Creating Non Addictive Pain Killers Using Chili Peppers?

Now this is an exiting breakthrough in the understanding of pain.

"This is a major breakthrough in understanding the mechanisms of pain and how to more effectively treat it," Dr. Hargreaves said. "These data demonstrate, for the first time, that OLAMs constitute a new family of naturally occurring capsaicin-like agents, and may explain the role of these substances in many pain conditions. This hypothesis suggests that agents blocking either the production or action of these substances could lead to new therapies and pharmacological interventions for various inflammatory diseases and pain disorders such as arthritis, fibromyalgia and others, including pain associated with cancer."

OLAMs are oxidized linoleic acid metabolites which are created from cells at the source of the pain. These are similar to the capsaicin oil that is found in chili peppers. So if you block these molecules then you might be able to block the pain right at the source instead of in the brain like opioids.

Another Biotech Winner: Pozen has Just Got Vimovo Approved

Well they just got a new drug called Vimovo approved and the stock has taken off after hours. What was interesting is the news was preceded by a drop in the stock that took it down as low as $5. I think someone was making investment decisions based on incomplete information. My thinking is that the FDA didn't rule by a certain specified time and this spooked investors into panic selling. In any case this is yet another big Biotech winner.

Vimovo is a fixed-dose combination of the anti-inflammatory drug naproxen and an immediate release version of esomeprazole, the active ingredient in AstraZeneca's acid reflux treatment Nexium.

Shares of Pozen were up more than 21 percent, or about $2.30, in after-hours trading on Friday, trading at $13.15, after earlier closing at $10.85. (Reporting by Susan Heavey; additional reporting by Ben Hirschler in London and Vidya Loganathan in Bangalore; editing by Carol Bishopric)

Now a Criminal Probe Against Goldman?

Well, it seems that everyone is going to pile on now that Goldman didn't play along with the White House.

"Given the recent focus on the firm, we are not surprised by the report of an inquiry," said a Goldman spokesman. "We would fully cooperate with any requests for information."

A spokeswoman for the office of the Manhattan U.S. Attorney said she could "neither confirm nor deny" any Goldman investigation. In Washington, a spokeswoman said the Justice Department declined to comment.

Obama sure can go after his enemies with a real Nixonian zeal. I would be willing to bet that this "inquiry" will come to nothing months down the line long after financial reform has been passed. It must suck for Goldman to be made out to be the whipping boy by the Obamanaughts after literally 100s of years of good conduct.

I really hope it knocks off a few more points of Goldman stock it seems to be doing that after hours with the stock trading at $156. I just need to see that all the salvos that the White House can fire against Goldman has been launched before I decide to buy in though.

Also as soon as financial reform passes it is time to seriously look at going long the banks since the "legislation risk" will have certainly been lifted. I would be willing to bet too that all of these troubles that afflict Goldman will magically disappear as well. It's the Chicago way.

Dendreon's Provenge Finally Makes the Big Time

Well, Dendreon has finally gotten their place in the sun in the form of an AP article and it has been a long time coming.

Doctors have been trying to develop such a therapy for decades, and Provenge is the first to win approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

"The big news here is that this is the first immunotherapy to win approval, and I suspect within five to ten years immunotherapies will be a big part of cancer therapy in general," said Dr. Phil Kantoff, an oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who helped run the studies of Provenge.

Experimental vaccines to treat other cancers — including the deadly skin disease melanoma and an often fatal childhood tumor called neuroblastoma — are already in late-stage development.

Well, I have held this stock since 2007 and this is quite a payoff. I read about how this thing worked way back when and I think that it has been a travesty that the FDA didn't approve this thing earlier. It just showed that the Bush-run FDA was no place for breakthrough therapies while the Obama-FDA is the opposite. I ding Obama a lot but he is more pro-science when it comes to things like this then Bush ever was.

In any case this Provenge is kind of a difficult therapy to get running because each treatment has to be tailored to the individual. But once that happens it actually extends the persons life and might lead to newer therapies down the line. It would be interesting to see how this therapy can be combined with things like DNA injections that kill cancer cells.

The idea that you are getting the persons own immune system to attack the cancer is something out of SciFi. That was part of why I invested in them even when the stock dropped into the $1 range and kept with them until now. It is good to see them finally get their due and to see another weapon in the armory in the fight against cancer.

Obama Removes Immigration Reform From 2010 Agenda

I would feel pretty stupid if I was the Hispanic Caucus right now. Part of the reason they voted for ObamaCare was because Obama was going to push immigration reform. Now it looks like he is going to fob it off until after the Midterms if he even does it.

Immigration reform was an issue Obama promised Latino groups that he would take up in his first year in office. But several hard realities — a tanked economy, a crowded agenda, election-year politics and lack of political will — led to so much foot-dragging in Congress that, ultimately, Obama decided to set the issue aside.

Another reality is that if he thought his numbers were low now wait until he pushes some kind of comprehensive immigration reform. The fault-lines in that mess go really deep and Obama might join Bush at the lowest job approval ratings of all times.

What is worse is that the recession is deadly when it comes to immigration reform. The idea of illegals filling jobs that Americans don't want doesn't wash when there is 10% unemployment. The idea that some person who is not a citizen and broke the law to get into the country is taking a job from a citizen who might have been out of work for a year or more is bad news for them.

There is a deep well of resentment out there and the Dems are right for passing it off until the economy actually improves on Main Street. Calling some young guy who cant find a job a racist for wanting a job that an illegal immigrant is currently filling at a black market wage will not be sufficient to drain that well.

How Human Rights Watch Morphed into an Anti-Israel Group

This is quite an interesting article on how one of the founders of Human Rights Watch had a falling out with the organization over its treatment of Israel.

On October 19 of last year, the op-ed page of The New York Times contained a bombshell: a piece by Robert Bernstein, the founder and former chairman of Human Rights Watch (HRW), attacking his own organization. HRW, Bernstein wrote, was “helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.”

I wonder if Obama is getting his background of anti-Israel-ism from groups like HRW?

Illegal Immigrants Planning on Leaving Arizona

I guess this law might actually achieve the goal of reducing the amount of illegals coming to America.

"Nobody wants to pick us up," Julio Loyola Diaz says in Spanish as he and dozens of other men wait under the shade of palo verde trees and lean against a low brick wall outside the east Phoenix home improvement store.

Many day laborers like Diaz say they will leave Arizona because of the law, which also makes it a state crime to be in the U.S. illegally and directs police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal immigrants.

I wonder if these day labor positions could instead be filled full time by young African American males who are getting smacked down by this recession?

World Cup MVPs Ring: Looks Like Something out of a Gumball Machine

I have to say that this dorky looking thing is not worth $70,000.

