It is about a week before early voting begins for a bunch of us around the country, and that means this may be one of the last times I have to convince you that, frustrated progressive or not, you better get your butt to a ballot box or a mail-in envelope this November, because it really does matter.

Now I could give you a bunch of "what ifs" to make my point, or I could remind you how we spent all summer watching oil gush into the Gulf, and how that came to be...but, instead, it's "Even More Current Event Day", and we're going to visit Hungary for a extremely real-world reminder of what can go wrong when the environmental cops are considered just too much of a burden by the environmental robbers-and if today's story doesn't scare you to death, I don't know what will.

It ain't Texas, but we will surely visit a Red River Valley...and you surely won't like what you're gonna see.

Continuity is something you might not expect in rock music ... but then again ....

GRANDFATHER-FATHER-SON? - a troika of bespectacled guitarists: Buddy Holly, Marshall Crenshaw and Rivers Cuomo ("Weezer").
                 

Hmmmm .... say, why not stop in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....    

Dover, Delaware (FNS)-Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell shocked the crowd at a Delaware political breakfast meeting when she announced that she has changed her thinking about masturbation following a weekend bathtub "incident".

Spike Fromula, O'Donnell's press secretary, explained to the press gaggle today that O'Donnell now realizes that it is possible to "masturbate without lust in your heart" after Saturday night's revelatory event, which Fromula described as a "slip and fall episode".

"It wasn't exactly 'The Passion of the Showerhead'" said Fromula, in a reference to her former work as a marketing consultant to the Mel Gibson movie of a similar name, "but there is no doubt that her thinking on the issue has evolved".

The Palestinians have pulled out of direct negotiations because, or so they say, the Israeli settlement construction freeze in the West Bank has concluded.  

"Both the governments of Israel and the Palestinian Authority have asked us to continue these discussions in an effort to establish the conditions under which they can continue direct negotiations," Mitchell wrote in a statement posted on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo's website. "They do not want to stop the talks."

How blinkered must one be not to recognize this gibberish as gibberish?  For ten months Israel maintained a moratorium on building in the West Bank, yet until the very last moment the Palestinians refused to negotiate.  Now that the moratorium has ended they again refuse to negotiate.  And we're supposed to believe that the Palestinians are desperate for a negotiated peace and for a state of their own next to Israel?  And George Mitchell tells us that both governments want to continue negotiations?

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It's 2010.  How much longer will we continue to treat GLBT people as second-class citizens?

I continue to be flabbergasted at how easily so many liberal Jewish supporters of Israel have allowed themselves to be suckered by the Israeli settlement issue. These so-called "settlers," a word which itself has become a pejorative, are merely Jews living in the place that Jews originally came from. They have set up communities in the West Bank, or Judea and Samaria, as they would say, for various reasons. Some do so out of a religious commitment to the land of ancient Israel... Eretz Israel. Others live there because housing is less expensive than in Israel proper. And now we are told that the mere presence of Jews living in the West Bank undermines the peace process.

Ridiculous.

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Different branches of the arts have a way of cross-pollinating, huh? ....

SEPARATED at BIRTH - composer Philip Glass and Admiral Piett ("Star Wars").
                         

Hmmm .... well, for now: why not stop in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....    

Why Teach For America Works - Michelle Rhee

copyright © 2010 Betsy L. Angert.  BeThink.org

In the Fall, this year and every year, in this nation talk turns to Education.  The President of the United States delivers a speech to students.  Articles appear in the news.  Television broadcasts beckon us to think about our Education Nation.  In 2010, Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, did what many thought novel.  He donated $100 million dollars to Newark City Schools.  Some were skeptical of his motives.  More rejoiced.  Certainly with abundant cash in the coffers, change would come to the nations schools, or at least to the chosen educational institutions.  However,  it might not.

