ontario health study

Ontario readers, are you participating in the Ontario Health Study? Where did you hear about it? If you decided not to participate, why was that?

I saw ads for the study on the Toronto subway on my way to school. I've been looking for ads in Mississauga, but I haven't seen any. I'm wondering where non-urban, non-transit-riding Ontarians will hear about the study. Perhaps there are TV ads that fall outside my viewing habits.

I'm participating. It seems like an easy, perhaps even fun, way to contribute to public health. The goal for the study is two million people - a huge sample!

About the study:

The Ontario Health Study (OHS) will be the biggest community-based health study ever done in Ontario, and one of the biggest in the world. The OHS is a long-term study that will help us understand the causes, prevention and treatment of diseases such as cancer, heart disease, asthma, and diabetes. . . .

The Study began with an initial phase in which more than 8,000 adults living in three communities in Ontario took part. The main phase of the Study has begun, and is now open to all residents of Ontario who are at least 18 years old. We hope to follow participants in the Study for their entire lifespan. This will allow researchers to see how environment, lifestyle and genes affect the risk of common diseases.

The OHS is also part of the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow Project made up of five regional health studies across the country.

Medical researchers at universities, research institutes and hospitals across Ontario are conducting this study. The governments of Ontario and Canada are funding the Study.

If you are at least 18 years old, regardless of whether or not you are in good health, we would like you to be part of the Ontario Health Study!

FAQs are here.

To participate, you have to enter the number for your Ontario Health card. I wonder if that puts some people off, since we're accustomed to anonymous surveys. But it seems like the most logical system - to keep track of records, to ensure that only people enroled in the provincial health system participate, that no one is double-counted, and so on. You can give the Study permission to link to your actual health records, or you can opt out of linking; the privacy policy is here.

The initial questionnaire asked about eating habits, exercise, medical conditions (current and past), family medical history and certain environmental factors, like where you live and what kind of work you do. After the first phase, you're contacted annually for ongoing updates.

One thing really struck me in the first questionnaire. You are asked to calculate how many hours a day or week you spend standing, sitting, walking, sleeping, and so on. I was shocked at how many hours a day I spend sitting! Although I exercise regularly, I do spend most of my life sitting. This is probably pretty typical for many contemporary Western people, but seeing the number of hours totaled up took me aback. I'm using that shocking number as an incentive to increase my exercise - not so much more days at the gym as ways to work more movement into my life.

Yesterday morning, Tala and I saw a huge V of geese flying north, one of the most beautiful harbingers of spring. Warmer weather makes it much easier to get more exercise - only one of many reasons I can't wait for spring.

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reading list redux: taibbi in rolling stone, elliott in mother jones

A few weeks ago, I highlighted three long magazine articles that, taken together, demonstrate so much of what is wrong with the profit-driven system that dominates our world. They document how capitalism is destroying the environment, health care, and in general, people's lives.

Well, I'm back to repeat myself. This story by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone is a brilliant piece of investigative journalism almost guaranteed to amaze you. The depth and breadth of corruption - in both financial and legal systems designed to increase the wealth and power of giant banks while destroying low- and middle-income Americans - are simply mind-boggling. Do yourself a favour and read this: "Invasion of the Home Snatchers: How the courts are helping bankers screw over homeowners and get away with fraud".

If you are interested in health care, and why it needs to be publicly financed, why profit needs to be removed from the system, don't miss "Making A Killing," by Carl Elliott in Mother Jones. An excerpt and links to important sidebars are in my post here.

And the third story I had highlighted is really a series of articles and analysis about the BP disaster, also in Mother Jones. It may be the definitive investigation of how BP is burying the evidence of their crimes against our planet.

I will try to post about these stories again, but I can't guarantee anything.

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signs of life in the lower 48: congressperson jackie speier and wisconsin labour: we are with you!

I've been breathlessly following the news from Wisconsin for a week, and it just keeps getting better. Canadian readers may not know that the capital of this once (and future?) liberal US state has been a battleground for labour rights and public services, ever since Governor Scott Walker declared war on public-sector workers.

First, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) announced a state budget plan that strips state workers of nearly all their collective bargaining rights, cuts pay and benefits and says there will be no negotiations.

Today, he took it even further: He announced he has alerted the National Guard to be ready in case state workers strike or rise in protest. He told the Associated Press he’s been working on contingency plans for months.

The last time the National Guard was used against public workers was the Postal Workers strike in 1970. The last time the Guard was called out in Wisconsin to quell a labor dispute was the 1934 Kohler strike by the UAW.

A few days later, more than 10,000 protesters descended on the capitol building in Madison, carrying signs and chanting "recall Walker". Inside, thousands crowded into the rotunda and watched a feed of the public hearing on the governor’s proposal. Firefighters joined them in solidarity. Then nurses. And construction workers. Then teachers, as one of the states largest school districts was shut down by a teacher sick-out.

Today, the protests were estimated at 40,000 people. Democrat state legislators "fled" the state, but this wasn't their party's trademark cowardice: it was staged to deny the state's Republican-controlled Senate enough votes to pass the anti-labour bill. (It was thought that if the Democrats were still in Wisconsin, state police could force them to return to vote!)

Faith groups in Illinois offered the lawmakers sanctuary, and the most recent report is that the Republicans have quit until Tuesday.

Supposedly formerly liberal states like Wisconsin are now havens for reactionary populism. Not so fast?

* * * *

The US House of Representatives voted to de-fund Planned Parenthood today, a horrific salvo on the war against women (my extended thoughts here). Whether or not this becomes law, California Representative Jackie Speiers made millions of us proud by speaking about her own abortion during the House debate.

