(Note: Thanks a lot Comcast...this post was ready to go 3 hours ago)

Like, youÂ’re all invited! WickedPinto will be stopping by to braid all of our hair (he learned some new techniques when he was in juvi last fall). HereÂ’s a couple of things some of my BFFÂ’s sent today:

Item One: UCSD’s Einstein Robot Develops ‘Emotional Intelligence’”

”The research team chose Albert Einstein as the model for their emotionally intelligent robot "because he's an icon of creativity, intelligence and science; he's emotionally accessible; he's lovable and visually recognizable very easily around the world," says Hanson.”

Item Two: The Green-Eyed Monster That Lives in Your Brain. No, you drunken fools, it’s not about the influence of Cthulhu but that scientists have discovered the “Jealousy Lobe” in the brain.

”Now the area of the brain which controls jealousy has been found, scientists have announced. It is the same part which detects real physical pain – perhaps explaining why feeling envious of your lover’s philandering ways hurts so much. The spot which makes people delight in others’ misfortune – called schaudenfreude – was also located by the team.”

“Envy is corrosive and ugly, and it can ruin your life,” Richard Smith, a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky told the New York Times. If you’re an envious person, you have a hard time appreciating a lot of the good things that are out there, because you’re too busy worrying about how they reflect on the self.”

“The scientific team also announced that they’d found a way to neutralize this “jealousy” node.”

“In related news, late Friday afternoon there was a flurry of activity at DNC headquarters as senior members of the party were called to an emergency meeting to discuss this scientific breakthrough and the party’s response. According to a source who wishes to remain anonymous “this could be a potential disaster for us as the entire basis for our party may be in jeopardy.”

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Posted by: Open Blog at 10:40 PM | Comments (113)
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Oh. That's what I forgot to do this week. No recap prepared, but I do have some comments about last week's indispensable episode tucked below the fold. Along with a semi-spoiler-ific picture. Well, at least it gave me a semi.

Spoiler Policy: Anything from the miniseries and the show up to and including tonight's episode is fair game; no need to warn or in some way obscure text for anything that comes from that material. However, anything you may have heard about future episodes should be kept to yourself. Thanks.

Update: Glen Larson, creator of the original Battlestar Galactica, is in talks with Universal to write and produce a movie version. The proposed big-screen version would have no connection to either television series. It would be yet another re-launch with a new concept, although it will obviously keep the characters and the ship.

Talk about lack of original thought. This would be the third (and kinda the fourth, considering the way the first series ended) re-boot. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:12 PM | Comments (138)
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Hillary doesn't placate.

Paying her first visit to Asia as the top US diplomat, Clinton said the United States would continue to press China on long-standing US concerns over human rights such as its rule over Tibet.

"But our pressing on those issues can't interfere on the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis," Clinton told reporters in Seoul just before leaving for Beijing.

A year ago, when it wasn't their problem to deal with, they were sniping and badgering Bush to stay away from the Olympics. Resolutions were passed. Letters were written.

Sometimes it's like watching a kid get a job, and checking account, and start paying their own bills for a change.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:46 PM | Comments (74)
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The review was carried out on Obama's orders but by the military. That alone will will probably be enough for the left to dismiss it out of hand. Still, it must be considered bad news by the administration given it was released late on a Friday afternoon.

I'm sure Andrew Sullivan, the various incarnations of Glenn Greenwald and the rest of the usual suspects will be apologizing to George W. Bush. Yep. Any minute now. Any. Minute.

Posted by: DrewM at 01:23 PM | Comments (122)
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Ten House Democrats (including some very senior and influential ones) support the right of workers in Mexico to a secret ballot in establishing a union while trying to strip workers in the US of that same right.

It's almost as if Democrats are in the pockets of organized labor or something. Maybe if Mexican unions could donate to US campaigns the Democrats would get off their backs. Don't worry, I'm sure both sides are working on it at this moment.

Posted by: DrewM at 11:26 AM | Comments (55)
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Oy.

At a forum with reporters on Thursday, (Steven Chu) the head of the department that has traditionally taken the lead on global oil-market policy, was asked what message the Obama administration had for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries at its meeting next month.

"I'm not the administration," the Cabinet secretary replied. "I will be speaking and learning more about this in order to figure out what the U.S. position should be and what the president's position is."

...The day before, reporters asked him about OPEC output levels after a speech to a group of utility regulators. He responded that the issue was "not in my domain."

Again, let's play one of my favorite games: Imagine A Republican Said This....

Update: Earlier Transportation Secratery Ray LaHood floated the idea of replacing the federal gas tax with a per mile driven tax.

Erm, maybe not.

