White House Budget Director Peter Orszag on Blogging

From The White House:

Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag discusses the value of blogs and plans for his own blog at http://www.OMB.gov

I'm glad to see the White House embrace blogging but I think bloggers should be on the press contact list.

President Barack Obama - 3/7/09: Your Weekly Address

From The Whitehouse:

President Obama capped off a busy week in Washington remarking on new lending guidelines aimed at lowering mortgage payments; an initiative to generate funds for small business and college loans; the release of his administration's first budget which includes $2T in deficit reduction; and the start of long overdue health care reform

New Star Trek Movie Messes-Up San Francisco's Skyline

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Also read about SF Giants Opening Day: The Party Economy At SFGate.com

I'm looking forward to the new Star Trek movie and the great story and special effects, but I'm not looking forward to how the movie treats San Francisco. It messes up the San Francisco Skyline, making it look like Hong Kong.

If you take a good look at the trailers for the movie, they show how San Francisco will look 300 years from today in the J.J. Abrams version of the Star Trek Universe.

The scene that I focus on in the video above shows what I argue -- but one other disgrees with -- is the San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge. They claim it's the Golden Gate Bridge side, but that's not the point. The point is, the buildings are hundreds of times larger than the structures of today. Question: would San Francisco culture allow such skyscrapers to be created? My answer, and the SFist agrees, is no.

This has caused a fire storm of controversy, and even on my YouTube channel Zennie62, nasty comments, with some calling me names like "douche" and even some racial slurs, sadly. I've removed and banned about 30 accounts to date because of that. We can agree to disagree, but the flaming I will not tolerate.

Period.

Plus, it masks the main point: futurists tend to ignore culture over technology when looking forward and Star Trek is a great example. Now other Trekkers have explained that a nuclear war gave way to a new San Francisco Bay Area, but that doesn't mean people would not want to protect the Bay and our beauty. I just can't see that happening. San Franciscans have fought the "Manhattanization" of the city for years, why should they stop after a nuclear war?

The reality is San Francisco would fight to maintain it's human scale, even in the 23rd Century.

Obama's single-payer health care beats socialized medicine.

Why all the fuss about single payer? Because nearly 1/3 of the health care dollar goes to overhead, currently, while Medicare keeps costs in the 2-3% range. Administering health care is something the U.S. government can do VERY efficiently compared to private insurers, partly because ad campaigns, salaries & bonuses aren't allowed to be outrageous.

The only ones who stand to lose are insurance companies and their overpaid execs - even doctors are on-board with this concept.

Do you know what the estimate is for the money that could be saved on paperwork alone? $350 BILLION per YEAR. On paperwork to keep the plethora of insurance forms filled out. All so non-medically trained bureaucrats can make decisions about how much to pay for medical procedures versus how much to pay the insurance executives.

Duke Medical has a ratio of one billing clerk PER hospital bed in their system just to cope with all the insurance forms and rules. That's plain got to stop.

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David Frum Says Obama Has Advantage Through 2010

David Frum says that President Obama has an advantage in that he can blame the Bush Administration through 2010. Frum, a conservative, also says that Rush Limbaugh is the figurative head of the Republican Party.

Who's killing the DJIA? Boskin needs a mirror before blaming Obama's budget.

Investors are skittish. Any news about GM, or AIG, or retail sales being weak, or below forecasts, etc., causes them to react. Michael Boskin wants you to hear that Obama's killing the DOW.

Knowledgeable traders with years of experience are killing the DJIA as they react to the aftershocks of the policies Michael Boskin wants to retain. The DOW is a symptom, it's a measure. He's gone so far as to submit his fear-mongering to the Wall Street Journal, the very same place all the practitioners of derivative voodoo look to when they want to read the tea leaves.

Investors react to fear-mongering by losing confidence - and selling off their stock, which fuels the fears that Boskin has already stoked. When Obama warned people that the other side would use fear to attain their goals, I wonder if he anticipated somebody willing to extend the economic crisis that is causing such suffering in the middle class?

