the blog quebecois

AFP/Yahoo:

Japanese pianist Maiko Ichiyanagi poses with the world's smallest grand piano produced by Japan's toy maker Sega Toys. The "Grand Pianist," which has 88 working keys and can automatically play 100 pre-installed music songs, will go on sale 01 April 2007 with a price of 47,000 yen (400 USD).

Mark Steyn, interviewed on Hugh Hewitt's show last week:

MS...you remember Pat Buchanan's famous thing about ten years ago, that it would be easier for America to assimilate 100,000 Englishmen than 100,000 Zulus?

HH: Oh, I did not hear that, but I'm not surprised Pat said it, yeah.

MS: Pat said it, and I didn't particularly agree with him at the time, because in fact, you know, if you got 100,000 Englishmen on a Saturday night after the pubs closed, you realize that at least the Zulu warriors stopped chanting and go home at 10:00 at night, where as the baying English yabos don't.

I'm guessing that the transcriber didn't know the word "yobbo" and/or misheard it due to Steyn's accent.

Wikipedia:

The term lenticular often refers to a printed image that shows depth or motion as the viewing angle changes. But in general lenticular is a term for the lens effect that creates a convex perspective of multiple images or light sources, but not necessarily a physical printed image. This lenticular technology can be used to create a lenticular image through the process of lenticular printing.

Examples of lenticular printing include flip and animation effects such as the winking eyes that were given as the prize in Cracker Jack snack boxes to modern airport advertising graphics that change their message depending on the viewing angle. This technology was created in the 1940s but has evolved in recent years to show more motion and increased depth. Originally used mostly in novelty items, lenticular prints are now being used as a marketing tool to show products in motion.

I originally thought these were animated .gifs but they're apparently not. To see them in all their lenticulated glory, go here.

Ottawa Sun:

Scouts Canada took a blast from some senators yesterday over allegations the organization has taken a dictatorial turn in managing its operations.

The long-running battle over the soul of Scouts Canada moved to Senate committee chambers as members of a 700-strong renegade group within Scouts made their pitch to stop a bill they say will slam the door on the grassroots.

Bill S-1001 is a controversial piece of legislation that dissident group Scouts eh! claims will be the end to Scouts Canada because it would entrench a top-down corporate structure.

What corporation isn't top-down? And why, exactly, is it any of the Senate's business how an independent company conducts its affairs?

Some senators around the committee table criticized Scouts Canada for lacking democracy.

"I would like to see democracy from the bottom up. I don't see here how an ordinary Scout can break into the circle," said Ontario Liberal Sen. Lorna Milne.

This is rich. A bunch of unelected political hacks stirring from their torpor to lecture people about democracy. Next they'll be preaching about the value of showing up for work.

I'm not sure how Christmas-y it is, but there's snow and ice, so at least it fits the season. A Super Mario Bros. type of side scroller, you'll figure it out soon enough. Best of all, there are 24 levels, so if you conquer just one a day, you'll have guaranteed entertainment up to -- and including -- the holy day itself. Plus four more days after. It's kind of eerie the way that works out, don't you think?

Warning: Music, etc.

Via Ursi's Blog

National Post:

Mr. Dion also challenged reporters to give him a reason to renounce his French citizenship.

During the Liberal leadership campaign, Mr. Dion told CanWest News Service he would deal with his citizenship if it became an issue.

"I think it is part of who I am -- my loyalty for Canada is 100%. I have proven it, I don't need to prove it even more. People know how much I am committed for my country," Mr. Dion said at the time.

The issue appears to be an emotional one for Mr. Dion, who cut off further questions about the matter by repeating the phrase "end of the story" several times. During the media scrum yesterday, he told reporters to "move on" to other questions when it was repeatedly raised.

You wanted a reason? There you have it.

To be sure, the media will lose interest in a few days, like a hyperactive kid wandering away from his new toys on Christmas Day, spotting a shiny new example of Conservative perfidy. Our elites and the opinionators are assuring us that this is a trivial matter, unworthy of further comment.

Which is precisely why it will linger on.

