proba tive org archives

We crammed a lot into a 24 hour period, Steph and I. Talking, eating, watching a movie, sleeping, cooking (me), shopping, sharing funny gifts and saying good-bye (mid-evening yesterday).

I showed her the new blog such as it is at the moment and got her input on a long-term knitting project I want to do for her. Busy but fun all the way around.

I'm feeling rather tired and unfocused today though. Maybe it's allergies or something from the local construction sites (two now on this street - a high rise condo and some utility work that has the road being dug up). So far all I've managed to do are conquering the pile of dishes from yesterday - no dishwasher in my life at the moment, darn it - and finish reading a book that I found rather interesting: The Price of Loyalty by Ron Suskind. Thanks for recommending and loaning it to me, Mike!

Yesterday the devil made me go into Chapters during the shopping trip. Admittedly this is a dangerous place for me to spend more than 5 minutes. Almost an hour later I announced to Steph (the devil) that I had two things in my hands and I absolutely had to leave before I picked up any more. One was the Dogs in Canada Annual magazine (it has cats now at the back!).

The other was a book whose title caught my attention: Radical Honesty by Brad Blanton in the psychology section (a particularly treacherous spot for me). As I have been told by some participants in my life that I am "too honest for your own good", I thought it would be an interesting read. Kind of ties into the book I just finished, too - since that previously referenced one is about the Secretary of the Treasury who told the truth during his participation in the Bush administration. Getting fired was the price he paid. But that didn't stop him from continuing to tell the truth.

Aside: In the recuperation progress department, I have no more need for the bath chair. It's a small thing I know, but it's a thing...

I've worn my eyes out wandering around the web trying to find a solution to the problem of non-ubiquitous fonts and cross-browser incompatibilities. Embedding font resources in web delivered pages is starting to sound like something the infamous (and insecure, I know, I know) IE does, if not better then at least does, and everybody's favourite underdog does not.

I use FF and now that I'm building a site for Stephanie I'm more aware of the limitations between the two major browsers. She'll be using shared computing resources for a while which means viewing and updating her site through IE. Most non-technical non-administrative people and businesses still do.

As I wandered and found the usual close-but-not-quite-working "free" solutions, I started to think (in the heat of the afternoon) that I would have to give up on the current look of headings on her site. It wasn't a happy thought. Even if she hasn't blessed it yet, I think she'll like it. Here's a screen shot (since right now I'm the only one who can view it the way it was intended). It's the headings in the sidebar that are the issue BTW.

Life has improved a bit since I stubbornly poked at the web until it gave up what I hope are the goods. Dynamic text replacement sounds terribly promising - no? Yes. It even works. Major bonus. At least it works on that demo page. Just a script and a couple of style sheet changes and voila! Problem solved. Woohoo! (Presuming it is that simple.)

The wandering has been facilitated by the waiting of the past two days. Yesterday the medical supply people were coming at some unspecified time to pick up the bath chair. And today, well, today the neighbour's roofing contractors moved my car out onto the street as we'd all agreed. But the guy who moved it forgot to move it back when the job was done. It took a while for me to decide that the break in noise wasn't just a lunch break after all. When I called to remind them, I received a second callback asking whether I had a spare set of keys. According to a third person, the fellow who forgot to move the Jeep had taken off for the weekend. And so I wait (still) for this third person to arrive.

Let's hope this saga doesn't get any longer than the keys being returned next week.

The kind that blows air around a very hot and not air conditioned apartment. Thunderstorms are very good, too. But I get to direct the fan's operation, at least.

I've been at it again: wrestling with software that promised to be the answer to my weblog typography issues. I hate it when something almost works. Better if it just flat out bombed so I could move on. But no, there are two parts to the thing. The php script is working fine - give it a bit of text and poof, there's the custom font in the right colour and with the desired background colour. The javascript is another story altogether and isn't giving any discernible errors (to me anyway) but the page renders with non-custom font headings. Just like it hadn't even heard of the js script. Darn. I've read and reread the article and almost all of the discussions that ensued. Fixed a php problem ('exit' being used where 'return' should have been - orginally the script was built for an older version of PHP), which is how I finally got that part to go right. Not sure I want to delve into JavaScript though. All the js is supposed to be doing is searching the page that's about to be delivered and replacing the specified header tag entries with the generated image. Sounds straight forward enough. Time's marching on and the deadline for the site to go live is approaching. So, the php script will be my alternative to manually creating heading image files in Paint .Net (a cool program for Windows - really. Free too!)

