Obama Bows Before Mighty Putin's Steel Hard Gaze

I thought these Chicago community organizers were tough. It seems that KGB strongmen are even tougher.

The main reason for President Barack Obama's decision was "Russia's uncompromising position on the issue," said the clearly pleased Russian foreign policy expert Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the foreign policy committee of the Federation Council of Russia, the country's upper legislative chamber. And Konstantin Kosachev, head of the Duma's foreign relations committee, said he sees evidence that today's American government has a better understanding of the Russians' concerns.

I guess Poland and the Chech Republic know exactly who their so-called "friends" stand on their defense. Now the Russians have a free hand when it comes to their sphere of influence. If they want to annex the Ukraine or attack Georgia again the Russians now know that Obama will do nothing to stop them.

The problem is that backing down will gain us nothing since Russia probably won't do anything to reign in Iran's nuclear ambitions. They know that Obama is a lightweight on the world stage and can can act with impunity if they want to. It would be nice to see Obama not turn into another Jimmy Carter but we might be headed that way whether we like it or not.

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Lack of Insurance Kills 45,000 Americans a Year!

You have to be kidding me. This is the same smoke-and-mirrors that the left uses all the time.

Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year -- one every 12 minutes -- in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found in an analysis released on Thursday.

No these people die because they do not take good care of themselves and end up dying from heart disease and diabetes. The lack of insurance has nothing to do with it. Also what do they term as not having insurance? If you are between jobs and are hit by a car are you counted as dying uninsured? I think you will get all you needed to know from who funded this "study."

The Harvard study, funded by a federal research grant, was published in the online edition of the American Journal of Public Health. It was released by Physicians for a National Health Program, which favors government-backed or "single-payer" health insurance.

I'm shocked that they didn't put this number at 10 million or 20 million or something. I mean 45,000 people is only .0001 percent of the population. There is no way such a small number will be able to sell a trillion dollar invasion of the insurance industry.

I wonder if their next study will be to find out the amount of people who will die on a waiting list for the Post Office Insurance to treat them. Rich people don't have to care because they will just by gold plated insurance that will jump the line. How is that fair?

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Pelosi Scared By Angry HealthCare Rhetoric

She says it is somehow reminding her of San Fransisco in the late 70s.

"I have concerns about some of the language that is being used because I saw this myself in the late '70s in San Francisco," Pelosi said, suddenly speaking quietly. "This kind of rhetoric was very frightening" and created a climate in which violence took place, she said.

The problem with Pelosi's recollection of the 70s is that was the man who killed Harvey Milk and George Moscone in San Fransisco was a fellow Democrat named Dan White and not some far right wing hate monger. Is Pelosi afraid that her own party might do something violent?

I also love how she gets in this dig against people opposing ObamaCare as well.

"I wish that we would all, again, curb our enthusiasm in some of the statements that are made," Pelosi said. Some of the people hearing the message "are not as balanced as the person making the statement might assume," she said.

Yes, ObamaCare opponents, the Speaker of the House just called you unbalanced. I think she needs to resign already. She already smeared the CIA and now she is slandering "people hearing their message" i.e. the American public by calling them crazy. She is just too far left and polarizing a figure to lead the House.

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How the Community Reinvestment Act Created the Housing Bubble

It is good to read in one place on how groups like ACORN and the Carter experiment known as the CRA planted the seeds that formed into the mortgage bubble. This was an interesting fact that everyone should know:

Of course, these loans weren't actually safe, and as far back as the early 1990s it was clear that mortgages made under affordable housing standards had a significantly higher default rate. But the facts weren't allowed to get in the way of the housing juggernaut, and so the quantity of risky loans increased. By 2005 HUD required that 45 percent of all loans purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had to be from low and middle income borrowers, with no sense whatsoever of whether such a quota was advisable or doable.

Now that we see the extent of ACORNs "counseling" we can see that most of these buyers probably duped by these "counselors" trying to game the system. I mean those ACORN workers were talking about claiming child sex slaves as dependents like they were ordering take-out food or something. I feel even worse for low income neighborhoods seeing as people like ACORN are their advocates.

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More about the Pair that Destroyed ACORN

Yup they are only in their early 20s and did something that CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, or even Fox News was not able to do. They were able to pull off a sting operation on a corrupt organization with $1300 and a chinchilla coat borrowed from someones grandmother.

In real life, Hannah Giles, 20, isn't a lady of the night. She's a minister's daughter studying journalism at Florida International University.

And James E. O'Keefe III, 25, a Fordham MBA student from New Jersey, isn't a pimp so much as a provocateur -- determined to expose what he sees as the hypocrisies and moral lapses of liberals by employing their own tactics against them.

The pair met last year on Facebook after O'Keefe posted his own gotcha videos, showing Planned Parenthood employees agreeing to his request to earmark his donations for the abor tions of African-American babies.

I think this statement is going to be prophetic:

O'Keefe contends their tactics are "the future of activism and investigative reporting."

"This is now my full-time job," he said.

Yup I think the far left needs to watch their back. A couple of college kids with a hidden camera has done more damage to their agenda then a 100 special prosecutors and 10,000 news media members and the entire GOP. I hope they go after the hate-mongers at the SEIU next.

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ACORN and the Legacy Media Just Lost Jon Stewart

I think you can now write ACORNs obituary now that Jon Stewart has now turned against them full force. This is the sort of thing that I enjoyed about Stewart before he morphed into a mouthpiece for the far left.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Audacity of Hos
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

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Dems Run from Carters "Rep. Joe Wilson is a Racist" Comments'

Poor Jimmy Carter the Dems have thrown him under the bus yet again.

�The president does not believe that criticism comes based on the color of his skin,� White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters in his Wednesday briefing. �We understand that people have disagreements with some of the decisions that we�ve made and some of the extraordinary actions that had to be taken by both this administration and the previous administration.�

I hope bookmark this set of remarks whenever someone plays the race card against someone disagreeing with Obama. I think the true racists are people like Maureen Dowd with this statement.

And New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote that �fair or not,� she heard �an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!�

She hears phantom things out of the bad old days of the 50s when her party was doing everything it could to keep blacks from attaining civil rights. I mean Jim Crow Laws were not passed by the GOP. It was Democrats that kept these things going for more than a century. It was GOP Minority Leader Everett Dirksen that was instrumental in getting the Civil Rights Bill passed in 1964.

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Baucus HealthCare Bill Might Actually Save Money?

It seems that the Baucus Bill might be just what health care reform needs to pass. It might even save some money:

Congressional budget experts estimated the proposal would reduce the ranks of the uninsured by 29 million over a decade. They also predicted the plan would trim federal deficits by $49 billion over the same period and suggested savings in the range of hundreds of billions of dollars might result for the decade that follows.

Many of the bill's major provisions would be delayed until 2013, after the next presidential election.

