Whoa.

Ignatieff has been more ambivalent, describing his position Sunday as "coalition if necessary, but not necessarily coalition."

Which is just what I said on Saturday.

If only I could make this trick work on Dalton McGuinty and Eddie Izzard.

Kid Rock vs. Star Wars

The good stuff starts about 1:20 in.

But if I shop, the marketers will have won

I don't like shopping at this time of year. Not just because of the crowds and inconvenience, but because I feel like I'm betraying some kind of principle.

Usually people who feel this way feel like xmas has become too commercial, too materialistic, and the true meaning is lost. But that isn't where I'm coming from. I'm not xian so I don't believe in any true meaning of xmas, and I am a materialistic person who has no problem with the materialism. When I was a kid, the materialistic part of xmas was actually the most important to me, because it was the only way I had of getting new toys and books and money and computer games and other fun stuff. Gifts obviously aren't as important now that I can buy my own toys whenever I damn well please, but I'm certainly not about to forget why they can be important to some people, so I should have no objection to the materialistic aspect. So why do I feel wrong about shopping?

I think I've figured out what it is. If I buy something now, the stores will assume I bought it for xmas. It will go under the xmas sales heading. They will assume that their strategy of putting up decorations in October and playing that maudite music has worked and led me to buy the item in question.

I wish there was some way to go on the record as saying "I didn't buy this for xmas!" I didn't buy the red shirt because it's an xmas colour, I bought it because I look hot in red! I didn't buy the fuzzy warm jammies for xmas despite the fact that they're all giftwrapped in a ribbon, I bought them because I was cold last night! I didn't buy the chocolate to put in a stocking, I bought it because I had a rough day! I don't celebrate xmas, I just have a bit of disposable income and like pretty things. But as long as my every purchase makes them think their xmas marketing strategy has succeeded, I'm going to be hesitant to shop.

Is the media reporting on the Liberal leadership situation objectively?

The media keeps mentioning that Michael Ignatieff is by far the frontrunner in the federal Liberal leadership race as though it's an unquestioned fact. However, I haven't seen anything to prove or even suggest this, nor have I seen a media mention that backs this allegation up in any way.

I freely admit I may have missed something. I don't read all the media coverage of everything at all ever, I can't. And I'm not a member of the Liberal party so there may well be stuff going on that I can't see.

But from where I'm sitting, I see the media having unofficially crowned a winner, and I see no particular basis for this idea.

This calls for skepticism.

What all our politicians need to do now

Many many people are making the mistake of turning the entire Canadian political stage into a referendum on the Coalition. But it's not really about the Coalition. I know, I know, the Coalition is the most interesting thing to happen in my lifetime. We've never seen one before and it's nice to look at. It's somewhere between a breath of fresh air and a wave of Obama-like inspiration to people who are sick of the partisan-über-alles turn our politics have taken. It's he shoots he scores in the final seconds of the third period and suddenly the score's tied one all and we're into sudden death overtime.

But it's not the point.

The point is economic policy. The coalition came about because all the opposition parties agreed that the government's economic statement was inadequate. The first thing that is going to happen when Commons sits again is a budget vote. Those are the things that are getting voted on, so those are the things that our politicians need to focus on.

The Conservatives need to stop putting so much energy into dissing the Coalition. Even if every single Canadian decides the Coalition is pure evil, that isn't going to affect the outcome of the budget vote. What the Conservatives should be doing is a combination of preparing a budget that the other parties will find acceptable, and selling their budget to Canadians so Canadians will encourage their MPs to vote for the budget. (Aside: does anyone remember whether some time passes between when the budget is read in the House and when it's voted on? It seems like there should be, but I can't for the life of me remember.)

Meanwhile, what the opposition parties need to do is take a "Coalition if necessary, but not necessarily coalition" approach. Not all Canadians like the idea of a coalition, and if they take a "Coalition über alles" approach that will drive anti-coalition voters to the Conservatives. The opposition parties need to have a plan in place for forming a coalition if the government should fall (they already have one, they just need to keep it.) Then they need to agree upon minimum standards of economic and social policy they will hold the government to, and inform the government and the public of these standards. If the government meets the minimum standards, the three opposition parties will continue working in accordance with their own party platforms. If the government fails to meet the standards, BOOM, instant coalition. This would be a much more effective way to keep the government in check and it would mitigate the impression that the opposition just want to be in power because they'd effectively be telling the government how to keep them out of power. If there should be an election, the opposition parties shouldn't campaign as a coalition. They should campaign as separate parties with separate platforms, but they should also publically and transparently inform us of the conditions under which they would create a coalition.

Dear Margo misfires

This one really surprised me because Margo is usually very good.

Sixteen is a tough age for kids and their parents. It's good that you understand the value of communication, but unfortunately you can't achieve it. There's an old saying that the older you get, the smarter your parents become. I hope this is so in your case. In the meantime, to calm things down, you might try to lose a little weight, clean up your room and bring that D up to a C. As for retreating to your room for hours, granted, that is not screaming, but it is passive aggressive. I am guessing if you make an effort your parents will seem much more reasonable to you.

