I ALMOST feel sorry for the guy. He can't get anything right, and soon enough, the larger media, that stood by him, will fall away. When that happens, the floodgates will open.
White House objects to 'rant' on its housing plan
Feb 20 04:43 PM US/Eastern
By BEN FELLER
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House on Friday dismissed a cable television reporter's criticism of President Barack Obama's housing bailout plan as the ranting of an individual who "doesn't know what he's talking about."
In a report on CNBC on Thursday, Rick Santelli animatedly accused the Obama administration of "promoting bad behavior" with its $75 billion lifeline to millions of Americans on the brink of foreclosure.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs poked fun at Santelli by inviting him to come to the White House to read the details of Obama's plan. "I'd be happy to buy him a cup of coffee," Gibbs said. In a nod to Santelli's caffeinated style, Gibbs then wryly added: "Decaf."
Santelli took the critique in stride, saying Gibbs had hardly offered tough words.
"I think this is terrific that this has been opened up to national debate," Santelli said in an MSNBC interview shortly after Gibbs' daily briefing wrapped up. "I think it's wonderful he invited to me to the White House. I'm really not big on decaf, though. I think I'd prefer tea."
The episode underscores how closely the Obama White House, like others before it, monitors how media coverage may be shaping public opinion. In particular, the constant chatter of cable television news shows has at times gotten under the skin of White House aides, and they have made no effort to hide their displeasure.
The goal of Obama's plan is to help millions of homeowners from being evicted and stabilize the flailing housing market. It aims to help struggling homeowners refinance and provides more money to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to encourage them to rework deeply troubled loans.
In his report on CNBC, Santelli said responsible homeowners would end up subsidizing other people's bad behavior.
From the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade, he turned to traders and said: "How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor's mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills?" The traders booed that notion, and Santelli said: "President Obama, are you listening?"
Santelli's report has become something of an Internet sensation.
Gibbs countered that Obama's housing plan would help those who have acted responsibly but yet could lose their home.
"Here's what this plan won't do," Gibbs said. "It won't help somebody trying to flip a house. It won't bail out an investor looking to make a quick buck. It won't help speculators that were betting on a risky market. And it is not going to help a lender who knowingly made a bad loan."
[Note to those who are a bit slow - the above sentences, all five of them - all say the same thing. He said the same thing over and over as if they are different - suggesting this plan will not help several groups, when in fact, they are all one. And then the ever so bright Gibbs goes on to admit what Santelli claimed the problem to be. Santelli never said Obama wanted to help investors. Never.]
Later, Gibbs acknowledged that "there will be people that made bad decisions that in some ways will get help," but that they are not the focus. "I also think it's tremendously important that for people who rant on cable television to be responsible and understand what it is they're talking about," he said.
[Then Gibbs admits Santelli is correct, all the while saying he isn't. And then Gibbs complains about irresponsible attacks ... Holy Crap Batman, IRRESPONSIBLE attacks, that was the entire basis of the Obama campaign - from Iran, North Korea, Hamas, Russia, India ....]
Obama
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Obama: Canadian Trade - Fine with him
During the campaign, on several occasions, Obama attacked the Bush administration for its open policies of trade with Canada that hurt the US. He said he would change that policy. Apparently, he won't.
Isn't that odd. Obama breaking a promise.
Those who support him will again ignore this faux pas, but you will not be able to for much longer as the mistakes build on each other.
21 Feb 2009
The Weekend Australian
Jonathan Weisman Ottawa
Obama plays down tensions on debut trip
US President Barack Obama, on his debut foray abroad, sought to reassure Canada that he had no intention of turning some of his campaign rhetoric on trade into actual barriers between America and its largest trading partner.
Mr Obama downplayed a controversial Buy American’’ clause in his huge economic stimulus plan, which raised fears across the globe of an anti-freetrade backlash in the US.
Now is a time where we’ve got to be very careful about any signals of protectionism, because as the economy of the world contracts, I think there’s going to be a strong impulse, on the part of constituencies in all countries, to see if they can engage in beggarthy-neighbour policies,’’ Mr Obama said.
Visiting Canada has traditionally been the first trip for a new US president. In his daylong trip yesterday, Mr Obama touched upon an array of bilateral concerns, from trade to a declining North American car industry to Afghanistan, where Canadian combat forces are to leave by mid-2011.
He capped the visit with a joint appearance with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper that highlighted some strains that have developed between the two sides in recent years. Mr Harper took some apparent swipes at the Bush administration’s position on climate change, noting that Washington was only now forming a comprehensive policy on the environment and energy.
Mr Harper also questioned whether the North American Free Trade Agreement could be reopened, as Mr Obama had pledged to do during the campaign, without ‘‘ unravelling what is a very complex agreement’’.
Mr Obama reiterated his belief that NAFTA side agreements on environmental and labour standards should be incorporated into the main agreement.
Canada’s concerns over Mr Obama’s pledge to reopen NAFTA have been exacerbated by a provision in the President’s just-passed $US787 billion ($1.2 trillion) economic stimulus package that stipulates that certain building materials for infrastructure projects funded by the plan come from US suppliers.
Mr Obama had criticised NAFTA on the campaign trail last year in hard-hit industrial states, where many people blame the trade deal for robbing the US of manufacturing jobs.
On Afghanistan — where Mr Obama has pledged to increase US troop presence by about 50 per cent — the President did not push Canada to rethink its plans to withdraw its troops. Ottawa has said it won’t renew its troop commitment to a conflict that has killed 108 Canadian soldiers.
Obama
Isn't that odd. Obama breaking a promise.
Those who support him will again ignore this faux pas, but you will not be able to for much longer as the mistakes build on each other.
21 Feb 2009
The Weekend Australian
Jonathan Weisman Ottawa
Obama plays down tensions on debut trip
US President Barack Obama, on his debut foray abroad, sought to reassure Canada that he had no intention of turning some of his campaign rhetoric on trade into actual barriers between America and its largest trading partner.
Mr Obama downplayed a controversial Buy American’’ clause in his huge economic stimulus plan, which raised fears across the globe of an anti-freetrade backlash in the US.
Now is a time where we’ve got to be very careful about any signals of protectionism, because as the economy of the world contracts, I think there’s going to be a strong impulse, on the part of constituencies in all countries, to see if they can engage in beggarthy-neighbour policies,’’ Mr Obama said.
Visiting Canada has traditionally been the first trip for a new US president. In his daylong trip yesterday, Mr Obama touched upon an array of bilateral concerns, from trade to a declining North American car industry to Afghanistan, where Canadian combat forces are to leave by mid-2011.
He capped the visit with a joint appearance with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper that highlighted some strains that have developed between the two sides in recent years. Mr Harper took some apparent swipes at the Bush administration’s position on climate change, noting that Washington was only now forming a comprehensive policy on the environment and energy.
Mr Harper also questioned whether the North American Free Trade Agreement could be reopened, as Mr Obama had pledged to do during the campaign, without ‘‘ unravelling what is a very complex agreement’’.
Mr Obama reiterated his belief that NAFTA side agreements on environmental and labour standards should be incorporated into the main agreement.
Canada’s concerns over Mr Obama’s pledge to reopen NAFTA have been exacerbated by a provision in the President’s just-passed $US787 billion ($1.2 trillion) economic stimulus package that stipulates that certain building materials for infrastructure projects funded by the plan come from US suppliers.
Mr Obama had criticised NAFTA on the campaign trail last year in hard-hit industrial states, where many people blame the trade deal for robbing the US of manufacturing jobs.
On Afghanistan — where Mr Obama has pledged to increase US troop presence by about 50 per cent — the President did not push Canada to rethink its plans to withdraw its troops. Ottawa has said it won’t renew its troop commitment to a conflict that has killed 108 Canadian soldiers.
Obama
Friday, February 20, 2009
Students: I wanna good grade. Gimme an A.
Gimme. I deserve. I want. I should get.
Pay the mortgage, pay their tuition, pay their insurance ...
I can't imagine where they get the idea they are entitled to anything.
New York Times
February 18, 2009
Student Expectations Seen as Causing Grade Disputes
By MAX ROOSEVELT
Prof. Marshall Grossman has come to expect complaints whenever he returns graded papers in his English classes at the University of Maryland.
“Many students come in with the conviction that they’ve worked hard and deserve a higher mark,” Professor Grossman said. “Some assert that they have never gotten a grade as low as this before.”
He attributes those complaints to his students’ sense of entitlement.
“I tell my classes that if they just do what they are supposed to do and meet the standard requirements, that they will earn a C,” he said. “That is the default grade. They see the default grade as an A.”
A recent study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, found that a third of students surveyed said that they expected B’s just for attending lectures, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the required reading.
“I noticed an increased sense of entitlement in my students and wanted to discover what was causing it,” said Ellen Greenberger, the lead author of the study, called “Self-Entitled College Students: Contributions of Personality, Parenting, and Motivational Factors,” which appeared last year in The Journal of Youth and Adolescence.
Professor Greenberger said that the sense of entitlement could be related to increased parental pressure, competition among peers and family members and a heightened sense of achievement anxiety.
Aaron M. Brower, the vice provost for teaching and learning at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, offered another theory.
“I think that it stems from their K-12 experiences,” Professor Brower said. “They have become ultra-efficient in test preparation. And this hyper-efficiency has led them to look for a magic formula to get high scores.”
James Hogge, associate dean of the Peabody School of Education at Vanderbilt University, said: “Students often confuse the level of effort with the quality of work. There is a mentality in students that ‘if I work hard, I deserve a high grade.’ “
In line with Dean Hogge’s observation are Professor Greenberger’s test results. Nearly two-thirds of the students surveyed said that if they explained to a professor that they were trying hard, that should be taken into account in their grade.
Jason Greenwood, a senior kinesiology major at the University of Maryland echoed that view.
“I think putting in a lot of effort should merit a high grade,” Mr. Greenwood said. “What else is there really than the effort that you put in?”
“If you put in all the effort you have and get a C, what is the point?” he added. “If someone goes to every class and reads every chapter in the book and does everything the teacher asks of them and more, then they should be getting an A like their effort deserves. If your maximum effort can only be average in a teacher’s mind, then something is wrong.”
Sarah Kinn, a junior English major at the University of Vermont, agreed, saying, “I feel that if I do all of the readings and attend class regularly that I should be able to achieve a grade of at least a B.”
At Vanderbilt, there is an emphasis on what Dean Hogge calls “the locus of control.” The goal is to put the academic burden on the student.
“Instead of getting an A, they make an A,” he said. “Similarly, if they make a lesser grade, it is not the teacher’s fault. Attributing the outcome of a failure to someone else is a common problem.”
Additionally, Dean Hogge said, “professors often try to outline the ‘rules of the game’ in their syllabi,” in an effort to curb haggling over grades.
Professor Brower said professors at Wisconsin emphasized that students must “read for knowledge and write with the goal of exploring ideas.”
This informal mission statement, along with special seminars for freshmen, is intended to help “re-teach students about what education is.”
The seminars are integrated into introductory courses. Examples include the conventional, like a global-warming seminar, and the more obscure, like physics in religion.
The seminars “are meant to help students think differently about their classes and connect them to real life,” Professor Brower said.
He said that if students developed a genuine interest in their field, grades would take a back seat, and holistic and intrinsically motivated learning could take place.
“College students want to be part of a different and better world, but they don’t know how,” he said. “Unless teachers are very intentional with our goals, we play into the system in place.”
students
Pay the mortgage, pay their tuition, pay their insurance ...
I can't imagine where they get the idea they are entitled to anything.
New York Times
February 18, 2009
Student Expectations Seen as Causing Grade Disputes
By MAX ROOSEVELT
Prof. Marshall Grossman has come to expect complaints whenever he returns graded papers in his English classes at the University of Maryland.
“Many students come in with the conviction that they’ve worked hard and deserve a higher mark,” Professor Grossman said. “Some assert that they have never gotten a grade as low as this before.”
He attributes those complaints to his students’ sense of entitlement.
“I tell my classes that if they just do what they are supposed to do and meet the standard requirements, that they will earn a C,” he said. “That is the default grade. They see the default grade as an A.”
A recent study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, found that a third of students surveyed said that they expected B’s just for attending lectures, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the required reading.
“I noticed an increased sense of entitlement in my students and wanted to discover what was causing it,” said Ellen Greenberger, the lead author of the study, called “Self-Entitled College Students: Contributions of Personality, Parenting, and Motivational Factors,” which appeared last year in The Journal of Youth and Adolescence.
