Medical Tricorder

I got to use a device at lunch-hour today that had aspects of a medical tricorder, the near magical medical scanning devices used first by the fictional Dr. McCoy on the Starship Enterprise. This modern, non-invasive scanner can look at skin and detect signs of diabetes, giving the user an indication if they do or do not need further screening soon.

-Scout DS

I got a negative score of less than 50. Woo Hoo!

This continues my longstanding tradition of sharing my non-embarrassing medical test results on the Internet, so I don’t feel so bad when eventually Sask Health or a doctor loses/destroys them ;-)

Check out Aspen Medical Centre on Twitter. They have a new website too.
“www.leaderpost.com/health/story.html?id=7378570
Oct 12, 2012 – Aspen Medical Canada recently purchased the Allied Health Centre at the University of Regina.”

Holy Sit

Kids were getting chemical burns from a toilet seat (and probably desk, for a boy with burned elbows) at an Ottawa area school. Most likely the disinfectant was sprayed on but never properly wiped off and rinsed. One of my concerns with using publish washrooms that have just been cleaned, is chemical splash-back or toxic seats. Thanks Ottawa area school for perma-scaring these poor kids for life into avoiding public washrooms…

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The Pope quit. Holy Quit, as the Daily Show wrote last night. The jokes on Twitter were non-stop, totally unlike the Pope. He gave up his job for Lent, and then I saw three others make the same connection. The jokes were coming in so fast, that by the time you thought of one, someone else had used it five minutes ago. Welcome to comedy in the 21st century; it’s all been done, woo woo woo.

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Popes were no friend to science back in the day, and they still aren’t. So today it’s worth recognizing someone who was. It’s Darwin Day, to commemorate Charles Darwin’s birthday. Both Regina and Saskatchewan have formally recognized the day this year.

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It’s finally happened. Finally someone in the world has had their death attributed to their severe Coke habit. Coca-cola that is. 10L/day.

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F-35 JSF has always been a scam, and the Conservatives are attempting to blame the military for their mistakes.

Newspaper Comments Highlight Canadian Racism

The comments sections on some newspapers and online news sites can be infamously bad. The Calgary Herald’s commenters, many of them frequent enough to be “top commenters”, put on a despicable display today. Chief Spence ended her hunger strike, and was hospitalized as a precaution because she’s been without proper nutrition for six weeks. Obviously such a drastic diet, with the purpose of forcing an emotional outpouring of support for political ends, is not healthy.

Mike Neumeier · Top Commenter
Look at her, there’s no way she was on a liquid-only diet – stop lying already. I’m pretty sure I saw her pounding down 6 mama-burgers at A & W the other day.

Ah yes, fat jokes about the lady who has been starving the past six weeks. Starving because the Prime Minister is too prideful to grant even an hour for himself and the Governor General to meet in person with some First Nations leaders. Starving, because First Nations people across Canada tend to suffer and be murdered at higher rates than other Canadians, yet this is not deemed an emergency that needs immediate correcting, according to the Prime Minister. She was starving for justice, and you mock her.

At least one journalist at CTV realized that there are some stories where there is a clear morally just side, and another where people die needlessly*. Can the corporate media as a whole begin to extend this realization to the issue of racism also? It’s not like racism has ever killed millions of people before, but their imaginations need to be stretched (if they can’t recall any race based genocide).

I don’t know how these people listed below will feel later about their negative comments, but if I’d ever made a nasty comment about someone based on their appearance or their race, I’d feel ashamed. These people signed their names to racist, fat jokes, some while listing their employer. That either takes guts (minus a heart), or a heck of a lack of brains.

Ken Schmied · Top Commenter
Hopefully the poor dear will be able to quickly put on some weight. She looks emaciated.
Reply · 16 · Like · Follow Post · 22 hours ago

David Kolling · Telephony Analyst at Shaw Communications
I think we as canadian tax payers should pony up and pay to send her to a really nice spa for 3 or 4 months to help her heal. You’re right she looks awful. Hahahahaha.
Reply · 7 · Like · 17 hours ago
Ken Schmied · Top Commenter
Grand Valley would be a wonderful resort for her to spend 6 to 10 years with time off for good behavior.
Reply · 3 · Like · Edited · 17 hours ago
Alan Beaulieu · Top Commenter · Calgary, Alberta
Looks like she could have done a few pushups and situps while she was Idling.
Reply · 1 · Like · 2 hours ago

Tarred and Feathered

It’s one of those “I told you so” findings, as the toxic fingerprint of tarsand oil production is found in distant lakes supposedly unaffected by the decades of strip mining. Well, the oil companies and their shills would have had people believe there was no effect, that is. Environmentalists were listening to doctors and people in the region suffering from higher than average cancer rates.

