Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

Yesterday I was shocked to see that Regina gas had spiked up to 105 cents a litre after it had been 96 cents the day before just one hour down the road in Melville. What is the cause behind this organized thievery? The last time such a dramatic jump took place there was a hurricane that destroyed oil production in a North American sea port. Which city was destroyed this time? Why do people put up with this gas garbage? I can’t wait to buy my new bike and kiss the car goodbye every day I need to head to work or get groceries.

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What is “Stronger” travel anyway? Ask Bush to define his Bushism if you would, and get back to informing humanity.

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Saskatchewan has a declining population. Well, if Polygamists move here, that could soon change :-| Somehow I don’t think we’ll become the Utah of the north.

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I showed Ashley around Wood Mountain after we stopped in Lafleche for a few minutes. We watched “Beyond the Sea” [8/10] the Bobby Darin story.

I drove through Duff yesterday looking at the sites. I’ll post the photos another day. On CBC radio’s Out Front, a person interviewed a deaf person before and then after their hearing surgery to give them good hearing for the first time in their life. It’s amazing what can be done using that kind of technology, and I hope it’s not long before most deaf people can hear using implants like that, and then blind people see using optical implants. The days of Geordie LaForge’s sight VISOR [Star Treck TNG] might not be too far off.

I ate out at Houston Pizza this evening with Ashley’s family for her birthday. I had the stir fry and there was so much it’ll feed me lunch tomorrow too, except that lunch is in Wood Mountain and already cooked, so I guess the leftovers will be breakfast instead.

“History of Violence” [7/10] and “After the Sunset” [8/10] were some crime movies on today and both were entertaining.

I looked aroud a bike shop today, and the cheapest speedometer and bike computer was $21.  The fancy wireless model was $81, and there were hazard light sets which seemed interesting, and LED headlights which light a wide region but not as far as halogen said the sales person who rides at night in groups of people.

My brother wrote me a poem, as he did for others requesting one on his blog.

J. is my brother
I give him my old clothing
I have pants for you

You can’t beat free pants, or free poetry. Head over to his blog and get HAIKU’D too. Pants not included.

Wheeling High School in Illinois has compiled a document to assist students in recognizing hoaxes that are spread online.  My Pet Foil Hat Technology, a foil hat designed especially for your pet, is listed as an example of a webpage with pictures or ideas that don’t make sense.  I’m not sure whether to be offended, or honoured, so I’ll err on the side of flattery and accept their recognition of my melodramatic invention, graciously.

Question: During the Second World War, this daily activity was banned in Canada.

Answer: The Grade school class at Borden school which calls every week and hasn’t ever got the answer, guessed that Japanese people weren’t allowed the same rights as other Canadians.  While that was correct, it wasn’t the exact answer that went with the question posed on the radio show. The answer that an old woman finally got was:
June 16 ‘43 broadcasting weather information was banned in the USA and Canada.  “Stick your head out the window if you want to know the weather,” was a common expression of the day.  The idea of course was to make it harder for the enemy to use domestic radio broadcasts to develop a weather forecast for bombing runs.

It’s not surprising to me that American border security is bad enough to let in enough radioactive material for a dirty bomb or two.  I’m sure Canada’s borders aren’t much safer.  Who has time to check every car, truck, box, and container that comes into the country anyway?  It would be a waste to check everything, so there must be a better way to prevent bad things from getting into bad hands. The Department of Homeland Insecurity has a lot of work to do.

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Live in Africa?  Lucky you. Happy Sungazing today.

Sask Progressive writes about the NDP SK Government decision to not pay for a vital cancer treatment drug for sick people.  This is the NDP admitting the death of socialized medicine.  Behold there will be no funeral, it will just continue on undead, killing others in its path as people fail to take out insurance or properly save to invest in their healthcare in the future. 2 Tier Health has arrived, and the NDP has ironically ushered it into the province.

Pharmacutical companies make drugs from pennies worth of chemicals, and sell it for thousands.  It’s a big scam, considering the ultimate point of creating new drugs is to save lives, not to make money.  We wouldn’t consider these days witholding insulin from a diabetic if they couldn’t afford it.  Why withhold the best drug for colon cancer sufferers when the materials in the drug cost no more than insulin [I’m assuming].  Sure R&D is expensive, but our economy is the thing that is messed up.  How we cope with our single minded profit driven Capitalist system would be pretty entertaining, if it weren’t so cruel sometimes.
The point of drugs is to save lives, not to make X amount of money.
Making money is worthless, saving lives is priceless. Money doesn’t mean much if people you care about are dead - in other words.  Either we care about our fellow Saskies, or we don’t and will let them die.

We may spend about half of our taxes on health care, but that’s still not enough - seriously.  The amount of preventable suffering in the province and the world is a good indicator that we don’t invest enough human resources into prevention and treatment of injury and illness.  What really matters to the world, making sure Paris Hilton has more money than God, or giving dozens of cancer patients in Saskatchewan the drug they need to live longer and happier lives?  That’s a rhetorical question, because we can see the sad answer every day.  It’s not a coincidence that the word patient describes a person waiting for medical treatment in Canada.
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How many of you readers figure that no one complained to Canada Post about their missing mail?  It’s sad that the police try to blame the public for Canada Post’s poor hiring and employee supervision techniques.  Still a lot of people were probably happy about how little junk mail they were getting too.

I guess piloting a ship is like setting cruise control on a car and hoping for the best even after an alarm sounds. What happened on that ferry? TGB suggests that autopilot on a plane is a more accurate description of autopilot on a ship. I disagree, with a plane you have to worry about left and right and up and down and a ship is just left and right and oh, I guess DOWN too. I stand corrected.

Actually my bad analogy was sprung from a Simpsons episode where Bart figures that cruise control on his car means that steering is controlled automatically and then he ends up driving through a corn field, while he’s oblivious to the danger. The scary parallel between that and this accident is what had me comparing the autopilot to cruise control.

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SaskTel wants a community TV station? What’s wrong with SCN which is already a government owned TV station? I can’t imagine Regina, Saskatoon and area needing another community cable channel, so obviously SaskTel should continue to be barred from operating a TV channel like the CRTC has decided time and again.