Which do we need more?

Collingwood / Council / Critical Thinking / HospitalOne Comment

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Think about all the many and varied kinds of equipment a hospital relies on to provide modern, efficient patient care today. It’s the sort of equipment we want – we NEED – our own hospital to have to provide us and our visitors with the best treatment possible, so none of us have to leave the region to get that care. Try to imagine all the types of lifesaving and diagnosis equipment that we should have – not only new items, but replacement devices for when machines need service or repair. You can search online for information about hospital inventories ……… click below for more ↓

The OPP investigation after 48 months

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Municipal Politics2 Comments

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Forty-eight months ago a very small group of disgruntled, angry residents – some with burning ambition to take a seat on council themselves – complained to the OPP, allegedly about decisions made by the previous council. Decisions and people this group didn’t like. Decisions they thought – without any proof – were shady. People they thought – again without any proof – were corrupt. Both conspiracy theories have long since been proved wrong. But they damaged reputations and lives, while others used the fallout to further their own dark goals. All done without the slightest twinge of guilt.  From summer 2013 through the election, ……… click below for more ↓

GIS for CGMH

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital / Planning & PoliciesLeave a comment

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I wanted to give you a graphic comparison for your consideration. It’s one you can do for yourself with very little effort – so little in fact, that even The Block could do it. If, that is, they had any interest in doing something that might challenge their rigid ideology. Or take their attention away from their witch hunts for even a nanosecond. But you, dear reader, are smarter than they are, and I can sense you are already intrigued. So let’s get started. Open your web browser and go over to Simcoe County’s map site at maps.simcoe.ca/public and zoom ……… click below for more ↓

Council in panic mode

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital3 Comments

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Collingwood Council has graduated from inept bumbling and stumbling to fully-fledged, sky-is-falling, Henny Penny panic mode, it seems. A special meeting has been called to try and do damage control over the Monday night fiasco about the hospital. The Block divided the community, alienated their supporters, and fostered division and acrimony. No bandage will heal those self-inflicted wounds. So they panic. The meeting was called today for tomorrow, Saturday, March 4. It is another in-camera meeting – this council LOVES to go behind closed doors to discuss everything and avoid public scrutiny. The agenda says: 4. IN-CAMERA THAT this Council ……… click below for more ↓

Saunderson’s disrespectful performance

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital2 Comments

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“Your honour, I object,” shouted Perry Mason as he leapt from his chair and approached the bench. “This line of questioning is simply badgering my client.” “Sustained,” roared the judge, pounding his gavel. Didn’t you just wish someone would have done that Monday night? I certainly did, while watching the embarrassing, disrespectful way that Deputy Mayor Brian Saunderson grilled David Finbow, the volunteer delegate from the hospital board. Cross-examined Finbow as if he were a criminal. That is NOT the way we expect our elected representatives to treat delegates. It was embarrassing and, frankly, childish. As I read it, it’s ……… click below for more ↓

Ghostly claptrap

Balderdash & Hoaxes / Critical Thinking / Faith / New Age CodswallopLeave a comment

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Does the Large Hadron Collider Actually Disprove Ghosts? That’s the question asked in a recent article posted on Gizmodo. Well, of course it doesn’t. The LHC doesn’t disprove invisible pink unicorns, either. It can’t disprove what doesn’t exist. No matter how many wingnut websites promise to reunite you with your long lost loved ones (for a fee, of course), ghosts are all in your imagination. Along with goblins,orcs, vampires, werewolves, dragons, angels, fairies, demons, and, yes, invisible pink unicorns. Nothing the LHC does will change that. Sure, ghosts make for great stories and allegories, add spice to religion and make ……… click below for more ↓

Saunderson shirks his responsibility to taxpayers

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / TaxesLeave a comment

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The town’s budget is by far the single most important thing elected officials have to manage. It’s complicated, affects everyone in town, reaches into every department, ranges through services, user fees, and ultimately determines the quality of life for everyone here. It is the one thing that demands the full attention, the full concentration,  the fullest effort of our councillors. It demands active participation and open dialogue, full discussion from all of our elected members. So what does our deputy mayor do when others are struggling through the budget? Brian Saunderson leaves the room to go play on the ski ……… click below for more ↓

The onerous burden of responsibility

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

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Imagine you’re in high school one day around the end of the year. It’s warm outside, sunny, and you want out of the stuffy classroom. You’re not paying attention. You’re looking out the window, fidgeting. Daydreaming, miles away. The teacher drones on and on but you don’t hear a single word. Then, the bell rings. Just before the class leaves, you hear the teacher remind everyone that you are responsible for their safety, you are responsible for their wellbeing, for their health. For all the kids in the school. And their parents, too. And if you don’t do everything right, ……… click below for more ↓

