Furtive Glances

Sneaking a look at other prominent stories that I'm just too darn tired to discuss.

• Kevin Aylward notes that there is more than one definition to the word 'fixed', especially if you are British.
• Ankle Biting Pundits autopsies a now room temperature Washington Post poll.  It started out at 98.6 deg.
• The American Princess loads her title with links to others, all decrying the political chicanery in the memorial portion of the plans for the rebuilt World Trade Centers.  That story is told by 9-11 widow Debra Burlingame in the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com.  Here's a Take Back The Memorial website, courtesy Michelle Malkin.
• David Asman and his wife experience the British health system, and finds old instruments, public waits and private efficiency, and compassionate care by the physicians and caregivers.  Notable quotes:
  • Now, the smartest thing I did before we left the hotel was to delay the ambulance driver long enough to run back to my room and grab my wife's cell phone. With that phone I began making about a thousand dollars worth of trans-Atlantic calls
  • The neurologist on call that night looked at the same MRI where the emergency doctors had seen nothing and immediately saw that my wife had suffered a severe stroke. It was awful news, but I realized we were finally in the right place.
  • The equipment wasn't ancient, but it was often quite old. On occasion my wife and I would giggle at heart and blood-pressure monitors that were literally taped together and would come apart as they were being moved into place.
  • I'd make frequent trips to the local pharmacies to buy extra tissues and cleaning wipes, which were always in short supply.
  • Infections in hospitals are, of course, a problem everywhere. But in Britain, hospital-borne infections are getting out of control...It's not hard to see why....As far as we could tell in our month at Queen's Square, the only method of keeping the floors clean was an industrious worker from the Philippines named Marcello, equipped with a mop and pail.
  • As for the caliber of medicine practiced at Queen's Square, we were quite impressed at the collegiality of the doctors and the tendency to make medical judgments based on group consultations.
  • There is also much less of a tendency in British medicine to make decisions on the basis of whether one will be sued for that decision...Why are the Brits so less concerned about being sued? I can only guess that Britain's practice of forcing losers in civil cases to pay for court costs has lessened the number of lawsuits, and thus the paranoia about lawsuits from which American medical services suffer.
  • The cardiologist responsible for the procedure, Seamus Cullen, worked in both the public system and as a private clinician. He informed us that the waiting line to perform the procedure in a public hospital would take days if not weeks, but we could have the procedure done in a private hospital almost immediately.
  • Something is clearly wrong with medical pricing over here. Ten therapy sessions aren't worth $27,000, no matter how shiny the floors are. On the other hand my wife was wheeled into Cornell and managed to partially walk out after a relatively pleasant stay in a relatively clean environment. Can one really put a price on that?
    
    Definitely read the whole thing.
• Ace of Spades lists his top movie quotes of all time.  Definitely agree with a number of them, particularly 1, 5, 9 (you've gotta see the movie - it's just what anyone would've said), and 17.  Although the best line in The Sure Thing is "Driving with a load not properly tied down."  See the voluminous comments for more.
• Rick Moran holds a Howard Dean Quotathon, and everyone is ROFL.  Except me, I'm ashamed of myself.  UPDATE: More on the Dean Quotes from John Hawkins at Right Wing News.