Tata Nano the $2500 car unvieled

That's right, $2500. But you cannot find it in Canada, it is being released today in India.

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2008/01/indias_new_car.html

Would I drive one of these? It would be great for scooting around town. It appears too slow for the highway.

What happened to Christmas?

What happened to Christmas? Christians are throwing a birthday party but they are not invited. In order not to ""offend"" non-christians the holiday has turned secular. No longer content with a bag of nuts, and orange, a rag doll or when you got older, a bike! Obligatory gifts have turned Christmas into Giftmas or Gimme-mas.

What happened to Christmas, I don't know, I have grown older and the society around me has changed. Maybe the Christmas I remember really never was, seen through a child's eyes everything is different, only the memories how I saw it then remain.

Merry Christmas anyway, no matter how you celebrate it. (Uh, I want a Wii, a flat screen TV, a PVR (Tivo to you Americans) and a laptop. However a Merry Christmas in return would be o.k. too.)

Poll

a) fake
b) real

Top doctor jumped the queue

Top doctor jumped the queue

Brian Day got his daughter in for an MRI on her knee right away because he is a doctor. He is also president of the Canadian Medical Association. Is it okay for insiders to get preferential treatment over the general public. He says he did nothing wrong so seems to have a sense of entitlement. There is a myth in Canada that there is not a two-tiered health care system, in fact it is multi-layered where persons of privelege get faster and better treatment like hockey players, politicians, and influential doctors and the rich can afford to leave the country for medical care they would have to wait for here.
Story -
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/story.html?id=adaefb23-5ba1-4750-8cac-6c32899e524e&k=38846

Xara 3D Heading Maker

Ontario emergency room wait times

I continue to read about hours waiting in the ER rooms in Ontario despite the imposition of the health tax by "liar, liar, pants on fire"' McGuinty. Why do Ontarians continue to elect this Norman Bates lookalike is beyond me, and then complain when he does exactly the same things he did in his last term (little to nothing).

What should happen at the hospital is to have an emergency department and and a non emergency after hours type of clinic co-existing, you walk in, get triaged and sent to the appropriate area. Your health records should be electronic and available there.

The health care system in Ontario is about 20 years or 30 years behind the times. First all the doctors are scattered in private practice all over the city, they should have offices in the hospital. Second, the after hours clinic should be in the hospital, or at least one non urgent clinic. Your health records should be centrally electronically available, not locked up in some doctor's office somewhere, unavailable because it is not office hours or he is on vacation for two weeks. Third, adequate resources should be allocated to emergency rooms, and because there is non-emergency clinic, there is no need to "punish" everyone in order to discourage the "abusers" who walk in with cuts and scrapes.

What you have to do now if you are injured or feel a chest pain is to decide if your illness/injury can wait and phone your family doctor, if you are lucky enough to have one, and lucky enough to get one in less than a week, and if it is the doctor's office hours, not his day off or a weekend. If not you have to figure out if it it the hours of an after hours clinic, becuase the 1-2 hour wait will be better than the 2-6 hour wait at the emergency. None of the previous? Well you are stuck going to the emergency, where they have no files on you. The police can pull me over in the middle of the night on a rural road in the middle of nowhere and know all about me, but the health care system cannot do the same. Whose ass is being protected? Certainly not the patient's. Anyway i digress, but if you were that smart in figuring out how sick you were you would not need a doctor.

I Have Prostate Cancer

The odds of a man in a lifetime getting prostate cancer are about one in six. The incidence increases with age, and if you live long enough it is usually a matter of when not if you get prostate cancer if you are a man. I guess I have lived too long because I now have prostate cancer. I have had a radical prostectomy and will have follow up radiation treatment shortly which I am not looking forward to.

I am at a loss in the light of the fact this is the most common cancer in men and being so prevelent that the Ontario government does not pay for the screening test for this deadly disease. I guess men should be the strong silent type and shut up about this sensitive subject and die like a man. Men are about as likely to contract and die of prostate cancer as women are to contract and die of breast cancer. The irony of my situation seems to be that the is Breast Cancer month and I am bombarded with advertisements of pink products being sold, all a portion of sales going to breast cancer research. What about me, where is my "run for the cure"?

