Epic Civ 4 Technology Victory Win

Osborne shows us the rockets.

Plasma rockets.

The intertubes have been abuzz with discussion for days. By combining a new rocket technology with a gravitational slingshot effect, NASA can get future Mars missions cut to weeks instead of months in flight time.

The new missile is called a plasma rocket. Welcome to Star Trek. The engine is called VASIMR, which sounds like a Russian code name.

Osborne has the vids. Dude. Plasma rockets and gravity slingshots.

Ladies of the world, I remind you again that there are men who find math and science to be incredibly hot.

That is all. (Also, plasma rocket.)

EPIC WIN.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Wingers

This.



Via Balloon Juice.

The Obama stimulus was a failure, right up until the Dow hit 10,000 again, meaning that it was Bush's TARP bailout that saved the economy. Even better, this means that since the Dow is back in five-digit territory, there was never a real recession to begin with. It'll be back to the Bush Boom any time now!

What, you thought Obama was going to get credit for the stimulus working?

No really, that's the entire argument. And Cavuto gets paid actual money for this.

Spies Like Us

Not even Robert Ludlum could write a Washington D.C. spy story like this.

Four House Republicans are charging that the Council on American Islamic Relations is infiltrating Capitol Hill with undercover interns, and they're basing the charge on a WND-published book that itself is based on the work of a man who posed as a Muslim to infiltrate CAIR as ... an intern!

In other words, it's Intern Spy vs. Intern Spy.

As Greg Sargent notes, the office of Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) does not have a list of the "Manchurian Interns" that she claims may have penetrated national security-related committees.

Myrick and three other members of the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus came to a news conference today armed with Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America (WND Books, $22.95). They called on the sergeant at arms to investigate whether, as Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) put it, a group that "is connected to or supports terrorists [and] is running influence operations or planting spies in key national security-related offices."

So, basically this:

WND Plant Winger Crusaders ---><---Seekrit Invisible Mooslims.

A Ludlum novel, no. Mad magazine on the other hand...

Snark aside, is anybody else worried about the influence World Nut Daily has over the GOP in Congress? Do they really think there's a vast Islamofascist conspiracy to infiltrate Capitol Hill? Wasn't this called McCarthyism 50 years ago?

Besides, isn't OBAMA the biggest Seekrit Invisible Mooslem of them all according to these jokers? Even worse, these idiots sent their own undercover goons in to harrass CAIR and swipe "incriminating evidence" from them, and the GOP is actively backing them.

At what point do we throw our hands up and say the GOP has become one of those embarrassing little racist parties you see in Europe?

Say It Ain't So, Joe

Arianna Huffington has an interesting idea about Joe Biden: if he's as adamant about opposing the Afghanisurge as he says he is, then he should consider resigning in protest.

It's been known for a while that Biden has been on the other side of McChrystal's desire for a big escalation of our forces there -- the New York Times reported last month that he has "deep reservations" about it. So if the president does decide to escalate, Biden, for the good of the country, should escalate his willingness to act on those reservations.

What he must not do is follow the same weak and worn-out pattern of "opposition" we've become all-too-accustomed to, first with Vietnam and then with Iraq. You know the drill: after the dust settles, and the country begins to look back and not-so-charitably wonder, "what were they thinking?" the mea-culpa-laden books start to come out. On page after regret-filled page, we suddenly hear how forceful this or that official was behind closed doors, arguing against the war, taking a principled stand, expressing "strong concern" and, yes, "deep reservations" to the president, and then going home each night distraught at the unnecessary loss of life.

Well, how about making the mea culpa unnecessary? Instead of saving it for the book, how about future author Biden unfetter his conscience in real time -- when it can actually do some good? If Biden truly believes that what we're doing in Afghanistan is not in the best interests of our national security -- and what issue is more important than that? -- it's simply not enough to claim retroactive righteousness in his memoirs.

Though it would be a crowning moment in a distinguished career, such an act of courage would likely be only the beginning. Biden would then become the natural leader of the movement to wind down this disastrous war and focus on the real dangers in Pakistan.

It's an interesting premise to be sure, but I'm not sure how effective Joe Biden would be as the leader of the anti-war effort. From a practical political perspective the focus would be "Joe Biden hates Obama and the fractured Dems" and no real discussion about Afghanistan would be able to take place with all the shouting. In a very real sense, Joe Biden's resignation would only get in the way of an exit from Afghanistan, not facilitate it.

