Growing Rich Off Other People's Pain:

Congress has attempted to limit doctor owned hospitals in the belief that doctors will require unnecessary procedures if they stand to make a profit from doing so, but with little success:

"This is a free country" [said Representative Michael C. Burgess, a Texas Republican and an obstetrician-gynecologist.] "If you want to invest in a hospital, if you are willing to put personal capital at risk, you should not be forbidden to do so just because you are a doctor."

(Robert Pear, The New York Times)

It is, of course, one thing to put capital at risk, while completely another to rig the game.

Build a Better Mouse Trap … and the World Ignores You:

The New York Times reports on an Australian inventor whose great idea is finally being accepted now that energy costs demand it. This is one of those small stories that will eventually have global ramifications.

The Wages of Hubris:

Growing up a Southern Baptist, I can attest to the fact that throughout my youth there were no stronger voices demanding separation of church and state in America than those coming out of the Southern Baptist Convention. Then came Bush.

Then came the price. The Bush Bandits recognized that they could form a coalition of right wing fundamentalists to blindside the country into electing the most inept boob in modern American history to the presidency. Ego maniacal preachers had been building "super churches," following the path that Pat Robertson and his ilk had set in the wake of the sixties. So why not tap into that reservoir? They did, it worked. Now that the Bush administration is finally imploding and, dare we say it, the rats are jumping ship (there goes Scotty), the megachurches are starting to suffer desertions of their own. The Washington Post runs a story today on the subject. It seems the Baptists are thinking of dropping "baptist" from their names.