Our healthcare system is broken

Guy has a heart attack, goes to hospital, but ER not open for 15 minutes.  Hospital calls ambulance, medics attend to him until the ER opens, and then he got a bill in the mail.

 

This after the baby Grace story, where an 18 month old in pain an deteriorating was put on a 3 week waiting list.  Her parents drove her to Edmonton and she was diagnosed within 24 hours with Leukemia.

 

What's it going to take?

Tories approaching majority

Decima poll has it:

• Conservatives   41
• Liberals           26
• NDP               19

Canadian taxes

Taxes in our fair country are up, up, up. 1600% since 1961 according to the Fraser institute. That's more than outrageous its scandalous. What's worse is that Canadians keep electing governments that raise their taxes and spend like drunken sailors. Ok, that's unfair to drunken sailors.

The Fraser Institute study finds that Canadians now pay more annually in taxes than they spend on shelter, food and clothing combined. In 1961, the average household earned $5,000 and paid $1,675, or 33.5 per cent, of that in taxes. The average family in 1961 spent $2,824 on food, shelter and clothing per year.

In 2005, the report found, the average family earns $60,903, and spends $28,467 of that, 46.7 per cent, on taxes. The average family now spends $22,167 on food, shelter and clothing per year.

The tide has turned to some degree, from the high point of raising taxes in the mid 1990s, but not nearly enough. Governments will always spend as much as they can - it's up to us to demand that they take less of our money, so that they spend less. The Gipper offered the proper perspective when he said:

Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

It's time for a change.

Elections matter

At a speech to remember the holocaust, Harper vowed that Canada wont ignore the Iranian threat, or the Hamas government in the middle east.  Can anyone picture Martin or Chretien making such a speech? 

Rae is in

Former NDP premier of Ontario to run for Liberal leadership.  Carolyn Bennet is also in.  Looks like it will be a large field, mostly on the center left. 

Conservative Majority

People on the Hill are openly musing about the possibility...some think that if the Tories can get 3 out of 5 of their priorities passed they will be well on their way.

Alberta: er, on second thought

No "third way" health reforms for now.  Apparently no one really understood what was going on and there was lots of opposition.  Oh, and Klein is a lame duck premier and no one is going to go down fighting for the guy about to retire.  So we'll see what happens in the leadership race, and how much health care comes up.

 

And my title for this entry is a blatant Bourque rip off.  Imitation and flattery and all that.

Elections matter

Harper conservatives to raise age of consent from 14 to 16, putting us in line with most of the rest of the civilized world.  Long overdue and very, very welcome.

Liberal leadership tilting left

So says CTV, with only one candidate running from a center right platform.  Is this good or bad for Canada?  If the Liberals do emerge as a more left wing party, does that threaten the NDP, and allow the Conservatives to gain a strong hold on the center right?  Of course Chretien ran in 1993 as a real lefty, but ended up governing from the center. 

 

That's actually an open secret, isn't it?  That Liberals campaign from the left and govern from the center? 

 

This should be fun to watch...

Global Warming revisited

All of us who think this whole "global warming" thing is a little overblown and unproven just want everyone to look at things rationally.

 

We'd like everyone who thinks that they know exactly what is happening and what is causing it to sit back and think through what it is we actually know.  Ok, that's what I'd like to see happen.  But these sixty Canadian scientists are calling on Harper to revisit the science of global warming. 

 

The study of global climate change is, as you have said, an "emerging science," one that is perhaps the most complex ever tackled. It may be many years yet before we properly understand the Earth's climate system. Nevertheless, significant advances have been made since the protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases. If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary.

It's about time

Bush's new chief of staff is musing about staffing changes:

 

"Josh talked about how this is a time to refresh and re-energize the team and for all of us to renew our commitment as we go forward," McClellan said.

 

And it only took super low poll numbers, collapsing support among the base, and the very real propsect of losing either the house or the senate.  Or maybe both in a doomsday scenario.  Let's hope it's one massive, and effective, shakeup.

 

Happy Easter!

Today is in many ways the high point in the Christian Calendar.  He is risen!  He is risen indeed. 

media coverage

In the last year, it has cost nearly a thousand lives.

 

What has cost a thousand lives?  The smouldering civil war in India between Maoist rebels and the rest of the country.  What, you hadn't heard about it either?  (Via David Frum )

 

What are we going to do with Iran?

Iran, defying United Nations Security Council demands to halt its nuclear program, may be capable of making a nuclear bomb within 16 days, a U.S. State Department official said.

Iran will move to ``industrial scale'' uranium enrichment involving 54,000 centrifuges at its Natanz plant, the Associated Press quoted deputy nuclear chief Mohammad Saeedi as telling state-run television today.  -- more

Rick Mercer

This is hard for me, because I never, ever, ever thought I would say there is a show on CBC that is a must watch every week.  But there is. 

