The current Quebec government is Liberal, meaning federalist in principle — but still has a Minister of International Relations, which other provinces don’t. In other words: there’s a Quebec independence movement, and a Texas independence movement, and maybe the Minister just drew what seemed a logical conclusion.

I now want to start a band called “The Ice Frogs”.

Trivia: most Quebeckers are notionally Catholic (though in reality, Quebec is now the most secular part of Canada). So at one time, I imagine, most evangelicals would have turned down even their prayers. Papists are all damned, as everyone knows.

The original meaning (though it makes no sense to say “true” meaning) of “idiot” is interesting.

My only quibble is: a dacha — reserved, in the old days, for elite apparatchiks, or at least for “disgraced” ex-leaders that everyone was still a little afraid of — would be too good for them.

Uday and Qusay are, hands down, the Upper Class Twits of The Year, USian version.

Yes, but it’ll all be leaked before Uday’s chair cools down.

Off topic: I’d visit a Gremlins-themed hotel, if were based on Gremlins II, which was the better movie.

For full marks, you also have to master a certain slow, periodic lean to one side, to allow your lawyer to whisper sweet — but exquisitely costly — nothings in your ear.

... ice cold!

But he’s not an idiot.

The planned coup, the Portuguese sojourn, and the later virtual exile in the Bahamas are all plot points in Timothy Findley’s novel Famous Last Words (1982). Actually Wallis Simpson is more central to the plot (in both senses) than is Edward.

It’s worth remembering, though, that Lester Bangs was something of an outlier even “back in the day.” After all, Jann Wenner fired him from Rolling Stone for “disrespect toward musicians.”

It was like a kind of torture

At the rink where my brother and I worked, during a big summer tournament, some parents actually rioted. After some players — 15 years old, give or take — and then both teams started fighting, parents started brawling with each other, and with opposing players who by that time had swarmed over the glass, breaking…

Same with my hockey-rink job (see above), even to similar tasks. Where I also witnessed, for the first time, the phenomenon of the hockey parent close up. That teaches you something about people: something unpleasant, I should add.

Gas station/garage here, when I was 17 (in the Dark Ages, when cars still had carburetors). For an asshole boss who eventually fired me, more or less because, while far from rebellious, I didn’t kiss his ass either. Only job I’ve ever been fired from — so far. Not an iota’s regret about any of it.

Canadian smugness is tedious, and no more justifiable than any other kind. Speaking from experience.

Absolutely. If only they’d been on the same label, Vigoda would now be truly immortal.

And “deposition” of course gets back to the “author” of “the art of the deal,” with his 2000+ lawsuits, which... nemmine, I got nothin’. As you were...