Halloween Week: The Cutening

 

Don't forget this guy!

Happy Halloween!

Saturday Night Febrile Episode

Yemeni woman arrested over bomb plots:

Yemeni forces Saturday arrested a woman suspected of sending mail bombs on two US-bound flights in an alleged Al-Qaeda plot that Britain said was aimed at blowing up at least one of the planes.



The arrest came a day after two packages containing explosives and addressed to Jewish places of worship in Chicago were intercepted on cargo aircraft in Dubai and Britain, triggering a massive international security alert.

"Yemeni security forces arrested a woman suspected of sending two parcel bombs," after the house on the outskirts of the capital Sanaa where she was staying was surrounded, Yemen's defence ministry said.

The woman was arrested along with her mother after her mobile phone number was found on the receipt for the parcel bombs, a security official told AFP.

She is a medical student at Sanaa university and her father is a petroleum engineer, the official added.

I await the usual "impoverished mass tangentally related to an otherwise peaceful religion" meme.


Thousands attend Mass honouring Saint Andre Besette:

Mike Budge of Ottawa arrived in Montreal after organizing 10 buses — about 560 people in all — from dioceses in eastern Ontario and western Quebec.

"Most of the pilgrims said they couldn't sleep because they were so excited," Budge said in an interview. "I couldn't sleep." ...


Jean-Claude Cardinal Turcotte, the archbishop of Montreal, read the homily and said he was celebrating the "Olympic medal of canonization."

"Saint Brother Andre, an impressive gathering from every origin has come to praise God as you join the company of the blessed and of the saints," Turcotte told the gathering.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper finds himself under attack for allegedly inflating the death toll of the Holodmor:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is being accused of exaggerating this week the extent of the 1932-33 famine that was declared a genocide by Canada’s Parliament two years ago.

Mr. Harper indicated on both days of his first-ever journey to Ukraine that “almost” 10 million people died in what is known as the Holodomor — or “death by starvation.”

Critics, while stressing that the death toll of the famine caused by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s policies is massive and remains one of history’s great crimes against humanity, said the true figure is roughly a third of Harper’s.

“I find it regrettable that Stephen Harper and other leading Western politicians are continuing to use such exaggerated figures for Ukrainian famine mortality,” University of Melbourne historian and demographer Stephen Wheatcroft told Postmedia News in an email.

“There is absolutely no basis for accepting a figure of 10 million Ukrainians dying as a result of the famine of 1932-33. No reputable demographer accepts this,” stated Mr. Wheatcroft, who puts the figure at around 3.5 million.

Harper spokesman Dimitri Soudas said Friday “nobody” can be sure how many died.
“To minimize this act of genocide by claiming exaggeration is quite sad because there are a number of published estimates,” Soudas wrote in an email.

Mr. Harper made two references to the famine while in Ukraine.

“Some 10 million people, up to 10 million people, and we’ll never know the numbers for sure, (were) killed, and killed through the deliberate plans of their own government,” he said at the joint news conference in the capital city of Kyiv while sitting next to President Viktor Yanukovych.

Starvation weakens the body leaving it vulnerable to any number of diseases. Factoring in diseases like typhus, typhoid fever and smallpox, it is not unreasonable to suggest a number like ten million or under. One must also consider the decrease of births and migrations, making the number three to four million also a valid estimate. Why historians chose to make an issue out of this in particular is intriguing to say the least. 

David Chen walks away a free man:

 

Freed from the clutches of the criminal justice system, David Chen has returned to his Lucky Moose market a little wiser and a lot more careful about how he deals with shoplifters, a constant scourge in Toronto’s Chinatown.

Less clear is what Toronto police will take away from the Chen case, which ended in acquittal for the shopkeeper and two employees, Qing Li and Jie Chen. The three men were cleared of assaulting and forcibly confining Anthony Bennett, a 52-year-old drug addict with a long record for petty crime. They chased, bound and detained Mr. Bennett in a van after he stole plants from the Lucky Moose in May of 2009.

Citing “reasonable doubt” about the events of that day, Mr. Justice Ramez Khawly told a packed courtroom he was forced to acquit the men, despite grave concerns about their actions and credibility.

But in his long, colourful judgment, Judge Khawly also highlighted a claim made at trial that he said was overshadowed by the more compelling narrative of Mr. Chen as humble-merchant-turned-crime-fighter: that police ignore minor crime in Chinatown, leading some to take the law into their own hands.

“Is Chen’s community sending a message of vulnerability in the face of perceived police inaction?” the judge asked. “However unfair or unfounded, is that not really what stoked the embers of this case?”

Citing the “broken windows” theory, by which communities lose faith in the rule of law when minor crime goes unpunished, the judge suggested Mr. Chen “tried to fill the void where the justice system failed,” and asked, “could Chen, after all, not be the canary in the coal mine?”

This verdict is an absolute miracle given how the system was stacked against Mr. Chen. Not only was Mr. Chen's store, the Lucky Moose Market, still a target for shoplifters, the witness against Mr. Chen, Anthony Bennett, was a incorrigible thief and liar. The police never charged him; they made him a deal if he would testify against the men who stopped him from robbing the store.


It baffles me to no end. Do the police secretly want people to take matters into their own hands or is this just as it appears to be- the police and the legal system are willfully impotent? It is as though people enjoy shooting themselves in the foot. Don't arrest the thief, get him to testify against a frustrated contributing member of society. Discourage vigilantism by doing absolutely nothing when criminals repeatedly rob and assault citizens whose tether for such vile treatment is increasingly getting shorter. The legal system is clearly missing a brain stem and the capacity for empathy.




