mother daughter .....

Grandpa and his Girls

top 20 earmarking senators and the value of their solo earmarks:

Here's a breakdown of the top 20 earmarking senators and the value of their solo earmarks:

1) Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va. -- $122,804,900 ?

2) Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala. -- $114,484,250 

3) Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo. -- $85,691,491 

4) Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. -- $76,899,425 

5) Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss. -- $75,908,475 

6) Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska -- $74,000,750 

7) Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa -- $66,860,000 

8) Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla. -- $53,133,500 

9) Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. -- $51,186,000 

10) Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii -- $46,380,205 

11) Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. -- $39,228,250 

12) Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. -- $36,547,100 

13) Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt. -- $36,161,125 

14) Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. -- $35,577,250 

15) Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. -- $27,169,750 

16) Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. -- $26,628,613 

17) Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. -- $25,320,000 

18) Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis. -- $23,832,000 

19) Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. -- $21,952,250 

20) Former Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. -- $19,588,625

Click here to read the full report from Taxpayers for Common Sense. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY GIRL......

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU HEATHER

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU... 

AND MANY MORE....

LOVE YA... 
DAD

for the Missy's, Heather's, Ann's, etc in the world.. a new way to think???......

across the street from my office .... goes up a new building and location for Stillwater Builders Supply

OPENING SATURDAY MARCH 21ST (2 WEEKS AWAY!)

OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY............   2 WEEKS.... HURRY HURRY HURRY!!

 

PAPER: 'Lady Macbeth' Michelle behind snub to UK?

ABCNEWS: Obama's 'mischaracterization of data'...

Medical Bankruptcies: A Data-Check

March 05, 2009 12:37 PM

(3 p.m. update: See italicized items with responses from the lead author of the Harvard study, Dr. David Himmelstein.)

President Obama’s kicking off his health care reform today in the worst possible way: with a mischaracterization of data.

“The cost of health care now causes a bankruptcy in America every thirty seconds," Obama said at the opening of his White House forum on health care reform. The problem: That claim, based on a 2001 survey, is simply unsupportable.

The figure comes from a 2005 Harvard University study saying that 54 percent of bankruptcies in 2001 were caused by health expenses. We reviewed it internally and knocked it down at the time; an academic reviewer did the same in 2006. Recalculating Harvard’s own data, he came up with a far lower figure – 17 percent.

A more recent study by another group, approaching it another way, indicates that in 2007 about eight-tenths of one percent of Americans lived in families that filed for bankruptcy as a result of medical costs. That rings a little less loudly than “one every 30 seconds.”

The extrapolation of Harvard’s data to “a bankruptcy every 30 seconds,” which Obama also mentioned in his address to a joint session of Congress last month, comes, per the White House, from a 2005 Washington Post op-ed by Prof. Elizabeth Warren, a co-author of the Harvard paper. Fact-check.org hasnoted that even using Harvard’s numbers, it’s more like a bankruptcy every minute; indeed if you add up all bankrputcies in a year you barely get one every 30 seconds. (I've e-mailed Warren for comment.) But more to the point is that the Harvard data are clearly inflated, or at best, mischaracterized.

Himmelstein tells me that the reason for the difference is a change in federal law that sharply reduced the number of bankruptcies. In 2005, the year he and Warren wrote their op-ed, there were just over 2 million bankruptcies. Data out just today say that in 2008 there were 1.1 million (up sharply, by the way, over 2007). So this error in the White House claim stems simply from the fact that it's using out-of-date information. The next question is whether the estimate of “medical bankruptcies” is reliable in the first place.

A good part of the problem is definitional. The Harvard report claims to measure the extent to which medical costs are “the cause” of bankruptcies. In reality its survey asked if these costs were “a reason” – potentially one of many – for such bankruptcies.

Beyond those who gave medical costs as “a reason,” the Harvard researchers chose to add in any bankruptcy filers who had at least $1,000 in unreimbursed medical expenses in the previous two years. Given deductibles and copays, that’s a heck of a lot of people.

Moreover, Harvard’s definition of “medical” expenses includes situations that aren’t necessarily medical in common parlance, e.g., a gambling problem, or the death of a family member. If your main wage-earning spouse gets hit by a bus and dies, and you have to file, that’s included as a “medical bankruptcy.”

When I asked the lead author, Dr. David Himmelstein, about his definitions of medical bankruptcy back in 2005, he said, “It’s a judgment call,” and added that any death, for example, “to our mind is a medical event.”

A last problem was sampling: The Harvard researchers surveyed bankruptcy filers in five federal court districts accounting for 14 percent of bankruptcies nationally; projecting this to the other 86 percent is sketchy. Said Himmelstein: “Obviously the extrapolation is rough.”

Of such rough extrapolations are presidential pronouncements made.

Himmelstein today told me that he’s comfortable saying medical costs, as his study defines them, are “a cause” but not “the cause” of bankruptcies. In his view, “It’s accurate to say medical problems cause half of bankruptcies. There may be other conditions as well but medical problems were causal. I wouldn’t be comfortable with it as the ‘only’ cause.”

