http://www.timesonline.co.uk/…

The National Health Service is providing dying cancer patients with drugs that are five times less effective than those available privately and is refusing to treat them if they try to buy medicines themselves.

One drug for kidney cancer, routinely available through public health systems in most European countries but not to British patients, can reduce the size of tumours in 31% of patients, compared with just 6% of those prescribed the standard NHS drug.

The growing row over “co-payments” has prompted the government to reconsider the ban. Alan Johnson, the health secretary, has promised a “fundamental rethink” of the policy.

Research presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology found that kidney patients taking the new drug Sutent lived six months longer than those prescribed alpha interferon, the NHS treatment.

The failure of the NHS to make more effective drugs available to cancer patients has been condemned as “unethical” by leading doctors.

A woman with bowel cancer is fighting for the right to pay for a drug that could extend her life long enough for her to spend Christmas with her grandchildren.

Sheila Norrington, 59, a former NHS medical secretary from Maidstone, Kent, has been told by doctors that if she buys the drug Erbitux, which the health service will not pay for, she will lose her state-funded cancer care. Erbitux is the only drug capable of treating her advanced bowel cancer.

Norrington’s husband, Goff, 61, a former sales manager, said: “We have been told that if we pay for it ourselves we will be thrown off the NHS completely and we will need to pay for everything privately. We are devastated. This is not going to cure my wife, but if it keeps her alive a little bit longer, then we would pay for it.”

The couple say that although they could pay for a few cycles of the drug, which costs about £3,000 a month, they could not pay for all Norrington’s care, including scans, blood tests and consultations.

Goff Norrington added: “We have two young granddaughters and this could make the difference between sitting round the table with them at Christmas or not. We think it is deplorable that patients can get this drug almost anywhere in Europe but we cannot get it in the UK.”

A spokesman for Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust said: “We are governed by Department of Health policy on this issue.”

A poll for The Sunday Times shows strong support for allowing co-payment in the National Health Service, with 89% saying that people who buy additional cancer drugs should continue to get free NHS treatment.

Only 5% think allowing co-payment would create a two-tier NHS. Until now this has been the position taken by Alan Johnson, the health secretary.

Ministers had feared that allowing co-payment would upset less well-off patients, but the YouGov poll of nearly 1,800 people shows strong backing across the social spectrum and supporters of all three main parties.

Lee over at MooreWatch.com I think said it all: “This, of course, begs the question.  If compassionate free government healthcare can’t provide, y’know, actual healthcare to patients, and they are forced to paying massive amounts of money to buy their own treatments, maybe the solution to the problem is less free government healthcare and more private sector solutions.”

When will these people realize that the government can not negate scarcity? The only thing that can bring more and better healthcare to the masses is an increase in their wealth and the only way to do that is capital accumulation through free market capitalism.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/…

Misplaced fears about terror, privacy and child protection are preventing amateur photographers from enjoying their hobby, say campaigners.

Phil Smith thought ex-EastEnder Letitia Dean turning on the Christmas lights in Ipswich would make a good snap for his collection.

The 49-year-old started by firing off a few shots of the warm-up act on stage. But before the main attraction showed up, Mr Smith was challenged by a police officer who asked if he had a licence for the camera.

After explaining he didn’t need one, he was taken down a side-street for a formal “stop and search”, then asked to delete the photos and ordered not take any more. So he slunk home with his camera.

“They [police, park wardens, security guards] seem to think you can’t take pictures of people in public places. It’s reached a point where everyone in the photographic world has become so concerned we’re mounting campaigns and trying to publicise this.”

It seems to be increasing, he says.

“There’s a great deal of paranoia around but the police are on alert for anything that vaguely resembles terrorism. It’s difficult because the more professional a photographer, paradoxically, the more likely they are to be stopped or questioned.

“If people were using photos for terrorism purposes they would be using the smallest camera possible.”

