onoway

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The problem as I see it is that both unions and businesses seem generally to be locked in adversarial roles, generally speaking, and that leads to idiocy and that leads to unions being broken. It's pretty hard to support a union which threatens to pull all the workers off a job when someone went to get a 2x4 instead of waiting for an appropriately designated person to go get it for them, or to pull all the workers when one clearly incompetent person is either fired or put on notice. That sort of thing makes even the members restless. The reason for unions is - or was - obvious, I once attended a guest lecture by a couple of coal miners who had been through the coal miners strike in Cape Breton, one of them had been forced into the mine at 9 years old so the family wouldn't be thrown out with nothing but their clothes when his father came down with black lung.there was of course at that time no medical care or anything else much provided, and the old song re " 15 Tons" was precisely accurate. But when the miners finally protested the police ( and "scabs", and union busters) were all imported and it got ugly, I think probably much the same as happened in coal mining areas in the US. The unions eventually were directly responsible for improving abysmal working conditions. But there are work standards and health care standards legally in place now for everyone, at least in Canada, so much of the original reason for unions has disappeared, and even many of the workers don't see the need for them, and publicly resent having to pay Union dues. The unions have to try to find reasons for there to be a union at all, and in some cases that leads to absurdities like designating who is allowed to fetch a tool and who is not. Many of the public service unions simply bleed the government assuming ( I suppose) that the politicians help themselves so why shouldn't they. So the result is public antagonism as well. E.g. Our postal service used to be next day for local service, now it can take up to a week and the price of a stamp or parcel has risen astronomically. Since the unions regularly threaten to strke if they don't get whatever they want, they are seen as being to blame. It is a bit bizarre that someone who sits all day in a nice building and sorts mail, ( in our local post office half the time not even getting that right) makes as much as teachers or nurses do, and has a better pension plan. Last month a vendor had paid Canada Post to deliver a computer to my door, they never even tried, but said they had. We had had about a half an inch of snow sitting on the ground for 4 days, so it unless the postman was superman and could fly, nobody had been near the front door. So although home delivery had been paid for I had to fire up the car at -37c to go get it. That sort of thing can quickly make even a union supporter change their mind, as these people can get away with it. They might as well be politicians, doing very little that's useful and gouging the taxpayer for doing it. As far as teachers are concerned, I think the whole school thing needs to be reexamined. Primary school teachers now routinely assign homework, why? I think any primary teacher who routinely assigns homework to the whole class, if it involves carrying books back and forth daily, should be fired. Children are now developing health issues from the weight of backpacks on young bodies, what the devil is that about? As prominent educators have noted, nobody has a clue what anyone is going to need to know in 20 years, so what's the plan for developing a curriculum? Kids these days often haven't a clue how to make change unless a cash register tells them how much is due, what are the teachers doing that requires hours of homework every day to be done by each and every kid starting with primary school? And how is it that when teachers go on strike for months, and the strike is finally over in late Feb/ early March, the teachers can assure parents and kids, never mind, they can easily cover the curricula in the three months remaining, including for kids looking to apply for university entrance? So what are they normally doing for those 5 other months of school that kids normally attend? And why are the kids required to do hours of homework daily if the curriculum can actually be covered in 3 and a half months? Isn't this then just being a sort of socially acceptable version of child labour? And what about the bullying which is now rampant, largely as a direct result of herding kids into massive groups and moving them like sheep from enclosure to enclosure from hour to hour? Schools are often more for cultural indoctrination, training for obedience to authority, having little or nothing whatever to do with developing a critical thinking, educated, rational adult. It's been many many MANY years since kids said they felt safe at school, I don't know if anyone even bothers to ask any more, but I clearly remember the fuss when the results changed from feeling safe to not feeling safe, but nothing whatever was done. Now kids are committing suicide from being bullied, sometimes taking other kids and/ or adults with them, there are regular drills about what to do if someone comes to school with a gun, and metal detectors at doors, obviously kids aren't going to feel safer if they are being sent daily to someplace these things are necessary. I have to wonder how being sent by their parents daily someplace they don't feel safe affects kids in the long run, and if anyone has ever looked at that. I bet any problems are seen as the child's problem, not a result of the environment they are forced into, reach for drugs to help them cope, it's just their failure, nothing needs to change but the child. Now anything you need to know you can find on the Internet, perhaps the only things kids really need to learn at school is how to read, how to handle basic math (sorry Ken, but more advanced math classes ARE available online for those with the desire and appreciation) and critical thinking, the ability and desire to cut through bs. The arts and crafts which are the first to be cut, should be given preference against the day that robots are doing most jobs and people have no outlet for their energy. But those are much much harder to " teach" not being subject to fixed agreement such as the date of the Gettysburg address and who made it. The arts require a special sort of teacher who knows when it's appropriate to insist the kids color between the lines and when it isn't, traditionally art schools are seldom given credit for turning out geniuses. But at least they could turn out people who have some way to express themselves, of feeling a sense of self expression, whether through dance or writing or carpentry or carving or altering the engine power of cars. Anyway, that's my rant for today, I may come back and delete it all later, it's far too long, has little to do with the thread topic, although neither does anything else much for the past while. But right now I want some breakfast . :)

