A Ghost in the Machine

Actually the touchpad on my laptop is broken. :( This means that periodically, I lose all control, windows start opening, the menu bar moves itself around the screen violently, and the computer is generally unusable. Help! My laptop mouse is still en route from Japan...

I was this close to winning a Benz

And a shopping spree of some sort.

That's what this guy told me on the phone. All I had to do was call this other guy at this number and collect my prize.

Here's where I was supposed to call.

I'm debating whether I should call or not. But it was a few days ago, so maybe I missed my chance. Sigh. I do so love German cars, not to mention shopping sprees.

Stupid US right-winger also stupid about Canada

Via this story on CBC, I came across this silly little commentary on the Canadian election by American right-winger, Paul Weyrich.

In which Weyrich characterizes Canada as under the sway of "some premises of Cultural Marxism, which Canadians have espoused, such as same-sex marriage and abortion-on-demand."

Um, "Cultural Marxism"? As the CBC article dryly points out, "He does not say how these things are linked in his mind to Marxism, a doctrine better known for concepts of class warfare." Well, "better known" by some, I suppose. The association of Marxism with gay rights is particularly quirky, given what Marx himself said about gay people.

Furthermore, adds Weyrich, "The people of Canada have become so liberal and hedonistic that the public ethic in the Country immediately could not reversed."

Canada? Hedonistic? I never realized that US right-wingers saw us as such a hip people.

Weyrich worries that "Harper would not propose anti-abortion legislation soon, if at all." You don't say. The pro-life movement hasn't been a serious political force in Canada since the 80s; support for abortion rights continues to grow, and is highest in Quebec (82% in 2002)--which is a part of the country in which Conservatives would probably like to continue to be elected in the future.

Weyrich hits the nail on the head when he ends his article with the declaration: "But it is clear that Canada wanted change and enough Canadian voters felt that the Conservative Party was the instrument to realize that change." Indeed, the Conservatives were an instrument, a tool, you might say, with which to punish the Liberals for their corruption and arrogance.

There's also an interesting discussion of the struggle to keep the Conservative campaign from being associated with the American right-wing, which scares the bejesus out of most Canadians--an aspect of the election campaign missing from pretty much all of the American coverage.

Happy Battlestar Galactica Bunny

More Firefly?

Via Slashdot comes news of a proposal for a second season of Firefly.

World pretends it's been paying attention to Canada

Canada is a quiet country. We like to keep a low profile. If nothing else, it makes it less likely that someone else will try to blow up a part of the place.

This makes the federal election problematic for the world media. They want to cover it at least a little, but in order to cover it they have to act like they understand it, and you can only understand the election if you've been paying attention to Canada, which is something that nobody has any reason to do.

Some case studies:

America

CNN and FOX"News" ran practically the same AP story on the election, declaring (respectively) "Harper's beliefs run in step with Bush, GOP" and "Relations with the Bush administration will likely improve under Harper as his ideology runs along the same lines of many U.S. Republicans." Are these networks on the payroll of the Liberal Party? Because Martin would have loved for Canadians to lump Harper together with Bush and the Repbulicans. Harper, of course, knows that the viability of his party depends on ensuring Canadians that he is nothing like Bush at all. Curiously, I have yet to see anyone in the mainstream American media hit upon this blatantly obvious fact--apparently they are still holding on to the faint hope that they might somewhere discover a significant population of non-Americans who don't hate the American president.

The Conservative victory, it is also claimed, moves Canada "right on socio-economic issues such as health care, taxation, abortion and gay marriage." (FOX version) I suppose that claim makes some sense if all you've done is figure out that the name of the party is "Conservative", but not if you've actually glanced at the party platforms, listened to Harper's statements, and/or considered the breakdown of votes in Parliament. (Well, gay marriage is arguably iffy.)

Britain

One might expect better from the BBC, seeing as how we are still part of the Commonwealth, we share the same head of state, we broadcast low-budget British shows on the CBC, etc. But, no.

"Canada has swung to the right" declared this article, only to be contradicted in this one, which pointed out that "it seems very unlikely that Stephen Harper will be able to effect much change at all."

The latter article also saw fit to recognize the blatantly obvious fact mentioned above: "the Conservative leader is going to have to tread carefully and not appear to be too cosy with George W Bush, a US president disliked by most Canadians." Unfortunately, it also made two clearly false statements about the NDP: first, that it's the "third largest party in Canadian politics" (not by seat count, anyway); second, that it is "unlikely to be in any mood to want to make deals with a Conservative government" (Layton would of course love to make deals with Harper, because that would mean Harper making deals with Layton).