1. While losing weight is generally a good thing for most people, it is completely inappropriate to advise someone to change their body to smooth over interpersonal relationships with someone else. Do you really want to be setting that precedent and normalizing that concept with a 16 year old girl?

2. Retreating to one's room isn't passive agressive, because passive aggressive implies she's doing it to evoke a certain response from her parents. She isn't. She's doing it for her own benefit, so she doesn't have to deal with them. Think about when you seek privacy in your own life. You aren't seeking privacy as a dis to the other people. You aren't going "I'll show them, I'll deprive them of my company!" It's for your own purposes, because you personally need to either be alone, or be away from certain people, or be alone with a certain someone.

Things They Should Invent: online circadian rhythm tracker

There are a number of websites that you can use to track your menstrual cycle. You put in the dates of your periods and over a number of months it starts predicting your menstruation and ovulation dates. It's useful for people who have irregular cycles or are trying to do fertility awareness.

I want something like that for my circadian rhythms. My energy levels wax and wane throughout the day, and if I could predict when it's going to happen I could leverage this so I don't find myself having to do more draining activities at low-energy times. Mindfully doing hour-by-hour observations over a number of days isn't very practical, because I have to fit in real life too. What I'd like to be able to do is whenever I notice that I'm feeling up or down, I enter the time that this happened, and the computer uses all this information to tell me when I can expect to be up or down in the future. Then I can schedule more draining things for up times and keep down times more low-key

Is it always possible to give exceptional service?

I was reading some people talking about tipping, and as usual there were one or two loudmouths who said they think they should only have to tip if the service is exceptional.

I know why that's a problem under our current wage model, and that's a boring discussion anyway so that isn't what I want to talk about here.

What I'm wondering is whether most transactions even have the opportunity for exceptional service to happen. As I think about the business transactions I go through every day, most of the time the opportunity isn't there. If the transaction is simple and nothing goes wrong, there isn't really room for much more than competent service.

I get in a cab and the driver takes me where I'm going. Done. No room for it to be exceptional. If I'm running late and the 401 is closed and he still gets me to the airport in time to make my flight that's exceptional service, but if I have plenty of time and there's nothing wrong there's no room to make it exceptional.

I order my meal, the waiter brings it, I eat it. No room to be exceptional. If I have a lot of questions about the menu or the order is complex or the kitchen is slow so the waiter brings me a free drink or something then the service can get exceptional, but if everything is smooth or unremarkable the opportunity isn't there.

I've recently been considering tipping my supers because they saved my ass in a couple of minor emergencies. But if the minor emergencies hadn't occurred, the opportunity wouldn't have been there for them to provide me with exceptional service.

Even if you don't agree that you should tip everyone all the time, it seems unfair that workers should get less money just because the world as a whole is running smoothly.

Things They Should Invent: mirrored cameras that force people to pose flatteringly

You know how you can look in a mirror, make eye contact with your reflection,* and quickly and easily arrange your face and body into a flattering pose like Paris Hilton does automatically whenever someone points a camera at her? And you know how you can never do that when being photographed IRL if you're not Paris Hilton?

Solution: a camera with a mirror on it. The person being photographed poses themselves automatically, and the camera lens is somehow arranged so that the picture taken by the camera looks exactly like what the person being photographed sees in the mirror.

Quick and easy real-world alternative: digital camera with an LCD screen that faces out. You'd probably need one that faces the photographer too, and the LCD screen delay might be problematic for the person being photographed.

*Someone once told me that it's humanly impossible NOT to make eye contact with your own reflection. I don't have verification of that, but I think it's a cool factoid if it's true.

"Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne pas savoir demeurer en repos dans une chambre." - Blaise Pascal

All of man's troubles stem from his inability to sit quietly in a room. I've seen it quoted differently and attributed to different people, but I think the one in the title is the original.

I can totally sit quietly in a room. I can sit there and just think, it's intellectually satisfying. Add internet access so I can google and I'm perfectly content for hours and hours and hours. It's a hardcore introvert thing.

The problem is this can easily hinder real life. I have stuff that has to get done. I have to be places by a certain time. But I sit down and start thinking and then google something and the next thing I know two hours have passed. I'm content, I'm satisfied, I'm at peace, I've had all kinds of interesting ideas, but real life isn't getting done. I can convince myself to build up momentum and go out and get a shitload of stuff done and I do feel some satisfaction from checking it all off my list, but it doesn't give me the hap hits (as Marti Olsen Laney writes about) of sitting quietly in my apartment.

How does one go about becoming a wealthy, eccentric, reclusive genius with a discreet but loyal butler to take care of all their petty day-to-day needs?

Acapellas

Move Along:



Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:



I'm Too Sexy:



Bohemian Rhapsody:



Fat-Bottomed Girls:

Separatist vs. souverainiste: an analysis

I've been trying to wrap my brain around the meaningfulness of separatist vs. souverainiste. My problem is that I was trying to think this through from a position of hegemony. I was assuming that my English was standard, and I was thinking in terms of "What was their reasoning in referring to the separatists as sovereigntists?"

I've been thinking and doing some research, and I've discovered the problem is that the meaning of "separatist" and "sovereigntist" in my English is skewed, and the real question to be asking is "What was their reasoning in referring to the people in question as separatists?"

