Mid-Week Post

A mid-week post on the twenty-ninth of February is as good as a post in the merry month of Smarch.



Monkees singer Davy Jones has died. He was sixty-six.



What Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty meant to say is that he never thinks before he speaks:

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty tried Wednesday to turn down the heat generated by his comments earlier in the week about preferring a lower dollar to a growing oil and gas sector in Western Canada.

McGuinty admitted he was "a bit surprised" by the extent of the blowback from his comments Monday, when he said Canada's high "petro-dollar" was bad for Ontario manufacturers and exporters.

"I think I should clarify ... we are very, very proud of the work that is being done by Canadians in every province and territory to strengthen our country," McGuinty told reporters.

"We have a strong sense of partnership with Canadians from coast to coast to coast."

The mea culpa wasn't enough for Alberta Premier Alison Redford. Her position is that the entire Canadian economy, and Ontario in particular, benefits from the oilsands.

She told an open-line radio show that she felt her province was owed an apology from the Ontario premier.

She suggested McGuinty's original comments were born out of the difficult financial situation his government is in.

 Why was he re-elected? Why?



Obama shows he is a soldier's president by jeopardising military medical benefits:

Just when America believed the US government health scandal couldn’t get worse, President Obama’s handlers go one step further—increasing service members’ and veterans’ medical premiums. This move is designed to push service members and veterans to opt out of Tricare and find a new insurance provider.

President Obama’s new medical proposal seeks to save $1.8 billion from the Tricare medical system in the fiscal 2013 budget and $12.9 billion by 2017, the latter amount adding up to 0.99% of the $1.3 trillion deficit for a single year built into Obama’s proposed budget. To accomplish this spending reduction, service members should expect a 30% to 78% increase in Tricare annual premiums for the first year. In five years, service members will expect an increase ranging from 94% to 345%.

The average annual salary for a four year single enlistee is approximately $34k. If that service member were married with dependents, the salary increases to approximately $42k. Are those numbers enough to make any sane person want to enlist today, knowing they will likely ship off to some foreign land to fight a losing war like that in Afghanistan? Are those numbers enough to justify risking one’s life–enough to afford an increased medical premium that could be raised by 78% just this year or 345% by the time their initial enlistment is over?


Make no mistake; the President is downsizing our military, and this new military medical initiative is one sure way he will see volunteers leave the military knowing their benefits are jeopardized. At a time when Iran threatens the free world, Afghanistan’s violence is on a rise, and North Korea remains unstable, is now the time to play with our service members’ well-being?

It's supposed to be a secret:

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta believes there is a growing possibility Israel will attack Iran as early as April to stop Tehran from building a nuclear bomb, U.S. media reported on Thursday.

Given how this administration has given Israel the cold shoulder over and over again, I doubt this is a disinformation ploy but a deliberate wrench in the works.



For those who still don't get it, allow me to explain in the simplest way I know how: Iran is a mad theocratic state and Israel isn't. When even other Islamic states worry that Iran is a loose cannon, you know that nothing good can come from allowing it to obtain nuclear weapons.



Israel, on the other hand, is a stable and sane state where there is no state-sanctioned persecution of religious and ethnic minorities. The same could not be said about Iran. Israel has a civilian army because it has been threatened in the past. Iran's army has both volunteers and conscripts as young as fifteen years old. Israel provides food and medical aid to the very people trying to kill them. How many will benefit from Iran's alleged nuclear energy program?



Related:

This is the moment every sane person knew had to come, ever since Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski knowingly allowed the radical suicide regime of Ayatollah Khomeini to overthrow the modernizing Shah of Iran.  That was the single most self-destructive decision by any American President in modern history.  

Jimmy Carter empowered the first Islamic throwback regime since Kemal Ataturk modernized Turkey in the 1920s.

Since Khomeini, Islamic radicalization has only accelerated, culminating in the 9/11/01 attack on New York City. Obama's equally suicidal "Arab Spring" has now brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt, instead of our long-time ally Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak's predecessor Anwar Sadat was assassinated by the Muslim Brotherhood, and Obama knowingly chose to support Sadat's assassins.

So much for America's loyalty and word of honor.

In 2008, Barack Obama said he would meet Iran without pre-conditions. Discuss.





Also related: an Iranian convert to Christianity is sentenced to three years in prison for "Christian activities".

From a previous post: the editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics gives a self-serving explanation of why he printed - defended- an article arguing for infanticide:

As Editor of the Journal, I would like to defend its publication. The arguments presented, in fact, are largely not new and have been presented repeatedly in the academic literature and public fora by the most eminent philosophers and bioethicists in the world, including Peter Singer, Michael Tooley and John Harris in defence of infanticide, which the authors call after-birth abortion.

The novel contribution of this paper is not an argument in favour of infanticide – the paper repeats the arguments made famous by Tooley and Singer – but rather their application in consideration of maternal and family interests. The paper also draws attention to the fact that infanticide is practised in the Netherlands.

Many people will and have disagreed with these arguments. However, the goal of the Journal of Medical Ethics is not to present the Truth or promote some one moral view. It is to present well reasoned argument based on widely accepted premises. The authors provocatively argue that there is no moral difference between a fetus and a newborn. Their capacities are relevantly similar. If abortion is permissible, infanticide should be permissible. The authors proceed logically from premises which many people accept to a conclusion that many of those people would reject.

Why would he be shocked that many would find this article- and its subsequent support- abhorrent? Oh, why, indeed?!



(With thanks)



And now, a song map.

A Few Things....

...to ponder...



Iran cares not for infidel crispy chicken and gravy:

The U.S. fast food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) has denied reports  it has opened a branch in Iran.

In a statement issued following an inquiry by the Persian Service of the BBC, KFC says that it will take legal action against individuals or companies that take advantage of the brand in Iran. The statement also says that that the company has no plans to open a restaurant in Iran.

Why is assimilation"bad"?

