March 2007
Monthly Archive
March 2, 2007
I don’t like
Harpo, not one bit. I guess that’s because I don’t trust him. He’s the master manipulator, second to none. He lacks vision but he’s up to his eyeballs in plans.
I don’t like Harpo because he doesn’t like me. Chances are, he doesn’t care much for you either. It’s no secret. He’s come out repeatedly to make disparaging remarks about Canada and Canadians, slurs that reveal what this guy is truly made of.
We know pretty well what Canadians are and their common values. Studies and polls upon polls have shown that we have a consistently centrist, liberal viewpoint and values. Harpo doesn’t share those values or that viewpoint. He can’t stand what we stand for. It makes him embarrassed when he discusses Canada with his extremist right-wing pals in America. I embarrass Harpo and so do you. Harpo does not stand with the people of Canada, Harpo stands above them.
There was a time when the Conservative party wasn’t ashamed of the modifier, “Progressive.” Harpo put an end to that. There’s nothing remotely progressive in his vision of Canada.
I guess what I most don’t like about this guy is that he worries me. He instinctively wants to meddle, to adjust the structure of Canada to his peculiar liking. He simply lacks the necessary understanding of the country for that. Harpo sees Canada from a uniquely Albertan perspective and, viewed that way, the country looks a lot different than the Canada that most of us see. I suspect it is because of his skewed focus that he so wants to meddle.
Harper wants to change our core institutions. He’d like to wage a divestiture of federal powers, a devolution of those powers to the provinces. He wants to transform the Commons and, even more, the Canadian Senate. He wants to make Canada more acceptable to Alberta and he figures he can do it before anyone has a chance to stop him.
Remember the last prime monster who wanted to shape Canada in his ego maniacal image? That was Brian Mulroney. He wanted to transform Canada into Brianland so much that he schemed and connived and manipulated until he had the premiers join him in signing a document to change the country without Canadians themselves having any say in the matter. That was the Meech Lake accord.
It was a lousy deal that would have created two classes of Canadians and an actual living, breathing country within a country, Quebec. Go back and have a look at the “distinct society” clause that was thrown into Meech to get Bourassa on side.
What was more important about Meech was what was not prescribed, what was not agreed upon. I remember reading the Ottawa papers in which Mulroney assured us all that Meech would bring peace with Quebec. The distinct society clause would bring Quebec fully into Canada and end the perpetual bickering. Mulroney stated with great pomposity that, in exchange for the distinct society clause, Quebec would be willing to have the “notwithstanding clause” expunged from the constitution. We would all be one.
Mulroney was lying through his teeth. The guy who was telling the truth was Quebec premier Robert Bourassa. He was candid throughout although English Canada wasn’t paying much attention. Bourassa said that Quebec had no intention of abandoning the “notwithstanding clause” but insisted on it being retained. In conjunction with the distinct society clause, the two measures would have operated to arguably give Quebec de facto sovereignty within Canada. It would have imbued Quebeckers with a supranational status, setting them apart from other Canadians instead of bringing us all together. Further, Bourassa also refuted Mulroney’s promise that Meech would end Quebec’s constant demands. Bourassa quite openly said that Meech was just a beginning and anything but an end. He said that the day after the constitution was amended Quebec would say “thank you very much” and put forward further demands.
Mulroney was completely out of his depth and so eager to claim the mantle of Second Father of Confederation that he tried to impose an agreement in which there was far less agreement than he’d promised.
Fortunately Clyde Wells mustered up the courage to block Meech without acceptance by the Canadian people in a referendum. That led to Meech II, the Charlatan Accord. The same nonsense repackaged to make it more appealing to the electorate. Fortunately, the Canadian people were willing to do what their premiers were not, the same premiers who had tried to pull this stunt behind our backs. We threw the accord where it belonged, in the garbage bin.
Opening constitutional negotiations in Canada is like going to war. You don’t start it unless you have a clear exit strategy. Mulroney didn’t have that. Because of his clumsy pursuit of his ego, Mulroney left the country in a position where to refuse his scheme would stoke separatist fury in Quebec.
