For A Monday

This could have been used last night.

She wouldn't dare:

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is challenging Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak to either back up his “false” and “defamatory” allegations that she oversaw the purging of government documents or face legal action.

Ms. Wynne has said that her predecessor’s chief of staff – the individual at the centre of a criminal case into the alleged destruction of government records – never worked in her office. Nor did she instruct anyone to destroy information.

The Tories have seized on information contained in police documents describing Dalton McGuinty’s final days in office. The documents, unsealed by an Ottawa judge last week, show that Mr. McGuinty’s former chief of staff, David Livingston, had obtained extraordinary access to computers in the premier’s office for a six-week period that extended into Ms. Wynne’s time in office.

There is nothing in the documents that suggests any records were deleted after Ms. Wynne was sworn into office on Feb. 11, 2013. Mr. Livingston resigned the same day she took power, according to the documents, which have not been tested in court.

Fact: under former Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga were cancelled, costing taxpayers at least $828 million.

Fact: Premier Kathleen Wynne denied knowing the full cost of the cancelled gas plants. She would later apologise for something she said she knew nothing about.

Fact: after being "misinformed" that certain e-mails could not be recovered, two e-mails from then chief of staff Craig MacLennan were recovered. Privacy Commissioner Dr. Ann Cavoukian found the deliberate deletion of e-mails violated Archives and Recordkeeping Act.

Fact: the (alleged) computer hack who (allegedly) wiped computers clean of evidence has been in the employ of the Liberal Party until this past week-end.

E-mails don't just delete themselves and nothing goes on without even the peripheral knowledge of the boss. If Premier Wynne thinks Tim Hudak is out-of-line with his accusations, then she can air out the truth in open court.

If she dares.

Is she confident there is nothing left on which to hang her?


Stay classy, Fils:

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau used some decidedly un-prime ministerial language when speaking publicly at the Fight for the Cure charity boxing match in Gatineau, Que. on Saturday night.

Invited by the ring announcer at the Hilton Lac Leamy, Trudeau climb through the ropes and took the microphone to say a few words about the event at which, two years ago, he thrashed a much larger Sen. Patrick Brazeau. (The two mens’ career trajectories since the fight are documented in a Citizen piece this weekend.)

“I’m going tell you, there is no experience like stepping into this ring and measuring yourself,” he said.

“All the — your name, your fortune, your intelligence, your beauty — none of that fucking matters.”

The f-bomb drew some cries from the high-spirited crowd.

While it’s unusual to hear someone who hopes to be prime minister swearing into an open microphone — at a cancer fundraiser, no less — stranger still might the words that  preceeded it.

It sound as if Trudeau is referring to himself and not some abstract pugilist when he said ”your” name, fortune, intelligence and beauty — three or possibly four qualities that Trudeau inherited at birth.

People would actually vote for this guy.

North Korea threatens a nuclear test after firing missiles in the Korean Peninsula:

On Monday, North Korea began live-fire drills off the western coast of the peninsula after declaring a no-fly, no-sail zone in the area, according to South Korean media.

The move comes just hours after North Korea’s state media warned on Sunday that the country “would not rule out a new form of nuclear test for bolstering up its nuclear deterrence.”

That warning, issued by the country’s Foreign Ministry through the state-controlled Korea Central News Agency, helps keep fears alive that North Korea has mastered making uranium bombs – a second route to nuclear weapons alongside its existing plutonium-based program.

In the past few weeks, North Korea has also launched a series of short- and mid-range ballistic missiles off its east coast, which the United Nations Security Council condemned in a statement last Thursday as having violated multiple Security Council resolutions. North Korea’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday said the U.N. response was an “illegal action.”

It is becoming more and more important for South Korea, Japan and other Asian nations to arm themselves and form alliances. Even if Obama wasn't a completely useless eater, the time for the US to step back and let nations it has advertently or inadvertently declawed take responsibility for their own defense would come eventually. Taking matters into their own hands is an inevitable step.

Case in point:

The Philippine government vessel made a dash for shallow waters around the disputed reef in the South China Sea, evading two Chinese coastguard ships trying to block its path to deliver food, water and fresh troops to a military outpost on the shoal.

This cat represents the Philippines.

And now, kids are smarter than we give them credit for:

The litany of frighteningly stupid Common Core math worksheets never ends. Perhaps now, though, kids are starting to fight back in satisfyingly creative ways.

An alert reader sent The Daily Caller this image of her seven-year-old son’s perfectly reasonable homework answer. The boy attends a public elementary school in San Jose, Calif. He is in the second grade. ...

Resolutions

Yeah, I'm doing this.

Before I go on, some things may be slightly SPOILER-ish for season four, so, caution, ect.

*
*
*

- when a supplies' party first heard about Terminus, did they think to check it out at some point or mention it to anyone?

- didn't anyone piece together Lizzie's feeding the zombies with the dead rat found in the prison and her killing a rabbit?

-is the beheaded body the Governor stumbled upon related to the goings-on at Terminus?

-are the paintings Michonne saw related to Terminus? The house and its occupants, as well?

