The Last Exile

The Toronto Star runs a rare editorial praising the actions of the Harper Brain Trust which should give all thinking people to cause to pause and re-think their positions on any issue

Canadians with debilitating multiple sclerosis are understandably expressing disappointment — even to the point of bitterness — over the federal government’s rejection of clinical trials into the controversial new “liberation treatment” for the debilitating disease.

A cure can’t come fast enough for those struggling against the neurological ravages of MS, and for their anguished friends and relatives. And rightly so. But it must be a real cure — one backed up by sound scientific evidence showing it is both safe and beneficial.

There is no such proof at hand for liberation treatment. Indeed, an expert panel convened by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research has unanimously concluded that there is “an overwhelming lack of scientific evidence on the safety and efficacy of the procedure.”

Under these circumstances, federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq had no real choice but to announce on Wednesday that Ottawa is not yet prepared to fund clinical trials in this controversial form of MS treatment. “To ensure that we have the evidence to support this procedure, we need to do the research,” Aglukkaq said. “And once we have that, we will proceed … with pan-Canadian clinical trials. At this point in time, we do not have the evidence to proceed.” Although heartbreaking to MS sufferers, Aglukkaq’s approach is both prudent and responsible.

There is a word weasliness coming from the traditionalists in the medical and scientific circles and its inherent in the federal government’s refusal to fund wide scale clinical trials using the so-called Liberation Treatment and it can be summed up this way. There is no evidence Dr. Zamboni’s theory is correct or this procedure is a cure for MS; ergo, why should large scale clinical trials be funded or performed?

Dr. Zamboni’s theory may be very well wrong, and his treatment may not be a cure for MS, but if a simple angioplasty procedure opening up the block veins in an MS patient’s neck could very well represent the equivalent of a daily insulin injection to a diabetic patient. It may not be a cure but any procedure which allows an MS patient to participate fully in life and offers relief from the debilitating effects of MS and the drugs used to control it - should be fully be explored and funded.

There are approximately 75,000 people in Canada suffering from MS and they spend approximately 2,000 a month using traditional drug treatment. Given the average MS patient can live a relatively long life with horrendous suffering; its the goose which lays the golden egg for Big Pharma. It appears a treatment which can be had for less than the yearly costs of MS drugs which potentially and dramatically improves the quality of life for MS suffers for a year or longer loses out in Canada. Is it any wonder the federal government’s decision not to establish and fund wide scale clinical trial is a very bitter pill for all Canadians suffering from MS?

For more information on the Liberation Treatment watch this W5 report on it.

Since I was in secondary school, over 30 plus years ago, all discussions on Canadian nationalism start with us defining ourselves as ‘not American’. This always struck as particularly quirky. Think about it…do you think Mexicans engage in any discussions about Mexican nationalism by defining themselves as ‘not American’ from the get-go? Does a French man define himself as ‘not’ being an Englishman? We are probably the only state in the world whose national character contains an element of what we are not.

We are unique people, an often contrary and contrasting people. A nation of eccentrics, whose idea of good government begins at compromise and must end with consensus. We write, we read, we paint, we make music and we dance…some of us even play hockey. But who are we really?

Peter in the comments suggested I run a contest for…well, peculiarities of being Canadian. I looked around for a prized possession to offer and discovered you cannot hock off your children as indentured servants anymore so the spoils of my treasure chest are a tad on the light side. So nix that idea. But what I want to know is this; who are we really? My grandfather use to use this expression – ‘what is bred in the bone comes out in the flesh’ so what is bred in our bones as a nation?

And why does this story strike such a chord of prime Canadianna? The Toronto Star

Allegations that nude photographs of a senior Manitoba judge in bondage, chains and performing oral sex were posted on an Internet porn site have kindled debate about how much of a judge’s private life is private.

The Canadian Judicial Council’s Ethical Principles for Judges — which judges are encouraged but not required to follow — say they should strive to conduct themselves with integrity and avoid conduct that would diminish public respect for the judiciary.

It might be my latent Amazon persona shining through but I cannot think of anything more natural or awe inspiring than a woman with a whip who is poised to strike… but seriously now – what other country in the world would a judiciary council have to rule on whether ‘someone who poses naked with a whip be considered a person of integrity, or does the question open the door to inappropriate moral judgments about an individual’s personal life?’ Only in Canada I say.

Less than 24 hours after the Israeli Prime Minister left Israel to go the United States to participate in the ongoing peace talks four Israeli civilians were murdered in an ambush as they drove on highway 60 outside the Hebron area.

Their deaths were inevitable. It is a cycle, a pattern, we have seen it play out over and over again as peace negotiations begin. Every time it happens, there are official announcements from all interested parties that the participants will not let these deaths deter them from continuing negotiations which lead nowhere quickly.

