Mid-Week Post

The focal point of the work-week...


On the first of May, Premier Kathleen Wynne will put out the provincial budget she hopes will spare her from an election.

What the budget is expected to entail:

• An income tax increase for those who earn greater than $150,000

• No new gas taxes or increases to the HST

• $29 billion, over 10 years, in transit and transportation investments

• Some Government of Ontario 'asset sales'

• A tax hike on aviation fuel

• An increase in tobacco taxes

• A rolling back of tax credits for corporations

• Personal support workers who take care of elderly will get a $4 pay increase over the next two years, from $12.50/hour to $16.50/hour.

• An infusion of $2.5 billion, over 10 years, for a “Jobs and Prosperity Fund”. The fund will dole out corporate grants to attract business to the province. (Source: CTV News)

• A cut in the “debt retirement charge” which currently appears on Ontario residents' Hydro bill. (Source: CTV News)

• An initial roll out of an Ontario Pension Plan

Why it won't work: putting aside Wynne and McGuinty's unbelievable deceptions (and Wynne's ties to Benjamin Levin), this budget will cost Ontarians more, not less (where does the public sector get its money, Miss Wynne?). Already buckling under a vanished manufacturing sector and high energy costs, this budget will attempt to succeed in getting blood out of stones.

Will it pass? Yes or Andrea Horvath will die trying.


Well, then, don't ship jobs out to slave labour countries like China and Bangladesh:

Canada is missing out on about $40 billion in export sales and could continue to do so for years to come as uncompetitive producers continue to lose market share, Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz said Tuesday.

The central banker, who was testifying before the Commons finance committee, said there are several factors for the significant drop-off — including poor productivity and a stronger loonie, as well as the disappearance of about 9,000 exporting firms since the recession.

But the bottom line is that the "wedge" that has opened up in the non-energy export sector is the new reality and is not going away in the near future, he said.

While I'm sure this is meant to be dismissive of Canada's oil resources, it does highlight the lack of productivity and manufacturing opportunities that could benefit the "have-nots". Knocking Canadian oil exports really is shooting the golden goose and I hope the wags realise that.


Two people have been shot dead at a sawmill in British Columbia:

Two people are dead after a shooting at a sawmill in British Columbia on Wednesday, the BC Coroners Service said, and police said a 47-year-old male suspect was in custody.

Police said four people had been shot and had been taken to hospital.

The coroner said that shortly after 7 a.m. (10.00 a.m. ET), two people were taken to hospital by ambulance from the Western Forest Products Inc mill in Nanaimo, a city of about 90,000 on Vancouver Island. Both were pronounced dead on arrival.

Police said they received several calls early in the morning about shots being fired at the mill.

The suspect was arrested without incident and police said it appeared that he acted alone.

Culture matters and so do its geopolitical effects:

The Chinese government wants the nation's single ladies to get over their silly notions of romance and just get hitched already!

In other Asian countries, women are marrying later in life, pursuing high-powered careers and prioritizing work life rather than home life.

Nervous that this trend will hit China, the government is going straight for the single gal's soft spot — and making her feel like she's running out of time.

"As women age they are worth less and less," says one piece of government propaganda. "So by the time they get their MA or PhD they are already old, like yellowed pearls."

(Sidebar: no sharp words for the chauvinist Chinese culture? None?)

No one's physical person gets better with age. What the article didn't address (or why) is the male-to-female ration in China stands at 122 boys born for every 100 girls. That leaves twenty-two bachelors without Chinese wives (assuming they all get married and the bachelors don't buy North Korean women). Imagine a whole slough of women just chucking marriage altogether. Whatever will the Chinese state do with those excess men?

Start a war in the East Sea or South China Sea, perhaps?


Also: 

On Monday night excavators laid waste to one of the city’s largest places of worship, the state-sanctioned Sanjiang church, amid accusations that the Communist Party was preparing to launch a nationwide assault against Christianity. 

At least 10 churches here in Zhejiang province have been ordered to remove their eye-catching red crosses or are facing partial or total demolition, activists claim. Already this month two churches, one Catholic, one Protestant, have been razed.

I would like to know where the human-rights activists are on this. Whenever a cake isn't being baked, they never shut up. Churches get razed and there are crickets.

Such is the commitment of the spoiled and cocooned left. 


Doing Putin's dirty work in Ukraine:

Ukraine's acting president vowed to create a special police force to staunch the spread of separatism in the country's east, vowing to overcome unrest he says is stoked by Russia and hold a May 25 election.

Following an expansion of sanctions against people and companies linked to Vladimir Putin's inner circle this week, the Russian president warned that further economic penalties over the crisis in Ukraine may lead his government to reconsider participation by U.S. and European Union companies in his country's energy and other key industries.

Saudi Arabia makes demands of Norway:

Norway's human rights record came in for sharp criticism during a UN hearing on Monday, with Saudi Arabia and Russia weighing in to highlight the country's shortcomings. 

Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries accused Norway of doing too little to protect its Muslim minority, with Saudi Arabia calling for all criticism of religions or their prophets to be made illegal. 

Meanwhile, Russia accused the country of allowing extremist groups to "operate freely" and of moving too quickly to separate children from their parents. 

Norwegian Foreign Minister Børge Brende was in Geneva on Monday to respond to criticisms from no fewer than 91 other country's during a session of the United Nations' Universal Periodic Review, under which UN members take turns to go under scrutiny. 

Before Monday's hearing, Brende conceded to Norway's NTB newswire that many of the countries collected together to criticise Norway themselves hardly had spotless human rights records. 

