Some potential trouble for the new mandatory health care plan in Massachusetts. Policy makers and politicians continue to dance around the margins on this issue. Health costs rise faster than the rate of inflation because the people who get the service are cut off from the providers of that service on the matter of price. A third party, either the government or a private health insurer (paid for by your employer, more often than not) stands between the producers and the consumers. This is a recipe for inflation. The only way to break the cycle is to end the practice of employer and government provided health insurance (except for people at or near the poverty line). All people above the line should be able to buy their own catastrophic health insurance for real emergencies (serious injuries, diseases and the like) and pay for their routine medical care out of pocket, up to an annual limit of, say, $1,000. This would restore competition among medical service providers as well as between insurance companies. For routine care, it would all be about you and your doctor, with no one else in the room to decide on care, and no paperwork to fill out. For catastrophic insurance, you would be able to choose the level of coverage you want (or could afford). Power would return to you as a patient and consumer, and to the doctors and other health care professionals (who would be much more free to make individual arrangements about payment with their patients). Of course, this all makes far too much sense to ever be adopted.

Ooh la la! The French are having more babies. Perhaps humanity will survive, after all, despite bets to the contrary. Expect the other countries of Europe to look more closely at the French example, as they struggle with low birthrates and, eventually, shrinking populations.

The Iraqi forces who battled that Shiite sect needed more American help than was previously reported. Just another piece of evidence to indicate the fractious and violent nature of Iraqi society, and the lack of capability of Iraqi forces at this point in the game. Anyone who thinks we can leave without Iraq descending into chaos needs to think again.