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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1:43 PM
The nameless legal holiday:

Monday is a legal holiday, making this weekend one of the most beloved long weekends all year. It's in springtime, when the weather is often beautiful; it comes at the end of a long winter, and for people who are too busy with Easter or Passover to appreciate the day off in April, it's the first real holiday since New Year's.

But nobody can agree on what to call it.

In the rest of Canada, it's Victoria Day. But us Quebecois would just not stand for a holiday named for a British monarch... so here it used to be known as the Fête de Dollard, after Adam Dollard-des-Ormeaux, namesake of my hometown and controversial historical figure. Too controversial, apparently, because in 2002, the PQ renamed it the Fête des Patriotes, after the Papineau-led Patriotes rebellion of 1837 against the British. But most Quebec Anglos still call it Victoria Day.

So May 24th is now a holiday that is either in honour of the British monarchy, or in honour of a rebellion against it, depending on who you ask. A bit schizophrenic, to be sure.

I say let's just skip the politics and enjoy the long weekend.

On that note, I'm taking advantage to go on a short road trip, so I'm out of here until Tuesday. Have a good one, everyone!

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10:47 PM
The Demerger register tallies are in.

22 of 28 former municipalities in Montreal have obtained the requisite minimum 10% signatures to force a referendum, as have 12 of 13 Quebec City region boroughs, and a number of South Shore and other former cities as well. All will get the opportunity to reclaim their cities that were stolen from them (at least somewhat) on June 20th.

The specific municipalities that will hold referendums are posted. They include virtually everywhere on the island of Montreal, 5 of 8 former municipalities in Longueil (South Shore), and in former municipalities in the Shawinigan, Sherbrooke, Gatineau, and Beauharnois regions.

Still think it's a language issue?

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8:19 PM
Looks like my Air Canada plane ticket is safe after all. Good. One less thing to worry about.

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11:59 PM
Flames going to the Cup!

Now that my Habs are long gone and I'm officially on the Flames bandwagon, this makes me very happy: the Flames finally managed to win one at home to secure a spot in the Stanley Cup Finals!

Go Flames!

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3:25 PM
Disrespecting the dead

I've posted my disgust on this story before. Now, finally, it seems the courts agree:

Among the tribulations facing those bidding adieu to their loved ones, the spectre of disgruntled striking union employees cheering as the departed is lifted into a hearse will no longer be among them.

In the wake of such antics acted out at Urgel Bourgie funeral homes, a judge has filed a court injunction outlawing the practice. Strikers can still congregate outside the centres, but cheering, hooting and hollering are out.

"They have the right to protest, it is on public property," Urgel Bourgie president Denis D'Etcheverry said.

"But we obtained an injunction (from a Quebec Superior Court judge in March) showing there was a lack of respect for families, that families were third parties in the conflict and are not to be exposed to that kind of behaviour."

The union has been on strike since December, demanding higher pay. My feeling is that anyone who would cheer at a funeral doesn't deserve to be within 50 feet of a funeral home, let alone employed by one. Striking is one thing. But disrespecting the dead is just disgusting.

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2:50 PM
People who live in glass houses...

... shouldn't run attack ads.

I was just over on the Gazette's site and I saw a banner ad for StephenHarperSaid.ca, an attack website run by the Liberal camp against the Conservative leader. (Note that the Harper camp has lowered itself to the same level by launching TeamMartinSaid.ca against the Libs.)

Anyway, the banner ad included a sentence that reads: For the whole quote, it's source and context, visit StephenHarperSaid.ca.

It's.

Yes, I make lots of spelling errors too. But this is my personal site. I were funding an ad to appear on major websites, and wanted to make myself look good and my opponent look bad, I might consider using a spell check...

Just a suggestion.

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10:12 AM
Campaign Spending Limits

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Canada limited special interest spending in election campaigns by third-parties.

The blogosphere is up in arms about this. Damian Penny thinks that the decision will "come back to haunt" us. He links to Colby Cosh, who claims this law turns special interests into "second-class citizens". David Janes says that "Freedom died today in Canada". And so on. And so forth.

I'm going to take a flying departure from all of them and say that I think this ruling is actually a very good idea. And here's why:

"Freedom of expression" does not mean the same thing as "freedom to buy politicians and drown out everyone else's expression". There may be nobody much to vote for at the polls, but at least my choices are still between the Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, or Bloc... and not between the gun lobby, the anti-abortion lobby, the union lobby, or the environmental lobby. We need only to glance towards our neighbours to the south, who are stuck between voting for the ACLU or the NRA in each and every election.

Lobbying as a political activity in itself is all very well and good. But sadly, it has the effect of so heavily mortgaging political parties to special interests, that they no longer have the freedom to govern effectively.

