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Remember when Big Pharma was thought to be the enemy? Now they’re on the same side as reform.

For proof, check out the press release they just put out. (via Tim Carney)

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We applaud the Senate for taking an important and historic step toward expanding high-quality, affordable health care coverage and services to tens of millions of Americans, many of whom are struggling today financially. While considerable work remains to be done in reconciling differences between the Senate and House bills, we remain convinced that comprehensive health care reform, if done in a smart way, will benefit patients, our economy and the future of our nation.

Most importantly, the Senate bill recognizes the importance of medical progress in America. Innovative, cutting-edge medicines have dramatically increased life expectancy rates in the United States and have allowed patients with cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other devastating chronic diseases to live longer, healthier and more productive lives. We strongly believe that everyone in America should benefit from promising new advances in medical care.

By expanding coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans, the Senate is moving decisively in that direction. We embrace reform efforts which put an end to practices such as denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions or charging higher premiums because of gender. We also support expanding Medicaid eligibility to 133 percent of federal poverty – something we first proposed along with Families USA.

Our commitment to comprehensive health care reform is evident by our $80 billion pledge to reduce health care costs over 10 years. To that end, our companies agreed back in June to help most eligible seniors and disabled Americans who hit the so-called ‘donut hole’ in Medicare Part D cut their out-of-pocket expenses on brand-name medications in half as part of the Senate’s health care reform legislation. The remainder of our commitment will help the government expand health care coverage to millions of Americans.

In the final analysis, we believe the Senate bill provides the best blueprint for reform. It offers the kind of change that will benefit patients today without putting medical progress at risk in the future. Today, we believe the Senate voted with America’s best interests and future in mind.

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See Also:

• Senate Officially Passes Healthcare Reform — A ‘Christmas Gift’ To America
• 10 New Taxes Americans Will Get Slapped With To Pay For Healthcare
• Just Because Healthcare Stocks Are Soaring, It Doesn’t Mean The Reform Bill Is A Massive Sellout

There are some very witty and clever folks out there. (The level of my wit is at about, “A horse walks into a bar. The bartender asks, ‘Why the long face?’” And my clever rating maxed out after I finished the ‘Pick a Peck of Puzzles’ book that I ordered from Scholastic Books in 6th grade.) So today I thought I would dispense with the usual information and pass along this poem that a few nice readers sent to me yesterday (thank you!).

And until the usual mortgage news, market info, and investor updates return on Monday, have a Merry Christmas!

T’was The Week Before Christmas

T’was the week before Christmas
When all through the lands,
LO’s and Closers were wringing their hands.

RESPA changes are coming,
They all started to worry,
We’d better get trained, and get trained in a hurry!

We all kept on hoping
There would be a delay.
But HUD said, “No Way,” it’s all here to stay.

“We love our new HUD
And our new GFE,
Don’t fret, don’t worry, it’s as simple as can be.”

We all shook our heads,
Threw our hands to the sky.
What were you smoking? You must have been high!

You took a one page doc
And changed it to three.
Easier? More simple? How can that be?

The Regs don’t match up,
So now what do we do?
HUD says, “No comment, It’s all up to you.”

No info on TILA,
HMDA, REG B.
We are totally screwed, why can’t they see??

In a time when some borrowers
Think lenders are scary,
You’ve given 3 pages to make them more wary.

This doesn’t make sense,
Not one little bit.
We are all trying hard to not throw a fit.

So we will all do our best
To put borrowers at ease.
But make more reform, please, please, please!

Please bring someone in
Who knows just what to do.
What is best for both borrowers AND lenders too.

We are all still waiting,
Though not holding our breath
And hoping the government doesn’t “Reg” us to death.

So, on this week before Christmas,
I’d like to wish you
Good luck with RESPA, I need it too!

Rob

Bah humbug! Hackers spent part of Wednesday attacking Neustar, the DNS provider that helps link  some of the Web’s biggest Websites to consumers, and ended up disrupting big retailers like Amazon (AMZN) and Wal-Mart (WMT) for more an hour.

In addition to the obvious pain this has on last-minute Christmas shoppers, and the e-commerce sites that rely on them, the attack had an larger effect. Many Web 2.0 companies that rely on the Amazon’s  cloud computing services to power their sites were also disrupted during the attack.

That said, the incident seems resolved now, and assuming we don’t see any catastrophes in the last few hours before Christmas, e-commerce companies are going to end up doing pretty well during this holiday season. Comscore (SCOR) estimates that sales are up 4 percent this year.

