You do realize that to those of us outside the US watching this "debate," you appear to be clearly insane? At this point, the American body politic needs to meet up with the nice men with the white coats and the special jacket for you.

And folks, I have no idea at all what rock NorthernBandit crawled out from under (I just LOVE that sourceless nameless anecdote about the socialist dieing in Montreal) but let me assure you he is living in his own little world, not Canada. Heck, I'm here in Alberta, Canada's Texas if you will, and he would be laughed out of any bar in downtown Calgary if he spouted utter nonsense like that in public.

GG mentioned Israel! Get braced for the hasbara brigade, they should be here any minute.

On a side note, speaking as a Canadian, "urgent care centers" are a really good idea, and lately Canadian medical systems have been establishing them to take pressure off ERs. The last time I saw doc that was where I went: I was pretty sure that I had a broken toe (I did), figured that a regular doc's office couldn't do much but send me off elsewhere for tests, but that it was really a little trivial for an ER but I did need somewhere with diagnostic equipment. I went, saw the doc within 15 minutes, got an X-Ray 10 minutes later, and got what treatment they could give (turns out there isn't much they can do for a broken toe) 5 minutes later, and was out the door.

The only difference being that I didn't have write a cheque, and I probably saved a hospital a whack of cash. Oh, and I was out the door in under 40 minutes with crutches, a bottle of painkillers, some good advice, and some bandages on my foot.

Incidentally, Canada does not in fact really have a "single payer" system, it has 11 "single payer" systems (10 provinces and the feds in the Territories), so there actually is a little competition, because if one province screws up on its medicare, citizens are pretty quickly going to notice that the province next door is doing better.

Finally, the thing that really mystifies me about the US health care debate is the whole "taxes" thing. Do not people realize that perhaps yes, your taxes will go up, but you won't be paying health care insurance premiums any more! The whole idea is that taxes would go up less than the premiums you won't have to pay any more. And that your employer won't have to pay any more (maybe you even get a raise?) Furthermore, taxes are progressive; premiums aren't. (Well, for Americans, that might just be the whole point I guess.)

Was it when I dumped on your pajama'd hero Hef, or was it when I dared praise a woman, or was it when it seemed I did not share your taste in masturbatory materials, that made you go wah wah wah?

Very grown up invective, boy, very witty and incisive and downright coherent.

Actually, you should do a little research.

When Christie Hefner stepped in, in what amounted to a palace coup, it was to save Playboy Enterprises. Hef may have been an innovative editor, but he wasn't much of a businessman: by 1982 when she took over, Playboy Enterprises was a foundering ship. The basic problem was that the whole Playboy ethos of faux class had gone rather badly out of date, and was seen as the tacky thing it was. Hef's beloved clubs were hemorrhaging money, magazine circulation was dropping like a rock, and almost all divisions were deeply into the red.

She closed clubs, fired truckloads of staff, and sent Hef off to his mansion to party and screw playmate "official girlfriends" and keep his fingers out of the biz. And yes she slightly coarsened the content of the mag, which slowed but did not stop its relentless drop in circulation.

It wasn't that Playboy magazine dropped the good writers; the good writers dropped it. Because Playboy was essentially forced to go harder core, or at least develop harder core subsidiaries like Oui because of competition from the likes of Larry Flynt and Bob Guccione and the advent of video tape (on the one side; on the other they eventually faced serious pressure from the "lad" mags like Maxim which is sort of Playboy lite). The whole erotic/pron industry has been in a downward spiral (in terms of crudeness and graphicness) from the get go, once Hefner & Flynt fought the battles that essentially legalized it.

You may not like what she did to the fake-classy early 60s ethos (smoke a pipe in a smoking jacket, live in a cool Bauhaus-styled apartment, drink martinis, impress chicks with the cool jazz on your Stereo Hi-Fi), which was dying anyway or actually pretty much dead by 1982 though Hef himself really doesn't seem to have realized it to this day, but she did turn the ship around. Though I do note that Hef himself is still having money troubles, for the last little while he has actually been selling tickets to his "celebrity filled" parties at the "Mansion." Groovy.

But yeah, Christie Hefner has done pretty well: a lot of philanthropy, some interesting contributions to commentary, major support of all the good causes, ruthless company-saving businesswoman willing and able to take on her dad, and hard-eyed competitor that kept at least a little bit of decency in a devolving and increasingly disgusting marketplace. (From what I can see in the promos there, if you think the stuff on the Playboy website is "hard-core" or "edgy," you just haven't been paying attention. Every heard of "Gonzo" or "POV" type pron? Compared to that, Playboy videos are practically prim, shocking though they would be to a time-traveler from 1976.)

I confess, I rather admire her, though I despise her business product, and think her dad devolved into a despicable clown a long time ago.