Saturday Night Special

In honour of Shark Week (which is like Christmas but with sharks), please take the time to review these shark facts.


Sooner or later, these twenty-somethings with a completely undeserved sense of entitlement will wake up and realise they are dispensable and spiralling uncontrollably to ruin. Everyone has been at a stage in their lives when they thought they had it all figured out. When they realised they didn't, that was the turning point.


A-men:

A widely published American study recently indicated that most students, tested at different times in their lives, do not improve their capacity to think by attending university. In other words, post-secondary education fails to do its main job, more often than not.

The entire view and practice of education must be re-hauled. Apathy and idleness can no longer be a default position. Parents should read to their kids, not spend thousands of dollars hoping that Junior will succeed in the NHL where Senior has failed. Teachers should have contracts, not heavily-politicised unions that keep them fat and lazy, and made to work for their benefits. Students should not move to the next level if they fail to perform. It is easier for a student to bounce back at an early age than realise after he has graduated that he really is a moron and everyone around him has been giving him A's just for sport or paycheques. Humanities must be purged of the incredibly regressive leftism that would paint Plato as a "dead white male dinosaur" and not as an incredible thinker.


But that's just what I think.

And you thought the humanities couldn't bring the funny.

Um, because it IS vulgar.



Remember- they are the victims here:

A week after a massacre in Norway fuelled by anti-Islamic sentiment claimed the lives of 77 people, Muslims preparing for Ramadan across Canada are being urged to install surveillance cameras and bars on mosque windows, and to talk to police and school principals about emergency plans should an incident arise.


The Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations, based in Ottawa, is calling for these and other measures as part of its “Muslim Community Safety Kit” sent to Muslim associations across the country this week.


“Our experience has been that in the aftermath of high profile incidents, whether national or international, there is on occasion an uptick in anti-Muslim rhetoric and reports of Islamophobic hate crimes,” said Ihsaan Gardee, executive director of the council. “But we don’t expect a widespread backlash against the Muslim community. It is not a community living in fear. Our shared grief for the victims in Norway overwhelms any fear of a backlash.”

There have been reports of mosques being vandalized and other incidents in Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa, Waterloo, Ont. — some following the 9/11 attacks, others after the uproar over a cartoon depicting Muhammad in a Danish newspaper in 2005, and more recently around the well-publicized burning of a Qur’an in Florida, Gardee said.

According to a Statistics Canada report released in June, the number of hate crimes increased by 42 per cent from 2008 to 2009, the last year for which statistics are available.

While the number of hate crimes against all racial groups rose in 2009, proportionately the largest increase involved hate crimes against Arabs or West Asians, more than doubling from 37 incidents in 2008 to 75 in 2009. Religiously motivated hate crimes against Muslims went up 38 per cent.

What utterly laughable hogwash.  It's a political goldmine, however.



The shootings in Norway did not target Muslims or mosques but that shouldn't get in the way of a good pout.



A survey on reported hate crimes indicated that Jewish people were more likely the victims of hate crimes. Many articles, polls and surveys will omit the religion and list "South Asian" as a category which obscures pertinent information such as nationality and religious affiliation. Indeed, many articles will simply not indicate nationality or religious affiliation as a matter of course, quite unlike repeatedly mentioning descriptions such as "blond" or "Christian conservative". Mohamed Elmasry of the Canadian Islamic Congress believed that many hate crimes are wrongly classified:

Mohamed Elmasry, national president of the congress, said hate crimes against Muslims are often misfiled by police because it’s difficult to question someone’s religion, thus skewing the numbers.

“A Somali family who reports a hate crime, they might put it under black when it’s supposed to be under Muslim,” said Elmasry. “That Somali family should be under Muslim and not under black, because the motivation is really because the woman is wearing a hijab.

“It is easier for the hate crime unit to put the report under black because it’s a visible minority.”

Mr. Elmasry can't have it both ways. Either "South Asian" or "Black" always indicates "Muslim" meaning that a terror suspect identified as South Asian or Black is an adherent to Islam or those terms are still subject to further clarification.


At any rate, a coddling white liberal population will foster a victim ideology for a population that demands it. Unbelievable.


Related: you know your brand has "jumped the shark" (see what I did there?) when you claim the deity of a religion (two religions, actually) you hate is actually one of you:

Welcome to the upside down world of Muslims Against Crusades (MAC).  Great Britain's radical Muslim group now claims that Jesus Christ was a Muslim.  According to their website:

The truth is when Jesus was sent to his people he came with the same message of all previous Messengers such as Moses, Abraham and Noah - that God is one and submission to Him is exclusive.  Jesus throughout his life and mission believed in one God and preserved this concept throughout his life.  He did this by ensuring that all actions and deeds were based upon the laws of God.  Furthermore those who contradicted these laws were rejected and opposed.

Jesus led a life of submission to His Lord which is the essence of Islam.  Islam means the true submission to the will of God alone and anybody that adheres to this mission is called a Muslim.  Islam is the divine message revealed by God which all Messengers and Prophets followed and called to; including Jesus.  This message was concluded by the final Messenger, Muhammad (peace be upon him) who rectified any misconception and showed mankind the complete divine way of life.

Scoring off of Jesus. Just sad.


Also worth reading: Multiculturalism Revisited.



People like Morrissey make Celebrity Apartheid Week possible:

Morrissey has issued a statement clarifying his recent on-stage comments about the massacre in Norway...

"The comment I made on stage at Warsaw could be further explained this way - Millions of beings are routinely murdered every single day in order to fund profits for McDonalds and KFCruelty, but because these murders are protected by laws, we are asked to feel indifferent about the killings, and to not even dare question them.

"If you quite rightly feel horrified at the Norway killings, then it surely naturally follows that you feel horror at the murder of ANY innocent being. You cannot ignore animal suffering simply because animals 'are not us'."

Yes, why don't you tell us what you really think, Morrissey?


Yes, I can ignore animals, Morrissey, because they are not me. I can reason, they can't. How many seals will type with their flappers a treatise on why something tastes so good with mustard? The animal kingdom is far more primal and cruel than any human being could be. If one animal eats another for meat, why can't I? I won't eviscerate the poor creature and let it bleed out or let it scamper away permanently mutilated. I will prepare and eat it and feed it to my family. It is delicious. It is nature and, for some people, profit. Hunting down humans, on the other hand, is an act of barbarity and should be recognised as such. It's too bad you can't see that.


In other news:

CJ E&M Pictures and Grapevine Entertainment have attached Rob Cohen to direct the $100 million Korean War epic, "1950." Film is said to be the largest-budgeted project ever undertaken by the Korean film industry.

I'm sure the Koreans could (and have) make films just as grand but I'll see.



And now, "Jaws" in thirty seconds.

Mid-Week Post

Sit back and enjoy a tall cold drink because it's time for the mid-week post.


Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg (identified by Yahoo News as the "premier" of Norway for some reason) has called on Norwegians to "embrace the culture of tolerance" he claimed gunman Anders Behring Breivik was trying to destroy:

Norway will never be the same after last week's bombing and mass shooting but it shouldn't change the way the suspect wants it to, the prime minister said Wednesday. He called on his country to react by more tightly embracing, rather than abandoning, the culture of tolerance that Anders Behring Breivik said he was trying to destroy.

"The Norwegian response to violence is more democracy, more openness and greater political participation," Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg insisted at a news conference.

Friday's bombing outside Stoltenberg's offices in Oslo and the shooting that followed at a camp organized by the youth wing of his Labor Party killed 76 people and battered the psyche of a nation that prides itself on openness. Breivik confessed but has pleaded not guilty, claiming the attacks were necessary to fight what he called Muslim colonization and multiculturalism.

