Segacs’s World I Know

The Official Languages Commissioner (read: yet another way for the Federal government to waste taxpayer money) has encountered a curious phenomenon: Francophone people are choosing to speak to each other in English:

Canada is having trouble getting French treated as an equal language with English in the civil service, the top official for enforcing the country’s bilingualism laws admitted.

And one of the reasons, said Commissioner of Official Languages Dyane Adam, is that French-speaking bureaucrats often talk to each other … in English.

Anywhere in the world, this would simply be people choosing to converse in whatever language they want.

But in Canada, it’s cause for concern… and for wasting even more taxpayer dollars trying to “remedy” this “terrible” situation.

Sigh.

Liked the movie? Then get the t-shirt!

Gotta love Jewish humour. (Via Dave).

Go read Imshin’s take on the real attitude of Israelis, post-Yassin assassination:

So you see, I have no particular fear as a result of the Yassin killing. I know my army, my security services and my government, are doing their utmost to protect me. They were before and they are now. I didn’t change anything in my way of life as a result. I went to the mall, I went running with Bish in the park a few times, Eldest went out twice collecting donations door-to-door for some charity or other, I got the number five bus to work every morning, I walked home every afternoon (thankfully, not getting run over by a motorbike when crossing the road). And I must say, I didn’t notice any less people in the shops, in the cafes or in the streets. On the contrary, it’s two weeks before Pesach (Passover). The shops are packed; the atmosphere in the supermarket is one of frantic activity. It’s all hogwash, silly Left Wing scaredy-pants propaganda, the Media inventing news. It hasn’t happened.

And here’s her take on the reaction of the Palestinians, who, the media reports, are so outraged that they’re protesting Yassin’s death nonstop:

Have you noticed that the masses aren’t demonstrating in Gaza? As usual, the real news is what isn’t in the papers. There have been a few tepid sounding demonstrations in other places, but not in Gaza, where he lived, preached, and died. And they reportedly only managed to mobilize a few thousands for demonstrations in the West Bank (it was probably even less than that).

[ . . . ]

Maybe a lot of Palestinians are secretly relieved to see him go. Maybe they’re fed up and want it to finish already. Maybe they have long ago stopped believing the promises of people like Yassin that Israel is close to breaking point.

That’s why I read people like Imshin. To find out what they’re not saying in the papers. Go read the rest.

For the second year in a row, the moderates have won the CSU elections, thus ensuring that – at least for next year – the university will not be overtaken by those merely interested in shit-disturbing for headlines:

In election results announced just moments ago, Chief Electoral Officer Tara Tavender has declared victory for New Evolution, who gained exactly 50 per cent of the vote in this year’s election.

This is good news indeed. New Evolution was the slate favoured to win by – among others – Concordia Hillel, as it has promised to take a moderate, apolitical stand on Mideast issues.

Of course, there could still be trouble ahead:

The victory may be short-lived, however, as contestations are expected from both Renaissance Concordia and Concordians In Action, claiming that the New Evolution slate violated election regulations to get more votes.

Contestations are almost a standard occurrance. And I don’t know enough about this election to know whether they will have a leg to stand on. We’ll have to see. In the meantime, the students have spoken, and they’ve spoken against rioting and turmoil on campus. Let’s hope they get their wish.

This story just keeps getting stranger and stranger.

It seems the mother of the would-be teenage Palestinian suicide bomber was angry… but not at the fact that he would have gone to kill innocent Israelis; merely at the fact that he was “too young”. As though he had been caught in a bar before his majority:

Asked whether she would have supported her son had he been older, the mother replied: “If he was over 18, that would have been possible, and I might even encourage him to do it. But it’s impossible for a child his age to do it.”

Incidentally, the mother is also reportedly upset that the media misreported the boy’s age as 14. It seems he’s actually 16… in other words, he had two more years to learn to hate Jews.

Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera is reporting that the Israelis made up the story. Which is of course ridiculous considering the entire thing was caught on camera by a Palestinian journalist working for Associated Press. (Duh! Those AP reporters are all paid off by the Zionist cabal, right?)

