Oddly obsessive: political division

I was looking at the BBC News website yesterday. Their story on today's Canadian elections had links to all the major parties (and even the Green Party of Canada [1]). I noticed that the URLs were all of the form $party.ca except the Bloc Quebecois, who are in .org. Makes a certain sort of sense. For no obvious reason, I clicked the Bloc link. To my surprise, tucked in among all the French was a pointer, en anglais, to an English summary of the party platform.

The BQ platform has several items, each of which talks about a reasonably sensible goal like making sure that everyone gets health care, or the importance of the St. Lawrence River, and then ends with an out-of-the-blue assertion that sovereignty would help with this goal.

Not only does this make little sense for some of the policy positions--in particular, I can't see how an independent Quebec would be in a better position to convince Ottawa to protect the St. Lawrence River and shipping thereon--but I think they're misjudging their audience. I don't know what the chances are of Anglophones, and specifically those who aren't comfortable reading the French-language material, voting for the Bloc, but those who do are likely to be doing so because they like specific policies, or because there isn't a viable NDP candidate in their riding, rather than because they're in favor of Quebec independence.

[1] Who are not what Europeans, or even most North Americans, expect a Green Party to be.

Oddly obsessive: political division

I was looking at the BBC News website yesterday. Their story on today's Canadian elections had links to all the major parties (and even the Green Party of Canada [1]). I noticed that the URLs were all of the form $party.ca except the Bloc Quebecois, who are in .org. Makes a certain sort of sense. For no obvious reason, I clicked the Bloc link. To my surprise, tucked in among all the French was a pointer, en anglais, to an English summary of the party platform.

The BQ platform has several items, each of which talks about a reasonably sensible goal like making sure that everyone gets health care, or the importance of the St. Lawrence River, and then ends with an out-of-the-blue assertion that sovereignty would help with this goal.

Not only does this make little sense for some of the policy positions--in particular, I can't see how an independent Quebec would be in a better position to convince Ottawa to protect the St. Lawrence River and shipping thereon--but I think they're misjudging their audience. I don't know what the chances are of Anglophones, and specifically those who aren't comfortable reading the French-language material, voting for the Bloc, but those who do are likely to be doing so because they like specific policies, or because there isn't a viable NDP candidate in their riding, rather than because they're in favor of Quebec independence.

[1] Who are not what Europeans, or even most North Americans, expect a Green Party to be.

Stuff: white tea; PDAs

I made a cup of tangerine-flavored white tea last night, and came to the conclusion that it's too subtle for me. Now, this may vary with my state of mind, what else I've eaten, and the like (I bought it because I liked it at the store, and I enjoyed the previous cup I brewed a few months ago) or it may be that it's gone stale. Thoughts?

I've been getting frustrated with how slow my current PDA (an IBM Workpad, basically a Palm III clone) is, and went and pulled out the Vx I got on eBay around the same time. And was reminded of why I've been using the Workpad--that Vx has a rippliness in the screen.

So the workpad is on my belt, and I'm back to bidding for Vx's on eBay.

Meanwhile, I need to sort out moving from my PC to the one cattitude replaced with a spiffy new machine, and test whether those old laptops still work, because there's a home for them in Montreal if so.

Stuff: white tea; PDAs

I made a cup of tangerine-flavored white tea last night, and came to the conclusion that it's too subtle for me. Now, this may vary with my state of mind, what else I've eaten, and the like (I bought it because I liked it at the store, and I enjoyed the previous cup I brewed a few months ago) or it may be that it's gone stale. Thoughts?

I've been getting frustrated with how slow my current PDA (an IBM Workpad, basically a Palm III clone) is, and went and pulled out the Vx I got on eBay around the same time. And was reminded of why I've been using the Workpad--that Vx has a rippliness in the screen.

So the workpad is on my belt, and I'm back to bidding for Vx's on eBay.

Meanwhile, I need to sort out moving from my PC to the one cattitude replaced with a spiffy new machine, and test whether those old laptops still work, because there's a home for them in Montreal if so.

Sign of the apocalypse #2718281828

cattitude just walked in with kitty litter, a gallon of milk, and "Non-ultra joy." So he said, and so the package proved to be labeled (though they capitalized the J.

It's dishwashing soap. Calling dishwashing soap "joy" is an absurdity I'm used to, but "non-ultra" is new.

Infra dishes it shall be.

Sign of the apocalypse #2718281828

cattitude just walked in with kitty litter, a gallon of milk, and "Non-ultra joy." So he said, and so the package proved to be labeled (though they capitalized the J.

It's dishwashing soap. Calling dishwashing soap "joy" is an absurdity I'm used to, but "non-ultra" is new.

Infra dishes it shall be.

Gym notes

Having had some disappointing job-hunting news (or rather, news that there won't be any news right away), I decided to rearrange the position of large gray pieces of metal, even though, on the whole, it wasn't the large gray pieces of metal that were unhappy.

As I expected, it helped. I also decided that as long as I don't do anything to discourage people from going to the gym, looking forward to its being less crowded in a few weeks doesn't make me a bad person.

( the numbers )

Gym notes

Having had some disappointing job-hunting news (or rather, news that there won't be any news right away), I decided to rearrange the position of large gray pieces of metal, even though, on the whole, it wasn't the large gray pieces of metal that were unhappy.

As I expected, it helped. I also decided that as long as I don't do anything to discourage people from going to the gym, looking forward to its being less crowded in a few weeks doesn't make me a bad person.

( the numbers )