Missing link

Several callers to the local radio station this morning were expressing indignation that the cost of the abortive attempt to rescue the whale from the Thames over the weekend has been estimated at some £100,000, whereas a local children's hospice is having to close beds for lack of funds. No doubt of their sincerity, but what on earth gives them the idea that there is or could be any connection between the two things. Do they really think that if that amount of money (which by the way is only a ball-park figure) were not spent on the whale, it would be available to be spent on the hospice? It's a trap we all too easily fall into - you know the sort of thing "The amount of money they're wasting on (fill in the blank) could pay for x doctors, or y teachers, or (whatever takes your fancy)". More often than not, as with the whale and the hospice, the connection simply isn't there.