Forget everything you know about Quebec for a second. In the world at large and in the English language in general, "separatist" is negative and "sovereigntist" is positive.

Separatists want to break away from something to which they belong, to destroy an existing union, The connotations are usually a bit extremist and a bit irrational (think Basque separatists, white separatists, black separatists, Tamil separatists, etc. etc.)

"Sovereignty," on the other hand, is a good thing. One's sovereignty over one's own body. Canada's sovereignty over its northern waters. Sovereigntists want to preserve their existing rights and freedoms.

They are two separate concepts. They are separate concepts in most parts of the English-speaking world, and they are separate concepts in cognate languages, including French.

(Now you can remember everything you know about Quebec again.)

However, we Anglo-Canadians are so used to hearing the word sovereignty used to describe Quebec separation (which, rightfully or wrongfully, we do perceive as a threat) that we tend to forget its positive connotations and immediately equate it with this perceived threat. It's like the words "life" and "choice" when discussing abortion. If abortion is the topic of discussion and one of those words comes up, it is not going to be taken neutrally.

So because we equate this positive word "sovereignty" with Quebec separation, we don't always distinguish between "separatist" and "sovereigntist". Certainly both words can be used very deliberately and advisedly in our English, but they can also be used mindlessly and interchangeably. Again, think about about the terms "pro-life" and "anti-abortion". Sometimes (depending on speaker, audience, situation, context) the choice of one or the other is meaningful and politicized. But sometimes it's just the word the speaker happens to land on.

Analogy: "sovereigntist" is like "potato chips". "Separatist" is like "junk food." They can be used to describe the same concept and they can both be used positively, negatively or neutrally depending on speaker/audience/situation/context, but the second one is generally more negative.

So what does this mean for Stephen Harper's speeches? I can't tell you. Why? Because I don't know how mindfully he chose the word "separatists" instead of "sovereigntists" in English. He (or his speechwriters) might have just grabbed the first word that came to mind. They might have chosen it to demonize the Bloc as much as possible. They might have chosen it because the people in question tend to refer to themselves as souverainistes and they don't want their base to view them as sympathetic. I have no way of knowing.

So how did the French end up being souverainistes? At some point someone changed it. Was this cunning and manipulative? There is, of course, room for it to have been, but it was not necessarily. It is a perfectly normal part of the French translator's job to make minor stylistic tweaks, and to be the one to realize "That line may play in Canmore, but not in Baie-Comeau" and edit it to something that will get the desired reaction from the Francophone audience. That's why you want mother-tongue translators. From a translational perspective, changing separatists to souverainistes is morally equivalent to altering a line that is a political catchphrase in the target language but politically neutral in the source language, or changing an abbreviation so it isn't a dirty word in the target language. Whenever it's in question, you always err on the side of not making people look like dickheads.

Was the PM aware of the different connotations? I have no way of knowing. I know that any sensible person does review their translated speeches before delivering them. I know that souverainiste is harder for an Anglophone to pronounce than séparatiste (sometimes this is a factor in word choices for speeches, sometimes not - I have no idea if it is for Mr. Harper). I know that Mr. Harper is coming from the same English as I am, so he may well not immediately recognize that separatist and souverainiste are in fact different concepts (I never thought about it before this speech happened).

So the take-away:

sovereigntist = potato chips
separatist = junk food

There is room for the difference in word choices to be calculating and manipulative, and there is room for it to be perfectly innocent. It all depends not on why they decided to refer to the junk food as potato chips, but on how mindful they were in choosing to call it junk food in the first place.

And regardless of any motives or lack thereof in word choice, the impact of the use of separatist and souverainiste is negligible when compared with the impact of all Mr. Harper's other comments on the Bloc's alignment with the coalition.

Hilarity!

Make sure you watch the second half

Things They Should Invent: alternate closed captions of the original material, not the interpretation

Right now Gilles Duceppe is speaking on TV in French and being simultaneously interpreted into English (because I'm on the English CBC and I don't know offhand where this is on TV in French).

Simultaneous interpretation is necessarily awkward, and I don't blame the interpreter for this. I'm certainly not good enough to do it. However, it would be easier for me to follow along in French.

My TV has the options for two sets of closed captions: C1 and C2. C1 is regular subtitles, C2 doesn't do anything.

I want C2 to give me the French in cases like this.

To watch for in media spin

I hope media coverage of these speeches points out that Mr. Dion's comments were prepared and pre-recorded without his having heard Mr. Harper's speech, presumably due to television network constraints.

Neither of these gentlemen is especially good at talking to a camera. They're better when talking to actual people.

On terminology

Because I know some people are going to ask me...

According to Termium (the official Government of Canada terminology database, created by professional terminologists), separatist and sovereigntist have separate and non-overlapping. This means the English separatist and the French souverainiste are, strictly speaking, different concepts. However, there is some room for stylistics in translation, so I'm not saying it's inappopriate or incorrect to translate separatist as souverainiste.

I'm only commenting on this because the people on TV seem to think it's meaningful. I have no idea whether or not it's meaningful or, if it is, what it might mean. The Francophone media will most likely be able to comment on this.

Edit: For the googlers, more here.

For reference

The economic statement is here.

