"Freshman Dem: Passing health care reform worth losing my seat"

The government takeover of the health care system could be hard to stop. From CNN:

A freshman Democratic senator said Sunday that he will support his party’s efforts to pass health care reform legislation even if that means losing his seat in next year’s midterm elections.

“If you get to the final point and you are a critical vote for health care reform and every piece of evidence tells you if you support the bill you will lose your job, would you cast the vote and lose your job?” CNN’s John King asked Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado on Sunday’s State of the Union.

“Yes,” Bennet bluntly and simply replied. . . .

The "safest" large cities in the US?

This is somewhat arbitrary, defining safest based on violent crime, workplace deaths, fatal crashes and natural disasters. Why include work place safety but not accidental deaths of other types? The list of the top forty cities is available here. Thanks to Craig Newmark's website for the tip.

Some taxes with the new government takeover

Why would you want to put an extra tax on vaccines that the government buys? If the government is the sole buyer, even if the government is buying at cost, the tax will raise the price of what the government pays. This raises the question of the CBO could view this tax as a net reduction in the deficit. From Politico:

Senate Republicans are pointing out a provision that would tax the makers of swine flu vaccines and drugs. The provision raises $2.3 billion annually from drug makers who sell their products through government programs.

“When everybody is coming together to fight a possible pandemic the last thing the government should be doing is taxing the people who manufacture the vaccines and the drugs to treat H1N1 flu,” said a Senate Republican leadership aide. . . .

This is more than a bit overdone, but this is probably the most critical segment SNL has had on Obama

Part of this was very good, particularly when the Chinese President asks how we were going to pay them back if Obama's policies "to save money involve spending even more money." I think that some of the critiques could have been sharper (did the cash for clunkers program actually help, will the government health insurance program actually reduce the number of uninsured), but this is probably the best you can get out of SNL and overall it was useful. The Chinese President so frequently bending over was somewhat overdone.

Editorials from the Washington Times

Gunning for Sarah Palin: Liberal media try to take down a popular conservative

Bureaucrats regulating corporate pay: Government created a leadership crisis at Bank of America

Broken promises on abortion: Democratic leaders flip-flop on taxpayer funding

Ethics Panel Issues Qualified Admonition to Sen. Burris, but recommends no punishment

I guess that I thought that perjury was a violation of the law. Apparently, the Democrats think that their agenda is more important than doing the right thing here.

The Senate ethics committee on Friday admonished Sen. Roland Burris (D., Ill.), for making "inconsistent, misleading or incomplete" statements about the circumstances surrounding his appointment to the seat once held by Barack Obama.

The committee didn't recommend any punishment.

Mr. Burris was appointed by former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was impeached and driven from office after he was accused of trying to sell the Senate seat.

The committee's "Public Letter of Qualified Admonition" told Mr. Burris that while it found no violations of law "Senators must meet a much higher standard of conduct." . . .

Just to remind people about what had happened:

After Blagojevich was arrested on Dec. 9 and charged with public corruption , including trying to trade the Senate appointment for jobs or campaign cash, Democratic leaders in Illinois and Washington -- including Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate leader -- urged the governor not to make an appointment.

Burris, a former Illinois attorney general and comptroller -- but by then a political has-been -- accepted the appointment from the tainted governor, but the U.S. Senate was reluctant to seat him under the circumstances.

Under a deal struck with Senate leaders, Burris agreed to appear before the Blagojevich impeachment panel, the Illinois House Special Investigative Committee , to testify about the circumstances surrounding his appointment.

After he testified, the Chicago Sun-Times revealed that Burris had failed to initially disclose under oath to the House panel that he was hit up for up to $10,000 in campaign cash in three conversations with Robert Blagojevich, the governor's brother and fund-raiser who also now faces federal charges.

Burris released changes to his testimony after the Sun-Times raised questions about his contacts with Blagojevich's camp. . . .

Here is the testimony that got Burris in trouble.

Rep. Jim Durkin: "Did you talk to any members of the governor's staff or anyone closely related to the governor, including family members or any lobbyists connected with him, including, let me throw out some names -- John Harris, Rob Blagojevich, Doug Scofield, Bob Greenleaf, Lon Monk, John Wyma? Did you talk to anybody . . . associated with the governor about your desire to seek the appointment prior to the governor's arrest?"

Burris lawyer Timothy Wright: "Give us a moment." (Wright and Burris confer.)

Burris: "I talked to some friends about my desire to be appointed, yes."

Durkin: "I guess the point is I was trying to ask: Did you speak to anybody who was on the governor's staff prior to the governor's arrest or anybody, any of those individuals or anybody who is closely related to the governor?"

Burris: "I recall having a meeting with Lon Monk about my partner and I trying to get continued business, and I did bring it up -- it must have been in September or maybe it was in July of '08 that, you know, you're close to the governor, let him know that I am certainly interested in the seat."

Bipartisan calls for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to resign

These first questions are from an interview that the WSJ had with liberal Democrat Peter DeFazio (D, Oregon).

Is this going to pose problems for Democrats going into the midterm elections?