I think the 29 million covered is more then sufficient to say as many Americans as possible will have their health insurance. That 2013 time table though really takes some of the air out of all the people saying "the problems are getting so bad we have to ram it through by July 31st"

Also the bill has the cooperatives added in instead of the "government-run insurance company." If these coops are able to compete nationally then it would be a great idea. If they are state by state it won't save much money in the long run. The CBO director agrees

"They seem unlikely to establish a significant market presence in many areas of the country," wrote Douglas W. Elmendorf, head of the Congressional Budget Office.

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ACORN tries to Go for an Independent Investigation

It seems that ACORN is trying to finally clean up its act. Too bad they are going to the wrong source for the investigation.

ACORN will work with its advisory council, which includes prominent supporters of President Barack Obama, such as John Podesta, president of the nonprofit Center for American Progress, and Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, to name an independent auditor and investigator, ACORN chief executive Bertha Lewis said in a written statement.

Who are they going to convince they are clean if the go directly to a lefty group and the president of the hate-crime committing SEIU for its "independent" investigation. If they were serious about cleaning up their image they would go directly to the Justice Department and have them investigated. Instead, the SEIU will just say ACORN is "clean" and the organization will go back to advising potential under age sex slavery operators.

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Jimmy Carter Calls Rep. Joe Wilson a Racist

I guess Carter sees racism whenever you call Obama out on parts of his policy agenda.

"I think it's based on racism," Carter said at a town hall held at his presidential center in Atlanta. "There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president."

The Georgia Democrat said the outburst was a part of a disturbing trend directed at the president that has included demonstrators equating Obama to Nazi leaders.

"Those kind of things are not just casual outcomes of a sincere debate on whether we should have a national program on health care," he said. "It's deeper than that."

Um, no President Carter, it isn't any deeper then that. People don't trust Obama because he is black but because he plays fast and loose with the truth. Obama keeps repeating "if you like your doctor you can keep him" while the House Bill does not have any such guarantees. He promised that the unemployment rate won't go above 8% if the stimulus was passed and it is now nearly 10%.

Rep. Joe Wilson may have been off about illegal immigrants not being covered by ObamaCare but there are no protections in the bill that will prevent that from happening. In fact Obama was supposed to be the the post-racial President that transcended race and its only 8 months and Carter has to drag him back down into that mess again.

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Obama's HealthCare Speech to Congress Not a "Game Changer"

It seems that the speech only gave a small, temporary bump to his poll numbers that has since evaporated.

Forty-five percent (45%) of all voters nationwide now favor the plan while 52% are opposed. A week ago, 44% supported the proposal and 53% were opposed. (see day-by-day numbers).

I think if he came out strongly in opposition to a public option he would breeze just about any other change through and his poll numbers would quickly improve. I think most insured people see only pitfalls in a public plan and don't trust the government enough to run the thing correctly.

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Seth Klarman of Baupost Has a Large Postion in PDL Biopharma?

One thing that jumped out at me when I was doing research on take-over talk is how Seth Klarman of Baupost has 11% of his portfolio in PDL BioPharma (PDLI)

No. 2: PDL BioPharma Inc. (PDLI), Weightings: 10.91% - 15,559,608 Shares

Protein Design Labs Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the research, development and commercialization of novel therapies for inflammation and autoimmune diseases acute cardiac conditions and cancer. PDL BioPharma Inc. has a market cap of $855.39 million; its shares were traded at around $7.16 with a P/E ratio of 7.09 and P/S ratio of 2.91. The dividend yield of PDL BioPharma Inc. stocks is 13.97%.

Klarman assumed a small position (461,600 shares) in 1Q08 and then quickly build a large position (14.8 million shares) in 2Q08. His ownership has since maintained at a high level and in 1Q09, he bought about 800,000 share, bringing the total to 15.6 million shares.

That is quite a large part of a portfolio of an investing guru that has brought in big returns for decades. I wonder if he is looking for a takeover by Roche or is just investing heavily in an undervalued company. I mean a biotech that pays such a substantial dividend seems very rare and maybe Klarman understands that.

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Obama Supports Extending Patriot Act

It must be tough for a Progressive to support Obama. This flies directly in their face but he continues to go with it to keep our country safe.

The Obama administration supports extending three key provisions of the Patriot Act that are due to expire at the end of the year, the Justice Department told Congress in a letter made public Tuesday.

Lawmakers and civil rights groups had been pressing the Democratic administration to say whether it wants to preserve the post-Sept. 11 law's authority to access business records, as well as monitor so-called "lone wolf" terrorists and conduct roving wiretaps.

The wiretaps thing was what the leftists hated Bush for and Obama just wants to keep them going. I always thought they are a good idea for the most part as long as they are directed at terrorists. I feel that if they were in place prior to 9/11 we would have had a chance of stopping Atta in his tracks.

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Obama Offers Health Care Cost Savings: It will Only Take 3,634 Years

It seems that Obama just can't get these numbers right for some reason. Here is Obama's cost savings plan strait from his speech:

And if we can successfully slow the growth of health care costs by just one-tenth of one percent each year, it will actually reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the long term.

On Saturday, when I first featured this, I showed this spreadsheet from my favorite economist, King Banaian, which showed that the long term would have to be defined as 3,634 years:

In other words sometime in 5643 AD we will get that $4 trillion in health care cost savings that Obama promised us. Perhaps it will go to reducing the budget deficit for our new 538th State which happens to be the Powys Regio on Europa.

Maybe the government can use it toward improving health care for farmed clones since humans will no longer need health care due to advances in android brain transplantation. I guess you could always use it to buy processing plants for vat grown soy pork for poor offworlders. Obama the technocrat strikes again.

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Senate Votes 83-7 to Strip ACORN of Federal Funding

Now this is one show of Senate bipartisanship that makes me proud.

Senator Mike Johanns (R-NE) introduced an amendment to the HUD and Transportation appropriation bill to strip ACORN of all federal funding. A week ago, Johanns wouldn�t have gotten the amendment to the floor. Today, however, after three straight days of BigGovernment.com�s video expos�s of ACORN offices in Washington DC, New York City, and Baltimore offering assistance to pimping, tax evasion, and trafficking in underage Salvadorean girls, Johanns not only got his vote � but he got an impressive bipartisan showing. The Senate passed the Johanns amendment 83-7.

I think ACORN's days are numbered now that they have been shown to support tax evasion, promotion of prostitution, and even human trafficking underage prostitutes. I think how they were laughing about the whole thing on the hidden video is what got people to turn on them so fast. It was as if they promote the exploitation of child sex workers day-in-and-day out or something. I'm glad these people are finally getting exposed. Now is time for Obama to throw them right under the bus.

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Obama Calls Kanye West a "Jack-ass"

Wow, now this is quite a powerful rebuke from the most powerful man in the world.

During a CNBC interview on Monday, President Obama called hip-hop artist Kanye West a "jackass" over his behavior at the MTV Video Music Awards.