Professor Greenberger said that the sense of entitlement could be related to increased parental pressure, competition among peers and family members and a heightened sense of achievement anxiety.
Aaron M. Brower, the vice provost for teaching and learning at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, offered another theory.
“I think that it stems from their K-12 experiences,” Professor Brower said. “They have become ultra-efficient in test preparation. And this hyper-efficiency has led them to look for a magic formula to get high scores.”
James Hogge, associate dean of the Peabody School of Education at Vanderbilt University, said: “Students often confuse the level of effort with the quality of work. There is a mentality in students that ‘if I work hard, I deserve a high grade.’ “
In line with Dean Hogge’s observation are Professor Greenberger’s test results. Nearly two-thirds of the students surveyed said that if they explained to a professor that they were trying hard, that should be taken into account in their grade.
Jason Greenwood, a senior kinesiology major at the University of Maryland echoed that view.
“I think putting in a lot of effort should merit a high grade,” Mr. Greenwood said. “What else is there really than the effort that you put in?”
“If you put in all the effort you have and get a C, what is the point?” he added. “If someone goes to every class and reads every chapter in the book and does everything the teacher asks of them and more, then they should be getting an A like their effort deserves. If your maximum effort can only be average in a teacher’s mind, then something is wrong.”
Sarah Kinn, a junior English major at the University of Vermont, agreed, saying, “I feel that if I do all of the readings and attend class regularly that I should be able to achieve a grade of at least a B.”
At Vanderbilt, there is an emphasis on what Dean Hogge calls “the locus of control.” The goal is to put the academic burden on the student.
“Instead of getting an A, they make an A,” he said. “Similarly, if they make a lesser grade, it is not the teacher’s fault. Attributing the outcome of a failure to someone else is a common problem.”
Additionally, Dean Hogge said, “professors often try to outline the ‘rules of the game’ in their syllabi,” in an effort to curb haggling over grades.
Professor Brower said professors at Wisconsin emphasized that students must “read for knowledge and write with the goal of exploring ideas.”
This informal mission statement, along with special seminars for freshmen, is intended to help “re-teach students about what education is.”
The seminars are integrated into introductory courses. Examples include the conventional, like a global-warming seminar, and the more obscure, like physics in religion.
The seminars “are meant to help students think differently about their classes and connect them to real life,” Professor Brower said.
He said that if students developed a genuine interest in their field, grades would take a back seat, and holistic and intrinsically motivated learning could take place.
“College students want to be part of a different and better world, but they don’t know how,” he said. “Unless teachers are very intentional with our goals, we play into the system in place.”
students
Global Warming - More Proof they are all Nutters
They are very dangerous. Based on no evidence, on theories, and conjecture, on the most superficial details and lack of data - they would have us virtually destroy our economies to do something that cannot be fixed once we embark upon their ludicrous course - and then we find that so many holes exist in their argument as to make the religious nitwits seem almost scientific when they argue the earth is only thousands of years old.
Arctic Sea Ice Underestimated for Weeks Due to Faulty Sensor
By Alex Morales
Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A glitch in satellite sensors caused scientists to underestimate the extent of Arctic sea ice by 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles), a California- size area, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said.
The error, due to a problem called “sensor drift,” began in early January and caused a slowly growing underestimation of sea ice extent until mid-February. That’s when “puzzled readers” alerted the NSIDC about data showing ice-covered areas as stretches of open ocean, the Boulder, Colorado-based group said on its Web site.
“Sensor drift, although infrequent, does occasionally occur and it is one of the things that we account for during quality- control measures prior to archiving the data,” the center said. “Although we believe that data prior to early January are reliable, we will conduct a full quality check.’’
The extent of Arctic sea ice is seen as a key measure of how rising temperatures are affecting the Earth. The cap retreated in 2007 to its lowest extent ever and last year posted its second- lowest annual minimum at the end of the yearly melt season. The recent error doesn’t change findings that Arctic ice is retreating, the NSIDC said.
The center said real-time data on sea ice is always less reliable than archived numbers because full checks haven’t yet been carried out. Historical data is checked across other sources, it said.
The NSIDC uses Department of Defense satellites to obtain its Arctic sea ice data rather than more accurate National Aeronautics and Space Administration equipment. That’s because the defense satellites have a longer period of historical data, enabling scientists to draw conclusions about long-term ice melt, the center said.
“There is a balance between being as accurate as possible at any given moment and being as consistent as possible through long time-periods,” NSIDC said. “Our main scientific focus is on the long-term changes in Arctic sea ice.”
Ice
Arctic Sea Ice Underestimated for Weeks Due to Faulty Sensor
By Alex Morales
Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A glitch in satellite sensors caused scientists to underestimate the extent of Arctic sea ice by 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles), a California- size area, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said.
The error, due to a problem called “sensor drift,” began in early January and caused a slowly growing underestimation of sea ice extent until mid-February. That’s when “puzzled readers” alerted the NSIDC about data showing ice-covered areas as stretches of open ocean, the Boulder, Colorado-based group said on its Web site.
“Sensor drift, although infrequent, does occasionally occur and it is one of the things that we account for during quality- control measures prior to archiving the data,” the center said. “Although we believe that data prior to early January are reliable, we will conduct a full quality check.’’
The extent of Arctic sea ice is seen as a key measure of how rising temperatures are affecting the Earth. The cap retreated in 2007 to its lowest extent ever and last year posted its second- lowest annual minimum at the end of the yearly melt season. The recent error doesn’t change findings that Arctic ice is retreating, the NSIDC said.
The center said real-time data on sea ice is always less reliable than archived numbers because full checks haven’t yet been carried out. Historical data is checked across other sources, it said.
The NSIDC uses Department of Defense satellites to obtain its Arctic sea ice data rather than more accurate National Aeronautics and Space Administration equipment. That’s because the defense satellites have a longer period of historical data, enabling scientists to draw conclusions about long-term ice melt, the center said.
“There is a balance between being as accurate as possible at any given moment and being as consistent as possible through long time-periods,” NSIDC said. “Our main scientific focus is on the long-term changes in Arctic sea ice.”
Ice
Obama: Tax you by the mile
Think California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada ... Tax us by the mile.
Now some will say - this will simply substitute for the gas tax, but au contraire mon ami - if it SIMPLY substituted for the gas tax, they wouldn't need this. Plus, when they implement this, they will also keep the gas tax (who can possibly say no to revenues).
The American consumer, taxed to death by Obama - but of course, they are not called taxes.
And why not wrap a Green fee in it, to help save the planet.
Lots of new fees you can implement, but none are taxes.
[Will Obama do it - NOT this year, but he has time. After all, HE WON, GET OVER IT.]
AP Interview: Transportation secretary says taxing how much we drive may replace gasoline tax
By JOAN LOWY
Associated Press Writer
7:17 AM EST, February 20, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he wants to consider taxing motorists based on how many miles they drive rather than how much gasoline they burn — an idea that has angered drivers in some states where it has been proposed.
Gasoline taxes that for nearly half a century have paid for the federal share of highway and bridge construction can no longer be counted on to raise enough money to keep the nation's transportation system moving, LaHood said in an interview with The Associated Press.
"We should look at the vehicular miles program where people are actually clocked on the number of miles that they traveled," the former Illinois Republican lawmaker said.
[To read the rest of the interview, click on the title link]
Obama
Now some will say - this will simply substitute for the gas tax, but au contraire mon ami - if it SIMPLY substituted for the gas tax, they wouldn't need this. Plus, when they implement this, they will also keep the gas tax (who can possibly say no to revenues).
The American consumer, taxed to death by Obama - but of course, they are not called taxes.
And why not wrap a Green fee in it, to help save the planet.
Lots of new fees you can implement, but none are taxes.
[Will Obama do it - NOT this year, but he has time. After all, HE WON, GET OVER IT.]
AP Interview: Transportation secretary says taxing how much we drive may replace gasoline tax
By JOAN LOWY
Associated Press Writer
7:17 AM EST, February 20, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he wants to consider taxing motorists based on how many miles they drive rather than how much gasoline they burn — an idea that has angered drivers in some states where it has been proposed.
Gasoline taxes that for nearly half a century have paid for the federal share of highway and bridge construction can no longer be counted on to raise enough money to keep the nation's transportation system moving, LaHood said in an interview with The Associated Press.
"We should look at the vehicular miles program where people are actually clocked on the number of miles that they traveled," the former Illinois Republican lawmaker said.
[To read the rest of the interview, click on the title link]
Obama
Obama: North Korea and Clinton. No Problem.
They detonated at least one device - they must have enriched uranium from some source, and given the facilties they have ... and given the intelligence ... it is more likely they did it.
Unless you are trying to cover stuff up Hillary - like your husbands contribution, and the seriousness this issue should receive in an administration already plagued by failure and incompetence.
By the way - restart the six party talks. I have a question. Restarts suggests they had occured in the past. When was this that they occured?
Now, follow me carefully ... if you want to restart something, it must mean you agree or support the process.
If this process had been going on, you would not have complained about it or denied it or attacked it as being insufficient would you?
Clinton: Nobody Knows Whether North Korea Had Uranium Program
FOXNews.com
Friday, February 20, 2009
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told FOX News that nobody knows whether North Korea ever tried to produce highly enriched uranium, despite claims seemingly to the contrary from intelligence officials.
In an interview in Seoul, South Korea, on Friday, Clinton said she's certain the regime in North Korea would try to produce the substance if it could to further its "nuclear ambition," but that the U.S. does not have solid evidence that any program exists or ever existed.
"I don't have any doubt that they would try whatever they possibly could. Have they? I don't know that, and nobody else does, either," Clinton told FOX News. "Clearly, there was some reason to believe that something having to do with highly enriched uranium -- whether it was happening in North Korea, whether it had been imported into North Korea -- was part of the information derived once we got inspectors into North Korea," she said.
Clinton said nobody can point to "any specific location" or "any specific outcome of whatever might have gone on, if anything did."
Top U.S. intelligence officials have said they have high confidence that North Korea was running an enrichment program and moderate confidence the program could still exist.
But Clinton has stirred doubt about the threat posed by any such enrichment program during her four-country tour of Asia, her first trip abroad as secretary of state.
She has urged those focused on it to remember that it was the reprocessing of plutonium that enabled the North to become a nuclear state. The North detonated a low-yield nuclear device in October 2006. That device, and the arsenal of six to 10 nuclear bombs the North is believed to possess, was developed through the reprocessing of plutonium.
One of Clinton's chief aims this week is to reinvigorate the stalled Six-Party talks aimed at persuading Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear programs.
Late last year, in exchange for a verbal pledge by North Korea to allow tough inspections of its nuclear facilities -- on which the North later reneged -- the Bush administration removed the country from Washington's list of nations that sponsor terrorism.
Clinton suggested the "de-listing" of the country could be reversed as they try to jump-start the talks.
"This is still an open effort on our part to get the North Koreans back to the Six-Party talks. The role that that decision did play and might play in trying to engage them once again is of, you know, paramount concern to me right now," she told FOX News.
[To read the rest of the article, click on the title link]
North Korea
Unless you are trying to cover stuff up Hillary - like your husbands contribution, and the seriousness this issue should receive in an administration already plagued by failure and incompetence.
By the way - restart the six party talks. I have a question. Restarts suggests they had occured in the past. When was this that they occured?
Now, follow me carefully ... if you want to restart something, it must mean you agree or support the process.
If this process had been going on, you would not have complained about it or denied it or attacked it as being insufficient would you?
Clinton: Nobody Knows Whether North Korea Had Uranium Program
FOXNews.com
Friday, February 20, 2009
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told FOX News that nobody knows whether North Korea ever tried to produce highly enriched uranium, despite claims seemingly to the contrary from intelligence officials.
In an interview in Seoul, South Korea, on Friday, Clinton said she's certain the regime in North Korea would try to produce the substance if it could to further its "nuclear ambition," but that the U.S. does not have solid evidence that any program exists or ever existed.
"I don't have any doubt that they would try whatever they possibly could. Have they? I don't know that, and nobody else does, either," Clinton told FOX News. "Clearly, there was some reason to believe that something having to do with highly enriched uranium -- whether it was happening in North Korea, whether it had been imported into North Korea -- was part of the information derived once we got inspectors into North Korea," she said.
Clinton said nobody can point to "any specific location" or "any specific outcome of whatever might have gone on, if anything did."
