French vs. English Volume 8

Blogger Demands Anglos Help Haitians in French?
For resident Anglo bashing fruitcake, Louis Prefontaine (who's got quite a following of like-minded twits,) a Facebook group called Montreal-Answering Haiti's cry for help is an outrageous abuse because the group is misrepresenting itself by including "Montreal" in it's name. According to Mr. Prefontaine Montreal is officially French and an English group is an affront. "Helping Haiti is okay, but not at the expense of denying our language and our values."

Calls for boycott of Montreal Catholic Church & the Red Cross
The Catholic church in Quebec has come onto the radar of French language zealots for running church affairs bilingually and offering services in English. This has upset Hélène Pelletier-Baillargeon who wrote in Le Devoir that it's time to boycott the collection plate. With just 6% of Francophones attending church services regularly, the only new worshippers are immigrants who prefer services in English. She demands that the Church adhere to the written and the spirit of Bill 101, the Quebec language law, notwithstanding that the law doesn't apply to religious institutions.

Another complainer advises Quebeckers to boycott the Red Cross's Haiti fund because the organization advertise job vacancies in English only on their bilingual web site. All the jobs were for positions outside Quebec.

The Brick Offers $25 to complainer
The Brick furniture store offered an enraged client Laval resident $25, because it sent out a English only circular to his house in error. The complainer was insulted by the offer and brought the matter to the attention of the easily offended Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal and it's president Mario Beaulieu. He too was furious and asked the rhetorical question, "Is a Quebeker's pride worth a mere $25?" I guess it is...because he then invited readers to phone the store and complain in order to receive their own $25 hush money.

Defenders of the Faith organizing
Following the lead of the Mouvement Montréal français and the newly-minted Mouvement Montérégie française, a similar group is forming in the Laurentians to the put the brakes on the inexorable encroachment of English in the hereto linguistically pure expanses of cottage country north of Montreal. Fifty odd people are to hold a founding conference in the lovely town of St.Eustache later this month. The usual gang of suspects will attend including Mario Beaulieu, president of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal.

Quebec artists group will no longer hype sovereignty in public

A recent poll of members of the l'Union des artistes (UDA) indicates that the majority are against their union taking a public stance in the debate over sovereignty.

This doesn't mean that the majority don't support sovereignty, 58% of respondants admitted to supporting the option while 18% declared themselves opposed. 28% decided to duck the question completely and offered no opinion.

The likely reason is that the artists feel punished by Mr. Harper's $40 million cut in their subsidy two years ago and wish to avoid baiting the bull in the future.

95% of members who were asked, favoured the UDA to demand that Ottawa increase significantly the cultural and communication bugdet and 82% were in favour of Ottawa repatriating the power to administrate these funds to Quebec .

Language zealots disapprove of French classes
It's hard to come to terms with the reaction of French language nationalists to the English- Montreal School Board decision to serve up exclusively French only classes in order to keep up enrolment.
There are approximately 14,000 English students attending schools run by French school boards, despite the fact that the students are eligible for an English education under Bill 101. Most of these families are from mixed French/English marriages or couples. It is these students that the EMSB would like to repatriate and is willing to offer French only classes to accommodate those parents who want their children to have a French education.

The EMSB is facing a continuing decline in it's enrolment and is looking to stem the flow in which ever way they can. The enforcement of Bill 104 robbed the school board of about 500 students a year and is a contributing factor to the loss about 900 students a year, resulting in school closure after school closure. Since 2001, the board’s enrolment has dropped by more than 5,000.
A spokesperson for the Mouvement Montréal français thinks its a bad idea to allow the English school boards the right to run French only schools within their system."It will poach students and therefore weaken the French school boards." (read-strengthen English school boards)

General Wolfe gay?

For sovereignists and nationalists the Battle of the Plains of Abraham is an obsession that is all-encompassing. Quebec historian Jacques Lacoursière recently told an audience that it was a possibility that Wolfe was a homosexual. His evidence- Wolfe remained engaged throughout his adult life without ever getting married and that on the eve of the great battle, he wrote a letter to his mother, instead of his fiancée. Arggh!!.....

Earl Jones to be Free Next Year?

Last October, based on information that I developed, I wrote a piece indicating that Earl Jones would be taking a plea and that a sentence of between ten and twelve years would be imposed.

While some were sceptical, that scoop was confirmed in court last week when Earl Jones pled guilty and both prosecution and defence recommended a sentence of eleven years. The judge will formally confirm that sentence next month. In the meanwhile Earl Jones was hustled off to prison to await the falling hammer.

