A few opinions

On national health care:
Those who refuse to support national health care reform and condemn its success in other countries must be wealthy enough to pay for private insurance, employed by companies large enough to provide insurance, profiting financially from unregulated health care or incredibly naive/ignorant. Our system or lack of is ridiculously expensive and yields poor results. For a country that values the dollar, we are really stupid when it comes to health care. The insurance companies got themselves into this muddle. They should support national health care as they then will have only the people wealthy enough to pay their fees and few of the people who will use it. That should yield less volume but more profit, shouldn't it? I strongly agree with those who believe that whatever the Congress enacts, they should have to live with it.

On Republicans:
Godde bless 'em. (That's a Southern blessing, by the way.) They need it. We need a new political party for those of us who are neither Democrats nor hate-filled bigots nor religious nuts. We need a new political party for those of us who are fiscally and socially responsible and are willing to listen, learn, develop and try new ideas. We need far fewer of those who say No simply because their controllers on the far right tell them to. This current crop of Republicans is an embarrassment to the US. I can see no hope of returning to sanity so let's dump the party and start a new one. Maybe call it the Realist Party?

On Iraq:
May Godde bless the Republicans whose egos got us into this mess.

On Afghanistan:
May Godde bless the Republicans who got us into this mess by abandoning it for revenge in Iraq.

On Iraq and Afghanistan:
We need to give both countries incentive to get rid of those who seek to control them for religious or selfish reasons. We need to send the National Guard personnel who have talents other than handling guns and vehicles to teach business, music, farming and other skills that help the people become more independent and willing to resist the nasty elements. We cannot win in Afghanistan. The Russians are probably laughing at us and waiting for the wars to bring us to our financial knees. If we can't or won't support a survivable economy, we should admit defeat and leave.

On the pope's offer to Anglicans:
In the midst of all the fuss, people seem to ignore or not understand that the group that seeks semi-reunion with Rome is not associated with the Anglican Communion as we know it. The 400,000 belong to a group that separated from the AC awhile back. I doubt any of the current crop of schismatics would consider crossing the Tiber. The men leading the division are too fond of their pointy hats to yield the hat, the prestige and the authority to the pope. If they were serious, they would have followed former bishop Jeffrey Steenson who did the honorable thing. As far as I'm concerned, the "issue" is a non-issue. And I'm curious to see what nastiness the pope's message tried to hide in the news.

On LGBT issues:
How do homosexual, transgendered or sexually uncertain people negatively affect those who perceive themselves to be "straight"? Is sexuality contagious? Are gay cooties deadly? How does marriage between two people affect the marriage of two other people if there is no cheating among them? Personally I believe that red-haired people should only be allowed to marry red-haired people because that recessive gene is disappearing from our culture and I like naturally red hair. If I look hard enough I can probably find a Biblical reference to support my prejudice for red hair. LGBT prejudice is just that - prejudice. It has no basis in fact but is promoted by ignorance and fear and preached from pulpits in spite of Jesus's admonition to love all and judge none. We need to get over it and accept all people in this Godde-given variety who are not harmful to society.

On Red vs Blue charity:
It is a fact that conservatives are more financially charitable than liberals. I wonder if the same is true for non-financial aid. Given equal social standing, do conservatives give more time - other than fund-raising - also? In other words, do conservatives get their hands dirtier than liberals? Do you know of any studies on this aspect of charity?