Shooting the $hit

Obama Health Care Reform goes stale

Ben — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 05:00:40 +0000

Carrie Budoff Brown Carrie Budoff Brown – Sun Aug 16, 3:02 pm ET

President Barack Obama and his top aides are signaling that they’re prepared to drop a government insurance option from a final health-reform deal if that’s what’s needed to strike a compromise on Obama’s top legislative priority.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Sunday that the public option was “not the essential element” of the overhaul. A day earlier, Obama downplayed the public option during a Colorado town hall meeting, saying it was “just one sliver” of the debate.

He even chided Democratic supporters and Republican critics for becoming “so fixated on this that they forget everything else” — a dig at some liberals in his own party who have made the public option the main rallying cry of the health reform debate.

At the same time, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), one of six senators involved in bipartisan Finance Committee negotiations, all but declared the public option dead in the Senate.

“Look, the fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for the public option,” said Conrad, who has pushed an alternative proposal to create a network of consumer cooperatives, on Fox News Sunday. “There never have been. So to continue to chase that rabbit, I think, is just a wasted effort.”

A White House aide said in an e-mailed statement Sunday afternoon that the president is not backing away from the public plan.

“Nothing has changed,” said Linda Douglass, communications director for the White House Office of Health Reform. “The president has always said that what is essential is that health insurance reform must lower costs, ensure that there are affordable options for all Americans and it must increase choice and competition in the health insurance market. He believes the public option is the best way to achieve those goals.”

But taken together, the remarks from Obama, Sebelius and Conrad suggest the White House is preparing supporters for a health care compromise that may well exclude the government option — which could help Obama win enough votes for a sweeping overhaul but touch off a nasty battle inside his own party between liberals and more moderate members who have resisted a bigger government role in health care.

It was only in June that Obama said in a letter to Senate Democrats that “I strongly believe that Americans should have the choice of a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans. This will give them a better range of choices, make the health care market more competitive, and keep insurance companies honest.”

A month ago, Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address that “any plan I sign must include an insurance exchange: a one-stop shopping marketplace where you can compare the benefits, cost and track records of a variety of plans – including a public option to increase competition and keep insurance companies honest – and choose what’s best for your family.”

But in the face of hardening opposition to the idea — even inside his own party — Obama appears ready to retrench. Obama and his aides continue to emphasize having some competitor to private insurers, perhaps nonprofit insurance cooperatives, but they are using stronger language to downplay the importance that it be a government plan.

“What’s important is choice and competition,” Sebelius said on CNN’s State of the Union. “And I’m convinced at the end of the day, the plan will have both of those. But that is not the essential element.”

The reaction in the liberal blogosphere and beyond was swift and negative Sunday.

“Ultimately, if the president decides he’s going to go with a reform effort that doesn’t include a public option, what he will have done is spent a ton of political capital, riled up an incredibly angry right-wing base that’s been told this is a plot to kill Grandma, and he will have achieved something that doesn’t change health care very much and that doesn’t save us very much money and won’t do much for the American people,” MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “It’s not a very good thing to spend a lot of political capital on.”

One diarist on the Daily Kos said the “public option is in the ICU. … When you call something that once was the central tenet of reform is now a ‘sliver,’ it is very difficult to argue it is not being de-emphasized.” Another diarist wrote this headline: “Told you so: Public Option, Meet Underside of Bus.”

“It would be very, very difficult without the public option,” Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said on whether she could support a bill that dropped the public option. She spoke on CNN’s State of the Union.

Liberals say a health care bill without a public option would fail to actually reform the system. They view the public option as the best way to hold insurance companies accountable and provide affordable coverage, and they say nonprofit cooperatives are an unproven model.

“Health Care for America Now believes that all of the elements that Secretary Sebelius spoke in favor of – a public option, insurance reform, making health care affordable to all – are essential to effective reform,” said Richard Kirsch, campaign manager of Health Care for American Now, a liberal organization pushing the government option. “There is no ‘the’ essential element – all are key to health reform that will work.”

Sebelius, following Obama’s lead Saturday in Colorado, sought to shift the focus of the debate from the public option to more popular reforms such as prohibiting insurers from denying or dropping coverage because of a preexisting condition. It’s a subtle, but potentially telling, window into the White House’s latest strategy on reframing the terms of a legislative victory.

“Those are really essential parts of the program, along with choice and competition, which I think we’ll have at the end of the day,” Sebelius said.

At the Saturday town hall meeting in Colorado, Obama defended the rationale for establishing a public plan, but he also raised eyebrows for suggesting the final package may not include one.

“All I’m saying is, though, that the public option, whether we have it or we don’t have it, is not the entirety of health care reform,” he said. “This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it. And by the way, it’s both the right and the left that have become so fixated on this that they forget everything else.”

