What did last week's State of the Union and Tuesday's "Lost" season premiere have in common?

If you guessed, "a drinking game," you'd certainly be correct, but if you also guessed, "more twists and turns than your small intestine" you'd be right on the mark.

Obama's address was not the stuff of Clinton-era small ball that we, and others, expected. That left Nancy Pelosi's exuberant clapping to be one of the most reliably predictable aspects of the evening (and happily, gave everyone playing at home a reason to drink).

Continue reading "Daily Breakthrough: All is Not Lost" »

The choke job that Democrats pulled in Massachusetts last week has the Obama Administration in full blown panic. Unfortunately, tonight's State of the Union, it appears, will not offer much hope for displays of courage, perseverance, valor, and oh yeah, level-headed leadership.

Last year, Obama used his congressional address to take on every major challenge facing the nation, all at once, but it appears Obama will revert back to Clinton era small ball in his first State of the Union address tonight. Press reports suggest that the President intends to offer the nation a range of small and symbolic actions - a $100 million or so in middle class tax breaks and a freeze on non-military discretionary spending, most prominently.

For those keeping score at home, $100 million is approximately equivalent to 1/20th of what George Soros made last year betting against the Bush economy and non-military discretionary spending covers pretty much everything except all the stuff that is actually driving up the budget deficit.

Continue reading "Daily Breakthrough: Did the President Choke or Panic?" »

In a recent New York Magazine excerpt from their book on the 2008 campaign, John Heilemann & Mark Halperin tell the story of John Edwards' self-destruction -- and his delusional belief that political salvation lay just around the corner, long after he had laid waste to his campaign and his political future.

In admitting paternity of a child he fathered in the midst of his campaign, Edwards has finally accepted that his political career is over. What will it take for greens and sympathetic fellow travelers to accept that cap and trade and the UN climate process is dying and move on?

A look around the blogosphere finds various key players working their way through Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's Five Stages of Grief (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance).

Continue reading "Daily Breakthrough: How to Get Over the Death of Your Paradigm" »

Has America forgotten its own history? Do we remember nothing about what made us a great nation?

Americans are like screaming schoolboys over the latest technological toy - iSlate! Google phone! 3D TV! - without acknowledging, for even a minute, that so many fundamentals for these technologies, and many more, were delivered by Defense Department contracts.

Given our collective technology amnesia it's little wonder that America's Most Important Columnist has convinced so many Times readers that pollution regulations rather than government investments in technology are crucial to America winning what he cheesily calls "the Earth Race."

Continue reading "Daily Breakthrough: America's Future is Up in the Air" »

UPDATE: Alternet and Buffalo Beast have both corrected their posts about Roger Pielke Jr. and Breakthrough and apologized for the error. Score one for responsible journalism - an increasingly endangered species in today's brave new media world.


Conservatives and liberals are duking it out over the blockbuster Avatar's portrayal of American humans as violent corporate imperialists, and of the giant blue Na'vi as humanoids who live at one with nature, blissfully free of science and technology. Old story, old debate.

The strangest and most interesting thing that both sides have overlooked is that Na'vi have both science and technology -- which they use (gasp!) to dominate nature.

Continue reading "Daily Breakthrough: Avatar, Eco-Paranoia, and Technology" »