America is having a crisis of confidence. The left in this country has introduced the postmodern concept of subjective truth and morality into our culture, convincing many that American values are not superior — just different. This is, of course, untrue. American values and morals tower over the rest of the world. The ideas of personal autonomy and individual sovereignty make attacking homosexuals or people of different faiths abhorrent even to the most zealous Muslim American if they adopt our values. Children are protected from sexual predation here, not just because we have different standards, but because we’re a civilized society that recognizes how exploitative and dangerous it is for adults to have sexual relations with children. We don’t assault teachers, break into other people’s houses, or commit random mass murders because in America we understand these things are wrong, not just illegal.

Ugly cultures (or aspects thereof) largely disappeared because a group was forced to assimilate to a less counter-evolutionary and immoral way of life. Can one imagine living with the Spartans or Mayans? Now try imagine living in parts of the world where women are treated like cattle.



Good luck:

Coming off an incredibly successful weekend in San Francisco, CA and Washington, D.C., we are excited to announce that Secular Pro-Life will be sharing the pro-life, pro-woman, and pro-science message at the American Atheists convention on March 25-26!

Related:

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus' health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

There's that slippery slope.


Whenever some mental midget wishes to change the English language to serve his or her political purposes, resist. Man the decks against this verbal assault:

A citizens’ rights advocacy group, Culture Guard, has asked Education Minister George Abbott to ban words it says demean and incite hatred against students, parents and other stakeholders who oppose having the homosexual political agenda propagandized in schools.
 

The offensive words include “homophobia”, “homophobe”, “homophobic” and “heterosexist”.


“The words are just made-up propaganda words,” says Culture Guard president Kari Simpson. “They may sound pseudo-medical or pseudo-psychological, but they aren’t found in any recognized medical, psychological or psychiatric dictionaries.


“Their only purpose is propaganda: once the sex activists hang a hateful label on parents or others who don’t want children brainwashed in school, they can more easily persuade the public, the media, and politicians not to listen to fact-based arguments for protecting students from political propaganda.”

The more I hear how universities are now places of propagandists and bullies, the more I lament at what they used to be- places of learning:

The United States is no better than any other country, and in many areas worse than many. On the world stage, America is an imperialist country, and domestically it mistreats its minorities and neglects its poor, while discriminating against non-whites.

There is no better and no worse in literature and the arts. The reason universities in the past taught Shakespeare, Michelangelo, and Bach rather than, let us say, Guatemalan poets, Sri Lankan musicians, and Native American storytellers was “Eurocentrism.”

God is at best a non-issue, and at worst, a foolish and at worst, a foolish and dangerous belief.

 

Christianity is largely a history of inquisitions, crusades, oppression, and anti-intellectualism. Islam, on the other hand, is “a religion of peace.” Therefore, criticism of Christianity is enlightened, while criticism of Islam is Islamophobia.

Israel is a racist state, morally no different from apartheid South Africa.

Where are the "co-parents" when kids throw up on the floor or refuse to do their homework?


I wonder if this arrogance would persist after a lawsuit.



(Muchas gracias)



And now, the quickest way to love is through beef....

And Now....

For the lighter side of things...


THIS is how you do sushi.... with peanut butter and bananas....



There is nothing more relaxing than a cat massage....



Unusual beds (I think we're gonna need a bigger shark....)



Just do what the sign says.

Monday Stuff

A lot of things to talk about...



Who would have thought that dirty tricks were not beneath the Liberals?

Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae has apologized for the Liberal staffer who was behind the Twitter account that posted private details of Minister Vic Toews’ life online.

It was never about a vague connection to a crime. It was idiocy, paranoia and the state's persistent need to show everybody who wears the pants around here.


 (thumbs up)



When grovelling, try to look vaguely mannish about it:

The White House press secretary told members of the press pool aboard Air Force One today that President Obama’s “sincere” apology to Afghan President Hamid Karzai for a Koran-burning incident “is not appropriate to show” to reporters.

Jay Carney spoke with reporters for about 20 minutes as the presidential entourage flew to Florida for a speech on energy at the University of Miami.

Obama’s letter to Karzai that included the apology was “a lengthy, three-page letter on a host of issues, several sentences of which relate to this matter,” according to the travel pool report.

“The president, following up on a telephone conversation … wrote a long letter on a variety of issues related to our bilateral engagement, including reconciliation, including the trilateral talks that we had with Pakistan last week in Islamabad,” Carney said. “He also expressed his apology for the inadvertent burning of religious materials by American personnel in Afghanistan. It is wholly appropriate given the understandable sensitivities to this issue. His primary concern as commander in chief is the safety of American men and women in Afghanistan, of our military and civilian personnel there. It’s absolutely the right thing to do.”

Carney said Karzai did not request the apology letter. Obama spoke with Karzai the day before sending the letter.

 

Not working.


(With thanks)



South Korea needs to stand up to China and we need to stop trading with them:

South Korean legislators on Friday condemned China's repatriation of fugitives from North Korea after Beijing reportedly sent nine back despite pleas from Seoul.

A resolution passed by the committee on foreign affairs and unification urges China to follow international rules in handling North Koreans who flee their impoverished homeland, and seeks outside help to halt the returns.

The resolution, adopted at a meeting attended by Foreign Minister Kim Sung-Hwan, followed reports by Yonhap news agency and newspapers that nine North Koreans were sent back last weekend.

Activists who have been demonstrating in Seoul say the fugitives face severe punishment, even a possible death sentence, if forced to return home.

President Lee Myung-Bak said Wednesday the North Koreans should be treated in line with international rules.

The South's foreign ministry has urged China to change its policy of treating North Koreans as economic migrants, and to give them refugee status.

The ministry declined to confirm last weekend's reported repatriations but said it would raise the issue for the first time at a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva next week.

Seoul, however, will not mention China by name because of fears this could backfire, Chosun Ilbo newspaper said.

"We don't want to put defectors in a bind by creating diplomatic discord with Beijing," an unnamed foreign ministry official was quoted as saying.

North Korea's official website blasted the South for trying to internationalise the issue, saying repatriations are the "rightful activity of sovereign nations".

