"There was a pot of chicken soup on the porch to keep the customers warm. Nice. Chicken soup is what the country's health program is coming to."

(If only John Kerry were president. There'd be a chicken in every pot, and a vile in every clinic.)

"Fifty thousand people may die of the flu this season, but the only flu shots within 25 miles of St. Paul Tuesday were being given ..."

Clause One: The center for disease control says about 36,000 die each year. Somehow, Coleman boosts it up to 50,000. But exaggeration is the soul of the old media, or what's a liberal for? The number of those who die this year is not likely to increase if the vaccine is given to the vulnerable, and if the healthy hypochondriacs stay home. Nothing like trying to scare old people to get the circulation up!

Clause two: I live in Stillwater. It less than 15 miles from Saint Paul. I saw people lined up in front of the local clinic on Tueday to get their shots. So the second clause about nothing being available within 25 miles is manifestly wrong - and I bet Stillwater is not the only place that had vaccine.

How do you continue to fisk when he is wrong two times in every sentence? Has he decided on a clever defense against fisking that consists of having so many incorrect statements that the fisker throws up his hands in frustration?

I reminded Doris and Mary that President Bush says not to worry and that he is doing his part by not getting a flu shot this year. Doris rolled her eyes. (Behind her left eye was a contact lens bearing the picture of John Kerry. Behind her right eye was a contact lens bearing the words: "See picture on rolled left eye.)

Here's where I'd start:

"Nick Coleman, Star Tribune"

What follows will be a litany of whiny crap from a washed-up hack with a holier-than-thou liberal attitude from a paper that has its lips so firmly planted to the posterior of the Democratic Party that they could French-kiss its appendix. Those looking for reason, sanity, or talent please set down this paper and go read a blog.

Mitch, the NARN has ties to Michael Nelson of MST3k fame -- the ultimate fisker. Any chance of a guest blogging when guys like Coleman need fisking?

Doris had come to the PROFESSIONAL BUILDING last week and was astonished to find a long line of people ahead of her. She was 10 minutes too late to get a number that time. This time, her daughter-in-law, Mary Planten, left far-away Afton at 5:30 in the morning to make sure Doris got her shot.

Mary let Doris wait in the car while she held Doris' spot in line, and she helped put blankets on an old man who was bent over his walker, shaking with the cold.

"This is just the tip of the iceberg about what's happening to our health care," Mary said, helping Doris back toward the car a mere six hours after they had arrived. "It just isn't working."

-- Nick Coleman, Minneapolis Star Tribune.

The only business boom, that winter, came to the amusement industry. People wrenched their pennies out of the quicksands of their food and heat budgets, and went without meals in order to crowd into movie theaters in order to escape for a few hours the state of animals reduced to the single concern of terror over their crudest needs.

-- Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged”

Are we there yet, Nick?

White had pulled the kids out of school and come from Mounds View, getting lost along the way and showing up only after the numbers already were gone.

(Sounds to me like the White kids have bigger problems than a lack of flu shots. "Getting lost along the way" is no doubt an apt description of their mom).

Her little girl has asthma, and Zach has kidney problems that make each illness difficult. Her doctor has no flu shots for kids. White stood helplessly in the cold.

(One hopes she had the sense to dress herself and her children warmly, but somehow I have my doubts).

"When my kids get sick they get very sick," she said to no one in particular.

("no one in particular" - why, Nick, you shouldn't be so disingenuously modest!)

"I feel like I can't let my kids go to school because I don't want them to get sick. This is terrible."

(While it's true that schools are notorious clearinghouses for germs, I can't say that ignorance is preferable to illness.)

""Only in America," said Barb Feiler, a 68-year-old Roseville woman who was there with Gunnar Pettersen, 71. She didn't mean "only in America" as a good thing. "This is a disaster," she said."

Hey Barb, you ain't seen nothin' yet Dear. Once the fed's take control of our health care, you'll be waiting in lines twice as long to get a number to make an appointment for a visit 6 months later.

The only thing that this situation has to do with a Bush or any other government administration, is that it illustrates the enevitable outcome of public medicine.

In the mean time Hon, take comfort in the fact that this is an abberation. The vaccine manufacturer had a problem with their process which contaminated a large portion of their product.

Screw-up's: Something that happens from time to time when human beings are involved with some thing.

They started gathering on the PROFESSIONAL BUILDING's porch an hour before sunrise, the infirm, the white-haired and the frail, carrying folding chairs and waiting in a line that stretched down the block, a shivering queue on a 43-degree morning, risking pneumonia for a $20 flu shot.

--It's not a Nick Coleman column if there isn't something to blame on Republicans. Maybe we could have a collection to get them hats and coats. Or at least some old socks they could wear on their bony hands.

"Only in America," said Barb Feiler, a 68-year-old Roseville woman who was there with Gunnar Pettersen, 71. She didn't mean "only in America" as a good thing. "This is a disaster," she said.