This happens in NYC a lot too and from my understanding in other small and large cities throughout the USA. My recommendation is carry around a badge that says you are a member of the press. Free Talk Live regularlly tells people that they can say they are contractors for FTL if they get harrassed by officials of the government. Obviously if you have a blog or the like you can use that. I really enjoy the fact that the UK has the most cameras watching its people per capita in the world and they hassle people for taking photos of random things.

For those who like propaganda:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/…

CROOKED MEPs are trousering cash meant for workers’ wages, it was revealed yesterday.Some hire “ghost” staff - then claim thousands of pounds from the £100million annual allowance. Others recycle the handout by employing unqualified relatives, a bombshell report on MEPs’ expenses found. In many cases the whole £125,000 allowance is paid to just ONE person on the staff. One assistant received a “Christmas bonus” worth 19 TIMES their monthly salary. Taxpayers’ money is also being diverted to party funds, with the internal probe describing the corruption as “massive and widespread”. Brussels had wanted to cover up the abuse - but EU fraudbusters have demanded a copy of the report. Last night Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies - one of a handful of people who have seen the audit - called it “dynamite”. He said: “The allegations should lead to the imprisonment of a number of MEPs. It’s embezzlement and fraud on a massive, massive scale.” All 785 Euro MPs - including 78 Brits - are entitled to about £125,000 a year for staff, as well as a £62,000 yearly salary and lavish expenses. But spot checks on 167 MEPs found many employee payments for 2004 and 2005 were not being properly accounted for. The scandal eclipses the case of Tory MP Derek Conway, who last month was exposed for paying his sons thousands for doing virtually nothing. Mr Davies said it made the Conway affair “look like small change” and called for the findings to be released to the public. The report is a closely-guarded secret and only MEPs on the budget control committee have been allowed to see it. An EU Parliament source hinted at a cover-up, saying: “We cannot make this report available to the public if we want people to vote in the European elections next year.” A spokesman for the Parliament claimed: “The document is not secret - it is confidential.”

The article speaks for itself.

http://www.humanevents.com/…

If you forgot to get a Christmas present for Charlie Rangel, don’t worry. The congressman picked one out for himself, and he’s sending you the bill: $2 million for a shiny new Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College.

The New York Democrat’s Monument to Me was one of about 9,000 earmarks in the omnibus spending bill Congress approved before going on vacation. Most represented a more subtle form of self-aggrandizement, aimed at maintaining power and prestige by currying favor with voters.

According to Citizens Against Government Waste, the total cost of the 11,000 or so earmarks in the omnibus bill and an earlier defense bill is about $14 billion, which is not much in the context of a $2.8 trillion federal budget. But the same tendency that explains the persistence of earmarks — the habit of staying popular by pretending your constituents can get something for nothing — also explains the failure to address the federal government’s increasingly dire fiscal predicament.

The root of that predicament is not earmarks, which represent less than 1 percent of federal spending. Nor is it the war in Iraq, which at $100 billion or so a year accounts for less than 4 percent.

So-called entitlement programs are the reason “America faces escalating deficit levels and debt burdens that could swamp our ship of state,” as Comptroller General David Walker put it in a recent speech. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid account for 40 percent of federal spending and are expected to consume 51 percent in a decade.

I wasn’t going to post this story originally. While I believe his $100 billion Iraq figure is disingenuous given that there is also other military discretionary and non-discretionary spending. Totaling just shy of $700 billion for 2007. Regardless he makes very important points but they are fairly well known. The reason I had to post this is because of one of the comments. Comment #2 from Charles in Ohio:

We need to raise taxes, bust up corporations, mandate living wages for workers, and cap salaries for executives. We need a one child policy to prevent overpopulation, send more money to public schools, and oversee a total dismantling of the military.

What Democrat will do that? Any?

It’s time this country realized that the way to pay for all these illegal wars by an unelected president is to tax at 100% levels any rich person, that is, anyone making over $100,000 per year. Then we end the wars, tax corporations at historically high levels to erase the deficit, nationalize health care and ban all private medical practice forever.

