Changin' Times

All news isn't bad.

For one thing, the Canadian dollar took a dive. This is important if you like to drink in Toronto.

Even if you believe in having no borders so that the huddled masses of drug dealers and murders can come and live near your local school, you have to admit the fact that 72% of Americans were agitated enough to drop kick Congress is a good sign that the republic isn't completely burned out or focused on Hollywood.

The latest Pew Poll says Congress' approval rating is 16%. Apparently, we haven't been dumbed down enough to just let the caricatures in Congress do what they want. All we need is a new party.

As of last Friday, the official word among major media, with a suspiciously instantaneous change in spin, is that the surge is doing great, that Iraqis people are super-duper, we can't leave, and, just surfacing, it is time to do something about Iran. Pay attention, you will see this astonishing change play out. (Then, never trust journalism again.) Remember how this shift happened when you think about politics and your country in the future.

Today, this being Tuesday, the spin is, sure the surge is OK, but the leadership in Iraq is failing. Of course, it is Bush's fault, until the lies, sorry politics, shift again.

Actually, I have already predicted this. One election is over, the other is far enough away. So, we can go ahead and do the painful things that have to be done. "Not for nothin'" does the U.S. have the second busiest airport in the world just 40 miles outside of Baghdad. A plane lands at this 15 mile (that is 15,000 kilotons if you are metric) wide military facility every two minutes! Ever see that on CNN? No? You will soon, right after you see Israel's air bases. (Israel's military is on high alert, now. All those empty facilities in the Golan are now fully occupied - its been some 40 years since last manned.)

The new, supposedly anti-Bush British Prime Minister just dropped in on D.C. to announce the world owes America a debt of gratitude for leading the way in the fight against terrorism and Britain had no plans to remove troops. Then, the Sunday talk shows were filled with positive comments about the effort in Iraq. (Washington Post guy - Iraq is just a battle in the wider war against terrorism.)

To be honest, the overnight change in tune bespeaks conspiracy or sub rosa control, unless you can give me a clue why not. Only a few Dem candidates haven't figured out how to morph out of this one. Don't get me wrong, this could be an elitist shift, not a liberal one. The Dems do have a problem, though, as most of their leaders will be foundering come election season. Hilary may find herself best situated.

Now, comes excellent news from gawker.com. It may also explain the sudden shift in bias:

profit and loss

'New York Times' Second Quarter: Serious Trouble

The second-quarter results from the New York Times Company just came out, and they're kind of grim. Operating profit decreased to $43.3 million—last year, same quarter, it was $86.2 million. Earnings per share decreased to $.15 per share; same period last year, it was $.37. But why? Times Co. CEO Janet Robinson said that the results "reflected the weakness in the print advertising market stemming from both secular and cyclical forces in our businesses." Ooo, good, cyclical! That means there'll be an upturn—or at least less stress?—next quarter? Uh, right?

Advertising revenues decreased 5.7 percent for the quarter. Newsprint expenses decreased more than 22 percent, but that's a mixed bag, because it was partly due to less newspapers—which means fewer people are buying the paper. Circ revenues were down 0.5 percent, which the company is attributing largely to the loss of subscribers after subscription prices were raised. (Let's see how they spin the price increase they just enacted.)

Its all good.

Well, except for the (non-Persian) madman wanting to destroy Israel and build a Muslim world "without an America."

Health Care - It Ain't Brain Surgery

Time to create a blog based on other's work. Soon, I will be able to get a job with the government.

A snap shot of the downside of "free medical care."

Click here for: A Short Course in Brain Surgery

Sure, its a first person anecdote. Then, again, aren't we all.

After awhile, a pile of anecdotes add up to a bunch of dead Canadians.

In the U.S. we understand there is "no such thing as a free lunch" when dealing with economics, it should not be hard to extend that philosophy to there is "no such thing as free medical care." Whatever we work on to improve our U.S. system, we have to make believe we are grown ups when we work out the details.

As the Canadian Supreme Court said - free medical coverage does not mean free access to a list.
-------

Rare Snow in South America and Africa

2007 -

South Africa dusted by rare snow storm

Wed Jun 27, 2007 7:37AM EDT

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A rare winter snowstorm dusted South Africa's commercial capital Johannesburg early on Wednesday as a winter weather front moved across the country, closing mountain passes and claiming at least one life.

