say cheese

Shrill political attacks have saturated the airwaves for months, but behind them is the real problem of this demoralizing election: the dark flow of dollars, often secretly provided by donors with very special interests.

The amount is staggering: Nearly $4 billion is likely to be spent once the final figures are in, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, far more than in the 2006 midterms, which cost $2.85 billion. It could even eclipse the $4.14 billion spent in the 2004 presidential campaign.

Yemeni authorities have arrested two women on suspicion of sending explosive devices to US synagogues. Yemeni security forces arrested the women in their homes, where it was claimed that they had been hiding. The women had been identified through the contact phone numbers they had given to UPS when arranging to forward the parcels. Authorities are convinced that the parcels were bombs sent on behalf of the Saudi Arabian branch of al-Qaeda, even though the contents were still subject to analysis.

Editorial, The Australian, September 9:

More than 70 elected leaders of the state's peak farming body have called on the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to ditch its draft plan aimed at rescuing the rivers and to recalculate the irrigation water cuts it says are needed in every valley.

''This is not a case of negotiation,'' said the president of the NSW Farmers' Association, Charles Armstrong, after the unanimous vote at a Sydney meeting of representatives from across the state.

The authority had done nothing to justify the 37 per cent average water cuts to agriculture across the state and its draft plan was ''a huge black cloud'' hanging over farmers and their communities, he said.

When John Howard sat down to write his memoirs he could have focused on his achievements, given generous acknowledgement to his colleagues, conceded a few failures - including the loss of the 2007 election - and made some observations on the long-term policy challenges for the nation.

It would have been the book of an elder statesman. He could have shown a spirit of generosity. And it would have enhanced his reputation. But it is not the nature of the man.

from Crikey .....

Finally, we have John Howard's own version of why he remained Liberal leader through to the 2007 election -- and then went down, ignominiously and unnecessarily, with the ship.

And a tacky version it is, confirming in his own calibrated words how selfishness, hubris and the wishes of his wife (who elected her again?) prevented an orderly transfer of leadership to Peter Costello, and created the conditions for a humiliating defeat for the political party whose fortunes Howard was supposed to protect.

As usual, the Arabs knew. They knew all about the mass torture, the promiscuous shooting of civilians, the outrageous use of air power against family homes, the vicious American and British mercenaries, the cemeteries of the innocent dead. All of Iraq knew. Because they were the victims.

By FRANK RICH

PRESIDENT Obama, the Rodney Dangerfield of 2010, gets no respect for averting another Great Depression, for saving 3.3 million jobs with stimulus spending, or for salvaging GM and Chrysler from the junkyard. And none of these good deeds, no matter how substantial, will go unpunished if the projected Democratic bloodbath materializes on Election Day. Some are even going unremembered. For Obama, the ultimate indignity is the Times/CBS News poll in September showing that only 8 percent of Americans know that he gave 95 percent of American taxpayers a tax cut.

Democratic candidate Chris Coons, who is vying to defeat Republican rival Christine O'Donnell in Delaware's U.S. Senate race, is out with a new attack ad targeting the conservative hopeful on a host of controversies that have rocked her campaign.

Running with the theme music of the 1960's television show "The Twilight Zone," the 30-second seeks to highlight some of the Tea Party favorite's most infamous lines.