Israeli officials said Friday that the government would authorize construction of hundreds of new housing units in West Bank settlements in advance of a building freeze of six to nine months aimed at restarting peace talks with the Palestinians.

Please excuse me if I don't cry when missiles rain down on these units.

Looks like Van Jones probably won't be around for the long-haul.

Seriously?

Calling for the Bush administration to be investigated concerning 9/11 and public saying Republicans are asshole, which, to a person, they are, is grounds for a pressured resignation? Sigh.

The AP ran a photo of a Marine attacked in Afghanistan. The Pentagon isn't pleased.

I'm deeply sorry for the family's loss, and sympathize with their desire not to see their son's broken body displayed, but the American public should see more pictures like this. We ought to know what we've gotten ourselves in to.

I read Gate's letter earlier, and it's a good letter, but I think the AP was right to run the picture. What I don't understand is why the picture can't be ran anonymously? Seems like that would edify the public and help protect the privacy and feelings of the family as well.

I'm also not so sure the Pentagon doesn't have an ulterior motive in this particular case since the solider did not die on the battlefield, but on the operating table. He left the field on a helicopter in stable condition.

Rush Limbaugh's fill-in host today raised the prospect of secession.

To create a new country in New Hampshire! Bwa ha ha ha ha! The new Granite-Brained State! Vermont is going to kick their asses!

Seriously, I can't stop laughing at this. This so totally serves the Union Leader right. Ha ha ha ha ha!

Rush Limbaugh's fill-in host today raised the prospect of secession.

* In a surprise move, International Brotherhood of Teamsters leader James Hoffa said he wants a health care reform bill, but would be satisfied if there was no public option.

The fix is in. Setting us up for the Obama's Wednesday cop-out on the public option.

* The president's team is not looking at U.S. policy in Afghanistan the same way. There are apparently some pretty stark divisions among leading administration officials.

One more year we will be there as long as we were in Vietnam. With all his compromise with the wingnuts and his war continuance I'm missing Hillary. Can we do a the Democratic Primaries over again? The "little" things that bothered me about Obama then have turned out to be his major traits. We been had.

* The AP ran a photo of a Marine attacked in Afghanistan. The Pentagon isn't pleased.

The Pentagon remembers well that one of the key turning points in public opinion about Vietnam was images of American dead appearing in the media along with horrific images of the carnage left after bombing raids. That's why they have worked so hard to keep the war sanitized in the American media.

I've long believed that one of the reasons support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are lower in Europe is because their press coverage tends to be far more graphic is depicting the human cost of war. In America its treated as something happening 'over there' in vague foreign places that most people can't even find on a map and the human side of the equation is almost completely forgotten.

doubtful is correct, such images should be far more common in our media. War IS NOT A VIDEO GAME and the lives lost or destroyed are not statistics flashed on a screen like a scorecard.

I think the requirement to buy health insurance should be tied to whether the reform bill turns out to one without a public option that forces us to buy what Digby calls "crappy insurance" from private insurers. That's another thing Hillary was against.

* James K. Glassman, best known for his silly "Dow 36,000" book, will lead George W. Bush's "action-oriented think tank." Seems like a perfect match.

True. We might get to 36,000 DOW but we'll have to use wheelbarrows full of dollrs to buy a share of stock.

"George W. Bush's "action-oriented think tank.""

Cause thinkin's fer sissies!

Re: Pawlenty's hysterical response to the Obama message to students:

WCCO TV, from the Twin Cities, just covered T-Paw's comments side-by-side with video of him politicizing his interactions with students in 2003.

He encouraged the kids to talk to their parents about how their wages were stagnant.

Rush Limbaugh's fill-in host today raised the prospect of secession.

Can you imagine the collective IQ surge if they really did secede? I'm having a hard time seeing a downside.

'...Tim Geithner's vision for regulating the financial industry looks pretty good...'

HA ! HA !
Is this gonna be sent to the Gang of Six AFTER they Fix Healtch Care ??

Obama is WEAK and COWARDLY

I should have voted for Joe Lieberman

Wow, turned down the endorsement of of a terminally unfunny cartoon duck! That there's some principles.

Looks like Van Jones probably won't be around for the long-haul.

Why the hell should he resign? Screw the GOP. Cheney says "Go fuck yourself" to a Senator on the Senate floor - no consequences. Every fucking Republican Congressmen has fully embraced and advanced one or several whack-job conspiracies over the past 10 months - no consequences. If he resigns, it's just another example of pussy Democrats bowing down to the inanity.

P.S. Republicans ARE assholes.

ARctic Report Card

2009 data not included yet.

Declining Solar Output?

