Ok, so it COULD be worse.

In Canada, you probably eventually get what you paid for.

Reporters have used green tea to expose China's failing health service, in particular the widespread practice of charging patients for unnecessary drugs and treatment.

The reporters, working for the state-run China News Service, went to 10 hospitals in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, complaining of feeling unwell. When asked for urine samples, they handed over the cold tea.

When the "test results" came back, six of the hospitals diagnosed bladder infections and prescribed drugs.

RELATED: Of course, our system isn't perfect

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

Technorati Tags: health care, China, fraud

What would Jesus smoke?

On Monday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a First Amendment case involving a high-school student who was suspended for holding a sign that said "Bong Hits 4 Jesus."

His provocative slogan turns out to have been little more than a ploy to get on TV.

But what do Christian groups really think about marijuana?

RELATED: Ok, so I have to fess up... I did inhale.

UPDATE: Rethinking the War on Drugs

-- LONDON -- New "landmark" research finds that alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than some illegal drugs like marijuana or Ecstasy and should be classified as such in legal systems, according to a new British study.

Heroin and cocaine were ranked most dangerous, followed by barbiturates and street methadone. Alcohol was the fifth most harmful drug and tobacco the ninth most harmful.

Tobacco causes 40 per cent of all hospital illnesses, while alcohol is blamed for more than half of all visits to hospital emergency rooms. The substances also harm society in other ways, damaging families and occupying police services.

Technorati Tags: smoking dope, marijuana, older and not wiser

Only a false prophet...

Would be full of fear...

"That’s how a real scientific theory operates. That’s even how a real religion operates.

Only a false religion needs hate mail, threats, courts of inquisition and Hollywood movies to sustain it."

UPDATE: Worshipping at the altar

Just minutes before the former vice-president arrived, Toronto Mayor David Miller walked in through the front door also not addressing the local press.

Inside, the media was not invited with security asking several members to leave with the exception of The Toronto Star, which is the sponsor of the event.

In other words, it's a private club of like-minded green thinkers.

Also inside is Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, who a press secretary said will address the media at 1 p.m.

Technorati Tags: Y2kyoto, global warming, false prophet

Blog Exposes Creator of Ad...

Portraying Clinton as Big Brother.

-- A political mystery was solved yesterday with the unmasking of the maker of a much-discussed Internet advertisement that portrayed Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as Big Brother.

The creator, it turned out, worked for consultants to Senator Barack Obama, a rival for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, dirty pool

It's what the French are famous for...

Surrendering.

-- PARIS: -- The French government dismissed a top regional education official Wednesday for vigorously opposing a new Muslim school and publicly complaining about pressure from Paris to stop obstructing its opening.

The school project aroused some suspicion because its founders belong to the Union of French Islamic Organizations, a national body with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

RELATED: Do Québécois have surrender gene?

Quebec's electoral law requires that voters produce an ID card with picture to confirm who they are before they are handed a ballot.

However, electoral workers have been told in training sessions that Muslim women who refuse to show their faces can still go ahead and vote.

QUEBEC UPDATE: Surrendering the surrender

Marcel Blanchet, the province's chief returning officer, has reversed an earlier decision and has now concluded Muslim women must remove their face coverings, or niqabs, when they vote.

Blanchet's initial decision prompted non-Muslim citizens to threaten they would show up at polling stations wearing masks.

Technorati Tags: France, cheese eating, surrender monkeys

They're not hookers... they're sex workers

And they're looking for a safe, uh... injection site.

-- The lobbyists said their legal challenges to the Ontario court will argue that laws against bawdy houses, living on the avails of prostitution and communicating for the purposes of prostitution are "depriving sex workers of their right to liberty and security in a manner that is not in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice."

Technorati Tags: hooker heaven, prostitution, wages of sin

Rattus Liberalis is once again...

Eating its own young.


THE RATTUS FILES

Rattus Provincialis
__________

Rattus Ignatieff
__________

Rattus Rae

Libs versus Conservatives

Here's an illustration of the difference in philosophy between the left and the right.

Liberals like London, England's "Red Ken" Livingstone are all about righting the past...

Mayor Ken Livingstone has formally apologised for London's role in the slave trade.

See, if you simply say, "I'm sorry" -- POOF!!! -- all will now be magically right in the world. Best of all, it doesn't cost anything and requires no actual labour. It's also interesting how selective the loony left is, when it comes to apologies. I don't see Ken working on the Queen to apologise for the Scottish "Highland Clearances."

Conservatives, on the other hand, try to focus more on current crimes against humanity like the present day slavery and oppression in the Middle East.

On the wealthy streets of Jeddah, in Saudi Arabia, thousands of young child-beggars, under the auspices of ruthless gangmasters, are simply trying to survive.

And, as we see in Afghanistan, are continuing to pay that heavy toll.

Just something to think about.

Technorati Tags: Liberals, Conservatives, propaganda

The real Islamobomb threat

Increasing protests against Pervez Musharraf's suspension of the chief justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court, are setting off alarm bells in high places.

If Musharaff, as western friendly a leader as exists in the Islamic world, falls from power, there will be a sudden, dramatic shift in the nuclear balance of power.

-- LAHORE, Pakistan -- Angry lawyers scuffled with police as protests erupted across Pakistan Wednesday over the removal of the nation's top judge, intensifying a crisis that threatens President General Pervez Musharraf's grip on power.

The protests and stinging criticism in Pakistan's media have left Gen. Musharraf facing the biggest political crisis since he seized power in a 1999 coup.

And this isn't just the usual raggedy-ass socialist rabble taking to the streets...

On Wednesday, about 3,000 lawyers rallied in the eastern city of Lahore, chanting anti-government slogans. The demonstrators staged a sit-in at a downtown traffic intersection near the Punjab provincial legislature.

When you consider all this in tandem, with the fact that A.Q. Khan, Pakistan's foremost atomic scientist, is some sort of freebooting nuclear pirate, it's a little unsettling, to say the least.

Pyongyang has benefited from undercover deals involving Abdul Qadeer Khan, the former Pakistani nuclear weapons chief and so-called father of the Pakistan bomb...

So, you can bet that the "first world" nations will be keeping a weather eye on the situation in Pakistan.

It could turn out to be explosive, to say the least.

UPDATE: 22 Mar 2007 - Another Pakistani connection

-- LONDON -- British counter-terrorist police said Thursday they arrested three suspects in the deadly suicide bomb attacks on the London transit system in 2005. Two of the men were picked up just before boarding a plane to Pakistan.

Technorati Tags: Pakistan, nuclear bomb, Pervez Musharraf

Russian turnaround on Nukes

Well... they sure waited long enough to speak up.

-- PARIS, March 19 -- Russia has informed Iran that it will withhold nuclear fuel for Iran’s nearly completed Bushehr power plant unless Iran suspends its uranium enrichment as demanded by the United Nations Security Council, European, American and Iranian officials say.

A senior European official said: “We consider this a very important decision by the Russians.

"Fundamentally, the Russians don’t want a nuclear Iran."

UPDATE: The Persian Empire Strikes Back

Iran dares UN to halt their nuclear activities

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's top leader warns his country will pursue nuclear activities outside international regulations if the UN Security Council insists it stop uranium enrichment.

Technorati Tags: Iran, Nuclear bomb, brinksmanship

The Kurds get it right

**********
UPDATE: Happy New Year

The BBC's Jim Muir, in northern Iraq, says Iraqi Kurds have spoken of how, during the rule of Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, they were banned from celebrating Nowruz.

Now, he says, the community enjoys a stability and relative security that is very rare in the rest of the country.

**********

The mass psychosis that apparently compels so many Iraqis to rain death and destruction on their countrymen, is eerily absent in the Kurdish part of the country.

Nation-building is a hard and violent slog in the center and south of Iraq, and it might not ever work out. But in Kurdistan, in the north, it already is a reality.

