The happy News

There have been a number of letters recently attacking or criticizing Quebecers for their alleged racism or xenophobia on the issue of reasonable accommodation, or about veils at the polls being a red herring. This shows a selective memory.

Over one year, there were the Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed, which degenerated into attacks on embassies and killings of innocent people; the largely Muslim riots in Paris in which thousands of cars were torched; the Muslim riots over Pope Benedict XVI's remarks about the Islamic concept of jihad (holy war); and the Muslim outrage over Salman Rushdie's knighthood.

Quebec is not an island. It is influenced by events beyond its borders, including by a religion that has sparked many other debates around the Western world.

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/letters/story.html?id=8c5731ff-3474-42ef-8adc-c53a6d2740d4

>>The developmental data suggest that resistance to science will arise in children when scientific claims clash with early emerging, intuitive expectations. This resistance will persist through adulthood if the scientific claims are contested within a society, and will be especially strong if there is a non-scientific alternative that is rooted in common sense and championed by people who are taken as reliable and trustworthy. This is the current situation in the United States with regard to the central tenets of neuroscience and of evolutionary biology. These clash with intuitive beliefs about the immaterial nature of the soul and the purposeful design of humans and other animals — and, in the United States, these intuitive beliefs are particularly likely to be endorsed and transmitted by trusted religious and political authorities. Hence these are among the domains where Americans' resistance to science is the strongest.<<

From http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bloom07/bloom07_index.html

Re: "Old barrel symbolizes Nazi nuke failure" (Gazette, June 16).

I have one quibble with Joe Schwarcz's interesting column on how the Allies thwarted the Nazi attempt to control the manufacture of heavy water. He should have mentioned that it was Lise Meitner who came to realize that the enormous energy produced in fission could only be explained by Einstein's formula, e=mc2

At the time, the formula, which now adorns millions of T-shirts, was little known to the public

Joseph Palazzo

Laval

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/letters/story.html?id=468d9a7e-ff58-4c75-a63f-1499ab987f44

1-     The surge in Iraq is failing, and the military must report by September its progress to the American public, which would mean that a Democratic-backed Congress would demand that American troops start to withdraw by the end of September.  

2-     The proliferation of headlines in the American media that Iran is arming the Iraqi insurgents, the Shiite Militias, AND the Afghanistan rebels, to the point that the White House is now using the words “irrefutable evidence” as proof of such activities.  

3-     Bush has repeatedly said that Iran will never acquire nuclear weapons on his watch.

4-     Bush has South Korea as a model for Iraq – permanent American bases in Iraq in order to have control of the supply of oil and a watchful eye in the Middle East. 

Number One -- a withdrawal in Iraq means acknowledging a defeat for Bush-- must be prevented at all cost. To do that and have public support, Bush will bomb Iran using Numbers 2 and 3 as pretext, and August-September-October will present the perfect window of opportunity, thus insuring for the next president that Number 4 will be de facto US policy.

"Perhaps no one has noticed — for where are we to find someone to notice, in the absence of reason and rationality? — that when you take an individual or a group away from the culture of using reason and peaceful dialogue, and replace it with the culture of violence and of killing those who are different, you cannot then afterwards control it and direct it to be used against one single side.

". . . It starts with the Zionist enemy who is occupying the Holy Land, and the violence and the hatred spread dangerously, like fire, in the psyche . . . . They consume everything around them — and the first thing they consume is the light of reason. . . . Thus we observed, and gave our blessing to, the conflagrations of violence and hatred . . . and its expansion is the fraternal violence we see [today] . . .

"Violence naturally exists at all times and in every place. But we are in the midst of a striking growth in violence, not to say an increase at a catastrophic rate. In my estimation, this is the fruit that we are harvesting because we sowed thorns for over half a century."

-- Kamal Gabriel

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1849542/posts

Re: "Ending on a high note" (Gazette, June 12).

Alex Strachan writes that the last episode of the Sopranos was "a classy ending to a classic program, and a class act the whole way."

Give me a break. The underlying premise of that show is crime does pay. And far from shining a bright light on the ugly, dark side of mob life, the Sopranos depicted violence in the most eerie ways; realistically, often with a dash of comedy but, nevertheless, glorifying it in a most sickening way by making the main character sympathetic to viewers.

That the series is finally over can only bring a sigh of relief from the gory display that too often defaces the TV screen. Good riddance.

Joseph Palazzo

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/letters/story.html?id=e88e82c5-a1e8-4c8b-ae54-6a24873c8764

With Paris Hilton and Scooter Libby, these are two cases that illustrate the growing concern that even the presidential candidate John Edwards found himself drawn into the debate. When asked about Ms. Hilton’s release he said, “Without regard to Paris Hilton, we have two Americas and I think what’s important is, it’s obvious that the problem exists.” Judge, Reggie B. Walton of Federal District Court in Washington , said he would be pleased to see similar efforts for defendants less famous than Mr. Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. “The court trusts,” Judge Walton wrote, “is a reflection of these eminent academics’ willingness in the future to step up to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this court and throughout the courts of our nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions. The court will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries.”

The familiar outcry is that the law is unfairly applied – the perception being that if you are rich or famous, and have access to high-powered lawyers, you will get a better deal. In the case of illegal immigration, the perception is that there is such a complex problem – an estimated 12 millions immigrants are undermining the fabrics of American society – a new law must be worked out.

There are two principles at work here. First, a society needs to abide by the rule of law. In the case of the illegal immigrants, a law has been broken and a new law that gives a smudge in the appearance of amnesty will bring out outcries from different segments of the population. Second, as in Hilton’s and Scooter’s cases, there must be a perception that the law is applied equally.

Hum... well, I thought she had no talent as an actor... but after serving only three days of her 45-day sentence and then being released for... cough, cough... medical reasons... cough, cough... I believe I must reassess that evaluation... perhaps a minor role for Ms Hilton in the next 'Ocean 14'...

And I thought it was over... and so did the rest of the world!?! So what gives?

On the other hand, why am I not surprised that Bush, the most incompetent President in the last one hundred years, is screwing that one up!!!

Let's hope that Putin's coming visit to the US will breathe some cool air into this mess.

BTW, President Bush, a missile defense shield system is like trying to gun down a bullet with another bullet fired from a second gun. The physics behind tells you it won't work. So why bring this system into Europe, at Russia's doorstep? Why? Why? Why?

http://soi.blogspot.com/