Possible outcomes of releasing admitted murderer Omar Khadr:

Omar Khadr could be out from behind bars in as soon as 26 months under the terms of a plea agreement reached between his lawyers and the governments of the United States and Canada.

Earlier this week, Khadr, a Canadian citizen and Guantanamo detainee, pled guilty to a series of war crimes, including the murder of a U.S. Special Forces medic in Afghanistan, as part of a plea deal in which he will serve one year in Guantanamo and seven more in Canada.

However, due to the relatively lenient parole requirements in Canada, Khadr could be eligible for full parole in just 32 months, far before the end of his eight year sentence. According to the National Parole Board of Canada, Khadr could qualify for day parole, or be released to a halfway house, just 26 months from now.

Omar Khadr has been involved in killing and maiming American and Canadian forces since he was fifteen. He admits that his happiest moment was killing an American. His performance apology to Mrs. Tabitha Speer, his reading material, even his crying fits are stuff of pure melodrama. For all of this, he could be released. Who would release someone who affirmed that killing someone made him feel happy? 

 

 

 

Other travesties of justice.

 

 

I watched Christie Blatchford's interview yesterday. Even now, it makes me utterly furious that the government of Ontario could steadfastly refuse to protect the very citizens it robs. Yes, robs. If tax dollars go to the very thugs who threaten, beat, burn, vandalise and terrorise, then why pay them? Why do we owe allegience to a government whose policy for dealing with such criminals entails watching as they burn and destroy property and beat innocent people? What needs to be done before someone does what they are paid to do?

 

This is why it is important to repeatedly bring this up. Remind the cowards at election time. Either they can stop flirting with a populace whose idea of "social justice" is torching a bridge while putting a hand out for money or they can defend the rights of all citizens.

 

 

I suppose that is too much to ask.

I've Got Mail!

By gar, it's been a while!


This relates to the sedate entry for Thursday.


Unedited for your reading enjoyment:

No, I do not mind if you call me Yahoo, however if you are going to use "Yahoo" as a proper name, you will need to capitalize the "Y" to make it grammatically correct. Yes, I must know, however; you saying so, does not make it so. I would hope faithful readers would comment, sadly they do not. Just keep writing darling, I'm sure some dipshit out there enjoys your spewed filth. 

Well, anonymous, you've had your five minutes of attention and that's all you're going to get. I have other things to do. Play somewhere else.


Do keep a civil tongue when speaking about my readers.

Halloween Week: the Stuffening

Damn you, writer's cramp!

Things about Halloween you might not know:


-originally considered the Celtic new year, Samhain, Hallow's Eve or Halloween is All Soul's Eve. The next day is All Saints' Day instituted by Pope Urban IV to commemorate all saints.


- Celts wore masks to "blend in" with the spirits they believed walked the earth at this time.


- trick or treating comes from the custom of begging for soul cakes. Someone would offer the beggar a cake in exchange for prayers for one's soul. A recipe for Soul Cakes.


- saints whose feast day is Halloween: Saints Quentin, Foillan and Wolfgang


And for something completely revolting.

Halloween Week: Spooky

 

 

I HAVE walked a great while over the snow,
And I am not tall nor strong.
My clothes are wet, and my teeth are set,
And the way was hard and long.
I have wandered over the fruitful earth,
But I never came here before.
Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!

The cutting wind is a cruel foe.
I dare not stand in the blast.
My hands are stone, and my voice a groan,
And the worst of death is past.
I am but a little maiden still,
My little white feet are sore.
Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!

Her voice was the voice that women have,
Who plead for their heart's desire.
She came--she came--and the quivering flame
Sunk and died in the fire.
It never was lit again on my hearth
Since I hurried across the floor,
To lift her over the threshold, and let her in at the door. 

 

 

("The Witch" by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge)

Halloween Week: The Frosting

Many people will try to convince you that vampires and monsters exist.


But the reality is that there are real monsters in our midst...


...and they have orange icing!

OH God! It's coming toward us!

Tuesday Post

Ford is in!



What did Smitherman and all the other liberal elite think the overburdened citizens of Toronto were going to put up with? More taxes, waste and sloth? I bet they are now in a foul mood over Hog Town's outright refusal of socialist waste and rhetoric.



Also worth reading:

This year, Toronto officially became a "minority majority" city. 

Last night, Rob Ford was elected mayor of Toronto.
 
The fundraisers I attended for Rob Ford were among the more "multicultural" events I've ever been to in my 20+ years in this "multicultural" city. 

But the local media is trying to spin the Rob Ford victory as the last gasp of the Angry White Male. 

And there were lots of Angry White Males all over Twitter last night, believe me. 

They'd all voted for George Smitherman -- an urbane, left-leaning failure at every (government) job he's ever had. 

Smitherman also has a "husband" and a son. 

Someone decided to make an issue of that on the last day of the campaign. 

Smitherman supporters were outraged at these displays of blatant homophobia, and tried desperately to ignore the fact that the ads and flyers (regardless of their dubious origins) were addressed -- not to Angry White Males, but to Muslims and Tamils. 

Who don't approve of "gay marriage" anymore than Angry White Males do. 

The other "funny" meme, the one that was really popular in the hours leading up to the vote tally? 

"Gravy train." It was Rob Ford's catchphrase. He vows to cut off the gravy train that saw, among other things, a retiring counsellor throwing himself a 5-figure farewell party during a recession. With taxpayer money. 

And:

North of the border, a fat white right-winger beat a gay liberal to get elected Mayor of Toronto and the media have fallen back on how his landslide is the last gasp of old, vengeful, angry white males...

