HoodaThunk?

Warning on nationalized health care from someone who’s living it

I’m no huge fan of Glenn Beck for similar reasons to why I don’t really like Ann Coulter. Their approach to this whole dialog thing aside, they’ve got good points to be made. (I just don’t feel they make them very well.) This video appears in a post by Allahpundit over at Hot Air. It’s an interview with British MEP Daniel Hannan where he discusses the ramifications of passing a nationalized health care system over here. Hannan tells us it’s incomprehensible why a free people would ever choose this kind of action short of being forced to by a major war.

Bonus information about the UK’s National Health Service that I’ll bet you didn’t know:

Take particular note of Hannan’s point about what this bureaucracy has meant for democratic reform in the UK. With a bureaucracy that huge, it becomes impossible to reform it by a democratic process. Interesting clip.

August 8th, 2009 Posted by ricjames | Medicine, Politics | one comment

Canadians located missing WWII American aircraft

In 1942 an American reconnaissance seaplane was on a routine patrol off the Canadian coast. Having landed in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence it was preparing for the return flight to its home base of Presque Isle, Maine. Rough weather capsized the aircraft on takeoff, trapping 5 of the 9-man crew inside when it sank. Now, Canadian divers are reporting they have possibly found the wreckage of the ship.

The government divers, who work for Parks Canada, announced Thursday that they came across the wreck while doing routine work near the village of Longue-Pointe-de-Mingan in eastern Quebec. It has not yet been confirmed whether it is the lost plane.

The U.S. military considers the potential discovery a major find.

“It’s tremendously important because of the history, of the co-operation between the United States and Canada, not only during that time but up to the present day and in the future,” Joe Breen, the defense attache to the U.S. embassy in Canada, said Thursday.

The Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina was a twin-engine ship designed for long-range recon over water. They played vital roles in coastal defense in the Atlantic and were indispensable in the Pacific where most of the enemy’s movement was by sea. Finding this one would offer us the chance to recover a piece of our shared history with Canada. More importantly, it would offer us the chance to recover any remains of the crew (unlikely as it is that there are any to recover) and return them home.

August 8th, 2009 Posted by ricjames | Aviation, History, Human Interest, Military | one comment