How nice that Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government wants to buy out seven private MRI and CT clinics across Ontario. Now for the big questions.

How much is it going to cost us and how will it improve public access to MRI and CT scans?

As a health ministry spokesman noted yesterday, these clinics aren’t like those in Alberta and Quebec where you can buy your way to the front of the line.

In Ontario that would be (and always has been) seen as a violation of the Canada Health Act.

The province doesn’t allow it. So what we really have here is an ideological move dressed up as a promise to improve the public’s access to health care, which it won’t.

McGuinty did promise in the last election to bring these clinics into the public fold. But to do it, he’s going to use the proceeds from a broken election promise, the one he made about not raising our taxes. Instead, he’ll use a portion of the billions he’s raising from that new health tax he imposed on us on July 1, to buy out these clinics.

Ironically, it was a previous Grit government that established the legal basis for these clinics in the first place.

As Conservative leadership contender John Tory noted yesterday, then premier David Peterson’s Liberal government passed the Independent Health Facilities Act in 1988. That allowed private clinics to provide X-rays, blood work, ultrasound, etc., paid for through OHIP.

The Tories simply added MRIs and CT scans to the list.

Now, the Liberals are going to buy out the MRI and CT clinics, but not the others. What’s the point? Again, these aren’t facilities where you can use your credit card to go to the front of the line. Their services are covered by OHIP.

McGuinty’s announcement will please those who believe, purely for ideological reasons, that all health care services should be provided by the public sector. But it will not increase or improve public access to the system.

Nor will it stop “the rich” from queue-jumping, because the province doesn’t allow them to queue-jump now.

As Tory MPP Frank Klees, who’s also running for the Conservative leadership, pointed out, it seems McGuinty’s first major investment in our health care system courtesy of his new health tax, will be to make a purely ideological point about health care — public good, private bad — without making it better. Indeed, since 30% of our health system is privately funded, McGuinty, using this logic, could blow all the cash he’s raising through his new health tax, without actually improving the health system at all. Scary.

This image is not animated.

I am a computer nerd with interests in art, philosophy, music, and world domination.

I am good at the things I do, and always try to make myself better. … Also, I don’t kick puppies.

I am attracted to all sorts of girls, and prefer intelligence and sense of humor over bust size. I want someone who is confident about the stuff she knows, and interested in the things she doesn’t. You should like words, science, and video games. But you shouldn’t be ugly either. Or male. Or a zombie dragon, powerful in life, unstoppable in death.

“These are actual registered sex offenders in the state of Georgia”

“Prettiest Eyes” … killed me. And I think you’d have a hard time

finding a guy who would mind being raped by Lauren Annette Summers.

Black People Love Us!

California State Education Secretary Richard Riordan found himself the subject of a planned protest and calls for his resignation after he jokingly told a child her name, Isis, meant “stupid dirty girl.”

Democratic state Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally was quoted thursday as saying the child was “a little African-American girl. Would he have done that to a white girl?” He then set about organizing a protest by civil rights organizations including the NAACP which was subsequently cancelled when they all realized that the little girl is white, with blonde hair.

Dymally’s office issued a statement Wednesday calling Riordan’s remarks “outrageous and irresponsible,” then issued another on Thursday saying, “To err is human; to forgive is divine.” He also claims, “Race is not a factor in this issue,” that Riordan had apologized a second time, and “It is time for us to move on.”

Oh, oh… he apologized twice. That was the magic number, was it? So had he only apologized once, the protest would have gone on as planned?

Adaptive Path’s Jesse James Garrett: Six Design Lessons From the Apple Store.

Maciej has a great description of his first experience with Poutine on Canada Day.

For those who don’t know, poutine is a combination of cheese curds, brown gravy, and french fries, invented forty years ago. The hot gravy melts the cheese curds, which consolidate with the fries to form a gooey mass that it is very difficult to photograph in a remotely appetizing way. Even in real life, poutine looks like a food that has already made several false starts through the digestive system. Whether for this reason, or because of its powerful ability to absorb and retain alcohol, it is frequently eaten after a heavy night’s drinking.

I was eating it sober, and under the watchful eye of a native (NEVER swim or eat poutine alone), so it was a great relief to find out that the stuff was delicious. The cheese curds did indeed melt and pull the dish together into one gooey mass, although the French fries stayed crispy enough to be individually discernible in the collective, giving the dish a pleasing light crunch. The brown gravy was turpid and dark, with a sturdy tannin structure supporting notes of oak, wood smoke, spice, aniseed and musk. There was the faintest hint of chocolate and raspberry in the finish, though that may have reflected a previous use of the serving dish. In the nose, the poutine was beefy and slightly insolent – I detected an almost wanton playfulness, the evanescent flavors frolicking together like young beavers in a Gaspé pond at dusk – but in the mouth it opened to reveal a velvety (or perhaps Velveeta-like) smoothness that tenaciously clung to every membrane in my mouth, esophagus, and stomach for the next three hours. Small wonder that food is renowned for its ability to enhance heavy drinking. The aftertaste was rich, dense, and interminable, returning to say hello at various times in the afternoon from its rock-hard, baseball-sized headquarters in my stomach.

50 Shekel’s in da house

Everyone needs a Trunk Monkey.