HuffPo:

Rep. Jackie Speier listened to debate on the House floor on Thursday evening as a Republican Rep. Chris Smith read a long, detailed description of an abortion and a "mangled image of a dead, tiny baby." Finally, Speier stood up and told her colleagues she had undergone an abortion in the early 1990s following a complication nearly four months into her pregnancy.

"As the night wore on, the vitriol and grotesque commentary got worse and worse," Speier, a second-term Democrat from California, told HuffPost. "I sat there thinking, none of these men on the other side have even come close to experiencing this, and yet they can pontificate about what it's like. It just overwhelmed me."

Speier underwent an abortion in her early 40s, while she was serving in the California State Assembly. The procedure used to terminate the pregnancy was the same type that Smith's book described. As she listened, Speier said she became more emotional and made the decision to speak out.

"This was a wanted pregnancy, it was the second miscarriage I had had," she told HuffPost. "What they express doesn't come close to the experience that a woman goes through when she is losing a baby or when a pregnancy is terminated. It's a painful, gut-wrenching loss."

She said she had spoken publicly about her experience with abortion only once before, while debating late-term abortion in the California state legislature.

After she told her story, Speier said many colleagues -- both male and female -- offered their support, some saying she put tears in their eyes. One Republican told her the amendment was inappropriate, she said, while Smith, whose remarks caused her to speak up, said nothing.

As a longtime supporter of abortion rights, Speier said she was frustrated to see a debate over funding descend into a moral debate over a woman's right to choose. The amendment under debate, proposed by Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), was to strip Planned Parenthood of its federal funds -- even though they are already barred from being used for abortion.

Speier crossed a seemingly uncrossable boundary. Speaking publicly about one's own abortion is the last taboo, tackled by feminists in various projects, but almost never heard in the mainstream. Speier will receive hate mail, for sure, but she'll also receive an outpouring of support, along with the silent gratitude of millions of women who are thinking, "Yes! It's about time!"

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capitalist destruction: our health, our environment, our communities: three great articles

I've been working my way through a trio of long magazine articles, courtesy of our public library, that I must share with you.

From a writer's perspective, these are exactly the kind of journalism I once aspired to (and had a small taste of). Enormous amounts of time and work go into pieces like this - background interviews that don't appear in the story, hours tracking down leads, many more hours spent simply observing, reams of interview transcripts, countless rounds of editing. This is something no blogger or reporter can do on her own. Magazines have to pay for this, or it can't be done - which is why it has become so rare.

From a political perspective, these stories are about widely different subjects, but one common thread runs through them all.

If you read only one of these stories, I strongly recommend "Making A Killing," by Carl Elliott in Mother Jones, an exposé of the corrupt, profit-generating business of clinical drug trials. If there was ever an argument for getting the profit motive out of health care, this is it.

Documents unsealed in related civil suits suggest an alarming pattern of deception. Sales reps were instructed to tell doctors that Seroquel doesn't cause diabetes, even though the company knew about the link to diabetes as early as 1997. Internal correspondence reveals company officials discussing how to hide or spin potentially damaging studies. "Thus far, we have buried trials 15, 31, 56," wrote a publications manager in 1999. "The larger issue is how do we face the outside world when they begin to criticize us for suppressing data."

One of those potentially damaging studies led back to the University of Minnesota. . . . In the late 1990s, a clinical trial known as Study 15 unexpectedly failed to show that Seroquel was any better than Haldol, a generic antipsychotic that's been on the market since the 1960s. In fact, on the main measures, Seroquel performed worse than Haldol. The study also showed that Seroquel increased the risk of weight gain and diabetes. Internal correspondence repeatedly refers to Study 15 as a "failed study," and company officials discuss possible ways to spin or bury it. "I am not 100% comfortable with this data being made publicly available at the present time,". . . .

Even more alarming are internal documents suggesting that AstraZeneca was designing clinical trials as a covert method of marketing Seroquel. In 1997, when Dr. Andrew Goudie, a psychopharmacologist at the University of Liverpool, asked AstraZeneca to fund a research study he was planning, a company official replied that "R&D is no longer responsible for Seroquel research — it is now the responsibility of Sales and Marketing." The official also noted that funding decisions would depend on whether the study was likely to show a "competitive advantage for Seroquel."

Another set of documents from 2003 describes a glucose metabolism study apparently designed to fend off the charge that Seroquel causes patients to gain weight and become diabetic. One slide describes two purposes for the study: a "regulatory" purpose and a "commercial" purpose. The regulatory purpose was to "produce data that will help us defend the Seroquel label." The commercial purpose was to "produce data that will enable us to generate commercially attractive and competitive messages in relation to diabetes and weight." . . .

Many clinical studies place human subjects at risk—at a minimum, the risk of mild discomfort, and at worst, the risk of serious pain and death. Bioethicists and regulators spend a lot of time and energy debating the degree of risk that ought to be permitted in a study, how those risks should be presented to subjects, and the way those risks should be balanced against the potential benefits a subject might receive. What is simply assumed, without much consideration at all, is that the research is being conducted to produce scientific knowledge. This assumption is codified in a number of foundational ethics documents, such as the Nuremberg Code, which was instituted following Nazi experiments on concentration camp victims. The Nuremberg Code stipulates that an "experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society," and "the degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment."

But what if a research study is not really aimed at producing genuine scientific knowledge at all? The documents emerging in litigation suggest that pharmaceutical companies are designing, analyzing, and publishing trials primarily as a way of positioning their drugs in the marketplace. This raises a question unconsidered in any current code of research ethics. How much risk to human subjects is justified in a study whose principal aim is to "generate commercially attractive messages"?

If you read Elliott's story, don't miss these two important sidebars: "What Happens When Profit Margins Drive Clinical Research?" and "Poor Reviews: Profit pressures gut guinea pigs' only safeguard: institutional review boards".

