Representative John Murtha, a strong opponent against the war in Iraq has died at age 77.

Since this topic is going to get a lot of airplay, I thought I would go fact-finding with an open mind.

Medical care suits are about 5% of personal-injury filings. Plaintiffs lose 70% of malpractice suits, and even those that win have many cases overturned or damages reduced (or eliminated) on appeal.

Less than 4 percent of tort actions are decided by a jury verdict. I found that interesting.

An insurance industry survey found no difference in malpractice insurance rates in states that had capped damages, versus states without caps. Total cost represents about 0.6% of total health care spending, and almost none of the increases. (http://www.utexas.edu/news/2005/03/10/law/).

According to J. Robert Hunter, federal insurance administrator under Presidents Ford and Carter, caps don't work because liability rates reflect not litigation costs but the insurance industry's own practices. During good times, insurers write policies even for the worst risks to generate cash for investment. When the stock market tanks, rates climb steeply to cover losses. This probably explains the current (sudden) interest in tort reform.

The last big push towards tort reform coincided with the brunt of asbestos lawsuits (if you recall, Cheney's company had significant exposure to asbestos lawsuits, which they shed by splitting up the company).

Although asbestos caused 170,000 deaths from lung cancer, the Environmental Protection Agency was never able to ban it. Lawsuits forced it from the market. (Isn't that the free market at work???)

Summary:
Tort reform is asking you to SIGN AWAY YOUR FREEDOMS in exchange for... really a tiny financial benefit, if any.

I propose a deal that if all conservatives would sign a contract forgoing their rights to sue for the next four years, and we see a 10% drop in health care costs, then we'll vote to enact it into law.

I have a TVA "Energy Right" home auditor headed this way Wednesday morning. For $150, he will conduct a 1 1/2 to 2 hour inspection of my home, then produce a slate of recommended energy improvements in priority order. If I chose to undertake any of his recommendations (I know we need duct cleaning and sealing, although only the sealing qualifies as an "improvement"), within 90 days of the audit and using one of TVA's recommended contractors, TVA will offer a "cash incentive" to reimburse 50% of my costs ($500 maximum). Details here: http://www.tva.gov/ee/in_home_eval.htm

This incentive is over and above any energy efficiency improvements I may undertake that qualify for IRS tax credits to reimburse 30% of my costs ($1,500 maximum) through December 2010. Details here: http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=206871,00.html

Anybody have any personal experience with the TVA program? Wonder why I need to use TVA's recommended contractor? Think I should get a second quote from someone not on their list (I'm inclined)?

Scott Barker files this report...

Just sent this to all the commissioners who have email (i.e. not commissioners Jack Sharp and Robert M. Lobetti)

I also told them that I was posting this here on knoxviews and encouraged them to respond here.

I think all I need is someone with a "power snake" that can unclog a drainpipe.

Any and all recommendations welcome.
Thanks in advance

Bond rating agency Moody's on Wednesday warned that the triple-A rating of U.S. treasury bonds could be in peril unless the U.S. reduces its federal budget deficit or the economy rebounds.

"Absolutely not," Mr. Geithner said in an interview with ABC News's "This Week" when asked about the prospect of the U.S. losing its top rating. "That will never happen to this country."

Why does Geithner not give me confidence? Why does Moody's want to manipulate the economy with scare tactics?

Jon at Left Wing Cracker predicts that Rep. Steve Cohen will lose the 9th district Congressional seat (but it will stay in the D column with Herenton) and that it will be Kyle v. Haslam for governor and Haslam will win. Read more...

Speaking of Left Wing Cracker, Steve has launched a new project, Speak to Power, to highlight Tennessee progressive issues.

The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development released the following layoff reports:

• MAPA Spontex is closing its Columbia TN (Maury Co.) operations affecting 132 workers starting 3/19/2010 through 6/30/2010. The company makes specialty industrial protective gloves and cleaning products. According to news reports, the French-owned company had previously sold off several of its consumer products divisions.

• Discover Financial Services is closing a Memphis call center, affecting 83 workers starting 4/1/2010 through 6/1/2010.

• The Shelby County Health Dept. is laying off 12 employees.

Based on the Super Bowl commercials tonight, you wouldn't guess that any women watch the Super Bowl, or actually care about football.
...
who would've thought that the Tim Tebow abortion ad would actually be one of the less sexist ads tonight?

Thanks to Silence Isn't Golden. I wonder how the ads did in the ratings.

Great game, epic upset!

What a game! The Saints pulled it off.

I like Peyton and the Colts, but this makes me happy!

A little worried about their opening, but in the end they pulled it out and rocked the Super Bowl. (The Mrs. noted, though, that you didn't actually see Roger Daltrey do the scream.)

