Random Rants #88: [incoherent screaming]

[Perfection]

[incoherent screaming]

 

[thecrazyscot]

I'm achy, and have a cough.

 

[MaryKB]

I'm achy, and have a cough.

Feel better

 

[Sarin]

Rant: I'm not a teenager anymore, I shouldn't be getting pimples. Yet I got one...IN my nose. On the edge of inner surface of the nostril.

 

[MaryKB]

Rant: I'm not a teenager anymore, I shouldn't be getting pimples. Yet I got one...IN my nose. On the edge of inner surface of the nostril.

Oh dear, I hate those! I hope it's not too painful and goes away quickly.

 

[Synobun]

My "needs major surgery without any coverage from health insurance" wisdom tooth has been hurting a great deal every night for the past three nights. My jaw is also snapping whenever I open it too far.

I don't know if it's because of a tension headache from not eating or if the tooth itself is becoming a problem.

If it's the latter, I don't know if I'll laugh or cry. Maybe both. I just cannot handle yet another emergency this year with my health. Especially while one is still actively ongoing without an end in sight.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

In Canada, you'd think that universal healthcare stops below the neck. You have to pay for dental and glasses, and the public options for mental health aren't great either.

 

[Synobun]

I get limited coverage for dental from the government. Major surgery requiring a specialist is excluded from that, because of, uh... y'know... reasons...?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Here, community services only covers it in very limit cases, like if there's blood or severe pain. Or if you need dental care to get a job because that's all they care about

 

[Traitorfish]

The United Kingdom has a strange system in which dentistry is subsidised by the NHS, but rather than it simply meaning that only certain procedures are covered, or that procedures are covered up to a certain cost, procedures are placed into a series of categories with a fixed cost per session, regardless of the specific treatment.

It's better than a fully private system, but not ideal. Partly because in practice it seems to push people towards having teeth removed because they can't afford the upfront cost of a major procedure.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Rant: I was trying to upload a document to OneDrive so I could show it to a friend without them having to download anything. First it kept giving a vague unspecified error when trying to view online the ODT file that I put in the OneDrive folder.

So I deleted the ODT and put a DOCX there instead. Although all the formatting (italics, etc) were intact in my original DOCX, they disappeared when viewing it online. I tried making a minor change to the online version to see what would happen to my local copy and suddenly there was a popup message about a "conflicting copy."

I ended up just making the document online and using copy & paste.

Synsensa: the cloud is a scourge

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I just saw the fees for the UCP and Telus's very cool and radical private health insurance scheme in Alberta and it is hilariously, cruelly, evilly expensive. And they still bill from the provincial insurance during it too.

The Minister of Health here is a corrupt jackass, who should have been fired for multiple reasons.

If you're a doctor and don't like something Shandro said or did and post about it on social media, expect one or more of the following:

1. He will stand on your driveway and scream at you, in full view and hearing of your family, and will receive no consequences even though he is trespassing, harassing you, making false accusations that you threatened his wife (who owns a private health insurance company), and uttering threats.

2. He will browbeat a secretary to give him your private email address and unlisted home phone number, and will contact you, harass you, and possibly threaten to have your children taken from you.

3. He will threaten to reveal personal and professional information about you that is supposed to be kept confidential.

4. He will openly call you a liar on social media (even when you can prove HE is the liar).

5. If you try to end your practice and move to a different province, he will take steps to prevent that.

6. I could go on and on and on...

There's a reason one of the nicknames for the UCP is the United Corruption Party. Cabinet Ministers who own or are involved with, or whose spouses own or are involved with businesses or services that overlap their portfolio are supposed to put their business interests into a blind trust so they can't manipulate laws and regulations to their own advantage.

Shandro claims he has done this (he has invested in his wife's health insurance company), and apparently it's all a huge coincidence that he's been delisting procedures that his wife's company covers.

Basically, he wants privatized heath care in Alberta. That's one of the goals of the United Corruption Party, and they claim it's to lessen the amount of time spent on waitlists.

Sounds okay for those who can pay for it. But for those who can't? They don't care. They also don't care that in the quest for "efficiency" they're preventing people from accessing services and procedures simply because they can't get to the only facility that offers them. I asked him how it's supposed to help people if the procedure they need is only available in Edmonton and the patient can't get to Edmonton. He responded with his trademark "Now, (first name), that's obviously not true..." and blathered about the "42 non-hospital surgical facilities"... most of which are either in Edmonton or Calgary. He hasn't got a clue that there are some people who cannot drive, don't have a family member or friend who can take them places, and since we lost Greyhound service, there's no public transportation between cities in this province.

