Apparently it's ok to fire on unarmed women...

At least that's what they did in the Ivory Coast. Gahdafi has someone rivalling him for the biggest douchebag in Africa at the moment. The regime of Laurent Gbagbo refuses to go away though he was not re-elected 3 months ago.

In a country where usually it's the woman's marches that reign in the army, this time they fired on unarmed women killing at least 6 point blank. The women marching had assumed that the army would be too ashamed to fire on women. They were wrong.

Gbagbo is right up there with Gahdafi firing on unarmed civilians instead of listening to common sense.

Libya, things getting uglier by the day

At first both the rebels and pro-Gahdafy people were saying no outside world intervention in Libya. "It's our country, let us figure it out."  Today some of the rebels are starting to say they may need outside help to get rid of Gahdafy. It seems that he is well entrenched in Tripoli and the surrounding area and removing him may prove more difficult then the rebels can handle. Fears abound that Libya will become the new Somalia.

I hope not. I also hope things improve around Somalia and that piracy decreases in the high seas. People keep saying that others are idiots to go sailing near Somalia, but one must realize that if you're going to use the Suez canal you have to pass in the gulf of Eden and this is where Somalian pirates are hijacking ships. This is a high traffic shipping route.

Still I hope the levelheadedness the rebels have shown in Libya prevails and that they succeed in ousting Gahdafi and establishing some form of democratic system truly run by the people. It would suck if instead the country descended into civil wars for years on end.

Another stupid law... thanks to

Yes... you guessed it Arizona. I'm surprised it doesn't have it's own tag on FARK like Florida!

This time the wonderful legislators in Arizona decided it would be a good idea to ban Karma!

I'm going to sit here and shake my head and move on.

Diet to be helpful with some children with ADHD

Article suggests that some children with ADHD would benefit from a diet where food they are allergic or intolerant to is removed.

I believe in this as in myself the removal of refined sugars and flours originally, including alcohol, chocolate and caffeine and now also removing casein and gluten has made huge differences in how I feel and how hyper I am.

Give me food colouring or any form of refined sugar and I'll talk so fast I'll make you dizzy and bounce off ceilings to the point you'll send me outside to wear out. I've been like this as long as I can remember.

I get a major buzz from eating sugary foods. The most intense buzz I'd get was after drinking a 2L bottle of either Cream Soda or Root beer.  They used to be my favourite soft drinks. 

All those who hang out with me will be happy to know I haven't touched soft drinks in over 15 years.

Crazy Crazy Crazy Muammar!

I saw it on a sign by a woman protesting in Libya. Crazy crazy crazy Muammar...

Well he's gotten to be fairly delusional. He still thinks his people loves him. Most of his country is united against him. How does he not see it?

Someone I was reading was saying Gadafi is so used to "yes men" that it would seem ludicrous for him not to have the support. He is so out of touch, it's not even funny.

Let's hope he stops killing his own people and wakes up and smells the coffee.. because his days are numbered.

Viva la revolution!

It had to happen. The wave of demonstrations sweeping the middle east has spread to Lebanon.  Hundreds of Lebanese took to the streets on Sunday in Beirut to demand an end to the country's sectarian politics.

I don't know how much the movement will grow or how big of an impact it will have, but it's making my husband very happy. The main thing is that a non sectarian Lebanon will ensure that each citizen gets treated exactly the same, which is how it should be in any country. All citizens, male or female, from any religious background should be abiding by the same rules and be treated equally. I know this is over simplifying, but it has to start somewhere.

Elsewhere sadly Gadafi still holds on. It's like people will have to pry Libya out of his cold dead hands. The one place I don't expect to see much protests is the UAE. If there are any I bet it will be in Sharjah! I mean if it's the place to get lost, it's also the place to start protests :P

The wave of protests sweeping oppressed nations is amazing. It's even hit North Korea from what I've read. I just hope the end result is better for the people who are fighting for change!

Ziva loves them all

Ziva gets along with all the boys.

Ziva seen with Pixie, wearing their yuletide collars

She likes to cuddle apparently.

Ziva and Spock spoon

And with Jethro:

Ziva and Jethro catnap on the couch

What do you do with a friend...

I've remained close with one of my exes but from time to time it's painful. Tonight he obviously needed someone to talk to, but when he drinks he's an absolute ass. I listened to him for a long time not tell me what was really bothering him but rant about all sorts of irrelevant stuff, but it quickly turned towards him destroying me. After 30 minutes I was in tears and told him that I was willing to listen to him about his problems, but he cannot attack me like this because he's hurting or because he's in distress.

