Obama's success has been so inspirational to so many people this election season. I actually started to feel people in this country had turned a corner on racial relations, and then I made the mistake of looking in on the Hidden Comments Tools here at Kos. Damn! I thought I was old enough to no longer allow this stuff to upset me so much. I guess I was wrong. One commenter with a few entries listed there just knocked the wind out of me.

I came to Boston 20 or so years ago from graduate school with quite a few reservations, having seen some of the racial tensions in the city play themselves out on national news a couple of decades earlier regarding school busing/desegregation. I wasn't sure what to expect when I got here in '88. The Clinton years accomplished a great deal in the race relations area with his focus on bringing people together and addressing racial/economic justice issues. (Perhaps his greatest achievement was providing a place at the table for minorities for the first time in more than a decade.)

An estimated 2700 square miles of forest was cleared between august and december of 2007 by Brazil's cattle and soy industries. AP reports a 30% increase in these numbers over the same period for 2006.

SAO PAULO, Brazil - The rate of Amazon deforestation rose sharply during the last five months of 2007 as land was cleared for soy and cattle, prompting a top-level emergency meeting Thursday by government officials to deal with the problem.

from AP.

Last year Brazil cited a drop in Amazon deforestation, but the new statistics indicate that this trend has been reversed. Most of last year's destruction was concentrated in the three Amazon regions of Mato Grosso, Para and Rondonia. Mato Grosso is the center of Brazil's soy industry, and is second only to the United States for soy production. Jungle is typically cleared in the Amazon to provide pasture for cattle, later soy farmers move in and cultivate their crops. Brazil also has a booming beef export industry, and cattle ranchers have been expanding their operations in the Amazon.

more below.

Are you sick of all the attack diaries by the various primary candidate's surrogates on Daily Kos? Are you sick of the primaries in general yet? You aren't alone.

  Remember that great feminist anthem of the mid-80's "Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves" sung by the incomparable Annie Lennox accompanied by the ageless diva Aretha Franklin? Well this story from the London zoo adds a seasonal twist to that self-reliant credo of modern feminism.

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Flora, a pregnant Komodo dragon living in a British zoo, is expecting eight babies in what scientists said on Wednesday could be a Christmas virgin birth. Flora has never mated, or even mixed, with a male dragon, and fertilized all the eggs herself, a process culminating in parthenogenesis, or virgin birth. Other lizards do this, but scientists only recently found that Komodo dragons do too.

Paul Barnes, founding pastor of the 2,100-member Grace Chapel in Englewood CO, a Denver suburb, told his evangelical congregation in a videotaped message he had had sexual relations with other men. What is it with these evangelicals storming out of the closet all of a sudden? Details below the fold...

see- http://news.yahoo.com/...

also see- http://www.theage.com.au/...     ----although this article lists his church incorrectly at Englewood CA.

The Denver Post reports that Barnes wasn't active in supporting the CO gay marriage ban...

Less than 24 hours after being outed on the Larry King Show by Bill Maher, Ken Mehlman has decided to retire from RNC chair position.  The Maher segment was later editted out by CNN.

ABC News reports- Two republican sources close to Ken Mehlman tell ABC News that the RNC chairman does not plan to seek another term in january. At this point it is just a banner running on the top of ABC News web page.... http://abcnews.go.com/

Isn't the timing of this decision on gay marriage in NJ just a bit suspicious? This decision is even closer to the election than the MA decision was two years ago that helped reinforce the idea that Massachusetts, and by association Kerry, were out-of-touch, far-left liberals...

from AP: TRENTON, N.J. - Gay couples will learn Wednesday whether they will have the right to marry in New Jersey. Winnie Comfort, a spokeswoman for the state judiciary, said the New Jersey Supreme Court will release its highly anticipated decision in a case brought by seven gay couples who claim the state constitution entitles them to marry. New Jersey is one of only five states without either a law or a state constitutional amendment blocking same-sex marriage. As a result, advocates on both sides believe New Jersey is more likely than other states to allow gays to wed. The decision is to posted in the court's Web site at 3 p.m. ET, a court official said.

Help support Michael Arcuri for congress from central NY district 24. visit his website at http://www.arcuriforcongress.com. This district has been represented by retiring republican Sherwood Boehlert and is part of the rust belt, loaded with 'Reagan democrats' looking to return to their democratic roots.

from (CBS/AP): The National Republican Congressional Committee is being criticized by one of their own candidates for a sensational attack ad it produced for a congressional race in New York State. Democratic congressional candidate Michael Arcuri is accused in the ad of billing taxpayers for a call to a phone sex line placed while he was in a hotel. The ad shows Arcuri leering at the silhouette of a dancing woman who says, "Hi, sexy. You've reached the live, one-on-one fantasy line." But Arcuri's campaign released records showing the call made two years ago from his New York City hotel room to 800-457-8462 -- a sex line -- was followed the next minute by a call to 518-457-8462, the state Department of Criminal Justice Services. (more below the fold)

  The gay community has known all along that major drug companies have no incentive to rush to develop a vaccine for AIDS when it is so lucrative for them to continue selling "life maintaining" drug therapies for AIDS patients. Now the NIH comes out and states the obvious. They will wait for the government to spend the money and do the research to develop the vaccine and run with it when they it starts taking a bite out of their drug-therapy profits. This is despicable corporate behavior, truly worthy of a GOP leaning industry.
  Maybe it is time for "ACT UP" to start storming corporate offices of these companies.

more below the fold-

  Wow, so much venom on here lately. Attacking Senator Obama for simply stating his perspective on current issues. You'd think he was Bill Bennett incarnate. I'm honored Senator Obama thinks enough of this community to take the time to send such a thoughtful diary. Who do you suppose has a more accurate read of the people of Illinois concerns, the Senator himself or the far-left critics on here?
  Governor Dean had his shot in 2003, running from the left and his message didn't play well in Iowa or NH. None of the current  'centrist' senators or house members ran stealth campaigns as left candidates, were elected, and then dramatically shifted positions towards the centrist camp. They ran with positions that played well in their states/districts and won. In fact, the reverse happened, with Bush running as a stealth moderate, then screwing the moderates and showing his extreme-right colors. Far left idealogy doesn't play particularly well outside of Cambridge and Berkeley. Until that changes, you're stuck with the centrists in the majority, and setting the agenda and tone.

  It seems the religious right is at it again in Massachusetts. Bussing in out-of-state petition gatherers to try and repeal the right of gays to marry in the state. The Kris Mineau referred to in the email is the president of Massachusetts Family Institute, a group actively trying to repeal the law. (http://www.mafamily.org/Default.htm)  The email is from Tom Lang, director of knowthyneighbor.org, which is keeping us informed on this issue. (http://knowthyneighbor.org/)

CBS news reports that "Heating oil prices are expected to jump more than 30 percent in the northeast. Natural gas prices to soar more than 70 percent in the Midwest."  People had better wake up and start paying attention to this issue now or there is going to be another crisis coming, with the poor and most economically vulnerable paying the price for republican budget/service cuts. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/10/eveningnews/consumer/main832571.shtml) If the coming winter is close to as cold as last years was in the northeast, we're going to have poor families and fixed-income seniors freezing to death or having to choose between food/medicine and staying warm. The time to act is NOW!