Well, du-uh!

Waits for emergency room tests longest on weekends
Sometimes I am surprised by what is "news" -- like this story -- didn't everyone already know this? Perhaps we lacked the statistics, but anyone with half a brain always knew that the worst time to get sick is on a weekend, likely followed closely by getting sick after midnight on a weeknight -- in particular, avoid emergency rooms on Friday and Saturday nights, when they are rockin' and rollin' with drunks and drug ODs, not to mention the weekend-warrior injuries (broken bones, etc, suffered by people doing sports and home repairs on the weekend).
A related story in this morning's Globe talked about how difficult it was going to be for Martin to reduce waiting lists. I think the solution for waiting lists is basically pretty simple -- double the number of specialists nationwide, and triple the hospital capacity for them to do their surgeries and other treatments. The trick will be whether Martin can force provincial governments to spend their health dollars on these priorities.

What's that smell?

There's a whiff of desperation in the air -- GOP Seeks Catholic Parish Directories.

9/11 commission comments

A Lesson From 9/11: Openness
I like Dionne's idea -- "Clinton and Bush owe the nation back-to-back news conferences to react to the criticisms contained in the report. The news conferences should be open-ended. No plausible question should be left behind or evaded. If we want to move forward, we have to put the recrimination behind us. As the Sept. 11 commission has shown, openness and honesty are the best means to that end. " However, the only reporters allowed in the room should be ones who have read the whole report cover to cover and who can ask intelligent questions about it.
And I know its fashionable not to blame anyone for anything anymore, but from my skimming of the report so far, I do wonder how the Department of Defense and the office of the National Security Advisor came off so easily -- both appear to have refused to take terrorism as seriously as they should have over the years. Particularly the Department of Defense, which set such an unrealistically high standard for strking Bin Laden in Afganistan prior to 9/11 that they effectively kiboshed any White House initiatives in this area, and which did not appear to take seriously the risk of terrorist individuals, rather than states, attacking the US. And the terrorism response team in 1999 dealt successfully with the millenium threats, and was known to be successful at the time, but I did not see any discussion of why the National Security Advisor did not continue this type of activity.

Bush slogans

I like Talking Points Memo list of possible Bush slogans:.
1. Not as terrible as it could have been!
2. Four more years and we'll be safe!
3. Peace!
4. Incompetence and exaggeration, not bad-faith or lying, as shown in two recent reports!
5. Are you better off today than you would have been today assuming that that idiot Al Gore had won four years ago and he was president instead of me?
Here's some more:
6. I was a war president but now I'm a peace president. Whatever...
7. Saying America is safer while acting as though it is not
8. If Democrats are girly men, then Republicans must be manly girls
Any other suggestions?

Bush supports three tax increases for poor families!

Bush Quashes GOP Deal on Tax Cuts' Life
Or so the election advertisement tag line should read.

Sauce for the goose

House Panel to Investigate Berger Case
I don't recall any House investigation of the Plame case -- did I miss it?

PTSD and Washington

Richard Cohen's column Our Forgotten Panic is a good one. I know we are a great and brave country, but sometimes we react to threats by simply going to pieces. It's great that we have multiple commissions looking into intelligence failures, but none of those commissions will come close to the greatest intelligence failure of all -- our inability to use our heads when we most needed to. The terrorist attacks coupled with the anthrax scare unhinged us a bit -- or maybe more than a bit. We eventually went into a war that now makes little sense and that, without a doubt, was waged for reasons that simply did not exist. We did so, I think, because we were scared. You could say we lacked judgment. Maybe. I would say we lacked leadership.
Before the war, John LeCarre wrote an article entited The United States of America Has Gone Mad, and Margaret Atwood wrote A Letter to America just after the war began. I reread both after seeing Cohen's column because they both also discussed America's panic and fear. Now, I don't think it matters how great and brave a country is, just about everyone always reacts to trauma, initially, by going to pieces. But after 911, I think everyone in Washington descended into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - some of the symptoms of poor coping with PTSD are "isolation, workaholism, violent behavior, angry intimidation of others . . . and self-destructive behavior" -- and doesn't this just characterize Washington over the last three years? Its a tragedy that the Bush administration took the cynical approach, using America's panic and playing on Bush's own cowardice, just to advance the neocon political agenda and make a few bucks. America deserved better.

