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American Morning

'Gimme A Minute; Toyota Prius Resale Prices Soar

Aired April 15, 2005 - 08:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: 8:30 New York. Good morning, everybody. Good to have you along with us today. In a moment here, we'll have an amazing look into the future, at least what some people say could be the future for the Pentagon. What battlefield robotic surgery might look like. Sanjay has performed surgery during war. We will get his take on this idea in a couple moments here. Intriguing.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Also this morning, the new car that is so sought after that buying one might actually be a better investment than buying real estate. We're going to take a look at the frenzy over the Toyota Prius.

HEMMER: They're crushing that blue book value, aren't they?

To the headlines and Carol Costello, starting in Iraq this half hour.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We do start in Iraq. Good morning. Good morning to all of you. "Now in the News."

Insurgents in Iraq targeting American and Iraqi security forces. Two attacks to tell you about this morning, one a suicide car bombing, the other a roadside bomb. The violence killing at least one person and wounding eight others.

In the meantime, a prayer vigil is planned tonight in LaPorte, Indiana, for Jeffrey Ake. He's the American businessman abducted in Baghdad earlier this week. The Arab network al Jazeera has aired video of him. It aired it on Wednesday.

A 13-year-old boy has been charged with murder after beating his friend with a baseball bat following a youth baseball game. The boy, whose name is being withheld, is set to appear in juvenile court today. The victim's mother says the suspect is a good boy and believes the boys were friends.

Volunteers and law enforcement officials are fanning out again this morning across Ruskin, Florida. They're looking for 13-year-old Sarah Lunde. She's been missing since early Sunday. The sheriff in Hillsborough County says there haven't been too many leads in the case, but stresses the investigation has not hit a dead end. A $10,000 reward has been posted for any information leading to Sarah's return.

Jurors in the Michael Jackson trial getting ready for what could be the most heated day in court so far. The accuser's mother is expected to be cross-examined by Jackson's lawyer. The jurors will also see surveillance video from the Neverland Ranch. CNN's Ted Rowlands is live outside the Santa Maria Courthouse. He will join us in the next half hour.

And an American is among the three-man crew soaring into space right now. The Russian rocket Soyuz blasted off from Kazakhstan overnight. The crew is heading for a six-month stay on the International Space Station. Engineers say the spaceship has entered orbit and all systems are go. I've always wanted to say that, all systems are go.

O'BRIEN: If you can't work at NASA, then you can certainly read it, right?

HEMMER: Where did that blast-off take place, Carol?

COSTELLO: Kazakhstan. It's my favorite word of the morning.

HEMMER: Bravo. Thank you, Carol.

On a Friday, time for "Gimme A minute." With us now in New York, Rachel Maddow of Air America Radio. Rachel, good morning to you, nice to have you back with us.

RACHEL MADDOW, AIR AMERICA RADIO: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

HEMMER: In San Francisco, Jeff Katz, former KNEW Radio. I should say from KNEW. How you doing, Jeff? Good morning to you.

JEFF KATZ, KNEW RADIO: I was doing fine 'til I lost my job, Bill.

HEMMER: Well, I'm happy to report you're still employed. Andy Borowitz of borowitzreport.com. How are you, Drew? Good morning to you, as well.

ANDY BOROWITZ, BOROWITZREPORT.COM: I'm pretty good.

HEMMER: OK, Rachel, start us out. Tom DeLay says he will not answer any more questions regarding ethics. Our question to you to kick us off today. Is this any way to put out a fire?

MADDOW: You know, even if you can't follow all the Tom DeLay scandals -- and there's so many of them, I mean, really, who has time? The basic point is that Tom DeLay is an arrogant bully who broke the law and thinks he doesn't have to answer to anyone. So now he's taking on those allegations by saying to the press, I don't have to answer to you. He kinds of makes the point. I think the lady doth protest too much.

HEMMER: You are throwing another log on that fire. Is she not, Jeff?

KATZ: I think she's definitely throwing another log on the fire, but as you're throwing logs from the fire, you can drag some logs from Nancy Pelosi and Bernie Sanders and a lot of folks across the aisle that are accused of doing exactly the same thing that Tom DeLay is.

HEMMER: Well, Andy, the pilot light's still on, isn't it?

BOROWITZ: You, DeLay is so confident he's going to win this thing, he just doubled his family's salary.

HEMMER: Next topic. Presidents Bush and Clinton, 43 and 42, getting down right friendly, Jeff. Apparently, 43 praised 42 over Social Security reform, and they had a good time in Rome during the pope's funeral. What do you make of this relationship?

KATZ: I don't like it. I don't like it simply just as a matter of the former president's club, I get that, but for those of us who voted for President Bush, this palling around with Bill Clinton and the rest of the Clinton gang is disturbing, to say the least, unless Bill Clinton is perhaps coming back to the White House to move some extra boxes out.

