Sorry, liberals, but your dream is really just a nightmare:

Pressured by an aging population and the need to rein in budget deficits, Canada’s provinces are taking tough measures to curb healthcare costs, a trend that could erode the principles of the popular state-funded system.

Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, kicked off a fierce battle with drug companies and pharmacies when it said earlier this year it would halve generic drug prices and eliminate “incentive fees” to generic drug manufacturers.

British Columbia is replacing block grants to hospitals with fee-for-procedure payments and Quebec has a new flat health tax and a proposal for payments on each medical visit — an idea that critics say is an illegal user fee.

The thing can’t be done – you can’t provide high quality health care for all. It will be rationed – either by the market place, or by the government bureaucrat. My father put it simply to me many years ago – under socialized medicine, who gets to the use of the best brain surgeon?

The western nations – save a few small States unburdened by things like massive immigration – have been bankrupting themselves for decades trying to provide “free” health care. All they’ve got to show for it is bloated health care unions, massively unfunded health care systems, burdensome taxes and lousy health care. I know – none of us ever want to have a person not live because they couldn’t obtain timely, competent health care. But life isn’t perfect – and to try and pretend it can be, when we all know it can’t, is to conspire in a lie…and, in the case of health care, an expensive lie.

We’re on the brink here in the United States – ObamaCare is the Trojan Horse to get us on to a Canadian or British health care system. We must roll it back – we dare not go further down this foolish road.

The Speaker, via Hot Air:

They ask me all the time, ‘What is your favorite this? What is your favorite that? What is your favorite that?’ And one time, ‘What is your favorite word?’ And I said, ‘My favorite word? That is really easy. My favorite word is the Word, is the Word. And that is everything. It says it all for us. And you know the biblical reference, you know the Gospel reference of the Word.

And that Word is, we have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word. The Word. Isn’t it a beautiful word when you think of it? It just covers everything. The Word.

Fill it in with anything you want. But, of course, we know it means: ‘The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.’ And that’s the great mystery of our faith. He will come again. He will come again. So, we have to make sure we’re prepared to answer in this life, or otherwise, as to how we have measured up.

Fill it in with anything you want? Nancy Pelosi is no spring chicken. She was, I understand, educated in Catholic schools. While I hold that in a lot of ways Catholic instruction today is superior in explaining the faith, even waaaaay back when little Nancy was sitting in rapt attention in school, you really can’t miss something like this. You don’t fill in the Word with anything you want…

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. – John 1:1-5

One wonders just what Nancy Pelosi thinks she’s saying? Or is she just running off words? Half remembered dogmas imparted decades ago; all of which long since cast aside in a greedy and base pursuit of power? The Word is not something, I think, to call to witness for whatever particular enthusiasms you might have – the Word is God.

The darkness shall not over come the Word – but I wonder if the Word can yet overcome the dark places of Nancy Pelosi’s mind? That place where legalized abortion exists even while she calls upon the Saints for aid in passing a narrow, bigoted and partisan agenda?

The Anchoress has it right – just pray for her.

Geesh:

Your government at work – elsewhere I’ve heard that the census is hiring people for a couple hours, “firing” them and then re-hiring them, over and over again…thus pumping up the “jobs created” numbers at BLS.

The scope of scandal in this government grows day by day – and we simply must do a full investigation when we get back in power and people must go to jail over this.

The world shrieks in horror over it – mostly because condemning Israel costs nothing and can buy some cheap headlines. Here is my view:

It was clearly a provocation from start to finish. Why?

1. If you want to bring aid to Gaza, Israel has a regular channel for you do to that – pour it in…but the Israelis would like to check and make sure you aren’t also bringing in rocket parts.

2. Gaza is sealed off on the Egyptian side of the border, too. Why wasn’t there a convoy of trucks heading across the Sinai towards Gaza?

3. Why have anyone on the boat except for people absolutely vital to deliver the aid? This wasn’t a pleasure cruise.

The Islamists got what they wanted – people dead at the hands of the IDF. But the responsibility for the deaths must be placed where it belongs – in Islam, not in Israel.

The bottom line for me is this – until there is a church and a synagogue operating openly in Mecca, the Moslem world’s pleas will fall on deaf ears with me. In other words, until I’m no longer considered filth unworthy to be in Islam’s holy city, all Moslem claims about being treated justly and such are just so much nonsense spread about to advance a particular, political agenda.

And so all these shouts for justice in this incident are just so much noise. Be just and then seek justice. Don’t try to use injustice all the time and demand justice in your turn.

Been a long weekend and I just don’t have it in me to write up a good bit for the AM – sorry about that, boys and girls. At any rate, plenty to talk about:

1. Obama’s miserable and increasing failure in the Gulf.

2. Sestak-gate being joined up with Romanoff-gate out of Colorado.

3. The criminal attempt by Israel’s enemies to use civilians as cannon fodder off Gaza.

4. The continuing and deepening financial crisis in the Euro-zone.

5. The bursting of the Chinese real estate bubble.

6. The pending bursting of the Australian and Canadian real estate bubbles.

And so on – have at it.

