the blog quebecois

Usually the trickiest part of writing a good news story is its opening sentence, which should contain as much information as possible while engaging the reader's attention:

The most important structural element of a story is the lede -- namely contained in the story's first sentence. Lede (pronounced /lid/) is a traditional spelling, from the archaic English[1], used to avoid confusion with the printing press type formerly made from lead, or the typographical term "leading".[2] The lede is usually the first sentence, or in some cases the first two sentences, and is ideally 20-25 words in length. This makes writing a lede an optimization problem, in which the goal is to articulate the most encompassing and interesting statement that a writer can make in one sentence, given the material with which he or she has to work.

Then again, sometimes the story just drops in your lap:

A jazz musician was injured Friday after jumping from a burning motor home driven by a one-time roller skating stripper from Lodi.

Via Dave Barry

Well, this would explain my pathetic traffic. The Chinese government, fearful of my growing reputation for providing utterly unproductive and bourgeois Flash games, has blocked this fine blog. At least that's my interpretation.

The test isn't definitive -- it routes the URL through one server in China and sees if it can load the page, so it's a limited sampling.

Needless to say, I would wear it as a badge of pride that a totalitarian, evil regime would find me subversive enough to censor. In case I haven't been blocked already, I'll just say this: Tiananmen Square -- yay! Falun Gong -- yay! 2008 Olympics -- boo! Mao Tse-tung -- boo!

And speaking of that last example, stop changing the way you spell stuff every couple of years. Why the hell should we care if it's closer to the way you pronounce things?

That should do it.

You can check the status of other sites here.

Via The Presurfer

Headstones of Russian gangsters. These rather garish, laser-etched monuments are quite popular in Russia, and not just with the mob. More pictures here (scroll about halfway down the page).

So far as I know, I'm the first and only researcher to look into this topic; of such vital interest that I'm surprised it hasn't attracted more attention. Or government grants. (Hint, hint.)

Specifically, what I am looking at is the intersection of the set "Craziest Rock Stars" with the set "Rock Stars Who Have Set Themselves On Fire." Using "Michael Jackson" as a control I created a Venn diagram which illustrates the close -- nay, incestuous -- relationship of the two groups.

Clearly more study (and some government grants would be nice) of this phenomenon is required. Did I mention it has potential ties to Global Warming?

Hint, hint.

...phones up the Globe to share every single element of an internal strategic debate over the Liberal ad strategy designed to blunt the effect of a highly successful Conservative ad campaign?

If I were Stéphane Dion or his principal secretary, I'd view this article as my cue to start looking around the Office of the Leader of the Opposition for people to fire. No matter how senior.

-- Paul Wells

Ring! Ring!

"'AlLO? CaMPbEll cLARk? iT Is ME, --"

"Citoyen! I'd recognize that voice anytime. Whatcha' got?"

"yOU reMEmBer wHat We tAlK aBoUt laS' TiME?"

"Sure do. Got a byline out of it and everything."

"wELl, lET mE teLL yoU ThE boSS 'e vERy mAD beCAuSe oF 'dAt."

"Um, Citoyen --"

"t'E bOsS, 'E rEAdy tO fiRE mE, 'e A sTRonG LEadeR 'oo sEt pRiORitY."

"Oh, great. Paranoia and dissociation. Sté -- I mean Citoyen, you didn't--"

" 'dAT's AnoTHEr thINg. WE mEEt aT 'Da uSuAL PLacE?"

"Jeez, you still owe me $200. Give Wells a call, maybe he's got something."

Click!

A guide to interpreting photos on social-networking site Friendster. I would think that it's also applicable to MySpace, Facebook, etc. Some truths are universal.

National Post:

Canada's use of the term "visible minorities" to identify people it considers susceptible to racial discrimination came under fire at the United Nations yesterday - for being racist.

In a report on Ottawa's efforts to eliminate racial discrimination in Canada, the world body's anti-racism watchdog said the words might contravene an international treaty aimed at combatting racism.

Members of the Geneva-based Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination also questioned other terms used by the federal government, among them "ethnocultural communities."

It won't happen until Stephen Harper wins a majority government; but I'll bet when he does he'll tear a page out of Aussie PM Howard's book, who told this klatch of international busybodies to bugger off.

I googled up the Committee and found it stacked with the usual (and with only two women among the sixteen members. Tsk!) crowd from human-rights titans like Algeria, China, Pakistan and Egypt. The US delegate resigned in October of last year, and the Americans haven't bothered to send a replacement.

I would recommend John Bolton. Heh.

A simple little game that will drive you into a homicidal fury.

I'm not sure if that's a recommendation or what.

