Thursday, February 07, 2008

Gee I Said That


Here.

Red Deer Advocate Editorial , Thursday, Feb. 7, 2008

Amazingly, the Conservatives — who have been in power since 1971 — are campaigning under the slogan “Change that works for Albertans.” They are apparently determined to run against their own record, after realizing many Albertans are tired of their arrogance and mistakes.

“I think we can deliver as much change as anyone else,” said George Rogers, Tory MLA for Leduc-Beaumont-Devon, with no hint of joking in his voice. After 37 years in government? That makes absolutely no sense.

Do the Tories think voters are stupid enough to consider them the party of change?

Apparently they are underestimating the intelligence of Albertans. Comes from Tired Old Tories talking to themselves in caucus.

H/T Cowboys For Social Responsibility

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Harpers War The Manley Solution


All the conditions for the Manley recommendation to become Harpers War Wet Dream were already made in the back rooms.

The Harper government will set the stage for a possible spring election on Canada's role in the Afghanistan war by tabling a motion as early as this week calling for an extension of the mission in line with last month's Manley report.The motion is expected to adopt the central recommendation of the panel led by former Liberal cabinet minister John Manley. In its report, the panel recommended extending the mission beyond February 2009, the current expiration date, provided Canada can secure more equipment and convince its allies to commit roughly 1,000 more troops.
Let's see Poland has offered to help.

Poland to share choppers in Afghanistan
The irony of the former Warsaw Pact nation now extending its mission in Afghanistan is rich indeed. Too bad they hadn't done this when the Russians were there and none of this would have been needed.

Meanwhile MacKay is off lobbying NATO.

MacKay to stress demand for 1,000 troops from NATO

And he may get them.
In a rare piece of good news, there were suggestions that the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, would provide an extra 1,000 troops.

British officials hope the extra troops will be stationed in areas of the bloodiest conflict in Kandahar in the south, but Nato defence chiefs will discuss the position at an informal summit starting today. Nato is seeking to draw together a new three-year structural plan for the country.

Rice did not disguise her concern at the scale of the threat in Afghanistan. "I do think the alliance is facing a real test here. Our populations need to understand this is not a peacekeeping mission" but rather a long-term fight against extremists, she added. "This is a different fight from what Nato was structured to do.

The messaging is the same from the White House and Harpers House; prepare for a long war.

Meanwhile the Taliban will have Pakistan's support in going back into Afghanistan to conduct their operations.

Of course Pakistan is not a member of NATO.

Pakistan Taliban declare ceasefire - spokesman

Pakistan calls truce with Taliban after secret talks
Ismail Khan, a journalist who reports on the border area for the newspaper Dawn, said both sides appeared to be respecting the truce. But he said the military's apparent decision to halt its operation against militants in south Waziristan raised questions about Pakistan's strategy in dealing with the Taliban.


Also See:

Afghanistan


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Job Protection for


Canadian Reservists



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Wednesday, February 06, 2008

What A Rush

Rush Limbaugh the self appointed voice of the Conservative right is a drug addled failure. His attacks on McCain and their failure to influence Republican voters shows that this pill popping loser has no credibility. He and other conservative mouthpieces like Ann Coulter and Foxy Sean Hannity have bewailed against McCain and Huckabee and even Ron Paul. For them it is the brylcreme slick huckster and flip flopper Mitt Romney that reflects their values. Luckily for the Republican party the base is divorcing itself from its self appointed 'values' based leadership.



But nailing the nomination is starting to look like the easy part of the task facing McCain over the next 10 months.

The closer he gets to securing the Republican candidacy, the louder the protests from the right of the party denouncing him as a traitor to the true cause of Ronald Reagan conservatism.

Rush Limbaugh, the radio talk show host who has emerged as McCain-basher in chief, was back on the offensive within hours of the polls closing on Super Tuesday. Through his website and his radio broadcasts to 612 stations across the US, he lambasted the senator for Arizona for his allegedly anti-conservative positions on a raft of issues from immigration to tax cuts, and hinted that he might consider voting for the Democratic candidate in November.

"I'll just tell you, there's far more apathy or anger out there than the Republican establishment knows. One question I asked myself: if, if, if, if down the road you think that the election of Obama, Hillary, or McCain is going to result in very bad things happening to the country, who would you rather get the blame for it?"

The conservative talk-radio assault on John McCain and Mike Huckabee has backfired in a big way.

