When Sarah Palin said Obama’s healthcare plan would result in “death panels” that would see bureaucrats making subjective judgements on life and death, she was  furiously howled down by Obama supporters.

So how should we describe the expert panel of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which decided that patients will be denied a new cancer drug on the NHS under draft guidelines, because it is too expensive?

Charities are outraged people with advanced liver cancer are to be refused life-extending Nexavar.  Andrew Dillon, of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence said: “The drug does not provide enough benefit to justify its high cost.”

Andrew Dillon, the CEO of N.I.C.E., is a career bureaucrat, not a doctor or a scientist.  He runs the system that says there is a cap of £30,000 per patient for a quality year of life.  If the panel determines that a “quality year of life” will cost the NHS more than £30,000, you are dead…

Whilst the left on both sides of the Atlantic goes completely neurotic about the populist success of  Murdoch’s Fox News they forget that Al Gore owns a TV station aimed at the MTV generation – Current TV – unlike Fox it has lost over $10m every year since it started in 2004.  It is a rabidly left-wing channel, with plenty of mentalism of the enviro kind, that out-crazies Glenn Beck’s infotainment by a long chalk.  It is always claiming that the planet is on the edge of extinction making those Sunday morning hell-and-brimstone televangelists look moderate by comparison.

Current TV has a cartoon show “Supernews” aimed at kids which has just provoked controversy after describing Sarah Palin as a “TWILF” – which Guido likes to believe stands for Twitterer I Would Like To Follow.  The politically correct might note that Palin was also mocked as a “Gun – Ho” which Guido thought was quite funny, but suspects if he used “ho” about a female politician the  left-wing Thought Police would be frothing.  For some reason twittering Conservative women drive left-wingers to apoplexy.  Britain’s TWILFs; Nadine Dorries, Joanne Cash and Louise Bagshawe provoke masses of abuse from the left-wing Twitterati.  Nadine in particular is plagued with fake Twitter accounts impersonating her.  A dangerous game now the High Court has ruled Twitter impersonation actionable…

From beyond the grave:

Washington Times obituary here.

So the explanation for staring at the Brazilian girl’s ass was that he was moving out of her way.  Sure he was.  So now explain his point of view in relation to this French derriere…

Michelle might buy it once, but twice?  It is clear to every guy what these two presidents have been comparing during the photo line-up.

Via : Englishman’s Castle

May 3 was World Press Fredom Day, the government waited an extra day before publishing a ban on a list of people for thoughtcrimes.   Index on Censorship has some highlights of the list, many of those banned are unsavoury and undesirable.  Guido’s test is simple – do they advocate violence?  If not, then just because you disagree with them is no reason to ban them.

Jacqui Smith employs doublethink to say

The government supports freedom of expression, but believes it needs to be exercised responsibly. We will continue to oppose extremism in all its forms.

There is nothing wrong with extremism per se; “extremism in defence of liberty is no vice, moderation in pursuit of justice no virtue”. One woman’s extremist is another man’s progressive radical.  By all means keep out known advocates of violence, this measure however is not the thin edge of the wedge, it is the thick end of a jackboot.  The American conservative, radio shock-jock*  Michael Savage is not going to kill anyone, nor as far as Guido is aware has Savage ever advocated terrorism.  If merely loudmouthed shock-jocks can be banned, who will be next?

Martin Bright recently commented that it was “surreal” to see Guido supporting Index on Censorship, the liberal leaning, free speech pressure group.  Not sure why he said that, in Guido’s lifetime freedom of speech has been much more cherished on the right than the left.  Anyway, self-preservation is always a personal priority…

*Iain Dale is a conservative, radio shock-jock nowadays.

American actor Clarke Peters (Mandela, The Wire) was on Adam Boulton’s Sky show this morning.  He cracked a joke that would have had Sunny Hundal putting Guido up on a thought-crime charge if it was first cracked here on the blog:

“People used to say ‘pigs would fly’ if we had a black president. Well 100 days into Obama’s presidency, swine flu.”

On a sadder note, Jack Kemp has died after battling cancer.   Guido wonders how different the world might have been if  the former NFL quarterback had been the vice-presidential running mate of Bush senior instead of Dan Quayle.  If  the libertarian-conservative Kemp had then succeeded the original President Bush, we might never have had Presidents Clinton or Dubya.  Instead after nine terms as a Congressman for Western New York, from 1971 to 1989, he served as Housing Secretary in the George H. W. Bush administration.

Kemp an advocate of low tax, supply-side policies was until recently still active in the Washington think tank world.  He was conservative on abortion and libertarian on immigration,  with Chicago school economic ideals.  His crucial contribution to the Reagan agenda was as architect of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, possibly the greatest tax reduction in American history since the Boston Tea party. The world sorely needs more Jack Kemps.

Rush Limbaugh says, “Hear, hear. Hear, hear. Republicans in Washington could take a lesson from the bravery of this man.”

Guido spoke to Dan earlier today, he seemed bemused at the colossal impact of his speech. Guido tried to explain to him he was about to go inter-continental. “I have to deal with a lot of constituent’s letters today”, “Dan, Drudge has just front paged you”, “Yes, it is strange, I have said the same thing before.”

Cometh the hour, cometh the man – we are all ditto-heads now; Rushies and the Co-Conspirators.   British politicians are mesmerised by Obama, without noticing that two months into his presidency Obama’s ratings are lower than Dubya’s were at the same time.  Dan, we know you won’t back down, stick to your guns…

Fox : Danny Tells Cavuto - “I Wanted Ron Paul, But I Backed Obama”

UPDATE : Hannan’s reply to Gordon Brown is already at 1/3rd of million views on YouTube and on course to be the most viewed political speech in the fastest time in internet history. It is the speech that many Republicans wish  they had someone to deliver to Obama.