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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12:30 PM
Go read Imshin's take on the real attitude of Israelis, post-Yassin assassination:

So you see, I have no particular fear as a result of the Yassin killing. I know my army, my security services and my government, are doing their utmost to protect me. They were before and they are now. I didn't change anything in my way of life as a result. I went to the mall, I went running with Bish in the park a few times, Eldest went out twice collecting donations door-to-door for some charity or other, I got the number five bus to work every morning, I walked home every afternoon (thankfully, not getting run over by a motorbike when crossing the road). And I must say, I didn't notice any less people in the shops, in the cafes or in the streets. On the contrary, it's two weeks before Pesach (Passover). The shops are packed; the atmosphere in the supermarket is one of frantic activity. It's all hogwash, silly Left Wing scaredy-pants propaganda, the Media inventing news. It hasn't happened.

And here's her take on the reaction of the Palestinians, who, the media reports, are so outraged that they're protesting Yassin's death nonstop:

Have you noticed that the masses aren't demonstrating in Gaza? As usual, the real news is what isn't in the papers. There have been a few tepid sounding demonstrations in other places, but not in Gaza, where he lived, preached, and died. And they reportedly only managed to mobilize a few thousands for demonstrations in the West Bank (it was probably even less than that).

[ . . . ]

Maybe a lot of Palestinians are secretly relieved to see him go. Maybe they're fed up and want it to finish already. Maybe they have long ago stopped believing the promises of people like Yassin that Israel is close to breaking point.

That's why I read people like Imshin. To find out what they're not saying in the papers. Go read the rest.

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9:31 AM
Victory for moderates at Concordia:

For the second year in a row, the moderates have won the CSU elections, thus ensuring that - at least for next year - the university will not be overtaken by those merely interested in shit-disturbing for headlines:

In election results announced just moments ago, Chief Electoral Officer Tara Tavender has declared victory for New Evolution, who gained exactly 50 per cent of the vote in this year's election.

This is good news indeed. New Evolution was the slate favoured to win by - among others - Concordia Hillel, as it has promised to take a moderate, apolitical stand on mideast issues.

Of course, there could still be trouble ahead:

The victory may be short-lived, however, as contestations are expected from both Renaissance Concordia and Concordians In Action, claiming that the New Evolution slate violated election regulations to get more votes.

Contestations are almost a standard occurrance. And I don't know enough about this election to know whether they will have a leg to stand on. We'll have to see. In the meantime, the students have spoken, and they've spoken against rioting and turmoil on campus. Let's hope they get their wish.

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12:07 AM
More on the "boy bomber":

This story just keeps getting stranger and stranger.

It seems the mother of the would-be teenaged Palestinian suicide bomber was angry... but not at the fact that he would have gone to kill innocent Israelis; merely at the fact that he was "too young". As though he had been caught in a bar before his majority:

Asked whether she would have supported her son had he been older, the mother replied: "If he was over 18, that would have been possible, and I might even encourage him to do it. But it's impossible for a child his age to do it."

Incidentally, the mother is also reportedly upset that the media misreported the boy's age as 14. It seems he's actually 16... in other words, he had two more years to learn to hate Jews.

Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera is reporting that the Israelis made up the story. Which is of course ridiculous considering the entire thing was caught on camera by a Palestinian journalist working for Associated Press. (Duh! Those AP reporters are all paid off by the Zionist cabal, right?)

Anyway, I am a little encouraged to see this blatant effort at trying to deny reality, simply because it indicates that this time, even the Palestinians realize they've gone too far. Hence all the calls for restraint coming from the Palestinian leadership. Of course they're for the media's benefit and none of them actually mean it... but hey, at least they seem to have caught on that the benefits of exploiting Israeli humanity by using kids as suicide bombers can backfire with negative world opinion.

Sucks to be exposed for being yourselves, eh?

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11:57 PM
Love 'em till they're born:

Yet another example of why, if I were American, I would never vote Republican no matter how cozy the party is with Israel:

The U.S. Senate, after an emotional debate, easily passed legislation on Thursday to make it a federal crime to harm or kill an "unborn child," an issue that spilled into the battle over abortion rights.

On a 61-38 vote, the Republican-led Senate sent the measure, earlier approved by the House of Representatives, to President Bush.

Bush applauded the Senate vote and said he was looking forward to signing the legislation into law.

This legislations specifically excludes abortion, and thus doesn't infringe on abortion rights.

BUT (and there's always a but) anti-abortion groups are applauding it as a "step" towards granting the unborn the same rights as the living.

