Saturday Post

The summer, it does wind down...


Nearly fifty churches and other institutions have been destroyed in Egypt (as toys are deemed most offensive) Syrian Christians have been murdered and Obama thinks that the time to act against Syria is now:

The White House believes Congress will vote in favor of a U.S. military strike against Syria because of the threat that chemical weapons pose to the security of Israel and other allies in the region, senior administration officials told reporters on Saturday.

I find it adorable that he thinks he will naturally get the support of Congress (as he did get the support of the British... oh wait...). Even Israel was invoked. The belief that chemical warfare has been waged is not a new one, however. What was Obama waiting for? Or not attending meetings for? Who does he think will fill the void left by Assad? The same people in Egypt, perchance?

Perhaps the British, tired of Obama's contempt and rudeness, have bucked a loser for once and for all. Who needs to get involved in this mess? No one cares about Israel or Christians except the former and the latter. Obama will gladly see both hang.

It's time to stick it to him.

By the way, the president does need congressional approval for war.


Justin Trudeau is a douchebag. It's alright to say that because he is:

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau isn't ruling out compensation for Omar Khadr for the time the convicted terrorist served in Guantanamo Bay.

"Omar Khadr needs to be treated the way we treat Canadians according to the rules that exist, according to the laws and principles that govern," said Trudeau, adding the former teen soldier should be treated like "any Canadian who as been incarcerated outside of the country.”

"We need to be fair to the way we treat Canadians, and if people don't like the way the laws are now, well then, they need to change them," Trudeau said.

Confessed murderer and terrorist. Admitted money-grabber. There you have it.


An old article but well worth a read:

Rejected and marginalized by a regime that has only recently begun to acknowledge their existence, disabled North Koreans live under effective house arrest and are routinely expelled from the capital, Pyongyang, defectors and aid groups say. 

Defectors now living overseas have described a society that routinely uses derogatory language about the disabled, and an almost total lack of rehabilitation facilities or social services for them. 

“In the North, disabled persons are looked down upon and contemptuously called ‘cripples’ or ‘freaks,’” North Korean defector Lee Aeran said. “This is unacceptable and unthinkable in the South, where the use of such terms could even have serious legal repercussions.” ...

Disabled babies are seen as persona non grata in Pyongyang and their families are banished from the capital city and forced to relocate in rural areas. 

“If a child is born with a disability to parents living in Pyongyang, the whole family is expelled from the capital city,” she said. 

Lee said the isolated Stalinist state wants to promote the image of Pyongyang as an immaculate showcase city. 

“Disabled babies are seen as persona non grata in Pyongyang, and their families are banished from the capital city and forced to relocate in rural areas,” she said. 

“The disabled are thus forced to live in a difficult environment that does not provide for their special needs, and that makes North Korea a terrible place to live for persons living with a disability,” she said. 

Disabled military veterans are honored, she said, while those who are born disabled or become disabled through accidents or malnutrition are despised.

And now, this is actually a cake- a Nutella cake.






(Merci)

Mid-Week Mellow

It's time to chill out....

Canada's national animal in cute form.

That is one hell of a superplane.

Sweets for Rosh Hashanah.

Mid-Week Post

Don't look behind you...

There is no hypocrite like a Parti Quebecois hypocrite:

The media of English Canada are to blame for pathetic, unfair coverage of the Parti Quebecois' controversial minorities plan, according to prominent Pequistes.

A former premier called the coverage pitiful. And a current cabinet minister took to Twitter to condemn it Tuesday.

The complaints about the Anglo fourth estate came amid a furor over an impending plan by the PQ government to restrict public employees' right to wear religious clothing.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, ex-premier Bernard Landry said he can't accept some of the complaints directed at the Quebecois. ...

Landry made a prediction: that the rest of Canada will one day "deeply regret" having embraced the doctrine of multiculturalism.

He says it leads to a lack of integration that harms social cohesion and, pointing to Europe, he says that ultimately risks feeding right-wing extremist politics over time.

"Multiculturalism will lead to more and more problems, like in Great Britain. In Holland, in Germany, same thing. Angela Merkel came out against this doctrine a while ago. Immigrants themselves are the first victims of multiculturalism," he said.

"In the U.S., you never see a police officer with a turban. There are things worth regulating and I hope it gets done (here).

"The rule is, when you change country, you change country. They can't expect to find everything here that they had in their country of origin. Intergration is a powerful signal that they need to adjust to a new nation.

"And the majority of them do it wonderfully."

Is this Parti Quebecois I see before me? Is a unified identity a militantly secularist Quebec identity that puts its anglophone population on hold? Put that up on an English sign and see how long it would take for the language police to tear it down. Who has been protectionist since the word go? French-Canadians. There was a time when protection of individual identities mattered but this isn't the eighteenth century and Charles Lawrence is good and dead. Secondly, political multiculturalism was Pierre Trudeau's disaster. If one remembers, he was a Nazi sympathiser, a useless prime minister who devised a stupid Charter and gave French Canada the oligarchy it now enjoys. His useless son now counts pot smoking as one of his biggest achievements. Thirdly, Quebeckers are responsible for their decline in cultural and political importance, not English Canada. Landry's are misplaced at best and stunningly hypocritical at worst.


Chief Double-Dipping-Double-Chin wins re-election:

Again, Attawapiskat finds itself in the headlines for all the wrong reasons after its band and council, led by Chief Theresa Spence, decided to proceed with elections even though no provision had been made to get the ballots of the more than 55% of band members who do not live on the reserve.

HA! I said 'election' like it was an actual democratic process or something. But, really, it was a farce.


Those who do not learn from history are condemned to re-tweet it:

‘Shut up white b*tch’: Stacey Dash quotes MLK Jr., gets attacked for ‘calling blacks negro’

Related: "the dream" doesn't refer to elected liars and thieves who lived off of their white grandparents' affluence.


A chemical substance? Like, in gaseous form?