"Recently South Korean authorities have been frantic in their commotion over 'refugees' in a reckless attempt to internationalise the issue of repatriating them," the Uriminzokkiri website said Friday.

"Nobody can say this or that about the rightful activity of sovereign nations when they take administrative actions on problems on their border in line with domestic laws and relevant treaties."

About 30 North Korean refugees have reportedly been caught by Chinese authorities this month and are awaiting repatriation, as their relatives or other supporters in the South campaign to save them.

"My brother in North Korea called me, and said that my female cousin who crossed into China in late February was caught and sent back to North Korea," a North Korean refugee in the South told Yonhap Thursday.

She said eight others were also repatriated.

A Seoul group called North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity said it could confirm that China had recently repatriated three North Koreans, although there might have been more.

***

Hundreds of North Korean defectors were awaiting repatriation as of last Friday after being arrested in various parts of China, rights activists say.

"Some 220 defectors have been interrogated by regional security departments in China and are being held at about 10 detention centers near the North Korea-China border," said Kim Hoe-tae of Solidarity for North Korean Human Rights. "They'll be sent back to the North one by one."

Other defector groups and activists say there are even more, counting those who are still on the way to detention centers after their arrests, bringing the total to anywhere between 300 and 400.

According to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China sent between 4,800 and 8,900 defectors back to the North every year between 1998 and 2006, Kim added.

Former unification deputy minister Kim Suk-woo agreed. "China has repatriated about 5,000 defectors to the North every year under an agreement on the extradition of fugitives and criminals it concluded with the North in the 1960s," he said.

Different groups give different estimates on the number of defectors who have been arrested in Shenyang, Yanji, and Changchun this month, ranging from 24 to 40. "We're certain of the number of defectors arrested in China for whom we've worked through our brokers," a member of a defector group said. "But it's hard for us to find out the total number."

But most activists believe the numbers reported in the press are just the tip of the iceberg.

We don't need their cheap products and their penchant for being evil.


(thanks)

Thursday Stuff

A few things....


Did you save a friend? You should. More info here.



Canada is apparently an awful country with a history of "repression, exclusion, and exploitation." If the communist-inspired "People's" meme doesn't give you a clue of how bereft of historical and socio-political import and facts this text is, just read it and let your palm find your face on its own.


What a silly person:

I would not have commented on the burning of the Quran by US military in Afghanistan a few days ago if the incident took place or was done by individuals far away – in Florida for example. Many such incidents took place before and were done by ignorant people tarnishing the image of Islam or mocking Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)....

The army represents a whole country – it has seniors who answer for all their deeds. Explaining it with ignorance is a bit far-fetched accusation. The apology of President Obama alone is the least he could do. He owes the Afghan nation and all Muslims around the world -even in the US – more than that. Whoever has done this should answer for his or her deeds. There should be accountability and punishment. Officers and military people get punished for much smaller mistakes and trivial acts in their daily routine. They face sometimes court-martials.

As Korans seem to take precedence over human lives, how many Korans were destroyed when a Tikrit mosque was attacked by a suicide bomber? The article didn't say but seventeen people were killed. How many Bibles, missals and hymnals are destroyed when churches are attacked, usually when people are in them? How many hospitals are attacked? How many people are able to read the Koran? When will there any apologies and reparation for Islamist violence?


When Miss Darwish has these answers, I do hope she will apprise us of them.



Because she's Sarah Palin and she's super-right:

Obama apologizes for the inadvertent Koran burning this week; now the U.S. trained and protected Afghan Army can apologize for killing two of our soldiers yesterday.

Oh look! Victims!

As anti-Muslim rhetoric rises locally and nationally — some of it fueled by the presidential campaign — a group of Chicago-area Muslims is battling back, using tactics including a television ad campaign and public forums against bigotry.

Because people who feel constantly aggrieved and put upon for any reason at all are the true victims in this world.



(Bolsheye spasiba to all)



Remember when Kanye West, like a stuttering man-child, declared George Bush didn't like black people? Yeah, well, think about this when you struggle to forget that too-painful-to-watch plea:

According to the Daily, Kanye West – the same fellow who suggested that President George W. Bush hated black people because he didn’t do enough about Hurricane Katrina – has a charity that spent $572,383 in 2010 and gave $0 to charity. That’s right — $0.

In 2009, Kanye was slightly better – his foundation spent $553,826. A grand total of $583 ended up going to charity. The people who work at the Kanye West Foundation grabbed most of the cash in 2010 (some $340,000); professional fees took up another $111,250.

I guess Kanye West doesn't like needy people.



This is interesting:

Israeli researchers have discovered a gene that increases the lifespan in mice, and may do the same in humans.The researchers, led by Dr. Haim Cohen of the Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, teamed up for the study with scientists from Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem's Hebrew University and the Carnegie Mellon University.

Mid-Week Post

Quickly now....


As I've been saying:

China indisputably is a conscienceless regime that treats domestic dissenters and opponents with breathtaking callousness and cruelty. From its arrogant, unaccountable and corrupt system of government to its cheerful resort to firing squads (5,000 executions in 2009 — more than the rest of the world combined), harvesting of organs from opponents and its violent suppression of Tiananmen Square protesters, Tibetan autonomists and Falun Gong supporters, the odious Chinese regime is certainly an egregious offender against international norms of human rights.

But that in itself is not sufficient to make us avoid trading with China. We have traded with as bad and worse regimes: the Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Libya before the revolution and others have all been places where Canadians have bought and sold despite appalling human rights records. Canada rightly criticizes all such regimes, but does not interfere with its own citizens’ rights to engage in trade as long as they do so in accordance with Canadian law.

The real reason to be exceptionally wary and prudent in our relationship with China actually has nothing to do with how they treat their own people and everything to do with how they treat us. Make no mistake: China is projecting its amoral pursuit of its regime’s interests into the wider world, including right here in Canada. Wherever China has acquired economic and political power, it has used it to intimidate opponents and hold itself above the law.

