Doctor Eeevil

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Simon Jenkins: We are offering the terrorist a megaphone for his cause
Don't panic. Stay calm. Don't play the terrorist's game. Show no fear or sense of disruption. Don't change your behaviour or way of life. Pass no laws curbing freedom. Just shrug and go about your normal business.

Omigod! Now they are doctors! Wake the prime minister, round up the Arabs and order armoured helicopters. Stop the presses and clear the schedules. The fiends from outer Asia are cunning. They could be poisoning hospital drips. They could be lacing paracetamol and putting anthrax in Elastoplast.

Declare another bomb "imminent". Surround Heathrow with tanks, fortify Wimbledon, put blast blocks round Waterloo and ack-ack guns on Parliament Hill. Raise the threat level from critical to panic. On second thoughts make that totally hysterical.

They've still got a long way to go in the evil doctor stakes.

Still, according to Peter 'reactionary and proud of it' Briffa, 'murder has long been part of the NHS':
For forty years now, ever since David Steel decided to get all sentimental about the pregnant poor, NHS doctors have been practising their homicidal skills on the nation's foetuses. It was only a matter of time before they decided to move on to the rest of us. We see this with the craving to embrace euthanasia, forcefeed ritalin on our children, and exterminate Mongolian Idiots. Death is what the NHS does.

Of course, privatisation might help. If these maniacs were forced to chase the moolah instead of acting like parasites via the taxpayer, they might be too busy trying to eke out a living to waste valuable time killing the rest of us off. After all, as we know, under capitalism it's never in the sellers' interest to kill off the consumer.
I'm no economist, but I'm absolutely certain that unrestricted abortion provided through private clinics would be quite a money spinner for doctors. But I don't think that's quite what Biffo wants. 

And Powerline (NO RELATION!!) blames the NHS.



Free at last

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BBC NEWS - Alan Johnson Released

BBC correspondent Alan Johnston has been freed by his captors in Gaza after his abduction nearly four months ago.

Television pictures showed Mr Johnston, 45, leaving a building and entering a white car, accompanied by armed men. He said he was tired but in good health. BBC correspondent Alan Johnston has been freed by his captors in Gaza after his abduction nearly four months ago.


Wonderful news.

The Axeman Cometh

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prisonlawinsideout: This Madeliene business

John Hirst, supported by his arselicker chum Zin-Zin, continues his villification of the McCanns. I think if I was best known for beating a woman to death with an axe I might be reluctant to insinuate that Madeleine McCann was murdered by her father. But then I'm not someone who thinks remorse is a middle-class thing'.

Don't expect Hirst's blog chums (so quick to condemn other bloggers for 'bullying') to offer any criticism of his latest vile posts.

Now, if it had only been Guido or Dale attacking the McCanns.

PS: At least try and get the poor girl's name right - It's MADELEINE

Via: D&N



The Lap Band

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Dr Crippen: Slimming and stomach banding
...in the old days, I decided who was "fit" for referral and duly referred. If the specialist did not agree, he would say so. Now, there is a commissar between me and the specailist, and the commissar, who is not medically qualified, tells us both how to do our job.

This protocol is not about economics. It is about blame. It is “your fault” you are fat. Fat people are stupid. Fat people are probably mentally ill. So we are not going to waste money on them unless they are penitent. Unless they admit the error of their ways and promise to behave. Unless they can demonstrate that they “deserve” treatment.

This protocol is about humiliation. Humiliating the patients by making them jump through hoops and humiliating the doctors by telling them how to do their jobs.



Do you want stuffing with your Turkey?

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Counterpunch - Paul Craig Roberts: Enter Turkey
Perhaps the clearest indication that the war in Iraq is no longer under American control is Turkey's announcement of plans to invade northern Iraq, the home of the Iraqi Kurds. As June 2007 came to an end, Turkey's Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul announced that if US or Iraqi forces did not eliminate the Kurdish guerrillas that were attacking Turkey, the Turkish Army would move into northern Iraq to deal with the situation.

Foreign Minister Gul was unequivocal: "The military plans have been worked out in the finest detail. The government knows these plans and agrees with them. If neither the Iraqi government nor the US occupying forces can do this [crush the guerrillas], we will take our own decision and implement it." This ultimatum puts President Bush in an impossible situation.

Neither the Iraqi government nor the US military have the means to deal with Kurdish guerrillas in their mountain strongholds. The US military cannot even occupy Baghdad. The Iraqi government exists in name only and can be found only in its offices located inside the fortified and US-protected Green Zone in Baghdad.

Moreover, to the extent that the in-name-only Iraqi government has any support, it comes from the Kurds in northern Iraq. The rest of Iraq is controlled by Sunni insurgents and Shi'ite militias. Even Basra in the south has been abandoned to the Shi'ite militias by Bush's British ally.