Top U.S. intelligence officials have said they have high confidence that North Korea was running an enrichment program and moderate confidence the program could still exist.
But Clinton has stirred doubt about the threat posed by any such enrichment program during her four-country tour of Asia, her first trip abroad as secretary of state.
She has urged those focused on it to remember that it was the reprocessing of plutonium that enabled the North to become a nuclear state. The North detonated a low-yield nuclear device in October 2006. That device, and the arsenal of six to 10 nuclear bombs the North is believed to possess, was developed through the reprocessing of plutonium.
One of Clinton's chief aims this week is to reinvigorate the stalled Six-Party talks aimed at persuading Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear programs.
Late last year, in exchange for a verbal pledge by North Korea to allow tough inspections of its nuclear facilities -- on which the North later reneged -- the Bush administration removed the country from Washington's list of nations that sponsor terrorism.
Clinton suggested the "de-listing" of the country could be reversed as they try to jump-start the talks.
"This is still an open effort on our part to get the North Koreans back to the Six-Party talks. The role that that decision did play and might play in trying to engage them once again is of, you know, paramount concern to me right now," she told FOX News.
[To read the rest of the article, click on the title link]
North Korea
Friday, February 13, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Neanderthal: Homo Sapiens Sapiens killed them, so bring them back.
Scientists create genetic blueprint of Neanderthal
By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY
February 12, 2009
An international team Thursday said it has completed a draft of the genome (or genetic blueprint) of Neanderthals, which shows that our extinct cousins made "very little, if any" contribution to human genes.
Team chief Svante Pääbo of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig described the work as a 63% complete gene map. This genome was stitched together from fossil DNA samples taken from four Neanderthals found in Europe.
Neanderthals occupied Europe from about 800,000 to 30,000 years ago. Scholars have long argued over their extinction, and their relationship to people.
"We still have lots of gaps, but we also now have a good overview of the (Neanderthal) genome," said Pääbo, in a webcast from Germany. The announcement previews a presentation scheduled for Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago. "We see this as a tool for future biologists (looking for) what's really unique to modern humans."
"I think it is spectacular, to get something out of bones 40,000 years old, absolutely stunning," says anthropological geneticist Henry Harpending of the University of Utah, author of The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution.
[to read the rest of the article, click the title link]
By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY
February 12, 2009
An international team Thursday said it has completed a draft of the genome (or genetic blueprint) of Neanderthals, which shows that our extinct cousins made "very little, if any" contribution to human genes.
Team chief Svante Pääbo of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig described the work as a 63% complete gene map. This genome was stitched together from fossil DNA samples taken from four Neanderthals found in Europe.
Neanderthals occupied Europe from about 800,000 to 30,000 years ago. Scholars have long argued over their extinction, and their relationship to people.
"We still have lots of gaps, but we also now have a good overview of the (Neanderthal) genome," said Pääbo, in a webcast from Germany. The announcement previews a presentation scheduled for Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago. "We see this as a tool for future biologists (looking for) what's really unique to modern humans."
"I think it is spectacular, to get something out of bones 40,000 years old, absolutely stunning," says anthropological geneticist Henry Harpending of the University of Utah, author of The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution.
[to read the rest of the article, click the title link]
Global Warming and Sustainability
The parts in red are made up numbers:
In 1800, man polluted the air with 100 pounds of emissions, mostly from fires.
In 1850, man polluted the air with 100% more than he did fifty years before.
In 1880, man polluted the air 70% more than he did in 1850.
In 1910, man polluted the air 800% more than thirty years prior.
None of that means anything.
You need perspective.
James Lovelock, one of the pioneers of the global warming movement tells us the pieces we are missing in the story.
Like HOW MUCH MANKIND PRODUCES
30 gigatonnes - TODAY.
So using my made up numbers, you can then see how much we produced at that time.
Very scary when you think about 30 gigatonnes. Until I tell you that the total amount sent into the atmosphere is 550 gigatonnes each year, and what we create of that amount is less than 8%.
If every car, SUV, plane, train, truck, home, building, cow, pigs, and horse, along with every human being on earth - all vanished tomorrow - EARTH would emit 520 gigatonnes.
There is, according to Lovelock, absolutely NOTHING mankind can do to change what will happen.
The answer is NOT to drive faster, pollute more, rather act prudently - cut back not because it will change anything BUT rather because it will make the time you have better. That and the more important point - instead of wasting the $7 trillion on useless tripe, use it to help the millions who will lose their property, farms, homes, to the rising water. This idea rather than throwing $7 trillion at a problem you cannot in any way change and then when it happens anyway, coming back and demanding we now spend another $7 trillion to help the people - that is theft, that is dishonesty, that is fraud, that is illegal and immoral.
The other issue is sustainability and no, they are not the same, and no real scientist would suggest they are. They are separate issues entirely - different species if you will.
That we are using too many resources and nothing will remain.
Much of that is a lie. The rest, fear, prompted by people who profit off the fear and make a great deal of money (Al Gore establishing a company to buy and sell carbon credits).
In any way, shape, form - have I suggested there is no global warming. Nope. I have said it wouldn't make any difference what you do, it will happen anyway, and your role in the grand scheme is so infinitesimally insignificant as to border on invisible. I understand people want to believe they make a difference. It simply isn't true.
One example - the Mediterranean in the late 1960s and early 1970s versus 1982. Over the course of 10-12 years something happened.
The way this works is - I don't need to prove everything you believe is wrong, just enough to warrant reconsideration of unscientific fear mongering. On the other hand, you have to prove beyond a doubt that your theory IS more than a theory and is accurate and real, backed by more than 100 years of data. The issue - you can't. You have to prove why stealing $7 trillion is worth it, and not with mumble jumble about resources.
More geologists believe (than those who don't) that there are upwards of 100,000,000,000 barrels of oil in the Rocky mountains. Some geologists have suggested there are more than 4 trillion barrels of oil. More oil in the Rocky mountains than man has pumped and used in the entire history of oil. We cannot ever run out of oil. Some Russian scientists believe, wrongly I believe, that resources can never run out - they are constantly replenished. Whether the fact - there are more barrels of oil in the Rocky mountains than in all of the Middle East or the Russians - we are not in danger of running out of that resource. (The estimates range from 100 billion to over 3 trillion barrels)
Water - the answer is more complicated than we might first believe. We could construct huge pipelines to Northern Canada and no, we would not need to worry about water for 300-400 years. There is absolutely no shortage of rain or water north of Edmonton Alberta. None. Enough for as many people as need water. The issue will be getting to it.
The other part of the issue is - more people = more water use. Immigration will have to be reviewed.
What other resource?
In 1800, man polluted the air with 100 pounds of emissions, mostly from fires.
In 1850, man polluted the air with 100% more than he did fifty years before.
In 1880, man polluted the air 70% more than he did in 1850.
In 1910, man polluted the air 800% more than thirty years prior.
None of that means anything.
You need perspective.
James Lovelock, one of the pioneers of the global warming movement tells us the pieces we are missing in the story.
Like HOW MUCH MANKIND PRODUCES
30 gigatonnes - TODAY.
So using my made up numbers, you can then see how much we produced at that time.
Very scary when you think about 30 gigatonnes. Until I tell you that the total amount sent into the atmosphere is 550 gigatonnes each year, and what we create of that amount is less than 8%.
If every car, SUV, plane, train, truck, home, building, cow, pigs, and horse, along with every human being on earth - all vanished tomorrow - EARTH would emit 520 gigatonnes.
There is, according to Lovelock, absolutely NOTHING mankind can do to change what will happen.
The answer is NOT to drive faster, pollute more, rather act prudently - cut back not because it will change anything BUT rather because it will make the time you have better. That and the more important point - instead of wasting the $7 trillion on useless tripe, use it to help the millions who will lose their property, farms, homes, to the rising water. This idea rather than throwing $7 trillion at a problem you cannot in any way change and then when it happens anyway, coming back and demanding we now spend another $7 trillion to help the people - that is theft, that is dishonesty, that is fraud, that is illegal and immoral.
The other issue is sustainability and no, they are not the same, and no real scientist would suggest they are. They are separate issues entirely - different species if you will.
That we are using too many resources and nothing will remain.
Much of that is a lie. The rest, fear, prompted by people who profit off the fear and make a great deal of money (Al Gore establishing a company to buy and sell carbon credits).
In any way, shape, form - have I suggested there is no global warming. Nope. I have said it wouldn't make any difference what you do, it will happen anyway, and your role in the grand scheme is so infinitesimally insignificant as to border on invisible. I understand people want to believe they make a difference. It simply isn't true.
One example - the Mediterranean in the late 1960s and early 1970s versus 1982. Over the course of 10-12 years something happened.
The way this works is - I don't need to prove everything you believe is wrong, just enough to warrant reconsideration of unscientific fear mongering. On the other hand, you have to prove beyond a doubt that your theory IS more than a theory and is accurate and real, backed by more than 100 years of data. The issue - you can't. You have to prove why stealing $7 trillion is worth it, and not with mumble jumble about resources.
More geologists believe (than those who don't) that there are upwards of 100,000,000,000 barrels of oil in the Rocky mountains. Some geologists have suggested there are more than 4 trillion barrels of oil. More oil in the Rocky mountains than man has pumped and used in the entire history of oil. We cannot ever run out of oil. Some Russian scientists believe, wrongly I believe, that resources can never run out - they are constantly replenished. Whether the fact - there are more barrels of oil in the Rocky mountains than in all of the Middle East or the Russians - we are not in danger of running out of that resource. (The estimates range from 100 billion to over 3 trillion barrels)
Water - the answer is more complicated than we might first believe. We could construct huge pipelines to Northern Canada and no, we would not need to worry about water for 300-400 years. There is absolutely no shortage of rain or water north of Edmonton Alberta. None. Enough for as many people as need water. The issue will be getting to it.
The other part of the issue is - more people = more water use. Immigration will have to be reviewed.
What other resource?
Food? Busy thinkin' of food.
There are many issues with many resources, and like many resources we lacked in the past, technology will provide an answer. It is not a matter of saying - let's waste millions of gallons because we can get it from somewhere else. That is infantile thinking and shows a child's response to disagreement.
There is another issue - it may not be global warming, but rather a global ice age that is approaching. That will somewhat negate many claims today - and Gore will have his award taken back.
The issue is more complex than Gore's brain can possibly comprehend, and no one posting or article will address the issues - nor is there an intention to.
We are not on the verge of extinction, although there are times I wish some people were removed from the gene pool. Sadly, they will persist awhile longer.
science
Surprise: CHANGE isn't really change, it is change, but not BIG change, just change.
SURPRISE! Dems Break Promise: Stimulus Bill to Floor Friday
by Connie Hair
02/12/2009 ET
In a press conference Thursday, the House Republican leadership spoke candidly about being kept out of the House-Senate conference on the Obama-Pelosi-Reid so-called “economic stimulus” bill. They confirmed they had not yet seen the text of the bill as of 4 p.m.
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he was unsure how many Democrats would vote with Republicans again on this bill but that he thought Republicans “may get a few” Democrats to side with them. The fact that the Demos have now broken their promise to have the public able to see the bill for 48 hours may drive more Dems into the Republican camp.“[I] don’t know, ‘cause they haven’t seen the bill either,” Boehner said.
“The American people have a right to know what’s in this bill,” Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind) told HUMAN EVENTS after the press conference. “Every member of Congress -- Republicans and Democrats -- voted to post this bill on the internet for 48 hours, 48 hours ago. We’ll see if the Democrats keep their word.”
Actually -- as of 5:15 pm, the Democrats had broken their word. The stimulus bill -- which we still haven’t seen -- will be released late tonight and will be brought up on the House floor at 9 am tomorrow.
The following statement was released by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer at 4:57 p.m.:"The House is scheduled to meet at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow and is expected to proceed directly to consideration of the American Recovery and Reinvestment conference report. The conference report text will be filed this evening, giving members enough time to review the conference report before voting on it tomorrow afternoon."
****************************
This is THE CHANGE, the OPEN government you were promised.
To have less than 12 hours (which includes sleep) to read a bill that is nearly a trillion dollars with all its PORK.
Obama
by Connie Hair
02/12/2009 ET
In a press conference Thursday, the House Republican leadership spoke candidly about being kept out of the House-Senate conference on the Obama-Pelosi-Reid so-called “economic stimulus” bill. They confirmed they had not yet seen the text of the bill as of 4 p.m.
