I am distracted this week, through having to oversee and assist with a spot of home renovation, and the launch of Book Six of the Luna City Chronicles – One Half Dozen of Luna City, which is available as of today in print, Kindle and other ebook formats – although by no means have I not paid attention to various news hiccups which caught my fleeting attention as they went past.

As a parent, I can’t help but be sympathetic and supportive of little Alfie Evans’ parents, whose’ medical situation was as heartbreaking as it was mysterious and likely terminal. Just as I cannot help being viciously cynical regarding the decision by hospital and National Health Service administrators to set the poor tot on the so-called Liverpool Care pathway. Over the strenuous objections of his parents, the church which his parents apparently belonged to, any number of advocates for the rights of parents – all life support cut off, including oxygen, nourishment and water, with the powers of the State and its police minions standing by to enforce the dictates of the state.

Death with Dignity, they call it – Death with Convenience is what I say. Being in the United States, I may say so without fear of plods in Liverpool and formerly-great Britain directing the Big Heavy Retaliatory Scowl at me, in response to my own disinclination to support a nebulous Ruling Class being able to pull the plug on the life of inconvenient plebs, even those who are only two years old and likely terminal anyway. Gaze upon my two middle fingers, chaps; and what if, as other commenters have asked, if the kids’ name had been Ali Edris … or Alfred Windsor? How does the police force in present-day Britain spend their days, when not threatening freedom of internet speech? Confiscating those nasty sharp knives, safeguarding the rights of Travelers to pillage and terrorize ordinary citizens, and turning a tactfully blind eye on Muslim rape gangs whoring out white girls, I guess.

The worst part of the Alfie Evans matter is that it would have cost the NHS nothing … save for face. Because their authority had been flouted, and that cannot be permitted, it seems. No one may escape the bony clutches of the NHS, especially once they have pronounced sentence upon a patient. It’s free medical care for everyone, you see; a great universal good for everyone … and if it’s not good enough for you, comrade, then what kind of socially-deviant wrecker are you, anyway?

Moving on … I see that the assembled company at last weekends White House Correspondents’ Dinner conducted themselves in the manner which we have come to accept from them. Nice going, assembled geniuses of the anointed national media, having an alleged comic execute a sick burn of a guest at the head table – a woman whom those who really are members of the White House press pool must work with on an almost-daily basis! Well done, springing a perfectly vicious attack on a guest, and under circumstances where the target cannot really do anything in response. It was cruel, low, and not funny, and at least some of the audience present had the sense and decency to see that. I’d have thought better of them if they had walked out, but … nice of the WHCA to show their ass that way. That wasn’t a roast, that was an auto de fa. I wouldn’t be surprised if representatives of a GOP administration never show their face at the Washington Nerd Prom, ever again. Oh, and I have never, until now, heard of Michelle Wolf. Now that I have, I do not want to hear about her ever again. Your thoughts?