-where's Beth?

-will anyone discover that Eugene Porter is full of crap?


I do hope some of these things are cleared up soon.

Saturday Night Special

I'm taking this Earth Hour to type this post on a computer, the shell of which is acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (a petroleum product), with the lights on while doing some laundry. Nature outside is doing just fine no matter what I do.

Some food for thought during this Earth Hour:

But climate policies carry an even larger cost in the developing world, where three billion people lack access to cheap and plentiful energy, perpetuating their poverty. They cook and keep warm by burning twigs and dung, producing indoor air pollution that causes 3.5 million deaths per year – by far the world’s biggest environmental problem.

Access to electricity could solve that problem, while allowing families to read at night, own a refrigerator to keep food from spoiling, or use a computer to connect with the world. It would also allow businesses to produce more competitively, creating jobs and economic growth.

Consider Pakistan and South Africa, where a dearth of generating capacity means recurrent blackouts that wreak havoc on businesses and cost jobs. Yet the funding of new coal-fired power plants in both countries has been widely opposed by well-meaning Westerners and governments. Instead, they suggest renewables as the solution.

But this is hypocritical. The rich world gets just 1.2% of its energy from hugely expensive solar and wind technologies, and we would never accept having power only when the wind was blowing. Over the next two years, Germany will build ten new coal-fired power plants to keep the lights on.

If this isn't a deliberate plan to keep the poor in poverty, I would like someone to explain to me what is.


Now, onto North Korea, the satellite image of which has become a symbol of how hollow Earth Hour really is....

Oh, snap! (to China):

Mr. Xi does not need to go to far-off Berlin to learn the lesson of the historic pledge, “Never again.”  He only has to travel to the detention centre in the Chinese border city of Tumen.  This is the holding place for desperate North Korean refugees caught in China’s security dragnet.  There they wait for forced repatriation across the river to North Korea.  And what awaits them there? As the BBC noted on February 21st,“the United Nations report on North Korea's crimes against humanity is not for the faint of heart. It contains gruesome details of systematic extermination, torture, rape, forced abortions and starvation.”

If Mr. Xi is concerned over the sexual exploitation of women and children, he does not need to visit the new Comfort Women museum in Nanjing commemorating human rights atrocities from over seventy years ago. The tragedy of North Korean women being sexually trafficked in China is not history -- it is happening today. And it is a situation, unlike Nanjing, where Mr. Xi could take immediate action.  The best way to pay homage to the Korean Comfort Women would be to assure that their North Korean sisters in China today are not sexually exploited.       

        

And on the question of hunting down those in hiding, Mr. Xi does not need to consult the Diary of Anne Frank.  It is not the Gestapo, but Mr. Xi’s own security forces, that today hunt down North Korean refugees in China. President Xi would also not need to visit the concentration camp near Dachau to comprehend the horrors within.  On a future trip to Pyongyang, he could ask to see one of North Korea’s kwaliso camps -- perhaps the camp whose horrors were so graphically described by North Korean defector Shin Dong-hyuk in the recent best-selling book, Escape from Camp14.

And yet we still trade with this paper tiger.

Read this over and over again:

A man in his 60s who was mobilized to demolish a camp for political prisoners said: "The bones of children were dug up from the ground. There were also tools designed for children, so it appears they were forced into labor."

More Chinese censorship, this time outside of Hollywood:

Bloomberg News editor Ben Richardson has quit the organization in protest of the editors’ handling of an investigative piece on China.

 “I left Bloomberg because of the way the story was mishandled, and because of how the company made misleading statements in the global press and senior executives disparaged the team that worked so hard to execute an incredibly demanding story," Richardson, who served as editor-at-large for Asia news, told Jim Romenesko on Monday.

The story in question was written by reporter Michael Forstyhe, who left Bloomberg for the New York Times after anonymous Bloomberg employees revealed that top editors did not publish Forstyhe's investigative article on Chinese elites due to fears that Bloomberg would be expelled from the country. Bloomberg relies heavily on sales of its financial data terminals in the country.

Let's just say this wouldn't surprise me:

Russia threatened several Eastern European and Central Asian states with retaliation if they voted in favor of a United Nations General Assembly resolution this week declaring invalid Crimea's referendum on seceding from Ukraine, U.N. diplomats said.

The disclosures about Russian threats came after Moscow accused Western countries of using "shameless pressure, up to the point of political blackmail and economic threats," in an attempt to coerce the United Nations' 193 member states to join it in supporting the non-binding resolution on the Ukraine crisis.

According to interviews with U.N. diplomats, most of whom preferred to speak on condition of anonymity for fear of angering Moscow, the targets of Russian threats included Moldova, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan as well as a number of African countries. 

A spokesman for Russia's Mission to the U.N. denied that Moscow threatened any country with retaliation if it supported the resolution, saying: "We never threaten anyone. We just explain the situation."

(Sidebar: oh, I'll bet you do.)


I don't even know why Russia is denying this or this (if true). Who is going to stop it? Obama? He's too busy sucking up to his bosses.