Obama isn't killing the DOW by trying to reverse the momentum of the U.S. economy; we can't survive Boskin's idea, which is to sit by and hope it gets better. That's not how hope gets used, but it's apparently how Boskin uses the WSJ.

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Martha Stewart and Lucaris Have Lunch - Seriously

One interesting aspect of taste maven Martha Stewart's life is that she keeps company with some hip members of American Culture, one of them is rapper Ludacris, who had lunch with Martha on March 4th. Here's what Martha wrote on "The Martha Blog ":

Here I am having Lunch yesterday with Ludacris (Chris Bridges). We had a nice salad, paella, and chocolate cake for dessert. He is a nice young man and very, very busy. He is extremely excited about his new flick and new album. Ludacris also really liked the chocolate cake!

But why is this not part of her overall image?  A good question that begs for an answer! 

Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn) Thinks You Should Die If Your Poor

More at Video Cafe” Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn) thinks health care is something for the rich, calling it a "privilege" on MSNCB. I can't figure out what's worse, the comment or the fact that he was serious about it. Is this the kind of person Tennessians want representing them when they need access to health care?

Chevron Wins in Judge's Decision To Deny New Bowoto v. Chevron Trial

 This was a major victory for Chevron, which was falsely accused of violating the civil rights of Larry Bowoto and bis friends in the Niger Delta region.  Here are my thoughts:

 Here's the news story as seen in the SF Chronicle:  

A federal judge on Wednesday upheld a San Francisco jury's verdict that cleared Chevron Corp. of wrongdoing in the shootings of Nigerian villagers who occupied an offshore oil barge in 1998 to protest the company's hiring and environmental practices.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, who presided over the four-week trial in November, denied a request by the villagers' lawyers for a new trial and ruled that there was evidence to support the verdict.

About 150 tribesmen from the oil-rich Niger Delta occupied a barge tethered to Chevron's Parabe platform in May 1998, saying the company's Nigerian subsidiary had refused to meet with them and hear their complaints that drilling and dredging were polluting their wells and killing trees and fish.

The villagers said they were unarmed and peaceful, but Chevron's witnesses said the protesters threatened violence, held crew members hostage and demanded ransom. After three days of negotiations, Chevron summoned Nigerian security forces, who killed two men and wounded two others.

The suit was filed under a law passed by the first Congress in 1798 that allows foreigners to seek damages in U.S. courts for violations of international human rights.

On Dec. 1, a nine-member jury unanimously rejected the plaintiffs' claims that Chevron was responsible for assault, inhumane treatment, torture and wrongful death.

Chevron has asked Illston to order the villagers to reimburse the company for $485,000 the company spent defending against the suit. The judge did not address that request in Wednesday's ruling.

In seeking a new trial, plaintiffs' lawyers said Chevron never contradicted testimony that three villagers were shot, beaten or tortured without justification. But Illston said jurors could have had doubts because of contradictions in the testimony.

She also said the jury could have found that the company was not responsible for the actions of military forces, citing Chevron testimony that its Nigerian subsidiary did not control the security forces and that its main concern was the safety of its workers.

Chevron, based in San Ramon, said it was pleased with the ruling. Plaintiffs lawyer Theresa Traber said the villagers would appeal.

Zane Vergie - CNN REPORTER LIVE "Peanuts" Error

I think someone may have messed with Zane Vergie's teleprompter. In this video she replaces Peanuts with another word that describes an organ.

Bi-partisan support for Volunteerism: the Serve America Act

Citing links between unemployment and murder rates, among others, two Congressmen (one Dem, one Rep) demonstrate that violent crime rates are tied to relative poverty - and the U.S.A. ranks highest among developed nations in its inequality levels and poverty rates. We've got a problem. They're supporting the bi-partisan Kennedy-Hatch SERVE AMERICA ACT. Are you?

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Michael Jackson? CNN, I Will Not Impersonate Michael Jackson

The CNN iReport team came up with this wild idea to ask iReporters to dance like Michael Jackson.  I'm not going to do that.  No way.  I have a reputation to protect.  So as you can see in this video, I protect my image:




Click for CNN iReport version here.