Worth keeping in mind is the fact that no one (apparently) disagrees about the pain medical expenses can cause to uninsured Americans. Prof. David Dranove of Northwestern University, who wrote the 2006 paper picking apart the Harvard study, noted that he has a new paper in the works showing that uninsured people who have a severe illness lose a substantial portion of their retirement assets.

"There is general agreement: Being uninsured and getting sick in the United States is really a bad thing,” Dranove told me today. “But for academics the validity of the research matters.” In the Harvard paper, he says, "The methods were so poor they gave cover to those who want to dismiss the problems of the uninsured – they can say the only paper out there uses a suspect method."

There’s been a fair amount of academic back-biting about this issue. On one hand Himmelstein, the lead Harvard researcher, is a co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, created to promote a government-run single-payer health system. On the other, Dranove took $5,000 from the nation’s health insurance industry for his report, which he says he now regrets for the criticism of his impartiality it’s engendered. Both papers were peer-reviewed.

“It stinks to be uninsured. I don’t want to be quoted saying anything else,” Dranove says. “But there are correct studies, and incorrect studies. For academics, the validity of the research methods matters.”

It should for the rest of us, too.

Himmelstein’s referred me to a 2006 paper in which he replied to Dranove, whom he accuses of  “several out and out errors.” Says Himmelstein: “They were paid by the insurance industry to make this critique… They were hired guns out to try and make a point, and used a variety of illegitimate techniques to make that point.”

Science marches on.

(...and a 4 p.m. update: Elizabeth Warren, Himmelstein's co-author, is serving as chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel on TARP. Per spokeswoman Shanan Guinn, she's not currently giving interviews on her previous research.)

What happens when two autos try to occupy the same space... haha...ophs...

A young man yesterday morning thought Trisha and Isabella were not going fast enough, so he tried to push her and car....  

Both Mother and Daughter are A-OK... and know how lucky they are!!!

And if you know Tisha's history... you know how much she probably did not want this to happen ... EVER!!!

love to all... have a great day!

Olbermann's Plastic Ivy

by Ann Coulter (more by this author)

Posted 03/04/2009 ET
Updated 03/04/2009 ET

Fortunately, we have Keith Olbermann to point out that Rush Limbaugh did not accurately quote the preamble to the Constitution in his CPAC speech last weekend. I'm not sure what scam Olbermann imagined Rush was trying to put over on the American people by saying conservatives believed in the "preamble to the Constitution" and then quoting words from the Declaration of Independence -- but Olbermann put an end to that cruel deception!
    
These small-time opportunities to show off by correcting someone else's teeny-tiny mistakes are the lifeblood of Olbermann's MSNBC show, "Countdown." Olbermann is no more capable of not correcting Rep. Charlie Rangel when he said "inferred," but meant "implied," than an obsessive compulsive could pass a sink without washing his hands.
    
There is utterly no purpose to these lame "gotchas," except that Olbermann is so desperately insecure that he is willing to waste valuable airtime in order to convince other status-conscious idiots that he is, like, scary-smart.
    
Olbermann relentlessly attacked low-level Bush administration employee Monica Goodling for not going to a name-dropping college, saying -- approximately 1 million times -- that she got her law degree "by sending 100 box tops to Religious Lunatic University."
    
I would venture to say that the students at Goodling's law school at Regent University are far more impressive than those at the Cornell agriculture school -- the land-grant, non-Ivy League school Keith attended.
    
I wouldn't mention it, except that Olbermann savages anyone who didn't go to an impressive college. As it happens, he didn't go to an impressive college, either.
    
If you've ever watched any three nights of his show, you know that Olbermann went to Cornell. But he always forgets to mention that he went to the school that offers classes in milking and bovine management.
    
Indeed, Keith is constantly lying about his nonexistent "Ivy League" education, boasting to Playboy magazine, for example: "My Ivy League education taught me how to cut corners, skim books and take an idea and write 15 pages on it, and also how to work all day at the Cornell radio station and never actually go to class."
    
Except Keith didn't go to the Ivy League Cornell; he went to the Old MacDonald Cornell.
    
The real Cornell, the School of Arts and Sciences (average SAT: 1,325; acceptance rate: 1 in 6 applicants), is the only Ivy League school at Cornell and the only one that grants a Bachelor of Arts degree.
    
Keith went to an affiliated state college at Cornell, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (average SAT: about that of pulling guards at the University of South Carolina; acceptance rate: 1 of every 1.01 applicants).
    
Olbermann's incessant lying about having an "Ivy League education" when he went to the non-Ivy League ag school at Cornell would be like a graduate of the Yale locksmithing school boasting about being a "Yale man."
    
Among the graduates of the Ivy League Cornell are Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Thomas Pynchon, Paul Wolfowitz, E.B. White, Sanford I. Weill, Floyd Abrams, Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Ginsburg, Janet Reno, Henry Heimlich and Harold Bloom.
    