Having said that, Huffington is right when she says Biden sticking to his guns like that would garner his serious respect from a number of outlets once the noise died down. The problem is while Biden may have his reasons for doing this, the Village will take several tries before they assign him the correct narrative, it's how they work. You don't have to look any further than the Wingers to see how this will be misconstrued.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/why-joe-biden-should-resi_b_320929.html

Sack Attack

This week's Winger Outrage is the NFL, suddenly the worst, most corrupt sport in America now that Rush Limbaugh can't be part of the group trying to buy the St. Louis Rams...and even worse for the Wingers they've discovered the sport has way too many black people playing it. Thers breaks it down:

I said what I had to say about the Rush Limbaugh-football thing over at the Other Place. But there is some spillage, like, oh, this:

What does have a place in the NFL? Here’s a short list of players who were active after being convicted of felonies — I added Michael Vick to a list I found here:

– Michael Vick: felony dogfighting charges
– Leonard Little: vehicular manslaughter/DUI
– Michael Irvin: felony drug possession
– Ray Lewis: obstruction of justice in a murder
– Plaxico Burress: felony weapon possession (in jail but not yet banned for life from the NFL)
– Pacman Jones: technically a felon since he pled guilty to obstruction of an officer case in GA

Dear Lord. (1) Players and owners are different. (2) Take the whining to the frickin' NFL owners -- not a notoriously PC bunch, you know?

If these guys wanted to let Limbaugh into their club, he'd be in their club. But they don't and so he isn't.

And of course the racism that has entered into this discussion is not El Rushbo's fault at all, but Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton's fault for pointing it out in the first place as the Corner's Andy McCarthy blocks with his face to protect his QB with one of the most insulting comparisons I have ever read.

That's how Rush treats people — in the Martin Luther King aspiration that the content of one's character is what matters, not the color of one's skin. Yet, in the media narrative, he's somehow the one who's got a race issue — and the guys who trade on race, live and breathe it 24/7, are held up as our public conscience. The Left calls this "progress." I call it perversion.

There's only one way this nonsense ever goes away: When we say "enough!" and tell the race-baiters their time is up. It's too much of an industry, so it probably won't happen tomorrow. But the Sixties ideal is crashing and burning before our very eyes, and I think it'll take a lot of its warped obsessions down with it.

"Rush is like Dr. King, you see." The guy that first put Barack The Magic Negro on the air is like Dr. Martin Luther King? Really?

Screw you. No, really. That has got to be the most idiotic thing I've heard in months out of these fecal-flinging parasites.

But their Lord and Liege has demanded fealty, so the Wingers now hate the NFL as that sport full of (whisper) them.

Assholes. Really.

[UPDATE 11:38 AM] Matt Osborne takes this on, as does TBogg. This Saint Rushbo stuff just proves how culttastic the Wingers are.

If It's Thursday...

Jobless claims for the week down to 514,000. This is progress, actually. We'll see if it's sustainable. Continuing claims dropped just a smidge under 6 million to 5.99 million. Also progress.

But still a long way to go in this economy.

Snowe Job Part 5

This Politico article from this morning should be sounding major alarm bells about Olympia Snowe's position on Obamacare.

Mitch McConnell and his deputies in the Senate Republican leadership are responding very cautiously to Olympia Snowe’s decision to become the first GOP vote for a Democratic health care reform bill.

That’s about all they can do.

“My job as whip is not to twist her arm but to bring all the information that we can bring to bear on the issue and hope that people vote the way we would like to see them vote,” said McConnell’s No. 2, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.).

Kyl said a heavy-handed approach “doesn’t work.”

And indeed, it could backfire — not just with Snowe but with other Republicans who’ve indicated that they could cross over to help Democrats pass some of President Barack Obama’s top domestic policy initiatives.

On Tuesday the GOP said it would indeed exact revenge on Olympia Snowe should she vote for the Finance Committee legislation. Not more than 48 hours later, they are now "treading cautiously" around her and will not take such a "heavy-handed" approach. The article goes on to explain that there are other Republicans who are looking to pull their own Snowe Jobs on other parts of Obama's upcoming agenda: climate change legislation, education reform and immigration reform.

Why? What has prompted the change? Is the GOP firewall really crumbling this quickly?

I don't buy it for a second. Something's going on here, and what I think it is involves the realization that Olympia Snowe can do more damage to Obamacare given her queen-like status than the entire rest of the GOP. They know she's now able to direct the final bill, and her mission is to wreck it from the inside. She wants to call the Democrats' bluff: she's betting that Democrats will weaken the Baucus Bill to the point where it falls apart rather than lose Snowe's vote, the progressive Dems will revolt, and the bill will die.

