You’re the opposite of my mom. She was a figure skater who picked up ringette much later in life. She sent herself flying in her first few games trying to use her toe pick. It was so bad that a couple of her coworkers took her aside and asked if my dad was hitting her because she was covered in bruises. :o
It takes a little practice, but you can learn to skate without tripping over your picks in fairly short order. Fun video though!
Spoons
Former figure skater who hasn’t worn hockey skates in at least 40 years
I’ve never seen that movie before. But yes. That’s exactly what happened. Twice.
Stairs are tricky, today. My joints don’t work so good. 
You borrowed your mom’s skates?
Dude!
We bought a pair of these Nike “Rec skates” back in high school together. The boot is a little comfier than hockey skates. I couldn’t find mine, buddy invited me skating…so I saw hers.
I figured the colour was different, that’s all! She wore them once, maybe twice, so at least I was getting my money’s worth…
Getting your mommy’s worth, you mean. 
Hey, hope to see you for the Ottawa Dopefest this year! Details to follow.
So, how’s everyone’s Polar Vortexgoing?
That’s rather a personal question, isn’t it?
It’s just one more salvo in the Conservative’s ongoing war on science.
See, the thing is, we all want a balanced budget, but we don’t want to see any program cuts. Tell me how that works?
When I look at the esoteric scientific cuts listed it makes me yawn. I have no idea what any of it is about, how it affects my core services, or why I should care at all. I want lower taxes, and I want the government to focus on core services.
The crown corporation that I work for is also on the chopping block, and you know what? I think it’s a good idea. Our tax base is unsustainable as baby boomers age. We need to cut somewhere. What’s the alternative?
If scientific research is essential then let the private sector do it. I’m frankly tired of supporting every damned project and it’s not the concern of the federal government.
ETA: Yeah, I’m a bad Canadian I guess.
Yay! It’s warmed up enough to start snowing!
We had a chinook blow through last night. It was -24C when I ran down to the store for a few things; it was +1C this morning. Not much snow melted, but it was much more comfortable going out this morning than it was last night.
It is serious, if that is a factual story. I have my doubts that it is. The comments were quite the echo chamber, too - there were so few comments questioning it at all that I suspected that dissenting comments were just being deleted (then I found about two out of 80 that were not agreeing completely with the article).
Sorry, my bad. 
One of the extremely few not 100% agreeing comments on this article - “I like this. I think you should make a list of all the “for” science policies implemented by the conservative government as well. This would balance out the perspective a bit more and make everyone more informed.” I consider myself a good person who tries to live a good life, but if you do an exhaustive list of only the bad things* I’ve done in my life, I’m not going to come off very good, either.
*Not that I’m conceding this list is accurate or that all of the closures were bad things. I’ll also note that we had a global economic collapse in 2008 that we’re still recovering from. Not cutting things would have had 85% of Canadians up in arms.
We’re getting absolutely pounded with snow so far this year. If January 1 were a school day, the buses would have been cancelled. Buses cancelled in my area yesterday and again today. The forecast is calling for snow during parts of every day for the rest of the week. I LOVE IT!!!
As far as all this political talk goes, I find it a tad disconcerting to see Canada slowly shifting toward a divisive black-and-white militance I associate with the U.S.
A “war” on science? Dear Lord. Don’t look now, but your hate is showing.
It’s this horrible rigidity and hatred of “the other side” that makes people forget just how great this country is, and that, in the end, we all want what is best for Canada. Even “the other side”.
Tolerance. Moderation. Sober thought. Canada.
Have A Nice Day.
A lot of items on that list are pretty debatable as “bad”.
For example, the allocation of tri-counsel funding to industry-specific purposes.
My understanding is that one of the points of the Tri-Council funding was to do just that - that is, encourage funding “strategically” in areas intended to benefit the Canadian economy.
This may be good or it may be bad (I take no position on the matter), but it strikes me at least as something reasonable people could debate - whether it is better to “strategically” fund basic research or to aim at applied research.
Other items on the list may well be bad, but are not immediately obvious as having to do with science, at least directly. For example:
Leaffan - When Paul Martin and Ralph Goodale were Ministers of Finance, we had a budget surplus and were able to afford science. Now that Joe Flaherty is Minister of Finance, he created a deficit before the 2008 financial meltdown and we have to cut, cut, cut. The income gap between the top 1% and the rest of us has been steadily increasing, and yet, restoring the GST to 7% and/or re-examining the oil subsidies or the corporate tax rate is somehow out of the question.
Cat Whisperer - You’re reminding me of the moment when ‘This Hour Has 22 Minutes’ interviewed the president of University of Alberta, who wanted to give Ralph Klein an award for his ‘contributions to education in the province’. Cathy Jones asked the question ‘So what are Ralph Klein’s contributions to education in the province?’, and they showed 15 seconds of the university president sitting at his desk in total silence, patiently waiting for the interview to begin. If the conservatives have done anything to benefit science, I certainly haven’t heard it. Meanwhile, I do get to hear “We tried to arrange an interview with the Canadian scientist, but were unable to get permission from the Canadian government.” on a regular basis.
Dr_Doom I agree that the well of political discourse in Canada has been thoroughly fouled. Where I seem to disagree with you is over whose fault that is…
Creating wall of text laundry lists with loaded titles like “war on science” doesn’t really help. If you hate PM Harper, you’ll just nod along, feeling good that someone has taken the time to confirm what you already know. If you are a PM Harper supporter, you don’t have the time or energy to refute long lists like that, so you just disregard them.
I neither love nor hate Harper (I regard him as a bit of a political bully, a reasonably competent administrator, bad on environmental issues, willing to pay lip service only to his social-conservative base … in short, a mix of good and bad).
However, just a cursory glance at the list demonstrated items that were ether not obviously bad, or not obviously related to science.
For example, it is a bit of a stretch for the creator to claim that a union press release decrying cuts to federal aircraft maintenance facilities is evidence of a “war on science”.
Similarly, numerous items on the list have to do with cuts to what are essentially social services, not to “science”, or to items in which the gov’t is attempting to make the case for pipelines - which again are more in the realm of political/environmental differences, rather than “science”, as reaonable people could well argue the point of whether pipelines are good or bad.
The “War on Science” thing has been makin the rounds on Facebook, too. It’s amazingly poorly explained, ill-cited (or the references are circular) and vague in the accusations being made. It’s difficult for me to discern what, if anything, the Conservatives are doing to make war on science. I mean, perhaps they are, but I cannot tell from those links if they are.
You’d think if people were interested in science, they could make this case clearly, using objective evidence.
I’d also like to know - being a guy who actually likes the use of the scientific method to explore things - just how all these things compare to past governments. Much of this alleged war on science amounts to things like “this job was eliminated” or “that project was cancelled.” But a multi-billion dollar government is always going to eliminate positions and projects, even if overall interest and funding isn’t changing, hell, even if overall funding is going UP.