September 12, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

This blog entry is about abuse and neglect of the elderly by relatives and, perhaps even more importantly, elderly abuse — often fatal — by governments.

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’

– Ronald Reagan

In connection with the topic of this entry, there is an equally hard-hitting reality:

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have an ungrateful child.

— King Lear. Shakespeare

Be careful that things such as those reported in the following article will not happen to you.

The Abuse of Grandma B – How Corrupt Officials are plundering the Assets of the Elderly

The Abuse of Grandma B – a sad story told by Peter Hofschröer

Grandma B is now 82 years old. She is wheelchair-bound and very frail. The past three years of her life have been horrendous. She lost her husband of 60 years, but that was the easy part. She has also been the victim of sustained and systematic abuse in which she has been defrauded of her house, subjected to threats and harassment because she will not hand over her life savings to her abusers, then unlawfully evicted from her house and stranded abroad, with her abusers trying, fortunately unsuccessfully, to fraudulently sell her house.

You may well ask who would do such an awful thing to a little, old lady in a wheelchair. Sadly, most abuse takes place within the family and this is very much the case here. The main abusers are Grandma B’s older son, his wife and her two adult grandchildren. (More)

The article chronicles the abuse and defrauding of Grandma B by one of her sons, his wife and some adult grandchildren, but that is not the least of the story.  The son and his children are conspiring with the governments to defraud Grandma B of her assets, and avariety of government departments and agencies have become willing and eager accomplices in a whole slew of crimes directed agaist Grandma B.

Sadly the abuse of Grandma B is not an isolated incident.  It is endemic in many nations.

About 20 years ago, the administrator of hospital in Alberta, who used to stop by at our place on the way home from from work, told me: “Walter, today I found 30 healthy people in the hospital.” He waited for a reaction, and I said, “Well, that should not be out of the ordinary. After all, the purpose of a hospital is to produce healthy people.”

He responded, “Yes, and then those healthy people should be send back home, but in this case some of them have been residing as healthy people, in the hospital, for years, while the hospital earned $1,500 a day for each of them.”

How is something like that possible or even justified? Why would those people wish to reside in a hospital, even though they were healthy? Our neighbour explained that in every case the relatives of those healthy “patients”, who at one time had legitimate reasons for being in the hospital, found that, when they wished to go home, there was no home for them to go back to. Their relatives had finagled to sell their homes and assets during those people’s convalescence in the hospital.

Our neighbour eventually managed to find more suitable accommodation for those 30 defrauded people, but he agreed that such abuse of the elderly is endemic.

You may wonder what happens in a hospital that needs the beds occupied by healthy “patients” when the demand for hospital services exceeds the supply, such as when the government implement cost-saving measures that involves cuts in health-care funding.

Some years ago the circumstances surrounding that issue in the largest hospital district in London, England, attracted considerable media attention. The complaints were that elderly people would enter hospital with minor complaints, such as an arthritic knee, and leave in short order in a pine box, the consequence of the solution to the problem: “Sedate, withhold food and liquids.”

In an interview by the media, the hospital administrators response was: “What do you expect us to do? We need the beds.”

Although euthanasia of the elderly is illegal in England, it is alive and well there.

You may think that the problem does not occur where you live, but consider this situation.

“Each year, an estimated 10,000 patients die in Canadian hospitals as a result of staff errors, while a further 20,000 die from “nonpreventable adverse events,” such as hospital infections and unexpected drug complications. Some research indicates that another 20,000, give or take, may die of unforeseen or preventable causes while under care outside hospitals.

These staggering figures are extrapolated from data collected in the United States, Britain and Australia, but are widely accepted as reasonable approximations. In 1999 the U.S. Institute of Medicine estimated that up to 98,000 Americans a year die in hospital due to medical errors, and another million are injured. A 2000 study found that adverse events cause patient harm in ten percent of hospital admissions in Britain, amounting to 850,000 times a year.” –Tragedy of Errors, Reader’s Digest, Canadian Edition, Dec. 2003, p. 76 (Originally published Dec.30, 2002 in MacLean’s)

In case you have trouble doing the addition of the numbers, that adds up to about 50,000 fatalities a year that are caused by the Canadian health care system. Obviously, the situation in the U.S. is very similar.If you are concerned, as eventually you too will be at risk (if you are not already), there is more about all of the here: “Neglected to Death”.

