This is Bob Morris from the eco-Leftie Politics in the Zeros - it ranges from antiwar to global warming - guest-blogging today.

Deer Hunting With Jesus is subtitled "Dispatches from America's Class War." The author, who grew up redneck and became a "godless commie", wonders how the Right got the votes of poor whites. Maybe because the Left was asleep? His #1 advice - stop preaching about guns.

Breakthrough favors government spending of $50 billion a year for 10 years developing better, cleaner sources of energy and transportation because private enterprise and reducing energy use can't do it all.

Greviously injured in WWII, his life was saved by a doctor who survived the Armenian genocide. He was the first senator to bring forth a resolution to recognize the genocide. His name may surprise you.

The subslime mortgage debacle is metastasizing into a worldwide credit crisis that some say could trigger a systemic financial meltdown, no joke.

Former House member Cynthia McKinney wants the Green Party 2008 presidential nomination.

Send those tips to bob (at) polizeros (dot) com.

Well, I'm SteveAudio, and it's time for my last jam session here. I want to thank Mike, Nicole, bluegal, and especially Il Maestro, John. It's been fun this week, and I look forward to doing it again sometime.

When the wind blows. . . Fall-out shelters? Nuclear war with David Bowie as the soundtrack?

I will let you down, I will make you hurt. . . waterboarding is controlled drowning in which fluid enters the lungs, and it carries with it the risk of brain damage, internal trauma and death. But that's not important right now. I faxed my Senator, DiFi; here is the letter and her addresses.

Oh, you're so down home girl. . . Did Hillary play the "gender card", or is she, you know, a girl? And has Hillary forgotten the "Vast Right-wing Conspiracy?"

And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmastime. . . Do Evangelicals see Africa as the path to theocracy? And speaking about Africa, is Obama Black enough, or intolerant? Is he tough enough?

If I were a king, if I had everything . . . Only one word to say. Rudy. Oh, and what about Bin-Laden. Wasn't that him I saw over there?

Eat me, drink me, this is only a game. . . Some dietary advice: Soylent Green is PEOPLE!!!!! And a heck of a good film.

It's been a blast, hope everyone had some fun, I know I did. Stop by my place when you get a chance, we (my co-bloggers and I) try to inform and entertain, and hopefully don't step on our tongues too often. Oh, and have someone walk you to your car when you leave tonight. Some guy with a saxophone has been wandering the parking lot muttering to himself.

Someone tipped me to this blog by Brad Bonham on the imperative we all must accept to do what we can to be more environmentally aware.

The alternative to our current system is a system that is unimaginable but begs us all to take the world and our place in it very seriously. All hands will need to be on deck. Every church, organization, business, and citizen will need to dig down deep and figure out if the world and its children are worth saving, and we'll need all the creativity and ingenuity in the world to figure out how to do it. If we do, maybe, just maybe our children will see a bright green future. If we carry on with life like it's business as usual, we might not get a chance to tell our children we're sorry.

So, that's where I've been. On the long, dark journey of a consuming soul who realizes that things in the years ahead will need to change drastically, but hopefully for the better. After all, my journey towards caring started with figuring out how to end poverty, and it took me to the unexpected twists and turns of sustainability. As it turns out, sustainability might help us avert wars as well.

I offer you two links to start your own journey. One is a dark alternative we face if we don't quickly change, and the other is a bright possibility we (hopefully) face if we all unite and realize that living like we give a damn might just mean we and our children get to live to see a better world.

1) Dark - Long Emergency
2) Bright - Worldchanging

John Amato several months ago recommended the documentary A Crude Awakening to me and the ramifications of Peak Oil as examined in the movie have haunted me to this day, and I've really tried to make very mindful choices to be more green. I really weigh how important it is every time I get in my car and try to carpool or use public transportation as much as possible...John laughs at me because I'm resistant to upgrading my pathetically old computer because I hate the notion of how un-environmental that is. Even little things like using compact fluorescent bulbs, canvas shopping bags (the bagger thought I was nuts when I forgot my canvas bags one day and asked him to place the unbagged groceries in the cart directly rather than me taking home any plastic bags) and avoiding using appliances during peak hours does make a big difference.

So in honor of Gore's Nobel win for raising awareness and Blog Action Day, I ask that you share with fellow C&Lers some ideas for making your life more green.

(Photo via Dominic.)

The Sunday Talking Head line-up is ready for the reading. Rep. Charlie Rangle officially has the most annoying green room of the day, having to share it with Howdy Doody Adam Putnam and Family Research Council president Tony Perkins. That's enough to give anyone indigestion. Some discussionon SCHIP, but not too many Bushies willing to go on television and defend Ebenezer's veto and "emergency room health care" plan.

What's catching your eye in the news and on the blogs this morning?

  A team of FBI agents is headed to Baghdad to oversee a murder investigation involving Blackwater security. While they’re there, the agents will be protected by … Blackwater security.

When a team of FBI agents lands in Baghdad this week to probe Blackwater security contractors for murder, it will be protected by bodyguards from the very same firm, the Daily News has learned.

Half a dozen FBI criminal investigators based in Washington are scheduled to travel to Iraq to gather evidence and interview witnesses about a Sept. 16 shooting spree that left at least 11 Iraqi civilians dead.

The agents plan to interview witnesses within the relative safety of the fortified Green Zone, but they will be transported outside the compound by Blackwater armored convoys, a source briefed on the FBI mission said.

"What happens when the FBI team decides to go visit the crime scene? Blackwater is going to have to take them there," the senior U.S. official told The News.

What could possibly go wrong?

Thank the higher being of your choice for journalists like Lara Logan. While Katie Couric stays in the Green Zone and with heavily guarded escorts through a security-cleared market, Logan goes in and slogs through bio-hazardous waste and shows us exactly how much "success" our tax dollars have bought in Afghanistan.

Download | play Download | play ... (h/t David for video)

I so wish I was just being snarky. Atrios found this from the Charlie Rose Show:

I am so horrified by this macho over-compensation manifesting itself as foreign policy that I must again ask, when you say something so heinous, so egregious, so over-the-top offensive, why in the HELL are you allowed a continued place on the national platform?

I think that Tom "F.U." Friedman and the NYTimes public editor deserve to have you ask them that question, don't you? Otherwise, I'm thinking that maybe we should take up a collection to send Tom to Basra (no Kevlar vest in the Green Zone, guarded by 100 troops and Blackhawk helicopters for him) and let him go door to door and see how the Iraqis left would respond.

hi, kids, it's friday at the round up, and you know what that means! it's toon time!! (it is, at least, when skippy the bush kangaroo is in charge!)

ted rall takes a look at the war on terror scorecard, while tom tomorrow wonders about some things. get your war on is strangely intrigued by joe lieberman, and minimum security is going green (as in, frogs).

continuing with this week's economic questions, ampersand of alas, a blog asks, how's your insurance coverage? and august j. pollack asks, hows tom delay's plan to defeat illegal immigration?

elayne riggs doesn't write political toons, but she throws parties for editors of 'comicmix'. and likesunday has a new take on pinky and the brain. and of course, we all remember jon swift's wonderful deconstruction of the rightist toon day by day.

a town called dobson prefers the x-games to baseball. dave the rave prefers penguins. mapaghimagsik would prefer not to have a blue dog.  and skippy's own brett penrose feels bad for sen. ted stevens.

photoshop toons is da bomb! republic of sestakastan explains how the new fisa rules got passed, and we all love this golden oldie from the poor man institute, keyboard kommando komiks!

that's all for now, kids! be sure to send your tips to skippybkroo at aol dot com, in blogtopia, and yes, i coined that phrase!

Reuters Via Yahoo:

Consumers should not eat certain brands of French-cut green beans because of concerns they could be tainted with the toxin that causes botulism, U.S. health officials warned on Friday.

The green beans were manufactured by Lakeside Foods Inc. of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and packaged in 14.5-ounce cans, the Food and Drug Administration said.

The FDA said the beans may not have been processed adequately to eliminate the potential for botulinum toxin, which can cause a life-threatening illness.

"The canned green beans may cause botulism if consumed. FDA is providing this warning to make consumers aware of the possible risk of serious illness from eating these products," an FDA statement said.

The FDA said the affected Lakeside French-cut green beans are sold nationwide under the brands Albertson's, Happy Harvest, Best Choice, Food Club, Bogopa, Valu Time, Hill Country Fare, HEB, Laura Lynn, Kroger, No Name, North Pride, Shop N Save, Shoppers Valu, Schnucks, Cub Foods, Dierbergs, Flavorite, IGA, Best Choice and Thrifty Maid. Read more...

(Guest blogged by Nonny Mouse)

The travel and tourist industry is one of the United States' biggest money-makers, generating $103 billion in tax revenue every year. Without this tax revenue, every American household would pay nearly $1,000 more in taxes every a year. But while the travel business is flourishing internationally, tourism to America has been on a steep decline, dropping 36 percent between 1992 and 2005, with a loss of $43 billion in 2005 alone. The nation's international tourism balance of trade declined more than 70 percent over the past 10 years - from $26.3 billion in 1996 to $7.4 billion in 2005.

People are simply choosing to go elsewhere. But as a follow-on to Logan Murphy’s excellent post on the increasing invasion of privacy by the soon-to-be approved Passenger Name Record for passengers entering international airports, allow me to present a personal view into why tourists are deciding not to spend their money visiting the States.

I moved from Great Britain to New Zealand last week, requiring a flight of 26 hours crammed into a big metal tube with about four hundred other brave souls, the vast majority of us packed into the Economy Class part of a 747, with the usual narrow seats, no leg rests, and poor overheated air ventilation that inevitably leads to sharing every virus on board with everyone else. I dropped at least half my on-board meals down my cleavage trying to eat with elbows pressed together, my ankles swelled to the size (and shape) of a small elephant’s, my calves were a mass of cramps, my eyes throbbed from trying to watch too many movies on a tiny screen eight inches from my nose, my back ached from trying to sleep at twisted, unnatural angles, and my throat tickled with what I knew would end up being a full blown head cold. No, long-haul flights are not fun. People take them because it’s about the only way to get where they really, really want to go. And I really, really wanted to go to New Zealand.

At least there was a chance for a small break once we’d landed in Los Angeles to change flight crews, restock the food galleys and drinks trolleys and refuel the plane, a chance to stretch our legs in the transit lounge and take a breath of fresh air. So you would think…

And you would be so wrong.

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