Telegraph:

France’s National Library has airbrushed Jean-Paul Sartre’s trademark cigarette out of a poster of the chain-smoking philosopher to avoid prosecution under an anti-tobacco law.
“Smoking,” the Left-wing existentialist wrote, is “the symbolic equivalent of destructively appropriating the entire world.”
And yet in its poster for an exhibition to mark the hundredth anniversary of Sartre’s birth the Biblioth�que Nationale de France decided, destructively or not, to edit out the philosopher’s Gauloise.

Via Wretchard, who notes the Orwellian nature of the sanitization.

Medienkritik on the current economic situation in Germany.

Now the most unpopular government in German history has achieved a new all-time low: Schroeder, who earlier demanded that the German people judge him on his ability to create jobs, currently presides over a nation with over 5.2 [million] unemployed citizens, the highest number since the Nazis came to power during the Great Depression. Right-wing extremists are gaining strength with every passing day, but Schroeder and his party refuse to accept any implication that their failed economic policy is a direct or indirect cause of the re-emergence of German nationalism.
So what is the SPD’s solution? German exports. Particularly arms sales. Gerhard Schroeder recently visited China and expressed his desire to lift the EU’s arms embargo on the Communist nation. The “Peace” Chancellor is currently on a trip to the Middle East where he is sealing business deals in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other dictatorial Arab states. There too, German arms are a best seller. The same German left that can’t get enough of pointing out America’s supposed hypocricy in supporting Saudi Arabia is busily signing weapons deals with the same government.
And even the German media, which has so often towed the government line, can no longer ignore the extent of Germany’s economic tragedy. The usual excuses, that the unemployment is due to September 11 or that the numbers are due to statistical changes, now ring hollow. Even SPIEGEL ONLINE is describing the situation in Schroeder’s government as one of “helplessness, perplexity and naked panic.”

Well, Germany has always found solutions before. I don’t know that Poland is the place to look for them this time, though.

Saskatchewan Health has a website “committed to providing Saskatchewan residents with the most complete and up-to-date wait time information available”. I took a look at it today, prompted by a conversation I had with an elderly acquaintance. “Jean” is still fairly active, though she’s slowed noticably in the past few months. She lives alone, independantly.
She’s scheduled for heart valve surgery. When, is still open to question, because she first must have a diagnostic angiogram. She’s been on the wait list for the angiogram since July. She mentioned this, because she had finally become frustrated and started to call and bother her doctor about it. She was finally told she’ll recieve it in the next three weeks, but to “be thankful”, because the “normal” wait time for angiogram is a year.
Of course, she could have also looked for basic information on how many patients are on surgical (which I assume are different than diagnostic) wait lists, on the Sask Surgery “Current Information” page.
It hasn’t been updated for 5 months.
(correction: original stated angioplasty, in error)

Monte Solberg understands blogging.

Jack Layton, sans appendix, was back in the House today and received a standing ovation for ridding himself of that exploding organ. I blame it on all the tofu, alfalfa sprouts and lack of trans fats.

Entertaining writing style, a touch of irreverance, and to the point. All that, and useful information, too. Like this;

We won the vote tonight on our supply motion to have the government implement the Auditor General’s recommendations regarding foundations.

(I wrote about foundations a couple of weeks ago, for those of you who don’t know what this refers to.)

The perennial question of defining Canadian identity may have finally been answered. Canadian identity is not, as commonly thought, our socialized health care system, the Trudeaupian mosaic of multiculturalism or even a fanaticism for hockey. At one time any one of those might have been true, but no more. No, we’ve moved well past that.
Today, our national purpose might best be described as “simply to serve as a warning to the United States”.
Via Neale News;

“Please be advised that effective immediately the Ontario region of the Correctional Service of Canada is no longer maintaining an inventory for parole officer applications from the general public.,” the Feb. 19 letter reads.
“Due to staffing resources we will continue to accept applications from aboriginal and visible-minority candidates only.”
CSC is committed to having a “skilled, diversified workforce reflective of Canadian society,” the letter continues, adding that future vacancies may be posted that are open to the “general public.”

