It’s Right Here

… all you need to read.

(face palm)

A class action lawsuit has been launched against the city of Montreal on behalf of protesters who were arrested May 23 during a mass demonstration opposing tuition fee hikes.

Lawyer Marc Chetrit has filed the case in Quebec Superior Court alleging that the city and its police department violated charter rights during the arrest and detention of more than 500 people.

 There are no words.

Okay, may there are.

Q: How many Illuminati does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: What Illuminati?

It doesn't take a scientist to figure out who is really wearing the tinfoil hat:

But the Conservatives’ positions on research, statistics, environmental assessment, pipeline opponents, climate change and so on leads many to wonder. In Mr. Nikiforuk’s view, “Republican religious tribalism is now Ottawa’s worldview.” He says Mr. Harper openly sympathizes with, if not endorses, evangelicals’ climate skepticism, their distrust of mainstream science and their view of libertarian economics as God’s will.

Grey County has a long-standing tradition of opening its city council meetings with a recital of the Lord's Prayer.

Peter Ferguson is trying to change that.

The Kimberley, ON, man has filed legal papers in a bid to end what he calls an "illegal" practice.

In the affidavit sworn by Ferguson, he states that Grey County council's "practice of praying at meetings is breaching my Charter rights to freedom of conscience and religion, as well as the rights of other non-believers, agnostics or atheists, and the followers of non-Christian faiths in Grey County," QMI Agency reports.

Ferguson insists that even though he doesn't believe in God, his campaign isn't anti-Christian.

"The religious aspect is secondary. It's the legal aspect that's important," he said. "It's a matter of principle. I don't believe our politicians should be breaking the law."

Ferguson says he first became "sensitized to the issue" a year and a half ago when Owen Sound's council meetings, which started with the Lord's Prayer, were also challenged.

Owen Sound has since implemented a policy that invites members of various faith groups to recite a prayer or observe a moment of silence before its council meetings. ....


Ferguson's approach isn't winning over fans at council. MPP Bill Walker adds that Ferguson has been, at time, "belligerent" with his staff.

"You could retrieve respect in an instant but you are too brain-free and too smug to do so and you make us sick," Ferguson said during a 15-minute scheduled delegation. Before his delegation, he slow-clapped through council's prayer.

Counsellor Arlene Wright told the Collingwood Enterprise Bulletin that Ferguson has called her an "evil woman" — and "a lot worse."

Showing disrespect to get respect is rarely a successful tactic.

And there you have it.  One side is unceasing in their unproven efforts to show up Harper as a Christian fundamentalist (a faith, as we all know, is the progenitor of the mosqueteria) and the other is smug, arrogant and downright rude.


This is the left and this is what they stand for.



Related: some people walk right into the jokes about them.

Reasons why public education needs to be reformed (at the very least):

Should Schools Send Notes Or Permission Slips Home Before Starting Any Classroom Work About Curricular Issues That May Involve Discussions About Discrimination and Harassment?

No. The TDSB Equity Foundation Statement and Commitments to Equity Policy Implementation states that each school has a responsibly to education that reflects the diversity of its students and their life experiences. Singling out one group or topic area as too controversial, and depending upon parent/guardian/caregiver discretion, shifts this responsibility from the school to the parents/ guardians/caregivers and fosters a poisoned environment contrary to the TDSB Human Rights Policy.

Dare I ask why more “traditional” subjects aren’t studied? Why wouldn’t the schools want the parents of their students to know what is being taught? This isn’t just creepy; it’s manipulative and wrong.

Obama’s deliberately missed chances:

At the urging of Valerie Jarrett, President Barack Obama canceled the operation to kill Osama bin Laden on three separate occasions before finally approving the May 2, 2011 Navy SEAL mission, according to an explosive new book scheduled for release August 21. The Daily Caller has seen a portion of the chapter in which the stunning revelation appears.

In ”Leading From Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him,“ Richard Miniter writes that Obama canceled the “kill” mission in January 2011, again in February, and a third time in March. Obama’s close adviser Valerie Jarrett persuaded him to hold off each time, according to the book.

And this is the leader Americans want?

You scumbag.

We need more people like this on the planet:

Although 88-year-old Lou Xiaoying may now be close to death, she will not soon be forgotten in her home city of Jinhua.

The Daily Mail on Monday recorded the astonishing story of the elderly woman, whose meager living recycling trash did not stop her from bringing home and caring for all the abandoned infants she came across - all 30 of them.

