Obama's not-so-secret police strike again: Some poor sap in America who is suffering with cancer lost his health insurance because of 'Obamacare'. He had the infernal nerve to go on Fox News and complain. Almost immediately there was a (metaphorical) knock on his door and the Internal Revenue Service were outside demanding to audit all his financial affairs. An insurance broker who saw the interview offered to help and - bingo! - the IRS whacked him with an audit also. Meanwhile, an Obama appointee to the higher ranks of the IRS went before a Congressional committee and replied with the immortal words "I do not recall" not once, not twice, not ten, but eighty times! For God's sake, wake up, America, they're coming for you!
Get those thermals out and ready: Lest you doubt the warnings let me provide you with the clincher. The other day I saw that the Met Office had poo-pooed what they called alarmist reports of an exceptionally cold winter. That's good enough for me, now where did I put those damn thermals last Spring?
South Suffolk did it, now it's the turn of South Cam: I reported a few days ago that the good Tories of South Suffolk had given that fat, old trougher, Tim Yeo, the big 'E' now it is the turn for the Tories of South Cambridge because, according to a story in The Mail, their MP, Andrew Lansley, has claimed £6k for overnight hotel expenses despite owning an unlet house 15 minutes walk away and his own residence being a mere 50-minute train ride away. Turf the old porker out!
Even the Euros want us out: According to the good Doctor Richard North of EU Referendum, the prints are reporting on polls taken in some of our European neighbours asking what they think about British efforts either to change EU arrangements or for the UK to leave altogether. The result can be roughly summed up as either "va te faire foutre!" or "Verpiss dich!" which translates roughly as 'fuck off!' Somehow I don't think they like us very much 'just over there'. Ah, well, why am I not surprised?
Zee Germans are revolting! No, no, I don't mean that, charming chap, your average Hun, I just mean that, at long last, they are revolting against their mad, mouth-dribbling Greenies. According to NoTricksZone, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung [FAZ], a leading newspaper in Germany, is reporting the abject failure of a somewhat sinister Greenie group called the WBGU to ram its mad Green policies down the throats of government and citizens alike. According to FAZ:
The rescue of the planet gets cancelled. The climate advisory council [the WBGU]to the government played high stakes poker. And lost. They failed at tricking their way past democracy.
Excellent news, and now all we have to do is rid ourselves of the 'Kleggeron' and all his wretched il-Lib-non-Dems and we, too, can relax whilst they go on to something more serious like, I suppose, proving the earth is flat!
And one last cheering note: This from the inventive keyboard of one of America's wittiest and sharpest observers - P. J. O'Rourke. This time he offers his thoughts on the 'Baby-boomer generation' of which he holds himself an honourable member. His summation of their characterisation is deadly accurate: We are all alike in that each of us thinks we're unusual.
No more rumbles today
David old Chap. The FOX NEWS CORRESPONDANTS!! OOPPPS WILL no doubt have free health insurance inspite of not working for a living. I watched FOX for a laugh. Was it cooommebes and heenity the Yid and Pape, hilarious. You could not make it up but the yanks! What happened to them since they invaded Europe and left Europe to prosper while their citizens have died without a health service.
Posted by: Glesga | Monday, 02 December 2013 at 01:17
Calm down, Jimmy, and just tell me what you have been celebrating - I noticed the time of your comment!
Posted by: David Duff | Monday, 02 December 2013 at 09:17
Mr O'Rourke has recycled a joke from my time, when it took the form "I wanna be different (like everybody else)."
Posted by: dearieme | Monday, 02 December 2013 at 10:30
Ah, well, DM, when you're as old us two you've heard them all before!
Posted by: David Duff | Monday, 02 December 2013 at 11:53
You can have your NHS, if that's what you want. You can have your opinion, too, no matter how squirrelly it is. However, some facts might be helpful to an actual discussion, and any discussion of American health care finance that leaves Medicaid out of the talk is not even honest. When I worked in the Emergency Department, our biggest burden was people who qualified for Medicaid but were too lazy to go and apply for it. They just came in, got themselves and their kids treated and released, and stuck the hospital with the bill. Do NOT try to tell me that we are dying for lack of government-run health care. I personally don't like the way they run the IRS or the Department of Motor Vehicles. I am damned sure not willing to have these crooks and incompetent boobs run my health care.
Posted by: Michael Adams | Monday, 02 December 2013 at 12:24
"Calm down, dear" (a current Brit advertising saying) or you may end up in intensive care!
Posted by: David Duff | Monday, 02 December 2013 at 12:32
Oh, I am calm. You wouldn't like to see me get excited.
Posted by: Michael Adams | Monday, 02 December 2013 at 16:11
For some reason, I know a lot of British ex-pats here. They range from the CEO (from London), to my best friend in the office next to me (from Bradford). And others are just acquaintances. They range from left leaning (the Bradford guy) to extreme Thatcherites (the London guy). But all of them, without exception, will praise the NHS to the skies. Even the CEO. I don't get it.
Posted by: Dom | Monday, 02 December 2013 at 17:10
It's simple enough to explain. They are alive, never having had to depend on the NHS for more than the very ordinary. They were mostly under fifty five when they emigrated, so were not triaged out of more advanced care. Of course it's convenient to have 'health care' like an ATM. The ordinary stuff is "free" and they never got to the extraordinary. I know plenty of people here who just love HMO's, for the very same reason. However, people in the know, who have an option, choose high-deductible insurance+Health Savings Account to finance their care. This would include nearly all physicians, and this practicing nurse. (And my more knowledgeable colleagues)
Medicaid is, in general, more generous than NHS, because anything denied by Medicaid faces howls of protest that "private insurance would not be so heartless". (Mostly, Medicaid pays for more of many things than private insurance, but that is still the battle cry when they call in their Congress critter and their State Rep.)
I hope I have provided a bit of clarity.
Posted by: Michael Adams | Monday, 02 December 2013 at 21:30
David. I was listening to Maria Callas. Bring a tear tae a gless eye she would. Were you thinking of St Andrews Day! I do not celebrate saints as they are fiction and made up by strange men with bad habits.
Posted by: Glesga | Tuesday, 03 December 2013 at 02:04
Dom, the subject of the NHS, and in fact, any sort of national medical cover is a fraught one. I think I will ponder on it and then maybe post on the subject.
Posted by: David Duff | Tuesday, 03 December 2013 at 08:55
DD, I'm looking forward to it, because for my friends, even the CEO, it brings "a tear tae a gless eye" if that means what I think it means.
Posted by: Dom | Tuesday, 03 December 2013 at 13:20