Need a higher sperm count? Don't drink colas.

Gallup: Majority believes Dem tactics on healthcare was an abuse of power.

AP: Seniors worry about Medicare. Those on Medicare Advantage will be hurt.

Michael Barone on the tea party members. They embrace liberty, which is what this country is all about.

Michael Barone: "We are looking at something other than an ordinary political year."

Robert J. Samuelson: Obamacare has sown the seeds of a future budget crisis.

White women are the new angry white men. It's about time they got mad at the same things we're mad about. Credit Sarah?

Miami Herald: Health care law is really unpopular in Florida.

Jason Tolbert on health care as an issue in Arkansas politics. "To my knowledge, no Arkansas Democrat [who is a congressional candidate] has called for repealing the law while almost every Republican has done so."

AP: Beat the uninsured crowd, find a doctor now if you don't have one.

Who's more in touch with reality? The tea partiers or Congress?

The ADG this morning has an article on the stores that are selling the most state lottery tickets. The leader is a liquor store in Stuttgart over in the Arkansas prairie. It's a poor area. Clearly most lottery tickets are being purchased by poor people who need to keep their money. But who am I to tell them what to do with their money?

In second place was Zimmerman's Exxon on South University, Little Rock, also in a poor area. 

Gee, I wonder why some place up in the affluent Heights didn't take the lead in lottery sales.

In the Arkansas Senate race, Blanche Lincoln has set up a website called DollarBillHalter as a forum for her criticism of her Dem opponent Bill Halter.

Who won the health-care debate? The Washington Post asked a group of experts.

I don't recall if I mentioned I was reading Walter Lord's A Night to Remember a week or more ago. Since then, I've read it twice, and I may start it all over again. It is such a great book. Lord puts you on the deck of the Titanic and you just feel the cold and the fear of that night.

Sarah Palin at Searchlight, NV, to Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi: "You're fired!" To tea partiers: "We're not going to sit down and shut up."

Pollster: All the polls that's fit to print. On health care see below.

David Paul Kuhn of RealClearPolitics: "Millions of white men who voted for Barack Obama are walking away from the Democratic Party, and it appears increasingly likely that they'll take the midterms elections in November with them. Their departure could well lead to a GOP landslide on a scale not seen since 1994."

Andrew Napolitano: The Supreme Court will strike down Obamacare.

Tea partiers and Sarah Palin are heading for Searchlight, NV, Harry Reid's hometown. They call the event the conservative Woodstock. Ann Althouse is apparently going to make the trip also. Suggestion: follow Ann's blog.

Politics Daily: Health care reform: what happens year by year, 2010-2019. But the news is not all good. See Ann Althouse.

I didn't know that was in there!

On the fallacy of not reading the health-care bill and unintended consequences.

After a visit yesterday, I highly recommend Garvan Woodland Gardens near Hot Springs National Park. The daffodils and tulips, about a hundred thousand of them, are blooming now. Dogwoods will start about April 1. You can see the bloom calendar here. Also don't miss Anthony Chapel, which was inspired by Thorncrown Chapel near Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

According to the ADG this morning, Vic Snyder is one of the congressmen who has received a death threat because of Obamacare.

NYT: Social Security will pay out more than it takes in THIS YEAR. Hope and change.

You may not like Obamacare but Fidel Castro does.

AP: John Deere & Co. says that the health-care law will raise its fiscal 2010 expenses by $150 million. THAT'S a big f***ing deal!
Caterpillar makes a similar complaint.

Power Line on stories of violence circulating among Democrats:

In large part, the current focus on threats of violence is aimed at the tea partiers, just as they were accused, apparently falsely, of racism. It is not hard to understand the Democrats' motives; the tea parties are the most vital force, and likely the most popular force, in American politics, so smearing them is mandatory. But anyone who has attended a tea party rally will consider laughable the idea that the movement somehow tends toward violence.

The tea parties, and conservative pundits' reaction to them, was the subject of Glenn Reynolds' interview of Jonah Goldberg on PJTV. It's a fun conversation between two very smart guys. Glenn posed the question, "why are so many conservative pundits wimps?" But he made clear that he wasn't talking about web-based pundits like us. Or him.
It is important for conservative leaders to embrace the tea party movement, and it seems that nearly all do. For what it is worth, I do not consider David Brooks to be a conservative leader. To be a leader, you need to have at least a handful of followers.
The fact is that, unlike conservatives, modern liberals have had little quarrel with political violence. This is best demonstrated by their support for card check legislation, the entire point of which it to abolish the secret ballot so that union goons can use the threat of violence to extend union power and thereby enrich the Democratic Party. (If you doubt the truth of that proposition, try to think of another reason why the Democrats want to eliminate the secret ballot in union elections.) The beating of Kenneth Gladrey by union goons--more specifically, the lack of any interest in it by anyone in the Democratic Party, the media, or on the Left generally--shows how hypocritical the Democrats' current pacifism is. If the day ever comes when conservative groups start hiring goons, we can take the liberals' purported fears of violence more seriously.

