maarsen

The finger up the bum?

I just picked up a biography of Napoleon Bonaparte by Michael Broers. I have had an interest in history since I was old enough to read but this is the first time I have actually read any sort of history of Napoleon Bonaparte. I have always wanted to but I just never got around to it. I have read both fiction and non fiction about the Napoleonic wars but never about the man himself.

Did you ever finish Dhalgren? Did you like It? Just curious as it is not to all tastes and is a challenging read.

Nope. No word has been leaked. Having been the subject of a few prostate exams (and one of the reasons for me having a female MD is that if anyone pokes their finger up there I would rather have someone with small hands), I suspect that the colon being right there next to the prostate, cancer of the colon is a good guess along with bladder cancer because that is right next door too.

Among all the provinces Ontario has always had the fewest nurses per patient population, and the lowest per capita money spent on healthcare. This has been the case for at least the 90s. Any time health care worker contracts come up for renegotiation, out comes the rhetoric about how overpaid and underworked we are. Then comes the complaint that health care costs are too high and how dare we ask for more money. No one ever seems to think that if our jobs are so good to have, why is there not a lineup to apply for work? We work 7 days a week, every holiday, and 24 hours a day. Michael Hurley, Ontario Council of Hospital Unions President, always said that Mike Harris gave the workers the biggest raise ever after laying off thousands of workers and then finding out he needed to hire them back.

Any Supreme Court Justice who hears this case has to wonder about a president, later on not liking a ruling that was given down, having him/her assassinated, with immunity mind you, to open up a spot for a more amenable justice.

More stuff to add as I was listening to CBC at the noon phone in segment with the people talking about how the protest affected them. Almost all the callers complained that they had lost their job after refusing to be vaccinated. Here in Ontario it has been a well established principle in labour law that refusing a vaccination is enough grounds for an employer to move you from your regular workplace and put you in a place where you don't have the opportunity to infect others. Hospital workers regularly get vaccinated for influenza, and those that don't are subject to the above measures. A nurse or a doctor or anyone else whose job requires them to be in contact with others or the public can be sent home, without pay, until they are vaccinated. Furthermore under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, here in Ontario, an employer has the duty to take all reasonable precautions to protect the health and safety of workers in the workplace. Someone not getting vaccinated puts others at risk of illness and as such the emoyer can send them home without pay. In other words Stop The Whining!!

Those protestor were morons. Demanding the government to resign and having the Senate and the protestor form an interim government is both stupid and illegal.

I used to live in the snowbelt off of Lake Huron and we would get feet of snow at a time. I spent a winter in Halifax once when they got about 3 feet. This looks worse.

Here in Ontario we have 4 different educational systems. 3 of them are publicand are a Catholic board, a French language board and the mainstream public board. The mainstream public board also has a French immersion component. Then there are the private schools. If you have a student with physical or mental issues, any of these boards, except the mainstream one can refuse to accommodate a student. Even within the French Immersion a student can be asked to leave. By law though the mainstream board has to take all comers. Of course the average marks are down compared to the more selective parts of the educational system. Parents here game the system so their child gets into the so called better system.

With any luck it will fill the water reservoirs that have been dangerously low the last few years. Sort of a silver lining to those clouds.

Like Flashman I can put that down to a public school education.

I have serious doubt that a private school education is superior to a publicly funded school system. Are private schools repositories of esoteric knowledge that is unavailable to the rest of us? Are the teachers a better class of human beings than the rest of the population and more able to access the esoteric knowledge hidden in their schools. The only difference is better funding at the expense of those of us who have not the ability to send our kids there. As I see it a lot of the reasons for private schools is to keep your kids away from the real world and its issues for as long as possible. If you really want a good education for your child, surround them with books and other resources so they can explore the world around them and actually learn and grow.

I see too many people buying way more camera than they need pushed by advertising implying that that is what is needed to do photography well. I have been going the other way using simpler and simpler cameras. Any way, good luck with your photography.

Same here. I even did a research paper on dreams and there is nothing to the content of your dreams that has any importance. People do have recurring dreams or anxiety dreams but considering that most people do not remember dreams, and if you do, as soon as you wake up or begin moving muscles, the memory fades away. Why we dream is a whole other problem and one I don't really have answers to. All animals with a nervous system seem to dream but why is a big question.

So today I am on YT checking out a few channels I follow and up pops a Brendan Kavanaugh video. I occasionally watch his videos because I really enjoy the way he plays public pianos in England. Only this time he is in a bit of trouble with a few members of the Chinese government and/or their agents for videoing himself playing, in a public space, on a piano set up just for that purpose.

Nice camera but the skill of the photographer behind it is the reason for the photo. Whether a Nikon or a Pentax, or a Canon was used the photo would be as arresting. I use a Yashicamat TLR that I bought used for $100 in the 80s, and according to the serial # it was built in 1957. I would put that up against any 35 mm camera for photo quality just because the negative is almost 4 times bigger. Slide film in that camera is amazing. Too bad Kodak never made Kodachrome in that format. Anyway, enjoy the camera as lenses and accessories are still available.

I suspect that the worldwide runup in real estate prices before Covid is a direct effect of knowledgable investors getting out of Evergrande before the extent of the insolvency was known. I imagine there are shortsellers who have made a large fortune shorting the stock.

I think the word for such people is 'Tankie'. Unwavering support of any regime that opposes the West.

I have seen that behavior many times. Women that are smarter than them and would never have a relationship with them scare the snot out of them.

I have read Babel-17 many years ago and I suspect it will hold up especially if you have an interest in language. Delaney was never big on space opera but language and the nuances it comes with and the problems that can arise are one of his themes. It is not a large book like Dhalgren, which I would not recommend unless you really like Babel-17.

I still remember going to work one morning on a cold winter's day and seeing a car in front of me trailing a 100' extension cord.

The content may come from Trump, but I seriously doubt that a man who cannot form a coherent sentence when using a teleprompter can do so on a cell phone. Someone is doing the big words for him.

And where does the battery heating energy come from? Extremely long extension cords?

Yeah, that is basic chemistry. Reactions slow down in the cold.