"It is a paradox that countries which do not support fundamental human rights have influence on the council, but that is the United Nations," he said. 

Human Rights Watch's latest report on Saudi Arabia noted that in 2012 the country had "stepped up arrests and trials of peaceful dissidents, and responded with force to demonstrations by citizens."

Don't give in, Norway. 

Norge: disse farger ikke kjører.

Gerry Adams, long-praised for his role in the Northern Irish peace processes, has been arrested under suspicion of murder:

Sinn Fein chief Gerry Adams, the warlord-turned-peacemaker of the Northern Ireland conflict, was being interrogated Thursday over the grisly slaying of a Belfast widow that has haunted his political career for decades.

Adams was arrested on suspicion of ordering the killing of Jean McConville, a mother of 10 in his Catholic west Belfast power base in 1972. That was the deadliest year in four decades of bloodshed, when the outlawed Irish Republican Army was committing killings daily — and Adams was already a commanding figure.

The IRA branded the 38-year-old woman a British spy but killed her secretly and told her children, who ranged in age from infants to teens, that she had abandoned them.

Lie your way out of that.


And now, another reason to love the Charlie Brown Christmas special:

A Charlie Brown Christmas was originally conceived as a 25-minute advertisement for Coca-Cola by a New York advertising agency that wanted Charles Schulz to write a quick and forgettable Christmas special for them. So it's no surprise that when he instead delivered a poignant story about the Christian origin of Christmas, the shocked admen nearly dropped their cigarettes on the backs of their secretaries' heads.

The Nativity scene was tentatively OKed, but everyone worried that the one-minute reading from the gospel of Luke by Linus would scare off sponsors. A decision was hastily made to cut the scene and bury it at the bottom of the Mariana Trench where it wouldn't be able to hurt any innocent profits ever again with its message of love and unity.

The religious Schulz unsurprisingly argued like crazy to save Linus' speech because he believed he really was fighting for the true meaning of Christmas. He might also have made the argument that the producers were acting like the villain in every Christmas special ever. The scene was eventually saved, and the special became an instant hit. 

(Paws up)

The Plot Thickens

Well, this must be embarrassing:

Newly released emails on the Benghazi terror attack suggest a senior White House aide played a central role in preparing former U.N. ambassador Susan Rice for her controversial Sunday show appearances -- where she wrongly blamed protests over an Internet video.

More than 100 pages of documents were released to the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Among them was a Sept. 14, 2012, email from Ben Rhodes, an assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for strategic communications.

The Rhodes email, with the subject line: "RE: PREP Call with Susan: Saturday at 4:00 pm ET," was sent to a dozen members of the administration's inner circle, including key members of the White House communications team such as Press Secretary Jay Carney.

In the email, Rhodes specifically draws attention to the anti-Islam Internet video, without distinguishing whether the Benghazi attack was different from protests elsewhere.

The email lists the following two goals, among others:

"To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy."

"To reinforce the President and Administration's strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges."

The email goes on to state that the U.S. government rejected the message of the Internet video. "We find it disgusting and reprehensible. But there is absolutely no justification at all for responding to this movie with violence," the email stated.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said the documents read like a PR strategy, not an effort to provide the best available intelligence to the American people.

"The goal of the White House was to do one thing primarily, which was to make the president look good. Blame it on the video and not [the] president's policies," he said.

The Rhodes email was not part of the 100 pages of emails released by the administration last May -- after Republicans refused to move forward with the confirmation of John Brennan as CIA director until the so-called "talking points" emails were made public.

The email is also significant because in congressional testimony in early April, former deputy CIA director Michael Morell told lawmakers it was Rice, in her Sunday show appearances, who linked the video to the Benghazi attack. Morell said the video was not part of the CIA analysis.

If this was a spontaneous reaction to a video no one saw, why the coaching or the cover-up?

Of course, the White House appears to have an answer for that:

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney today sought to defend a newly released email from a White House communications adviser, prepping then-U.S. ambassador to the UN Susan Rice for her round of interviews about the Benghazi attack.

"This document was not about Benghazi," Carney told ABC's Jonathan Karl.

(Sidebar: oh?!)

 

“It is often forgotten that during that time period there was an enormous amount of attention and focus, appropriately, on the fact that there were protesters, sometimes violent protesters, surrounding U.S. embassies, causing us to draw down personnel at those embassies, causing great concern, understandably, about the safety of American personnel at other diplomatic facilities around the Muslim world. And that was a focus of a great deal of press attention, and thus would be, as the promos indicate, one of the areas of focus of those Sunday shows.” 

(Sidebar: you mean the protests that weren't at the American embassy were four Americans were killed during which Obama could not be found?)

The e-mail from National Security Council communications adviser Ben Rhodes, lists as a "goal" of Rice's round of interviews "to show that these protests were rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy."

(Sidebar: that sounds like a lie to me.)

The American electorate should answer this with an impeachment.

For A Monday

So cool they made him a saint.

The opening pages of the work week...


It is official: Pope John Paul II is now Saint John Paul II along with Saint John XXIII much to the chagrin of idiot anti-Catholics and American leftists who try to out-douche one another.

Like this one:

The former Ambassador related one story that demonstrated how Clinton was not aligned with the Pope. Clinton would not take a call from John Paul II, who wanted Clinton’s support to denounce leftist agendas being espoused in an upcoming conference in Cairo, including the advocating for abortion worldwide. Flynn broke all Ambassadorial protocols and flew from Rome to the White House without approval or an appointment and waited for sixteen hours until the President came out to see him and agreed to take the Pope’s call. Flynn said Clinton then called the Pope. 

