syrinx

It is so painful witnessing the U.S. health debate. To our U.S. friends, here's the trade-off in our system: I waited 2+ years for a carpel tunnel procedure, but a more serious issue was treated immediately. Recently I went in to emergency with an attack of pericarditis, an incredible painful inflammation of the lining surrounding the heart. I had attacks of this condition several times before (they occurred after a flu or other virus and/or severe stress of some sort) although not for 10 years now...

tags: health care

Our fortune-teller sees something analogous to the sinking of the Titanic as it gazes into the future. Now that the Copenhagen talks have produced next to nothing, it’s time to listen to James Hansen’s plea for a direct carbon tax on fuels.

Not that of our revered Queen Elizabeth but that of the winged type, soon to emerge and go south. Monarch butterflies are relatively rare here due to low abundance of common milkweed which, as well as being naturally uncommon in NS, is on the feared Noxious Weed list and… exterminated when sited. However our native swamp milkweed is not on that list and is being propagated to help support monarch populations without threat from the weed inspector. (Otherwise, the swamp milkweed is also quite uncommon.) I think Robert would like the monarch events at the Mersey Tobeatic Research Institute in southwest Nova Scotia coming up in September.

Forty years ago while a grad student in the West Indies, I heard a sickening thud as I backed a car into a palm tree at night; the used car rental guy gave me a car from The Wreck that was Hesperus after that. Ever since, the sound has reverberated though my head when I back up in the dark and has protected me.

That's my new lightweight camera, 10 MP, 18X zoom.. so far I like the zoom/capture birds and other distant beings and the wide angle (18 mm) views. The close-up (macro) is fussy but renders well when you do finally manage to get the desired object in sharp focus. This replaces my floatable Sony H5 (it gave up the ghost after I dropped it onto concrete from about 8 feet) ..