On CBS’s Face the Nation, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked if the government option had to be included in the final bill. He repeated the standard White House line that the president wants to “inject some choice competition into the private insurance market.”

But then, he appeared to hedge.

“The president has thus far sided with the notion that that can best be done through a public option,” Gibbs said.

“Is that a hedge?” asked host Harry Smith, referring to Gibbs’s use of “thus far.”

“No, no, no. What I am saying is the bottom line for the president is that we ought to have choice and competition in the insurance market,” Gibbs responded.

2009 Hurricane Predictions and Names

Ben — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 02:39:12 +0000

With the Atlantic Ocean’s first tropical depression having come and gone, today marks the official start of the hurricane season. The tropical depression, which formed May 28, didn’t form into a tropical storm, so it wasn’t given a name.

Last year, the Atlantic saw 16 named tropical storms — from Tropical Storm Arthur on May 30, which killed five and caused $78 million in damages in Belize, to Hurricane Paloma, which formed Nov. 5 and struck Cuba as a Category 4 monster that was the second-most intense hurricane ever recorded in November.

All in all, there were eight Atlantic hurricanes and storms caused an estimated $41 billion in damages and left hundreds dead — more than 800 in Haiti alone.

The eastern Pacific saw 16 named storms, seven of them hurricanes, starting with Tropical Storm Alma on May 29 and ending Nov. 5 when Tropical Storm Polo petered out.

The 2008 hurricane season produced several record-breaking storms, including Tropical Storm Alma, the easternmost named storm ever to form in the Pacific, and Hurricane Bertha, the longest-lived Atlantic tropical storm on record.

Four storms were notable — or deadly — enough that the names were retired — Alma, Gustav, Ike, and Paloma. Hurricane Gustav caused $4 billion damage in Louisiana and killed 112 people, including 77 in Haiti. Hurricane Ike was the season’s strongest hurricane and the third-costliest storm (more than $19 billion) to hit the U.S., devastating Galveston, Texas, and causing about 100 deaths in the Caribbean and along the U.S. Gulf Coast.

What’s in store for 2009?

2009 hurricane forecast

How and if global warming influences hurricane formation is still a matter of genuine scientific debate. In recent years, scientists have at least identified several factors — from the extent of rainfall in Africa to the presence or absence of El Nino conditions in the Pacific — that help them predict the intensity of a hurricane season ahead of time. Here’s what the two most prominent forecasters have to say:

The federal government has predicted a “near normal” hurricane season for the Atlantic with a 25% chance of above-normal outbreaks and 25% chance of below-normal outbreaks — though overall, forecasters expressed a greater degree of uncertainty this year than they have in past years.

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s predicts a 70% chance of:

Named storms: 9-14
Hurricanes: 4-7
Major hurricanes: 1-3

The other major forecaster in the U.S., the University of Colorado, recently revised down its expectations for the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season:

Named storms: 12
Hurricanes: 6
Major hurricanes: 2

Further, the Colorado forecasters predicted the following probabilities that a major hurricane could strike the U.S., all of which are about average for the past century:

Entire U.S. coastline: 54%
U.S. East Coast (including peninsula Florida): 32%
Gulf Coast (from the Florida Panhandle westward to Brownsville, Texas): 31%
Caribbean: Average

Forecasters warn that the number of storms and their intensity is only one key determinant of risk of property damage and loss of life: The biggest factor is who lives in harm’s way and how well they prepare. Some 35 million U.S. residents live in hurricane-prone regions, and experts urge them to prepare.

When those storms do come, they will be given names. Tropical cyclones are given names when they achieve tropical storm strength, with sustained winds of at least 39 mph. Hurricanes are tropical storms that have sustained winds that exceed 74 mph, and major hurricanes have sustained winds that exceed 111 mph.

Here are the tropical storm and hurricane names for 2009:

2009 hurricane and tropical storm names - Atlantic

Ana
Bill
Claudette
Danny
Erika
Fred
Grace
Henri
Ida
Joaquin
Kate
Larry
Mindy
Nicholas
Odette
Peter
Rose
Sam
Teresa
Victor
Wanda

2009 hurricane and tropical storm names - Eastern North Pacific

Andres
Blanca
Carlos
Dolores
Enrique
Felicia
Guillermo
Hilda
Ignacio
Jimena
Kevin
Linda
Marty
Nora
Olaf
Patricia
Rick
Sandra
Terry
Vivian
Waldo
Xina
York
Zelda

Starting your own Business

Ben — Wed, 20 May 2009 16:50:32 +0000

It has always been a dream of mine to start my own business, now the hard part is actually starting. I have a ton of ideas but once it gets down to it I flake and run. I have had my domain business but it is starting to take a toll on me, especially with all the scammers and spammers out there waiting to pounce like a pack of rabid hayennas. So now I’m getting my MBA hoping that I will figure out how to make this work.