HEMMER: Wow, this is like Crawford meeting Little Rock. "Simple Life" remade, is it, Rachel?

MADDOW: Well, you know, I think it's creepy that anybody might have a good time at a funeral. But really, the bad news here is that Bill Clinton has turned out to be a really great former Republican president. He's done nothing for the Democrats at all. So we're probably on the same page about that one. The good news is that with Bill, if he likes Bill, maybe he'll call the Republicans off Hillary and they'll stop demonizing Hillary and using her to raise money.

HEMMER: Stay tuned -- Andy?

BOROWITZ: You know, when Bill Clinton had his last heart procedure, he asked for two people at his bedside. Former President Bush and Angelina Jolie.

HEMMER: Little did you know. Our third topic. The vote on John Bolton -- could be the next U.N. ambassador. Apparently it's delayed until next week. Rachel, do Democrats think they have a chance of derailing this?

MADDOW: Well, we know about three things about John Bolton, other than the mustache, right? We know that he's a bully. We know he lied about weapons of mass destruction, about Cuba, in his case, but lying about weapons is always a good way to get promoted in the Bush administration. And we know that he once said that in his mind, the U.N. didn't exist. That's the silver lining for me. I'm hoping that maybe he won't show up for work.

HEMMER: Here's the rub. Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee, they're suggesting that he may change sides. Jeff, do you see that as happening?

KATZ: I don't know if Lincoln Chafee would change sides. I would have an argument with whether Lincoln Chafee a Republican in reality. And I think John Bolton is a perfect guy for the job. I mean, this is a man who would actually represent American interests. And if he could take about ten floors out of the United Nations, it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. And for us in California, it bothers Barbara Boxer, it's a freebie and it's a bonus. We like it.

HEMMER: What about, Andy?

BOROWITZ: John Bolton said the U.N. was arrogant, wrong-headed and incompetent, and that he would fit right in.

HEMMER: Ding. Under the radar. Hey, Jeff, what did we miss?

KATZ: We missed this. The United States Golf Association has decided to allow so-called transsexual men to now compete as women in the women golf tournaments.

HEMMER: Intriguing. Rachel?

MADDOW: A religious terrorist who set off four bombs in the United States, killed two Americans, wounded more than 100 people, copped a plea this week. Not a peep from the president. If Eric Rudolph had been a Muslim, President Bush would be standing on his corpse giving a speech in the Rose Garden right now.

HEMMER: Well, you are on fire. Wow. Andy?

BOROWITZ: A new Wisconsin law would allow people to hunt cats, while a new Texas law would allow cats to buy assault rifles.

HEMMER: Thanks. Let's leave it there. Jeff, if you lose your job, you can come back any time.

KATZ: Thank you so much, Bill.

HEMMER: Thanks, Rachel; thanks, Jeff; thanks, Andy. All three of you have a great weekend, OK? All right. Here's Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Some business news to tell you about this morning. The Toyota Prius is one popular car, so popular, in fact, that secondhand hybrids are actually selling for more than brand new ones.

CNN's Allan Chernoff tells us why some owners are looking to cash in on this hybrid car craze.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ken Ruck, proud owner of a brand new Toyota Prius. Fully loaded and with a hybrid engine, gas and electric, it gets 55 miles per gallon.

KEN RUCK, PRIUS OWNER: I love this car because, not only is it saving money on gas, but it also is pretty cool.

CHERNOFF: What he'd love even more would be to sell the Prius at a profit of $10,000. Ken, an employee of Virgin Mobil, is advertising on the web to sell for $37,000.

RUCK: I posted the car on Craig's List Web site for $10,000 more than I paid for it, and pretty much every day since then, I've had three to four e-mails offering me not as much as what I'm asking for, but more than what I paid for it.

CHERNOFF: Yes, the Prius is popular. Toyota says the average wait for the car is two months.

(on camera): With gasoline prices near record levels, some people don't want to wait. They want their Prius now. Kelly Blue Book, the authority on car prices, says used Priuses are selling for $1,000 to $3,000 above sticker price. You can find them at cars.com or eBay Motors, but $10,000 above list?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're either crazy, or it's a great car. One or the other.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, maybe he's a better businessman than I am.

CHERNOFF (voice-over): This Toyota dealer says his customers need wait only a month for a Prius, but in New York, he says, anything is possible.

BRUCE EDLEMAN, QUEENSBORO TOYOTA: We're not paying $10,000 more for a car, no matter how great the car is. But there are some individuals who really want the car, and they're like on a quest that they want to get that car, and they'll pay. They'll pay a high, high premium over the sticker price of what the customer paid for it. Probably he will get it.

CHERNOFF: If Ken Ruck gets his price, he says he'll buy another Prius to turn a quick buck, but perhaps only he sees green when looking at his silver car. At the very least, he'll save money on gas as he shows off his Prius.