It's always nice when a lowly blogger scoops a national newspaper;

"In a surprise move, Jones and his lawyer chose to circumvent a lengthy trial and end the six-month saga that has left the formerly high-flying financial adviser a shadow of his once-dapper self. " The Montreal Gazette

The Montreal Gazette shouldn't be surprised, here's what I wrote last October;

October 5, 200

"Victims of Earl Jones will be disappointed that they won't get to see the fraudster face his accusers in a court of law.
Negotiations are underway for a plea agreement between Jeffrey Boro, Jones' lawyer (shown on the far left in the photo) and crown prosecutors....
....The crown is demanding a sentence of 12 years while Jones' lawyers are holding out for 10 years..."  LINK

For those victimized by his crime, the eleven year sentence will unfortunately translate into a mere 700 days in prison.  That's because Earl Jones will benefit from the current penal regulation that provides for parole after just one-sixth of a sentence, for first time offenders who have committed a non-violent crime.

You can circle November 17, 2011 as the approximate date at which time he will be set free. The date takes into consideration that time served before sentencing counts as double. It appears that Mr. Jones will spend just one Christmas in jail.

At any rate his lawyer, Jeffrey Boro cleverly shifted the spotlight away from his client by casting aspersions on the banks as being either complicit or incompetent in their failure to properly monitor transactions in the various trust accounts that Mr. Jones ran.

If you are a bilked customer, don't get your hopes up pursuing the banks for restitution.
The banks aren't going to pay up voluntarily and a long, painful and extremely expensive judicial process is ahead if they want to pursue justice. Each case would also have be tried individually.

As for Mr. Boro playing the harp for poor little Earl Jones- I don't buy it and you shouldn't either.

I said it then and I'm repeating it again.

Mr. Jones has been paying his legal bills. Mr. Boro is not a legal aid lawyer and charges several hundred dollars per hour. The legal bill in this case likely ranges between $50,000 to $100,000.

Who's paying and where is the  money coming from?

Until the question of how Mr. Jones paid for his defence is addressed, the nagging possibility of a secret stash of cash remains on the table.

There is a distinct possibility that Mr. Jones may enjoy his retirement a lot sooner and a lot better than his victims.

While Canada Prepares, Israeli Field Hospital Already Treating Patients In Haiti

It's hard to accept that Canada's vaunted DART unit has already been upstaged by an Israeli army field hospital which began operations Saturday. Israel, a country one-fifth the size of Canada and located thousands of kilometres farther away from Haiti than Canada is giving our military a powerful lesson in planning, logistics and execution. The hospital is the largest and most sophisticated unit to deploy in Haiti so far.

"The Israeli hospital, located in the city's football arena, is equipped with operating theaters, intensive care units, laboratories, an X-ray facility and pharmacy, which were carried in by El Al cargo. A third of the medical team of 40 doctors, 20 paramedics and nurses plus technical staff are reservists who volunteered for the Haiti disaster relief team. Working flat out, they will treat 500 patients a day." DEBKAfile

The Israeli aid delegation landed in Port-au-Prince on Friday night. About 220 military personnel are in the delegation, which includes 120 medical personnel. An Israel Defence Force airplane loaded with equipment landed shortly after.

Watch a video report on the field hospital HERE

Aside from the medical team the Israelis have also deployed three search a rescue teams made up of rescue officers, security officers, and the famous Oketz canine unit which utilizes dogs in order to find survivors.

Perhaps Canada should give the Israeli military a consulting contract on how to deploy quickly and how to do disaster relief properly.
While Canada is a short 3½ hour flight from Haiti and it's military is in possession of a couple of giant new C-17 transport airplanes, little seems to have been accomplished except for the evacuation of Canadian nationals.

In the meantime the eight hundred soldiers scheduled to leave for Haiti are cooling their heels in their base in Valcartier, Quebec, while the Israelis are already hard at work.

Are Toronto Maple Leafs Fans Really this Sad?

Where are all the Leafs fans?
Apparently,  they must be in the upper reaches of the Air Canada Centre, because they're not down below in the ritzy seats.

Here's a screen grab of the scene in the Air Canada Centre in a recent game between the Leafs and the Flyers. This isn't a view of the dying seconds of another familiar loss, it's actually quite the contrary.

This was a good game where the Leafs ended up winning by a score of 2-0, so it's puzzling to see all these empty seats in the rich people section down by the ice. By the looks of the picture, you couldn't be faulted in assuming that the game was being played in Phoneix.

I noticed this phenomena a couple of times before, it's not an aberration.  Check it out on TV yourself the next time the Leafs are playing at home.

This screen grab was taken at the start of the second period and it seems that the rich folks are in no hurry to get back to their seats.

Perhaps a stint a the bar is more important than the game. Dunno.....

This couldn't happen in any other Canadian city, that's for sure!

Leafs Nation- FOR SHAME!!!! Are you real fans????

Burlington Airport Looking Better and Better

Used to be that only cheapskate Quebeckers would cross the border to use the airport in Burlington Vermont.

Given the reality of the new security situation at Montreal's Trudeau Airport and the long lineups and endless delays, a leisurely drive and hassle free border crossing might be the right recipe to avoid the uncertainty that travelling to the States through Trudeau airport's new U.S terminal can be.

