Mid-Week Post

The fog lifts...

Kim Jong-Un, who has proven every bit as brutal as his father, may or may not attack American installations or cities but will more than likely attack South Korea first, perhaps a repeat of Yeonpyeng Island in 2010. That will be a test for President Geun-Hye Park. As she will get, at best, lukewarm support from the United States, she will have to do as her predecessors do and walk on eggshells regarding the Chinese and Russian-backed North Korea. As no one will confront China and Russia on anything, North Korea will only briefly feel the pinch of sanctions and being a global pariah.

The cycle will continue.

The S Word:

A committee of senior NDP members is recommending the party modernize its guiding statement by making it less ideological and dropping most of its many references to socialism.

The NDP can rid themselves of whatever word they wish but voters still know that they would be taxed back into the Stone Age by a pack of know-nothings who badmouth this country to the Americans.

Let's privatise education:

The Canadian Student Coalition for Palestine has big plans: A joint effort of Palestinian solidarity groups from Canadian universities, it is designed to harness the intense passions of Middle East campus activism with a specific and controversial goal in mind — a university boycott of Israeli academics.

But when the group was created last month, it occurred with little fanfare and hardly any news organizations took notice. In fact, for students looking to push their universities toward policies aimed at ostracizing and punishing Israel, covert and quiet maneuvers have often proven to be more effective tactics than actions that draw publicity.

Certainly recent votes by student unions across Canada suggest the boycott goal is not so far-fetched, despite complaints of blatant discrimination, criticism of sneakily undemocratic voting practices and debate about the wisdom of using schools as geopolitical soapboxes.

With a poorly advertised and lopsided vote last month — final tally: 18 in favour to two against — York University’s Federation of Students decided to join the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” or BDS movement, which also claims support of graduate students unions at York, Concordia University, the University of Regina and the University of Toronto.

Though not binding on the administration or faculty, the boycott calls on York to sell its shares in companies that profit from Israel — York has shares, for example, in Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems, both defence contractors — and to refuse engagement with Israeli academics.

York’s investment policy says that divestment from particular companies “is not recommended as best practice.” Shunning scholars based on their nationality, critics say, is much worse.

“It so fundamentally violates academic freedom issues, for example, to boycott professors,” said Karen Mock, a human rights consultant and spokesperson for JSpaceCanada, a progressive Zionist organization. “They’re saying it’s to boycott a nation, but it isn’t.”

Calling an academic boycott “the antithesis of academic freedom,” she said student promoters of the boycott have reacted to past failures by resorting to “insidious, nefarious strategies to garner support,” such as quick votes and limited debate.

Universities are no longer centres of academic excellence. They are the finishing schools for indoctrination.

Case in point:

Parent Rights “This is against our rights as parents to teach our own set of family values.”

• As teachers, we do not condone children being removed from classes when we teach about Aboriginal People, people of colour, people with disabilities or LGBTTIQ people
• You can teach your own values at home. Public schools teach everyone about respecting diversity and valuing everyone
• This is not about parent rights. Children have the right to an inclusive education free from discrimination

Peel District School Board's proposed responses to "Pink Day" presupposes bigotry on the part of parents who find the idea of wearing pink an incomprehensible and ineffective method of combatting bullying where methods of direct confrontation and discussion would be far more potent. It also assumes the role of parents themselves, perhaps better parents than natural parents could ever be. There would be no question of removing children from class or school if teachers, some of whom can be bought for $63 million, actually taught students skills they need in the future, as opposed to assuming Muslims and gays are endangered races that need coddling and acceptance or else. Arrogance sums up these proposed responses, if nothing else.

I guess you could say Canada is a hotbed for terrorists:

More today in the case of two London men who are said to be part of an attack on an Algerian gas plant in January.

Former London South Collegiate students Xristos Katsiroubas and Ali Medlej are believed to be involved in the attack, but now dead.

Yesterday reports said that CSIS had been investigating the pair six years before the attack.

And how did CSIS lose them?

If I had to write Canada's citizenship, it would over-emphasise the importance of being Canadian, not being in Canada with beliefs and practices that made one's former country a completely unlivable mess.

But that's just me.

Case in point:

Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali blamed Christians for the closure of some churches in the country, saying that they have politicized an issue that is purely administrative in nature.

Suryadharma said that Christians in the country are not the only ones who had problems getting permits to build places of worship, but they got more attention simply because they talked to the press more.

What an @$$hole and a liar, too. When the next earthquake/Krakatoa/tsunami hits, it is my wish that this jackhole is relieved of Indonesian Christians while he is left to rot. Let them be the first in line for assistance, even refugee status, while this fetid pile of vomit wonders why no Christian/Buddhist/Hindu/thinking human being is tripping over his legs trying to help him. Enough is enough. This pig-face does not understand kindness and logic the way others do and could not learn such things if they were actively demonstrated to him. Did this @$$hole have his house of worship guarded by a cop or worship at a pile of rubble? NO? Then he can shut his fool mouth.

And now, McDonald's in the Republic of Georgia look pretty artsy.

(With thanks)