35 Years without the Spadina Expressway

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Just another manic monday

Cripes. Hopefully this won't be repeated any time soon.
Wake up to watch alarm, not the usual radio. Hop in the shower, get going to the subway. Doors are locked. Turned out, there's a strike...
So, on the hottest day of the year so far, biked into work without bike shorts and with a laptop in the backpack. Took 45:38, which is 10 minutes faster than the last time I took the subway. Downside? 1. The seat slipped down an inch a km; 2. we're hosting all the international VP's at work this week. So... pretended to be a bike courier in order to avoid walking by them in shorts/sweaty T/bike hair/smushed bugs on face. Also, no shower at work. So, walked up to goodlife and showered there.
Work - heh. Like anyone has to ask.
Bike home - a first! I was rear-ended by another bike!?! A bunch of kids came to a crosswalk and pressed the button. I had time, so I stopped. As they crossed, the bike behind me slapped into me - but I still had the v-brakes on. I think it hurt him more than me.
Anyway, get home. Rush to get to ultimate. Pick up a teammate, stranded by said strike. On the way, the A/C dies. Hmm. Maybe I didn't run it enough this winter? Then the radio dies. That's not good. As I go to park, the car seizes and dies. Bugger.
Ultimate game - kids soccer has the permit to "good field" Next field is small and cramped. We play badly and fall behind, then play chippy and win. I use my dad's "anger makes you play better" and it helps win, but seeing as we're playing friends, feel like a huge jerk. Good times all round. Bah.
CAA took 2+ hours to show. Apparently they had 5000 plus calls today in the GTA. They took the car to dealership, where tomorrow I can pay several hundred for the privilege of having the car work again.
Now, because of the heat, can't sleep.
Maybe I'll re-read MacEwan's Saturday

design matters: Skeet shooting in the dark

"'Design consists of creating things for clients who may not know what they want, until they see what you've done, then they know exactly what they want, but it's not what you did.'"

Weekend Options: Doors Open

Toronto Star Google Maps

Bike Week 2006

Cycling in Toronto - Bike Week 2006

Apple - Nike+ - Run

Don't know whether to laugh or not

Now that's an Anthem

YouTube - Edmonton Oilers Fans sing O Canada

Blast from the Fall

 

Rolie the Goalie from mirtle

Who is that masked man?

Clash of the Type 1 & Type 2 Diabetics

Beyond 'I'm a Diabetic,' Little Common Ground - New York Times

Type 2, which most often affects the old and overweight, now afflicts some 20 million Americans and is the nation's fastest growing health problem. But it draws little more research money than Type 1, a malfunction of the immune system that affects one million people in the United States.

Oh crap

Skiing Beyond Safety's Edge Once Too Often:: New York Times

Management theory, debunked

Bwahahahaha.
Really quite funny. Especially when read in conjunction with TPJ's email this morning.

Escape from Cubicle Nation: Open letter to employees across the corporate world

Don't know what she's talking about::

"In that spirit, here is what I have to share with employees of large corporations everywhere:

I have met you in meeting rooms, hallways, on conference calls and on the internet. You work for large corporations which you detest. You arrive at your cubicle every morning with a vaguely sick feeling in your stomach and begin your day of work. You have too much to do. Co-workers left and no one replaced them, so you have inherited their job and all the work that went with it."

'We were abandoned'

The aftermath of Canada's elite sniper unit's tour in Afghanistan

Dancers know pain

"National Ballet of Canada dancer Rex Harrington knows this all too well, having ruptured his Achilles tendon earlier this week during his opening night performance in Song & Dance at the Danforth Music Hall.

...the dancer, who retired from the ballet company in 2004 after 20 years, won't be returning to the role..."

!?! Seriously!?! Holy under-statement, Batman.

If he has ruptured his Achilles, he's looking at surgery, followed by a hard cast for a few weeks, followed by a soft/air cast for another month, followed by four to six months of rehab. He's already in his late thirties/early forties, so if you do the math... See here or here. I like these quotes: "There is a vigorous contraction of the muscle"; or "The defect in the tendon is easy to see and to palpate as seen in this picture (ed. note: unless you're an ER nurse)"; and especially "There is often an audible "pop." (ed. note: yep and a nauseating sound it is)"

Anyway, the picture of Jennifer Fournier's feet is compelling.

Beyond the budget

More on the budget. More specifically, more on the fiscal imbalance.

In the federal election, the Conservatives promised to fix the fiscal imbalance, which is the idea that the feds have billions of dollars more than they need, while the provinces are billions of dollars short. The Liberals say the fiscal imbalance doesn't exist. Harper says it does. His stance was a key to the Tories' modest electoral breakthrough in Quebec, where complaints about the fiscal imbalance began. Fixing the imbalance will provide much of the next year's work for Harper's government.

But to fix a problem, you first need to define it. If you define the imbalance the way the provinces do -- roughly, as "all the billions we could ever dream of getting from Ottawa" -- you'll bankrupt even a flush and province-friendly government like Harper's. So Harper's definition is crucial. And as we've learned to expect from him, it's clever.

