Shrieeek! Union destroys hospital! And Timmies!

This is what passes for news reporting, in the Sun tabloids.

A hospital Tim Hortons in St. John's that was supposed to make hundreds of thousands of dollars to offset the cost of delivering health care is going fully private after years of losing taxpayer money.

Eastern Health, Newfoundland and Labrador's largest health authority, announced this week that it will hand over all its non-patient cafeteria services — including the red-ink-stained Timmies — to private companies.

How many prevarications did you spot in those opening paragraphs? Tim Hortons are franchised; whoever has a contract with the head company is required to hand over a large chunk, if not ALL the profits to the corporate owners. Hospitals are not-for-profit but you'd think that somebody in Accounting might have been able to crunch those numbers for Eastern Health before agreeing to a venture that lost money to private industry.

"We cannot continue to subsidize those non-direct care services when we know they can be provided more effectively and efficiently," Eastern Health CEO Vickie Kaminski said.

Words taken directly from the CONservatives' standard talking-points manual. Will Eastern Health soon be asking patients to launder their own bedsheets and clean the bathrooms? That's *non-direct care services*, right?

When the Tim Hortons opened in 1995 in the Health Sciences Centre, Newfoundland and Labrador's biggest hospital, authorities promised it would net a profit of up to $300,000 a year, enough to "pay the salaries of seven nurses," then-hospital administrator Gladys Peachy told CBC News at the time.

Instead, Kaminski revealed this week the chain lost $260,000 last year alone, despite the fact it's a very popular spot, with huge lines every day.

Hmm how interesting. Could it possibly be that the budget advanded in the Tim Hortons' franchise template was based on part-time, minimum wage, no benefits staff salaries? And Eastern Health probably has regulations that require workers within its complex belong to a union.

But while the coffee shop itself is privately managed, its workers are unionized hospital employees, earning about $20 an hour, plus benefits.

What the Sun's union-bashing propaganda piece neglects to mention is that any revenue "lost" by Eastern Health went to Tim Hortons' investors and shareholders. And earning $20 an hour plus benefits, working in a busy high-stress environment seems appropriate to me.

Interestingly enough, it appears that none of the infotainment flaks who work for the Sun chain have expressed outrage about this.

The bill [C-38] increases Gov. Gen. David Johnston's salary from $137,500 to $270,602 starting on Jan.1, 2013 — but he's no longer exempt from paying income tax. His salary was hiked to offset the taxman's bite.

His salary was doubled. Some *taxman's bite*. Remember, the governor general lives for free in luxurious housing including housekeeping staff and travels first-class to exotic locations - all paid by our taxes. Where's the shriEEEK, Sun Media?

Meanwhile in BC - as illustrated by the photo above - the customers' seating area outside the Tim Hortons' located in a hospital was temporarily used for patients arriving at Emergency during an unusually demanding health care critical period.

Where's Larry?

That Lawrence "Larry" Cannon is just full of surprises. From CC at Canadian Cynic we hear that he's planning to give Gadhafi a piece of his mind when the Lybian leader's plane lands in Newfoundland next week to re-fuel.

The ReformaTories have a bizarre approach to international politics. There was Maxime "Unzipped" Bernier who handled confidential documents with the same grace and sense he used in conducting his personal affairs. Larry was MIA during the Abousfian Abdelrazik situation which seemingly was resolved in spite of his desultory neglect of the case.

And Harper held a press conference at an Oakville Tim Hortons while world leaders spoke at the United Nations assembly. I think that was engineered in the hopes Ignatieff might label him as some Western Canada hayseed with no international creds. And the Cons could have pulled a gotcha! and leveraged that response to their advantage.

That didn't happen because the media and most Canadians are on to the Con; Stevie grew up in Toronto and acquired his Alberta neocon identity as a young adult. He's a Con-vert with serious self-confidence issues, needing galleries and Harper government websites jammed with his photographs to bolster his fragile ego.

Update: I predict that Larry will call this a great victory and an achievement. It seems Gadhafi's advance team has changed the original plan that called for a stop in Newfoundland and rerouted his flight.

Sex + Donuts = Weird

What is it with donuts?

There were pro-abortion donuts.

Now, there are anti-gay donuts.

Timmy's corporate office reined the idiots in Rhode Island in.