Speaking of irreligious douchebags:

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday that the rights of Myanmar's minority Muslim population were not being fully protected and warned that the Southeast Asian country would not succeed if Muslims there were oppressed.

Never mind that Muslims have more to fear from one another than anyone else. And then there's that pesky persecution of other religions. I have yet to hear Obama vociferously condemn that kind of persecution.


John Kerry insists his foot belongs in his mouth:

John Kerry has warned that Israel risks becoming an “apartheid state” if it fails conclude a historic peace deal with the Palestinians, in a graphic indication of his frustration at the collapse of his peace initiative. 

Israel has Arabs, Muslims, Druze and Christians living safely and equally within its borders. Neighbouring Arab states won't even treat the Palestinians with any sort of dignity. As usual, Kerry has no ruddy idea what he is talking about.


South Korean prime minister Chung Hong-Won resigns over a ferry disaster that has claimed over a hundred lives:

Prime Minister Chung Hong-won on Sunday resigned over the confused official response to the ferry disaster off the southwest coast on April 16 and the following days. ...

Chung took office just over a year ago and resigned 11 days after the Sewol sank with most of it passengers. He will stay in office until the salvage operation is complete and a candidate to succeed him has been named.

Well, this must be embarrassing:

Thousands of First Nations people became eligible for payments under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement for their experiences ranging from being deprived of their language and culture on up to physical and sexual abuse.

But a court is being told that many of the claimants allegedly have been strong-armed into handing over a large chunk of the money to lawyers and companies set up to help them fill out the complex forms needed to apply for part of the $1.9-billion settlement pool.

The charges do an end run around the court-mandated maximum fee that lawyers can levy for working on the most complex cases. The Globe and Mail reports the most that can be charged is 30 per cent of the settlement, supposedly including help with forms. The federal government pays up to 15 per cent of that fee, with the claimant responsible for the rest.

But so-called form-filling agencies have been set up at arms length from the law firms, allowing them to avoid scrutiny by adjudicators who assess whether the fees are fair and reasonable,...

I thought all of this was about justice.


Can anyone say "Phiesta"?

Two Greek organizations at Dartmouth College have canceled a fundraiser for cardiac care over concerns that the theme of the annual philanthropic event, "Phiesta," might be offensive, ...

Not the professionally aggrieved, I see.


Ladies and gentlemen, the Pogues.


Over at the Fur: it was only a matter of time before "reducing pets" for environmental reasons was suggested, more discoveries in the Valley of the Kings, a German court bans a student from wearing a face covering in class, and much, much more!

Safe Spaces and Free-Speech Zones

Screw that.

Behold the problems of the over-coddled and heavily infantilised residents of the post-modern West:

“I find it incredibly offensive. Gay pride is about acceptance and creating a safe space. Perpetuating stereotypes goes against that,” ....

**

The “public forum” sign above is part of an urgently needed community action campaign. Anyone can display the sign when they’re freely expressing themselves: being seen, being vocal, entertaining, engaging people, making protest, making light, frolicking! 

In fact paste it up as a self-fullfilling statement of one’s personal empowerment and to remind everyone including old mars, big business men, law makers (in businessmen’s pockets) and law enforcement that our public space is free for lots of things – besides corporate interest. 

The campaign asserts free speech rights in the public domain; a safe zone of expressive rights known as the Public Forum.

Has the West, perhaps the greatest civilisation man has known, become so childish that it has become regressive?

Unfortunately, it has. The veneer of ideological harm reduction is so thin that those who propose it ought not to hide their true intentions any longer. Are their intentions as obscenely authoritarian as those of the Cultural Revolution and Nazi Germany (yeah, I invoked Godwin- deal with it) or as squishy as the over-protected Western world? In any case, the entire mess is a wicked one because the end result is, as John Milton might say:

And yet on the other hand unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.

Even John Milton did not fear to utter the name of God, a being the post-modern West would rather forget existed and replaced with themselves.

But I digress...

The rights of the individual, of which philosophers of the past wrote so eloquently and have since been ignored, especially in an era when they are most needed, don't need to be defined or limited by so soft and so vulgar the expressions and intentions of "safe spaces" and "free-speech zones", expressions that insult peoples' intelligence (hi, aren't entire Western democracies "free speech zones, unlike, say, North Korea?) . An individual, aware of the world and in full possession of his faculties, does not need even a government to give him his rights as he already has them. They do need safeguarding without limitation save where physical liberty is at stake (SEE: speeding car, human body).

Freedom of expression and speech does not need such limitations- not words, not zones, not prohibitive laws. Consider that any one thing can be considered offensive. Should someone not declare that this or that political party is in error or that "Deep Space Nine" is the lesser Trek?

(Sidebar: I don't mean that.)

At what point do adults need spaces one would think belong to five year old children with ear infections? One opinion may seem innocuous or so inflammatory that one's blood boils but that is part of the human condition: to be offended or not. Nothing about that will change so why fight it? Why not deal with it? Doesn't the post-modern adult have the wherewithal to think or debate any longer? Perhaps not and there is the shame. How noble is man in faculty if limited from his earliest years and further limited in his adulthood? Not as noble as he should be and not as noble as those who just don't like people telling them what to say.

