For A Friday

A few things….

If there was any justice, these would-be Marxist over-sized children masquerading as students would receive failing grades and not be given refunds:

Within the crowd, some people were wearing ski goggles and masks as they ran away from police who had ordered the protesters to disperse around 10:15 p.m., not long after the vandalism started.

Windows of banks and several stores were shattered while cars were vandalized and bricks were also reportedly thrown at mounted police. The windows at Police Station 21, on Ste. Elizabeth St. and René Lévesque Blvd. were also smashed.

Police arrested a total of 85 people - 69 men and 16 women.

Three police officers suffered minor injuries, police said, and a handful of protesters were also taken to hospital with minor injuries. There were reports of one television cameraman being hit in the eye with a paintball.

Police are now reaching out to the public for help in the aftermath of the protest. On Thursday morning, they urged anyone who witnessed acts of violence or vandalism being committed to be in touch with investigators. Anyone who had their property vandalized is also be urged to come to their local police station and file a formal report.

And as things would have it, Jean Charest caves in fine Liberal form:

Quebec Premier Jean Charest has proposed a six-point plan in an attempt to settle the bitter dispute over the government’s plan to raise tuition fees after another week of violent student protests.

The premier’s plan would still include a $1,625 tuition hike, but would implement it over seven years, rather than five years.

Other points in the plan include;

• adding $39 million in bursaries
• making student loan repayments proportionate to incomes
• at the end of the sevens years, index tuition fees to the cost of living

Quebec’s tuition fees would still be among the lowest in the country, even after the $1,625 hike.

Charest called his plan a “reasonable response” and asked for students to end their nearly 11-week “boycott” of classes.

 (with thanks)

From the cottonmouth of babes (see what I did there?):

Contrary to what seems like contemporary conventional wisdom among teachers, the most important goal of education is to teach children knowledge, not make children feel good about themselves.  The best way to make someone feel good about themselves is to set them up for success, which is done by teaching them things that will be useful to them, like math and science, and not things like left-wing dogma…

(Sidebar: yes, I know a cottonmouth isn’t the same as a rattlesnake so don’t hassle me!)

Bingo.

There is nothing wrong with a creative teaching method provided that it succeeds in imparting knowledge on the students. The best way to build self-confidence and ultimately good self-esteem is accomplishment. Anyone can pat himself on the back. Not everyone deserves it, however.

Because he’s Charles Krauthammer:

Obama’s other major announcement — at Washington’s Holocaust Museum, no less — was the creation of an Atrocities Prevention Board.

I kid you not. A board. Russia flies plane loads of weapons to Damascus. Iran supplies money, trainers, agents, more weapons. And what does America do? Supports a feckless U.N. peace mission that does nothing to stop the killing. (Indeed, some of the civilians who met with the peacekeepers were summarily executed.) And establishes an Atrocities Prevention Board.

With multi-agency participation, mind you. The liberal faith in the power of bureaucracy and flowcharts, of committees and reports, is legend. But this is parody.

Don’t ever under-estimate the power of nothing.

Does North Korea have another card up its sleeve?

North Korea, believed to be preparing for a third nuclear test, would probably be able to make and explode a uranium device for the first time after earlier relying on plutonium, a former chief UN inspector said.

If it were to do so, that would show North Korea had developed the technology to produce highly enriched uranium (HEU), putting it in a position to build up larger stocks of weapons-grade material.

“This assumes that the North Koreans have succeeded in producing HEU, in sufficient quantities as well, and have a bomb design,” Olli Heinonen said in a paper he sent to Reuters on Friday.

A uranium enrichment facility of the type seen by a U.S. expert in late 2010 could be easily modified to produce HEU, said Heinonen, who headed safeguards inspections worldwide for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) until 2010.

North Korea, which tested plutonium devices in 2006 and 2009, has almost completed preparations for a third nuclear test, according to a senior source with close ties to Pyongyang and Beijing.

With only limited plutonium stocks, North Korea admitted two years ago that it was working on enriching uranium.