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he was unsure how many Democrats would vote with Republicans again on this bill but that he thought Republicans “may get a few” Democrats to side with them. The fact that the Demos have now broken their promise to have the public able to see the bill for 48 hours may drive more Dems into the Republican camp.“[I] don’t know, ‘cause they haven’t seen the bill either,” Boehner said.
“The American people have a right to know what’s in this bill,” Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind) told HUMAN EVENTS after the press conference. “Every member of Congress -- Republicans and Democrats -- voted to post this bill on the internet for 48 hours, 48 hours ago. We’ll see if the Democrats keep their word.”
Actually -- as of 5:15 pm, the Democrats had broken their word. The stimulus bill -- which we still haven’t seen -- will be released late tonight and will be brought up on the House floor at 9 am tomorrow.
The following statement was released by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer at 4:57 p.m.:"The House is scheduled to meet at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow and is expected to proceed directly to consideration of the American Recovery and Reinvestment conference report. The conference report text will be filed this evening, giving members enough time to review the conference report before voting on it tomorrow afternoon."
****************************
This is THE CHANGE, the OPEN government you were promised.
To have less than 12 hours (which includes sleep) to read a bill that is nearly a trillion dollars with all its PORK.
Obama
Losercrats: Redefine what PORK means
This of course was worth fighting over? This of course is money that we need for a STIMULUS, this of course was NOT PORK!!
Democrats. Redefining what PORK means. Wasteful spending.
Pelosi's mouse slated for $30M slice of cheese
Thursday, February 12, 2009
SA Miller
Washington Times
UPDATED:
Talk about a pet project. A tiny mouse with the longtime backing of a political giant may soon reap the benefits of the economic-stimulus package.
Lawmakers and administration officials divulged Wednesday that the $789 billion economic stimulus bill being finalized behind closed doors in Congress includes $30 million for wetlands restoration that the Obama administration intends to spend in the San Francisco Bay Area to protect, among other things, the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi represents the city of San Francisco and has previously championed preserving the mouse's habitat in the Bay Area.
The revelation immediately became a political football, as Republicans accused Democrats of reneging on a promise to keep so-called earmarks that fund lawmakers' favorite projects out of the legislation. Democrats, including Mrs. Pelosi, countered that the accusations were fabricated.
[To read the rest of the article, click on the title link]
democrats
Democrats. Redefining what PORK means. Wasteful spending.
Pelosi's mouse slated for $30M slice of cheese
Thursday, February 12, 2009
SA Miller
Washington Times
UPDATED:
Talk about a pet project. A tiny mouse with the longtime backing of a political giant may soon reap the benefits of the economic-stimulus package.
Lawmakers and administration officials divulged Wednesday that the $789 billion economic stimulus bill being finalized behind closed doors in Congress includes $30 million for wetlands restoration that the Obama administration intends to spend in the San Francisco Bay Area to protect, among other things, the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi represents the city of San Francisco and has previously championed preserving the mouse's habitat in the Bay Area.
The revelation immediately became a political football, as Republicans accused Democrats of reneging on a promise to keep so-called earmarks that fund lawmakers' favorite projects out of the legislation. Democrats, including Mrs. Pelosi, countered that the accusations were fabricated.
[To read the rest of the article, click on the title link]
democrats
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
OIL BELOW $36 a Barrel.
Oil is below $36 a barrel and gasoline is higher than it has been in several months.
Makes perfect sense.
Oil Companies:
A Warning. Obama is in a nationalization mood and that may include oil at some point.
Don't do it.
Oil stockpiles were reported as much higher than expected 1-2 months ago, now they are lower - which means they are probably where they should be ... YET PRICES JUMP.
I am all for hanging oil company executives, gas station owners, and anyone involved in oil analysis / selling.
I AM confident (certain) that with 24 hours, oil would be less than $30 a barrel.
Business and_Finance
Oil prices tumble below $36 on bulging inventories
By DIRK LAMMERS, The Associated Press
Oil prices plummeted below $36 Wednesday on more evidence that U.S. storage facilities are bulging with unused crude.
Light, sweet crude for March delivery fell $1.99 to settle at $35.94 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Oil closed under $40 Monday for the first time in several weeks, and has closed lower every day since.
A weekly report from the Energy Information Administration showed that crude inventories jumped by 4.7 million barrels for the week ended Feb. 6. That easily surpassed the expectations of analysts surveyed by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos., who expected a boost of 3.4 million barrels.
Including last week's build up, crude inventories have increased by more than 30 million barrels in the past five weeks.
But gasoline futures soared on Nymex when the same report showed that U.S. inventories had declined by 2.6 million barrels, surprising trader who expected stockpiles to grow by 900,000 barrels.
????????????????
"Demand went positive for the first time in recent memory, over a year ago, so that's given us a little bit of support," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp.
Retail gasoline prices have been a sore point for motorists in recent weeks, as prices at the pump rise even with oil in the doldrums.
Prices at the pump rose again Wednesday, and the EIA report spelled out some of the reasons why.
Refiners took in 214,000 fewer barrels of crude last week and gasoline production fell, the EIA reported.
The companies that own refineries are seeing the same dour headlines about job losses, and have slashed production as they try do match supply with demand.
That means there is less gas on the market, and consumers are seeing that at the pump.
The national retail average price for a gallon of regular gas rose 1.2 cents to $1.94 a gallon overnight, according to auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express.
That is about 15 cents a gallon above what it was a month ago, but about $2.17 below last July when prices peaked at $4.11 per gallon.
"Weak product demand is forcing these refiners to curtail activities, cutting runs, and that backs crude up into terminals, pipelines and floating storage, etc.," said Jim Ritterbusch, president of energy consultancy Ritterbusch and Associates. "At the same time, it reduces gasoline production."
Many refiners shut down early this year for regular maintenance due to a growing consensus that millions of lost jobs will translate into less demand for gasoline.
A dismal forecast by the International Energy Agency on Wednesday further highlighted falling demand.
The Paris-based agency lowered its estimate for global oil demand in 2009 by 570,000 barrels to 84.7 million barrels per day because of the worsening economic downturn. The lowered forecast came after the International Monetary Fund predicted the world economy to grow by only 0.5 percent.
"Not only will the two-year contraction in oil demand be the first since the early 1980s, but 2009's decline will also be the largest since 1982," the IEA said.
The IEA forecast arrived one day after the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicted global oil consumption would decline by 1.2 million barrels a day this year.
Flynn said any optimism has to be tempered because of the continued build in crude inventories.
"People are going to realize that at some point, that oil is going to come to market," he said. "And when it does, it could dramatically pressure prices to the downside."
Addison Armstrong, director of market research at Tradition Energy, said the latest China customs data show net January crude imports that dropped to the lowest level in 13 months.
"The decreases are the result of the slowing economy, which has caused manufacturing plants to be closed and electricity generation to shrink," Armstrong wrote in a research note.
Oil had been trading near $40 for about two weeks, underpinned by OPEC production cuts. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which accounts for about 40 percent of global crude supply, said earlier this week it has completed about 80 percent of 4.2 million barrels per day of output cuts announced since September.
In other Nymex trading, gasoline futures jumped 2.6 cents to settle at $1.2698 a gallon. Heating oil gained 1.5 cents to settle at $1.3164 a gallon, while natural gas for March delivery fell less than a penny to settle at $4.532 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, the March Brent contract fell 33 cents to settle at $44.28 on the ICE Futures exchange.
oil
Makes perfect sense.
Oil Companies:
A Warning. Obama is in a nationalization mood and that may include oil at some point.
Don't do it.
Oil stockpiles were reported as much higher than expected 1-2 months ago, now they are lower - which means they are probably where they should be ... YET PRICES JUMP.
I am all for hanging oil company executives, gas station owners, and anyone involved in oil analysis / selling.
I AM confident (certain) that with 24 hours, oil would be less than $30 a barrel.
Business and_Finance
Oil prices tumble below $36 on bulging inventories
By DIRK LAMMERS, The Associated Press
Oil prices plummeted below $36 Wednesday on more evidence that U.S. storage facilities are bulging with unused crude.
Light, sweet crude for March delivery fell $1.99 to settle at $35.94 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Oil closed under $40 Monday for the first time in several weeks, and has closed lower every day since.
A weekly report from the Energy Information Administration showed that crude inventories jumped by 4.7 million barrels for the week ended Feb. 6. That easily surpassed the expectations of analysts surveyed by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos., who expected a boost of 3.4 million barrels.
Including last week's build up, crude inventories have increased by more than 30 million barrels in the past five weeks.
But gasoline futures soared on Nymex when the same report showed that U.S. inventories had declined by 2.6 million barrels, surprising trader who expected stockpiles to grow by 900,000 barrels.
????????????????
"Demand went positive for the first time in recent memory, over a year ago, so that's given us a little bit of support," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp.
Retail gasoline prices have been a sore point for motorists in recent weeks, as prices at the pump rise even with oil in the doldrums.
Prices at the pump rose again Wednesday, and the EIA report spelled out some of the reasons why.
Refiners took in 214,000 fewer barrels of crude last week and gasoline production fell, the EIA reported.
The companies that own refineries are seeing the same dour headlines about job losses, and have slashed production as they try do match supply with demand.
That means there is less gas on the market, and consumers are seeing that at the pump.
The national retail average price for a gallon of regular gas rose 1.2 cents to $1.94 a gallon overnight, according to auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express.
That is about 15 cents a gallon above what it was a month ago, but about $2.17 below last July when prices peaked at $4.11 per gallon.
"Weak product demand is forcing these refiners to curtail activities, cutting runs, and that backs crude up into terminals, pipelines and floating storage, etc.," said Jim Ritterbusch, president of energy consultancy Ritterbusch and Associates. "At the same time, it reduces gasoline production."
Many refiners shut down early this year for regular maintenance due to a growing consensus that millions of lost jobs will translate into less demand for gasoline.
A dismal forecast by the International Energy Agency on Wednesday further highlighted falling demand.
The Paris-based agency lowered its estimate for global oil demand in 2009 by 570,000 barrels to 84.7 million barrels per day because of the worsening economic downturn. The lowered forecast came after the International Monetary Fund predicted the world economy to grow by only 0.5 percent.
"Not only will the two-year contraction in oil demand be the first since the early 1980s, but 2009's decline will also be the largest since 1982," the IEA said.
The IEA forecast arrived one day after the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicted global oil consumption would decline by 1.2 million barrels a day this year.
Flynn said any optimism has to be tempered because of the continued build in crude inventories.
"People are going to realize that at some point, that oil is going to come to market," he said. "And when it does, it could dramatically pressure prices to the downside."
Addison Armstrong, director of market research at Tradition Energy, said the latest China customs data show net January crude imports that dropped to the lowest level in 13 months.
"The decreases are the result of the slowing economy, which has caused manufacturing plants to be closed and electricity generation to shrink," Armstrong wrote in a research note.
Oil had been trading near $40 for about two weeks, underpinned by OPEC production cuts. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which accounts for about 40 percent of global crude supply, said earlier this week it has completed about 80 percent of 4.2 million barrels per day of output cuts announced since September.
In other Nymex trading, gasoline futures jumped 2.6 cents to settle at $1.2698 a gallon. Heating oil gained 1.5 cents to settle at $1.3164 a gallon, while natural gas for March delivery fell less than a penny to settle at $4.532 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, the March Brent contract fell 33 cents to settle at $44.28 on the ICE Futures exchange.
oil
Obama: Hillary and State (According to Morris)
Hillary’s incredible, shrinking role
By Dick Morris
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is finding that her job description is dissolving under her feet, leaving her with only a vestige of the power she must have thought she acquired when she signed on to be President Obama’s chief Cabinet officer.
Since her designation:
• Vice President Biden has moved vigorously to stake out foreign policy as his turf. His visit to Afghanistan, right before the Inauguration, could not but send a signal to Hillary that he would conduct foreign policy in the new administration, leaving Hillary in the role of backup.
• Richard Holbrooke, the former Balkan negotiator and U.N. ambassador, has been named special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He insisted on direct access to the president, a privilege he was denied during much of the Clinton years.
• Former Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine), negotiator of the Irish Peace Accords, was appointed to be the administration’s point man on Arab-Israeli negotiations.
• Samantha Power, Obama’s former campaign aide, who once called Hillary a “monster,” has been appointed to the National Security Council (NSC) as director of “multilateral affairs.”
