First Blood Diamonds - Now Blood Computers

When the film Blood Diamond came out in 2006, people were startled at the alleged origins of the precious stones from areas of bloody conflict and began asking whether the jewels on their fingers cost a human life. Will consumers soon find themselves asking similar questions about their cell phones and computers?


In a report released earlier this week, Global Witness claims that multinational companies are furthering a trade in minerals at the heart of the hi-tech industry that feeds the horrendous civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo – DRC. However, the accused companies, with varying degrees of hostility, deny any culpability, saying Global Witness oversimplifies a complex economic process in a chaotic geopolitial setting.


The provinces of North and South Kivu in the eastern DRC are filled with mines of cassiterite, wolframite, coltan and gold — minerals needed to manufacture everything from lightbulbs to laptops, from MP3 players to Playstations. Over the past 12 years of armed conflict in the region, control of these valuable natural resources has allegedly become a lucrative way for warring parties to purchase munitions and fund their fighting. The Global Witness report claims to have followed the supply chain of these minerals from warring parties to middlemen to international buyers.


By the time metals reach electronics companies, they may have changed hands as many as seven times. This means that without a clear supply history, when a consumer sets her cell phone to vibrate, a function enabled through the mineral wolframite, it is virtually impossible for her to know whether she is using wolframite mined in the eastern DRC, the site of horrific fighting and killing.


More than 5 million people have been killed since the conflict began in 1996, some through direct abuse, others through the political and economic chaos that the conflict has created. Armed groups frequently force civilians to mine the minerals, extorting taxes and refusing to pay wages. The report quotes one miner from South Kivu: "We are their meat, their animals. We have nothing to say."


According to Global Witness, although the Congolese army and FDLR rebel groups have been warring on opposite sides for years, they are collaborators in the mining effort, at times providing each other with road and airport access and even sharing their spoils. Researchers say they found evidence that the mineral trade is much more extensive and profitable than previously suspected: one Congolese government official reported that at least 90% of all gold exports from the country were undeclared. And the report charges that the failure of foreign governments to crack down on illicit mining and trade has undercut development endeavors undertaken by the international community in the war-torn region.


The study, Faced with a Gun, What Can You Do?, raises questions about the involvement of nearly 240 companies spanning the mineral, metal and technology industries. It specifically fingers four main European and Asian companies as open buyers in this trade: Thailand Smelting and Refining Corp. (owned by British Amalgamated Metal Corp.), British Afrimex, Belgian Trademet and Traxys. And it questions the role of others further down the manufacturing chain, including prominent electronics companies Hewlett-Packard, Nokia, Dell and Motorola.


British Amalgamated Metal Corp. (AMC) firmly denies the accusations, citing its standing objective to improve visibility so that warring parties do not benefit from trade. "We are disappointed with the number of inaccuracies and omissions in the report and are concerned that all the facts should be properly represented in a balanced way," AMC said. The company statement went on to say, "We are concerned that Global Witness' approach will lead to a de facto ban on the trade which we do not believe is in either the short term or the long term interests of the Congo either economically, politically or socially."


Traxys CEO Mark Kristoff told TIME that his company suspended trade in the DRC in May 2009 until there is a clearer road map for cooperation among companies, the U.N. and governments for a plan of social action. He added that Traxys' $50 million in trade in the DRC is equivalent to 1% of the company's total business. Afrimex told TIME via e-mail that its last shipment from the DRC took place in September 2008 and all such transactions have since ceased. "Any link between Afrimex's past mineral-trading and armed groups remain wholly unfounded," the statement said. "We remain at a loss to understand why Afrimex is still being mentioned by Global Witness." Global Witness spokesperson Amy Barry said, "Just because they have claimed to stop sourcing at this point doesn't change the fact that they were sourcing during our research. So we still think that the evidence we uncovered is worth bringing to the public's attention."


Other companies were less confrontational. In a statement, Hewlett-Packard said, "We are helping to address this serious concern through voluntary measures. Ensuring that electronics manufacturing does not contribute to human-rights violations in the DRC takes co-operation and commitment within every layer of the supply base."


Some of the companies named in the report defend their business in the DRC by noting that their practices abide by the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct or the ethical principles of the International Tin Research Institute. Global Witness calls for higher standards in these industry guidelines to successfully monitor trade systems in conflict areas


"We are absolutely not calling for companies to pull out because we acknowledge it is a legitimate source of livelihood." The group's chief Congo researcher, Carina Tertsakian, puts it this way: "This is a question of will. If the companies are serious about trading in a way that is clean, they have the means to do it."



Til later

Telegraph-Journal Apologizes to Prime Minister Harper - Monkeys to the Rescue

Well...my my! What a nasty little can of worms this turned out to be. You have to be very careful when you mess around with the Holy Ghost and the Catholic mass. Isn't it just the oldest game in history - mixing politics and religion?

Take a close look at this picture - just what is he doing anyways.....


Yesterday the National Post and a few other Canadian news media covered the story of how the Saint John Telegraph-Journal - Saint John's terribly one sided paper 'inaccurately' made the statement tht Prime Minister Stephen Harper was attempting to pull a little slight of hand with the communion wafer during the recent Romeo LeBlanc funeral mass.


I could not believe this when I read it. An amateur video showed Harper holding the wafer but not eating it... Was there no new lows this man would not sink to in his pact with the Devil? What was he doing with it? Was he not able to take communion because of unforgiven trespasses against God and man? Was he going to plant it on Michael Ignatieff during a political debate in an effort to discredit him? Just what was he up to? Did he commit a sacrilegious faux-pas by walking away with the body of Christ?



Yesterday the TJ were forced to apologize to Prime Minister Stephen Harper for the story which the newspaper said "was inaccurate and should not have been published." The story created a national controversy that lasted for several days while Harper was attending a G8 gathering in Italy and preparing to meet the Pope. THE POPE NO LESS!!


