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WHICH, COME TO THINK OF IT, APPEARS TO BE THE LIKELY CIRCUMSTANCES FACING THE MINNWISSIPPI HEADING WELL INTO THE WEEKEND as I write this. Overnight, in fact, some showers and rumbles of thunder could be discerned, not to mention some sprinkles around sunrise and when I left for my morning's duty @ the motel.

Especially good chances of rain may be possible heading into tomorrow and Saturday ... yet still, we're probably on tenterhooks wondering if we may see the same set of circumstances as last August.

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MEANWHILE, THE WINONA INTERSTATE BRIDGE CLOSING HAS BEEN MODIFIED so that only emergency vehicles (especially so ambulances from nearby Wisconsin communities heading to hospital in Winona) can use same in the interim.

As well, van shuttles to accomodate employees of Winona-area companies resident in Wisconsin are being discussed between the city, MnDOT and local employers.

Through it all, you have to wonder if Governor Pawlenty--perhaps the best sock puppet that the Club For Growth must have among the governors of the 50 states--has the last laugh, especially considering his earlier veto of transportation-funding legislation "to protect the good taxpayers' interests" was subsequently overriden by the Legislature.

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WITH HILLARY RODHAM-CLINTON HAVING ESSENTIALLY CONCEDED HER DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN TO BARACK OBAMA (the formal announcement to be tomorrow), it appears all but likely that Indecision 2008 can be said to have begun in dead seriousness.

Even if the party nominating conventions have been reduced to little more than mere formalities for the most part, scripted and nuanced for the benefit of FreeVee coverage.

In any case, the Dark Satanic Mills of Conservative Propaganda are probably rejoicing @ Hillary having conceded any chances for the nomination, notwithstanding "Operation Chaos" attempting to pervert the primary and caucus process towards making The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang an easy winner come November.

Still, though, the Religiopolitical Right wants its share of influence in the face of waning and compromised support therefor among Die Groot Ongewas, as Right Wing Watch notes in the following recent item:

Impugning the religious faith of others based on their political views is one of the basic themes of the Religious Right, but it’s still refreshing to hear it as openly stated as this simple test: a “True Christian” is one who opposes abortion and same-sex marriage.

That’s the message of “True Christian VP,” a petition drive from Gary Cass’s “Christian Anti-Defamation Commission,” which is “calling for each candidate to select a true Christian as a running mate for the all important 2008 elections.” And in case there might be any confusion, the group has narrowed down the definition of “true Christian” to two criteria:

What qualifications are embodied in a truly Christian candidate for the Vice Presidency? Quite simply, the candidate will demonstrate actions and hold the beliefs personified by all of us who proclaim the name of Jesus Christ as Savior: the need to be re-born in Christ and the affirmation of historic Christianity, having a demonstrable and proven record of support for traditional Christian morality.

A life of dedicated Christian service to the public is demonstrated by the following:

Support for traditional marriage. As a Christian, the candidate for Vice President must affirm that marriage is an institution created by God and defined as a union between one man and one woman. …

Support for the Right to Life, proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, without exception.

The group also clarifies that, for example, the two Democratic candidates for president would not qualify as “real Christians”:

Who is the real Christian seeking the Presidency of the United States?

The three major presidential candidates, Democrats Barrack [sic] Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Republican John McCain have presented Christian voters with a vexing problem for Christians.  Both Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton have declared they are Christians, yet based on their votes, both have consistently demonstrated a failure to support the values and policy positions important to Christians. While Mr. McCain proclaims support for traditional Christian values and morality, he has chosen to not discuss his own religious beliefs.

Since founding his group last year, Cass has concentrated on promoting two ideas: one, that Christianity is being persecuted (or “bashed”), and two, that other people’s faith is fair game. In particular, Cass attacked Mormon candidate Mitt Romney for his religion’s supposed “secret rituals” and “hostility to Christianity.” Presumably Cass isn’t happy that Romney is being floated as a potential running mate for McCain.

This counterintuitive notion—that Christianity is to be defended from persecution in public culture by attacking others’ faith—is apparently shared by the so-called Christian Defense Coalition, which attacked Obama over the weekend for resigning from his church after public disagreements. “[I]f his church membership was truly spiritual -- then this action shows a fundamental lack of integrity,” declared Patrick Mahoney, who has attacked Obama’s religious credentials for some time. “Obama's resignation of membership in Trinity United Church demonstrates that he will trade even on his faith for political advantage.”

(Memo to the so-called "Christian Anti-Defamation Commission:" May I refer you to Article VI(c) of the United States Constitution, which proscribes use of "religious test" as a qualification to any "office or trust under these United States."

(And Another Thing: How do we know your campaign is sincere and in good faith, let alone the byproduct of another drunken jag?)

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A NEW PILL FOR THE ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS IN WORKFARE AND FREE-MARKET CAPITALISM WITH AMERICAN CHARACTERISTICS TO THINK ABOUT: Reuters is reporting where the new generation of post-Tiananmen Square Chinese are facing extreme difficulty in finding jobs under the current state of socioeconomic affairs as excuses further polarity between rich and poor.

Now, imagine what it would be like if these same circumstances so documented occured here in the "morally superior" United States, and especially so given your overwhelming desire to see a theoretically nil rate of unemployment consistent with free-market capitalist models and paradigms you claim to defend.

Not to mention scrapping "failed and failing" public education with homeschooling based on apartheid South Africa's Nasionale Christen Opverdoing syllabus--long on ideology and glittering generalities about a New Christian America, yet short on core skills. (Did I mention such being nothing short of licence to excuse incest as an agency of maintaining coercive power and control, with those so afflicted essentially no better than "sluts," "floozies" and "whores" as are otherwise not to be trusted?) 

ANYONE GROWING UP IN THE FORMATIVE YEARS OF TELEVISION (AS IN BETWEEN 1948 AND 1980), WHEN CABLE WAS LARGELY LIMITED TO AREAS with reception problems aggravated by local terrain, may probably recall Dialing for Dollars as a staple of the daytime TV schedule.

Usually seen mornings or mid-afternoons, and usually incorporated into the likes of chat or movie programmes, Dialing for Dollars was a widely-distributed programme formula where viewers selected by way of random phone calls could win a sum of money by correctly guessing "the count and the amount" (as in "up 6; $39" or "down 8; $73")--preceded, more than likely, by some local TV host assigned the duty exchanging banter with the lucky contestant.

(In Baltimore alone, where the concept originated on a radio station in 1939, and would really take off after TV's introduction after World War II, an estimated $800,000 was given away in the several versions of Dialing for Dollars presented locally down the years.)

In any event, Dialing for Dollars would be done in by changing demographics (as in more housewives working outside the home), more sophisticated game shows being made available in syndication, and its hokey, dated look.

Soooo....

Who would be up for a comeback of Dialing for Dollars during the more obnoxious specimens of chat and movie shows appealing all the more to the Lower Classes unable to rabbit outside the home?

Especially when Dialing for Dollars came back in a "new and improved" form with plenty of incentives for creative hijacks such as:

• The theme from The Bullwinkle Show or 2 Stupid Dogs being that of the segment;
• The Monitor Beacon being the signal for selecting "the count and the amount" through Electronic Random Number Generators;
• Bigger cash prizes, while still expecting audiences to know "the count and the amount" to win; and
• Plenty of corny jokes and comments during the lead-up to the actual call, plus an opportunity to try another contestant if the original selection doesn't answer or is on an ansaphone.

But let's just hope that this "new improved" Dialing for Dollars doesn't cross the line into the politically incorrect, or otherwise resorts to tactics along the lines of Bart Simpson's prank calls to Moe's Tavern....

"EARTH TO O'REILLY!! EARTH TO O'RELLY!!!"

Have you no regard for Reality when it comes to certain anti-Semitic and otherwise hatemongering remarks of Pastor John Hagee, especially when you consider where, contrary to your own remarks, actual verified recordings of the remarks in question exist--as in:

And besides: Who exactly are your real paymasters when it comes to denials such as this? And what prevents your disclosing such interconnexions to viewers on air, as Common Sense requires--the same Common Sense which Fox Prolefeed claims to be defending?

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EN 'N ANDER DING: If you think "going green" and saving money cannot peacefully coexist, think again by clicking on this link:

(Unless, of course, you happen to be the kind which sees waste and keeping the surplus of consumption goods out of the loop, so to speak, to be "wise use," fearing that putting such in circulation would only undermine the status quo.)

