Time to teach deadbeat drivers a lesson

The headline in Thursday’s Telegram put it this way, “Deadbeat drivers owe millions in fines”.

Turns out that close to $30MILLION is owed by Newfoundland drivers, some of whom owe tens of thousands of dollars in fines with the current record holder owing nearly $50 thousand in fines.

It appears that the people who owe those huge amounts of money have as much regard for the system of fines and penalties as the apparent majority of drivers in St. Johns have for traffic regulations. I’ve written about it before but I routinely see drivers speeding through residential streets, completely ignoring stop signs and other highway signage, making illegal turns, not using signal lights, cutting-off other drivers, etc, etc.

Surely, in this day and age of such sophisticated computer technology, we should be able to nab the people who owe this money. There may be a few poor folk among them but the vast majority could afford to pay the fines; they simply choose not to. I used to work with a woman who was quite proud of the number of parking tickets she had thrown into her back seat. She never cared where she parked, often taking spaces reserved for disabled drivers. My rather simplistic solution for that would be to seize the car, auction it off and use the funds raised to help pay the fines.  The driver still would be responsible for any unpaid balance.

How much personal debt is too much?

The headline reads, “A Six Figure Family Day”. It would be nice if it were good news, but it’s not. The debt of most Canadians is increasing steadily while savings rates are way down. We could be headed for a crisis.

A new report from the Vanier Institute of the Family says the average Canadian family is dealing with $100,000 in debt and owes far more than it earns. The report suggest the debt-to-income ratio is a record 150 per cent. That means for every $1,000 in after-tax income that a Canadian family earns, it owes $1,500.

The Vanier Institute report, entitled "The Current State of Canadian Family Finances," shows Canada's average debt load crossed a "psychological barrier" when it reached the six-digit mark. Many families would have much higher debt loads than the average $100,000, and many families would have lower ones as well. The figure includes mortgages, student loans, credit card debts and lines of credit. The big problem is that with historically low interest rates expected to inevitably rise, many families could be headed for a precarious situation.

Just as the debt ratio has climbed, the savings rate has slid downward. In 1990, Canadian families managed to put away $8,000, a savings rate of 13.0%. In 2010, that savings rate was down to 4.2%, averaging $2,500 per household.

Katherine Scott, the Institute’s Director of Programs, says, “Even though standard economic indicators tell us the recession is technically over, the confidence Canadian families have in their economic and financial situation is shaky. As governments at all levels craft their budgets for the coming year and look at cutting programs to reduce their deficits, they need to be mindful that the state of Canadian family finances continues to be fragile in many households.”

In many ways, it is not surprising that other data compiled by the Institute suggests 17,400 households were behind in their mortgage payments by three or more months in 2010, up by 50 per cent since the recession began. Credit card delinquencies and bankruptcy rates also remain higher than before the recession.

Here in St. Johns with the artificially inflated housing prices due to the oil and gas boom, when the economic situation shifts, many families are going to be left with huge debt loads, especially for housing that will be worth far less than they paid for it. It’s becoming common now to hear stories from Alberta where homes that sold for $350,000 are now worth half that and young couples, especially, are stuck with mortgages that will mean they’re paying for the rest of their lives.

Diet pop linked to stroke risk

Even if you drink diet soda — instead of the sugar variety — you could still have a much higher risk of vascular events compared to those who don't drink soda, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2011.

In findings involving 2,564 people in the large, multi-ethnic Northern Manhattan Study (NOMAS), scientists said people who drank diet soda every day had a 61 percent higher risk of vascular events than those who reported no soda drinking. [Cerebral vascular accident = stroke]

"If our results are confirmed with future studies, then it would suggest that diet soda may not be the optimal substitute for sugar-sweetened beverages for protection against vascular outcomes," said Hannah Gardener, Sc.D., lead author and epidemiologist at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Miami, Fla.

In separate research using 2,657 participants also in the Manhattan study, scientists found that high salt intake, independent of the hypertension it causes, was linked to a dramatically increased risk of ischemic strokes (when a blood vessel blockage cuts off blood flow to the brain).

In the study, people who consumed more than 4,000 milligrams (mg) per day of sodium had more than double the risk of stroke compared to those consuming less than 1,500 mg per day.

At the start of both studies, researchers assessed diet by a food frequency questionnaire.

NOMAS is a collaboration of investigators at Columbia University in New York and Miami's Miller School of Medicine, launched in 1993 to examine stroke incidence and risk factors in a multi-ethnic urban population. A total of 3,298 participants over 40 years old (average age 69) were enrolled through 2001 and continue to be followed. Sixty-three percent were women, 21 percent were white, 24 percent black and 53 percent Hispanic.

In the soda study, researchers asked subjects at the outset to report how much and what kind of soda they drank. Based on the data, they grouped participants into seven consumption categories: no soda (meaning less than one soda of any kind per month); moderate regular soda only (between one per month and six per week), daily regular soda (at least one per day); moderate diet soda only; daily diet soda only; and two groups of people who drink both types: moderate diet and any regular, and daily diet with any regular.

