Just a week before Christmas, an elderly New Brunswick couple has been forced into separate long-term care facilities.
“My parents have been together for a total of 73 years and still sleep in the same bed,” their daughter Dianne Goodine Phillips posted on Facebook a day before her parents were unceremoniously divided. “I feel people need to know what a flawed system we have in place. Two words describe it: unethical and cruel.”
Until Monday, Herbert and Audrey Goodine had been living together for the past four years at a special care home in the village of Perth-Andover, N.B. The couple, who are 91 and 89 respectively, have been married for 69 years. But with Herbert’s health deteriorating, their family was told on Friday by N.B’s Department of Social Development -- which oversees the province’s long-term care facilities -- that Herbert would have to be moved to a nursing home.
Oh, it wasn't as though they had no choice; the bureaucrats told Herbert and Audrey that if they want to continue to live together, they could - at an old folks home located some two hours away from their family - and friends. Barring that, Herb could live at a home located only half an hour away - but his wife couldn't come with him.
They wanted to stay together right where they were, until after the holidays. But the bureaucrats weren't having any of that: "Make your decision now," they were told. And so it was that with tears in their eyes, Herb was relocated - alone - to a facility half an hour out.
Welcome to the Canadian health-care system. Hell of a way to treat the elders.
(Sing to the tune of "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear).
Oregonians may soon be able to salvage the meat from roadkill deer and elk under a bill sponsored by Sen. Bill Hansell (R-Athena) and Rep. Greg Barreto (R-Cove).
Senate Bill 372 would allow the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife to issue salvage permits for deer and elk that are accidentally killed in a vehicle collision. The bill passed the Senate on April 6 by a vote of 29-0.
Approximately 20 other states have a similar law on the books, including neighboring Washington and Idaho. Washington enacted its roadkill salvage program on July 1, 2016, issuing 1,100 permits over the first six months, according to Hansell.
Roadkill events are extremely unfortunate for all involved, but since the animal's dead anyway, it makes a lot more sense to salvage the meat than to leave it by the side of the road to rot. And it's fork-tender along the tread-mark!
Unfortunately, it applies only to deer and elk - not to cows.
Portland, Ore. - An Oregon bill on advanced medical directive rules could allow patients who suffer from dementia or mental illness to be starved or dehydrated, opponents warned.
“These are patients who are awake, can chew and swallow and want to eat, even though in some cases they may need help in delivering food to their mouths,” Gayle Atteberry of Oregon Right to Life said Jan. 31. “Current safeguards in Oregon’s law protect these patients from this type of cruelty. This bill take away these safeguards.”
The legislation, S.B. 494, would create an appointed committee empowered to make changes to the advance medical directive governing end-of-life decisions.
I recall when someone routinely maligned by the Left spoke of "death panels" and was greeted with derision. She was correct, as we are now witnessing. The problem seems to be that these folks just aren't dying quickly enough, so they need help. That saves Oregon and the insurance companies a lot of money.
This should drive the Social Justice Warriors right out of their tree:
Traveling by public transport exposes commuters to up to eight times as much air pollution as those who drive to work, a groundbreaking study found.
The authors said that the results revealed a “violation of the core principle of environmental justice” because those who contributed most to air pollution in cities were least likely to suffer from it. People in poorer areas, who are more reliant on buses to get to work, suffer greater exposure than those in wealthier neighbourhoods, who are more likely to commute by car, according to the study by the University of Surrey.
Bus journeys were typically 17-42 minutes longer than car journeys, meaning that bus passengers were exposed to higher levels of pollution for longer. Motorists tend to keep windows closed and are protected by filters stopping particles and dust from entering the interior. Bus passengers, by contrast, are subjected to pollution at stops when the doors are opened, often in places where queues of idling vehicles are pumping out high levels of toxic gas and particles.
Well, what a surprise. Public transit not only takes people longer to get from point A to point B, it exposes them to considerably more particulate pollution. Obviously, the answer is more bike paths and "traffic calming" to keep vehicles from moving at optimal speeds, which increases pollution. Ain't government grand?
Oh, you soon will be. That's the way it works in The Netherlands:
A female Dutch doctor drugged the coffee of an elderly woman with dementia, then began to administer a lethal injection. The old woman woke up and began fighting the doctor, desperately attempting not to be killed, so the doctor asked her family to hold her down until the process could be completed.
