The Post-Christmas Day Post

Which I'm posting now.


Lots of eating, merriment and snow.


Almost too much snow.



The Spies Who Resented Me:

Two of Russia's biggest spy agencies are at war with one another as attempts are made to merge them in order to create an intelligence service modelled on the Sovietera KGB, it has been claimed. 

According to Russian experts, the domestic FSB security service is trying to subsume the SVR foreign intelligence service in order to recreate a KGB in all but name. 

Supporters of the plan are seeking to capitalize on the SVR's worst post-Soviet failure, the deportation of 10 of its sleeper agents from the United States this summer, arguing that the debacle proved that the SVR had lost its way, it is claimed. 

Pavel Felgenhauer, an intelligence agencies expert, said: "The mass collapse, arrest and subsequent deportation of 10 Russian illegal agents from the United States has become a pretext for the FSB to start a campaign." 

The FSB was deliberately leaking details of the fiasco to the Russian press, he added, while its officers were anonymously heaping unprecedented criticism on the SVR. "The aim of the leaks is to speed up a decision about the reorganization of the SVR," he said. 

"We are talking about either a straight merger with the FSB or replacement of the current SVR leadership with 'strong loyalists."

A rather good reason to ban the burqa:

 

 

A woman covered in a head-to-foot burqa carried out a suicide bombing that killed more than 40 people on Saturday in Pakistan, government officials said on Sunday. The woman blew herself amid a crowd heading towards a food distribution centre of the World Food Program in the Bajaur region on the Afghan border. Forty-three people were killed and more than 60 were wounded. It was the second attack by a female militant in Pakistan. In the first episode, a woman detonated explosives in the northwestern city of Peshawar in 2007, but she only killed herself. Any increased use of women as bombers may complicate efforts by Pakistani security forces because it is harder to spot and search burqaclad attackers in a conservative tribal society.

 

Just so we're clear: a scantily-clad white American Christian Jew exploded himself and killed innocent women and children in order to serve the Western capitalist Zionist war machine that hates Islam. This suicide bomber was clearly funded by the Illuminati and possibly the Catholic Church.

 

Trouble for Christians in Indonesia:

 

 

Tensions remained high Sunday, December 26, near Jakarta where a group of angry Muslims backed by police surrounded homes of Christians in protests against what they called “unauthorized religious services”, Worthy News learned.

 

Christians said over 100 members of the Batak Christian Protestant Church (HKBP) home church were forced to flee the mob during the December 12 incident in the village of Rancaekek Wetan, details of which just emerged.

Local police chief Hendro Pandowo reportedly acknowledged that the situation in the village was tense.

He said the Christians did not have a permit to use houses as places of worship, but added that Muslims obtained a permit to hold the protest.  ”If the place was legally designated as a church, we’d provide security protection. Otherwise, we can’t do much as it’s against the law,” he told reporters.

The Christians argue that they are forced to hold services inside their homes because local authorities have refused or ignored a number of requests to approve a place of worship for them.

They have appealed to President Yudhoyono for protection after the congregation was attacked several times, said advocacy group Barnabas Fund, which investigates the incident.

In September, one of the church’s leaders was reportedly stabbed. “A number of other churches in Indonesia have also been subject to threats or actual violence. In December alone, explosive devices were found at four Christian buildings; only two of these detonated,” added Barnabas Fund.

Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Christians comprise roughly 9 percent of the country’s 243 million people, according to the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Just so we're clear: innocent Muslim lynch mobs families were out for a nice stroll when they chanced upon a house wherein scantily-clad white American Christian Jews were plotting to kill innocent people on the orders of the Illuminati, the Catholic Church AND Emperor Palpatine. These civic-minded lynch mobs families immediately told the police. Anything else anyone tells you is a filthy damn lie.





In the Philippines and Nigeria:

A bomb in a church during Christmas mass in the southern Philippines wounded six people, including the priest, even as Christian leaders highlighted the plight of believers facing the threat of attacks around the world.

Military officials would not immediately name any suspects in the blast on Jolo island, but the island is a known bastion of the Abu Sayyaf, a group linked to the Al Qaeda network....

Nigeria

In the northern Nigerian city of Kano on Friday, suspected Islamist sect gunmen attacked a church during Christmas Eve services but were fought off by soldiers, a military spokesman said....

Just so we're clear: scantily-clad white American Christian Jews, under orders from Jabba the Hut, are responsible for these attacks. The Lutherans are responsible, as well.





Mental health issues, one step at a time:

A Palestinian caught trying to infiltrate a settlement Wednesday night claims he was sent by his family members, who had hoped he would be killed by soldiers during the infiltration.

But he was caught by Israeli soldiers before he could do damage so they didn't have to defensively shoot and kill. But why, in addition to proudly claiming a "holy martyr" in the family, did his Arab/Muslim parents deliberately choose this son for this "holy suicide terrorist mission?" Was the son especially brave? Religious? Full of hate towards Israelis? Maybe all of these but the basic answer is even more chilling.

According to the investigation into the incident, the boy was behaving in a strange manner and the soldiers originally thought that he was drunk. Later on in the investigation, it was clarified that he was actually suffering from a mental illness.

The boy told investigators that his family wanted him dead. He said they threatened him at gunpoint, forcing him to walk towards the settlement with the hope that soldiers would think he was trying to infiltrate and would shoot him.

 Further investigation confirmed his story; he is mentally ill.

Just so we're clear: this young man, angered by the proliferation of scantily-clad white American Christian Jews, decided to blow himself, which, as well know, is a perfectly reasonable response to offending stimulus. Those lousy soldiers stopped him and he will, no doubt, probably be fed pharmaceuticals or receive therapy or some dreadful thing like that!




