McGuinty Rides Again

Salutations, personages! You are once again in the presence of the Lexiphage!
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So, recently McGuinty and his cronies decided to fix the autism problem in Ontario once and for all by allocating $6 million to build a program which will offer ABA therapy to all Autistic kids in the public school system. While I have not yet found out how McGuinty is going to weasel the money back into his personal office budget or some other more deserving institution, I did notice Dalton's signature lack of math in the program.
First, it will be instituted across all school boards in Ontario; CTV reports that this includes 1400 principals, teachers, and educational assistants; further they will train 6 to 8 officials in every school board across Ontario to carry this out. Sooooo...... there has to be at least, say, 100 school boards in Ontario, which means they will need to train at least 2000 people. They will do this over the summer.
Second, they will use some of this funding to perform the actual ABA therapy to the autistic kids in the school system. This would include the 1300 or so waiting for IBI therapy, but also assumedly would cover the other autistic kids- around 15,000 more.
This adds up to around 18,000 people to either be trained or therapied... for $6 million, or around $333 per person. To put this in perspective, to get a bachelor's degree in Literature, one would have to spend around $50,000 and four years... To teach someone how to administer therapy to a disabled child- two months and $333 bucks.
At that price, it's a wonder that we have a shortage of child psychologists in this province. A freind of mine tried to get her kid a psychologist and got put on a waiting list for over six months... in that space of time why not just train a new therapist? I'm sure there are two or three people out there who would like to be earning $80 per hour after investing $333. They'd pay off their education in the first day!
Next month, McGuinty plans to solve world hunger with a large crate of Cheerios, and the month after that, will bring peace to the world with a single hearty handshake.
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I did the only sensible thing to get the smurfs their IBI therapy... I began the process before McGuinty came into power. To all you other parents of autistic kids out there, don't worry too much- once McGuinty is out of office the wait list will start running again in a halfway sane fashion- or at least, it will stop getting worse.
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In response to this wonderful gesture by the Liberal Government, I sent Weiner Boy a gift basket containing a grain of bath crystal, three grains of salt, some lint from my left sock, and a sliver of scented soap you could fit through the eye of a needle. No doubt with financial capabilities like his he'll keep his family clean and fresh for months on that.
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As an aside, I'd like to thank the Guru for his latest financial idea- investing in the Apocalypse seems like a great idea. What with my faith in mankind, it appears to be the safest investment I'll ever make!
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Lastly, on Canadian government in general, I'd just like to say onthat the Lexiphage fully endorses all decisions of our honourable leadership, and will continue to support everything they say. This has nothing to do with the sweeping powers Canada has recently decided to give to CSIS. Thank you for your time, citizens. Go about your business. We are taking care of everything.king idiots can't even figure that one out. I'm glad I got that last one off of my chest; now that it's out in the open they can't keep it a secret any more.
Whew! Thank goodness for free speech!
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Bye bye now,
The Catalytic Lexiphage.