The smuggling network of Pakistani nuclear proliferator A.Q. Khan, which sold nuclear secrets to North Korea and others, had design drawings of a uranium device developed in the mid-1990s, Heinonen said.

And in any case, he said, “due to the fact that they were able to make a plutonium device, they should also be able to make a uranium one.”

  

Not only do these cranks get their inspiration from Margaret Atwood’s crap, they can’t even point the finger at the right politician.

Seriously- what goes through these people’s minds aside from a good breeze?

Related: look whose fifteen minutes are up.

Thank God they stop the dangerous ones:

Traveling from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Florida, the Frank family was yanked out of line as it boarded the plane in a dispute over how 7-year-old Dina had been screened. 

The little girl, who has cerebral palsy, walks with crutches and leg braces.

“They make our lives completely difficult,” said her father, Dr. Joshua Frank, a Long Island pediatrician. “She’s not a threat to national security.”

Union schlubs can’t or won’t follow the Israeli example. Discuss.

My sympathies go out to this poor kid and her family. They are in a long line of victims of groping and public humiliation because airports won’t properly protect travellers.

There are no amounts of anti-bullying pink shirts to stop this:

    “My Little Pony” inspires them to adopt brony names like Starfire Cuddlecakes and glue fake unicorn horns to their foreheads. Then go out in public.

Yes, it is terrifying that society has come to a point where grown men are not ridiculed to the point of unbearable shame (by everyone) for watching “My Little Pony” (among other things).

 "I don't want to look like a freak. I'll just wear the pink one with the sequins."

And now, meat is delicious murder and a potentially face-melting Ark cake.

(with thanks)

Mid-Week Post

Somewhere in the middle.... is you.


But seriously....


China, already in the thick with Sudan, sends an envoy to mediate between Sudan and South Sudan:

China will send its envoy for Africa to Sudan and South Sudan to urge talks as it works with the United States to bring an end to border fighting that has raised fears of a full-scale war, Chinese government officials said on Wednesday.

South Sudan has accused Sudan of mounting bombing raids on the newly independent country's oil-producing border region after South Sudan said it would withdraw from the disputed Heglig oilfield it seized this month.

Chinese President Hu Jintao, whose country has significant oil and business interests in both African nations, told South Sudan's President Salva Kiir on Tuesday that the two Sudans should return to talks.

"Our special envoy to Africa will soon visit the two countries to continue urging talks," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin told a regular news briefing.

"Actually, he has already gone at the beginning of this year. This is the second time he will go to Sudan and South Sudan to promote talks," Liu said, referring to China's newly appointed envoy, Zhong Jianhua.

"China is deeply concerned," he said, reiterating calls for calm and restraint.

 Related: Google is forced from China after plot:

When Google left mainland China, it was pushed out. The search engine giant was a casualty of the struggle over succession in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to exclusive information provided by a high-ranking government official in Beijing. This information is corroborated by a January 2010 Beijing U.S. embassy cable, marked “secret,” released by Wikileaks.

The campaign against Google was launched in March, 2009 at the Honglou Hotel in Chongqing. The annual National People’s Congress meetings were taking place at that time.

Bo Xilai, then the Party chief in the province-level city of Chongqing in central-western China, had arranged a meeting with Li Yanhong, the chairman of the Chinese search engine Baidu, through Baidu’s regional manager in Chongqing, Jiang Zhi.

Bo brought up helping Baidu fight off its main competitor, Google, and gain a monopoly in the Chinese-language search engine market. Jiang Zhi recalled that Li bowed to Bo right on the spot.

Bo was willing to promise that Google would be thrust out of China, but a quid quo pro was involved. Bo needed Baidu to cooperate with Chongqing officials and lift the censorship on articles criticizing Party head Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao, and presumptive next Party head Xi Jinping. The articles would be published on websites outside China favoring former Party head Jiang Zemin.

The articles targeting Xi were especially important, Bo said. Li agreed.

