the blog quebecois

that started the whole world crying.

I wrote this late Monday night but held off posting it until now:

I judge it time to enter my fearless prediction on the mid-term US elections next week. If I am right, I shall modestly point to it at every opportunity to demonstrate my masterly comprehension of American politics (predicted Bush win in 2000; Republican gains in 2002; Bush's reelection and continued Republican victories in 2004).

On the other hand, if I am wrong, then this post will have safely scrolled off the front page by then, and I can arrange another "accident" with the archives to be sure that it never again sees the light of day.

I think that the GOP holds on to both the Senate and House. The latter might be by the proverbial skin of the teeth, but a victory nonetheless. The polls are tightening up (and Republicans traditionally underpoll) and the Democrats are as usual getting too complacent.

In the meantime, of course, the walking dog-doo magnet John Kerry stepped into another pile of it:

In his Monday appearance at Pasadena City College for Democrat gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides, Kerry delivered several lines, such as Bush had lived in Texas but now "lives in a state of denial."

Then he said: "You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." There were a few polite titters from the audience.

I've met officers, NCOs, and enlisted men from the Canadian, American, British, and German armed forces, and they stack up very favorably against your average Massachusetts senator.

They don't need me to defend them. But I'll take Kerry at his word, that it was merely a botched joke (and a lame one at that).

Inexcusable. Comedy is much too serious a business to be left to amateurs. Politicians especially should be wary about engaging in it. Ronald Reagan and JFK could carry it off (the present occupant of the Oval Office is pretty good, too); John Kerry should outsource any future attempts to India, or Andrew Dice Clay, whichever is funnier.

Kill! Kill! Kill!

But gently, with paintballs.

There don't seem to be any limits on ammo, and you automatically reload, so go crazy.

There's music and sound effects, but the only hazard is collecting virtual welts.

If you want to see people collecting real welts, how about some naked paintball?

Warning: Language, and, er, nudity. I leave it to you to guess the sex of the pantsless participants. You really don't think that women would be this dumb, do you?

Film at 11.

An even more genteel version of paintball. Your goal is to get the red ball to the red square. The ball follows (more or less) the rule of gravity; when you click "Go" or press the spacebar, it drops straight down until it's diverted by one of the white lines.

Here's where you come in. You can add as many lines as you like to steer the ball to its target, making sure it doesn't drop to the bottom of the screen (or touch any of the other edges). The third level is a Rorschach test of sorts. Normal people will see a cuddly bunny. Dirty-minded people might see something else.

It isn't rocket science, but it's a nice way to kill a few minutes. There's music and sfx, which you can turn off via the "Options" menu. You can also design your own levels there.

Amazon allows visitors to its site to give the merchandise descriptive tags. At right, some of the ones applied to Playing With Fire, Kevin (Mr. Britney Spears) Federline's first CD. Judging by the complete list of them, it could well be his last. (The truncated one in the screencap reads in full: Music to make you long for the sweet release of death.)

Via Gadgetopia

New mothers. Always overreacting. Warning: Embedded video and audio.

We had to replace our furnace and hot water tank today. You'd think that with modern technology it'd be a fairly simple thing:

1) Unplug old furnace, tank. (Note: Turn off gas and water before you do this.)
2) Plug in new furnace, tank. (Note: Turn on gas and water after you do this.)

But no, it's never that easy. This is what the process sounds like: BANG BANG BANG BANG. BANG BANG BANG BANGBANGBANG. WHIRR WHIRR BANG BANG. All day long. BANG WHIRR BANG.

I don't know if the installers actually built them from scratch with pieces of scrap metal, but things seem to be humming along nicely now.

Ned Rice in NRO:

As Pelosi told Newsweek recently, “I’m not saying I’m great, I’m just saying I don’t think everybody else is that great, either.” A ringing endorsement, indeed — if one is running, unopposed, for president of a sixth grade class. Presumably as Speaker Pelosi could afford to hire better speechwriters than the hacks who fed her this bon mot: “Mr. President,’ stay the course’ isn’t a strategy, it’s a slogan”— a statement which (apart from its inanity) is, of course, also a slogan. Then there was this inadvertently revealing Pelosi offering: “The gavel of the Speaker of the House is in the hands of special interests, and now [after Democrats take over] it will be in the hands of America’s children.” True in the sense that the gavel would be in the hands of someone with Pelosi’s childishly simplistic view of the world. Politics aside, making someone as inarticulate as Nancy Pelosi the “Speaker” would send a bad message to anyone who cared about speech even in the abstract.