[UPDATE: I dropped the BBC a note, and they deleted the bit that said that NDP was 3rd largest. Not so much as a thank you in return, though. Hmph!]

Australia

I found this article--and, amazingly, it actually manages to avoid being wrong on clear points of fact. It is also so short that the writer didn't bother grouping the sentences into paragraphs.

Temporary chaos

I'm changing some stuff on the blog, so things might look somewhat unkempt for a while.

Basically I want to make the blog freer, which, as we all know, can be a messy job, and often involves random explosions, needless death, billions of dollars of waste. Really, a little aesthetic awkwardness seems like a mild problem in comparison.

addendum: Switching from Haloscan comments (which expire) to Blogger comments.

Canadian-American political dictionary

So the motherland has had its elections, with the Conservative Party winning a minority government after approximately 3 generations of rule by the Liberal Party. Here at the Embassy, we recognize that there is ample room for confusion in interpreting these results, due to differences between the Canadian political spectrum and those of other countries.

Like, say, America. Are Dubya's followers smiling? Are their opponents despairing at the spread of right-wing politics beyond America's borders? It is worth keeping in mind that that the Conservatives are still a minority, and that in order to govern they will probably want to forge a coalition, with the New Democratic Party being a likely candidate. Every single Conservative motion in the House of Commons will require the cooperation of over 30 non-Conservative MPs, thereby eliminating the possibility that the more conservative strains of the Conservative Party will ever find political realization.

In addition, here is a useful summary of key terms in Canadian politics, and how they translate into the American political vernacular.

Centre/Centre: A political position characterized by views held by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

Liberal Party/Parti libéral: A party characterized by views held by slightly more leftist members of the Democratic Party.

Consertive Party/Parti conservateur: A party characterized by views held by slightly more conservative members of the Democratic Party (there are quite a few more extreme Conservatives, but these are kept gagged and bound in a closet in Stephen Harper's Ottawa office).

Bloc Quebecois/Bloc québécois: A separatist party native to Quebec. Actually, I'm from western Canada, so I know next to nothing about this party, though I know that I don't like it.

New Democratic Party/Nouveau Parti Démocratique: Communists.

Attack ads/publicité négative: Campaign advertisement in which it is suggested that a candidate resembles George W. Bush.

American-style healthcare/système de santé à la mode américaine: A two-tier system in which the public (single-payer) healthcare system is joined by a parallel system of private medicine; a vile curse word with no real equivalent in American English.

The war in Iraq/la guerre en Iraq: An atrocious mess in which, thanks be, we never got involved.

Anti-abortion movement/le mouvement anti-avortement: Political stillbirth.

Cool New Toy

We got a 'used' wireless router today. Well it was advertised on 'marketplace' - which is a bulletin board for people buying and selling stuff, which is generally used. But when we picked it up, it was still shrink-wrapped and completely untouched. So we got a new router for $30 less than advertised. And, I'm now able to blog from my laptop from anywhere in our apartment, and Toby and I can both use our computers at the same time. Which is cool, cuz we use our computers a lot. :D

An inspiration to us all

Geniuses are Just Like Us

Richard Feynman, a Nobel prize-winning physicist who helped develop the atomic bomb and figure out the source of the shuttle Challenger explosion, visited strip clubs nearly daily near his home in California. He mainly worked on lectures and equations there.

Well, geniuses are just like us, except really weird.

We are the champions

Busy day today.

1. I've joined an intramural indoor soccer team, and we've just played our second game. We improved a lot over our first effort, losing 0-7 rather than 1-13. I turned my left ankle rather painfully, and skinned my right knee; I also took a hard fall on my left butt cheek, but that didn't seem to do much damage. I mostly play defense, same as I did last time I played an actual game of soccer, which was probably, oh, about 12 years ago. I'm OK at breaking up plays, but after about a minute of actual activity I feel like sitting down and maybe taking a nap.

2. Kate and I got a ride with Dawn to Target. Very large store, rather disorganized, and there were no price tags on half of the items. For some reason it seemed like a distinctively American shopping experience.

On our way out, our receipts were checked by a guy wearing a badge that read (as I recall) "Target Protection Specialist". We spent some time debating whether or not that was sad.

In the parking lot we were approached by a guy asking for money, who claimed to have a car that was out of gas and full of hungry babies or some such. I coughed up some money, and then remembered Dave telling me that he's gotten the same line on a number of occasions, which increases the probability that it's just a line and nothing more. I try not to be cynical about these things, but I also hate being a mark. Maybe next time I'll ask the guy to introduce me to his kids.

