You’ll find a new one that will taste all the more sweet.

Or bitter, whatever. I don’t drink coffee.

It will be worth it.

I was so relieved when I read that at least her mom was fucking from Honduras!!! That’s the bar right now.

Did I think she was getting trafficked to El Salvador? I honestly wasn’t sure considering the state of things right now.

Lots. Wait times are high, getting a family doctor is a Herculean task, getting refered to a specialist is a gauntlet of tasks with months/years wait.

Don’t get me wrong, if you have an emergency, you’ll be seen quickly and cared for by professionals. Cancer treatments, life threatening stuff, amazing care.

But trying to be proactive or deal with long standing but “minor” issues is… Well, very very difficult. And it’s costly, because every appointment is a missed day/half day of work and gas/travel to said specialists, and you rarely get to choose when they happen.

So people who can afford it obviously want to skip the line. So politicians make excuses for why a private system actually helps the public one. You know, by stealing the talent away from the public system, reducing volume and therefore advocacy for the public system and many other problems.

That and US Pharma/private healthcare corporations would LOVE to be able to set up shop up here and suck us dry like they do their own.

I’ve been tempted on occasion to try and seek paid care for chronic quality of life issues that my doctor just doesn’t have the time for. It took 6 years and 8 visits with 3-4 months between to try some over the counter crap the I had tried on my own but didn’t work, but she wouldn’t send the reference because "the specialist will just make you do this first, so at the very least when you get to them you can “skip” this… Except I had to do it and wait without seeing someone who knew anything…

It’s stuff I can live with, and with the work I do, getting a random day off isn’t easy, so I go through “well it’s fine” phases and then “no really I want this fixed”. Phases. I have a friend who just went to the states (2 years ago) and had 6 appointments in a week and had all her concerns addressed, with followup phonecalls and another visit for one issue…

Why our system doesn’t work better is because there is more money to be made (on a corporate ledger, not a “society actually saves money with healthy happy people” way) if it slowly fails and privatizes.

My thermostat came with the house and is older than me (before the birth of MTV)

I keep thinking I should update to save energy and whatever but why get on that treadmill?

Interesting! I must say I never considered it. My kia soul EV was heavy but handled very well. Loved that thing.

Monster. I won’t eat anything that casts a shadow. It’s not hard, perils are just lazy murderers.

? I don’t know what that means.

You seem to be choosing the few people who were able to get a lawyer in time… In your hypothetical, that is not guaranteed or even something I’d bet on. And you are also pointing out that they won’t obey judges orders anyways so… I’m very confused as to what argument you think you are making.

Anyone who sees anyone being kidnapped should do their civic duty to stop it. Just because it suddenly seems to be government representatives that are doing the kidnapping now does not change that. You don’t know which it is.

I do wonder how many people have already been disappeared with no cameras around and they are just “missing” according to their families who can’t/don’t want to go to the cops in case it was the cops all along.

What makes that spec a priority for you?

What in the hell is their excuse then?

I was assuming they’d buy the maximum quantities, like right up along the OD level.

If we were just looking to innoculate the population so people who needed it got their baseline levels… We’d have a few decades supply leftover.

We are on the same page.

Just don’t anybody get their hopes up.

I just remembered another time a distracted cop made me unhappy.

There is a weird intersection that leads in from a right bend, then you must go north or south at lights, and there are 2 left turn and 1 right turn lane. It also sucks as there is another light to the south (left) that often backs up into this one.

At least sometimes, the intersection was under construction so everytime I went through (once a week sometimes, sometimes not) I would get blindsided by “surprise the middle lane for left turn is closed!” Or “psyc! The middle lane is for right only and the right lane is closed!” Whatever, but you didn’t get to know that until you came around the bend.

So I’m coming slowly around the bend, and there is already a lineup in the leftmost lane. Is this because the centre is closed? Because the centre is the only left lane? Because Toronto traffic? Who knows?!?

So I round the corner and it’s because the centre lane is for right turning today and the right is closed right at the intersection. So I immediately start to look for a friendly soul to let me in. Low! A cop car, leaving a full car length of room ahead of them! I approach slowly and merge in. Sadly I’m a truck so my butt is sticking out slightly, but because the right lane is totally closed ahead there is 1 3/4 lanes to get around me. I wave a thank you at the cop.

Oops.

The cop rolls down her window and squeezes in along side my angle, blocking the bike ‘lane’ or whatever space was there before the temp barrier for construction.

I get a dressing down, how I’m cutting her off, blocking the other lane and I should line up like everyone else (I don’t point out that 3 cars have gone around me and are now signalling and butting in while blocking right turn traffic.)

I passive aggressively say “sorry, I guess you were distracted and that’s why you left the space!” And as soon as the car ahead gave me an inch I weaslesd back out and into the centre lane. I wait for the people butting in to get out of the way and I make a right, make a left into a lot and turn around and pull out. And as I drive through the intersection I can see her still 2 cars back from being able to turn. So from then on I just did that if I got caught in the wrong lane.

And to the officer I say: if you don’t want people to think you are being a thoughtful driver, pay some fucking attention. Also maybe pull over one of the countless asshats who were blocking traffic and forcing their way in? So strange you didn’t bother doing that as I’m sure if you WERE WATCHING you would have noticed many…

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

Lol. “Well I don’t take criticism very well so there.”

If I could bottle this man’s confidence and sell it I could supply 30% of the world’s population…

Even odder way to say “Ottawa”.

Even internationally Ottawa is relatively well recognized as “oh the Canada place”

I did that for a cop that was busy on their computer waiting for a left turn at a light. They didn’t notice the 2 cars ahead had made the turn and noone behind them could tell or dared honk. I was beside them watching. They eventually looked up, I think we’re confused because the cars were long gone so their autopilot didn’t think “ok follow now”, then slammed on the gas and then slammed on the brakes as the light had gone red and cross traffic was proceeding. I sent the car number, licence plate and description of the officer, as well as time of day, to the complaints number.

The response I got back was “thanks so much, we looked into it. Bye.”

If house cats were the size of a Rottweiler we wouldn’t allow them in our houses.

“My experience was easy so everyone else is wrong. Also those people wash their cast iron in the dishwasher.”

Lol.

Dear Santa…

Well yeah, there are two types of people in the world: Americans and Not-Americans. So these Not-American teenagers would certainly be fully aware of the current political climate in America.