Remember Lucien Bouchard? It was Mulroney who brought him to prominence in Ottawa and it was Mulroney who positioned Bouchard to storm out and lead perhaps the most powerful separatist movement Quebec has known. In the ashes of Mulroney’s flawed gambit we found the separatist juggernaut that Mulroney himself had launched. His legacy was the horrible mess in which he left Canada.
I think Mulroney, for all his flaws, was a brighter man than Stephen Harper. Harpo is a divider. Like a carnivore, he looks for wedge issues with which he can cut a few prey out of the herd. It’s a sleazy characteristic, opportunist and mean. I don’t want a person of Harpo’s fused intellect and lamentable character to again open the Pandora’s Box of constitutional amendment.
When Mulroney showed up on the scene as PC leader, Canadians flocked to his party and he scored massive, back to back majorities. When he first ran for the Tory leadership I saw in him all the worst of the mythical snake oil salesman. Mulroney made me cringe when I first noticed him, during all his years as prime minister and even today he gives me the same recoil I get in smelling sour milk.
I never voted for Muldoon although plenty did. They did it not once but twice although it’s hard to find anyone these days who’ll admit to voting for Mulroney in his second, general election. Still they did put Mulroney into power and that, to me, shows how vulnerable the Canadian electorate can be to manipulation, Harpo’s best skill.
Tinkering with our constitution requires wisdom, national vision and measured diplomacy. A petulant and aggressive divider like Harper can wreak great mischief on this country before anyone has a chance to do anything about it. I expect that he would bring the same wedge and divide tactics that have served him so well in his slippery rise to power.
We don’t know Stephen Harper. The problem is, he’ll keep it that way until he gets a majority in parliament and we’ll be the worse off for that.
March 1, 2007
I Don’t Think It’s This Guy EitherThe Times of London reports that a controversial Catholic Cardinal says the Antichrist is coming:
“An arch-conservative cardinal chosen by Pope Benedict XVI to deliver this year’s Lenten meditations to the Vatican hierarchy has caused consternation by warning of an Antichrist who is ‘a pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist.’
“Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, 78, who retired as Archbishop of Bologna just over three years ago, quoted Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900), the Russian philosopher and mystic, as predicting that the Antichrist ‘will convoke an ecumenical council and seek the consensus of all the Christian confessions’.
“The ‘masses’ would follow the Antichrist, ‘with the exception of small groups of Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants’ who would fight to prevent the watering down and ultimate destruction of the faith.
“The choice of Cardinal Biffi raised eyebrows in the Vatican, given the cardinal’s forthright and sometimes eccentric views. The cardinal warned of the coming of the Antichrist during his two decades as Archbishop of Bologna, and said an “invasion” of Muslim immigrants was undermining Europe’s Christian values.”
And we thought Pat Robertson was a nutbar.
March 1, 2007
From: The Telegraph
That’s Sir Mark Sykes to you and me and scientists are hoping he can give them critical insights in the fight against bird flu and other pandemics – 90 years after Sir Mark succumbed to the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1919.
The focus has fallen on Sir Mark because he was buried in a lead-lined coffin. Researchers hope the coffin has allowed the body’s DNA to remain intact.
Researchers, “believe analysis of Sir Mark’s genetic material could uncover new information about the H1N1 virus which killed him, and help to develop drugs to fight modern forms of the disease such as bird flu (H5N1).”
March 1, 2007
From: The Telegraph
They’re called “Cybrids”, the product of implanting a human cell into the egg of a cow or rabbit. The result, as shown in The Telegraph diagram above, is an embryonic hybrid that, genetically, is almost entirely human.
Britain has decided to permit its scientists to being experimenting with Cybrids in the quest for “new treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cystic fibrosis, motor neurone disease and Huntington’s.”
Cybrids are supposed to be destroyed with fourteen days. This research has expressed concerns that it may go beyond Cybrids and extend to Chimeras, a creature composed from the cells of zygotes of two different species.
March 1, 2007
Remember Carson Kressley, the flamboyant blonde guy from “Queer Eye For The Straight Guy”? Well, he’s at the centre of a blatantly homophobic barrage by an Australian radio broadcaster that has been upheld by Australian authorities as allowable:
Veteran Aussie broadcaster John Laws delivered the following tirade in response to Kressley’s inclusion as a judge at a fashion contest:
“‘He was judging girls – now what the hell does a pillow-biter know about judging girls?’ Laws asked.