 

I set my PVR to record the Rick Mercer Report every week, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.  Ok, maybe a little.  But it's that good.  Sure he's a little left wing, but he's an equal opportunity critic, and is having a ton of fun at the expense of the Liberals.   Check this video out; there is another one I couldn't find where Rick is in a hotel room with all the Liberal hopefuls.  Awsome!  How does he get all of the MPs to do this kind of stuff?  For another example, here's Rona (no last name required) making maple syrup.

 

The whole show is pretty good, and the spoofs and political stuff are excellent.  Drop on by http://www.cbc.ca/mercerreport/ and set your PVR to record it.  What?  You don't have a PVR?  You have no idea what you're missing.  I can't go back.

Why we must stay in Aghanistan

A rocket attack on a school, killing 6 children and injuring many more.  What a dispicable act.

"I saw so many children on the ground. Many were not moving. Screams were coming from everywhere. I was crying," he told The Associated Press. "One teacher was lying there without a leg."  Dozens of schools have been attacked since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001. Most of the attacks have come at night, and have not caused any casualties.  The Taliban believe educating girls is against Islam, and only want boys to learn religion.

Afghanistan

Apparently we are split on our troops serving abroad: 45-46.  Of course it depends on the poll and the question, as support has been as high as 70%.  And it seems the NDP position has been noticed abroad: 

In Afghanistan on the weekend, a spokesman for the insurgent Taliban said he believes the resolve of Ottawa to stick with the mission is in question. "We think that when we kill enough Canadians they will quit war and return home," said Qari Yuosaf Ahmedi.

If you want to know why we are there, consider this:

Let's refresh ourselves about what Afghanistan was like a mere five years ago. Under the Taliban, TVs were banned. So was music. And children's toys. And forecasting the weather. Non-Muslims had to wear yellow badges in public. Soccer stadiums were turned into execution arenas, where gay men would have stone walls pushed on top of them. Women suspected of adultery would be stoned to death. Suspected prostitutes were shot. But, since the Taliban disallowed women from getting jobs, prostitution and begging were often all some women could do to survive.Women caught begging were beaten on the street. They were beaten if any of their skin was visible. Or if their shoes made noise when they walked.

If there was ever a fight tailor-made for liberal sensibilities, it was ousting these barbarians. Bringing minority and women's rights to Afghanistan? That's a struggle even a flower child like NDP Leader Jack Layton could get behind.

If we cut and run from a UN sponsored mission, what does that make us?  We should be there as long as we are needed.  Let's up this country still has the character that made it great and world renouned in the first half of the last century.

Chirac caves

An almost rational labour law has been pulled, soon to be replaced by something no doubt less rational.  Score another one for France's tradition of mass protests against sanity.  Seriously, when is that country going to grow up?  How bad does unemployment have to be before they make changes?

Harper approval at 60%

Solid start for the conservatives:

round one: tories

Liberals were slumped in their seats at the session's end, clearly beaten by weak lines of attack. But more alarming for them is what lies ahead.  -- Don Martin

 

Stronach out

She just had the press conference to announce she wont run for leader.  Says she wouldn't have been able to speak her mind about the needed renewal of the party if she ran for leader.  What a total load of BS.  She wasn't going to win, or even have much of a chance, so she will wait for next time.  Bob Fife of CTV just ripped her to shreds saying it was all a smoke screen, she can't speak french, and her organization was terrible.  Ouch.  By the nature of the questions from the press, no one else was buying it either.

Marriage vote this fall

It wasn't in the throne speech, but:

 

The prime minister says he'll keep his campaign pledge to hold a free vote in Parliament on whether to reopen the matter. But Harper has signalled it won't happen before the Commons breaks for summer vacation.

What's the world coming to?

A teacher is being arrested for giving a student a wedgie.  I gave lots of wedgies at camp.  Hopefully there is a statute of limitations.  Or maybe a statue of limitations.  Either one.

France

Too darn funny: 

 

Let's see if we have this right: French kids are rioting because they can't have jobs for life?

 

No surprise here

Klein to quit by the end of the year

Klein gone by summer?

Don Martin, who wrote a biography of King Ralph, thinks so.  The consensus is that Ralph's long good-bye is largely responsible for the meagre 55% approval rating he got on the weekend.  If only he had announced he'd be gone this fall, things would have been fine.  What a miscalculation...

Klein gets a wake up call

55%. 

 

That's all the support the Conservative Party could muster for King Ralph, and now he has to seriously think about his long goodbye.  And now Preston Manning is thinking about running for the leadership.

 

I had thought he would be somewhere in the 70% range, given the unhapiness with recent budgets and the retirement date.  But 55% is a big slap in the face, considering he is usally closer to 90%.  His only real option is to announce his retirement has been pushed up.  But let's be honest, he's ruined what should have been a gracious exit and a great legacy. 

 

It's sad, really.  Klein is not perfect, but he was probably the best premier in the country in the 90s.

Kinsella's April Fools joke

His blog has gone dark, with this message:

 

April 1, 2006 - STATEMENT

Warren Kinsella wishes to unreservedly retract every critical statement made about associates, friends and employees of the former Prime Minister, and sincerely apologize for same. Warren pledges to never publicly criticize these people ever again, commencing April 1, 2006.