3. After that, we all went to the Oriental Institute. Don't be fooled by that link's horrible web design--there were some fantastic exhibits there. My favourites included a Pazuzu figurine, a giant lammasu, and the 5.3m tall statue of King Tutankhamun. There was also a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which wasn't that spectacular, but was still kinda cool. We only got there 20 minutes before the place closed, so it will probably warrant a return visit.

4. Finally, we saw The Constant Gardener. It was a decent film, all about the evils of large pharmaceutical corporations. But the movie got really preachy at times (surprise!), and I kinda feel that films (similarly to Madonna's dad) ought not to preach, even (especially?) if they're supposed to transmit some sort of social/political message. And surely the film-makers could have had enough faith in the audience to trust that sympathy for the impoverished children of Nairobi had been quite firmly established during the course of the film, making it enitrely unnecessary to have those concluding slo-mo shots of the kids while touching music played in the background.

Concept of pluralism continues to baffle western civilization

I ran across basically the same story as this over the break, and it looks like it's in the news again:

The Dutch government will announce over the next few weeks whether it will make it a crime to wear traditional Islamic dress which covers the face apart from the eyes.

The Dutch parliament has already voted in favour of a proposal to ban the burqa outside the home, and some in the government have thrown their weight behind it.

There are only about 50 women in all of the Netherlands who do cover up entirely - but soon they could be breaking the law.

Wow. That law makes no sense to me at all.

Dutch MP Geert Wilders is the man who first suggested the idea of a ban.

Great! Maybe he can explain what there is by way of rationale for the proposed law.

"We don't want women to be ashamed to show who they are."

So, these women who wear the burqa are doing so out of shame? I'd like to respond with a couple of suggestions. First, I rather suspect that Mr. Wilders doesn't know the damnedest little thing about Muslim women and why any of them wear the burqa. Second, if you're looking to improve a woman's self-image, I seriously doubt that ripping a piece of clothing off of her is a very good way to go about it.

"...Even if you have decided yourself to do that, you should not do it in Holland, because we want you to be integrated, assimilated into Dutch society. If people cannot see who you are, or see one inch of your body or your face, I believe this is not the way to integrate into our society."

So he's worried about integration! But I always thought that integration meant people getting along in a single society despite their individual differences. It turns out that it really means people wearing the same sorts of clothes. Well, that's OK. Some people are fond of peaceful, pluralistic societies, others are fond of dress codes. To each his own.

"We have problems with a growing minority of Muslims who tend to have sympathy with the Islamo-fascistic concept of radical Islam,"

And thus this proposed ban, which would not in any way prevent the spread of radical Islam, but would certainly help foster antipathy against the Dutch government. Brilliant!

"That's also a reason why everybody should be identifiable when they walk on the street or go to a pub or go into a restaurant or whatsoever."

I'm not sure what he's getting at here. Is he worried about terrorists hiding behind burqas? Given that there are apparently only 50 burqa wearers in the entire country, it seems unlikely that wearing a burqa is a particularly good way of slipping under the radar in the Netherlands.

I'm sort of baffled as to why it isn't blatantly obvious to everybody that this is an atrociously bad idea. Is there some sort of mental defect congenital to Dutch politicians or something? What's going on here?

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

And wouldn't he be proud of the progress we've made.

Unspeakable horror

While cooking today, I dropped a chopstick, which rolled underneath the fridge. Very, very bad luck. I looked underneath the fridge to see if I could spot the chopstick, and was confronted with a truly frightening sight. Judging from the non-chopstick material that I found there, that fridge has been sitting in the same spot for approximately seven centuries, if not millennia. The dust etc. that was lurking in that space had the appearance of a dense web of complexly interconnected strands, similar to the sophisticated sort of neural network that might produce, say, intelligent thought.

When I pulled the chopstick out, I think I heard something moan.

I did a nice thing.

The other day Kate and I saw Shaolin Temple at DocFilms. Shaolin Temple is a truly epic martial arts film about the destruction of the Shaolin Temple, with corny special effects and atrocious acting. It was a great time.

"Oh! Crane style!"
"Now I understand why you made me stir rice for all those years!"

On our way back we ran across a shoulder bag on the lawn beside the sidewalk. I found a piece of paper with the likely owner's name (same as Sarah McLachlan, but spelt differently) and address. I unsuccessfully tried to return it to her that night, but I left a note at her apartment, so she contacted us the following day and got her stuff back.

