Steve Breen for February 25, 2010

Gee, anybody know why they are called Killer Whales?

Let him/her go for gods sake!

Not nearly as dangerous as a politician with a grudge.

The whale was sent to San Diego from Canada for better health care. Canadian P.M. is here too for health reasons.

FREE WILLY!

Set them free.

Never in the recorded history of Canada has any Canadian citizen ever gotten health care in the US. It is totally free in Canada, with 100% cures, no waits, unlimited medications, unlimited MRIs and no rationing.

It was revealed that Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams is not an authentic Canadian but a paid spokesman for private American health insurance companies.

“Never in recorded history,” is a long time. We get a lot of snow birds here in the SoCal desert, & I’m sure that occasionally one has visited a doctor. But some thing should be taxpayer funded; defence, police, fire departments, roads, ports, education & health care.

But we’ve gotten off topic. If we free Willy, will his friends hear of it & decide that’s how to get out of the little tanks?

wmrst and libertarian – do you have any concern for the truth of the story about Danny Williams? The true story is easily available, and I’ve posted linked to news items that explain the real situation. But if you don’t have any concern for the truth you will continue with these inaccurate posts.

lonecat

Is Danny Williams coming to the US for treatment?

libertarian – Yes (though it’s in the past tense, over and done). Could he have received the treatment in Canada?

^ & ^^ From what I read this Williams guy, who is from Newfoundland & Labrador, was given advice that he needed ”either a full or partial sternotomy, both of which would’ve required breaking bones.”

Then he spoke with ”a Newfoundland and Labrador specialist working in New Jersey who advised him to get treatment in Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami from a pioneer in minimally invasive heart valve surgery, Dr Joseph Lamelas which didn’t require breaking any bones.”

”The procedure is available in Canada.”

”Two Canadian physicians wrote the how-to paper on valve surgery published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine.”

”Minimally invasive procedures, the style of surgery Williams chose, are offered in Canada in places like the University of Ottawa Heart Institute.”

I don’t think I read anywhere that he faced a queue to get the procedure in Canada. So his choice to have it done in Miami was because he followed a friend’s advice and could afford to travel. Perhaps had he obtained a second opinion who knew of the procedures being done in Ottawa, he would have been referred there instead.

Sources: Canadian health care survives Danny Williams’ surgery

‘My heart, my choice,’ Williams says

Regarding the orca…

I dislike the term “killer whale” and I’m surprised that after movies like “Free Willy” and everyone knowing what happended to the orca in question, we are somehow blaming the orca for being an orca.

Keiko’s Life

1977 or 1978: Born in Atlantic Ocean near Iceland. 1979: Captured by a fishing boat, held in an Icelandic aquarium. 1982: Sold to Marineland in Ontario, and becomes a performing animal. 1985: Sold to Reino Aventura, an amusement park in Mexico City. 1992: Warner Bros. Studios begins filming “Free Willy” starring Keiko. 1993: “Free Willy” publicity and coverage of Keiko’s conditions prompt advocates to find whale a new home. 1995: Mexico City amusement park donates Keiko to the Free Willy-Keiko Foundation. Foundation announces that Keiko will be moved to a rehabilitation facility at the Oregon Coast Aquarium. 1996: Whale airlifted to the aquarium in Newport, Ore. 1998: Relocated to Iceland. 2002: Released from pen, swims to Norway. Dec. 12, 2003: Dies of pneumonia in Norway. Cost of re-introducing Keiko to the wild: over $20 million

omQ R – thanks for your post about Danny Williams, with links. I have posted similar links previously.

And thanks for the information about Keiko. It’s a sad story, and all the more sad because unnecessary.

DrC – ah, if that were the only problem!

I’ve worked with the folks at Sea World, and they love the orcas. The reason they are careful with orcas who are not familiar with humans is that the normal way orca play with other critters is by throwing them up in the air with their mouths – treatment that would kill most humans. But it isn’t vicious, and it isn’t intended to kill. The reports I saw indicated that the person in question made a mistake, and she would have said so had she been able to – the orca playfully tugged her ponytail and played with her.

I’ve seen orca “play” with seals by tossing them in the air- the outcome wasn’t “play” for the seal. I too love these critters, and many others that people are unreasonably afraid of. RESPECT FOR a 4,000 pound carnivore is NOT the same thing as fear, but “playing” with a half ton of enraged hamburger in the rodeo arena can damage cowboys too.

Yes, making a “mistake” around loaded guns, or large, potentially lethal mammals, is not a good idea.

That means you’ll never know the joy of owning a househorse.

Just for curiosity my dear friend DrC when did I ever show ignorance of the difference between the prime minister and a premier? In my one and only post on the subject I correctly labeled him a premier. Do you have difficulty in reading comprehension? Suggest you reread my above post. Wonder if you are mature enough to give me an apology?

Sooky Rottweiler says; If it ahd been a rottie, he’d be dead by now! Where’s justice?

^That’s interesting. How closely related are dolphins and whales?

So that means that porpoises and toothed whales are more closely related to each other than they are to baleen whales, and orcas are in the family Delphinidae along with porpoises.

Good pictures: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/pictures/Delphinidae.html