Admissions of the day

Reuters:

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reaffirmed his predecessor's line on cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad on Wednesday, saying free speech should respect religious sensitivities.

"The Secretary-General strongly believes that freedom of expression should be exercised responsibly and in a way that respects all religious beliefs," his spokeswoman Marie Okabe told reporters.

He had nothing to say about common hate cartoons against Jews in the Arab media. “Political correctness” being a one-way street at Turtle Bay.

New York Times:

Officials said that allowing Mrs. Hirst and others like her to pay for extra drugs to supplement government care would violate the philosophy of the health service by giving richer patients an unfair advantage over poorer ones.

Patients “cannot, in one episode of treatment, be treated on the N.H.S. and then allowed, as part of the same episode and the same treatment, to pay money for more drugs,” the health secretary, Alan Johnson, told Parliament.

“That way lies the end of the founding principles of the N.H.S.,” Mr. Johnson said.

Nothing said about the rationing of care that is inherent in such a nationalized healthcare system, and the implications of adopting it in the United States. Seems Britain’s NHS has already met “the end” of its founding principles, if that meant access to quality care for all, regardless of taxpayer or private expense.