That I'm willing to listen to what's really bothering him but not willing to have yet another fight because he's a drunk ass.  That's when he started to cry and get all paranoid on me.

I mean how far should you go to help a friend? Is it really helpful if you let your friend destroy you each time they have a crisis? When is enough enough? And how does one break those pattern?

I do love him always have always will, but I cannot let him hurt me like this all the time. It was the main reason we are no longer significant others. The relationship was unhealthy for me, and presumably for him as well.

Now I'm sitting here still upset because I know he's hurting and I'm not being there for him. I wish I knew how to be there for him and not have to pay that price. I'm also sitting here upset because he said some nasty stuff and while I know it's the alcohol talking, it still gets to you after a while.

Gadafi still holds on.

I'm still in support of the people in Libya. Here's hoping they manage to get Gadafi out.  An article I read last night had me giggling. They were saying that the press find Gadafi's name problematic because there isn't one official way to write it in English. One article said 'Newspapers would rather write about Beiber because his name is easier to spell'.

One thing for sure, a co-worker just had to tell me about Justin Biebers new haircut and if it wasn't enough, I had to hear it on the Buzz this morning. Yes I was shocked that Pete Powers would discuss Justin Bieber, but there you have it.

I'm going to work well aware of the things important in the world! {Sarcasm off}

And King Abdullah of KSA is no longer like Schrodinger's cat, as he is alive and well and has just returned to Saudi Arabia. I wonder if the people will protest there too. The King and all possible replacements are all getting on with age.

Sometimes I wonder about the people in Arizona.....

For some reason of late they've been passing strange and stupid laws. The one I read about today where they want to make sure women don't abort fetus' because of gender or race.

I didn't realize that Arizona was part of China, where there is a large preference for male infants and where for a long time, they were only allowed 1 child, so if it was female they would want to abort. As far as I know neither the US or the state of Arizona have restrictions on how many children someone has and really I seriously doubt there is hordes of women aborting specifically daughters.  I suspect the percentage of people who abort because they aren't getting the baby they want is very small. Less then 5%

I'm sure the majority of first term abortions are because women found themselves pregnant. They know little or nothing about the baby they are carrying and have been freaking out over the pregnancy since the day they were 'late'.  They aren't choosing a designer baby, they are choosing not to have a child at that point and nothing more. If statistics show more females then males are being aborted, perhaps they should find out how many of the people who aborted their baby even knew the gender of the baby.

As for race bias, well statistics sometimes don't mean much. It's easy to say, that in a town most of the abortions are of blacks or Hispanics, and that people are being racist. But if that town only has a black or Hispanic population, it makes total sense that most of the aborted fetus will be from those racial backgrounds.  I've never run across a woman who would abort her baby because it is from the same racial background as her.  I'm sure some exist but they certainly aren't very common.

 I'm not sure how this legislation in Arizona will work? Will you need to apply in front of a committee before you're allowed to have an abortion in Arizona, and will you need to get all sorts of needless tests done to prove that you aren't aborting for racial and gender reasons?  A percentage of women who abort find it is a tough decision to make..... they don't need more hurdles to cross to get an abortion in a timely fashion.  Because time is of the essence, it's the safest to abort in the first trimester.

I remember growing up in Quebec in the 70's where abortion was legal only if the life of the mother was in danger.  Those few hospitals who performed abortions had committees of at least 3 people, including doctors who would decide whether or not the application for an abortion had merit. Often if you were a teen, they would want your parents blessing, or if you were married you needed your husbands blessing. Basically few abortions ever got done. 

There was no point in applying for an abortion back then through the hospital. However there was the illegal Morgentaler clinic. You had to pay up front, but the service was really good. You were treated like a human being. No one judged you or tried to make you feel bad. You were treated like it was any other medical procedure, with the best medical care.  Not only did the clinic provide safe abortions but patients  are watched for complications before being sent home, and blood tests are done to see if medication is needed to prevent complications in future pregnancies.

I have to admit, that  Dr Henri Morgentaler is one of my hero's, as he helped make safe abortions accessible to all Canadian women.

This law which has not yet passed in Arizona scares me. Women should not have to justify why they don't want to carry a baby to term to committees.

I was so oblivious to the music coming from the other side of the partition.

There's a guy that sits right on the other side of the partition from my desk. I rarely see, him and of late I haven't even been hearing him. Since the woman he worked with changed departments and was replaced by a more easy going and compliant employee, he doesn't spend all day yelling and arguing. So today I noticed a few times some weird music coming across from the partition but I was so busy trying to debug what was wrong with my old xw6200, I didn't pay attention.