I owe some people email replies that I should get to as well. A bit of serendipity going on right now in my life. It's rather amusing to watch it at times. Which means it promises to be the stuff we call good luck as opposed to that other kind of "coincidence".

Lest you start thinking I've been a recluse all weekend, fear not. I walked for about two hours each day. Saturday's walk included a chance encounter with another person who had had ACDF about 5 years ago. Her opening remark when she saw me was that she'd worn one of those [collars] for many weeks. Unlike my second smile, the scar on her neck was barely noticeable. I probably wouldn't have noticed if I didn't know where to look. She was full of encouragement, telling me it was all up from here [post healing phase]. It was nice to talk to someone who understood what a pain in the neck (ha ha) it was to wear this thing all day - shower in it, sleep in it.

Saturday also found me inside an interesting book store that has usually been closed when I wander by on my regular exercise circuit. I was just browsing but as the only customer the proprietor and myself got into a rather indepth discussion of families and life and spirituality. It's one of those kinds of places that just feels welcoming and comfortable. At least to me... and I was the one who was there.

Both days of the weekend were blistering hot. This is it, Canada - our two weeks of summer! Sunday my friend Robert (!) called and invited me out to catch some of the Doors Open Ottawa opportunities. Being two geeks we went here, searched quite a while to find this, ending our adventure over here.

It didn't rain at all and we had a great time - even if I did convince Rob to drive the long way around to that last stop. What can I say? He'd looked at the web and picked the spots he wanted to see. He shouldn't have listened to me. But he was right in the end. Looking at the same places on the web just now, we would have seen the observatory from Carling. Fine fine fine.

We agreed to cross the Revenue Canada and Nortel buildings off our list for reasons people who know both of us will understand. Thanks for springing me from my warm cage, Rob!

Today has been a geeky one for me. I finally got the custom font to display on the inprogress blog. Abandoned the JavaScript that was to do automatic replacements and instead called the image creation script (the part that was working) as the source of the heading image. Even fixed the display problem on IE. Turned out to be a little typo in my css. FF guessed the right thing. IE didn't. Who was correct? Doesn't matter now! IE doesn't place the text/image exactly where I wanted it, but it's good enough for you-know-what.

A bit more tweaking and it will be a thing of beauty. Wanna preview? Over here. Stephanie: please go there and let me know if you have any major issues with it. When you've got a minute - and you've forgiven me.

The fan I am a fan of these days was possibly the cause of my missing three (3!) attempts by my girl to reach me. It's breezy but also noisy. Sorry honey.

Tonight I'll be meditating on receiving excellent news from the surgeon tomorrow. It's probably way too much to expect to be released from this heat retaining "scarf", so I won't go that far. Just excellent news. Seems reasonable.

I'm ahead of the curve in the bone mending department. It's only been 6 weeks and the doc says that part is healed. My secret weapon was the walking. Oops, now it's not a secret!

Still a ways to go before I'm clear of all restrictions on activity, but I can start the weaning process from my friend the neck collar. Slowly. Like starting with an hour a day. More pictures in a month and until then nothing fun like swimming is in the picture. Not a fun summer so far, that's for sure.

There's a heat wave heading our way again, so I think I'll be visiting the neighbourhood wading areas - natural and man-made. See you there!

Not much in the blog development department today. Too busy with medical wait queues and getting there and back.

This blog no longer accepts pings. For each of the past three days I have despammed trackbacks recently sent to ancient entries. Perhaps the automatic closing of comments (which annoyed me, I confess) to cut down on that kind of spam has induced spambot creators to start adding trackbacks. Bastards.

I don't know if anyone else has had this problem on this installation of MT but enough's enough. If you really must (right, like that's gonna happen!!) link to one of my posts you'll have to use the archive pages information.

