Oz

For those interested in such stuff, the two earliest Oz movies (1910 and 1914) have just become available for free download from the Internet Archive. They're both shorts (13 mins and 39 mins), and I confess I hadn't remembered the latter's existence!

Ain't this technological progress biz a wunnerful thing? When I was working on the movie entries for The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, it was my perfectly reasonable assumption that I'd never actually see the 1910 Wizard of Oz; now, just a decade or so later, I can download it for free in a matter of a minute or so and watch it on my puter screen.

Thog's Science Masterclass #6

Jason Roberson writes in yesterday's Dallas Morning News:  

Texas once again led the nation with the highest percentage of residents without health insurance, a U.S. Census Bureau report showed Tuesday . . . 

But the numbers are misleading, said John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a right-leaning Dallas-based think tank. Mr. Goodman, who helped craft Sen. John McCain's health care policy, said anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort. (Hospital emergency rooms by law cannot turn away a patient in need of immediate care.)

"So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime," Mr. Goodman said. "The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.

"So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved."

Seems logical. ER won't check your breast for tumours, which means you get cancer. Neither will ER offer you chemotherapy or a lumpectomy when those become necessary, so you die. And this way you're no longer counted as one of the uninsured.

So that nice Mr Goodman's absolutely right! Whoopee! Let's all party!

(By the way, anyone got a bridge to sell? The one I bought on eBay a few weeks ago has never arrived and they won't answer my e-mails . . .)