Next, also from Mother Jones, a series of reports and analysis on the BP disaster and cover-up: BP's Deep Secrets. This was a cover-story package of six different articles; the lead story by Julia Whitty is especially important.

And finally, from the November 2010 issue of Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi reports from Florida: "Invasion of the Home Snatchers: How the courts are helping bankers screw over homeowners and get away with fraud".

The foreclosure lawyers down in Jacksonville had warned me, but I was skeptical. They told me the state of Florida had created a special super-high-speed housing court with a specific mandate to rubber-stamp the legally dicey foreclosures by corporate mortgage pushers like Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan Chase. This "rocket docket," as it is called in town, is presided over by retired judges who seem to have no clue about the insanely complex financial instruments they are ruling on — securitized mortgages and laby­rinthine derivative deals of a type that didn't even exist when most of them were active members of the bench. Their stated mission isn't to decide right and wrong, but to clear cases and blast human beings out of their homes with ultimate velocity. They certainly have no incentive to penetrate the profound criminal mysteries of the great American mortgage bubble of the 2000s, perhaps the most complex Ponzi scheme in human history — an epic mountain range of corporate fraud in which Wall Street megabanks conspired first to collect huge numbers of subprime mortgages, then to unload them on unsuspecting third parties like pensions, trade unions and insurance companies (and, ultimately, you and me, as taxpayers) in the guise of AAA-rated investments. Selling lead as gold, shit as Chanel No. 5, was the essence of the booming international fraud scheme that created most all of these now-failing home mortgages.

The Real Reason America’s Cities and Towns Are Broke

The rocket docket wasn't created to investigate any of that. It exists to launder the crime and bury the evidence by speeding thousands of fraudulent and predatory loans to the ends of their life cycles, so that the houses attached to them can be sold again with clean paperwork. The judges, in fact, openly admit that their primary mission is not justice but speed. One Jacksonville judge, the Honorable A.C. Soud, even told a local newspaper that his goal is to resolve 25 cases per hour. Given the way the system is rigged, that means His Honor could well be throwing one ass on the street every 2.4 minutes.

. . . When I went to sit in on Judge Soud's courtroom in downtown Jacksonville, I was treated to an intimate, and at times breathtaking, education in the horror of the foreclosure crisis, which is rapidly emerging as the even scarier sequel to the financial meltdown of 2008: Invasion of the Home Snatchers II. In Las Vegas, one in 25 homes is now in foreclosure. In Fort Myers, Florida, one in 35. In September, lenders nationwide took over a rec­ord 102,134 properties; that same month, more than a third of all home sales were distressed properties. All told, some 820,000 Americans have already lost their homes this year, and another 1 million currently face foreclosure. . . .

You've heard of Too Big to Fail — the foreclosure crisis is Too Big for Fraud. Think of the Bernie Madoff scam, only replicated tens of thousands of times over, infecting every corner of the financial universe. The underlying crime is so pervasive, we simply can't admit to it — and so we are working feverishly to rubber-stamp the problem away, in sordid little backrooms in cities like Jacksonville, behind doors that shouldn't be, but often are, closed.

And that's just the economic side of the story. The moral angle to the foreclosure crisis — and, of course, in capitalism we're not supposed to be concerned with the moral stuff, but let's mention it anyway — shows a culture that is slowly giving in to a futuristic nightmare ideology of computerized greed and unchecked financial violence. The monster in the foreclosure crisis has no face and no brain. The mortgages that are being foreclosed upon have no real owners. The lawyers bringing the cases to evict the humans have no real clients. It is complete and absolute legal and economic chaos. No single limb of this vast man-­eating thing knows what the other is doing, which makes it nearly impossible to combat — and scary as hell to watch.

Have you spotted the common theme? Clinical drug trials that produce both unsafe drugs and massive profit for university researchers, pharmaceutical companies - and the people who are supposed to be overseeing them. The destruction of the environment by one the world's largest corporations and the bottomless resources they've committed to avoiding responsibility. Millions of Americans losing their homes because of massive financial fraud, in which the perpetrators walk away without losing a penny, the public pays for their privilege, people the world over suffer extreme deprivations, and finally, the corrupt financial and legal systems will profit further from the loss.

What drives each of these human-made disasters? Profit.

Capitalism is collapsing, and we are all paying the price.

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blog for choice 2011: back alley abortions happening right now, thanks to anti-choice movement and the govts it controls

I hear people say, "We can't go back." And I think, We are back. We have gone back.

Not all of us. We're hanging on in Canada, and in some places in the US. But how many American women must lose access to safe abortion services before we are officially "back"?

Today, the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we see, once again, that the Constitutionally protected right of US women to choose whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term has been gutted and rendered useless. And when there are no safe, legal services, women will resort to unsafe, illegal ones, because bearing an unwanted pregnancy is torture, and an unwanted person is a tragedy, and women will go to any avoid that.

Daniel Denvir, AlterNet: Back-Alley Abortions in 2011: How Anti-Choice Zealots Force Women to Go to Dangerous Clinics Like Dr. Kermit Gosnell's

Jill, Feministe: What Kermit Gosnell tells us about late-term abortion

And me:

The real - seldom-seen - face of third-trimester abortion (Roe v Wade Day, 2009)

The US as anti-abortion backwater

Roe Is History (Roe v Wade Day, 2005)

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on truth, skepticism and the u.s. propaganda machine: "sicko" was never banned in cuba

Michael Moore: ¡Viva WikiLeaks! SiCKO Was Not Banned in Cuba. Read and enjoy.

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world aids day

Today is World AIDS Day.

Reflect.

Remember.

End prejudice against HIV-positive people.

Give.

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Video of Obamacare supporter

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Need a tylenol? Your going to need a doctors note...

Obama-care strikes again!  A doctor's note for tylenol?  That sounds like a government idea to me.

