World's weirdest animal babies

You gotta see this to believe it

AND

Michael Steele, chairman of the RNC, doesn't seem to know the basic terminology of the health care debate.

In a Q&A at the National Press Club just now, Steele was asked if Republicans support an individual requirement to get health care (also known as an individual mandate).

"What do you mean by an individual requirement?" he asked the moderator. After she explained, he dodged the question.

"Again, that is one of those areas where there is different opinions...I don't do policy," he said. "My point in coming here today was to begin to set a tone, and a theme if you will."

Steele was taking questions after giving a speech on health care reform, in which he characterized President Obama's plan as a "reckless experiment" that's "too much, too fast, too soon."

Picasso's cold war career as a highly political painter, peace campaigner and tireless fundraiser for leftwing causes will be revealed in an exhibition at Tate Liverpool next spring that will include letters from world leaders, including Nelson Mandela and Ho Chi Minh, as well as a telegram from Fidel Castro congratulating the artist on being awarded the Soviet Union's international peace prize.

Guardian

It costs on average about $20,000 to train a service dog and another $5,000 to place the dog with the veteran. It is my strong belief that a service dog will more than pay for itself over its life, and my bill is designed to determine the return on investment with a pilot program that provides service dogs to hundreds of veterans.

My bill will help train a statistically significant number of dogs to measure the benefits to veterans with physical and emotional wounds. The program would be monitored and refined over a three-year period to optimize its effectiveness.

From Gillibrand:

If you believe as I do that offering a not-for-profit public health care plan option to compete with private insurers is the best way to truly lower health costs, improve quality, and ensure access, then please sign my petition and send a clear message to all our elected leaders in Washington that now is the time to act. By offering a Medicare for All approach where Americans can buy in at an affordable rate, we can focus on preventive care, not the emergency based care we have now, and lower costs for everyone.

From Schumer (also Leahy and Durbin):

That's why, as part of any health care reform plan, we support a public health insurance option that would foster greater competition in the marketplace.  If you're happy with your current insurance plan, you could keep it.  But a public option would create more choices for consumers -- and lead to lower costs and better quality for all.  Plus, a public option would allow you to always keep your insurance, even if you lose or change your job.

What could I not care less about?

Michael Jackson, generally, but because I do estate and trust work, the possible Will contest and related wrangling could be quite interesting.

"What we've seen is this constant demand for attention," Clinton, who is in India, said in an interview that aired on ABC's "Good Morning America" on Monday.

"And maybe it's the mother in me or the experience that I've had with small children and unruly teenagers and people who are demanding attention -- don't give it to them, they don't deserve it, they are acting out," she said.

And I doubt anyone here will have an issue with his reason for packing it in.

...my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.

Produced by Sarah Jessica Parker, the show, which doesn't have a title or a broadcast date, will try to do for the contemporary art world what the cable channel has done for the worlds of fine cuisine ("Top Chef") and fashion ("Project Runway"): discover young, or maybe even middle-aged or old, unknowns with the talent to command the attention of both a television audience and a serious audience in the creative field to which they aspire.

There was a well-done one hour tribute by CBS last night to WC, and it offered some news for this observer.  

I wasn't aware of his friendships with a few high-profile celebs, his being a DeadHead, and I'd forgotten that his Evening News in late 63 had been the first news outlet to report on the Beatles phenomenon (somewhere I seem to recall that Jack Paar sometime in this time period had also done a feature on the group on his weekly show and months before they appeared on Ed Sullivan.

A surprising but important snippet of film was shown from Cronkite's 1965 visit to Nam, where at the outset of LBJ's buildup WC appeared on camera gung-ho for our military effort there.  That visit, and the MSM's flag-waiving coverage of the crucial early yrs of Nam, was an issue this morning on Amy Goodman's show.  Worth checking out for the discussion and the longer clips of Walter in Nam in the early stages.

