Let's go to Mexico!

Freeze! You're surrounded!

Tired of being associated with rogues like these:

Source: New York Daily News

Of the 30 industrialized countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, only Mexico, Turkey and the United States fail to achieve universal coverage.

Embarrassed by being singled out in lineups like these:

Source: National Geographic & What If Post

Countries with universal health care are represented by a blue line, those without universal coverage have a red line. The United States and Mexico are the only countries with red lines.

The graph compares the health care systems of developed countries in terms of cost per person, life expectancy, and number of doctors visits.

Click to enlarge

Mexico has decided to reform:

Source: Harvard Science

Seguro Popular, a Mexican health care program instituted in 2003, has already reduced crippling health care costs among poorer households, according to an evaluation conducted by researchers at Harvard University in collaboration with researchers in Mexico.

Among participating households, those suffering catastrophic health expenses were reduced by almost 60 percent, contributing to a 30 percent reduction in catastrophic health expenses across treatment communities.

Reinforcing their side of the border:

Source: Xinhua

Universal health care in Mexico is expected to be achieved next year, Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said Friday.

The Northern state of Coahuila will be Mexico's first state covered with universal health care next week, and five more states with a population of 32.75 million or more will be under the same system in four months, Cordova told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.

The five states, which will be covered by universal health care, are Sonora, Chihuahua, Tamaulipas, Guanajuato as well as Mexico state, the most populous state with more than 15 million people.

Monopoly man! You are surrounded by socialized medicine!
Release your hostages & come out with your hands up!

UPDATE! Mexican authorities are reporting a spike in border activity. The illegal migrants claim they are fleeing a devastated homeland & only seek coverage:

Alternate Video

Product Placement

Antonio Sola puts the finishing touches on his new product.

Meet Michel Martelly, Haiti's first gay president:

Source: The Guardian & welcome2haiti

Alternate Video

In the years following Aristide's restoration to power in 1994, Martelly became obsessed with hatred for the man. In a video from not too long ago, which can be seen on YouTube, the candidate threatens a patron in a bar where he has performed. "All those shits were Aristide's faggots," he says. "I would kill Aristide to stick a dick up your ass."

How did the belly-button flasher who'd like to "stick a dick up your ass" become president?

Source: McClatchy

Though Martelly attended Haiti's prestigious Saint-Louis de Gonzague, he proved to be a lackluster student. He enrolled at Red Rocks Community College in Colorado in 1984, and later at what was then known as Miami-Dade Community College, but dropped out.

Through late-night shows, Martelly became associated with a Haitian elite class openly indifferent to the suffering of the poor majority. That show of defiance was on display in the early 1990s. After military leaders toppled the democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991, Martelly stayed, running a club with his wife.

The new Michel Martelly, always neatly dressed in a dark suit, engages in the kind of keen strategy that gets him photographed alongside former President Clinton. Martelly hired a Spanish consulting firm with right-of-center ties to help put a polishing touch on the biggest performance of his life so far: winning the Haitian presidency.

That "right-of-center" Spanish consulting firm is 'Ostos Sola', lead by Antonio Sola:

Source: Inter Press Service

In Mexico, Antonio Sola from Spain, who has ties to Spain's rightwing opposition Popular Party, and Dick Morris of the U.S., ex-consultant to former President Bill Clinton (1993-2001), advised current president Felipe Calderon during the tense electoral campaign in 2006 that led to his victory.

Sola and Morris -- who in 1996 resigned from the Clinton reelection campaign after his own affair with a prostitute, who revealed private White House information, came to light -- have been identified as the people behind Calderon's smear campaign against his opponent Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who was the candidate of the leftwing Democratic Revolution Party (PRD).

Perhaps you'll recall his recycling of fascist era imagery in Spain & Mexico:

Source: Inter Press Service

The theme of the girl -- 'la nina' -- has triggered controversy. The Cuatro TV station reported that its origins can be traced back to Franco's granddaughter, Carmencita, whose grandparents voiced a similar phrase half a century ago. The station also pointed to similar words used by Mexico's current conservative President Felipe Calderon in a speech in a stadium in 2006, when he was a candidate.

According to the station, the 'coincidence' can be attributed to the fact that adviser Antonio Sola had worked for both Calderon and Guatemala's rightwing Patriotic Party & the Spanish PP candidate.

Maybe you saw one of his many spots in El Salvador, where Hugo Chavez apparently ran for president:

Source: Reforma

Sola llevó a las pantallas salvadoreñas las frases "Funes: un peligro para El Salvador" y, en referencia al candidato de Arena, Rodrigo Ávila, "el presidente del empleo". Las mismas que utilizó en el 2006 para denostar a Andrés Manuel López Obrador y promover a Felipe Calderón.

Los spots que advertían que el amigo favorito del candidato del FMLN era el presidente de Venezuela se convirtieron en los más numerosos. Según el coordinador de campaña de Funes, Roberto Lorenzana, al final de la campaña Chávez apareció más en la propaganda electoral que el candidato de Arena: de 6 mil 296 spots entre el 1o. de febrero y el 1o. de marzo pasado, 2 mil 852 fueron dedicados a Chávez y 2 mil 128 a Ávila.

Why is any of this important? Because Michel Martelly had his ideological opponents erased from the ballots - leaving only dusty musty Mirlande Manigat as his competition. Faced with virtually no challenge, his people kept the kids gloves on...taking the presidency with only 15% popular support.

They're saving all that dirty ammunition for the real campaign - which is just beginning.