Death by a Thousand Cuts, Canada's Healthcare

The Canadian public healthcare is under serious threat. The powerful private health companies, especially the American insurance and health companies south of the border, are salivating for a piece of this lucrative market. There are powerful lobbies in the federal and provincial governments that are trying hard behind the scenes to privatize the healthcare system.

The way they do it is "death by a thousand cuts". This is the name of an old traditional Chinese torture and does not need explanation as the name itself is quite clear. Nobody comes forward to announce that they have privatized the system once and for all ,nobody actually dares to do that. They know that the Canadian people will never let a party or person dismantle their excellent public healthcare system. Oh, no, they do it piece by piece. Each year, they privatize a little part here and a little part there until after 10 years or 15 years, nothing remains but a skeleton of the once mighty and great public healthcare and nobody in the general public will ever notice it. Like the Ontario government did last year, they privatized all physiotherapy and chiropractice services and also made people pay for the formerly free eye exams. Next year they will privatize another piece and this goes on until nothing remains.

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Quebec vote

So ADQ wins second in the elections. Mark it, the vote for ADQ is not a vote for ADQ, it is a vote against the two other major parties. It is the only way people can tell the two other that we don't approve of your policies at least for the time being. It is not at all clear if ADQ will keep the same number of votes in the next elections. And it is somehow sad, Quebec has always been left leaning, and for the first time after many years it is tilting to the right.

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Alcohol and tobacco worse than pot, and yet they spend billions prohibiting the pot while these two are freely available!

Saturday March 24, 2007

Alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than illegal drugs like marijuana or ecstasy, according to a new classification of drugs published in The Lancet medical journal yesterday.

The table, drawn up by a group of leading British scientists, ranked heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and street methadone as the most harmful drugs, closely followed by alcohol in fifth place.

Tobacco was assessed to be the 9th most dangerous drug behind ketamine in 6th, benzodiazepines, which are prescription tranquillizers, and amphetamines.

Cannabis was said to be the 11th most harmful. LSD was ranked 14th and ecstasy 18th among the 20 drugs classified.

And yet our stupid governments, following the lead of the US government, spend billions of dollars fighting pot use, while drugs worse than that, like alcohol and tobacco are freely available. In the prohibition era in the US, they spent billions trying to stop people drinking. Not only did it backfire and alcohold was freely available the prohibition turned into a joke, but it also caused lots of unnecessary pain, and created huge criminal gangs that their sole purpose and sustenance was providing alcohol for the population.

Most people know how to use drugs in moderation not to harm themselves. Banning any drug is like banning knives in kitchens because a few people don't know how to use them and harm themselves or others. There are people in high places who use cocaine on a regular basis without harming their careers or life or families, and yet there are people in the street that are alcoholics and damage their lives and ruin their families. The rational way to deal with drugs is not banning them. Banning drugs just creates crime and corruption resulting from the crime. The solution is educating people how to deal with the drugs and how to use them in moderation.

Why they turn to Islam in droves?

Because communism has lost its validity after downfall of the Soviet Union and socialism tarnished because of its wrongful association with communism. Because Arab nationalism has not created any hope after 60 years of trial and error. Because Palestine is still an open wound and US and Israel are not ready to let the Palestinians have their own country. Nothing has remained except Islam to answer to the revolutionary aspirations of the younger generations across the Arab world.

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/195624

The Stupid Empire and Somalia. Same mistakes again!

Isn’t America the stupidest empire in the world ever? Or do all empires become stupid? Were Romans as stupid as Americans at the height of their power? Is it the hubris? Is it that they think they don’t need to be smart as a fox because they have the power of a lion and can afford to be as stupid as they want?

Look at Somalia now. They are repeating the same mistakes they made in Vietnam and just recently in Iraq and Afghanistan. When they invaded Somalia with the Ethiopian troops, it was very odd that Mogadishu fell in just a few days. It was just impossible to imagine that an organized force like the Muslim militia that had nearly conquered the whole country was going to be defeated and disappear in a few days. It was very clear what was their tactic. They had just melted away like Taliban in Afghanistan to reorganize and regroup and then start a guerilla war and hit the empire back. It was very clear that the corrupt bickering warlords of the different tribes that are united in a loose confederation called the legal government of Somalia can’t bring peace back to Somalia and yet Americans supported them and gave Mogadishu to them, for what purpose. To bring back the old rivalries and infighting, like Afghanistan after the American invasion. And now the same scenario is repeating itself in Somalia. Guerilla war which bites at the feet of the empire and leaves it helpless, an elephant surrounded by millions of local ants, helpless.

