A very small part of me sort of hopes his strategy of ignoring Iowa and New Hampshire actually works for the sole purpose of rendering those two states meaningless in all future Presidential campaigns.

And then the rational part of me, the emotional part of me and the sane part of me all get to gather to remind that very small part of me just how dangerous a Rudy Presidency would be and I forget my hatred of the Iowa and NH circus and hope Rudy gets crushed into oblivion. I’ll be happy to wait until 2012 to end the Iowa and NH tyranny.

Obama has been the press daringly of the moment (at least the last couple of months). Just as Clinton was the press daringly for early part of the 2007 when she was touted as ‘inevitable’ and ‘a strong campaigner’ etc etc. Obama’s is getting something a free ride now (the press will turn on him as they always do to the front runner).

Edwards though has been roundly ignored by the MSM. Stories center on his haircut (blown way out of the proportion) or how he has no chance to win anyway (the implied message being what little coverage we do give him is meaningless/useless).

It’s only a ‘free ride’ in you’re actually in the car.

Most insurance plans have a list of approved Primary Care Physicians. Yes most do allow a patient to go outside the list but there is usually a substantial charge for using an ‘out-of-plan’ doctor (ie, the plan only covers 20% of cost rather than 80% for in house or higher costs for check ups etc etc all designed to discourage the use of out-or-plan doctors by make the cost prohibitively expensive).

Now here’s the fun part. Many of the ‘in-plan’ doctors already have maximum patient loads and are not taking on new patients. So just finding a primary care provider is usually a matter of going down the list of doctors and phoning each office to find the one or two who are taking on new patients. Once you’ve picked that PCP you’re pretty much stuck with them. The only way to see another doctor (without paying a substantial penalty) is with your PCPs approval.

And trying to switch PCPs is a load of fun. First off, you’re stuck with the list of doctors the insurance company approves and again you have to find one willing to take on new patients. And you if can’t find one willing to take new patients (which does happen, I’ve seen fellow employees in tears because they can’t find a doctor) then you are stuck with your current PCP unless you want to and have the money to go outside the approved list of doctors.

So yes it is very possible for the insurance company to trap you with a doctor you don’t like and you have no effective/affordable means to get away.

I’m not a financial guru and I know that BoA and Countrywide have been dancing around one another for a few months now.

But why is it a good thing for BoA to buy a company that everybody expected to declare bankruptcy soon?

Seriously, how is this good for BoA? We still don’t know just how much exposure Countrywide has to the subprime mess. A cash infusion for BoA helps, but it’s not going to make all those bad loans go away.

The only thing I can think of is the ‘to-big-to-fail’ scenario and BoA is expecting the feds to come in big time and bail them out of the subprime mess by taking on the loans themselves and removing them from BoA’s books. So BoA is left with good loans and the government is left to cover the costs of the subprime loans.

Clinton was a sitting Senator. She can introduce this legislation tomorrow.

In other words she’s in a position to start helping people now.

For that matter so is Obama. Where’s his legislative plan?

“As I said, the president said that the king says he understands that the high price of oil can negatively affect economies around the world”

Is it just me or did that whole exchange come off as really bad game of telephone?

The King whispers to Bush, Bush whispers to Perino, Perino whispers to the Press and the Press reports something incomprehensible to the nation.

Hollywood movies derive between 30-50 percent of their revenue from overseas markets. New York is one of the most recognized cities in the world.

So if you want a movie that audiences around the world will connect to are you going to set your movie in Cleveland or New York? Remember you’re betting (in this case) $30 million on this movie (in the case of I Am Legend closer to $200 million).

Movie makers have been picking on New York forever (Escape from New York anyone, the remade US version of Godzilla?) not because of 9/11 but because they want foreign audiences to be able to connect to the movie.

Granted cities like London, Paris, Berlin, Singapore, Tokyo and others are equally recognizable to international audiences but the US public (who make up 50-70 percent of revenue) doesn’t really care what happens outside the US so few Hollywood moves get set in those cities.