Snowflake's Forum

 The school year lets out a bit later here in Canada. Today is my last day cross guarding then off for two months.  Originally it was thought we would have to spend some time back in Minnesota to help out Geri's disabled daughter. Now it appears she is doing better and getting help from friends enough so we don't need to go for a long stay, just a short visit. I am dying to see Toronto again. I have been told I will be disappointed, she won't be the same ole gal she was before.  She was a frequent stop in my younger years when Yorkville was a hippie hangout and great acts would show up at the El Mocambo.  https://joesplace.online/my-yorkville-village-memories/ https://soundsliketoronto.ca/en/stories/venues/el-mocambo Maybe Montreal will be a destination. I haven't seen Mike since before the pandemic. Mike, Gordon and I were an inseparable bunch back in our youth. Mike was the first to move to Canada, to Montreal to attend university and never came back. Gordon never ...

  Anyone who has been following my personal exploits the last few years might remember that a couple of years back I had a melanoma removed from the top of my head and a skin draft placed in the hole. Since then I have been wearing a head covering. I have a fine collection of hats: a straw hat, a military style camouflage hat, a Tilly hat. I even have a collection of tuques for winter. BUT never a cap. Even indoors in public spaces I wear something like this: Everywhere I go I see caps. Baseball caps. Political caps. Oil company caps. Plain caps, Caps with smart-ass sayings on them. Nike caps. Used to be, growing up, you took off your cap when in a restaurant having a meal. NOT nowadays. Caps everywhere. No one takes them off. Nope, not a cap person, are you? Then there are religious headwear. Everything from turbans to hijab to kippah to head bonnets.  Now wearing religious headwear I understand if you are a strong believer in your religion, but one kind of hat that is worn a...

WELL  ACTUALLY........... I am talking about a different type of beat that goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on............. More war news out of Russia and Ukraine, and the beat goes on.......... More vitriol against Drag Queens and LGBTQ, and the beat goes on......... More about Trump this and Trump that, not to mention Hunter this and Hunter that, and the beat goes on........... More and more about climate change (Ha, Snowy should talk considering his thread of yesterday!), all gloom and doom, and the beat goes on.......... At some point is there a beat that goes on and on you rather not hear about for a while? A beat that has been - excuse the pun -  "beaten" to death? Do we need to hear more about Prince Harry and have yet another analysis of what went wrong with the Titan? And the beat goes on............  

  Third Act is sponsoring an effort to recruit older voters to help high-school seniors register to vote.  Without support from the people who are supposed to care about them, our emerging citizens are not going to learn the ways of democratic participation, or what rights they have or how to protect them.  We have to do the teaching, and stop the hand-waving, don't-bother-me non-answering. https://thirdact.org/act/senior-to-senior-spring-2023-sign-up/ https://thirdact.org/act/senior-to-senior-spring-2023-sign-up/ Courtesy of Jennifer. 

 Climate change has come to Northern Ontario. This past week we have been getting weather alerts about "smoke" in the air from nearby forest fires. It stunk. Now, thankfully, we are getting heavy rain. Of course, forest fires in other parts of eastern Canada already effected many northern States with poor air quality. Texas is being blasted with severe heat waves and it's not even July yet. And it's not just us: The extreme weather events across the world in 2023 The global rise in temperature has caused unprecedented weather conditions worldwide Worth looking at all the pictures to see what is happening weatherwise around the world: https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/environment/960113/the-extreme-weather-events-across-the-world-in-2023 Is it already too late to do anything about this? Global average temperatures have risen and weather extremes have already seen an uptick, so the short answer to whether it’s too late to stop climate change is: yes. A 2021 report by the t...

…in a “making fun of” kind of way. 😜   The subject today is ridiculous product packaging. My husband was having some itching, so I bought him some Cortizone-10 cream yesterday. My… what a big box for such a tiny tube.  But hey, the company needs all that space to get its messages out.  “It does this, it does that, it does the other.”  “Do this with it, don’t do that with it, here’s our ‘not so secret’ ingredients,” etc. When you look inside, you see the tube, about the size of (let’s just say) your “middle finger” (get it? 😉 ). Now, here’s the kicker.  As you may have noticed (I didn’t until after-the-fact) there’s still a coupon on the box that says “Save 55¢ Now!”  It’s stuck on the front of the package (or maybe it’s the back, since both sides of the box look exactly alike, I guess for stocking purposes). Hmm, 55¢, what an interesting number.   Not some kind of common number like 50¢ or 75¢, no.   But specifically, 55¢. 🤔 💭 Was...

