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ED GARVEY, WRITING IN THE NEW IMPROVED "VIRTUAL" VERSION OF THE CAPITAL TIMES (MADISON, WI) THE OTHER DAY, offers some worthy advice for those following the poll numbers in Indecision 2008 for cluedos as to who will win.

Better let Mr. Garvey explain it all for you--and be sure to share it with your friends and e-mail circles:

A couple of weeks ago, I raised questions about presidential polling in general and the Quinnipiac University's polling in particular. Should you rely on polls or not? I was chastised by a University of Wisconsin political science prof for raising questions about Quinnipiac's polling. Not since I questioned papal infallibility in sixth grade have I been dispatched to the corner so vigorously. I was even told to apologize to Quinnipiac.

I have no beef against Quinnipiac and I wish them well. But I wish them and all the other pollsters more transparency in polling.

Polling is a big part of campaigns. For example, if a poll shows that your candidate's negatives are higher than his positives, David Broder, Charlie Cook, and other Washington establishment types will write off your guy and then the big contributors won't give any more money. Your candidate is finished, washed up, kaput, all based on polling data that, I dare say, is not verified by anyone.

Give old Quinnipiac a rest. Look instead to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and its most recent article based on a poll issued by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute on Aug. 7. The headline screamed that only 17 percent of voters in Wisconsin think the country is "headed in the right direction," whatever that means. Bad news for McCain? Maybe, but read this and think again: "Despite a poisonous climate for the party of the president, the same survey puts Republican John McCain within shouting distance of Democrat Obama in the state." So the poll is good for McCain. He is swimming up stream but making progress despite Bush's terrible numbers.

The poll may be accurate but it may be gibberish. More to the point, it may be a calculated effort to influence results by helping a favored candidate. What is WPRI? Who pays the bills? Where does it get its money? Who sits on the board? I looked in the Journal Sentinel article for some explanation of WPRI. The story was written by a veteran journalist who must know the institute is a front for the arch-conservative Bradley Foundation. WPRI admits on its Web page, to its credit, that the Bradley Foundation has contributed millions to it. (Right-wingers have, in fact, given over $8.4 million to the institute.) The Journal Sentinel tells us WPRI is "a local think tank that has been polling in the state since the late 1980s." Thank you very much, but why not tell the readers the board of the Bradley Foundation is so far to the right they can't even see the highway let alone the yellow line marking the middle of the road?

The only quote is from Jim Miller, president of WPRI, and he makes it clear that McCain has his work cut out for him. Miller didn't say why the poll was released, who paid, or the actual questions asked. Is WPRI setting up the public to see "a tightened race" in Wisconsin as the GOP convention rolls into our post-Labor Day consciousness? If McCain is 5 points behind in September, WPRI can remind us how low his party was in early August--the "big mo" is on his side. Too cynical? I don't think so.

WPRI tells us that war and the economy are top issues. (They needed a poll to figure that out?) How does the Journal Sentinel deal with the fact that this poll shows a much closer race between the candidates than other polls? "Experts caution about comparing different surveys taken by different pollsters." And the cow jumped over the moon. Who are these anonymous "experts" and who selected them, the Journal Sentinel or the Bradley Foundation?

Once again, who pays, who frames the issues, who designs the questions, who decides when to poll and whether to release the results? Ask and you shall not receive. Seems to me we need a "truth in polling" rule. Who is behind the curtain? Would information about WPRI and its relationship with Bradley have permitted a more critical reading of the Journal Sentinel story? I think so and, I have to admit, I remain skeptical about papal infallibility.

In other words, "read between the lines."

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IN THE WAKE OF THE RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY'S CLAIM THAT THE REPUBLIC OF GEORGIA'S TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY AND SOVERIGNTY IS ESSENTIALLY REVOKED, such begs this question of Your Correspondent:

If The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang (t/n John McCain) was claiming the other day that "we [i.e., the presumaly Right-Thinking American Peoples] are all Georgians" (as in showing "wholehearted and unswerving solidarity" therefor, not unlike that shown for Belgium following the German invasion and rapine thereof during World War I), then where are all the displays of the Georgian flag as a visible display thereof?