This law doesn't restrict third-party spending outside of an election period. It doesn't stop people from expressing their opinions, or from organizing to do so in a concerted fashion. If anything, this will allow a wider variety of opinions to be heard, because the ones with the most money can't drown out the rest.

The next step, in my opinion, is rigorous campaign spending laws for candidates and parties. People should win on the strength of their ideas, not on how frequently they can plaster their face on prime-time.

But, as Dennis Miller would say, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

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12:07 AM
Al-Canada The CBC continues its regularly biased coverage of Israel, in an article that paints the defensive Rafah incursions as a "massacre" (taking Arafat at his word, it seems):

Israel's continuing assault on the Rafah refugee camp has killed another 20 Palestinians.

The operation along the Gaza-Egypt border has sparked a growing international outcry. The United Nations and the European Union have demanded an end to the incursion and Amnesty International has accused Israel of war crimes.

Israeli military vehicles in Rafah (AP photo)

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat described the attack as a "big massacre." He's calling for international intervention.

It gets worse from there. This is what the CBC refers to as "balanced coverage". Yeah right.

For a little perspective, check out this Ma'ariv interview (via Meryl):

It was a combat situation, under fire. Soldiers were injured but in the end, we brought our soldiers home. I haven't told this to anyone but in the midst of this operation, we assisted a baby being born and evacuated an elderly woman who was injured and summoned a local ambulance for her. Terrorists ran and fired from behind the ambulance. Therefore, I do not want to make any comparison between our scale of values and theirs.

"If my soldiers can assist a Palestinian woman giving birth when six of their comrades have been blown to bits in the street but, at the same time, they fire at us from behind an ambulance, you must understand that we are at opposite ends of the scales of values. They are at the very bottom".

Yet the moral equivalency games continue.

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11:54 PM
More on demergers:

So Knave thinks I'm wrong about the demerger issue:

Of course, I don't think that suburbs have the right to exist in the first place, especially since they spent their time screwing over the downtown core.

Today's Gazette contained an op-ed about the myths on demergers, including pretty much what Knave just said:

On the other hand, demerger backers need to understand that support for the new big cities is rooted in a concern for equity and social justice.

This is the "greedy suburbs don't want to share" idea, and it is, to say the least, incomplete. It ignores the fact that old urban structures, such as the Montreal Urban Community, entailed a fair bit of "sharing." And in the case of Montreal, it also misses the point that if it's sharing with the suburbs we want, we need to bring the prosperous sprawl of off-island suburbs into the mix.

As a suburbanite at heart (if not by current address), it irks me a little to hear well-worn stereotypes about the "rich suburbus" screwing over the "poor city".

It's an easy myth to believe: blame all of downtown's problems on the "rich, English west island" and everyone's happy. It's like the eternal leftist popular solution of taxing the rich more. Nobody likes the stereotypical Westmount millionaire, and most voters will warm to any idea that seems to make that guy pay more and them pay less.

However, the gripes are pretty baseless when you get down to it. Suburbanites use the roads? Sure we do. But we don't have the advantage of wonderful public transit like you downtown folk. And off-island suburbans use the city's facilities just as much as on-island ones. So why should the on-island suburbs foot all the bills?

If it's financial sharing that everyone wants, fine, sharing is easy to implement without steamrolling over democracy and forcibly merging cities against the will of over 95% of populations of certain former municipalities. What next? Toronto has more prosperity than Montreal so let's forcibly merge them? The United States has more cash than Canada so let's forcibly merge them?

If certain municipalities were managing their local services and funds more efficiently than Montreal, that's no reason to punish them. And creating larger levels of bureaucracy only ever creates problems. As it has here. The main one of course being that suddenly, the unions are huge and are wielding enormous amounts of power. More union power equals higher wages which leads to higher taxes. It doesn't take an economist to figure this out.

So there's my rant on the demergers, for anyone who was interested. And while the road ahead is still long and challenging, I hope that merger foes can pull this off and win back the cities that were stolen from them.

For more info, visit Democracite. And sign the register by Thursday!

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11:25 PM
Random Pointless Quiz of the Day:


Montreal


What Canadian City Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

How coincidental! I guess that's good cause, well, I live here and all...

(Hat tip: Elanamatic).

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2:13 PM
Me to CAW: Deal with Air Canada.

All the other unions have reached deals with the fledging airline, but the CAW (Canadian Auto Workers) have a 3pm deadline today to strike a deal, or else Air Canada's refinincing plan could collapse and the airline could go bankrupt.

Thus inconveniencing an awful lot of people. Including me, hoping my plane ticket for Israel in July will still be valid.

Hey, I never claimed I wasn't selfish...

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2:08 PM
Only in Canada

Here, we prefer our police and firefighters drunk on beer.

