Pittsburgh Week

Got to love how sober, attractive, and educated the Steelers fanbase is.

I like this.

President Obama's recent education speech had a story about his daughter's science test grade. I'm not sure that it was a great idea in that, as a father, I'd be uncomfortable telling stories about my family to the general public.

Those minor concerns aside, this is exactly right:

“So she came home yesterday, she got a 95,’’ Mr. Obama said. “But here’s the point: She said, ‘You know , I just like having knowledge.’’

The moral of the story, in the president’s view: “Don’t just expect teachers to set a high bar. You’ve got to set a high bar.”

The President continues, in my opinion, his strong push on changing American culture on excellence in student performance. I like it.

Housing Tax Credit?

So here's what I want to know: who thinks this $8,000 tax credit is a good idea? At best, it's a sop to new homebuyers. Ack, it's just a terrible idea.

Net Neutrality

This is what will happen if John McCain (i.e. Cpt. Telecom) gets his way. Why would anyone trust a man who openly admits he knows nothing about the internet to make policy for it?

This year's "Trilogy of Terror"

Part 1. Set the stage...

Part 2. Increase the tension...


Part 3. Combine what 'really scares' with a bit of the truth...

Silverdome Auction

No one is willing to buy the Pontiac Silverdome, so now it is being put up for auction. Would anyone actually have a use for this massive structure? Who could buy this and make it functional?

Tracy Morgan

Forget Going Rogue. This is going to be one of the most entertaining memoirs ever!

Who's taking one for the team?

As I've said all along, it's the insurance industry.

"In unusually harsh terms, Mr. Obama cast insurance companies as obstacles to change interested only in preserving their own “profits and bonuses” and willing to “bend the truth or break it” to stop his drive to remake the nation’s health care system. The president used his weekly radio and Internet address to push back against industry assertions that legislation will drive up premiums.

“It’s smoke and mirrors,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s bogus. And it’s all too familiar. Every time we get close to passing reform, the insurance companies produce these phony studies as a prescription and say, ‘Take one of these, and call us in a decade.’ Well, not this time.”

Rather than trying to curb costs and help patients, he said, the industry is busy “figuring out how to avoid covering people.”

“And they’re earning these profits and bonuses while enjoying a privileged exemption from our antitrust laws,” he said, “a matter that Congress is rightfully reviewing.”

The president’s attack underscores the sharp break between the White House and the insurance industry as the health care debate moves closer to a climax. When Mr. Obama took office, he and his advisers had hoped to keep insurers at the table to forge a consensus. But as the months passed, the strains grew — until this past week, when an industry-financed study attacking the Democratic plan signaled an open rupture."

Why they didn't cut a deal faster, earlier (or didn't stick to the backroom bargain they may have gotten) is beyond me. When you're politically unpopular, it doesn't take much to become the whipping boy (especially when everyone knows that you're the most likely candidate.)

Dittoheads Unite

So it was all of those liberal millionaires in the ranks of the NFL owners that kept Rush from being an owner. Atleast according to Red State. In no way am I fan of Rush's divisive rhetoric, but I have no problems with him being an owner. However, the NFL knows how to run a business, and Rush being involved would have been bad for business.

A football fan's guilt

This article about concussions in football is disturbing to me. I really like football, and I am especially fond of watching linemen. But it may be that long-term (or even short-term) careers in professional football can be damaging to players' brains.

How guilty should a football fan be? Assuming the science is correct, one thing is for certain: in about 20 years, players that we are fond of now will be falling victim to these chronic brain injuries.

Simple question

The President's Nobel Peace Prize -- deserved?

Conservative Bible Project

The crazy bastards at Conservapedia would like to remove the well known liberal bias from the Bible by removing liberal passages. So I guess they will have to remove Jesus completely?

And now, for some actual Communists...

Happy Birthday to the People's Republic of China (and to its Taylor group citizens!)

Dear Fellow Conservative,

This video just came to my attention. I'm so outraged and stunned by its content that I had to share it with you.

Watch the video now and see the indoctrination of our nation's greatest treasure -- our children.

In the video, impressionable youngsters at a public school in New Jersey, most of whom are no more than six or seven years old, have been instructed to sing the praises of "Barack Hussein Obama." One song is even set to the tune of The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

This is the type of propaganda you would see in Stalin's Russia or Kim Jong Il's North Korea. I never thought the day would come when I'd see it here in America.

