Ashley Madison: doing everything but the numbers, apparently

So, a few days back, it came to light that a public-spirited group of extortionists had hacked a website catering to marital infidelity with a brand name much like, ummm, Mashley Addleson. They kindly offered not to release the names of everybody signed up to the site in exchange for a whack of cash.

The web, predictably, went Twitteristic.

In a similarly public-spirited vein, I gather that Mashley Addleson has since contacted individual users with offers to do a "full delete" that would vacuum out all trace of an account. For smaller, individual whacks of cash.

Terrific philanthropists, all of 'em...

And as ummm, investigative journalists everywhere started delving deeper into this event, it also arose that the site was claiming some 200,000 subscribers in Ottawa, or one in five residents. According to one Brit rag possessed of ethics nearly as dubious as Mashley's, that figure would make this sleepy burg the world's "love rat capital".

After pondering on that for longer than I shoulda, I looked up 2011 Statistics Canada census figures for the Ottawa Census Metropolitan Area.

So I obviously have waaay too much time on my paws, but this whole story really does beg the question: why the hell hasn't anybody in the media bothered to do this? ** It was like, 20 minutes' work, even allowing for the fact that paws and keyboards do not play well together. Easy story! Just, maybe, not a sexy story. Since a CMA isn't just the city whose name it takes -- a CMA extends beyond city boundaries proper -- I figured that the cachement area would roughly cover people in surrounding small towns who might craftily list their residence as "Ottawa". Because that's just the kind of convenient little cover story that the thinking cheater might figure would reduce their chances of being identified and outed in a smaller place.

Say, "Russell Township" or "Ashton Station" or something. Small towns bein' what they are, everybody in one likely has thoughts about which of the neighbours might be foolin' around, but no sense in giving 'em outright confirmation, right?

Now, as an ancient coyote whose eyes are now nearly as fuzzy as his ass, I am certainly open to the possibility that I'm misreading a government statistical agency table. I am therefore open to correction. *

Since the current government screwed over the reliability of the official census some time back, the government statistical agency is also open to correction. But I digress. Where the hell was I? Oh, yeah. So, anyway, what I think I'm seeing is a total of 411,110 people who are married/common-law in this CMA.

Which means that according Mashley Addleson, on average close to 1 in every 2 married persons in Ottawa CMA is steppin' out. Doin' the dirty. Bonkin' outta wedlock. Which seems, you know, a touch... flagrant. If not downright delicto.

Of course, there are other takes on the situation. When I confided my doubts to the Independent Observer (remember him...? We still talk.) he, being of a practical frame of mind, just waved his hand and said, "Should we trust the statistics of a company that encourages cheating...?"

Oh yeah. Right. Nevermind...

*... So it turns out, inevitably, that after that pretty little sketch of Census Metropolitan Areas, someone with a far more obsessive eye for detail than I has pointed out that I did not in fact use CMA figures, or link to them. The numbers are for Ottawa, the city proper.

But it also transpires, happily, that the fragrant flagrance of that one-in-two ratio holds. So there's that.

Figures. Us coyotes are not built for trapping errors. In my defence I will say that we are exquisitely tuned to catch small rodents, partridges, grouse and your cat. On the fly! But owls? Don't get me started on owls. Them things is fiends...

** Although, to the eventual satirical credit of the Last Week Tonight research team, John Oliver finally did...

May Day: The trial(s) of Mayor Larry

As a city pauses to either smell the scent of spring, or (depending on your kink) possibly the mayor, His Nibs will step down (temporarily, he truly believes...) at midnight tonight to deal with that pesky criminal matter pending before the courts. And I just wanna say that it is so unfortunate that others - you uninformed critics and naysayers! - cannot see him in the same optimistic light that he does. Because despite the repeated intrusion of actual, you know, reality, time after time he somehow manages to keep right on believin' in the essential rightness, goodness and smartness of Mayor Larry, to a point that some may call ummm, delusional. In this spirit, it seems like a good moment to pause and recall some of our favourite Larryisms:

• "Zero means Zero!" - Campaign promise to cut city taxes. And, umm, how did that go? Now an eponymous blog pointing out Our Beloved Leader's piddling, minor, utterly forgivable oopsies...
• " "I fell asleep on my boat in July drinking a beer and when I woke up I was the mayor of Ottawa." - That's okay, fella. At least a third of Ottawa voters seem to have been blacked out that entire time, too...
• "Quite frankly I believe with every fibre of my being that I'm innocent." - Right, gotcha. See intro, above... And after consulting (barely) overnight with an unspecified focus group whose opinions seemed to fly in the face of popular majority opinion, he said "overwhelming support" led him to cling to the job instead of bowing out after being charged...
• "I feel like a rock star!" - To media at Ontario Provincial Police HQ, where he was formally charged and printed, in:re that aforementioned pesky criminal matter...
• There is, naturally, no fifth quote...
• "No comment..." - The Mayor's hired spokes-thingy, after three companies that had been signed to build a light rail system slapped the city with $277 million worth of lawsuits. His Nibs had previously persuaded council that it could tear up the contract without major consequences...
• "Certainly I'd vote for myself..." - Larry announcing his intention to continue screwing up royally ummm, run for mayor again, in 2010 municipal elections. Maybe he went back to the same focus group he used to decide to stay in office, after he was charged in that aforementioned pesky criminal matter...?

Y'know, looking back over these quotes, I'm beginning to see that Hizzoner is in way over his custom-buffed head. Alone they might mean nothing, but there's obviously a pattern of half-recognized denial. Together, they form a highly public cry for help. Mayday, indeed...

Confession - Part II

iamaknitter,andiplantopostaboutknitting!

Phew, that feels better.

If this had been a contest, Zoom would have won!

Confession - Part I

Woodsy has a confession to make.

Whether I have decided to confess because seeing the image of the nuns about to kiss brought up my latent catholic guilt, or because this post is my first attempt at self-referential wanking really doesn’t matter. What matters is that I have to come clean with the ESI gang.

You brought me into your group knowing that unlike the rest of you, I am not a polished writer. I classify turnips and radishes for a living after all.

You brought me into your group accepting that I often refer to myself in the 3rd person. Some of you have commented that this is odd behaviour, but obviously odd character traits are valued at ESI.

You brought me into your group with an open mind about my flirting with both sexes, and my floozy ways. Actually, some of you have already taken advantage of those qualities in me.

All that did not affect your decision.

But had you known what I will reveal in Confession Part II, would you have voted me in?

I do not floss, therefore I am (in big trouble with my dentist)

I have a dentist's appointment soon. But I have not been flossing nearly enough. And I can't bear to face the tut-tutting and sanctimonious sighs of my dental hygienist.

So which of the following strategies would best encourage me to floss?

a) Tie a piece of dental floss around my finger
b) Take a spool of floss to The Observatory each day and use it during work
c) Surreptiously photograph my dental hygienist, preferably while she's scowling, and paste the photo to my bathroom mirror