Cash for Clunkers

I don't think much of the idea behind Cash for Clunkers. I have never owned a car or truck that qualified as a "clunker" so I would not have been able to take advantage of it. I always have believed in buying fuel efficient cars. And the Cash for Clunkers program rewards foolish people for making foolish choices.
But there is another side: Does this program help the economy? Apparently not. Nor does it help the environment.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/135862.html

My SodaHead Responses on Health Care

Does it seem odd that some people put down the US health care system by saying that it ranks 37th and yet they celebrate Canada's system which ranks 30th? Hardly sounds like much of an improvement and hardly looks like a model for the US. Netherlands ranks much higher and uses compulsory private insurance. Sounds like a much better model than the single payor public system in Canada and UK. One good thing about the Canadian system, however, seems to be that as a confederation, provinces have more autonomony and there is not a single Federal health insurance system-there is provincial control.

Odd that the Canadians are complaining about their low, 30th, ranking due to questionable criteria in the WHO ranking. And WHO is currently revising their methodology and withholding new rankings until they better address issues with the criteria. Rankings are always suspect. My point is that ranking 37th is not really that bad when Canada ranks 30th, Australia 32nd, Denmark 34th.

It seems to me that it is the utmost of arrogance to think that the US is #1 in everything or should be. In the first place, WHO has given up rating countries on health care because of the complexity involved. In the second place, their posted rankings are now 9 years old. In the 3rd place, I don't mind being ranked in the same area as Australia, Denmark, Costa Rica, New Zealand-all these countries have great health care. But, most importantly is this-it is not that I am against universal health care, I am just against Obama's public option. He said it best himself-"FedEx and UPS don't have a problem, the Post Office has a problem." If he would drop his silly subborn idealogical partisian insistence on the public option, health care would have a much better chance of passing. Netherlands, Germany, and many other countries who rank much higher than Canada on health care have compulsory PRIVATE insurance. Regulate private insurance. Don't put out another inefficient, ineffective, bureaucratic, government run piece of crap legislation.

The top 8 countries are: France, Italy, San Marino, Andorra, Malta, Singapore, Spain, Oman. Congratulations to Andorra, Oman et al but I don't really want to live in any of those countries. You want the US to rank with Malta?

The Value of Health Insurance

This is just so funny. Here we are, debating health care and fretting over the 50 million Americans without health insurance. And along comes a respected researcher who studies the issue and finds, contrary to his intuition and wishes, that those without health insurance have the same mortality rates as those with insurance. Apparently doctors do nothing, for most people. And yet this little study remains hidden. Even Politifact seems like it is unhappy with this study.

http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/aug/20/bill-pascrell/pascrell-says-22000-americans-die-yearly-because-t/

US ends non-humanitarian aid to Honduras

Despite the fact that both the high court and the legislature recomended that the Honduras President be removed for violations to the constitution, the US still wants to punish the Honduran people.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/09/03/us.honduras.aid/index.html?eref=rss_world