"There was no credible support for these statements of fact at the time this article was published, nor is the Telegraph-Journal aware of any credible support for these statements now," said the apology. "The Telegraph-Journal sincerely apologizes to the prime minister for the harm that this inaccurate story has caused."



The newspaper also apologized to the two reporters whose bylines appeared above the story. "Our reporters Rob Linke and Adam Huras, who wrote the story reporting on the funeral, did not include these statements in the version of the story that they wrote. In the editing process, these statements were added without the knowledge of the reporters and without any credible support for them," said the apology.


The story said that a senior Roman Catholic priest had demanded that Harper's office explain what happened to the communion wafer which was handed to the prime minister during the state funeral. The story also described video footage that showed the prime minister taking the wafer, but cut away before Harper was seen consuming it. I highly doubt that. With a Cathedral full to the rafters and media cameras galore, he was actually eyeing Harper to see if he 'chewed' or 'did not chew' the wafer. Yeah.


You would think that a paper would have checked all the facts before making a ridiculous statement such as that. A Telegraph-Journal newsroom employee who answered the phone said "no one will be talking" about the issue. An aide to publisher Jamie Irving said there would be "no comment."


CBC News has confirmed that editor Shawna Richer has been fired and that Jamie Irving is no longer the publisher of the paper. Earlier, their names had been removed from the paper's list of senior staff.


"Our reporters Rob Linke and Adam Huras, who wrote the story reporting on the funeral, did not include these statements in the version of the story that they wrote. In the editing process, these statements were added without the knowledge of the reporters and without any credible support for them. "The Telegraph-Journal sincerely apologizes to the prime minister for the harm that this inaccurate story has caused. We also apologize to reporters Rob Linke and Adam Huras and to our readers for our failure to meet our own standards of responsible journalism and accuracy in reporting."


Who the heck is in charge of editing this rag I wanna know? A room full of monkeys. Apparently no!...monkeys would have caught that gaff!!


The apology comes on the same day that a dozen professors from the University of New Brunswick, Mount Allison University and St. Thomas University issued a news release stating that they will no longer talk to the newspaper because of its decision to fire a student intern over factual errors that appeared in a story.


In May, Matt McCann was fired after writing a story about a faculty protest against Premier Shawn Graham receiving an honorary degree from the University of New Brunswick. Richer said McCann's story was unbalanced and contained three errors. The professors joining the boycott include six from St. Thomas, four from UNB and two from Mount Allison university. They say they will reconsider the boycott when McCann graduates in 2010 or if he is reinstated at the Telegraph-Journal.


It was another in an embarrassing string of events for the Telegraph-Journal. Saint John Mayor Ivan Court dared the newspaper's publisher to a debate and temporarily imposed his own ban on speaking to the Telegraph-Journal in January over his belief that the paper was too negative in its coverage of city hall. Court then said in late June that Irving and several senior newspaper staff members had told him in a private meeting that if the city cut taxes and replaced its manager, the tone of city hall coverage would change. "I and our former manager met Jamie Irving and his editorial staff in the manager's office. And we were told that unless we did what they wanted, they would continue what you see daily in the paper. And we saw the result of that: We no longer have a city manager," Court said.


From my point of view, this has nothing to do with the Irvings, this has nothing to do with the size of the family business. It all has to do with the editorial integrity of the newspaper, the health of civic debate and what looks to me like a bit of an infringement on journalistic independence.


Til later

Canadian Seal Saga - Episode 3

Just when I think this story is over, it crawls out of it's hole in the ice on it's little flipper's and strikes again!


Canada will launch a formal protest with the World Trade Organization over a ban on the import of seal products approved by the European Union, International Trade Minister Stockwell Day announced Monday. The ban, which was approved Monday at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, would be implemented in all 27 EU member countries over the next nine months, in time for Canada's next seal hunt. The ban applies to products and processed goods that come from seals, including their skins, meat, blubber, organs and oil.


At an Ottawa news conference, Day and Fisheries Minister Gail Shea said they were disappointed with Monday's vote, which they said violates WTO guidelines. "Associations of veterinarians and others have determined that Canada's hunt is indeed humanitarian, scientific and follows environmental rules of sustainability," Day said.


"And it is our view inappropriate that a trade decision is taken which is not based on the science. And for that reason we are announcing that we'll be pursuing an appeal of this vote today. We want it made very clear that there should be a clause which reflects any country that is following the humanitarian, scientific and environmental guidelines established by the EU themselves, should in fact be exempted from this particular ban."


Denmark and Romania abstained from supporting the ban during the vote, as did Austria, which wants even stronger measures against seal products. But then, I think it's Romania that itself is facing an outraged EU about it's consumption of door mice.....


David Barry of the Fur Institute of Canada, (who works at a FUR institute?) said the ban's approval was "not unexpected." "We feel it's certainly irresponsible, completely counter-productive in terms of looking at seal practice and how to do it well, and it's simply a political move on the part of EU decision-makers," Barry said Monday morning on CTV News Channel.


In a statement, the foreign ministers said the ban was a response to concerns about the animal welfare aspects of seal hunting practices.


Many of the EU's 27 member countries charge that Canada's seal hunt, the largest in the world, is inhumane. The EU objects to the large number of animals killed during the annual hunt, which can be as high as 300,000, and the methods used, such as clubs and rifles.


Both Day and Shea said experts have deemed Canada's seal hunt to be humane, something that animal rights groups say is not true. Rebecca Aldworth, director of the Humane Society International Canada, said government reports show that 97 per cent of seals killed during the hunt are less than three months of age. What about Veal and Lamb - as I remember those are baby cows and baby sheep - is that inhumane as well? Wheres the outrage? Is nothing said regarding this practice because the Veal and Lamb industry worth approximately $5 billion in North America Alone?


Ban will affect 'many Canadian livelihoods'


The federal government has always said that a ban unfairly targets Canada's Northern communities. The views of Canada's Inuit have not been considered by the EU. They have made themselves quite clear that an exemption will not help them, yet European officials persist in pretending that it will. The ban does exempt products that stem from traditional seal hunts carried out by the Inuit, as well as traditional hunts in Greenland, Alaska and Russia. Products from traditional hunts can be exported to the EU, but only on a "not-for-profit" basis.


Last year, Canada exported about $3.5 million worth of seal products to the EU. The federal government estimates the ban could cost some 6,000 sealers in Canada up to 35 per cent of their earnings. The sealing industry is crucial to many small coastal communities and to Northern aboriginal people, where few economic opportunities exist. In caving to pressure from NGOs for a seal product ban, European Union has taken short-sighted and irresponsible actions that will affect many Canadian livelihoods.


The ban will not compromise the main seal product markets. Russia and China are developing markets for seal skin and oil, (where their bad press?) while markets for meat are found in Northern communities and Newfoundland.


But the ban puts a negative label on the 12,000 Canadians who have commercial sealing license., It more so affects them in a labelling sort of way in the sense that we have 27 Western nations who have now arbitrarily decided that a commercial seal hunt is somehow inherently inhumane.


And again, I want to stress that I am a animal lover and a VERY non-violent person. Just ask hubby - I have not smacked him in weeks.


Til later

Irving Giveth and Irving Taketh Away....New Oil Refinery for Saint John Shelved

Rising fuel-efficiency standards, changing consumer habits and growing use of ethanol in the United States played a big role in the cancellation of an $8-billion proposed refinery in New Brunswick.


Irving teamed up 18 months ago to study the feasibility of building a second 300,000 b/d refinery in Saint John to boost gasoline supplies in the U. S. Northeast. Construction was slated to start in 2011 or 2012.But they scrapped those plans yesterday after spending nearly $80-million on technical and commercial feasibility studies. Kevin Scott, director of refining growth for Irving, said gasoline demand has declined in the past two years, after growing steadily by 1% to 2% for years, and those declines appear permanent.


The move marks the third cancellation or delay of refining projects in Atlantic Canada in the past year. Harvest Energy Trust has deferred a $2-billion expansion of its Come-by-Chance plant in Newfoundland, and plans by Newfoundland and Labrador Refining Corp. for a new facility were stalled by the credit crunch. The refinery project was already on a slow track. Late last year, Irving changed the project's timing to a maximum eight years from three or four. At the time, the company said it was concerned about labour shortages, financing costs and the economic slump. The new refinery would have sourced oil from Canada's East Coast offshore projects, the North Sea, West Africa and South America.


The cancellation means the company will not need, for now, to try to repatriate thousands of tradesmen that moved to Alberta from Atlantic Canada in recent years to work in the oil sands.


The cancellation deals a major blow to New Brunswick's vision of a building a major energy hub in the Saint John area to serve Eastern Canada and the U.S. Northeast. The new initiatives would have been anchored by the expanded Irving refinery capacity, which would have doubled in size. The refinery expansion would have contributed about $7-billion of the $15-billion to $20-billion in new capital investment touted for the region.


The hub idea, heavily endorsed by Irving Oil and the provincial government, is to use Saint John's location and deep harbours to become a key delivery and transmission point for the U.S. Northeast.


Much was riding on these proposals because of Saint John's recent history of economic decline, given the loss of a sugar refinery, of ship-building operations, and the difficulties facing the provincial forestry industry. At its peak, the project was expected to create several thousand construction jobs.


Scores of energy projects were cancelled or put on hold in the oil sands last fall, but some are being re-considered with the economy recovering and oil prices rebounding. While the recession played a role in depressing gasoline demand, the proposed refinery is one of the first in North America to be scrapped because of expectations of lower consumption over the longer term.


Til later

California's drive to legalize Marijuana

"Yesssss......" we are one step closer to totally domination. America thinks that we Canadians just sit up here in our deep freeze, quietly watching hockey and drinking beer. Appearing serene and non-lethal, slowly our way of life is seeping into the American psyche.


First we crank them up with Tim's Horton's coffee, now we will mellow them out with legalized medicinal marijuana, and soon they will all be quietly "California Dreaming."


For years they have been pointing north and claiming that Canada was an example of what legalized pot produced. A whole country of laid back potheads, who produced bad movies and wouldn't support them when they invaded third world nations.


BUT...they have changed their tune now baby!! In the last week or two, proposals to legalize medical marijuana have advanced in Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has taken a significant step further, saying on Tuesday that it's time to debate legalizing marijuana for recreational use in California.


They say desperate times call for desperate measures and they are definitely in desperate times. The biggest problem about the US economy is that they don’t make anything anymore. They closed the textile mills and now get their clothes from China, they get electronic goods from Japan, food from God knows where.


"I think it's time for debate," he said in response to a reporter's question. "I think all of those ideas of creating extra revenues -- I'm always for an open debate on it." "Right now, the state is in a budget fiasco that not going to go away soon... It's about time they look outside the box at ways of generating revenue."


America was sent into a depression 80 years ago after the US made alcohol illegal . During that time organized crime flourished while the economy suffered. America did not bounce out of that depression til after they made alcohol legal again in 1933.


If there is anything Americans know how to make, market and distribute, its marijuana. America has been marketing marijuana for years through music, movies, comedy and t-shirts. Illegal botanists have been making various high powered strands of marijuana while the US hasn’t had an agricultural innovation since the peanut.


But supporters of legalization may have been handed their most convincing argument yet: the bummer economy. Advocates argue that if state or local governments could collect a tax on even a fraction of pot sales, it would help rescue cash-strapped communities. Not surprisingly, the idea is getting traction in California, home to both the nation"s largest supply of domestically grown marijuana (worth a estimated $14 billion a year) and to the country"s biggest state budget deficit (more than $26 billion).


A recent California Field Poll showed that more than half the people in the state, where marijuana for medical use was approved more than a decade ago, would approve of decriminalizing pot. The state's faltering economy is one reason why. If legalized, marijuana could become California's No. 1 cash crop. It could bring in an estimated $1 billion a year in state taxes.