You push the solid white ball to the target -- the rotating circle with "Next" in its centre. Solid white lines block you and the dark blue spheres suck you into oblivion. You can play it either in "Push" mode, where the number of pushes is tracked or in "Time Attack" mode, where you compete against the clock. (To start either mode, click on the "Level 1" bar at the left of the screen.)

That's it? That's it.

Warning: Music and sound effects, though nothing too obnoxious.

Via Ursi's Blog

lest we be overrun with fearsome creatures like this.

It's actually an ice sculpture. Really. (Full page view here.) The source had no information as to where or when it was constructed, but this New York Times article (reg. required) possibly describes it:

"On cold days, they make sculptures that are more intricate and elegant," Mr. Zehnder explained. "On the hotter days, they have to be more solid." The ideal temperature is 15 to 25 degrees. In 2001, when the temperature hovered at around 15 degrees, a team from the Detroit area created a 12-foot praying mantis with legs no bigger than broomsticks. "A friend of mine, a professor at a community college, pointed out that not only was the sculpture a great piece," Mr. Zehnder said, "but it was anatomically correct."

One of the few TV shows that I make an effort to catch is FOX News Sunday. If I'm busy I'll record it and watch it later. The interviews are first-rate but what really makes it great is its roundtable discussion in the second half of the show. It's invariably interesting and thoughtful.

Also entertaining. Witness this exchange between Washington managing editor Brit Hume and National Public Radio's Juan Williams. They were discussing the Nevada Democrat Party's boycott of a candidates' debate sponsored by FOX:

WILLIAMS: Well, you know, there's just no question, we live in an era of niche journalism. And in niche journalism, Fox is more conservative. And so what you have is a situation here where Fox is the new guy on the block. We're 10 years old.

And you have people then coming along saying, "Well, Fox is practicing a kind of journalism that is preferential towards Republicans or the White House." And I think it's more conservative and contrarian than anything. But that's all true.

But then it comes to the point where -- so what are you going to do? You don't like the kind of broadcasting that Fox does, although it's quite successful, has a legitimate audience -- people are listening and being informed on the basis of Fox journalism, and then you're going to say, "We're not going to play ball with them."

To my mind, that is contrary to the principles that should be advocated by anybody who says they're liberal or progressive -- whatever kind of language they want -- in this country. You want open and full- fledged, full-throated debate. That's what you want.

And nobody said that this wasn't going to be a legitimate debate with real questions that would put candidates in a position to offer real answers. They would be given time.

[moderator Chris] WALLACE: You're fired up.

WILLIAMS: Well, I think it's crazy that you tell the people [to] shut up. I mean, I sometimes have this argument with Brit Hume. I think he's trying to shut me up. But I think it should be liberals who are flying the flag for open and full-throated debate, you know?

HUME: Shut up, Juan.

WILLIAMS: Thank you, man.

(LAUGHTER)

I don't know if it really comes across in black and white; but let me assure you, it was hilarious enough that I paid the painful price of shooting hot coffee out of my nose.

Hume has impeccable comic timing. Unfortunately nobody -- FOX, YouTube or Google -- seems to have the video up.

Yet again I am in possession of a hot story which has eluded the attention of the blogosphere. It reminds me all too well of the critical flaw in Chrétien's "Me too, Bill!" Kosovo War: The failure to appreciate that these people were truly, deeply nuts.

Mind you, the Serbs come off as kind of weird, too:

THE BODY of Slobodan Milosevic, the late president of Serbia and butcher of the Balkans, has suffered the indignity of having a wooden stake driven through the heart in a ritual "vampire exorcist" attack.

Days before the first anniversary of Milosevic's burial in his home town of Pozarevac, a young self-confessed "vampire hunter" and paid-up member of the local chapter of The Resistance, presumably to the Undead, dealt with the mortal remains of the late dictator in the time-honoured Balkan fashion.

The first anniversary of a man's death is a significant date in the Vampire Hunters' Almanac, apparently a well thumbed handbook in Serbia and other, even darker corners of the Balkans. Milosevic's significant anniversary date fell yesterday.

Concerned relatives are anxious to avoid a repeat performance:

Slobodan Milosevic's daughter Marija Milosevic has hired security guards to protect her father's body from vampire hunters.

The self-styled vampire hunters have already made one attempt at driving a wooden stake through the former dictator's heart to 'stop him returning from the dead'.

Oh, sure. Now she thinks of it.

Reuters:

Police found more than 4,000 pieces of lingerie in the home of a Japanese construction worker who used climbing skills developed on his job to steal women's underwear.

Huh! I wish I knew how he did that. Every time I try, I get blocked by the pantyhose.

Stupid pantyhose.

A very well-drawn and witty puzzle. It's in Russian, but the language of point-and-click is the Esperanto of our times.

Speaking of which, click on either of the orange buttons on the splash screen to start.