CSI Is Helping Crooks Cover Their Tracks

I was wondering when this was going to happen.

Criminals watch television too, and there is evidence they are also changing their behaviour. Most of the techniques used in crime shows are, after all, at least grounded in truth. Bleach, which destroys DNA, is now more likely to be used by murderers to cover their tracks. The wearing of gloves is more common, as is the taping shut--rather than the DNA-laden licking--of envelopes. Investigators comb crime scenes ever more finely for new kinds of evidence, which is creating problems with the tracking and storage of evidence, so that even as the criminals leave fewer traces of themselves behind, a backlog of cold-case evidence is building up.

I wonder if we have any criminals going over the crime scene with a black light in order to get rid of any hairs or skin that they may have left behind?

Advice to the Tea Party from the Cato Institute

This is good advice however I do wonder if this movement will endure past 2012 when Obama is hopefully ushered out of office?

He offers five pieces of advice for members of the Tea Party movement:

1. Republicans aren’t always your friends.

2. Some tea partiers like big government.

3. Democrats aren’t always your enemies.

4. Smaller government demands restraint abroad.

5. Leave social issues to the states.

I have to agree with #3. If the Dem is a fiscal conservative and wants to shrink the size of government and has a track record of doing it then I support them 100%.

Also #5 should be pushed quite a bit because the more the Tea Party moves away from slowing the growth of government and fiscal sobriety the faster they can be marginalized. Most everyone agrees that the government wastes money but wedge issues like immigration or abortion should be left to their own advocacy groups to tackle.

HP Buys Out Palm at $5.70 a Share

Well, it seems that HP has just gotten into the smart phone game in a big way.

Neither RIM nor Lenovo will be putting Palm in its pocket. Rather, it's computing giant Hewlett-Packard, which is snapping up the company in an all-cash transaction valued at about $1.2 billion — $5.70 for each outstanding share of Palm stock.

That's a healthy premium over the $4.63 the stock closed at Wednesday, valuing the company considerably higher than the $781 million it was worth at the end of the Wall Street trading day.

I avoided PALM shares as the stock went into takeover speculation mode because if it failed to get a bid it was a dead duck. Now what is interesting is that we will have a three way race between tech giants in the smart phone game. We have Google with Andriod, Apple with IPhone, and HP with the Palm Pre. You add to this RIMM and the Blackberry and we have a very crowded field with tons of cash to throw around to gain or retain market share. Hopefully, this "Battle of the Smart Phones" will be to the consumers great benefit.

How Do You Get Rats Healthier? Feed Them Grapes

I guess it might work for humans too.

After three months, the rats that received the grape-enriched diet had lower blood pressure, better heart function, and reduced indicators of inflammation in the heart and the blood than rats who received no grape powder. Rats also had lower triglycerides and improved glucose tolerance.

The effects were seen even though the grape-fed animals had no change in body weight.

So the rats didn't lose weight but they did have better heart function as well as lower blood pressure. Hmm, perhaps the grape pill might become about as important as taking any other kind of blood pressure medicine in the years to come.

How Twitter Was Hacked

Now this is as scary thought for every "cloud" start-up out there. The attack didn't need a botnet or a cracker program or anything like that. All they did was this simple series of steps:

Just to summarize the attack:

1. HC accessed Gmail for a Twitter employee by using the password recovery feature that sends a reset link to a secondary email. In this case the secondary email was an expired Hotmail account, he simply registered it, clicked the link and reset the password. Gmail was then owned.
2. HC then read emails to guess what the original Gmail password was successfully and reset the password so the Twitter employee would not notice the account had changed.
3. HC then used the same password to access the employee’s Twitter email on Google Apps for your domain, getting access to a gold mine of sensitive company information from emails and, particularly, email attachments.
4. HC then used this information along with additional password guesses and resets to take control of other Twitter employee personal and work emails.
5. HC then used the same username/password combinations and password reset features to access AT&T, MobileMe, Amazon and iTunes, among other services. A security hole in iTunes gave HC access to full credit card information in clear text. HC now also had control of Twitter’s domain names at GoDaddy.
6. Even at this point, Twitter had absolutely no idea they had been compromised.

That last point has to be the most scary. Twitter was hacked and lost secret work papers and they didn't even know it was happening until they were tipped off. If this hacker was after some profit he could have sold this information to the highest bidder. Good think Techcrunch was able to talk him out of it.

Arizona Governor Signs Immigration Bill into Law

Now we will see the Justice Department challenge to this new law.

The legislation, sent to the Republican governor by the GOP-led Legislature, makes it a crime under state law to be in the country illegally. It also requires local police officers to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal immigrants; allows lawsuits against government agencies that hinder enforcement of immigration laws; and makes it illegal to hire illegal immigrants for day labor or knowingly transport them.

That last part sounds like a bad deal for bus and cab drivers. I mean how do they know that an illegal got on their bus or not? In any case this new law sets up a pretty interesting showdown over states rights. I figure the Feds would take precedence when it comes to immigration laws. I'm sure Constitutional law scholar Obama can shed some light on these matters.

Financial Reform Bill Could Cost Bansk Billions?

I really think Congress needs to go back and take a college level finance course before they do any further damage to the world financial system.

Dick Bove, analyst at Rochdale Securities, says the effect of moving U.S. banks out of the swaps business would be "staggering" -- so much so he has a hard time believing it could come to pass.

For example, if it precluded banks from arranging currency swaps, it would harm international trade, Bove explains. That's because companies that sell products abroad use the swaps to prevent wild swings in foreign exchange rates from impacting their profits.

Oh they can still buy the swaps but it will be from European banks. That would be at the cost of the entire $464 Trillion dollar market going overseas all at once. I guess the Congress just loves killing American business and propping up European business.

No Wonder the SEC missed the Financial Crisis: They were Looking at Porn

Now this is just idiotic.

A senior attorney at the SEC's headquarters in Washington admitted accessing Internet port so frequently that, according to the memo, on some days, he spent eight hours accessing Internet porn.

"In fact, this attorney downloaded so much pornography to his government computer that he exhausted the available space on the computer hard drive and downloaded pornography to CDs or DVDs that he accumulated in boxes in his office," the memo said.

What is up with the IT staff at the SEC? Don't they have a web filter in place that is set to filter out porn at the home office site at the very least? Even a web monitor and an email to their boss usually keeps them off of the porn sites at least to the extent that they don't fill up their hard drive with it. It is good to see my tax money hard at work. Doh! Bad choice of words.

Congress Finally Clues In that the Rating Agencies Share Blame for the Meltdown

I knew the rating agencies were messed up right when things first started to get bad. It seems that Congress is again a day late and a dollar short.

