FOX PROLEFEED APPEARS TO HAVE ADOPTED THE SAME TACTIC OF ITS BRITISH "RED TOP" COUSINS OF THE SUN AND NEWS OF THE WORLD in offerig big-big money to such willing to offer the biggest "whoppers" of "voter fraud" stories to further reinforce their desire to restrict electoral franchise solely to an "elect***entitled as of right" who can be easily manipulated into voting Straight Republican, and constantly.

Otherwise known as White Male Low Church Christian Freeholders.

RawStory.com broke the news last evening, with an update added subsequently:

Fox News has now set out to find the evidence of fraud that the Bush Department of Justice could not, whipping up their audience with the threat of non-citizens "getting a fake ID, a driver's license, or a social security card and voting in this year's election."

"If you think there's voter fraud where you live, or there are other election problems, we at Fox News want to know about it," Shawn told viewers. "You can email us. ... voterfraud@foxnews.com."

Shawn's proposed remedy is "legislation that would prevent illegals and other ineligible voters from going into the voting booth," although he acknowledged sadly that "even if states do act, it may be too late for the upcoming presidential election."

Update: In a comment on this RAW STORY article, Brad Friedman of BradBlog suggested, "You heard 'em, kids. Fox is looking for voter fraud! Feel free to email them this link documenting the no-uncertain-terms case of Ann Coulter having committed voter fraud in Palm Beach County, Florida! ... Let 'em know I sent you, in case they have any further questions. I'll be happy to speak to them, and help 'em root out those voter fraud criminals!"

At his blog, Friedman has charged that Coulter "knowingly lied about her address on her voter registration form in Palm Beach County, Florida; proceeded to break the law again by knowingly voting at the wrong precinct; then lied about it repeatedly; hired a former Bush attorney to protect her ass; and even called in her FBI ex-boyfriend to save her bacon when it looked like the Palm Beach County Sheriff might actually have the balls to bring charges."

Coulter appears frequently on Fox News Channel to expound upon campaign politics.

(For "other ineligible voters," Fox Prolefeed wants you and me thinking "chronic and habitual welfare cases," "known troublemakers," "inferior" National Minorities and "heathen noncomformists," especially so Jews and Muslims along with suchlike others "not in comunion with Low Church Christianity"--as in Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians [especially so Cumberland Presbyterians], Seventh-Day Adventists, Assemblies of G-d, Jehovah's Witnesses and others in the Fundamentalist or Primitive brand of theology whose theology emphasises fanatical hellfire-and-brimstone excesses to the point of risking serious psychoemotional harm in worshippers.)

In other words, those of you in serious financial difficulty, those with a history of mental disorders, alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes, gamblers, spendthrifts, "habitual criminals" and other weird and unwholesome types need not apply, as such are traditionally regarded as highly incredible sources of information by law enforcement agencies.

Especially so the kind motivated by selfish greed above all else, which may belie serious psychoemotional problems, come to think of it.

YES, READERS, THIS IS THE 500TH POSTING HERE TO THE EXAGGERATOR SINCE YOUR CORRESPONDENT LAUNCHED SAME to essentially supplant the daily phosdex @ the end of last year.

And no doubt about it:

In the nearly five months since I've launched this blog, it's seen some 5,000+ hits and plenty of attention--which can be put down to careful search-engine optimisation (and monthly resubmission to search engines through a submission aggregator), not-so-shameless self-promotion on certain message boards, and the use of BlogMad as a way to attract further hits--or try to.

And for that, Your Correspondent thanks you for making The Exaggerator what it's been in such a short time ... and would welcome your further continued support.

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WHICH EXPLAINS ANOTHER IMPORTANT AREA FOR THIS BLOG as could use some improvement: Financial, as much as moral, support.

In the interest of supplementing Your Correspondent's income from disability benefits, online shopping is incorporated into this blog's left-hand-side bar, as well as a Virtual Tip Jar for the odd donation of whatever spare change, so to speak, you might want to contribute.

Alas for it! neither has produced any significant or measurable results.

So, with that in mind, Your Correspondent would like those of you visitors having online shopping to do to get it done here, so long as you're here @ this weblog in the first place. You'd be killing two birds with one stone, so to speak, and doing this weblog a great favour. Especially those among you seeing online shopping as a way to save fuel as much as bedlam and confusion, even with fuel approaching $4/gallon in some areas of the country.