Evidence suggests that some kind of "substance" was used in Syria that may have killed more than 1,000 people, but any military strike in response must first gain UN Security Council approval, special envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi said Wednesday.

The UN is useless and toothless and any involvement in any of the crumbling North African and Middle Eastern countries will only end up in short or long-term disaster. One must walk away.


But... but... there's no sentience!

Researchers at the University of Helsinki have found that newborn babies learn and remember words that they heard repeatedly in the third trimester of their mothers’ pregnancies.

Eino Partanen and colleagues at the Cognitive Brain Research Unit of the university's Institute of Behavioral Sciences set out to discover if there was measurable evidence that memory traces are formed prior to birth.

Previous studies looked at behavioral clues to the conjecture that babies remember things they heard before birth, but Partanen and his team decided instead to test babies using EEG sensors to look for neural traces of memories that were formed in the womb. 

"Although previous behavioral observations show that newborns react differentially to unfamiliar sounds vs. familiar sound material that they were exposed to as fetuses, the neural basis of fetal learning has not thus far been investigated," the report on the study explained. 

The researchers used a group of 33 mothers in their third trimester. Half were a control group; the other half were given a recording to play to their unborn children that included the meaningless, in Finnish, word "tatata," interspersed with music. Periodically, the word would be slightly altered with a change in pronunciation, syllable stress or tone.

By the time they were born, the test babies had heard the word "tatata" an average of 25,000 times. 


When the babies who heard the recording in utero were tested after birth, the EEG scans showed a specific pattern of enhanced brain activity when they heard the word again, indicating that they recognized the word and its variations. The infants in the control group showed no change in brain activity when they heard the word. 

Moreover, the researchers were able to measure "a mismatch response" when the babies heard the altered version of "tatata," indicating they were even able to differentiate the sound of the word when it was pronounced differently. 

The researchers said this memory ability speeds up recognition of sounds in the baby's native language and can be detected as a pattern of brain waves, even in a sleeping child.

Stick it in your ears, anti-science pro-deathers.

Fort Hood Killer Is Sentenced to Death

Here:

A military court on Wednesday sentenced Nidal Hasan to death for the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, giving the U.S. Army psychiatrist a path to the martyrdom he seemed to want in the attack on unarmed fellow soldiers.

Hasan could become the first U.S. soldier executed in more than half a century. But because the military justice system requires a lengthy appeals process, years or even decades could pass before he is put to death.

And here.

He wishes to be a martyr but we all know unrepentant murderers burn in hell, especially the Islamist ones.

Mid-Week Post

The magma chamber of the work week...

North Korean defectors Shin Dong-Hyuk and Jee Heon-Ah gave testimony to a three-member UN inquiry commission regarding the human rights abuses in the rogue state:

Harrowing accounts from defectors now living in South Korea related how guards chopped off a man's finger, forced inmates to eat frogs and a mother to kill her own baby.

"I had no idea at all ... I thought my whole hand was going to be cut off at the wrist, so I felt thankful and grateful that only my finger was cut off," said Shin Dong-hyuk, punished for dropping a sewing machine.

Born in a prison called Camp 14 and forced to watch the execution of his mother and brother whom he turned in for his own survival, Shin is North Korea's best-known defector and camp survivor. He said he believed the U.N. panel was the only way to improve human rights in the isolated and impoverished state.

"Because the North Korean people cannot stand up with guns like Libya and Syria ... I personally think this is the first and last hope left," Shin said. "There is a lot for them to cover up, even though they don't admit to anything."

There are a 150,000-200,000 people in North Korean prison camps, according to independent estimates, and defectors say many inmates are malnourished or worked to death.

After more than a year and a half ruling North Korea, Kim Jong Un, 30, has shown few signs of changing the rigid rule of his father, Kim Jong Il, and grandfather, state founder Kim Il Sung. Neither have there been signs of a thaw or loss of control inside the tightly controlled state.

Jee Heon-a, 34, told the Commission that from the first day of her incarceration in 1999, she discovered that salted frogs were one of the few things to eat.

"Everyone's eyes were sunken. They all looked like animals. Frogs were hung from the buttons of their clothes, put in a plastic bag and their skins peeled off," she said. "They ate salted frogs and so did I."

Speaking softly, she took a deep breath when describing in detail how a mother was forced to kill her own baby.

"It was the first time I had seen a newborn baby and I felt happy. But suddenly there were footsteps and a security guard came in and told the mother to turn the baby upside down into a bowl of water," she said.

"The mother begged the guard to spare her, but he kept beating her. So the mother, her hands shaking, put the baby face down in the water. The crying stopped and a bubble rose up as it died. A grandmother who had delivered the baby quietly took it out."

North Korea has an estimated concentration camp population of 150 to 200, 000 people and the UN, which allows China to sit permanently on its security council and has vetoed action against North Korea, mustered only three people to pretend to care about the suffering of the North Koreans.

We must withdraw from the UN today.


I would be far more concerned about a poor economy than religious symbols, O Graying Province of Quebec:

QMI Agency has learned the Parti Quebecois government plans to amend the Quebec charter of rights and freedoms and ban most religious signs and symbols from public institutions such as daycare centres, public schools, hospitals, clinics, and other government buildings.

Visible crosses, yarmulkes, hijabs, niqabs, burkas and turbans would all be banned.

According to sources close to the government, all health workers, public school teachers and public daycare workers would have to leave their religious symbols at home when they go to work.

I just find it awesome that someone drew a parallel between Ted Cruz and Wolverine:

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz released his birth certificate, and it shows a dual U.S./Canadian citizenship ...

"Vote for me, bub!"

The next time someone points out how unfair their $10-$14 minimum wage is, point out that it would take six-point-two hours of work  for an Afghan to afford one Big Mac:

The results are not altogether surprising. Workers in the West earn far more than their counterparts in Asia and Africa. And as with most things, the people of Sierra Leone and Afghanistan have it the worst. The hourly minimum wage in Sierra Leona is equivalent to 3 cents a hour (U.S. dollars), meaning it takes them the five-and-a-half-days to earn enough to buy a Big Mac. Not that there is a McDonald's anywhere near Sierra Leona, but you get the point. (For those who are interested, the closest would be in Marrakesh, 2,600km away). Afghans have it considerably better, but only by abysmal standards, as it takes the average worker there just over six hours to earn enough to buy a burger.