If the GOP leadership honestly thought Olympia Snowe's vote was going to help Obama, they'd be warming up her replacement. This reaction here is a dead giveaway that the Snowe Job is underway. I know the Democrats have to be able to see this coming.

The question is are they willing to throw their own progressive wing under the bus for one Republican vote?

The fact I even have to ask that should tell you everything you need to know about Operation Snowe Job here.

StupidiNews!

• A coordinated series of assaults on Pakistani police facilities by Taliban militants has killed 36.
• British news sources are reporting that the White House has decided to send 40,000 more troops into Afghanistan.
• California's First Lady Maria Shriver has apologized after being photographed breaking the state's no cell phone while driving law.
• One of Japan's largest banks is warning that the U.S. dollar's value may be cut in half.
• A research firm says smartphones consume eight times more cellular traffic than laptops on the same cellular network.

Last Call

El Rushbo isn't going to get his football team after all, as the NFL owners, players union, and the rest of the people in the group he's a part of trying to purchase the St. Louis Rams have all just told Rush to go to hell.

Limbaugh was to be a limited partner in a group headed by St. Louis Blues chairman Dave Checketts. Checketts said in a statement Wednesday that Limbaugh's participation had become a complication in the group's efforts and the bid will move forward without him.

Checketts told the Associated Press he will have no further comment on the bid process.

Three-quarters of the league's 32 owners would have had to approve any sale to Limbaugh and his group. Earlier this week, Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay predicted that Limbaugh's potential bid would be met by significant opposition. Several players have also voiced their displeasure with Limbaugh's potential ownership position, and NFL Players Association head DeMaurice Smith, who is black, urged players to speak out against Limbaugh's bid.

A Limbaugh spokesman told ESPN that Limbaugh would have no comment on Wednesday. Earlier, on his syndicated radio show, Limbaugh was defiant, holding on to hope that he still could be part of the ownership group that buys the Rams.

"This is not about the NFL, it's not about the St. Louis Rams, it's not about me," Limbaugh said. "This is about the ongoing effort by the left in this country, wherever you find them, in the media, the Democrat Party, or wherever, to destroy conservatism, to prevent the mainstreaming of anyone who is prominent as a conservative.

"Therefore, this is about the future of the United States of America and what kind of country we're going to have."

It's a country without a bigoted, racist asshole owning an NFL team. But go ahead and attack the NFL, Rush. I'm sure that'll win you even more fans.

Hardball Harry

Must be that time of the millennium in which Harry Reid locates his spinal column and uses it, because today he gave the Senate equivalent of Sean Connery's famous "Chicago Way" speech in The Untouchables as Exra Klein points out:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid appeared before the Judiciary Committee today in an unusual capacity: as a witness. He was there to argue that the Senate should repeal the insurance industry's exemption from anti-trust statutes (an exemption that they share only with Major League Baseball). "Insurance companies have become so large they dominate entire regions of the country," Reid said. "They have become so powerful they block start-up businesses from entering the market, and they put smaller companies out of business. They have become so dominant that they dictate business practices. They are so influential that they exert tremendous influence over public policy.”

But Reid isn't an expert on anti-trust law, and as Senate Majority Leader, he doesn't spur legislative action by testifying before Senate Committees. He was really there to send a clear and unmistakable signal to the insurance industry in the aftermath of Monday's assault on health-care reform: Attack us, and we'll hurt you. Badly.

In other words, this:

Do you know what a blood oath is, Mr. Reid? Good, because you just took one.

P.S. Olympia Snowe is not President. She's not even a Democrat. She certainly does not have the best interests of the Democratic Party at heart. Keep that in mind, eh?

[UPDATE 10:25 PM] And it didn't take Harry more than a couple hours to puss out and say that the public option is not in his hands.

Speaking to reporters just outside the Senate chamber this afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid scoffed at the suggestion--articulated last night by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)--that the public option is simply in his hands.

"He would rather say anything so it wasn't up to him," Reid said, before departing for a meeting with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and Sens. Max Baucus (D-MT) and Chris Dodd (D-CT). The four will hold the first meeting about how to shape a health care bill that will soon be introduced on the Senate floor.

Yeah, there's f'ckin leadership in action, right there.

Meanwhile President Snowe is not interested in any public option compromises, period.

