the blog quebecois

The BBC:

The United Nations has launched an appeal for a record $4.7bn (�2.7bn) to help more than 30 million victims of war, famine and natural disaster.

The amount is equal to global military spending in 48 hours, UN emergency relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland says.

"We can afford to clothe, to feed, to care for all of the children of this world," he told the BBC's World Today.

Would that be before or after your cut?

..."We are asking exactly the amount of 48 hours of military spending in this world, or we're asking for the equivalent of two cups of coffee per rich person."

Here ya go. Hold still, I'll pour another one.

"U.N. Man" rides to the rescue! (Via The London Fog, who appropriately calls the video "ghastly." Warning: music and extremely bad voice acting.)

There is no doubt about it -- the Japanese are a cruel people. Here they are tormenting poor dumb animals.

And here they are tormenting poor dumb me. Warning: decidedly NSFW.

FARK's Photoshopping contest imagining movie posters for modern movies with more modest budgets.

PoliticsWatch:

OTTAWA — Canadian bloggers can breathe a little easier Friday after Canada's chief electoral officer confirmed that he doesn't plan to have a crackdown on political blogs during the election campaign.

Jean-Pierre Kingsley [pictured] said at a press conference in Ottawa that as far as he is concerned political blogs are a form of free expression, not political advertising.

"I don't think that there's going to be a major problem with respect to blogs," Kingsley said in response to a question from PoliticsWatch.

"This is a means where by a lot of people have decided they are going to express themselves

"If a political party or a candidate were to have a blog then that would fall under the financing regime. But if it's the supporters, there are going to be supporters all over for various parties and it's a form of self expression."

I wouldn't trust Kingsley as far as I could throw him; but even he, it seems, understands that a crackdown on political blogs would be an p.r. disaster. However, the piece goes on to note:

One conservative blogger said this week he was warned by someone he knew in government that there could be a problem with blogs that endorse candidates.

The three major political parties all have supporters who are members of a community of bloggers, who share links to other members in the community on what are known as blogrolls. The blogging networks are not directly affiliated with the parties. The Liberals have Liblogs, the Conservatives have The Blogging Tories and the NDP has The Blogging Dippers.

These blogs are made up largely of individual bloggers' analysis and opinions of the latest political developments [and also nude volleyball, don't forget the nude volleyball -- ed.] but some include areas where you can volunteer or donate to the party or help candidates.

Several of the Conservative bloggers even have a slick graphic proclaiming their support for Conservative Leader Stephen Harper.

Brent Colbert, who ran for the Conservative nomination in Halton earlier this year, operates one of the better known Blogging Tory sites, Colbert's Comments - with the catchy slogan "I know I'm right, what about you?"

After Colbert posted about the Liberals' plan not to put much emphasis on blogs in this campaign, Colbert said "an old friend" who works in "official Ottawa" told him "he hoped that I'm not endorsing any candidate in the election campaign on my blog."

When Colbert told him about the Harper graphic the friend suggested he "re-think that."

"I tried to press him for more details but all he could say was for me to be careful," Colbert wrote.

In the same post he later raised concern that the Liberals could try to "use Elections Canada in an attempt to level the playing field" in the blogging community, which is dominated by conservatives, even in Canada.

You wouldn't think that the Liberals could be that stupid; but hey -- there's always hope.

CBC's Rough Cuts ran Naked, a documentary about this silly trend:

Disrobe for dissent, calendars for causes, nudes against nukes. A new phenomenon with old roots is gaining momentum -- busting out, peeling off, and hanging loose, all around the globe.

From Europe to Australia, people of all ages are stripping off their clothes to send messages via the media: "Peace! No Bush! We'd rather go naked than wear fur!"

Since 2001, over 50,000 people have participated in at least 90 nude protest events around the world. At the same time, the �Calendar Girls� of Rylstone, England rocked the world of charitable donations by posing as pin-up girls. These middle-aged moms raised over a million dollars for leukemia, demonstrating what a bit of cheek can do for a cause.

Naked is a thought-provoking and humorous one-hour documentary by Mary Bissell about people who use nudity to affirm their values and fight for their beliefs. From anti-war nude protestors in Marin County, to nudist bicyclists in North Carolina and breast cancer survivors in Calgary, this show reveals the political reasons beneath the very personal act of taking it all off.

I should exempt the breast cancer victims and the English women from my criticism. Those were for personal and charitable, not political, purposes and were discreetly posed. There's a difference between that and marching down the street with your bazongas flapping in tacit support of a dictator.