Posted in Health issues | Print | No Comments »

September 11, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

Do you have tinnitus or any hearing impairment? This is an interesting discussion on hearing aids and HA-related issues that you must read.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/10/a-note-about-hearing-technology/

About tinnitus (ringing in the ear), with which I am afflicted, in a reply to one of the comments that mentioned tinnitus, Anthony Watts points to a remedy that may help. I have not tried it yet, but I will, because my problem with tinnitus is gradually becoming worse. It has begun to impair my ability to hear well.

You may wish to check out the link identified by Anthony Watts, if for no other reason than to find out what tinnitus is, what causes it and to listen to what it sounds like. The “High Frequency Buzzing” sound track at that web page sounds exactly like the tinnitus that bothers me. Take a look at this: http://www.quietrelief.com/

“Tinnitus is common; about one in five people between 55 and 65 years old report symptoms on a general health questionnaire, and 11.8% on more detailed tinnitus-specific questionnaires.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus

Posted in Health issues | Print | No Comments »

March 15, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

Do you fear serious health problems due to being exposed to radiation from the Japanese nuclear plants?

You are not alone.  There is now a run on potassium-iodate in the land of the fearful and many pharmacies have run out of it.  What is that hysteria all about?

There is little to fear.  The situation in Japan is a far cry from being as harmful as other nuclear accidents were, and the dangers from those, too, were blown out of all proportions.  Here is a very informative account of that:

From the Summer 2010 Issue
of 21st Century of Science and Technology

Observations on Chernobyl after 25 Years of Radiophobia
Zbigniew Jaworowski, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc.

The worst possible nuclear plant accident produced no scientifically confirmed fatalities in the general population. But there was enormous political and psychological damage, mainly the result of belief in the lie that any amount of radiation is bad.

Here is another item that will do much to allay hysterics, specifically with respect to the nuclear energy plant in Fukushima, that presently and increasingly raise fears of nuclear-energy-induced radiation impacts to heights that have not been seen since the tidal wave of fear about the consequences of the Chernobyl incident was set into motion.

Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors. | Morgsatlarge – blogorific.

There exists a copy of this post on Barry Brooks excellent blog, where you can still use the discussion function: http://bravenewclimate.com

Last but not least, see this:

MIT NSE Nuclear Information Hub

Information about the incident at the Fukushima Nuclear Plants in Japan hosted by http://web.mit.edu/nse/ :: Maintained by the students of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT

It is extremely difficult not to become influenced by the fear mongering promulgated by the media. The sad reality is that “The News” are vehicles by which to bring advertising to the people.  One must make a deliberate effort to avoid becoming influenced by the media.  After all, their primary purpose for existence is to influence people and thereby to make a profit.  The media employ professionals schooled and trained in influencing people, all for the sake of profit.

The best news of all to accomplish that with are bad news, better yet, alarming news, and, if the news are not bad enough to achieve that with, then news that have been invented or have been made alarming when they were not and should not have been presented as alarming news in the first place will do better than all others.  “Dog bites man” is not news, “Man bites dog!!” is.

Randolph Hurst was someone who had the reputation of being ruthless in inventing and presenting alarming news for boosting the circulation of his newspapers.  I believe that it was he who once said: “There is no such thing as bad News,” meaning that, for the purpose of increasing circulation, the more alarming the news are, the better, because the greater the circulation numbers, the larger the advertising revenues.

Newspapers derive the vast majority of their revenues from advertising.  The prices charged for copies of their newspapers pay for nothing more than just the paper they are printed on and perhaps putting them into circulation.  The reporting, the editorializing, the writing, the composing, the typesetting, the wages and salaries of their staff, and all of the capital and operating expenses of newspapers are paid through advertising revenues.

