Christmas 2007

We’re well into the new year already, and I’m just now getting around to writing about the holidays. I suppose that is because it wasn’t one of the better holidays. I did travel home for the usual visit, but it was very short. Lay took ill the week before Christmas week, and remains sick with the doctor still testing to try and find out what is wrong, but it got fairly serious there right after Christmas.

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Sick But True-Healthcare in America

For some time, the conservative “position” on health care has been a stalwart commitment to the status quo, resisting any proposals for sweeping reform. Two new studies comparing global health data — one by American Progress distinguished senior fellow Tom Daschle, another by the Commonwealth Fund — spell out what this position entails: conservatives apparently are content with a health care system that ranks #37 in the world (behind both developed and developing countries).

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Haliburton Taking Good Care of Our Troops

Not only did Halliburton’s KBR subsidiary serve U.S. troops in Iraq spoiled food (sometimes a year past the expiration date), but also contaminated water from Iraq’s Euphrates River, containing “numerous pathogenic organisms” at nearly two times the normal contamination levels of untreated water. “[R]aw sewage is routinely dumped less than two miles from the water intake location.”

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