Big ass.. errr.. I mean BIG OIL....

So I'm sitting on the bus on the way home tonight.... and I hear this lady telling her friend about this gas station in town here where her sister works....

He's like "so I guess you get free gas all the time....."

and she responds "are you kidding.... at the end of it... they only make 2 cents a litre profit..."

and so this poor unfortunate friend of hers is shocked because he can't believe that he's been hearing about "BIG ASS.. err.. I mean BIG OIL" making record profits but here someone "with the know" is stating that they aren't making massive profits..... and he laps it up like a kitten finding a fresh bowl of milk....

So let's clarify things shall we... yes the poor gas stations are making little profit off the gas you're buying... but the Oil companies who are supplying them are reaping record profits.... the little guy at the end of the food chain always gets squeezed the most...... I'm sorry, I'm kidding you not...

So the next time you hear someone saying that they're only making 2 cents off each litre of gas.... please correct them..... well not correct them... inform them of the bigger picture... otherwise..... you'll be amazed at what you'll be paying tomorrow for a litre of gas..... and how much bigger the "record profits" will be for the oil companies...

Public Medicare… and why we need to defend it

Let me preface this with what I’ve been dealing with lately. My cat of 13 years is diabetic. A month ago he came down with a bladder infection and then his health spiraled out of control because the bladder infection was blocking the insulin from controlling his sugar. He was hospitalized at our Veterinarian and through all of the procedures I had to keep saying “Well, as long as his life won’t be reduced in any way afterwards… please keep going” -- after all how can you put a price on life?

Which brings me to Medicare, public Medicare at that. Public Medicare has been under attack for years, decades even. Since its inception, those that feel they can make TONS of money from people’s misfortune want it privatized again. They will tell you that it will improve services and reduce costs – all it will actually do is put money in the pockets of shareholders instead of the pockets of those actually doing the services and make our current situation even worse. A famous politician's daughter once said “if you want a problem all you have to do is create it”, referring to Mike Harris and his Conservative government in Ontario when they gutted our public Medicare system. Nothing like telling people there is a problem with the system when in fact “you’ve” created that problem, and the general public just accepts that there is a problem. Coupled with the fact that Paul Martin of the Federal Liberals, then Finance Minister, cut transfer dollars to the provinces during his reign which reduced the Federal support for public Medicare (keep in mind, Medicare is a provincial jurisdiction supported by Federal transfers).

So all that said and done and you have to say to yourself…. Without public Medicare, if my partner, child, parent, sibling or other significant other would become ill and therefore require a great deal of medical care… would you have to decide like I did with my beloved cat if you had enough savings that you could afford to help them get better. Would you maybe have to sell your house or other cherished belongings to pay for the treatments or worse yet, would you have to claim bankruptcy because you just couldn’t raise the funds to pay for all of the treatments? After all, many Americans actually have to deal with the latter claiming bankruptcy.

If you get a chance, watch Michael Moore’s SICKO. Some will tell you that it’s all one sided and a bunch of extreme cases. But ask yourself this, is anyone debating that the situations in SICKO are false – I haven’t heard anything… so I’ll leave that with you to think about and make your own conclusions.

Ask yourself, do you want to live in a society where we want people to live healthy lives, and if for some horrible reason you were to become sick, to help you become a productive member of society again without suffering from financial hardship.

“Courage my friends, tis not too late to make a better world”
Tommy Douglas, Father of Medicare

Watch a clip here of Tommy Douglas talking about Medicare in 1983… nothing has changed much, history continues to repeat itself, but you can make a difference. As Tommy said, “Don’t let the subtle strangulation of Medicare continue.”

Link to Canadian Health Coalition

Theodore - aka Theo and Fat Cat

So after this last part of the saga in the life of Theo I thought I would keep everyone updated and maybe give reference to how we got here.....

