Anti Valentine Brigade

This is not meant to be a swipe against people who have someone in their lives to love. If you do, all the power to you and may God bless you both. But many of us just don't like Valentine's Day, don't want anything to do with it -- period.

So, to those of you like who hate it, have no one to love or just wish it would go away -- all hail, Anti Valentine Brigade.

Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.

Buffalo plane crash

Some sad news this morning ... a Bombardier Dash-8 commuter jet being flown by a charter handling flights for Continental crashed outside of Buffalo ... all 48 aboard, plus at least one more on the ground, were killed. Icing is an early suspect.

May those who died rest in peace.

Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.

Abraham Lincoln

Today is the two hundredth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. In view of what he accomplished -- and in light of all that remains to be done -- I won't comment further this day.

Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.

About that drug plan ...

... that I blogged about the other day. I have some additional notes.

A couple of days ago I made a comment about how Canada as a whole should consider the Québec model for Pharmacare -- which combines "play or pay" (i.e. you have group or individual coverage from a private plan, or you must buy into the government's drug plan on your tax return) with a standard set of co-payments for public or private policyholders-- as a template for a national strategy.

There is one big problem that I would have with the Québec plan (which also is a common thread even with the "catastrophic" plans in other provinces): While there is a cap on the maximum an individual can pay each month, and people on social assistance or students are supposed to get their drugs with a lower to no co-pay at all -- the fact is the co-pay, up to when you reach the cap, is still 31%. So for instance, if a drug is $15 (with dispensing fee) you have to pay $4.65. (It started at 25% but has been creeping up ever since.)

Well, what if you have 10 or more drugs a month? Even if you're protected by the "max cap" it's still a big hit for people who have a fixed income each month. I mean, that's $77 or so each month that could go for groceries, utilities, etc. It's not as bad as the States where people are forced to choose between food and drugs -- in this case it's more like choosing which drugs you need the most to live.

While a universal plan does improve the quality of life for people in Quebec (as does universal day care -- real day care, not the $100 "take it and shut up" money Harper provides) this is still a big drawback.

It's pretty much the same in Britain, whose NHS was famously lauded in Michael Moore's Sicko. A great movie, but you would have to go to his website and his notes about the making of the film, where he discusses a fact he conveniently left on the cutting room floor for the print that went to theatres: The co-pay for drugs, which is universally applied regardless of income, really hits hard for the working poor who earn just enough to be above the low income cut-off to be exempt from the out of pockets. (Presently the amounts are £7.10 in England, £6.85 in Northern Ireland, £5 in Scotland and zero in Wales.)

Yes, poor Brits are still healthier than the richest American, but what's the point of having the drugs if you can't feed yourself -- or pay the BBC license for the "telly"?

So perhaps what's required for a Canadian solution is something that is more fairly applied across a larger segment of the "sandwiched" populace but still ensures universal drug coverage. The maximum that people would pay in a month would still be $100; but those with middle incomes -- for example those in the $30 to $50k range might pay a lesser maximum, say $50 or perhaps less, and so on down the line while indigents would get full coverage. And the starting point needs to be somewhere rather above the so-called low income cutoff.

The "devil is in the details." Obviously, we don't want everyone to suddenly become addicted to drug-treatment drugs, or to take out prescriptions for Viagra™ on the public tab.

But done right, I believe a national drug plan would put us one step closer to the "Just Society" that Trudeau spoke of.

Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.

Another Israel stalemate

Isn't this 1984 all over again? A near deadlock in the Israel election yesterday with Tzipi Livni's Kadima and Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud neck and neck. Livni is just slightly ahead, but has few parties on the left to choose from as coalition partners, than does Netanyahu on the right. Livni suggested last night she offered Netanyahu the prospect of a national unity government but that the idea was rejected. Avigdor Liberman's Beitenu is third while the once powerful Labour under Ehud Barak dropped to fourth.

I remember 1984 when there were relatively fewer parties in the mix, and after a lengthy stalemate Shimon Peres and Yithzak Shamir agreed to a unity government and took turns as Prime Minister for two year stints. The partnership worked somewhat, in that the runaway inflation of the period was brought under control; but the "who's on first" game and the uncertainty created gave time for Yasser Arafat to reorganize, begin the first intifada and eventually to his 1988 "recognition" of the Israeli fact.