AP: An average retired couple aged 65 will need $250,000 for their health care cost if they live out their normal lifespans. That's a quarter of a million dollars! I'm surprised it's not more.

Ann Althouse: Who are the tea partiers anyway? Well, more women than men.

Nick Schulz: "As Europe and Asia become 'veritable old-age homes,' the U.S. will enjoy the benefits of a growing population."

Arkansas News: Blanche Lincoln is taking credit for her role in passing health care, but her left-wing critics are not happy with her.

Over the health care debate, the more I saw Congressmen and Senators on TV discussing the issue or any issue, they less respect I had for them. Most of them were just vile. No wonder Congressional approval ratings are so low. What's to respect?

AP: "Attorneys general from 13 states sued the federal government Tuesday, claiming the landmark health care overhaul is unconstitutional just seven minutes after President Barack Obama signed it into law."

George Will on the coming month of Thermidor for Democrats.

Wikipedia: ... [F]or historians of revolutionary movements, the term Thermidor has come to mean the phase in some revolutions when the political pendulum swings back towards something resembling a pre-revolutionary state, and power slips from the hands of the original revolutionary leadership.

Power Line points out some good pieces on ObamaCare.

Jay Cost explains the political vulnerabilities of ObamaCare.

Capital Hill: 20 ways ObamaCare will take away our freedom.

Mars as we have never seen it before.

Now we will learn what is really in the health care bill: Senior staff member who wrote the bill exempted themselves from it.

AP: Health-care stocks went up after passage of HC reform. Well, they have the prospect of 32 million new customers. And I thought that the Dems were all against insurance companies.

After "living a lie," Tiger Woods is nervous about returning to the Masters.

In health care, the question is: what now? We all want to know.

CATO on the health reform bill. The criticism is pouring in and, I predict, will continue.

Victor Davis Hanson's reaction to health care vote.

Megan McArdle's reaction to the health care vote: We are in a different political world.

The wait is over. Arkansas' Congressional delegation voted 3 nos and 1 yes. The yes vote was of course Snyder, with Berry, Boozman, and Ross voting no. Lincoln and Pryor have already voted for the Senate version.

I wish I thought the whole struggle was over instead of just starting. Power Line's reaction is here. They advise: exercise and watch your diet, don't get sick, and avoid the death panels.

Arkansas Watch: At this point Marion Berry may intend to vote no on health care. At the end of his career, according to this post, he should be thinking about eternity.

Bill Kristol on attempts to compare today's health care vote with civil rights:

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 originally passed in the House by 290-130. Cloture was achieved in the Senate by a vote of 71-29, and the Senate then passed its version of the legislation 73-27. The House took up the Senate bill and passed it 289-126. Substantial majorities of both parties supported the legislation at every stage.
This is what allows historic legislation to become historic -- it achieves broad support, is passed without parliamentary tricks, and becomes the broadly accepted law of the land. Tomorrow's vote -- even if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi squeezes out 216 Democrats to pass the legislation -- will not be historic. It will not "end" a century-long struggle over health care. The issue will be revisited in November 2010 and in the next Congress and in November 2012.
And I predict the great majority of what passes tomorrow -- if it does, and that's by no means a given -- will never become settled law or public policy. Instead, its passage will intensify a great debate over the size and scope of government that could well result in public policy, in health care and other areas, moving, in the coming years, in the opposite direction.

In the House vote on health care today, only Marion Berry is an undecided among the Arkansas delegation. What is he waiting on? Tell us.

Michelle Malkin reports that deem and pass is dead. Washington Post makes the same report.

Power Line has a list of controversial propositions that we can all argue about. For example:
* But for World War II, Franklin Roosevelt would have gone down in history as the worst President since James Buchanan.

The New Deal was a disaster that prolonged the Depression, no matter what your history teacher told you. WW2 bailed out his reputation. 

Mike Ross will vote against the Senate health care bill, according to this report. I find it hard to follow Mike Ross's positions. He's against any parliamentary maneuvering but he votes against a resolution that calls for an up and down vote.

Krauthammer thinks health care will pass.