It was a classless and idiotic move to grab the mic from Taylor Swift and I'm glad Obama is taking him to task for his behavior. Too bad he can't label Hugo Chavez or Ahmadinajoke a "jack-ass" as well. I'm kind of torn about Obama weighing in on the MTV Music Awards as kind of beneath the office of the President. However, it is nice to see him weighing in on pop culture stuff every once in a while.

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Buyout Rumors: Bayer Buying Spectrum Pharmaceuticals?

Also from that same article we have this other rumor:

And Bayer hearts Spectrum Pharmaceuticals.

This one looks like a pretty interesting deal because Spectrum Pharma (SPPI) is actually marketing two drugs already. In other words they aren't just a development stage company and have revenues coming in already. They are Zevalin and Fusilev.

-Zevalin is for Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and has been recently approved for first line use in first-line consolidated therapy for NHL.

Spectrum said the Zevalin approval would expand the treatable population to about 43,000 patients annually.

I'm not sure of the revenue bump of that many new patients but it will be helping even more people and that cannot be bad. -Fusilev is for Osteosarcoma and is in FDA trials to deal with Colorectal Cancer as well.

On looking at Bayer's products we come up with a few Oncology drugs namely Viadur and Nexavar. Viadur- Is used to treat advanced Prostate Cancer. While Nexavar is used to treat Hepatocellular Carcinoma which is a kind of liver cancer. So a purchase of Spectrum will quickly add two new FDA approved oncology drugs to Bayers bench.

You have to add to this the fact that Bayer is currently marketing Zevalin in Europe. It would not be much of a stretch for Bayer to buy Spectrum and the American rights to Zevalin and add the revenue from Fusilev directly to their bottom line. Plus, Spectrum has a Phase 2 Prostate Cancer drug called Ozarelix that might be able to dovetail with Bayer's marketing of Viadur as well.

Also Spectrum has a market cap of only $314 million which is a very easy buy judging by the $1.8 billion that Bayer has in Cash as of the 2nd quarter of 2009. I can see this deal happening if Bayer actually pulls the trigger and decides to move further into the oncology field then they already are.

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Buyout Rumors: Roche Buying PDL BioPharma?

I was reading this article to figure out why Dendreon was up 15% today and decided to investigate some of the rumors:

Roche has its eye on PDL BioPharma(PDLI Quote).

So I decided to look into it and I can see the Roche buying that company out now that they completed the Genentech buyout. PDL BioPharma is a royalties generating company that collects fees for the use of their humanized antibodies technology. Currently they hold patent licenses for the following drugs:

• Genentech, Inc.: Herceptin� (trastuzumab), Xolair� (omalizumab), Raptiva� (efalizumab), Avastin� (bevacizumab), and Lucentis� (ranibizumab injection)
• MedImmune, LLC: Synagis� (palivizumab)
• Wyeth: Mylotarg� (gemtuzumab ozogamicin)
• Elan/Biogen Idec: Tysabri� (natalizumab)
• Chugai/Roche: Actemra (tocilizumab)
• UCB Celltech: Cimzia (certolizumab)

You notice that 5 of Genentech's top drugs are on that list. A buyout of this company by Roche would result in them saving quite a bit of money longterm by not having to pay out royalty payments on their top drugs. It would also allow them to bring in some revenue from other blockbuster biotech drugs from their competitors. It seems like an easy buyout but I ran across this quote from Roche's CFO Erich Hunziker:

On dealmaking, don't expect Roche to make any big buys anytime soon. When the deal was completed in March, CFO Erich Hunziker -- who retained his position -- said in a conference call the firm wouldn't make acquisitions valued at more than $60 million over the next two or three years. A few days after that statement, Roche acquired Innovatis AG of Bielefeld, Germany, for �15 million ($19.6 million).

PDL BioPharma has a market cap of $1.09 billion so it is way out of Roche's price range for two or three years. I mean they did just pay $70 billion for Genentech so they might wait a while before they reduce their costs with a buyout of PDL BioPharma. I can see it happening in a few years just so Roche doesn't have to pay out several million in royalties for the next several years.

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Spate of Takeover News Powers Dendreon Shares

It seems that more rumors persist of unnamed European firms sniffing around Dendreon. That $40 bid sounds suspiciously high though.

Dendreon is getting a $40 bid from some European Pharma giant. GlaxoSmithKline(GSK Quote) wants to buy Human Genome Sciences(HGSI Quote) -- again. Roche has its eye on PDL BioPharma(PDLI Quote). And Bayer hearts Spectrum Pharmaceuticals(SPPI Quote).

The thing that I can see is that these Pharma giants would rather pay to acquire the company that has already done the research and made it through the FDA minefield. They don't have to worry about failing in Type 2 trials or something because another company already took the risk.

In other words they are paying top dollar for research that they don't even have to do themselves. It sounds like a canny idea because biotech drugs have a longer patent period in which a Roche or whomever can make money.

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Sen. Olympia Snowe Sneaks some Good Stuff into the Baucus Healthcare Bill

It seems that since Snowe has insane power to kill any bill that comes along (assuming that the Dems don't destroy themselves and go to the reconciliation "nuclear option") I think her amendment might sneak into the bill that Obama eventually signs. It is quite a good amendment indeed:

Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine), the moderate Republican in the group, proposed one major change, allowing insurers to offer national plans and to participate in state-based insurance exchanges. The Baucus proposal would permit states to form "health-care-choice compacts," allowing for the purchase of non-group health insurance across state lines.

Although this would really favor massive insurers like UnitedHealth (which I am long for the sake of full disclosure) this alone might make health insurance affordable. The idea of picking and choosing exactly what you want to have in your health insurance and shopping around for the best plan in the country would be awesome.

I look forward to the day where I can open the Wall Street Journal and read an article on the 5 best health insurance plans for 30 somethings and then compare it to HMSA. If I like the plan better I can just cancel my HMSA and sign up online for UnitedHealth Single Guy Plus with Vision Rider (or whatever it will be called.) I would then thank Senator Snowe for actual competition to come into the marketplace.

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Rep. Joe Wilson May Not Have Been Too Far off on "You Lie" Shout

It seems that he is facing some kind of backlash with his emotional outburst but he might not have been too far off think what he is thinking. He has since apologized though.

Ninety minutes after Obama finished his address, the South Carolina representative�who yelled out "You lie!" after the president said he had never proposed providing coverage to illegal immigrants�issued a statement explaining he "let my emotions get the best of me." According to the congressman's office, Wilson also made a personal phone call to the White House in hopes of apologizing to Obama himself, but instead had to express his apologies to gatekeeper Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

The problem is that the much touted 47 million without insurance includes 10 million illegals.

However, the Census Bureau report �Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the puts the initial number of uninsured living in the country at 46.577 million.

A closer look at that report reveals the Census data include 9.487 million people who are �not a citizen.� Subtracting the 10 million non-Americans, the number of uninsured Americans falls to roughly 37 million.