Oh dear. Missouri is up for grabs and I can't bear watching Larry King, David Gergen and Adrianna Huffington picking over the corpse. I will sleep now, with uneasy dreams.

---

Whoops. Virginia just flipped to Webb. Montana isn't reporting in any great depth yet. Even if the Demos take both of those, though, I'm predicting that Missouri and Tennessee hold. Which would leave the Senate as a tie, with Dick Cheney casting the tie-breaking vote. I am guessing that that wouldn't be the favorite part of his duties. I don't think he suffers fools gladly.

---

So. A defeat for the Republicans, but at best a minor victory for the Democrats. Jeff Greenfield just pointed out on CNN that this was the first time since the Senate was elected by popular vote (1924?) that the party which lost one house of Congress didn't also lose the other.

Not what I'd like to have seen, but not an unthinkable result. If Pelosi, et. al. take it as a mandate to go wild with impeachment motions, ultimatums on Iraq, etc., so much the better. They'll pay for it in 2008.

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All over for the Senate. Allen looks like he'll take Kentucky Virginia (I'm always getting those mixed up for some reason); Corker wins in Tennessee. Missouri heavily leaning to Talent.

House: 124 Rep. 144 Dem. Certainly the MSM prediction of a Democratic wave sweeping aside the Republicans isn't going to happen; but it looks like they'll win the House, with a small majority, I'm guessing.

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One of the difficulties for a foreign observer in this type of election is that, as Tip O'Neill famously observed, "all politics is local." It's possible to generalize the mood of the nation in a Presidential race; much more difficult to analyze how it will play out in 435 Congressional districts and 30-odd Senate races.

Speaking of which: House Rep. 56 Dem. 63. Senate Rep. 44 Dem. 41. Gov. -- didn't quite catch the number, but the Democrats seem comfortably ahead.

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Mind you, there's a couple of hockey games tonight, so my attention might be divided. Priorities, people, priorities.

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I hadn't planned to liveblog the elections, and I probably won't have a lot to say about them, but I thought I'd keep a page open in case I have any thoughts. Hey, it's been known to happen.

I remain steadfast to my optimistic prediction of a few days ago. Right now CNN shows Republicans 22 Democrats 32 for the House; Rep 42 Dem 30 in the Senate. Governators -- Rep. 7 Dem. 12.

Newsmax:

One of Saddam Hussein's official hangmen is speaking to the media for the first time - offering a firsthand account of some of the torture techniques he used on Saddam's orders.

Recalling his time working at Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, Abu Hussein [last name withheld] recalled that a new batch of political prisoners was brought in - without being charged with a crime - every week.

Deserters from Iraq's war with Iran faced the firing squad, the hangman told Reuters, while prisoners who had insulted Saddam were hanged because it was more cruel.

Kind of ironic, what? Best get your kicks in playing Saddam Hangman, because I don't think he's going to swing.

I'm starting to smell something in the air, and it isn't because I forgot to shower again:

CBS:

(AP) BAGHDAD Saddam Hussein's former second in command, now a fugitive with a $10 million bounty on his head, has ordered Baath party bosses still in Iraq to cease attacks, according to government and parliamentary officials who claimed knowledge of the developments.

Four officials in the Iraqi government and parliament, each in a position to hear about largely secret efforts to reach accord with members of the Sunni insurgency, said former Iraqi vice president Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri has ordered Baath party bosses still in Iraq to end attacks within the past two days.

[...]

The reported al-Douri order coincided as well with talks currently taking place in Jordan between Americans and insurgent groups, including Baath Party officials, according to several of Iraq's Sunni lawmakers and government officials.

One Sunni lawmaker said the Baathists told U.S. officials they realized they could not take back control of government but that the fighting could not stop without their agreement. The parliament member suggested that Baathists were trying to strike a deal for amnesty or leniency.

My bet is that Saddam and his cohorts go into exile to a Sunni-majority country (Saudi Arabia comes to mind) in exchange for the Baathist militias standing down, backed by American guarantees of security. The Iraq Army and Shia militias with American air and Special Forces support are then free to turn their considerable wrath upon al-Qaeda remnants and other (Syrian and Iranian, mainly) adventurers.

Is it worth releasing one monster to bring an end to the sectarian violence and give the Iraqis time to cobble together a political solution? I've been a firm supporter of the US efforts to liberate the country, but I've come to the conclusion that it should cost as few as possible more American and innocent Iraqi lives.

Wow. I'm not a fan of many editorial cartoonists, but I'll have to make an exception for Nick Anderson of the Houston Chronicle.

I'd never given it much thought, but there's no reason why a talent for caricature and satirical wordplay shouldn't be transferable to a new medium.

Thus, Hillary's Baggage, an animation using 3-D software and set to a parody of the Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps." Very well done.

If you want to get an idea just how humorless Hillary-lovers and Hillary-haters can get, scroll down to read some of the comments.

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Rupert Brooke - 1914

Too late! Too late!

Stone-cold sober as a matter of fact:

Elton John has said organised religion should be banned because it promotes homophobia and turns some people into "hateful lemmings".

"I would ban religion completely, even though there are some wonderful things about it," the singer said in an interview with the Observer newspaper on Sunday.

"Religion has always tried to turn hatred towards gay people. It turns people into hateful lemmings and it is not really compassionate."

Mark Steyn relates this anecdote about the Rocket Man:

No royal scion could get away with carrying on like Sir Elton John. Taking tea on the balcony of his Italian hotel suite a few years back, he became discomposed by the wafting breeze and screamed at the room service waiter, "Can't you do something about this f---in' wind?"

"She's lost it," sighed a member of his entourage. "She's finally lost it."

No, Elton, only God can control the weather. Of course, there are those who think that the government can control it, but they tend to be even more delusional than you.

I've done it. I've finally found a game as banal as the potato-peeling game (which is hosted for some inexplicable reason at the Gorillaz animated hiphop group website).

Without further ado, Match The Socks.

Don't worry, there isn't anything hiding behind them. It's a strange site, some kind of an art project, I think. Click on the squiggle at the bottom of the page to see more of it. All SFW, as far as I've looked, but there are sound effects on some pages.

Because they have their priorities in order:

On Thursday, Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, compared climate sceptics to advocates of Islamic terror. Neither, she said, should have access to the media.

Well, that, and because it gives people who look like Princess Anne in drag something to do.

Via Tim Blair

We only laugh because it's true.

Alan Becker's Animator vs. Animation (above) was an amusing story of an animated stick figure at war with its creator, trashing his Flash software in the process. Now he's come out with the sequel, where the little monster destroys the rest of his computer.

Link. Note that it isn't embedded -- you'll need to click on the "watch film" button at the left (and sit through a short commercial) to play it. Warning: Sound effects.

Dreams of travelling through tunnels have deep significance in Freudian psychoanalysis. When they appear in game motifs, though, they mean nothing. Nutting, I tell you.

Apart from the realization that, if you were flying a missile, you wouldn't necessarily want to fly it into a long tube, steering through rotating locks. You'd think that that'd be obvious, but I thought I'd mention it, anyway.

The little thing in a pool of blood is called a "Puki." They are so cute waddling towards you with the aim of ripping your face off. There's some kind of a backstory about them, but I frankly don't believe a word of it.

All I know is that you should kill them before they kill you.

Warning: Some sound effects in both.

A short film by Bruno Bozzetto that apartment dwellers should be able to relate to. There's probably some subtle point to the jets taking off, but it's all a bit over my head.

Warning: Music and sfx.

From our collection of Dubious Hobby Themes: It's The Beatles! No, it's The Who! No, it's Led Zeppelin!

Via The Presurfer

Reuters:

Miss Israel has been given permission not to carry her assault rifle during service in the Israeli army because she says it bruises her legs.

Reigning beauty queen Yael Nezri, a private who recently completed basic training, said the bruises were making it difficult for her to model in photo shoots.

The Jerusalem Post reported that Nezri, 18, had been granted an exemption by her commanders during her two-year army stint.

Huh? The standard Israeli infantry rifle is the M-16, which is about 40 inches in length. If it's slung over your shoulder, unless you've got a freakishly-short torso, the barrel or stock is going to be clanging into your rear end at worst. If you're carrying the rifle in "ready" mode (e.g., on patrol) and you can't stop getting it tangled up with your legs, you're soon going to have bigger problems than a few bruises.

Without a transcript, it's difficult to know if I heard this correctly; but on The National tonight:

UN Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour arrives in Gaza, bringing with her the gays of the outside world . . .

Certainly a dramatic gesture, though I don't know exactly what she was trying to accomplish.

I first saw this nearly two years ago. The consensus then was that it was a one-off art project, but the Optimus keyboard is apparently for real, and shipping possibly this year or early next. It's the work of Moscow's Lebedev Studio, and features programmable LCD screens on the keys that can be mapped to any possible language, or for specific applications, like Photoshop or games like Quake.

