okay, so i have a question for you all:

how far is too far? ... in the race to be politically correct and/or culturally respectable, how far can you go before you've gone too far?

in this news story Herouxville, Quebec has formalised legislation forbidding people from "ston[ing] women to death in public, burn[ing] them alive or throw[ing] acid on them" is that so bad? or is it only bad because they've directed it at "Immigrants wishing to live in" the town?

is it bad to have a "declaration, which makes clear women are allowed to drive, vote, dance, write checks, dress how they want, work and own property?" ... in a country that currently recognises that women are persons and equal in the eyes of the law etc.? Have they gone too far by making it so obvious?

The councillor who brought this motion forward said the following: "We invite people from all nationalities, all languages, all sexual orientations, whatever, to come live with us, but we want them to know ahead of time how we live," is that unfair? i mean, the point of Canada was for people to escape persecution elsewhere, so oughtn't we to let everyone know they can't persecute people here either?

The article went on to mention that a recent poll found that 59% of Quebecers harboured some kind of racist feelings. but if we were to all look at ourselves, don't we all hold prejudices of some sort? it's part of being human... we discriminate... the same function that allows us to prefer bananas to oranges has led us to prefer some people to other people... i doubt that the rest of Canada is truly any different, and i'd be willing to bet that the number is actually higher than 59%. but so what? Canada is not a utopia, we're just trying to make it more civil and symbiotic, and what's wrong with helping it along?

it just... it bothers me a little bit that, at times, we've (our generation) grown up with this idea of multiculturalism and cultural acceptance, and that we can't make broad, sweeping statements about our own lifestyle here in Canada...

surely the Herouxville people went too far: "regulations say girls and boys can exercise together and people should only be allowed to cover their faces at Halloween. Children must not take weapons to school, it adds, although the Supreme Court of Canada has already ruled that Sikh boys have the right to carry ceremonial daggers" in some regards (i'm not going to say what's right or wrong about making a personal choice to wear a veil), but how far could they have gone before people were outraged? i mean, in all honesty, (aside from the religious reasons as stated above) i'm happy to know that children are not allowed to take weapons to school, kids are dangerous enough with their own two hands... and i'm happy to know that the stoning, immolation and acid burning are not tolerable activities (though it would be best to extend that to both sexes and to personal uses of those activities as well...)

i guess my question, aside from "how far is too far" is simply, how do we make things more symbiotic? how can we live with the western cultural ideas of equality of the sexes, hetero- and homosexual marriages etc. while also encouraging every cultural group and religious organisation to flourish? and where do we draw the line when those two butt heads? to which side to we defer?

... just some early wednesday morning thinking for ya! (or it would've been if the university's internet hadn't crapped out on me... so i saved it for when i got home)

In other news, the canal will officially be completely open as of 6:30am Friday morning (all 7 km). And guess who has Friday off?

"The inside's bigger than the outside"

There's something perfect (and perfectly nerdy) about this particular USB 4-way hub.

You may have heard about Sony BMG's rootkit misadventure. They settled the suit in Canada and recently settled in the US.

The gist here is that if you bought a CD on this list, you're entitled to some part of the settlement (in this case, downloads of MP3s of the albums and, potentially, a cash payment.

The list isn't exactly a goldmine, but I know In Your Honor is on the list (and is the reason I just went through that whole process), and there are a few others that people who might read this may have purchased. Just thought I'd throw it out there.

(Actually, I'm a little ticked to find out that I unluckily bought an album involved in this bullshit. To anyone I loaned that album to, if you popped it in a Windows machine, I apologize.)

in this month's BEAT ROUTE magazine:

Champion City Records interview

Hills Like White Elephants interview

DON'T FORGET, THIS FRIDAY IS THE CHAMPION CITY RECORDS SHOWCASE/DESIDERATA CD RELEASE SHOW!!! every active artist on the Champ roster is going to be playing, so come check out what we've been up to

The gates of Auschwitz were not opened with peace talks. Holland was not liberated by peacekeepers and fascism was not defeated with a deft pen. Time and time again men and women in uniform have laid down their lives in just causes and in an effort to free others from oppression.

Sorry, I edited my hosts file...it turns out that snap.com is on the bad list so I can't even load their website. When I noticed that the feature went live for my page I put off reading more about it. I didn't activate it though.

I think I'm with the group that was mildly entertained by the Snap Preview Anywhere feature. I was indifferent as to whether I wanted to deactivate it or not. But, now that you have brought my attention to the matter I've deactivated the Snap feature on my blog because I agree that it hampers accessibility.

I don't like being tooled by businesses much either, but seeing as how I am disabling the feature now rather than reacting to it at the time it was introduced to my blog says enough of how conscientious I am.

(This doesn't really fit as a comment anywhere on your wordpress, Percy, but it's kind of related to that site in general, so I'll just post it here, seeing as you're likely to read it here.)

P, have you noticed a lot of people down on the Snap Preview Anywhere thing that's now on your blog? In the past couple of days, I've stumbled upon someone declaring a eureka moment upon finding a way to deactivate the preview on Snap.com's FAQ. And then there was this link on digg with a significant number of disgruntled digg users complaining about the preview popup.

Is this purely a Wordpress thing, or was it an option you activated? What are your thoughts on the feature. Personally, I could take it or leave it, but I'm curious about how you feel about it.

It's not America's Army.

Jere knows.

For those interested this is a passage from Issac Asimov's story "The last question"

More info here