Motley Moose – Archive

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) has said she will vote in favor of the debate on health care reform, bringing the total to 60.

Sarah Palin has dominated the airwaves since the release of her new book, “Going Rogue”.  On FOX News and far-right radio the book itself is hailed as perhaps the first publication with more native value than the King James Bible and the ‘author’ herself as the human incarnation of Joan of Arc, Jesus Christ and Ronald Reagan rolled into a single package.  On all other media, the book itself is given at best extremely light and polite treatment.  More often – even on the right-but-not-insane morning radio show I listen to, it has been met with at best honest analytical disparagement (like when former Reagan staffer David Gergen stated that there is no chance anyone can write a book like that “and ever hold elected office again in their life”).  At worst – and most common – the book has induced gales of howling ridicule.

Which explains why Newsmax is panting about a possible Palin/Beck ticket for 2012.

(Because You Just Can’t Have Too Much Sarah.)

It’s official, there is water on the moon.  National Geographic has this:

The crash, plus the subsequent impact of LCROSS itself, yielded enough water fill about a dozen 2-gallon (7.6-liter) buckets, NASA announced on November 13, 2009.

The significance of this discovery is hard to overstate.  For a manned lunar base to stand any long-term chance of viability it will require a source of water, and raising that water out of the gravity well of earth would be tremendously expensive.  Oxygen for breathing and hydrogen for fuel are also commodities that are essential for sustainable presence on the lunar surface, and both of these can be easily made if a source of water is available but would prove prohibitively expensive if they had to be lifted pound-by-pound from earth.  

To put this in perspective, the 12,000 lb Apollo Command Module that was the primary payload of the previous moon program required the nearly 7,000,000 lb Saturn V rocket to lift it into space, at a cost of about $1,000,000 per pound (in adjusted 2008 dollars).  Therefore, the water thrown up in the test crash last month would have cost around $20M to have sent there on a rocket.

The potential now for a manned base on the moon is greater than it has ever been before.  With this first step, it is becoming possible to imagine a future – that is perhaps so near that the youngest of us alive now will live to see – when a viable population of humans will live and grow outside the fragile basket which is our home planet.

That splash of frozen water could well have been the first indication of the immortality of the human species.

I ran across an intelligent diary on MyDD this morning (I know, I know – no sense saying it) from Bruce Webb.  Bruce is a regular at the Angry Bear Blog.

Angry Bear is the product of a half dozen Ph.D economists, an historian, and financial professionals. The writers provide individual perspectives on broad sectors of the economy based on their unique training. They look at topics as varied as worldwide trade and industrial production and US government programs and regulations like Social Security.”

In no particular order our current economists are Cactus, Divorced one like Bush, Ken Houghton, Spencer England, Stormy, Robert Waldmann, Tom Bozzo, Linda Beale, and Rebecca Wilder. Bruce Webb has added his expertise in particular on Social Security and current healthcare debate. Rusty(formerly Save the Rustbelt) adds his expertise on the health industry and mid-west. Noni Mausa is a professional writer and poet, who brings us a dose of reality.

I’ve invited Bruce and the Bears (now there’s a band name) to mix with Mooses all they like.

This is a topic that I’ve discussed with my peers and family for years, and a topic I personally feel very strongly about. I have had continuous healthcare coverage from the day I was born, up until my early 20s. Healthcare was never something I ever had to think about. It was a given that I could walk into any hospital or doctor’s office that accepted my insurance card, and if I was sick I would be taken care of. I’m sure that’s partially because of both my youth and naevity at the time about how healthcare worked, but I digress.

Now that Hr.3962 is passed the House, it is time to look forward and ponder the Senate.  Since we have moved on (and since the other open thread is getting so long it’s unwieldy), consider this an open thread for that.

Where do we go from here?

The House is holding court leading up to the likely vote on healthcare this weekend – perhaps even today.  Will healthcare reform pass into law in the foreseeable future?  Will it look like something that most people can be happy with?

Consider this an open thread for following and discussing the pertinent happenings.

In what may well come to be seen as the culmination of the death throes of the Reagan Republican party, the first echoing retort shot across the media today as the cracks in the GOP began to give way to calving chasms and massive bergs sheared off the weathered cliffs.  The ability of Michael (“No, really! I’m, like, hip to your happening shizang my home young gentlepersons!”) Steele and the GOP “leadership” (or is that “GOP” leadeship?) to maintain anything like coherency even among the reduced ranks of Republican membership is not only in retreat:

It’s in hiding.

In the special election in the 23rd Congressional District race, Dede Scozzafava – the Republican candidate – quit the race today after hearing that she is being out-polled by the Conservative Party candidate that Alaskan blogger Sarah Palin is supporting.

Amid a wealth of opportunity to criticize America’s use of force (whether/how/how much…) the ignorant bastards our folks are engaged against in Iraq and Afghanistan never cease to provide reasons to be much more pissed off at them.

During the height of the Iraq war the call to pull all US troops out of the country was balanced against the daily piles of corpses created by the various opposition groups, many mutilated in virtually incomprehensible fashion.  The destruction of the Blue Mosque

It must be getting uncomfortable to be a Republican politician supporting Glenn Beck’s “Health Care Reform is Communist!” platform.   As congressman John Culberson (R-TX) is finding out, it’s all well and good until you start listening to the people who (might be) re-electing you.  Since only 1% of America watches Beck, simply parroting him may not be the wisest campaign strategy.

HT to BarbinMD at DailyKOS for so succinctly putting this one in her diary Culberson Push Polls A Tea Bag Full Of Fail

When asked if they support the Democratic Party efforts to reform the health insurance system, what do the voters in Congressman Culberson’s district have to say?