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NO DOUBT THIS COULD BE AN APT DESCRIPTION OF HOW A FEW CHANGES TO THIS WEBLOG COULD ACTUALLY HELP SAME--as in deleting a few javascript-related programmes which were found to have caused visitors to this blog on the overnight to instead encounter a warning "pop-up" stating that Microsoft Internet Explorer was unable to access this blog, and, therefore, it would abort the operation.

In turn leading to the error alert "Internet Explorer could not display the web page," explaining where "the website is encountering problems" as one of the likely reasons therefor.

Anyhow, the problem was found to be in some widgets for Amazon.com, Amazon.ca and Amazon.co.uk, which have been replaced with more conventional banners in the hope of correcting the problem among those of you who are loyal fans of this blog. As precaution, a ticker as appeared @ the top of the page and headline readers for SwissInfo and BBC News, which also used Javascript, were also dropped.

I've also chosen to delete the surveys for lack of response, as well as to improve download speed in the face of these same developments. That, and changed the background music to one tune they should have included in the Surf's Up soundtrack: Jack Nitzsche's 1963 surf-insturmental hit "The Lonely Surfer," IMHO the single best piece of surf rock music ever.

In any event, please let me know what you think of these improvements--or, for that matter, this weblog.

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SPOTTED BY YOUR CORRESPONDENT @ THE POST OFFICE HERE IN WINONA THE OTHER DAY while buying some stamps: A banner reflecting pst-9/11 uberpatriotism reading "Freedom: Cherish it!"

Which is rather ironic, considering where His Fraudulency's Great Within, using the ur-RAHOWA Against Terrorism as the rationale therefor, is seeking to reduce the Constitution as a mere formality worth little more than toilet paper by somehow wanting us paranoid about the prospect of terrorists in the woodwork and possibly under the bed (cf. much the same sort of "patriotic" paranoia in World War II against the Germans and Japanese ... and, during the Cold War, against Communists, howbeit in the latter instance by way of the John Bircher crowd and their weird and unwholesome sputnik types; "sputnik," in case you didn't know--as in the first man-made object to enter space on 4 October 1957--is Russian for "fellow traveller").

And let's not forget there's always the possibility of terrorists here on the home front--if not exactly of the Islamist sort we're forever being warned about, then such hiding behind Old Glory and "patriotism" to pander to racist, white-supremacist or otherwise xenophobically jingoistic mindsets and feeling.

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WITH THE RELIGIOPOLITICAL RIGHT SOMEHOW INTERESTED IN DISPLAYING HOMOSEXUALS AS "FREAKS AND TRAVESTIES OF NATURE" IN FREAKSHOW STYLEE, they would probably think such needs "reinforcement" in the "winning of hearts and minds" department.

As in "lectures" from "right-thinking Christian Families whose lives were shattered by homosexuality," complete with carefully-scripted to the point of coached weeping and bawling and boohoohooing which, in the final analysis, turns out being no better than the Cherry Sisters' rather pathetic excuse for a stage act.

In other words, unintentionally becoming their own worst joke.

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SO MUCH FOR THE NOTION OF "ENERGY SELF-SUFFICENCY" THROUGH INCREASED OIL AND NATURAL GAS DRILLING IN ENVIRONMENTALLY-SENSITIVE ARCTIC AND OFFSHORE AREAS, hoping such will be the "magic bullet" as will drive down gas prices For G-d, Country and Capitalism with American Characteristics.

Especially where oil and gas companies already have significant and measurable numbers of oil and gas leases on Federal lands that they've yet to make use of, and are afraid of having to surrender for failing to take advantage thereof.

So what makes His Fraudulency's droogs in the oil and gas industries afraid of using up what leases on Federal lands they have already first before committing to further drilling, knowing (un)consciously all along that putting oil and gas to market takes as much as 2-3 years' time?

Write Your Congressman.

Or, better yet, if your Congressman has a "town hall" meeting in your area during the current summer recess, broach the question to him or her. (Politely, of course.)

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SHORTLY AFTER THE GERMAN SURRENDER WHICH ENDED THE EUROPEAN PHASE OF WORLD WAR II, SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER GEN. DWIGHT EISENHOWER ordered Allied Occupation Forces to escort Germans through the ruins of Nazi concentration camps and force them (by bayonet point, if need be) to look @ what the Nazi regime carried out in the name of the German People--as in the wholesale extermination of some ten million people (six million Jews alone) deemed "life unworthy of life" as "threatened the integrity of the Aryan Master Race and the Greater Glory of Germany" by the Nazi regime.