My Union right or wrong... It's a disservice to the competent people and the clients, be they kids or a mugging victim, to have incompetents continue to enjoy the same security as the the competent ones have earned. Possibly unions need to have sort of peer reviewed jury, to determine who needs to be encouraged, or possibly forced, to find another line of work. Teachers who are verbally abusive or punitive towards kids, and they are out there, or police whose anxiety level is so over the top that they shoot to kill a clearly unarmed person, or arrest the person who called for help rather than the offender because of assumptions, should not enjoy the same rights and protections that appropriately competent Union members have. Otoh, there needs to be some sort of protection for whistleblower type situations so it's difficult to know how things should be arranged.

Admittedly I haven't read most of this thread, just drop in from time to time. Al, are you saying that human activity is not responsible, or that the climate is not changing, sea ice melting etc.?Two different questions and I'm unsure which you are espousing.

Toby Hemenway, author of Gaia's Garden and other books, teacher,leader and a gentle and thoughtful man. Another one of the giants in the permaculture world.

Thanks for fixing the title Gerardo! Anyway: https://medium.com/invironment/an-army-of-ocean-farmers-on-the-frontlines-of-the-blue-green-economic-revolution-d5ae171285a3#.jrgehelgh

Be fair, the English language has evolved to torment some and delight others. "Ghoti" = "Fish is possibly the best known example but things like read, red reed and read are just unfair for people trying to learn it. The exact same word can have two entirely unrelated meanings (lie and lie, having just come from a discussion about the election) and that doesn't include any of the slang. From extremely limited understanding of the slang in other countries, it seems with only a few exceptions, English language profanity is generally pretty banal and unimaginative in comparison. So it makes up for it with everyday words. One goose -two geese: one moose - two moose: one mouse- two mice; one house -two houses. Maybe English speakers have no mental energy left over for imaginative profanity. As far as pronunciation goes, though, dialects will be vastly different for every language if enough distance/time and sometimes it doesn't take that much. But I have known people from France who spoke no Spanish but claimed it was easier to understand Mexican Spanish than French Canadian French.

just listened to the performance and it moved me more than ever it did when I heard Dylan sing it. wonderful

I ran across an interview by accident today with John Pilgar, a name it seems I should have known and didn't. I found him thoughtful and eventually somewhat convincing and in direct correlation rather frightening in what he was saying as it called into serious doubt much of what I assumed to be true. The interview was following the Trump election and was largely dealing with his views about how and why, some of which I shared before the election; many of which rested on information I was unaware or possibly misinformed about. Certainly his scathing remarks about mainstream media ring true, as the stubborn refusal of the media to address the situation at Standing Rock..and the most recent pipeline break 150 miles from the protesters camp, makes glaringly obvious. If the same situation happened to be in say, Venezuela we'd be getting a play by play each day, or so I am convinced. I'd be interested to hear opinions about the man and his message, I would link but I can't on this thing, I may come back on desktop later with a link.

Women have always tried to find ways to prevent carrying an unwanted child and men have always tried to stop them. We have largely lost the herbal knowlege ( which would be another thread)' so desperate women do resort to coat hangers, various concoctions of more or less dangerous substances which may, whether or not successful in dislodging the foetus, permanently damage both it and the mother, or, of course, the under the radar abortionist who may or may not simply swap one problem for another. But a country which according to UN figures was responsible through sanctions for the death of at least 5000 infants and children under 5 in Iraq is astonishingly facile in using any terms regarding right to life. . That was just through sanctions, and doesn't include what went on later in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria with active bombing ( or shootings) either directly or indirectly for which the U.S. was largely if not entirely responsible, and doesn't include the children and infants who have drowned or otherwise died as their parents running from wars try desperately to find a safe haven. This is only relatively recent history. I doubt many who saw it will ever forget the photo of the naked child covered in napalm running screaming down the road in Vietnam. The hypocrisy is truly astounding.