UT Issues Committee presents Gen. Wesley Clark speaking on "United States Military, Military Politics, War and the Media"

Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Cox Auditorium (opposite the University Center)
7:30 pm
FREE admission

A little Midway snark

"For dessert, we have several possibilities," said Shush. "Here's something jee-est a little bit different: A giant Swiss-cheese-and-sorghum-covered pretzel, inspired by the MPC's and KCDC's never-ending, labyrinthine attempts to justify forcing an industrial park on the karst-ridden terrain of the community of Midway. Just a little bite of this snack will fill you up, and you'll get tired of it fast, but once you pick it up, you can't put it down."

A small correction - it's not KCDC, but rather The Development Corporation of Knox County (TDC) who is planning the industrial park. All the acronyms tend to run together after a while.

I wonder how much of this industrial park push is because they don't know how to acknowledge that they made a multi-million dollar mistake?

What are the 3 things that need to get done once we have a conservative majority, Sarah Palin?

Greg Jones wins at the internet today. Stefan Sirucek at Huffpost had the scoop, but "Alaskan palm pilot"? Winner.

Sarah Palin Hijacks The Tea Party Movement:

But the media now have their definition of what it means to be Tea Party. This convention gave them simplistic nativism, birtherism, media bashing, homophobia, and a heavy dose of neoconservative foreign policy.

That is the image of tea partydom that Judson Phillips poured out to the eager media this weekend and is now percolating through the many channels of mass and new media.

By Monday afternoon, it will begin to harden and the tea party movement will be Sarah Palin’s movement.

Kleinheider eulogizes the Tea Party movement, which Judson Phillips "held down" while "Sarah Palin drove a stake right through its heart" on live TV.

The more rational part of me didn't want to believe that the 2008 financial crisis was engineered by the Illuminati and its puppet Bush regime as a parting gift to the incoming socialist apparatchiks. Yet nagging suspicions remained, particularly with regard to the impeccable timing and the resulting political fallout that elevated even lesser, poorly crafted and expendable marionettes of mass distraction like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck to the national stage, imparting folk hero status no less.

I read books (House of Cards, a look at the personalities and the gamesmanship, and Too Big to Fail, a relatively sterile AP stylebook chronicle of events with some looks behind the scenes based on contemporaneous emails and notes), in hopes of understanding what happened. These books sort of answer what happened, but, for me at least, didn't pin down the "how" or "why."

A more cynical person might long ago have concluded that the disaster was engineered as one last frat boy raid on the Treasury liquor cabinet before the cops came to shut down the party. So that would be the "why." But the question remains: How? Who pushed what little red button to activate what weapon of mass financial destruction as they ran out the back door?

This article may be the final piece of the puzzle, or at least provide clues between the lines.

Meanwhile, the Masters of the Universe have retreated to the caves (which for some are corner offices at the Treasury and the Federal Reserve), waiting for the political carpet bombing response that never came. The marionettes, strings once connecting them to the Invisible Hand severed, continue twitching and flailing about on stage with reflexive muscle memory. And disaster victims gather in places like Nashville to idolize the marionettes and deify the "free market" grifters who wiped out their 401Ks.

OK, then.

</tinfoilhat>

Apartheid Education

The study's key findings suggest that charter schools, particularly those in the western United States are havens for white re-segregation from public schools; requirements for providing essential equity data to the federal government go unmet across the nation; and magnet schools are overlooked, in spite of showing greater levels of integration and academic achievement than charters.

The study offers several recommendations for restoring equity provisions and integration in charter schools, including... federal funding opportunities for magnet schools, which have a documented legacy of reducing racial isolation and improving student outcomes; and incorporating some features of magnet schools into charter schools.

Also, "Across the country, race and education levels have emerged as central fault lines in the division of House seats between Republicans and Democrats"

The pattern vividly captures the class inversion that has remade the two parties' electoral coalitions over the past several decades. Since the days of Andrew Jackson, Democrats have viewed themselves as tribunes of the working class, yet they now principally rely on a bifurcated coalition of minorities and well-educated whites. And although Republicans often view themselves as the party of business, their most reliable supporters now tend to be working-class whites with conservative views on social, foreign-policy, and spending issues.

Forwarded from:
Edwin Bender
Executive Director
National Institute on Money in State Politics

In the U.S. Supreme Court's recent "Citizens United" ruling, justices overwhelmingly endorsed the value of transparency in political spending, writing, "The First Amendment protects political speech; and disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way. This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages."

While we agree wholeheartedly, where disclosure is concerned, we at the
National Institute on Money in State Politics have found that the devil is in the details.

In 2007, Institute staff conducted a review of disclosure requirements for
independent expenditures in all 50 states, and found: