PETA is funny to me

Last night I exposed my children to animal torture.

Ok, really, Grandma started it. She sent us two DVD's of Rodeo Bloopers one year. Last night, being in a random mood and needing a video to pacify the small people, I decided to plug it in while we removed the Thule from the roof of our van. In 20 degrees. Yes, I should have done this at least two weeks ago. Yup, yup, yup. Our keyholes to our car were frozen last night, and the car could only be opened by key-fob, or what I call the bee-bop.

The video we put in shows lots of rodeo funnies, including rodeo clowns' antics, cowboys getting their hands stuck after getting bucked off, the Omak Stampede, and in the other video, they have "mutton busting", which is when us insane country types strap our little five year olds onto a sheep with a rope and a helmet and turn them loose. That is very possibly the funniest part, and something I would have died to try when I was little. One of the two spankings I remember involved me riding my pet lambs when I was told not to. Hey, they wouldn't turn me loose on horses yet, and the sheep were right there! It doesn't hurt to fall off something three feet high.

I know lots of animal rights types scream and holler all the time that the poor animals are suffering, yadda yadda. You know what? The only critters suffering are the cowboys, and someone pays them to do it. And they come back after breaking most of the bones in their bodies. That, I don't understand, but hey, it's a free country.

I don't believe most animal rights folks have ever been bucked off by a four-legged animal. I have. A few times. Make that quite a few times, since age 5. I believe one of my earliest memories was my mom leading "Otis" along, and all of a sudden, I was on my back with my legs up against the mesh fence. I remember being on the other side of it, but my mom tells me that's my imagination. I don't really know. That same horse bit me, ran me under branches, and stepped on me a bit for good measure. Otis, by the way, would have made the supreme champion bucking horse. But Dad fell in love with him for some reason. I think Dad likes animals with "character". Somehow, I still love horses, and can't get enough of them, but am currently distracted by four little people for the next several years.

I want to tell people from my perspective as a person who has been injured by animals, you know what? Those animals are SMILING. If they could laugh, they would. Jolly belly laughs. Really!

I know they have a strap around their nether regions to make them buck, but it's not like someone is yanking on them. They are having a great life. An animal who has made it into the bucking circuit has it MADE. He gets to breed better bucking stock if he gets famous, which all animals truly enjoy, and he gets to eat tons and live a very long life, with many days off a year.

Are you kidding me? Most humans don't have it that good! And if you know animals well enough, you can see them smirking as they trot around the arena. Some of them nearly take a bow, they are so pleased with the cheering.

So, PETA, as with most things you stand for, I suggest you go get some experience with these critters before you tell me how bad they have it.

And read some Baxter Black. It's good fer what ails ya.

Environmentalist Beauracracy

This is what happens when people surround themselves with people who agree with them. Let's spend lots and lots of money so we can accomplish practically nothing, shall we?

I learned something interesting that even my history buff husband did not know. I was reading this:



I learned that from the early 1300's and for 300 years onward, the world saw a mini-ice age. Let me quote for you from pgs. 8-9:

" 1303 The Baltic Sea freezes over and starts what we now see as the Little Ice Age (lasts til 1700). Shorter growing seasons - Measly food means hunger and misery for millions.

1315 Floods compared to Noah's flood in the Bible. Ruined crops. Hungrier and miserabler millions. Reports from Europe of people eating cats, dogs, pigeons' droppings and even their own children."

The Horrible Histories series is terribly tongue-in-cheek, and I wouldn't really recommend it for kids who can't stomach that kind of thing, but they have their funny moments, and contain many things you just did not learn in school. While their pot shots at the Catholic Church were annoying, you gotta admit, the people running the Church in Europe at the time were often anything but saints. And they did mention Joan of Arc, at least.

Anyway, given that historical perspective, why are we freaking out so much? Because we EGAD can't control everything around us? Who knew?

See below:


Hot air from Obama


Bjorn Lomborg | December 15, 2008
Article from: The Australian

IN one of his first public policy statements as America's president-elect, Barack Obama focused on climate change, and clearly stated both his priorities and the facts on which these priorities rest. Unfortunately, both are weak, or even wrong.

Obama's policy outline was presented via video to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Governors' Global Warming Summit, and has again been shown in Poznan, Poland, to leaders assembled to flesh out a global warming road map. According to Obama, "few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change".

Such a statement is now commonplace for most political leaders across the world, even though it neglects to address the question of how much we can do to help America and the world through climate policies v other policies.

Consider, for example, hurricanes in America. Clearly, a policy of reducing CO2 emissions would have had zero consequence on Katrina's devastating effect on New Orleans, where such a disaster was long expected. Over the next half-century, even large reductions in CO2 emissions would have only a negligible effect.

Instead, direct policies to address New Orleans' vulnerabilities could have avoided the huge and unnecessary cost in human misery and economic loss. These should have included stricter building codes, smarter evacuation policies and better preservation of wetlands (which could have reduced the ferociousness of the hurricane). Most importantly, a greater focus on upkeep and restoration of the levees could have spared the city entirely. Perhaps these types of preventative actions should be Obama's priority.

Likewise, consider world hunger. Pleas for action on climate change reflect fears that global warming may undermine agricultural production, especially in the developing world. But global agricultural/economic models indicate that even under the most pessimistic assumptions, global warming would reduce agricultural production by just 1.4p er cent by the end of the century. Because agricultural output will more than double during this period, climate change would at worst cause global food production to double not in 2080 but in 2081.

Moreover, implementing the Kyoto Protocol at a cost of $180 billion annually would keep two million people from going hungry only by the end of the century. Yet by spending just $10 billion annually, the UN estimates that we could help 229 million hungry people today. Every time spending on climate policies saves one person from hunger in 100 years, the same amount could have saved 5000 people now. Arguably, this should be among Obama's top priorities.

Obama went on to say why he wants to prioritise global warming policies: "The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We've seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season."

Yes, global warming is happening, and mankind is partly responsible, but these statements are - however eloquent - seriously wrong or misleading.

Sea levels are rising, but they have been rising at least since the early 1800s. In the era of satellite measurements, the rise has not accelerated (actually we've seen a sea-level fall during the past two years). The UN expects about a 30cm sea-level rise during this century, about what we saw during the past 150 years.

In that period, many coastlines increased, most obviously The Netherlands, because rich countries can easily protect and even expand their territory. But even for oft-cited Bangladesh, scientists just this year showed that the country grows by 20sq km each year, because river sedimentation wins out over rising sea levels.

Obama's claim about record droughts similarly fails even on a cursory level: the US has in all academic estimates been getting wetter through the past the century (with the 1930s dust bowl setting the drought high point). This is even true globally during the past half-century, as one of the most recent scientific studies of actual soil moisture shows: "There is an overall small wetting trend in global soil moisture."

Furthermore, famine has declined rapidly in the past half century. The main deviation has been the past two years of record-high food prices, caused not by climate change but by the policies designed to combat it: the dash for ethanol, which put food into cars and thus upward pressure on food prices. The World Bank estimates that this policy has driven at least 30 million more people into hunger. To cite policy-driven famine as an argument for more of the same policy seems unreasonable, to say the least.

Finally, it is simply wrong to say that storms are growing stronger every hurricane season. Even for the Atlantic hurricane basin, which we tend to hear about most, the total hurricane energy (ACE) as measured by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has declined by two-thirds since the record was set in 2005. For the world, this trend has been more decisive: maximum ACE was reached in 1994 and has plummeted for the past three years, while hurricanes across the world for the past year have been about as inactive as at any time since records began to be kept.

Global warming should be tackled, but smartly through research and development of low-carbon alternatives. If we are to get our policies right, it is crucial that we get our facts right.

Bjorn Lomborg is the author of The Sceptical Environmentalist and Cool It, head of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre, and adjunct professor at Copenhagen Business School.
Story Tools

Constitution problems

I'm not sure how much anyone is paying attention, but I do know gun sales are up for a reason. I think this is the reason. People aren't into conspiracy theories yet, but they should start looking. Here is an interview with Glenn Beck. I really think people should remember there is a constitution, and if we need to follow it. If people like anarchy, they can take a look at Somalia. People are not loving life over there.

Here's Glenn Beck. His perspective that this is a politician problem, not a Democrat or Republican problem is a good one.


Glenn Beck: 20,000 troops to deploy...in America?
[Insider] Audio Available:

December 1, 2008 - 13:11 ET
RELATED STORY
Pentagon to deploy 20,00 troops inside USA...

GLENN: You know, I was going to talk a little bit about India and Pakistan but I want to change because there's a breaking headline now on Drudge. While the rest of the world is going to pay attention today to Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton and they are going to make this the big story, the big story today, at least for those people that are following the world, should be Pentagon to deploy 20,000 troops inside the U.S. for domestic security.

I told you this story two months ago? Was it two months ago, Joe, when I first found this story. And I said on the air this cannot be true. It can't be true. The only source I could find on that day was in Stars and Stripes and I knew that Stars and Stripes wasn't going to print something about the troops that wasn't true, and I brought that story to you. Now, these guys are being deployed for security for chemical, biological, terrorist activity, natural disaster. But this is what the National Guard is for. The reason why our founding fathers said there would be no standing army is because the federal government has no place in your town. The power to order troops, the power to be able to have people with weapons in your neighborhood must not ever be in the hands of the President or the congress. It must be in the hand of the individual governors. Our founders knew this. 20,000 -- this is a battalion. This is something entirely new.

Now let me ask you this question: Why? They are going to give you all kinds of stories. If anybody really rises up and says anything, if anybody in the media is anything but mindless sheep, they will see exactly what this is but they'll -- I'm sure. I mean, they will go after, you know, they will go after the most ridiculous stories on the planet but when it really comes down to it, they seem to not understand. They seem just to buy the government's excuses on so many things.

When I'm at these book signings, we had a bunch of Constitutions. I bought a bunch of Constitutions from the Constitution Center in Philadelphia and I'm handing them out to anybody who is in the Service and I've signed each one of them and they are little pocket Constitutions and they come up to me. And if they mention the service or I ask people before the book signings, if you are in the Service, introduce yourself. I give them a Constitution and I shake their hand and I look them right straight in the eye and I say, we are counting on you to know this. This is for domestic security. Well, what exactly is domestic security and how many steps does it take before you say domestic security is for martial law? What has to happen? Does anybody see the powder keg that we're sitting on? We are sitting on a powder keg. All that somebody has to do is do something stupid and the place goes up like a match. And I'm telling you our government knows. No one is telling you the truth, but I'm telling you I know what I know, and I know that I know and these people -- I'm not the smartest guy in the bunch. I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I'm not some war gamer. I'm not some, you know, somebody who is -- they would never hire me to put puzzles together, for the love of Pete, at a puzzle store and somehow or another I can see all of these pieces come together and no one else can? Bullcrap. They see it and this is why 20,000 troops are being deployed here in the United States of America. Gang, I warn you fascism is coming and it has nothing to do -- listen to me carefully. It has nothing to do with Barack Obama. Remember this has happened under George Bush's watch. I am not a conspiracy nut. I don't believe in the Star Chamber. I don't believe that there are things going on where these dark meetings are happening. I don't believe any of that. People just keep taking steps one after another because we have to do this. Somebody knows that we are sitting on a powder keg in this country. Somebody knows that we better take precautions because this thing, with the economy -- I'm telling you, I am telling you, I hope to God I'm wrong. I hope in twelve months, A, I'm still on the air; and B, that I can come to you -- mark this -- Stu, you have your calendar. Put this in your calendar.

STU: Okay.