Of course, very similar considerations apply to other branches of the media, such as broadcasting.

Increasing the circulation (or the size of a listening or viewing audience) increases the advertising revenues.

I believe that the recognition of that reality is one of the most important things any activists should engage themselves in.

There is an enormous media bias regarding feminism and men’s issues.  I admired many of the human rights activists whom I met throughout my life for being fully aware of that.

Now get this.  That bias in the media is not driven by an evil conspiracy.  It is driven by greed for media profits.  It just so happens that some ideological opportunists exploit the greed of the media for their own purposes.

That happens not only with respect to vilifying men and fathers for the purpose of creating and enlarging a rift between the sexes and to aid the systematic deconstruction of the traditional nuclear family.  The same principle creates opportunities for other fanatical ideologists or pain alarmists such as those who wish to promote their agenda for world domination or perhaps nothing more than their greed for power and wealth by creating unfounded fears about specific environmental issues.

One little aspect of the manufacturing of fears for profit is the creation and intensification of fears regarding nuclear energy.  Accidents such as those at Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima are god-sends for environmental-alarmism opportunists and carpetbaggers.

__________
Note: Dr. Jaworowski’s report on radiophobia may seem at first to be difficult reading, but get into it and become fascinated.

By understanding what Dr. Jaworowski stated about radiophobia and in reading his explanation of how it was created and exploited in connection with Chernobyl you may be making the most important contribution you could ever have imagined to becoming enlightened in your career as a human rights activist.

There is no shame in being duped once…

Posted in Alarmist Insanity, Propaganda debunked, Health issues, Alternative Energy Sources, Pollution: Health Issues, Explosions & Fires, Emission Incidents & Issues | Print | No Comments »

March 5, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

Thanks to John Droz, an interesting read from Wind Turbine Syndrome News:

“Infrasound: The hidden annoyance of Industrial Wind Turbines” (France)

—Professor Claude Renard (retired)
Naval College & Military School of the Fleet (France)

Posted in Health issues, Alternative Energy Sources | Print | No Comments »

February 21, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

Thanks to icecap.us:

Environmentalist fraud and manslaughter

In the name of banning DDT, GEF bureaucrats are consigning millions to death from malaria

Paul Driessen, 2011 o2 21

Many chemotherapy drugs for treating cancer have highly unpleasant side effects – hair loss, vomiting, intense joint pain, liver damage and fetal defects, to name just a few. But anyone trying to ban the drugs would be tarred, feathered and run out of town. And rightly so.

The drugs’ benefits vastly outweigh their risks. They save lives. We need to use chemo drugs carefully, but we need to use them.

The same commonsense reasoning should apply to the Third World equivalent of chemotherapy drugs: DDT and other insecticides to combat malaria. Up to half a billion people are infected annually by this vicious disease, nearly a million die, countless survivors are left with permanent brain damage, and 90% of this carnage is in sub-Saharan Africa, the most impoverished region on Earth.

These chemicals don’t cure malaria – they prevent it. Used properly, they are effective, and safe. DDT is particularly important. Sprayed once or twice a year on the inside walls of homes, DDT keeps 80% of mosquitoes from entering, irritates those that do enter, so they leave without biting, and kills any that land. No other chemical, at any price, can do this.

Full Story (27kB PDF file)

It has been estimated that more than 500 construction workers (not counting their wives and children) died of malaria during the construction of the Rideau Canal in Canada, in the early 1800s, long before the end of the Little Ice Age.

