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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12:20 AM
World's most annoying invention

Wind chimes.

Who thought it would be a good idea to put them up in an apartment building, anyway? My neighbours, that's who.

Living in a wind tunnel just got much more musical.

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12:14 AM
Invasion of the Ontario license plates

It's Labour Day Weekend, and we all know what that means. That's right, they're everywhere: Ontario drivers have invaded our highways, side streets and alleyways. The "Je Me Souviens" uniformity has been broken up by a sea of "Yours to Discover".

Some are bringing their kids to school and helping them get settled in the residence. Others are just visiting friends or relatives, or simply taking a weekend vacation. Whatever their reasons for being here, though, they have one thing in common: They don't know how to drive in Quebec.

Even though their license plates are nearly the same colour as ours, they're easy to spot: They're the ones going 100kph in the fast lane; they even slow to 70 on the Met, thinking for some strange reason that the speed limits mean something here. They stop at crosswalks. They use their turn signals. They make 3-second stops at stop signs. They stubbornly insist on driving at their speed even when all the traffic around them is whizzing by and giving them a honk-and-finger tabarnac.

In short, they're a major menace and they're bound to cause numerous accidents. Watch out for them.

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8:13 PM
Who called it?

I could've predicted this was coming. Oh, wait, I did. Six years ago.

Sure took 'em long enough!

(Via Damian Penny).

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12:48 AM
What good is the U.N., part twelve million

In the latest chapter of the continuing saga of the irrelevance of the United Nations, the U.S. and Britain are co-sponsoring a resolution to deploy U.N. troops in Darfur:

The U.S. and British sponsored resolution would authorize the deployment of 20,000 U.N. troops and police in Darfur to take over from some 7,000 African Union troops, who have been unable to end bloodshed in the western Sudanese region.

Though the resolution, likely to be put to a vote on Thursday, would state that Sudan would need to agree to the deployment, it was expected to add pressure on Khartoum to drop its opposition to U.N. peacekeeping troops.

"Our judgment here is that we think we've found a formulation that would win acceptance on the (Security) Council," U.S. Ambassador John Bolton told reporters at the United Nations.

What about a formulation that would actually end the bloodshed?

This resolution - even if it passes - will be nothing more than symbolic. The U.N. is having trouble finding a few thousand troops to send to Lebanon; where will it find 20,000 for Sudan? Even if they go, chances are they'll be equipped with nothing more than a blue helmet and a whistle. And, of course, for any of this to have made a difference, it would've had to have happened about four years ago.

As usual, the United Nations fell asleep at the wheel, and millions have been paying the price. If this resolution passes, it will be another case of far too little, far too late. Isn't it time we admit that the U.N. is completely and utterly powerless to prevent, diffuse or end armed conflict and genocide?

Update: Similar sentiments from this Gazette editorial about Venezuela's bid for a seat on the security council:

It's not as if Chavez could make the Security Council less effective than it is now. Russia and China already take care of that, as we have seen in the case of Iran's determined rush to acquire nuclear weapons. Sanctions? No no, say the Russians and the Chinese. Let's talk and study for a few more months before we get to sanctions. What could go wrong?

From Rwanda to the Balkans to Darfur to Lebanon, and elsewhere, the Security Council has shown itself impotent and useless. Or worse than useless, as in approving a toothless resolution to disarm Hezbollah.

[. . . ]

Slaughter continues in Darfur, Iran becomes nuclear, Hezbollah re-arms. At the UN, meanwhile, urbane and well-dressed diplomats keep talking about process.

Venezuela on the Security Council? Hey, why not? It's not as though other members such as Syria have exactly set the bar all that high.

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9:54 PM
What's the real deal here?

Could it be? Is this actually a voice of reason - a litany of hard truth - a call for self-examination... coming from Hamas?

"When you walk in the streets of Gaza City, you cannot but close your eyes because of what you see there: unimaginable chaos, careless policemen, young men carrying guns and strutting with pride and families receiving condolences for their dead in the middle of the street."

This is how Ghazi Hamad, spokesman for the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority government and a former newspaper editor, described the situation in the Gaza Strip in an article he published on Sunday on some Palestinian news Web sites.

The article, the first of its kind by a senior Hamas official, also questioned the effectiveness of the Kassam rocket attacks and noted that since Israel evacuated the Gaza Strip, the situation there has deteriorated on all levels. It holds the armed groups responsible for the crisis and calls on them to reconsider their tactics and to stop blaming Israel for their mistakes.

