November, 2009

Revolt of the booboisie

By Colby Cosh - Friday, November 20, 2009 - 40 Comments

Speaking of health care reform in the USA… if you need a demonstration of what it’s up against, study the apoplectic response to new guidelines for breast cancer screening issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The USPSTF has decided to recommend that women aged 40-49 should no longer bother obtaining mammograms as a matter of course; that women 50 and up need them only once every two years; and that breast self-examination is largely useless. The result has been the creation of an instant coalition of rage between conservatives paranoid about “death panels”—behold, an example of the real thing, already doing its genocidal work!—and conspiracist women paranoid about a male-dominated medical profession and its apparent desire to do away with them. (Some people, of course, manage to be both at the same time.)

Confronted with such a tag team, HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius couldn’t throw her task force under the proverbial bus fast enough. She promised that the new guidelines “won’t set US policy”. In practice, she has thus established frequent breast cancer screening as a sacred taboo. The evidence on the costs and benefits of intensive screening is still evolving, but the debate is over. Even if other clinical agencies come to agree with the USPSTF, as they might, neither Medicare nor future Obamacare will be politically able to budge from the orthodoxy of routine annual screening for every woman over 40.

The key word here is “routine”. The coalition of excitables is behaving as if the USPSTF recommended that no woman under 50 should ever get a mammogram. What the USPSTF said was that the decision to start early regular mammography is, given present evidence, too complicated to be the subject of a simple fiat covering the entire populace. “The decision to start regular, biennial screening mammography before the age of 50 years,” they said, “should be an individual one and take patient context into account, including the patient’s values regarding specific benefits and harms.”

Every woman has a different risk profile, not only for breast cancer itself, but for the legitimate harms that can arise from overdetection, ranging from excess radiation exposure to complications from needless biopsies and surgeries. It is NOT, contrary to what some of the excitables would have you believe, a simple matter of avoiding the pain of mammograms and the psychological stress from false positives. (But, at that, it might be worth asking some of the more affluent critics: if more mammograms are inherently better for you, why stop at one a year? Why not one every two weeks? What price peace of mind?)

As Steven Pearlstein observes in a brilliant column for the Washington Post, the whole spectacle is about as unedifying as could be imagined. Of course, if you’re an American against nationalized health care, or just a Canadian who appreciates the benefit of having a radically different health system just a few hours’ drive away, you can take comfort in the overpowering evidence that the American public is still not ready to relinquish the benefits of personal control over the consumption of medical services. (Even if regulation of insurance programs has rendered those benefits largely theoretical.)

But one still doesn’t like to see what one might regard as the “right” side of the debate win for the wrong reasons—namely, that Americans and their media are no longer capable of exercising rudimentary logic or understanding the most basic nuances of science. Such a passion-wracked polity cannot survive as a liberal-democratic republic for too long, with or without socialized medicine. I mourn a little when I read a passage like this in the comment section of the San Jose Mercury News:

Ironically, mammograms do save lives. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force acknowledged as much in its report. For example, since 1990 the breast cancer mortality rate among women age 40-49 decreased 3.3 percent a year, largely due to mammograms. But breast cancer is relatively rare in that age group, so the task force decided the risks of mammograms, including false positives that lead to anxiety and unneeded treatment, outweigh the benefits.
Tell that to any woman who was diagnosed in her 40s. I know several. I bet you do, too.

An important point underlying the USPSTF’s new guideline is that breast cancer is dramatically overdiagnosed in women under 50. Incredibly, the author of this op-ed, Patty Fisher, thinks the fact she knows a lot of women under 50 who were diagnosed with breast cancer is a refutation of this! (She has also told a flat-out lie, of course, about what the task force actually said; it acknowledged that for many women, the benefits of aggressive early screening may in fact outweigh the risks.) The relevant number, for the purposes of discussing the guideline, is not simply the number of women between the ages of 40 and 49 who have been diagnosed with breast cancer because of mammograms. The relevant number is the number of women between 40-49 who would forgo mammography until the age of 50 because of their risk profile, and then die of breast cancer specifically because the lack of early detection failed to catch a truly dangerous, fast-growing tumour. And the evidence suggests that there really aren’t that many of those women.