In the very year that Toronto became a "majority minority" society, a liberal homosexual (and married gay parent) goes down to a far greater defeat than any of the Trudeaupian establishment predicted. Well, who do you think voted against him, geniuses? A few months after 9/11, I was strolling along the Boulevard de Maisonneuve in Montréal. Across the street there was an "adult" shop with its window full of very explicit gay sex paraphernalia. Struggling past it, laden with shopping bags, was a Muslim woman covered from head to toe. It's not hard to figure where we're going: In ten years' time, the Muslim woman will still be here, along with many others. The gay sex shop will be gone.

I guess those ballot sheets in twenty-four languages and extensive trolling for votes reaching out to minorities did absolutely nothing for the upper middle-class white liberals and their "ideals".



(sigh)



Omar Khadr is a sociopath:

In the midst of a deadly firefight in Afghanistan in 2002, a 15-year-old Omar Khadr — believing his death was at hand — wanted to kill as many Americans as he could, jurors heard Tuesday as they prepared to pass sentence on the Canadian-born man newly convicted as a war criminal.


A jury comprising seven U.S. military officers listened intently as U.S. prosecutor Jeff Groharing read into the record the 50-paragraph agreed statement of facts containing a detailed description of the crimes to which Khadr pleaded guilty the day before.

The statement described how Khadr, with U.S. soldiers on his doorstep in Afghanistan, tossed the Russian-made F1 grenade from behind a wall, dealing a mortal head wound to Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer, who succumbed to his injuries 12 days later.

"Khadr threw the grenade with the specific intent of killing or injuring as many Americans as he could," Groharing said....

In the statement, Khadr — who pleaded guilty to five war-crimes charges, including Speer's murder — admitted to being "happy" at the news that he had killed an American soldier, and would take comfort in it while in custody at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul.

"Khadr indicated that when he would get 'pissed off' with the guards at Bagram, he would recall his killing of the U.S. soldier and it would make him feel good."

Khadr has also admitted to receiving terrorist training throughout his late childhood and early teens during travels with his father, an associate of Osama bin Laden, in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"Khadr considered himself to be an active member of al-Qaida and he shared the same goals as the organization, which are to target and kill all Americans — whether civilian or military — anywhere they can be found, and to 'plunder their money,'" the statement read.

Let me stress how much I do not want this mongrel back in the country. How can anyone reading that article not understand how monstrous he truly is. He is not a "victim" or a "child-soldier". He knew full-well what he was doing and was happy to do it. This is not someone who should return to this country.


Because he is Ezra Levant:

It’s all true. Omar Khadr admits to being a murderer, a terrorist, a spy and an al-Qaida member.

Monday, he confessed this to a U.S. war crimes court, also confessing he was motivated to kill Americans and Jews.

Khadr murdered U.S. army medic Christopher Speer. Speer’s widow, Tabitha, sat in court Monday weeping, comforted by her sister.

Her name almost never appears in the love letters to Khadr published in Canada as “news reports.”

Khadr tried to kill Sgt. Layne Morris, too. He was blinded in one eye. Morris was also in court. I bet you haven’t heard his name before. I bet you won’t read it again.

Because Tabitha Speer and Layne Morris interfere with the mainstream media’s project of turning Khadr into a Muslim saint.

Is someone planning on making a movie about Mrs. Tabitha Speer? I would rather hear how she dealt with the loss of her beloved husband than about the sociopath who killed him.



I think the French are getting tired:

Oil refinery strikes in protest against French President Nicolas Sarkozy's unpopular pension reform eased on Tuesday, with walkouts ending at several plants and unions sounding more open to talks with employers.


In another sign that long-running public protests against a two-year rise in the retirement age are losing steam, only a few hundred students showed up for street marches in Paris and other cities, the number reduced by half-term autumn holidays....

Prime Minister Francois Fillon said strikers should now back down as the protest movement "no longer has any meaning."

Economy Minister Christine Lagarde, who has estimated the cost of the refinery strikes at 200-400 million euros a day in lost production, said that should not knock France's 2010 growth off course. She also praised the CFDT's gesture to MEDEF.

"I salute the return to reason and to dialogue," Lagarde told Radio Classique. "To put talks on the table, to discuss youth employment, senior citizen employment and examine the underlying problems that are worrying young and old people, that's really a turning point and I think it's a good thing."

Energy Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said supply was back to normal at around 80 percent of the country's petrol stations.

The UFIP oil lobby said France had imported 100,000 tons of fuel products a day over the past week, up from 25,000 tons a day in normal times.

In the southern city of Marseille, garbage collectors went back to work after a two-week strike and began clearing some 10,000 tons of maggot-infested refuse piled in the streets.

A surge of families leaving town for half-term school holidays put extra pressure on petrol pumps at the weekend, fraying people's patience with the fuel shortages.

An Ifop opinion poll on Tuesday showed that 59 percent of those surveyed were opposed to fuel depot blockades.

 And now, Edith Piaf:




And now for something completely different...



ooo

Monday Post

Omar Khadr pleaded guilty to all five charges, including the murder of an American medic:

Canadian Omar Khadr pleaded guilty on Monday to all five charges against him in the U.S. war crimes tribunal at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in a deal that could send him back to Canada to serve the rest of his sentence in a year.

Khadr, who was captured in Afghanistan at age 15 and is now 24, admitted he conspired with al-Qaeda and killed a U.S. soldier with a grenade in Afghanistan.

Terms of the Toronto native’s plea deal were not immediately disclosed, but lawyers had reportedly discussed an eight-year cap on his total sentence.

The United States agreed to support Khadr’s request to return to Canada in one year to serve the rest of his sentence there, Khadr’s lawyers told the court.

They said U.S. and Canadian officials had exchanged diplomatic notes, but that his return would ultimately be up to the Canadian government.

