Didn’t watch it myself, but the bloggertarians are going to hate the Queen’s Christmas message, in which she said “people should share responsibility to help those less fortunate than themselves.”

The Conservatives are complaining that Whitehall departments spend too much money at Christmas. The total five-year spend of Whitehall departments on Christmas parties, decorations and cards was £461,000, which works out at a

shocking

twenty pence per civil servant per year. This

extravagance

– almost enough for one bite of a Marks and Spencer Mince Pie – will doubtless

outrage hard-working families

, at least those who aren’t repelled by the unseasonal stench of cant and hypocrisy.

It’s a great day today, as the borders between even more European countries evaporate. I wonder how long it will be before we Brits (and Irish) see sense?

If you want a representation of why the American healthcare system is so, so broken, head on over to givewell.com, where you can buy a Visa-brand healthcare giftcard, handy for all those occasions where getting life-saving treatment has to be preceded by handing over cold, hard cash.

I remember attending a lecture in the late ’90s at the Institute of Economic Affairs that was saying how we should move to an American healthcare model. It seemed weird then – it seems positively crazy now.

Via MeFi