The refreshing smell of rationality

From Segacs, Sen. David Tkachuk spoke out against our government's cowardly stance on Israel and the recent liquidation of Yassin.

What is of great concern to me is that we are starting to see a pattern of equivocation emerge. I fail to see how an equivocating position is good for Canadians as we witness the escalation of violence and the mounting death toll on both sides of the war. When one of Canada's ministers suggests that Israel behaved contrary to its obligations, I suggest this government is getting closer to condoning terrorist actions. When our media repeatedly defines Sheik Yassin as a spiritual leader, I disagree. I suggest that this bolsters terrorism itself. The "spiritualism" of Yassin would be considered a blasphemy by the Christian standards that I uphold, and I would suggest that the faith and values of Canada's other religions would not condone acts of extermination, something that Yassin's organization, the Hamas, holds as its mandate

I could not agree more, and I am very glad it was said. I honestly thought that the world would do nothing more than mouth off diplomatic platitudes after the assassination since they would all realize that it was an appropriate action. The obituaries to a terrorist though have sickened me, and I'm happy to find at least some small piece of sanity among this entire mess.

Small Change here at Tainted Glass

I've received two reviews that I know of for this blog, and both of them have said the same thing: I don't update enough. In a bid to address that, I have brought my brother Daniel on board. His writing style is similar to mine and he will probably maintain the mostly political character of the blog. I only expect that he will post once every two weeks or so, but perhaps that will mollify the critics.

Though, I'm happy to have critics in the first place, to be honest, I never thought that would happen.

National Flags... a review

A review of the flags of the various nations around the planet, based on the artistic appeal and other factors. Of course, while its nice to hear glowing reviews, you could also jump right to the bottom of the list.

I agree with the bottom three, but I think he was too merciful on Rwanda. That gets my vote for the worst flag, perhaps not aesthetically but at least in terms of... well, flaginess.

The only review I fully disagree with is that of Brazil, I actually like that flag, it is very distinctive, though I have to admit it does look a bit subpar in closeup view.

Political Joke

Normally, I'm not really into the France-bashing jokes, but I was amused, from rec.humor.funny:

In light of the Madrid bombing and other events in Europe, France has raised its terror alert level from "RUN" to "HIDE" - the only two higher levels are "SURRENDER" and "COLLABORATE"

Some might say that Spain has already reached the highest level...

Abortion Cartoons

A collection of editorial cartoons from both sides of the abortion debate. They are set up in a ring so you have to click on the "next" button on the bottom to go through them.

Now, the first one that I linked to is ostensibly pro-life, but among all the pro-life cartoons, I think this one has a grain of truth to it. Of course, like any good anti-choice'r, the cartoonist probably didn't understand the root of the irony. He would undoubtedly argue that the father is wrong, and consequently we should heap the same scorn upon the mother.

My view of course is that our view of the mother is correct, and it is hypocritical to not allow the father the same level of rights and responsibilities. I believe in choice for all people, men and women. If a woman doesn't want a child, then she should not be forced to have one. However, I believe that the same thing applies to men as well. Why should a man be forced to support a child he didn't want in the first place when a woman would never be placed in that position?

In our society, we recognize that rights and responsibilities go hand in hand. It is reasonable to say that the father should not have control over whether the baby is aborted. However, when you remove that right from the father, you must also release him from the obligation to support the child should the woman make a choice contrary to his wishes.

More evidence as to the complete asininity of the UN

They are going to try and pass a resolution condemning Israel for killing the leader of a terrorist organization. Luckily, it appears that the US will veto it.

Actually, I don't think it matters. The more the UN insists on twisting itself into a pretzel trying to go after Israel, the more it will lose its ability to influence events that truly matter. I used to think that the UN was necessary for our species, but in the last few years, I have changed my mind.

If the UN wants to destroy itself, it can be my guest.

Canadian Budget

My one-word summary on how I feel about the budget: wonderful!

In fact, I like it so much that I might even vote for the Liberals in the upcoming election, which will be the first time I have ever done that.

As long as I can remember, the budget has been about screwing our generation in order to help out the baby boomers. Education has been slashed along with our futures while money was pumped into health care. The debt remained the monster that it was, with the baby boomer philosophy of "spend it now, let the children pay it off later".

A quick subject breakdown:

(1)Health: The real money-sucking part of the budget. Somehow, despite all the pressure, Martin was able to hold the line on this one, promising not much more than the $2 billion he had already promised. The $500 million for some hockey health council is of course garbage, but in the long run, half a billion is peanuts in the health care game.

(2)Education: This was the part of the budget that usually got the shaft, until this year. Grants, increased loan limits, increased loan forgiveness. I could not have imagined anything better. Universities get to keep their money, students have better access to University.

Is it enough? Of course not, but once the program is set up it will be trivial to increase the dollar amounts should it become necessary.

Of course, Martin couldn't resist pissing away $175 million on aboriginal education, because they don't get enough money already. Again though, this amount of money is small potatoes in the health/education game.

(3)Science: More money, wow! We are actually spending on things that will help us in the future. This is very un-Canadian.

(4)Cities: GST relief, costing a whopping $7 billion dollars... over 10 years. Ok, so its only $700 million a year. Offhand, the provinces should be the ones giving the money since they are the people that screwed over the cities, but this works. I would have preferred the feds giving a portion of the gas tax earmarked for public transport, but this budget is only very good, not perfect.

(5)Environment: $4 billion to clean up contaminated sites. Again, this is thinking too much about the future. The baby boomers can't possibly benefit from this, is Paul Martin out of his mind?

(6)Security: $600 million down the drain for security, but with the states spending tens of billions, we kinda had to at least put on a show. I think we probably could have skimped a bit more and gotten away with at least half that, but I'll accept it for now.

(7)The Debt: $4 billion contingency reserve which will go to pay down the debt. Not as much as I would have hoped, but given all the pressures to actually run a deficit (its true, the baby boomers have no shame), $4 billion is half-decent. At that rate we can have the debt paid off in only 125 years.

Overall: A big thumbs up! This budget was made with an eye to the future instead of coddling to those who can't see beyond the present. Not only that, this was done right before an election, which takes guts, and might have earned the Liberals my vote.

Canada stands with the terrorists

From Segacs, Canada has decided to condemn Israel for killing a master terrorist who was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Israeli citizens.

Tomorrow, when a bomb kills an Israeli civilian, Canada will blame Sharon for the provocation. Just wait and see.

Targeted Killings

A fascinating article, describing the history of targeted killings by Israel and explaining their effectiveness. A short excerpt:

While on the run, the Palestinian terrorist's energy is devoted to survival rather than to planning the next attack. The terrorist detaches himself from his close circle of friends and family and begins to live a fugitive's life. He is forced to spend each night in a different location, often sleeping in the open field. Hours each day are wasted looking for a safe haven to spend the coming night.

As the article says, it is hard to quantify the effectiveness of prevention, but that doesn't mean that the effect is not substantial.

Hamas Leader killed

Ahmed Yassin, spiritual leader of the terrorist group Hamas, was killed this morning by Israeli helicopters.

Yassin, who was wheelchair bound, was obviously not directly involved in any of the suicide bombings. However, as the nominal leader of the organization, he was responsible for the actions of his disciples.

Obviously, Hamas is going to try and milk this as much as possible. Their leader is already trying to portray this as an attack on Islam:

"They are the killers of prophets and today they killed an Islamic symbol," said top Hamas political leader Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi. "It's a war on Islam...What happened was beyond the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, they wanted to assassinate the Palestinian cause

Of course, its not a war on Islam, its a war on people who believe that it is appropriate to kill innocent Israelis to prove a political point.

Previously, I have often thought that assassinating Yassin would be a bad move. However, now that Israel has actually done it, I am beginning to think that I might have been wrong. Symbols are powerful, and I think Israel sent a strong message today. The terrorists have nowhere to hide. They will be hunted and killed until they give up the fight against Israel.

I don't think Israel will be worse off for the attack, there is no shortage of volunteers for the suicide missions. Hopefully, without a figure to rally around, Hamas will be weakened as an organization.

