Applica Consulting Group

Archive for the ‘Health Issues’ Category

TORONTO–Everybody knows about Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre Alliance MP Larry Spencer’s (in)famous interview with the Vancouver Sun and the predictable fall-out from it. Spencer — who quickly apologized — said it was a “mistake” to legalize homosexual acts and talked about a “conspiracy” of homosexual activists recruiting school children to push their agenda. As he must have known would happen, the earth suddenly came crashing to a halt, and all the forces of righteousness — as they would see themselves — went into attack mode. Furrowed brows and wringing hands became the order of the day. Spencer was dismissed as a bigot, a crackpot, and more. Worse, the entire social conservative movement — and indeed, the Canadian Alliance itself — was tarred. Even the National Post, usually more sensible about these things than, oh, The Toronto Star or The Globe and Mail, resurrected the usual suspects — i.e. Betty Granger’s “Asian invasion” comments and Bob Ringma’s remarks about moving minorities “to the back of the shop” — to illustrate how pervasive these unacceptable views are among Reform/Alliance supporters. Never mind that both Granger and Ringma’s comments, like so many of the standard examples of “intolerance” used to marginalize so-cons, are wildly out of context in the retelling. Everybody knows that while not all Alliance members are crackpots, if you are a crackpot, where better to feel at home than in the Alliance? Before you think I support Spencer’s suggestion to criminalize homosexuality or tie it to pedophilia, I don’t. I do think, however, some of his remarks are valid, e.g., his concerns about a sharply lower life expectancy among homosexual men, which should be a legitimate subject of public health debate, but can’t be because of the tyranny of the media and others brought to bear against anybody who dares raise them. Spencer’s mistake — and it was stupid of him to make it — is that by being so extreme in part, he ruled out the possibility of reasonable debate over his legitimate concerns, providing a convenient target for all those who do not wish to discuss any of the negative side of homosexuality. Lest you think we so-cons are a tad paranoid, perhaps you care to explain why Liberal David Kilgour, who uttered similar (although not quite as extreme) concerns about the homosexual lifestyle, has been virtually ignored by most media. Nobody argues that because Kilgour, a Liberal, said such things that all Liberals must be extreme, any more than they would define all New Democrats as extremists because of some of the decidedly immoderate comments and actions by such stalwarts as Svend Robinson over the years. That one-size-fits-all-formula, it seems, only applies when the extreme view comes from the Alliance. To read most reactions to Spencer, and to others who have been roasted for far less offensive remarks on the subject, you’d think that concerns about homosexual lifestyles was restricted to a tiny minority of Canadians. Yet everybody knows this is not true. The Wednesday Post, for example, ran as its main story a public opinion poll showing a mere 31 per cent of Canadians polled supported same-sex marriage, down dramatically from earlier polls showing roughly a 50-50 split. The COMPAS poll found 31 per cent said marriage should include heterosexuals only, and another 37 per cent said the traditional definition of marriage should remain intact, but a new category could be created to allow for same-sex unions. So does this make the 67 per cent who do not favour same-sex “marriage” all bigots, crackpots, kooks or homophobes? Apparently. On the issue of health, lost in the avalanche of vitriol directed at Spencer, even the ultra-liberal Star reported on its front page this week that HIV/AIDS cases are up 17 per cent in Canada, with the largest group by far still homosexual men. Surely this is a serious, and tragic, health issue. But the danger of muzzling anybody who questions the homosexual lifestyle on any level is that it cannot even be addressed for fear of provoking charges of “homophobia” or worse. Social conservatives, in theory, have as much right as social liberals to be heard. When they say something really stupid, as Spencer did, they also should expect to be criticized. After all, free speech does not protect you from other people’s rights to exercise their free speech right back at you.

Vietnam has joined more than a dozen of countries in slapping a temporary ban on U.S. beef imports after it emerged the United States had its first confirmed case of mad cow disease, an official said Friday.
Despite having imported only one ton of U.S. beef this year, Vietnam imposed the ban Thursday until the United States can prove its beef is safe to eat again, the official of the Veterinary Department, which licenses meat imports, said on condition of anonymity.
The decision comes after a British lab confirmed Thursday that U.S. initial tests of a Holstein cow in Washington state had the brain-wasting disease known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE.