Soon enough I'll migrate to the same one I'm using for Steph's. Nucleus permits a fairly simple way to make your blog "members only". I don't think we'll have to go that far, though. There's a captcha on the input forms (for non-logged in users) and I think pings haven't been enabled (yet), so she's safe. I really didn't want to spend too much time undoing what spammers might do to her site. An ounce of salt as they say. :-)

Okay. Those residents of Canada who were complaining about the coolish weather a few weeks ago put your hands up. Wishing you could take all that back now, are you not?

Is there any other place on the planet that can go from one temperature extreme to the other in just a few months? This might not be a country after all. Might be one of those chambers for testing the ruggedness of new products.

I am thankful I have graduated from 24/7 with the collar. It kept me warm long before the heat wave hit. I can take it off indoors and drape a wet towel over my neck or I can go outside with it on. Not a tough choice so far.

I did go out on Saturday. Briefly. The lure was a ride in an air conditioned car. We ventured to the banks of the river, sat in the shade watching people and fowl. Wading in the river at the location we chose was not as conducive to cooling as we'd hoped, so a cool treat from DQ was the runner up. The air conditioning was marvelous, though. Thanks Rob.

Sitting indoors leads to mucking on the blog in progress which is fine; at least something productive is coming of this.

Talking with my sister (Happy Birthday, kiddo!) and daughter today led to trading ideas for beating the heat since none of us has air conditioning. (It's a Canadian thing this aversion to things that cool.) Linda suggested putting damp underwear in the freezer and then putting them on once they were frozen. Stephanie had a similar idea using bottles of water and then placing them around you while laying down.

At various times today I have tried cold showers (again, really happy to be collar free for those) followed by evaporative drying, wet towels and ice packs. One of the windows gets sun most of the day; tonight I have covered the glass part with tin foil in an attempt to prevent heat from building up.

The fridge is part of the problem in my small space. I realized it was more of a problem than previously thought during the foil project - the fridge being right beside the window. Quite a temperature difference from one side of the window to the other. To encourage venting I have cracked open that side of the window and fashioned a sort of heat channel with the curtain. This will hopefully keep some bugs out as well - only one side has a screen.

There are containers of water in my freezer just in case I cannot sleep again tonight, but no underwear.

My two day long headache has disappeared. Whether this is attributable to adaptation on my part, the overcast skies we are enjoying again or the coffee I just had to have this morning remains a mystery. Starting the day hot, groggy and pained got me thinking an air conditioner might just be a great idea. At least for the duration of my tenancy in what is a heat sink currently.

Found some really reasonably priced used ones in the classifieds but better than that even, a place that rents, delivers and installs them. Wonder how much that would cost? There's the additional charge the landlord will expect since he pays for the electricity, but it's not much in the scheme of things.

After peeking at the Weather Network's 14 day outlook just now, the a/c research has been put on hold in favour of laundry and hitting an air-conditioned mall. Check it out: if they are correct, it is soon to be normal here in the Nation's Capital. [Note: the link is dynamic, so it may not be relevant if you're viewing this post much more than a week in the future.]

The new blog's author has approved the design today. Good news. The final bits will be done this week I predict. Yeah, that's my 7 day outlook!

Makes for a good day. I guess my offspring might be offended with the term "kids". But "adult children" sounds dysfunctional somehow.

I had a surprise call from Number Two Child during the afternoon. Much stress there. Of the scheduling sort. The unpredictable trip has been called on again and with short notice: she leaves in less than two days for a couple of months in Osaka. Hopefully I'll have her blog ready to, ah, blog by the time the jet-lag wears off.

Number One Child, who is an especially wonderful son, called and listened to all of my excitement and news concerning the exponential healing curve I am enjoying and my enthusiasm and optimism concerning becoming gainfully employed once again.

Both kids are doing very well: healthy and happy. Life is good.

Spent a day doing non-new-blog things. Tomorrow while she's in the air I'll get things useable at least if not exactly at the state I've envisioned. 80/20 here we come!