Allan Chernoff, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: The list price for a new Toyota Prius ranges from $20,975 to $26,640.

(WEATHER REPORT)

O'BRIEN: A new law could make it harder for you to pay off your debts. It's one step closer to reality. Andy is "Minding Your Business," just ahead this morning.

HEMMER: Also, the Pentagon's robotic doctor using a joystick instead of a scalpel. That's next after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Medical personnel repeatedly risk their lives to treat injuries on the front lines of combat, but the U.S. military is looking to find ways that soldiers can be treated on the battlefield without the risk of wounding more people. CNN's Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr has a report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Urban combat in the year 2025 as envisioned by the Pentagon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Man down, man down.

STARR: A soldier is shot. A driverless vehicle rolls up. The soldier is carried away and treated, by robots. No doctors or nurses are on the front line. Treatment is immediate. The soldier is saved. It's just a concept for now, but it's got a name, the trauma pod. And if it works, it can save lives.

DR. ADRIAN PARK, UNIV. OF MD. MEDICAL CENTER: Right now we're doing basic stabilization, so stabilization of fractures and hemostasis, or stopping the bleeding.

STARR: Today's operating rooms are already taking the first steps in automation and robotics. Surgeons routinely use laproscopic instruments to peer into the human body with tiny cameras, one step removed from directly holding the scalpel. But with the trauma pod, military surgeons will rely on high-definition screens and instant communications to tell the robot what to do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I may be in another city, may be in another country.

STARR: The Pentagon is funding a $12 million effort to see what is possible.

(on camera): Here at the University of Maryland Medical Center, researchers are part of a team exploring critical issues that may occur when a badly wounded soldier is treated robotically by doctors hundreds of miles away.

(voice-over): High-speed communications will be a challenge. Any satellite delay sending data between the robot and the human surgeon must be less than .2 second. Robots will need to perform high-definition scans, insert IVs, and clear a soldier's airway. The robo-scrub nurse will provide instruments and bandages. As the robot scans, it will locate any body damage as small as 1/30 of an inch.

While robots will do the work, experts insist there will always be a human doctor in control.

TIM GANOUS, TRAUMA POD PROJECT MANAGER: There would be a surgeon on joysticks, let's say, back at a military hospital, who is participating in the surgery.

STARR: And then the soldier will be lifted out of the trauma pod and carried off by another robotic vehicle flying through the air.

Barbara Starr, CNN, University of Maryland Medical Center.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HEMMER: Let's get right to Sanjay Gupta.

Sanjay, good morning to you.

You performed surgery on the battlefield. I mean, the videotape, the mock-up looks really good. But how realistic do you think it really is?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It's a long way away for sure, and they say 15 to 20 years. There's a lot of things as you watch the video that a lot of doctors scratch their heads about. One is that you have the little pod coming up to the injured person out in the battlefield and essentially scooping them up. The question, there's no substitute really for a human assessment at that point by a medic to determine, for example, if somebody has a broken neck. If you have a broken neck and you scoop them up like that, might you injure him further? Those are little details perhaps to some, but they make a huge difference. And it's been somewhat of a rate-limiting step. '

Having said that, obviously, it's a dangerous place for doctors to be. In this past war, this past conflict, a lot of doctors moving directly with the front line, as you mentioned. I operated myself out there. You can see some of that, and those are dangerous situations, clearly, to be in, because you are right behind the front lines. To the extent that you can minimize the risk to that commodity on the battlefield, that's a good thing. We're nowhere close to what that mock-up was there.

O'BRIEN: But you know, when you consider the circumstances and the environment you were working in specifically speaking, in Iraq, things were breaking down all the time in Iraq. I'm talking about tanks and Humvees. I mean, could that possibly work do you think?

GUPTA: Well, that's a very good point. You know, just the sand storms alone. You know, we had a camera out there, which is a much less technologically sophisticated piece of equipment, that broke down on more than one occasion just from the sand, and the environment and the elements alone. What were to happen if one of these pods broke down out there? Does that just simply mean that people would die because you couldn't possibly get them treatment? I don't know.

But it's hard to say. There's a lot of steps to something like this. You know, people have been talking about remote robotic surgery for some time, and it is done to some extent already today. You know, we actually have someone controlling joysticks across a hospital room or an operating room, actually performing surgery, but that's in a very controlled setting. Obviously, this is very, very different, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: It will be very interesting to watch the progress on it.

GUPTA: But Barbara Starr did look pretty good in those scrubs, though,don't you think? O'BRIEN: Barbara could be I a surgeon in her next career if she wants to be.

Thanks, Sanjay. Appreciate it.

GUPTA: Thank you. Bye-bye.