Once the crisis became apparent, Levin said, rating agencies failed to acknowledge the problems fast enough. That led to mass downgrades of billions in investments, shocking the financial system and triggering the crisis, Levin said.

"By first instilling unwarranted confidence in high-risk securities and then failing to downgrade them in a responsible manner, the credit rating agencies share blame for the massive economic damage that followed," the Michigan Democrat said.

The real bad part was that these agencies were taking higher fees for rating things like CDOs with tons of subprime mortgages. That meant that they were actively looking for more of these subprime filled CDOs to rate because they would make more money from them than rating a vanilla bond.

If the ratings agencies had any kind of spine they should have marked these subprime CDOs at the rating of CCC- and be done with it. That would have shut down the entire process right before it got started. The problem is that they made most of their money from bankers who wanted to sells these CDOs and a CCC- rating would be a death blow. The bank would also be less inclined to deal with that agency as well. So the agencies were pressured into making these things investment grade as long as they contained "good" mortgages as well.

If there was any argument for reform these companies need to be turned into to pseudo-governmental entities. Or they can simply fold them into the FED as an independent Debt Ratings Agency or something similar. Their conflict of interest is one of the chief causes of the financial meltdown and should they should change so they get rid of that stain. Congress should have solved this problem in 2006 or earlier and we could have actually nipped this entire mess in the bud.

ObamaCare Might Hurt Seniors After All

I wonder if Obama is going to crack-down on his own Health and Human Services Department which issued the report.

A report by economic experts at the Health and Human Services Department said the health care remake will achieve Obama's aim of expanding health insurance — adding 34 million Americans to the coverage rolls.

But the analysis also found that the law falls short of the president's twin goal of controlling runaway costs. It also warned that Medicare cuts may be unrealistic and unsustainable, driving about 15 percent of hospitals into the red and "possibly jeopardizing access" to care for seniors.

Yup, so more people get to enter the system at the expense of seniors currently in the system. I'm sure Rahm's brother is firing up the "who qualifies for care" rationing machine as we speak. I'm sorry Ms. Retired woman you can't get that artificial hip because we need to make sure an illegal immigrant gets his cholesterol medicine first.

What is even worse is that ObamaCare messed with Medicare Advantage so seniors are stuck with this Medicare system no matter what. Now that is Change you can take right to the graveyard. I guess you can chalk this up to one brand new bumper-sticker quote: Obama hates old people!

Here is Why New York Times Columnists should not Talk about Financial Matters

I think this is case-in-point why op-ed writers for the New York Times should not be writing anything at all about financial matters.

Americans are certainly in the market for some leadership on the subject of derivatives. It’s hard to even figure out how to worry about them, since we have no clue exactly what they are, beyond bets on whether prices will go up or down.

In case she was unable to Google this here is the definition of a derivative:

A security whose price is dependent upon or derived from one or more underlying assets. The derivative itself is merely a contract between two or more parties. Its value is determined by fluctuations in the underlying asset. The most common underlying assets include stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies, interest rates and market indexes. Most derivatives are characterized by high leverage.

In other words they are a separate bet on the price of an asset be it gold, silver, or pork bellies. They are either used to hedge prices or bet on them. Maybe Ms. Collins needs to watch Trading Places so she can bone up on derivatives a little better. The scene where Duke and Duke describe derivatives trading to Eddie Murphy could be pretty enlightening to Ms. Collins.

Comedy Central Censors South Park After Death Threat to Creators

Sounds about right from the cowards at Comedy Central.

An episode of “South Park” that continued a story line involving the Prophet Muhammad was shown Wednesday night on Comedy Central with audio bleeps and image blocks reading “CENSORED” after a Muslim group warned the show’s creators they could face violence for depicting that holy Islamic prophet.

Here is the threat/warning:

Revolution Muslim, a group based in New York, wrote on its Web site that the “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker “will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh” for an episode shown last week in which a character said to be the Prophet Muhammad was seen wearing a bear costume.

If Comedy Central actually believed in free speech they should have just let the show run without interruption. I hope Trey Parker and Matt Stone raises the stakes and actually kicks this thing up a notch with even more of their trademark irreverence shown toward Islam. Unfortunately, Comedy Central will probably censor that stuff too or just not show the episode. I guess showing Muhammad on a cartoon show and shouting "Fire" in a Theater might be the same thing when it comes to the First Amendment now.

4 Million People to Be Hit By ObamaCare Fines

Well, I guess 4 million people are going to make Obama a liar on his "I will not raise taxes on anyone making over $250,000 a year" pledge.

The penalties will average a little more than $1,000 apiece in 2016, the Congressional Budget Office said in a report.

Most of the people paying the fine will be middle class. Obama pledged in 2008 not to raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 a year and couples making less than $250,000.

I guess the middle class just got the choice of whether to pay a $1000 fine or $2000+ to buy health insurance from some company. I wonder what the next campaign promise Obama is going to renege on?

From the Rumor Mill: Apple Might Buy out ARM holdings?

Well at least that is what the scuttlebutt is around the UK.

To be clear, London’s Evening Standard is only citing “gossips” within the city’s financial district. But those gossips aren’t the only ones convinced there is something to this talk: ARM’s shares went up 8.1 points today, with more than 5 million shares changing hands by midday, the paper reports. The deal, would apparently see Apple buying ARM for something in the neighborhood of 5.2 billion British pounds, or roughly $8 billion in U.S. dollars.

ARM makes the majority of cell phone chips and would mark quite a change in the cell phone landscape. Most of the IPhones' competitors are using the ARM chip licenses in their devices and would then be paying royalties to Apple. So the redesign of their devices will need to be pretty quick so that they don't contribute to the bottom line of their hated rival. It might be interesting to see what chip maker steps up to fill the void if ARM Holdings is taken out by Apple.

The Tea Party Supports a Democrat in Idaho?

He might actually have the goods as well according to this article.

Tea Party groups from around the country have positioned themselves outside of the Republican Party, demanding accountability from GOP leadership before supporting Republicans. They have also made the point Russo notes here, that both parties need to have fiscal discipline in order for the US to end the spending spree that is sending us careening towards bankruptcy. In that sense, Minnick might be the one Democrat to support. While his party pushed a Porkulus bill that cost $830 billion and didn’t stimulate anything, Minnick proposed a $170 billion version that eliminated all of the pork and had self-termination clauses that returned unspent money after recovery began. He voted against Porkulus, cap-and-trade, and ObamaCare.

That sounds like great Tea Party bona fides to me. The whole idea that a bill will return unspent money to the treasury is revolutionary to me. Also if he voted against Cap-and-Tax and ObamaCare then he is the kind of Dem that I like. I don't care if the guy is a Whig, a Bull Moose Party Member, or a Federalist I would support them if they are against wasting my tax money on even more stupid crap.

