SaggyBalls

HA! There's a place for all medicine. \ It's too bad that people polarize the situation.

It is entirely true that many an herb are unregulated. As long as they are produced safely and without harmful agents or improper curing methods, it is currently up to the consumer and his/her doctors to decide which products will work best. And while some people don't understand that these herbs might not work best for them It is not up to the government...to keep us from clinging to what we read in periodicals, on the news, and read on the internet, or even eat the wrong herbs and supplements. Although many people look to alternative medicine as a cure all, it is quite often the case that these products work to assist our bodies in working more efficiently and with the ability to regulate itself. With proper balance and healthy bodies, we would not require many of the pharmaceutical products that we often take. Bill C-51 would significantly affect our abilities to utilize preemptive medicine and nutrition as a way to live naturally and healthily. This bill may seek to dispel all unsubstianted claims about a product's effectiveness, but it's everything else that this bill gives the Government authority over than makes it entirely unjust. To my understanding there are some holistic remedies that are very small doses of substances that would be poisinous otherwise. Taken in tiny amounts they can kickstart the body to start working against this substance and also an ailment that shares some likenesses to said substance's effects. If THIS is the case, then those remedies would be some of the most at risk and some of those remedies are quite often most relied on to cure or manage illnesses with fewer risks than their pharmaceutical counterparts as they are trace doses. After all, it's poison, right? Clinical testing is entirely costly and without deep pockets, is difficult to achieve. C-51 prohibits clinical testing unless specifically approved. So, BradM - if there were clinical tests in the works for a herbal cure for diabetes and they were not approved, even if they were able to go on with private funding with consent from those involved... ...you would never be able to find out about it and the product could bever be sold. A choice that would never be afforded to yourself or anyone else. Maybe not an entirely horrible situation but a freedom that the Harper Government would like to pluck from your hands and everyone else's. And MoMack, to be sure to find an 'alternative-friendly' practitioner would require a health insurance plan from work or deeper pockets than most Canadians have. It's hard to put a price on a child's health but when a parent doesn't have the extra $200 for a Naturopath then Big Pharma wins again. Although there may be positive points to C-51, the negatives far outweigh them IMO and this is just another way for our Government to take our time and money and have another potentially fair and positive bill fail -- for as it is, it is wrought with disease. This bill should not be passed in any form until nutritionists, naturopaths, chinese medical doctors, and Holistic practitioners are recognized by the government as Western Medicine has been and covered by our Canadian Medical safety net. It is unfair to all Canadians to pass this bill without ensuring that Canadians are allowed to live their lives without Governement interfering. Bill C-51 is not about keeping Canadians Healthy or affording them the abilities and freedoms to maintain their health.

Do you like your greens and vitamins? The Canadian government, afraid of the public reaction once people find out what they are trying to pull, is currently fast-tracking a Bill which threatens to strip you of your rights to access a wide range of natural health products. If it passes, and you buy/sell/share/collect/dry/eat/feed to your family any of the restricted stuff, you become a criminal subject to fines 1000X bigger than those currently in effect. Please take action to protect your current right to use the foods, herbs, supplements, and therapies: 1. visit: http://www.stopc51.com and read Bill C-51 and/or the analysis to form your own opinion about whether this law is good for you or for your country 2. sign this petition and pass the word to your friends, family, anyone who cares 3. write, phone, email your MP 4. http://www.stopc51.com/c51/what_you_can_do.asp (NaturalNews) A new law being pushed in Canada by Big Pharma seeks to outlaw up to 60 percent of natural health products currently sold in Canada, even while criminalizing parents who give herbs or supplements to their children. The law, known as C-51, was introduced by the Canadian Minister of Health on April 8th, 2008, and it proposes sweeping changes to Canada's Food and Drugs Act that could have devastating consequences on the health products industry. Among the changes proposed by the bill are radical alterations to key terminology, including replacing the word "drug" with "therapeutic product" throughout the Act, thereby giving the Canadian government broad-reaching powers to regulate the sale of all herbs, vitamins, supplements and other items. With this single language change, anything that is "therapeutic" automatically falls under the Food and Drug Act. This would include bottled water, blueberries, dandelion greens and essentially all plant-derived substances. The Act also changes the definition of the word "sell" to include anyone who gives such therapeutic products to someone else. So a mother giving an herb to her child, under the proposed new language, could be arrested for engaging in the sale of unregulated, unapproved "therapeutic substances." Learn about more of these freedom-squashing changes to the law at the Stop51.com website:http://www.stopc51.com -------- New enforcement powers allow Canadian government to seize your home or business At the same time that C-51 is outlawing herbs, supplements and vitamins, it would grant alarming new "enforcement" powers to the (thugs) enforcement agents who claim to be "protecting" the public from dangerous unapproved "therapeutic agents" like, say, dandelion greens. As explained on the www.Educate-Yourself.org website ((http://educate-yourself.org/cn/canadian...), the C-51 law would allow the Canadian government's thugs enforcement agents to: %u2022 Raid your home or business without a warrant %u2022 Seize your bank accounts %u2022 Levy fines up to $5 million and a jail terms up to 2 years for merely selling an herb %u2022 Confiscate your property, then charge you storage fees for the expense involved in storing all the products they stole from you C-51 would even criminalize the simple drying of herbs in your kitchen to be used in an herbal product, by the way. That would now be categorized as a "controlled activity," and anyone caught engaging in such "controlled activities" would be arrested, fined and potentially jailed. Other "controlled activities" include labeling bottles, harvesting plants on a farm, collecting herbs from your back yard, or even testing herbal products on yourself! (Yes, virtually every activity involving herbs or supplements would be criminalized...) There's more, too. C-51 is the Canadian government's "final solution" for the health products industry. It's a desperate effort to destroy this industry that's threatening the profits and viability of conventional medicine. Natural medicine works so well -- and is becoming so widely used -- that both the Canadian and American governments have decided to "nuke" the industries by passing new laws that effectively criminalize anyone selling such products. They simply cannot tolerate allowing consumers to have continued access to natural products. To do so will ultimately spell the destruction of Big Pharma and the outdated, corrupt and criminally-operated pharmaceutical industry that these criminally-operated governments are trying to protect.