I've written about this before, when the Dixie Chicks posed nude on a magazine cover during the hoohah that followed their anti-Bush comments.

It's an infantile form of display that supposes that one's argument is so unimpeachable that it requires no elaboration -- or an admission that one has no argument beyond the (imagined) shock and awe of goosepimpled flesh.

I wasn't going to watch it, because most of the women who do this sort of stuff are -- how can I put this gently? -- a bunch of uggos. (Of the men we shall not speak.)

To my surprise, two of the women were strikingly attractive. (I didn't catch their names, or I would have googled around for a picture.) They're sisters -- elegant, poised, and very pretty, in a demure, almost Victorian way. They also had the perkiest, most amazing . . . ringlets.

They claimed that this activity was in no way inconsistent with their self-professed feminism. (One was a Women's Studies student, if I recall.) Much blah-de-blah about the "predatory male gaze," etc. Frankly, I wasn't paying much attention to what they were saying, and none whatsoever when the blouses came off.

The funniest part was when they were speaking to the press after some annoying Vancouver naked bike ride, designed to tie up traffic. There they are, starkers, chatting amiably away when they started yelling at and insulting male spectators who had the temerity to try to take their picture.

I don't get it. They go naked to get attention; then they get miffed because people are paying attention. Much too nuanced for my simple reptilian male brain, I guess.

I suspect that marriage (that evil patriarchal construct) to such an enchanting creature would be possible only with liberal use of duct tape, applied either to her mouth or my ears.

But who can argue with results? These intrepid exhibitionists have an unbroken series of triumphs, from killing off the fur trade, to stopping the Iraq war in its tracks, to electing President Kerry.

What's that? OK, never mind. Newsworld will be rebroadcasting it Tuesday Dec. 6, at 10 p.m. Eastern if you'd like to check out those perky . . . ringlets.

Colby Cosh is out of the country on the Western Standard cruise, so I've taken the liberty of pillaging his archives. Don't anyone tell him.

I was looking for something else entirely (I forget what -- a Google search had tagged Colby's Feb. 2004 archive and I was scrolling through it) when I turned up this:

Attention, old roommates who used to bore me with old war stories of the Vancouver "indie" scene: all is forgiven, many times over. The Pornos are often described as a "power pop" group, but only here do they truly aspire to the label and play in the Weezer League. Footnote: the video is one of the twenty best ever made.

The band he's referring to is The New Pornographers, a critically-acclaimed band that I'd heard of, but never heard. Critically-acclaimed bands don't get much play on Canadian radio, and I've learned to avoid buying critically-acclaimed CDs sight unseen, as it were. I meant to download some tracks but never did get around to it.

But with a recommendation like that, I could tarry no longer. The song is called "All For Swinging You Around," and the video is here. (Second from the top on the right -- the Windows Media link is broken, and the sound on the Quick Time link is too tinny. That leaves the Real Player version.)

As for the song -- well, it's catchy enough, though not that remarkable. However, you'll note that Colby said that the video was one of the twenty best. As it features pretty girls jumping around, I cannot help but agree.

CBC has just announced (Mansbridge in a brief aside -- no mention of it yet on the CBC's site or anywhere else that I can find) that Paul Martin in Toronto tomorrow will call for "a sweeping ban" on handguns. This in practice will amount to confiscation of law-abiding citizens' property, with utterly no effect on crime. It will be wildly applauded by the usual suspects.

If handguns are so dangerous, Prime Minister, then lead the way and instruct your RCMP and JTF2 bodyguards to ditch theirs.

Or is only your plutocratic ass worthy of protection?

ABC News:

Yet despite these and other deprivations, 77 percent of Afghans say their country is headed in the right direction — compared with 30 percent in the vastly better-off United States. Ninety-one percent prefer the current Afghan government to the Taliban regime, and 87 percent call the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban good for their country. Osama bin Laden, for his part, is as unpopular as the Taliban; nine in 10 view him unfavorably.

Progress fuels these views: Despite the country's continued problems, 85 percent of Afghans say living conditions there are better now than they were under the Taliban. Eighty percent cite improved freedom to express political views. And 75 percent say their security from crime and violence has improved as well. After decades of oppression and war, many Afghans see a better life.