Obama Proposes Value Destroying Tax on 100% of Americans

Well, all that crap from his campaign about not taxing the middle class is just so much garbage. A Value Added Tax will be levied on all Americans and it will be crippling to any recovery coming down the pike.

When asked if he could see a potential VAT in this nation, the president said: "I know that there's been a lot of talk around town lately about the value-added tax. That is something that has worked for some countries. It's something that would be novel for the United States."

It is a regressive tax as well because it drives up the prices of every part of the production cycle. So people that are at a subsistence level will have to pay more for food and anything else they want to buy with cash.

That means unless they get more public assistance then more of their scarce dollar will be wasted on stupid Obama Value Destroyed Taxes. I think he just doesn't understand that if you tax a company the company does not feel it at all and will simply pass it along to the consumer. These are the same people that came up with "Windfall Profits Tax" on the oil industry that would have just been passed right to the pump and hurt consumers even more.

I think it is even more important that November switches the House and Senate so that we don't have to endure any more of his attempts to get us into a double dip recession. Mark my words if they pass a VAT we will be living with its consequences for decades.

If You Want Your Daughter to Play College Baseball: Teach her the Knuckleball

This Little Leaguer from Florida Pitched 2 Perfect Games with a fastball, a curve and a knuckleball.

She learned her knuckleball from former major-leaguer Joe Niekro, a Plant City resident who died in 2006. Her pitches have done more than make many children whiff at the plate; they have drawn attention to Baker on a national scale.

If she can get a knuckler to dance she will have a relief spot at many colleges. I think more girls should learn the knuckleball just to keep the tradition going and to keep them playing with the boys past Little League. Perhaps this would be a good idea for Tim Wakefield to do after he finally retires. The Tim Wakefield Knuckleball Academy sounds like a great way to teach kids and supplement the giant catchers mitt industry.

Money Wave for Djou Today

Well, I sent my money in and hopefully I will be 2 for 2 since Scott Brown won in the only other time I sent in a political contribution.

McAfee Update Causes your PC to Reboot Forever? Uninstall It Immediately

This has to be the mother of all boneheaded mistakes.

McAfee Inc. confirmed that a software update it posted at 9 a.m. Eastern time caused its antivirus program for corporate customers to misidentify a harmless file. It has posted a replacement update for download.

"We are not aware of significant impact on consumers and believe we have effectively limited such occurrence," the company said in a statement.

That statement has to be the worst ass-covering as well because this is "significant impact"

About a third of the hospitals in Rhode Island were forced to stop treating patients without traumas in emergency rooms. The hospitals also postponed some elective surgeries, said Nancy Jean, a spokeswoman for the Lifespan system of hospitals. The system includes Rhode Island Hospital, the state's largest, and Newport Hospital, the only hospital on Aquidneck Island.

The other third probably had Norton's or Kaspersky or were just staggered for bandwidth. The idea that an anti-virus update puts your computer in an auto-reboot cycle is like something out of the 80s. If I were in the IT department at that hospital I would immediately switch everything over to another vendor and never look at McAfee again. This is after you put each PC into safe-mode so that the anti-virus software doesn't run.

Goldman Employees Spent $1,007,370.85 and all they Got Was This Lousy Lawsuit?

I guess spending money on the liberal first term Senator from Illinois does not bring in the kind of return that their employees are used to.

But the mere $151,722.42 (inflation adjusted) in contributions from Enron-affiliated executives, employees, and PACs to Bush hardly add up to Obama's $1,007,370.85 (inflation adjusted) from Goldman-affiliated executives and employees. That's also not taking into account how much Goldman contributed to Obama cabinet member Hillary Clinton ($415,595.63 inflation adjusted), which was itself almost three times as much as Bush received as well.

This should go to show them that no matter how much you give to Obama he will throw you under the bus to prove a point or to meet his political ends. All this lawsuit is is some "Chicago payback" for daring to make money on the short side. Nothing more or less.

Tea Party Crasher Finds that the Tea Party is Generally Friendly

This must have been such a shock to him that a bunch of retirees and families could be so nice. Even to a black man! Shocking!

Brooks Alexander, a 23-year-old Olney, Md., hotel worker and Obama supporter who wore an Obama t-shirt to the evening rally, said infiltrators were being disrespectful.

“They’re doing a disservice not only to themselves, but to the people who are here trying to express their views,” said Alexander, who is African American and said he traveled to the rally to verify for himself liberal accounts blasting the tea party as racist.

“All my friends told me I was crazy to come down here in an Obama shirt,” he said. “Obviously I have political disagreements [with the tea party], but I cannot lie. I cannot say that people have been anything but nice to me. They have been shaking my hand. One guy told me I had a lot of [guts] for coming down here. I will definitely walk away from this with a new understanding of the tea party.”

I hope he picked up the fact that the Tea Party aren't a bunch of wild eyed racists who want to see Obama tossed out because they can't stand a black man as President. Hell most of them would vote for Condi Rice for President so fast there would be a stampede. I would vote for just about anyone white, black, or green who would lower my taxes (and not for a piddly-assed $400) and not spend so much money of China's money on stupid things. Hell, I would vote for Braniac 5 for President if he was a true fiscal conservative.

Movie Futures Trading Okayed: Sounds Like Fun

Well, the movie industry does not like it but it would be an interesting way to make money if you are knowledgeable about the movie industry.

Backers of the box-office exchanges say those markets would help Hollywood manage risk in a notoriously hit-or-miss business.

Investors would be able to hedge against potential flops by preselling a share of future box office receipts. The exchanges could even guard against likely hits, such as the upcoming "Harry Potter" and "Twilight" sequels, falling short of projections. If a movie doesn't do as well as expected, investors would at least be guaranteed revenue from those presales, known as futures contracts.

Although there will be added risk of the movie flopping due to the unpredictability of the stars. For instance if Kristen Stewart from Twilight was arrested for drug possession or something you might see your Long Twilight Eclipse Futures fall apart. Then what if some unscrupulous Short Money Hedge Fund guy planted the drugs in her car to frame her so that the movie tanks? Well, maybe not so much depending on how permissive the Twilight fans are.

Also I wonder how liquid this market will be? I mean being long Matt Damon movies or Tyler Perry movies would be pretty easy money. It would take a real technician to pick the next Paranormal State, Blair Witch Project, or Juno. It would be cool to see buzz about a movie that is months away because the trading picks up on their contracts.

Leftist "White Supremacist" Kicked out of St. Louis Tea Party

Some of these leftist tea party crashers are such morons.

After Adam Sharp asked the infiltrator to leave he said, “I’m from the knights of the Ku Klux Klan we are a white…” This leftist plant then told Adam Sharp, “I’m proud to be a racist… I’m not a Nazi. I’m a proud racist. I’m white.”
Sure you are. He didn’t even play the part well. You’d think they’d provide better training at their pre-tea party planning meetings.

