NOTWITHSTANDING THE MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH'S WARNING TO TAVERN KEEPERS ACROSS THE LAND OF 10,000 LAKES to stop their flaunting the Freedom to Breathe Act with "theater nights" whence smoking is permitted by patrons in the guise of "performers," under pain of a $10,000 fine, you could just imagine how one of Minnesota's Own, "Captain Billy" Fawcett, would have discussed it in that section of his legendary magazine Capt. Billy's Whiz Bang called "Drippings from the Fawcett" as discussed some of his latest doings and other things coming across his mind.

I admit the following may not exactly be in the spirit of "Captain Billy," but I hope you can appreciate the attempt:

As if this past winter wasn't already awful cold and snowy enough for comfort back at Whiz Bang Farm, even if it meant Pedro's shivering all the more these cold and snowy winter days, Gus and Olaf were rather excited about the latest entertainment craze across Minnesota's taverns reaching Robbinsdale: It seems as if Kelly's Bar and Grill was having a "theatrical night" with a "performance" as would feature smoking.

Which I've heard happens to be a new trick around the laws otherwise prohibiting smoking in enclosed public spaces, bars and taverns in particular--or, to be more specific, allows actors in theatrical productions to smoke on stage, so long as audience members were given due warning of this fact. A snowmobilers' and ice fishermans' rendezvous called Barnacle's started the trend earlier this year, and since then, much in the way of attention has been attracted to taverns who were otherwise complaining of lost business from their traditional Joe Sixpack base since the smoking ban went into place.

Anyway, so Gus and Olaf tell me, on an otherwise chilly evening last week, both went over to Robbinsdale and took part in the performance night of Kelly's, arriving early before the crowds came along; rumour had it that some tour groups were coming over to watch a typical such for their own interest in Weird Americana @ its finest. The barkeep handed Gus and Olaf copies of the script (or what passed for it) to be used that evening, and made sure to bring along their beloved packs of smokes to while away the time.

Well, eight o'clock came along, and the performance started. And right from the get-go, Bic lighters were working overtime while Kelly's premi was starting to be cloaked in that distinctive fog of tobacco smoke and its telltale aromas. Some rather awful piano music fanfare started the proceedings, and even if the premi were rather dark in typical barroom fashion, everybody went through their lines on cue and not missed a beat. Even the barkeeps couldn't keep up with the business from types that looked to the world almost like a hybrid of Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin needing their dose of the old nicotine "on doctor's orders."

Rumour had it that some of the more enthusiastic specimens of the audience came from nearby group homes for the mentally ill blowing what passed for their pay from a nearby sheltered workshop, as if they were actually getting serious pay for what passed as work. And boy, were they chain-smoking those cheap GPC's and Worths with as much gusto as your typical Joe Sixpack before the ban came along.

And the tourists brought in to play the role of the "audience" for the sake of the "theatrical performance" were no doubt laughing their heads off @ just how much of a farce this "theatrical performance" turned out being; they just couldn't believe how a mere neighbourhood tavern could suddenly become the Guthrie Theater just to accomodate the "cultural heritage" of the Peter Griffin element who couldn't live without smoking. Especially having just come from a shopping run to the Mall of America as part of their ur-Cook's Tour of Minnesota.

And speaking of ur-Cook's Tours, a close acquaintenance with Explore Minnesota Tourism tells me they can't keep up with the enquiries over the phone and online about these "theatrical smokers" they've read about in the papers and heard about on Fox News, or so they explained it to the operators. Even if many of the tourists coming over to watch such "theatrical performances" among tavern thespians are pretty much in the Chris Griffin vein--fat, stupid, willing to accept anything as news, shopping Wally World rather than Target given the opportunity, even if Target was closer to their house than Wally World.

Quite the talk of the dinner table back @ Whiz Bang Farm, I say....

(Honestly, though, the bit about the ur-Cook's Tours and enquiries to Explore Minnesota Tourism are the byproducts of my disordered, yet opinionated, mind in the Captain Billy vein, and should be construed as having no other significance.

(Or could there be such already since the news first broke on the wires?)

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

BURMA-SHAVE VERSE to conclude this commentary:

IF YOU DRIVE
WHILE YOU'RE DRUNK
CARRY YOUR COFFIN
IN YOUR TRUNK
BURMA-SHAVE

FOR THE MANY MILLIONS OF AMERICANS IN CLEAR NEED OF EXTRA INCOME, yet unable to find employment in the community for reasons outside their direct control (among them age, disability, emotional disorders and the need to care for infants or elderly relatives @ home), "work-from-home" offers are too often seen as the only ticket they have towards that end.