The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it.  If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth:  if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

Would John Stuart Mill's strategy for discourse be tolerated on university campuses where "safe spaces" and "free speech zones" are still subject to the kind of philistine brownshirt approval any decent society would be embarrassed to have? Any organisation or society that operates this way exhibits fear that its status quo could change. That's hardly a sign of confidence. It is a weakness right-minded people should exploit. The very notion of cocoons for adults is beyond ridiculous so much so that it would be laughed at had someone not instituted them in places of (ostensibly) higher learning. It should also be pointed out the West is a place where someone may not only say what they please but live as they please. Can one imagine "Midsummer Night's Dream" playing in Tehran let alone a billboard where "fairies" could mean more than winged creatures? For some reason, this never enters the discussion. There are no "safe spaces" for many in Iran. The problems of the coddled Westerner should not only pale in comparison; there should be no comparison. Even if a totalitarian theocratic state could never work its way into such an equation, the idea that people need to be protected from themselves (read: censored) is still an offensive one.

It's time for the post-modern West to grow up. No one can live with their mouths taped shut. No one should have a bean-counting bureaucrat or fluff-headed grievance-monger who has never left their own surroundings tell them what can be said or where it can be said. It's ridiculous.

Dare I say it, it's offensive.

Friday Post

Aaahhhh... spring....

In a word, yes, the alleged scandal is dead:

Elections Canada launched its investigation in 2012, following complaints about deceptive telephone calls in electoral districts in the last general election campaign.

"Investigators have been able to determine that incorrect poll locations were provided to some electors, and that some nuisance calls occurred," notes the report released on Thursday.

"However, the evidence does not establish that calls were made a) with the intention of preventing or attempting to prevent an elector from voting, or b) for the purpose of inducing an elector by some pretence or contrivance to vote or not vote, or to vote or not vote for a particular candidate.

"The data gathered in the investigation does not lend support to the existence of a conspiracy or conspiracies to interfere with the voting process."

Who has to attend Trinity Western University? What part of Canada is North Korea?

Nova Scotia’s law society has voted to approve accreditation of Trinity Western University law school, but only if it drops the controversial policy prohibiting same-sex intimacy that some say is discriminatory.

It's also discriminatory to damn people for their opinions or choice of university. Does this go down well with the Muslims, Sikhs or Hindus, whose views on homosexuality aren't as liberal as fenced-in white liberals believe?


I ask: can undocumented Americans vote in Canadian elections?

The government is prepared to remove the requirement for all voters to show residency identification in the next election, he said, responding to widespread criticism of his plan to kill the "failsafe" of vouching for voters lacking full documentation.

This shouldn't be an issue. Let's ask again who benefits from undocumented voters. It's probably not the party pushing this legislation.


Tom Steyer, the billionaire who has Obama's leash ear, likes his fossil fuels and politicians lining his own pockets:

The key player in that effort was Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmental extremist who has pledged to give $100 million to Democratic candidates who do his bidding. Though President Obama has flirted at times with doing the right thing and letting the project proceed, the result of the push from Steyer and the rest of the global warming alarmist crowd was as predictable as it was politically motivated. In a Friday afternoon news dump to guarantee minimal news coverage, the State Department announced that it would indefinitely postpone the decision on approval of Keystone.

Honestly, when was the last time a Palestinian was evicted from his tent in Jordan?

Oh wait....

A pro-Palestinian NYU group targeted Jewish classmates with threatening “eviction” notices that were slid under dorm-room doors in the dead of night, students said Thursday.

“If you do not vacate the premise by midnight on 25 April, 2014 we reserve the right to destroy all remaining belongings. We cannot be held responsible for property or persons remaining inside the premises,” read the notices, which were delivered by members of the Students for Justice in Palestine.

I'm sure the South Koreans were being polite in their pretending to listen to the Windbag-in-Chief. It's not like he matters anymore:

President Barack Obama warned North Korea on Saturday that the United States "will not hesitate to use our military might" to defend allies, showcasing U.S. power in the region amid China's growing influence and Pyongyang's unpredictable nuclear threats.

If the event wasn't tragic enough...

South Korea admitted Friday that some bodies from a ferry disaster were misidentified and sent home to the wrong families, an error that was only caught after many of the remains were brought to a funeral home.

And now, commemorating ANZAC Day.

Mid-Week Post

The nucleus of the work-week...


Well, this must be embarrassing:

The US middle class, long a symbol of the nation's economic might and proof that the "American Dream" was more than just a dream, is no longer the world's wealthiest. 

 

Citizens of other advanced nations have received "considerably larger raises" over the past 30 years, with after-tax middle class incomes in Canada, which lagged substantially behind the US in 2000, now surpassing those south of the border, the New York Times reports. Also, poor individuals in much of Europe are now earning more than poor Americans.

Whatever will Justin Trudeau do now that one of his chief talking points is officially utter crap?


Hhmmmm....

Young children may learn more by listening to their parents describe a picture book than by reading a book meant to teach new words, a new Canadian study has found.

The researchers from the University of Waterloo in Ontario asked 25 mothers to read two books to their toddlers, each featuring six animals.

In one book, the animals were part of a story told in pictures, while in the second book, the animals were presented on a black background in the usual style of "vocabulary learning" books.

When reading the picture books, the mothers tended to use generic language to talk about the animal, such as saying, "Giraffes have long necks." This taught children about all giraffes.

The mothers also tended to give more details about the animals in the picture book than when they read the vocabulary-style book.

 
I think the last sentence gets to the crux of the finding. A word is just a word when the concept is not adequately explained. Once the child gets what a giraffe is and looks like, its spelling should come naturally.

Note the baby giraffe's broad smile, brown, blotchy fur, knobbly legs and long-necked cuteness.