GLENN: That I hope I can come to you today and say -- I mean a year from today I want to be able to go on the air and say I was wrong about the economy; it looks exactly the same as it did last year. I hope to God I can say that to you, but I'm telling you alarm bells are going off in me and they are getting louder and louder and louder and I don't think you are going to recognize this country or its economy next year. And when the economy starts to go, people are going to get more and more desperate, more and more hungry, more and more worried, more and more into conspiracy theories. You have something like what happened over in India a year from now and I think even today, this country has a possibility of turning on itself and we must root ourself in the Constitution. And listen to me and please preach this, say this as much as you can to anyone that listens. This is not a Democrat/Republican thing. This is not Barack Obama is the bad guy and George Bush was the savior. George Bush is the guy who started this ball rolling and Barack Obama is going to continue rolling it. This is a Democrat/Republican political parties both taking us down the same damn road. This is both of them. This is not a problem with the Republicans, it is not a problem with the Democrats. It is an American problem, and Americans will need to solve it. Americans are going to have to solve it by standing their ground. Americans are going to have to say "Excuse me?" And you will not be able to do that unless you are -- unless, A, you know what we are, you know who we are, you know what we're founded on, you know what the Constitution says. Gang, eternal repercussions if we lose liberty. Eternal repercussions. It is in our -- this is our watch. You are a watchman on the tower if you see it coming. The blood of everyone who you could have woken up and said "Storm coming" will be on your hands. If you ring the bell, if you say to people "Prepare, find who you are, find out what we are, keep peace in our heart. Please don't tear each other apart. When an event happens, be a peacemaker." If you don't do those things, all those that you could have alerted, their blood, going to be on your hands for eternity. Those people who won't wake up, you did your job. You've got to move on and wake up others. And I know there are a lot of people that are listening right now and saying to me, "Oh, Glenn, you are such a fearmonger. Oh, Glenn, oh, please, the sky is falling, the sky is falling." Let me tell you something. I wish you could stand in line and meet the people that I have met in the last three weeks as I go from city to city and shake their hand in these bookstores and time and time and time and time again people come up to me: "I saved my savings, I saved $10,000, I saved $20,000." One guy told me last night, "I saved $350,000 because of you. I would have lost $350,000, but you know what? I was listening to you and something in my gut said, you know what, you better take that seriously. I did, and I got my money out. While everyone else was saying, oh, no, stay in, oh, no, invest more." You pray on it. Don't take my word for it. You've got to do your own homework, but you must understand the people in the media, they don't get it. The people in the media, they are not looking at the bigger picture.

You know what, for so many people in the media, their agenda is either liberalism or on the other side I believe their agenda is the parties, the Republican party or the Democratic party. And for those that don't have an agenda, it's just a job, man. It's just a job. I'll tell you why I'm in it. Because believe me, I don't want to be in it. I've told you before I'm ready, man. I'm ready to go live in the side of a mountain, you know, and have a farm and raise some cows and, ooof, all the stuff I swore I never wanted to do, I want to do it. I just want to raise my kids and just have a nice life and just lead a normal life. That's what I want to do. I ain't doing it because I know what time we live in. And if you know what time you live in, you've got to do the hard things. And just because of the times we're living in, let me be very clear on what those things are. If you hear any message other than "Be a peacemaker," if you hear any message that leads you in any direction of hatred, you're on the wrong path. It's a new day, gang, and you're about to enter a new world. Yesterday's thoughts I don't believe apply. What you thought your life was going to be like in five years, I really don't believe it applies anymore. That doesn't mean you stop. I'm still planning on all kinds of things for the next few years. I'm still planning on doing these things and that thing. We're working on projects and we're doing everything because you know what? As I said at the beginning, I hope to God that I'm wrong, and with God's grace and with Americans being Americans and Americans really saying, "Okay," without the tragedy, because this tragedy comes, whatever it is, God help us all, it is going to change things in the blink of an eye, if we can just be those September 12th people, before the tragedy. We're going to be fine. We're going to be fine. But we are so fragile right now, and I don't care what they tell you. They ain't preparing for another Hurricane Katrina. The Pentagon is deploying 20,000 troops inside the U.S. for domestic security. I'm sorry, but I'm trying to figure out how that one works exactly, and that's not Barack Obama doing it. That's George Bush doing it. How exactly are we deploying those troops? Are they under the President's power? Because I don't want George Bush or Barack Obama, I don't want Ronald Reagan controlling the troops inside the country. You don't do that, period. The federal government does not deploy troops for domestic security. The governor does it with the National Guard. They answer to the states. You cannot allow them to have that control. If our federal government, God forbid we get our hands on a dictator, God forbid -- and I know people said to me ten years ago, "Oh, Glenn, we'll never..." gang, we're on the eve of it. I'm not saying it's Barack Obama. Hell, it could be Sarah Palin in four years that does it. But I'm telling you we're on the eve of fascism. And if you give these people power now or in the next two weeks, the next four years, the next eight years, I'm telling you, you get the wrong person in there and you get a crisis situation and that person can grab power. And it is what many people have wanted to happen since Mussolini was in office. A benevolent dictator. Because capitalism, this republic doesn't really work. Read the words of some former Presidents including Wilson and FDR that everybody loves so much. Prepare. Prepare your heart and prepare your mind and prepare your children. Know what you know, know who you are and know that it is essential that you're a peacemaker today.

