BETTER ACQUIRE ‘EM FAST: War game reveals U.S. lacks cyber-crisis skills. On the other hand, this story makes it sound like they’re after powers more than skills, which is typical.

CHILDBIRTH: The quest for safer deliveries.

DOCTOR ZERO: The Green Death.

OIL: “Exxon Mobil (XOM) announced today that in 2009 the company’s proven reserves increased by 133% of the amount of oil produced. . . . Amazingly, Exxon, who has been accused in the past of being too conservative in terms of exploration and development, has been finding more oil than it produces for each of the last 16 years, to the dismay of peak oil proponents.”

A YEAR AGO: The first “Tea Party” protest, before they were even named “tea party” protests. Yet Thomas Frank is still making the tired and discredited claim that it’s all astroturf. Those organizations Frank mentions are trying to catch the wave of popular protest; they’re not the source of the wave. That’s something I wrote about almost a year ago.

UPDATE: From the comments on Frank’s piece: “Anyway, a more truthful headline might have read: Obama administration is no great change. Scratch the surface and some familiar Beltway names appear.” Heh.

GOOD FOR HIM: Obama Pushes Two New Nuclear Reactors.

MARKDOWNS ON new Blu-Ray releases.

BREITBART 1, SHUSTER 0: David Shuster’s Twitter Silent Since Breitbart/O’Keefe Battle.

WHAT’S OBAMA’S beef with India?

ANN ALTHOUSE ON DEGLAMORIZING SARAH PALIN. What’s funny is that I think Palin deglamorizes herself to a substantial degree — those glasses weren’t chosen for sexiness, but the reverse. But Althouse’s response to the Palin photoshopping is brutal: “Having said all that, let me add that Sarah Palin’s looks obviously are part of her popularity. And I can list many other politicians — female and male, Republican and Democrat — who have won favor in the hearts of the people through their looks. One of them is sitting in the White House.”

UH OH: CNN poll: 52% say Obama doesn’t deserve reelection in 2012.

LIFE ON Keith Olbermann’s plantation.

Plus, Olbermann replies to charges of racism: “We get Clarence Page on whenever we can.”

LARRY KUDLOW: “Washington’s disconnect from the rest of the country has never been greater.”

OFF THE RESERVATION? Montana: Tribal Tea Partiers Hold Rally. “Leading the new Crow Nation Tea Party was Adrian Bird Sr., a former tribal chairman candidate who recently filed a civil complaint against the Crow executive branch alleging malfeasance for mismanaging tribal funds.”

Plus, solidarity, brothers!

Other Tea Party members from across the state joined the Crow Nation Tea Party in demonstrating at Hardin’s only downtown stoplight. The groups gathered at every corner of the intersection with placards denouncing health care reform, climate change legislation and excessive federal government.

They elicited honks from passersby during the noon rally.

“We just wanted to be supportive of these people,” said Ken Champion of Bozeman. “Anybody who stands for freedom and liberty and opposed to unrestricted government spending, we want to support.”

The people, united, will never be defeated!

THE IMPORTANCE OF clean water.

TEA PARTY TRUTHS.

POLIWOOD: Filmmaking For Humans: Why The Hurt Locker Beats Avatar.

ANN ALTHOUSE: So, Baradar is being tortured now? But Obama has plausible deniability.

UH OH: Foreign demand for US Treasury securities falls by record amount as China reduces holdings.

RON RADOSH: Andrew Sullivan Asks PJM to Remove my Blog Post and to Apologize. He Won’t Get One. Here’s Why!

TEA PARTY IMPOSTORS? This bears further scrutiny.

EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT CHRISTINA HENDRICKS’ BODY. Is this really as much of a mystery as the story makes it sound?

Firefly fans (“Our Mrs. Reynolds”), of course, caught on long before Mad Men informed the masses.

TEA PARTY PERSPECTIVE: A reader who requests anonymity emails:

All of this Tea Party grass roots business, about how ordinary folks are getting involved in politics at the lowest level, is straight out of Heinlein’s book, _Take Back Your Government_. (I just managed to score a copy of the ’92 edition on amazon.ca.)

What I’d like to see a lot more of is fiscally conservative Democrats, who are bewildered at the party’s drift toward plutocracy and kleptocracy, do the same thing–go to war at the ward and precinct level to take their party.

Yes, that Heinlein book is technologically obsolete but surprisingly on-point in the important ways — particularly the ease of taking over your local county party apparatus. The fact that used copies are currently going for six hundred bucks on Amazon is probably proof . . . .

And, yeah, Democrats should take the lesson, too.

UPDATE: Reader Scott Littler notes that Heinlein’s book is available as a $5 ebook here.

WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS: A shotgun revolver. Fit-and-finish leaves a bit to be desired, though. I’ll wait for the Sig model . . . .

FIEGER AND the flam.