Reader Tips

Reader Tips 35 Comments

Has anyone else noticed that things have been a bit less Christmas-y this Christmas season? It seems to me that retailers started the pomp and hoopla later than usual, and toned it down a bit, and that there are fewer lights up, and less Christmas music on the radio, etc.
I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me, or maybe Christmas Ain’t Like Christmas Anymore.
We’re gonna have to straighten all that out starting tomorrow.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.

35 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. Wowee:

    Seventy-two percent of Americans say big government is a greater threat to the U.S. in the future than is big business or big labor, a record high in the nearly 50-year history of this question.

    This from a December 5-8 Gallup poll.

  8. This was posted this evening in yesterday’s tips .. sorry for the duplicate. It is pretty interesting.
    Killer pussy
    http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/magazine/dec13/felines-and-bird-deaths.asp
    According to a recent Environment Canada report that examined how human-related activities affect bird mortality, feral and domestic cats are the biggest killers of birds, claiming 196 million lives every year.
    And enviros gnash their teeth when ANYTHING “oil patch” kills a few birds while their pussies are laying waste to tens of millions of birds.
    CAS

  10. Ontario’s Grand River tests highest in the world for artificial sweeteners
    By Scott Sutherland | Geekquinox – Tue, 17 Dec, 2013
    http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/geekquinox/ontario-grand-river-tests-highest-world-artificial-sweeteners-200300835.html
    Apparently, Southwestern Ontarians drink a lot of diet soda pop.
    A new study from Environment Canada and the University of Waterloo has revealed that as the Grand River meanders its way through southwestern Ontario towards Lake Erie, it accumulates enough artificial sweeteners along the way that the water it discharges into the lake every day is roughly the equivalent of between 80,000 and 190,000 cans of diet soda pop. According to the researchers, these “are the highest reported concentrations of these compounds in surface waters to date anywhere in the world.”
    These artificial sweeteners aren’t coming as discharge from bottling plants, though. They’re coming directly from the people who drink it.

  11. Re: EBD and his observations on Christmas 2013.
    I can see what you mean. I was in the city yesterday, it seems there was something missing.
    I guess we all have our own special memories of Christmas. I grew up on a Sask. grain farm in the 50’s and 60’s. We always celebrated Christmas. One of my fondest memories was sleeping on the couch on Christmas eve. We had a Coleman oil fired space heater; it had a little glass window in the front of the burner that projected an image of a fire on the wall. We had no electricity then, the light of the burner caused the tree to glitter. I don’t know if Coleman had designed it that way, however it sure gave the room a feeling of warmth. You could also hear the fire roaring in the combustion chamber. The next morning I woke up and Santa had been there.
    Today, people spend thousands of dollars on gifts, yet I’m sure later on, kids will remember the simple things at Christmas. Just like I am doing now.

  12. As of this moment: the comments about Phil Robertson’s firing over at the Hollywood Reporter has drawn over 10,000 comments and still climbing fast. An informal poll about whether readers like or dislike Robertson’s opinion of gays shows over 25,000 likes and about 120 dislikes.
    Yes, you read those numbers correctly.
    This could be a watershed moment in the culture wars!

  13. Toronto Star, Wednesday, Dec. 18. Carol Goar writes yet another column on illiteracy and still fails to identify the real problem:
    http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2013/12/17/canada_loses_ground_on_literacy_goar.html
    The real reason why Canadians are not very literate is: public education. It falls captive to every hare-brained “progressive” educational philosophy that comes along – often without the slightest shred of “evidence” that leftists like to claim they want to base public policy on, or even in defiance of strong evidence, as with phonics being the best method for teaching kids to read – and uses children as guinea pigs. Children deserve better; parents deserve better. It’s time for a voucher system NOW.
    The column drags in a hapless banker who is some sort of activist on this issue, and notes: “Seven years ago, the bank issued a national call for action, urging policy-makers and corporate leaders to make literacy a national priority.”
    But we have been told for decades that public education is the “national priority” that would make us all literate. That has been a failure. The proper solution is to get education out of the hands of the state.
    Goar also asks some really stupid questions, such as:
    “Is Canada’s failure to implement a national early learning program a factor in its stalled progress?”
    NO! Literacy rates were higher a hundred years ago, when almost no one graduated from high school and students had to milk the cows at 5 a.m. before they trudged off to school.
    “Is Canada’s rigid pedagogic system a barrier to people who need help with reading, writing and arithmetic?”
    Rigid? Seriously? Most would say a lack of rigidity in standards is the problem.
    There could definitely be a place for experimentation in delivery of education (see Edmonton, for example, which by many accounts is doing quite well). But that means getting rid of the government monopoly over curriculum, and bringing in competition through a voucher system.
    At least in this column there’s no overt call for more government spending on adult literacy. Those who take that position demonstrate that to them it’s not really about literacy, it’s really about spending tax dollars.

  16. I remember reading something a while ago that said that the New England states had a higher literacy rate before they had public education than they do now.
    I think that for the most part literacy is something that is passed down in families. There was a news story the other day about some charity that collects old books for redistribution that stated that 25 percent of Canadian houses don’t have a single book in them. In my house there are so many books that I have started giving them away to the library because we don’t have room any more. I also bought an ebook reader and make regular trips to the library instead of buying books.
    For their first couple of years at school we practised reading every night with both my sons. Now the 8 year old is reading Harry Potter and the 10 year old is reading Lord Of the Rings. If you grow up in a house where there are no books, and the parent(s) can’t read this culture doesn’t get passed on. And it does get passed on whether you have a public education system or not if parents are literate and dedicated to raising successful children.

