President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize.
CNN 
AFP 
Reuters

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called before dawn and woke Obama with the news that he had won the prestigious honor which was announced in Oslo at 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT). "The president was humbled to be selected by the committee," the official said.

When told in an e-mail from Reuters that many people around the world were stunned by the announcement, Obama's senior adviser, David Axelrod, responded, "As are we."

"(The American People) understand that if Barack Obama were somehow able to cure hunger in the world the Republicans would blame him for overpopulation"

"They understand that if Barack Obama could somehow bring about world peace they would blame him for destroying the defense industry."

"In fact, they understand that if Barack Obama has a BLT sandwich tomorrow for lunch, they will try to ban bacon."

At 2:00 pm today, the New England Journal of Medicine and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released a new report to the press (embargoed until 5 pm EST) summarizing the views of physicians on the contentious issue of the public option in a reformed health care system.

In a survey of  6,000 US physicians conducted in April of this year, which covered physicians across all geographic regions of the US and all specialties, researchers found overwhelming support for the public option offered as a CHOICE along side private health insurance plans in health insurance reform.

 

63% overall support public option and 10% support single payer = 73% support public plan

NEJM link to paper
Link to RWJ report
Story was just on All Things Considered on NPR.

USA = 37th in the World in Health Care

Help this Video Go Viral!!!


What doesn't make any sense = Tea Baggers Marching
FAIL

I had planned to write only one post today, but the news about South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford today is getting more bizarre by the minute and I just have to make sure everyone sees this. My daughter is moving to Columbia, South Carolina, in one month to go to Law School, and I'm beginning to think there may be a new Governor by then. Let's hope the professors at her school don't also go walkabout just for the heck of it.

I tried to write down all the bizarro world details of this, but just watch this from yesterday when everyone thought Mark Sanford had gone for a hike on the Appalachian Trail.

 

From Huffington Post

~ The Republican governor told the South Carolina newspaper he considering hiking, but at the last minute changed his mind.
"But I said 'no' I wanted to do something exotic," Sanford told the newspaper.

~ The governor's wife, Jenny Sanford, told The Associated Press she had not seen him since Thursday but was not concerned because he'd told her he wanted to get away and do some writing. "He was writing and wanted some time away from the kids."

~ "Unless he runs for president of Argentina, I think he has no chance of becoming president. The rest of the country wouldn't have taken him seriously anyway," said Dick Harpootlian, a former South Carolina Democratic Party chairman who rapped Sanford for "apparently taking off to run away from home like some hormone-infused adolescent."

From Daily Kos Comments

~ Appalachian Trial, Argentina... Such a natural mistake. I confuse them all the time.
Wait, what?
-Hudson

( More under the Cut... )

President Obama may be the world's most famous man but he became positively star struck in the presence of the Harry Potter author J K Rowling.

The President made a beeline for Miss Rowling, at the end of the Downing Street G20 dinner, and told her that he had read all her books himself and to his children Sasha and Malia.

Miss Rowling then received a second presidential seal of approval for the boy wizard from Russia's President Medvedev and his wife Svetlana, who not only admitted to having read the Harry Potter books but also asked for her autograph.

. . . As talk of a $1 trillion bail-out dominated Thursday's G20 conference, Mrs Brown took the wives to the Royal Opera House for a morning of high culture. J K Rowling, who wore a pale pink shift dress, read extracts from her latest book, The Tales Of Beedle The Bard which was a best-seller last year.

Los Angeles,03/04/2009 00:09:41

FIRST LADY: We just love your Harry Potter books.
JK ROWLINGINNIT: Well, thank you.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yes, and could the USA have a few million sub? To see us to Friday?

Pal Flogs Gifts from JK on eBay"
~ Headline from the Scottish Sun about a friend of JKR's selling personal gifts from pre-fame days including include a signed sketch, a humorous list of potential baby names, and a hand-made invitation to her daughter Jessica's third birthday party.

