Shareholders were restless at today's WellPoint meeting. Some were there to deliver a petition to WellPoint asking them to return to their foundation of quality health care as a non-profit organization. Others were there to protest the approval of executive pay increases. Others were there to protest rate increases for small employers.

Bucky Bush, investment manager and brother of George H W Bush was also there as a long-time board member. About an hour into the meeting, he collapsed.

MSNBC:

The brother of former President George H.W. Bush collapsed during health insurer WellPoint Inc.'s annual meeting Tuesday morning, abruptly ending a gathering that had grown testy with criticism from some shareholders.

William H.T. Bush, 71, was taken to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis and admitted as a precaution, a company spokeswoman said Tuesday afternoon. She added that he was alert and that doctors were evaluating his health.

Bush has served on the company's board of directors since 2004. He was sitting with other directors during a question-and-answer session when he moaned and leaned to his right side about an hour into the meeting. WellPoint officials cleared the room and called for help.

In what might be one of the more ironic twists to this story, the emergency room doctor who rushed to Mr. Bush's side was Dr. Rob Stone, director of Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan, an organization advocating for a statewide publicly financed, privately administered single payer health plan. Dr. Stone has been an outspoken WellPoint critic and fierce spokesman for single payer health care.

The abrupt end to the meeting left many shareholders and interested parties frustrated, too.

Some shareholders were not happy WellPoint adjourned its meeting so soon after Bush became ill. Julia Vaughn, who represented the consumer group Citizens Action Coalition at the meeting, implored Braly to continue as several people attended to Bush, who was laying on the floor.

"I don't think Angela is a nurse," Vaughn shouted while WellPoint officials tried to clear the room.

After the meeting, Vaughn led a protest outside WellPoint's headquarters. About 70 people gathered to listen to a singer and some speakers. Many held signs asking for a single-payer health system and warning passers-by that for-profit health insurers are "Hazardous to your Health."

At any rate, it appears that Mr. Bush is going to be all right. I somehow doubt he will become a fan of single payer health care, though. Shareholders of WellPoint might be all right, too, since their shares are up a few cents as I write this.

Capital Eye: Desperate to get of the hook for their serial lawlessness, the telephone utility industry spent at least $31.4 million lobbying in 2007.

Needlenose: What if they built a "Rule of Law Complex" and nobody came?

BOT! The blood thinning drug Heparin has been recalled due to contamination. FDA inspectors last week found quality-control problems at the Chinese factory, a facility the agency had never before inspected - in violation of its own rules.

Bad Astronomy: Possible McCain running mate

MyDD: Speak for yourself.

HOLY CRAP: And this is why it's called "Holy Crap"...Christian Candidate Quiz Bowl...Prayer Brawl...More Bush Family support of Rev. Moon...Rediscovering or revising Islam?...Fringe-dwelling fundie threatens Obama...Critics question White House's Faith-Based report....Jefferson Bible...This is good news...Buckley's Big Mistake...The man McCain is ‘very proud' to be associated with...The Bible can mean anything you want...Darwin strikes again!

Let's see...there's Iraq, Iran, Syria, Israel/Palestine, Sudan and North Korea...and this is what Bush decides to use his diplomacy skills on?

Daily Mail:
US President George Bush is to host White House talks on British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.
Cohen, 35, creator of Ali G, has infuriated the Kazakhstan government with his portrayal of Borat, a bumbling Kazakh TV presenter.

And now a movie of Borat's adventures in the US has caused a diplomatic incident.
Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev is to fly to the US to meet President Bush in the coming weeks and on the agenda will be his country's image.
President Nazarbayev has confirmed his government will buy "educational" TV spots and print advertisements about the "real Kazakhstan" in a bid to save the country's reputation before the film is released in the US in November.

President Nazarbayev will visit the White House and the Bush family compound in Maine when he flies in for talks that will include the fictional character Borat. Read on...

Now He Tells Us Brad DeLong

On November 11, 2004, Bush 41 and Ford-era Assistant to the President for National Security Brent Scowcroft endorses John Kerry's foreign policy.

A little bit late.

You know, it would be nice if some of these guys were American patriots first and feudal retainers of the Bush family second. It would be nice if they had some... values.

Democrats.com: Is Sam Brownback bringing Opus Dei into the Senate?

Consortium News: Over the past quarter century, South Korean theocrat Sun Myung Moon has been one of the Bush family’s major benefactors – both politically and financially – while enjoying what appears to be protection against federal investigations into evidence that his cult-like organization has functioned as a criminal enterprise.

BlondeSense: Privacy Alert

Recovering Liberal: Mystery disease affects New Yorkers in the wake of the 9/11 attacks

AGITPROP: Get out your tinfoil hats...

Spittle & Ink: The difference between Us and Them..

Civil War over Rove

AmericaBlog says get your popcorn.

Howard: Right now, my sense, in reporting this, Chris, is that the Bush family, political family, is at war with itself inside the White House. My sense is, it‘s—it‘s—it‘s—it‘s Andy Card, the chief of staff, and his people against Karl Rove, the brain...read on

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Doubleday, the book's publisher and part of the Random House division of Bertelsmann, said it stood by Ms. Kelley's reporting. The publisher said in a statement that Ms. Kelly met with Ms. Bush for a four-hour lunch on April 1, 2003, where an unnamed third party heard the conversation, and that Ms. Kelley's editor, Peter Gethers, discussed the same material with Ms. Bush over the phone.

Lou Colasuonno, a former publicist for Ms. Bush, confirmed that he was the third party at the lunch and contradicted her denial. "I have not seen the book, I have only seen news reports," Mr. Colasuonno said. "According to what I have seen, what has been reported, I would not dispute that."