Don't get me wrong - I think violence against a pregnant woman is despicable and anyone who commits it ought to be punished to the full extent of the law. But there are ways of stressing this without giving a fetus the same legal status as a person. A fetus has the potential to be a person, and thus deserves rights... but a fetus is not yet a person, and this murky legal definition is really just a political victory for those who would seek to deny the right to choose to all women regardless of belief.

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11:13 AM
The issue that won't die:

There's a lively debate going on at Paul's site about the Quebec language laws. Even though everyone I know is so ridiculously sick of talking about language politics, it seems that the issue just won't go away.

This time, it's about the court case brought by angry Francophone parents demanding the right to send their kids to English schools:

In the most potentially explosive case, a group made up largely of francophone parents is seeking the right to attend English schools, arguing under the Quebec Charter of Human Rights it is illegal to discriminate against someone based on family relationships.

Should they win, the case could prove to be a political nightmare for Premier Jean Charest's government, which could find itself caught between a) respecting the ruling and angering French nationalists who don't want to see Bill 101 weakened or b) invoking the notwithstanding clause and risk angering the Liberal Party's anglophone and federalist supporters.

This is of course an extremely ironic case, given that it's discriminatory - for once - not against us hated Anglos but against Francophones who merely want to give their kids the opportunities that a working knowledge of English affords them. All the evidence indicates that learning a second language won't jeopardize a child's mother tongue, and that the younger it is learned, the better. The level of English being taught in French public schools is ridiculously ghastly.

And under the law, only parents who were educated in English in Canada have the right to choose to send their kids to French schools. That right is lost after a generation. So, for instance, if I should decide to send my kids to French school one day, because I want them to be bilingual, they will lose the right to send their kids to English school (assuming they stay in Quebec).

It should be about freedom of choice. But for too many Quebecois, it's about the collectivity superceding individual rights. People who are living in the past enact defensive laws seeking to "preserve" the French "character" of Quebec by oppressing English in any way possible. English is illegal on signs unless it's half the size of the French or less. Workplaces with at least 50 employees must conduct all internal communications in French. And parents can't choose educate their kids in English... unless, like most politicians, they're rich enough to send their kids to private schools, in which case they can do so in any language they please.

You see, it's not enough for the nationalists to take pride in their French culture and heritage. No, everyone else has to as well. That's why preference is given in Quebec to immigrants from French-speaking countries. That's why ridiculous requirements about working in French keep many talented and industrious people out who don't speak French. The nationalists are worried about being assimilated by a "sea" of English, and fight to preserve the French majority in the province no matter what the cost to progress, openness, or individual rights.

You'd think this would piss me off, as an anglophone living in Quebec. And yeah, it does. But the other side of the coin is that, like the vast majority of people in this province, I just don't care enough. Because I'm so sick of hearing about it. That's why a guy like Howard Galganov didn't get the support of the vast majority of Montreal anglos for more than about five minutes. He was militant in a situation that we have pretty much come to accept and deal with. Every so often there are flare-ups, but for the most part, people are content to leave the hardline bickering to the politicians. Just about all of us in Montreal speak two or more languages. We conduct conversations in "franglais" or a mix of whatever happens to make the most sense at the time. And we're tired of the politicians trying to drive us apart.

So I think it's wrong, but I'm not ready to be all up in arms either. I argued that we shouldn't blow the whole thing out of proportion:

I've done my share of ranting and raving against the OLF, Bill 101, and pretty much anything to do with sovereignty or rights. But I do think it lacks perspective a little to call the nationalists "fascists" or "terrorists" (with the notable exception of the FLQ, of course, who are terrorists). Anglo power is all very well and good, but I've mellowed somewhat. Back in 1995, I thought all separatists were hiding devil's horns in their hair. I now realize that they have some views that - while I disagree - aren't coming from nowhere.

With the notable exception of a few individual FLQ terrorists firebombing coffee shops, the nationalist movement has been nonviolent and political since the mid-70s. And with the exception of a few hardliners on each side, most people would really rather that the issue just go away. We're tired of it. We don't like to be told that our language laws make us a fascist dictatorship. We know better; they're inconvenient but they're a compromise that usually works, and when it doesn't, nobody's getting murdered or tortured or starved. For the most part, we put up with the crap cause this is otherwise a great city to live in and most of us have friends on both sides of the political spectrum, and in absence of a referendum campaign to drive a wedge between us, we can put our differences aside and just talk about something else. Plus, today's Montreal has so many ethnic groups that are neither anglophone nor francophone that it just seems absurd to talk about this as a two-sided issue, when there are many people in between who are comfortable in many languages and don't identify with either side.

