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"ie. the coke-snorting Americans whining about them. You wouldn't be the first to suggest this... particular approach, the winning the war on drugs; but I bet you'd learn some interesting things about who does drugs once the casualties start to pile up."
Yes, a lot of Americans and Europeans would die. And I bet a lot of Canadians would as well.

I guess you're too lazy to read up on the subject and instead jump straight to bashing Americans. I know its easy and makes you feel better about yourself. But please try to at least make an effort to sound like a smug, smart ass. Here, I have done the work for you, since you appear to be incapable of doing it yourself:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War#Effects_internationally
Improved cooperation of Mexico with the U.S. led to the recent arrests of 755 Sinaloa cartel suspects in U.S. cities and towns, but the U.S. market is being eclipsed by booming demand for cocaine in Europe, where users now pay twice the going U.S. rate.

OOPS! Bet you didn't see that one coming ... did you?
http://newamericamedia.org/2013/02/mexican-drug-cartels-eye-spain-as-their-new-home.php
http://www.mexicogulfreporter.com/2013/04/mexican-drug-cartels-have-strong.html
http://www.irishexaminer.com/analysis/mexican-drug-cartels-eye-europe-238202.html

Sorry to be a dick but as an American I am tired of ignorant people outside of the USA painting every American as an ignorant slob.

If one barrel is 306 pounds and a ton is 2000 pounds then that's 400,000 pounds of oil consumed, or 1324 barrels. In contrast, BP trashed the Gulf with an estimated 5 million barrels.

It's interesting that bacteria are working hard to consume the spilled oil, but hardly a successful method of cleanup.

I don't know how you arrived at "400,000 lbs" from 200,000 tons, but I came up about 1.3M barrels of oil:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=200000+tons++%2F+307+lbs%2Fbarrel

Which is still only about 25% of the spill, yet the article said that it accounts for 40% of the oil, what happened to the rest?

If one barrel is 306 pounds and a ton is 2000 pounds then that's 400,000 pounds of oil consumed, or 1324 barrels. In contrast, BP trashed the Gulf with an estimated 5 million barrels.

It's interesting that bacteria are working hard to consume the spilled oil, but hardly a successful method of cleanup.

Iran was actually getting pretty moderate before that speech, even sending open condolences and holding vigils after 9-11, with fairly moderate leadership. After the speech we get Ahmadinejad and and full-on nuke program. Smart move, George.

You are flat out wrong. The candle light vigils held for 9-11 victims were entirely citizen events and had nothing to do with the government. I have two Iranian citizens as good friends and they are completely different people than Ahmadinejad and, worse, their nutjob supreme leader. Your insinuation that Iran the nation state sent open condolences and held vigils after 9-11 is laughable and erroneous -- some of the leadership did condemn the attacks but that's as far as it went. Hate the nation not the national. Hate the religion not the religious.

Your blame on George is also largely misplaced. They had deals with Russia to improve their nuke program long before him and the leaders have always wanted the ultimate weapon. I know life would be simpler if everything was George W. Bush's fault but, unfortunately for you, we must face reality.

A really interesting article on the subject:

http://newamericamedia.org/2011/01/how-chinas-stealth-aircraft-rose-from-ashes-of-balkan-war.php

I have it on good authority that comic books are to blame for the decline of our youth. Did you know that since 1994 (coinciding with the comic book market downturn of the mid-90's), juvenile crime has dropped by 47%? And now, with the comic book industry returning strong, juvenile delinquency is once again on the rise. We must put an end to this prurient influence on our youth!

Upton Sinclair was a socialist who wanted a socialist movement in America, and wrote the book to those ends.

Hey, you read something! Too bad it was after the fact.

It's said that there is even a report by the Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Animal Husbandry that offered a point-by-point refutation of Sinclair's more outrageous claims... though it seems to have been buried by history, probably for political incorrectness

Speaking of propaganda...

The abolition of slavery and freedom of speech were won with war - Civil and Revolutionary.

So, the principles the army fought for had no prior history as popular movements? I guess the abolitionists and tea partiers and revolutionaries demanding the right to self-rule were just coincidental precursors.

Now try to use your vote to change the shitty treatment you get at the DMV, or remedy the essential seizure of your property because some "endangered" microscopic shrimp were found in a mud puddle. I wonder how voting is working out for Krister Evertson.

The federal government oversteps its bounds all the time. It's a flawed human institution, and will always be so. Krister had ten metric tons of sodium metal stored improperly, according to the government. It looks like he got the book thrown at him, and that is unjust, especially since there was no damage to the environment - just the potential. However, it's not unique to governments. Abuses of power occur in the Catholic Church, in corporations, and anywhere humans are. I personally don't like centralized federal governments, but I recognize their necessity for keeping state and local justice systems in line.

Of course, if your health insurance provider does deny a claim, you can pay for the procedure yourself without being shot, unlike in Canada.

