51st Grammy Awards - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lots of ideas for anyone looking for new music. Some I want to hear include; # The Sinatra Project – Michael Feinstein, # Jingle All the Way – Béla Fleck & The Flecktones, Best Electronic/Dance Album

* New York City – Brazilian Girls
* Alive 2007 – Daft Punk
....and much more

Follow the link for the entire list of nominations.

51st Grammy Awards - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Court Says Vaccine Not the Cause of Autism - US News and World Report

Court Says Vaccine Not the Cause of Autism - US News and World Report: "Thursday's decision follows a published report earlier this week that the British doctor whose 1998 paper fueled international fears of a link between childhood vaccines and autism had manipulated and changed the data to make his case.

An investigative report by the Sunday Times of London stated that Dr. Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues altered confidential and public records to support their claim that eight of 12 autistic children attending a routine clinic at Wakefield's hospital had developed symptoms of autism only days after they were given the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. But, almost all of the children had developed symptoms of autism well before receiving the shot, according to published reports.

Wakefield denied the allegations in the Sunday Times of London report.

Since Wakefield's original paper was published in The Lancet, numerous studies have failed to find a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

In February 2008, British researchers reported in the Archives of Disease in Childhood that their large study failed to uncover a connection. The researchers based their finding on a sample of 240 children -- 98 who had been diagnosed with autism, and two comparison groups: 52 children with special educational needs who were not autistic; and 90 children who had no developmental problems."

Court Says Vaccine Not the Cause of Autism - US News and World Report

Court Says Vaccine Not the Cause of Autism - US News and World Report: "The ruling, which involved test cases of children from three different families, was a setback for parents who had filed claims seeking monetary awards from a U.S.-run vaccine compensation program. More than 5,500 such claims have been filed. The claims were reviewed by the Office of Special Masters, part of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

'It was abundantly clear that petitioners' theories of causation were speculative and unpersuasive,' the court said in one of the three cases ruled on Thursday. The court also said 'the weight of scientific research and authority' was 'simply more persuasive on nearly every point in contention,' the Associated Press reported.

Federal health experts applauded the decision."

So what if Phelps smoked pot -- he's in good company

"Of course, it isn't only athletic stars who have been known to indulge in reefer madness. Important scientists such as Richard Feynman, Stephen Jay Gould, Margaret Mead and Carl Sagan, billionaire executives like Richard Branson and Bill Gates, and a great many of the literary and musical geniuses of the last century or so -- William Butler Yeats, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Bob Dylan among them -- got high. So have many of our top elected officials, notably including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a highly successful actor and businessman whose pot habit was immortalized on film in "Pumping Iron"; New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, another hard-driving billionaire who once told a magazine interviewer that he had not only smoked dope but "enjoyed" it; Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, and Al Gore, former vice president, Google director, and winner of an Oscar and the Nobel Peace Prize."

Madoff Claims Another Victim - Forbes.com

Too bad it's too late to fire Harvey Pitt. This was going on during his tenure too and he either ignored it or never caught on. Pitt did an interview on CNBC shortly after the story broke and when they tried to pin him down he said the 'facts are still evolving' or something like that. Lying through his teeth was my opinion at the time. Madoff Claims Another Victim - Forbes.com

Obama Inauguration Live on Hulu Tomorrow

See the embed.

24/7 Wall St.: Creditors Obstruct GM Rescue: Detroit Becomes Too Big To Fail

24/7 Wall St.: Creditors Obstruct GM Rescue: Detroit Becomes Too Big To Fail:

"The UAW has been dragging its feet, assuming that a Democrat-controlled federal government will not eat its own by abandoning labor. GM's creditors are making sure that the restructuring of the auto companies will fail. They are doing so by ignoring the mandate from Congress to take less than $1 for $1 on the debt obligations of The Big Three."

According to the FT, 'General Motors has signaled it might be unable to meet a key condition of the $13.4bn lifeline extended by the US Treasury requiring a two-thirds reduction in the carmaker’s unsecured debt.'

The intransigence of the UAW and GM bond-holders could put both the company and the new administration in a position to make good on their threat of throwing the corporations into bankruptcy court by violating their agreement to have cost cuts in place by the end of March. But,that won't happen."

Insurance giant to pay $350M in med bill case

Insurance giant to pay $350M in med bill case

"In the center of the alleged ripoff scheme is Ingenix, the largest billing information provider that sets "usual and customary" rates for medical procedures.

Instead of relying on market prices, Ingenix, a UnitedHealth subsidiary, gave lower reimbursement figures than what the patients paid. This allowed insurers to make smaller payments.

"It was a blatant fraud," Cuomo said. "It was an obvious fraud." "

AIG Not on potential bankruptcy list of 24/7 Wall St.

They're not in the top ten anyway. I'll take that as a positive.

24/7 Wall St.: The 24/7 Wall St. Chapter 11 Watch (SIRI)(GM)(CHTR)(MNI)(F)(NYT)(BAC)(C)(MOT)(AMD)

Obama's Billionaires - Forbes.com

Good read. Ridiculous comments.

Obama's Billionaires - Forbes.com