokers are working overtime to get pastors involved all over the country. 

For instance, a few weeks ago, Kenyn Cureton, the Family Research Council's Vice President for Church Ministries, appeared on Janet Folger's "Faith2Action" radio program where he revealed their plans to encourage pastors to speak out leading up to the election and, in his words, "cross the line":

"The pastors need to speak clearly about it. I'll tell you we are working with the Alliance Defense Fund on a series of sermons this fall for pastors to preach, so that they educate their people on the issues.

"We're gonna be talking about the value of life, the value of family and the value of freedom, basically talking about abortion and stem-cell research," he continued, "and then also about the gay agenda and then finally about our Christian heritage and how it's being stripped from every corner of society. And then finally we're gonna be doing a candidate comparison message that is going to ask pastors to cross the line."

At the time, it wasn't know exactly what FRC and the Alliance Defense Fund were planning, but today the ADF revealed that it intends to find preachers who are willing to defy the current tax laws and openly challenge the IRS:

A conservative legal-advocacy group is enlisting ministers to use their pulpits to preach about election candidates this September, defying a tax law that bars churches from engaging in politics.

Alliance Defense Fund, a Scottsdale, Ariz., nonprofit, is hoping at least one sermon will prompt the Internal Revenue Service to investigate, sparking a court battle that could get the tax provision declared unconstitutional. Alliance lawyers represent churches in disputes with the IRS over alleged partisan activity.

The action marks the latest attempt by a conservative organization to help clergy harness their congregations to sway elections. The protest is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 28, a little more than a month before the general election, in a year when religious concerns and preachers have been a regular part of the political debate.

As Americans United's Rob Boston put it, "If a few misguided churches want to become cogs in a political machine, they can simply give up their tax exemptions and play by the same tax and election-law rules as everybody else."  But the Right refuses to do that and has decided, instead, to challenge the constitutionality of the law in the court.

And given the current make-up of the Supreme Court and the likelihood that the next president will be placing one or more justices on the Court, it is quite possible that the outcome of this right-wing legal challenge, should it make it to the high court, will rest heavily on the outcome of the very election they are seeking to influence.

(Purely Personal Piffle: Your Correspondent would just love to see G-d show His Wrath upon such specimens of pseudoreligious willing to take up the challenge so summarised as above. Especially with the religious involved being hit by lightning or, failing that, Fatal Heart Attacks.

(Even better yet, lightning setting their churches on fire, as if He was showing His Displeasure upon the Elmer Gantry Institute of Religiopolitical Theology.)  

WITH WHISPERS GOING AROUND IN CERTAIN INFLUENTIAL CIRCLES suggesting where Serious Socioeconomic Dislocation and Mass Unemployment could be imminent--all thanks to His Fraudulency's misguided socioeconomic delusions suggesting that the ur-RAHOWA Against International Terrorism can be financed with taxes kept all the lower (supposedly in the hope of creating jobs and, in turn, socioeconomic stability)--there's easily the likelihood for a particular chain letter making the "spam" rounds again.

Just as was the case early on in His Fraudulency's tenure, and even more so after the Unfortunate Events of 9/11 triggered a period of socioeconomic instability.

I refer to the following, as was found on the Information Stuporbahn by Your Correspondent (with necessary deletions):

Dear Friend:

This is an improved version of a highly successful marketing program that will make you many thousands of $ in the next few months. The new features - a software program for sending ads to millions, posting ads on message boards, and more, at the push of a button. Also you get a program which allows you to gain thousands of hits everyday. - ALL FREE.

Take advantage of these new marketing tools and become rich fast. Please, read carefully the entire message below and enroll today.

---------------------------------------------------

AS SEEN ON NATIONAL TV: This is the media report.

PARENTS OF 15-YEAR OLD - FIND $71,000 CASH HIDDEN IN HIS CLOSET!!!

Does this headline look familiar? Of course it does.

You most likely have just seen this story recently featured on a major nightly news program (USA). And reported elsewhere in the world. His mother was cleaning and putting laundry away when she came across a large brown paper bag that was suspiciously buried beneath some clothes and a skateboard in the back of her 15-year-old son's closet.

Nothing could have prepared her for the shock she got when she opened the bag and found it was full of cash. Five-dollar bills, twenties, fifties and hundreds - allneatly rubber-banded in labeled piles.

"My first thought was that he had robbed a bank", says the 41-year-old woman, "There was over $71,000 dollars in that bag - that's more than my husband earns in a year".

