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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8:25 PM
Is there an election going on or something?

Cause you'd never know it, just living day to day.

Sure, the media is making an effort to report something - anything - about the campaign trail.

But that deafening silence out there? That's the sound of seven million Quebeckers not caring.

Almost nobody's talking about the election at the water cooler, over brunch, at the nail salon or the dry cleaner's. There's a remarkable lack of debate. People are spending more time discussing Paris Hilton's driving habits than Andre Boisclair's - erm - other habits. If an alien landed here from outer space, he'd be hard-pressed to learn that there was an election at all.

Not to mention a complete lack of care or concern about the S-word. Sovereignty, that is. Ask around and this issue that has inflamed passions here for decades will generally be met by a shrug. And I don't think it's because people are any less committed to their positions. Rather, I think it's because the sovereigntists are uninspired and unencouraged, the federalists aren't feeling too threatened, and the rest are just ready to move on.

I'll vote on election day. Until then, I'm perfectly content with this snoozer of a campaign. It's not as though a loud campaign would raise any interesting issues, so as long as the same bunch of yahoo politicians keep talking about the same bunch of ridiculous non-issues, I'm plenty happy to let them do it at a whisper.

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8:20 PM
Eurovision: Israeli entry "not appropriate"

The Eurovision song competition is the latest to jump on the anti-Israel bandwagon, threatening to ban this year's Israeli entry for having an "inappropriate political message":

Eurovision Song Contest organizers said Thursday they might ban this year's Israeli entry, "Push the Button," because they say it has an inappropriate political message.

The song, to be performed at the contest in Helsinki in May, overwhelmingly won Israel's competition Wednesday. It's sung in English, French and Hebrew by the group Teapacks and seemingly refers indirectly to Iran's nuclear ambitions and its hard-line leader, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"It's absolutely clear that this kind of message is not appropriate for the competition," said Kjell Ekholm, an organizer of the contest. "We'll have all the delegation leaders here in Helsinki next week, and I'm sure we'll talk about this case within the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) group."

The song warns about the dangers of nuclear war, but in an interview with the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, band members denied that the song is about Iran, calling that "absurd."

The lyrics of the song refer to "demonic" and "crazy rulers," and say that "he's gonna blow us up to ... kingdom come."

Ahmadinejad's recent anti-Jewish statements have added to fears in Israel that Iran's nuclear program is intended to produce weapons that could be used against that country.

And apparently the contest organizers support Iran's ambitions to wipe Israel off the map enough to believe that any song that protests against it - or against nuclear war in general - is "not appropriate".

Hear that? It's Israel Double Standard Time, still ticking away.

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1:40 PM
Hockey in London?

With soccer on the rise in North America, I guess the NHL feels that it may be time for another sporting cultural exchange attempt with Europe, and has announced that the Ducks and Kings will open next season with two games in London. That's London England, not London Ontario. (I had to read it twice, too.)

The O2 Arena, Europe's most state-of-the-art entertainment venue, will stage the historic games on Saturday, September 29 and Sunday, September 30.

"Our commitment to grow the game globally has never been stronger," NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said. "The NHL is extremely proud to be represented in London by two great hockey organizations in the Ducks and Kings as well as to be recording NHL history at such a fantastic facility in the O2."

Something tells me that the Brits won't suddenly fall for hockey en masse. Though the sport is not all that different from their beloved football, it suffers from a few massive drawbacks in translation; namely, the hiding of players' hairdos under helmets, the low tolerance for diving, the game's general absence of irony in favour of straightforward vulgarity, the utter and complete lack of any good hockey songs (Stompin' Tom Connors doesn't count), and the fact that - especially with the new format - more than one goal tends to be scored in a game. Not to mention the whole pesky played-on-ice thing.

On the other hand, there are probably enough expat Canadians living in London to fill the arena. Which begs the question of why they'd send two California teams instead of two Canadian ones. Retribution for David Beckham, perhaps?

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8:41 PM
Throwing in the towel?

Let's review: Gainey ships Rivet to the Sharks, then stays so quiet today at the trade deadline that he doesn't even bother to call a press conference. Meanwhile, all of our conference rivals bolstered their team's weak spots and improved their chances today, including the Isles, who shocked the hockey world by picking up Smyth.

Last night's routing of the Leafs was marred by the display of Aebischer as only slightly-less-shaky than Rayyyyyyyycroft. And the Habs are 20 minutes away from being shut out on Broadway tonight.

All this doesn't exactly add up to a team pouring its heart and soul into a drive for the playoffs.

Conclusion: Gainey, Carbs et al have given up. *Sigh*.

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8:38 PM
There's a metaphor about people who live in glass houses or something here

Most of the time, when the sordid details of celebs' brushes with the law hit the media, I find myself none too sympathetic. But if this is true, then I can't help but think that the paparazzi member in question got pretty much what he deserved:

Police are investigating reports that James Blunt ran over someone's foot as he was leaving a party, then drove off, authorities said Tuesday.

The alleged victim told police his foot was injured at a party Saturday around 1:50 a.m., police spokeswoman Martha Garcia said.

"Some of the witnesses also reported that it was Mr. Blunt who was driving the car," she said.

"James was leaving a party and his car was swarmed by paparazzi," Blunt's publicist Sheila Richman said.

In a statement, she said the singer was driving "2 mph" and that he was "trying to navigate his car through all of the people."

So what's the new line of wisdom here? People who swarm cars shouldn't complain when their feet get run over?

(Incidentally, James Blunt is one of those guilty pleasures that I'd love to claim I hate but actually has a much heavier rotation in my CD player than I'd care to admit... shhhhh....)

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