Maybe it's because the bishops don't have kids ...

This is a bit late in coming, but I applaud the Halton Catholic School Board's decision Tuesday to permit the public health authorities to innoculate female students in the board's system against the HPV virus. York decided the same night not to even vote on the issue (an implied thumbs-up). Last night, the Toronto Board voted 9-3 to go with the program also.

I wrote about my opinions about the HPV vaccine back in March of this year (here) and nothing has changed my opinions since then. Contrary to what the Ontario Bishops claim, HPV is not only transmitted through sexual contact. It is quite possible to get it from blood transfusions as well as from genetic inheritance. There's a one in four chance I have it, but I'm not going to ever exhibit symptoms because as a male I am asymptomatic. But if I was in a relationship I would not want unwittingly to pass on the virus to my companion.

The overriding concern would be as a parent. I'm not one yet, but let me throw this out:

Some parents are concerned about illicit sex conducted by their kids as well as they should be. But the vaccine does not encourage it. Let's face it, if kids are going to have sex they're going to -- and Catholic teenagers actually have sex more often than their non-Catholic counterparts. Perhaps the bishops wish to ignore this fact. Or perhaps they wish to ignore the fact that men who in fact know they have the virus rape women to make sure they get cervical cancer on purpose.

Are the Catholic bishops suggesting that if a female student doesn't get the vaccine she will never be raped? Like an attacker would know if she had gotten it or not? If I was a parent and I knew of something that would reduce the risk of getting a disease by 70% were my daughter attacked, I'd go for it -- bishops be damned. Even if the parents object, it is a teenage female's right to still get the vaccination from her physician for she has the right to privacy.

Perhaps the bishops are also suggesting that it is better to be a man than it is to be a woman. After all, it's not like they're ever going to have kids. Yet in a number of respects Jesus of Nazareth had a better friend in St. Mary Magdalene (although they were not married) than he ever had in St. Peter -- and even Peter was married and had kids. I hope and pray, as a Catholic, that other Catholic school boards in this province follows the law and not the naïveté of the bishops; for I believe in this case the law actually respects the will of God that women be healthy.

Health authorities should of course monitor side-effects such as the occasional incidence of Guillain-Barre syndrome (a form of muscular dystrophy) and inform students of this possibility, but for now I believe the benefits far outweigh the risks.

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Cons Slash Environment Budget

PMS says the priority of the federal Department of the Environment is climate change and global warming -- not species and habitat protection. Yet aren't those two things caused both by industry as well as urban sprawl (among the main culprits)?

Pro-environment groups such as the Canadian Wildlife Federation and Ducks Unlimited are furious that the budget for protecting ecologically sensitive areas somehow has been spent for the year with Ottawa saying there will be no new money until next year. Some of the most crucial programs, in the meantime, have been slashed or dropped to nothing. And it's in the winter months when temperature monitoring and land surveying is most critical since in many parts of the country that's when the most damage is done.

Of course the Auditor-General should investigate what happened if misspending in other units of the department happened. But when you have a government dominated by a wing whose religious beliefs dictate that there is no such thing as climate change -- that is, it's a lie of Satan to test the human race -- one can see where we're going. Even many (though sadly not all) social conservatives in the States have begun to recognize we must live with God's creation rather than use recklessly for our benefit.

That's one area where the far-right in Canada is actually lagging behind their American cousins -- and it's happening just at the very time when Alberta is debating what the royalty levels should be for the tar sands -- right in the area where some of the worst damage to Canada's rural areas is being done.

Sure, some will say -- good, we're sick and tired of the Hinterland Who's Who PSAs. Enjoy them while you can ... in a couple of decades, that may be the only place we see them because what was captured on film may be extinct or as endangered as the condor.

As for spending on a strong military -- I say, of course we should. We haven't spent enough on our men and women in uniform and it's time we caught up. But there, too, we should ensure that those who are trained for the fights the rest of us won't are able to practice in areas as similar to real world conditions as possible and that when they wind down or take a respite break they can actually enjoy our nature; not that of Guam (a US colony) or the Black Forest of Germany which are the usual layover stops these days for our troops.

(Full disclosure: My grandmother contributes to the Canadian Wildlife Federation; and I'm a dues-paying member of Ducks Unlimited.)

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What's the weather like in Kansas?

I honestly don't know; but when the Witchita Eagle comes out against the death penalty, one has to wonder if the tides of change for decency and respect are at last coming from the heartland and not the inner cities.

