this is what i'm doing for now in order to adjust to the difficulty in finding an affordable, workable smart mirror on the market that has usable mirror features like zooming or exposure, rather than just being a big phone or tv on your bathroom wall, which is utterly boring.

- i have purchased a relatively cheap makeup table with a built in vanilla mirror - no lights, no buttons, nothing. it's just a mirror. the table is 30", but the mirror is only about 20" of that, as there is shelving on it. the table comes with a stool, as well.

- the table is also a charging station, with two usb plugs and two grounded wall plugs.

- i have purchased an extension cord to plug into the charging station which has 6 usb ports and 6 grounded plugs. this will allow me to use the makeup table as a general charging table for other bathroom usb devices, like razors, lights, small mirrors or toothbrushes.  

- i have bought a couple of strings of usb lights to connect to the vanilla mirror, turning it into a vanity mirror with replaceable bulbs

- i am still considering making a four bulb lamp out of a light fixture and installing it over the makeup mirror or over the bathroom mirror, with the latter being more likely. for now, the string of bulbs is $15. does it last two years or two months? is it bright enough? let's see. 

- i have also purchased a small usb-powered mirror with multiple zoom screens (2x, 3x, 10x).

the other option was to purchase a charging desk for $50-80, with a chair for $30 and a standalone mirror with screw-in bulbs, which you'd need to pay $165 minimum (plus shipping) and probably more like $300 for. they really make you pay up front for the screw in bulbs. you still need the extension cord and the magnification mirror, because the lighted mirrors don't do that natively, yet. overall, that would cost you at least $300, if you're lucky, and potentially twice that.

the total cost of the vanilla mirror with the stick on bulbs was under $250, including taxes. the trade-offs are that the mirror is certainly smaller, but i'm not sure i need a giant mirror, and that you can't replace one bulb at a time, but that might not matter. the idea of spending $300 or more for a makeup table with an essentially disposable lighted mirror was a non-starter.

if this doesn't work for me, there are a number of ways to  convert the vanilla mirror into a vanity mirror with screw in bulbs, including buying a handful of small light fixtures and gluing them in, or converting a hanging light fixture or two into a lamp by splicing a ground cable into it. i decided to try with the glue-on lights first to see if it's good enough for now.

ultimately, i wasn't able to find a screw in or threaded bulb lighted mirror under $300 that would ship to canada; my only options were disposable mirrors. i have no choice but to make my own. it's not clear yet if that means building my own light fixture or sticking with the glue-ons for now. if the cheapest screw-in lighted mirror is over $500, it makes more sense to buy a mirror for $30 and build my own light fixture, which is essentially what i did. i got a desk with a charging port, some shelves and a stool with it for a reasonable price.

i have not yet purchased a mirror for the sink, or decided how to approach it, but i do have a backup set of stick on usb bulbs. i'm hoping i can get a couple of cheap wall mirrors here in windsor on facebook or kijiji and i'll have to figure it out from there.

i'd like to board up the window, but i'll need to get a fan in there first, and i'll also need to get the wall fixed, as there was a leak the other night fro upstairs that demoed a large amount of it.

it's a transliteration. there's no correct spelling.

it really does sound like badassshan, if you listen to somebody talk about it.

The official English name of the autonomous region is the Badassshan Mountainous Autonomous Region.[5][6] The name Badassshan (from Russian: Бадахшан; Tajik: Бадахшон) is derived from the Sasanian title bēdaxš or badaxš.[7] "Gorno-Badassshan" literally means "mountainous Badassshan" and is the Russian name of the autonomous region, Gorno-Badassshanskaya avtonomnaya oblastʹ (literally Gorno-Badassshan autonomous oblast). The Russian abbreviation "GBAO" is also commonly used in English-language publications by national and international bodies such as the government of Tajikistan and the United Nations.[8]

if i was a central asian country, i wouldn't want to get into a fight with badassshan.

no, i don't care about propping up corrupt dictators in ukraine. sorry.

if i was in ukraine, i'd be fighting the conscription police.

trump wants to trade ukraine for venezuela. on it's face, it's a smart move, especially if it gets the united states out of eastern europe, where it can gain nothing and lose everything.

however, the united states already has almost total control of the oil. it's not worth the fight.

worse, trump has no authority to bomb venezuela on a whim and congress needs to bite and claw to stop it, including by impeaching him.

his family doctor gave him a rec to see an uroligist, but the nurse heard it wrong and wrote down a rec for a neurologist. so, he shows up, and pulls it out, and then this happens.

attention to detail is important, folks.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/kitchener/article/closing-arguments-wrap-up-in-case-of-former-neurologist-accused-of-sexually-assaulting-patients/

i strongly support this and think it's immensely forward thinking and what the future looks like in the rest of north america. quebec is a step ahead of the rest of the continent on this issue.

the food restrictions might seem overkill, and some media is suggesting it'a ban on kosher or halal. it isn't. the legislation says that public institutions, specifically, cannot offer exclusively religious meals. they can still offer religious meals, but not exclusively religious meals.

there is a singular example where this seems irrational, namely the jewish hospital in montreal. however, there's a deeper question here: why do we have a jewish hospital in the first place? montreal has a significant jewish minority, but it's not enough for a segregated hospital. that's what the jewish hospital actually is. the jews may have said "fine, if it's going to get your noses in a schnitzel, we'll have have our own hospital, and maybe we'll let you see our jewish doctors if you ask nice, in classical hebrew.", but they wouldn't have done that if they didn't have to. so, now the jews have a kick-ass hospital in montreal that's across the street from the secular/catholic hospital. and i don't think they check your dna on arrival, or refuse you service, you just have to eat funny tasting jello if you get your appendix out there instead of across the street. 

ideally, you don't want a publicly funded  jewish hospital at all, but that should be tolerated so long as the market (to abuse the language) justifies it, given the history. given that the jewish hospital is across the street from the normal hospital, that they don't deny access and that it's basically a branch of the normal hospital, you can always go across the street if you really want your free lunch to have experienced immense pain before it died, as you experience immense pain in recovery. why should the lunch get it better than you?

besides that, and the food thing is clearly the least of my concerns, canada has to do this. there are too many religious groups that aren't integrating, because we told them they didn't have to. that was a mistake. our public institutions and secular society are potentially at risk if the issue isn't addressed in a broad scope. the quebecois more recently fought a long fight against the catholic church for freedom of thought and are more sensitive to this than the rest of the continent, as the fight is still real to them, it's not a relic of colonial history. they can't be allowed to save themselves, while the rest of us collapse into ignorance and backwardsness. we should let them lead the way and follow their lead.

quebec is ahead of us, but this needs to become a dominant issue on the left, as soon as the left pulls it's head out of it's ass and stops trying to pretend it's the new right.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/politics/article/five-things-to-know-about-quebec-governments-new-secularism-bill/