Segacs’s World I Know

The Parti Quebecois leadership race is garnering surprisingly little media attention, considering that whoever wins is almost certain to be our next premier – Charest’s numbers are in the toilet and another long season of union striking is set to begin – and this person has a fair shot at leading the Yes side of a subsequent referendum to victory. Even the news that a candidate was arrested for drunk driving and may drop out of the race barely registers an eyeblink.

Why? Simple. None of the candidates for PQ leader has any more personality than a toadstool.

Andre Boisclair? Pauline Marois? Louis Bernard? These people make Bernard Landry look like Lucien Bouchard.

The “old guard” PQ has been said to be making its last-ditch stand for years now. But instead of new ideas and dynamic energy, all we’re seeing are the same hard-line policy proposals, anti-English rhetoric, choruses of “Blame Canada”, and tired leftist slogans from the same group of PQ leaders.

Of course, people will probably pay more attention as the November 15th vote approaches. But to most Quebecers – especially those on the other side – the leadership race is a bunch of same old, same old.

Will September 11th ever be just a day again?

It’s hard to believe that four years have gone by. In many ways, it feels like just yesterday when I woke up to the radio and took a few minutes to process that it was saying something about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. I don’t think anyone realized, at that moment, just how much was about to change.

The images are what persist the most strongly, after this time. The plane flying into the second tower. The collapse of the towers. The people running from the rubble.

September 11th changed the world. But fundamentally I don’t think it changed people. As with other catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina, people have a tendency to spin and interpret events in a way that best suits their preconceived notions anyway. But while I don’t think people truly changed, I think they did become more polarized.

Anyway, I don’t really have that much to say that hasn’t already been said by a zillion people already. It feels strange to think that only five years ago today, September 11th went by on the calendar without so much as a blink.

I am 43% Evil Genius.

I want to be evil. I do evil things. But given the opportunity, and a darn good reason I may turn to the good side. Besides I am probably a miserable evil genius.

Take the
Evil Genius Test
@ FualiDotCom

Damn, I thought I was much eviler than that.

In related news, I’m also apparently 13% idiot (which somehow translates to “friggin’ genius”, though I don’t seem to be genius enough to understand how that works), and only 18% hippie.

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s death on Saturday left another key opening on the court and Bush wasted no time announcing his nominee, appeals court judge John Roberts.

Rehnquist was a conservative, so it’s not as though Bush is replacing a liberal with a conservative. Still, by some accounts, Roberts is much less moderate than Rehnquist was, and his confirmation could spell the end of an era in U.S. judicial policies:

Everything known about Roberts suggests he would join with the most conservative justices to change the law in a conservative direction. As deputy U.S. solicitor general, Roberts coauthored briefs expressly urging the court to overrule Roe vs. Wade. As an attorney in the Justice Department, Roberts drafted an article arguing that there is no constitutional protection for privacy.

Other opinions are less doomsday-ish:

Roberts is not Scalia or Thomas. He is not a right-wing judicial activist eager to chisel away the liberal expansion of the Constitution in recent decades in order to restore some halcyon original intent on the part of the Constitution’s authors.

That’s a bit too chaotic for Roberts, who seems to revere the law’s ability to provide society with a sense of order and predictability. The most-parsed statement by Roberts came in his 2003 confirmation hearing to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, when he said that the 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling establishing a constitutional right to an abortion based on the right to privacy is “the settled law of the land.” Critics say he will think it’s less settled when he is in a position to overturn it, but that seems implausible. In fact, send me a self-addressed envelope within a week and I will mail you $1 (and pay for postage) if Justice Roberts votes to overturn Roe.

All of that is speculation at this point. All we really know is that Bush is stacking the court with two more staunch conservatives, and that certain hard-won rights and liberties may – may be in jeopardy. Depending on what side of the aisle you’re on, I guess this is either a golden opportunity or the greatest catastrophe imaginable.

Even the so-called safeguard of confirmation hearings that exists in the U.S. and not here in Canada (and is often advocated in Canada to avoid political appointees here) can’t curb the power of a President to pick political appointees when his party also has a Senate majority. Here’s hoping that Roberts is a lot more moderate than he seems, because a Chief Justice will continue to influence a country long after any given president is long out of office and busily engaged in book tours.

An epidemic of plane crashes seems to have hit the globe.

In this past month alone, a plane crash-landed in Toronto – an episode in which, miraculously nobody was hurt. But not everyone was so lucky. A terrible crash in Greece killed 121, and a devastating crash in Venezuela killed 160.

There were also smaller crashes, such as the plane that went down in Switzerland, killing 4, a crash in Acupulco, Mexico that killed two people, and a crash in Durban, South Africa that was survived by all six people aboard. And that’s not even all of them.

Then last week, a crash in Peru killed dozens of people.

Now there’s been another plane crash in Indonesia that has claimed 149 lives. There doesn’t seem to be any sign of terrorism.

And a plane crashed in the Congo, killing 7. It seems that the pilot tried to land in poor visibility and crashed into a tree.

I’m seriously starting to question the statistics that tell us that flying is so much safer than driving. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not out to spread conspiracy theories or anything. By all accounts, these crashes happened due to bad weather or pilot error, and their timing is just a coincidence. But what on earth is going on here?

For every person who was in the area, who knew someone in the area, or who is stranded, there’s a story. Most of these are just starting to emerge. Here’s just one.

And then of course, there are the stories that will never be told. Far too many of them.

Theo signed a 3-year deal with the Habs today, quelling rumours about trades and setting up his future with the team.

I feel much better now. As soon as we ink Ryder, I’ll be feeling pretty good.

We’re seeing blogbursts, celebrity fundraising drives and desperate appeals for help for Hurricane Katrina relief. Plenty of organizations are collecting funds, including Federation CJA, who is collecting on behalf of UJC.

London’s mayor will face a disciplinary hearing for his comments comparing a Jewish reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard:

Mayor of London Ken Livingstone could be banned from office for up to five years for likening an Evening Standard reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard if he is found guilty by an independent panel.

Livingstone will have to attend a disciplinary hearing, which will decide whether he is guilty of failing to treat others with respect, or bringing his office into disrepute.

The decision to refer the dispute for adjudication was announced by local government watchdog the Standards Board for England, which said yesterday that it had “concluded that the issue should now be considered at a hearing held by the independent Adjudication Panel for England”.

The panel, whose members are appointed by the lord chancellor Lord Falconer, has the power to ban people from office and to instruct those brought before it to make an apology. A public hearing is expected to take place this December, during which Livingstone has the right to bring in his own legal team.

(Via Lynn).

Update: I should probably mention that I’m generally uncomfortable with hate speech laws even where there is clear evidence of real antisemitism (see my postings on David Ahenakew, for example), and that arguably Livingstone’s comments were just idiotic, not necessarily evidence of the kind of virulent antisemitism that someone like Ahenakew displays. Furthermore, I don’t really agree with the idea of forcibly removing someone from office for making hateful comments. Theoretically, if someone holds and spews such views openly, and the people vote for him anyway, then those people are getting exactly the leadership that they deserve. Such is democracy.

Anyway, I’m fairly sure that all the panel will do is possibly censure him or force an apology. But I’m concerned of what message about freedom of speech it will send if they impose harsher penalties – and about what message about antisemitism it will send if they find him not guilty.

It’s not entirely a lose-lose situation, though; the panel is evidence that the British government is taking antisemitism seriously, and holding elected officials to a higher standard. And, in the publicity this is sure to generate, at least more people will see Ken Livingstone’s true colours. Maybe it will affect their behaviour next time they go to the polls, and they’ll kick him out on his arse and vote in someone more worthy.