The hour and three quarter drive from Montreal is definitely worth it when flying to a destination that is served directly by the airport or if travelling in a group. On a trip to Orlando a family of four can easily save over a thousand dollars.

Direct non-stop flights are available to New York City (La Guardia & JFK), Washington D.C., Orlando, Detroit, Atlanta, Newark, Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland and Philadelphia.

I fooled around with the fare calculators at both Air Canada and Jet Blue and created a mythical vacation trip to Orlando (Dysneyland,) for 2 adults and 2 children.
The trip left on February 24th and returned one week later. I picked the date at random, so it may or may not be typical. Although the departure and return date were fixed, time of departure was based on the lowest fare or best travel deal.

Both airlines had non-stop flights, each taking about three and a half hours. Air Canada wanted a whopping $4,500 for the trip while JetBlue wanted only $1,200 (after currency conversion,) for a difference of about $3,300. WOW!

Air Canada did have a much cheaper alternative at $2,115, but you had to fly to Toronto first, which tacked on another 2 hours of travel time, each way. Even with all the extra travel time, Jet Blue was still over $900 cheaper!

Check out the Burlington Airport web site.

How to Be a Good Quebec Citizen

Here's two pieces written by Réjean Labrie, from Québec City, the first one  Qu'est-ce qu'être patriote en 2010 (How to be a patriot in 2010.) I picked it out to reprint because I thought it was kind of corny. 

"Patriotism is a sense of shared belonging to a country, a homeland. It's a sentiment reinforced by a set of common values. It drives us to feel love and pride for one's country. A revival of the affirmation of a Quebec identity begs the question: How can we manifest the commitment to our country on a daily basis? How can we demonstrate our commitment to our great motherland?

• Buy locally- (Quebec products, stores, restaurants).
• Vacation in Quebec rather than outside the border.
• Fly a Quebec flag in your yard.
• Embrace Quebec culture: entertainment, music, theatre, visual arts, literature, comics, dance, television, newspapers, magazines, etc..
• Encourage debate within your entourage about the need to create an independent country
• Write letters to the editor to defend the cause of Quebec.
• Work to improve the quality of the spoken and written language.
• Have more than 2 children for survival of our people.
• Participate in events with a nationalist flavour: Fête St. Jean, Moulin à Paroles, traditional events such as storytelling evenings and peaceful demonstrations to defend the cause of Quebec.
• Speak spontaneously to your neighbours, people who you meet in public, store cashiers, people sitting next to you, these are our brethren. Remember the ad: "We're 6 million, we should interact."
• Restrict the influence from outside Quebec. For example, don't seek approval in France or the United States.
• When addressed on the street, answer in French.
• Demand to be served in French, everywhere

And you, gentle reader, how do you translate your love of our Quebec homeland, on a daily basis, your faith in the realization of your dream?"

Here's the second piece "On the Slippery Slope to Anglisation" (Sur la pente glissante de l’anglicization)

"You'd be surprised to see how easy it is to succumb to Anglicization without realizing it and this despite a conscious effort to resist the temptation.
 It happens a thousand times a day;

• When reviewing a product label  in a store, your eye is attracted to the English and you continue to read on.
• You attend a movie shown in English because the theatre is close to home,  rather than going to the theatre that presents the French version.
• When news breaks, you watch CNN instead of RDI and LCN.
• You rent a movie and buy the latest volume of Harry Potter in English rather than waiting a few weeks to read the French translation.
• You read an instruction manual in English, "to practice".
• On a bilingual store display in Montreal, you look at the English instead of focusing on the French.
• You watch your favourite TV series in English because the French version is only coming out next year.
• You "forget" to set up your video equipment to display in French.
• When you visit YouTube, you fail to click to view the page in French, "to go faster."
  

And that's how, without quite realizing it, we end up spending too much time in the language of Mordecai rather than that of Felix. It is a question of determination and a little risk of becoming too much. That everyone to remain vigilant and to show determination in her choice to live as possible in French..."

While the writer isn't aggressive or particularly offensive and clearly writes from his heart, it's unfortunate that  he uses an offensive euphemism for the English language- "the language of Mordecai." which of course refers to Mordecai Richler, who is reviled in nationalist circles for writing disparagingly about Francophones in many of his Montreal books, particularly in "Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! Requiem for a Divided Country."
The term is pejorative because it links the English language with a hated stereotypical personality as opposed to "the language of Felix,"which refers to Felix Leclerc, a Francophone personality who is revered. The phrase is as offensive as "Shylock" and when the phrase is used, the writer is using code to say that English s oppressive and contemptuous.

Reading the two articles made me a little sad to think that such incredible paranoia exists among some Francophones. There's nothing wrong with Francophones demanding public services in their own language as well as being served in French when shopping or conversing with strangers in public, at work or even in private.

