Mataphysics...

There are three parts to "our" world. There is teh material universe, the genetic self and the abstract universe.

The material universe exists independent of ourselfs, it is the trees in the cambrian forest; i have no way of knowing they exist but i acknowledge that there is a world exest extrernal to self.

The genetic self is the only material reality that we may know directly, that exists both independent of self and as an extetion of self in the material universe. The mind knows all of the external world via the genetic self, it has no capacity to experience the material directly but only thoguht the mediatio of the genetic self (the flesh)

The Abstract universe is that which thought existes, and only thought. It is the solipsistic universe, the simulation in the machine. Like a simulation, if may seem real to the object running the program. Does the computer know the WarCraft is a game or is it reality to it. Optical regonition software approximate the idea of perserving sendoriy data from the opital organ (the hardware of the computer is the gentetic self) of a room (the materail universe) and seeing a room, a table, a world (the abstract univerve)

It is this the abstract mind that creates qualia. Even if we assume (and we can only do this, although with much confidence) there is a persitant substancance material world external to us and our experance, We all sence it thought our own unigue biologal organs, which will never give a complete duplicative redision. BUT even if we assume that what we experence is a duplicative one, our manifistation of that data in our abstract universe, the only on we KNOW, the experance of that data will be the unigue interpritation of our solipisitic world, created not by will but but the continual accumulation, interpitatotion, manipulation, deterioration and temporal existance. There is no absolute experance of Dog, everyone has a unique and particular abstract consept of dog, the product of there unique path though time and space.

So why is it possible people can communicate? if the abstract exist only in the mind, they how can anyone learn or transmit them?

The pains of private healthcare…pt1

I welcome the opportunity, if I may take it from Louise, to provide first the main reasons “trying” private health care, at least on the models currently proposed have/will not work. Then I will provide an alternative (not that I assume my ideas are the best, but they have yet to be tried…)

First there are three main aspects of private delivery health care. The US model, which most of us are aquatinted with, is composed of these fundamental parts: private health care providers (the doctors et all) using private healthcare facilities (Hospitals and the like) paid by private healthcare users (you and me sooner or later). This model has been tired (i.e. the US) and the Americans are desperately trying to change their system and adopt ours. If you are wealthy in the US, their system works but beyond the top 10% the system begins to fail. The idea that one illness, pregnancy, or injury has the potential of stripping you of your house and saving is one that faces most Americans every day…and you would want that to be tried here? There is also the secondary issue; let say you have insurance and you are feeling ill. Do you go to the doctor or wait hoping it will go away on its own? If you go to the doctor a claim is made on your insurance; such claim will cause an increase (often extreme increase of 100-400%) of your premiums eventually driving insurance beyond your grasp. So, you want to ration your visits, only go when it is absolutely necessary…but your not a doctor, how do you know when you need to go so often when your body forces a visit the condition is far worse, costing more money (something for profit healthcare likes). The fundamental problem with this system is the primary goal of all concerned is not health but money.

I will continue this in a future post where I will discuss the individual problems of Private Providers (Self-employed doctors et all, pharmaceutical companies), private facilities (for profit hospitals and the like), private management (non-profit hospitals run by for profit companies) and private funding (User fees, private insurance, government funding, and the variations)

I will them provide (as requested) a solution to the “problem” of our current healthcare system.

A stink about Maple Leaf Foods???

When I read the article on the CBC website Maple Leaf ends Chinese worker program over job fees I must confess to having mixed feeling. It brings up several important issues. One, the element from which the others spawn, in why, with an unemployment rate of ~4.5% do we need to “import” labour? They employees in question are apparently paid at least $15/hr. With a minimum wage of only $7.60, it would seem to be a finically lucrative. From what I know from my contacts in Brandon, the work is steady and full time. There is not the problem you get at places such as Wal-Mart (and the like) where no one gets enough hours to constitute a “full-time” job. I am also under the impression that job security is good. It well paid, steady work so we must ask ourselves why do “Canadians” not want to work at Maple Leaf Foods’ pork processing plant in Brandon, Manitoba?