If the "Maunder Minimum" caused the "Little Ice Age", and if this decline continues, then the earth will cool off instead of warming up.

Sorry I can't make a working link much of the time. I'm dumb as well as dishonest.

Don't worry it. We assumed you were American

MatthewRQuarreler: Sorry I can't make a working link much of the time. I'm dumb as well as dishonest.

This SUMMER in music!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2zWXpdZo8g

Jackson 5 - Doctor My Eyes

The fix is in. Setting us up for the Obama's Wednesday cop-out on the public option.

I have two words for BHO if he fucks us on the public option: ONE TERM.

Arctic Report Card

Another site that is regularly updated.

Tim Geithner's vision for regulating the financial industry looks pretty good.

There will be NO regulation.

You and BHO left the door open and the horse done left the barn, Timmeh. Your job is waiting at Goldman.

more practice.

Extra long hunting season for Hudson Bay polar bears because the ice took longer than usual to melt. File under: Weather, Not Climate. Or "Good news for polar bears is bad news for banded seals."

World's Climate Could Cool First, Warm Later,

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17742-worlds-climate-could-cool-first-warm-later.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

in this environment it could only add fuel to the dim.

But bluedogs got elected because of progressive support too...

Obama Asks Liberals How Far They're Willing to Compromise on Public Option

NBC reports that Obama reminded the group [Progressives] that they enjoy the security of representing safely Democratic districts.

I just emailed my bluedog congresswoman. Told her that if Obama caves on the public option on Wednesday I can guarantee her that at least three votes won't be there for her in the midterms.
Also told her those same votes won't be there for Obama in 2012.
And that the democratic party will never see another dollar from me.

No. Caving. Here.
Bluedogs won't win their districts without the support of progressives.
Now is the time to remind them...

Pork chops will become soggier and paler as the world warms, say veterinary scientists. . . .

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17735-warmer-climate-could-make-succulent-meat-a-memory.html

Since I'm late (again), I'd like to answer here markg8's question from the middle of the day, regarding the McDonnell's harem.

Contrary to Tom Cleaver's supposition (barefoot and pregnant, home schooled), he allows all his female folk to get educated and to work. So they do. He seems to think that that's enough of a proof that he's changed his views and/or that htey had never been as bad as represented. Me, I think it's a case of "quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi"; *his* women can work and get educated, it's the *others* (especially the poor) who ought to stay at home and breed. Just so we always have a good supply of underpaid and helpless "house elves" (I'm on the 4th volume of Harry Potter)

"A NATO jet blasted two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban in northern Afghanistan, setting off a huge fireball Friday that killed up to 90 people, Afghan officials said."

I seriously doubt it took 30 to 45 to 56 Taliban (take your pick of reports) to hijack two tanker trucks.

Whatever happened to the standing policy that air support was only to be utilized if allied positions were in danger of being overrun ?

"In a surprise move, International Brotherhood of Teamsters leader James Hoffa said he wants a health care reform bill, but would be satisfied if there was no public option."

Where's the surprise ? Hoffa routinely backs the Republicans.

Exlibra, regarding your endeavor into Harry Potter. Prepare for a wild ride when you get to six and seven.

I never planned to read the series, but after the x-tian right started going apoplectic about them, I bought them. "Just doing my part to piss off the xtian right." I fell in love with them. I'm still not sure I'm satisfied with the ending of the series, though. I'd love for JK to do an entire epilogue book, instead of the tidbits she's released on her website and through interviews.

Slings and arrows

thorin-1: doubtful is correct, such images should be far more common in our media.

I agree. When the Taliban throw acid in woman's face and slit a man's throat and stuff his balls in this mouth can we see those images too?

Dale: With all his compromise with the wingnuts and his war continuance I'm missing Hillary.

I agree. But for different reasons: She supports sending more troops to Afghanistan. And of course, if Hillary was our president, does anybody think a republican named Olympia Snowe would be the most important person in the Health Care debate? Jesus but that is lame....

And of course, if Hillary was our president, does anybody think a republican named Olympia Snowe would be the most important person in the Health Care debate? Jesus but that is lame....

Posted by: koreyel

Well said. Remember the knock on Hillary was that she would draw too much right-wing ire? At least maybe she would know how to battle it. Obama doesn't seem to. He needs to find some good basketball analogies and block those wingnuts out and maybe throw an elbow or two.

Truth

Dale: Remember the knock on Hillary was that she would draw too much right-wing ire?

Well actually yeah. Dammit. I was one of the dummies pushing that meme. I get a lot of things right, but man, I may have made a monster error in backing Barack over Hillary to the point of incendiary inter-party warfare. We will know that one way or another come Truth-or-Consequences Wednesday. But it sure looks like the dog I bet on: "don't got no hunt in him." You almost expect him to ask Olympia Snowe if he should keep troops in Afghanistan...

Consequences

If/When Obama caves, I wonder if Hillary might reconsider running a primary challenge.
That's about the only thing, that might keep me interested in American politics...

Anyone else think Ben Nelson looks like W C Fields in a fright wig?

I suspect he is quite the tippler, too.

Blog of the day
Jon Talton, the Rogue Columnist:

It's gonna be a long three-and-a-half years.

When all the autopsies are completed on the Obama administration's early train wreck, all the shoulda-woulda-coulda, this is the most salient point. Whatever eloquence the president musters on Wednesday night, it's over -- or almost so. One wonders if the crew in the White House is still so dazzled by the whole West Wing thing that they don't even realize their peril, and hence the nation's peril.

We know a few things. Obama is no FDR. Not only does he lack Roosevelt's deviousness, but he also has no Harry Hopkins, Rex Tugwell, Harold M. Ickes, Adolf Berle, Tommy Corcoran or Raymond Moley. Rahm Emmanuel? Give me a break. He may be a tough guy in the tussle over office space, but he and the president's other advisers have done Obama no favors, much less provided the ideas, toughness and administrative savvy of FDR's Brains Trust and other close aides.

The closer comparisons so far are less flattering. Herbert Hoover -- another brilliant, accomplished, initially beloved public servant who froze in the headlights. and became more detached as crisis progressed. Jimmy Carter -- elected in a spirit of hope and revulsion against Republican crimes (literally) who crashed early on the rocks of Congress and never recovered. Obama lacks Carter's insufferable sanctimoniousness, but he has revealed one ruinous similarity: weakness. Successful presidents are never weak.

Continued here...

Jim Alger's "Common Sense" Radio - On now!

Did you guys see this report by Andrea Mitchell on the RW "partisan echo chamber?" Short and sweet, but nice to hear someone finally saying it.

http://nightly.newsvine.com/_video/2009/09/04/3227169-obama-gets-schooled-in-culture-wars

Consider this a comment on everything that's been posted this week:

Published on Friday, September 4, 2009 by TruthDig.com

PROGRESSIVES PAY THE PRICE FOR CONFUSING A PARTY WITH A MOVEMENT
by David Sirota

The difference between parties and movements is simple: Parties are loyal to their own power regardless of policy agenda; movements are loyal to their own policy agenda regardless of which party champions it. This is one of the few enduring political axioms, and it explains why the organizations purporting to lead an American progressive "movement" have yet to build a real movement, much less a successful one.

Though the 2006 and 2008 elections were billed as progressive movement successes, the story behind them highlights a longer-term failure. During those contests, most leaders of Washington's major labor, environmental, anti-war and anti-poverty groups spent millions of dollars on a party endeavor-specifically, on electing a Democratic president and Democratic Congress. In the process, many groups subverted their own movement agendas in the name of electoral unity.

The effort involved a sleight of hand. These groups begged their grass-roots members-janitors, soccer moms, veterans and other "regular folks"-to cough up small-dollar contributions in return for the promise of movement pressure on both parties' politicians. Simultaneously, these groups went to dot-com and Wall Street millionaires asking them to chip in big checks in exchange for advocacy that did not offend those fat cats' Democratic politician friends (or those millionaires' economic privilege).

This wasn't totally dishonest. Many groups sincerely believed that Democratic Party promotion was key to progressive movement causes. And anyway, during the Bush era, many of those causes automatically helped Democrats by indicting Republicans.

But after the 2008 election, the strategy's bankruptcy is undeniable.

As we now see, union dues underwrote Democratic leaders who today obstruct serious labor law reform and ignore past promises to fix NAFTA. Green groups' resources helped elect a government that pretends sham "cap and trade" bills represent environmental progress. Health care groups promising to push a single-payer system got a president not only dropping his own single-payer promises, but also backing off a "public option" to compete with private insurance. And anti-war funding delivered a Congress that refuses to stop financing the Iraq mess, and an administration preparing to escalate the Afghanistan conflict.

Of course, frustrated progressives might be able to forgive the groups that promised different results, had these postelection failures prompted course corrections.

For example, had the left's pre-eminent groups responded to Democrats' health care capitulations by immediately announcing campaigns against these Democrats, progressives could feel confident that these groups were back to prioritizing a movement agenda. Likewise, had the big anti-war organizations reacted to Obama's Afghanistan escalation plans with promises of electoral retribution, we would know those organizations were steadfastly loyal to their anti-war brand.