Remember, atheists are allegedly smarter than believers:

Here's the deal: The reason the Church venerates the Blessed Virgin Mary is that the Church has taught, since the time of the apostles, that Jesus was conceived in her womb by the power of the Holy Spirit.  That's why there's that big paper trail about her,not just in the Bible, but in the prayers, art, and theological writings of the Church from the gospels to 431 AD.  Cyril of Alexandria didn't have a TARDIS and did not go back in time and plant all the Mary stuff all over the Empire in order to make her sudden appearance at the Council of Ephesus plausible and spice up the liturgy with a little coded Isis worship.  If you think this is what happened, you should probably refrain from boasting about your superior intellect and grasp of the Hidden History of Our Time, unless you are going to do a guest spot on Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.

Allegedly.


And now, churches that will make you say: "Oh my God! The goggles do nothing!" and the sloth-compadres, wombats. Enjoy.


(Merci)

Slide Back Under the Rock, Trolls

Just disgusting:

The family of an autistic boy is reeling after the child’s mother received an anonymous hate letter that suggested the family move or “euthanize” him.

“I was shaking when I was reading it,” said the boy’s grandmother Brenda Millson to CityNews. “It’s awful words…terrible. You don’t know why somebody would ever do such a thing.”

Neighbors rallied together to show support for 13-year-old Max, who was diagnosed with severe autism at the age of two.

Karla Begley, the boy’s mother, wept as she read portions of the hate mail to local news.

“I also live in this neighborhood and have a problem,” the writer stated in the one page letter that was received on Friday. “You selfishly put your kid outside everyday and let him be a [sic] nothing but a nuisance and a problem to everyone else with that noise polluting whaling [sic] he constantly makes!!!”

“That noise he makes when he is outside is DREADFUL!!!!!!!!!! It scares the hell out of my normal children!!!!!!!” it says.

“When you feel your idiot kid needs fresh air, take him to our park you dope,” the letter reads.

Calling the boy a “hinderance to everyone” the letter writer states that “no employer will hire him, no normal girl is going to marry/love him and you are not going to live forever”.


“Personally, they should take whatever non retarded body parts he possesses and donate them to science," the letter said. "What the hell else good is he to anyone!!!”

“You had a retarded kid, deal with it…properly!!!!! What right do you have to do this to hard working people!!!!!!! I HATE people like you who believe, just because you have a special needs kid, you are entitled to special treatment!!!”

The letter ends by asking the mother to move or have her child terminated.

“Do everyone in our community huge a [sic] favor and MOVE!!!!”

“Go live in a trailer in the woods or something with your wild animal kid!!! Nobody wants you living here and they don’t have the guts to tell you!!!!!”

"Do the right thing and move or euthanize him!!! Either way, we are ALL better off!!!”

The letter is signed: “One pissed off mother”.

Why doesn't this "brave" person affix her name to this garbage?

It is my fondest wish that she is "outed" and treated as she would clearly treat others.

Monday Post

Quickly now...

The word for "gullible" in Korean is 속기 쉬운  :

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is taking a new approach to defectors who have fled his impoverished and repressive state, promising they will not be harmed if they come home, and even offering cash rewards, according to some in the exile community.

In case one forgets:

Three North Koreans who attempted to cross the border were shot to death over the weekend, a North Korean human rights group said Monday.  ...

The killings occurred a day after North Korea`s new leader Kim Jong Un was appointed supreme commander of the armed forces Friday. Pyongyang has reportedly tightened border controls and increased surveillance over those trying to escape since Kim Jong Il’s death.

Saturday`s deaths were the first killings of border-crossing defectors under the Kim Jong Un government. 

In other news-

While the rest of the world totally ignores the ongoing persecution of Egyptian Copts, including the abuse of nuns, an Egyptian with a Canadian passport is shown to have incredibly questionable ties:




Related:  Islam is a heresy, you MB-supporting twit!

(WARNING: insufferable doucherbaggery therein. Viewer discretion is advised.)

Stephen Harper has been ambivalent about democracy for Arabs. He could not even muster rhetorical outrage at the Egyptian army’s ferocious crackdown. While the world was reacting with fury (cutting off aid and pondering other sanctions), Harper and his Christian crusaders were selectively standing on guard for Christians of Egypt. John Baird extended “deepest sympathies” to the victims of “unconscionable” random attacks on Coptic and other churches.

We should worry about the Copts being targeted by some groups. But we must also worry deeply for Egyptian civilians being cut down by the state. 

(Sidebar: the last line was the worst bit of window-dressing I've seen in a while. Even a Red Toronto Star reader would stone this yahoo to death for turning a blind eye to a ten year old Copt girl shot to death.)


Justin Trudeau continues trolling for Islamic votes while his groupie (s) display their incredible ignorance:

A column in the Globe and Mail written by Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s Social Media Manager Ashley Martyn shows how far the Media Party will go to smear the Conservative Party and Stephen Harper:

“…he [Harper] secretly believes that gay people are second-class citizens.”

...

Religious people are less intelligent than atheists.

More to come.

(Merci, Matt)


Abolish teachers' unions:

Apparently, under the new Common-Core standards, correct answers don’t really matter. At least that’s according to a “curriculum coordinator” in Chicago named Amanda August. “Even if [a student] said, ’3 x 4 was 11,’ if they were able to explain their reasoning and explain how they came up with their answer really in, umm, words and oral explanation, and they showed it in the picture but they just got the final number wrong, we’re really more focused on the how,” said the common core supporter and typical liberal, Amanda.

No, Ted Cruz! Don't do it! It's a trick!

