Ron Paul: Anti-Gay, Anti-People of Color, Anti-Woman, and Republican/Libertarian.

Here is a bunch of information you may not know about a Man I once thought was a good guy, his name is Ron Paul, and he ran in the 08 Election.  Than I started to listen carefully to what he was saying, and he is very misguided in a lot of his ideas.  Even if you believe humans are fundementally good,this is dangerous thinking, and would give nutcases the ability to get away with anything.  It would mean Republicans, like the nutcase in Oklahoma, whom want to ban Gays, and force them into camps could get away with it.  Most states would ban fundemental rights under Right Wing local Governments, and not resist to do something horrible to minorities rights.  Hell, it is the Fed that usually makes the States have better laws towards Minorities.  Why should I be banned from a State? That is outright descrimination, and homophobic bigotry.

Conservatives continue to allow credit card gouging

It is time to stand up for families trying to make ends meet

OTTAWA –Canadian consumers are still not being protected by their government from the predatory practices of credit card companies, said NDP Critic for Consumer Protection Glenn Thibeault.

Despite the fact that Bank of Canada has decreased its trend-setting rate, credit card providers and other financial institutions continue to increase their interest rates and add on superfluous fees. VISA alone saw a 35% increase in their profits last year alone.

“Why is it that credit card companies continue to raise interest rates, when the bank of Canada’s rate continues to decrease?” asked Thibeault Thursday in Question Period. “It’s because they know no one is going to stop them and its hard-hit Canadian families who are paying the price.”

Canadian Tire, one of Canada’s largest retailers, is the latest company jumping on the “rip-off consumers” band-wagon. In addition to tightening up key conditions in their borrowing agreement, the company recently announced that they would be raising the annual interest on late payments of its five million credit card holders to 19.5%.

“Does this Conservative government seriously think a consumer awareness program will help solve the skyrocketing family debt that Canadian families are facing?” said Thibeault. “The Conservative government’s plan won’t do anything more than inform Canadian consumers just how much they are being ripped off.”

Since 2004 the personal debt load of Canadian families has increased 40% reaching their highest levels ever. By increasing rates, credit card companies are simply profiting off families struggling to ends meet.

“Canadian families shouldn’t bear the brunt of these tough economic times,” said Thibeault.

Canada’s youth take a hit in job loss numbers

Fri 06 Feb 2009

OTTAWA– The current economic crisis is taking a higher toll on Young Canadians. “It is shocking to see how badly this economic downturn is affecting young Canadians,” said NDP Youth Critic Niki Ashton.

28,000 Canadians aged 15 to 24 lost their jobs in January pushing their unemployment rate up to 12.7%. In the past 3 months alone the youth unemployment rate has increased by 2.9% or roughly 75,000 jobs.

“That doesn’t take into account the thousands of young people not even in the job market,” said Ashton. “Young people frequently slip through the cracks and generally go unreported.”

Ashton points to the Budget saying that there is no clear strategy for longer term youth employment

“It is critical to respond to the current situation that young Canadians are facing,” Ashton states. “By ignoring the problem faced by so many young people just finding a first job, this government is setting up a bigger problem in the future.”

Nissan to slash 20,000 jobs, forecasts $3.6B annual loss

The Associated Press

Nissan Motor Co. assembly line employees work on the Nissan March at a plant in Yokosuka, southwest of Tokyo. (Shuji Kajiyama/Associated Press)Nissan sank into a loss for the fiscal third quarter and forecast its first full-year loss in nearly a decade on Monday, forcing Japan’s third-biggest automaker to slash 20,000 jobs, or 8.5 per cent of its global work force.

“The global auto industry is in turmoil, and Nissan is no exception,” chief executive Carlos Ghosn told reporters in Tokyo.

Nissan Motor Co. now expects a 265 billion yen ($3.6 billion) net loss for the fiscal year through March — the first time in nine years it’s tumbling into an annual loss.