Which, for the interested, is as thus (hat tip to Flags.net):

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NO WONDER THE ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS IN RACISM AND WHITE SUPREMACY HAVE REASON TO BE PARANOID--BE VERY PARANOID, come to think of it:

Just-released Census Bureau estimates suggest that, by the 2020 Census, whites will be a "minority majority" (so to speak), making up 46% of the American population--which will be rounded out by substantial increases in Latino populations (30%), thanks to immigration and higher average birth rates among Latino peoples.

Blacks (15%) and Asian/Pacific Islanders (9%) will round out the American demographic of 2020.

Is it any wonder that racists and white-supremacists are urging Right-Thinking White Low Church Christians to prepare for the Coming Battles in case Barak Obama is elected President come November "to reclaim our antient and pecuilar rights, privileges and powers" based on flimsy "rights by conquest" arguments more than likely?

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SOMETHING FOR THE ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS IN FREE-MARKET CAPITALISM AS GREAT WHITE FATHER TO THINK ABOUT AND PONDER, courtesy of Fortune magazine (via CNNMoney.com), about how far Zimbabwe's economy is being dragged all the closer to collapse--and, more than likely, its antient and pecuilar soverignty and soverign identity under Robert Mugabe's excesses of power:

If purchased on the newsstand in Zimbabwe, the issue of Fortune you're holding would have cost you 270,543,825,555 Zimbabwean dollars. But don't worry about pulling your Weimar-era wheelbarrows out of storage. As of July you could pay for your magazine with three newly issued $100 billion bills.

This is what Robert Mugabe's government considers a reasonable strategy for coping with an inflation rate of more than 2,000,000%. Faced with the prospect of issuing ever more cash, Zimbabwe has opted for simply issuing bigger cash. And perhaps anticipating unwieldy arithmetic problems at the cash register, the government has also announced a longer-term plan to dispense with the zeroes entirely, turning $10 billion into $1.

The essential clumsiness of these responses betrays the government's lack of experience in remedying any policy problem with actual policy. Historically Mugabe's favorite, if only, policy tool is small and steely and comes in a variety of calibers. But at whom to point the gun? Market forces fail to manifest themselves in the form of persons who can be threatened with death and dismemberment.

Sticking a fork in dissidents

If anyone is to blame for the economic crisis, it's Mugabe himself. In 28 years he has managed to take one of the wealthiest countries in sub-Saharan Africa and ruin it in a stupefying variety of ways. He annihilated the agricultural sector (once a leading exporter of corn and tobacco) by seizing commercial farms and giving them to cronies who failed to use the land. In 1998 he prosecuted a kleptomaniacal war in the Congo, spending $1 million (U.S.) a day in hopes of stealing enough land and resources from the Congolese to make a profit. When Zimbabweans have tried to vote him out of office, he has punished them with violence and economic repression. A passage from "The State of Africa," by Martin Meredith, recalls the explanation offered to citizens for cutting off their food supplies: "First you will eat your chickens, then your goats, then your donkeys. Then you will eat your children, and finally you will eat the dissidents."

But most of the dissidents left the country before anyone could stick a fork in them. The exodus of skilled workers crippled the economy further. Businesses lost management and assets, while unskilled workers became refugees in neighboring countries that didn't have the money to support them- the latter transforming Zimbabwe's economic crisis into a regional one.

That Mugabe has any resources left to plunder is a function of what is increasingly a remittance economy. Zimbabwean memoirist Peter Godwin points out that members of the diaspora are keeping Mugabe in power when the money they send back to friends and relatives gets confiscated. "Often that money doesn't even physically get home," says Godwin. Zimbabwe's schools and health-care system have collapsed, but there's enough money left to pay for Mugabe's personal priorities: his mansions, wife Grace's shopping sprees, and loyalty-buying salary hikes for his security forces.

While Zimbabwe's self-destruction is extreme, other countries have managed to whip hyperinflation. Dollarization - a switch to a foreign currency - is one preferred remedy. Another remedy involves restraining government spending, a practice known as "shock therapy."

