Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a strong ally of President Bush, is “secretly planning to begin withdrawing” the 1,500 Australian troops from Iraq by February 2008.
Politics
Yglesias
The Totalitarian Temptation from Jonah Goldberg to LOLCats
Jon Swift explains.
Yglesias
It’s a Mystery!
CNN’s SiCKO analysis concludes:
As Americans continue to spend $2 trillion a year on health care, everyone agrees on one point: Things need to change, and it will take more than a movie to figure out how to get there.
Yes, it will. We could, for example, read the earlier sections of the article. For example:
The United States spends more than 15 percent of its GDP on health care — no other nation even comes close to that number. France spends about 11 percent, and Canadians spend 10 percent.
France . . . Canada . . . cheap . . . but does their health care suck? Well:
Like Moore, we also found that more money does not equal better care. Both the French and Canadian systems rank in the Top 10 of the world’s best health-care systems, according to the World Health Organization. The United States comes in at No. 37. The rankings are based on general health of the population, access, patient satisfaction and how the care’s paid for.
So, okay, it’s not that hard to figure out. France and Canada both have two difference systems of health care delivery both of which are cheaper than the US system and both of which are more effective. What’s more, these aren’t obscure countries. Lots of people have heard of France. Lots of people have heard of Canada. How hard is it for them to just write the words “Michael Moore is right; American health care would be improved if we adopted French methods instead”? Their articles supports the claim 100 percent. Instead, we get this Andrew-pleasing nitpicking about how Moore didn’t talk about Medicare. What should he have said? Talked about its low, low overhead costs and high levels of patient satisfaction?
Media
No More Hilton
Yglesias
Allies We Don’t Need
Media Matters notes a curious trend. The Washington Post endorsed the confirmation of John Roberts. The Washington Post endorsed the confirmation of Samuel Alito. Now, The Washington Post has gone an excoriated the recent spate of 5-4 decisions in which Roberts and Alito, predictably, joined with fellow conservatives William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas to do the sort of things that conservative judges do.
One wishes, at this point, that the Post would simply endorse the decisions as well. If the Post wants to become conservative on judicial issues, the way it’s become conservative on foreign policy issues then it is, of course, free to do so. But hewing to a liberal line when it doesn’t matter only adds a veneer of credibility when they put forward conservative views on question that do matter — who should and who should not be confirmed. They could, of course, redeem themselves by noting the contradiction and swearing that they won’t carry water for conservative nominees in the future. I, however, won’t be holding my breath.
Politics
Britain’s terror alert level raised to ‘critical.’
One day after London police uncovered a “double car-bombing plot,” “two men slammed a Jeep S.U.V. that caught fire into the departure doors at Glasgow Airport as thousands of people awaited flights on the first day of school summer vacations.” Britain’s security alert level has also been raised to critical — “the highest possible level, indicating terrorist attacks are imminent.”
Politics
77 percent:
Number of Americans who believe the Iraq war is going badly, according to a new CBS News poll. The disapproval level is a new high, “up from 66 percent just two months ago. Nearly half, 47 percent, say it’s going very badly.”
Politics
NH repeals abortion parental-notice law.
Gov. John Lynch (D-NH) “signed legislation Friday that made New Hampshire the first state to repeal a law requiring that a parent be notified before a minor receives an abortion.”
Politics
30 Afghan civilians killed in U.S. attack.
“U.S.-led airstrikes targeting Taliban militants who had attacked NATO forces slammed into civilian homes in southern Afghanistan, killing or wounding at least 30 people including women and children, a local official said Saturday.”
Los Angeles: Worst Drought Ever Recorded
L.A. is suffering through the “driest year in 130 years of recordkeeping,” as the Washington Post reports.
The nation’s second-largest city is short nearly a foot of rain for the year from July 1, 2006, to June 30. Just 3.21 inches has fallen downtown in those 12 months, closer to Death Valley’s numbers than the normal average of 15.14 inches.
Much of the Southwest is parched.
It is much the same all over the West, from the measly snowpack and fire-scarred Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada to Arizona’s shrinking Lake Powell and the shriveling Colorado River watershed.
Indeed, “America is facing its worst summer drought since the Dust Bowl years of the Great Depression. Or perhaps worse still.” Of course, Hell and High Water wouldn’t be complete without devastating rains elsewhere in the country:
