My daughter’s birthday today

She turns five.  And when asked what she wanted for her birthday dinner she asked for Daddy (that’s me!) to make his special cream of broccoli soup.  Not hot dogs.  Not spaghetti.  Daddy’s cream of broccoli soup.  And of course Mommy’s chocolate cake.

A nice end to a long week.

Obama is drafting his own health care legislation

He’s making a play for Sen. Olympia Snowe’s vote and reportedly will incorporate a public option with some kind of “trigger” which requires the insurance industry to screw up with regard to providing affordable insurance before it will be implemented in any state.  Progressives have been vehemently against any trigger requirement, but they are probably less likely to bring the bill down over it.  I thought something was up when Pelosi took her stand.  With Snowe they could conceivably elude the filibuster.  Obviously there’ll be a big fight over the criteria for a trigger, and would give the moderates an out as it would probably take a year or so before the first state opened up the option, if at all.

The progressives would hopefully demand a rigorous Swiss type system with heavy regulation, and hopefully also that the states rather than the federal government are empowered to determine when the criteria for a trigger has been met.  And I’d want deductibles, copay, and coverage denials to be factored in.  I’d be filing complaints every month.

Honestly though, why didn’t Obama do this months ago?

He did meet with progressive House members today, and will apparently meet with them again on Tuesday.

Monkeys prefer heavy metal to classical or jazz

And they prefer Metalica to Led Zepplin.

I’m just glad they didn’t choose Miles Davis.  That would have been grist for the racist mill for years to come.

Thompson’s town hall to be replayed on KMUD at 7:00 tonight

The first hour anyway.

My favorite snippet to listen for:

Thompson:  In all of the bills the public option is mandated to have its costs covered by the premiums paid by the participants.

Heckler:  Who’s going to pay for it?!!!

….

Here’s a clip of a very productive discussion with Al Franken, captured on Youtube with the following introduction:

I got to witness something really special. About a dozen tea party activists had staked out Franken’s booth, and confronted him loudly when he arrived. But within minutes, he’d turned an unruly crowd into a productive conversation on health care. The discussion went from insurance reform, to the public option, to veterans benefits, to cap and trade. He made a few laugh and even told a touching story that moved a few to tears. A whole lot of common ground was found.