“I realised if we had strength enough to collect garbage, how could we not recycle something as important as human lives,” she said.

“These children need love and care. They are all precious human lives. I do not understand how people can leave such a vulnerable baby on the streets.”

(With thanks to one and all)

So It Is Written

… so it is done.

The Olympics... or something....

Why are ridiculous head and body coverings such bones of contention not just for the socially and sexually frustrated Islamist male but for the West, as well?

Marseille police say three of its officers were injured in the early hours of July 25 when a mob of some 50 people tried to prevent them from checking the identity of a woman who was wearing a full Islamic veil.

Under a controversial law passed in 2010, wearing a full veil or covering one’s face in a public place is illegal in France and offenders must submit to ID checks.

According to the police, the woman was stopped just after midnight near a city mosque and refused to cooperate with the officers.

A man accompanying her as well as a large group of bystanders came to her aid and three officers were “lightly injured” in a scuffle.

After police reinforcements arrived, four people, including the 18-year-old woman named only as “Louise-Marie”, were arrested for allegedly assaulting the officers – but were promptly released with a warning on the orders of the city prosecutor.

According to an AFP source, the decision was “a gesture of appeasement during the holy [Islamic] month of Ramadan.”

To wit:

O Ye who believe! Enter not the dwellings of the Prophet for a meal without waiting for the proper time, unless permission be granted you. But if ye are invited, enter, and, when your meal is ended, then disperse. Linger not for conversation. Lo! that would cause annoyance to the Prophet, and he would be shy of (asking) you (to go); but Allah is not shy of the truth. And when ye ask of them (the wives of the Prophet) anything, ask it of them from behind a curtain. That is purer for your hearts and for their hearts. And it is not for you to cause annoyance to the messenger of Allah, nor that ye should ever marry his wives after him. Lo! that in Allah's sight would be an enormity.

And:

The practice of hijab among Muslim women is one based on religious doctrine, although the Qur'an does not mandate it. Instead, it comes from the Hadith of Sahih Bukhari. The Hadith, the "tradition of Mohammed," reveals the teachings of the Prophet to believers. Bukhari's version of this text is generally regarded as the standard one, although numerous versions exist. In a very broad sense, the relation the Hadith has to the Qur'an resembles the New Testament's to the Old in Christian scriptures.

According to the Hadith, "My Lord agreed with me ('Umar) in three things... (2) And as regards the veiling of women, I said 'O Allah's Apostle!  I wish you ordered your wives to cover themselves from the men because good and bad ones talk to them.' So the verse of the veiling of the women was revealled" (Bukhari, v1, bk 8, sunnah 395).

Surah XXXIII, Verse 59 of the Qur'an is most often cited in support of veiling. It states "O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close around them. that will be better, so that they may be recognized and not annoyed. Allah is ever forgiving, merciful...." (from A.Yusef Ali's translation of the Qur'an; other versions translate the original Arabic as "veils" where Ali uses "cloaks").

The coverings (in whatever form one chooses) are loosely referred to and not Koranically mandated as such. Why, then, such violence and the double standard when a Muslim woman wears any of these coverings? It is a thumb in the eye of not just Western culture and law but of the very social bonds of trust and identity we rely on. Poking decadent Western culture with a proverbial stick is good enough if the hypocritical Islamist is unwilling to leave the West for environs in which misogynist coverings are the norm. The lack of personhood for the woman and trust in her presumed identity is only part of the problem. It is the identity the Islamist male and even the woman assert in the face of the West. Islamofascism is their true face and alliance, not the West which has given them refuge and succour. One cannot serve two masters. The crowd in Marseilles has shown who they truly serve.

You don’t say.

Related: I suppose it hadn’t occurred to the professional haters to just not go there. No, I guess not.

Just so we’re clear, Islam isn’t a race, the Palestinians are, in a way, an invented people and the cowardly appeasement of the affluent yet woman-hating Arab states is yet another example of the abandonment of the will:

The Palestinian Authority is against the moment of silence at the Olympics to commemorate the Israeli athletes murdered at the Munich Olympics in 1972. According to the headline in the official PA daily, "Sports are meant for peace, not for racism."

According to Jibril Rajoub, President of the Palestinian Olympic Committee:

"Sports are meant for peace, not for racism... Sports are a bridge to love, interconnection, and spreading of peace among nations; it must not be a cause of division and spreading of racism between them [nations]."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 25, 2012]

These words appeared in a letter sent by Rajoub to the President of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge. The letter "expressed appreciation for [Rogge's] position, who opposed the Israeli position, which demanded a moment's silence at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in London."

