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21 December, 2009

Health care reform - Further thoughts

After reading an article about the senate voting to end debate on the health care bill I thought I would take a looksy at the comment section. These days there is no place other to go for lively ummm debate...than the comment section on any news website about the health care bill and I wasn't disappointed here. I think I can sum up people's overall attitudes and feelings. I mean, their REAL feelings behind all the "Obamacare" "Socialism", "Big Government", "working for insurance companies", masks.

The first I entitle "Wah!". As in "Wah! I don't like change! It's big and scary and I don't know what will happen to all the things that I have now which may be good or bad but I least I know how the system works! Wah!!". I get that vibe from a lot of comments whether it's conservatives or liberals and they usually say something like "why don't we take more time to discuss this?" or "we could do THIS instead" or my personal favourite is "look at all those other countries who tried to improve health care people are still getting sick there/waiting in long lines/committing acts of terrorism".

The second attitude I call "Bah!". As in "Bah! This means more free health care and hand outs for those moochers. All THOSE people who won't get a job and work hard for a living and earn their right to health care. Bah!". I actually say one comment who suggested that health care isn't a right, so I suppose the government should stop helping the poor, the elderly, the uninsured when they are sick, injured or dying and we should perhaps sweep them all off to Canada? But not on the tax payers money now.

Hopefully as the bill gets passed and in 2014 or whenever the laws kick in people will be more at ease with the change and perhaps a little more willing to help their fellow man.

Hey Mr. Snowman

Yes, I built a snowman.

I just couldn't resist. It got to be about 4pm yesterday and it was barely snowing but there was plenty of untouched, thick deep snow for me to get my hands on so I thought what the heck. It's been years since I've ever seen that much snow so why not get outside, throw a snowball or two, get some exercise and build me a snowman. Ms. Allclick even created some lips and eyes to give it just that extra piece of personality. It probably took me about an hour to build the whole thing.

Unfortunately, it only took about 5 minutes for some punk kids to knock the head right off. Looks like they tried to put the boot in on the body too but alas his solid ice body must have proven too challenging. Thankfully, there is still a bunch of nice icey snow around and so, for now, he new head is back on his shoulders. Here's hoping any more punks stay away.

18 December, 2009

'Tis the Season

For some strange reason I decided to brave driving to corridor G. How delighted I was to see the bumper to bumper traffic awaiting me on the other side of the road.

"Hopefully you will be gone when I'm going through there." I naively cried out at the traffic. Needless to say I had the last laugh it wasn't.

I soldiered on with slightly damper spirits into Pet Smart to pick up a few provisions for Barnaby and Cooper and a couple of stocking fillers. As I was at the register I noticed I was signing the receipt with a Quickclick pen which I had been looking for for aggggeesss. (Apparently Walgreens has them but the one near me is built but teasingly not open yet.)

I asked the guy at the register where he had obtained such a pen of beauty from. He said "Oh, I got 8 for a dollar at the dollar tree". I swear I heard "The Hallelujah Chorus" blast out at the exact same time. And then he said "here, take this one".I gladly accepted and wished him a very merry Christmas.

'Tis the season for giving and what better than receiving a gift from a complete stranger, completely unexpectedly and it was something I wanted! Perfect.

I like to think I passed this on in two ways. One, I made a small donation to help homeless pets and two, at Fruth later than afternoon I decided to buy a gift from the gift tree that goes towards elderly people who wouldn't otherwise be getting gifts this Christmas. Let's hope "Steve" at Fruth continues the cycle.