[This woman was fired/quite the campaign for her comments about Hillary. She now holds a very important seat, and has written extensively on genocide. I hope to see her imprint on actions by this administration on issues relating to genocide.]
• Gen. James L. Jones, Obama’s new national security adviser, has announced an expansion of the membership and role of the NSC. He pledges to eliminate “back channels” to the president and wants to grow the NSC’s role to accommodate the “dramatically different” challenges of the current world situation.
• Susan Rice, Obama’s new United Nations ambassador, insisted upon and got Cabinet rank for her portfolio, and she will presumably also have the same kind of access to Obama that she had as his chief foreign policy adviser during the campaign.
So where does all this leave Secretary of State Clinton?
While sympathy for Mrs. Clinton is outside the normal fare of these columns, one cannot help but feel that she is surrounded by people who are, at best, strangers and, at worst, enemies. The competition that has historically occupied secretaries of State and national security advisers seems poised to ratchet up to a new level in the current administration.
Hillary’s essential problem is that she is an outsider in the current mix. She was the adversary in the campaign, and Rice and Powers — at the very least — know it well, having helped to run the campaign that dethroned her. Can they — and she — be devoid of bitterness or at least of normal human trepidation? Not very likely.
The fact is that the power of the secretary of State is not statutory, nor does it flow from the prestige of the post’s occupant. Former Gen. Al Haig, once supreme commander of NATO and chief of staff to President Nixon, found that out when he was undercut as secretary by the White House troika of Mike Deaver, James Baker and Ed Meese. Bill Rogers, Eisenhower’s attorney general and Nixon’s California confidant, found himself on the outs from the moment he became secretary of State, with Henry Kissinger soaking up all the power through his direct access to Nixon as national security adviser.
The power of the secretary of State flows directly from the president. But Hillary does not have the inside track with Obama. Rice and Powers, close advisers in the campaign, and Gen. Jones — whose office is in the White House — all may have superior access. Holbrooke and Mitchell will have more immediate information about the world’s trouble spots.
So what is Hillary’s mandate? Of what is she secretary of State? If you take the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan out of the equation, what is left? One would have to assume that the old North Korea hands in the government would monopolize that theater of action. What, precisely, is it that Hillary is to do? The question lingers.
And for this she gave up a Senate seat?
*****************************
Why she gave it up?
Come on Morris, you know the answer to that question.
H. was trying to bring all the voices together in one tent - Biden as VP, Clinton as Secretary of State, Richardson in Commerce ... TO GET THEM OUT OF THE WAY.
He approached Hillary. She asked if she would have direct access to His Majesty - he said yes. She asked if she would have free reign at State - H said yes. She didn't think beyond the box, and agreed.
Now the box has been sprung. State isn't as relevant as Special Advisers and Assistants. She has been marginalized, but that was the plan.
Now she works for State (for H) and she cannot quit and run again in 2012 against H unless she leaves behind the perks - planes, press ... and PRESS. If she were to quit, she would go 3.5 years in the wilderness, unheard, unspoken to, unseen. People would lose interest, and in politics, when people lose interest - you are finished. H knows that, and He knows that she cannot run against him in 2012 unless she quits first.
She is right where he wants her! In his web.
Obama
By Dick Morris
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is finding that her job description is dissolving under her feet, leaving her with only a vestige of the power she must have thought she acquired when she signed on to be President Obama’s chief Cabinet officer.
Since her designation:
• Vice President Biden has moved vigorously to stake out foreign policy as his turf. His visit to Afghanistan, right before the Inauguration, could not but send a signal to Hillary that he would conduct foreign policy in the new administration, leaving Hillary in the role of backup.
• Richard Holbrooke, the former Balkan negotiator and U.N. ambassador, has been named special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He insisted on direct access to the president, a privilege he was denied during much of the Clinton years.
• Former Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine), negotiator of the Irish Peace Accords, was appointed to be the administration’s point man on Arab-Israeli negotiations.
• Samantha Power, Obama’s former campaign aide, who once called Hillary a “monster,” has been appointed to the National Security Council (NSC) as director of “multilateral affairs.”
[This woman was fired/quite the campaign for her comments about Hillary. She now holds a very important seat, and has written extensively on genocide. I hope to see her imprint on actions by this administration on issues relating to genocide.]
• Gen. James L. Jones, Obama’s new national security adviser, has announced an expansion of the membership and role of the NSC. He pledges to eliminate “back channels” to the president and wants to grow the NSC’s role to accommodate the “dramatically different” challenges of the current world situation.
• Susan Rice, Obama’s new United Nations ambassador, insisted upon and got Cabinet rank for her portfolio, and she will presumably also have the same kind of access to Obama that she had as his chief foreign policy adviser during the campaign.
So where does all this leave Secretary of State Clinton?
While sympathy for Mrs. Clinton is outside the normal fare of these columns, one cannot help but feel that she is surrounded by people who are, at best, strangers and, at worst, enemies. The competition that has historically occupied secretaries of State and national security advisers seems poised to ratchet up to a new level in the current administration.
Hillary’s essential problem is that she is an outsider in the current mix. She was the adversary in the campaign, and Rice and Powers — at the very least — know it well, having helped to run the campaign that dethroned her. Can they — and she — be devoid of bitterness or at least of normal human trepidation? Not very likely.
The fact is that the power of the secretary of State is not statutory, nor does it flow from the prestige of the post’s occupant. Former Gen. Al Haig, once supreme commander of NATO and chief of staff to President Nixon, found that out when he was undercut as secretary by the White House troika of Mike Deaver, James Baker and Ed Meese. Bill Rogers, Eisenhower’s attorney general and Nixon’s California confidant, found himself on the outs from the moment he became secretary of State, with Henry Kissinger soaking up all the power through his direct access to Nixon as national security adviser.
The power of the secretary of State flows directly from the president. But Hillary does not have the inside track with Obama. Rice and Powers, close advisers in the campaign, and Gen. Jones — whose office is in the White House — all may have superior access. Holbrooke and Mitchell will have more immediate information about the world’s trouble spots.
So what is Hillary’s mandate? Of what is she secretary of State? If you take the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan out of the equation, what is left? One would have to assume that the old North Korea hands in the government would monopolize that theater of action. What, precisely, is it that Hillary is to do? The question lingers.
And for this she gave up a Senate seat?
*****************************
Why she gave it up?
Come on Morris, you know the answer to that question.
H. was trying to bring all the voices together in one tent - Biden as VP, Clinton as Secretary of State, Richardson in Commerce ... TO GET THEM OUT OF THE WAY.
He approached Hillary. She asked if she would have direct access to His Majesty - he said yes. She asked if she would have free reign at State - H said yes. She didn't think beyond the box, and agreed.
Now the box has been sprung. State isn't as relevant as Special Advisers and Assistants. She has been marginalized, but that was the plan.
Now she works for State (for H) and she cannot quit and run again in 2012 against H unless she leaves behind the perks - planes, press ... and PRESS. If she were to quit, she would go 3.5 years in the wilderness, unheard, unspoken to, unseen. People would lose interest, and in politics, when people lose interest - you are finished. H knows that, and He knows that she cannot run against him in 2012 unless she quits first.
She is right where he wants her! In his web.
Obama
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Obama: Is his presidency a failure, from the start?
Why Obama’s new Tarp will fail to rescue the banks
By Martin Wolf
Published: February 10 2009
Has Barack Obama’s presidency already failed? In normal times, this would be a ludicrous question. But these are not normal times. They are times of great danger. Today, the new US administration can disown responsibility for its inheritance; tomorrow, it will own it. Today, it can offer solutions; tomorrow it will have become the problem. Today, it is in control of events; tomorrow, events will take control of it. Doing too little is now far riskier than doing too much. If he fails to act decisively, the president risks being overwhelmed, like his predecessor. The costs to the US and the world of another failed presidency do not bear contemplating.
What is needed? The answer is: focus and ferocity. If Mr Obama does not fix this crisis, all he hopes from his presidency will be lost. If he does, he can reshape the agenda. Hoping for the best is foolish. He should expect the worst and act accordingly.
Yet hoping for the best is what one sees in the stimulus programme and – so far as I can judge from Tuesday’s sketchy announcement by Tim Geithner, Treasury secretary – also in the new plans for fixing the banking system. I commented on the former last week. I would merely add that it is extraordinary that a popular new president, confronting a once-in-80-years’ economic crisis, has let Congress shape the outcome.
The banking programme seems to be yet another child of the failed interventions of the past one and a half years: optimistic and indecisive. If this “progeny of the troubled asset relief programme” fails, Mr Obama’s credibility will be ruined. Now is the time for action that seems close to certain to resolve the problem; this, however, does not seem to be it.
All along two contrasting views have been held on what ails the financial system. The first is that this is essentially a panic. The second is that this is a problem of insolvency.
Under the first view, the prices of a defined set of “toxic assets” have been driven below their long-run value and in some cases have become impossible to sell. The solution, many suggest, is for governments to make a market, buy assets or insure banks against losses. This was the rationale for the original Tarp and the “super-SIV (special investment vehicle)” proposed by Henry (Hank) Paulson, the previous Treasury secretary, in 2007.
Under the second view, a sizeable proportion of financial institutions are insolvent: their assets are, under plausible assumptions, worth less than their liabilities. The International Monetary Fund argues that potential losses on US-originated credit assets alone are now $2,200bn (€1,700bn, £1,500bn), up from $1,400bn just last October. This is almost identical to the latest estimates from Goldman Sachs. In recent comments to the Financial Times, Nouriel Roubini of RGE Monitor and the Stern School of New York University estimates peak losses on US-generated assets at $3,600bn. Fortunately for the US, half of these losses will fall abroad. But, the rest of the world will strike back: as the world economy implodes, huge losses abroad – on sovereign, housing and corporate debt – will surely fall on US institutions, with dire effects.
Personally, I have little doubt that the second view is correct and, as the world economy deteriorates, will become ever more so. But this is not the heart of the matter. That is whether, in the presence of such uncertainty, it can be right to base policy on hoping for the best. The answer is clear: rational policymakers must assume the worst. If this proved pessimistic, they would end up with an over-capitalised financial system. If the optimistic choice turned out to be wrong, they would have zombie banks and a discredited government. This choice is surely a “no brainer”.
The new plan seems to make sense if and only if the principal problem is illiquidity. Offering guarantees and buying some portion of the toxic assets, while limiting new capital injections to less than the $350bn left in the Tarp, cannot deal with the insolvency problem identified by informed observers. Indeed, any toxic asset purchase or guarantee programme must be an ineffective, inefficient and inequitable way to rescue inadequately capitalised financial institutions: ineffective, because the government must buy vast amounts of doubtful assets at excessive prices or provide over-generous guarantees, to render insolvent banks solvent; inefficient, because big capital injections or conversion of debt into equity are better ways to recapitalise banks; and inequitable, because big subsidies would go to failed institutions and private buyers of bad assets.
Why then is the administration making what appears to be a blunder? It may be that it is hoping for the best. But it also seems it has set itself the wrong question. It has not asked what needs to be done to be sure of a solution. It has asked itself, instead, what is the best it can do given three arbitrary, self-imposed constraints: no nationalisation; no losses for bondholders; and no more money from Congress. Yet why does a new administration, confronting a huge crisis, not try to change the terms of debate? This timidity is depressing. Trying to make up for this mistake by imposing pettifogging conditions on assisted institutions is more likely to compound the error than to reduce it.
Assume that the problem is insolvency and the modest market value of US commercial banks (about $400bn) derives from government support (see charts). Assume, too, that it is impossible to raise large amounts of private capital today. Then there has to be recapitalisation in one of the two ways indicated above. Both have disadvantages: government recapitalisation is a bail-out of creditors and involves temporary state administration; debt-for-equity swaps would damage bond markets, insurance companies and pension funds. But the choice is inescapable.
If Mr Geithner or Lawrence Summers, head of the national economic council, were advising the US as a foreign country, they would point this out, brutally. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, IMF managing director, said the same thing, very gently, in Malaysia last Saturday.
The correct advice remains the one the US gave the Japanese and others during the 1990s: admit reality, restructure banks and, above all, slay zombie institutions at once. It is an important, but secondary, question whether the right answer is to create new “good banks”, leaving old bad banks to perish, as my colleague, Willem Buiter, recommends, or new “bad banks”, leaving cleansed old banks to survive. I also am inclined to the former, because the culture of the old banks seems so toxic.