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) announced Monday evening that he will renounce his Canadian citizenship, less than 24 hours after a newspaper pointed out that the Canadian-born senator likely maintains dual citizenship.

Your other country needs you.

(Sidebar: I think he should refer to the law before he does anything.)


And now, apparently, a Mac and Cheese martini is a real thing.


(Several paws up)

Saturday Night Special

 

Quickly now...

Since when is there never a Day of Rage:

Bloodshed returned to the streets of Egypt Friday after at least 60 people were killed when the Muslim Brotherhood’s “day of rage” descended into more fierce fighting between protesters and the security forces.

Supporters of Mohammed Morsi, the ousted Islamist president, clashed with the military in Cairo and other cities as one of the bloodiest weeks in the country’s recent history approached a violent climax.

At least 35 people were killed in the capital and 12 died in the Nile Delta cities, with witnesses again accusing the security forces of using live rounds to subdue the demonstrators.

The Brotherhood called for the protests in the wake of Wednesday’s operation to clear its two sit-in camps in Cairo, a military assault that left hundreds dead and threw the country into crisis.

Related: a list of churches attacked or destroyed in Egypt:

Three churches and six buildings at the monastery of the Holy Virgin and Anba Abra’am in Dalga, Minya, Upper Egypt
The church of Mar-Mina in the district of Abu-Hilal in the town of Minya
The bishopric church of Mar-Girgis (St George) in Sohag, Upper Egypt
The church of the Holy Virgin in Nazla, Fayoum, Lower Egypt
The Baptist church in Beni-Mazar, Minya
Coptic-owned shops in Gumhouriya Street in Assiut, Upper Egypt
The Good Shepherd School in Suez
The Fransiscan School in Suez
The Holy Bible Society in Fayoum
The church of al-Amir Tawadros (St Theodore) in Fayoum
The church of the Holy Virgin in the district of Abu-Hilal in the town of Minya
The Catholic church of St Mark, Minya
The Jesuit church in Abu-Hilal, Minya
The church of Mar-Morqos (St Mark) and its community centre, Sohag
18 houses of Coptic families in Dalga, Minya, including the home of Father Angaelus Melek of the Holy Virgin and Anba Abra’am’s
The Evangelical church on Nassara Street in Abu-Hilal, Minya
The church of Anba Moussa al-Aswad in Minya
Coptic-owned shops, pharmacies, and a doctor’s clinic in Minya
The Jesuit church in Minya (attacked, not burned) The St Fatima Basilica in Cairo (attacked, not burned) ...

In addition to the attacks against the Copts, their churches, businesses, and property; Egyptians were aghast at attempts by the Islamists to break into the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) in Alexandria and set it on fire. The BA security and staff confronted the assailants in the courtyard, and there was an exchange of gunfire. According to Khaled Azab, the BA’s media manager, the conference hall was plundered, and a number of acquisitions went missing. The glass façade was shattered.

 

This is what happens when you don't destroy your enemies: 

Critics say the group has picked the wrong day on which to hold this event, being the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon twelve years ago. The date also marks the somber anniversary of the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi.

In response to all the outrage and indignation being voiced over the march, event organizers in the American Muslim Political Action Committee (AMPAC) say the lives of Muslims in America were changed by September 11, 2001 attacks as well and they want to call attention to it.

Victimhood; Ibn Warraq called it.

Somebody make a statue of this guy, even if it is panko:

Liberals, you’re all about civil liberties? Isn’t that what you claim, or claimed? Obama has been Dick Cheney on steroids when it comes to civil liberties and privacy. He signed the NDAA into law. He assassinated American citizens. He oversaw a massive expansion of the surveillance state, including monitoring the phone records of every American. He extended the Patriot Act. He mandated the Insider Threat Program that requires government employees to profile their coworkers. His Justice Department has spied on journalists, and all of his agencies have been absolutely brutal on whistle blowers. Obama never met a civil liberty he supports and wishes to protect.

And now, Ezra Levant vs. The Walking Brain-Dead. Enjoy.

(Merci beaucoup)

But Wait! There's More!

There always is.

Fidel Castro proudly admits supplying North Korea with military aid:

North Korea gave Cuba extensive military support in the 1980s, former President Fidel Castro said on Wednesday as the United Nations investigated a cargo of hidden Cuban arms discovered last month in the hold of a North Korean ship.

Castro, who turned 87 on Tuesday and is rarely seen or heard from in public these days, gave his people a lengthy glimpse of his thoughts in a column dated Tuesday and run in all official media on Wednesday. Topics included the origin of man, relations with the Soviet Union, the assassination of U.S. President John Kennedy, and the death of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

A U.N. team arrived in Panama this week to check the cargo of 240 tons of "obsolete defensive weaponry" Cuba has admitted were on board the seized North Korean vessel for possible violations of international sanctions on the Asian country.

Panama seized the ship in mid-July as it made its way from Cuba to the canal with a cargo of 320,000 sacks of Cuban sugar, under which the weapons were discovered.

Cuba said the weapons were being sent back to North Korea for repair and included two anti-aircraft batteries, nine disassembled rockets, and two MiG-21 aircraft, all Soviet-era military weaponry built in the middle of the last century.

Castro, perhaps in an effort to explain his country's close ties with North Korea, said on Wednesday that Cuba turned to its friends for military support in the 1980s after Soviet leader Yuri Andropov made clear his country would not intervene if Cuba were attacked by the United States.

"We decided to ask other friends for sufficient arms to field a million Cuban fighters," Castro wrote.

"Comrade Kim Il Sung (who died in 1994), a veteran and exemplary soldier, sent us 100,000 AK rifles and accompanying ammunition without charging a penny," he said.

Cuban officials have been mostly quiet on Panama's seizure of the Korean vessel, but not Fidel Castro, who ceded power to his brother Raul after taking ill in 2006.

Fidel, one day you'll be dead, mourned sincerely only by Pierre Trudeau's son and Kim Jong-Eun. The devil, on the other hand, will be waiting for you with a smile on his face.