"SNOWBURG" trumpeted the headline of Johannesburg's Star newspaper.

Gleeful children built snowmen in Johannesburg's Zoo Lake Park, while families could be seen carrying snowballs back to their cars, fast melting souvenirs of the city's first significant snowfall since 1981.

Johannesburg Emergency Services spokesman Malcolm Midgely said a homeless man had been found dead of exposure in the city centre after what he said was the first real snowfall in more than a generation.

"There've been a few minor incidents since (1981), in 1996 we had a little bit of sleet, but it was none of the big, thick stuff," Midgely told the SAPA news agency...

(Image is from 2006 storm, see below)

"Despite all my years, this is the first time I've ever seen snow in Buenos Aires," 82-year-old Juana Benitez was quoted as saying

2007

Buenos Aires sees rare snowfall

Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires, has seen snow for the first time in 89 years, as a cold snap continues to grip several South American nations.

Temperatures plunged to -22C (-8F) in parts of Argentina's province of Rio Negro, while snow fell on Buenos Aires for several hours on Monday.

Two deaths from exposure were reported in Argentina and one in Chile.

In Bolivia, heavy snowfall blocked the nation's main motorway and forced the closure of several airports.

In Argentina, several provinces in the Andes have been placed under a storm alert, according to the national weather centre.

But thousands of people cheered in the streets of Buenos Aires at the sight of the capital's first snowfall since 1918.

"Despite all my years, this is the first time I've ever seen snow in Buenos Aires," 82-year-old Juana Benitez was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.

2006

South Africa Shivers

[Image above - Sutherland S. Africa]

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Snow. Floods. Icy winds. Maybe even a tornado. South Africans are facing one of their harshest winter in years, with at least four deaths blamed on flooding from heavy rain that has caused travel delays in the south and west of the country.

While north of the equator, much of the United States sweats through a heat wave, Johannesburg saw flurries Wednesday for the first time in at least eight years, the national weather service said. Stunned office workers pressed against windows to savor the spectacle.

Freezing temperatures are not unusual at higher altitudes during the winter, but heavy snow has fallen in some interior towns that rarely experience such weather. More snow and gale force winds were expected Thursday in some areas, Weather SA said.

2004

Cold and Snow in South America
As winter settles over the Southern Hemisphere, South America has been lashed with snow, heavy rain and intense cold since the final week of June 2004. In southern Peru, heavy snow has collapsed hundreds of homes and buildings, and killed over 75,000 farm animals. The country is struggling to provide emergency provisions to people in the poverty-stricken region, many of whom are being treated for cold-related illnesses such as pneumonia. In many mountain regions, the temperature has plummeted to -20 Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit). The cold weather also caused deaths in Argentina and Chile. Unusually cold temperatures, down to -7 Celsius (19.4 Fahrenheit), chilled southern Brazil.

Go here for the NASA shot.

Cost of illegal aliens: 5,000 deaths a year

No federal agency tracks crime by illegal aliens. Blacks, whites, males - sure, but not illegals. One reporter gave up after contacting all 50 states and only getting data from Vermont, so he did a mathematical extrapolation, which seems a weak methodology, but you work with what you have.

He came up with 22,000 people murdered by illegal aliens since 911 int the U.S., making a contrast between deaths fighting foreign terrorists. Still, extrapolation is not something you would use beyond a reasonable doubt. However, there are some real numbers:

In one study of a sample 55,000 illegal immigrants serving prison sentences in the U.S., it was discovered that they are responsible for over 400,000 arrests and over 700,000 felony crimes
According to Heather McDonald of the Manhattan Institute,

95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide (which total 1,200 to 1,500) target illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) are for illegal aliens.

We need to factor in the cost of rampant, violent crime into the numbers reflecting the cost of additional students in schools and patients in hospitals. This is the same sort of quiet invasion that is destroying Europe. The Third World will become the Second World by destroying the First.

Here is a web site with pictures of victims.

There is weeping and gnashing of teeth by the media over young men who volunteered to fight murders in Iraq, but no pictures of raped and murdered nun, kidnapped girls, murdered police on traffic stops, PBS reporter, and so on into the thousands.

The commonly used number is that there are 2,000 murders by aliens every year. These victims did not volunteer to fight, they were trying to go to school. I wonder what Homeland Security actually does.