Unlike the things that they think we should be exercised about -- the spat between the PM and the Parliamentary Press Gallery, for example -- this will have a resonance with voters, especially in the West. If it truly is such a non-issue, a trifle, then why won't Dion make the whole thing disappear? What is so precious about his French citizenship that he's not prepared to cast it aside for his bid to run this country?

A more pragmatic politician would have realized this and dealt with it from the start; certainly after the Governor-General's similar problems.

As it is, Dion seems to be burdened with a mulish stubbornness, and a tin ear to boot. If the MSM is inclined to overlook it, and the Tories are too polite (or scared) to bring it up; why, that's where we uncouth bloggers step in to hang it around his neck like the Croix de Guerre.

And contrary to the usual Liberal talking points: "Harper is scary! Bush Bush Bush!" -- this will carry the indisputable sting of truth.

A supercalifragilisticexpialidocious recutting of Mary Poppins to reveal the axe-murderess within. I always knew that Julie Andrews was just plain evil.

Warning: Sounds, and don't blame me if you can't get to sleep tonight.

CTV:

The Conservatives reacted angrily upon being compared to Nazis by a prominent Liberal on Thursday.

Bill Graham, a former cabinet minister who was the interim Grit leader for most of this year, made the remarks in the House of Commons.

He accused the Tories of repeatedly uttering false statements in the Commons about the Liberals' record in government and drew parallels with the infamous Nazi propaganda machine run by Joseph Goebbels.

"The government members in this House behave as if they were reading from a textbook written by Mr. Goebbels when he was preparing for power in Germany,'' Graham said.

"Mr. Goebbels," eh? Puts me in mind of another Mr. Goebbels. Or was that . . . Mr. Gobbles???

Via ThePolitic.com

I had my doubts, but this looks pretty conclusive.

Via Museum of Hoaxes

A few days ago I wrote this about Scouts Canada appearing before a Senate committee. I was working from an Ottawa Sun story that didn't go into great detail about why the Scouts were there. Rather than further research it (are you kidding?) I rushed to print, extrapolating wildly to take a cheap shot at the Senate. I regret this. The first part of it, that is. I live to take cheap shots at the Senate.

Anyway, Senator Joan Fraser left a comment on the post, which I reprint here:

The senators were just doing their job. That is, they were doing a committee study of a bill presented, at the request of Scouts Canada, by Senator Con Di Nino. Committee study is standard practice between 2nd and 3rd reading of any bill. This was the bill to enable the reorganization which the controversy you mention concerned. It has now received third reading and been sent on to the House of Commons for consideration there.

This has left me terribly conflicted. Should I be flattered that Senators take time from their busy schedules to read this fine blog? Or should I be angry that they have enough free time to read this fine blog?

I am torn.

Jack La Lanne, the 92-year-old fitness guru/nutrition cultist/freak of nature, lists on his biography page these, among other, accomplishments:

1974 Age 60: Swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman's Wharf, for a second time handcuffed, shackled and towing a 1,000-pound boat.

1975 Age 61: Swam the length of the Golden Gate Bridge, underwater, for a second time handcuffed, shackled and towing a 1,000-pound boat.

1976 Age 62: Commemorating the "Spirit of '76", swam 1 mile in Long Beach Harbor, handcuffed, shackled and towing 13 boats (representing the 13 original colonies) containing 76 people.

1979 Age 65: Towed 65 boats filled with 6,500-pounds of Lousiana Pacific wood pulp while handcuffed and shackled in Lake Ashinoko, near Tokyo, Japan.

1980 Age 66: Towed 10 boats in North Miami, Florida filled with 77 people for over a mile in less than 1 hour.

1984 Age 70: Handcuffed, shackled and fighting strong winds and currents, towed 70 boats with 70 people from the Queen's Way Bridge in the Long Beach Harbor to the Queen Mary for 1 ½ miles.

Jack, maybe it's not too late to turn your talents toward your true vocation: As a tugboat. Somewhere out there is a Port Authority that needs your services.

