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National Death Service Nice to hear that all eight suspects arrested concerning the recent attempted Islamic terrorism in the United Kingdom worked for the National Health Service (and the person arrested in Australia was recruited by the Queensland Department of Health), so perhaps Michael Moore will entitle his next film Bombo.
Still, it could be argued, that is just as well that they were NHS people. Had they not been their enterprise might have successful.
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That is mean; truthful but mean… I like it!
And do not forget this is not the first time: Harold Shipman anyone?
Paul,
You usually post reams of erudition. It’s nice to see that you are also a skilled miniturist. Concise, witty and absolutely to the point.
Frederick,
You’re telling me. At my local GP practice (in Manchester) there’s a doctor who is rather middle-aged with specs and has a shortish beard… He’s actually not too bad but he does look exactly like Shipman. Well he’s better than another of their characters, the esteemed Dr Fell of nursery rhyme fame. I’ve never seen him blink and when I’ve turned away I swear to God he’s unleashed his prehensile tongue to take a fly from the ailing pot-plants on his window-sill.
I hope they were better at medicine than chemistry. I don’t get it:
“Hmm, I want to kill a lot of people. I have a security pass to a key public building full of people where I work every day. I have access to a wide range of harmful chemicals, sharp objects, and radioactive isotopes. Gosh, what shall I do? I’ve got it!!! I’ll build a crap non-functional bomb and try to blow up the dustbins outside a nightclub! That will scare the public so much more than killing loads of people in a hospital. Rock on!”
Paul,
In spite of quite a few very funny people on this site, lately you have been causing me to laugh more than any of them. Your wry humor has me genuinely laughing out loud a couple of times each day. During some of your more pointed observations I can imagine your face twisted in the expression of somebody who has just realized that they have just taken in a mouthful of spoiled milk.
Humor is found in truth viewed from a different angle. Your dead-pan statement of the obvious (or ‘agreement’ with the obviously wrong) is priceless. Now a good laugh is one more reason to read all of your comments completely. You’re one of the few writers I know that can roll your eyes in print.
Wonderfully funny but am I missing something? I thought that the NHS had ceased to exist since it was replaced by Regional Health Services of varying competence and financial probity
I’m surprised no one has tried to convince us the “bombs” were a protest by the doctors to highlight the problems caused by the recent recruitment debacle, and the doctors were merely coincidentaly Muslim.
The fact they failed to get this message over is only one more aspect of their incompetence.
All of this would be a much more acceptable scenario than that they were Islamic terrorists.
It seems that, until last year, doctors trained overseas and applying for posts in this country did not have their work permits or visas vetted by the Home Office. It’s not surprising that this was a favoured route for muslim extremists wanting to punish the west for its degeneracy.
The mistake is to imagine that educated and relatively wealthy people could not be attracted to this sort of barbarism, but ideology works as well if not better on the educated mind. This being so, it is distressing to see politicians falling over themselves to play down the ideological angle (without which none of these events make any sense).
rexie,
It’s a null-point. Education has almost nothing to do with it. Doctors killing people – yeah, right, whatever. Mohammed Atta who brought down the Twin Towers was an architecture graduate.
Of course it is the ideology that matters. From what I’ve read it appears that Atta was peeved that the non-Islamic world was building higher than the Umma could manage. In Islam space matters and he couldn’t stand the Hiltons and such towering over the medieval mosques of his Cairo. Because he was a nutcase he conceived mass-murder against the West* but I guess it’s fair to say that his architectural bent helped select the target.
I saw the WTC in ’95 and it was awesome. It helped me navigate myself back to the lower Manhatten flat I was staying in at the time. Just aim for the aircraft warning lights and you’ll get home.
And those pathetic bastards destroyed it. I don’t think I really knew hate until then. I know it now and it tastes bitter. It burns.