The woman immediately called her husband at the car-dealership where he worked to tell him what she had discovered. He came home right away and they drove together to the boys school and picked him up. Little did they suspect that where the money came from was more shocking than actually finding it in the closet.

As it turns out, the boy had been sending out, via E-mail, a type of "Report" to E-mail addresses that he obtained off the Internet. Everyday after school for the past 2 months, he had been doing this right on his computer in his bedroom.

"I just got the E-mail one day and I figured what the heck, I put my name on it like the instructions said and I started sending it out", says the clever 15-year-old.

The E-mail letter listed 5 addresses and contained instructions to send one $5 dollar bill to each person on the list, then delete the address at the top and move the others addresses Down, and finally to add your name to the top of the list.

The letter goes on to state that you would receive several thousand dollars in five-dollar bills within 2 weeks if you sent out the letter with your name at the top of the 5-address list. "I get junk E-mail all the time, and really did not think it was going to work", the boy continues.

Within the first few days of sending out the E-mail, the Post Office Box that his parents had gotten him for his video-game magazine subscriptions began to fill up with not magazines, but envelopes containing $5 bills.

"About a week later I rode [my bike] down to the post office and my box had 1 magazine and about 300 envelops stuffed in it. There was also a yellow slip that said I had to go up to the [post office] counter.

I thought I was in trouble or something (laughs)". He goes on, "I went up to the counter and they had a whole box of more mail for me. I had to ride back home and empty out my backpack because I could not carry it all".

Over the next few weeks, the boy continued sending out the E-mail. "The money just kept coming in and I just kept sorting it and stashing it in the closet, barely had time for my homework". He had also been riding his bike to several of the banks in his area and exchanging the $5 bills for twenties, fifties and hundreds.

"I didn't want the banks to get suspicious so I kept riding to different banks with like five thousand at a time in my backpack. I would usually tell the lady at the bank counter that my dad had sent me in to exchange the money and he was outside waiting for me. One time the lady gave me a really strange look and told me that she would not be able to do it for me and my dad would have to come in and do it, but I just rode to the next bank down the street (laughs)."

Surprisingly, the boy did not have any reason to be afraid. The reporting news team examined and investigated the so-called "chain-letter" the boy was sending out and found that it was not a chain-letter at all. In fact, it was completely legal according to US Postal and Lottery Laws, Title 18, Section 1302 and 1341, or Title 18, Section 3005 in the US code, also in the code of federal regulations, Volume 16, Sections 255 and 436, which state a product or service must be exchanged for money received.

Every five-dollar bill that he received contained a little note that read, "Please send me report number XYX".This simple note made the letter legal because he was exchanging a service (A Report on how-to) for a five-dollar fee.

[This is the end of the media release. If you would like to understand how the system works and get your $71,000 - please continue reading. What appears below is what the 15 year old was sending out on the net - YOU CAN USE IT TOO - just follow the simple instructions].

-------------------------------------------------------

Dear Friend:

"Making over half million dollars every 4 to 5 months from your home for an investment of only $25 U.S. Dollars expense one time".

THANKS TO THE COMPUTER AGE AND THE INTERNET!

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

BE A MILLIONAIRE LIKE OTHERS WITHIN A YEAR !!

Before you say "Bull", please read the following. This is the letter you have been hearing about on the news lately. Due to the popularity of this letter on the internet, a national weekly news program recently devoted an entire show to the investigation of this program described below, to see if it really can make people money. The show also investigated whether or not the program was legal. Their findings proved once and for all that there are "absolutely no laws prohibiting the participation in the program and if people can follow the simple instructions, they are bound to make some mega bucks with only $25 out of pocket cost".

DUE TO THE RECENT INCREASE OF POPULARITY & RESPECT THIS PROGRAM HAS ATTAINED, IT IS CURRENTLY WORKING BETTER THAN EVER.

[obnoxiously-glowing testimonial boilerplate deleted]

More testimonials later but first,

****** PRINT THIS NOW FOR YOUR FUTURE REFERENCE *******

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

If you would like to make at least $500,000 every 4 to 5 months easily and comfortably, please read the following ...THEN READ IT AGAIN and AGAIN !!!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

FOLLOW THE SIMPLE INSTRUCTION BELOW AND YOUR FINANCIAL DREAMS WILL COME TRUE, GUARANTEED!

INSTRUCTIONS:

**** Order all 5 reports shown on the list below.

**** For each report, send $5 CASH, THE NAME & NUMBER OF THE REPORT YOU ARE ORDERING and YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS to the person who's name appears ON THAT LIST next to the report. MAKE SURE YOUR RETURN ADDRESS IS ON YOUR ENVELOPE TOP LEFT CORNER in case of any mail problems.