Yet, the Inconvenient Truth thereof is that the vast majority of widely-advertised "work-from-home" offers are really "make-work/fake-work" scams such as the old reliable "envelope stuffing," a/k/a "home mailing," with significant potential for loss of the limited savings the vulnerable can ill afford to lose to the weird and unwholesome behind such otherwise well-intentioned ur-hiring calls.

Never mind where many of those advertising "home mailing" positions claim to supply all relevant materials for what they glowingly describe as "easy, pleasant work" for only a few hours a day from home, earning as much as $2-5/envelope "stuffed and mailed to us in accordance with our instructions" is unlikely to be as profitable as advertised--even with suspiciously-glowing-sounding testimonials sometimes used. And I say "unlikely" because the economies of automation and scale give mailroom-service companies an unfair advantage on companies pleading for home mailers "desperately," and then some.

The Postal Service will tell you for a fact that mailroom services can handle a high-volume mailing job in under 2-3 hours, thanks to the economies afforded them of high-volume filling, sorting, bar-coding and traying of each individual piece of mail in said mailings--which, for the companies involved in these mailings, translates into special postage discounts depending on how far the pre-sorting is carried out with an eye towards saving time and work for the Postal Service ahead of entry into the mailstream.

And for a substantial fraction of the cost and time "home mailing" workers can expect to complete such "easy [and] pleasant" tasks in!

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

SO WHAT EXACTLY MOTIVATES COMPANIES TO CONTINUE ADVERTISING "WORK-FROM-HOME" SCAMS in as blatant a manner as they do, paritcularly so in disreputable or otherwise questionable media channels like supermarket tabloids and "business opportunity" magazines?

And knowing (un)consciously all the while that such are unlikely to produce, for the average homeworker needing to keep their hands busy (but cannot by more conventional means), the significant and measurable incomes they advertise so glowingly, let alone realising the "why and wherefore" such is unlikely?

Your Correspondent, perhaps, has a likely answer such "work-from-home" companies will easily resort to as a patsy: Videlicet, that they are operating "for tax reasons" rather than bona fide employment.

Said "tax reasons" involving, more than likely, "maximising tax credits" for what is basically an enterprise unlikely to generate viable profits for reasons the properitors/perpetrators are (un)consciously (un)aware of, yet fail to recognise for their own selfish ends.

Said "tax credits" those in the "work-from-home" game seek to "maximise" all the more would have to include such involving business expenses like:

• Advertising and promotional expense;
• Printing and postage; and
• "Legal retainers" in case certain of their homeworkers start complaining about false or misleading advertising, exploiting the vulnerable, usw.

Not to mention the possibility of maxing out on credits available to companies offering employment to those in high- or extreme-risk "target groups" vis-a-vis dependency upon welfare, such as:

• those in economically-disadvantaged communities, or such in clear and present danger thereof;
• the disabled;
• displaced workers;
• veterans readjusting to civilian life; and
• children from "dysfunctional" or "high-risk" families, especially such deemed "chronic and habitual welfare cases," soon to leave high school.

And let's not forget the potential for exploiting tax incentives available to employers under "workfare" programmes in the several states for making jobs available to welfare cases just to fulfill the "mere formality" of "work experience" now required of eligible welfare cases.

Taken together, such "tax credits" could more than offset the obvious losses these "work-from-home" companies are more than likely to be earning in matter of fact. Never mind that said "tax credits and incentives" are probably fraudulent themselves in view of the inherently fraudulent nature of their business models and paradigms.

Now you know the "how and why" of "work-from-home" companies taking potentially unscrupulous advantage of the vulnerable.

Which can be summarised thus:

"We are only running this company for tax reasons."

So what is the IRS doing about this? 

IN EXPLAINING AND JUSTIFYING HIS VETO OF A BAN ON CERTAIN CRUEL AND SADISTO FORMS OF TORTURE IN THE NAME OF PROCURING INTELLIGENCE, notably "waterboarding," His Fraudulency's contention was that such measures were necessary to prevent further terrorist attacks in the 9/11 stylee.

Never mind the objections of human rights groups and others concerned about the abuses of power which justify sadistic excesses in the name of G-d and Country ... and, in a way, Law and Order.

