A few quickies for you today….

Branson tragedy

It seems like we typically hear stories after a tragedy about how someone was lucky: missing a plane that crashed, etc. The duck boat tragedy seems like the opposite. According to this story, one of the people from the other boat said the second boat waited with them for 15-20 minutes to fix a mechanical problem on the first boat. Then it was calm when they entered the lake. Once the storm hit, it was too late. It turns out this WAS the same storm that spawned the tornadoes in Iowa, so there was some warning but not that it would be so severe.

NHS: the liberal health care dream

On a trip to the UK 15-20 years ago, I asked our host about the NHS. She said it’s great for life-threatening issues, but for anything else you’d better be prepared to wait. The example she gave was hip replacement. It might be painful and make your life miserable, but you weren’t going to die from it so it would not be unexpected to have to wait several months for surgery.

That’s a perfect segue into an article I read this morning. If you find yourself in a situation like having to wait for hip or cataract surgery, there’s an easy solution … if you are rich. You can pay your way to the front of the line. None of this is a surprise of course.

Another Nobel prize for Obama?

Okay okay this is just satire.

About those DNC servers

DNC head Tom Perez did some tap dancing when asked about turning them over to the FBI. The only surprise here is that someone at CNN had the audacity to ask him such questions. No word yet on whether she is still employed there.

Welcome to RedState’s only daily open thread! Enjoy!