The San Francisco Chronicle went further in the quest to put a “human face” on the debate, hunting for individual women who have had breast cancers detected in their forties. Again, without access to extensive case histories, the reader cannot judge whether application of the USPSTF guideline would have actually harmed these women. But they are personally convinced, whatever mere statistics or even the details of their own cases might say. “I can’t believe [early mammography is] not saving a lot of women,” fumes cancer survivor Laura Scanlan. “It saved me.”

Well, there you have it. The great American syllogism for the 21st century. X benefited me, therefore X must be good for everybody, and not bad for anybody. I’m every woman: it’s all in me.

  • It’s Musty and There are Posters of Charlie’s Angels and Ayn Rand in Here

    By Scott Feschuk - Friday, November 20, 2009 at 5:37 AM - 22 Comments

    I’ve been tweeting as the Voice in Stephen Harper’s Head for a couple weeks…

    I’ve been tweeting as the Voice in Stephen Harper’s Head for a couple weeks now. I think it’s going okay. One weird side effect is that I find the voice in my own head now sometimes sounds like the voice of the actual Stephen Harper, which can be quite disconcerting when I’m watching TV and the voice in my head says, “Oh, man, that there lady doctor on House is hot.”

    Anyhoo, here are some recent excerpts from the Twitter. Come join in if you’d like.

    • Christmas coming soon. Hope MacKay isn’t my secret Santa again. I’ve still got that bottle of Brut 33 from last year.
    • Sending kids off to school – firm handshake or notarized memo of farewell? Can never decide.
    • When life hands me lemons, I order someone to make me lemonade. Then I hand it back, grunting, “I asked for iced tea, dammit!”
    • Just remembered: no Question Period today. Yet I’ve got loads of insults and barbs ready. Thank God I’m surrounded by staff members.
    • Brainwave: don’t FIGHT climate change – prepare Canada for Continue…

  • 'Even in our own prisons somebody can get beaten up'

    By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 11:14 PM - 21 Comments

    General Rick Hillier doesn’t remember reading Richard Colvin’s memos, seems not to understand what all the fuss is about.

    Mr. Hillier derisively compared the political uproar that surrounded Mr. Colvin’s parliamentary testimony to people “howling at the moon” and said nobody ever raised torture concerns with him during the 2006-2007 period in question.

    “I don’t remember reading a single one of those cables [from Mr. Colvin] … He doesn’t stick out in my mind,” Mr. Hillier said of the diplomat’s warnings and criticism. “He appears to have covered an incredibly broad spectrum, much of which I’m not sure he’s qualified to talk about.”

    The former soldier rejected suggestions Canada was “complicit in any war crimes” – saying Ottawa had a responsible system in place. He also played down the fact Afghan prisoners got hurt in jails. “Even in our own prisons [in Canada] somebody can get beaten up. We know that.”

    Mr. Hillier signed the first detainee transfer agreement in 2005, the same agreement Peter MacKay now says was insufficient.

  • The Commons: Eighteen attempts to explain the same story

    By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 8:21 PM - 43 Comments

    The Scene. Fewer Conservatives than usual chose to mockingly applaud Bob Rae when he rose to open Question Period this afternoon. Odd that.

    “Mr. Speaker, the testimony yesterday of Richard Colvin before the Afghanistan committee showed two clear things,” Mr. Rae began, to groans from the Conservative side at mention of Mr. Colvin’s name.

    “First, Mr. Colvin testified that he had information with respect to the mistreatment of prisoners in Afghan prisons and that he gave that information to his superiors. Second, Mr. Colvin testified that he was also told by his superiors to shut up, essentially,” Mr. Rae continued. “Given the importance of these two revelations, the revelations of mistreatment, harsh treatment and even torture and the revelation with respect to a cover-up, would the minister not agree with me and with others that there should indeed be a full public inquiry into what has taken place with respect to the transfer of these detainees?”

    Across the aisle, Peter MacKay furrowed his brow, thrust his left hand in his pocket and commenced with the first of his 18 attempts to explain.

    “Mr. Speaker, it has been stated here a number of times that there has not been a single, solitary proven allegation of abuse involving a transferred Taliban prisoner by Canadian Forces. Second, with respect to the evidence yesterday, what we know is that when the evidence is put to the test, it simply does not stand up,” he offered. “Mr. Colvin had an opportunity to speak directly to me and other ministers of the government who were in Afghanistan. He did not raise the issue. As well, what is being relied upon here is nothing short of hearsay, second- or third-hand information, or that which came directly from the Taliban.”