If you give autonomy to one, they'll all want it:

In the Tatars historic capital of Bakhchisaray, the assembly representing the 300,000-strong indigenous Muslim minority voted in favour of seeking "ethnic and territorial autonomy" in Crimea. They make up less than 15 percent of Crimea's population of 2 million and have been overwhelmingly opposed to Russia's annexation of the territory.

From the mosqueteria to this:

An east Windsor community centre has received a grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation to hire a youth sports coordinator and purchase a new air conditioning unit. 

The Rose City Islamic Centre, the base of Windsor’s chapter of the Muslim Association of Canada, has received $309,200, which will be spent over three years. About $120,000 will go towards the air conditioner and the rest will pay for the sports coordinator’s salary and other programming expenses. 

I'm sure this is all a coincidence and not at all favouritism of any kind.

It's alright when this guy says it:

But the money moment came when Maher quoted “Ryan”: “Too many of our young people just can’t be bothered. They’re sitting on couches for hours playing video games, watching TV, instead of dreaming of being a teacher or a lawyer or a business leader, they’re fantasizing about being a baller or a rapper.”

When he revealed that it was Michelle Obama who said it rather than Ryan, he was greeted with a “hushed silence.”

“Is something less true if a white person says it about black people?”  Maher asked.

Bell’s answer was classic liberal doublespeak.

“A truth is a truth and a lie is a lie,” he said, before asking about the context of the first lady’s speech. Told it was a commencement address at Bowie State University, the historically black college in Maryland, he visibly relaxed.

“She’s talking to black people,” he explained. “We talk to each other differently than we talk to you.”

I'll bet he does.

Thanks for cementing your status as a liar and hypocrite.


And now,  some rather lovely libraries. Enjoy.

(With thanks to all)

 

Celebrity Apartheid Week: The Seventh Seal

 

See what I did there?


Ellen DeGeneres sold her famous Oscars group self-photo (selfies, as those crazy kids call them) and gave the proceeds to the Humane Society which has taken a harsh stance against Inuit seal hunting.

Not content to let a sheltered white liberal define them through the 'noble savage' prism, the Inuit of Canada's North have shot back with SEALfies:

Canadian Inuit are taking on Ellen DeGeneres’ famous selfie photo from the Oscars after the celebrity gave some of the money raised from the star-studded pic to a group that fights seal hunting.

DeGeneres donated $1.5-million of the money raised by the photo to the Humane Society of the United States, one of the loudest voices against the seal hunt.

In response, Inuit from across Nunavut are using social media sites to post “sealfies” — pictures of themselves wearing sealskin clothes, standing beside freshly killed seals or looking forward to enjoying a tasty seal meal.

One could have a discussion on the sustainability of any lifestyle, modern or not, but that is not the issue. The issue is the insularity of a celebrity who thinks he or she speaks with authority. I'll wager Miss DeGeneres had not been to Canada's North. I will also wager she does not know how hunting of seals or otherwise is how people feed and clothe themselves. It wouldn't be the first time a Hollywood celebrity made assumptions about the life of the little people who watch their movies and it won't be the last. Had Miss DeGeneres done five minutes of intellectual effort, she would know that hunting is how many people live, that animals are killed as quickly as possible and that people don't take kindly to someone way outside their sphere casting aspersions on them. But knowing breaks down barriers and when one has a stake in an ideological position, those barriers had better stay up. It's embarrassing otherwise.

That, surprisingly, is not good enough for the Inuit but good enough for people who don't live as they do.

It's a good thing the latter don't live where the Inuit do.

Happy hunting.

Friday Post

Just in time for the week-end...


There have been revolutions over things like these:

The ranks of Ontario’s top-paid government workers grew 9 per cent over the past year, with everyone from electricity executives to subway fare collectors to a television talk show host swelling the ranks of the so-called Sunshine List.

The annual disclosure of public-sector workers who earned more than $100,000 in 2013, released Friday, grew to roughly 96,500 people in 2013, up from 88,412 the previous year. The average salary on the list decreased slightly, from $127,576 to $127,433.

The release also reveals a substantial severance for Dalton McGuinty’s former chief of staff who, it was revealed this week, is under police investigation for allegedly orchestrating the destruction of documents in the former premier’s office. An even heftier payout – more than $240,000 – went to Chris Spence, the Toronto District School Board education director who resigned in January 2013 over a plagiarism scandal.

And, it turns out, Premier Kathleen Wynne’s chief of staff, Tom Teahan, not only made a lot more than she did, he even pulled in bigger bucks than U.S. President Barack Obama’s chief of staff.

 
When you're at home tomorrow night drinking a hot or cold beverage and thanking God for not getting polio, take a moment to remember why you're not doing this:

Few cries for attention are less effective than turning off the lights and sitting in the dark for an hour. Who can watch if they cannot see? Nevertheless, the World Wide Fund for Nature is encouraging people around the world to honor, or celebrate, or mourn, or whatever, during “Earth Hour,” Saturday night between 8:30 and 9:30.

The idea is to persuade everybody to renounce technology with the flick of a switch, raising “awareness” of the need for big government to rescue the globe, indeed even the universe, from the scourge of global warming. ...

