I note that the Federal Government runs Amtrak, which is always on the verge of bankruptcy; Medicare - going broke; Medicaid - going broke; Social Security - going broke; Post Office - losing money; national debt - skyrocketing out of control...and we are asked to trust these inept powermongers with our health care needs.

Yeah, sure.

Note that Canadian politico Danny Williams came to the US for heart surgery. Not that the Canadian system has incompetent people, but that the wait might have had some very negative effects. Ditto for the son of Mitt Romney, who was flown back to the US for tests due to the delay up north.

I pay way too much for health care insurance, and it's going up all the time. However, my family and I get the fastest and best treatment in the world for all that money. True, we have had to work out the finger-pointing between the health providers and my HMO on various occasions, but that frustration is a small price to pay for the exceptional service we receive. My wife recently had to have several byopsies and procedures, including surgeries and out-patient treatments, and these were scheduled and performed within a few days instead of weeks.

I'm all for lowering costs and getting more people insured, but I have no confidence in the nincompoops in D.C. to do it rationally. And it's not about any given political party, as I have always been a registered independent. It's about the level of hubris and greed and corruption in our current crop of national politicians, regardless of party.

I have a feeling that a reckoning is coming in 2010, and maybe a bigger reckoning in 2012. It's high time for a general political purging,

Fire, the wheel, and the I IV V -- foundations of civilization.