America has not had a cash crop in years. Sugar and the rum trade gave the Americas its first economic boom. Tobacco gave it its second. America has a long history of making money of drugs. People have reported that marijuana is the nation’s biggest cash crop, more than corn and soy combined. It is said that marijuana is responsible for $36 billion annually in the USA, none of which is taxed.


Today we are paying farmers not to grow crops. If farmers were allowed to grow marijuana, they would not need anymore subsidies and also be able to create badly needed jobs in the agricultural industries. If weed were legalized, farmers would also be able to grow hemp which can be used to make clothes, fuel food and many other things. It would be nice for America to have a product to export rather than importing everything, hemp could fill that role.


A lot of marijuana smoked in the states comes directly from Mexico or Canada. I hope this doesn't affect our sales!! So the sucking sound from the bong is actually American money and jobs going to Mexico and Canada.. Many agricultural, packaging and distribution jobs are all being outsourced to Mexico and Canada due to our strict marijuana laws.


Marijuana smokers are used to paying black market prices for weed. If marijuana was to be legally cultivated, it could be produced and distributed legally and cheaply. The government could then tax marijuana heavily as marijuana smokers are already used to paying marked up prices. If the USA were to legalize marijuana, many other countries would follow and America could begin importing and exporting marijuana all over the world.


Making marijuana illegal does not stop people who want to smoke it from purchasing it only makes it more of a hassle, wasting time and money on behalf of both the government and marijuana smokers.


George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin all grew hemp our last three presidents have smoked marijuana. One third of all Americans have smoked marijuana. Half of all 18 year old in America have smoked marijuana. Almost 1 million people are arrested for marijuana in a year 90% for simple possession. How many police man hours goes into arresting, incarcerating and processing these smokers?


Already many states have big problems with overcrowded prisons that they cannot afford to fund. Wouldn’t it be better to let out the marijuana smokers then the rapists, thieves and killers. Proponents of marijuana legalization have advanced plenty of arguments in support of their drug of choice - that marijuana is less dangerous than legal substances like cigarettes and alcohol; that pot has legitimate medical uses; that the money spent prosecuting marijuana offenses would be better used on more pressing public concerns. While 13 states permit the limited sale of marijuana for medical use, and polls show a steady increase in the number of Americans who favor legalization, federal law still bans the cultivation, sale, or possession of marijuana. In fact, the feds still classify marijuana as a Schedule I drug, one that has no "currently accepted medical use" in the United States.


Soon they will be giving up guns...too high to shoot straight.



Til later

Murder In the Name of Family Honor

As many as 5,000 women and girls lose their lives -- most at the hands of family members -- in "honour killings" around the world each year, according to the United Nations. Up to a dozen have died for the same reason in Canada in the last decade, and it's happening more often.


There are a number of organizations which don't accept the idea of honour killing; they say it's a Western-propagated myth by the media, but it's not true. Honour killing is there, and we should acknowledge it, and Canada should take it seriously.


Kingston, Ont., police are now investigating that as a motive in the deaths of three teenage sisters and an older female relative who were found in a car submerged in the Rideau Canal in Kingston on June 30. The girls' mother, father and brother were arrested on Wednesday and charged with first-degree murder.


The suspicious circumstances that led to a car, carrying the bodies of three sisters and their father's first wife, being submerged in the Rideau Canal began to unravel on Thursday, amid allegations of an unfathomable scenario where the girls' parents and brother conspired in a premeditated murder. The small detail in the indictment added yet another twist in a tragic story that appears to border on the bizarre -- including tearful displays of mourning by those who are now accused of murder, allegations from relatives that it may all have been over honour, and a revelation that the adult initially described as a cousin was actually a first wife.


In our Canadian society, we value the cultural values of everyone that makes up this great country, and some of us have different core beliefs, different family values, different sets of rules. Certainly, these individuals -- in particular, the three teenagers -- were Canadian teenagers who have all the freedom and rights of expression of all Canadians.


Honour killings can be sparked by a woman talking to a man, having a boyfriend, wearing makeup or revealing clothing. Children of immigrants who grow up inwestern nations take those freedoms for granted, which can throw them into conflict with their parents' rigid standards.


When people are moving to another country, they leave everything they have, all their possessions, behind. But what they can bring with them is what they believe, their culture, their traditions, their religion. Unfortunately, they are choosing to show the worst part of that, and the worst and criminal part of that is controlling women.


One of the earliest honour killings involving a Canadian occurred in 2000, when Maple Ridge, B.C., resident Jaswinder Sidhu was murdered in India in what police called a contract killing, after she married a man she met while travelling.


In 2003, Amandeep Atwal, 17, died after her father stabbed her 17 times. The Kitimat, B.C., teen had been secretly seeing a boyfriend.


Sixteen-year-old Aqsa Parvez's father and brother are currently awaiting trial for her strangulation death in 2007, and friends said the Brampton, Ont., teen had been clashing with her family over her refusal to wear the hijab.


In May, an Ottawa man was sentenced to life in prison for killing his sister, Khatera Sadiqi, 20, and her fiance.


There is nothing in the Koran, the book of basic Islamic teachings, that permits or sanctions honor killings. However, the view of women as property with no rights of their own is deeply rooted in Islamic culture.

Men occasionally die in honour killings, but young women are almost always the victims in western countries. Honour killing is most prevalent in nations with large Muslim populations. Some perpetrators use religion as a "cloak," but honour killing is about patriarchy, not religion. A few women are really sacrificed to terrorize all women, to push them into submission, where they are not in the position to defend themselves or even their daughters or sisters.


It's wrong-headed to blame particular cultures or further stereotype the Middle East, but Canada cannot overlook the motivation for these heinous crimes. In Canada, we have been extremely culturally sensitive, and that's a good thing, but in this particular case, we may have pushed the pendulum a little to the other side, in the sense that there are cultural components in these types of crimes which we cannot ignore.




Til later

America, beware the bogeyman of Canadian-style health care.