Got out of the apartment between the thunderstorms that have blessedly cooled the air here. Thank you weather goddess. Off I went by bus, sporting my collar, to Carlingwood. Found a couple of things and did not find a couple of others. I think I'll have to ask a physiotherapy clinic where to get those TheraBands. The name may not be exactly right. The last time I needed any was during rehab for a baseball injury many moons ago. They're not the way too cool tubing sold as exercise gear these days. The levels of resistance the TheraBands provided were much reduced in comparison. Which makes perfect sense when you take the time to think on it.

Oh, and I didn't find any reasonably priced compressed air to attempt to clean the PC's fans that I suspect to be the cause of increased noise. I think I may have one of those refillable ones in a box here somewhere. Worth a check before I fork over cash in the amount they were expecting at the mall. Money grubbers.

News to me: Radio Shack has become Circuit City. Did you know that? I didn't. And they hadn't changed the name on the mall guide "tool" when I was there either. Not fair.

But none of that is as important as the blog. The blog! Well actually sleep is necessary before the blog is attacked again. Crunch time I remember it well.

Spoke to the other member of the family in crunch mode and wished her well, told her I loved her and that she had to mail me a number I could call her at over there so I can harass her, too. After she told me off for not spending all day working on her blog. :-) She was kidding of course. Certainly.

I'll let Herself tell you all about the problems she had last night. I don't mind her calling me at an ungodly you-won't-get-back-to-sleep hour at all. But it is the reason I am dragging my ass slightly today.

Public Transit Considerations: I know there are all kinds of people, some of whom I know and some I know and love, who are adamant that public transit should be chosen over personal automobile operation whenever possible. As a theory this is great. In practice, at least in a city under supplied with the equivalent of Toronto's subway or Montreal's metro, it just doesn't work if your time is valuable.

For instance, while it is true that the bus ride from my place to Carlingwood took about a half-hour and driving the Jeep from the same points would take about the same time (factoring in finding a parking space to be fair), to compare apples to apples would require factoring the waiting times for buses. At this point, the Jeep would win hands down. Except during rush hour, but I wouldn't attempt such silliness unless it was unavoidable.

My conclusion: Public transit only works and is defensible in cities where roads have become so congested that driving is much less efficient and more exasperating than the transit system (of which Toronto and Montreal are examples, while Ottawa remains out of this class).

Therefore: Public transit in Ottawa will only become more popular and economically viable to the majority of residents when it is more efficient and less exasperating than driving yourself. In particular, the transit schedules do not support time-shifted working hours. They seem to be designed to serve the government and commercial office staffing needs. Nurses, doctors and other shift workers (or flex-time tech workers) find themselves with the choice of driving or adding significant time to their commute. Depending on their schedules transit may be entirely out of the question.

This is one of those times that needs an "if you build it, they will come" approach. When changes are made to reduce or alter transit (bus) schedules and routes here in Ottawa the familiar refrain trotted out as justification is that the usage doesn't offset the cost of operation. Poor service results in poorer service results in a further drop in utilization. The corollary would be ... you can reverse it for yourself.

Besides, my experience as a bus rider in Ottawa this past year is that the majority of buses operate much too "jerkily" and navigate street corners far too fast for comfort when traffic is light. Check it out - the riders look like Weebles most of the time.

Whew! I just (just mind you) finished Steph's blog. Well, the first stage of it anyway. Sent her email and I think she may be blogging at this very moment.

Check it out: http://autodidact.hopto.org

Now, what was I doing before that became my number one obsession? I'll need some downtime to remember I think.

Who would say that to their teenage daughter as she headed out the door to a social gathering? Would you?

My mother did. Verbatim and repeatedly. Though I never dared respond out loud, "backtalk" being a sure way to trouble I worked hard to avoid, my immediate internal response was:

... and what exactly do they look like? You know, just so I'll be looking for the right things...and if all you've got to tell me is to "watch out" then the whole idea is ludicrous: watch out for people who look like everybody else but have sinister intentions. Right. I'll get right on it.

(You can see why I didn't open my mouth. The stuff that would have come out would cause a premature heart attack in my maternal parental unit.)