Earth Hour paints humanity as the villain pillaging Mother Earth and perpetuates the Luddite myth that modern technology is the enemy of nature. That’s not even close to being true.

Advances in science have kept the skies and water cleaner than ever, contributing to sustainable practices that make humans thrive, and plants soak up the abundant carbon dioxide to grow ever taller and greener. ...

That’s the idea behind Human Achievement Hour, the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s response to Earth Hour. Rather than sitting in the dark on Saturday night, Human Achievement Hour encourages people to “celebrate a human achievement that has improved their lives — everything from indoor plumbing to computer technology, to access to consumer goods and affordable energy.”

The free-market think tank encourages people to participate by enjoying a warm (or even hot) shower, to crack open a cold beer, watch a basketball game on TV, text a friend on a smartphone or enjoy any of the simple joys of life made possible by the energy and innovation of free men.

More of the world’s problems have been solved by human ingenuity and the free market than by sitting around in the dark and feeling guilty (for the wrong things) for an hour.

Related:

See what Dora just did there? He used the shock value of the WHO's pollution death figures to slip three Big Lies under the impressionable reader's radar.

First, he's trying to make out that outdoor pollution is as big a problem as indoor pollution. It isn't: nowhere near. Many of the deaths the WHO links to the former are very likely the result of the latter (cooking and heating in poorly ventilated rooms using dung, wood, and coal) which, by nature, is much more intense.

Secondly, he's implying that economic development is to blame. In fact, it's economic development we have to thank for the fact that there are so many fewer pollution deaths than there used to be. As Bjorn Lomborg has noted, over the 20th century as poverty receded and clean fuels got cheaper, the risk of dying of pollution decreased eight-fold. In 1900, air pollution cost 23 per cent of global GDP; today it is 6 per cent, and by 2050 it will be 4 per cent.

But the third and by far the biggest of the lies is the implication that the UN's policies on climate change are helping to alleviate the problem.

Remember when Obamacare was supposed to be good for everyone?

Just how costly are the Obamacare plans for young beneficiaries?

We ran the numbers. Here are our results:

Overall, the Federal government reports that 32% of on-exchange enrollees as of March 1st are under the age of 34. And many of these are teenagers who are part of family policies, not the young yuppies that Obamacare is fervently targeting. Earlier estimates showed only 20% of enrollees were between the ages 18 and 34.

The final number of young enrollees is well below the required cohort. Premiums will rise next year as a result of the adverse selection of older, and probably less healthy consumers. Why are young adults staying away? In one word, economics.

Obamacare is asking young adults to effectively subsidize the healthcare costs of older Americans. So far, Millennials are resisting this age-based transfer of wealth. Many are clearly opting instead to remain uninsured, or else they are buying cheaper health plans that don’t conform to Obamacare’s regulatory dictates.

So this is how they are ramping up numbers:

Health Care insurance navigator groups hosted an Obamacare enrollment fair on Tuesday in the Mexican Consulate’s Brownsville office, The Rio Grande Guardian reported last Friday, where Mexican nationals among others were counseled about enrolling in the ACA.

“The Mexican consulate is a very reliable source of information to the Latino community. And therefore when they host their events, yesterday being the health fair, there are several hundred people that show up,” Medrano said.

Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), undocumented immigrants aren't supposed to be receiving government-run health benefits or subsidized coverage. However, President Barack Obama told Latinos in early March that the Healthcare.gov website would not be used to find out about an individual’s immigration status. 

“None of the information that is provided in order for you to obtain health insurance is in any way transferred to immigration services,” he said.

Yeah, I don't think so:

Controversial billboards in Columbus, Ohio, reading "Jesus is Muslim" and "Mohammed is in the Bible" are drawing protests from local Christians who say Muslims are "hijacking" the name of Jesus. 

This would be the same Jesus who is: not the Son of God (Surah 4:171), only a prophet (Surah 5:75), did not die on the cross for the salvation of man (Surah 4:157) and, the most impardonable sin, is a Jew.

Yeshua ben Yosef: not a Muslim

Over at the Fur: hospitals in England are accused of fudging their statistics; Trudeau panders to the Islamic vote (rather like someone on the US one might know) by claiming that Harper's support of Israel is insincere; an Irish judge tells it like it is; could some schools in Nigeria be recruiting terrorists? Possibly; and much, much more!



And now, bears doing human things. Enjoy.

For A Thursday

The world, it does spin...


What. A bloody. Liar:
  

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne struggled to distance herself Thursday from her predecessor Dalton McGuinty, amid explosive police allegations that his chief of staff may have committed a breach of trust in the ongoing gas plants scandal.

(Sidebar: rather like Benjamin Levin.)

Provincial police allege in unsealed court documents that they believe David Livingston gave an outside tech expert — the boyfriend of a senior staffer — access to 24 computers in the premier’s office.

According to the documents, Livingston sought high-level access to the computers to “wipe clean the hard drives” after McGuinty resigned amid controversy over the costly cancellation of two gas plants.

It’s alleged that during the transition period to Wynne’s administration, Livingston arranged for his executive assistant Wendy Wai to have special access to desktops in the premier’s office, even though she had little knowledge of computers.

Police believe Peter Faist, who wasn’t a government employee, was the person who actually accessed the 24 computers using Wai’s administrative privileges, including Miller’s, Livingston’s and other staffers.

Faist, who police believe is the partner of former deputy chief of staff Laura Miller, was never officially hired by the government and did not undergo the required security screening, the documents say.

According to two staffers in the premier’s office, Faist accessed their computers a few days before Wynne was sworn in, saying he was getting them ready for the next government, police say.

The staffers said they couldn’t log into their computers after Faist left and called IT staff, who said it was clear that system files had been deleted, police allege. ...

But if the latest allegations are true, they are “very disturbing,” a grim-faced Wynne said Thursday.

“This is not the way a government should operate, this is not the way a premier’s office should conduct itself and it is not the way my office operates,” she said.

“I want to be clear: this individual does not work in my office, nor in my government, nor has he ever worked in my government.”

This is from the same woman who denied having any role in the cancelled gas plants even though records support the fact that she did.

The bigger scandal is that McGuinty and Wynne believed they could get away with these crimes because they know that Liberal voters will never hold them to account.


It's a money-grab, you b@$#@%&s:

Many Ontarians who rely on natural gas to heat their homes will find themselves shelling out a lot more.

Enbridge Gas Distribution Inc. says the Ontario Energy Board has approved new rates effective April 1.

The increase means nearly $400 over the next year for the average Enbridge customer, who normally would pay roughly $1,000 annually for natural gas.

I wonder when future guilt trips history lessons will include not scrapping the Indian Act and corrupt band chiefs screwing over their own people:

Alberta students are to be taught about the horrors and the painful legacy of Indian residential schools.

The province has announced that all kindergarten to Grade 12 curriculum will include mandatory content on the significance of residential schools and First Nation treaties.

While there was appalling abuse at some of these residential schools, that was not always the case. No doubt, this will not be mentioned.


Abolish teachers' unions:

 Incompetent teachers in California are holding back poor and minority children, an attorney for several students said on Thursday in closing arguments for a closely watched trial that could change the way public school teachers are hired and fired in the most populous U.S. state.

The lawsuit, opposed by teacher union leaders and the state, comes at a time of bitter political wrangling over how best to reinvigorate a U.S. public school system that leaves American children lagging counterparts in countries such as Finland and South Korea.

The two-month trial has focused on whether five laws meant to protect teachers' jobs are unfair to poor and minority students by putting them at a disproportionately greater risk of being taught by less effective teachers.

While the industry of Big Public Schools is practically impeachable in the eyes of some (it is certainly not without verifiable fault), it is also important to point out that everything begins in the home. Yes, teachers' unions are politicised and would cover for less-than-attentive teachers but what do you do when students and parents don't give a damn?

I feel sorry for the students and parents do. This is the world they are operating in and it's unfair.


And now, fear BaneCat:

Mid-Week Post

Quickly now...


Just a reminder that Earth Achievement Hour is this week-end. Take some time to thank your lucky stars that you don't live in North Korea where it's Earth Hour everyday.


Speaking of North Korea:

North Korea test-fired two medium-range ballistic missiles on Wednesday, South Korea and the U.S. said, a defiant challenge to a rare three-way summit of its rivals Seoul, Tokyo and Washington that focused on the North's security threat.

The launch of the Rodong missiles — for the first time since 2009 — violates UN Security Council resolutions and marks a big escalation from a series of shorter-range rocket launches the North has staged in recent weeks to protest ongoing annual military drills by the U.S. and South Korea that Pyongyang claims are invasion preparation.

The missiles flew about 650 kilometres off North Korea's east coast early Wednesday morning, South Korean Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said. It wasn't immediately clear where the missiles splashed down. Kim said the missiles were likely fired from a mobile launcher.

The North's arsenal of an estimated 300 Rodong missiles could in theory be fitted with nuclear warheads — once Pyongyang masters the ability to miniaturize atomic bombs — and, with a range of up to 1,300 kilometres, could reach Tokyo and key U.S. military bases in Japan.

Given how harshly deftly Obama has dealt with Russia on Syria and Crimea, Japan and South Korea should start nuclearising now.


Why standing up to Russia is important:

Canada may be upset at Russia over Ukraine, but conversations with the bear continue over the Arctic.

Government officials confirm that a Russian delegation is attending a meeting in Yellowknife this week held by the Arctic Council, an eight-member group of countries that ring the North. All members are attending, even though the council includes some of Russia's harshest critics, such as Canada and the United States.

How much of the Arctic are we willing to surrender? Moving troops into Ukraine and Moldova wasn't a stretch for Russia. Russia need not militarise but make a partial military presence there. It's important for Canada to halt any gradual encroachment, letting Russia have only what has been properly allotted to it.


During the War of 1812, Canada was not successfully invaded or occupied but the White House was burned to the ground:

Against all odds, the War of 1812 managed to work its way into the American debate on the Keystone XL pipeline on Wednesday.