O.K. we - Canada - are getting way too much attention in the USA these days. I am getting nervous, you really don't want to piss these guys off!

With U.S. President Barack Obama in the midst of an intense political fight to pass comprehensive health-care legislation this year, U.S. opponents have returned to a familiar argument in efforts to derail the plan — warning Americans that all roads lead to a dysfunctional, Canadian-style, single-payer health system.

I watched an ad against health care reform in the U.S. showing Canadian Shona Holmes staring straight into the camera and telling the audience a brain tumor would have killed her had she relied on her government-run health plan, which would have provided treatment far too late. "Now, Washington wants to bring Canadian-style health care to the U.S.," a narrator says darkly.

Someone check her Social Insurance card - if she actually is Canadian - then she is guilty of treason and better start packing!

In congressional testimony, in television advertising campaigns, and on cable news talk shows, critics this week answered Obama's call for a public health insurance option with dire predictions Americans would soon face long wait times, rationing of care and poor-quality treatment that they say is common north of the border.

The increased use of Canada's health system as a political tactic in the U.S. debate followed Obama's decision this week to ramp up his personal involvement in pushing the health-care issue.

One Republican senator has even taken to attacking the Canadian system by citing a decision two years ago by former Liberal cabinet minister Belinda Stronach to seek breast cancer treatment in the United States.

"Like under the old Soviet system, everything is free and nothing is readily available," David Gratzer, a senior fellow with the conservative Manhattan Institute, said in describing Canadian health care in testimony this week to U.S. lawmakers.


Gratzer, a Manitoba-born doctor and outspoken opponent of Canada's system, counselled Congress against the "temptation" of embracing government-funded universal health care."Canadians wait for practically any diagnostic test or specialist consult procedure, and some of them opt out of the system by crossing the (U.S.) border."

"When she got cancer, what did she do? She came to the United States for her care. That's what Canadians do," Barrasso said in one interview. In another, he said the MP came to the U.S. "because we do a better job with prevention, we do a better job with early detection."

What??????

Stronach, a former human resources minister who battled breast cancer in 2007, has also been unwillingly caught up in the debate. A source close to Stronach said Barrasso had his facts wrong. Stronach chose to have a highly-specialized type of reconstructive surgery at a California facility during a latter stage of her treatment. The treatment had nothing to do with early prevention or detection, nor her faith in the Canadian health system, the source said. Her cancer WAS treated in Canada.

Me thinks this guy has been partaking some our medicinal "Ganja", if he thinks that we would travel to the U.S. for early detection.

Obviously he has not heard of the development of the "Lab on A Chip" developed by Canadian Cancer researchers, which allows for patients to be able to walk into their doctor's office, give a few drops of blood and get a diagnosis within minutes. These quick test results not only gain precious time for patient treatment, but also offer significant savings, as testing can be done at a fraction of the cost of current methods.

This advanced diagnostic development has now become a world wide protocol. We have people from all over the globe traveling HERE for cancer treatment.

In his televised interviews, the Republican senator called Canada's health care a "trick-or-treat system, and that's because it's about Halloween time when they run out of money to do things like artificial hips and artificial knees." O.K. now that's just plain RUDE!!

Ironically, Obama has also faced criticism from activists on the political left who favour the wholesale adoption of a single-payer system but complain the White House, and congressional Democrats have essentially shut them out of the debate. And Canada has its defenders in Congress.

Representative Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat and perennial presidential candidate, got into a heated debate with Gratzer — the Canadian health-care critic — during a House committee hearing this week on health reform.

"Do you know what Statistics Canada says the median wait time is across Canada for elective surgery?" Kucinich demanded of Gratzer.

"Why don't you inform us, sir?" Gratzer replied. "It's four weeks. And what does Statistics Canada say the median wait time for diagnostic imaging like MRIs is? It's three weeks," Kucinich continued."How many uninsured are there in Canada?""Probably relatively few," Gratzer said. "That's right, none or very few," said Kucinich.

Even federal Industry Minister Tony Clement, who previously held the health portfolio, felt compelled to defend Canada's health-care system at a recent business forum in Washington.

"Not a single person who is unemployed has lost the ability to access health care" during the economic recession, Clement said.

Then he recounted a long-ago appearance at a U.S. health conference when someone told him Canada's system is the bogeyman for Americans.

"And as it turns out," Clement said, "the bogeyman for Canadians when it comes to health care is the United States."

By the way Belinda Stronach would have looked ALOT better on camera.


Til later

Footnote: since the publishing of this post the media & public reaction to Ms. Holmes has been brutal - in her defense I must say that she took action at the time of her illness which best suited her situation - and I am grateful that she was treated and survived what was obviously a very serious medical situation. - Fundywriter

Ah Houston?...we have a BIG PROBLEM!

Is it just me or is travel on the space shuttle loosing it's appeal. I really believe it is time to retire those cigar tubes on steroids. With all the O rings, and broken tiles, bad foam jobs etc. I wouldn't be caught dead riding around in that old thing.

Even as the shuttle Endeavour lifted off into orbit Wednesday evening, several pieces of debris fell off the external fuel tank, and at least one hit the orbiter. Astronauts in space and engineers on the ground will spend the next few days examining and analyzing the damage to see if it might pose a danger to the shuttle on re-entry.

The launching had been delayed five times by hydrogen leaks, schedule conflicts, lightning strikes and rain. That was one short of NASA's record for the number of delays. Two previous missions, in 1986 and 1995, were delayed six times before launching on the seventh try. “Persistence pays off,” Peter Nickolenko, the launching director, said to crew members a few minutes before launching. “Good luck and Godspeed.” Or...good luck everyone, you're gonna need it!

A camera on the external tank captured about a dozen pieces of debris falling off the external tank. At least one, coming off about 1 minute 46 seconds after liftoff, hit the orbiter, leaving three marks on the heat-resistant tiles on the underside.

“We don’t consider those an issue for us,” William H. Gerstenmaier, the associate administrator for space operations, said. Maybe not for him....he's not in the tin can!! “The issues will be in the back of the vehicle.” O.k. make sure you ride upfront another words....yikes!