Ontario is in the hole even if the Liberals don't wish to believe it:

Standard and Poors has placed Ontario on a negative outlook, although it held the province's credit rating steady.

"We need to embrace this," Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said, arguing the downgraded outlook from stable to negative was not as important as the credit rating itself, which remains AA-.

Progressive Conservative finance critic Peter Shurman said Duncan can spin the news any way he likes but it's still a warning the province faces a tough economic challenge.

"The bottom line here is that we have been warning about this consistently," Shurman said.

"The only surprise is that it came so fast. The budget will not do what the government says it is going to do."

It's the second time Ontario's economy has been placed on a watch by a credit rating agency. Moody's made a similar move in December.

Arrogance coupled with ignorance, hubris, anti-Catholicism and jumping on an old band wagon:

First Lady Michelle Obama boasted at a campaign event in Omaha, Neb. on Tuesday that “we made history” when the president’s health care proposal was enacted and the administration issued a regulation mandating that insurance companies provide women with free contraceptives.

“Two years ago, we made history together by finally passing health reform,” said Mrs. Obama. “And because we passed this law, insurance companies will now have to cover basic preventive care — things like prenatal care, mammograms, contraception — at no extra cost.”

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) finalized the “preventive services” regulation in January and it will take effect for most employers on Aug. 1. The regulation mandates that nearly all health insurance plans in the United States must provide women with sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives (including those that can induce abortions) without any fees or co-pay.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and many Catholic leaders in the United States have voiced strong opposition to the mandate because they say it would force Catholics — whose church teaches that sterilization, contraception and abortion are wrong — to act against their consciences and the teachings of their faith. In comments submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called the regulation an “unprecedented attack” on religious liberty and asked the administration to rescind it in its entirety.

Related: Obama's popularity falls among Catholics.



MP Stephen Woodworth wants to inject reason into the debate and this is just one of the reactions to it:

Motion 312 will be DEFEATED.  

OOOOH, I'm so worried now. Except not. Consider that this is general tenor of ANY discussion with someone who insists that their chosen handle automatically makes them bellicose and therefore fearsome.


Have the discussion or don't but don't stamp around like some petulant chub-tastic adolescent who considers it beneath oneself to exert five minutes of intellectual effort in any debate one jumps right into without invitation.


Just had to get that off my chest.



And now, a frog that thinks it's a guy.

Tuesday Post

The Wildrose Party did not win the expected majority.  That’s a shock:

Defying the odds of pollsters and naysayers, Alberta’s long-ruling Progressive Conservatives elected their 12th straight majority government Monday night.

Despite the most contentious election campaign in living memory, the Tories were on track to become the longest ruling provincial party in Canadian history.

Early unofficial results saw the Tories leading 60 seats, the Wildrose following by 20. The NDP was ahead in four constituencies, followed by the Liberals with three. At least 44 seats are required for a majority government.

Both Wildrose leader Danielle Smith and premier Alison Redford won their seats: Ms. Smith will form the official opposition….

Ms. Redford, a human rights lawyer with a plethora of international experience, became the unlikely leader of the PC party last October. She took over from an unpopular Ed Stelmach, who stepped down amid caucus infighting and a spiraling budget deficit.

Since becoming premier, she has been dogged by her party’s record, which includes a long list of scandals, allegations and broken promises.

The most notorious of these was the “no-meet” committee, a pan-partisan group of MLAs who collected $1,000 per month despite not meeting since 2008. Ms. Redford told Tory caucus members who sat on the committee that they had to pay the money back in the second week of the campaign.

I guess one had better get used to the “Red Tories” and their spend-happy ways.

Dalton McGuinty’s plan to tax the super-rich will no doubt cover all those “green” energy plans that don’t work and are costing the average Ontarian: 

Ontario's minority Liberals will survive Tuesday's crucial budget vote and avoid another election after striking a deal with the New Democrats to hike taxes for the wealthy.

Placing a two percentage point surtax on incomes over $500,000 was a key concession to lock in NDP support, even though the Liberals didn't meet all their demands.