But will these non-resident new citizens pay the taxes that keep the tanks rolling into Estonia, Poland, the rest of Ukraine...?

Russian President Vladimir Putin approved on Monday legal amendments to make it simpler for Russian speakers in the former Soviet Union to acquire Russian citizenship, the Kremlin said on Monday.

The evils of "green" energy:

The British Columbia Health Ministry has admitted that the remains of babies destroyed by abortion in B.C. facilities are ending up in a waste-to-power facility in the United States, providing electricity for residents of Oregon.

If you can kill, using bodies for fuel is the next macabre step.


Personally, I thought this was amusing:

An Opera company in St. John’s have taken down a billboard promoting their run of A Midsummer’s Night Dream that some say used homophobic language.

The ad from Opera on the Avalon read, “Filled with more fairies than St. John’s on Pride Day,” in reference to the city’s annual LGBTQ celebration with “fairies” being a double entendre for both gay men and magical woodland creatures. Given that we don’t live in a bubble where the gay community is free of persecution and men don’t face harassment for displaying traditionally feminine traits, the ad struck a nerve.

“I find it incredibly offensive. Gay pride is about acceptance and creating a safe space. Perpetuating stereotypes goes against that,” Erin Alexis wrote on the company’s Facebook page.

(Sidebar: people who use words like "safe space" are probably pants-wetters. Did I go too far?)


It's called a joke. People used to tell them without getting into trouble.



And now, celebrate the Bard's birthday with food:

"O! my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee.

Tuesday Post

On this glorious Earf Day....

... a day co-founded by a man who murdered his girlfriend and on the anniversary of the birth of a syphilitic Russian dictator.


Speaking of Russia...

Russia is already feeling economic pain from its Ukrainian land grab-even without tougher sanctions from the West.

A fresh round of violence in Ukraine has prompted calls for Western leaders to ratchet up economic sanctions against the Kremlin. 

But with capital flooding out of the country, the local stock market falling and Russia's currency weakening, the seizure of the Crimea is turning out to be a costly move. 

"Even if a diplomatic solution to the crisis can be found, this may not be enough to prevent Russia from sliding into recession over the first half of this year," according to Neil Shearing, an economist with Capital Economics. 

Investors have dumped assets this year as President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea and massed troops on Ukraine's border, fueling a reprise of Cold War tensions and concern that sanctions could push Russia's slowing economy into reverse. 

By annexing Crimea and massing troops on Ukraine's border, the Kremlin has set off a reprise of Cold War tensions that is already having a chilling effect on trade.

But everyone was so sure this was nothing to worry about.


The death toll in the South Korean ferry disaster has now risen to one hundred and thirty-five:

The confirmed death toll from the South Korean ferry disaster rose to 135 Wednesday, but there were many more bodies left to be retrieved as divers swam through tight, dark rooms and passageways to search for nearly 170 people still missing.

The victims are overwhelmingly students of a single high school in Ansan, near Seoul. More than three-quarters of the 323 students are dead or missing, while nearly two-thirds of the other 153 people on board the ferry Sewol when it sank one week ago survived.

But his opinions would be acceptable if he was a transsexual Muslim lesbian, right?

As explained by the Canadian Press, Frank Coleman — the only candidate in the race to replace former premier Kathy Dunderdale as Conservative party leader — was recently outed for attending anti-abortion rallies in the past.

Incidences of "income inequality" some would rather not mention:

Earlier this year, a team of researchers led by Harvard economist Raj Chetty reported that communities with a high percentage of single-parent families are less likely to experience upward mobility. The researchers' report—"Where Is the Land of Opportunity?"—received considerable media attention. Yet mainstream news outlets tended to ignore the study's message about family structure, focusing instead on variables with far less statistical impact, such as residential segregation. 

In the past four years, our two academic professional organizations—the American Political Science Association and the American Educational Research Association—have each dedicated annual meetings to inequality, with numerous papers and speeches denouncing free markets, the decline of unions, and "neoliberalism" generally as exacerbating economic inequality. Yet our searches of the groups' conference websites fail to turn up a single paper or panel addressing the effects of family change on inequality.

(Gracias, El Barto)


India's caste system affects students even in public schools:

At the government school in this north Indian village, 8-year-old Dilip Banwasi is being taught his place.
His third-grade teacher makes him sweep the classroom floor and sit in the back row. 

When it is time for lunch, Dilip—a member of a low social class referred to as "rat catchers"—is among the last few to be served. At recess, his classmates warn, "Don't play with us," Dilip says.

Dilip's experience reflects a significant obstacle to improving social mobility in India: discrimination in schools. 

Roughly half of all Indian public-school students drop out before eighth grade, and most of the dropouts are from lower caste, Muslim or tribal communities, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch.

The report, which looked at four Indian states, places the blame, in part, on discrimination in the public education system.

And now, an Earth Day cake with a rock candy centre. Enjoy.

Happy Easter

It's Easter. Let's high-five.

“And he departed from our sight that we might return to our heart, and there find Him. For He departed, and behold, He is here.”

         (St. Augustine)


Enjoy the beauty that are Easter cakes.

... and the disasters.


Maybe India doesn't have to march China into the sea:

Officially, the People's Republic of China is an atheist country but that is changing fast as many of its 1.3 billion citizens seek meaning and spiritual comfort that neither communism nor capitalism seem to have supplied. 

Christian congregations in particular have skyrocketed since churches began reopening when Chairman Mao's death in 1976 signalled the end of the Cultural Revolution. 