Apparently the pub "got the better" of her, and while I don't like to moralize, I think one might want to reconsider one's style of alcohol consumption, if that leads to the loss of a bag containing the entirety of a semester's course materials, a cell phone, and an iPod. (Sigh. If only there hadn't been a way to track down the owner. I totally would've taken that iPod.)

This is a long weekend. I didn't figure that out til Thursday.

Yesterday we got a ride from Dawn to the post office to pick up a bunch of parcels Kate had sent from Japan. It turned out to be a bit of an ordeal. Kate had addressed them to "Toby", but I only had ID with my full name on it, and apparently it wasn't enough for the last name and the first three letters of the first name to match. Kate pointed out that she was the one who had sent it, and was clearly identified as the sender on the postal form. The lady took a look at Kate's name and our Japanese address and remarked something to the effect of, "This is from Kenya or something." We weren't sure how to respond to that. "Kenya" is indeed a possible Japanese name, but it wasn't written anywhere on the label, unlike "Japan", which was. In the end, happily, I managed to get the parcels, but only after offering up a stack of cards plus a receipt with my address on it to the gods of the USPS. They turned out to mostly contain Kate's clothes, though, which was a bit disappointing.

Later that day Kate and I went to the departmental "Coffee Hour" (which generally lasts two hours, and has lots of beer, but never any coffee), and I introduced her to some of the other people in the department. (Well, I did some introductions. I missed some. The social graces are not my greatest strength.) This was followed by Thai food and random game playing.

Just this night we went to the Checkerboard Lounge for the first time, a blues club that has in the past hosted the Rolling Stones and some guy named "Muddy Waters". (Apparently Chicago has some sort of reputation for this sort of stuff.) Unfortunately the band had a few hiccups. Apparently the drummer had some trouble getting there, so they had to call up a replacement drummer. While waiting for the replacement, a lady who wasn't in the band sang a few songs about being an "old dirty lady" (I'll take her word for it), which was pretty awesome. The replacement, when he showed, did a great job for some guy they just called up out of nowhere, though he wasn't quite as good as the real drummer who showed up sometime around midnight. (What happened to him? Who knows.) Overall the show was great, though.

TIME.com: Best of 2005: Television

TIME.com: Best of 2005: Television -- Page 1

Time Magazine has given Battlestar Galactica top honours in it's Best of 2005 TV listing. It's neat to see a sci-fi show get such recognition. :)

The Da Vinci Code

Don't bother with this one. Of course, I heard it was great, and as a last minute attempt to fend off boredom on the flight from Japan picked it up. I couldn't believe it - not only does it have major plot and character problems, but it's boring. Really boring. I fell asleep about every 5 pages. I kept hoping it would get better, but it never did.

It's so unbelievable too - it takes a cryptographer pages to reveal to us that the numbered sequence is the Fibonacci, but at the end of the book several characters realize seemingly instantaneously the identity of the true evil-doer. The information is handed out to the reader so slowly anyone with half a brain will guess correctly before revealed.

Two thumbs down. I'm sorry I wasted the time on it.

I Leave for Chicago

The day did not go well. Wanting the cheapest flight, I booked a connecting flight through Toronto to Chicago on Travelocity. There was one hour to transfer planes at the Toronto airport - I just didn't realize how little that is when the airport is laid out so poorly! The terminals are spaced out such that the bus ride between them takes around 10-15 minutes, not including wait time for the bus. Just to get to the bus is a whole other issue, since the airport has signs directing you to Terminal 2 buses, which mysteriously end. You are then left to figure out for yourself that you must make a turn, go around a corner into a recessed alcove, and then down some stairs. No signage here.

Of course, I did what I knew I shouldn't have, and flew Air Canada. I swear, and this time I really mean it, that no matter how cheap, no matter how convenient, I will never ever use Air Canada again. They were rude at the Vancouver Airport, and when I got to the Toronto airport my bags did not arrive (and considering by that point that I had 15 minutes to go through customs and board my plane, I didn't have long to wait). Air Canada lost my luggage. Of course there has been no apology and the Chicago airport assures me they should arrive today. The 4.5 hour flight to Toronto on Tango Plus had no food at all, not even peanuts. We did get one drink though. Great. They had an 'onboard restaurant' that had hotdogs at exhorbitant prices. Add to that that the Air Canada flight was delayed twice, once at the beginning and once upon arrival in Toronto, because 'the ground crew hadn't arrived yet', and it was a pretty frustrating day overall.

To top it all off, I got really sick on the second flight - some kind of cold or allergies I guess. :( Today I'm just going to relax and wait for my bags to come.