Another random thought about Cronkite is the little-recalled radio call-in show(s) he did in 1977 with Pres Carter.  My memory is that it was very successful, as it enabled JC to personally connect with the public and show his knowledge and understanding, while Carter was also able to benefit from the association with a highly esteemed public figure.  

Dunno who pulled the plug or why -- one story I've seen is that the phone company, Ma Bell, complained that its system became overloaded during the show and so unilaterally decided to withdraw its technical support.  

Schumer: "This amendment is a bridge too far, and could endanger the safety of millions of Americans. Each state has carefully crafted its concealed-carry laws in the way that makes the most sense to protect its citizens. Clearly, large, urban areas merit a different standard than rural areas. To gut the ability of local police and sheriffs to determine who should be able to carry a concealed weapon makes no sense. It could reverse the dramatic success we'vie had in reducing crime in most all parts of America. In the past, the gun lobby has had as its rallying cry, `Let each state decide.' With this amendment, they are doing a 180-degree flip. Whether you are pro-gun or pro-gun control, this measure deserves to be defeated. We will do everything we can to stop this poisonous amendment from being enacted."

While watching MSNBC commenting on the Federal Reserve was striking the other day. Finally, one of the guests mentioned that in our system the Federal Reserve has not been audited for ninety seven years, basically since its inception. I rolled over laughing and giggling to myself for the insanity of it all. Sheesh, after all these years in my old age, finally, is realizing how stupid things are in the American economic system.

Then on "Money Talks" with Bob Brinker ABC hate radio Sunday afternoon Bob has a phone in superbly timed that suggested Paul Volker to replace Ben Bernekie as Federal Reserve Board Chairman. Volker is old time money. This being the most powerful position in the United States says Brinker. Also commenting that there is a serious thought to give back the money supply control to Congress, but of course that would be horrible, and "the game" would be over.  But doing a Google on Bernekie I came across

http://www.infowars.com/the-realm-of-gangster-government/

by  Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) speaking on the House floor, yikes now the Federal Reserve is indeed criminal as addressed by Bachmann. The bankers are going insane. Now we might know why America had people like Capone or Bonnie and Clyde, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid. Or, Bill Bonnie, Billy the kid and the regulators.  

Just this past year, or so, learning about the Federal Reserve, how it works, and what it does, gives me the creeps. Finding out about the year nineteen thirteen President Wilson signed into law a federal reserve banking system after a secret meeting held on Jekyll Island by all the big American and Foreign bankers. Sounds like a Cheney special energy meeting way back when.

Then, reading about it in article over the Internet rings true. This is a private organization that no one knows where the money has gone in the past ninety seven years. No audits!!! It must look real ugly, so ugly, hot sexy immoral CIA related ugly, full of money crazy corruption ugly, political favorites ugly, disgusting above the law ugly done in the name of national security secrets for family fortunes with our tax money free and no return for almost a century. Talk about primer irresponsibility.

* 1 in 29 adults is under correctional control (compared with 1 in 102 adults in 1982).
  * Colorado spent $625 Million on corrections (nearly twice spending on higher ed)
  * By end of 2007, 30% of correctional population was in prison or jail (in 1982 that figure was 26%)
  * Colorado has 77,635 people in probation (238 federal)
  * Colorado has 11,086 people on parole (954 federal)
  * Colorado has 22,666 people in prison (1,736 federal)
  * Colorado has 13,871 people in jail
  * For every $1 Colorado spent on prisons in 2008, it spent $0.15 on probation and parole.
  * 1 day of prison costs ($76.51) = 6 days of parole or 21 days of probation.
  * Colorado ranks 15th highest prison / corrections population among the 50 states

You can download the full report by visiting www.pewcenteronthestates.org/publicsafety.

A very good documentary on Apollo from years ago, For All Mankind.  

Then, The Right Stuff, which Walter Cronkite apparently hated -- too many cardboard caricatures of Nasa folks, as he saw it.

Later a somewhat underrated space disaster flick, Marooned, starring Greg Peck, and the guy who a few years earlier had proved his legal innocence, David Janssen.