Upon reflection, the doctor was found to have acted in good faith. While not guilty of breaking the law, a review team did note that the case involved "some irregularities that merited a reprimand".
The investigation into the affair yielded several interesting "irregularities:
It also revealed that the patient said several times 'I don't want to die' in the days before she was put to death, and that the doctor had not spoken to her about what was planned because she did not want to cause unnecessary extra distress. She also did not tell her about what was in her coffee as it was also likely to cause further disruptions to the planned euthanasia process.
The Review Committee concluded that the doctor 'has crossed the line' by giving her the first sleeping medicine, and also should have stopped when the woman resisted.
Oh gosh, was that wrong? Should she not have done that? And as for the family...were they simply deferring to the good doctor's better judgement, and doing what they had to do?
It seems to me that we're not on a slippery slope; we're in a full slide.
These days, that seems to be almost as dangerous as being thrown under one.
A would-be rider boarded Chris Day's bus last month in Southeast Portland and dropped a few coins, but short of a ticket, into the fare box. After a brief back-and-forth, the man demanded his change back.
Only supervisors can open the box; operators can't. So, as has become increasingly common, the would-be rider cold-cocked the operator, leaving him with a cheekbone broken in four places. He's finally been able to return to work. Oddly, there's as yet no agency support in place for operators who become victims of these kinds of assaults; Day had to fill out reports and other forms without guidance, so he's working to change that part of the culture within the agency.
Portland Police Commander Sara Westbrook, who leads the Transit Police Division, said some of the perpetrators are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, while others show signs of mental illness.
"But I think most of them are people who just don't want to pay and get aggressive," Westbrook said.
Free everything! Why not? Hey, most of the time, people can ride light rail without paying; why should a bus be any different?
Now that Portland Streetcar has a whopping 16 mile-long loop running through downtown, over to the east side of the river, and back, they naturally want to add more lines. Because how cool is that? The new plan is to take out more Tri-Met bus lines and replace them with streetcar lines, in a sort of Back to the Past paradigm - bus lines replaced streetcars in the early part of the 20th century because buses were faster, more comfortable, and more nimble since they aren't confined to a set of fixed rails. But they just aren't as cool as streetcars, as far as today's Democrat politicians are concerned.
"Quite simply, the streetcar must prove that it is making speed and reliability better rather than worse, compared to the bus lines that are there now," said Jarret Walker, a Portland-based public transportation consultant. "If a streetcar plan fails that test, then it is likely to make travel times and reliability worse while consuming money that could have been spent on making them better. This is going to be controversial."
No kidding; if streetcars worked, they'd not have been abandoned in the first place.
At $251 million to build, "It's the single best investment the city has ever made," said Hales, who promoted the streetcars both as the city's transportation commissioner as a private-sector consultant.
That's why he's known as Streetcar Charlie.
$251 million to build 16 miles of streetcar tracks. How many potholes would that have filled?
-150 DISPLACED - Sears Armory Women's Shelter (Domestic Abuse) CLOSING May 31. (By the way, the former armory, located in Multnomah Village, had no relationship to the retailer - it was named after a military guy). -100 DISPLACED - Menashe Men's Shelter (Senior/Disabled) CLOSING May 31. -90 DISPLACED - Joyce Hotel (Vulnerable/Homeless) CLOSED
As part of their noble battle against homelessness, the city of Portland has dumped 90 people back onto the streets, and by the end of the month, they'll dump another 250 into the wild. It's not because they don't have the cash; they have a $26 million surplus this year.
No, it's just the way "progressives" work: they talk a great game, but when it comes to actually doing things, um, well, they have their own pet projects where money's better spent. Like bicycle stuff and street planters.
Intel put a number to its Oregon layoffs Tuesday, notifying the state that it will issue layoff notices to 784 employees in Hillsboro and Aloha by Friday.
And no, they won't be hired back (although ESL teachers at Washington County schools in Beaverton, Hillsboro, and Aloha have been notified to expect as many as 400 new students from India). It appears, then, that the company plans to increase reliance on H-1B visa workers. You know, "diversity" and all that. They're also closing their facilities in DuPont, Washington near Olympia.