This is the type of fanaticism Republicans are up against as we fight to stop the Obama Democrats' radical leftist transformation of America. The only way our Party can defeat their liberal ambitions is by electing more Republicans in the upcoming 2009 state elections and the critical 2010 mid-term elections.

Do your part today by making a secure online contribution of $10, $25, $50, $100 or whatever you can right now to the RNC. Your gift will provide the resources we need to reveal the Obama Democrats' true leftist intentions for our country and carry our Republican candidates to victory this fall and beyond. Please help us win this fight for the future of America.

Sincerely,

Michael Steele
Chairman, Republican National Committee

P.S. The indoctrinating of the most impressionable members of our society is unbelievable unless you see it with your own eyes. Please watch the video of young school children literally singing the praises of Barack Obama that their teachers have taught them. Share it with your friends, family, neighbors or anyone you think may be concerned by this. Then make a donation of $10, $25, $50 or $100 to support the RNC's efforts to fight this leftist propaganda and elect more Republicans this year and next. Thank you.

I couldn't agree more...

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An impressive pass from a USC grad to defeat Big Ben and the black-and-gold menace. I'll bet Vince is happy.

I love public schools.

Doubtless, you all have heard of the kidz singing the praises of President Obama. While it is obviously a tiny tempest in a very small teacup, the following lyrics are a little annoying:

"He said red, yellow, black or white / All are equal in his sight
Mmm, mmm, mm! / Barack Hussein Obama"

The lyricist is no Jay-Z. I think what rankles most is that it is a stolen line from a rather trite children's Sunday School song, "Jesus Loves the Little Children." I much preferred the spontaneous "Obama's Going To Change the World" hit* of 2008 -- now those were good lyrics.

*BTW, where's my frickin' happiness?

Fred's Transmission

As I was watching Notre Dame nearly blow a game to an inferior opponent(again..), a commercial for Fred's Transmission aired. I had to actually go to the website to make sure I wasn't hearing things.

Immaculate Deflection

In some weird way, this helps with the pain.

Good news for chemists?

The just-released Baucus plan is reviewed at the New York Times' blog on the health care debate. Here's the headline: "Baucus Plan Pleases Drug Makers, but Not Other Groups."

From the post:

"Analysts for Barclays Capital wrote in a report Friday for Wall Street investors that “insurers continue to be singled out as the villains of the debate."

The drug makers also got what they wanted from Mr. Baucus in guarantees against direct price negotiation by the government over the cost of drugs in Medicare. The Baucus bill is silent on a House proposal to wring rebates from the pharmaceuticals industry for the higher cost of drugs sold to people who qualify for both Medicaid and Medicare since 2006.

Finally, the longstanding Democratic proposals to allow the reimportation of cheaper drugs from Canada is nowhere to be found in the Baucus bill.

So, under the Baucus proposal, here is what the industry has agreed to:

*Accept a total of $23 billion in new fees over 10 years

*Provide drugs at half price in a Medicare coverage gap known as the doughnut hole

*Increase Medicaid rebates to 23.1 percent for patented drugs (up from 15.1 percent now) and 13 percent for generic drugs (up from 11 percent).

*Support a new regulatory pathway for approving generic equivalents of biological drugs — the often expensive products from the biotechnology industry, including many cancer drugs, that so far have been generally exempted from generic competition.

And now, while insurers, device makers and labs step up their lobbying against the Baucus proposal, the drug industry is expected soon to roll out a new TV ad campaign to support it.

So PhRMA has gotten a lot of big things from this: no renegotiation of Medicare Part D, no reimportation. In exchange, they're shilling for the plan and they're also "supporting" the biosimilars campaign that Waxman is pushing. I think the biosimilars campaign is the biggest long-term concern for the industry; biologics are considered more profitable, longer. (P.S. I will laugh my head off if biogenerics/biosimilars turn out to have significant unintended medical consequences.)

Let's not be coy here: the industry that many of us directly or indirectly work for is politically powerful and was able to cut a deal. It remains to be seen whether pharma management can take the revenue given and deliver innovative and profitable drugs -- that's where we come in.

I think what's likely to come out of the House/Senate conference is more likely to be close to the Baucus deal than not. But that's just speculation -- don't exhale just yet.