The Lady Logician has tracked down an article that paints an ugly picture of the Canadian health care system. She’s posted her thoughts about the Canadian health care system here. Here’s the appalling truth about the Canadian health care system:

Emergency room waiting times at some Ontario hospitals are prompting seriously ill people to walk away, sometimes with fatal results, health officials say. Dr. Sean Gartner says 11 per cent of the people who came to the emergency room at his hospital in Guelph last month ended up leaving without receiving treatment.

A few months earlier, Gartner said an elderly man who left after he became tired of waiting was later found dead.

In February, Patricia Vepari, a 21-year-old engineering student, arrived at a Kitchener hospital emergency room with a fever, sore throat and nausea.

Facing an eight-hour wait, she decided to go home, where she died of an infection.

(continue reading post »)

A defiant Gov. Rod Blagojevich ignored calls for him to step aside, instead naming Former State Attorney General Roland Burris to replace President-Elect Barack Obama in the United States Senate:

Blagojevich, arrested Dec. 9 on charges of trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder, appointed former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to the seat. He praised the 71-year-old Burris’ integrity and asked that the corruption allegations don’t “taint this good and honest man.”

“The people of Illinois are entitled to have two United States senators represent them in Washington D.C.,” Blagojevich said at a news conference in Chicago. “As governor I am required to make this appointment.”

From a political standpoint, this is a brilliant move. If the Senate votes to not accept Burris, they’ll be turning down an accomplished minority politician: (continue reading post »)

It seems that another pharmaceutical shill has influenced the decision to award Luc Montagnier this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Nobel Organization member and Professor, Jan Andersson, also has two direct conflicts of interest in his work with GlaxoSmithKline and at his company known as AVARIS.

The Swedish biotech company sprung from cell and gene therapy research at the Karolinska Institutet. Avaris develops therapies and vaccines that are ostensibly used to fight HIV and leukemia. The market for Avaris products is estimated to be worth $4.5 billion annually.

By awarding Luc Montagnier a Nobel Prize, Andersson gives unearned legitimacy to HIV and AIDS research that Andersson, his investors, and all HIV and AIDS companies, employees, and shareholders profit from directly.

This corroborates previous allegations that the Nobel Prize is for sale. Although previous awards have been presented to undeniably worthy recipients, today’s Nobel prizes appear to be not unlike the Hollywood Walk of Fame stars that are handed out to “Hollywood giants” when, in fact, they are given to anyone whose production or public relations company is willing to pony the fee (somewhere between $20,000 and $100,000) to the Hollywood Chamber of commerce. Presentations are usually coordinated with the promotion of an upcoming movie or television show.

Although the Nobel Prizes to Al Gore, Jimmy Carter and Yassar Arafat made it pretty clear that the award was already corrupted by politics, the fact that pharmaceutical companies can now openly buy awards for promotional reasons should indicate the state of medicine and science in the world.

That the pharmaceutical industry could buy the Nobel Committee makes Luc Montagnier another dead canary in the medical and scientific cave.

Former LAUSD Teacher Ari Kaufman writes in American Daily:

Now, pity those poor, overpaid, underworked teachers as they embark up on a 2-3 week winter break, please.

In fact:

California ranks first nationally in teacher salaries. The average teacher salary in the state was $65,424 last year almost $2,200 more than second-place New York, and almost $12,000 higher than the national average. What’s more, California placed fifth in the nation in the percentage that teacher salaries have increased over the last 10 years, corrected for inflation.

NEA estimates the average California teacher salary this year is $67,186 - a 4.6% increase over last year. This pay hike comes during a year in which the state has hired an additional 2,800 teachers.

And yet:

On Friday, The California Teachers Association filed a proposed initiative to increase the state sales tax “to provide new, ongoing funding for public schools and colleges that cannot be cut, delayed or diverted by the governor or the Legislature.”

Last October, I blogged and emailed this note to Robert Gallo MD and various AIDS truthers after the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca bought a Nobel Prize for Luc Montagnier - while snubbing Robert Gallo.

Since Gallo and Montagnier are both officially credited as the “co-discoverers” of HIV as the cause of AIDS, the idea that one would merit a Nobel Prize and the other would not raises more questions – and waning American confidence – about HIV and the multi-hundred billion dollar AIDS Industry. More and more Americans are voicing quiet skepticism that HIV ever represented any actual threat to humanity – quiet because voiced questions often result in immediate attacks by AIDS non-profit organizations and government agencies (CDC, FDA, and NIH) that all profit from, and are part of, the AIDS industry.