The Kurds are building a civil society while their fellow Sunni and Shia countrymen to the south slaughter each other indiscriminately.

The Hilton hotel chain is building a massive full-service tourist resort that will take five years to construct.

It may seem dumb to build a tourist resort in Iraq of all places, but this is Erbil Province, not Anbar Province – there is no war, no insurgency, and no terrorism here whatsoever.

It's the untold story of Iraq.

h/t -- SDA --

UPDATE: Meanwhile, back at the ranch

The internecine slaughter continues...

Nearly 50 people have been killed in two days of fighting between the al-Qaeda-linked militants and Pakistani tribesmen, Pakistani government officials said today.

A battle between foreign militants, most of them Uzbeks, and ethnic Pashtun tribesmen erupted in the remote area near the Afghan border on March 6th.

The latest fighting broke out yesterday in Shin Warsak village, seven kilometres (four miles) west of Wana, the main town in the South Waziristan region. Thirty-five Uzbek militants and 12 tribal combatants were killed, a government official said.

I sure don't get this "Will of Allah" thing.

Technorati Tags: Kurdistan, Iraq, mass psychosis

Chalk up another holy act...

For the Religion of Peace.

-- An Italian journalist freed after being kidnapped by the Taleban in Afghanistan says he saw his captors cut off the head of one of two Afghans with him.

What sort of person can cut the head off another human being?

Well, that'd be our old friend Mullah Dadullah.

One Taleban leader, military commander Mullah Dadullah, told Reuters by satellite phone from an undisclosed location that Mr Mastrogiacomo had been freed after Afghan authorities released five senior Taliban officials, including his own brother.

I hope your god is proud of you.

RELATED: Hey, before you get all judgemental

Sometimes they only cut off their noses and ears.

UPDATE: Is this the will of Allah?

A US military official has said children have been used in a bomb attack in Iraq, raising fears that insurgents are using a new tactic.

Gen Barbero said there had been also two adults in the car. They parked it near a market, abandoned it with the children inside and apparently detonated it. The two children died, along with three civilians in the vicinity, officials said.

Technorati Tags: Religion of indiscrimate slaughter, Afghanistan, mass psychosis

The Liberal scale of justice

UPDATE:   -- Dalton weasels out again --

When asked whether the compensation was an adequate reflection of what Caledonia residents have endured during the tense occupation, Mr. McGuinty suggested Prime Minister Stephen Harper should have to answer to that.

Here's the compensation package for the people who have endured a year long siege by Dalton McGuinty's aboriginal friends and, as a bonus, seen their property values cut in half...

-- The Ontario government announced Monday it would offer a total of $430,000 in compensation to 135 households in the town south of Hamilton, ranging from a maximum of $6,000 for those closest to the site of a disputed housing development to $2,000 to those living across the street.

Personally, I think I'd rather have the Political Bagman Special offered to a former Liberal Cabinet Minister (think HRDC boondoggle) to fix the problem...

Jane Stewart, the person making $1,300 per day...

But don't worry... I think Dalton capped her salary at $300,000.00. And look what we got for our money so far.

The occupation has cost Ontario more than $46-million to compensate Caledonia businesses, purchase the disputed land and pay for policing the standoff, which alone cost more than $22-million so far.

UPDATE2:   -- An actual answer --

"I think it's pathetic," Conservative Leader John Tory said outside the legislature. "It nowhere comes close to recognizing the diminished property values these people have seen. It nowhere comes close to recognizing . . . the suffering they've gone through, the disruption to their lives.

Enviro-weenies should consider...

"The Law of Unintended Consequences."

Send all your money to David Suzuki... he's not afraid to push the button.

-- That scenario in “The King, the Mice and the Cheese,” by Nancy and Eric Gurney, should give scientists pause before taking extreme measures to mess with Mother Nature, says Dr. Weaver of the University of Victoria.

Even proponents of geoengineering research are wary.

“We are playing with fire here,” Dr. Keith said. “Those of us suggesting we do something are suggesting it with real nervousness.”

