Stuff For a Thursday

Here it is....


How much the Drummond Report was like a refreshing punch to the kidneys. Except that being punched in the kidneys hurts and is not at all refreshing, nor should anyone do such a thing. Things are grim, is my point:

Clearly, Ontarians want their health care system not only sustained, but also improved. Can fears of unsustainability — that the system will not remain affordable — be eased by proposing some of the more obvious — or at least most often cited — solutions? Again, unfortunately, there is no straightforward response. Sustainability involves many moving parts; any number of changes to the equation can render health care more sustainable or less so. Three of the moving parts come to mind:

• First, stronger productivity growth, by generating more economic growth, would make it easier to afford more health care spending. But even if productivity growth doubled from its low levels of the past decade, trend growth in nominal GDP would still fall far short of the projected increases in health care spending. In any case, such an aggressive assumption about productivity growth is mere wishful thinking since we have no ready answers on how to revive it. Wishful thinking, needless to say, cannot be the foundation of a policy response to the sustainability issue.
• Second, we could afford more health care if we raised taxes, but tax rates would have to rise persistently to keep the new revenue received above income growth. This might generate voter tax fatigue and would inevitably result in broader economic losses as the economic distortions induced by rising taxes magnified.
• Third, we could restrain all other government spending severely to leave more room for health care. But as TD Economics pointed out, status quo trends suggest that by 2030, health care would account for 80 per cent of Ontario’s program spending. The remaining 20 per cent would not even cover the current education system, let alone any other public services.

It goes almost without saying that these are not solutions; the status quo growth path of health care spending needs to be curbed. At the same time, much of the Ontario health care system not only can be improved, but calls out for improvement.

 Oh, I'm sure this is going to help:

The 193-nation U.N. General Assembly ratcheted up the pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday by overwhelmingly approving a resolution that endorses an Arab League plan calling for him to step aside.

The initial count showed that the resolution, which is similar to one Russia and China vetoed in the Security Council on February 4, received 137 votes in favor, 12 against and 17 abstentions, though three delegations said their votes failed to register on the electronic board.

Russia and China were among those opposing the resolution, which was drafted by Saudi Arabia and submitted by Egypt on behalf of Arab U.N. delegations. Unlike in the Security Council, there are no vetoes in the General Assembly, and its decisions lack the legal force of council resolutions.

"Today the U.N. General Assembly sent a clear message to the people of Syria - the world is with you," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said in a statement.

"An overwhelming majority of UN member states have backed the plan put forward by the Arab League to end the suffering of Syrians," she said. "Bashar al-Assad has never been more isolated."

Well that's going to show him!


Where were they a year ago?



Some people deserve to rot in hell. Like this lady.



I wonder how this wastrel is going to suck moolah out of the mullahs in Tehran:

Former Roseau River chief Terry Nelson is asking Iran for help with the governance issues on his and other First Nations.

A referendum on how Roseau River chooses its leaders was postponed Thursday. Aboriginal Affairs said it needed more time to work with the community, which has been plagued by issues at the ballot box.

When the news came down Thursday, Nelson decided to lead a caravan of cars to the Iranian embassy in Ottawa in about two weeks. He plans to thank Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his condemnation of Canada’s treatment of aboriginal people, and ask him for help in bringing attention to the issue of missing and murdered women.

“I am not going to spend my time trying to get the immigrant governments to hear our plight, it is time to ask other nations to investigate and support us directly,” he wrote.

“Ottawa police and RCMP are just going to have beat women, children and men to keep us from attending to the embassies.”

Nelson plans to hold a press conference in Roseau River Friday to detail his plans.

“I don’t want violence to be the only option left for my community. They should have had a simple referendum to allow the people to decide, but now what options do the people have?”

Financial and emotional blackmail is not beneath sleaze like him. Idiot.


(Mamnoon)



Why Celebrity Apartheid Week matters: if Sean "Pig" Penn really loved Hugo Chavez, he would move in with him:

Actor Sean Penn criticized Republican presidential candidates during a visit to Venezuela on Thursday, saying that right-wing policies in the United States aim to benefit the wealthy....