In Asia, for example, China unabashedly uses its growing economic and military clout to intimidate smaller countries. It is unwilling to see its expansive and weakly justified claims to resource-rich parts of the South China Sea subjected to normal rules-based settlement in international forums. It prefers to become economically dominant in smaller countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines and then use that power to bully their partner into submission. The recent welcome political liberalization in Burma can be traced to its military junta’s increasing unwillingness to be pushed around by China and the consequent need to repair relations with the west. Small Asian countries warmly welcomed America’s stated intention of becoming more present in East Asia because they want a powerful counterweight to the overbearing Chinese.

Then there is China’s aggressive campaign of spying and espionage against foreigners in general and Canadians firms, individuals and interests in particular. Despite considerable media coverage, Canadians seem blithely unaware of the extent of China’s spying efforts. To pick just one recent example, a defector from China’s intelligence services has indicated China has 1,000 economic spies at work in Canada, more than any other country. Canadian researchers have been instrumental in uncovering a worldwide software-based Chinese spy network that targeted sensitive government information, while industrial espionage has pillaged Canadian industrial and business secrets.

In sum, China’s is a nasty regime that wishes us ill, unashamedly exploits weakness in its trade partners and holds itself above both the law and international norms of decency wherever it is to their advantage.

Why teachers' unions should be abolished:



Case #1:






And case #2:






How long would OECTA last if the public funds dried up? What if parents, tired of "teachers" lying to them and doing anything other than educate their kids, demanded teachers' unions be abolished? How many dedicated Catholic professionals would there be?


(Muchas gracias)



Oh, this is embarrassing:

With the pro-life/pro-choice argument being in the news cycle for the past few weeks, Newt Gingrich was right on point tonight when he brought up President Obama's pro-abortion, pro-infanticide voting record that the media ignored during his presidential campaign in 2008. As a state senator, Obama voted against legislation, four times in total, that protects babies who survive abortion procedures. His no vote meant he was in support of legally allowing people to leave baby abortion survivors to die on the operating table instead of giving them care. 

And this.



What he said:

Rowan Atkinson has told the BBC that producers should have total creative freedom when it comes to on screen hires – and should not have to adhere to discrimination legislation.

His comments came a week after the BBC director general Mark Thompson admitted that the BBC had “got it wrong” by firing older female presenters and vowed to bring back more.

In a letter to the BBC Radio 4 Media Show, Atkinson said that “the creative industries are completely inappropriate environments for anti-discrimination legislation.”

The actor, comedian and screenwriter is one of Britain’s biggest talent exports, starring in such shows as Blackadder, Mr Bean and movies including Johnny English.

Citing the of case of Miriam O’Reilly, the BBC presenter who won a landmark case against the BBC after being dropped from the rural affairs show Countryfile, Atkinson said while he did not blame O’Reilly for using the existing law, his argument was more that “the legal tools she used should never have been available to  her.”

Atkinson likened using age discrimination to situation to Pierce Brosnan complaining that he was sacked from Bond movies for being too old.

“If either at the outset of a TV program, or at any time during its screen life, you want to replace an old person with a young person or a white person with a black person, or a disabled straight with an able-bodied gay, you should have as much creative freedom to do so.”

Affirmative action is corporate eye-candy. It does not elevate dedicated, hard-working professionals of a certain ethnicity or gender but rather reinforces chauvinist views that some people are too stupid to get a job so it must be handed to them. Those people have been proven right, I'm afraid.



And now, what the building of the pyramids would cost today:

Even with cranes, helicopters, tractors and trucks at our disposal, it would be tough to construct the Great Pyramid of Giza today. Its construction 4,500 years ago is so astounding in some people's eyes that they invoke mystical or even alien involvement. But the current theory of the building of the Great Pyramid — the notion that it was assembled from the inside out, via a spiraling internal ramp — is probably still the best construction plan.

Following that plan, we could replicate the Wonder of the Ancient World for a cool $5 billion.

For a Tuesday

Because the Earth still revolves around the sun...


... and me...


Alright, not the last part.



How to take a reasonable discussion on official languages and turn it into some kind of childish name-calling spat:

Call me naïve, but the left’s coarse brutishness still shocks me. The only thing that shocks me more is the right’s suicidal cowardice.

Here’s a sample of the first. The topic is CPAC, last weekend’s gathering of the Conservative Political Action Conference, in particular a panel where I participated. The panel was organized by ProEnglish.org, which, to quote from their mission statement,

…is the nation’s leading advocate of official English. We work through the courts and in the court of public opinion to defend English’s historic role as America’s common, unifying language, and to persuade lawmakers to adopt English as the official language at all levels of government.

...

There was some commentary from the left about CPAC, including some that fixed its attention on our ProEnglish panel. One piece that particularly caught my eye was this one from Salon.com, which I had supposed to be a serious, respectable website. The writer is one Alex Pareene, not formerly known to me. I’ve asterisked out an offensive word.

The National Review‘s John Derbyshire, a stock ‘pervert Tory’ character from a Martin Amis novel sprung to life and given a sinecure at the National Review, is hosting a panel on ‘multiculturalism’ (boo hiss) featuring two of America’s most detestable sacks of ****: Peter Brimelow, founder of white supremacist site VDARE, and Robert Vandervoort, the director of some sort of ‘don’t make me press one for English’ nativist group and a white nationalist from way back.

...

Read the whole thing.


When Pareene could have actually listened to the panel instead of assuming it was one big, concentrated effort to stamp out diversity forever, he went on some girlish and illogical tirade against the speakers themselves. If you can't ignore the message, kill the messenger. Mr. Derbyshire has already done a fine job of hashing out Pareene's baffling attacks so I won't bother with that much.  An official language- or official languages- is a unifying standard in any nation. It allows the new immigrant to converse, live and work in his new country. I'm not seeing what's wrong with that. Maybe Pareene does, I don't know.


Yet another reason why liberals/leftists are mentally off.



