Quickhits

Still not feeling all that "bloggy" so here's a number of articles from the last few days that I didn't get around to.

Emergency rooms are too few, understaffed with long waits. Where's that guy who's supposed to be protcting us from terrorists and the bird flu? Shouldn't he be doing something about this? The system is already breaking without an event stress.

In another vote of confidence in the administration's ability to deal with emergency, foreign countries are asking their citizens along the Gulf Coast to register their names and addresses with their home country so they can come get them in case of an emergency, not wait for US disaster relief.

In the recently launched Iraq maneuver designed to quell the violence in Baghdad(Operation Forward Together,) the Iraqi government has issued special uniforms and emblems for the trucks "to distinguish legitimate forces in the coming days." (Last paragraph.)

There's a growing movement to name streets, parks, etc., after soldiers who have died in Iraq. That's alot of streets.

And, this oped piece in the NYPost lays the recent slides in the financial markets on Ben Bernanke. I don't know if I agree or not, but what caught my eye was this tidbit, "Oil tumbled here 2 percent to $68.56 a barrel - which is more than triple its price of $19.73 a barrel in January 2002."

Good night.