The first option is politically embarrassing for Mugabe (one can't very well issue daily polemics against the West and then adopt its dominant currency), and Mugabe is constitutionally incapable of the second. His only quick fix, then, as international pressure mounts and he is forced into talks with the opposition party, is to start from scratch - to move the decimal point a few spaces. But as long as he stays in power, there's nothing to stop the currency denominations from spiraling upward again as assets leave the country on the backs of the people. When will the moment of reckoning finally be at hand? When the bribery money runs out, as it surely will, his control of the military will erode, and Mugabe may find himself in a position familiar to the people he has oppressed- looking down the barrel of a gun.

Can we expect much the same warped and misguided excesses under a McCain Presidency, excused all the more as the defence of American Honour and Patriot Love in the face of an Evil Empire known as the New World Order prepared to "usurp our traditional soverignty and soverign identity without warning or notice"?

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SOMETHING WHICH THE TRUE BELIEVERS IN THE BOYCOTT BY THE SO-CALLED "AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION" AGAINST McDONALD'S for "refusal to play neutral in the culture wars [by] tacitly supporting the Homosexual Agenda" ought to think about for once:

In their overzealous defence of free-market capitalism as one with the defence of G-d, Country and Family--not to mention trying to interweave same with the defence of American soverignty "antient and pecuilar"--it seems the AFA must be yearning for idealised times as can be no more.

A time when Fair Trading laws and Reseller Price Maintenance Agreements were considered acceptable in the interest of protecting smaller retailers from "predatory competition."

A time when every city of some consequence had, not Wally World on the fringes, but the likes of a Woolworth's, Kresge's, Kress, Ben Franklin, McCrory's, Grant's, Murphy's or TG&Y downtown, usually with a lunch counter whose fare tended to what now would be called "comfort food" based on the "roast-and-two-veg" model. Usually to be complemented, especially in smaller communities, by agents for direct-selling companies like Watkins, McConnon's, Rawleigh, Furst-McNess, Fuller Brush and Jewel Tea.

A time when Walgreen's (and, for that matter, pretty much every drugstore) had a soda fountain/lunch counter in much the same vein as Woolworth's and kin, as above.

A time when the grocers were usually smaller "mom-and-pop" stores and supermarkets meant A&P, Kroger, Safeway, National Tea, Piggly Wiggly or some regional chain like Red Owl in the midwest, Winn-Dixie in the southeast or First National Stores in the Northeast.

A time when home mortgage loans were the domain of building-and-loan associations and consumer loans were on the Morris Plan, requiring two comakers "to guarantee creditworthiness" and the purchase of Installment Thrift Certificates equal to the face value of the loan on weekly payments.

Not to mention a time in which women were essentially no better than sex machines @ the will of the husband, who could legally get away with spousal abuse and rape (in fact, you may recall my mentioning previously an obscure Alabama law as allows husbands to beat uncooperative wives with "a stick no larger than the thumb," length not otherwise specified) and children were essentially plum targets for abuse @ the whim of the parents, any reports thereof to be dismissed as "less than credible" ... not to mention anyone holding contrarian views openly setting themselves up for commitment proceedings to the state hospital based on hearsay evidence.

Is this what America means to the "American Family Association" and the True Believers thereof, usually poor, undereducated or homeschooled, easily influenced and socioeconomically marginalised to the point of vulnerable?

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IF THERE'S ONE REASON WHY THESE ELECTIONS ARE ALL THE MORE IMPORTANT FOR DETERMINING THE FUTURE COURSE OF OUR BELOVED NATION, not to mention our presumably "morally superior" society (or so the Zealots and True Believers in Neoconservatism want us believing and accepting as an article of faith in True Americanism), consider especially how "compassionate conservatism" wants to view the Lower Classes:

With nothing but contempt. Pure, unadulterated contempt.

Reflected all the more in lower-income communities being deliberately targeted all the more, thanks to "regulatory relief," for the likes of:

• liquor stores;
• adult-oriented businesses;
• taverns, bars and nightclubs;
• lottery outlets;
• second-rate grocery and convenience stores with limited selection;
• "liberal credit" stores;
• "dollar stores;" and
• "sub-prime" loan companies.