"I think what we have seen is that there is going to be one Norway before and one Norway after July 22," Stoltenberg said. "But I hope and also believe that the Norway we will see after will be more open, a more tolerant society than what we had before."

Stoltenberg strongly defended the right to speak freely — even if it includes extremist views such as Breivik's.

"We have to be very clear to distinguish between extreme views, opinions — that's completely legal, legitimate to have. What is not legitimate is to try to implement those extreme views by using violence," he said in English.

Stoltenberg's promise in the face of twin attacks signalled a contrast to the U.S. response after the 9/11 attacks, when Washington gave more leeway to perform wiretaps and search records.

It reflects the difference between the two countries' approaches to terrorism. The U.S. has been frustrated by what it considers Scandinavia's lack of aggressive investigation and arrests.

Since the attacks, Stoltenberg and members of Norway's royal family have underlined the country's openness by making public appearances with little visible security guarding them.

Quibbles: Breivik was no more trying to destroy anything than ravenous hyenas hug with their fangs. He was a gunman, deluded and vain, who opened fire on defenseless people.


Norway is a constitutional monarchy with universal suffrage, possesses the typical Scandinavian penchant for women in politics, and is already considered "multicultural" (in the political sense) and is fairly reluctant to integrate newcomers. The references Breivik made in his "manifesto" to freedom of speech reflect the "progressive" view that any speech is subject to oversite and should be controlled if deemed "offensive". While Stoltenberg's insistence that Norway is "open" and "tolerant", he neglected to mention the rise of anti-Semitism in Norway and that the youth camp on Utoya was strongly anti-Israel (much to the great detriment of some of the attendants who actually thought that being from "open, tolerant" Norway they could talk a man like Breivik down). So much for that meme.


PM Stoltenberg also conveniently forgot the hour-long wait victims of Breivik's evil had to endure because the police needed to secure permission to arm themselves, the only helicopter could not be flown because all of the pilots were on holiday and, most importantly, letting one's guard down now is just plain dangerous. I bet the Americans don't seem so hasty now.


Norway's "9/11" cliche experience won't vastly change the social or political landscape much simply because the leftist elements within Norway won't let it be a learning experience. No one is attacking democracy, universal suffrage, free expression or diversity, not even Breivik. How gunning down innocent people can be seen as reasonable and productive is beyond me. The only thing he was able to do for himself was to be mentioned in the popular press. This salient point seems to be missing from the left's line of vision.  His brief reign of terror was as futile as their inability to process and learn from it. Would the "openness" of Norway's royal family or political leaders matter if Breivik had succeeded injuring or killing them? Did Norway's "openness" equip the police so well that they were able to act quickly and efficiently? The chance to re-think the entire structure of Norway is now. Their "openness" is nothing more than weakness and naivety, a refusal to question the things that made Norwegians so muddle-headed to begin with. Wouldn't it make sense to add security after a gunman went on a shooting spree? That's not a sharp turn to the political right; that's common sense. Why was a segment of the country's youth encouraged to boycott Israel, anyway? Israel doesn't need boycotting; a slow police force does. How can a country that won't tolerate Israel's right to exist or the Jews within their community continue to be called "tolerant"? Where was the "free expression" when Norwegian papers refused to publish Mohammad cartoons? Islamism has been proven to be a bigger impediment (read: danger) to the West and the cartoons controversy is ample proof of it. Shouldn't Norway's chattering classes have mentioned that in reference to Breivik and his futile yet deadly attempt to make a name for himself? Did I miss those conversations?


Norway's response to one of the worst acts of violence on its soil since the Second World War is...nothing.


Norwegians needn't fear Breivik any longer. He has a good twenty-one years to think about his crimes. Perhaps Norwegians should fear themselves. Their unwillingness to question the schizophrenic attitudes that would let fetid strains of their brand of "progression" survive after an event such as this is enough to worry about.


Because he's Rex Murphy.


Now onto other things....


A riot in China over the death of a disabled fruit vendor:

Angry residents in a southern Chinese city went on the rampage after officials apparently beat to death a disabled fruit vendor, a state media said on Wednesday, in the latest incident of social unrest in the world's second-largest economy.


The China Daily said that thousands of people gathered on the streets of Anshun in Guizhou province on Tuesday afternoon, throwing stones at police and overturning a government vehicle.

The riot was sparked after urban management officers -- a quasi-police force that enforces laws against begging and other petty offences -- were suspected of beating the vendor to death, the newspaper said.

"The unidentified vendor died in front of the gate of a market ... which led to the gathering of the local people," it cited a government statement as saying.

As crass as this may sound, I'm sure the fruit was worth more than this man's life in China. I never said that this wasn't a terrible thing to say but it's not like human life is valued there. My faith in humanity is affirmed only slightly by the fact that people were angered at the death of this poor man.


Related: eight-nine children, some as young as ten days old, are rescued from traffickers.


Wasn't I just saying?


(hat tip)


To be filed under: DO NOT TRADE WITH:

Canada on Wednesday joined an international chorus calling for the release of a frail dissident Vietnamese priest who has been re-arrested after being freed for medical reasons more than a year ago.

The United States and international rights groups have also urged authorities in Hanoi to free Nguyen Van Ly, who is in his 60s and was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2007 for propaganda against the state.

Prosecutors in Vietnam say Ly -- who was taken into custody on Monday -- was a founding member of the banned "Bloc 8406," considered by analysts as the first organized pro-democracy coalition inside the country.

"We are disappointed that Father Nguyen Van Ly has been returned to prison, and we remain very concerned about his health," Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird said in a statement.

(Sidebar: yes, THAT Baird)



A mudslide in Chuncheon kills thirty-six people:

Walls of mud barrelling down a hill buried 10 college students sleeping in a resort cabin and flash floods submerged the streets and subway stations in Seoul, killing at least 36 people Wednesday in South Korea's heaviest rains this year.

The students were engulfed by a landslide in Chuncheon, about 68 miles (110 kilometres) northeast of Seoul, said fire marshal Byun In-soo. A married couple and a convenience store owner also died.

Witnesses interviewed on television said the landslide sounded like a massive explosion or a freight train. They described people screaming as buildings were carried away by rivers of mud.

About 670 firefighters, soldiers, police and others rushed to rescue those trapped and extract the dead from the mud and wreckage in Chuncheon, where 24 others were injured and several buildings destroyed.

From the comments section for this article:

God has a plan for everyone. (sarcasm)

An open letter to this wag: 

Dear *******,


YOU SUCK!


Signed, the human race

Somewhat related (and from more feeling human beings):

On Wednesday, hundreds of Canadian veterans attended a memorial service at the Korea Veterans Wall of Remembrance in Brampton. The 61-metre curved wall contains the names of the 516 Canadians killed in battle between 1950 and the cessation of fighting on July 27, 1953.

And we shall not forget them.



A less martial and more verbose war:

A recent call by the BBC’s Matthew Engel for examples of infiltrating Americanisms that annoyed inhabitants of the sceptred isle turned up an avalanche of entries.

Trouble is, most of them weren’t American at all. In many cases, objectors betrayed their abysmal ignorance, citing words that predated the founding of the 13 colonies.


In the meantime, Americans have rallied to the cause. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable tempest in a teapot that makes for entertaining reading. It also underlines George Bernard Shaw’s bon mot: Two nations separated by a common language.

Well- the Americans DO veer from the more standard British spelling. It might have to do with that war in 1776.

