AZ Politics

There is little that is more nonsensical than the argument against universal healthcare coverage that goes, "We don’t need socialized medicine in this country because…" As if the system of healthcare we currently have isn’t ‘socialized’. We have a ‘socialized’ medical system in this country already. It’s just a crappy, peicemeal, unequal ‘Socialized’ system. The choice this county has to make is not between ‘socialized’ medicine and ‘private’ medicine (the only people who have private medical care in this country are the uninsured, and they would prefer almost anything else), but between efficient, lower-cost, equitable ‘socialized’ medicine and ever-more expensive, bloated, profiteering ‘socialized’ medcine that leaves millions of Americans out.

Drinking Liberally will be meeting again this Thursday at the Shanty. The event begins at 6 and runs till you gotta go. This week Karl Reiner, who penned this extended opinion piece here at BFAz, will be attending, so I imagine that one major topic of discussion this week will be immigration policy. The meetings … Read more

The Pentagon has admitted using White Phosphorous (WP) on ‘enemy combatants’ (a term which apparently embraces anyone in Fallujah at the time of the U.S. assault on that city). WP eats flesh down the bone, leaving clothing and structures intact. It has been widely reported that U.S. forces are also using MK-77, a form of napalm in Iraq. Additionally, the Marines have recently introduced a new shoulder mounted assault weapon that uses a fuel-air thermobaric mixture, which has been compared to a micro-nuke, intended to flatten buildings and incinerate any inhabitants.

There may be sound military reasons to use these weapons – force protection, maneuver cover, even their very lethality – but what remains problematic is whether incendiaries such as these raise the same ethical concerns as other banned chemical weapons, such as nerve or blistering agents. So far, the Administration is defending the use of such weapons as a military neccesity, when used with due care to avoid civilian deaths.

The latest Zogby Interactive polling is showing Democrat Jim Pederson within the margins of error of Jon Kyl in the Arizona Senate contest. These numbers come before people are even paying much attention to this race, and before the widely-expected air war between these two well-funded candidates, in a race that may well decide control … Read more

Link: Bush Arrested By UN. President Bush has been arrested just over an hour ago. The International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, put out a warrant for his arrest yesterday. A Black Ops team, sanctioned by the UN, has entered the White House and arrested both President Bush and his wife Laura, who … Read more