Supporters of Huckabee are so angry that they have launched a “Send it Back” campaign, asking people who have copies of books by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity to send them back to their authors. They’re angry that Limbaugh and Hannity were trashing Huckabee on the air. Limbaugh and Hannity were joined by Laura Ingraham in trying to rally their listeners around Mitt Romney. The ploy failed. Romney won in seven contests on Super Tuesday but failed to win either California, where he expected to win, or any Southern state.

The “Send it Back” campaign also applies to Ann Coulter, who attacked Huckabee as the “Republican Jimmy Carter.” Coulter, who has achieved notoriety for making personal attacks and writing books blasting Democrats, also said that McCain was so unacceptable that she would vote and campaign for Hillary Clinton if the Arizona senator was the Republican presidential nominee.


Ironically Limbaugh is using traditional right wing rhetoric to attack McCain, the old Nazi stabbed in the back accusation.

Suggesting he has come under intense pressure to get on board and back McCain, radio personality Rush Limbaugh held his ground Monday, saying on his program: "John McCain has stabbed his own party in the back I can't tell you how many times. He stabbed his own president in the back on legislation a number of times. He doesn't support his party or his president when the chips are down."

The stab in the back first gained currency in Germany, as a means of explaining the nation's stunning defeat in World War I. It was Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg himself, the leading German hero of the war, who told the National Assembly, "As an English general has very truly said, the German army was 'stabbed in the back.'"

Truly a drug addled brain at work here. Not unlike Goering, whom Rush bears a striking resemblance to ideologically as well as physically.

http://home.bluemarble.net/~lewellyn/Images/pigboy-booking-photo.jpg

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Hillary Gets The Womens Vote

A lot of noise has been made around how Billary is winning the womens vote, a feminist revival as she gets the votes of baby boomers. Including the bulimic bully of the right; Ann Coulter.

Ann Coulter hates John McCain so much that she claims she'll "vote for" and "campaign for" Hillary Clinton if McCain wins the Republican nomination.

In response to Coulter's announcement on Fox's "Hannity & Colmes," Senator Clinton told "Inside Edition":

“Well, you see, I told you I could bring the country together.”

So I guess all that hate of the Clinton's that the social conservative right had hoped to mobilize is now being directed at McCain. It's joy to watch the Republican Right fall into an internecine feeding frenzy and we are only half way through the primaries. Wait for the real implosion to occur in Minneapolis.

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SEE:

Bill Clinton A Reagan Democrat

Keep Coulter I'll Take Paglia

Poster Girl for Anorexia

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Ed's Ides of March


The best not kept secret in Alberta was finally blurted out last Friday, while farmer Ed was glad handing and announcing another pre-budget billion dollar give away, one of his MLA's gleefully announced to the media that the provincial election would be March 3rd. And sure enough right after the throne speech on Monday, Ed announced his own Ides of March, the election is now on and will be Monday March, 3.

Stelmach has something no other political premier can match for wooing voters - lots of money. Before the writ was even dropped, the Tories pledged $6 billion a year over the next 20 years on capital projects, including municipal infrastructure, schools, highways, housing and health facilities. And there's plenty more where that came from. Just watch the promises over the next three weeks leading up to the March 3 vote.


Yes I know the Ides of March are technically March 15 but heck what's twelve days for the man who would be Harry Strom. After all as Wikipedia informs us;
The term has come to be used as a metaphor for impending doom.

Picking up from the Presidential primaries south of us the clever lads in charge of Ed's messaging have made this their slogan; “Change that works for Albertans.”

How about Change the government that has not worked for Alberta. Or Change that hardly works for Albertans. Or maybe "We didn't have a plan then, we don't have one now." The irony is that it is still the same old Tired Tories who are in charge. Just because they changed their leader doesn't mean they have changed.

Ironically Ed's election announcement got swamped in the news by the real election; the one south of us, as the press covered Super Tuesday primaries for U.S. President. And Ed sounds a lot like Republican loser Mitt Romney who claims Washington is broken, but forgets to mention its because the Republicans held the White House, Congress and the Senate till 2006.

Imagine a government running to change itself. Well after all it needs to do something because it has done little since 1993 but maintain the course. In fact most of the changes Ed promises are changes that Ralph refused to make. Like his musing that if elected he would eliminate health care premiums, something both the NDP and Liberals have campaigned on since 1993. Like his delayed Royalty implementation plan Ed will eliminate them four years after the election, just in time for the next one.

That's like his royalty increases which will be negotiated and not come into effect until 2009, or perhaps 2010 or even 2011 in some cases.