About 13 or so years ago, I had another cat "Turk", who was named that by his previous owner because they were originally from Turkey (not Turk just his owner)... Turk was a lonely cat so I embarked on an adventure to find him a pal. A wonderful young woman, Christine Douglas, who worked for me at the time in Burlington, found me a litter of cats to choose from and this is truly where my life with Theo started. Theo was the runt of the litter and I instantly fell in love with him and so did Turk. They were the best of pals. We left Burlington and their adventures continued to Lindsay, ON, then to Omemee, Peterborough and then finally Kanata (Ottawa very west) where Turk developed a tumor in his mouth. Unfortunately I had to put Turk to sleep since his situation was beyond hope. And this is where the troubles with Theo began. I made the mistake of continuing to feed Theo as if I was feeding both Theo and Turk.... ooops - so Theo packed on the pounds and because it happened so slowly (as many things do), I didn't seem to notice...Shortly after this, I met Michael and then within a short time, I was spending so much time at Michael's apartment, I talked Michael into letting Theo move in with him so Theo wasn't alone and then I followed a while after that when we decided it was stupid to be paying for two places and hence our travelling began. Some time went by, we got Ashley as a new pal for Theo and then we discovered Theo's "problem". He was literally "filling" his litter box with urine and we had no idea why (plus he was drinking immense amounts of water). We took him to our new vet, The Aylmer Veterinarian Clinic, who are absolutely amazing by the way, and "Dr. Greg" diagnosed Theo with diabetes. The prescription was to give him a needle each day of insulin and after several months of adjusting levels, change to a special diet, etc, we got his blood sugar balanced out. So the years have gone by, with pampering, babysitters to cover our holidays and now that we bought a house, a yard for him to excercise in (under our supervision of course... he's not an outdoor kitty). Just before we moved into our new home, Misha joined us and then after we moved in followed Kodie (which was a dare that Michael didn't realize I would take him up on), which made us a happy family of 5 (plus a bunch of fish). So a few months ago, Theo developed an abcess in his mouth (it's funny, it in hindsight it seemed just like Turk's tumor). So a week went by and Theo would barely eat but he was active, so I thought he was just in a mood. During this time he lost 7 lbs (you have to remember he had ballooned to almost 25 lbs at this point). When we took him to see the vet all "Dr. Greg" did was drain it, and instantly we had our Theo back (supposedly these abcesses can be quite common in animals - but most who aren't diabetic just fight them off). Up until last week, we actually had thought he was a new "kitten" - he was playing with toys again, taunting the other 3 cats and so on.... woo hoo!And then this past Friday he stopped eating again... I couldn't find any "lumps" this time so I just thought it was a bug, by Monday monring he was "flat" as the vet had described it. So into "kity hospital" care he went with all his levels skyrocketing as each moment passed. On Monday he was put on a drip to ensure his fluids were maintained and to help flush out the toxins in his system. Tuesday morning, the vet was finally able to get a urine sample from him and he was diagnosed with a bladder infection - and this was what was causing all the problems as it was virtually stopping his insulin from working and so this is why his body was poisoning itself (his skin was actually yellow on Monday afternoon - jaundice symptoms because his kidneys weren't working properly because of "everything"). He was also given anti-biotics and Tuesday night he was better but still not eating on his own. Wednesday morning arrives, his levels are still high but much better, but still not eating on his own. We dropped by to "visit" Wednesday night as we had Tuesday night as well (it was like visiting someone at a hospital) and although he was head butting us (his own personal terms of affection) and purring up a storm... they said he still wasn't eating. I had an idea, went home and got him some of "his special food" nstead of making the vet open another bag and quickly came back..... and then the light came on and our Fat Cat started to fill his face and everyone was ecstatic (and this is when you know how much your Vet clinic's staff cares about the animals they have... because they were almost freaking out more than we were). So they felt it best that he went home with us where he would eat on his own and be surrounded by cuddling, etc. and just be monitored from home. The best part of all this is the fact that they trained me how to test his blood sugar level with my glucometer - it really is so easy... and now I'll know whenever I want, just how well I'm controlling his sugar (as well as my own).So the saga continues and the loving begins again (well it never really stopped... just morphed itself into another level of caring...)We're certainly not out of the woods yet... but definitely have found the bread crumbs to head in the right direction...Thanks to everyone for their thoughts, hopes and energy... it has been greatly appreciated...

Chamonix and Mont Blanc

So we just finished a tremendous hike in the mountains of Chamonix - took the cable car ride to the very top of Mont Blanc this morning (and rediscovered my extreme fear of heights - actually its really a fear of falling from great heights, so I'll let you do the math).

Then we took another cable car (4 person) across a glacier into Italy - that was just incredible and I'm happy to report my fear of falling didn't get the best of me during the ride.

We then took the first (which was actually the 2nd of 2 cable cars from the ride up) back to the first transfer point (about 2400 metres up) and then hiked from there down to the 1900 metre mark (about 3 hours worth) - the views were tremendous - and of course I've taken a great deal of photos (won't it be fun uploading all of them :o) )

Then from there, we took their little train back to Chamonix

And as for the rest - the pictures will cerainly describe it all afterall they are worth a thousand words...

See more pictures here

And tomorrow a similar trip into the Swiss Alps - their final stop is higher than today's