The price is still hazy but $300-500 seems to be the general range. More here, and the design team's blog is here. (The design team is here -- and yes, they do look like The Brothers Karamazov.)

The little barbarians! Someone get me Don Cherry's email address.

Warning: Music, "violence."

Ananova:

A marquee hire firm has apologised after telling a New Zealand couple their wedding plans were 'cheap, nasty and tacky'.

The Great Marquee Company emailed Auckland couple Steve Hausman and Paula Brosnahan after they cancelled a wedding marquee, reports the New Zealand Herald.

The firm's office manager, Katrina Jorgensen, wrote: "Your wedding sounded cheap, nasty and tacky anyway, so we only ever considered you time wasters.

"Our marquees are for upper class clients which unfortunately you are not. Why don't you stay within your class levels and buy something from Payless Plastics instead."

Meow.

I've got my china (or china-like) pattern registered at Wal-Mart, in case anyone's interested.

Yes, it's that time of the year again, when we give thanks for all our blessings.

No, wait. It's the Americans who do that. Well, I hope you're happy, you arrogant turkey-murderers.

Me, I celebrate more prosaic matters, such as:

[World Toilet Organization founder Jack] Sim said World Toilet Day could be celebrated in various ways.

"Some do it by cleaning together," he said from Bangkok, where he was touring a school toilet as part of the World Toilet Expo. The WTO [you would think that the World Trade Organization might have a problem with the acronym] was a key organizer of the event, at which hundreds of delegates discussed how to help the more than 2.6 billion people, including 1.9 billion in Asia, without access to proper sanitation.

A worthy goal. To get you in the mood, here's a (well done, considering) game where the object is to manage a public washroom. You are the intrepid attendant, doing battle against dirt and various fecal coliforms (the brown things) while buying new toilets, urinals, and sinks for your clients (the blue things), who tend to befoul the floor otherwise.

I think I got this from Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities, but I'm not sure. I've had the link for awhile, and this is the first chance I've been able to use it. For that, I too am grateful.

Warning: More-or-less SFW. There's music, which you can mute with a button at the upper right of the screen. It also, at least on my machine, takes a long time to load.

Or when it doesn't, like when this moron breaks into a liquor store.

Neglected to pick up that Thanksgiving turkey, did you? Fear not: For the price of a free Acrobat Reader, some brown paper, and a bit of folding and pasting, this handsome example of turkitude can grace your table. Guaranteed to contain no calories, nor sleep-inducing tryptophan.

(On legal advice, you are strongly advised not to cook the "bird." There is little danger of salmonella poisoning. Depending on where you got the paper, of course.)

He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

Allegedly compiled by high school English teachers, a number of wildly-inappropriate similes taken from student writing. I say allegedly because they're almost too good to be true. Some commenters also expressed doubts. There were claims that they came from the Washington Post, which runs contests soliciting bad writing from its readers; others thought it was the work of Jack Handey.

I had no idea who Handey was, so I googled around to learn that he was is/was a writer/performer for Saturday Night Live. No wonder I didn't know about him. I haven't watched the show since the glory days of John Belushi, et. al. (And having seen some of the same skits since, I realized why they were so hilarious -- because I was stoned out of my mind at the time. Let this be a warning of the dangers of drugs.)

Like Steven Wright, Handey makes genuinely funny absurdist observations:

Even though I was their captive, the Indians allowed me quite a bit of freedom. I could walk freely, make my own meals, and even hurl large rocks at their heads. It was only later that I discovered that they were not Indians at all but only dirty-clothes hampers.

More here.

Via The Presurfer

Free, that is. 450+ freeware utilities and applications for Windows. All the links lead to the developers' websites, so there isn't much worry of spyware or viruses.

I can't vouch for all of them, but I've used quite a few, and they've all performed as advertised.

As a bonus, here's another 400 open-source programs.

Via Gadgetopia

Ugh. What a day. The power was out most of the afternoon, which kind of puts a crimp in one's computer activities. Then the power came back on and the smoke alarm shortly went off in celebration. This is one of the type that runs on the house current and I assumed that it was on a separate circuit. If a fire destroys the breaker panel, you don't want to lose the alarm protection with it. An ear-splitting search for a breaker or fuse for it turned up nothing, though, so it was back to the main panel flicking (the unmarked) switches until I found the one that controlled it.

Then, of course, I had to go and reset all the clocks, etc., that I'd previously reset when the power came back on.

So that you might have some glimpse of the frustration I've had, I drop into your laps The Package. It's a bomb that you've got fifteen minutes to defuse. The picture shows the second screen -- the first requires you to find a 4-digit combination. It's easy, though. Just check each number as you enter it. Once the green light comes on, go to the next dial.

