Segacs’s World I Know

The world may be two steps away from nuclear destruction, but the good news is that Canadians won’t be able to shoot each other with handguns. Except the ones purchased illegally, of course.

Most despots who use virulent antisemitism as a political tool are really much saner than they seem. They know that redirecting people’s hatred against the common enemy of the Jews and Israel is shrewd: it saves them from revolting against the leadership, or from attacking one another. Somewhat.

But Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s spewings are ironically worrisome precisely because he seems to believe them. Unlike many Arab leaders who frequently call for Israel’s destruction when in truth it’s the last thing they actually want, Ahmadinejad actually seems crazy enough to put pragmatic or political concerns aside in favour of his virulent hatred.

Ahmadinejad knows that nobody in the world will stop him from going nuclear. He knows he can say the most hateful things possible and all the world will do is shake their heads and scold. And he knows that if he ever unleashes nuclear weapons at Israel, the Israelis would – and probably could – retaliate by wiping out Tehran.

The problem is, he may actually hate Israel so much that he doesn’t care.

If suicide bombers are so dangerous because they have no regard for their own life, then Ahmadinejad is the king of all suicide bombers; unpredictable and possibly likely to sacrifice his entire country to satisfy his blood lust. And it may well be too late to do anything to stop him from acquiring nuclear power.

Ahmadinejad has engaged the rest of the world in the ultimate game of chicken, and the rest of the world swerved first. The only question now is, can the Iranian forces for moderation and change respond quickly enough to rein him in? I’d like to think so, but it’s not looking good.

Google launched its new Talk service in Beta. From what I gather, it’s an IM service that allows you to voice call for free. Soon, it will likely be on every computer.

I’m gonna wait a bit, and see if people start switching over from MSN. It wouldn’t surprise me much.

We’ve long known that the United Nations is incapable of actually doing anything about violence, terrorism or injustice. Today, they once again proved incapable of even denouncing it:

The UN Security Council failed to agree on Tuesday on a statement condemning the suicide bombing in Netanya, after a dispute between the United States and Algeria, the only Arab council member, made approving the resolution impossible.

The statement, similar to one adopted by the so-called quartet of advisers to the Middle East peace process, would have “unequivocally” condemned the blast. It also would have urged Syria to close the offices of Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for Monday’s bombing that killed five Israelis and injured more than 50 people.

[ . . . ]

[The U.S.] said “Algeria objected to the reference to Syria and to the reference to Palestinian Islamic Jihad” even though the group claimed responsibility for the attack and the Palestinians said the orders came from Damascus.

[The Algerian Ambassador], however, said he was ready to discuss the mention of Syria but also wanted to say something about Israel’s “disproportionate use of force” which resulted in a death of a child during in the West Bank city of Jenin last week.

As usual, the U.N. proves itself incapable of saying anything that isn’t directed against Israel.

The General Assembly has long been a write-off but occasionally we’ve seen the Security Council do something useful. But today, we are once again reminded of the corrupt and ineffective way in which the U.N. is run. If this actually is a war on terror, the U.N. is increasingly making its case for why it should be considered on the other side.

Guess whose latest project is a movie about the Holocaust? None other than Mel Gibson, the guy whose megahit movie “The Passion of the Christ” was widely seen as antisemitic:

Gibson’s Con Artist Productions is developing “Flory” for ABC, based on the true story of a Dutch Jew named Flory Van Beek and her non-Jewish boyfriend who sheltered her from the Nazis, The New York Times and Variety reported in Wednesday editions.

Critics claimed Gibson’s blockbuster film “Passion of the Christ” was anti-Semitic, a charge Gibson has denied. Gibson’s father also is on the record denying that the Holocaust took place.

“For (Gibson) to be associated with this movie is cause for concern,” Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies in Melrose Park, Pa., told the Times. “He needs to come clean that he repudiates Holocaust denial.”

Now, I’m not saying that Gibson isn’t perfectly capable of making a good movie even set against a Holocaust backdrop. But I’m very, very skeptical, to put it mildly.

Harper’s latest campaign promise: $1,200 baby bonuses. And with that, he’s once again managed to steer the campaign agenda, as Martin scrambles to match his offer.

But what are the Tories really saying with this promise to distribute tax income to parents? Is it merely a play for votes of parents of young children? Or is it a broader effort at social engineering?

It’s one thing to say that parents are struggling to make ends meet and pay childcare, so they need financial assistance. But it’s quite another to cross the line and claim that we can distribute money to people in order to encourage them to have more kids. Harper’s plan does very little to address child poverty or to help low-income families make ends meet, since childcare clearly costs more than $1,200 a year. What it does instead is provides a cash bribe for families to have additional children.

That’s the sort of social engineering policy that really needs to stay out of politics. Sure, it’s nothing new – family allowances have existed for quite some time – but I didn’t support them then and I won’t support them now.

As vote grabs go, this one is quite similar to the promise of a cut in the GST – all style, little substance. But I will give Harper credit for one thing: he is finally learning how to advance policy initatives that grab headlines.

Nearly 100 people were killed today when an Iranian military plane crashed into a Tehran apartment building.

Initial indications are that the crash was due to engine trouble. But with Iran’s military, who really knows? I’m not about to start inventing conspiracy theories, but it does serve us well to remember that all news being released from Iran is heavily censored.

Yesterday’s suicide bombing in Netanya that killed 5 and wounded nearly 100 innocent Israelis was followed by the usual Reuters spin that depicted Israel’s response to the bombing as an unrelated new offensive measure, and of course called the terrorists “militants” who were respecting a “truce”. Same old, same old.

Meanwhile, Allison has the story of the policewoman who prevented the attack from being much, much worse.

In his first major campaign promise since swearing to once again fight to restrict the rights of gays to get hitched, Stephen Harper vowed to slash the GST from 7% to 5% if the Tories are elected.

This is exactly the sort of thing I’d like to see from the Conservative party. But if you want voters to buy in, you need to convince them you’ve thought it through and you can afford the tax cut while still maintaining a balanced budget. And somehow, comments like this one aren’t doing much to reassure me that Harper understands the intricacies of economic policy:

“I’ve never supported the GST myself. I believe all taxes are bad. Lower taxes are good,” Harper said.

Wow, that statement is nearly Bush-like in its oversimplification! (Does that mean that Harper is promising us Bush-like deficits, too?)

There are lots of places where the government could cut useless spending to afford a tax cut. I’d like to see Harper suggest some of them. Otherwise, this is nothing but an empty campaign promise and I remain unconvinced.