    That Mr. Colvin’s credibility would be an issue for Mr. MacKay is perhaps confusing, seeing as how Mr. Colvin remains sufficiently fit, at least in this government’s judgment, to serve as the deputy head of intelligence at this country’s embassy in Washington, DC. Mr. Rae took note of this. Continue…

  • MacKay's version

    By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 6:10 PM - 11 Comments

    Defence Minister Peter MacKay’s exchange with reporters after Question Period today.

    Question: What should happen to Colvin now that you think he’s not credible?  What are you going to do about him?

    Hon. Peter MacKay: Well, what we’re going to do is continue to do what we’ve done since arriving in Afghanistan.  We’re going to build in their own capacity, particularly in their justice system -

    Question: You haven’t answered the question.

    Hon. Peter MacKay: — particularly when it comes to things like investing in their prisons, their capacity to deal with prisoners, issues related to the justice system.

    Question: What are you going to do about Mr. Colvin?

    Hon. Peter MacKay: Mr. Colvin doesn’t work for me.  Mr. Colvin is a member of the public service.  Mr. Colvin is a member of the public service who has a job in Washington and as far as I’m concerned his job is there for him.

    Continue…

  • O'Connor's version

    By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 6:06 PM - 6 Comments

    Former defence minister Gordon O’Connor’s exchange with reporters after QP today.

    Question: What about the allegations of coverup?  He said that officials like Mr. Mulroney were saying to him do not write reports like this.  Is that – can you say categorically that’s not true?

    Hon. Gordon O’Connor: Well, I don’t know if it’s true or not.  I have no idea.

    Question: It didn’t come from you?

    Hon. Gordon O’Connor:   Well, not from me. I’m the Defence Department.  Mulroney doesn’t work for me or never worked for me.  And I, you know, who says it’s true. That’s just his allegation.

    Question: Were you ever apprised of these reports?

    Hon. Gordon O’Connor:   No, never.

    Continue…

  • Was Richard Colvin all alone in his concerns?

    By John Geddes - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 5:56 PM - 21 Comments

    Defence Minister Peter MacKay did everything he could today to portray Richard Colvin—the Canadian diplomat who alleges the government refused to heed his warnings about torture in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007—as an eccentric voice whose fears back in those days were not echoed by other credible observers.

    For my money, however, Human Rights Watch, the internationally respected watchdog group, is highly credible. And in a letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations way back on Nov. 27, 2006, here’s what Human Rights Watch had to say about the situation Canadian troops, and others, were embroiled in:


    NATO forces have stated that they have detained only a few detainees, even in the heavy combat zones of southern Afghanistan. Dutch forces operating in Oruzgan announced their first five detainees two weeks ago, while British and Canadian forces operating in Helmand and Kandahar, respectively, have publicly acknowledged fewer than 100 detainees. Given the ferocity of the fighting in these areas, the absence of more detainees raises two alarming alternatives: either that NATO forces are not taking detainees, or, more likely, that NATO forces are circumventing their bilateral agreements by immediately turning over detainees to Afghan authorities and thus abrogating their responsibility to monitor the detainees’ treatment.


    We have received credible reports about mistreatment of detainees transferred by NATO to Afghan authorities. It is our understanding that the Afghan Ministry of Defense does not have in place a legal framework for holding detainees. We understand that the Afghan government has not yet ratified a law on military tribunals drafted with the assistance of US authorities. For now, we understand that in practice most NATO detainees are transferred to the National Directorate of Security (NDS), an opaque, unaccountable and abusive institution still governed by classified laws promulgated during Afghanistan’s communist era. The NDS operates detention centers that fail to meet international standards for the treatment of detainees.

  • Fox News screws up again

    By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 5:11 PM - 17 Comments

    “Huge crowd” at Palin book signing was footage from a political rally

    Fox News is back to its audience-inflating tricks. Yesterday, the network aired year-old stock footage to back up host Gregg Jarrett’s claim that Sarah Palin is “continuing to draw huge crowds while she’s promoting her brand new book,” the Think Progress blog reports. But the images being broadcast were from the 2008 presidential campaign, as indicated by individuals in the crowd holding McCain/Palin signs, while others are holding pom-poms and cheering wildly. This is the second time Fox has aired incorrect footage when reporting on crowd size. Recently, The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart caught Fox News’ Sean Hannity displaying crowd shots from a rally earlier this year to back a claim that a GOP health care protest drew a larger audience than it actually did. Hannity later acknowledged that he “screwed up.”