Here is the full article LINK

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the pinkwashing of parliament: we need less pink and more green

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and our government wants us to remember that by turning on pink lights on Parliament Hill, through the Estée Lauder Companies' Breast Cancer Awareness Global Illuminations Initiative.

So please buy cosmetic products that are laden with toxins, sold in packaging made of future landfill, and perpetuate the harmful myth that the signs of aging are shameful and must be concealed. Because if you do, a corporation that profits from this deception will donate a tiny portion of their profits to cancer research! Hurrah! What more could we want to fight cancer?

Pinkwashing has become positively ubiquitous, and we're all supposed to cheer that more companies are showing "corporate responsibility". If you criticize this massive corporate shell game, even progressive people will defend it, because it's better that they donate than not, right?

Just don't peek behind the pink curtain. Are these corporations actually responsible? Does the manufacture of their products harm the environment? (Hint: are they produced in countries where there are environmental standards, and are those standards enforced?) Are their employees well compensated and have job security? (Hint: why is it so much cheaper to manufacture in Asia?) Do the companies practice unnecessary testing on animals? Do the products themselves contain carcinogens?

Chances are you don't know the answers to these questions. Unless we do our own research, we know nothing of most companies' supposed responsibility. But they're sticking pink ribbons on their packaging. What more do you need?

Hey, I got an idea. If you want to donate to cancer research, don't buy a tube full of unpronounceable chemicals. If you want to donate to cancer research, donate to cancer research.

Mainstream media is awash with exhortations to reduce our risk of cancer - always full of qualifiers like "somewhat reduce," "possibly prevent" and "some cancers" - but rarely asks why cancer has become so incredibly common. Getting more exercise, wearing sunscreen and not smoking are healthy choices, but the focus remains on individual attempts to avoid disease - rather than collective attempts to reduce the skyrocketing cancer rates overall. It's like we're insisting on wearing seat belts while allowing cars to be sold without brakes.

In this sense, pinkwashing becomes just another advertising sleight-of-hand to divert attention from the questions we should be asking. Dr. J at "your heart's on the left" writes:

When it comes to prevention, the dominant medical model is highly selective in what carcinogens it chooses to blame. The continual rise in lung cancer is blamed solely on the dissemination of [tobacco], but cigarettes are not the only chemical to enter existence over the last century. According to the Canadian Auto Workers Prevent Cancer Campaign:

"The International Agency for the Research of Cancer has identified 24 substances that cause lung cancer in humans. Twenty-three were determined by the excess mortality of workers who were exposed to these substances. The 24th, of course, is tobacco. Why do we hear so much about the dangers of tobacco but so little about the other 23 lung carcinogens? The reason is that tobacco is claimed to be a 'lifestyle' choice, so industry and the medical profession can blame the victims. The other 23 known causes of lung cancer are related to industry. They can be prevented and removed from our workplaces and our environment."

Dr. J's post calls out the gargantuan hypocrisy of a government blathering about cancer "communication" while stonewalling all criticism of the carcinogenic stew that is the tar sands. For more from this perspective, please read "Cancer awareness: stop the tar sands, good green jobs for all".

I wrote about my loathing of the deceptive link between advertising and charitable donations in a popular wmtc post called "you can't find inner peace in a bottle (of iced tea)" (see second half of post).

For more on pinkwashing, see Think Before You Pink:

Think Before You Pink, a project of Breast Cancer Action, launched in 2002 in response to the growing concern about the overwhelming number of pink ribbon products and promotions on the market. The campaign calls for more transparency and accountability by companies that take part in breast cancer fundraising, and encourages consumers to ask critical questions about pink ribbon promotions.

Don't just consume. Ask.

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in which shoppers drug mart makes it very easy to boycott them

It just got much easier to boycott Shoppers Drug Mart. I discovered their prices are consistently higher than prices at my supermarket for the exact same item. Goodbye SDM, hello Loblaws.

* * * *

In April, I blogged about Shoppers Drug Mart's shameful response to Ontario cutting prices on generic drugs by eliminating "professional allowances".

PAs are payments generic drug manufacturers make to pharmacies in return for selling their products. The drugstores say those fees allow them to hire more staff, stay open more hours, and offer "extra services" such as law-compliant packaging, patient counseling and free delivery.

This is ridiculously transparent. Law-compliant packaging is not an extra. It is not optional; it is part of the cost of doing business. Patient counseling is not optional. It's what pharmacists are supposed to do: give information about the drugs they are dispensing. And while free delivery may seem like an extra, for many people, it is a necessity.

PAs allow drugstores to do business more cheaply, subsidized by the drug companies. But consumers pay for this subsidy in the form of higher drug prices. Ontario is now eliminating that subsidy to make prescription drugs more affordable.

As the largest province in Canada, Ontario sets the bar for the rest of the country - so if this works, other provinces are likely to implement similar deals. Naturally, pharmacists and drugstores don't like this.

In response, Ontario's major drugstore chains threatened to cut services. Shoppers Drug Mart, by far Ontario's largest, made good on those threats even before Ontario's plan was implemented. They cut hours, laid off staff and, most outrageously, started charging $8.00 per prescription for delivery.

Charging for delivery disproportionately affects seniors and people with disabilities, especially in suburban and rural areas where public transit is very limited. Imagine being an elderly person with limited mobility living on an income where every dollar must be watched and pinched. That describes thousands, tens of thousands, who knows how many Ontarians. What if you need five prescriptions delivered? Can you afford an extra $40 in fees? Or will you have to spend potentially hours getting to and from the drugstore? I'm not kidding about hours. Buses run very infrequently in rural areas. And does the bus stop near the store? What if health and energy levels make travel impossible?

SDM has no problem using its customers as political pawns in their campaign against the provincial government: they targeted the London, Ontario riding of Deb Matthews, Ontario's Minister of Health, thus blatantly exposing their claims of financial hardship.