When parenting becomes too much

Found this today. I thought it was wonderful that someone gave voice to this, and I am sad for the first family mentioned. I would love to reverse time and convince them not to take on too much. This is something that happens when we think we know God's plan, but we don't know our limitations. It's hard, as a parent, to know our limitations, but we must keep working on ourselves, no matter how painful that may be. Please pass along the following if you know anyone who needs to read it.

http://catholicexchange.com/2008/10/17/114165/

on depression and foster/adoption

What do you think of "Sicko"?

Francis and I watched "Sicko" last night. It was very interesting, just like Bowling for Columbine was. There are some similarities that bother me, and here they are:

1. Michael Moore makes blanket statements and then moves on before you realize what he's done.
2. He does not back up what he says.
3. He puts people in situations or asks questions to make his point look good without really looking for anything that disagrees with him, because I'm sure if he looked hard enough, he'd find it. For instance, he found great health care in Cuba. Yes, that is mighty ironic. But why are people jumping on boats and risking their lives to leave, if it's so great? No mention of that.

Michael Moore does serve a purpose, even if people love to hate him. It is the same purpose, ironically, that Ron Paul serves. He makes people think. At least that is the idea. THINK AND VOTE, people! But I think two different things happen.

a. People get excited and do research to see if any of his claims are completely, or only partially, true. If they find out it's true, they get politically motivated.
b. People get excited and believe him, and then go off half-cocked and know-it-all like they always do anyway, except this time with different facts. They go tell their friends, who believe them, and nobody checks their FACTS.

Well, Francis and I hope to be in group A. And so we checked our facts. The World Health Organization, while a flawed system also, like the UN, at least keeps some kind of tabs, and since Michael Moore quoted them as saying the US healthcare system is 37th out of 191 nations in the world, I figured we should find out how they did their numbers. I would post just the link, but I think this study is so important, I want people to tell me what they think when they read it.

Here it is. What do you think?