The Washington County victims will be paid through the end of May and will receive at least six weeks of additional pay, along with three months of health insurance coverage. Some will receive more than that; in some cases, considerably more.
Intel selected some employees for layoff based on their performance in the company's rigorous annual review process, called Focal, according to the internal documents. Others appear to be losing their jobs through site closures or project cancellations. Intel has notified laid-off employees that they are not eligible to be re-hired by the company.
Under Intel policy, people released for performance issues will never be re-hired by the company; those released due to site closures may, possibly, be re-hired should suitable positions arise.
Intel's so big that it's been slow to adapt. Qualcomm chipsets power most smartphones, and AMD chipsets run many of the tablets. All three major game consoles will get updates this year, or next, with AMD hardware. Dell's still churning out boxes with Intel inside, mostly for the health-care and government industries - and they're still running legacy operating systems; Kaiser facilities are still using Windows 7 Professional at present.
But if you visit a Staples or a Best Buy, you'll find a lot fewer boxes than was the case just a few years ago; it's mostly laptops and tablets now. Rumor has it that Intel's trying to cuddle up to Apple, now.
While losing nearly 800 jobs here in Oregon is nothing to sneeze at, we've thus far got off fairly lightly. Thus far. More hits may be coming, if you happen to be a white dude who's spent a couple of decades working for that company, though. Diversity, you know. However:
Data Center Group and IOTG are in Oregon, which means Intel's most profitable and most promising businesses are here. That's why Oregon isn't feeling that much of an effect in what's going on.
Public Employee unions in Oregon are pushing IP28, the biggest tax increase in state history, which they hope to achieve by requiring corporations to pay a 2.5% tax on gross receipts - not earnings nor profits -which is (wait for it): For The Children™! Yep, they're trotting out that tired old chestnut again and hoping that, just as Charlie Brown always let Lucy hold the football (only to jerk it away at the last second), us taxpayers will play Charlie to their Lucy.
They also laughingly claim that the rest of the money will provide healthcare and services for senior citizens. Sure it will.
In point of fact, neither the Children nor the seniors will benefit from so much as a dime. As Senator Doug Whitsett observes:
Last September, my office and the Senate Republican Caucus asked the Oregon Department of Administrative Services (DAS) and Legislative Fiscal Office (LFO) to determine both the average and median compensation for Oregon state employees. Completing the task appeared to be a great deal more labor intensive than we had anticipated.
The agencies were able to provide the requested information in early February. Last week, the Legislative Fiscal Office published their findings in its Budget Information Brief/2016-4.
Their Brief states that in 2015, the average compensation for state employees was just over $89,000. About $56,000 was paid in salary, and another $33,000 was paid in employee benefits such as retirement, medical insurance and other payroll expenses (OPE). The cost of the benefit package and OPE computes to nearly 60 percent of the average salary. Hourly compensation averaged just under $43/hour.
And it's not exactly about to drop. No, quite the contrary; contracts negotiated by former governor Retread and the unions mean that compensation will increase by nearly 1/3 over the next four years.
That enormous increase likely does not fully encompass either the soaring cost of the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) or the medical insurance provided to state employees through the Public Employment Benefit Board (PEBB). Neither does it include the impending compression costs of Oregon’s new minimum wage law.
On its current trajectory, I believe by the year 2020, Oregon state employee compensation could easily be averaging more than $130,000 per year, or nearly $11,000 a month!
Which is why The Children and seniors will never see a dime of this money if voters are dumb enough to pass the measure; it's all going to go to public employees, because Oregon law requires the state to balance the budget - and while the revenue would go into the general fund (and the union proponents claim that from there it would be available to fund K-12 and senior services - they know better than that). The legislature will have no choice but to put the money into public employee compensation.
So who's going to pay for these exorbitant compensation packages for public employees? Why, that would be you - and the seniors on fixed incomes that the unions care so much about.
Stores like Fred Meyer do around $2 billion in sales around the state (gross receipts), but when all is said and done, they make about 1.5% in profit. The unions' push for a 2.5% tax on gross receipts would wipe that out, which means that we'll pay substantially more at checkout.
Sadly, voters in the Willamette Valley - which dominates the state - are so stupid that they will, in all probability, pass the measure. And later they'll find that with the help of union lies, they've thrown themselves under the bus.
Happy holidays!
