The Wordsmith's Forge

This article is full of ugly numbers regarding how thoroughly bought our Congress is. Try to ignore the snotty tone. (When you have numbers like this on your side, you should be talking like an adult.)

This article does a much better job of letting numbers make the argument, this time regarding how much the insurance companies are gaining on the stock market from killing the public option (or at least stabbing in the back a half-dozen times and leaving it to bleed to death).

Unfortunately, not all numbers are trustworthy, as indicated by this article about Gallup poll biases against health care reform.

Also bear in mind that those Congressmen ranting against "socialized medicine" all have a lovely gold-plated socialized medicine health plan of their very own, paid for by you and me, as explained here. If it was really so wicked, they wouldn't be doing it themselves. And since they love their socialized medicine plan so very very much, why shouldn't we -- the taxpayers, you know, the people footing the bill for all this? -- be able to vote ourselves into their plan? Not some hacked-up hairball of a "public plan" that nobody would want: THEIR PLAN, the lovely one with all the benefits that they all adore and wouldn't dream of giving up, ever, even after they leave office. I want their plan. I deserve their plan. After all, I'm paying for it: I should get the benefits from it. And so should you.

This week's posts on Gaiatribe: Ideas for a Thinking Planet include:

News: Water Problems from Drilling
Three Questions: Humans Are Driving Extinctions
How to Make a Mini Greenhouse
Weekend Meet-n-Greet 8-2-09
Prairie Grasses
Notable Comments from July 2009
How to Scald and Peel Tomatoes
How Is a Lawnmower Like a Bison?

Sometimes it helps to talk out the things you want to do and the projects you want to work on, and get cheers for stuff you've finished.

What are some of your upcoming plans and goals?
Are any of them things you'll need help with, and if so, what kind of help?
What are some plans/goals that you have recently completed?

I am quite impressed with Bill Clinton's success in freeing two journalists imprisoned in North Korea. That is action above and beyond the call of duty. I don't usually see "if you want it done right, do it yourself" and real personal risk on the part of politicians. I mean, the crazy leader in charge of that country could have just shot him. But Bill managed to get them freed. Wow.

Bill Clinton Departs North Korea With Two Freed US Journalists
Warren P. Strobel, McClatchy Newspapers: "North Korean leader Kim Jong Il pardoned two American journalists and ordered them released Tuesday during an extraordinary visit to the country by former president Bill Clinton, the country's state-run media reported. The two journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, had been detained since March 17 when, according to North Korea, they crossed the country's border with China. In June, they were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for illegal entry into the country and 'hostile acts.'"

Here is a very good article comparing and contrasting U.S. and Canadian health care systems by a Canadian. It looks at 5 lessons and covers both the virtues and the flaws of both systems.

For the past 10 years, during late weekends in July, the fairgrounds in Wise have been transformed into a mobile and makeshift field hospital providing free care for those in need. Sanitized horse stalls become draped examination rooms. A poultry barn is fixed with optometry equipment. And a vast, open-air pavilion is crammed with dozens of portable dental chairs and lamps.   

A converted 18-wheeler with a mobile X-ray room makes chest X-rays possible. Technicians grind hundreds of lenses for new eyeglasses in two massive trailers. At a concession stand, dentures are molded and sculpted.
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