It began as a good-natured joke at a news conference on Capitol Hill, became a running gag throughout the event and, by the end, it managed to morph into a serious point about U.S. energy security.

Pipeline proponents held the event to bolster their case by pointing to the dispute with Russia.

Their reasoning is that energy dependence leads to weakness — which is why Europe can't impose serious sanctions against Russia, one of its major gas suppliers. In a similar vein, they say, the U.S. lives in fear of instability or hostility in oil-producing countries.

The expanding North American oil-and-gas sector now provides, they say, a historic opportunity to secure supplies from a trusted ally.

That's when the two-century-old conflict came up.

Canadian ambassador Gary Doer noted that it's been a while since the neighbours fought each other.

"Ever since the War of 1812 we've been allies," Doer said, drawing laughs by adding: "I won't get into that war."

Republican Sen. John Hoeven cut him off to say: "We won that war."

But Doer wasn't prepared to let that go unchallenged: "No, no," the ambassador replied. "You did not win that war, senator. I'll show you references."

A few minutes later, Alex Pourbaix, vice-president of pipeline-builder TransCanada Corp., joked that his company has been waiting since 1812 to get its line approved.

In a word, yes, because Omar Khadr is a terrorist:

One of Canada's most notorious inmates returned to the news this week when it was confirmed that war criminal Omar Khadr recently underwent shoulder surgery at an Edmonton hospital for an injury suffered during an Afghanistan firefight.

And now, this move is brilliant:

A Belgian math teacher seems to have found a solution for unruly kids: threaten them with 'Game of Thrones' spoilers.

When the teacher learned that his students were major fans of the HBO television series, he threatened to reveal the deaths from the unreleased seasons of the show, reports the Guardian.

He has read all of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice novels, giving him knowledge of the deaths that will be revealed in the upcoming television shows.

“I've read all the books,” he told the class, as reported by a student who blogged about the incident on the French site DansTonChat. “If there is too much noise, I will write the name of the dead on the board. They are enough to fill the whole year and I can even describe how they die.”

Students who questioned the teacher's commitment to his word were stunned when, after they acted up, he diligently wrote out all the names of the characters who perished in the third season.

Celebrity Apartheid Week: Alice’s Adventures Into Censorship

ABC Family has scrapped plans for a drama series, “Alice in Arabia”, wherein an American girl is kidnapped by extended family and taken to Saudi Arabia:

Variety reported Friday “Just days after the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) expressed concerns over potential stereotyping in the pilot for ABC Family’s ‘Alice in Arabia’ and requested a meeting with execs, the network has decided not to pursue the show that had been announced Monday.”

What had potential to be a nail-biter among the thirteen to eighteen year old set has now seen the inside of a dustbin thanks to the Islamist-related CAIR.

This wouldn’t be the first time CAIR has directly involved itself in matters of the small screen. It met with representatives from Fox with concerns that “24” would foster negative stereotypes about Muslims. CAIR even had removed aspects of episodes deemed offensive and ran pro-Muslim public service announcements. It was lukewarm (at best) when creators of “South Park” were threatened for the (non-) depiction of Mohammad in one episode. It co-hosted a pro-Muslim writers’ workshop with Fox. CAIR has been quite the busy bee making sure that any depiction of anything Islamic goes through them first or not at all. The Islamic equivalent of the National Legion of Decency has a far more pernicious and permitted foothold in media matters than anything prior to it.

There is virtually no taboo left to break in Western media. Immorality and banality have been stock trade since the Sixties (earlier maybe?). Hollywood has gone out of its way to wear its politics on its sleeve and unoriginality can never go out-of-style as long as there is money to be made and an audience that can’t remember a TV show or movie a reboot is based on. Let’s not forget what great educators TV shows and movies can be (SEE: Titanic, movie, idiots who had no idea it was actually a ship)! All this being said, it would fruitless and dishonest for any writer or producer to claim that theirs is a unique with a unique and damn, if they don’t get it out there! This is not to say that such writers or ideas don’t exist. They do. They now are just few and far in between. But these are not ones with whom one can be concerned. One should be concerned with the fortitude a writer has to carry out his vision even in the face of adversity and those who should stand by them.

Can one envision a world without John Locke and his wisdom? One’s own expression, free from fear and interference, was an idea that deserved to take flight. Imagine a world rejecting Locke’s words. It already has and has been allowed of one’s own volition.

Did it ever occur to ABC Family to defend its premise? Perhaps not without fear of legal repercussion but therein lies part of the problem. How did it get to be like that? Why give power to people afraid of legitimate criticism or realistic portrayal in a fictional setting? Does CAIR honestly think that every viewer is devoid of a brain and cannot determine truth from fiction? Insulting, not completely untrue and not quite the point. Their honour and perception of themselves should not be everyone else’s problem. Why this has been pointed out to CAIR et al remains a mystery.

The empowerment of the other end of the political spectrum has been going on for decades and Islamists are one in the long line of those who want a chance at the brass ring. The results have been absurd to say the very least. CAIR objected to Islamic terrorists on “24”. Well? It objects to what it thinks are negative stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims. Shouldn’t the Islamic community clean its own house rather than deflect and deny? Whose fault is it that the House of Saud funds and promotes Islamism or that Saudi nationals are complicit in slave labour? Why should honour killings either never be discussed or be neutered of their horror so as not offend? It’s offensive that murders rooted in an emotionally backward culture even exist at all! Is it unfair to even mention these things? One should ask if one would hesitate to talk about honour killings or the slave trade if the culprits were Baptists from the American South. The last time I checked it was a group one was permitted to question and attack.

Did ABC Family ever think of ignoring CAIR? Would it sit down with a Catholic special-interest group and let it excise things it found offensive? Watch any TV show or movie and count the myriad of things it gets wrong about Catholics, the Church and Catholicism. Strangely enough, there are no Vatican envoys attempting to correct the crazy things that are just blurted out. Like the aforementioned Baptists, Catholics are a group that can bear offense. It’s not like (insert own big-wig or celebrity here) is going to have a fatwa put on their heads. That kind of safety breeds not boldness but a craven cowardice that is beneath contempt. Moving and shaking is only noble when one really challenges the status quo. No one cares if you attack Catholics. They don’t attack back. Ruffle CAIR’s feathers if you want to be gutsy.

Above all, there is a failure on the writers’ and producers’ parts to own their work. It’s a lack of pride, vision and professionalism that has become acceptably vulgar. Whether deliberately offensive, thought-provoking, stupid or clever, there is no willingness on the creators’ parts to stand by their work and let the viewers decide for themselves whether or not there is a story or character with which one may genuinely interested or turned off. It is this self-censorship and subsequent grovelling apologies, not born from real reflection or furtherance of the story, that is cringe-worthy. It’s that sort of thing that made me avoid “Stargate Universe” to begin with. The creators of the show could have owned their plot, even in the beginning, but instead apologised for whatever hyper-sensitivities were stoked and sought to remedy the situation. If they wouldn’t stand by their own creation then, why watch it? It looked watchable, too. 

History, it seems, has repeated itself here. A TV show that may have been promising (or contrived or unoriginal or funny- we’ll never know now) has been scrapped in its beginnings. 

I await the next unoriginal yet very acceptable claptrap to come in its place.

Celebrity Apartheid Week

It's that time of year again.

How 'in' do you have to be to not only be a Marxist-sympathising director of conspiracy movies but a Hitler-embracing one, too?

Jewish control of the media is preventing an open discussion of the Holocaust, prominent Hollywood director Oliver Stone told the Sunday Times, adding that the U.S. Jewish lobby was controlling Washington's foreign policy for years. 

In the Sunday interview, Stone reportedly said U.S. public opinion was focused on the Holocaust as a result of the "Jewish domination of the media," adding that an upcoming film of him aims to put Adolf Hitler and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin "in context."

Where does one begin with that?

Yes, the tragedy of the Holocaust has been discussed every which way since the end of the Second World War. Indeed, there are more movies made about that particular genocide than any other. Oliver Stone has profited from the spurious claims of his films and I'm sure he plans to do so with this one. What "context" could he put Hitler and Stalin in? How much context does one need for the planner of the Beer Hall Putsch, Kristallnacht, the conquest of Europe and the planned murder of millions? Did twenty million Ukrainians just up and starve themselves without Stalin's knowing? One can ply another with fact upon fact of Hitler and Stalin's tyranny, facts which are available to refute Stone's accounts (if only a movie-going audience would care to educate itself before wasting money on a ticket). The bigger question is why Oliver Stone would even dream of revising two of the twentieth century's worst dictators and maligning one group for perceived opposition.

Simply, because he can.

Oliver Stone is too nutty to pretend he doesn't actually believe his own hype and inflammatory natterings. His visits to Chavez and Castro confirm what has become a typical leftist pet knee-jerk love of anything that is not conservative or not insane. He has angered the proverbial father with his wayward actions for so long that he does buy into leftist philosophies. Stone has also become too big to squash. Would an independent director be as untouchable? Probably not. Hollywood may be nauseatingly liberal but it's still a country club where everybody pats their friends on the back (SEE: Academy Awards). The indie director had better be in like Flint to be completely protected, otherwise the best he can expect is a few kinds words on how the young buck is just trying to 'fight the power' but should have chosen his words a little better.

Oliver Stone enjoys the insulation leftist and morally and intellectually lazy Hollywood has given him. And with this insulation comes the kind of insidious hypocrisy and dishonesty that can be excused at virtually any cost. Consider the mercurial and disgraced Mel Gibson. He and he alone is to blame for the loss of his prestige and family. I'm sure he knows that. He also knows that directing a self-funded and very successful film about Christ is just not on, unless it serves an antipathetic narrative. He and the film were decried as "anti-semitic" (it wasn't but whatever). If the price of anti-semitism is professional exile, one wonders what boycotting Israel and putting Hitler "in context" would do to one's career. If one is on the right side of the political divide, not much.



(Merci beaucoup)

Monday Post

Starting the week off right...


