Mouvement souverainiste du Québec

I received the following:

I was thinking, as you know I live in Canada, and interestingly I now live in Montreal, Quebec. As you may or may not know, this has always been a hot spot of cultural debate (i.e Anglos vs Francos) and quite frankly the Francos are winning. In fact it wouldn't be to much a stretch of the imagination to say Quebec may form an independent country by next year. Whether I stay or not is another question, but I was thinking, if Quebec goes rouge (sic), why don't they re-install La calendrier Française Révolutionnaire as well as Temps FR (20hrs per day!) it would truly make Quebec a distinct society.

My answer is that Quebec was a British territory at the time of the Revolution, so it never used the Republican Calendar nor decimal time (10 hours, not 20).  France, itself, has not used the calendar in two centuries (except for a few radicals briefly in Paris in 1871) and never really accepted decimal time.  Given that 24/60/60 time is universal in every country on earth, not just Anglo ones, and the Gregorian calendar nearly so, especially in Catholic countries, it is highly improbable that there would be any interest whatsoever.

However, I am not Québécois and have only been there once, so I do not wish to presume to speak for them.  Please feel free to comment below.

Quartidi 14 Messidor an CCXX à 6 heures 82 minutes décimales t.m.P.
MJD 56111.676

Double Summer Time

In the United Kingdom, proposals are repeatedly made to move the clocks forward.  Like most northern countries, the UK currently moves their clocks one hour forward in spring and back in the autumn.  From the last Sunday of October to the last Sunday of March, Britain is on Greenwich Mean Time, also known as Universal Time or Western European Time.  Then from March to October, they are on British Summer Time, i.e. one hour ahead of GMT.

There are now two different proposals being discussed.  One is to move the entire country one hour ahead of the current times all year, i.e. one hour ahead of GMT from October to March, and two hours ahead of GMT from March to October, which is called "double summer time".  The other is to keep Scotland the same, and change the rest of the UK, i.e. England, Wales and Northern Ireland, so that the country would be divided into two time zones.

The reason to exclude Scotland from the change is that the further to the north and west you go, the later the sun comes up, so that on the shortest days it wouldn't rise until about ten o'clock, and on the longest days it would set after eleven in the evening.  This is just too late for some Scots.  But having two time zones would obviously put parts of the country out of kilter.  One of the motivations for moving forward an hour is to be in the same time zone as most of the European Union, Central European Time.  Currently in the EU, only Ireland and Portugal are also on Western European Time.

It has been tried before.  During World War II, Britain was on the same system, being one hour ahead of GMT in winter, and two in summer.  And for three years, from 1968 to 1971, they were on Daylight Saving Time all year, i.e. GMT+1, although without double summer time.

I have never understood the desire to tinker with time.  Why not simply get up earlier in the morning?  All you have to do is change work schedules.  Why mess with the clocks?  Just let everyone quit (and start) work an hour earlier.  There are a number of arguments to advance the time, most of which seem specious to me.  I wonder what the real motivations are?

MJD 55616.477

Gay Marriage

The California Supreme Court today did the right thing and declared the ban on gay marriage unconstitutional, because it deprives citizens of the right to equal protection under the law. This is not "legislating from the bench", it's protecting constitutional rights. A majority vote cannot violate basic civil rights. It's too bad it's my night off, so I don't get to see the Castro celebrating in the warm weather. (98 degrees today at my house!)

Politics

I am an independent, or "decline to state" voter. I have voted for various parties in the past, but am satisfied with none of them. Although I have occasionally voted for Republicans in the past, in the current state of affairs I cannot in good conscience vote for any now, even if I liked the individual, because the Republican party as a whole has become disastrous. Like many, I am forced to vote Democrat just to try to counter the GOP, not because I entirely agree with that party. The issues I believe in are civil liberties, separation of church and state, nonintervention, multilateral relations, environmentalism, education, scientific research, and probably others I'm not thinking of now. I guess that you could call me a liberal.

More specifically, I despise Bush and his cronies, and what they have done to this country and the rest of the world. I opposed the invasion of Iraq, and was disappointed that spineless Democrats, like Hillary Clinton, voted for it, and am disgusted that McCain supports continuing the occupation. I am not enamored with any of the candidates, but I will vote for whichever one the Democrats put up. I think that the Republicans need to be removed from power at every level and in every department, to be kept out of control of the legislature and eventually replaced in the Supreme Court. The Democrats may not be all that great, but they're far better than the Neocons and theocrats in the Republican party.