The BBC reports on one state’s attempt to deal with the uninsured: Oregon’s healthcare lottery

In what is believed to be the first such move, a US state is running a lottery in which the prize is health insurance.

With some 45 million Americans uninsured, how to pay for medical treatment is a big issue in this year’s presidential election.

Now officials in Oregon say they have come up with a fair way of providing coverage for some of those who cannot afford it.

Gives new meaning to the expression “your number is up”.

This is how we deal with life and death in the United States, by luck of the draw? If you win you live; if you lose you die after going bankrupt. Why is this acceptable?

The good news is that the winner of the race has arrived back in Nome and Mitch Seavey wins the $100K:

March 28, 2008, Nome, Alaska
Unofficially, at 11:29:45 pm, Mitch Seavey of Sterling, Alaska, finished the 2008 Centennial running of the All Alaska Sweepstakes Race in 61 hours, 29 minutes and 45 seconds, shattering the 1910 “Iron Man” Johnson Sweepstakes record of 74 hours, 14 minutes and 37 seconds.

The bad news is below the fold:

[Read more →]

Via Vastleft at Corrente piece, Now I feel better about everything!, the Associated Press reports that Obama aligns foreign policy with GOP

GREENSBURG, Pa. – Sen. Barack Obama said Friday he would return the country to the more “traditional” foreign policy efforts of past presidents, such as George H.W. Bush, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

First of all to the headline writer – JFK freely and openly admitted he was a card carrying member of the Democratic Party, so they weren’t all GOP Presidents, just two-thirds of them.

OK: Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, “October Surprise”, Iran-Contra, Panama, Grenada, Saddam Hussein, WMDs, Lebanon, Taliban, al Qaeda, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, death squads, A.Q. Khan, Bitburg, Haiti, Somalia, the Shi’ia uprising after Gulf War I, &c. ad nauseam.

I realize that the Camp David agreement and the Dayton peace accords aren’t as exciting, and the last two Democratic Presidents were reluctant to project US military might all over the world, but they weren’t getting people killed with great regularity, especially innocent people and members of the US military.

The man knows next to nothing about post World War II American history, and, apparently, neither do his advisors.

Engadget reports on the results of the “Pwn 2 Own” hackers competition in which people were given a week to take control of several machines with the individual who bypassed the security features on the machine being awarded the machine they “pwnd”.

In the end a Sony Vaio running Ubuntu Linux was still on the table.

The Mac Air was claimed in 2 minutes, and the Vista SP1 in 2 days, but Linux survived the week. This wasn’t about viruses or worms, this competition was to actually take over the computer. The Mac fell to a Safari exploit, and Vista, apparently, to a Java weakness. The Vista winners admitted that they had to start from scratch because they hadn’t expected that SP1 would be installed.

Dr. Cole has his daily update on the situation, Mahdi Army Unsubdued; Iran asks for End to Fighting, that includes a Los Angeles Times piece in which the ISCI admits the government actions are about the elections.

The BBC reports that al Sadr seems to be calling for a truce in their piece, Iraqi cleric calls off militias, but there are conditions in this call. The Iraqi government has to release Sadrists who have been picked up by security forces lately and accept al Sadr’s “framing” on the situation in Iraq.

Moqtada al Sadr may be a thug, but he’s not stupid. His forces have been targeted for weeks and he has been trying to keep a lid on things. That was interpreted as weakness and the ISCI attacked him. The ISCI/Badr/Iraqi government forces were unable to win against the Mahdi Army, even with air and artillery support. The Mahdi Army has already won the important “hearts and minds” battle, so there’s no need to lose more fighters. The ISCI/government can’t sustain this operation and he has given them an opportunity to end the pain.

The remaining question is whether the ISCI is ready to admit defeat while starting the political spin for US consumption.

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A weekend feature of Why Now.