But that hasn't happened. Despite the president's health care retreat, most major progressive groups continue to cheer him on, afraid to lose their White House access and, thus, their Beltway status. Meanwhile, The New York Times reports that Moveon.org has "yet to take a clear position on Afghanistan" while VoteVets' leader all but genuflected to Obama, saying, "People [read: professional political operatives] do not want to take on the administration."

In this vacuum, movement building has been left to underfunded (but stunningly successful) projects like Firedoglake.com, Democracy for America, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and local organizations. And that's the lesson: True grass-roots movements that deliver concrete legislative results are not steered by marble-columned institutions, wealthy benefactors or celebrity politicians-and they are rarely ever run from Washington. They are almost always far-flung efforts by those organized around real-world results-those who don't care about party conventions, congressional cocktail parties or White House soirees they were never invited to in the first place.

Only when enough progressives realize that truism will any movement-and any change-finally commence.

* The AP ran a photo of a Marine attacked in Afghanistan. The Pentagon isn't pleased.

Normally I'd be up for printing anything that sheds some light on the deadly and destructive fallout from the USA's armed conflicts. But in this case the family said they didn't want the picture to run and that should be that.

If photos were being printed on a regular basis and in significant numbers regardless of permission or acquiescence by families then it would just be another part of the bloody overall narrative.

This picture was chosen to make a statement in a public setting where those statements have been non existent. I would think, (and have read), that there are families who would grant permission for on the scene photos of their fallen family members to be published but for whatever reason(s) they aren't.

So AP was bold and just had to finally print a picture of a fallen soldier. Bravo. So where's the next one? And the next one? And the next one? And the next one? If the AP's gonna print pictures they should get on with it. If this is it than they should select a picture that doesn't rub salt in the family's wounds.

I think I'm done with Obama's bipartisan outreach schtick.

I realize the guy was not going to fix 8 years (or even 30 years) of atrocious government overnight.

But fucking Christ, pick one fucking bold stand already. "Well, better drop Van Jones, he might offend some people." "Well, better send more troops to Afghanistan so no one thinks I'm soft on defense." "Well, better pay Palau to take the Gitmo Uighurs, because I could never make the case that the US has a moral obligation to rehabilitate them right here in this country." "Chuck Grassley is a valuable contributor to the Health Care debate."

And exactly how many Senators do Democrats need before they feel comfortable forging ahead with their own agenda? How about 75 Democrats in the Senate? 80? What exactly is the fucking problem? Blue dogs? Enforce party discipline, for fuck's sake. What's the point of even having a party?

Uh oh. We're not getting a fair shake in the press! Hey, no fair! Fox News isn't telling the truth. Hey, why are millions of people listening to Rush Limbaugh? Hey, that mean lady in the crowd said Obama was a Nazi Socialist Islamofascist! How can we ever compete with that?

We can always cave in. Republicans can't hate us forever, you know!

Yet more proof, from Afghanistan, that the US air force is taking pay-offs from the Taliban. Does a week ever go by without some idiot ordering up an air strike to make a joke of our attempts at convincing the Afghans we're on their side? How stupid are these people, and why are they being trusted with large, dangerous weapons?

Publish a list of Fox News advertisers. Many of us will participate in a national boycott of commercial interests who support the right-wing craziness.

We need to start a campaign to put pressure on Republican Congress members to rein in/speak out about the poison and vitriol from the Right.

Where are we as a nation on track to be in two, five, ten years when the U.S. President has to have his address to children posted online to assure parents that he means no harm?

"Israeli officials said Friday that the government would authorize construction of hundreds of new housing units in West Bank settlements in advance of a building freeze of six to nine months aimed at restarting peace talks with the Palestinians. The announcement prompted a sharp rebuke from the White House and the Palestinian leadership."

Ooooooo... a sharp rebuke! That'll show 'em!

browser technica non colleagues shut mid added though

The link to the blog at the top (with the image Political Animal) in fact leads to
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/. I've already been to college, and want to read the blog!

" Why do you suppose huge rallies in support of health care reform go unreported?"

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest maybe because reporting that people SUPPORT reform is against the agenda of the Corporatists who own the MSM.

REDUCE AID BY $1m FOR EVERY ILLEGAL HOME BUILT ON OCCUPIED LAND

For every illegal home built by Israel on occupied Palestinian land, the U.S. Government should immediately

REDUCE its military and civil AID to the Israeli state by $1m (one million Dollars).

Those who bite the hand that feeds them must learn that arrogance comes before a fall.

Without American tax dollars, Israel is just another olive-growing Mediterranean state, little different from Cyprus or Malta.

Israel needs to learn that AIPAC does not control American foreign policy - any longer!

Look more beautiful on your wedding day wearing gorgeous wedding dress that are unique and with lasting impression.