It’s a sunny autumn day here in the Midwest.  Four-year old Sophie has already called us on the telephone, outlining her plans for the day and especially for this evening,  All Hallow’s Eve.  We went to her pre-school Halloween party yesterday.  Most of the little girls were dressed as princesses, butterflys, or fairies.  Sophie was a fire-fighter.

My Friday healthcare reform posts were interrupted by my illness and recent travels.  With a number of new proposals coming out last week, I wanted to bring your attention to the primary resource on the issue, An online guide to following the health care legislation. – By Timothy Noah – Slate Magazine The article is updated frequently with the latest edition published just yesterday.  It is full of hot links to all the latest information.  You can see the latest House bill, how it compares to previous proposals, summary of various sections, charts on tax provisions, implementation timelines, costs breakdowns.  You can also find information on the Baucus bill, different Committee documents, White House resources.  As always the article lists blogs by columnists, academics, think tanks, public policy consultants and other professional bloggers.  In all there are hundreds of links related specifically to the healthcare reform debate which is why I continue to champion An online guide to following the health care legislation. – By Timothy Noah – Slate Magazine as the best single such resource around.

In less heady news I wanted to comment on the increase in number of “Nigerian” money scams that make it to the website’s mailbox.  I have four different email addresses for various endeavors.  So why the Being Cancer address attracts so many offers to help launder millions of dollars, I don’t know.  Likewise I wonder why it is that nearly half of the people registering at my site have Russian (.ru) email addresses.  Might this have anything to do with the almost 6000 pieces of spam I have received or is it evidence of a thriving cancer blogging community in Russia?  Hmmmm.

Being Cancer has hosted nearly 23,000 visits since April.  The most popular page is Cancer Blogs (and its predecessor Cancer Blog Links).  I am planning a major expansion of that feature.  I may indicate new listings with an asterick or something.  I also plan to start a Cancer Blog Honor Roll for those blogs that have been featured in our Guest Post.  I nearly have more projects related to cancer than I have the time or energy to develop. But I’ll keep plugging away.

Have a great Halloween and weekend!

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