    Think Progress

  • The faintest ink is better than the best memory

    By Andrew Potter - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 5:04 PM - 12 Comments

    I’m a late discoverer of the ridiculous  genius of Nabokov. I read Lolita in…

    I’m a late discoverer of the ridiculous  genius of Nabokov. I read Lolita in university, and watched the film a bunch of times, but while I understood – from the famous opening lines – that he was a writer who had the English language by the tail, I was too lazy, or too intimidated, or both, to read more of his books.

    This past summer I read Pale Fire, walked around in a daze for a week or so after, then buried myself in the delight of Pnin. Speak, Memory is next on the agenda, though it maybe a while before I get to it.

    When Nabokov died in 1977, he left behind  138 handwritten index cards, which were the fragments of a final book titled “The Original of Laura”. The problem is, he instructed his family to burn the cards after his death. Instead, they fell to his son Dmitri, who kept them locked in a Swiss vault for thirty years, showing them to a select group of scholars and hinting that he was inclined to finally obey his father’s wishes.

    That book has now been published to a storm of controversy. Some scholars are delighted with the work, while others – including Tom Stoppard – think that the author’s wishes outweigh any desires by the family and public to see it published.

    Yesterday’s edition of On Point on NPR was devoted to the book and to the nature of Nabokov’s creativity. It’s worth listening to just for the great audio-clips of Nabokov ripping into writers like Proust and Pasternak, but it also digs into the question of whether the book should have been published in the first place.

    Listen to the On Point podcast

    My own views on this are straightforward: of course the book should have been published. Writing, like life itself, is a war against entropy; it is a relentless campaign to bring  coherence, meaning, and beauty to the anarchic indifference of the universe. A million monkeys could type randomly for a million years and never come up with anything as remotely poetic as the opening couplet of the poem “Pale Fire” – it takes a consciousness to bring order to the alphabet, to subject syllables to semantic discipline.

    The war involves of billions of individual battles, and while death comes to us all eventually, our creations are potentially immortal. There may not be a single one of Aristotle’s genes still floating around the pool, but his memes are more more numerous and more prolific than ever. The thoughts, the ideas, the poetry on those 138 index cards represents a permanent beachhead against entropy (well, as permanent as you’ll get in a universe that is itself finite), and to deliberately destroy them would be as criminal as deliberately destroying a human consciousness.

    The dead have no right to constrain the living, at least not in the war against chaos. It is to Dmitry Nabokov’s credit, and our eternal benefit, that he refused his father’s request to commit literary capital punishment.

  • New Castro, same Cuba

    By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 5:04 PM - 4 Comments

    Repression in Cuba worsens under Raúl Castro, new report claims

    A Human Rights Watch report—“New Castro, Same Cuba”—published today claims Cuban president Raúl Castro has crushed dissent and tightened repression in the country since taking over from his brother Fidel in July 2006. The study, based on a clandestine fact-finding mission this year, “paints a near-dystopian image of an island where those who step out of line risk being beaten and jailed in horrific conditions which verge on torture,” The Guardian reports. The report also alleges the Cuban government has extended use of an “Orwellian” law that allows the state to punish people before they commit a crime on suspicion they may do so, a tactic designed to cow actual and potential opponents. And it takes to task the EU and Canada for preaching the importance of human rights in Cuba then failing to pressure Havana for compliance, adding: “Worse still, Latin American governments across the political spectrum have been reluctant to criticize Cuba, and in some cases have openly embraced the Castro government. [This] silence … perpetuates a climate of impunity that allows repression to continue.”

    The Guardian
    Human Rights Watch

     

  • Anger this man at your own risk

    By Patricia Treble - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 5:00 PM - 9 Comments

    Sheriff Joe Arpaio is accused of punishing those who cross him

    Anger this man at your own risk He enjoys his reputation as “America’s toughest sheriff,” but Joe Arpaio of Arizona’s Maricopa County is also one of the most investigated law enforcement officials in the U.S. According to a local TV station in Phoenix, which is the county seat as well as Arizona’s capital, the FBI is probing allegations that Arpaio used his position to settle vendettas against anyone who challenged his authority.