And not just Jews, know; others which the Nazis regarded as "subhuman" and fit only for extermination, questionable "medical experiments" or slave labour included:

• those with mental or emotional disorders;
• those with war-related disabilities;
• Russo-Slavic peoples;
• Roma (gypsies);
• Jehovah's Witnesses (known overseas as "Bible Students"); and
• homosexuals.

Your Correspondent understands where the Iraqi Government has acquired title to the private yacht of former Ba'athist leader Saddam Hussein styled Basrah Breeze in French territorial waters off the Côte d'Azur, all the while lying unused and @ anchor--all $155 million (@ current estimates) worth, replete with eight guest suites, gold-plated sanitary fixtures, massive dining and lounge areas, even a private sick bay "just in case" and a modest little ur-helipad, all in the interest of reclaiming Plundered Assets of State.

(It's also emerged that the Hussein family also had a modest little estate along the Côte d'Azur of substantial value, title therefor reclaimed by the Iraqi Government ... yet it may just be the tip of the iceberg, as it were; Iraqi Government investigators are also looking for other instances of Plundered Assets of State from the Ba'athist era, among them private bank accounts in offshore financial centres rumoured to be worth billions of dollars thanks to the interest accrued all the while.)

Anyhow, the Iraqi Government has designs on having the Basrah Breeze become a floating museum and memorial to the excesses of plunder and looting of assets of state and people during Ba'athist rule--with the Grand Opening preceded by forced marches of ordinary Iraqis made to look @ the whole under the watchful gaze (and bayonet points) of Iraqi Colonial Occupation Forces and ponder what was wrought in their name.

All the while admonished not to laugh all along lest such be seen as "showng contempt or disgrace for Iraqi History."

As if that weren't enough, His Fraudulency's Coalition of the Coerced and Misled can also expect substantial war reparations bills from the Iraqi Government within measurable distance, with our own "morally superior" society expected to receive the largest amount therefor.

Not to mention having to find ways on how to repay said reparations while keeping taxes all the lower in the name of creating jobs and, in its turn, "social stability."

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IN THE FACE OF RATHER TASTELESS AND @ TIMES LURID ATTACKS IN INDECISION 2008 OVER THE CURRENT CROP OF CAMPAIGN ADVERTS between GOP candidate John McCain (a/k/a The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang) and Democratic such Barak Obama (The Worst Nightmare of the Klan and Die Broterbund, among other specimens of Jim Crow), a refreshing breath of wind is emerging from the Obama camp.

As in offering special emergency socioeconomic stimulant payments of as much as $1,000 and upwards, as if those starting @ $300 this past spring weren't good enough to encourage consumer spending in the name of G-d and Country.

"Money is the root of all evil."
Why not invest yours in United States Savings Bonds?

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ANOTHER REASON WHY WALLY WORLD IS NO LONGER DESERVING OF YOUR BUSINESS: Word on the Latrine Wireless hath it that Wally World employees are being "instructed" in mandatory employee meetings to vote Straight Republican come November for G-d, Country and Free-Market Capitalism in its Purest Form (as per the Ayn Rand model and stylee), warning that a vote for Democrats will only lead to Forced Unionisation--and worse.

As in Creeping Communism (insert reechy horror-movie muzik here), among other Dangers Threatening America's Antient and Pecuilar Soverignty and Soverign Identity, and its usurption by the New World Order's "Evil Empire."

Isn't there supposed to be a law banning employers from issuing tacit instructions on who to vote for, or how to vote?

And what sort of patsies is Wally World using?

Moral: Boycott Wally World all the more. And, instead, switch to shopping online--especially on blogs which offer online shopping with a conscience.

Like this one, which still hopes to donate a part of Your Correspondent's proceeds to Reduction of the National Debt.

And in case you want something for to start your online shopping with a conscience with, consider the upcoming "back-to-school" period as a way to avoid bedlam and confusion and yet save gasoline as well:

(Of course, there's always the main online-shopping section on the side of the page, in case you didn't notice it already....)

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FOR STARTERS, WITH OUR "MORALLY SUPERIOR" SOCIETY AND SOCIOECONOMIC MODEL NOW SEEING THE WORST UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IN FOUR YEARS, Your Correspondent would have to be the first to ask just how much longer before significant and measurable amounts of "scam" e-mails promoting "legal money-making opportunities" in the vein of "Five Reports," "mailing list generators" and "Australian one-up" schemes start making the rounds of the Information Stuporbahn generally.

