Segacs’s World I Know

Via Stephanie: Our idiot PM now says that he doesn’t think Dubya’s such a moron after all.

Apparently, Jean Chrétien’s communications director made a comment to that effect, speaking at a NATO summit in Prague. I guess Chrétien realized that maybe it’s not such a great idea to go around trading insults with the leader of the world’s most powerful nation, because he countered with this statement: “He (Bush) is a friend of mine, he is not a moron at all”.

Great. Some apology. Remind me again how this guy got elected THREE TIMES??? And remind me again what I was thinking by actually VOTING for him last time around . . . I mean, this guy doesn’t know his ass from his elbow, and has the worst case of foot-in-mouth disease of anyone I’ve ever heard . . . shouldn’t we expect better from our politicians? I admit to making my share of Bush jokes – who hasn’t – but at least he can get a sentence out without lauding terrorists, calling presidents names, or inciting back-bench revolt among his own party.

Somebody put this guy out to pasture. Fast.

Apparently, I’m an INTJ, according to BLOGinality. Who knew?

The United States says it has captured a top Al Qaida member.

Al-Qaida leader Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the network’s chief of operations in the Persian Gulf, has been captured, senior U.S. government officials said Thursday.

Al-Nashiri, a suspected mastermind of the USS Cole bombing in October 2000, was captured in an undisclosed foreign country earlier this month and is in U.S. custody, officials said. He is the highest-ranking al-Qaida operative captured since the CIA, FBI and Pakistani authorities captured bin Laden’s operations chief, Abu Zubaydah, in Faisalabad, Pakistan, in March.

So now my question is, so what? I mean, do you really think that these guys don’t have someone else waiting in the wings to take his place? What could this possibly do, except give a long-awaited promotion to the junior operations chief?

The U.S. won’t resort to torture, and this guy would probably prefer to die than talk anyway. So the likelihood of garnering any valuable intelligence from this arrest is slim to none. And, of course, the possibility of reprisal attacks against the U.S. just increased tenfold.

Not that I’m saying he shouldn’t have been captured, mind you. Obviously, this guy ought to be punished for the horrible things he has done. But anyone who thinks that it means the beginning of the end for Al Qaida is being extremely naive.

Update on the Jerusalem bus bombing: the toll is up to 11 dead, over 50 wounded. One of the dead was a 14-year-old girl. Hamas claimed responsibility, according to Al Jazeera.

This stuff makes me sick.

Hey CSU activists, listen up: Benjamin Shapiro has some funny ideas for things you can do to spice up your protests.

There’s been another suicide bombing in Israel. A bomber blew himself up on a crowded bus in the Kiryat Menachem neighbourhood of Jerusalem during the morning rush hour. At least three people are dead, and dozens more are listed as wounded, according to preliminary reports.

I guess this is the kind of thing you never get used to. Maybe that’s a good thing. But no matter how many times I hear this stuff, I just can’t accept it as routine. I can’t. I won’t. It will never be acceptable to me that a person could get on a bus on the way to work in the morning and come home in a body bag.

Bastards.

You gotta give the Link some props for being aware enough of its extreme editorial bias to laugh about it. The website’s opinions page contains the following call to action:

Are you a capitalist pig? Do you think NAFTA rocks the house? Are you sick and tired of Yves Engler going on and on and on?

Well, so are we! So if you would like to present the OTHER side of the story, come by The Link (H-649) on Fridays at 4 p.m., or drop an email to opinions@thelink.concordia.ca.

The Link, your student newspaper looking for diversification!

Duly noted. I raise my hand as exactly the kind of “other” they’re talking about. Although I can’t help but wonder how Yves Engler would have reacted had someone called him a “communist pig”.

Only 89% of Americans could point out their own country on a world map.

Now that’s just sad.

Looks like the Concordia Board of Governors is caving to the pressure of the CSU and the leftist nitwits. According to breaking news on the Link, the moratorium on mideast events on campus has been lifted.

This moratorium, you will recall, was imposed after a violent mob rioted on September 9th to prevent former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from speaking on campus. It was successful as far as that went – if you call shutting down free speech by rioting a “success” as pain in the butt activist Jaggi Singh says. (Note the publication: the Montreal Muslim News – claims that this protest had nothing to do with the Muslim community starting to ring a little hollow?). Since that day, those involved in punching, spitting, pushing, shoving, assault, flag-burning, window-smashing, desk-throwing, and crying “death to the Jews” have been trying to get the moratorium lifted, claiming to champion free speech.

Hey CSU: Free speech means freedom for everyone, not just for the people you agree with. We’ll take your lesson in civil liberty a lot more seriously when you stop being such hypcrites.

As for the Concordia BOG and admin: show some backbone, for godssakes! This whole episode has only given the “activists” a convenient scapegoat, and then granted them a victory. That’s about as spineless as it gets. Want to show some guts? Invite Netanyahu back to Concordia. There’s a time to back down, and there’s a time to stand up for what’s right. Concordia has become an international symbol of mob rule, hatred, and violence. There are many kinds of lessons learned in a university, most of which get taught outside the classroom. One of them needs to be the lesson that freedom of speech applies to your friends as well as your foes, and that violence is an unacceptable means of protest. Every time we back down to those employing violence as a means, we encourage it all that much more.