Fess Parker, who played Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett on TV, is dead at 85. The video is from Ann Althouse.

Jason Tolbert: The House just voted down a resolution that would have forced an up or down vote on health care without any maneuvering. Those voting to table the resolution include Vic Snyder, Marion Berry, and Mike Ross.

Ross appears to have voted to advance health care despite his claim to opposite it.

Seattle Times: Walgreens across the state of Washington will stop filling prescriptions for Medicaid patients on April 16. They lose money filling their prescriptions.

AP story:

Buyers beware: President Barack Obama says his health care overhaul will lower premiums by double digits, but check the fine print.
Premiums are likely to keep going up even if the health care bill passes, experts say. If cost controls work as advertised, annual increases would level off with time. But don't look for a rollback. Instead, the main reason premiums would be more affordable is that a new government tax credit would help millions of people who can't afford the cost now.
Listening to Obama pitch his plan, you might not realize that's how it works.

No kidding.

Political Wire: For the first time polls show that more people disapprove of Obama's job performance than approve.

FireDogLake on the latest Blanche Lincoln ad attacking labor unions.

UAPB is in the NCAA tournament and has won their first game, beating Winthrop 61-44. They play Duke on Friday.

Obama threatens not to campaign for any Democrat who does not vote for health care reform. Well, okay.

The Corner: Blanche Lincoln condemns the trick of allowing a House vote on health care without voting on it. Make sense?

Little Rock Fox 16: More on Betsey Wright's legal problem.

Tiger Woods is coming back for the Masters in April. Everybody knew he would.

Julie Mason: If health care reform passes, the atmosphere in Washington will be hyper partisan, even more so than it is now.

Robert Samuelson: "If not now, when? If not us, who?" Obama asks. The answer is: It's not now, and it's not "us." Pass or not, Obama's proposal is the illusion of "reform," not the real thing.

Minnesota billboard: Remember real hope and change?

People don't want to pay for news sites. I sure don't.

Thinking more about the Titanic, take a look at this National Geographic site.

You may get your census form in the mail today.

The AP compares Blanch Lincoln vs challenger Bill Halter race to the 1972 contest between John L. McClellan and challenger David Pryor and J. William Fulbright and challenger Dale Bumpers in 1974. The winners were McClellan and Bumpers. That is, the challenger won one and lost the other. This kind of analogy is not very helpful, I think.

What I remember most clearly is that McClellan really made Pryor look bad in a TV debate, but McClellan died early in his last term. Pryor is still said to be upset about his lost to McClellan but he went on to win McClellan's senate seat in 1978 after McClellan's death.

I've been reading Walter Lord's A Night to Remember, a book about the sinking of the Titanic published in 1955. He interviewed over 60 survivors. It's highly entertaining and suspenseful, a classic.

Of course I've read it before years ago, but it is just as good this time around. 

AP: Hey, you know what? The Democrats are a divided party too.

USAToday: States may hold on to your income tax refund for months because of economic recession.

George Will discusses Obama's approach to health care reform and compares him to Woodrow Wilson. It can't get much worse than that.

I want my hour back!

AP: Federal investigators can not replicate the problem with James Sikes' Prius which ran out of control a week ago in California. Well, well, well.

Scott Brown delivers the GOP response to Obama's Saturday speech.

Megan McArdle looks at the incidents of sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles. And the evidence is very murky. Many cases involve people 55 and older, and many involve parking or starting from a standing stop.

At any rate, when you look at these incidents all together, it's pretty clear why Toyota didn't investigate this "overwhelming evidence" of a problem:  they look a lot like typical cases of driver error.  I don't know that all of them are.  But I do know that however advanced Toyota's electronics are, they're not yet clever enough to be able to pick on senior citizens.

If you are interested in the greatest war movies, see here. I already have some disagreements with the list.

Horror hoax

The recent runaway Prius story in California is said to be a hoax.

Patrick Caddell and Douglas Schoen, quoting Barbara Tuchman, call health-care reform "the March of Folly."

Special Report with Bret Baier: The panel evaluates the health-care push. Despite the optimism among Democrats, the chance of passage is fading.

FireDogLake has a TV ad that will start running today, countering Blanche Lincoln's ad that has run for about a week. It is sponsored by an independent group called Arkansas for Change.

George Will: The president should just mail in his state of the union address. The postal service needs the business.

Kim Strassel:

No way around it, the politics of ObamaCare are bad. So bad that it lends credence to the belief that some in the White House and Congress are far more ideologically interested in establishing European-style health care than they are the public's will or their party's electoral success. The question now is how many congressional Democrats are going to follow them into a political black hole.