“P. Timoney evaluated environmental contaminants in the area surrounding Fort Chipewyan. From 2001 to 2005, concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) rose within the sediment around Lake Athabasca. The report indicated that the treated drinking water in Fort Chipewyan was safe, but described high levels of arsenic, mercury and PAHs in fish, which is the main diet of many people in Fort Chipewyan, especially members of its Aboriginal communities. Dr. Timoney also quoted evidence from previous documents that there has been water contamination in the region since the 1960s, including evidence of oil spills and leaking. No evidence was available to determine how much of the measured chemicals were due to naturally occurring sources or how much resulted from human activity.

Now, years later, there is evidence further supporting claims by environmentalists.

The joint study between scientists at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., and Environment Canada looked at core samples from five lakes close to the oilsands mining and upgrading operations in Fort McMurray, Alta. They also studied samples from Namur Lake, 90 kilometres northwest.

The authors focused on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs. These are cancer-causing chemicals that are released when things are burned. They can occur naturally — from forest fires, volcanic activity and geological deposits — but burning petroleum in the production of the oilsands leaves a particular fingerprint, so the scientists were able to trace where the PAHs in the core samples came from.

So again, the reasons for winding down tar sand production, while ramping-up renewable energy technology use instead, becomes clear.

High School Isn’t What It Used To Be

Imagine the embarrassment of being a teenager again, except now your source of torment is not limited to forced school interaction with ruthless bullies, but now occurs at home and around the WWW too.

Sexual attitudes need to quickly change, and treatment of bullies needs to radically evolve if we’re to save kids like Amanda Todd from social torture and early deaths.

ADDED:

Two years ago a child at King George School committed suicide due to #bullying, from what I hear the kids are at it again #PrairieSouth—
Robert Thomas (@Rhino_Bob) January 09, 2013

Liar, Liar, Head’s On Fire

There’s an excellent animation of this sad situation regarding toxic fire retardants, in the video called “Story of Stuff”, which also explores the messed-up nature of our whole global economic system. It’s one of the decade’s must-watch videos.

We don’t want our heads to catch fire while we are sleeping, so our pillows have toxic flame retardants in them? What are we, fire-retarded? Turns out, yes, some of us are:

“A recent U.S. study found that children with higher levels of an older class of flame retardant chemicals called PBDEs, or polybrominated diphenyl ethers, showed lower IQs, shorter attention spans and weaker motor skills than those with lower levels.

Studies have found young children tend to harbour the highest levels of such chemicals since they tend to play on carpets and furniture, increasing their exposure. Some classes of toxic flame retardants, like many other chemicals, are also transferable through breast milk.

PBDEs and similar retardants are also linked to altered thyroid functions in pregnant women, as well as increased difficulty in conception.

The Canadian government has already banned two classes of PBDEs, but critics say that more action is needed. Environment Canada has announced it plans to ban a third class of PBDE by 2012, but legislation hasn’t been introduced.” – I added some emphasis in that quote from Marketplace. The chemical industry literally makes some of its customers less intelligent. Our children are forced to consume fire-retardant laced breastmilk, because of ineffective legislation, and greedy, manipulative corporations. I’d tell them to burn in Hell, but if they use enough of their product…

Honesty In Politics: Punished, With Good Reason?

If politicians don’t start being a little more brutally honest about some well established facts, and how they endanger life, then expect them to support laws that endanger us all. For instance, if our POS Environment Minister Peter Kent hadn’t made a habit of lying about the danger of climate change, then I wouldn’t be spilling all over his sudden, insincere reversal in stated thought.

“You don’t have to convince me that climate change is a very real and present danger and we need to address it. [...] We would ignore it at our peril.” — Peter “POS” Kent. So, thanks for imperiling us until this point, jerk.

The Conservatives’ climate killing carbon nonsense is being mocked in the House too. Yet people in positions of some power to do something about our deadly pollution problems get little support from media who’ve thrown their lot in with ignorance long ago and peddle it to consumers as an acceptable political position.

The simple fact is again and again the press have cared more about a good story than the truth and not cared who they hurt #tabloids—
Noel McGivern (@Good_Beard) November 28, 2012

Truthiness is a big, deadly problem:
“We just believe that the plastic bag has never been a problem for the environment.” [link added to make my point] That quote is from a literal Bag Man. ““We’re very happy,’ plastics industry spokesperson Joe Hruska told reporters.” Toronto City lawyers, afraid of being sued by the plastics industry, backed down and council buckled too. Instead of doing what was right, they did what seemed easy, to the detriment of our land, oceans, and our lives.