Via grow-a-brain

Dual citizenship? Piffle! Are we not men of the world? As Civitatensis discovers, the Liberal Party only scorns and shuns those who hold an alien political philosophy:

To be eligible for membership in the Party, a person must -

(a) be at least 14 years of age;
(b) support the purposes of the Party; [Power, baby, POWER -- ed.]
(c) ordinarily live in Canada;
(d) not be a member of any other federal political party in Canada [emphasis added]

None of that filthy "diversity" here, thank you very much.

I'm not registered as a Conservative, so I decided to find out what the criteria for joining is:

To become a member of the Conservative Party of Canada you must:

Be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada
Actively support the founding principles of the Conservative Party of Canada
Be at least 14 years of age

In fact, the Conservatives generically seem quite open to outsiders. The Alberta Tories, in the vote to replace Ralph Klein, sold $5 memberships to anyone who wanted one. A good many were reportedly bought by Liberals and NDs in an Anybody-But-Ted-Morton drive.

I didn't bother researching the NDP's membership requirements; as far as I know, there's only one inviolable rule: That you are certifiably insane.

Warning: Cheesy music of some sort.

Long-track speed skater Cindy Klassen, who set a Canadian record with five medals at the Torino Olympics, was named the winner of the Lou Marsh Award on Monday.

[...]

The 27-year-old from Winnipeg is the country's most decorated Olympian, with six career medals.

She set a Canadian record at the Games in Italy in February, when she won gold in the 1,500 metres, silver in the 1,000 and team pursuit and bronze in the 3,000 and 5,000.

Her five-medal haul marked the highest total by a female speed skater, surpassing the four gold medals won by Lidiya Skoblikova of Russia at the 1964 Innsbruck Winter Games.

Klassen, who lives in Calgary, previously won bronze in the 3,000 at the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City.

At the risk of sounding like the proverbial turd in the punch bowl (whatever that sounds like), I've got to call "turd in the punch bowl!" on this one.

Klassen was a good but not great player in a fringe sport; noticed, if at all, once every four years. By Olympic standards, Skoblikova's achievement of four golds trumps Klassen's full house, ace high. If I may mangle a metaphor or two.

Basketball's second-year-running MVP Steve Nash and baseball's American League MVP Justin Morneau were far more worthy of consideration.

Simple numbers. Klassen was the best (or second-or-third best) among a relatively-tiny (20,000? 30,000?) group of competitors; Nash and Morneau rose to the top of their respective professions, which boast millions of participants. It's a mug's game to compare one sport to another, but I think there's a difference between footie and football.

My vote would have gone to Nash, a tiny white man who projects his will through forests of big black men.

At least he's finally got a decent haircut. That's gotta count for something.

Nobody is going to mistake Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day for a major satirist, or even a minor humorist. He does, however, affect a breezy, chatty style when writing guest columns for his local newspaper; on this occasion poking a bit of fun at the brutally-cold last couple of weeks in Western Canada. (Full text here.)

Too much levity for media scolds like Greg Weston:

. . . a few days ago, Stock was back in print, this time in his hometown newspaper, making jokes about global warming, a subject about which his government might wish to at least appear serious.

Day began his guest column in the Penticton Western News with this catchy lead: "Hey, who knows? Maybe Al Gore is right." (The former U.S. vice-president, of course, has become the horseman of the global warming apocalypse of melting icecaps and glaciers flooding the Earth.) "Maybe all my constituents living high up ... (in the hills) will soon be sitting on lakeside property as one of the many benefits of global warming," wrote Day, one of Stephen Harper's most senior ministers.

Cue the wailing Greek chorus:

"It reminds me of an episode of the Flintstones,'' said David McGuinty, Liberal MP for Ottawa South. ''Mr. Day clearly does not understand the science of climate change.

[. . .]

Environmentalists said Day's latest views show the government is obsessed with conspiracy theories about Al Gore, the former U.S. vice-president who is touring the world to promote action against global warming. John Bennett, executive director of Climate Action Network, said the government should instead be educating people about climate change to encourage action.

''A federal minister should be taking the threat of climate change far more seriously than this,'' said Bennett, who is also a climate-change policy analyst for the Sierra Club of Canada.

