sbv

I try to collect conversation starters so I have things to talk about with people I like.

Some of them are general and work on anyone, like: "I'm moving soon!" or "how was your weekend?" or "did you see that ludicrous display last night?". Others deal with shared interests or common friends, so they're person specific.

What's a word to describe collecting conversation starters? Borrowing from other languages is legit.

... some kid in the daycare has lice.

We went through this a couple of years ago: one kid had a tonne of lice in his hair, my wife got infested and ended up shaving her head. The other kid and I lucked out.

Regardless of what happens, we've got some short summer haircuts in our future.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15835822

Door of Durin by poppel

https://teia.art/objkt/769117/listings

The family is moving to find more financial flexibility. Owning their current home is a financial burden, and the stress would only get worse with a mortgage renewal coming up soon.

...

Proceeds from the sale plus a cash top-up will mean they can live mortgage-free in their new three-bedroom townhouse. Current mortgage costs are $3,965 per month.

As well, Ms. Deane has estimated that her family will save on electricity, heating, insurance, property taxes and maintenance. Even with strata/condo fees of $710 per month at the new place, Ms. Deane calculates overall savings of $4,640 per month.

Props to them for making a smart move.

"The evidence establishes that the City knew that its failure to properly enforce the 2012 Bylaw would likely cause harm to the taxi industry.

"A multinational giant was invading Ottawa, and because of the City's unpreparedness and its lack of efforts to develop a plan to enforce the 2012 Bylaw, the City's enforcement efforts against Uber drivers were ineffective."

Nurse practitioners could help fill the void, advocates for the profession say, if more provinces would adopt policies to integrate them into primary care and pay them fairly for their work. Some physicians’ organizations have pushed back against that approach, arguing that NPs don’t have as much training or education as family doctors and therefore should only be funded publicly when they’re embedded in interdisciplinary teams with MDs.

Aren't these the same organizations that have been dragging their feet on recognizing foreign credentials?

I've been seeing a nurse practitioner for the last couple of years. So far, she's provided the same level of care I'm used to from family doctors: prescriptions, forwarding me to specialists when appropriate, providing the usual advice during checkups. It's fine.

https://archive.is/PkAdd

Edit: took out my grumbly summary, since our healthcare spending seems to be middle of the pack, compared to peer countries.

In 2022, Global News said the quiet part out loud: poverty is driving disabled Canadians to consider MAiD. Those “some” who are driven to assisted death because of poverty or an inability to access adequate care deserve to live with dignity and with the resources they need to live as they wish. They should never, ever feel the pressure to choose to die because our social welfare institutions are starved and our health care system has been vandalized through years of austerity and poor management.

Given the way our institutions and economic and political elite create and perpetuate poverty in Canada, particularly among disabled people, we should be particularly sensitive to the implications of the country’s MaiD regime for those who are often ignored when warning about the dangers of the law.

...

While MAiD may be defensible as a means for individuals to exercise personal choice in how they live and how they die when facing illness and pain, it is plainly indefensible when state-induced austerity and mismanagement leads to people choosing to end their lives that have been made unnecessarily miserable. In short, we are killing people for being poor and disabled, which is horrifying.

Is anyone else boycotting Loblaws? I don't have many alternatives, but I'm doing my best to take my business elsewhere.

US regulators have found evidence that TD's anti-money laundering fraud detection is insufficient

For months, analysts have predicted a fine in the range of US$500-million to US$1-billion, but that’s now jumped. “We believe cumulative fines could easily hit $2-billion,” Mr. Dechaine wrote.

Meanwhile, in Canada, TD is facing record fines (archive) from Canadian regulators.

https://archive.is/e0SGA

The octopus is one of nearly 5m Lego pieces that fell into the sea in 1997 when a storm hit a cargo ship 20 miles off Land’s End, Cornwall. While 352,000 pairs of flippers, 97,500 scuba tanks, and 92,400 swords went overboard, the octopuses are considered the most prized finds as only 4,200 were onboard.

The Ottawa Carleton District Schoolboard is winding up to drop early French immersion.

wtf

Let’s start with one of the highest-voltage [third rails] in federal politics: Old Age Security.

OAS only begins to be clawed back once a senior’s income exceeds $91,000. And payments aren’t zeroed out until income hits $148,000 – or $154,000 for those 75 and older. Senior couples earning a quarter-million dollars a year, and living mortgage-free, are getting cheques from younger and (much) lower-income taxpayers.

That has to be fixed. The OAS threshold should be lowered – to, say, $60,000 – and the clawback sharpened, with benefits tapping out at $100,000.

...

End the capital-gains exemption for principal residences. It’s even more untouchable than OAS. It’s also more economically harmful and inequitable.

It pumps up housing prices and pushes more and more national wealth into housing. It’s dumb economics, plus the tax break only goes to the two-thirds of families who own a home. And the richer you are, and the more home you own, the bigger the tax break. It adds up to a hyper-regressive policy to make Canada less productive.

...

Let’s restore the two percentage points of Goods and Services Tax the Harper government cut. Our tax system is too tilted to income taxes, and away from taxes on consumption. And the cut to the GST costs Ottawa about $20-billion a year.

If the GST were raised, some of the proceeds could beef up the tax credit for low-income Canadians.

There's some good stuff in there.

https://archive.is/GDzQG