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AND SO MUCH FOR THE TERRIBLE-TEMPERED MR. BANG CATEGORICALLY PLEDGING TO RUN A "CIVIL AND HONEST" PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN in Indecision 2008, judging by the following video from Brave New Films as deserves your viewing:

Which, in its turn, begs the question of what exactly explains this current tendency towards doublethink on John McCain's part--"hush-hush monies" involving offshore "pure trusts" set up by Certain Powerful and Influential Friends of Yours?

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NOW THAT A FEDERAL JUDGE HAS RULED THAT THE DEFENCE HIS FRAUDULENCY EXPECTS HIS GREAT WITHIN TO PLAY OF "EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE" IS INADMISSABLE, Your Correspondent would like to ask if such among the Great Within or its "inside of the inside" as would be subject to Congressional subopena within measurable distance (whose effects, under the right conditions, could wind up all the more influencing Indecision 2008) will instead play the Nuremburg patsy of "I was only following orders" when asked to explain themselves and their acts, deeds and exploits before certain powerful and influential Congressional committees enquiring into His Fraudulency's perversions of power in the guise of Unitary Executive Privilege, and excusing such as being for G-d and Country.

And more than likely being coached by the likes of weird and unwholesome types into using an obnoxiously robotic-sounding stylee of delivery not unlike Frank Nelson's long-drawn-out "Yeeeeeesssssss--?!!" on Jack Benny's radio show--or, for that matter, playing the "flesh-and-blood human" platitude popular among Extreme Right elements; all, in any case, to make Congress look "dethpickable," as Daffy Duck would put it, to the point of whipping up anti-Government sentiment serving the weird and unwholesome.

Worth watching for in case C-SPAN ever chooses to provide coverage of any ensuing proceedings (as opposed to, say, Fox Prolefeed, as they have "obviously more important things to discuss" which have no relation to Reality save for keeping the ranks of Kankerdom pacified and ignorant).

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AND SPEAKING OF "KEEPING KANKERDOM PACIFIED AND IGNORANT," IN LINE WITH PREVAILING CONSERVATIVE THOUGHT expecting free-market capitalism with American characteristics to be the Great White Father as will empower the poor, undereducated and easily-influenced to self-reliance and personal responsibility through greater selection and lower prices--in theory, @ least--what better could the Zealots and True Believers among these same forces of conservatism have in mind than crude, cheaply-produced "blood-and-thunder" potboilers where the villain comes out winning ... deliberately plotless curiosa featuring nothing but explicit sexual activity (with plenty of scenes involving animals for some reason or another) ... "home shopping" as ranks up there with all those mountebanks @ the Minnesota State Fair, along with "liberal credit terms" ... and plenty more of the worst sort of a "morally superior" Kultuur.

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TELL ME IF THIS SOUNDS LIKE ONE FOR RIP LI:

Since 1955, the Minnesota State Fair has consistently had total run-of-fair attendance exceeding 1 million visitors through the turnstiles, with the record being the 1,762,976 of the 2001 edition, averaging 146,915/day over a 12-day run. (Meaning, G-d willing, that 2008 will be the 54th consecutive edition of TGMnGT of over 1 million visitors.)

Meanwhile, the Iowa State Fair first saw a run-of-fair attendance of over 1 million in 2002 (when 1,008,174 passed through the turnstiles), with the record being 2004's 1,053,978 visitors (averaging  95,816/day over an 11-day run).

As for the Wisconsin State Fair--notwithstanding its being just outside Milwaukee (in West Allis, to be exact), they have set to see the Magic Million in attendance numbers; the record attendance there was in 1990, when 938,658 visitors passed through the turnstiles of State Fair Park, an average of 85,332/day during its 11-day run.

As for last year's fairs in these three states in the attendance department:

• Minnesota: 1,681,678 visitors run of fair, averaging 140,140/day.
• Iowa: 1,002,464 visitors run of fair, averaging 91,133/day.
• Wisconsin: 801,420 visitors run of fair, averaging 72,856/day.

Between them, these three State Fairs attracted 3,485,562 visitors run of fair, an average between the three of 1,161,854.

As for the daily average, especially considering where Minnesota's State Fair has a 12-day run traditionally ending on Labour Day and those of Iowa and Wisconsin having 11-day runs, a more accurate barometer in this respect would have to be an average between the three fairs of 101,376/day.