It's ok to agree to disagree sometimes. I'm looking forward to the day when the politicians catch up with the population, and stop making every election about language or sovereignty.

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11:23 PM
More Palestinian Child Abuse (via everyone):



"Blowing myself up is the only chance I've got to have sex with 72 virgins in the Garden of Eden" - Husam Abdu, 14

The terrorists will view any sign of morality or human decency as a weakness. This is just one more example. But it's certainly not an isolated incident:

Thirty-one suicide bombers have been younger than 18, and more than 40 minors who were actively involved in planning suicide bombings have been arrested. Since May 2001, 22 shootings and bombings were perpetrated by minors.

Tell that to the international human rights groups who automatically categorize any child killed in conflict as an "innocent victim", and yet condemn groups such as Operation S.I.C.K., who are trying to stop children being used in warfare, for being "racist".

Bull.

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11:08 PM
And more about booing:

A Peewee hockey team from the U.S. was not booed this year. That's the news. Why? Cause they were booed last year. Of course, this year they played in New Brunswick, and last year's series was here in Quebec. That could have something to do with it:

Having borne the brunt of anti-American sentiment during their last visit to Canada, a peewee hockey team from Massachusetts is back again. And this time, they are being welcomed with open arms.

When the Brockton Boxers were in Quebec for a hockey tournament last March, fans upset by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq let them know how they felt.

As they took to the ice in Montreal one day after U.S. troops rolled into Iraq, the 12- and 13-year-olds were lambasted with anti-American jeering.

The Brockton Boxers' Jon Spano remembers the events well.

"There were protesters and everything... and we had to get escorted off the bus... because there was so many of them," he told CTV Atlantic affiliate, ATV News.

"Then they burnt our flag and they booed the national anthem and all that stuff."

Nice. Real nice.

At least the New Brunswick hosts seem to have caught on that these are kids, not international terrorists:

When their bus arrived, a welcoming committee of local pewee players was on hand, banging their sticks in welcome.

What a shame that the Montreal hosts couldn't figure that out last year.

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5:47 PM
Downplaying the booing:

Wagar High School has apologized for an incident last week where an American student was booed for waving her flag at a multicultural ceremony:

"[The students] were also told that certainly the booing of the American flag was more than just booing a flag," [Principal Michael] Cristofaro said. "It was booing Americans and basically disrespecting the people the flag represents. I made that clear to them. I also apologized to the young lady on behalf of the student body."

[ . . . ]

[Some letter-writers] called the incident another example of Quebecers' and other Canadians' disrespect for Americans. But Cristofaro suggests that notion is a stretch. "We have to keep in mind we are talking about teenage kids who are not always appropriate in every kind of venue."

To say the least.

This reminds me a little of when the U.S. national anthem was booed at a hockey game right after the war broke out in Iraq last year. That, like this, might have been blown a bit out of proportion. But the fact that it happens at all says a lot, in my opinion. People are so accustomed to anti-Americanism these days that it just becomes one of those "no big deal" things. That's exactly the problem.

Ironically, Wagar has changed an awful lot from the days when my mom was a student there... and the school was overwhelmingly Jewish.

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12:46 AM
Hillel banned at York U:

In 2002, they tried to ban Hillel at Concordia. Now, regular reader DaninVan sent me an e-mail letting me know that something similar is developing at York University.

Tensions have been running high at York for quite some time. Last week, the campus chapters of Hillel and SPHR both had events on the same day. The Excalibur reports that Hillel's event was a vigil to remember victims of suicide bombers, and SPHR's event was a "tribute" to Rachel Corrie. It seems clashes erupted.

Flash forward a week. Today's Globe and Mail reports that the university has banned both Hillel and SPHR from hosting events for one week.

Slap on the wrist, right? Not quite:

Ms. White said Hillel had permission to hold a vigil outside Vari Hall for those who have died because of terrorism.

The pro-Palestinian group gave no official notice to the university of its demonstration, although Ms. White said rumours were circulating around campus that one would be held. The university requires five days notice from a club if it plans to hold an event on campus.

Equal punishment for unequal crimes is what this sounds like to me. And it gets worse.

Hillel has issued two press releases. I'm posting the first in its entirety here because I can't find online links.

Jewish Student Community Shocked as York University Suspends Hillel Club status and privileges revoked leaving students feeling vulnerable, silenced and fearful.

Students at York University are shocked by news that the university administration has suspended the club privileges of Hillel @ York, the recognized voice of York's Jewish students. This statement from the University, which is purportedly based on the confrontation last Tuesday, March 16 in Vari Hall, where Jewish students defended themselves against an incendiary form of anti-Israel guerilla theatre, has left Jewish students on campus feeling betrayed, silenced and vulnerable.