On Thursday morning, California time, my youngest daughter and I are boarding a plane.  We are leaving what are supposed to be the highly sunny, highly warm shores of California (warm for one of the few times ever this year - I know that global warming folks always focus on extreme weather events and overall heating trends but they have ignored that it has been bloody FREEZING in California this year and I am convinced it is related!).  We are coming to Washington, D.C.  A place where I have lots of relatives and friends, even as I won't have time to see them since we'll be there for just over 45 hours.  

We - my baby that is ½ foot taller than I and likes to lay her elbow on my head as a way of trying to equalize our status, and I -- are coming to march.  

On the appointed day, 10.2.10 (which I hope is not rainy or too cold, but I'll be there either way), my baby and I will be marching along with I'm not sure how many others.  Who knows? To hear the media tell it, there isn't anything special going on in Washington on 10.2.10.

But I know better.  

Barry Rubin has an interesting piece up at his blog RubinReports, entitled, "The Difference Between Politics and Analysis."

Rubin divides Israeli public opinion concerning the possibilities of peace with the Palestinians into four groups:

From what we've said so far we can construct a simple series of four alternative combinations of political stances and analyses:

1. Pessimistic Hawk: Opposes yielding territory and making a deal, thinks that would be disastrous. But believes that a deal will be made.

2. Optimistic Hawk: Opposes yielding territory and making a deal, thinks that would be disastrous. But believes that a deal will not be made.

3. Pessimistic Dove: Favors yielding territory for a deal that he believes will bring peace. But believes a deal will not be made.

4. Optimistic Dove: Favors yielding territory for a deal that he believes will bring peace. But believes a deal will be made.

{More Underneath.}

I have nothing to add to this marvelous jeremiad by William Rivers Pitt except what I said on my Facebook page:

Hey, Republicans and conservatives who think people with pre-existing conditions, in the words of Mike Huckabee, are just like "burned down houses" in the case of HOME insurance, and therefore SHOULDN'T be covered by health insurance:

FUCK you. No, really. Just... FUCK you.

Excerpts below.

Originally posted at my site Bob Higgins

I read a piece last night by Jason Linkins at Huff Post in which he describes the experience of CNN correspondent Michael Ware and Ware's difficulty in dealing with the memory of the death of a presumably innocent young Iraqi shot execution style by US troops in 2007.

Mr Ware tells of the alleged incident he says he witnessed and filmed in  2007 when working for US news giant CNN, but claims the network decided  the footage was too graphic to go to air.

He alleges that a teenager in a remote Iraqi village run by the militant  Islamist group, al-Qaeda was carrying a weapon to protect himself.

"(The boy) approached the house we were in and the (US) soldiers who  were watching our backs, one of them put a bullet right in the back of  his head. Unfortunately it didn't kill him," he tells Australian Story.

"We all spent the next 20 minutes listening to his tortured breath as he died."

From: Former CNN War Correspondent, Speaks Out On Alleged War Crime CNN Refused To Air

Thousands of our kids, if they come home at all, are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan physically wounded and carrying the enormous weight of the emotional baggage picked up during their experience of war. This is nothing new, we brought back the same cargo from Vietnam, Korea and WW2. All wars provide their participants with a dismal tide of dark memories, the material of a lifetime of tortured nightmares.

Sometimes the past was prologue (in a sense) ....

FATHER-SON? - fictional (yet lovable) bigot Archie Bunker and real-life variety Andrew Breitbart (beyond hope).
                 

Even though the going gets rough - why not stop in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....    

Obama's War
Combating Extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Members of U.S. platoon in Afghanistan accused of killing civilians for sport

For weeks, according to Army charging documents, rogue members of a platoon from the 5th Stryker Combat Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, floated the idea. Then, one day last winter, a solitary Afghan man approached them in the village of La Mohammed Kalay. The "kill team" activated the plan.

One soldier created a ruse that they were under attack, tossing a fragmentary grenade on the ground. Then others opened fire.

According to charging documents, the unprovoked, fatal attack on Jan. 15 was the start of a months-long shooting spree against Afghan civilians that resulted in some of the grisliest allegations against American soldiers since the U.S. invasion in 2001. Members of the platoon have been charged with dismembering and photographing corpses, as well as hoarding a skull and other human bones.