UPDATE (7:39 PM EDT, 2339 GMT): The link apparently isn't working so I've fixed it and referred to another site which pulled the story off. As for support for capital punishment being at an all time high -- it's actually slipped about 20 points over the last 10 years to about 62% and when people are given the choice between death and life without parole, a slim majority would actually prefer the latter. For what it's worth, the article makes the point well -- if people knew that someone would be on death row for 23 years before being executed would they support that?

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Select THIS!

HT to Rusty Idols: After two years, the New York Times has decided that while its "Times Select" business model for its website did have short term benefits and made the revenue it anticipated, it conceded that long term it simply is an untenable model and that the firewall that blocked columnists like Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert and Tom Friedman to non-subscribers was circumvented both by search engines and some bloggers who helped their readers get around it.

It has decided that instead, it will make more ad revenue by offering up targeted ads based on someone's IP address -- with regionally focused advertisements as well as those based on previous surfing patterns at its website. Just as it does at the open parts of its site, and other media companies do at theirs.

While it has its faults, the NYT remains one of the papers of record in the United States (others include the LA Times and WaPo) and its opinions do wield a great deal of influence in some quarters of Washington. And I for one applaud its decision to lift the veil. It couldn't come at a more important time, as the GOP and its TV media allies do everything they can to ensure Rudy Guiliani or Fred Thompson is elected President next year. The more mainstream and alternate media voices that speak out against four more years of Republican hegemony in the executive, the better.

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Can the Internet kill you?

First there was "Rubik's Thumb." Then people started getting carpal tunnel syndrome by trading Pokémon cards. (Remember those?)

Now, a man in Mainland China has died after a marathon three day on-line gambling binge. (I though gambling was illegal on the Mainland? After all, about a hundred people ran for the exits when the cops showed up.)

I appreciate all the friends and acquaintances I've made over the last few years on the Net ... but even I have limits. I have a job that has me surfing part of the day, for one thing (albeit strictly for research); and for another, I'm already in an office pool so why would I want to play the ponies in a part of the universe I have trouble understanding?

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Guess who wants to go to war against Iran?

Would you believe ... France?

Amazingly, France actually agrees on something with the US for a change. They're warning Iran to stop its nuclear weapons program or it'll ask the EU to impose even tougher sanctions than those authorized by the UN Security Council. And it hasn't ruled out asking the UN to permit member states to use "all necessary means" to make Iran stop -- which in diplomatese means "War."

I think Iran already has the bomb ... and frankly while I don't think it should have it I also think it's hypocrisy for the Big Five to claim they have exclusive rights to Da Bomb. Let's not forget, North Korea has the bomb (although it's promised to get rid of it, yeah right); as does Israel, India and Pakistan. And South Africa once had the bomb but not anymore. If PMS ever felt itchy like Dubya does just about every other day, Canada could procure one in a matter of days -- after all, we have the uranium as well as nuclear plants capable of reprocessing spent fuel rods into the material needed for, well you know.

(The security at nuclear plants, in fact any power plant, hasn't been great either; even after 9/11. Who can forget the Radio-Canada journalist who broke into Hydro-Québec's water power facilities and drove two miles underground without once being questioned. Imagine the security then at the nukes -- for the longest time one could just walk into a research facility without any questions and even now one can finagle his or her way in with smooth talk.)

I doubt any of the Big Five will ever get rid of their WMD although that's the ideal. But if all five promised by treaty that none would ever be the first to use The Bomb, then that would put more pressure on the rogue states to scale back or get rid of their weapons.

That ... plus the non-negotiable principles that Iran must recognize Israel's right to exist and that the Holocaust really did happen.

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Religious schools: The Newfoundland experience

An article in today's Toronto Star raises some good points about what happened in Newfoundland and Labrador when it abolished its religious schools in favour of an entirely secular system. Standards did improve and tensions between religious factions diminished to a degree but there are some still very hard feelings.

If John Tory was simply putting non-Catholic religious schools on an equal footing with Catholic ones it might not be an issue. But the money has to come from somewhere and the cost could be as much as a half a billion dollars. So from where? Public schools? Hospitals?

Plus, what if a future government decided to go all secular as NL did? Then there'd be a big problem. I think what's needed is to improve standards and decrease class sizes in the publicly funded systems -- then challenge the private schools to see if they can do better. If they can, then maybe there'd be a basis for negotiations.

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Give or receive?

Here's a video from Monica Dennington. This pretty much explains how I feel about the whole "Word of Faith" heresy.