Drinking game for the PM's speech tonight

Sip for the following words and any derivatives thereof: separatism, socialism, sponsorship, democracy, Canada

Take two standard drinks if he gets through the whole speech without talking up or improving upon or retracting the economic statement.

Finish the bottle if he resigns.

Even if there's no coalition, you still need the confidence of the House

The more I think about it, the stranger it is that the government is spending so much energy on dissing the idea of an Opposition coalition. Even if for some reason the coalition doesn't happen, it still remains that the economic statement, which is a confidence issue, doesn't have the confidence of the House.

Why aren't they working on selling the economic statement to us, trying to convince us to tell our MPs to let it pass? Or why aren't they working on a new economic statement that is more to everyone's liking? Even if they do convince everyone that the coalition is bad, Parliament isn't going anywhere until this thing or its replacement passes.

Things They Should Invent: smartest person in the room detector

Wouldn't it be awesome if somehow everyone always knew which person in the conversation is most knowledgeable about the topic of conversation?

(Inspired by an earlier attempt at a conversation with someone who's supposed to be smarter than me but in fact wasn't even aware that there WAS an economic statement.)

I feel sorry for Michaëlle Jean

Poor Michaëlle Jean. She's in a no-win situation. There are so few existing precedents they are pratically one-offs if they apply at all to this situation, and no matter what she does some very loud people will view it as partisan and complain that it's inappropriate for an appointee (and a representative of the monarch yet!) to have that kind of power. But she's duty-bound, she has no choice.

Because there's no one clear answer and so little precedent, you'd really have to be the universally-acknowledged single greatest constitutional expert in Canada to have wide credibility here, and Madam Jean is not. Nothing against her, she's an excellent figurehead and knows more about the constitution than I do (and probably does have the very best constitutional experts as her advisors) but the optics are never going to work with someone who isn't an acknowledged expert.

I wonder if Madam Jean has had a chance to talk to the Queen lately? Do Governors General get to talk to the Queen? Her Majesty might have some insight into this situation. I don't know if the UK has ever been in a situation where the Crown has had to decide whether to prorogue Parliament or call an election or let a minority coalition govern, but since the Queen has been head of state since before Madam Jean was even born, she might have given this a bit of thought.

Because every historic political event needs a drinking game

In ascending order of buzz:

1. Drink every time you hear the words King, Byng, Meighan, Miller, Peterson, Rae
2. Add the words: Harper, Dion, Layton, Duceppe
3. Add the words: Chrétien, Broadbent, Ignatieff, Leblanc, Jean
4. Add the words: socialist, democratic, undemocratic, separatist, constitutional crisis, prorogue, economy, stimulus
5. Drink every time you hear the word coalition

Pour celles et ceux de parmi vous qui peuvent lire le français

Chantal Hébert is blogging at L'actualité. She's totally on top of things and very much worth adding to your feed reader for the duration.

Open Letter to the Coalition

Dear Coalition:

You know that history-making resurgence of idealism and hope our neighbours got going on? You can make something similar happen up here. You're already talking a good game, all you gotta do now is walk the talk for a little while. You don't have to walk the talk forever, you might not even have to walk the talk for the timelines you set out today (although it would help if you did.) All you have to do is walk the talk for two consecutive quarters of economic growth. De-recessionize us, play at being grownups for a while, give everyone a chance to look good. Then, if you still miss the old ways, once everyone has had a chance to make any leadership changes they need to, you can allow an election to be triggered. I don't think we'll mind so much.

That's all you have to create hope and make history. It's really not that hard. You can do it!

Why can't people hear past the upspeak?

I've written about upspeak before, but the comments on this Language Log post surprise me (not so much the commenters themselves, but what they are saying about how people in general perceive upspeak). It sounds like some people can't hear beyond the upspeak. They hear upspeak and think "ditz" or "insecure", seemingly without giving a moment's attention to the words being used or the ideas being communicated.

That seems utterly bizarre to me. Why should my intonation blind my interlocutor to the fact that I'm using the words "intonation" and "interlocutor" rather than "how I'm talking" and "the person I'm talking to"? If, instead of "Things They Should Invent", I titled my blog posts with "I wonder if this exists?", why should that affect the perceived merit of my ideas (insofar as my ideas might have merit). Even if upspeak was a sign of insecurity, a useful idea expressed insecurely is still useful. If the solution to all our problems is a red widget and I say "Um, I kinda have an idea? Just putting this out there, I don't know if it's any good, but what if we got a red widget?" how could my uncertainty stop everyone else from immediately making the mental connection that yes, a red widget will solve all our problems?

When someone is talking in your first language, you hear their words and understand the content without any effort unless what they are saying is way too difficult for you. If someone is speaking with a low-prestige accent and clearly communicating good ideas, you still automatically hear the words and understand the ideas and can quickly grok that they know what they're talking about despite their low-prestige accent. It takes no effort to do this in your first language, your brain processes it automatically.

So why doesn't it do the same thing with upspeak?

Analogy for how my atheism works

This analogy may not apply to everyone in the world's atheism, and it obviously won't work with everyone's gender identity. But I'm putting it out there because it might help explain the concept to a lot of people.

