the blog quebecois

Jihad Watch:

The first use of the word that I have been able to trace, is from 7 July 2005, in a comment on this website, Jihadwatch.org.

Here, a person calling himself Sheik Canuck, writes in a comment to an article on Muslims' positive reaction to the Islamic suicide bombings in London that same day:

"I don't have islamophobia, I have islamoNausea, I'm sick of them all."

“President Kennedy was in office for 1,036 days, and during that time there were about 18 million women in the U.S. between the ages of 18 and 24,” said the study’s co-author, Annette Ballerstrom, a professor of physics at the University of California-San Francisco. “For him to have slept with all 18 million of them, he would have had to have sex 17,324 times a day. Even conceding JFK took part in threesomes, that’s just ridiculous.

“We believe 6,000 times a day is the maximum,” she added. “So that’s, like, 6.2 million, tops.”

National Post:

“What they’re saying now is that basically it’s OK to make use (of information obtained through torture) and they’ve issued a directive to that effect,” Harris said following question period Tuesday. “We think that’s wrong and that it amounts to an endorsement of the use of torture as a matter of public policy. It amounts to a support for the use of torture.”

Citing the Maher Arar case — which resulted in Justice Dennis O’Connor of the Ontario Court of Appeal recommending that all federal policies include directions aimed at eliminating any possible Canadian complicity in torture — Harris said the December 2010 directive falls far short of that goal.

“We’re concerned this government is endorsing a morally repugnant behaviour that is illegal under international law and contrary to the Charter of Rights,” he said.

There was a proposal to subject terrorist prisoners to the collected screeches of Nycole Turmel, but saner CSIS officials recognized that this would be contrary to the Geneva Conventions and devastating to the poor interrogators who'd be forced to listen to her inane ramblings. Pulling out fingernails was correctly seen as a more humane alternative.

I have no idea what this one's about, as evidenced by my doubling up on every single lyric, waiting for inspiration (it never does arrive). Musically, though, I like it, especially the bouncy bass line I came up with for it. (I am alerted by Twitter from the Guild of Failed Bassists ithat the adjective "bouncy" to describe a bass style is "gayer than a titmouse in pantyhose and heels," and is actually illegal in some jurisdictions. So I will abide by their preferred description, "perky.")

So, in summary: A song, titled "Style over Substance" that is indeed without substance, and all about style. A very "meta" concept, now that I think of it.

National Post:

On Tuesday, the Opposition rejected Toews’ characterization.

Holding up his BlackBerry, NDP digital critic Charlie Angus said the bill would undermine the privacy of average Canadians.

“Now, every single Canadian citizen is walking around with an electronic prisoner’s bracelet,” Angus said after the tabling of the bill.

So that's what you're calling your Blackberry these days, Charlie? Helluva sales pitch. I'm sure AIM appreciates it.

As to the substance of Toews legislation: Meh.

Repeat after me -- the police are not your friend. The government is not your friend.

TrueCrypt is your friend. My password is estimated to take about 60 quadrillion years for a desktop PC to crack; a supercomputer might shave a few quadrillion off, but it still would take place sometime after the death of the universe and/or Lizzie May being elected PM.

Huffington Post:

Katimavik, the youth service program championed by former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, is on the Conservative government’s chopping block, The Huffington Post Canada has learned.

Ricochet:

You have to hand it to Barack Obama. He has unmasked in the most thoroughgoing way the despotic propensities of the administrative entitlements state and of the Democratic Party. And now he has done something similar to the hierarchy of the American Catholic Church. At the prospect that institutions associated with the Catholic Church would be required to offer to their employees health insurance covering contraception and abortifacients, the bishops, priests, and nuns scream bloody murder. But they raise no objection at all to the fact that Catholic employers and corporations, large and small, owned wholly or partially by Roman Catholics will be required to do the same.

The freedom of the church as an institution to distance itself from that which its doctrines decry as morally wrong is considered sacrosanct. The liberty of its members – not to mention the liberty belonging to the adherents of other Christian sects, to Jews, Muslims, and non-believers – to do the same they are perfectly willing to sacrifice.

A long but very readable essay by Paul A. Rahe, Professor of History at Hillsdale College.

Via Ace Of Spades HQ

This was about a girl named Amy that I knew in Africa. A lovely girl, well worth a song or three thousand. But more importantly from a songwriter's perspective, "Amy" is much like "June" -- it rhymes with everything. As I would go on to demonstrate. Interesting historical note: I do believe I was the first to use the word "flamed" -- "Amy, you flamed me" as a verb when I wrote the song back in early 1978. (Wikipedia cites it thus:

The term "flaming" may originate from The Hacker's Dictionary[15], which in 1983 defined it as "to speak rabidly or incessantly on an uninteresting topic or with a patently ridiculous attitude". The meaning of the word has diverged from this definition since then.

I don't think I had that, or later definitions in mind. I think I intended it as "inflamed" but couldn't handle the extra syllable. I might have been hoping that the words would be synonymous, something like "flammable" and "inflammable."

At any rate, this is the demo I did of it (I don't think my cousin and I ever worked on it together). Not much of a song -- just a couple of verses and a chorus. Thinking to expand it, I came up with the idea of tacking on a fragment (with equally atrocious lyrics) written more-or-less contemporaneously. Sometimes this technique (of yoking together similar songs) works; other times it's like placing a big red clown nose on the Mona Lisa (or onto a black velvet Elvis painting if you weren't too enthralled with the original).

I might be biased, but I think it turned out well. In the second half, the guitars gradually drop away, leaving the vocals to finish a cappella. And because the tracks are quite a bit quieter, I was able to add four or five overdubs, leading to some interesting effects.