Or what otherwise stands in the way of getting your online shopping done @ this weblog?

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ANOTHER WORTHWHILE WAY TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR THIS BLOG, as long as I'm @ it, would be subscribing to the RSS feed for this weblog, which you can use in many interesting and worthwhile ways, among them:

• Receiving a daily e-mail brief of the latest postings to this blog;
• Subscribing to this blog in any RSS feed readers you may have, online and otherwise;
• Incorporating the feed headlines into your own weblog or other website; or
• By way of the FeedFlare facility following these posts, sharing such with any social-networking sites you may be part of (among them Digg, NewsVine, del.icio.us, Fark.com and the social-network aggragator OnlyNet).

Especially so the "hard-core" fans of blogging and satirically-inclined blogs who want another worthwhile blog they can subscribe to in their e-mail every day.

In case you lose interest, you can always unsubscribe @ any time.

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ONCE AGAIN, YOUR CORRESPONDENT WOULD LIKE TO SAY "THANK YOU" FOR YOUR PATRONAGE AND DEVOTION TO THE EXAGGERATOR all this time it's been around in the Secular-Progressive Blogosphere.

And would welcome your continued and continuing patronage and support--especially from the online shopping angle; that right there would be especially welcome, and don't try to misinterpret this as suggesting I'm "cyberbegging" or suchlike (cf. Dunkin' Donuts kowtowing to the Dark Satanic Mills of Conservative Propaganda in pulling an ad for their iced coffees showing Rachel Ray wearing a paisley-print scarf which such specimens of Zealotry and True Belief interpreted as a Muslim-stylee kaffiyah in the Palestinian stylee); rather, think of it as a vote of confidence and trust in this weblog.

If you like it ... why not tell a friend to look this blog over? Look for the "tell a friend" link on the left-hand sidebar, complete--and send. I can certainly welcome all the support I can get, especially new blogheads from across the Information Stuporbahn. 

FOLKS, YOU OUGHT TO SEE THE FOLLOWING VIDEO FOR YOURSELF, FEATURING PLENTY OF ACELA EXPRESS AND AMTRAK REGIONAL ACTION, to convince yourself that we, as a presumably "morally superior" society, have become too complacent in our air-mindedness.

Perhaps a little too complacent, in fact:

And the song which backs this video is right: "Please don't knock it until you ride it!"

(Or what otherwise stands in the way?)

more cat pictures

NOT MANY KNOW THIS, BUT THE AMERICAN TRADITION OF AN EXTENDED SUMMER-LONG BREAK FROM SCHOOL DATES BACK TO THE DAYS OF ONE-ROOM SCHOOLHOUSES, when society was along more agrarian lines than we have now.

Back then, parents insisted that their children remain on the farm during the summer months so they could help with farm chores all the more.

Hence, the three-month break in classes from about June until September, includive.

Which, to parents, can be easily a blessing or an unholy terror, depending on parental attitudes.

As Summer Vacation comes upon the land once again, Your Correspondent has to wonder just how many parents will insist that their children leave their houses after breakfast, and not return home until around the supper hour, replete with the inevitable patsies and bromides about the parents "needing some time to themselves without [the kids] laying around the house all day" watching TV, playing video games and otherwise "leading an idle, immoral or dissolute lifestyle."

And as if to reinforce the message, said parental units will more than likely issue loaded prepaid debit cards with the insistence that the kids "make wise use of their time" @ the local mall hanging around in idleness themselves, all the while avoiding attracting the attention of mall security and/or suspiciously nosy shop owners.

Or even issuing season passes for amusement, theme or water fun parks in the hope that "wise use of time" will be thus made, along with the debit card to cover meals and gifts--which, in some cases, will likely mean the parents dropping the kids off @ the main gate just after opening for the day, and not returning to pick them up (if @ all) until just before supper.

The insistence of the parents being inevitable: They just don't want the kids "wasting time needlessly" around the house all summer long. Let alone the kids raising suspicions among management of shopping malls, amusement or water parks, even local transportation authorities about "suspicious behaviours" on the part of kids essentially left to their own devices by essentially dysfunctional parents having no logical excuse than to spend quality time with their kids together for once; hence, coaching them on all manner of answers to give The Proper Channels in case they start "asking suspicious questions" sometime during season, to further avoid "attracting suspicions" as could fall upon the parents themselves.