I am atheist the same way I am female. I just am. I can't be anything else. I could perhaps pretend to be something else if I wanted to, but that wouldn't actually make me something else.

Some people try to talk me out of my atheism because they perceive there to be a god. But no matter how strongly they believe there is a god, that isn't going to make me capable of the same faith. (Believe me, I've tried.) This is just like how no matter how strongly other people believe themselves to be male, it isn't going to make me male.

Some people try to convince me that I will one day find religious faith on the basis that they themselves used to be atheist and then found religious faith. However, the fact that they found this faith doesn't mean that I will. There are people with female bodies like mine who have come to the realization that they are actually male, but that doesn't mean that I will one day come to the same realization.

Some people tell me that it's irrational to be atheist because one has no way of knowing for certain that there is in fact no god. I could respond to this by citing empirical evidence, but ultimately the fact that it cannot be proven for certain is irrelevant. I simply cannot be anything else because I am incapable of religious faith. Similarly, I can't prove or justify my gender. I could point to empirical evidence of my physiological sex, but I have no way of proving that I do actually identify as female. But I simply cannot be anything else.

Is it really necessary to fellate the microphone?

You often see people singing with their mouth practically on the microphone. Is that really necessary? Why can't they make a microphone that will work maybe six inches from your mouth?

Fuck Christmas

Today is the first day of Advent, and xmas decorations and carols have been infesting public space for a month already.

So here's a musical number from the great Eric Idle. The video is irrelevant (it's the only way I could embed it) and the audio is just as obscene as my subject line.

Eric Idle - Fuck Christmas
by sweetanie

Things They Should Study: why can't parents identify with their kids?

When people become parents, they seem to lose the ability to identify with the child half of the parent-child relationship. Even when thinking in the abstract about situations that don't involve themselves or their kids, they can never seem to get past "How would I feel if I were in that kid's parents' situation?" to reach "How would I feel if I were in that kid's situation?"

This is strange. All parents have been kids. Every parent I've ever talked to can still remember things from when they were kids. They can think about their favourite toy or their first crush or a teacher they hated and remember how they felt in that situation. So why don't they seem able to think about how their child self would have felt in a parent-child situation?

Someone should really study this from a psychological and neurological perspective.

Things I am currently wondering

1. In collective agreement negotiations, the two sides always come to the table with percentages in mind for the economic raise and then negotiate their way to the middle. Why don't you ever hear about them deciding to make the economic increase equal to the consumer price index increase (or, if that's logistically difficult, the previous year's CPI increase and it should all even out in the end?) I know sometimes this isn't appropriate, but it seems to me like for cases where they key issues isn't actually percentages it would save a lot of time to just index to the cost of living and get on with it.

2. In a description of a DVD player: "NTSC/PAL Playback." Does this mean it can play both Region 1 and Region 2 discs?

3. David Miller mentions in passing that he carries his groceries home in a plastic box. I'd love to know the logistics of this, because to me it sounds like the most inconvenient method humanly possible. Doesn't it take both arms? How do you open doors? Doesn't the stuff in the box rattle around? What if you're buying something that's taller than the box? Isn't it difficult to walk with a big box in both arms when it's snowy out? Doesn't it prevent you from carrying an umbrella when it's raining? What if the grocery store isn't your only errand? What do you do with the box until you get to the grocery store? What features or characteristics of the box make it preferable to using some kind of bag?

Things They Should UNinvent: MA in expiry dates

I have several packages of food, meds, etc. with the expiry day "MA 2009".

Is this March or May? How do they expect us to know in a vacuum?

They should use MR for March and MY for may.

Give me a good excuse to tip my supers

My awesome supers have saved my ass quite a few times lately. The internet tells me that it's customary to tip or give a gift to your supers (along with everyone else you've ever met) for xmas. I've never done this before, but I feel moved to do it this year. Thing is, I am (finally, joyfully) completely out of the xmas game. I'm not buying gifts for anyone, with the full consent of all involved. So it really doesn't seem appropriate for my only enactment of a ritual associated with a religion I have rejected to be essentially a tip on a business transaction. (They are awesome and they do save my ass, but they do that for everyone and our relationship is nothing special.)

So what I need is another day of the year I can use to give them a gift or a tip. Something that they make greeting cards for would be convenient because then I could give them a monetary tip (and thoughts on what constitutes an appropriate amount would be helpful - or what constitutes an appropriate gift.)

Thoughts?

Conspiracy theory of the moment

I don't believe this for a second, but it makes a fun conspiracy theory:

This confidence vote pissing match is really a stealth economic stimulus. They want the government to fall to trigger another election, because elections create jobs.

Teach me how condos work

This morning I woke up to find I had no hot water and very little cold water. I called my super and asked what was up, he went and poked around in the bowels of the building and reset a water pump, and then I had hot water and could have a shower. YAY!

What I'm trying to figure out is how would this situation have played out if I lived in a highrise condo?

I know condo owners are responsible for maintenance of their own unit, but this problem wasn't in my unit. It was a common element that's outside my jurisdiction and beyond my diagnostic skills. So do condos have on-site people to handle problems like this? If not, how does it work?

The City of Toronto wants to ban biodegradable plastic bags!

