Segacs’s World I Know

By now, most everyone knows about the terrorist bombing on the Samjhauta Express train between India and Pakistan, which killed at least 66 people:

Two bombs exploded aboard a train bound from India to Pakistan, sparking a fire that killed at least 66 passengers on Monday, an apparent attempt to sabotage a peace process between the nuclear-armed rivals.

One person was detained in connection with the midnight blasts on the train about 80 km north of New Delhi, Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav was quoted as saying.

The Samjhauta Express runs between Dehli and Attari in India and Wagah and Lahore in Pakistan twice a week, and is nicknamed the “Friendship Train” or the “Peace Train”, due to its route between the two rival countries. The symbolism of literally trying to derail peace must have been too tempting for the terrorists to resist.

Meanwhile, neither India nor Pakistan appears prepared to take the bait:

There was no finger-pointing by India and Pakistan, as there has been so often in the past after violent attacks.

The prime ministers of the two countries called each other and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said the attack would not be allowed to undermine the two countries’ peace efforts.

Progress? Or numbness to terrorism in a part of the world that has seen far too much of it already? It’s hard to say. But more people are dead for no reason today. That’s all anyone can state for certain. The rest? Who knows?

New York State called in the National Guard to Oswego, where they got 141 inches of snow over the past week, and are forecasting more.

In Ohio, snow and ice combined to cause traffic nightmares, travel delays, and the death of a 9-year-old girl.

Meanwhile in Chicago, they got a whopping 8.8 inches of snow… and freaked out. In Oswego, they refer to this as “summer”. It’s all relative.

Here in Montreal, we had temporary amnesia that we’re actually Montrealers, and people massively overreacted to the threat of a snowstorm. Maybe people were afraid we’d get 11 feet of snow, like in Oswego? In any case, the amount of people cancelling plans, closing schools, and panicking over the mere few inches of snow we received is just shameful. It’s just snow, people. We get it every winter. Life goes on.

The skiing should be good this weekend, anyway.

300,000 people turned out in Beirut to honour assassinated ex-premier Rafik al-Hariri’s memory and protest Syrian attempts at control in Lebanon.

It’s looking more and more like Lebanon is headed towards yet another “civil war” – or at least, that’s what the media will insist on calling it. The same media that gives Hezbollah credibility as a “Lebanese opposition party”.

We’ve now slipped to 8th place in the East after last night’s frustrating 1-0 loss to Florida. And tonight, we’re facing a red-hot New Jersey team, against which we never seem to manage to play well.

The rest of the league has stepped up the level of play to playoff-intensity, but the Habs are still languishing in lazy mode. Two months ago, the mere suggestion that we might not make the playoffs was laughable. Now, it seems not only possible, but probable, unless we dramatically turn things around.

It’s tough being a Habs fan these days, I tell ya.

There’s a news conference happening right now, so we should know in a few minutes if Avenue du Parc will get to keep its name.

If it does, this will be a big symbolic victory for democracy over the autocratic-style Tremblay mayoral regime. The opposition to renaming the street in honour of Robert Bourassa was overwhelming, and the edict was issued without a single public consultation. It’s only a street name, sure, but it’s a very big deal to a lot of people, and in many ways representative of the ongoing language tensions in Montreal. A victory here would be symbolically huge.

Update: Victory! Park Avenue is saved!

The Merchant’s Association delayed their annual street festival in order to campaign against the name change. Something tells me that people will be making up for it with a big party tonight.

Looks like we’re going to be heading to the polls on March 26th, as Charest has apparently decided to play the timing card for all it is worth and take advantage of a bump in the polls for the Liberals against a PQ that – under André Boisclair – seems to have lost its way.

Nevertheless, this won’t be an easy campaign for Charest to win. The Liberals start every campaign with a built-in handicap due to riding distribution, and Charest has never been exactly loved as a premier; his temporary popularity surge is mainly due to the unpopularity of rival Boisclair. Of course, this also means that Boisclair has the lead in the expectations game for the moment, since Charest has a reputation as a strong campaigner, and expectations pretty much couldn’t be any lower for Bosiclair right now if he were a slug.

If Charest wins a second term, Boisclair is sure to be replaced. Under new leadership, the PQ will surely regroup and rebuild, using a likely Federal election in the next year or so to help increase support for sovereignty and lay the groundwork for a decisive election victory in five years followed by a snap referendum. Of course, that’s a long way away, which makes it highly unpredictable.

On the other hand, if Boisclair wins, it will likely be with a weak finish and a murky mandate for sovereignty. Under those circumstances, he may not even call a referendum. Even if he takes a chance and calls one, in today’s political climate, it’s highly unlikely to pass. Ironically, a PQ victory may actually help give another blow to Quebec nationalism, which might be the best-case scenario.

(On the other hand, we’d have André Boisclair as our premier).

Too many ifs at this point. But the gloves are about to come off, so stay tuned for the body blows and the knockout punches. It’s game time.

