Blog about politics (mideast and pro-Israel, Canadian and local Montreal), world events, and random thoughts.

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The World I Know is updated on a semi-regular basis by segacs.

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1:39 PM
Everyone's blogging these days it seems . . . even our next Prime Minister.

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1:31 PM
Belgium has dramatically restricted its war crimes law, finally realizing that it was being abused for political purposes:

The original 1993 law allowed Belgian courts to hear war crimes cases regardless of where the crimes allegedly occurred or the nationalities of those involved. However, relations with Washington were strained after complaints were filed against Mr. Bush, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell and others because of the war in Iraq.

[ . . . ]

The revised law drops the "universal jurisdiction" claim of the 1993 original version, which also resulted in politically embarrassing complaints against British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The new law allows cases to be brought only if the victim or suspect is a Belgian citizen or long-term resident at the time of the alleged crime. It also guarantees diplomatic immunity for world leaders and other government officials visiting Belgium.

Belgium's law may have been well-intentioned at first, but unfortunately it became a venue for the world's worst despots to file complaints against anyone they didn't like. Belgium has done the sensible thing here, for once.

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1:48 PM
More proof that Arafat is still calling the shots among the terrorist groups (literally):

"Neither I nor Zakariya received orders from Arafat to make a cease-fire with the Israelis," said Atta Abu Rumeyli, the Fatah leader in the Jenin refugee camp and one of the city's strongmen. Abu Rumeyli was referring to Zakariya Zubeidi, chief of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the West Bank.

"Arafat," Abu Rumeyli continued, "does not believe the struggle should end. We have to continue to fight for our land."

Fatah's Jenin organization was surprisingly disbanded on Tuesday night, and many of its fighters were incorporated into the renegade Aksa Martyrs Brigades northern division, which is headed by Zubeidi.

And the media stubbornly continues to insist on denying Arafat's direct encouragement of terrorism.

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1:43 PM
Gay marriage debate update #2: Mike Silverman is incensed at Bush, and I don't blame him:

I guess I was a bit too smitten with Bush's policy on Iraq and Israel such that I gave him a pass on domestic policy.

No more. I am wary, angry, and frustrated with the President now in a way that I have not been since September 10th, 2001.

Since matrimony is the theme of the day, let me say that the honeymoon is over and I want a divorce, Mr. President!

And Andrew Sullivan rings in on what this really means, which is all-out discrimination:

It seems clear to me that we are now headed toward a terrible and possibly definitive tempest on the issue of gay equality. President Bush said yesterday, in so many words, that he is considering amending the constitution to deny gays legal equality in their relationships - indeed to enshrine second-class citizenship for gays in the sacred words of the founding document.

In the meantime, comments over at Daimnation are going from the absurd to the ridiculous. Arguments like this one:

Aren't religious views based on divine revelation -- or, if one prefers, thousands of years of reflection and lived human experience --at least as compelling as 'what harm could it do' or 'studies show that...'?

Ah, the old "the scientific method can't possibly compete with this booming voice in my head" argument. Or this one:

The same is true for gay marriage: what gay activists don't understand is that they can call themselves married all they want, but they will not really BE married, in the only eyes that count, the eyes of God, who created the sacrament. Gay men and women are equal under the law, but their unions are not.

Here's a thought: maybe they don't all believe in the same god who you suggest would relegate them to second-class status! Maybe they believe in another interpretation of religion, another religion altogether, or *gasp!* no religion at all! And maybe they're tired of having laws passed that deny them that freedom.

Isn't the concept of "rights" itself religious? Even the Declaration of Independence says that rights are a gift from the creator. What natural entity has the authority to grant (or withdraw) basic human rights? If human rights are subject to human whims, they can hardly be called fundamental.

The old "only god can give us rights" argument. Hmmm. I guess we should take away the right to vote from Blacks, cause back when that was changed, people believed it went against god too.

The real reason behind the opposition to gay marriage is the widespread belief, supported by nearly a century of psychiatric research, that homosexuality is an inherently dysfunctional orientation influenced by a variety of social and psychological factors during childhood and/or adolescence.

You know, the only "dysfunction" is assuming that someone who isn't like you is evil, wrong, or psychologically messed up. Maybe the teen suicide rates and the rates of "dysfunction" among homosexuals would be lessened if they weren't one of the only minorities that it was still acceptable to persecute and oppress. Ever consider that?

Here's the doozy of all arguments:

When I say gays shouldn't (actually, can't) marry, I am imposing my religious viewpoints on a minority. When they insist they should be allowed to marry, they are imposing their secular philosophy on me. Why does secularity trump religion? Because you are not religious? Oh, that's fair.