During an average follow-up of 9.3 years, 559 vascular events occurred (including ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke, which is caused by rupture of a weakened blood vessel). Researchers accounted for participants' age, sex, race or ethnicity, smoking status, exercise, alcohol consumption and daily caloric intake. And even after researchers also accounted for patients' metabolic syndrome, peripheral vascular disease and heart disease history, the increased risk persisted at a rate 48 percent higher.

In the sodium research, 187 ischemic strokes were reported during 9.7 years of follow-up. Stroke risk, independent of hypertension, increased 16 percent for every 500 mg of sodium consumed a day, the scientists calculated. Those figures included adjustment for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, alcohol use, exercise, daily caloric intake, smoking status, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and previous heart disease.

Only a third of participants met the current U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans that recommend daily sodium intake fall below 2,300 mg, or about a teaspoon of salt, Gardener said. Only 12 percent of subjects met the American Heart Association's recommendations to consume less than 1,500 mg a day. Average intake was 3,031 milligrams.

"The take-home message is that high sodium intake is a risk factor for ischemic stroke among people with hypertension as well as among those without hypertension, underscoring the importance of limiting consumption of high sodium foods for stroke prevention," Gardener said.

Participants' reporting their dietary behavior is a key limitation of both studies, Gardener said.

In the soda study, investigators also lacked data on types of diet and regular drinks consumed, preventing analysis of whether variations among brands or changes over time in coloring and sweeteners might have played a role.

Contact: ASA News Media Office
karen.astle@heart.org
214-706-1396
American Heart Association
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-02/aha-dsm020311.php

Higher income means less empathy?

That appears to be the message from some medical students at Memorial University. They and their national student association, the Canadian Federation of Medical Students, say the federal government should come up with more money for medical students from rural and low-income parts of the country.

The reason?  Well, apparently students from the rural parts of Newfoundland will have more empathy for their fellow baymen than will higher income earning townie physicians.

A CBC report quotes MUN medical student Matthew Sheppard, now president of the national medical students association as saying, "Rural students are more likely to go back to practice in rural areas. Students from low-income backgrounds are able to treat patients from low-income backgrounds with more empathy than their more high-income counterparts."

So the less money you make as a doctor, the more empathetic you are? That certainly appears to be what Sheppard is saying. It’s a serious condemnation of many of the specialists who work at the Health Sciences Centre in St. Johns. It means that if a baymen comes in to get treated, he/she is likely to get less empathy from the high price tag doctors. Is the reverse true? Do they show more empathy for higher-income patients from here in town?  Wonder what the higher paid doctors think of that?  Wonder what the Dean of Medicine at MUN thinks of that?

Perhaps Sheppard should stop off at the Waterford to get his head examined and test his theory about less empathy from the higher paid doctors here in town.

Tories spend big to bash Ignatieff

Superbowl’s over and done for another year. Glad to see the Packers win. I’ve had a marginal interest in them for a bunch of years. Of more interest was this item in today’s Globe & Mail about some Canadian advertising during the game …

"Finally, what would be a hard-hitting sporting contest without some political content? The Harper Conservatives ran one of their anti-Ignatieff ads – “Michael Ignatieff, he didn’t come back for you” – about an hour or so into the Canadian broadcast of the Super Bowl, spurring many to wonder why a party that professes to be uninterested in an election would shell out for such prime ad placement."

Shell out indeed.

Let your imagination be stirred, not shaken

If you haven’t had a chance to check out the amazing photography work of fellow blogger Karen Chappell at Bitstop, then it’s something you should do. She has an extraordinary talent of turning the ordinary into something very special with a creative touch and a superb eye. She took some recent photos on a trip to Ottawa and posted those on her blog. As Ottawa was my home for a number of years, it brought back some wonderful memories of the sights and sounds of the national capital. Take a moment to visit her blog and let your visual imagination be stirred, not shaken! :-)

Perhaps they will, when they grow up

There’s an important debate going on at Carleton University in Ottawa concerning the freedom of expression in this Canada. A similar debate also has happened at the universities in Calgary, Victoria and Guelph but the one at Carleton has the potential to become a constitutional challenge issue.

The question is whether a Carleton student anti-abortion group has the right to be a part of the university’s student community in terms of holding public demonstrations and having club status within the student structure similar to political, religious, ethnic, and other special interest groups.

Carleton University's student association recently upheld a decision to withdraw funding from the campus anti-abortion club Carleton Lifeline and revoke its club status at a constitutional board hearing. That decision followed a public display by Carleton Lifeline members using images of bloody fetuses. The club's president and several of its members were arrested on trespassing charges during the October demonstration.