Part of the problem is the inability to limit subs to members. The web version doesn't differentiate. This usually gives you many more subs, admittedly, but no way to know if they are members, unlike the download which only offers subs who specifically offered to sub THAT tourney. Although on web version there are more subs, many of them don't accept for whatever reason, and that can lead to long delays in finding a player. It is handy on occasion to have the option, though, admittedly. Of course, on web there is also no way to communicate with the membership to ask in the first place. Many people prefer to offer when they know there is a need rather than register and hang around on the off chance they will get to play. If I am not mistaken, the sub issue was the straw that led to her decision when she had invited various random subs with no success, had to log off and come back on download to ask for subs from the membership. Then she quickly got offers, but the whole effort to find subs for sitouts used up nearly 10 minutes. Way too stressful. This all random subs also tends to give you a lot more runners, unpleasant people etc. who then create a need for more subs. Incidentally, the tourney completion rate seems a very good idea but in fact is possibly of limited usefulness, I ran an open tourney set at 90 % a few weeks ago and had to find so many subs ( I'd guess well over a dozen and the tourney wasn't that big) that I ran out, and I have played in open tourneys that the directors have pleaded for patience because they had no subs, so even those constraints or lack thereof don't solve the problem. Many times it has been very useful being able to quickly communicate with members who have recently logged in, I find " quickly communicate" doesn't happen on the web version. It doesn't take that much longer but it does seem to take longer, possibly again because of having the two chat boxes, for reasons which totally escape me as it most certainly doesn't stop messages from being missent and just clutters up the screen.

One down. Someone who has been directing tourneys weekly for us pretty much since the club started, ( about 8 years now) as well as several weekly for another group, decided after trying to run them on the web version a few times that the day she loses the download version is the day she will no longer run any tourneys. Not expecting that to make any difference just letting you know.

I have no data to back it up but my feeling would be that if a woman was told that a) her baby would probably be extremely demanding and b) probably not very satisfying to care for, eg. cry constantly, or not recognize or ever respond to her for months, c) they would possibly never be fully functional adults, and in fact d) they would probably be taken away from her anyway because of her drinking, most of them would opt for abortion if it was available without a lot of guilt tripping imposed on her for thinking about doing it. FAS children are often really really hard. I knew someone who adopted 4 of them, all one family and it was a disaster. Excellent intentions and no clue what they were getting into. So sad. But there is so much guilt and shame still associated with even thinking of having an abortion that many women who probably should, don't even consider it, they can't deal with the stigma. So they have these kids they don't want, can't handle, resent and despise for "making their lives miserable". The life such children lead is often worse than the way most people treat their dogs. Society gets to deal with those unhappy, unloved, unnurtured kids. Although difficult, poverty is often surmountable as a life experience, I'm not sure that being resented and disliked by an unhappy mother is, especially by a child who may have other issues of their own to deal with. Note: Just because a child is unplanned doesn't mean it necessarilly is or would be unloved, far far from it, even in some situations that to outside eyes look impossible.But doctors know that even if the decision has been made and a child is slated to be given up for adoption by a mother, she often changes her mind when the baby is born and all the reasonable decisions fly out the window, often but not always to be bitterly regretted later by both.

In response to MikeH's post: I would be interested to know if the high rates of FAS are also correlated with race. Certainly I know some people who think so, including one doctor who practised medicine for years in coastal BC, a large part of his practice made up of natives. I knew him in NS, when he was close to retirement and was the "advisor" for a study another student and I were doing on depression. He freely and without any context at all told us that when he was working on the coast, he would automatically do hysterectomies on any native women he could. What we understood him to be saying was that this was often without their knowlege, much less their consent. If he was in there for a gall bladder or appendix, that was a freeby he threw in. Or so we understood him to say and we had no reason to doubt him. We also got the impression this was not an unusual practice but that may have been him trying to justify it, no idea. We were both too stunned to ask if he ever did tell them. Then the question of abortion doesn't come up, of course.

Why Helene, didnt you know? If a woman REALLY wants not to be pregnant, rape or not, her body will reject the baby! So no need at all for abortions! We know this because a lawmaker (who is anti abortion, a man of course, and naturally has no medical training of ANY sort btw,) tells us so. Since when did truth ( or reality) stop having any connection with anything coming out of government or splattered all over the internet?

The voice I hear when I see those words... thank you for that haven't heard this for a very long time.

Blame it on the Supermoon. The last one was in 1948 "The United States presidential election of 1948 is considered by most historians as the greatest election upset in American history. Virtually every prediction (with or without public opinion polls) indicated that incumbent President Harry S. Truman would be defeated by Republican Thomas E. Dewey."

