I have been meaning to post this for a while, but kept forgetting.
UrbanGiraffe published the last of his articles on “Dissection of a WordPress theme”. They are very good reads, and really can help anyone get a grasp on creating your own theme. There are three parts in the series. He has however created a “Theme Guide” section on his blog to organize everything he has done. And he has also made it available as a PDF download!
I did 35 minutes on the elliptical machine today, so another 400+ calories gone!
I ran for a full 30 minutes today, and I am paying for it now. My left quad is extremely sore.
Right Thinking Girl has Weekend Survey 13 up and ready to be answered, so here are mine:
1. Legend has it that you made out with a (female) Brazillian supermodel at SkyBar and then checked into the Chateau Marmont for a four day bender that included strippers, a senator from a Midwest state, some kind of fight with Paris Hilton, a tub of jellybeans and Crisco, a dozen spatulas and at least one midget. Is this true? If not, please set the record straight.
Good lord, did you drop acid or something for this question? lol
It was Drew Barrymore and Ashley Judd re-enacting the cat fight from Dynasty to see who would win my affection! No midget… it was “Gidget” from Laugh-in! She was the guest referee!
2. Make up at least three Dr. Phil sayings.
Umm… I have no idea what he would say…. how about something completely ludicrous like, “That hooker has seen more rubber than a dead skunk on a highway!”?
3. Fill in the blank: _____ makes it hot.
Going slow….
4. Should Z suck my toes? Defend your answer.
Having never seen your feet I am unable to properly draw a conclusion! Though I might find some amusement later perusing my site logs to see if the terms “suck” and “toes” get me more hits from fetish seekers.
So to conclude… please post a picture of your feet with said toes, and I will be able to form an opinion!
5. Tell me a rumor (true or false, doesn’t matter) about any person or persons who posts here. (While I want this to be funny, please do not insult anyone or use this as an opportunity to be cruel. We’re aiming for gentle mocking here, at the very worst.)
I heard that RTG sells the results of these surveys to Democratic think-tanks!
6. Fill in the blank: _____ is my anti-drug.
Too late… I did them in my 20’s… (just pot and hash though)
7. Free associate these phrases:
a. Celebrity Clothing Lines.
b. Prison library.
c. Clean underwear.
a. Kathy Lee Gifford
b. Shawshank Redemption
c. Feels good!
8. What is the worst job you ever had?
Dishwasher at a roadhouse restaurant. They fired me when I refused to clean a grease-trap set 2 feet deep into the floor (I though I might slide in and get stuck in there head-first!).
9. Which clique did you most closely identify with in high school?
None, I avoided cliques. Though I lusted after a couple of the girls in the popular clique.
10. Z is to toe-sucking as RTG is to _______.
Anything divided by zero….
11. Offer up an RTG slogan.
RTG: All conservative women should this cool!
12. Tell me something you will not do.
Clean a grease trap I might slide into head-first.
13. What is your best beauty/health tip?
Eat healthy – don’t eat processed foods if possible. (I have lost 35 lbs since mid-Feb on the South Beach Diet & doing exercise).
14. Make a prediction about what a regular poster on RTG is doing this weekend (remember: no meanness!)
RTG: running in the morning?
15. Fill in the blanks: Parker Grace’s first words will be _____ and _____.
“Mama” (congrats on the pregnancy thing BTW – I’m a new fan, so I can send ‘em in late!), “Wiggles!”
Tom Velk wrote a column on May 24, 2005 that tried to open a discussion about constitutional reform in Canada to readers of the CBC website. He ends the article with suggestions of changes that mirror to a great degree the style of government in the US to our south.
Unfortunately quite a few of the commenters on the article feel that if one wants to adopt a system that is closer to a “US style” then s/he should simply move to the US. People are so conditioned to think that being Canadian means “not US” that they are unwilling to even open their thinking to examine whether or not parts of the US system would be good for us. I happen to think that we could successfully adopt parts of the US system – perhaps most importantly a Senate with teeth and power, and a Supreme Court where justices are vetted and not simply appointed by the Prime Minister.
And so, to that end I wrote a letter to the CBC giving my comments on the Velk column. I am not sure if it will be published, so I am posting it here.