Good news

Canada goes to pot
: "Prime Minister Paul Martin said that his government would re-introduce decriminalization legislation when Parliament resumes in October. 'The legislation on marijuana - the decriminalization of minor quantities of marijuana - that legislation will be introduced,' Mr. Martin told reporters after the first Liberal cabinet meeting was held."
The story reports that "3 million Canadians 15 and up admitted to using marijuana in 2001" though also noting that "nearly half (47 per cent) said they used it less than once a month".

Kerry by a nose, so far

I don't get it. I keep reading news stories about how poorly Kerry/Edwards are doing in the polls. When I checked the July polls at the Polling Report WH2004: General for the Kerry/Edwards vs Bush/Cheney match ups, this is what I found:
Pew (1,568 surveyed July 8-18): Kerry 46% Bush 44%
Christian Science monitor (842 surveyed July 12-17) Kerry 44% Bush 41%
Marist College (938 surveyed July 12-15) Kerry 47% Bush 46%
CBS/NYT (823 surveyed July 11-15) Kerry 49% Bush 44%
Democracy Corps (1,010 surveyed July 10-13) Kerry 52% Bush 45%
WP (721 surveyed July 8-11) Kerry 46% Bush 46%
CNN/USA Today (705 surveyed July 8-11) Kerry 50% Bush 46%
Newsweek (1,001 surveyed July 8-9) Kerry 47% Bush 44%
Time (774 surveyed July 6-8) Kerry 49% Bush 45%
Zooby (1,008 surveyed July 6-7) Kerry 48% Bush 46%
AP Ipsos (804 surveyed July 5-7) Bush 50% Kerry 46%
NBC (504 surveyed July 6) Kerry 49% Bush 41%
American Research Group (773 surveyed July 1-3) Kerry 49% Bush 45%
So Kerry led every one except AP.
Now, I know that many of these are within the poll's own margin of error. But the tilt toward Kerry/Edwards has been unmistakable for the last two weeks, leading toward the Democratic convention. And Kerry is raising more money than Bush, which is another kind of poll I guess. So obviously lots and lots of people want Kerry/Edwards to win.
Two other poll results worth mentioning: Newsweek also reports that only 43% want to see Bush reelected, while 52% do not. Zooby also reports that 43% said Bush deserves reelection, while 53% think its time for someone new.
(Note that Nader wasn't a factor in any of these polls, really -- I didn't bother reporting these stats as well, but though the percentages were a little lower when Nader was included, the gap between Kerry and Bush remained virtually the same.)

Liar, liar, pants on fire

Love it -- MSNBC - Ice cream mogul puts Bush in the hot seat What a cool idea for a hot summer season!

Imagine there's no countries . . .

Imagine if your neighbour built a 10 foot fence between your yard and his, cutting off half your driveway, and he also jogged it onto your property to enclose some trees he had planted without your permission -- how mad would you be? But then again, if the reason he built the wall was because you kept throwing rocks through his windows and killing his cats and hurting his children . . . well, how can this ever be resolved?
Isn't it too bad that countries can't just pack up and  move -- wouldn't it be great if Israel could move to a friendlier neighbourhood -- somewhere between Italy and France, perhaps, or even between New York State and Quebec, though they might not like the winters.
And then maybe Quebec could move to somewhere south of France if they decided to leave Canada.  And the Basque region of Spain could move to somewhere just north of Brazil.  And the Chechnyans could move out of Russia, maybe somewhere south of Turkey?  And Ireland could trade locations with Vancouver Island, settling the so-called Irish Question while also allowing the most "british" part of British Columbia to move closer to home, with the side benefit of letting the provincial capital move to Vancouver, where it should have been all along. 
But what, oh what, do we do with Alberta?  Would anyone else on the planet want to live next door to Ralph?