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"Keep sweet."

I've written before about the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints -- a cult which has nothing to do with the main Mormon (or LDS) Church. But now that he's finally on trial, the portrait emerging of his viewpoints is truly sickening and that of the young women he forced to marry him is beyond pathetic.

Warren Jeffs is a monster.

Message to Warren: I hope you find a boyfriend when you go to prison. Twenty of them, in fact. And don't forget to "keep sweet" when they shove theirs up your rear end.

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Man gets 3 days over 50 cent toll

Toll roads are a fact of life. But sometimes one has to wonder about how officials from the state enforce toll evaders -- or those who think they are paying but aren't.

One man from Massachusetts just spend three days in jail in New Hampshire because he paid with tokens even though the state phased them out earlier this year -- the state now only accepts cash or EZ-Pass. The man was offered a $150 fine instead of jail, but he took jail saying the state broke a contract by refusing to honour the tokens he bought "in good faith."

I admit the guy has some principle, but the redemption period for the tokens had been announced well in advance and he had plenty of time to cash them in, or switch to a transponder. Besides, he would have been better off with a transponder since EZ Pass is used throughout the Northeast.

On the other hand, those tokens may be worth something. Not to the state but to coin collectors. Ontario got rid of tolls on a few bridges back in the 1970s but the tokens can still be redeemed -- I think for three cents each or something like that. I think I have one or two left in my coin collection, a holdover my father has from stuff before I was born.

Maybe the next time I take the 407, I should just whack a roll or two of them at the double gantry while I pass under them. They're worth something after all, aren't they?

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When will it end in Caledonia?

The battle of Douglas Creek in Caledonia is quickly becoming a province-wide issue. Towns across Ontario who contract their police services to the OPP are complaining a big chunk of the dues they're charged have been diverted for extra security in Haldimand County. For a city like Owen Sound, for instance (a community with a relatively low crime rate), their bill last year was somewhere in the range of $850,000. Only $600,000 or so of that was actually spent in the area and the mayor there is demanding -- with justification -- the difference back.

It certainly doesn't help that there was nearly bloodshed in Caledonia the other day, at another housing development in the area. The leader of the traditional natives at Six Nations rightly called the attack on Sam Gualtieri an "atrocity," and my understanding is even the elected chief is well beyond the point of having had enough.

It seems to me that the land was transferred to the whites at some point; yet it is also clear the natives were ripped off, just like in Manhattan. The feds have offered to take the claims to arbitration. It's time that was accelerated.

And for cooler heads to prevail.

As for the province saying it's a federal issue, actually it's a provincial one as well. When the OPP is involved, it's a provincial issue.

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Funny, you don't LOOK like a terrorist

Bush's speech last night about staying the course while drawing down the surge could have been given any time over the last nine months -- or for that matter, the last four and a half years. It doesn't change one very basic fact.

Not all terrorists are Muslims. And they're not all in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There are very scary radical groups, both left and right, that operate entirely within the borders of the United States. It's still legally possible to purchase several tons of ammonium nitrate from Home Depot or Lowe's and to have it delivered to your home without any questions asked. The same goes for blasting caps, black powder and any of a number of materials needed to explode a big bomb.

And do a Google. The instructions for making a nuclear bomb are readily available to anyone who wants to know how. The same applies whether you want to make a dirty bomb or the kind you launch on a missile.

The whole line about fighting terrorists abroad so we don't have to fight them here is bunk.

I'm more worried about marijuana grow ops in my own neighbourhood than I am about terrorists from overseas. A house fire caused by a bypassed power setup and several thousand watt bulbs is a greater danger to kids in my neighbourhood than someone planning to commit suicide by blowing up a toilet in the coffee shop around the corner.

I'm more worried about civil liberties being suspended by fear of something that might not even be a threat, than the actual threat itself.

And I'm worried about ballot boxes being stuffed, voters' lists manipulated and courts stacked to ensure a predetermined result -- than I am by someone saying we can put a stop to the nonsense if we would only "convert to Islam."

Depends what one means by terrorist, but we have to put up with terrorism every day in the homeland. The Mafia is far worse than Al Qaeda yet we don't see anyone going after them.

Sorry, Bush -- but you made the mess. You clean it up.

With your own private fortune -- not borrowed from thugs in China and Singapore and downloaded onto the present generation's grandkids.

