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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3:53 PM
Non-news item of the day:

Al Qua'eda wants to kill Jews and Americans.

No! Shocking! Quick, someone call a reporter!

Yep, this ranks up there in "duh-factor" with last week's shocker of a news headline: that if a federal election were to be held in Canada today, the Liberals would win.

You don't say!

Tomorrow, I'll probably open the paper and see it announced in big letters that yes, the Earth is in fact round.

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2:23 PM
Patience is a virtue:

If you held the winning lottery ticket to a 30-million dollar jackpot, how long would you wait to claim your prize?

If you're Raymond Sobeski, apparently patience is a virtue, because he waited an entire year to claim his cash:

"I didn't want to do anything rash," Sobeski told reporters on Thursday when he claimed his prize. "I thought it was in my best interest to keep it to myself until I had everything all sorted out."

Sobeski, who called himself "happily unemployed now," said he had known since shortly after the April 11, 2003, draw but wanted to get professional and financial advice first.

That sounds reasonable, level-headed, and smart. Actually, Sobeski sounds like the complete opposite of someone who would play the lottery in the first place.

Sometimes fact really is stranger than fiction.

Update: Burnside points out that it seems that Sobeski had a good reason to wait so long to claim his prize: he was in the process of getting a divorce. Wow, if I were his ex-wife, I'd be pretty pissed off right now... and I'd be talking to my lawyer to get my hands on my share.

Update #2: The plot thickens even more. It seems Sobeski has two ex-wives and was behind on child-support payments. I guess all that "financial advice" was really something else, and it seems I have to revise my position and say that Sobeski seems exactly like the kind of person who would play the lottery. What ever happened to deserving winners?

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11:05 AM
Spiritual leader?

The CJC's parliament report from yesterday highlights the following statement by Sen. David Tkachuk:

What is of great concern to me is that we are starting to see a pattern of equivocation emerge. I fail to see how an equivocating position is good for Canadians as we witness the escalation of violence and the mounting death toll on both sides of the war. When one of Canada's ministers suggests that Israel behaved contrary to its obligations, I suggest this government is getting closer to condoning terrorist actions. When our media repeatedly defines Sheik Yassin as a spiritual leader, I disagree. I suggest that this bolsters terrorism itself. The "spiritualism" of Yassin would be considered a blasphemy by the Christian standards that I uphold, and I would suggest that the faith and values of Canada's other religions would not condone acts of extermination, something that Yassin's organization, the Hamas, holds as its mandate.

[ . . . ]

Honourable senators, I know how many have asked these questions, but I want to add my voice to the chorus: Who started these forms of terrorist violence? How long until we declare terrorism unacceptable? This war between Israelis and Palestinians is not merely a battle over land; it is a war between the future of civil society and a future without one.

It is refreshing that not everyone in government has lost their moral compass.

Yassin was, of course, the furthest thing from a "spiritual leader" imaginable. He was a terrorist leader, plain and simple. That the world media has insisted on dubbing him a "spiritual leader" should be taken as the basest kind of insult to all legitimate spiritual leaders of any religion.

Larry Miller has more on this point in the Weekly Standard (via Damian):

OKAY, I give up. What, exactly, is a "spiritual leader"?

I'm curious, because, as any American who reads newspapers or watches TV knows, that's what Sheikh Yassin was: A spiritual leader. I never met the man, but I sure wish I had, because, after all, one can never have too many scholarly, elevated, Godly, spiritual leaders in one's life, can one?

[ . . . ]

And the parade of hypocrisy tunes up its instruments, and marches again with banners waving. Israel-evil, Sharon-butcher, how could you kill such a fine, old man? For the record, this fine, old man founded Hamas, insisted then and now that all Israel must be driven into the sea, that the best way to do this was to kill the Jews, kill the Jews, kill the Jews, look for the baby carriages, that hurts them most, the Jews love life, we love martyrdom. Well, you've got to hand it to the man, when he's right, he's right. The Jews do love life more than he did, and the shattered supermarkets and discos and pizza parlors hurt them most.

Yassin was a "spiritual leader" as much as Hitler was a philanthropist. In other words, not unless your brain is wired wrong could you possibly legitimately confer the term on him.

That hasn't stopped every major network from CBC to CNN from picking up the term in the days following Yassin's death. It also hasn't stopped them from accusing Israel of "murder".

Murder isn't the right word. For someone to be murdered, he has to be human first. Now there is a term that "spiritual leader" Yassin wasn't worthy of.

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1:40 PM
Only in Canada:

The Official Languages Commissioner (read: yet another way for the Federal government to waste taxpayer money) has encountered a curious phenomenon: Francophone people are choosing to speak to each other in English:

Canada is having trouble getting French treated as an equal language with English in the civil service, the top official for enforcing the country's bilingualism laws admitted.

And one of the reasons, said Commissioner of Official Languages Dyane Adam, is that French-speaking bureaucrats often talk to each other ... in English.

Anywhere in the world, this would simply be people choosing to converse in whatever language they want.

But in Canada, it's cause for concern... and for wasting even more taxpayer dollars trying to "remedy" this "terrible" situation.

Sigh.

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5:33 PM
Anti-PC site of the week:

Liked the movie? Then get the t-shirt!

Gotta love Jewish humour. (Via Dave).

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