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)