Vancouver lawyer John Conroy, who specializes in offender transfers, said that Khadr cannot officially apply for a transfer to Canada until after he is sentenced. The federal government then would have to show that Khadr is a “threat to the security of Canada” to deny him a transfer to a Canadian prison once it has been approved by the United States..... 
 

Khadr admitted he threw the grenade that killed U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer during a firefight at an al-Qaeda compound near the Afghan city of Khost in 2002.

He also acknowledged the court’s jurisdiction to try him, admitted he conspired with al-Qaeda to carry out terrorist attacks, and acknowledged making and planting roadside bombs targeting U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

I do not want Khadr back in this country. Personally, I find the sentence too lenient for one such as Khadr. If he is ever let loose in Canada, I believe he would be a threat to the security of this country. We've seen his sociopathic behaviour, his lying, his manipulation and, sadly, his wilful acts of terrorism. He should be lumped in with Olson, Bernardo and Williams as incorrigible murderers unfit to be released into society.

Related: Toronto 18 ringleader gets sixteen years in prison:

The ringleader of the Toronto 18 terrorist group was sentenced Monday to 16 years in prison for masterminding plans to storm Parliament and to detonate powerful bombs in and around Toronto.

Fahim Ahmad, wearing a lime green polo T-shirt and thin-framed glasses, had no reaction when Superior Court Justice Fletcher Dawson announced the decision in a courtroom filled with his family and reporters. A woman sitting in a second room cried after the ruling was brought down.

Ahmad, 26, will be required to serve a total of eight years and three months of his sentence after being granted credit for time already served. He will be eligible to apply for parole in a little more than 3 1/2 years.

The Crown had asked the court for an 18-year prison term, citing mitigating factors, such as his youth and apparent remorse. Defence lawyer Dennis Edney painted Ahmad as a self-aggrandizing talker who lacked both the means and the willpower to carry out any of his plans.

Jusitice Dawson said he decided on a 16-year sentence because he believes Ahmad has a chance for rehabilitation once he is released. “I sincerely hope you change your views and show me that I wasn’t wrong,” he said following sentencing....

Ahmad, who was 21 at the time of his arrest, also placed the blame on a host of external sources, from his parents, who he said were never home, to religious leaders he turned to for guidance, to anonymous people he met online.

Someone who can be rehabilitated does not blame others for his behaviour. The chance to really throw the book at terrorists has been missed.

What comes around goes around, so they say:

I read in a wonderful feature a few weeks, in the The Wall Street Journal, the Tea Party appears to be about “karma.” That is, there is no karma anymore and Tea Partiers want to live in a world where karma is action. If a company gets into trouble by making one lousy decision after another then tough when it goes under. The people, the government, should not be there with a bailout check. The government has taken away karma; there are no consequences for really bad behaviour.

That is what true freedom is about: you are free to do mainly as you please but do not start crying you are a victim the moment things go wrong. Pick yourself up and start all over again, as a free country allows you to do.

But why do Palin and Beck and the Tea Party members never say what is obvious: Americans were spending like drunken sailors for the past few decades, taking advantage of low interest rates and cheap imported goods from Asia. They continued to rack up debt on high-interest credit cards, took the equity out of their homes for loans, and refused to start saving for the future — a Biblical principle that a Christian nation should follow....

At some point in the next few months the Republican will take Congress. And it is possible that the Republican will walk into the White House in 2012. But even if that should happen, and even if the new government has the guts to follow through on plans to cuts taxes and practice real fiscal responsibility, life in America will still take years to change.

But what every American can change right now is to get their households in order. They should not expect the government to do it for them.

It wasn't capitalism that failed; it was materialism. There is a reason why greed is a deadly sin.

Someone is going to pay for this:

A rare rally demanding the removal of Vladimir Putin has been held in Moscow. Up to 500 protesters gathered on Pushkin Square to call for Mr Putin's resignation. "Our task is to free Russia from this awful regime," Garry Kasparov, a former world chess champion turned opposition leader, told the crowd. The protesters, who began an online petition to remove Mr. Putin, said they were targeting him because he was the key figure in a political system that worked "only in the interests of a small group of officials and oligarchs and had led the country to a dead end." Sporadic chants of "Down with Putin" rang out across the historic square. Rallies are rarely allowed in Russia and are often broken up by force. But the event passed off peacefully with riot police looking on.

No dictator like Putin would let this pass.

Because he is Mark Steyn:

And, without serious course correction, America is doomed. It starts with the money. For dominant powers, it always does – from the Roman Empire to the British Empire. “Declinism” is in the air these days, but for us full-time apocalyptics we’re already well past that stage. In the space of one generation, a nation of savers became the world’s largest debtors, and a nation of makers and doers became a cheap service economy. Everything that can be outsourced has been – manufacturing to by no means friendly nations overseas; and much of what’s left in agriculture and construction to the armies of the “undocumented”. At the lower end, Americans are educated at a higher cost per capita than any nation except Luxembourg in order to do minimal-skill checkout-line jobs about to be rendered obsolete by technology. At the upper end, America’s elite goes to school till early middle age in order to be credentialed for pseudo-employment as $350 grand-a-year diversity consultants (Michelle Obama) or in one of the many other phony-baloney makework schemes deriving from government micro-regulation of virtually every aspect of endeavor. 

So we’re not facing “decline”. We’re already in it. What comes next is the “fall” – sudden, devastating, off the cliff. That’s why this election is consequential – because the Obama-Pelosi-Reid spending spree made what was vague and distant explicit and immediate. A lot of the debate about America’s date with destiny has an airy-fairy beyond-the-blue-horizon mid-century quality, all to do with long-term trends and other remote indicators. In reality, we’ll be lucky to make it through the short-term in sufficient shape to get finished off by the long-term. According to CBO projections, by 2055 interest payments on the debt will exceed federal revenues. But I don’t think we’ll need to worry about a “Government of the United States” at that stage. By 1788, Louis XVI’s government in France was spending a mere 60 per cent of revenues on debt service, and we all know how that worked out for the House of Bourbon the following year.

