SAR #12323

Do you have the right to have a secret?

Winning Is Not The Point: Israel has four choices in the current 'crisis', but is considering only three, all of which they've tried before and all of which have eventually failed. The fourth – workable – option would be to honestly negotiate a two-state solution, but that interferes with Israel's view of its manifest destiny: a final solution to the Palestinian question. Too bad a few million Palestinians are standing in the way. Why now? Because the US election is over, Israel's leaders face re-election in January, it will serve as a warm-up for the war with Iran (or insure that there is one) and makes the question of UN recognition for Palestine moot for now.

Shelf Life: The buyers lining up to buy Twinkies shouldn't panic. The name will be sold off, they'll be made in Mexico and you can go on getting fat without buying them on E-Bay. The whole thing was a way for the investors to gut the company and blame the unions.

Tomorrow, If There Is One: Obama says he is “a firm believer that climate change is real... And as a consequence, I think we’ve got an obligation to future generations to do something about it.” But not now, Martha, I've got a headache fiscal cliff tonight. Instead, he wants to dither a bit longer listen to experts over the next several months and then conduct an “education process” about long-term steps to address the warming planet, without actually doing anything.

Walk, Don't Run: The US Embassy in Athens is telling US citizens of the non-white, non-Aryan variety to get out of Dodge before Golden Dawn beats them to death.

Politics As Usual: Democratic Senator Sam Levin says that UN Ambassador Susan Rice is suffering “one of the most unfair attacks I’ve ever seen.” While Senator McCain demands she go on TV and apologize for telling the truth as she knew it (and doing the job the Administration and Intelligence Community wanted done).

Heads/Tails? If someone flipped a coin and had it come up heads 300 times in a row, would you begin to think there was something wrong. If you are under 27 years old, you have never experienced a month that was colder-than-average. Not a single one.

How the Cow ate the Cabbage: When it came to the business of running a campaign, it was the former community organizer and not the business tycoon who had the more technologically savvy organization and made more effective use of its resources, including geek power, and who won. Which was the point of the exercise.

Words, Words: Newt Gingrich says Israel should keep “methodically killing people and taking out assets” without considering a negotiated settlement or the children. He wants to “end all this talk about the peace process.” It's worked so well for the US, you know.

More, Not Less: Social Security is not in danger of becoming insolvent any time soon; it will be able to pay full benefits until at least 2033. Then lifting the current payroll tax cap and applying it to all income would make it solvent indefinitely. End of story. So let's see what we can do to improve the benefits for everyone, now.

Inertia: Even if global warming were to stop tomorrow, many glaciers in the Himalayas would continue to melt and shrink for many years. But not to worry, global warming is not going to stop any time soon. No any time in the foreseeable future, either.

For Whom The Bell Tolls:The new National Defense Authorization Act – expected to pass Congress soon – bans the military from expanding its use of biofuels. Without this largely unheralded support, many biofuel projects are doomed. DoD had been trying to cut its dependence on petroleum in half by 2020.

If You Can't Beat 'em:About 5,000 police officers marched through Madird over the weekend, protesting cuts in pay and layoffs and apologizing to the citizens for not being able to arrest the bankers and politicians.

Porn O'Graph: Austerity works workers.

The Parting Shot:

A  golden dawn.