The depressing part is that a good percentage of Canadians would think this is perfectly reasonable.
Last weekend a woman who was purchasing artwork from me at the dog show began to ask about “what it was like to live in Canada”. She confided that they had to sell their house while it was “still worth something” and leave before the country was completely destroyed. Her young son’s skills made him very attractive to the military and there was no doubt he’d be drafted. She was enthusiastic about our health care system, and wanted to live in a “more socialist” country.
Sometimes I wonder that there may be some force …. (fate?) …. that places people like myself in just the right place, at just the right time. For a moment I felt a twinge of guilt in the realization that my Canadian citizenship had been twisted into cruel bait for a hapless little moonbat – like savory French cheese perched temptingly in a leg hold trap.
In the end, I let her go – shaken, but unharmed. I’ve promised to only use my powers for good. But I think I detected a stagger in her walk as she made her way back to safety.

I’ve often said that best thing that could happen for both Saskatchewan highways and health care is for the Premier to have a heart attack 80 miles from Regina. Or, as my brother points out – until every hospital patient were required to survive 2 hours on a vibrating gurney before receiving treatment, there is no such thing as “equal access” to health care in this province.
Today’s Great Moment In Socialism;

A critically ill man who needs a life-saving heart transplant was forced to travel 12 hours in an ambulance to Edmonton because no planes were available, the Regina Qu’Appelle Health Region said yesterday. On Feb. 3, a Regina man was loaded on the health region’s advanced life-support vehicle, which can transport up to 16 patients at one time.
Along with the patient were a perfusionist, respiratory therapist, surgeon, nurse and two paramedics, along with high- tech medical equipment. Twelve hours and 900 km later, the man arrived in Edmonton, where he was still waiting for a transplant yesterday.
Glen Perchie, executive director of emergency services for the health region, said they had to use the ambulance because there were no airplanes available when the patient had to be transported. Perchie added that the health region explored “every option available” with Saskatchewan Health and with other provinces.

Well, every option outside of asking if there was a plane in Edmonton that could come get him.

However, Leslie Beard, vice-president of public affairs for Edmonton’s Capital Health region, said planes are usually available.
“The bottom line is that if Regina or anyone else out there … do not have an aircraft in their community, what they do is phone (the equivalent to Alberta’s provincial flight co-ordination centre) … and we have reciprocal agreements in place, we immediately send out planes,” Beard said yesterday.
The medical team shrugged off the long bus ride.

I’m sure they did. Maybe next time they can all make the trip without being paid for travel time, and we’ll see how long the laisser faire attitude lasts.

Perchie said the patient was kept alive by the Extracorporeal Life Support machine, which is used when the heart can’t pump blood through a patient’s body. The patient’s blood goes through the pump, which transfers it to a machine which adds oxygen to it and then the blood goes back into the patient’s body.
Perchie said this is the first time the region used its vehicle to transport a patient needing a heart transplant outside the city.

No doubt. Usually they just warehouse critically ill patients in filthy wards and ignore them until they die.

News Release Jan.13, 2005;

Carol Skelton, Member of Parliament and Official Opposition Public Health Critic welcomes the announcement of a new Health Officer as initiated in her Private Members Motion.
“Following discussion with constituents, primarily Taxpayers, and consultations with lower digestive tract health professionals, I felt the time had come for Canada to have a Chief Proctological officer to monitor and assist in the improvement of anal health in Canada.� I’m pleased the government has chosen to move so quickly on my request,” remarked Skelton.�
“Lower intestinal health is administered by the provinces, but the federal government is responsible for the majority of the screwing over of Taxpayers.� It is my hope that a co-ordinated effort in the areas of research and information will benefit all Canadians.� Taxpayers often don’t have protection plans at a time when they are busy bending over the proverbial chair. Failing anal health leads to complications with other health matters.� If we improve anal health, we can better assist the fiscal health of all governments, thereby ensuring that the creation of ever more highly paid, completely useless government appointments.

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Canadian blogger Chris Almeny has advice for milblogger Citizen Smash – “*Some* Americans need to learn that the United States is not and need not be the “Superman” of the world.”.
Smash takes it to heart.

