Sadly, no.  Certainly not from ideology, and necessity will be resisted at all costs.  The experience of Weston, FL depends upon a level of enlightenment and resistance to the impulse to power not likely to be much repeated in the city halls of America.  Nor anywhere.

I believe professor Rahe’s comment is right.  Canada actually has 3 separate and unequal health care systems, two that are small and one very large.  First is the very good one for those with savvy and political connections; another for the wealthy who leave the country for their health care; and finally the really big one that has waiting lists, substandard care and death panels for the poor saps who lack knowledge, connections or money.

The population of Canada is 35 million, France’s 65 million, the U.K. about the same as France, and the U.S. is 310 million.  The problems of socialized medicine will be worse in the U.S. than in any of those countries by about the same proportion as its population is larger.

I second that.  

The “mother” should be prosecuted as a pedophile. Time for child pornography. 

So many questions.  Like, no other dentists you could go to?  Really?

That might be a question if what she did was a mere embarrassment or inconvenience without permanent harm.  This was a savage act of mayhem on a helpless victim over which she held a position of trust and, at that moment, absolute power.  

What other questions do you have?

I have to drive in my car for about 2 hours of early-morning darkness on my regular trips between Jackson, WY and Denver.  The dark driving is treacherous because of animals on the road.  Hitting a large ungulate at anything over 30 mph can do a lot of damage and cause untold inconvenience.  Do you worry about that in your truck, or is your front bumper so sturdy it makes a moose, deer or elk strike inconsequential?

Click photo to enlarge.

What should you, or anybody, be reading?  

I try to avoid telling anyone what they “should” do or read,  so I’ll just say that if you have not yet discovered Daniel Silva you are very lucky because you have about, who knows, 20 or 21  terrific and highly crafted mysteries to enjoy on the international intrigues of Gabriel Allon, master art restorer and secret operative for Mossad.  

Silva’s fictional plots are well researched for the factual details woven into them.   Anyone who enjoys a good story which informs as well as entertains will find much to like in Daniel Silva.

Great! I look forward to it.

This book seems to have arrived with propitious timing:

From the Amazon book description:

...telling the truth about racial profiling, crime, the social fallout of single parent homes, and the ways racial preferences distort the very meaning of equity and justice would mean facing up to the soul-destroying pathologies of urban black culture. 

In No Matter What . . . They’ll Call This Book Racist, Harry Stein attacks the rigid prohibitions that have long governed the conversation about race, not to offend or shock  but to provoke the serious thinking that liberal enforcers have until now rendered impossible. Stein examines the ways in which the regime of racial preferences has sown division, corruption, and resentment in this country. He pays special attention to the stifling falsehood that it is racism that continues to mire millions of underclass blacks in physical and spiritual poverty. by far the greater problem, says Stein, is the culture of destructive attitudes and behaviors that denies those in its grip the means of escape.

 All of us—and especially black people—for too long have been living with the terrible consequences of that cruel canard.

Oh, come on.  It’s only 90% of Republicans.  

It takes more effort to be a principled conservative than  to be a “moderate” which usually means RINO.  It’s even easier to be liberal.  That’s why there are so many of them.  It’s harder to be a principled conservative because one must constantly defend it from attack by liberals who always have a mind-numbing slogan or pejorative word to ridicule you with [war against women, racist].  

Christie is proof that there’s a payoff for those willing to do the work.

They understand that there are only two positions you can occupy in politics:  offense or losing.  Republicans sometimes seem not to understand that the aggressor makes the rules in any conflict.

Silly?

is the party that opposed Republican efforts to pass an anti-lynching law in the 1920’s and 1930s.

Maybe it’s because beautiful women can attract better men, who happen to be conservative.  The skanks have to settle for the metrosexuals and girly men.

The real odds are that Republicans have as little as a 4 in 10 chance of winning this seat.  Here how I got that.  There are 5.7 million registered Democrats and 3.4 million registered Republicans in the state.  It’s 37% R and 53% D. [ That’s splitting the independents equally between R and D vote.]  In order to have a 50% chance 1.4 million Democrats have to vote for the Republican, all of the Republicans have to vote for the Republican, and one-half of the independents have to vote for the Republican.

Anyone think that is going to happen?

On a more hopeful note, a whole lot of Democrats did vote for Turner in the Weiner district.

On repealing Obamacare by reconciliation see The Reconciliation Option by James Capretta.

Not all, but most of Obamacare was passed using what our betters in Congress call, “reconciliation.”  It’s a procedure used for budget matters and the Democrats thought they had really outsmarted Republicans (never difficult to do)  since by this little trick the House version did not have to go to a full Senate vote requiring 60 votes to avoid a filibuster.  Scott Brown was in the Senate by then and had promised to be the 41st vote to sustain a filibuster which would have stopped Obamacare in its tracks.

But what passes with reconciliation can be repealed by reconciliation.  Thus, if the Republicans get even a slim majority in the Senate, keep the House, and if we have a President willing to support it and sign the bill, Obamacare, or most of it, can be repealed by a simple majority in the Senate.  If the Republicans fail in this they should lose every future election.

Romney cannot be trusted to stand up to the winds that will blow then.  Santorum is the best choice for president even if the only good thing about him is that he will support repeal and he will sign the bill.