This topic has been moved by the moderator of this forum.
It can be found at:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...

Source: McClatchy Newspapers @ Yahoo News

Taliban -led insurgents in Afghanistan have devised ways to cripple and even destroy the expensive armored vehicles that offer U.S. forces the best protection against roadside bombs by using increasingly large explosive charges and rocket-propelled grenades, according to U.S. soldiers and defense officials.

At least eight American troops have been killed this year in attacks on so-called Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, and 40 more have been wounded, said a senior U.S. military official who, like others interviewed on the issue, declined to be further identified because of the issue's sensitivity.

The insurgents' success in attacking the hulking machines, which can cost as much as $1 million each, underscores their ability to counter the advanced hardware that the U.S. military and its allies are deploying in their struggle to gain the upper hand in the war, which entered its ninth year last month.

The attacks also raise questions about how vulnerable a new, lighter MRAP, the M-ATV, which is now being shipped to Afghanistan , are to the massive explosive charges that Taliban -led insurgents have been using against its bigger cousin.

The insurgents are also hitting MRAPs with rocket-propelled grenades that can penetrate their steel armor, according to U.S troops in Afghanistan , several of whom showed McClatchy a photograph of a hole that one of the projectiles had punched in the hull of an MRAP.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20091106...

Source: Bloomberg

U.S. stocks erased most of a 156- point rally in the Dow Jones Industrial Average after a House bill to curb credit-card rates spurred concern about bank earnings, outweighing the Federal Reserve’s plan to keep interest rates at a record low.

Wells Fargo & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. led financial shares to the steepest loss among 10 industries as the vote moved up the start date of many rule changes that will make it more difficult for lenders to raise rates on existing credit cards. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index wiped out most of a 1.5 percent rally triggered when the Fed said it will leave interest rates at “exceptionally low” levels.

“The credit-card regulation and regulation in general, how much Congress is going to clamp down on financial company activities, is important,” said Giri Cherukuri, who helps manage $1.5 billion at Oakbrook Investments in Lisle, Illinois. “To the extent that Congress keeps their hands off of things, that’s better for financial stocks and financial stock prices.”


Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...

---

I pay off my credit card every month on time - carry no balance - have never been late - i just received a modified credit card agreement in mail that jacked up my interest rate to 30% - the credit card companies are trying to lock in high rates for when the new regulations go into effect

Source: CNN MONEY

If a proposed 21% cut in payment rates goes through in 2010, it could spark a physician boycott against new enrollees


Medicare has become a scary word to the doctors at the largest private group practice in Kansas City, Mo.

It's so scary that most physicians at Kansas City Internal Medicine, with 65% of its nearly 70,000 active patients age 65 or older, have stopped accepting walk-in Medicare enrollees, said Dr. David Wilt, an internist at the group.

Wilt and his colleagues say they are shunning the area's growing senior population because they believe Medicare doesn't reimburse physicians enough to cover the cost of care.

"And if Medicare further cuts its reimbursement rates, then we'll be functioning at a loss," said Wilt.

Wilt -- and doctors with lots of senior patients -- are especially troubled by a 21% cut in Medicare payments to physicians scheduled to take place in 2010. Last week, the Senate voted against stopping that cut, and more annual cuts over the next decade, from taking place.

"If the (21%) cut happens, that cut in our payments will exceed our profits. The only option to us to stay in business will be to fire employees," Wilt said.

Physicians say a boycott against Medicare has already begun because they are tired of dealing with the yearly threat of a payment cut.



Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/27/news/econo...

Halloween is around the corner, and children will soon be dressing up and chanting "trick or treat," their demand for candy backed up by the threat of a prank. Climate change activists, from pranksters to presidents, are doing the same.

On Monday, the activist artist group The Yes Men staged another of its hoaxes, with one member posing as an official from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, leading what appeared to be a legitimate press conference and stating the chamber's complete reversal on its historically adamant opposition to climate change legislation. Meanwhile, in the Indian Ocean, the president of the Maldives held the world's first underwater Cabinet meeting, demonstrating that rising sea levels could very soon overwhelm his archipelago nation.

With the Copenhagen climate conference less than 50 days away, people are stepping up the pressure



Excerpt from The Cap Times @ http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/co...

