I wish we could all see how hard things are for each other

The world would be a much better place if we could all somehow see when something is hard for another person. For example, making business phone calls is hard for me. If the person on the other end of the phone could somehow see that I'd had to screw up all my courage to make the call, they could manage their end of the interaction better. And if I could see that they hate answering the phone or they're having a really bad day or something, I could manage my end better.

Unfortunately, this is a circumstance where transparency doesn't work. With the possible exception of certain medical contexts, you can't really say "This is really hard for me and it took me a lot of courage just to call." If you do, it makes it sound like you want to be treated like you're oh so special or something.

Economic turmoil makes me want to spend money

The weird nature of my job makes me a few steps removed from the current economic turmoil. I'm sure it's going to hit me eventually, but right now it's just in the headlines.

This makes me want to spend money.

Logically I know I shouldn't, logically I know I should save it up because I can see the stormfront coming. But the devil on my shoulder keeps whispering in my ear that technically I can justify spending money now, so I should do it while I can justify it. If I buy pretty things now when I can justify it, then when I lose my job I'll have my pretty things and I can just shrug my shoulders and go "Oh well, can't unspend the money."

More election resources

1. The Star has a quiz to help you determine which party's platform is the best match for you. If you're using my How To Vote, this quiz will identify The Best Party. You can then use it to identify The Worst Party by answering the questions again, this time picking the option you like least for each (keep the weighting the same though).

2. I just noticed that the Hill and Knowlton Predictor can automatically generate predictions for the latest polls. Just scroll down to the Polls box on the bottom left, then click on Display Prediction under the poll of your choice.

I'm going to update the Voter's Resources post to reflect this.

Fuck, I hope this isn't my fault

Attention psychos:

When I idly mused that Carolyn Bennett is a strange choice of target for sabotage, I wasn't saying that you should go out and find a better target! I was just thinking out loud is all!

Shit.

Also: check out the photo in the CBC article linked above. That graffiti is in absolutely gorgeous handwriting! I can't write that beautifully with a pen and paper and all the time in the world, but this person did it with spray paint on a vertical surface, presumably in the dark and presumably in a hurrt. That's quite a skill set, especially in combination with the knowledge and tools to cut brake lines and phone lines. If this was a police procedural, that would be all the information they need right there.

Also: it would be helpful if the media would include in their reporting tips on what (if anything) a driver can do to check if their brake lines have been cut before they start driving.

All the people stared as if we were both quite insane

Rediscovered song of the day:

Weirdest political intimidation decision ever!

People have been cutting the brake lines of Carolyn Bennett supporters.

Carolyn Bennett! She's like the most innocuous politician ever! She's a perky obstetrician who spouts the party line during campaign season and does harmless public health and women's caucus work the rest of the time. I cannot imagine how she's worth cutting brake lines to anyone of any political persuasion. If you're an ABCer, imagine someone with the politics of Joe Clark but no special clout within the party. Not worth the trouble, eh?

This is Toronto, there are lots of ridings close together. There are swing ridings and big-name Liberal Party candidates just a quick subway ride away. Why on earth would you pick on Carolyn Bennett?

No, I am Spartacus

Okay, fine, I confess. I am the author of What To Expect When You're Aborting. Y'all can stop harassing and threatening random internet people now.

Let's have a forced coalition government

You know what would be an awesome election outcome? A seat distribution where you need three parties to have a majority, but it can be any three parties. So no one party can pass or block a piece of legislation, and no one party single-handedly holds balance of power.

I don't know if this is even mathematically possible (maybe we'd need five parties to make it happen? Maybe we'd need a seat distribution with a small number of Green or independent MPs who somehow don't hold balance of power themselves?)

Redirects

Helpful hint: even though opening links in new windows can be helpful for the user, there is no good reason whatsoever to have the link redirecting the user to your new site open in a new window.

The problem with good ventriloquism

I'm not hugely into ventriloquism, but when I do enjoy ventriloquism I tend to forget that it's ventriloquism and just enjoy the humour. The problem with this is that I don't appreciate the ventriloquist's skill. For example, they just showed this on TV (it's still on the Comedy Network if you're reading right now and will be on Comedy West again in three hours):



At about 1:30, where they start doing the pronunciation bit, that's a ventriloquism trick! The ventriloquist is showing off that he can do something technically difficult. But we don't even notice, because we're too busy being entertained.

Stop saying that Sarah Palin has long hair!

I was shocked when I opened the Toronto Star yesterday and saw this picture of US politician Sarah Palin.

Why? Because people on the internet have been describing her as having long hair (apparently it's unusual for a woman in her position or something). But that isn't long hair! That's shoulder-length hair! It's a completely different thing! Shoulder-length doesn't get caught in the hook of your bra or the zipper of your dress, you don't have to bun your ponytail while cooking or doing a bikini wax lest it fall into your work when you lean forward, and you can experiment more freely with colour because worst case it will grow out in under a year without ruining your look. You want someone with long hair, find someone whose hair will, at the absolute minimum, cover their nipples - when they aren't wearing extensions or a bra.

This explains why I wasn't able to duplicate her updo. With shoulder-length hair, you fold your hair once and clip it up, and you've got an updo. With proper long hair, you fold your hair once and clip it up, and you've got a ponytail that perhaps doesn't get caught in your waistband. The weight distribution is completely different.

On an unrelated note, I found this quote interesting (bolding is mine):

"Let's commit ourselves (to) just every day American people, Joe Six Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again,'' Palin said.

"Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars.''

