SpankyMcFarland

The mere existence of a free Ukraine is intolerable to Putin and poses the obvious question to his oppressed citizenry; if East Slavs have chosen rule of law and freedom next door, why not in Russia too?

PR is most attractive to small parties with lots of votes and few seats, and such parties have no influence in a country that has a morbid fear of both change and coalition government.

Backroom deal-making is an essential part of any democracy. One problem in Canada is our peculiar fear of coalitions. In an era of a declining major parties this phobia makes minority government and various other unstable arrangements more likely.

The two major parties can also be relied upon to wax indignant about the electoral system and the price of a cell phone until it’s their turn in office.

We have a representative democracy wherein voters choose MPs who can then organize themselves exactly how they like.

Do you not think the extraordinary heat could have played some role in the fire? Say a fire is started by somebody. What determines how far it spreads?

What the Libs and NDP are doing is perfectly acceptable in a parliamentary democracy. In fact, most countries like ours are more relaxed about coalitions than we are, often between parties with far less in common. Regarding JT losing the popular vote, Mr. Harper seemed quite happy with our antiquated FPTP system while in office. I’d prefer a tighter grip on the budget but the people have spoken, have chosen a left-wing parliament and that is that.

Not all Canadians are covered through their jobs. A former colleague of mine, newly arrived from the UK’s NHS, prescribed fertility medication to a patient and was later confronted by her husband demanding to know who was going to pay for such an expensive drug. He had no idea that some patients have to pay for themselves here.

Teaching at the high school level brings generous helpings of negative feedback, and the ability to behave in a calm, cheerful and patient way to what the day brings is probably the single most important trait a politician can have. Defence matters more than offence, temperament more than intellect. By contrast, entrepreneurs aren’t used to such sober second thought and can react rather impulsively when they get the reins. In NL, Danny Williams was a spectacularly successful businessman in a hurry whose decision to go ahead with the Muskrat megaproject may yet bankrupt the province.

Looks like it.

I think it’s overrated. If I had to choose between a leader with no political experience and nothing but political experience, the latter would get my nod. Politics is a fiendishly difficult line of work to master. Thinking just anybody can walk in from the ‘real world’ and do better is like buying a restaurant because you like the food there. Polievre ain’t my cup of tea, obviously, but by any standard he’s well qualified for the job and has proven that.

Oz is not a good model to follow. Many of their coups have been motivated by spite and petty ambition within parties. The people have spoken recently, albeit under our anachronistic FPTP system, and they chose Trudeau again.

Polievre is the obvious choice if he runs: young, energetic, speaks good French, excellent at parliamentary debate and made-for-tv sound bites. The problem is the party. Unless something drastic happens, and that’s always possible these days, the Canadian political mainstream is a fair bit to the left of the caucus. Whoever wins the leadership can’t move too far from O’Toole’s positions on policy if they wish to be competitive in the next election.

Any sensible person would have been vaccinated long before the current wave.

If you’re going to drive a truck across the country, you should be vaccinated first. I don’t what is difficult to understand about that.

These best place to live lists are daft. There’s little to be learned from them.

We Radical Leftists prefer to call it the 1619 Project.

Here’s a little more detail on what the four knocked out genes coded for: And the six added human genes: Explained: How surgeons gave a pig heart — and hope of life — to a human The patient, David Bennett (57), was deemed ineligible for a conventional heart transplant or an artificial heart by leading transplant centres after a review of his medical records. indianexpress.com

I was surprised to learn that this not the first time a surgeon has attempted such an operation. In 1997 an Indian surgeon had a go without the gene modification etc. etc. The patient died and he was jailed. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/in-1997-this-indian-doctor-tried-pig-heart-transplant-was-jailed/articleshow/67111349.cms

OK, I can see seal valves being durable given the depths they dive to. They’re basically acellular aren’t they? In any case there’s much less of a rejection problem with them than with full organs.

I never heard of that before. Pigs are a known quantity with a fully mapped genome and loads of research groups around the world tinkering with them.

On January 7, a 57 year old man with terminal cardiac failure underwent a nine hour operation at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and received a cardiac transplant from a pig. Three innovations made this historic procedure possible: 1. Genetic modification. Ten genes were changed in the pig: three were removed that would have caused a rapid, antibody-mediated rejection of the foreign organ; one was removed that would have made the heart too big; and six human genes were added to reduce inflammation, rejection and blood coagulation. 2. A perfusion solution to keep the porcine heart in optimal condition between operations. Apparently, this product contains cocaine which caused a regulatory headache for the researchers. 3. A powerful drug, KPL-404, that suppresses the body’s immunological reaction (in particular, CD-40) to the foreign organ. The potential significance is enormous - many thousands die every year awaiting organ transplantation form human donors and demand will only increase - but there’s an army of potential problems ahead. One expert called the patient ‘courageous’ which is not something you want to hear. On the medical side, rejection and infection are the two big immediate dangers. Rejection comes in three basic types - hyperacute, acute and chronic. The hyperacute stage seems to have been successfully navigated but the body has a myriad of responses to foreign antigens that are not fully understood. An infection is made more likely because of the immunosuppressive medication the patient is on. This could be any extrinsic infectious agent or might have travelled in the transplanted organ itself. Longer term, one has to wonder how a heart from a quadruped will perform pumping blood all the way up to the head in a biped. Not a major worry right now. There are ethical issues. If the patient dies in the next few weeks the decision to go ahead will be questioned; this is an experimental treatment and I’d say the surgical team are not getting much sleep at the moment. Some people may have concerns about any animal transplants to humans. There are also those may be put off specifically by a pig donor for religious reasons. Dr. Mohiuddin addressed this issue directly. The patient was denied a human transplant partly because of his poor compliance with treatment recommendations in the past, including management of hypertension. One aspect of the story dominating coverage at the moment is that the patient did time for a serious assault and the family of the victim are asking why a person guilty of a serious felony deserves such expensive care. Doctors would say they treat anybody regardless of their past. https://www.dicardiology.com/videos/video-details-first-pig-heart-transplant-surgery-human

Death certification is an incredibly complicated issue. With the demise of the hospital autopsy, figuring out the cause of death involves a fair bit of guesswork. Understanding what death rates mean within a province is tricky enough; comparing countries is another level entirely.

The evidence backing Fowler’s testimony was weak, e.g. CO intoxication. It is also telling that the defence chose not to dispute Martin Tobin’s testimony, including that Chauvin’s assault would have killed a healthy person, with opposing evidence from another recognized authority in lung medicine. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2021/apr/08/derek-chauvin-trial-george-floyd-death-latest-updates?page=with:block-606f14928f087dc3964a332c

In every wealthy country, there are people who think their system is uniquely bad. We could be having exactly the same conversation on an Irish or British forum. So there’s really no point discussing one country in isolation and not much point comparing ourselves to the Yanks - nobody wants to copy their chaotic model. How do we rack up against peer nations, e.g. in Europe and Asia, and what criteria do they use to measure the same problem? BTW in some areas of medicine, poorer labs and hospitals have lower error rates because they don’t detect anything near all the errors. I think Canada has a bigger challenge with healthcare access than quality. Something like 20% of the patients in my province don’t have a family practitioner (FP). Within the existing system we need better integrated care focused on need, more family practitioners, and more nurse practitioners (and other professionals) who can take the load off FPs. There’s a good argument for more private care as well. People who can afford it should be able to pay an annual fee for their FP.