But, that said, it doesn't even matter if Yassin's death doesn't help Israel in the long run. He was the leader of a terrorist organization that has killed hundreds of civilians. Today, he was killed.

Today, justice was served.

I can't think of anything wrong with that.

update
Hamas is already trying to respond. I hope they stay just as successful. Its too bad the wall isn't up on the West Bank, this would be a good time to shut everything down. (Update of an update, the link was changed on me, it used to refer to a bomb that went off near a border checkpoint soon after Yassin was taken down. Serves me right for using yahoo instead of google)

update#2
The Guardian is already chiming in with an obituary to the poor terrorist. I can't say that I'm surprised.

International Eat an Animal for PETA Day (belated)

Last week was the International Eat an Animal for PETA day. PETA of course is the extreme animal rights group that among other things sponsors the "milk sucks" website.

Sometimes, the stunts are amusing, such as when they launched into their "drink beer not milk" campaign, targeting universities of course. However, they have now crossed the line in my opinion with their latest campaign which they are now bringing to Europe after a successful US tour.

The campaign is called "Holocaust on your plate". and it compares the meat industry to... the Holocaust.

Just as millions of Europeans ignored the concentration camps, allowing them to operate for seven years simply because they were not themselves being victimized, millions of people today turn away from the horrors of factory farming

My problem with this exhibit is simple. Words and events have meanings attached to them, and if words are used in the wrong context, then they lose their meaning. A common example is the term "hero" used to describe victims of 9/11 who did nothing but die in a skyscraper.

Similarly, the Holocaust was a singular and particularly grievous occurrence in the history of our species. For slightly lesser crimes (on scale at least) we have the word genocide, which would be appropriately used in the case of Rwanda, Armenia and Bosnia.

Calling a small group of killings a "genocide" cheapens a word that should be an immediate call to arms around the world. If a genocide is used to describe, say, the attack on Iraq, how do you differentiate when faced with a real genocide.

Similarly, while PETA's cause might be just in regards to factory farming, their use of the Holocaust cheapens the uniqueness of the event as an example of what must never happen again on this planet.

When PETA does something as callously insensitive as this, the correct response is to make sure that they do not get their message across. I missed the event last week, but tomorrow I will be eating as many different animals as possible in honour of PETA.

Harper wins Reform Alliance Conservative leadership

In a dark day for Canadian democracy, Stephen Harper won the race for leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. The victory was not overwhelming, and we could only imagine what would have happened had there been a few more credible candidates in the running. By getting 55% of the vote on the first ballot, Harper ensured that there could be no backroom shenanigans.

Belinda Stronach had to win. She was the ideal candidate for this leadership position. A new party had been created out of the ashes of two old parties. In our political system, the party leader wields a lot of power and as such the leader is often taken as the sole representative of the entire party that s/he represents.

If a conservative MP had taken control of the party (eg. Joe Clark) then the new party would have been seen as the same old Conservative party, and might have lost much of the Western vote. If a reform MP had taken control of the party (as happened here), then the new party would simply be seen as the same 'ol Reform party, and it would never get the crucial Ontario votes.

Stronach was perfect, she was a nobody who identified with neither party. While it is true that she had no business being in politics, that was not really relevent at this point. The Conservative party did not have to win the next election, they just had to establish themselves as a new party separate from both Reform and Conservative.

Now, not only will the Liberals win, but they'll do it in style, scandals or no scandal. Sadly, Ontario will never vote for the Reform party, and with about 100 seats in Ontario, thats a serious problem for any party seeking control of the Parliment.

For all the lonely hearts out there...

Sometimes, its hard to find a girlfriend. Luckily, you can now have an imaginary girlfriend.

With an Imaginary Girlfriend, you can carry on a completely fictitious, yet authentic looking relationship with the girl of your choice

If that isn't enough to convince, look what happens when you dump your imaginary girlfriend

When the stated time period is over, you can break up with your Imaginary Girlfriend for any reason you wish. She will write you a final letter begging you to take her back.

What I don't understand of course is why you can't just pretend to have an imaginary girlfriend for free...

Involuntary surgery

A dangerous precedent might possibly be set in the near future. I was expecting this case to receive much broader media coverage but I am simply not seeing it.