I am a little disturbed by how quickly my fellow Canadians dismiss the discussion Tom Velk (”Time to take the House off the market” May 24, 2005) opened in his column as “too American”. A few people asserted that anyone who supports his ideas should move to the US.
While I don’t like all of his ideas, I do think Canada is in desperate need of serious and substantial constitutional reform. The “not withstanding” clause undermines the whole constitution itself. I see no problem with advocating a system that forces more accountability onto the government. The Governor General is supposed to be our executive branch, but no longer functions (realistically, politically) in that function, and hasn’t in a long time. This is especially true considering the Prime Minister basically appoints the position.
The PM also appoints the Supreme Court justices with no vetting process. Within the next few years there will be three more appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada. If a Liberal PM makes those appointments, then the whole Supreme Court bench will have been appointed by Liberal PMs with no vetting. I would like to see a vetting process that requires the approval of a joint House and (reformed – see next paragraph) Senate, or some other method that doesn’t put the placement of the highest Judiciary in the country into one political office.
I don’t know that pulling a complete blueprint of the US’s political framework up here would be the best for our country, but I do think that the Senate needs to be completely reformed into a body that has teeth and power. I think the executive branch does need to be split out and made to be an elected position. This does not mean that we need to have a political system exactly like the US. There are other political systems that are hybrids of parliamentary systems, and I think we as a country need to look abroad and borrow ideas from where ever we find them (including the US if appropriate) in order to improve democracy and accountability in this country.
I further think the Auditor General should be given more power to investigate everywhere the parties in power are channeling public money – if it is taxpayer money, then it should all be accountable – including $9 billion in trusts that the AG cannot currently exam that is listed as spent, but still sits in the accounts.
I don’t need to move to the US. What I need is to help effect change in my own country, and continue to help it become the great nation I believe we once were – again!
Sincerely,
Keith.
Well, this is my first entry of this type in quite a while! I have been working out, just not every day, and not blogging the workouts. This is me starting to blog them again ;p
I did 16:50 on the elliptical machine tonight, and then went and ran an additional 13:15 on the track. I could feel my left quad isn’t healed properly yet, and post running I was limping. I am going to have to completely stop running for a couple weeks I think. I am going to start doing the intro pilates DVD I bought for home and next payday I will try and set aside at least $30 to take a couple yoga classes (at least 1 per week).
The Globe and Mail has a short article that talks about the growing influence of blogging in people’s minds.
The New York Times sends Canada a letter from the Americas.
I haven’t been doing my Lifestyle entries in a few weeks, and it is starting to bug me. A few things I have noticed:
My lack of journalling will not continue. I need to start again to keep myself on track. It is a good self-check to make sure I am eating enough, and the right types of foods, as well as keeping track of my exercise and fitness levels.
Tom Brodbeck (who really deserves more exposure than his column in the Winnipeg Sun gets him) had an interesting article (articles disappear into the great Sun vault in the sky after a few weeks – read it while you can) that was published on May 18, 2005.
He points out that a Liberal Senator, Michael Kirby, gave a speech on May 17, 2005 in Winnipeg on why Canada needs more private health care. The strange thing is, no media jumped all over him for what he was advocating.
Kirby, chairman of a 2002 Senate report on reforming health care, said what really ails Canada’s medicare system is that it operates as a monopoly, producing inefficient and over-priced patient services.
His prescription for change is for procedures such as hip replacements and cataract surgeries to be tendered out to a marketplace of health-care providers, usually free-standing clinics that offer greater “productivity” than large, bureaucratic-heavy hospitals.
“There needs to be a weakening of the monopoly power,” he told a Manitoba Chambers of Commerce luncheon crowd.
And here is a particularily valid point that Tom makes:
Kirby’s words are normally associated with the ranks of Conservative politicians — ideas that usually draw sharp rebukes from unions, hysterical health-care lobby groups and Canada’s left-leaning media.
[...]
That’s because when you’re a Tory and you talk about more competition in health care, you’re accused of having a “hidden agenda” to gut medicare.
If you’re a Liberal and you talk about breaking up the health-care monopoly, you’re just “thoughtful.”
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