Water Rights

Ok, I'm probably getting some of the numbers wrong here, but it's my understanding that any country that owns a natural island gets to claim the waters off of that island for a distance out to something like 200 miles (unless that takes you into someone else’s claim, in which case you kind of split the difference). I've seen a couple weird stories in the news lately about this issue, and I had a sociology teacher tell me that his best guess over what would cause the next big war was sea mineral rights.
The two stories basically seemed pretty silly. Japan owns a coral island that is a couple of feet above sea level. It's sinking. Now Japan is looking at plans to put some sort of cement cap on the 'natural' island so that it doesn't disappear, because if it disappears, this little spec of an island, it will cost Japan control of a 400 mile diameter stretch of ocean, and all the fishing rights and mineral rights that go with it.
It's my understanding that territorial claims used to expand only 12 miles.
The next story is about Canada invading Denmark. Yeap. Didn't hear about it? Well, it seems there is a small little island (this one is huge compared to the Japanese atoll from the previous example, something like a quarter of a square mile) that both Canada and Greenland (property of Denmark) both claim. Until recent global warming nobody really cared, and really, they don't care, except for this 200 mile business. Well, Canada sent some official to land on the island (possession is 9/10ths of the law after all) and now, even although the Canadian left, the Danes think it might be a good idea to send a warship (yes Denmark has a warship) to the island to reassert their claim.
This all sounds kind of silly, but what would happen if someone found something interesting on the seabed, and some way to extract it, oil comes to mind, but fishing rights are always important, and with global warming fishing patterns may change. There is no reason to suspect that the ocean floor has any less gold, silver, uranium, etc. than its 70% of the Earth's surface suggests. Certainly we're to civilized to go to war over...
Well, what to do? My first suggestion is to reign in the sea claims of nations. 200 Miles may be fine for continents, or even huge islands like Japan and England, but for a coral atoll in the pacific? Let’s be logical. If you own one of these itsy bitsys, let’s set a minimum sea ownership of 1 mile. Any natural island gets you one mile out, unless that intersects it with another claim. Intersecting claims would split the difference in a simple ration of the size of the two islands. Now, if your island is a bit bigger we have to do some measuring. Let’s be generous and take the island's widest point as its size. If the island's widest point is 1.2 miles, let’s let the island claim 1.2 miles worth of sea in every direction. If it's 200 miles wide, let’s let it claim 200 miles out. Anything more than that though, we keep at 200 miles.
The rest of the ocean should be under international law. We always complain how much money we spend funding the UN, well, let them tax the oceans. With a veto at the UN we still can prevent any crazy tax levels. That's my idea. If you don't like it, suggest your own. It's something politicians should be discussing, but aren't. Until next time...

What's Wrong?

I'm going to be a little angry for a while. My doctor's office just told me my insurance doesn't cover a test I need done regularly. The obvious question that popped into my head was, well, how much is this test that I need to take regularly (or possibly die). $9 they said. And I was happy, for poor as I am, I can afford a $9 test once a month so I don't die.
So I made an appointment, and went to the doctor and as the nurse was getting ready to prick my finger the office manager came in and said, 'Not so fast, you can't pay for the test, because you are on Medicaid and we can't take your money. It's against the law to take money from people on Medicaid.'
And I was confused. I'd bore you with the details, but it comes down to this... Medicaid says the test is part of the doctor's visit, and my health care provider, part of a conglomerate with the initials C.C., doesn't like that it's considered part of the visit. They'd much rather have me get a blood draw, which they can bill, Medicaid for $9.
The problem is I have a condition called F5L Abnormality. It's not that uncommon, and it causes blood clots. For that condition I take coumadin, a popular blood thinner and rat poison. If I become a rat and my levels get to high I bleed to death like a poisoned rat or a hemophiliac, and if my levels get to low I tend to get blood clots from silly things like bumps and bruises AND BLOOD DRAWS! Obviously I need the finger prick test.
After much investigating, including the local head of Medicaid going, 'I've never heard of a law against paying for an uncovered procedure out of pocket', it was determined that my poor, beleaguered doctors office, which had been eating the $9 dollar fee for a few years now, who swore they had appealed to Medicaid to get me covered, was supposed to be eating the cost. Medicaid considers it part of the office visit.
They won't cover it. Now I'm going to have to switch doctors and drive half an hour in my 18-year-old car to go get a test (and since Medicaid doesn't like you going to more than one primary doctor I'll have to take this drive for every doctor's visit,) as opposed to my doctor who I've been going to for years.
Ahh, but there is an outside chance I can convince Medicaid that I need the machine to do the test, and they'll pay for the $1600 machine and the $9 tests and I can phone my results to the doctor and get my rat poison levels adjusted. That's probably not going to happen, and a part of me is glad, because I really hate Medicaid waste and abuse. If the machine was in the $50 range like some diabetic testers I wouldn't mind so much. I just wrote a ridiculous email to Medicaid, asking them if they would cover the lancets so that I could take them to my doctor's office and see if my doctor's office would let me use their machine...
It's funny when you get so frustrated you start thinking of completely irrational solutions to life's completely irrational problems. I once considered turning in my driver's license to see if I promised not to drive anymore they wouldn't make me pay the speeding ticket I got.
Well, this is the sort of thing that sets me off. For no particular reason, I'm going to be making completely irrational suggestions on how to fix the worlds problems on this bog. Anyone is welcome to comment or suggest. I don't pretend to believe that anyone who could do anything about it will actually listen, but sometimes it's just good to go on record so you can say 'don't blame me, I suggested...'
Anyway...