Expanding my Horizons

Well, I'd like to thank federal politicians in general for allowing me to expand my horizons this week, as it turns out I am able to complain about a wider variety of government officials.
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It makes me all rosy and warm inside to know that all of the opposition parties on the federal level are currently spending all of their time on running Team Canada.
Apparently, for those of you who don't know, around 2 years ago a hockey player got miffed during a game and MAY have said "F---ing Frenchman" about another player during a game. It was mumbled from a distance under the player's breath, but the guy who heard it brought it to the Lords of Hockey and there was a full investigation after which the Mouth was cleared.
Fast forward ahead two years, a Bloc Qeuebecois moron hears about his happening, and says- 'No way can this guy play as Captain on Team Canada.' And- and this is the clincher- MOST OF THE OTHER PARTIES AGREE WITH HIM.
Pardon?
That's right. The Bloc Quebecois, who don't want to be in Canada, feel they should be allowed to choose who leads our hockey teams. The NDP, Liberals and Green Party all agree. Yup, The Bloc gets veto power over hockey assignments. Riiiiight.
Is it just me, or is this political correctness thing going a little too far?
I have Scottish and English ancestors, but if somebody said 'F---ing Limey' or even 'F---ing Scotchman', despite the linguistic incorrectness, I would probably be a lot less concerned about their observations on my heritage as I would be their flagrant use of the explative. Where is this going? In a few years, are the Bloc, or for that matter any politicians, going to be vetoing who collects my garbage on the basis of their prejudices? Is the manager at McDonald's going to have to make sure he's not a 'Global Warming Denier' if he wants to keep his job?
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Speaking of both federal politics and global warming, the Green Party leader joined the real ranks of Canadian politics by calling Steven Harper a Nazi Collaberator for his new environmental policy. Yes, you read that right. This of course, is nothing new; you aren't really an Honourable member of the House of Parliament until you stand up on your chair, wave around a sheaf of irrelevant papers, and screech at someone that they are being a Nazi because they disagree with your political veiwpoints. This is being done a couple of times a year now, usually but not always by the left wing, who figure Nazis were right wing, and so are politicians who balance their checkbook, so therefore anyone on the right wing is a Nazi. Right wingers do it too, of course, arguing that Left wingers want to make all our decisions for us and therefore are evil dictators as well, but I don't recall the last time any of our politicians killed several million Jews in gas chambers, or for that matter, even shot anybody.
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The Lexiphage's Ideas on Global Warming:
Seeing as how we're on the subject, I figure I may as well rant in this direction too. I know it's a good way to annoy my Biggest Fan.
I don't believe in the currently held veiw of Global Warming. There, I said it, and now am waiting for the bullet.
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No? Whew! Okay- here's the thing. The current version of Global Warming (for shortness sake I will now refer to this as TCVGW) is grossly oversimplified, and although there is evidence on both sides of the issue, those who argue with any of the "facts" of TCVGW are regarded as kooky at least, and as Nazis (as I mentioned above) at the worst. There are a few facts to consider:
1) What about all of the other forms of pollution? These days NUCLEAR POWER is seen as a better alternative to other forms of electricity because istead of CO2 emissions we only get HORRIFYING NUCLEAR WASTE WHICH WILL NEVER GO AWAY, KILLS ON CONTACT, CAUSES CANCER, and which we 'take care of' by DUMPING INTO OUR FARMLAND or THE OCEAN and SEALING IT INTO A BLOCK OF CONCRETE!!!! I mean really, they make you put on a lead vest when you get an X-ray, but several million tons of indestructable chemicals of doom- no problem. And what are the odds contaminating our food, air and water with this stuff is going to be bad in some way? Anyone?
2) The amount of warming which actually has occurred is less than one degree over the past century. Or worded another way, The amount of warming is 0.6 degrees or so, the margin of error in these statistics is 1.2 degrees, and we haven't been keeping accurate records for most of the time. Really, when did they start keeping temperature records accurate to one tenth of a degree in Venezuela, and why wasn't I notified when it happened?
3) The Kyoto Protocol, the current Bible of TCVGW, is based on the following assumptions: a) developed countries will decide not to pollute. b) If they do decide to pollute they will send money to third world countries to help them not pollute. c) the third world, upon getting these moneys, will decide not to use it to eat, or build a bigger army, but instead replace their coal power plants with nuclear ones; and when they do this they promise to not skimp on the shielding or build any nuclear weapons, and we can really trust them. Would President Mugabe lie?
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Ultimately, pollution is bad and our first goal is not to lower levels below 1990 ones but first to stop them from going up. Once we have done that, any step is one in the right direction, right? This means we have to develop methods of doing what we do now only in an environmentally neutral way.
According to physics, every time we use energy, we convert it into heat. The more power we use, the more heat we generate. 20 years ago we didn't all have air conditioning, 4 TVs per house, several Home computers, microwaves, cellphones, and who-knows what else running all the time. Our power needs are going UP and will continue to do so until we change what we are doing.
There is only one method of generating power which does not generate extra heat. This is solar power. We're getting the sunlight anyway, people.
Lastly, there have been a lot of idiots talking about how dark forest and other dark materials reflect less light than snow and therefore cause some golbal warming. That we can fix. Make a law where everyone has to paint their roofs white, or mount a solar panel there to power their air conditioners. Make black concrete roads into white concrete roads.
And lastly, cut the B.S., because that is the real source of methane, and therefore a serious contributor to global warming anyway, and really, we have our hands full eliminating that.
Ciao for now,
The Assiduous Lexiphage.

Ontario wins the lottery

Hi again, Lexiphans... I have startling news.
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I was reading the paper a few days ago and came upon something which has never happened before...

Dalton McGuinty had an idea which wasn't entirely stupid!!!

I know what you're thinking: "am I on the right web site?", and ordinarily, you would be corrwct in asking that. No I am not being coerced at gunpoint by Men in Black, nor am I being blackmailed, nor has Mr. McGuinty finally found my price and paid it (incidentally, Dalton, something in the five digit range will make me at least pretend to think you're not an idiot). No, it's this:
McGuinty has decided to start a "Solar Farm", a 400 hectare area jam-packed with solar panels, to supplement the grid. ( For Mr. Gryper and other non-metric types, a Hectare is a square 100 metres a side, about the size of my ego) istead of flicking the switch for the coal plants on and off, instead of pouring more money into nuclear plants which spend 30 years in renovations for every 38 seconds of successful operation, he's decided to fire up a small solar plant.
Don't get me wrong, there are problems with the specifics: the main one is that it is being built on farmland, and Ontario has some of the best farmland in the world already being wasted supporting condos instead of human life, and admittedly a power plant isn't an effective use of this when we've got about a zillion free hectares of hills and forest about 200 miles in any northerly direction. Secondly that Solar power isn't an especially powerful power source, although the fuel is free and there's few moving parts involved so it's easy to maintain once you fork out the dough to build it... But it seems to go against Liberal party policy to:
1) Decide to do something environmentally freindly
2) Decide to do something environmentally freindly which will actually solve another problem we've been having
3) Decide to do these things in a way that makes some level of sense
4) Allocate the money to a program that can actually spend it and
5) Decide that the construction and labour should not necessarily take place in Quebec.
The real trial, of course, will be to see if they actually take any steps towards implementing this good idea when they could be sending all the money to Zimbabwe to support Mugabe's reign of terror with a nice Hallmark which reads "Dear Evil Dictator, please spend this money on something which won't kill anybody, unless us making a demand like that upon you offends you in some way, in which case buy nukes and we're sorry. xoxoxo :)"
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Another breakthrough came yesterday, when trying to make Daughter Smurf walk around outside and she surprised me by walking down the block to the grocery store for a Danish, walking back, and climbing into the house and down the stairs by herself. This from a girl who two days ago refused to take even one step in pretty much the same circumstance, and who's mortally afraid of stairs. Cool, eh?
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Well, I gotta go and give money to the Hydro people again before they send their Hydro-thugs after me, not to mention every other multinational billionaire company who needs my money more than me. Until next time,
the Lackadaisical Lexiphage.