That being said, the author's second article begging Francophones to reject English unequivocally rather than becoming bilingual is more than sad, it's downright backward. If Mr. Labrie wants to live exclusively in a Quebec Francophone world, that is his prerogative. For those Quebeckers who want to live in the rest of the world, English is a necessity. Becoming proficient in a second language is not just a question of schooling. One must practice what one learns and one of the best learning tools is watching television, movies and reading books in the language to be learned.

The latest position "de jour" pushed by language nationalists is the notion that  Quebec Francophones don't  need to learn English at all, because while it's nice to speak a second language, like Spanish or English, it's entirely unnecessary.
This attitude permeates the snobby language nationalists and sovereignist elite, the school system and government itself. It's dangerous nonsense.
And so the level of English language training in Quebec is pitiful, with high school graduates unable to hold the most rudimentary conversions in English. All this is fine until the student takes their first foreign field trip and are shocked to learn that worldwide, almost nobody speaks French and that it's the kids who speak English are the ones who are advantaged.

The saddest part in all this is, is that Francophone Quebeckers have an incredible talent for language.

Francophones have the ability to speak accentless English, a feat no Anglophone can mimic in French. I once interviewed a young lady for a job in our company and spoke to her in English because it was clear from her accent that she was an Anglophone. Halfway through the interview I asked her how her French was and she blushed. I switched to French only to find that she was a Francophone to begin with. Wonderful! Last week I listened to the Marc Garneau (the former astronaut, now a sitting MP)  being interviewed on the radio and was stunned by his faultless and accent free command of English.

Discouraging Francophones from exploiting a natural gift is criminal.
Those who watch English media to improve their command of English are to be commended. I don't understand how watching a dubbed version of "The Bachelor" contributes to the strengthening of the French language.
Since when does learning a second language diminish one's mother tongue. Hockey players who spend their whole career in the Anglophone communities have zero problem slipping back into French when they return to Montreal to play the Canadiens.

Let the language fanatics do what they wish with their lives. Encouraging people to avoid English is akin to the Southern plantation owners keeping their slaves barefoot, pregnant and stupid.

Come to think of it, the advice offered by the writer is eerily familiar to that rejected doctrine pushed by the Catholic Church on Quebeckers for 350 years- Pump out babies, remain faithful and avoid contact with outsiders.
Hmmm. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Porter Airlines-Another Advertising Gaffe

People rave about Porter Airlines service.

Too bad the advertising agency they use embarrasses them so often.

Here's an ad that appears in Tuesday's edition of the Montreal Gazette;

Here's another advertisement by Porter appearing last year.

The Myth of the Anglicization of Montreal

The Myth of the Anglicization of Montreal

"While we obsess over the legality of the language of  signage, Montreal English speakers  are taking the city, district by district, based on institutional  bilingualism imposed on us by our cowardly politicians.  They are laying the foundations of a future Anglophone metropolis in the heart of Quebec, dispossessed of it's native  language."  Louis Prefontaine, Quebec language zealot

According to Mr. Prefontaine and other language nationalists, the island of Montreal is in danger of becoming anglicized, in part because of the increased and unchecked expansion of English signage.

I must live in an alternate universe, a bizarro world, one in which the island of Montreal is living an opposite reality. It's a world where English signage, both outdoor and indoor is disappearing at an astonishing rate.


Last week I was idly waiting at the takeout counter in an Italian restaurant when my eyes were attracted to the occupancy sign issued by the City of Montreal. Every restaurant and bar has a similar sign denoting what the legal capacity of the premises is.

What surprised me was that the sign was bilingual. "Cette etablisment....This establisment..." I looked closer and saw that the date of issue was 1979. It figures, it's been at least twenty years that the City of Montreal abandoned English officially.  In fact stores, offices, buildings, government and public offices have all abandoned bilingual signage.
The law does provide for English on signs (as long as the font is 1/3 the size of the French) but most places don't bother.


If English was ever to make a comeback, it would likely be in the west island communities on the island of Montreal, where Anglos and allophones make up an outright majority.

 I happened to be in a shopping centre in just one such community, Dollard Des Ormeaux and decided to investigate the state of English signage. If there was to be a breakthrough, it would be here. 

Despite it's name (for a Francophone hero) the town boasts just 16% Francophones, the rest of the residents being Anglophones, with a smattering of Allophones (aligned with the English community.)
The shopping Centre in question was the Galeries des Sources, previously known as the "West Island Mall" a name that was changed after being declared politically incorrect.

A tour around the parking lot of didn't show much English. In fact it I didn't find a word!
To all intents and purposes the mall could have been located in Lac St. Jean!


Perhaps those English conspirators were hiding the English signs inside, far from the passing purview of language inspectors travelling down the adjacent Highway 40.


I took along my trusty IPhone camera, in the hope that the inside would offer an oasis of English, hopefully much to the chagrin of Mr. Prefontaine et als.


Alas it was not to be. 

I used the entrance that took me past "Bureau en Gros" and  the "Super  C" supermarket. 