I found that you can start any business in the world and be successful as long as you love what you are doing. I just haven’t found that one thing that I love that I can commit myself to for the rest of my life. Do you ever wonder why some people get into the sausage business? It’s not because of the glamour surrounding the job its because they love sausage and would do anything for sausage. I am envious of those people that have that one thing they love, I wish I loved sausage or anything - it would make my life that much easier. But then again life isn’t suppose to be easy, its suppose to kick your ass every single day.

The Domain Name Business

Ben — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 01:19:15 +0000

I have been in this love hate relationship with domain names for about a year and a half now. It is a very difficult business to get into, mainly because it is so saturated. At first I was registering the absolute WORST domains ever thinking I was going to be the next Kevin Ham (the master of domains.) Well, I was not so fortunate and I ended up losing about $1,200 in crap registrations that I just let exprie. If anyone reading this is interested in the domain business I highly suggest you read alot before you even consider registering your first domain. There are alot of forums that provide a ton of information, an example is Namepros.com and DNF.com - very good medium for finding info on the domain game.

As of recently I finally started figuring out how to really buy great domains and then sell them for a few thousand percent profit. Now I have amassed a pretty decent portfolio of generic and am working on some minisite development. Here is an example of a work in progress - it is an informative site dedicated to Payday Advance loans and cash advances, www.paydayadvance.biz

Stay tuned as I will divulge all my info on how to buy and sell domains!

I’m back in school - MBA style

Ben — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 07:56:31 +0000

Hello everyone, it has been some time since I have updated the blog. I have finally decided to go back to school since I have been out of job for about 4 months. I have been selling domain names to cover the costs but I’m barely surviving. I just recently started my MBA classes and will be finished in one year. I will try to update the blog on a more frequent basis.

Has the economy got you by the balls?

Ben — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 04:28:53 +0000

It’s been a few months since I’ve last posted but I have been extremely busy with my new job. So, where did I leave off? Ah yes, the economy….it’s kind of hard keeping a straight face while typing because our economy is the epitome of a bad joke. The world’s super power is bailing out banks and the auto industry for about $735 billion dollars, unemployment is creeping to scary levels, foreclosures are rampant, and most of us are rubbing our last two pennies together at the most inopportune time: Christmas.

Christmas, this is supposed to be the most festive time of the year but it certainly doesn’t feel that way. Do you know how much it sucks knowing that you can’t afford to buy your fiance, parents or friends a gift because it would be such a financial burden. I’m not even talking lavish gifts, gifts around $100 should be more than attainable for anyone with a job, yet it doesn’t seem like it’s gonna happen.

So my solution: I am going to go 2nd grade arts and crafts style and make everyone I know a macaroni necklace, how much is a box of mac and cheese anyway…$0.89? Of course that’s not the only thing I’m going to make, I am also going to make a picture frame out of Popsicle sticks and cover the edges in macaroni…this one never fails. But wait…there’s more: who wouldn’t love chopstick hair ornaments, a rubber band belt, or a cardboard box guitar???

Seriously though, times are tough and I know I am not the only one struggling. This is going to be one of the most disappointing Christmases ever, I just feel crappy not getting anyone something substantial. I will think of something…I always do.

The New 90210 debut decidedly dull

Ben — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:14:33 +0000

The “New” 90210 debuted on Tuesday with a lot of eager expectations. The majority of viewers were fans of the original 90210 which first aired in 1990. In order to lure the earlier viewers into the new series the producers integrated many of the stars such as: Shannen Doherty, Tori Spelling and Jennie Garth from the original series. Granted, that is a great plan to win back half hearted viewers but how long can they incorporate them without their presence being static. Many of the people watching are too young to have seen The 90210 and are enticed by a West Coast rendition of Gossip Girls. It seems that the CW’s intention is to emmulate a trans-series cross between The 90210 and Gossip Girls; the problem is that most of the components were not transplanted correctly.

For those that don’t know, 90210 was a trendsetting, progressive, original, and avant-garde series. It pushed the envelope with it’s creative and vanguard ingenuity. Not only were the characters exciting and original but the cast of 90210 was responsible for a whole new era of debonaire style. The new 90210 is trying to hard to be something that already was, it’s a spin off that is spinning about as much as a broken clock, it’s stuck in time. When you think of 90210 what comes to mind is racy, promiscuous, sarcasm, scandals and sex. The new 90210 was well, how do I put this, dull.