Technorati Tags: Y2kyoto, global warming, hubris

It's not curiosity that kills the cat...

**********

Welcome Canadian Cynic readers.

CC has spent the last 48 hours poring over my blog to come up with what he feels is an equivalent sin... to his telling Wanda Watkins, the mother of a young soldier killed in Afghanistan... "Fuck You and Your Grief."

Liberal Catnip, in case you've forgotten, is the woman who teamed up with Warren Kinsella to crown the Ten Smartest Women in the Canadian Blogosphere a while back.

Note that Libnip made sure to include herself on the short-list.

Note also that Libnip had one other rule for her contest. No one was to even mention Kate McMillan from SDA... you know... the woman who who took the "Best Canadian Weblog of 2006"... with more votes than all the nominees combined.

Libnip is a dope and I said so. I say it again here.

The fact that she has health issues doesn't get her a pass for her dopiness... and being at home on disability does, in fact, account for the time and energy she devotes to all her dopey crusades.

And that's why I mentioned it.

I trust no one is missing the irony, of Canadian Cynic, a man who refers to women as "closed-minded, worthless cunts"... rearing up on his hind legs and bleating about poor, defenseless Liberal Catnip.

Nice try CC... no sale.

ps... thanks for all the traffic, you and your number one fartcatcher "red tory" have been driving my way.

it's not an audience i normally get.

**********

OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED POST CONTINUES BELOW...

It's stupidity.

I'm always amazed at how many otherwise intelligent people believe their email is somehow a "privileged communication", akin to doctor/ patient or lawyer/ client confidentiality.

In fact, if you send an email from your place of employment, on their computer and using their internet pipe, the email is the property of... SURPRISE!!! -- your employer.

A good rule of thumb here is... never put anything in an email you wouldn't be prepared to stand up and shout at a public meeting.

So that's what makes this meltdown by Liberal Catnip so hilarious.

In that ProgBlogs diary, I discovered that you posted your extremely condensed versions of private (yes, that's right Jason - PRIVATE) e-mail conversations I and others had with you.

Who the fuck gave you permission to post the content of private e-mail discussions?

Hoooweee, missee... you kiss your kids with that mouth?

Liberal Catnip is also the undisputed master of "unintentional irony."

And, oh my goodness, woe is her.

While I can see being pissed at Cherniak, I don't get why she has to publicly trash her own mother...

Stop playing the fucking martyr and get over yourself. Seriously. I know all about martyrs. You should meet my mother. She has the back of her hand permanently attached to her forehead in the "woe is me" position.

Puts a whole new spin on the words "discretion" and "loyalty."

See Libnip... maybe Cherniak isn't the problem here. You may also want to consider the possibility that you aren't the final arbiter of political discourse on the leftbot landscape.

Perhaps you should also think about staying in the shallow end a tad longer, working on, say... your Top Ten List of the Smartest Canadian Female Bloggers.

Instead of staging another ill-considered public meltdown.

UPDATE: Liberal Catnip's Bad Day...continued

Although Libnip ostensibly supports free speech and indeed fires a warning shot across other blogs bows'...

Finally, as I said before, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the (blogging and political) kitchen and stop blaming the rest of us who are just as entitled to having opinions as you are.

She's a little hypocritical, or perhaps confused about what constitutes freedom of speech...

[comment deleted...go pimp your wingnut blog elsewhere. -catnip]
neo | 03.19.07 - 11:53 am | #

Which, of course, simply reinforces my point.

LAST WORD: Who is Libnip?

"a mid-40s woman on permanent disability living well below the poverty line"

I guess that explains having ample time to cut and paste lengthy, interminable leftbot screeds... in between regularly spaced meltdowns about personal injustice.

Technorati Tags: Liberal Catnip, privacy issues, hubris

Old hippies never die...

They just smell that way.

It's not about whether you actually accomplish anything... you just have to spout the Gore-Suzuki party line.

-- WOODSTOCK, N.Y., March 14 -- Forget for a second the question of whether such a goal is even feasible.

