Because, you know, my fixation on online quizzes:

(H/t Torpor Indy) States I’ve visited:

create your own personalized map of the USA

So, Google continues its march toward world domination simply by providing products I think are really cool. Today’s installment is the Google Reader. It is a news reader with some nifty features. I really enjoy my current news reader that plugs into Firefox, but the Google Reader has a feature that will probably have me using it more. It allows me to mark stories as “shared” and then gives me a piece of code I was able to plug into my side bar that provides links to the stories I shared. So, lots of times, I think a story is interesting but don’t have the time or inclination offer much in the way of commentary. Sometimes I create a “go look here” post, and sometimes I just keep it to myself. Using the Google reader, I can just click share and it’ll show up in my “news of interest” widget on the sidebar. I’ll try it out for a while and see how it works.

Chris Rahe, writing a column in the South Bend Tribune, opines that Gov. Daniels health care proposal doesn’t go far enough. Daniels has suggested increasing taxes on cigarettes to pay for insuring those who can’t afford it but who do not qualify for Medicaid. Rahe says band-aids and babysteps are simply too little, too late for the health care disaster we face today. We need to admit the system we have now is just flat broken.

Rahe suggests a single-payer system where the government essentially acts as an insurer, but the health care providers remain private actors, not government employees. While single-payer might be the answer, I don’t really buy the spin that this is essentially still the free-market. If you have only one source of money, that source wields a tremendous amount of power. Of course, our current health care system bears little resemblance to the free market.

Let’s say you have a cough, a fever, debilitating headaches, and a little numbness in your left hand. How much is it going to cost you to get that fixed? Go ahead, try calling around and trying to get a price. Not going to happen. First of all, they don’t know what’s actually wrong with you until you’re in the shop. By then, you have sunk costs and an incentive not to go shopping elsewhere. And that completely skips the fact that prices are all over the board depending on who the customer is. Medicaid gets one price, Medicare gets a second price, Insurance Company “A” gets yet another price, and the uninsured get the full sticker price.

So, anyway, the single-payer solution, may not exactly be market capitalism; but what we have now isn’t either. Rahe suggests that we pay for universal healthcare already, we just aren’t getting it. As Mike Sylvester pointed out last month, the United States pays the highest percentage of GDP on healthcare. The free market aside, Joe Flower pointed out 8 conservative, good-for-business reasons for a single payer healthcare system. (Short version: 1. Transaction costs; 2. Employer funding; 3. The basic idea of insurance; 4. Value; 5. Risk cost of receivables; 6. Service quality; 7. Efficiency; 8. Patriotism.)

And, anectdotally, I have learned that our current system has an adverse effect on the free market in non-healthcare areas. I was speaking with a woman this morning who recently left her former employer, in large part, because the new employer could offer her health insurance. Once she was able to secure insurance, her husband was finally free to start his own business for which he had long been qualified and long had a potential client base. He had just been unwilling to risk becoming an entrepreneur solely because of fear about obtaining adequate health insurance. I don’t imagine this sort of thing is uncommon.

This is the 65th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese Imperial Navy. Wikipedia has a pretty good entry.

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The Imperial Japanese Navy made its attack on Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941. The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii, was aimed at the Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy and its defending Army Air Corps and Marine air forces. The attack damaged or destroyed twelve U.S. warships, destroyed 188 aircraft, and killed 2,403 American servicemen and 68 civilians. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto planned the raid as the start of the Pacific Campaign of World War II, and it was commanded by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, who lost 64 servicemen. However, the Pacific Fleet’s three aircraft carriers were not in port and so were undamaged, as were oil tank farms and machine shops. Using these resources the United States was able to rebound within six months to a year. The U.S. public saw the attack as a treacherous act and rallied strongly against the Japanese Empire, resulting in its later defeat.

When you think about it, it’s pretty remarkable that it took us only 1,347 days from being sucker punched on 12/7/1941 to having defeated the combined might of the Axis powers by VJ Day – August 15, 1945; a span of 3 years, 8 months, and 8 days.

This is pretty cool: A list of Indiana Governors with dates of service and links to a portrait and a brief biography. For example, we have Henry Lane of Crawfordsville who served two days as Governor. Seems he had a deal with Oliver Morton, (a lawyer, Wayne County native, and Miami University alum — hmm, sounds like somebody I know) the other main Indiana Republican leader. Back in those days, the state legislature elected the state’s members to the United States Congress. Senate. Morton was originally a Democrat, so Lane was more palatable to the conservative old-line Whigs. So, Morton and Lane agreed that Lane would run for Governor and Morton as Lt. Governor. If they were elected and the Republicans gained control of the legislature, Lane would be elected to the U.S. Senate, Lane would then resign the Governorship, and Morton would succeed him. And that’s what happened.

I’ve been following somewhat closely the story of James Kim and his family. Kim was a contributor to shows on Tech TV and he is known to some of the folks on The Well, one of my online hangouts. Kim was reported missing on November 30, 2006. According to an AP report, Kim’s wife and two young children were found alive in their Saab station wagon on a snowy road in southwest Oregon. Kim had gone for help and has not been located. They had intended to take a state highway off the Interstate to get to a lodge near Gold Beach on the Oregon coast. They missed the highway, decided to take a different road, took a wrong fork in the road and ended up stuck about 15 miles from the fork.