--Yep. Not like the Sudanese, Rwandans or Cambodians who can get flu shots three, maybe four times a year, just for the asking.

I reminded Doris and Mary that President Bush says not to worry and that he is doing his part by not getting a flu shot this year. Doris rolled her eyes.

--...but she was too weak to let out a groan of displeasure.

It was time to leave the PROFESSIONAL BUILDING. I wished everyone good health and walked out onto Hennepin Avenue. When I looked down the street and squinted, I could almost see Lakewood Cemetery, four blocks away.

The gates were open.

(Oops, that was HennyPenny Avenue.

Nevermind.)

"I've never been here before, and I'll never come again, either," said the 88-year-old retired Postal Service supervisor from Little Canada

as he got his first taste of what getting health care would be like if he were from Big Canada.

As he stood shivering in line, John Barnes, an African American (U.S. Navy, retired) muttered, "(Expletive deletive) government should stay out of the vaccine business. Ever since Hillary's bill in 1994 the government is the primary buyer of these vaccines, making it unprofitable for drug companies to produce them, so only a few companies bother to make them. And these are probably the worst companies. It's the story of liberalism: good intentions, bad results because the focus is on feeling good about yourself rather than solving problems."

(Oops, that quotation never made Nick's article. He quickly deleted it from his tape recorder and moved on to a more 'knowledgeable' source.)

"This is just the tip of the iceberg about what's happening to our health care," Mary said, helping Doris back toward the car a mere six hours after they had arrived. "It just isn't working."

Hey Nick: Since you so enjoy citizen-on-the-street interviews to illustrate how great the Hillary Care Approach To Flu Shots is, how about suggesting to your sources that Senator Kerry wants to expand this nonsense to the entire health care system? (Boy, it must be tough earning that Crocus Hill salary...maybe one hour of recording coupled with no research and Woo-Hoo! A column!) Oh, since you "know stuff," maybe you can use those crack investigative skills (you know, the ones you used for the Hidden Park story) into finding out why Hillary hasn't said a word about her wildly successful pet project.

It was time to leave the PROFESSIONAL BUILDING. I wished everyone good health and walked out onto Hennepin Avenue. When I looked down the street and squinted, I could almost see Lakewood Cemetery, four blocks away.
(I wondered about getting an early start on my next column, "Hey! I shouted to the ignorant and uniformed, there's a Republican caused shortage of burial plots in the cemetary!!!)

"but if you weren't in line long before then, you didn't get one of the 150 numbers that were given out."

Instead of freaking out the seniors and trying to support Kerry as the same time, why don't you tell people where they can get the shots. Here's the MN Hlth Dept link:http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/dpc/cgi-bin/fluschedule/fluclinic_process.cgi

Logic 101: "Good morning class. Today we will discuss the 'non-sequitur'. Nick Coleman has provided us with an excellent piece for our analysis.

Why is this quote a non-sequitur? "There was a pot of chicken soup on the porch to keep the customers warm. Nice. Chicken soup is what the country's health program is coming to." ... How many different ways is this statement a non-sequitur? How many more non-sequiturs can we find in this article?

Tomorrow, 'The Red Herring'.

"They started gathering on the PROFESSIONAL BUILDING's porch an hour before sunrise, the infirm, the white-haired and the frail, carrying folding chairs and waiting in a line that stretched down the block, a shivering queue on a 43-degree morning, risking pneumonia for a $20 flu shot."

Thanks Nick, for spreading the complete myth that being out in the cold gives you a cold, and thus, will definitely become pneumonia. Last time I checked, pneumonia was caused by a bacterial infection or a virus, something much less commonly found outside in the cold than in a warm comfortable office!

http://www.plastichallway.com/blog/2004/10/sarcastic-fisking.html

I didn't think you'd want that whole thing in your comments section.

The whole thing sounded like a bad song with PROFESSIONAL BUILDING as the refrain. Couldn't he call it something else at least a few times?

The whole article reminds me of the commercial where the group are racking their brains on how to cut costs using millions of dollars of studies, books, etc. and finally one guy says....what about all this stuff? What does this cost?

Hey Nick, why didn't you tell these people to go home, get out of the cold and stop passing colds around. The reason we have much fewer flu shots is due to HILLIARY CLINTON and the Democrat Congress which put limits on what companies can charge, but no limits on law suits, thus it is not worth most companies bottom lines to make the flu shots.
The liberals plan once again coming home to roost.
Some how big drug companies are pure evil, until old Nick needs a flu shot, then they better fork it over and preferably for free!

Somehow there is something missing in Nicks brain that doesn't allow him to believe anything happened before the day George Bush became President. Bush is sooo amazing to have so completely destroyed America so quickly...gee her foundations sure must have been in pretty bad shape after 8 years of Liberalism in the White House for Bush to ruin things so easily and completely.

And to think Bush managed to do all of this as a complete idiot and a puppet.