Monday Post

The tragic murders of over ninety people in Norway appear to have been caused by an anomaly of the strangest order:

The self-described perpetrator of Norway's deadly bombing and shooting rampage was ordered held in isolation at a hearing Monday after calmly telling the court that two other groups of allies stand ready to join his murderous campaign.

Anders Behring Breivik has admitted bombing Norway's capital and opening fire on a political youth group retreat on an island near the capital. He told authorities that he expects to spend the rest of his life in prison. 

Saying he wanted to save Europe from Muslim immigration, he entered a plea of not guilty that will guarantee him future court hearings and opportunities to address the public, even indirectly.

Police believe Breivik acted alone, despite his grand claims in a 1,500-page manifesto that he belonged to a modern group of crusaders. But they have not completely ruled out that he had accomplices.

It gets stranger:

Anders Behring Breivik, the 32-year-old Norwegian man who slaughtered 76 people, is not only a terrorist and a murderer, but also a plagiarist: Sections from his 1,500-page manifesto were copied directly from that of the “Unabomber,” Ted Kaczynski. And even the material he wrote himself is derivative: From the parts of the rambling and disjointed manifesto that I have been able to read thus far, his bigoted and paranoid worldview seems to have originated — either directly or indirectly — with The Turner Diaries, a hack science fiction novel written 33 years ago by an American white supremacist named William Luther Pierce. The Turner Diaries feature prominently on a Swedish Nazi Internet forum called Nordisk, of which Breivick was a member.

His was the cherry-pick of nutbar ideologies. See here for a plethora of fairly comprehensive articles on things like the nuthatchery of finger-pointers and a failed attempt to "reason" with Breivik:

"Some of my friends tried to stop him by talking to him. Many people think on the island that it was a test ... comparing it to how it is to live in Gaza. So many people went to him and tried to talk to him, but they were shot immediately."

Such is the mentality of a country that would punish such a man by putting him in a resort-like prison for only twenty-one years (do read Pratt's rather Marxist assessment of Scandinavia's "exceptionalism" and then wonder how some people are not so mentally impaired that they can dress themselves each day) and cannot muster enough resources to act while a madman mowed down people for an hour:

“Why didn’t you come earlier?,” survivors screamed when Norwegian police arrived after an hour in which Anders Behring Breivik had wandered the wooded island of Utoya shooting dead 68 people, most of them teenagers.


In a nation united by grief over the worst massacre in its modern history, few except the survivors quoted by media have criticized authorities for not preventing the attacks or for the speed of their response once they had been carried out.

Already reeling from Breivik’s bomb in Oslo, the police response to the island massacre was beset with problems — from a boat so overloaded with officers it took on water, to special forces without a suitable helicopter to fly them there.

Meanwhile the minutes ticked by and Breivik hunted down his victims who hid under beds, climbed trees and hid in bushes or jumped into the lake in desperate attempts to flee.

It was 5.26 p.m. on Friday when local police in Nordre Buskerud first received an alert about shootings on the island. Four minutes later they notified Oslo and another eight minutes after that they formally requested back-up.

Fourteen minutes later still, local police arrived at the shore of the mainland, but for a further 17 minutes waited for a boat.

“We asked for help from the SWAT team in Oslo, which is specially trained to deal with armed situations. 

We did not know about the extent of the situation that was out there,” North Buskerud police chief Sissel Hammer was quoted as saying by the Dagsavisen daily newspaper.

“But this was not about waiting, this was 17 minutes during which we prepared ourselves.”

Meanwhile campers on the lake shore had taken matters into their own hands and set off in boats to pluck survivors from the water, some of them coming under fire from Breivik in the process. One camper alone rescued 40 to 50 terrified people.

At 6.09 p.m., Oslo police arrived in the area and set off for the island on a boat brought from nearby Hoenefoss.

“When so many people and equipment were put into it, the boat started to take on water, so that the motor stopped,” said Erik Berga, police operations chief for Buskerud county.

“The boat was way to small and way too poor,” he said.

When a SWAT team arrived at the island at 6.25 p.m., Breivik surrendered two minutes later without a fight.

Dare I suggest that Scandinavia's "exceptionalism" helped fuel this tragedy? Yeah, sure, why not? After all, a politically rootless (he was- read his "manifesto") loner with bizarre rationalisations attacked innocent people, a few of whom assumed they could talk him down because "peace is their thing" in the fjords, while those ostensibly trained to deal with situations like these fumbled about before apprehending the madman and his legally owned guns. While some may be pleased that their political spaghetti has finally stuck to the wall (a blond killer! Not the usual Islamist terror cell), using this anomaly as a convenient excuse to ignore more urgent and frequent incidences of terrorism is doing so at one's peril.


(hat tip)



Because he's Mark Steyn:

Nevertheless, Breivik’s manifesto seems to be determining the narrative in the anglophone media. The opening sentence from USA Today:

Islamophobia has reached a mass murder level in Norway as the confessed killer claims he sought to combat encroachment by Muslims into his country and Europe.

So, if a blonde blue-eyed Aryan Scandinavian kills dozens of other blonde blue-eyed Aryan Scandinavians, that’s now an “Islamophobic” mass murder? As far as we know, not a single Muslim was among the victims.

Islamophobia seems an eccentric perspective to apply to this atrocity, and comes close to making the actual dead mere bit players in their own murder. Yet the Associated Press is on board:

Security Beefed Up At UK Mosques After Norway Massacre.

But again: No mosque was targeted in Norway. A member of the country’s second political party gunned down members of its first. But, in the merest evolution of post-9/11 syndrome, Muslims are now the preferred victims even in a story in which they are entirely absent. A Tweeter thinks that “turning this scumbag’s atrocity in Norway into a lesson about how Mark Steyn and his ilk are douchebags seems… opportunistic,” but that’s the least of it. Even by the elastic definitions of “Islamophobia,” the angle being pursued is bizarre and profoundly tasteless: A rambling Internet pdf is trumping the facts on the ground — trumping the specifics of what occurred, and the victims. This man Breivik may think he’s making history and bestriding the geopolitical currents and the clash of civilizations, but in the end he went and shot up his neighbors. Why let his self-aggrandizing bury the reality?

Oh, yes,  aside from the usual punching-bag nonsense, Muslims in the UK placed extra security around their mosques. Because they are the real victims here:

Muslim leaders say it's time for governments to wake up to the threat of anti-Islamic extremism and stop pandering to far right nationalist movements that have made inroads in politics from the Netherlands to Austria. European attitudes, though, are unlikely to change overnight.

That wouldn't have anything to do with the attacks in London, Madrid and Stockholm, the rapes in Norway, the attacks on cartoonists and directors, the car fires in France and just the general aura of failure and oppression, would it?


In other news, the Czech Republic finds the Durban conference "anti-Semitic" and pulls out. Good.



I had to throw this one in here. It had Spock in the article:  Logic pays off in the stock market

Friday Post

An explosion in Oslo killed seven people and shattered windows this morning in what is believed to be a terrorist attack. A youth camp on the island of Utoya was also hit when a man dressed in a police uniform opened fire. It is believed ten people have been killed:

So far 7 people are reported killed after the bomb explosion and 10 people are killed after the shooting at Utøya where the Labour Party's annual youth camp was being held.

Utøya is reported to be safe by the police forces and everyone at the island is evacuated. However there is still a search going on for a possible bomb planted on the island.

The government building is still being searched for bodies and the police reported that the search will continue till tomorrow morning.

The attacker caught at Utøya was spotted by the explosion area minutes before the explosion happened. He was dressed as a police officer both in Oslo and at Utøya, however the police reports that he is not and has never been a part of the police force in Norway. 