During the construction of the Rideau Canal, a temperate form of malaria, P. Vivax, was present. This was the form indigenous to southern Ontario at the time. It has two cycles, the normal short (weeks) malaria cycle and a much longer cycle where it would spend nine months or longer incubating in the liver of a human. This longer cycle allowed it to survive the harsh Canadian winter by staying inside a human until the mosquitoes were out and biting again. P. Vivax has a very low mortality rate (essentially 0%) since it infects far fewer red blood cells than other forms of malaria. One explanation for the 2 to 4% mortality rate on the Rideau is that those who died were either suffering from other illnesses of the day, or had health issues such as dysentery, and that getting infected with P.Vivax was the last straw. An alternate, but perhaps less likely explanation, is that P. falciparum, a more virulent tropical malaria, was also present. P. falciparum, introduced into the U.S. with the African slave trade, doesn’t have the ability to over-winter in Canada, so, if it was present, it must have been re-introduced each year. (From Shakespeare to Defoe: Malaria in England in the Little Ice Age, Paul Reiter, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, San Juan, Puerto Rico, http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol6no1/pdf/reiter.pdf (2000 01 20, 792 kB))

The extent to which environment- and DDT fanatics lack good and valid information and perspectives on such issues is illustrated by the current media debate on the “pesticide” ban in many Canadian cities that is now being considered for Edmonton.  Let’s be clear on that what is being discussed under the “pesticide” designation is weed-control in lawns and parks.

Well, for all who discuss banning the use of pesticides for weed control, you should get your facts straight.

A pesticide is used to control or kill pesky insects, so that is what you would use to keep mosquitoes at bay or kill head lice.  There is also a definition of pesticide for English-learners, in case there is confusion about what constitutes a pest.  That definition states that a pesticide is “a chemical that is used to kill animals or insects that damage plants or crops.”  It is odd that a formidable source of information such as Merriam Webster does not identify that pesticides are used to kill insects that pester or kill humans.

Nevertheless, if you want to make sure that you chemically kill the dandelions or thistles in a lawn, you must use a herbicide, but be careful that you pick the right one for the job.  Some herbicides kill grass, too.

People who don’t know the difference between pesticide and herbicide lack the necessary qualifications for discussing the merits of either.

Posted in Gardening, Propaganda debunked, Alarmist Insanity, Health issues | Print | 3 Comments »

February 19, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

You may be interested in this.

Doctor Warns: Eat This and You’ll Look 5 Years Older

Posted By Dr. Mercola | February 19 2011 | 177,620 views

We raised sheep for quite a few years.

Like all sheep growers, we had problems with orphan lambs.  I won’t go into the reasons why and what the causes of that were.  Problems with orphan lambs are common to all sheep operations.

We had dealings with a Hutterite colony, who came to us for culled ewes to introduce a bit of variety into the diet of the people on their colony.  The head-man of the colony told me that they had once raised sheep, too.  He asked me what we did about orphan lambs and the milk-replacer we needed to raise them.

I told him that we used a commercial soy-bean preparation (at a cost of about $45 a lamb that we brought to market).  He asked how that worked out for us.  I told him, and he advised that we use goats to produce the milk we needed for for our orphan lambs.

We never had had good luck with using that commercial milk replacer, even though the brand we bought seemed to be the one with the fewest problems of all that we had used.  The lambs did not do well on that milk replacer, and the mortality rate was unacceptably high.  The lambs on milk replacer that survived did not thrive and were always the last of any lamb crop we sold.

We bought a few goats, started milking them, used fresh goats milk and, when necessary, froze excess milk, thawed frozen goats milk to feed our orphan lambs and made cheese from the rest.  Our problems were over.  All lambs whom we fed that milk did very well, with no adverse health effects.

So much for that, but ever since then I kept my eyes open for any news on nutrition involving soy-beans.  There is quite a bit on unhealthy side effects caused by soy-beans.  An example of that is what Dr. Mercola presents at the web page identified in the beginning of this message (don’t neglect to watch the video).

Another example that I came across a few years ago is this:

Soy Can Lead to Kidney Stones, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, September 2001

Full Story

Keep in mind that no information is being presented by Dr. Mercola that proves that it is genetically modified soy-beans or corn that cause problems.  All he produced are assertions.  Although those may be correct, he produced very little evidence that could be used to lay the blame on genetically modified foods.  Most definitely, he produced no evidence that shows how control-groups did on feed derived from foods that came from sources not genetically modified.