What really baffles me is: isn’t there a brain anywhere in US, in all those right wing think tanks that run the American foreign policy? What is wrong with these people? Why can’t they learn? Why do they make the same mistakes and blunders again and again?

Refugees, Illegal Imigrants and then some legal

We talk a lot about the plight of refugees in Canada. But nobody concerns’ themselves with the plight of the legal immigrants. The amount of money they have to pay, the trials and tribulations they have to go through, the long waits, the lack of any help and support when they arrive in Canada and try to find a job. As a person who has gone through this process myself with first hand experience I find it abhorring that fake refugee claimants often find far more support with open arms in this country than the legal ones.

I have heard stories about some refugee claimants, stories that I can corroborate, that leaves me angry and frustrated with the system. About people who come here claiming they are gay and are helped by the gay community and the moment they get their landed immigrant status go back to their country to marry and bring their brides, the country they claimed if they go back to will persecute them. Of the so-called political refugees who claim they have escaped their country and if they get back they will be executed or jailed, but the moment they get their landed immigrant or citizenship status go back and live and work in that country. Of people who come here claiming they have been under religious persecution because they had converted to Christianity and attach themselves to a gullible church here and get letters supporting their claims and the moment their claim is accepted disappear and never show up in the church again. And then I see highly educated and honest people, who apply for immigration through routine legal channels and are rejected.

Indigenous Canadians, who have been born in Canada, because they are not in touch with the immigrant community firsthand don’t know and hear about these stories. The immigrant communities usually don’t discuss and share the stories with the indigenous people because they feel they have a moral duty to support each other even ones among them that have come here illegally. But there is no such restriction among immigrants themselves and they talk about these stories openly. The wall of silence is only there when it comes to the indigenous citizens and media. And boy oh boy, the stories you share among your fellow countrymen about the fake claims!

For example I hear a lot about real political refugees who are rejected while the ones with the more spectacular stories that does not have any base in truth are accepted easily. People like me and my countrymen, because of our personal experience in our country, can easily separate the fake story from the real one, but not Canadians. It pains me that unfortunately so many of the claims come on the side of fake. But of course I know a Canadian born in this country is a poor judge in these cases, it is easy for them to believe these stories as they don’t have firsthand experience. Sometimes I feel all judges for refugee claimants from each country should come from among people born and bred in that country so that they can’t be cheated so easily.

The other injustice is the easy path of millions of illegal immigrants in the US that will be exonerated and soon become citizens while honest educated people who want to immigrate there through legal channels are not allowed and are rejected. As a landed immigrant myself, I am outraged about the event and I don’t think I am alone here. I find it a highly partial and biased process, unjust and hypocritical. What it says to people is: don’t bother about the cumbersome process, just manage to set foot in this country, we are going to give you amnesty soon, while your brethren who have tried the legal ways are left out. Will we do the same to others who have committed illegal acts, to thieves, murderers, criminals? No, and we don’t accept if somebody suggests it, but we let the illegal immigrants through this same process which we deprive other criminals. If the big business needs cheap slave labor, to counter the unions and the indigenous labor, let them bring them through legal channels, with work permits and due legal protection, instead of this most unfair and crooked process.

300

The "300" is now on screens. 300 Spartans defeating the huge Iranian army of hundreds of thousands. Can anybody believe that such a feat is possible? Of course not in real world.

But in a world where there were no media, radio and TV and papers, anybody could write anything they wanted and boast as much as they wanted about their great achievements. There were no checks and balances. There were no records kept, no photos, no videos, no journalists. It was easy to claim you have seen miracles, prophets, mythical warriors. And if all around you are surrounded by your own tribe who wants to believe and pride themselves with their achievements, you can even claim more.

Imagine for a moment that George Bush claims that he conquered Iraq with only 300 brave American soldiers against 300,000 Iraqi special forces, he can never write a history book with this claim. Media will eat him alive if he ever boasts about this. But in the Greece of 500 BC you could get away with it. And then if these books later were absorbed and made into foundations of a civilization(western civilization) the claims would be widely accepted in that civilization.

The problem is, nobody has asked what the enemy wrote about the same event. Unfortunately the Persian history books, were all wiped out and burnt during the Arab and later invasions. There was not even one book saved from the devastating Arab conquest, so we don’t know much about Persia before the Arab invasion. If the books were not burnt, then we would have had the other side of the story at least and how the Persians looked at that incident.

