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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6:08 PM
Quote of the day:

LGF reports the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade's reaction to finding out that the man they murdered in a drive-by shooting in Jerusalem was not Jewish but Arab:

A leader of a Palestinian militant group behind the drive-by killing of an Israeli jogger apologized on Saturday after the dead man was identified as an Israeli-Arab university student.

"The fighters thought [George Khoury] was a settler jogging in an area full of settlers. It was a mistake and we extend our apology to his family," a leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed group in President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, told Reuters.

"We will consider him as a martyr like hundreds of Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation forces," the al-Aqsa brigades leader said, adding that the group would send a letter of apology to Khoury's family.

How long until the media starts reporting that Khoury was killed by the IDF? Hey, it worked with Mohammed al-Dura...

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5:59 PM
Stephen Harper has won the Conservative Party leadership on the first ballot, with 56% of the vote compared to 35% for Belinda Stronach and 9% for Tony Clement.

Harper spent a lot of time in his victory speech talking about how the Conservatives were going to overthrow the Liberals and form the next government. But he couldn't beat the Chretien Liberals as leader of the Alliance, and he won't beat the Martin Liberals this time.

What he will do is regain his job as leader of the official opposition... only this time, the Liberals might only have a minority government. Which will give Harper's Conservatives a lot more power. However, I don't believe that Harper will ever be Canada's Prime Minister. The conservative fiscal policies may appeal to many, but Harper is still perceived as too Western, too socially right-wing, too alienated from the sensibilities of mainstream Canada.

I think Harper himself said it best, when he said that "it might be a few years too late, but welcome to the 21st century". The Conservative Party is continually being several years behind the times. Until that changes, neither will the government.

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4:55 PM
More horrors from North Korea (via Paul Jané):

North Korea built [a gulag system] on the Chinese model and added a new depravity — child political prisoners. Neither the Soviets nor the Chinese sent children to the concentration camps but the Dear Leader sends the entire family. One of the best accounts of the North Korean gulag is written by someone who was sent to the camps at the age of nine, because his grandfather had offended the system. His sister was only seven; she was also sent to prison. In North Korea, the children of political prisoners are called "seedlings." Official propaganda proscribes the proper treatment of these children, "desiccate the seedlings of counterrevolution, pull them out by their roots, and exterminate every last one of them."

The camps are designed to exploit the prisoners' labor until they die. Prisoners are given difficult and dangerous labor such as mining under unsafe conditions. Children are assigned heavy work as well, such as logging. Even before the famine of the mid-1990s, prisoners, including children, were on rations that would not sustain life in the long run, much less allow for any sort of normal growth. Since the political prisoners are never released, there is no danger of them divulging military secrets; they are assigned to work on missiles and other special weapons. One camp, Camp #14, is notorious for its use of prisoners "as guinea pigs for developing chemical warfare technology," according to information obtained by the Seoul Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights.

This stuff makes my stomach turn. And there's more:

It's bad luck to be an even moderately attractive young woman in the camps. High Communist Party officials troll the camps looking for victims to be used as sex slaves. If the women become pregnant, they are forced to have an abortion without anesthesia. When their usefulness is over, the women are murdered. Their deaths are covered up as "shot while trying to escape." In much the same way, the Nazi "Death Doctor," Josef Mengele, used to comb the arriving trains for an attractive evening companion, only to have her shot the next day.

No, this isn't Germany 60 years ago. It's happening in North Korea right now. And the world is content to do nothing about it, because North Korea is communist and communism is the solution to the evil capitalism of America and the Zionist Cabal and the evil Joooos that everyone's so much more concerned about condemning. And besides, Kim Jong-Il has nuclear weapons probably and he's crazy and he might use them so what can anyone do anyway? And it's so far away so it's easy to close our eyes and pretend it doesn't exist, right? Especially cause nobody ever escapes from Camp #14 so there are no eyewitnesses to write books or go on speaking tours to raise awareness.

Sickening and disgusting, all of it.

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4:27 PM
Ontario... B.C. ... and now Quebec:

The Quebec Court of Appeal has ruled that barring gays from marriage is discriminatory, upholding a lower court ruling and effectively paving the way to gay marriage in Quebec:

The Quebec court case pitted some religious groups against Michael Hendricks and Rene Leboeuf, who want to marry after being together for 30 years.

The religious groups were appealing a September 2002 ruling by Justice Louise Lemelin of Quebec Superior Court that said restricting marriage to a union between a man and a woman was unjustified under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

This isn't really too surprising, as public opinion in Quebec is overwhelmingly supportive of gay marriage. And it's only a matter of time until the rest of the country follows suit.

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4:04 PM
Oh, grow up!

Ottawa city councillors, keen to boost their local Senators NHL ice hockey team, are proposing to ban fans of their hated rival Toronto Maple Leafs from wearing replica team sweaters at games here.

The tongue-in-cheek measure, due to go to a vote next week, could force any Leafs fans who transgress to make a donation to a local food bank.

That would make the Senators the biggest babies of the NHL. If Sens jerseys can fill the Bell Centre, and Habs jerseys can fill the GM Place, then surely Leafs fans can show their colours in Ottawa or anywhere else.

Ottawa has a great team this year. They have a real shot at the Cup. But now that they're playing with the big boys, they need to get some backbone. The players seem to have figured that out... now the city has to follow suit.

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2:17 PM
The backwards argument: security for pro-Israel speakers:

A group of students at Virginia Commonwealth University called Supporters of a Safe Israel is trying to bring Daniel Pipes to speak on campus. But here's the catch: because of fear of violence, riots, and general security breakdowns for any pro-Israel event on a university campus these days, the group would need to pay for extra security in order to get permission for the event to go ahead. Meryl is trying to help them raise money, which is all very well and good and I'm sure that if you want to help out you can check out her posting and do so:

A student group called Supporters of a Safe Israel at Virginia Commonwealth University wants to bring Daniel Pipes to VCU for a lecture. However, due to the current anti-Israel climate on many college campuses, whenever a group brings a pro-Israel speaker, the colleges demand extra security due to the protests and controversy that will ensue.

SSI needs to raise an extra $5,000, and they've only got about a month.

To those of us who remember the Netanyahu riot at Concordia, this argument is somewhat familiar... only that it goes even further. VCU requires the pro-Israel students to pay extra, but still allows their events to take place if they do. The argument at Concordia after September 9, 2002 went something like this: "Well, bringing Netanyahu was such a security risk that the university should have never allowed him to come in the first place".

Either way, it's backwards. The reason that pro-Israel speakers require extra security is because of a group of shit-disturbers who think that rioting is the new black. They are not content to merely voice their disagreements with opposing viewpoints; they believe in using any means necessary - including and especially violence - to shut them down. And they are the reason extra security is required in the first place.

If you ask me, it's the groups who organize the riots who should have to fund extra security. After all, if they stuck to peaceful demonstration tactics - similar to those used by pro-Israel groups protesting anti-Israel speakers - no extra security would be needed.

Because if the rioters have their way, it will become prohibitively expensive to bring any pro-Israel speaker to a university campus. And then they will have accomplished their goal of shutting down the views they don't like. Rioting will have won. And that, to me, is unacceptable.

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1:48 PM
Cellucci: Canada could be next target of terrorism:

US Ambassador Paul Cellucci warned that Canada was one of the only targets on Al Qua'eda's list that had not yet been hit with either a successful or foiled terrorist attack. And that it was very likely we could be the next targets:

Canadians need to heed the dire warning this week from U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci that major cities in the Windsor-to-Montreal corridor face an Al-Qa'ida attack similar to last week's terrorist strikes in Madrid, says one of the country's leading terrorism experts.

"Our turn is coming. It may be coming much sooner than we think," John Thompson, president of the Mackenzie Institute, Canada's leading security and terrorism think-tank, said in an interview yesterday.

[ . . . ]

In a video that aired on the Al Jazeera satellite television station Nov. 12, 2002, the Al-Qa'ida leader singled out Canada as a country that should be attacked. Canada was listed along with several

other U.S. allies on the tape.

Thompson said that Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Italy -- all U.S. allies in the international war on terrorism -- have either been struck by Al-Qa'ida or have had terrorists plots foiled on their soil.

"We're the only ones they've threatened that they haven't gone after yet," Thompson said.

[ . . . ]

Thompson said Canadians must be shaken from their mistaken belief that they are somehow immune from terrorism.

"There's this strong belief that we're the world's nice guys and everyone loves us," Thompson said. "We have been sheltered for far too long. ... Some day soon we'll all have to wake up and realize we've been hit."

The only question is, should Canada be struck, will we react like the U.S.? Or like Spain?

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11:31 AM
Excuse me for a moment while I yield to the temptation to act like a bratty five-year-old:

HAHAHAHA! Serves you right!

Pettiness doesn't pay. That was the message a Quebec Court judge sent to the Office de la langue française yesterday.

[ . . . ]

Central Microsystems 4000 had been working with the language police since 1999 on a French version of its online computer store, but a few English words continued to appear in some product descriptions.

The Office considered that a violation of the French Language Charter and sent the matter to the Quebec attorney-general, who in February 2002 fined the LaSalle company $604.

The company contested the fine. Judge Maximilien Polak yesterday upheld the defence's argument although the company might have technically contravened the charter, the violation was so trivial it did not warrant the full force of the law.

The OLF's decision to pursue the matter even after Central Microsystems repeatedly showed its willingness to make corrections went against the language police's own stated objective, which was to correct charter violations, not to punish them, the judge found.

Ok, it's out of my system now. But it's about time that somebody called the ruler-wielding OLF on its anal-retentiveness...

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5:12 PM
Megacity pettiness strikes again:

Montreal megacity municipal workers are stifling political expression in Cote St. Luc by cutting down hundreds of blue ribbons that volunteers put up to promote their campaign for demerger:

In what may be a prelude to a complaint-riddled referendum campaign, demerger activists are accusing the Côte St. Luc/Hampstead/Montreal West borough of stifling freedom of expression after municipal workers yesterday cut down hundreds of blue ribbons that a Côte St. Luc demerger committee had posted on poles and trees.

Borough officials say employees simply went overboard in their spring cleaning yesterday.

Spring cleaning? Hah! I'll believe that when the streets and parks don't look like overflowing trash cans.

In the meantime, Robert Libman just lost yet another in a long list of respect notches in my book:

Housefather's colleagues - borough mayor Robert Libman and city councillor Dida Berku - denied ordering any ribbons to be cut down. Libman added that he doubted ribbons were removed from private property.

Libman accused Housefather of deliberately plastering ribbons to provoke their removal and "to make a big political scandal out of this."

So, wait, he didn't remove them but they were plastered in order to provoke their removal? Which is it, Libman? Did you order them removed or not? And did it ever occur to you that they were put up, not to provoke removal, but to encourage citizen response?

The profusion of ribbons in Côte St. Luc "really goes beyond what I think is sophisticated or legitimate political expression," Libman said.

In other words, it threatens your cushy job?

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11:33 AM
Happy Saint Patrick's Day to everyone. Sláinte!

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11:21 AM
Meryl has declared today the International Eat an Animal for PETA day. She started the day last year in response to PETA's disgusting ad campaign comparing eating meat to the slaughter of six million Jews during the Holocaust. That's low even for the nutbags at PETA and there's been an overwhelming call to reprise the day this year.

I approve. I have nothing against vegetarians, but the wingnuts over at People Eating Tasty Animals (er, PETA) are the exception. Don't want to eat meat? Fine. But shut up about it. PETA, on the other hand, is so obsessed with respect for animals that they have lost all respect for humans. Besides the aforementioned ad campaign, there was also the lovely incident where PETA decided that suicide bombings are OK as long as no donkeys are harmed, or the really classy tactic of telling children their mommy is an animal-killer for wearing fur, by approaching kids at performances of the Nutcracker and handing them flyers.

So I plan to go home after work and have a nice tasty chicken dinner in honour of IEAPD. 'Course, I probably would've done that anyway. But somehow I think it'll taste better, since I'll know that it's in honour of pissing off PETA.

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11:04 AM
The true meaning of "end the occupation":

Lynn notes that Arafat is referring to Ashdod as "Israeli occupied Ashdod". Ashdod, of course, is inside the "green line", for anyone who still lends that line any importance.

When the Palestinian terrorists say "end the occupation", they mean Tel Aviv. Just in case anyone was still unclear about that. And of course, the answer is a very simple, unambiguous "no".

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10:45 AM
They'll kill us anyway.

That's my message to people in Spain, in all of Europe, in North America, or anywhere. The terrorists don't care what we do. They'll kill us anyway.

It doesn't matter if we make nice, and talk about "understanding" the motives of the terrorists. They'll kill us anyway.

It doesn't matter if we look for "root causes" or try to blame terrorist attacks on the actions and international policies of our governments. They'll kill us anyway.

It doesn't matter if we stand in the streets marching and chanting with the radical groups, holding signs equating Bush to Hitler or denouncing the United States. They'll kill us anyway.

It doesn't matter if we all flood classes about Islam to learn about the "religion of peace" and have long theological discussions about its true meanings. They'll kill us anyway.

It doesn't matter if we turn out in droves to throw out centrist governments at the polls and vote in socialists who are more inclined to appeasement in reaction to terror attacks. They'll kill us anyway.

It doesn't matter if we abstain from United Nations resolutions that would attempt to defend what's right, or if we bury our heads in the sand on an international scale and refuse to take any action, or even if we turn on our allies. They'll kill us anyway.

It doesn't matter if we denounce Israel or give millions in aid to the Palestinians. They'll kill us anyway.

It doesn't matter what we do. To the terrorists, all that matters is who we are: Western, democratic and free. They don't hate us for what we do, or don't do. That's just an excuse. They attacked Spain and people said it was because the Spanish were allied with the US and Britain in Iraq. So now the Spanish throw out their government, and we in Canada breathe a sigh of relief because we didn't participate in the war in Iraq so we won't be targets. But they attacked Morocco and Kenya and Bali and Turkey... how many of those places participated in the war in Iraq? If we Canadians think they won't kill us anyway, we're kidding ourselves. Given the opportunity, they would be just as happy to kill as many of us as they can.

They're fighting a war. Oppression against freedom. Backwardness against civilization. They've gotten tired of oppressing the people in the middle east only, and they have decided to go global... and they won't stop until we're all dead. That's how much they hate us. No amount of caving to their blackmail or changing our actions or ways of thinking will appease them either. Do you really think Osama Bin Laden cares how many people who died in 9/11 were registered Republicans and how many were registered Democrats? Do you really think he gives a rat's ass whether any of the people who died when the World Trade Center collapsed had been out marching in an ANSWER rally a week before? Or had been out protesting Bush a month before?

No, they don't hate us for what we do. They hate us for who we are. And they'll kill us anyway. So there's nothing left for us to do but to kill them first.

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10:29 AM
Michele on the Spanish election results:

The terrorists got what they wanted. They won.

And now the U.S. will have one less ally. One less country to count on the war against terrorism. They'll pull out of Iraq and it won't be long before they pull out of fighting the terrorists all together. Appeasement is the new black.

Welcome to the new age of al-Qaid and radical Islam on the whole, built on the deaths of 200 people. They've been emboldened by the Spanish left. They've been told that terrorism works, terrorism gets results.

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11:41 PM
A 3-day conference on antisemitism kicked off today in Montreal, hosted by Jean Charest, and to include such speakers as Natan Sharansky. Unfortunately, as with most events featuring prominent Israeli speakers, security is tight and I wonder whether they will think to host a session on what it means that a conference on antisemitism requires so much extra security in the first place.

It's a crazy world we live in.

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11:23 PM
And in Spain, a shocking victory for terrorism that could have disastrous ramifications, as the Socialist party swept to power, ousting the centrist Popular Party who, before the Madrid terrorist attacks, was virtually assured of victory:

Spain's opposition Socialists have swept to power in a sensational election upset sparked by popular anger over the government's handling of a suspected al Qaeda attack on commuter trains that killed 200 people.

