Scary thought if repairing these small bridges on Highway-10 between Yorkton and Melville were so urgent that it couldn’t wait until after the melt. Driving through on Saturday, the side road was a complete mud bog and it’s only going to get worse. It seems like poor planning to me, but I don’t know the severity of the repairs either. Good thing these bridges didn’t give out over the winter.
Sticking with Highway-10, I am all for greatly reduced speed limits in construction areas, but when workers are in the ditch; I think it may be going a little too far. There are stretches on Highway-10 where that is, exactly, the case. To me, if you are going to respect workers who are off the road way and into the ditch, you may as well also respect snowmobilers and reduce all highway traffic to 60km/h wherever a human being could be present in the ditch. Perhaps a happy medium can be found and speed limits can be at 80km/h where construction crews are working in a culvert.
There has been increasing debate, in recent days, about the high costs of ambulance service in Saskatchewan. In short, I can say from experience that the level of care received by these professionals is second to none and I’m not about to put a price tag on it. I will say, however, that if a doctor writes up an order to send you from one hospital to another via an ambulance, then I think it should fall under normal medicare. Anything outside of that, then I think it’s incumbent on the patient to have proper insurance or pay out of pocket. This includes emergencies like vehicle accidents or situations that could occur in the home where an ambulance is called.
New York City has announced, starting this Fall, that they will honour two Muslim holidays and all schools will be closed during those two days. We are the authors of our own demise. Fortunately, Canada isn’t expected to go down this path as, in the interests of fairness, what you do for one religion you would have to do for another. Creating blanket holidays for everyone could result in there not being enough days for students to get a full year of school in.
Last week, someone told me I need to be more tolerant of other cultures because Canada is a place where people should be allowed to bring their heritage with them when they get here. My argument is where do we draw the line? While wearing a head scarf in court may not seem harmful to most, I would argue that being tolerant of that simply sets you up for a slippery slope where it becomes, increasingly, difficult to say no to something. For example, a woman in Saudi Arabia was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months jail because she spoke to the media about being gang raped. I’m pretty sure we all agree that isn’t something we should put up with, but where is the line?
I feel sorry for parents in Maryland who have been found guilty of child neglect after they allowed their 10-year-old and 7-year-old to walk home from a neighbourhood park, 1.5km away. Someone reported them, police investigated and located the children before they got to the front door and charges were laid. To the parents credit, they aren’t backing down. They have faith in their kids’ ability to handle themselves. The mom said, just this week, they allowed their kids to walk home alone from the park again and this time they arrived with a stray dog in tow. Mom and dad went to work and found the rightful owners. Sounds like a good American family to me.
More racial tensions in the United States after a white cop, apparently, shot and killed an unarmed black man. Authorities say the black man assaulted the officer after he responded to a battery call. Neighbours say the victim wouldn’t hurt a fly. The shooting may very well have been unjustified, we don’t know. Perhaps there was a struggle and the shooting wasn’t intentional. The bottom line, though, is if you keep your nose clean the police aren’t at your door at all.
Twitter isn’t all fun and frivolity. If you follow @RockStarLydia, you will discover a great white shark who has it’s own account. She has a dorsal fin tracker that tells scientists a tremendous amount of information. In two years, she’s travelled 56,000km over the mid-Atlantic ridge towards Europe and western Africa and then back again. Each time her fin breaks water, new date is pinged by satellite to computer trackers.
Nice person mentions this week to Garth Hilts, Darren Hardy, Kim Shabazz, Jacob Jeske, Brandon Volpe, and Marinda Van Heerden.