However, the information in the article in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry and what we found with the milk replacer shows that soy-bean-derived foods can be bad.  Moreover, I distinctly recall that, when reading about animal nutrition in the early 1970s (when no genetically modified foods were yet available), feed corn was bad as an animal feed, especially for hogs, when it was not mixed with other plant proteins.  The reason for that is that corn protein lacks an important amino acid, lysine.  Every animal nutritionist should know about that.  Any livestock producer in the business of making money knows about it and formulates the feed rations he feeds to his animals accordingly.

The problems that Dr. Mercola’s video reports on and that those hog producers experienced are in my opinion caused not necessarily by genetically modified feed-corn but could have been caused by the lack of lysine in the hog rations that had been used.

Thought you needed to know, but the most important aspect of the issue with tofu is this:

If you wish to eat well without exposing yourself to the risks posed by soy-based food products, it may be wise to make use of the advice offered in the following.

Cartoon from townhall.com

Enjoy, Walter

Posted in Health issues | Print | No Comments »

January 24, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

It is a few months off yet, but the annual spring-time increase in smell from our sewage lagoon is certain to occur in May or June.

The smell need not to happen.  There is a simple solution that will keep the smell down to tolerable levels and make it virtually unnoticeable.

The solution is not very expensive, much cheaper than, say, the price of a new fire hall.  It has been brought to the attention of Town Council and individual members of Town Council a few times over the years, but no reaction or response has ever come forth from any member of the Town Council or from anyone in the Town Office.

To be fair, upon being asked about the limits of our sewage lagoon, there have been statements from the Town Office that our sewage lagoon is capable of digesting the additional load that the anticipated and hoped-for growth of the Bruderheim population without ill effects on the health and quality of life for the people living in Bruderheim.  Yet,  the offensive smell given off by our sewage lagoon when the water in our sewage lagoon turns over in the spring is often so bad that it becomes noticeable, often to the point of becoming intolerable, even inside the homes of Bruderheim residents.  The smell is likely to become worse as the years go by, unless something is done about it.

Bruderheim is not the first community in the world or even in Canada plagued by smells given off by a community’s sewage lagoon.  The science of effective waste-water management and treatment is well-established.

You may wish to consider the following search results, bring them to the attention of the Town Councillors and inform them that you wish them to use a small portion of our tax dollars to solve the problem with the offensive and increasingly objectionable smell of our sewage lagoon, before it becomes a serious and possibly deadly health issue.

“hydrogen sulphide” lagoon aeration - Google Search

The first ten of 786 items on the search-return list:

1. Norway House Cree Nation - Departments

“9 Mar 2010 … Hydrogen sulphide, which has a rotten egg odour, is formed in wastewaters that become [an]aerobic. Aerated Lagoon: A holding pond usually …”
www.nhcn.ca/publicworks.html

2. Quality Pond Aeration

“Quality Pond Aeration. Windmill Aeration is a simple, natural solution to … bad due to gasses (like hydrogen sulphide) that are released into your pond. …”
www3.sympatico.ca/wind.mill/

3. Dugout or Pond Aeration

“Superior Windmill aerators are perfect for dugout or pond aeration. … aeration removes the foul smelling hydrogen sulphide gas odor and prevents anoxia …”
www.superiorwindmill.com/promo/dugout_pond_aeration.html

4. Fisheries :: Home

“Frequent exchange of water can prevent building up of hydrogen sulphide. … Aeration and increasing the pH of water by hydrated lime (calcium hydroxide) …”
agritech.tnau.ac.in/fishery/fish_water.html

5. Fisheries :: Home

“Aeration and water circulation are beneficial in improving bottom soil …”
agritech.tnau.ac.in/fishery/fish_soil.html

6. Bio-Aeration Engineering, Inc. - Anaerobic Digestion

“Bio-Aeration Engineering, Inc. is an environmental company located in Evansville, Indiana. We specialize in the treatment of wastewater in lagoons, …”
www.bioaeration.com/anaerobic_digestion.html