According to today's Globe and Mail, the City of Toronto wants to ban biodegradable plastic bags. Let me repeat that: ban biodegradable plastic bags! You know, the kind that we really should be using for our garbage?

Here's my email to the mayor and my city councillor:

I was shocked to read in today's Globe and Mail that Toronto is thinking of banning biodegradable plastic bags.

As I'm sure you know, most plastic bags end up in the landfill because people use them as garbage bags, to line their trash cans or wrap their green bin waste or clean up after their pets. And, as I'm sure you know, environmentally optimal behaviour would be to use biodegradable garbage bags for this purpose.

Every time a retailer bags a consumer's purchase in a biodegradable plastic bag, they are making environmentally optimal behaviour literally effortless for the consumer. The consumer makes their purchase, gets it bagged as usual, uses the bag for garbage as usual, and that's one less plastic bag in the landfill. The consumer would have to go out of their way to be less environmentally friendly.

By banning biodegradable plastic bags, you would not only be making environmentally optimal behaviour more difficult by requiring consumers to a) purchase biodegradable garbage bags and b) carry reusable bags with them all day every time they might want to pick up a couple of things at the store after work, but you would also be making it ILLEGAL for retailers to show good corporate citizenship by simplifying environmentally optimal behaviour for their customers.

Please do not allow this ridiculous proposal to pass. The last thing you want to do is make environmentally friendly behaviour more difficult.

You know, I'm starting to get really frustrated with having to write to politicians about things that are so bloody obvious.

Things They Should Invent: interbloguality

1. People who are on Twitter and also have a blog (or LJ or something similar) should post their Twitter feed on their blog as a sidebar or something. No, I don't know how to do that, but I have seen it done. Readers who don't work 100% from feeds might not want to have to check two things.

2. Inspired by today's Dear Ellie, people who are trying to meet people on online dating sites should blog, and either put their blog link in their dating profile or share it early on in the getting-to-know-you process. Then they can get a window onto each other's inner life and figure out if they're compatible much more easily than by sharing favourite movies and bands.

The internet just might be complete

Check out the third comment here.

Judith Martin, who writes Miss Manners, likes Eddie Izzard and watches him on YouTube.

Dear Internet: Can you top that?

Waking up

When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I think is "WTF?" and the second thing I think is "Gotta pee!" However, between "WTF?" and "Gotta pee!", I remember everything.

Today is Wednesday. I have to finish that medical file by 3. If the clothes I hung up to dry last night aren't dry yet, I'll wear a black shirt. It's the first week of my current pack of pills. It's supposed to snow today. I ate pierogi last night. DS9 is on tonight. I need to buy cheese and Scrubbing Bubbles. I didn't have time to do a beauty routine last night so I'll have to do it tonight. I'm sore there because I did core strength yesterday. I meant to blog about yesterday's Dear Abby column. Xmas is not at my parents' house this year. Walmart might have those hair curlers I can't find anywhere else. The acne scar on my forehead is almost gone and should only need foundation today. My friend might know that guy in the elephant picture.

In just a few seconds, after having spent 6-8 hours comatose and hallucinating vividly, I know who I am, where I am, and what I have to do. That's really weird if you think about it.

Things I learned today

1. I look like I know where I'm going. I was in a maze of an office building I've never been in before going to an office I'd never been to before, and by the time I got there like three people were following me because they thought I knew how to get to the office.

2. If you stand at the sink in a public bathroom hurriedly applying makeup while appearing to ignore the other people in the bathroom, it won't occur to them that you're eavesdropping. It only works if you do the makeup like you're in a hurry though, so carry a lot of makeup in your purse for situations where you want to eavesdrop.

3. Dan Snaith is even more awesome than I thought.

Small point of order

There is a fanfic writer who goes by Impudent Strumpet. I am not her, she is not me, don't blame her for anything I write here. I hardly ever review fanfic (and have only reviewed fic in the Harry Potter fandom) so in the realm of fanfic it's almost certainly her you're reading, while in the blogosphere it's more likely to be me. (I don't know if she's active in the blogosphere, but our paths haven't crossed yet.) I either link to this blog or don't link to anything. Now that I know there's more than one of us, I will link to this blog in the future.

How my brain works

I can sing along with my background music while typing, even though the words I'm typing are completely different from the words I'm singing. However, I can't do this if I'm trying to harmonize with the music. (Not that I'm especially successful at harmonizing, but that doesn't stop me from trying.)

Hilarity for a lazy Sunday

Funny warning signs

Slight misfire in Dear Abby

Someone writes into Dear Abby saying that parents should teach their teenage daughters how to politely decline a date. (Which I agree with, by the way. I'm still not sure I can do it - I always send out pre-emptive "not interested" signals so I've had very few civilized invitations to practise on. But that assumes that parents can teach their kids things that will work in the kids' social circle. The vast majority of the scripts my parents have given me when I asked for advice have been way off and just gotten me laughed at.)

In reply, Abby says:

If a girl is so eager to please that she doesn't know how to say, "Don't call me" or, "Thank you, but I'm not interested," then how is she going to learn to say, "Do not touch me in that way"?

