Friday Post

One day, the snow will melt...


But not because of global warming:

• There has been no increase in the Earth’s average surface temperature since the late 20th century.
• Every measure of pre-industrial carbon dioxide, not derived from Antarctic ice cores, indicates a higher and more variable atmospheric concentration.
• The total lack of predictive skill in AGW climate models.
• An ever-growing body of observation-based studies indicating that the climate sensitivity is in the range of 0.5 to 2.5°C with a best estimate of 1.5 to 2°C, and is very unlikely to be more than 2°C.
• Clear evidence that the dogmatic insistence of scientific unanimity is at best highly contrived and at worst fraudulent.

(Gracias)


In other news....


Raed Jaser and Chiheb Esseghaier have been found guilty of eight out of nine charges:

Raed Jaser and Chiheb Esseghaier, two men accused of plotting to derail a Via passenger train travelling between Canada and the U.S., have been found guilty on eight of nine terror-related charges.

Esseghaier was found guilty on all five terrorism charges against him. But the jury was deadlocked on one of the four charges that Jaser was facing.

On Friday, the 10th day of deliberations, after the jury said it was 'irrevocably deadlocked" on that one charge, Judge Michael Code told jurors he has the power to accept their unanimous decisions on the eight other charges.

Among the charges, both men were found guilty of:

• Conspiring to commit murder for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a terrorist group.
• Two counts of participating in, or contributing to the activity of a terrorist group.

Esseghaier was also found guilty of:

• Conspiring to damage transportation property with the intent to endanger safety for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a terrorist group.

The jury was deadlocked on that same charge for Jaser. Code called a mistrial on that one specific charge.

Suicide bombers have killed at least one hundred and thirty-seven people in at a mosque in Yemen:

Suicide bombers attacked a pair of mosques Friday in the Yemeni capital, unleashing monstrous blasts that ripped through worshippers and killed 137 people in the deadliest assault yet targeting Shiite rebels who have taken over large parts of the rapidly fragmenting nation. At least 13 children were among the dead.

A purported affiliate of the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the bombings, which also wounded 357 people — raising the alarming possibility the extremist group has expanded its presence to Yemen after already setting up a branch in Libya. Earlier this week, the group claimed responsibility for a bloody attack on Western tourists in Tunisia that authorities said was carried out by militants trained in Libya.

And yet, this is the news the White House- still irritated by Netanyahu's election win -calls "chilling":

Almost all of the 436 mosques in the Central African Republic have been destroyed by months of vicious fighting between Christians and Muslims, the US ambassador to the United Nations said.

Samantha Power spoke to reporters on Tuesday after a Security Council visit last week to the country, calling the devastation "kind of crazy, chilling".

She expressed concern about an upcoming possible security vacuum as European Union and French forces pull out and a UN peacekeeping force is still not at full strength.

At least 5,000 people have been killed since Central African Republic exploded into unprecedented violence in December 2013.

Nearly one million of the country's 4.5 million residents have been displaced. Many of those who have fled are Muslim.

Power said 417 of the country's mosques have been destroyed. She visited the one remaining Muslim neighbourhood in the capital, Bangui, and described the residents as "a terrified population".

Destroying houses of worship and murdering those of any religion should be abhorrent to those who call themselves a part of the civilised, sane world.

So why is this tolerated?

The recent bulldozing by the Islamic State (ISIS) of the ancient cities of Nimrud, Hatra, and Korsabad, three of the world's greatest archaeological and cultural sites, is just this group latest round of assaults across the large area under its control. Since January 2014, the flamboyantly barbaric ISIS has blown up Shi'i mosques, bulldozed churches, pulverized shrines, and plundered museums.

Worse, the ISIS record fits into an old and common pattern of destruction of historical artifacts by Muslims.

Some attacks target the works of other, rival religions, such as Orthodox churches in northern Cyprus (since 1974), the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan (in 2001), the Ghriba synagogue in Tunisia (2002), an historic Hindu temple in Malaysia (2006), and the Assyrian antiquities ("idols") in Mosul (2015). On a personal level, a Saudi national smashed historic statues at the Senso-Ji Buddhist temple in Tokyo in 2014. Nor is this danger over: Islamic leaders have bruited plans to destroy Persepolis in Iran, St. Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai, and the Great Pyramids of Egypt. ...

Ancient artifacts might even be demolished because their space is needed for something deemed urgent. The Palestinian Authority threw out precious Temple Mount archeological remains as mere rubble in 2000 to build a mosque. In 2013, Hamas bulldozed part of the 3,000-year-old Anthedon Harbor in Gaza for military purposes and the Turkish authorities damaged the Byzantine-era walls of the Yedikule Gardens to build a decorative pool. ...