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2:03 PM
And for those people who aren't like the couple below... Canada has decided to allow the "morning-after pill" to be sold over the counter. This just over a week after a similar move was blocked in the U.S. due to lobbying by the pro-life groups who like to slander any kind of birth control besides abstinence.

I'm in favour of the Canadian move. Yes, better birth control education is essential. But there's got to be something wrong with taking away options for women who are raped, or people whose method of birth control doesn't work (e.g. a condom breaking), or simply for people who are too stupid to be having kids anyway. A fifteen-year-old who can't figure out how to use a condom should not be having a child. The medical evidence says that this pill is safe enough to be sold OTC, so the politics should recognize that and not put up unnecessary roadblocks.

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11:13 PM
How to know when sex ed is severely lacking in some people's educations...

London - A German couple who went to a fertility clinic after eight years of marriage have found out why they are still childless - they weren't having sex.

[ . . . ]

A clinic spokesperson said: "When we asked them how often they had had sex, they looked blank, and said: "What do you mean?".

"We are not talking retarded people here, but a couple who were brought up in a religious environment who were simply unaware, after eight years of marriage, of the physical requirements necessary to procreate."

(Hat tip: West Coast Hippie)

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3:30 PM
This one's floating around the blogosphere for good reason: For anyone who claims the security fence has no purpose, here's visual proof of its effectiveness.

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3:18 PM
CP slobbers over Michael Moore's film Farenheit 9/11, a "documentary" (and I use that term loosely) that seeks to blame the Bush family for September 11th:

As promised, Michael Moore lit a powder keg Monday at the Cannes Film Festival: His incendiary Fahrenheit 9/11 riled and disturbed audiences with a relentless critique of the Bush administration in the post-Sept. 11 world.

If Moore can get the movie into U.S. theatres this summer as planned, the title Fahrenheit 9/11 could become a rallying cry in the fall election for voters hoping to see Democratic challenger John Kerry defeat President George W. Bush.

The article goes on to basically worship Moore and buy all of his lies hook line and sinker, including the whopper about Disney blocking its distribution. It also pays little heed to Moore's critics:

Yet Moore - the provocateur behind the Academy Award-winning Bowling for Columbine, which dissected American gun culture - packages his anti-Bush message in a way that provokes both laughs and gasps.

[ . . . ]

Even those skeptical of Moore, who has drawn criticism that he skews the truth to fit his arguments, were impressed.

"I have a problematic relationship with some of Michael Moore's work," said James Rocchi, film critic for DVD rental company Netflix, saying he found Moore too smug and stunt-driven in the past. "There's no such job as a standup journalist."

Yet in Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore presents powerful segments about losses on both sides of the Iraq war and the grief of American and Iraqi families, Rocchi said.

"This film is at its best when it is most direct and speaks from the heart, when it shows lives torn apart," Rocchi said.

Oh, spare me.

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11:18 PM
Save our cities: Sign the register!

As a current resident of the former limits of the city of Montreal, my signature on the register this week will probably be pointless. But if you're living in the former municipalities of DDO, Côte Saint-Luc, Hampstead, Pointe-Claire, TMR, Westmount, Montreal-West, Kirkland, Beaconsfield, Baie d'Urfé, or any other municipality that was forcibly merged into the Montreal megacity disaster, then this is your one and only chance to right the wrong and restore democratic principles.

I've ranted about the mergers before. I know the deck is stacked against the demerger. Biased studies making it seem like the demerger will be more costly are funded by the supposedly-neutral referendum committeee. The lists for each municipality include names of people who have been dead for ten years. The lack of door-to-door registration means that people who are immobile can't come out and sign. The 10% requirement is going to be a tough nut. Though early reports are encouraging for some municipalities, others are still missing a lot of signatures before a referendum will even be able to be held.

But I think that people are angry enough, and committed enough, that they may just pull it off despite all that. So if you're reading this and you are eligible, make it your business to sign the register in your local city hall or designated location by Thursday. It's a small action but it could mean a lot.

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10:49 PM
The Nicholas Berg story has been getting so much coverage by the rest of the blogosphere, it seems redundant for me to say much. See Allison on how the Iraqis knew Berg was Jewish and Meryl on what the mainstream media won't cover. And of course, LGF has been all over the story.

The angles are many. The fact that Berg was Jewish and the fact that the mainstream media is burying that. The media's fascination with gore and the almost exclusive focus on one man's death while major horror stories are ignored. The reaction in the street and press of the Arab world, and the reaction in our own press and street. But I think the most significant part of this story was how Berg's family rushed to blame Bush for his death, and how the wingnuts like Indymedia immediately jumped on the story:

The Chomsky types, perhaps feeling a nagging sense of latent guilt, could not wait to make it clear to everyone how horrified they were by the whole scene. However, their hatred is not motivated by a disgust of the hideous practice, nor the brutality of our Islamist enemy; it stems from the fact that the terrorists' action makes it harder for the Left to place the blame for Berg's death "where it belongs": on the United States of America.