The ‘Helpers of Global Jihad’ group, of which al-Nasser is a member, made the claims in an email circular issued to various sources. The group does not appear to have any past history.

It is thought that the bombings are a belated response to Norwegian newspapers and magazines republishing cartoons of Mohammed originally published by Jyllands-Posten of Denmark.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said, “I was outraged to hear about the explosion in Oslo and attack on Utøya Island. My thoughts are with wounded and those who lost family.”

Knut Storberget, Norway’s Minister of Justice confirms this evening the arrested shooter, who is believed to have carried several guns, is a Norwegian.

Apparently, one of the topics discussed at the labour Party's youth camp was “Combating Xenophobia and Islamophobia.”



Hhmmmm....


Related


The latest.


Moving on.....


If advocacy groups decline to speak out on behalf of fairly prominent persons for "political reasons", they will soon drift into irrelevancy and the telling of  "retard" jokes will be a staple of every party and late-night talk show. Someone out there gets their jollies from emotionally battering three year olds with mental disabilities. It goes without saying that such a person is beyond pathetic. Shouldn't the voice for the voiceless speak up?



Is toska anything like duende? I'd really like to know.

Thursday Scorcher

Public service announcement: stay hydrated and cool. It's a hot one:

A heat dome, a hot, unmoving high-pressure area, is hovering over central parts of Canada, pushing the jet stream well to the north, and keeping cooler or wetter weather out, said Environment Canada senior climatologist Dave Phillips.

"It's like a heat pump and it just sluggishly sits there and like an unwanted house guest, it just won't move," he said.

The dome is hovering over much of the United States as well. It spread up to western Canada over the weekend, sending sizzling temperatures to the Prairies. Winnipeg was sweltering under a high of 34.4 C on Tuesday and Regina baked at 31.9 C.

As the dome settles a bit further east, Environment Canada is predicting the mercury will hit 37 C Thursday in Toronto. Further south in Windsor, Ont., it's expected to go up to a scorching 39 C.

The heat dome phenomenon is known to happen every few summers, said Marie-Eve Giguere, a warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment Canada. The dome works to trap heat, she said.

"Every day it gets hotter and hotter," Giguere said. "It gets heat from the sun and this sort of hot dome of air is getting hotter and hotter and this is what's creating these high temperatures."

This might help.



In other news, only seven Atlanta teachers quit after being caught cheating:

Just seven of 178 Atlanta educators implicated in a standardized test cheating scandal resigned or retired on Wednesday to avoid being fired, a school spokesman said.


The remaining teachers and principals will now face termination proceedings, Atlanta Public Schools spokesman Keith Bromery said.

Atlanta's interim school superintendent Erroll B. Davis Jr. had told the educators accused of cheating they had until Wednesday evening to voluntarily step down or they would be fired.

But the Georgia Association of Educators, a teacher advocacy group, advised its members not to resign, saying the school system was taking action before all the evidence has been uncovered.

A state report issued this month identified 178 teachers and principals accused of cheating on state standardized testing in 2009 as a way to inflate student scores.

So much for integrity.



Speaking of integrity, as of this writing, the CBC has not revealed the identities of war criminals hiding in this country:

The federal government has released the names of 30 suspected war criminals it says entered the country illegally, and is asking for the public's help in locating them.

The government launched a website Thursday identifying the suspects and calling for any information that could lead to their whereabouts.

CBC News' practice is not to name suspects, and therefore is not publishing the names or photos of the suspects at this time.

These "suspects" have been accused of crimes against humanity. The CBC has also taken a soft approach when Canadian troops were accused of abuses in Afghanistan.



Wrap your heads around that.



The "mosqueteria" business will not go away. Public schools, no longer academic institutions but baby-minding services with well-compensated staff who have the pleasant or unpleasant task of imparting ideologies on their charges, are caving into the wishes of a perpetually angry and victimization-fixated special-interest group by allowing prayer services every Friday (except for certain girls). Keep in mind- these are the same schools that won't allow "Christmas" or "The Lord's Prayer" to be uttered within their walls.



More:

From: Xxxxx Xxxxxxxxx

Date: August 4, 2010

I am concerned that a number of TDSB principals are violating the principle of secular education in Ontario by allowing Muslim students to leave classes for Friday prayers during class time. While the intentions of those principals are undoubtedly good in trying to create a welcoming atmosphere in the school, being inclusive and multicultural and helping retain students who otherwise might wish to attend different schools, their method is wrong; in fact, it is a violation of Ministry policy and the law. It stands in need of being corrected. I ask that a directive be sent to TDSB principals as soon as possible, preferably before the beginning of classes in September, to bring the practice to an end.

For example, I have seen how it has become the regular practice at Jarvis Collegiate, where I was a teacher, to allow 100-150 Muslim students to be excused from classes for twenty-five minutes every Friday afternoon to gather in the cafeteria for prayers. My understanding is that something similar is done in other schools. It should not be happening.

Read the whole thing.


(hat tip)



What's sleazier?

It’s hard to take at face value the public ostracizing of Rupert Murdoch as a cancer within journalism even as the world’s two foremost wire services have just associated themselves with the world’s most fraudulent news organization. I refer to the AP’s announcement late last month that it had made a deal with Kim Jong Il’s own Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) to open a bureau in Pyongyang, and the more recent announcement by Reuters that it had “expanded” its “relationship” with KCNA to deliver official North Korean content to readers everywhere.

Great — that’s just what we all needed. As to why the AP and Reuters think this arrangement should not harm their journalistic reputations, I can only guess that KCNA’s official status gives it some sort of credibility, however perverse. Meanwhile, Murdoch is under attack for the closeness of his association with the British government, and vice versa. You don’t have to be a fan of Murdoch or some (any?) of his publications to see a double standard at work here.

Who gets put in the wringer for this?



(another hat tip)



And now, a wacky-looking forest.

Mid-Week Post

It's the mid-weekiest.


Airport scanners to blot out nudity:

New software for screening travelers at U.S. airports will do away with naked images, addressing a major public concern, the Transportation Security Administration said Wednesday.


After complaints from travelers the TSA earlier this year began testing at four airports software for the full-body scanners that instead uses a generic body outline and highlights the area where any anomaly is detected, eliminating the actual image of the passenger.

Do you know a better way to blot out nudity? Following the Israeli model of airport security.


Why do we wait for the useless, toothless UN to declare famine or war or anything? Really? Why do we do it?

The United Nations said on Wednesday two regions of southern Somalia had been hit by the worst famine in the area for 20 years and that 3.7 million people in the anarchic Horn of Africa nation risked starvation.

Somalia is in the midst of famine because it is a failed country, just like the other countries in Africa.



Yes, Ontario IS a have-not province and it's McGuinty's fault:

Ontario’s Liberal government is getting prickly over equalization ahead of a meeting between provincial and territorial leaders in Vancouver.


Finance Minister Dwight Duncan lashed out Wednesday at the federal program, saying the formula that has made Ontario a recipient for each of past three years is “absolutely crazy.”

Duncan’s comments follow those by Premier Dalton McGuinty, who said the province would aggressively oppose any effort to force a reduction of transfers to Ontario.

In three short years since being added to the welfare rolls of Confederation, Ontario has quickly become among the largest equalization recipients.

High unemployment, higher electricity prices and eliminated jobs, twenty million dollar payout to former residents of Caledonia and $2.2 billion in equalization payments. Yes, Mr. Duncan, we are a have-not province.


1,800 people to be stripped of Canadian citizenship. Somebody messed up. I would hate to have to do the paperwork for that.


Russia wants to Arctic. It will plead its case to the UN, where it sits forever on the Security Council. Discuss.