The PA daily does not refer to the murder of the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972 as terror. In the article about Rajoub's letter, the killing of the athletes is referred to as "the Munich Operation, which took place during the Munich Olympics in 1972."

The PA is against the moment of silence because they view the murder of Israelis by Palestinians not as terror but as heroism.

Damn straight!

Williams, of course, was referring to the murder of 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympics.

"It is a much bigger issue this year, as it's the 40th anniversary of Munich. Members of the Canadian government, yesterday, our Governor General, all calling for a moment's silence. Dr Rogge (Jacques Rogge, President of the IOC) says the ceremony is not the place to remember a tragic event, but, uh, it's tragic, however, it's one of the most significant and world changing events in Olympic history. It absolutely should have been done here. The IOC worries about politics. This event is political by its very nature."

His sentiment is shared by many and they must have felt proud of him for saying it during the IOC's big party to begin the Olympic Games. However, as with any issue, there will be detractors who disagree with his opinion, or in his decision to express it during the show.

When Williams was done, his co-host, Lisa LaFlamme, didn't endorse or decry his comments, but added to the narrative by telling viewers of one of the widows of  a victim of the terrible 1972 massacre, who spoke out on Thursday about just this issue of honour and Remembrance.

Immediately following that, Williams finished the conversation by saying:

"And remember, they died as Olympians."

 

Yeah, that’s not funny:

But, if a Muslim police officer does it in Dorset, where Olympic events are being held and where the constabulary is stretched to the limit by the biggest security operation in years, it just shows what a great sense of humor the guy has …

During my free-speech battles in Canada and elsewhere, I was routinely lectured by huffily indignant plonkers whose research began and ended with Bartlett’s For Dummies that “there is no right to shout ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theatre.” But Constable Nezami has just turned a lazy metaphor into reality, and none of the indignant huffers seems to mind.

Listen to Mark Steyn. He knows whereof he speaks.

Syrian rebels are killing off historical Christian populations:

Christians are being targeted by Muslim rebels according to the Vatican and other sources amongst besieged Syrian Christian communities.

According to reports by the Vatican's Fides News Agency, the US-backed Syrian Army are sacking churches and issuing threats that all Christians will be cleansed from rebel-held territory.

"The picture for us is utter desolation," said Bishop Philip Tournyol Clos, a greek-Catholic Melkite Archimandrite. "The church of Mar Elian is half destroyed and that of Our Lady of Peace is still occupied by the rebels. Christian homes are severely damaged due to the fighting and completely emptied of their inhabitants, who fled without taking anything."

Asked whether it was the Free Syrian Army that was telling Christians to get out, Agnes Miriam, Mother Superior of the Monastery of St. James at Qara in the Diocese of Homs, said "yes … it was commander on the ground, Abdel Salam Harba, who decided that there was to be no more negotiations with Christians."

She said Christians refused to back the rebels, so the rebels used them as human shields.

Why are we giving them money?

Watch this rather sound explanation for the use of atomic weapons against Japan to bring about the end of the Second World War.

 

 I’ve blogged about this before.

The Japanese were willing to sacrifice their entire country to the war effort- an imperialist and cruel venture that saw the subjugation of Asia and the Pacific. The Japanese wasted 21,570 men on Iwo Jima and 107,539 soldiers killed on Okinawa with a low estimate of 42,000 civilian deaths, many of whom were directed to kill themselves. That is just TWO battles alone and not even considering what the Japanese did to civilian populations all over the Pacific.  A combined acute death toll for both Hiroshima and Nagasaki is 246,000 deaths. If the militaristic Japanese government was willing to waste nearly one hundred and thirty thousand soldiers AND involve its civilian population, it’s safe to conclude that its regard for human life- its own life- was nil. However tragic the atomic weapons’ outcome was, what was even more tragic was the total disregard for peace and human life so often displayed before and during the Second World War by the Japanese. What then would be the more moral choice- prolonging a war with an implacable enemy or cutting it short with a monstrous weapon?

I bet fifty quatloos Obama has no idea what the US military has or does.

I tried this and apparently I'm most like someone from Ethiopia.

 

And now, this puppy can’t win against the air conditioner.

(With thanks to all)

Mid-Week Post

Quickly now...