So in the US, "everyday American people" who would identify as "Joe Sixpack" have enough money that they have people managing their money for them? Wow, they must have a lot of money in that country! Like hockey moms maybe - I hear hockey equipment is expensive and (if the economics of rink time in the US are the same as here) rink time is at a premium so it must get costly too - so people who can not only afford children but can also afford to have those children play hockey would have to be people of means. But everyday joe sixpack people having so much money they need people to manage it for them? In my corner of the world, that's like a win-the-lottery kind of lifestyle!

Things They Should Invent: mark as "WTF?"

In the reader comments sections of newspapers, you can mark other comments as offensive, and sometimes you can mark them as agree or disagree.

But we also need a WTF option, for when the comment is just way fucking irrelevant, so fucking irrelevant that the profanity is in fact strictly necessary. The thesis of the article: "Look, baby ducks!" Comments: "See, this is what's wrong with the Purple Party!"

I'd also like a mark as factually incorrect option. If someone posts "Acme widgets should be banned because they contain 10 times as many heavy metals as other brands of widgets" you can sometimes mark it as disagree, but that doesn't express that you disagree on the basis that they actually contain the same amount of heavy metals as other widgets, as opposed to disagreeing because you don't think they should be banned. Yes, you can post another comment in response, but you can't guarantee it will be seen by everyone who reads the first comment.

The problem with the internet

The problem with the internet is that whatever you're googling about, there's at least one person on the internet who has tried it and had it go horribly wrong. And then they post about it, loudly, dramatically, and without quite the information you need. ("Whatever you do, don't use Acme Widgets! They'll ruin your life!" Um, okay, but how exactly?)

But the problem is we have no way to figure out how common it is for that thing to go horribly wrong, or how many people tried the thing and it went so unremarkably smoothly that it never occurred to them to write about it on the internet.

Things They Should Invent: plant-watering tower

You know how when you water your plants, you're supposed to water them until the water starts dripping out the bottom of the pot? That wastes water! Yeah, it's only a little, but it does waste water.

So what we need is a thing where you put all your plants one on top of another, held onto a vertical stick with clamps or something. Then you water the top plant and let the drippings water the next plant, then water that plant if the drippings aren't enough, etc. etc. until all the drippings have been reclaimed.

It would probably take more resources to manufacture than would be saved by reclaiming the drippings.

Now taking suggestions for a new nervous habit

I've been twirling my hair lately as a nervous habit. I seriously have no idea whatsoever when or why I started doing this or what my previous nervous habit was (I always have a nervous habit going, I can't function without one), but I'd like to stop the hair twirling because it looks ditzy.

Any thoughts on what would make a better, more respectable-looking nervous habit are welcome. Previous workable nervous habits include fiddling with my necklace (that one ended when all my necklaces broke), cracking knuckles (now not workable because there are people in the cubes near me), and twirling a pen (now not workable because I'm at a computer all day instead of in a classroom).

It's not self-expression, it's sovereignty

Conventional wisdom is that being permitted to dress and do hair and makeup however you want allows you to express yourself. This often comes up when people are talking about teenagers, and I think I first met the concept in high school when (for reasons I forget) they were talking about having school uniforms.

But I don't think it's self-expression that people are actually talking about. I think they mean sovereignty over one's own body. That's why I find it liberating to wear make-up and heels and generally present as femme as I can muster. I'm asserting sovereignty over my own body by making it look how I want it to look (if my efforts are successful) or at least alluding to how I want it to look (if my efforts are unsuccessful). I'm in charge, I'm in control - not my genetics, not the expectations of my parents or employer or whomever. My body is my territory, but instead of planting a flag I leave my mark with lipstick and underwires.

I think this is also the rest of my objection to school uniforms. Previously I objected on the basis that a) it's Paul Bernardo's fetish, b) it's inherently punitive, as though we can't be trusted with clothes by virtue of the fact that we're teenagers, and c) a huge part of what made me realize that the world was bigger than the middle school cafeteria (thus mitigating some of my shyness, knocking some chips off my shoulder, and giving me perhaps a modicum of self-confidence) was going to high school and seeing people in a huge variety of different clothes all interacting civilly with each other, which made me realize that normal people aren't actually worrying about the shade of blue of my jeans. But there was another part of my objection that I couldn't articulate, and I think this is it. By putting students in uniforms, schools would not only be taking away the most obvious way for the student to assert sovereignty over their own bodies, the school would also be asserting its own sovereignty over the students in its place. And that's just dehumanizing.

Things I am currently wondering

1. Can people generally tell how smart or stupid they are? I've been told my whole life, but I don't think I can actually assess it objectively. And the longer I live, the more I think the people telling me I'm smart didn't know what they were talking about.

2. Anyone else think Antonia Zerbisias at the Star seems kind of artificially limited writing about women's issues? I keep getting the impression that she has all kinds of interesting things to say, but has to sort of force them to fit into the "women's issues" category. I'd be much more interested in reading her write about whatever she wants regardless of how it could be categorized.

3. I would do horribly in a survivalist situation. I'm much better in civilization, in a knowledge-based economy where I can trade brains for money and money for goods and services. Some people consider this a sort of moral failing and point out that in the olden days I wouldn't have had the comforts of my current lifestyle. But it occurs to me that that's irrelevant, because in the olden days I wouldn't have survived infancy. The circumstances of my infancy are completely unremarkable now, with fully-equipped neonatal wards readily available, but if I were born to cavemen or medieval peasants I would never have survived (which would also have been completely unremarkable). So in the great tradition of pluralizing "anecdote" as "data", I wonder if there's any correlation between how well people would do in a survivalist situation and whether they would have survived infancy without the intervention of modern medicine?

Best illustration ever

Check out the illustration at the top right!

(The article is nothing new, I just like the illustration.)

I should have paid more attention to Alanis in high school

If I had, I would have realized much sooner that my former religion was an abusive relationship.