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Dave Allen on religion (video, humour)
My personal good news week of the medical variety
Two of my specialists (see below for back story articles) have reduced my medications! This is a good thing!
This doesn’t come without a complication though as the reduction makes tracking taking the right dose on the right day a little more complicated: I will have to pay more attention.
Dr G (the digestive tract specialist) has reduced my Nexium by 25%. Instead of 40 mg a day, I now alternate 40 mg and 20 mg tablets so I am effectively on 30 mg a day. The aim is to get me down to 20 mg a day. I see him again in six weeks.
Dr E (the specialist looking after my nodule-strewn thyroid) has reduced my medication by HALF! Only have to take it once a day now too! Woo hoo! While my TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) levels are not yet within the normal range, last weeks blood test was a very positive improvement. Anything is an improvement over “undetectable”! My inflammatory markers are down too. Back in six weeks to assess progress on the lower dose which will likely be my maintenance dosage.
Reduce 7 billion people to 100 people to depict our world
When Mr O Jnr 2 (he of the recent major bone surgery) was whinging about my internet restrictions he stated, categorically, that “everyone” else in the world had the internet – all seven billion people, according to him.
Remembering the 100 People: A World Portrait I had read longer ago than I thought, I reminded him if the world was 100 people, only ONE would own a computer.
As we get older, time flies! I thought I should check my memory. I found we have moved on since I originally read those statistics. Now twenty-two people own or share a computer. This is not a directly comparable statistic, sadly, but it is indicative of the increase in the use of technology over the twenty-two years from 1990 to 2012. The shift in college education since 2006 has been from one to seven, according to 100People.org.
How Apple plus school made this parent grumpy
School started this week. So off went Mr O Jnr 2 (fourteen) and Miss O 2 (twelve) with their mandatory iPads. As you may be aware, in order to download apps from the iTunes store, the customer has to login. To login the customer has to have an ID.
iPad 2 Air (Source: Apple.com.au
When we got the iPads I tried to create an ID for Miss O 2 but she is too young – and will be for the remainder of this school year! No iTunes ID unless I put in a fake birth date, which as an mother and an IT professional I refuse to do. I created an iTunes account for myself and downloaded the apps we had been told about on the book list.
Miss O 2 was devastated.
“But what if we have to download something during class?”
Unless you are a white male, chances are sexism and/or racism will get you
Ever heard of Muzikillz? No? Don’t feel bad, neither had I. Muzikillz is a successful DJ. That success didn’t come until she became a he. Not a surgical transformation, just a disguise to get bookings.
You see, potential clients loved her demo tapes. As long as they thought she was a man. Once they saw the attractive woman, the response was invariably along the lines Muzikillz describes.
He passed her tape around, without giving her name, and she quickly found herself booked on the strength of her music but then rejected when they found out who she was. “They said, ‘F— that girl, she is sexy, she’s only used her looks to get ahead.’ My publicist was like, ‘It’s her tracks on there – you were going to book her as a guy.'”
Source: Daily Life
We have a people problem
We have a problem. A people problem to be precise.
As I have been discussing of late, it is clear the human locusts are overgrazing the planet. We need to slow our breeding.
This is all very well and good, of course, but in order to do that we will shift the age distribution of the population. We live longer.
Based on United Nations projections, global population growth isn’t slowing as fast as we need.
| Year | 1950 | 1975 | 2000 | 2025 | 2050 |
| Population (‘000s) |
2,519,495.1 | 4,065,508.1 | 6,056,714.9 | 7,936,740.8 | 9,322,251.2 |
I have sourced these figures from a report prepared for the 2002 World Assembly on Ageing. There is considerable regional and age data available in that report – I have concentrated on a summary view.
Will we still be allowed BBQs by Sunday?
Here you go. White with one!
Great coffee – in a soup tureen?
Thanks. You know, I’m so confused. I thought the right wing lot were all keen on small government and free speech and minimal intervention in our lives.
So they say. Why are you confused?
Yesterday I read journalists are being reported to the police for reporting the news. That sounds like government controlling the news to me, or am I just too stupid to understand the political world?
It does seem rather contradictory to the proclaimed belief in free speech, I agree.
Then I read someone tried to lodge an “Application to Show Cause” at the High Court and a registrar quoted a whole lot of legalese at her and said she couldn’t lodge it or file it or whatever they do. That seems like a pre-trial judgement to me. Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?
Silence on Violence
Betty writes relatively infrequently, but when she does her words carry weight and are always a MUST READ. Do I want this sort of future for my daughters? No. Do you? No. It is up to US to make our politicians put this issue on the agenda. Now. Today. Please read the full article on Betty’s web site. This is too important to allow our politicians to sweep under the carpet.
TRIGGER WARNING may be applicable for some readers.
Well the Queensland election is now in full swing with both major and minor parties out on the hustings with promises and counter promises announced daily. Asset sales/ leases, new roads, schools, extra teachers, extra nurses, gas & coal mining, saving the Barrier Reef and a plethora of other issues.
Our leaders are busy I know but I cant accept that no-one has mentioned domestic and family violence and the fact that 2 Queensland women have been killed in the first two weeks of 2015. This together with another 4 women killed across Australia and we have a national tragedy. 6 women killed in 2 weeks and no-one is talking about it.
Late last year, Campbell Newman launched a Domestic & Family Violence Taskforce headed by Dame Quentin Bryce to review responses across the State. This Taskforce is not due to hand down its report until late March, well after…
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Manus bothers me – it should bother you too
The media has been diligently reporting on the Manus Island situation.
The new Minister has castigated the media for publishing false reports. Yet the Minister has provided no proof the reports are false.
Random Observations of Life 