With the Palestinians torn asunder with divisions far greater than two decades ago, any length of uncertainty will only give Fatah and Hamas more time to cause more problems. Peres, now the country's President (a mostly honourary position) now has to figure out who has the best chance of forming a stable government -- not a role he's going to appreciate, that's for sure.

My sense? Even if Livni winds up putting something together, she's no Golda Meir. Her "Believni" campaign -- a rip-off of Obama's "Change we can believe in" -- falls short of credible. And Netanyahu, the darling of many US televangelists, is certainly no Menachim Begin. Neither it seems has what it takes to get the ultimate goal -- an Israel that can be at peace with all of its Arab neighbours and finally resolves the Palestinian issue with dignity. I expect another four years of flare-ups with Hamas and Fatah -- which can only be a bad thing for stability in the region. The way things are going it could even the opportunity for a Palestinian group even more hostile to the mere idea of Israel, than Hamas ever has been.

Which I think should be a cause of concern for people everywhere who believe in democracy -- no matter what side one is on regarding Palestine.

Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.

Israel 2009: The choice

It's election day in Israel, and if the opinion polls are correct, this could be a nail-biter as well as a game changer.

Ehud Olmert is out, of course, facing allegations in a corruption scandal. The two front runners are Olmert's replacement at Kadima, Tzipi Livni; and her main rival, Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu. A big part of the picture will be to see who has a strong enough base to put together a viable coalition.

A possible spoiler is Avigdor Lieberman of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, an immigrant from Moldova. He's been pulling about 10% of popular opinion with his proposals for swapping Arab-majority Israeli lands as "compensation" for the Israeli settlements in the West Bank -- and demanding that Arab Israeli citizens take a mandatory oath of loyalty to the country or face expulsion. This is not quite as radical as the Kahanist position that no Arabs can be trusted and all Palestinians should be expelled to Jordan or Egypt, but it comes close enough to make a lot of people scared (not American televangelists who support such a position, however).

Israel is one of a very few countries that has pure PR, with a popular vote quota of just 2%, which explains why people vote for religious, ethnic or single-issue parties and why coalitions there are so unweildly. Most democracies with PR set the quota rather higher, say 5%. It's hard to say whether the recent Gaza Strip campaign improved the odds for Livni any, but I suspect any Prime MInister of Israel would try something to stop the rocket attacks no matter how many civilians were affected.

It's not my place to say who I think should win -- I don't know enough about their domestic politics other than the Palestinian "question." But I don't think President Obama is going to have a fun time talking to either Livni or Netanyahu if Lieberman or radical religious parties are pulling the puppet strings; and the prospects for peace rest solely on what to do with the settlements. It was hard enough for the US to deal with a half million refugees in its own country after Katrina, many of whom had to permanently relocate.

Now imagine dealing with about a half million who refuse to leave because the land they're on was they believe granted by the Almighty, and who have the right to vote while the people who surround them live in a virtual police state. We think democracy in North America and Western Europe is a farce at times but it's nothing compared to the contradictions of a country that is both religious and secular at once and who faces enemies on several fronts. One has to wonder how much longer the US will have the stomach to keep vetoing resolutions criticizing Israel at the Security Council, or give the country $3 billion per year in foreign aid when it's supposed to be a developed country. If I was Obama, I'd phase out the funding over a number of years and redirect it to states that actually need foreign aid.

Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.

Time to pull a Quebec on drugs

I learned from a friend the other day that even with her and her ex-husband being on the Trillium Drug Plan -- the drug plan of last resort for the uninsurable in Ontario -- they pay well over $10,000 in prescriptions each and every year; nearly a third of their income.

This is Canada? Well, yeah ... but it's Ontario. Many provinces, like Manitoba and Nova Scotia for instance, have catastrophic plans as well but people are still getting hammered even if they "only" have to pay 20%, after a deductible which can run anywhere from 3 to 20% of net income.

