My Health Care Advice: CALM DOWN!

You know that the Health Care debate has gotten out of hand when you start reading about one protester biting off a counter-protester's finger. You know it is even MORE insane when people begin trying to win political points off of the incident. Please, America, calm down. Neither Universal Government Health Care nor Private Insurance is the end of the world.

O'Hanlon says the man got into an argument and fist fight, during which he bit off the left pinky of a 65-year-old man who opposed health care reform.
A hospital spokeswoman says the man lost half the finger, but doctors reattached it and he was sent home the same night.
She says he had Medicare.

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The NIV is in for some Revisions

For many years, my denomination has trusted the New International Version (affectionately called the NIV) as its English translation of choice for study and teaching. It has been felt that this translation was among the best in terms of balancing scholarly accuracy and readability for the layman. I have read the NIV extensively, quizzed on it, and taught from it.

And now, it appears the publisher wants to redo it. After a failed attempt to update the NIV with gender-neutral language which was released as the TNIV (Today's New International Version), the publishers claim they have learned from their mistakes but still want to update the translation to be accessible to modern readers.

We shall see. I think the publishers underestimate the conservative nature of the evangelical community.

If you wonder why some fear Universal Government Care...

...then it is time to read this report from Britain, where some experts are claiming patients who are not dying are being caused to die by an uncaring bureaucracy.

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death.
Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away...The warning comes just a week after a report by the Patients Association estimated that up to one million patients had received poor or cruel care on the NHS.
The scheme, called the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), was designed to reduce patient suffering in their final hours...It has been gradually adopted nationwide and more than 300 hospitals, 130 hospices and 560 care homes in England currently use the system.

It is important for Universal Health Care proponents to understand that opponents aren't (generally) saying that a government-run system can't be good. But opponents rightly fear that an actual government-run system would deteriorate the way Great Britain's has. If so, then the cure might be worse than the disease, if you'll excuse the pun.

Charles Gibson Leaving ABC World News Tonight

Charles Gibson announced today that he is leaving ABC's World News Tonight at the end of the year. ABC Quickly announced that Diane Sawyer will become the new host in January. It will be interesting to see if this has any real impact on the other networks or if the Evening News is on its way out. It may be that people would prefer to watch something like Leno at 6pm instead of a national news program.

Vending Machine for Bicycles!

Those who have been following Mod-Blog long-term have seen my transformation into a bicycle nut, as treading the pedal has melted away many unsightly pounds for me and brought me to a point of moderate fitness. I love my bikes - one hybrid and one folding - and am trying to expand their use into regular transportation, which is harder than you might think in the hilly, sprawling New England landscape. So, I was very interested to hear about a Dutch company hawking bicycle vending machines for communities. The idea is you pick up a bike at one vending machine, pay a rental fee, and use it until you're done traveling at which point you return it to another vending machine for the next person to use. Low cost for the user, no storage issues, and it encourages use of a sustainable, low-energy, low-emission transportation for the populace. It would be a great way to clean up cities and reduce traffic congestion.