Guerillas in Their Midst

Rachel started us off with the story of one of the most fun protests of the health care madness season.

Behold the continuing magic of Billionaires for Wealthcare.

The whole opt-out plan is fascinating to me. In general, red states would refuse a public option, and blue states would take it.

Which means that way more Democrats than Republicans would get health insurance, which is exactly one of the scare-tactic rumors that was being spread by the far right: Health care reform will result in cutting Republicans out of it.

Only now it looks like they’ll cut themselves out.

The logic is baffling and the implications for public health in red states are scary, but way to win that argument, guys.

Rachel Re: One of These Things Is Not Like the Other

Rachel took on the continuing hullabaloo over the White House’s “war” on Fox. You’ll be shocked to know she’s not crazy about the angle some news organizations have taken.

She makes a couple of good, massively annoyed points.

And they’ll never air anywhere near Fox News, so let the hullabaloo continue until there’s another screaming point to latch onto.

Cheney, Inc.

Holy barnacles, the Cheneys just keep getting scarier. It’s like the Borgias are back and this time they’ve got oil money.

Rachel showed us a bit of the latest attack ad from Keep America Safe. Well, “latest” only in the sense that the ad is new. The content is from the Cheney Gold: Direst Hits Collection, “If We Close Guantanamo Bay We Will Be Instantly Overrun By Terrorists and Maybe Locusts and Demons Too.”

Is anyone else freaked out by the fact that one family and a couple of their pals – essentially a single clique – have enough money to influence media and policy on a national level?

The word “clique” just made me think about high school. I was going to say something about a high school cliques with that kind of money and power being even more terrifying, but no: The Cheneys still win.

Ms. Information

Rachel gave us a little fleshing out on Thursday night’s story about “The Predator War,” Jane Mayer’s article in the current issue of The New Yorker.

Rachel noted that during the past year, seven out of eight U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan were not against Al Quaeda. They were just against people the Pakistani government wanted killed.

Fun game: In 30 seconds, think of as many potentially terrifying ramifications of that piece of information as you can. I made it to five.

Rachel also felt motivated to do a little more digging on George Bush’s new business partners, the Get Motivated! business seminar folks.

She found out that T. Harv Eker, one of their top speakers who looks like he’s misspelled but isn’t, runs a business called the Rich Life Club. The Better Business Bureau has rated it an F.

I bet the Get Motivated! folks just love to lord their D+ over him.

Net Profit

Rachel reported that Senator John McCain (R – Arizona), who doesn’t use computers but does accept large campaign contributions from telecommunications companies, is against net neutrality.

Which means he is in favor of large telecommunications companies getting to decide what you can see at a reasonable speed, or perhaps at all.

Rachel welcomed Xeni Jardin of the excellent BoingBoing.net to talk it out.

If you’d like a quick primer on net neutrality, here’s one from Ask a Ninja. Parts of the Ninja clip were read into the Congressional record last year. Really.

Moment of Geek

Time for another terrific Moment of Geek.

This Friday, it was a story of what happens when geeks collide.

If you follow news about the show on Twitter, you’re probably familiar with Will Femia, Rachel’s ace webmaster and the curator of the show’s encyclopedic link blog.

Will spotted the Google Street View car and the result is a bit of fame on the Interwebs and an engaging interview.

Congratulations, Will!