Sarahbelle the next Suicide Girl.

Bill Frisell was a real tasty show at Major's Hill. tND was killer in the weather. I was glad to be there.

Jaimoe - of course the beers are great. but would you really drink a whole case?

some people came out but it was never touted as a solid music fest all the years i was around town. I think I'd have been into the fest 80% of the nights just for the music if I'd have lived in the city. Usually only went to one show, but I was out of the city and it was inconvenient otherwise. Maybe there's enough rich book readers to pay for stuff like that, but it seems to have ruined it for me too. Plus, the website blows now. I'm not impressed. Music means you have to have a better looking website. I guess ideas don't necessitate design and finish either. It probably works well for them, but it'd be a great opportunity to get Dutch bands to North America. It could easily be a huge success in fostering an artistic partnership... (do the organizers lurk here?? I hope so.)

Well say these people don't get it right but are then more open to these perspectives. If they have children then they will probably be more likely to foster these changed patterns in the coming years and their kids might make the difference that they weren't willing to do. Pointing fingers at the finger pointers is just as self righteous as the finger pointers are. I know that I can be on either side of the fence depending on the day and I don't really know how to go about fixing the problem in my life. I like being able to, for example, cross the border and get a bargain even though it's supporting that evil tyrrany. I don't have a lot of money and deals en masse make my life easier to manage. If I need to rent a car I have to have a credit card. If I want to buy a house I need to have credit unless I can pay cash. If I want to earn a living I still probably have to pay taxes since I presume I can't afford a proper lawyer and accountant to get me out of that. Got any suggestions to ween us off inaction and get us doing something about our prison terms, Allison or just turn your nose up at the flaky hippies?

It's way easier to drink 24 PBR than 18 Sleemans...

they don't do the band thing? what's the point in going then? to see Salman rushdie get assasinated? (i hope for my peace of mind he doesn't cause i'd hate to get a knock on the door tonight by the police...It'd be a great excuse to make coffee but a bit imposing a visit)

I guess it all depends on whether or not you want to go to ghost town or not. The hill at Turin was a realy nice place to rock out. I was only there once and was impressed. Maybe they're trying to gete fewer people out this year and know that the people that want to be there will definitely show up. I wonder what the mayoral race will be like.

Maybe I'm not looking hard enough, but at www.tulipfest.ca I really only see the mighty popo as an act that rings a bell. I've seen some great acts at the Tulip Fest in the past but now there seems to be nothing. What gives?

So the undertaker's gonna use a party pump for the embalming fluid? I just hope you remember to spring for mayching cups at the wake.

Ohio is northern.

I liked how it was all 'more of the same'

I really dug Moe.Down. It'd be a fest that I'd go to because it's well done and a comfortable place to be...to see some great music even if it's not a showstopper list.

I saw him years ago in London ON and was impressed. I think it'd be a fun time as a Fred Head.

