a wolf angel is not a good angel

I am feeling much healthier now, which is very nice. From a baseline of healthy, I feel terrible; from a baseline of how terrible I felt Tuesday, I feel like I could spend the night dancing. Well, except that I’m way too tired and I don’t like dancing.

It’s snowing here proper, snow that stays and doesn’t melt away, and it’s new and it’s white and it’s no longer sleeting, so I am briefly pleased at how pretty it all is, especially with the sun and the barely below freezing temperatures. (Also pleased at: new hat and gloves and fleecy shawl.)

Apparently reasonable accommodations now mean that we need to say that gender equality is more important than religious freedom (except for Roman Catholics). Charest, in a desperate attempt to buoy support in the rural areas, is planning on tabling a motion to say that gender equality trumps religious freedom, which will mean — well, I don’t know what.

Will I be allowed to say I prefer a female gynecologist? Maybe, but only if I say it’s a personal preference and not a religious requirement? Will I be allowed to wear a hijab, but only if I think it looks cool? Will men be allowed to wear them? I can’t see exactly how this will go, but I look forward to seeing people suing the Roman Catholic church for not allowing women to do something that men are allowed.

It seems to focus on whether you can make a request for a woman/man to test you when you want a driver’s license, which is an oddly specific problem. The other question seems to be whether you can wear obvious religious symbols as a public employee, where obvious religious symbols seem to mean anything other than a cross on a necklace. I look forward to being able to complain if public servants have pictures up with Santa, or wish me happy religious holidays.

Of course, the quotes are always “we want equality, but to not lose our Roman Catholic heritage”, or “we don’t want to see any overt signs of religions, but we’ll just exclude ours and call it culture”.

Like every Canadian, I gloated a bit when Conrad Black was found guilty, even not all on the charges. (I’m also amused that they’re considering revoking the Order of Canada. And that he actually is probably not allowed into Canada at all anymore, what with being a convicted felon.) This rather ruins his social superiority schtick, I should think.

Now, I’m not a fan of his wife, Barbara Amiel — I quite clearly remember the last editorial she had in our paper, where she explained that women rather liked being hit, so why all the fuss about spousal abuse? But still, I don’t think she coerced some poor, innocent, foolish man into using company funds for personal expenses, unlike Christopher Hitchens.

By all accounts, the great real-life tycoon was the merest putty in this dragon lady’s hands; a factor that—for me, at any rate—paradoxically weighs in his favor. He would have been happy enough writing his history books (the one on FDR is by all reports pretty good) and convincing himself that he was advising and influencing those in power. But always the incessant demands, always the cry for newer and better baubles. Who cares about the shareholders when there is a lovely woman’s whim to be gratified? Bourgeois values be damned!

Uh huh. Sure. He ran scads of newspapers with an iron fist, owned large companies, but just couldn’t resist his wife. Poor him! How terrible, to have been forced to break the law! What a horrible woman she is, to an innocent husband like him.

They are predicting a minority government. I don’t know why they didn’t predict this half an hour ago — they say they cannot say who will form the government yet (reasonably enough, Lib and ADQ are very close in number of ridings, and them with PQ are also just about equal in vote share). And I like the surprising changeable numbers here and all — much more interesting than other elections — but you could have predicted this earlier.

OTOH, if I switch the numbers for PQ and ADQ, my estimates were pretty good.

Dear CBC,

Do we really need to hear about how someone is in trouble because the single poll reporting has the votes split 4-3-1? Eight people in a riding of many thousands is not all that meaningful. I’m not a statistician, true, but I am convinced of this fact.

I am pleased to see that the Green party is ahead in one riding — but wait! It’s ahead based on one poll reporting (again): 8-4-3-1. Could you split up “leading” and “leading in any statistically significant fashion”? In the same way, some of the ridings are within 10 votes: if it’s based on one or even two polls this is not so much meaningful. (For one riding, they said “But this is only on 5 [miscalculation, there were 6 votes counted] votes, so maybe we should wait”, but this is only because the person they think will win is behind.

Sincerely,

Me

John F. from Edmonton, Canada writes: Has anyone every conceived of the idea that an English or minority person could every be Premier of Quebec? No way, unless you want to be taken to the back room and shot.