Penn said he doesn’t think “the use of those exploitive sort of demonizations will be very beneficial to this crew of candidates.”

“That would be the least amongst their weaknesses,” Penn said. “It’s never predictable what can happen in an American election, but we certainly believe at this point that it’s becoming increasingly clear to the American people that the policies of the far right are the policies of the rich, and that they are to the exclusion of the middle class and the poor, and that no society has a future on that basis.”

The Oscar-winning actor has met with Chavez several times in Venezuela and has a friendly relationship with the leftist leader.

 
The delicious periodic table done in cupcake form.



Mmmm.... frosted boron....


Perhaps an inventive teacher could teach the periodic table WITH cupcakes, having the students decorate the cupcakes with the appropriate number of sprinkles for atomic numbers and such.


Just a thought.


We knew this had to happen: LEGO Blade Runner.

Rather Belated Mail

Bumping this up for a respondent who was rather late in the game.


Better late than never, I guess.


This comment is for a post I did six years ago. First, the post:

This is why you can't have a "dialogue" with these people. Not that it is morally or intellectually repugnant to do so but impossible.

Just read the words of Saudi cleric, Salman al-Oda:

Nobody says you should face your enemy in the battle with roses or aromatic plants, or that you should give him your head on a platter. Even Christianity, which says that if you are struck on the right cheek, you should turn your left cheek, and if you are asked to give your coat, you should give your shirt as well, also includes the words of Jesus: “I came not to bring peace, but a sword.” As we see, the Christians today are the ones who attack the world of Islam. It is not the world of Islam that is aggressive. Who colonized whom? Who invaded Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and every piece of the world of Islam? The Islamic world is subject to the aggression, the strikes, and the colonialism of the Western powers. Today, we see that the extremist, terrorist American and British administrations are attacking the Islamic world, supporting all the forces of violence and extremism, and abandoning the scales of justice.

Now you listen to me, you piece of crap, the founder of Christianity did not murder others, burn libraries, wage wars or deflower children. If you had the brains to read the entirety of the Pope's address and understand the message of a true religion of peace (the one founded by, as you may remember, "a monkey on the cross" ), then you would know that violence defies reason and is not conjunctive to the human soul, that Pope Benedict XVI was QUOTING a man under seige from lovely representatives of your backward religion and has been studying Islam extensively and that everything the Pope said was proven over and over and over again. Remember, too, that the West did not SHOOT A NUN IN THE BACK (a true martyr and a servant of God who looked after YOUR poor and suffering). There are no American, British or Zionist conspiracies. No one is trying to get you, least of all Christians (you know- whose churches you burn and from whom you demand jeziya- protection money- the pure gratitude of not being beaten up your thugs). You must think the rest of the world is stupid but you. YOU cause your own problems with your violence and ignorance.

I would like to take up Emperor Manuel II Paleogus' question: show me what good Islam has done for society. Where are the hospitals and schools (not the madrassas that recruit future suicide-bombers)? Where are the bodies of art, literature and philosophy? How many wells were dug? How many children immunised? What have you done to make everyone think that yours truly is a religion of peace and not a band of thugs who maim and butcher?

Let the world know when you think of an answer.

Now the comment:

Boy, you didn't just say deflower children and Pope in the same sentence did you? that, is as they say, rich. on Just Insufferable

Allow me to retort...


Yeah, I did. The Pope didn't harm any children but did take steps to remove the truly criminal among the Church's ranks AND fried the perpetually angry who do have it in their creed to deflower children and have done so.


I hope that answers your question and thanks for posting.

Mid-Week Post

The crux of the work week….

Economist Don Drummond has bad news for McGuinty:

The Ontario government needs to “swiftly and boldly” implement all of the hundreds of recommendations in a massive report released Wednesday if it wants to eliminate a projected $30.2 billion deficit by 2017, warns economist Don Drummond.

“Unfortunately, we’re dealing with a harsh reality in identity here,” said Mr. Drummond, author of the 543-page report and former chief economist with TD Bank.

The audit, which took nearly a year to complete, offered 362 recommendations in various sectors including health care, education, social programs, justice and labour relations.

