The first person we meet in Sicko, Michael Moore’s new film about health care in America, is George W. Bush, who tells us that “too many OB-GYNs aren’t able to practice their—their love with women all across this country” (because trial lawyers are hounding them out of business). The second person we meet is Adam, […]

People in countries with universal health care live longer and healthier lives than people in the United States. Their infant mortality rates are lower. No one goes bankrupt or loses their home because of unpaid medical bills. No one has to make a choice between food and medicine or between rent and health insurance payments. […]

Sometime between January and November of next year, probably beginning in March, U.S. troop levels in Iraq will drop precipitously. The reason for this is that, as I noted back in April — well before Hearst Newspapers cottoned on to the scam — the combination of The Surge and extended deployments means we’ll have in […]

Archimedes said, “Give me a big enough lever and I will move the world.” Of course a big lever requires a lot of force, and when it comes to fixing America’s insane approach to health care, the only force big enough to move a massive pile of politicians, doctors, insurers and health care industrialists off […]

Through a combination of ill health, low spirits and technical befuddlement (all on the part of the proprietor — our other contributors are not to blame), BTC News has been variously moribund or inaccessible for much of the past two months. We’ve trashed the previous design, which was probably the source of the mechanical difficulties […]

Threatening letters to Judge Walton are counterproductive.

The Iron Dragon’s Daughter by Michael Swanwick: A
The Story of the Stone by Barry Hughart: A
The King Must Die by Mary Renault: B
Here are three novels that satisfied, more or less, this month’s eagerness for re-imagined myths. The settings range from creepily realistic version of a human trapped in a fairy world to a […]

U.S. Counterterrorism Center says there’s more terrorism than ever!