North Korean defectors are being held in China:

The recent detention of 22 defectors in and around Shenyang was the result of joint work by North Korea’s National Security Agency (NSA) and the Chinese Ministry of Public Security (MPS), according to a source inside China.

According to the source today, “10 defectors went from Yanji to Shenyang on the 8th, but they were being watched from before they even departed by the Chinese MPS and the NSA and so they got tracked. They were detained as they tried to board a bus after arriving in Shenyang.”

The source added that a broker who was meant to transfer the group in Shenyang sensed the danger and was going to warn them not to take the bus, but it was too late.

In addition, NSA agents then threatened the detained group and forced them to make contact with another six people they had agreed to meet elsewhere in Shenyang so that the six could also be tracked to their locations and caught.

The defectors apparently had no connection to religious or other groups, but were being helped by Kim, an ethnic Korean broker with a long history of aiding those trying to reach South Korea.

According to the source, three further defectors were captured in Changchun on the 12th, and another three in Shenyang on the same day. All 22 are known to be under investigation in Shenyang.

Six of the 22 are children of 16 or less; the group is said to include a family of three and one more of five.

The latest defector captures come hard on the heels of a failed attempt to stop the MPS from repatriating another group of 19 defectors arrested in Shenyang on February 9th. Despite the efforts of both North Korea human rights groups in the region and even the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, finally the group was returned to the North at Namyang.

The sharp uptick in arrests comes following alleged agreement between the NSA and MPS in January that resulted in MPS units being ordered to step up efforts to uncover and detain defectors in their jurisdictions, the source claimed.

This has inspired likely presidential candidate Park Geun Hye of the Saenuri Party to pass a message to the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, expressing the depth of her concern; however, the Chinese government has so far shown little interest in South Korea’s protestations. 

I wonder if this ran through Stephen Harper's mind when he signed trade agreements with the Chinese.



If it will do some good, please sign a petition to rescue these defectors. Sign it and pass it along. 



Thanking you in advance....



Remember- this is the religion of peace:

The Afghan government said Monday that police had rescued 41 children from becoming suicide bombers as they were about to be smuggled across the mountains into Pakistan.

Interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told a news conference that the children aged six to 11 had been released on February 15 from the clutches of four insurgents in eastern Kunar province.

He told AFP their families "were fooled by terrorists", who promised to send them to seminaries in Pakistan where they would be "brainwashed" and "prepared for suicide bombings against Afghan and international troops in Afghanistan".

Police arrested the four suspects and the children were returned to their families, the spokesman said.

Damn Methodists!



Related: if it's a book you can't read anyway, why do you care?



Also related: stop apologising to these terrorists!



And:

“Next week I will present a draft law to remove all churches from Kuwait because Kuwait is an Islamic country where churches are not permitted to be built,” a source quoted an Islamist MP Osama Al-Monawer as saying. Another source, however, said Monawer is only against the construction of a new church.

According to the source he also stated, “the proposal is consistent with calls of the majority in Parliament to amend Article (2) of the Constitution to implement the Islamic Sharia law.”

In a press statement, Al-Monawer warned the Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs of political questioning if his ministry approves the construction of a new church in Kuwait, in spite of the existence of the fatwa which has been issued by Awqaf which states “the building of any house of worship for non-Muslims in a Muslim country is not permissible. It is also not permissible to rent houses to be turned into churches.”

However, another source denied Al-Monawer has threatened to present a draft law on the removal of churches from Kuwait pointing out he knows such a thing does not apply to Kuwait.

The source said Al-Monawer will only focus on not allowing the construction of a new church. He stressed under no circumstances  will he allow the construction of a new church in Kuwait. He also threatened to grill the Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs if the ministry gives the approval to build a new church.

He added he will take up the issue with the Ministry of Awqaf which has recently agreed to allow the construction of a new church in Kuwait in violation of a standing fatwa from the Awkaf which forbids the construction of houses of worship for non-Muslims in Muslim land.

He said his vision stems from the fact that churches can be built everywhere except in the Arabian Peninsula. “That is not permissible because it is a Sharia rule and it is mentioned in the Hadith that: ‘No two religions can exist in the Arabian Peninsula.”

He added the late Islamic scholar Sheikh Bin Baz had presented a research on the prohibition of building churches in the Arabian Peninsula.

Atheists, agnostics and believers of all stripes, libertarians and liberals, everyone, had better start caring about this right now. If you hold to be true that no government should tell its citizens what they can or cannot believe, they had better start caring that some emotionally retarded fundamentalists are thwarting that very right to worship or not worship. Pretending one benign religion is worse than a malevolent one or that all religions deserve such censure is not going to make this very volatile and pandemic problem go away. Own your stance or get swallowed.



Wasn't I just saying this?

But the EU vote comes against a landscape newly shifted by research showing that on a global scale, oil-sands emissions are not the dark-shirted villain some have made them out to be. That research, published in the journal Nature and co-authored by one of Canada’s most respected climate scientists, throws a wrench into the debate over an energy source whose reputed “dirtiness” has sparked fiery debate around the world. In North America, climate concerns have been at the heart of the concerted environmental movement against Keystone XL and Northern Gateway, a pair of proposed oil-sands pipelines that have struggled against a tide of public opposition.

The research, by University of Victoria scientists Andrew Weaver and Neil Swart, calculates the climate impact of producing the oil sands. Dr. Weaver is an internationally respected scientist who has contributed to United Nations climate-change documents. He and Dr. Swart completed several analyses.

The most important examined the impact of producing the roughly 170 billion barrels of oil-sands crude that the industry currently considers economic to produce. If it’s all hauled out of the ground – a process that will take more than a century, even at the forecast 2020 rate of three million barrels a day – the cumulative global-warming impact is 0.02 to 0.05 degrees Celsius, according to the research.

If every barrel of the oil-sands resource is produced – a near-certain impossibility that would see some 1.8 trillion barrels, seven times the size of Saudi Arabia’s current reserves, brought out – it would raise global temperatures by one-third of a degree.