Ontario is living beyond its means right now, Mr. Drummond said in a news conference.

“In each sector we looked at, we can certainly both improve the quality of the service and cut the spending associated with it, but only if we introduce reforms. Not if we continue with the same approach,” he said.
Among his harshest proposals, Mr. Drummond suggests the government instill a wage freeze for doctors, that departments should not budget for any wage increases, improve the delivery of health services and ask Ottawa to be responsible for inmates sentenced to incarceration longer than six months.

The report also asks the government to consider axing full-day kindergarten, increase class sizes and raise the retirement age for teachers.

In its 2011 budget, the Ontario government had projected its deficit to climb to $16-billion, but Mr. Drummond says his projects peg it at more than double that if the province continues its current spending.

Why was he re-elected? 

The melodrama carries over to another generation: 

Liberal MP Justin Trudeau put his foot in his mouth during a 16 minute radio interview in French with Radio-Canada.

No, he didn't use an expletive this time, he did something, some would argue, is much worse.

According to the Globe and Mail, Trudeau offered a scenario whereby he might support Quebec separation.

"I always say, if at a certain point, I believe that Canada was really the Canada of Stephen Harper — that we were going against abortion, and we were going against gay marriage and we were going backwards in 10,000 different ways — maybe I would think about wanting to make Quebec a country," the Globe and Mail quoted him saying.

Trudeau has since backtracked on his comments tweeting "Canada needs [Quebec] to balance out Harper's vision that I (and many) just don't support."

Like father, like son. 

The price one pays for waking up:

Given the incredible density of the popular Liberal mind, how the readers of my articles were unable to see how the beliefs of Islam were in direct conflict with human rights, gay rights, women’s rights and basic Democratic Values, I wrote a final piece called, “Are You In Favor of Human Rights?” and that one of course got me banned from Daily Kos.  It should be noted that in one of the Loonwatch.com articles the author, a person simply calling himself “Danios” demanded that DKOS silence me and provided a link for its readers to email the editors of the Daily Kos, demanding that this “Islamophobe” be censored.  And it worked – once again proving the oil and water relationship between Islam and tolerance for free speech.

Read the whole thing.

The knee-jerk reactionaryism, the Islamist apologetics and the demand for censorship are not uncommon in liberal/leftist circles. Why such people are called “progressives” boggles my mind. Had they the vast treasure trove of proof and logic on their side, surely they would put to rest anything they thought was false and inflammatory. But there is no such treasure trove. All they have is their naivety and contrarian attitudes.

Could this be another person unable to pick up on inter-personal cues?

Using data from previous studies in Britain, researchers at Brock University in Canada claim to have discovered a relationship between IQ scores and political orientation.  The study suggests that persons of lower IQ choose to be conservatives because conservatism opposes change and is thus "safer" for those who are slow to adapt.  Not only that, the researchers find that conservatives, being persons of low intelligence, are less tolerant, less original, and less open-minded than others.

In a separate study, Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics purports to have found that highly intelligent people tend to identify themselves as liberals and atheists.  Researchers suggest that the link may reflect "evolutionary forces," as smarter humans advance the species with "new thinking," or it may result from smarter individuals competing for status by embracing unconventional and "advanced" ideas. 

There are several fallacies, I believe, behind both of these studies.  Intentionally or not, the "questions asked" -- in this case, IQ tests from as long as forty years ago that measure a subset abstract intelligence but nothing else -- were selected to arrive at the result that libs are smarter.

In fact, on all measures of practical intelligence and performance, conservatives would seem to be brainier.

Standard IQ tests have never been a very good predictor of success because they fail to measure a broad range of mental aptitudes -- everything from mechanical ability to social skills and emotional stability.  Many of these alternative mental aptitudes contribute to one's ability to function in the real world.  They comprise a set of skills that philosophers have traditionally referred to as "good sense," the sort of intelligence that liberals appear to lack entirely if we are to judge from their recent "investments" in green energy and their mishandling of health care reform.  

