On Canada’s (non)existence

Humor, , , , ,

Crooked Timber delivers a Christmas sermon on the reality, or otherwise, of our northern neighbor. As one might surmise, that’s not really the main point:

As far as I can tell, the concept of “Canada” dates back to the early 1950s. A confident new postwar generation of Americans were beginning to enjoy the privileges of mass market air travel. However, to their dismay, some of them began to discover that they weren’t universally welcome in the damaged postwar states of Europe, particularly in the more bohemian quarters where socialism was beginning to take hold. The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth had just happened, pushing the British Crown into the public eye, and so a sort of urban myth was constructed about a part of America that was also ruled part of the Commonwealth.

Over time, all sorts of supporting myths and rationalizations grew up to support the “Canadian” faith. Apparently they fought a war against America in 1812, although not one with any noticeable or measurable political consequences. They don’t have a football team because they play “hockey on ice” (really!), a sport at which they are world champions (naturally, because it is a fictitious sport). They have all the nice characteristics of America, but have a healthcare system rather suspiciously similar to the British one, and so forth, and so on.

As anyone can see, this isn’t a country – it’s far too perfect to be convincing. It’s a fantasy roleplaying character invented by a kid who goes to mock United Nations camps instead of playing Dungeons & Dragons. Occasionally this is recognized in little cultural hints – a “girlfriend in Canada” is American slang for “an imaginary girlfriend”. But in general, people humour them – these days, if you want to make it in Hollywood, you’ve got to be either a Canadian or a Scientologist. Then the concept was discovered by that sizeable contingent of French people who always want to pretend to be Americans, and the Canadian faith had to pick up yet another massive and glaring inconsistency in the shape of a massive linguistic minority who lived in a state of peace and friendship with the rest of the country. Do I have to mention that they struck oil and invented the Blackberry?

An abandoned New Year’s resolution

Humor, Technology, , , , , , , ,

Kevin Roose apologizes to Codecademy:

Dear Codecademy,

When we first met, just after New Year’s last year, I was inspired. You told me that I could learn how to program in just 365 days through your free “Code Year” lessons, and I believed you. After all, if Mayor Bloomberg was doing it, why couldn’t I? I eagerly signed up, and waited for the day that I, too, would be churning out C++ code like a pro.

That day never came.

Instead, your e-mails piled up, unread, in my in-box, while I attended to more pressing concerns. At first, you came bearing offers of specific lessons:

Code Year Week 4: Primitives in JavaScript

Code Year Week 5: Objects in JavaScript

Code Year Week 7: Loops in JavaScript

Then, as winter turned into spring — and my schedule kept not making room for coding lessons — your e-mails took on the tone of a more general pep talk. Hopeful exclamation points abounded:

Still want to learn to code? We’ll help you catch up!

Get ready for programming good times!

Programming begins here!

You must have known, Codecademy, that by the time July 4th came around, I was a goner. New Year’s resolutions rarely stick, and New Year’s resolutions that suddenly kick in after a six-month delay never do. Still, despite the fact that I had never once logged in to your website, you persisted in your hopes that I would get off my ass, clear my calendar, and make time for you.

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Kerry to Kennedy? Apparently not

Humor, Politics, , , , , , , , ,

New York Magazine has more:

Whenever a Senate seat becomes available in Massachusetts, at least one Kennedy — any Kennedy, doesn’t really matter who — must, by law, at least consider running for it. With John Kerry’s seat opening up soon, Ted Kennedy Jr. has fulfilled this sacred duty, but today the Globe reports that he won’t run, partially because he lives in Connecticut, which is not the same state as Massachusetts. Ted Kennedy’s widow, Victoria Kennedy, has also been rumored as a possible candidate. When asked by the Hill on Friday about her intentions, she had no comment.

That’s the Christmas spirit

Humor, Miscellaneous, , , , , , , , ,

Sarah Childs is spreading the holiday warmth already:

A Louisiana woman ran afoul of police when she gave her neighbors an unusual holiday greeting, hanging Christmas lights in the shape of a middle finger.

Sarah Childs was in a dispute with some of her neighbors in Denham Springs, just east of Baton Rouge, so she decided to send a message with her decorations. Neighbors complained and police threatened to arrest her, so she and the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana sued the city.

A judge ruled in her favor Thursday.

‘‘I imagine it will be back up before too long,’’ ACLU of Louisiana executive director Marjorie Esman said of the display.

The kicker?

Childs removed the lights but put them back up after the ACLU defended her in an open letter to the city. That time, the display showed two hands with extended middle fingers.

Too hot for this job

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Kevin Drum at Mother Jones reports on Melissa Nelson’s unsuccessful lawsuit against her employer, who fired her for being too attractive and thus inadvertently threatening his marriage. The Iowa Supreme Court (which, not coincidentally, is all-male) ruled 7-0 in the employer’s favor:

Sadly, this nonsense isn’t anything new. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals had previously upheld a business owner’s right to fire an employee because the business owner’s wife found her threatening. And a couple of years ago, a woman named Debrahlee Lorenzana sued a Citibank branch in Manhattan, alleging that her superiors canned her for looking too much like a supermodel…

This is the legal reality of fireable hotness in America today.

Did the NRA just jump the shark?

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r02rh34CXmI]

I’d like to think it did, but my instincts tell me almost nothing is strong enough to break the spell that’s been cast on gun rights advocates in this country. Transcript below:

Meanwhile, a shooting in central Pennsylvania this morning has left four dead and three injured.

Winning votes, one by one

Politics, Technology, , , , ,

The story of Barack Obama’s data-driven campaign approach is still being told. Building on their 2008 success, the Obama data junkies assembled a truly astounding, state-of-the-art framework to microtarget advertising and fundraising appeals to the individual level. The MIT Technology Review just ran an eye-opening three-part article on how the team put the data monstrosity together:

Many of those who went to Washington after the 2008 election in order to further the president’s political agenda returned to Chicago in the spring of 2011 to work on his reëlection. The chastening losses they had experienced in Washington separated them from those who had known only the ecstasies of 2008. “People who did ‘08, but didn’t do ‘10, and came back in ‘11 or ‘12—they had the hardest culture clash,” says Jeremy Bird, who became national field director on the reëlection campaign. But those who went to Washington and returned to Chicago developed a particular appreciation for Wagner’s methods of working with the electorate at an atomic level. It was a way of thinking that perfectly aligned with their ­simple theory of what it would take to win the president reëlection: get everyone who had voted for him in 2008 to do it again. At the same time, they knew they would need to succeed at registering and mobilizing new voters, especially in some of the fastest-growing demographic categories, to make up for any 2008 voters who did defect.

Obama’s campaign began the election year confident it knew the name of every one of the 69,456,897 Americans whose votes had put him in the White House. They may have cast those votes by secret ballot, but Obama’s analysts could look at the Democrats’ vote totals in each precinct and identify the people most likely to have backed him. Pundits talked in the abstract about reassembling Obama’s 2008 coalition. But within the campaign, the goal was literal. They would reassemble the coalition, one by one, through personal contacts.

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