Auntie Matter's come to town!

There were so many interesting news stories out there today in the collective consciousness we've dubbed the Internet.  Briefly, here's the news that snagged my attention on this chilly November day:

Coolest news first; ladies and gentlemen, we have antimatter!  Which, apparently we've actually been able to create for a while now, but never for more than an instant or two.

Scientists have long been able to create individual particles of antimatter such as anti-protons, anti-neutrons and positrons – the opposite of electrons. Since 2002, they have also managed to lump these particles together to form anti-atoms, but until recently none could be trapped for long enough to study them, because atoms made of antimatter and matter annihilate each other in a burst of energy upon contact.


Me being the comic book fan that I am, I naturally start thinking of the Anti Monitor as the next logical step in the antimatter journey.

Anti Monitor!

Also, if anyone can come up with a better pun about antimatter and/or dark matter, leave me a comment.  "Auntie Matter" took an embarrassingly long time to come up with.

A copyright lawsuit between the estates of Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and Warner Bros. is once again moving forward.  The outcome of this case should finally answer the question of who actually owns one of the most iconic creations in American history.  Not to mention set up a precedent for pretty much EVERY other creator/publisher conflict in comic books.  Which could potentially cause chaos on a heretofore unseen level.  Should be interesting.  (I first read about this on Bleeding Cool, for the record.)

NPR is still under fire for, well, firing Juan Williams.  They were the first on the "American Idol, but with Really Important Ramifications," choose-your-own-defund-adventure thing that the Republicans have been working on.  Thankfully, the sneaky defund play was tidily defeated by the lame duck Democratic majority still in the House.  A movement to defund after the new year could be a whole different story.  Hopefully they'll have forgotten about NPR by then and will be back to just hating minorities in general.

It may snow this weekend here in Bellingham.  Possibly even tonight.  Goddammit.

Also in Bellingham, it looks like City Council's going to push the implementation of "traffic safety cameras" onto a half-dozen areas.  They're expected to make an announcement next Monday during the scheduled meeting.  I gotta say, as someone who's been covering this story pretty closely, this really doesn't sound like a good idea.  The monthly operating costs on each of these cameras alone is equivalent to a decent middle-income salary, and it's all going out the door to third-party contractors in Arizona.  Not to mention that both sides of the local political spectrum seem pretty united against the cameras.  This probably won't end well.

So that's what got my attention today.  What'd I miss?

Why I love NPR

RNC chair Michael Steele went on NPR last week to discuss the evils of a government-dictated health system. He was promptly made a fool of in less than ten minutes by NPR's Steve Inkeep. Here are a couple of my favorite moments from the interview:

INSKEEP: [Regarding Medicare] It's going to run out of money.

Mr. STEELE: Exactly.

INSKEEP: But you're coming here against reducing the spending on Medicare, restraining Medicare.

Mr. STEELE: No, no, no, no, no, no. That's not coming out against reducing the spending. That is not - I mean, that's a wonderful interpretation by the left, but what I was saying was don't go raiding the program without some sense of what we're taking from the program, the impact it's going to have on the senior citizens out there. You know, raiding a program that's already bankrupt to pay for another program that we can't afford is not good public policy.
INSKEEP: So you would be in favor of certain Medicare cuts?
Mr. STEELE: Absolutely. You want to maximize the efficiencies of the program. I mean, anyone who's in the program would want you to do that, and certainly those who manage it want you to that.
INSKEEP: Here's another thing that I'm trying to figure out: Within a couple of paragraphs of writing we need to protect Medicare, you write that you oppose President Obama's, quote, plan for a government-run health care system.
Mr. STEELE: Mm-hmm.
INSKEEP: Now you're a veteran public policy official. You're aware that Medicare is a government-run health care program.
Mr. STEELE: Yeah, look how it's run. And that's my point. Take Medicare and make it writ large across the country, because here we're now - how many times have we been to the precipice of bankruptcy for a government-run health care program?
INSKEEP: It sounds like you don't like Medicare very much at all...
Mr. STEELE: No, I'm not saying that. No, Medicare...
INSKEEP: ...but you write in this op-ed that you want to protect Medicare because it's politically popular. People like Medicare.
Mr. STEELE: No, no, no, no, no. Please, don't...
INSKEEP: That's why you're writing to protect Medicare.
Mr. STEELE: Well, people may like Medicare, and liking a program and having it run efficiently is sometimes two different things. And the reality of it is simply this: I'm not saying I like or dislike Medicare. It is what it is. It is a program that has been around for over 40 years, and in those 40 years, it has not been run efficiently and well enough to sustain itself. You have Medicare. You have Amtrak. You have the Post Office - all these government-run agencies that try to inject themselves into private markets typically don't do too well. My only point is that, okay, Medicare is what it is. It's not going anywhere. So let's focus on fixing it so that we don't every three, five, 10 years have discussions about bankruptcy and running out of money.
INSKEEP: I'm still having a little trouble with the notion that you're going to write that you're going to protect Medicare, that you're going to preserve this program to make sure that this government-run health care system stays solid in the long term...
Mr. STEELE: Let's get it to run right.
INSKEEP: ...and yet you are opposing, quote, government-run health care.
Mr. STEELE: Exactly. Well, wait a minute. Just because, you know, I want to protect something that's already in place and make it run better and run efficiently for the senior citizens that are in that system does not mean that I want to automatically support, you know, nationalizing or creating a similar system for everybody else in the country who currently isn't on Medicare.



Mr. STEELE:  My point is, you know, if the government's going to do, it's going to do it 10 times worse and it's going to be more pronounced than the private insurers. And I don't - I think that's a feature we can fix right now. And sure, there are issues in the insurance market that we can regulate a little bit better and that we can control better to maximize the benefits to the consumers. That's something that, yeah, we can rightly reform and fix. If the...
INSKEEP: Wait a minute, wait, wait. You would trust the government to look into that?
Mr. STEELE: No. I'm talking about the - I'm talking about private - I'm talking about...
INSKEEP: Who is...
Mr. STEELE: ...citizens. I'm talking about...
INSKEEP: You said that's something that should be looked into. Who is it that should look into that?
Mr. STEELE: I'm talking about those who - well, who regulates the insurance markets?
INSKEEP: That would be the government, I believe.
Mr. STEELE: Well, and so it - wait a minute, hold up. You know, you're doing a wonderful little dance here and you're trying to be cute, but the reality of this is very simple. I'm not saying the government doesn't have a role to play. I've never said that. The government does have a role to play. The government has a very limited role to play.
INSKEEP: Mr. Chairman, I respect that you feel that I'm doing a dance here. I just want you to know that as a citizen, I'm a little confused by the positions you take because you're giving me a very nice nuanced position here.


The full transcript of the conversation, as well as the audio version, can be found here.  This is a perfect example of what happens when you get a Republican talking about health care reform and they stray outside the prescribed soundbytes and misnomers.  They fall apart and become contradictory.  This is why there's precious little acutal debate coming from the Right.  Instead they make shit up about death panels, death books, secret nazi schemes and whatever else sounds shocking and threatening to the unenlightened masses.