Sunday News Roundup

Good morning Conflucians!!

It’s been an interesting week in congress. Well, not if you’re one of the many who are leaving or the many who are being squeezed between your constituents not wanting the horrible healthcare reform insurance big bonanza giveaway and Nancy and Obama wanting your soul for pennies on the dollar. I think perhaps just leaving is better than selling your soul to the insurance industry via their puppets N and O. Better yet, how about if some of them grow a spine and just say NO to the N and O puppet show.

Elections in Iraq are marked by mortar rounds. Of course.

Dozens of mortar rounds thudded across Baghdad on Sunday morning and at least 12 people were killed as Iraqis went to the polls in an election testing the stability of the country’s still-fragile democracy.

Insurgents had vowed to disrupt the elections — which they see as validating the Shiite-led government and the U.S. presence — with violence in order to increase uncertainty over a looming U.S. troop drawdown and widen still jagged sectarian divisions.

As the polls opened at 7 a.m., bombs began exploding and mortar rounds landing across the city.

Oscars are tonight. Yea, that just happened, I juxtaposed the Oscars with Iraq. There maybe some upsets tonight. And of course as we know, a woman has never one for best director. We’ll see if that changes tonight.

By many counts, 2009 was a great year for women in Hollywood. Female directors knocked out such hits as “The Proposal,” “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel,” “It’s Complicated” and “Julie & Julia,” as well as the Oscar contenders “The Hurt Locker” and “An Education.”

Sandra Bullock and Meryl Streep outperformed most of their male counterparts dollar for dollar at the box office, nabbing Oscar nominations to boot. The elusive female movie-going audience has started to gel into a potent force, driving such hits as the “Twilight” franchise, “The Blind Side” and this weekend’s “Alice in Wonderland.”

Now comes the capper, as Kathryn Bigelow stands poised to become the first woman to win an Oscar for directing, after spending seven years in proverbial director’s jail because her last film, “K-19: The Widowmaker,” flopped at the box office.

After winning numerous critic awards and the prestigious Directors Guild of America directing award, Bigelow is favored to take tonight’s prize for directing “The Hurt Locker,” her film about bomb-disposal technicians in Iraq that is also nominated for best picture.

Obama might have to make a decision:

President Obama’s top national security advisers will within days present him with an agonizing choice on how to guide U.S. nuclear weapons policy for the rest of his term.

Does he substantially advance his bold pledge to seek a world free of nuclear weapons by declaring that the “sole purpose” of the U.S. arsenal is to deter other nations from using them? Or does he embrace a more modest option, supported by some senior military officials, that deterrence is the “primary purpose”?

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) is in some trouble:

Democratic activists flooding money into a primary challenge against Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) say the race isn’t simply about defeating the incumbent. It is also about rebuking a Democratic-controlled Congress that they say isn’t pursuing an aggressive, populist agenda.

After Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter announced Monday that he would challenge Lincoln, liberal donors from groups such as MoveOn.org poured more than $1 million into his campaign, an unusually high sum for the first two days of campaigning. Liberals blasted Lincoln with anti-Washington rhetoric that sounded more like the conservative tea party movement. The groups are particularly critical of her opposition to the public option, as it is known, in the health-care bill and her support in 2008 for a Wall Street bailout.

The message are mixed and tricky to read. The media that still loves Obama will probably think the voters want to put in people that will support him more and miss the point of the anti-incumbancy mood. As well as of course real liberals specifically not wanting someone who will support the new Dubya. We’ll see how this race shapes up.

The issues and problems with the Greece bailout and it’s GS connections continue to cause trouble. And now we’re seeing some wacky ideas about how to fix it. Yikes, there are some old issues being dredged up there.

And speaking of debt, Iceland is having a referendum on theirs:

Iceland’s 320,000 citizens voted on whether their government should repay Britain and the Netherlands more than 3.8bn euros (£3.4bn) – equivalent to each person contributing 99 euros a month for eight years.

Britain and the Netherlands say they are due the money following Iceland’s financial meltdown in 2008. But Icelanders say the terms of the repayment are too onerous and rejected the package in its current form.

The collapse of three of Iceland’s biggest banks overwhelmed the country’s deposit-insurance scheme.

Some 340,000 British and Dutch depositors in the Icesave online bank (owned by Landsbanki) had to be bailed out by their domestic compensation scheme.

Now these two countries want their money back from Reykjavik.

(snip)

Most Icelanders argue that they should not be penalised for their government’s failure to rein in spending and for the excesses of a few banks.

As we are seeing in Greece, and elsewhere in Europe, the majority of people don’t want to be penalised for the actions of a few.

Iceland’s rising unemployment and high living costs means the country is taking longer to emerge from recession. The economy shrank 6.5% last year and is forecast to shrink about 2.5% this year.

There is also a lingering dislike at the way Britain has conducted itself.

London used anti-terrorist legislation to freeze the assets of Icelandic banks, sparking the worst diplomatic row between the two countries since the Cod Wars fishing dispute in the 1970s.

And the vote is in, Icelanders rejected the deal to repay.

In the “you’ve got to be kidding me” news, insurance rates may go up in Boston:

Three weeks after Governor Deval Patrick warned that his administration might turn down health insurance premium increases it deemed excessive for individuals and small businesses, insurers have asked the state to approve rate hikes of 8 to 32 percent for April 1.

Patrick last month said the state Division of Insurance would review rate increases exceeding 4.8 percent as part of a broader effort to rein in health care expenses. If the insurers’ latest round of increases is rejected, it would mark the first time Massachusetts has capped health insurance rates.

Insurers say such a move would cause confusion in the marketplace, as they already have negotiated contracts with many individuals and small businesses at the new rates. Capping the rates would also result in immediate financial losses, insurers assert, forcing them to cut payments to health providers and threatening the viability of weaker hospitals.

Poor poor insurance companies. They’re suffering so. They’ve been going up in VA (mine went up 30% this month). Looks like a trend.

Batshit crazy Dowd has a column talking about Obama and the whole he’s got muslim roots thingy and how that was supposed to help in the ME. I’m not going to link to it because, we’ll, she’s really loony. But take a look of you have the stomach for her.

Just what you were all waiting for, Karl Rove has his memoirs out. Here’s a bit about them from the BBC. Ug. Of course, we’ve got the political re-runs in the white house now. I’m not sure what the difference is between the teams of dubya/rove and obama/axelrove.

Slight change of pace. The european iF design awards took place recently. Take a look for some fun items. And the almanac of architectural design is out. Also some nice items. And speaking of wild design, apparently Di Vinci’s huge horse statute was technically feasible. And we have the top 10 geekiest decorations for your home or office. My favorite is the red swingline stapler modeled after the one used in the cult classic movie, Office Space. And apparently 3D TV’s are all the rage. Here’s one getting ready to go to the stores. And just when I was thinking I was all caught up by getting a flat screen TV. Silly me. Here’s a fun one from the “somehow that makes sense department”, marijuana research offers hope for male birth control pill. Let the speculation about insurance coverage begin. And for one more distraction, here’s a good looking Tunisian Frittata recipe. Mmmm.

That’s some of the news today. Please chime in with any juicy bits you find.