Celtics escape N.Y. on Pierce's last second shot

On Wednesday night the Boston Celtics faced off against the New York Knicks in Madison Square Garden. The Celtics were on a 10 game win streak while the Knicks were on an 8 game win streak of their own. The game came down to the wire, the score was 116-116 and with just 4 tenths of a second left Paul Pierce drained to a shot to give them the lead. But the Knicks came back strong, Amare Stoudemire thought he had made a buzzer beater 3 pointer to win the game, but after review, officials found that he still had possession of the ball when the buzzere went off. The Celtics are now 20-4, the best in the eastern conference.
I think its great that the Boston Celtics are doing well again. Before the season started critics were saying how their team was too old, and they would never make it back to the championship round. But they are proving everyone wrong, and they are the team to beat in the eastern conference. I think that it's good for basketball to have teams like the Celtics, because when there's a favorite there is alwasy an underdog-and eveyone loves to watch an upset.

Issue #2 Ensuring Quality Care for Medicare Patients

The majority of the policymakers believe that Medicare must be reformed, and reorganized to keep the system running. In 2008, Bush made a proposal to save $70 billion on Medicare within the next 5 years. It seems that drastic cuts will be taken soon, which is why policymakers are attempting to create a solution that will reduce expenditures, but at the same time allow Medicare patients the same quality of services. In 2006, a "pay-for-performance" program went through, and allowed Medicare to pay doctors a 1.5% bonus if they are able to give information on the services they gave their patients, and the quality of it. With enough reports from doctors, medical experts were able to set clinical guidelines for what quality care should be. The reason behing all this is so that legislation wants Medicare to reward excellent doctors, and hospitals for provding exceptional quality for Medicare patients. Most insurance agencies use "after-the-fact, fee-for-service"payment policies. This enforces doctors to submit bills directly to insurance companies and then get reimbursed back with most of the payment. Patients will pay various amounts because their is so many different insurance companies, and sometime they will have to pay $100's of deductibles, but in most plans, patients will pay about 20% of the cost.


I think that the United States needs to switch to a universal healthcare system, so that they don't have to deal with problems or situations like this. I think that problems like these are a waste of time, and their is much bigger issues then how much a doctor, or insurance agency should get paid. If everyone was on the same healthcare plan, things would be much simpler, then everyone would have the same medical fees, and doctors would all be paid accordingly. One politcally powerful person who has the same idea when it comes to healthcare is President Barack Obama. He too, thinks that the universal healthcare would benefit everyone, and cut out a many medical problems today.http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/29/politics/main2863074.shtml
Issue #3
http://noelleushistory.blogspot.com/2010/11/issue-number-3-safe-to-eat.html
Issue #1
http://rachelrachrachel.blogspot.com/2010/11/issue-1-comprehensive-vs-incremental.html

Just 32% of Tea Party Candidates Win

As confident as the Tea Party candidates were, only 32% of them won their elections. In the senate races, only 5 of the 10 candidates won. From the House, only 40 of the 130 representatives won theirs so far as well.
I wish that more Tea Party candidates would have one so that the house would be more even. As of right now the majority of the House is democrats at the moment. If more Tea Party Republicans had been elected it would have made the country better because everyone would have to come to an agreement that would work for everyone.

Thousands Cheer Giants at Downtown Parade

Thousands of Giants fans packed the downtown streets of San Fransisco to celebrate their baseball team's first championship in 52 years. Some people claimed that they felt like they were "on cloud nine" after the victory in the fifth game of the World Series. Officials believe that this was the biggest civic event turnout ever within San Fransisco. Even mayor Newsom was ecstatic about the victory saying it was "incomprehensible that this happened."
I think its great that the San Fransisco Giants were finally able to win another championship since its been so long since their last one. Whats even better is that Giants didn't even win their pennant, in fact they barely made the playoffs at all. The Giants somehow were able to get through the Braves, Phillies, and then beat the Rangers to win the World Series.

S. Korea fires warning shots at disputed border

On Wednesday, the South Korean navy shot 10 warning bullets at a North Korean fishing boat, who crossed the disputed border of theses two countries. The boat stayed in the area about two hours before heading back to its own country. This border has created some problems since the U.N. placed it between the countries. Three skirmishes have been fought there since then. These warning shots were the first to be fired since about 7 years ago.
I think that warning shots from South Korea is a little extreme considering they both have issues with each other. Actions like this will only infuriate North Korea and cause even more, serious problems. I think that these two countries should be happy with what they have and stay within their own borders to prevent further problems.

U.S swimmer's body to be handed over to U.S authorities

U.S swimmer Fran Crippen died on Saturday, while performing in a marathon in the Marathon Swimming World Cup in the United Arab Emirates. While on his last leg of the marathon, doctors believe Crippen died from severe fatigue, however Ahmed Ibrahim, the head of the water sports club in Fujairah, says that he suffered a heart attack. Crippen's family back home in Philadelphia were devasted by his unitimely death. Crippen's family has a long history of swimmers.
It's hard to believe that such a talented, and in shape athlete as Fran Crippen could die due to fatigue in a race. It's even harder to believe that nothing was done in order to save him. There should be some sort of safety programs to prevent these sort of disasters.

Showers of Offers for Chile Miners

The 2 month long torture of living underground is starting to show its upside for the Chileans now that they are back up top. Multiple companies including Apple, Sushi xx, Elvis Presley Enterprise and many others are donating their products or already have to the miners. Each family has been given a $10,000 check from Leonardo Farkas, the mining executive. They have also been invited to expense paid trips to Graceland, the Greek Islands, and a Chilean Futbol game. They also will have a book published of them in the near future and lawsuits as well.

I think that its great that the miners are getting recognized for their suffering, especially from the their mining executive. But i think it really nice of companines like Apple, and the Presley Enterprise to go out of their way in order to send their supplies down to the miners to give them something to do.

Issue #1 Spending What We Can Afford

In 2007 Congress passed a pay as you go budgeting measure. This is called Paygo, allows spending reduction elswhere so that tax cuts and the fluxuation of entitlement spending will not offset the budget. Supportives approve of paygo because it eliminates wasteful spending and the collection of unpaid taxes. It also allows Congress to be able to raise enough funds to pay for the latest initiatives, and not go deeper into debt. Anti-supporters believe that paygo will only cause more tax increases, which will hurt America as a whole.
I think that using the paygo method is a good idea because it reduces the amount of wasteful spending of money. I do think though that Congress needs to figure out more serious options that will help get the U.S. out of debt. The U.S. is so far in debt that measures such as Paygo won't even put a dent in the money that the U.S. owes. One major supporter of the Paygo program is President Barack Obama, who put the budget rules in place.
Other different budget issues-
Issue #2 Spending what we can afford
Issue #3 Social Insecurity