Santa Clause myth

I cannot fathom the insistence of parents to decieve their children about Santa Clause. Does this not in later life instil distrust of their parents when they find out Santa Clause is not ""real"" but only a invented figure. I am not suggesting no Santa at all but should be treated as other imaginary figures such as Mickey Mouse, Barbie and the Easter Bunny. ""Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus"" but he lives in the hearts of men (and children) and should not reach the status of a real magical human being.

Baby Abducted in Sudbury Hospital

Brenda Batisse, the woman who allegedly kidnapped a baby from the Sudbury hospital a few days ago, was defended by her aunt who insisted Batisse is "not a criminal".

Not a criminal? Of course she is a criminal, she commited (allegedly) a criminal act. I often wonder why we assume if a man commits a criminal act we assume he is a pig or a monster, while a woman is characterized as mentally unstable and needing help, a slave to her hormones, or under the influence of a man and therefore unable to think for themselves. Of course the man (common-law partner) was instantly arrested, but had to be released because he was not involved.

Proper security measures in the hospital might have prevented this occurence if they were followed. Just what we need, another incident to make parents paranoid about their children. In another news article a woman who was due to give birth in the same hospital was aprehensive about the security of the hospital (why I ask?). I would think after an event like this everyone would be security conscious. Besides I believe there has been only about three baby abductions in the last 15 years from Canadian hospitals making your child's chances of abduction approach zero.

Sibling Rivalry

While I can understand why my brother and sister might resent a rather large headed infant invading their comfortable world decades ago,and I might even forgive them for ganging up on me and teasing me about my head size, among other things,because we were all children at the time, you would think after all this time they could shed some of this baggage and treat me as an adult and accordingly some respect. As a child being bigger and older might have counted as being superior but being born first or before yourself no longer really has any import when one has reached adulthood, unless an accumulation of skills or wealth might infer some sort of superiority. Would a sit down and a long talk ameliorate this situation, I am not sure, as my opinions are already discounted? I wonder if I should console myself that other people have awful stories of destructive behaviours on the part of their siblings, while mine, though not close are at least civil.

Daylight Savings Time

Once again this time of year the whole North American continent with a few exceptions along with a lot of the world turn back their clocks. The original idea of twelve noon was that the sun was at its zenith and there was equal daylight in the forenoon as was in the afternoon. This probably worked well in an agrarian society. With industrialization came the need to have more natural light in the evening, thus came the idea of daylight savings time and each 6 months the clocks were dutifully turned forward and back. In our post agrarian, post industrial society we are finding that daylight savings time saves energy this the daylight savings portion of the year has been extended by several weeks each way so that daylight savings time occupies much more of the year than standard time.

What I propose is to eliminate the insanity of moving the clocks at all, advance them to daylight savings time and leave them all year long. Ask yourself if this constant moving the clocks serves any useful purpose and you will agree with me.

You say nucular, I say nuclear, (let's call the whole thing off).

English quiz for the smart set:

George Bush's use of nucular for nuclear is an example of

eggcorn
malaproprism
modegreen
spoonerism
metathesis

Choose and discuss. Eggstraw marks for spelling.

Breastfeeding in Public

You use those breasts to suckle your infant in the morning, unbutton two or three top buttons to get out of a speeding ticket in the afternoon, wear a low-cut dress with a pushup bra to look sexy in the evening and expose to turn on your signicant other at night for, well you know. For some people it is hard to keep up with your state of mind at the time and confuse one activity with another. The whole North American society revolves around women's breasts, way too much in my opinion. The problem with dual purpose organs is that some people do not know where one activity ends and another begins and women's breasts have been highly sexualized. So until we all become nudists, the controversy will continue.

