Most hunts start and end at one of our 4 base camps, which are equipped with log structures and/or heated cabins. From there, hunters leave with a string of horses or are dropped at a remote lake via floatplane, depending on the animal and area being hunted. Most of the hunts are spot and stalk. Calling is also utilized during the moose rut. We conduct hunts which produce results. Hunter success includes hard work on everyone’s part. Our equipment is some of the best in the industry. Most of our hunts are challenging and rewarding, for those who want a fair chase hunt in some of the most scenic and wild country found anywhere in the world. All hunts start/end in the town of Smithers, BC (daily flights from Vancouver, BC to Smithers). The scenic floatplane (Turbine Otter, Beaver, Wilga or Cessna 185) flight to camp takes approximately 2 hours each way.
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Magnet-Free Europe
Magnet-Free Europe: For some reason, the EU was proposing severe restrictions on the use of MRI scans, a proposal which has been halted- for now. Here’s the reasoning behind the original restrictions:
The Directive was drafted by DG Employment, with the aim of minimising workers’ exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMF). Currently eight million MRI patient examinations per year are carried out in Europe, said Professor Dag Rune Olsen, who works in experimental radiation therapy at the Norwegian Radiation Hospital, Oslo, Norway, and is chairman of the physics committee of the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ESTRO). “But these are likely to have to stop, since the Directive sets limits to occupational radiation exposure which will mean that anyone working or moving near MRI equipment will breach them, thus making it possible for them to sue their employers. Even those maintaining or servicing the equipment may be affected,” he said.
Radiation exposure? MRI’s don’t emit radiation, they detect the magnetic spin of atoms. The EU is worried that workers will be mesmerized by the MRI’s. Sally Szwarc has more.
Universal Pander
The Universal Pander: There’s nothing like a presidential election to bring out the healthcare crisis. And, since the presidential primary process is stretching into a two year long spectacle, there’s been no shortage of proposals on how to fix our current system. Recently, Dennis Kucinich pointed out that his ideas are the closest thing to what the American people want:
In a CNN poll this spring, 64 percent of respondents said the government should “provide a national insurance program for all Americans, even if this would require higher taxes,” and 73 percent approve of higher taxes to insure children under 18. Those results track New York Times and Gallup polls last year, in which about two-thirds of respondents said it is the federal government’s responsibility to guarantee health coverage to all Americans.
Such polls allow Kucinich to joke that, far from being in the loony left, “I’m in the center. Everyone else is to the right of me.”
Ask the American public a different question about the healthcare system, and you’ll get a different answer:
For the fifth time in six years, Harris Interactive has asked the insured public to rate their own insurance plans. Two thirds of them continue to give their plans an A or a B, with only 10% giving them a D or an F. Substantial but not overwhelming majorities continue to say that they would recommend their own health plans to family members who are basically healthy (76%) or who have a serious or chronic illness (68%).
Health insurance companies are like politicians. We dislike all but our own. We should be careful what we wish for, however, for it won’t just be our own politicians designing a nationalized health insurance plan; it will be all the others that we dislike, including politicians who believe hospital pork is a public service, that healthcare and personal autonomy are mutually exclusive, and that the right to earn a living takes second place to health insurance.
What are people really wishing for when they say they wish for a single nationalized health insurance program? Security. Our current employer-provided system means that most of us are just a pink slip away from losing our insurance coverage. It also means that, deprived of the bargaining power of large corporations and unions, the self-employed are left with fewer choices and higher premiums. Handing over the whole kit and kaboodle to the government is a seductively simple solution. But it would also be a very expensive solution.
The British are often held up as the standard to which we should aspire. But we don’t live under a British style of government. We live under a government that’s truly government of the people, by the people, for the people. And what the people want, the people get. Witness the influence of disease activism even now on disease specific government funding and treatment mandates. In England, the government only pays for colonoscopies to check for colon cancer if there are symptoms suggestive of cancer or a family history of colon cancer. In the United States, the Medicare pays for a colonoscopy every ten years for everyone over 50, regardless of symptoms or risk. So do many insurance companies., sometimes if not by choice, by mandate. In England, mammograms are only covered for women between the ages of 50 and 70, and then only every three years. In the United States, we pay for mammograms beginning at age 40, yearly, and with no upper age limit. We just don’t have the heart for rationing that they have in other countries.