Alberta’s New Democrats want the province to consider adopting Alaska’s energy royalty rates, which are 60% higher than the new royalties put in place by Premier Ed Stelmach.

NDP Leader Brian Mason took an election campaign shot at the Tory premier today as he described how adopting Alaska’s system would add $4 billion a year to Alberta’s royalties.

Mason says Stelmach’s plan to increase royalties by only 20% next year amounts to “giving their political donors in the oilpatch a $4 billion gift.”

He also says Stelmach’s review panel was never given key documents, so a new panel should be given all the information and 90 days to reconsider royalties.

The NDP says these documents showed that the Tory government had ignored years of internal advice that Alberta’s royalties could be increased by at least $1 billion a year.
And while Ed barely gets Albertans any real money for our oil he allows Big Oil to continue to pollute and destroy the environment with his so called green plan.

Greenhouse gas levels will climb for 12 years


His next election promise was to increase the number of doctors in the province, despite the closure of hospital beds in Edmonton because of the lack of doctors and nurses, thanks to Ralph's cuts way back a decade ago.

In recent months, people with broken bones have waited longer for care because of a shortage of nurses for recovery beds. The Royal Alexandra Hospital closes two or three operating rooms a day.

In the past week, about 40 elective surgeries over two days were cancelled due to staff shortages.

Now, the region has stopped trying to reopen 33 acute-care beds that have been closed since summer.

"We're officially giving up," Buick said. "We have to retrench sometime. We're just grinding so hard all across the system.

"The pressure is carrying on, and with flu season just beginning to come up now, we're realizing we cannot go on as business-as-usual" for the last three months of the fiscal year, which ends March 31.

The public notice comes as Alberta health regions are speaking openly about projected budget deficits. Massive staff overtime costs, an unexpected hike in nurses' pay plus a huge recruitment program for foreign nurses could leave Capital Health $20 million to $30 million over budget by spring, said Sheila Weatherill, the region's president and CEO.

Still, that pales compared to the outlook in the Calgary health region, which projects an $85-million deficit.

Health Minister Dave Hancock refused this week to consider bailing out Edmonton, Calgary and five other health regions facing deficits that could total more than $100 million.



His pronouncement immediately drew flack from the Big Doc in charge;

But according to Dr. Trevor Theman, registrar of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta, that is likely not possible: although the need is there, it would require a near-doubling of current training spending from the province and involve recruiting dozens of more people to train them - with staff to train physicians already an issue for the existing 250 spots.

"Edmonton and Calgary are already maxed out in their ability to train, and even if there were more money, it's an issue of human resources," said Theman. "You need trainers available and you need people who have clinical experience to handle that training."

In fact, the only way to achieve the province's doctor target, said Theman, would be by relying chiefly on recruitment of overseas physicians, which is already the province's principal new source of doctors.


Yep like the oil sands the Tories solution to labour shortages are more temporary workers!!!

And again an election promise is made that could have been resolved in the past year of Ed's tenure as premier.

But unlike Ralph who kicked off the last election kicking the disabled and the poor Ed has embraced them.


CALGARY - Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach has announced a plan to allow severely disabled people to earn more money without losing their provincial income benefits.

Campaigning in Calgary today, the Progressive Conservative leader said his proposal would allow disabled people to earn an additional $500 per month without affecting their living allowance under the Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH) program.

Stelmach says helping AISH recipients go to work gives them a higher sense of esteem.

He says 36,000 Albertans who receive AISH benefits would be eligible under the program.

Singles would be able to earn up to $1,500 a month while single parents or couples could take home $2,500 and only lose half of their allowance.

But like any of his musings and announcements in the past year since his election as party leader he could have done this without calling an election. It's just another shallow promise. And a cheap one at that, if he really was concerned he would have also adjusted AISH payments, which are also federal funds, to rise with the Cost of Living, an allowance all MLA's get.


The Liberals with their mediocre charismatically challenged policy wonk leader Kevin Taft are campaigning with the message; It's Time. Time for what? The slogan aeon's ago was It's Time For A Change, that was when Lawrence Decore was leader, and it really never changed till now. Now they have truncated it. It's Time ...and you immediately want to add in; for a new leader.

Despite polling numbers that show massive dissatisfaction with the PC's under Stelmach, support for the Liberals is not there. Rather this election will be about winning over the mass of undecided voters.

Polls have suggested the Tories still have a comfortable lead but that as many as one voter in three hasn't decided or won't say who they will vote for.

