Next thing they'll be breeding us like cattle for food

"There was a militia in Montana [in the 1990s] that said the government, in league with the New World Order, was devising and was going to implement a system in which human beings in the United States were going to be divided into seven classes. One of those classes would be people permanently put on life-support systems so their organs would be harvested for the children of the elites."

—Southern Poverty Law Center, in comments related to a report
detailing a resurgence in the white militia movement

The Obama administration, as has been well publicized, is moving ahead with plans to harvest your organs and sell them to China. Such a rapid expansion of gummint control hasn't occurred since, well, heck, since George W. Bush doubled the national debt (to $10 trillion, not counting unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare), centralized education under No Child Left Behind, oversaw billions in giveaways to corrupt banks and ordered warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens in contrdiction of the . . . the, uh . . . that one document or law or whatever.

So people are rightly pissed off, and are making a hell of a racket about it, especially at the "town hall" meetings politicians inexplicably keep holding. All the TV and radio and newspaper people are getting into the act, too, since they don't like it when anyone shouts louder than they do.

Against this backdrop, any item that contains a suggestion of fact-checkable truth and is presented with a measured tone stands out. Two from this week:

First, what with all the hysteria over Congress proposing sick people be sent to Canada to wait in line for botched surgeries performed with rusty fishing tackle, NPR decided to send an actual reporter to actual Canada and ask actual patients and medical professionals what the Canadian system is really like. How about that? Give a listen. I bet it's not what you think.

Second, a guy I'll call "some guy" was on a couple days later. He has no credentials whatsoever, being a mere "businessman," but he does have loads of common sense. He's written a thoughtful article about how we might approach improving the healthcare system. He points out that in the marketplace generally products get better and cheaper over time. (For example, DVD players, which 10 years ago were a luxury item and now can be had for $40 at the gas station.) Healthcare moves in the opposite direction: Service and outcomes get worse, yet the cost goes up. Why should this be? Listen to his interview. And you can turn your speakers up because he's not screaming.

Finally, on an unrelated note, Molly Ringwald had an elegy for John Hughes in the New York Times this week. Are you telling me you won't read that? Why do you hate America?

Let me know if you will or will not playing hoops at St. John's tomorrow. We tip off at 8:00 a.m., as usual.