French versus English Volume 103

Life imitates Art...'The Sopranos' Style!

A "no-show job" is a paid position that ostensibly requires the holder to perform duties, but for which no work, or even attendance, is actually expected.
The awarding of no-show jobs is a form of political or corporate corruption. Wikipedia

No-Show jobs on the Sopranos

ART:
(The Sopranos Episode 2 Season 4)
While Paulie Walnuts is incarcerated, Patsy Parisi and Little Paulie Germani have arranged a sit-down on his behalf to discuss Ralphie's division of jobs at the Esplanade site. It takes place at Nuovo Vesuvio and Silvio Dante presides. After some haggling, they settle with five jobs: three no-works and two no-shows. Capo Paulie receives the first no-show job. Silvio announces that Tony wants Christopher Moltisanti as acting capo of Paulie's crew during his absence and gives Chris the second no-show job. This upsets Patsy, who believes he has seniority over Chris, as he has been a made man longer. Indeed, it was Patsy and not Christopher who negotiated the jobs in the meeting. The three no-work jobs are given to Paulie to distribute, and they go to Patsy, Benny, and Little Paulie. As they leave the meeting, Chris jokes to Silvio that the first thing he will do is get wings in his hair—much like the gray "wing-like" hair Paulie has on the side of his head. Silvio is not amused; he is also put out by the promotion as he realizes that Chris is starting to usurp his place in Tony's inner circle. Chris later visits the construction site where Patsy, Benny Fazio, Little Paulie, Donny K. and Vito Spatafore are enjoying their no-work jobs. Wikipedia


QUEBEC:
A group of 12 unionized crane operators collected paycheques for two years to watch television, play cards, and even to stay home because they weren’t qualified to work on highly specialized cranes, the Charbonneau Commission heard Monday.
The workers were even paid double time on weekends and an hour and a half of travel time each day, even though in some cases, they didn’t bother to show up for work.
That was the testimony of Michel Comeau, an investigator at the commission, which is looking into corruption in Quebec’s construction industry.
Comeau said the workers were assigned to supervise six German crane operators brought in by Germany-based company Bauer, which won the contract to build a hydroelectric dam on the Péribonka River, between 2005 and 2007.
The workers were paid by Bauer, which passed on the bill to Hydro-Québec.
“Hydro-Québec closed its eyes,” to the situation, Comeau said...
"Hydro-Québec negotiated a deal with executives from the Quebec Federation of Labour for labour peace by agreeing that each of the three cranes would be operated by one German worker and two unionized “observers,” on 12-hour shifts, 24 hours per day, including weekends. Several workers were sent back to Germany as a result. The observers weren’t allowed anywhere near the specialized cranes, but they were still paid the normal rate of crane operators in the province: between $82,000 and $92,000 a year." Link

And so it seems that the Quebec Federation of Labour is a better negotiator than the mob!
Hydro-Quebec justified its actions by employing a clever euphemism...."managing risk."

Montreal Police....another one bites the dust

How many women cops does it take to shoot a nutter?

Another Montreal police shooting worthy of a Keystone Kops.

Seven Montreal cops confronted an obviously disturbed hammer-wielding sad sack and shot him dead, rather than neutralize him using less lethal methods.

The victim's brother was rightfully outraged that his brother died at the hands of under-equipped and clearly under-trained cops.

"There are reports police asked for an officer with a taser to come to the area, but before someone with a non-lethal weapon arrived officers shot the man at least once." Watch a video report

"Car 54 is asking for a TASER. What the heck is that?"

It seems that Montreal police aren't trusted to use tasers, but are given free rein with guns...Hmmm..

This shooting is reminiscent of one two years ago when Montreal police opened fire on another deranged homeless man, this time armed with a knife. In that shooting, an innocent bicyclist was also killed by a ricocheting bullet. Link

A coroner was asked to look into the matter and issued a report;

"Dr. Jean Brochu recommends that the Minister of Health Canada, in collaboration with the Agency for Health and Social Services of Montreal:
 
Put in place psychosocial frontline services tailored to the needs of people in distress; 
Increase mobile teams of specialized stakeholders to support the police and patrollers who work with people who are homeless or who have a mental illness or addiction.  
A recommendation to avoid litigation of people with mental disorders;

It is also recommended that the National Police Academy of Quebec:  
Continue its research to propose new strategies and tactics specific to police intervention and violent people in crisis;
Updates standards and re-qualification in shooting for police;" Link{fr}

Well that advice seems to have been ignored.....

Reading the story about this latest shooting and reviewing the entire coroner's report on the first double-shooting, I couldn't help but thinking of those big butterfly nets used by hospital orderlies in the comics to chase down and capture mental patients running amok in the loony-bin!
It would be neat if this was a real-life option, so I did a little web-surfing and found the perfect product for chickenshit  fraidy-cat  overly- cautious Montreal police.

Lo and behold, there actually exists an air-fired net for police enforcement, entirely appropriate for use against deranged nutters who are armed with anything but a gun.

 This product has the outer appearance similar to that of a large electric torch. The operator can put it in the car or carry it on the shoulder, featuring convenient carriage and simple operation. Within 2 seconds, the launching can be completed. With one hand holding the upper barrel and the other hand to open the safety pin. By just pressing the launching button, an intensively powerful umbrella-shaped net will be fired with the diameter up to 2-3 meters and the coverage space as much as 16 square meters. Once the suspect is covered by the net, he will be immediately bound by the net strings or even pulled down to the ground, which results in no chance of escaping. The net can be reused after some repairs or maintenance and the air storage tank can be recharged by way of special-purpose air refilling device. Link

Come to think of it, who remembers Sheldon of The Big Bang Theory getting caught in a Wolowitz's electrified anti-burglar net?
Also an option!

At any rate, It seems that the only highly-developed and effective tactics that the Montreal police have adopted is how to control a shooting scene so that the police themselves come out as innocent.

All seven of the police officers involved in the shooting conveniently suffered from nervous shock, and promptly went to the hospital before facing shooting investigators, no doubt to buy time and get their stories straight.

In the Fredy Villanueva shooting, the coroner complained that the officers involved in the shooting weren't separated and were only interviewed days after the shooting.

"The coroner's inquest into the death of Fredy Villanueva finds that many of the people involved made mistakes, some due to lack of training, and that  investigators looking into the death took steps that made it more difficult to determine what truly happened. 
It was a week later when Lapointe and Pilotte were finally asked to provide written testimony about what occurred, something Pilotte did without referring to her notes from the night of the shooting.
This is contrary to provincial guidelines, which state that all witnesses, including police officers, should be kept apart before being questioned by investigators.
All the non-police witnesses were in fact kept separate from each other being before questioned. Read more

So things never really change at what must be Canada's most ineffective and amateur police force and perhaps the force's motto should be changed to;

SHOOT FIRST..... WE'VE GOT YOUR BACK!

****************

Here's another embarrassing story about the Montreal police.
Montreal's police Brotherhood(union) has come out strongly against the idea of introducing lie detector tests for organized crime investigators.
The force said it is considering whether or not to implement the idea following a series of allegations connecting senior investigators to organized crime. CJAD Radio

Readers might remember that the Montreal police force has suffered some horrific leaks as at least two or three senior detectives are accused of being moles (fr='taupe'), passing off information to organized crime.
So if the union won't allow polygraphs for officers in sensitive areas, perhaps the only alternative is to bring George Smiley out of retirement à la Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

At any rate, let me assure readers that installing a polygraph policy is devilishly effective, the fact that the police don't have this policy in place is mind-boggling.
You don't even have to polygraph anyone regularly, the threat is so frightening, that employees generally keep to the straight and narrow.

Readers, take a moment.
Imagine you that knew you were subject to the polygraph, would your behavior change?
And I'm just talking about expense padding and phoney sick days! I can't imagine how foolhardy it would be to steal or pass secrets, under the threat of a lie-detector test.

Had the Montreal police had a policy of using it, NONE of the secrets would have been passed, so what exactly is the union's objection based on?

Let me regale readers with my very own lie detector story which dates back fifteen years, but is probably not out of date.
Two very junior employees accused a senior manager of theft, the senior manager claiming it was retaliation for a workplace incident.
I questioned everyone at length but was unable to find any anomolies, both versions were plausible and all stood by their stories convincingly, but somebody or somebodies were clearly lying.
I asked all three if they would take a polygraph and surprisingly all agreed.
This was strange, because threatening someone with a polygraph, even voluntary, usually scares out the truth. When a polygraph test is strictly voluntary, not many liars agree to the test.

So I reluctantly called a polygrapher who did contract work for the RCMP, someone who I knew through my police contacts.

He told me to call the employees to the main office on the next Saturday morning to see who actually showed up.
If the two accusers showed up and the manager did not, or vice-verso, no test would be required, the truth self-evident.

One of the young accusers phoned the night before to say that her boyfriend told her not to take the test, because it was unreliable, not a shock, but surprisingly the other accuser and the manger both did show up.

And so my expert was called in and before applying the test, he interviewed both parties separately.

He came out of the interviews and told me no polygraph was necessary, it was the accuser who was lying, with 100% certainty.

WHAT?  HOW?

He told both employees (separately) that  before administering the test he had to know if either was suffering from a headache which would invalidate the test (a trap!)
The accuser admitted to a powerful migrane while the manager said that she was fine, ready and motivated to take the test to clear her good name..... Case closed!!!!

So are polygraphs effective?
You bet... even when you don't actually use them!

Okay readers, admit it....that was a good story and I swear it was all true.

Marois showers voters with money in run-up to election

It seems that Pauline is so busy showering potential PQ ridings with money that she needed to charter a helicopter to speed up her itinerary.

Here's how one cartoonist saw it.

And yes., taxpayers paid for the charter as it was considered government business....

Sun News  embarrasses itself over French pronunciation...

"Hey, Sun News, how do you pronounce mind-bogglingly stupid? Offensive? Disgusting?
Or, as Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre so nicely put it, “franchement dégueulasse?”
Gosh, that’s an awfully big mouthful of French for commentator Brian Lilley and his Halifax-based linguistics ‘expert’ Harvey Sims to have to swallow. Those triple-vowel lutzes can be murder. Ask any Montreal anglo who has ever been tempted to cheat and say Lawn-gail and Bell-oil.
Mostly, though, we happily plead guilty to the same “irritating” habits as those CBC reporters and news anchors who’ve been getting under Lilley’s skin during the Winter Olympics at Sochi.
Seems like the athletes take the time and trouble to go out in the cold and win Canada some shiny medals, the very least the rest of us can do is make an effort to say their names properly.
Nope, said Lilley. In a video op-ed piece Monday night titled “CBC’s Hard French accent,” he blasted the national broadcaster for going “all native” with those “ridiculous,” accurate pronunciations of names like Hamelin, Bilodeau and Dufour-Lapointe. Link

The original video has been puilled from the sun News website.

Now far be it for me to defend Sun News, they are fast becoming their own worst enemy with silly and outrageous commentaries perhaps meant to shock the ratings which have been abysmal.
....but
The francophone media got on its high horse to denounce the idiocy of a commentary that complains about the proper pronunciation of names.

YOU-GEE-KNEE-BOO-SHARD

While the English media goes out of its way to pronounce French names as they are spoken in French, it isn't exactly the same in reverse.
The French media is notorious for putting a French twist on English names, even adding accents to written names where there is none, like Eugénie Bouchard, who to this day is referred to as Ooh-JZEN-ee  instead of the proper You-GEE-Knee.

In fact. I don't think I have ever heard a francophone interviewer use the proper English pronunciation of her name and I also have never heard a francophone interviewer refer to her as "Genie" (as in I Dream of Jeanie) because it is particularly alien to French tongues, even though she goes mostly by that shortened version.

For those who don't know, she is named after Princess Eugenie, while her twin sister is named after Princess Beatrice, daughters of Prince Andrew of the British royal family. 
Despite her second name and a mixed English/French parents, the tennis star is definitely an anglophone.

Just sayin....

Journal de Montreal ...Comment of the Week

 

Habs Duck language Issue

If there's anything the Montreal Canadiens don't want the francophone base to know, is that the team is ENGLISH...from top to bottom.

While the Francophone coaches meet the media in French, it is business as usual in English throughout the organization.
Now the Canadiens have made some cosmetic changes, adding French signage in the dressing room to accommodate  the fact that they are being filmed for the vanity television series 24/CH which offers a sanitized behind the scene look at the team.

But every now and then, the truth comes out, and so editors do their best to mask the fact that French isn't really a part of the team.

I was watching a recent episode and my keen eye caught this scene where something was blurred out, something entirely unacceptable, according to producers.

So what was it that producers were so desperate to hide.
I caught a glimpse in a split second frame that wasn't censored.

"Welcome in Montreal"

In an article in La Presse a reader complained that there was too much English at Montreal's winter carnival, the Fête des neiges.

The writer, who turns out to be an employee of the Société Saint-Jean Baptiste, (but where no mention of that fact is made in the piece,) complains about the traditional Montreal bilingual greeting to which he was subjected to.

"Bienvenue à Montréal/Welcome in Montreal, Bonjour/Hi!"