By comparison, burning all of the world’s enormous coal resources would raise temperatures 15 degrees, while consuming the new global bounty of shale gas would produce a lift of just under 3 degrees. (Using up economically accessible reserves of natural gas and coal will raise temperatures 0.16 and 0.9 degrees, respectively.)

Some nutjob started waving around a pipe in Caledonia but it was someone else`s fault. See the pictures yourselves.


Cut these bozos off until they agree to give up their siege and lawlessness.



Some very sound reasons for home-schooling.



OECTA = NEA.



And now, could there be a planet beyond the planet formerly known as Pluto?

Monday Post

Beginning the work week…

Happy birthday, Ezra! Nine days after his Wonder Twin, Sarah Palin. 

Canada doesn't really threaten people but  it should point out in the strongest possible terms that the European Union has some blood on its hands and its facts wrong:

Canada has threatened the European Union with action at the World Trade Organization if the bloc's plan to classify oilsands crude as more harmful to the environment than other fuels goes ahead.

David Plunkett, the ambassador to the EU, wrote in a December letter to the bloc's commissioner for climate action that "Canada would not accept oilsands crude being singled out."

"Canada will explore every avenue at its disposal to defend its interest, including at the World Trade Organization," Plunkett wrote in the letter to Connie Hedegaard, dated Dec. 8, 2011.

The letter was obtained by the Friends of Europe, a non-profit think-tank based in Brussels, through freedom of information laws and given to CBC News.

Plunkett's comments are the latest in the battle over the EU's fuel quality directive, a proposal that ranks fuels based on their carbon footprint. It calculates a fuel's entire life cycle of emissions, then assigns it a number.

Under the directive, Canadian oil derived from oilsands would get a higher number than conventional oil because it uses more energy to extract and refine. The directive is part of Europe's attempts to reduce C02 emissions by encouraging the use of cleaner fuel.

Just so we're clear:

In a commentary published Sunday in the prestigious journal Nature, Weaver and colleague Neil Swart analyze how burning all global stocks of coal, oil and natural gas would affect temperatures. Their analysis breaks out unconventional gas, such as undersea methane hydrates and shale gas produced by fracking, as well as unconventional oil sources including the oilsands.

They found that if all the hydrocarbons in the oilsands were mined and consumed, the carbon dioxide released would raise global temperatures by about .36 degrees C. That's about half the total amount of warming over the last century.

When only commercially viable oilsands deposits are considered, the temperature increase is only .03 degrees C.

In contrast, the paper concludes that burning all the globe's vast coal deposits would create a 15-degree increase in temperature. Burning all the abundant natural gas would warm the planet by more than three degrees.

Governments around the world have agreed to try to keep warming to two degrees.

"The conventional and unconventional oil is not the problem with global warming," Weaver said. "The problem is coal and unconventional natural gas."

More sabre-rattling on the Korean Peninsula:

South Korea on Monday conducted live-fire military drills from five islands near its disputed sea boundary with North Korea, despite Pyongyang's threat to attack.

South Korea reported no immediate action by North Korea following the drills, which ended after about two hours. The drills took place in an area of the Yellow Sea that was the target of a North Korean artillery attack in 2010 that killed four South Koreans and raised fears of a wider conflict.

The heightened tension comes two months after the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. His young son Kim Jong Un has taken the helm of the nation of 24 million.

South Korean military officials said they were ready to repel any attack. Residents on the front-line islands were asked to go to underground shelters before the drills started, according to South Korea's Defence Ministry and Joint Chiefs of Staff.

North Korea's military maintained increased vigilance during the South Korean drills, though it hasn't done anything suspicious, a South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff officer said on condition of anonymity, citing department rules. He refused to provide further details because he said they involve confidential military intelligence on North Korea….

Ties between the Koreas plummeted following the 2010 shelling of front-line Yeonpyeong Island and a deadly warship sinking blamed on Pyongyang. North Korea has flatly denied its involvement in the sinking, which killed 46 South Korean sailors.

South Korean troops on the five islands fired artillery into waters southward, away from nearby North Korea, a Defence Ministry official said on condition of anonymity, citing department rules.

Residents on the islands, many of them elderly, filed into underground bomb shelters and huddled around portable heaters during the drills.

More than 1,000 people evacuated to shelters, but few came to the mainland, despite the North Korean threat, according to Onjin County, which governs the islands. Ferry services linking the islands and Incheon port on the mainland operated normally, county officials said. Officials say requests to evacuate are made each time South Korea conducts drills.

I think South Korea should test Kim Jong-Eun’s mettle to see what he is capable of. It’s quite a gamble but it is better to find out now than to find out and then do nothing about it  later (RE: Yeonpyeong Island).

Further:

North Korea's state media said on Monday its ruling Workers' Party will hold a key conference in April, the first since 2010, in which it is likely to make official the succession of power to its third generation of leadership.

The conference, to be held in mid-April, will come around the time of the centenary of the state founder Kim Il-sung's birth, which the North has planned to mark the launch of a new era as a "strong and prosperous nation."

Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha will become Saint Kateri Tekakwitha in October:

A Mohawk woman buried in Quebec will become the first Native American saint at a ceremony in October.

Kateri Tekakwitha, who spent most of her life in what is now Upstate New York, will become the first aboriginal saint when she and six others are canonized at the Vatican.

Pope Benedict made the announcement Saturday after he appointed 22 new cardinals.

Benedict had already approved miracles attributed to Tekakwitha, the final step toward sainthood. 

Known as the "Lily of the Mohawks," she was born in New York in 1656.

Tekakwitha is entombed in a marble shrine at the St. Francis Xavier Church in Kahnawake, Que….

Tekakwitha died in 1680 at age 24, and the process for her canonization began more than a century ago, in 1884.

She was declared venerable in 1943. Pope John Paul beatified her in 1980, making her the first Native American to be beatified.

Tekakwitha had a difficult life. Her mother, father and brother died of small pox when she was four years old and she was scarred by the disease.

She was taken in by her uncle and aunt and got her first knowledge of Christianity from missionaries. She embraced it with zeal after being baptized when she was 18.