Anyway, I am a little encouraged to see this blatant effort at trying to deny reality, simply because it indicates that this time, even the Palestinians realize they’ve gone too far. Hence all the calls for restraint coming from the Palestinian leadership. Of course they’re for the media’s benefit and none of them actually mean it… but hey, at least they seem to have caught on that the benefits of exploiting Israeli humanity by using kids as suicide bombers can backfire with negative world opinion.

Sucks to be exposed for being yourselves, eh?

Yet another example of why, if I were American, I would never vote Republican no matter how cozy the party is with Israel:

The U.S. Senate, after an emotional debate, easily passed legislation on Thursday to make it a federal crime to harm or kill an “unborn child,” an issue that spilled into the battle over abortion rights.

On a 61-38 vote, the Republican-led Senate sent the measure, earlier approved by the House of Representatives, to President Bush.

Bush applauded the Senate vote and said he was looking forward to signing the legislation into law.

This legislations specifically excludes abortion, and thus doesn’t infringe on abortion rights.

BUT (and there’s always a but) anti-abortion groups are applauding it as a “step” towards granting the unborn the same rights as the living.

Don’t get me wrong – I think violence against a pregnant woman is despicable and anyone who commits it ought to be punished to the full extent of the law. But there are ways of stressing this without giving a fetus the same legal status as a person. A fetus has the potential to be a person, and thus deserves rights… but a fetus is not yet a person, and this murky legal definition is really just a political victory for those who would seek to deny the right to choose to all women regardless of belief.

There’s a lively debate going on at Paul’s site about the Quebec language laws. Even though everyone I know is so ridiculously sick of talking about language politics, it seems that the issue just won’t go away.

This time, it’s about the court case brought by angry Francophone parents demanding the right to send their kids to English schools:

In the most potentially explosive case, a group made up largely of francophone parents is seeking the right to attend English schools, arguing under the Quebec Charter of Human Rights it is illegal to discriminate against someone based on family relationships.

Should they win, the case could prove to be a political nightmare for Premier Jean Charest’s government, which could find itself caught between a) respecting the ruling and angering French nationalists who don’t want to see Bill 101 weakened or b) invoking the notwithstanding clause and risk angering the Liberal Party’s anglophone and federalist supporters.

This is of course an extremely ironic case, given that it’s discriminatory – for once – not against us hated Anglos but against Francophones who merely want to give their kids the opportunities that a working knowledge of English affords them. All the evidence indicates that learning a second language won’t jeopardize a child’s mother tongue, and that the younger it is learned, the better. The level of English being taught in French public schools is ridiculously ghastly.

And under the law, only parents who were educated in English in Canada have the right to choose to send their kids to French schools. That right is lost after a generation. So, for instance, if I should decide to send my kids to French school one day, because I want them to be bilingual, they will lose the right to send their kids to English school (assuming they stay in Quebec).

It should be about freedom of choice. But for too many Quebecois, it’s about the collectivity superceding individual rights. People who are living in the past enact defensive laws seeking to “preserve” the French “character” of Quebec by oppressing English in any way possible. English is illegal on signs unless it’s half the size of the French or less. Workplaces with at least 50 employees must conduct all internal communications in French. And parents can’t choose educate their kids in English… unless, like most politicians, they’re rich enough to send their kids to private schools, in which case they can do so in any language they please.

You see, it’s not enough for the nationalists to take pride in their French culture and heritage. No, everyone else has to as well. That’s why preference is given in Quebec to immigrants from French-speaking countries. That’s why ridiculous requirements about working in French keep many talented and industrious people out who don’t speak French. The nationalists are worried about being assimilated by a “sea” of English, and fight to preserve the French majority in the province no matter what the cost to progress, openness, or individual rights.

