Segacs's World I Know

Archive for February, 2010

Team Canada wins Gold - Vancouver 2010

It was the shot heard from coast to coast – Sidney Crosby’s overtime goal to win this hockey game 3-2 and secure the record-breaking 14th gold medal for Canada.

A fitting feather in the cap of what have been incredible Olympic games. And they couldn’t have scripted it any better. Perfect photo finish.

A moment, to salute all our  Olympic medallists.

Now, let the celebrations begin!

We’ve now won 10 gold medals, which – at the moment, anyway – is more than any other team.

Our athletes are impressing the hell out of everyone, on the skating rink, the ski hill, the hockey arena, the bobsled track, hell, even the curling rink. (Is curling even a sport? Debatable. But we are pretty damn good at it. Even if the Norwegians have those awesome pants. But I digress.) The figure skaters have captured our imagination, from the near-perfection of Moir and Virtue to the inspiring courage of Joannie Rochette. And of course, in hockey, our women have claimed gold, while the men have just advanced to the finals against the USA on Sunday, with tonight’s nail-biter of a 3-2 win over Slovakia.

Everywhere, the red and white waves, crowds burst into spontaneous renditions of the national anthem, and the entire country from coast to coast has come together to cheer on our Olympians.

Has there ever been such a display of Canadian patriotism in recent history? Not that I can remember.

The Olympics had a controversial staging, a rocky start, and endless debates over cost overruns, podium pressure and everything under the sun. But leaving all that aside, it’s been a pretty incredible couple of weeks. And I have to believe that this has done a lot to buoy pride in the red and white in this country of ours, which, you gotta admit, is really fucking awesome.

There are two more days left in these Olympic games. Whatever happens – in the hockey finals or elsewhere – I’m really proud of our athletes and our country. Go Canada Go!

A new Israeli study suggests that smokers have lower IQs than nonsmokers:

According to the researchers, 28 percent of the study participants smoked at least one cigarette a day, around 3 percent said they were ex-smokers, and 68 percent had never smoked.

The smokers had significantly lower intelligence test scores than non-smokers, and this remained true even after the researchers accounted for socioeconomic status measured by how many years of formal education a recruit’s father had completed.

The average IQ for non-smokers was about 101, while it was 94 for men who had started smoking before entering the military.

IQ steadily dropped as the number of cigarettes smoked increased, from 98 for people who smoked one to five cigarettes daily to 90 for those who smoked more than a pack a day.

The size and scale of this study, as well as its provocative findings, are sure to generate discussion and debate among the scientific community.

I have no basis to evaluate the scientific claims, and I’m not going to try. But I’m very sceptical, for one reason: Does anyone really find it believable that 68% of Israeli teenagers have never smoked?

Shots: 45-23 for Canada. Final score: 5-3 for USA.

Ouch. ‘Nuff said.

*Sigh*. Onto the qualifying game, and hopefully we’ll get a chance for revenge.

Update: Canada fared somewhat better at Hockey Night in Kandahar; the morale game for soldiers serving in Afghanistan resulted in a 16-2 “ass-whooping” of the US by Canada. Too bad that’s not the score that counts in the Olympics.

The biggest attraction at the Olympics? Stephen Colbert, who’s been on site all week.

He and Michael Bublé sang their unique take on the national anthem. He’s done mock tryouts for events. He cheered on Shani Davis of the US speedskating team (which he sponsored) when he won his gold medal. He’s getting more press coverage than some of the top athletes. AP has called him “his own Olympic event“.

I’m not sure which is funnier: Stephen Colbert on his game, or the legions of people who don’t seem to understand that it’s satire.

The Palestinian people, anyway. This according to a new poll conducted by Ramallah-based Near East Consulting that surveyed 880 Palestinians. Overall support for Fatah is at 48%, while Hamas is down to 11% support:

“There is widespread support for Fatah,” Dr. Jamil Rabah, director of Near East Consulting in the PA, told The Media Line. “They support the Fatah political process and don’t think Hamas is on the right path politically.” 

[ . . . ]

“It doesn’t surprise me that the sentiments of the people are in this direction,” Abdallah Abdallah, chairman of the Palestinian Legislative Council’s Political Committee, told The Media Line. “Over a year has passed since the Gaza war and still people are living in the streets. People want those responsible for this to go and I think the sentiments of the people after three or more years of this is that it’s about time that those who are not capable of running the affairs of the people – go.”

Hamas swept to power in Gaza first by exploiting people’s frustration with the corruption of the Fatah administration, and then through a violent show of force. Popular support for suicide bombings and attacks on Israeli civilians was high, and Hamas was able to claim to the world (though maybe not with an altogether straight face) that it was a “legitimate” political party. Now, after promising to “crush” Israel and succeeding in doing little more than crushing Gaza, it seems that the Hamas option has lost its shiny lustre to a lot of disillusioned Palestinians.

But it would be a mistake to take this polling data at face value. People vote out of ideology, sure, but also out of self-interest. And in the Palestinian territories, where hatred is a powerful weapon that can be stirred up almost at will to redirect people’s frustration, these things can shift quickly. There will be those who will back the strongest horse, those who go looking for the options that are even more extremist than Hamas, and those who will get disgusted with voting altogether in a place where democracy doesn’t exactly have deep roots.

We’ve seen this before. Support for a political approach rises among Palestinians when there appears to be no threat of any progress actually being made. The minute this threat arises – whether at Camp David in 2000, or after Oslo or Wye – the people balk and something triggers another wave of violence. And if it’s not Hamas out in front, then support will go towards whoever is shouting the loudest, shooting the most, and inspiring the most fear.

And what the poll won’t tell you is that the bigger picture in the Middle East is also a factor – maybe the factor. As Iran battles Saudi Arabia for regional dominance, Hamas is engaged in something of a proxy war against Iran-sponsored Hezbollah, jockeying for power using the gruesome metric of dead Israeli civilians as credentials.

But, for the moment at least, Hamas’s popular support is way down. And if the Palestinians actually had real elections, this might actually have implications.

The IAEA is worried that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons:

The U.N. nuclear agency on Thursday expressed concern for the first time that Iran may currently be working on ways to turn enriched uranium into a nuclear warhead, instead of having stopped several years ago.

Its report appears to contradict an assessment by Washington that Tehran suspended such activities in 2003. It appears to jibe with the concerns of several U.S. allies that Iran may never have suspended such work.

Really now? What tipped them off? Ahmadinejad has been playing nuclear chicken with the United Nations for years. What exactly caused the U.N. to wake up today and tentatively acknowledge blazingly obvious reality, instead of continuing to close its eyes as it has been all along? Why now?

That’s the big question, after all. For the United Nations to even make such a statement, there has to have been a sea change somewhere else behind the scenes that triggered it. If China or Russia is prepared to put more pressure on Iran, this could be indicative of a change in the game, even if the U.N.’s statements are, in and of themselves, essentially worthless. The world will be watching closely, that’s for certain.

While most eyes look westward to Vancouver, back at home, Quebec is in a tizzy over former PQ leader Lucien Bouchard’s public comments against his old party, accusing them of narrow-mindedness and saying that sovereignty is no longer achievable:

M. Bouchard est persuadé qu’il ne verra pas un autre référendum sur la souveraineté de son vivant. L’ancien chef péquiste est toujours souverainiste, mais la souveraineté est devenue une question hypothétique; elle n’est donc pas une solution aux problèmes du Québec.

Bouchard also blasted the PQ for intolerance towards religious minorities, claiming that they were fishing for votes among former ADQ supporters and that the debate around reasonable accommodation was really nothing more than thinly-disguised racism.

Predictably, Bouchard’s comments have caused a stir. Gilles Duceppe is playing spin doctor. Jean Charest is cozying up to his former rival and colleague. And Pauline Marois reacted to Bouchard’s racism charges by opposing a Liberal plan to allow Jewish schools to teach on Sundays. Way to prove Bouchard’s point for him nicely, there, Pauline.

Even in the worst divisive moments of the lead-up to the 1995 referendum, Bouchard still commanded respect among federalists, in a way that the bumbling buffoonery of the Jacques Parizeau set never did. I can’t and won’t ever agree with Lucien Bouchard on his politics. However, since leaving political life, he has shown that he isn’t afraid to speak the unpopular truths, whether it was speaking out for Israel at the 2003 Yom Ha’atzmaut rally (to a staunchly federalist crowd, no less), or calling for a “Québec lucide” in 2005. It’s ironic, perhaps, that the man responsible for bringing Canada to the brink of breakup has somehow emerged as something of a voice of conscience of the sovereignty movement.

With the PQ in opposition and sovereignty off the radar of most Quebecers, Bouchard’s comments may actually have an opposite effect, stirring the pot and re-igniting a dormant debate. And he’s shrewd enough that you have to wonder if that was his intent. Although, I’m more inclined to believe that he meant what he said, and that he’s calling for some soul-searching in a movement where intolerance has always been one of the dirty little secrets. When Bouchard speaks, people still listen, though what difference it will make is anyone’s guess.

The Olympic opening ceremonies will stand as a shining example of where creative-by-committee will get you. As best as I can figure, someone at some point must have had a cool creative concept for this thing. But then it got watered down by layer after layer of bureaucracy until we ended up with… well, I’m not quite sure what that was, to be honest. Other than boring as hell.

But, we all know Canada is much cooler than the lame-ass CBC-heritage-moment crap we saw tonight. Way to represent.

So, here’s my top five list of things that they could have done to better showcase what Canada is all about:

5) Joe, from the Molson Canadian commercials. That watered-down imitation preacher guy was just stealing from his material anyway. I mean, Zed, not Z? If I were Molson, I’d sue.

4) A 3-hour Arcade Fire concert. Yes, believe it or not, we have musicians who are more recent than Bryan Adams. How about getting some of them on stage?

3) The Canada-USA gold medal game from Salt Lake City. Get the teams back for a re-enactment. Or, hell, just show video footage on a big screen.

2) Festivals from coast to coast. A medley of acts from everything from the Montreal Jazz Festival to Toronto’s Caribana to the Calgary Stampede.

1) Cirque du Soleil… we friggin’ invented it, why do other Olympic games get to use them and we get some random dude faking flying while held up by wires?

Forget SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder); what we’re really suffering from collectively as a nation is VDS: Vacation Deprivation Syndrome.

And it hasn’t gotten any better, either. Us Canadians are still among the most vacation-deprived people on earth, ranking dead last among 40 countries studied in terms of the amount of vacation time that the average worker is entitled to receive.

I think I need to move to Finland, France, Lithuania, or Brazil.