It burns more because the “Freedom Tower” is such a poor replacement. Building something absolutely awe-inspiring to replace the WTC would have been a much better use of resources than any number of JDAMs dropped on Baghdad. I know 1776 ft is cute but come on, go mile-high NYC!
*Anybody who thinks this was just an attack on ChimpyBusHitlerCheneyMcHalliburton or even America ought to ponder the fact that 67 Brits were killed. More than any terrorist attack, before or since, on these shores.
It strikes me that in Glasgow, the apparent obesity capital of planet Earth, 7 doctors intent upon mass murder of evil Christian crusaders surely would have been better off opening an all-night chip and kebab shop, with deep-fried mars bars on the side, than using very amateur clumsy bombs …
I thank some of the people above, especially Midwesterner, for their kind comments.
On Dr Shipman (a serial killer who murdered hundreds of people), yes I must confess that N.H.S. people are sometimes competent.
As a serious point I have heard enough about the altruism of N.H.S. staff. I have no doubt that there are saintly people working in the government health service – but saints can work for charities, or operate as individuals.
The idea that the N.H.S. is justified by the high moral standards of its staff is a dog that will not hunt. Indeed many people who work in the N.H.S. are ground down by the bureacratic nature of the organization – which every “reorganization” seems to make worse rather than better (as Mises and others pointed out as far back as the 1920’s, running government departments “as if” they were private voluntary operations just does not work).
I have no doubt at all that Mr Cameron’s “big idea” of “returning power to the staff” will also fail. If the taxpayer pays the bills the government (in one way or another) will end up calling the tune. “Independent Boards”, “autonomy for medical staff” (and so on) just can not work under the principle of taxpayer finance.
People at the British Medical Association (back in 1948, when it was a very different organization) stated that it would take “two generations” for the spirit that ran the old voluntary institutions (which operated a lot of free medical care – a fact that is forgotten today) to die out under government control.
I think that is about right, the old community based “cottage hospitals” (and so on) are gone or going and the modern system is union dominated among the medical staff, and they are (in turn) dominated by administrative structures.
All the B.S. that is bound to come with the 60th anniversary next year will not be able to hide the fact that the N.H.S. is an idea that has failed (American voters please note).
On Nick M.s point about the Freedom Tower:
I do not tend to support the creation of prestige buildings. As C. Northcote Parkinson was fond of pointing out, an organization that is interested in its H.Q. building (and so on) tends to lose sight of its real function.
A company should be run from an office at the biggest factory, the Navy from a few sheds down at the docks (and so on).
Also, although I only have a worm’s eye view of business, I tend to regard New York as a bad place to do business anyway. Its taxes and regulations are high, although (I admit) the island itself (New York before the 1898 unification of the five) is at least a compact area. Unlike the demented sprawl of somewhere like L.A.
The hapless and hopeless doctors didn’t want to add to the hospital workload as they knew just how busy their colleagues would be.
Either that or the waiting list for good bomb parts is just outrageous! Bloody postcode lottery…
Of course, while the media gleefully report the potential new threat stemming from the myriads of foreign doctors and nurses, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to any of them that the alarming shortfall of British candidates, to the extent that the NHS actively trawls the globe to attract talent, may be an indication of a colossal missallocation of resources in the health industry and, perhaps, evidence that central planning just doesn’t work.
Don’t we have a surplus of junior doctors at the moment, aren’t we graduating people just to put them on the dole?
Why on earth would we allow anyone in from a third world islamic rathole to treat people they are MANDATED to hate.
Nick M,
I have no opinion on the height of the tower (1776? Whatever!), but I always thought that something like this would have been a lot more fun… more expressive too!
Nick M, the astonished reaction to the revelation that the Crap Bombers are educated men has proved conclusively that commentators in the mainstream media don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. Wasn’t the infamous “Hamburg cell” connected to the university? It’s no surprise at all.