My take is that: Imagine the most powerful empire of our time, US, sends a few of its forces to Somalia for peacekeeping because groups in Somalia has asked it to send the forces and stop the civil war. It is not a force of hundreds of thousands, but a few thousand. Somalia does not have anything to draw the empire in, no oil, no minerals, no technology, it is a backward primitive land of tribes fighting each other forever. Now after a short period the empire understands it has made a mistake sending even that little force there, it is wasting money and resources on a land and people which is not worth it. It calls them back.

Now imagine Somalian historians later write books and claim that a few hundred Somalians had defeated a force of hundreds of thousands of Americans and kicked then out. The empire does not care about those books. The empire does not even notice somebody has written such a book, the empire has its own history and its own important matters. Now imagine in an atomic holocaust the whole US civilization, all the books, the library of congress and everything is burnt. Nothing, not even one book is saved and the empire is no more. After a thousand years, the only books that remain are the history books written in the Somalia and now we have a civilization in Africa that traces its roots to Somalia. Now what everybody will believe in that civilization is that, yes, a few hundred Somalians really defeated the main forces of the US empire thousands of years ago.

For Persians, the same thing happened. Greece was a mountainous faraway land like today’s Afghanistan, full of warring tribes, without any riches to attract the empire to its gates. They had some goats and a little olive oil and some small towns here and there. No empire in its sane mind would care to even contemplate wasting its forces to conquer such a land. Greece was located far away from the centre, on the vicinity of the empire, inhospitable and poor and not at all enticing. From time to time they had to be dealt with to stop them from sending small pirate missions to Asia minor cities, that was it. Persian empire never cared about Greece. But, for Greeks it was completely different. Persia was the great power of its time and all they could think of was the huge riches of that empire. They fought for that empire from time to time as mercenaries and tried to take part in the trade.

So the story of 300 is just what it is. Only a story, told by uncontested historians that did not have to deal with checks and balances of modern academia and could write virtually any nonsense they wanted. And the counter-history, the history books of Persia, were all burnt down and turned into smoke during the Arab invasion, so we don’t know how the other side saw it. Perhaps no more than a small temporary military operation to calm down some warring tribes at the fringes of the empire. Like how Romans saw their affairs in Jerusalem during the time of Jesus Christ, not even one Roman historian has mentioned his name in their books, he was a non-entity for the empire.

footnote: just to finish it on a funny note, somebody wrote recently: ignore the whiners, they are just a bunch of pussy Athenians!

Pearls of Wisdom by great philosopher Jin Tao

Recently very old and tattered manuscripts were discovered in the north east corner of China in a cave. Scientists and liguists are deciphering and translating these manuscripts now. Apparently they are by a Chinese philosopher, Jin Tao. Read this section regularly, new thoughts are added the moment they are translated from the original:

ON SOCIETY

* There are two sorts of criminals. Small-time criminals are the ones filling up the jails. Big time criminals turn out to be the CEOs of international corporations, politicians, rulers and dictators. They are the Alpha males ruling the world.

* 95% of any society are sheep, grazing happily and not caring who rules them. They are oppressed, cheated, made to work for the rulers with their own consent, provide the wolves with their milk and wool and meat. 2.5% of the society are the wolves, they are the so-called shepherds of this herd of sheep, working them to death and enjoying the booty. The rest are the intellectuals, they are the ones trying endlessly to awaken the sheep to their tragic destiny. Once every 50 years or so they are successful, the sheep start to move, bleat, open their eyes, rise against the wolves, resist, and ..... sadly, get back to their old ways soon. Intellectuals are trying constantly to warn the sheep, to tell them this is not the way to live, there can be a better world, where the sheep can have their own government and there are no wolves anymore, but to no avail. What is left of this never-ending struggle for the poor intellectual is sorrow, frustration, and lots of crucification by the wolves, while the sheep are watching contentedly and actually giving a helping hand in the repression of their saviours and dancing around the cross.