Melissa Rowland, a 28 year old adult competent woman, was advised that she needed to have a Caesarean section in order to save the life of her fetus. For strictly cosmetic reasons, she declined the surgery. On January 13th of this year, she gave birth to twins, a boy who survived and a girl who did not.

Normally, this would just be another sad case, but then the Utah prosecutors decided to charge her with murder. And not just any type of murder, but first-degree murder. Obviously, the charge is completely ludicrous, our society right now recognizes the right of people to determine whether or not they will be subjected to surgical procedures. If I don't want to undergo surgery because I don't like the smell of hospitals, then that is my choice.

But wait, maybe its not as obvious as we might think:

Once a mother has chosen to carry her baby to term, she is obligated to care more for the well-being of her child than her own unless her life is in imminent danger.

The DA involved in the case obviously thinks that he is doing the right thing:

Kent Morgan, District Attorney's Office: “And the conduct was that she omitted her duty to take care of her child and get affirmative treatment. That’s what makes this case so egregious.”

The above link also has a picture of Melissa Rowland, who isn't exactly a poster girl, which makes her an ideal target for the moral/religious "we know whats right for you" crowd.

I'll make my position clear here. Under no circumstances is it ever acceptable to force a competent adult into surgery against her will. Personally, I don't think it is acceptable to force anybody into surgery against their will, competent or not, but I understand why people feel that they need to get all paternalistic so often.

The relevent principle that applies here is called the "child as maximum" principle, and it was surprisingly difficult to find a reference to it on the web. In brief:

b. our obligation to ensure the fetus's welfare can equal but not exceed
our obligation to a born child
c. child as a maximum principle emphasizes that our duties to a born child
constitute an upper bound for our duties to a fetus rather than a strict
equivalent, because the potential for wronging one person (mother) in
effort to aid another (fetus) will be greater

An easier way to think of it would be to ask what a father would be expected to do for his born child. If it is acceptable to force a father to undergo surgery against his will for a live child, then it might be acceptable to do so for a fetus. You can't even think about charging a mother for drinking during pregnancy unless you are willing to charge a father for drinking around his born children.

This case completely fails the "child as maximum" test. If a father needed to donate some bone marrow to save his kid, and he refused, would he be charged with murder? You can disagree with choice Ms. Rowlands made and claim that putting cosmetic concerns above the life of her fetus is a stunningly selfish act... but it is not murder. It's not assault. It's not negligence.

It is a choice, and it is a choice that nobody else had the right to make for her.

Action Alert: March 20, 2004

This Saturday, March 20, has been designated as a global day of action by the anti-war crowd. Why March 20th? Well, its the first anniversary of the liberation invasion of Iraq.

Now, normally I would not care all that much either way. I think that the arguments both in favour and against the war were both silly. There were no WMD's that could threaten the States, and you don't spend 87 billion dollars to hand over the oil supply from one dictator to another.

So why is this Saturday important? Well, in the good tradition of left-wingers and US congressmen, they have decided to tack on an amendment to the protest:

We will also demonstrate on March 20 in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination, including the right to return to their homes and land.

Does this have anything to do with the Iraq war? Of course not, but some people would never pass on an opportunity to attack Israel.

It seems that there will be a protest in Toronto too, and the local chapter of Protest Warriors has already contacted me. Now, I don't necessarily agree with all of the views that this organization holds, (in particular their anti-Democrat pro-Republican stance) but sometimes you have to swallow the good with the bad in order to get something done. Specifically, I might be able to wear my T-shirt this Saturday, yay!

As always, I am open to a diversity of views here. It would seem that some of the anti-war protesters were beginning to develop a backbone and realize that an anti-war protest was not really the appropriate place to be coming out in support of suicide bombers and their goals. The Arab-American and Muslim community decided to set them straight with an open-letter:

2. We insist that the Palestinian right to return and to self-determination are the key anchors of the Palestinian struggle, and that organizations that attempt to diminish, sidetrack, or abrogate these rights, regardless of any other position they may take on Palestine, are acting contrary to the will and aspiration of the Palestinian people.