Using that ratio, it was determined that 3,496 people in America are killed by illegal alien drunk drivers

Criminal Alien Prison Population – According to an April 7th, 2005 General Accounting Office (GAO) study entitled, “Information on Criminal Aliens Incarcerated in Federal and State Prisons and Local Jails” [Report # GAO-05-337R] prepared for the Congressional Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims: 27 percent of prison inmates are illegal aliens.

Using that ratio, it was determined that 3,496 people in America are killed by illegal alien drunk drivers.

You wonder what self-dealing the Demicans are pursuing by their refusal to close the borders. Keep in mind that violent crime in general in the U.S. has long been going down. One wonders what the country would be like without additional thousands of murders, killings and hundreds of thousands of felonies.

Don't tell Ted Kennedy about this article, he will accuse me of being mean. Maybe, but I have not become inured to killing innocent young girls.

Canadian Medical Systems Cover All, Sort Of

New topic seems to be forming:

Canadian-Healthcare.org:

Canada's health care system is a group of socialized health insurance plans that provides coverage to all Canadian citizens. It is publicly funded and administered on a provincial or territorial basis, within guidelines set by the federal government.

Under the health care system, individual citizens are provided preventative [yes, they wrote that]care and medical treatments from primary care physicians as well as access to hospitals, dental surgery and additional medical services. With a few exceptions, all citizens qualify for health coverage regardless of medical history, personal income, or standard of living.

Canada's health care system is the subject of much political controversy and debate in the country. Some question the efficiencies of the current system to deliver treatments in a timely fashion, and advocate adopting a private system similar to the United States. Conversely, there are worries that privatization would lead to inequalities in the health system with only the wealthy being able to afford certain treatments....

That said:

As Canada's Slow-Motion Public Health System Falters, Private Medical Care Is Surging

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

Published: February 26, 2006 New York Times

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 23 — The Cambie Surgery Center, Canada's most prominent private hospital, may be considered a rogue enterprise.

Accepting money from patients for operations they would otherwise receive free of charge in a public hospital is technically prohibited in this country, even in cases where patients would wait months or even years in discomfort before receiving treatment.

But no one is about to arrest Dr. Brian Day, who is president and medical director of the center, or any of the 120 doctors who work there. Public hospitals are sending him growing numbers of patients they are too busy to treat, and his center is advertising that patients do not have to wait to replace their aching knees.

The country's publicly financed health insurance system — frequently described as the third rail of its political system and a core value of its national identity — is gradually breaking down. Private clinics are opening around the country by an estimated one a week, and private insurance companies are about to find a gold mine.

Dr. Day, for instance, is planning to open more private hospitals, first in Toronto and Ottawa, then in Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton. Ontario provincial officials are already threatening stiff fines. Dr. Day says he is eager to see them in court.

"We've taken the position that the law is illegal," Dr. Day, 59, says. "This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years."...ETC

Canada's Medical Nightmare Written By: Robert J. Cihak, M.D. Published In: Health Care News Publication Date: September 1, 2004 Publisher: The Heartland Institu

---

For decades, Canadians have cast pitying glances at us poor American neighbors who actually have to pay for our medical care while they get theirs for "free."

Yet the major candidates in Canada's recent national election both agreed the country's health care system is failing. They made the usual socialist diagnosis of "not enough money." None of the candidates mentioned government control as what ails the Canadian system.

On this side of the border, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), with presidential candidate Senator John Kerry, also from Massachusetts, in tow, promotes Canadian health care to U.S. voters, in the hope we too can have "free" medical care.

From Heartland organization

.....High Costs, Low Quality

A July 2004 study by the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute, Paying, More, Getting Less, concluded that after years of government control, the Canadian medical system is badly injured and bleeding citizens' hard-earned tax dollars. The institute compared health care systems in the industrialized countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and found Canada currently spends the most, yet ranks among the lowest on such indicators as access to physicians, quality of medical equipment, and key health outcomes.

One of the major reasons for this discrepancy is that, unlike the countries in the study that outperformed Canada--Sweden, Japan, Australia, and France, for example--Canada outlaws most private health care.