What brought all this to mind today was the National Post. There I was, minding my own business, walking around Bank Street and right there, in a newspaper box was a headline about an Alberta "serial killer". My memories were triggered by the following statement:

The police warned the public that a profile of the killer pointed to an ordinary guy-next-door, who drives a pick-up truck or SUV and does not fit the Hollywood image of a monster.

Good information. A guy who lives in Alberta and drives a truck or SUV. That narrows it down nicely. Oh, and what exactly would the "image" that this person does not fit be? Surely they jest. How many images can a person not fit? More than he or she does fit certainly.

People (not just guys) who are known to be creepy or monstrous should have identifiable markings installed. Think "scarlet letter" only more permanent and for more dangerous transgressions. Not completely permanent, like branding or mutilation, because we know sometimes the system gets mislead, but definitely hard to conceal and impossible to remove without the proper authorization and tools.

How about flourescent green paint? A new kind that doesn't wash or wear off. Maybe it has to be reapplied once a month or something but that could be handled. Until genetic diversity caused such a skin colour to appear naturally in humans, this would allow non-creepy folks to avoid the monsters.

In fact, it would enable the creepy people to recognize each other. They may be induced, by the avoidance strategies of non-creepy society (as we like to believe it exists) to form another, separate society, hopefully somewhat geographically distant.

Not a club and not a government operated institution that punishes the tax payers as well as the creepy folk. No. A self-supporting and separate social and economic unit - of green (or orange or purple - watch out for the Purple People Eaters!) people.

I like it. Now back to defining what a monster is. Right...

The sun was shining into my room when I first awoke at 4:45 am today. But I think it was the smell of a skunk attack that roused me from sleep. Not wanting to budge, I attempted but failed to succeed at ignoring the odour, finally getting up to close the windows.

For a lot of reasons, one of which may be one (count 'em) glass of red wine at Linden's open house last night, I am feeling rather ill today. Come to think of it, it may not be the wine - maybe I'm actually ill.

In either event, in lieu of no entry at all, I've found an entry on Madhava's blog that's priceless and just had to share it here. You'll see why as you scroll through it. Manual trackback link Thanks for the pics, Madhava!

I've got three of them in here now, thanks to a trip to storage courtesy of Rob! yesterday. The larger one is both quieter and moves more air, so I can sleep with it running all night. As well as storage we wandered all over the place seeking coolness of both types. Canadian Tire, Bushtuka, The Real Canadian Superstore and The Works (because the coolness brings the appetite back that the hotness scared away).

A day earlier I'd walked to where my trailer is stored and stopped in at Trailhead to check out their kayaks. Just window shopping at this point what with no job and a neck that's still in healing mode. Had a great chat with one of the salespersons and got some ideas I hadn't had before along with brochures and spec sheets. The trailer is parked in that area and it was getting hot and humid outdoors so after extracting the two foldup camp type chairs I wanted for reading outdoors when it's actually cooler there than in my apartment I started walking back home.

Happened upon a little place (across from The Real Canadian SuperStore) that admitted to the ability to repair my sewing machine. The couple that runs the place are very personable and helpful. While waiting for the official word from the mechanical half I was given a tip on finding instructions (on the web - where else?) for making one's very own very cheap dressform using everybody's favourite construction material: duct tape.

By the time I made it home I was drenched from the heat and humidity but excited about what I'd learned during this outing. I've secretly got my fingers crossed that I'll be able to kayak this season. A lot to expect perhaps, but it doesn't hurt to have dreams. Right?

Today I was awoken by a phone call from My Girl In Osaka. Good timing, too. It was early enough that the place was still pretty comfortable and I could get some chores done before the broiling started. A great way to start my day.

Lunch was spent with My Boy From Toronto and his lovely wife Tyla. Got to see pictures of their recent trip to Europe, too. Very cool. A great middle of my day.

It's not as humid as yesterday and possibly not as hot (those would go hand in hand I suspect?). I anticipate the rest of the day will be restful and contemplative. Not to mention three times more breezy indoors!

According to the local news weather guy last night, the world's second coldest capital (my town) was one of the hottest places on the continent yesterday. If I could (would) drive with my collar on, I could enjoy the a/c in it. But I am not comfortable with that thought.