You’d think this would piss me off, as an anglophone living in Quebec. And yeah, it does. But the other side of the coin is that, like the vast majority of people in this province, I just don’t care enough. Because I’m so sick of hearing about it. That’s why a guy like Howard Galganov didn’t get the support of the vast majority of Montreal anglos for more than about five minutes. He was militant in a situation that we have pretty much come to accept and deal with. Every so often there are flare-ups, but for the most part, people are content to leave the hardline bickering to the politicians. Just about all of us in Montreal speak two or more languages. We conduct conversations in “franglais” or a mix of whatever happens to make the most sense at the time. And we’re tired of the politicians trying to drive us apart.

So I think it’s wrong, but I’m not ready to be all up in arms either. I argued that we shouldn’t blow the whole thing out of proportion:

I’ve done my share of ranting and raving against the OLF, Bill 101, and pretty much anything to do with sovereignty or rights. But I do think it lacks perspective a little to call the nationalists “fascists” or “terrorists” (with the notable exception of the FLQ, of course, who are terrorists). Anglo power is all very well and good, but I’ve mellowed somewhat. Back in 1995, I thought all separatists were hiding devil’s horns in their hair. I now realize that they have some views that – while I disagree – aren’t coming from nowhere.

With the notable exception of a few individual FLQ terrorists firebombing coffee shops, the nationalist movement has been nonviolent and political since the mid-70s. And with the exception of a few hardliners on each side, most people would really rather that the issue just go away. We’re tired of it. We don’t like to be told that our language laws make us a fascist dictatorship. We know better; they’re inconvenient but they’re a compromise that usually works, and when it doesn’t, nobody’s getting murdered or tortured or starved. For the most part, we put up with the crap cause this is otherwise a great city to live in and most of us have friends on both sides of the political spectrum, and in absence of a referendum campaign to drive a wedge between us, we can put our differences aside and just talk about something else. Plus, today’s Montreal has so many ethnic groups that are neither anglophone nor francophone that it just seems absurd to talk about this as a two-sided issue, when there are many people in between who are comfortable in many languages and don’t identify with either side.

It’s ok to agree to disagree sometimes. I’m looking forward to the day when the politicians catch up with the population, and stop making every election about language or sovereignty.

More Palestinian Child Abuse (via everyone):

“Blowing myself up is the only chance I’ve got to have sex with 72 virgins in the Garden of Eden” – Husam Abdu, 14

The terrorists will view any sign of morality or human decency as a weakness. This is just one more example. But it’s certainly not an isolated incident:

Thirty-one suicide bombers have been younger than 18, and more than 40 minors who were actively involved in planning suicide bombings have been arrested. Since May 2001, 22 shootings and bombings were perpetrated by minors.

Tell that to the international human rights groups who automatically categorize any child killed in conflict as an “innocent victim”, and yet condemn groups such as Operation S.I.C.K., who are trying to stop children being used in warfare, for being “racist”.

Bull.

A Peewee hockey team from the U.S. was not booed this year. That’s the news. Why? Cause they were booed last year. Of course, this year they played in New Brunswick, and last year’s series was here in Quebec. That could have something to do with it:

Having borne the brunt of anti-American sentiment during their last visit to Canada, a peewee hockey team from Massachusetts is back again. And this time, they are being welcomed with open arms.

When the Brockton Boxers were in Quebec for a hockey tournament last March, fans upset by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq let them know how they felt.

As they took to the ice in Montreal one day after U.S. troops rolled into Iraq, the 12- and 13-year-olds were lambasted with anti-American jeering.

The Brockton Boxers’ Jon Spano remembers the events well.

“There were protesters and everything… and we had to get escorted off the bus… because there was so many of them,” he told CTV Atlantic affiliate, ATV News.

“Then they burnt our flag and they booed the national anthem and all that stuff.”

Nice. Real nice.

At least the New Brunswick hosts seem to have caught on that these are kids, not international terrorists:

When their bus arrived, a welcoming committee of local pewee players was on hand, banging their sticks in welcome.

What a shame that the Montreal hosts couldn’t figure that out last year.