By asking the wrong question, Mr Obama is taking a huge gamble. He should have resolved to cleanse these Augean banking stables. He needs to rethink, if it is not already too late.
Obama
By Martin Wolf
Published: February 10 2009
Has Barack Obama’s presidency already failed? In normal times, this would be a ludicrous question. But these are not normal times. They are times of great danger. Today, the new US administration can disown responsibility for its inheritance; tomorrow, it will own it. Today, it can offer solutions; tomorrow it will have become the problem. Today, it is in control of events; tomorrow, events will take control of it. Doing too little is now far riskier than doing too much. If he fails to act decisively, the president risks being overwhelmed, like his predecessor. The costs to the US and the world of another failed presidency do not bear contemplating.
What is needed? The answer is: focus and ferocity. If Mr Obama does not fix this crisis, all he hopes from his presidency will be lost. If he does, he can reshape the agenda. Hoping for the best is foolish. He should expect the worst and act accordingly.
Yet hoping for the best is what one sees in the stimulus programme and – so far as I can judge from Tuesday’s sketchy announcement by Tim Geithner, Treasury secretary – also in the new plans for fixing the banking system. I commented on the former last week. I would merely add that it is extraordinary that a popular new president, confronting a once-in-80-years’ economic crisis, has let Congress shape the outcome.
The banking programme seems to be yet another child of the failed interventions of the past one and a half years: optimistic and indecisive. If this “progeny of the troubled asset relief programme” fails, Mr Obama’s credibility will be ruined. Now is the time for action that seems close to certain to resolve the problem; this, however, does not seem to be it.
All along two contrasting views have been held on what ails the financial system. The first is that this is essentially a panic. The second is that this is a problem of insolvency.
Under the first view, the prices of a defined set of “toxic assets” have been driven below their long-run value and in some cases have become impossible to sell. The solution, many suggest, is for governments to make a market, buy assets or insure banks against losses. This was the rationale for the original Tarp and the “super-SIV (special investment vehicle)” proposed by Henry (Hank) Paulson, the previous Treasury secretary, in 2007.
Under the second view, a sizeable proportion of financial institutions are insolvent: their assets are, under plausible assumptions, worth less than their liabilities. The International Monetary Fund argues that potential losses on US-originated credit assets alone are now $2,200bn (€1,700bn, £1,500bn), up from $1,400bn just last October. This is almost identical to the latest estimates from Goldman Sachs. In recent comments to the Financial Times, Nouriel Roubini of RGE Monitor and the Stern School of New York University estimates peak losses on US-generated assets at $3,600bn. Fortunately for the US, half of these losses will fall abroad. But, the rest of the world will strike back: as the world economy implodes, huge losses abroad – on sovereign, housing and corporate debt – will surely fall on US institutions, with dire effects.
Personally, I have little doubt that the second view is correct and, as the world economy deteriorates, will become ever more so. But this is not the heart of the matter. That is whether, in the presence of such uncertainty, it can be right to base policy on hoping for the best. The answer is clear: rational policymakers must assume the worst. If this proved pessimistic, they would end up with an over-capitalised financial system. If the optimistic choice turned out to be wrong, they would have zombie banks and a discredited government. This choice is surely a “no brainer”.
The new plan seems to make sense if and only if the principal problem is illiquidity. Offering guarantees and buying some portion of the toxic assets, while limiting new capital injections to less than the $350bn left in the Tarp, cannot deal with the insolvency problem identified by informed observers. Indeed, any toxic asset purchase or guarantee programme must be an ineffective, inefficient and inequitable way to rescue inadequately capitalised financial institutions: ineffective, because the government must buy vast amounts of doubtful assets at excessive prices or provide over-generous guarantees, to render insolvent banks solvent; inefficient, because big capital injections or conversion of debt into equity are better ways to recapitalise banks; and inequitable, because big subsidies would go to failed institutions and private buyers of bad assets.
Why then is the administration making what appears to be a blunder? It may be that it is hoping for the best. But it also seems it has set itself the wrong question. It has not asked what needs to be done to be sure of a solution. It has asked itself, instead, what is the best it can do given three arbitrary, self-imposed constraints: no nationalisation; no losses for bondholders; and no more money from Congress. Yet why does a new administration, confronting a huge crisis, not try to change the terms of debate? This timidity is depressing. Trying to make up for this mistake by imposing pettifogging conditions on assisted institutions is more likely to compound the error than to reduce it.
Assume that the problem is insolvency and the modest market value of US commercial banks (about $400bn) derives from government support (see charts). Assume, too, that it is impossible to raise large amounts of private capital today. Then there has to be recapitalisation in one of the two ways indicated above. Both have disadvantages: government recapitalisation is a bail-out of creditors and involves temporary state administration; debt-for-equity swaps would damage bond markets, insurance companies and pension funds. But the choice is inescapable.
If Mr Geithner or Lawrence Summers, head of the national economic council, were advising the US as a foreign country, they would point this out, brutally. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, IMF managing director, said the same thing, very gently, in Malaysia last Saturday.
The correct advice remains the one the US gave the Japanese and others during the 1990s: admit reality, restructure banks and, above all, slay zombie institutions at once. It is an important, but secondary, question whether the right answer is to create new “good banks”, leaving old bad banks to perish, as my colleague, Willem Buiter, recommends, or new “bad banks”, leaving cleansed old banks to survive. I also am inclined to the former, because the culture of the old banks seems so toxic.
By asking the wrong question, Mr Obama is taking a huge gamble. He should have resolved to cleanse these Augean banking stables. He needs to rethink, if it is not already too late.
Obama
Mummy Mummy Everyone Has a Mummy
Mummies found in newly discovered tomb in Egypt
By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press Writer
Mon Feb 9, 1:10 pm ET
CAIRO – A storeroom housing about two dozen ancient Egyptian mummies has been unearthed inside a 2,600-year-old tomb during the latest round of excavations at the vast necropolis of Saqqara south of Cairo, archaeologists said Monday.
The tomb was located at the bottom of a 36-foot deep shaft, said Egypt's top archaeologist, Zahi Hawass. Twenty-two mummies were found in niches along the tomb's walls, he said.
Eight sarcophagi were also found in the tomb. Archaeologists so far have opened only one of the sarcophagi — and found a mummy inside of it, said Hawass' assistant Abdel Hakim Karar. Mummies are believed to be inside the other seven, he said.
The "storeroom for mummies" dates back to 640 B.C. during the 26th Dynasty, which was Egypt's last independent kingdom before it was overthrown by a succession of foreign conquerors beginning with the Persians, Hawass said. But the tomb was discovered at an even older site in Saqqara that dates back to the 4,300-year-old 6th Dynasty, he said.
Most of the mummies are poorly preserved, and archeologists have yet to determine their identities or why so many were put in one room.
The name Badi N Huri was engraved into the opened sarcophagus, but the wooden coffin did not bear a title for the mummy.
"This one might have been an important figure, but I can't tell because there was no title," Karar said.
Karar also said it was unusual for mummies of this late period to be stored in rocky niches.
"Niches were known in the very early dynasties, so to find one for the 26th Dynasty is something rare," he said.
Excavations have been ongoing at Saqqara for 150 years, uncovering a necropolis of pyramids and tombs dating mostly from the Old Kingdom but also tombs from as recent as the Roman era.
In the past, excavations have focused on just one side of the site's two most prominent pyramids — the famous Step Pyramid of King Djoser and that of Unas, the last king of the 5th Dynasty.
The area where the current tomb was found, to the southwest, has been largely untouched by archeologists.
In December, two tombs were found near the current discovery of mummies. The tombs were built for high officials — one responsible for the quarries used to build the nearby pyramids and the other for a woman in charge of procuring entertainers for the pharaohs.
In November, Hawass announced the discovery of a new pyramid at Saqqara, the 118th in Egypt, and the 12th to be found just in Saqqara.
According to Hawass, only 30 percent of Egypt's monuments have been uncovered, with the rest still under the sand.
Egypt
By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press Writer
Mon Feb 9, 1:10 pm ET
CAIRO – A storeroom housing about two dozen ancient Egyptian mummies has been unearthed inside a 2,600-year-old tomb during the latest round of excavations at the vast necropolis of Saqqara south of Cairo, archaeologists said Monday.
The tomb was located at the bottom of a 36-foot deep shaft, said Egypt's top archaeologist, Zahi Hawass. Twenty-two mummies were found in niches along the tomb's walls, he said.
Eight sarcophagi were also found in the tomb. Archaeologists so far have opened only one of the sarcophagi — and found a mummy inside of it, said Hawass' assistant Abdel Hakim Karar. Mummies are believed to be inside the other seven, he said.
The "storeroom for mummies" dates back to 640 B.C. during the 26th Dynasty, which was Egypt's last independent kingdom before it was overthrown by a succession of foreign conquerors beginning with the Persians, Hawass said. But the tomb was discovered at an even older site in Saqqara that dates back to the 4,300-year-old 6th Dynasty, he said.
Most of the mummies are poorly preserved, and archeologists have yet to determine their identities or why so many were put in one room.
The name Badi N Huri was engraved into the opened sarcophagus, but the wooden coffin did not bear a title for the mummy.
"This one might have been an important figure, but I can't tell because there was no title," Karar said.
Karar also said it was unusual for mummies of this late period to be stored in rocky niches.
"Niches were known in the very early dynasties, so to find one for the 26th Dynasty is something rare," he said.
Excavations have been ongoing at Saqqara for 150 years, uncovering a necropolis of pyramids and tombs dating mostly from the Old Kingdom but also tombs from as recent as the Roman era.
In the past, excavations have focused on just one side of the site's two most prominent pyramids — the famous Step Pyramid of King Djoser and that of Unas, the last king of the 5th Dynasty.
The area where the current tomb was found, to the southwest, has been largely untouched by archeologists.
In December, two tombs were found near the current discovery of mummies. The tombs were built for high officials — one responsible for the quarries used to build the nearby pyramids and the other for a woman in charge of procuring entertainers for the pharaohs.
In November, Hawass announced the discovery of a new pyramid at Saqqara, the 118th in Egypt, and the 12th to be found just in Saqqara.
According to Hawass, only 30 percent of Egypt's monuments have been uncovered, with the rest still under the sand.
Egypt
Monday, February 9, 2009
Health Care: Perhaps the most important issue
Forget the 'stimulus' plan ... it's the health czar that got slipped in that is the real threat.
Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan: Betsy McCaughey
Commentary by Betsy McCaughey
Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Republican Senators are questioning whether President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the economy.
Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.
Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).
The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.
But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”
Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.
New Penalties
Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)
What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.
The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.
Elderly Hardest Hit
Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.
Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).
The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.
[You foolish people. You attacked the Republicans for not caring and what you have created is the most unfeeling system - where your worth is determined by age - not by the current system where anyone who needs care, gets it. Geesh - I really do not like these people. ]
In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.
Hidden Provisions
If the Obama administration’s economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing. Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.
The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).
Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said.
“The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”
More Scrutiny Needed
On Friday, President Obama called it “inexcusable and irresponsible” for senators to delay passing the stimulus bill. In truth, this bill needs more scrutiny.
The health-care industry is the largest employer in the U.S. It produces almost 17 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Yet the bill treats health care the way European governments do: as a cost problem instead of a growth industry. Imagine limiting growth and innovation in the electronics or auto industry during this downturn. This stimulus is dangerous to your health and the economy.
(Betsy McCaughey is former lieutenant governor of New York and is an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. The opinions expressed are her own.)
Obama
Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan: Betsy McCaughey
Commentary by Betsy McCaughey
Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Republican Senators are questioning whether President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the economy.
Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.
Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).
The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.
But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”
Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.
New Penalties
Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)
What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.
The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.
Elderly Hardest Hit
Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.
Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).
The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.
[You foolish people. You attacked the Republicans for not caring and what you have created is the most unfeeling system - where your worth is determined by age - not by the current system where anyone who needs care, gets it. Geesh - I really do not like these people. ]
In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.
Hidden Provisions
If the Obama administration’s economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing. Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.
The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).
Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said.
“The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”
More Scrutiny Needed
On Friday, President Obama called it “inexcusable and irresponsible” for senators to delay passing the stimulus bill. In truth, this bill needs more scrutiny.
The health-care industry is the largest employer in the U.S. It produces almost 17 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Yet the bill treats health care the way European governments do: as a cost problem instead of a growth industry. Imagine limiting growth and innovation in the electronics or auto industry during this downturn. This stimulus is dangerous to your health and the economy.
