The Florida Herald Tribune is reporting that the Tenessee TennCare plan may die, leaving around 430,000 people with no funding for medicine.

The consequences could be very severe for some..

“In this country, rich as it is, people shouldn’t have to choose whether their child will live or die,” said Angela Ray, the mother of a severely ill 12-year-old girl in Lawrenceburg. “It’s amazing to me that it’s come down to this.”

Her daughter, Jasmine, must take 20 extremely expensive medications every day to control the rare stew of chronic diseases, including Elephant Man Syndrome, that make it impossible for her to run and play. There are no doctors in Tennessee who can treat her, so her parents must frequently drive her to Birmingham, Ala., for care.

Soon, she may lose that care – out-of-state trips are covered by TennCare, but not by Medicaid – and possibly, her life.

Two snippits here, one laughable and the other a bit more serious.

First off from Australia, it’s been reported that “Family First” want to promote the preaching, sorry, teaching of creationism in schools as an alternative to evolution.

Unfortunately the newspapers that reported this require you to register, so I can’t just point to an article about this (it appeared on the front page of Thursdays “The Age” as you can see from this Google News search). What I can do though is link to their letter page for handhelds that doesn’t require registration. It’s interesting (and encouraging) to note that the first two letters attacking “Family First”‘s position are from ministers!

On the more serious side in the US right wing conservatives are attempting to sneak in an abortion-related clause into spending legislation that must pass if various government agencies are to continue operating. This was reported originally in the New York Times (that also requires registration) but through the power of Google News I’ve found the story reprinted in Floridas Herald Tribune.

It appears that rather than be up front about things they have inserted a clause in a bill that everyone has a vested interest in having passed so they can go home for the holidays – oh, and keep the government running..

A sad piece of news, plunderers have been stripping pieces from the wreck of the Titanic, including the ships bell from the mast and the name from the bow.

This is from a report done by Dr Bob Ballard, the man who rediscovered the Titanic, about which the ABC news has a story, as does National geographic (for whom he works) and USA Today.

Every Sunday ABC News Radio broadcasts a show from Deutsche Welle in Germany called “Inside Europe”, and yesterday I caught a piece about a German WWII rebel youth movement that I’d not heard of before.

The Edelweiss Pirates were rebelling against the strict behavioural codes of Nazi society, just like teenagers do anywhere, but in that extreme setting that could lead to them getting beaten or killed (6 of them were hanged along with 7 adult friends in one execution in Cologne) .

The difference is that because they were being rebellious in general, instead of specifically at the Nazis for political reasons, they’ve been seen as criminals rather than a form of resistance, even though they carried out sabotage and handed out anti-Nazi leaflets, but this is changing with the 60th anniversary of the execution of the 6 in Cologne on 10th November 1944.

There is even a German film being made to commemorate them.

Update:
A good, short summary about the Edelwiess Pirates is here.

Oops, missed this for a week..

Thanks to Phillip who posted a link to this rather amusing captiulation speech in a comment to a previous article.

Some of the comments are fun too, I liked:

Please, blue states, please, when you secede: allow those of us stuck in red states to apply for political asylum.

My son saw a red/blue map by county in Newsweek, and was depressed, as I was. Then, I noted that if you superimpose a satellite picture of the US over the red/blue map by county, the areas that are lit up were all against Bush. Some real symbolism there. The dark, empty expanses were what out weighed the points of light.

Everyone is reporting the death of Yasser Arafat at 75, with the cause of death still being kept secret. World leaders are either sending condolonces or speaking ill of the dead depending on their political persuasion. I just hope the strong emotions from this passing at such a painful time for the region don’t trigger yet another downward spiral of violence, death and hatred.

ABC News is reporting that an F-16 pilot thought a US school was a firing range and fired 25 rounds at it, putting holes in the roof and tarmac. Fortunately there were no children present, only a single caretaker, and he was unhurt.

The BBC is reporting that Palestinian sources in Paris say Arafat is in a coma, which is denied by officials in the West Bank.