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Despite all the obsession with the Web in this column, the big Hollywood movies opening around the holidays does grab all the attention–and justifiably.

While new computers and game players are among the top-selling gifts, giant crowds of consumers still have descended and will be flocking to cineplexes across the country yesterday, today, tomorrow on Christmas day and throughout the weekend.

And, from the first box office reports, it looks like “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” is besting the sci-fi blockbuster “Avatar.”

Yes, pretty crude special effects–at least from what I saw in the first one multiple times with my kids–and very charming chipmunks has earned almost $20 million so far, while the James Cameron-helmed story about a blue-skinned heroic indigenous tribe at risk is at $16 million.

Nonetheless, tech-heavy “Avatar” has done about $243 million at the box office worldwide so far, since it opened last weekend, so it should not feel so bad about being beaten this weekend by a trio of singing rodents.

Here are the videos of the competing trailers:

[Full disclosure: Both top two movies this weekend are from 20th Century Fox, which is owned by News Corp. News Corp. (NWS) also owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.]

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By Joann S. Lublin, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Cristóbal Conde knows adversity. His family fled Chile following a 1973 coup because his father, a university professor, feared the new military rulers. On Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Conde was visiting an investor on the 32nd floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center, but escaped unhurt.

So the 49-year-old CEO of SunGard Data Systems Inc. is not rattled by the recession. He says he’s more concerned about how the information-technology company will fare during an economic recovery.

In mid-2008, he told lieutenants to minimize layoffs of programmers, so SunGard could continue to generate new products. Mr. Conde says the costly bet contributed to SunGard’s sharply higher net loss for the first nine months of this year.

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With winter here it seems appropriate to discuss wood fireplace issues. Now, first of all wood burning fireplaces or wood stoves are not so green. They smell nice, look cozy, and keep your home sort of warm, but there are better green options if you have a choice. For example a pellet stove is a good green choice if you heat your home frequently with fire. Pellet stoves are also a smart financial move as you can sometimes score a tax credit on them.

That said, I have more experience with wood burning so we’re going to discuss that today. When I lived in Humboldt, we lived in a tiny (very old) logging town, and the homes were so old the only heat the houses there had was a wood burning stove. I felt super guilty about all the wood too – and yeah, that’s one downside of wood burning anything. You have to have wood. To green your wood stove or wood burning fireplace do the following…

• Buy local wood not wood that’s been shipped in.
• Buy hardwood such as oak, hickory, or eucalyptus which give more heat as they burn then other, softer woods.
• Don’t burn green (or un-seasoned wood) because it won’t heat nearly as well and is not as good for your chimney. If you’ve never heated with wood you may be surprised to hear that you have to season it. Seasoned wood basically means dry wood. Fresh cut wood is wet; too wet to burn so you need to dry it out. Chop it then stack it on pallets, not the ground. It helps if you buy your wood well ahead of time (like in the summer) so it has ample time to dry out before winter. Do not stack too near a wall or fence because the wood nearest the structure won’t dry out as well. You’ll need to cover the whole pile loosely with a tarp, one that keeps the rain out while also letting air circulate.
• Have your chimney cleaned once a year.
• Try to plant some trees if you feel guilty about your wood use.
• The most eco-friendly option are Enviro-Logs because they’re made with 100% waxed old corrugated cardboard boxes used for fresh vegetables and have a much smaller emission BUT I’ve never used them personally. Since wood was our only source of heat we needed a lot of it and mad-made logs are always more costly. I don’t know how much Enviro-Logs cost, but I’m guessing too much if wood is your primary source of heat. That said, if your wood fires are more for ambiance, I’d say use these eco-friendly logs.

[image via stock.xchng]

Post from: Blisstree

Green your wood burning fireplace

I don’t think I’d be alone in listing Paperboy as one of my favorite childhood games. I was a bit young to enjoy it during its arcade run, but I certainly had the Nintendo version, and even dust off my old copy once in a while (when my NES actually works). It was also one of the first games I downloaded in college when I realized the brilliance of NES emulators. Now you can get that same experience on your BlackBerry. Elite Systems Group has released an officially licensed version for your BlackBerry.

(more…)

We’re out in California visiting my family for the Holidays. Already, we’ve done a fair amount of cooking: a blow-out tamale party, warm bowls of polenta and greens by the fire, and a plum pie (still in season at the Hollywood Farmers’ Market).

