@Cerberus My take on it is she 1. was right, 2. is over-sensitive, 3. over-reacted, and posting that photo was out of line. She should have just spoken to them, like she's advocated doing on her own blog. And that guy's boss probably shouldn't have fired him unless his job is supposed to be a perfectly shiny company face, i.e. he must, as part of his job, avoid any semblance of impropriety. My guess is that's not the case, so WTF they fired him, who knows. They overreacted too.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 But she is still wrong for two things she did: 1.) taking offence at some silly joke that really she should have ignored. It wasn't directed at her. Okay, if they were really loud, she could have told them to knock it off; 2.) taking a picture of them and trying to shame them for something that is in no way a serious problem.
@Cerberus I'm not going to get into the whole question of taking offense at sexist jokes. I know you don't care about jokes no matter how offensive. Some people do, because they perceive it as a larger problem of (whatever the offensive subject is)
@Cerberus Yes, but to fire her? Seriously, I'd just tell her to publicly apologize and to knock it off.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Perhaps. You know, I feel there is more to it. That we don't know all the details. For example, how loud were these guys, what did they say exactly, and what reasons were given for firing him, and her?
@Cerberus Yeah it's possible she was annoying at work and this put her over the top. If what I've read is true, she is like Seinfeld's uncle, who takes everything that goes wrong against him as a sign of antisemitism.
Which isn't to say that she isn't right sometimes.
I feel that tolerance is extremely important. As long as people don't do something to harm you personally, you need very good reasons to restrict their freedom.
@Cerberus ok. Next: "I read your paper," she purred [what possibilities are ther to put here to bring in the following?] "_continuation of purring person's speech"
@skopp You mean, like this? "I've read your paper," she purred, stroking her fingers along the top of the desk. "I found your conclusions... exciting."
@Cerberus well, not exactly. they are, technically, just MPs like the rest. They get elected in their own riding, or else they can't sit in parliament. But everyone recognizes that the PM is an important post, and the party stands or falls by its PM, usually. In her case, the party fell: from a majority to 2 seats.
@Cerberus There was strong dissatisfaction with the incumbent party and she campaigned poorly. Despite having an approval rating of 51% before the campaign started (a record high for any PM).
That, combined with a relatively new party in the West and the Bloc Quebecois in Quebec, meant that the conservative vote was split, and the Liberal party won everything.
Since then, the Reform Party renamed itself to the "Canadian Conservative-Reform Aliance Party", or "CCRAP". Then they IMMEDIATELY renamed themselves to the "Canadian Alliance Party"; that party gained enough power to displace the old Progressive Conservative party, until they eventually merged into the Conservative Party of Canada
@Cerberus In Canada that has not been the case. Most of our governments are formed by majorities. So the only way "more" parties helps is if those parties split the vote and don't get elected.
Because of course we have first-past-the-post voting.
Which is why in '93 the Bloc upset everyone so much. Their stated goal was to get Quebec out of the country. They had one platform item: Separation. They were totally useless at everything else. But by beating the Reform party by two seats, they were the official opposition, despite not running any candidates outside of Quebec.
@Cerberus Federally, we rarely have multi-party coalitions. Actually, never. Or as good as. Maybe one or two times, tops. We typically prefer minority governments in those situations.
A couple years ago there was a minority Conservative government that was pissing everyone off. The Liberals decided to form a coalition with the NDP and the Bloc and take over. In response the gov't prorogued parliament to prevent that from happening, then spent 6 weeks attacking the idea of a coalition with the Bloc. Surprisingly, that worked for them, and the Liberal party hasn't recovered from the bad publicity.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I heard that of all the possible characteristics that a president could have, the one (that was polled about at least) that was the least popular was...
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeah that happens. Populist parties. We usually take them up in a coalition, bleed them dry, then spit out their empty shells. (Despite Hitler...)
@Cerberus Well, 20 years later they are still around, but they were trounced last election by the NDP, which is our "socialist" party. Sadly because the right-wing parties have consolidated into one party, the left-wing vote is split among 2 big parties and one or two small parties, and so things look grim for the near future, unless ... WTF are those birds doing on my back porch?
My kitchen neighbour's ballie swings past like a mamoo with a new cab ekse. So I choon: "JY! Kyk virrie hond in die fokke straat!". All the ouens crashed.
@Cerberus Hard to say, long term, what will happen. Since ... 2005 or 2006 they've been getting minority governments but now they are a majority. However, the Liberal party was recently decimated and the NDP party kicked major ass so maybe the left wing vote has swung a little lefter (the Liberal party is more left-of-centre than left).
@Cerberus well, she's the one who authorized it, through her (Conservative government-chosen) appointed representative.
@skopp Yeah... my kitchen neighbour's ball swings past like a [very fast object] with a new [something]. So I go ("say"): "You! Watch out for your dog in the fucking(?) street!". All the [somethings—cars?] crashed.
I wouldn't want them wasting time talking to some priest after church about the bake sale...they should be worrying about how to cover up all the people they've ordered killed.
@Cerberus I think so. But, eg, the west... well, excluding the greater Vancouver area, is pretty conservative. But I get a strong sense of correlation to city size. bigger towns are more liberal.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 exactly..well, unless it is an invisible sulfurous-inferno-pit dweller who actually provides that torment. The sky god just shots lighting bolts and rainbows and shit.
We have huge political differences within our tiny country, that is, party-wise. Although most parties would seem much alike to most foreigners. The Catholic south votes Christian Democrat, Populist, and hard-core socialist. The north votes both soft-core and hard-core populist. The Bible-belt (which is tiny) votes Christian Democrat and orthodox Protestant. Rotterdam votes populist.
People often misunderstand me. Like somewhere I'll see someone say something about feminists ...xyz, whatever. And I'll ask, "why don't "dentists get treated the same way?" or some snide, stupid thing... And get downboated to oblivion
@Mitch Most of the population is along the southern borders, just about everywhere, except in those places where there is nothing for miles and miles and miles.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 So the eastern provinces around Ottawa and Montréal are more liberal than the western half, right? That is interesting. Although Montréalites(?) probably vote for their Québecois party.
@Cerberus Well, I don't fully know how Quebec goes. But Ontario, Quebec, and the maritimes are typically very centrist. which is why the old days of the PCs and the Liberals was okay, because they were right-of-center and left-of-center, respectively.
But now the Conservative party is much more right-wing.
@Cerberus They were decimated in 1993 and spent the next 12 years building up support, but meanwhile the Reform party stole their votes and support, and they eventually merged with the Reform party('s descendant party). However, the elite in the new Conservative party are not from the old Progressive-Conservative party, but from the old Reform party. They are typically based in Alberta and they are much more conservative than their predecessors.
Just as English is much easier than Afrikaans for me; however, I can understand some Afrikaans without ever having learned any Afrikaans, which would be next to impossible for English.
No I mean when you hear someone speaking, what you already have learned is so automatic that it's hard to separate what you've learnied in class from what is natural without that book-learning.
@Cerberus They claimed to be "populist". In reality they just wanted to be more right-wing than the dominant PC party at the time. We used to call them the Re-farm party, because they were all about farming.
English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…
English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…