What has this world come to?!





This was said before in a better and more truthful way:

"The American, British and Zionist regimes are the three sides of the evil triangle of warmongering and terrorism in the world," Vahidi said, addressing senior military and law enforcement commanders in Iran's Northern province of Alborz today.

(sigh)





And now, pretty snowflakes.

Christmas Week: Oh What Fun

Nothing says Christmas like Baby Jesus being air-lifted to safety.


Merry Christmas one and all.

Christmas Week: In the Bleak Mid-Week Post

...frosty wind made moan....


Sorry.


We owe the Japanese an apology:

A spokesperson for the People's Republic of China's State Administration for Religious Affairs said on Wednesday that the Vatican's criticism of the recent National Congress of Chinese Catholics was "imprudent and ungrounded."  The government run Congress, which met from Dec. 7 to 9, elected the heads and other senior members of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) and the Bishops' Conference of the Catholic Church (BCCC) in China.

On Dec. 17, the Vatican issued a communiqué condemning the Congress,

With profound sorrow, the Holy See laments the fact that from 7 to 9 December there was held in Beijing the Eighth Assembly of Chinese Catholic Representatives. This was imposed on numerous bishops, priests, religious and lay faithful. The manner in which it was convoked and its unfolding manifest a repressive attitude with regard to the exercise of religious liberty, which it was hoped had been consigned to the past in present-day China. The persistent desire to control the most intimate area of citizens' lives, namely their conscience, and to interfere in the internal life of the Catholic Church does no credit to China. On the contrary, it seems to be a sign of fear and weakness rather than of strength; of intransigent intolerance rather than of openness to freedom and to effective respect both of human dignity and of a correct distinction between the civil and religious spheres.

The Chinese spokesperson replied on Dec. 22,

The congress, which is held every five years to amend the CCPA and BCCCC's constitutions, elect a new leadership and set future agenda, does not deal with Catholic doctrines or violate the fundamental Catholic faith, and "there is no question of getting recognition by any foreign organization or state."

The spokesperson said China's religious freedom was protected by the Chinese Constitution, and it was a misinterpretation by the Vatican to declare the incompatibility of Catholic doctrine and the Chinese Catholic church's principle of independent self-governance.

China's Constitution grants Chinese citizens freedom of religious beliefs, but requires independence of religious organizations and affairs in China from foreign influence.

Members of the CCPA are forbidden to acknowledge the Pope as the universal pastor of the Catholic Church, as Beijing will not tolerate any loyalty to any entity for any reason outside China. Thus, there are millions of "underground Catholics" in China who worship outside the CCPA at great risk. 

China is used to bossing others around. It's not easy to bully the Church the way it is, say, a Nobel prize winner. People are faithful to the Church out of love for Christ who instituted it. Chinese communists will never understand or accept this.


They will fail.



In other news, there is a Christmas party at Urakami Cathedral. There are Korean and Chinese language options for those who wish it.



Are you stuck for last minute gifts options? Are you in luck!

When you think about it, Sarah Palin is the gift that keeps on giving. Not only does the mere mention of her name send the cream of the political and media elites into spittle-flecked rage, but a cottage industry has arisen in the collectibles consumer category with Sarah Palin dolls and mementos.

From the Sarah Palin bobblehead doll ("all gussied up in her familiar red jacket and blue jeans") to the four versions of the Sarah Palin action figure and beyond, the collectible world has found a political figure that a significant segment of the nation loves...or loves to hate. Either way, it's a boon to the industry and an opportunity for those with blanks to fill on Christmas giving lists.

Liberals hate for her conservatism, her populism and her kung-fu grip.




Why doesn't this surprise me?

Documents from the State Department published by WikiLeaks show that the Obama administration surrendered the missile shield previously planned by the Bush administration to Europe because of Russian demands, not because of any supposed intel reports.

The original missile defense scheme was devised by the Bush administration, which persuaded Poland and the Czech Republic to authorize missile defense systems (ten unarmed interceptors and a radar) to be deployed on their soil.  In April 2008, Bush outmaneuvered Vladimir Putin by obtaining an endorsement of this scheme from all NATO allies before the Russian leader reached Bucharest for the NATO-Russia summit.

Russia has always opposed this scheme, putatively because the scheme would undermine Russia's nuclear deterrent (which it wouldn't -- ten unarmed interceptors can't undermine an arsenal of hundreds of ICBMs and SLBMs as well as 113 strategic bombers).  Really, Russia is in the middle of selling a nuclear reactor and tons of nuclear fuel to Iran, and the Kremlin doesn't want the West to be able to defend itself against the incipient Iranian nuclear threat.  Russia is also eager to claw Central Europe back into its sphere of influence.

Bush wisely chose not to succumb to Moscow, but he was replaced in 2009 by Barack Obama.

The leaked documents indicate that Obama's first eight months as president boiled over with Russian threats not to cooperate with the U.S. on any issue whatsoever (be it Iran, North Korea, space exploration, START negotiations, or anything else) barring cancelation of U.S. missile defense plans.  During meetings with American officials, the Russians would repeatedly interrupt American diplomats who tried to discuss anything but missile defense.

The Kremlin's message was this: you must capitulate on missile defense (and strategic arms), or else we won't even discuss (let alone cooperate on) other issues.  Eager to appease Russia, the Obama Administration naïvely surrendered missile defense plans on September 17, 2009.

Administration officials, including Obama and Bob Gates, are now falsely claiming that their surrender had nothing to do with Russia and was instead dictated by claimed new intel.  Supposedly, Iran's priority is now the development of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles rather than IRBMs and ICBMs (against which the Bush missile shield was designed to be effective).