"Gaza is suffering under the yoke of anarchy and the swords of thugs," Hamad wrote. "I remember the day when Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip and closed the gates behind. Then, Palestinians across the political spectrum took to the streets to celebrate what many of us regarded as the Israeli defeat or retreat. We heard a lot about a promising future in the Gaza Strip and about turning the area into a trade and industrial zone."

Hamad said the "culture of life" that prevailed in the Strip has since been replaced with a nightmare. "Life became a nightmare and an intolerable burden," he said. "Today I ask myself a daring and frightening question: 'Why did the occupation return to Gaza?' The normal reply: 'The occupation is the reason.'"

Dismissing Israel's responsibility for the growing state of anarchy and lawlessness in the Gaza Strip, Hamad said it was time for the Palestinians to embark on a soul-searching process to see where they erred.

"We're always afraid to talk about our mistakes," he added. "We're used to blaming our mistakes on others. What is the relationship between the chaos, anarchy, lawlessness, indiscriminate murders, theft of land, family rivalries, transgression on public lands and unorganized traffic and the occupation? We are still trapped by the mentality of conspiracy theories - one that has limited our capability to think."

Unusually frank words from any Palestinian official. But considering the source, this is pretty astounding stuff.

Some are taking this at face value, calling it a "flying pigs moment".

But I'm a natural born cynic, and when something seems suspicious, it's usually because it is. Frankly, I'm not sure what to make of this. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Something tells me that this is going to turn out to be a part of a new powerplay game between Hamas and Fatah, and that, as many suspect, Hamas is looking to throw a monkey wrench into the U.S.'s policy of backing Fatah by confounding Bush's view that Fatah are the guys in the white hats and Hamas are the guys in the black hats.

If, however, Hamad was really being candid here, I hope for his sake that he has a lot of bodyguards.

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9:13 PM
Terrorism in Turkey

Four apparently coordinated attacks rocked the resort town of Marmaris and the city centre of Istanbul today. So far, 22 people have been reported injured.

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9:09 PM
Kidnapped journalists released

Of course it's good news that Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig were released unharmed. But Lynn B. is essential reading on the larger context here:

My elation at Steve and Olaf's release was quickly replaced by outrage when I heard about their forced conversion. The video turned my stomach. It should turn the stomach of every American and every person of whatever nationality who believes that the concepts of liberty and freedom have any value and any meaning. What sort of religion, in this day and age, would demand converts at the point of a gun or the blade of a sword? What sort of religion would even want such "converts?"

In any event, as has been pointed out elsewhere (and it was my first thought after hearing about this "forced" conversion), Centanni and Wiig are now marked men if they retract their coerced statement of faith. That would make them apostates under Islamic doctrine, subject to the death penalty at the hand of any devout Muslim who wishes to glorify Allah by carrying out the sentence. So it isn't over. Not by a long shot.

Read the rest. Now.

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8:56 PM
Summer's over?

Today was rainy and dreary. But unlike a summer shower, today's rain came with a chill in the air that felt an awful lot like, dare I say, fall.

One week till Labour Day. Seems summer is just about over.

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8:52 PM
Is it less tragic because it was not deliberate?

A plane crash in Kentucky killed 49 people today:

Flight 5191, a Canadair CRJ-100 bound for Atlanta, apparently ran off the end of a 3,500-foot-long runway designed for use by smaller planes, instead of the 7,000-foot runway suited for commercial flights, an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board said.

There's so far no word as to why the plane tried to take off from the shorter runway, instead of the longer one it was approved for. But there are no indications of terrorism, and as such, this crash will probably be quickly forgotten by the media. Unless, of course, the pilot turns out to be Muslim... in which case we'll probably never hear the end of the conspiracy theories.

This crash was a tragedy, and the families of all those killed have my deepest sympathies.

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8:47 PM
But we wanted to attack Israel first!

Al-Quaeda is whining because it thinks that the Shiite groups are getting to have all the fun:

The statement does, however, represent the seething resentment of Sunni al-Qaeda, directed at what it sees as an attempted Shiite takeover of the jihad campaign in the Middle East.

In the speech, Rahman espoused anti-Semitic conspiracy theories inspired by the Russian forgery, the protocols of the elders of Zion: "We know very well from our history that the Jews target to occupy Lebanon, Syria and even the north of the Arabian peninsula even up to Iraq to the river of Furaat (Euphrates)."

However, he then turns his wrath to Hizbullah, Iran, and Syria, calling them "infidel entities," and arguing that they are preventing Sunni jihadis from attacking Israel.

This pissing contest between Sunni and Shiite extremist groups is nothing new. It's a battle of one-upmanship, with the barometer being which side can attack Israel the most. Which really makes me wish they'd cut out the middleman and just start attacking each other already.

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