According to wrongdiagnosis.com approximately 20,000 people in the US die from the flu each year. So Coleman's use of the 50,000 figure is a gross exaggeration - IOW the norm for him. :-)

On average, only 36% of elderly African-Americans and 60% of elderly white people even bother to get a flu shot each year. The rest, I guess, should be arrested for endangering the public, huh?

Mitch, first of all I object to step #1 above, Read Nick Coleman's column. It is unnecessary, since we already know what it's about, and it's cruel and unusual punishment. That said:

I reminded Doris and Mary that President Bush says not to worry and that he is doing his part by not getting a flu shot this year. Doris rolled her eyes.

"The president is busy running around the country trying to get elected," she said.

Yes, Doris, I agree. How dare the president actually try to get re-elected when he should be working night and day in the White House kitchen cooking up flu vaccines, then personally flying to each town and administering them. Laura could help, because never having had a 'real job' she's probably pretty handy in the kitchen.

Doris and Nick, here's a tip: It is a GOOD THING for drug companies to make money. It makes them feel like, say, PRODUCING MORE DRUGS. Many of the elderly and vulnerable people in these lines are able to be there at all because of drugs developed in the U.S. by profitable drug companies. When government limits profits, no new development takes place (see also: Brain Drain, Scientists, European Drug Companies, Coming to U.S.).

What you saw in that line is not W's fault, but it's a good preview of Clinton/Kerry-style health care.

"The president says the government will do everything necessary to protect our old and our vulnerable. But if you are old or vulnerable, you'd better get up before dark and get your long underwear on. It's going to take you all day to get a flu shot, if you get one at all."
(Is the ability to excrete flu vaccine from his sweat glands one of the President's consitutionally numerated or un-enumerated powers?)
"It was time to leave the PROFESSIONAL BUILDING. I wished everyone good health and walked out onto Hennepin Avenue. When I looked down the street and squinted, I could almost see Lakewood Cemetery, four blocks away.
The gates were open."
(and the Tall Man from Phantasm was walking through the gates with a coffin under each arm, one made of the cheap pine Minneapolis provides for indigents, and the other piteously small. He wore a Bush/Cheney t-shirt)

You know Mitch. Reading Nick (I need to learn my place) Coleman just sucks the life right out of me. I find it amazing that he can just keep droning on paragraph after paragraph, week after week like he does. All I can come up with is...

(Nick, the government is already in charge of buying flu vaccine. What more do you want?)

"There was a fancy veterinarian's office two doors away that looked a lot nicer than the place where old people were waiting for hours."

Maybe Nick was thinking of Canada where critical ill patients needing immediate diagnosis, instead of going on their interminably long waiting list, go to their local vet for a CatScan. I'm curious, do vets need malpractice insurance? Do they have to run unnecessary tests to ward off the ambulance chasers? Are their budgets (and staff) overly burdened with regulatory paperwork? Are they burdened by taking patients that can't or won't pay?

"Gregory and his wife of 60 years, Jean, were among dozens of flu-shot seekers roaming the Twin Cities in search of a vaccination yesterday, many of them denizens of Ramsey County forced by shortages to cross over to Minneapolis."

And with this, Nick Coleman throws off the mantle of newspaper columist and begins his new career as Urban Anthropolgist in this column which shold have been called "Victims in the Mist".

Imagine poor Gregory, his sainted elderly wife, and hudreds of other desperate and frail people roaming all over Minnesota like extras in a Mad Max movie, barely staving off the flu germs which threaten to assil them around every dangerous corner.

Except it's all balderdash - a beautifully-played scare tactic from the same man who once told you "I know stuff".

Ah, Nick, you don't know as much stuff as you think you do. You don't know, for example, that those poor folks roaming Minnesota put themselves more at risk from dying in a car accident than they'll ever be from being killed by the flu. Don't believe me? Ask Michelle Malkin, who as a double-threat columnist and blogger did a bit of research, asked for some knowledgeable help and then reported the facts: the flu kills less than a thousand people directly. It is flu-related complications that does most of the killing: 36,000 according to the CDC (not the 50,000 that Coleman evoked with Chicken Little-like breathlessness).

Now that means that getting the flu is hardly a death sentence. It does mean that you're going to have to take greater precautions, and get in a doctor's visit to make sure you don't develop pneumonia. But isn't that what we normally do when we're sick anyhow.

Poor Nick Coleman. He hasn't cut it as acolumnist and it looks like his Jane Goodall turn isn't going too well either.

Chet Brigm had never read Nick Coleman until Wednesday. He hopes he won't ever need to read him again.

"I've never read such crap before, and I'll never bother again, either," he said. "I had to read the whole thing to find out he didn't know where to get a flu shot, either. I thought he knew stuff."

Mary let Doris wait in the car while she held Doris' spot in line, and she helped put blankets on an old man who was bent over his walker, shaking with the cold.

OK. It's clearly Bush's fault. Can there be a more maudlin sentence than this?