If the Canadian government says it provides a particular medical service, it is illegal for a Canadian citizen to pay for and obtain that service privately. At the same time, the Canadian government bureaucracy rations medical services. According to another Fraser Institute survey, Waiting Your Turn: Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada (13th edition, October 2003), a Canadian health care patient, on average, must wait 17.7 weeks for hospital treatment. Those who live in Saskatchewan waited an average of 30 weeks, those in Ontario a relatively expeditious 14 weeks....

A 1992 Frasier study showed Canadian medical systems did not track data the way a business would, so there were no numbers to use to compare the system with the American system, unless you were Mrs. Clinton. (I added the last part.)

I will drill down into the Canadian numbers. I keep hearing numbers that seem impossible to believe as to the per person cost. Even assuming a bit of puffing by Dr. Beaver (you thought Grey Owl was the doctor you biased reader you,) we need to look into any savings a single payer system could present. For sure, next to the DMV, our medical billing systems in the U.S. are the most obvious examples of bad design and execution. If anything, the American medical billing is Kafkaesque. The billing system in Canada is refreshing, at least in ease of use.

While drilling down in the numbers, there is still the problem of waiting lists in Canada. One article I recently came across was entitled: Dying in Queue.

In any event, we have to get over the reflexive socialist blather that the Canadian system should be copied, especially as that system is moving to private care. The U.S. insurers and medical professionals had better come up with a solution, lest one be inflicted upon them - and us.

Canadian Medical Systems Cover All, Sort Of

New topic seems to be forming:

Canadian-Healthcare.org:

Canada's health care system is a group of socialized health insurance plans that provides coverage to all Canadian citizens. It is publicly funded and administered on a provincial or territorial basis, within guidelines set by the federal government.

Under the health care system, individual citizens are provided preventative [yes, they wrote that]care and medical treatments from primary care physicians as well as access to hospitals, dental surgery and additional medical services. With a few exceptions, all citizens qualify for health coverage regardless of medical history, personal income, or standard of living.

Canada's health care system is the subject of much political controversy and debate in the country. Some question the efficiencies of the current system to deliver treatments in a timely fashion, and advocate adopting a private system similar to the United States. Conversely, there are worries that privatization would lead to inequalities in the health system with only the wealthy being able to afford certain treatments....

That said:

As Canada's Slow-Motion Public Health System Falters, Private Medical Care Is Surging

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

Published: February 26, 2006 New York Times

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 23 — The Cambie Surgery Center, Canada's most prominent private hospital, may be considered a rogue enterprise.

Accepting money from patients for operations they would otherwise receive free of charge in a public hospital is technically prohibited in this country, even in cases where patients would wait months or even years in discomfort before receiving treatment.

But no one is about to arrest Dr. Brian Day, who is president and medical director of the center, or any of the 120 doctors who work there. Public hospitals are sending him growing numbers of patients they are too busy to treat, and his center is advertising that patients do not have to wait to replace their aching knees.

The country's publicly financed health insurance system — frequently described as the third rail of its political system and a core value of its national identity — is gradually breaking down. Private clinics are opening around the country by an estimated one a week, and private insurance companies are about to find a gold mine.

Dr. Day, for instance, is planning to open more private hospitals, first in Toronto and Ottawa, then in Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton. Ontario provincial officials are already threatening stiff fines. Dr. Day says he is eager to see them in court.

"We've taken the position that the law is illegal," Dr. Day, 59, says. "This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years."...ETC

Canada's Medical Nightmare Written By: Robert J. Cihak, M.D. Published In: Health Care News Publication Date: September 1, 2004 Publisher: The Heartland Institu

---

For decades, Canadians have cast pitying glances at us poor American neighbors who actually have to pay for our medical care while they get theirs for "free."

Yet the major candidates in Canada's recent national election both agreed the country's health care system is failing. They made the usual socialist diagnosis of "not enough money." None of the candidates mentioned government control as what ails the Canadian system.

On this side of the border, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), with presidential candidate Senator John Kerry, also from Massachusetts, in tow, promotes Canadian health care to U.S. voters, in the hope we too can have "free" medical care.

From Heartland organization

.....High Costs, Low Quality

A July 2004 study by the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute, Paying, More, Getting Less, concluded that after years of government control, the Canadian medical system is badly injured and bleeding citizens' hard-earned tax dollars. The institute compared health care systems in the industrialized countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and found Canada currently spends the most, yet ranks among the lowest on such indicators as access to physicians, quality of medical equipment, and key health outcomes.