"The public option would be problematic," Snowe told MSNBC's Morning Joe when asked what changes to the bill could cost Democrats her vote. "As I've said I'm against a public option because I think the government would be another vast new bureaucracy, and also create a disproportionate advantage in the marketplace. And inevitably government's not going to do it better."

So glad America and the Democrats nominated President Snowe, and we should be grateful that the future of your heath care rests with making her happy.

All snark aside, call her bluff. I'm betting she's not going to risk being the one person that kills health care. The problem is she's betting she'll have a lot of ConservaDem help in killing the plan.

Dow 10,000 Maniacs

While Wall Street's partying hard that the Dow closed over 10,000 today and people are now officially asking if the recession is over, remember the answer is "not for 99% of us" as John Cole reminds us.

Why doesn’t everyone just quit doing what they do and go to work on Wall Street? You clearly don’t have to be competent or know anything, because these clowns trashed the economy and then ran around for months yelling hoocoodanode all while taking bailout money. Then, they turn around and take those taxpayer loans at low interest and the taxpayer guarantees, loan them back to the taxpayer at a higher interest rate, collect their vig, call it a profit, and then give themselves billions in bonuses because they are in the black again and happy days are here again. And half the public is so beaten down and broken they will look at all this and say “Hey, but isn’t it a good thing that Wall Street is profitable again?”

But...DOW TEN THOUSAND.

I mean we won, right?

We'll Miss You, Lou

Captain Lou Albano, wrestling manager extraordinaire, Zandar Hero and the best Super Mario ever, has passed at the age of 76.

"Albano began his storied career with Vincent J. McMahon in the 1960s as one half of 'The Sicilians' tag team with his partner Tony Altimore," the WWE said. "He will be greatly missed by the WWE and his fans."

Albano, who was with the WWE from 1983 to 1996, was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 1996.

He started as a tag team wrestler in the 1950s but became a successful manager of champion wrestlers in the 1970s, according to a biography on the WWE Web site.

Albano was recognizable by his penchant for unbuttoned Hawaiian shirts and a trademark beard, which was usually bound by a rubber band.

His persona earned him the distinction of "one of the most hated men" in wrestling for 15 years, the WWE biography said.

Indeed, it's a smaller place without the Captain Lou Albanos of the world in it.

Rock on, Lou...wherever you are.

The Road Ahead For Obamacare

BooMan continues to have a pretty damn good record of prognostication on where Obamacare is going as it makes its way through Byzantine and uncharted waters. The next phase of the game is now underway.

When I gamed this out during the spring and summer, I came to the conclusion that the president wouldn't get any health care bill at the 60-vote threshold, even one that was badly watered down. But, for appearances sake and as a matter of strategy, he had to give an honest try. For me, that was what all the nonsense with the Finance Committee and the Gang of Six was all about. But, despite winning over Olympia Snowe, the challenge of reaching 60 votes has always been about a few corporate whores in the Democratic caucus. I will name them: Joe Lieberman, Tom Carper, Evan Bayh (all former chairmen of the Democratic Leadership Council), Kent Conrad, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, and (possibly) Mary Landrieu. None of these senators wants to enact the health care plan that the president ran on. And, without their support for cloture, we simply cannot pass a good health care bill in the Senate. It's easy to apply a shithammer's worth of pressure on a single wayward senator, but it's a lot harder to deal with a bloc of corporate shills.

Therefore, I had assumed that the effort to reach 60 votes would fail. But we are right in the thick of the end game now. Never before has a health care bill of this scope passed through all the congressional committees that have jurisdiction. There is a lot of momentum for passing a bill through regular order. If the effort fails, the Senate wants to be able to blame the House, and vice-versa. The progressives want to blame the centrists, and vice-versa. The Democrats and the White House want to blame the Republicans, and vice-versa.

It's this blame game that will do the most to imperil final passage. House Progressives seem resolved to force through a bill that has a robust public option. Senate centrists seem resolved to block any bill that has a robust public option, or any public option at all. Harry Reid and the White House want a public option, but Reid doesn't want to get blamed if he can't get 60 votes.

There are three big speed humps, or votes. The House has to pass a bill. The Senate has to pass a bill. And then those two bills have to be melded into one Conference Report, and passed again by both houses. Reid and Pelosi have a decision to make. As it stands now, they are both poised to pass bills that are incompatible with each other. They can try to bridge the divide now, as they craft their respective bills, or they can try to bridge the divide in the Conference Committee that has the responsibility of reconciling the two bills.