Just amazing:

At least 22 people were wounded in separate shootings around the city roughly between noon Saturday and noon Sunday, including a man who died this morning after he was shot in the head, Chicago police said.

At a news conference this morning, Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis said that nearly half of the shootings appear to be gang-related, including the fatal incident. Weis added that at least two of the other victims have refused to cooperate with police, “which makes the job of our detectives … far more difficult.”

One of the shootings was particularly disturbing because one of the female victims was eight months pregnant, the superintendent said. No one in custody for any of the incidents.

This is what the liberal break down of society brings – social collapse. 22 shootings in 24 hours! No one in custody…just another ho-hum day in Liberal Land.

Tired of the decay of our civilization? Good – but unless you do something about it, it’ll just get worse. No more pussy footing around – morality matters. All battles are, ultimately, religious battles – its not a matter of imposing a morality but of just what morality will be imposed. For 50 years we’ve had liberal morality imposed on us – and look where its got us?

Time to take it all back.

Thanks to loyal reader for the tip:

…Their story is known to all of you. It is the story of the American man at arms. My estimate of him was formed on the battlefields many, many years ago, and has never changed. I regarded him then, as I regard him now, as one of the world’s noblest figures; not only as one of the finest military characters, but also as one of the most stainless.

His name and fame are the birthright of every American citizen. In his youth and strength, his love and loyalty, he gave all that mortality can give. He needs no eulogy from me, or from any other man. He has written his own history and written it in red on his enemy’s breast.

But when I think of his patience under adversity, of his courage under fire, and of his modesty in victory, I am filled with an emotion of admiration I cannot put into words. He belongs to history as furnishing one of the greatest examples of successful patriotism. He belongs to posterity as the instructor of future generations in the principles of liberty and freedom. He belongs to the present, to us, by his virtues and by his achievements.

In twenty campaigns, on a hundred battlefields, around a thousand campfires, I have witnessed that enduring fortitude, that patriotic self-abnegation, and that invincible determination which have carved his statue in the hearts of his people.

From one end of the world to the other, he has drained deep the chalice of courage. As I listened to those songs of the glee club, in memory’s eye I could see those staggering columns of the First World War, bending under soggy packs on many a weary march, from dripping dusk to drizzling dawn, slogging ankle deep through mire of shell-pocked roads; to form grimly for the attack, blue-lipped, covered with sludge and mud, chilled by the wind and rain, driving home to their objective, and for many, to the judgment seat of God.

I do not know the dignity of their birth, but I do know the glory of their death. They died unquestioning, uncomplaining, with faith in their hearts, and on their lips the hope that we would go on to victory. Always for them: Duty, Honor, Country. Always their blood, and sweat, and tears, as they saw the way and the light.

– Douglas MacArthur, May 12, 1962

A gigantic soak-the-poor scheme:

Like many middle-class families, Cortney Munna and her mother began the college selection process with a grim determination. They would do whatever they could to get Cortney into the best possible college, and they maintained a blind faith that the investment would be worth it.

Today, however, Ms. Munna, a 26-year-old graduate of New York University, has nearly $100,000 in student loan debt from her four years in college, and affording the full monthly payments would be a struggle…

Now, what did she get her degree in? Medicine? Law? Engineering? Nope, she’s got a degree in religious and women’s studies. If she managed to learn something about religion, then that is a plus – but more than likely she learned some pantheist nonsense and, at any rate, unless she was planning on joining a religious order, that bit of knowledge plus the utterly useless women’s studies garbage qualifies her for precisely nothing.

But I bet the college was selling her a dream of how much money she’d make once she got her degree.

The college made 100 grand. The banks are happy as they can charge interest and she can’t go bankrupt on the debt – they’ve got her forever. Meanwhile, she’s spent some of the most productive years of her life learning stuff she can’t use to make a living unless she’s highly connected to people who could get her a job in the education system, itself where, if she were that lucky, she could spend a career imparting the same, worthless knowledge she’s got to a succession of kids tricked in to thinking that a college degree is the be-all and end-all of existence.

Now, of course, Uncle Sam is going to be in charge of the whole show – financing on the taxpayer’s dime an endless stream of people who’s education is pointless for the advancement of the United States and its people. The colleges will grow still fatter, the favored few who get tenure will continue to pour money in to Democrat coffers and, of course, propagandize for the liberal worldview – so, for the Powers That Be, its a good thing. For everyone else, its a disaster.

College isn’t for everybody. No everybody will need college to get ahead. Not everyone can afford college. Not everyone needs to get their degree in four years. Not everyone needs to go to a prestige university. But the whole student loan system is geared towards an absurd notion that college is for everyone and they should get it done in four years and at the very best university then can possibly get in to.

What should we do? Identify those areas of expertise where we have a shortage – medicine, engineering, etc – and offer college free at the State level for any kid who can past muster on educational qualifications. Do away with student loans, completely. Tell kids who want degrees in women’s studies to pay for it on their own or don’t bother (and it’d be best if they didn’t bother). End this nightmare where rich colleges pile up money by piling up debt on kids suckered in to taking courses of no value.