The budget still falls short, but the public is better served by the two parties working together than "chasing votes" in an election, said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.

I’m sure what she means to say is that the concession appeals to her more socialist nature. For now.

Remind me again why this moron was let back in.

North Korea threatens South Korea… again:

North Korea’s military Monday threatened “special actions” soon to turn parts of the South Korean capital to ashes, accusing Seoul’s conservative government of defaming its leadership.

The North has for months been criticizing the South’s President Lee Myung-Bak in extreme terms and threatening “sacred war” over perceived insults.

There have been no incidents but the language has become increasingly vitriolic. Some analysts said they believe a military provocation is likely.

“The special actions of our revolutionary armed forces will start soon to meet the reckless challenge of the group of traitors,” said a statement on the official news agency.

The North said its targets are “the Lee Myung-Bak group of traitors, the arch criminals, and the group of rat-like elements including conservative media destroying the mainstay of the fair public opinion”.

It said the actions “will reduce all… to ashes in three or four minutes… by unprecedented peculiar means and methods of our own style”.

Tens of thousands rallied in Pyongyang last Friday, screaming hatred for Lee and calling for his death over alleged insults.

Last week the nuclear-armed North accused Lee of “desecrating” mass celebrations marking the 100th anniversary on April 15 of the birth of Pyongyang’s founding president Kim Il-Sung.

It bridled at anti-Pyongyang demonstrations in Seoul and at comments by Lee and conservative media. These questioned the cost of the anniversary celebrations for a nation suffering acute food shortages.

Lee said the estimated US$850 million cost of a rocket launch intended to mark the anniversary could have bought 2.5 million tonnes of corn.

The launch, purportedly to put a satellite into orbit, was to have been a centrepiece of the celebrations. The rocket disintegrated after some two minutes in what was seen as an embarrassment for the regime.

Monday’s statement castigated Lee for comments last Friday, which urged the North’s new leader Kim Jong-Un to reform agriculture and improve human rights.

It also took issue with the South’s unveiling of a new cruise missile said to be able to reach any target in the North.

This is seen as Kim Jong-Eun’s sabre-rattling and is backed by China, the unaccountable octopus:

Chinese President Hu Jintao vowed on Monday to bolster ties with North Korea and backed its young leader, Kim Jong-un, despite an international outcry over the North's recent rocket launch and the possibility of a third nuclear test by the isolated state.

Hu made the show of friendship in a meeting with Kim Yong-il, the Korean Workers' Party director of international affairs, according to China's official Xinhua news agency in a report that did not mention the rocket launch or a dispute over North Korea's nuclear program.

North Korea has said its failed rocket launch on April 13 was meant to put a satellite into orbit.

Other governments have said it was meant to boost North Korea's ability to make a ballistic missile that could hit the continental United States.

Although chiding North Korea over the launch and its disputed nuclear ambitions, China's ruling Communist Party has stressed its hopes for steady ties with its neighbor, which it sees as a traditional ally and buffer against U.S. influence. Hu stressed that friendly theme to the visiting Kim.

"The traditional friendship between China and North Korea was personally created and nurtured by our two parties' and countries' former generation of revolutionaries, and is our precious common treasure," Hu said, according to Xinhua.

"Constantly consolidating and developing Chinese-North Korean friendly cooperation is the firm and unbending policy of China's party and government," he added.

Hu's comments underscored the extent to which China remains committed to shoring up North Korea, in spite of regional tension over the rocket launch and the possibility of another, third nuclear test explosion by the North.

China joined other powers in backing a U.N. Security Council statement condemning the North's rocket launch and warning it of consequences if it carries out another launch or nuclear test.

But China has repeatedly fended off calls for harsher pressure and sanctions on the North.

North Korea should be dealt with like an errant pet as that is what it with China’s hammy hands on the leash. Why not every time North Korea plays up, its handler, China, gets penalised? Anyone want to relocate a shoe factory to Ontario where the jobs are certainly needed?

Related: Camp 25, one of North Korea's many concentration camps.