While my husband was up getting his coffee and I was unwrapping the bread, I said, “Do you want it plain or toasted?” sitting next to the toaster.  He said, “I think, plain.”  To which I started into my rendition of “The Rain in Spain” (stays mainly in the plain ), from the musical “My Fair Lady.”  (No, I’m not losing it...  yet .  But at times I think I teeter.) 😱 So, here’s a fun Friday question : Post some show tunes below from your favorite musicals.   There are so many to choose from (see list below).   Let’s start the weekend on a lite note (pun intended). 😉 (by Primal “ 🎵 ”Soup)   ______________ Some suggestions from Wikipedia to jog your memory: During the 1940s and 1950s, musical films from  MGM  musicals regularly premiered. These works included:  Meet Me in St. Louis  (1944),  Easter Parade  (1948),  On the Town  (1949),  An American in Paris  (1951),  Singin' in the Rain...

 I have been to Toronto, and it used to be one of my favorite destinations for a quick visit, but that was back in the day when it had "character", now it's all skyscrapers, high-rises, bumper to bumper traffic, and lots of smog.  But somehow Toronto made the grade?  😕 Three Canadian cities have made a list of the world’s top 10 most livable, though two slipped in the rankings from last year as other cities muscled their way to higher scores, according to a long-running ranking of 173 metropolises. Vancouver scored highest out of the three Canadian cities, coming in fifth place, followed by Calgary in seventh and Toronto in the ninth spot, the report from the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Global Liveability Index 2023, released on June 21, said. Here are the top 10 cities: 1. Vienna, Austria 2. Copenhagen, Denmark 3. Melbourne, Australia 4. Sydney, Australia 5. Vancouver, Canada 6. Zurich, Switzerland 7. Calgary, Canada 8. Geneva, Switzerland 9. Toronto, Canada 10....

 Luddites: On 9th October 1779 a group of English textile workers in  Manchester  rebelled against the introduction of machinery which threatened their skilled craft. This was the first of many Luddite riots to take place. https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/The-Luddites/ NOW, generation Z are the new Luddites: One group that has attracted the attention of  The New York Times  recently is The Luddite Club in New York. Taking its name from the Luddite movement in 19 th  century England, who were a group of textile workers rebelling against the negative impact machinery was having on their livelihoods, The Luddite Club is a teenage lifestyle group that promotes “self-liberation from social media and technology”. The group started as a reaction to death scrolling and social media burnout, but was also influenced by the freedom associated with opting out and not being controlled and tracked by technology. The Luddite Club meets weekly in a Ne...

ENJOY!   https://kotaku.com/twitch-biden-donald-trump-ai-artificial-intelligence-1850555581 You can see the feed live below, though be warned, the audio may not be safe for work. https://www.twitch.tv/trumporbiden2024 no further commentary required. 

Here’s something heavy to start off your week.  Hey, they can’t all be easy! 😁   “You know there’s always a price to pay for the advancement of medical science.” “Ethics, morality, conscience... funny how they all go out the airlock when we need something.” Those were two of many great lines from one of my favorite Star Trek: Voyager episodes, “Nothing Human,” (S5E8).  Please watch all 4-ish minutes of this final scene to get the full impact of the arguments: Talk about being jam-packed with ethical dilemmas, this really hits home.   So, what say you?  Give your analysis of these arguments.  Who was right?  The Doctor or Krell Moset?  Or both? Is it okay/ethical when “evil” is done for the advancement of “good?” Are ethics really arbitrary?  Does it “depend?” Mull this over for a while, then chime in.  (Oh, how I love complicating your life.) 😜 (by PrimalSoup)

  “Patriotism has never been so romantic.” That's the motto of Droite au Coeur, France’s first dating platform for right-wingers looking to meet their match online and start a romance with like-minded “patriots.” Droite au Coeur is a concerning sign of how the far-right has become increasingly trans-national, with many ideas coming from the US being exported into Europe. Dating apps targeting right-wingers only are already common in the US, where you have the likes of Righter -- whose founder Christy Edwards Lawton claims conservatives have “better sex” than liberals -- and The Right Stuff, founded by Donald Trump’s advisors. https://uk.news.yahoo.com/swipe-france-wing-dating-app-043009146.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAANyI-YjU0icv9ubMis_rs8mKK1y4S1-wCvsH5zfmAaLkewhQxcvpdDVtvs-w4olhJhkjmG5n8JfZ0FyafTiH4ckkWNtukDZSLfKftMiUo4zFS3KhJGLZGLAUIJ6NVTUsogjEeIy4JL91kEw6TqBeA3dXNDHeoA-w97X5RV_KsOkt 11 Best Free Conservative Dati...