Tekakwitha practiced her faith despite severe opposition and eventually fled to the area now known as Kahnawake, south of Montreal along the St. Lawrence River.

It has been claimed that her scars disappeared upon her death, revealing great beauty, and that many sick people who attended her funeral were healed. It was also said that Tekakwitha appeared to two people in the weeks after she died.

The canonization ceremony will be held Oct. 21.

Maybe he's jazzed that a Canadian will be canonised or maybe he's still stinging from accusations of his sacrilege but whatever the case may be, Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressed his happiness at the canonisation of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is welcoming a Vatican decision to name a 17th century Mohawk woman as North America's first aboriginal saint in the Roman Catholic Church.

Pope Benedict has announced that Kateri Tekakwitha will be canonized on Oct. 21.

Tekakwitha is entombed in a marble shrine at St. Francis Xavier Mission in Kahnawake, Que.

She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1980 in recognition of her unwavering devotion to God.

Benedict had already approved miracles attributed to Tekakwitha, the final step toward sainthood.

Known as the Lily of the Mohawks, Tekakwitha was born in 1656 in a village near Fonda, New York. She spent most of her life in upper New York state, but eventually fled to Kahnawake near Montreal to escape opposition to her Christianity.

Harper said her elevation to sainthood is good news.

"This will be a great day for Canadian Catholics and a deep honour for our country," he said in a statement.
Tekakwitha died in 1680 at age 24, and the process for her canonization began more than a century ago.

It’s not a question of home-schooling or not. It’s a matter of who:

Could such a go-it-alone ideology ever be truly progressive—by which I mean, does homeschooling serve the interests not just of those who are doing it, but of society as a whole? ….

This overheated hostility toward public schools runs throughout the new literature on liberal homeschooling, and reveals what is so fundamentally illiberal about the trend: It is rooted in distrust of the public sphere, in class privilege, and in the dated presumption that children hail from two-parent families, in which at least one parent can afford (and wants) to take significant time away from paid work in order to manage a process—education—that most parents entrust to the community at-large….

Lefty homeschoolers might be preaching sound social values to their children, but they aren’t practicing them. If progressives want to improve schools, we shouldn’t empty them out. We ought to flood them with our kids, and then debate vociferously what they ought to be doing.

If I didn’t know better, I’d say someone was trying to steer schools into one direction.

Whatever the course of a student’s academic life, it’s a matter for the parents to decide before the student is old enough to decide for him or herself. What primary, elementary and secondary schools are attended- or not- can wag pundits’ tongues but it’s all moot in the end because the aforementioned pundits are not the decision-makers, perhaps much to their chagrin.

The surge of home-schooled kids is not necessarily an endorsement of what the article-writer calls “illiberal” and “distrust” (for hackneyed reasons) but rather an indictment of public/parochial schools. Asian students out-perform Western students. Why send one’s children to schools where home-work is deemed unnecessary, agenda-driven “anti-bullying” and sex education programs take precedence over academic excellence or heavily unionised teachers rail against standardised tests or where test scores are fudged? When students who perform badly are allowed to remain, where does it leave the students who perform well? For all the attempts to remove deism from public schools, unchurched students must endure boring and non-nuanced lectures on spiritual relativism.  Home-schooling for black American families allows for a more “Afro-centric” or religious focus on their education and do so at a great social or financial cost. The impetus to actually teach students and mould them into productive members of society is so far removed from the academic mandate that’s no wonder there is “distrust”. If that bothers the more left-leaning, so be it. 

I think this example speaks volumes.


And now, a fantastic story of survival- a Swedish man was buried under snow for two months and survived.

 

Where Did It All Go?

Indeed…      

    

The Underwear Bomber, whose lawyer wanted the judge to go soft on and who is part of the reason why people are groped at the airport, has been sentenced to life in prison:

A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a Nigerian man to life in prison for trying to blow up a U.S. airliner bound for Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009 with a bomb hidden in his underwear.

"This was an act of terrorism that cannot be quibbled with," said U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds, who imposed the maximum sentence allowed.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 25, showed no emotion when Edmunds pronounced the sentence, sitting with his hands clasped under his chin, elbows resting on the arms of his chair at the defense table.

The bomb caused a fire but failed to explode on a Delta Airlines flight from Amsterdam carrying 289 people on December 25. He was quickly subdued by passengers and crew and the fire extinguished.

Since then, U.S. officials have sought to bolster airport security, deploying full-body scanners to try to detect explosives.

School-provided chicken nuggets are apparently healthier than a turkey and cheese sandwich and a banana:

Notice in the story that the child was not "forced" to consume the State-provided meal, whether in addition to or in replacement of her lunch from home.  She was, however, compelled to accept it.  It did not matter that her mother had provided a perfectly wholesome meal for her daughter.  The State said the lunch from home was insufficient.  The girl was only four years old.  Imagine, if you can, the fearsome and imposing intimidation an adult can have over the psyche of a tiny child.  Imagine, then, that this authority figure has told you that the lunch given to you by your mother was not good enough; and, that you must eat what the school (i.e. government) gives you.  Let that sink in for a moment.  The State, at least in this one case, is already establishing its supra-paternal power of authority over a child that in all respects should be at home with the care and protection of her mother.  The State is asserting its authority over the child in defiance of parental rights.  Furthermore, the premise of the debate has been falsely framed by the State.  What if the child had a lunch of dry toast and a slice of cheese?  Is the next step in this process a visit to this girl's home by the Division of Child and Family Services for a broad-based audit of her living conditions?  That we willingly allow the State to be the final determining authority of our children's diet has alarming implications that far exceed nutritional concerns.  In the case of this young girl in the Hoke County public schools, we are witnessing a purposeful usurpation of the State over the parent in the raising of children.