Via normblog

Washington Times:

If Washington seems increasingly pessimistic about Iraq these days, Iraqis themselves aren't. In fact, 47 percent of Iraqis surveyed by the International Republican Institute in October said that the country is headed in the right direction (37 percent said it wasn't). That's a higher percentage than last year, when 42 percent of Iraqis thought so (45 percent did not) -- despite the problematic ongoing security problems.

Via protein wisdom

and i can’t climb out of this hole
it’s just like cats in a bowl
see the same old hares
running to the same old holes

dinosaur jr.

Warning: music in second clip; third possibly NSFW, depending on how cool your office is with interspecies miscegenation, or attempts thereof.

A U.S. Marine squad was marching north of Basra when they came upon an Iraqi terrorist, badly injured and unconscious. On the opposite side of the road was an American Marine in similar but less serious state.

The Marine was conscious and alert and as first aid was given to both men, the squad leader asked the injured Marine what had happened.

The Marine reported, �I was heavily armed and moving north along the highway here, and coming south was a heavily armed insurgent. We saw each other and immediately took cover in the ditches along the road.

I yelled to him that Saddam Hussein is a miserable, lowlife dirtbag, and he yelled back that Senator Ted Kennedy is a good-for-nothing, fat, left wing liberal drunk. So I said that Osama Bin Ladin dresses and acts like a frigid, mean spirited woman!�

He retaliated by yelling, �Oh yeah? Well so does Hillary Clinton!�

What we wear is a statement about ourselves; about our hopes, our fears; a message to the world. What is this trying to communicate? It is saying, "Beat me up and steal my lunch-money." No jury would convict me.

Taken from this blóg. It's in Portugese, but I get the feeling that these are supposed to be objets d'art rather than everyday clothing. Still.

(I've really got to come up with some shortened title for these. Acronym? NYWBSOTC?)

The BBC:

The BBC News website's World Affairs correspondent, Paul Reynolds, says the survey shows a degree of optimism at variance with the usual depiction of the country as one in total chaos.

The findings are more in line with the kind of arguments currently being deployed by US President George W Bush, he says.

However, our correspondent adds that critics will claim that the survey proves little beyond showing how resilient Iraqis are at a local level - and that it reveals enough important exceptions to the rosy assessment, especially in the centre of the country, to indicate serious dissatisfaction.

Interviewers found that 71% of those questioned said things were currently very or quite good in their personal lives, while 29% found their lives very or quite bad.

When asked whether their lives would improve in the coming year, 64% said things would be better and 12% said they expected things to be worse.

However, Iraqis appear to have a more negative view of the overall situation in their country, with 53% answering that the situation is bad, and 44% saying it is good.

But they were more hopeful for the future - 69% expect Iraq to improve, while 11% say it will worsen.

In all, 1,711 Iraqis were interviewed throughout the country in October and November 2005.

When asked to choose a priority for the new government due to be formed after this week's elections, 57% wanted to focus on restoring public security.

Removing US-led forces from Iraq came second with 10%, while rebuilding the country's infrastructure was third.

I don't know much about the internal politics of the BBC, but it seems that its coverage on Iraq has become more balanced in recent months. This story has the usual qualifiers and hedging and "experts say" but there's no denying it's substantially positive.

Look at those last numbers -- 57% wanting greater security; 10% insisting the Americans leave. That barely qualifies as random statistical noise; but be assured the CBC, which sees incipient civil war in every carbomb, every noxious minor cleric, will never mention it.

Mariah Carey album covers doctored to meet the sensitivities of the Saudis. I would have gone them one better and bulldozed Mariah herself into a landfill, if only to prevent young Arab minds being poisoned with lyrics like this:

you like this and you know it
caution, it’s so explosive
them chickens is ash and i’m lotion

I'm no expert on Islamic law, but something tells me that any mixture of chickens, ash and lotion is definitely not kosher.

You wouldn't guess it from my name, but I'm actually one-quarter Irish, on my mother's side.

Therefore, by law, I am allowed to watch this and laugh. The rest of you may watch it and laugh (or not), but must afterwards surrender yourselves to your local Ministry of Ethnic Grievances for reprogramming.

Warning: Oirish.

instant karma's gonna get you
gonna knock you right on the head

john lennon

Two Buddhist monks pray in the Wat Tham Yod Thong temple, in the Ratchaburi province, Thailand. Their helmets protecting them in case of falling rocks.

Must wreak havoc with the meditation: "Ommmmmmm Bonk! mmmmmm Bonk! mmm Bonk! Bonk! mmm . . .

Via we make money not art

Well, it made me laugh.