All based on the delusion conservatives have that the Lower Classes cannot be expected to make wise decisions, and all the more so because Natur made them inferior all the more ... and, hence, their need to be kept all the more so by special rules and laws to keep them all the more in control.

Notwithstanding all manner of platitudes and bromides in their propaganda about the "last and only hope for saving the Lower Classes from themselves" being "empowerment" by way of the free market and mutual self-help, in effect expecting the Lower Classes to figure out the solution for themselves without any sort of outside help "lest they develop tendencies towards dependency"--a real cop-out right there, as the Lower Classes obviously need assistance to establish the groundwork for mutual self-help programmes, as well as technical support.

Which is enough to ask where it follows that only the free market can save the Lower Classes all the more while dumping upon them the worst excesses therefor in the name of "defending the Natural Order" as excuses the perpetuation of such inferiority, any and all profit ensuing restricted to an "elect***entitled as of right" based on "unwritten habit and custom," expected to take precedence over statute law.

Said "unwritten habit and custom" expected to be based on "the Natural Law, the Laws of Nature and of Nature's G-d" if and when pressed.

So where ought the Lower Classes turn if they expect any chance towards empowerment beyond Vice, Intemperance, Folly and Waste, and the establishments so perpetuating, profiting from deliberate misery? 

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SOOOO ... IS THERE, OR ISN'T THERE, A CEASE FIRE IN THE REPUBLIC OF GEORGIA VIS-A-VIS RUSSIA'S ATTEMPT @ RAPINE AND RAPE of its antient and pecuilar soverignty and soverign identity by way of South Ossetia and Abkhazia?

Come to think of it, The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang's assertion that "we are all Georgians" in trying to appeal to the defence of democracy and liberty in the "right-thinking" poor and ignorant smacks of out-and-out fanaticism of the kind which the so-called "New World Order" could exploit, even if it means driving the xenophobes fearing same paranoid to the point of seeking out Al Cohol's friendly embrace.

As if that weren't enough, Media Matters for America notes where Fox Prolefeed is perhaps intepreting too much into TTMB's remarks about Americans standing with the weak and helpless peoples of soverign Georgia:

During the August 12 edition of Fox News' Your World, Fox News chief political correspondent Carl Cameron said of Sen. John McCain's speech earlier that day in York, Pennsylvania: "Senator McCain opened his remarks talking about his conversation with the Georgian president, talking about the crisis there, saying that he believes that there is a true strategic imperative for the world to take notice and make sure that Georgia is protected because of its oil pipeline, one that does provide energy access across the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea--a very, very important position for energy independence for the United States to make sure that those sorts of things are protected." Cameron did not explain how the protection of an oil pipeline in Georgia was related to U.S. energy independence.

Your Correspondent would have to concur with Media Matters in questioning the interconnexion Fox Prolefeed createth between protecting an oil pipeline in the Republic of Georgia (as connects Kazakh and Azerbaijani oil fields to terminal ports on the Black Sea) and American energy independence--which, to Fox Prolefeed, requires wasteful, reckless and even counterproductive wildcat drilling without regard to socioeconomic or even environmental costs, let alone the fact that a newly-discovered oil field's output takes about two years @ earliest to go to market.

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MEANWHILE, RUSSIA IS NOW FACING THE PROSPECT OF A NEW ROUND OF INTERNATIONAL PARIAHDOM WHOSE LIKES WERE NOT SEEN since the salad days of Communist rule, when The Great (Mis)communicator was forever scaring us into patriotic frenzies about the Evil Empire.

And it's the European Union taking the lead, with Brussels expected to have second thoughts about further cooperation with post-Communist Russia after the French-brokered cease-fire (France currently holds the Rotating Presidency of the EU) began showing signs of collapse. (Rip Li, take note: The Baltic Republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania--themselves former Soviet Republics--and Poland, itself a former Warsaw Pact/COMECON droog, are leading the EU's call for second thoughts on any cooperation with Russia.)

There's also hints that EU and/or United Nations peacekeeping forces may be sent into Republican Georgia to help quell further tensions, especially if the Russian troops have propensities for Indecent Sexual Liberties (especially Rape) against ethnic Georgians ... and even worse if the Russian troops turn out to have antibiotic-resistant strains of loathsome social diseases.

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SO MUCH FOR SEEING THE FREE MARKET AS GREAT WHITE FATHER OF A FREE AND DEMOCRATIC IRAQ: A newly-prepared Congressional Budget Office report hath it that the politically-connected private contractors being deployed into American-Occupied Iraq for rebuilding Iraqi infrastructure may actually be all the more expensive than the use of American Occupation Forces assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers and the Navy's Seabees, for starters, in the same tasks to hand.

Especially when you consider the prospect of Baghdad being prepared on shortest of notice to send notice to the Coalition of the Coerced that it seeks to collect significant amounts of war reparations therefrom. What an October Surprise prospect that could be!

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SPEAKING OF THE WHOLE DELUDED CONCEPT OF THE FREE MARKET AS GREAT WHITE FATHER, PARTICULARLY WHEN APPLIED TO THE LOWER CLASSES and other specimens of the socioeconomically marginalised expected to "wholeheartedly" embrace the notion (thanks to their hard-wired acceptance of Fox Prolefeed for news and information) ... Your Correspondent just has to wonder if it's these same socioeconomically-marginalised elements, in particular those deemed "chronically and habitually welfare dependent," will be targeted all the more for denationalised Social Security based on Latin American models.

Particularly so if employed because of workfare or other targeted employment-assistance schemes where employers may be eligible for tax incentives, among them Job Corps, Vocational Rehabilitation, School-to-Work, Displaced Worker Retraining and Veterans' Readjustment.

And likely to be the first to be "advised" (read: required) to enroll into private retirement-savings schemes which are really based offshore "for tax reasons," and are structured based on so-called "High-Yield Investment Programme" (HYIP) schemes theoretically expected to make sound, high-return investments as really turn out being risky or otherwise speculative, mostly in microcap shares traded, by and large, on either the Pink Sheets or the OTC Bulletin Board.

Said shares being, as well-known, plum targets for "pump-and-dump" scams which these same HYIP's-cum-Retirement Savings Funds will be all the more involved in.

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AND ONE THING MORE: I, for one, would not call for the relaxation of complacent attitudes and mindsets in the wake of the news that the AAA's Gas Price Survey has seen almost a month of daily declines in the average price for self-serve regular unleaded.

No doubt Democratic Presidential candidate Barak Obama had some valid points about maintaining proper tyre pressure as one way towards maximising automotive fuel economy--but, as I noted previously, tyre pressure is but one step worth taking for the sake of fuel economy as much as energy self-reliance.

Such habits of fuel economy should continue being maintained all the more, not being deluded by the aura of reduced gas prices translating to a return to wasteful and inefficent habits which some could quickly excuse as "patriotism and patriot love" in the right circumstances. Besides, there's always the prospect of these price declines suddenly backfiring without warning. 

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HERE'S A STATISTICAL MILESTONE MANY VISITORS TO THE MINNESOTA STATE FAIR MAY BE UNAWARE OF AS ITS 2008 RUN APPROACHETH:

This will be the 62nd year that TGMnGT has occured without interruption since the resumption thereof in 1947 after a two-year enforced lapse:

• The 1945 edition of the Minnesota State Fair was cancelled @ the request of the Office of Defence Transportation (ODT), a wartime agency of the Federal Government, to conserve fuel and tyres in the interest of the war effort; said request was issued well before the surrender of Germany (May 8th) and Japan (August 16th) effectively ended World War II, by which time demobilisation was just getting started.
• The 1946 fair was cancelled in response to a polio epidemic.

The previous record for uninterrupted running of the Minnesota State Fair being between the 51 years between 1894 (the Fair having been cancelled in 1893 due to scheduling conflicts with the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago) and 1944, the third year running of wartime austerity as included cancellation of the auto-racing programme out of deference to tyre and gasoline rationing.