As a group that has always respected university directives and strives to pursue a healthy working relationship with the administration, we are shocked by this heavy-handed crackdown, which affects all areas of our religious, social and cultural activities, not only our political advocacy, said Jordie Saperia, the President of Hillel @ York. We are also extremely nervous at the message that this disproportionate response to the Jewish student voice on campus sends to the entire student body. We feel betrayed.

On Tuesday, March 16th, members of Hillel @ York clashed verbally with pro-Palestinian activists who set up provocative and instigatory mock Israeli checkpoints in Vari Hall, an academic building off limits to political demonstrators. University Administration and security officials stood by, watching, during almost an hour of intense confrontation.

The disciplinary measures taken against Hillel are allegedly in response to Tuesday's clashes, said Seth Winberg, Vice-President of Hillel @ York. But the record shows that the university has turned a blind eye to dozens of illegal and unauthorized rallies by opposing groups. It is only when Hillel members chose to begin defending themselves that the university decided to punish us.

Students are furious that such disproportionate, harsh action has been levelled against them for the simple act of verbally and non-violently opposing a highly insensitive and unauthorized demonstration, while in the past, rallies held in direct contravention of university guidelines have been ignored and glossed over. In contrast, the location of a Jewish Unity rally scheduled by Hillel for last Thursday was dutifully changed only twenty-four hours in advance when the university's Office of Student Affairs backtracked on permission granted weeks earlier. We are confused and hurt by the university's actions, said Talia Klein, the Director of Hillel @ York. Despite the marked instability at the Office of Student Affairs over the past few months, we have always maintained a close and mutually beneficial working relationship with university officials. Now it seems as if York has turned into Concordia.

For more information:

Jordie Saperia, President, Hillel @ York
Talia Klein, Director, Hillel @ York

The second press release has a long list of unauthorized rallies and demonstrations held in the past by anti-Israel campus groups at York. In each case, the administration issued no sanctions whatseover. It seems it only felt it necessary to step in when Hillel held an event of its own.

I'll try to follow the situation as it develops. If anyone attends York or can provide a firsthand account, please e-mail me. We can't let this happen again.

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7:43 PM
Budget 2004: One Canadian's viewpoint:

Paul Martin's finance minister, Ralph Goodale, announced the Federal Budget today. And of course, the media began to immediately analyse, spin, and dissect it seventeen ways from Sunday.

So here's my ten-second breakdown.

Healthcare: Mainly a provincial issue, but very little new money to help bail out the provinces. Instead of spending it on medicare or on, oh, important stuff like equipment, doctors and nurses, and patient care, the government's gonna create yet another useless level of bureaucracy, this one to address "public health" (like the SARS crisis). Never mind that there are hundreds of times more people needing everyday healthcare. But it seems that there can never be enough levels of waste for the Libs.

Taxes: Breaks for small businesses and aid for venture capital financing. Both good things. Nothing much for big business (cause, of course, the Liberals can't be seen to be getting too cozy with the devil). Oh, and a big chunk of cash to find "environmentally-friendly technologies". I guess that's the only way a Liberal government can fund business. Anyway the most important question is how much more of my own money will I get to keep on each paycheck. The answer? Not a whole helluvalot. Thumbs down.

National Debt: A commitment to pay it down considerably. This is good. The people don't always see the debt as a priority, but reducing the debt means reducing interest payments, and that can only help the economy. Let's see if the government keeps this promise. (Echoes of the "we will cancel the GST" promise sounding in anyone else's ears?)

Defense: Peacekeeping only. Money for missions in Afghanistan and Haiti. Oh, and a throwaway gesture that says that troops don't have to pay tax on earnings while deployed abroad. Nothing that could be perceived as Bush-cozying or war-mongering. Heaven forbid Candian troops get planes that don't need to be held together with duct tape!

Education: Also a provincial area. Textbooks are now deductible for students. And "learning bonds" to give minuscule amounts of money to low-income students... in about 18 years or so. That's about it.

Stupid Liberal Wastes of Money: Refreshingly few. Of course, these are usually the small-ticket throwaways that may not have hit the headlines yet. I'm keeping my eyes peeled for a "multiculturalism fund" or a "help the CBC produce more aboriginal-related programming" fund increase. Excuse me while I roll my eyes.

Miscellany: Money for farmers hit by mad cow. Yeah, ok, that one sucked for them. And I certainly wouldn't want to have to grow my own food, so I guess we can throw them some bones.

