es from Main down into the Gulf Of Mexico.
Macleans magazine has added another best and worst report to their cadre of comparative analysis stories. This time they look at the safest and most dangerous cities in the country. See where your city places.
Small yellow "05" numerals are printed to the left of Lincoln on the front and to the right of the memorial on the back. The Great Seal of the United States, which features an eagle and shield, will appear in purple to the right of the president's portrait. Arcs of purple stars border Lincoln and the seal.
The note also will feature an enlarged "5" printed in high-contrast purple ink in the lower right corner of the back of the bill. It also will have two separate watermarks and a number of other high-tech changes to make it harder for counterfeiters to knock off.
The makeover of the $5 bill is similar to changes to $10, $20 and $50 bills.Next up for a new look: the $100 bill.
"Frankly speaking, I do not think it is overly dramatic to say that many of our committees are suffering from a dysfunctional virus that, if allowed to propagate unchecked, risks preventing members from fulfilling the mandate given them by their constituents," Milliken told the Commons." Speaker - CTV NEWS
As the United States teeters on the edge of a recession the economy is overtaking the War in Iraq as the big issue for Americans and their politicians. Economists point to the housing collapse and a plethora of issues as reasons for the down-turn.
Drive ambulance or assist ambulance driver in transporting sick, injured, or convalescent persons. Assist in lifting patients.
"Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. Hillary! Hillary ain't never been called a 'nigger!' Hillary has never had her people defined as a non-person." - Rev. Jeremiah WrightAn article on CNN's website today provides insight into the voting considerations of black voters in the Democratic nomination process. Rev. Jeremiah Wright is Obama's minister in Chicago. Obama has been a member of Wright's church since his days in law school, and his bestselling book, The Audacity of Hope, takes its title from one of Wright's sermons. Wright married the Obamas and baptized their two children.
There’s a long road ahead yet, but it seems like the Eastern Health Authority is at least trying to react to rural health care delivery needs in this province.
And it’s no wonder. Why wouldn’t Eastern Health try to develop better access to programs for rural health? Rural clients’ needs are just as important as urban residents.
Eastern Health last week unveiled a new provincial teleoncology program, originating at the Dr. H. Bliss Murphy Cancer Centre in St. John’s and accessible in rural communities, through clinics such the one at the Burin Peninsula Health Care Centre.
Instigated in 2003, the program now allows 120 cancer patients at 25 different locations to see a specialist.
It means cancer patients can reduce the number of trips to and from St. John’s each year to see specialists; receive a faster delivery of service and relief from pain; save money, emotional stress and remain in a supportive environment around family and friends.
The program also reduces the demands on specialists who have been travelling to rural clinics. There will still be trips outside of the capital city, but not for multiple weeks.
And outside of the obvious benefits between doctor and patients, the Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Health Information plans to use the project’s clinical component to develop the Provincial Telehealth Program, which will provide distance services in areas such as diabetes, kidney diseases, mental health and neurology.
Eastern Health interim president and CEO Louise Jones acknowledged last week the health service was “witnessing a fundamental shift in our thinking” in effectively delivering health services.
This is essentially what residents in rural Newfoundland and Labrador have been asking for – we all can’t relocate to big city St. John’s, a suggestion espoused by a good many senior managers in various public services.
The provincial government pumps tax dollars into the delivery of health care services for all regions of the province. Each region has its own intricacies and characteristics, which ‘big city’ methodologies are unable to adapt to, let alone understand.
SIMPLE MATH
It's a case of moving out of an archaic and unworkable formula and into simple math. The only question is why it has taken so long.
For years, successive governments have been defending the province's teacher allocation formula. The defence has been a simple one: when you gather up all of the province's educators and divide that number into the province's student body, you get one of the lowest student-teacher ratios in the country, a sort of X divided by Y equals Z.
But left out of that equation were a couple of wild cards: first, that not all of the teachers being counted as a classroom teacher actually teach. That's a small thing.
Much larger is the fact that the province has deemed some schools as necessarily existent, meaning that they have to have a certain number of teachers despite having far fewer than the normal number of students. In that case, the formula means that X (rural schools) plus X (urban schools) divided by Y (teachers) equals Z. What that meant is that, as class sizes in rural schools got smaller, classes in urban schools necessarily got larger.
And every year, we'd hear the same thing around budget time: that the provincial government had "saved" a certain number of teaching jobs that otherwise would have disappeared because of the overall shrinking student enrolment in the province. The "saved teachers" number grew every year, but it was always a chimera: unable to move forward while handcuffed by the necessarily existent rural schools, boards would have been unable to cut teachers and still provide basic education.
You can't tell a board, for example, that it must have 80 teachers in five schools, and at the same time, only give funding for 30 teachers based on student enrolment numbers.
Now, the province has done something truly positive: it has moved to allocating teachers based on individual school and class needs, and, for lower grades (up to Grade 9) the provincial government is bringing in maximum class sizes. It's such a straight-forward, reasonable solution that you have to wonder why no government has put such a system in place already.
The answer is really simple: the change will cost cold, hard cash, and that's something we haven't always had.
The province is budgeting some $3.56 million to cover the first-year costs alone: earlier governments have known there was a problem, but stuck with variants of the status-quo to save cash, and then topped up the system in emergencies.
A new approach makes more sense, and you don't need Grade 9 math to realize it. Realizing it and doing something about it, though, are two different things.
By the way, for many students, today is actually report-card day. For the government, at first blush this move gets an A.
