News & Comment

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, & many blessings to count. And now, for the universal antidote to those warm and fuzzy post-food coma feelings: The News.

The Yellow Doggerel Democrat would like to alert you to the fact that Selective Service and the Department of Education have begun comparing databases. Link thanks to Eschaton.

Speaking of Eschaton: In honor of the holiday we just had, we are pointed to some Native American bloggers. Will a Texas election be overturned by legislative fiat? Finally, don't fall for the red-blue trap.

Making Light tells us that the troops need calling cards. Seriously. A note on emergency preparedness, and in a delightful tribute to creative theology, we are pointed to the Night of the Antinomian.

MyDD: More on the issue of issues. A post on the media framing of the DNC Chair race with a Brand Democrat ad supporting Howard Dean as chair, and also, a scorecard for the kerfuffle thus far. We haven't heard the last from Move America Forward, a front group run by a Republican PR firm that proudly lists the Nicaraguan Contras as former clients. Major companies to avoid if you're a Democrat or progressive. A discussion on the role of the political party.

Juan Cole more background on MEMRI, the organization that threatened to sue him, and on the blog response to the threat. Also, fallout from Fallujah just keeps coming, and we get more casualty reports.

DailyKos: National Guard soldiers preparing for deployment go on record saying that their training is inadequate, and so is the equipment they're likely to have on arriving in Iraq. Numerous studies over many years indicate that everyone is a potential torturer. Apparently, running a one-party state is harder than they thought. An orthopaedic trauma surgeon compares healthcare services in the US vs. the UK. Why ignoring voter suppression is a betrayal of minority voters.

Prometheus 6 shares some of the better excerpts from Bill Maher's New Rules, some alarming info on Asia's demographic time bomb, notes from the tanking of the dollar, and the planned new US passports that has the ACLU concerned about data privacy.

Digby makes a case for lawsuit reform and separation of church and state, explains the relationship between freedom and community, or how the Puritans became Yankees, and shares the history of the long-standing, bipartisan, popular sentiment in support of abolishing the electoral college.

This Western Democrat wrote before it was announced that our squeaker of a governor's race in Washington State would be recounted again, but makes some interesting points on bridging the urban-rural divide.

Feministing: Louisiana's public disservice announcements. A positive protest against violence in Afghanistan. What may be the first gay movie hero, even though they've gone to great pains to downplay it in the promo. The ongoing fight for the right to breastfeed.

How to Save the World on taking action vs. taking responsibility, and how the two concepts are at war with each other in US politics.

A glimpse into the freakish mind of G. Gordon Liddy, Nixon's Watergate thug.

TalkLeft: Racial sentencing disparities have only grown over the years. The general in charge of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib for the torture has been promoted.

Electrolite shares ten things the Chinese do better.

Ukraine talks about an East-West split, and a Guardian columnist declares western coverage to be hopelessly biased. But while I don't know very much about Ukrainian politics myself, any left of center afficionado of US politics could easily find Colin Powell's pronouncements on the sanctity of the Ukrainian vote count simply hilarious:

..."If the Ukrainian government does not act immediately and responsibly there will be consequences for our relationship, for Ukraine's hopes for a Euro-Atlantic integration and for individuals responsible for perpetrating fraud," Powell said in a briefing at the State Department.

"We have been following developments very closely and are deeply disturbed by the extensive and credible reports of fraud in the election," he added. "We call for a full review of the conduct of the election and the tallying of election results." ...

That's the Republicans for you. Charitably declaring that the citizens of other countries should have it better than we do here at home.