But the leaked documents, reproduced by the NYT, show that the Iranians still prioritize the development and acquisition of long-range ballistic missiles.

The documents say that before Obama made his decision, Iran acquired BM25 (Rodong) IRBMs from North Korea.  These can reach Western Europe and Moscow.  Other publicly available intel reports say that Iran aims by 2015 to acquire ICBMs meant to reach the U.S.   Iran also has R-27 Zyb SLBMs bought from North Korea (with a range of 3,000 kilometers; Rodong missiles were derived from them) and is reportedly now developing Shahab-4 IRBMs and Koussar missiles that could fly as far as 5,000 kilometers.  And Iran possesses missiles that can deliver satellites into the Earth's orbit -- missiles that can reach Europe just as easily. Iran's Fajr-3 and Sajjil missiles can fly as far as 2,500 kilometers.  So the Iranian long-range-missile threat is growing, not declining.

Moreover, thanks to geography, long-range ballistic missiles are the only ones which could ever reach Western Europe.  Iran is too far away from Western Europe for its SRBMs and MRBMs to reach the Old Continent, let alone the U.S.  Its Shahab-3 MRBMs can fly no farther than 2,000 km, meaning it can reach only Eastern Europe (Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, etc.).

Whoever wants to protect Europe and the U.S. should first and foremost provide defenses against long-range ballistic missiles.

Eastern Europe was screwed over for a decrepit empire trying to re-live past glories. Dusty as it may be, Russia still pulls the strings when it wants. Obama's betrayal of eastern Europe should go down as the West's failure to safeguard it as it should have done when the Iron Curtain was still up.



If this isn't the limit, then I just don't know what is:

Fanatics from a banned Islamic hate group have launched a nationwide poster campaign denouncing Christmas as evil.

Organisers plan to put up thousands of placards around the UK claiming the season of goodwill is responsible for rape, teenage pregnancies, abortion, promiscuity, crime and paedophilia.

They hope the campaign will help 'destroy Christmas' in this country and lead to Britons converting to Islam instead.

It's bad enough that we have yahoos attempting to ban Christmas for the most incredibly stupid reasons but this doesn't just take the cake; it steps on it and tells the children Santa Claus and his reindeer were shot down over Soviet airspace in 1983. This isn't a cultural misunderstanding. It's just evil. I guess one should expect that from morons whose idea of a good time is persecution and war-mongering. This isn't the first time it has come up, unfortunately.



Related: pure, bloody evil.



She does have a point:

It's the Christmas season, so godless liberals are citing the Bible to demand the redistribution of income by government force. Didn't Jesus say, "Blessed are the Health and Human Services bureaucrats, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven"?

It's true. Look it up yourselves.



And now for something truly touching:

A German Shepherd puppy at the feet of Baby Jesus, the Good Shepherd.


(sigh)

Christmas Week: The Attack of the Killer Christmas Trees

No, not really.


But there is a tree in Seoul:

Meanwhile, four days before Christmas, Seoul said it would erect a 100-foot-tall (30-meter-tall) steel Christmas tree near the tense land border with North Korea. The tree will stand less than 2 miles (3 kilometres) from the border, festooned with lights visible to North Koreans living in border cities.

A symbolic gesture appropriate for this time of year.


Further:

Meanwhile, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson praised North Korea's "statesmanlike" restraint as he wrapped up a four-day trip to North Korea.

Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who has served as an unofficial envoy to North Korea in the past, told Associated Press Television News in Pyongyang that his trip yielded "positive" results.

"It was a good visit — positive results in our discussions with North Korea," he said Tuesday morning before boarding a plane in Pyongyang.

What a total yahoo. South Korea is bracing for another attack and this numbskull is praising the terrorist state of North Korea for not responding to South Korea's show of might. Did Richardson forget the "human shields" callousness or does he even care? Useful idiot.


Great Britain a hotbed of terrorism? Everyone knows that:

Forget Yemen or Somalia. It is Britain and its ignominious record of violent Islamism that should be the focus of security concerns, say critics of Britain's counter-terrorism policies. 

The arrests Monday of 12 men said to be planning a Christmas terrorist outrage along with a recent suicide attack in Sweden by a man apparently radicalized in Britain show the real threat facing the country from long-standing official indulgence of anti-Western Islamist thinking among British Muslims, critics claim. 

"The Stockholm bomber is but the latest export from Londonistan -- and unless the government gets up off its knees and changes its disastrous strategy, I very much fear he will not be the last," wrote commentator Melanie Phillips, a trenchant critic of government policy.

Related: Christmas (not holiday) attack foiled in Great Britain.



Sweden courageously deports Iraqi Christians:

Just last week a terrorist explosion tore through Sweden's capital city Stockholm. Luckily the only person killed was the Muslim terrorist. In Sweden, certain Muslim immigrant neighborhoods are considered "no go" by Swedish police as the Muslim newcomers have established their own societies while living off generous Swedish welfare. In Malmo and certain other regions in Sweden police and other political figures are quiet about violence by Swedish Muslims against Swedish Jews or else they join the leftists blaming the Jewish victims.

Well actually Swedish authorities are responding to this Muslim violence in Sweden--they are deporting Iraqi Christians fleeing their 2000 year homeland seeking refuge in Sweden because of murderous attacks against them by Iraqi Muslims in Iraq.

Sweden's migration minister has refused to respond to concerns from the United Nations and the Council of Europe about Sweden's decision to resume the deportation of Iraqis.
(snip)
[T]he European Court of Human Rights is currently "inundated" with cases dealing with Iraqis in Sweden.
He urged Sweden to give the court more time to review the cases before resuming the deportation of Iraqis.
"It might transpire that requests of some of the returnees have not yet been dealt by the Court," he concluded," he said.

