Mid-Week Post

The fondant centre of the work-week...


Thanks a bundle, Flaherty:

Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty suggested today he no longer supports bringing in income splitting for couples with children, kicking off a debate over whether the Conservatives are stepping back from a 2011 campaign promise.

Don't promise something you can't or won't deliver.

Related: Waste your own money, Premier Wynne:

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty made a deliberate decision to unfairly shortchange Ontario to the tune of $641 million in the federal budget, Premier Kathleen Wynne charged Wednesday.

"We're seeing a pattern of the federal government getting out of, I would suggest, the business of nation building, and particularly in this case turning its back on Ontario," Wynne said at a news conference with Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa. "We're here today to demonstrate that yesterday’s budget is part of that pattern."

The minority Liberal government claims funding cuts in the last eight years of federal Conservative budgets have cost the province billions of dollars.

What a bunch of bloody liars! Whose fault is it that Ontario has debt higher than California's?

This is the government Liberal voters want. Right there.

Convicted terrorist, murderer and racist Omar Khadr has been transferred to a medium-security prison:

Former Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr has been moved to a medium security prison, after being reclassified a lesser danger, his lawyer announced Wednesday.

Ottawa had resisted the 27-year-old's transfer from a Canadian federal penitentiary to a more comfortable provincial correctional facility for petty criminals and young offenders, calling it an attempt to lessen his punishment.

Think of the hero's welcome Megrahi got when he was released from prison. That may one day be Khadr.

Mother Khadr and Zaynab must be SO happy.

Who needs to get off his @$$? Who?

Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, best remembered for his impassioned pleas for help after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005, was convicted Wednesday of accepting bribes in exchange for helping businessmen secure millions of dollars in city work.

(Sidebar: Impassioned? He was lazy.)


This must be embarrassing:

The Obama administration has repeatedly stated that any military rescue of Americans on the ground in Benghazi during the 9/11 attack in 2012 was an impossibility because it didn’t have the necessary assets in the area that day.

Judicial Watch has released a map the organization obtained through a FOIA request which shows the location of U.S. Navy assets the day of the attack in Benghazi, Libya.

The map (PDF) appears to counter administration claims that there were no military assets in the area that day. Judicial Watch writes that a “multitude of forces” were in the area.

Damn you, global warming!

Lake Superior hasn’t completely frozen over in two decades. 

But an expert on Great Lakes ice says there’s a “very high likelihood” that the three-quadrillion-gallon lake will soon be totally covered with ice thanks to this winter’s record-breaking cold.

The ice cover on the largest freshwater lake in the world hit a 20-year record of 91 percent on Feb. 5, 1994.

Jay Austin, associate professor at the Large Lakes Observatory in Duluth, Minn., told CNSNews.com that he expects that record will be broken this winter when the most northern of the Great Lakes becomes totally shrouded in ice.

The thickness of the ice on Lake Superior “varies tremendously,” from a very thin sheet in some areas near the coast to several feet thick in other spots, Austin says. The  National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that the mean thickness of the lake ice is 26 cm, or a little over 10 inches. 

Austin attributes the large amount of ice on the lake to the “extraordinary cold winter we’ve had,” pointing out that Duluth recently experienced an all-time record of 23 straight days of below-zero temperatures. ...

Austin, who studies the effect of lake ice, predicts that it will have a “very strong influence” on the regional climate this summer, with the “air conditioning [lake] effect” more pronounced than usual.

“Typically, the lake will start warming up in late June, but it will be August before we see that this year,” Austin told CNSNews.com.

As of February 10th, ice covered 80.4 percent of all the Great Lakes, compared to 38.4 percent last winter, according to NOAA. That’s considerably higher than the lake’s long-term average of 51.4 percent under ice.

 
I believe China had similar problems:

Subtropical climate and colossal corruption are not the only problems of the Sochi Games. Olympic objects were built without proper oversight and regulations, mostly by unqualified migrant laborers from Central Asia who were mistreated and often unpaid. The resulting infrastructure is not of the most reliable quality. As the Russian opposition leader gloomily noted, “The best result of these Games will be if everyone stays alive.”

Beyond Sochi, the Putin government continues its repressive policies, with new attacks against independent media and the upcoming verdict in the “Bolotnaya Square case” that is almost certain to result in five-to-six-year prison terms for peaceful opposition activists whose only “crime” was to protest against Putin’s inauguration. The number of recognized political prisoners in Putin’s Russia currently exceeds three dozen people.

 
All of this could have prevented Russia from getting the Olympics (which aren't doing too badly). Nobody cared or cares.


Perhaps the fathers forget how Kenneth Bae is treated or how the faithful are treated just north of them:

Korea’s seemingly unbridgeable left-right divide is spilling into the nation’s second-most-popular religion, pitting conservative Catholics against progressives.

“The church, too, can’t escape from the great political divide engulfing Korea,” said a religion expert, asking his name to be withdrawn. “Lately, the progressive priests have been speaking out, organizing special masses. That must have prompted their opponents to speak up in response.”

By progressive priests, the expert was referring to the Catholic Priests’ Association for Justice and the like-minded priests, like those who organized the Monday Mass in Gwangju.

In a series of special services, they called on President Park to step down and her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, to be arrested over the National Intelligence Service’s alleged meddling in the 2012 presidential election campaign.

“We can only conclude that a president who ignores people’s demands for the truth and displays characteristics of a stubborn dictator is acknowledging that she is no longer the president chosen by the people of Korea,” the priests have said in a statement issued in one of the masses.

Conservative Catholics have launched a group to counter the left-leaning priests late last year.

Christened “Catholics’ gathering to protect the Republic of Korea,” the group calls itself a representative of ordinary believers who have grown sick and tired of their activist priests. 

If they knew their stuff, they would know how diametrically opposed communism is to not only the Church but to all Christianity.


Belgium to euthanise children:

More than a decade after legalising euthanasia for adults, Belgium is set this week to extend mercy-killing to terminally-ill children after lengthy public debate over the ethical issues at stake.

Despite strong opposition from the Church and even some pediatricians, a bill allowing euthanasia for minors facing "unbearable physical suffering" goes up for debate in parliament's lower house Wednesday, before being put to a vote the following day.

If adopted as widely expected, the legislation will make Belgium only the second country after the Netherlands to allow incurably sick children to seek to end their lives.

While the Dutch law, the world's first euthanasia bill, enables mercy-killing in special cases for gravely ill patients 12 years or older, Belgium will be the first nation to lift all age restrictions.

 
When World War Three rolls around, Belgium, you're on your own.

Lake Superior hasn’t completely frozen over in two decades. But an expert on Great Lakes ice says there’s a “very high likelihood” that the three-quadrillion-gallon lake will soon be totally covered with ice thanks to this winter’s record-breaking cold.
The ice cover on the largest freshwater lake in the world hit a 20-year record of 91 percent on Feb. 5, 1994.
Jay Austin, associate professor at the Large Lakes Observatory in Duluth, Minn., told CNSNews.com that he expects that record will be broken this winter when the most northern of the Great Lakes becomes totally shrouded in ice.
The thickness of the ice on Lake Superior “varies tremendously,” from a very thin sheet in some areas near the coast to several feet thick in other spots, Austin says. The  National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that the mean thickness of the lake ice is 26 cm, or a little over 10 inches.

Austin attributes the large amount of ice on the lake to the “extraordinary cold winter we’ve had,” pointing out that Duluth recently experienced an all-time record of 23 straight days of below-zero temperatures.
The previous record of 22 days was set in 1936 and tied in 1963, according to the National Weather Service.
Austin, who studies the effect of lake ice, predicts that it will have a “very strong influence” on the regional climate this summer, with the “air conditioning [lake] effect” more pronounced than usual.
“Typically, the lake will start warming up in late June, but it will be August before we see that this year,” Austin told CNSNews.com.
As of February 10th, ice covered 80.4 percent of all the Great Lakes, compared to 38.4 percent last winter, according to NOAA. That’s considerably higher than the lake’s long-term average of 51.4 percent under ice.
- See more at: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-hollingsworth/ice-expert-predicts-lake-superior-will-completely-freeze-over#sthash.dX6SG42G.dpuf

And now, the Winter Olympics on Hoth.

What a venue!