Let me say I am not a prude and really dont care one way or another if you breastfeed in public, as long as it is done discreetly, unlike that woman who stripped to the waist and breastfed poolside, and actually ended up with an apology. It is a non issue to me.

The USA national debt clock

How much is the United States in debt? 9 trillion dollars (and counting). Most of the portion owed to foreign countries is Japan, China and United Kingdom. Each American owes almost 30,000 dollars each, and by the time you read this it might even exceed that.

The Gross National Debt

Say What? department

I was told a polar bear's fur is transparent. Now the natural reaction is that it sure looks white. Further research states that the polar bear's skin is actually black, so it the fur was transparent, the polar bear would look black, not white. Sure looks white to me.

today's upc

0-1280047169-0 RayOVac rechargeable batteries AA 2 each
0-1280049827-7 RayOVac charger
0-1280050156-4 RayOVac recharger kit
0-3980003287-4 Energizer Max batteries AA 8 each
0-5500062126-7 Stouffer's Pastaria lasagna casserole 255g [Nestlé]
0-6136240100-3 Cloverleaf sockeye salmon 213 g
0-6321110412-7 Campbell's soup cream of mushroom 540 ml
0-6321112913-7 Campbell's Healthy Request hearty bean & vegetable 540 ml
0-6321113850-4 Campbell's Healthy Request new england clam chowder 540ml
0-6321114504-5 Campbell's Chunky Chili steak 425 g
0-6563327945-2 General Mills Cheerios cereal 525g
0-6720001300-1 E.D.Smith Fruit Lovers strawberry More Fruit 500 ml
0-6780000235-1 Unico diced tomatoes 796 ml
0-8390000378-4 Nestea Zero lemon iced tea 473ml [Coca Cola]

Simpsons trivia just for fun

Simpsons trivia just for fun, no peeking before answering the question.

What is Apu's last name?

(a) Apu is his last name
(b) Majula
(c) Nahasapeemapetilon
(d) Ahmadinejad

Compact Flourescent Lightbulbs dirty little secret

In an effort to conserve energy, north americans have been switching to the new compact flourscent lightbulbs [CFL]. However each bulb contains 5 milligrams of mercury and there has been no publicity about it and little encouragement to take the bulbs to hazardous waste facilities. All this mercury is ending up in landfills.

Mercury is poisonous.

today's upc

0-5963134092-4 Lysol toilet bowl cleaner 710 ml [Reckitt Benckiser]
0-6321101041-1 Campbell's broth consommé 254 ml
0-6321102555-2 Franco-American mushroom gravy 284 ml [Campbell]
0-6321102577-4 Franco-American chicken gravy 284 ml [Campbell]
0-6321116233-2 Campbell's Chunky soup chicken & sausage gumbo 540 ml
0-6442000160-3 Sealtest 1% milk 4 litres [Natrel]
0-6490040714-7 Wrigley's Excel Extreme Shock sugar-free gum 12 pces 2.9g each
0-6490040718-5 Wrigley's Excel Charge sugar-free gum 12 pces 2.9g each
0-7309650027-3 Panasonic super heavy duty batteries 4 AAA
6-2790710401-5 Marc Angelo mild italian sausages 500g

Some interesting facts about Orillia

Some interesting facts about Orillia from the local paper.

There are 7 Tim Hortons in Orillia, 1,479 in Ontario, 2,733 in Canada and 345 in the United States.

There are 11 municipal parking lots. [This is from a story about people gathering in a parking lot in the evening for socializing.]

2006 population was 30,259.

Median family income $51,339 ($10,000 about below the provincial figure), single parent families $28,334, two-parent families $57,443.

33.7 percent of Orillia households earn less than $30,000 in 2001.

Average annual earnings for a full time worker in 2000 was $36,859, in Ontario $47,299.

Average rents in Orillia is $762. Broken down it is $530 for a bachelor, $694 for one bedroom and $918 for a three bedroom.

3.84% of Orillia residents are on disability. (1.67% in Barrie, 1.53 in Simcoe County).

1.81% are in Ontario Works. (Barrie is 1.34%)