The automaker reported a net loss of 83.2 billion yen for the October-December period, a reversal from the 132.2 billion yen profit it earned the same period the previous year. That was its first quarterly net loss since it began reporting quarterly earnings in 2003.

As one key step in response to the dismal results, Ghosn said Nissan’s global workforce will be reduced by 20,000 through March 2010, to 215,000 from 235,000. The company has not specified which plants will be affected.

Directors on the board will forgo bonus pay for the year ending March. Their salaries, as well as the salaries of corporate officers, will be reduced by 10 per cent, while managers’ salaries will be reduced by five per cent, the company said.

Nissan sold 731,000 vehicles worldwide in the quarter ending Dec. 31, down 18.6 per cent from the same period a year earlier.

Other Japanese carmakers also hit

Like other Japanese automakers, Nissan has been battered by the global slump and the U.S. credit crunch, which has undermined sales in its vital North American market. A strong yen also ate into profits by eroding overseas earnings when converted back to yen.

On Friday, Toyota predicted it was heading for its first annual loss since 1950. The world’s largest automaker also reported a fiscal third quarter loss of 164.7 billion yen ($2.2 billion), down sharply from the 458.6 billion yen profit it had the same period the previous year. Smaller automakers Mitsubishi Motors Corp. and Mazda Motor Corp. have already projected losses for the fiscal year.

But Honda Motor Co., Japan’s second-biggest automaker, expects to stay in the black for the year through March at 80 billion yen profit, though that’s down 87 per cent from the record 600 billion yen the previous year.

© The Canadian Press, 2009

This sort of thing is happening all over the place, and it is starting to be a nasty trend. Tons of people, both here, and abroad are losing jobs at a rapid rate due to the Economic Crises.  Of course, some people could see this coming long ago, and did nothing to prevent it. As usual, Capitalism, and the Corporations was more important than preventing an issue in the future.  I mean, Corporations always could get away with anything under the Republicans watch in the States, and Governments in other areas of the world are also blind to Corporate Crime, and issues of Economic concern.  They may say they are concerned, but, a lot of them are indeed not that too concerned. Look at Harper, here in Canada his Budget is neglecting those who most need help, and instead protecting Corporations, and the Elite power base that Harper stands on.  He, like the Neo-Cons, and Neo-Liberals in the States are constantly letting Corporate Crime go, and is Pro-War with the right people.  People like me, True Liberals, and others who agree with us on the lack of need for these wars, and Corporate Welfare are not represented by the people in power.

We need new leadership in Canada, and abroad. In Canada, the Social Democrats need more of a seat at the table, since they are anti-war with Afghanistan.  The States need to realize Obama is not their Golden Boy, he is a Center-Right Neo-Liberal when it comes to matters of Foriegn Policy, and his Hawks in his Administration that somehow got in there will make people realize his change is more of the same.  I am speaking of course to his War Cabinet side,  and I have not even begun to talk about his “Seperate, but, Equal” stance to the GBLT Community.   In my opinion, as nice a man as Obama seems to be, he is not a Liberal, he is a Center-Right Moderate, and although he is not as Right Wing as Bush was, or as Right Wing as Harper continues to be he is not Left, nor Center-Left in anyway.

Duffy says he used racy comments to draw attention to equalization

Duffy says he used racy comments to draw attention to equalization
The Canadian Press

HALIFAX – An unapologetic Mike Duffy said he used racy references to two Atlantic premiers hopping “into bed together” merely to draw attention to the region’s ongoing feud with Ottawa over equalization.

The newly minted Tory senator said he made the sensational comments in his first speech in the red chamber to enliven debate on the matter, even as he doled out fresh criticisms of P.E.I. Premier Robert Ghiz and Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams.

Duffy, speaking Saturday at a Conservative gathering in Halifax, said he wanted to make it clear that the Liberal leader of his “beloved” Island province shouldn’t be allying himself with Williams.

“I used the metaphor to grab people’s attention,” he said to loud applause as he addressed the provincial Tory party’s annual meeting.