BONUS IMPERILMENT: For more brain cell killing stupidity from Canadian Conservative politicians, check this out: (http://www.fcpp.org/publication.php/4135 Senator Greene-Rain embarrasses herself)
“The “CO2 is carbon” mistake is a common misconception, and it unjustifiably encourages people to view this benign gas as dirty, which indeed it is not.”

Sherry of Wood Mountain

A well known Wood Mountain resident passed away recently after a long cancer illness. Sherry Mielke was a friend of my family, and it’s not going to be the same visiting my parents’ home. I grew up working with Sherry’s computer requests, and building computers for her and her family who lived just down the street. The town just won’t be the same, driving by her and Bill’s place and knowing she’s not there.

Condolences to her family, and gifts in honour of her can be made to: “Sask. Cancer Agency, gift to support Allan Blair Cancer Centre or Screening Program for Breast Cancer, 204 – 3775 Pasqua St., Regina, SK S4S 9Z9″

The Problem With Racists

Focus groups are good at focusing. If there is a strong racist voice in the group, they might start to focus on race.

When I heard the news this morning mention the Bank of Canada changed the image of a woman on the $100 because she wasn’t white-bread enough, I thought I must have missed something. I couldn’t understand what the point was. That’s because there isn’t a point. It’s pointless racism, plain and simple, and formalized by the Canadian bank.

(I also immediately pulled one of the $100 bills I keep from under my pillow {kidding}, and checked what the fuss was about. Turns out, the image on the bill had already been changed {not in the time between hearing the report, and looking under my pillow}.)

I’d actually looked at the $100 a few days ago, inspecting it closely for the first time. At no point did I think, “You know, I think that should/shouldn’t be an Asian woman on the back.” What I did think strange was that I couldn’t find a name of a single Canadian medical innovator on the bill, even though it says “Medical Innovation” and they have a bottle of insulin and a DNA structure on it. Not sure why DNA is there, although there are no doubt important Canadian innovations in that field, Watson and Crick were not Canadian. Banting and Best were. I was a little confused why they were not gathered at the microscope on the bill while their life saving, world changing innovation appeared in bottle form in the foreground.

I found someone suitable for a Bank of Canada focus group, on Twitter:

The one thing I always wondered was why do some chinese/asian looking people talk like they are regular White people !!??—
Keyko ♥ (@pocha_morose) August 17, 2012

ADDED:
I can imagine the process this debacle went through. Here’s a dramatization with thought bubbles for your amusement/horror:

Focus Group participant (in their inner voice): “I know I’m supposed to focus on this money, but all I can think about is Asian women. Holy crap, it’s because there’s an Asian-looking woman on the $100! Maybe that’s what the Bank wanted me to notice? I’d better say something.”

Bank of Canada group guide: “Our money isn’t supposed to make people think that only Asian Canadians know how to use microscopes to make medical innovations. We’d better use a race-neutral person, yet still female so as not to say that only men can make innovations, since we wouldn’t want to be sexist. There’s no race more neutral than white people, because white includes every colour, that’s a scientific fact. Scandal averted. Hooray for cultural sensitivity and political correctness! We didn’t offend Asian-looking Canadians by suggesting they have the capacity to be medical innovators and equal opportunity to appear on our money.”

Media: “OH RLY?”

Public: “Canadian Actress Sandra Oh should be representing medical innovation on our $100 note.” #GreysAnatomy

Me: *Head desk*

Crispy Kids

Years ago a friend asked me to drive them to the tanning salon. I was less than thrilled by this plan, but carried it out with much grumbling. It’s not much better than driving someone to the store so they can pick up cigarettes, and it bothers me.

Here’s a disturbing report about kids lying to pay to experience fake sunlight with dangerous UV radiation. An example case that could have turned out worse:

Kate Neale, 22, of Belleville, Ont., was diagnosed with melanoma in June 2011. She recalled the phone call she received from her doctor when her biopsy results came in.

“I dropped the phone and hung up on the doctor because I was in so much shock,” Neale said.

Kate Neale of Belleville, Ont., says she started using tanning beds when she was 16 years old, and tanned regularly for five years after graduating from high school. (CBC)

“I called my mom and I was hysterical and I said, ‘You need to call the doctor’s office because I can’t talk to them.’”

Neale said she started using tanning beds at the age of 16, against her parents’ wishes.

After graduating from high school, she worked in a tanning salon and tanned regularly for five years, she said.

Neale said she thought she knew all the facts about indoor tanning because she was trained on the topic.

“Now I see that I was brainwashed by the industry, but [at the time] I thought I was really well-trained,” she said.

“There was also a sense of guilt because I was tanning’s biggest advocate. I encouraged everybody — my family members, 16-year-old cousins — to tan.”

Neale said she is thankful her melanoma was caught early — she is cancer-free today — but the outcome can be very different for others.