Various Veins
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As we celebrate our good forune to live here in Canada, let's think about a few matters unfolding in our world.
First, Kathleen Wynne tells us via the McLean's interview that she considers her policies to be approved by the voters. Well, no Kay, we told you we find the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party to be a bit of a cowboy who shoots himself in the foot. If you notice, the voters in Toronto outnumber the rest of us and you got lucky.
Steve Paikin on TVO asked some members of the PCs if their party can hope ever to win another election. The name of Bill Davis came up. Bill was the master of answering questions with bafflegab. He left us scratching our heads but feeling good. He euchered the PCs at the end of his reign by enlarging the Catholic Separate School System without any warning.
One of Steve's guests allowed that when the PCs find their footing the leader must be a woman. Why? Because a woman lucked out this time? Odd logic. Might even call it prejudice.
About climate. The gurus of weather tell us we're pretty sure to see El Nino back this summer. You pronounce that El Neenyo, Spanish for the baby boy. For farmers in North America this is good news. The baby brings rain to our parched farms so we may earn some money to tide us over when the Humbolt Current goes back to it's usual path in the Pacific Ocean. This has been a four year cycle for centuries and like the sun rise we expect it to continue.
With summer jobs opening for students we find a huge backlog of police checks keeping kids, not exactly cooling their heels. This policy is intended to keep dangerous folk away from them. Seems to be also keeping them poor.
One employer went to pick up the clearance report but was told since his son answered the door when the investigator called, his son would have to come to get it. Probably one of the cockamamie privacy rules. This happened on a Friday. On Monday the two came to pick up the paper. Sorry, you had only so many hours to come and your case has gone to the end of the line. Should be ready in about six weeks.
We are told Canadians are sneaking out of the country to join the insanity of jihad. What's wrong with their heads? We may read the history of the Spanish Civil War to find this is not a new idea. But in our 15 minute twitter world, who remembers anything?
Canadians are being urged to open the borders to refugees from war ravaged lands. The numbers would swamp us with people who just want to get back to their homes if and when the rebels and the governments get through destroying everything the refugees have built to make their countries function. The effects such humane action would have on our safety nets is beyond imagining! So are the political upheavals it would engender.
Had a personal encounter by telephone with a woman in India this week. By phone! That old fashioned device! It's a portable, so I'm not a total troglodyte.
I have a land line phone for use when power outages disable the portables. So should you. You can't call 911 without it.
For many years I've employed Norton to keep hackers out of my lap top. Got so much protection the code swamped my little machine. I couldn't send or receive e-mail. My grandson, Nathaniel purged Norton and got me a less intrusive service. For convenience I had allowed Norton to renew my subscription via credit card to avoid a gap in coverage. Called my banker to cancel that agreement. Sorry, for privacy (eek!) reasons we can't do that. You have to contact the company you dealt with. This friendly agent provided a phone number to try. It worked. I was speaking with Komal, a friendly female voice in India.
Komal cancelled the permission without argument, and we talked briefly about weather, hot in India, raining here. Touched on the change in government in India, end of the Nehru dynasty, for the better Komal hopes.
So as tornadoes level infrastructure in North America and jihadists do the same in other continents, let's celebrate Canada with our eyes wide open.