Answers as may only raise questions in and of themselves.

Is the real concern they have, perhaps, the fear that they might be caught downloading child pornography off the Information Stuporbahn by the kids themselves, who, in their turn, will likely "nark" on the parents to the police?

Or that the parents "need to have some privacy" for the "company" they have as turns out being rather weird and unwholesome, and "don't want the kids in the way" otherwise?

(Let alone the likelihood of the kids returning home just before supper, as per instructions--only to find a loud and chaotic police raid converging upon their house, whereupon the kids break down and explain all, right down to the details of coached answers, to police officers on scene.) 

AS THE 2008 SUMMER TOURIST SEASON GETS UNDERWAY IN THE ONCE AND FUTURE WATERPARK CAPITAL OF THE WORLD, otherwise known as Wisconsin Dells, it appears likely that a battle royale may be emerging between rival promotional organisations trying to attract the shoobie dollars.

All because of what the bylaws of the Visitor and Convention Bureau, the established tourism-promotion agency there, regard as "unacceptable" practices for member businesses (especially motels and resorts) such as selling tickets for guests to major attractions or otherwise offering such as part of the room rate.

Which, in turn, has prompted the rival Wisconsin Dells-Lake Delton Chamber of Commerce (revived recently after several years' hiatus) to accuse the Bureau of forcing their members to play by their rules, or else "suffer the consequences"--with some claiming that Bureau practices forced many to quit the innkeeping trade out of fear of intimidation.

(Perhaps it may be stretching things to imagine the Bureau establishing connexions with the likes of Cosa Nostra, triads, yakuza, Latin American drugs cartels or even "citizen militia" groups with weird and unwholesome connexions themselves to handle the pis aller for the Bureau in case coercion doesn't exactly work.)

In any case, such will leave shoobies "in the crossfire," so to speak, wondering whose marketing should be regarded as Offisieël Toeris Informasie--and leaving such wondering whether it would be simply better to try and badger "locals" on the streets of Wisconsin Dells and/or Lake Delton for recommndations in an attempt @ neutrality.

Let alone choosing to go to Six Flags Great America or Valleyfair instead.

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IN ANY CASE, AS ONE WHO HAPPENS TO BE RATHER FOND OF WISCONSIN DELLS HIMSELF, Your Correspondent would like to suggest where, before push comes to shove (and especially if such translates into Extreme Ultraviolence), both factions might want to, for starters, take a listen to the NightBeat episode "Tong War."

(For those unacquainted with Old Time Radio, NightBeat was a newspaper drama series as aired on NBC from 1950 to 1952. Its star, Frank Lovejoy, starred as Randy Stone, a reporter for the fictional Chicago Star walking the Windy City's streets of nights looking for human-interest stories to fill his column. Many who have studied Old Time Radio in its twilight years will like to draw comparisons between NightBeat and Dragnet--the latter based on actual police cases out of Los Angeles, starring Jack Webb--for their portrayal of the gritty realism of postwar urban America with refreshing frankness and honesty.

(The episode in question, as first aired in April of 1950, had Our Intrepid Reporter caught in Chicago's traditional Chinatown district on Wentworth Avenue in the face of a tense scenario as threatened to spill over into ultraviolence between rival Chinese businessmens' associations, known commonly as "tongs," provoked by Organised Crime. And just as "zero hour" neared, it emerged that the underlying cause of the threatened tong war was the fact of two business partners--members of rival tongs, it turned out--having only enough money to bury one of them back in China because of misfortune and business reversals. Having decided to late Fate settle the matter, the two ate rice cakes and drank rice wine until one such snuffed it by way of one rice cake having been poisoned.

(And just before the end, the one who wound up snuffing it cited a Confucian proverb: "Even the tiger and the deer and can drink from the same stream.")

As for the resolution, might I suggest something in the way of a healthy "grudge match" in the sporting stylee as winds up translating into a Mexican Standoff scenario (which sees neither side having a clear advantage vis-a-vis winning) which would require one or the other having to make concessions and bring about peace before serious ultraviolence ensues.

Mud wrestling, perhaps?

Or maybe Turkish olive-oil wrestling?

All-night matches of Monopoly, Risk, Trivial Pursuit or Scrabble?

Poker, 500, gin rummy, sheepshead?