Why this time should be different from any other talks when the Palestinian leadership is represented by the weakest leader the PLO has ever produced, a leadership camp which fractured and fraught with competing and conflicted interests should produce a different result than all the other xxx times peace talks have commenced; beyond my ability to engage in irrationality. And the Americans this time around are no better. Ynet News is quoting US Assistant Secretary of State Phillip Crowley as saying:

“We also are cognizant that there may well be actors in the region who are deliberately making these kinds of attacks in order to try to sabotage the process,” he said.

All of which goes to prove he just doesn’t get it. These aren’t actors, actors pretend to kill people, but are instead Israel’s neighbours and alleged peace partners except they are not prime for peace but war.

As a show of …good faith – the Palestinian Authority has rounded up 200 suspected Hamas members in the West Bank. Personally, given the area and its’ history, I would suggest rounding up the Palestinian security forces for interrogation would be a far more fruitful endeavour for appending the murderers. Colour me cynical, but using the ambush as a pretext for jailing one’s political proponents doesn’t strike me as taking one for Team Justice and Peace.

Ha’aretz is reporting Labor Minister of Defense Ehud Barak is suggesting Israel is willing to cede part of Jerusalem ahead of negotiations – and this after the murder of four Israelis. It just might be in Israel’s best interest to cede Barak to the Palestinians instead. It certainly couldn’t hurt.

What Bibi needs tell Obama is simply this; He is ready to meet the Palestinian leadership after the Palestinian have worked out their internal matters, and the Palestinian people are prepared for peace, real peace, which includes painful compromises on their part - as otherwise there is simply not anything to negotiate or even say. Time to go home and bury the dead and fortify Yisrael for the next round.

Until then, let’s shelve the two-state peace talks and explore the possiblity of a one state discussion.

I create characters for my stories all the time. It’s the real life characters I find un-fracking unbelievable.

The love of money is what is destroying Christian and Judea societies all over Europe and the West. Look at Bloomberg, a money-loving Jew who has sold his soul for the arabs’ dirty money. ( ‘Dodo can spell” but grammar/punctuation…)

‘Money-loving Jew’, now where have I heard that before? Speaking strictly from my anecdotal experience, I would say the modern community of Judea is actually thriving quite nicely, although it might be under siege from time to time from the neighbours – but it has absolutely nothing to do with money.

All of which explains why I never joined the Blogging Tories – it just doesn’t pay.

I just finished watching Mad Men’s Season 4, episode 5 – The Chrysanthemum and the Sword so this Jezebel article caught my eye. I voted for the Ken doll…thank G-d, the Last Amazon never played with barbies. Her father would never have been able to act so resolutely in a ‘crisis’.

Canadians are known to be ‘nice’ and ‘boring’ – often perceived as being a kind of second-tier Americans but when was the last time a President’s wife went out to party with the Rolling Stones (less husband)? We have restauranteur’s who openly promote sex in their washrooms and now even our alleged terrorists are failed Canadian Idol candidates.

All I can think is there are literally thousands of failed Canadian Idol candidates…CSIS will busy a long, long time.

There was a ‘not’ sectarian clash in the streets of Beirut with Hezbollah supports according to this New York Times article. Note: rifles, grenades and apparently RPG’s were deployed – and not by the Lebanese Army.

Members of the Shiite Hezbollah and the conservative Sunni Al-Ahbash group fought one another with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades on Tuesday, just blocks from downtown Beirut. Three people, including a Hezbollah official and his aide, were killed, security officials said, in the worst clash in Beirut since May 2008, when Hezbollah gunmen swept through Sunni neighborhoods after the government tried to dismantle the group’s telecommunications network.

No worries ‘cause everyone kissed and made up – everyone, but the dead that is.

A joint statement issued later by the two groups said that the episode had stemmed from a “personal dispute and has no political or sectarian background,” and that each side agreed to immediately end their differences and all armed street presences.

The NY Times blurb is interesting as it is the only report I have seen which alluding to the dismantling of a telecommunication network as the catalyst. The Jerusalem Post carries a somewhat less santizied version in which a battle was more reminiscent of a shoot-out inside the OK corral(or should I say ‘OK Mosque’?)

Gunmen stood on the corners and peered down alleyways in the neighborhood while families ran for cover. Ambulances rushed to the scene, and an elderly man was loaded into a stretcher, clutching his neck.

The shootout erupted between supporters of the Shi’ite Hizbullah and a Sunni conservative group in the mixed residential area of Bourj Abu Haidar near Beirut’s downtown, security officials said. Hizbullah was battling the pro-Syrian Sunni Association of Islamic Charitable Projects, known as the Al-Ahbash group, which has a history of feuding with the Shi’ite group, they added.

The officials said Muhammad Fawaz, the local Hizbullah commander in Bourj Abu Haidar, had been killed along with his subordinate Ali Jouaz. Fawaz Omeirat of Al-Ahbash was also killed in the fighting.

According to initial reports, the car in which they were traveling got into the crossfire between Hizbullah supporters and the Sunni group. According to Lebanese paper Al-Akhabr, the clash started when Al-Ahbash members tried to bar Hizbullah men from passing through a neighborhood where the Sunni group holds control.