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Kneel and show proper respect to the King -- Tom Monaghan

Another HT to AveWatch: A group of Catholic legal scholars -- liberal and conservative, Republican and Democrat -- have issued a rare joint statement saying how dismayed they are at the state of affairs at Ave Maria University's School of Law.

They're not the only ones watching. The American Bar Association is considering whether to end the school's accreditation based on the recent relatively high turnover of tenured professors there; contradicting the claims of ultra-rightist Brent Bozell who claims the ABA gave the school a clean bill of health. (Accrediting means, among other things, a law degree issued by the school will be honoured in all 50 states -- not just the state where the degree was issued.)

And as for Tom Monaghan himself ... he apparently has some rather odd ideas about what a woman should wear during the winter, and how they should behave before men with tons of money like him. Like the woman who was forced to kneel before him -- a married, Catholic woman -- because he wanted to make sure her skirt touched the floor.

This last one should be enough to make any atheist's blood boil -- let alone a Catholic like me, even if I lean moderate-to-liberal.

Especially since that's how I lean, in fact. Even if I was conservative, I'd be calling for his suspension from the Church. There comes a point when one goes too far, and Monaghan crossed that line a long time ago. Kathy Griffin's uncalled for remarks at the technical Emmys the other day were outrageous but they pale in comparison to this man's schenanigans since he sold Domino's -- a man who actually said: "If you can franchise pizza restaurants, why can't you franchise Catholic schools?"

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Whitey spotted -- maybe

James "Whitey" Bulger, the alleged head of the Irish Mob in Boston -- and one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted -- may have been spotted in Tamorina, Italy earlier this year. The key word is may since facial recognition analysis has failed to prove it definitely was him.

If he is on the Continent, he could be anywhere in Western Europe at this time. With the open borders, he may have slipped in cognito to another EU state with no questions asked as no questions would have been asked.

He may also be in a number of countries where he's known to have stashed safe deposit boxes full of cash, including Canada.

So if you've seen him ... call the cops and let's get this dark shadow from Boston's past off the streets.

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McJobs? How about competitiveness?

The manufacturing sector was a hot topic among the three party leaders in Ontario yesterday. Tory and Hampton criticized McGuinty for replacing permanent positions in manufacturing and forestry with "McJobs." McGuinty countered by saying most of the new jobs created still pay about twenty bucks an hour -- and they're outpacing the lost ones three to one.

There are two problems as I see it.

One is the high dollar, of course. It wasn't going to stay low forever and I think too many companies thought it would. They decided to ride out the ebb for as long as it took rather than invest in newer and better technologies that would allow them to stay competitive when the dollar, as it did, eventually did go back up. Provincial governments can't control the markets and even the Bank of Canada is independent of the federal minister of finance.

However, our high corporate tax structure is definitely an issue. On top of corporate income taxes, companies are required to pay their share of CPP (with no refunds for overpayments, unlike we civilians), EI (at a rate 40% higher than we employees pay), as well as the full cost of workers' compensation and the corporate health tax. Not to mention property taxes -- and benefits.

McGuinty cited the decision of Toyota to locate in Woodstock as an example Ontario is competitive. Toyota, however, counters by saying Ontario had a leg up anyway -- Woodstock is just down the road from another facility in Cambridge, as well as near auto parts plants in the whole Golden Triangle, Woodstock and the GTA -- and the steel plants in Hamilton. What won it for Ontario, though, was public health care. In the States, the Japanese auto plants are already $25 per hour per capita below the Big Three in terms of worker costs ($48 vs $73) but they still have to provide a gold plated medical plan to its workers.

Do the math. When in the States a company's biggest supplier is a health insurance company; and in Canada it's electricity, it doesn't take a genius to figure out where we should be trumpeting our strengths. Despite tax and power holiday breaks promised by the southern states, Toyota still came out ahead here -- even with currency swings.

Besides -- who wants to turn in a power wrench at a car plant (one that's closing) for a call centre providing technical and concièrge services to people who purchase those vehicles. That's the case with GM, for instance. The plants in Oshawa are downsizing or even closing all together, but the call centre for OnStar (in Oshawa) is as busy as ever. Of course, OnStar has been nearshored to a third-party contractor.

There's no doubt we need more manufacturing jobs. They help pay for the service sector which Ontario is becoming reliant on. We also need to make sure the lumber and minerals continue to be mined also. Ontario has many resources, human and natural; and so far I don't see anything from any of the parties on how to strengthen both.

Just the blame game.

So far, I'm not impressed.

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