    One case involves County Supervisor Don Stapley, indicted on 118 charges of violating campaign finance laws last December. In September, three days after prosecutors requested the last of those charges be dropped, Arpaio had Stapley arrested again. The reason? According to defence lawyer Paul Charlton, Stapley “opposed the sheriff’s budget. When you cross this guy for legitimate reasons, you’re going to find yourself under criminal investigation for completely illegitimate reasons.” Continue…

  • The bucket defence: the mystery solved

    By Paul Wells - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 4:45 PM - 24 Comments

    And now a confession.

    Like a million years ago, when This Week With George Stephanopolopili was still This Week With David Brinkley, George F. Will produced a critique of somebody’s tortured logic. The fellow’s arguments were contradictory and inconsistent, Will said, and in my memory — recall that this must have been more than 20 years ago, probably while I was still an undergraduate and thus, Sunday falling when it does in the week, perhaps hung over — he called the argument a “bucket defence.” I have remembered the argument fondly, albeit vaguely, ever since, so I used the term yesterday in response to the Conservatives’ shameful forest of stupid rebuttals to Richard Colvin’s deeply disturbing testimony about treatment of prisoners in Afghanistan.

    But the thing is, I have googled “bucket defence” many times and got nowhere. Maybe I dreamed the whole thing.

    Today a reader of Parker Donham’s blog solves the riddle. ‘[A] “bucket defence” might be more familiar to some of your readers as Freud’s “kettle logic.” However, for Freud, the defence is used when the denier has difficulty accepting the truth, not simply difficulty admitting it.’

    Here’s the best account I can find of Freud’s “kettle logic.”

    “In the first place, he had returned the kettle undamaged; in the second place it already had holes in it when he borrowed it; and in the third place, he had never borrowed it at all. A complicated defence, but so much the better; if only one of these three lines of defence is recognized as valid, the man must be acquitted.”

    The memory of George Will on that long-ago Sunday is thus redeemed. In future I will keep using the term “bucket defence,” but you’ll all know the term is, in part, a reference to the haziness of punditological memory.

  • The tragedy of forced marriage

    By Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 4:40 PM - 9 Comments

    Afghan brides are burning themselves to death

    The tragedy of forced marriageAlthough Afghan women have attained greater freedoms since Western soldiers first arrived in their country in 2001, one imprint of the restrictions placed on women under Taliban rule remains: forced marriages. Now brides who find themselves in these hellish arrangements are resorting to a disturbing method of escape—they’re burning themselves to death. Earlier this month, it was reported that the Herat Regional Hospital burns unit in western Afghanistan had handled 51 cases of female self-immolation between January and July of this year. Of those cases, 38 patients succumbed to their wounds.

    The doctor in charge of the burns unit, Mohamed Aref Jalali, said that the practice comes from Iran, which has one of the highest rates of self-immolation in the world, especially among Kurds living in rural areas along the border. Many Afghan refugees adopted the custom when they fled there during the decade-long war with the Soviet Union that ended in 1989, and continued it when they returned home in the 1990s. The popularity of burning oneself to death has since grown among poor, uneducated Afghan women who live in areas where young girls are traditionally forced into marriage.  Continue…

  • The world's first analog blogger

    By Tom Henheffer - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 4:20 PM - 1 Comment

    Alfred Sirleaf provides Liberians with their news via chalkboard

    The world's first analog bloggerEvery day at 7 a.m., you can find Alfred Sirleaf working inside a small shack on a busy street corner in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. He reads the papers, consults with his small staff of reporters, and checks text messages from tipsters around the country. Then he picks up a piece of chalk, goes outside, and writes the day’s news headlines in large, clear letters on a blackboard facing the street. He may be the world’s only analog blogger.

    Sirleaf’s been running his blackboard newspaper, called “The Daily Talk,” since 2000. Back then, the media was heavily censored under Charles Taylor’s repressive regime. “We had a system in Liberia where a few people reigned and made decisions for the masses,” Sirleaf says. “That’s what inspired me to figure out how to communicate with the people.” The government wasn’t happy with him. The blackboard was destroyed—twice—and Sirleaf was thrown in jail and eventually forced into exile. When a media-friendly government replaced Taylor in 2003, Sirleaf returned to rebuild his news empire. Continue…

  • Iggy should toughen up: McKenna

    By John Geddes - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 3:40 PM - 142 Comments

    The Liberals are ‘dealing with thugs,’ says Frank McKenna

    Iggy should toughen up: McKennaFrank McKenna is the sort of retired politician whose elder-statesman status usually keeps him well clear of the partisan fray. But the former New Brunswick premier and Canadian ambassador to the U.S., now deputy chair of TD Bank Financial Group, had some surprisingly hard-nosed advice for Michael Ignatieff in an interview with Maclean’s: hit back at Conservative “thugs” with some Harper-style attack ads of your own.

