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They Be Squids, but They Be Good!

One of the most ironic aspects of our putative "Age of Obama" is how little impact it has had on the nation's urban geography. Although the administration remains dominated by boosters from traditional blue state cities--particularly the president's political base of Chicago--the nation's metropolitan growth continues to shift mostly toward a handful of Sunbelt red state metropolitan areas.

VIA EMAIL AND OVERNIGHT DELIVERY Assembly Member Dave Jones Chair, Assembly Health Committee State of California Assembly 915 L Street, Suite 110 Sacramento, CA 95814 Dear Chairman Jones: Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you and the members of your Assembly Health Committee last Tuesday. Committee members’ questions were, by and large, thoughtful, appropriate and aimed at getting to an understanding of the drivers of escalating premium costs. I am sorry I was not better able to answer questions regarding the Individual market; however, I am assured you will receive responses to your questions on those issues in...

Dem states less fiscally responsible? Duh!No, this is not a story about red states turning blue and then back again as the voters in those states realized the mistake they made in voting for Obama. This is a story about blue states being among the worst managed when it comes to finances. That won't surprise many readers who recall that the cities which have been controlled by Democrat machines are nearly all fiscal nightmares. The reason is easy: profligate spending, poor fiscal accountability and corruption. Political Litmus Test: Bluest States Spilling The Most Red Ink By Neil WeinbergForbes Feb. 25...

California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner says the insurer failed to pay medical claims on time and misrepresented policies from 2006 to 2009. The firm faces up to $7 million in fines. California's largest for-profit health insurer violated state law more than 700 times over a three-year period by failing to pay medical claims on time and misrepresenting policies to customers, the state's insurance commissioner said Monday. Anthem Blue Cross could face fines of up to $7 million stemming from the alleged violations from 2006 to 2009. Commissioner Steve Poizner said that the insurer repeatedly failed to respond to state regulators...

The electoral map candidate Barack Obama remade in 2008 appears to be retreating into its familiar patterns. Obama broke the decisive role Ohio and Florida seemed to play in presidential elections, by moving from trench warfare engagement in the two states to a broader battlefield on which Republicans were placed on the defensive in states they'd once taken for granted. And his victories in places where Democrats had fared poorly in recent elections — Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia, the interior West — seemed to validate his strategists' claims that he had consigned the red state-blue state presidential dichotomy to the...

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following statement is being issued today by Consumer Watchdog -- Anthem Blue Cross's announcement today that it will temporarily suspend a premium increase of up to 39% or more should not deter the California Legislature from taking immediate action to regulate health insurance premium increases, said Consumer Watchdog.

To my Children that are ready , that are calling on me even now , I AM and shall be your breakthrough !Merely shake off all these sacred cows , Fast the Earth completely , leave within your vessel only me , So that you may walk in my fullness as one with me , Take on my likeness in Spirit and Truth , Encourage others to walk as I do , For I AM the Resurrection , The Power , The Way , And it is in The Father's lap I desire you to stay , Do not look...

SUCH IS MY LOVE FOR THOSE IN MY WILL (A NEW MOON )7th day \o/ Posted on Monday, December 07, 2009 9:45:06 PM The substantiality of my wealth is in abundance that exceeds paradise for truly where ever I AM in you this quotient exists in a udepleteable manner and such is my Grace for those in my will . So watch now as I dress my children of light as Job and reward them even now for the trials and tribulations , " Yeah " the pathway of fire they have surrendered to for my name sake . Did...

For almost 50 years, astronomers have puzzled over the youthful appearance of stars known as blue stragglers... They shine brightly, they are older than they appear, and they have, disconcertingly, gained mass at a late stage of life... Now, Mathieu and Wisconsin colleague Aaron Geller, writing Dec. 24 in the journal Nature, show that blue stragglers, in most if not all cases, steal that mass from companion stars and that they sometimes do so by crashing into their neighbors, a scenario once thought far-fetched by astronomers. In the new Nature report, Geller and Mathieu show that the mass-gathering ways of...