Graduates of the ag school include David LeNeveu of the Anaheim Ducks, Mitch Carefoot of the Phoenix RoadRunners, Darren Eliot, former professional hockey player, and Joe Nieuwendyk, multiple Stanley Cup winner.
    
One begins to understand why Harvard students threw a chicken on the ice during Cornell's famous rout of Harvard at a 1973 hockey game.
    
If you actually want to pursue a career related to agriculture, there is no better school than the Cornell ag school. I have nothing but admiration for the farmers and aspiring veterinarians at the ag school. They didn't go there just to have "Cornell" on their resumes.
    
In addition to the farmers, there are some smart kids who go to the ag school -- as there are at all state universities. But most people who majored in "communications" at an ag school don't act like Marshall Scholars or go around mocking graduates of Regent University Law School.
    
The sort of insecurity that would force you to always say "trebled" instead of "tripled" could only come from a communications major with massive status anxiety, like Keith. Without even looking it up, I am confident that Harvard, Yale and Princeton do not offer degrees in "communications." I know there is no "communications" major at the Ivy League Cornell.
    
"Communications" is a major, along with "recreation science," most commonly associated with linemen at USC. But at least the linemen can throw a football, which Keith cannot because his mother decided he was not physically robust enough to play outdoors as a child.
    
It may seem cruel to reveal the true college of someone who already wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat worried that he's a fraud. But I believe that by pointing out that Olbermann actually is a fraud, I am liberating him.
    
You may not realize it now, Keith, but you will look back on this day and say, "That was the best thing that ever happened to me!"
    
Finally, you can stop pretending that you went to the hard-to-get-into Cornell.
    
Now you won't have to quickly change the subject whenever people idly remark that they didn't know it was possible to major in "communications" at an Ivy League school.
    
No longer will you have to aggressively bring up Cornell when it has nothing to do with the conversation.
    
Relax, Keith. Now you can let people like you for you.

GOP: BAM COOKS THE BUDGET BOOKS

By GEOFF EARLE Post Correspondent

Last updated: 2:04 am

March 4, 2009 

Posted: 1:44 am

March 4, 2009

WASHINGTON - Republicans slammed President Obama for "cooking the books" in his new budget proposal, as the administration said this year's $1.75 trillion deficit was caused a by a crisis unlike any in generations.

GOP lawmakers grilled Peter Orszag, Obama's budget chief, in his first testimony on Capitol Hill to defend the tax and spending plan he unveiled last week.

"The numbers in this budget are staggeringly high," fumed Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

"If these scenarios in this baseline don't play themselves out, then they'll be even higher."

Orszag replied: "The new administration has inherited an economic crisis unlike any we have seen in our lifetimes."

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who would oversee more than $1 trillion in higher taxes over the next decade, got similar treatment.

(Amazing... This man is a tax cheat himself who has been caught, of course, it did not matter. sigh, he was needed by Obama and Obama laid his hands on him and blessed him and said all was ok in the world, so we end up with a tax cheat running the Treasury... and guess what else.. he is a buffoon... this man is was head of the New York Fed (that helped contribute to this mess) and was tapped to solve our problems over a year ago by Bush... who did not know he was a tax cheat, who would have guessed since he was head of the New York Fed? Oh it's even better... read the bio of this great wonder Obama could not live without on his team... it will amaze you and leave you asking why did we need someone who can not respect rules, if there is one man who proves the "Peter Principle" it is Geithner!  In government and in big business, one rises to their level of incompetence, and he has reached his peak!)

"It looks like somebody's cooking the books," grumbled Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing.

"The president's budget increases taxes on every American, and does so during a recession," Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) told Geithner.

Geithner countered that tax increases don't kick in until 2011, when the administration is projecting that a recovery would be under way.

Although Ryan, the top Republican on the House Budget Committee, praised some aspects of the budget, he also ripped into accounting methods - like budgeting for high initial war costs that demonstrate a savings later.

"So you assume in your budget that we're going to have a surge in 10 years [in Iraq], even though a surge, by definition, is up, then back down," Ryan said, pressing Orszag.

"To go back, $1.6 trillion of these savings is because you are saying we are not going to have a surge for 10 years, we are going to ramp it down," he continued.

Orszag replied: "About a trillion-and-a-half dollars is because the war ends more quickly under this budget then we think the alternative would have been."

Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) accused Obama of putting up a "trifecta of trillions" - with the stimulus package, appropriations spending and budget deficits.

He said the deficit - which is projected to fall from $1.75 trillion to $533 billion over a decade - showed "red ink as far as the eye can see."

"Power is being aware of what one is choosing to do, feeling free to do it, and doing it intentionally. Power is freedom to choose with awareness and to involve ourselves in health-promoting and other activities. Power is how we participate in creating our reality." — Dr. Gerald Epstein

So... you think you know flash... can you>>>>>????

Brush Eater by the Acre from ThreeLeaf Creative on Vimeo.

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