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.

THE CHRISTIAN HOMESCHOOLING MOVEMENT, BASED AS IT IS ON FUNDAMENTALIST/PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN TEACHINGS which, in their turn, are probably influenced by apartheid South Africa's syllabus of Nasionale Christen Opverdoing, enjoys overdoing it on nothing short of bromides, platitudes and bumper-sticker slogans in the guise of educating children towards "promoting a healthy and nutritious Christian Patriot Love" which is seen in the movement's Zealots and True Believers as lacking in a "failed and failing" system of public education.

Lacking, they will pathetically claim, because of the 1963 Supreme Court ruling in Engel v. Vitale as declared organised and composed prayers in the public schools to be unconstitutional intermingling of Church and State--in particular the so-called "Regents' Prayer" composed by the New York State Board of Regents for aural recitation @ the start of the school day alongside the Pledge of Allegiance:

A-mighty G-d, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country. AMEN.

(In the actual ruling, due note was given that among the reasons for emigration to the United States given by the early colonists was the  overzealous involvement--some would say interference--of the British Crown in creating the Book of Common Prayer for the Church of England in the 16th century.

(The fact of which Christian Homeschooling programmes will likely ignore or otherwise trivialise.)

Which, all in all, is expected to present the United States as having been "predestined" by Divine Revelation to be the Shining City on a Hill, Civitas Dei, Jerusalem of Gold, Direct Portal and Gateway to Heaven and True Centre of the World, the Universe and the 28 Known Galaxies--and whose "antient and pecuilar" status is thus seen as "under clear and present threat" by "dark forces" of "Secular-Progressive" orientation thus seen as a conspiratorial "Fifth Column" under "Jewish influence or control."

Such, no doubt, speaking volumes for the warped and perverted delusion which Christian Homeschooling programmes are forever seeing as the Christian Weltanschauung, especially when it comes to history, values and economics (in that last case, seeing free-market capitalism with American characteristics as Divinely Ordained and Predestined as the Great White Hope of the Lower Classes--provided such was granted "complete, final and binding regulatory relief").

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IN FACT, SUCH A WARPED CHRISTIAN WORLD VIEW AS IS PRESENTED IN CHRISTIAN HOMESCHOOLING could only carry a serious psychoemotional price in children thus homeschooled, and especially so when they try to adjust themselves to adult life on their own--expected, per the Biblical injunctions inherent in homeschooling, to "honour [support, to the Christian homeschooling perspective] thy Father and Mother" along especially financial models.

Especially considering the enforced social isolation Christian Homeschooling excuses as necessary, out of fear that Knowledge must be some class of a Loathsome Disease as could lead to Error by way of The Wrong Contacts and Associations.

The warped and perverted view of history (liberally reinforced with careless misinterpretation of the United States Constitution as Divinely-Inspired and -Ordained, to take one likely example) and kindred subjects prevailing throughout the Christian Homeschooling syllabus.

Subtle overtures and appeals to racist, white-supremacist and anti-Semitic feelings and prejudices, same expected to be seen as one with the defence of Christian Honour, Integrity and Patriot Love.

And the likelihood for lower-working-class families all too vulnerable to the Christian Homeschooling movement's glowing premises and generalities suffering all the more socioeconomically just to afford the homeschooling cirricular material--and perhaps making things worse by equating such suffering to that of the Christus and His Apostles, especially if the paterfamilias is fired or seriously injured and cannot find work for some time, forcing the family to turn to their savings (or what passes for it) just to maintain their homeschooling ways--that, and a hard-wired reluctance to go on welfare because of "Biblical injunctions" against asking for charity "lest moral error result."

Such, methinks, could be an interesting psychological case study subject, in case psychology majors are looking for ideas or inspiration for their doctoral thesis.

WORTH THINKING ABOUT IN THE LARGER SCALE OF THINGS INVOLVING INDECISION 2008: Recently-released estimates, arrived @ through careful and yet cautious means, suggest that the ur-RAHOWA in Iraq could cost the Good Taxpayers of the "morally superior" United States upwards of $18 billion/diem.

You read that right--$18 billion/diem!