Seems His Fraudulency can't wait to find ways to use such sadisto means against real or suspected critics of the regime, particularly where the mental hygiene laws can be invoked based on flawed or misguided belief that such thus subjected "pose a clear and present danger to the self or others."

And said "danger" being solely because of their holding beliefs deemed "contrary to the antient and pecuilar soverignty and soverign identity" of the United States--which, more than likely, will be "cloaked" by charges of "homosexuality" lacking credibility save for hearsay evidence coerced out of paid informants lacking credibility for even the police.

Write your Congressman and override the veto. Forward this e-mail for maximum effectiveness, come to think of it.

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

WHICH BRINGS TO MIND WHAT ÆSOP SAID ABOUT "the smaller the mind, the greater the conceit."

Conceit, methinks, aided and abetted by His Fraudulency's old friend and bosom companion Al Cohol.

PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT SUMMER TIME, A/K/A DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME, will go into effect this coming weekend @ 02h local time Sunday morning.

As in setting any and all timepieces you have ahead by one hour.

Except, of course, if you live in Arizona (outside the Navajo Indian Reservation, which observes Summer Time) or Hawaii (in the United States), or the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, in which cases this reminder does not apply.

Summer Time will remain in force until 02h local time on Sunday, 2 November.

As well, such would be as good a time as any to have the batteries in your smoke detectors changed.

To better synchronise your timepieces for the time change, may I recommend your calling the WWV time signal on a/c 303-499-7111 towards that end. (Please note that normal long-distance charges apply, and calls to this number automatically time out after three minutes. Hence, your attention is all the more important.)

CONTINUING ON WHAT WAS DISCUSSED YESTERDAY ABOUT WORLDNETDAILY'S "SPIN" AND PERVERSION OF JOURNALISTIC STANDARDS in ongoing coverage of a California family on trial for allowing their children to be homeschooled under the worst possible conditions--and presenting them in martyr-complex terms invoking the Nazi regime's perverting education for ideological ends--a follow-up item from ConWebWatch's blog reveals further misleading "spin" on the case from WND in perverted ideological service:

Gee, that was quick.

Six hours after we published what WorldNetDaily's Bob Unruh wouldn't regarding a California family whose homeschooled students were ordered into a real school by a court, Unruh apparently went into panic mode and penned an article that includes more details of the story. But he still tries to spin the issue and whitewash the family.  

Unruh asserts that the ruling "is alarming because of the way the court opted to order those results." But the ruling is merely following the rule of law, that "enrollment and attendance in a public full-time day school is required by California law for minor children," with certain exceptions, none of which the family met in the eyes of the court. We thought conservatives like Unruh favored the rule of law.

Unruh makes a big deal of noting:

Specifically, the appeals court said, the trial court had found that "keeping the children at home deprived them of situations where (1) they could interact with people outside the family, (2) there are people who could provide help if something is amiss in the children's lives, and (3) they could develop emotionally in a broader world than the parents' 'cloistered' setting."

But Unruh did not note what preceded that noation in the ruling: a statement that a previous court found "that the home schooling the children were receiving was 'lousy,' 'meager,' and 'bad.'"

Unruh then delves into details of what he called "unpublished court documents" in "a dependency case stemming from accusations of abuse that resulted from the parents' decision to impose discipline on their children with spankings."

First, the documents in the case have been published, at the AMPS blog, as has the appeals court ruling Unruh writes about. But even though those documents are publcly available, Unruh does not provide a link to them.

Second, while Unruh notes that the "unpublished" documents note "allegations that a family acquaintance molested one of the children as well as claims regarding physical punishment relating to one child's decision to disobey household rules about being out at night," which he declared were "disputed by different people involved," he fails to mention numerous other allegations of physical punishment and emotional abuse by the father detailed in the court documents; indeed, the court stated that "Father has a long history of physically abusing the children and mother has a long history of not protecting them from father." Further, the documents state:

[T]he record contains substantial evidence, both from statements made by the children and from mother's own actions, that  father dominates mother and dominates the children who live at home, two of whom have repeatedly run away from home because, in  part, of the home rules father imposes. There is also substantial evidence that he has been difficult to work with in dependency  matters--evasive, uncooperative, and belligerent. There is evidence that these character traits of father's have been consistent over the  years that this family has been in dependency court. 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. There is  evidence that mother does not interfere with his discipline of the children and his rules. There is evidence she does not make even tentative decisions in dependency matters but rather defers issues until father can make decisions on them. Several of the children gave answers  [*75] to the social worker, forensic evaluator, and the court that have all the appearance of reflecting what the children were told to say or believed father would want them to say or not say. 

