The United States fell from 15th to last among 19 industrialized nations on this measure from 2006 to 2008. The report estimated the U.S. health care system could save 100,000 lives if it matched Japan or France, the top performers.

This is what the current health care system has gotten us. The highest rates in the entire world and the absolute worst results in the industrialized world. The "insurance" system is a failure.

ABC News: U.S. Flunks Health Care Test -- Again

Republican Senator Dole introduced an amendment to name an HIV/AIDS relief bill after the recently deceased Jesse Helms. Helms, of course, was a strident foe of HIV/AIDS prevention, research and treatment.

Why don't we rename the Holocaust Museum after Adolf Eichmann while we're at it Liddy?

Elizabeth Dole Tries To Name AIDS Bill After Jesse Helms

Every year, after the AL manager addresses his team, Ichiro bursts from his locker, a bundle of kinetic energy, and proceeds, in English, to disparage the National League with an H-bomb of F-bombs, stunning first-timers who had no idea Ichiro speaks the queen’s language fluently and making returnees happy that they had played well enough to see the pep talk again.

Now this, I'd like to see, probably more than the game.

Update! Ichiro 8! National League 0!

Ichiro's speech to All-Stars revealed - MLB - Yahoo! Sports

Because the starting materials are affordable, relatively easy to scale up beyond a laboratory setting, and easy to retrofit to existing solar panels, the researchers believe the technology could find its way to the marketplace within three years. That, in turn, would substantially reduce the cost of solar electricity.

Cool.

Science Centric | News | Dye-coated glass to channel energy into solar cells

Bond prices fell sharply as investors worried a bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could dent the government's credit rating.

(emphasis mine)

That's an AP report. The GOVERNMENT'S credit rating??? This whole thing looks about one to two steps from 1929 free fall. Buckle up.

Paulson: No Bailout For Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

One said that Rosen asked at one meeting if carbon dioxide emissions from a tailpipe could be treated differently than those from a power plant, wondering if the molecules are different.

THIS is who is running the government. Fine, he's an economist, not a chemist, but good lord, my high school daughter knows more than these morons.

EPA Won't Act on Emissions This Year

This may come as a shock, but a prominent anti-homosexual Republican attorney general has apparently been caught having homosexual sex intercourse with his homosexual gay male assistant. Bonus: The dude’s wife caught him, in their bed. This is the rumor that the AG’s office has officially denied, so now of course everybody is spilling the sordid details.

I can't wait to see how this one finishes. (or to put this another way, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)

Wonkette: The D.C. Gossip » Anti-Gay Alabama A.G. Caught Being Gay

Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes, according to a new book on counterterrorism efforts since 2001.

As of January 20, W & co never get to leave the country again. There is no statute of limitations on war crimes.

Book Cites Secret Red Cross Report of C.I.A. Torture of Qaeda Captives - NYTimes.com

As news spread across the world of Iran’s provocative missile tests, so did an image of four missiles heading skyward in unison. Unfortunately, it appeared to contain one too many missiles

And the media gets had. Again.

In an Iranian Image, a Missile Too Many - The Lede - Breaking News - New York Times Blog

Heavy metal pollution near Norilsk is so severe that it is now economically feasible to mine the soil, which has been polluted so severely that it has economic grades of platinum and palladium.

Wow.

NASA - Norilsk, Siberia