“What’s the point of being in the Senate if you can’t get any attention – if you can’t get any attention for issues you care about?

“I saw the premier of my province going down what I thought was a very negative path.”

The senator again refused to apologize for suggesting last Tuesday that Ghiz may get the “shaft” by getting in bed with Williams, saying the sight of two politicians in bed is “a grotesque scene.”

Duffy continued the combative language Saturday during a 20-minute speech replete with references to Ghiz as a Rambo-wannabe who couldn’t match his father’s intellect and Williams as a pest who’s making a career out of “barking” at the prime minister.

The remarks follow a week of recriminations from MPs and senators, some of whom called his comments in the Senate “offensive” and “sexist.”

Senator Claudette Tardif, the deputy leader of the opposition in the chamber, said the comments were not only distasteful, but also out of order and she called for him to apologize.

Duffy withdrew the metaphor, but issued no apology.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper did not chastise Duffy, but said: “I thought his language was perhaps inappropriate, and I gather he withdrew some of the language.”

Duffy’s original remarks appeared to refer to the fact that both Ghiz and Williams have called on the federal government to delay any changes in the equalization program for a year.

The premiers say a new cap on equalization could cost Newfoundland $1.6 billion over three years, while P.E.I. would lose $20 million annually under the scheme.

Duffy said Saturday that the two premiers should be working with Ottawa during the economic crisis and use “statesmanlike” language and “civil discourse” to further their cause.

In the next breath, the former journalist took a swipe at Ghiz by conjuring up the memory of his dead father, a former Island premier.

“Joe Ghiz knew what he was doing. Joe Ghiz was a very smart guy and I’m afraid Robert, well anyway, I’ll just leave it at that,” he said to laughter.

Duffy began his first speech in the Senate by thanking Harper for the appointment, saying “it is not a position I sought, but it is a challenge that I accept with enthusiasm.”

That line in particular drew private guffaws from Liberal senators.

Media watcher Chris Dornan, director of the Arthur Kroeger College of Public Affairs at Carleton University, says the former CTV journalist’s enthusiasm for the red chamber was well known.

But Dornan dismissed suggestions that the former host of the must-see show for political insiders, Mike Duffy Live, used his TV platform to get the coveted appointment.

“It was no secret in Ottawa circles that Mike Duffy would have enjoyed being appointed to the Senate,” Dornan said. “The notion that he used his appearances on television to lobby for such a position, I think, is ridiculous.”

Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams this week flatly disagreed.

“I’m very disappointed in Mike Duffy as a person,” Williams said in response to lines in Duffy’s speech.

Duffy’s speech referred to the “nattering nabobs of negativism on the East Coast” who loudly protested equalization adjustments in the Harper government’s recent budget that could cost Newfoundland and Labrador and P.E.I. equalization money.

Politicians of other stripes have questioned whether the popular broadcaster changed his tune in the lead-up to getting the Senate nod from Harper.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May’s verbal smack down of Duffy during a mid-election interview live on TV last fall became a minor YouTube sensation.

She accused him of “a significant violation of journalistic ethics” after he said she supported wiping out the North American Free Trade Agreement. In fact, May campaigned on renegotiating the deal, particularly energy-related provisions, to better protect Canadian interests.

“He was very insulting – deliberately so,” May said Friday in an interview.

“In the 2008 election campaign, whatever pretense they had of being balanced was out the window. It was as bad as anything I’ve ever seen on U.S. networks in terms of being the way Fox News was the mouthpiece for George Bush.”

Duffy dismissed the criticism Saturday, saying his journalistic record “speaks for itself.”

OK, I find this display of Mr. Duffy’s totally inappropriate, and it offends everybody.  By referencing people climbing into bed together it makes “sleeping together” seem dirty for everyone.  He says he only used it to get a reaction, while it worked.  In fact, it worked so well everyone hates him now.  If he thinks the way he talks than he is such a bigot he does not deserve to be respected. Of course, being in the PC Party, and the Government of Stephen “Bigot-Laws” Harper it is no surprise.  He should be ashamed of himself, and should apologize immediately!