Of course my bullshit detector went off immediately because there isn't a bilingual person in the world who would say "Welcome in Montreal' and even if the greeter was a francophone, he or she would have been coached to say the proper  "Welcome to Montreal"
The error is egregious, like saying 'Bienvenue dans Montreal' instead of 'Bienvenue à Montréal.'

Most of these type of stories are flights of fancy, like the Jews who refused to be served by a francophone waitress or the airline stewardess who didn't understand a request for a Seven-Up in French. As they say in French 'Boulchite.'

I always look at these anecdotes with a decidedly skeptical eye, most are embellished or outright inventions, like the Speak white clerks at Eatons.

By the way the writer also complained about English songs being played on the radio, preferring second rate music in the name of French nationalism.
Yup...I said it....second rate.
And if you object or are insulted, understand that people vote with their actions. The radio was tuned to an English station because that is what the vast majority want to hear.
Live with it.... Link{fr}

Olympic notes

PQ minister Pierre Duchesne was red-faced for twittering a Photoshopped picture of Chloé and Justine Dufour-Lapointe, wearing the Quebec Fleur-de-Lys.
The minister captioned the tweet with one word SUPERB!, actually believing that the photo was real.
Great hilarity as the minister was forced to defend himself, telling reporters that it wasn't him who Photoshopped the picture.

Original

PhotoShopped version

The inevitable pay back.... "OK! OK! We're EVEN!"

Now readers, I am one of those nasty people who watch car races to see the crashes and figure skating in anticipation of one of those Humpty-Dumpty type falls.
It's cruel, but we all revel in a little schadenfreude.
Anyhoo...
I watched a pair of Russian skaters get a point deduction for a costume malfunction, it seems that a lowly feather fell to the ice, a big crime in the sport of ice-dancing, where feathers abound.
But I digress.
I offer this screen grab of Canadian skaters and wonder out loud if there should not be a point deduction for sticking you finger up your partner's butt? Hmmmm.

They always said that a Canadian passport is a valuable thing and opens up many possibilities, including this fridge at the Sochi Olympics dispensing free beer!

Canadian Coach displays true Olympic spirit
Helps opposing skier in trouble.

And the mean-spirited Americans keeps ragging on the Russians over Olympic fails, especially this memorable one, when one of the Olympic rings failed to unfurl during the opening ceremonies.

You know its over the top when Walmart gets into the taunting.

Pictures of the week

 The PQ released some videos on Youtube promoting sovereignty. Here's a screen grab of one of those and as you can see the Crucifix is front and center, reminding viewers, not so subtly, that an independent Quebec would remain true to its Catholic heritage.
By hey, its only about heritage.....

***************

In a story on the CTV Montreal website about the Zombie testimony which embedded the video I uploaded I found this picture of last year's Montreal zombie walk.
So I ask readers, what do you think the punishment should be for a Zombie who wears an ostentatious religious symbol in Quebec?
Stoning?.....Hanging?......Shaming?......Orthodontry?......or worse of all, a six month forced confinement in Herouxville?

By the way, I was pleased to notice proof positive in the above photo that Zombie parents can create 'normal' children, just like  Marilyn of 'The Munsters'

 ****************

Speaking of Photoshop.....
This was the woman who testified at the Charter of Values hearings about her visit to a mosque where she couldn't believe that people prayed on all fours.

Here's a photo that I myself snapped at a recent game at the Bell Centre, just for hockey fans.

During the anthems, Tim Thomas stood as far away from teammates as he could. What's up with that?

While the local media was shy to produce a picture of the Ukrainian hijacker who tried to commandeer a plane to Sochi, bedecked in a Habs sweater,  I've no such qualms.

By the way the hijacker was wearing the number 11, with 'KOIVU' proudly emblazoned on his back. Yikes!!
Don't think the Habs will be showing this photo on the Jumbotron!

Further reading

Quebec health ministry to punish Jewish General hospital for being so good

Montreal English school board tells govt to shove Charter of Values where the sun don't shine

While wait times in Quebec ERs hover around 20 hours, Jewish General shoots for 20 minutes

Université de Montréal Rector compare the effect of Bill 60 to Francoesque tactics during that Spanish dictators reigns

Read together;
A Big Advocate of French in New York’s Schools: France
New Republic: Let's Stop Pretending That French Is an Important Language:
Rebuttal:In Defense of French

 U de M language controversy is a scary indicator of intolerancee

English to replace French as main banking language 

Read together;
Federal language police should give workers a break
& Rebuttal:    Fraser: Language policy makes sense for airport workers

Quebec government-owned casino openly flouting Quebec's language laws


....finally

Have a great weekend!

Bonne fin de Semaine!