(Betsy McCaughey is former lieutenant governor of New York and is an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. The opinions expressed are her own.)
Obama
Obama - Throw Biden Under the Bus
It would be fun to watch liberals cheer as he tossed Biden under the bus. Funny.
Barack Obama throws Joe Biden under the bus
Posted By: Toby Harnden at Feb 10, 2009
Electronic Telegraph
Pity poor Joe Biden. His "there's still a 30 percent chance we're going to get it wrong" quote is put straight to President Barack Obama during the White House press conference just now and his boss seemed to want to say: "Vice-President Who?"
As reporters started giggling, Obama came close to conceding that Biden was indeed a joke. "You know, I don't remember exactly what Joe was referring to, not surprisingly."
The President went on to say that "I think what Joe may have been suggesting, although I wouldn't ascribe any numerical percentage to any of this, is that given the magnitude of the challenges that we have, any single thing that we do is going to be part of the solution, not all of the solution."
Of course, Biden wasn't saying anything of the sort - Obama knew that and all the rest of us did too.
Biden's exact quote, read out by Fox's Major Garrett at the presser was: "If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, if we stand up there and we really make the tough decisions, there's still a 30 percent chance we're going to get it wrong."
Clearly, Obama and his aides were unhappy about Biden's loose lips. On Friday, top Obama adviser David Axelrod said on CNN: "I don't know exactly about what that math was."
We're probably going to have to get used to Obama explaining "what Joe may have been suggesting". And Biden must be wondering if he's going to end up as a Dan Quayle figure.
Telegraph..co.uk
Obama
Barack Obama throws Joe Biden under the bus
Posted By: Toby Harnden at Feb 10, 2009
Electronic Telegraph
Pity poor Joe Biden. His "there's still a 30 percent chance we're going to get it wrong" quote is put straight to President Barack Obama during the White House press conference just now and his boss seemed to want to say: "Vice-President Who?"
As reporters started giggling, Obama came close to conceding that Biden was indeed a joke. "You know, I don't remember exactly what Joe was referring to, not surprisingly."
The President went on to say that "I think what Joe may have been suggesting, although I wouldn't ascribe any numerical percentage to any of this, is that given the magnitude of the challenges that we have, any single thing that we do is going to be part of the solution, not all of the solution."
Of course, Biden wasn't saying anything of the sort - Obama knew that and all the rest of us did too.
Biden's exact quote, read out by Fox's Major Garrett at the presser was: "If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, if we stand up there and we really make the tough decisions, there's still a 30 percent chance we're going to get it wrong."
Clearly, Obama and his aides were unhappy about Biden's loose lips. On Friday, top Obama adviser David Axelrod said on CNN: "I don't know exactly about what that math was."
We're probably going to have to get used to Obama explaining "what Joe may have been suggesting". And Biden must be wondering if he's going to end up as a Dan Quayle figure.
Telegraph..co.uk
Obama
Obama: Everyone Wants to See Him in the Shower
I have no words.
And these people had the nerve to say something about Bush ... and they have just admitted to ... I have no words.
Apparently they do.
They a) need a life, b) need to get a life, c) need to make friends with someone other than their personal toys, d) need to climb out of their very disturbed world, and get a grip.
There were some who only wanted to play scrabble. A better question - WHY? L-I-F-E. Get one. It builds character.
Funny or not. They are nauseating.
February 5, 2009, 9:00 pm
Sometimes a President Is Just a President
New York Times
Judith Warner
The other night I dreamt of Barack Obama. He was taking a shower right when I needed to get into the bathroom to shave my legs, and then he was being yelled at by my husband, Max, for smoking in the house. It was not clear whether Max was feeling protective of the president’s health or jealous because of the cigarette.
The other day a friend of mine confided that in the weeks leading up to the election, the Obamas’ apparent joy as a couple had made her just miserable. Their marriage looked so much happier than hers. Their life seemed so perfect. “I was at a place where I was tempted daily to throttle my husband,” she said. “This coincided with Michelle saying the most beautiful things about Barack.
Each time I heard her speak about him I got tears in my eyes — because I felt so far away from that kind of bliss in my own life and perhaps even more, because I was so moved by her expressions of devotion to him. And unlike previous presidential couples, they are our age, have children the same age and (just imagine the stress of daily life on the campaign) by all accounts should have been fighting even more than we were.”
As we all know, in journalism, two anecdotes are just one short of a national trend. I figured that my friend and I couldn’t possibly be the only ones dreaming, brooding or otherwise obsessing about the Obamas. Were other people, I wondered, being possessed by our new first family?
I launched an e-mail inquiry. And learned that they were. Often, in strikingly similar ways.
Many women — not too surprisingly — were dreaming about sex with the president.
In these dreams, the women replaced Michelle with greater or lesser guilt or, in the case of a 62-year-old woman in North Florida, whose dream was reported to me by her daughter, found a fully above-board solution: “Michelle had divorced Barack because he had become ‘too much of a star.’ He then married my mother, who was oh so proud to be the first lady,” the daughter wrote me.
There was some daydreaming too, much of it a collective fantasy about the still-hot Obama marriage. “Barack and Michelle Obama look like they have sex. They look like they like having sex,” a Los Angeles woman wrote to me, summing up the comments of many. “Often. With each other. These days when the sexless marriage is such a big celebrity in America (and when first couples are icons of rigid propriety), that’s one interesting mental drama.”
Most dreams, however, were, like mine, more prosaic.
There was a dream, sent from Minneapolis, about buying Barack the perfect sandwich, and a dream from Westport, Conn., about inviting Michelle and the girls over for lunch and a play date: “I told her I’d make tuna fish sandwiches and cupcakes, and told her that she didn’t need to worry about the kids, no need to hire a sitter or extra secret service, that I had a nice basement/playroom for them. I explained how hard it was to move to a new home, and to take her time if she needed to unpack or run to Costco or something. She asked me about other supermarkets, and I told her that Stop & Shop had a sale on tuna fish and paper towels.” And one woman in Wisconsin had frequent daydreams about having the Obamas over for a glass of wine.
One woman wrote that when she couldn’t get to sleep at night, she “lay in bed and thought about the Obama girls in their rooms at the White House. I thought about Marian Robinson up on the third floor. And about Barack and Michelle, a couple who clearly have a ‘thing’ for each other, spooning together in bed. It helped me relax.”
I understood perfectly where these cozy dreams of easy familiarity came from. It was that sense so many people share of having a very immediate connection to Barack Obama, whether they’re black or biracial, or children of single parents or self-made strivers; or they’re lawyers or community organizers or Ivy League graduates or smokers or basketball players or Blackberry users or parents or married or Democrats.
A lot of people share the fantasy that having the Obamas over for “dinner and a game of Scrabble,” as one daydreamer put it to me, is something that really could just about happen.
“This is the first president I’ve known who looks, talks and acts like a peer,” is how one Washington man explained it to me. “Notwithstanding his somewhat exotic life story, I feel like I understand what he’s like and where he’s coming from. And despite his incredible achievements, he still seems like a lot of people I know. If you stopped the clock in 2004, in fact, or maybe a couple of years earlier, he’d feel roughly like a peer in terms of accomplishments, too.
Of course I know nobody with his political gifts, speaking skills and confidence, and he’s also a gifted writer and thinker. But I feel like one or two different turns for Obama or me and he could have been someone my friends and I wouldn’t think it extraordinary to have in our circle.”
Sometimes this sense of close identification turns a bit dark. There’s a subcategory of people who feel that they really should have true intimacy with the Obamas. Because they went to school with them. Because they used to dream like them. Because, with one or two “different turns,” they maybe could have been them.
These are not the people made most happy by thinking about the Obamas.
“They do seem to have it all together — a great marriage, beautiful children, a modern day Norman Rockwell family,” said a divorced Harvard grad with children in a top D.C. private school. “Why them, not me?”
These are people for whom the Obamas are not just a beacon of hope, inspiration and “demigodlikeness,” as a New York lawyer put it, but also a kind of mirror. And the refracted image of self they see is not one they much admire.
“I keep thinking about how I squandered my education and youth,” the New York lawyer wrote to me. “I went off to college from high school being completely community-minded, doing a lot of volunteer work for the homeless and for hunger and tutoring poor kids. Then I got to college and forgot my ideals. Barack was my year at Columbia. Why wasn’t I hanging out with him and being serious and following my ideals instead of hanging out in clubs? Same with law school. I partied my way through instead of taking advantage of all that I could have. Both Obamas were there when I was. I feel like if I’d been a better person I would have gotten to know them.”
A Washington lawyer expressed similar sentiments: “I feel like I know Barack, that I have worked grassroots and have created change in the way that he has. I [also] have feelings of a mom who had possibility but ended up running school auctions and mediating family business matters rather than having the opportunity to be out there on a national level creating change. So when I watch Barack I feel like: I can do that … and what am I doing with my life? Even though he is way smarter and more articulate than me.”
Another Washington woman, a global health care consultant, expressed her sense of Obama-inadequacy in a dream: “I dreamed I was an Obama girl. I had a chance to be in the same room with him for the first time. There were dark velvet chairs and he was standing there with all this dark and mist around him. His lips so purple and sensuous as if to be otherworldly,” she wrote to me. “I moved gently toward him and then I said the wrong thing. Obama tamped it down like some vapor that didn’t register. He wasn’t even flattered.”
(“Like a lot of folks, I have anxiety about being outside of the Obama administration universe right now,” she then explained to me. “Even though I was at the ‘it’ ball of inauguration balls, I still felt like other balls were greener, or more purple, or with credentials completely out of my control — more young. I really feel like I’m scrambling internally … to deserve Obama cred and all I’ve got is this over-my-head wonder for the man that amounts to being an Obama girl.”)
For some, not knowing the Obamas has almost turned into a feeling of being snubbed or excluded. Like in middle school. It’s funny. Almost.
“Why won’t my kids be sleeping over at the White House? And as my daughter noted, why couldn’t she get to sit front and center and see the Jonas Brothers and Miley perform at the kids’ inaugural concert? If she went to Sidwell, then she might have these chances, she said …” wrote a mother whose kids are not at Sidwell Friends school with Sasha and Malia.
“Will Michelle stay down to earth? She could prove it by joining our book club,” wrote a Sidwell mom.
This is, perhaps, the price of faux-familiarity. If I were Barack Obama (or Michelle, for that matter), I’d be a little scared. After all, when people are wearing their egos on their sleeves, it’s so easy to bruise their feelings. What will happen if fantasy turns to contempt?
Obama
And these people had the nerve to say something about Bush ... and they have just admitted to ... I have no words.
Apparently they do.
They a) need a life, b) need to get a life, c) need to make friends with someone other than their personal toys, d) need to climb out of their very disturbed world, and get a grip.
There were some who only wanted to play scrabble. A better question - WHY? L-I-F-E. Get one. It builds character.
Funny or not. They are nauseating.
February 5, 2009, 9:00 pm
Sometimes a President Is Just a President
New York Times
Judith Warner
The other night I dreamt of Barack Obama. He was taking a shower right when I needed to get into the bathroom to shave my legs, and then he was being yelled at by my husband, Max, for smoking in the house. It was not clear whether Max was feeling protective of the president’s health or jealous because of the cigarette.
The other day a friend of mine confided that in the weeks leading up to the election, the Obamas’ apparent joy as a couple had made her just miserable. Their marriage looked so much happier than hers. Their life seemed so perfect. “I was at a place where I was tempted daily to throttle my husband,” she said. “This coincided with Michelle saying the most beautiful things about Barack.
Each time I heard her speak about him I got tears in my eyes — because I felt so far away from that kind of bliss in my own life and perhaps even more, because I was so moved by her expressions of devotion to him. And unlike previous presidential couples, they are our age, have children the same age and (just imagine the stress of daily life on the campaign) by all accounts should have been fighting even more than we were.”
As we all know, in journalism, two anecdotes are just one short of a national trend. I figured that my friend and I couldn’t possibly be the only ones dreaming, brooding or otherwise obsessing about the Obamas. Were other people, I wondered, being possessed by our new first family?
I launched an e-mail inquiry. And learned that they were. Often, in strikingly similar ways.
Many women — not too surprisingly — were dreaming about sex with the president.
In these dreams, the women replaced Michelle with greater or lesser guilt or, in the case of a 62-year-old woman in North Florida, whose dream was reported to me by her daughter, found a fully above-board solution: “Michelle had divorced Barack because he had become ‘too much of a star.’ He then married my mother, who was oh so proud to be the first lady,” the daughter wrote me.