I found out later that in fact I was being exposed to Justin Bieber. Apparently the guy on the other side of my partition is in cahoots with the guy who put the Bieber music in my shared folder. It's rather silly actually. The first guy is obviously in misery since his kids like the music and he's stuck listening to it in the car when he drives his kids, so he's just sharing his pain of having to listen to Bieber.

You go people of Libya!

The unrest in the Arab world and north Africa has reached Morocco the last few days which is surprising some people as the economic situation in Morocco isn't as bad as other countries in the middle east. However Moroccans want change too apparently.

The country where the government is being the biggest asshole has to be Libya. I mean the army shooting with real bullets on mourners?  How to encourage more people to protest, fire on unarmed civilians that are burying their dead. 

You go people of Libya. I hope as a reward you will gain the right to an elected government, but no matter what happens not much can be worse then all those years of being ruled by Gaddafi!

Irish stew made with Moose meat.

Today I made Irish stew with moose meat. My buddy in Ottawa was given moose meat by a lawyer friend who represents a native tribe in some dispute with the federal government. I happen to visit while he had moose and I was given 1 pound.  I've never seem 'game meat' before. All the meat I've seen has been supermarket meat. It was nice to see meat that was red because it was oozing blood as opposed to meat that is red because it has food dye.

I loved the smell of the cooking meat when I browned it in oil before stewing it. It smelled a bit like beef, but not quite. The meat is rather lean in comparison of others meats I've seen.  The aroma of the stew filled our house and made hubby ask every 30 minutes if the stew was ready yet. Generally the stew is ready when the meat is falling apart and is in the process of becoming one with the sauce and vegetables. Until I see that, it needs to simmer. I'm really tempted to sample it. There are plenty of reasons why I shouldn't like I don't eat meat, I don't eat food cooked in alcohol and I stay away from gluten and there is wheat flour in the stew.

The consensus was the stew was awesome. Hubby had to have 2 large servings just to really get a real taste of how good it was :)

What's on the menu this Saturday?

Despite the fact I hate cooking, I often cook on Saturdays. Today was no exception. I made hummus balila. It's a middle eastern dish I discovered and fell in love with in Lebanon. The literal translation means chickpeas in oil. So it's basically chickpeas seasoned with lemon juice, olive oil and spices.  Can be eaten cold like a salad and keeps well in the fridge.  I like to make it using the colourful chickpea mix from Clic, Hubby loves my hummus balila.

The second dish I made is an 8 bean salad, based on the popular 3 bean salad recipe you can easily find. I was looking to give it more flavour since it hardly had any seasoning or spices, and stumbled upon a version where they suggest to add a creole seasoning to give it tang. I decided instead to use a bit the Berbere spice I made 2 weeks ago when I made this hot and spicy Ethiopian lentil dish. I liked the result. Looking forward to hearing what hubby has to say about this salad.

The third dish I made was a form of gluten/casein free pasta dish. I had picked up some gluten free brown rice and spinach spaghetti at Rainbow Foods in Ottawa, and decided to cook it today. As sauce I used a 4 ounce can of tomato sauce, about 1/4 cup of grated of  each Kashkaval cheese and goat mozzarella [that can be found at Loblaws]. a teaspoon of each garlic and onion flakes, and 1/8 of a cup of each black and green sliced olives. It was incredibly good. I just ate half of it.

Later today or tomorrow I'm also making Irish stew, this time with moose meat.  I've made it before with beef, or lamb or goat. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out with moose. Hubby might not believe in moose since he's never seen one but he will be eating moose :)

Not impressed with the new mailboxes from Canada Post

Ugly new Mailboxes from Canada Post

Every day on my way to work I take Anselme Lavigne and drive in front of Ecole Dollard des Ormeaux.  I noticed a week or two ago that the mailbox in front of the school had been vandalized in some way, there was a large gaping hole in it.

This week I notice the mailbox in front of the school again and to me it looked like it had been vandalized again because instead of being all red, it looked like it had all sorts of graffiti on it.

I did some research a few minutes ago and as it turns out this is the new mailbox design from Canada post. Not impressed. From a distance it looks vandalized like it has graffiti.

Women don't ask to be raped

I can't believe that a police officer said at a safety and security forum at Osgoode Hall Law School “I’ve been told I’m not supposed to say this, however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.”

The first thing it does is make victims feel like they were responsible for being raped.  The whole comment "not dressing like sluts" for starters is so subjective. In some countries unless a woman's skin is completely covered and she is wearing loose opaque clothing, she's considered a slut. On the other side of the coin you can go to a beach in brazil or in Europe with nothing but a thong and that's not considered slutty. And you have every dress style in between.