Yeah, cause gays getting married is really gonna restrict your human rights. Suuuuuure. I find it amazing when people claim that it's wrong to infringe on their "right" to infringe upon the rights of others. Kinda like the WTO protestors who claimed that it was an "infringement on their freedom of speech" to arrest them for smashing windows and trying to infringe on the freedom of speech of the people inside the conference. Hmmmm. Yes, I'm detecting a common theme of hypocricy here.

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10:02 AM
The gay marriage debate is heating up. The Vatican is saying that Jean Chretien will "burn in hell" for supporting granting the right to marry to gays and lesbians. I don't pay Chretien compliments very often, but in this case it's to his credit that, as a Catholic, he is choosing to do what's right for the country and not succumb to this blatant kind of blackmail:

"As Prime Minister of Canada, [Chretien] has the moral responsibility to protect the equality of Canadians," said Thoren Hudyma, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister's Office. "There needs to be a separation between the church and state."

I guess Bush would be exempt from eternal damnation as he has come out against gay marriage in the US . . . except that Bush isn't Catholic.

In the meantime, Damian Penny disagrees with me that religion should and can be separate from politics. He makes the argument that because politicians are people with their own moral codes, that they cannot separate the source of those moral codes from their daily decisions and actions in office:

I've heard this "you should keep your religion out of your politics" argument dozens of times (especially during the 2000 federal election campaign, when people believed Stockwell Day was going to take the vote away from women 'n stuff), and it's always stuck in my craw. It's one thing to say politicians shouldn't impose their religious beliefs upon others, but if you subscribe to a particular belief system, how on earth are you supposed to divorce yourself from it when the time comes to vote on a particular issue? Religious belief is not really something you can pick and choose whenever its convenient. Everybody has a moral compass of some kind (indeed, the lefties who usually squawk the loudest about "keeping morals out of politics" are the most dogmatic, doctrinaire people around when it comes to issues about which they feel strongly), and for many - perhaps most - people, it will be founded in some sort of religious belief. And I just don't see how you can put it completely to one side when pondering a moral issue.

In response, I would argue that the notion that morality need be founded in religion is a wrong and dangerous one:

It's more than possible to be a moral person without being a religious person, and without grounding your morality in religion (which is a fallicious and dangerous link to make, but I digress).

What George Bush is doing is taking his religious beliefs, which are supposed to be personal, and politicizing them by imposing his interpretation of religion on 250 million citizens, some of which may share his beliefs and many of which don't.

Now you may say, how is that any different than a president saying "my moral code says it's wrong to kill, so I'm going to pass a law forbidding murder". But it is different. There are concrete, natural reasons why it's wrong to kill (a priori) that need not be based on a faith-based religious doctrine. It's wrong to kill because fellow human beings have a right to life and killing causes grievous harm.

But to say that's it's "wrong" for gays to have the right to get married, just because of blind faith in religion, well, that has no place whatsoever in politics. Nobody's telling Bush to be gay or to marry a guy. But if he's going to tell all Americans that they can't do it, he ought to have a damn good reason, and "my religion says so" just doesn't cut it.

Damian responded by saying that religious codes of morality were the source for most of our secular notions on morality:

This does beg the question, where did the concept of a "right to life" arise in the first place? Most religions have a clear prohibition against killing other people (although, as everyone from the Inquisitors to Hamas illustrate, religious people will find no shortage of loopholes allowing them to get around this inconvenient rule), and that's why murder was taboo long before secular philosophical arguments against killing gained popular currency. This is another area where politics and religion cannot be completely separated.

I think that is a powerful and persuasive argument that merits a response. I also think it's wrong.

Rather than discuss this at length here, I'll direct interested parties to this link to a philosophy paper I wrote on the subject. I'd post excerpts but in my egotistical opinion it's better if you read the whole thing.

And for anyone who isn't yet asleep, further reading can be found here, here, and here, among other places.

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12:55 PM
More stupidities from South of the Border: President Bush has announced that he plans to support a law that would define marriage as the union between a man and a woman, thus thwarting efforts to legalize gay marriage:

While Bush said people must be tolerant and "respect each individual," that "does not mean that someone like me needs to compromise on the issue of marriage."

Of all the stupid Bush quotes I've heard, that one's one of the stupidest. Does Bush actually think that legalizing gay marriage would force him to divorce Laura and marry Dick Cheney?

This is a shining example of the problems that occur when governments try to play morals police and impose their religiously-derived code of morality on everyone. And is a main reason why, despite agreeing with them on many issues of foreign and economic policy, I could never vote for the right.

Gay marriage can't be a "majority rules" decision, because the majority of us are straight. Put it to a popular vote and minorities usually get shafted. Instead, it's time for us to recognize - as Canadian society is finally realizing - that we're not abdicating any of our own rights by granting them to others. And that denying rights to minorities is something that history - and morality by any kind of secular definition - cannot tolerate or forgive.

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12:48 PM
Outrage of the day: Bruce Balfour, a Canadian from Alberta who was arrested in Lebanon for the "crime" of having been to Israel, is being placed on trial for "collaborating with the enemy":

A Canadian diplomat told AFP earlier Wednesday that Balfour was arrested on arrival in Beirut on July 10 and thrown into Rumiyeh central prison, northeast of the capital, for reasons that were not then clear.

Prison authorities failed to inform the Canadian consul until several days later, contrary to the Geneva Convention, which stipulates a maximum 48-hour period for consuls to be informed of the arrest of one of their nationals.

A Canadian diplomat has visited Balfour in jail and he has been given food, money and clean laundry.

Balfour told the Canadian diplomat who visited him he was arrested after showing his passport to officials at Beirut airport, and believed he was imprisoned "because he'd gone to a neighbouring country".

Foreigners who have visited Israel and have Israeli stamps in their passport are not allowed to enter Lebanon, which is technically still at war with the Jewish state. Normally, they are deported.

The National Post reported only two days ago that the Lebanese Government still had not confirmed the reason for Balfour's detention, but that Balfour himself had written a letter to the Canadian Embassy claiming that he was being held because he once visited Israel (via Damian Penny):

"I was arrested because a computer entry said that I have been in Israel at one time, which is true," Balfour said in his letter. " But please tell me where the crime in this is. My freedom has been taken away and I have been treated horribly," wrote Balfour.

[ . . . ]

She said her brother was informed at the Beirut airport that it is illegal to enter Lebanon if a person has already visited Israel and their records showed that he had been to the neighboring country. She says if that is the case, then he should be simply charged and fined, as the law apparently provides, and subsequently released.

But he wasn't simply fined and deported, he was locked up for nearly three weeks already and is now apparently going to be put on trial for some bogus, trumped-up charge. This sham of a "trial" is sure to be another shining example of the "transparent and democratic justice system" in Lebanon.

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1:00 AM
They're coming: Nearly half a million people are expected to descend on Toronto for the big Rolling Stones concert tomorrow. And they're lining up already.

Also on the bill are the Guess Who, AC/DC, Rush, Blue Rodeo, the Tea Party, the Flaming Lips, Montrealers Sass Jordan and Sam Roberts, and . . . Justin Timberlake? (Yeah, seems a bit out of place doesn't he? Can you picture all the 50+ concert-goers dancing to his brand of pop?)

Anyway, all of these bands for only $21.50 seems like a pretty decent deal, which is probably why they're flocking from all directions and filling up Toronto's hotels and restaurants, which have been standing pretty empty since the SARS epidemic.

All good news for Toronto. And a pretty spectacular music event if I do say so myself, even if it did cost the government a fortune and Ticketmaster is going to reap most of the profits. I'm sure it'll be lots of fun.

But Justin Timberlake???

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12:48 AM
Is it just me, or does that new much-hyped Ben and J.Lo movie, Gigli, look really dumb?

Can't wait for the new American Pie movie, American Wedding, though.

Okay, okay, fine, it's fluff. But I'm getting really sick of this stupid mudslinging that the mideast debate has degenerated into around here lately. Aren't you?

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12:49 PM
Protestors Hooligans are at it again on the streets of downtown Montreal:

A handful of protestors, lofting wooden boards and metal dustbins, took out their frustrations on the windows of a Burger King restaurant, the American clothing chain The Gap and Canadian clothing store Jacob.

The demonstrators, 200-strong at one point, also smashed the windshields of two cars, a Porsche and a BMW, which had been parked on the street, and shattered windows at a building occupied by Canada's armed forces.

This protest, against the World Trade Organization meetings taking place downtown this week, was billed as "child-friendly" and organizers renounced the use of violence.

Yeah right.

About five city blocks of downtown are shut to traffic because of the security concerns associated with these demonstrations, inconveniencing people who work downtown and virtually shutting down retailers and businesses. Not to mention the damages that the rioting and destruction are incurring.

How much do you wanna bet that the protestors, a la Netanyahu-riot, will blame the WTO for "provoking" their actions and renounce all responsibility? I'd say it's pretty much a sure thing.

Update: Well, that didn't take long. Organizers are defending the violence:

Another organizer, Stefan Christoff, defended the violence against the stores, saying the Gap is a multinational corporation that runs sweatshops.

"These are very legitimate targets, as the WTO is a legitimate target,'' said Christoff, who denounced the police presence in downtown Montreal as a militarization of the city.

Police have arrested 100 people already, including Jaggi Singh, one of Canada's most high-profile shit-disturbers.

I swear, these news stories could've been written weeks in advance.

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