CBC:

Liberal Leader Paul Martin said on Wednesday he's not concerned by what officials in Washington think about his remarks on the campaign trail.

"I am not going to be dictated to as to the subjects I should raise," Martin said at a lumber mill in B.C.

He was responding to comments made by U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins in Ottawa on Tuesday.

Wilkins implicitly rebuked Martin for attacking U.S. policies to score political points, suggesting it could have an effect on the future of the cross-border relationship.

Martin was unapologetic following Wilkins's speech, and came out swinging again on Wednesday. "When it comes to defending Canadian values, when it comes to standing up for Canadian interests, I'm going to call it as I see it," Martin said.

No, you're not defending Canadian "values," unless you count being a moron as among them.

There's a name in business for employees that publically, gratuitously and cynically insult one's biggest customer -- they're called "former employees." Here's hoping we can shortly hang that tag on you.

You're speaking to a bigger audience than you know, Prime Minister. It used to be that Canada-U.S. trade disputes mattered only to Canadians, policy wonks in D.C. and maybe a few U.S. media players close to the border and in the dusty back pages of the Wall Street Journal.

No more. There's this thing called the Internet, and it's spreading your words far and wide. The Drudge Report linked to today's story, and yesterday's; you're not just speaking to your rabidly anti-American base. Hello, Kansas? Toto. Out.

Incidentally, the subject that you seem to be so exercised about -- the softwood lumber dispute -- I doubt you could outline the situation beyond: America bad; Canada good.

Unless you can hack your way through (as of 2001, defunct) verbiage such as (warning: PDF file) this:

in which case you are a far better woodsman than me. Now as I recall, we've had a couple of NAFTA rulings for us; a couple of WTO rulings against us. Don't tell me what to believe, Prime Minister. Tell me what you believe.

While we're discussing dumb plant material, here's Jack Layton:

Vancouver — Canada should threaten tariffs on oil and gas exports to the United States as a way of dealing with the ongoing softwood lumber battle, NDP leader Jack Layton said Saturday.

I don't think so, Jacko. Let's spread the pain around for a change, shall we? How about a nice stiff export duty -- say, $10,000 per vehicle -- on those cars you like to build in Ontariarario.

Just think how pissed the average American is going to be when he finds out that his new Ford Crapmobile is going to cost a wee bit more to drive off the lot. He'll probably bitch and grumble all the way home, then write a stinging letter to his Congressman.

Yeah, that'll get things moving.

Ananova:

I, for one, am getting sick of these Romanians and their dysfunctional sex lives.

The Internets used to be a nice place that you could take your children to, but then they had to show up and ruin everything.

Damn Romanians.

i'm watching myself moving towards this blasphemy
attracted i float nearer and nearer
trying to step aside but my journey ends behind the glass

abigor

Big deal. There's nothing special about moving objects through glass. Even I could walk through a plate glass window.

Doing it without bleeding to death is another matter altogether.

Warning: The typical ooohs! and aaahs! that accompany magic acts; also, the first two clips are mainly in Japanese, though you shouldn't have too much trouble following along.

I don't know anything about the creator of this trompe d'cheese-doodle, but the photograph was taken by Philip Greenspun at the Lapides Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1994.

Via J-Walk Blog

never say forever, cause nothing lasts
dancing with the bones to my buried past
nevermind, there's nothing i can do
bet your life there's something killing you

foo fighters

When Dave Grohl, Nirvana's drummer, formed the Foo Fighters after Kurt Cobain's death, I was intrigued by the name. Obviously it was inspired by what computer programmers know as metasyntactic variables like foo, bar, and not to forget, foobar.

The Jargon File defines them thus:

(1) they are variables in the meta language used to talk about programs etc; (2) they are variables whose values are often variables (as in usages like “the value of f(foo,bar) is the sum of foo and bar”).

Or to put it more simply, scratch terms that you can plug into computer code to demonstrate how it works (or doesn't). Why Grohl wanted to fight metasyntactic variables wasn't clear, but I thought it was a cool name. A bit geeky, but cool.

Imagine my surprise, then, to recently find out that the real origin of it came from WWII radar operators, who used "foo fighters" to describe mysterious traces that couldn't have come from known aircraft. In other words, UFOs. Is that a stupid thing to name a band after, or what?

Notwithstanding that misunderstanding, and Grohl's reputation (despite being a Bush-hating moonbat) as one of the nicest guys in the business, I never really warmed to the Foo Fighters. To be fair, I've haven't seen them live, and the only songs of theirs that I knew were the ones that got radio play; but they seemed almost too well made and stripped of spontaneity. Sort of formulaic, like Tom Petty's gotten to be the last few years.