Obama going back to soft trade rules?

I found myself seeing the bright side of the so-called “Protectionist” rules in Obama’s Stimulus deal.  Truly, Canada should also go Protectionist, and we should stop all this NAFTA/SPP crap really.  We should if we have trade deal with truly Fair Trade, and not only Fair Trade in name only.  If done the right way Globalization can help save the Third World, and can also make our area of the world prosper, and, hell done right could stop Wars even.  However, if done wrong, and with the wrong people in command if this process it is a horrible excuse to hurt Third World nations for the sake of our nations.

I was seeing how it seems Obama is going soft on the new rules, and while it does not surprise me it does bother me.  He seemed like he might be possibly different, maybe having some changes real come amongst a whole pile of the same.  I was hoping this would be one of the changes, and it seems he is going soft on it.

Anti-gay discrimination still in place on organ donations PROVINCIAL NEWS / Donations drop in year following new rules

Krishna Rau / Toronto / Monday, January 26, 2009

Organ donations in Ontario have dropped sharply in the year since Health Canada imposed stricter rules on organ donations from gay men.

According to Gary Levy, the director of Canada’s largest organ transplant program at Toronto’s University Health Network, the number of deceased donors in the province dropped from 199 in 2007 to 175 in 2008. Levy says there are no definitive statistics on how much of the decline was linked to the new rules for gay men.

In December 2007, Health Canada quietly enacted rules that prevent any man who has had sex even once with another man in the past five years from donating organs. Health Canada already bans any man who has had sex with another man (MSM) even once since 1977 from donating blood.

Doctors are still able to use organs from gay men if they get the recipient’s consent and the doctor signs an “exceptional release” form.

Levy says the drop in donors has meant deaths in Ontario.

“Potentially you can get seven organs from each person,” he says. “At least 120, 130 or 150 people died who could have benefitted from organs.”

Levy says there are no statistics to show to what extent the rules on gay men contributed to the drop in donations, but that the system can’t afford to lose any potential donors.

“How much it hurt us we can’t tell at the moment,” he says, “but organ donation is a very precarious thing. When things like this happen, I don’t think it turned out to be a positive. It didn’t help us to work with the public.

“I worked tirelessly to get the federal government to understand that it was unnecessary and it did nothing for safety.”

Levy says the 199 donors in 2007 was a record year for organ donors in the province. In 2006 there were 162 donors in the province, but Levy says the drop is still disappointing.

“The 199 could be looked at as a blip,” he says. “It’s not that substantive but it certainly was moving in the right direction. It’s very disappointing because people died.”

Neither Health Canada nor Canadian Blood Services (CBS) — which took over the national administration of organ donations in April, as well as controlling blood donations — could provide national figures for 2008.

Levy says he will continue to sign exceptional releases for donations from gay men, as well for donations from other groups who have to undergo the process.

“Age is one factor,” he says. “Over the age of 55 is considered an exceptional release. If they were a drug addict, which is not the ownership of any element of society, that’s an exceptional release.

“I sign exceptional releases at least 60 or 70 times a year. There are at least 100 to 150 exceptional release forms signed in Ontario each year.”

Joshua Ferguson of the group Standing Against Queer Discrimination (SAQD) — which has been campaigning against the blood and organ donation policies — says those policies are unlikely to change any time soon. He says things are worse since CBS took over.

“The MSM policy is now being regulated by the same source that is unwilling to change an outdated, stagnant policy based on ideologically founded fears rather than current epidemiological evidence,” states Ferguson in an email.

Ferguson says he was recently asked to take part in a consultation with CBS. He says CBS appears to be ignoring medical and scientific research.

“The organ and blood donation policies are now imbricated in political and public relation reasons rather than ethical and epidemiological ones,” he states.

Ferguson says participants in the consultation told CBS that policies should focus on risk rather than sexual orientation.