“‘They should have had a few truckies down there, or me….fair-dinkum Aussie blokes judging fair-dinkum Aussie girls. Not this pompous little pansy.’
“‘I remember when Australia was a land of proud, dedicated women and hard-drinking and hard-talking men. Why this sudden proliferation of pansies I don’t know. The sooner this fairy flies out and lets us judge our own women on our own criteria the better.’
“Declaring Australia a land of ‘truck drivers, wharf labourers and free thinking red-blooded men,’ he then went on to play a recorded message incorporating the words ‘piss off pansy'”.
The Australian tribunal which judges complaints about this sort of thing found Laws remarks hateful, “We rule unanimously that the statements that Mr Laws made constituted homosexual vilification, because they incited severe ridicule of homosexual men on the ground of their homosexuality.”
Having done that, the tribunal then concluded the remarks were protected, “By majority, we rule further, however, that his publication of these statements on the radio fell within an exception established by the (Anti-Discrimination) Act that is designed, within appropriate limits, to preserve freedom of expression. Our majority decision is accordingly that the publication was lawful.”
Only in Australia, eh?
March 1, 2007
From The Telegraph
They’re doctors and engineers, teachers and administrators, Christians and other religous minorities – all battered by Iraq’s ongoing civil war. Two million have left Iraq outright, another 1.8 million remain displaced within the country.
March 1, 2007
You may have never heard of Sanofi-Aventis but it’s the fourth-largest drug company in the world and based in Paris. Working in partnership with the charity, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, the company has introduced a new, cheap and effective drug to fight malaria.
The medicine goes by the name, ASAQ. It blends two of the most powerful malaria-fighters, artemisinin and amodiaquine. Not only is it effective but it’s affordable even for third world countries. A treatment for an adult costs a dollar and consists of two pills a day for three days. Treating a child comes in at just half a dollar.
Malaria takes the lives of 3,000 African babies and children – each day. That’s about a million or more every year.
Best of all, Sonafi has decided not to patent ASAQ so that it can be produced even more cheaply by generic drug companies in countries like India.
The Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative was set up in 2003 by Doctors Without Borders to develop partnerships with major pharmaceutical companies aimed at developing cost-effective drugs for tropical diseases.
March 1, 2007
The medical journal Neurology has published a study that is being hailed as conclusive proof that marijuana is a valuable pain reliever.
The study focuses on peripheral neuropathy, a condition that results in severe pain. Neuropathic pain in HIV patients is similar to the type of pain experienced from many other illnesses including diabetes and multiple sclerosis.
Writing in the Boston Globe, Lester Greenspoon, says the study merely reinforces what’s been known all along:
“Neuropathic pain is notoriously resistant to treatment with conventional pain drugs. Even powerful and addictive narcotics like morphine and OxyContin often provide little relief. This study leaves no doubt that marijuana can safely ease this type of pain.
“As all marijuana research in the United States must be, the new study was conducted with government-supplied marijuana of notoriously poor quality. So it probably underestimated the potential benefit.
“In the 19th century it became a well-established Western medicine whose versatility and safety were unquestioned. From 1840 to 1900, American and European medical journals published over 100 papers on the therapeutic uses of marijuana, also known as cannabis.
“Our knowledge has advanced greatly over the years. Scientists have identified over 60 unique constituents in marijuana, called cannabinoids, and we have learned much about how they work. We have also learned that our own bodies produce similar chemicals, called endocannabinoids.
“The mountain of accumulated anecdotal evidence that pointed the way to the present and other clinical studies also strongly suggests there are a number of other devastating disorders and symptoms for which marijuana has been used for centuries.
“While few such studies have so far been completed, all have lent weight to what medicine already knew but had largely forgotten or ignored: Marijuana is effective at relieving nausea and vomiting, spasticity, appetite loss, certain types of pain and other debilitating symptoms. And it is extraordinarily safe — safer than most medicines prescribed every day.
“If marijuana were a new discovery rather than a well-known substance carrying cultural and political baggage, it would be hailed as a wonder drug.”
March 1, 2007
Slate
March 1, 2007
Slate
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