Items of Interest

~ Ezra Klein has an excellent post up on the American health system vs. the British health system. One small nugget from the post:

People often compare American health care to Canadian health care. It's the wrong comparison. The inverse of the American health care system is the British health care system. Where we are the priciest, they are the cheapest. ... In 2006, adjusted for purchasing power, the United Kingdom spent $2,760 per person on health care. America spent $6,714. It's a difference of almost $4,000 per person, spread across the population. That's $4,000 that can go into wages, or schools, or defense, or luxury, or mortgage-backed securities. And there's no evidence that Britain's aggregate outcomes are noticeable worse.

He goes onto discuss today's NY Times article on the subject which goes into the topic in depth and is well worth the time to read it, as is Ezra, of course. Just FYI, the NYT article is part of a NYT series called The Evidence Gap which "explores medical treatments used despite scant proof they work and considers steps toward medicine based on evidence."

~ Scott Horton holds the NY Times accountable on its coverage of torture in this post at Harpers. [via]

As I discovered in studying the paper's reporting over a period of year, when a neighbor plays his stereo too loudly in the apartment next door, that is "torture." But when a man is stripped of his clothing, chained to the floor in a short-shackle position, subjected to sleep deprivation and alternating cold and heat, and left to writhe in his own feces and urine--that, in the world of the Times, is just an "enhanced interrogation technique." Shane and Mazzetti do us one better in this piece. Figures who criticize torture and Brennan's fitness to be DCI are, we learn, the "left wing of the Democratic Party." That's a remarkable characterization for a group that is led by retired generals and admirals, as well as many of the nation's most prominent religious leaders.

More from Mr. Horton on that group of generals and admirals and other media reports on the Bush administration and its condoning of torture.

And then there's Andrew Sullivan's piece on the NYT's lack of clarity in reporting on torture which Scott Horton referenced. And as usual on this topic, he's got it right.

~ Given that Joan Vennochi is usually venting her spleen on John Kerry, it's mildly surprising to see her defending him in today's column. But then again, he may simply be a convenient tool for her to use in taking aim at President-Elect Obama. Another rightwing pundit blathers on.

~ I've always wondered when and how Bombay turned into Mumbai but not enough to remember to look it up when I had time. This reader explains it in the process of giving Sully a rap across the knuckles for accepting without verifying Hitchen's explanation of the origin.

~ Eric Boehlert of Media Matters asks: Did Politico just refer to the Obama adminstration as a "pile of manure"? Here's what happened:

Here's the lead from John Harris and Glenn Thrush:

Hillary Rodham Clinton has a favorite expression for turning setback into opportunity: "Bloom where you're planted."

Her three-decade career on the public stage has produced countless examples of Clinton sprouting a flower in a pile of manure. Few of them are more vivid than this week's official announcement that she is the nominee to serve as secretary of state to Barack Obama.

How else would you read that?

You know, Eric, I think they did. So what does that tell us about the management of Politico? Right.

~ Queen Noor of Jordan likes Obama's choice of Hillary Clinton as SoS.