On second thought, Day comes off as a veritable fountain of wit compared to these petty Savonarolas. My personal version of hell involves Weston and McGuinty and Bennett and a supply of booze too paltry to render me insensate.

This will probably be the simplest game you've played this week, or the week before. Click on the blue lettering (It's in Japanese or Chinese or Korean or something) to start; and thereafter anywhere on the screen once you figure the blue balls have achieved a critical mass.

Spare me the snide remarks. There is no other way that I can think of to describe blue balls. They are blue, and they are balls.

Warning: Explosion sounds when things, er, explode.

Globe and Mail:

The current distribution does penalize certain provinces, particularly western provinces, Alberta and B.C., that only have six senators at this time but they have four to five times of the population of New Brunswick or Nova Scotia where they have 10 senators.

Many will share my view that it's not good for the province[s] to have an elected Senate as long as we don't have a change of the number of senators per province.

Such touching solicitude from Citoyen Dion, on why Senate reform is needed; unless someone tries to reform it, in which case it's impossible without opening up the Constitution. (Makes frowny face, shakes head sadly, turns away.)

The blogospheric Line Of The Day appeared in a slightly different context, but it fits: Here's a sack of flour, dirty tragic dying person. Someone will be around to study your plight shortly. (Via SDA.)

Update: Newsworld's top-of-the-hour broadcast: Something to the effect that Harper was determined to push through his changes, even if they would leave the Senate "less accountable and more dysfunctional." (I got that last part verbatim.) So sayeth the CBC.

Sheer, gratuitous editorializing. You must have missed that class at J-school.

Or maybe you learned all too well.

LineRider was a simple but addicting application in which you drew a line and then set a little fellow sledding down it. Some people, in spite of its limited drawing tools and interface, created quite elaborate worlds (Warning: Music) to slalom through. My efforts at it were somewhat less successful, with my sledder crashing and burning at the first opportunity; or else missing a jump and spiralling down, down, down through infinity. Or until I hit the stop button.

LineRider 2 came out a couple of weeks ago, and it's got more and better tools, especially an eraser.

Or (via Ursi's Blog) you could try SkiBattle (pictured), which allows you to add clip art, snow and music. The site isn't complete -- the link to a forum where you can post your creations and discuss them isn't active yet.

I still wipe out on a regular basis, so I'm thinking that there's a big problem with these programs.

Eyezmaze' s latest version of its Make puzzle. This one is actually quite easy to solve -- the picture at left shows the victory screen, which I got to after a couple of tries. I'm sure there's some underlying logic to the thing, though it seems rather inscrutable. But the charm of these is in the quirky, cheerful animations that you'll trigger along the way.

Warning: Music, but you can mute it with a button at the lower right.

I haven't seen this anywhere in the Canadian press. It's from the Opinion Journal's Political Diary from a few days ago. (Pay-subscription link.)

The chancellor of British Columbia's Thompson Rivers University has become a public enemy after uttering judicious words on global warming on a Canadian Broadcasting breakfast show last week. Chancellor Nancy Greene Raine, previously an Olympic skiing champion and national heroine as Canada's official "female athlete of the century," told listeners: "In science, there's almost never black and white. We don't know what next week's weather is going to be. To say in 50 or 100 years, the temperature is going to do this, is a bit of a stretch for me."

The result was a "furor on campus," reports the local Kamloops Daily News. Professors have demanded Ms. Greene Raine's ouster from the ceremonial post. A Canadian government meteorologist "questioned why Greene Raine would offer comment about something on which she is not versed. He noted that no one comes to him for advice on skiing."

In fact, poor Ms. Greene Raine was making exactly the judgment that all citizens and politicians are called upon to make in the global warming debate: How reliable are long-range climate predictions? How should we weigh the costs and benefits of various policy prescriptions? Nor is she alone. Freeman Dyson, the legendary physicist and mathematician, offered similar views in a commencement address at the University of Michigan last year. For that matter, Ms. Greene Raine was kicked off a film of Canadian celebrities talking about global warming in 2005 when the producers discovered she thought spending money on poverty and disease was more urgent than spending money on climate change.

