A real health care crisis - anti-venoms are leaving the market

I am thankful to live in the Northeastern USA, where poisonous animals are rare and pretty much restricted to "pets" bought by adventurous New Englanders. But I was shocked to learn just how many effective anti-venoms are going off the market because of a combination of unprofitability and FDA over-regulation.

Antivenom shortages are a surprisingly common occurrence. The entire state of Arizona ran out of antivenom for scorpion stings after Marilyn Bloom, an envenomation specialist at Arizona State University, retired in 1999. Bloom had been single-handedly making all the scorpion antivenom for state hospitals. Recently, Merck & Co, the only FDA-licensed producer of black widow antivenom, has cut back distribution because of a production shortage of the drug. In a 2007 report, the World Health Organization listed worldwide envenomations as a "neglected public health issue."

Irony vs Critics of Universal Health Care

While I tend to lean Right, we here at Mod-Blog try to show both sides of the argument. So, I was glad to find this comic which I think does a pretty good job of using humor (irony) to show the fallacies of some of the knee-jerk arguments from the right wing. That is not say I agree with it, of course. :-)

Singing In Our Public Buildings

A friend of mine is involved in an organization that puts on a weekly conference every year for teens to learn more about government called City on the Hill. During this conference they visit the California State Capital. This year, they decided to sing the national anthem and "God Bless America" in the rotunda. Sergeant-at-arms and California Highway Patrol officers (we don't have state troopers, the CHP takes on this role) entered the rotunda to stop the singing because they did not have a permit. Now, my first reaction to this was "duh, you're supposed to get a permit before singing on public property." Then I thought, why should we need the government to give us permission to sing PATRIOTIC songs on land that belongs to us, the people. I understand the need to not have groups coming in selling CDs or disturbing the peace, but it seems to me that those could be handled as separate issues. What do other Mod-Bloggers think? Should citizens be required to get a permit to sing patriotic songs in a publicly-owned place?