Guess what? Not a word of English.

You'd think that with 85% of the clientèle preferring English, they'd make some effort to provide some signage. 
It was however, not the case. These are not mom and pop organizations, they must be aware of where the store is located. Can it be that they have made a province-wide decision not to post any signs in English?

Perhaps it's the other stores in the mall (as Mr. Prefontaine alleges,} that are flaunting the spirit and the letter of the sign law, Bill 101.

To be fair there were a couple of signs that were either bilingual or had English added in a decidedly inferior position, but not many.

Finally....Finally .....Finally...... A unlingual English sign!!!!

Yessir! An English sign, advertising an English book in an English Bookstore. Tut! Tut! Tut!.  Call in the language inspectors!

Hold on a second.....Aren't bookstores immune from the sign laws?

My tour of the mall confirmed to me the utter nonsense that is spouted by nationalists that there is a movement towards English signage in Montreal.  I defy you to take a tour anywhere in Quebec and show me where English signage is on the upswing.

As they say on the Discovery Channel---

"This Myth is Busted!!"

More Supreme Court Bashing-This Time Anti-Semetic

Ever since the Supreme Court of Canada struck down Quebec's Bill 104, the law that closed a loophole whereby Quebec immigrants could win eligibility to publicly funded English schools by spending a short time in an English private school, the nationalists and separatists are in a tizzy over the notion that the Supreme Court is anti-Quebec.

A recurring theme is that the court is unelected and stacked with judges who are bent on destroying the French language, Quebec culture and the ability of the province to enforce coercive measures to keep immigrants out of English schools.

Above is a picture of Mario Bealieu, President of the nationalist Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste and some Mouvement Montréal français cohorts having an impromptu demonstration in a Montreal Metro station mocking the Supremos.

The latest missive, La Cour des jugements loufoques (the Court of Crazy Judgments) is a rather nasty article printed in a nationalist web site that takes the court to task for having too many Jews sitting on the bench.
It's an 'intellectual' type of antisemitism, one that attempts to prove that Jews don't deserve to have such a large presence on the court due to their small demographic profile.

The author, Jacques Noël is a prolific poster who uses up a lot of ink postulating that Jews, Blacks and immigrants are over-represented, coddled and given preferential treatment in Quebec.

His body of work includes pieces like Où est la sous-représentation des Noirs aux Parlements ? (Where is the underrepresentation Of Blacks in Parliament), where using some nifty mathematics, concludes that there are too many Blacks elected in Quebec. In another article he complains that the Quebec government has no business offering a subsidy to a holocaust museum because there are far too few Jewish Quebec war survivors. He strays out of Quebec politics to tells us that modern Jews are not descended from those who lived in ancient Israel and in another post intimates that visible minorities are over-represented on Francophone television because although they number 8% of the general population, only half watch French TV. If you want a comprehensive listing of his body of work, here is a Google link. You can find lots of interesting articles denigrating immigrants, Jews, Blacks and oh yes, there is plenty of Anglo and Canada bashing as well.

Back to the article complaining about the fact that there are too many Jews on the Supreme Court.
Mr. Noël sets about giving us facts and figures and concludes that Jews are horribly over-represented on the court and asks the rhetorical question "Why?" He never explains why so many Jews on the court is a bad thing, it's an area that he is afraid to venture into and so, he just leaves it up to the readers' imagination.

His body of work is annoying, mostly because it hides his prejudice behind an impressive set of contrived statistics.

We can all use statistics selectively and so I'll endeavour to show Mr. Noël why it isn't an anomaly to see so many Jews on the Supreme Court in this open letter, which I will forward to him.

Dear Mr Noël,

You seem genuinely perturbed that there is an over representation of Jews on the Supreme Court and pose the question "Why?"

Firstly, let me inform you that the Canadian Supreme Court is not unique, the Quebec Court of Appeals is also one third Jewish and the United States Supreme Court has two Jewish members as well, with another one on the way, if rumours are to be believed.

It isn't really strange to see that Jews are wildly over represented on these august bodies, because Jews, when given a fair opportunity to compete, are over represented in every endeavour of human achievement, except maybe the physical (although Mark Spitz, Lenny Krayzelburg and Boris Becker are Jewish.)

Perhaps the real question to ask is "Why are Jews so successful?"

This marked over-achievement is not a question of religious formation, It is only those Jews of German and Eastern European ancestry (known as Ashkenazi Jews) that are so gifted. Jews from Southern Europe and Africa (Sephardi Jews) don't particularly perform any better than the average westerner. Ashkenazi Jews also have a decidedly longer lifespan, so it's pretty clear that it is a question of exceptional genes. Ashkenazi Jews are six times more likely to be geniuses and although it's a controversial subject, it's hard to deny the achievements of Ashkenazi Jews.

Since you are a great believer in statistics, let me give you the benefit of an assortment of facts and figures that I culled from the Internet.