Today's predictions are for even higher temperatures along with higher levels of humidity and smog. Bummer. My brain has wisely been reminding me of all the lovely cool spots I could be, namely just about any public or commercial space.

Getting there would require putting the damned collar on, but today may be worth it. It has already reached 30° C inside this apartment. At that temperature, the moving air from the fans cools me only when damp towels are part of my outfit.

Westboro Beach is looking worth the trip, too. I could get wet up to my shoulders with that collar thing on. First - off to search out something at the hardware type stores. And then, maybe a trek to a used bookstore. Both spaces should be air conditioned.

I had hoped to write a cover letter for a job application and then start coding a plugin for Steph's blog but I am too hot to think. As soon as it cools off a bit these two items will float to the top of the list again. The 5 day forecast and 14 day trend information is looking good in that respect.

99.9% of the time I use Firefox to view the web. Now and then I run across sites that just refuse to play nice with it, so I drag up IE. Sometimes I send mail to the folks who are being stupid. Especially when I think they should and could do better.

Recently I bitched at Google because their really cool maps site renders a completely useless empty gray rectangle iff (if and only if) you happen to be using the .ca domain. Try it if you are also using FF and let me know if you see good stuff at the .com domain and crap at the .ca domain. If you see good on both sites then also tell me if you are using Windows XP or Linux as your O/S.

BTW: after clearing the cache per their directions and still having the problem, I told them I didn't think it was on my end but also that they could fix it quick and dirty like by redirecting the seemingly redundant .ca domain address to the .com address because the latter allows you to locate places in Canada anyway. No response for the past few days and I see that the symptoms remain as described to them.

Just now, I have experienced a similar situation: FF rendering two versions of a company's site differently enough that the .ca version is pretty well useless for browsing products. This time it is not possible to just redirect one to the other, since the offerings are quite different and prices, locations, blah blah. To top it off, only the .com domain has a link I could find to send them email. Who deploys these sites anyway? Harumph.

I am interested to know if anyone else sees a difference between Home Depot (.com) Faucets page and Home Depot (.ca) Faucets page viewed with FF.

Here's the part that adds a bit of a twist: these two sets of Canadian vs American domains show no differences if viewed with IE 6 (w SP2). Can anyone 'splain that? Before I complain any more, that is... :=)

[Updated - 3pm] The Google Team got back to me and solved my problem with the .ca domain of the maps stuff. Here's what they said

Thank you for your reply. We've received similar reports from other users, and in most cases the problem was being caused by a specific browser setting that prevents certain images from loading. If Firefox users choose to only load images for the originating website, some Google Maps images may not be displayed.

In order to view all Google Maps images, you can either enable all images to load, or add the originating site of these images to your list of exceptions.
[---snipped instructions---]

If altering this setting will interfere with your normal use of this browser, you may add [mt.google.com] and [kh.google.com] to your list of exceptions instead, allowing all Google Maps images to load:
[---snipped instructions---]

Please let us know if we can assist you further.
Regards,
The Google Team

This one solves it. And it only took two emails on my part. Not bad. Not sure I like the solution, but it works for now. I used the second alternative, in case it is of interest.

BUT:-- Only for the Google sites. The Home Depot sites are still a problem, of course. An email asking what sites serve the images is in order - no? Oui!
[EOU]

Lately I've been tuning in to the local news. Mainly during this heat wave, actually - the apartment cools off rather slowly compared to the outdoors. The more I see of it, the more I think it bites. Could be I am expecting more from news "reporting" than I have a right to. Like a thought process that links the seemingly disparate "bites" of a so-called story together with evidence of critical thinking or at least an admission that the montage does not yet constitute a complete story.

There's a question: when is information enough to warrant a news story? My impression is that the answer for my town is it is anything that has the word "government" in it. Even if, like last night's mind warping (mine anyway) bites, those quoted and shown in the clips appear to be brain dead. Brain dead makes good television perhaps...

Last night's story was about the exporting Rx drugs to our neighbours, something that is not new in itself. You remember our neighbours? They're part of the NAFTA thing with us, "FT" standing for Free Trade - remember now?

