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Another week of football, the Patriots still look unstoppable, in the NFC, or the JV, Dallas looks to be the early favorite. 

See Napoleons picks here 

This Boggles the mind:

Summary: Discussing his recent dinner with Rev. Al Sharpton at the Harlem restaurant Sylvia’s, Bill O’Reilly reported that he “couldn’t get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia’s restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it’s run by blacks, primarily black patronship.” O’Reilly added: “There wasn’t one person in Sylvia’s who was screaming, ‘M-Fer, I want more iced tea.’ “

See the whole artcle here

Looks like the Dollar is getting even lower when compared to the Euro.  I seem remember that at one point traveling abroad was cheaper because of the strength of the Dollar, not to mention the fact that a Ducati motorcycle used to be a bargain.  Now not so much.

The euro on Thursday hit a new record of 1.4006 dollars as US interest rate cuts took a new toll on the American currency.

Markets are also nervously awaiting statements on the American economy by US officials later in the day.

The euro has hit new highs regularly since the rate cut on Tuesday. It rose to 1.3988 dollars during Wednesday’s trading in Europe before falling back to 1.3949 dollars

see the story here.

Update: Al advised on 9/17/07 – Buy Gold – Junk Bonds

Looks like George Bush is starting to think about health care, maybe he is hoping it will make people forget about Iraq, or maybe it is his “only nixon can go to China moment” chances are he will screw it up and some how the only benificiary of the program will be Haliburton; but here is what he had to say:

President Bush would like to see some form of universal health coverage for all Americans before leaving office next year, a Cabinet official said Monday.

In an interview with the USA Today Editorial Board, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said Mr. Bush likely will veto a measure working its way through Congress that will add $35 billion over five years to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

But, Mr. Leavitt said, the president would “like to see the larger debate begin” regarding health care – an emerging issue in the next election.

“The very best opportunity we have may well be in the next 15 months,” he said.

See the entire article here 

Ezera Klien has a full discussion of Hilary Clinton’s health care proposal, this I think summarizes it well: 

Let me try and give a quick sketch of the Clinton proposal before I have to run for a meeting. Here’s the thumbnail: Clinton’s plan is of the “individual mandate” variety, in which universal coverage is achieved by mandating that every American purchase health care. In order to ensure that that’s both possible and affordable, the Clinton plan creates a few new coverage options, reform the insurance industry, limits coverage costs to a percentage of income, and washes your car.

Okay, it doesn’t wash your car. It does open the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program to everybody, ensuring that anyone can access the same menu of regulated private options that federal employees get. FEHBP is the program that already insures millions of current government employees, including the members of Congress, by offering a variety of regulated private options to choose from. Throwing the doors to that program wide open is the most basic and ubiquitous of coverage solutions.

This seems like a the mandatory insurance that I am required to carry on my car, but this may be a very workable plan and would make it much easier for people to get coverage, while at te same time making it possible for people who want a different plan to continue with whatever plan they like. This proposal seems like something that serious presidential candidate would think up to fix a problem. See the whole article here

Josh Marshall gives a very succinct summary of the presidents speech on Iraq:

But with respect to the president’s cartoonish babble, like I said, whatever. I know this reads like an expression of cynicism or disengagement. But while the president’s chatter, with its brainlessness and brazenness, drives many to distraction, I think this is the only appropriate response. Anyone watching what’s happening can see that what the president is talking about bears no relation to what’s actually happening in Iraq — a fact well confirmed by the fact that polls show no change in the public’s take on what’s happening in response to the president’s speech. Primitive animals will sometimes keep chattering or twitching their muscles even after their heads have been cut off. And that’s probably the best analogy today to the president’s continuing enunciation of his policies.

Read the entire discussion here

Slate has an article discussing the benefits of reducing the number of people born every year.  I am suprised that this this is so contraversial, it seems to make a lot of sense that if people had fewer children not only would the enviroment be better the people who are here would enjoy  better quality of life.   the whole article is worth a read but the argument for fewer children is made well in these paragraphs:

What’s the environmental cost of having a child? In the crudest terms, you’ve added another version of yourself into the world, which means you’re potentially doubling your carbon-dioxide emissions over the total life of your family. That’s a high estimate, since our kids won’t spew as much greenhouse gas as we do—automobiles, appliances, light bulbs, and everything else will become more efficient in coming generations. But these marginal improvements aren’t going to make our babies carbon-neutral. They’ll just contribute to global warming at somewhat lower rates than we do.

Our other green lifestyle choices can’t even begin to offset the cost of adding a brand-new CO₂-emitter to the population. When I ran my own numbers through Al Gore’s carbon calculator, I discovered that a switch to 100 percent wind and solar power would reduce my emissions by just 1.3 tons per year. That’s not even enough to account for one quarter of today’s average American. Meanwhile, I’d have to do quite a bit of driving around in a Hummer H3 to mimic the environmental impact of creating another version of me. Not to mention the fact that my children might eventually decide to have their own children, who would emit even more carbon dioxide down the line.

The article is here

Until now it has been taboo to discuss overpopulation, and it is a glaring problem that will hopefully start to get some attention.

For the AFC right now it looks like New England is the favorite and if Randy Moss does not turn into Randy Moss they should stay that way.  With Indianapolis as the likely runner-up and maybe San Diego has a chance to crash the party.

The NFC is wide open, with maybe Dallas as a favorite, if TO doesn’t figure out a way to destroy the team. (Al here – I had to repost this picture)

A Fresno man’s conviction for soliciting sex from a sheriff’s deputy in a Roeding Park restroom nearly five years ago was overturned by a three-judge panel, it was announced Thursday.But the ruling, which threw out the conviction of Stephen Lake, 51, did not address whether the bathroom stings were discriminatory because they targeted only homosexual activity. Instead, judges Donald Black, Kent Levis and Debra Kazanjian ruled that prosecutors did not establish that someone was likely to be present who would have been offended by Lake’s conduct, an element needed to prove a crime took place.

http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/131776.html