His & Her Diary From the Same Day

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Ezra Levant visits the CBC - well, sort of ...

In the aftermath of the news coverage by the CBC of the "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" ambush of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, Ezra Levant from Sun Media took time to visit the CBC HQ in Toronto. Talk about tables being turned ...

The deification of Steve Jobs ...

There has been so much written in the last days about the death of Macintosh computer founder Steve Jobs that it's been difficult to try to make any sense of it.

Reporter Tanya Gold, who works for the Guardian in London, has done a good job of stepping back from the endless wailing and rending of garments to offer some thoughts about the global mourning process that kicked into gear when Jobs moved on to a different operating system.

Here's part of her story with a link to where you can find the rest.

The deification of Steve Jobs is Apple's greatest marketing triumph to date

It is not enough to love your products anymore; when the people who created them die, you are now required to enter a kind of spiritual decline yourself

The deification of Steve Jobs was swift and amazing, an app that rose only in death. Jobs is now America's Princess Diana, a figure of tragedy, representing transformation, Jackie Kennedy being too long-dead to do it, and Michael Jackson too weird. I find this strange, because Jobs's real legacy was the way in which people now routinely ignore each other in public because they are playing with their iPhones and iPads. As ever with a new form of communication, one of the things you can do is communicate your indifference better.

Click here for the rest of Tanya Gold's story.

Yet more hospital test result worries

I wonder at what point do you stop believing the results of hospital tests? The NL Health Minister Jerome Kennedy said today that thousands of hospital tests are under review because a manufacturer has recalled a product used in tests for people who complained of chest pains when they arrived at the hospital. It means about five thousand tests have to be reviewed.

What it means is that the results of a test which might have said you are NOT having a heart attack may have been wrong. Conversely, it could have said you are having a heart attack when you’re not.

The problem is it seems that since the Cameron Inquiry we are hearing about more and more problems with regards to hospital tests in Newfoundland-Labrador. For me, the question becomes how much faith do you place in these tests? I know that at the Health Sciences Centre, there are thousands of tests given every week. And thousands of results are checked. Who gets blamed when there’s a screw up?

A case in point. About a year ago, I had a regular schedule of tests at the HSC. When the results came back, one had a note that the requested test had not been completed because the test sample had been accidentally discarded. Say again? True, in the midst of lots of attention on the quality of hospital tests, someone had discarded my sample “by mistake”. That certainly tells me someone was not focused on his/her job. I had to provide another sample and this time, the test work was done. But it speaks of an issue, despite some very expensive studies and inquiries, that still has problems.

I realize the current problem started somewhere else with the supplier of the product used in the cardio tests but it still gives me pause to wonder if the next time I get results whether I put my faith in them or hope that the doctor looks way beyond the tests.

Polemic & Paradox

Peter Whittle, the author of the Polemic & Paradox blog has a good commentary on the aftermath of the Newfoundland & Labrador election held on Tuesday:

SUFFOCATING DEMOCRACY AND THE WESTMINISTER SYSTEM

“It is tough to be a post-partisan when stories of retribution and non-democratic behavior have dominated the news since the election, just a few nights ago.

First the Premier announces that she finds the House of Assembly is not very productive. So non-productive is the people's House that re-opening it is not a priority. She says the assembly will remain closed until the Spring session in 2012! The executive will run the province in the interim. End of debate.

The rationale is dubious. The Premier says she has to select a new cabinet, prepare a budget and new legislation. I could understand this if the people had just elected a brand new government. What has changed since October 10th? The Premier has lost two cabinet ministers? That makes for a minor cabinet shuffle, something that has become a common occurrence at Government House. The CEO is the same, the agenda is the same, the players are pretty much the same.”

You can read the rest of it by clicking here.

from @Ruth_A_Buzzi

"The problem with quotes on the Internet is verifying the source." - Abraham Lincoln

Beneath her standards - or something?

Guess I was more than a little surprised to hear the Premier say she’s not going to recall the House until spring but I was even more surprised to hear Kathy Dunderdale say, "I don't find it a place for a very healthy, open, constructive debate to start with.” I haven’t sat in on many sessions in the Legislature except for a couple of debates in which I had some personal interest, but to dismiss the Legislative process with a wave of the first ministerial hand is a bit much.

The reason we went through the multi-million dollar exercise of an election was that so people could be elected as MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY, not as members of some exclusive club that meets behind doors and plots the future of the province. Tom Rideout was right when he said that Dunderdale apparently sees the Legislature as “a necessary evil.” It’s unfortunate she didn’t make that pronouncement before the election.

The results may have been different.

Good on ya!