Rep. DeFazio: “There was a very interesting slide shown to the caucus on Monday night, and I don’t know who the guy was, some economist. He had polling data. And he said the American people‘s opinion of what we’ve done so far for economic recovery, 90% think its been way too much Wall Street and that’s pretty overwhelming, and only 10% felt it was oriented toward helping real folks with real jobs in the real economy. That is a very troubling number, especially for a Democratic administration and a Democratic Congress. I just think that pretty drastic steps are necessary to change direction of the policy. We’ve been fighting with the President’s economic team for months…They don’t believe in infrastructure. They don’t seem to believe in investment. They want a borrowed money, consumer driven recovery…that ain’t happening.”

Why do you think Geithner should resign?

Rep. DeFazio: “I just do not feel that his orientation is other than Wall Street, and has not been other than Wall Street, and will not be other than Wall Street. And quite frankly all the gambling on Wall Street is doing nothing to put people back to work in America and rebuild our economy.” . . .

From the WSJ:

At a Joint Economic Committee hearing in Congress, in which House and Senate lawmakers sit on a panel, Mr. Brady opened up his questioning by telling Mr. Geithner Republicans, Democrats, and the American people had lost confidence in the Treasury Secretary and asked him to resign.

“It is a great privilege to serve this president,” Mr. Geithner responded. “I agree with almost nothing you said.”

Mr. Geithner then took it a step further: “You gave this president an economy falling off the cliff.”

Mr. Brady wasn’t done: “Remind me, Mr. Secretary, what post were you holding when President Obama took office?”

Geithner: “I was the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.”

Brady then accused him of “shirking responsibility for the design of this bailout.”

Mr. Geithner said the government’s steps were “absolutely necessary to break the back of this financial panic.” He said without the Obama administration’s steps, “you would have an economy still falling, not growing.”

Brady wasn’t done. “The public has lost all confidence in your ability to do the job.”

Geithner wasn’t done either. “If you look at any measure of confidence in the financial system, it is substantially higher today than when the President of the United States took office.”

Brady: “This is your budget! This is your bailout!” . . .

CRUgate emails

Well, it turns out the emails were real. Fox News has this:

In an exclusive interview in Investigate magazine's TGIF Edition, Phil Jones, the head of the Hadley CRU, confirmed that the leaked data is real. . . .

Some culling through the hacked emails of global warming advocates, the Bishop Hill website has found some interesting statements.

Tim Osborn discusses how data are truncated to stop an apparent cooling trend showing up in the results (0939154709). Analysis of impact here. Wow! . . .

Phil Jones encourages colleagues to delete information subject to FoI request.(1212063122) . . . .

Phil Jones says he has use Mann's "Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series"...to hide the decline". Real Climate says "hiding" was an unfortunate turn of phrase.(0942777075) . . .

Mann sends calibration residuals for MBH99 to Osborn. Says they are pretty red, and that they shouldn't be passed on to others, this being the kind of dirty laundry they don't want in the hands of those who might distort it.(1059664704) . . .

David Parker discussing the possibility of changing the reference period for global temperature index. Thinks this shouldn't be done because it confuses people and because it will make things look less warm.(1105019698) . . .

Jones tells Mann that he is sending station data. Says that if McIntyre requests it under FoI he will delete it rather than hand it over. Says he will hide behind data protection laws. Says Rutherford screwed up big time by creating an FTP directory for Osborn. Says Wigley worried he will have to release his model code. Also discuss AR4 draft. Mann says paleoclimate chapter will be contentious but that the author team has the right personalities to deal with sceptics.(1107454306) . . .

A discussion of the professionally damaging emails is here. The Herald Sun newspaper in Australia has done an excellent job going through the emails of one Professor Phil Jones, the head of the CRU unit whose emails were leaked.

At 09:41 AM 2/2/2005, Phil Jones wrote:

Mike, I presume congratulations are in order - so congrats etc !

Just sent loads of station data to Scott. Make sure he documents everything better this time ! And don’t leave stuff lying around on ftp sites - you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? - our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it. We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it - thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that. IPR should be relevant here, but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at UEA who’ll say we must adhere to it !

Jones admits he was warned by his own university against deleting data subjected to an FOI request from McIntyre - or anyone:

From: Phil Jones

To: santer1@XXXX

Subject: Re: A quick question

Date: Wed Dec 10 10:14:10 2008

Ben,

Haven’t got a reply from the FOI person here at UEA. So I’m not entirely confident the numbers are correct. One way of checking would be to look on CA, but I’m not doing that. I did get an email from the FOI person here early yesterday to tell me I shouldn’t be deleting emails - unless this was ‘normal’ deleting to keep emails manageable! McIntyre hasn’t paid his £10, so nothing looks likely to happen re his Data Protection Act email.

Anyway requests have been of three types - observational data, paleo data and who made IPCC changes and why. Keith has got all the latter - and there have been at least 4. We made Susan aware of these - all came from David Holland. According to the FOI Commissioner’s Office, IPCC is an international organization, so is above any national FOI. Even if UEA holds anything about IPCC, we are not obliged to pass it on, unless it has anything to do with our core business - and it doesn’t! I’m sounding like Sir Humphrey here!

