Krugman:

In 2002, the latest year for which comparable data are available, the United States spent $5,267 on health care for each man, woman and child in the population. Of this, $2,364, or 45 percent, was government spending, mainly on Medicare and Medicaid. Canada spent $2,931 per person, of which $2,048 came from the government. France spent $2,736 per person, of which $2,080 was government spending.
Amazing, isn’t it? U.S. health care is so expensive that our government spends more on health care than the governments of other advanced countries, even though the private sector pays a far higher share of the bills than anywhere else.

Yes, that is amazing. And I, for one, am not getting my tax dollar expenditure’s worth of care under the current system.

Here’s another one for the don’t-blame-me-I-didn’t-vote-for-this-clown file:

As the Senate heads toward a showdown over the rules governing judicial confirmations, Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, has agreed to join a handful of prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying Democrats as “against people of faith” for blocking President Bush’s nominees.
Fliers for the telecast, organized by the Family Research Council and scheduled to originate at a Kentucky megachurch the evening of April 24, call the day “Justice Sunday” and depict a young man holding a Bible in one hand and a gavel in the other. The flier does not name participants, but under the heading “the filibuster against people of faith,” it reads: “The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias, and it is now being used against people of faith.”

These generalizations are pretty silly, but to the extent one is true, you could say that the filibuster has been used not against people “of faith,” but rather against people who want to impose their faith from the bench.
Funny, but the people who are really paying attention to the nominees’ faith are the ones crying persecution. And our good Senator is now hooking up with the “victims.” 2008 can’t be far away.

Here’s something I wasn’t aware of:

After years of telling athletes to drink as much liquid as possible to avoid dehydration, some doctors are now saying that drinking too much during intense exercise poses a far greater health risk.
An increasing number of athletes – marathon runners, triathletes and even hikers in the Grand Canyon – are severely diluting their blood by drinking too much water or too many sports drinks, with some falling gravely ill and even dying, the doctors say.

I don’t think I’ll ever have a problem with this. Basically, the only time I try to “over drink” is when I am sick, or feel like I’m getting sick. I’m generally an underdriker. I always seem to misunderestimate the amount I’m going to sweat.

Funny quote, from someone’s signature on a forum:

The best way to watch a Girls Gone Wild video is backward, because then it looks like the girls have learned their lesson.

Indeed.

Due to technical difficulties, the site has been down for a couple of days. The hosting company suspended my account, apparently due to some type of spam attack. Thanks for that, whoever you are. The hosting company would only reactivate the account on the condition that I updated my Movable Type installation–I guess I was past due for that anyway. So I’ve done that. Or attempted to. But the comments and/or everything else may be out of order temporarily while I try to figure everything out.