3. We view all attempts to relegate our collective presence to the margin and to tokenize our participation in the movement to be racist in character.

That is why I am going to try and make it out to the protests this Saturday. If the anti-war movement is going to include a "destroy-Israel" component to their demonstration, then I have an obligation to point out that such an inclusion is unacceptable.

Spain comes to its senses

Still with the world view.

The Spanish people have told the world that they refuse to be victims again. By voting in a government whose policies are more terrorist-friendly, they have ensured that when terrorists strike again, it will be in England or some other country silly enough to not immediately cave in to a terrorist attack.

Madrid Bombing

I think its important to take a world view on this situation.

The Americans are obviously pushing for Al-Qaeda to take the blame for the most recent spat of bombings, however, the original suspects remain the ETA. The question is, why would the ETA carry out such an attack on innocent civilians?

In 1978, Spain designated an autonomous Basque region with responsibility for education, health care, policing, and taxation. However, the Basque people are a linguistically and culturally distinct group, and have always yearned for independence. Sadly, the Basques have never had their own independent state.

Autonomy is not independence. Spain's continual repression of the Basque people is tantamount to an occupation, which is a war crime according to international law. By continuing to occupy the Basque region, Spain is instigating the Basque people to commit horrific acts like the one we saw last week.

The solution to this pseudo-complicated situation is easy, Spain simply has to acquiesce to the terrorists and allow the Basques to have their own homeland. Until Spain stops the occupation of a foreign people, the terrorist acts will continue and Spain will have nobody to blame but herself.

NHL goonery

Until today I had not yet seen a video of the Bertuzzi incident, where he smashed Steve Moore into the ice in retaliation for some other incident that happened previously that I don't really care about.

That said, I don't see what all the fuss is about. From the video clip I finally saw, Bertuzzi grabbed Moore's shirt, a typical hockey goon behaviour, delivered a sucker punch and then Bertuzzi and Moore both fell to the ice. What separated this incident from others, of course, is that when Moore hit the ice he broke some bones that are usually not broken. If Moore had fallen on his arm and pulverized his ulnar bone, we wouldn't even be talking about it today.

Some hockey incidents are truly horrifying. I remember watching as McSorely used Brashear for batting practice. That was something obviously unacceptable. Even Tie Domi a few years ago used his elbow to clothesline some poor sucker skating fast the other way.

Keep in mind that I think the fighting in hockey is annoying and pointless. I would much prefer if it was taken out of the game, and I think it should be. However, if the league is going to accept a certain level of thuggery, then I think that Bertuzzi was not really stepping out of those bounds. The only difference between his assault and the hundreds of others that we never hear about is that he was unlucky enough to break the wrong bone.

Delays

Sorry about the delay, blogging resumes in a couple hours

Feminists, and their continual fight to alienate me

Offhand I would say that I am surprisingly gender-blind. I judge almost everyone I meet based on their intelligence, rarely on their looks and never on their gender. However, every now and then a group of feminists manages to piss me off and wonder if I should start a white-man's lobby group.

The latest fun comes from a "special issue" in the Concordia newsletter The Link where, as an introduction, the publishers explain the care they took to be as inclusive as possible when making the issue:

The Link...throws all those who identify as men out of the office and allows the women a Women Only Space to complete production of the paper.

I look forward to the male-only issue where we can discuss the falling rates of male participation in education at all levels (particularly university). Can we kick out all those who identify as female while we produce that issue?

Of course, as a bonus, they decide to dedicate the issue to some noteworthy women, and there are many out there. For Concordia, however, the choice is sadly predictable:

This year, The Link would like to dedicate the International Women's Day Issue to the memory of Zhara Kazemi and Rachel Corrie

Yup, Rachel Corrie, the genius who decided to step in front of a bulldozer. If she represented all women I would spend the rest of my days in a monastery. What does she have to do with the feminist cause? Absolutely nothing, they are pulling a classic kitchen sink argument here, and I'll explain what that means when I have time, right now I have to go to work.

NHL amusement

Tampa Bay clinched their division before clinching a playoff spot. That is one weak division.

And yes, I am fully aware that by clinching their division they clinched a playoff spot, but you know what I mean...