I did notice Obama started using a 30 million uninsured number instead of 47 million in his speech last night though.

We are the only advanced democracy on Earth � the only wealthy nation � that allows such hardships for millions of its people. There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage. In just a two year period, one in every three Americans goes without health care coverage at some point. And every day, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage. In other words, it can happen to anyone.

I think this may have been deliberate change in the number in order to debunk the notion that illegals will be covered. I can see though how Wilson thought that illegals are covered when the President keeps insisting that he will get coverage for 47 million people when that 47 million included 10 million illegals. Too bad the CBO can't get control of the Census Bureau so we can have these numbers broken out for everyone to see.

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Obama's Speech Leaves Lots of Room for Compromise

Well his mighty speech to get health care on track seemed to be more of the same sort of thing but he is leaving room for compromise on the hated "government plan."

For example, some have suggested that that the public option go into effect only in those markets where insurance companies are not providing affordable policies. Others propose a co-op or another nonprofit entity to administer the plan. These are all constructive ideas worth exploring. But I will not back down on the basic principle that if Americans can't find affordable coverage, we will provide you with a choice. And I will make sure that no government bureaucrat or insurance company bureaucrat gets between you and the care that you need.

I'm also glad that he let malpractice reform slip into the conversation in a kind of wishy-washy sort of way.

Finally, many in this chamber � particularly on the Republican side of the aisle � have long insisted that reforming our medical malpractice laws can help bring down the cost of health care. I don't believe malpractice reform is a silver bullet, but I have talked to enough doctors to know that defensive medicine may be contributing to unnecessary costs. So I am proposing that we move forward on a range of ideas about how to put patient safety first and let doctors focus on practicing medicine. I know that the Bush Administration considered authorizing demonstration projects in individual states to test these issues. It's a good idea, and I am directing my Secretary of Health and Human Services to move forward on this initiative today.

Yup demonstration projects led by HHS sounds pretty sad but is better then nothing. But I wanted him to say that he was proposing a cap on malpractice rewards of $250,000 or something similar. That would have set the groundwork for a bipartisan bill and would have eliminated a major argument against health care reform. Other then that, the speech didn't seem like the sort of home run that could get millions of Americans back on his side.

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Tastiest Ice Cream Sandwich in the World!

The winner was one I didn't even know existed. I must now try their top 3 in order to vet their choices.

Epi Top Pick: Turkey Hill Vanilla Bean Ice Cream Sandwich ($3.99 for a box of six)

Pros: The creamy ice cream with real vanilla flavor and the moist, spongy cakelike cookie won raves from the testers. "The ice cream is so fluffy and smooth!" said one editor. "The vanilla specks are not just for show, the ice cream tastes like it's made with a real vanilla pod; very natural," said another.

Cons: Thin in comparison to other competitors.

It certainly looks pretty damn tasty to me. This pic is from their web page:

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Red Chinese to Double Nuclear Plant Construction

It is so strange to see the Red Chinese leading the US when it comes to actually reducing carbon without destroying their economy in the process.

More nukes means a slower growth rate in coal electric power plant construction. The total amount of CO2 emissions from Chinese plants will continue to rise. But it would rise as fast and as far as previously projected.

That high build rate should bring down costs and make China the low cost leader in nuclear power plant construction.

They could even have to opportunity to start shuttering those coal plants as more nuclear capacity comes online. That would reduce the total amount of coal that they would have to import. Too bad we couldn't get some of these Red Chinese to run our "green economy."

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Obama's Healthcare Disapproval at 52%

Now this is an AP poll so it should actually be in Obama's favor. Instead he is strait-up losing the message war.

Public disapproval of President Barack Obama's handling of health care has jumped to 52 percent, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll released hours before he makes his case for overhaul in a prime-time address to Congress.

His disapproval rating meltdown is quite shocking as well. He was in the 60s just a few months ago. It seems that ObamaCare was a bridge too far.

With his health revamp moving slowly and unemployment edging ever higher, Obama's overall approval rating has also suffered a blow. The survey showed that 49 percent now disapprove of how he is handling his job as president, up from 42 percent who disapproved in July.

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It Might Cost you $3,800 To Go Without Health Insurance?

Now that is a fine with some teeth.

Just as auto coverage is now mandatory in nearly all states, Baucus would require that all Americans get health insurance once the system is overhauled. Penalties for failing to do so would start at $750 a year for individuals and $1,500 for families. Households making more than three times the federal poverty level � about $66,000 for a family of four � would face the maximum fines. For families, it would be $3,800, and for individuals, $950.

I have no idea how they will assess such a fine but it has suddenly made all college kids about $750 poorer unless their tax credits can cover that fine. I wonder if we will have to staple a copy of your health insurance card to your tax return in order to get out of the fine. Lots of moving parts but not a lot of answers. This part of the plan makes sense though.

The Baucus plan would require insurers to take all applicants, regardless of age or health. But smokers could be charged higher premiums. And 60-year-olds could be charged five times as much for a policy as 20-year-olds.

I think both smokers and overweight people should be charged higher premiums as well. If I could save several $100 a year on my premiums it gives me a financial incentive to avoid overeating. Also older people should pay more then younger people for insurance because they will actually be using the health care more often. It is only fair since they will have some of their costs covered by Medicare anyway. I think I can actually live with this Baucus plan the more I learn about it.

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Legal Wrangling over "the Hobbit" Settled

Now they can get to the business of movie making again without all the lawyers and courts.

The settlement was welcomed by J.R.R. Tolkien's youngest son, Christopher Tolkien, on behalf of the trust.

Tolkien said he and other trustees "regret that legal action was necessary, but are glad that this dispute has been settled on satisfactory terms that will allow the Tolkien Trust properly to pursue its charitable objectives."

"The trustees acknowledge that New Line may now proceed with its proposed films of 'The Hobbit,'" Tolkien said in a statement.

I think Warner Bros. just backed a truckload of money up to the Tolkien Trust offices and made it all go away. They should have done this in 2003 so we would already be on the 2nd Hobbit film now instead of merely waiting for them.

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What to Do About the Debt

This is a great article on some actual solutions to the US Government's debt problem.

However, the reinstatement of the president�s power of impoundment, taken away by the Budget Control Act of 1974, would give the president much the same power as a line-item and would certainly be constitutional.

Impoundment was the power that the President had earlier to just not spend certain funds that Congress had allocated. This would serve as a brake on certain spending like the "bridge to nowhere" and other wasteful crap. The President would just set aside the money that would have gone to the bridge to nowhere and it would be sent back to the treasury.

An independent accounting board, modeled on the Federal Reserve (which keeps the power to print money out of the hands of Congress) would accomplish that. It should have the power to set the rules of accounting for the federal government, �score� the costs of new programs (which the Congressional Budget Office does now), and monitor all federal programs for cost-effectiveness (something Congress often forbids government agencies to do, obviously fearing what it might learn).

