If you are showing words anyway, do you need the thumbs at all? How about just making the text clickable, and when you click it it becomes bold (like the current voting system) and the count updates.
I agree with Emile that showing thumbs seems like a bad idea, because (at least for me) "thumb up"/"thumb down" means "this is good"/"this is bad". Indeed, the original meaning of "spare him"/"feed him to the lion" seems more like up/downvoting than like agree/disagreeing.
I think I am convinced that thumbs should be used for karma, and +- for agree/disagree.
Design sketches
1. Notes on differences between these images and what we're planning on implementing:
2. Meetup widget in sidebar, listing the 5 nearest meetups occurring in the next 2 weeks, linking to:
(something like right-click & "Open Image in new tab" will help here)
3. New headers: