A moth is not a butterfly
And I know why, I know why
It kind of makes you want to cry
That a moth is not a butterfly

CBC Radio’s Shift has a nice little habit of playing music that fits with the discussion of the moment. Hawskley Workman’s tune “A Moth is not a Butterfly” was up today. The moth today is Pluto, and the butterflies are the other eight planets. Correction — the only eight planets.

The International Astronomical Union has finally set down in writing what the definition of “planet” is and Pluto doesn’t make the cut. The general public opinion on the matter seems to be, “Aww”. Everybody loves the underdog.

The problem was that there are other objects in the solar system which are bigger than Pluto, and there’s plenty of reason to believe that there will be dozens more in years to come. Astronomers had a decision to make — either make all these new objects planets, or else bite the bullet and demote Pluto.

The little guy still gets to be called a dwarf planet, along with the (former) asteroid Ceres and its neighbour in our solar system’s Great White North, UB₃₁₃ (aka Xena). There are dozen or so more candidate dwarfs on the list — Sedna and Quaoar among them.

So although everybody seems to love Pluto and wanted to see him stay among the planets, he’s got a lot of company out there near the Kuiper Belt. (That’s why he can’t be a planet anymore — planets are, by definition, loners, unlike the asteroids and the snowballs beyond Neptune.) You can all still cheer for him as the poster-boy for those ancient icy trans-Neptunian objects.

As an off topic side note, the lyrics of “A Moth is Not a Butterfly” seem awfully hard to come by on the web, so here they are, transcribed by me, in their entirety. Apologies for any mistakes.

A moth is not a butterfly
And I know why, I know why
It kind of makes you want to cry
That a moth is not a butterfly
But some are happy in the bluest sky
And others search in the dark of night
And sadness is a silent right
A moth is not a butterfly

A stone is not a grain of sand
It’s hard I guess to understand
Both broken parts scatter the land
A stone is not a grain of sand
And one has lived for longer still
The other longs to break until
The wind can lift it in its hand
A stone is not a grain of sand

A desert’s not a mountain side
And I know why, I know why
Cause one is vast and one divides
A desert’s not a mountain side
Cause one has need for open space
The other’s simply in its place
It must be known far and wide
That a desert’s not a mountainside

A moth is not a butterfly
And I know why, I know why
It kind of makes you want to cry
That a moth is not a butterfly

I remember during the election campaign that there were only a couple things Stephen Harper promised that I would be okay with. One of them was reinforcing Canada’s sovereignty in the arctic.

It’s only been in the last few years that I found out that most countries (if any) don’t recognize Canada’s claim to the waters around our northern islands as internal waters. I’m not sure exactly why this is unsettling to me. Perhaps it’s just because I’ve always taken for granted that that whole area was ours.

On the surface it doesn’t really matter that much right now, but the northwest passage is becoming more and more of a reality every year. I don’t know how far down the road it will be, but eventually the area could become a well used shipping route. Even now there are rumours of American, Russian, and other countries’ submarines in those waters. I think this article has a great idea on how to deal with that particular threat.

And there are environmental concerns. If Canada does not exercise soverignty over these waters, then we have no way of controlling traffic, pollution, and protecting life native to the region.

My problem is mostly that I just don’t know what the international standard for these things are. The water between Hawaii and America are definitely not internal waters. What about the stretch between Kyushu and Okinawa of Japan? Honshu and Shigoku? Australia and Tasmania? There’s a set distance out from the shore you have to go before hitting international waters, right? If you apply that to the arctic islands (which you probably should), do you end up with regions outside our jurisdiction? Or do you hit the neighbouring islands first?

The population up there is pretty scarce, but there are villages as far north as Ellesmere Island. I think as much of the area as is possible should be protected, perhaps as a national park, or at least with safeguards in place to protect the natural environment from… well, ourselves.

I always thought it was a bit odd that in order to walk into the Royal Victoria Hospital, I’d invariably have to walk through a gaggle of stinky people and their cloud of smoke. It’s bugged me so much that I came very close to filing a real complaint. Well no more! I got a lovely email from the VP Administration at McGill. As of today,

“Smoking is prohibited within a radius of nine metres (30 feet) outside any door leading to a health or social services institution, to a postsecondary educational institution, or to a facility where activities for minors are provided.”

Hopefully they’ll also enforce this around campus (as they promise) so I won’t go through the same thing at the entrance to the Rutherford building. Especially that one particular guy who shall remain unidentified. He bugs me.

It doesn’t cover all of campus, though. Some areas are still smokable, including,

“Green spaces on either side of the main pathway leading from the Roddick Gates entrance (including the football field, “beach,” and surrounding areas).”

This brings up a very, I think, important question… Since when does McGill have a beach on the lower field? What am I missing here?

The problem with Nostradamus is that the things he said only make sense after big crazy things happen. And I’m almost entirely sure that it’s all just coincidence, since everything’s so vague to begin with. Like horoscopes. “Today you will meet your true love, but the chance might pass you by if you aren’t paying attention.” Yay. That’s not self-fulfilling at all.

This, however, is just a little bit freaky :–

Bloody fantastic, that is.

Anybody who lives here in Quebec has probably heard that Hydro Quebec is raising their rates by about 5 percent starting April 1st. Today, the CTV local news is asking viewers if they think this rate hike is excessive. To that I have to say, “How the hell should I know?”

Sure, I would prefer no rate hike at all. But I don’t work for Hydro’s finance department. I’m not an economist. I have no knoweldge about how much it costs to provide power to this big old province. Unless you actually understand the economics behind it, I don’t care if you think it’s excessive or not.

This seems to me to be exactly like, I’m sorry to say, when Michael Jackson was on trial. Without knowing anything about the evidence against him, thousands of people had no trouble coming out in support of him, and for each one of those there was another who was convinced that he was guilty. When he was found innocent, those people went on rants about celebrities getting a free ride. Maybe it’s just me, but I thought the whole point of the justice system was so that we wouldn’t be running out and lynching whoever we happen to think is a little creepy.

Hydro rate hikes have to go through an approval process before they come into effect. Maybe it is more than they need but I know it’s not as much as they asked for. Obviously I don’t like my bill going up, but that doesn’t entitle me to decide whether it’s excessive.

Did anybody else notice that Ricky Martin seemed to be lip syncing during his performance at the Olympic closing ceremonies today?

That was the biggest score in a single end in a single end I’ve ever seen. And to think, it could have been 7, if Brad Gushue hadn’t gotten a little over excited, I think, and overshot.

It was an exciting game, with lots of rocks in play on every end. After recovering from Finland’s deuce in the first end, it was easy to see that there tended to be a lot more Canadian yellow in the house and so was able to steal a point for two ends in a row. Who knows why Russ Howard looked so grumpy after every shot. Of course it really paid off in the 6th end with 6 points. Huge. Of course with Uusipaavalniemi curling at 53% after 5 ends it didn’t look good anyway.

My favourite part was that they closed school in Newfoundland so all the kids would be able to watch.

I realise this is old news, but it would have gone well with yesterday’s post. Alas, I forgot about it. And I don’t like going back to edit old posts, even after only a day. It’s like reopening the time capsule. Anyway… I captured this during CBC’s election coverage:

Not only was the Green Party leading in one riding for about two minutes, but so was the Other Party. Whoever they might have been. Peter Mansbridge didn’t seem to notice or care. It wasn’t that independent guy from Quebec, since independents were marked IND in dark grey. My money’s on the Christian Heritage Party, and I bet it was an Alberta riding.

I’m quite disappointed that CBC seems to have gone to a more American style in their Olympic coverage. This year CBC seems to be all about the highlight reels of Canadian athletes set to rock music.

I call it American because during the last olympics, you could go back and forth between CBC and America’s NBC and see a big difference. CBC tended to show more full events no matter who was playing, whereas NBC tended to just show clips of only the American athletes.

The difference is probably that I can’t watch the afternoon coverage since I’m in school during the day, whereas during the 2004 Olympics in Athens I was living life as a couch potato. By the time the evening coverage comes around everybody in Torino is done for the day and there’s nothing live going on anymore. Highlights are all that’s left.

Well, really, I’m mostly just disappointed that I can’t see any curling games. They just tease me with a few of the best shots, and of course the final results of each draw. If there are any full games airing, they’re early morning. Poop.

Da da DAAA dadadada da, DAAA dadadada da! DAA dadadada da-DEE-da daaaa (dadadada, dadadada) da da da da dum-de-da-dum!!!

I love CBC’s olympic theme song. It’s the first thing I remember about watching them on TV, during the 1994 games in Lillehammer. That and a ski jumper flying over the cauldron and dropping the torch in to light the flame. But I might have dreamt that.

PS. Canada already has our first gold medal.