Voters ousted the center-right Popular Party (PP), which until Thursday's coordinated attacks had looked certain to win a third consecutive term in power in Sunday's poll.

Spain's next prime minister will be 43-year-old Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who has criticized outgoing premier Jose Maria Aznar for his unswerving support for the United States and has threatened to pull out 1,300 Spanish troops from Iraq

[ . . . ]

Controversy over the government's handling of the bombing of four commuter trains three days before the election clearly helped swing the election Zapatero's way.

"The government has paid the price for its involvement in the war in Iraq, for Aznar's relationship with (U.S. President George) W. Bush and (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair. The vote has been a reaction to this," said Carlos Berzosa, rector of Madrid's Complutense University.

Incredible.

This is a much, much bigger story than many people even realize. It is a sweeping victory for terrorism. Damian agrees:

If the Spanish people have ousted their government because of a major terrorist attack, I really fear we'll see an attack on the scale of 9/11 in the United States before the Presidential election. If the people of the West are going to blame their leaders for terror instead of the people actually committing the attacks, why wouldn't Al-Qaida try it again?

That's the thing. They will try it again. And again. And again. As long as people keep reacting out of fear, and keep supporting the notion that they somehow deserve to be attacked for standing up for what's right, we will see victory after victory for terrorism. Al Qua'eda must be throwing a big party tonight.

But where is the world's conscience? Where does this end? Will any country, any democracy, any government or people have the courage to stand up to the terrorists rather than capitulating to them?

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11:10 PM
Another day of terror in Israel, with a double-suicide bombing in Ashdod that killed ten people and wounded two dozen more:

The blasts were heard around the busy hour of 5 p.m.. The first bomber blew himself up inside the port, police said, and the second bombing took place four minutes later outside the facility. The first bomber asked a young boy where he could get a glass of water. The boy, whose father was reportedly killed in the attack, pointed towards a structure, where the bomber then exploded. Rescue services spokesman Yerucham Mendola said "some of the victims were thrown a long distance" by the blasts.

What is there left to say? What words of mourning, horror, or dismay can I possibly find that haven't been said dozens of times before?

And how to make the world understand the kind of support that the terror networks enjoy among the general Palestinian population? How do you make people understand that it's not just an isolated few extremists, but a movement that has won over the hearts and minds of the average Palestinian on the street? How to make them understand that we have no partner for peace? Maybe by reporting things like this:

Hearing news of the attack, Palestinians took to the streets in the Jenin and Jabalaya refugee camps to celebrate. Drivers honked the horns of their cars as gunmen fired into the air to express their joy. Others distributed sweets to passersby, hailing the suicide bombers, and calling on all Palestinian groups to step up their "resistance operations against the Israeli enemy."

When will they understand that you can't negotiate with people whose only desire is to see you dead?

Update: Maybe a picture will speak a thousand words (via LGF):


Palestinians shout slogans as they cheer after two suicide bombers from the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza blew themselves up in the Israeli port of Ashdod Sunday March 14, 1004 in Gaza city. Sunday's bombing killed 11 Israelis and wounded 18. The Islamic militant group Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed group with ties to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed joint responsibility (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

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11:05 PM
Top o' the mornin' to you!



Today was the annual Saint Patrick's Day Parade here in Montreal. And I must say that, despite the slightly chilly weather and our disturbing inability to find green antlers, it was a blast!

Throngs of people turned out, all wearing green, to come together to celebrate one of the few events in Montreal that isn't political, and thus can be enjoyed by everyone. After all, beer is very inclusive.

It seemed just about everyone had a float, from the advertisers to the boroughs. PM Paul Martin was greated with a lukewarm response from the crowd, and a flurry of action from the TV cameras, when he passed by. The radio stations all had floats, the queen and princess received a lot of enthusiastic cheering... actually, pretty much everyone received enthusiastic cheering - from us, that is. And a very drunk, rather large woman wearing a "kiss me, I'm Irish" t-shirt managed to hug and kiss more people than I could count.

By the way, to the very understanding woman standing in front of us listening to us act completely drunk while still completely sober, thanks for being such a good sport.

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