"The Man"

So the Liberal budget will pass, as we more or less knew it must. the PQ, who cannot be seen to actually agree with the liberals on anything (since they're the opposition), must instead abstain from the vote in sufficient numbers to allow the Liberals to push the budget through. Public gets tax breaks and a bit of education & health spending. Not enough to make any difference, mind you, just enough that neither party needs to accept responsibility for the decline of Quebec health care.

And we may need every penny, if assholes like this continue to mock Darwin. America is so busy locking out the terrorists, they've forgotten to lock in their Typhoid Maries. Here's one case where the almost total lack of air circulation on your average trans-Atlantic passenger jet may have come in handy - slowing the spread of a deadly airborne disease.

There are one or two interesting personal developments at what passes for my place of employment. Boss, having called me into his office this morning and asked me to shut the door, peppered me with a rapid-fire breakdown of several changes that will be coming down the pipe in the days and weeks to come. I won't bore you with all of it, but weighed collectively, the scales seem to tip slightly to the right. Which, if I understand correctly, means six more months of winter.

To the extent any reader of this drivel is capable of giving a shit, let me explain what I do in as vague a manner as possible (to avoid professional and legal repercussions). I work at Company. Company produces digital content for a specific medium. You may already have purchased one or more of our products without even realizing it (unless you're a crotchety old bugger with no interest in this medium, like me).

At Company, I work in the technical department, developing application servers and publishing systems and distribution platforms and revenue-sharing systems and statistical reporting tools, and all manner of Java tchotchkes that appear amazingly, stunningly boring to the uninitiated. Actually, it's not too bad. And I'm moving up in the world, apparently.

Viz.: One of the changes announced to me today was not so much a change as a clarification. It seems "dev team leader" is not a per-project appointment, but an actual job title, and so a person I had previously assumed to be a co-worker actually reports to me. This has supposedly always been the case and I was simply unaware of it until now.

Rest assured, I will make up for lost time. My dictatorial rule will be decisive and merciless.

Ironman

Let me pause before going further, and introduce Ironman. No less deserving of praise than The Boxer (whom I have described elsewhere as something of an amazement), Ironman's a bud, a co-worker, a prince among men. We often enjoy a café-allongé avec lait (It's not as gay as it sounds) at the local Portuguese pastry shop, where we speak of many things (fools and kings), a lot of which will get us sent straight to hell. His sense of humor dovetails nicely with my own, and when we blather, no shortage of lowbrow bon-mots are born. His employees love him, and are planning a monument in his image, to be cast in bronze and erected in the center of his feifdom (the QA and Porting departments here at Company).

One important change is that Ironman who, while technically much higher than myself on the corporate ladder, was not in my direct chain-of-command (and therefore was fair game vis-a-vis the occasional water cooler, "working hard, or hardly working"-type conversation) now assumes responsibility for activities with which I am more than tangentially involved.

This is not so much a promotion for him as it is a reallocation of responsibilities. No one's getting a raise, no one's getting a title change. And for once I'm okay with that.

Ironman, you will now be known as "Boss Jr". How do I feel about this? TBD, as they say.

It is a recurring theme in my parental neuroses that Wife and I are not "active" enough. This sedentary lifestyle of ours, I intermittently obsess, is affecting Son's development. We are setting a bad example. We are creating a Couch Potato. So an announcement on the radio this morning twiddled my knobs sufficiently that I may actually follow up: This Saturday, at Centennial park in Beaconsfield, some sporting goods store will be sponsoring an educational Kayaking "experience" for the whole family.

Whether said experience involves any actual kayaking, or is more "multimedia" in nature, remains to be seen, but wouldn't that be a cool outing for a four-year-old? Kayaking? I can tell you, it'd be pretty cool for a thirty-three-year old. Maybe Son and I will sneak out of the house and give it a go. Wife will absolutely plotz.