7. Natural Pond Aeration Facts - CLEAN-FLO

“Clean-Flo.com specializes in pond aeration systems which are a natural, … in the water including hydrogen sulphide, ammonia, carbon dioxide, and methane. …”
www.clean-flo.com/articles/natural-pond-aeration-facts/

8. Sewage treatment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“… 2) equipment corrosion due to methanogenesis and hydrogen sulphide, ….. Extended aeration package plants use separate basins for aeration and settling …. “Aerated Lagoons - Wastewater Treatment.” Maine Lagoon Systems Task Force. …”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewage_treatment

9. Hailsham North Waste Site Odour Control - APPS

“By taking Hydrogen Sulphide measurements around the site it became apparent … short term running of the lagoon mixers allowing us to aerate these lagoons …”
www.appstechnologies.co.uk/index.php?section=case-studies&page=hailsham

10. Aeration: the Facts, Aqua info, Technical Aquaculture information …

“Western Australian Aquaculture Information on Aeration the true facts. … such as hydrogen sulphide and ammonia, cannot pass through into the water above. …”
www.fish.wa.gov.au/docs/aq/aq020/index.php?0404

The Fort Air Partnership monitoring station in Bruderheim (in the back alley, across from Night Moves) will not be of help in determining what the atmospheric H2S (hydrogen sulphide) levels are at any time in Bruderheim.  H2S is not being monitored by that station.

Here is what is being measured at that monitoring station (select “Site 49: Bruderheim” — requires Internet Explorer).

H2S levels are being measured at the following continuous monitoring stations:

Site 43: Fort Saskatchewan
Site 44: Scottford 2
Site 45: Lamont County (north of Elk Island Park)

So, all you have to go by is your nose and hope that as long as you don’t smell the H2S that it may not be because your sense of smell has been overcome by potentially harmful levels of H2S.

By the way, as discussed on this blog before (Temperature measurements for Fort Saskatchewan area, September 30, 2010), the “current” temperature shown on TV and on the website of the Town of Bruderheim is not being measured in Bruderheim.  It is being measured in Elk Island National Park and is usually a couple degrees or so off.

Another measurement of the current Bruderheim temperature can be accessed at the Fort Air Partnership web page for the Bruderheim monitoring station (select “Site 49: Bruderheim” — requires Internet Explorer).

Mind you, I would believe neither of those temperature values shown for Bruderheim.  Right now, the value shown by the Fort Air Partnership is -2°C, the one shown by The Weather Network is 3°C, while the thermometer in my backyard shows 1°C.

Posted in Town of Bruderheim, Health issues, Weather, Pollution: Health Issues, Hydrogen-Sulphide | Print | 1 Comment »

January 13, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

Today I had sent off an inquiry to Leon Benoit, MP (Conservative) for Vegreville-Wainwright, about a URL for the Handbook for Seniors.

In the meantime, I looked for it on the Internet a bit more, and guess what, I found it, in the most logical place for it, on Leon Benoit’s website.  The reason why Internet searches for the Handbook provided no results is most likely that the Handbook had just today been published on Leon Benoit’s website, which is somewhat surprising, given that the document was created and last modified 19/11/2010 6:52:57 AM.

I suppose that my suggestion today to have the Handbook available on-line and that it was posted just today on Leon Benoit’s website is a mere coincidence, however improbable that may be.

Here is the URL for the Handbook for Seniors:

http://www.leonbenoit.ca/media/20110113_Benoit_Seniors%20Handbook%20FINAL.PDF

I downloaded a copy of the handbook (4MB) and will copy it to the PC at the Seniors Club.

Unfortunately, although the Handbook does have an index, the index is not linked, so that it is not a simple matter to go to a specific chapter, section or page. Still, it is possible to navigate to any desired location in the handbook through,

1. Scrolling to the desired page, or through
2. Copying text from the index, pasting it into the PDF search feature and searching for it, after which one just has to click on the instances listed in the search-return list.

That is better than nothing, and one should not expect our governments to weave miracles or even to be practical.  I guess that a linked index for a large PDF file is simply too much to ask for.

