Interesting Pentagon report leaked to Observer:


"As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions."
Observer Story
Yahoo News Pentagon
Fortune Pentagon

[BUT: Our intrepid CA correspondent spots this corrective article in a local site:
Pentagon hullabaloo "new ice age unlikely"]

Judy Woodruff interviewed Ralph Nader, and in the first quoted paragraphs from this article on CNN.com he says what I'm hearing everyone else say, and what I'm thinking, and he goes on after to show more intelligence, consistency and clarity than any politician I've seen since Paul Wellstone. As many have said, a big ego is a prerequisite for the job, so it's not much of an argument in favor of the status quo guys.

The paragraphs:

WOODRUFF: You ran four years ago. You got, what, 3 percent of the vote. Do you honestly and seriously believe that you have a real shot at winning this election this year?

NADER: Well, you know, the stock answer, it depends on the voters and the media. But there are other purposes for the campaign.

I don't think there's too much political organization behind 45 million workers who don't make a living wage in this country, or 45 million people who don't have health insurance, of which 18,000 die every year. Or there's enough organized effort to crack down on corporate crime, fraud and abuse, or [on] the environment. In other words, we need more voices, more energies, more political and civic involvement.

It seems to me we need more choices, more voice, more representation than our current system of elections is giving us. I think we had better risk another four years of one corporate despot and begin the battle to change the two-party system, or at least lessen its dominance, and ease the stranglehold that big business has and is increasing on our freedoms. The more passive we are, the more they claim we get what we deserve. If we vote for the Dems just because they're a notch better than the Republicans, it tells both parties that we're pretty close to satisfied with the lot of them.

And let me tell you, we're not. Not even if we think so. The destruction that they are planning for our media, medicine, social security, education, infrastructure, environment, and world standing is not something we will be happy with. We need to alert them to our need of long-term thinking, people-before-corporations, education for all, federal controls on corporate taxation and oversight, federal voting standards, the removal of political campaigns from the airwaves, and all the other things you've thought of, too.

We're not going to send them that message by sending the same load of corporate paid wonks back to Washington without a fight. Time to change the guard. Long past time.

Look here:
http://www.votenader.org/issues/index.php

Look around. With the web we've no excuse for not knowing our options.

Good reading at TruthOut:

'Our Democracy is in Danger of Being Paralyzed'
Keynote Address to the National Conference on Media Reform By Bill Moyers

We are being buried alive in a sugary sand of meaningless complacency. All around people are saying "Don't cause a fuss. Play nice. Play the game. Make money. Be quiet. Enjoy our wealth." We need to let off some stink bombs and shake some shoulders. We need to wake everyone up before it's too late. Mr. Moyers is being polite, but serious. Soon, anyone on the side of human dignity and intelligence won't have the luxury of being polite and patient.

Finished Katharine Greider's The Big Fix. Excellent, concise introduction to the bloated and diseased pharmaceuticals industry.