Curses they aren't living in Québec which has a pay or pay system of compulsory drug insurance -- if you don't have it as part of your benefits, you are automatically in the government plan. Regardless of if you're public or private, the most you pay for drugs (presuming they're in the formulary, and there are about 5000 of them) for the entire year is $1497 -- a premium of up to $570 (based on net family income) plus $927 in co-payments. Is it expensive to operate? Yes. Does it ensure healthier results and get people to get drugs they otherwise wouldn't be able to afford? Absolutely. And that lowers health care costs in the long term.

There are a few catches: Some drugs do require an extra contribution by the patient (to cover the difference between the manufacturer's price and what the government is willing to pay) but it is still way less expensive than paying the whole amount out of pocket. As well, you do have to cover the difference if you insist on a brand-name drug and a generic of equivalent efficacy is available.

Be that as it may, imagine how much of a burden would be lifted off everyone's shoulders if everyone in Canada had access to something like that. Least of which is that people with limited incomes could be freed from their burdens and be allowed to spend their resources elsewhere.

How about it, "New" Steve? How about a real drug plan as your legacy?

If Pharmacare is good enough for Québec and for British Columbia (which has a less generous but still viable universal plan) it is certainly good enough for the entire country of Canada. This, along with accessible day care, should be the among the next planks in our social safety net.

UPDATE (6:30 am EST, 1130 GMT): In case you were wondering, what I wrote at the top is not a misprint -- I did say the woman's ex; they live in opposite units of the same duplex and share both halves with their still growing children, and while both work neither have group insurance. So their kids get hammered too. All the more reason to have public drug insurance.

Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.

Global warming, license to kill

Yesterday, I wrote about global warming is a major factor in the huge bush fires plauging Down Under right now. Today, and with anger, I also have to note that some hooligans have used the excessive heat in Australia to start some of those fires -- on purpose. The death toll has skyrocketed in the last 24 hours to 130.

This is no time for leniency. If those responsible are caught then they should be charged with murder. I simply cannot understand how people can use an opportunity like this to make a real crisis so much worse -- draining already strained resources away from such things as crop failure insurance as well as getting a country used to a new reality that may very well be permanent.

This is wildfire season Down Under, and such fires come just as surely as the change of seasons. But there is no comprehension. None whatsoever. I can't say for certain if cooler temperatures would have meant fewer people dying. But the tinderbox should not have been put there in the first place giving cowards the opportunity to potentially make things that much worse.

Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.

The Big Dryyyyyyyyy

The wildfires in Australia just keep getting worse. The "Big Dry" is now into its seventh year -- and drought caused by global warming is only exacerbating the current cycle of forest fires which have now killed at least 84 people, including a former news anchor of the Nine Network and his wife. Temperatures in some parts of the country have now hit a whopping 47°, and even in major centres like Melbourne water reservoirs are about 40% or more below where they should be.

A country like Australia, which covers areas from temperate zones to the tropics is one of the proverbial canaries. Canada, going from mid continent to the Arctic is another; Eastern Africa is a third (and extensive drought there explains a lot of the problems in places like Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia); the fourth is the EU trade bloc where subtle shifts in the starts of seasons have wreaked havoc on nesting periods and farming seasons. Europe is a particular concern; relatively mild winters and warm summers have given way to huge snowstorms in the winter and scorching sizzlers in the summer with no respite for days on end -- and in a continent not as used to air conditioning as North America is, people are dying in the heat waves.

Since we're currently getting the blow-back from excessive growth the last two or three years, maybe the current recession (hopefully brief) will give the world a chance to take a breather, and for things to temporarily return to what we've come to expect as normal; but unless we have a major change in our lifestyles and understand we can't keep taking without giving back, we really are screwed. If a developed region experiences an irreversible catastrophe, then it will be a march to Armageddon not made of Israel vs the rest of the world (as the dispensationalists claim), but an ecological one of our own making.

For Canada's part, Stephen Harper needs to read the whole bible, not just the passages selected by his pastors, and understand the Scriptures require us to be stewards of the earth, not its exploiters. The West -- Canada's breadbasket -- had extended drought before and it was also during a period of major economic decline over which they had no direct part in creating. Trying is not enough. We really do need action. Environmentalism is not a personal virtue. It's a moral imperative, whether it's a few score people in Australia or 2 million refugees in Africa. What we do in the developed world affects the rest of the developing world, and hits like a sledgehammer in the developing world.

Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.

Pizza radio gaffe

At the end of a long week, where there was even more bad news on the unemployment front in the States, comes this slightly weird one: John Schnatter, the founder of Papa John's ™, said that it's not a good idea to have too much pizza. This just days after one of the worst snowstorms the UK has ever seen, and his and rival pizza outlets had record sales with so many people homebound.

The quote (in response to a question from BBC 4's Adam Shaw): "No. Pizza's actually healthy for you if you don't eat too much of it. You can't eat five or six slices but if you eat one or two slices it's very nutritious."

Hmm ... you're the third largest pizza chain in the world and you tell your customers to take it easy when eating your own product?

Guess what would happen to the price of truffles if the growers told chocolate eaters to take it easy? Half of Belgium would be on the unemployment lines.

Wish I had the money to open up a pizza franchise -- in the current market, owning one of those or a chain coffee shop probably is a license to print money, even with people getting smaller portions. But sometimes it's just better to keep one's mouth shut.

Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.

It just gets worse (Feb 5 '09 edition)

More signs of just how much trouble the world is in right now.

The European Central Bank kept the interest rates in the 16 (+3) nation Eurozone at 2% today, but bank president Jean-Claude Trichet indicated that he may cut the rate next month if the economy doesn't show signs of bouncing back. He did say, however, a zero rate which is what The Fed is working on right now in the States is "not considered appropriate" -- yet. Nor is there any sign that the ECB is considering the radical steps that both Fed and the Bank of England (the latter which cut its rate today to 1%) are trying to get banks to pump money back into the system, although Frankfurt has printed billions of Euros in the last few months to try to get things moving.

The Eurozone is not as burdened by debt as is the UK or the US which is why the Euro has been doing relatively well on the 4X market (it hit a high of $1.45 a couple months back but has since settled around $1.27 and will probably go to $1.15 as more ex-Soviet bloc countries announce their readiness to join the common currency in the next couple of years -- but still higher than the 83 cents it bottomed out at in 2001).

But clearly Frankfurt doesn't want EU citizens (both inside and outside Euroland) to get complacent. There is definitely a risk that as people around stop buying stuff, prices may decrease so much we get into a deflationary spiral. It happened during the Great Depression and it could happen again unless the hemmoraging stops real quickly. And with 19 countries tied together so tightly (a good thing in many ways, but a time bomb in others) people are going to get restless real quick. The protests in Greece in December and January are just the start.

Meanwhile, initial employment claims in the United States last week hit a breathtaking 626,000 (the worst since October 1982), and the number of people collecting UI on a continuing basis is now 4,788,000 -- a record high. A "good" week is only 325,000 and 2.5 million, respectively.

I don't need to comment much more there. I guess even with the switch to DTV in the States off till about June 12 (it was going to be on February 17), people aren't going to buy LCD or plasma TVs unless the price is cut to about $400. That is, if they have a job so they have the money to spend.

It's heartening to see President Obama taking the approach that "beggering thy neighbour" will make the recession only worse (understanding a strong central and western Europe is vital to American security interests) but I still would like to see what his approach actually is and what level he thinks the greenback should be against the euro. Remember on his goodwill tour of Europe last year during the election campaign, he snubbed EU officials in Brussels.

Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.

Ratzinger says whoops

It's not that often that the Vatican admits it made a mistake. But today it pretty much did just that, and demanded that one of the four "bishops" excommunicated back in 1989 but reinstated back into the Catholic Church last month -- Britain's Richard Williamson -- to recant his position about the Holocaust being "exaggerated" and that only 300,000 Jews were murdered, not 6 million; if that bishop wants to ever be assigned a diocese.

Turned out Williamson made the comments on Swedish state television some time ago but somehow that completely eluded the Roman Curia who decided to let bygones be bygones with the Society of St. Pius X, an ultra-conservative Catholic faction that rejects all of the reforms of Vatican II in the 1960s; including the introduction of local languages in the liturgy, and making peace with other religions, in particular Protestantism and Judaism.