Overall: It's balanced, so that's good. It's not excessive with a bunch of stupid spending to buy votes. So that's also good. But not enough of the fat has been trimmed, and not enough of taxpayers' money is being put back into taxpayers' pockets. That about sums it up for me.

Update: Paul has a one-word summary of the budget: YAWN.

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7:19 PM
Another one of those meaningless, un-scientific polls that pisses me off beyond all logical reasoning: Canada.com is asking people whether they believe Israel's assassination of Sheik Yassin is justified. At the moment, 45% said no.

That shocks me. I can understand skepticism about the point of taking out Yassin, or fear of the consequences. But to ask whether the assassination of a terrorist, responsible for thousands of innocent deaths, was justified? I can't imagine what arguments the 45% who voted no could possibly have (other than the standard "well, Israel did it so it must be wrong").

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5:24 PM
Popular isn't always right; right isn't always popular:

Meryl links to an excellent article in the Forward by Rabbi Dov Fischer entitled "We're Right, the Whole World's Wrong":

At this moment in time, many Jews who love and support Israel hear the soft voice within, asking the question to which Kofi Annan recently alluded in Madrid: Can we alone be right, while the whole world around is wrong?

[ . . . ]

Well, yes. If we Jews are anything, we are a people of history. From our first patriarch to Israel's precision-targeted destruction of the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, which laid the foundation for a successful Operation Desert Storm and the rescue of Kuwait, our history provides the strength to know that we can be right and the whole world wrong.

This goes hand in hand with a question I've long viewed with some degree of fascination: what's the difference between what's right and what's merely popular?

We hear it from our earliest days: "if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?" The implication is, of course, that there's some absolute standard of "right" that doesn't rely on a majority-rule. That the lone voice of conscience is right, and that the angry mobs are wrong. And that we ought to be able to tell the difference, even when it's lonely.

But then, isn't democracy founded on the principle that the majority opinion is the right one? And if democracy is such a beautiful thing, then how do you reconcile the notion that it systematically allows the majority to make decisions that go against the minority? I mentioned homosexuality before; is gay marriage "wrong" because the majority of people oppose it? Or if the majority support it, does it become "right"? To put another way, if Quebec held a referendum tomorrow asking if the Jews should pay extra taxes, and it passed with a 70% majority, does that make that "right"?

Clearly not. History has proven pretty conclusively that the majority opinion can be wrong, and the minority opinion is often right.

But how do we determine these external standards? In a practical sense, how do we judge?

Oh, it's easy for religious people. To them, "right" is an absolute that comes from the laws of the bible, and "wrong" is anything that goes against that. But of course, most of the majority-wrong decisions in history have been - and continue to be - justified by religion. The terrorists on September 11th believed that they were "right" too and that their religion supported their deeds. (The next time I hear "homosexuality is wrong cause the bible says so, I'll be happy to point that out again).

So religion obviously isn't any great way to judge right and wrong... though one assumes that a religious person can also be a good person.

I used to think of the analogy of a white light that was seen through the eyes of every human being, but all wearing cellophane-coloured glasses. If 99% of the world had red glasses, and 1% of the world had blue glasses, then the light's red and the person who sees blue is crazy. That then becomes the truth. The real truth is irrelevant, I argued, because we have no way of knowing or seeing it. But wouldn't that mean that it's in fact impossible for the Jews to be right and the whole world to be wrong? Wouldn't they be "right" just because there's more of them? After all, where is this external standard of rightness coming from? If we need a test of time or a perspective of history to see who was really right all along, as Rabbi Fischer argues the Jews have been throughout history, then how is it possible to know how to act "right" today? Without the benefit of hindsight, how do we know if our unpopular position - perhaps dictated by conscience - is really the right one?

It's not that simple. A conscience is really nothing more than a set of values and experiences - some taught, some perhaps innate - that looks at each situation and comes to a conclusion of how the decisions fit with what we already know. My conscience says that Israel is right and the Palestinians are wrong. Sheik Ahmed Yassin's conscience (assuming he had one, which I highly doubt) said the opposite.

That's the thing about life. In the movies, the bad guys know they're bad. They laugh evil laughs. They talk about their plots of world domination. They dutifully don their black hats in the Westerns and identify themselves as the "bad guys" so that we can readily identify them. But in real life, the bad guys think they're the good guys. We all think we're the "good guys". Self-righteousness is perhaps more dangerous than evil.

There's no easy way to reconcile that one. But I'll just say that yes, there is some standard of right and wrong that doesn't depend on a popularity contest. No, I'm not entirely sure how we determine that standard, other than looking at things like not harming others, promoting quality of life, and acting with positive intentions. But I also know that Rabbi Fischer is right when he says that history will pass judgement on the world for how it's treating the Jews today, just as it has for over two thousand years.

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2:22 PM
The Blame Game

I'm breaking my promise not to mention the American election until September - but only tangentially - because I want to highlight this post by Debbye:

I've been watching the hearings of the independent commission of Sept. 11 on CNN, and it is frustrating. Did the administration under FDR have to face a similar inquiry about lapses of failure after Pearl Habour? (That is strictly a rhetorical question, okay?)

There is so astounding a lack of common sense and humility in these proceedings that it begs the questions Are you more interested in winning this war or this election? In what way does what did or did not happen before Sept. 11 actually pertain to the post-Sept. 11 period?

Honestly, just when did The Blame Game become the second American pastime?

[ . . . ]

I can't summon up outrage against the Clinton administration. I can't summon up outrage against the Bush administration. The somebody should have known mindset is all very well and good if you actually believe the technology in The X-Files is online and available to our government.

[ . . . ]

Ooh, brainstorm! Why don't we just blame the terrorists for Sept. 11?

Because, Debbye, people are more interested in pinning catastrophes on their political rivals than on those really at fault. Left blames right. Right blames left. And the cycle continues.

I'm tired of reading endless attacks and character smears on Kerry from right-wing sites, and just as tired of hearing them about Bush from left-wing sites. Yes, it's an election year. Yes, passions run high and there are certainly people out there who are party-loyal and view the other guys as the devils-incarnate. And yes, maybe it's easier for me, with my outsider's perspective, to roll my eyes and remark that it doesn't matter.

That's right. I said it doesn't matter.

Because the terrorists don't hate Americans because they have a Republican president. They hate Americans because they're Americans. September 11th would have happened even if Gore won the Florida battle... and the terrorists wouldn't have batted an eyelash when the whole world tried to make him out to be the devil incarnate.

Would Gore's team have attacked Iraq? Unlikely. And yeah, that changes things somewhat on the world scene. But would the terrorists have capitulated or given up with a Democrat in the White House? Not a chance! Most of the planning for 9/11 took place during Clinton's term.

So vote for Bush. Or for Kerry. Or for Nader. Or for Mickey Mouse. Or for the Purple People Eater. The terrorists aren't going to start loving the U.S. no matter who Americans elect as their President... unless it's Bin Laden. (Hmmmm, I figure he could probably dominate the election in San Francisco...)

The "Great Satan" of America is a myth that's believed by a large portion of the world... and they don't care who the Americans vote for as their President - they just care that Americans can vote at all.

I'm so sick of seeing this basic truism being turned into a finger-pointing election issue that I felt it necessary to break my promise and rant about it. Now I'm done, and we're back to our regularly-scheduled programming. But 9/11 wasn't Bush's fault, or Clinton's fault, and it's certainly not Kerry's fault or Gore's fault or Rice's fault or Rumsfeld's fault. Like Debbye said, it's the terrorists' fault. And somehow I doubt that the families of the 3,000 people who were murdered in the WTC would grant anyone the right to cheapen their lives as an election issue.

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11:48 AM
Another blogosphere roundup of reactions to Shiek Ahmed Yassin's death - this one by Burnside. Check it out.

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11:41 AM
No room for Americans in multicultural mosaic:

Following what was said below, it seems our schools are so eager to teach political correctness, tolerance, and multiculturalism, that they encourage pride in every background... except American:

A U.S.-born teenager carrying a U.S. flag in a multiculturalism parade was booed off stage and reduced to tears by fellow students at Wagar High School on Thursday, in an apparent protest against the Iraq war.

[ . . . ]

A parade of flags representing every nationality at the school - 39, this year - is an annual event at Wagar, the most ethnically diverse high school in the English Montreal School Board.

"During the parade, when the American flag (was) walked by, quite a large number of students booed, which was very upsetting to the student carrying the flag," said Juanita Meikle, a parent who is chairperson of Wagar's governing board.

The girl, a Grade 9 student, "was very upset. She was crying," Meikle said.

No other flag was jeered.

Knee-jerk anti-Americanism is something that's about as much a part of being a Canadian as street hockey. Unfortunately, even the most well-meaning educators encourage it. And lately, most of them haven't been all that "well-meaning".

With teachers ranting in classrooms about the evil American government and policies, the infringement of American culture on our own "wonderful" CBC, the exploitation of the rest of the world by America... small wonder students are booing the Stars and Stripes.

People don't just come to believe something on their own. They need to be taught. I really hope that the teachers and administrators at Wager don't just criticize the students, but take a long hard look at themselves. If we're going to stamp out intolerance, that includes all forms of intolerance... including anti-Americanism.