Jews makes up a little more than one percent of the Canadian population and closer to two percent of the U.S population. Across the globe, Jews make up less than ¼ of one percent of the world's entire population. To understand how few people that is, imagine the world's population shrunk down to 400 people proportionately. Only one person would be Jewish.

20% of Noble Prizes awarded to date, have gone to Jews. Of the 18 Nobel prizes awarded to Canadians, 5 went to Jews (28%). Of the three Quebec-born winners, ALL were Jews from the Montreal area.

Half the world's greatest chess players are Jewish.
This over achievement is repeated in practically every category of human endeavour.

Here is a tiny sampling of Jewish notables;

Physics -Albert Einstein, Nihls Bohr, Richard Feynman, Robert Oppenheimer, Carl Sagan

Medicine- Sigmund Freud, Jonas Salk, Albert Sabin...

Fashion-Isaac Mizrahi, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Kenneth Cole...

Models- Bar Refaeli, Cindy Margolis, Tanya Roberts, Yasmine Bleeth...

Criminals- 'Bugsy' Siegel, Mickey Cohen, Meyer Lansky, Dutch Schultz, David Bercowitz(Son of Sam)

Notorious- Bernie Madoff, Jack Ruby, Monica Lewinsky, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Bobby Fischer, Howard Stern ...

Magicians- Uri Geller, Harry Houdini, David Copperfield, David Blaine...

Actresses- Sarah Jessica Parker, Alicia Silverstone, Iona Skye, Kyra Sedgwick, Gwyneth Paltrow...

Actors- Sean Penn, Ben Stiller, Michael Douglas, Richard Dreyfuss, Matthew Broderick, Robert Downey Jr.

Comedians- Lewis Black, Jerry Seinfeld, Rodney Dangerfield, Adam Sandler,

Singers- Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Beastie Boys, Billy Joel, Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman, Neil Diamond, Simon and Garfunkle, Gene Simmons...

Writers- Ayn Rand, Dorothy Parker, Marcel Proust, Saul Bellow, Emma Lazarus

etcetera ....etcetera.etcetera

Half of the American billionaires are Jewish.

In Canada 23 of the 100 richest Canadians are Jewish. (23 times what straight demographics would predict)

In Quebec, there are more Jewish billionaires then there are Francophone billionaires (remember Jews are outnumbered by Francophones by 100-1.)


With 1 percent of the population of the Province of Quebec, Jews make up 16% of McGill University students. In the United States, with less than 2% of the population Jews make up 26% of the students in Harvard University, 30% in Yale, 25% in Columbia University, 43% in Barnard college, 25% in Brown University, 25% in Cornell University and 55% in Brandeis University.

William James Sidis, with an IQ of 250-300, is the brightest human who ever existed ( a Jew).

Of the 350 odd companies listed on NASDAQ, over 70 are Israeli (a country of 5 million Jews) while Canada a country of 33 million people has just 50 listings.

40% of the membership of the US National Academy of Sciences' Computer and Information Sciences division is Jewish.

Google, Dell and Oracle were all founded by Jews. If you use "Windows" most of the code was written in Israel.

Israel, with a tiny population of Jews, outperforms 90% of all the worlds countries in terms of patents, inventions, medical breakthroughs and scientific discoveries. In literature, social science, medicine, the law, entertainment and business, Jews outperform every ethnic and national group by leaps and bounds. The Israelis also have a kick-ass army.

Perhaps one of the biggest reasons for antisemitism is the incredible achievements posted by Jews. In grade school, who appreciated the smarty pants who knew every answer!

And so Mr Noël, that is why it isn't so strange that there are three jewish Supreme Court Judges. The reason is MERIT!!!!!

You use statistics to complain that Jews are over represented on the Supreme Court, but fail to mention that the Constitution guarantees Quebec three places out of nine on the Supreme Court, despite the fact that Quebec represents only 22% of the Canadian population (and falling.)

Doesn't this offend you, as well?

Inspirational Posters Volume 1

After Christmas Depression

For many people, particularly single seniors who are not wealthy, the celebration of the New Year, after the festive Christmas season, signals the beginning of a debilitating three and a half months of dreary winter, an interminable letdown of mammoth proportion.

Those who aren't rich enough to go down south to spend the winter in Florida, are relegated to spend their time in front of the television with trips to the local mall representing their only major interaction with other people.

For these people, it is without a doubt the most depressing time of the year. This is particularly true in the small towns across the province that offer few free programs or public facilities for seniors.

My job takes me to malls all across the province and I get to observe shopping centre life on an ongoing basis. Come mid-January the malls empty as consumers face the stark reality of the approaching credit card bills after a month of shopping excess and tone down their purchases to the bare necessities of groceries.
For the next three months the malls are taken over by bored seniors, who use the food fair as a playground, a place to gather, interact and generally kill time in a convivial and friendly atmosphere.
The shopping Centres may not be the Facebook of the seniors, but they are the chatrooms.