Carleton Lifeline was told its constitution conflicts with the Carleton student association's discrimination on campus policy. That policy reads: “any campaign, distribution, solicitation, lobbying effort, display, event etc. that seeks to limit or remove a woman's right to choose her options in the case of pregnancy will not be supported.” However, legal experts say that policy contradicts the Carleton student association's own governing bylaws.

Those bylaws outline one of the association's aims as “maintaining an academic and social environment free from prejudice, exploitation, abuse or violence on the basis of, but not limited to, sex, race, language, religion, age, national or social status, political affiliation or belief, sexual orientation or marital status.”

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

Section 2 of the Charter says this:
2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association.

The general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Nathalie Des Rosiers, says about the Carleton situation, “I think a freedom-of-expression issue would be raised. In my view, probably denying the right to a pro-life group to express themselves would not be acceptable.” Des Rosiers says that denying anti-abortion groups a voice in upholding policies is dangerous, because it sets an alarming precedent for future debates. “When they're approaching this issue, they should not diminish their responsibility toward ensuring that university campuses are places where ideas can circulate freely,” she said.

It’s disturbing to see university students attempting to shut off debate, either through denial of funding to a group such as Carleton Lifeline or outright refusal to permit a demonstration of the group’s message. It shows a serious lack of tolerance for another’s message. What would have happened, for example if the student association here at Memorial University had last week attempted to stop the demonstration in support of the civil unrest in Egypt? How long before any number of groups would be jumping all over the student association as dictatorial, biased, intolerant, etc? Why do we not hear a similar outcry about the attempt by anti-abortion groups to present their message? How about if it was a pro-euthanasia group?

The bottom line is that you either support freedom of expression or you don’t. You can’t cherry pick and still expect to be taken seriously as a supporter of individual freedoms. Because you don’t agree with someone’s moral position or values belief doesn’t make your opinion correct but that appears to be something that some unenlightened students at Carleton University, who are members of the student association executive, have yet to learn. Perhaps they will, when they grow up.

500,000,000 active Facebook users - yikes!

It seems like the world is obsessed with Facebook, and if reseach from Mashable is any indication, that obsession is actually quite real.  A few interesting facts:

• Over 70% of Internet users in the United States are on Facebook.
• Over 70% of people who use Facebook live outside of the United States.
• As of 2011, there are 500,000,000 active Facebook users, which is the same as saying 1 out of every 13 people on the planet are on Facebook.
• Half of those 500,000,000 active Facebook users are logged in on any given day.
• Nearly 1 out of 2 young Americans report that they learn about news on Facebook.

Campus Party - Las Vegas for techies

Want to spend a few minutes learning something about how the Internet is evolving and the potential for the future? Then Campus Party in São Paulo, Brazil is THE place to be.  Check out this video report on the BBC’s techie page, “Campus Party - Las Vegas for techies”  You can visit the official Campus Party website here

Seniors housing vs. prison

Fellow blogger Brian, over at "Nain Bay" shares a powerful reflection on senior housing that he found on another blog.  It's worth your while to check out "Sounds like justice to me!"

The treasure that is Egypt

Fascinating to watch the global political scene as civil unrest tears apart Egypt. Thousands of people are in the streets calling for an end to the 30-year reign of Hosni Mubarak whilst most world leaders seem to be sitting on their hands waiting to see which way the cards will fold.

The Canadian government statement was notable for its understatement, “[W]e continue to call on the Egyptian government to state its commitment to strengthening democracy, consultation, dialogue and cooperation. We urge the Egyptian government to accelerate the pace of democratic and economic reforms, and to listen to the aspirations of the Egyptian people.”

In the US capital, the Americans have been slightly more forthcoming – appearing to unceremoniously dump Mubarak after 30-years of billions of dollars of support through aid, but being very careful that they don’t open the door to the Muslim Brotherhood and a potential victory as Hamas won democratic legitimacy in Gaza and Hezbollah holds sway in Lebanon. Muslim extremism is rarely in the west’s best interests. Not since the Shah of Iran was dumped in 1979 have the Americans abandoned an ally so quickly.

For the Israelis, having another Muslim extremist government in the neighbourhood and especially in their backyard is worrisome news. The Israeli government is apparently holding non-stop meetings trying to figure out what will happen if the leader of its closest ally in the Arab world is suddenly thrown out of power. Especially if its replaced by a government that cares little about American money.

There seems a certain inevitability to that now, as there was in Tunisia. Michael Bell, a former Canadian ambassador to Egypt says Mubarak’s years in power may be his worst enemy, “The seemingly insoluble problem of poverty and unemployment, coupled with an increasing awareness among the middle class that pluralism in politics should be a basic right, has left him isolated from the people he rules. They are fatigued by his predictability, manipulation and ties to a corrupt business elite created by his policies.”

As we see more and more scenes of violence erupting in Egypt, we are reminded that breaking into democracy is seldom a neat and tidy process. My only hope is that everyone involved realizes the treasure that is Egypt and the treasures it holds.