I just stumbled onto this story by accident and thought I would pass it along. I dump all my pocket change into a pint glass every day, and when it gets full, I let a certain relative go through the quarters she needs for her state quarters collection. The rest is poured into a coin rolling machine and converted to bills at a bank.

Last night, we discovered a new penny design, so I put it in my pocket to carry around as a lucky penny. While getting out of the van in the UAB student center parking lot, I dropped the penny on the wet asphalt. When I went to pick it up, I found another identical new penny on the ground. I didn’t realize it until today when I emptied the pockets of my black jeans that they were identical.

Now I have two of the new coins as lucky pennies. I did a bit of Web research, and found out the United States Mint is minting and issuing four different one-cent coins this year in recognition of the bicentennial of President Abraham Lincoln’s birth and the 100th anniversary of the first issuance of the Lincoln cent.

The themes for the reverse designs represent the four major aspects of President Lincoln’s life: His birth and early childhood in Kentucky, from 1809-1816; his formative years in Indiana, from 1816-1830, his professional Life in Illinois, from 1830-1861, and his presidency in Washington, D.C., from 1861-1865.

The two pennies I ended up with are both from the formative years period, like the image included here.

Here’s what the mint has to say about it.

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The Senate Finance Committee advanced a health care reform bill Tuesday without a public option, but the fight is not over…

In fact, according to the Washington Post, MSNBC and other news organizations, we have met the enemy and it is the insurance industry.

President Obama and his administration and allies on Congress have waged their fight for a health-care overhaul without a clear opponent, even courting industry executives and interest groups that helped kill reform efforts 15 years ago. But attacks on the leading Democratic reform plan this week by the insurance lobby left little doubt that two of the most powerful institutions involved in the debate — the White House and the nation’s insurance companies — have abandoned any real hope of forging a compromise. What was a tenuous truce has turned quickly into an all-out battle, with both sides ratcheting up the hostilities. As the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday approved a 10-year, $829 billion bill to remake the health-care system, Obama’s top advisers and the insurers moved into a more intense stage of conflict.

According to West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller, by coming out of the closet against the bill, the insurance companies make passage of a public option, government health care, more likely…

Here’s the basic AP story on yesterday’s action in the Senate:

AP: Senate Committee Approves Health Care Plan

As we have reported before, there are enough solidly progressive votes in the House who will not vote for a bill that does not have a public option, and now it looks like the Senate will incorporate the Health Committee’s bill in the full Senate bill. Let the debate commence. The Democrats have the votes to pass historic health care reform legislation. Get ‘er done…