The cost of a barrel of oil has jumped dramatically since this update just three months ago. Yesterday oil rose to a fresh high of $111 a barrel. That was the seventh consecutive day that the price increased. The province made its initial budget forecasts based on a $58.60 barrel of oil. As well the estimate was made in American dollars with one US dollar worth an 86-cent loonie.
This means the province's coffers have been swelling beyond government's wildest imagination. The surplus will most likely now exceed $1 BILLION.
The Fire Commissioner's Office has become the focus of a flurry of questions from the Official Opposition. Is it much to do about nothing? A case of the Opposition trying to make a mole hill into a mountain? Or is the Government silencing the Fire Commissioner?
How many times in the run of a week do I get a call from some credit card company offering me a pre-approved credit card with a low interest rate for the first three to six months. It happens a lot. I politely say, thanks but no thanks. How much credit do I need? I hate credit cards, I hate interest rates, I hate carrying a balance on credit cards.
"I suggest that this trend is a danger to Canadian democracy and leaves the door wide open to the kind of political interference in the day-to-day administration of government programs that led to what is commonly called the sponsorship scandal." - Gomery, 12.03.2008Move over JC, Gomery has set his sights on the here and the now! Yesterday the retired judge appeared before the Commons estimates committee to address the implementation of his recommendations into the sponsorship scandal.
As trashy as gossip is, I have to admit that I have been waiting for a picture of the hooker that cost the Governor of New York his job. The disgraced Spitzer resigned in disgrace yesterday after allegations of his tryst with Emperors Club VIP associates were made public.There is a persistent rumour that Mr. Dion has done little since taking over as leader to reduce his debt and now he is putting off defeating the government until he pays up in full. The view is that if he lost the election and was forced out as leader, he would have considerably more trouble paying his debts.
GLOBE & MAIL, March 13, 08
"And for all Canadians, the founding of Quebec also marks the founding of Canada.” Federal Ad.
Do you know who Henrietta Bell Wells was? She was the only woman, the only freshman, and the last surviving member of the 1930 Wiley College debate team that participated in the first interracial collegiate debate in the United States. She died today at the age of 96.
"They have proven they cannot be trusted; but their great betrayal will do nothing to prevent us from achieving our goals on our own steam" Speech from the Throne '08
The Provincial Government has made the right decision with its new teacher allocation formula which is based on need, not on the number of kids in the classroom. It is a sensible, logical and progressive move.
I was in Labrador City on October 19th, 1998 when the Mines and Energy Minister of the day arrived to tell municipal and labour leaders that the Government had accepted the findings of Hatch Associates regarding IOC's plans to re-activate an idle pellet plant in Sept Iles, Quebec, rather than expand in Labrador West.
"It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities."
- Sir Josiah Stamp
IOC is the largest manufacturer of iron ore pellets in
IOC has about 1700 employees and its major shareholder and operator is the international mining group Rio Tinto which has activities in more than 40 countries throughout the world.
"With all due respect. I won twice as many states as Sen. Clinton. I've won more of the popular vote than Sen. Clinton. I have more delegates than Sen. Clinton. So, I don't know how somebody who's in second place is offering vice presidency to the person who's in first place," he said.
“I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself. I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family.”He has not tendered his resignation.
Posted
The Canadian Government says it is going to impose new rules to make seal hunting more humane, in an attempt to head off international criticism as the annual seal hunt approaches.
Video images of hunters clubbing and shooting seals to death have long been an embarrassment to Canada and fuel for animal rights protesters who have campaigned hard for decades to end the practice.
Under the new rules hunters will have to follow a three-step process.
After clubbing or shooting the seal, they will have to ensure that it is dead, and if it isn't, the animal's main arteries will have to be cut.
The process was recommended by an independent panel of veterinarians.
While hunters groups back the new rules, animal rights protesters are not impressed, saying there are not enough inspectors to monitor the hunt.
The editorial in today's Toronto Star reiterates my own opinion that Stephane Dion should just bring the Conservatives down. Dion met with the paper's Editorial Board on Friday. He pointed out a litany of issues related to the Conservatives' regime but refused to commit to pull the plug. The rationale is that Canadians would not appreciate it. He has bought into the polls or has bought into the belief that an election call right now would not lead to a Liberal victory.
DION'S BIG SPENDER CANDIDATE - decries the headline which links, photo and all, to the Independent's story of Friday past from Canada's busiest political web page Bourque Newswatch.
The House of Assembly will re-open today! It is a bit of an extreme makeover in terms of composition. The opposition will be a lonely place with 3 Liberals and 1 New Democrat left to form the vanguard against the 44 member government.
This photo, by Paul Daly, graced the cover of the Independent on Friday past. I am not going to bother getting into the story or what I thought of Walter Noel's comments on the expense account issue.
The free ride could be over. The rise in popularity of peer-to-peer servers and torrents, free access to copyrighted material from porn to music that is fairly simple for even the most basic computer user to interact with, may be near its zenith.
Doping scandals have rocked the sports world for generations. The East German athletes of the 70's, Ben Johnson disappointed us in 1988 and even the American Congress has gotten into the act by rooting out steroid use in America's favourite
A story in today's Ottawa Sun shocked me a little. It is about an adolescent game that has been known to kill some of its participants.
It was not a long war, the Argentinians are much better soccer players than soldiers! On March 19th, 1982 they occupied South Georgia and shortly after the Falklands. The insuring conflict lasted until Argentina surrendered on June 14th 1982. I remember it as one of my radio goofs, as I inadvertently scared the people of Placentia by saying the UK was going to war against Argentia!