And it's no wonder we are, or in serious danger of, recession and related socioeconomic dislocation--for which His Fraudulency's preferred approach is to throw out "stimulus incentives" starting @ $300 for such who qualify, hoping such will be wasted @ the local Wally World rather than face Reality and impose painful, yet necessary, tax increases upon especially "the Four Hundred."

This coming just as breaking advice emerges of five American soldiers being killed in a suicide-bomb attack in beautiful downtown Baghdad.

All in all, ask yourself: Is throwing out $18 billion per diem on a misguided ur-RAHOWA in the name of "preventing further infamous terrorist attacks," based all along on flawed or misleading evidence, really worth keeping taxes low just to create jobs and, in its turn, maintain socioeconomic stability?

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

EXCEDRIN HEADACHE #1832: The FBI's opening some rather loaded enquiries into the executive compensation policies and general mortgage-lending practices of Countrywide Home Loans, the #1 "sub-prime/Alt-A" mortgage lender catering mostly to "chronic and habitual" welfare cases "needing a dose of healthy respect" for owner-occupancy which only free-market capitalism with American characteristics makes possible (or so the conservative line prevailing excuses the need for a "classless ownership society" being encouraged among the Lower Classes in particular).

Which could be grounds enough to call for a renewal of emphasis upon mutual self-help (in this case, by way of the building society model) as a way to help the deserving Lower Classes towards owner-occupancy housing. Or, better yet, cooperative-model housing developments.

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

A RATHER BIZARRE SIDELIGHT OF THE PAST WEEKEND'S SNOWSTORMS IN THE OHIO VALLEY AND EASTWARDS would have to be the news footage of numerous spinout accidents on the I-64/77 bridge over the Ohio River in Charleston, West Virginia aggravated by icy road conditions.

Which might look more amusing (or would it not?) if such were scored to none other than the "March of the Toreadors" from Bizet's Carmen ... or, better(?) yet, the "Anvil Chorus" from Puccini's Il Trovatore, to cite obvious background music.

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

TELL ME IF THE FOLLOWING SUGGESTION FROM L. BRENT BOZELL TO THE JOHN McCAIN PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN per The Washington Post, as quoted by The Carpetbagger Report, suggests where sugar-coated anti-Semitism may likely come into the McCain campaign playbook vis-a-vis the conservative delusion of Kulturkrieg:

Our culture is decaying from within, and most Republicans have been shamefully AWOL on this issue. McCain could begin a national conversation about parents, not the state, taking responsibility for their children and their communities. He should call on the entertainment industry to stop polluting America's youth with its videos and its music and on the Internet....

Which begs the question of whether the GOP's ideal of Amerikanischer Realkultur for the sake of "our culture***decaying from within" is probably closer to die Bransoner Muzikschaukultur, based as it is on an idealised notion of True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command--based, on closer inspection, upon the 1950's white middle-class Levittown ideal conservatives idealise more than anything.

An ideal excusing contempt towards the poor and National Minorities in the name of said Patriot Love. Not to mention a jingoistic brand of xenophobia rivalling anything North Korea churns out to keep the masses in line and forget the enforced misery and poverty which "Great Leader" Kim Jong Il expects will save North Korea from the likelihood of "American colonial occupation."

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AND WHILE ON THE SUBJECT OF THE PHONY KULTURKRIEG WHICH CONSERVATIVE PROPAGANDISTS MUST ENJOY PUSHING AS A DISTRACTION from The Big Picture (particularly from the standpoint of its supposedly contributing to Moral Harm in Right-Thinking [read: poor, undereducated and easily-influenced "white trash"] Families and their Children, with liberal doses of anti-Semitism and appeals to "Holy Blood and Soil," as reflected in die Bransoner Muzikschaukultur, as required), it's been noted that while broadcasters may be fond of using the TV Ratings Scheme to provide information, they don't complement such from time to time (especially when the content raises questions of Moral Harm) with content advice.

Solution: To better "get the message across" to especially the Lower Classes, said advisories might want to be broadcast in Engrish (same being given, per recommended advice, just before the show starts and coming out of commercial breaks). One recommended form being this Engrish version of an advisory which Canadian broadcaster CTV used when they transmitted The Sopranos a few years back:

This program for the child is not intended. That includes very rough way of talking and nude image violence scene. Perhaps a certain adult it has happened with contents. Consideration division of the viewer advises strongly.