The city’s mayor is all aghast that the man in charge of selling Montreal to international tourists dissed the condition of our roads:

The fate of Charles Lapointe, the city’s chief tourism promoter, hangs in the balance after he publicly trash-talked the condition of Montreal’s streets.

Directors of Tourism Montreal will hold an emergency session Thursday after Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay suggested Wednesday that Lapointe should be booted from his job because he has undermined the city’s international reputation.

Lapointe stepped over the proper line of conduct Tuesday when he issued a public warning that the city risks losing tourism traffic unless it cleans up its act, Tremblay told reporters at a city hall news conference.

Tourism Montreal’s directors, he added, “should be asking themselves: ‘is Mr. Lapointe still credible to sell Montreal?’ ”

So according to Tremblay, credibility is achieved by . . . lying?

That’s the only explanation for why Lapointe is taking so much flack for voicing what can only be described as the truth. Our roads are a mess. Anyone who goes outside can see that. Is the city looking for someone who will merely compliment the Emperor’s New Clothes? I really think someone needs to redefine the term “credibility” for these guys.

Here’s a thought: Instead of firing Lapointe, why not, you know, actually fix the problem and clean up the streets?

But that would imply that perception ought to be based on some semblance of reality. And that’s clearly not a position that Tremblay’s team endorses:

The mayor acknowledged that the city does have a problem with dirty streets, but “not all truths should be said in public,” the mayor added.

Remind me, M. Tremblay, exactly whose credibility is the issue here?

This would be funny if it weren’t so sad:

A marketing campaign launched by the Ha-Ir chain of local Israeli newspapers has been used by Hizbullah to spread anti-Israel propaganda, according to which “Israeli poisonous balloon attacks” have left eight Lebanese nationals in the hospital.

Hizbullah’s campaign appears to have paid off, after it created a wave of hysteria in Lebanon. Reports of ‘poisonous’ balloons have subsequently been picked up by the Associated Press (AP) and Al-Jazeera, which quickly followed suit in a report entitled: “Israel dumps suspicious green balloons on Lebanon”.

From the absurd to the ridiculous. Some people will literally believe anything.

After all, it’s not as though any of the other claims that Hezbollah makes against Israel contain any more truth than this one. And that hasn’t stopped the whole world from adopting them as truth, either.

Last week I came home one day and turned on my trusty computer, only to discover that it was making a noise. A very loud noise. A very loud and scary noise, considering I had committed the cardinal sin of failing to back up my essential data.

In a panic, I shut down the computer, and the scary noise stopped. Okay, now what?

With a sinking feeling in my stomach, and feeling somewhat like Carrie Bradshaw, I began phoning friends with more computer knowledge than I.

“It’s probably the fan,” they assured me.

“Probably? What if it’s not?”

“Well, there’s a small chance your hard drive is failing.”

Needless to say, that didn’t make me feel any better. “What should I do?” I asked with trepidation.

“Whatever you do, don’t turn the computer on again. It may already be too late, but if it’s not, you don’t want to make it worse. Keep it off, take it in for service.”

Visions of important documents, irreplaceable digital photos, programs with original install CDs buried in the abyss of old junk, all ran through my head. I didn’t get much sleep that night.

The next day, I had the presence of mind to dig up the invoice for the computer, only to discover – joy of joys – that it was still covered under an extended service warranty. Oh, the relief!

Except that it’s never quite so simple. I phoned up Dell and was pleasantly surprised to see that my call was no longer directed to India. But my pleasant surprise ran out when I realized that they don’t train their local technicians much better than they trained their overseas ones. After sitting for 45 minutes on hold listening to the ever-present “your call is important to us” recording, I got through to a chipper tech support agent and described the problem. He then had me wait for another 10 minutes while he searched for his protocol for dealing with scary noises, and finally came back to me and asked me to turn on the computer to run through some diagnostics.

Swallowing my trepidation – after all, everyone had told me not to turn on the computer – I went down the list of things he asked me to do, which, even with my limited computer knowledge, I recognized had nothing to do with the problem, such as checking the configuration of the graphics card. Yes, I was confused, too. And I was starting to suspect that the chipper Dell technician was just walking me through the motions.

All the diagnostics completed, he told me that since I had failed to isolate the problem, his system indicated that nothing was wrong, so he couldn’t help me.

“What???” I asked, incredulous.

“Sorry, those are our procedures, thank you for calling Dell.”

Hmmph.

I had the bright idea to phone back an hour later in hopes that I would get a different guy on the phone. Maybe even one who knew what he was talking about. Dare to dream, right? Because when I called back, I was greeted with a recording about how Dell’s computer systems were down. Oh, the delicious irony.

To make a long story short, I ended up enlisting some help and finally getting the computer fixed. It was the fan, after all. One of them, anyway. We got them to replace both, just in case. The scary noise is now gone.

And I’ve learned my lesson and acquired a backup drive.