Ezra Levant confronts clueless and irrational environmental activists; hilarity ensues. More to come.

Leave these people in some Third World hellhole. Let them know, firsthand, what it means to not have running water, food, fuel, freedom...

The list, it does go on.

Related: seven protesters against Line 9 in Ontario face more charges:




Also related: the director of the documentary, "Gasland", changes his initial story:

Josh Fox is the creator of the film Gasland and the person behind the celebrity bus tours of small Pennsylvania towns supposedly harmed by fracking. Ever since the release of Fracknation, a film critical of anti-fracking efforts in general and Fox in particular, Fox has avoided responding to criticism by claiming he has not seen Fracknation. [Full disclosure: I donated $25 to the film's production.]

But this week something unexpected happened when a public radio station in Aspen asked Fox directly about a scene in the film. First Fox became agitated and attacked the film, then he changed his story about his involvement in a land lease (to another lie it turns out), then he admitted he knew the scene in question. Finally, Fox begged the interviewer to go "off the record."...

When the interviewer refuses to go off the record, Fox spends the next five minutes complaining that Fracknation is not journalism and should not be taken seriously. Of course he offers no specifics. Asked near the end of the interview if he is willing to answer questions about Gasland via email, Fox suggests he does not have time and once again asks for the interview to be ended so he can talk off the record.

As to Fox's claim about being a part of lease negotiations and having "dropped out" prior to signing, the Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance states that Fox was never part of their lease negotiations.

Well, that must be embarrassing.


Kathleen Wynne's idea of "a warm and fuzzy school year" usually involves gay porn in some way:

Premier Kathleen Wynne insisted Thursday all the bad blood is over between the Liberal government and Ontario teachers and students should have a protest-free, extracurricular-enriched school year.

In fact, she said it was one of her priorities when she became leader this past January to "repair that relationship" with teachers and they've gone some way to doing that.

"It is always my hope that parents and teachers and everyone in the education sector will have a terrific year," the premier said. "It's important that the government and the people who are working with our children are on the same page."

She said she expects kids will have "full access" to extracurricular activities this fall.

And they will buy it.

Abolish teachers' unions.


If this happens, it would be The Awesome:

‘That would be wonderful!’ Hugh Hewitt wants to draft Mark Steyn to run for Senate

Punch this douchebag in the face:

After tweeting the above statement that a number of Coptic churches that have reportedly been burned across Egypt should have expected that reaction from Morsi supporters because the Church supported the “coup,” Turkish journalist Mahir Zeynalov got some backlash that perhaps he should have expected. Zeynalov then deleted the original tweet, and went in search of a kinder, gentler way of saying the same thing...

The Coptic Christians- who have been in Egypt long before the Muslims, I might add - will always be the targets of abuse and murder. I suppose this "journalist" doesn't understand that.


The next time someone tells you that Planned Parenthood is a poor, little non-profit organisation that helps women, remind them of this:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced the winners of $67 million in “Navigator” grants. So-called Navigators will “serve as an in-person resource for Americans who want additional assistance in shopping for and enrolling in plans in the Health Insurance Marketplace this fall.” We know that Planned Parenthood has extensive experience in receiving taxpayer money from the government, but will the affiliates do a better job selling Obamacare than they do providing those mammograms? ...

On Tuesday, the District of Columbia awarded $375,000 to Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, D.C., to help people sign up for Obamacare.

Americans, this is your financially and morally bankrupt nationalised health service. YOU voted for it- twice.


And now, a happy story from Israel:

Before Haim the donkey arrived at the safari, he was regularly tied up with barbed wire behind his owners’ home, where local children would abuse the helpless animal.

Haim was eventually brought to the safari in Ramat Gan, the largest animal sanctuary in the Middle East and home to 1,600 animals of different species.

Haim began a long rehabilitation process, gradually learning to trust his caretakers and even overcoming his fear of children.

His physical wounds, however, took longer to heal. His lower legs, where he was bound, had the fur rubbed off, and flies would bite his raw skin. The flies caused Haim to bite and scratch his legs, leaving sores and cuts that in turn attracted more flies. The donkey was caught in a painful cycle. ...

Two caretakers, Becca Rivkin and Shira Inbar-Danin, came up with a solution. They spent four hours stitching a special pair of pants for the donkey that are held up by suspenders over his shoulders. The pants are double-layered, with a soft stretchy material on the inside, covered by a rougher baggy material that flies can’t bite through. The two women also rub cream on his legs every day.

The special pants are working swimmingly, and Haim will soon receive pants for his hind legs as well. With his skin protected, his fur is expected to grow back quickly, and then Haim the donkey will be able to trot around bare-ass once again.

Mid-Week Post

 

The "Arab Spring" is perhaps one of the worst euphemisms ever uttered:

Egyptian security forces crushed the protest camps of thousands of supporters of the deposed Islamist president on Wednesday, shooting almost 200 of them dead in the bloodiest day in decades and polarizing the Arab world's most populous nation.

At least 235 people were killed in all, including at least 43 police, and 2,000 wounded, a health official said, in fierce clashes that spread beyond Cairo to towns and cities around Egypt. Deposed president Mohamed Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood said the death toll of what it called a "massacre" was far higher.

While bodies wrapped in carpets were carried to a makeshift morgue near the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque, the army-backed rulers declared a one-month state of emergency, restoring to the military the unfettered power it wielded for decades before a pro-democracy uprising toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said 43 police were among the dead. Security forces had completely cleared two protest camps in the capital and would not tolerate any further sit-ins, he said, vowing to restore Mubarak-era security.

Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi defended the use of force, condemned by the United States and European governments, saying the authorities had no choice but to act to end "the spread of anarchy".

This is the new Iran. It has a huge Islamist presence, must import its food and one dictator differs little from the previous ones.


One is known by the company one keeps:

A British Columbia group has told an international panel reviewing the environmental effects of NAFTA that the worst fears about the historic trade agreement's impact on the environment have come true, especially under the federal Conservative government.