Warning: Music and sfx.

is a German firm that specializes in computer graphics for movies. It's presently working on the upcoming 300, an adaptation of Frank (Sin City) Miller's graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopylae.

A couple of demos, showing various water, smoke and fire effects; and the crash landing of a jet.

National Review Online:

More secrets about [Senator Edward] Kennedy’s collaboration with Moscow became known after the famous defector Vasiliy Mitrokhin smuggled his invaluable archive of secret KGB documents to the West. In 2002, he publicized some of them in The KGB in Afghanistan working paper, published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In 1980 Kennedy attacked President Carter over the latter’s tough opposition to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. As Mitrokhin reveals, the senator had evidently coordinated that with Moscow several weeks before - through Tunney and Egon Bahr, West Germany’s top Social Democrat who often had secret contacts with the KGB.

Then in 1983, according to the notorious KGB document quoted by Sebastian and now by Kengor, Tunney conveyed another secret message from Kennedy to the Soviet leader, communicating to Andropov the senator’s willingness, “in the interest of world peace,” to take some joint measures against “the militaristic policies of Ronald Reagan.” When the KGB received this information, they classified it at the highest possible level - not only as “top secret,” but also as “of special importance” and a “special file.” [...]

I know it's too late to get him for manslaughter and drunk driving; but as I understand it, there's no statute of limitations on treason.

Google News:

Well, something's glowing there. Or maybe he's just one of those guys who likes to walk around with a flashlight under his chin, to make him look more "dangerous."

God knows where they scraped up that picture. The original link shows nothing of the sort.

Reuters:

Chess's world governing body will introduce dope testing at the Asian Games this week, although the sport's top official in Doha said he had no idea how drugs could enhance chess performance.

"I would not know which drug could possibly help a chess player to improve his game," competition manager Yousuf Ahmad Ali said.

Me either. But maybe someone should have tested world champion Vladimir Kramnik before he played a game against the formidable Deep Fritz program a few days ago in Germany (via Colby Cosh):

The diagram shows Kramnik's (playing Black) disastrous 34th move, Qe3. To which Fritz responded, 35. Qh7 mate.

Far be it from me to second-guess a Grandmaster, but I think I know what happened. Most commentators thought the position was at best a draw, but Kramnik was aiming to exchange Queens, to eliminate the most troublesome White piece. From there, his superior Pawn structure (and Bishop vs. Knight on an open board) would have given him a victory in the endgame.

So in search of that goal, he fell victim to something that bites (I am happy to see) even the best players from time to time: Getting so narrowly focused on the immediate tactical situation that you become oblivious to the striking power of the Queen or Bishop on a long diagonal.

You wouldn't think it's easy to lose track of pieces on a 64-square board, but it does happen. (It afflicts players the other way, too -- forgetting that you have a devastating weapon in a far corner.)

Against human players, at least these mistakes will average out over time. Not against machines. They never miss the obvious. *

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* T'was not always thus. In 1977 or thereabouts the first commercially-available chess computer, the Fidelity Chess Challenger, came out. I was in Africa at the time, and two of the stronger players there were two Marines at the US embassy. Let me amend that somewhat. One guy, Dom Caruso from New York, was good. The other, John Hathaway from Texas, was unquestionably the best natural talent I've ever encountered. As I repeatedly nagged reminded him, he easily could qualify as a Master (a designation you earn by playing in officially-rated tournaments) with a bit of work on his opening theory. He would laugh, and then kick my ass all over the board with his deeply flawed opening theory.

Anyway, John ordered one of the machines from the States, and we all eagerly got together when it arrived a few weeks later. John was first to play (well, he did pay for it) and it tidily defeated him. Much nervous laughter. We weren't used to seeing John lose at the chessboard. Dom's up next, with the same result. So it was left to me to reclaim man's honor.

I was about a dozen moves into a standard King-side attack when I got a hunch. I made a move that didn't really make any sense. It didn't damage my position, apart from losing a bit of tempo. (The advantage the White player has by moving first, with the subsequent pressure on Black.) The computer whirred and clicked away for a full minute and then spat out a spectacularly-stupid reply. John and Dom and I looked at the move, then we looked at each other, then we looked at the move again. I checkmated it about four or five turns later.

When I got back to Canada, I immediately bought a Chess Challenger and tried the same stunt. Whoops. It was version 2.0 by then; they'd fixed that bug: It proceeded to stomp me but good.