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Despite all the Sturm und Drang emanating from town hall meetings, there’s still a very good chance some kind of health care reform bill will pass this year. And one of the biggest forces working toward that goal is America’s biggest pharmaceutical companies, which are expected to pour as much as $150 million into advertisements supporting the reform effort.

If that last sentence makes you flash back to Bill Murray’s line in Ghostbusters about the end times, mass hysteria, and dogs and cats living together, you’re not alone. On Tuesday, John Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, issued an open letter in which he implored drug companies “to halt this short-sighted, misguided campaign and listen to the American people, rather than continue to collaborate on an effort to spin them.”

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The Obama administration will end its popular Cash for Clunkers program Monday. For auto dealers, that’s the bad news. For the rest of the country, what’s more worrisome is how wildly policymakers miscalculated how far they could stretch the extra $2 billion they pumped into the program less than three weeks ago.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced Thursday that the program, officially known as the Car Allowance Rebate System, would end Monday at 8 p.m. The idea behind the Monday deadline is to give the program a “soft landing” so consumers and auto dealers have a few final days to wrap it up.
According to a senior administration official, the overwhelming success of the clunkers program–which provides car buyers a rebate of up to $4,500 when they trade an old gas guzzler for a more fuel-efficient vehicle–is the reason for its abrupt end.

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The plan has been met with some criticism. Media watchdog group Public Knowledge called for a federal antitrust probe, saying the program “violates the open nature of the Internet,” and that it will allow cable operators to continue practices unfair to consumers, like bundling channels and content.

Forbes had an e-mail dialogue with Mark Cuban, the billionaire chairman of television channel HDNet, which airs shows in high-definition and is carried by satellite and cable TV outfits. Cuban says consumers stand to benefit from the new plan, even though they will end up paying for it.

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Whenever he was on deadline, animation student Bang-yao Liu would imagine he was locked in mortal combat with the Post-it notes on which he dashed off his to-do’s. He never guessed this particular nightmare would be the inspiration behind his big career break.

Liu’s highly popular “Deadline: Post-it Stop Motion,” a short video about a student who fights to meet a deadline while animated Post-it notes morph into rain clouds and monsters, has racked up about 2.2 million views on Google’s ( GOOG - news - people ) YouTube video site. It has brought him creative notoriety, kudos from actor Ashton Kutcher and a possible ad deal with Microsoft ( MSFT - news - people ). But you don’t need search-engine-optimization or marketing expertise to go viral; the 23-year-old credits the Internet with providing the basic tools, outlets and promotional channels, all of which are available to anyone willing to put in the time and effort into a product.

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Most Hollywood executives shudder when it comes to putting their shows on the Web. They fear a reprise of the piracy that decimated the music industry as viewers demand more and more free content.

Hulu.com, the online video site owned by NBC Universal, News Corp. ( NWS - news - people ) and Disney ( DIS - news - people ) that features hit TV shows, rolls ads before the shows and attracts 40 million viewers per month but reportedly has yet to turn a profit. YouTube, which was supposed to serve as a fertile garden for studio executives to pick fresh ideas, has yet to produce a hit TV show. And despite Hollywood’s best efforts, almost every movie can be downloaded illegally moments after it hits theaters.

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YouTube is somewhat circumspect about what’s next. Margaret Gould Stewart, 38, the head of user experience at YouTube, says she is seeing more comments on videos and more efforts to link together diverse content. Slowly but surely, Stewart has learned, online video is moving from a largely passive medium to a far more interactive one.

“When you work in user-generated content, you are co-designing with a couple of million people,” says Stewart. For her, it’s the only way to approach an overwhelming load of content and guide the company by way of its own audience.

YouTube continually looks at how people watch all the footage, which ranges from professional to pathetic in quality. If Google figures out how to give viewers more of what they want, it might be able to give advertisers more of what they want. Stewart is working on ways to adapt videos to whatever screen a user is viewing, from a small mobile device to a big screen where friends pool their most-loved videos for a party. Another possibility: pushing videos to others through a system she calls ShareTube. Yet another: YouTube or its users might create virtual video networks made up of select comedy shorts, say, or news. In effect, a million networks on the fly.

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Every single minute, 20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube. Add to that the hundreds of TV shows now available to watch on the Internet, and the sheer volume of video posted online quickly overwhelms. How do you find the good stuff?

Blinkx, a video search company, creates some stylish order around the vast video haul. Blinkx bills itself as the world’s largest video search engine, and says it has indexed more video, audio and TV shows on the Web than anyone else–35 million hours of it. Chief Executive Suranga Chandratillake figures that’s about two-thirds of the video content online, and the other one-third is mostly locked up, requiring payment or passwords to view it.

British-born Chandratillake, 31, founded Blinkx five years ago in San Francisco after serving as chief technology officer in the U.S. for U.K. Internet search firm Autonomy. He predicted then that people would be watching more video online and would need a better way to find it.

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PWNex.com aims to become the premier destination for both buyers and sellers of ‘virtual goods’ and services for hugely successful games such as World of Warcraft. Players can sell their game’s currency, accounts, power-levelling services and anything else in demand.

Unlike most sites selling in-game gold (the currency for many of the biggest MMO’s such as World of Warcraft) or other services, PWNex.com puts players in direct contact with each other and removes any middleman. “Quite often, the Chinese and other Gold farmers playing these games for money are only paid a small percentage of the real value for their virtual goods and services” founder Alistair says. “We aim to put any player, from whatever country, in direct contact with others around the world… allowing them to realise the maximum value from their hard work. Why sell at wholesale prices when you can now sell direct?!”

Already with minimal marketing the site has attracted hundreds of people looking to buy and sell on PWNex.com. PWNex is also on Twitter and already boasts nearly 2000 followers.

Alistair is pleased with the first signs of life for the new Web site: “Transactions are already taking place daily! Clearly there is a need for such an independent market place. We take no commission and will only charge once out of Beta for regular sellers to market their goods/services more effectively to the audience we are building. I invite all gamers or professional game ‘farmers’ to try our service out!”

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Mr Obama has been pressing for a government-run scheme to extend healthcare insurance to some 46 million people in the US.

But Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that this had never been Mr Obama’s top priority.

She hinted that he may accept the idea of non-profit insurance co-operatives.

In an interview with CNN, Ms Sebelius said that Mr Obama’s government-run insurance plan - a so-called “public option” - was “not the essential element” of the administration reforms.
“I think what’s important is choice and competition. And I’m convinced at the end of the day, the plan will have both of those,” she said.

Separately, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs also refused to say that the “public option” was a make-or-break choice.

Mr Gibbs said Mr Obama’s administration would consider an alternative proposal of consumer-owned, non-profit co-operatives that would sell insurance in competition with private industry.

The proposal is currently being fine-tuned in the Senate Finance Committee.

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People wanting to tame or straighten their curly, frizzy or kinky hair now have a new alternative - one that offers a kinder, gentler solution to re-shape their hair in desired hair pattern.
When it comes to buy a machine Hair Straighteners, you should consider things, and ensure these are locked in check. After all, you can buy a set of using your hair. Also, when you use straighteners hair when, you should remember, it will cause some harm your hair. Pressure and quantity of heat, applicable to the hair will bring your hair off some natural nutrients. So, at least you can do is find a machine can help keep your hair looks beautiful, damage as little process. The best hair straightening irons could soon was expensive, but as time goes on, you will get your money’s worth, if you choose suit your needs. Some important guidelines, actually is not suitable for you to choose the best machine.

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