When you figure out the astonishing trick that gets you past the first page, please send me an email, because I can't for the life of me figure out what it is.

Warning: Music and sfx. You can turn them both off with the speaker button in the bottom left corner.

I recently got an iPod, which meant that I had to iInstall iTunes so that I could load my iMusic (iPromise, I'll iStop doing this iSoon) onto it, or at least that subset of same which iTunes deems acceptable. Apart from that (and the earbuds -- how on earth do you keep them in? Duct tape? Crazy Glue? Roofing nails?) it's a pretty cool gadget, the first Apple product I've bought. Even the packaging is nicely done, and it's possible to open it up without mortally wounding oneself with a utility knife.

Coincidentally, I happened across Maddox's rant (Warning: Language) about Apple. Funny stuff, but also informative, as when he takes a closer look at iTunes' EULA (End User's Licence Agreement, that mainly-unread piece of legal gibberish that you're required to check off on before you can load most commercial software).

I can just imagine Osama in his cave somewhere, clicking, clicking, clicking on iTunes and failing to:

a) build an atomic bomb; or,

b) find his latest podcast.

CBC:

The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld a legal ban on reporting early vote results on federal election nights in regions of the country where the polls are still open.

In a 5-4 decision, the top court ruled the section of the Canada Elections Act that bans the publication of voting results until all federal polls close on election night does not violate the Charter of Rights.

British Columbia software designer Paul Bryan had challenged the 1938 ban, saying modern communications technology, such as the internet, rendered it obsolete.

He argued it violates the Charter of Rights' guarantee of freedom of expression and another section of the Charter that protects freedom of political association.

Federal lawyers argued the law should be maintained to ensure electoral fairness for all Canadians.

The court wrote that the ban is a "reasonable limit" on the Charter because it maintains "informational equality" among voters and contributes to "the fairness and reputation of the electoral system as a whole."

In another case, the Court voted 7-2 to restrict automotive traffic to 8 kph to "avoid scaring the horses."

The crowd at Something Awful uncork their mad MS Paint skillz on the Kama Sutra (or some approximation thereof).

Warning: Mostly tame (and some are nearly-impossible to decipher), but NSFW. Also, if you find yourself being, um, aroused by any of these images, it is time to seek professional help. Seriously.

Back to the trees, Keef!

She lives!

Paul McCartney's estranged wife Heather Mills yesterday insisted she still loved the former Beatle, despite divorce proceedings which have turned ugly in recent months.

She said she would never recover from her relationship with McCartney, 64.

"I will always love Paul. He is the father of my child but I just have to move on and deal with it.

And she's . . . hungry!

But Mills, 39, also said in a separate interview that securing a divorce deal with McCartney was like "getting blood out of a stone".

Hey, don't take my word for it.

Via grow-a-brain

Humor by Simon Rich in The New Yorker, about how children perceive the adult world:

Mr. President! Did you hear about Woodstock?

Woo -- Woodstock? What in God’s name is that?

Apparently, young people hate the war so much they’re willing to participate in a musical sex festival as a protest against it.

Oh, my God. They must really be serious about this whole thing.

That’s not all. Some of them are threatening to join communes: places where they make their own clothing . . . and beat on drums.

Stop the war.

But, Mr. President!

Stop all American wars!

(sighs) Very well, sir. I’ll go tell the generals.

Wow. It’s a good thing those kids decided to go hear music.

Sounds like they all became socialists when they (allegedly) grew up.

The successor to Flash Element Tower Defence, which I linked to
back in January. Same principle -- set up towers to shoot at the invading meanies. I haven't had the time to play with it much, but it seems well done. Some don't like it as much as the original. Others praise it as superior.

See these comment threads at Digg and Fazed or the developers' bulletin board for opinions pro and con and discussions on strategy.

Warning: Music and sound effects. You can mute them with a button at the top right of the screen.

that there's a perfectly innocent and reasonable explanation for this:

What it might be entirely escapes me, though. Other puzzling moments in comic book art here.

Nintendo probably doesn't need my advice, but I think that this little fella would make a tremendous spokesbaby.

Warning: Unearthly laughter. I think the kid might be possessed.

Via kerplonka!

French artists paste giant posters of, from left, a Palestinian Muslim cleric, an Arab Christian priest and an Israeli Jewish rabbi on a separation barrier in the West Bank. The artists are part of the organization "Face2Face," and they hang giant images of Israelis and Palestinians who do similar jobs alongside each other on both sides of the separation barrier. Their aim is to contribute to a better understanding between Israelis and Palestinians.

Because as we all know, if there's one group of people who wouldn't possibly take offence to having a spiritual leader portrayed like he's being molested by a pickle, it's the Palestinians. How they will chuckle at this goofy good-humor!

You can see the Face2Face site here. Hurry, before something unfortunate happens.