West Coast Environmental Law has sent a submission to the Commission on Environmental Co-operation as part of the commission's look back at the 20 years since a side deal was signed between Canada, the United States and Mexico in response to concerns that NAFTA's environmental impact.

The commission has formed a public advisory panel asking for public input, noting in a news release the side deal was reached amid concerns that NAFTA might "harm the environment by encouraging the creation of pollution havens because of lax environmental standards or ineffective environmental law enforcement."

"With new free trade agreements, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, in negotiation all around the globe, there is no better time to reflect on the ideas that led to the creation of the (commission) in 1994, considered by many as the first time international trading partners addressed concerns that free trade might harm the environment," the commission's news release said.

But West Coast Environmental Law argues that's exactly what has happened.

In a submission filed Wednesday, the group argues the federal Conservatives violated the agreement by introducing changes in two omnibus pieces of legislation.

Specifically, the group points to changes to the Fisheries Act, which it says will inhibit the protection of fish habitat, and changes to the way Canada conducts environmental assessments.

The group says those changes will mean there will be thousands fewer assessments, including on projects the groups says could have major environmental impacts, such as oil and gas pipelines. ...

(Sidebar: red flag warning.)

West Coast's letter to the commission comes a day after environmental activists launched a lawsuit in the Federal Court of Canada challenging new federal legislation they say limits their ability to oppose pipeline projects at regulatory hearings.

The lawsuit, which will be mounted by noted Toronto lawyer Clayton Ruby, was filed by ForestEthics Advocacy and activist Donna Sinclair.

Read the number of acts, permits and regulations Canada has for resource exploration and protection of the environment. Who does not have the kind of environmental protocols Canada has? China. Indeed, foreign companies do not need to adhere to the strict labour and environmental laws of their home countries when they re-locate to China. Whether from domestic or foreign persons or companies, pollution in China isn't just rampant; it's deadly. China's grave environmental transgressions always seem to be absent when Canada is hyperbolically accused of ruining the environment, particularly when it concerns oil or gas. One of the biggest red flags in the article was the mention of ForestEthics Advocacy. See here:

Since 2005, the U.S.-based Oak Foundation has made at least eight grants for $3 million for projects that are clearly intended to tackle the Canadian oil industry and/or stop the development of the Northern Gateway project. Four of these grants went to Tides Canada, two went to Greenpeace, one went to Forest Ethics and one went to West Coast Environmental Law Research Foundation.

A coincidence, I'm sure.


If the Senate had been reformed ages ago, ie, all persons being elected and with accountability, this would not be a problem:

The Deloitte audit into expense claims by Senator Pamela Wallin cost $126,998 – or slightly more than the amount she’s being asked to repay. ...

The audit recommends Ms. Wallin pay back $121,348 in travel expenses. Auditors said about three-quarters of that sum was for travel that wasn’t ultimately for Senate business, while about one-quarter was for costs incurred by Ms. Wallin during regular stops in Toronto, where she owns a condo. Auditors found no issue with 73 per cent of Ms. Wallin’s travel claims.

And before one forgets, Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne covered up the true costs of cancelled gas plants, Kathleen Wynne is associated with an accused child pornographer and Justin Trudeau took money from schools and charities and trolls for Islamist votes.


Some people are scum:

The ashes of a teen girl who had been killed in a car crash were stolen and thrown on the street, say Calgary police, who are looking for help in solving a series of vehicle break-ins.

The incidents occurred on Aug. 2 in the area of 10th Street and Wapta Rise S.E. A number of vehicles were targeted, including a truck that carried a pouch containing the ashes of Colleen Ransom's 19-year-old daughter.

Ransom was barely able to hold back the tears Tuesday as she discussed losing her daughter for a second time.

Emma Ransom, 19, was killed along with two other women when the car they were driving in 2009 near Nanton, Alta., crossed the median and slammed into an oncoming car.

Since then Ransom has kept Emma's ashes in a green velvet pouch

But culprits took the pouch and dumped the ashes on the sidewalk, later tossing it to the side. A green jacket that belonged to Emma was also taken.

Yeah, that's not going to work:

President Park Geun-hye proposed Thursday that South and North Korea hold reunions for separated families and establish a peace park in their heavily armed border, a day after the two sides reached a landmark deal to reopen a joint industrial complex.

Another ship sinking in oh, sa, sam...

Still, Happy Gwangbokjol.

It falls on the Feast of the Assumption. After a bomb was dropped on the place of great martyrdoms.

Think about it.


And now, eat your strawberries. They're good for you.

Tuesday Post

There are always solid reasons why a nation should have and maintain a good standing army and navy and China's sabre-rattling in the Pacific is one:

Canada should get out of is cold war mindset and move the majority of its warships from Halifax to the B.C. coast in response to the Chinese navy’s aggressive military buildup, say defence analysts. ...

The Canadian military’s tiny fleet of warships is split up on a 60-40 basis favouring the Atlantic coast, with seven frigates and two destroyers in Halifax compared to five frigates and one destroyer in Esquimalt.

When submarines, maritime patrol and supply vessels are included there are a total of 18 vessels assigned to Halifax, where approximately 5,000 military and 2,000 civilian personnel are located, and 15 to Esquimalt, where roughly 4,000 military and 2,000 civilian employees are stationed.

Analyst David McDonough said Ottawa should reverse the emphasis, with at least 60 per cent of the frigates and destroyers in B.C.

He also argued that once the submarine fleet is fully operational two of the three subs in service (one will always be in the Esquimalt dry dock undergoing repairs and upgrades) should be based out at Esquimalt.

“Nowadays, the threat on the East Coast is pretty mild, whereas the Pacific is a more dangerous environment,” McDonough, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of B.C.’s political science department, said in an interview Friday.

The U.S., Japan and Australia have all taken steps to expand their military muscle in response to the Chinese military’s naval buildup. Fears of a potential Pacific conflict have been exacerbated by China’s territorial disputes with the Philippines and Japan.