Martha Stewart

For those who have been camping out in the Northern Tundra, Martha Stewart was found guilty this week of lying. She wasn't actually charged with insider trading of course since that might have required some real proof. Anyhow, some random thoughts:

1. Had her bid to subvert the great stock system been a resounding success, she might have picked up about $50,000. Now, to me, that's a lot of money, but to a billionaire (as Martha is) that's just pocket change. For comparison, $50,000 to her is like $50 to a millionaire, or about $5 for us average shmoes (and about, oh... -$5 for me).
   
   Would you risk years of jail for five bucks? I know I sure as hell would not, and I can't think of anyone who would.



2. The "two counts of making false statements" thing annoys me. They found her guilty of lying about a crime they can't prove she committed.



3. And what the hell is so wrong with insider trading anyway? Isn't that the whole raison d'etre of the stock market in the first place?

My point is, something stinks about the whole trial. I don't care how nice Martha's prison is, this entire sordid affair reeks of injustice to me. I hope she wins her appeal.

disclaimer: I don't own any Martha Omnimedia stock, nor do I buy her pillows.

Weird Game

A Japanese game called "grow". Half the fun is trying to figure out the point of the game. There are some solutions though, I'll post one in the comments in a few days.

Deep thought of the week

If 99 out of 100 people think that a given piece of art sucks, then it sucks.

Haiti

I didn't think that I would be making an entry about Haiti. The correct course of action seemed to be so obvious that I didn't think this would be worth my time. But then, the world governments dropped the ball, and, more importantly, I have talked to some people who don't seem to recognize it.

Haiti was a democracy. A fledgling democracy to be sure, and one that had many problems. After an army coup had nearly extinguished democracy on the island a decade ago, the president actually abolished the army, in one stroke appearing to secure the fate of his nation. There were other problems, Aristide was widely held to be corrupt, and there were suspicions that the most recent election was not entirely fair.

Then a group of rebels armed with guns decided that they wanted a new government. This was a low-tech and small group of vagabonds, who decided to seize on the opportunity that an army-less government presented.

The Western nations were faced with a choice. They could either intervene to help save Aristide or they could let the rebels take over the country. It was a no-brainer, distasteful as it may be, Aristide represented the democratically elected government, while the rebels represented some people with guns.

It was only a few months ago that the States pledged to Central America that they would safeguard their democracies:

And so I appreciate this opportunity to join your deliberations today, and pledge that the United States will continue to support the Central American democratic security process, through our diplomacy, through our law enforcement cooperation, and through our military relationships.

I guess Haiti isn't part of Central America?

More, from our own Barbara McDougall, about a year and a half ago:

Hard upon the heels of the signing of the Santiago Declaration, democracy was under attack in Haiti, and the OAS - some members with misgivings, but in the end unanimously, collectively took the appropriate action under the Declaration - sending a ministerial delegation, moving towards sanctions and the freezing of assets, engaging the United Nations.

Amazing what a difference a year makes, now Canada just sits by the sidelines and watches while a fellow democracy gets overthrown by a military coup. What is really galling of course is that almost any country on the planet could have protected democracy in Haiti. The best estimates indicated that it would take about 250 highly trained military personnel to turn the tide. Hell, last time the States intervened, they just had to announce that they were coming and that was enough to quell the coup.

More from McDougall:

We have all discovered that the rhetoric of democracy is easy; its practice is not. The value of the Inter-American Democratic Charter is that it spells out as no other document has, not just the principles that we are determined to live by, but the actions we must take both collectively and as individual countries in order to do so.

And we have failed. We have not taken the appropriate actions to safeguard a fellow democracy.

It doesn't matter if Aristide was corrupt or if the elections were not as fair as they could have been. The Canadian government has been shown to be corrupt, should the military be called in? The ballots were rigged in the 1995 Quebec election, does that mean other countries should sit by if a few armed thugs decide to take over the province? Aristide was the head of a democratic government, and as such deserved our protection.

If a military coup can overthrow a democratic government right off the shores of the United States without repercussion, what hope do democracies elsewhere have? We have set a terrible precedent, and it will haunt us for decades.