I guess he got to the point where he was supposed to spew some vile racist crap but couldn't make himself do it. I guess there is some humanity left in this idiot somewhere. All he could do is say that he was white over and over like a broken record.

The Tea Party is Right on Tax Cuts. As if this can be disputed

Here are 5 Reasons why they are right and the tax and spenders are out of line.

We examine the evidence on episodes of large stances in fiscal policy, both in cases of fiscal stimuli and in that of fiscal adjustments in OECD countries from 1970 to 2007. Fiscal stimuli based upon tax cuts are more likely to increase growth than those based upon spending increases. As for fiscal adjustments, those based upon spending cuts and no tax increases are more likely to reduce deficits and debt over GDP ratios than those based upon tax increases. In addition, adjustments on the spending side rather than on the tax side are less likely to create recessions.

The reason why this happens is pretty simple. If people get to keep more of their money they can spend it far more efficiently then some government bureaucrat can. They can hire new workers if they are entrepreneurs. Or they can spend more on products and in turn force companies to hire more workers to keep up with demand. They can pay down corrosive debt and thus have more money to spend in the future. There are a whole host of good things that come out of letting people and corporations keep more of their money. I can tell you that I can spend my money far better then even 100 bureaucrats any day.

Jews Turn on Obama in a Big Way

Well, I guess he shouldn't be shooting his mouth off about what parts of your capital city the Israeli's can build in. In any case this reversal is stunning.

According to a poll published this week by McClaughlin & Associates, 46 percent of Jewish voters would prefer someone else than Obama in the presidency, compared to 42 percent who would re-elect him. That’s only a meagre four percent separation, but that number is stunning considering Obama got 78 percent of the Jewish vote in November. That’s a difference of 32 percent between now and then. Has there been another voting block with that large a swing? There may have been, but I doubt it. Something is clearly going on here.

I think Jews are finally coming to the understanding that Obama and the Dems couldn't give a crap about Israel. They pay lip service to stopping an Iranian bomb but there are no concrete steps or even threats if the Iranians thumbs their nose at the process. They treated their head of state like a dictator from a Banana Republic. What worse outrageous will the White House think of next?

Goldman Fraud Allegation Revolves Around Big Democrat Donor

Talk about stabbing your financiers in the back.

Campaign fundraising records show that John A. Paulson, founder and chairman of the hedge fund Paulson & Co., gave $30,400 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in June, qualifying him as a major Democratic donor.

He also gave $2,300 to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) reelection campaign in February of last year and $4,800 to Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) last April, according to records filed at the Federal Election Commission.

I like Paulson because he was one of the few people that saw the real estate train wreck coming and instead of dodging it like I did he actually went short. He did it in some weird-assed hard to understand synthetic CDO something or other but still he was on the right side of the trade.

Now this goes to show that even if you give money to the Dems that is no protection from being a scapegoat to pin the financial mess on. The Dems want a scalp and Goldman Sachs and Paulson has those scalps.

Obama Care Even More Widely Hated then Before

I think the sales job that Obama ran out there was just not enough. People just don't like the thing no matter how much the Dems tell them that it will be okay they will still hate it.

A new Associated Press-GfK poll finds Americans oppose the health care remake 50 percent to 39 percent. Before a divided Congress finally passed the bill and Obama signed it at a jubilant White House ceremony last month, public opinion was about evenly split. Another 10 percent of Americans say they are neutral.

Disapproval for Obama's handling of health care also increased from 46 percent before the bill passed to 52 percent currently — a level not seen since last summer's angry town hall meetings.

Dumpster Diving by Anti-Palin Students Might be Theft

It would be such a shame to go to be kicked out of your university when Palin Derangement Disorder causes you to commit actual crimes.

A California university president says a contract between a school foundation and Sarah Palin for an upcoming speech was stolen from a campus administrator's office last week.

California State University, Stanislaus president Hamid Shirvani said Wednesday the five-page document was taken from a recycling bin inside the office of a vice president.

He has asked police in the Central Valley city of Turlock to investigate the matter.

So in other words it wasn't dumpster diving but sneaking into offices in order to find some dirt on Ms. Palin. What a bunch of dumb kids.

That White House Arrogance Strikes Again: This Time at NASA

You have to wonder about these people some time.

One problem with the Obama plan is that the White House botched the job of explaining the concept, said space scholar John Logsdon of George Washington University.

"It's absolutely crucial that Obama articulate a clear sense of what we're up to," he said. "It's hard because it's a relatively sophisticated strategy."

The people that are coming out against the plan are former astronauts!

On Monday, 27 former astronauts and senior NASA officials — including Bush's NASA chief, Michael Griffin — wrote an open letter to the president, contending that canceling the moon program would cede American leadership in space technology.

I think "sophisticated strategy" is their bread-and-butter since some of these critics are *actual* rocket scientists. They should be able to pick up things tossed out of the White House pretty well after successfully flying a spacecraft to the Moon and back. Instead this guy says that the Obamanauts just didn't articulate things well enough to them like they were rubes or something.

No amount of salesmanship can get people behind a plan to outsource our space program to the Russians for $56 million per astronaut or to the guy that founded PayPal or the other guy that founded Amazon. I thought the White House was all about fighting evil corporations.

Instead they are going to outsource our space program to them because they can do it cheaper? Talk about a mixed message after just getting done damning Wall Street and Big Insurance. Maybe it is all just a big plan to let the Iranians catch up to us in the Space Race.

Holy Crap! Charles Djou Pulls Even in Hawaii Special Election

Now this has to be a stunner by any account.

But according to a more recent poll reported by Atlantic magazine, Case and Djou are now tied with 32 percent of the vote, with Hanabusa in third place at 27 percent. About nine percent of the respondents were undecided, Atlantic reported, citing a Democratic source who’d seen results of a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee poll.

This is a Democratic source too so this might be about as real a poll as you can find. I think the mainland Dems attacking him as protecting tax breaks for firms that send jobs overseas might have hurt them. They should have just sent their money to Case or Hanabusa and let them run an ad showing one of them interacting with local people or introducing their family instead.

From what I have seen, Hawaii doesn't like bare-knuckled Chicago-style politics. They like positive candidates that rarely sling mud or talk trash about their opponent. Also Hawaii certainly doesn't like having outsiders from the mainland slinging mud in their local politics at all.

Finally, handicapping this race for people that don't know about it is pretty easy. We have Case who is a pretty good guy as far as I can tell. In fact I voted for him once over the last machine politician they ran against him. However he is hated by the Democratic machine here in Hawaii. His cardinal sin was "not waiting his turn" and jumping the late Patsy Mink's husband in the "line of hereditary Democrat progression" that they have going on in Hawaii. The Dems here want him destroyed at any cost.

