natural_person epitome of incomprehensibility This, from the Quebec elections website (I know how the voting works; I was trying to see if they still were hiring people to sit at polling stations): "If no adjustment to the work schedule is offered to the employee or it is not possible or if the employer has not made the necessary arrangements to allow its employees to express their will by taking advantage of the period of 4 hours to vote, in that case the employer refuses an employee the 4-hour period and is likely committing an offence and is liable, for a first offence, to a fine of $1,000 to $10,000 for a natural person and from $5,000 to $30,000 in the case of a legal person." No problem with the translation. It's the "natural person" and "legal person" thing that leaves me scratching my head. Maybe a legal person is a company, but that raises more questions than it answers. If you're legal, are you unnatural? And if natural, than illegal? What's if you were genetically modified? What's if you're an apple? I mean, I assume that apples are ineligible to vote in the Quebec election, but how can I be sure of anything when the very nature of my humanity is being called into question? 140327 ... past I think you have it right--a natural person is flesh and blood. A legal person is a legal fiction (like a corporation) given some rights/responsibilies (can be sued, has to pay taxes) but more a conglomeration of individuals/impulses than something that actually exists beyond the fiction of those who make it up. also, for denying someone franchise by not letting them get to a polling station those fines are a bit light. then again, given what i've been reading about people from other provinces who've lived in quebec for years being denied franchise, there's no helping it? 140328 ... e_o_i I heard students who are supposed to be able to vote were being turned away because they supposedly didn't have enough documentation. This came in the midst of a scare story from the PQ that Ontario students were trying to sneak into Quebec and influence the vote against them. English-French pissiness ("conflict" is too dignified an expression for it) on both sides is nothing new, but I don't like the current premier's divide-and-conquer politics, especially the stupid Values Charter. Secularism does not mean discrimination, Pauline Marois. But my riding is staunchly Liberal, so I feel free to vote for the Quebec Green Party. They are small and unlikely to do serious harm. And don't get me started on the federal government and the "Fair" Elections Act, which also has the potential to stop lots of people from voting. Bleh. 140329 ... past i'm more than guilty of my share of (ontarian) pissiness about language politics in quebec. i'd count as a child of bill 101, born in ontario (with siblings born in quebec) to working class parents so discriminated against by the linguistic bullshit of the pq. the cpc is worse. or at least as bad. or not a standard worth measuring against. the hateful politics of the cpc is no different than that hate spewed by marois and pkp and the rest of them. when hate is your banner, everyone sleeps in piss. ontario is no better. but at least the power of the oranges was broken in the eighties (if it meant that absolute hypocrisy of catholic public education). my political life is a rant. 140330 ... e_o_i Join the club! Personally, I think Pierre Karl Péladeau should become president of an independent Crimea and then everyone's problems would be solved. But I'm not sure what you mean by oranges - as far as I remember the Conservative colour was blue, though before I was old enough to vote the party was split into two, Progressive Conservatives and Canadian Alliance I believe, but that would've been in the 1990s-early 2000s. 140330 ... e_o_i (Silly. National and provincial colour coding is different, as is American and Canadian (if you take the rough analogy Republican = Conservative and Democrat = Liberal, the red/blue thing is reversed.) I have tooth fillings. Unnatural! 141106 ... e_o_i Ugh, why do I have such bad teeth, though? Another molar chipped, needing a filling. ...But I haven't given up sugary things, so I'm kind of hypocritical; an understandable hypocrisy, like a smoker who complains about coughing, but still. 141106 ... unhinged i just read some crackpot article online about what turns men off sexually... smelling like you just worked out after you just worked out not having minty fresh breath trying to kiss him after you just went down on him UGH this has irritated me for awhile. human beings smell. human beings have hair all over their bodies. sex isn't pretty. i get my period. i am not a porn star. what exactly is this obsession with denying the fact that humans are biological animals and that people are objects to be tailored to others' satisfactions? 141107 ... no reason was it on elite daily? because that website is the worst and should not be trusted. 141108 ... no reason or maybe it was this: http://thoughtcatalog.com/charlie-shaw/2014/06/33-men-reveal-the-one-thing-theyd-like-all-women-to-stop-doing-immediately/ it's disillusioning how many commenters (many who are women) agree with this. and i always wonder, with pieces like this: does the author expect people to listen? "oh, okay, some random know-it-all on the internet is telling me not to do things i naturally do. time to change everything!" 141109 ... nr or, i guess, the authors. 141109 ... nr and i guess this isn't the same article referenced above. yay, there are so many of them! 141109 what's it to you? who go blather from