Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘paul jane’

Paul’s back. And blogging up a storm. Get thee over to his place, quick.

Update: Paul also wins my prize for quote of the day, with this insightful analysis about the Tremblay-versus-Bourque municipal election race:

Do any of you remember that episode of South Park where they’re selecting a new school mascot and are reduced to choosing either a giant douche or a turd sandwich? Life really does imitate art sometimes…

We missed ya, Paul! Sure good to have you back.

Speaking of the Blue Collar labour dispute, Paul puts things into perspective:

Gratified as I am that the blue collar workers have seen fit, in their infinite grace, to perform some cursory salting and de-icing on the sidewalks of some major arteries, I don’t live on one of those, but on the myriad of small streets in the Snowdon area. Moreover, my street is on a slope.

Therefore, allow me to explain the joy that is my life every time I have to take my dog outside: I open the front door, descend the stairs, reach the sidewalk, and try my damnedest by using a combination of tap-dancing, the Funky Chicken, and walking like a penguin to keep myself from sliding into parked cars, or all the way down the street on my face.

Granted, I’ll admit that one can have nothing more than a passing acquaintance with the adjective “funny” until you’ve seen your dog slip, spin one hundred and eighty degrees in the air, and fall flat on his back whilst taking a leak, but, all comedy aside, this is no way to live. (I should also note that comedy value decreases exponentially if one’s dog is still on its leash and one ends up sprawled across the hood of a car whilst laughing.)

Where I live (NDG), it’s no better. Even at the best of times, the sidewalk by my building isn’t exactly well-maintained. These days, it’s a veritable skating rink. If you think it’s easy skating in heels, *you* try it while carrying 5 bags of groceries.

The Blue Collar workers who agreed to binding arbitration but kicked up a fuss when it didn’t come out in their favour are being petty and nonsensical. They’re also endangering plenty of people who have to get around on dangerously slippery sidewalks. They’re predicting more freezing rain for tomorrow, and the workers had better get their acts together before the situation gets much, much worse. As Paul says:

To sum things up, I stand by my original statement. Montreal’s blue collar workers’ union is made up of lazy, overpaid, inconsiderate arseclowns. If they think that the public is behind them, they’re very sadly mistaken, and I would like to see them called on the carpet for the massive amount of injury and inconvenience that witholding basic services has inflicted upon the residents of this city.

Couldn’t agree with you more, Paul.

I haven’t been able to post as much as I’d like to lately, due to being very preoccupied with work and with other stuff in my life. So in the meantime, here are some must-read links:

If you’re not reading Imshin, you should be. She has been blogging in her typically insightful fashion lately about Shavuot and Zionism’s true meaning, and about antisemitism at Berkeley.

LGF has the photo that proves just how little the UN can be trusted in the mideast. And Meryl has some biting commentary on the latest news emerging from Israel.

In Canadian news, the election talk that seems to be dominating the airwaves. But Damian Penny and David Janes have a disgusting story of racism interfering in custody cases that proves just how dangerous these “PC” policies can be for innocent children. As for the election, Paul Jané comments on the Liberals’ transparent scheme to make ridiculous healthcare promises at the eleventh hour that they clearly have no intention of keeping. (Anyone else remember the “no more GST” promise? Remind me again why I keep voting for these guys?)

More horrors from North Korea (via Paul Jané):

North Korea built [a gulag system] on the Chinese model and added a new depravity — child political prisoners. Neither the Soviets nor the Chinese sent children to the concentration camps but the Dear Leader sends the entire family. One of the best accounts of the North Korean gulag is written by someone who was sent to the camps at the age of nine, because his grandfather had offended the system. His sister was only seven; she was also sent to prison. In North Korea, the children of political prisoners are called “seedlings.” Official propaganda proscribes the proper treatment of these children, “desiccate the seedlings of counterrevolution, pull them out by their roots, and exterminate every last one of them.”