This I think would be the reform we would need to fix the system. Take the spending out of the hands of the Congress and the White House and expand the powers of the CBO. Call it the Federal Spending Commission. The Congress and the White House would have to offer their budget to this agency who's sole job is to keep things cost-effective unless their recommendation is overturned with a 2/3s majority. Also give this group the power to audit the books of the Federal Reserve as well to maintain checks and balances.

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Obama's Speech to Kids Has a Little ObamaCare Thrown In

I'm not sure if this was a planted questions but a "stay in school" speech by Obama can't get by without a whiff of ObamaCare loaded in.

During his meeting inside, one young person asked why the country doesn't have universal health insurance. "I think we need it. I think we can do it," Obama replied. The president said the country can afford to insure all Americans and that doing so will save money in the long run.

That is far more then a government plan. Universal health insurance would be an end to the insurance companies as we know it. I guess a Canadian/English system is what he is pushing for again.

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Unions Now Viewed in a Bad Light

This is the first time in 72 years that they are looked at this badly.

As a result, unions are no longer just alienating Republicans. As Gallup points out, independents have now begun rejecting union activism in large numbers. A year ago, 63% of independents approved of unions, but that number dropped 19 points to 44% today. In contrast, unions lost 9 points among Republicans (to 29%), and even lost six points among Democrats, dropping from 72% to 66%. Moderates have begun questioning the labor movement�s goals and tactics.

The major problem that the unions have is that they are viewed as far-leftist thugs that perpetrate hate crimes on conservative blacks. They don't seem to help anyone but themselves at the expense of everyone else. You never see them talking about down-trodden workers and they are mostly portrayed as Brown-shirts smashing heads at town hall meetings.

Add to this the hypocrisy of them pushing Post Office health care for everyone else while they sit pretty with diamond studded health plans that no one could take away. You then look back at the auto bailouts and see that they now own a vast equity share of two out of the three auto makers in the US at the expense of bond holders. I think big labor may have inflicted wounds on itself that it will take decades to heal.

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Parents Push Back Against Obama Speech to the Children

It seems that quite a few people aren't so pleased that Obama is trying to get a speech out there asking kids to support his agenda.

Schools don�t have to show it. But districts across the country have been inundated with phone calls from parents and are struggling to address the controversy that broke out after Education Secretary Arne Duncan sent a letter to principals urging schools to watch.

I would love to see the truancy rate next Tuesday. It seems that everything Obama does is going to get this level of scrutiny and mistrust from here on in. This is what happens when you attack regular people coming to town halls to protest. Regular people sometimes push back.

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Conservatives Praise Obama on Afghanistan Support

I think there are some on the right that want to see the President succeed especially when it comes to our military commitment to engage with Al-Quida and rebuild Afghanistan.

"We congratulate you on the leadership you demonstrated earlier this year when you decided to deploy approximately 21,000 additional troops and several thousand civilian experts as a part of a serious counterinsurgency campaign," write the signatories to the letter, whose organizers include the Foreign Policy Initiative's Jamie Fly, Iraq surge architect Fred Kagan, authors Robert Kagan and Max Boot, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, and former Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman Dan Senor.

The problem will be if Obama goes wobbly due to the far left attackers trying to cut and run from Afghanistan. If Afghanistan falls apart and becomes another terrorist enclave then it will be blamed on Obama and not on Bush. It is his war to win and hopefully he will be able to do it.

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White House Slow to Protect Truther "Green Jobs" Czar

It seems that Truther Van Jones may be shown the door before too long.

Van Jones, an administration official specializing in environmentally friendly "green jobs," issued a statement of apology on Thursday. When asked on Friday whether President Barack Obama still had confidence in him, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said only that Jones "continues to work in the administration."

Gibbs then referred to Jones' own statement.

In other words he still works there for the time being but maybe not much longer. The White House should not be painted with the Truther brush in any way shape or form. Since "9/11 deniers" are fringe nut jobs that actually besmirch the office of the president.

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The Sheer Scope of ObamaCare's Changes

Now this really puts this thing into perspective in my mind.

The health care industry is worth $2.5 trillion a year, comparable with Britain's entire gross domestic product and larger than that of most European countries. Can you imagine Britain's entire economy being reordered by a few people working secretly in backrooms in a matter of weeks? What are the chances they could ever get that right?

Yup, now that this has been put into writing it is even scarier. I can see mighty statesmen of yore like Thomas Jefferson or Teddy Roosevelt not being able to get a $2.5 trillion dollar reordering of 1/5th of the economy correct. Add to this the fact that it is all being rushed to meet unrealistic and arbitrary time tables.

Also remember that the people working secretly are inept far-leftists like Waxman and Pelosi. I mean they couldn't get a $1 billion dollar Cash for Clunkers to run correctly and they expect to run a program that is the entire GDP of Great Britain?

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Why Are People So Mad at the Town Halls

I think this picture from the Wall Street Journal sums up people's frustrations. Yes they are playing FreeCell during a Connecticut State House Budget Meeting. Yes, our tax money is paying their salaries in order for them to play video games while they are on the job. And they think people won't be hopping mad at them? This is just too funny.

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Obama Scales Back Indoctrination on Speech to School Kids

I encourage the President to speak to kids about staying in school but some of the course-material provided by the DOE was like something that came out of North Korea.

It appears there are two versions of the preparatory materials for the president's address to schoolchildren floating around, one with language urging teachers to have students write letters to themselves about how they can help the president, and a second changing that to letters to themselves about achieving their short- and long-term education goals.

How could I help the President? I'll give him some words of advice.

1. Tack to the center like Clinton did and throw Pelosi and Reid under the bus. Just don't mess with the interns and everything will be all right.

2. Get some sleep and tell your staffers to do the same. I think many of the missteps including the "police acted stupidly" in the Gates-affair can be chalked up to lack of sleep.

3. Try to refrain from being the news every day. In other words putter around the Oval Office, walk the Water dog, or play some golf with no reporters in sight. Part of the reason why you have 40% approval ratings is we see you everywhere we go.

4. Do not outsource anything further to Congress they cannot be trusted. You should have wrote the health care bill and the stimulus and gave Congress their marching orders. Having to sell something that Congress is making will always be a losing issue. The problem is that you take the heat when they fail and they will fail. Americans elected *you* to lead and not Pelosi and Reid.

5. Do something, anything to instill trust in government. That is why ObamaCare is failing and anything else you want will fail as well. Americans don't trust any of you and for good reason.

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Green Jobs Czar Van Jones a Lousy Truther?

At least it seems that way from a 2004 statement he signed.

Mr. Jones signed a statement for 911Truth.org in 2004 demanding an investigation into what the Bush Administration may have done that �deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war.�

His name is listed with 99 other prominent signatories supporting such an investigation on the 911Truth.org website, including Code Pink co-founders Medea Benjamin and Jodi Evans, comedienne Janeane Garofalo, Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia and others. He's identified as the executive director for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights on the statement, which he founded before going to the White House. The statement is available here. Mr. Jones is number 46.