Using data culled from California's Department of Managed Care’s Web site, the CNA said it found that the state's five largest insurers rejected 31.2 million claims for care from 2002 through June of this year. According to the nurses’ union, PacificCare denied the largest percentage of claims (40 percent), followed by Cigna (33 percent), HealthNet (30 percent) and Kaiser (29 percent).

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=33655d70ff9cd7509f16bfd2bfbafa9f

The freedom to pay $100,000 to save your newborn infant's life, due to BCBS denying coverage due to preexisting conditions - even though one of the parents had BCBS - is not something I'd be proud of.

I was unable to find any news articles on Canadians getting shot for paying for medical procedures.

Over what?

Over anything they want which you possess.

Damaging private property is already covered by common law.

And if a company sucks the aquifer dry that used to supply your farm with water, how are you going to pursue legal recourse? Is the court local and regularly bribed by the company?

Ordinary people don't receive services from Blackwater. Blackwater caters to governments, and is therefore responsive to their needs, not the needs of ordinary people. Why don't you try giving us a relevant example?

The answer is in a question: How much are you willing to pay for electricity? How much are you willing to pay for running water? How much are you willing to pay to access the roads you use in order to get to work?

If those services were privatized, please explain how the prices would go down.

People need to realize that there is a corporate executive who often stands between a patient and his or her doctor. That’s the reality. And I think the insurance industry is now fear-mongering during this debate on health care reform, saying that a government bureaucrat could stand between someone and his or her doctor. But the current situation is just as bad, if not worse, because you have people doing that now who are denying care to meet Wall Street’s expectations.

Wendell Potter is former head of corporate communications for Cigna Corporation, where he worked for 15 years. He is now a fellow at the Center for Media and Democracy.

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=33655d70ff9cd7509f16bfd2bfbafa9f

Politicians on Capitol Hill have no trouble with committees that decide the fate of American lives. What they have a problem with is losing corporate donors. Private medical insurance agencies have a lot of lobbyists on the payroll.

Truthfully, the availability of a public option will ultimately save taxpayers money. We already foot the bill with higher hospital expenses and taxes when the poor have to wait until the last minute to receive care. When there's a public clinic that requires virtually no money to visit, people will get more effective and less expensive care earlier. Many of America's lower middle class will then opt out of the ridiculously expensive plans, so they can send their kids to college, or move to a safer neighborhood, or whatever. This will cut into the bottom line of insurance corporations, which is why they are fighting it so bitterly.

And the rich won't see anything change. They'll always pay for private "cadillac" plans, just like they do in Germany and England. They just don't want to lose profits in the insurance companies that they own, or - God forbid - have to pay the same tax rates that they did ten or fifteen years ago.

the government loses money when it treats people who are sick.

I had no idea insurance companies were different. It's a good thing! Otherwise, they'd be kicking people off insurance programs and denying payment while their former customer died from treatable diseases.

Were you involved at all in the public relations debacle around the 2008 death of 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan of Northridge, Calif. who passed away after being denied a liver transplant by Cigna?

Yes, I was. At that time, I was the chief spokesperson for the company. I was the person who was responsible for putting out the company’s statements and answering questions from reporters when they called about it.

Her request for a liver transplant was denied, and then Cigna reversed itself under pressure, but she ended up dying because the transplant came too late.

Yes, that’s right. The transplant had been requested by her doctors weeks before her death. Her doctors felt that it was her last resort and had recommended it. Cigna felt that the transplant in her case would have been experimental and on those grounds chose to deny coverage for it. The family sought the assistance of the California Nurses Association and reached out to the media and it became a very, very highly publicized case. And I can’t tell you how many calls I got from all over the world regarding that. Then, in the midst of all that publicity, Cigna decided to reverse itself and decided to cover the procedure. But you’re right. She died just about two hours after the family was told that Cigna changed its mind.

At the time, some people argued that it was just an isolated incident. But now there is data showing that Cigna denied 33 percent of claims and PacificCare denied up to 40 percent. Does this data cause you to speak about that experience in a new way?

Well it does. One of the talking points that I used when reporters called was that 90 percent of requests for a transplant are approved by Cigna. I haven’t seen data to know whether that is still accurate...

Looking back, do you think Cigna was in the right?

I can’t comment on that. I was not among the group that reviewed the claim when it first came in. What I do know is that I think the California Nurses Association was right in pointing out that this is not an isolated case. People need to realize that there is a corporate executive who often stands between a patient and his or her doctor. That’s the reality. And I think the insurance industry is now fear-mongering during this debate on health care reform, saying that a government bureaucrat could stand between someone and his or her doctor. But the current situation is just as bad, if not worse, because you have people doing that now who are denying care to meet Wall Street’s expectations.

Wendell Potter is former head of corporate communications for Cigna Corporation, where he worked for 15 years. He is now a fellow at the Center for Media and Democracy.

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=33655d70ff9cd7509f16bfd2bfbafa9f