The United States wishes Kim Jong-Eun and his wife/consort/lieutenant in his army of darkness well:

The United States wished North Korean leader Kim Jong-un well in his just-announced marriage Wednesday, but said its main hope is that life improves for the North Korean people under the young ruler.

North Korea state television casually announced Wednesday that Kim was married to the woman seen with him at recent public events. 

The state broadcast said Kim toured an amusement park with his wife, “comrade Ri Sol-ju.” The report did not say when the newlyweds got married, when they started dating or anything about Ri.

“We would always wish any kind of newlyweds well as they embark” on married life, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters Wednesday, joking the U.S. had not received an invitation to the wedding. 

“But obviously our concerns first and foremost are for the North Korean people, and our hope that conditions for them will improve.”

Good thing the US is not letting a little wedding invitation snub get in the way of yet another failed six-party talks.


Related: the South Korean flag just isn't pretty enough for the North Korean women's soccer team.



Iran accuses Israel of blowing up a bus with its own citizens:

Iran's U.N. envoy accused Israel on Wednesday of plotting and carrying out a suicide bomb attack on a bus in Bulgaria a week ago in which five Israeli tourists were killed.

A suicide bomber blew up the bus in a car park at Burgas airport, a popular gateway for tourists visiting Bulgaria's Black Sea coast, killing himself, the Israeli tourists and the Bulgarian bus driver and wounding more than 30 people.

Israel has accused Iran and the Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah of the bombing. Iran has denied the accusations.

"It's amazing that just a few minutes after the terrorist attack, Israeli officials announced that Iran was behind it," Iran's U.N. Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee told a U.N. Security Council debate on the Middle East. 

"We have never and will not engage in such a despicable attempt on ... innocent people."

"Such terrorist operation could only be planned and carried out by the same regime whose short history is full of state terrorism operations and assassinations aimed implicating others for narrow political gains," Khazaee said. "I could provide ... many examples showing that this regime killed its own citizens and innocent Jewish people during the last couple of decades.

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Haim Waxman said Iran's fingerprints were all over the bomb attack in Bulgaria, as well as dozens of other plots in recent months around the world.

"These comments are appalling, but not surprising from the same government that says the 9/11 attack was a conspiracy theory and denies the Holocaust," Waxman said in a statement.

Stupidity or calculated play? YOU decide.




Question: why are we giving aid to a country that may use chemical warfare against its own citizens and other countries?

Canada is prepared to provide more humanitarian aid to Syria, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Wednesday.

He did not give a dollar figure but said that medical aid will be a particular focus.

Baird made the announcement after meeting with Syrian opposition members and activists in Ottawa.

Canada had already pledged $8.5 million in humanitarian assistance since the uprising began in March 2011.

Check out Michael Coren's bold new look.



And now, the cats of the St. Petersburg's Hermitage Museum.



(With thanks to all)

It Is Here

… or is it?

What would it profit Canada if China bought out its oil producers?

State-controlled CNOOC Ltd launched China's richest foreign takeover bid yet on Monday by agreeing to buy Canadian oil producer Nexen Inc for $15.1 billion, forcing Ottawa to decide whether security concerns outweigh its desire for foreign investment in its energy resources.

CNOOC, China's third-largest oil company, hopes to sell the deal to shareholders and the government with a hefty 61 percent premium to Nexen's Friday stock price. It promised to retain all employees and to make Canada home base for its Western Hemisphere operations.

To paraphrase Baron Harkonnen, he who controls the oil controls the world. Why are we selling off our natural resources to China?

Related: British Columbia Premier Christy Clarke wants to shake down oil companies for their "fair share":

Just before boarding a plane for the Council of Confederation, Alberta Premier Alison Redford held her ground against BC Premier Christy Clark's demand for a bigger piece of the oilsands pie in exchange for a pipeline path to Kitimat, B.C.  ...

BC wants a share of oil royalties in exchange for allowing the pipeline, but Redford says that won't happen.
"We will not share royalties, and I've seen nothing else proposed, and would not be prepared to consider anything else at this time," she said. "I've taken the approach that there are many ways that British Columbia will benefit from this pipeline."

Linda Gibbons is free.

