The Moon, and 9/11 trial Outrage®

Reflecting on the lunar discovery announced today, in light of the concurrent histrionics from the right about the 9/11 plotters going on trial in NYC—

Just over 40 years ago, we put human beings on the moon—a dozen altogether; 27 if you also include those who orbited the moon without landing on it. When we started that program, we didn’t even know if human beings could actually survive in zero g for any length of time; we didn’t know if it was possible to dock vehicles travelling at orbital speed, and on and on—and we had to figure it all out with technology that appears stone age by today’s standards (e.g. slide rules!)

When I think of the astronauts and engineers who pulled all this off, I think of them as a pretty conservative bunch—notwithstanding that the two NASA centers most closely associated with manned spaceflight are named after Democratic presidents. But the people who actually made the program go—the military guys in the astronaut corps and the buttoned-down engineers in mission control—lefty professor types don’t exactly come to mind.

Listening to the cowardice and abject stupidity contained in the hysteria coming from today’s conservatives about AG Holder’s decision to try the 9/11 plotters in NYC, I have to wonder what happened to that “Right Stuff” conservatism.

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Final Presidential Debate

in easy-to-digest picture format:

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Town Hall Debate

Re-enacted by the penguins:

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Awesome.

Pathetic, asshole-ish, and said in McCain's best "scary voice":



That's right, Senator McCain--that one:

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Shady people in your past

Yes, let's go there.

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We've seen this movie before.

The idiot who led us into our current disaster, believed he was somehow anointed by God to be President. And now there's Gov. Palin, who also seems to think her political ambitions are a matter of Divine Providence.

The woman who wants to be a 72-year-old four-time-cancer-patient's heartbeat away from the presidency, has a messiah complex just like Dubya. If that's not enough to scare the crap out of you, perhaps this video will help:



Oh, and...should the IRS be looking at the Wasilla Assembly of God's tax exempt status?

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No wonder they want to 'turn the page'.

Sorry, Unstable and Unable...not so fast.

And the area of health care is yet another example of why they’d rather not have people focusing on the issues. Take a look at this side-by-side analysis of the two candidates’ health care proposals, posted today by the non-partisan Urban Institute.

Here are the conclusions of each analysis:

Overall Assessment of the McCain Health Care Proposal

The McCain health care plan represents a philosophical advance over many other health care proposals, principally in its commitment to redistributing the current tax exemption for employer-based health insurance. However, the plan raises more concerns than it addresses.

The plan would provide

• a refundable tax credit that is more valuable to low-income workers than the current tax exemption for employer-based insurance, though the credit is not adequate to make coverage affordable for many;
  
• make insurance coverage less accessible and affordable for those with high health care needs;
  
• increase coverage among the currently uninsured through the nongroup market but reduce the number already covered by employers, leaving about the same number of people uninsured;
• have a high budget cost, at least in its early years.
  

In brief, McCain’s proposal would dramatically change how many Americans obtain health insurance coverage, make coverage less accessible for those with health problems, have a high budget cost, but have little effect on the number uninsured.

Overall Assessment of the Obama Health Care Proposal

Our general assessment of the Obama plan is that it would

• greatly increase health insurance coverage but would still leave about 6 percent of the non-elderly population uninsured, compared to 17 percent today.
  
• substantially increase access to affordable and adequate coverage for those with the highest health care needs, including those with chronic illnesses, by spreading health care risk broadly;
  
• significantly increase the affordability of care for low-income individuals;
  
• reduce the growth in health spending through a broad array of strategies.

In short, Obama’s proposal contains the basic components necessary for effectively addressing the most important shortcomings of the current health care system, that is, limited coverage, inadequate risk pooling, and high-cost growth.

The Urban Institute collaborates with the Brookings Institution on the Tax Policy Center, which has a similar side-by-side comparison of the candidates' tax proposals. And since Gov. Palin was just today again flogging the "Obama voted to raise taxes on people earning as little as $42,000 a year" lie, it's worth a look.

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