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Don’t stare at the Angel of Death, honey

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Stoaty, how can you NOT be blogging the great liberal train wreck that is Obamacare?” I’ve soaked up every article I can find this week, I promise. I’ve enjoyed — I have so totally enjoyed — my Schadenfreude McNuggets Happy Meal.

But brain simply refuses to absorb the scope of what I’m looking at. Popular culture during and just after the Black Death (the Big One, 1348) is surprisingly free of references to the Black Death.

“Holy shit, dude — what just happened to us?” “Shhhh, dude. Shhhhhh.

I mean, I’d enjoy this fustercluck a lot more if I could see how a healthy medical service will come out the other side.

Oh, I know what else you’re thinking. “Stoaty,” you’re thinking, “you’re covered by the NHS now. What do you care?”

Well. Yes. I’m covered. The NHS isn’t truly awful, though it is awful in parts. Perhaps some day you’d like me to expand on that. But it’s just not…

Okay, for example — by law, a doctor’s appointment is ten minutes long here. If you think you have an especially thorny medical problem, you can book yourself for twenty.

Well, the British Medical Association’s GP negotiating team has just renegotiated that bit. In case your doctor thinks you really only need five minutes.

Good weekend, folks!

Comments


Comment from AliceH
Time: November 16, 2013, 12:42 am

What I’m thinking is “Is that guy on the far left playing krumhorn, or is that an hautboy?”


Comment from Nina
Time: November 16, 2013, 12:44 am

Yeah, my daughter says the NHS is good for some things, but not for a bunch of others.

But heck, it’s the weekend, thank God.


Comment from P2
Time: November 16, 2013, 4:25 am

Run, do not walk, away from the NHS optometrists…..


Comment from Oceania
Time: November 16, 2013, 7:17 am

Sweasle .. have you been making Gypsy fertiliser again?


Comment from Timothy S. Carlson
Time: November 16, 2013, 10:54 am

‘Angel Of Death’ – I assume you are referring to Steve.


Comment from kilroy182
Time: November 16, 2013, 11:12 pm

I particularly enjoyed Jonah Goldberg’s piece over at NRO. I know it is ungentlemanly, but I can’t seem to stop pointing and laughing. I really want to send O’bambi a toga and a fiddle so he can dress the part.


Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: November 17, 2013, 1:10 am

This is my problem from the get go. There’s nothing to be gleeful about here, people are losing their coverage en masse and there’s no good end to this. Its sheer idiotic glue huffing to think this is the “end of Obamaism” and some death knell to big government liberalism. Have people not been paying attention? Six months from now everyone in the press will be yelling about how brilliant the plan is and how amazingly the president turned it around, no matter what the facts are. This won’t make a bit of difference in the 2014 elections. Nothing has changed for the better here, people are just setting themselves up for more misery.


Comment from bds
Time: November 17, 2013, 4:04 am

Christopher – I disagree that this won’t make any difference at all in the elections, because there are a whole lot of real people feeling real pain. I am cynical and pessimistic enough to agree 100% with the rest though.


Comment from Subotai Bahadur
Time: November 17, 2013, 7:05 pm

One thing to note [and it is starting to be noted here] is that Obama’s decree to extend plans, along with his decree to delay the employer mandate, are unconstitutional. There are Supreme Court decisions in both the Nixon and Clinton administrations saying that the president has no constitutional power to either change a statute once signed, nor to refuse to enforce it [unless he claims in court that it is unconstitutional].

A key point to track now is that this law, or any law at this moment in time is functionally defined as what the president or any one of his millions of functionaries and bureaucrats wants at any given moment. It can be changed at their will at any given moment, and the subjects have neither say in the matter nor a reasonable course of conduct that lets them avoid arbitrary penalty. Because nobody in the body politic at any position or level has the power or inclination to challenge anything that comes out of the Executive branch.

The delay in the Employer Mandate was accomplished with nothing more substantial than a posting on a White House website. The verbal reversal what three weeks ago they were claiming was “settled law” was done in a press conference. No Executive Orders, no paperwork, nothing official.

The silence from the Republicans in Congress, on the subject of presidential decrees, is deafening. And it is noticed at the grass roots. Yesterday, a Republican candidate for the Senate came to my town. I brought it up, and the crowd joined in, loudly.

Subotai Bahadur


Comment from Nina
Time: November 17, 2013, 7:58 pm

Subo, you are RIGHT ON, dude.

Unfortunately.


Comment from Janna
Time: November 18, 2013, 12:05 am

An insurance policy is a legal contract.
Obamacide is law.
Old insurance policies are now illegal.
No, you cannot have your old policy back.
It is illegal.
Illegal contracts are unenforceable.
If you get sick or have an accident, can you sue if you are not covered by a legal contract?
Clusterf*ck all round.
Weapons grade Stoopid.


Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: November 18, 2013, 1:12 am

Right, the president not only can but must refuse to enforce a law they consider truly unconstitutional. However, they cannot simply decide to not enforce parts of an unpopular law, for political reasons or not. They are bound by the constitution to enforce the law.

But this is hardly new ground for President Obama, he and his agencies have done so dozens of times. At least during the FDR administration the GOP had the pills to challenge his actions in court. At this point its too late to fix anything or challenge him. The last time someone actually got around to a Supreme Court challenge, the deciding vote was based on a fear of popular and legal opinion of his court, not legal basis, and here we are.


Comment from Mojo
Time: November 18, 2013, 2:36 am

I don’t know nuffin’ about no skelingtons, mate!


Comment from Oceania
Time: November 18, 2013, 8:27 am

My My My … I have something special for Sweasel …

Rascists Must Die!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjrHLe9Hqjo

lol!


Comment from Oceania
Time: November 18, 2013, 9:44 am

I don’t know what you will do with that fat sausage lipped women that squeeeels down a whole chicken like a hungry pig?

She supports killing anyone who doesn’t agree with Obama!

lol!

🙂

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