Other Engrish forms of content advice which broadcasters could present as necessary include:

This program is suitable for viewing the family.

This program for the audience of 7 ages or less includes the scene of violence of the imagination or cartoon, is not nominated.

This program includes hint language. Consideration division of the parent advises.

This program characteristic includes language and the subject which are related. Consideration division of the viewer advises.

This program includes the scene of conduct and violence of characteristic of the animal. Consideration division of the parent advises.

This program includes strong language and violence scene. Consideration division of the parent advises.

This program includes the nude image. Consideration division of the viewer advises.

This program for the audience of 14 ages or less graphics or includes the scene of extreme violence with another method, is not nominated.

This program includes the characteristic hint language and the scene of the nude image. Consideration division of the viewer advises.

Therefore as for this program for the audience of the adult who grew the implication which should nominate the subject of adult.

(Thanks to Pigeond.net's English-to-Engrish Translator for making these examples possible. It's so wonderful way to kill idle online time!)

ĘSOP, AS IN THOSE FABLES ANTHROPOMORPHIC WE'VE GROWN UP SINCE CHILDHOOD (AND THEN SOME), once observed that "the smaller the mind, the greater the conceit."

And perhaps no better examples of this thinking in action exist than among the conservative propaganda machine and its fondness for glowing generalities in the face of imminent socioeconomic meltdown brought about by misguided conservative socioeconomic policies seeing free-market capitalism as the Great White Father of particularly the Lower Classes "chronically and habitually dependent" upon State welfare for years, even generations (and, to the conservative way of thinking, "developed Socialistic tendencies" all the while).

Worst offender for the sake of demonstration: Fox News Channel, particularly when it comes to presenting an overly-cheerful "spin" on socioeconomic deterioration, as NewsHounds is fond of exposing to air and sunshine from time to time. (Recent examples in this vein can be had here and here, if you need evidence.)

What excellent insight into the conservative mindset, Ęsop! 

WITH THIS BLOG BEING A FIRM BELIEVER IN THE MESSAGE OF THAT UNOFFICIAL NATIONAL HYMN OF DISNEYLAND AND WALT DISNEY WORLD THAT "IT'S A SMALL WORLD, AFTER ALL," Your Correspondent finds worthwhile the following item from Australia's Sydney Morning Herald as reveals something which racists and white-supremacists would certainly love to hear--and would love to see more of in the "morally superior" United States for the sake of "racial and national honour" rivalled in depravity by apartheid South Africa:

WHITE students are fleeing public schools, leaving behind those of Aboriginal and Middle Eastern origin, a secret report by high school principals reveals.

The NSW Secondary Principals Council conducted a confidential survey which raises serious concerns about "white flight" undermining the public education system and threatening social cohesion. Some teachers and principals have described it as "de facto apartheid".

The findings are backed by research from the University of Western Sydney, which has identified evidence of racial conflict in schools in the wake of the Cronulla riots. It also suggests students of Anglo-European descent are avoiding some schools with students of mainly Asian background.

Not only have some public schools lost enrolments; they have become racially segregated. In pockets of rural and remote NSW, Aboriginal students fill public schools and white students attend Catholic and other private schools in the same town.

Around Sydney, the parents of some Anglo-European students are avoiding what they perceive as predominantly Lebanese, Muslim and Asian schools.

In New England, in towns such as Armidale, white middle-class students are flocking to Catholic and independent schools.

In their report, principals say this is so the students can "get away from their local school".

"This is almost certainly white flight from towns in which the public school's enrolment consists increasingly of indigenous students," the report says. "The pattern is repeated in the Sydney region. Based on comments from principals, this most likely consists of flight to avoid Islamic students and communities."

The report, its pages stamped confidential, was based on responses of 163 high school principals, representing a third of the Secondary Principals Council membership. It was presented to the NSW Government after it was completed in February 2006, but has not been released.

Principals in New England said 56 per cent of the Anglo-European students who had left their schools had gone to a nearby Catholic or independent school. In North Sydney, 35 per cent of students who had left the public system went to a nearby private school.

The report shows the percentage of Anglo-European students in public schools has decreased by a third in western NSW, by 42 per cent in North Sydney and 37 per cent in New England.