Americans understand why airlines should not fund the FAA. They know why the Gambino Family doesn’t fund the Justice Department. So why do hospitals fund JCAHO and the pharmaceutical industry funds the FDA, CDC, and NIH?

This dynamic is not dissimilar to the SEC ties that helped Bernard Madoff create the world’s biggest Ponzi scheme. One difference is the scale of AIDS Inc., which dwarfs Madoff’s $50 billion scam. In 2008 alone, Congress sent $48 billion to Africa to fight what the DeBeers Diamond Company claims afflicts ten percent of their impoverished diamond miners. The other is that Gallo’s scam kills healthy people.

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER

Diamonds are regularly found in proximity to chrysotile (asbestos). Without proper and expensive protection, miners inhale the damaging asbestos fibers. By blaming the subsequent ailments on AIDS, DeBeers can exploit workers in a deadly environment and, when their workers get sick, DeBeers can blame the illness of a worker’s sexual habits rather than accept liability for their workplace environment.

DeBeers is only one of many companies that exploit Africa’s natural resources, including its impoverished and illiterate population. AIDS Inc. gives these companies a compelling tale for naïve politicians and actors to tell. Any questions about the legitimacy of these requests result in attacks. After all, only a monster would deny “lifesaving drugs” to dying gay men (homophobia) or the African people (racism).

DeBeers doesn’t seem to have an asbestosis problem, although most of their long-time workers suffer from lung ailments that are strikingly similar to asbestosis. DeBeers needs AIDS because, without it, they would have little else to blame their miners’ asbestosis on. For DeBeers, AIDS turns African exploitation into a humanitarian cause; and although Madoff’s Ponzi scheme might cause a few heart attacks and suicides, it will cause nothing close to the injuries and death caused by “black box” AIDS drugs.

GALLO’S RESPONSE

After I sent my note to Gallo, he personally thanked me for my “kind supportive letter.” If Gallo wasn’t responsible for so much injury or death around the world, his lapse would be kind of pathetic. Despite being surrounded by AIDS Truthers who rely on continuing funding to preserve this fraud, not one of Gallo’s friends gave him a heads-up regarding my satirical note to him – including Gallo’s own highly paid Director of Public Relations and Marketing.

Madoff and Gallo both illustrate how their scams lasted as long as they did. Madoff and Gallo succeeded not because they’re particularly bright, but because the weak people around them didn’t have the courage to challenge their misconduct. Madoff, Gallo, Nobel, and AstraZeneca are all minor players. The real culprits are the media, politicians, and voters who remain asleep at the wheel.

While the media is covering the Blagojevich story, they miss the point that ALL those corrupt folks who run Illinois & Chicago are DEMOCRATS.

Nor did Illinois Governor and Mrs. Rod Blagojevich suffer from a Tourette’s moment. Their demands and outrage appear too bold and honest to be anomalous. Both felt comfortable enough to behave as they did before peers and the Chicago media, just as Jeremiah Wright’s celebratory flock was not shocked or disgusted by Wright’s depraved sermons (watch his apoplectic parishioners).

Blagojevich’s misconduct implicates not only himself, but Chicago’s acquiescent machine – just as the SEC failed to investigate Bernard Madoff nine years ago.

People like Madoff, Blago, Jeremiah Wright, the Clintons, and Obama don’t get where they are by themselves. Who would better understand the nuanced inner-workings of the Chicago machine than its US Senators and Governor?

Chicago…. Who runs it?

Senators: Barack Obama & Dick Durbin
Representative: Jesse Jackson, Jr.
IL Governor: Rod Blogojevich (arrested today)
House Leader: Mike Madigan
IL Atty Gen: Lisa Madigan (daughter of Mike)
Chicago Mayor: Richard M. Daley (son of Mayor Richard J. Daley)
IL Leadership: ALL Democrats.

Iraq body count: 300+ Americans (2008)

Chicago body count: 400+ Americans (2008), although it’s hard to say exactly since Chicago doesn’t report crime like other cities. The Chicago PD celebrates whenever less than 500 are murdered in one year. (Maybe an end to the police occupation of Chicago will stop the cycle of violence there?)