CERTAIN ELEMENTS AMONG THE PSEUDORELIGIOUS, ESPECIALLY IN ALLIANCE WITH PSEUDOCONSERVATIVE POLITICAL MOVEMENTS, will love to play the pathetic-sounding singsong meme suggesting they're somehow "misunderstood" when their religiopolitical messages come under attack.

Which was played by John Hagee and Rod Parsley after The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang distanced his campaign from their pseudoministries after anti-Semitic remarks tending to, for one, trivialising the Holocaust an other remarks tending to hatemongering in His Name surfaced among Secular-Progressive bloggers.

Right Wing Watch has some choice footage from John Hagee's peudoministry playing the "misunderstood messenger" patsy:

As if that weren't enough, the ConWeb enjoys scoring points (or trying to) in their associations with the pseudoreligious. ConWebBlog offers an interesting example in this respect:

Apparently, Joseph Farah and John Hagee are not friends anymore.

In his May 27 WorldNetDaily column, Farah surprisingly throws Hagee--who, as we noted, Farah has described as "my friend," who has written a column for WND and whose books are available for sale at WND's online store--under the bus over Hagee's assertion that Hitler was doing God's will to get Jews to move to Palestine. Farah begins his column this way:

John Hagee certainly has some unusual ideas.

I'm glad he no longer writes for WND, as he once did regularly, because upon learning he believes Adolph Hitler was God's instrument to get the Jews back to the Middle East, I would be sorely tempted to discontinue his column.

For once, I can't fault John McCain for rejecting his endorsement.

Farah then quickly moves on to defend another evangelical pastor whose endorsement McCain has flip-flopped on--Rod Parsley: 

Parsley, pastor of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, stands accused of calling Islam an "anti-Christ religion." He is also quoted as saying he would like to see "this false religion [Islam] destroyed." He also described Islam's prophet Muhammad as "the mouthpiece of a conspiracy of spiritual evil."

To which I say: "Yeah, where's the controversy?"

Look, I know WND has Muslim readers around the world. I hear from many of them who agree with me on many of my positions. But, when you get right down to basics, I am a Christian who believes in the Bible. And the Bible tells me that all religions not biblically based are false religions and anti-Christ religions that need to be destroyed.

That's not to say we believe in destroying the human beings. Christians seek to convert Muslims to Christianity by sharing the Gospel of love and forgiveness.

As to Muhammad being "the mouthpiece of a conspiracy of spiritual evil," I would have to agree, again. All false religions, by definition, are evil to biblical Christians. That's what the Bible says.

Farah also says, "In fact, the only disagreement I would have with Parsley is in his endorsement of McCain!" 

Farah goes to great pains to differentiate Hagee and Parsley:

It's one thing to reject and marginalize Hagee for what he said, which startled me in its crude insensitivity and questionable biblical analysis. It's another thing to take the same approach to Parsley, whom, I believe is expressing the spiritual convictions of the vast majority of evangelical and fundamentalist Christians in America–as well as the Bible they revere.

While Farah fulminates about McCain in his column, it's important to remember that WND has never done a news article about the controversial statements made by either Hagee or Parsley--which plays into WND's de facto pro-McCain agenda, however much Farah disingenuously denies he's helping McCain.

Even though Farah appears to be throwing Hagee under the bus here, WND's virtual blackout on the controversy over Hagee's words demonstrate that Farah and Hagee may still be at least somewhat buddy-buddy after all--enough to work parallel on a shared anti-Obama agenda, anyway.

Only it turns out that The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang's repudiating the support of such Elmer Gantryesque types as Hagee and Parsley may be creating a further dilemma for the Religiopolitical Right, Joseph Farah notwithstanding. Right Wing Watch, again:

Soon after breaking with televangelist John Hagee, John McCain rejected another right-wing pastor who had campaigned with him, Rod Parsley. While Parsley, like Hagee, subsequently withdrew his endorsement, it remains to be seen whether he will put his Ohio-based "Patriot Pastors" machine in motion on behalf of the Republican candidate before November.