Food fairs are choked with nicely dressed seniors, passing the time with friends or perhaps flirting with the opposite sex, nursing a coffee for hours on end, much to the consternation and chagrin of merchants.

There was a time when "NO LOITERING" signs were meant to keep annoying teenagers away from business areas. Now the signs target seniors, who are admonished not to use the mall facilities as a social gathering spot.

It's a bit sad and humiliating to see signs like the one below.

Let's hope that April speeds its way here!!

Bell Centre versus Air Canada Centre

On a lark, I ventured out to the Air Canada Centre in Toronto on Boxing Day to take in the Canadiens/Leafs post Christmas clash. Using some free tickets provided by a supplier and cashing in some frequent flyer points, my guest and I flew out at 4:00PM and returned home at midnight, spending not one minute too long in the Kraft dinner city!

It was touch and go, the weather barely co-operated, but we made it. Here are some random observations, made in the spirit of objectiveness.

1. Tickets cost a helluva lot more in Toronto than Montreal, if you can believe it! Here's a comparison between my season tickets in Montreal and the season tickets of my supplier in Toronto. Wow! What a diff!

2. Could you imagine selling a Leafs jersey at the Bell Centre? Arrrgh!.......

3. The Air Canada Centre provides nifty drink holders between seats. Points for them!

4. Both the ACC and Centre Bell are too snobby to have cheerleaders, ergo these lame-ass boring middle aged ice cleaners. It's a tie!

4. There is a bigger variety of food offered at the ACC as compared to the Bell Centre, but everything I tried was awful. Cold and tasteless. At least at the Centre Bell you can always eat a decent hot dog. The ACC ran out of draft beer in the first period and the only thing on tap was Lite. Eccchh! Both arenas score poorly on the food front. It's a tie!

5. The big screens in the Bell Centre blow away those in Toronto. There are too many little screens and the whole thing is a confusing assault on the eyes.

5. Some corporate boxes are so ridiculously high it's a wonder that any company would lease them.
Wait a minute it seems that they aren't all sold!

6. The ACC looks a little tired and a bit less elegant than the Bell Centre. It seems to me that the building is steeper and thus has many more seats in the 'nosebleed' sections. Checkout SECTION 306, possibly the worst seats in the NHL.

If you're expecting me to say that the fans are lame or unenthusiastic, you would be wrong. You would be right if you called them masochists, because its gotta be painful. If you're a Leafs fan and under 45 years old you've never celebrated a Stanley Cup victory......aargh....


We were sitting beside a grandfather who brought his six-year old grandson (bedecked in Habs gear?) to his first game.
When the game went into overtime the grandfather rose and bade us good-bye.
"Aren't you staying for the overtime?" I asked.
"Nah, we gonna lose anyways and it's just too painful!!!!"

Of course he was right...(sigh..)
Oh....The Leafs...

Montreal Police Lose Public Relations War

As the Fredy Villanueva saga drones on interminably, it's clear that the Montreal police have taken a public relations beating, a self-inflicted wound for which they have nobody but themselves to blame.

It has been Montreal police policy, for as long as I can remember, to clam up after an officer-related shooting incident and to offer no comment or explanation until after the investigation into the matter is completed. These investigations usually drag for months, sometimes years, leading the public to surmise that the police have something to hide.

Many years ago, I remember an incident wherein a Montreal police car was flagged down by a downtown merchant, who told the officers that he had just been robbed by a man who was running down the street. The officers gave chase and caught up with the robber on Bleury street where the suspect struggled with police while being subdued. Because of the aggressive reaction by the suspect, one of the officers drew his service revolver and in the fracas, shot the suspect, who subsequently died.
It turned out that the 'robber' was a shoplifter, nothing more serious than that.

The officer was shocked. He freely admitted that the shooting was a colossal mistake.
He told investigators that he had made a tragic error, one which he could not explain. He quickly admitted that the situation was well in hand and it was never his intention to pull the trigger. Perhaps it was a case of nerves, a hair trigger or lack of training, it was what it was.

In a rare admission of fault, the then police chief Jacques Duchesneau apologized profusely for the mistake and offered sincere regrets to the family on behalf of the police. Throughout the entire interview, he never mentioned the officer by name or offered him his support.

I knew Jacques Duchesneau quite well at the time, we worked together as members on the board directors of one of Quebec's largest volunteer organizations. I also got to know most of the senior staff of the Montreal police and have forged friendships which I still maintain.

I caught up with Jacques (I think it was at a Canadiens hockey game) soon after the incident and laced into him.

"How could you not publicly support your officer!" I berated him.
He was surprised, to say the least.

"Whadda you mean? The officer was clearly wrong. It would have been wrong not to admit it." he answered.

"Of course he was wrong, but it was a mistake and it's something he'll have to live with the rest of his life. He deserves your support. You should of said something."

"Like what?" he asked.