The dystopian present

Books & Reviews / Council / Scifi and fantasy / Social Order & Disorder / US Politics / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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If there is one good thing to come out of the election of Donald Trump, it has been the renewed interest in a certain genre of literature. Sales of dystopian novels have skyrocketed on Amazon, in particular what might be called “The Big Three” of dystopian tales: George Orwell’s 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale. From each of these novels, allegorical threads can be woven into some narrative aspect as a metaphor for the Trump administration: 1984’s newspeak, media manipulation and paranoid Big Brother; Brave New World’s elites-vs-savages mentality, exiled intellectuals and its psychological manipulation; ……… click below for more ↓

Hoax: Five-meter giant skeletons

Balderdash & Hoaxes / Creationism / Critical Thinking / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & QuackeryLeave a comment

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Once again, the internet is being circulated with fake news that grabs the gullible by their grey matter. This time’s it’s a regurgitation of a 2014 hoax – then recycled in 2015- claiming the skeleton of a five-meter tall giant was unearthed in Australia. Accompanying the reports are risibly Photoshopped images that even a child could see are fakes. As a report on Hoax-Slayer noted: Supposedly, the skeleton was found near Uluru in central Australia and was 5.3 meters long. The report also claims that an ancient ‘megalithic civilisation’ has been discovered at the site. You have to shake your ……… click below for more ↓

Budget Bullshit

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Taxes2 Comments

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The first question you have to ask after following Collingwood Council’s sloppy and inept budget process is “Where did the money go?” Then the second question you have to ask, “Are they really that dense?” Yes, but let’s start with the first question. Back when he promoted dismantling the water utility from its partnership with Collus-PowerStream (CPS) and taking the utility under town control – a process that has proven a disaster for the town – the interim CAO promised we’d see a savings of $750,000 a year. But now the town is trying to privatize those water services by ……… click below for more ↓

Empathy and The Dog Allusion

Atheism & Spirituality / Books & Reviews / Collingwood / Ethics and behaviour / Faith / Philosophy / Psychology & Sociology / Social Order & Disorder / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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Empathy, writes Martin Rowson, is one of the things that make us human, make us civilized, allows us to interact without tearing one another’s throats out. Without it, we’d have no civilization; we’d be like the beasts of the fields. And we’d have no dogs or gods, either. Empathy is what makes us own pets and be religious. That’s one of the thought-provoking ideas Rowson tosses around in his book, The Dog Allusion (Vintage Books, London, 2008). The title, as I’m sure you are aware, is a pun on Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion. Rowson has a lot to ……… click below for more ↓

The EPCOR sales pitches

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Utilities: electricity and waterOne Comment

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I’m told the interim CAO is distressed – apoplectic, really – that I am aware of his sales pitch information sessions in which he touts the wonders of EPCOR to town staff. Two sessions that I know of. At the most recent one he brought along EPCOR representatives to schmooze the staff. Apparently he is not winning them over. It might be because, as I have been led to believe, Mr. Brown has few fans. I’m told he is generally disliked by many staff. As he is, I’ve also been told, by our municipal partners, our neighbouring municipalities, the hospital ……… click below for more ↓

EPCOR’s rate hikes create unrest

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Taxes / User fees and costs / Utilities: electricity and waterOne Comment

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It seems EPCOR isn’t the most beloved utility service out there, despite the glowing comments the interim CAO made to staff recently. I was given a recording of his hour-long talk (aka sales pitch) for EPCOR and I can only say I hope no one listening fell for it (I’ll review his talk in another post). Despite his stumbling blandishments, EPCOR’s management style isn’t all that popular. And if you do some searching for unflattering news stories about the corporation, you can find the following online: Global News had this one on Feb. 2, 2017: Tabor took back their water ……… click below for more ↓

Reading Moby Dick

Books & Reviews / Critical Thinking / Language & Grammar / Literature / Political correctness gone wild / Social Order & Disorder / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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Recently, coincidental to while I was reading Herman Melville’s classic novel, I read a story that some folks in Vancouver took offence to the name of a restaurant: Moby Dick’s Fish & Chips. Apparently the property overseers mistook the “Dick” in the name for a euphemism for penis, rather than reading the name of the famous novel in the whole title. A wholly puerile response, I’m sure you can agree. Perhaps many people in Vancouver haven’t even heard of the book, let alone read it, otherwise why would anyone protest? Which is a much sadder statement that the one about ……… click below for more ↓

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