The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
Why Doesn’t the Mint Deliver…Letters?
“Why Doesn’t the Postal Service Make Money?”–headline, Slate.com, Feb. 7
Hey, Kids! What Time Is It?
“It’s Time to Talk About the Future of U.S. Water Infrastructure”–headline, Huffington Post, Feb. 8
News You Can Use
“Don’t Take Medical Advice From the New York Times Magazine”–headline, Slate.com, Feb. 7
Bottom Stories of the Day
“House Democrats Release Gun Proposals Largely Mirroring Obama’s”–headline,RollCall.com, Feb. 7
Great Moments in Socialized Medicine
“Shockingly bad care and inhumane treatment at a hospital in the Midlands led to hundreds of unnecessary deaths and stripped countless patients of their dignity and self-respect, according to a scathing report published on Wednesday,” reports the New York Times’s Sarah Lyall from London:
The report, which examined conditions at Stafford Hospital in Staffordshire over a 50-month period between 2005 and 2009, cites example after example of horrific treatment: patients left unbathed and lying in their own urine and excrement; patients left so thirsty that they drank water from vases; patients denied medication, pain relief and food by callous and overworked staff members; patients who contracted infections due to filthy conditions; and patients sent home to die after being given the wrong diagnoses.
We certainly hope the Times’s public editor sets Lyall straight. After all, as former Enron adviser Paul Krugman points out: “In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false.” And we read it in the New York Times.
For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”