Less than four decades later, some believe China is now poised to become not just the world's number one economy but also its most numerous Christian nation. 

"By my calculations China is destined to become the largest Christian country in the world very soon," said Fenggang Yang, a professor of sociology at Purdue University and author of Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule. 

"It is going to be less than a generation. Not many people are prepared for this dramatic change." 

What does the "basic dictatorship" think will happen when it withholds spiritual and material freedom from its people?


Now, go enjoy some candy.

The Story So Far....

Quickly now....


You don't say:

Ontario’s most senior bureaucrat says he was shocked to learn that a top aide to former premier Dalton McGuinty allegedly oversaw a “criminally stupid” plan to delete emails about the gas plant scandal.

Six hard drives have been seized from an Ottawa office, one of which may have been involved in the deletion of files.


The captain of a ferry that sank near Jindo Island, South Korea has been arrested.


Just in time for Easter:

A Muslim father upset his son came home from public school with an invite to celebrate the holy holiday with an Easter egg hunt, went on local television in Michigan, accusing nearby churches of using schools to convert Muslim children.

 

Did anyone tell this guy that not even members of his community care what he thinks?

And now, Easter desserts. Enjoy.

Holy Week Moment

... brought to you courtesy of Johnny Cash:

Mid-Week Post

Four days until Easter...


Former Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was remembered by family and friends earlier today.


I would suggest that the same person being sued for political man-handling also took his opposition for the Fair Elections Act from south of the border just like his ideas about the middle-class:

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has pledged to repeal the government’s Fair Elections Act if he forms government next year, a move that comes amid mounting opposition outside of the political fray.

Just ask: who would benefit from vouching rather than bona fide official forms of identification, of which there are forty?

Can I vouch for this guy? He's a friend of mine.

Nepotism: it oils the gears that make the Liberal party go round:

Premier Kathleen Wynne’s brother-in-law has been appointed “interim” CEO of eHealth, the Toronto Sun has learned.

David Rounthwaite, brother of Wynne’s wife, Jane, was appointed to the $210,000-a-year job effective March 7.

A spokesman for eHealth said Rounthwaite has been general counsel for the giant agency charged with getting health records online for more than four years — before Wynne became premier.

I often wonder if Kathleen Wynne wants to be kicked out of office and then I remember that in Ontario, no Liberal voter would allow it, hence her girlfriend's brother lands a cushy job.


A nineteen year old has been arrested for the Heartbleed hack that took nine hundred social insurance numbers:

A Western University computer-science student described by acquaintances as bright and studious has been accused by authorities of exploiting the online security vulnerability known as Heartbleed that led to a breach of personal data from the Canada Revenue Agency website.

Do people still believe that Russia will not take all of Ukraine?

On Wednesday, NATO's Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen upped the ante promising to increase its military footprint in Eastern Europe amid growing concerns about Russian President Vladimir Putin's intentions in the region.

"Today, we agreed on a package of further military measures to reinforce our collective defence and demonstrate the strength of Allied solidarity," Rasmussen said in a statement.

"We will have more planes in the air, more ships on the water, and more readiness on the land.

"For example, air policing aircraft will fly more sorties over the Baltic region. Allied ships will deploy to the Baltic Sea, the Eastern Mediterranean and elsewhere, as required. Military staff from Allied nations will deploy to enhance our preparedness, training and exercises. Our defence plans will be reviewed and reinforced."

In response to a question from a reporter, Rasmussen added that NATO does have the capacity to implement these measures.

"We already know that some Allies will come forward with concrete contributions and I’m sure that more will follow," he said.

Just weeks after Russia annexed Crimea, tens of thousands of Russian soldiers are now believed to have massed upon the eastern Ukrainian borders. Meanwhile, pro-Russian separatists have taken over government buildings and facilities in about 10 eastern Ukrainian towns and cities.

In 1994, the United Kingdom and the United States made Ukraine surrender its weapons to Russia in exchange for protection. Discuss.


No one wants anyone to suffer from a hemorrhagic fever but imagine if such a fever was detected in a major metropolitan area, like, say, Sydney, what then?

An outbreak of dengue fever at an Australian refugee detention center in the tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru sparked calls on Thursday for greater oversight at the facility, which has been criticized by rights groups and the United Nations.

 Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison's office said that medical officers at the center had confirmed three cases of the potentially fatal tropical disease, which is transmitted by mosquitoes.

Two of those affected by the sickness are potential refugees awaiting processing, while the other was a member of staff working at the center, they said.

"All three people have been isolated and are receiving appropriate treatment and are expected to make a full recovery," a spokeswoman for Morrison said in a statement.

But Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, immigration spokeswoman from the opposition Greens Party, said that outbreaks are inevitable in crowded camps like the one on Nauru and called for greater independent oversight of the overseas refugee detention system.

"The government can't control these types of outbreaks in the harsh detention camp environment. With seven families to a tent, it's impossible to keep children safe from the disease," she said in a statement.

Australia uses detention centers in Nauru and on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea to process would-be refugees sent there after trying to get to Australia, often in unsafe boats after paying people smugglers in Indonesia.

(Sidebar: yes, I am aware of how dengue is spread but there are cases of it in these detention centres, so... Also, bringing the UN into this all the while ignoring human smuggling is just so morally profane.)


Ringing in the Easter season with this:

Nigeria's military said on Wednesday its forces had freed most of the more than 100 teenage schoolgirls abducted by Islamist Boko Haram militants and were continuing the search for eight students still missing.