Just the other day, I ran across this question: "What if the internet had been here on 9/11?  Would things have been different here in America?" Say what, now? I was hired by CompuServe Information Service in 1981. No, we didn't call it "the internet." We didn't even call it "the information superhighway" yet. We called it "going online." But we pretty much owned the early internet, with, for that time, a massive user base. In 1986, we covered the Challenger disaster online. I was writing pieces for instant publication all day long. And that was well before the World Wide Web existed. By the time 9/11 blew up our world, I'd been working online for twenty years . It wasn't new! And by the way, kid.... When did you get connected? For that matter, when did you first notice personal computers? What made you login for the first time? AlextheKay is taking a survey!

I saw a fun thread on Twitter today.   I didn’t see his original tweet,  but I guess George Conway’s autocorrect gave him the wrong word, and everyone started jumping on it. Conway said: I don’t know if I can mustard a response.   Maybe in Heinz sight I will. To wit, in came the wit: Mayo God forgive you. You’re in quite a pickle. I’m relishing this. Hey, I got no beef with this. Lettuce consider the pickle you’re in. Poupon you for missing the mark. That’s the Gulden touch! I’m sure if you Hunt’s, you’ll find a Gulden response. What’s the big dill? I’ll have my nothingburger with the works, please! Such ANTICIPATION, is making me wait. 🎵 Mayo the force be with you! So many salty comments on this thread! Remember to always used condiments everyone.   Safe eating! Well, you get the idea.   Let’s (or lettuce) have some different suggestions here (categories) and let's run with them (see how witty we can be). I’ll start one suggestion out: I have a cold…...

  On a thread on The Hill, on a posting I can no longer locate, I made the following comments about the need for democratic behavior on the part of everyday people as well as leaders.   💦💦💦:  No, the left doesn't, especially where working-poor people bother to read. This is why wealth and power distribution is so much more even in Europe and Canada.   👀👀👀:  What can the Dems offer? If they're serious and have enough votes in Congress, higher minimum wages, more equitable health insurance, and cleaner air, water, and soil. Call these things "the gibs" all you want, but this country still doesn't need most of the wealth and power going to just some tiny minority of rich whites. Or trillions of tax dollars going to military boondoggles instead of disabled veterans, elders, or struggling workers.   😜😜 the Deplorable:  Be as deplorable as you want. The people you support only win because low-income people are either too dumb to use thei...

 

When it comes to principles, how “pure” are you?  On some things you might consider yourself to be a 10 (not willing to compromise, no way, no how).   On other things you might consider yourself to be a 1 (not important to you and you don’t even see something as principle-worthy, while many others might).   Your task: Give some examples of things you absolutely won’t do (won't compromise) because they go against your basic principles. (An example might be “voting for a certain political party.”) Give some examples of things you will do (willing to compromise) but that you don’t like to do because they go against your basic principles.   (An example might be “shopping at a Walmart.”)  Which begs the question, why were you willing to compromise?  Because, in this Walmart example, you couldn't find the thing you wanted/needed somewhere else, it was cheaper at Walmart, other? Give some examples of things that you don’t feel any principles about, yet m...

Back in April, I saw this gem on uexpress, which uses the Disqus comment system and appeals to a distinctly more conservo set than ours.  Dear Abby got a letter from a man whose wife blurred blurred her father's politically-charged T-shirt message from a photo taken at, of all events, a child's birthday party.  I must say, "left-wing" messages like "Black Lives Matter" and the one in my picture may bring unneeded tension to a family get-together, but at least they convey a genuine public spirit -- and so, once upon a time, did less hostile conservative messaging.  Today, on the other hand, right-wing messaging is all about hurting others and hoping they fall apart, so these were my thoughts (and one of Larry's) on this touchy subject. Wife Keeps Politics out of  Family Photo "Back in the days of long hair and Flower Power, many, maybe most, young rebels would shower, trim their beards, tie back their locks, and suit up for solemn and festive occas...