That is why there is no more love for Obama (or, at least, one of the reasons). It's a reasonable assumption to make that a  man who campaigns on hype doesn't know or care how money is spent.

And now for something completely different:

A sleepy bear wandered into a yard in the village of Fallowfield on Sunday, snacked on some fallen birdseed and then curled up for a little nap.  

Free-loading bears!

Halloween Week: Killer Kats!

Behold the furry horror of cats playing patty-cake!


Look if you dare!

Halloween Week: the Beginning

 

 

By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named Night,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule—
From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of Space—out of Time.

Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the dews that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters—lone and dead,
Their still waters—still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.

By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead,—
Their sad waters, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily,—

By the mountains—near the river
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,—
By the gray woods,—by the swamp
Where the toad and the newt encamp,—
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls,—
By each spot the most unholy—
In each nook most melancholy,—

There the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the past—
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by—
White-robed forms of friends long given,
In agony, to the Earth—and Heaven.

For the heart whose woes are legion
'Tis a peaceful, soothing region—
For the spirit that walks in shadow
'Tis—oh, 'tis an Eldorado!
But the traveller, travelling through it,
May not—dare not openly view it;
Never its mysteries are exposed
To the weak human eye unclosed;
So wills its King, who hath forbid
The uplifting of the fringed lid;
And thus the sad Soul that here passes
Beholds it but through darkened glasses.

By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only.
Where an Eidolon, named Night,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.

("Dreamland" -  Edgar Allan Poe)

Thursday Overshadows Friday

...but only temporarily.


I just finished watching  The Michael Coren Show". To quickly recap, he interviewed six pro-life students not on their views on pro-life topics but freedom of speech. Each student had either been arrested, threatened with expulsion or shouted down by handfuls of dreadfully insecure (and terribly dressed) pro-abortionists (I wouldn't call them activists because that would elevate them to the level of active or engaging which they clearly were not). These pro-life students represent all strata of Canadian academia. Despite the rumours flitting about that the pro-life movement is dying or "there is no debate", these youthful numbers represent growing populations of bright individuals who clearly want to talk about this issue. Whatever one may feel about abortion (or not), one can least agree that an echo chamber does not represent discussion but insecurity and a loathing of free expression. By banning these student pro-life groups, pro-abortionists have given them an enormous platform that covers not only pro-life issues but free expression, freedom of congress, the use of public and private funds and who exactly helms the interests of university students. By shutting down these pro-life students, student unions have opened themselves to legitimate charges of censorship and abuse of funds and popular opinion. I wouldn't ask some jackanapes screeching out "Old MacDonald" to represent me or take my money. The student unions can either pay the same courtesy they give to Jew-Hating Week Israel Apartheid Week or re-fund starving students (not the ones whose daddies pay for their beer; the real ones).


Speaking of misadventures in academia:

A former University of Colorado professor who compared some Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi is asking the Colorado Court of Appeals to give him his job back after a jury ruled last year his firing was politically motivated.


Ward Churchill says the Board of Regents violated his civil rights when it convened a judicial process to dismiss him after board members said they wanted Churchill fired.

Churchill wrote an essay after the 2001 terrorist attacks calling the World Trade Center victims "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi leader who orchestrated the Holocaust.

The university fired Churchill in 2007 on the plagiarism charges and other research misconduct allegations. None of the allegations were about the Sept. 11 essay.

This brain-trust not only had the audacity to insult terrorism victims but now he expects the university to forgive his flagrant cheating. Priceless. When you don't have enough grace to know you've done something wrong, do you at least have enough synapses to recognise what creek you've meandered up?


We owe Japan an apology:

China tried to block a U.N. report alleging that Chinese ammunition was sent to Darfur in violation of a U.N. arms embargo but apparently didn't succeed, U.N. diplomats said Wednesday.

The Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against Sudan met Wednesday afternoon and two diplomats familiar with the closed-door deliberations said China argued that the report by the committee's panel of experts should not be sent to the council. One diplomat said China claimed the panel was unprofessional and flawed, and challenged its methodology.

The diplomats said the committee chairman, Austria's U.N. Ambassador Thomas Mayr-Harting, agreed that the annex to the report would be updated with a letter to include additional information on sources. But they said the report itself would not be changed, and will likely be formally sent to the 15-member council next week.

During Wednesday's meeting, the diplomats said China got no support from the other committee members, who include representatives from all 15 council nations.

According to the diplomats, the draft report said Chinese shell casings were found after attacks against the joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur with markings showing the ammunition was manufactured after 2009, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the report has not been published.

China- which has a permanent seat on the UN security council.  China- which forces women to have abortions and commits acts of female infanticide. China- which returns North Korean refugees to North Korea. China- which detained Japanese citizens over islands that aren't theirs.


Related: the Chinese octopus.


Khadr is a sociopath. Who knew?

There is no evidence that Omar Khadr has ever publicly repudiated al-Qaeda or renounced Jihad, an internationally acclaimed psychiatrist said ahead of testifying about his examination of the Canadian-born terror suspect. 

In an exclusive interview, Dr. Michael Welner, whose pioneering efforts to quantify evil led him to develop a Depravity Scale, says that Mr. Khadr is known to have expressed peace-loving intentions only to "those advancing his public image" from behind the razor wire at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. 

Dr. Welner also discounts much-cited comments by some U.S. guards at Guantanamo that the Toronto native is a "good kid" and "salvageable" -- calling them "shallow in their prognostic significance." 