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Earlier this year, I randomly ended up in a fascinating conversation with a marketing guy from Pepsi, who was telling me about some of the online marketing efforts the company ran during the 2009 Super Bowl, saying that they got the same “response” as the multi-million dollar Super Bowl commercials got, but only cost in the tens of thousands of dollars, rather than millions. Based on that I have to admit I’m not all that surprised to find out (via The Infamous Joe) that Pepsi has decided not to buy any Super Bowl ads for the 2010 game, but will be investing a ton in some online promotions. This is after 23 straight years of Super Bowl ads by Pepsi, costing the company hundreds of millions of dollars. I’m sure that the Super Bowl will be just fine (it claims it’s sold out 90% of its ads already, though the prices did drop a bit this year, apparently), but it does suggest that some may be realizing that there are better ways to get your message out than spending a ridiculous sum for a single commercial spot.

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Filed under: Gaming, iPhone

The big-time gamers over at Joystiq have picked up the iPhone game review pace lately, and here’s a sampling of what they’ve tried lately.

	iPhone Top Gun game takes highway to the postmortem Top Gun on iPhone is one of the device’s many hidden treasures. Not only does it have cool, After Burner-esque gameplay, it’s also got one of the best easter eggs of all time (as you can see…		Ridge Racer: Accelerated comes to iPhone It appears the recently unearthed Ridge Racer: Accelerated trademark pointed to an iPhone entry in the long-running racing series. The title is now available on the App Store (try iTunes if you’re…
	Battleship now syncing on iPhone Adding to its growing roster of Hasbro board games retooled for board-less play, EA has christened the iPhone / iPod touch version of Battleship on its maiden voyage to the iTunes App Store. The…	Also of interest: 360 Live iPhone app now free

TUAWiPhone games review roundup originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 24 Dec 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Preocupante la sentencia conocida ayer, el director y el jefe de informativos de la SER, condenados a un año y nueve meses de prisión, y a las penas accesorias de “inhabilitación especial para la dirección de medios de comunicación y el ejercicio de la actividad de periodistas” (información en su propia web). Javier Casal señala los puntos que analizados uno a uno siembran de inseguridad la labor de todos los periodistas y ciudadanos que utilizan internet para publicar.

Lo peor del asunto no es sólo la condena sino la justificación de la misma en la sentencia, en la que se llega a afirmar que

“la protección constitucional al derecho a la información se refiere a los medios de comunicación social (televisión radio o prensa escrita), pero debe matizarse, que Internet, no es un medio de comunicación social en sentido estricto, sino universal”

Uno tiende a pensar que esta sentencia no resistirá la apelación, pero también que la corriente de pensamiento que quiere situar internet como un mundo aparte en la que hay menos libertades y derechos está calando en nuestra sociedad y que la condena a la que asistimos no es sino otro síntoma de la misma.

Filed under: Plants/Manufacturing, Toyota, Earnings/Financials

As with every other automaker – heck, almost every other company – Toyota wants to save more money. Japan’s Asahi business daily revealed a Toyota initiative to lower its parts expenses by 30% over the next three years, and it is one that we’re all too familiar with: Toyota told its suppliers to cut their prices by 30-40%. Can anyone guess how suppliers will most likely remove one-third the cost of their parts? If you said “use cheaper materials,” we have your prize backstage…

A Toyota spokesman said the company had given “various suggestions including cost reductions” to the affected portion of its supplier base, which makes it sound like at the very least the company didn’t just say “Here’s less money, make it work.” There are more than 200 vehicle components involved the move – that might sound sizable on its own but it’s a tiny fraction of all the parts in a car.

Ultimately, Toyota wants to ensure its competitiveness in emerging markets and guard against a strengthening yen. Assuming the initiative is carried out, the parts in question will be used for cars arriving for the 2013 model year. We hope that by 2014 it is clear that Toyota chose the right bets for this game of parts roulette.

[Source: Reuters via TTAC | Image: TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA/AFP/Getty Images]

Toyota cutting supplier expenses by 30%, probably means using cheaper parts originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 24 Dec 2009 07:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In a move that Chris Dodd called a Christmas present to America (seriously) the Senate just officially passed a healthcare reform bill.

Now it’s on to be “reconciled” with the house version. If they iron out the kinks over abortion, and a few other things, the seemingly impossible battle may be over. Finally!

Actually, it may drag on for a bit. It was reported yesterday that the vote will slip to February, as Obama takes a hard pivot on pushing for a new stimulus.

