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IN CASE YOU DIDN'T HEAR THE NEWS BY NOW, THE SO-CALLED "WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH" OF TOPEKA, KANSAS CAUGHT FIRE @ THE WEEKEND, with substantial loss of as much the church as the pride of the Fred Phelps family, who has this notoriety for using Westboro as a vehicle to whip up homophobic feelings and hatreds--and invoke His Name as authority therefor.

Although no formal cause has been established, PageOneQ.com is reporting:

"There is evidence that hatred of our religion was the motivation, in part at least," states a "Civil Rights Hate Crime Complaint" written by pastor Fred Phelps Sr. to Attorney General Michael Mukasey. In a recently released YouTube presentation, Phelps also blames law enforcement, judges, and the "filthy, fag-riddled military" for what he considers an assault on his First Amendment rights.

IMHO, the "Civil Rights Hate Crime Complaint" referred to above is probably nothing short of a distractionary manouvre on the Phelps family's part to avoid attracting suspicions back to them--as in the likelihood that the fire was set deliberately to collect insurance proceeds as would deal with what may be Serious Cashflow Problems aggravated by high gas prices and deteriorating purchasing power.

And, confronted with the likelihood therefor by the Kansas State Fire Marhsal's Office, expect Rev. Phelps to suffer a Fatal Heart Attack, in the stylee of the climax of many an episode of Old Time Radio potboilers like The Whistler or Suspense. (Phelps is in his 80's.)

And family members to flee the country, even carrying cash-stuffed suitcases for deposit in coded bank accounts in some offshore tax haven for the sake of "judgement-proofing" above all else.

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IN ANY CASE, THE "WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH" AND THE HATEMONGERING PHELPS CLAN AS MAKES UP ITS "MEMBERSHIP" is undeserving of your prayers or sympathy in the wake of something they, more than likely, brought upon themselves to distract public attention from what may be more serious problems afflicting Westboro Baptist.

Instead, they deserve nothing short of Divine Judgement and Condemnation for the blasphemies they have brought upon His Name and their perversion of His Word so that unhealthy attention is focused upon contempt for homosexuals @ the expense of comforting the afflicted, visiting the sick, burying the dead and educating the orphan, among more logical examples of Christian Love and Charity.

And that they deserved such judgement for what they were trying to bring about by setting the flame torch to their church themselves, and blaming others for such acts, deeds and exploits to send arson investigators "off the scent" of where suspicion really lies--upon the Phelps family themselves.

So shed no tears of pity or compassion for Westboro Baptist Church or its family in what they would like depicted as "trying times for Our Ministry;" they are undeserving therefor. Instead, they are deserving only of His Wrath and Judgement, notwithstanding any attempts @ inspired pleas for mercy and clemency as cross into the insincere, realising that the guillotine, so to speak, is about to fall. 

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WITHOUT A DOUBT, THE DENIZENS OF THE GROSS SUCKLING "KEY CLUB" DOWN BRANSON WAY, THAT BASTION OF CONSERVATIVE ARROGANCE AND HUBRIS in their acme and perfection of Amerikanischer Realkultur, must be drinking down their Stolichnaya in rejoicing @ the decease of Russian novelist and playwright Aleksandr Solzehnitsyn from a stroke @ the age of 89 years.

OK, maybe "rejoice" might be too weak a word here, considering where his novels One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and The Gulag Archipelago laid bare the excesses of the Stalinist-era penal camp system of the then-Soviet Union--so bare, in fact, that by 1974, the Brezhnev regime would have Solzhenitsyn declared a "traitor" and subject him to banishment, eventually resettling in Cavendish, Vermont until his return to post-Soviet Russia in 1994, eventually hosting a TV chat show and speaking out about the excesses of Western Moral Degeneracy.

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NEW DNA TESTING TECHNIQUES HAVE PLACED ONETIME BIOWEAPONS RESEARCHER BRUCE IVINS @ THE "SCENE OF THE CRIME" in connexion with a series of anthrax-laced mailings targeting Certain Infuential and Prominent Persons shortly after the Unfortunate Events of 9/11 (and said mailings bore that very date, in matter of fact).

And the prospect of his imminent arrest, with the likelihood of facing charges as could carry the death penalty, may have been too much for Mr. Ivins to stand--so much so, in fact, that he chose Death Before Dishonour, taking The Other Way Out on Tuesday last.

Which probably has Your Correspondent wondering if Mr. Ivins, given his connexions with His Fraudulency's Great Within, may have really been set up as a patsy for a super-secretive "false flag" terror campaign involving anthrax-laced correspondence on top of the terror attacks, and may have been expected to testify that he was "only following orders" which, if disobeyed, meant certain death or disgrace.

The Nuremburg Patsy, as it were.

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AS IF HURRICANE DOLLY WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH A SHOW OF DIVINE WRATH AND JUDGEMENT UPON TEXAS, LET ALONE RECORD HEAT IN THE DALLAS/FT. WORTH METROPLEX, along comes Hurricane Edouard preparing to make another assault upon the Texas Gulf Coast, with landfall expected within measurable distance between Galveston and Port O'Connor.

And knowing how the pseudoreligious will likely invoke Dolly and Edouard as shows of Divine Judgement and Contempt Upon America for Straying From His Divinely-Ordained Ways, Your Correspondent thinks said Divine Judgement upon Texas may be a way of His expressing disapproval for His Fraudulency.

Whether or not Crawford is in Edouard's likely path of destruction is up to the Fates.

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EVEN WITH JOBS GOING DOWN THE TUBES THANKS TO HIS FRAUDULENCY'S SOCIOECONOMIC MISADVENTURES KNOWN AS THE UR-RAHOWA AGAINST TERRORISM, in large measure, Your Correspondent has to wonder if some of workfare's biggest supporters--especially those expecting to see the "complete and final" elimination of State welfare through workfare--are actually rank and crude Zealots and True Believers in xenophobic nativism.

As in using that reechy-sounding singsong meme of "Illegal immigration! Illegal immigration!" (as per usual, in the key of "Ring around the collar!") to explain, howbeit without clear substantiation, why "real Americans" (as in the poor, undereducated or homeschooled and easily-led), let alone "welfare basket cases," can't find "real work." (As in unskilled, labour-intensive Ludditery as deliberately keeps costs all the lower in the name of "making American industry more competitive" in global markets.)

Not to mention expecting employers to cook up all manner of patsies for explaining the dismissal of workfare employees once the tax incentives lapse--patsies the Vocational Guidance Counsellors aren't expected to view as credible, instead steering such (or expecting same) towards highly-questionable "work-from-home" scams of a "make-work/fake-work" sort such as home mailing.

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WITH THE RELIGIOPOLITICAL RIGHT FOREVER WHINING ABOUT IMAGINED "CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION!" BEING AIDED AND ABETTED BY THE "LIBERAL MEDIA CONSPIRACY," and doing so, methinks, only to distract attention from The Bigger Picture, ConWebBlog brings up the story about how the Religiopolitical Right's propaganda machine may unwittingly be doing much the same thing in the wake of Jim Adkisson's near-massacree in Knoxville:

A July 28 WorldNetDaily article by Chelsea Schilling offers up the best possible free publicity an unknown band could ask for--denouncing one of its songs:

A punk band has released a music video featuring a "Christian" teenage suicide bomber and criticizing believers and homeschoolers for imposing their values on the nation.

Kill the Hippies, a rock group from Kent, Ohio, made a video called "Teenage Suicide Bomber" that features a mentally disturbed teenager who straps a bomb to his chest and slaughters children on a public school bus, dancers in a nightclub and a crowd of abortion protesters – all in the name of Christianity.

WND asked lead vocalist Matt Trahan why the band decided to portray the suicide bomber as a Christian.

"The reason I used Christians, really, is because everyone around me that I know pretty much comes from a Christian background," he said. "When I look at Muslims, I see pretty much a minority in this country, and I don't really like picking on the little guy."

Trahan said the video is a satire about people who want the U.S. to be a theocracy.

Schilling notes that "While Trahan said the film is a parody, he insisted there is some truth to the idea that Christians can be terrorists," but she makes no mention of just how true that became two days ago, when Jim D. Adkisson opened fire in a Unitarian church in Ohio, killing two.

WND's article on the shooting spins Adkisson as someone who "apparently resented Christianity, disliked the Bible and even got angry over the fact a neighbor's daughter graduated from a Bible college." It's not until the 16th and final paragraph that WND alludes to Adkisson's main motive: that he had a "stated hatred of the liberal movement."

In fact, Adkisson's hatred of liberals goes much deeper than WND bothers to report:

An out-of-work truck driver accused of opening fire at a Unitarian church, killing two people, left behind a note suggesting that he targeted the congregation out of hatred for its liberal policies, including its acceptance of gays, authorities said Monday.

A four-page letter found in Jim D. Adkisson's small SUV indicated he intentionally targeted the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church because, the police chief said, "he hated the liberal movement" and was upset with "liberals in general as well as gays."

[...]

Adkisson "stated that he had targeted the church because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of the major media outlets," Investigator Steve Still wrote. 

Sounds a bit like the kind of person who reads WND, no? 

Indeed, WND has endeavored to portray Unitarians negatively over the years:

• A July 26 article attacked an upcoming appearance by both Barack Obama and John McCain at the megachurch operated by frequent WND target Rick Warren as being "co-sponsored by a left-leaning group led by a Unitarian-Universalist minister who once headed her denomination's homosexual advocacy office."
• A July 21 column by Michael Ackley highlights an article describing Berkeley, California, as a place "where residents might head for a screening of a film on urban organic farming in Cuba at the local Unitarian Universalist congregation." 
• A May 6 column by John Lofton bashing the idea of a "Pluralism Sunday" cited the example of "Epiphany Community Unitarian Universalist Church of Fenton, Mich., has invited a Zen Buddhist 'with a Christian background' to be the preacher that day." 
• An October 2007 article cited Unitarians among the "Religious Left" who were planning a day of fasting to call for an end to the war in Iraq, along "with the support of an organization named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Texas terror case and another lobbying for multiple sexual partners."
• A July 2007 article decried a flyer promoting a "Pagan Christmas ritual" at "a Unitarian Universalist congregation that also teaches 'Exploring Islam,' 'Women Weaving Wisdom,' 'Discovering the Healing Power of Dreams' and other religious subjects" that was being distributed at a school--allowed, ironically, because the conservative Christian legal group Liberty Counsel sued over a vacation Bible school flyer that was not distributed.
• Noting that Rep. Pete Stark is "a Unitarian who does not believe in a Supreme Being," Joseph Farah accused him in a March 2007 column of having "perverted beliefs."
• A November 2006 article noted that a woman "shared Unitarian Universalist church theologies with" a "Democrat community leader" who pleaded"guilty to extensive child pornography offenses involving children as young as six."
• A January 2005 article quoted a message purportedly sent by an "enemy" of anti-gay activist (and WND fave) Michael Marcavage: "As a member of the American Civil Liberties Union and a Unitarian-Universalist, I am committed to your suffering the maximum penalty the law will give you. And I will take particular delight knowing your families and loved ones will suffer, too."

One has to wonder if such negative spin on beliefs with which it disagrees (they're not fond of Catholics either, by the way) has an influence on people like Adkisson, especially when a steady diet of intolerance spews forth from websites like WND. We don't know if Adkisson read WND, but his actions would seem to be the logical extention of WND's ultra-orthodox reconstructionist Christianity.

Yet WND is trying to hide this--while getting all worked up over an obscure punk band singing about the same subject. 

UPDATE: The Knoxville News-Sentinel notes that inside Adkisson's house, "officers found 'Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder' [sic] by radio talk show host Michael Savage, 'Let Freedom Ring' by talk show host Sean Hannity, and 'The O'Reilly Factor,' by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly." Savage, of course, is a longtime WND fave, having published two of his books and hosting Savage's website.

So: Is this a sincere and genuine acknowledgement from the Religiopolitical Right that Low Church Christians could actually have terroristic sympathies, or was this a case of lapsus linguæ @ the wrong time?

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THE RELEVANCE OF THE PHOTO TO THESE ESSAYS CAN BE DEBATED ALL YOU LIKE, BUT THEN AGAIN:

• With Wally World having to start spinning its way out of reports that they're "advising" employees @ mandatory staff meetings to vote Straight Republican come Indecision 2008, reinforced with paranoia about the vote swinging Democratic leading, in due course, to forced unionisation, you have to wonder how much longer it will be before cooptation is resorted to as an agency of intimidation on Wally World's part, including scripted "resignations" for "emotional instability" as may themselves be medically suspect as necessary.
• Homeland Security hath it that the Beijing Olympic Games, the Democratic and Republican conventions, and the elections proper, all provide "opportunities galore" for Notorious and Infamous Terrorist Attacks being carried out. Has anybody considered the possibility that said "terrorist attacks" might really be "false flag" scams designed to manipulate or pervert the course of Indecision 2008, with the "terrorists" behind same really nothing more than low-level goons being offered, in essence, Redemption for Value in return for "cooperation"?
• With the GOP and their weird and unwholesome droogs likely to be pushing all the more for "caging" voters with registry or other identity documents "not in proper form" come election day, you can just imagine the possibility for such perhaps associating with the ilk of "RockPhish" and other notorious international syndicates engaging in e-mail "phishing" scams to conduct what could best be called "phish-caging," which would have "phishing"-stylee e-mails sent out in the (presumed) name and stylee of local election boards asking for "verification" of voter-registry information as turns out being no better than crude identity theft targeting the poor, the vulnerable and National Minorities in particular--the ones least likely to complain lest they fear loss of jobs or welfare benefits for their "outspokenness."