Shortly afterward, Shi’ite supporters of Hizbullah and sister organization Amal set fire to a Sunni mosque in the nearby neighborhood of Basta, according to an AP photographer.

Salah, a 40-year-old who did not wish to give his last name, said he had been inside the Bourj Abu Haidar mosque when he heard a commotion outside and people screaming, “Calm down.” Then, 20 minutes later, he heard gunshots and bullets slamming into the mosque. “They were shooting at the mosque. I think these people are crazy. They must have gone home to get their friends,” he said. Salah stayed inside with others before fleeing during a lull in the fighting. Sunni fighters were reportedly holding the bodies of the slain Hizbullah members and were given a three-hour ultimatum to transfer them to Hizbullah.

As long as Hezbollah remains armed – the Lebanese will remain tourists in their native land.

Turns out a on the so-called humanitarian/peace activist on the Turkish Mavi Marmara of the Gaza Strip Flotilla just happened to served a prison term for hijacking a Black Sea Ferry. Jerusalem Post:

One of the men on the Mavi Marmara spent three years in a Turkish prison for hijacking a ferry in the Black Sea in 1996; this indicates just who the “activists” were on the boat that tried to break the Gaza blockade on May 31, Foreign Ministry officials said Monday.

The Turkish newspaper Hurrieyt reported over the weekend that Erdinc Tekir, who was hurt during the IDF raid on the boat, was among the nine member team that hijacked the Black Sea ferry to bring the 1996 war in Chechneya to the world’s attention. Tekir spent some three and a half years in prison for the incident.

Coincidence?!? I bet if the Canada Boat to Gaza people asked nicely; he’d crew for them too!

Okay so my personal life is busy but it’s always busy. I’m less in engaged because there is so much news going on that I just don’t care enough about to have more than a knee-jerk response. I do not care Tiger Woods’ divorce is finalized since I am not included in the settlement.

Pakistan hasn’t asked the government deploy the Dart team…oh, well, their loss and my wallet is safe for another day. Of course I am completely apathetic towards Pakistan – even on a good day.

The city of Toronto is primed to elect a buffoon for a mayor. Oh well, he’ll join the ranks of other primates we have elected. I expect Toronto will survive.

A new biography is released on Canadian radio personality Peter Gzowski and my first reaction was – Peter who? Once I found out all I thought was who really cares? The book will be lucky to sell 5,000 copies and I bet most of the sales will come from Libraries.

Iran – enough already – just bomb them and get it over with and let the chips fall where they may.

Anne Frank’s tree has fallen down. I know I am a lousy human being (see above) but I am just not inspired nor filled with sorrow for the tree, and did you really expect it to last forever?

Peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians…same old song and dance. What will make these talks very different from any other peace discussions? In fact, I expect these talks to have less ‘cred’ than any of the previous talks considering that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas can no longer be considered to represent the Palestinian side – even legally - as his term of office ran out two years ago. Furthermore, Hamas is ruling the Gaza Strip and making in roads in the West Bank and until Fatah and Hamas bury the AK-47 there are two different narratives coming out of the Palestinian camps – competing world views even. Meanwhile the pedestrians on the Palestinian street have moved on and are discussing one-state solutions.

Steve Harper is evil and hates puppies – I get it, but what the conservatives don’t quite get is that Harper has so polarized the country that his legacy borders strictly on what divides and demeans us as a nation. There is no way this country is going forward until he’s removed as party leader so time to call a leadership review. Harper’s taken conservatives as far as he can…although the lack of quality conservatives is what continues to dog the party and explains why the conservatives cannot make real traction in the polls with support always ebbing and flowing just under the 40% mark.

The almost-ground-zero-mosque/Islamic community centre. If I have to draw the line anywhere; I am always going to come down on the side of religious liberty. Take it from one group and it’s just a matter of time before you attempt to tell me where, when and how I can pray. Having said that, I find it interesting that President Obama made an initial statement in support of mosque/Islamic community centre on the grounds of religious liberty and yet sees no conflict or hypocrisy in telling another sovereign nation that Jewish landowners cannot occupy or build on land they hold legal title to. Oh well.

One of my first entries in the cool chassids category was the story of Yoseph Robinson. He traveled a long road to answer Zion’s call, and its with deep regret that I learned of his death.

CBS News:

NEW YORK (CBS/WCBS/AP) A robbery in Brooklyn Thursday night led to the death Yoseph Robinson, a man whose life led him on a journey from street criminal, to music executive, to a conversion to Orthodox Judaism.
The former hip-hop record executive who converted to Orthodox Judaism, was shot and killed while trying to stop a gunman from taking a woman’s jewelry at a Brooklyn kosher liquor store where he worked.
Police say Robinson was shot in the chest and arm Thursday night at the MB Vineyards liquor store in the Flatbush section of the borough.

Baruch Ata Adonai Eloheinu Melech HaOlam Dayan HaEmet