State pension fund: $44 Billion in debt - worst in the country.

Sales Tax: At 10.25%, Cook County (Chicago) highest in country.

Chicago Schools: Rated one of the worst in the US.

They can’t blame Republicans because there aren’t any.

The ONLY hopeful news is that Blagojevich’s outrage seems to corroborate the President-elect’s refusal to play along with the machine. Obama is either a DINO (Democrat in name only) who exploited Chicago’s machine to inoculate America, or he will spread Chicago’s infection throughout America.

As a Republican, Obama would have never been elected to the State Senate or presidency. Indeed, Jeremiah Wright’s congregation would have lynched him faster than Wright could say OREO. But by exploiting the DNC’s racial politics, Obama resonated with Democrats, Independents, and some Republicans to win an election that offers some hopeful early signs. Maybe it’s the calm before the storm or a honeymoon, but Republicans have more to hope for today than they did one month ago.

Time will tell.

Merry Christmas & Happy Hanukkah!

Clark

This morning, I was alerted to the NEA’s attack on the Academic Bill of Rights as it pertains to DuPage Community College in Illinois. Here’s a portion of David Horowitz’s official statement:

As background I should remind you of our nationwide campaign to get universities around the country to adopt our Academic Bill of Rights. I wrote this document to end the political abuse of the university and to restore integrity to the academic mission as the objective and truthful pursuit of knowledge. The key provision was the one demanding that faculty not use their courses for political, ideological, religious or anti-religious indoctrination.

You can imagine the reaction of the faculty association at DuPage last month, therefore, when the school’s Board of Trustees proposed adopting the Academic Bill of Rights as part of the school’s basic philosophy and governance. “I and the other trustees thought it was important to provide for the academic freedom of students as well as faculty members,” Kory Atkinson, a trustee at DuPage and the principal author of the new policy manual which contains the Academic Bill of Rights, explained to the Freedom Center. “We’ve had some anecdotal evidence from students about faculty at DuPage providing lower scores [for ideological reasons] and even in some written reports for classes where professors made comments about sources being ‘right-wing’ rather than rejecting them for scholarly reasons, mainly in the social sciences where sources tend to be more subjective.”

Here’s the NEA’s reaction to the Board of Trustees’ saying that they might adopt this proposal: (continue reading post »)

There’s no denying that the political pendulum swung in the Democrats’ direction the last 2 election cycles. This article in Politico.com suggests that, at minimum, Democrats will have more seats to defend in 2010. Couple that with Saxby Chambliss’ win in the Georgia runoff and the GOP’s John Fleming holding onto Bill McCreery’s seat in Louisiana and Joseph Cao defeating William Jeffferson in LA-02 and a case can be made that the Democrats’ momentum has ebbed somewhat. By no means should we accept as fact that the pendulum has shifted back in the GOP’s direction.

“The fact that there’s not an incumbent running for election, and having an appointed incumbent instead, helps us a lot,” Colorado Republican Party Chairman Dick Wadhams said. For those reasons, Wadhams said he was surprised that Salazar decided to accept Obama’s offer.

Assuming that Salazar is confirmed, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter (D) will appoint a replacement to join the newly elected Mark Udall. A flurry of Democratic names are being floated, including Reps. Diana DeGette and Ed Perlmutter, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and outgoing state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff.

The rumor that I’m hearing is that NFL legend John Elway is thinking about running as a Republican. If that happens, the Democrats will have a real fight on their hands. Elway wasn’t just a great quarterback. He’s a charismatic figure, too. It’s still too early to tell what type of candidate Elway would be but their’s no disputing that he’d have substantial fundraising prowess and significantly above average name recognition, two things that most candidates would die for. Here’s what CQ Politics wrote about Elway’s candidacy against Sen. Salazar:

Two-time Super Bowl winner John Elway’s name has been bandied about as a challenger for the Colorado Senate seat held by first-term Democrat Ken Salazar in 2010, but as of now, the former Denver Bronco quarterback, who campaigned in the state for John McCain during this year’s presidential race, trails 49 percent to 38 percent with 13 percent undecided in a Research 2000 poll conducted Dec. 2-4. Former Rep. Tom Tancredo, who dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination before the first caucus or primary vote was cast, fares worse with Salazar leading 51 percent to 37 percent and 12 percent undecided.