For these Christians, returning to Iraq might be a death sentence; just last month 52 Iraqi Christians were slaughtered in a Catholic church in Baghdad.

As Barry Rubin and others, such as Joel Sprayregan here at American Thinker have commented, all over the Muslim world Christians and other religious minorities are persecuted and attacked yet there are few world wide complaints.

As Rubin explained:

Christians are being assaulted, intimidated, and murdered by militant Muslims.Yet virtually never do Christians in any of these countries-perhaps with some occasional exceptions in India--attack Muslims. In the West, there have been no armed terrorist attacks on Muslims or the deliberate killing of Muslims. There does not exist a single group advocating such behavior.
Have you seen any of this in the Western mass media? Have any Christian church groups-some of which find ample time to criticize Israel-even mentioned this systematic assault? Indeed, on the rare occasions that the emigration of Christians is mentioned, somehow it is blamed on Israel, as one American network news show did recently. (snip)

Presumably, much of the Western media and intelligentsia-along with a lot of the church leadership, assumes that it is impossible for a non-Western, "non-white" group to ever be prejudiced. There is also a belief that if one dares report the news about pogroms carried about by Muslims against Christians it will trigger pogroms by Christians against Muslims.
The Catholic Church is quiet because it fears that complaints will increase persecution. Indeed, at a recent high-level Synod for the Middle East, leading Catholic clerics from the region blasted Israel and talked about how wonderfully Christians are treated in Muslim-majority countries. Iraq was singled out as a country where there were no problems in Muslim-Christian relations. Apparently, though, appeasement isn't working.

Why crack down on terrorism? Enjoy the dhimmitude, Sweden.


Atheists are miserable. Just read the comments.


But, but...:

Allegations are surfacing at compensation hearings that students abused fellow pupils at Canada's now-closed residential schools for aboriginal people, CBC News has learned. 

The allegations are being made as federal adjudicators work out a compensation package at hearings under the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement, the largest class-action settlement in Canadian history. 

Nearly 6,000 people have been identified as abusers at the hearings, according to the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs. Most of those named are former teachers and clergy, many of whom have died, but 20 to 25 per cent of those accused were students. 

The government is hiring private investigators to track them down and they'll get a chance to tell their side of the story. But no cases will be referred for criminal investigation. 

The good thief (the other one).


Beyond true- a mirror into human behaviour- toddlers and boxes.


A nice story for Christmas involving a dog, puppies and a cat.

Christmas is greater than Lenin.

 

 

Christmas Week: The Christmasing

Even Glow-in-the-Dark Dino is into the swing of things!


Do you know who isn't into the swing of things? North Korea:

South Korea's military staged live-fire drills from an island just a few kilometres from rival North Korea's shores Monday, despite Pyongyang's threats of catastrophic retaliation for the manoeuvres.

Seoul launched fighter jets, evacuated hundreds of people away from its tense land border with the North and sent residents of front-line islands into underground bunkers in case of attack, but the North finally said it would hold its own fire.

The 90-minute exercise came nearly a month after the North responded to earlier manoeuvres by shelling Yeonpyeong Island, killing two marines and two construction workers in its first attack targeting civilian areas since the 1950-53 Korean War. That clash sent tensions soaring between the two countries — which are still technically at war.

On Sunday, diplomats meeting at the United Nations in New York failed to find any solution to the crisis, but there was some sign of diplomacy Monday, as a high-profile American governor announced what he said were two nuclear concessions from the North.

North Korea called Monday's drills a "reckless military provocation" but said after they ended that it was holding its fire because Seoul had changed its firing zones.

Oh really?


Winter solstice AND a lunar eclipse- when two natural phenomena collide.



Some people are vulgar and opulent because they can be. Quick! Let's cancel Christmas in the Emirates!



One who has seen the worst of both worlds.


And now, Christmas carols- with animals.

Friday Freakout: the Christmas Edition

T'is the season.





For more seasonal Japanese goodness, please go here.


How is Christmas celebrated in Finland? Click here and find out.


The joyous marriage of beer and Christmas. Or at least the bottles.





Please don't try this at home.

Thursdays of Christmas

...more or less.


"Human beings" killed people on September eleventh and millions in communists countries. Why politicise these kinds of things? Can't we just forget?


Another group of socio-cultural apologists who don't realise they've not only shot their foot off but have a noose around their necks:

The recent feminist "flash mob" in Philadelphia denouncing Israel and supporting the Palestinian jihadists showed yet again the abject failure of feminism and the true face of this phony movement.  And that failure has to do with more than just supporting jihadists....

These vicious, parasitical feminists are worse than useless.  They are dangerous, as evidenced by the Jew-hating, pro-jihad feminist mob in Philadelphia.  Do these women know that lesbians are executed in Muslim countries?  Do these women know that the jihad in Israel is about Islamic anti-Semitism, not land?  Do these women care about the gender apartheid in the Muslim world?  How do they look at the faces of the victims of honor killing and then look in the mirror?  The craven silence of feminists in the face of the left's withering criticism of my honor killing taxi ad campaign and freedom buses for apostates from Islam is a stunning indictment of their motives.

 

What a curious word- failure. What have modern feminists done for others? How have they empowered women in their communities? Women in the West can vote, own property, be educated, seek justice when wronged, wear trousers.


Yet, what do they perceive as enormous injustices to them?


The freedom to be miserable on Christmas day? That is not a goal; that is a caricature of a sad woman whose life fell apart and now lounges around in hole-ridden clothes and smelly cats. Who would not only rejoice in being miserable but declare it better than an engaging life of family, friends and involvement with those around one? This absence of introspection is telling; misery loves company. Anything one can't achieve is stupid. Over-inflate the drawbacks of one lifestyle choice to make one's own seem preferable. This woman lives with cats and she is alone, especially on Christmas day. Is she so miserable that not even her family will have her over? That's not empowerment; that's pathetic.


Then there's this:

Canada is a prochoice, modern country. Suck it up, buttercup.

Where do we start?


How about with "buttercup"? Imagine a male co-worker of this brain-trust slapped her expansive butt and asked her to waddle over to the coffee station for a freshly-brewed cup of java. A Western society might cringe at that kind of behaviour but what would "buttercup" do? Meekly get the coffee and accept that kind of abuse with gentle good humour? Sue for harassment? That's actually beside the point. When one is a feminist (the liberal, pro-abortion, cultural apologist variety), one doesn't have to have manners, introspection or consideration. One just has to be smug and rude. After all, being deluded into thinking that one can do and say whatever one wishes without thinking things through is the hallmark of any great shrew feminist. Some people are as smart as they think they are and some are just "buttercups".


Then there is that blather about "pro-choice". Well, if you support abortion, own your stance and call yourself pro-abortion. If there is nothing wrong with it, then there is nothing to be afraid of. Say it loud, say it proud, you support abortion and now you'll shut up because you are making high-pitched sounds that only dogs can hear. You might not even want to make those sounds. After all, a bill that would have given women "choice" was voted down by some rather cowardly politicians.



Oh! And look at these numbers:

Eighty-nine per cent of respondents strongly agreed that “nothing is more important than family,” and 67 per cent strongly agreed that “marriage, by definition, is between a man and a woman.”  Additionally, 60% strongly agreed that “abortion is morally wrong.”  Overall, 75% believe abortion is morally wrong and 80% support true marriage.

Not bad for a country that doesn't have an abortion law.


To paraphrase Mark Steyn, liberals will not defend the values that allow them to say and do what they say and do without thinking. Case in point:

This is strictly a cultural thing -- it has nothing to do with feminsim or rights. Perhaps you don't live in an area where everyone feels comfortable with everyone else's cultures, but I do, and I'm telling you that this is not the problem you think it is. Or trying to make it out to be.  

All I could find at her multiple links was a picture of a store window indicating that a restaurant had a "women and family" section. That in and of itself doesn't necessarily mean that the restaurant segregates, as it's quite possible that it has a specific section set aside for "women and family" if they would prefer. Plenty of western restaurants have similar sections designated. Do you have more information? I would think it might be prudent to provide some details before jumping to any "gotcha, feminists!" conclusions. 

The Jews have a separate section for women at Synagogue...

Your restaurant, your rules. I would like to see your outrage if someone posted a "No Catholic Priests" sign on their Toy Store!

It's a sad day when you have to start linking to FiveFecesofFury for confirmation of your hatred of something...  

(Sidebar: the last comment was from the same person who thought that Karla Homolka "served her time".)


There is failure if ever I saw it.


What was prevalent in those comments? It wasn't the defense of liberal Western values or even a staunch libertarian twist to the old vs new debate. It was mindless, inflammatory streams of illogical banter (even an attack on someone behind her back). Would this gender segregation be tolerated had the restaurant been Norwegian? Had this restaurant refused to serve homosexuals for whatever reason, would it be "strictly a cultural thing"? Where was the defense of Western liberal values? Did I miss something? Maybe I left my capacity to discern these things in those gender-segregated restaurants all over Canada.


Failure is a way to sum up modern feminism- failure to embrace humanity, reality, logic or reason. The stiff hairy upper lips cannot change the fact that modern feminists embrace their own demise while clamouring for their own sense of entitlement.

Wednesday Wonderland

Yes, I realise I am butchering Christmas carols but so is Mariah Carey. Yell at her.


Mummies aren't just for Egyptians or mountain-bound Peruvians anymore:

Four centuries after his death, King Henry IV of France is being laid to rest. Or at least his head is.

A team of multidisciplinary researchers announced today (Dec. 14) that a mummified head and its brain contents long thought to belong to the beloved king really are his. The head, which has been in the hands of private owners, had been removed from Henry IV's body by revolutionaries in 1793 during a symbolic desecration of the tombs of the monarchs of France.

Researchers, led by forensic medical examiner and osteo-archaeologist Philipp Charlier of University Hospital R Poincare in Garches, France, compared the head with sculptures and portraits of Henry, who had been assassinated in 1610, and digitally reconstructed the face. The result was a dead ringer for the beloved king. 

Pretty cool.



The transparency game works if you are actually transparent:

The national organization representing Canada's First Nations chiefs passed a resolution on Tuesday that requires elected band officials to disclose their salaries and other funds to their members. 

The Assembly of First Nations adopted the resolution that affirms "transparent and accountable decision-making" and calls on chiefs and councillors to "lead by example" by making audits, public accounts, salaries, honouraria, expenses, and finances available to community members -- but not necessarily to the rest of Canadians and with no legal framework. 

Grand Chief Doug Kelly, from Soowahlie First Nation, moved the motion, which was adopted by consensus. 

"The purpose of this resolution is to just put it right on the table. The only way I know how to defeat lies, is to tell the truth," he said. AFN National Chief Shawn Atleo lashed out at critics who have recently publicized exorbitant salary figures. 

"Our critics try to brand us as irresponsible. They smear the more than 3,300 chiefs and councillors across the country by exaggerating the pay of a small few through phoney math," Mr. Atleo told an assembled crowd of chiefs, elders and delegates at a meeting in Quebec. 