O'BRIEN: Coming up next, digging out of debt. It's about to get a whole lot harder for Americans who are on the verge of bankruptcy. Andy is "Minding Your Business," up next on AMERICAN MORNING.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEMMER: All right, welcome back.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Bankruptcy bill about to become law, and a dying business brings Japan's stock market to life. With those stories and more, here's Andy Serwer "Minding Your Business."

Good morning.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you, Jack.

The bankruptcy bill passed the House. The president said he's going to sign it. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago when the Senate passed it. And basically it's going to make it a lot tougher for Americans to file for bankruptcy.

I find it kind of ironic that this bill is about to be signed into law which really protects credit card companies. They're a big backer of this bill. At the same time, we have no legislation to protect consumers from credit fraud and identity theft, which you think the credit card companies might be interested in. A little ironic, isn't it?

CAFFERTY: The government is just a wonderful mechanism, isn't it?

SERWER: Well, we could talk about that for my entire segment. But let's not. Let's talk about the Japanese stock market, believe it or not, because there's a company over there that's just fascinating. The Nikkei has not done very well this year, just like all the stock markets here in the United States. But one initial public offering came out the other day that was just red hot. It's a company called Asuka Net. Asuka Net is a Japanese company that specializes in portraits of the dead.

O'BRIEN: After they're dead?

SERWER: Well, no. Here's how it works, Soledad. These are samples from the company's Web site. Here's how it works, Japanese funerals, it's customary to have a portrait of the deceased at the coffin during the funeral service. And this company, what they do -- that's another example. What they'll do is they take a photograph of the deceased family member, put it in their computer and have a computerized image, and then dress the image up the way you would like it to be done, the way the family members would like it to be done. And apparently, this is a very big business in Japan, and it's a steady business, as you pointed out.

CAFFERTY: No shortage of supply of people to do pictures of.

SERWER: It just goes on and on. I thought it was kind of interesting, a little bit different customs in different countries.

Let's talk about the stock market in the United States. Not a pretty picture. I guess that works. This is the numbers for the year to date.

HEMMER: Yowza.

SERWER: Yes, you might want to just not check your 401(k) statement when it comes in the mail, Jack.

CAFFERTY: It's going to go lower, too.

SERWER: This is the Cafferty market, Mr. Market, we're calling it.

CAFFERTY: I love it.

SERWER: You love it.

CAFFERTY: I'm just kidding. Please don't write me.

SERWER: It's disturbed me when you say you love it.

O'BRIEN: It wasn't said with your usual sarcasm.

CAFFERTY: It's time for the "Cafferty File."

SERWER: Yes, file on.

CAFFERTY: When it comes to sex appeal, President Bush ain't no Elvis. "Esquire" magazine asked 11,000 women in 15 countries to rate President Bush's sexual allure on a scale of 1 to 10. His average score, less than 2. His harshest judges, women in Australia, Germany, and the Netherlands, where he got an average rating of 1.4. The most generous women in Indonesia, where we just dropped off billions of dollars of relief materials. He got a 2.2 average score there. As for American women, they give their president on a 2.1 on the sexual- allure scale.

O'BRIEN: It only matters if Laura finds him attractive, right?

CAFFERTY: Let's hope so.

The United States isn't the only place with soaring real estate prices. This is interesting. Baghdad, residential housing prices have quadrupled since the fall of Saddam Hussein. According to Iraqi government, an average 3,000-square foot home in Baghdad's upscale Mansour district sells $300,000. Real estate company Baghdad Property offers a newly built, 4,000-square foot Palladian-style home for $550,000. Real estate agents say the rise in prices result in an increase in income since the U.S.-led invasion two years ago, the liberalization of building and property laws, and the return of many Iraqi exiles.

Finally, another glowing example of our government at work. The $80 billion emergency supplemental spending bill for the war in Iraq is being held up in the Senate because of a shortage of oyster shuckers and crab pickers in Maryland. Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski wants to amend this bill, the Iraq war bill, to provide Maryland seafood businesses with more low-wage immigrant workers. The state's ceiling of 66,000 visas for foreign workers was reached in January. So Senator Mikulski will not vote for the money to fight the war in Iraq unless she gets her way on oyster shuckers and crab pickers. And we elect these people.

SERWER: Well, Maryland is for crabs. Being from Maryland. And I'm really on the side of the shuckers in this one, I've got to tell you. I mean, I'm a homer here. But all right, maybe it's not a good idea to hold up the bill.

CAFFERTY: You said your piece. I'm done. That's all I have.

O'BRIEN: That's all you got?

SERWER: No retort. OK, couldn't get him going.

HEMMER: You tried.

SERWER: I did. It didn't work.