Julian T, I’m not sure Glasgow is the “obesity capital of planet Earth”. It’s certainly the heart disease capital of Europe, no doubt about that. And J, yes, that is weird. I suspect it’s the same twisted logic that says people working in their offices in the WTC or enjoying themselves in nightclubs aren’t innocent bystanders: they see airports as legitimate targets but not hospitals, perhaps.
Incidentally, I’ll bet the people of Paisley are more annoyed about all the coverage of “Glasgow” over the last few days than the attack itself. The first thing a Paisley “buddie” will tell you is that it’s no’ Glasgow.
Well, Sam, yes,
The Hamburglars got together at Hamburg University. They’d successfully petitioned the University authorities and got a portakabin as a prayer room. They had a computer with internet access in there. They were the core of the “Magnificent 19″* but they also recruited some low-grade criminal scum as “muscle” – you know for the slitting of the throats of flight attendants and such.
If we assume that they were in it for an exalted place in paradise with 72 virgins (where are ya gonnae git that in Glasgae? Or indeed Paisley, Sam) then isn’t that something that appeals regardless of level of educational achievement? In anycase I’ve lived with final year med students and the ones I knew were drug-fuelled, exam-cheating, drunken, bed-hopping larrikins. Bloody good night out but you wouldn’t trust ’em to rummage in your insides.
I could’ve been one too. I was ace at Biology, ace at Physics and rather good at Chemistry and Math. What I lacked was the “killer instinct” to be a doctor. I’m way to squeamish and would get too emotionally involved. In my first year at University I knew a medic (we’d lunch together) and he’d tell me about his cadaver, Hilda. He told me that in his interview for Nottingham Med School he’d told ’em that he wanted to be a doctor because both his parents were doctors and he wanted to enjoy that kinda life-style. I said, “So you said nothing about alleviating pain and curing disease” He said, “Nah, they hate that, it just shows unrealistic aspirations”.
Well, I say I’m squeamish, but some of our clique left the table when said Med student sat down once with his tray and unleashed the ultimate conversation stopper – “I took Hilda’s face off today”. Hilda was BTW an elderly deceased lady who had gifted her body to medical science (the tender ministrations of Bob**) and had ended-up on the slab as the result of an error by a doctor at the University Hospital. That’s another thing I couldn’t stand about being a medic. The irony was not lost on Bob. He thought it hilarious. In a cack-handed attempt to drain fluid from Hilda’s lungs they had inadvertantly pierced her heart. Game over for Hilda, bring on Bob.
Quite why anybody would expect higher standards from the medical profession is beyond me. I do have a lot of time for vets though. Our cat is the only bugger in this house who gets private health care and I would say further, value for money.
Frank Lloyd Wright said that a doctor could bury his mistakes but all an architect could do was advise the client to plant vines. Well, yes Paul, I appreciate your sentiments. If you saw the premises from which I operate you’d see that even more. But, I like spectacular tall buildings, what can I say? They give me a frission which I just don’t get in sensible medium-rise urban England. I recall seeing the Chrysler building from the Empire State in the early morning light and thinking that was Goddamn awesome. Unfortunately my old Pentax chose just that moment to fuck-up.
So I put it to the collective. On the whole, all things being equal, and no tax-payer paying, would you rather something absolutely spectacular rise from the ruins of ground zero? Or are you happy USA with the Freedom Tower? And please, no talk of leaving it as a “Memorial Park” for all eternity. Real cities rebuild. And last I was there, NYC was pretty “real” – though not a patch on London, but then where is?
*Or so they were called in the stickers that appeared all over South Manchester a coupla years back. To his credit the imam of the mosque those perps attended had them barred and got an injunction so they’d have their collars felt if they came within 50ms of said mosque. When I first saw the stickers (they were very professionally done) I thought they were promotion for the latest Bollywood epic. A second glance made me wanna vomit with rage.
**Not his real name – he may have patients reading this.
Yes Nick M
If people are spending their own money (and even if they are not) of course I would prefer them to create a good building rather than a bad one.
And if people are trying for an impressive building – let it be impressive, rather than some boring thing that everyone just calls impressive.
On New York – restoring the gold leaf on the top of the Woolworth Building would be a good start. Many great buildings have been lost over the decades (such as Penn Station), and replaced with boring substandard buildings – but the Woolworth Building does not have to be recreated, it is still there (as sound as it was a century ago – including the lift system).
As for the site of the Twin Towers.
Sadly there is not even going to be an effort to build the tallest building in the world (currently the Taipei 101 Tower in the Republic of China – Taiwan, although their is a taller building going up in Dubai).
As it is the misnamed “Freedom Tower” (the name does not fit the modern United States, but I suppose the “Entitlement Program Tower” or the “Endless Regulations Tower” does not sound as good) is a bit pointless.
“But we can not compete in hight”
Oh you can not? Not even with all the new building technology and the Hi Tech materials comming on stream?
After all the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building were put up in less than two years. And if one can not compete in hight one can compete with a quality building of beauty (but that seems to be a tall order these days as well).
Perphaps the hole in the ground (after almost six years) fits best with the spirit of the modern Western World.
It amuses me when people talk about whether Western Culture could defeat the sort of Islamic Culture the terrorists support. Of course it could, but this misses the point – Western Culture went away (not totally, but to a great extent) some time ago (and it was not terrorists who got rid of it). And there is little sign of the modern state (and the decline in culture it breeds) being rolled back any time soon.
I don’t know, Nick. I kind of like the idea of leaving it as a memorial. Provided, of course, we donated matching memorials to each of the hijackers (placed at the sites of their home mosques). But I assume we would use cruise missiles, not airliners when we ‘built’ the hijacker’s memorials.
Paul,
You’re on form! The “Tower of Endless Regulation” really ought to be built in Brussels. That would be priceless, though not I expect cheap. That thing in Dubai is absolutely awesome. It looks like something from Metropolis.
Mid,
Do you know the REM song (yeah, I know) Cuyahoga? “This river runs red over red”. Cities rebuild after the most appalling destruction, You ought to see Warsaw. It looks medieval but it isn’t – it was built in the 40s/50s because the whole place had been flattened. They had photos and paintings and a few plans. Truly great cities just persist.
I agree about Brussels. The E.U., as well as having its own regulations, even tries to imitate the more absurd Amercican ones (such as “insider trader”, this even seem to have spread to non E.U. Switzerland, and “anti trust” – “competition policy).
Although there was still an article in the “Financial Times” (July 4th not April 1st) written by an “economist” saying that Europe did not have enough government – and describing the “liberal free market” policies followed by the modern American government. I read the F.T. by chance, why any (non socialist) would pay for it I have no idea.
I will take your word about the tower in Dubai.
Great cities persist. I do not think that Baghad is really Babylon. And Nineveh is not about these days.
Even modern cities go. For example, there was once a great (and beautiful) city on the Baltic – they call in “Kalingrad” now. It would be better (much better) it it was just a series of fields.
On post World War II reconstruction:
Sometimes it was done badly (as mostly in Britain).
Sometimes it looks as if it was done by Sauron and the forces of Mordor (see, or rather do not see, the city on the Baltic I mention above).
And sometimes (as you say) it was done fairly well.
My favourate example of post war reconstruction is Nurenberg (another ancient city that was really built in the 1950’s).
I like the Germans and German culture.
I do still do not understand why they sent my kin to the gas chambers. Although, no doubt, Dr Gordon (and so on) could explain to me how it was all “blow back” for some wicked thing we did.
Too extreme? No.
The people I am thinking of (including Dr Gordon) are always happy to explain how the United States provoked Hitler and how World War II was Uncle Sam’s fault (although the late Murry Rothbard would always add that it was really Britain’s fault).
The reaction of this faction to 9/11 should not have come as a shock to anyone.
Although, to be fair, they are very good on domestic policy.