Additionally, Unruh fails to address one key issue: the atmosphere and quality of the homeschool education.

Unruh also writes that previous court rulings in the case had "affirmed the parents' right to homeschool their children." But Unruh ignores one statement in the dependency court documents, that "The court indicated it believed the parents have the legal right to home school their children assuming the home schooling education is appropriate" [emphasis ours]. Just as Unruh failed to note the court's statement that the education the children received was "lousy," "meager," and "bad," he ignores the description of said education as provided by one of the children:

Asked how much time she spent each day on being school at the parents' home, she stated "sometimes two hours. [*27] Sometimes half an hour. It depended on what homework it was." Only mother taught her, not father. She was provided with books. The books had reviews in them but not tests. Mother helped her with assignments if she  needed help. She could not recall mother being unable to help her. She would also ask [her sister] Charity but Charity "doesn't know it so she wasn't much help." Her subjects were citizenship, math, English and science. Once a year she took a test to see if she could pass to  another grade. The last test she took was at a church. The test was administered by Sunland Christian School and was a "test for that school." She passed the test but she did not remember her marks. During her schooling at home, her best subject was science and her worst was math. She was not taught geography or history. Asked if she can add, subtract, multiply and divide, Rachel stated she cannot. 

Is this the kind of "education" Unruh and WND really want to be defending?

Unruh noted the claim by the father, Phillip Long, that "the youngest children most recently had been working under an independent study program with Sunland Christian Academy," then added, "The court ruling, however, revealed a judicial dislike of that school, since the judges specifically ordered the children would not be allowed to participate in its programs." Unruh fails to mention that Sunland's supervision of the children's education was minimal, since the school's administrator admitted that "he makes visits to the parents' home about four times a year."

Unruh repeats the father's claim that "he objects to the pro-homosexual, pro-bisexual, pro-transgender agenda of California's public schools," even though the court noted that the father has offered varying reasons for keeping his children out of school, including that they "do not believe in the policies of the public school system," "religious beliefs," and because "educating children outside the home exposes them to 'snitches.'"

And, apparently because he can't help himself, Unruh unloads the Nazi smear once again, claiming the ruling has "echoes of similar ideas expressed by officials from Germany, where homeschooling has been outlawed since 1938 under a law adopted when Adolf Hitler decided he wanted the state, and no one else, to control the minds of the nation's youth." 

While Unruh does slightly better this time around, he still offers a biased, whitewashed view of the issue. Will he ever tell the full truth about this case? Don't count on it--WND is too much of a homeschool cheerleader to ever tell its downside.

No wonder the "Christian Homeschooling" crowd is all the more likely to be dysfunctional, and then some.

THOSE READERS OF A CERTAIN AGE MAY RECALL A COMIC STRIP CALLED "TOONERVILLE FOLKS," which had among its staple of characters The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang among the denizens of that particular comminity serviced by "The Toonerville Trolley That Meets All the Trains," key element to the long-running feature.

Judging by what's going down in the blogosphere, Republican Presidential wannabe John McCain could best be considered Indecision 2008's version of The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang.

Witness the following video of the exchange in question (thanks to YouTube, ultimately via The Carpetbagger Report):

Elisabeth Bumiller of The New York Times: Senator, can I ask you about Senator Kerry. I just went back and looked at our story, the Times story, and you told Sheryl Stolberg that you had never had a conversation with Kerry about being about vice president…

McCain: Everybody knows that I had a private conversation. Everybody knows that. That I had a conversation. There's no living American in Washington—that knows that, there's no one.

Bumiller: Okay.

McCain: And you know it, too. You know it. So, I don't even know why you ask.

Bumiller: Well, I ask because I just read…

McCain: You do know it. You do know it.

Bumiller: Because I just read in the Times in May of '04 you said….

McCain: I don't know what you may have read or heard of, I don't know the circumstances. Maybe in May of '04 I hadn't had the conversation…

Bumiller: But do you recall the conversation?

McCain: I don't know, but it's well known that I had the conversation. It is absolutely well known by everyone. So do you have a question on another issue?

Bumiller: Well can I ask you when the conversation was?

McCain: No. nope, because the issue is closed as far as I'm concerned. Everybody knows it. Everybody knows it in America.

Bumiller: Can you describe the conversation?