"When one leaps to the conclusion about Omar Khadr's future because he is friendly, one might recall that Osama bin Laden has always been described as gentle, likeable and charming," New York-based Dr. Welner told Postmedia News. 

"There is no record of [Khadr's] publicly repudiating al-Qaeda, as civilized.

 

This is the same "poor, little victim" who blithely walked around with severed hands.

 

Remember this when someone takes your nail-clippers, shampoo or shoes at the airport:

 

A small airliner crashed into a house, killing a British pilot and 19 others after a crocodile smuggled into the aircraft in a sports bag escaped and started a panic.

 

 

And now for something completely different.

Mid-Week Post

Canada's lax border?

So Canada is “annoyed” with Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle because she pointed out that our northern neighbor’s lax immigration policies endanger America? Touchy, touchy...

Canadians are a very self-conscious people. Guilty as charged. But to be fair, the tighter security taken at the border has only hampered travelers with legitimate business and cast a dragnet for criminals, minor and major. So one has stopped a major money-laundering scam or an illegal immigrant or- shockingly!- a tourist. What happens when a terror suspect approaches the border? Political correctness kicks in. No one wants to profile and no one wants a high-powered lawyer screaming "hate crime".  I agree there should be better measures to protect the border but all efforts made will be in vain if the hammy hand of political correctness clamps down.


And yet there are some very good points:

Angle didn’t say “9/11 hijackers,” unlike DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, who falsely asserted that the 9/11 jihadis crossed the northern border to enter the country. Angle was likely referring to the well-known case of Ahmed Ressam, the would-be LAX millenium bomber, who was stopped by vigilant US Customs Inspector Diana Dean at the US-Canada border in Washington state. There are more.

Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer, a Palestinian bomb-builder, entered the U.S. illegally through Canada in 1996 and 1997. He claimed political asylum based on alleged persecution by Israelis, was released on a reduced $5,000 bond posted by a man who was himself an illegal alien, and then skipped his asylum hearing after calling his attorney and lying about his whereabouts. In June 1997, after his lawyer withdrew Mezer’s asylum claim, a federal immigration judge ordered Mezer to leave the country on a “voluntary departure order.” Mezer ignored the useless piece of paper. He joined a New York City bombing plot before being arrested in July 1997 after a roommate tipped off local police. 

Janet Napolitano may be a moron but she is YOUR moron. YOU deal with her.


And remember- YOU let these guys in. Fool me once, ect.


We fouled the ball on Ressam. Sorry.


And yet, a gunman of a non-descript background opened fire on fourteen people on a military base.


I'm saying we both have problems but you can't use Canada as a whipping boy every time there is an election. Your own president can't suck up to Iran enough. Worry about that.

Great. Now where are we going to get our…. What exactly do we get from Canada?

You get oil (among other things) from us. Or do like Saudi oil better?



Why Americans need to study their own history:

Seeking to channel the sign-bearing, flag-waving enthusiasm of the “tea party” movement into ballot-box victories, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told hundreds of supporters Monday they couldn’t “party like it’s 1773″ until Washington was flooded with like-minded conservatives.
“I can see November from my house!” said Palin in a self-deprecating call to action that had been reprinted on buttons.

Prominent liberals like Markos Moulitsas and others hilariously jumped all over what they believed to be a “Palin gaffe” – thinking perhaps she meant 1776.

Er, wrong.

Guess what happened in 1773, lefties? The Boston Tea Party, which anyone with a high school education could easily figure out – even without watching the video that included the context of her remarks.

Remember when everyone thought Sarah Palin wasn't very clever because she is conservative and has kids? Apparently, being on one side of the political spectrum and having children doesn't make you forget the year in which the Boston Tea Party, a pivotal moment in American history, took place.


Leftists aren't smart.

D'oh!

We owe Japan an apology:

We would like to set the record straight concerning some information contained within a map that accompanied Mr. Goodspeed's article. 

Through thorough surveys, dating back to 1885, it was confirmed that the Senkaku Islands had been uninhabited and showed no trace of having been under the control of China. Based on this, the government of Japan made a cabinet decision on Jan. 14, 1895 to erect a marker on the islands to formally incorporate them into the territory of Japan. 

Since then, the Senkaku Islands have continuously remained as an integral part of the Nansei Shoto Islands, and Japanese territory. These islands were neither part of Taiwan nor part of the Pescadores Islands which were ceded to Japan from the Qing Dynasty of China in accordance with Article II of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which came into effect in May of 1895. 

Accordingly, the Senkaku Islands are not included in the territory which Japan renounced under Article II of the San Francisco Peace Treaty. The Senkaku Islands have been placed under the administration of the United States of America as part of the Nansei Shoto Islands, in accordance with Article III of the said treaty, and are included in the area, the administrative rights over which were reverted to Japan in accordance with the Agreement Between Japan and the United States of America Concerning the Ryukyu Islands and the Daito Islands signed on June 17, 1971. The facts outlined herein clearly indicate the Senkaku Islands are Japanese territory. 

The fact that China expressed no objection to the status of the islands being under the administration of the United States under Article III of the San Francisco Peace Treaty clearly indicates that China did not consider the Senkaku Islands as part of Taiwan. It was not until the latter half of 1970, thanks to petroleum resources on the continental shelf of the East China Sea, that the government of China and Taiwan authorities began to raise questions regarding the Senkaku Islands. 

Furthermore, none of the points raised by the Government of China as "historic, geographic or geological" evidence provide valid grounds, in light of international law, to support China's arguments regarding the Senkaku Islands.