http://www.who.int/whr/2000/media_centre/press_release/en/index.html

World Health Organization Assesses the World's Health Systems World Health Organization Assesses the World's Health Systems The World Health Organization has carried out the first ever analysis of the world's health systems. Using five performance indicators to measure health systems in 191 member states, it finds that France provides the best overall health care followed among major countries by Italy, Spain, Oman, Austria and Japan. The findings are published today, 21 June, in The World Health Report 2000 – Health systems: Improving performance*. *Copies of the Report can be ordered from bookorders@who.ch. The U.S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance, the report finds. The United Kingdom, which spends just six percent of GDP on health services, ranks 18 th . Several small countries – San Marino, Andorra, Malta and Singapore are rated close behind second- placed Italy. WHO Director-General Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland says: "The main message from this report is that the health and well- being of people around the world depend critically on the performance of the health systems that serve them. Yet there is wide variation in performance, even among countries with similar levels of income and health expenditure. It is essential for decision- makers to understand the underlying reasons so that system performance, and hence the health of populations, can be improved." Dr Christopher Murray, Director of WHO's Global Programme on Evidence for Health Policy. says: "Although significant progress has been achieved in past decades, virtually all countries are under- utilizing the resources that are available to them. This leads to large numbers of preventable deaths and disabilities; unnecessary suffering, injustice, inequality and denial of an individual's basic rights to health." The impact of failures in health systems is most severe on the poor everywhere, who are driven deeper into poverty by lack of financial protection against ill- health, the report says. "The poor are treated with less respect, given less choice of service providers and offered lower- quality amenities," says Dr Brundtland. "In trying to buy health from their own pockets, they pay and become poorer." The World Health Report says the main failings of many health systems are: Many health ministries focus on the public sector and often disregard the frequently much larger private sector health care. In many countries, some if not most physicians work simultaneously for the public sector and in private practice. This means the public sector ends up subsidizing unofficial private practice. Many governments fail to prevent a "black market" in health, where widespread corruption, bribery, "moonlighting" and other illegal practices flourish. The black markets, which themselves are caused by malfunctioning health systems, and low income of health workers, further undermine those systems. Many health ministries fail to enforce regulations that they themselves have created or are supposed to implement in the public interest. Dr Julio Frenk, Executive Director for Evidence and Information for Policy at WHO, says: "By providing a comparative guide to what works and what doesn't work, we can help countries to learn from each other and thereby improve the performance of their health systems." Dr Philip Musgrove, editor-in-chief of the report, says: "The WHO study finds that it isn't just how much you invest in total, or where you put facilities geographically, that matters. It's the balance among inputs that counts – for example, you have to have the right number of nurses per doctor." Most of the lowest placed countries are in sub-Saharan Africa where life expectancies are low. HIV and AIDS are major causes of ill-health. Because of the AIDS epidemic, healthy life expectancy for babies born in 2000 in many of these nations has dropped to 40 years or less. One key recommendation from the report is for countries to extend health insurance to as large a percentage of the population as possible. WHO says that it is better to make "pre-payments" on health care as much as possible, whether in the form of insurance, taxes or social security. While private health expenses in industrial countries now average only some 25 percent because of universal health coverage (except in the United States, where it is 56%), in India, families typically pay 80 percent of their health care costs as "out-of- pocket" expenses when they receive health care. "It is especially beneficial to make sure that as large a percentage as possible of the poorest people in each country can get insurance," says Dr Frenk. "Insurance protects people against the catastrophic effects of poor health. What we are seeing is that in many countries, the poor pay a higher percentage of their income on health care than the rich." "In many countries without a health insurance safety net, many families have to pay more than 100 percent of their income for health care when hit with sudden emergencies. In other words, illness forces them into debt." In designing the framework for health system performance, WHO broke new methodological ground, employing a technique not previously used for health systems. It compares each country's system to what the experts estimate to be the upper limit of what can be done with the level of resources available in that country. It also measures what each country's system has accomplished in comparison with those of other countries. WHO's assessment system was based on five indicators: overall level of population health; health inequalities (or disparities) within the population; overall level of health system responsiveness (a combination of patient satisfaction and how well the system acts); distribution of responsiveness within the population (how well people of varying economic status find that they are served by the health system); and the distribution of the health system's financial burden within the population (who pays the costs). "We have created a new tool to help us measure performance," says Dr Murray. "As we develop it further and strengthen the raw data used for these measures in the years to come, we believe this will be an increasingly useful tool for governments in improving their own health systems." Other findings in the annual WHO report include: In Europe, health systems in Mediterranean countries such as France, Italy and Spain are rated higher than others in the continent. Norway is the highest Scandinavian nation, at 11th . Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica and Cuba are rated highest among the Latin American nations – 22nd, 33rd, 36th and 39th in the world, respectively. Singapore is ranked 6th , the only Asian country apart from Japan in the top 10 countries. In the Pacific, Australia ranks 32 nd overall, while New Zealand is 41st . In the Middle East and North Africa, many countries rank highly: Oman is in 8 th place overall, Saudi Arabia is ranked 26th , United Arab Emirates 27th and Morocco, 29th. In 1970, Oman's health care system was not performing well. The child mortality rate was high. But major government investments have proved to be successful in improving system performance. "Oman's success shows that tremendous strides can be accomplished in a relatively short period of time," says Dr Murray. Information in the WHO report also rates countries according to the different components of the performance index. Responsiveness: The nations with the most responsive health systems are the United States, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Canada, Norway, Netherlands and Sweden. The reason these are all advanced industrial nations is that a number of the elements of responsiveness depend strongly on the availability of resources. In addition, many of these countries were the first to begin addressing the responsiveness of their health systems to people's needs. Fairness of financial contribution: When WHO measured the fairness of financial contribution to health systems, countries lined up differently. The measurement is based on the fraction of a household's capacity to spend (income minus food expenditure) that goes on health care (including tax payments, social insurance, private insurance and out of pocket payments). Colombia was the top-rated country in this category, followed by Luxembourg, Belgium, Djibouti, Denmark, Ireland, Germany, Norway, Japan and Finland. Colombia achieved top rank because someone with a low income might pay the equivalent of one dollar per year for health care, while a high- income individual pays 7.6 dollars. Countries judged to have the least fair financing of health systems include Sierra Leone, Myanmar, Brazil, China, Viet Nam, Nepal, Russian Federation, Peru and Cambodia. Brazil, a middle-income nation, ranks low in this table because its people make high out-of-pocket payments for health care. This means a substantial number of households pay a large fraction of their income (after paying for food) on health care. The same explanation applies to the fairness of financing Peru's health system. The reason why the Russian Federation ranks low is most likely related to the impact of the economic crisis in the 1990s. This has severely reduced government spending on health and led to increased out-of-pocket payment. In North America, Canada rates as the country with the fairest mechanism for health system finance – ranked at 17-19, while the United States is at 54-55. Cuba is the highest among Latin American and Caribbean nations at 23-25. The report indicates – clearly – the attributes of a good health system in relation to the elements of the performance measure, given below. Overall Level of Health: A good health system, above all, contributes to good health. To assess overall population health and thus to judge how well the objective of good health is being achieved, WHO has chosen to use the measure of disability- adjusted life expectancy (DALE). This has the advantage of being directly comparable to life expectancy and is readily compared across populations. The report provides estimates for all countries of disability- adjusted life expectancy. DALE is estimated to equal or exceed 70 years in 24 countries, and 60 years in over half the Member States of WHO. At the other extreme are 32 countries where disability- adjusted life expectancy is estimated to be less than 40 years. Many of these are countries characterised by major epidemics of HIV/ AIDS, among other causes. Distribution of Health in the Populations: It is not sufficient to protect or improve the average health of the population, if - at the same time - inequality worsens or remains high because the gain accrues disproportionately to those already enjoying better health. The health system also has the responsibility to try to reduce inequalities by prioritizing actions to improve the health of the worse-off, wherever these inequalities are caused by conditions amenable to intervention. The objective of good health is really twofold: the best attainable average level – goodness – and the smallest feasible differences among individuals and groups – fairness. A gain in either one of these, with no change in the other, constitutes an improvement. Responsiveness: Responsiveness includes two major components. These are (a) respect for persons (including dignity, confidentiality and autonomy of individuals and families to decide about their own health); and (b) client orientation (including prompt attention, access to social support networks during care, quality of basic amenities and choice of provider). Distribution of Financing: There are good and bad ways to raise the resources for a health system, but they are more or less good primarily as they affect how fairly the financial burden is shared. Fair financing, as the name suggests, is only concerned with distribution. It is not related to the total resource bill, nor to how the funds are used. The objectives of the health system do not include any particular level of total spending, either absolutely or relative to income. This is because, at all levels of spending there are other possible uses for the resources devoted to health. The level of funding to allocate to the health system is a social choice – with no correct answer. Nonetheless, the report suggests that countries spending less than around 60 dollars per person per year on health find that their populations are unable to access health services from an adequately performing health system. In order to reflect these attributes, health systems have to carry out certain functions. They build human resources through investment and training, they deliver services, they finance all these activities. They act as the overall stewards of the resources and powers entrusted to them. In focusing on these few universal functions of health systems, the report provides evidence to assist policy- makers as they make choices to improve health system performance. The World Health Report 2000 consists of a message from the WHO's Director-General, an overview, six chapters and statistical annexes. The chapter headings are "Why do health systems matter?", "How well do health systems perform?", Health services: well chosen, well organized?", "What resources are needed?", "Who pays for health systems?", and "How is the public interest protected?"