There was some daydreaming too, much of it a collective fantasy about the still-hot Obama marriage. “Barack and Michelle Obama look like they have sex. They look like they like having sex,” a Los Angeles woman wrote to me, summing up the comments of many. “Often. With each other. These days when the sexless marriage is such a big celebrity in America (and when first couples are icons of rigid propriety), that’s one interesting mental drama.”
Most dreams, however, were, like mine, more prosaic.
There was a dream, sent from Minneapolis, about buying Barack the perfect sandwich, and a dream from Westport, Conn., about inviting Michelle and the girls over for lunch and a play date: “I told her I’d make tuna fish sandwiches and cupcakes, and told her that she didn’t need to worry about the kids, no need to hire a sitter or extra secret service, that I had a nice basement/playroom for them. I explained how hard it was to move to a new home, and to take her time if she needed to unpack or run to Costco or something. She asked me about other supermarkets, and I told her that Stop & Shop had a sale on tuna fish and paper towels.” And one woman in Wisconsin had frequent daydreams about having the Obamas over for a glass of wine.
One woman wrote that when she couldn’t get to sleep at night, she “lay in bed and thought about the Obama girls in their rooms at the White House. I thought about Marian Robinson up on the third floor. And about Barack and Michelle, a couple who clearly have a ‘thing’ for each other, spooning together in bed. It helped me relax.”
I understood perfectly where these cozy dreams of easy familiarity came from. It was that sense so many people share of having a very immediate connection to Barack Obama, whether they’re black or biracial, or children of single parents or self-made strivers; or they’re lawyers or community organizers or Ivy League graduates or smokers or basketball players or Blackberry users or parents or married or Democrats.
A lot of people share the fantasy that having the Obamas over for “dinner and a game of Scrabble,” as one daydreamer put it to me, is something that really could just about happen.
“This is the first president I’ve known who looks, talks and acts like a peer,” is how one Washington man explained it to me. “Notwithstanding his somewhat exotic life story, I feel like I understand what he’s like and where he’s coming from. And despite his incredible achievements, he still seems like a lot of people I know. If you stopped the clock in 2004, in fact, or maybe a couple of years earlier, he’d feel roughly like a peer in terms of accomplishments, too.
Of course I know nobody with his political gifts, speaking skills and confidence, and he’s also a gifted writer and thinker. But I feel like one or two different turns for Obama or me and he could have been someone my friends and I wouldn’t think it extraordinary to have in our circle.”
Sometimes this sense of close identification turns a bit dark. There’s a subcategory of people who feel that they really should have true intimacy with the Obamas. Because they went to school with them. Because they used to dream like them. Because, with one or two “different turns,” they maybe could have been them.
These are not the people made most happy by thinking about the Obamas.
“They do seem to have it all together — a great marriage, beautiful children, a modern day Norman Rockwell family,” said a divorced Harvard grad with children in a top D.C. private school. “Why them, not me?”
These are people for whom the Obamas are not just a beacon of hope, inspiration and “demigodlikeness,” as a New York lawyer put it, but also a kind of mirror. And the refracted image of self they see is not one they much admire.
“I keep thinking about how I squandered my education and youth,” the New York lawyer wrote to me. “I went off to college from high school being completely community-minded, doing a lot of volunteer work for the homeless and for hunger and tutoring poor kids. Then I got to college and forgot my ideals. Barack was my year at Columbia. Why wasn’t I hanging out with him and being serious and following my ideals instead of hanging out in clubs? Same with law school. I partied my way through instead of taking advantage of all that I could have. Both Obamas were there when I was. I feel like if I’d been a better person I would have gotten to know them.”
A Washington lawyer expressed similar sentiments: “I feel like I know Barack, that I have worked grassroots and have created change in the way that he has. I [also] have feelings of a mom who had possibility but ended up running school auctions and mediating family business matters rather than having the opportunity to be out there on a national level creating change. So when I watch Barack I feel like: I can do that … and what am I doing with my life? Even though he is way smarter and more articulate than me.”
Another Washington woman, a global health care consultant, expressed her sense of Obama-inadequacy in a dream: “I dreamed I was an Obama girl. I had a chance to be in the same room with him for the first time. There were dark velvet chairs and he was standing there with all this dark and mist around him. His lips so purple and sensuous as if to be otherworldly,” she wrote to me. “I moved gently toward him and then I said the wrong thing. Obama tamped it down like some vapor that didn’t register. He wasn’t even flattered.”
(“Like a lot of folks, I have anxiety about being outside of the Obama administration universe right now,” she then explained to me. “Even though I was at the ‘it’ ball of inauguration balls, I still felt like other balls were greener, or more purple, or with credentials completely out of my control — more young. I really feel like I’m scrambling internally … to deserve Obama cred and all I’ve got is this over-my-head wonder for the man that amounts to being an Obama girl.”)
For some, not knowing the Obamas has almost turned into a feeling of being snubbed or excluded. Like in middle school. It’s funny. Almost.
“Why won’t my kids be sleeping over at the White House? And as my daughter noted, why couldn’t she get to sit front and center and see the Jonas Brothers and Miley perform at the kids’ inaugural concert? If she went to Sidwell, then she might have these chances, she said …” wrote a mother whose kids are not at Sidwell Friends school with Sasha and Malia.
“Will Michelle stay down to earth? She could prove it by joining our book club,” wrote a Sidwell mom.
This is, perhaps, the price of faux-familiarity. If I were Barack Obama (or Michelle, for that matter), I’d be a little scared. After all, when people are wearing their egos on their sleeves, it’s so easy to bruise their feelings. What will happen if fantasy turns to contempt?
Obama
Breast Cancer Treatment?
Japan scientists identify enzyme that may suppress cancer
Mon Feb 9, 2:21 pm ET
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Scientists in Japan have identified an enzyme which appears to suppress breast cancer and they hope the finding will spur new therapies to control the second most common cancer in the world.
At issue is the enzyme CHIP, which experts say can stunt cancer growth by degrading a number of cancer-causing proteins. The enzyme occurs naturally in human breast tissue.
In an article published in Nature Cell Biology, the scientists said they injected two kinds of human breast cancer cells into mice. One set carried the CHIP enzyme and the other was without the chemical.
Tumors in the first group of mice with the CHIP enzyme were far smaller than the one without the enzyme, Junn Yanagisawa at the University of Tsukuba's Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences in Japan told Reuters.
The same results were seen in a parallel experiment using a more aggressive line of human breast cancer cells, he added.
"Our conclusion is that we have found that CHIP protein prevents breast tumor growth and metastasis," Yanagisawa said.
Metastasis occurs when cancer spreads from its site of origin, which challenges therapy and may even result in death.
"In breast tumor treatments, measurement of the CHIP protein levels in the tumors may be valuable information for the treatment. Furthermore, designing a new therapy that increases CHIP protein levels or its activity could be useful for breast tumor treatment," Yanagisawa said.
Breast cancer is the second most common form of cancer, after lung cancer. In 2005, it killed 502,000 people worldwide, or almost 1 percent of all deaths.
Cancer
Mon Feb 9, 2:21 pm ET
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Scientists in Japan have identified an enzyme which appears to suppress breast cancer and they hope the finding will spur new therapies to control the second most common cancer in the world.
At issue is the enzyme CHIP, which experts say can stunt cancer growth by degrading a number of cancer-causing proteins. The enzyme occurs naturally in human breast tissue.
In an article published in Nature Cell Biology, the scientists said they injected two kinds of human breast cancer cells into mice. One set carried the CHIP enzyme and the other was without the chemical.
Tumors in the first group of mice with the CHIP enzyme were far smaller than the one without the enzyme, Junn Yanagisawa at the University of Tsukuba's Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences in Japan told Reuters.
The same results were seen in a parallel experiment using a more aggressive line of human breast cancer cells, he added.
"Our conclusion is that we have found that CHIP protein prevents breast tumor growth and metastasis," Yanagisawa said.
Metastasis occurs when cancer spreads from its site of origin, which challenges therapy and may even result in death.
"In breast tumor treatments, measurement of the CHIP protein levels in the tumors may be valuable information for the treatment. Furthermore, designing a new therapy that increases CHIP protein levels or its activity could be useful for breast tumor treatment," Yanagisawa said.
Breast cancer is the second most common form of cancer, after lung cancer. In 2005, it killed 502,000 people worldwide, or almost 1 percent of all deaths.
Cancer
Vitamins
Huge study boosts disappointment on multivitamins
Feb 9, 2009
By LINDSEY TANNER
CHICAGO (AP) - The largest study ever of multivitamin use in older women found the pills did nothing to prevent common cancers or heart disease. The eight-year study in 161,808 postmenopausal women echoes recent disappointing vitamin studies in men.
Millions of Americans spend billions of dollars on vitamins to boost their health. Research has focused on cancer and heart disease in particular because of evidence that diets full of vitamin-rich foods may protect against those illnesses. But that evidence doesn't necessarily mean pills are a good substitute.
The study's lead author, researcher Marian Neuhouser of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, offered this advice: "Get nutrients from food. Whole foods are better than dietary supplements," Neuhouser said.
The study appears in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine.
Co-author Dr. JoAnn Manson said despite the disappointing results, the research doesn't mean multivitamins are useless.
For one thing, the data are observational, not the most rigorous kind of scientific research. And also, it's not clear if taking vitamins might help prevent cancers that take many years to develop, said Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Harvard's Brigham & Women's Hospital.
She said multivitamins may still be useful "as a form of insurance" for people with poor eating habits.
The study involved an analysis of data on women in their 50s and up who participated in long-running government studies on postmenopausal women. Almost 42 percent of the women said they used multivitamins regularly.
After about eight years, roughly equal numbers of vitamin users and nonusers developed common cancers, heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems. Overall, there were 9,619 cases of cancer, including cancers of the breast, lung, ovary, colon and stomach; and 8,751 cardiovascular ailments including heart attacks and strokes. In addition, 9,865 women died, also at similar rates in multivitamin users and nonusers.
Alice Lichtenstein, a Tufts University nutrition professor who was not involved in the research, said the study is important because it involved so many women.
"All the evidence keeps pointing in the same direction," Lichtenstein said.
Eric Jacobs, an American Cancer Society epidemiologist, said while his group doesn't advise vitamins to prevent cancer, it does recommend maintaining a healthy weight and eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables daily while limiting red meat. Similar habits are also thought to help reduce heart disease risks.
vitamins
Feb 9, 2009
By LINDSEY TANNER
CHICAGO (AP) - The largest study ever of multivitamin use in older women found the pills did nothing to prevent common cancers or heart disease. The eight-year study in 161,808 postmenopausal women echoes recent disappointing vitamin studies in men.
Millions of Americans spend billions of dollars on vitamins to boost their health. Research has focused on cancer and heart disease in particular because of evidence that diets full of vitamin-rich foods may protect against those illnesses. But that evidence doesn't necessarily mean pills are a good substitute.
The study's lead author, researcher Marian Neuhouser of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, offered this advice: "Get nutrients from food. Whole foods are better than dietary supplements," Neuhouser said.
The study appears in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine.
Co-author Dr. JoAnn Manson said despite the disappointing results, the research doesn't mean multivitamins are useless.
For one thing, the data are observational, not the most rigorous kind of scientific research. And also, it's not clear if taking vitamins might help prevent cancers that take many years to develop, said Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Harvard's Brigham & Women's Hospital.
She said multivitamins may still be useful "as a form of insurance" for people with poor eating habits.
The study involved an analysis of data on women in their 50s and up who participated in long-running government studies on postmenopausal women. Almost 42 percent of the women said they used multivitamins regularly.
After about eight years, roughly equal numbers of vitamin users and nonusers developed common cancers, heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems. Overall, there were 9,619 cases of cancer, including cancers of the breast, lung, ovary, colon and stomach; and 8,751 cardiovascular ailments including heart attacks and strokes. In addition, 9,865 women died, also at similar rates in multivitamin users and nonusers.
Alice Lichtenstein, a Tufts University nutrition professor who was not involved in the research, said the study is important because it involved so many women.
"All the evidence keeps pointing in the same direction," Lichtenstein said.
Eric Jacobs, an American Cancer Society epidemiologist, said while his group doesn't advise vitamins to prevent cancer, it does recommend maintaining a healthy weight and eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables daily while limiting red meat. Similar habits are also thought to help reduce heart disease risks.
vitamins
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