"We will set the standards of transparency and accountability for our people -- not Ottawa bureaucrats," he said. 

Mr. Atleo's comments come in the wake of revelations from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which--using calculations based on figures obtained through Access to Information -- reported dozens of reserve politicians were paid hundreds of thousands in salaries, with 80 earning more than Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The AFN on Tuesday released its own figures that rebutted the federation's calculations. It said that travel and per diems were included in figures for First Nations leaders but not for other politicians, and it lowered the number of chiefs making more than provincial premiers from CTF's estimated 160 to 21 -- "an extremely small fraction." 

The report, called The Straight Goods on First Nations Salaries, also rebuts the number of officials making more than $100,000 in "taxable equivalent" income, lowering the number from 600 to 114. 

Kevin Gaudet, the national director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, stood by his previously released figures and said the AFN is "attacking" its own people. 

"I wish they'd focus on making the information public and moving forward and improving the welfare of the average aboriginal instead of wasting their time," he said. 

"They've been compelled to disclose this information in the past and they've haven't complied with that obligation before. We suspect that the only way this will ever be made public is through a law," he said, adding that the information must be made available online. 

They were caught and are desperate to defend their abuse of power.


Apparently Mr. Harper has packed his spine with his summer clothes:

 

 

A bill that would make coerced abortion a criminal offence has once again reignited debate over Canada's lack of abortion legislation, and politicians' reluctance to discuss the topic. 

Bill C-510, proposed by antiabortion Conservative MP Rod Bruinooge, still has a long way to go before it ever becomes a law, even if it should pass second reading in the House on Wednesday. The bill would make it illegal for anyone to coerce a woman into an abortion through threats of violence, withdrawal of financial resources or a place to live. It would have no impact on abortion providers nor would it put legal limits on abortion. 

Mr. Bruinooge, whose riding is in Winnipeg, acknowledges there are already general laws against coercion and making threats, but feels a specific prohibition against coercing pregnant women into abortion needs to be spelled out as a message to society. 

"Within our society there is a culture that suggests that abortion is really a procedure that is no different than any other medical procedure," he said. "However, it's my contention that the procedure impacts women in significant ways -- and so applying pressure to a woman to end the life of her child is wrong and the law has to make that clear." 

Mr. Bruinooge said the bill, also known as Roxanne's Law, was a reaction to the murder of Winnipeg constituent Roxanne Fernando, who was beaten to death by three men because she refused to have an abortion. Her body was found in a frozen ditch outside the city a few days after she vanished. 

Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister, has already said his government would not support the bill, reflecting the unease the Tories have of being tied to what looks like a social-conservative cause.

Pro-abortion melodrama in five, four....

Self-policing is not a strong suit for some, apparently:

 

Embarrassed officials at the Luton Islamic Center defended their decision not to report Taimour Abdulwahab to police after his extremist views alienated worshippers in this small city north of London.

That decision became important when Abdulwahab blew himself up Saturday on a busy street in Stockholm, injuring two people and endangering many more — and, once again focusing unwanted attention on Luton, a nondescript city of 200,000 with a large Muslim population.
Abdulwahab, who died in the blast, did not attract much attention in Luton, but he did alarm mosque elders with fiery rhetoric about what he believed was a concerted attack on Islam led by the United States.

Farasat Latif, the mosque secretary, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that officials would have told police about Abdulwahab if he had shown signs of violence or instability.

"It's a judgment call," Latif said. "You have to give them space to express their views. We don't stop people coming to our mosques because they have beliefs that are unsavoury."

He said mosque officials have to gauge an individual's level of anger reporting him or her to authorities.

"If they think it's OK to kill individual civilians, you have to call the police," he said "But he never showed violent tendencies — just harsh criticism of the Muslim heads of states, like in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, for being too pally pally with the United States while America is decimating Iraq."

A website affiliated with al-Qaida said Tuesday that Abdulwahab was targeting a newspaper linked to cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad but one of his bombs exploded too soon.

A writer on the Shumokh al-Islam website also wrote that one of the six gas cylinders in the bomber's car exploded prematurely. The writer said the bomber then tried to escape but one of the bombs strapped to his body also exploded too soon.

Neither the writer nor the newspaper was named. Several Swedish papers published the cartoons but Swedish police have declined to say whether any newspapers were the actual target.

Mosque officials say they confronted Abdulwahab about his strident views, prompting him to storm out of the mosque in anger several years ago, but they did not notify authorities.

If Muslims wish to truly combat the extremism they say is not a part of their culture, then they have to mean it, not pretend they mean it or act shocked when something happens. That means when someone threatens to kill others, you call the cops. This self-serving deflection only raises further doubts about the Islamic community's ability and will to prevent violence. I don't think the will is there.


What this guy said (more or less):

Perhaps because one tendency in the West, particularly after 9/11, has been to answer Muslim accusations of injustice (and even real attacks) with an exaggerated declaration of regard. It is guiltily offered as if in embarrassed compensation, inspired by a desire not to appear to tar Islam with the fervent claims made by its most violent adherents. 

Related: who wears the pants in the house and who gets whipped for it.  (WARNING: extremely shocking)


And now the Christmas segment....


Kwanzaa is the L. Ron Hubbard of holidays. What Africans actually do for Christmas.


An Argentinian archbishop decries Santa (but doesn't kick him out of Tienanmen Square):

A Roman Catholic archbishop surprised his parishioners in Argentina by telling the children that Santa Claus was not real, but instead a commercialized symbol of Christmas.