Financial hardship? SDM's profits over the last three years increased from $300 million to $585 million! But they are clearly more concerned with doling out profits to shareholders than services to customers.

* * * *

I wrote to SDM, telling them we would stop using them. But where would we go?

We already use a small, independent pharmacy for our prescription drugs, but we have been buying all our personal care and non-prescription drug drugstore products from SDM - and collecting "Optimum" points - since moving here. I very much wanted to take my business elsewhere, but how? SDM is omnipresent where we live. Wal-Mart is out of the question; I've been boycotting them for more than a decade. Someone suggested Costco, but there is only one Costco in Mississauga, and it's not convenient, and I would prefer not to roam the aisles of an airplane-hangar-sized warehouse to pick up shampoo. Small drugstores have poor selection and high prices.

Allan suggested we try Loblaws, where we already shop for groceries. As our principal food shopper, he assured me that Loblaws' drugstore section is very large, and thought we should give it a try.

So I embarked on a little project. I roamed around SDM with my notebook, jotting down prices for each product we use. Then I created a spreadsheet listing each item - the exact brand and all the particulars, or if we use the SDM generic brand, noting that - and each price. Allan took the chart to Loblaws next time he went shopping, and filled in their prices for the same items. I was amazed.

Everything is less expensive at Loblaws. Some items, like our preferred shampoo and deodorant, were $1.50 and $2.00 less. Some items, like generic allergy medicine, were half price - the difference between $25.49 for 36 tablets and $24.99 for 72! The only time SDM prices were better than Loblaws was on specially marked-down items. But we never time our shopping with store specials, we just buy things when we need them.

We've been collecting Optimum points from SDM for many years, and have cashed them in for $20, $30, $50 or more off purchases. I've written before about how I am a total sucker for these loyalty-reward schemes. I try not to sign up for them, because once I do, I allow them to control my purchases to a ridiculous degree. But SDM's Optimum plan seemed like such a good idea. They have what I need and I'm buying those items anyway; why not earn points towards future discounts?

Now I see what I probably should have realized all along: that I am paying extra for every item, and SDM is refunding the difference - if that - when I cash in my points. It's much better to buy the same item for less, while we're already at Loblaws for our grocery shopping. Plus we collect points at Loblaws, too.

* * * *

While I was chewing this over, I received a letter from SDM in reply to my letter saying I was taking my business elsewhere. Their response, of course, goes over the same company line about how Professional Allowances are needed to fund "extra services," and how dangerous the provincial cuts are, and so on. I expected all that, but when they appeal to me to join their cause, to visit their PR website and contact Deb Matthews to oppose the pricing changes, they only increased my resolve.

This week I will cash in my Optimum points one last time. I have $85 in free stuff coming to me and I am going to collect.

After that, adios Shoppers Drug Mart!

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reproductive justice and the limits of polls, part one

I attended a terrific meeting last night called "Harper's Attacks on Reproductive Rights at Home and Abroad". The room was packed with people of all ages and from many different communities - university students, women's health workers, socialists, veteran choice activists and those new to the barricades.

When the meeting began, there was a buzz about the recent Globe and Mail article showing the results of a new Nanos poll on Canadians' opinions on abortion.

Canadians believe that women in countries that receive aid from Ottawa should have access to safe abortions, according to new polling data which hints at a political risk for the Harper government in promoting a maternal health initiative that omits abortion.

In the poll by Nanos Research 67.7 per cent of respondents said women in countries receiving Canadian aid should have the same access to safe abortion as Canadian women.

A related Globe story showed that a large majority of people polled in every province believe that women need access to legal, safe and free abortion, ranging from a whopping 88.8% in Quebec to 69.5% in Alberta and in the upper 60 percents in the Atlantic provinces.

This is excellent, and it is a distraction.

Such strong polling numbers are important because they demonstrate that women's reproductive freedom is a mainstream Canadian value, and that the Conservatives tamper with this at their great political peril.

It shows the broad mainstream base behind the small activist voice currently agitating to ensure that reproductive rights in Canada do not backslide, whether through wholesale dismantling or through the stealth, piecemeal chipping away of rights.

And the poll numbers show the strong public opinion we can tap into as we organize around reproductive rights issues.

But our right to control our own bodies should not depend on public opinion.

Our rights to sex education, contraceptives, abortion, prenatal care - our right to control if and when we have children - should not be a function of majority opinion.

In countries where, because of a particular social, political, cultural milieu, public opinion shows strong opposition to contraception and abortion, women still have the right to control their bodies.

And if one day someone comes up with a poll that shows, say, 45% of respondents in such-and-such province oppose abortion rights, 100% of the girls and women in that province still have the right to reproductive freedom.

Reproductive rights are human rights. Human rights cannot depend on public opinion polls.

But the support is there and we must organize it.

This Saturday, at the main G20 protest march - "People First! We Deserve Better" - women will lead the march, carrying a giant coat hanger, both in protest of the Harper government's exclusion of abortion from their so-called "maternal and child health policy" and to say, as Canadians, WE WON'T GO BACK.

This decision was made and endorsed by all the organizing bodies - the Canadian Labour Congress, Greenpeace, Canadian Federation of Students, Oxfam Canada and the Council of Canadians - and it's an exciting development.

Every woman is invited to stand at the head of the march, in a demonstration of strength and solidarity with women around the globe.

The peace march feeding into the main march begins at 12:30 in front of the US Consulate, 360 University Avenue.

The main march will begin at Queen's Park at 1:00.

I'll report on the meeting in Part Two.

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COULD THIS BE WHY OUR HEALTH CARE COSTS ARE SO HIGH???

COULD THIS BE WHY OUR HEALTH CARE COSTS ARE SO HIGH???