The good thing about the Handbook is that even though it contains a large volume of government propaganda, all of the links shown in the document appear to be functional and permit accessing the locations identified.  That even applies to the e-mail addresses shown for the MLAs whose constituencies overlap with that of Leon Benoit, but it stops there.  If you wish to find an e-mail address for any government agency, you will have to go to the website of that agency to be able to obtain it.

To become fully familiar with all of the information contained in the Handbook will most likely require a very large amount of time, probably more time than even retired seniors can or care to devote to that task.  However overwhelming the large volume of information in the Handbook may be, on balance it may be useful, provided one has enough patience to wade through it all, and provided one is willing to spend the time required to separate the wheat from the chaff.

For instance, if one is looking for information on “Tax Savings for Seniors and Pensioners”, it is somewhat difficult to determine how taxes can be saved by anyone, considering that one had to go through a susbtantial amount of information like:

HOW THE CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENT HAS HELPED SENIORS
TAX RELIEF AND MONETARY SAVINGS FOR SENIORS

Our Conservative Government has introduced landmark changes to ease
the tax burden on Canadian seniors since 2006 providing nearly $2
billion annually in tax relief to seniors and pensioners, including:
• Increased the age credit twice, in 2006 and again in 2009, by $1,000
each time, which provides additional tax savings to 2.2 million
seniors
• Provided a one-time 25% reduction in minimum Registered
Retirement Income Fund for 2008
• Budget 2007 increased the age limit for maturing pensions and
RRSPs from 69 to 71
• The Tax Fairness Plan introduced pension income splitting for the
2007 and subsequent tax years

and-so-on…

Highlighting of text in the Handbook, for copying, is difficult and very error-prone, so that it will not be easy to pass information on or to extract just desired portions, deleting extraneous information that is of no use other than to promote good feelings about all the good work that was done on behalf of seniors without actually identifying anything of interest to anyone at the moment.

Most likely, if anyone wishes to point out information in the Handbook that may be of interest to others, it may be most efficient to print out a given page and to highlight the information on it that may be of use.

The considerable amount of time I have spent on the Handbook so far has not helped to enable me to determine what sort of information in the Handbook for Seniors can actually be of use to any seniors (except perhaps things like that immersing a burn in cool water is better than to smear butter on it), although there is no doubt in my mind that I have come across a very large amount of information that stresses that having the conservative government around has been the best thing for seniors since sliced bread was invented, which, given how we were taken for a ride by the Liberals, may well be true.

Nevertheless, I have not been able to find anything that helps seniors with escalating prices for gas, food, energy, taxes and rent, but I suppose that as long as any yuppy is willing to pay ten dollars for a liter of water, gasoline at a dollar a liter should be considered a bargain.  That may as well extend to $1.50 a liter for milk and the price we pay for bread.

However, the words gasoline, bread or milk show up not once in the handbook, while energy is being mentioned in passing — in connection with a questionnaire on the benefits of healthy living.  I guess that milk, bread and other foodstuffs are not as important in that respect as feeling energetic is, even though no healthy living is possible without affordable prices for heating one’s home and for the food one needs to keep alive.

I wish I could afford to do so, and if I could, I would offer prizes for the first three seniors who can demonstrate to me that having the Handbook for Seniors around has actually helped them solve a problem.  However, rest assured that if you are a senior, the handbook will be good for you, because on the last of the 68 pages of the document it states:

Final Thoughts

This Handbook for Seniors is meant to provide an overview of local and national topics relevant to seniors and retirees in the constituency of Vegreville - Wainwright.

Although I have not been able to determine anything that is obviously relevant to seniors in the Handbook, upon much further searching I will without a doubt become more enlightened on that apparent omission.  Still, it seems to me that the one obvious advantage that could have been offered by the Handbook, namely being a concise directory of government services for seniors, has been substantially diluted with overwhelming portions of propaganda that account for the vast majority of the information contained in the 68 pages of the document.