The government is the solution and must provide basic needs to all Americans. That is FAIR! Watching retired generals and former defense contractors show up in welfare lines is FAIR because of all they stole from the poor.

Which Democrat will do that? Any?

Will any Democrat dare do what is FAIR and start taxing by race and gender? Blacks, Latinos, women, and gays should be given tax breaks and rich white men’s taxes should be raised to pay for those breaks and that is FAIR!

Will any Democrat do this?

At first I thought it was your average egalitarian socialist but Charles goes a whole lot further. I wish he would have told us who will do what he proposes.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/…

Ron Paul took a bit of heat the other day when he intimated that Mike Huckabee’s maybe-that’s-a-cross-maybe-it-isn’t Christmas ad had a whiff of fascism to it.

In his appearance on Meet the Press yesterday, Tim Russert brought up the incident, and found Paul eager on the subject. “I think this country, a movement in the last 100 years, is moving toward fascism,” the candidate explained. “Fascism today, the softer term, because people have different definition of fascism, is corporatism when the military industrial complex runs the show, when the — in the name of security pay — pass the Patriot Act … There’s one documentary that’s been put out recently that has generated a lot of interest called ‘Freedom to Fascism.’ And we’re moving in that direction. Were not moving toward Hitler-type fascism, but we’re moving toward a softer fascism.”

Bryan Preston at Hot Air remains unconvinced: “He was unprepared for that question, heard about a cross in an ad, and thought immediately of fascism. Not the Christmas season, that being this very time of year. Not church or anything like that. Fascism. That’s the mind of a bigot at work.”

I realize this is, as was the last, a blog post but it’s so very bias and obviously a hit piece. This is more the type of thing I’d expect to see in a rag mag. “[T]he mind of a bigot at work.”? Are they referring to bigotry toward Christianity? That’d be interesting given that Dr. Paul is a Baptist who has two brothers who are Lutheran ministers and who before going into medicine had considered the same profession.

http://www.tnr.com/…

The first thing I learned from driving around Nevada with Ron Paul for a couple of days: People really hate the Federal Reserve. This became clear midway through a speech Paul was giving to a group of Republicans at a community center in Pahrump, a dusty town about 60 miles west of Las Vegas. Pahrump is known for its legal brothels (Heidi Fleiss lives there), but most of the people in the audience looked more like ranchers than swingers. They stood five deep at the back of the room and listened politely as the candidate spoke.

Until Paul got to the part about the Fed. “We need a much better monetary system,” he said, a system based on “sound money, money that’s backed by something.” Paul, who is small and delicate and has a high voice, spoke in a near monotone, making no effort to excite the audience. They cheered anyway. Then he said this: “The Constitution gives no authority for a central bank.” The crowd went wild, or as wild as a group of sober Republicans can on a Monday night. They hooted and yelled and stomped their feet. Paul stopped speaking for a moment, his words drowned out. Then he continued on about monetary policy.

Wow, I thought. The constitutionality of a central bank is not an issue you see on many lists of voter concerns. (How many pollsters would think to ask about it? How many voters would understand the question?) Yet a room full of non-economists had just responded feverishly when Paul brought it up. Hoping for some context, I went outside and found a Paul staffer. He didn’t sound surprised when I told him about the speech. “It’s our biggest applause line,” he said.

I’m a bit conflicted about this article. I’ve watched Tucker say he’s going to vote for Paul, say Paul’s Christmas ad is the only authentic one, and generally seems to fawn over him. But at times in his article he seems to poke fun at Paul or at least his supporters. That can be excused… I’m sure he ran into some interesting folks on his trip with Paul. But things like inviting the brothel owner seem almost like a setup. We all know that Paul doesn’t care nor does his supporters but those who aren’t supporters may be turned off and Tucker knows or should have known that. Ignoring that however the article is quite good. I’m glad we have someone in the MSM who appears to actually support Dr. Paul… just don’t know how many actually pay attention to him.