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Me, John Edwards, John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich All four agree that the way to a fair and universal health plan for America is to DO AWAY WITH FOR-PROFIT HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES. We don't want "socialized medicine" with the government running the health biz. We don't want health care to be "free." We want every penny to be paid by the recipients of the care, just on a progressive ability-to-pay, non-profit insurance basis. The House Bill (HR 676) that describes this approach is called "The New Medicare" or "Medicare for All." (If Edwards were still in the Senate, I betcha there would be a Senate Bill.) OK, great idea . Over some years, we gradually phase out the for-profit insurance companies, and transition to the Medicare-like system with tiny administrative costs comparatively. Nearly all the health care money goes to actual health care providers. What a concept! Inherent in this plan is an absolutely HUGE news story

YEA! Improved Meds for Fearless Travel Science News (One of my favorite magazines) reports that there is a patch now for greatly reducing your chances of getting bowel bombed on your next trip to a 2nd or 3rd world destination. In case you need reminding about how Vengeful Montezuma can really be, read this . My image of a really bad case Pix source If you are a subscriber to Science News , read this . (If you are not, become one. It's a great weekly that will make you scientifically literate overnight.) Since the announcement of this marvelous breakthrough came at " at a meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene" in Philadelphia, I reckon it's not really on the market yet, but start bugging your doctor and your pharmacist for your early adopter rights. Have a nice trip.

PICK ON THE LITTLE GUY (...Because there are no lobbyists for them - and they can't make huge politcal contributions. And Republicans have no regard for the little guy these days.) NOTE: Food stamps, perhaps the logo for the littlest guys, are dwindling just as the need is growing. Purchasing power for most salaried and hourly employees is flat or diminishing. Veterans (overwhelmingly "little guys") with PTSD are under-diagnosed and under treated. Veteran care in general is a mess. Private "contractor" soldiers get paid ten times as much as soldiers in our voluntary armed services. 40+ million Americans have no health insurance. Health care costs are hyper-inflating. Over a third of our health care dollars go to insurance companies' administration, executive salaries and shareholder profits. (Insurance companies have A LOT of lobbyists and make HUGE political contributions.) National Institutes of Health are losing federal funding. Plus the

Is a Fact Not a Fact If You Disagree With It? Or If Its Existence Inconveniences You? What’s with all this denial of facts? Why deny there is dangerous climate change going on? Why deny that the vast human population is influencing climate? Why deny that evolution has been the dominant force of change in living organisms? Why deny that species are going extinct under human assault? Why deny that we are over-fishing the oceans? Why deny … well you get the drift. Once “ facts ” are established, then proven and re-proven and confirmed and re-confirmed, the “ ” s go away, and they are then just facts . But the denying just keeps on going. And the simple fact is that nearly all of this kind of denying comes from the right side of the political spectrum. As if your political position should have any effect on facts. Is there something inherent about “conservative” thinking that makes denial a central tenet? It’s often difficult to see what the connection is be

What, ME Libertarian? Want to see a powerful piece on "The War on Drugs?" Dennis McCuistion's Public TV Talker puts this " war's " feet to the fire. As much as I lean more Liberal than Libertarian, I found myself saying a few amens to this session. Criticizing the WOD is a political hot potato too scary for most elected types to even consider, but it is a massive boondoggle that deserves some serious revamping. (Great comment from an audience member: "There's no "War on Tobacco" and smoking is down from 65% to 21% of the American population. Drug use is up ." What's wrong with that picture? And later this week, the show tackles "Should Illegal Drugs Be Legal?" Whooee , baby. Those Libertarians are wild . [UPDATE: OK, here is the next show . Good stuff.]

No Delay in Getting Right I love CNBC for its energy, humor, expertise and credible reporters. I love Bloomberg TV for its straight-ahead, no-whooshes production plus expertise and credible reporters. I gave Fox Business News a chance, sampling it maybe 20 times since it went on, even with my great distaste for Fox News. So far, no love. Why I don't love it: It feels smarmy to me. (Maybe all those blonds?). "Happy Hour" is ridiculous - especially up against Fast Money on CNBC. And CNBC's Larry Kudlow is a better fiscal conservative than anybody on Fox. But wait! There's more I don't love. Yesterday afternoon, Cutesy Cavuto wanted some "expert" commentary on the bipartisan move in Congress ( The bill passed 291 to 127, with support from 64 House Republicans) to clamp down on predatory lending practices . Who did he get? Tom Delay no less, who promptly said it was Democrats trying to ruin a "great market system" that had put &quo

As Big as The Sun The exploding comet (!!) 17P/Holmes now has an atmosphere that is bigger than the sun. You can read all about it , including where it is in the sky, how you can find it and how you can watch it apparently eat a star. All exciting stuff if you have so much as a whit of astronomy in your soul. Even if you don't, CHECK THIS OUT. If you don't think this is animated, your brain works differently from mine. Let me know.