Then we have Hanabusa who is basically the Harry Truman of Hawaii. She would be the Congresswoman from Inouye and not the Congresswoman from Hawaii. She has the blessing from the establishment and no matter how weak a candidate she might be they are going to do everything that they can to get her into power. It doesn't help that she voted for a tiny pay cut right after voting for a 38.5% pay raise during the start of the recession when people were getting fired left and right.

So Djou might be able to swing this thing just because his two opponents might do everything that they can to destroy one another. The machine politician verses the hated political outsider that "doesn't know his place" for the Democratic nomination for Congress. There is certainly too much bad blood for everyone to play nice so that the GOP candidate doesn't win.

I am still shocked that Djou pulled even so quickly but I guess the people of Hawaii are just too fed up with the machine to send yet another one of their cogs back to the Congress. Well, I just might be sending money to the second politician in my life on April 21st.

New Hampshire Democrats to Bring the Racism to Tea Party Rallies

Well, I still think that the New Hampshire Democrats are actually closet racists and finally feel comfortable enough to show their true colors in a non-politically correct environment.

Former Democratic State Party Chairman Kathy Sullivan is heading up the search, the source said. Sullivan has been calling and e-mailing liberal activists trying to get them to attend tea parties in different parts of the state and hold signs denying the authenticity of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate and make racially disparaging comments to reporters.

“This is Kathy’s [Sullivan] project,” the source told NowHampshire.com. “She is absolutely obsessed with painting the tea party people as racists.”

These leftists will say it is a "false-flag attack" but they can finally show their true bigoted colors without the fear of reprisals from their less insane brethren. I mean you have to be a racist to carry a racist sign and say racially disparaging comments at an anti-Tax/Big Government rally.

Uncle Scrooge is Right: Handling Money Brings you Pain Relief

I guess it is time for those with chronic pain to get large piles of coins and swim around in them like a porpoise, burrow through it like a gopher, and toss it in the air and let it hit you in the head.

Dumpster Diving For Palin Dirt

The lengths people are going to in order to smear Sarah Palin are just getting to be sad.

Brown's investigation was prompted, in part, by a group of CSU Stanislaus students who retrieved five pages of the contract from a campus trash bin last Friday after hearing administrators were engaged in shredding documents.

The contract detailed the former Alaska governor's requirements for her visit, including first-class flights from Anchorage to California — if she flies commercial. If not, "the private aircraft MUST BE a Lear 60 or larger ...," the contract specifies.

Yes, a bunch of "progressives" went dumpster diving in order to find parts of a contract so that they can slime Palin. It is just so pathetic how these people operate.

Obama Bows to China: Literally!

Here is a picture of Obama prostrating himself before the Son of Heaven the Emperor of China. No wait that looks like Hu Jintao the Communist leader. I guess Obama needs to make like a grovelling subject with downcast eyes if he wants more Chinese money to pay for his crap.

Liberals to Bring the Racism to Tea Party Protests

Now this is actually pretty funny.

According to several “progressive” Web sites, local libs are organizing to do just that on the Common tomorrow. “Nitwit central is headed our way, Boston,” warns one left-wing site bemoaning the “hatred being generated” by Tea Party protests. The Web site is urging followers to make their own signs parroting the “extremism” liberals expect to find there. So if you see a wildly offensive racist sign in downtown Boston - thank a liberal!

There is nothing like fighting "hatred" with signs that show that you are even more of a bigot then who you are supposed to be fighting.

Liberal Scumbag Attempts to Paint Tea Party as Racists

I guess these false-flag attacks are what the leftists are reduced to in order to combat the Tea Party.

As you may suspect, crashtheteaparty.org was not created by a Republican or an independent, but instead by someone with a red-tinted sickle to grind. In this instance, the suspect appears to be a conspiratorial 36-year-old from the Pacific Northwest named Jason Levin. He started promoting the site on April 8 on his personal Twitter account, but failed to do an adequate job of covering up his personal information when he registered the domain five days earlier. He later attempted to cover his tracks, but the original information was quickly disseminated around the internet by those who wondered who was behind the group.

I think the Tea Party people just need to surround the leftist with their swastika flags and ridicule them. Maybe stand next to them with a sign that says "Stalinists Go Home", "Communism killed 100+ million people" or "Trotsky Loves This Guy."

The funny part is that now the Tea Party has a scapegoat to dump all of the handfull of crack-pots and nutjobs that are in their number. The can just say that the guy with the Obama=Hitler poster is just one of these Levin-goons and be done with it.

It is almost like this guy himself is a false-flag toward the Dems. The Tea Party can just say that the "racists and bigots" are just Dems posing as Tea-Partiers to discredit the movement. In fact you could even "punch back twice as hard" by saying that these people use their fake-Tea Party affiliation to show their true racist colors. Activists like Levin are actually closet racists that can finally show their true feelings when not surrounded by their PC brethren.

Kudlow Calls the Recovery V-Shaped

That sounds like a pretty good deal if you are long the market.

I’m aiming this thought especially at many of my conservative friends who seem to be trashing the improving economic outlook — largely, it would appear, to discredit the Obama administration.

Don’t do it folks. It’s a mistake. The numbers are the numbers. And prosperity is a welcome development for a nation that has suffered mightily.

It might even be a good idea for the GOP to say something like "the TARP was hated by many but it saved the economy." That way Obama can't take any credit by saying that the failed stimulus did anything else other than drive up our deficit. He will still take credit for any GDP boom but at least the GOP will share it along with him.

Schumer Takes on Carry-On Charge

This is exactly why we send people to Congress. Schumer is actually pushing something that a vast majority of Americans can get behind:

Schumer urged US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in a letter Friday to repeal a regulation that may encourage such fees by exempting services not deemed "reasonably necessary" -- like providing in-flight snacks -- from taxes.

"Peanuts may not be reasonably necessary for air travel, but the ability to carry a bag onto a flight is," Schumer wrote, warning he would act if Treasury does not find a remedy "in the coming months."

I idea that you have to pay to take a carry-on on a flight is absolutely ludicrous and should be legislated away. I don't begrudge the airlines on making a profit but they don't have to nickle and dime every part of the plane trip. In any case I think if the bigger airlines did this they would face a mountain of complaints and would reverse course in short order.

The Obama Doctrine

Let me get this down before someone more learned in these sorts of things has a chance to expound on it.

The Obama Doctrine:

Keep Your Enemies Close. And Your Friends? Screw em'! Who needs Friends I'm Obama Dammit"

*insert Photoshopped picture of Obama as Gumby from the old Saturday Night Live Skit"

Palin Hits Back Against Obama at Southern Republican Leadership Conference

Now these are some fighting words.