It can't be too difficult to understand why a grieving family might lash out. For them I have little else other than sympathy. But for the conspiracy theorists who tried to make it seem as though the American administration, and not sadistic terrorists, were responsible for this gory act, my sympathy doesn't extend quite that far. I have a very different reaction to them... one more characterized by contempt than by sympathy of any kind. It's not such a stretch to see why the whole world thinks that "Bush is worse than Saddam", with this kind of moral-equivalency nonsense floating around.

Update: As usual, Damian Penny put my thoughts into much better words than I could.

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10:44 PM
Lynn B. is taking a break of unknown duration, to try to sort things out:

When I started this blog, it was in the hope that it would help me to make some sense out of the bloodbath being perpetrated against Israel and the inexplicable indifference and even approval with which most of the rest of the world was responding. It's not working. In fact, my attempts to keep on top of events and to interpret their implications are only turning me into a bigger bundle of nerves than I was before.

[ . . . ]

At any rate, this is a roundabout way of saying that I'm taking a mental health break of uncertain duration. I'm hopefully going to be spending more time in the garden and actually talking face-to-face with people and less time in front of this box. Maybe that will help. We'll see.

Lynn's commentary is some of the most sensible on the web. And I for one will miss her.

But as for trying to explain the inexplicable, well, I sympathize. Sometimes the world just seems so nuts and upside-down, it's challenging to my sanity to even blog about it. So I take breaks. I focus on work. I hang out with friends, see stupid movies, read paperbacks, travel, go out, visit family, and do other normal everyday events of my life.

Somehow, though, I keep coming back. The world isn't going to make any more sense than it did before, but maybe it's about the small triumphs, the accomplishments that in some tiny way do help to make sense of even one sliver of the world. Or maybe it's just an addiction. In any case, I have a sneaking suspicion (and a hope) that Lynn will be back soon.

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10:35 PM
There's a certain category of people - mostly women - who seem to be inexplicably attracted to the scummiest of bottom-feeding scum. And nowhere is that truer than among relationships between prisoners (often murderers on death row, or sadistic serial killers, for example) and the people who love and even marry them.

So it doesn't surprise me too much that Yigal Amir, the assassin of Yitzchak Rabin, is engaged.

But now he's asking permission to have kids through artificial insemination:

Yigal Amir, assassin of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, plans to ask the Tel Aviv District Court on Monday to allow him and his fianc e, Larisa Trimbobler, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, and a divorced mother of four, to have children through artificial insemination if the court forbids them from holding conjugal visits, Channel 2 reported.

Amir is serving a life sentence for assassinating Rabin in 1995, while his brother, Hagai, is serving a 16-year jail term for complicity in the murder.

Amir's attorney Shmuel Kasper said his client will ask the court to be permitted to marry and to hold conjugal visits, but if his requests are denied he will ask to be allowed to undergo artificial insemination, a request the prosecution will have difficulty arguing against since there is no apparent security risk in donating sperm.

In fact, it would seem an odd request, if one didn't know that Amir is an ultra-religious wingnut who believed that killing Rabin was the "will of G-d". Words fail me to describe the level of contempt in which I hold pond scum like him. But at any rate, his twisted religious mind somehow had a foundation in Jewish law, which dictates that he should "be fruitful and multiply". And I guess this poor idiotic woman is willing to help him out.

In my opinion, he shouldn't be allowed to reproduce. But I don't see how the courts would realistically deny him this right. That's democracy for you... you can assassinate a Prime Minister and still get married and have children. Sometimes things just seem backwards.

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10:24 PM
Great parenting...

Three out of the five suspects in the UTT arson were formally charged, including 18-year-old Simon Zogheib, 18-year-old Sleiman Elmerhebi... and 33-year-old Rouba Elmerheibi Fahd... the latter's mother. She was charged with being an "accessory after the fact", which could mean anything from helping to cover up the crime to actually participating in helping them get away, for example. The evidence will be made public tomorrow. All three pled not guilty.

Some parenting.

I personally get a little annoyed by the fact that there have been immediate predictable reactions about "the Arabs" or "the Muslims" (especially considering Zogheib is apparently Christian). The crime was perpetrated by the criminals, not by all members of a certain background or ethnic group.

That said, these particular arsonists - if found guilty - did set themselves up for having their motives questioned by taping a note to the door of the school saying that the arson was "retaliation" for Israel's assassination of Hamas leader Shiek Ahmed Yassin. In my opinion, they ought to be charged with a hate crime, not merely with arson or vandalism. Anyone who proudly trumpets hate as a motive should be punished appropriately, and a clear message should be sent that this kind of thing isn't acceptable in Canada. I hope that, if they are indeed the guilty parties, that they go to jail for a long time.

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