I don't think this is quite a fair analogy. If you get asked out on a date in a way that's perfectly civilized and appropriate, you don't want to hurt the guy's feelings and it may be that you don't know him very well. But by the time you get to "Don't touch me that way", your thesis is either "Fuck off!" or "Touch me this way instead." If it's "Fuck off!", you don't have to worry so much about his feelings. If it's "Touch me this way instead," you know him well enough that you can say to him "Touch me this way instead," or you can just grab his you-know-what and position yourself for him to verb your noun (assuming he's already expressed enthusiasm for verbing your noun).

"Don't touch me" is a far easier concept to express. Someone who can't quite manage to politely and with no hurt feelings convey "You're a perfectly decent person, the invitation was perfectly appropriate, I'm just not nearly as enthusiastic at the prospect so I'm going to decline," can still manage "Don't touch me!"

I wonder if the US housing market crisis will result in changes to the property tax model?

I know the housing market problems are more of a US thing (but they're so very loud about it!) and I don't know if the property tax system works the same way there, but I'm just braindumping here.

I've never been comfortable with the property tax system. You pay tax that's proportional to the assessed value of your home, but you have no control over the value of your home. Sure, you can reasonably assume it's proportionate to your income upon purchase, but there could be a housing bubble and your assessed taxes could skyrocket while in the meantime you lose your job. People who disagree with me on this tend to argue that you can always access the value of your home (presumably by mortgaging it?) so if your house is worth more you are in fact richer and can in fact afford more taxes. This solution never seemed sustainable to me, but I've never been good at advanced financial management things like that. About all I can handle is I have $X in my bank account, so if the thing I want costs less than $X I can buy it.

But if I'm understanding correctly, this housing crisis thingy seems to be pointing out the very flaws of assuming that a person's property values can be used to calculate how much tax burden they can bear. Maybe they'll make a better system now? I don't mind income tax - after all, it cannot possibly be more than 100% of my income, unlike property tax. I don't mind consumption tax as long as they don't charge it on necessities (although I'd really rather they include it in the sticker prices), and they'd both make budgeting much easier than the current property tax model.

Chickens break up a fight between rabbits

I'm just stealing all Malene Arpe's animal videos this week.

Things They Should Invent: "don't make an example of my death" clause for wills

So it seems the recent age-based restrictions on young drivers are due to lobbying by a father whose son died while driving drunk. Yeah.

This reminded me of a situation near my parents' house. There's a road there that is functionally a minor highway. It's a well-built, well-lit, 80 km/h four-lane divided road with no buildings along it or crossroads, it just serves to link two built-up areas. There's one place along this road where people tend to jaywalk as part of a convenient shortcut. Shortly after I moved away, they installed a pedestrian crossing there - you push a button, stoplights stop traffic, and you can cross. But then someone died from being hit by a car while jaywalking (opting not to use the crosswalk) so they slowed down the speed limit on that section of the road to either 60 or 40, I forget which. It's really weird to drive that slowly in that section. It's awkward and counterintuitive and confuses everyone. Even I, a non-driver who believe that pedestrian precedence over cars is an essential part of forward-looking urban planning, think this is overkill.

So I mentioned to my parents that I've jaywalked through there dozens of times, and I've always done so with the assumption that if I get hit by a car it's my problem. After all, I'm the one jaywalking across an 80 km/h road. I know it's a stupid thing to do, if I decide to do it and the natural consequences occur it serves me right, and it would really piss me off if my personal decision to do something stupid were used to inconvenience everyone else forever. My parents, who have also jaywalked across there dozens if not hundreds of times, agreed with me on this.

However, parents can be weird when it comes to their children's safety, and people can be weird in their grief. Therefore, I'd like to be able to put a legally-enforceable clause in my will saying that if I die while doing something that I know is stupid, I don't want my death to be used to make all kinds of new rules that are going to inconvenience people who are more sensible than me.

Things They DID Invent

1. Me last July. Some USians earlier this week.

2. Me in June 2007. Some iPhone app developer in September 2007.

How to retrofit your highrise for green bin organic waste collection at no cost whatsoever

The green bin organic waste collection program is now being extended to highrises! YAY!

Problem: My building only has one garbage chute! Problem: People aren't going to want to take their organics downstairs and outside every day! Problem: If people don't empty their green bin frequently enough, we'll get infestations! Problem: The outdoor dumpster for organics is going to get really gross really fast!

Solution: use the garbage chute for organics, and put your regular garbage dumpster out back along with the recycling.

That way, the thing that needs to be disposed of most urgently will be the easiest to dispose of. People can throw their organics down the chute every day, and take the recycling and regular waste (neither of which will go smelly or attract pests) out back at their convenience. If the organics dumpster gets smelly or gross or infested, people can still dispose of their organics down the chute without having to go anywhere near it. Since the garbage chute room is indoors, the organics will be indoors where they'll attract fewer pests. And since the smelly pest-attracting garbage is locked away, fewer pests will be attracted to the remaining outdoor dumpster.

All you have to do to make this change is print up a few signs and flyers for your tenants, and if you're a well-run building you already have that in your budget.

Weird

Typealyzer thinks I'm an ISTJ

ISTJ - The Duty Fulfillers

The responsible and hardworking type. They are especially attuned to the details of life and are careful about getting the facts right. Conservative by nature they are often reluctant to take any risks whatsoever.