Well there is more to work than the money. I have lived in Brandon a great many years and can attest that although it is by all accounts a small city (large town) is has no slums…no rampant crime…it is a very typical place to live. So location is not a detriment. Even if we assumed that the people of Brandon were very xenophobic, it would not explain why they would not accept their “own” people (i.e. they are more likely to accept other Canadians or Manitobans than imported labour). So, it’s not the money, it’s not the locations, it’s not the people…what about the working conditions? Well, I have done some cursory research into the matter, and although there are many environmental problems regard to the farming of hogs and many concerns over the monopolistic tendencies of the company, I find no issues with working at the plant. Some one could correct me on this, I believe the repetitive nature of the work, the handling of dangerous tools and extended working periods would make for a bad job site, none seem to have raised the issue in a vocal manner.

So we are left with the mystery as to why Maple Leaf Foods needs to import workers, I can not say. But I did notice on thing in the research, I found that a study done as part of the social impart of the plant, done between September 1999 and November 1999 (based on employment numbers compared to those reported in the analysis). In this survey it makes the claim that 73% of the employees were local to Brandon and region and that only 1 employee claims to have moved to Brandon to work in the plant.

Later it mentions these “Quick Maple Leaf Foods Brandon facility facts”
• 1300+ employees
• Approximately 44% of the current Maple Leaf Foods Brandon employees are foreign workers (95% historical retention rate for foreign workers).
• Approximately 25% of the current Maple Leaf Foods Brandon employees are aboriginal workers.
• Based on known demographics for current foreign workers, we anticipate the arrival of approximately 1400 foreign family members in the next 24 months as applications for landed immigrant status are approved.

From this we get that approximately 572 employees are foreign (the studies that lead to the approval of the plant seems a bit off on this) of which they expect that (historically) that can hope to retain 540 or so. Meaning they will need 30 or even let say 100 replacements. But if they expect 1400 new immigrant works in the next 24 months they either plan to double the size of the plant (which they can not having reached a hog production limit that has forced them to reduce the hours of plant operation) or that the next 1400 employees will have a retention rate of 7% (a little less than the “historic” rate).
I guess my point is that things do not add up. There is a bad small to the operation and I suspect the workers are the ones who suffer. What if the word?

An election in the wind…

Well, it started with the election of Dion, then the timely departure from provincial politics of former Premier Bernard Lord, and now the inevitable pre-election cabinet shuffle. I think that historically small “C” conservatives are more likely to vote and therefore cold weather favours the Conservative Party. Add to these signs, we have the apparent manoeuvring of Harper of stroking the Quebec vote. The last election showed that the Conservatives, at present, have reached their high-water mark in Ontario, so the area Harper is looking at for grow will not be at the expense of the Liberals but the Bloc. The Bloc has also reached a turning point. After the extension of life given it by the Sponsorship scandal, the Bloc see its end, and so does Harper. Harper, though, has to walk a fine line between sucking up to the Quebecquer yet not alienate their western (anti-east) base. A tight rope he does not want to walk long.

Sooooo, with all this being said, it seem to be that I would be surprised if there was not an election call prior to the end of February. The only thing preventing an election in the next couple of months is a concerted effort by the opposition to keep Harper in power. Politics makes for stranger comedy than any stand-up routine. An election late in February (more likely early March) will bring a Liberal Minority Government with the NDP provided majority. It will mark the end of Layton and the current NDP who will be need to do for the left, what the Reform Party did for the right. The Bloc will be decimated with Liberals picking up most of the seats. Harper will keep power and run in the next election although he will have to wait several years (at least 3) before the opportunity to take the reigns of power will come again.

My predictions are out there, let see what history brings.

