Associated Press Puts Story on Spin Cycle

It’s sad when you have to turn to CNN to get a better scope of the story. Not that there aren’t wolves in sheeps’ clothing within the otherwise pro-life movement, but did anyone check into whether the doctor had some bad debts or domestic disputes recently? Those who cry that journalism as a profession is dying are a little late to the diagnosis methinks!

eHealth Ontario — Liberal public service abuse

Praise goes out to Antonella Artuso of the Sun Media Chain for keeping the public informed about the systemic waste at eHealth Ontario. The latest revelations are horrifyingly shameful. Here is what eHealth CEO Sarah Kramer had to say:

“We did get the results we were looking for — in fact, we got more than we were looking for,” she said.

No doubt they got what they wanted! It would not surprize me if their primary goals were precisely to line the pockets of consultants and friends.

This is what Health Minister David Caplan had to say:

“No rules were broken,” Caplan said of the spending reports. “There are no questionable contracts.”

See, now, this exemplifies the problem with socialism: waste, gluttony and ripping off the taxpayer are perfectly in line with the rules. For the socialist, there is always The Greater Good — however nebulous it may be — which trumps everything. Corruption is just an unfortunate costs of delivering a public service.

This eHealth nonsense is nothing more than a welfare plan for consultants and silly civil servants: the elite class of parasites who abuse the naive good nature of socialists who demand public funding for health care.

NS NDP, corner pocket

No surprise that CUPE is publicly endorsing and organizing a voting block for the Nova Scotia NDP.

But what happens if the NDP form government?  Who’s in whose pocket then?

Hangin’ with the Priz-nat

President Clinton spoke in Halifax on Thursday. It was pretty cool to be in the same room with him, I must confess. His delivery was excellent and his jokes were well-placed and natural. Clinton was everything you might expect of a former President and now circuit speaker of some 350 engagements per year.

His polished veneer aside, it was (and is) clear to me that Clinton remains a dedicated neo-liberal.

His entire speech was built upon the classic “it takes a village to raise a child” Hillary-ism.  From the environment to pandemics to Katrina to 911 to economics to AIDS to activism, the message was loud and clear: we are forever joined as a global community and there is no tearing us asunder. The key phrase of the day, interdependence. We can do nothing without each other; we will henceforth be constantly affecting one another; we are one big global family and it’s time we start acting like it.

On the environment the President figuratively channeled Al Gore, devoting as much as two minutes of his speech to anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hysteria, specifically catastrophic sea level increases due to a 9-degree Celsius rise in global temperature and the melting of the Greenland ice cap by the end of the century, along with the death of the oceans due to man-made CO₂ emissions. Capping the fear mongering was the call to act quickly to avoid certain disaster.

Of course the methods we should employ to overcome the aforementioned “big problems” is where Clinton was conspicuously short on detail, probably because that’s where the devil lives and few be there who want to unleash him without first taking the time to convince people that he’s innocuous. The “devil” in this case being larger, farther-reaching government, which, judging by the themes of his speech, is Clinton’s vision for the future.  In fact, I remarked to my wife later in the evening that Clinton carefully sowed the seeds of world government without actually uttering the specific words — we can’t solve problems independently; we aren’t individual nations; our economies are intertwined; we cannot make progress without each other; solutions must be global in nature and reach; we will either rise or fall together, and only together.

The whole thing left me wondering if I the only person in attendance who had the slightest misgivings (“eebie-jeebies”) about what the President was saying and not saying.

128 Days Later – Yes it Can Always Get Worse!

Permit required to hold a Bible study?

If you’re thinking Vietnam, you’re wrong. Try San Diego, California.

The county employee notified the couple that the small Bible study, with an average of 15 people attending, was in violation of County regulations, according to Broyles.

Broyles said a few days later the couple received a written warning that listed “unlawful use of land” and told them to “stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit” — a process that could cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Good ole San Diego… a little slice of China, minus the secret police and forced labour camps to stamp out those nasty community-disturbing Christians.

Quebec government plays favorites in abortion industry

The Quebec government is instituting more stringent regulations on abortion providers. Various clinics are no longer going to find it worth their while to offer abortions. Yet, there will be making exceptions:

En fin de journée hier, le ministre de la Santé, Yves Bolduc, a par ailleurs indiqué que les centres de santé des femmes, des organismes à but non lucratif où se pratiquent notamment des interruptions volontaires de grossesse, ne seront pas soumis aux règles les contraignant à devenir des cliniques médicales spécialisées.

Too bad. Quebeckers who want abortions are going to have to wait longer.

Please Welcome Mark Peters, the Newest Writer on ThePolitic.com

I would like to welcome long time blogger Mark Peters to the fold here at ThePolitic.com. Mark has been a staple in the Canadian political blogosphere for the past half decade; writing on markpeters.ca and then mark-peters.blogspot.com.

Mark will bring a unique perspective to ThePolitic.com – he’s the first maritimer to write for us – and I’m glad I was finally able to convince him to jump ship.

Chalk River nuclear reactor — Keynesian failure

Forget about the radiation leaks for a moment, if you can.

People are asking what this recent shutdown of the Chalk River nuclear reactor will mean. The answer is simple: people will suffer or die when they otherwise expected to heal.

There is hope but this facility stunted technological growth. I offer the Chalk River nuclear facility — a Crown corporation — as an example of the failure of government intervention monopolizing the market place. We do not need an inquiry to figure this out.

The reflexive socialists often attack free market economics by claiming that it will invariably produce monopolies that will raise prices and restrict supply. Currently, that is exactly what government has fostered in the medical market. Blaming Stephen Harper and the Conservatives is short-sighted and displays a profound ignorance of industrial economics.

UPDATE
Here is the proof:

OTTAWA – Clinics are paying two to three times more for medical isotopes after a supplier abruptly hiked its prices this month – just before the Chalk River reactor shut down and caused an isotope shortage.

Doctors fear the higher costs may force some clinics to delay tests used to detect cancer and heart ailments, lay off staff or even close.

Lantheus Medical Imaging, a Massachusetts-based company that supplies clinics with ‘generators’ used in medical imaging, notified its customers last week of the price increase.

So, if you ccan read that correctly, a government monopoly — thus, an un-free market — has led Canadians to face higher prices and generated sudden supply shortages from old technology with the added bonus of radiation leaks!

Scale tip to CanCer. Thanks!

New Brunswick Brews it’s Own Beer, Undercuts Private Competition

No, this isn’t a joke. The left-wing Liberal government of New Brunswick has started to brew its own beer and is selling it at a lower price than private breweries can sell.

New Brunswick is rolling out its government-brand suds across the province on Thursday in a strategy to keep people from heading across the border in pursuit of discount beer.

The new brand is designed to staunch the bleeding of beer sales in border communities, but it is infuriating local brewers and at least one Quebec business owner.

How the hell can they sell it for a lower price than their private competitors? Regulation, regulation, regulation!

New Brunswick’s policy of socially responsible pricing means that the lowest allowable price for 12 cans is $18.67. That policy is designed to set a floor price for beer in the belief that any lower prices would lead people to buy too much and develop drinking problems.

[...]

The new Selection brands will be sold throughout the year for $18.67 for 12 cans. Other beer companies have to apply to sell at the minimum price for a limited time and can only do that a certain number of times each year.

Perhaps someone should point out that removing price controls on liquor would likely win back cross-border shoppers away from the more competitively priced US and Quebec liquor stores. However, that would entail less regulation, not more. And for ignorant bureaucrats and do-gooder politicians, whose jobs rely heavily on perpetuating the growth of intrusive government, it simply isn’t good policy to remove regulation. [Via: Dust My Broom]

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