Normally, I would put hot links in a post to help you. This time, I cannot. To find the relevant Toronto Star article, you need to google

Toronto Star citizen input hard to pinpoint

I can’t give you a hotlink because the google result goes to PressDisplay and conceals the parameters used to find the specific article. So I’ll give you a few quotes as we go along.

Basically, there are two claims here:

1. Having citizen input on TTC matters is of dubious value
2. It is expensive, considering the value received.

I propose to rebut both statements. Citizen input’s value first.

They were the chosen four: an entrepreneur, a lawyer, the head of a non-profit agency and an IT specialist — private citizens hand-picked from 485 applicants to sit among the seven city councillors on the Toronto Transit Commission.

You will note that all of these individuals likely own cars and can afford taxis. Who hand-picked these four? Why not go to a typical bus, subway, go train, and streetcar stop and pick the most intelligently responding person there?

Dumb question number one: do you believe these four (assuming you use what passes for ‘transit‘ in Toronto) represent your interests?

Now for costs.

For their trouble, the citizen members get $450 for each monthly meeting they attend. Three earn $5,000 annually. Vicechair Maureen Adamson, the head of Cystic Fibrosis Canada, earns $10,000 a year. It all adds up to about $47,000 from the TTC budget.

This is a bit obfuscatory, to be kind. Three earn $5,000 – impossible at $450 per meeting. One earns $10,000. Add that up and you get … $25,000. That’s a long way from $47,000.

Dumb question number two: were these four chosen for their likely lack of concern re TTC?

Dumb question number three: Is this article, planted on the front page of the GTA section of the Monday Toronto Star, an excuse to get rid of citizen input based on bad payback for money?

Councillor Gord Perks, who watches the TTC closely and has been critical of Stintz’s leadership, called the vote a minirevolt of sorts. “Watching that and having seen the TTC for a long time and participating in mixed-model boards,” he said, “I really get a sense that the citizen members are not equal partners at that table.”

Dumb question number four: are the citizen members of the board being overridden? Many Torontonians will remember Rob Ford beginning his ‘path’ as mayor by declaring, on day one, that ‘the war on the car is over,’ and scarily, council fell into line with this anti-transit viewpoint. If a mayor can do this to our council, can a review board do this to the four, appointed, citizen members?

Dumb question number five: is my claim that non-TTC users dominate the board fair?

“I think we bring at least the right questions to the table,” said Adamson. “I think we get enough information to make good decisions. I think it would also be better if a few more commissioners actually used transit once in a while.”

Finally, not all councillors think citizen input is a waste of time. My own councillor, Peter Milczyn, had this to say: “The citizen members bring more of a sense of fiduciary obligation to the company and more of a due-diligence approach to what staff are bringing forward.”

Final dumb question: Is Milczyn alone here? And if so, why?

In this web page you will find statements that vitamin supplements are essentially of no value and have potential for harm. The point of view is decidedly skewed, as in this quote:

“The message is simple,” the editorial continued. “Most supplements do not prevent chronic disease or death, their use is not justified, and they should be avoided.”

Why focus only on chronic disease? and death cannot be prevented by anything, eh?

The web page does not mention B vitamins, and the absence of reference to vitamin B12 is, imho, a glaring omission.

Vitamin B12 is an essential micronutrient. It is stored in the liver. It is produced only by some three families of bacteria. No plants contain it. Presumably the gut bacteria of cows, pigs, et cetera make this (among their many other key contributions to mammal health.)

Vegetarians are at risk for vitamin B12 deficiency. If you take folate, you disguise the shortfall for a longer interval, as folate shortage is an early diagnostic for B12 deficiency. B12 is implicated in the folate-creation pathways.

B12 deficiency can take ten to twenty years to manifest itself. I am aware of several individuals who were in sad shape and benefited from B12 supplement.

Person 1 was tired all the time. His MD did not want to test him for B12 deficiency. He added a checkmark himself on the go-to-bloodwork form. When the results came back, the MD asked, did you add the B12 test? Because usually, I check for folate at the same time. Lucky for me (the MD) I did this check as you are definitely deficient in B12.

Person 1 had contacts and found out how to get himself injected with B12. The effects were quick and profound: energy returned.

Person 2 is myself. I insisted that my MD do the B12 test. He reluctantly agreed. It came back a bit below borderline. I was taking supplements maybe once a week. I jumped it to daily (50 micrograms, in a B50 complex as that is cheaper than B12 alone, eh?). At the next re-test, B12 was OK. Oh, and I now felt human again. Being tired all the time is a drag.

Person 3 is my spouse. Essentially the same track of events.

Here’s my take on supplements of all kinds:

Understand, having researched, what the supplement you are thinking of taking is good for. Saint John’s Wort is supposedly good for depression. Check out side effects. Use the internet, especially trusted sites like Wikipedia (very good on technical stuff) and PubMed.

For some reason, B12 deficiency is becoming quite common. A cottager friend (person 4) is vegetarian, and had to go on B12 injections to regain energy.

I suspect that our carnivores are for some extra reason not getting their B12. Since most beef and pork here is from potentially antibiotic-fed stock, maybe the key bacteria aren’t present enough to create a stored backlog of B12 in the muscle tissues.

(I’ll do a rant on antibiotic stock feeding later. One ‘scandowegian’ country, perhaps Denmark, recently stopped feeding antibiotics to pigs and had yields rise.)

Back to my main topic. In the above referenced web page, you will find this:

There have been few randomized clinical studies of the effects of multivitamins and minerals on heart disease, cancer and risk of death…

May I point out that a lot of standard medical procedures have never undergone randomized, double-blind, clinical tests. Blood transfusions, for example.

May I point out that, focussing on heart disease, cancer, and risk of death is misdirection. The medical/pharmaceutical profession, imho, wants you to think those risks can be reduced by their procedures, their prescriptions, and their regimens. They also want you to think that theirs are the only benefits worth discussing.

When you’re tired all the time, another prescription isn’t likely to help. But vitamin B12 might.

It is reasonable to assume that other simple supplements might make up for our industrialized production of food with less nature, and more synthesis, in its inputs.

Now for the dumb question: what do you think? am I nuts? in my limited circle a specific vitamin has changed four lives. Placebo effect? Comment here, OK?

The Ukraine was poised to do a deal with the EU and the IMF in an attempt to dig itself out of a financial hole. Citizens of the Ukraine were of the view that getting closer to the EU would give them a more European lifestyle. I guess they aren’t aware of Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain; they didn’t know about Cyprus, which had all bank deposits over a limit taxed at twenty percent. (This to get the IMF and the EU to lend them money.)

When the Ukraine leaned toward Moscow, there were disturbances. However in the end Moscow (and Vladimir Putin) prevailed. How was this done? By providing fifteen billion (US Dollars I assume) in loans. In addition, the cost of natural gas to the Ukraine was dropped considerably. You can read details of this here.

One thing about this deal disturbs me. The Ukraine gets roughly a one-third cut in natural gas prices, to some $268.50 USD per thousand cubic metres. I thought that was still a pretty high price, so I searched about for the price of natural gas in Canada. My memory is that I found some fourteen cents per cubic metre, or $140.00 CAD per thousand cubic metres. Here is a website which more or less corroborates this figure.

So much for the observation. Now for the dumb question:

A lot of natural gas passes through the Ukraine, and the Ukraine siphons off some money for that transit. Good for them. But given the price, do we think that Russia has an effective monopoly over those European nations which buy its natural gas exports?