Questions of whether to adapt to climate change or try to prevent it, of how much to spend on CO2 reduction and the like, are questions the public is apparently supposed to shut up about. Message to Ms. Greene Raine and anyone else: Your job is merely to register support for "good" environmentalists versus "bad" skeptics, then submit to whatever policies the Al Gores of the world prescribe for our salvation.

You would think her name alone -- Green(e)-Rain(e) -- should inoculate her from the Gaiazoids' (I figured it's time their religion got a name) righteous fury, but apparently not.

Via Tongue Tied 3

Literally. It's a design concept by Electrolux for a "vacuum shoe," which explains the bulky soles.

This is just plain silly. Everyone knows that the best way to clean dirty floors is to wrap your feet with double-sided tape. Works like a charm, though it is a bit painful to unwrap them.

But six years later, the Sky Dancer was grounded. When spun aloft, the wings -- which felt so soft and cushy in the aisles of Toys "R" Us -- turned into steely-hard child manglers. In 2000, the CPSC announced that over 150 children fell prey to Sky Dancer's helicopter-blade arms and erratic "Oh-Jesus-it's-chasing-me!" flying patterns. Injuries included scratched corneas and temporary blindness, mild concussions, broken ribs and teeth, and facial lacerations that required stitches. Nearly nine million Sky Dancers were eventually recalled, leaving aspiring ballerinas to earn their battle scars the old fashioned way, with an eating disorder.

A funny* look at the worst toys of all time, just in time for those last-minute Xmas purchases.

* "Funny" being a relative term. Several of the toys caused deaths or serious injuries; we, however, will take our funny where we find it.

CBC:

Sperm stocks in Canada are significantly down since the federal government made it illegal to pay men for the donations, and the supply of sperm imported from the U.S. will eventually be cut off, Health Canada says.

It has been illegal to buy sperm or eggs since 2004. The change was part of Canada's new reproductive technology law, which also forbids payment for surrogacy and regulates stem cell research.

There used to be 40 sperm banks in Canada, but that has dwindled to two. It seems without a $75 payment, most Canadian men are not interested in donating to heterosexual couples, single women looking to get pregnant or lesbian couples seeking sperm.

Gee, what a shocker. Who else didn't see this coming? Certainly not the geniuses of the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies, responsible for these new rules.

Assembled in 1989 by the Mulroney Government, the Commission was stacked for the most part with doctrinaire feminists. (Also Maureen McTeer, whose main qualification was that she was apparently tired of bossing Joe around.)

This struck me as odd, since the most interest feminists ever show in children is when they can feed them into government-approved indoctrination centres or abortion-clinic garburators.

Silly me. When they weren't at each others' throats and filing lawsuits hither and yon, the Commissioners came up with the brilliant solution of abolishing children altogether. Too bad for the lesbians, but that's the way the coochie crumbles.

Britain also faces a shortage of sperm donors, but the issue there is not compensation.

Rather, British men are reluctant to donate because of a legislative change that allows children conceived with donated sperm or eggs to learn the name of the donor when they turn 18.

"I think what people worry about is somebody going to come to see me in 10 years and start demanding money," said Mark Jackson of Moss, England, who donates to infertile couples.

"Any donor doesn't need to worry because it is stated in law that you are not the guardian of this child, and you don't owe any money to this child."

Silly you. The law is whatever a judge decides it is on any particular day. And one day -- count on it -- a judge will decide that you owe 18+ years of child support, with interest; plus damages for "emotional abandonment"; and probably a bit of alimony too.

I think it's time for men to discover a new hobby. I'd recommend urban warfare.

but I'm not sure I want to find out. From a collection of truly awful album covers.

CP:

Some Tories found it pretty cheesy when Liberal Leader Stephane Dion named his dog Kyoto.

Now we learn that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has adopted a kitten - an orange tabby called Cheddar. Harper's last cat was killed by a car outside Stornoway three years ago, when the Harper clan was still ensconced in the opposition leader's residence.

Since moving into the prime minister's official digs at 24 Sussex, Harper's wife, Laureen, has been fostering stray cats until permanent homes can be found for them.