Makes you wonder very strongly what Jones is trying to hide, doesn’t it? Also makes you laugh all over again at his claim once that the data being sought had, sadly, been ... um, lost.

In1212063122.txtm, Jones urges another colleague, Michael “Hockey Stick”, Mann, to join in the deleting - at least of emails about the IPCC’s controversial ARA report on man-made warming which Jones co-authored, and which claimed warming was “unequivocal” and “most likely” caused by humans:

From: Phil Jones To: “Michael E. Mann”
Subject: IPCC & FOI
Date: Thu May 29 11:04:11 2008

Mike,

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?

Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment - minor family crisis.

Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.

I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!

Cheers

Phil:

For years Jones has made clear his determination to keep crucial data from the eyes of sceptics:

From: Phil Jones To: mann@xxx.edu
Subject: Fwd: CCNet: PRESSURE GROWING ON CONTROVERSIAL RESEARCHER TO DISCLOSE SECRET DATA
Date: Mon Feb 21 16:28:32 2005
Cc: “raymond s. bradley” , “Malcolm Hughes”

Mike, Ray and Malcolm,

The skeptics seem to be building up a head of steam here ! Maybe we can use this to our advantage to get the series updated !

Odd idea to update the proxies with satellite estimates of the lower troposphere rather than surface data !. Odder still that they don’t realise that Moberg et al used the Jones and Moberg updated series !

Francis Zwiers is till onside. He said that PC1s produce hockey sticks. He stressed that the late 20th century is the warmest of the millennium, but Regaldo didn’t bother
with that. Also ignored Francis’ comment about all the other series looking similar to MBH.

The IPCC comes in for a lot of stick. Leave it to you to delete as appropriate !

Cheers

Phil

PS I’m getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data.

Don’t any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act !

How impartial a scientist is Phil Jones? . . .

...If anything, I would like to see the climate change happen, so the science could be proved right, regardless of the consequences. This isn’t being political, it is being selfish.

Abortion and the Senate bill to take over health care

Abortion might be the most difficult obstacle that Democrats have, but it won't be the only one. I predict that gun control will also be relevant.

The White House is on a collision course with Catholic bishops in an intractable dispute over abortion that could blow up the fragile political coalition behind President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.
A top Obama administration official on Thursday praised the new Senate health care bill's attempt to find a compromise on abortion coverage - even as an official of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said Sen. Harry Reid's bill is the worst he's seen so far on the divisive issue.
The bishops were instrumental in getting tough anti-abortion language adopted by the House, forcing Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to accept restrictions that outraged liberals as the price for passing the Democratic health care bill. Reid, D-Nev., now faces a similar choice: Ultimately, he will need the votes of Democratic senators who oppose abortion to get his bill through the Senate.
So far, Reid has steered the Senate bill in a direction that abortion rights supporters can live with: allowing coverage for abortion in federally subsidized health care plans, provided that beneficiaries' own premiums are used to pay for the procedure. But abortion opponents say his compromise would gut current federal restrictions on abortion funding.
Despite criticism, there were growing indications Reid would prevail on an initial Senate showdown set for Saturday night. He needs a 60-vote majority to advance the bill toward full debate, expected to begin after Thanksgiving and last for weeks. It's during that debate that the battle over abortion will be joined in earnest. Reid will need to clear other 60-vote hurdles before senators cast their final vote on the bill. . . .
But Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the bishops' conference Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, said Reid's "is actually the worst bill we've seen so far on the life issues."
He called it "completely unacceptable," adding that "to say this reflects current law is ridiculous."
The bill would forbid including abortion coverage as a required medical benefit. However, it would allow a new government insurance plan to cover abortions and let private insurers that receive federal subsidies offer plans that include abortion coverage. . . .

Did Global Warming Advocates Manipulate Data?

Hackers have apparently hacked into a university email server and gotten a large number of emails belonging to prominent global warming advocates.

Hundreds of private emails and documents allegedly exchanged between some of the world's leading climate scientists during the past 13 years have been stolen by hackers and leaked online, it emerged today.

The computer files were apparently accessed earlier this week from servers at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, a world-renowned centre focused on the study of natural and anthropogenic climate change.

Climate change sceptics who have studied the emails allege they provide "smoking gun" evidence that some of the climatologists colluded in manipulating data to support the widely held view that climate change is real, and is being largely caused by the actions of mankind.

The veracity of the emails has not been confirmed and the scientists involved have declined to comment on the story, which broke on a blog called The Air Vent.

The files, which in total amount to 160MbB of data, were first uploaded on to a Russian server, before being widely mirrored across the internet. The emails were accompanied by the anonymous statement: "We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code and documents. Hopefully it will give some insight into the science and the people behind it."

A spokesperson for the University of East Anglia said: "We are aware that information from a server used for research information in one area of the university has been made available on public websites. Because of the volume of this information we cannot currently confirm that all this material is genuine. This information has been obtained and published without our permission and we took immediate action to remove the server in question from operation. We are undertaking a thorough internal investigation and have involved the police in this inquiry."

In one email, dated November 1999, one scientist wrote: "I've just completed Mike's Nature [the science journal] trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline." . . .