HEMMER: In a moment here, the biggest rivalry in sports getting even hotter as of last night. One Yankees star mixing it up with the fans at Fenway. Another Yankees star saves a kid's life. True story. We'll cover both of them, top of the hour here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired April 15, 2005 - 08:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: 8:30 New York. Good morning, everybody. Good to have you along with us today. In a moment here, we'll have an amazing look into the future, at least what some people say could be the future for the Pentagon. What battlefield robotic surgery might look like. Sanjay has performed surgery during war. We will get his take on this idea in a couple moments here. Intriguing.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Also this morning, the new car that is so sought after that buying one might actually be a better investment than buying real estate. We're going to take a look at the frenzy over the Toyota Prius.

HEMMER: They're crushing that blue book value, aren't they?

To the headlines and Carol Costello, starting in Iraq this half hour.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We do start in Iraq. Good morning. Good morning to all of you. "Now in the News."

Insurgents in Iraq targeting American and Iraqi security forces. Two attacks to tell you about this morning, one a suicide car bombing, the other a roadside bomb. The violence killing at least one person and wounding eight others.

In the meantime, a prayer vigil is planned tonight in LaPorte, Indiana, for Jeffrey Ake. He's the American businessman abducted in Baghdad earlier this week. The Arab network al Jazeera has aired video of him. It aired it on Wednesday.

A 13-year-old boy has been charged with murder after beating his friend with a baseball bat following a youth baseball game. The boy, whose name is being withheld, is set to appear in juvenile court today. The victim's mother says the suspect is a good boy and believes the boys were friends.

Volunteers and law enforcement officials are fanning out again this morning across Ruskin, Florida. They're looking for 13-year-old Sarah Lunde. She's been missing since early Sunday. The sheriff in Hillsborough County says there haven't been too many leads in the case, but stresses the investigation has not hit a dead end. A $10,000 reward has been posted for any information leading to Sarah's return.

Jurors in the Michael Jackson trial getting ready for what could be the most heated day in court so far. The accuser's mother is expected to be cross-examined by Jackson's lawyer. The jurors will also see surveillance video from the Neverland Ranch. CNN's Ted Rowlands is live outside the Santa Maria Courthouse. He will join us in the next half hour.

And an American is among the three-man crew soaring into space right now. The Russian rocket Soyuz blasted off from Kazakhstan overnight. The crew is heading for a six-month stay on the International Space Station. Engineers say the spaceship has entered orbit and all systems are go. I've always wanted to say that, all systems are go.

O'BRIEN: If you can't work at NASA, then you can certainly read it, right?

HEMMER: Where did that blast-off take place, Carol?

COSTELLO: Kazakhstan. It's my favorite word of the morning.

HEMMER: Bravo. Thank you, Carol.

On a Friday, time for "Gimme A minute." With us now in New York, Rachel Maddow of Air America Radio. Rachel, good morning to you, nice to have you back with us.

RACHEL MADDOW, AIR AMERICA RADIO: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

HEMMER: In San Francisco, Jeff Katz, former KNEW Radio. I should say from KNEW. How you doing, Jeff? Good morning to you.

JEFF KATZ, KNEW RADIO: I was doing fine 'til I lost my job, Bill.

HEMMER: Well, I'm happy to report you're still employed. Andy Borowitz of borowitzreport.com. How are you, Drew? Good morning to you, as well.

ANDY BOROWITZ, BOROWITZREPORT.COM: I'm pretty good.

HEMMER: OK, Rachel, start us out. Tom DeLay says he will not answer any more questions regarding ethics. Our question to you to kick us off today. Is this any way to put out a fire?

MADDOW: You know, even if you can't follow all the Tom DeLay scandals -- and there's so many of them, I mean, really, who has time? The basic point is that Tom DeLay is an arrogant bully who broke the law and thinks he doesn't have to answer to anyone. So now he's taking on those allegations by saying to the press, I don't have to answer to you. He kinds of makes the point. I think the lady doth protest too much.

HEMMER: You are throwing another log on that fire. Is she not, Jeff?

KATZ: I think she's definitely throwing another log on the fire, but as you're throwing logs from the fire, you can drag some logs from Nancy Pelosi and Bernie Sanders and a lot of folks across the aisle that are accused of doing exactly the same thing that Tom DeLay is.

HEMMER: Well, Andy, the pilot light's still on, isn't it?

BOROWITZ: You, DeLay is so confident he's going to win this thing, he just doubled his family's salary.

HEMMER: Next topic. Presidents Bush and Clinton, 43 and 42, getting down right friendly, Jeff. Apparently, 43 praised 42 over Social Security reform, and they had a good time in Rome during the pope's funeral. What do you make of this relationship?

KATZ: I don't like it. I don't like it simply just as a matter of the former president's club, I get that, but for those of us who voted for President Bush, this palling around with Bill Clinton and the rest of the Clinton gang is disturbing, to say the least, unless Bill Clinton is perhaps coming back to the White House to move some extra boxes out.