"These three items all come from a family friend of Rowling. At least they were at the time when the items were given as gifts — but we gather Ms Rowling is not pleased that they have been resold.”
~ Bookseller Adrian Greenwood's appraisal of the situation listed on his eBay store as quoted in the Scottish Sun

( The rest under the Cut... )

( See the Quotes Under the Cut )

"He is much prettier and can be much more charming. And he can do that thing of being sultry and sexy. Rob can just sort of stand there and look at something and start to smoulder. And I just can't do that. I'm a natural fidget."
~ Dan Radcliffe, on the difference between himself and "Twilight" star Robert Pattinson, quoted Here

"I haven't read the last (Harry Potter) book, because I stopped reading the books when I started to feel upset that some of my favorite scenes weren't in the movies," he says with a chuckle. "I decided I'd read the last few books when the films are finished, so I wouldn't be badgering (producer) David (Heyman) by email all day going, 'Why isn't this bit in there with Lucius?' "
~Jason Isaacs, who plays Lucius Malfoy, quoted Here

"It's good that Disney is separating itself from 'Narnia.' ....It just wasn't a good fit. What, are they going to re-enact the Passion of the Lion in a Disney theme park? 'Stab the lion right on Main Street!' Especially since Narnia is so overtly Christian, whereas Disney is more secular."
~ Brandon Gray, founder of Box Office Mojo, quoted Here talking about the fact that Fox Studios has "rescued" the Narnia franchise from Disney, who had decided to stop making movies based on those books

"It's a great day for Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is continuing on that media tour he's doing. Yesterday, he was on 'The View,' the 'Today' show, and 'Good Morning America.' Today, his hair was on 'Animal Planet' and 'Unsolved Mysteries.'"
~ Craig Ferguson, quoted Here

( Read more... )

"As an exciting year of unpredictable change begins, we, too, have our work cut out for us. And we’re all in this together. . . Kind of like Alaska’s Musk… Musk ox. You know how they all… they circle up, when they’re challenged. When their young are challenged. When they’re challenged, their future. They circle up, and that’s what we gotta do."
~ Alaska Governor Sarah Palin comparing the citizens of her state to a herd of Musk Oxen on the tundra, in her 2009 State of the State Address, video found on The Political Carnival Blog

“It’s unfortunate for Vice President Cheney to have had this accident....There will be those who don’t like him, who will be writing tomorrow that he had a Dr. Strangelove appearance as he appeared today in his wheelchair. It’s not something he’ll be happy about.”
~ NBC’s Tom Brokaw during live coverage, January 20, quoted Here

"The new season of 'Lost' kicked off tonight. If you haven't seen it, 'Lost' is about a group of desperate people out of touch with the world. It's based on the true story of the Republican Party."
~ Craig Ferguson, quoted in Political Humor

"I won."
~ Obama speaking to Republican Congressional Leaders on Friday, Jan. 23, 2009

"I disagree fervently with the people on our side of the aisle who have caved and who say, 'Well, I hope he succeeds. We've got to give him a chance.' Why? . . . I hope he fails." (interruption) "What are you laughing at? See, here's the point. Everybody thinks it's outrageous to say. Look, even my staff, 'Oh, you can't do that.' Why not? Why is it any different, what's new, what is unfair about my saying I hope liberalism fails? Liberalism is our problem. Liberalism is what's gotten us dangerously close to the precipice here."
~ Rush Limbaugh on his Radio Show,

“You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done."
~ Obama, again speaking to Republican Congressional Leaders on Friday, Jan. 23, 2009

“He’s managed to anger, in one fell swoop, the Kennedys, the Cuomos and the Clintons,” the consultant said, arguing that Ms. Kennedy’s family would be furious at the governor over the leaks against her, Mr. Cuomo at being passed over for the job, and Mrs. Clinton at the governor’s willingness to consider Ms. Kennedy in the first place after she endorsed Barack Obama in the presidential race last year.
“That’s a pretty good trifecta,” the consultant added.
~ Consultant quoted in The New York Times, speaking about New York Governor, David Paterson, who spent weeks making up his mind about who to nominate to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate; he first seemed to choose Caroline Kennedy, then suddenly gave the seat to conservative Democrat, Christine Gillibrand

"I thought about Mandela, Dr. King and Gandhi and tried to put some perspective to all this and that is what I am doing now. . . . I could bring in 15 angels and 20 saints led by Mother Theresa to testify and it wouldn't matter."
~ Governor Blagojevich of Illinois, in an interview taped for Monday's The Today Show on NBC, while facing Impeachment on Monday for trying to sell Obama's Senate seat 