In this crunchy town of art galleries and funky shops, where people get around on colorful bikes and storefronts post signs like “hippies always welcome,” proponents say that if anyplace can reduce its carbon emissions to zero, Woodstock will be it.

Of course, you have to read through all kinds of warm, fuzzy liberal claptrap, before you get to...

Liz Simonson, a Town Board member said, “The resolution may largely be symbolic, but symbolism has a lot of value.”

Especially to burnt-out relics of the sixties.

Technorati Tags: Al Gore, David Suzuki, mass psychosis

Ultimate "fire & forget" weapon

I just wanna see the recruiting video for Mullah Dadullah's explosive new Islamotard Corps.

Top Taleban commander Mullah Dadullah told the BBC that 1,800 suicide bombers were ready to go into action.

Wanted: for very temporary, light duties... no education required. Must be willing to take direction.

No medical or dental, but if accepted... you go straight to the top of the org chart.

I also love the part where he touches on (shsssh... no drug money here, folks) finances...

He said the militants had been able to procure sophisticated heavy weapons with the additional cash they had received.

But the Taleban commander refused to answer questions about where the extra money was coming from.

Then immediately trashes the warlord down the street...

"Gulbuddin Hekmatyar cannot be anybody's ally... he will be the ally of anyone who gives him money," the Taleban commander said.

Religion of Peace -- exporting heroin -- exploding people.

It's all good.

RELATED: If you're handing out blame...

Don't forget evil Canada.

"We’ve used words like brainwashing and indoctrination and they’ve lost their emphasis," she said. Now she uses the word seduction.

Technorati Tags: Religion of indiscrimate slaughter, Afghanistan, mass psychosis

The Frankenfuture

It's only a matter of time.

But if machines can read your mind when you want them to, they can also read it when you don't. And your will isn't necessarily the one they obey.

Already, scans have been used to identify brain signatures of disgust, drug cravings, unconscious racism, and suppressed sexual arousal, not to mention psychopathy and propensity to kill.

Technorati Tags: mind reading, the future is now, computer science

Sacrificing your children...

For Allah.

Can somebody explain to me, how a religion that so often tries to associate itself with the word... "peace" -- can countenance the increasing toll, not on enemy combatants... but on it's own children.

If it's true, as per Islamic precepts, that nothing happens that isn't the will of Allah... it seems to me that Allah is a particularly bloodthirsty and uncaring deity.

The blast killed a 15-year-old boy at the scene and a three-year-old girl died of her injuries after being flown by helicopter to the Canadian-led military hospital at Kandahar Airfield.

Two other civilians — an adult and a child — are in the hospital in serious condition.

This suicide attack on a Canadian convoy, and indeed, most of the random and cowardly attacks on our soldiers, are sprung with total disregard for whomever might be loitering in the area.

I just can't fathom how Taliban Jack thinks he might be able to negotiate with the Afghan equivalent of the Manson family.

And I can't imagine sacrificing, for whatever lofty reason, anybody's children... never mind my own.

UPDATE: Islamofascists using chemical weapons

-- BAGHDAD -- Multiple suicide bombings struck the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Anbar province, and about 350 Iraqi civilians and six U.S. troops were treated for exposure to chlorine gas, the military said Saturday.

Technorati Tags: Religion of indiscrimate slaughter, Afghanistan, psychosis

How many black, handicapped, vegetarian lesbians...

Does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

The answer is "ONE" and by the way... it's not funny.

Unlike the infiltrators' report from the Canadian Peace Alliance conference.

"Resist the United Nations' nefarious plans to prevent the Iranian theocracy's attempts to develop weapons-grade uranium."

"Destroy Israel."

"Give Haiti back to the street gangs of Port-aux-Prince."

"Demand that the Canadian government pay for public meetings where we can shout our slogans."

-- ht -- Kathy Shaidle

RELATED: Kate ices the cake

Technorati Tags: political correctness, nanny state, Canadian Peace Alliance