HEMMER: Wow, this is like Crawford meeting Little Rock. "Simple Life" remade, is it, Rachel?

MADDOW: Well, you know, I think it's creepy that anybody might have a good time at a funeral. But really, the bad news here is that Bill Clinton has turned out to be a really great former Republican president. He's done nothing for the Democrats at all. So we're probably on the same page about that one. The good news is that with Bill, if he likes Bill, maybe he'll call the Republicans off Hillary and they'll stop demonizing Hillary and using her to raise money.

HEMMER: Stay tuned -- Andy?

BOROWITZ: You know, when Bill Clinton had his last heart procedure, he asked for two people at his bedside. Former President Bush and Angelina Jolie.

HEMMER: Little did you know. Our third topic. The vote on John Bolton -- could be the next U.N. ambassador. Apparently it's delayed until next week. Rachel, do Democrats think they have a chance of derailing this?

MADDOW: Well, we know about three things about John Bolton, other than the mustache, right? We know that he's a bully. We know he lied about weapons of mass destruction, about Cuba, in his case, but lying about weapons is always a good way to get promoted in the Bush administration. And we know that he once said that in his mind, the U.N. didn't exist. That's the silver lining for me. I'm hoping that maybe he won't show up for work.

HEMMER: Here's the rub. Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee, they're suggesting that he may change sides. Jeff, do you see that as happening?

KATZ: I don't know if Lincoln Chafee would change sides. I would have an argument with whether Lincoln Chafee a Republican in reality. And I think John Bolton is a perfect guy for the job. I mean, this is a man who would actually represent American interests. And if he could take about ten floors out of the United Nations, it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. And for us in California, it bothers Barbara Boxer, it's a freebie and it's a bonus. We like it.

HEMMER: What about, Andy?

BOROWITZ: John Bolton said the U.N. was arrogant, wrong-headed and incompetent, and that he would fit right in.

HEMMER: Ding. Under the radar. Hey, Jeff, what did we miss?

KATZ: We missed this. The United States Golf Association has decided to allow so-called transsexual men to now compete as women in the women golf tournaments.

HEMMER: Intriguing. Rachel?

MADDOW: A religious terrorist who set off four bombs in the United States, killed two Americans, wounded more than 100 people, copped a plea this week. Not a peep from the president. If Eric Rudolph had been a Muslim, President Bush would be standing on his corpse giving a speech in the Rose Garden right now.

HEMMER: Well, you are on fire. Wow. Andy?

BOROWITZ: A new Wisconsin law would allow people to hunt cats, while a new Texas law would allow cats to buy assault rifles.

HEMMER: Thanks. Let's leave it there. Jeff, if you lose your job, you can come back any time.

KATZ: Thank you so much, Bill.

HEMMER: Thanks, Rachel; thanks, Jeff; thanks, Andy. All three of you have a great weekend, OK? All right. Here's Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Some business news to tell you about this morning. The Toyota Prius is one popular car, so popular, in fact, that secondhand hybrids are actually selling for more than brand new ones.

CNN's Allan Chernoff tells us why some owners are looking to cash in on this hybrid car craze.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ken Ruck, proud owner of a brand new Toyota Prius. Fully loaded and with a hybrid engine, gas and electric, it gets 55 miles per gallon.

KEN RUCK, PRIUS OWNER: I love this car because, not only is it saving money on gas, but it also is pretty cool.

CHERNOFF: What he'd love even more would be to sell the Prius at a profit of $10,000. Ken, an employee of Virgin Mobil, is advertising on the web to sell for $37,000.

RUCK: I posted the car on Craig's List Web site for $10,000 more than I paid for it, and pretty much every day since then, I've had three to four e-mails offering me not as much as what I'm asking for, but more than what I paid for it.

CHERNOFF: Yes, the Prius is popular. Toyota says the average wait for the car is two months.

(on camera): With gasoline prices near record levels, some people don't want to wait. They want their Prius now. Kelly Blue Book, the authority on car prices, says used Priuses are selling for $1,000 to $3,000 above sticker price. You can find them at cars.com or eBay Motors, but $10,000 above list?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're either crazy, or it's a great car. One or the other.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, maybe he's a better businessman than I am.

CHERNOFF (voice-over): This Toyota dealer says his customers need wait only a month for a Prius, but in New York, he says, anything is possible.

BRUCE EDLEMAN, QUEENSBORO TOYOTA: We're not paying $10,000 more for a car, no matter how great the car is. But there are some individuals who really want the car, and they're like on a quest that they want to get that car, and they'll pay. They'll pay a high, high premium over the sticker price of what the customer paid for it. Probably he will get it.

CHERNOFF: If Ken Ruck gets his price, he says he'll buy another Prius to turn a quick buck, but perhaps only he sees green when looking at his silver car. At the very least, he'll save money on gas as he shows off his Prius.