But the McCain campaign may be more concerned about fallout greater than these two pastors and their television audiences. In working for the Hagee endorsement and incorporating Parsley into the campaign, McCain was no doubt hoping to solidify the Religious Right credibility he has been sweating over for the past two years. While Hagee and Parsley are influential and well-connected, meeting with the president and lobbying Congress, they are active primarily outside of D.C., in the megachurch, "prosperity gospel" world of Trinity Broadcasting Network. As this blog and others revealed some of the pastors' rough edges—just a sample—McCain was forced to walk a fine line between losing his "maverick" reputation among independent voters and alienating the right-wing base he feels he needs.

McCain's decision to dump Parsley and Hagee has prompted some warning shots from the Right. "This move may cost him the mainstream evangelical vote. At the very least it will make the Senator suspect to other pastors and millions of unconvinced believers," wrote Bishop Harry Jackson, who added that the two televangelists have "10 times the outreach muscle" of Barack Obama's controversial ex-pastor Jeremiah Wright.

Star Parker wrote, "John McCain wants Americans to elect him to provide tough leadership in a dangerous world. But when it just takes some mud slung from a few left-wing websites to drive him under a rock, you have to wonder."

And Gary Bauer, an ally to both McCain and Hagee, said that "radical left" blogs managed to "drive a wedge" between evangelicals and McCain.

But as CBN's David Brody reports, the McCain campaign is at the same time stepping up its efforts to woo the Religious Right by running weekly meetings with Bauer and other activists and consulting right-wing groups such as the Family Research Council and the Eagle Forum. Brody writes:

Look, here's the bottom line: The McCain campaign is gearing up for a true battle over Evangelicals this fall. They are NOT taking them for granted. They know they have work to do but what we are seeing here is a ramped up effort that is fully supported by the head guy, John McCain. The Hagee endorsement and subsequent retraction was not the campaign's best moment but the system they have in place now is starting to make headway.

It's likely McCain's efforts will pay off in getting the support, explicit or implicit, of the Religious Right groups and activists who have long wedded their politics to the GOP's—especially if he keeps meeting their demands on judges and other issues. But as they continue to pull McCain to the right, the conflict between the base and independent voters—the conflict McCain saw with Hagee and Parsley—will expand.

But then again, isn't it likely that the Religiopolitical Right may consider switching alliances to the likes of the Constitution Party to ensure their legions of poor, undereducated or homeschooled and easily-influenced "white trash" voters will exercise not just civic, but also--in the minds of such specimens of Zealotry and True Belief they fall for, hook, line and sinker--"Christian Patriotic" duty come November.

That, along with Sam Barr's running as the Libertarian Party's Presidential candidate, could turn out creating a backdoor scenario by which Barack Obama could turn out winning the elections (cf. Bill Clinton's indirect win in 1992 thanks to H. Ross Perot's Presidential aspirations fragmenting the vote considerably). 

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HARD TO SAY IF YOUR CORRESPONDENT--OR, FOR THAT MATTER, THE GREATER BLOGOSPHERE--WOULD PROBABLY AGREE IS THE CASE ON WEDNESDAYS typically.

Especially when the sky happens to have thin cloud with the prospect of rain possible later in the day and towards the evening. And, for that matter, well into the weekend.

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MEANWHILE, HERE IN THE MINNWISSIPPI, THE BIG STORY IS THE SHOCK CLOSURE OF THE WINONA INTERSTATE BRIDGE (as seen on the Postal Service's stamp commemorating the 150-year anniversary of Minnesota statehood) following routine MnDOT safety inspections turning up corroded gusset plates on the bridge underframe.

Somehow, corroded gusset plates must be a hot item in the news ever since the I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis nearly a year ago was so attributed (and notwithstanding the mindset of certain weird and unwholesome pseudoreligious seeing said collapse as Divine Judgement Upon Minnesota for tolerating homosexuals and homosexuality).

Corroded gusset plates have also been attributed for the shock closing of a major bridge heading into beautiful downtown St. Cloud earlier in the spring, which will be replaced by a new structure in due course.

In any case, commuters from Wisconsin areas near Winona are doubtless in for a rude shock in their commuting habits, considering not just high gas prices but also the bridge closure forcing a detour of some 50 miles in toto just to get to work--until, perhance, some class of interim ferry service is provided for. That, and another two years' wait before an entirely new bridge can be constructed to replace the current such, of 1942 vintage and using the now-discredited cantilever truss stylee of construction.