UPDATE: Even the NY Times felt compelled to write about this news. They may want to claim that it is "not something secret," but the term "hide the decline" makes that difficult to accept.

But several scientists and others contacted by The New York Times confirmed that they were the authors or recipients of specific e-mail messages included in the file. The revelations are bound to inflame the public debate as hundreds of negotiators prepare to negotiate an international climate accord at meetings in Copenhagen next month, and at least one scientist speculated that the timing was not coincidental.

Dr. Trenberth said Friday that he was appalled at the release of the e-mail messages.

But he added that he thought the revelations might backfire against climate skeptics. He said that he thought that the messages showed “the integrity of scientists.” Still, some of the comments might lend themselves to being interpreted as sinister.

In a 1999 e-mail exchange about charts showing climate patterns over the last two millenniums, Phil Jones, a longtime climate researcher at the East Anglia Climate Research Unit, said he had used a “trick” employed by another scientist, Michael Mann, to “hide the decline” in temperatures.

Dr. Mann, a professor at Pennsylvania State University, confirmed in an interview that the e-mail message was real. He said the choice of words by his colleague was poor but noted that scientists often used the word “trick” to refer to a good way to solve a problem, “and not something secret.”

At issue were sets of data, both employed in two studies. One data set showed long-term temperature effects on tree rings; the other, thermometer readings for the past 100 years. . . .

NY Times misses the point on stimulus spending

Again, the New York Times just assumes that this stimulus spending creates jobs and ignores the more basic question of where the money comes from.

The government watchdog overseeing the federal stimulus program testified Thursday that he could not vouch for the Obama administration’s recent claims that the money had saved or created 640,000 jobs. He suggested that the administration should have treated the number with more skepticism.

The 640,000 figure, announced by the White House with some fanfare last month, came from reports filed by recipients of the stimulus money, many of which have been shown to be inaccurate or overstated since they were made public. But the watchdog, Earl E. Devaney, the chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, said that it was also possible that the figure understated how many jobs were affected. Up to 10 percent of the recipients had not filed the required reports showing how many jobs they had created or saved, he said. . . . .

"Extended [Unemployment] benefits will expire unless Congress acts"

Why was it so necessary to increase unemployment benefits when the unemployment rate was around 7 percent but now that it is 10.2 percent it is no longer necessary? The title for the CNN piece is "1 million jobless face benefits loss in January."

One million people could lose unemployment benefits in January if Congress doesn't extend federal aid, according to a report released Wednesday.

The report is likely to turn up pressure on lawmakers and the president, who earlier this month enacted a record-long extension of federally paid benefits. But the law only helps those who exhaust their lifelines by year's end.

As it stands now, the deadline to apply for federally paid benefits is Dec. 31. So while unemployment benefits now run as long as 99 weeks, depending on the state, not everyone will receive checks for that long a stretch.

"Congress has less than four weeks left on its schedule to legislate this year, and unless it acts to renew the unemployment provisions during this period, the clock will run out for a million workers," said Christine Owens, executive director for the National Employment Law Project.

Those who run out of their 26 weeks of state-paid coverage in 2010 will not receive any additional benefits. The jobless currently receiving extended federal benefits, which are divided into tiers, will stop getting checks once they complete their tier. . . .

See also this story here.

A cheap vote for the government health care takeover

A $100 million in an almost $900 billion package doesn't seem like very much. It is about 0.01 percent of the total. For a mere $100 million, Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu is willing to vote for a massive change in the life of Louisianans.

ABC News' Jonathan Karl reports:

What does it take to get a wavering senator to vote for health care reform?

Here’s a case study.

On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.”

The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.”

I am told the section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.

In other words, the bill spends two pages describing would could be written with a single world: Louisiana. (This may also help explain why the bill is long.)

Senator Harry Reid, who drafted the bill, cannot pass it without the support of Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu.

How much does it cost? According to the Congressional Budget Office: $100 million.

Here’s the incredibly complicated language:

SEC. 2006. SPECIAL ADJUSTMENT TO FMAP DETERMINATION FOR CERTAIN STATES RECOVERING FROM A MAJOR DISASTER. . . . .

UPDATE: From the Washington Post.

On the eve of Saturday's showdown in the Senate over health-care reform, Democratic leaders still hadn't secured the support of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of the 60 votes needed to keep the legislation alive. The wavering lawmaker was offered a sweetener: at least $100 million in extra federal money for her home state.

And so it came to pass that Landrieu walked onto the Senate floor midafternoon Saturday to announce her aye vote -- and to trumpet the financial "fix" she had arranged for Louisiana. "I am not going to be defensive," she declared. "And it's not a $100 million fix. It's a $300 million fix."

It was an awkward moment (not least because her figure is 20 times the original Louisiana Purchase price). . . .

Lincoln made clear that she still planned to hold out for many more concessions in the debate that will consume the next month. "My decision to vote on the motion to proceed is not my last, nor only, chance to have an impact on health-care reform," she announced. . . .

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) won a promise from Reid to support his plan to expand eligibility for health insurance. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) got Reid to jettison a provision stripping health insurers of their antitrust exemption. Landrieu got the concessions for her money. And Lincoln won an extended, 72-hour period to study legislation.