McCain: No, of course not. I don't describe private conversations.

Bumiller: Okay. Can I ask you…

McCain: Why should I? Then there's no such thing as a private conversation. Is there (inaudible) if you have a private conversation with someone, and then they come and tell you. I don't know that that's a private conversation. I think that's a public conversation.

Bumiller: Okay. Can I ask you about your (pause) Why you're so angry?

McCain: Pardon me?

Bumiller: Never mind, never mind.

McCain: I mean, it's well known. Everybody knows. It's been well chronicled a thousand times. John Kerry asked if I would consider being his running mate.

Bumiller: Okay.

McCain: And I said categorically no, under no circumstances. That's very well known.

No doubt guaranteed to generate plenty of "Macaca moments" as will no doubt wind up haste posthaste on YouTube ... and, in their turn, sure to undermine McCain's campaign for all it's worth.

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

AND ANOTHER THING, HOWBEIT UNRELATED: With His Fraudulency finally acknowledging that the economic situation is in a serious state of decline, what exactly prevents his acknowledging that it was his mad rush to ur-RAHOWA Against International Terrorism and his hard-wired belief that tax cuts=jobs=socioeconomic stability (already well discredited) that have aggravated same all the more?

THOSE WHO SEE "COMPLETE AND FINAL REGULATORY RELIEF" AS THE ONLY WAY TO SAVE FREE-MARKET CAPITALISM WITH AMERICAN CHARACTERISTICS--and, in the process, "open the magic doors of the free market, freedom of choice, freedom to choose," yadda yadda yadda, in the Lower Classes, may want to think twice after reading the following "WaiWai" report from the Mainichi Daily News out of Tokyo as may be of interest to that ilk (notwithstanding the inherent lack of credibility common to "WaiWai" items):

Residents of Osaka's Nishi-ku are raising a stink over what they say is a shifty plan aimed at setting up a love hotel right next door to an elementary school in the ward, Weekly Playboy (2/18) says.

Over 4,000 people have already signed a petition opposing the construction of the hotel, which claims to be respectable lodgings for business people and is due to open later this month, adjacent to the Honden Municipal Elementary School.

"Kids walk past this hotel on their way to school every day," Honden's vice principal tells Weekly Playboy. "If it really is a love hotel, it's not very good around here--this is a learning environment!"

Though the establishment prominently displays a sign labelling it a "business hotel," critics say it's merely a disguise. Osaka Municipal Assembly councilor Tadashi Shimizu is outraged.

"Business hotels are normally for single travelers, yet every one of the 20 rooms in this establishment is a twin room. I guess once they open for business, they're just going to push all the beds together and make the rooms doubles," Shimizu tells Weekly Playboy. "We've confirmed other love hotels of identical construction right here in Osaka. I guess this new place is part of the chain."

It's becoming something of a trend across Japan for love hotel operators to initially register their establishments as normal accommodation until they open, to take advantage of the less stringent requirements for regular hotels, then become love nests once operations are underway.

Under the Business Affecting Public Morals Regulation Law, love hotels are defined by the limitations placed on them for such things as lobbies and dining areas, as well as by the number of rotating beds and bathrooms with mirrored walls that they contain. The same law also bans them from setting up within close proximity to schools, allowing minors to use the premises and advertising in areas where the underage hang out.

But love hotel operators are apparently a sneaky lot.

"Love hotel owners exploit loopholes in the law. They build hotels without any rotating beds or mirrors and get a license to run them as a normal hotel. But once they've received permission to operate, they start offering them as love hotels for amorous couples," a writer on the adult entertainment business tells Weekly Playboy.

There's not much law-abiding citizens can do to combat underhanded shag shack owners from circumventing the rules.

"About the only way we can fight this is if Osaka comes up with specification ordinances of its own," local politician Shimizu says. "We could set a minimum number of single rooms for a place to be classified as a business hotel, or outlaw hotels from having displays of room interiors in their lobbies. Whatever way, we should strongly regulate them."

Others point to the changing accommodation market and feel they may be fighting a losing battle.

"Now, even posh hotels are offering daytime rates and renting rooms out by the hour instead of the night. I guess most people taking up these offers are only doing it for a place to have sex," the adult entertainment business writer tells Weekly Playboy. "The difference between love hotels and regular hotels has been strongly blurred. It's impossible to try and keep them under control."

Now what do you have to say, ye who support "regulatory relief" as the only way towards "pure" capitalism?