A couple of thoughts.. wasn't Pence's proudest accomplishment as governor axing funding for Planned Parenthood? and he is adamantly against abortion. Barefoot and pregnant, or dressed up and cheering her man on, but ALWAYS subservient when push comes to shove. It is highly ironic to listen to people - usually but not always men - pontificate about how government - usually but not always men - should decide what women can do with their bodies because of some sort of sanctity of life. Have you thought about war lately? A woman can't decide she doesn't want to carry a child to term for whatever reason without all hell breaking loose with people oozing outrage at the right to life of an unborn organism, but hey, let's go off to Afghanistan or Iraq and blow up thousands of people INCLUDING children, some of them babies. Or what about the children trying to reach safety running from Syria, how many right to lifers are looking after any of THEM? Oh - they are just collateral damage, nothing to be done. Sanctity of life indeed, give me a break. It would be also be interesting to know how many of these right to life people have adopted kids, among the ones I have met, NONE have. The people who adopt are delighted to have a child to adopt but none of the adoptive parents I have met have ever expressed any desire at all to force women to carry to term, including one couple who had been waiting quite a few years for a child. The anti choice people I have met, however they dress it up with evangelical piousness, have as their ONLY interest imposing their point of view, of seeing that nobody offends their personal sensibilities by having an abortion. Whether or not the mother is able or wants to care for the child is of no interest, what happens to the child - or the mother - after the mother is forced to carry to term is of no interest. This is a flashback to slavery and is totally unacceptable in any sort of supposedly somewhat enlightened society. Men have no business messing with a woman's decision as to what she does or does not do with her body unless she specifically invites them to be involved with her personal story. Not anyone's else's, only hers and only when invited. Full stop.

One possibly small thing that might go some way toward fixing things would be if after raising the millions of dollars through crowd funding to pay for a recount, legal minutiae should not be used to thwart the effort to recount the ballots. Whether or not there was a problem isn't the point, that the legal system should not be used to prevent anyone from determining if there was, IS. It's not as though anyone can walk off the street with that sort of money, so this is not a frivolous exercise and needs to be respected. Imo. It was interesting to listen to an interview with one of the people involved with doing the recount, apparently there are a number of " votes" that they will never get to see anyway for a number of reasons. It didn't sound as though that number was that large...they had only been counting for a few days, but that there are any at all is odd I thought. Spoiled or not, if they are there why are they not being counted? He also said its very complicated and on the second day they were all told they'd been doing it wrong. He didn't really elaborate - who told them that or how they had been doing it wrong, how many ways are there to count? They did speak of ballots ( which they did see) not being counted because of various reasons. It all really sounded as though this was an exercise which needs to happen. Not because there is or was fraud but because it really sounds as though there are a lot of problems which are in need of attention IF elections are not only free and fair but seen to be so. Disallowing the recount to go forward because of a technicality is hardly the way to re establish faith in the process.

It's really hard sometimes to know for sure what's going on. I have had reports of cheating from time to time in the club and usually it turns out to be that someone played the hand or bid the hand differently than the person objecting. I have had people claiming that a pair must be cheating because they were husband and wife with NO other evidence than that. I'm sure that BBO abuse gets more than their share of those, as well as complaints about the people who really are cheating. Many of us go through periods when everything we do bounces back and smacks us, and other times that we can do no wrong. if I have a concern, I ask for help from someone much more expert than I am and often it's very difficult for them to determine if wrongdoing is going on. Still, when it IS clear cut then they should be booted imo. Even if they do come back with another ID perhaps eventually they'll quit either cheating or playing and either one would be a win.

He knows that, he's just after attention. Someone once told me, stop feeding the trolls, perhaps it's time to revisit that policy?

I have a question..if BBO is revamping everything anyway so as to get away from using Flash, what is the point of forcing everyone to move to the flash version and then again later to the new version?

Do you have any hope - at all - that this is a pov which will prevail come Dec 19?

yes well there were so many stories in so many places saying that NASA had found it to work in spite of it apparently violating some of the laws of science it is encouraging those of us who know nothing about that area of science to take it as having value. I don't think we are anywhere near understanding everything about the world and wouldn't be amazed to hear that something had come along which upset an applecart or two, we as a species have thought before that we had all the answers and been proven wrong. So much of the information related to the science of things turns out to be profit driven rather than understanding or if you will truth driven, that it tends to bring everything into question, which may be unfair, but there it is. Right now as many of you know, I believe that much of the "science" of food production has leaped into a worm hole and is streaming off in the wrong direction. There is a lot of "science" behind either side, but unfortunately the bad "science" has been backed up by very clever salesmanship and manipulation of people's opinions. Gradually truth based science is beginning to get official traction but in the meantime an immense amount of damage has been and continues to be done. fool me once... and most of us have no real way to know if we are being fooled or not. Thus I bring these things here as I know many of you have expertise in these areas and I have none.

Well that's disappointing, it all sounded pretty cool.