Mid-Week Post

Look! A squirrel!

He mocks you.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is a good sport as she lies answers a question from voters:





Residents in Ontario used to pay 4.3 ¢ per kWh. They now pay 13.5 ¢ per kWh during on-peak periods, plus fees, surcharges and HST. Things like wind energy (unreliable) cost consumers millions. Wynne is as likely to abandon these failed policies as she is to throw in the towel.


I think I would be more at ease with leftists' notions of a better world if I knew for a fact that they owned the consequences of their actions:

On Tuesday, a coalition of First Nations, environmentalists and lefty think-tanks vowed to fight the $12 billion Energy East pipeline to take oilsands oil from Alberta to refineries and ports in eastern Canada.

Have these foreign-funded special-interest groups developed a new form of affordable and applicable energy no one knows about? Because that would be handy.


A sixty day sentence for a man who killed his daughter:

A Quebec man whose teenage daughter died after he slapped her because he wasn't happy with a chore she had done was sentenced Wednesday to 60 days in jail.

Moussa Sidime, 74, will be incarcerated on 30 consecutive Mondays and Tuesdays.

He had previously pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of his 13-year-old daughter Noutene in October 2010.

The court heard Sidime struck her because he didn't like how she'd completed a chore and because she had been disrespectful.

It was Sidime who called 911 himself after finding the girl unconscious minutes later. She died after a few days in hospital.

The Crown had been seeking a prison sentence of two years less a day, while the defence had requested a suspended sentence.

 
That's the Canadian legal system for you.


Even rats know when to leave a sinking ship:

After weeks of internal debate, reluctant House Democrats chose Wednesday to engage in the GOP-led Benghazi select committee and seat a full roster on the 12-member panel.

I suspect the Democrats will do their best to stymy these proceedings. 

If the American electorate doesn't get that their Loser-in-Chief and his cohorts are willing to cover up murder, then they have the government they voted for.

Sometimes, I think Nigeria wants to fail:

Nigeria bought Israeli surveillance drones years ago that might have been used to hunt for more than 200 girls held by Islamist rebels, but poor maintenance has left them grounded, two official sources and the aircraft's manufacturer said.

"To the best of our knowledge, these systems aren't operational," Tsur Dvir, marketing officer for Aeronautics Defense Systems, a firm based south of Tel Aviv that supplied Nigeria with Aerostar unmanned aerial vehicles, said on Tuesday.

A Nigerian government source and a former military attaché to Nigeria both confirmed the information, although they said details were sketchy owing to the secretive nature of Israeli-Nigerian military cooperation.

The Nigerian military did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the disclosure could further embarrass President Goodluck Jonathan's administration, which has been criticized for its slow response to the hostage crisis.

Israel last week sent intelligence and hostage-negotiation officers to Nigeria to work alongside U.S., British and French experts helping the Nigerian authorities in the search, an Israeli official said on Tuesday.

"These are not operational troops, they're there to advise," the Israeli official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The April 14 abduction of the girls by Islamist militant group Boko Haram, and the inability of the military to locate them after more than five weeks, have stirred a global outcry.

Failure to maintain equipment is seen as one reason why Nigeria's military has been unable to quell the militants. Nigeria argues counter-insurgency is something it never had to deal with until the Boko Haram uprising five years ago, and so is having to slowly learn.

One would think that given what a valuable (and controversial) piece of equipment a drone is, one would maintain it.

If you are a petro-state with illiterate Islamist child-rapists kidnapping and murdering children and blowing up innocent civilians, I guess not.

This, the hastags and Hillary Clinton's complete failure as a human being just compound this tragedy.

Oh, it gets better and by better I mean mind-numbingly awful:

A State Department official struggled to discuss the religious import of Boko Haram’s ideology, despite the group’s repeated attacks on Christians, a rhetorical hesitancy that created tension during a rather bipartisan House hearing on the threat from the terrorist group.

Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., asked whether Boko Haram specifically targets Christians.

