Friday Freakout

The end of the work week here, just in time for the long week-end.

Queen Victoria is the reason why you have a long week-end. You're welcome.

Some Canadian news:

It's as likely that these Grade Five students thought this up themselves as the Senate is forthright and not at all greedy:

Some Grade 5 students have some advice for Prime Minister Stephen Harper: Stop being mean to Justin Trudeau.

Seven students from an Ottawa-area Catholic school have written to Harper asking that he pull Conservative attack ads, which began running within hours of Trudeau claiming the Liberal leadership last month.

It's time to tell the children that Justin Trudeau is like that "cool" student counsellor who is zero-help in choosing a class that will secure them a pension-earning future. Will these Grade Five kids thank him when Fatima comes back from summer holiday "different" or be cool with his preference for the "better" Quebec kids? I'm sure they will. Maybe someone should tell the children that Justin Trudeau should man the hell up because when you're an adult you can't wear a pink t-shirt and cry that people are mean.


Nigeria takes the fight to Islamists and the US expresses displeasure:

Nigerian warplanes struck militant camps in the northeast on Friday in a major push against an Islamist insurgency, drawing a sharp warning from the United States to respect human rights and not harm civilians.

Troops used jets and helicopters to bombard targets in their biggest offensive since the Boko Haram group launched a revolt almost four years ago to establish a breakaway Islamic state and one military source said at least 30 militants had been killed.

But three days after President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in the northeast, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry issued a strongly worded statement saying: "We are ... deeply concerned by credible allegations that Nigerian security forces are committing gross human rights violations, which, in turn, only escalate the violence and fuel extremism."

The United States is the biggest foreign investor in Africa's most populous nation, notably in its energy sector, and buys a third of Nigeria's oil. Washington "condemns Boko Haram's campaign of terror in the strongest terms", Kerry said, but urged Nigeria's armed forces to show restraint and discipline.

Where was John Kerry when Boko Haram attacked churches? Were those attacks not "gross human rights violations"?

What does one expect from this scandal-ridden administration and its Kenyan dictator?


And now, because the long week-end approaches, Star Trek:

Star Trek is a utopian vision -- it portrays a future in which mankind has advanced and left behind its primitive, savage ways. But somehow this has resulted in a race in which cynicism, and even basic caution, is in short supply. ...

We'll accept that most people in the Federation are decent enough to not break the rules whenever they feel like it, and that civilized life on Earth has advanced to a point where criminal activity is more or less unheard of. But the whole point of the Enterprise's mission is to discover bizarre new life forms, and some of them are bound to be mind-ripping star beasts who simply do not subscribe to the honor system. And shoving your hands in your pockets and whistling your way through the galaxy isn't going to keep you safe from the billions of rapacious multidimensional contagions waiting to turn the Enterprise into the Event Horizon. The most competent and cautious person on the bridge is probably Lieutenant Worf, and, unsurprisingly, there's a montage of people telling him to shut the hell up.

A battle-ready bat'leth: when simply killing your enemy will not do.


The origin of the Vulcan salute:

But where on earth did Nimoy get the idea to put his alien hands in such a formation? "That came from my Jewish background," Nimoy said in 2000. It's a gesture used in the Priestly Blessing during Jewish services. Priests give the hand gesture — similar to the Vulcan salute but with two hands — to bless their congregation. Priests form their hands in the shape of the letter Shin (or Sin) from the Hebrew alphabet. It's a name for God. "I saw it done as a kid, was entranced by it, and so I brought it into 'Star Trek,'" Nimoy explained.