This came one day after Germany's Chancellor, Angela Merkel (a Lutheran but who leads a party with strong Catholic roots) demanded Pope Benedict XVI (a.k.a. Joe Ratzinger), a German national who spent time in the Hitler Youth, should make it clear that there can be no ambiguity when it comes to the Holocaust.

No surprise she took her position, but it shouldn't be really -- Germany is still trying to come to grips with how it allowed Hitler to ever come to power, as well as completely bungling the 1972 Munich Olympics. Since Germany arose from the ruins of World War II, much of which self-inflicted on fellow countrymen, Holocaust denial has been specifically outlawed in Germany.

Moreover, but unreported by most media outlets, I believe she wants to send a signal that the European Union has absolutely no intention of ever being ruled by a Pope, even if all 27 Prime Ministers turned out to be Catholic. It's worth pointing out that the EU issued a directive to its member states in 2007 that if their criminal statutes didn't outlaw the denial or trivializing of genocide, it should -- and recommended a minimum sentence of 1 to 3 years, indicating propagating hate should be one of the rare cases when freedom of speech becomes "yelling fire in a crowded theatre."

It took the Vatican 400 years to exonerate Galileo. As a Catholic, I have to ask how long it will take to unseal the secret archives dealing with its true wartime role and how much of a role it played in turning a blind eye to atrocities right in Rome as well as in the rest of Europe. Ratzinger's about face is welcome, as was his turnaround on the sex abuse scandal after he became Pope, but like the other it doesn't go near far enough.

As I've pointed out a couple of times, the Vatican is one of three non EU states that mints Euro coins (the others being Monaco and San Marino) and like the other microstates they make a "mint" selling the very low circulation coins well above face value. I doubt the Eurozone countries will kick the Vatican out of the grouping (what currency would it use then -- the lira is spent) but this pushback is long overdue; at least it got a measured response for the first time in ages. They need to keep pushing back if the separation of church and state will mean anything and there's no better place to start than standing up for God's Chosen People, the Jews.

Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.

Is The End coming near for Global?

I heard on the radio this morning that CanWest stock dropped to about 40 cents yesterday. They may be in violation of debt covenants as early as this month -- if its debt exceeds five times EBITDA (earnings before interest, depreciaton and amoritzation). And it's getting dangerously close to that threshold. I thought, could this really be possible?

Yes. Maybe it is.

It's hard to believe that it was over three decades ago in 1975 that a maverick Winnipeg businessman took a bold gamble in television in an era where in many parts of Canada it was just CBC and CTV and nothing else. "Izzy" Asper bought up the facilities of an endangered station in North Dakota, trucked them over to the Canadian side of the border and switched the first two call letters -- thus, KCND became CKND. (This became possible when the CRTC announced a new license for Winnipeg and KCND, which relied almost completely on Canadian advertisers, realized they would lose them and go bankrupt, because the Canadian companies could then no longer advertise on American stations and deduct the costs for taxes -- so they just sold out.)

What was the first show they broadcast when the station relocated to Canada? Believe it or not, the Jerry Lewis Telethon.

From this base, he bought up one station at a time and had the nerve to also put up repeat transmitters to bring the signals in the big centres to the smaller ones -- something CBC has been doing almost from the start. The stations pretty much had their own identities although it was understood they were part of a larger whole -- even though the CRTC tried hard to maintain the Anglophone duopoly. But eventually, when Asper finally succeeded in getting stations in Alberta, he had close to a national network (Newfoundland is still the odd man out -- you can only get Global on cable or satellite there). He christened it with the name that had always given to the Ontario station, Global (which was started in 1974 but got scooped up by Asper when it ran into difficulties).

Odd thing, it mostly carried American shows. They had some original programming -- most famously What Will They Think of Next, Super Dave, Jake and the Kid and Ready or Not -- not to mention the wackiest news team until CityTV switched from their black box studio to their "environment" and videographers. Who can forget Bob McAdory on the same set as Thalia Assuras and Peter Trueman and Bill Brahman -- I think that's what his name was, he had that kind old face and did human interest stories well into his nineties. But it make them tons of cash by keeping it simple.

