Mid-Week Post

Every third letter in this sentence spells a secret message.

Terror suspect refuses to recognise Canadian law: 

One of two men accused in an alleged al Qaeda-backed plan to derail a passenger train in Canada appeared in court on Wednesday and disputed the authority of Canadian law to judge him, saying the criminal code was not a holy book.

Chiheb Esseghaier, a Tunisian-born doctoral student, faces charges that include conspiracy to murder and working with a terrorist group.

He and another suspect, Raed Jaser, are charged with plotting to derail a passenger train, and U.S. security sources say they sought to attack at a bridge near the U.S.-Canada border.

In a brief hearing where he was ordered back into custody, Esseghaier, 30, said the allegations against him are based on laws that are unreliable because they are not the work of God.

"All of these conclusions was taken out based on (the) criminal code," he told a Toronto court. "The criminal code is not (a) holy book."

He added: "Only the Creator is perfect."

Hear, hear!

This is from the Creator's holy book which I hope Mssrs. Esseghaier and Jaser have read :

Thou shalt not kill.

There are nine other rules like it they should also follow.

Evidence that North Korea carried out a nuclear test has been “unexpectedly” detected:

Radioactive gases that could have come from North Korea's nuclear test in February have unexpectedly been detected, a global monitoring body said on Tuesday, possibly providing the first "smoking gun" evidence of the explosion.

But the April 9 measurement - almost two months after Pyongyang said it had carried out the underground detonation - gave no indication of whether plutonium or highly enriched uranium was used, it said. …

Pyongyang's third nuclear test was registered virtually instantaneously via seismic signals around the world. But no radioactive traces that would have constituted conclusive proof were found in the immediate weeks afterwards.

The Vienna-based CTBTO, which has a worldwide network of monitoring stations, said in mid-March that it was highly unlikely any such radioactivity would be detected.

But Tuesday's statement said it made a significant detection of radioactive noble gases two weeks ago in Takasaki, Japan, about 1,000 km (620 miles) from the test site. Lower levels were picked up at another station in Ussuriysk, Russia.

"Two radioactive isotopes of the noble gas xenon were identified, xenon-131m and xenon-133, which provide reliable information on the nuclear nature of the source," it said.

"Detection of radioactive noble gas more than seven weeks after an event is indeed unusual. We did not expect this and it did not happen in 2009," the CTBTO added, referring to the reclusive country's previous nuclear test.

What do you mean “unexpectedly”? How did the Russians and the Japanese pick up isotopes when a body whose work it is to monitor and enforce a ban on nuclear weapons could not? Pakistan has been aiding North Korea since 2003. It is believed that North Korea has sufficient plutonium for six nuclear weapons and may even have as many as seven missiles. None of this was a secret. How is it a surprise?

Related: a "special relationship" with this country is really a conflict of interest:

For decades, the United States has reserved the term “special relationship” for two countries, Britain and Israel, but Secretary of State John Kerry called for a new “special relationship” with China during his recent trip to Asia. 

No, the Catholic Church did no such thing. The Archdiocese of New York did and it shouldn’t have:

Scaling down a legal fight with the White House, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York has agreed to drop a request for documents about the government's requirement of insurance coverage for birth control, a court filing on Monday said.

The archdiocese sent a subpoena to President Barack Obama's administration in February asking for documents from White House staff, including Obama himself, for use in a church lawsuit against the contraception mandate.

Citing the burden involved and calling a subpoena of the president's office inappropriate, the White House asked a federal judge to toss out the subpoena on April 4.

A notice filed in U.S. District Court in Washington late on Monday said the archdiocese agreed to withdraw its subpoena. It did not say why.

A lawyer for the archdiocese declined to comment on Tuesday. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Justice Department, which represented the White House in court, had no immediate comment.

The archdiocese is continuing its lawsuit in Brooklyn federal court challenging the Obama administration's health policy requirement that employers generally include coverage of birth control in health insurance plans they offer workers.

If it makes the archdiocese feel better, Obama won’t answer any questions about Benghazi, either. I guess the alleged Catholics should have thought about this before voting Obama in.

The judge in the Kermit Gosnell case has re-considered one count previously dropped and has re-instated it. Gosnell had been seen smiling after the charges were dropped. What a b@$#@&%.  His defense lawyer has rested and had not called one witness:

The sensational and sometimes grisly trial of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell reached an important point Wednesday when Dr. Gosnell’s defense team declined to call any witnesses – including the defendant himself.

Closing arguments in the trial, now in its sixth week, are scheduled to be heard next Monday, after which the controversial case goes to the jury.

Gosnell faces the death penalty if he is convicted in the deaths of four newborns. Prosecutors allege that the infants were born alive and viable during late-term abortions. Gosnell is also charged in the 2009 overdose death of a Nepalese refugee who overdosed on sedatives while awaiting an abortion.

Gosnell is also charged with racketeering, performing illegal abortions, and failing to counsel women 24 hours before a procedure.

Before going any further, Gosnell committed INFANTICIDE as the babies were born ALIVE before having their spinal cords severed. There is no such thing as a post-birth abortion.

Gosnell's lawyer must how completely risky it would be to call Gosnell as a witness in his defense. How can one defend the squalor and butchery of which Gosnell is accused?

 

When knee-jerk reactions and public education failures collide:

As a youth I collected stamps, coins and currency and one thing that those hobbies instilled in me was the desire to learn where countries were located on maps. Also, I was born in Uzbekistan, my parents came from Poland, my brother was born in Germany, I studied in Israel, traveled to more than two dozen countries before the age of 30, and consequently have no problem knowing exactly where any country in the world can be found on a map.

However, I have often found that many of my fellow Americans are lousy in geography. I mean really lousy. So I was not surprised when I read that the Czech Republic became alarmed when Twitter and Facebook users erroneously left messages confusing the birthplace of the Boston Marathon bombers with the Czech Republic…

There is no secret message.


(With thanks)