Segacs’s World I Know

Canada wins gold yet again at the World Hockey Championship, with this afternoon’s 4-2 victory over the Finns. Woohoo!

(Now that Gilles Duceppe’s 24-hour run for PQ leadership is over, he can return to his important parliamentary duties, like attacking Shane Doan. I’d venture to say that Doan, wearing his gold medal, probably won’t much care.)

I’ve resisted as long as possible, and have finally caved to the pressures of Facebook Crackbook.

See you when I emerge… Eventually…

After nearly a decade of merrily driving myself around, polluting with impunity (okay, I drive a Civic, it’s not *that* bad), as of this month I’m once again on the BMW transit plan: Bus, Metro, Walk.

Of course, that’s perfect timing for the transit workers to go on strike:

Any time after Victoria Day, you might be packed like an oily sardine into a sweaty, swaying metro car.

You could also be forced to cool your heels and watch a succession of jam-packed buses zip by your regular bus stop before you manage to shoehorn yourself aboard one of them.

If – or when – that happens starting two weeks from today, take a deep breath and remember one thing: In Quebec, this is the law.

Under legislation dating to 1982, “the welfare or the comfort of citizens” cannot be given any weight when the Quebec Essential Services Council rules exactly how to implement essential rush-hour metro and bus services on Montreal Island, council spokesperson Celine Jacob said yesterday.

That’s assuming the transit-maintenance union carries out its threat to launch its second strike in less than four years.

Timing is, as they say, everything. Here’s hoping the union caves in the face of public pressure before I’m forced to sleep at my desk.

He came, he made a mess, he quit. That’s pretty much how André Boisclair’s time as PQ leader will go down in the history books.

Really now, wouldn’t it have been better to do it right after the election, André?

I give it about 5 more minutes before Gilles Duceppe calls his own press conference.

Canada must not have enough real problems, if something like this is keeping our Parliamentarians occupied all week:

The issue erupted on Parliament Hill this week as opposition parties criticized Doan’s selection as captain. Members of the Conservative government agreed with them that Hockey Canada should be asked to tell their side of the story and voted with the opposition to schedule a hearing before a parliamentary committee to explain why Doan was named captain.

All this because last year, someone accused Shane Doan of making a derogatory comment about francophones. He was cleared by a subsequent league investigation, not that the accusation was even worthy of an investigation in the first place. And here it is again, the subject of a full-scale government inquiry.

Don’t we have any middle eastern countries to invade or something?

One of the fun things about having my own blog is I get to be narcissistic like that.

It only took 30 years of talking about it, 5 years of construction, and $745 million, but the 3 Laval metro stations are finally opening to the public this weekend.

Will it be worth it? The stations will really only conveniently serve people in Laval-des-Rapides, and the cost of a monthly pass will be prohibitively high:

$750 million in new transit infrastructure spending would be spent more wisely elsewhere.

“No serious cost-benefit analysis would have given the Laval metro top priority,” he said. “Dorval would have come first” – meaning improved transit and road links between downtown and Trudeau airport in Dorval.

Other higher priorities, by purely objective criteria, would have included improving mobility along the Metropolitan Expressway corridor or extending the metro’s Blue Line east to the Anjou area, Galella said.

Still, it’s nice to finally see a project move from “Hell-Freezes-Over” status to complete, whatever its faults. Maybe this means there’s still hope for other projects, like finishing highway 30. Or fixing the potholes. Or even extending Cavendish. (Yeah, right!)

That’s how the Syrian Interior Minister described this week’s Syrian parliamentary elections, in which – surprise, surprise – the Ba’ath ruling party won:

The rubber-stamp legislature is likely to consolidate the rule of President Bashar Assad, who is expected to seek its nomination to run for a second seven-year term in July. There had been no doubt about the outcome, because the constitution guarantees the Baath Party and its allies a two-thirds majority in the parliament.

[ . . . ]

Interior Minister Bassam Abdel-Majid said the National Progressive Front, a grouping of 10 political parties led by Assad’s Baath Party, won 172 seats in the 250-member parliament in the tightly controlled elections on Sunday and Monday, an increase of five seats.

Abdel-Majid said the remaining 78 seats went to independents, who have to be approved by the government under Syrian law, and rarely challenge the administration.

Yes, we can clearly see how an election in which the ruling party is guaranteed to win, independents are hand-picked by the ruling party, and dissidents are barred from running or imprisoned, is free, democratic, transparent, and fair. That’s the kind of logic that apparently only applies in Syria… or maybe in Nancy Pelosi’s mind.

Hard to believe that less than a week ago, we were wading through a snowstorm in coats and boots. Summer has arrived in full force!

The warm, sunny weather has brought the entire city out from hibernation, literally overnight. The cafés and restaurants have opened their terraces, the bicycles have come out of storage, the parks and streets are full of people shopping, mingling, or simply out enjoying the weather.

It’s always hard to predict exactly when this will happen, but it’s nearly always my favourite time of year, and reminds me how lucky I am to live in possibly the greatest city on earth. Enjoy!