The American Spectator

Teleprompter Messiah| 4.10.09 @ 1:49PM

Blasphemy! Don't you cretinous Americans know that Canada's healthcare system makes it your moral superior. Thus, you may lead the world in pioneering medical treatments, development of pharaceuticals, have the foremost medical teaching institutions, researchers and research facilities and most metropolitan areas may have more medical diagnostic equipment than entire provinces you are still benighted and uncaring social Darwinians.

ruth| 4.10.09 @ 1:52PM

But what about all of those Canadian posters who so vehemently defended Quebec's healthcare system? They said it was first rate--what gives? Pepe Le Pew--so funny.

Matthew Vadum| 4.10.09 @ 2:24PM

And people aren't important enough, jharp, to deserve the use of helicopters to travel to emergency medical care facilities?

Please tell me you are joking.

Daphne| 4.10.09 @ 2:35PM

I commented that Natasha Richardson probably would have survived her head injury if she'd been skiing in the U.S., and I couldn't believe some of the hysterical replies I received. I guess I hit a nerve.

Conservative One| 4.10.09 @ 2:45PM

jharp is a skunk. Unfortunately for us, the rabies vaccine airdrop missed him.

Teleprompter Messiah| 4.10.09 @ 3:22PM

jharp: If you are intellectually honest tell us less evolved individuals what defects there are in your vision of free healthcare.

Ahn O'Nymous| 4.10.09 @ 3:27PM

Utterly ridiculous.

jharp: I have a simpler solution for rabid animals. They cost, on average, about twenty cents a piece and you can get them at any sporting goods store in boxes of 20 - 500. They come in a variety of sizes, types, weights, and compositions, but they all get the job done just as well - and none of them require the use of a helicopter. The application system can some times cost upwards of $600US, but they are very easy to maintain and typically last for generations.

Dropping animal bait laced with rabies medication makes about as much fiscal sense as putting deer on birth control. You're shafting people out of tax dollars that could be spent on something more practical - like, I don't know, medevac helicopters?

Seriously; who is dumb enough to get near a raccoon, skunk, or fox without shooting it first anyway? These aren't exactly petting zoo animals we're talking about, and I would certainly hope any crazies keeping them as pets would know how to tell whether or not one of their animals is rabid.

Aaron| 4.10.09 @ 7:01PM

Its the damn Canadians again! At the least they could drop jharp from the chopper laced with bait.

Bob| 4.11.09 @ 6:27AM

Vadum, you seem to completely miss one of the major points here -- Natasha Richardson REFUSED treatment. I thought you were a conservative and believed in individual responsibility. Now you want to have a nanny state with helicopters sprinkled everywhere?

I also thought, as a conservative, you'd be in favor of capitalism. I guess not. The companies involved in buying helicopters use them because they make economic sense for their bottom lines. How you can compare the purchase of a helicopter for a company to a publicly available helicopter that isn't used much is beyond me. First you are against "socialized" medicine, then you want more "socialized" medicine in the form of a helicopter.

Make up your mind. Are you a conservative or a lib?

Lorraine| 4.11.09 @ 1:32PM

Vadum:
How dare you insult a healthcare system that is freely available to all. She refused treatment!
Quebec,(along with the rest of the provinces)are only trying to maintain its natural resources that are so greatly being reaped by the US.
Canada is okay as long as you're taking our water, hydro and natural gas.
ps.leave the skunks alone they don't carry guns!

Joe| 4.11.09 @ 8:14PM

hahaha, you have JHarp commenting here. The worst troll you'll ever meet in your lifetime. patterico banned him last year.

Bill Bailey| 4.11.09 @ 10:10PM

jharp wastes everybody's time here. He uses specious hairsplitting arguments, the kind you see every day at Media Matters. I get the feeling he's bipolar but won't take his medication.
Whether Richardson refused treatment or not (really, she initially refused treatment and then an hour later changed her mind as pain set in, and then it still took the Canadians 3 or more hours to get her to a proper facility) they didn't have the services in place to save her life.
Don't be distracted by all the dumb red herrings that jharp and obnoxious Bob throw out.

Bill Bailey| 4.11.09 @ 10:12PM

Is this jharp's myspace page:

http://www.myspace.com/37897713

Angel| 4.11.09 @ 10:38PM

Bob, Natasha had a head injury; she wasn't in her right mind. "Real" professionals would have understood that and administered proper medical care to her. I'm shocked by the poor medical attention she received: The Canadians were clueless. She died for nothing.

MT| 4.11.09 @ 10:42PM

Bob and jharp both have serious head injuries. They repeat themselves over and over and over and over and ..... Ad Nauseam.

Mutty| 4.11.09 @ 11:19PM

OMG, Bill--is jharp the turd on the right flippin' the bird at the camera? What an Ahole loser. His friends look like losers, too.

Bob| 4.12.09 @ 10:31AM

Angel, so what do you recommend? Do you recommend that at all remote resorts in the U.S. that we have helicopters and neurosurgeons? According to Gupta on CNN, by the time she changed her mind, it was too late anyway -- even to be flown out.

I'm one of those fiscal conservatives who believe in individual responsibility. I don't want someone making decisions for me even if I have a bump on the head. How you can be a conservative and believe otherwise is just beyond me.

The emergency medical treatment was available in Canada -- but Canada is a relatively sparsely populated country and you cannot expect everyone to be everywhere.

The problem here is that many of you WANT to find something wrong with Canada's health care system so you adjust your view for that result. Saying Natasha Richardson died because she refused treatment is not inconsistent with that point of view. Stop letting your arguments be hijacked by ideology -- use logic and reason.

Angel| 4.12.09 @ 5:06PM

No broad generalities--just some common-sense medical care. Natasha's case wasn't rocket science--the Canadians screwed up big time. I'm sorry she died for nothing; I just don't want their crappy health care system down here.

Angel| 4.12.09 @ 5:08PM

Too bad you defend mediocrity; I don't. Your fancy education hasn't served you well. You've settled, I won't.

Frosty| 4.12.09 @ 5:10PM

You're not a fiscal conservative; you're a liberal whore. You let your slavish obedience to fascist liberalism get in the way of reason. Loser.

Bill Bailey| 4.12.09 @ 10:13PM

Dear jharp of Longmont, Colorado
(http://www.myspace.com/37897713): Do your masters pay you by the word or the comment? I'd like to know so we can approach the rightist puppet masters who run the world and ask them to pay us to troll your favorite lefty sites.

Jim| 4.12.09 @ 11:14PM

As a liberal jharp no doubt has sex with animals and thus is concerned about contracting rabies.

Angel| 4.13.09 @ 1:24AM

No doubt. LOL

Ahn O'Nymous| 4.13.09 @ 9:52AM

Bob: I think you are missing a vital point here. Disregarding Natasha's choice to refuse treatment, and our own fiscal conservatism, in a state like Canada, where nationalized health care is the norm, which makes more sense? To spend tax monies on using helicopters to drop medicated bait for rodents, or to have "a rapid transit system that gives them the best chance to not only survive, but to survive with a quality of life." (http://spectator.org/blog/2009/04/10/quebecs-not-so-urgent-care). Which is more important: A human life, or the well-being of rodents?