"That's not Christmas," Archbishop Fabriciano Sigampa of the northern city of Resistencia said in mass, insisting that children should not confuse celebrating the birth of Christ "with a fat man dressed in red."

Sigampa's ire was aroused by plans for a snow covered cabin in the city's main square where a Father Christmas figure would hear children's wishes and receive donated toys to be given out to poor children.

"Surely, in the coming days there will be a deluge of advertisements after they inaugurate the house where a fat man dressed in red lives. And we should not confuse, we should not confuse Christmas with that."

He said children "should know that, in reality, the gifts come from the efforts of their parents and with the help of Jesus."

Please note that Archbishop Sigampa did not say that Christmas should be banned the way that Oliver Cromwell did, but rather  that is Christmas is, indeed, the Mass of Christ and not a day where a fat man in a red suit (who was a commercial symbol) hands out toys. Nor did he say that children shouldn't get toys but that, in truth, the parents get them.


I'd save my ammo for real humbugs.


Food forbidden for Christmas? You decide.

O Tuesdaybaum

A photo essay of what is left of Yeonpyeong Island. Amid the rubble, one can see a bumper sticker saying "I Korea", an abandoned dog, a sullied photo of the late John Paul II and a crucifix, even a handprint. North Korea's response to this atrocity is this:

North Korea warned Monday that U.S.-South Korean cooperation could bring a nuclear war to the region, as the South began artillery drills amid lingering tension nearly three weeks after the North's deadly shelling of a South Korean island.

I do wish someone would tell that fat dictator and his Chinese  owners to shove it. South Korea should be armed to the teeth and prepared to retaliate if need be.



Related: Korean cardinal blames North Korean leaders for misery.



(Sidebar: you've got the Church mad!)




China is a lying sack of sorghum (that's right- sorghum!):

A Chinese envoy on Thursday rejected calls for Beijing to curb North Korea made by the foreign ministers of South Korea, the U.S. and Japan earlier this week after the North's artillery attack on Yeongpyeong Island. Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua said, "It's unreasonable for South Korea, the U.S. and Japan to ask China to use its influence over the North."...

"China does not interfere in internal affairs of other countries. That means we will say what needs to be said to our ally [North Korea] but will never interfere in its internal affairs," he added. 

Oh really?




If you think your job is tough:

The number of school classes being closed because attendance rates are below 70% and those members of the teaching profession quitting in order to find another means of supporting themselves is increasing in North Korea one year after the currency reform.

“We don’t get paid and there’s no guarantee we’ll get our redundancy money either so I quit teaching in 2004 after thirty years in the job,” said Lee Jong-hee, a teacher from Chongjin. “The teaching industry was hit really hard from 94 to 98 and now after the currency reform it’s got tough again,” she said.

A lack of teachers and students is the biggest issue according to Lee. Teachers are going so far as to ask students merely to turn up to the first class of the day so that they can register them as present in an effort to boost attendance rates.

Some teachers are getting together ten or so students whose personal circumstances are comparatively good for private lessons in the afternoons as they struggle to make a living. “Being a teacher has come to be about focusing on the better off students in order to survive,” she reported.

“Parents aren’t even registering their kids in school from first grade,” Lee added. Parents are supposed to enroll their children in school from the age of seven. It is not just that their circumstances don’t allow them to register them but that they are losing sight of the importance of education. “It’s called free education but there’s school uniform to buy and we have to fill the school bag with books. The government is not putting in a single textbook. We’ve got to use all our own money,” she added.

A bit of sad news:

A 23-year old, poverty-stricken young woman who appeared in newspapers and on TV around the world when she was filmed by a cameraman inside North Korea died of starvation in October, it has been revealed.

The woman, who appeared in a KBS special program, “North Korea’s Third Generation Succession: Who Is Kim Jong Eun?” alongside global media including the BBC(UK) and Asahi TV(Japan) amply demonstrated the dire straits in which some North Korean people live. Reduced to rags following the death of both her parents, she said she wandered the fields looking for grasses.

Speaking with the cameraman, who asked what she planned to do with the grass, the girl, who admitted that she also slept outside, said, “I’m going to eat it.”

Speaking with The Daily NK today, Asia Press said, “According to Kim Dong Cheol, who interviewed the girl in South Pyongan Province while he was doing some research inside North Korea in June, she died on or around October 20th.”

“It was discovered that, without a home, she had been wandering in the market and on the streets, before dying in a corn field,” the Asia Press spokesperson explained, “Since then was harvest time, she went there to eat corn but seems to have died of starvation.”

I, for one, shall never miss the morally corrupt Kim dynasty and its fat dictators.  (hat tip: OFK)



***



Reading to your premature children is beneficial:

It appears that reading to your children cannot start too early in life, even if the children are the smallest, most vulnerable of newborns.

A new study from the McGill University Health Centre found that parents who read picture books to premature babies in the neo-natal intensive-care unit felt a closer bond to their offspring in that challenging environment, and were twice as likely to continue reading to the infants after they got home.

The study published in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics looked at 59 parents who were part of a new project to read to children in the NICU. Parents of such babies often have difficulty bonding with newborns who are surrounded by high-tech machinery, sometimes for weeks on end. Just under 70% of parents reported that the reading helped them feel closer to their children, and 56% of them said they read three or more times to the  babies after leaving hospital – twice the rate in a control group that did not read in the NICU.

 

Ouch:

David Suzuki has a piece in the Toronto Star about the climate change talks in Cancun.

Here’s the link but you can guess what he has to say: The Conservatives don’t care about global warming; the government’s in bed with the oil industry; Canada is a laughingstock around the world; green jobs are the future of the economy …

It’s all familiar stuff and it would be silly to expect anything different from Mr. Suzuki. But if he’s hoping to get his message to anyone beyond the core of true believers who already take his word as holy scripture, he should probably update some of his arguments.