If this process is going to succeed in producing health care reform at the 60-vote threshold, a grand compromise has to be reached at some point. The Schumer Opt-Out Plan might be the best solution.

And as he goes on to say, if it doesn't work, the White House still needs to stick it out with their plan and go for reconciliation.

The question is how many of the ConservaDems in the Senate will be looking for their thirty pieces of silver...and their pound of flesh? The Republicans remained completely irrelevant until Olympia Snowe crossed party lines. Now she's the way in as well.

Something has to give in the next few weeks. Who will have the upper hand?

Feminine Wiles

Kathleen Parker at the WaPo says the GOP should listen to its women.

If the GOP is really serious about expanding the party, it's time for the men to hush and let the pros take over. As the saying goes: If you need something done, hire a busy woman. Or, as the White House Project puts it: "Add women, change everything."

In the past few months, several conservative women have emerged as candidates and critics to challenge the notion that the GOP is the party of men. They're also putting to rest any thought that Sarah Palin is the female face of the party.

The McCain campaign had the right idea; it just picked the wrong woman.

Among the newer comers are two mega-businesswomen and two famous daughters, representing younger generations with divergent ideas. Although these aren't the only Republican women rising, they offer a glimpse at what could become a surge of hormonal correction on the conservative side.

She goes on to list her candidates for change: Liz Cheney, Meghan McCain, Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman. Some observations:

1) An honest discussion of up-and-coming Republican women that doesn't list Sarah Palin as one very much qualifies as sign of progress for the Wingers.

2) Too bad the four Parker listed aren't much better, to the point of underlining just how wrong Parker's assumption is because...

3) The rest of the GOP is about as misogynistic as you can get. Getting intelligent, erudite and compelling women in the GOP would be a lot easier if the GOP didn't treat women in general like second-class citizens (along with gays, African-Americans, Latinos, and intelligent, erudite and compelling people in general.)

The problem isn't "We need to listen to women." It's "We need to stop treating Americans like morons."

[UPDATE 3:08 PM] And god help me, because this means I agree with MoDo The Red.

Right Where They Want Us

In a very curious article over at The Daily Beast, John Bachelor argues that the White House going after the legitimacy of FOX news is not only foolish, it's the worst possible thing they could do on all fronts becuase only by the White House attacking Roger Ailes' little outfit there is there any way they can get legitimacy in the Obama era.

The worst mistake Axelrod and Emanuel are making by confusing Fox News with the Republican Party is that they are confusing campaigning with entertaining and then letting this mistake blind them to the fact that the White House is for governing, not just staging.

Fox News is not in the news business; it’s in show business. The Republican Party, like its blood kin the Democratic Party, is in the campaign business. The White House is in the government business, though, from the evidence so far, it doesn’t know how to break out of the campaign business.

Axelrod was responsible for a mythical run for the presidency, but that was last year’s story. Now Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel are responsible for satisfying a ragbag of players—a sweaty task that at least one person in the White House confuses with community organizing—and moving them in the current desired direction of national health-care reform, perhaps also worldwide disarmament, no date given, and through the latest strategic review on Afghanistan before the next strategic review.

None of the Obama administration’s policies, if and when there are policies, requires approval or even acknowledgement by Fox News in order to succeed. Would David Axelrod ask the very clever Peter Gelb of the Metropolitan Opera Company for a moment on stage in Puccini’s Tosca to speak dryly of a second stimulus bill? Then why demand of Ailes that his opera bouffe company treat you as anything other than an interloper? When you are offered the stage, gratis, why go out of your way to deny Ailes the spectacular voice of Obama singing his aria of health-care reform?

To return to the secret, caffeinated “cordial conversation” of Sept. 30, there is plenty of evidence to conclude that Ailes is a genius impresario for fooling Axelrod into thinking that Fox News is not only for the Republican Party but is the Republican Party and the principal opponent against Obama that requires the evil eye of the White House. Fox News thanks heaven each morning for a foil as handsome and boundless as the president, and on its best days sighs over the puny, tongue-tied, bilious characters called conservatives.

On the other hand, Clinton tried to keep above the fray and when he didn't bite, the media said he was out of touch and elitist anyway.

While he's correct that FOX is not a news outfit but an entertainment one, dismissing them as an entertainment outfit that can't do any damage to the President (and then later saying the President's real foe is Jon Stewart of all people) is just as far off the mark, just in the other direction. FOX will continue to attack the President because they believe he is the enemy. They are trying to bully him. Yes, Axelrod is risking much by responding, but he risks even more by doing nothing.