Seek and ye shall find. Never has this been more true than combing through theStreet’s (extremely spares) financials. As investors may have been digging through the company’s SEC reports to find out just what the financial website’s unadjusted EBITDA is (hint: much, much less than its “adjusted” cousin), one stumbles upon this gem just filed in today’s Form 12B-25:

As a result of the need for the Company and its independent registered public accounting firm to focus attention on matters related to the Company’s previously-announced review of the accounting in its former Promotions.com subsidiary, which subsidiary the Company sold in December 2009 — including matters related to the preparation and filing by the Company in February 2010 of a Form 10-K/A for the year ended December 31, 2008, a Form 10-Q/A for the quarter ended March 31, 2009 and Forms 10-Q for the quarters ended June 30, 2009 and September 30, 2009, respectively, and matters related to an investigation commenced by Securities and Exchange Commission in March 2010 — the Company requires additional time  to prepare its financial statements, assess its internal controls and file its Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2009 (“2009 Form 10-K”).

via Jim Cramer’s TheStreet Is Being Investigated By The SEC | zero hedge.

Mad Money, indeed.

During the Alabama beat down of Florida last Saturday, Danielson and Lindquist couldn’t help but call a scramble by the then dominant and later victorious Alabama QB Greg McElroy “Tebowesque”. It’s odd when heroic sports titans born of our wild imaginations and survivor’s bias die and all that is left is a human being, especially for the titan! Tebow, an avowed devout Christian, writes the book, chapter and verse number of a bible quote on his eye black each week.

His tears as final minutes expired and the Gators hopes of a repeat SEC championship hopes were dashed, his tears ran past “John” under his right eye and  ”16:33″ under his left:

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But, take heart I have overcome the world.”.

Kind of ironic when crying over a football game.

Still, Tebow has been fun to watch and in the end he is a big f*cking barely adult and your college years are forever. I have to believe Alabama pounds Texas’ lights out in the BCS Championship game. Honestly, I don’t think Texas could beat Alabama or Florida. I hope I am right. Every bad, blowout BCS title game would just be more proof that a 16 team playoff is the way to go. The top 16 this year would leave you with 5 undefeated teams,  1 one loss team, 6 two loss teams and 4 three loss teams all squaring off to for a national playoff for a real championship.

1 Alabama 13-0
2 Texas 13-0
3 Cincinnati 12-0
4 TCU 12-0
5 Florida 12-1
6 Boise State 13-0
7 Oregon 10-2
8 Ohio State 10-2
9 Georgia Tech 11-2
10 Iowa 10-2
11 Virginia Tech 9-3
12 LSU 9-3
13 Penn State 10-2
14 Brigham Young 10-2
15 Miami (FL) 9-3
16 West Virginia 9-3
——————————-
17 Pittsburgh 9-3
18 Oregon State 8-4
19 Oklahoma State 9-3
20 Arizona 8-4
21 Stanford 8-4
22 Nebraska 9-4
23 Utah 9-3
24 USC 8-4
25 Wisconsin 9-3

Check the matchups:

‘Bama v WVU
Texas v The U
Cincy v. BYU
TCU v PSU
Florida v LSU
Boise v Va Tech
Oregon v Iowa
Ohio State v Georgia Tech

All of those would garner high ratings and strong travel. In addition, the ones I have put in bold, I think would have the highest probability of being closely contested, exciting games. Beamer Ball vs. Boise’s bag of tricks? Florida/LSU rematch?

But no. Instead, we have this sham title game. Ah well, they know I’m going to watch half of the bowls anyway. So let’s go bowling.

Melissa Harris-Lacewell, usually a contributor for Countdown with Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow Show, pops up on Morning Joe. Apparently she ran into Morning Joe folks on the plane down and that is how she ended up as a guest. She is an excellent advocate for African American and Urban issues. She does point out that the Obama Administration has sent many department heads (Department of Education, HUD, Homeland Security) to New Orleans. Even though President Obama only made one visit, he has competent and diligent cabinet members who are actually qualified to do their jobs.

President Obama said it plainly enough:

Obama: ‘This is a Health Care Bill, Not an Abortion Bill’ | TPMTV

Why is Stupak so adamant on using the Health Care bill to fight the battle against reproductive rights and abortion access? Well, he’s in the ultra-relgious group known as “The Family” aka “The Fellowship” aka C Street.

“From my perspective, we won last night. We had one race that we were engaged in — it was in northern New York. It was a race where a Republican has held a seat since the Civil War, and we won that seat. So from our standpoint, no. We had a candidate that was victorious who supports the health-care reform… So from our standpoint, we picked up voted last night, one in California [CA-10] and one in New York.”

via Pelosi: ‘We won’ – First Read – msnbc.com.

Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi is making a simple and logical point: in a typical election the House Democrats would reasonably expect to come out of these races losing the very red NY-23 and winning the very blue CA-10. Instead, Democrats held the CA-10 effortlessly and in NY-23 Palin, Pawlenty and Teabaggers nominated a carpetbagging far right candidate. Both house elections went Blue. Getting majority vote on climate change, education reform, health care, extending unemployment benefits, and repealing don’t ask don’t tell became a bit easier for Pelosi and House Majority Whip James Clyburn. The DCCC, the political arm of the House fought one race with funding and man power, that was NY-23 and they won. That is the “we” in her statement. Mitchell, a long time reporter, analyst and pundit, and former US Representative Scarborough know the intelligent and honest way to talk about this in context.

MSNBC’s Chuck Todd seems to understand that “five straight special elections in swing Republican districts that Democrats have won” is a “helpful governing tool for Pelosi”.

Now let’s actually look how Joe Scarborough decided to frame her statement:

Mika Brezinski: Going back to Nancy Pelosi, and you’re really good at this [looking at Scarborough], when you’ve lost something, you’ve lost something. I don’t understand how she can say ‘the Democrats won’ last night. You had Mark Warner who said very plainly said ‘we got walloped’. Why can’t they just… Why can’t ya just say it?[..]And Tim Kaine was spinning.

The last 5 House special elections have meant more votes for Pelosi. Why can’t she just say “we lost”? Because she won.

US Senator Mark Warner, former Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia should say “We”. We being the Democratic Party of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Along with current Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, who also happens to be DNC chair, they have to determine how a state which has elected two Democratic governors, went overwhelmingly for Obama a year ago went to someone as far right as McDonnell. They should start with the Virginia gubernatorial primary in which Terry McAuliffe carpetbagged his way into the race and resulted in the nomination of Creigh Deeds. Deeds was not a supporter of the President’s popular initiatives for health care reform and he

Tim Kaine, as DNC chair, also needs to look to the blue state of New Jersey where Jon Corzine lost his Governership to Chris Christie. Corzine let the race devolve along the standard New Jersey line: darkly tinted, sinister voice over, attack ads. The Democratic machine in NJ waited to long to wheel out Christie’s crooked political past and let him say he was going to clean up New Jersey.

That same DNC chair needs to question President Obama, who decided not to stump for NYC Comptroller Bill Thompson versus Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The same Mayor Bloomberg that endorsed George W. Bush for a second term before leaving the GOP for political expediency, won his bid for NYC Mayor, after getting City Council to circumvent the will of the citizens by throwing out Mayoral term limits, won the election with only 50.6% of the vote.

That same soon to be former Virginia Governor and civil rights attorney also needs to question where the election of the far right McDonnell leave incarceration in Virginia? Virginia spends more than most states on corrections because of inflexible sentencing guidelines for non-violent offenders, Tim Kaine’s measures were rejected and probably won’t be adopted by McDonnell.

McChrystal’s view — that a strategy employing fewer resources, in pursuit of more limited goals, would be “short-sighted” — is something the White House needs to hear. He is, after all, the man Obama put in charge in Afghanistan, and it would be absurd not to take his analysis of the situation into account. But McChrystal is out of line in trying to sell his position publicly, as he did last week in a speech in London.

via Eugene Robinson – Gen. McChrystal’s War of Words – washingtonpost.com.

The question that needs to be answered before Rep. Weiner’s question can be addressed: how much does a health care routine really cost? Is there a list that says $Y dollars is the cost for treatment X? We know our co-pay, our pre-tax pay check deduction but we really don’t know the pre-tax premium contributions of our employers or “employee group”. Health care is a service we buy, through a non-transparent market, without any broker on our behalf and then hope that whatever deal we implicitly agreed to works for us and our provider when our health goes bad. That isn’t a free market nor is it an equitable one. Private payer to provider market distortions are exposed when you compare “full billed charges” to Medicare payouts to providers:

…a survey by America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade group, which detailed a series of exorbitant physician charges. The survey examined out-of-network bills where — as opposed to in-network services — contracts do not exist between the provider and insurer. Also known as full-billed charges, it’s what the uninsured face every time they see a doctor.

In some cases, patients received charges 34 times what Medicare pays for the same procedure in the same location, the AHIP survey found.

For example, one doctor billed $4,500 for an office visit when Medicare would have paid just $134. Another doctor billed $14,400 for removal of a gallbladder when Medicare would have paid $656. And a hip replacement cost $40,000 when Medicare would have paid $1,558.

via Health Articles | A Little Haggling Might Pay Off at the Hospital | Miller-McCune Online Magazine.