The release of the only Lockerbie convict was an outrage. US leaders condemned it. It made my stomach turn. If it is tradition to release the terminally ill from prison in Scotland, then they should open the doors and allow anyone afflicted with mortality to leave.

But that crime has a stronger smell over here, where despite all those years of fear mongering and paranoia, the two ingredients other than Cheney fumes that kept the Bush administration steamroller going for so long, the same thing will happen hundreds more times as the United States fails to bring any of these fools to court.

The Bush administration's sole purpose was to keep us busy while his boys ruined as much of the country as possible. They undermined our ideals, thwarted even their own goals, and made off with Clinton's half-trillion dollar surplus. And now we come to understand that the 'legal' black hole in Guantanamo is really, really black. None of those bastards, as dangerous as the liars say they are, can be prosecuted. No confessions are going to stand, even if charges can be brought.

These thieves and liars were so bad at justice and law that the 'worst of the worst' are now nothing more than props in their wierdo apocalyptic pantomime. And we still own it. Jeez- what will the Republicans saddle us with next (if the Old Irritated People Bloc stays together) time they get the top gubmint job?

That they claimed to be so bent on catching and bringing justice to the bad guys (guilty of punching back at them?) without ever giving a thought to anything, let alone how justice would be applied, is a crime of tragic and expensive proportion. Is 7 years of torture enough? Call it even? Do these guys go back to a quiet, normal life, or will they capitalize on their stay at Club Fed ?

Stupid, stupid. So now it's going to fall on the soldiers who carried out their nefarious and illegal designs? I hope the Holder investigation is thorough, and I hope some spooks get hurt for being assholes. But if it doesn't lead to the leadership it's a sham.

Our culture is pretty permissive and forgiving of executives who ski to the lodge while their former employees attempt to stretch their severence after their horrible performance ruins a company. I hope the patriots among us hold their President and his Secretaries to a higher standard than some money whore, as if that 'President' were anything more.

My suggestion that lifestyle choices like Sweet Tea or smoking increase risks to personal health was met with some hostility. In reality land, we'll absolve everyone of their responsibility to eat well, move around as if they were alive, and avoid ingesting concentrated toxins by outlawing risk and pre-existing conditions from insurance companies' gambling methods. Moral Hazard.
I'm ignoring the legions of people born without the muscle proteins to allow them to walk a few miles once in a while, or to digest.  Forget the injuries leaving a normally active person bed-ridden. It's the big, fat, normal, mediocre middle of the bell curve we need to consider.
I'm also consciously ignoring the fact that Detroit, MI and Chester, PA have no supermarkets. We're not talking about opening US Federal Supermarkets. The Burka, the impending caning of a 32-year old mother of two in Malaysia for drinking a beer came up at breakfast this morning, and my five-year-ld daughter said, "Why don't they just leave?" The boy, 8, was confused for a while. The truth is that people are portable, and if the landscape is barren they should move. Change.
I'm focusing instead on the idiots in southern California whose neighborhood burns every year, and they rebuild with insurance money. At some level, all insurance is a gamble, and beyond that level it's not a gamble at all. There is no risk of a flood along the Mississippi flood plain, there is certainty. Now think of the mouth-breathing, gasping obese adults who can't climb a flight of stairs and their families. How long does it take to gain 200 pounds?
There's a non-insurance solution to most health problems, and that is to go back in time to when you were being raised, and pay attention to health class and demand your parents stop feeding you TV dinners. Get into a habit of movement.
If we're talking about including everybody at equal risk, then we aren't planning to retain the insurance company model at all, and the only way to use that insurance model is to start making guidances about lifestyle.
Only the Public Option can do that, and it can't do that here. So what has to happen is a simple Feddie Med insurer, with income-based premiums, providing 100% coverage to all the uninsured who choose to participate. Only then the commercial sector will be forced to compete, and only in this way can a system emerge without destroying its vital components.