For instance:

1. The government cares more about the oil industry than about climate change. 

When are folks like Mr. Suzuki and the climate industry going to learn that shutting down industries and costing tens of thousands of people their jobs is not viewed by most people as desirable, even in pursuit of a noble goal? Poll most Canadians and the majority will agree that reducing greenhouse gases is a good thing. Ask them if they’d trade their livelihood for it, and their opinion changes. If the Suzuki-ites want to get any traction they have to get realistic: working with the oil industry to dramatically reduce emissions is reasonable and achievable. Suggesting people risk their homes and incomes for it is not.

What's all this talk about common sense and reason? That's a bunch of tree-hugging hippy crap!

Why things should not receive public funding:

A national organization representing Ukrainian-Canadians wants the federal government to step in and switch some of the people deciding the content, layout and governance of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. 

In a report issued Saturday, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress says the museum's board and committees are "dominated by friends and supporters of the Asper Foundation" and lack objectivity. 

The Winnipeg-based congress posted its report after reading in the Winnipeg Free Press about the museum's final content advisory committee report. The committee calls for only two permanent galleries in the museum: one for the Holocaust and the other for Canada's indigenous people. 

The Congress wrote to several Cabinet ministers to complain that the genocide-famine in Soviet Ukraine and the national internment of Canadians during the First and Second World wars aren't getting permanent exhibits.

Who decides what is an exhibit or not? How is such a decision made? Why does this come at a cost of $160 million?

Russia's our friend now!

The Russian Armed Forces will receive more than 1,300 types of weaponry in line with a draft arms procurement program that runs until 2020, Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister, said Monday. "We will need to set up new or expand the existing production lines to manufacture 220 of the new types of weaponry," he told a meeting on the program, which is expected to be adopted by the yearend, RIA Novisti reported. More than $645-billion will be earmarked for weapons procurement, three times more than in the existing program. Up to 11% of military equipment will be upgraded every year, increasing its modern weaponry to 70% of its armaments by 2020.

Russia, the backer of Iran and North Korea, and signatory of the nuclear arms reduction pact. That Russia.

Somebody made Russia the venue for the World Cup:

A massive race-tinged riot outside the Kremlin walls has exposed the problems Russia faces as it prepares to present a modern new face to the world at the 2018 World Cup. 

President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday's clash between the police and some 5,000 ultranationalists and football hooligans threatened the stability of the entire state...

Some analysts tie the initial rise of xenophobia to the first presidency of Vladimir Putin and his vows to wipe out the Islamist guerrillas in their "outhouse".

No. Russia has often had a problem with xenophobia.

Whatever you do, do not blame oneself or Islamofascism; only Great Britain: 

The family of the Stockholm suicide bomber blamed Britain Monday night for his transformation from an "ordinary teenager" to an al-Qaeda fanatic. 

Taimur Abdulwahab al-Abdaly showed little interest in religion as he was growing up in Sweden, instead channelling his energies into sports and parties. But after he began attending Bedfordshire University in Luton "everything changed," as he became a strict Muslim with increasingly extremist views. 

On Saturday, he blew himself up in a street full of Christmas shoppers in Sweden's first suicide attack, after recording a message that promised to kill "your children, daughters, brothers and sisters," partly in revenge for the country's supporting role in the war in Afghanistan. 

Abdulwahab's radicalization during his time in Luton once again raised questions over whether British universities are doing enough to stamp out the recruiting of extremists on campus.

Great Britain, like Sweden, reached out to the Muslim community after the July seventh attacks because- as everyone knows- they brought the attacks on themselves. You can't keep eating pork and drinking alcohol forever.

This is another case of "woe-is-me" victmisation. It's all too common. I don't think many Europeans or their governments have the fortitude to deal with this kind of violence. That, however, is only part of the problem. The real problem is individuals who choose to be emotionally-backward and kill others.

When is two too many? Never according to these letter-writers:

I am the father of twin 12-year-old girls. They are at an age where curiosity about family history is peaking, and they often ask laser-guided questions about ethical matters. I wonder how this mother will respond when she is faced -- in a few short years -- with having to disclose and explain to the surviving twin the history she feels so comfortable with today. 

I am the grandmother of fraternal twins. It wasn't easy for my daughter-in-law to become pregnant, or carry "two" for many weeks. The birth was early and difficult. The boys' early years were demanding, and now and my son and his wife are facing the prospect of putting two children through college at the same time.
Not for a minute can I imagine the world without my grandsons. The rewards gained from watching these two individuals grow and thrive are incalculable. To have lost one of the boys to reduction would have been a tragedy too overwhelming to contemplate. 

Would you rather have a twin or a mother who killed your twin? Before you answer, consider that she only "wanted to give you the things you need to become the best adult you can become ... given the cost of raising children today."
Indeed the commodification of children is living proof of the superior wisdom of the Church's teaching against in-vitro fertilization. 

The Burlington, Ont., woman featured in this article says, "I'm absolutely sure I did the right thing." Really? As a former fetus, and now a father, I find her certainty on this lifestyle decision troubling.
Perhaps in 40 years, when she and her husband are bedridden and need nursing care, the twin will decide which one gets it and which doesn't -- so that the aging parent doesn't interfere with the surviving twin's busy lifestyle and career. 





 

When is a university "too Asian"? When Canadians of Asian descent flock there or when universities lure foreign students in order to get the sweet cash they bring? You decide.

Technically, he is correct. Just saying.

Hug your monkeys today.

Beware the Mad Catter.