As I am sure you all now by now, Al Franken was recently declared the victor over Norm Coleman for the senate seat from Minnesota.  What you may not know is that at least at one time, Al looked really good in tights.  This is a video from Solid Gold, some time in the eighties, of Al Franken and Tom Davis, impersonating the Stones - I'd like to see Norm Coleman gyrate like this- proving again that Democrats are much sexier than Republicans:

The continuing economic downturn is having growing effects in many areas.  One of them is the declining revenue most municipalities are receiving from recycling, which is endangering recycling programs across the country.

Most of Outagamie County currently has no recycling at all , since the contracted recycling vendor has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and can no longer afford to handle the county's recyclables.  This could easily just be a temporary oddity, but a continuing decline in recycling revenue could make this a common occurrence, filling our landfills with even more needless junk. 

H/T to TrulyTerrie

President-elect Obama and Congress should charge forward, think big, and run roughshod over Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky).

McConnell is the main obstacle now between enacting a progressive public policy in multiple spheres, promising obstruction and more of Bushism.

Now is not the time for the prevent defense.

That’s a football metaphor for a defensive posture intended to protect a lead that usually allows opponents to rack up yardage and score points, often resulting in losing a game. [My boyfriend tells me football has changed somewhat, but this metaphor still works].

Wisconsin is home to a multitude of outstanding citizens who have fought for the very fabric of our democratic government against a radicalized Republican Party that has become home to a faction of corrupt, militaristic reactionaries. Here are a few who have fought for freedom and the rule of law:
 
Russ Feingold – Feingold’s dedicated work for the preservation of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights have won him the respect of citizens the world over.
 
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin – In the face of the war on women’s reproductive rights, Planned Parenthood has stood fast in their service to women, and won a landmark legislative achievement for women protecting their right to health care.
 
Attorney Lester Pines and every organization who successfully fought our corrupt Attorney General in the Van Hollen v. WI GAB Voter Suppression Case.
 
Navy veteran Keith Roberts — An innocent victim of the U.S. Dept of Justice and U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (VA), Roberts continues his court battles that have made it greatly more difficult for the VA to actually jail our veterans for receiving benefits to which they are entitled.
 

What had been a truce between Israel and the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip seems to have abruptly come to a halt; with the Israelis blaming Hamas and Hamas blaming Israeli oppression of the displaced Palestinians for the simmering hostilities that are now boiling over into military-scale violence.

Before the recent holidays and an immoderate amount of snow buried me in things that could not be done on the computer we had been having a conversation about the strategic importance of our relationship with Egypt.

Obama We’re Hopeful (Nelson 2008, tune of “O Come All Ye Faithful”)

Obama we’re hopeful, cautiously believing

you meant when you told us that you’d end this war,

 Sooner than later, let’s get our troops back state-side!

 OBAMA WE’LL BE WATCHING, OBAMA WE’LL BE MARCHING, OBAMA WE’LL BE HOLDING YOUR FEET TO THE FIRE!

Ensconced in the White House, trying to get your bearings,

Oil men and gen’rals whisp’ring in those big ears,

Filling your head with doubts and grim scenarios,

OBAMA WE’LL BE WATCHING, OBAMA WE’LL BE MARCHING, OBAMA WE’LL BE HOLDING YOUR FEET TO THE FIRE!

That could be the theme song* for Camp Hope, which opens a 19-day presence in the president-elect's Hyde Park neighborhood on New Year's Day, also known as Emancipation Proclamation Day. Activities and actions are planned daily in Chicago, ending on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Jan. 19.

Here's who you will not see on CBS News, for example, anytime soon as Israel kills innocent Gazan civilians:

Update: Israeli Navy attacks and wounds human rights 'Dignity' ship in International Waters

Update: Washington Post: Food and Medical Supplies Grow Scarce in the Gaza Strip.

Personally, I can no longer regard Israel as a moral entity; it has lost its status as a state dedicated to humanism, veering into savagery in its worst attacks in decades. The only question is: Will we remain silent?

The sick irony of history bares its bizarre head as we head into the new year.

As Israel continues its strikes in Gaza enraging the Arab street, the Free Gaza movement is breaking the Israeli siege in another voyage of the Dignity ship to draw world attention to "Israel's draconian policies on the civilians of Gaza."

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday 29th December 2008

The ScreamYou may have noticed that Uppitywis was out of commision most of last night and into this morning.  We're in the process of re-thinking our web hosting arrangement because our current arrangement is going to disappear in January.  We're investigating several different hosting paradigms for Uppity Wisconsin and the other web sites my company supports.  As part of that we moved Uppity Wisconsin yesterday to a smaller server arrangement, along with several other web sites, and the resources required really swamped the new server (we thought this might happen) so as of this morning we're back on our parent company's own web server, at least for the time being.

So - it's possible you'll see some occasional outages over the next few weeks as we try to move to a new hosting solution that we can actually afford for the site, and that will handle the load.  We're working on it, but we don't have much money to work with and this site is actually fairly popular, and the economic downturn is having some effect on our ability to find low-cost hosting.

One of the continual drum-beats of the energy industry is the promotion of the myth of clean coal.  If we need to continue the intense us of fossil fuel in this country, it's a reassuring notion to believe that somehow the environmental damage of coal burning could be stopped, while still using the vast resource of coal the US has. 

However, as a Christmas present to the people of Tennessee , we're reminded this morning just how clean coal can be, as a wall of fly-ash sludge has breached its containment pond, and washed over 400 acres of land.  This has contaminated the water supply for a large number of people and made several homes uninhabitable.  I expect that the cleanup for this incident will be lengthy and extremely expensive. The current push to continue to use coal and nuclear energy, despite the long-term environmental damage caused by both, is an irresponsible approach to stewardship of our country and the planet, and as we continue to reap the rewards of not maintaining the fragile infrastructure that holds this garbage in place, we'll see this sort of incident more and more.