Ladies and gentlemen, "Northwest Passage".


An excavation crew believes it may have found a skull of a Japanese pilot who attacked Pearl Harbour.


Oh my God, that looks delicious- a Provencal Apricot Tart.


Come with her if you want to live.



Is Captain America too American? Maybe. His name IS Captain America.



Useful dogs: one a hero, the other a beer-gatherer.  Good dogs.

An Open Letter from Japan to Stupid Racist Letter-Writers

Seventeenth century Japan was more open about flowing sleeves.

 Hello.



You might not know us but we are gentlemen from Japan. Also gentlewomen, children and any number of cute, marketable cats. We're not sure how good your geography is so we will direct you. If you go waaaaaay off the coast of Vancouver (north of Washington state and south of Alaska) we're a slip of a country that's been around since heaven and Earth were formless masses or since the continental shift (whichever version you prefer- we don't care). We've been running from Godzilla since the Fifties and we...bombed you guys a while back.


There's been some friction.


Anyway, we were futzing about the Interwebs when we came across this:

You are such a mean bitter old bitch, it’s a shame the Japs didn’t murder your parents before they came to the U.S.  ....

Oh my God!

Did you just call us Japs?! What century are you living in?! You can't say that! We mean....you CAN say but should you?


We say not.


Now we've never met this Michelle Malkin person before but we're sure she's nice and certainly doesn't deserve to be called you-know-what. You should probably thank her for taking the high road about this name-calling thing. Sure, she published your filthy screeds but then again you did send them to her. With your names.


Not smart.


And it's "China" and "Japan", by the way, not "Chine" or "Japin". We guess your teachers didn't cover that at their "changing parties".


Anyway, this racism thing is just bad form. We mean- no one's perfect and we weren't always the gentlemen but dude! "Japs"?! We don't want to bring up that TDSB "white privilege" dreck but this isn't looking good for you.


And don't let the Koreans find out about these letters. Their word for "revenge" is "boksu" which not only means revenge but "plural", as well. Figure it out.


It pays to be civil, is our point.


Yours' without rioting OR bad words,


Japan

Baird's Folly

Over a week ago, Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird announced that Canada was boycotting the UN conference on disarmament because North Korea, which has been developing nuclear weapons among other things, was elected as the chair. It was a noble gesture and one that stressed that Canada is a serious player in international affairs.


That good feeling has since diminished and has been replaced with well-repeated and equally well-worn platitudes of human rights.


John Baird's recent meeting with China is as one of a hapless creature lulled into a false sense of security by a snake:

Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister addressed human rights and the fate of one of China's most wanted fugitives on Monday, during a visit aimed at building stronger economic ties with the communist superpower.

Speaking from Beijing, John Baird said he was assured by Chinese officials that white-collar crimes would no longer be punishable by death and that he has "no reason to doubt that commitment."

The statement could pave the way for the removal of Lai Changxing, who faces deportation as early as next week following a 12-year legal battle to remain in Canada.

Wanted since 1999 on allegations he masterminded a $10-billion smuggling ring that cheated the Chinese government out of import duties, Mr. Lai will try to convince a Federal Court judge that he won't get a fair trial in China and could be subject to torture or death.

Mr. Baird was reluctant to weigh in on the case as it's currently before the courts, but noted this was one subject on which Canada and China tended to see eye to eye....

Mr. Baird travelled to Beijing over the weekend to meet with government officials and Chinese business leaders as well as the representatives of Canadian companies operating in the country. He will also visit Shanghai before departing for the Indonesian island of Bali to take part in the Association of South East Asian Nations regional security summit.

His visit is meant to lay the groundwork for a subsequent visit by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

After a full day of meetings Monday, Mr. Baird said he had "frank and open" discussions with his Chinese counterparts about human rights, addressing such "specific" issues as migrant labour rights, minority culture issues, including the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners and legal aid.

But the "No. 1 priority," he said, was jobs and the economy and much of the discussion centred around both countries' growth despite the economic downturn.

"They are our second-largest trading partner. Obviously, making my first bilateral visit with China to outline the importance that I and the government place in the relationship with respect to Chinese investment in Canada, it's very welcome, particularly in the energy and natural resources sectors," he said.

"We had a good exchange on that and I said we welcome more on that."

Yes. We all know China has always kept its word, which is why human rights discussions are actually quite redundant.


Right?


China has never been a friend to its own people. Its treatment of religious minorities is well-known to be nothing short of barbaric and appalling.  Did Mr. Baird take this into account at all? Did he bother to examine China's past and recent involvement with its vassal state, North Korea, which, not a week ago, Mr. Baird fumed at its highly improper and farcical appointment to a conference on disarmament?


China has backed North Korea and its chief dictators, the Kim dynasty, since the Korean War in 1950. As it sits forever on the UN Security Council, China has pulled its weight in making sure North Korea is never punished for anything it does to its own people or its neighbour, South Korea, with which it is still at war.


And then there is the human element.


There are many horror stories coming out of North Korea. One defector's story:

Kim Hye-sook reaches for a wooden coffee stirrer on the table in front of her to illustrate how public executions were carried out in the North Korean labour camp that was her home for nearly three decades.

"A day before the executions, prison guards would put huge banners to tell everyone what was going to happen, and on the day everyone would be ordered to attend," the diminutive 50-year-old explains. 

"They would take the prisoner to a stake, tie them up and blindfold them. The firing squad would let off 30 or 40 shots until the prisoner's body had turned to honeycomb. Every time the bullets hit, the stake would crack backwards." 

Obtaining testimony about North Korea's gulag system is notoriously difficult. Once inside a labour camp few political prisoners are granted their freedom and even fewer ever make it over the border to describe their ordeal to the outside world. 

Kim is one of the most recent defectors to find safety and - in her first interview with a Western newspaper - she describes a penal system that is shocking in its barbarity as North Korea continues to defy the international community with a human rights record that echoes the worst excesses of Stalin's Soviet Union.

Kim's only crime was what Kim Jong-il's regime calls yeon-jwa-je - guilt by association. In the 1970s her grandfather defected to South Korea and under North Korea's system of collective punishment for political crimes, the entire family was rounded up. "We were living in Pyongyang," she explains, referring to North Korea's capital. "I was just 13 at the time and the whole family had been classified by the state as a 'dangerous element'." Ordered to leave her home by armed guards, she would not see the outside of a labour camp for 28 years....



Kim was taken to Buk chang, a gulag run by the interior ministry, which refers to it by its bland official title: Kwan-li-so (penal-labour colony) No 18...  


The regime is slightly less strict than the camps at Yodok and Kaechon, but beatings, starvation and summary executions are common. "We were always hungry," recalls Kim. "Every day was a struggle to find food. The camp provided a single meal of corn gruel, but it was never enough. We would go out looking for anything green to eat ..." 

Then there were long bouts of forced labour - the average working day was 16 hours. The "lucky ones" worked on farms or in the prison but most in coal mines that fed the nearby power station, slowly succumbing to exhaustion and disease. As decades passed, Kim's grandmother died after years of hunger and her mother and brother were killed in work accidents... 

Freedom for Kim came in 2001 in an amnesty for political prisoners to celebrate Kim Jong-il's birthday. But it would not be the last time she saw Bukchang. With the help of friends, she crossed the border into China. 

Many Han Chinese treat ethnic Koreans with contempt and sexual trafficking is rife. "I crossed over with a 23- and a 27-year-old," Kim remembers. "They were sold for 30,000 yuan ($5472)." 

Kim, who was 43, was saved by her age and found work in a Korean barbecue restaurant. But even though she had escaped North Korea, her boss asked her to return to buy piglets. As an illegal immigrant she felt she had no choice but to agree. 