Bubba had shingles. Here's what happened to Bubba:



Bubba walked into a doctor's office and the receptionist asked him what he had. Bubba said: 'Shingles.' So she wrote down his name, address, medical insurance number and told him to have a seat.

Fifteen minutes later a nurse's aide came out and asked Bubba what he had.

Bubba said, 'Shingles.' So she wrote down his height, weight, a complete medical history and told Bubba to wait in the examining room.

A half hour later a nurse came in and asked Bubba what he had. Bubba said, 'Shingles..' So the nurse gave Bubba a blood test, a blood pressure test, an electrocardiogram, and told Bubba to take off all his clothes and wait for the doctor.

An hour later the doctor came in and found Bubba sitting patiently in the nude and asked Bubba what he had.

Bubba said, 'Shingles.' The doctor asked, 'Where?'

Bubba said, 'Outside on the truck. Where do you want me to unload 'em??'

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Cooking Up Another Facebook Smackdown!

We just posted another Facebook note tonight about health care reform. Madame started off by mentioning the passage of a health care reform bill in the Senate Finance committee. No problem. As an Alaskan, Madame is used to cleaning up a Snow(e)y mess!

Madame talked about how sometimes "good intentions" lead to bad policy outcomes. She called the Great Opologizer out on some of his unfulfilled promises: not negotiating with insurance companies behind closed doors, allowing the public to read bills online, not allowing the unemployment rate to fall below 8% by passing the "stimulus" package, and even the promise of change! Hmm, those topics would make some good campaign ads!

Madame again brought up the need for tort reform, just as we had written about earlier. For good measure, Madame used some of her signature sarcasm to discuss free market solutions to health care, describing them as a "novel idea". Madame had better be careful using the word "novel". The Softy Southpaws are already scared that her memoir is selling so well. Who knows what they'll do if they get confused and think that she is going to write a novel on the free market! The modern version of Atlas Shrugged?

Madame closed by saying, "[n]ow is the time to make your voices heard before it’s too late. If we don’t fight for the market-oriented, patient-centered, and result-driven reform plan that we deserve, we’ll be left with the disastrous unintended consequences of the plans currently being cooked up in Washington."

Cooked up in Washington? Yuck! I'd rather be around Madame cooking up some moose chili! If only I could smell it and taste it!

Photo from Pro-Sarah

Madame closed out this post with a special section for Katie Couric which included a ton of heelnotes. We even did something a little different this time and used tiny urls. Perhaps you could say we went a bit rogue on the heelnotes!

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President Obama's Thesaurus

I've been pretty confined by the laptop bag that Madame has safely stored me in on our flight to Hong Kong. We are now just hours away from her speech. I can't wait; I just know it is going to be good!

I did a lot of thinking on the flight over to Hong Kong. I've noticed with all of the articles that Madame has read since the Great Opologizer became President, it seems as if he and his administration have created their very own dictionary and thesaurus as a means of defining their policies and political strategy. For one, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs doesn't seem to quite know how to define Madame:




In this clip, Robert Gibbs says, " I'll let Webster define what one calls her". Well, Mr.Gibbs why don't you let LOTUS define what one calls her? You can call her Governor Palin, Madame 45, Goddess of Energy, Sarah Barracuda, the Iron Lady of the North, etc. Hmm, I guess that is more of a thesaurus listing, but you get my point.

When Madame and I were writing the "nail in Obamacare's coffin" Facebook post, Madame used the forever-to-be remembered phrase "death panels". We first wrote that post in Microsoft Word before transferring it to Facebook. As you may know, Word allows you to highlight a word and find a synonym if you so desire. Madame could have used the phrase "fatality board" or "casualty jury", but she knew that "death panels" would speak to the heart of the matter--bureaucratization of health care.

Madame called it like she saw it, rather than try to sugar-coat it like President Obama when he called health care reform that includes a pubic option, "health insurance reform". A spoonful of sugar does not make socialized medicine go down!

"Health insurance reform" instead of "socialized medicine" is not the first entry in the Obama thesaurus, nor is the Robert Gibbs needing a dictionary to define Madame the first time that the Obama administration has needed a dictionary to define something. In President Obama's media blitz on Sunday, during one of his interviews he did not seem to understand that fining people for not signing up for health insurance is, indeed, a tax. You can put lipstick (very badly) on a tax by calling it a fine, but it's still a tax, Mr. President.

There have been a few other occasions when the Obama administration has wanted to use other phrases to define political terms. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano now calls "terrorism" a "man-caused disaster". The Obama administration calls the "war on terror" " an "overseas contingency operation".

That's OK, though, Mr. President because another entry in your thesaurus is when you referred to Madame as a "prominent politician", as shown in the clip above. As Madame currently holds no political title, I'm thinking that President Obama is conceding that Madame is going to be his successor, if she chooses to run. Prominent politician is synonymous with Madame 45.

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The BOM (Barack Obama Media) vs. Facebook

As Madame's eldest son Track is returning from Iraq this weekend, I don't anticipate that she and I will be working together much. So, consider this post "LOTUS, unplugged", but not for too long, as I don't want to run out of energy. I would like to touch on the issue of the media. There has been quite a bit of media malpractice, especially over the past 13 months or so. It is interesting that while the Softy Southpaws want to allow the continuation of abuse of medical malpractice litigation by not considering tort reform in their health care reforms, yet they are just fine with the amount of malpractice in the media. I suppose it is because the Softy Southpaws are very rarely the recipients of media malpractice. In fact, some feel that the idea of the mainstream media is not an appropriate term, perhaps it is more fitting to call it the Barack Obama Media (BOM).

