Diacritiques

Well, the fat lady hasn’t sung yet, officially. A friend on irc, on the other hand, says she’s singing right as I type this. Or he? What’s the appropriate pronoun gender for a fat lady who is neither fat nor a lady?

Be that as it may, even though there’s no much doubt that, barring a major movement to delegitimate the entire voting procedure in several states, Bush is going to be elected by a somewhat slim but perfectly acceptable margin of the popular vote. Wider than Nixon/Ford in 1976 or Mitterrand/Giscard d’Estaing in 1974, for starters. I’m still about 80% convinced that Kerry shouldn’t have conceded yet. Not because there was a realistic chance for him, though. The fat lady, for me, would be the electoral college. What’s Mr Kerry’s singing voice like, anyway?

I don’t much feel like serious analysis just yet — read John Quiggin’s post at Crooked Timber for that. It’s a good one, whether I agree with his take or not. Shorter reactions that made me smile come from Laurent at Embruns, who remarks that the French have after all reelected Chriac as well (je suis d’accord sur sur la forme sinon sur le fond); from Pepper of the Earth in a woeful pun; and from Derek Powazek, whose reactions involves, pace Laurent, a cute kitty. A bar kitty even. We need one for Paris Carnet, where I’m headed now. On second thought, Laurent would kill me.