Comments on things I missed

Being away for a week (and then again yesterday), I missed a few goings-on -- now I think I have mostly caught up, so here are some random comments:
On the CRTC decisions:  I found the media furor mystifying -- we set up the CRTC to regulate broadcasting, then they get criticized for regulating broadcasting!  Personally, I agreed with all of the recent decisions -- and I was amazed when media kept saying things like that they "turned down" Fox, or the Italian channel, and they "approved" AlJazeera, when anyone who spent five minutes looking into it could have written these stories accurately.
Cellucci leaving:  Don't let the door clip you in the ass on the way out.
Setting up a petition to charge Michael Moore under the Elections Act:  Is there an award in Canada for dumbest stunt?  If so, this would win it.  When the Act says its illegal for a foreigner to "induce" a Canadian vote, it seemed quite clear to me that this section meant an actual bribe or monetary payoff of some kind.  Not just a speech, for heaven's sake.  I have since read that no one knows quite what this section refers to because it has never been used. 
Iraq, Iran and all that:  POGGE had an interesting piece last week on Chalabi and the intelligence issue.  History will, I think, conclude that this was one of the most successful disinformation campaigns of all time, when the minor power Iran was able to trick the most militarily powerful but intellectually stupid nation in the world.  The US  not only destroyed Iran's long-time enemy, opening the opportunity for the first time in history to a Shiite theocracy in Iraq, but also weakened its own military and undermined its own diplomatic credibility.   Now that the stuff about Iran's apparent connection to  911 is coming out, no doubt the US hawks would love to declare war on Iran.    But they shot their bolt on Afganistan and Iraq -- they don't have enough soldiers or armament or money to mount another war now, and because the world no longer believes US intelligence, they would have no allies to fight with them.

 

Memories of troopergate

So the Sandy Berger story is all over the news -- even though it supposedly happened a year ago.  Some unnamed archives staffer supposedly saw Berger stuffing documents in his socks, for crying out loud -- if anyone actually saw this, why didn't they stop him? So maybe this is the crime of the century ( but it seems odd that the FBI has never actually interviewed Berger even though they have been "investigating" this security breach for a year) but it reminds me of another "troopergate" -type of story, where some underling  supposedly witnessed a high profile Democrat doing something illegal.   His lawyer told CNN that Berger inadvertantly shuffled memos into his portfolio last July when he was reviewing documents for possibe release to the 911 commission (apparently, returned after he was told last October to look for them), and that he also knowingly jotted down some notes and took these with him for his 911 commission testimony.  Walking out with the documents was illegal, though leaving with the notes was not. 
There have been a lot of questions raised about why this story is everywhere all of a sudden.  
One of the items likely coming in the 911 commission report on Thursday will be some sharp criticism of the Bush White House for withholding several thousands of documents from the commission until pushed to release them.  Now the White House can imply that Berger stole documents showing he and Clinton were to blame for 911.
UPDATE -- And let's not forget that the Plame inditments may be coming down soon.  With Bergen now also under investigation by a grand jury, the "moral equivalence" argument can be made, so that the Plame leaker becomes somehow equivalent to Bergen.

I vote for Malathion over Deet

CBC News: Winnipeg resumes fogging after clash with protesters Now, I haven't researched all the pros and cons of malathion, because I don't want to ruin my amateur standing, but I generally tend to go along with Health Canada recommendations because they are using my tax dollars to investigate these kinds of things.
Its too bad that the media quote the most rabid and therefore least credible members of the environmental movement. This story quoted a protester as saying that malathion is ". . killing everyone in Winnipeg". Please, stop with the hyperbole!
Yes, Malathion is a pesticide, and a powerful one, but cities have to evaluate this kind of trade-off all the time. Malathion isn't benign, but its impact on societal health is certainly less than the impact of mosquito-borne diseases, like West Nile and encephalitis (which Winnipeg also has every summer), and its individual impact is substantially less than having to spray every square inch of your skin several times a day with Deet, particularly for young children and for people like city workers, police and the like who must work outside in the summer. Its not pleasant either way, but there it is.

Poor Ontario, it's just not fair!

John Ibbitson's column on the cabinet Winners: The West, and the PM's pals illustrates why the west is alienated from the east. The most important thing about the cabinet, according to Ibbitson, is that there are not as many MPs from Ontario in it as he thinks there should be. He writes "As rumours hardened into likelihood last night, and likelihood into fact, it became clear that Paul Martin has decided two things: He will stick with those he trusts, and Ontario can be taken for granted. The second Martin ministry contains a disproportionate emphasis on western MPs."
Could it be possible that, because Martin made a particular effort before the election to recruit electable high profile candidates in the west, that the western liberals elected were a particularly competent bunch?
Could it be that too many of the Ontario MPs have been tainted with all of the Chretien scandals and problems of the past decade?
Naah, of course not.
Its just a mean Martin plot to insult Ontario. Now, I haven't searched the whole list but it appears to me like Ontario still has 15 of the 38 cabinet members listed in the Globe. So only having a little less than half of the cabinet isn't enough? Oh, piffle!
UPDATE:  So according to the Globe today my figure of 15 was correct - exactly one (1) less Ontario minister than in the pre-election Cabinet.