Vietnam imports only a marginal amount of beef each year – mostly from Australia and New Zealand – to serve high-end hotels and restaurants, he said.
U.S. beef is sold at select supermarkets and restaurants, but it is priced well beyond the reach of most Vietnamese.
Other places temporarily banning U.S. beef include China, Thailand, Malaysia, Russia, South Africa, Jamaica, Chile, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Mexico.

“Flit is the tragedy of all collectivism that the most unscrupulous and most ruthless member is most likely to rise to the position of leadership, certainly when leadership means power,” reflected Dr. J.B. Matthews, one-time director of research for congressional counter-subversion committees, in his memoir Odyssey of a Fellow Traveler. “The organization of vast political power and its successful retention in a single hand is more likely than not to put a premium upon qualities which we commonly associate with the ‘big shots’ of gangsterism.”
Harvard Professor Pitirim Sorokin made much the same observation in a survey of rulers throughout history, noting that “the rulers of the states are the most criminal group in a respective population.” And Mark Twain was on the same wavelength when he described Congress as our “distinctly native American criminal class.”
In light of the foregoing wisdom, it’s not surprising to learn that gangster tactics were used by the Republican Party leadership to pass the landmark Medicare prescription drug legislation – a major new entitlement that will cost $400 billion over the first 10 years, and possibly much more if the new law is amended in the meantime. Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) has described this legislation as “the single largest expansion of the federal welfare state since the Great Society programs of the 1960s.” The administration of George W. Bush desperately wanted the new entitlement program as a way of securing the senior citizen vote in 2004, even though it would leave future generations burdened with unpayable debt.
To give the president time to pressure conservative holdouts, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IIl.) prolonged the roll-call vote for an unprecedented three hours. “Members were promised pork barrel projects,” reports Stephen Moore of the American Conservative Union. “They were threatened with primary challengers.” With time running out, “the White House and the Whip team tried one more desperation tactic”: Reps. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) and Butch Otter (R-Idaho) “were told that if they didn’t change their votes, the president would immediately instruct the House leadership to pass the Democratic version of the bill – which was infinitely worse than even this bill.” Both Franks and Otter relented.
But Rep. Nick Smith of Michigan, who plans to retire next year, refused to succumb to presidential intimidation. So the Republican Party leadership took a page from a playbook favored by a different kind of criminal syndicate: The Mob.
Newest “Entitlement”: President Bush signs the landmark Medicare prescription drug bill, while members of Congress watch. To learn how every lawmaker voted, see House Vote #20 and Senate Vote #20 in the “Conservative Index” (pages 22-31).
Smith’s son Brad “is one of five Republicans seeking to replace him,” reported columnist Robert Novak. “On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father’s vote. When he still declined, fellow Republican House members told him they would make sure Brad Smith never came to Congress.”
Commentator Timothy Noah points out that USC Title 18 sec. 201 defines “bribery” as, among other things, “promis[ing] any public official or any person who has been selected to be a public official to give anything of value to any other person or entity, with intent to influence any official act….” Accordingly, Smith – in addition to being the victim of political blackmail – “was an eyewitness to a federal crime,” concludes Noah. That crime, though it is a serious one, is trivial compared to the grotesque act of larceny that was the Medicare expansion itself.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson and Food and Drug Administration chief Mark McClellan held a joint news conference Tuesday to announce the ban of the herbal weight-loss supplement ephedra.
Ephedra is also known as Ephedrine or Ma huang
Properties and uses: Used to prevent attacks of bronchial asthma and acts to relieve nasal congestion; common ingredient in weight- loss products; shown to promote fat-loss and muscle gain in controlled tests
Side effects: Raised blood pressure, can cause irregularities in heart rate, insomnia, tremors and headaches, seizures, heart attacks, strokes and death