    McKenna didn’t pull any punches when asked what the federal Liberal leader should do about Tory ads that label him “just visiting” and “only in it for himself.” “I think you have to fire back,” he said. “My inclination is to use attack ads when you’re attacked.” As for the sort of adversaries the Liberals are up against in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s tacticians, McKenna added, “They are dealing with thugs; they’ve got to fight back and fight hard.” Continue…

  • The first nail in La Presse's coffin: no more BlackBerrys

    By Philippe Gohier - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 3:37 PM - 4 Comments

    In case anyone thought Gesca was bluffing when it threatened to shut down La Presse and Cyberpresse on December 1 unless they strike a cost-cutting deal with the union, managers at the paper are stepping up the pressure this week. According to TVA, there’s already a plan in place to cease operations and—this is truly the first sign of a looming journalistic apocalypse—reporters will apparently be asked to turn in their BlackBerrys some time next week. Workers are scheduled to meet with the union on Saturday to clear the air—and, presumably, begin panicking.

  • Why The Airlines Won't Let You Call In Sick

    By Sarah Dawson, Takeoffeh.com - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 3:17 PM - 2 Comments

    Off the record

    Last week, news headlines thundered about an Air Canada passenger who informed the airline she had H1N1 and expected sympathetic assistance in rebooking her trip. Air Canada merely offered to change her travel date for a large fee. The passenger – who believed she was doing the right thing by letting the airline know – was shocked at the treatment.

    Most airlines such as Air Canada and WestJet are actually under no obligation to re-accommodate passengers on another flight whether they suffer from H1N1 or a stomach bug. Nor will they offer a full refund if the conditions of their ticket do not allow any cancellations.

    For the airlines and tour operators, it all comes down to basic economics, and the effect supply and demand has on selling prices. Imagine a passenger booking a flight for $99 in a seat sale in January, and then calling to change the flight to a March Break departure when everyone else on that flight will have paid at least $699.

    With tour operators, where there is a hotel booked as well as an air seat, changing the original ticket can have financial implications for the tour operator. As such, they tend to charge higher change fees and cancellation penalties because the hotels they deal with dock them for holding the room. For instance, if you cancel a booking in early December for a Christmas holiday, chances are you will not get any money back because the hotel will charge the tour operator a full penalty.

    A little research before making any changes is extremely advisable. There will almost always be a difference in selling prices, so be prepared to pay more. As far  as a refund is concerned — they may deduct a change fee, but is not unreasonable to ask.

    The key terms to look for are: full cancellations allowed up to departure, or no (low) change fees, whatever the circumstances. With respect to H1N1, if the provider’s policy does not state specifically that cancellations or changes are allowed if the passenger has H1N1, then they are probably not.

    For any packages booked with a tour operator, there are only a few companies currently offering H1N1 protection. Sunwing offers a “Worry Free” cancellation plan for $49 per person, allowing cancellations up to 3 hours prior to the flight departure for any reason. Signature offers a very similar “Care-Free Cancellation Waiver” plan for $50 or $60 per person, allowing cancellations to 24 hours prior to the flight departure. WestJet Vacations allow cancellations outside of 21 days for a $75 fee. While passengers may not get cash refunds, receiving the full booking value in future travel credit is certainly reasonable.

    Passengers should also look toward travel insurance as a means of protection. RBC Insurance, the largest provider of travel insurance in the Canadian market, confirmed to Take Off eh! that their Trip Cancellation Insurance does cite H1N1, or similar flu-like illness, as an “emergency medical condition and the policy holder would be eligible for the reimbursement of the non-refundable portion of their prepaid travel arrangements, subject to the terms and conditions of the policy”. This requires confirmation from a physician, as with any other medical condition. The coverage applies as long as the passenger does not have the H1N1 virus as a pre-condition, or made a booking for travel to a destination for which the government has issued a formal H1N1 warning after the warning was issued.