Now, I like old movies and I like old cowboy movies, and I want to explain how these rules work in a more understandable way. There was an old saying in the Old West. There was a cowboy who was charged with stealing a horse in town. And some of the other cowboys, especially the guy whose horse was stolen, were very unhappy with that guy. And one of the cowboys said, "Let's hang him." Then the other cowboys said, "Hold on. Before we hang him, let's first give him a fair trial. Then we'll hang him." Under these rules, I'm not even getting a fair trial. They're just hanging me. And when they hang me under these rules, that prevent due process, they're hanging the 12 million people of Illinois who twice have elected a governor.
. . . he was on the ranch with six other cowboys herding cattle and roping steers, and then he expects that when his day comes to go to court he can bring those six cowboys to say it wasn't him because he wasn't in town, he was on the ranch herding cattle -- even if he could bring those cowboys in to say that, under these rules, under 8B, it wouldn't matter. The complaint that charged him with stealing the horse would convict him because you can't challenge it and you can't have a chance to be able to contest it. Again, not fair; in fact, worse: trampling on constitutional rights.
~ Blagojevich in a Friday Press Conference using a confusing metaphor for his predicament

This is a dumb process. Senate vacancies ought to be filled by elections. The way I read the 17th amendment to the Constitution, and I do read it, I think that's the way it's supposed to be Constitutionally as well, but only nine states do it that way. The rest let the Governors give out these jobs like they're Queens picking the Knights of the Round Table, or something!
We are Americans! . . . Let Governor Blagojevich and all his cowboys be the poster children for taking this amount of power out of one person's hands. The Senate should not be this embarrassing.
~ Rachel Maddow on MSNBC after listening to Governor Blagojevich's extended cowboy metaphor, but also referring to the New York Paterson-Kennedy fiasco

( Videos of the Madness Under the Cut )

( Read the Quotes Here . . .  )

“For ....we can make liquor to sweeten our lips
Of pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips.”
~ Henry David Thoreau, 'Walden' (1854)

"I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in
my neighbourhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed
them and took their land."
~ Jon Stewart

"This was neat . . . you need a little bit of levity in this job,especially with so much that has gone on the last couple of months that has been so political, obviously, that it's nice to get out and do something to promote a local business and just participate in something that isn't so heavy-handed politics that it invites criticism. Certainly we'll probably invite criticism for doing this too, but at least this was fun.
~ Governer Sarah Palin of Alaska, while an employee of the local Wasilla turkey farm beheaded a couple of birds in a death machine right behind her (See video below the cut)

"(remarking on the story above) But, see, like most internet stories, a little half-true. Turns out that, after a couple of minutes listening to Sarah Palin's voice, the turkeys said 'Kill us now.'"
~ Jay Leno

"Bless the grocer for this wonderful meat, the middleman who jacked up the price, and let's not forget the humane but determined boys at the slaughterhouse."
~ Ned Flanders, The Simpsons' devout neighbor

Got no check books, got no banks. Still I'd like to express my thanks - I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.
~ Irving Berlin, songwriter, about a depressed economy eerily similar to present day

“Well, art is art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh... Now you tell me what you know.”
~ Groucho Marx,  Animal Crackers

"The 'Snape is Evil' crowd is currently having lunch with the Harmonians."
~ Wimsey on Chamber of Secrets Forum, explaining where fans with debunked theories go for Thanksgiving

WILLOW: Buffy, earlier you agreed with me about Thanksgiving. It's a
sham. It's all about death.
BUFFY: It is a sham, but it's a sham with yams. It's a yam sham.
WILLOW: You're not gonna jokey-rhyme your way out of this one.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
SPIKE: Hey, when do I get fed?
BUFFY: Later. I hope the others are ok.
SPIKE: You know what happens to vampires who don't get to feed?
GILES: I always wondered that.
BUFFY: Giles, plates.
SPIKE: Living skeletons, mate. Like famine pictures from those dusty
countries, only not half as funny.
BUFFY: You can have gravy. That has blood in it, right?
SPIKE: Do you know what else has blood in it? Blood.

~ Both quotes from "Pangs," Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 4