In contrast to the abstract reasoning measured by standard IQ testing, this deeper intelligence plays a crucial role in making essential life choices.  It involves more than solving problems on paper; it makes possible prudent choices, careful planning, and responsible behavior over the course of an entire lifetime.  The evidence suggests that liberals don't score too well on these benchmarks.  It is a fact, for instance, that those stodgy conservative sorts who marry and stay married over the period of a lifetime live longer.  They also raise children who are less likely to commit crimes, take drugs, or commit suicide.  And they end up donating more to charity and participating more in volunteer activities.  All of these measurements reflect a more profound order of intelligence that exists among conservatives and not among liberals.

Remember- Stephen Harper signed trade agreements with them and “students and creative professionals” are our social betters:

But Apple, like Nike and the Gap before it, inevitably gets extra attention because of its visibility, its success, and its monolithic mystique. When it uses Third World labour, its customers—among whom students and creative professionals are overrepresented—might well expect it to be a force for good. Under Jobs, however, Apple chose to be inscrutable and unresponsive in the face of concerns over suppliers. That strategy has, so far, worked. The company recaptured the global lead in the smartphone market for the fourth quarter of 2011, a year in which its market capitalization grew to over US$400 billion. Its latest quarterly profit was over $13 billion—the most by any company in corporate history. But how quickly might that change if consumers continue, more and more, to question the morality of buying Apple?

It’s undisputed that Foxconn City assembly-line workers face conditions that wouldn’t be tolerated in the West. Most of them live on campus in spartan, cramped dorms, and many do their jobs standing up. Laws limiting the lengths of shifts and the minimum age for workers seem to be flouted fairly routinely. Breaks are all but unheard-of. Workers have occasionally dropped dead on the line from exhaustion.

The factory is closely policed by a brutal security staff, and “troublemakers” who organize, or even meet privately to discuss their rights, find themselves blacklisted.

There has been lingering controversy over the use of hexane, which can cause neurotoxicity after chronic exposure, to clean new touchscreens prior to packaging.

(137 workers were poisoned non-fatally by hexane at another Chinese Apple supplier in 2009, and aluminum-dust explosions at two factories making Apple cases and heat sinks, including one owned by Foxconn, killed four and injured 77 last year.)

But most damning have been the Foxconn suicides: 18 attempts in 2010 and 14 deaths. Analysts were quick to point out that the implied rate of suicide was actually low by general Chinese standards, but what stood out was that 17 of the suicide attempts involved leaps from the roofs of Foxconn buildings. The impression that workers were trying to signal desperation to the world was unavoidable. Foxconn raised pay in Shenzhen and announced other reforms, but the netting it had to erect around its rooftops to discourage jumpers has become a symbol of Taylorist productivity mania run mad. Apple is in the business of selling magic and joy, and images of mass suicide comport poorly with that business model.

Do liberals even listen to themselves when they speak? Do they think before they speak?

This amateurish opinion piece says not:

Ultra liberal Martin Bashir hit a new low on Tuesday, outrageously comparing Rick Santorum to mass-murdering dictator Joseph Stalin. In a fit of vitriol, the MSNBC anchor also connected the Republican to George Orwell’s Big Brother from 1984. However, the most repugnant moment came when Bashir spewed, “If you listen carefully to Rick Santorum, he sounds more like Stalin than Pope Innocent III.”

Stalin’s useful idiot.

Where's your messiah now, Dawkins? 

(With thanks) 

 

I can’t believe someone would use dogs for evil:

A protest outside the Westminster dog show aimed at Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has drawn about a dozen demonstrators and a few pooches.

The half-hour protest Tuesday in New York by Dogs Against Romney took issue with Romney's oft-told story of travelling with his Irish setter. Romney said he put the dog inside a crate and strapped it to the roof rack for a 12-hour drive on a 1983 family vacation.

The protesters held signs that said "Mitt is Mean" and "Dogs Aren't Luggage."

American Kennel Club spokeswoman Lisa Peterson says putting a dog in a crate for car travel is the first step toward responsible dog ownership. But she says the second step is putting that crate inside the car.

Why? Be mad at whichever candidate isn't Obama but leave the dogs out of it. 

And now, a puppy is rescued from a drain pipe:

A tiny four-week-old puppy managed to crawl through a basement grate of his owner's house in west Detroit. The dachshund-pug mix was separated from its mother, and got stuck in the underground drain pipe where he remained overnight.