After German President Angela Merkel declares that "multikulti" is a complete failure, the town of Hamburg capitulates without the help of the Red Army:

Hamburg may soon become the first German state officially to recognize Islam as a religious community and give Muslims the same legal rights as Christians and Jews in dealing with the local administration.

Four years of quiet negotiations about building mosques, opening Muslim cemeteries and teaching Islam in public schools are nearing an end just when Germany is embroiled in a noisy debate about Islam and the integration of Muslim immigrants.

Schools (public or sectarian) in Germany are publicly funded (education is primarily the responsibility of the state). Home-schooling is not permitted. There is the separation of church and state in Germany. In 1995, crosses were banned on public schools. In 2000, Islam was an optional subject in schools. Religious schools are subsidised but are more effective than public schools and require students- believers or not- to adhere to the set program. If Germany got out of the nanny-statist game and put the impetus on parents to choose (and fund) their own schools  AND require immigrants to acclimatise to German values, laws and customs, there would be no need for this state-funded debacle. Germany hasn't opened its doors; it's caved in.


A man attempts to kill his pregnant girlfriend:

A man accused of pointing a handgun at his pregnant girlfriend and forcing her to drive to an abortion clinic has been charged with attempted murder under an Ohio law prohibiting the unlawful termination of a pregnancy, a prosecutor said Wednesday.


Dominic L. Holt-Reid was arrested Oct. 6 as he waited for his girlfriend in the clinic's parking lot.

He pleaded not guilty in court Wednesday. A public defender was appointed for the 27-year-old Holt-Reid, who was briefly represented at Wednesday's hearing by an on-duty public defence attorney who could not comment

Columbus police initially charged him with kidnapping and carrying a concealed weapon. A six-count Franklin County grand jury indictment returned Friday added other kidnapping and weapons counts, along with the attempted murder charge.

County prosecutor Ron O'Brien said in an email to The Associated Press that the attempted murder count was filed because Holt-Reid tried "at gunpoint to force her to have an abortion against her will."


Ohio's "murder statute was amended a few years back to prohibit 'unlawful termination of a pregnancy' in order to avoid the debate whether an unborn fetus is a 'person' under the law," O'Brien wrote in the email, which was first reported by The Columbus Dispatch. O'Brien said the statute has allowed him to win convictions on two counts in murder cases in which the victim was pregnant.

I'm sure some leftist is spitting nails about this.


Oh, must we?

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday said his country's ties with NATO have to overcome years of historic distrust, as he prepares to attend the Western alliance's summit.



"Relations between Russia and NATO have always been difficult, maybe it's a legacy plus emotions, feelings, people's perceptions," he told foreign policy experts and dignitaries at his Gorky residence just outside Moscow.

"We all have some historical background."



"Undoubtedly, this weighs down our relations including with NATO. In Russia, there is a feeling that NATO is a kind of aggressive factor in relation to Russia. Perhaps it is misguided thinking in many ways."

Medvedev also lamented that Russia was often seen in the West as "a country where there can never be democracy, which will always be committed to authoritarian principles and which does not want to develop with the rest of the world."

The Kremlin chief was meeting with members of the Munich Conference on Security Policy including Zbigniew Brzezinski, former US national security adviser in the Jimmy Carter administration, Adam Rotfeld, a former Polish foreign minister, and Wolfgang Ischinger, a former German deputy foreign minister.

In 2007, Medvedev's predecessor at the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, stunned the West when he attacked the United States as a reckless "unipolar" power speaking at the annual Munich Conference on Security Policy in Germany.

On Tuesday, Medvedev said he would attend next month's NATO summit in Lisbon as he seeks to promote what he thinks should be a common European security strategy uniting the continent once split between the West and the Soviet bloc under a joint strategic vision.

"Your arrival at the summit in Lisbon could be the starting point in creating a new cooperative European example of building a new security," Rotfeld told Medvedev.
 
In a possible sign that Medvedev's ideas for the common security architecture may be gaining traction, Brzezinski also praised his proposal.

Why would we distrust Russia?


Even though Medvedev is not the heavyweight Putin is, there is no reason to so readily (if at all) trust him.


And now for something completely different.

600

What better way to celebrate the six hundredth post than with the canonisation of (now) Saint Brother Andre, the second Canadian saint, and Saint Mary MacKillop, the first Australian saint. Also canonised were Saints Stanislaus Soltys, Candida Maria de Jesus Cipitria y Barriol,  Giulia Salzano and Battista Camilla da Varano.

Small in stature but big in heart (which someone actually stole but returned- true story)

Born Alfred Bessette on August 9th, 1845, Saint Brother Andre was responsible for building Saint Joseph's Oratory in Montreal. I've been there. It's massive. This humble doorkeeper built a lasting tribute to Saint Joseph, the patron saint of Canada and the universal Church, and a shrine where faithful from all over the world can pray together.


Saint Mary MacKillop was the daughter of poor Scottish immigrants. She was born in Fitzroy, Melbourne, Australia in 1842. Already a teacher, she co-founded the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart in 1866. She opened several schools and was instrumental in helping the Aborigines.

Postage

Troubling news- Omar Khadr could serve most of his sentence in Canada:

Omar Khadr has agreed to plead guilty to all war crimes charges he faces — including murder — and is ready serve a total of eight years in prison, seven of them in Canada, Postmedia News has learned. 

Final touches to the deal are still being made, according to sources; the final settlement between U.S. prosecutors and Khadr’s defence team is expected to be presented to the Canadian government by the U.S. State Department. 

The government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not been involved in the negotiations, according to people familiar with the talks. 

Depending on the details of the deal, there could be provisions under the prisoner transfer treaty between Canada and the United States to put the agreement into effect. 

The trial of the Canadian-born terror suspect had been set to resume Monday at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, following a postponement this summer. 