James Kim was wearing tennis shoes, jeans, a gray sweater and a jacket as he left the car on Saturday, and had initially planned to return that afternoon if he could not find help, according to Oregon authorities.

They said his footprints eventually dropped down into a drainage known as Big Windy Creek.

By Monday, the search included three privately chartered helicopters and a fourth helicopter hired by the state. There were also dozens of searchers on the ground.

The search today will include helicopters with thermal-imaging technology, along with dog teams, a boat and horses. Roads in the area are commonly used in the summer, but are not plowed in winter.

As a father and a lover of the mountains — any mountains — this strikes a chord. What a nightmare. It further hammers home some of the rare advice my Dad gave me. He’s normally a joking sort. But when my buddy and I were out visiting him in Colorado then about to take off on our own into the mountains, he got uncharacteristically serious and said something to the effect of, “You be careful out there; you take the mountain for granted, and it’ll kill you.”

This does serve as a reminder of how much we take our comfort and safety for granted. I’m not really speaking of the Kim family now. I don’t have any idea what their preparations or mental state were like. But I can see getting into a jam like that, simply because I have a tendency to believe that just because there is a road, it’s safe to drive on. I believe this simply because it’s a government constructed road, not through any independent evaluation of the road or its conditions. It’s a credit to our society that we feel this safe, but it occasionally leads to some bad decision making.

Like I said, that last paragraph wasn’t directed at the Kims. I have no idea of their situation. Hopefully James will turn up alive and healthy.

Update: I frequently find myself drawing odd connections between things that seem, at first blush, unrelated. With the James Kim post still on my mind, this happened once again as I was reading a post at Paul Retherford’s site, itself referencing a Kemplog post, which was in turn referencing a Washington Post article about an eco-village in North Carolina. (If I’m not careful, we’re gonna get fractal or recursive here or, god-forbid, turn this thing into an Ouroboros. Sorry, I was just getting link-happy there.)

Anyway, the Retherford post highlighted a quote from the Post article:

We live in a world we didn’t make, by rules and customs and laws we didn’t invent, using tools and technologies we don’t understand.

He goes on to elaborate:

It is partly because our production systems are so efficient that we are so removed from them. Unfortunately, if we allow ourselves too much separation from the pork we eat or the electricity we use, we lose the big picture. We stop valuing the energy, engineering, and effort that gave us the end-product. And we lose the biological connection between the life of the pig and our need for nourishment. We lose the ecological connection between the land stripped for coal and the power line running to our house.

And what, pray tell, does this have to do with being stranded in the snow on a mountain? It goes back to my Dad’s warning. If you take the mountain for granted, it’ll kill you. Nature, as they say, is a Mother. And, she bats last. As we become further removed from nature, our appreciation for its power is dulled and, we end up making decisions that are not fully informed. And the consequences can be severe.

Update #2 Damn. The AP is reporting that Mr. Kim was found dead today (12/6/06).

The gym was full of post-Thanksgiving exercisers today. It hadn’t really occurred to me when I headed out to the gym that it was the day after Thanksgiving. But, I guess folks are trying to work off their excesses. I, on the other hand, am proud of my excesses (for dessert: pumpkin pie, chocolate-chocolate cake, 2 kinds of chocolate pudding pie, a cookie, and banana pudding), but went to the gym anyway.

I saw a couple of folks reading books on the exercise bike. I can see being able to do that while you’re warming up or something. But I have to wonder how much you’re really getting out of your workout when you can read for an hour while you’re on the bike. Maybe these folks either don’t move around as much when they’re riding or have a higher tolerance for motion while reading. Probably, I’m too quick to judge.

As for myself, I think I found a workout routine that will bust me out of a plateau I was in. Sort of a pyramid scheme where I lift about 80% of a weight that I can do 6 to 8 reps. Then I do two sets at 100%, then I do two sets with quick reps at about 30-40%. We’ll see. I’m only about a week into it. But, so far I’m feeling that nice muscle ache I felt regularly when I first started lifting weights.

Just a few random thoughts.

I know Thanksgiving is, at its root, a religious holiday, and I am not the most religious sort. Nonetheless, I think it’s probably my favorite holiday (Halloween is a close second, but on a more fun, superficial level.) Regardless of my doubts as to whom my gratitude should be directed, I recognize that I have a great deal about which to be thankful. It’s good to have holiday reminding me, and everyone else, of that fact.

For starters, I have a wife I love, two healthy kids, a job, enough to eat, and a roof over my head. That’s a pretty good start. I live in a country of such bounty I have the leisure time to do something as frivolous as write in this blog while drinking an African coffee and while my daughter sits next to me, eating grapes in November. Never mind access to technology plentiful and cheap enough to make the blog work. And I live in a country where I can express my doubts about religion and speak my mind about politics without any significant fear of reprisal.

Obviously I have my criticisms of my governments’ policies, objections to the direction this country has been heading, and fears about just how much my children will have to be thankful for when they are my age, but for today, it’s worth remembering that I have much of my own for which to be thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody.