Obelisks, insurance, taxes and such

Obelisk damaged by air pollution getting more concern than people of New York breathing corrosive air

Egypt Threatens Removal of Ancient Central Park Obelisk

LiveScience.com Andrea Leontiou
“If the Central Park Conservancy and the City of New York cannot properly care for this obelisk, I will take the necessary steps to bring this precious artifact home and save it from ruin." So states a letter from Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities
Hawass wrote Mayor Bloomberg, "Recent photographs that I have received show the severe damage that has been done to the obelisk, particularly to the hieroglyphic text, which in places has been completely worn away….”

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Why do tax increases get laid on working people through decrease in benefits but wealthy keep decrease in their taxes

House Republicans challenge Obama on debt limit–
By DAVID ESPO and ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press – Thu Jan 6, 11:10 pm ET
WASHINGTON – In power scarcely a day, House Republicans bluntly told the White House on Thursday its request to raise the nation's $14.3 trillion debt limit will require federal spending cuts to win their approval, laying down an early marker in a new era of divided government.
Speaker John Boehner made the challenge as the new GOP majority voted to cut funding for House members' own offices and committee operations by $35 million. Rank and file Republicans described that vote as a mere down payment on a much more ambitious assault on record federal deficits.

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Radical challenge to basic principle of insurance-spread the risk

Health Care Reform in Cross Hairs: Could it Survive Without Individual Mandate?
Lind Feldmann, The Christian Science Monitor: "Supporters of President Obama's health-care reform are holding their breath as legal challenges to the individual mandate - the requirement that by 2014 virtually every American purchase health insurance or face penalties - work their way up to the US Supreme Court. The mandate, they argue, is essential to creating a big enough pool of healthy individuals to cover the insurance industry's rising costs, because the law requires that insurers take all comers, regardless of preexisting conditions."

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Obama’s choice shows he’s no Truman

Signaling a desire to steer the West Wing in a new direction, President Obama announced today that he's tapped former Commerce Secretary Bill Daley as his next chief of staff.
Already, the Daley pick has won praise from one high-profile Obama foe during the 2010 campaign: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which previously worked with Daley on financial deregulation efforts. Tom Donohue, the chamber's president called Daley a "accomplished manager and a strong leader." "This is a strong appointment," he said.

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Owners may really have prior rights to lenders--show me the beef

Top Massachusetts court rules against foreclosing banks
On Friday January 7, 2011, 11:55 am
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Massachusetts' highest court voided foreclosures on two homes because the banks that tried to take title failed to show they held the mortgages at the time of foreclosure.
The ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court on Friday upheld a lower court ruling against U.S. Bancorp and Wells Fargo & Co.
It may cause other foreclosure sales to be invalidated, especially where lenders may not have all of the underlying documentation.

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Why not take fraction of U.S. money burned in Afghanistan and buy and burn poppy crop

Opium Production in Afghanistan: Strong and Corrupt as Ever
Nadia Prupis, Truthout: "Efforts by the United Nations (UN), the US military and the Indian government to curb opium production in Afghanistan since 2007 have been largely ineffective, due in large part to the ties between the drug trade and the Taliban. Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium, the raw material harvested from poppies to make heroin, as well as alkaloids like codeine and morphine. According to two cables released this month by WikiLeaks, Afghanistan's supply of opium exceeds the world's demand for heroin, with its unsold stock currently totaling 12,400 tons. Taliban-linked drug cartels emerging along the southern border of the country, where 99 percent of production takes place, influence the majority of poppy cultivation by coercing farmers into growing the crops for a strong and well-supplied insurgency."

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Ploy to drive off the challengers

DNC chair: Obama unlikely to face Democratic challenger
(CNN) – President Obama is not likely to face a primary challenge from within the Democratic Party in 2012, the chair of the Democratic National Committee said Sunday.
"It's possible, but I think the likelihood of any challenge to the president is virtually nil, and I think the president's strong performance, and especially the three major accomplishments at the end of the year make it even smaller," DNC chair Tim Kaine said on CNN's "State of the Union.