The vote — the Senate’s last before Christmas — went down on a 60-39 party-line split.

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See Also:

• HEALTHCARE REFORM SEEN SLIPPING TO FEBRUARY, Obama To Focus On New Stimulus
• Congressional Budget Office Says Dems Are Using Accounting Trick To Claim Medicare "Savings"
• Senators Forced To Fly Blind To Beat The Christmas Healthcare Deadline

Most of you are probably hoping to hear something about the future of Saab any day now – well, don’t hold your breath. According to Automotive News, General Motors is continuing with the process of winding down Saab and does not plant to make any announcement regarding a sale of the Swedish brand. GM spokesman Chris Preuss said that “no new Saab deals are imminent with any interested parties.

“At this point, GM has no plans for any further announcements regarding Saab,” Preuss said. “If anything changes or if any new deal or actions arise, we would certainly communicate them, but right now there’s nothing to communicate.”

Last Friday, General Motors announced that it failed to reach an agreement with Spyker Cars for a possible sale of Saab and will start an orderly wind-down of the brand. On Sunday, Spyker said it had renewed its offer to GM and that its new bid would expire at 5 p.m. Monday. Throwing us all into a “oh come on already” frenzy on Tuesday, Spyker’s CEO Victor Muller said that its talks with GM were open-ended and that it will extend its offer until further notice.

GM said that it has received inquiries from other parties as well.

The Detroit automaker’s vice president of corporate planning and alliances said that the wind-down process is expected to take several months and that GM will look at inquiries about Saab during the wind-down process.

– By: Omar Rana

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)

The Senate just passed its version of the health-care bill by a vote of 60-39. Over the next month or so, the Senate and House will try to work out the differences between the bills.

Here’s a quick overview of some of the key effects of the Senate bill, based on estimates from CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation for the years 2010-2019.

$395 billion in federal spending to expand the number of people covered by Medicaid and CHIP, insurance programs for the poor.

$436 billion in federal spending pay for health-insurance exchanges that would largely be used by people who don’t get health insurance through work. Most of that money would be in the form of subsidies for insurance premiums for people earning up to four times the poverty level.

$398 billion in new taxes. That includes the tax on high-value health-insurance plans, new fees on health insurers and drug and device makers, and higher payroll taxes for high earners.

$483 billion in cuts to projected spending for Medicare and other programs. This includes reductions in projected costs for privately administered Medicare Advantage programs and a new formula likely to lower annual increases in payments to hospitals.

31 million additional people would have health insurance by 2019 because of the bill.

23 million people in this country would still be uninsured.

It seems not only women use shopping as a therapy after breaking up, but men do it as well. Tennis star Andy Murray recently purchased a second-hand red Ferrari F430, just one month after splitting with Kim Sears. However, though he paid almost £30,000 less than the price of a new one, recent media reports place his new ride as another bad love affair.

The insurance costs £100,000, the Daily Mail reports, which is as much as he paid for the 196 mph Italian supercar in the first pl… (read more)

Technology Review has an article on (at this stage theoretical) ultra-high performance “Digital quantum batteries” – A Quantum Leap in Battery Design.

A “digital quantum battery” concept proposed by a physicist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign could provide a dramatic boost in energy storage capacity–if it meets its theoretical potential once built.

The concept calls for billions of nanoscale capacitors and would rely on quantum effects–the weird phenomena that occur at atomic size scales–to boost energy storage. Conventional capacitors consist of one pair of macroscale conducting plates, or electrodes, separated by an insulating material. Applying a voltage creates an electric field in the insulating material, storing energy. But all such devices can only hold so much charge, beyond which arcing occurs between the electrodes, wasting the stored power.

If capacitors were instead built as nanoscale arrays–crucially, with electrodes spaced at about 10 nanometers (or 100 atoms) apart–quantum effects ought to suppress such arcing. For years researchers have recognized that nanoscale capacitors exhibit unusually large electric fields, suggesting that the tiny scale of the devices was responsible for preventing energy loss. But “people didn’t realize that a large electric field means a large energy density, and could be used for energy storage that would far surpass anything we have today,” says Alfred Hubler, the Illinois physicist and lead author of a paper outlining the concept, to be published in the journal Complexity.

Hubler claims the resulting power density (the speed at which energy can be stored or released) could be orders of magnitude greater, and the energy density (the amount of energy that can be stored) two to 10 times greater than possible with today’s best lithium-ion and other battery technologies.