**** When you place your order, make sure you order each of the 5 reports. You will need all 5 reports so that you can save them on your computer and resell them. YOUR TOTAL COST $5 X 5 = $25.00.

**** Within a few days you will receive, via e-mail, each of the 5 reports from these 5 different individuals. Save them on your computer so they will be accessible for you to send to the 1,000's of people who will order them from you. Also make a floppy of these reports and keep it on your desk in case something happen to your computer.

****IMPORTANT - DO NOT alter the names of the people who are listed next to each report, or their sequence on the list, in any way other than what is instructed below in steps 1 through 6 or you will loose out on majority of your profits. Once you understand the way this works, you will also see how it does not work if you change it.

Remember, this method has been tested, and if you alter it, it will NOT work!!! People have tried to put their friends/relatives names on all five thinking they could get all the money. But it does not work this way. Believe us, we all have tried to be greedy and then nothing happened.

So Do Not try to change anything other than what is instructed. Because if you do, it will not work for you. Remember, honesty reaps the reward!!!

1.. After you have ordered all 5 reports, take this advertisement and REMOVE the name & address of the person in REPORT # 5. This person has made it through the cycle and is no doubt counting their fortune.

2.... Move the name & address in REPORT # 4 down TO REPORT # 5.

3.... Move the name & address in REPORT # 3 down TO REPORT # 4.

4.... Move the name & address in REPORT # 2 down TO REPORT # 3.

5.... Move the name & address in REPORT # 1 down TO REPORT # 2

6.... Insert YOUR name & address in the REPORT # 1 Position. PLEASE MAKE SURE you copy every name & address ACCURATELY!

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

Take this entire letter, with the modified list of names, and save it on your computer. DO NOT MAKE ANY OTHER CHANGES. Save this on a disk as well just in case if you loose any data.

To assist you with marketing your business on the Internet, the 5 reports you purchase will provide you with invaluable marketing information which includes how to send bulk e-mails legally, where to find thousands of free classified ads and much more.

There are 2 Primary methods to get this venture going:

METHOD # 1 : BY SENDING BULK E-MAIL LEGALLY ============================================

Let's say that you decide to start small, just to see how it goes, and we will assume You and those involved send out only 5,000 e-mails each.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now with the software program which you will receive for FREE when order report # 1 it will be easier than ever to email millions of people in less than an hour. No need anymore to pay for expensive mailing lists that often are too old or to bulk mail companies to send your offer to again very often old mailing lists. Now your success will depend entirely to you. Along with the ad software you will receive full instructions on how to use it. Plus other helpful information that will make you a great success. All this will be included as an addition to report # 1. The software will be as an attachment to the same report.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let's also assume that the mailing receive only a 0.2% response (the response could be much better but lets just say it is only 0.2%. Also many people will send out hundreds of thousands e-mails instead of only 5,000 each). Continuing with this example, you send out only 5,000 e-mails. With a 0.2% response, that is only 10 orders for report # 1. Those 10 people responded by sending out 5,000 e-mail each for a total of 50,000. Out of those 50,000 e-mails only 0.2% responded with orders. That's=100 people responded and ordered Report # 2. Those 100 people mail out 5,000 e-mails each for a total of 500,000 e-mails. The 0.2% response to that is 1000 orders for Report # 3. Those 1000 people send out 5,000 e-mails each for a total of 5 million e-mails sent out. The 0.2% response to that is 10,000 orders for Report # 4. Those 10,000 people send out 5,000 e-mails each for a total of 50,000,000 (50 million) e-mails. The 0.2% response to that is 100,000 orders for Report # 5.

THAT'S 100,000 ORDERS TIMES $5 EACH = $500,000.00 (half million).

Your total income in this example is: 1..... $50 + 2..... $500 + 3..... $5,000 + 4..... $50,000 + 5..... $500,000 ......... Grand Total = $555,550.00

NUMBERS DO NOT LIE. GET A PENCIL & PAPER AND FIGURE OUT THE WORST POSSIBLE RESPONSES AND NO MATTER HOW YOU CALCULATE IT, YOU WILL STILL MAKE A LOT OF MONEY!

-------------------------------------------------------

REMEMBER FRIEND, THIS IS ASSUMING ONLY 10 PEOPLE ORDERING OUT OF 5,000 YOU MAILED TO. Dare to think for a moment what would happen if everyone, or half or even one 4th of those people mailed 100,000 e-mails each or more? There are over 250 million people on the Internet worldwide and counting. Believe me, many people will do just that, and more!

METHOD # 2 : BY PLACING FREE ADS ON THE INTERNET ===================================================

 Advertising on the net is very, very inexpensive and there are hundreds of FREE places to advertise. Placing a lot of free ads on the internet will easily get a larger response. We strongly suggest you start with Method # 1 and add METHOD # 2 as you go along.

For every $5 you receive, all you must do is e-mail them the Report they ordered. That's it. Always provide same day service on all orders. This will guarantee that the e-mail they send out, with your name and address on it, will be prompt because they can not advertise until they receive the report.

ORDER EACH REPORT BY ITS NUMBER & NAME ONLY.

Notes: Always send $5 cash (U.S. CURRENCY) for each Report. Checks NOT accepted. Make sure the cash is concealed by wrapping it in at least 2 sheets of paper. On one of those sheets of paper, write the NUMBER & the NAME of the Report you are ordering, YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS and your name and postal address.

PLACE YOUR ORDER FOR THESE REPORTS NOW :

REPORT #1 "The Insider's Guide to Sending Bulk E-mail on the Internet" plus the FREE ad software programs as an attachment.

ORDER REPORT #1 FROM:

[redacted]

REPORT #2 "The Insider's Guide to Advertising for Free on the Internet"

ORDER REPORT #2 FROM:

[redacted]

REPORT #3 "The Secrets to Multilevel Marketing on the Internet"

ORDER REPORT #3 FROM:

[redacted]

REPORT #4 " How to become a Millionaire utilizing the Power of Multi Level Marketing and the Internet"

ORDER REPORT #4 FROM:

[redacted]

REPORT #5 "How to Send 1,000,000 e-mails for FREE"

ORDER REPORT #5 FROM:

[redacted]

There are currently more than 250,000,000 people online worldwide!

$$$$$$$$$ YOUR SUCCESS GUIDELINES $$$$$$$$$$$

Follow these guidelines to guarantee your success:

If you do not receive at least 10 orders for Report #1 within 2 weeks, continue sending e-mails until you do.

After you have received 10 orders, 2 to 3 weeks after that you should receive 100 orders or more for REPORT # 2. If you did not, continue advertising or sending e-mails until you do.

Once you have received 100 or more orders for Report # 2, YOU CAN RELAX, because the system is already working for you, and the cash will continue to roll in !

THIS IS IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER: Every time your name is moved down on the list, you are placed in front of a different report. You can KEEP TRACK of your PROGRESS by watching which report people are ordering from you. IF YOU WANT TO GENERATE MORE INCOME SEND ANOTHER BATCH OF E-MAILS AND START THE WHOLE PROCESS AGAIN. There is NO LIMIT to the income you can generate from this business !!!

____________________________________________________

FOLLOWING IS A NOTE FROM THE ORIGINATOR OF THIS PROGRAM:

You have just received information that can give you financial freedom for the rest of your life, with NO RISK and JUST A LITTLE BIT OF EFFORT. You can make more money in the next few weeks and months than you have ever imagined. Follow the program EXACTLY AS INSTRUCTED. Do Not change it in any way. It works exceedingly well as it is now. Remember to e-mail a copy of this exciting report after you have put your name and address in Report #1 and moved others to #2...........# 5 as instructed above. One of the people you send this to may send out 100,000 or more e-mails and your name will be on everyone of them. Remember though, the more you send out the more potential customers you will reach.

So my friend, I have given you the ideas, information, materials and opportunity to become financially independent. IT IS UP TO YOU NOW!

************** MORE TESTIMONIALS ****************

[glowing-sounding boilerplate deleted]

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

ORDER YOUR REPORTS TODAY AND GET STARTED ON YOUR ROAD TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM !!!

===TO BE CONTINUED===

SO MUCH FOR "MINNESOTA NICE:" J.D. Power and Associates has announced that MSP International Airport ranks dead last in their annual customer-satisfaction survey of the major airports across the country in such areas as convenience of facilities and amenities.

Is it any wonder Governor Pawlenty line-item vetoed funding for further study of expanding the possibilities for Amtrak service in the CHI-MKE-MSP corridor based on "taxpayer value" arguments straight out of the Club For Growth's playbook (as in "low taxes=jobs=social stability"?)

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

MEIN INNKEEPER FRIEND HAS LONG BEEN OF THE OPINION THAT MANY OF THE HOMOPHOBIC ATTACKS IN THE MEDIA FROM THE RELIGIOPOLITICAL RIGHT may actually be the result of confusing homosexuality with transvestism, transsexualism and hermaphroditism.

But that's nothing to the Religiopolitical Right's attacks on the California Supreme Court's decision of last week as struck down a ballot plebiscite from a few years back holding marriage to be the sole and exclusive monopoly of a male-female relationship, after Right Wing Watch:

Not surprisingly, the Right's reaction to last week's ruling by the California Supreme Court in favor of equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians was swift and negative.

Former Rep. Ernest Istook, now of the Heritage Foundation, evoked Nazi metaphors to blame those who supported civil unions as a compromise: "By trying to appease homosexual rights activists, those who have refused to stand up for traditional marriage helped to create this court ruling.  They are the Neville Chamberlains of the cultural wars."

Barrett Duke of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission said he was "saddened for the people of California" but "especially for the children of that state."

"The California Supreme Court ruling not only overruled the very clear will of the people, it also proposes to overrule God's design," Duke said. "These judges may think they know more about marriage than the rest of us, but I am confident they don't know more about marriage than God. Marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Children need that environment to give them their best chance to fulfill their great potential. That's not only my opinion and the opinion of most of the people in this country, it's God's opinion, and His opinion overrules the opinion of any judges.

Indeed, the Right emphasized this "activist judges" angle; Gary Bauer, attacking the "four unelected robed radicals," wrote:

It was an egregious exercise in judicial activism – of judges wielding raw political power to redefine our most basic values. But that is how the Left has succeeded. It cannot achieve its goals through the democratic process via the elected legislatures, so it ignores the people and goes to the courts, where it relies on political activists cloaked in black who answer to no one. The Left succeeds by using the most undemocratic methods possible.

Of course, Bauer may not realize that, while appointed at first, justices on California's Supreme Court face voters at the next general election; each of the justices in the majority for this case has been retained by voters at least once. Bauer is probably aware, though, that the "elected legislature" in California passed marriage equality in 2005 and 2007, only to have it vetoed both times by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Nevertheless, right-wing activists hoped the decision would energize opponents of gay rights into action. "The good news is that I believe this will re-ignite the debate over a federal constitutional amendment," according to Concerned Women for America's Matt Barber. Jan LaRue called on Californians to recall members of the state's Supreme Court in the way they recalled the governor several years ago. "Are you going to sit by and do nothing while four black-robed despots take away your right to govern yourselves?"

Meanwhile, the effort to put on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage on the California ballot continues—now, apparently, with more funding.

And, in spite of a beleaguered GOP's effort to keep a low profile on social wedge issues during this election cycle, the Right is hoping the decision will push John McCain to "speak out more strongly in support of defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman," as Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council put it.

(And remember, folks, the Family Research Council, as the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition previously, is neither. More than likely, it's probably nothing short of rehashing apartheid South African propaganda about White Christian Values being one with the defence of apartheid--much of it published only in Afrikaans.)

As if that weren't enough, The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang's Co-"Spiritual Advisor," Pastor John Hagee, could probably be considered a latent homosexual wih tendencies towards nostalgically-maudlin idealism judging by the following video (again, per Right Wing Watch):

(But then again, in Pastor Hagee's idealised pre-penicillin past, those who had Certain Loathsome Diseases went down to Bathhouse Row in Hot Springs, Arkansas for hydrotherapeusis--even when it came to veneral diseases as were deemed beyond Salvarsan, the then-preferred treatment for syphillis notwithstanding arsenic being its active ingredient.

(Those with limited means could receive their treatments @ the Public Health Service's Free Bath House, just off Bathhouse Row ... and you also had the Army and Navy Hospital for such servicemen with disorders as could benefit from hydrotherapy.)

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

SO MUCH FOR HIS FRAUDULENCY'S FLAWED ARGUMENT BEFORE THE KNESSET LAST WEEK suggesting that anyone foolish enough to open discussions with weird and unwholesome elements was supporting appeasement:

It's emerged that Israel is opening serious, yet @ once informal, peace talks with the Syrians, using Turkey as an intermediary.

How can such be considered "appeasement"?

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

AND SOMETHING TO KEEP THE OLD QUE VIVE OUT FOR WHEN IT COMES TO CAMPAIGN APPEARENCES by The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang of Indecision 2008:

His lapsing suddenly and spontaneously into Bad Words, in effect straying from prepared and nuanced remarks--especially so the infamous Seven Dirty Words, and variants thereof.