The First Trillionaire It's gotta happen. One of these days somebody - probably a Bahrainian you never heard of - will become the world's first trillionaire ( Wired Magazine says it will be Bill Gates). Imagine if whoever it is has Bill and Melinda Gates's charitable sensibilities! Let's see, a trillion is a thousand billions. A billion is a thousand millions. A million is a thousand thousands. So a trillion is a thousand thousand thousand thousands. That's a lot. It looks like we will spend even more than that on W's war. (I've been interested in how little Americans seem to realize how much a mere $billion is. Even our newscasters seem to phumpher around with the difference between a bil and a mil.) The best commentary I've seen on wasted trillions is in today's Christian Science Monitor (one of my favorite newspapers). Commentator Woody Tasch makes the fine suggestion "If Iraq is worth $1 trillion, let's allot just as much to ben

Those Poor Big Oils Here are excerpts from two news items in yesterday and today's Wall Street Journal (still my favorite newspaper, but I'm worried). Rangel Proposes Cuts In Tax Overhaul Bill "... Companies that us and accounting method known as last-in, first-out to value their inventories for tax and financial-reporting purposes would be required to shift to a new method -- a move that likely would result in a higher tax bill in many cases. The elimination of last-in, First-out, or Lifo, would hit big oil companies and some manufacturing and retail firms. Lifo allows the value of goods held in inventory to be recorded at current prices, which reduces the taxable gain." [In other words: Suppose Shell Oil bought a million barrels of OPEC oil for $72 a barrel last year, and now it's worth $90. Shell refines it now. Their "cost" for the raw material can be booked at $90, greatly reducing their taxable profit from the refined product. SD] "Critic

Darn it, Wal-Mart... Come ON I've been grousing about (and resolutely not shopping at) Wal-Mart and Sam's Club for years, mainly for three reasons: (Put "allegedly" in all the legal places below - they don't like criticism.) 1. An early Wal-Mart store wiped out most of the local retailers in my small Texas home town. 2. Their treatment of suppliers has been vicious - becoming a small manufacturer's biggest client, then grinding down their prices by threatening to quit buying. Then - ultimately - taking their purchase of the product offshore, occasionally using the original U.S. supplier's design to define the outsourced product. 3. Their treatment of their own employees has been rough, too. Avoiding medical benefits by manipulating hours to keep a high percentage of their workers "part-time," thus ineligible, for instance. BUT THERE HAVE BEEN SOME "IMPROVEMENTS" Maybe. It's hard to know whether the better health care plan we

We Need a Really BIG Plan Water, water nowhere. Speaking of Fright Night, imagine how bad it could get and how fast. Turn on the tap and get a dribble. Short, cold showers. Brown, crispy grass. Very dirty cars. Dirty clothes/dishes. Not to mention famine and giant forest fires. Rent a copy of Soylent Green . Note that one minor note in it's symphony of a dystopic future (2022) is a scary fresh water shortage. It's even scarier than the movie's main theme. I strongly believe - probably since I live in the western U.S. - that the most immediate threat of global warming is megadrought . Snowpacks are shrinking as fast as the North Pole sea ice. That means dry streams, rivers and reservoirs out here. And surely you've heard about what's happening in the normally wet southeastern U.S. The New York Times Sunday Magazine today (10.21.07) has a blockbuster piece on the subject called The Future is Drying Up . [You have to "subscribe" to read it, bu

Nobody Considers What the Brain Surgeon Wants * I have a Libertarian pal who sends me stuff from the Ayn Rand Institute to make his side of our various arguments. They are always good for a giggle in my view. Here are a couple of paragraphs from the latest screed. Atlas Shrugged and Today's Healthcare Controversy October 16, 2007 "While Atlas is 50 years old, it contains many timeless truths that are just as relevant today as they were when it was first published. "Take the realm of health care. Most Republicans and Democrats are proposing forms of socialized medicine--under euphemisms like 'universal health care,' 'national health insurance,' etc. Everyone talks about how to protect patient's 'right' to health care--but no one talks about the rights of the doctors that create this value. This is a deadly evasion that one of the characters in Ayn Rand's novel, Dr. Thomas Hendricks, an eminent surgeon who quits the field, eloq