McDonough argued in a blog post last month that Canada could use its Victoria-class diesel submarines to develop an anti-submarine warfare capability in the region, though such a commitment would ultimately require costly purchases of a new fleet of subs and a replacement for the aged Aurora maritime patrol aircraft.

Such a contribution would help the cash-strapped Americans “at a time when China is expanding its own naval fleet and showing greater assertiveness in its maritime disputes with its neighbours,” he wrote.

Canadian victories in the War of 1812, Vimy Ridge and Holland greatly exceed the "value" of an inadequate nationalised health service and political multiculturalism that creates more divisions than unity:

A history-heavy advertizing blitz leading up to the sesquicentennial, with a proposed $20-million budget, is in the works at Heritage Canada. Last month, the department announced $12 million for a Canada History Fund. It will pay for, among other things, new awards for outstanding high school history students and teachers. Who could object? Yet the push is prompting angry charges that the Tories are manipulating history for ideological purposes. In the political arena, the New Democrats accuse them of “remaking the Museum of Civilization in their image.” The NDP points to the Harper government’s high-profile, high-cost commemorations of the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 as evidence of a Conservative bias for celebrating military exploits over, say, exploring social history.

So, no, Prime Minister Stephen Harper isn't re-writing history, just emphasising the bits of it that should matter to all Canadians.What would our "social history" be like under the thumb of a loser like Obama and where the French language has zero lease?

(Now, I've shaken the peaches.)

Mmm... peaches...

Why BCF deserves the accolades:

The Masjid al-Furqaan teaches hatred of Jews & Christians. Here's an excerpt from a document on their site entitled The Ideological Attack - A complete and final demolition of the plots of the Communists, Zionist Jews and Christians; and a wake up call for those who still stubbornly maintain that the Scholars of the Ummah do not know the current state of affairs.

THE ZIONIST JEWS:

The Zionist war is just the same. The Jews strive their utmost to corrupt the beliefs, morals and manners of the Muslims. The Jews scheme and crave after possessing the Muslim lands, as well as the lands of others. They have fulfilled some of their plans and continue striving hard to implement the rest of them. Even though they do engage the Muslims in warfare involving strength and arms and have occupied some of their lands, they also fight them through spreading and aiding the spread of destructive thoughts, beliefs and ideologies; such as Freemasonry, Qadiyaanisim, Bahaa‘ism, Teejaanism, and others - seeking the support of the Christians, and others, in order to fulfill their objects.

Why isn't this everywhere, spawning endless unrest? People can get upset over Christmas but they can't get angry enough to loudly condemn Jew-hatred? This is going on right now. If you stand back and do nothing, you must want it.


I thought Canada was only taking in immigrants we need:

Speaking at a Canadian citizenship ceremony in Surrey, B.C. on August 12, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander said the Conservative government of Stephen Harper has made its position on the Russian laws against homosexual proselytizing known and that Russian refugee claims “related to this particular issue will of course be looked at very seriously by our very generous system.”

Well, this doesn't look good:

On August 12, Joe DiGenova, attorney for one of the Benghazi whistleblowers, told Washington D.C.'s WMAL that one of the reasons people have remained tight-lipped about Benghazi is because 400 U.S. missiles were "diverted to Libya" and ended up being stolen and falling into "the hands of some very ugly people." ...

Months earlier, following then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta's February 7 testimony on Capitol Hill about the Benghazi attacks, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) suggested that one of the causes behind the terrorist attack "may have been that there was a gun running operation going on in Benghazi, leaving Libya and going to Turkey and [distributing] arms to the [Syrian] rebels."

Who is responsible, I wonder?

Liar, liar, handbag on fire:

While promoting her new film, "Lee Daniels' The Butler," Winfrey relayed an anecdote about being a victim of racism to Entertainment Tonight. "I say to the woman, 'Excuse me, may I see that bag right above your head?' And she says to me, 'No, it's too expensive.' … She refused to get it."

Those are Oprah's exact words -- all told within the context of racism still being a very real problem for black people throughout the world.  

During the interview, though, Oprah also refused -- and this will be important later --  to identify the store.
Immediately after airing this anecdote, the story blew up here in America and around the world -- and did so with scarcely anyone in media bothering to verify the story or express any kind of skepticism. 

Within a few days, the entire country of Switzerland apologized. 

Then, Tuesday, this sales clerk, who has been vilified globally as the second coming of Bull Conner (who was a Democrat, by the way), finally spoke out and declared Oprah a liar:

I didn't hurt anyone. I don't know why someone as great as her must cannibalize me on TV. … If it had all taken place as she claimed, why has she not complained the next day at the wedding of Tina Turner with Trudie Goetz, my boss? She was there also at the Turner wedding as a guest. I don't understand it. ... I spoke to Oprah Winfrey in English. My English is OK but not excellent, unfortunately. ... I didn't know who she was when she came into the store. That wouldn't have made any difference if I had.”

And what is Oprah's reaction to being called a liar by a racist? Well, it certainly isn't the reaction of someone who was the victim of racism and then called a liar by the racist. 

No, when confronted with the shop girl's charge, Oprah issued a non-apology apology saying she was "sorry" the incident "got blown up."

Bono is really right about this:

Now, Bono is speaking up in a manner that would make his famous peers go slack-jawed. He says capitalism is the key to helping the poor, not merely handouts. 

“Aid is just a stopgap,” he said. “Commerce [and] entrepreneurial capitalism take more people out of poverty than aid. We need Africa to become an economic powerhouse.”

Forget "Game of Thrones". Tolkien was the real powerhouse:

Tolkien was so appreciated by the Nazis that he was asked by the German publisher Rütten & Loening  in 1938 to affirm that he was, indeed, of “Aryan” lineage before the planned release of a German translation of The Hobbit.

Tolkien responded to their inquiry into his heritage with the following letter:

25 July 1938
20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

Dear Sirs,

Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject — which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.

Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.