Not to mention the usual ethno-racial and ethno-religious slurs common to the Archie Bunker/Alf Garnett element, and then for "dog-whistle" effect more than serious politiking.

Hopefully, such will wind up on YouTube and, in the process, wind up turning the electoral tide.

Especially considering where about the only ones still trusting the Mainstream Media are those among the Lower Classes with no or limited Information Stuporbahn access; as Right Wing Watch put it in a sidebar devoted to the latest in Right Wing newsflashes:

Various right-wing groups held a press conference and protest earlier this week and nobody cared, so now Morality in Media is complaining about bias: "But when prominent pro-decency and pro-family organizations that expected great things from President Bush in the war against obscenity gather together at the National Press Club to protest the failure of the Justice Department to vigorously enforce federal obscenity laws, followed by a demonstration at the Department, the secular media ignore these events. How can this be??"

(One possible answer: About the only news outlet the Joe Sixpack crowd considers trusted and reliable is Fox Prolefeed, which is basically nothing but prolefeed. Distractionary prolefeed, @ that, featuring nothing in the way of what could be called "healthy" news.)

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

ONE THING MORE: Expect racist and white-supremacist appeals for financial and moral support towards the "evacuation" of the "once-proud Afrikaner peoples of South Africa" as refugees based on what may turn out being less than "clear and compelling evidence" of "fear of persecution" exploiting the current ultraviolence against foreigners, especially Zimbabwean refugees.

Said ulraviolence having now flared up in Durban after having been limited largely to Johannesburg and surrounding townships, with 20 dead.  

more cat pictures

ONE OF THE REASONS OFT CITED FOR THE DEMISE OF CLASSIC ROLLER DERBY IN THE MID-1970'S AS A STAPLE OF TELEVISION was the changing socioeconomic paradigm of the viewing audience, making it more difficult for its producers to attract the sort of advertisers.

As one social historian quoted in Wikipedia's entry on the history of Roller Derby notes, howbeit in a footnote:

Below golf comes baseball, and below that, football. Then ice hockey. Then boxing, stock-car racing, bowling, and, at the bottom, Roller Derby, once popular with advertisers until they discovered that the people watching it were so low-prole or even destitute that they constituted an entirely wasted audience for the commercials: they couldn't buy anything at all, not even detergents, antacids, and beer. "Low-Reach Undesirables," the Roller Derby audience became known in the trade, and the event that had attracted them was soon removed from television.

In turn making you wonder who would be the most likely to advertise on Roller Derby if it were still on the air, howbeit on slow weekends over mostly UHF stations attracting a mostly Kanker Sisters-type audience:

• Wally World (no doubt)
• "Sub-prime" mortgage lenders
• "Guaranteed approval" loan and credit card offers, third-party for the most part
• Morris Plan-type loan companies
• Tackier "tourist traps" of the sort traditionally appealing to Low-Reach Undesirables, especially so:
  • Branson
  • Lake of the Ozarks
  • Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge
  • Wisconsin Dells
  • Panama City Beach
  • Ocean City, Maryland
  • Las Vegas
  • South Padre Island
  • Atlantic City
  • Seaside Heights
• Disreputable satellite-TV dealers
• Buffet-type restaurants of questionable repute, especially the kind as serve starchy, high-fat food
• Malt liquor and beer
• Used-car dealers offering liberal terms "even with bad credit"
• Direct-selling offers of questionable repute or merit
• Dollar stores

You probably get the idea of who would likely advertise on Roller Derby more than anything....

EVEN WITH GASOLINE PRICES CLOSE TO $3.50/GALLON ERE YOU READ THIS, WE "MORALLY SUPERIOR" AMERICANS STILL PREFER DRIVING over other means of transport--and excuse such as one with "freedom."

Still, though, studies throughout the world have shown that driver fatigue can be a dangerous thing, and then some, on long drives we are still fond of taking.

With that in mind, something which we ought to think of embracing from our Australian brethren:

Over extended holiday periods (especially the Christmas/New Year's, Easter and ANZAC Day such), and during the school holidays, Australian motorists are encouraged to have a complimentary cuppa tea or coffee and some sweet biscuits (what we would call "cookies") @ rest stops staffed by volunteers on behalf of the Bushell's Driver Reviver initiative to promote road safety through regular rest breaks.

(In general, 15-minute or so breaks are recommended after 2-3 hours' continuous driving to combat fatigue and stay alert.)

So what stands in the way of embracing such initiatives here Up Over?