The North Korean Government views any attempt to leave the country without permission as political dissent. Kim lasted two weeks before she was found and returned to Bukchang in the summer of 2008. Held in a less restrictive corner of the camp while the authorities decided what to do with her, she managed to escape and returned once more to China. From there she made her way overland, via Laos and Thailand, to South Korea, where she now lives. 

The North Korean Government refuses to acknowledge the existence of labour camps. But satellite photos show at least six across the country, housing an estimated 200,000 people.

Another one describes her escape from North Korea and her adjustment to life in South Korea:

I defected to South Korea in search of freedom of speech and movement. I had longed to put my feet on this soil, even in my dreams. After a long time in China, in January 2008 I finally arrived at Incheon International Airport in South Korea. My heart was pounding violently as I went inside the immigration office at the airport. I struggled to gather enough courage, wondering how I would start my speech and how weird I would look in their eyes.

I declared that I was a North Korean seeking asylum and was quickly ushered into another room. Then two men suddenly appeared who seemed to be senior officials. They closely checked my documents and began to ask me if I was actually Chinese. They informed me that I would be incarcerated for an unspecified period of time and then deported back to China if I was in violation of Korean law. Moreover, if the Chinese government learned that I was not actually a Chinese citizen, I would be jailed, heavily fined and then deported again: back to North Korea. I resisted the pressure and asked the officials to call the National Intelligence Service. After three hours, I left the airport in an NIS car and traveled to downtown Seoul.

Four months later, after I had been through my orientation for life in South Korea, I entered the house where I would be living. I found nothing; no TV set, no furniture, not even a spoon, I felt empty. I started out with mixed feelings of fear and excitement, but settling down turned out to be far more challenging than I had expected. I realized there was a wide gap between North and South, ranging from educational background to cultural and linguistic differences. We are a racially homogeneous people on the outside, but inside we have become very different as a result of the 63 years of division.

Does Mr. Baird think that North Korea could pull off this kind of oppression on its own? There wouldn't even be a North Korea (at least not one we recognise now) without China. What good does it do to punish North Korea but let its puppet-master escape whipping? How badly do we need China with its industrial espionage and disgusting human rights abuses that we would forget about the North Koreans?


I hope Mr. Baird has "frank and open discussions" about that.


(hat tip)

Monday Post

...and the world causes you to shake your head.


Case in point (as reported by the dreadful CBC because only they would do this with as much gusto. Maybe the Red Toronto Star, too):

A child-free picnic was held in Montreal Saturday by people who have chosen not to have children and are reaching out to others who made the same decision.

Pierre Dubuc took part in the event at Lafontaine Park in Montreal's East End.

Dubuc and his wife Gerarda Capece made a choice not to have children eight years ago.....

"On a Saturday morning, she was just relaxing and watching TV, and she turned to me and said 'You know what, this would be impossible with kids, you know, having kids around'," he said.

Capece said the couple enjoys the company of children — but not all the time.

"I have nephews, I like to play with them but I also like to give them to their mother and go home, you know?," she said.

Capece says people have questioned her decision, asking her who will take care of her when she gets old, but she said she's confident her social circle will help out.

I find it adorable she believes that. What, with the low birthrates, immigration, debt and people just as self-centred as she, I'm sure people will line up to care for her in her old age.


What a tool.


It's one thing to make a decision concerning one's life and being solid about it. It is quite another to lord one's decidedly selfish decision, draw attention to it and seek validation for it, as this couple is obviously doing. People who are comfortable with the course of their lives are too busy living them, not begging for people to pat them on the back.


They must not want children because they are children themselves.


Case number two: the riot that wouldn't die:

As was widely reported following the Vancouver hockey riots, social media was used to crowdsource a vigilante effort to identify the jerks who tore up their own city. Sites like Identifyrioters.com were launched to post pictures of the mayhem. They encourage users to click an “I know who this is!” button to link a pic to a person. Allegations are not posted publicly. They’re forwarded to the cops, who can follow up and see if the names fit the pics....


But some of the hooligans exposed on Youtube found a clever way to get the video removed—copyright claims. Under Youtube’s “Notice and Takedown” policy, all you need to do is claim you own the rights to a video and demand that it be removed, and Youtube will remove it. The video’s uploader will be informed of the allegation and then have a chance to challenge it.

But here’s the rub: in order to claim ownership of a video’s copyright, you have to identify yourself. And when Youtube informs the uploader that they’re being accused of a copyright violation, they have to tell them who their accuser is. So rioters are indirectly handing their names over to the very people who were trying to identify them.

Dave Teixeira of Port Coquitlam runs the site canucksriot2011.com. He posted a video of a guy getting hit in the groin with a stun grenade. Youtube told him “Flashing Nut Shot” was removed due to a copyright complaint filed by a certain individual. Texieria simply forwarded the complainer’s name to the police.

Oops.

Smashed window: $600. Outing yourself as the window-smasher: priceless.

Case number three: a well-written piece on the "mosqueteria" business and the strange silence of Canada's favourite windbag hack well-known authoress, Margaret Atwood (did she write A Handmaid's Tale to warn us all or does she really, really hate teen-aged students? I think it's the latter):

Whaddayaknow? 

Margaret Atwood warned us that North America would turn into a theocracy—and she was right!

Funny, though: She hasn’t said much about that lately, now that The Handmaid’s Tale is being acted out in a public school, here in her very own city of Toronto. 

I don’t mean the kids are staging her anti-theocratic novel as a play. In fact, I’m guessing Valley Park Middle School has quietly removed it from the “required reading” list.

And why not? After all, they’ve already turned the cafeteria into a mosque.

Yep.

Since November 2008—with the, er, blessing of the Toronto District School Board—Muslim prayers have been matter-of-factly conducted within an Ontario public school’s walls every Friday afternoon. Which is against the law.

For more than two years, the father of one of the school’s few non-Muslim students complained about this to the newspapers. Naturally, they ignored him. Then two weeks ago, somebody published his story. Now pretty much everyone in Canada is buzzing about that Toronto public-school “mosqueteria.”

The “somebody” who finally listened is a lowly blogger whose nom de Web is “Blazing Cat Fur” and who happens to be my husband.

On June 30, “Fur” posted an email he’d received from a regular reader, which read in part:

Every Friday my daughter’s school cafeteria changes into a mosque as dozens of Muslim boys and their imams (Islamic preachers) lead Islamic ritual prayers and no one else can even walk through the cafeteria.

My husband duly tracked down some school council meeting minutes dated November 24, 2008, that confirmed everything.

You see, letting Valley Park’s Muslim students leave for Friday afternoon prayers (!?) was proving to be too…disruptive. Jeepers, some of them even played hooky and didn’t go to the mosque like they were supposed to. So since they’d let Muhammad go to the Valley, as it were, those pesky boys and girls couldn’t skip prayers anymore. 

Unless those girls have their periods. 

Then they have to sit at the back.

As they might say on The Simpsons, the Toronto District School Board turned into the Taliban so slowly, I hardly noticed. Apparently, neither did Theocracy Finder General Margaret Atwood. (I guess she’s been too busy campaigning—unsuccessfully—to keep the country’s first “conservative” TV network off the air.)

Hell, even the Toronto District School Board didn’t notice, or else it would have been forced to charge itself with violating its own policy against “gender-based discrimination.”

Read the whole thing.