    In short, whether people have the flu or any other infectious condition, in many instances, the claim can be difficult to prove. It’s a very murky area for airlines and tour operators to navigate and set fair policies for. But bear in mind that an air carrier also reserves the right to deny boarding to someone who is visibly not well enough to fly.

    From the airline and tour operators’ perspective, is it fair to single out any type of flu over say, asthma or strep throat? And why should travel have to follow different rules than any other service providers such as theatres or sports vernues? Travellers have to protect themselves with the tools available to them, or simply not travel.

    By: Sarah Dawson

    Photo Credit: macky_ch

     

  • Beware of seniors driving scooters

    By Julia McKinnell - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 2:40 PM - 4 Comments

    A Vancouver Island safety rodeo tries to rein in an often Wild West way of getting around

    Beware of seniors driving scootersHere in Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island, where the median age of residents is 60.9 (the oldest in Canada), you can’t stroll the main street without seeing a senior on a mobility scooter zipping into the pharmacy or zooming into a bank. For seniors who’ve failed a driving test or voluntarily relinquished a licence, the vehicle is a boon. There is no education class to take or test to pass. No insurance or licence is required. Speed limits don’t apply to mobility scooters, so you can’t get a speeding ticket.

    And if you’re a little unsteady one day from prescription medications and the scooter weaves a bit through traffic, “there’s not going to be an impaired charge,” says Const. Stewart Masi of the Oceanside RCMP detachment in Parksville, B.C. Mobility scooters are classified as pedestrians, he explains. “It’s like if they were walking down the street impaired. They’re not breaking any laws.” Continue…

  • The real reason to see 'Precious'

    By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 2:20 PM - 0 Comments

    Mo’Nique creates one of the most ferocious female villains ever to grace the screen

    The real reason to see 'Precious'Sometimes a movie becomes more than a movie; it turns into a movement. That’s what has happened to Precious. It began in January, when its director, Lee Daniels, took a cellphone call from Oprah Winfrey as he was getting up to accept the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Oprah told him his movie “split her open” and offered to throw her weight behind it. Precious went on to win the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival and is generating massive Oscar buzz. It’s this year’s Slumdog Millionaire, another underdog drama of an abused ghetto child with showbiz dreams trying to overcome enormous odds. But Precious, the harrowing tale of a 350-lb. Harlem teen who’s impregnated for the second time by her father, makes Slumdog look like a Disney movie. No movie heroine has ever grappled with more issues at once: she’s black, poor, obese, abused, illiterate, unloved, pregnant and HIV positive.

    Based on the novel Push by Sapphire, Precious is fiction. But as the movie morphs into a cause, its inspirational message has become inseparable from the real-life personalities behind it, who have embraced the film as a healing touchstone to their own childhood horrors of sexual or physical abuse. That includes Sapphire, Daniels—and the two iconic moguls who signed on to the film after its premiere, Winfrey and Tyler Perry. But no one incarnates the horror of abuse more vividly than Mo’Nique, the 41-year-old powerhouse who portrays the monstrous mother of the film’s teenage heroine. The actress says she drew directly on her own experience of suffering four years of abuse from her brother, starting at age seven. The director told her to “be a monster,” she told the New York Times. “And my brother was that monster to me. That’s who I became.” Continue…

  • NDP calls for public inquiry into torture allegations

    By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 2:18 PM - 5 Comments

    Opposition party says government may have engaged in “massive cover-up”

    The NDP is calling for a public inquiry into allegations detainees handed over by Canadian soldiers to Afghan officials were tortured. The demand follows testimony by Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin before the House Afghanistan Committee, in which Colvin claimed the “standard operating procedure” at Afghan jails included the abuse of prisoners and that government officials knew about the situation and may have tried to cover it up. “There are concerns that the government was complicit in torture, in violation of  international law, while engaging in a massive cover-up that put our diplomats and soldiers on the ground at risk,” wrote Paul Dewar, NDP foreign affairs critic, on the party’s website. The Conservative government says it doesn’t know of any “proven allegations,” of prisoner abuse.

    The Tyee
    Toronto Star

  • 'I will do my best to shed light within the limits imposed by my professional obligations'

    By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 1:58 PM - 9 Comments

    As promised, here is the full opening statement of Richard Colvin in his testimony before the special committee on Afghanistan yesterday.