A University of Western Sydney academic, Carol Reid, has also found that one in four male students surveyed in Sydney's south and west had been involved in ethnic conflict.

She had received anecdotal reports from principals about white students avoiding what were regarded as Asian schools on the North Shore and some selective high schools that had high proportions of Asian students.

Dr Reid, who is the associate head of the school of education, surveyed 350 high school students aged between 14 and 17 in south-western Sydney, after the Cronulla riots of 2005.

"I've been involved in education for 30 years and I've never seen this polarisation around class, but also around ethnicity and race," she said.

"What I have discovered is principals are losing the last of their white kids to Catholic schools across the road. A principal in the Middle Eastern part of the city was saying that he had no white kids in his school.

"I'm concerned that social cohesion is going to be at risk through this. I see signs of that. You have a lot of segregation going on."

The survey of principals reports one saying: "The Asian students are scared off by Lebanese enrolment at our school following the Cronulla riots - we had 18 no-shows on day one in year 11, mostly Asian."

Another said: "I'm seen as a Muslim school, so I don't attract very many non-Muslims, whether Anglo or not. I've worked hard to raise the school profile and gradually increase enrolments, but the Muslim label appears to alienate other groups."

Noel Beddoe, a former principal in Narrandera for 20 years who is involved in Aboriginal education, said a "de facto apartheid" had developed in some towns in the west and north of NSW, including Mungindi, near Moree, where Aboriginal students attend the public school and whites attend the Catholic school.

Busloads of white students from towns including Boggabilla cross the Queensland border every day to attend a Catholic and public school in Goondiwindi. The same is happening in southern NSW, where students are bypassing Balranald Central School and crossing the border to go to schools in Victoria.

Up to 15 years ago, Boggabilla Central School, near the Queensland border, had a relatively even mix of white and Aboriginal students. The proportion of white students has dropped from around 40 per cent in the early 1990s to 10 to 20 per cent today.

Owen Hasler, the NSW Teachers Federation organiser for the New England region, said: "There has been a significant movement of white Anglo students away from quite a few of the schools in the New England and Western region. It is clearly evidenced by the numbers and proportion of Aboriginal students in those schools."

He said around 8 per cent of the 1100 students at Gunnedah High School during the 1970s were Aboriginal. That proportion had grown to about 25 per cent of the 600 students now enrolled.

"Public schools are becoming de facto Aboriginal schools," Mr Hasler said. "It appears to be a result of the last 10 to 15 years of funding. We can understand people making the choice to send their kids away to other schools when there is a financial incentive to do so. But is that fair to the kids who want to stay in their own local community?"

Dr Reid said policies of the Howard government and the Liberal state government that had strongly supported parental choice in schooling, including de-zoning, had contributed to "white flight".

Parents were no longer restricted to schools close to home and could use generous government subsidies for transport. Boarding school allowances of up to $6396 per child were also available, making it easier for some families to avoid their local school.

The Isolated Parents Association is lobbying to have the $54 million federal government boarding assistance scheme extended to more families in rural and remote areas. It is means-tested and restricted to children of families who live more than 56 kilometres from the nearest government school, or more than 4.5 kilometres from the nearest transport to school.

The association's national president, Roxanne Morrissey, said families who lived near a public school should be supported in their choice of another school that offered a wider curriculum choice.

The NSW Greens MP John Kaye said the State Government spent $443 million a year on a transport scheme that "encourages travel past local public schools to private schools in other suburbs".

"It's a recipe for educational segregation," he said.

Rick Johnston, director of Catholic schools in the Armidale diocese, said enrolments of Aboriginal students were increasing. In 1985 there were 6557 students in Catholic schools in the Armidale region and of these, 196 were Aboriginal. Last year there were 465 indigenous students out of 5892 students.

"I am committed to improving education outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students," he said. "I believe that education is the most important key to breaking the cycle of disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people."

Sharon Cooke, who is employed by the Catholic schools office in Armidale as an Aboriginal education consultant, said there were 25 schools within the diocese that employed 20 Aboriginal education assistants and two Aboriginal language teachers.

"We are committed to increasing the number of teachers within our schools who are of Aboriginal heritage," she said.

