A World of Cheese, For your Pleasure

Suddenly, the terrible world becomes much smaller

As many of you probably know, two Canadians were recently kidnapped in Iraq. As it turns out, I happen to be two degrees of separation from one of them. The person that I know that knows Harmeet Sing Sooden wrote about how she feels here in this entry. I suggest you read it.

Fired for pregnancy

The slut.

But seriously, they fire her for being pregnant, and I see the obvious problems with that, but isn't there an argument for the decision the school made? Or a compromise? It seems that many people say that religious organizations are free to set, follow and enforce any rules that it religion dictates as long as they do not conflict with the law of the land, which is allegedly secular. To me, this suggests that religious schools should be outlawed. You are, generally speaking, not allowed to fire a teacher simply for being pregnant anywhere else, according to the law. If religion protects the school from the secular law, this means that if some other school were to open that advocated beating of children, then it should be allowed.

Do private schools have different rules than public ones? Surely it seems that religious schools do. If we see fit to grant the special powers to these schools, it stands to reason that they should be able to fire someone that violates their clear laws. I can completely understand why they would not want her around. it's hard enough getting kids to be chaste; this woman would be a terrible example of some kind of bullshit exception. It completely undermines their position, and the school might as well not teach morality at all, which it clearly has been given license to do. Sure there is a greater scope of laws to which the school must adhere, however, as I said, it WAS given certain permissions and what I call exceptions. These exceptions may not be clear to the school's administrators, though.

Seems to me that the existence of this school is the problem, not their rules.

Get yer yeller margerin afore it's gone!

On Saturday November 5, the Montreal Gazette ran on the front page a story about a major search-and-seize operation. From the actual print copy of the paper:

Quebec seizes yellow margarine

Raids turn up 72 tubs Inspectors descend on four Wal-Marts in Quebec City area

Agriculture Department Inspectors swooped down on four Wal-Mart stores in the Quebec City area yesterday and seized 72 plastic tubs of yellow Becel margarine with an estimated street value of $179.28.

In case you aren't aware, you can't buy yellow margarine here. It has to be white. Or at least not yellow. Somehow this is to protect the province's 3000 dairy producers, who are apparently one hell of a lobby. They seem to think that we can't tell the difference between butter and margarine, and that their sales will fall if margarine looks like butter. That's like insisting that non-Pepsi cola be blue.

But what really kills me is the description. They "swooped down" and "descended" to "seize" margarine worth and ESTIMATED STREET VALUE of $180. I'm not up on the illicit substance scene, but when a crackhead in Ahuntsic comes up to me asking for a "half" (because all people that look like sell drugs, that's a whole other entry, and I don't know what a "half" is), I don't think that he meant a half pound of yellow fucking margarine. Street value? For Christ's sakes.

Let's Get High

A coworker and former drug addict just said that the phrase Let's Get High just popped into his head for no particular reason. So he typed in letsgethigh.com. What a strange site. I mean, I suppose the tits might attract hits (heh), but still.

324:99

I knew there was a discrepancy between male and female journalists being printed in the New Yorker, but I didn't realize it was so high. And that it was everywhere.