But some of the most telling elements of this whole fiasco are in the comments section (language within):

"Blah, blah, blah... more nutty Islamophobia. If Muslims have the will to stand up for their religion when Christians seem to have lost the will to do so, whose fault is that? Also, may I see your evidence that these Muslim middle-schoolers are "praying for the deaths of Christians and Jews", or did you just pull that slander against 13-year-olds out of your ass? Using your own baseless bullshit to counter Atwood's baseless bullshit does nothing but cheapen the general tone of political debate - which is already shrill, hysterical, and full of unlikely boogeymen."

"This is exactly the worst kind of racist islamophobic bitching that no country needs. See, these kids weren't breaking law, creating mayhem, having sex in school, setting things on fire, being sleazy asses, drinking,  ... or a thousand common problems of today's youth. They were praying for God's sake, meaning the best cultural thing they could do, this is something that helps them and the society at large. I mean this is their best behavior. Plus, granting them the right to pray is the most fundamental principle of democracy. It does not get more intolerant than this. Do we prefer to see boys as pricks and girls as sluts? Do we need to reduce every group to trash? Apparently, we do.

Separation of men and women in prayers , practised by many christians and jews and hindus and sikhs is almost a universal rule outside of anglican churches. This fake outrage is just ...well fake. The nazi tendency to rein in the churches will not have good ending. Other false claims (prayers for destruction of jews and christians, checking for menstruation, who pays for quran,....) are all really the cheapest shots I have seen in a while.

Doubting the possibility of a multi-cultural society is something, ferociously sabotaging it (as well as sabotaging basic freedoms) is something else.

Finally, Canadians ARE boorish with a potential for bigotry much worse than Americans. They are culturally less sophisticated with a larger tendency for atheist mob/totalitarian/monopolistic rule. The whole socialist system is one indication. Their recent stupid right wing foreign policy ( contrary to US , Canada does not have any interest in the middle east oil) is almost comically stupid and ideological. While we are at it, let's mention that major media outlets in canada almost entirely belong to a single Jewish family. I am no fan of over-hyped Canada."

 

 

(Sidebar: coming from someone who has an inability to actually examine the facts of the case and capitalise proper nouns but can display her own bigotry, she is in NO position to call anyone "boorish".) 

 

 

"Canada is run by a kleptocracy , it is rus worse than Saudi Arabia for sure. If any other nation had this much and, water and natural resources , they wouldn't struggling this much.  everything is 30% more expensive than US and an average family is hooked for a life of slavery. Rich in canada is a super exclusive oligarch club worse than Russia. Canadian youth drink more than an Irish homeless sailor. Authentic , non-commercial culture , does not exist in Canada, just a life of drinking, smoking , hockey, and penny pinching. Jews have such a monopoly over media and politics, unmatched even in Israel and push the clueless sheep towards buying, loans and military spending. The legal system is a joke and one of the most intrusive in the world. A massive brainwash is always going on to make canucks believe they are something special."

""They were praying for God's sake, meaning the best cultural thing they could do..."

Praying is the opposite of doing, since the prayers never rise above the ceiling. Praying is the essence of doing nothing at all.

Trust me, it gets far more intolerant than this, in every Islamic theocracy on Earth. If you'd be happier here, don't let the door hit you on your hairy ass on the way out."


"Anybody can use a simple 10 minutes google research to see any claim of war of islam against jews and christians is baseless. I mean even wikipedia laughs at this, which is telling. But we all know this discussion is not about facts. This is about an unholy alliance of militant atheists, general clueless racists and right wing jews and not-so-smart evangelical christians to create fear and hatred.  This suits their bigotry , but not LIBERTY, which is what I care about. I hate the mobs and their ever-pathetic members."

Wow. Just wow. Spiteful, hateful, ignorant, arrogant. This is the left and this is their crap.


Baird was doing so well with North Korea. Now, he's fouled the ball:

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, in Beijing to warm ties, has signalled the Harper government feels little sympathy for Chinese fugitive Lai Changxing. 

Mr. Lai’s case has dogged relations between Beijing and Ottawa for more than a decade, as the Chinese fugitive fought his extradition, arguing he would be executed or abused if he’s returned home. 

But after four years of quiet in his case, Canadian immigration authorities opined last week that he would not be mistreated if sent back to China. The government moved quickly to deport him until a court order issued last Wednesday stalled the efforts. 

The movement in the case occurred just before Mr. Baird travelled to China for his first official bilateral visit to any country as Foreign Affairs Minister – a trip intended to underscore the importance Ottawa places on relations with Beijing. Mr. Baird shrugged off questions about the coincidence by arguing Ottawa can’t control the case....

Concerns that China might execute Mr. Lai blocked Canada from extraditing him in the early years. But China has since assured Ottawa that it would not execute him. The question, however, is whether those assurances are reliable guarantees – and critics also argue China’s legal system does not provide sufficient due process to decide the case fairly. 

Mr. Baird’s tone in describing relations with Beijing underlined the efforts that Stephen Harper’s Conservative government is making to warm ties – a change from the early days of Tory government, when comments about Tibet and human rights annoyed China, and Mr. Harper chose not to make a visit. The Prime Minister finally visited at the end of 2009. 

Mr. Baird not only said Ottawa welcomes Chinese investment in Canada, including the oil and gas sector, but referred to working with Beijing as “friends” on human rights.

Who do you think is keeping North Korea afloat, Mr. Baird? Now how do you feel about friendly ties with this octopus?


Related: is the US appeasing China?



And now, the Japanese art of making antique robots and utterly terrifying fifteenth century robots.

Sunday Post

Some things to mull over.


Blazing Cat Fur has done a phenomenal job on what has been snarkily called the "mosqueteria". One of his latest posts gives one great pause, a pause so great that one questions why sending one's children to public schools at all:

The TDSB has embraced Peggy McIntosh's marxist screed on "White Privilege" in it's entirety as outlined in this document: Getting Ready for March 21 International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (United Nations)
....

As I stated previously, parents should sue the TDSB for hate speech. This is child abuse.

Perhaps those mighty brain-trusts at the TDSB would like to explain what it profits a community into either transforming students into the very thugs they fear or brow-beating students with such scurrilous nonsense that they daren't lift their heads again. This manifesto was never about the elimination of bigotry or the advancement of critical thought but of cowing future generations into their warped way of thinking.



Vaguely related: David Mamet's piece in the National Post. Well worth a read:

They were and are the children of privilege -in some, the privilege is inherited, and the cost of college meaningless, in some the cost is huge, and families suffer; but in all cases the privilege taught, learned, and imbibed, in a "liberal arts education" is the privilege to indict. These children have, in the main, never worked, learned to obey, command, construct, amend or complete -to actually contribute to the society. They have learned to be shrill, and that their indictment, on the economy, on sex, on race, on the environment, though based on no experience other than hearsay, must trump any discourse, let alone opposition.

How he has inadvertently summed up the TDSB manifesto. It is as though the bizarre, perverse and violent culture of Soviet show trials have entered this country and, not stopping at the ill-titled human right commissions, have permeated all other arenas of human life and made existence unbearable. As I said before, nothing was ever about the elimination of bigotry but making others cow down to one's evil will.



Obama visits the Dalai Lama and that upsets China (naturally):

China accused the United States on Saturday of "grossly" interfering in its internal affairs and damaging relations after President Barack Obama met exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama at the White House.


Obama met the Nobel Prize laureate for some 45 minutes, praising him for embracing non-violence while reiterating that the United States did not support independence for Tibet.

China, which accuses the Dalai Lama of being a separatist who supports the use of violence to set up an independent Tibet, said Obama's meeting had had a "baneful" impact.

"Such an act has grossly interfered in China's internal affairs, hurt the feelings of Chinese people and damaged the Sino-American relations," Xinhua quoted Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu as saying in a written statement.