One of the major reasons for this discrepancy is that, unlike the countries in the study that outperformed Canada--Sweden, Japan, Australia, and France, for example--Canada outlaws most private health care.

If the Canadian government says it provides a particular medical service, it is illegal for a Canadian citizen to pay for and obtain that service privately. At the same time, the Canadian government bureaucracy rations medical services. According to another Fraser Institute survey, Waiting Your Turn: Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada (13th edition, October 2003), a Canadian health care patient, on average, must wait 17.7 weeks for hospital treatment. Those who live in Saskatchewan waited an average of 30 weeks, those in Ontario a relatively expeditious 14 weeks....

A 1992 Frasier study showed Canadian medical systems did not track data the way a business would, so there were no numbers to use to compare the system with the American system, unless you were Mrs. Clinton. (I added the last part.)

I will drill down into the Canadian numbers. I keep hearing numbers that seem impossible to believe as to the per person cost. Even assuming a bit of puffing by Dr. Beaver (you thought Grey Owl was the doctor you biased reader you,) we need to look into any savings a single payer system could present. For sure, next to the DMV, our medical billing systems in the U.S. are the most obvious examples of bad design and execution. If anything, the American medical billing is Kafkaesque. The billing system in Canada is refreshing, at least in ease of use.

While drilling down in the numbers, there is still the problem of waiting lists in Canada. One article I recently came across was entitled: Dying in Queue.

In any event, we have to get over the reflexive socialist blather that the Canadian system should be copied, especially as that system is moving to private care. The U.S. insurers and medical professionals had better come up with a solution, lest one be inflicted upon them - and us.

Degree Days and Pushing Wrong Key

After proudly saying New York has a downtrend in degree days, while at the brewery, I was hit by a trick question: "Say, what is a degree day?"

Don't you hate people who question the assumptions behind assumed facts? Obviously, no one had any idea what a degree day was, which sort of took the wind out of my big unfurled sail. The mast snapped.

To the left is a "degree day meter" schematic.

A degree day, according to the always persuasive Wiki:

A degree day is a measure of heating or cooling. Totalised [Socialist Spelling] degree days from an appropriate starting date are used to plan the planting of crops and management of pests. Weekly or monthly degree-day figures may also be used within an energy monitoring and targeting scheme to monitor the heating and cooling costs of climate controlled buildings, while annual figures can be used for estimating future costs.

A degree day is computed as the integral of a function of time that generally varies with temperature. The function is truncated to upper and lower limits that vary by organism, or to limits that are appropriate for climate control. The function can be estimated or measured by one of the following methods, in each case by reference to a chosen base temperature...

never mind, let me find something that makes sense:

Heating degree days are calculated over a period of time (typically a year) by adding up the differences between each day's mean daily temperature and the "balance point" temperature of 18°C (or 65°F), above which the building is assumed not to need any heating (the actual indoor temperature will be higher due to insulation retaining heat from the occupants). Thus three successive winter days with average temperatures of 4°C, −2°C and −4°C totals to 56 HDD. Conversely, three summer days of 26°C, 28°C, and 30°C totals to 30 CDD. For differences between day and night temperatures, the average is taken; so a day maximum of 10°C with a night minimum of 2°C averages to 6°C, or 12 HDD.

The system has several problems. Heat requirement is not linear with temperature (Valor et al., 2001), and heavily insulated buildings have a lower "balance point": some will need heating below 18°C, but others won't need any heating until the temperature is much lower (see Superinsulation). Solar gain (see Passive solar) reduces the need for heating on sunny days (but not cloudy days), and wind increases it (by an amount that depends on how tightly the building is constructed). People also differ in their opinions about what constitutes a comfortable indoor temperature.

So, you will never see a reference to degree days from me again. Just rest assured, whatever it means, I am right.

Degree Days and Global Something

Heating Degree Day Information (Seasonal, Weekly, & Monthly) (last updated 4/30/2007) PLEASE NOTE: THIS WILL BE OUR LAST WEEKLY POSTING UNTIL OCTOBER 2007. New York State Seasonal Heating Degree Day Period: Current Year: Last Year: Normal: 07/01 - 04/28 5348 5072 5903

Acetone mpg project

Here is the acetone report on my trip.

