Thursday, January 4, 2007

Our rant today is entirely numerical.

1. Robert R. Nardelli, pictured right, has walked from his reign as CEO of Home Depot with a loathsome severance package of $210Million. We dare to call this atrocity by its names at a time when America languishes with 45 Million citizens uninsured for health care, schools and roads crumbling and the American reputation and good will at its lowest ebb world-wide in living memory. Mr. Nardelli follows in the footsteps of the American capitalist hero, Jack Welch, of G.E. fame, who found his form firing hundreds of thousands of ordinary working folks, increasing profit margins short term and moving on to his next odious score.

2. Cameron Ward, a Vancouver lawyer, has been awarded a $10,000 judgement against the City of Vancouver and the B.C. government. In 2002, Mr. Ward got in a scuffle with Vancouver police when they thought he was going to "cream" then Prime Minister Jean Chretien with a pie. Mr. Ward was stripped, skin searched and briefly jailed. The world is blowing itself to pieces, but in Canada we have the luxury of being on high "Pie Alert!"

3. Penny Ballem, the former Deputy Health Minister of the Province of British Columbia, quit 6 months ago. She now reveals that she had encouraged Premier Gordon Campbell to institute a "best practices" regimine with B.C. doctors, such that they might be accountable for their work. Ms. Ballem, herself a physician, pushed for this initiative because she estimated that 60% of diabetics are not getting their proper drugs and 80% of heart patients are getting the wrong drugs. Dr. Ballem still believes that "the system is killing people." The premier turned down her suggestion and she walked.

4. The usual suspects are getting their dandelion in a knot over a recent Ontario court decision naming 3 people as parents of a young boy. The three people are the boy's biological father - a sperm donor, who doesn't live with the child but sees him very regularly - and the two lesbian women who are his live-in parents and have been since day one. Clearly the world is coming to an ignominious end...or at least, so The Hysterics would have you believe.

It's All in the Numbers