Congratulations to EVERYONE who put their name forward for today's election in Newfoundland & Labrador.  While we may criticize politicians for a number of faults, their willingness to put it on the line in an election cannot be criticized.  To those who were unsuccessful in their quest to become an MHA, thank you for trying. Maybe you will consider offering again.  To those who were successful, your work has just begun.  In a special way, congratulations to Premier Kathy Dunderdale.  Making history is not easy.

Another one bites the dust

I’m always a bit saddened when I see another blog being shut down, especially when the blog author has invested time and energy in producing a good product. Such is the case with Sad Catholic 101. The blogger posted over the weekend that he/she is shutting down because she/he has lost interest in the idea. FWIW, I’ve enjoyed reading the various posts to the SC101 blog and the developing sidebar called “Recommended Reads”. There are several RSS feeds from interesting Catholic publications as well which have been a source of much information. So, to the SC101 blogger, thank you for your contribution to the blogosphere. We will be poorer because of your departure. All the best in the future.

Homer, Marge, Bart & family to continue - for at least a coupla years

Maybe I don’t have any nostalgia in me, but for the life of me, I can’t understand the fooforah over whether “The Simpsons” would be renewed for another two years. It’s almost as if it was REALLY IMPORTANT.

I realize that for some people the show has acquired some sort of iconic status, but not for me. I remember that many years ago I was VERY impressed to learn that Nancy Cartwright was earning $80 thousand per episode for voicing the Bart character but it was mainly because she was hauling in for one episode what I would take home for two years. Envy? Jealousy? Both?
Turns out now that most of the voice actors have been making $400,000 per episode since 2008. I don’t know how many shows they turn out a year, but it would certainly look after my mortgage payments as well as a new car, a trip around the world and a slice of REALLY good cheesecake. We can only imagine what Matt Groening must be taking home in his net pay cheque!  No problems buying the expensive napkins at Dominion in that household.

One of the major sticking points in the negotiations was that the cast wanted to be included in some of the profits made by the Fox network which broadcasts the show. Fox, on the other hand, wanted the cast to take a 45% reduction in pay. Which would have dropped them down to $220,000 per episode.

Reports say the cast didn’t get into profit-sharing and Fox didn’t get its 45% pay decrease demand but saints-be-praised, there will be a 24th and 25th season of The Simpsons. Yahoo! - I guess.

Personally, I prefer Corner Gas and wish they were still producing new episodes of that, for which the cast earned much, much less than $400,000 per episode.

Blogging conspiracy?

Is it just me or is there a world wide conspiracy of which I'm just becoming aware?  Lately, I seem to have difficulty posting comments on other's websites and even on my own.  Just now, for example, while signed in under my own account,  I tried to leave a couple of priceless, pithy, precious comments on Lisa's Random Thoughts...From Clarenville, Newfoundland  blog and I'll be damned if my own sign-in stuff would work.  I finally had to try to fake it and I'm not sure that worked.  (Faking it rarely has worked in my own little world!)  From time to time lately, I've tried to respond to comments left on my own blog and have been unable to do so.  Are the luddites really taking over the world - or just my own blogger account?  Thanks for any insight you can shed on this.  Humourous comments, if worthy, also will be appreciated.  Note criteria.  :-)

We ARE odd, aren't we?

The world is such an INTERESTING place.

The leading USA Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney declared today that God created America to lead the world. Next I expect he will be telling us that God has specifically determined that Romney should be the next President. Sometime after that, Al Gore will remind us yet again he invented the Internet.

The Dutch national railway has an unusual solution for passengers who need the bathroom on a train line designed without them: plastic bags. You see there are some short haul trains in Holland that were designed without toilets. So, you have to get one of these bags from the conductor and do your deed. BUT, there are no washrooms, so where do you, ah, go? Adds a whole new meaning to the French concept of street level pissoirs. At least, it adds a whole new meaning to equality.

And, a Colorado man who got a visit from police after a pizza delivery driver smelled marijuana at his home is getting free pizza from a rival restaurant. Frederick Smith says police searched his home in Aurora after a Papa John's International Inc. driver smelled marijuana there last week. Apparently the new pizza delivery guy has a lousy sense of smell.

Happy trails.

The F Word

Emmanuel X 2

I have to admit it - I'm trying to turn the world into Tommy Emmanuel fans.  For no other reason than imho, he is the best finger picking guitar player on this planet (and maybe a couple of others too).  However, the fabulous fingers in the Emmanuel family are not limited to Tommy.  His older brother Phil, with whom Tommy started playing guitar when he was five years old, is equally talented although not very well known outside of Australia.  Well friends and neighbours, this here little video will change some of that. The brothers (Tommy on the right) performed at the Sydney Olympics and this video gives a small example of their enormous talent.  Do not try this at home - you might seriously damage your fingers!