Season Premiere: Ghosthunters SCI FI Channel on Wednesday, March 11, at 9 p.m. ET/PT…
“We’re getting into more of the homes again, but we’re still doing the big locations,” said star Grant Wilson, who participated in a conference call with fellow ghost-hunting plumber Jason Hawes about the upcoming fifth season. “We’ve brought in new equipment, and that yields new types of evidence.”
“We got some strange things this year,” Hawes added. “We caught some great evidence and great visuals and great audio. Some other neat little things.”
…One of the coolest cases the team will investigate is at the Georgia Aquarium, the largest aquarium in the world, Wilson said. “And they have a traveling Titanic exhibit with actual artifacts from the Titanic,” he added. “And everywhere that goes, every museum that goes to, supposedly activity follows. So we caught up with it in Georgia, and I had just an interesting time there dealing with the Titanic artifacts.”
…Eight new episodes of Ghost Hunters will air this spring, with the remaining 17 episodes airing later in the year. “We’re looking for answers. We’re looking for the truth, and we’re also trying to help out as many people as we can,” Hawes said.
March 11, 2009. Tags: GH, Ghost Hunters, Ghosthunters, Grant Wilson, Jason Hawes, SciFi, TAPS, The Atlantic Paranormal Society. Entertainment, Fantasy, Popular Culture, Sci Fi, Uncategorized. Leave a comment.
Obama Healthcare Plan: Pushback on the Hill…Orszag’attacks’capitalism..Grassley fires back over proposed Medicare Advantage elimination…
Airtime: Tues. Mar. 10 2009 | 4:18 AM ET
A preview of the Senate’s scrutiny of the President’s plan for healthcare reform…and discussing the administrations involvement in business, with Sen. Charles Grassley, Senate Finance Committe ranking member (R-IA).
What you mean it isn’t all, ‘the days of wine and roses’? You mean once the Kumbayah Summit is over some Critters begin to balk at Health Care restructuring aka Medicare Cuts??No!
What happened to the magical rainbow ponies that mean old Hillary just didn’t understand how to work with? What, you mean some Critters don’t want to cut Medicare when most of their voters are Seniors? Really? Gee whoudda thunk it??
You mean you can start out trying to do something good for America, and get twisted inside out upside down and then lambasted for it? No!
You don’t suppose someone will later use this against Team Obama and the Dems as an ‘overreach’ in an election do you?! Nahhhh, Hey at least fellow DEM candidates won’t use it against Team Obama, cause that would be wrong! What’s that you say? Obama used Harry and Louise ads against Hillary in the primaries, modeled after GOP arguments against UHC? GASP!
BWAAAAHAAAAAAHAAAAAA!!!!!
AND THEY ARE GAMBLING IN RICK’S PLACE! SHOCKAH!!
…But, health care reform will happen in the halls of Congress, not at White House summits. And things were a bit more heated on Capitol Hill today when Obama’s Budget Director Peter Orzsag discussed health care reform with the Senate Finance Committee.
The budget proposed by the President, Grassley pointed out, would cut funding for Medicare Advantage programs by more than $170 billion. Seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage programs account for nearly a quarter of all Medicare enrollees, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
“Question, if we take $176 billion out of this Medicare Advantage program through plan bidding, how many of the ten million beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Advantage do you estimate would lose their current coverage?” asked Grassley.
The budget director took the opportunity to “take a step back” and consider the entire logic behind the Medicare Advantage programs, which are subsidized by the government.
Audio here
“First, I know many people believe that capitalism is founded on private markets, and it is. But I very firmly believe that capitalism is not founded on excessively high subsidies to private firms. That is what this system delivers right now,” said Orzsag. “For every Medicare beneficiary in Medicare Advantage, the federal government pay $1,000 more than covering the same beneficiary under traditional fee-for-service. In addition, it is true that Medicare Advantage plans then take part of that extra payment and deliver it in the form of either additional benefits or lower premiums to beneficiaries. But the data also suggests that every dollar of additional benefits costs the federal government $1.30 in cost. So what we’re doing is we’re all paying $1.30 in order to deliver a dollar to a subset, 20 percent, of Medicare beneficiaries. I don’t think that is competition. I think that is an unwarranted subsidy.”
The attack on the programs, which Grassley has championed, drew a heated response from Grassley.