Pity poor Wisconsin for ranking as low as it does in the league tables, so to speak, for State Fair attendance, even considering where Milwaukee has some 600,000 people (700,000 in its metropolitan area) as would theoretically assure over 1 million attendance run of fair.

But, on the other hand, how does Minnesota consistently attract over 1 million visitors run of fair, and has managed to do so for over 50 years?

Even Fairchild and Fairborne would be @ a loss to explain. Or would they?  

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LATEST TASTELESS WEAPON IN THE ARSENAL OF THE TERRIBLE-TEMPERED MR. BANG'S INDECISION 2008 CAMPAIGN: A "winning-of-hearts-and-minds" TV advert seeking to compare Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama with the ilk of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, as discussed by The Carpetbagger Report here.

Your Correspondent would like to suggest, in response, an ad in much the same vein as above, only comparing John McCain to those "Four Freaks from Iowa," as The New York Times referred to The Cherry Sisters in a review of their performance @ Hammerstein's Olympia in late 1896--an act of desperation on the part of impresario Oscar Hammerstein, who was facing substantial debts after a string of none-too-successful flops prompted him to take a bet on a rather awful act as was making a name and repute across the floorboards of the Midwest by way of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Which, as it turned out, paid off Hammerstein's outstanding debts after just twelve days in spite of the generally bad reviews received.

And yet none more legendary than that of Billy Hamilton of Iowa's Odebolt Chronicle of February 17, 1898, eventually gaining wide circulation and inspiring the legal case Cherry Sisters v. Des Moines Leader, establishing the legal doctrine that journalists have the right of fair review.

In Billy Hamilton's words, under headline of "The Cherries Were Here:"

When the curtain went up on Wednesday evening of last week the Cherries saw a good-natured audience, large enough to fatten their exchequer to the extent of $35, net.

The audience saw three creatures surpassing the witches in Macbeth in general hideousness.

Effie is an old jade of 50 summers, Jessie a frisky filly of 40, and Addie, the flower of the family, a capering monstrosity of 35. Their long, skinny arms, equipped with talons at the extremities, swung mechanically, and soon were waved frantically at the suffering spectators. The mouths of their rancid features opened like caverns and sounds like the wailings of damned souls issued therefrom. They pranced around the stage with a motion that suggested a cross between the danse du ventre and a fox trot, strange creatures with painted faces and hideous mien. Effie is spavined, Addie is knock-kneed and stringhalt, and Jessie, the only one who showed her stockings, has legs without calves, as classic in their outlines as the curves of a broom handle. The misguided fellows who came to see a leg show got their money's worth, for they never saw such limbs before and never will again--outside of a boneyard.

The first glimpse of the Cherries was worth the price of admission. One shriek of laughter swept over the house. Not even in the woods around Sac City, nor in the wilds of Monona county, could three such raw and rank specimens of womanhood be found. The men howled and the women shook with merriment. There were no vegetables thrown, but there was lots of talk. It would take the sisters six weeks to answer the questions that were fired at them. At intervals Effie and Addie would jaw back and threaten to stop the show, but the boys never let up. When Jessie came out in her bare feet many solicitous inquiries were made about the condition of her corns, and she was freely advised to trim her toenails. And such feet! No instep, flat …….and Z wide. Jessie, however, is not sensitive. She calmly went on with her part, evidently considering her feet her "strong" suit.

Finally the program came to an end and the audience left, well satisfied, as a rule, although some who had never heard of the Cherries before were angry because the noise prevented them from hearing the girls.

The Cherries honestly believe that they are giving an entertainment surpassing anything on the stage, and that their audiences hoot them because they can't appreciate true merit. They have been systematically stuffed by every manager who has engaged them with the notion that they are away up. If they were not stuck on themselves no money could induce them to stand the jeering they get. But having salted down $60,000 in the bank and purchased several large farms with the proceeds of their foolishness they are willing to keep it up as long as they can make it pay. Their personal characters are above reproach; they are virtuous both from necessity and choice, as any one will conclude at sight of them. The most skilful [sic] impersonator would find it impossible to burlesque the Cherry girls. They are nature's own raw material, unique and inimitable.

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AN APOLOGY IS IN ORDER, READERS, FOR THE DELAY IN POSTING MATERIAL FOR THIS BLOG, what with a since-cancelled Severe Thunderstorm Watch for these parts putting the likes of Your Correspondent on edge wondering how intense the storms to the west of us could get once it reached Winona after bringing its share of destruction upon southern Minnesota and much of the Dakotas in the overnight and into this morning.

Still, though, things could get rather warm into the weekend here in the Minnwissippi region.

