The Best Horror Movie You've Never Seen

The Grave Digger is the best horror movie you haven't seen. And I know that because it hasn't been filmed yet. But I have seen the trailer, and you can too.

On the Beach for the Last Day of Winter

A warm day in Marshfield, Massachusetts on the last day of winter.

The Glenn Beck Reeducation Camp

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Jon Stewart blackboards Glenn Beck

If you have been watching or listening to Glenn Beck recently, and who is hasn't, you now know the "truth" about American progessivism. And it must be true because he has outlined it on his blackboard.

Glenn Beck believes progressives are just the same as communists and facists. Yes, you may have thought that Presidents like Republican Teddy Roosevelt or Democrat Woodrow Wilson were great American progressives. Glenn Beck is teaching that they are no better than Stalin, Hitler, and Mao. Really?

It doesn't stop with historical figures from the early 20th Century like Roosevelt and Wilson. He believes that America is being put through a fundamental transformation. And he blames progressives.

"I'm not saying all Democrats are communists or all Republicans are fascists," says Glenn Beck. But apparently he is saying some Democrats are communists and some Republicans are fascists. And he is happy to post the pictures of the Democrats he thinks are communist on his blackboard. He hasn't been quite so quick to post pictures of the Republicans he thinks are fascists.

Progress though, is what America is all about. America is about Ben Franklin flying his kite and creating the Post Office, Thomas Edison inventing the light bulb and electrifying the world, Henry Ford using mass production to build cars for the masses. In our age, the personal computer, the internet, Google. Progress.

But you won't hear that on Glenn Beck. You will get a lot of lectures. A lot of writing on the blackboard. A lot of reeducation. A national reeducation camp, broadcast nationally every night on Fox News. Isn't that what the communists and fascists did? They ran people through reeducation camps, like Glenn Beck is doing. I'm just saying.

My favorite Glenn Beckism is, "Our founders promised our federal government would never leave this circle." Then he draws a circle on his blackboard just to the left of anarchy. And that apparently is Glenn Beck's vision of America. As close to anarchy as he can get it. Because as he shows with his concentric circles. Anything but anarchy leads to communism and fascism. I don't think so.

Stephen Colbert Hams It Up with Jane Austen and Karl Rove

First there was Sense and Sensibility. Then Pride and Prejudice. Now Courage and Consequence.

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"It's just like Pride and Prejudice, but even more prejudiced," probably won't be appearing as a blurb on the book jacket. And Karl Rove probably won't be taking a place in the pantheon next to Jane Austen.

Funny or Die Stages Presidential Reunion

Here is the original Presidential Reunion that they won't let you embed but the extra stuff they do let you embed is funny too:

Has the U.S. Outsourced Its Billionaires to the Developing World?

So here is who is on the top of the latest list of billionaires from Forbes Magazine. The U.S. has 3 people on the list, Europe has 3, and the developing world has 4.

Rank	Billionaire	Country	Age	Net Worth ($ Billions)
1	Carlos Slim Helu & family	Mexico	70	53.5
2	William Gates III	United States	54	53.0
3	Warren Buffett	United States	79	47.0
4	Mukesh Ambani	India	52	29.0
5	Lakshmi Mittal	India/UK	59	28.7
6	Lawrence Ellison	United States	65	28.0
7	Bernard Arnault	France	61	27.5
8	Eike Batista	Brazil	53	27.0
9	Amancio Ortega	Spain	74	25.0
10	Karl Albrecht	Germany	90	23.5

In 2000, 6 of the top ten were from the U.S. with 1 each from Germany, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and Canada. What a difference a decade makes.

Obama's Final March for Health Reform

As President Obama makes his final march for health reform, with Nancy Pelosi scheduling a House vote for as early as next week, he is making a lot of promises:

The part most voters agree with is protection from health insurance company abuses. Here, President Obama promises Americans will never again:

• Be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions.
• Be hit with arbitrary premium hikes.
• See your coverage revoked just when you get sick or injured.
• Face unlimited out-of-pocket expenses for your care.

But there is a reason health insurance companies engage in these games. If you're not working for a company that provides health insurance to its workers, you're going to be facing sticker shock when you find out how much health insurance actually costs. If you are healthy and feeling lucky, the temptation to go without health insurance is high.

And people who are to sick to work eventually lose their jobs and show up at the health insurance company doorstep. That leaves a lot of sick people in line at the health insurance company window, which drives up costs and gives healthy people in line more incentive to do without. And the cost spiral prices at the low end of the economic scale out of the health insurance market.

Are the health insurance companies evil, or just dealing the best they can with a situation they didn't create? As long as they make money off the people still in the system, they don't have a lot of incentive to fix the cost spiral.

So that's where the President's plan tries to put the incentives back on individuals and businesses to purchase health insurance. The stick is mandates, and tax penalties for not having or offering coverage. The carrot is tax credits and a new place to purchase health insurance:

• Small business owners receive tax credits that make it easier to provide coverage for employees.
• Struggling individuals and families receive tax credits to make coverage more affordable.
• Uninsured individuals and small business owners will become part of a powerful negotiating pool that promises to lower prices and increase choice.

The President is also making promises to reassure those who already have coverage:

• If you have health insurance through your employer and you like your plan, you can keep it.
• If you have Medicare, the President's plan guarantees that your benefits will not be cut, and the Medicare Trust Fund will be extended for more than 9 years.

And the President promises to reduce costs:

• Save billions of dollars every year by reducing waste and abuse in our current system.
• Save and create millions of jobs, raise wages and strengthen the economy
• Cut the deficit by nearly $1 trillion over two decades.

That is a lot of promises, I have to say, and requires a lot of trust in government. Nonetheless, I think President Obama has identified the fundamental problem with doing nothing to reform the current health insurance system:

• Even those who have insurance today will be less secure, and more likely to lose coverage if they switch jobs or lose their job due to rising costs on the individual market or being denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition.

Even though the existing system doesn't work for everyone, I think it did work for a lot of people when they stayed in one job and one health plan for most of their working lives. But in our musical chairs economy, that's no longer realistic. A serious health problem, followed by a layoff or getting tripped up by insurance rules that deny coverage, and you're out of your life savings, out of your home, and out of the middle class.

Where's the insurance in that? Why buy into that system? If a good health reform doesn't pass, it may be time for the American public to make other arrangements.