No one wants children to go hungry or to consume day-after-day sugary/salty/fatty/greasy foods while playing with i-PODs their single mothers told the welfarists they were too poor to buy but this nutritional brow-beating is the tip of the iceberg. First, children are going hungry so we must empty our pockets of coffee money to feed them, even if the entire thing is a scam, a packed lunch is more affordable than one thinks, isn’t that healthy or is actually a way out for the most idle. Now, only the state can determine what is suitable to go into a packed lunch and what isn’t, whether one likes it or not. Short-term unsustainable solutions to hunger without the discovery and resolution of root problems have allowed the state one further reach and that is the ultimate decision of what goes in a kid’s stomach. Lazy parents might feed their kids a bag of potato chips and that’s not an ideal meal. That might not even be typical of a how a household is run if the meddler-in-chief fails to investigate (should it come to that and it usually does). Then again, for every meddling bureaucrat dressed in the finery of good intentions, there is a road or bridge in need of repair. You know- the things the state should be working on instead of trying to be a de facto parent. 

I’ve seen it and it’s no surprise:

Western schoolchildren are up to three years behind those in China's Shanghai and success in Asian education is not just the product of pushy "tiger" parents, an Australian report released Friday said.

The study by independent think-tank The Grattan Institute said East Asia was the centre of high performance in schools with four of the world's top systems in the region -- Hong Kong, South Korea, Shanghai and Singapore.

"In Shanghai, the average 15-year-old mathematics student is performing at a level two to three years above his or her counterpart in Australia, the USA and Europe," Grattan's school education programme director Ben Jensen said.

"That has profound consequences. As economic power is shifting from West to East, high performance in education is too."

Students in South Korea were a year ahead of those in the US and European Union in reading and seven months ahead of Australian pupils, said the report, using data from the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment.

Say whatever you want but education and hard work are not prized in North America just as innovation is scarce in Asia. Continue treating Western students like unique little snowflakes- just like everyone else- while Asian students are the shovel that pushes them out of the way.

What this guy said:

I believe liberals adopt their beliefs not because they actually believe them but because it makes dad mad. Patriarchs are an easy villain and antagonizing them has become a political doctrine in itself. The left’s entire raison d’être is nothing more than a teenager puffing his chest out and saying to his father, “Oh yeah?” 

Scratch a liberal/leftist, find some guy who wants to fry his dad. Oedipal.

Star-spangled communism vs. the Church? Hhhmmmm…

In short, American communists and the radical left generally have long targeted the Roman Catholic Church.  They know their enemy, one that is both spiritual and eternal.  They have long attempted to pit Protestants and Catholics against each other.  It's an old art, really, that's today totally forgotten.

And so, is this tactic being resurrected right now under Barack Obama?  Is this more of the "fundamental transformation" we were promised -- elected by oblivious Americans in November 2008?

If Obama can frame his mandate as a matter of contraceptive freedom -- rather than an obvious constitutional affront on religious liberty -- he may be able to successfully pit large numbers of Protestants and even many Catholics against the institutional Catholic Church.  It would be the kind of religious agitation that would make the Marxists of the last century -- particularly Obama's mentor -- very proud.  How's that for "hope" and "change"?

Let’s just say this wouldn’t surprise me.

What Zilla said. Really.

As long as they are banning Christmas, everything is coming up roses:

We can’t even question religion being practiced in public schools.

That’s the message the majority of Ottawa-Carleton Public School Board trustees sent out earlier this week when they voted on a motion put before them.

Pam FitzGerald is Zone 5 College Ward trustee for the board.

She put forward the following motion at the Feb. 14 meeting

“THAT staff be directed to prepare a report for the May 2012 Strategic Planning and Priorities Committee meeting detailing policy and procedure(s) currently in place which addresses the subject of religious services within schools, during school hours and ensure all schools adhere to applicable law.”

The motion failed 8-4.

But at a previous meeting the majority of trustees seemed to be behind it.

FitzGerald believes they were persuaded by people attending the meeting to change their tune.

“There was one woman who told me that God is mad at me,” said FitzGerald.

If that’s the rhetoric being tossed around, it’s not hard to imagine some people would change their vote.

Read that motion carefully. It’s asking that the school board make sure they comply with the law. And trustees opted against that?

“The law says there is not supposed to be religious services during the school day. We need to respect the law.”

FitzGerald wants to officially record what’s happening in our schools.

“I just want to find out what’s going on in the schools.”

The parents in her ward have been asking her to do this for a while, she’s received such calls for more than five years.

She cites one particular incident as alarming.

At Bell High School there was an all-student assembly. Several community leaders were in attendance, including a local imam. Despite the fact it wasn’t a religious gathering, the imam delivered a prayer in Arabic to the entire student body.

“When I spoke to the principal a couple days later, he first saw nothing wrong with the situation.”

If he doesn’t see anything wrong with that, I imagine most of the parents at his school would see something wrong with him.

So it was sown, so it will be reaped.

Related: in the province where not supporting Francophone language and culture is a crime, it is mandatory to leave your kids in “ethics classes”- whether you like it or not:

Canada's top court on Friday rejected an appeal from parents in Quebec who sought the right to keep their children out of an ethics and religious culture program taught in the province's schools.

The program, which was introduced in 2008 to elementary and high schools by the provincial Education Ministry, replaced religion classes with a curriculum covering all major faiths found in Quebec culture, including Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and aboriginal beliefs.

"Exposing children to a comprehensive presentation of various religions without forcing the children to join them does not constitute an indoctrination of students that would infringe the freedom of religion of L and J [the appellants]," Madam Justice Marie Deschamps wrote in the main ruling.

"Furthermore, the early exposure of children to realities that differ from those in their immediate family environment is a fact of life in society. The suggestion that exposing children to a variety of religious facts in itself infringes their religious freedom or that of their parents amounts to a rejection of the multicultural reality of Canadian society and ignores the Quebec government’s obligations with regard to public education."

The top court said that the appellants had not proven that the ethics and religion course infringed their freedom of religion, nor that the refusal of the school board to exempt their children had violated their constitutional rights.

Imagine the case was for Catholic classes and watch the fur fly.

Why do we need activist judges?

 

And now, Bart Simpson and his chalkboard.