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Chinese In Vancouver

Profile of languages in Canada: Highlights of selected census metropolitan areas: Vancouver

The population with Chinese as mother tongue represented 15.2% of Vancouver's total population in 2001. About 12.7% of Vancouver's population reported speaking Chinese most often at home.

First saw these numbers in the Canadians in China email. B.C. easily tops Canada as the province with the biggest percentage of Chinese speakers, at 7.96% (it's the province's second-most frequent mother-tongue after English).

Lott's Implosion

Yahoo! News - Lott Says He Fell Into Enemies' 'Trap'

"There are people in Washington who have been trying to nail me for a long time," Lott said. "When you're from Mississippi and you're a conservative and you're a Christian, there are a lot of people that don't like that. I fell into their trap and so I have only myself to blame."

Oh please. Sen. Lott fell into his own trap. He then had the gall to call then-Presidential candidate Strom Thurmond's polices "discarded" (not until the 3rd or 4th apology did he call them "wrong"). I saw a news clip in which the Republicans are washing his hands entirely of Lott, in that he won't even serve as a chairman of any Senate committee.

Lott's implosion was fun to watch, lemme tell ya.

Boys Night Out

Last night, for the first time in a long time, I got drunk. It was a boys night out, and a very much impromptu boys night out. Mostly involved bar hopping (with strip club interlude) and drinking and me listening to stories about Australia and how all you have to do down there is walk up to the bar, order a drink, and a girl will start talking to you because of your non-Australian accent. Right.

The night proceeded well enough, but after some unpleasantness, I said goodnight to the boys and came home. I stayed out longer than they thought I would, which means I didn't wuss out. Apparently. Insert a well-written sentence about how alcohol really can dull the pain here.

I'm looking forward to Christmas at home. It's always been about family for me, never so much the gifts. If I stay long enough, I might try to meet some old high school friends. Shouldn't be too hard. All I'd have to do is go to The Loft, the local night club in Courtenay. But then again, there are some high school friends who should probably just stay high school friends. Y'know?

All Forms of Discrimination Are Bad?

Andrew Coyne: “[E]ven forms of discrimination that are blameworthy in principle are not always in practice. It is wrong, we all agree, to discriminate on the basis of skin colour. Yet when it comes to choosing a mate, virtually everyone does. Sexual attraction, indeed, remains ungoverned by any concept of equal rights: You are permitted to discriminate on any basis you please. Don't like big noses, hairy backs, short men? That is your business, you shallow lookist.”

Coyne is making the point that some forms of discrimination is not only not worth worrying about (like the above quote), but encouraged (like discriminating against the stupid and lazy when it comes to employment).

Talk About Smug!

What's wrong with commercialization? Nothing. by Brendan Miniter (via lying in ponds)

There's nothing wrong with Santa hawking wares. Seeing department stores adorned in Christmas decorations and filled with people taking advantage of the season sales only warms my heart. "So this is Christmas," I sing to myself. And I'm not alone. The average American will spend $769 on gifts this year, according to Gallup. That's only slightly down from a few years ago, when the economy was booming.

Talk about smug! (Which is kinda why I enjoyed the article.)

Gore Kills on SNL

Gore kills on SNL by Virginia Heffernan

When I turned on SNL last night, I was all "Holy shit, AL GORE IS HOSTING!" Since I don't get those channels, I missed him doing his one-liners on Letterman and whatnot, but for the first half of SNL, yeah, he killed. Him sitting in a hot-tub and wrap around arms drinking wine while 'courting' a Vice-Presidential candidate was hilarious. But the above-linked article is on-point about the Trent Lott bit. I was laughing my ass off when I saw his impression of Lott. Not so much for the routine (which was funny), but for the pure cajones it took to do it.

Gore also made a mock Hardball appearance in which he, throwing caution to the wind, impersonated Trent Lott, well-wigged and with hints of a pinched, Deep South accent. "Chris," he said to Hammond's Chris Matthews. "When I said our country wouldn't have all these problems if Strom Thurmond had been elected president, it had nothing to do with segregation. I simply meant that things would've been better because he would've kept white people and black people separate."

And this line too (from this newsgroup post):

Gore (as Lott): "Chris, Chris! It has come to my attention that some of comments about Strom Thurmond a minute ago may have been construed as racially insensitive. Let me apologize. I meant no respect -- no disrespect to any white people. I myself am a white man and some if not all my friends are white. Let me make this clear, as as I'm in office, we will leave no white person behind."

I read that McCain killed when he was on too, but I missed it. Damn.

Kissinger Quits

Kissinger Quits As Chairman of 9/11 Panel

Henry Kissinger cites the controversy surrounding (unnamed) potential conflicts accruing from his appointment of a panel investigating the Sept. 11th attacks (seems to be a lot of panels investigating this; Sept. 11 will most likely be over-investigated, not under-). Kissinger gets off the hook from revealing his client list. From Chistopher Hitchens' field day on the appointment:

Kissinger's "consulting" firm, Kissinger Associates, is a privately held concern that does not publish a client list and that compels its clients to sign confidentiality agreements. Nonetheless, it has been established that Kissinger's business dealings with, say, the Chinese Communist leadership have closely matched his public pronouncements on such things as the massacre of Chinese students. Given the strong ties between himself, his partners Lawrence Eagleburger and Brent Scowcroft, and the oil oligarchies of the Gulf, it must be time for at least a full disclosure of his interests in the region. This thought does not seem to have occurred to the president or to the other friends of Prince Bandar and Prince Bandar's wife, who helped in the evacuation of the Bin Laden family from American soil, without an interrogation, in the week after Sept. 11.

Yet by resigning because of the controversy that could (in his view) surround his consulting practice, doesn't that shine a light on said consulting practice? Has Kissinger tried to avoid the controversy while at the same time courting it?

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