Khadr, 24, had previously said he would never stand up in court and admit to having thrown the grenade that fatally wounded Sgt. 1st Class Chris Speer, a U.S. special forces soldier, during a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan. 

Among the other charges to which Khadr is admitting are attempted murder and providing material support to terrorism, according to the deal between prosecutors and his defence.

If these reports are accurate, terrorist and murderer Omar Khadr could not only serve a pittance of what he truly deserves but could do so in Canada, receiving all the benefits a murderer here gets. Appalling. Just appalling.


A hearing to determine if accused Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan is fit to go to trial is underway:

A military court has heard that the Army psychiatrist accused in a deadly Fort Hood shooting rampage carried two weapons during the Nov. 5 attack.

In testimony Thursday, Pfc. Najee Hull said the shooter had two weapons including one "with a red laser on it."

Hull then identified Maj. Nidal Hasan as the gunman.

Nidal is attending the Article 32 hearing to determine if he should stand trial in the shootings at the Texas Army base.

The 40-year-old Hasan is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder....


The hearing is to determine if Maj. Nidal Hasan, 40, should stand trial in the Fort Hood shootings. He is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder.

On Wednesday, witnesses testified that the Army psychiatrist shouted "Allahu Akbar!" _ "God is Great!" in Arabic _ before unleashing a volley of gunfire in a center where soldiers from around the country were preparing to deploy overseas.

Witnesses have said Hasan used two personal pistols, one a semiautomatic, to take some 100 shots at about 300 people at the center where soldiers were making final preparations to deploy. Fort Hood police officers fired on him during the attack, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down.

Compromise nothing. Show your mug the way everyone else has to or don't testify. Keep in mind- rape in some circles is considered a matter of course. At least in Canada, some people are bothered by it (not so much the judiciary):

The Ontario Court of Appeal engaged in a legal balancing act yesterday as it ruled on whether Muslim women can wear a religious veil while testifying in criminal trials. 

The three-judge panel ordered a provincial court judge in Toronto to reconsider a 2008 decision ordering an alleged sexual assault victim, who can be identified only as N.S., to remove her niqab, yet refused to issue what it called a "bright-line" rule that would apply in all cases. 

Instead, the court set out a framework for lower court judges to apply on a case-by-case basis that would balance the fair trial rights of a defendant to see the face of a witness, against the religious freedoms of an alleged crime victim. 

N.S. is pleased with the decision, her lawyer David Butt said yesterday. "We don't mind answering some respectful questions" in court about religious beliefs, he said. "That kind of inquiry, though, is not to be turned into an attack on anyone's religious choices." 

In its ruling, the Court of Appeal noted the potentially political nature of its task. 

"The controversy raises important public policy concerns that have generated heated debate. Those difficult and important questions are not the focus of this proceeding and cannot and should not be resolved in this forum," wrote Justice David Doherty, with Justices Robert Sharpe and Michael Moldaver concurring. 

Blanket rules about the wearing of a niqab are best left to Parliament, implied the court, which stressed that judges, prosecutors and defence lawyers should strive for "constructive compromises," when the issue arises. 

"Recognition of apparently conflicting rights requires that no Charter right be treated as absolute and that no one right be regarded as inherently superior to another," said Judge Doherty. 

The role of a judge is to conduct a relatively limited inquiry into the sincerity of a witness who asserts it would offend her religious beliefs to remove the Muslim veil. "The court will not enter into a theological debate," said the appeal court. A judge must then determine if fair trial rights are infringed because a defendant cannot see the face of an accuser. 

"Fairness takes into account the interests of the accused, the witness and the broader societal concern that the process maintains public confidence," wrote Judge Doherty. 

In the case of sexual assault victims, the Court of Appeal stressed that it is a "difficult and intimidating task" to testify against their alleged attackers. "It should not surprise anyone that N.S., when faced with this daunting task, seeks the strength and solace of her religious beliefs and practices," the court wrote. 

The 32-year-old Toronto woman was originally ordered to remove the niqab in October 2008 at the preliminary hearing of her uncle and a former family friend, who are alleged to have abused N.S. when she was a child. 

We owe Japan an apology (h/t- OFK):

Ethan Epstein.... writes (this time, at Slate) that a joint Chinese-North Korean crackdown on refugees has been a grim success at closing off the flow of refugees. So thanks to our friends the ChiComs, North Koreans must now die in place. There is a special zone in hell for these people, but justice would be better served if they were sent to Camp 12, where so many of their victims have perished. It bears repeating that those victims are guilty of no greater crime than wanting to live.


In spite of the success of China’s cleansing campaign, the number of North Korean refugees in South Korea is about to hit the 20,000 mark. What’s not mentioned in CNN’s report is how many of those people are recent defectors from North Korea, and how many are fleeing China after hiding out there for years.

China, realizing that it has revealed too much of its arrogance and malice since the Cheonan attack, now wants us (and the South Koreans) to think that its sponsorship of North Korea’s terrorizing of its neighbors is simply misunderstood. It doesn’t bother trying to explain its sponsorship of, and active participation in, North Korea’s terrorizing of its own people. How could it? You simply can’t defend sending women and kids to die in gulags and before firing squads. Those things are evil — crimes against humanity — in any honest person’s lexicon.

****


Pretty freaky but still pretty cool:

These astonishing images show an extraordinary new artificial reef off the east coast of Mexico made entirely from human statues.

The underwater installation has been created by British artist Jason de Caires Taylor who used real people to create the 'life casts' made from materials which encourage coral to grow.

It is hoped the new sculptures will produce a coral reef system and attract a variety of aquatic creatures to the Cancun and Isla Mujeres National Marine Park.