The Aspers were also quite restless and wanted to be kingpins in print media as well. In a complicated game of musical chairs, they eventually got hold of Southam News which they promptly renamed CanWest Media.

They've tried integrating print and television media. Out west, they've been successful -- with both major dailies in Vancouver as well as a local edition of the National Post they have 87% of the market in the Lower Mainland. A similar story appears in major centres in Alberta and Saskatchewan, where thanks to the Aspers neither the local newspapers nor the local Global stations can even mention syllable one of the name "Gwynne Dyer."

A completely biased approach to reportage on Israel. And no good news about anyone who's a Muslim either or has family connections to Shias, Sunnis or the Druze -- not even Casey Kasem. (Ironic, since Global ran the Scooby Doo cartoons for years and we all know Kasem was the voice of Shaggy!)

At least there they have to complete with the local Suns -- if you can call a tabloid competition. (Sidebar, both companies need to learn from outside Canada, where some tabloids such as the Chicago Sun Times and the LA Daily News in the States, and the Times of London and the Daily Mail in the UK, are actually quite well laid out in content.)

In Central and Eastern Canada, however, it's been a disaster. Because the market is so much more crowded, especially in southern Ontario, the NP has lagged in fourth place from the start and the profits from the TV station have essentially been used to bail out the paper -- which also explains why just about the only original shows they have left is that silly phone in quiz show in the mornings where you pay two bucks to be put on hold for a half hour then get hung up on, and ET Canada. (We don't need Mary Hart light, thank you very much.) Do they really think they can fund a newspaper by slashing their morning news show in Toronto?

Why is the NP dying? No, it's not its neo-con orientation. The simple reason: Not much in terms of classified ads relative to other local and regional papers. If you wanted to sell something, would you put the ad in the Star or the Post? Exactly.

The NP actually started out as a pretty good paper, in my opinion, but it has gone downhill to a joke. It got bailed out as long as Global had the Canadian broadcast rights for the NFL but it lost that to CTV some time ago -- and that's a huge loss of advertising revenue. And that was before the recession really hit, which could reduce revenues even more,

The only good thing left in it is the Financial Post, a long standing paper of good repute and which was in very good hands when it was published by the Toronto Sun (although even then I really couldn't care less what Terrence Corcoran or Diane Francis have to think). At this point, the only way to save the whole thing from collapsing is to make the FP the front sections, and strip down news to perhaps a four page summary (like the sports section was in the old days). It might pigeonhole the paper back to the Bay Street crowd, but at least it could focus its resources on financial reportage and become a serious competitor to the Globe and Mail again.

If the Aspers have to sell off either the papers or the stations -- maybe even their foreign assets such as Aussie's Channel 10 -- that would be a good thing. Global is in major need of a reboot, and one that puts some kick back into Canadian programming and news content that is relevant. And I don't mean ET Canada or Gameface (or whatever that show is called). We need fresh voices and open-minded ones, not the closed ones at the CanWest board.

As for the papers -- well, I'm glad my local paper is owned by the Star and not the Aspers although reading it lately one couldn't really tell the difference except for the fact I can actually read Dyer's columns.

About the only way to save Global now is to run couple oriented soft-core porn late night (sad but true) -- except that market has already been taken by City and Québec's TQS!

Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.

Evening notes (2009-02-03)

A couple of items before I call it a night ...

First, Ignatieff gave six Newfoundland and Labrador MPs a "free pass" to vote against the budget. He should have given it to all of his MPs but at least those six had a chance to give their thumbs down to cutting next year's transfer payment to the province by a billion six and so I give him partial credit.

Second, Russ Germain, the longtime co-anchor at CBC Radio 1, died today at 62. His was an authoritative voice and will be missed greatly by those who appreciate the real CBC for what it used to be.

Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.

Daschle out

Looks like Tom Daschle decided it wasn't worth the trouble and he withdrew his nomination to be Obama's Health and Human Services Secretary.

Overall he's a nice guy, but HHS needs more than just a nice guy to fix America's health and welfare systems especially in these times. His tax problems didn't help but his incest with the health care lobby was a much bigger issue.

Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.