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Posted
Saturday, June 29, 2005 @ 1028 MDT
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Same-sex
marriage a done deal in Canada and Spain.
So,
to no one's surprise the Canadian
House of Commons has passed a bill C-38,
which will legalize same-sex marriage throughout
the country (overriding holdouts like Alberta,
my home province, sort of our version of Texas
except it looks more like Montana). The Conservatives,
of course, want
to overturn it if they ever become the government
(Goddess forbid!). At least it's not like Maine,
where
they are trying to repeal legal protection of
queers' basic civil rights (again!). Or
better yet, Poland, where
presidential candidates declare zero tolerance
for "perverts and homosexuals"
and give parade permits to youth groups who
"denounce gays and demand tough new laws
against homosexuality" after denying queers
a permit for a Pride parade.
Despite
what some papers say, Canada will be the fourth,
not the third country in the world to legalize
same-sex marriage throughout the nation. The
Spanish legislature is expected to overturn
their Senate's defeat of a similar measure
in that country. If so, it will have force of
law within days, whereas in Canada the bill
must still be reviewed and approved by the Senate
and receive Royal
assent by the signature of the Governor
General.
Category:
GLBTIQ/queer,
politics,
Canada,
international
Posted
Saturday, June 18, 2005 @ 0841 MDT
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Solstice blessings.
So,
I finally realized that my Litha decorations
were not up on the site, and the solstice is
only a couple of days away, so I got something
posted (I need a better graphic for Litha, though,
if you know of one, e-mail me). We are busy
with the girl, who is just a delight, as usual.
It is amazing how much she changes in the few
short weeks between visits. I'm looking forward
to the move, so that I can spend part of every
day with her. We are taking our goddess-daughter
Rhiannon with us and going to Sunfest at Ardantane,
greet some friends and check on the progress
of the campus (rezoning is almost aproved, yay!),
then on to a kids solstice celebration held
by the NM Pagan Parents group. Should be lots
of fun.
Tomorrow
will be a little more restful, I hope. We are
going to have Father's Day dinner with a good
friend of mine I haven't seen for at least a
year. Happy Father's Day to all you dads out
there, especially mine.
Category:
family,
spiritual
Posted
Friday, June 17, 2005 @ 2155 MDT
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Pissy about the whole Medicare thing.
The
long knives have come out for Medicare back
home. The majority of people who wrote into
the Calgary
Herald's "Sound
Off" forum on-line were way too pleased
with the ruling for my taste, but the ones comparing
Canada to North Korea and Cuba were more that
I could tolerate. You know you're going to be
snarky when you start quoting the indominable
Officer Ripley, but that is how I started my
post:
"I'm
sorry, did IQ's just drop sharply while I
was away?"
There is no way to shorten waits without increasing
capacity (people providing care or amount
of time they spend). Private payment means
either people jump the queue or some professionals
leave one system to create another, so someone
is going to wait longer. The overall cost
of the system will go up with multi-payer
care, as insurance co's are bureaucracies
that also take a profit. The private sector
in the US has proven that point amply. Most
Canadian businesses are happy with single-payer
as it makes them competitive. Wages are not
driving costs up, it is new drugs, technology,
and a population that needs more care. US
& CDN RN wages have been flat for decades
in terms of purchasing power. Unions aren't
the problem, in the US wages between union
& non-union facilities are comparable,
as they compete for the same limited staff
pool. So be honest - do you want a system
that is fair, or provides great care to those
with cash?
The
headline I was reacting to was this one: "Medicare
setback delights Alberta: Supreme Court endorses
right to private care" (sorry, no
link, they don't keep stuff up long). The "delights
Alberta" part was refering to the Klein
government, of course, which is always eager
to commodify health care. Strangely enough,
no one replied to my post.
Category:
health
care, politics,
Canada
Posted
Thursday, June 16, 2005 @ 1958 PDT
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"Conservo-speak" and other Right jabs.
Alright,
I admit to being on a humour streak. I can't
even remember where I found this
link, but it looked funny, so there I went.
Some of it is old, some silly, some mean, but
some definitely funny (WARNING:
Republicans will not find any part of this site
funny). Here are a sampling of translations:
"Sound
Jurisprudence" = court rulings conservative
like
"Judicial Activism" = court rulings
conservatives hate
"Special
Interests" = lobbyists conservatives don't
like (Arnie uses this
one a lot)
"Industry Spokesmen = lobbyists on the
conservative payroll
"Law
and Order" = government enforcing laws
conservatives like
"Government Interference" = laws conservatives
don't like
"Regrettable
incident" = scandal involving a Republican
"Failure of liberal values" = scandal
involving a Democrat
"Stock
Market collapse" = share price slide under
a Democratic president
"Market Correction" = share price
slide under a Republican president
"Concerned
Scientist" = an expert conservatives agree
with
"Environmental Extremist" = an expert
liberals agree with
And
my favorite tagline?
"If
guns are outlawed, how will conservatives win
any arguments?"
Category:
humour,
politics,
USA
Posted
Wednesday, June 15, 2005 @ 2254 PDT
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Pegged.
No,
not THAT
'pegged', but just as amusing, as in 'nailed'
(no, not THAT 'nailed', get your mind out of
the bloody gutter for a minute, would you?),
as in 'she has my number' . . . oh, never mind.
A picture is worth a thousand misinterpreted
words:
Being
a grad student counts as underemployed, doesn't
it? I wonder how podcaster will be defined.
I'm
glad you learned Photoshop,
Tina.
Thanks for the laugh, and for sharing.
Category:
humour,
geek,
podcast,
blogging
Posted
Wednesday, June 15, 2005 @ 1538 PDT
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Not the best news.
On
the science and environmental front, several
headlines I've seen in the past few days are
not what you would call uplifting:
Brazil
As
Amazon Crops Grow, a Forest Shrinks
Canada
Bear
paths protect neither man nor beast
USA
If
big quake hits off coast, tsunami could be gigantic:
Geophysicist charts wave heights from Northwest
to Baja
.
. . but there was at least one cool headline:
Solar
System
Hubble
Telescope to View Comet Collision
to
quote:
The
Hubble Space Telescope will be watching when
the University of Maryland's Deep Impact space
probe crashes into a comet July 4, setting
off a cosmic firework that may be visible
on Earth.
I
think I'll break out my binoc's that evening.
Category:
environmental,
science,
news
Posted
Tuesday, June 14, 2005 @ 2244 PDT
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At least someone out there is paying attention.
But
not in the US. At least, not in the US MSM,
with the lonely exceptions of the Washington
Post and the SF
Chronicle. In the latter paper, Edward
M. Gomez reports what the media elsewhere on
the planet have to say about the New 'Downing
Street Memo' and the deteriorating situation
in Iraq in his (as usual) excellent column "World
Views". I'm happy to say that he singled
out a harsh assessment of the malfeasance at
play written by Eric Margolis of the Toronto
Sun. Entitled "Web
of cold-blooded lies", it is scathing,
not only in regards to Bush and Blair (aka:
the war criminal and his lap dog) but also regarding
the deafening silence of the US media.
If
you would like to send a note to your rep and
senator demanding a committee investigate Bush
for lying to Congress and possible impeachment
(and it's about BLOODY TIME someone got around
to this), you can find a link at After
Downing Street.
* updated Jun 15 - external link added *
Here
is the opening line of the Washington
Post article by by Walter Pincus referred
to above:
A
briefing paper prepared for British Prime
Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers eight
months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq
concluded that the U.S. military was not preparing
adequately for what the British memo predicted
would be a "protracted and costly"
postwar occupation of that country.
Category:
Iraq
war, politics,
USA
Posted
Sunday, June 12, 2005 @ 2350 PDT
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Podcast fixed, blog limping along.
I've
gotten the
first .mp3 file rendered for my
podcast and successfully uploaded and tested
it. It only took about a month longer than I
thought, chipping away during spare moments.
The second and third should follow anytime now.
In the process I've delved the mysteries of
RSS feeds, server security, and audio editing
software. AFLE, all the way around. While doing
that, I've tried to patch up the blog site a
bit, adding an RSS feed (and validating it,
thanks
to this site), adding
the first of what I hope are many nursing blogs
(a great site, too, with many links - thanks,
Hypnokitten), and finally adding categories
to my posts. No, they don't group all my postings
together that fall under that category, I'm
not that sophisticated yet. They open a tag
search at Technorati.
So, you can see what other people have to say
on the topic. BTW - they
are trying out their beta site, check it
out.
Category:
blogging,
podcast,
geek
Posted
Friday, June 10, 2005 @ 2136 PDT
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CDN Supremes kick Medicare right in the privates.
For
those of you living under a rock, the
Canadian Supreme Court has sided with a physician
from Quebec regarding private payment for health
care in that province, causing unprecedented
graveside activity (the majority weeping and
gnashing teeth at the presumed resting place
of Canada's most cherished institution, the
conservative minority gleefully dancing upon
said resting place).
If
you would prefer to read news accounts of the
decision, rather than the actual text (I tried
and my eyes started to glaze over pretty quickly),
you can find reports at the
Globe and Mail and the
New York Times. The
pundits are all atwitter, but I think I
will stew over this for a couple of days before
weighing in.
Category:
nursing,
health
care, politics,
news,
Canada
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