And President Obama, with all that vast nuclear expertise he acquired as a community organizer, a part-time senator, and a candidate for president, has accomplished nothing to date with Iran or North Korea.

Actually it is less then nothing. If he maintained the status quo it would be great. Instead he let a huge opportunity to end the nuclear problem once and for all by ignoring the Green Revolution in Iran. Then he lets North Korea continue to test missiles whenever they need a bribe. Plus they are rebuilding their reactor so that they can make more nukes. This part must have gotten Obama to throw is "Daily Palin Briefing Sheet" on the floor:

Folks, someone needs to remind the President: Jerusalem is not a settlement. Israel is our friend. And the critical nuclear concerns of our time are North Korea, who has nuclear weapons, and Iran, who wants them.

So, 'yes we can' kowtow to our enemies and publicly criticize our allies.

Yes, we can. But someone ought to tell the President and the Left that just because we can doesn’t mean we should.

I'm sure Obama's response will be "I know you are but what am I." or maybe "A Dummy Says What." or something along those lines.

New Jersey Teachers Union Hopes Governor Dies

If this sort of thing was written about Obama even in jest it would cause a national firestorm.

"Dear Lord this year you have taken away my favorite actor, Patrick Swayze, my favorite actress, Farrah Fawcett, my favorite singer, Michael Jackson, and my favorite salesman, Billy Mays. I just wanted to let you know that Chris Christie is my favorite governor."

Ha ha, they want the governor dead. Now that is funny stuff from the leftists on the Teachers Union. The funniest part is that they are negotiating with the Governor to stop their pay from getting cut. I guess that is from the Obama school of diplomacy. Treat the other party like a piece of crap and then demand concessions.

Congressman Alan Grayson is an Insane Person

Why is he showing up at a meeting of the Orange County Republican Executive Committee?

Linda O’Keefe, member of the Orange County Republican Executive Committee and extraordinary patriot volunteer with the Orlando Tea Party said, “I’m wondering if Grayson realizes that we do still, for now, have the right to assemble! But can’t we have a meeting without being interrupted by our congressman?”

Currently, there are 12 Republican candidates looking to send Alan Grayson to the unemployment line in November.

This guy needs to be removed from office at once. He has already portrayed himself as an unstable nutjob during the Health-Care debate. Now he barges into a local GOP party meeting for no good reason other then to make it harder for him to get reelected. All the guy running against him has to do is wear and "I'm with crazy" with an arrow pointing toward Grayson.

Obama Goes After Palin on Nuke Issue

I'll have to chalk these asinine attacks of critics as not living up to the office of the President. The President of the United States should not be getting into a debate with former governors no matter what. It either elevates the attacker or in this case debases the Presidency.

"I really have no response to that. The last I checked, Sarah Palin is not much of an expert on nuclear issues," Obama said in an interview with ABC News.

The last I checked you aren't an expert on nuclear issues as well Mr. President. You don't have to be an expert to know that telegraphic your punches doesn't help anyone. A simple "we will determine on a case-by-case basis whether the use of nuclear weapons is warranted." and be done with it. Instead it is "we will nuke you only if you use nukes first, everything else means you are safe."

Pressed further on Republican criticism that his strategy restricts the use of nuclear weapons too much, Obama added:

"What I would say to them is, is that if the secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff are comfortable with it, I'm probably going to take my advice from them and not from Sarah Palin."

Um, I'm sure Obama knows that these people work for him and either follows his lead or are forced to resign right? So their words are mostly parroting his words. In any case with Obama breaking so many deadlines and campaign promises his word isn't wort the paper it is written on.

Barbie Goes Geek? Mattel Introduces Computer Engineer Barbie

Now this is a win for every one of those women toiling in the hard sciences and in programming.

The voting was open to anyone, and nobody could vote more than once. But by the end of the first week, a growing flood of adult votes for computer engineer Barbie trumped the popular choice. Female computer engineers who learned about the election launched a viral campaign on the Internet to get out the vote and ensure Barbie would join their ranks.

"Please help us in getting Barbie to get her Geek on!" came the appeal from the blog GeekGirlCamp.com.

This beat out the young girl vote that wanted an anchorwoman Barbie. All I know is the more women in the hard sciences and in computers the better things are. It is kind of cool that the two tech people on NCIS and Criminal Minds are both woman as well. Now they have Barbie as part of that group. I wonder if her Dream Car has a War-Driver setup in it?

Tea Party Gets Organized: Forms National Federation

Well at least this means that there will be one place where I can send my donation and see it go to work.

Memphis Tea Party founder Mark Skoda said recent media coverage had questioned whether the conservative tea parties, which number in the thousands nationwide, were too loosely organized to be politically effective in the national midterm election. He said the federation intends to convey a unified message about the tea party's brand of fiscal conservatism, which emphasizes limited government, less public spending and free markets.

He said the organization also hopes to rebut allegations about the movement: "Everything from calling the tea party members racist, that we are violent, that somehow we are fermenting another Kristallnacht. These accusations are indeed false and they won't stand."

I'm glad they can get someone out there to rebut some of this nonsense spewed at the Tea Party from scared leftists. Also their message of fiscal responsibility and the freedom from government interference will ring true no matter how it is spun. Americans are just tired of paying for some other guys mess and hopefully this group can get out that message.

Obama's Anti-Israel Stance Bearing Bitter Fruit: Bibi out of Nuke Summit

Well, I guess this is the first push-back on the Obama Doctrine of piss off your friends for no good reason.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is skipping President Barack Obama's nuclear security summit next week.

An official with the Israeli government tells The Associated Press that a deputy prime minister will attend in Netanyahu's place. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

I think Israel should pull out of the thing all together. I mean why do they need to listen to a lecture about what part of their capital city they get to build in? Talk about a flip from the Bush era. I mean we had enemies and allies then but now suddenly our allies are bowing out of our summits while our enemies know that they can run all over us. Hope and Change baby!

Goldman is All For Financial Reform because it Reduces their Costs

I guess this is one way to make sure your counterparties don't go bankrupt. Let the US government do the risk analysis for you.

What [Goldman CEO Lloyd] Blankfein and Mr. Cohn are now saying is that their desire for higher capital requirements isn't related to concern about their ability to control Goldman's risk-taking ("Please, Mr. Government, supervise me more closely, allow me to borrow less money, and force me to take less risk"), but their ability to assess and judge the risks of their counterparties, the other firms they are doing deals with.

In other words if the SEC and the Treasury get more power and create more transparency then Goldman doesn't have to pay people to do that job. Then if there is another crisis they can blame the government for screwing up instead of their own counterparty risk guys.

That is quite a capitalist way of thinking about reform but all the table pounding by Obama about fat-cat bankers is for naught. The fat-cat bankers will be the ones helped the most from any reform. Like the article points out government reform almost always benefits big business in some way. Case in point the Biotech Industry being helped immensely by ObamaCare.

Is the IPad All Hype?

From reading this review I really think so now. This criticism is a strait-up show stopper as far as I am concerned.

The browser is limited
The iPad also uses the same limited Safari browser that's found on the iPhone. While much fuss has been made about the iPad's inability to play Flash video, there are other things it can't do as well. For example, Safari on iPad can't be used to create Google Documents, only to view them.

I would be using this thing mostly to browse the Internet quickly and easily. If I can't look at a Flash video of Marketwatch or something then it is strait-up worthless. Right now I paid slightly more for a netbook that has a full browser and that I can play any strategy game on. I can also listen to music and attach it to my TV with an HDMI port.

I think the only thing good about it right now is the "wow" factor that accompanies any new Apple Product. If I am in the market for an E-Reader (I barely read regular books let alone e-books so it will be a while yet) then I will stick with a Kindle and use my Netbook for my computing needs.

Court Deals Terrible Blow to Net Neutrality

This ruling doesn't bode well for gamers or people that download large files off of the Internet.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the FCC lacks authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks. That was a big victory for Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable company, which had challenged the FCC's authority to impose such "network neutrality" obligations on broadband providers.

That means that Comcast or Time Warner can now put out more tiered plans or simply block certain packets traveling along their networks. Or if you are sending too many gaming packets they can throttle you and lag-out your connection unless you pay for a "gamers plan" or something similar.

All I can say is that the next stop needs to be the Supreme Court. There needs to be some sort of curb on the power these companies will soon have over information moving along the Internet. This is especially important now that cloud computing is starting to take off.

The Germans Turn on Global Warming

Once you lose the Germans I think you lose the argument. This Der Spiegel article blows the doors off of this entire Global Warming mess for all Germans to read.

Der Spiegel would never have got away with this article four years ago. But then, in 2006, according to a poll, 62 per cent of Germans surveyed answered “Yes” to the question “Are you personally afraid of climate change.” In 2010 that figure has dropped to 42 per cent, which for those of you who haven’t done the math means that the majority of Germans are now not personally afraid of climate change.

Way to go, Germans! Gott Mitt Uns and all that. Stimmt. Genau.

I must suck to be long solar stocks now. I mean with Spain in a fiscal hole and the Germans changing their minds on global warming we might see a huge solar crunch on the way.

Obama's Approval Rating Falls to 44%

Wow, he is becoming as hated as Bush faster then Bush did.

The latest CBS News Poll, conducted between March 29 and April 1, found Americans unhappier than ever with Mr. Obama's handling of health care - and still worried about the state of the economy.

President Obama's overall job approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 44 percent, down five points from late March, just before the health bill's passage in the House of Representatives. It's down 24 points since his all-time high last April. Forty-one percent of those polled said they disapproved of the president's performance.

This is a CBS News Poll which should firmly be in Obama's corner but it still shows hiss approval rating is at 44%. It might even drop lower if we don't get an employment turn-around. I still think if he fixed the jobs problem before he dealt with health care he would still be in the mid 60s right now. Instead he might have dealt a serious blow to his presidency.

Obama Hits Back Against Beck and Rush

Can't this guy turn off Fox News for 5 minutes so that he can figure a way to lower the 9.7% unemployment?

Smith asked the president if he was "aware of the level of enmity that crosses the airwaves and that people have made part of their daily conversation about you." Obama replied, "When you've listened to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck it's pretty apparent." The rancor is "troublesome," he said, but he acknowledged it's also a recurring phenomenon.

"Keep in mind that there have been periods in American history where this kind of - this kind of vitriol comes out," he said. "It happens often when you've got an economy that is making people more anxious and people are feeling that there's a lot of change that needs to take place. But that's not the vast majority of Americans."

Um Mr. President it happens when that economy is still not turning around in their eyes and you cheer in line numbers for unemployment. If you back out the temp jobs for the census then the report was fairly weak by some estimation. In other words unless you can find some ideas on how to create new jobs by watching Glenn Beck or listening to Rush Limbaugh then keep on doing it. If not then shut off the radio and turn off the TV and drop that unemployment rate.

The True Face of the Tea Party on Letterman

It isn't some spit-flecked KKKer but a retiree from Idaho.

In a quietly remarkable piece of television, David Letterman interviewed Tea Party member Pam Stout on last night’s Late Show. “I know nothin’ about the tea party,” Dave began, saying Stout had come to his attention after the 66 year-old Idaho woman had been featured prominently in a Feb. 15 New York Times story on the Tea Party movement.

Letterman invited her on to ask about the movement and whether it aimed to become a “third party.” She said, “I don’t think it will become a third party,” but that its voice “can be pretty devisive” in some elections, and that locally, she wanted the Tea Party to “take over the Republican Party… [and] go back to the old ideas.”

You add to this woman all the WW2 and Korea vets and families with small kids and you get a cross-section of the vast majority of the Tea Party. They aren't crazy and they don't want to secede from the Union or other nonsense. The aren't even the so-called angry white men for the most part with 55% of their number made up of women.

They simply do not want to pay for some other guys mortgage and health care. They also want America to stop spending Red China's money like there is an endless supply of it. It is really a pretty simple message of "How do we pay for the next giant pile of spending coming our way?" They fear that piling up so much debt will hurt our country in future years.

Chris Dodd's Attempt to Kill Silicon Valley

This is one of the few places in America that we lead the entire world in and that idiot Dodd wants to kill it for some unfathomable reason.

First, Dodd’s bill would require startups raising funding to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and then wait 120 days for the SEC to review their filing. A second provision raises the wealth requirements for an “accredited investor” who can invest in startups — if the bill passes, investors would need assets of more than $2.3 million (up from $1 million) or income of more than $450,000 (up from $250,000). The third restriction removes the federal pre-emption allowing angel and venture financing in the United States to follow federal regulations, rather than face different rules between states.

Why do people have to wait 120 days in order to start raising funding? That doesn't make any sense. This is a highly competitive marketplace and having to wait 4 months to get money to expand your idea will kill it. These people have to hit the ground running and this asinine waiting period is totally contrary to it. These tech entrepreneurs make high paying jobs and hire many people in a few weeks and they should not have to wait for some bureaucrat to rubber stamp this process. That waiting period is an absolute joke.

I wonder if Chris Dodd actually knows anything about Silicon Valley and how it works? If he doesn't he better educate himself before he kills a font of jobs and innovation that has helped grow the entire world several times over. This fool cannot leave his Senate job any faster.