Results tagged “healthcare”

A visiting Ralph Nader said that expatriate Americans living in Canada should tell other Americans about how great our health care system is. He then explained that there was no difference between Barack Obama and John McCain and that people should vote for the 74-year-old vanity candidate because…well, he didn't actually explain that part, but we're sure he has a reason.

China vows to continue the international Olympic torch relay despite lots of protests. The International Olympic Committee suggested that they might do away with the international route in upcoming games, because from now on, all Olympic games will be held in authoritarian dictatorships and they "don't want to look bad" when they award the next few Games to Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan, and the Equatorial Republic of Hate-Land. (The President-For-Eternity of Hate-Land responded by saying, "ooooooh, I hate the International Olympic Committee! And I hate you!")

Photo of Owen Pallett by Heidi Slimane from his MySpace.

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset.

Policy Monday is a weekly feature during the lead-up to the provincial election where Torontoist will dive into the mean and gritty world of public policy, turning a critical eye at a specific area of the policies and machinations of the four major provincial parties.

J. K. Rowling to come to Toronto on her reading tour. It's her only Canadian stop, so expect an audience that is 30 percent younger readers and 70 percent aging, obsessive fanboys and fangirls, most desperately wanting an explanation as to why Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were not revealed to be secret gay lovers.

John Tory says any religious schools must stick to the Ontario curriculum or lose their funding. Thus, creationism would not be allowed to be taught as science. That having been said, non-religious faith-based teaching (like "the invisible hand of the market can fix all economic problems" or "one day the working class will rise up and create a proletarian utopia") is fine!

A soccer game between Toronto and Los Angeles was played last night in honour of the Becks-Posh royal visit to Toronto. Although an injury prevented Beckham from taking the field, his handsomeness remains unimpaired. And oh yeah, the final score was 0–0.

Michael Moore’s much anticipated Sicko hits, and having seen it, we can say it’s not particularly essential for Canadian viewers to watch, unless you want to feel smug about our lovely health care system, or slightly surprised that it only takes an hour or so in London (Ontario) to be seen in an emergency room. Yes, the film is chock-a-block with anecdotal evidence, and it’s probably to the film’s fault that, as usual, Moore is selective with his anecdotes to only show free universal health care in a positively glowing light.

ARR! Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End hits this week and as the third second sequel to hit this summer it’s got some stiff competition. Nice to see though that they’ve made sure it beats Spider-Man 3 in at least one respect, in that at 2 hours and 47 minutes long, it’s a good half hour longer. It’s nearly as long as Inland Empire (which is finished at the Royal now, so we promise we won’t mention it again) and apparently, almost as confusing. Reviewers have mostly come to the conclusion that they didn’t have a clue what was going on, but we think NOW’s Deirdre Swain put it most eloquently: “It would take the sharpest sword in the armoury to cut through this sailor's knot of a plot; I couldn't explain it if I wanted to.”

City budget passes: 7.9 billion smackers for the year. Noteworthy: city councillors decided that keeping their free golf passes was extremely important. I don't think most of Rob Ford's proposed budget cuts are anything but hamfisted, but come on, City Council—pay for your own goddamned golf game, willya?

Sometimes it feels like time is slipping away faster than ticket sales for tonight’s Al Gore talk at Con Hall. Catch time while you can! Hurry over to *new* gallery to bid on a selection of tick-tockalicious clocks created by 50 artists, such as by Donald Brackett (above, right).

We'd like to start this week's run-down by wishing a very happy birthday to parent blog Gothamist, which turned four on Friday. If it wasn't for them, the rest of us wouldn't be here. They celebrated their birthday by nabbing an interview with Entourage star Adrian Grenier, who misses NYC public transportation when he's working in LA. They also reported on NYU students protesting a band whose name is also known as a slur, the new graffiti king in town, Bill Cosby's adorable dog, and the disturbing tale of a yoga instructor who was found guilty of killing his girlfriend, a dancer from Ohio who stripped to make ends meet.

Apple unveils the iPhone. Entire bunches of interwebs go nuts over possibilities created by what is, when you get right down to it, just another fancy cellphone. Seriously, this isn't the iPod. This isn't a new class of product. This is at best a slight improvement on existing things to which we already had access. The iPhone will not do your hair, manage your diet or make you generally sexier. (Okay, it might make you sexier to technology fetishists.)

The Bloc will support the Stephen Harper motion to recognize Quebec as a distinct nation within Canada. In other news: Pope Catholic, bears poop in woods, General Franco still dead.

Think you're the world's biggest Metric fan? Here's a rare chance to prove it.

A very clear message from the Council of Canadians on health care reform. At Bay, north of Dundas.

With SH, it's one present after another. Here's what the big guy has passed down over the past two weeks:

, a "medical thriller [that] humanizes the struggle of heroic health care workers during SARS crisis"? From the sounds of each, it's like choosing between eating diarrhea or drinking pee. Now that's pretty gross. But if we had to drink pee, we'd probably consume a little drop each day, perhaps adding some to our milk or apple sauce to ease that putrid taste. There's no such option tonight, as Plague City: SARS in Toronto comes very undiluted and ultra-putrid on CTV at 9 pm. Here's a synopsis:

TOist had the opportunity to visit the Lost Articles Office at the TTC a few weeks ago. It's a vast repository for things lost and unloved, where the finds range from the mundane (hundreds of pairs of gloves) to the magnificent (a super vintage apple laptop, similar to the ones presently starring in Bruce Mau's massive change). But while the TTC formerly offloaded the unclaimed items with bi-annual sales, they're now, like much of the western world, going Ebay. Apparently, Toronto Police Services has been doing this since last year, and it's always a good idea to follow the lead of the TPS. As of press time, bidding for the 'Assortment of Beauty and Healthcare Products' stood at $13.00. Check out that quality Clingwrap.

As part of his current "image building" tour of the East, gonzo Alberta Premier Ralph Klein stated he would not propose a smoking ban in Alberta. When further questioned about his views on cigarettes, Ralph "the Dean" Klein said that people who smoke are "stupid."