Now every woman's nightmare - The bathroom lines at the already crowded space shuttle and space station complex got a lot longer Sunday because of a flooded toilet. I don't even want to imagine what that looks like in a weightless atmosphere.


One of two commodes aboard the international space station malfunctioned, right in the middle of complicated robotic work being conducted by the two crews. The pump separator apparently flooded. Mission Control advised the astronauts to hang an "out of service" sign on the toilet until it could be fixed. In the meantime, the six space station residents had to get in line to use their one good toilet. And Endeavour's seven astronauts were restricted to the shuttle bathroom. There have never been so many people -- 13 -- together in space. The toilet repair work fell to Belgian Frank De Winne, who had to don goggles, gloves and a mask. O.K.....YUK.


Flight director Brian Smith declined to speculate whether overuse caused the toilet trouble. "We don't yet know the extent of the problem," Smith told reporters. "It may turn out to be of no consequence at all. It could turn out to be significant. It's too early to tell right now."

Easy for him to say, he's down on earth with approximately 5 trillion john's to choose from.

How can you tell that these things were designed by men. If women had any say in the matter, there would be one men's toilet - consisting of one stall and some sort of "sucky kind of urinal thingy" -or maybe a hose of some type, and 6 stalls for the women with dim lighting, potpourri, candles and lots of soft tissue.

NASA said there is no urgency to the bathroom situation, at least for now. But he said if the toilet remains out of action for several days, "then we'll readdress the situation and see what we have to do." Typical male attitude. What man ever wants to work on the bathroom and we women really want it done! Two bathrooms ultimately are needed for a full station crew of six. Smith said he did not know how long six occupants could rely on a single toilet. Both the shuttle and station are equipped with other ways for the astronauts to relieve themselves, Smith said, including Apollo-era urine collection bags. O.K.....enough! Getting bad mental images here.

Time to go back to the drawing board and re-group thinks me....never EVER - saw these problems afflicting Captain Kathryn Janeway. She's got her own on-suite. Call me when I can look that good in space.




Til later

Frank McCourt, a return to "Angela's Ashes"

In no way is my blog turning into an obituary column and I may have been "commanded" not to write about you know who when he died, but I must dedicate my writings today to Frank McCourt. A school teacher and Author who still no matter how many times I read his writings, (the only books besides Dickens and Austen I have read more than once), I still laugh and cry and come away feeling that I have just talked to a very special and wonderful person.

Frank McCourt was a former New York City schoolteacher who turned his miserable childhood in Limerick, Ireland, into a phenomenally popular, Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, "Angela's Ashes." He died on July 19, 2009, at the age of 78.

The poignancy of his writings always stick with me - because his story was not a story of extremely well written fiction - but rather a sad, gut wrenching and often hilariously humorous journal of his young life.

"When I look back on my childhood, I wonder how I survived at all," the book's second paragraph begins, in a now famous passage. "It was, of course, a miserable childhood: The happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood."

I swear that last line will be included with other literary quotes from great writers.


I assume most of us can look back at our childhood and remember what we imagined was one filled with horror and deprivation. I know I grew up in a home filled with mental, physical and psychological abuse - an alcoholic father who died when I was 14and who I tried to help in my own childish way and a mother who felt religion would somehow save us all. But no way in hell could it ever compete with the unbelievably horrific up-bringing he and his brothers against all odds survived.

I often thought Charles Dickens wrote about it in "Oliver Twist", Frank McCourt lived it.

In it Mr. McCourt described a childhood of terrible deprivation. After his alcoholic father abandoned the family, his mother — the Angela of the title — begged on the streets of Limerick to keep him and his three brothers meagerly fed, poorly clothed and housed in a basement flat with no bathroom and a thriving population of vermin. The book’s clear-eyed look at childhood misery, its incongruously lilting, buoyant prose and its heartfelt urgency struck a remarkable chord with readers and critics.

"People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious alcoholic father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying schoolmasters; the English and all the terrible things they did to us for 800 long years.”


“Angela’s Ashes,” published by Scribner in 1996, rose to the top of the best-seller lists and stayed there for more than two years, selling four million copies in hardback. The next year, it won the Pulitzer Prize for biography and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Two more installments of his life story followed: “ ’Tis” (1999), which described his struggle to gain a foothold in New York, and “Teacher Man” (2005), an account of his misadventures and small victories as a public-school teacher. Both, although best sellers, did not achieve anything like the runaway success of Mr. McCourt’s first book, which the British director Robert Parker brought to the screen in 1999.

Born in New York

Francis McCourt was born Aug. 19, 1930, on Classon Avenue on the edge of the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, where his Irish immigrant parents had hoped to make a better life. It was not to be, largely because his father, Malachy, usually spent his scant laborer’s earnings at the local bar. Beaten, the family returned to Limerick when Frank was 4, and the pattern repeated itself.

Three of Mr. McCourt’s six siblings died in early childhood. The family’s circumstances were so dire, he later told a student audience, that he often dreamed of becoming a prison inmate so that he would be guaranteed three meals a day and a warm bed. At home, the staple meal was tea and bread, which his mother jokingly referred to as a balanced diet: a solid and a liquid.

When Frank was 11, his father went to work in a munitions factory in Britain and disappeared from the picture. Frank stole bread and milk, which became the family’s principal means of support. After dropping out of school at 13, he delivered telegrams and earned extra income writing letters for a local landlady.

In 1949, Mr. McCourt, at 19, gathered his savings and boarded a ship for New York and a new life, which began unpromisingly. Finding a job at the Biltmore Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, he was put in charge of the 60 caged canaries in the public rooms. Thirty-nine of them died, whereupon Mr. McCourt taped the lifeless bodies to their perches. The ruse did not work.