"You should have gone on the attack. While offering condolences to the family you should have reminded them that their son was a criminal, who rolled the dice when he decided to struggle with the arresting officers.
You needed to show support to your officer and defended him as having committed an unfortunate mistake, a mistake that would never have happened had the criminal not taken the unfortunate actions that he did. The rank and file would have appreciated your support. You shouldn't have thrown your guy under the bus, it wasn't right."

I know many of you don't agree with my assessment, but consider this. When you or I make mistake on the job, even a big one, nobody gets killed, not usually, at any rate. When an armed police officer makes a mistake, it can have tragic consequences.
When criminals set in motion a confrontation with police, there is always the possibility things can go tragically wrong, sometimes for the officer, more often for the criminal.

Fredy Villanueva died because his brother Dany decided to 'test' the officers.

It will be two years before it's determined whether the shooting was justified or a result of the actions of a panicked officer. That's too long an ordeal. At any rate it makes no difference at all to me and it shouldn't matter to you.

In the meantime it's galling to see the members Villanueva family strut around like innocent victims, even as Dany resumes his life of crime as a member of the "Bloods," a Montreal North street gang.

Many people have told me that they can't understand why the officers confronted the gang members over a trivial game of dice. They tell me that this indicates the officers were looking for trouble.

They are wrong.
The war between the police and the gangs is a battle for control of the streets, either the police own them or the criminals do. In the battle for control, the gangs don't play by the rules, but unfortunately the police have to.

One of the tried and true methods of keeping gangs off balance, is to disrupt them by rousting them at every opportunity. It's a legitimate tactic practised by all major police departments across the continent.
Stopping gangsters and conducting a physical search is a productive way to catch them in possession of illegal weapons, drugs, stolen goods or discovering those who are breaking parole conditions. Of course, the police cannot stop and search anyone, including gang members without justification. Police can't pull a car over on a whim or conduct stop and search operations without justifiable cause. It's the law.

So the police look for any valid reason to stop and search gang members.
Jaywalking. Aha!
A broken tail light. Aha!
An illegal dice game in the park. Aha!

Credit these two officers for doing their job. They observed a legal opportunity to make life miserable for the gang members and they took it. Bravo!
By the way, the criminals know the drill, they are used to being hassled by the cops and they hate it.

On this day, Dany Villanueva decided that he wasn't going to take it anymore. He decided to confront the cops.
Not a very bright idea, but these type of thugs usually have violent tempers and impaired reasoning and decision-making faculties. It is likely that it was more galling and humiliating that one of the officers was female. He lost his temper and fought back. Bad mistake....

Witnesses admit that Dany refused to cooperate and was actively resisting being put in handcuffs. Things escalated and the officers drew their weapons.
Fredy either participated in the swarming of the officers or as witnesses told the inquest, was coming to Dany's aid by yanking the officer's hand.

What happened next is an open question, a question that is decidedly beside the point, the shooting that the occurred was the direct result of the actions of Dany and his cohorts.
They rolled the dice and lost. Too bad.

The current police chief of Montreal Yvan Delorme should have gotten out in front of the story a long time ago. He should have made a public statement explaining that while the exact circumstances of the shooting are to be determined, the death of Fredy Villanueva was the direct results of the decision taken by the street thugs to resist his officers. The public would have probably accepted the argument and moved on.

The fiasco around the investigation of the shooting can be laid directly at the feet of the Montreal police who were too timid to defend their officers and too mistrusting of the public's ability to understand and empathize with the officers predicament.

RDS Unable to Accept Swiss Hockey Win Over Russia

Watching this afternoon's hockey game between Les Glorieux and the Buffalo Sabres, I was happily reminded that the Canadian junior team is back in action later this afternoon in pursuit of their sixth straight world junior championship.

As all real hockey fans already know, the team from Switzerland pulled off a humongous upset by beating the Russian team to advance to the semi-finals against the Canadians.

Too bad the Reseau de Sports Network presumed that it could never happen. Here's a graphic promoting this evenings game, shown during a first period commercial break during the Canadiens/Sabres game..... Hmmm....


For those of us old enough to remember it is reminiscent of another fine gaffe; Ha!!! Ha!!!!

Journal de Montreal Hits a New Low

The sad story of the death of five Canadians in Afghanistan weighed heavily on the hearts of all Canadians....well most Canadians anyway.

While every other major daily newspaper in Canada placed the story on page one, not so for Montreal's Journal de Montreal.

How many deaths does it take in Afghanistan to make the front page of the Journal de Montreal?

Apparently five is not enough.

What story was more important? HOCKEY + NATIONALISM

As you can see, the newspaper ran a photo montage of the four Quebeckers who were named to Canada's Olympic hockey team, alongside a larger photo montage of Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis who were left off the team much to the consternation of hand-wringing nationalists.

By the way, the story on the Afghanistan deaths was on placed page 3 with the death of the journalist as a headline.