The Duty Fulfillers are happy to be let alone and to be able to work int heir own pace. They know what they have to do and how to do it.

IRL, I'm right on the threshold between INFJ and INFP

I'm glad Dalton McGuinty isn't my father

"Perhaps the most precious thing we have in society is our children, and that includes our older children," McGuinty said at Queen's Park.

"We owe it to our kids to take the kinds of measures that ensure that they will grow up safe and sound and secure, and if that means a modest restriction on their freedoms until they reach the age of 22, then as a dad, I'm more than prepared to do that."

"As a dad" doesn't get a vote for people over the age of majority. Even my over-protective parents understand that. Dalton McGuinty has, what, four adult children? He should understand this. Since OAC was eliminated, people finish high school at 17 or 18. That means they'd finish a four-year university program at 21 or 22, or a two-year college program at 19 or 20. These aren't children, they're young professionals just starting out. They are legally adults, they need to be treated equally to all other adults rather than put under specific restrictions just because of their age. While it is true that many, if not most, people under 22 haven't fully launched yet, that doesn't justify the law as treating them as less than fully adult. Their not having launched is between them and their parents, a private arrangement between familiy members. My mother does my taxes (Q: Why? A: Because she's a professional and I'm not.) but that doesn't mean it's reasonable for the law to require that people under 30 get their tax return signed by their mother. When my parents travel I help them find information on non-English websites, but that doesn't mean it's reasonable for the law to require that people over 50 get their travel arrangements vetted by a professional translator. Experience-based restrictions? If you must. Age-based restrictions? Completely inappropriate, arbitrarily treats younger adults as subhuman, and violates section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

For example, I'm a horrible, nervous, skittish driver who hasn't been behind the wheel in a decade (aren't you glad?). I didn't finish graduated licencing within the allotted five years, but I have a G1 to use as ID. I also happen to be 27 years old. Under these proposed rules, I could go to one of those crammer driving schools that promises to get you through the road test in 24 hours, pass my G1 exit test and get a G2, and drive around with as many screaming idiots as I can fit in the car. However, a fully-licenced 21-year-old who's been driving every day since they were 16 (and who is, in fact, qualified to be my accompanying driver as I frantically practise for the road test) can't road-trip to the cottage or drive their whole band to the gig in the same van. But if the 21-year-old scootches over, nervous skittish me with a day or two of intensive driving practice and a freshly minted G2 under my belt can drive the whole lot of them.

I'm worried about this government. They seem to be tabling a lot of bills that might sound like a good idea at first glance, but really the issues are much more complex and the simplistic solutions might actually be detrimental. For example, recently they were talking about banning bottled water. Period. Problem: bottled water is also an emergency provision and we'd have enormous potential for disaster if it was banned without contingency plan. They did ban plastic bags at the LCBO without giving any thought to the fact that plastic bags end up in the landfill in their capacity as garbage bags and to actually divert plastic from the landfill they'd need a solution that addresses that. I shouldn't be spotting these problems, the government should be spotting them and addressing them before they even get to me. The government needs to be smarter than me, because, frankly, I'm not that smart! Get on it Mr. McGuinty!

This all came about from lobbying from MADD after some kids died in a car accident. I know it's bad form to speak ill of anti-drunk-driving organizations, but frankly the more I hear from MADD the less respect I have for them. They seem more focused on putting restrictions on people (especially young people) than on actually reducing drunk driving. For example, I distinctly remember in the early part of this decade (either when I was in uni or shortly thereafter) they wanted to ban alcohol on campuses - including res!. Yeah, brilliant thinking there. You've got an area where some of your target audience lives, a lot more of your target audience lives within walking distance, and that probably serves as a transit hub for the community. So make it so your target audience has to go further from their homes and the transit hub if they want to have a drink. Yeah, that's really going to cut down on drunk driving! (To say nothing of making it illegal for on-campus university students to enjoy a legal drink in their homes even though it's perfectly legal for their high-school dropout peers to do the same).

Why don't we ever see them lobbying for things that are non-punitive to prospective drinkers and prospective drivers? For example, why not lobby for the TTC to run the subways after last call? Why not lobby to make it easier to get alcohol permits for non-car-dependent locations than in car-dependent locations? Why not use all their resources to come up with a workable taxi voucher system for those take-the-keys-away situations? (Off the top of my head: 1. The bartender takes your keys and gives you two taxi vouchers - one to take you home tonight, the other so you can collect your car tomorrow. The next day you pay them a nominal fee that's less than the taxi rides would have cost and they give you your keys back. 2. With every purchase of a keg you get a certain number of taxi vouchers. How to fund it? Contributions from MADD, contributions from governments, contributions from alcohol taxes, bulk discounts on taxi vouchers. There are flaws, obviously, but that's at least 50% of the way to a workable system and that's just me off the top of my head in a mid-rant digression. Surely MADD with all their researchers and experts and influence can do better.) If MADD does do things like this and I just haven't noticed them and wasn't able to google them up, please post links in the comments to let me know. I don't want to dislike them, but they seem way more M than ADD and it's getting very difficult for me to have any respect for them.