Despite his lack of formal schooling, Mr. McCourt won admission to New York University, where he earned a degree in English education in 1957. A year later he began teaching at McKee Vocational High School on Staten Island, an eye-opening experience that he recalled, in often hilarious detail, in his third volume of memoirs, “Teacher Man.” In his first week, an unruly student threw a homemade sandwich on the floor, an act that astonished Mr. McCourt not so much for its brazenness as for the waste of good food. After appraising the sandwich with a connoisseur’s eye, he picked it up and ate it.

“I think there’s something about the Irish experience — that we had to have a sense of humor or die,” Mr. McCourt once told an interviewer. “That’s what kept us going — a sense of absurdity, rather than humor."

“And it did help because sometimes you’d get desperate,” he continued. “And I developed this habit of saying to myself, ‘Oh, well.’ I might be in the midst of some misery, and I’d say to myself, ‘Well, someday you’ll think it’s funny.’ And the other part of my head will say: ‘No, you won’t — you’ll never think this is funny. This is the most miserable experience you’ve ever had.’ But later on you look back and you say, ‘That was funny, that was absurd.’ ”


These are the lessons you get from reading any of Frank McCourts writing - his example of what people are capable of with the will to live and the ultimate spirit of human survival. The lesson to remember that time really does heal all wounds and the ability to remember that in time all life's hardships (or what we consider) will seem "funny and absurd."

I truly think that "Angela's Ashes" should be part of the mandatory reading curriculum and help the young of today to reflect on what life could have been like, next time they don't get the latest release of Play Station, or IPOD, or when their sneakers are not as cool as other kids.

For us adults, perhaps when we look back on our lives - to count on the fact that as Frank McCourt said: “I learned the significance of my own insignificant life.”

As in Shakespear's Hamlet: "Goodnight sweet Prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."



Til later

Got Pesky Bears?...no problem - just kill them!

We have a bit of a bear problem here in Saint John. Coming from Alberta, I can appreciate that bears are a little scary. I have ran across one in a campground back in Jasper and he was a little grouchy, and I wouldn't want to meet one in an alley with lets say a hot dog in my hands. At first I was on the side of the humans. The bears were getting too close to their property, scrounging around their garbage, peeking through people's patio doors and waiting out by the swing sets.

As said previously it was a pretty slow news week, and thought all the bear coverage was simply filler, but no. It seems they became the "bane" (excuse the pun) of the SJ police and there lies the problem.

New Brunswick Fish and Wildlife people should be evolved as well, they however are not giving their expertise on the situation. For days they were trying to lure the bears away with tasty treats, such as honey, Timmy's doughnuts and Crosby's molasses. That last choice may have been pushing it a bit, but it seems that none of these epicurean bear delights did not work. So the next best choice it seemed were to - kill them!

This was where I switched my allegiance and sided with the bears. Number one it is our fault that they are this close to urban centers to begin with, and then the home owners in question did nothing less but attract them in the first place. Now I know that black bears are not an in-dangered species but neither are humans, and we don't kill them when they become bother.

Due to the changing environment, bears are either losing their habitat or the sources of their food. In that case, bears, being highly adaptive, search for other sources of food – the food or even garbage that humans make. Bears are naturally shy and would avoid being seen by man, but when their survival is at stake, they get over their people-shyness and attempt to steal some snacks from humans.

If you do see a bear, you should not be afraid. They are just hungry creatures looking for food. It is only very rare that these bears attack people. Bears only attack people when you get in the way of their food or their cubs.

Hunters place bait in a barrel to attract the bears, and when these intelligent, gentle, and curious animals come to eat, they are shot—often several times before they die. Many bears escape wounded and face a slow death from blood loss, gangrene, or other infections, dehydration, or starvation.

Because of the barbaric nature of bear baiting, it has been banned in British Columbia and many U.S. states. Many Canadians and numerous hunting and conservation groups agree that this is a cruel and unsportsmanlike practice, yet black bears continue to be mercilessly slaughtered in Canada.

Mother bears who are killed leave behind orphaned cubs who- as was the case last week, when they killed the mother bear in West SJ - are completely dependent on them for food during their first 17 months, and when left in the wilderness alone, they often cannot survive. In many areas there are few restrictions against shooting mother bears with nursing cubs, leading to the destruction of entire families. Last week they killed one mother bear of two cubs, which are frightened and hiding themselves, tucked quietly away as they're mother trained them to do - in dangerous situations. They probably won't be found and will slowly starve to death.

Taken from the Telegraph Journal - Police shot and killed a female bear in west Saint John Thursday night, after she charged at them while they were standing on the deck of a home in Westgate Park. "The boys went down, they got a call about 8:30 and they went down to see what was going on," said Les Jarvis, resource ranager for District 3 of the Department of Natural Resources. They saw the bear in a driveway on Mountfield Crescent and had to back away from her because she wouldn't give ground. "Then they got up on a deck at the back of the house and the bear came at them so they put that bear down," Jarvis said. "That one was fairly aggressive - the boys hadn't seen one like that awhile." "The other two bears that might be in the are a may be last year's cubs that the same female had, so we are not sure how aggressive they are," he said. "They don't seem to be causing much problem right now."

She charged because her cubs were there as well - this was simply a natural protective mother bear reaction! Well trained animal officers would have seen this -killing her for protecting her cubs is horrific!

Sounds so expertly and humanely handled - what a joke! Shooting the bear should have been the absolute last alternative. And oh - I don't know - why not come armed with tranquilizers instead on lethal ammunition. Police just itchin to shoot something it seems!!



Til later

Welcome to Alberta....oh no wait a minute...that's England!

Considering that I am not allowed to write about MJ, because hubby told me I was not allowed to utter another word about it verbal or written, and that it is an incredibly slow news week, I, Fundywriter, have literally scoured the Internet looking for interesting little tidbits to bring to you.

Now I came upon this story which somehow slipped right under the radar here in Canada, for reasons which will be obvious, but certainly made the U.K. papers.

Being that I am from Alberta I almost P....d my pants when I read this.