From dogs to Coptic priests, things and people Muslims won't allow in their taxis:

Dr. Yassir al-Burhami, a prominent figure in Egypt's Salafi movement and vice president of the Salafi Call—the same sheikh who seeks to punish Muslim apostates, condemns Mother's Day, and advocates deceiving Israel—has just issued a fatwa, published in the "Voice of the Righteous Salaf," forbidding Muslim taxi-drivers and bus-drivers from transporting Coptic Christian priests to their churches, which he depicted as "more forbidden than taking someone to a liquor bar."

This analogy, of course, does not begin with Sheikh Burhami, but traces back to some of Islam's early giants, including Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim, who agreed that "building churches is worse than building bars and brothels, for those [churches] symbolize infidelity, whereas these [bars and brothels] represent immorality.

The logic is simple: It is better to profess Islam and be immoral, than to profess Christianity—for the latter denies the veracity of Islam, and hence is much more abominable. In this context, the Muslim who transports a priest to his church where he will preach Christianity—a message that contradicts Islam—is a terrible crime.

Minors can buy liquor in burkas, apparently:

Three liquor stores recently sold booze to a 14-year-old boy whose identity was hidden because he was wearing a full-length burka and face veil at the time, a Sun News Network exclusive has found.

 

Taking a step back:

People are used to the idea of dying in a terrible car accident or burning to death in a house fire, but mass shootings are typically a more concerning scenario and therefore perceived as a higher risk despite the facts at hand.

For example, for the United States:

100 people PER DAY die in car accidents (source).

2,640 people PER YEAR die from house fires (source).

117 people died from mass shootings… in the last DECADE (source).

From a straight analytic standpoint, there’s no reason to be concerned about mass shootings. None whatsoever. The probability that you will be involved is so small that my calculator switches to scientific notation when I try to compute it.

And:

Predictably, those who are foolish or sheltered enough to trust the government to monopolize violence decried America’s gun laws. Roger Ebert pecked out some flatulent verbiage regarding “paranoid fantasies about a federal takeover of personal liberties,” and he’s partially correct, because it appears that the United Nations is trumping US efforts to erase personal gun liberties with a bill that Obama is scheduled to sign on Friday. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg also blamed American gun laws but did not say whether he plans to get rid of his personal retinue of armed bodyguards. …

In a world where the idea of personal responsibility has been consigned to history’s dustbin, they’ve probed every possible reason for why he allegedly did it except the idea that he consciously chose to do it.

What skews the arguments for or against gun control are the hasty demands for stricter gun laws and perceived gun fanatics hiding behind every corner. If Canada already has some of the most strict handgun laws in the world, how then did thugs kill in the Eaton’s Centre and in a Scarborough neighbourhood? Perhaps an investigation into how the undoubtedly criminally-oriented obtained these guns and why they weren’t or aren’t in prison is in order.

And one can forget more social programs. If the first batches didn’t work and you can’t rely on single mummy and absentee father to do the parenting, nor can a Dr. Phil clone concoct a socially relevant scenario, you might as well conclude that the guilty party wanted to do something very, very bad. Who was going to stop him, anyway? 

Related: as opposed to the Canadian men who didn't take bullets.

In case one confused change with repressive regimes:

This may not sound like glasnost to you, but the AP’s Jean H. Lee is tweeting and filing “news” stories from Pyongyang about matters of deeper significance:  her sightings of Snoopy backpacks and Mickey Mouse sweaters. In a closed city where the elite have long had access to Sony TVs, Omega watches, and Mercedes cars, Lee concedes that these things “may seem trivial,” but then suggests that they represent “a seismic shift” in attitudes inside the regime. And while Pyongyang’s bold new summer fashions probably don’t meet the editorial standards of Vogue, Lee gives Kim Jong Un’s paramour, who may or may not still be married to someone else, the Asma Al-Assad treatment:

‘Seven months after inheriting the country from Kim Jong Il, the 20-something leader suddenly began appearing in public with a beautiful young woman. Dressed in a chic suit with a modern cut, her hair stylishly cropped, she carried herself with the poise of a first lady as she sat by his side for an unforgettable performance: Mickey Mouse grooving with women in little black dresses jamming on electric violins.

A few days later, video showed her flirting with Kim Jong Un during a visit to a kindergarten. She quickly became the subject of fervent speculation: Is she his wife? Girlfriend? A friend?’  [AP, Jean H. Lee]

This is written in a voice that would be better suited to Tiger Beat, or at best, a People magazine spread about whichever inbred, gerbil-faced British princeling brought a date to the Wimbledon after-party. Lee doesn’t tell us who this fahhh-bulous woman and the other Beautiful People wore to North Korea’s night of a thousand stars. At least that would have revealed (no, not that) the regime’s latest violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874 to clothe the royal consort in highest fashion. The unanswered gossipy schoolgirl questions seem to be a device to spackle over Lee’s failure to even find out who this woman is.  So much for opening North Korea to the world.