Allan Chernoff, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: The list price for a new Toyota Prius ranges from $20,975 to $26,640.

(WEATHER REPORT)

O'BRIEN: A new law could make it harder for you to pay off your debts. It's one step closer to reality. Andy is "Minding Your Business," just ahead this morning.

HEMMER: Also, the Pentagon's robotic doctor using a joystick instead of a scalpel. That's next after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Medical personnel repeatedly risk their lives to treat injuries on the front lines of combat, but the U.S. military is looking to find ways that soldiers can be treated on the battlefield without the risk of wounding more people. CNN's Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr has a report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Urban combat in the year 2025 as envisioned by the Pentagon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Man down, man down.

STARR: A soldier is shot. A driverless vehicle rolls up. The soldier is carried away and treated, by robots. No doctors or nurses are on the front line. Treatment is immediate. The soldier is saved. It's just a concept for now, but it's got a name, the trauma pod. And if it works, it can save lives.

DR. ADRIAN PARK, UNIV. OF MD. MEDICAL CENTER: Right now we're doing basic stabilization, so stabilization of fractures and hemostasis, or stopping the bleeding.

STARR: Today's operating rooms are already taking the first steps in automation and robotics. Surgeons routinely use laproscopic instruments to peer into the human body with tiny cameras, one step removed from directly holding the scalpel. But with the trauma pod, military surgeons will rely on high-definition screens and instant communications to tell the robot what to do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I may be in another city, may be in another country.

STARR: The Pentagon is funding a $12 million effort to see what is possible.

(on camera): Here at the University of Maryland Medical Center, researchers are part of a team exploring critical issues that may occur when a badly wounded soldier is treated robotically by doctors hundreds of miles away.

(voice-over): High-speed communications will be a challenge. Any satellite delay sending data between the robot and the human surgeon must be less than .2 second. Robots will need to perform high-definition scans, insert IVs, and clear a soldier's airway. The robo-scrub nurse will provide instruments and bandages. As the robot scans, it will locate any body damage as small as 1/30 of an inch.

While robots will do the work, experts insist there will always be a human doctor in control.

TIM GANOUS, TRAUMA POD PROJECT MANAGER: There would be a surgeon on joysticks, let's say, back at a military hospital, who is participating in the surgery.

STARR: And then the soldier will be lifted out of the trauma pod and carried off by another robotic vehicle flying through the air.

Barbara Starr, CNN, University of Maryland Medical Center.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HEMMER: Let's get right to Sanjay Gupta.

Sanjay, good morning to you.

You performed surgery on the battlefield. I mean, the videotape, the mock-up looks really good. But how realistic do you think it really is?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It's a long way away for sure, and they say 15 to 20 years. There's a lot of things as you watch the video that a lot of doctors scratch their heads about. One is that you have the little pod coming up to the injured person out in the battlefield and essentially scooping them up. The question, there's no substitute really for a human assessment at that point by a medic to determine, for example, if somebody has a broken neck. If you have a broken neck and you scoop them up like that, might you injure him further? Those are little details perhaps to some, but they make a huge difference. And it's been somewhat of a rate-limiting step. '

Having said that, obviously, it's a dangerous place for doctors to be. In this past war, this past conflict, a lot of doctors moving directly with the front line, as you mentioned. I operated myself out there. You can see some of that, and those are dangerous situations, clearly, to be in, because you are right behind the front lines. To the extent that you can minimize the risk to that commodity on the battlefield, that's a good thing. We're nowhere close to what that mock-up was there.

O'BRIEN: But you know, when you consider the circumstances and the environment you were working in specifically speaking, in Iraq, things were breaking down all the time in Iraq. I'm talking about tanks and Humvees. I mean, could that possibly work do you think?

GUPTA: Well, that's a very good point. You know, just the sand storms alone. You know, we had a camera out there, which is a much less technologically sophisticated piece of equipment, that broke down on more than one occasion just from the sand, and the environment and the elements alone. What were to happen if one of these pods broke down out there? Does that just simply mean that people would die because you couldn't possibly get them treatment? I don't know.

But it's hard to say. There's a lot of steps to something like this. You know, people have been talking about remote robotic surgery for some time, and it is done to some extent already today. You know, we actually have someone controlling joysticks across a hospital room or an operating room, actually performing surgery, but that's in a very controlled setting. Obviously, this is very, very different, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: It will be very interesting to watch the progress on it.

GUPTA: But Barbara Starr did look pretty good in those scrubs, though,don't you think? O'BRIEN: Barbara could be I a surgeon in her next career if she wants to be.

Thanks, Sanjay. Appreciate it.

GUPTA: Thank you. Bye-bye.