Every couple of years Provinces like to re-vamp their Tourism campaigns, with brand new full blown media launches - and they work. We look at the yummy food eatin in fine restaurants, local culture and music to partake in and of course the sweeping vistas of the country or area.

Well the province of Alberta also relaunched its media package. In the past you typically saw the mighty majestic Rocky Mountains, crystal clear mountain lakes, and the vast sun kissed prairies, under the brilliant blue of an Alberta sky. (gosh - maybe I should be writing the stuff for them. All those scenes were included in this latest version - with one small addition. A five second clip of two beautiful children running along the - beautiful sand dunes and billowing sea grass growing along a white sandy beach, waves crashing along the shore.....WAIT A MINUTE?!? What waves???? where the hell are those? I lived there almost 4....well along time and I never saw any sandy dunes and breaking waves!

It seems that a Northumberland, U.K. beach was mistakenly used in the promotional advertisement for the landlocked province of Alberta.

The Alberta government issued an apology, saying it "screwed up", ah... yeah! A statement from the Alberta Public Affairs Bureau said: "At one point in the narrative we mentioned our regard for people in other places, and in that place we used the only image that did not come from Alberta. Come on! They couldn't find one single image anywhere? Also, I have written marketing and advertising for years and number one rule: when trying to promote the product or message - you should not show another product in its place assuming that will work better. That is called "False Advertising."

Despite the two places being 5,000 miles apart, and an 8 hour flight away, advertising executives charged with attracting visitors to Alberta decided to feature Bamburgh beach in Northumberland, and a boy and a girl happily running through sand dunes and tall grass on Britain's heritage coastline.

Alberta's government has denied any attempt to mislead the public and attempted to justify Bamburgh beach's inclusion. A spokesman for Ed Stelmach, the premier of Alberta, said: "The picture used just fitted the mood and tone of what we were trying to do. "Children are a symbol of the future. They symbolise that Albertans are a worldly people." Yeah...our OWN children!!

The beach concerned is a horse-shoe shaped stretch overlooked by Bamburgh Castle, built by the Normans after the original was destroyed by the Vikings, and restored by William Armstrong, Victorian industrialist. Sheelagh Caygill, marketing executive at Northumberland Tourism, said the issue had arisen at a time when the region is working to sustain a recent boom in tourism. She said: "We think it's quite funny, a landlocked province in Canada presenting an image of itself as an island.

The $24 million dollar re-branding was handled for the province by Edmonton PR firm Calder Bateman, who said they were unable to comment on work done for clients because of the terms of the government's contract. Olga Guthrie, manager of the brand initiative for Alberta's public affairs bureau, said: "This slide represents Albertans' concern for the future of the world. There's no attempt to make people think that the place pictured is Alberta." What would be the point of a Tourism campaign for Alberta that was not intended to make people think of Alberta? Also, it probably didn't help that the name "Alberta" is slapped across the image...?

Apparently the campaign has really worked though, hits on Northumberland's tourism web-site has increased 5 times to what it used to be.
And they didn't have to spend a dime.....ha! ha!

But you know....if it wasn't for the rest of Canada, Alberta would be surrounded by water....

Til later

First We Take Manhatten....Tim Hortons in Times Square!

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New York, the city that never sleeps, will now sleep even less. He! He!

Canada is now creeping in and taking over the American psyche ever so subtlely ... with none other than Tim Hortons coffee. Yes the dark brew, containing secret Columbian ingredients, blended and ground in a undisclosed bunker (apparently somewhere in the basement of Parliment Hill) which wakes up most of the Canadian population each and every morning, now will be controlling the minds (or rather cranial cavities) of New Yorkers rushing thru Times Square.

Ever so quietly, like the British sneaking up the Potomac, over the weekend, 12 Dunkin Donuts locations were converted to none other than Tim Hortons. Overnight the DD signs came down and warm fuzzy Timmy's signs went up. They never new what hit them.

This has all been a well orchestrated, carefully planned infiltration, literally years in the making. In 1998 the New York Post ran a photograph of a mouse (special CSIS agent known as "Little Grey") eating a doughnut at one of the DD locations, and then it was agreed upon that "several prime locations" would be shut down by the end of July this year and replaced with Timmys.

In an interview in the New York Magazine, the CEO of Riese Organization said he hoped to make more money (American greenbacks - not Canadian Tire money, I am assuming) with Tim Hortons because it has a broader product line that includes lunch and dinner items - in addition to coffee and doughnuts. (yeah! just wait until they taste the Chilli!!) The idea was to unveil three co-branded stores with Cold Stone Creamery, an ice cream outlet, in Times Square.

Actually the opening of Tim Hortons received extensive coverage in the city's papers this week. The New York Times explained who Tim Horton was and quoted a food industry analyst who called the organization "the number one coffee chain in Canada."

The Daily News explained what a "double double" is and The New York Post said some people hold Tim Hortons "partly responsible for the overburdening (Canada) socialized health care system. Yeesh!! always gotta be sooo dramatic these Americans!

Tim Hortons, which has more than 2,900 stores in Canada, already has about 500 outlets across the United States, this is probably why Obama was elected to the Whitehouse...

One retail analyst said in a note Friday that "time will tell" if Tim Hortons expansion into New York City will work. "A tourist mecca like New York offers the opportunity to build brand awareness but it also offers high rents and plenty of completion."

Ha! what does he know...we Canadians still don't know what they put in the coffee and why we can't stop drinking it....this is a done deal!

Canadian tourists and immigrants like Jaye Landon, who said “Wow” when she heard the news, may be the surest customers for the Tim Hortons. “It’s hard to be a Canadian and not love Tim’s,” said Ms. Landon, an Ottawa native who has lived in New York for 20 years but still has a Tim Hortons coffee mug in her kitchen. “When you’re crossing the prairie and going through bear-infested territory, Tim’s is your friend.”

o.k. see this is how we get a bad reputation...."Bear Infested??" Mosquito maybe...

Anyways next,....Americans will be wondering why they don't have multi-coloured money too! Ooohahahah!!!

Til later