Malaysia Airlines flight 370 has at last been located in the Indian Ocean:

Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak announced overnight that new satellite data from UK company Inmarsat showed the Malaysia Airlines plane flew along the southern search corridor.

"Using a type of analysis never before used in an investigation of this sort, they have been able to shed more light on MH370's flight path," he said.

The analysis concluded that the plane's last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth.

"It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that in light of this new data, MH370 flight ended in the southern Indian Ocean," Mr Najib said.

Weeks of meandering, obfuscating and sheer cluelessness can be blamed for this.


The last Ukrainian troops withdraw from Crimea:

Ukraine's fledgling government ordered troops to retreat from Crimea on Monday, ending days of wavering as Western leaders tried to present a unified response to Russia's increasingly firm control of the peninsula. 

Russian forces have been systematically seizing Ukrainian ships and military installations in Crimea, including a naval base near the eastern Crimean port of Feodosia, where two injured servicemen were taken captive on Monday and as many as 80 were detained on-site, Ukrainian officials said. 

With the storming of at least three military facilities over the past three days alone -- and the decision by some to switch to the Russian side -- it wasn't clear how many Ukrainian troops remained on the peninsula. 

The former chief of Ukraine's navy, who was charged with treason after he swore allegiance to the Crimean authorities and urged others to defect, was named a deputy chief of Russia's Black Sea Fleet. 

Ukraine's acting president, Oleksandr Turchnynov, whose new government has struggled to maintain control and cohesion, said the Defense Ministry was ordered to withdraw all servicemen in Crimea to Ukraine's mainland. 

(Sidebar: that is where they will be needed because Putin is not done yet.)


Oh, we're scared:

Russia announced on Monday that it was barring 13 Canadian officials, lawmakers and public figures from the country in retaliation for sanctions imposed by Canada over Russia's annexation of Crimea.

The Canadians prohibited from entering Russia include aides to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and members of parliament and the head of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, Paul Grod, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It was only a matter of time before Russia did anything to directly impede Canada as a business partner. If it can annex part of Ukraine, don't think for one minute that it will play nicely when divvying up the Arctic.


So the reason why now former Alberta Premier Alison Redford was made to resign was because of chauvinism, not her waste of taxpayers dollars?

Resigning Alberta Premier Alison Redford is an insightful and smart woman and it wouldn't be a shock if gender bias played a role in her departure, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne says.

"I hope that it's not the case that there was a gender issue in terms of the decision that she made," Wynne said Saturday.

"Would it be a shock to me if there were some part of the decision that had to do with her being a woman? It wouldn't be a shock to me."

Nice deflection, there, O Friend of Dalton and Benjamin. You don't think voters might remember this sort of vain trickery during election time, do you?


Oh crap:

A traveller returning to Canada from west Africa has been hospitalized after displaying symptoms consistent with those of the Ebola virus that has killed dozens in Guinea, a health official said Monday.

"All we know at this point is that we have a person who is critically ill who travelled from a country where these diseases occur," Denise Werker, joint director of health in Saskatchewan province in western Canada, told reporters.

She said the casualty had been in Liberia and had developed the symptoms after landing in Canada. He or she would not have been contagious when travelling and was now in isolation and while the has been placed in quarantine, pending test results.

Aid workers and health officials in Guinea are battling to contain west Africa's first outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus as neighboring Liberia reported its first suspected victims.

At least 59 people are known to have died in Guinea's southern forests but the Liberian cases, if confirmed, would mark the first spread of the highly contagious pathogen into another country.

 
Not good.


Never underestimate the human ability for complete and utter depravity:

One of the country’s leading hospitals, Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge, incinerated 797 babies below 13 weeks gestation at their own ‘waste to energy’ plant. The mothers were told the remains had been ‘cremated.’ Another ‘waste to energy’ facility at Ipswich Hospital, operated by a private contractor, incinerated 1,101 fetal remains between 2011 and 2013.

I'm sure there are apologists of all sorts for this sick thing.


But wait! There's more evil!

Arab residents of Abu Dis Arab threw four puppies at a border police patrol, causing them deaths. A heartbreaking action near the separation barrier in Abu Dis, East of Jerusalem. Arabs threw four bags with live puppies from behind the high walls at a border police patrol while on activity. The stunned police were still able hear the puppies whimpering. They opened the bags and found three puppies had died on the spot, and another puppy dying. The cub was transferred immediately to a vet, but died a short time later. The policemen were horrified by the brutality against the pups, and the talk of the day amongst their company dealt with the incident.

We've seen this Malthusian apocalyptic nonsense before:

A new infographic that recently hit the web, called the World Food Clock, is showing us exactly how much food the world consumes, even timed down to the second, and coupled with the draft version of a new climate report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it's really showing us how we're going to be vulnerable in a warmer world.

Does this infographic talk about how much food is wasted each year (Canada wastes about forty percent each year)? Does it explain why countries like North Korea have starving populations? Could it be that food distribution, not growth or even personal consumption, could be a much bigger and actual problem than projected fantasies related to the "green" cash cow of "global warming"?