You all know the theme to "The Addams Family." Sing it with me now: "They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky . . . "

OK, quick trivia question for you. What group sang that legendary finger-snapping theme song? I once asked that question of seven TV critics, and none of them knew.

The "group" was Vic Mizzy, the man who composed the memorable little ditty. Mizzy, who died Saturday at 93 at his Bel Air home in California, sang the song himself, then overdubbed his voice three times. It was just the kind of playful touch he was known for during his long career.


Excerpt from story @: http://www.cleveland.com/tv/index.ssf/2009...

The Swedes, those latter-day descendants of bloodthirsty Vikings, have found a new use for rabbits: heating fuel. According to Der Spiegel, stray rabbits in Stockholm are being shot, frozen and then shipped to a heating plant to be incinerated.

In the Swedes' defense, the bunnies are a menace; a plague of wild and stray pet rabbits is devouring the city's parks. Some 3,000 have been killed thus far this year, down from 6,000 last year, Tommy Tuvunger, a professional hunter who works for the city, told the German news magazine.

Converting the rabbits to fuel is the company Konvex, a subsidiary of the Danish company Daka Biodiesel, which makes automotive and heating fuels from vegetable and animal oils and fats. The Swedes have a variety of similar efforts, including turning slaughterhouse trimmings into biogas, a methane fuel that runs taxicabs in Linkoping in southern Sweden. And in the U.S., ConocoPhillips and Tyson have joined forces to make biofuel from pork and chicken fat, which is otherwise consumed as pet food or turned into cosmetics or soaps.

Bunnies, despite a felicity for breeding, are not quite abundant enough to be a reliable fuel so Stockholm also ships dead cats, cows, deer and horses to the plant for processing, Tuvunger told Der Spiegel. No word on whether the remains of man's best friend are also keeping Swedes warm this winter.

Excerpts.
Story at: http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/pos...

By declaring war on Baucus bill, AHIP will unleash Democrats (earlier held back by the White House) who want stronger measures like premium caps -- and it will stiffen spine of those demanding a public option.

Bottom line: The chances that some kind of public option will make it into the final bill have now increased.

Excerpt from ABC News video @ http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/10/he...

New cracks are opening in the relationship between President Barack Obama and his liberal allies in Congress over his desire to continue some Bush-era tactics against terrorism and his opposition to protecting reporters from revealing their sources in national security cases.

Some supporters are grousing that Obama, just like former President George W. Bush, is too willing to cite national security as a reason for invading Americans' privacy and restricting their right to know what the government is doing.

In recent weeks, the administration has asked Congress to extend key provisions of the USA Patriot Act that expire at year's end, sections that allow roving wiretaps on multiple phones, seizing of business records and a never-used authority to spy on non-Americans suspected of being terrorists even though they have no known connection to a recognized terrorist group.

Liberals have expressed a willingness to continue those practices, but they also are demanding restrictions on government surveillance and seizures and an increase in congressional scrutiny of government operations.

---- snip ----

On a bill to shield reporters from having to disclose their anonymous sources in federal court, the administration infuriated a chief Senate Democratic sponsor by eliminating a proposed judicial balancing test between national security secrets and the public's right to information.

"The administration's opposition to the core of this bill came as a complete surprise and doesn't show much concern for compromise," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., "This turns the bill's near-certain passage into an uphill fight."

The media shield bill, co-sponsored by Schumer along with chief sponsor Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., is partly a response to a judge's decision in 2005 to jail New York Times reporter Judith Miller for 85 days for refusing to identify the Bush administration officials who spoke with her about CIA employee Valerie Plame.



Excerpts from Associated Press story @ http://www.startribune.com/politics/643642...

If you're under 65, chances are you don't know a lot about a program known as Medicare Advantage. But you will be hearing a lot more about it soon. It has become a major front in the growing war that the insurance industry is waging on the Obama Administration's health reform effort. On Tuesday, the health insurance lobby launched a seven-figure ad campaign in at least a half-dozen states warning: "Congress is proposing over $100 billion in cuts to Medicare Advantage. ... Many seniors will see cuts in benefits."

So what should you know about Medicare Advantage?