As I was out surfing recently, I discovered that the Great Opologizer is going to visit 5 Sunday morning television shows tomorrow, perhaps to do more Obamacare re-runs. Wasn't it Albert Einstein who said, "[i]nsanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result"? By the way, if President Obama is doing 5 TV shows on a Sunday morning, wouldn't he miss church? Oh, he has yet to pick a church? Hmm, it is nine months into his presidency. Mississippi governor Haley Barbour pointed out that it took the Great Opologizer six months to pick out a dog for his family, yet President Obama wants to rush health care through before smart decisions are made.

Graphic from Another Black Conservative

While President Obama is making his pitch for his health care reform, Madame 45 has countered every time. Plus, as I've pointed out before, Pres. Obama pitches like a girl, Madme pitches like a woman. President Obama may use the MSM/BOM to attempt to get out his message, but Madame has used alternative means, namely Web 2.0, to get out her message. In fact, Facebook is now the fourth largest "nation" in the world with more than 300 million users. So, in essence, Madame's message has the potential to reach hundreds of millions of people. Some have even argued that our Facebook posts are the turning point in the health care debate:

There were no public appearances or speeches, no glitzy ad campaigns, no publicity tours, no interviews in the mainstream press or any new media outlet. Sarah Plain (sic) killed health care reform with a posting on her Facebook page, an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, and an exquisite sense of timing.

If history remembers one thing from the current debate over health care, it will remember the phrase “death panel.” Just as Harry and Louise form the enduring image from President Clinton’s failed attempt to take over the health care system, the “death panel” image will come to symbolize Obama’s failure and Palin’s triumph.

It’s almost the perfect political catchphrase. “Death panel” encapsulates everything people fear about the consequences of a government with too much power over those it is supposed to serve.

I still love the phrase "death panel". When Madame first typed it, I was confused. To me, the phrase death panel referred to what would come across my screen if I ever got a virus. However, when she described the implications of a government takeover of health care, I understood, and I realized that it was political gold. Now, don't tell Madame I'm writing this, but I think the following links comprise the First 2012 Presidential Debate:

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=130481448434

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Sk9kxaoLXM

http://www.facebook.com/sarahpalin?v=app_2347471856#/note.php?note_id=131081638434

Round One goes to Pugilist Palin!


(H/t to Kjanlady and Bestbud at C4P for their suggestions for this post)

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THEY STILL AREN'T LISTENING TO US AND THE FOLLOWING PROVES IT!

Despite the vast numbers of Americans who marched on Washington, D.C. it appears that our elected officials refuse to listen to those who elected them.

According to the Fox News channel this morning, it appears that the so-called "Gang of Six" (a Bi-partisan group in the Senate) have reached a possible agreement on the health care bill.

We the People have been attending "Town Hall" meetings, "Tea Party" marches, including the Big One this weekend in D.C., telling our elected officials that "WE DO NOT WANT GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH CARE!" Apparently, the morons in Washington just don't give a damn, because this is what the "Gang of Six" has possibly agreed on:

The Senate version of the health care bill will leave out the "PUBLIC OPTION", but will include a "PUBLIC CO-OP" funded by the government - (then it is still a public option);

It will contain legislation that would prohibit illegal immigrants from applying for and receiving health insurance - (but according to retired judge Andrew Napolitano, who often appears as a guest on the Fox News Channels, the U.S. Supreme Court WILL strike it down as being unconstitutional and the Senate and Obama KNOW IT. They are only putting it in the bill to placate the masses);

Third, if passed, it will become MANDATORY for every American to have health insurance and the IRS will be the enforcing agency - (If it is MANDATORY, doesn't that make it a government run health care?).

So, either our elected officials are deaf or they just don't care what we say, I prefer to believe the latter.

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Pugilist Palin- Updated

Credit to Karen Allen

During the 2008 presidential campaign, at a rally in Carson, CA, Madame 45 declared, "the heels are on, the gloves are off". Today, things aren't too much different; she is still a fighter. Well, sometimes, when we are about to get to work on a Facebook post or an op-ed, Madame has on slippers, running shoes, or clogs, but I think you get the point. Madame is a fighter. Yesterday, Madame wrote an absolutely amazing op-ed in the Wall-Street Journal, throwing a right hook and a left jab there at Obamacare.

President Obama attempted to fight back but his punch didn't land:

Every non-partisan organization that has looked at her claims say they are false. And the ideas in her op-ed are both scary and risky. Eliminating Medicare and giving our seniors vouchers instead is a bad idea that we shouldn't adopt.

"Scary" and "risky", Mr. President? Surely you are referring to your own plan. Madame responded with a killer punch in our latest Facebook posting:

I'm pleased that the White House is finally responding to Republican health care ideas instead of pretending they don't exist.[1] But in doing so President Obama should follow his own sound advice and avoid making "wild misrepresentations".[2] Medicare vouchers would give everyone on Medicare the chance to decide for themselves which health plan to use, rather than leave that decision to government bureaucrats. Such proposals are the kind of health care reform that Republicans stand for: market-oriented, patient-centered, and result-driven.

The White House talking points leave the rest of my arguments unanswered. They don't respond to the idea that all individuals should get the same tax benefits received by those who get coverage through their employers; that we must reform our tort laws; and that we should allow Americans to buy insurance across state lines. The White House also fails to respond to the Nyce/Schieber study indicating that wages will fall if the government expands coverage without reducing health care inflation rates.

One last thing: after President Obama's speech tonight, listen for which pundits use the words "false", "scary", and "risky" in describing the proposals I put forward. That's how you'll be able to tell who the White House counted as "allies" worthy of receiving its talking points.

-Sarah Palin

[1] See http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0909/White_House_talking_points_blast_Palin.html.
[2] See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/opinion/16obama.html.

You go, girl! If I had any hands, I would give you a high five and two thumbs up!