Undecided voters have proven to be poison for the Tories. In the 2004 election, they lost ground in Edmonton and Calgary after an estimated 200,000 disillusioned party supporters stayed home on voting day.


Tory hold on Alberta apt to fade

Some of the elements that contributed to the perfect storms that reshaped the Ontario and Quebec scenes in the past are in place as Alberta heads to the polls, including an uncertain premier, Ed Stelmach, and an unfocused malaise with the direction of the province.

That combination alone would be enough to make next month's vote the provincial story to watch this year. But there are more fundamental reasons than a rare and still elusive Alberta horse race to keep this campaign on the national radar for its duration.

The fabric of Alberta is changing. Its population has been growing at twice the rate of the national average. Even the language barrier has not prevented the siren calls of a booming economy from resonating beyond its provincial borders. The latest census figures on Canada's linguistic makeup showed Alberta to be one of only two provinces outside Quebec where the francophone population has been increasing.

Many of the new Albertans bring a more activist outlook on the role of the government. Their initial experience with an overextended social infrastructure and a degrading environment is unlikely to convert them to a different vision. Over time, they will transform the political culture of the province.

And just to show how out of touch the Liberals are; Taft also predicted no chance of an NDP breakthrough, suggesting they could even lose existing seats.


He wishes that was true. But Brian Mason and the NDP have been electioneering since last fall, and the party was raring to go with candidates nominated in both Edmonton and Calgary.

Of course Taft's prediction may be predicated upon reading the Liberals own press; the Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald, that will try their best to make this appear to be a race between the Tories and the Liberals, no one else need apply.

Tories, Liberals address social issues Edmonton Journal


For the Liberals this election is make it or break it, without a victory it will be time to show Taft the door. And so far his campaign is not getting off to a great start.

A homeless couple asked hard, frustrated questions of their own to Liberal Leader Kevin Taft this morning as he laid out his party's strategy to end the plight of thousands of other Albertans without a home.

Taft reannounced a Liberal plan that his deputy leader Dave Taylor released a month ago - temporarily cap rent increases until new housing units get built, hire a provincial housing director to coordinate various cities' 10-year homelessness plans, and boost outreach services.

The mid-morning campaign event drew the attention of Diane and Les McIntyre, two newspaper distribution workers who've lived in a nearby shelter on and off for the last five years because of addiction problems.

As reporters fired questions towards Taft's lectern, Diane McIntyre yelled her own from the sidelines.

"The high rent, we can't afford it. so it doesn't give you incentive to get off the street. because you can't afford to get off the street."

"Like, we need to know, like, where are they going to put (the housing?) There's a lot of questions because nobody wants to put affordable housing anywhere, because it's all drug and alcohol... there's no incentive. There's no incentive."

Taylor responded that the only answer it to create more affordable housing, spread throughout the city. He couldn't say how much the Liberal approach would cost.



For the NDP this election is about making gains in Edmonton and breaking into Calgary.

The right wing rump party the Wildrose Alliance will take right wing votes away from Ed, leaving both the NDP and Liberals able to move up the middle, when disenchanted PC voters stay home in droves.

And when it comes to internet savvy the NDP out does the Liberals and PC's, again.

It's a political faceoff on Facebook, and so far the NDP's Brian Mason is in the lead.

Not that anyone expects the NDP to be there come election time in a month. But Mason had signed up 730 friends on the social networking site, to about 620 for Kevin Taft of the Alberta Liberals at press time yesterday.

UNSPOKEN-FRIEND RACE

"Everyone's been monitoring it - it's kind of an unspoken-friend race between the two opposition leaders," said NDP spokesman Mark Wells, who said his party plans to hit web outlets with a ton of material during the campaign. He also noted both opposition leaders have been blogging through their sites as well.

The Liberals are confident they've got a solid web presence, said executive director Kieran LeBlanc.

"Kevin's been on Facebook for over a year and he gets quite a few hits - we've been using it to announce events and generally get the message out, and it works pretty well."

The Liberals, whose site was voted by local press as the most useful during the last election campaign, also use mail servers, intranet for candidate conversations and are regularly updating event videos on YouTube, she noted.

The Alberta Progressive Conservatives said web use is part of their strategy and they "won't reveal our strategy before the election has started," said spokesman Joan Forge. "We'll be using that...oh, what's the term - I'm not very technical ..."

Social networking?

"Yes, that's it."