“A general consensus from the meeting is that the MSM permanent deferrals need to focus on behavioural-based questions that would articulate the actual risky sexual behaviours that actually places someone at a higher risk, regardless of their sex and/or sexual orientation,” he writes.

Winnipeg doctor refuses to treat lesbian couple NATIONAL NEWS / Activists say Canada’s healthcare system is homophobic

Krishna Rau / National / Wednesday, January 28, 2009

A lesbian couple in Winnipeg say a local doctor refused to treat them because of their sexual orientation.

Andrea Markowski and her partner Ginette recently moved to Winnipeg from Yellowknife and used a provincial hotline to find a physician who was accepting new patients. But when the couple went to the Lakewood Medical Centre to see Kamelia Elias, a doctor trained in Egypt, they ran into problems.

“We started running through my medical history and [the doctor] could not look at me,” Markowski told The Globe and Mail. “She was flustered. She couldn’t focus. I knew something was up so I asked her, ‘Is our sexual orientation an issue for you in terms of your ability to treat us?’

“She said, first thing, that it was against her religion and second, that she had no experience caring for lesbian or gay patients.”

Elias told the Winnipeg Free Press that she had no experience with lesbians and that gays and lesbians sometimes have “sexual problems” and were more susceptible to disease.

“They get a lot of diseases and infections,” Elias told the paper. “I didn’t refuse to treat them, I said it’s better to find someone who has experience and will take this type of patients. There [are] some doctors who can treat them.”

A request from Xtra for an interview with Elias was referred to Thor Hansell, the lawyer for the Lakewood Medical Centre. Hansell sent Xtra a statement released by Terry Gwozdecki, the medical director of Lakewood.

“Dr Elias at no time refused to accept these women into her practice,” states Gwozdecki. “In fact, she interviewed them, collecting a long medical history for the sole purpose of accepting them into her practice. She was already aware, early into the interview, of their sexual orientation…. It was only when one of the two women became defensive when asked about their relationship, and Dr Elias was pointedly asked if she had a problem with their relationship, that Dr Elias felt it necessary to be up-front with regards to her own religious beliefs and inexperience in treating homosexual patients.

“Please understand that her inexperience stems not from unwillingness to treat these patients, but solely due to lack of exposure to them in her practices in Cairo, Egypt and Steinbach, Manitoba. Her religious beliefs do not prevent her from treating anyone in the gay or lesbian community, and her disclosure of her religious background was in the interest of being as honest and transparent as possible so that the patients themselves could decide if they wanted her as their physician.”

Gwozdecki also stressed that Elias was Christian.

Shelly Smith, the executive director of Winnipeg’s Rainbow Resource Centre, says the couple has filed complaints with both the Manitoba College of Physicians and Surgeons (MCPS) and the Manitoba Human Rights Commission.

Smith says such situations probably happen fairly regularly.

“I don’t think it’s an unusual occurrence,” she says. “I don’t think it’s reported very often but I had a call from another couple, two gay men, who said they’re going through the same thing with another doctor.”

Bill Pope, the registrar of the MCPS, says the complaint is new to the college.

“It’s the first time we’ve had a complaint about this issue,” he says. “I’m saddened by it but it might also be an opportunity.”

Pope says orientation training for international medical graduates has recently increased from one week to four.

Pope says the program is run by the University of Manitoba but that representatives of the MCPS are involved. He says Elias did not go through the training because she arrived in Manitoba five years ago.

“It’s unfair to an individual to expect them to fit right when the cultural mores are so different,” he says.

But Smith says she worries that such concerns allow Canadian-trained doctors to escape blame for their own ignorance.

“I think they’re scapegoating the immigrant/refugee/newcomer aspect of this,” she says. “This isn’t just a cultural issue.”

Smith says medical students at Manitoba’s one medical school at the University of Manitoba receive one session at the Resource Centre in their first year.

“We do one two-hour session for medical students and that’s it,” she says.

Gens Hellquist, the executive director of the Canadian Rainbow Health Coalition (CRHC), says the problem is Canada-wide.