"It was crying, and I was crying all night, I felt so bad," the dog's owner, who asked not to be identified, told WXYZ News.

The next morning, the Humane Society's emergency rescue department came to the puppy's rescue. Unable to see the dog, rescuers used a stethoscope to track the pup's location.

What happened next was an elaborate rescue, caught on camera, which included an excavator:

"They dug a 7-foot-deep trench to free the canine, which traveled about 15 feet from the drain opening and became wedged within the pipe that connects to a storm drain line beneath the house," UPI reported.

Cats as fonts.

Happy Saint Valentine's Day

Or do they?

Today is the feast day of the patron saint of beekeepers, birds that mate for life and love.

This is interesting:

Iran may reject Western influences, but Valentine's Day has become a growing phenomenon thanks to the romantically minded youth of the Islamic state's affluent classes.

Although the ruling clerics and hardline politicians have been waging a campaign against what they call "decadent" cultural imports, the Christian day dedicated to amorous displays has so far survived.

Part of the reason could be the sheer number of young adults in the country: 60 percent of the 75 million-strong population is under 30, and one Iranian in three is aged 15 to 30.

With many of them unmarried, and with bars, clubs and mixed parties all banned under the country's strict laws, Valentine's Day is increasingly seen as a tolerated courting opportunity -- one whose commercial side is much appreciated by Iranian retailers.

Several shopkeepers in Tehran told AFP that demand for rose bouquets, sentimental cards with the English word "love", chocolate, perfume and even teddy bears was strong, adding to a growing trend of recent years.

And nothing says "love" like a badly made cake.



It is also the feast day of Saints Cyril and Methodius who developed Cyrillic.

Have you always wanted to know how to say "love" in Russian? Sure you have. Well, you're in luck.

Aaahhh.... the poetry...

For A Monday

Starting the week off…

One would think the Greeks would be grateful: 

Greece has admitted it still faces a tough job in persuading the European Union and IMF to save it from bankruptcy even after parliament approved savage extra budget cuts, provoking a night of looting and burning in central Athens.

A suspicious EU has told leaders of the two parties left in the government of technocrat Prime Minister Lucas Papademos to give written commitments by Wednesday that they will implement the pay, pension and job cuts after elections expected in April.

As parliament debated the austerity package on Sunday night, riot police fought running battles with protesters outside. By daybreak on Monday 93 buildings had been wrecked or seriously damaged in the city centre, some of them historic monuments.

Is Iran behind this? 

Israel accused arch-enemies Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah of being behind twin bomb attacks that targeted Israeli embassy staff in India and Georgia on Monday, wounding four people.

Tehran denied involvement in the attacks, which amplified tensions between two countries already at loggerheads over Iran's nuclear program, and accused Israel of carrying out the attacks itself. Hezbollah made no comment.

In the Indian capital New Delhi, a bomb wrecked a car taking an Israeli embassy official to pick up her children from school, police said. The woman needed surgery to remove shrapnel but her life was not in danger.

Her driver and two passers-by suffered lesser injuries.

Israeli officials said an attempt to bomb an embassy car in the Georgian capital Tbilisi failed, and the device was defused.

If so, this could be the sleeping giant attacks it has warned it would carry out.

No, give them nothing because this cycle will never end if you do:

The first of 22 modular homes promised by the federal government to Attawapiskat has arrived to the remote northern Ontario First Nations community, the Aboriginal Affairs minister's office confirmed Sunday.

Related: how do their parents feel about this?

Here's some shocking news: a new report finds major failings with aboriginal education in Canada.

The report by a national panel on First Nations elementary- and secondary-school education called on the federal government to set up an oversight body, The Canadian Press reports.

It also recommended that local organizations similar to school boards be set up.

And it called for more money to be put into the system.

Specific recommendations in the report, entitled Nurturing the Learning Spirit of First Nation Students, include creating a child-centered First Nations Education Act, setting up a national commission on First Nation education to support reform and improvement efforts, setting up regional organizations to provide support and services for First Nations schools and students, ensure adequate funding for the system and establish a system of accounting and reporting.

Is there the drive to learn, grow and succeed? If not, you are doing what one normally does: throwing money at the problem.

Unbelievable: 

Rescuers have pulled a 5-year-old girl alive from the rubble of a house flattened by a massive avalanche that killed both her parents and at least seven of her relatives in a remote mountain village in southern Kosovo.

Col. Shemsi Syla, a spokesman for the Kosovo Security Force, said Sunday officers discovered the girl when they heard her voice and cellphone. Her home was buried under 10 metres (33 feet) of snow.

Rescuers cheered and pumped their fists in the air late Saturday as the girl was pulled out alive. A video aired on Klan Kosova TV showed rescuers covering the girl with blankets, before she was rushed to hospital.

Thank God for that.

What he said:

what can I say. While the US is making plans to colonize space, we imbeciles are breaking statues. We deserve our misery. May God give us more.

Bingo.

What blame-games Islamists play. Everyone is at fault for their socio-political, cultural, mental and emotional retardation but them. What misery they bring on themselves is their own doing and can be undone if they truly wished it. How can anyone think things like this are progressive?

Why Celebrity Apartheid Week matters: Samuel L. Jackson has joined the ranks of the perpetually stupid:

In an interview with Ebony Magazine, actor Samuel L. Jackson spoke candidly about his support of President Obama in 2008, the New York Post reports. “I voted for Barack because he was black,” Jackson revealed. “‘Cuz that’s why other folks vote for other people — because they look like them.”

Right. However, there are no petite blogging politicians. At least none that I can see. Your argument, therefore, Mr. Jackson, is invalid.

Stick to acting.

Why couldn’t Christopher Hitchens be more like his brother?

So, it’s not a matter of children being sexualised but who sexualises them. Right.  As long as we’re disgusted by the abuse of children. Oh wait… these contraceptive-spewing freaks aren’t.

American bishops will not be moved:

Catholic bishops say they remain opposed to President Obama's plan to require insurers to provide free birth control, even if religiously affiliated employers such as Catholic hospitals and universities aren't forced to pay for it.

"The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is for HHS [the Department of Health and Human Services] to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services," the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a statement.

The statement, issued late Friday, makes clear that the bishops' opposition goes beyond the "religious freedom" dispute that had riled Washington in recent weeks. The government's decision to guarantee women access to contraceptives "remains a grave moral concern," they said.

On Friday morning, Obama called Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, the bishops conference president, to tell him of the revised rule. Initially, Dolan described the move as a "first step in the right direction."

But in the later statement, the bishops conference said it would continue to object because of Obama's decision "to retain HHS's nationwide mandate of insurance coverage of sterilization and contraception."

"We will therefore continue — with no less vigor, no less sense of urgency — our efforts to correct this problem through the other two branches of government," they said.

Related:

I once thought Obama voted against the Born-Alive Act and passionately supported Planned Parenthood to secure the hardcore radical feminist vote.  I was wrong.  Obama's commitment to abortion goes far deeper.  Limbaugh nailed it: "Abortion is the sacrament to the religion of liberalism" -- a religion of which I, Lloyd Marcus, believe that Obama is a zealot.

His name is Andrew Breitbart and he doesn’t need your DAMN pity.

Put a man’s nose to the grindstone and he is likely to go to the rooftop with a gun and protect his property.

Signs your civilisation might be crumbling: “who the f… is Paul McCartney?”

Oh, just THIS guy.

(Muchas gracias)

Some good news:

His heart was put together properly, it just didn't work normally," George's cardiologist, Dr. Anne Dipchand, told The Toronto Star. "He had very significant or severe end-stage heart failure."

He would not survive — or ever leave Sick Kids Hospital — without a new heart.

After six weeks or worrying and waiting, a small, healthy heart became available for a transplant.

Seven days later, George was discharged from the hospital and welcomed home by his parents and big sister, Elle, 3.

Dr. Dipchand believes the boy, who is thriving with his new heart, has a good chance "to live a long life."

George's parents have written a letter of deep gratitude to the anonymous family who donated their dying child's organs to their son.

Let's hope for the best.