And it doesn't appear as if Premier Ed Stelmach will be joining the unofficial race for friends any time soon, either.

NO PAGE FOR PREMIER

For one, he doesn't have a Facebook page. For another, the number of pages opposed to the premier on Facebook outnumber those supporting him by about 10 to one.


Nope no Facebook page for Ed, and he still hasn't sued over edstelmach.com.

And besides neither Ed nor Kevin can make this claim;

Brian Mason used to be a bus driver, so he knows what it means to get up at 4 am for the early shift and work on Christmas Eve. How many other political leaders can say that?

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Ron Paul Spoiler


There it was flashing on CNN and MSNBC, Ron Paul came in second in Montana, and as usual no comment from the pundits. And then he came in third in North Dakota. Silence. Ron Paul is still in the Republican race, a spoiler for a fight and spoiling to continue his fight against American Imperial aspirations. Go Paul Go. And notice even Coulter, Limbaugh and company don't dare take on Paul. Who is after all Mr. Conservative.



Paul did better in the Northern Midwest caucus states,
placing second in Montana, third in North Dakota and fourth, but with 15 percent of the vote in Minnesota. He also placed third with 17 percent at the Alaska Republican caucus and, despite a fourth place finish in initial voting, got 3 national convention votes in a backroom deal with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee in West Virginia.

Missoula GOP chooses Paul
By CHELSI MOY of the Missoulian

Diane Rotering casts her ballot for a presidential candidate at the Missoula County Republican caucus Tuesday night. Rotering, a designated caucus voter, cast her ballot for Ron Paul, who won the county by only three votes over Mitt Romney. “It's just awesome,” says Rotering. “(The caucus is) sort of like the Super Bowl: well-played and a good clean win.”
LINDA THOMPSON/Missoulian

Missoula County Republican caucus voters threw their support to maverick presidential candidate Ron Paul on Tuesday night, giving the Texas congressman a three-vote victory over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

An organized youth vote filled Missoula's empty precincts, helping Paul win 45 of the 97 votes cast at the caucus. Romney won 42 votes, while Sen. John McCain of Arizona had seven and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee had three.

About 300 people turned out at Missoula's DoubleTree Hotel for the historic event, many of them sporting red - the color of the Republican Party. The turnout far surpassed the expectations of Will Deschamps, chairman of the Missoula County Republican Central Committee.

The Ron Paul National Delegate Count is now 42 or more, and the campaign intends to press on to the Republican National Convention.


And here is some good advice; Paul supporters, if you learn anything from this election, it should be this: Stop wasting your damn time waving signs on street corners. Canvassing and phone-banking aren't fun, but they win elections.

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Sunday, February 03, 2008

Winterpeg

Pat Murtagh, Mollys Blog, and I finally got together in his home town of Winterpeg. After not having seen each other for thirty, count em, thirty years. We ate, we laughed, we drank way too much. Anarchist debate flowed. Apparently someone managed to capture us for posterity.


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Saturday, February 02, 2008

Imbolic

Today is groundhog day, which of course is of pagan origin , a North American replacement for the earlier celebration of the coming of spring, the Celtic festival of Imbolic dedicated to the goddess Bridget. It is also known as Candlemas.

Well's and caves are sacred to her as are serpents and so the idea that a ground hog would arise out of a cave to predict the end of winter seems to fit well with Bridget.


Happy Imbolc

Tonight and tomorrow is when most modern Pagans celebrate the fire festival of Imbolc sacred to the goddess Brigid, patroness of poets, healers, and smiths. Today is also the feast day of Saint Brigid of Ireland patron saint of poets, dairymaids, blacksmiths, healers, cattle, fugitives, Irish nuns, midwives, and new-born babies.


Some things attributed to Bridget:

* Deposed the blue-faced goddess of winter every spring
* Known for her generosity, a character transferred to St Bridget
* She is invoked during childbirth
* Her feast day is February 1st, Imbolc
* Bridget means “exalted one”
* Has a connection to the beginning of lactation in ewes
* In Irish myth, she became the midwife to the Virgin Mary,

Imbolc, like many other Celtic festivals, was originally several days long. As a result, some people celebrate it on Feb. 2 or even 3rd

Imbolc Lore
(February 2nd)

Imbolc, (pronounced "IM-bulk" or "EM-bowlk"), also called Oimealg, ("IM-mol'g), by the Druids, is the festival of the lactating sheep. It is derived from the Gaelic word "oimelc" which means "ewes milk". Herd animals have either given birth to the first offspring of the year or their wombs are swollen and the milk of life is flowing into their teats and udders. It is the time of Blessing of the seeds and consecration of agricultural tools. It marks the center point of the dark half of the year. It is the festival of the Maiden, for from this day to March 21st, it is her season to prepare for growth and renewal. Brighid's snake emerges from the womb of the Earth Mother to test the weather, (the origin of Ground Hog Day), and in many places the first Crocus flowers began to spring forth from the frozen earth.