Well, let’s look at the history of premiers in the country:

BC: one Indian (India), no francophones or other minorities.
Alberta: all white anglophones!
Saskatchewan: same!
Manitoba: same!
Ontario: same!
Quebec: a number of bilingual (one parent each) premiers, but no anglophones or other minorities.
NB: back to the white anglophones.
PEI: nope.
NS: nuh uh.
Nfld/Labrador: white and anglo again.

Yukon: possibly a few Inuit, hard to tell.
NWT: primarily Inuit.
Nunavut: just one, Inuit.

So, you know, no Canada doesn’t seem to be great at premiers who differ from “white anglo male”, except in the areas where people are mostly francophone (then we move to white francophone male, or occasionally white bilingual male) or Inuit (Inuit multilingual male). And this is absolutely a problem, but not so much a problem here in particular as a problem everywhere.

Crusty Curmudgeon from Ottawa, Canada writes: I have heard in several of the posts that Quebecers vote strategically. [ . . . ] All work in the rest of Canada will require work permits — and oh, by the way, don’t assume that we need your skills and that a work permit will be rubber stamped.

Except we’re all Canadians and won’t have our citizenship stripped, so no one will actually need a work permit. And like all Canadians, we vote strategically. Everyone does, something which is often noted as a problem in elections.

Also, people, separatist government doesn’t really mean there will be another referedum (please please).

The newest fight on reasonable accomodations: cabanes à sucre without pork. (Well, no: pea soup without pork, and, sometimes, a set of feves aux lard without lard alongside the usual.)

Are they reasonable ways to try and get Muslims, Jews and vegetarians to go sugaring off, or a terrible insult to the Quebecois way of life?

The election is coming up, next week. I am occasionally reading what people have to say, following sporadically the percentages, but mostly ignoring everything. Because, as usual, I want something that mostly requires many, many people to want what I want, and to vote strategically. I sometimes think everyone in this country votes strategically. I am not always sure this is a bad thing.

Montreal has been long neglected, because the PLQ considers it safe, and the PQ considers it pointless. Now suddenly, we have a third candidate, possibly an electable one. If votes from safe ridings — not D’Arcy-McGee safe, but more middle safe — start going away, perhaps the government will be more liable to quit ignoring the city. They can’t ignore it much more, so I don’t think there’s a lot to lose. (I have given up on hoping that the ridings are more or less equal in population, since that will never, ever happen.) In general, I want a minority government, because neither a PQ nor a PLQ majority seems like a good idea at this time.

The candidates are flailing. Boisclair is making stupid comments, and instead of apologising and moving on, he keeps insisting it wasn’t a stupid comment at all. You don’t get to decide what other people find offensive, especially if other people have historically been discriminated against. Even if you think it’s not offensive, your opinion is meaningless. But his actions remind me a lot of Tremblay, and is worrisome: politicians who don’t know how to strategically backtrack make a lot of stupid hubris-related mistakes. The candidate in my riding thinks that there was no genocide in Rwanda, just a lot of people killing each other. I don’t even know how many candidates have been outwardly xenophobic. Reading all of this depresses me too much.

There aren’t many parties to vote for. I won’t vote for a separatist party, so that’s a no on PQ and Quebec Solidaire (I am not sure what else they stand for, but a friend has suggested they are too left wing for even the left wingiest). I am unimpressed with the PLQ and don’t think they deserve my vote. (Amusingly, there are arguments that my candidate has used cocaine and thus is not a good candidate.) The ADQ is too right wing for me. There are a bunch of Christian parties, but I am not Christian and am creeped out by them. I don’t want to vote Marxist-Leninist. So I will vote Green, because who else is left?

I predict a minority government with PLQ in power — Boisclair made another mistake when he swore he would hold a referendum (”public consultation”) even if it were a minority government. Plus, I think he doesn’t play well in the rural areas.

On CBC’s Test the Nation, one of the questions:

If 2 < x < 6 and 4 < y < 6, what is the maximum possible value of x + y?

a. 2
b. 6
c. 10
d. 11

I see something wrong with this question. And not that more accurately it would have been 2<x and x<6, etc.

Update: found a place to complain, which I did. Nothing says procrastination like complaining about a game show on the CBC.

Looking at the forecast, I see three time periods with the extreme cold icon. Okay.

Tues night: -27
Wed day: -13
Wed night: -27

You really lose something with that middle claim.