And the big shakedown is yet to occur: That will happen when Reid comes back to his caucus in a few weeks to round up 60 votes for the final passage of the health bill. . . .

Sen. Ben Nelson moves towards supporting Senator Reid's health care bill, Everything might depend on Lieberman

What hope there was that Sen. Ben Nelson would stick to his requirement that at least some Republicans support the bill seems to have disappeared. It sure looks like he is going to vote for cloture, which is effectively going to mean that the bill will pass.

Some who define it as a vote in favor of the Reid bill are misinformed, or are intentionally trying to mislead people. I remember that some in my party said the same thing—equating this procedural vote with a vote for a bill—when the Republicans were in charge. If your goal is to obstruct, that’s a convenient argument. . . .

Lieberman doesn't seem to be backing down, though the Democrats might pull the public option just to get it through the Senate. I don't think that removing the public option won't improve this bill very much. From Politico about Lieberman:

Sen. Joe Lieberman’s threat to filibuster any health care bill with a public option could kill health reform this year — and embolden Democratic challengers who’d like to send him packing in 2012.

But Lieberman doesn’t seem worried.

“I don’t think about that stuff,” Lieberman told POLITICO this week. “I’m just — I’m being a legislator. After what I went through in 2006, there’s nothing much more that anybody [who] disagrees with me can try to do.”

Lieberman left the Democratic Party in 2006 after liberal Ned Lamont beat him in Connecticut’s Democratic Senate primary. Lieberman defeated Lamont in the general election and returned to Washington as an independent, where he continues to caucus with Democrats — even though he accuses them of engaging in a bit of bait and switch when it comes to the public option.

“It’s classic politics of our time that if you look at the campaign last year, presidential, you can’t find a mention of public option,” Lieberman said. “It was added after the election as a part of what we normally consider health insurance reform — insurance market reforms, cover people, cover people who are not covered.

In fact, the 2008 Democratic Party Platform referred to the need for a “public plan,” and candidate Barack Obama referred more than once to the idea of providing people who can’t get private insurance with government-backed insurance similar to that which members of Congress get.

But Lieberman says support for the public option has now become a “litmus test” for Democrats, adding: “I thought Democrats were against litmus tests.”

Despite the strong words against some in his old party, Lieberman still entertains the idea of a reunion. Asked this week if he might run again as a Democrat in 2012, Lieberman smiled and said, “Yeah, sure.”

“I’m for health care reform,” Lieberman told POLITICO. “And, of course, this will all be over by then, and I hope we will be strongly supporting health care reform. I haven’t changed my thoughts about 2012, which is, I’m keeping all my options open. . . .

Surprise, firing guns at Pirates actually works

This attack worked out quite differently than the attack seven months ago. A big difference is that this time the ship being attacked had guns. A spokeswoman for the Maersk Shipping Line said: ""The crew and the captain are safe." The wife of the Maersk Alabama's captain said: "I'm really happy at least it didn't turn out like the last time." The reaction of a pirate who had been in communication with those who attacked the ship: "They told us that they got in trouble with an American ship, then we lost them. We have been trying to locate them since."

Somali pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama on Wednesday for the second time in seven months and were thwarted by private guards on board the U.S.-flagged ship who fired off guns and a high-decibel noise device.

A U.S. surveillance plane was monitoring the ship as it continued to its destination on the Kenyan coast, while a pirate said that the captain of a ship hijacked Monday with 28 North Korean crew members on board had died of wounds.

Pirates hijacked the Maersk Alabama last April and took ship captain Richard Phillips hostage, holding him at gunpoint in a lifeboat for five days. Navy SEAL sharpshooters freed Phillips while killing three pirates in a daring nighttime attack.

Four suspected pirates in a skiff attacked the ship again on Wednesday around 6:30 a.m. local time, firing on the ship with automatic weapons from about 300 yards away, a statement from the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain said.

Evasive maneuvers, small-arms fire
An on-board security team repelled the attack by using evasive maneuvers, small-arms fire and a Long Range Acoustic Device, which can beam earsplitting alarm tones, the fleet said.

Vice Adm. Bill Gortney of the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, said the Maersk Alabama had followed the maritime industry's "best practices" in having a security team on board.

"This is a great example of how merchant mariners can take proactive action to prevent being attacked and why we recommend that ships follow industry best practices if they're in high-risk areas," Gortney said in a statement.

However, Roger Middleton, a piracy expert at the London-based think tank Chatham House, said the international maritime community was still "solidly against" armed guards aboard vessels at sea, but that American ships have taken a different line than the rest of the international community. . . . .

Copy of Harry Reid's version of the Senate Health Care Bill is available here

A copy of the new Senate health care bill is available here.

From the WSJ:

Among other things, the Senate legislation would create a new government-run health insurance plan to compete with private insurers, while allowing states the option not to participate. . . .

If someone believes the CBO cost estimate, I have a bridge to sell them.

The $849 billion figure and the prospect of deficit reduction cheered Democrats. . . .

The media hates Palin

The Associated Press devotes 11 Reporters to Palin Book 'Fact Check," but didn't devote any reporters to do the same to Obama's books. But "the Associated Press' treatment of Palin's book seems an unprecedented move at the wire service." The claimed few errors in her book were also difficult to accept.

The organization did not review for accuracy recent books by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, then-Sen. Joe Biden, either book by Barack Obama released before he was president or autobiographies by Bill or Hillary Clinton. . . . AP didn't fact-check recent political tomes by Republicans Rudy Giuliani or Newt Gingrich. . . . .

What other politician would have Newsweek or Time run this type of cover picture on? There are a lot of covers to check on with Time running one every other month on Obama.

What on earth was Sarah Palin thinking when she posed in a pair of teeny-tiny gym shorts for a photograph that ended up on the cover of Newsweek -- a cover she has called "sexist"? Perhaps she was thinking that her image would only appear in the magazine she was posing for, Runner's World, and nowhere else, at least not for months and months. If so, she had good reason -- since, as DailyFinance has learned, the photographer who shot the picture violated his contract by reselling them to Newsweek. . . .

Why would all these media publications try to get this picture of Palin?

A source with knowledge of the situation says multiple outlets, including Time, approached Runner's World after the photos first appeared on its website in July to inquire about obtaining the reuse rights. . . . .

On her Facebook page, Palin writes:

The choice of photo for the cover of this week's Newsweek is unfortunate. When it comes to Sarah Palin, this "news" magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant. The Runner's World magazine one-page profile for which this photo was taken was all about health and fitness - a subject to which I am devoted and which is critically important to this nation. The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now. If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin. The media will do anything to draw attention - even if out of context.

Republican Sen. Judd Gregg predicts Democrats will pass what they want on health care

This is pretty depressing, but probably accurate. The Republicans can do nothing to stop this even if they remain united. All depends on Lieberman and Nebraska's Nelson.

Senate Democrats will eventually cobble together the 60 votes they need to pass their version of healthcare reform with a public plan intact, one top Republican lawmaker acknowledged Monday.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will "shop the votes" he needs to bring the bill to the floor and end debate when the time arises, and his efforts should again prove successful once the chamber considers a healthcare conference report, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) told CNBC last night.

"My guess is, they'll be able to pass something, and it will be very, very expensive and add a lot to our debt," the New Hampshire Republican said, noting that Democrats are likely to allege the bill is "paid for [but] most of the pay-fors will never come to" fruition.

"Then they'll take it to conference, and in conference, all the hard language will be put on by the Speaker and her cadre," Gregg added. "You'll end up with a public plan, you'll end up with a very expensive plan, you'll end up with major tax increases.... premiums will go up, and they'll bring that bill back [to the Senate]."

Once that bill returns, Gregg explained Democrats will only face one more 60-vote procedural vote before considering the conference report for final passage. He predicted then, too, the party's efforts would prevail. . . . .

Palin gives Oprah her best rating in two years

The full story is here:

Oprah Winfrey’s interview with former vp candidate Sarah Palin scored the talk show host her highest rating in two years.

Monday's episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" drew a 8.7 household rating and 13 share -- the best since Oprah had the entire Osmond family on the show in 2007.

That means Palin also topped Oprah's heavily viewed interviews with Whitney Houston at the start of the season. . . .

Dems pushing new jobs bill

I have written how the unemployment rate has gone up faster in countries with more of a stimulus program, but more government spending is just assumed to create jobs. No discussion in the media about where the money comes from or the jobs that are lost from taking that money away from other uses. Anyway, the AP has this:

House Democrats are looking at swelling deficits further, at least temporarily, on a jobs-producing bill in response to double-digit unemployment and a sense within their ranks that the party needs to do more to put people back to work.

But many of the ideas on the table so far are extensions of last February’s $787 billion economic stimulus package — such as unemployment benefits and subsidies to help the jobless pay for health insurance. They maintain the social safety net for the 15.7 million Americans out of work but they don’t directly create new jobs.

Aware that the February stimulus bill has not prevented unemployment from reaching 10.2 percent and of public opinion polls showing the free spending measure is losing popularity with voters, Democrats are wary of putting a stimulus label on their new package.

“I wouldn’t characterize it as a second stimulus,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Tuesday. “I don’t want to be as broad as that, I want it to be very targeted on jobs.”

House Democrats debated ways to address job creation at a caucus meeting Monday night, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has promised colleagues the chamber would take up a jobs measure after it completes its health care overhaul bill. That makes it unlikely to pass into law this year.

Job-creating ideas include additional help for small business, more road and bridge spending, and extending business tax breaks slated to expire at the end of the year, according to spokespersons for Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina. . . .

The cost of counterfeiting goods and company names

The entire article here is worth reading:

The only authorized Apple reseller in Beijing is Drangonstar. The hundreds of phony Apple “Authorised” stores (could be 100+ locations in Beijing alone) no doubt fool many shoppers. The Macs, iPods and iPhones on display look amazingly real. And I suspect that many are in fact the real McCoy. Yet buyer beware! I learned from some Apple savvy expats in Beijing that you can only tell you’ve got a bandit (Shanzhai ji) when you take your purchase home and discover the erratic (crappy) non-Apple like UI and inability to synch to iTunes.

So many have been burned by these incidences that the miss-trust unjustly spills over to the real Apple Store in Beijing (Sanlitun). I heard anecdotally that one Sanlitun Apple Store shopper insisted that the new iMac he purchased be completely unboxed and booted up before he would leave the store. Sounds crazy as the legit Apple Store at Sanlitun has an impeccable record of integrity and service. But this just goes to show how deep-rooted the mistrust is in China as a result of the Shanzhai ji (counterfeit goods) markets. . . .

Drugmakers raising prices before controls are imposed

I certainly hope that drug companies are trying to raise the prices of drugs before various regulations go into effect. The only problem is that they are being forced to raise prices more than they think that they should. Lowering these prices will only result in fewer new drugs and fewer lives being saved.

Even as drug makers promise to support Washington’s health care overhaul by shaving $8 billion a year off the nation’s drug costs after the legislation takes effect, the industry has been raising its prices at the fastest rate in years.

In the last year, the industry has raised the wholesale prices of brand-name prescription drugs by about 9 percent, according to industry analysts. That will add more than $10 billion to the nation’s drug bill, which is on track to exceed $300 billion this year. By at least one analysis, it is the highest annual rate of inflation for drug prices since 1992.

The drug trend is distinctly at odds with the direction of the Consumer Price Index, which has fallen by 1.3 percent in the last year.

Drug makers say they have valid business reasons for the price increases. Critics say the industry is trying to establish a higher price base before Congress passes legislation that tries to curb drug spending in coming years.

“When we have major legislation anticipated, we see a run-up in price increases,” says Stephen W. Schondelmeyer, a professor of pharmaceutical economics at the University of Minnesota. He has analyzed drug pricing for AARP, the advocacy group for seniors that supports the House health care legislation that the drug industry opposes.

A Harvard health economist, Joseph P. Newhouse, said he found a similar pattern of unusual price increases after Congress added drug benefits to Medicare a few years ago, giving tens of millions of older Americans federally subsidized drug insurance. Just as the program was taking effect in 2006, the drug industry raised prices by the widest margin in a half-dozen years.

“They try to maximize their profits,” Mr. Newhouse said.

But drug companies say they are having to raise prices to maintain the profits necessary to invest in research and development of new drugs as the patents on many of their most popular drugs are set to expire over the next few years. . . . .

Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida now wants to investigate reports that prescription drug makers are raising prices.

So much for unprecedented transparency: "EPA Employees Silenced for Criticizing Cap and Trade"

What would the reaction be if the Bush administration had tried to silence critics this way? This is not the first time that the Obama administration has tried to silence experts in government who disagreed with their global warming decisions. From Fox News:

Laurie Williams and husband Alan Zabel worked as lawyers for the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, in its San Francisco office for more than 20 years, and they know more about climate change than most politicians. But when the couple released a video on the Internet expressing their concerns over the Obama administration’s plans to use cap-and-trade legislation to fight climate change, they were told to keep it to themselves.

Williams and Zabel oppose cap and trade -- a controversial government allowance program in which companies are issued emissions limits, or caps, which they can then trade -- as a means to fight climate change.

On their own time, Williams and Zabel made a video expressing these opinions.

VIDEO: EPA Employees Speak Out Against Cap and Trade

"Cap-and-trade with offsets provides a false sense of progress and puts money in the pockets of investors," Zabel said in the video. "We think that these restrictions might not be constitutional," he said.

Their bosses in San Francisco approved the effort by Williams and Zabel to release the tape, but after an editorial they wrote appeared in the Washington Post, EPA Director Lisa Jackson ordered the pair to remove the video or face disciplinary action. . . .

Appearing on Coast-to-Coast AM for a couple of minutes during George Noory's news segment sometime between 1:05 to 1:15 AM EST

George Noory is having me on tonight to briefly to talk about the increase in gun sales in the US.

All over America demand for firearms and ammunition is rising amid concerns that rising unemployment, which passed 10 per cent this month, will lead inexorably to higher rates of crime. Fears of terrorism have also helped to lift demand, as have concerns among gun owners that the Obama Administration may introduce restrictions on gun ownership and impose additional taxes.

Smith & Wesson is expecting sales to rise by 30 per cent to $102 million (£61 million) in the first quarter of the next financial year, after growing by more than 13 per cent this year to $335 million.

At Sturm and Ruger, sales for the third quarter hit $71.2 million, up 70 per cent from the same period last year. At Glock, the leader in law enforcement markets, pistol sales rose by 71 per cent in the first quarter of the financial year for 2010, in comparison with the same period last year.

According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the FBI carried out more than a million background checks on behalf of gun dealers in September (a check is required with every sale), an increase of 12.4 per cent on the same period in the previous year. . . .

See also this from the Washington Post:

In a year of job losses, foreclosures and bag lunches, Americans have spent record-breaking amounts of money on guns and ammunition. The most obvious sign of their demand: empty ammunition shelves.

At points during the past year, bullets have been selling faster than factories could make them.

Gun owners have bought about 12 billion rounds of ammunition in the past year, industry officials estimate. That's up from 7 billion to 10 billion in a normal year.

It has happened, oddly, at a time when the two concerns that usually make people buy guns and bullets -- crime and increased gun control -- seem less threatening than usual.

The explanation for the run on bullets lies partly in economics: Once rounds were scarce, people hoarded them, which made them scarcer.

But the rush for bullets, like this year's increase in gun sales, also says something about how suspicious the two sides in the gun-control debate are of each other, even at a time when the issue is on Washington's back burner.

The run started, observers say, as people heeded warnings from the gun-rights lobby that a new Democratic administration would make bullets more expensive or harder to get. Now that the shortage is starting to ease, gun-control groups are voicing their own dark worries about stockpiled ammunition. . . .

More Americans think that Global Warming is Created by the Sun and Similar Causes

One wonders where the 20 percent come from who think that Mr. Obama believes that planetary trends are causing global warming. Anyway many more Americans think that something like the sun is responsible for any warming compared to man-made.

Nearly half the nation’s voters still believe that global warming is caused primarily by long term planetary trends, not human activity.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 47% of voters blame global warming on planetary trends, while 37% of voters take the opposite view and blame human activity. Just 5% point to some other reason.
Voters continue to believe the president holds the opposite view. Fifty percent (50%) say President Obama blames global warming on human activity, while only 20% think he blames planetary trends. But another 21% are not sure what the president believes. . . .

Yet more errors in claimed jobs "saved or created"

The biggest error with these numbers is something that is never discussed in these news stories: where did the money come from? What jobs in other industries would have existed if the government hadn't taken the money that would have been spent there?

ABC News has this:

Rep. David Obey, D-Wisc, who chairs the powerful House appropriations Committee, issued a paper statement demanding that the recovery.gov Web site be updated.

"The inaccuracies on recovery.gov that have come to light are outrageous and the Administration owes itself, the Congress, and every American a commitment to work night and day to correct the ludicrous mistakes." . . .

Another ABC News piece has this:

One recipient – Talladega County of Alabama – claimed that 5,000 jobs had been saved or created from only $42,000 in stimulus funds. . . .

Some of the other recipients whose data was omitted included Belmont Metropolitan Housing Authority in Ohio that reported 16,120 jobs saved or created after receiving $1.3 million in stimulus funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Shelton State Community College in Alabama reported 14,500 jobs saved or created after receiving $27,000 from the General Accounting Office. And Alkan Builders of Alaska reported 3,000 jobs saved or created after receiving $11 million from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. . . .

Dem Rep David Obey, the chair of the House appropriations committee, speaks out on these errors:

“The inaccuracies on recovery.gov that have come to light are outrageous and the Administration owes itself, the Congress, and every American a commitment to work night and day to correct the ludicrous mistakes.

“Credibility counts in government and stupid mistakes like this undermine it. We’ve got too many serious problems in this country to let that happen.

“We designed the Recovery Act to be open and transparent and I expect the the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, who oversees the recovery act web site and data to have information that is accurate, reliable and understandable to the American public. Whether the numbers are good news or bad news, I want the honest numbers and I want them now.”

GAO says that 50,000 of the jobs came from projects that reported spending no money yet.

More than 50,000 jobs, or one out of every 10 jobs the White House says were "saved or created" by their economic stimulus plan, came from projects that reported spending no money yet, according to a government report obtained by ABC News. . . .

New York's Dem Gov Attacks Plan to Try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in NYC

One point that needs to be mentioned is just the cost of the security in a city as big as NYC. Anyway, here is a discussion about Paterson's statement:

Gov. David Paterson openly criticized the White House on Monday, saying he thought it was a terrible idea to move alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspected terrorists to New York for trial.

"This is not a decision that I would have made. I think terrorism isn't just attack, it's anxiety and I think you feel the anxiety and frustration of New Yorkers who took the bullet for the rest of the country," he said.

Paterson's comments break with Democrats, who generally support the President's decision.

Republicans said the group should be tried in a different location under military tribunal because the attacks are considered an act of war. . . .

Robert Samuelson on Obama's "willful self-deception, public dishonesty, or both"

Robert Samuelson rarely uses so strong of language:

There is an air of absurdity to what is mistakenly called "health care reform." Everyone knows that the United States faces massive governmental budget deficits as far as calculators can project, driven heavily by an aging population and uncontrolled health costs. Recovering slowly from a devastating recession, it's widely agreed that, though deficits should not be cut abruptly (lest the economy resume its slump), a prudent society would embark on long-term policies to control health costs, reduce government spending, and curb massive future deficits. The administration estimates these at $9 trillion from 2010 to 2019. The president and all his top economic advisers proclaim the same cautionary message.

So, what do they do? Just the opposite. Their sweeping overhaul of the health care system -- which Congress is halfway toward enacting -- would almost certainly make matters worse. It would create new, open-ended medical entitlements that threaten higher deficits and would do little to suppress surging health costs. The disconnect between what President Obama says and what he's doing is so glaring that most people could not abide it. The president, his advisers and allies have no trouble. But reconciling blatantly contradictory objectives requires them to engage in willful self-deception, public dishonesty, or both. . . .