31 May 2012

Wherein I get sick defending a conservative

Seriously, people. Are you going to make me defend Christy Clark again? Seriously?

Richard Branson is an epic douchecanoe. His public comments toward her, with accompanying pictures, are nothing short of sexual harassment.

Her comments have been right on. She made a couple of smart-assed cracks about it. Didn't let on she was pissed off about it, and didn't get her panties all in a twist about it. She's a woman and therefore she takes sexist  crap regularly. For example, there was the prissy dickwipe who complained about her cleavage (which was, like her, quite conservative). Is it any wonder that women don't run for office as much as men?

So glad I don't have a Virgin Mobile phone, right now.

Now look. I don't like Clark. I don't like her politics. I don't like what she did to the BCTF. I don't like what she did to the Ministry of Children and Families. And I don't like what she did with the minimum wage. But dammit, those are criticisms based on what she's done and they'd be no different if she had a Y chromosome.

So KNOCK IT OFF. You aren't helping.

22 May 2012

Son-Rise update

It's been a crazy few weeks here in FCS land. But they've been truly fabulous. Since starting Son-Rise, we've been spending a lot of time in the playroom, playing with Crackle. Pop, less so. Poor Pop. But anyway, Crackle has said 4 words. "Bar" twice (granola bar, but Mommy was thinking a trip to the bar wouldn't be a bad thing), "Mama" once, "Potty" once, and "open" once. This is nothing short of a miracle. He hasn't said a single word in years. So if I might thank you all once again for the help getting me to that program... THANK YOU. I'm going back in November to learn how to do more in the playroom to make the program more effective. And to top it off, he's a happy little camper now. He's hugging, snuggling, putting his cheek to my lips and saying 'mwah' so that I'll kiss him. It's truly beautiful. And, he's gotten less destructive and I can leave him in a room by himself while I pee or make coffee without him wrecking up the place.

I've actually not been following the news much. I'm really proud of the students in Quebec for standing up for what is right. I wish Canadians had this kind of enthusiasm for protest other kinds of injustice.

15 May 2012

Cons just don't get it. Part eleventy hundred.

Yeah, I've been gone a while. It's been hectic trying to get everything going on the boys' new program. It's not done yet, but I needed to say something about this:


NDP MP Peggy Nash said forcing well-trained workers into low-skilled jobs risks exacerbating Canada’s skills shortage.
“It is a colossal waste of skills if we have people who are trained as computer engineers or teachers or nurses or electricians who are working in retail, Tim Hortons or picking fruit in the agricultural sector because it means they may not be available when a job in their field comes open,” she said.
Dr. Gray dismissed the NDP’s arguments, noting that skilled workers are more likely to move rather than abandon their careers by accepting a low-paying job.
“That just doesn’t make any sense at all,” he said. “If you take an engineer and make them work at Tim Hortons, that engineer will likely move to another part of the country, to go someplace where his or her skills are better remunerated.”


Cons just don't get it. I know, that's obvious in all areas, but this is unbelievably short-sighted. As an engineer, John Doe (we'll call him male because that's unfortunately statistically most likely) probably had enough money to buy a house with a hefty mortgage. He may have a spouse who also has a career, maybe in something not particularly easy to get a job in. If John has to move to another area of the country to get a job as an engineer, he's likely not going to do it, because he either will lose everything and more in his house (tanking his credit) or because his spouse can't get a job elsewhere. One of them will end up at the shit job, leaving their career and as Nash said, "exacerbating Canada's skills shortage". And moving is EXPENSIVE. It costs a LOT of money to up and move accross the country. It cost me a couple of thousand doing it on the cheap, from a one bedroom apartment, with no moving company, 15 years ago. So just how is someone who is recently unemployed supposed to pull this off, especially if he's been informed that he gets no EI because he should be working at Tim Hortons?

Dr. Gray seems to be one of those old assholes who thinks that families are made of one skilled worker and one stay-at-home-Mom who might take a part time job somewhere to shore up the family finances. ASSHAT.

And what really pisses me off about this is that EI is supposed to be insurance. We pay for it. And they make it like anyone who collects it is a bum, sucking on the government teat. No. That's not your money to play with, dear government, that's ours to use when we're out of work. Not as you see fit, dear Big Brother. As we do.