(with thanks)

This guy is the limit:

“Michelle and I we’ve been in your shoes. Like I said, we didn’t come from wealthy families”
“When we graduated from college and law school, we had a mountain of debt. When we married, we got poor together.”
“Now check this out, I’m the President of the United States. . . We only finished paying off our student loans about 8 years ago”
Obama on young folks with student debt: “I didn’t just read about this. . . when we married. . . we added up our assets and there were no assets”

Obama went to Punahou School, a private school, the fees of which were paid by his wealthy grandparents.  Michelle Obama's salary at the University of Chicago Medical Centre was quite a lucrative one even after working part-time.



How are these people hard-up?



And now, enjoy some tea at the Cat Cafe.

So Unkind of Science

Science, long-thought of as a study for the rational, has become a sort of pseudo-religion, an offshoot of a new fundamentalism.

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam allowed into law, without his signature, HB 368 which states:

(1) An important purpose of science education is to inform students about scientific evidence and to help students develop critical thinking skills necessary to becoming intelligent, productive, and scientifically informed citizens;

(2) The teaching of some scientific subjects, including, but not limited to, biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning, can cause controversy; and

(3) Some teachers may be unsure of the expectations concerning how they should present information on such subjects.

(b) The state board of education, public elementary and secondary school governing authorities, directors of schools, school system administrators, and public elementary and secondary school principals and administrators shall endeavor to create an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills, and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about controversial issues.

It sounds alright to me. After all, isn’t science, for the most part, the study of the physical world which is in a constant state of flux? Are we not, as rational beings, supposed to question what we see and hear? Isn’t the Theory of Evolution just that- a theory? Does the bill ever say it will teach creationism, as its critics allege, or does it allow wiggle room for open discussion of ideas in science class, thereby freeing both the teachers and the students from the constraints of the politically verboten?

So what’s the big deal?

It frightens the believers. That’s what:

It seems that the greater part of this mainstream condemnation is rooted in intellectual one-upmanship and humanist snobbery. In highfalutin circles, being called a “creationist” is just one step up from being labeled a “racist.”

Darwin’s On the Origin of Species laid down the unifying concept in biology and revolutionized the field. But as elite scientists’ ideas trickled down to worldly bandwagoneers over the last century and a half, pop evolution became the new evangelicalism. Academics and self-styled sophisticates float placidly in watered-down Darwinian notions. For them, evolution is a matter of faith, superior to all others by virtue of infallible science. Any public dissent toward their fashionable orthodoxy is met with ridicule and ostracism, as with the present outcry over Tennessee’s “creationist Monkey Bill.” 

Like the biblical literalists they hysterically criticize, many lay evolutionists are grossly ignorant of their own intellectual roots and mentally incapable of a nuanced worldview.

Snobbery is a word for it. There is nothing like perching yourself over others, even if you have no idea what you are talking about yourself.

Rarely have I seen things defended with such religious fervour as the Theory of Evolution and “global warming” to such virulent degrees that one can see spit fly in all directions, especially by those who scream “Flat Earther!” but can’t accept what’s in front of them. No, I don’t believe the earth is six thousand years old but I don’t believe HB 368 advocates teaching that, either. I do believe that there are worse things one can introduce into the classroom like the erroneous idea that polar bears are dying because of some sketchy belief in man-made temperature change or that pregnancy and childbirth can kill you. The accepted idea (read: semi-religious tenet) of global warming has made way for public policy changes that affect not just the classroom but facets of everyday life. If global warming is indeed bunk, as it certainly appears to be, how do we undo the damage willfully taught to grade school children? 

Even asking such a question is blasphemy in the eyes of believers. It’s not just global warming and evolution. It’s any number of sacred cows the left holds dear. If one must be an iconoclast of the prophets, why not of the prophets of global warming and evolution? Question the lot. No holds barred. Forget one’s cocoon-like security in the beliefs of the anti-Bible Belt.

Or is that asking too much?

Dare I trespass….