The first thing to know, as Ezra Klein has noted, is that Medicare Advantage is not the same thing as Medicare. It is an option that Medicare beneficiaries have had since the 1970s to get their coverage through private insurance companies, rather than the government. It was a big favorite of the Republicans who ran Congress during the 1990s. They poured much more money into the program in hopes that more seniors would sign up with the insurance companies that were promising better service at lower prices. And it has proven to be a pretty sweet deal, at least for the insurance companies and the beneficiaries. For the government--well, not so much.


Excerpt from TIME @ http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/10/15...

In some ways, it's reminiscent of the 1980s, when competing black Democrats, some who couldn't stand one another, got in elbowing matches to stand closest to black presidential candidate Jesse Jackson.

Now U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has signed an anti-tax pledge at the state level. She says she signed a similar pledge at the federal level long ago. The new pledge came just after her fellow Republican, Gov. Rick Perry, whose job Hutchison wants, said Grover Norquist was coming to Texas to campaign with him.

Norquist is president of the anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform. He once said "My goal is to cut government in half in 25 years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Hundreds of lawmakers, mostly Republicans, have taken Norquist's pledge to "oppose and vote against any and all efforts to increase taxes."

---- snip ----

In a recent column, Shapleigh laid much of the blame for Texas' problems on Perry channeling Norquist and how that is playing out in the Republican gubernatorial primary.

"When the extreme wing of the Republican Party values tax cuts for the wealthy over good schools for our children, Texas loses," Shapleigh wrote. "Good government is of, by, and for people - and those irresponsible few who seek to starve government are really starving us."

---- snip ----

Texas, Shapleigh said, ranks 46th in Scholastic Aptitude Test scores and dead last in the percentage of the population 25 and older with a high school diploma. Only 64 percent of ninth-graders graduate from high school within four years, and only 35 percent enter college, Shapleigh said.

Even the Governor's Select Commission on Higher Education and Global Competitiveness, appointed by Perry, said Texas is badly lagging in developing an educated workforce, the senator noted.

"Texas is not globally competitive," the commission flatly declared in a January report. "The state faces a downward spiral in both quality of life and economic competitiveness if it fails to educate more of its growing population (both young and adults) to higher levels of attainment, knowledge, and skills. The rate at which educational capital is currently being developed is woefully inadequate."


Excerpts from Fortworth Weekly story at: http://www.fwweekly.com/index.php?option=c...

President Obama will again huddle with his national-security team on Wednesday to decide how many more troops — if any — to send to Afghanistan. But making the decision will be the easy part, the real challenge will be getting those extra boots onto the ground. If he ends up embracing Army General Stanley McChrystal's call for 40,000 more soldiers, deploying them in Afghanistan will take up to a year.

The first bottleneck between the Oval Office and Afghanistan is the country's lack of sea ports (the nearest harbor is some 400 miles away) and a dearth of airports. Beyond geography, the flow of troops is limited by the U.S. military's requirements for training and dwell time — R&R at home, between deployments. And then, perhaps most critically, there is the enemy. The Taliban's lengthening shadow across Afghanistan is making it increasingly difficult to supply the 65,000 troops there now or to send in reinforcements.

"We're resupplying between 30% and 40% of our forward operating bases by air because we just can't get to them on the ground," says a senior Army logistician, speaking on condition of anonymity, referring to the roughly 180 U.S. outposts around the country. That's because the Taliban control much of the "ring road," a circular route that links Afghanistan's few major cities. "Trucking contractors trying to supply some of them aren't making it," he adds. "The Taliban are just wiping them out." Such constraints will limit the flow of troops to Afghanistan to about one brigade — some 4,000 troops — a month.

Excerpt from article at TIME: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,...

U.S. officials must figure out what to do about an economy that is growing yet not generating enough jobs before they can shift their focus to dismantling their multi-trillion-dollar rescue programs.

Two deadlines are looming.

The first is the $12.1 trillion federal debt limit, which will soon be reached unless Congress agrees to lift it.

The second is the 2010 election season, when most members of Congress will be out on the campaign trail. If unemployment is still near 10 percent, as many forecasters predict, that will not sit well with voters.

Excerpt from article: http://www.reuters.com/article/ousivMolt/i...



Quote: "Most analysts expect Congress will ultimately lift the debt limit"