Theodore H. Frank tells us why he is not afraid of his Prius and what to do if it does accelerate out of control. Stomp on the brake and stay on it, and shift to neutral.

It’s entirely possible that more people will be killed driving to the dealer for the recall than lives will be saved from going through the safety theater demanded by the Department of Transportation.

USAToday: Harry Reid's wife and daughter were hurt in a car accident.

The ADG reports that Marion Berry, who is retiring after his seventh term, will introduced his own health-reform bill. Why this late, you may ask? It is supposed to be the capstone of his career in Congress. See also here.

He's a registered pharmacist and is concerned about prescription drug costs.

Rasmussen: 60 percent of kids say their textbooks put political correctness above accuracy. Make that 100 percent of textbooks are all about political correctness.

Former Clinton aide Betsey Wright has received permission to question and videotape Don Davis, a death-row inmate next month. The testimony relates to her upcoming trial in May on charges that she attempted to smuggle contraband into the Varner Supermax Unit in Lincoln County.

Michael Barone speculates on whether Nancy Pelosi can corral enough votes to pass health-care reform.

In a study of sex, health, and aging, LifeScience finds a man's sexual life last longer than a woman's.

In today's ADG, Wally Hall has an article about Rus Bradburd's new book on Nolan Richardson called Forty Minutes of Hell. Wally gives it his approval.

Michael Barone: Health care reform is looking like a bridge too far.

Google News: Chief Justice John Roberts was very troubled by the scene at the State of the Union Address, and he has spoken out in answering a law student's question:

"The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court — according the requirements of protocol — has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling."

In his speech Obama criticized the Court's recent campaign finance decision.

AP has more on the recent runaway Prius story.

The AP has more on the story of the runaway Prius in California. Fortunately, no injuries occurred.

AP: Blanche Lincoln has announced that she is opposed to pushing health care through on a simple majority vote. In other words, she does not support reconciliation. But Bill Halter does support reconciliation.

Reason on the coming collapse in higher education:

The pain of deflating this bubble is being felt most acutely in the California public university system, where an impossible mandate (to provide a free, quality college education to everybody) can no longer be sustained, but where the consumers have been so completely shielded from actual costs for so long that the only real solution is for the system to collapse. But the whole country is headed in that direction, for better (if you're a student) or worse (if you're a flunky).

A Prius speeds out of control in California. Scary. On the recall issues, Toyota will be facing a series of class-action lawsuits.

Michael Barone compares low-tax Texas and big-government California.

According to the ADG this morning, 388 candidates have filed for state offices in the 2010 Arkansas elections. Eight candidates have filed for the U.S. Senate in the GOP primary, a record for either party, along with three candidates in the Democratic primary.

The filing period is now over. You can see the complete list of candidates here.

 Newsbusters: George Will and Robert Reich debate health care reform.

Reich, "[R]ecipients of health insurance don't know what they are buying very often. Until there are common standards, minimal standards, then people are going to be taken."
Will, "There you have the premise of this legislation and the core of today's liberalism: the American people are such dopes they can't be counted upon to buy their own insurance" (video embedded below the fold with transcript): 

Kraulthammer for president!

AP: Einstein's relativity manuscript is on display in Jerusalem.

We were in Memphis this weekend and visited the Stax Museum of soul music and ate at Gus's World Famous Hot & Spicy Chicken. We were at Gus's for lunch and had to wait an hour, but it was all worth it. We had chicken, beans, and cole slaw. Actually that's about all they have.

Among other adventures.

Jason Tolbert: Marion Berry will vote against the health care bill if it does not contain strong anti-abortion language.

AP: Austin Freeman, Georgetown basketball player recently diagnosed with diabetes, kept track of his points while a trainer keep track of his blood sugar level. On the other hand why can't a diabetic play basketball and play well?

Mike Ross filed for re-election to a sixth term in Arkansas' fourth district.

The Hill has a variety of answers to the question: Does Obama need to get tough?

Special Report with Bret Baier on FOX News:
Steve Hayes:

HAYES: Well, on the former, on the Arkansas race, the fact that Blanche Lincoln is getting a challenge from the left is good for Republicans. She is going to have to now balance how close she - how centrist she can become. Her voting record has trended centrist over the past year. She is going to get a challenge from the left.
The net-roots is thrilled about Halter's entry into this race, and I think that makes it much more likely that Arkansas is a Republican pick-up.

Fire Dog Lake: Both Blanche Lincoln and Bill Halter are receiving most of their campaign contributions from out of state.