Yes, it is becoming increasingly more difficult for seniors to live well or even only in comfort, but having the Handbook for Seniors around will do a lot to make seniors feel good about that.  See, it is only a matter of mind over matter, and it did not take me 68 pages to state that.

–Walter

Posted in Taxes, Health issues, Bruderheim Seniors | Print | No Comments »

January 9, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

Thanks to wattsupwiththat.com:

PHYSORG.com
Jan. 9, 2011

Igloo-shaped ‘Poo-Gloos’ eat sewage

January 9, 2011 Enlarge

Poo-Gloos — inexpensive devices to extend the lifespan of sewage lagoons for towns and small cities outgrowing their waste-treatment facilities — are half submerged as officials fill this sewage lagoon in Wellsville, Utah. The igloo-shaped devices are submerged when operating, and a new study shows they remove organic waste and other pollutants from sewage just as well as much more expensive mechanical sewage-treatment plants. Credit: Waste Compliance Systems Inc.

Inexpensive igloo-shaped, pollution-eating devices nicknamed “Poo-Gloos” can clean up sewage just as effectively as multimillion-dollar treatment facilities for towns outgrowing their waste-treatment lagoons, according to a new study.

“The results of this study show that it is possible to save communities with existing lagoon systems hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, by retrofitting their existing wastewater treatment facilities with Poo-Gloos,” says Fred Jaeger, chief executive officer of Wastewater Compliance Systems, Inc., which sells the Poo-Gloo under the name Bio-Dome….(Full Story)

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A few years ago I suggested to some members of our town council that it would be worth their while to check out a cheap system of aerating our sewage lagoon.  That would not require a large capital investment and not much more in the way of construction than to install perforated plastic hoses through which air would be discharged to keep the water in a lagoon turning over constantly.  The air could be pumped through the hoses by windmill-powered pumps.  Total costs would probably start up in the order of about $4,000 to $5,000.

Systems like that have been used successfully in lagoons to clear up and prevent odors in large hog productions and in some small towns.  For one thing, such a system of aeration would prevent the annual turn-over of the water in our sewage lagoon that regularly in the spring makes it very unpleasant to spend time outdoors in Bruderheim or any other town plagued by sewage smells from its lagoon.  However, that is not the only thing the system would do.  The research done to produce the aeration system described in the lead-in article showed that sewage water in lagoons can be treated within as short a time as 30 days instead of the year it takes now.

No one from the town council ever responded to the suggestion.  Perhaps, now that the principle of sewage-lagoon aeration has been elevated to a promising commercial level for community planning, it is time for our town council to take another look at what can be done to make life more pleasant in Bruderheim.

Posted in Town of Bruderheim, Health issues, Pollution: Health Issues, Hydrogen-Sulphide | Print | No Comments »

December 11, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

Thanks to wattsupwiththat.com

Ken Hall says:

December 11, 2010 at 8:40 am

The poor are the victims? In absolute terms, the poor have never had it so good, as this video proves:

From Hans Rosling’s blog:

Hans Rosling
Stockholm, Sweden

Professor of International Health, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. Discovered konzo, a new epidemic paralytic disease, when serving as doctor in Mozambique 1979-81. Two decades of research in rural Africa traced the cause to toxic ill-processed cassava roots, hunger and poverty. Co-founded Médecines sans Frontier Sweden. Started courses and wrote textbook on Global Health. Initiated university collaborations with Asia and Africa. Co-founded Gapminder that unveils the beauty of statistics by turning boring numbers into enjoyable animations that make sense of the world.

View my complete profile

Note 2010 12 12:  You may find that it would be nice to slow down a part of or to zoom-in on portions of Hans Rosling’s presentation, to permit you to explore some of the information presented in more detail, or to repeat some parts of the progression over time.  For that, access an interactive version of the above graph that is accessible at Gapminder.

A two-and-a-half minute tutorial on how to select and use the various options for your interaction with the graph (and on how to construct others like it) at Gapminder is accessible there as well.

Posted in Propaganda debunked, Health issues | Print | 2 Comments »