Charles Oliver: It couldn't happen here?

Dr. Daniel Ubani had just three hours of sleep before going on duty at a primary care facility in Cambridgeshire, England. One kidney patient died after the German doctor injected him with 10 times the recommended dose of morphine and an 86-year-old woman died after Ubani failed to send her to the hospital. Those cases brought about an investigation that found National Health Service primary care trusts routinely fly in doctors from as far away as Lithuania and Poland to work weekends and night shifts because British doctors refuse to. The Patients Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners and others say these doctors may lack language skills to properly treat their patients and may be too tired from their long flights to perform to the best of their abilities.

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A journalism student asked U.S. Rep. Baron Hill, D-Ind., during a recent town hall forum why she couldn’t videotape the event. “This is my town hall meeting, and I set the rules, and I’ve had these rules,” said Hill. “Let me repeat that one more time. This is my town hall meeting for you. And you’re not going to tell me how to run my congressional office. Now, the reason why I don’t allow filming is that usually the films that are done end up on YouTube in a compromising position.” Video of Hill’s tirade can be found on YouTube.

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Lawmakers are generally smart enough to figure out that if you increase the cost of something you get less of it. In fact, they often raise the taxes on tobacco and booze in an effort to get people to smoke less and drink less. But the U.S. Senate recently approved a bill to increase tourism by imposing a $10 tax on travelers who enter the United States. The money will fund efforts to promote tourism in the United States, because no one from abroad will even visit Disney World or Las Vegas or New York City unless the federal government tells them to.

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The U.S. Army made an unusual discovery at its Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado. It seems they are growing marijuana there. The Army has been cleaning up the area, which was once used to produce chemical weapons. The mulch they used to reseed it came from a supplier in Kansas, where low-grade ditch weed is pretty common, and it had some marijuana seeds in it. Officials admit the stuff couldn’t get anyone high. So they just laughed it off, right? Not a chance. They’ve already removed about 100 plants.

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Nick George, a student at California’s Pomona College, says he was handcuffed, detained and questioned for several hours by Transportation Security Administration agents and the FBI after the TSA found Arabic flash cards in his carry-on luggage. TSA officials say George was acting suspiciously.

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Security video from a Toccoa convenience store shows Jonathan Ayers go into the store and withdraw cash from an ATM. He returns to his car and gets in when an SUV tries to block him in and men with guns drawn jump out. Ayers’ car begins to pull away, when the men start firing at it, killing him. The men, it turns out, were police officers, part of a multi-jurisdictional drug task force. They weren’t wearing uniforms, and their vehicle wasn’t marked. But they swear they identified themselves as law enforcement. It isn’t clear that Ayers, a minister, could have heard them in his car. So why were they after Ayers? Well, they haven’t been real clear about that. They admit he wasn’t the target of the sting and there were no drugs on him or in his car. But they say a woman who’d been in the car with him earlier was under investigation. I didn’t know that being acquainted with a possible drug dealer is now a capital crime in Georgia.