I think there should be absolutely no place for a Truther in the Obama White House. Especially when his boss has all the secrets at his fingertips. If Bush did pull off 9/11 then Obama could just request the relevant top secret need to know documents (there is no way a conspiracy that needs 10s of thousands to pull off will have no documentation) and blow the lid off of everything. Since he hasn't done so that means that these documents do not exist. In any case being a Truther (like being a Holocaust denier) should automatically disqualify you for working in the same building as the President.

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A Whole Food Buy-Cott?

This seems like a pretty good idea and I will certainly be buying more stuff at Whole Foods.

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Very Interesting Analysis of the ObamaCare Fight Going Into the Fall

I love this sort of political analysis from people who have gone through the sausage making to craft bills in the Congress.

I will provide an overview of the legislative landscape, then walk through each path. What follows is highly judgmental, and I can prove none of it. It can and will change rapidly beginning seven days from now. My only defense is that over a 15-year period a President and two Senators paid me in part to do this kind of analysis. You get it for free.

The stuff about the reconciliation process (Path 3) is must read because I think that is what the Senate is going to try if there is no bipartisan bill. I think if the Dems take Path 3 they will be accused (rightfully) of ramming a bill down Americas throat and they will pay dearly for it in 2010. The rhetoric of forcing a majority of Americans to accept something they clearly don't want as if they were serfs will not sit well with millions of people. It will also make Obama a one term President as well.

• I presume House moderates will be pulling way back in September after getting beat up in August. Will they insist that the House bill be pulled more to the center, or will they instead prefer the bill to stay left so they can vote no? Can Speaker Pelosi get 218 votes for the deal agreed to by some Blue Dogs in committee in late July? (This is a risk on any path.)
• As a procedural matter this path has a slash-and-burn feel to it. Take all the substantive arguments you heard in July and August, add to them procedural unfairness arguments, and turn up the volume a few notches. The rhetoric will get even hotter.
• Assuming at least some moderate Democrats oppose the bill on this path, there will be bipartisan opposition to this bill. That makes it harder for Democratic leaders to hold nervous members voting aye, and will undermine the partisan attacks I would anticipate from the White House and Democratic leaders.

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Japan Rolls out a Solar Satellite Power Plant that Could Be Built in 4 Years

The thing looks like a death ray generator but it might be the wave of the future.

Mitsubishi and IHI are joining a research group containing 14 other countries to tackle the daunting task of getting Japan�s four square kilometer solar space station up and running in the next three decades. By 2015, the Japanese government hopes to test a small satellite decked out with solar panels that beams power through space and back to Earth.

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Probe Finds that SEC Screwed up 5 Times in Madoff Case

I hope these same people are not still trying to enforce securities laws at the SEC.

A summary of a report by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Inspector General, released by the SEC, described five investigations the SEC launched into Madoff's business because of complaints dating to 1992, and said "a thorough and competent investigation or examination was never performed."

SEC examiners caught Madoff in contradictions about his investment business but failed to dig deeper for the truth, the inspector found. At one point, the SEC's enforcement staff "caught Madoff in lies and misrepresentations, but failed to follow up" and accepted his explanations.

So they had been investigating this guy 5 separate times for 16 years and came up with no dirt? The funny thing is if not for the credit crisis they still might not have caught Madoff at all. He could have kept his Ponzi scheme going by going to the debt markets in order to keep paying investors while he raked in more people to fleece.

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Kabul Embassy Guards Run Like "Lord of the Flies"

Just what we need to guard our State Department people in Afghanistan.

Guards have come to POGO with allegations and photographic evidence that some supervisors and guards are engaging in near-weekly deviant hazing and humiliation of subordinates. Witnesses report that the highest levels of AGNA management in Kabul are aware of and have personally observed�or even engaged in�these activities, but have done nothing to stop them. Indeed, management has condoned this misconduct, declining to take disciplinary action against those responsible and allowing two of the worst offending supervisors to resign and allegedly move on to work on other U.S. contracts. The lewd and deviant behavior of approximately 30 supervisors and guards has resulted in complete distrust of leadership and a breakdown of the chain of command, compromising security.

In other words fire everyone and have them tried if there was any wrongdoing. The last thing we need is some suicide bomber sneaking into the embassy because some commanding officer was drunk or fooling around.

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Dems Enter Defensive Crouch on ObamaCare

I think all the rancor at the town hall meetings is starting to scare the Dems strait when it comes to the government option. This is from the Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.)

Clyburn, for his part, is advocating a �two step� approach in which the most widely supported health insurance reforms, like coverage for pre-existing conditions, go into effect immediately, while the public option is framed as a distant step � something that would go into effect in 2013, only after benchmarks and pilot programs are studied.

Clyburn has proposed setting up modest pilot programs for the public option in certain regions or states � an experimental way of seeing whether these health exchanges can actually work at the local level before they go nationwide.

That first thing if it is served up as a bill on its own and touted as insurance industry reform will get bipartisan backing I would be willing to bet you. If they add in a cap on malpractice lawsuits you will get the backing of hundreds of doctors in order to sell any other health care bills in the future. In other words wring the savings out of the system then implement the plan slowly with the ability to back it out if it is a dismal failure.

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Sandia Working on Right Sized Reactors

Now this should be the focus of environmental groups everywhere. This thing has the potential to phase out coal and oil power plants as well as replace old reactors.

Consistent aspects of Sandia's plan:
* Use super critical CO2 (SC-CO2) to make a smaller turbine to convert heat to electricity
* Factory Mass produced reactors in the 100-300 MWe range
* Costs in the $1500/KW and 5 cents per kwh
* Proliferation resistant and exportable
* This is where the global energy market is headed
* This will displace the natural gas reactors of the same size and cost

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New York Times Facebook "Exodus" is Reporters Friends

Now I figure the "paper of record" would rely on more then just a few acquaintances to consider something an "exodus."

What follows is several different people saying what they don't like about Facebook. Who are these people? They aren't explained or titled, or even always named. But we are given one qualification for their inclusion in this journalistic item: they are "My friend Alex... Another friend..."

No experts are cited, no online authorities. Well-known Facebook critics aren't invoked. There's a single academic reference tacked on at the end, perhaps as nod towards the idea that, maybe, somewhere, someone else has expressed criticism of Facebook.

In short a New York Times article, an article from The Newspaper of Record, is based entirely on a reporter talking to her chums.

Are there any editors at this paper that actually reads these articles and push their reporters to interview someone other then their friends. I guess the New York Times and the Mililani High School Trojan Times have more in common then you might think.

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Hawaiian Racism Charged By the Southern Poverty Law Center

This isn't some far-right group that is leveling these charges but a noted pro-tolerance organization that has combated racism for decades. These charges are pretty harsh and really makes Hawaii sound like a scary place to visit as well.

