The Big Picture: Want to know why financial reform has been dead in the water so far? "The banks run the place."

Southern Beale: No wonder Republicans didn’t bother to fix healthcare all those years they were in power. There’s too much money to be made by keeping it broken.

Truthdig: The chief justice of the California Supreme Court has a choice word for the state’s method of operation: dysfunctional

PERRspectives: The Nobel Prizes for Conservatives

Fafblog!: Our Threatiest Threat

HOLY CRAP: Clueless Christian...Biblical figures return to cleanse Conservapedia...Christian baseball?...Bill Tyndale's Bible...Jesus is their Health Care...Pray for me...Murder is caused by legalized abortion?...The First Question...Mr. Deity...Your friend & brother in Christ...Polygamous Marriages endorsed

Dandelion Salad: Chalmers Johnson on ow the Pentagon strangles our economy: Why the U.S. Has Gone Broke

DownWithTyranny! John McCain and his $40 million fortune say Obama is "insensitive" to the poor. How would he know?

The Big Picture: Three Nobel Prize winners on the economy.

Lawyers, Guns and Money: Treason-in-Defense-of-Slavery Memorial Day

AverageBro: Obama vs Hillary: WWE Smackdown!

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: One Thousand Reasons, Bruce Lays it Out Good B.L.O.G, American Politics Journal, Tailrank

Michael from The Reaction here. So much good stuff, let's get right to it:

Mustang Bobby at BBWW: Don't ignore the Malkins and Coulters of the world, make fun of them. (And, I would add, call them out on their bigotry and stupidity.)

Pam with the steamin' House Blend: Oh no! Sexual addition among female fundies! Internet porn! Masturbation! Good times.

Maha of Mahablog: Dalai Lama Derangement Syndrome.

Libby Spencer at The Impolitic (who also blogs at my place and at the very fine Newshoggers): Bush's new "Family Planning czar," yet another anti-sex wingnut. See also Thought Theater.

The Gun Toting Liberal: American Oligarchy -- Verizon, AT&T, and the corporatist police state.

Eric at Total Information Awareness: The insurgency in Somalia, and the brutality of America's allies in the region. (Yes, Bush is destroying America's image everywhere.)

Finally, L-girl at We Move to Canada reacts positively to the Doris Lessing Nobel win.

I'm sorry I can't link to everyone, but keep the e-mails coming: mjwstickings [at] yahoo [dot] ca

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.

Download | play Download | play (h/t Bill W.)

Ah, you have to love the predictability of Pravda FOX News Channel. When Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize, you KNOW they started scrambling to find ways to diminish him. And Friday, they found their mouthpiece in the conservative NY Sun's Seth Gitell.

Gitell thinks that the Nobel committee awarded the Peace Prize to the wrong American, arguing that it should have gone to...wait for it...Gen. David Petraeus.

So the general presiding over a horrendous civil war of our own making, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and the displacement of millions more, not to mention the deaths of more than 3,800 American troops should be given the Peace Prize???

I don't think that even Orwell could have imagined FOX News.

Hello, all. It's Michael Stickings from The Reaction here, and I'll be subbing for Mike through next Saturday. It's a great pleasure to have this opportunity.

Come on over and visit us at my place -- me and a fantastic group of co-bloggers: diverse, eclectic, stridently and unapologetically liberal, in an unabashedly progressive way -- but, without further ado, here are some links well worth exploring. Click away.

-- Reaction co-blogger J. Kingston Pierce at Limbo offers one of the very best commentaries on Al Gore's Nobel victory I've seen.

-- Sir Oolius of She Flies With Her Own Wings rounds up the frothing-mouth, Gore-hating lunacy of the right. Prairie Weather says "we don't deserve Gore," so immature is America, and he may be right. Tom Watson says "these are the early days of The Liberal Century," and I hope that's true.

-- Shaun Mullen of Kiko's House examines Giuliani's "really big skeleton," Bernie Kerik. Lance Mannion points out that Giuliani seems to be going after "the racist jerk vote," not just Philly cheese steaks. (See Attytood, too.)

-- Mark Gisleson of Norwegianity addresses Sanchez, Gore, and much else besides. For more on General Sanchez, wingnuttery, and the horrors of Abu Ghraib, see Taylor Marsh.

For tips, recommendations, and comments, or to discuss the political philosophy of Leo Strauss and/or the meaning of human existence, if there is one, contact me at mjwstickings [at] yahoo [dot] ca.

...please take a sweet draw on the tailpipe of my minivan...

Love and linkage to Media Bloodhound, who sent me this Youtube, and comments: "Nothing bought the crazy more than these [2006] commercials. These Competitive Enterprise Institute*** ads seem worth revisiting in light of Gore's Nobel yesterday: 'Carbon dioxide. They call it pollution. We call it life.'"

If Al Gore and those so-called "scientists" had just adopted this "run the camera backwards" solution to global warming, they woulda won their Nobel and saved a few more glaciers years ago.

***Who the hell are these people, and why is Exxon Mobil funding them? Just guessing, actually. Google google....oops sorry

it's Ford Motor Company. Let the record stand corrected.

Open thread below. Don't do too much CO2 before you post. "Life" is precious!

BBC:

Climate change campaigner Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have been jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Congratulations to Al Gore! His office has issued this statement (from an email):

I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--the world's pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis--a group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years. We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level.

My wife, Tipper, and I will donate 100 percent of the proceeds of the award to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan non-profit organization that is devoted to changing public opinion in the U.S. and around the world about the urgency of solving the climate crisis.

The Galloping Beaver: Is there enough blame to go around for the Bushistas catastrophic misadventure in Iraq? The "liberal press",godless lefties, most recently, the entire American public, and now, Europe!

Britannica Blog: A short history lesson on the thinking that informed the Founders. Reading this, it's hard to imagine something as antithetical as the Patriot Act being acceptable to any real patriot

Vagabond Scholar: John Amato has always said that the liberal blogosphere is concerned with accuracy in the media, not in receiving praise. But the pattern of undue disparagement of bloggers indicates it is more often the traditional media types who are unduly thin-skinned.

BAGnewsNotes: How Hezbollah re-envisioned the democracy movement ...and the West hardly noticed

The Old Hippie's Groovy Blog: The wealth gap, the risk gap...what it's all about for BUSHCO

HOLY CRAP: Four major cases involving faith-based rehabilitation programs are pending in the federal courts...10,000 US researchers--including 52 Nobel Laureates--have signed a statement protesting the political interference in the scientific process...Ten Bible verses never preached on

INTEL DUMP: One month after his tour in Iraq, military advisor Phil Carter writes in today's NYT: "Our choices in 2006 are not as good as our choices were in 2003; we cannot simply stay the course now and hope for victory."
BlondeSense: Nobel Prize links poverty reduction to peace

Liberal Country Fan : Sarah Evans bails out of 'Dancing With the Stars' in the wake of scandal..seeks divorce from GOP "Christian" hypocrite

A Tiny Revolution: There are only so many ways to persuade yourself it's okay to kill others

Blah3: Bunker mentality...

Bob Geiger: A stellar sampling of the week's editorial cartoons

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: America's Least Wanted.. Blue Collar Politics Blog... Johnny and All of His Pants... Florida Republican Crime Watch