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President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today.

Eight years ago, at this same point in his predecessor’s first term, we were invading Afghanistan.

Just got a new San Diego REO/foreclosure condo in Linda Vista. 28 of 30 units in complex are bank-owned or in foreclosure.

It is hard not to like a review that contains this gem:

One of Apple's slogans for Grand Central Dispatch is "islands of serialization in a sea of concurrency.

I think we (THE PEOPLE) have all at one time or another stated "If I were President" while hypothetically resolving the Federal debt, healing health scare or diverting disasters (natural or political). I said this just the other day, while thinking of health care. Maybe it was because I am in the middle of my current hospital stay of 64 days--and it seems everyone is arguing STRONGLY for this or that; but I took another step. I fantasized about actually being the president (this time no hookers so it was less spanky).

This may sound like the rant of an idiot. Maybe because I am one of the many uniformed (I wonder how many of us really have no clue. You know, the lost versus those who really know and can see through the political BS). To me the health care "debate"--if you can even call it that-- seems to be about these guys are mad about not being in charge and those guys are mad about these guys playing politics...and vice versa basically the thing that happens every four years or so.

I was talking to my kid the other day and we wondered what would smarter people with no agenda (other than fixing it) do. I told her "If I was in charge of it I'd do what I did as a manager back in the day. I would see what other successful managers were doing and I would get the people that have to deal with the issues involved in coming up with the fix." This may be happening already but where are the smartest people on our planet on this? Can we get MENSA and the guy who invented clock radios to have a crack at it? C'mon why don't we have a team of scientists (mad or mad light)working on this one issue as if a meteor was hurtling through the stars to b*tch slap the Earth to fix this?

See I told y'all I was an idiot... but I don't think I am alone.

p.s.
I missed y'all

Reader's Digest. Sad days indeed.

Reader’s Digest said Monday that some of its lenders had agreed to provide it with $150 million in financing to operate while in Chapter 11 protection. It expects to emerge from bankruptcy with $550 million in debt, down from $2.2 billion.

Of course we all chuckle when we hear about news websites wanting to transition to a pay-per-view model (but honestly, why shouldn't they?), but if anyone can do it, it will likely be Muroch.

However, a throw-in at the end of this article really caught my eye:

Earnings from cable networks rose by 31% to $1.67bn but the group's television division, including its Fox stations in the US and Star networks in Asia, saw profits fall from $1.12bn to $174m.

That's a BIG wow to me! An almost 90% drop in profits for the Fox network channels?? I can't believe that is not a huge story right now.

Troubling new news from the AIDS front...

A new strain of the virus that causes AIDS has been discovered in a woman from the African nation of Cameroon.

How widespread this strain is remains to be determined. Researchers said it could be circulating unnoticed in Cameroon or elsewhere. The virus' rapid replication indicates that it is adapted to human cells, the researchers reported.

In what is sure to be my newest favorite blog, Flip Flop Fly Ball combines two of my favorite things: baseball and infographics! Here's one showing just how insane the ticket prices are at some ballparks:

To be sure, the Van Meegeren story raises many, many questions. Among them: what makes a work of art great? Is it the signature of (or attribution to) an acknowledged master? Is it just a name? Or is it a name implying a provenance? With a photograph we may be interested in the photographer but also in what the photograph is of. With a painting this is often turned around, we may be interested in what the painting is of, but we are primarily interested in the question: who made it? Who held a brush to canvas and painted it? Whether it is the work of an acclaimed master like Vermeer or a duplicitous forger like Van Meegeren — we want to know more.

This is going to be an absolutely fascinating series...

At times, this my-way-or-no-way approach could even come at the expense of his soldiers. Shortly before the Iraq invasion, King Abdullah II of Jordan decreed that warplanes could not overfly his country if they had previously flown over Israel. The king’s demand meant that U.S. fighters would need to make a multiple-hour detour before proceeding to their targets. Rumsfeld had himself been a fighter pilot and presumably recognized the absurdity of the detour, and so one NSC aide approached him during a meeting in the Situation Room as the matter was being discussed.

“Excuse me, Mr. Secretary,” said the aide. “I want you to know that Dr. Rice is prepared to call the king to get that restriction removed so that our kids don’t have to fly the extra two and a half or three hours.”

History will not likely be treating Mr. Rumsfeld kindly.

The President doesn't have some broad, vague duty to "protect Americans." The Constitution really couldn't be clearer about the President's primary responsibility: it's to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. Sometimes, the duty actually assigned by the Constitution is consistent with the duty to Keep Us Safe, but many times, Constitutional imperatives are, by design, in conflict with the goal of maximum security.

I love Greenwald. He boils it down to the facts.

But I have a good excuse...