The slipper slope to genocide…

Well, according to the latest pundency, my assessment of Saddam’s execution was correct. None believe it was planned by the government, not even Fox News. There are some who thing that if the Bush administration says something, it must be the inverse of the truth, so when the Administration said it had no warning about the the plans and nothing to do with them, you can almost be certain that the opposite is true. By this logic, Bush new about it and had something to do in its timing.
Another line, and one I think is more likely now, is that it was a power play by Muqtada al-Sadr. Having hear that the Prime Minister Maliki wanted to resign his post, and the way the sectarians of the timing of the execution, it makes it far more likely that Iraq is continuing to polarize which may inevitably arrive at its logical genocidal conclusion. History has an interesting pattern that no matter how bad things are, if left to fester things will always get worse. There is no 12step program for national insanity and I fear I must say that ;for the first time since the start of this farce call “the state of Iraq” (it was called a republic until the Americans annexed it and turned it into a state, literally);.I believe that Iraq will descend into genocidal violence akin to what plagues British India and its partition at independence. Well, it’s good to be Canada…and more to the point NOT to be in Iraq (my hopes and condolences to those not so lucky)

Not like a blast but with a whimper...

Well, I should start the year on something more up, but life is what life is.

The other day Saddam Hussein was executed by those who feared and hated him, the most. Many have predicted a great up rising over the death but I think that will not be true. Saddam lost any true influence when he abandoned Baghdad in the face of US troops. He did not need to defend Baghdad, he had set the stage for history to remember him as not the vicious dictator he was but as the brave Muslim who stood up to the “great devil” and became a martyr. The fact this does not represent current realty will me little in the future when, I fear, he will become a rallying point for future offensives against the “the west”. History has a strange way of mutating what happened, and I think people now greatly underestimate Saddam’s intention and ability to cast his image to the future. I hope he fails, but time will tell.

ON a separate but related note, I find the timing of the execution to be interesting. The confusion and lack of information leads, inevitably, to theory and talk of conspiracy. I see three likely scenarios.

1) The Iraq Government, wanting to avoid riots and other interruptions planned the chaos as a way to ensure the events when off with out a hitch. I think this unlikely because, judging from the video, it was not a well planned, choreographed or secrete event.

2) The cleric Muqtada al-Sadr militia, trying to take as much control away for the “American” created Iraqi Government, just got tired of waiting, They grabbed, by force, Saddam and took him to the gallows. This was to satisfy their need for revenge, show the weakness of the “Americans” and strengthen the clerics hand in Iraq. Some might say it is unlikely the American forces could be forces to give up Saddam, but if we remember that in mid 2006, they were forced to abandon the search for a lost marine because this same militia did not want the American on their turf. I think this not obvious, because since the hanging there has not been any power move by the cleric to capture a bigger stage, but it is still more likely than the option 1.

3) Some may have missed it in the news, the just prior to event, the Bush team was meeting in Crawford to discuss Iraq and want should happen next. Bush ended the meeting on the 28ths, the next day by 10pm (6am the 30th in Iraq) he was dead. There is a history of miss reading events and rash actions. I find it easy to believe that Bush, and team, believe the problems in Iraq were not caused by a failure of the Bush administration, but really was has all been masterminded (or at least inspired) by Saddam. We all watch the movies; we know being in jail does not stop “evil doers”. I can picture the scene were people are arguing what to do and then a load voice, Bush, is heard, “let kill the Fucker! Why is he still around, I say we call Al and tell him the waiting is over, I want the SOB in the ground before the end of the year.” a rounding roar of cheers, and a call is made and a rushed execution is put into motion. I think this most likely because it is the main cause for the war (I do not think it was oil, not for Bush). He saw Saddam as an affront to his family honour and wanted him dead at any cost. It would also play well in the up coming primaries to say that Saddam was “removed” LAST year. To a media blitzed un-informed electorate, “Last” makes it seem like ancient history, and by the time it election time, Saddam will be a distant memory and the democrats will be blamed for all.

Life is a funny thing; you can’t fast forward it to see if you are right or not. So I quess we will have to travel the river of time and see what we find.