O'BRIEN: Coming up next, digging out of debt. It's about to get a whole lot harder for Americans who are on the verge of bankruptcy. Andy is "Minding Your Business," up next on AMERICAN MORNING.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEMMER: All right, welcome back.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Bankruptcy bill about to become law, and a dying business brings Japan's stock market to life. With those stories and more, here's Andy Serwer "Minding Your Business."

Good morning.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you, Jack.

The bankruptcy bill passed the House. The president said he's going to sign it. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago when the Senate passed it. And basically it's going to make it a lot tougher for Americans to file for bankruptcy.

I find it kind of ironic that this bill is about to be signed into law which really protects credit card companies. They're a big backer of this bill. At the same time, we have no legislation to protect consumers from credit fraud and identity theft, which you think the credit card companies might be interested in. A little ironic, isn't it?

CAFFERTY: The government is just a wonderful mechanism, isn't it?

SERWER: Well, we could talk about that for my entire segment. But let's not. Let's talk about the Japanese stock market, believe it or not, because there's a company over there that's just fascinating. The Nikkei has not done very well this year, just like all the stock markets here in the United States. But one initial public offering came out the other day that was just red hot. It's a company called Asuka Net. Asuka Net is a Japanese company that specializes in portraits of the dead.

O'BRIEN: After they're dead?

SERWER: Well, no. Here's how it works, Soledad. These are samples from the company's Web site. Here's how it works, Japanese funerals, it's customary to have a portrait of the deceased at the coffin during the funeral service. And this company, what they do -- that's another example. What they'll do is they take a photograph of the deceased family member, put it in their computer and have a computerized image, and then dress the image up the way you would like it to be done, the way the family members would like it to be done. And apparently, this is a very big business in Japan, and it's a steady business, as you pointed out.

CAFFERTY: No shortage of supply of people to do pictures of.

SERWER: It just goes on and on. I thought it was kind of interesting, a little bit different customs in different countries.

Let's talk about the stock market in the United States. Not a pretty picture. I guess that works. This is the numbers for the year to date.

HEMMER: Yowza.

SERWER: Yes, you might want to just not check your 401(k) statement when it comes in the mail, Jack.

CAFFERTY: It's going to go lower, too.

SERWER: This is the Cafferty market, Mr. Market, we're calling it.

CAFFERTY: I love it.

SERWER: You love it.

CAFFERTY: I'm just kidding. Please don't write me.

SERWER: It's disturbed me when you say you love it.

O'BRIEN: It wasn't said with your usual sarcasm.

CAFFERTY: It's time for the "Cafferty File."

SERWER: Yes, file on.

CAFFERTY: When it comes to sex appeal, President Bush ain't no Elvis. "Esquire" magazine asked 11,000 women in 15 countries to rate President Bush's sexual allure on a scale of 1 to 10. His average score, less than 2. His harshest judges, women in Australia, Germany, and the Netherlands, where he got an average rating of 1.4. The most generous women in Indonesia, where we just dropped off billions of dollars of relief materials. He got a 2.2 average score there. As for American women, they give their president on a 2.1 on the sexual- allure scale.

O'BRIEN: It only matters if Laura finds him attractive, right?

CAFFERTY: Let's hope so.

The United States isn't the only place with soaring real estate prices. This is interesting. Baghdad, residential housing prices have quadrupled since the fall of Saddam Hussein. According to Iraqi government, an average 3,000-square foot home in Baghdad's upscale Mansour district sells $300,000. Real estate company Baghdad Property offers a newly built, 4,000-square foot Palladian-style home for $550,000. Real estate agents say the rise in prices result in an increase in income since the U.S.-led invasion two years ago, the liberalization of building and property laws, and the return of many Iraqi exiles.

Finally, another glowing example of our government at work. The $80 billion emergency supplemental spending bill for the war in Iraq is being held up in the Senate because of a shortage of oyster shuckers and crab pickers in Maryland. Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski wants to amend this bill, the Iraq war bill, to provide Maryland seafood businesses with more low-wage immigrant workers. The state's ceiling of 66,000 visas for foreign workers was reached in January. So Senator Mikulski will not vote for the money to fight the war in Iraq unless she gets her way on oyster shuckers and crab pickers. And we elect these people.

SERWER: Well, Maryland is for crabs. Being from Maryland. And I'm really on the side of the shuckers in this one, I've got to tell you. I mean, I'm a homer here. But all right, maybe it's not a good idea to hold up the bill.

CAFFERTY: You said your piece. I'm done. That's all I have.

O'BRIEN: That's all you got?

SERWER: No retort. OK, couldn't get him going.

HEMMER: You tried.

SERWER: I did. It didn't work.

HEMMER: In a moment here, the biggest rivalry in sports getting even hotter as of last night. One Yankees star mixing it up with the fans at Fenway. Another Yankees star saves a kid's life. True story. We'll cover both of them, top of the hour here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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