Tim Blair on the suicide of a mass-murdering doctor:

British mass-murderer HaroldShipman had the decency last week to hang himself. This good news was greeted as exactly that by Home Secretary David Blunkett, who said: "You wake up and you receive a phone call: Shipman's topped himself. You have just got to think for a minute: is it too early to open a bottle?" I'm with Blunkett; let's celebrate the deadly doctor's demise. Yet, incredibly, Blunkett's comments provoked a furious reaction. Prison reformer Frances Crook said he should resign. Prison union secretary Harry Fletcher said Blunkett's comments "will cause a grave offence to many relatives of the victims". As opposed to putting people into graves, which is what Shipman did to 215 of his patients.

And:

"I'm very proud and honoured to endorse Howard Dean to be the next president of the United States of America," said former V-P Al Gore last month. This was "a momentous event", according to New York Times columnist and reliable reverse indicator Paul Krugman. It sure was: Dean has been sliding in the polls ever since, and now faces renewed challenges from Wesley Clark and John Kerry. Gore's effect on any campaign to which he lends his name is literally chilling. Last Thursday, he turned up in New York to address an audience of environmentalists on the issue of global warming; the city promptly turned on its coldest overnight weather since records began in 1893.