The current run would equal the previous record in 1997 and the next year's such (1998) would break the record outright. And is still going strong by all indications.

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MEANWHILE, IT MIGHT BE INTERESTING TO NOTE SOME OF THE STATE FAIR'S NOTEWORTHY MILESTONES during the original 51-year (1894-1944) uninterrupted streak:

• Arrival of electric lighting (1895) and gas service (1903) to the State Fargrounds.
• The first primitive auto races (1899).
• The first fireworks displays as part of the evening programme (1902).
• The Manufacturer's Building (1903), eventually to become Women's Activities and, later, Home Activities, opens.
• The Minnesota Pavilion from the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair is rebuilt and eventually becomes the Rest Cottage.
• Dan Patch runs his famous 1:55 mile in 1906, eventually leading to construction of the current Grandstand in 1907.
• The original Hippodrome opens in 1906.
• The first dog show in connexion with a state fair anywhere is part of the 1912 Fair.
• Ye Old Mill opens for the first time in 1913.
• The six-day run (opening on Labour Day) is extended to eight days (opening on the Saturday of the Labour Day weekend) starting in 1919.
• Construction of the Cattle Barns in 1925-6.
• Steichen's Grocery, a Minnesota State Fair institution in itself, opens its doors for the first time in 1934. And has opened every year since during the Fair.
• Works Progress Administration (WPA) construction projects on the State Fairgrounds, including the Grandstand Ramp, the 4-H Building, the DNR Building and the Sheep/Poultry, Horse and Hog Buildings between 1935 and 1940.
• The tradition of ending the fair on Labour Day begins with a 10-day run starting in 1939.

And some of the more notable milestones in TGMnGT history since the resumption of same in 1947:

• The first corn dogs are sold @ the 1947 Fair.
• The Agriculture-Horticulture ("Ag-Hort") Building opens in 1948 to replace "Old Main," as was destroyed by a November 1944 fire.
• The original Hippodrome is demolished in 1946 after wartime service as a propellor factory for A. O. Smith aggravates wear and tear on the structure. In 1951, it would be replaced by a new Hippodrome, now known as Warner Coliseum.
• Horse racing is discontinued in 1949, due to lack of interest.
• 1949 is the last year that the Minnesota State Fair receives any public funding; since then, admission fees, concessions and exhibition fees have been expected to defray operational costs.
• A horror biplane crash in 1950 forces the end of air shows as part of the grandstand entertainment.
• The last streetcars run to the State Fair in 1953.
• 1955 is the first time the Minnesota State Fair sees over 1 million visitors throughout its run, a trend as has continued every year since.
• The first big-name acts appear on the Grandstand programme in 1962. That same year, the "all the milk you can drink" stand opens.
• The Sky Ride and Space Tower open in 1964, as will the Dairy Building (now Empire Commons).
• The Baldwin Education Building opens in 1965.
• Fairchild, the Minnesota State Fair's gopher mascot and goodwill ambassador, debuts in 1966. (In 1982, his nephew Fairborne will be added.)
• The Mexican Village opens in 1970; by 1986, it becomes the International Bazaar.
• The old Home Activities Building is demolished to make way for the Creative Activities Building, as opens in 1972.
• In 1972 and 1973, an 11-day run is offered, expanding to the current 12-day run in 1974--and, as per usual, ending on Labour Day.
• Battered cheese curds are introduced in 1975.
• Heritage Square opens in 1975 on the site of the former Youth Fair and Young America Centre.
• Royal American Shows make their last appearence on the Minnesota State Fair's Midway in 1995, to be replaced in 1996 with the Mighty Midway and Kidway.
• 2001 sees the all-time attendance record of 1,762,394 visitors passing through the gates.
• In 2002, the 501(c)(3) Minnesota State Fair Foundation is established to help raise funds for maintaining and renovating the State Fairgrounds and its various educational and cultural programmes, while maintaining the established practice of not using public monies.

So what exactly will TGMnGT 2008 bring? Stay tuned.