I remember back in the earlier 90's the loser I dated for about 1 1/2  years decided to judge the way I was dressed. He asked me if I was going to work like that. I was wearing a skirt that was maybe 2" above my knee. He commented that if he was my boss he would send me home to get changed . That what I was wearing was completely inappropriate and would be very distracting to male employees.

For starters, if a male cannot do his job in the presence of a female then he's the one with the problem. The second  argument I had for this loser, was that since he found long flowing skirts more sexy then short skirts because it leaves to the imagination, then by his reasoning his female employees could not wear short or long skirts. Then of course there are women who wear slacks, or jeans. Plenty of men find women in pants sexy, so women can't wear those to work either.

So basically he was telling me that because I was female I should stay home and out of sight so that I was not distracting to men.  Funny argument for a kept man. I was the one with the job, he stayed home full time. I told him that if he wanted to continue dating me he was not to comment on the way I dressed for work in the future.

Especially considering I work for a company that has no dress code, and where one of the two owners wears Bermuda's, polo shirts and flip flops in the summer. In the 18 years I've worked there I've seen the man in a suit exactly once. It was also the only time I saw him wearing a shirt and tie. Normally he wears khaki's or jeans in the winter.

I still can't believe in this day and age in a country like Canada where woman's equality is guaranteed under the charter of rights, that people in law enforcement would still make such stupid comments.  I mean how does this guy explain when 80 year old grandma gets raped? "Sorry grandma you didn't cover those varicose veins and sagging breasts enough. You were asking for it".  I mean people never say that to males who get raped, that it wouldn't happen if he had dressed differently. It's scary to have a police officer who still believes this misconception.

How does this officer explain the fact that rapes are just as frequent in societies where women are completely covered?   I mean it's easy to constantly blame the victim. 

Rape is not about sex. It is about power, control and humiliation. Women of all ages have been raped and there is no conclusive evidence to suggest  any type of dress or behaviour would have made it more likely to have happened.

Leave it to Bieber....

I made a comment on Facebook about my over-exposure to Bieber and a co-worker saw it and put the Justin Bieber movie in my shared folder. I noticed the folder before I left for home today. 

What not to do when applying for an internship

I was at work today and my phone rings, and it's an outside call. It's not a number I recognize. I answer and on the other end of the line there's a student from one of the universities where my internship was posted.

He tells me that he's supposed to be interviewing with me but he can't get his appointment confirmed. I tell him that he needs to call our HR department, that I cannot confirm any appointments. He tells me that the HR department isn't moving fast enough and he needs an answer now. I re-iterate that he needs to talk to one of the people in our human resources department.  He argues again that he needs an answer, I give him the number to the woman who was in HR today and hung up.

Even if I wanted to I cannot confirm my interviews myself. Until they provide me a complete schedule I do not know my own availabilities. It's HR who schedules the interviews and also knows what interviews are planned but not yet confirmed. I know nothing of this.

I called HR to advise them of what happened and that when he called to confirm his appointment that he should be told his interview was canceled and he should be told why.  The HR lady, who's a total sweetheart understood too. She said "You don't want this student because when you assign him work and show him what you expect, he'll be cutting it in half because it took too long".

Sometimes the bureaucracy of a company is painful but without it, chaos would ensue.

Just all Biebered out....

This too shall pass, the fact that I'm getting way too much exposure to Justin Bieber. Not by choice of course.

First it was last week on Saturday Night Live, or maybe the week before. I was looking at it to watch Mike Myers and Dana Carvey, and apparently there was Bieber.

Then I read that this week's CSI episode has as guest star, Justin Bieber.

The most positive thing is, I have no idea what his music or songs sound like. As far as I know I've never heard sing and I want to keep it that way!

The Middle-East keeps bubbling

First it was Tunisia who's wave of protests started change, next it was Egypt, Mubarak finally stepped down. 

Who will it be next? This has been the fifth day of protests in Yemen. There's Algeria who's people have taken to the streets. There are protests planned for Bahrain, Iran, Libya, Morocco, Cameroon, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.  There's troubles brewing in Jordan and Syria too. Lebanon stays forever volatile. That rarely seems to change, things there go from simmering to bubbling depending on the season it seems.

I can't help but wonder if the winds of change that are blowing will make a real difference for the people who are living in poverty ruled by a despot. I hope it translates into some form of democracy. I'm aware that what might be right for those countries might not be what the West wants, but hopefully it will be good for the locals.