Then, tonight, the Great Opologizer presented his Obamacare re-run to a joint session of Congress. By the way, since we are on the subject of health care, is anyone else up for a "joint replacement", if you catch my drift? Anyway, here is a clip from when the President addressed Madame's statements:




I have to also say kudos to South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson for calling out President Obama on the issue of health care coverage for illegal immigrants. Way to go, Joe! You were successful at making Nancy Pelosi make a legitimate facial expression (check out the video). Of course, she may have made this face because she realized that she and Hillary Clinton were wearing the same red pant suit.

Update, Congressman Wilson has now, as I'm posting this, apologized. Make up your mind, Joe!

Oh well, Congressman Wilson may not be the quite the fighter that Madame is. However, let me say this now, I have an inkling that 2012 will be the "Rumble on the Tundra". It won't be pretty for President Obama. You see, Madame 45 fights like a girl!



Updated: Here is Madame's response to the Great Opologizer's health care speech. Whew, we've been so busy lately. The Tech industry needs to invent a LOTUS-friendly white skinny mocha so that I can remain energized for this health care reform battle.

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Kudos to the Obamacare Fighting, Blue Star Hockey Mom

We have had quite the busy day today working on health care reform. We e-mailed a senator in the NY state senate, re-posted the e-mail to Facebook, and wrote an editorial for the Wall Street Journal. Hmm, I wonder what Peggy Noonan thinks about that. Let's just say Madame took the gloves off and put the heels on again to do some serious "type, type, type, send".

Unfortunately, I don't have the same health care reform stamina that Madame does, so I'll let her words speak for themselves. After all, they do speak volumes; it's the Palin Precept.

Instead, tonight, I would like to take this time to brag on Madame a bit. As we approach the 8th anniversary of the attacks of 9/11 and as the number of troops are being increased in Afghanistan, I would like to commend Madame for her support of the American soldier. Let me just present a few examples. She is never ashamed to wear a flag pin, nor does she ever neglect to wear her Blue Star Mom pin. In fact, her pin has grown in the past few months:

Smaller Blue Star Mom Pin in July 2009

Larger Blue Star Mom Pin August 2009

In fact, during her farewell speech pictured above, she spoke up in support of the soldiers:

Together we stand with gratitude for the troops who protect all our cherished freedoms. This includes our First Amendment guaranteed freedom of speech – which, par for the course – I shall exercise. First, with some “straight talk,” I will address some, just some, in the media because another right that is protected is the freedom of the press. You have such important jobs reporting facts and informing the electorate and exerting power to influence. You represent what could and should be a respected and honest profession that could and should be a cornerstone of our democracy. Democracy depends on you. That is why our troops are willing to die for you. So, how about in honor of the American soldier you quit making things up.

Madame is good at reminding detractors, protesters, and "journalists" that the reason that they have the opportunity to speak out and exercise their 1st amendment rights is because of the American troops. Take a look at this clip from the campaign trail last year:



Just in the past month, she has spoken up for troops. We linked a WSJ article about the Death Book used in the treatment of veterans. Just a few days ago, we wrote another Facebook note blasting the Associated Press for publishing a photo of a dying soldier against the wishes of the soldier's family.

Additionally, she is participating in an auction to benefit wounded veterans. This would give people the opportunity to have family with Madame and the First Dude, for a starting bid of $25,000. I'm so lucky! I get to have dinner with them all the time--for free!

Additionally, Madame recently signed a letter to the President supporting his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. She wants to ensure the soldiers that she supports their fight against the Taliban.

Madame is quite a patriotic woman who truly stands not only with Track, but all of our troops fighting for our freedoms. She always wants to display her patriotism. Take a look at the wallpaper that Madame has installed for me.

My portrait (I wonder if this will hang in the White House in 2012)

Kudos to Madame- the Obamacare Fighting, Blue Star Hockey Mom!

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Madame 45 likes to run

One thing that I have discovered about Madame 45 is that she likes to run, and I don't just mean in the athletic sense. She likes to run an offense, a town, oil and gas commission meetings, a state. She also enjoys co-running a family. We'll have to see if she has her sights set on running a country. Time will tell. She always seems to be acutely aware of "open doors" or "doors that are cracked" opened.

Today was a little less busy today on the LOTUS front; you see the big post was only at about 8:30 PM yesterday here in Alaska. I was proud of Madame for putting the Softy Southpaws (that's what Madame calls liberals) in their place. Madame has gotten used to being taken out-of-context and smeared, so she fights back. She is a fighter. She talked about her proclamation of Healthcare Decisions Day as governor and put it into context. You see, it's not very often that her words are put into context, so she decided to do it herself. She compared what was in the House bill with her proclamation of Healthcare Decisions Day and said they were as different as apples and oranges. The two policies are really that different! She wasn't just using that example in order to get votes from Washington state and Florida if she decides to run in 2012. Oh, and I must say, she was pretty excited about the provision being taken out the Senate bill, but she's not done yet!

We only really had one post today-- a statement from the American College of Surgeons. Apparently, the President made some comment about how much surgeries cost, and he was way off. You see, Madame is so good with budgeting and being fiscally responsible both in government and at home. You should see the budgeting excel spreadsheets I have saved on my hard drive! She just can't understand how the President could overestimate the cost of a foot amputation but completely underestimate the cost of the his health care plan. It's so simple to her!

But, I should get back to the running. Since it was a slower day for us, Madame went for a long run. She used me to charge her ipod. She has quite the eclectic collection of music on itunes: AC/DC, some country, some Amy Grant. I've always wanted to go on a run with her. I don't get what's the big deal. I AM portable!? Oh well, Madame's pretty speedy, so my processor probably couldn't keep up anyway. She's a tough one; she says her ankle hurts her sometimes when she runs; it's from an old high school basketball injury. Yet, she still runs. If I had a sore backspace key, I don't know if I could do it. I guess it's because running gives her sanity in this crazy world.

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