Monthly Archives: February 2010

Uncategorized

Canuck Pol Votes with Feet Against National Health Care

N.L. Premier Williams set to have heart surgery in U.S.

Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams will undergo heart surgery later this week in the United States.

Deputy premier Kathy Dunderdale confirmed the treatment at a news conference Tuesday, but would not reveal the location of the operation or how it would be paid for.

“He has gone to a renowned expert in the procedure that he needs to have done,” said Ms. Dunderdale, who will become acting premier while Mr. Williams is away for three to 12 weeks. “In consultation with his own doctors, he’s decided to go that route.”

Mr. Williams’ decision to leave Canada for the surgery has raised eyebrows over his apparent shunning of Canada’s health-care system.

APPARENT shunning…? It looks pretty definite to me!

“It was never an option offered to him to have this procedure done in this province,” said Ms. Dunderdale, refusing to answer whether the procedure could be done elsewhere in Canada.

Now THAT’S a statement to parse. Was it an option available but not offered, or one not offered due to beign not available in the province, or in the country for that matter?

In either case, there’s not exactly an impressive showcase for nationalized health care.

Uncategorized

Rez Still Fighting Off Ice Storm

Sioux reservation struggling after winter storms

Somehow I haven’t noticed much coverage of this in SD media, except for coverage posted yesterday in the R.C. Journal. There obviously has been coverage of other areas’ power problems…the utilities are doing yeoman’s work to get the system restored.

Sonny Brave Eagle and his family spent six days in the dark without a phone or working radio before law officers found them in their home after a fierce winter storm cut power across South Dakota’s impoverished Cheyenne River Indian Reservation.

“We didn’t know what was going on,” said Brave Eagle, among hundreds of people on the sprawling reservation amid a second week without electricity as utility workers struggle to make repairs. The storm brought down power lines, iced roads and led to water outages.

Tribal Chairman Joseph Brings Plenty estimated that 1,500 to 1,700 homes were still without power Monday, and said it would take “better than three weeks” to get the reservation up and running again.

The tribe has spent “enormous amounts” of money on such needs as fuel and water, and an emergency fund that had $175,000 a few months ago has been drained, said tribal spokeswoman Natalie Stites.

…but there’s lots of attention and funds for Haiti! Not to diminish that tragic situation, one still could wonder what happened to the bit about “Charity begins at home”?

Glowbull Warming

Climategate Update

This note offers more information on the East Anglia Climate Research Unit data flap…and it doesn’t look good for the warmists!

It’s also worth noting that the U.K.’s Guardian is FAR from being any form of right-wing journal.

Leaked climate change emails scientist ‘hid’ data flaws
Exclusive: Key study by East Anglia professor Phil Jones was based on suspect figures

Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based.

A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia’s climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced.

Jones and a collaborator have been accused by a climate change sceptic and researcher of scientific fraud for attempting to suppress data that could cast doubt on a key 1990 study on the effect of cities on warming – a hotly contested issue.

Today the Guardian reveals how Jones withheld the information requested under freedom of information laws. Subsequently a senior colleague told him he feared that Jones’s collaborator, Wei-­Chyung Wang of the University at Albany, had “screwed up”.

OUCH!   Hard to state it any more clearly than that!

More details in the rest of the linked article, and here also…predictably there’s a continuing attempt to weasel out of the embarrassment, but the egg on the faces is clearly visible.

Defense Matters!

Mugged by Reality?

Obama seeks money for nuclear weapons work

President Barack Obama is seeking increased funding for nuclear weapons research and security programs next year, even as his administration promotes nonproliferation and has pledged to reduce the world’s stockpile of nuclear arms.

The administration on Monday asked Congress for more than $7 billion for activities related to nuclear weapons in the budget of the National Nuclear Security Administration, an increase of $624 million from the 2010 fiscal year.

Few except for hard-core anti-nuke peaceniks would seriously submit that the U.S. should totally abandon its nuclear weapons capability. Such being the case, this is essential to insure the capability to maintain a credible nuclear deterrence.

Like cans of food, thermonuclear devices have a shelf life…after a period of time they lose their effectiveness due to the effects of radioactive decay of tritium. They need to be remanufactured. At that point, it is also necessary to update the systems of the weapons using state-of-the-art-electronics, which also improves the command/control/security of the devices. It’s been some time since we did this, and the shelf life limits are approaching.

Obama, in spite of a presumed gut-level dislike for nuke weapons, (like who in their right mind would love them!) recognizes the reality of this necessary process. As noted also, the same techniques, equipment, and personnel are also required to do the job if further weapon reductions are negotiated with Russia and the ChiComs, so the peaceniks have at least that consolation.

At last…this is something that the Chief agrees with the administration on…if it actually is cleared through Congress and implemented.