Briefly noted

Just a few quick things today.

1. As Rachel Maddow pointed out today, the Petraeus testimony was never supposed to be about "Can we end the surge?" but rather about "Can we get out entirely now?" Remember that when you're looking at news stories and headlines that say that we may be able to end the surge. We are not going to get what this country needs, which is to be out of Iraq. Are we really surprised?
   


2. Oooh...Karen Allen is going to be in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. Marion Ravenwood was the best. I guess the only real problem is that "Raiders" was 26 years ago and this new one is not set in 1970.
   


3. I just bought Dawn of War Platinum Edition and have been playing Dawn of War: Dark Crusade. I'm not usually into RTS, but Dark Crusade has been great so far. I think it's about the closest we're ever going to get to playing Warhammer 40K without spending a thousand bucks on models. (Bonus: DoW doesn't require the install disc to be in the drive at runtime, which means that I can play it on my optical-drive-less ThinkPad.)
   


4. It's so amazing that Spirit and Opportunity are still going. That's some engineering right there. And the neat thing is that I bet that if the design teams had gone in from the outset to come up with a craft that would last for a nearly four-year mission, it would have ended up a disaster. By the way...the next one needs to record sounds.