Better yet: Boogie-board surfing competition, in keeping with the Waterpark Capital image....

In any event, such might want to be settled in such matter as the two would deem apropos over the week of the July 4th holiday; the better for distractionary press attention from as much the annual Nathan's Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Championships as Indecision 2008.

And milk it for all the attention that would impress even 79 Wistful Vista, come to think of it--especially before the shoobie trade starts fleeing in droves, in particular Kankerdom (who, traditionally, prefer "shoobie traps" like Wisconsin Dells as much as their British brethren prefer Blackpool). 

THOSE AMONG YOU WHO NEED ANSWERS AS TO WHY FREEVEE IS GETTING ANTISEPTICALLY PREDICTABLE (AND THEN SOME) may want to ponder the following editorial from the Star Tribune of Minneapolis as addresses the sterile escapism inherent in the fall programme lineups on FreeVee:

In this time of high-stakes politics and economic malaise, apparently the broadcast networks think the only reality viewers can handle is reality TV itself.

At least that's the early take on next fall's new primetime programs, recently unveiled in New York.

It's an especially escapist schedule, with no new scripted series reflecting the ongoing debate about economic opportunities and outcomes that impact so many Americans, and that have been the backdrop of this season's most compelling TV: the hybrid reality/drama/comedy series better known as the Democratic presidential primary race.

Instead, there's an overwhelming focus on wealth. Indeed, the juxtaposition between reality and TV life played out in New York on the same day working-class voters gave Sen. Hillary Clinton a 41-point thumping of Sen. Barack Obama in West Virginia.

The CW network proclaimed the moneyed upper west side of Manhattan as the perfect setting for "Gossip Girls." Also touted were "Surviving the Filthy Rich," about tutoring wealthy teens in Palm Beach, and "90210," an update of "Beverly Hills 90210," the original celebration of all things young, rich and unrealistic.

So Roseanne Connor and Ralph Kramden need not apply. Nor Archie Bunker or Fred Sanford, two everyman philosophers who helped the nation laugh--and occasionally think--in a previous economic downturn. Even the Depression drama of "The Waltons" would be welcome, at least to show how enduring values are not only endearing ("Good night, John Boy!"), but also vital as families go through tough times.

This is not to say the have-nots will be completely missing, however. But just as the civil rights movement is often seen through white protagonists in films like "Mississippi Burning," the poor will be seen through the eyes of the rich, as Fox's "Secret Millionaire'' and NBC's "The Philanthropist" are reality shows based on taking some of the haves' wealth and sharing it with the working poor.

To many, all of this may not seem to matter. But TV's disconnect from reality robs today's fractured society of the connections to everyday cultural reference points. And it also may help explain the dizzying declines in network ratings. For some, prime time has lost its resonance, if not relevance. A key indicator of network TV viewership is economic class: The lower the household income, the higher the propensity to watch. So the people invisible on-screen are often the very same ones in front of them.

And lower ratings mean lower revenue available for news, which may be the only TV time left for real-life stories. Based on what we've seen of the new network programming, higher prices, lower expectations and subprime mortgages just aren't prime time material.

Which makes all the more worthwhile a boycott of FreeVee, even as the final transition of American broadcasting from analogue to digital standard heads into the homestretch. Such, no doubt, should send a message to the powers that be in FreeVee that American audiences have better ways to make wise use of their time than watching predictably bland and escapist Mickey Mouse.

Like surfing the Information Stuporbahn.

Except (in the minds of certain hyperconservative Zealots and True Believers) the Lower Classes, who can be expected to watch nothing better than "elegant poornoo" lacking in plot or story--in other words, nothing less than random and unrelated scenes of human and animal sexual activity--or, for that matter, Grand Guignol-stylee ultraviolence.

The reason?

"They [the Lower Classes] deserve it, and they have nothing better to do anyway" will be the likely bromide of an answer.

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MEANWHILE, METEOROLOGICALLY SPEAKING, THE MINNWISSIPPI IS RATHER COOL AND CLOUDY, if a bit on the bracing side for the time of year.

Which, on the overnight into tomorrow, will give way to showers and maybe the odd thunderstorm.

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AND THE AMERICAN MIDWEST IS SEEING A REPRIEVE FOR ONCE FROM SEVERAL DAYS OF SEVERE WEATHER galore, seeing major destruction in a swath from Texas northeastwards into Missouri and Iowa, with Kansas seeing quite the brunt of destruction.

