briefly

courtesy brandelion.com and th' Atlantic.

from the Washington Post:

NEW YORK -- Two major American Jewish organizations helped block a prominent New York University historian from speaking at the Polish consulate here last week, saying the academic was too critical of Israel and American Jewry.

The historian, Tony Judt, is Jewish and directs New York University's Remarque Institute, which promotes the study of Europe. Judt was scheduled to talk Oct. 4 to a nonprofit organization that rents space from the consulate. Judt's subject was the Israel lobby in the United States, and he planned to argue that this lobby has often stifled honest debate.

Additional comment about this from Eric Alterman, here.

a thing I learned today:

“Sock Puppeting” is creating a fake user identity to defend yourself and attack critics on a blog.

I had to look it up after Lindsay Bernstein wondered if Christopher Hitchens was engaging in said practice at her blog. I don't know if he has, but he left a very nice comment about me.


from Agressive Progressive at DKos[via]:

On September 19th of this year a judge ruled that Georgia's new Voter ID law violated the state constitution by placing unnecessary restraints on those Georgia citizens otherwise qualified to vote. Today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that between September 20th and 25th Georgia's State Elections Board sent 200,000 letters to remind voters about the January legislation that required voters to show one of six forms of government-issued photo identification at the polls.

My tax dollars at work. For the GOP.

cross-posted at Arvin Hill.