Our province had a "20 million masks" giveaway this summer. Just go to the drive-through of any Tim Hortons, McDonalds, or A&W restaurant, ask for a package of masks, and get it (no purchase necessary), and that's supposed to supplement what you've already supposedly purchased (even though the masks weren't available in the stores at that time).

So... how were non-drivers supposed to access this? Non-drivers aren't allowed to use the drive-thru. The restaurants themselves were locked to the public.

Oh, no problem, Shandro says. Just go to the transit depot in Edmonton and you can have a package of masks.

But not all of Alberta takes transit in Edmonton, he's told.

His response: ... (crickets)

I'm fairly sure at this point the UCP in Alberta just wants to kill off poor people.

Not even a veteran committing suicide on the steps of the Legislature made any impression on them.

 

[Synobun]

Greyhound closed service in Alberta too now? I thought it was just BC and cross-border routes.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

So... how were non-drivers supposed to access this? Non-drivers aren't allowed to use the drive-thru. The restaurants themselves were locked to the public.

In my town, some of the restaurants opened their drive-throughs to walkers during the period where you weren't allowed in the buildings themselves. But I guess that somehow never occurred to the restaurants in Alberta.

 

[Synobun]

Horgan is forcing a provincial election next month despite medical services only just now coming back after the COVID-19 shutdown and with access to voting being at an all-time low even if you're relatively healthy. Cannot fathom why he is doing this. Stupid.

Maybe he'll make getting a mail-in ballot easier. The federal election was easy, but after applying for the city and provincial elections I got exactly zilch in the mail. Thankfully I was able to have a good day at the time and go vote in-person at the last second, but c'mon. This is going to go poorly.

I'd be shocked if I can vote. I'd be surprised if thousands of others can vote. I'm really interested in what the final turnout's gonna be.

 

[The_J]

Rant: I'm not a teenager anymore, I shouldn't be getting pimples. Yet I got one...IN my nose. On the edge of inner surface of the nostril.

I'm 30+ and still get pimples.
I think that'll never go away.


Rant: Nearly got pickpocket.
Rave: Nearly.
Rant: Obviously no police around, and I don't think calling them for that is worth it.

 

[Sarin]

Rant: Leon managed to destroy his leash (it was the reeling one) when he took off after a cat. Don't worry, he didn't catch it...

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Horgan is forcing a provincial election next month despite medical services only just now coming back after the COVID-19 shutdown and with access to voting being at an all-time low even if you're relatively healthy. Cannot fathom why he is doing this. Stupid.

Maybe he'll make getting a mail-in ballot easier. The federal election was easy, but after applying for the city and provincial elections I got exactly zilch in the mail. Thankfully I was able to have a good day at the time and go vote in-person at the last second, but c'mon. This is going to go poorly.

I'd be shocked if I can vote. I'd be surprised if thousands of others can vote. I'm really interested in what the final turnout's gonna be.

Try voting by in-home special ballot for federal. They changed the rules so they automatically assume you can neither read nor write, and you have to tell them who you're voting for so they can write it on the ballot for you. Then they want you to sign the envelope where you declare your eligibility to vote.

If I'm deemed incapable of filling out the ballot, surely I should be incapable of signing my name, right?

They told me it was either this way, or go to the Returning Office. I informed them that the Returning Office for this riding is in Lacombe. I can't get to Lacombe, because there's no public transport between cities in Alberta, and no I can't use the Action Bus because that won't go out of town other than for medical charters - which I'd have to pay for myself. VERY pricey.

Some people are saying that we won't even have an election in 2023. Unless something drastic happens, we actually will... but I'm not optimistic about my chances of getting to vote. I had to push hard for it last time, refusing to leave the Returning Office until they let me vote. I'm going to have to check the provincial version of the Elections Act.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

@Synsensa: To answer the question that came via email notification that I can't find in your posts: Greyhound doesn't serve anywhere in Western Canada except that route between Seattle and Vancouver. If they took that one away as well, that's that. This happened quite awhile ago now.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

rANT: WHILE WORKING ON MY FANFIC, i TYPED OUT HALF A PARAGRAPH WITH THE CAPS LOCK KEY ON before I actually noticed....