Another good day of accomplishment although I never made it outside the door. Must do that; although it is raining today so maybe not today. Cleaning of the top floor completely accomplished and will do the main floor and basement today.
I also am now down to 24 matches left to place in my filing system. This has gone very well and a few very good new ones. I was looking through my known file and of the 23 chromosomes only a couple do not have four of the great grandparent pairs represented by the results (although it is sometimes 2x greatgrandparents that the individual shares with me or rarely 3x or even 4x. I am still thinking about the H11 and Kipp Newsletters. They will only be about news for the H11 and yDNA for the Kip family of New Amsterdam/New York so pretty limited in scope.
Listening to the comments of the Premier of Alberta on Equalization Payments from the Federal government to the provinces. Alberta has just a flat rate 10% Provincial Income Tax paid by its citizens. Given the times and the needs of our "Socialist" benefits I would think that they need to increase their provincial income tax personally. Ontario has a graduated rate like the Federal system plus we have a Health Tax which pays around 5 Billion or more into the health system here (but our equalization payments do not come anywhere near how much tax is collected from us here in Ontario). If you want to provide for your people in your province then somebody has to pay for it (like the Health Tax here). Personally I think people should put aside money for teeth, drugs and the like themselves before traveling or buying luxuries but when it was decided that we would have "socialized" medicine I moved from the camp that said no to the one that said yes all because of a little boy with a foot that needed a simple operation that the family could not afford. He was a sweet little guy and quite won my heart and I moved from that space where I really did not believe in subsidized medical care to 100% medical care provided; just appear with your card. Children should not have to go through life with disabilities that can be fixed with just a little help. Taking Alberta out of Canada is unfair first and foremost to the First Nations. Haven't they suffered enough? They should be able to call all of present day Canada home; that was the guarantee. Alberta didn't even exist until 1905 and it is part of the original Rupert's Land which the Canadian people paid to purchase from the Hudsons Bay Company in order to bring that parcel of land into Confederation (Alberta and Saskatchewan were created from that land purchase plus extensions to the other existing provinces). Personally I think it should have just all been Manitoba from Ontario to the Rocky Mountains since Manitoba already existed. Then there would be less quibbling over the amount of transfer payments and representation. That purchase included all the guarantees signed by the Crown and the First Nations through the years. But instead Alberta has been a province that has seen good times and bad (the Great Depression was pretty awful there and the Federal Government was very helpful to them). I look to the south of us and see the states recovering from natural disasters get no aid from their federal government these days.
We were one of the founding nations of NATO in order to protect ourselves from the vengeful Russians primarily. We all lost people in the Second World War; the Americans lost people; Europe lost people; the British Isles lost people; the Commonwealth lost people (although still the British Empire in those days) and it was a particularly expensive war in the British Isles and Europe - World War II. The rebuilding was hugely expensive. Russia is just greedy (they signed a deal with the Nazis to partition Poland in the Second World War) and it still shows as they try to gobble up Ukraine by murdering its citizens. I do not actually think they want any Ukrainians; they just want the land; the minerals and everything else that is in that huge country (like ours rich in natural resources). We have put a lot of money into our NATO missions and not enough into our own personal defense but that is changing and rapidly, finally.
I am a Netflix user and I begin to wonder will I get a bill that has a 100% tariff on any movie watched not produced in the United States above and beyond what I pay? I actually do not watch Netflix enough to really justify having a subscription (and I only watch documentaries) to be honest but I like it to be there when I have company. There is a new movie on the Blitz of the 1940s which was most interesting listening to the dialogue. The threats against England of destroying their economy were rather illuminating as the bombs came down wiping out industrial areas. That kept up for eight months but they survived to live another day by burrowing underground and just waiting it out. They sent their children to safety in the north and to Canada. At the end of the war they rebuilt and prosper still. It is just a matter of recreating industries lost by whatever means and moving forward. One doesn't have to trade with one's neighbour or even at all (it is a luxury to trade externally and luxuries are interesting but not actually needed). We have formidable trade barriers between provinces coming down rapidly now. The hit to our GDP is smaller than I imagined actually but does decrease our spending needs on military although personally I would like to see us spending 5% of GDP.
Tea is in the process of being drunk and must play my solitaire games. Cleaning in a bit.
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