Twice in the past hundred years, the United States sent troops to Western Europe to fight for “freedom.” To the people of France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, and Austria, we offer our most heartfelt apologies for interfering in your affairs. Please rest assured that it won�t happen again.
To the peoples of Polynesia, Micronesia, Indonesia, Indochina, the Philippines (again), China, and Korea, for whom America spent so much blood and treasure to free from the “oppression” of the Japanese Empire, we’re sorry. We�re sure that you could have handled the matter much better without our “assistance.”
After subjecting their citizens to all-out war, the United States forced Germany, Japan, and Italy to “democratize.” We apologize for being so presumptuous. In retrospect, we should have trusted you to come up with your own form of government — we�re certain you would have been much better off in the long run, left to your own devices.
We apologize to the people of South Korea for “defending” you from your brothers to the north. This was clearly an internal matter for Koreans to decide, and we had no business meddling in your affairs.

The Trudeaupian left’s vision for Canada has come to fruition – from “punching above our weight” to “peacekeeper nation” to punchline.
update I crossposted this at the Shotgun, where “EssEm” commented;

I am American-born, but lived in Toronto for 17 years and became a (dual) Canadian citizen while there. I returned to the US some 13 years ago. I recommend people take a second look at Pierre Burton’s “Why We Act Like Canadians”. It gave me a way to value the Canajan –which is often, I suspect, confused with the Ontario Liberal– way of looking at the world. Yet I have come to see that while it might be advantageous to Canada to act more like America in relation to the rest of the world (though hardly possible now), it would not be advantageous to America, or the world, for the US to act like Canada does.
Even while I was living in TO, I realized that I had moved to the “sidelines of empire”. Even if you are picturesque, well-behaved and have a sense of social responsibility, that cannot replace being enormous, dynamic to the point of unstable, restless, driven and successful. And the world treats you very differently. Canada is like a planetary Mr. Rogers (forgive the American cultural reference). It might be nice if everyone were more like him, but…they ain’t. In fact, most of the world is run by and has always been run by the Sopranos (again, the cultural ref). To handle that, you need a combination of decency, cunning self-confidence and explosive power.
In my long discovery of what made Canadians and Americans different, despite superficial similarities, I did discover in Ontario something that I still can detect in Canadian life: “a pre-disposition to disapprove”. I recall the cold power behind a word I often heard in my 17 years: “inappropriate”.
It seems to me that the rigid moralism of old Scots Toronto the Good has not disappeared, but has morphed into the multiculty quasi-pacificist Euroid self-righteousness of post-Trudeaupia. From here, in the heart of the Empire, in the Belly of the Beast, with Tony Soprano vividly imagined not just as “another voice in the global symphony”, but as “The Crips and the Bloods Do Sharia” it sounds distant and tinny. Sad. Some of my best friends are still in Canada.

An unnamed source is credited in the WAshington Post with leaking some details – and blunt talk – covered in the meeting between Paul Martin and George W. Bush during his visit.

“(Bush) leaned across the table and said: `I’m not taking this position, but some future president is going to say, Why are we paying to defend Canada?’ “

It takes an American president to say what no Canadian politician has ever had the guts to admit.

TZ at Heart Of Canada, on Canada’s health care safety seive;

For example, in some Canadian provinces, if you don’t pay health premiums, you don’t get health care. In other provinces, you don’t have to pay health premiums, but you still don’t get health care, well, unless you travel a few hundred miles first. Provincial health insurance cards are not always honoured in other provinces’ health care facilities, where only cash produces results. Ah, Canada.
In the United States, I always got health care, and some of it was free. My physicians sent me thank you notes and had welcoming open houses once per year for their patients. You see, experience can tell a very different story. I now wonder, if I were living in the USA today, would I have had the insurance necessary to cover my present needs, and, based on past experience, I would say, probably, yes.

The real problems arise when you actually have to access the Canadian system for surgery.

Great Moments In Socialism, Jan.8, 2005

A hospital administrator in Detroit offers free back surgery to an Ontario woman, as a gesture of appreciation for the 700 Canadian health professionals on his staff.