But later Friday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that a miles-driven tax is not and will not be an Obama administration policy.

As commenter "lorien1973" notes...

We really dodged a bullet with that Palin chick, didn't we?

Indeed.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:48 AM | Comments (220)
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God I love Blago...like a viking.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn says Sen. Roland Burris should resign his post for the good of the state.

Quinn said Friday that his fellow Democrat, Burris, is an honorable man. But he says controversy surrounding Burris' appointment has cast a shadow over his service in the Senate.

The governor says a new senator should be chosen by special election

A special election? Are there any Republicans left in Illinois?

BTW- Not that you'd know it from the article but Quinn, Burris and Blago are all DEMOCRATS. Sorry, read that too fast.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:30 AM | Comments (72)
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Once upon a time Obama described NAFTA as “devastating” and “a big mistake”. After pointing out that was mere words, he has been continuously shifting to a more reasonable position on trade.

Yesterday his 'evolution' continued as he faced the facts of life as President and having to deal with your largest trading partner. Needless to say NAFTA is suddenly a lot more palatable.

In a joint news conference, Obama said he wants to find a way to keep his campaign pledge to toughen labor and environmental standards -- and told Harper so -- but stressed that nothing should disrupt the free flow of trade between neighbors.

"Now is a time where we've got to be very careful about any signals of protectionism," the president said. "Because, as the economy of the world contracts, I think there's going to be a strong impulse on the part of constituencies in all countries to see if we -- they can engage in beggar-thy-neighbor policies."

The president's message served as a reminder of last year's private assessment by Canadian officials that then-candidate Obama's frequent criticism of NAFTA was nothing more than campaign speeches aimed at chasing support among Rust Belt union workers.

"Much of the rhetoric that may be perceived to be protectionist is more reflective of political maneuvering than policy," the Canadians concluded in a memo after meeting with Austan Goolsbee, a senior campaign aide and now a member of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers.

Why it's almost as if Mr. Hope and Change lied to his whack job friends on the left! The horror. Of course the real horror is that he will make it up to them in some other way but at least on this issue he's not making things worse. Small blessings and all of that I suppose.

Below the fold...video of Obama during the primary promising to opt out of NAFTA if he didn't get labor and environmental standards renegotiated. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 08:16 AM | Comments (54)
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This is just too sweet, unfortunately the fact that we are hearing about it means it was busted.

According to the report, an auto electrician was trying to fix a problem with a Hizbullah vehicle when he discovered an "unfamiliar device" attached to the electrical system that he thought might have been causing the problem.

Thinking that it may have been fitted by Hizbullah, the electrician had a discreet (sic) word with the vehicle's owner, pointing out that the device was interfering with the car. But whatever it was, it had not been placed by Hizbullah, and a search of the party's fleet of vehicles revealed dozens of the mystery devices.

Investigations revealed that they were satellite wire tap devices and they were only present on vehicles supplied from one particular car dealer in Nabatiyeh: Marwan Faqih. Years of gathering intelligence about notoriously secretive Hizbullah on behalf of their sworn enemies were about to come to an end.

Mossad has always been one of my favorite outfits and historically they have done many creative and wicked things. I loved the response to the Munich Black September killings when they were blowing people up with their own telephones. Sadly they had a miscue and that led them to stop whacking these folks for a bit.

Right now we are relying on them to take care of the Iranian nuke program and they are actively looking at the folks working on this as targets. Good on 'em, but they are limited in how much impact they can have on their own. There are even reports that US intel is doing some of that as well, although I have much less faith in our spycraft and tradecraft. I do hope that President Obama's pragmatic bone causes him to increase these capabilities so he can avoid hot wars, and what ever causes the impetus we need to rebuild our human intelligence capabilities.

Posted by: Uncle Jimbo at 07:03 AM | Comments (31)
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Huh. Looks like Bill really was the go-to guy for sex-related dirt, wasn't he?

Only a few weeks before the 1964 election, a powerful presidential assistant, Walter Jenkins, was arrested in a men's room in Washington. Evidently, the president was concerned that Barry Goldwater would use that against him in the election. Another assistant, Bill Moyers, was tasked to direct Hoover to do an investigation of Goldwater's staff to find similar evidence of homosexual activity. Mr. Moyers' memo to the FBI was in one of the files.

...In other words, Moyers didn't just use the FBI to dig up dirt on the sex lives of fellow members of the Johnson Administration. He used the FBI to dig up dirt on the sex lives of the president's chief political rivals.

If any lefties feel like whining about the 'irrelevancy' of this story, I have two words for you: Bill Bennett.

Posted by: Slublog at 06:36 AM | Comments (71)
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