After about an hour of the new 90210 I felt like I was watching a snootier version of Hannah Montana. I just felt that the show was geared at an entirely different audience; viewers from 18 years ago that now have 10 year old Miley Cyrus impostors as children. There was nothing provocative about the show at all; hell, they hired Jessica “Lucille Bluth” Walter — who played the booziest, horniest senior citizen this side of Blanche Deveraux on Arrested Development to play a grandma that “isn’t your typical bridge player.” Everyone is aware that Jessica Walter can play an over zealous and over age slattern so why not give her a love interest, how about her adopted black grandson…its not like it would be incest. The point is the actors look bored and the characters are stale, nothing progressive or intuitive has happened and it just seems like we are watching a bunch of pretentious 15year olds mocking the styles of the previous cast with much less bravado. I guess we will see what they will do with the rest of the season, but my guess is more of the same insipid and predictive show boating.

Just Moved to California!!!

Ben — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 05:38:19 +0000

Sorry for the two week lapse in posts but I have not had an Internet connection since moving to Cali. I moved to L.A and am relishing every second despite the proverbial pickle I am in. Yeah, I moved out here with no job and whats even worse is the fact that I followed a woman here. Now I have to not only support myself but I have to prove to my fiance that I am not a loser. I had an interview last week for a content operations and editorial assistant position with a start up company in Venice Beach. I hope that it works out, for my fiance’s benefit as well as my own. I will be updating the blog regularly, so stay tuned!

Senator McCain was born in Panama can he be President?

Ben — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 01:27:10 +0000

Senator John McCain

I just found out that in 1936 Senator and Presidential candidate John McCain was born in Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone. So, who the hell cares where McCain was born, right? Wrong, the U.S constitution states that, “Clause 5. No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been Fourteen Years a Resident within the United States. ” It clearly states that a presidential candidate must be a natural born citizen, which McCain is not. McCain was born on a U.S naval base not in the United States itself.

Even though being born on a naval base is technically equivalent to being born in the United States according to this Congressional act, “ …the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens” there still is a slight possibilty that McCain may not be elligible to be President. This is not the first time the question has been broached in a presidential election. Fellow Arizonian Barry Goldwater was born in the Arizona territory before it was a state. And Mitt Romney’s father, George, ran for president in 1968, though he was born in Mexico. Like McCain, both were born to U.S. citizens and, therefore, considered to be American citizens.

However, both of those candidates were unsuccessful in their bids and so a degree of uncertainty remains. If McCain wins the presidency, the constitutionality of these congressional statutes could be challenged in the courts. Members of Congress have expressed this fear and proposed a more explicit law, or even a Constitutional amendment. Neither has been adopted. Maybe the Democrats are waiting to release this information and try to sabotage the election. I guess we will have to wait and see.

Who is the hottest female olympian of Beijing - Vote Now!

Ben — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 01:36:46 +0000

The Olympics have been a main focus of this blog for many reasons; reasons that are just understood. The Olympics come around every four years and now that they are under way I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to decide who is the hottest female Olympian of Beijing. Before there is any uproar from the female readers I will be adding a poll for the hottest (sounds weird typing this in my head) male athlete. The only dilemma with the male poll is that I am no expert on the male anatomy so I may need some help from my female readers. Without further ado here is the list of candidates, if there is anyone missing from the list that you would like to add just comment or email me.

The following candidates are listed in no particular order:

#1 Blanka Vlašić — Croatia, High Jump

She Can Vault with my pole anytime!

# 2 Maria Sharapova - Russia, Tennis

She makes balls disappear!

#3 Biba Golic - Seriba, Table Tennis

Table Tennis Has Never Looked THIS Hot

#4 Nikki Gudex - England, Mountain Biking

I just flipped over my handlebars

#5 Jennie Finch - USA, Softball

Apparently too hot to wear clothes

#6 Natalie Gulbis - USA, Golf

I wonder if she would play with my putter

#7 Allison Stokke - USA, Pole Vaulting

I'd like to see her work the stripper pole

#8 Yelena Isinbayeva - Russia, Pole Vaulting

She could probably get great leverage using my .....

#9 Bia and Branca Feres - Brazil, Synchronzied Swimming

What more could you ask for....TWINS!

Just as hot from the front!!!

#10 Amy Taylor - Australia, Football

I'll show her how to score

#11 Ana Ivanovic - Serbia, Tennis

She's asking for an overhead smash

#12 Nastia Liukin - USA, Gymnastics

NASTY hot!

#13 Stephanie Rice - Australia, Swimming

I wear a one piece to..my birthday suit

#14 Amanda Beard - USA, Swimming

What a tease!

#15 Almudena Cid - Spain, Rythmic Gymnastics Team

Nice bathing suit

#16 Leryn Franco - Paraguay, Javelin

WOW!!!!

And now the moment of truth…vote for your favorite sexy Olympian

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.