Part One - U.S. Foreign Policy (you can always count on an old chestnut...)
S0, the United States doesn't like Iran. So, they back Saddam Hussein and give him conventional and unconventional weapons. Hussein uses thopse weapons against Iran (a Shiite state) as well as Shiites in southern Iraq. But then the U.S. decides it doesn't like Hussein anymore. They still don't like Iran either. So, they go to war against Iraq. This turns out to be a mess. In part this is because people in Iraq remember how the U.S. helped Hussein. They remember how they got the short end of the stick just because the U.S. didn't like Iran. So, now the U.S. thinks that Iran should help them fix the mess they made in Iraq. (Remember that the mass began because the U.S. wanted Iran to go down in flames). Not surprisingly, Iran is not replying with enthusiasm. The U.S. isn't really sure why...
Part Two - Israel (perhaps just an addendum to Part One)
So, the Holocaust was bad. It was bad if you were Jewish. It was also bad for millions of people who weren't Jewish. But it's generally viewed as only happening to Jewish people. So the state of Israel was created after the Second World War. Lots of Jewish people live in Israel. Lots of non-Jewish people also live there, but they don't seem to matter. Israel generally escapes criticism because people feel bad about what happened to Jews during the Second World War. This should stop before there is a Third World War. Being against the policies of the state of Israel does not make you an anti-Semite. You can be against the policies of the U.S. or the Vatican without being against Christianity. You can be aginst the policies of Iran or Saudi Arabia without being against Islam.
The basis for the Holocaust being bad was that Jews had horrible things done to them just becausethey were Jews. Should it be okay for Israel to treat people unfairly just because they are not Jews? The answer to being treated unfairly is never to treat someone else unfairly. Kudos to Jimmy Carter for having the balls to say so.
Part Three - Senate Reform in Canada
Perhaps the Opposition parties are right. Most people know that it's a safe bet that the Liberal party will form the government of Canada. Every now and then Conservatives will get in, but it never lasts all that long. This means that most Senate appointments are done by God's chosen party - the Liberals. If it were not so, how could it be ensured that the party faithful will receive their everlasting reward in the Upper Chamber. It's bad enough that democratic principles are tolerated in the House of Commons. We should be vigilant so that the disease does not spread any further!
Part Four - Zero-Tolerance Policies
So, a kid at a Rhode Island high school with a keen interest in things medieval submitted a photo for the school yearbook showing himself in chain-mail armour and a sword. The school principal disallowed the phot because of a zero-tolerance policy towards weapons and violence in school.
Typically, these policies would ban bringing an actual sword to a school, not just a picture of one. By this logic, it would sem that an overhaul of the curriculum is in order. History will suffer the most. I would think it would be impossible to discuss the American Reveolution, the U.S. Civil War, huge swathes of the civil rights movement or World War Two without allowing weapons and violence (even just representation thereof on paper) into a school. But in a way this might be nice. If you can't be taught it, it can't have happened becasue you'd never know about it. Therefore, it never was. So, what we have is a world without war, without street crime, the Holocaust never happened, September 11th never happened, so everybody can get the hell out of the Middle East, and all the aboriginals in the New World left theri ancestral territories peacefully to make way for the white guys. I feel better about humanity already.