Remember that one whitewater rafting day-trip we did Honey? Where you spent the day in the hot tub while I whooped joyfully down the foaming and turbulent Rivière Rouge? It'll be just like that, only more polluted water, and I'll have our child with us in an easily-capsizable kayak! You'll love it!

Maybe we'll just wash the car or something instead.

Unless it rains.

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

The title is a Chomsky gem. A sentence which, while grammatically correct, makes no sense whatsoever (remind you of anything?).

Related: Other languages don't have spelling bees, because they would be too simple. They hold grammar bees, though (cadavre exquis, anyone?). The Boxer is a grammar fiend. She subscribes to a grammar magazine, is a member of a grammar Facebook group. They have tee shirts. God-damn, I hope she never reads this.

In Other News That I'm Not Even Remotely Qualified To Comment On:

Liberals: Tax cuts for everyone!
Public: YAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY!!!!!
PQ: Wait, let's use the money to fund health care instead!
Public: Um. Yay!
Liberals & PQ: We disagree! Time for an election!
Public: wtf?
ADQ: Yay!

"The duty of an opposition is very simple: to oppose everything, and propose nothing" -- The Earl of Derby, British Prime Minister

This adage in mind, the newly-captained PQ appear to be performing their duty admirably. Dumont has to be smarting that the ADQ's best chance at winning an election has come and gone. It is, after all, unlikely that the PQ will soon put another straw man in the captain's chair whose unpopularity could ever approach that of Boisclair, the coke-snorting homosexual.

Let's take a moment here...

I mean, they had to figure that the portion of their voter demographic that would not be alienated by Boisclair's homosexuality (and let me assure you that this is not my personal sticking point), would likely fall to his admitted cocaine use. I mean a simple Venn diagram, a technique imparted to third-graders, could have saved them.

By spinning their budgetary objections as a health-care issue, the PQ have set the stage for a potential victory in a snap election. The only chance the Liberals have to conserve power (albeit in name only), is to come to some agreement.

Honestly, it's a win-win. Either we get tax breaks, or we get better health care. My vote? Tax Break. Here's why:

Quebec has a fairly high tax rate. The old chestnut that we are the highest-taxed nation in the western hemisphere, while not strictly true, certainly corresponds to citizen's feelings on the subject. It hurts. quite a bit.

Quebec's health care system is in need of, if not an overhaul, then at least some major financial shoring-up. On this topic you will hear no disagreement from me. However history has shown us that government spending is as leaky as Montreal's wooden plumbing. My bet is that a three-hundred million injection to the health care budget won't see a lot of improvement on the ground.

Sure, the PQ can walk away saying "Look what we did: We just gave you 300 million dollars! We're heroes!", but what the average shmuck - lying for nineteen hours on the floor of a hallway in Montreal's Royal Vic hospital, for lack of a stretcher, before seeing a doctor - wants to know is: will this reduce waiting times? Will I be able to find a family doctor now? Will I still have to wait in line for six months for an MRI scan to diagnose my tumor? Can I get a fucking bed, or a stretcher, or a chair, or something?

In case you hadn't noticed, I don't know squat about politics. It is that most base profession, vocation of swindlers, sheisters and lawyers that aren't attractive enough for more conventional forms of prostitution. Idealists, believers of a political stripe, such as the Boxer or Delrin, are reserved a special kind of pity (that I'm sure is mutual).

"You poor saps, can't you see it doesn't matter who you vote for, they're going to take your vote, suck some corporate dick for kickbacks, and leave in four years?", I will say, to which the true-believer will respond: "It is your duty, your responsibility, your privilege to vote, to have your voice heard in the public forum, to affect history!". The true-believer will invoke the ghosts of soldiers dead in various wars, who arguably gave their life for my right to contribute in some small, meaningful way to the nation's political destiny.

I mean what do you say to that? I usually just look at the floor and mumble sheepishly.

They will discuss politics over lunch, have their picture taken with their favorite politician. They will volunteer. They will (shudder) make me care.

Truly, there is no worse fate.