Uh-oh:

Nine people died and 287 are missing after a ferry sank off the southwest coast on Wednesday morning. The ferry carrying 475 people was on its way from Incheon to the resort island of Jeju. The passengers included 325 students of Danwon High School in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province who were on a school trip, of whom about 200 are missing.

Some 175 were rescued before the ferry went under completely, but the others apparently became trapped inside the ferry.

The disaster looks like the worst since a ferry with 362 passengers sank in 1993, killing 292.

Because he's Mark Steyn:

One of the most ingenious and effective strategies of the Left on any number of topics is to frame the debate and co-opt the language so effectively that it becomes all but impossible even to discuss the subject honestly. Take the brothers Tsarnaev, the incendiary end of a Chechen family that in very short time has settled aunts, uncles, sisters, and more across the map of North America from Massachusetts to New Jersey to my own home town of Toronto. Maybe your town has a Tsarnaev, too: There seems to be no shortage of them, except, oddly, back in Chechnya. The Tsarnaevs' mom, now relocated from Cambridge to Makhachkala in delightful Dagestan, told a press conference the other day that she regrets ever having gotten mixed up with those crazy Yanks: "I would prefer not to have lived in America," she said.

Not, I'm sure, as much as the Richard family would have preferred it. Eight-year-old Martin was killed; his sister lost a leg; and his mother suffered serious brain injuries. What did the Richards and some 200 other families do to deserve having a great big hole blown in their lives? Well, according to the New York Times, they and you bear collective responsibility. Writing on the op-ed page, Marcello Suarez-Orozco, dean of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, and Carola Suarez-Orozco, a professor at the same institution, began their ruminations thus:

"The alleged involvement of two ethnic Chechen brothers in the deadly attack at the Boston Marathon last week should prompt Americans to reflect on whether we do an adequate job assimilating immigrants who arrive in the United States as children or teenagers."

Maybe. Alternatively, the above opening sentence should "prompt Americans to reflect" on whether whoever's editing America's newspaper of record these days "does an adequate job" in choosing which pseudo-credentialed experts it farms out its principal analysis on terrorist atrocities to. But, if I follow correctly, these UCLA profs are arguing that, when some guys go all Allahu Akbar on you and blow up your marathon, that just shows that you lazy complacent Americans need to work even harder at "assimilating" "immigrants." After all, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan were raised in Cambridge, Mass., a notorious swamp of redneck bigotry where the two young Chechens no doubt felt "alienated" and "excluded" at being surrounded by NPR-listening liberals cooing, "Oh, your family's from Chechnya? That's the one next to Slovakia, right? Would you like to come round for a play date and help Jeremiah finish his diversity quilt?" Assimilation is hell.

The same people who delight at the removal of acerbic but mostly harmless fellows are the very same who cannot force themselves to feel even the tiniest bit angry that an eight-year-old boy was blown up.

And that, in a nutshell, is the left for you: hypocritical, cowardly and mentally incongruous.


Speaking of mental incongruity:

Three hundred students from 11 Saskatoon schools gathered at the Western Development Museum Tuesday to show off in-depth projects on sustainability.

At Bishop Pocock School, Grade 6 and 7 students worked to cut waste at the school and at home. They got their hands dirty with a garbage audit - which "was gross and everything, but knowing we were helping the environment was a good feeling," said Kristen Weisgerber, one of the students who took part.

There one has it. Nothing but fluffy feelings were achieved. Children in the Third World still pick through garbage for food, waste at the farm level still occurs and there certainly won't be a moral discussion on materialism, greed or gluttony because that would be too Jesus-y. Nope. It's all about feeling good.

That is also the left.

Ladies and gentlemen, Nina Simone.

(Merci)


Her punishment should be getting struck by texting driver:

Texting while driving is so totally wrong.

But according to 21-year-old Kimberly Davis, it’s totally not her fault. 

Davis, who according to phone records was texting with seven different people while driving her vehicle through Koroit, Australia, slammed into a cyclist from behind, severely injuring him. Local police say she used her phone 44 times while driving during the trip.

It happened at about 7:20 p.m.

Apparently the warning lights that had been placed on the front and back of the cyclist’s bike were invisible to Davis.

“I just don’t care because I’ve already been through a lot of bullshit and my car is like pretty expensive and now I have to fix it,” Davis told police, according to The Standard.

She was apparently "pissed off that the cyclist hit the side of her car."

What a little b!#%^.


And now, Easter egg bark candy. Enjoy.


 

Holy Week Moment

 "Behold the Bridegroom"

Your Holy Week moment courtesy of the Saint Petersburg Chamber Choir.

Monday Post

A pleasant sur sdei chhnam thmei to all y'all.


Gee, who can we thank for this?

Ontario needs industry reforms, better tax policies, and needs to make better use of its natural resources before it brings down Canada's economy any further, according to a new Fraser Institute study.

"Because of Ontario's immense size and population, and because the Canadian economy is highly integrated, what happens in Ontario significantly affects Canada's national economy. An economically stronger Ontario means an economically stronger Canada," study co-author Livio Di Matteo said in a release.

The study, Can Canada Prosper without a Prosperous Ontario?, says the province's terrible record on GDP growth, employment and business investment "reflects a damaged provincial economy that's dragging down the national economy," Di Matteo said.

The province needs to improve tax and regulatory competitiveness, boost capital investment, reform energy and industry policies and make better use natural resources like mining and forestry, the study said.

"If Ontario adopts smarter policies focused on competitiveness and economic growth rather than interventionist government, it could unleash its private sector and improve Ontario's economy for the benefit of taxpayers in Ontario and across Canada," Di Matteo said.