Remember this, my friend: "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

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AS A SUPPOSEDLY "RIGHT-THINKING" AMERICAN, I DIRECT THIS APPEAL TO REASON EQUALLY TO THE LIKES OF CONGRESS AS MUCH AS THE OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY in their desire to promote energy self-sufficency based on maintaining a bond-slavery, as it were, to petroleum-based fuels ... and seeking to justify such as being necessary to the soverignty and soverign identity of the United States "antient and pecuilar," a Pecuilar Among the Nations essentially.

This Appeal to Reason being inspired by current appeals by weird and unwholesome elements within the Great Within of Washington Realpolitik, themselves connected to maintaining dependency on oil and gas while dismissing alternative biofuels, and the socioeconomic viability thereof, as threatening the free-market capitalistic model and paradigm, and its special role and place as Great White Father of the heretofore "enslaved to un-American thought" Lower Classes.

To wit:

It's my understanding that a number of oil and gas companies already hold significant and measurable mineral-rights leases on Federal lands for the exploration and extraction of crude oil and natural gas as have yet to be exploited proper ... and yet, they still want to engage in exploratory, let alone productive, drilling of oil and natural gas in ecologically-sensitive offshore areas and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to maintain a "healthy self-reliance" on oil and gas @ the expense of viable, renewable biofuels such as ethanol derivate from switchgrass and Jerusalem artichokes rather than cereal grains now preferred for biofuels.

The which, if anything, reeks of negating common sense, let alone morals and decency, or reasonable facsimilies thereof, in the name of equating wasteful and counterproductive mentalities with the defence of American soverignty and soverign identity "antient and pecuilar," or so you love to think in league with elements weird and unwholesome by virtue of their unswerving and hard-wired ideology based on isolationist and xenophobic articles of faith justifying self-sufficency tacitly excusing the wasteful and inefficent.

So, with that in mind, may I be the first to suggest thus:

• To the oil and gas companies: Unless you can show cause why you cannot use or otherwise exploit existing mineral-rights leases on Federal lands @ this time, please consider using said leases first before considering offshore exploratory drilling all the further. Otherwise, have you considered surrendering said leases back to the United States Government for non-use? What prevents your so doing--greed and selfishness?
• To Congress and His Fraudulency's Great Within: Before you proceed further on your Grand Delusions towards energy self-sufficency based on allowing further offshore drilling which may, in the end, be wasteful, inefficent and counterproductive, insist that oil and gas companies either first use up their existing mineral-rights leases on Federal lands or, absent showing cause why such leases cannot be profitably exploited, surrender such leases back to the United States Government.
• To the Presidential Candidates: With respect to further offshore oil drilling, insist that oil and gas companies be required to first make use of existing mineral-rights leases on Federal lands, or otherwise show cause why such cannot be used @ this time, in which case such would need to be surrendered and new leases negotiated.
• To the American Voter: With Congress now in summer recess, and likely to be back in their home districts, use the opportunities afforded by any "town meetings" or "meet-and-greets" they will have in the interim to insist that they require oil and gas companies to first use existing mineral-rights leases on Federal lands, or otherwise show cause why such cannot be exploited profitably @ this time, before allowing offshore oil and gas drilling.

There can be no mistaking the fact that Your Correspondent considers this to be an Appeal to Reason in the ongoing debate/campaign issue of maintaining energy self-reliance and self-sufficency in the name of our soverignty and soverign identity "antient and pecuilar."

So what precludes your taking advantage of the opportunities thus inherent? Fear of being labelled as a "Communist," "Fascist," "Nazi" or otherwise a "sleeper agent for the New World Order"?

Fear of possible job loss or other hinderance to earning a livelihood for taking a stand?

Fear of "shunning" by your community, let alone the prospect of your church issuing orders to that effect?

Or what other fears exactly?

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MEMO TO READERS: As is the established custom with items of this ilk, Your Correspondent encourages you to pass this item along to your friends and your e-mail circles; the better to maximise the effectivess of the inherent message and, hopefully, bring about action.

However, be careful not to confuse this with "spamming," which is reckless, irresponsible and only risks undermining the cause to the point of eventually backfiring.

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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?