  17. Thanks plainz for the story. That brings back many memories for me as a child, waking up xmas morning. Boy I sure miss my dad at these times.

  18. ” Principal Zina Vivier then apologized for the idea in a letter sent home with the entire student body. She promised the event wouldn’t be held again.”
    The incredibly dangerous event started when the principal asked the Society of St. Vincent de Paul ” which food item was in particular demand this holiday season and was told peanut butter.”
    There have not been any reports of death or illness amongst the students, as of yet, but it was close. Health officials are concerned that a few students may have seen all the jars together and are monitoring those children.
    You can’t be too careful when dealing with the future leaders of the progressive movement.
    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/school-s-peanut-butter-drive-ends-after-parents-complain-1.2469198

  20. http://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2013/12/18/trudeau-offers-hand-on-downtown-eastside/#.UrMK-idrukd
    Future Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside to see how the other half lives, opines that Canada needs to bring in more parents and grandparents of immigrants currently here, just to increase our welfare roles,I suppose.
    If there’s anything that will help our health care system, it’s another flood of elderly people from third world Countries,complete with all their related health issues from years of substandard diets.
    Justin in 2015!

  21. Neo-AGW PR.
    Not on OUR CBC.
    …-
    “Tropics Go Wintery! … Northern Thailand Declared Cold Disaster Zone … Snow In Vietnam … In Turkey “Animals Literally Freeze Where They Stand”!”
    “A flurry of Middle Eastern and Asian news websites are reporting on “unusual” cold sweeping across vast areas of Asia and the Middle East.”
    “Warm Arctic causing cold winters in tropics makes no sense”
    http://notrickszone.com/2013/12/19/tropics-go-wintery-northern-thailand-declared-cold-disaster-zone-in-turkey-animals-literally-freeze-where-they-stand-middle-east-shivers/

  22. “Analysis finds NOAA satellite data is incompatible with theory of man-made global warming”
    “Previous posts by Dr. Noor van Andel have demonstrated that the theory of anthropogenic global warming [AGW] is falsified by observations over the past 62 years which show outgoing radiation from greenhouse gases has significantly increased, rather than decreased as predicted by the AGW theory. The observations instead show the ‘greenhouse effect’ has decreased over the past 62 years instead of increased due to an exponential rise in greenhouse gases.”
    http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.ca/2013/12/analysis-finds-noaa-satellite-data-is.html

  23. Joe, an 81 year-old man, went to the doctor to get a physical.
    A few days later, the doctor saw Joe walking down the street with a gorgeous young woman on his arm
    A couple of days later, the doctor spoke to JOe and said, ‘You’re really doing great, aren’t you?’
    Joe replied, ‘Just doing what you said, Doc: ‘Get a hot mamma and be cheerful.”
    The doctor said, ‘I didn’t say that.. I said, ‘You’ve got a HEART MURMER; be careful.’

  25. I couldn’t agree more.
    I read every evening to my daughters in their developing years. We gradually transitioned to them reading to me. Now nobody wants to read with/to me… but I digress.
    Also, we’ve seen a substantial improvement since we moved from Saskatchewan and enrolled my daughter in a private middle school in Arizona. Today (grade 9) she has a 3.8 GPA and credits it to her advantage over those who did not go to a private middle school. She was able to enter high school (gr 9) taking Grade 10 Math/English/Science because of previously earned credit from middle school. Another benefit of US schooling I suspect.
    School Choice should be a right for all Canadians who pay education taxes!

  26. Despite their moderately good literacy skills, they really don’t like reading all that much. If I didn’t enforce it they would probably never pick up a book. Because of this I don’t fight with them so much about what they read. If they find something that they are interested in I let them go with it. I am hoping that they develop a love of literature over time

  27. Plainzdrifter, I have the same memories here in Saskatchewan. The only difference was that it was the late 1940s, early 1950s, and we we had a wood stove. Darn cold in the mornings and the water in the wash basin in the kitchen was frozen. The Christmas tree had a few candles on when we were in the living room and a pail of water and sand close by. The school tree also had candles with a senior student standing near it with extinguishers during the program.
    We also listened to the battery radio a lot in the evenings after chores. We can listen to them again if we wish. Boston Blackie, Firestone Music Hall, Communist for the FBI were among the favourites.
    http://www.dumb.com/oldtimeradio/allshows.html

  29. AGW Kills SUVs.
    Green-Red H2Omelons aghast at the slaughter.
    …-
    “Photos show what’s left of an SUV after highway encounter with a moose …
    National Post”
    …-
    “Hungry snowy owls flock to Ottawa in record numbers
    Ottawa Citizen”

  34. There are fewer Canadians that believe in Christianity than there used to, and we are so money graspy these days, so my suggestion certainly won’t fly however, I think the whole country should shut down for the last week of December. For Christmas/winter festivals. Go skiing, visit family at the other end of the country, whatever. I think we would be a happier place for that time. I also think many of us would spend more money in country and our economy would be healthy.

  35. It’s not so much that he knows nothing, it’s that he says nothing.
    He could probably write about game 7 of the 1971 Boston playoff series and put me to sleep. Or 1979.
    He was an empty windbag while running for the Liberal leadership and he’s an empty windbag now.

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