“I wish there was such discrimination in Boko Haram attacks,” State Department undersecretary Sarah Sewall replied during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing. “Boko Haram attacks everyone who is Nigerian. Boko Haram is an equal-opportunity threat for all Nigerian citizens.”

Yes, Boko Haram does target Christians and no, it isn't a joke. If the American lackey Sarah Sewall wishes to deny, whitewash or laugh at this, remind me not to feel badly for her when she is thrown under the bus.

That's the US State Department for you.


Another "equal opportunity" victim:

An eight-months pregnant woman is being kept shackled to the wall of her cell as she awaits hanging, her husband has said after visiting her in prison.

Mariam Ibrahim (26) was sentenced to death in Sudan last Thursday for refusing to recant her Christianity and for marrying Christian Daniel Wani – a Sudanese man with US citizenship who lives in New Hampshire

The court found her guilty of apostasy – leaving Islam – even though Ms Ibrahim testified that she was never a Muslim, and was brought up as a Christian by her Ethiopia-born mother.

The case was drawn to the authorities' attention in August, when Ms Ibrahim's father's family said that she had been born a Muslim and renounced Islam. Fatih Izz Al-Deen, Sudanese parliament speaker, said Ms Ibrahim's brother had denounced her.

"I was never a Muslim," she told the court. "I was raised a Christian from the start."

Her Muslim father, she said, left the family when she was a child.

Ms Ibrahim's husband, American citizen Daniel Wani, is disabled and was in the US at the time of the verdict.

"I'm so frustrated. I don't know what to do," he said. "I'm just praying."

He uses a wheelchair and "totally depends on her for all details of his life," said Jar Elnabi, her lawyer.

On travelling to Khartoum he was only allowed to visit her on Monday.

"He originally was not allowed to see her until this week," said Tina Ramirez, executive director of Hardwired, a US-based advocacy group against religious persecution.

She told FoxNews.com: "Once he was able to, she was shackled and her legs were swollen."

Mr Wani married Ms Ibrahim in 2011, and the couple run several businesses, including a farm south of Khartoum.

Ms Ibrahim's sentence will not be carried out until after their baby is born.

But in prison with her is the couple's 18-month-old child, Martin.

Another reason why stunts like these are best ignored:

A unique "Peace Run" initiated by an Australian extreme athlete to promote coexistence between Jews and Arabs in Judea and Samaria was dealt a severe blow Sunday, after the Palestinian Authority objected to the presence of Jewish runners.

A group of six Israelis were asked to refrain from participating in Australian ultra marathon runner Pat Farmer's Peace Run, as it passed the Jewish communities of Eli and Shiloh in Samaria, north of Jerusalem. The group - which was organized by the Yesha Council in conjunction with Regavim - had coordinated with Farmer's team ahead of time to ensure that Jews and Palestinians could run together in a true show of coexistence.

However when Ari Briggs, director of Regavim - which advocates for Jewish land rights - arrived along with his group to participate they were asked to stop running after just one kilometer.

Apparently, the news had reached the Palestinian Olympic Committee in Ramallah, which threatened to pull out of the Peace Run if Farmer continued to run with the Jewish well-wishers. Although Farmer was "not happy" about the move, which essentially undermined his campaign, the Jewish group were "politely" asked not to participate.

Has peace been achieved?

I don't think so.


Speaking of kangaroo-riders:

My compatriot David Suzuki, CC, OBC, was on PBS with Bill Moyers the other day and re-iterated for Americans his previously stated position in Canada that climate-denying politicians should be jailed:

"Our politicians should be thrown in the slammer for willful blindness!" he asserted. "If we are in a position of being able to act, and we see something going on and we refuse to acknowledge the threat or act on it, we can be taken to court for willful blindness."

Suzuki seems to be willfully blind to his own ignorance: after his spectacular know-nothing performance on the ABC's Q&A Down Under last year, I'm amazed his minders still let him do TV, even with tongue-bath interrogators like Moyers.

(Gracias pour le tout)