SpankyMcFarland

I’m amazed Ukraine has managed to hang on this long against a former superpower. However, given that we know what happens to Ukrainians in territory taken by the Russians, we should support them as long as they want to fight for their freedom even though the odds are stacked against them.

There are 124 million of them. But it is a very poor country. In Britain there are stark regional differences of wealth across the country but nobody speaks of doing away with some of the provinces, aka non-sovereign countries, there. I suppose Canada’s size and newness make things feel more provisional. The way things are going the rest of us could end up in shanty towns around Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

A different set of skills was required in NL. I’ve never met so many people who are handy. Many build their own cabins from scratch and some of these places look like luxury houses. Planes too.

Sociology is a much derided line of work but it would be nice to know why so few Torontonians are being seen via the Internet by, say, doctors in Sudbury, ie, why are young doctors crowding into places that are both full of doctors already, a nightmare to drive around and highly expensive to live in? We’re not getting grown-up answers to these questions.

GPs, now called family practitioners, would point out that they are trained specialists themselves but the distinction persists in common speech. The issue is, why are they paid less than people with easier jobs? In my opinion, being a GP in a rural location is much tougher than running a dermatology clinic in a city from the call viewpoint alone and you’ll make a third of the income if you are lucky. We need to pay them a lot more if we want to attract them there. If not, we need to be honest about it and tell patients it’s going to be foreign doctors, nurse practitioners and zoom for them from now on. I am in NL.

Do you believe that’s an imminent risk in, say, France, Germany, Austria or Finland?

I don’t deny things are looking tough for Ukraine but it’s up to the citizens of that country to decide when they might negotiate with Putin and whether he, or indeed the West, can be trusted to honour any treaty.

We can be part of the Commonwealth and still be an independent republic. This rule changed in 1949 to accommodate India. There are many examples of it. The Irish Free State became Ireland in 1937 and, like many small nations in Europe, decided to stay neutral in WWII after the horrible carnage of WWI. In 1949 Ireland became the Republic of Ireland just before republics could remain members of the Commonwealth. Its neutrality is of far less concern than its very low military spending. WWI was a horrible, pointless slaughter with no good guys - the Russian Empire, the Belgian Empire? - and it’s time we got beyond the simplistic jingoism of In Flanders Fields to tell the truth about that. We would have been better off staying out of it.

When you write it like that, it looks mad, doesn’t it? At some point we will probably have a serious falling out with the UK. These things happen. Does anybody doubt whose side our head of state will be obliged to take under such circumstances?

When people, mostly doctors, say that nurse practitioners are a poor alternative, I have to ask, alternative to what? One quarter of people in my province have no GPs. The alternative to NPs for them is no care at all, ie, suffering, and possibly dying, quietly at home or braving the tedious chaos of the emergency rooms where they don’t belong. We have a third possibility called health hubs here which are a complete joke. I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that a larger private sector is needed in our health care system. For me, the opportunity to be able to access a nurse practitioner in my town is preferable to talking to some random medico by zoom or having a GP who is plotting to leave as soon as they arrive. At this stage I would be willing to pay for a local NP. In terms of reform on the public side, I would favour the Dutch model of compulsory insurance. How that would be reconciled with our provincial/federal ‘system’, Lord only knows. One issue we have been unwilling to explore: why are Canadian medical grads turning away from towns in favour of the large cities? This is not a simple economic matter because towns of my size are crying out for them in many regions. When I arrived in my town we must have had at least 10 Canadian GPs under 50. Now we have none. There is something going on there that the sociologists and psychologists should investigate. It won’t be easy - the replies given by physicians on this matter are misleading and I’m not sure physicians themselves know the answers. One possible and controversial issue is assortative mating. I’ll leave it for others to discuss. And a small hack for rural Canada - a one year program in dermatology for GPs. In Britain they have the Dip Derm for this purpose. We need it far more than they do. Many people in my province can’t travel to see the dermatologists who are all in one place now. GPs see all the skin conditions - pay a few of them to treat them.

The US and many other countries in the Americas have amply demonstrated that such patriotism doesn’t require an unelected foreigner as head of state. Our arrangement with Britain is out of date for many reasons.

Many stable democracies have elected heads of state to perform the duties of a monarch and get on perfectly well. In fact, more countries in Europe are parliamentary republics with a ceremonial president than anything else. We are close to that already with our GG as de facto head of state and a monarch who hasn’t turned up in well over a decade.

A second patient in the US has just received a pig kidney. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/24/new-jersey-woman-pig-kidney-transplant The patient was also a given a cardiac pump, and a thymus transplant to reduce the possibility of organ rejection. This kidney story could be very big news, who knows even for a reader of this forum. It’s possible that pig kidney transplants could become routine for kidney failure. The potential demand is colossal. And our first kidney recipient is said to be doing well although I wish there were more update about him. A recent kidney biopsy was apparently normal.

I was given a dog that had been aggressive to other dogs but I made sure she was properly controlled and didn’t harm any other animal. She lived to the age of 14. It can be done. Politicians are supposed to be exemplary problem solvers for crying out loud.

What liability? Plus it’s stupid to let a dog run loose with chickens. What sort of sociopath brags about killing their dog?

The Balfour Declaration in 1917 was a response primarily to Europe’s antagonism towards Jews and their desire to migrate westward, not least to Britain which Balfour himself blocked. You may want to consider editing that last post. There’s a whole lot about Pakistan when there didn’t need to be much, if any. BTW I am aware of atrocities committed by humans of every creed and colour.

But why did European Jews need a place like Palestine to flee to in the first place? I don’t think Muslims were involved there.

Hong Kong under Xi lacks error control. What company there is going to criticize how the place is run any more? Which gives Singapore a massive advantage.

Unfortunately, like many populists, Modi has a strong basis of support among Hindus esp. from the upper castes or those who like to think they’re from those castes. I have to listen to praise of this guy from my own in-laws. He’s a nasty bit of work but sadly a lot of India is cheering him on at the moment. Elections there have always been a murky affair with oodles of dodgy dealing going on. That regrettable aspect hasn’t changed much under the new man.

Russia and China are existential threats to the West, Russia in the short-term, China for much longer. Iran is not that kind of threat. It’s a local problem.

I know nothing about this topic. Based on my own ignorance, I’d like to suggest that politicians should not make major military purchases into political issues at election time. We civilians just don’t know enough to decide which helicopters, boats or fighter aircraft should be bought. The main thing is buy SOMETHING in a timely fashion, based on the collective expertise of our military, before the older equipment becomes useless and or dangerous.

China just made a big leap forward in the field of pig kidney to human transplantation. BTW they transplanted a pig liver too. https://www.wionews.com/science/doctors-in-china-successfully-transplant-pig-kidney-into-brain-dead-human-patient-709688

Agreed but our problems with military spending and a coherent long-term military policy precede this particular government by a fair few decades. It seems difficult to change this in a democracy unless we have an imminent military threat on our doorstep. At least Putin has managed to wake Europe up a bit.

Some of which belong to Newfoundland and Labrador… I’m glad I’m only a Come From Away when I think about the Churchill Falls deal as otherwise green slime would be shooting out of my head on a regular basis. If Hydro Quebec had negotiated something so inequitable and nakedly colonial with a developing country it would have been shamed into walking away decades ago.

Other countries have number crunchers too and let me assure you they are looking carefully at Canada’s sky high per capita production of greenhouse gases. The notion that we can hide our profligacy just because we are few in number and it’s cold up here is childishly naive.