Kathryn, re your Facebook friend who asks, "Can we officially retire the phrases 'blue dog' democrats and 'pro life' democrats? Because there is no such thing:" As I wrote back in the summer, "Put not your trust in Blue Dog Democrats." It was folly to bet the Republic on the likes of Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln and other "moderates" who are, by definition, trimmers and accommodationists.

Blue is sometimes not an easy color to make. Blue pigments of the past have often been expensive (ultramarine blue was made from the gemstone lapis lazuli, ground up), poisonous (cobalt blue is a possible carcinogen and Prussian blue, another well-known pigment, can leach cyanide) or apt to fade (many of the organic ones fall apart when exposed to acid or heat). So it was a pleasant surprise to chemists at Oregon State University when they created a new, durable and brilliantly blue pigment by accident. The researchers were trying to make compounds with novel electronic properties, mixing manganese oxide,...

Someone told me Hannity played this on his radio show a few days ago and he loved it.

Last Saturday night – at about 11:15 pm Eastern Standard Time – hyperliberal House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal) rammed her healthcare reform bill through with the smallest of margins. Pelosi needed 218 to get the bill passed, and she got all of 220, opponents registering 215.  In short, three votes pushed the Pelosicare through to the point where the Senate can now consider it or some other version of it. Where did those 220 votes come from?  Too many came from the so-called “Blue Dog Coalition” in Congress, a group of 52 Democratic representatives that claim to hold in high...

A butterfly species equipped with tiny ears on its wings can distinguish between high and low pitch sounds, possibly as a way to listen in on nearby birds, new research suggests. Scientists thought butterflies were deaf until 1912 when the first butterfly ears were identified. Only in the past decade or so have researchers examined the anatomy and physiology of butterfly ears, which they are finding to be quite diverse and present in several butterfly species. The latest discovery was made with the blue morpho butterfly (Morpho peleides), which dazzles with its bright-blue wing coloration when it flits about in...

The reservoir of Democratic support for legislation to stimulate the economy — while adding to the deficit — is drying up. Already faced with what many economists are labeling a jobless recovery, Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill are considering passing more measures to lower the nation’s highest unemployment rate in 26 years. Most of the fixes Democrats are eyeing would add to the budget deficit, which was recently estimated at $1.4 trillion. But fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats and the Democratic freshman class of 2008 are raising objections. Some members of these two factions reluctantly went along with the $787...

[THIS IS A GOOD OLE' FASHIONED VANITY] OK, so my son calls me from Auburn ... Right after downloading and installing the latest updates from our friends in Redmond, the OS crashes into a memory dump/ BSOD. Vista Home Premium 64 bit on an HP notebook duo core 2 quad etc etc. It'll boot and run in safe mode, but something Microsoft sent out conflicts BIG time. I called Geek Squad to set up an appt for him, and the gentleman at Geek Squad said they had been getting a LOT of calls about laptops crashing after a Windows update....

Preparing for the future under health care reform, the parent of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois will shed 650 jobs amid the economic downturn that has caused its employer customers to reduce employees and a demand from Congress and President Obama to reduce administrative costs. Chicago-based Health Care Service Corp, which operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas today confirmed plans to reduce its workforce by about 4 percent across the country. Jobs will be eliminated by the first quarter of 2010.

The typology study's finding of significant cleavages within parties not only runs counter to the widespread impression of a nation increasingly divided into two unified camps, but also raises questions about political alignments in the future. In particular, the study suggests that if the political agenda turns away from issues of defense and security, prospects for party unity could weaken significantly. As the following chapters detail, numerous opportunities exist for building coalitions across party lines on many issues currently facing the nation ­ coalitions that, in many cases, include some strange political bedfellows. Overall, there are many more shades to...

The Energy and Commerce Committee will resume its markup of healthcare legislation Wednesday afternoon under a deal between Blue Dogs and House leaders, but there will be no floor vote on the legislation before August. Delaying a vote until August was a key demand of the Blue Dogs, along with reducing the cost of the bill by $100 billion and allowing states to create health "co-ops" that would compete with the government-run "public option" and private insurers.