“Unfortunately it’s very common across the country,” he says. “The medical profession gets very little training on our health issues.”

Hellquist says CRHC did a national survey on education in medical schools on queer health issues.

“We found many medical colleges didn’t even want to talk to us.”

Hellquist says the federal government has no national policy in place.

“Part of the problem is that Health Canada absolutely refuses to take a leadership position on queer health,” he says.

Pope says Manitoba’s medical school sets its own curriculum but that the MCPS has one of its policies that physicians cannot discriminate against patients on the basis on sexual orientation.

Similarly in Ontario the College of Physicians and Surgeons says that it has no requirements for doctors — either graduates of Ontario medical schools or immigrants — to take any sort of sensitivity training.

“We don’t set training requirements at all,” says Kathryn Clarke, the college’s senior communications coordinator. “The requirements are set by the medical schools.”

For international immigrants Clarke says the province has what she calls “bridging programs.”

“There are also programs that have been developed by the provincial government to familiarize doctors with the different cultures,” she says.

Clarke says the college does require doctors to follow the Ontario Human Rights Code and would investigate any complaints it received.

Smith says the lack of a proper educational system for queer health issues leaves many patients afraid.

“It’s very fear-based,” she says. “A lot of people are afraid of even disclosing their orientation. Without having proper education a lot of lesbians find the doctors feel their gynecological health isn’t as important. And when a gay men reveals his orientation almost inevitably the first question is about STIs [sexually transmitted infections].”

Hellquist says the problem is life-threatening.

“We get burned by the healthcare system so we avoid it, usually at the cost of our lives,” he says.

To end for good the myth of “Illuminati” manipulation.

OK, so, I was doing some news searches, and found an article on how “Illuminati” theories are all BS.  Now, I do agree that The “Illuminati” theories are out there, and, I would even go as far to say they are BS myself.  However, this articles also went on to say how it was spread to stop Globalization, and due to over protective Nationalism.

In this regard, I too agree there seems to be a direct connection between Palio-Conservatives, and the Illuminati theories.  Most of these theories are based around the fact that Globalization is a horrible thing, and needs to be stopped.  In fact,  people are linking the North American Union stories to Illuminati, and of course it goes hand in hand with the ancient stories of such a group.  The thing is, who started the stories of The Illuminati?

Well, it was a real group in the 1800’s, but, who made these rumors up about them, and then passed them on?

It was monotheistic Christians who originally said “The Illuminati” was out to destroy the Church, and also God Fearfulness in general. This fact alone should make one question why they should believe The Illuminati rumors.  For Christian rumors are obviously Bible based philosophies based on Fundamentalism.

Since we know that “Illuminati” stopped existing in the 1800’s obviously they do not control anything, and this is all based on the Religious Fundamentalism filling the world for decades now.  But, is there a real NWO by non “Illuminati” people that we need to watch out for?

The article would go on to say that Globalization is great, and the saving grace of the world.  While I disagree with all the injustices done with Globalization I have never accused it of being Evil.  I have accused it of being not thought out, and one side towards particular nations over the other.

Today we heard about Obama being protectionist with his new ideas for Steele, and Liberals/Cons both thought this was wrong.  The NDP, however, said we should go the same route, and be more protective of Canadian interests as well.  I am tending to be slightly split on this issue.

I agree with the NDP here, and I think that if America is becoming more protective than we should too, and just go ahead with removing NAFTA/SPP from the politics of North America.

I do believe that we need to think more about how we treat the Third World Countries, and they need help.  In this regards, the idea of a Global help program is intriguing, but, the problem is Globalization in the current form harms them more than helps them.  In this regards I agree with the article that, although it is for Globalization, and I am against, that these Illuminati theories are dangerous.

By deflecting who is behind Globalization, it is making what could be real Anti-Globalization Activists into “Illuminati” obsessed folks, who are paranoid of everything. Instead of being fearless, and fighting the rotten parts of the system for better.

I am now a Member of the ARC Board!