Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Call The Major Crimes Squad!

According to CTV, Giambrone expensed one $10.00 cab fare to pick up a girl friend for a date!

GASP! Maybe the Integrity Commission should investigate....

As I said when Clinton got caught, if this is the worst dirt anyone could find on him then frankly he's pretty clean.

Aside from the fact that the source of all of this "scandalous" information is Giambrone's  disgruntled ex-girlfriend who appears to have undue credibility with those who, in my opinion, would like to undermine Giambrone and punish him for daring to challenge the media's golden boy.

At least Giambrone had the forthrightness and honesty to reimburse the city and apologize for his error.

Meanwhile ... back at the ranch ... CTV apparently continues to turn a blind eye to the real scandal involving a currently running Mayoralty candidate.

You know the one.

The "former Health Minister" as CTV so discreetly put it when they were reporting on yet another Cancer Care Ontario scandal.

The difference in the media treatment received by both of these people when both were  Mayoralty candidates raises questions in my mind about CTVs "independence" and "objectivity" in reporting and makes me wonder why the rest of the media so eagerly chases this tail.

Giambrone finally dropped out of the race because of the grossly exaggerated "sex scandals" involving him having a girl friend as well as a live-in girl friend. "Mistress" according to the CTV television news broadcast the other night LOL. Does the term "inflammatory language" come to mind here? Apparently he dumped the girl friend who has since been going to the media to vent her rage. How's that for a credible source.

Now it seems that CTV considers Giambrone's expensing of one $10.00 cab fare to get to a date newsworthy while the other candidate, George Smitherman, the former Health Minister whose Ministry is now being exposed for serious scandals involving serious past and present financial mismanagement gets a pass, or at the very least kid glove treatment.

Note that Giambrone, the current Head of the TTC Commission normally takes the bus or walks and doesn't drive. A rather significant fact omitted in many of the "independent" and "objective" news reports.

I wonder when the last time was that Smitherman saw the inside of a bus or apologized to anyone for anything.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

All In Our Heads?

I find the justifications people use to explain their own incompetence quite fascinating.

Like Doctors, who either through their own inability to diagnose well or through the incompetence of the medical labs who mess up test results and which the Doctors won't question and blindly trust.

Both have put Doctors, hospitals, labs, and the entire Health Care system in Canada, particularly in Ontario, in a questionable light in the past few years.

And yet those Doctors continue to demonstrate incompetence when they don't learn that lab results should not be blindly trusted, even when evidence is provided for them that Labs, particularly the private Labs in Ontario, mess up test results, and do so with an alarming frequency that also demonstrates incompetence and which, in my opinion, justifies a full scale Public Inquiry into why the Private Lab system in Ontario is incompetent and not working! Exactly how many cases do we have to have before someone does something about this.

Instead, Doctors take the easy way out which requires the least amount of work and just dismiss patient claims as being "all in their head".

If that's true there's an awful lot of "mental cases" in Ontario since there are an awful lot of complaints about medical incompetence from doctors, hospitals, and labs here.

Frankly, I doubt the doctors and lab technicians who misdiagnosed those women with breast cancer and as a result, removed healthy breasts (one woman had a double mastectomy) are going to be able to use that justification in front of a judge when the law suits go to trial.

I'd love to see them try that one:

"Excuse me, Your Honor, but the fact that we removed healthy breasts because we screwed up the lab results is all in their heads!!"

Um ... Okay ...

In fact a case could be made that it is "all in the heads" of the doctors, lab technicians and labs which have been screwing up the testing and the diagnoses of patients all over Ontario and particularly in my home community, or just providing negligent, extremely poor standards of care.

This is just one (out of many) examples of my direct personal experience with Health Care here.

When I had my blood sugar tested, I had physical symptoms of low blood sugar because I wasn't allowed to eat before the test. This happens if I don't eat breakfast.

And yet my blood sugar lab results were "perfect".

When my sister-in-law, used a blood sugar meter to perform the finger test (her husband is diabetic) my blood sugar was half what it should be.

This is concrete evidence that the lab results were wrong.

Since I'm a kidney donor and only have one kidney, this is a serious medical error for the lab to make and for the doctor to ignore.

It would be nice if there was a way for me to confirm the other lab results independently, by myself, with trusted witnesses but unfortunately there isn't.

Anyway, the cause of this, amongst other things, is the downward spiral of Health Care in Ontario since the Liberals came into power and George Smitherman became the Health Minister.

I, like everyone else, depends on the Health Care system to act in an ethical, moral, and reliable way.

It doesn't really matter whether this is occurring because the labs and some hospitals are now privately owned in Ontario, the Technicians poorly paid and unprofessional, or some other reason.

Either way, what matters is the fact that these things can happen at all here in Ontario and is an indication of a Health Care system infected with moral bankruptcy and unethical behavior, which is resulting in damage to people's health.

But, of course, complaining about such things makes the person a "mental case" and if they're a patient, it's "all in their head".

What's also quite interesting is that for some reason, neither the "independent" Media nor the Liberal Party lead by Dalton McGuinty will question anything associated with George Smitherman despite the numerous Health Care scandals which appear to have originated when he was the Health Minister and those which appear to have occurred while he was Minister. Some of which continue to this date and include financial mismanagement.

I would think that issues of Financial Mismanagement, amongst other issues, in the Health Ministry when he was there would be relevant now that Smitherman has given up his Provincial seat and is running for Mayor in Toronto.

And yet, the silence is golden for this media "golden boy".

A federal case was made about poor Giambroni, driving him out of the Mayoralty race, for doing what most normal guys his age do and which had nothing to do with his competence as Head of the TTC or his potential as a Mayoralty Candidate.

This was pushed to the point where CTV got all holier than thou literally demanding the Integrity Commission investigate Giambroni.

What were they supposed to investigate him for CTV? Liking sex? Give me a break. He's young and unmarried, albeit in live-in relationship. His sex life is his business and that of his girl friend.

On the other hand, CTV doesn't appear to have much of a problem with Smitherman running for Mayor given the scandals in the Health Ministry. Some of which concern financial mismanagment.

Frankly, past Financial Mismanagement would be not only relevant but a rather serious concern relating to a person running in the Mayors race in Toronto.

And yet the Media remain silent on this and have only stopped trashing Giambroni because he dropped out of the Mayor's race ....

Oh, I forgot.

Giambroni was running against Smitherman, and was the only serious challenge to Smitherman.

This made Giambroni fair game.

Why?


In my opinion, the Media bias for Smitherman, which appears to me to be so blatantly obvious that the Media itself should be investigated by both the Telecommunications Commission and the Municipal Elections Committe  for attempting to influence a Mayoral election and intimidate candidates into not running or challenging what appears to be their own, very special, "golden boy".

Oh, I forgot. Criticising things rationally equals being a "mental case" so I guess I should shut up now.