Dion, a former environment minister, got himself a Siberian Husky shortly after the Liberals were defeated in last winter's election. He named the dog after the international climate change accord and jokes that the pet's family name is "protocol."

This can mean only one thing. Stephen Harper has some nefarious, secret plan to destroy the Quebec and Ontario dairy marketing boards.

I don't know why I didn't see it before.

MADD Canada has been in the news of late:

Mothers Against Drunk Driving has stopped fundraising efforts at a time when holiday merrymaking means more intoxicated drivers are on the roads.

The organization's efforts have been put on hold following an investigative report by the Toronto Star that claimed just 19 cents from every dollar raised actually goes to victim services and fighting drunk driving.

The report alleges that the majority of donations go to professional telemarketers and people who go door-to-door raising money for the charitable organization.

But Andrew Murie, MADD Canada's CEO, has called the article misleading and said 83.6 per cent of donor money is used on MADD Canada programs.

I don't know if there's any significance to it, but organizations formed to combat drug and alcohol abuse tend to perform poorly in the eyes of charity oversight groups. The American Institute of Philanthropy gives its "A" status to none of them. The Charity Navigator awards MADD's US parent foundation an overall rating of 47.60 (out of 100]; HOPE International and The American Jewish Committee, to choose two others at random, scored 60.68 and 62.54 respectively.

As Steve Janke pointed out a few days ago, single-issue pressure groups inevitably succumb to a sort of drift, in which the original focus gives way to institutional survival.

There's another potential hazard ahead for MADD; namely, its future as a registered charity. I doubt that politicians have any appetite for reviewing it, but bureaucrats are another matter. In 1989 they stripped Greenpeace Canada of its tax-free status on the grounds that it was engaging in too much political lobbying. The rules are somewhat vague and subject to interpretation -- just the way they like it:

The Income Tax Act allows a registered charitable organization or foundation to devote no more than 10% of its resources to political activities so long as the activities are "ancillary and incidental" to the organization’s charitable purposes or activities.

Certainly MADD does seem to devote a lot of time and money pushing for political and legal changes, from installing ignition interlock devices on offenders' cars (and eventually on all cars); to lowering the current 0.08 blood-alcohol limit to 0.05 (the efficacy of which is strongly disputed by the Canada Safety Council ); to increasing taxes on alcohol. It was a major lobbyist behind the government's recent legislation concerning drugs and driving.

MADD would argue that its expensive and slick advertising campaign, which rolls out like clockwork at this time each year, is intended to "educate" the public; yet it is intended to "educate" politicians as well. Does all this cross the line into political activity? I suppose Revenue Canada will be the ultimate judge of that.

You know, for people who insist that they're not wild-eyed neo-prohibitionist zealots, as MADD frequently does . . . ya coulda fooled me:

Egged on by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority is thinking about banning alcohol from commuter trains on the Metro-North and Long Island railroads. "Times have changed and drunk driving is a major concern," says MTA board member Mitch Pally. "People get off the railroad and they get into cars," says Deena Cohen, president of MADD's Long Island chapter. "Somebody is going to get killed."

People also get off airplanes and get into cars, attend sporting events and get into cars, go to rock concerts and get into cars, eat at restaurants and get into cars, and leave bars and get into cars. As a result, somebody is going to get killed. Does that mean alcohol should be banned from all of these places as well?

To further follow the logic, people drink at home and then get into cars. So obviously that's got to stop, too.

I'm sure the WCTU would approve.

To help you get in touch with the materialistic aspects of Christmas, two games (via Ursi's Blog):

In Santa Toss you bring the bling by dropping it down chimneys. (The type of present is pictured on the roof of the next house.)

Snow Line is yet another variant of LineRider. Get the goods by drawing a line to them, and then to the finish line. Warning: Both games have music, but you can mute it in the second. (Speaker button at the top.)

I will leave you to your undignified grubbing for presents, and this blog will go dark for the remainder of the season. Perhaps great and earth-shaking events will compel breaking my silence for a world hungry for my thoughts (Stop laughing. It could happen); but if not, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.