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NOT ONLY DID SEN. BARACK OBAMA MAKE HISTORY LAST NIGHT WITH HIS WINNING THE PRESUMPTIVE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION (which needs to be confirmed @ the Democratic National Convention this August in Denver), making him the first person of colour to win a major party's Presidential candidacy:

It turns out that Sen. Obama may have unwittingly set himself up as a plum assaination target among racists, White Christian Supremacists and others hoping to use Obama's assaination as the requisite catalyst to set off their greatest desideratum: Full-on RAHOWA (RAcial HOly WAr), pure and simple (cf. Timothy McVeigh's hoping to use the Oklahoma City Incident in 1995 as a "call to arms" among the Great Unwashed to Reclaim Constitutional Law).

Especially if certain elements among these are offering a significant cash bounty to the one who can kill off Sen. Obama during a campaign appearence--and with a bonus if such also touches off RAHOWA as gets beyond the control of National Guard and Reserve troops based stateside or otherwise on furlough from tours of duty in the ur-RAHOWA Against Terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan, in effect forcing sadistic-minded vigilantism among drunk and/or otherwise mentally- or emotionally-unstable elements of "white trash" with arrogant delusions of grandeur beyond their deliberate poverty, fecundity and stupidity.

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COME TO THINK OF IT, METHINKS THOSE IMAGINING THE PROSPECT OF OUTRIGHT RAHOWA ONCE SEN. OBAMA IS OUT OF THE WAY as a "race traitor***undermining [America's] traditional soverignty and soverign identity, antient and pecuilar" must enjoy studying footage on YouTube and other video-sharing outlets across the Information Stuporbahn of the late anti-foreigner rioting across South Africa for ideas and tactics on targeting who they see as "the enemy:"

• Jews, Muslims and other "heathen" as may be regarded as "noncomformist" vis-a-vis Low Church Christian Religiopolitik;
• Hispanics and Latinos;
• Asiatics;
• "chronic and habitual" welfare cases, especially blacks, Hispanics and the disabled; and
• others likely to be seen as "troublemakers."

Especially so the "lone wolf" element who can be provoked into action solely by way of coded messages on their cell phones and Instant Messaging programmes, prepared all along to act as a "united front."

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ONE THING THESE SAME ANTI-GOVERNMENT ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS MUST BE PARANOID ABOUT, AND THEN SOME, IS THE NOTION OF FORCING PEOPLE TO "NARK" on their neighbours in the name of Homeland Security.

Which turns out about to be the case in the Venezuela of the same Hugo Chavez which Pat "700 Club" Robertson has previously suggested be dispatched "quickly, yet discreetly" by the CIA for G-d, Country and Cheap Gasoline; Human Rights Watch hath it that the Chavez regime, on much the same lines as their Communist droogs in Cuba, has railroaded through a "decree law" requiring people to "cooperate" with police and intelligence agencies on investigations "to prevent the undermining of [Venezuelan] national integrity from without" under pain of "serious consequences."

The which just pleases the Lou Dobbs/Michael Savage/Glenn Beck crowd having only their own selfish and @ once arrogant interests in deluded "racial honour," does it not?

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BARBIE, THAT MODEL OF CORN-FED MIDWESTERN WHOLESOMENESS AND IDEALISM (the story line behind her hath it that she was "born" in the fictional Wisconsin community of "Willows"), is taking the Bratz, those models of pouted-lips diversity, multiculturalism and street 'tude, to court.

The issue? Plagarism, pure and simple, or so Mattel is telling MGA Entertainment, as is behind the Bratz phenom.

Your Correspondent, personally, sees it as "sour grapes," especially considering where Barbie was herself modelled on the German sexpot doll Lilli, itself based on a cartoon feature in the raffish German tabloid Bild-Zeitung back in the late 1950's.

But then again, how do we know Barbie isn't about to be exploited by certain weird and unwholesome types among white-supremacist Zealots and True Believers whose especial interest is targeting children with a message of "racial honour and consciousness" as is straight out of Nazi Germany and/or apartheid South Africa?