Celia Padron went on a Hawaiian vacation last year, lured by the prospect of beautiful beaches and friendly people. She, her husband and two teenage daughters enjoyed the black sand beach at Makena State Park on Maui. But a Hawaiian girl accosted her two teenage daughters, saying, "Go back to the mainland" and "Take your white ass off our beaches," says Padron, a pediatric gastroenterologist in New Jersey.

When her husband, 68 at the time, stepped between the girls, three young Hawaiian men slammed him against a vehicle, cutting his ear, and choked and punched him, Padron says. Police officers persuaded the Padrons not to press charges, saying it would be expensive for them to return for court appearances and a Hawaiian judge would side with the Hawaiian assailants, the doctor contends.

"There is no doubt in my mind [the attack] was racially motivated," she adds.

That sound you hear was the Hawaii Tourism Industry going into damage control mode. I would be willing to bet that the Padron family and millions like them will be going to Aruba or St. Kitts for their sun and sand vacation from here on in. Just what our ailing tourism industry needs is charges of racism that are very hard to deny.

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Some Ideas for Disney to Create Marvel Comics TV Shows

New Mutants TV Series:
This might be a great series if they ramp up the 90210 angle with love triangles and secret crushes as well as some fighting evil costumed villains-style action. They could easily put this on Disney Channel to go after the Hannah Montana demographic. It might even be cross genre as girls tune in to see if Cannonball and Lila Cheney stay together and the boys tuning in to see if they defeat the Hellions.

Spider-man Loves Mary Jane:
Another Hannah Montana style series this time told from Mary Jane's high school experience. They can have Spider-Man as an almost side character that is seen basically as a cameo. They follow Mary Jane's life and crushes and a little bit about her friendship with Peter Parker. They could conceivably do this series similar to Witches of Waverly Place and That's so Raven and those other Disney Channel shows.

Peter Parker the Amazing Spider-man:
This would be the flip side of the Mary Jane story as a live-action series that follows Peter Parker in high school. Have him do some stuff as Spider-Man but it is mostly about his life. You can add the part where he is bullied and is in love with Mary Jane. This would have slightly more upscale production values so it would be more compared with Smallville and not Hannah Montana.

Power Man and Iron Fist:
This could easily be a ABC drama set on the mean streets of New York with these two fighting against the Kingpin and his criminal empire. You would follow their private lives and how the Kingpin destroys neighborhoods and controls the drug trade. There would be some super-hero stuff but it would be mostly gritty street level drama instead of Fantastic Four style colorful heroics.

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Disney Buys Marvel Talks About Lesser Known Characters

It seems that Marvel is now part of the Disney family along with Pixar.

The Walt Disney Company's announcement today that it will buy Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion caught Hollywood off guard. Marvel, home to such comic book heroes as Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man, just recently embarked on a strategy to produce its own movies instead of just licensing their characters to other studios.

On reading Disney CEO, Bob Iger's remarks I came across this bit:

Marvel doing a good job mining �rich intellectual property portfolio� to exploit lesser-known characters like Iron Man. We want to do more of that. Pixar deal three years ago shows that we can do this.

I was wondering which Marvel characters could go Iron Man big:

Black Panther:
I think Black Panther might be a good character depending on what actor portrays him. A Will Smith would knock it out of the park but some lesser known actor will make that franchise fail miserably. They might need to make the story set totally in Africa with the Black Panther fighting against Klaw looking to mine Vibranium.

Thor:
I'm sorry I'm just not convinced that Thor is a popular enough character to make anything other then Punisher money. I will be really surprised if it breaks $100 million because the character just isn't very well known. At least Iron Man had a cartoon in the 1990s. I can't recall Thor being in anything of note. I'm hoping that Kenneth Branagh as the director can bring some decent pathos to the movie. In any case I think since it doesn't seem to be a true action movie it may do poorly at the box office.

Avengers:
I think this will be Disney's way to make a group franchise that is similar to the X-men but won't be tied to NewsCorp as the licensee. It will work with Robert Downey Jr. playing Iron Man but the other characters will be interesting. I think the team needs to be Iron-Man, Wasp, Giant-Man, Thor, and Captain America and no one else. Maybe you would get away with adding Vision, Scarlet Witch, and Wonderman love triangle in a sequel.

Nick Fury:
This might be easy money as a spy-thriller starring Samuel L. Jackson. If they play up the agent part of Agent of SHIELD then the movie would be pretty good. I think if they make it kind of a James Bond type movie where Fury fights against Hydra (make them just like SPECTRE) with flight belts and hidden guns then I can see the franchise really doing well.

Captain America:
I think this movie would do well as a 1940s war movie but only if that genre is still popular. Inglourious Basterds did great business so that era may still be marketable as a movie. Just make it a strait WW2 actioner with a guy with super-soldier serum and an adamantium shield fighting against the Red Skull. Or they can take a chance and set it in the 1970s with Captain America fighting against the upheaval and riots caused by the Hate-Monger. I just have a feeling that it will bomb majorly if it was set today and Cap stays a unfrozen super-hero from the 40s.

Daredevil:
If they went to Frank Miller and sold him on the idea of making his version of Dardevil with complete artistic freedom then it will be a hit. That means it needs to be in that Frank Miller style like 300 and Sin City. It needs to be called Frank Miller's Daredevil as well. I think the Spirit bombed because only hard-core comics fans even knew the character existed. While Daredevil already has had a bad movie under his belt that made $100 million. In any case they need to keep Ben Affleck as far away from the movie as possible.

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Turkey and Armenia Establish Diplomatic Ties

This should really benefit Armenia because the Turkish border has been closed for years. Now trade should be able to flow both ways and that should be good for the Armenian standard of living.

Armenia and Turkey agreed Monday to establish diplomat relations, overcoming a seemingly intractable rift that dates to the early 20th century and was marked by massacres of Armenians under Ottoman rule.

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Yet Another Media Talking-Head Insults the Voters

I think this contempt that the leftists keep showing toward the American people is part of what is killing ObamaCare.

Why does this happen? Some people (including me) say the voters are immature. Politicians (and those talk radio fellows again) are always telling them that they are wise and those folks in Washington are fools. Pollsters seek and validate their opinions on subjects they haven't bothered to learn anything about. Politicians drown them in benefits with no thought of how the bills will be paid. No wonder that citizens turn out like spoiled children.

Yup he just called American voters spoiled children in a national news source. So why should these children follow Mr. Kinsley's lead if he is such a condescending jack-ass? Yes children it is time to follow the big brains like Kinsley when he tells us what is good for us even though we don't want it. I think if liberals weren't so full of themselves people might actually listen to them more.

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Krauthammer Marks Out the Endgame for ObamaCare

This makes quite a bit of sense and I would be willing to bet that his vision will come to pass.

