This video clip takes a few minutes to watch, but in it the brilliant young Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin lays out the financial case against Obamacare as well as we have seen that done anywhere:

The greatest threat of the 21st Century is not street crime, it’s cyber-crime.  Clever and professional thieves stealing information from online transactions from all points of the globe.  The Defense Department is fully-engaged in protecting intellectual property and the identities and personal banking information of everyday Americans from clever cyber-scientists in China, Russia, and India.

Americans are advised to have multiple and varied passwords to protect any and all online accounts.

Might Want To Pay Cash

Even closer to home, be careful using your gas cards and other credit cards at the gas pump!   Professional identity thieves have been discovered REPLACING card readers in gas pumps with their own readers, stealing credit card numbers and identities, and sharing the information.

Read and beware.

www.darkreading.com/database_security/security/attacks/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=223100233

Surprise, Surprise.  We live by computers….and we can die by computers.  Read this fascinating backgrounder by BBC News.

BBC News

How computers took over our cars

Toyota’s recall of its Prius model this week wasn’t down to a mechanical fault but a software glitch. Increasingly, computers are in control of our cars, says Paul Horrell, and that is changing our relationship with the open road.

In this week’s recall of the Toyota Prius, there is no faulty mechanical component. All that’s necessary is a quick software update to recalibrate the electrically generated pedal “feel” in its braking system. Which just goes to show how deeply computer control is embedded in today’s cars.

The Prius is such a famously economical car partly because of its regenerative braking system. When the driver touches the brake pedal, there is no mechanical link to the normal brake discs. In gentle braking, all that happens is the electric generator in the powertrain takes up the load, slowing the car by collecting its kinetic energy and re-charging its battery.

The Drudge Report claims that CBS News is going to invoke deep cuts on its news division….including cutting the salary of star Katie Couric.  Couric is the

Lonely But Wealthy At The Top

highest paid anchor in news history, at a reported $14 million a year.  That’s $300,000 a week.  Drudge reports that CBS news staffers have been grumbling over layoffs when Katie’s salary could easily keep many $75,000 reporters employed.   It is interesting to note that Anchormen in even smaller news markets, top 50 cities in the country, 30 years ago, were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a piece.  Today, there isn’t an on-air talent in the country who feels secure day-to-day on-air.  Everyone is vulnerable.  Drudge just makes it public.

As Jay Leno put it, “You either get the ratings, or you don’t.”   Right now no one in television is pulling in the five, ten, fifteen or twenty million viewers a night that network news anchors and managing editors used to draw.  CNN’s Anderson Cooper is fortunate if one million people are watching him.  This is true about all the networks, except FOX News which draws more like 3-6 million.

drudgereport.com/flashkcc.htm

"CBSNEWS anchorwoman and 60 MINUTES contributor Katie Couric faces a dramatic pay cut at the network, insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

CBS boss Les Moonves is determined to save money and trim expenses -- from top to bottom -- at the former crown jewel of broadcasting.

Couric, the highest paid TV news personality in history, commands over $14 million a year, plus bumps for non-EVENING NEWS appearances.

But her salary is now in the direct line of fire, network insiders explain, and a populist backlash against Couric's cash is said to be forming inside the newsroom.

"She makes enough to pay 200 news reporters $75,000 a year!" demands a veteran producer. "It's complete insanity."

The angry source continues: "We report with great enthusiasm how much bankers are making, how it is out of step with reality during a recession. Well, look at Katie!"

Couric's current CBS contract expires next year.

Developing...

EDITOR'S NOTE: Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather called on President Barack Obama to form a White House commission to help save the press. Tears welled in the lifelong reporter�s eyes as he discussed the dwindling number of war correspondents.

Last week, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair gave impressive testimony about the real decisions and real consequences world leaders faced in contemplating the powers of Iraqui leader Sadam Hussein in 2001.  There isn’t an informed American who wouldn’t

The Truth?

have preferred not to take that journey.  Blair shared insights and information and most of all reminders, of the psychotic and mass-murdering history of this dictator.  The Wall Street Journal Online recounts his testimony here before an inquiry in Great Britain and offers perspectives that are valuable to revisit.

President George Bush became a lightening rod because of his swift, focused commitment to the ouster of Hussein.  His strengths were always in personal conviction, not communication.  History though, I believe, will judge his response to the threats to America’s security, and to the security and stabilization of the world as responsible.   Were there other paths?  Should we have simply invaded Afghanistan instead?  Should we have stayed home and protected our own borders?

Bush did what every president must do.  He led with the information he had. His choices were unique to virtually any other President of the United States since Roosevelt.  Only the threats facing Americans were not on distant shores, they were on the streets of our own cities.  Voters on both sides of the aisle can make solid cases for staying out of Iraq, but no one can deny the obvious.  Sadam Hussein would have likely opened the borders of Iraq to many enemies of the United States and created a nationwide terrorist motel.

Map of Headaches

To view a map of the region is to feel the imminent dangers to the United States.  No imagination required.  Iran and Pakistan and Afghanistan to the East.  Syria to the Northwest.  Kuwait vulnerable as ever.  The world’s oil supply ( of course) wrapped up in Iraq and Saudia Arabia and other neighboring producing countries.  Finally, Israel, always the ultimate defense issue on the table, a sitting duck.

Blair and the Wall Street Journal take a worthwhile look back.

Americans In Iraq