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It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Health officials keep close eye on private clinic's access feesAlberta Health Minister Iris Evans said that provincial officials are currently investigating whether the Calgary clinic is violating any laws. In Alberta, there is a law that prohibits doctors from billing patients as a condition of providing insured health service.Ms. Evans said that if the private clinic is violating the law, she is hopeful there could be an "amicable conclusion to it."We will have to tell them that that isn't permitted. . . . To my way of thinking, we can't tolerate that," she said.
Which of course is such an effective deterent that a competing private healthcare hotel is planning to also open up in Alberta and they could care less about violating the Canadian Healthcare Act or Alberta's Bill 11. Cause it ain't about healthcare its about business and the bottom line. So far the Conservative government has been deafeningly silent over all this, while Minister Evans dithers.
Calgary doctors make waves with $3,600 annual 'access' fee
The program also follows news that Vancouver-based Copeman Healthcare plans to open private clinics with 24-hour access to physicians and specialists around the country. Don Copeman, company founder, said Ultimate Health Care's opening in Calgary won't deter his company from coming here. "We could care less," said Copeman. "Our phones are ringing off the hook."
He said the ethics commissioner has ruled that had former Liberal cabinet minister Ujjal Dosanjh offered former Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal a government appointment to induce him to cross the floor, then Dosanjh would have broken the guidelines.
"This is precisely what the prime minister has done. I'm accusing him of breaking the members' code. The evidence is overwhelming. They offered him a cabinet post and he took it. When such things have happened in the past it's been hidden, but this is so blatant," said Waddell.
Washington then voted in favor of Iran‘s proposal to deny their applications, which carried 10-5 with three abstentions.
Following the vote, German envoy Martin Thuemmel said the committee decision "will haunt us for a long time" because it sent a message that it was acceptable to discriminate on the basis of an individual‘s sexual orientation.
The January 23 vote denying "consultative status" at the world body to the Belgium-based International Gay and Lesbian Association and the Danish National Association for Gays and Lesbians was a "drastic reversal" of Washington‘s previous stand on the issue, the U.S. House of Representatives members wrote.
Nearly 3,000 nongovernmental organizations have such status, which enables them to distribute documents and speak at meetings of some U.N. bodies and conferences.
In voting for Iran‘s proposal, "the United States joined some of the world‘s most oppressive regimes, among them China, Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe" and demonstrated "a reprehensible inconsistency" in the protection of rights based on sexual orientation, the lawmakers said.
BEIJING, Feb. 8 -- According to the survey by the Ministry of Health, sexually active gay men in China account for approximately 2% to 4% of the total number of sexually active men.
Based on these percentages, China has a total of about 5 million to 10 million gay men. It is the first time China released the number of gay men and people infected with AIDS.
In recent years, China has quietly attended to the health issue of gays. In 2003, the government conducted an AIDS survey on six population groups in 138 regions in its 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.
The six groups included drug users, prostitutes, gays, venereal disease patients, paid blood donors and anonymous people under examination in hospitals.
Through the survey, the country obtained information on infection rate and the behavior patterns of different groups in different regions. Data obtained through this survey supplemented the AIDS surveillance system. So far, China has set up 42 behavior surveillance agencies in 19 provinces.
(Source: CRIENGLISH.com/Chinanews.cn)
Charge E-Mailers, but Keep Pipeline OpenAnd another article makes this point, which I made in my orginal article damn nice to have confirmation that I am not the only one concerned about this, AOL anti-spam scheme takes aim at wrong targetThe second notion -- in which Internet service providers would charge Web sites for better delivery of their data -- may not be ridiculous per se, but it is a serious departure from the Internet's traditional openness. And it would be open to abuse without clear ground rules. But companies like Verizon and BellSouth won't answer some basic questions: Would they disclose which sites are paying these business-class fares? Would they let any site pay for better access, or only those they like?
They will gladly talk about how they want the flexibility to dream up new business models (as BellSouth and Verizon executives did during a panel discussion at a Capitol Hill conference on Wednesday). Fine. But as long as AT&T, Verizon and their ilk seem to be having so much trouble getting customers connected and keeping then contented, let's broaden this discussion of new economic models.
Here's one question to ponder: When an Internet service provider makes you wait weeks to get your DSL turned on, allows service to drop out for no apparent reason, then puts you on hold until an overworked tech-support rep dishes out incorrect advice, doesn't the customer deserve some compensation, as well?
That's the other dangerous incentive in the Goodmail system. AOL, Yahoo and Goodmail all make more money, the more their spam filters target "other" legitimate mailers who aren't yet signed up on Goodmail. There's a dangerous cash incentive here for them to cut out non-paying mass mailers. By instigating a private e-mail tax, AOL and Yahoo! have to punish not spammers, but those who seem to be evading their tax. Spammers aren't tax evaders, because they'll never pay anyway. Ordinary netizens who send out "mass" mails and could be "encouraged" to pay are, in other words, non-profits, individuals and communities who run mailing lists.
Commoditisation and the erosion of value-added ISPs like AOL into simple data conduits looms over all these companies. Spam they can live with. Lower prices and fewer people to charge they cannot.
Especially since they are now censoring their users for the Chinese and other authoritarian governments.Don’t use Google toolbar
EFF warningBy Nick Farrell: Friday 10 February 2006, 13:58
THE Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has warned that people should not download Google Desktop because it "greatly increases the risk to consumer privacy".A spokesEFF said that if the toolbar chooses to use it, the new "Search Across Computers" feature stores copies of the user's Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text-based documents on Google's own servers.
The EFF is concerned that it will make their personal data more vulnerable to subpoenas from the government, which has already shown an interest in what Google keeps on his server.
On the EFF’s site here, a spokesperson said that it was shocking that Google expects its users to now trust it with the contents of their personal computers. µ
The study showed that the medieval warm period ran from about 890 to 1170 and that this was later followed by a significant period of cooling between 1580 and 1850, which included the period known as the "little ice age" when frost fairs were held on the River Thames.
"The key conclusion was that the 20th century stands out as having unusually widespread warmth, compared to all of the natural warming and cooling episodes during the past 1,200 years," Dr Osborn said.