Which brings to note where the Iowa communities of Parkersburg, Aplington, Sinclair and New Hartford (northwest of Waterloo, in case you're wondering) have seen substantial tornadic destruction, with Parkersburg especially hard hit. Fortunately, though, no casualties ensued.

As for the reconstruction thereof, Your Correspondent would like to suggest that the four such be consolidated into a single "strip town" to better serve an increasing likelihood of their being bedroom communities for the Waterloo/Cedar Falls connurbation along Beaver Creek. That, and reconstruction along "garden city" models using "green" concepts (think Welwyn Garden City meets the reconstruction of Greensburg, KS following tornado damage last spring), along with a town centre whose shops would emphasise that which is practical and utilitarian as opposed to the Wally World model of antiseptic vanity).

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FROM ONE EHUD TO ANOTHER DEPARTMENT: Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak is calling on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to step down for the greater glory of the Jewish State in the wake of corruption charges ensuing against Mr. Olmert.

Fodder guaranteed to raise the hackles of the anti-Zionist elements within measurable distance, no?

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IN THE WAKE OF ANTI-FOREIGNER RIOTING AND ULTRAVIOLENCE ACROSS SOUTH AFRICA of late, with outbreaks of mayhem and rozzrezzing observed in Johannesburg, Durban and Kaapstad, the South African Government has announced the establishment of seven refugee camps across the country as would accomodate between them 70,000 migrants and refugees fleeing unstable socioeconomic conditions and/or violence elsewhere across Africa.

The news of which is guaranteed to provide further ammunition among racists and white supremacists seeking funds among "right-thinking White Christian Families," relete with the inevitably pathetic-sounding appeals to a warped notion of Racial Honour and Pride, to "assist with the evacuation of a once-proud White Christian people and community" in the Afrikaner, and their "resettlement" along their desired lines of farmers and pastoralists.

Said "evacuation" based, as it turns out, on insincere claims of "fear of persecution" as may actually be scripted enough to arouse suspicions @ Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

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AND STAYING IN AFRICA FOR THE MOMENT, JAPAN HAS ANNOUNCED WHERE IT INTENDS TO BE A SERIOUS RIVAL TO THE SO-CALLED "PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA" when it comes to economic aid and development.

As in Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda announcing where Japan will double its foreign-development aid to Africa (currently estimated @ some US$1.7 billion/annum) over the next five years, and futher encourage Japanese companies to establish a presence in individual African states.

Much of said foreign-development aid to Africa likely taking the form of grants to improve rice production in sub-Saharan regions so as to reduce dependency on rice imports from particularly Asian producers, the which would go into developing new, higher-yielding strains suitable to African conditions and constructing improved irrigation systems essential to rice production.

Something which the Japanese might want to consider doing as well is to assist in development of approriate high-sped passenger rail systems for American conditions, and especially so considering our latent air-mindedness--and our accepting same as one with our presumed "moral superiority" as a nation and society.  

WITH HIS FRAUDULENCY'S GREAT WITHIN DEMANDING LAW-ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES TO DO MORE IN THE LAW-AND-ORDER DEPARTMENT WITH LESS MONEY in the name of ur-RAHOWA Against International Terrorism, the next thing you know, conservative Zealots and True Believers will be calling for "empowerment" of the citizenry for the sake of Law and Order.

Which, alas for it! reeks of the enforced climate of fear as was imposed upon the "free" states prior to the Civil War under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which obligated all resident in "free" states to raise hue and cry towards the capture and return of escaped slaves to their masters.

Only this time, such a warped vigilantism involving Die Groot Stil Meerderheid would be applied towards suspected "terrorists" (even if they are Muslim students legally in the United States) or "illegal immigrants" (especially such not speaking English), among other "enemies of the people."

And the "empowered" expected to use "whatever means necessary," even if it tends to the sick and depraved brand of ultraviolence, for the sake of Law and Order.

Especially if such results in serious injury or (better yet) death--and the perps (more than likely beer-drinking Joe Sixpack types right up there with Bart Simpson, Beavis and Butt-head and the Kanker Sisters) getting away, in effect, with murder in the name of maintaining a White Male Low Church Christian Power Structure.

Which His Fraudulency wants desperately all the more ere he leaves office.

And which America doesn't need.