“Well, you’re going to take half of my time lecturing me on capitalism,” said an agitated Grassley, “Can you answer — can you answer my question about how many of the ten million beneficiaries enrolled would you estimate would lose? And if you can’t give me a figure on the savings, how much comes from less enrollment versus less expenditures? At least tell me how many of the ten million you think will go because, in 2007, your agency that you headed at that time said that it would cause plans to leave the program and it would effect my area of the country, rural America, more than urban America. So I want to make sure that we — if we have a national system of health care, it’s going to deliver the same thing in Iowa as it does in California. Because, for 40 years, it didn’t.”
March 11, 2009. Tags: Alan Greenspan, Barack Obama, Casablanca, Chuck Grassley, Congressional Hearing, Congressional Leadership, Economy, Gambling in ricks place, Henry Mancini, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Jack Lemmon, Joe Clay, Lee Remick, Medicare Advantage, Medicare cuts, Medicare HMOs, Obama Administration, Obama Budget, Obama Health care plan, Obama Healthcare Plan, Obama Stimulus, Peter Orszag, Politics, recession, Rural Health Care, Sen. Jon Kyl, The Days of Wine and Roses, UHC, Universal Health Care, Wall St. Economy, Film, Healthcare, Hillary Clinton, Music, Obama Administration, Politics, Popular Culture, Uncategorized, Wall St. Leave a comment.
Europe to Larry Summers: Talk to the Hand…
We noted Monday that Larry Summers did an interview with the FT indicating the whole world must get behind the Team Obama, spend your way to fiscal stability model. This ahead of the coming G20 meetings…
Response from the Europeans? Talk to the Hand…(in German for our EU friends, nice to know the kool aid contamination isn’t global)
Sounds like Larry ‘the Ego’ didn’t bother to consult with anyone, just ran his mouth to the FT and let business media run with stories of global coordinated stimulus, which even Ben Bernanke was speaking about this morning at CFR….Problem is no one else in the world is on board, and in fact most finance ministers seem to want to go the other way…
From FT by way of The Corner:
European ministers said on Monday they had no plans to add to recent fiscal stimulus packages despite calls from the US for radical expansions in government action to boost ailing economies.
Notice the FT (or perhaps even worse, the finance ministers they interviewed) is calling the plans RADICAL EXPANSIONS..cause you know THEY ARE....I mean how bad is it when the socialized European tax and spend economies consider your policy a RADICAL EXPANSION OF GOVERNMENT ACTION??
Meeting in Brussels, finance ministers from the countries in the eurozone said they wanted first to see the effect of stimulus packages that had been passed. Peer Steinbrück, the German finance minister, said: “We are not debating any additional measures.”
Jean-Claude Juncker, chair of the “eurogroup” of ministers, said: “The 16 finance ministers agreed that recent American appeals insisting Europeans make an added budgetary effort were not to our liking.”
IOW don’t tell us what to do Team Obama. No New World Order for You!! Way to rekindle the LURB and admiration for America there Larry….
Lawrence Summers, senior economic adviser to Barack Obama, US president, told the Financial Times recently that the Group of 20 countries should agree to boost government demand. On Monday Christina Romer, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said: “The more that countries throughout the world can move toward monetary and fiscal expansion, the better off we will all be.”
But European ministers are concerned that building up more government debt would threaten the stability of the eurozone and say that they want to assess the effects of spending boosts that have already been passed before considering more. The US Treasury declined to comment on their remarks on Monday.
Also at The Corner, a note that the UK head of civil service has been calling the Treasury Department to make arrangements for the upcoming G20, and he said NO ONE IS ANSWERING THE PHONE AT TREASURY- LITERALLY.
…yesterday, Sir Gus O’Donnell, Britain’s most senior civil servant, exposed transatlantic tension when he protested that Downing Street was finding it “unbelievably difficult” to plan for next month’s G20 summit in London because of problems tracking down senior figures in the US administration. “There is nobody there. You cannot believe how difficult it is,” the Cabinet Secretary told a civil service conference in Gateshead.
Timmeh is busy on Charlie Rose…..It sounds like Treasury is a really bad version of Are You in the House Alone? Starring Little Timmeh….
Best part of all this is that it is almost certain that Obama will push Bernanke out in 2010 and install Summers as head of the Fed. What a clusterfrak…
March 11, 2009. Tags: Barack Obama, Christina Romer, Currency, Economic Stimulus, Economy, FEDERAL RESERVE, Finance, G20, Jean-Claude Juncker, Larry Summers, Lawrence Summers, Obama Administration, Obama Budget, Obama Global Stimulus Plan, Obama Stimulus, Peer Steinbrück, Politics, recession, TIMOTHY GEITHNER, Wall St. Cabinet, Economy, Finance, Obama Administration, Politics, Popular Culture, Taxes, Uncategorized, Wall St. Leave a comment.
ginaswo