"We demand the U.S. side to seriously consider China's stance, immediately adopt measures to wipe out the baneful impact, stop interfering in China's internal affairs and cease to connive and support anti-China separatist forces that seek 'Tibet independence'," Ma said in the statement.

I know he's trolling for something but I still don't think he should let China dictate anything to him, as he has done before.


Further:

John Bolton has a pretty good track record for predicting North Korean nuclear tests. He’s predicting another one soon, and I suppose it’s about time for one. Along with this, Bolton criticizes President Obama for his public silence on North Korea. But as we learned from George W. Bush, strident rhetoric is no substitute for a not-half-bad policy.

(hat tip)


Somewhat related:

President Obama is demanding a big long-term budget deal. He won’t sign anything less, he warns, asking, “If not now, when?”

How about last December, when he ignored his own debt commission’s recommendations? How about February, when he presented a budget that increases debt by $10 trillion over the next decade? How about April, when he sought a debt-ceiling increase with zero debt reduction attached?


All of a sudden he’s a born-again budget balancer prepared to bravely take on his own party by making deep cuts in entitlements. Really? Name one. He’s been saying forever that he’s prepared to discuss, engage, converse about entitlement cuts. But never once has he publicly proposed a single structural change to any entitlement.

Hasn’t the White House leaked that he’s prepared to raise the Medicare age or change the cost-of-living calculation?

Anonymous talk is cheap. Leaks are designed to manipulate. Offers are floated and disappear.

Say it, Mr. President. Give us one single structural change in entitlements. In public.

As part of the pose as the forward-looking grown-up rising above all the others who play politics, Obama insists upon a long-term deal. And what is Obama’s definition of long-term? Surprise: An agreement that gets him past Nov. 6, 2012.

Oh, for the love of Peter, Paul and Mary:

North Korea officials blamed traditional musk deer gland medicine used after a lightening strike for five positive tests for steroids at the Women’s World Cup, the biggest soccer doping scandal at a major tournament in 17 years.


FIFA President Sepp Blatter said Saturday after two players were caught during the tournament this month, the world soccer governing body took the unprecedented step of testing the rest of the North Korean squad and found three more positive results.


“This is a shock,” Blatter said at a news conference. “We are confronted with a very, very bad case of doping and it hurts.”

A North Korean delegation told Blatter and the head of FIFA’s medical committee on Saturday that the steroids were accidentally taken with traditional Chinese medicines based on the deer glands.

“The North Korean officials said they didn’t use it to improve performance. They said they had a serious lightning accident with several players injured and they gave it as therapy,” said Michel D’Hooghe, chief of FIFA’s medical committee. “It is not systemic, because not all of the players took it. We would have found it with the others too.”

The case will be taken up by FIFA’s disciplinary committee. Players face a ban of up to two years.

And we thought nepotism and corruption occurred only in pre-united Italy:

But the bottom line is that the average reserve works like a company town, and as someone who grew up in one in northwestern Quebec, I can’t help but agree.

In my town, the copper mine was the key employer, owned the golf course, recreation centre and swimming pool, and most of the houses.

Same thing on a reserve.

But in my small town, there were all the checks and balances Canadians expect — a free press, a hearty private sector and the mishmash of volunteer organizations such as churches, Legions, Moose Halls and watchdog or advocacy groups that together raised the alarm when the powers that be stepped out of line.

Not so on reserves, which may explain why walking into a band office is akin to that scene from old Westerns, where the stranger enters the bar and everyone turns to give her the long hard stare of suspicion.

And now, some quick thoughts on a topic appropriate for Sunday:

I discovered that I had come to believe that only Rome can trace a direct line to the church's rock, St. Peter. It was to St. Peter, after all, and to his descendants, that our Lord promised that the gates of hell would not prevail. Against most churches, the gates of hell seem to me to be prevailing quite well. Only the Roman Catholic Church, the repository of teaching and traditions that date to our Lord's first disciples, "the unmoved spectator of the thousand phases and fashions that have passed over our restless world" (to use Ronald Knox's elegant phrase), has the history, the guts, the inner wherewithal, to survive a postmodern age. Rome's claim to speak with authority in matters of faith and morals is the last refuge, or so I now believe, against the all-corrosive acid of postmodernism.

What he said.


It is not simply tradition, seen by some as blind adherence in a post-modern age, but truth and an iron grip of that truth. Did Christ not ask Saint Peter to lead His Church? Did He not offer His actual Body and Blood in what is now termed the Eucharist? Have basic laws on which to live not been carved into stone? It is these theological reasons that compel one to the Faith. Any change in the matters of morals or faith would be a denial of the truth, would not make the lapsed return and would only be decried when the proverbial pendulum swung the other way.


It makes criticism of the Church so lukewarm in its light:

"This has always struck me as the difference between Roman Catholics and the rest of us Christians. The former have always believed that they possess the keys to salvation. Their dogma is inviolate. When the rest of us are struggling with issues like gay marriage and female ordination, the Catholic Church remains convinced that humankind’s social and spiritual needs have not evolved in the past 1,000 years.
I applaud the constancy of the Roman Catholic Church and I am pleased that such eminent personages as Conrad Black and Ian Hunter find solace in their conversion and their faith. But I find it wearying that they can’t seem to celebrate their own Church without an occasional casual swipe at mine. As I sit in my sometimes uncomfortable pew on Sundays, I remain convinced that God often sits there with me, helping our congregation and our Church struggle with some of the most divisive social issues of our time."


"Perhaps something like that explains Professor Ian Hunter’s religious blind spot, and his simple inability to see the impossible incongruity between what we know as fact and what the Roman Catholic Church teaches as dogma. “Human life is forever,” “marriage is indissoluble,” abortion and ordination of women are wrong” and so on. While all religions are guilty of this sort of self delusion to some degree, the Roman Catholic Church is a particularly telling example."


"Ahmed Khalil’s arguments justifying Islam’s discrimination against Muslim women during prayer time (“menstruating women are exempt from prayer, a physical and arduous exercise … women are not required to attend Friday congregational prayer to begin with, while it’s an obligation for men”) are identical to those used by Orthodox Jews to discriminate against Jewish women, and very similar to those used by Catholics to discriminate against Catholic women. It’s wonderful to see that these three great religions have something in common — too bad it is misogyny."

Is this the same Catholic Church that was/is: founded by Christ, developed the sacraments many other breakaway sects still use, has established/developed libraries, schools, hospitals, orphanages, missions, literature, art, music, philosophy, whose members are/were law-abiding citizens of countries, served in wars, paid their taxes, whose women are not segregated by gender or physical state but are educated and treated as equals? Is this the same Church?


Perhaps the letter-writers should re-examine their tracts (they should go one further and actually read their history). The last I checked Jesus DID found the Church, my parents DID encourage me to learn and never once threatened to kill me for my mode of dress or held me back, I DID study next to boys in the Catholic schools I went to and I do attend a church that doesn't demand sharia law or the banning of Christmas. Perhaps there are blind spots in the letter-writers' vision?



And now, space- the final frontier:

An unmanned NASA probe made history 117 million miles from Earth on Saturday (July 16) when it arrived at the huge asteroid Vesta, making it the first spacecraft ever to orbit an object in the solar system's asteroid belt.

The Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around Vesta after a four-year chase and will spend about a year studying the huge space rock before moving on to visit another asteroid called Ceres.

Vesta is a huge asteroid about the size of the U.S. state of Arizona, and is also the brightest asteroid in the solar system. It is located in the asteroid belt, a band of rocky objects that encircles the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.