The Best Short YouTube of the Year, 2010 Winner

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On the folly of hoping for A while rewarding B

Mayor Janet Taylor pens on op-ed piece calling for high-speed rail in the Willamette Valley. While she is also pushing to blow hundreds of millions on a new auto bridge to speed commuters up and down I-5 and blowing millions on an airport that will probably never have scheduled air service again.

Do not miss "INSIDE JOB" at Salem Cinema

Image via WikipediaWall Street, all Republicans and the vast majority of elected Democrats, caught in their permanent cringe, all hope that you will NOT go to Salem Cinema at Broadway & Market to see "INSIDE JOB." Reason enough for you to go.

But there's also that the movie does a good job explaining why Salem is hurting so badly now -- thanks to the bipartisan alliance of thugs who waltz between Wall St. and "regulatory" jobs in Washington, people throughout the mid-Valley are being laid off, laid bare, laid out, and laid six feet under, all for the greater glory and profit of those thugs -- not a single one of whom Obama has even spoken harshly to, much less jailed.

Do not miss it.

UPDATE: The movie does a great job unmasking the thugs, the same crowd that Krugman, the Nobelist who should also win a Pulitzer, skewers here.

A kind word for Obama: At least he's not insane

Image by yksin via FlickrBarry O. has been a terrible disappointment, a man who never went into a negotiation without first giving his opponent all his bargaining chips.

UPDATE: Alas, it is true that he has a spine of overcooked pasta. He doesn't even know how to turn aggressive overreaching by his opponents to his advantage. Pitiful.

But then you read something like this and you realize how lucky we are that John McCain and Sarah Palin aren't in charge.

An Unknown Soldier

. . . Several U.S. senators had gathered at the Halifax International Security Forum, an annual gathering that is the brainchild of Peter MacKay, Canada's defense minister. One of them, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, immediately put President Obama on notice.

Resurgent Republicans would be looking for him to "be tough with Iran beyond sanctions." If it came to war, the United States should "sink their navy, destroy their air force and deliver a decisive blow to the Revolutionary Guard, in other words neuter that regime."

Sure, Graham conceded, "you can expect, for a period of time, all hell to break loose." Another war is the "last thing America wants." But a nuclear-armed Iran was unacceptable and containment "off the table."

This is dangerous talk from an influential Republican who sits on the Armed Services Committee. The United States, in its current depleted state, cannot afford another war in a Muslim country. It cannot find itself fighting across a 2,000-mile front stretching through Arab, Persian and Central Asian worlds. You could forget about the tenuous progress in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Iran can flick switches. From Lebanon to Gaza, on Israel's borders, tensions would boil.

But Graham's words were instructive. The pressure on Obama from Congress is going to grow. David Broder of the Washington Post even suggested recently that a war in Iran might spur the U.S. economy, just as World War II did.

The United States does not need the stimulus package from hell. This is a moment of great American uncertainty, a volatile passage. Sunni Pakistan has nukes and Al Qaeda. Shiite Iran has neither. It would be tragic to ignore the lessons of Iraq, stumble onto a war train armed with flimsy evidence, and imagine Iran is close to a bomb when there's no conclusive evidence it's made the decision to build one. Remember, the mullahs love ambiguity. It's their element, along with maddening inertia. To risk "breakout" is to risk the Islamic Republic. Hence the waiting-for-Godot aspects of their nuclear zigzag.

When I heard those words — "neuter that regime" — what I saw was a shattered body in Tampa. A third U.S war is inconceivable.

WORD: But no cop, DA, or judge will be jailed or even fined over this

Image via Wikipedia

Death for the death penalty

By Leonard Pitts Jr.
. . . Graves' release came after his story appeared in Texas Monthly magazine (www.texasmonthly.com). The article by Pamela Colloff detailed how he was convicted even though no physical evidence tied him to the crime, even though he had no motive to kill six strangers, even though three witnesses testified he was home at the time of the slaughter.

The case against Graves rested entirely upon jailhouse denizens who claimed they'd heard him confess and upon one Robert Carter, who admitted committing the crime, but initially blamed Graves. Carter, executed in 2000, recanted that claim repeatedly, most notably to District Attorney Charles Sebesta the day before Sebesta put him on the stand to testify against Graves. Defense attorneys say Sebesta never shared that exculpatory tidbit with them, even though he was required to do so. . . .

Will Rogers's ghost writes from the present about the GOP takeover

Image via WikipediaKenneth Chapman
Astoria

WORD: our banana republic

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Oregonian Nick Kristof, with his mokita (New Guinean word for the truth that everyone knows but no one admits).

Grandpa, do you know who I am?

Image via WikipediaAn important subject at Salem Public Library:

The Alzheimer’s Network of Oregon presents

Grandpa Do You Know Who I Am?

6 p.m. Wednesday, November 17
Loucks Auditorium, Main Library, Salem

Grandpa Do You Know Who I Am is an HBO Project Alzheimer’s DVD presentation featuring Maria Shriver and focusing on Alzheimer’s disease and the family, especially grandchildren. Following the presentation of this DVD there will be a question and answer session with a panel of children and professionals.

Grandparents, grandchildren, and families are encouraged to attend. This program is presented by the Alzheimer’s Network, a non-profit organization serving those dealing with Alzheimer’s in Benton, Linn, Marion and Polk counties, with sponsorship from the Cedar Village Memory Care Community.

This presentation is free and open to the public. More information about the program and the Alzheimer’s Network is available at 503-364-8100 or 1-866-425-9638 or www.alznet.org.

Probably last chance to tell DEQ to stop climate destabilization at Boardman

Boardman needs to get off coal sooner, not later.

WORD: Our winner-take-all economy is rooted in our winner-take-all politics

Important event in Portland at the end of the month:

Winner-Take-all Politics w/Paul Pierson

1st Unitarian Church, SW 12th and Salmon, Portland OR
November 30, 2010, 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Sponsored by Alliance for Democracy - Portland

Winner-Take-All Politics, How Washington Made the Rich Richer - and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class, with co-author Paul Pierson

A groundbreaking work that identifies the real culprit behind one of the greatest economic crimes of our time - the growing inequality of incomes between the vast majority of Americans and the richest of the rich.

Paul Pierson and his co-author, Jacob Hacker, demonstrate convincingly that the usual suspects - foreign trade and financial globalization, technological changes in the workplace, increased education at the top - are largely innocent of the charges against them. Instead, they indict an unlikely suspect - American politics. The winner-take-all economy is primarily a result of winner-take-all politics.

Sponsored by Alliance for Democracy, Economic Justice Action Group of the First Unitarian Church and KBOO - Community supported radio

Cost: $5 - 20 sliding scale, no one turned away. More information: David Delk,, Alliance for Democracy. 503.232.5495