The top 5 lies about US healthcare

...and the envelope please...

From Foreign Policy, The Top 5 Lies about Health Care which have been spouted during this debate:

5, NO HEALTH CARE FOR HAWKING OR KENNEDY

4, CANADIANS HEAD TO THE UNITED STATES FOR URGENT CARE

3, HEALTH CARE IN EUROPE ONLY WORKS BECAUSE OF SINGLE-PAYER

2, CANADA AND BRITAIN MAKE YOUR HEALTH CARE CHOICES FOR YOU

and

1, THE UNITED STATES HAS THE BEST HEALTH CARE IN THE WORLD

On the confusions of biculturalism...

Recent messages:

Me: "Heh. I've just run into a reporter for a Maori magazine with the very Maori name of "Virginia Windsor"".

Assimilated Yank: "Meh. No biggie. I talked to a Beefeater at Buckingham Palace once named Tane Ruakura."

On failing to listen...

... and making assumptions

I actually know, um, two people like that.

Moral contamination

With the news that PM John Key is sending SAS troops back to Afghanistan, this story by Jon Stephenson is timely:

The issue of identification is critical. International law, and the New Zealand Defence Force's own rules, say a New Zealand commander cannot transfer prisoners to another country unless he or she is satisfied they will be treated humanely. Clearly it is far more difficult to locate and check a prisoner handed over to the Americans if you don't know his name.

WHAT DID the New Zealand government know about all this, and what did it do about it? Here, much also remains unclear. A top US international human rights lawyer, Michael Ratner, says the New Zealand government should have heard alarm bells as early as Feburary 2002, when President Bush and US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that alQaeda and Taliban prisoners were not entitled to prisoner-of-war status or the legal protections of the Geneva Convention.

"It was obvious to everybody what was going on," says Ratner. "The New Zealand authorities knew that turning prisoners over to the Americans was very likely or very possibly going to cause inhumane treatment."

By March 2002 there were reports in the New York Times and other major media outlets that prisoners were being mistreated at Kandahar. The treatment of prisoners was also raised by SAS boss Jim Blackwell at a meeting he called in April at the air base with other special forces commanders.

The New Zealand defence force's top lawyer, Brigadier Kevin Riordan, says New Zealand took its responsibilities under the Geneva Conventions and international law very seriously.

The fact is that we are contaminated by this torture simply by cooperating with our allies. I suspect there may be questions asked in Parliament, and it may come down to a refusal by NZ or others to hand troops over to the US, an acknowledgment that it has fallen below the level expected of civilised countries.

Close to the edge

The week has been lousy, and I'm in despair. There's little left. I need some good news soon, please?

So...

2009 (Bill Direen)

We have gone from the ages
Of coal and aluminium
To the slamming of doors in faces.
Faith healers buy their own channels
As landsnatchers grab handfuls of dirt
And puritanical doctors preach:
Look to your body!
All crimes against it
Will be punished!

Our bands have abandoned revolt,
Our cults have rewritten Revelations,
And it was a hasty affair
- the firesale revolution.

The chasm’s getting wider,
And there’s no safety net.