Now, here’s a shocker:

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has praised Sean Penn for his critical stance against the war in Iraq, saying the two chatted by phone and soon plan to meet in person.

Apparently, one of those clever Penn screeds caught the impressionable dictator’s eye:

Chavez read aloud from a recent open letter by Penn to President Bush in which the actor condemned the Iraq war and called for Bush to be impeached, saying the president along with Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are “villainously and criminally obscene people.”

After their friendly chat, Chavez was looking forward to the meeting with Penn, who he called “well-informed.”

What’s more, Chavez said, “he’s made great films.”

That, of course, is what really matters.

Perhaps Michael Moore ought to think twice about his appetite for universal health care. If he were in England, he (and some of us other fatsos) might find themselves without medical care:

Obese people are often simply greedy and should not always be treated with pills, the head of the British Medical Association has said.

I guess this doctor decided to call BS on the “every failure of self-control is a disease” crowd.

He said the obesity epidemic is being mistakenly targeted with medical treatments and doctors’ appointments.

Dr Meldrum told our sister paper, the Evening Standard: “We are saying, ‘This patient has a hyper-appetite problem’ rather than, ‘They are just greedy.’

There’s nothing like a good chewing to get one’s attention. See you later - I need to go to the gym.

And Pharaoh’s heart was hardened.

Egyptian soldiers executed four Sudanese refugees near the Egypt-Israel border overnight Wednesday in full view of IDF troops, a shaken-sounding IDF soldier said in an interview with Channel 10, Thursday evening.

According to the soldier, female IDF troops operating night vision devices identified several refugees approaching the border in an attempt to infiltrate Israel and alerted other soldiers who arrived after a few minutes in an army jeep.

However, Egyptian troops who also discovered the refugees, fired upon them, immediately killing two and wounding a third. A fourth refugee ran towards the fence and an IDF soldier stretched out his hands, trying to help him cross.

At that point, the soldier recalled, two Egyptian soldiers arrived and started pulling at the refugee’s legs.

It was literally like we were playing ‘tug of war’ with this man,” the soldier said. The soldier eventually loosened his grip on the man, fearing the Egyptians would shoot him.

They were aiming loaded weapons straight at us, I was afraid they were going to shoot us,” he said.

The Egyptians then carried the man several meters away from the border fence, and proceeded to beat him and another wounded refugee to death with stones and clubs.

What happened there yesterday was a lynch. These are not men, they’re animals. They killed him without even using firearms,” the soldier said. “We just heard screams of pain and the sounds of beatings. Then the screams stopped.”

Oopsie.

Suspicious box turns out to be weather station

(raonoke.com) A suspicious looking box found near Lewis-Gale Medical Center Thursday afternoon was, in fact, a remote weather station that had been affixed the tree by an employee and not an explosive device.

The box, which was constructed with putty and wires, was probed by the Virginia State Police Bomb Squad.

The bomb squad blew up the device before realizing it was a weather station. An employee had placed a putty-like substance around the box to make it weather proof.

The investigation is concluded and no criminal charges will be filed.

If Great Britain’s National Health Care System is any reliable indicator, long waiting list for service is my choice for #1.

108 year old grandmother, Olive Beal must wait up to 18 months to receive her digital hearing aids.

(DailyMail UK) A woman aged 108 has been told she must wait 18 months before the Health Service will give her the hearing aid she needs.

Former piano teacher Olive Beal, one of the oldest people in Britain, has poor eyesight and uses a wheelchair.

The delay could mean she will be unable to communicate and listen to the music she loves.

One might think that this may be an isolated case of someone lost in the system or the device is so specialized that obtaining one may be problematic.  Not so fast, Mrs. Beal is not alone, so I don’t think either of those excuses are valid.

The one-time suffragette is one of hundreds of thousands of older people made to wait up to two years and sometimes more for modern digital hearing aids that make a dramatic difference to their ability to hear and communicate.

Mrs. Beal has hearing aids but a doctor has assessed that she needs the digital hearing aids to cut down back ground noise so that she may enjoy the conversations and music that she once enjoyed.  The digital hearing aids would make a vast improvement in this ladies quality of life.  It does not matter:

Eastern and Coastal Kent Primary Care Trust have told her family she must wait 18 months before she gets one on the NHS. By then Mrs Beal will be aged 110.

Mrs. Beal could purchase her hearing aids on the private market for about £1,000 (about $2300).  But why should she?  This is National Health Care is it not?

‘I (Mrs. Beal’s Daughter) would have thought they would take her age into account as she probably has not got 18 months to wait.

‘Olive worked hard from the age of 16 to her late 60s and paid taxes. She has been healthy all her life and lived with her daughter until 15 years ago - she has never sponged off the state.

(snip)

‘It is an issue of quality of life, with isolation, frustration and withdrawing from society caused by loss of hearing, and it is sad because this is reversible.’

No to National Health Care Reason #2

Apologies and excuses.

A spokesman for Eastern and Coastal Kent Primary Care Trust said: ‘We are reducing waiting times.

‘The priority is given to patients who do not have an existing hearing aid, but we accept our service needs improving.

We apologise to any patient kept waiting for a new or replacement hearing aid.’

If this is indeed what National Healthcare looks like, I don’t want it.

10:21 PM I’m listening to a story on the news about a man who survived the fall – then ran to help the kids on the bus. I’d guess the fellow never considered what he might do in such a situation. Never thought about it much. Who would? But then you find yourself on a bridge that’s crashed down into the Mississippi, and you’re struggling with the seat belt buckle. It works , but your hands feel thick. You’re alive – which doesn’t seem that odd, really, you’ve always been alive, so this is just different, but you have strange thoughts about insurance and a mad swirl of panic and there’s blood in your hair but you can stand – and then you see a school bus. So you go to the bus. Of course you go the bus.Most of us would. It’s a remarkable instinct that wells up and kicks in, and it’s something you never expected to experience. As someone said about humans: We’re at our best when things are worst.

Would you have run to the bus? I’ll answer for you: yes.

James Lileks, blogging from Minneapolis last night

 

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