And since Canada has been hit by massive winter storm and Pennsylvania has not then there are two predictions for today.

Canada's cherished groundhog weather forecasters have emerged from their heated, custom-built homes and predicted an early spring, capping a week of snowstorms and bitter cold that kept Canadians burrowed inside their own warm dens.

Neither Ontario's Wiarton Willie nor Nova Scotia's Shubenacadie Sam saw their shadows when roused by their handlers this morning, paving the way for an early spring.

Sam was the first to weigh in, waddling into the rain at the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park, an hour north of Halifax, on Saturday morning at sunrise. Willie emerged with his handlers shortly after 8 a.m. ET, and after being held up to face fans' flashbulbs, declared that he agreed with Sam on the winter issue.

However, it seems the country's revered rodents did not confer with their counterpart across the border before making their predictions, as Pennsylvania's Punxsutawney Phil indicated to thousands gathered at Gobbler's Knob to hunker down for six more weeks of chilly temperatures.

"Here ye, hear ye, hear ye," exclaimed William Cooper, President of Punxsutawney's Inner Circle, one of many members of the local groundhog club waiting to greet their muse in black trench coats and top hats. "After casting a withered eye on his followers ... (Phil has declared) 'a bright sky I see and a shadow beside me, six more weeks of winter I see.'"



And there is a scientific basis for groundhog day and its link to prestidigitation

The groundhogs hibernating in Professor Greg Florant's lab at Colorado State University won't see their shadows today.

Unlike Punxsutawney Phil, they won't help predict when spring will arrive because the seven groundhogs will be snoozing

Instead, the groundhogs hibernating in a 5-degree cold room on CSU's campus might help provide information about climate change.

Florant, a biology professor, is working with Professor Stam Zervanos at Pennsylvania State University to determine whether animal hibernation patterns are genetic or can be manipulated by environmental temperatures.

Last year Florant and Zervanos studied groundhogs in their native habitats in Maine, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. Now they want to see what the animals will do in a lab environment.

Typically groundhogs in South Carolina hibernate for about two months. In Pennsylvania, it's about five months; and in Maine, it can be as much as seven months.

Florant's trying to discover whether the animals from the warmer climates will sleep longer in the colder temperatures. "Will they adjust and hibernate longer and deeper? Or will their genetics keep them from doing that?"

Global warming could potentially change the hibernation patterns of animals. If temperatures become warm enough, the animals might change their patterns, and that could affect their ability to survive.



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Friday, February 01, 2008

Out of the Deep Freeze


I am flying to Winnipeg today brr out of the deep freeze into the refrigerator.

LOL

Edmonton City Centre Arpt


FRI 01 A few clouds -26 -30 - - 69 101.30101.30 14 unlimited


Winnipeg


FRI 01 Overcast -12 -13 -24 S 44 92 100.77100.77 16 4500


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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

McCain Supports Canadian Style Medicare


For veterans. He was using this as part of his Florida stump speeches last week.


Allowing veterans to use whatever provider they want, wherever they want by giving them an electronic health care card or through another method.


It seems our American friends south of the border fear government single payer systems because of their anti-government ideology in some cases and because they don't understand Canada's Medicare system.

They would rather suffer under the current monopoly market controlled by insurance companies and HMO's (owned by corporations and sold on Wall Street) than have a single payer system like we have in Canada where you take your Medicare card to any doctor you want to go see. Just what McCain wants for veterans.

Of course one of the common attacks from the right on Canadian Medicare is that we apparently have line ups stretching for miles for folks waiting for operations. That image of course is courtesy the Fraser Institute.

The reality is that doctors in Canada run their own private practices and clinic businesses which are paid for by you and me through a single payer program run by the government. A fact that seems to be missed by our friends south of the border when they curse government run, socialist medicine.

And yes we still have unacceptable wait times for some surgeries, that has not changed after two years of the Conservatives being in power. So don't expect much from their counterparts south of the border when it comes to fixing their health care problems.


SEE


Proletarian Doctors



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