I might have to rethink that with the release of DOA, the second single from the In Your Honor double album. To those who say "Enough with the crunchy guitar-driven rock already!" I reply: "You can't handle the crunchy guitar-driven rock!"

Or something like that. The video can be seen at the official site here (click on the guitar icon labeled "Foo Player" on the right; then "Video" at the bottom of the window that opens -- probably best for dial-up users); or here if you want a full-screen version. (Fourth down, on the left.)

I have a virtual warehouse of Christmas links, all of which will be worthless a week from now. (Some would say that they're worthless today. Grinches.) So be prepared for a deluge of Xmas entertainment! *

First up is Eyezmaze's (designer of the Grow Cube, and other puzzles) Grow Ornament, in which you decorate a Christmas tree, as depicted at left. To be truthful, I don't know if I solved the puzzle or not, but there's only 6 items to place on the tree, so diligence should be soon rewarded.

Enough of that. Time to shoot elves! And possibly win a Sony PSP! (Note: it's a big file and slow to load. But do you want quality Doom-style elf massacres or not?)

Here's my favorite activity of the season -- playing drunk Santa. (Warning: Santa makes some, uh, interesting sounds.)

* Just so long as I don't have to link more than three things at once. That would interfere with my drunk Santa time.

This lighting display, synchronized to music, has been making the rounds. Some people questioned its veracity; but as Snopes.com documents, it's for real:

This display was the work of Carson Williams, a Mason, Ohio, electrical engineer who spent about three hours sequencing the 88 Light-O-Rama channels that controlled the 16,000 Christmas lights in his annual holiday lighting spectacular (from Christmas 2004). His 2005 display includes over 25,000 lights that he spent nearly two months and $10,000 to hook up. So that the Williams' neighbors aren't disturbed by constant noise, viewers driving by the house are informed by signs to tune in to a signal broadcast over a low-power FM radio station to hear the musical accompaniment.

He explains how he did it (using free and demo software) here.

Here's the same house, set up for different music.

And here's another one that I think is the best of the bunch. No information on where it is, or who built it.

We must remember the primary reason for Christmas -- to get me a new Xbox 360.

However we also should take some time to commemorate the birth of a certain Jew some millenia previous. As an aide-memoire you can download, print out, and assemble these Christmas creches. The one pictured is from a 1940's American design; there are others from Greek, German, and other traditions. Most of them are simple enough for children to cut out and put together.

You'll need a free Adobe Acrobat reader; a color printer and some heavier-grade construction paper. Also you'll need to register at the site.

Like the recut of The Shining, A Christmas Gory reworks a seasonal classic for its own purposes. (For this clip you'll need to select your connection speed -- for the next one, click on its title, the first one listed.)

In the spirit of ecumenism we present Miss Sarah Silverman's Hanukkah lament. (Shall we say that the language is somewhat, ah, irreverent?)

Oh deer. It seems that Mrs. Claus is withholding her charms; Santa is looking for alternatives.
(Warning: Mildly NSFW.)

We sate among the stalls at Bethlehem;
The dumb kine from their fodder turning them,
Softened their horn'd faces,
To almost human gazes
Toward the newly Born:
The simple shepherds from the star-lit brooks
Brought visionary looks,
As yet in their astonished hearing rung
The strange sweet angel-tongue:
The magi of the East, in sandals worn,
Knelt reverent, sweeping round,
With long pale beards, their gifts upon the ground,
The incense, myrrh, and gold
These baby hands were impotent to hold:
So let all earthlies and celestials wait
Upon thy royal state.
Sleep, sleep, my kingly One!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Merry Christmas to all; I'm not sure how much time I'll have next week to post, so a Happy New Year to everyone if I'm not back before then.

Toronto Star:

A high-ranking official within the Liberal Party of Canada resigned today after he made disparaging comments on his blog about NDP Leader Jack Layton and his wife, NDP candidate Olivia Chow.

Mike Klander, executive vice-president of the federal Liberal party's Ontario wing, stepped down after photographs of Chow, the NDP candidate for the Toronto riding of Trinity-Spadina, and a chow chow dog were posted on his blog dated Dec. 9 under the heading ``Separated at Birth."

Klander . . . Khadr? Only a DNA test can tell for sure, but the ol' unibrow never falls far from the tree, if you get my drift.