That poll is now worthless now that Sen. Salazar isn’t in the picture anymore. Nonetheless, the Colorado GOP has alot of rebuilding to do. Still, having a charismatic person like John Elway at the top of the 2010 ‘ticket’ is bound to energize the GOP faithful and attract unafilliated people to the party, which is a great starting place. (continue reading post »)

Want to win a Nobel Prize? It’s apparently easy if you’re a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical company with an extra $1 million dollars in chump change.

After the Nobel Committee awarded Luc Montagnier the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work in HIV and AIDS this week, Dagens Medicin reports that the Nobel Committee and pharmaceutical giant Astra Zeneca may be investigated for corruption. Stories that question HIV and AIDS science are routinely spiked in the US media.

Journalist Simon Rothelius’ reports:

Astra Zeneca recently became a sponsor for two companies which are part of the Nobel organization. Since thenSveriges Radio (Sweden’s government radio) has revealed that Astra Zeneca can benefit economically from one of this year’s Nobel Prize Medicine winners Harald zur Hausen, who discovered human papillomavirus Virus, HPV. Astra Zeneca receives royalties from sales of both HPV vaccines on the market, Cervarix and Gardasil.

Sveriges Radio has also revealed that Bo Angelin, professor of clinical metabolic research at Karolinska Institute, is on the board of Astra Zeneca and the Nobel Committee which decided the prize winners. This discovery has caused Christer van der Kwast, DA with Riksenheten against corruption, to take action.

“I have given state district attorney Nils-Erik Schultz the mandate to investigate the reports that have been coming from mass media and inform me whether there are grounds for a criminal investigation,” van der Kwast told Sverige’s Radio.

The criminal allegations that may become official involve crimes of bribery and corruption, according to van der Kwast.

Translating from Die Zeit and this Swedish radio station, blogger Udo Schuklenk reports that the Nobel Committee appears to have sold the Montagnier prize for $1 million because of dwindling resources in Nobel’s investments. This may be how the largest commercial sponsor of the foundation’s activities also happens to market products made possible by Montagnier’s alleged discoveries, although he does not reportedly benefit from any AZ sales or partnerships.

For AZ, the $1 million fee is the cost for cheap marketing.

But having the alleged co-discoverer “win” a Nobel Prize is important during a time when the other co-discoverer is facing increasing scrutiny for fraud and scientific misconduct in his own research. Dr. Robert Gallo was snubbed for the award, allegedly for misappropriating Montagnier’s cell samples and misrepresented his findings. The former head of the National Cancer Institute’s electron microscopy found nothing more than cellular debris in what was likely the same material that Montagnier sent to Gallo in 1984.

This week, scientists and physicians have asked the journal Science to de-publish Gallo’s 1984 reports on HIV and AIDS.

This may also explain how Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, and Yassar Arafat got their own prizes.

In 2006, one of the Democrats’ main campaign themes was the “Republican culture of corruption.” Upon winning back the House, Speaker Pelosi said that she’d run the “most honest, most ethical Congress in history.” They’re well on their way of totally obliterating that claim, thanks in no small part to Charlie Rangel’s ethical lapses:

The House ethics committee is expanding an investigation of Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. The ethics panel issued a statement Tuesday saying it had voted to expand an already far-ranging probe into the New York Democrat to examine whether he protected an oil drilling company from a big tax bill when the head of that company pledged a $1 million donation to a college center named after the congressman.

The move means the Rangel inquiry will likely stretch well past early January, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had previously said she expected the matter to be resolved.

Republicans have called for Rangel to step down from his chairmanship of the powerful Ways and Means panel during the investigation. The expanding investigation means the ethics cloud hanging over Rangel is likely to follow him and Democratic leaders into the next Congress as they seek to pass major stimulus legislation and buoy the sinking economy.

The committee will now investigate contributions or pledges of money made to the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York, particularly one made by Eugene M. Isenberg, CEO of Nabors Industries, Ltd.

It isn’t hyperbole to say that corruption is rampant within the Democratic Party. I’ve said in the past that John Murtha’s office should be officially converted into the Corporate Welfare HQ when he retires because that’s what it unofficially is under his ‘leadership’. (continue reading post »)