A common theme in politician crafted health care schemes is that by paying for prevention we will save money, and thus be able to offer limitless healthcare services without bankrupting the country. Both Hillary Clinton and John Edwards have explicitly emphasized the importance of preventive healthcare in their plans- even to the point of patient-directed mandates in the case of Edwards. But if preventive services save money and lives, then why is the United Kingdom, which offers less expansive preventive services than the United States, both healthier and cheaper? (Hint: Dead people neither spend health insurance dollars nor complain about their health.)
Don’t be fooled by the promises of health and wealth to be found in government-provided, or even mandated, health insurance coverage. It may bring you health, but it will be at a very steep price - both in money and liberty.
(Note: Next installment, a look at the Republican candidates approach to “universal coverage.”)
A Word About MRSA
A Word About MRSA: I’ve been fielding a lot of doorknob questions about MRSA lately. (Doorknob questions= questions thrown out just as my hand reaches the doorknob to leave the room.) Little wonder. It’s been in the news again and again, and has even prompted the closing of schools and cancelling of football games. Despite what some editorialists say, it is being framed as a threat to our children. Here’s an example of the typical coverage:
A 16-year-old Springfield High School junior remained in serious condition Friday in the intensive-care unit of Akron Children’s Hospital with a drug-resistant staph infection. Michael Forester of Lakemore was hospitalized Oct. 24 and was to undergo surgery Friday, said his mother, Mary Baxter. “The more prayers I can get, the better,” Baxter said Friday at the hospital.
On Wednesday, Springfield School Superintendent William Stauffer, in a letter sent to parents, acknowledged that a student had become ill and was admitted to the hospital. The superintendent said rumors that the student has a contagious disease that puts other students at risk and that the high school has an ongoing problem with staph infections are not true. Stauffer could not be reached for comment Friday.
What is this MRSA? A better question might be “What is SA”? The “SA” in MRSA is Staphylococcus aureus, a bacteria that resides in our nasal passages and skin. That is its habitat. Normally, it causes us no problem, but if conditions are right, it can make us quite ill. It’s often the culprit behind boils and styes and cellulitis and urinary tract infections. It can also cause more serious infections such as pneumonia (as in the case of the young man in the linked to article above), meningitis, sepsis, endocartditis, and osteomyelitis. It is one of the most common causes of sepsis. Penicillin conquered Staph infections for a little while, but the bacteria acquired resistance within a few years of the antibiotic’s introduction. When penicillin became widely used in the community, the population of Staph aureus living in noses and on skin shifted toward those containing an enzyme that could cut the betalactam ring on penicillin, rendering it ineffective. New antibiotics were developed to get around this. One of those antibiotics was methicillin, which brings us to the “MR” part of “MRSA”.
We don’t use methicillin any longer. We use drugs like Augmentin instead. But, when we say that a Staph aureus infection is “methicillin resistant” we mean that it’s resistant to all penicillins, even those that were developed to get around the betalactam-eating defenses of the Staph aureus population. This doesn’t mean that it’s resistant to all antibiotics, however, just the ones that we typically use for a Staph infections. In the hospital, we often use vancomycin for MRSA infections. In the outpatient setting, we use drugs like Bactrim and clindamycin. In most cases, the infections respond nicely to these drugs. There is, however, concern that the bacteria may one day develop resistance to these, too, as we use them more to treat the growing resistant population of Staph.
So here are the take home points about MRSA:
1) It isn’t running amok in our schools like the blob or killer tomatoes. It’s living on our skin and nasal passages just as it always has before it developed resistance to penicillin and its cousins.
2) One of the reasons bacteria acquire resistance is because we expose them to antibiotics when we don’t need to. Don’t insist on an antibiotic for every runny nose, even if the snot is yellow. And don’t insist on one of the special antibiotics for MRSA for every pimple or pustule or red scratch. If we overuse our remaining effective antibiotics, we’ll only end up with a population of Staph aureus that is resistant to those, too.
3) Don’t freak out if you or your child develops a skin infection. Most staph infections are easily treatable. Even most MRSA infections are easily treatable.
4) When you read the newspaper, always remember that they lean to the dramatic in all things. It makes for more entertaining reading.
Assault Weapons Ban and Law Enforcement Protection Act of 2007
From GUNED.COM– 110th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 1022 To reauthorize the assault weapons ban , and for other purposes. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
P.E.I. RCMP quibble with Taser numbers
CBC Jun 13 2008 5:41PM GMT