Parents marched to the Alberta Legislature building to protest a new and ineffective math curriculum:

Parents, children and educators took to the steps of the Alberta Legislature Saturday demanding a change in math curriculum.

Protesters rallied behind Dr. Nhung Tran-Davies, a rural Alberta parent and family doctor whose petition to restore traditional math for Alberta’s K-6 students has more than 13,000 signatures. ...

The 200-plus protesters blasted changes made in the last several years that have moved away from traditional math instruction in favour of an “inquiry based” system that was outlined by the Western and Northern Canadian Protocol and touted in Alberta’s 2009 Inspiring Education initiative.

Math marks have been slipping on Provincial Achievement Tests among Grade 3 and 6 students in Alberta since 2009. Some parents blame the decline on the new teaching strategy, which they say is convoluted and confusing.

Remember when Mitt Romney declared Russia to be a "geopolitical threat" and everyone laughed at him, and when Sarah Palin rightly predicted that Obama wouldn't stand up to Putin when he invaded Ukraine?

Laugh at Harper if you wish. See how well that goes:

"I know this is of great concern to our NATO allies in the region, but it should be a great concern to all of us," Harper said.

"When a major power acts in a way that is so clearly aggressive, militaristic and imperialistic, this represents a significant threat to the peace and stability of the world and it's time we all recognized the depth and the seriousness of that threat."

While wags are far more concerned about maligning the perpetually correct, they ought to be analysing the very dictator who has had journalists jailed and killed.

Just a thought.


Why you shouldn't give kids cell phones:

Authorities have arrested the 14-year-old girl who ignited an Internet firestorm after tweeting a threat at American Airlines Sunday. ...

The girl, who identified herself as Sarah online, initially tweeted at American Airlines that she was a member of Al Qaeda and was going to “do something really big” on June 1. She later said she was joking.

The airline tweeted back at her saying they “take these threats very seriously” and said that her IP address and details would be forwarded to security and the FBI.

Pesach Sameach to all.

Sunday Post

First, a sermon from the Reverend Elron.


Pope Francis celebrates Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week:

The faithful waved palm and olive branches as the 77-year-old pope rode into St Peter’s Square on a white jeep and stopped at its centre to bless palm and olive branches.

The pontiff was particularly solemn when he delivered an impromptu homily, putting aside the one he had prepared.

Francis spoke of the events on the last two days of Jesus' life - his betrayal by Judas, his arrest, beating, trial and crucifixion.

He asked those present to think hard about who they resembled more, those who helped Jesus or those who condemned him, betrayed him or were indifferent to his fate.

"Where is my heart? Who among these people am I like? This question will remain with us all week," he said.

No one had a problem giving a state funeral to the first Trudeau who ruined this country or to the philandering caviar socialist, Jack Layton:

I don't know about you, but I was surprised when it was announced former finance minister Jim Flaherty would receive a state funeral. ...

Perhaps one needs reminding that Detroit was ruined long before this:

The burned-out, abandoned parcels of property in a west-end Detroit neighbourhood are the reverse image of an oil boom town — a ramshackle yin to the thriving yang of Fort McMurray, Alta.

For three-quarters of a century, crude oil has arrived here at the Marathon refinery. Even as this once-bustling, blue-collar area became blighted by crime and neglect like so much of Detroit, the industry survived.

No, you have three-hundred-and-fourteen million people forced to pay a tax that also caused them to lose their coverage and healthcare providers and virtually no young people to foot the bill:

A new, highly anticipated study on the effects of the Affordable Care Act suggests the number of Americans without insurance has plummeted since September, lending more evidence to the notion Obamacare is having its primary desired effect.

**

There is yet another ObamaCare surprise waiting for consumers: from now until the next open enrollment at the end of this year, most people will simply not be able to buy any health insurance at all, even outside the exchanges.

"It's all closed down. You cannot buy a policy that is a qualified policy for the purpose of the ACA (the Affordable Care Act) until next year on January 1," says John DiVito, president of Flexbenefit which has 2,500 brokers.

John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas adds, "People are not going to be able to buy individual and family policies, and that's part of ObamaCare. And what makes it so surprising is the whole point of ObamaCare was to encourage people to get insurance, and now the market has been completely closed down for the next seven months."

That means that with few exceptions, tens of millions of people will be locked out of the health insurance market for the rest of this year.

Only about one in four subsidy-eligible people signed up for health insurance," says Robert Laszewski of Health Policy Associates. "That means about 13 million subsidy-eligible people have not yet signed up for health insurance."

Add to that millions more who waited, or thought the policies under ObamaCare were too expensive and decided just to pay the tax penalty.

Although those who failed to buy insurance during the enrollment period could face a government penalty, most will not have to pay that penalty until they do their taxes next year.

“In all likelihood," says Laszewski, "we've only signed up somewhere between one in five and one in seven people who were uninsured prior to the start of ObamaCare."

Bono said what?
 

Bono, frontman for the Irish band U2, investor, and philanthropist, said he believes Jesus Christ was divine, that he arose from the dead, and that he made promises to the world that will come true

Bono, frontman for the Irish band U2, investor, and philanthropist, said he believes Jesus Christ was divine, that he arose from the dead, and that he made promises to the world that will come true.
Read more at http://patdollard.com/2014/04/bono-jesus-was-the-son-of-god-not-just-some-nutter/#v2DxaEFCSGsQ0fiI.99

And that was your Holy Week moment.


(Merci)