It hasn't been a good year for proponents of the US healthcare system.

In the past, when people asked tough questions about the state of privatised care, and the problems people have with their insurance companies - the industry would simply publish a few scarey stories about Canadians having to go to the US for treatment.

But the old tactics aren't as effective these days, since, thanks to the internet, Americans are able to compare stories from actual Canadians with the material the industry puts out. And guess what? Most Candadians love their system, and wouldn't trade it for all the executives in New York.

The movie Sicko didn't help matters. Now, even citizens who are insured feel insecure.

And we're back!

Welcome to Brainshrub.com - version 3.0.

Okay - maybe ol' Jack isn't the best image to use after a 3 month-long haitus. But after everything I had to go though to get this site back online, I deserve some fun. 

After the "Great Spam Attack of 2007

" - blogging stopped being fun. It was simply too much effort to moderate threads, lock down posts, fight constant DOS attacks, and write content.

 The CMS (Drupal) I was using didn't make the job much easier. When I fixed one aspect of the site, another part would start showing problems. Since I'm not a programmer, it would take me hours to troubleshoot issues.

For a while, I was resigned to allowing Brainshrub.com to become another dead blog.

Thankfully, about two months ago, the local chapter of the Green Party, the Mountain Greens , made an offer:

If I would revive Brainshrub.com and transform it into an online Green-friendly community for the party - they would help finaince a site upgrade. They didn't want to own Brainshrub, but they wanted an established site with solid traffic from which to reach out to the rest of the blogoshere.