* Parenting needs training, education and licensing, like anything else in our society, like driving, etc: Even the simplest most basic jobs in our society nowadays needs a license and at least months of coaching and training. Even to drive a car you need a license. And yet, the most difficult, the most delicate of jobs, which is educating and bringing up the young is totally neglected in this respect. Any addicted alchoholic person with a penis or womb is allowed to have children and bring them up without any knowledge about education. We let millions of children to grow up in households that don't know a word about how to teach and train a young human brain. What a waste! There must be license for parenting, and frequent checkups. This grey matter inside our skulls is the main capital of any society. If it is wasted, the society will be doomed. And yet, we let anybody, without any training, to bring up the children. Especially the first six years of life, where the whole personality of a human being is formed for the rest of their lives, should not be left in the hands of everybody just because they are the "genetic" parents of the child.

ON HUMAN CONDITION

* The stupider, the happier, the wiser, the gloomier.

ON WOMEN AND MEN

* Open up any woman's head, in the centre of it you will find a baby, a house and a man. Open up any man's head, in the centre of it you will find a harem.

* The deepest love of a woman is reserved for her children and through her children she loves her man. The deepest love of a man can be his woman.

* Women don't need philosophy to explain to them why we are on this earth. It is enough for them to have a look at their children and all the philosophical humdrum is solved for them. They know and feel the reason of their being in this universe through their children and their wombs. Men need philosophy because they don't give birth, they are not fertile, so they have to ask themselves again and again why am I here, what is the purpose of my life. For a woman, the purpose of her life is crystal clear when she looks at her children. Women don't need philosophy.

* A man who loves a woman showers her with his attention and favours and does not expect much in response, which is normally what happenes. Women don't return love as much as they receive it. But the man does not complain, he knows in his genes that the return of his love will be towards the children she will have from him. She compensates double his love in taking care of his children, of his genes.

* A woman can't feel in a thousand years how powerful a role sex drive plays in a man's life. She might try to understand it, but feeling it is different. The only way a woman can feel it is by injecting testosteron for a few months! Women might know that men have sexual thoughts every few mintues, but to have it themselves with that regularity will be an eye opener. They might know that men are aroused easily, but being aroused yourself by the drop of a hat such as seeing just a beautiful woman with skimpy dress in the street is different. If women can experience it, they might have second thoughts in having revealing clothes in unsuitable places, or be too inviting to some men who can't control their drive.

* For men sex is sex. They have a billion sperms available at any moment so they can forget about the real meaning of sex which is breeding the species and just enjoy the pleasure. There is no lifelong giving from your body to a new life, no lifelong investiment. For women sex is children. Any act of sex implies a lifelong investment in a new life. That is why women don't take it lightly and don't give easily.

* Women love strong men. On the other hand, most men are genetically attracted to women that are not strong and threatening to their manhood. It gives the man a sense of power and pleasure of protection. Just imagine a helpless woman by the roadside with a flat tire. A million men stop to help her and bond with her. Now imagine a strong woman dealing with it herself and changing the tire. No man there!! Smart women use it to their benefit, at the same time that they are strong, they flaunt some female weaknesses to attract the man.

* At the end of the day, a woman looks at a man's pockets instead of his brains or looks. That is in the genes and an evolutionary necessity. A woman who went after a man who could not provide her and her children with food and shelter, was doomed to failure and could not transfer her genes to the future generations of women. Only women who got men who could support their offspring managed to transfer their genes. All the women in our world now carry those women's genes, the gene of supremacy of pockets over brains and looks.

* I never understand why women go through all this trouble to follow the fashion. Is it so important to sacrifice your time and health for it? Whenever I see a woman angling and tilting on top of a 10cm high heel and can see the pain she is going through, I wonder.

* It always strikes me as a great gift: the power of women to talk about "nothing" for hours. If only we men could have inherited a little of that!

* On coming back from a trip to India: Thank god for arranged marriage in India otherwise half the Indian women would go to grave without having experienced the touch of a man, so ugly they are!

The New Proletarians

The new proletarians are of course the wage and salary earners, and mostly in the service sector. Marxists have it totally wrong when they still refer to the proletariat as only factory workers. The ranks of factory workers are diminishing by day and soon with automatic and robotized factories there won't be any. But the nature of slave labour is still the same as long as one sells his/her labour to another human being to sustain him/herself. There is no difference between the nature of the economic relationship between a Walmart employee, or a computer programmer's employee for that matter, and a proletarian factory worker. They all sell the fruit of their labour to somebody else to sustain themselves. As long as human beings do slave labour, socialism will be alive to defend the rights of wage earners(slaves) against the employers(slave owners).

Evangelicals in Toronto? What are they up to?

Religion again. Wolves in ship's skin posing as shepherds. Poor people desperately seeking solace in all the wrong places:

Toronto Star article