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11:30 AM
Political-Correctness gone mad:

Margaret Wente's column on the absurd consequences of excessive political-correctness ought to be required reading for anyone contemplating public or political life:

One problem with our effort to sanitize the language of all that might offend is that it leads to lunatic results. Just ask the music reviewer at the Los Angeles Times. Last month he reviewed an opera by Richard Strauss, which he described as "a glorious and goofy pro-life paean." A diligent copy editor replaced the controversial term "pro-life" with the inoffensive "anti-abortion." This resulted in not one but two embarrassing corrections explaining that the opera has nothing to do with abortion.

Education and social work are the fields in which the language police are busiest. My favourite example is from a new college textbook on human development that includes this statement: "As a folksinger once sang, how many roads must an individual walk down before you can call them an adult." This gruesome effort is some educator's attempt at a gender-neutral makeover to the classic folksong Blowin' in the Wind. In the original, it goes, "How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?"

I've experienced some of this myself. For example, while I was a Concordia student, I remember the equivalent of a major scandal erupting because someone referred to a day when a stupid political decision was made as "Black Wednesday" - a reference to the "Black Tuesday" of the 1929 stock market crash... but taken completely out of context as a racist statement. Apparently, a similar scandal erupted on NBC's new reality show featuring Donald Trump and his horrible excuse for hair, The Apprentice, when a candidate accused another of racism for using the phrase "pot calling the kettle black".

Okay, so those are obvious examples. But Wente has lots more:

[ . . . ] more than 500 words that are routinely deleted from textbooks and tests by educational publishing companies and government education departments. They include "landlord," "cowboy," "brotherhood" and "primitive," — words that might offend feminists, multiculturalists or ethnic activists. The forbidden list is growing fast. "Fireman," "handyman" and "hostess" bit the dust long ago, and are now being joined by "addict" (replace with "individual with a drug addiction"), "cancer patient" (replace with "a patient with cancer"), and "yes man." New York State education officials have gone so far as to banish all words that include the hateful letters m-a-n — including "mankind," "man-made," "man hours" and "penmanship."

So now I'm supposed to fly off the handle if someone accuses me of poor penmanship???

This has gone too far. And it stems from people having big sticks way too far up their asses. Some terms in language are clearly offensive and should be changed. Others are not meant in any discriminatory sense, and people really need to count to ten before they explode.

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10:00 PM
It's that time of year again...

Concordia University's CSU elections are taking place this week.

Those of you who have been reading for a while know that this election is very important for students who don't want more rioting, nonsense, and antagonism while going to school. Last year, the moderates swept to a much-needed victory over the extremists, and from what I hear, the school's been a much better environment this year. This year I'm not really up on the details, but it seems to me that there isn't as much anger about the student union as there was last year. A whole year without riots tends to restore people to their usual state of apathy, I guess.

So to all you Concordia students out there, make it your business to read up on the candidates and go out and vote.

There. That's my public service announcement for the day.

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4:34 PM
Canada's disappointing reaction to the death of Yassin:

Canada on joined the wave of condemnation touched off by Israel's assassination of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, saying the killing was hardly likely to promote "everlasting peace."

"We regret and condemn the death of Sheikh Yassin," Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham told reporters outside parliament.

"We clearly recognise that Israel is an extremely difficult position, but there are different ways to go about this.

"There are ways that will contribute to everlasting peace, this was clearly not one of them."

With all of Europe condemning Israel and even the U.S. shaking its head, I don't know why I expected better from Canada, home of the "don't attack us cause we won't ever piss anyone off" mentality. But one really does have to wonder how out of touch Bill Graham is if he's still throwing around words like "everlasting peace" as though they are real or imminent possibilities.

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2:10 PM
More Israeli Reactions:

I know I've been incessantly linking to Allison lately. But I can't recommend her blog enough, especially while she keeps writing posts like this one:

They see that when we try to make nice and compromise we get terror attacks. And when we're tough and aggressive we get terror attacks. Nothing we do seems to lower the motivation to slaughter Israeli civilians -- men, women, or children -- and in the case of Hamas, to see the state of Israel destroyed. So since there's absolutely nothing to lose by getting Yassin, and something to possibly gain -- at least temporarily derailing the Hamas leadership structure, and hopefully weakening it long-term -- so why not go ahead and do it?

It's a similar equation as the fence. Yes, building this fence is pissing off the Palestinians big-time. But does anyone think that if we stopped building it, they would be so happy and grateful, terror attacks would stop? No. No fence equals attempts at terror attacks, and a fence equals attempts at terror attacks. So why in the world shouldn't we support building a fence in the hopes of foiling a number of these attacks?