    Continue…

  • Somehow Randy Couture must be behind this

    By Colby Cosh - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 1:44 PM - 51 Comments

    It sounds as though Brock Lesnar’s chiropractor thinks that Canadian health care is somehow to blame for the mystery intestinal illness that is threatening the all-American manbeast’s Ultimate Fighting career. I’ve occasionally had occasion to point out in print that chiropractic is a pseudoscience cooked up by a weird Canadian grocer solely on the basis of bizarre “spiritual promptings,” received from “the other world,” about the biological basis of disease. The response from practitioners and loyal patients is always the same: that’s not us anymore. Chiropractic has left its grand, kooky theoretical and anatomical theories behind and embraced scientific method. Responsible chiropractors no longer claim plenary power to heal or comprehend the whole organism.

    It’s funny, though, how often we still run across characters like Larry Novotny, who appears to regard himself as qualified to comment on a modern hospital’s handling of an intestinal infection. What’s important to understand is that evidence-based medicine is at the heart of the political struggles over health care now going on in the United States. Obama’s bright boys feel confident they can stem the growth in medical expenditures in the U.S. if practices with weak or nonexistent evidence of helpfulness can be suppressed on a national scale. Since the Canadian health care system is associated in the public mind with the Obama health program—even though Canada is actually pretty inept when it comes to using evidence to decide what treatments it will fund—chiropractors and other potentially endangered Medicare billers have a clear vested interest in spreading fear and uncertainty about Canadian medicine. (U.S. Medicare “only” pays chiropractors for “manual manipulation for subluxation of the spine.” But that is the essence of what chiropractors do; it is practically the definition of their art. And you don’t need to prove you actually have any sort of malformation of the spinal column in order to qualify for compensation.)

    In short, there could be no better or more opportune anti-Obama narrative/rallying cry than “The Canadians messed up Brock Lesnar!” I hasten to add an important caveat: the Canadians may, in fact, have messed up Brock Lesnar!

  • 'I have personal knowledge of the matters hereinafter'

    By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 1:43 PM - 0 Comments

    Still awaiting the full transcript of Richard Colvin’s opening statement at committee yesterday (it should, hopefully, be available at some point this afternoon). In the mean time, the Star has made available the affidavit he provided to the Military Police Complaints Commission.

  • Marilyn MacKay 1951-2009

    By Kate Lunau - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 1:40 PM - 3 Comments

    Ailing herself, she campaigned tirelessly for more government aid for out-of-province patients

    Marilyn MacKay 1951-2009Marilyn MacKay was born in Sydney River, N.S., on June 9, 1951, to Marion and Frank Rossetti, who worked at a nearby steel plant while Marion stayed home with the kids. With two older brothers and a younger sister, little Marilyn was “full of fun,” says Laura Ongo, who grew up across the street. One night, Marilyn and Laura decided to pierce nine-year-old sister Karen’s ears. “We said we’d only do it if she didn’t howl,” recalls Ongo, now 62. “We got a potato and put it behind her ear, and put a towel in her mouth.” Karen, pleased with the new look, hid her pierced ears behind her hair so her parents wouldn’t see.

    After high school, Marilyn moved to Halifax to find a job. A talented cook, she got work in the kitchen at the Victoria General Hospital, and soon moved in with a friend, Glenda MacKay. One night, Glenda’s brother Ken came for a visit, and was struck by Marilyn, who wore her light brown hair almost to her waist. “She was such a happy person,” says Ken, now 58. “I went home that night thinking, what an incredible girl.” They were married in a double wedding on July 13, 1974, with Karen and her fiancé. Continue…

  • Caster Semenya can keep her gold

    By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 1:26 PM - 2 Comments

    Results of gender testing on South African runner to be kept under wraps

    After Caster Semenya’s gender became the topic of public debate, it appears the truth about whether the 18-year-old South African sprinter is a man or a woman is none of our business. The International Association of Athletics Federations has decided to allow Semenya to keep her 800-metre world championship title and prize money, but the results of gender tests will be kept confidential. According to the South African sports ministry, “There will be no public announcement of what the panel of scientists has found. We urge all South Africans and other people to respect this professional ethical and moral way of doing things.” Questions about Semenya’s gender were raised after the runner’s muscular build and rapid improvement in times prompted the IAFF to order testing. The IAAF has refused to confirm or deny reports that surfaced in Australian newspapers in September that Semenya had both male and female sex organs.

    NYT

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