I have been working with the notion that the better dispersal of gasoline via acetone will increase mpg, as many of you know. I have been able to afford actually filling my gas tank, so I can start creating some numbers to analyze the concept.

Below, you will find early numbers. The system is to add 2 oz of acetone and 2 oz of Lucas top oil to 10 gallons of gas. The last leg had a variation in that I was able to mix the two then add before fueling up. Before that leg, my additions were sometimes after filling up or a pretty good guess concerning what an ounce looks like. Also, the last leg was just all at 65 miles and hour on the Thruway - only a few miles on 2 lane, 40 mph roads. (I set the governor to about 68.)

Car: 6 cylinder, 2 wheel drive, automatic Ford Explorer Fru Fru model. The car hit the 200,000 mile mark on the trip. It is in good shape, though one tire needs to be replaced as it makes noise - so probably a mileage drag.

On the last leg, a/c was on for half the trip. I add all this because of the high mpg. There was a 50% boost in mpg over the baseline! Of course, there are many variables which many more samples will smooth out. Still, pretty impressive results. (I am still taking the train next time.)

Baseline: 17.3 mpg


1. Baseline - driving two lanes/town: 17.3 [added 3+3 after fill up to start project, checked air]

2. 6.04 gallons = 21.5 mpg [added 1 oz acetone after fill up]

3. 6/30: 303/14 = 21.64 mpg [Rt 29 to Utica area, some town driving, etc)

4. 7/8: 318/13.2 = 22.9 [Filled in Niagara, mostly highway travel - speeding on the QEW where you are a road hazard only driving 70 mph. Of course, Canadians use kilotons per cat litter.

5. 7/8: 260/9.86 = 26.369 (all Thruway at 68 mph) [2 + 2 ounces]

Catching Up

I have had a few recent requests about latest climate information and other topics. Here are some sites for those interested in and have time to research.

In preparing to send along this info, I see that I never turned on my auto email to members, so I have been figuring that I had improved the IQ of the world while, all along, my IQ was in question. So, go back to the web site and see past history. The last entry on Toronto may be of interest.

Oh, an update: the population of greater Toronto jumped from 4.5 to 5.5 million since 2002, the figure I used in the article. In that blog article I was expressing shock over the urban sprawl. It puts Phoenix to shame.

1. Recent warming not at all unusual - a summary of some studies. This is typical stuff never reported in our media (and who blames them, how boring.)

2. Canada's Financial Post has a series called "The Deniers" wherein experts in climate, not non-descript "scientists," who are "deniers" of the cult of Gore. They are not saying climate is not changing, just that the claims being made are borderline crazy. This one is something like No. 34 in the series and is representative. This series is so impressive, I will see if I can create an index. Bottom line, one needs to be careful of claiming "all scientists...." The article before this one, a leading scholar commented that there is religious cult built around Al Gore. It is a religion because there is little science.

3. For PHIL: Article: Scientists who probed two kilometers (1.2 miles) through a Greenland glacier to recover the oldest plant DNA on record said Thursday the planet was far warmer hundreds of thousands of years [what I read was 105,000 years] ago than is generally believed.

4. For DALE: NASA's director Griffith: Griffith - NPR Interview: Interesting take. "Much" of the warming (1 degree C over last 100 years) comes from human activity - but says, essentially, "What Me Worry!" He says it is arrogant to think the recent climate is an optimum one that should be defended - and that we can't.

That's it. A cheapo way to report today. My version of Drudge journalism.

Gene

In .ca, aye

I am in Toronto, still. It is always interesting to catch up on my former home. I always miss former homes, though, when I was there, they annoyed me.

I read a headline, the first day here while mulling over a newspaper, which Canadians do more so than Americans, about how Canadians are reducing their carbon footprint by getting smaller cars to drive to the cottage on weekends.

In the same weeks, I read letters and articles about the movie "Sicko" as supporting the notion of the superiority of the Canadian health care system, then a review on the just issued government reported that average wait in a hospital is 1.5 hours (much longer in Toronto). Stuff like MRIs are four to six months, unless you are older, then they don't bother. What the hell, you are going to die soon anyway.

I was fascinated that Quebec attempted to ban private medical facilities only to be thwarted by the Supreme Court which figured universal access to medical care does not mean universal access to a waiting list. (Their words.) A woman sued the great system because she wanted it to pay for her surgery in Buffalo. If she did not leave the county for the work, she would be long dead. Everyone, literally, has a horror story to tell, but when group-think clicks in, the cliche takes over. Big Brother is subtle, here. [For Canadians: No one is ever thrown out of a U.S. hospital emergency room for not producing an insurance card.]

That about says it all when trying to sort through the self-delusion that is Canada. Still, people are pleasant, sort of like the Eloi in the Time Machine. It is nice to see a place where, as a rule, people don't have to waddle their blubber to travel down the sidewalk.

You just can't expect to join in a conversation, though, involving critical thought. Just stick to the group-think and you fit in: Bush Bad, Earth Warm, Canadians Nice, Streets Clean. That's about all you need. If you want to lead the discussion then: 911 Never Happened, Cheney Oil, Bush Dumb, or Bush Diabolical Smart. Inconsistency is not important.

[Oh, a quick sidebar, the paper the other day had a full page on Greenland having no glaciers at all 100,000 years ago. Thick with forests...Oops. Like I say, don't worry about inconsistency.]

I recall warning folks back in the day, when I lived here, that what had happened in the US was happening in Canada. (Which was also my business guidepost.) No one took it seriously that bad things can happen. Canadians don't really want to get involved with things other than making sure there are enough places to walk their dogs. It is, to be fair, nice to live in the picnic society and worry about your clothes, car, and bar. You just need to suspend your disbelief, sort of like living in a pleasant novel.

While Americans are fighting off the politicians who want immigrants to flood the land with "aliens," as we lovingly call them, to provide cheap labor or cheap votes, Canadians seem oblivious that their country is disappearing by default. It seems to be going the way of European countries, though most of them, albeit late, have realized their policies are bringing to an end the civilizations (or civilisations) their forefather fought for over a thousand years. There is nothing wrong with the Canadian culture that requires the subtle imposition of a homogenization that results in a bland, flavorless mass of breeders (as the Bildebergers would say) who are intent only on buying stuff.

Canada is taking in 500,000 immigrants a year and the culture abhors the "melting pot" concept. This is trouble. The country cannot change all these folks into "Canadians" fast enough, if it wanted to. I think the established Canadians don't really know what makes them Canadian, so they don't express any thoughts on preserving what they have. Too bad. When I lived here, I had a friend from Tanzania who once stopped, as we were walking, to explain that Canadians don't realize they are bending over backwards (OK, not his words) to be supportive of immigrants who would kill them if the tables were reversed.

Remember, California has three million more people than all of Canada. Greater Toronto has 4.7 million, so the flood is proportionally extreme. Of course, the big money guys are making a fortune in land development. I would recommend you buy shares in Ontario Hydro, the biggest utility in the world, but it was not traded and was just bought by the teachers' union, though I didn't read that article too closely. Socialism is a great thing.

The CN Tower of Babel is the main tourist attraction. Sharia law was being promoted a few years ago, seriously, as something to attach to the legal current system. It was not as sweeping an adoption, as reported in the US, but the proposition is more evidence of suicide by correctness.

If you drive north out of Toronto there is an impressive urban sprawl boom that is unbecoming a nation of self-proclaimed environmentalists. Imagine the mushroom patch suburbs of Phoenix, LA, etc., but make the houses twice a large and built them with three feet between each giant box. The result is a grotesque melange of "executive homes." You wonder who wants these places. The country must be top heavy with executives who drive an hour and a half to work and avoid sunlight.

It would have been ecologically smart to just join the weird giant boxes into some distorted gray brownstones, to coin a contradiction, but, of course, then you would not own an executive home, just an easier-to-heat attached home. I suppose one could grow mushrooms in the patch between the houses. The American Dream has morphed into the Canadian Nightmare.

These new developments are a long car drive from mass transit, which Canadians find as painful to use as those in Los Angeles. Thus, the main highway around Toronto is now one of the most used in the world. In fact, there is now a shadow highway that is private and the toll is paid without a toll booth, via electronic means, including reading licenses for those without transponders.

In short, Toronto is a geometrically expanding expensive mess. Quite a change from just ten years ago. It is sad to see a great city adopting Alzheimer's Disease by choice.