How much longer before such an epidemic crosses the Pacific and reaches the "morally superior" United States, exploited all the more by weird and unwholesome elements as are probably closet racists in and of themselves?

THOUGH YOUR CORRESPONDENT HAS YET TO RECEIVE FROM YOU READERS ENQUIRIES REGARDING A NUMBER OF THE TERMS I USE IN THIS WEBLOG from time to time, perhaps it was time to offer some explanations for your benefit before serious enquiries start overwhelming the comments and/or e-mail.

I hope this will be of some help.

For starters, take "capitalism with American characteristics:" Such is an ironic, perhaps sarcastic, take patterned on "socialism with Chinese characteristics," a slogan the Chinese Communist Party was using a few years back to promote their ideal of a market economy based on Marxist/Leninist sociopolitical parameters; i.e., with substantial State involvement to the point of interference.

In that vein, I picture the likelihood of certain Zealots and True Believers in conservative free-market thought pushing the ideal of "capitalism with American characteristics" to counter "socialism with Chinese characteristics."

As in a "pure" free-market capitalistic model "completely and finally released from undue and unnecessary regulatory burden" from the State and subject only to "healthy self-regulation" based on industry-sponsored Codes of Good Practice theoretically expected to encourage competition and innovation--but, on closer reading, is "cloaked" with various "outs" as endorse cartel behaviour in the name of "protecting free-market capitalism as one with American national and soverign identity," and vice versa, consistent with prevailing conservative belief in doublethink they don't want you and me knowing about.

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IN A RELATED VEIN OF SORTS, THERE'S ALSO "CAPITALISM AS GREAT WHITE FATHER OF THE LOWER CLASSES"--another (un)likely conservative article of faith suggesting that "chronic and habitual welfare cases" (National Minorities especially) were somehow "secretly conditioned into Communistic, Socialistic or otherwise un-American beliefs" by way of "failed and failing systems of State welfare and Social Security," thereby seen to be "hindering any real chance for empowering themselves."

And, in conservative thought, the "last and only hope" welfare cases have is to "wholeheartedly and willingly accept free-market capitalism as their Great White Father."

The concept, ironically, playing upon United States Government mindsets towards Native Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as expected them to see the "Great White Father" (in some versions, "Great White Grandfather")--the United States Government, through the Bureau of Indian Affairs--as saving them from themselves, howbeit by resettling them on reservation lands and forcibly subjecting such to deliberate poverty and misery through the likes of "mission schools" which, more often than not, used LeTourneauism as an agency of coercive suasion to get Native Americans to forget their heritage and accept "civilised" (white) ways.

Only to fall apart in the aftermath of the Bryan v. Itasca County Supreme Court ruling in 1976, which held, in essence, that Native Americans living on reservation lands were entitled the right to self-government (even though the ruling was actually about states assessing property taxes upon Native Americans resident on reservation lands).

In effect, my use of such a notion is intended as historical irony @ the expense of conservative Zealotry and True Belief which (when all is said and done) is nothing short of contempt for the poor and marginalised of society, and with tacit State sanction besides. Especially when they're likewise expected to remain ignorant and stupid by deliberate design as part of their enforced poverty (which the conservatives will blame on public education and its "Secular-Progressive" dominance).

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NOTE, TOO, READERS, MY FREQUENTLY REFERRING TO THE UNITED STATES AS SUPPOSEDLY "MORALLY SUPERIOR" in this blog.

The intent, again, is irony--this time, @ the Religiopolitical Right's expense, such an element contending that the United States was "divinely predestined" to be the Shining City on a Hill, Jerusalem of Gold, the Portal and Gateway to Heaven according to a Fundamentalist/Primitive Christian brand of religiopolitical thought which its Zealots and True Believers are forever contending is, was and will forever be the One Foundation of American Soverignty and Soverign Identity "antient and pecuilar."

Especially considering the possibility that many in the Religiopolitical Right are of the "do as I say, not as I do" persuasion which can easily be cover for acts of moral turpitude which may be their undoing--especially homosexuality, pedophilia, patronising prostitutes and perousal of child pornography.

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SO NOW YOU KNOW. (Or do you care to dispute these points?)  

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?)

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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!

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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.

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WHICH BRINGS TO MIND WHAT ĘSOP 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.