It turns out the fiscal imbalance is four problems. One, federal budget-making is too vague about the size of future surpluses. Two, the feds spend money on provincial responsibilities -- hospitals and schools -- while ignoring their own duties, like armies and Indian reserves. Three, when Ottawa does increase transfers to the provinces, it does so at the last minute and for the short term, so provinces can't plan. Four, the limited "efficiency and competitiveness of the economic union" hobbles everyone's ability, be they governments, companies or families, to increase prosperity.

Well's nut graf:

Central-government fans worry that the fiscal imbalance argument is about Ottawa surrendering power to the provinces. This is more of a trade: we'll get out of your hair if you act like you deserve it. And all that nice language about the Liberal record? It's not cute, it's crucial.

I think this is an interesting/important, if slightly esoteric subject, so I'll likely follow it for a while. Seeing as I'm averaging a whole 10 readers a day. of which 50% leave within 5 seconds, I don't doubt that this is just a note to myself...

Cannondale Bicycle Corp. - Cyclocross

Now that's purty

Starving the Beast moves north

What does it mean?

The message is clear: If given the chance, this government will get out of the social policy business, restricting most of its active policy-making decisions to matters strictly under its jurisdiction. Later, that approach is further fleshed out - the government stating that "excess federal revenues [will] be used primarily to reduce federal taxes rather than to launch new policies in areas where the federal government is not best placed to design or deliver programs."

Then the paper gets really ambitious. "There have been many calls over the years for structural realignments of tax policies that would have the effect of reducing or eliminating joint occupancy of particular tax fields," it proclaims, specifically citing the recommendation that Ottawa scrap the GST altogether, reduce transfer payments and leave sales tax entirely to the provinces. Similar measures, it suggests, could also be undertaken to some measure with income or corporate taxes.

Ultimately, of course, Canadians wouldn't be taxed less; they'd just be taxed differently. By collecting directly, instead of relying on the feds, the provinces would gain even more autonomy than they presently have.

And there's a number of key points here:

1. Different provinces will respond differently. Alberta is nearing the point (if it isn't past) where it can be indifferent to the fiscal repercussions of ignoring the Canada Health Act's dictates. Granted, the public backlash would be bad, even out there, but it can do it. Giving more tax points (rather than tied cash) to all the provinces will mean that each region will have the freedom to experiment with new and different policies. It will also mean that each province will have less and less resemblance to each other over time.

2. Despite the nonsensical talk about the impact of Ottawa's presence, this won't help Quebec's economy. At all. They already have more tax points than anyone else. Giving them more room to tax means, well, that they'll take up the offer - and drive away more investment dollars.

3. It would be more permanent than most decisions. It's impossible to call any taxation policy permanant. However, Ottawa would have a very hard time going back on this move. Which is why Martin & Chretien thought it was a bad idea.

Red Rocks, Redux

"Red Rock is an austere wilderness of arid plains and Joshua trees. Mountain peaks rise thousands of feet off the desert floor. Petroglyphs bake in the sun."

Check.

Rock Climbing in Red Rock Canyon

It's not gambling...

"Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, a 197,000-acre desert preserve near Las Vegas, is a top international rock climbing destination. Massive and unique sandstone formations, combined with the region's mostly agreeable weather, attract thousands of climbers a year."

Check

Things to do: OCAD Grad's

OCAD’s graduating students explore and test boundaries in their thesis work in all areas of art and design including drawing and painting, photography, sculpture/installation, ceramics, printmaking, jewellery, textiles, integrated media, advertising, illustration, graphic design, industrial design, and environmental design.

The ninety-first annual Graduate Exhibition, May 5, 6, and 7, 2006.

Throw Shawn Throw!

Nice flick

Update on Jay's Cross-Canada Trip

He's made it past Montreal, through the Lachine Canal - the traditional starting point of the original voyageurs...

The 100 Mile Diet :: thetyee.ca

"'On March 21, the first day of spring, we took a vow to live with the rhythms of the land as our ancestors did. For one year we would only buy food and drink for home consumption that was produced within 100 miles of our home, a circle that takes in all the fertile Fraser Valley, the southern Gulf Islands and some of Vancouver Island, and the ocean between these zones. This terrain well served the European settlers of a hundred years ago, and the First Nations population for thousands of years before.

'This may sound like a lunatic Luddite scheme, but we had our reasons...'"

The New Yorker: Fact

"I deposited my pig on the breakfast table. I emptied out the refrigerator and washed down the counters. I sharpened a knife and reflected on the difficulty of a pig at home. I hadn’t wanted to upset my neighbor. I didn’t know him well but gathered (from the doorman) that he, too, was a meat-eater. My pig was a more elementary form of things he’d been eating for years. The realization confirmed something I’d always suspected: people don’t want to know what meat is. They don’t think of meat as an animal; they think of it as an element in a meal. (“What I want tonight is a cheeseburger!”)

For me, meat wasn’t a cause. I just believe people should know what they’re eating. At the Greenmarket, you overheard discussions about fertilizers and soils and how much freedom a chicken needs before its eggs are free-range. Wouldn’t it follow that you’d want to know your meat? I had brought home a freshly killed animal—better raised than anything I’d find at a store—and, in preparing it, I was hoping to rediscover old-fashioned ways of making food. This, I felt, could only be positive. But I was sure getting a lot of shit for it."

This pig, we knew precisely, had been slaughtered for our table, and we ended up feeling an affection for it that surprised us.