I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and remain yours faithfully,

J. R. R. Tolkien

Shark Week: is there anything it can't do?

A good Samaritan who came across the scene of a horrific jeep accident in the town of Boston, New York, last week, used skills learned from watching the Discovery Channel to save a teenager from bleeding to death.

Robert Nicholas stopped to help Bailey Mcgroarty, 16, and three other teens in an overturned jeep. The teens had been on their way to a local fair when the driver veered off the paved portion of the road and lost control of the vehicle.

Mcgroarty suffered a severe arm laceration with arterial bleeding. The teen was in danger of bleeding to death.

"You don't even know if you're capable," Nicholas said of trying to help at the scene. "There was a lot of blood."

Fortunately for all involved, Nicholas have been watching TV that week.

"I've seen 'Shark Week,'" he told WGRZ. "I just got done watching, they showed how to do a tourniquet. That's where I learned. Quickly."

The World Is Taking Crazy Pills (Super Redux)

I don't know why...

Someone shut this man up and put every news agency that gives him the adulation he never deserved to begin with out of business:

President Barack Obama on Friday denied he has poor relations with Vladimir Putin after canceling their Moscow talks, but said the Russian president can sometimes appear "like a bored kid in the back of the classroom."

U.S.-Russian relations plunged to one of their lowest points since the Cold War this week after Russia granted temporary asylum to fugitive former U.S. spy contractor Edward Snowden. Obama retaliated by abruptly canceling a Moscow summit with Putin planned for early next month. ...

"I know the press likes to focus on body language, and he's got that kind of slouch, looking like the bored kid in the back of the classroom. But the truth is that when we're in conversations together, oftentimes it's very productive," Obama said.

Putin's sending of a telegram wishing former President George W. Bush well after a heart procedure this week was viewed by some Kremlin watchers as a sign that Putin was sending an implicit message to Obama.

The White House says Obama pulled out of the Moscow summit not just because of the Russian decision to grant asylum to Snowden, who is wanted in the United States to face espionage charges. U.S. differences with Russia have piled up recently over Moscow's support for the Syrian government in that country's civil war, as well as human rights concerns and other grievances.

Obama did resolve one issue that has been debated in the United States. He said American athletes will in fact compete in the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014, in spite of Russia's anti-gay propaganda law.

"I do not think it's appropriate to boycott the Olympics," Obama said.

He said the best way to combat the law is for gay and lesbian athletes to do well in the Sochi Games.

"One of the things I'm really looking forward to is maybe some guy and lesbian athletes bringing home the gold or silver or bronze, which would I think go a long way in rejecting the kind of attitudes that we're seeing there," he said. "And if Russia doesn't have gay or lesbian athletes, then, it'll probably make their team weaker."

(Sidebar: groan. Sure it will. Did Obama forget that homosexual athletes weren't banned from the games?)

The Kool-Aid drinkers of the popular press must surely see how pathetic they are to prop up a man (a word I use loosely to describe Obama) who thinks he has everyone from Prime Minister Stephen Harper to President Vladimir Putin on the ropes.  He is also the same man who can appear on late-night talk shows ad nauseum, sing songs that make sense only to thirteen year old girls and whines that his handlers make him work for re-election.

Pathetic.

 

Related: if I'm going to spend $38,000 on a handbag, it had better double as an emergency life raft with a GPS device, rations and shark-fighting equipment before I think it's a good investment. I expect bang for my buck:

Oprah Winfrey wasn't the victim of racism when she asked to be shown a 35,000 Swiss franc ($38,000) crocodile handbag in Zurich last month, according to the owner of the boutique where the alleged slur took place.

Winfrey said in a television interview with Larry King that one example of racism she had encountered was when a shop assistant in Zurich refused to get her a bag because it was "too expensive." Winfrey, the billionaire talk-show host and producer, was in the Swiss city to attend Tina Turner's wedding.

"This has got nothing to with racism at all," Trudie Goetz, owner of the Trois Pommes chain, said in a telephone interview from Zurich today. "It was a misunderstanding and a communication problem. The client is king here, and we try to fulfill all wishes."

Whatever were the Swiss thinking not letting uber-rich Oprah Winfrey look at an obscenely expensive handbag? They are clearly racist against wealthy elitists who bait others when they don't get their own way.

Also: maybe the Russians had decency in mind. I don't know. All I know is that you are making a mountain out of a molehill for political points when such energy could be better expended decrying Putin when journalists and bloggers are jailed or killed or when countries in the Caucasus are invaded or when Gazprom cuts off supplies during winter:

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said he hopes "decency will prevail" when it comes to Russia's anti-gay law, but that despite his concern about Canadians going to the Olympics there, a boycott is not the answer.

For whom does one root- the materialistic white liberals who think they are being multicultural or the ever-offended (insert own percentage here) aboriginals?

H&M stores across Canada have pulled faux feather headdresses from their shelves after receiving complaints the items are offensive to aboriginals.

Kim Wheeler, an Ojibwa-Mohawk from Winnipeg, said she first saw the $15 fashion accessories while shopping with her daughter last week at the store in Vancouver's Pacific Centre mall.

"My first instinct was to buy all of them and throw them in the garbage," said Wheeler. "It's not honouring us. It's not flattering us. It's making a mockery of our culture.

"We just don't think it's cool." ...

Emily Scarlett, a Toronto-based spokeswoman for the Swedish fashion chain, said the hair pieces — patterned head bands with bright pink and purple flowers — were part of the company's summer music festival collection called "H&M Loves Music."

Flowered wreaths in honour of the sixties were also part of the line.

"Music festivals these days are really about experimenting with fashion and dressing your personality. And they're very heavily based on accessories, really accessorizing your look."

She said the company received three complaints about the headdresses and quickly made the decision to remove them from the market. An order to remove the items went out Tuesday to its 61 Canadian locations.

"Of course we never want to offend anybody or come off as insensitive," Scarlett said. "We're always about being there for our customers."

And now, an alien-looking forest in Poland. Enjoy.