Have you registered to vote?

I'm sure they missed a few points, but .. they get enough of them.



hattip to Yo,yenta!

Vanity, Vanity, all is vanity

Technically safe for work, however, the mental images invoked.. ew. Not so pretty.

The New Club Drug: Preparation H

ht: Boing Boing

Another Reason to Vote Obama: Fiscal Responsibility

I know, I know, pushing fiscal responsibility as a selling point for Democrats ... seems weird (it isn't really, but everyone thinks it is). But look here: Jon Taplin writes on his blog that McCain in his latest Senate Financial Disclosure Form

look like he was either running his campaign off the American Express Platinum Card his wife gave him, or they have one hell of a high living lifestyle.

The bulk of the McCains’ obligations stemmed from a pair of American Express credit cards that are held in Cindy McCain’s name. According to the disclosure reports, which present information on debts in a range rather than providing a precise figure, Mrs. McCain owed $100,000 to $250,000 on each card.

I know what American Express charges for interest on a Platinum Card. A fiscally responsible household should probably sell some of the million of Anheuser-Busch stock they own and stop paying that 17% ARP on $500,000 worth of Amex charges. There are some other stark contrasts between the McCains and the Obamas. The McCains have a net worth around $40 million, almost all of it from Cindy’s holdings. The Obama’s net worth is closer to $4 million, most of it earned from Barack’s two recent books. Instead of going into debt they have managed to put $250,000 in a college savings account for their two daughters.

and don't miss the comments, such as, "Oh, and funny how “elitist” is an arrow in the quiver of the right against Obama. Dude, he’s barely out of the middle class by today’s standards."

ht BoingBoing

Palestinians "Shooting Back"

Yes, those scare quotes are there for a reason.



B'tselem has begun a program called "Shooting Back" in which they given out about 100 video cameras to Palestinians over the past year so that when settlers attack them, they can show footage of the attack, instead of just giving a statement to the Israeli police or army.
According to the BBC news,

"The difference is amazing," says Oren Yakobovich, who leads the Shooting Back project.

"When they have the camera, they have proof that something happened. They now have something they can work with, to use as a weapon."

We asked a spokesman from the Susia settlement for a comment on Sunday's incident. He declined.

This video below is being claimed by the BBC to be footage from an elderly shepherd and his wife of four masked men who are beating them for grazing their animals near a settlement (Susia).

I hope that this tool will offer a non-violent way for what's going on to be brought out into the open and taken seriously. Of course, I know that naysayers will claim that it's staged, or payback, or heaven knows what, but there's enough evidence out there that hopefully, we will start to see the necessity to stop denying the truth: that the violence of the settlers is a problem unchecked and vile.