The subsequent investigation has raised accusations about whether the military ignored warnings that the out-of-control soldiers were committing atrocities. The father of one soldier said he repeatedly tried to alert the Army after his son told him about the first killing, only to be rebuffed.

So... I decided to write the Washington Post a letter -- in the form of a comment in the comments section of tis article, because I've learned it's just useless to write these people letters, they never print mine, I'm just too fucking verbose.

First -- I'm utterly horrified by this, though unsurprised. Men have been committing atrocities in wars since wars have been happening.

Second -- that header disgusts me: "Obama's War." I known he's been President almost 2 years, and made ...the disastrous decision to escalate the war - but honestly -- "Obama's War?" We've been there over 9 years, Obama's been President ALMOST 2... I'd say this is still MOSTLY George W. Bush's war. And the blame for its grotesque mismanagement -- and ultimate failure, which almost anyone with foresight can predict with certitude -- rests mostly, as well, on that idiot's shrugging, giggling shoulders.

"Obama's War," my aunt Hilda. I see the corporate media got their marching papers from their GOP masters. Tell me, how long DID it take, exactly, before you all waited to start flaying this President in print?

... continued ...

Kendrick Meek; Blast BP and Corporate Irresponsibility

copyright © 2010 Betsy L. Angert.  BeThink.org

Whispers whirled around the White House, on The Hill, within the Department of Justice, and finally filtered down to the streets.  In truth, talk could be heard on the avenues, where average Americans roam, long before declarations came from above.   Should BP CEO Tony Hayward Go to Prison?  The public wonders.  What would the Obama Administration do.  Countless clamored; with full knowledge that President Bush's DOJ Killed a Criminal Probe Into BP.  It was believed that the potential indictments threatened the most senior officials.  More recently, words of warrants have become a distinct possibility.  Criminal charges are being considered against BP in regards to the Gulf oil rig tragedy.

More political doppelgangers come to the forefront:

SEPARATED at BIRTH - two embattled activists: WikiLeaks Editor Julian Assange and TV host Bill Maher.
             

Well, before Christine O'Donnell takes away the punchbowl (in a manner of speaking) - why not stop in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....    

George Michael was sentenced to 8 weeks in jail today for driving while intoxicated.

I am simply stunned by the sheer number of gay jokes and rape jokes already made at the Huffington Post today.

The lack of empathy on display... the homophobia...

Why am I surprised? This is, after all, an era that has brought out the hitherto hidden racists who were so disgusted by President Obama's election that they simply couldn't keep themselves a secret anymore...

In the recently posted piece titled "Main St. and Fox Ave.," Karmafish said the following in a comment attached thereto:

What I find interesting
about this Koran burning stupidity is, once again, the Boundaries of Hatred.

Some small-change schmuck announces that he is going to burn the Koran and the western left goes into a tizzy.  

Jesus.

Of course, burning the Koran is wrong and stupid and hateful.  No one with two brain cells to rub together would doubt that.

But, in truth, while I oppose this incitement, what I fail to understand is why the progressive movement is so comfortable with other incitements to hatred?

That's what I do not get.

I have a response:

My morning commute sends me through an interesting section of road.  The speed limit drops abruptly from 45 to 35, and a couple of hundred yards later there is a school zone.  The pavement is marked, the sign is up, and the light is flashing unless I'm unusually early or late for work. The only thing missing is the "20 mph" addendum at the bottom of the school zone sign.

This creates some confusion among drivers.  Most, though not all, slow to 35, as required, and the majority slow a bit further when they reach the flashing school zone sign.  A few drop all the way to 20, and probably the same number sail through the area with no regard for the sign at all.

By Request SEPARA .... well, someone recently wondered:

is Alfred E. Neuman the "missing link" ....

....between Kevin Costner

..... and a future British PM Tony Blair (from 1986)?

On second thought ... why not skip that question and just stop in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....