MPs urge Tories to reinstate access to information database PM slams expensive registry as a 'centralized tool' CBC News Opposition MPs lambasted the Conservative government on Monday for quietly killing an access to information registry used by journalists, experts and the public that users say helped hold the government accountable. Amid cries of "shame" by his party members, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Tories "took another step to limit transparency and accountability" in Ottawa by closing the Co-ordination of Access to Information Requests System, or CAIRS. "Why did the government shut down the registry?" Dion told the House during Monday's question period. "What do they have to hide?" But the prime minister dismissed the charge, insisting his government has widened access to information "more than ever before." The CAIRS registry is an electronic list of nearly every access to information request filed to federal departments and agencies. It was originally used as an internal tool to keep track of requests and co-ordinate the government's response between agencies to the release of potentially sensitive information. More recently, users have mined the database to do statistical studies, submit new requests with fine-tuned wordings and discover obscure documents — often using the resulting information against the government. But last week, a notice to civil servants from the Treasury Board stated that retroactive to April 1, "the requirement to update CAIRS is no longer in effect." Harper told the House on Monday that CAIRS — launched in 1989 — was expensive and a "centralized tool" created under the previous Liberal government. The Liberals only came to power in 1993. The prime minister added it was decried by a freedom of information expert as "a product of a political system in which centralized control is an obsession." "That's why the government got rid of it," Harper said. Dion reminded MPs that Treasury Board officials had previously said the registry was shut down because federal departments didn't value it. "Why would they?" he said. "Instead of them, the government should have consulted the clients who are using it every day." 'Precious tool for democracy' During the debate, Treasury Board President Vic Toews identified the critic quoted by Harper as Alasdair Roberts, a U.S-based Canadian political scientist. Roberts is known among access-to-information researchers for having built a web version of the database by requesting CAIRS electronic records through an Access to Information Act request, and updating the site monthly. Reached in India via e-mail by CBCNews.ca on Monday, Roberts said CAIRS was "generally acknowledged internally to be a clunky method of oversight and co-ordination," but added that the Conservatives' decision to kill it raises questions about how the government will manage access to information requests. "How does [the Privy Council Office] communications and security and intelligence keep track of incoming requests? How do key departments keep track of sensitive requests arriving elsewhere?" wrote Roberts, now a law and public policy professor at Boston's Suffolk University. Roberts added he doubted his criticism of the system contributed to the Tories' decision. "Based on past experience, my views are almost certainly not the motivation for their policy change," he wrote. "The material question is whether they've abandoned the idea of oversight and co-ordination, or just found better (and maybe less visible) ways of doing it." During Monday's Commons debate, NDP Leader Jack Layton told the House the decision to kill the registry was just the latest example of the Tories betraying their 2006 campaign pledge to bring more transparency to the federal government. "The Canadian people are losing trust in the Conservatives and if you boil it down, it's because the Conservatives don't trust Canadians," Layton said. "Why do they keep burying their promises?" Bloc Québécois MP Carole Lavallée called the registry "a precious tool for democracy" and called for the government to reinstate updates to the database. But Toews insisted his government was "opening up the books." "For the first time, Canadians can see how their tax dollars are being spent by the CBC, the Wheat Board and Canada Post," Toews told the Commons. Also on Monday, the Canadian Association of Journalists said it is "deeply concerned by an ongoing pattern of shutting off access to information by the federal government." "Without updates to the database, it will become only easier over time for federal departments to delay, obfuscate and potentially withhold valuable government information," the organization said in a release. CBC journalist David McKie took over work on the web-based version of CAIRS from Roberts in 2006 using another publicly accessible website (http://www.onlinedemocracy.ca ).

quit stalling and just buy a bike already, Schwa.

Will the fembots play more than 45 minutes?

Ottawa needs grit. Trashy is too easy to come by.

okay irie guy - from bruce beach...get to Guelph...go through lucknow, wingham, and Elmira (and hamlets along the way) Get on the 6 and either get off around algonquin/brockville and go through North Agusta and Merrickville, or just drive to the 416 and head into the city. Made it from merrickville to the cottage in 5 hours and change one time. Definitely the best route we've found. the speeding limit on the 401 is really 115.

Well headymamamyrna, there's sexbutsa to wonder about and although I could guess it'd just be based on phonics...kinda like those phoenicians...crazy for greek...in these modern times I'm sure the letters are being used more politco-correctly as there's also dlynobeers in Badams' date tonight...so whatever poetic justice gets passed back on Zimmerman's head maybetomorrowni badams' ght won't hurt with a few beers down the hatch. gimme a big hug Andre.

Dilbert was a dead head, eh?

Don't hesitate, buddy. Happy big one.