The camps are designed to exploit the prisoners’ labor until they die. Prisoners are given difficult and dangerous labor such as mining under unsafe conditions. Children are assigned heavy work as well, such as logging. Even before the famine of the mid-1990s, prisoners, including children, were on rations that would not sustain life in the long run, much less allow for any sort of normal growth. Since the political prisoners are never released, there is no danger of them divulging military secrets; they are assigned to work on missiles and other special weapons. One camp, Camp #14, is notorious for its use of prisoners “as guinea pigs for developing chemical warfare technology,” according to information obtained by the Seoul Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights.

This stuff makes my stomach turn. And there’s more:

It’s bad luck to be an even moderately attractive young woman in the camps. High Communist Party officials troll the camps looking for victims to be used as sex slaves. If the women become pregnant, they are forced to have an abortion without anesthesia. When their usefulness is over, the women are murdered. Their deaths are covered up as “shot while trying to escape.” In much the same way, the Nazi “Death Doctor,” Josef Mengele, used to comb the arriving trains for an attractive evening companion, only to have her shot the next day.

No, this isn’t Germany 60 years ago. It’s happening in North Korea right now. And the world is content to do nothing about it, because North Korea is communist and communism is the solution to the evil capitalism of America and the Zionist Cabal and the evil Joooos that everyone’s so much more concerned about condemning. And besides, Kim Jong-Il has nuclear weapons probably and he’s crazy and he might use them so what can anyone do anyway? And it’s so far away so it’s easy to close our eyes and pretend it doesn’t exist, right? Especially cause nobody ever escapes from Camp #14 so there are no eyewitnesses to write books or go on speaking tours to raise awareness.

Sickening and disgusting, all of it.

As suspected, most of the major news outlets gave the North Korea story (see below) a cursory, back-page treatment.

I implored the blogosphere to do better. And some, at least, have.

Damian Penny wrote about the “People’s Democratic Republic of Death Camps”. David Janes astutely observed that “there’s no obvious way to blame the US for this, so it’s not really happening, is it?”. Lynn B. urges us to read up and talk about it. Meryl Yourish has a brilliantly-written post entitled “North Korea is Not Our Problem”.

I’ll update this throughout the day with (hopefully) more. Let’s not allow this to become a one-day headline.

Update: Paul Jané finds the words that failed me. Jonathan is feeling “curiously dispassionate”… which I find interesting in light of my reaction to the story, which was more emotional than even I expected. And Spin Killer weighs in.

A close call for Meryl Yourish and I don’t blame her for being freaked out. Paul recounts his struggle to explain technology to octogenarians. And Damian contemplates life on Mars. (I can think of a few people we could ship there to start colonizing the place, personally. Though I doubt if a spaceship with Michael Moore AND Pat Buchanan would make it to Mars with everyone on board still alive.)

From Israel, Harry has a prayer that you won’t find in any traditional siddur. And Allison has Hamas’s particular brand of “feminism”.

David and Lynn disagree on the appropriateness of the Israeli ambassador’s response to the disgusting “Snow White” art exhibit in Sweden glorifying a Palestinian suicide bomber. Judith posted reactions from a number of other bloggers on the same subject. And Mike Silverman has the poster that puts a whole new meaning on the closing of the Passover seder.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

While I’ve been procrastinating, others have been posting.

Damian has the latest on the politician who just won’t leave office, and Paul has a few thoughts on the corruption within the Liberal government under said politician’s leadership. Steve has the shoot-an-FLQ-terrorist video game . . . and the offended reaction of a bunch of separatists with way too much time on their hands. And Occam’s Toothbrush has a link to a George Jonas story in the National Post on the real problem in the Palestinian society. (You’ll note that, unlike Jonas’s horribly sexist article on why women should be flattered to be groped by Arnold Schwarzenegger, this article has a web link).

Allison has a few thoughts on how the Israeli government can step up its PR by recognizing the contribution of bloggers to the pro-Israel effort. Lynn has a brutally honest article by what passes for a “human rights activist” in Jordan (read: someone who wants to destroy Israel). And Imshin helps Lynn figure out what Israeli turkeys say. (Personally, judging by the menus at most Israeli restaurants I’ve ever been at, I’d guess they probably say something like “I don’t want to be schnitzel!”)