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AS OF TOMORROW, ZIMBABWE WILL HAVE INSTITUTED A "CURRENCY REFORM" INITIATIVE THEORETICALLY DESIGNED TO CONTROL HYPERFLATION exceeding (as per official estimates) 6,000,000%/annum for the year to date.

Which, for the most part, entails removing ten zeros from the Zimbabwean dollar so that Z$10,000,000,000 (old)=NZM$1 (and note the abbreviate "NZM$" that I use, to avoid confusion with the New Zealand dollar, in referring to the New Zimbabwe Dollar).

But still, there can be no mistaking the fact that the cronyism, corruption and general mismanagement of the Zimbabwean socioeconomic system under Robert Mugabe's de facto one-party rule can be partly to blame for the socioeconomic mess Zimbabwe has been reduced to--and for which the New Zimbabwe Dollar seeks to make up for, inasmuch as calculators and computers in general use lack adequate memory to make up for the ongoing hyperflation.

Still, though, you have to wonder how Zimbabwe's hyperflation would stack up against the notorous German hyperflation following World War I, when the Reichsmark lost value against the dollar over four years by a factor of 762 million before "currency reforms" managed to bring about some relief--never mind that such helped fuel Hitler's appeal among the Weimar Republic's Great Unwashed over time.

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MEANWHILE, HERE IN THE SUPPOSEDLY "MORALLY SUPERIOR" UNITED STATES, His Fraudulency's Grand Delusion of socioeconomic recovery aided by ill-advised Economic Stimulus Payments starting @ $300 failed to produce the results as expected, never mind The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang's articles of faith calling for "staying the course" in seeing free-market capitalism with American characteristics as Great White Father @ the expense of further worsening the situation made all the worse by flawed and inept intelligence excusing ur-RAHOWA in Iraq.

For which His Fraudulency is expecting us to rejoice and give thanks to G-d for in his sugar-coated and manufactured stylee in citing a number of supposed "glorious victories" in the Iraqi Theatre of Occupation, not unlike North Korea expecting its peoples to celebrate when it detonated a supposed atomic bomb a couple of years back.

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AND SO MUCH FOR NORTH KOREA'S "REJOICING" IN DEVELOPING ATOMIC WEAPONS WHILE STARVING THEIR OWN PEOPLES in the name of "Eternal Leader" Kim Il Sung--it seems that the Japanese may have played an indirect role in North Korea's developing an atomic-weapons programme "on the side" @ their atomic-reactor facility amongst the Azaleas of Yongbyon.

The BBC explaineth:

Police in Japan have raided the premises of a company suspected of illegally exporting machinery that could be used to make nuclear weapons.

Officers targeted the headquarters of Horkos Corp and several related sites in the southern city of Fukuyama.

The company is accused of exporting tools that could be used in enriching uranium without government permission.

Police say the equipment, which was sent to South Korea, could have been sold to North Korea or the Middle East.

The tools are normally used to manufacture automotive components, but they can be modified to produce the centrifuges used to enrich uranium.

Export of these items requires approval from the government, but Horkos is accused of falsely labelling items to avoid the need for permission.

Police suspect a batch of tools sent to South Korea in 2004 could then have been resold to a country for use in nuclear weapons' development, Kyodo news agency said.

Japanese police have carried out similar raids in the past.

Last year four former executives of precision equipment maker Mitutoyo were convicted of illegally exporting devices that could be used in nuclear weapons' production - one of which was reportedly found in Libya.

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ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER EHUD OLMERT, HIMSELF FACING CHARGES OF CORRUPTION AND MISUSE OF FUNDS, PROBABLY DID THE RIGHT THING in announcing his resignation with effect from around Rosh Hashanah ... in turn prompting opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu to suggest that Mr. Olmert timely call elections for the Knesset to ensure a seamless and orderly continuity of the Israeli situation.

Never mind Olmert's insisting that he still wants to broker peace settlements with the Palestinian Authority over soverignty of the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza all the sooner.

(Incidentally, did you know that Arabic is an officially recognised language in Israel, alongside Hebrew?)

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AND WE CAN ONLY IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES OF FORMER SERBIAN MAJORDOMO RADOVAN KARADZIC BEING NO BETTER THAN THE LATE SLOBODVAN MILOSEVIJC @ the International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in Den Haag with all his attempts to question the legality and legitimacy of same as he faces charges of Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity after being so long in hiding as a medical quack in Sarajevo.

Or, for that matter, Saddam Hussein.