Refraction

Looking at the BBC’s summary of the Republican candidates for the presidential nomination, I’m rather struck by the fact that I don’t think any of their views align with mine. “Really?” I thought to myself. “I can’t find anyone who I can vote for in good confidence?” There’s been talk about how polarized and extreme American politics has become, but I didn’t think it’d be this bad.

Of course, then I realized it’s because I’m not a Republican, at all, and I ought to look to Obama for ideals I believe in.

RIP, Jack. You will be missed. I hope your legacy is one of love, hope, and optimism.

(Incidentally, this has made clear to me why I believe charisma is so important in a politician; it’s the ability to engage, to inspire, to unite. If anyone is looking for a political role model, it should be Jack Layton: a man who knew how to play the game, but looked damn good doing it.)

Yes, you could.

I can’t believe I missed the leaders’ debate in French tonight! To be rather honest, politics don’t interest me terribly much, but everything’s better with the addition of French. (De plus je me sens mieux après avoir entendu le français de M. Harper. Ouaiiis c’est injuste et mesquin et tout ça, mais on se moque de lui pour n’importe quoi d’autre.)

I also feel like I should write a letter of thanks to my first high school French language/English grammar teacher. Bien que je pense ne pas avoir beaucoup appris dans son cours de français, ce sont les leçons qu’elle nous a données en grammaire anglaise dont je me sers tout le temps. Comprendre ce que c’est un COD est beaucoup plus facile si on connait déjà “direct objects” en anglais.)

Something only a French prof could say:
“Do you take the bus? I take the bus. It’s lovely! From a linguistic point of view.”
Lui, c’est un homme un peu dingue (comme vous l’avez remarqué, sans doute).

First of all, my eternal gratitude to Petzee, who has invited me to join GMail! Yay! The username? gemtiger. Who said I wasn’t creative? You? Well, you’re right.

In other news, a friend of mine has recently discovered that a certain Canadian Party leader resembles a certain (deceased) right-wing European dictator with a few well-placed scribbles of the pen. It’s really actually quite scary.

Yes, it is pure gold. And it gives me more incentive than ever not to have anything to do with that party. (It helped this morning, when the candidate in my riding for that party came a-knockin’ on my door. Let’s just say there wasn’t a lot of chatting going on. No, there were no shotguns involved.)

But how does one get the word out? We could share the file on KaZaA, Googlebomb it, or simply spam a lot of Canadians. Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages, of course…

Sharing the file on KaZaA is the laziest way, requiring little more than leaving one’s computer on for long periods of time. It’s also the most passive way. Not only does it fail to target Canadians (assuming that citizens of other countries don’t have a great interest in the political shennanigans here), it presumes that users will want to download this file. Unfortunately, there probably aren’t many ways of doing that short of giving it a name completely unrelated to the issue at hand.

Googlebombing is a rather complex process. In order to successfully acheive the level of misdirection necessary…. we’d have to create a lot of webpages. A lot. And it might not work all that well, in any case. Although I’ll admit that it does present a very enticing challenge…

Everyone hates spam. Case closed.

I suppose I could post it here, but I think that contravenes R.S., c. C-34, s. 263 of the Criminal Code of Canada. That’s right, kiddies, I’d be publishing libel. Maximum sentence: five years. By the way, R.S., c. C-34, s. 274 does not save me, since we’re not really commenting on his public conduct… just his looks. “Truth is not libel” doesn’t save me, either. Besides… the feds know where I live! O_o

I guess we’ll just send it as an email forward XP