Previous: Amy

Blackboards In Porn (All pictures SFW.):

Music – introductory level

The treble clefs have been beautifully drawn, but there is no hiding some fundamental errors on this blackboard.

Firstly, the time signature is written as both ‘4/4’ and ‘c’. This is tautologous as ‘c’ means common time (4/4), so just one of these will do. Also, there is no need to put the time signature on every line unless it has changed, and there are definitely no mixed meters in Mary Had a Little Lamb.

There is a good attempt at an explanation of the different lengths of notes, though there are actually no quavers in this particular piece, so the teacher might be introducing the concept too early. The dotted minim might not be necessary either, and it is unclear what the minim with a quaver flag is meant to be. The teacher should also draw a semibreve for the last note ('snow').

The biggest error, however, is that each stave has only four lines instead of five. This would make it very difficult for the students to know which notes to play. Reading from the bottom, the first notes would be B A G A | B B B, which sounds correct. But reading from the top, the notes would be D C B C | D D D, which sounds wrong as there is only a semitone between the second and third notes. Imagine if half the class were playing one version and the other half the other – it would sound terrible and the class’s confidence might be badly affected if they felt they couldn’t master even this simple melody. (To be honest, when teaching this level of music it inevitably sounds awful when played tutti, so the teacher really isn’t doing his ears any favours here.)

An experienced musician would see that the positioning of the treble clef tells us which line is G (hence its alternative name of the G-clef), but it is unlikely that students of this level would know that. After adding the missing line to the top of the stave, the tune itself is basically correct, though usually the last two notes of bar four go up (to D in this case). The fact that the last note is a G helps to indicate that this version is in the key of G so needs a # sign on the F line just after the treble clef.

A good mnemonic for remembering the notes on the treble clef is, reading from the bottom line, Every Good Boy Deserves Football. Or, perhaps in the case of this classroom, Flagellation.

5/10 A good effort, marred by a silly error.

At last, someone is paying attention to these long-overlooked details!

Richard Fernandez:

One of the reasons conservatives do not as well as the Left in areas like Media Matters is that most of them have a life. You know, they want to go bowling or have a barbecue with the family or maybe get some sleep. But on the Left, endless and tireless conspiracy is the stuff of life. That is living. If you’re not meeting, not connecting, not watching, then you’re not alive. J.R.R. Tolkien, who was ahead of most of us in such matters, remarks that the Mouth of Sauron was once a personality who eventually got too absorbed in his work to see a dentist. He

"… entered the service of the Dark Tower when it first rose again. His name is remembered in no tale, for he himself had forgotten it."

You would too if you had to watch kids' lunches and chase every shadow. The requirements eventually grow so large that even the Eye of Soros cannot cope. The number of minions who must daily toil in this seething mess to discern and implement their Master’s Will is enormous. And sooner or later, they will start getting in each other’s way. That is directly reflected in the costs of implementing every new program. Obamacare, for example, will wind up becoming incredibly expensive simply because of the cost of its impositions. Left to itself, it will expand and expand and explode.

Dr. Helen Smith:

Why does this campaign support misandry to make a point about neutering pets? The actress does a little laugh in the commercial, telling people she is not serious, but frankly, the only people who would find this funny are man-hating women and the Uncle Tims who support them (of which there are many) like her already neutered husband who is in the PSA retrieving what are left of his balls for the night. Now, that looks pretty appropriate. I would say that, like the neutered dog on Heigl’s lap, she keeps her husband on a pretty short leash.

In retaliation, I shall never watch an episode of Grey's Anatomy again. (To be sure, I didn't watch it previously, but now I mean it.)

Sun News:

EDMONTON - A decision to drop provincial support for the proposed $7 billion Alberta First Nations Energy Centre had taxpayer interests in mind, a spokesman for Alberta Energy said Friday.

"There was just too high a degree of uncertainty around it. It was too great a risk for government to take on behalf of taxpayers," said Bart Johnson.

In a meeting Feb. 8 with the Grand Treaty Chiefs, Alberta Energy Minister Ted Morton said the province couldn't commit to the Teedrum Inc., project not knowing what the ultimate costs and benefits would be, nor if the project was viable.

"It's a huge investment, and if government is going to get involved, then we need the assurance that it's viable," Johnson said.

I'd be interested in seeing that "business plan." I'll bet it looks something like:

1) Give us seven billion dollars. No, wait. Make it $10 billion. Stuff happens.

2) ?????????

3) Profit!

Did you know that cats can be remarkably passive-aggressive?

After conducting extensive voice analysis on the alleged "robo-calls," I have come to the definition that they were placed not by a machine, but by some person. A person who is a sworn enemy of Stephen Harper. A person with raw animal cunning and a calculated streak of viciousness. A person who can expertly imitate a defective robot.

It can be none other than this person.

When Beethoven passed away, he was buried in a churchyard.

A couple of days later, the town drunk was walking through the
cemetery and heard some strange noise coming from the area where
Beethoven was buried. Terrified, the drunk ran and got the priest
to come and listen to it. The priest bent close to the grave and
heard some faint, unrecognizable music coming from the grave.

Frightened, the priest ran and got the town magistrate.

When the magistrate arrived, he bent his ear to the grave,
listened for a moment, and said, "Ah, yes, that's Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony, being played backwards."

He listened a while longer, and said, "There's the Eighth
Symphony, and it's backwards, too. Most puzzling." So the
magistrate kept listening, "There's the Seventh... the Sixth...
the Fifth..."

Suddenly the realisation of what was happening dawned on the
magistrate. He stood up and announced to the crowd that had
gathered in the cemetary,