Promise nothing but pleasure -- for now. Make health insurance universal and permanently protected. Tear up the existing bills and write a clean one -- Obamacare 2.0 -- promulgating draconian health-insurance regulation that prohibits (a) denying coverage for preexisting conditions, (b) dropping coverage if the client gets sick and (c) capping insurance company reimbursement.

What's not to like? If you have insurance, you'll never lose it. Nor will your children ever be denied coverage for preexisting conditions.

The regulated insurance companies will get two things in return. Government will impose an individual mandate that will force the purchase of health insurance on the millions of healthy young people who today forgo it. And government will subsidize all the others who are too poor to buy health insurance. The result? Two enormous new revenue streams created by government for the insurance companies.

The only thing I want added to this is a national insurance marketplace that allows you to buy across state lines. This would favor huge companies like UnitedHealth, Humana, and Blue Cross Blue Shield and would shake out the lesser players. There will also be a consolidation in the industry as well.

The government can mandate that these companies offer several different competing plans that will be affordable by using their reimbursement structure in negotiations with the insurers. This can keep prices down and the insurance companies could create other plans that aren't reimbursed but are more expensive. So for instance, there can be a experimental drug benefit that the government doesn't reimburse but UnitedHealth can offer at a higher premium.

This is the Swiss Health Care system in a nutshell. The good thing about the Swiss system is that they are still innovating on the drug front so their health plan seems to be doing what ours should be doing. They pay a lower cost then we do, they don't have English and Canadian style wait times, and people are generally happy with their system. I think I could live with the Swiss system if they threw in a cap on malpractice suits because it gives consumers more choices and not less.

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VA Accidentily Sends Vets 1000s of "You Have a Fatal Disease" Letters

This store is exactly why ObamaCare is such a hard-sell to average people.

The Veterans Affairs Department sent electronically generated letters last week that wrongly told as many as 1,200 veterans they have been diagnosed with the fatal Lou Gehrig�s neurological disease, according to Jim Bunker, president of the National Gulf War Resource Center, a veterans services nonprofit group.

Can you imagine if ObamaCare passes and thousands of letters go out saying "you have inoperable brain cancer" or something terrible like that? If an insurance company accidentally did something like this then they would be forced out of business by angry consumers. But if the Feds do it then a few bureaucrats will have to take early retirement or some other slap on the wrist. That is the basic problem with ObamaCare. You can't force them out of business if they accidentally pulled a stunt like this.

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The Media has Lost It: Comparing ObamaCare to Post Office In Order to Defend It

Now this has to be an sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek article.

Let's just assume that if there ever is a federal healthcare option, it will be as inefficient as we consider the post office to be. So what? If service were poor, plan participants would have an incentive to look elsewhere for care, the way most businesses requiring quick package delivery choose FedEx or UPS over the Postal Service. Since private plans would presumably be more efficient, they'd have a built-in competitive advantage and would still appeal to employers and individuals who can afford their own coverage. The postal-style plan, meanwhile, would provide basic service to a lot of people who couldn't get it anywhere else--while providing fresh fodder, valid or not, for the late-night comedians.

So what? If the post office loses your letter or Newman is your postman then all you are is inconvenienced. If the federal health care option screws up or you have a surly, unqualified doctor then you might die. It is just that simple.

Also this guy is advocating for a two tier system where if you are rich you pay for private care and if you are poor you are stuck with federal health care and hopefully get treated some time in the next 6 months by a doctor that was taught in an accredited medical school.

That is why health insurers are sitting so pretty. They know that they will get 47 million people into the pool and they will cherry-pick the healthiest while the government takes care of the sickest. As long as they aren't run out of business (I am convinced that only a single payer system like Canada's would do it) they will adapt, consolidate, and end up crushing the government plan.

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Pelosi Wants to Ride Ted Kennedy's Coffin to Pass ObamaCare only a Few Hours After his Death

Now this has to be a new record for someones death to be politicized in order to pass legislation.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi�s office sent an email to reporters at around 2:30 a.m. today, just hours after his death, calling for the passage of health care overhaul. �Ted Kennedy�s dream of quality health care for all Americans will be made real this year because of his leadership and his inspiration,� the statement read.

I think this is just a new low for Pelosi. She politicized his death so quickly it would make your head spin. It was just "we will pass Kennedy's dream of health care" and he hasn't even been dead a few hours yet. That is just disgraceful even for Pelosi.

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One of Obama's Summer Reading Books Left Over from a Year Ago?

It seems that Obama might be an even slower reader then I am.

The commander in chief's list of beach books for his Martha's Vineyard vacation includes an environmental best seller that he bragged about reading almost a year ago on the campaign trail.

Obama was so taken with Thomas Friedman's "Hot, Flat and Crowded" that he quoted it at a rally last September in Flint, Mich., and one media outlet described it as the book that was currently on the then-candidate's nightstand.

The 448-page book appeared again on Monday on the list of five books that Obama planned to read on his vacation in Martha's Vineyard.

I guess the book is just super boring and hard to plow through for Obama even though it is only 448 pages. I guess that is why he sticks to crime novels and presidential biographies. I usually take about a month to read a book since I don't really sit down and read for long stretches. But I have taken more then a year to read certain really boring novels in the past.

Perhaps, Obama views Hot, Flat, and Crowded as just another boring slog that he has to go through to prove his environmental bona fides. Maybe if he skipped it some leftist would jump all over him and say "you mean you haven't read Friedman's new book? What sort of environmental President are you? You are worse then Bush!" Or something along those lines.

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First Cannon Fired on the Battlefield Today in History

Although that fact is disputed.

It has been claimed that this battle, which occurred near Cr�cy in northern France early in the Hundred Years War, marks the first use of cannon on the battlefield. Like many claims that reach us through the mists of time, this one is hard to verify and is oft disputed: According to Arab historian Ahmad Y. al-Hassan, the Mamluks employed the �first cannon in history� against the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260. In the end, it may come down to how the word �cannon� was defined in those days.

It wasn't very effective then but it sure has been throughout the ages. Artillery was the queen of battle until the advent of the airplane. I think the self-propelled artillery piece will still be needed even a few centuries into the future.

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CBO Says Another 2.3 Million Jobs Could Be lost by 2010

I thought the stimulus was supposed to stop this from happening.

Based on CBO�s forecast for the average unemployment rate in calendar year 2010, 2.3 million fewer people will be employed on average next year than they projected in January.

For comparison, in July there were about 140 million people employed in the U.S.

Next year�s reality will depend heavily on when the economy turns up and how quickly growth returns. A new projection of fewer people employed next year should not surprise anyone. But 2.3 million is a big bad number.

I'm in the camp that a payroll tax holiday needs to enacted ASAP from the money left over in the stimulus. If we still have $670 billion left to spend then forget whatever pork barrel crap that money is supposed to go to and just use it to cut the payroll tax. I think Congress needs to get serious about job losses or they will be looking for new ones in 2010.

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