Just to add to the loaded wording, the report began with the information that Canada (as represented by some unremarkable politician) is "considering banning the bulk export of cheap" Rx drugs. My first question was: Why - don't we typically realize an economic benefit from exporting Canadian made products? Then: why does the government give a rat's ass where Rx products are being shipped? And why weren't they concerned until now?

The news item trotted out talking heads who attempted to justify this as government concern over adequate supplies for Canadian consumers. Kind of like a quota for pharmaceutical companies but without the lobbying that usually accompanies these things. That's what we need, another quota system... that's certain to raise the price of Rx's within Canada, too. Or is the government also considering the equivalent of farm subsidies for pharmaceuticals? In that case I'll start a plant right away so they can pay me NOT to make whatever is in surplus.

Was there an actual problem with supply to Canadian patients that was neglected by the news folks? Could be, but I doubt it. This sounds like hot air trying to justify stupidity, create a modicum of fear in the minds of the public (the better to keep them/us from thinking up questions to ask) and muddy the US/Canada relationship one more time.

Wait a minute. We have a bit of an unemployment situation here as well. If there's an increasing market for our frugally priced product won't the manufacturers respond appropriately - increasing capacity and perhaps payrolls? Or is the government run HMO more concerned that American pharmacies may be willing to pay more than the regulated (in Canada) drug prices, making Canada a less attractive market for participants in this "free" market? I like this explanation myself: it's just the kind of catch-22 Canadian political "strategizing" around health care (as we affectionately call it) is good at creating.

The story got even better (or worse) as the subject of potentially changed rules for personal Rx's being filled in Canada for American patients came up. At the moment if you have an Rx written in the US you can get it filled in a Canadian pharmacy. Guess what the government is (reportedly) considering? Requiring Americans to actually be seen in person by a (second, presuming their US doctor would have written this Rx) Canadian doctor. Really. Like we have a surplus of doctors.

I've long believed that when things don't make sense, money is the real motivation. So, where would the money angle be in the requirement for all Rx's filled in Canada to be written by Canadian (licensed?) doctors. Has to be the fee the HMO (OHIP in my province) would realize from non-resident patient care. Completely unnecessary "care" that would make medical appointments for legitimate "plan" members (you and I) more scarce.

Anybody else thinking "regime change" right now? Is it just the heat in Ottawa? Or the upcoming election? Or are these folks just for show on a slow news day?

From a column by Christie Blatchford in today's Globe and Mail:

Quick question: What do Wayne Edward Mumford and Karla Homolka have in common? (And no, he's not a new boyfriend.)

Rather, as Ms. Homolka will be bound by the conditions of her Section 810 recognizance when she is released from prison some time in the next week, so did Mr. Mumford have similar limits put upon his freedom when he was released from the Saskatchewan Penitentiary last fall and arrived in the Toronto area.

The 29-year-old was arrested Friday and charged with a sheaf of offences -- choking, forcible confinement, robbery, breach of his recognizance -- in connection with a series of vicious sex assaults upon women in Toronto's Parkdale area this month.

Indeed, Mr. Mumford's arrest provides a useful illustration of the efficacy of the Criminal Code section -- or not -- as a control for inmates who are deemed high-risk and in need of monitoring.

Later in the article about Mumford's re-offending the fact that there had been 4 sexual assaults on women in the Parkdale area within 12 days is mentioned.

Time for a tech solution: RFID. Implementing such a system (continent wide) might be costly but the longer term ROI would be lives saved and police time minimized in tracking and convicting reoffenders.

I can hear the ACLU and similar groups objections: what if a tracked offender doesn't reoffend - doesn't the tracking constitute a breach of their liberties? Not as much as putting them in prison did. And what if - what IF - the knowledge they were being tracked was enough to prevent a repeat offense? Or catch them before anyone was harmed - since in Canada it appears all kinds of other restrictions are imposed even though they are not monitorable in real-time and are useful only IF their contravention is proved. Bit of a big if apparently.

To paraphrase myself: we've got the technology - we should use it. Right Mike? (Shaver)