Beyond these atrocities of journalistic workmanship, it must have taken extraordinary powers of compartmentalization to write that in light of what Lee knows about life beyond the gates of Pyongyang:

‘Nearly a third of children under age 5 show signs of stunting, particularly in rural areas where food is scarce, and chronic diarrhea due to a lack of clean water, sanitation and electricity has become the leading cause of death among children, the [U.N.] agency said. Hospitals are spotless but bare; few have running water or power, and drugs and medicine are in short supply, the agency said in a detailed update on the humanitarian situation in North Korea.

“I’ve seen babies … who should have been sitting up who were not sitting up, and can hardly hold a baby bottle,” Jerome Sauvage, the U.N.’s Pyongyang-based resident coordinator for North Korea, said in Beijing before presenting the report to donors.

The report paints a bleak picture of deprivation in the countryside, not often seen by outsiders, who are usually not allowed to travel beyond the relatively prosperous Pyongyang, where cherubic children are hand-picked to attend government celebrations and a middle-class with a taste for good food have the means to eat out.

Sauvage’s report provides not only further evidence of North Korea’s inability to feed its people, but also bolsters critics who say the government should be spending on food security instead of building up its military, testing rockets and pursuing a nuclear program denounced by the U.N., the United States and South Korea.’  [AP, Jean H. Lee, June 12, 2012]

I’m glad to see Lee finally acknowledge that she’s spent the last seven months staring through a soda straw pointed at a facade, yet she continues to distort the significance of what she sees through it, if only to bolster the strained case for her own bureau’s relevance.

A handful of people with purchasing power or cartoon decals is not political change. Progress, life span and life style are vastly improved in liberal democracies. Just count how many fat people there are in North Korea.

Related: the good old days of communism were nothing like this!

In 1977, the year I was born and the year my father, his mother, his aunt and many other Jews left the Soviet Union (my mother and I left in 1978), the Soviet propaganda machine began circulating a rumor. It went, roughly: life in America is so terrible that the old people eat cat food.

This was…perplexing. 

People didn’t quite get it: they have food specifically made for cats in America? What a country!

A lot of things about America remained beyond their comprehension.

A week after my father arrived in New York, he and a friend were walking around Manhattan in pure wonder. They got to midtown and stood in front of Bloomingdale’s watching well-dressed people come in and out. They discussed it amongst themselves that they would obviously have to show evidence that they had money, or proof of income, or some other paperwork to get inside. Surely this store for the wealthy wouldn’t just let them in. They watched and watched but didn’t see people getting stopped. They walked slowly through the doors and found no one gave them a second look.

There’s a feeling in America today that there isn’t equality until any of us can walk into Bloomingdale’s and buy whatever we want. The two men standing there in 1977 weren’t thinking that it was unfair they couldn’t wear the same clothes as the beautiful people around them, they were just grateful for the opportunity to try. They had left a place where that opportunity simply didn’t exist. You were born poor and you would die poor–everyone would. You could gain influence in your life and that might get you small victories–instead of being assigned to practice your profession in Siberia you might get lucky and get sent to a capital city. Perhaps you, your wife, your child, your parents and other relatives could have your own apartment, one you wouldn’t have to share with another family. Those were your wins.

Indeed:

So when the authors of this narrative accuse you of bitterly clinging to your faith and your God-given rights, it's because they bitterly cling to their faith in omnipotent government.  When they accuse you of racism, it's because they are either unable or unwilling to break free of the chains of a twisted perspective in which everything is seen in a racial context.  When they accuse you of being greedy for trying to provide for you and your family, it's because they are the greedy ones, lusting after the property and liberty of others and the power they imagine will be theirs.  When they accuse you of being a threat to society because you insist on having access to the weaponry required to protect yourself and your family, it's because they view you as a threat to a utopia in which  the government prefers to arm drug cartels over law-abiding citizens.  When they accuse of you of trying to impose your morals on others, it's because they desire to impose theirs on you whether through forcing you to subsidize the sex habits of others, or forcing you to purchase whatever product or service suits the egalitarian impulse of the moment.  

And now, some funny animal signs. Enjoy.

 

(With thanks and praise)