ADG: A Monticello, Arkansas, man's dog was put to death for burial with him. Subscription required for this link, but I'm still looking for the full story.

Horrific pictures (45) of the earthquake aftermath in Chile.

Wal-Mart's customers are running low of money, at least measured by same-store sales. Or the problem could be deflation.

Here's a video taken when Blanche Lincoln filed for re-election.

According to the ADG yesterday, the Butterfield Overland Mail Route may become a new national trail. The National Park Service will make a study of the trail. Between 1858 and 1861 wagons traveled the trail's 2,800 miles from St. Louis and Memphis to San Francisco, with stops in El Paso, Texas, and Fort Yuma, Arizona. The trip took about 23 days by stagecoach under contract to John Butterfield, a businessman. (The ADG link requires a subscription but here is the full article.)

The interest in Arkansas is focused on the NW corner of the state. The local historians who are interested want to determine the trail's exact route and see the route added to the National Trails System.

See also here. And here.

John Brummett describes the Lincoln/Halter primary coming up in May as the "most thoroughly nationalized race in Arkansas political history." Brummett is ecstatic, saying that Halter is for the public option, card check, raising the estate tax.
The war between the Democratic left and the Democratic center has come to Arkansas, a debate driven from the left in red-state Arkansas. 

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) wants to put Ronald Reagan's likeness on the $50 bill. He would replace U.S. Grant, another Republican, if approved.

AP: Gov. Rick Perry has defeated Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison for Texas governor. Michael Barone has this analysis. Power Line says that anti-Washington sentiment was the order of the day.

Popular Mechanics answers your Toyota recall questions.

One of the main controversies swirling around health care is where the current legislation will raise costs. My guess is that it will. Paul Ryan argued that it would in the recent health care summit. See my earlier post. But Ezra Klein has a piece in which he says it won't.

Or you can read this Thomas Sowell column, which I find hard to fault.

GM is recalling 1.3 million cars. Will Congress have hearing?

Byron York explains why Democrats are pushing ahead on health care reform despite overwhelming opposition in public opinion. He relies on Parker Griffith of Alabama, who switched parties in December 2009 from Democrat to Republican.

It's gotten personal, Griffith says. "You have personalities who have bet the farm, bet their reputations, on shoving a health care bill through the Congress. It's no longer about health care reform. It's all about ego now. The president's ego. Nancy Pelosi's ego. This is about personalities, saving face, and it has very little to do with what's good for the American people."
Conflicts driven by personal feelings can lead to self-destructive outcomes. Ask Griffith whether Speaker Pelosi, his old leader, would accept losing Democratic control of the House as the price for passing the health care bill, and he answers quickly. "Oh yeah. This is a trophy for the speaker, it's a trophy for several committee chairs, and it's a trophy for the president." It does not seem to matter that if Democrats lose the House, the speaker will no longer be speaker, the chairmen will no longer be chairmen, and the president will be significantly weakened.
As Griffith sees his former colleagues, Democratic leaders have become so consumed with the idea of achieving the historical goal of a national health care system that they are able to explain away the scores of opinion polls over the last six months that show people solidly opposed to the Democratic proposal.
The polls are wrong, they say. Or the polls are contradictory. Or the polls actually show that people love the health care plan. And even if the polls are right, and people hate the plan, real leaders don't govern by following the polls. So just pass the bill.
That's easy for Democrats like Pelosi, who occupy safe seats. Not so for dozens of moderate House Democrats whose votes are required for passage, but who face likely defeat for it. "I don't think there are that many moderate or conservative Democrats who want to be sacrificial representatives," says Griffith.

Power Line analyzes the Blanche Lincoln/ Bill Halter race.

Hot Air: The White House has announced its support for Blanche Lincoln over Bill Halter in the Arkansas Senate race.

Jason Tolbert list the candidates who filed for state office yesterday.

University of Michigan will get rid of its card catalog. What took them so long?

More on Bill Halter's run for the Senate.

Jason Tolbert: Mike Ross has a Republican opponent in the 4th Congressional district. Beth Anne Rankin will  announce as a Republican soon. She was Miss Arkansas in 1994 and worked with Mike Huckabee's office.

James Carville has some interesting comments on the consequences of passing health care reform or not.

Bill Halter announced this morning that he will challenge Blanche Lincoln in the Democrat primary.

Jason Tolbert has this. See Halter's website.

Campaign Spot comments on what this does to her vote on health care. 

Juan Williams on controversies over the 2010 census. No one wants to be under counted.

Victor Davis Hanson on Obama fatigue. 

Michael Barone discusses where health care stands now.