October 21, 2003

Not my team! The Toronto Sun reports that the mayor of Mexico City was reported to have contacted the commissioner's office for Major League Baseball about the possibility of bringing a team to Mexico City and has mentioned the Toronto Blue Jays as a possible candidate. Since the Blue Jays are owned by the locally based financial sound Rogers media corporation (which would have to deal with angry local customers) a sale of the Blue Jays is unlikely. If such talks occurred they were probably concerning the Montreal Expos which are owned by major league baseball after its owner effectively swapped them for the Florida Marlins. 11:18:08 PM

Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens is going to become a Loblaws grocery store. Plans for a 2,000-seat arena that would potential serve as the Toronto Maple Leafs' training facility proved to be impractical but the existing facades of the arena at Toronto's Carlton and Church streets, as well as existing rooflines will be preserved. 11:09:11 PM

Matthew J. Stinson covers the Easterbrook affair in depth over the last several days. Including a set of questions that still need to be answered. 11:02:39 PM

If you play the board game Scruples you may not know that it’s inventor Henry Makow is a raving lunatic who believes that the world is controlled by the Illuminati. He states its members include the Rothschilds, Hapsburg dynasty, Rockefellers and included Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels and accusses them of worshiping Lucifer and running a Supreme World Council. Oh yeah, in addition to being a self-hating Jew, he hates women. 10:44:30 PM

The New Republic has issued a statement on the Gregg Easterbrook affair defending Easterbrook as a person and taking responsibly for allowing his statement to be published under its banner. The apology has been accepted by The Anti-Defamation League and at this point considers the matter closed. Somebody please pick up Tuesday Morning Quarterback, I need to read what Easterbrook thinks of Miami having one gaming winning field goal attempt blocked and another go wide. Not to mention the referee possibly messing up the coin toss to start overtime. 12:02:12 AM

Leon Wieseltier of The New Republic takes apart the fantasy of a bi-national state that would include Israelis and Palestinians. He examines such a state as proposed by Tony Judt, in The New York Review of Books. Wiseltier writes: It would be a Palestinian state with a Jewish minority: Greater Palestine. The Jewish minority in Greater Palestine would be small, I suppose; many Jews will have prudently emigrated to escape such an outcome. Unlike some other proponents of the bi-national state, Judt oddly does not elaborate any requirements that it be democratic and constitutional. Perhaps he is being realistic; but then he is being even more irresponsible. For what reasons do the Israelis have to depend for security and decency upon the democratic talents of the Palestinians? Wieseltier then points out that the Palenstians have no such talents: Democracy is universal in theory, but it is not universal in practice. It must be seen to be believed. And the political culture of the Palestinians is now a contest between religious maximalism and terrorism and secular maximalism and terrorism. "Palestinian reform" is so far one of the cruelest disappointments of this disappointing time; but Judt would have the Jews of Israel cast their lot with it. The nightmare of ethnic cleansing in Greater Israel disturbs his sleep, but the nightmare of ethnic cleansing in Greater Palestine does not. Greater Israel means war, but Greater Palestine means peace. Will the jihadists of Hamas really stay their hands when Afula finally is theirs? And who will protect the Jews in Greater Palestine from their wrath? An "international force"? The suggestion is outrageous. The record of international forces in conditions of ethnic cleansing is a sentence of death for any people who would look to them for salvation. Other arguements such as the post-World War 2 creation of Israel, and the need for national states are similarly disposed of. If you want to combine two states together, add the Palestinian Authority areas to Jordan. Most Jordanians are actually Palestinians and during Turkish rule districts were organized on east-west boundaries without any reference the Jordan River. 12:01:52 AM