With nothing left to lose, let's try to do what we can to protect ourselves. That's the sentiment of the man on the street.

Harry disagrees:

I'm reading a lot of non-Israeli bloggers who are touting this as some huge victory for Israel and the best thing to happen since Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley made out at the MTV awards. It's not. Yes, the man is evil. Does he deserve to die? Yes, of course. But could the security cabinet have really really thought about the consquences of this? I mean really?

Seeing as how I'm one of those "non-Israeli bloggers" that Harry accurately chastised for not being close enough to the situation to be able to fully appreciate the sentiments of Israelis, I won't comment, except to say that somehow, I get the sense that Allison's reaction is closer to the grim reality.

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12:13 PM
They're back...

As I drove through Côte St. Luc on my way into work this morning, I saw them: dozens - even hundreds - of blue demerger ribbons tied to tree trunks, flapping around in the wind.

The other thing I noticed was how much better the roads had been salted on the Côte St. Luc side of the road, as opposed to my side, technically in N.D.G.

Yep. The demerger battle continues. May it succeed.

And to all the municipal workers who felt it so very necessary to "clean up" the ribbons, how about starting by "cleaning up" your trucks by removing the "Défusion = Confusion" stickers that you've stuck all over them?

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12:06 PM
Toronto has been hit with a wave of antisemitic vandalism... at exactly the same time as the massive one-year anniversary protests of the war in Iraq.

Coincidence?

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10:17 AM
Reactions on Yassin's death are beginning to filter in:

Allison posts her stream-of-consciousness thoughts when she first heard the news, and also a knock-knock joke by Lair.

Those great folks over at Israpundit have, of course, been all over this story, posting news roundups and perspectives.

And here's Meryl on her first thoughts and then again on targeted assassinations. And LGF has some grisly photos.

Big journalism is reacting as well. The Jerusalem Post has the oh-so-cheery predictions of retaliatory attacks against Jews and Israelis abroad. Haaretz has wasted no time putting together an in-depth feature section, including its view that Yassin's assassination was a part of Israel's disengagement plan. Ma'ariv's editorials run the gamut, from the predictions of more violence or Palestinian civil war to the view that Yassin's killing was necessary to protect innocent lives.

Away from Israel, we have CNN reporting the condemnation of world leaders for killing a terrorist, with a fervour they rarely employ when busloads of schoolchildren are murdered. BBC has a regional news roundup, with immediate reactions from both Israeli and Arab news sources. The Los Angeles Times says that Yassin wanted to be killed by the IDF, because "martyrdom" was his greatest goal. And the Guardian wastes no time coming out with stupidities, writing an obituary for Yassin that, among other things, compares the terrorist to Nelson Mandela.

More reactions to follow.

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11:31 PM
Terrorist leader killed:

LGF has the breaking news, starting to come over the wires that the founder and "spiritual leader" of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin was the target of an IDF strike. Haaretz is reporting that Yassin was killed by the strike:

Israel Air Force helicopters fired missiles at Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin as he left a mosque near his house at daybreak Monday, residents said, and Hamas officials and witnesses said he was killed.

This is big. Huge, in fact. Yassin was personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent Israelis. It's the Israeli equivalent of getting Osama. Bigger, because of the power jockeying that's going on between the Palestinian terror groups. In that war, Hamas has just been dealt a full-on body blow.

Of course, Hamas supporters are vowing revenge. And unfortunately, the revenge is likely to be more than just empty threats. The PA is also screaming about this, calling Yassin a "moderate":

The Palestinian Authority on Monday condemned the assassination. "This is a crazy and very dangerous act. It opens the door wide to chaos. Yassin is known for his moderation and he was controlling Hamas and therefore this is a dangerous, cowardly act," said Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia.

It is precisely the fact that the Palestinian Authority can call Yassin a man "known for his moderation" that sheds a lot of light on what "moderation" means in Palestinian society.

My heart goes out to all the people who will likely suffer as Hamas supporters take their "revenge" for the murder of this terrorist. But ultimately, Yassin didn't even come close to getting what he deserved. Death was far, far too good for him.

Update: CNN, CBC, and BBC all have the story. The BBC, of course, has its typical reaction:

As well as the possibility of reprisals by Hamas militants, the killing could affect diplomatic efforts to get the peace process back on track, says our correspondent.

What peace process?

This news is just emerging, so we are only starting to see some of the "analysis" that is sure to follow in the coming hours and days. But the BBC is also asking for reader reactions... that ought to be interesting sickening.

Update #2: First reaction from Gaza U - er - Concordia.

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