Why does Islam inspire its adherents to annihilate their own patrimony? Because humiliation establishes and reinforces one's superiority. Destruction of infidel remains confirms the superior power of Muslims and, by implication, the truth of Islam. In parallel, eliminating the vestiges of Muslim rivals establishes the superiority of Islamism over other, less assertive interpretations of Islam.

Go screw yourselves, Obama administration, and the post-modern West. You've sold out your birthrights to a yodelling crowd of culture-destroying murderers.


Also:

Soldiers from Niger and Chad who liberated the Nigerian town of Damasak from Boko Haram militants have discovered the bodies of at least 70 people, many with their throats slit, scattered under a bridge, a Reuters witness said.

In what appeared to be an execution site for the Islamist group, the bodies were strewn beneath the concrete bridge on one of the main roads leading out of the town. At least one had its head completely severed.

The bodies were partially mummified by the dry desert air, suggesting that the killings had taken place some time ago.

(Paws up)


Unless one is willing to vote out the very bodies who waste taxpayer money, the minimum wage will be a joke:

An increase in Ontario’s minimum wage, announced by the province Thursday morning, might seem like good news for people wrestling to pay their bills and to make ends meet.

Anti-poverty advocates, however, say the increase of 25 cents won’t do much to alleviate financial woes and will still leave poverty-stricken Ontarians in the dust.

Says you, Lackey to Kim Fatty:

Hyun Hak-bong also hit out at allegations made against his country days after the United Nations launched yet another investigation into North Korea's human rights record.

The diplomat was asked about allegations made to Sky News last year by North Koreans living in the South Korean capital Seoul. They claim to have been tortured and beaten in their own country.

He said: "Those allegations are based on fabricated stories by the defectors from the North."

"Do you know the difference between human beings and animals? Human beings have a conscience and morality. If they do not have a conscience and a morality the are like nothing.

"They're animals. That is why we call the defectors animals. They are no better than animals. They're human scum."

Where is the love?


This is pretty disturbing:

“Research tells us that fewer than 10 percent of doctors actually recognize trafficking victims, and fewer than 3 percent of ER doctors had received training in recognition and action,” Chin says. “There is a huge disparity in the number of victims seeking help and the number of doctors who could recognize them.”

Gee, I guess the kids aren't alright:

Growing up, and even into my 20s, I supported and advocated for gay marriage. It’s only with some time and distance from my childhood that I’m able to reflect on my experiences and recognize the long-term consequences that same-sex parenting had on me. And it’s only now, as I watch my children loving and being loved by their father each day, that I can see the beauty and wisdom in traditional marriage and parenting.

Same-sex marriage and parenting withholds either a mother or father from a child while telling him or her that it doesn’t matter. That it’s all the same. But it’s not. A lot of us, a lot of your kids, are hurting. My father’s absence created a huge hole in me, and I ached every day for a dad. I loved my mom’s partner, but another mom could never have replaced the father I lost.

A feel-good story:

Eloise Charet can't forget the horrific scene at the orphanage she walked into in Cambodia in 1975.

"One of the rooms had all these children that were left to die," says Charet. "You could see ants crawling all over their bodies, flies, everything, devouring them while they were still alive."

March marks 40 years since Charet and her sister Anna helped approximately 55 orphaned babies and children escape from the terror ofPol Pot's Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

At the time, the horror of the Khmer Rouge was escalating — more than 1.5 million Cambodians would die in the next four years in one of the most notorious genocides in history.

Charet and her sister had gone to Cambodia to start an orphanage in Phnom Penh. They called the orphanage Canada House.

She's been trying to find all the children she saved. She was recently reunited with one of them, Sam Nakatsu, over the phone when CBC's Radio West spoke to them about the anniversary.

Does this include Putin's secret bank accounts?

Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he and almost everyone working for him would take a 10% pay cut because of mounting economic sanctions imposed on his country.

Whether Putin and his staff will actually feel the slash in their salaries is debatable, considering Putin says he is unaware of the amount printed on his paychecks. "Frankly, I don't even know my own salary; they just give it to me, and I put it away in my account," he reportedly said to a group of reporters during his annual Q&A session in December.

Putin's official salary is chump change compared with that of a prime minister of an island nation smaller than New York City.

Singapore's Lee Hsien Loong earns 12 1/2 times as much as Putin at a whooping $1.7 million. Loong's salary is large enough to pay for the combined salaries of the leaders of India, Brazil, Italy, Russia, France, Turkey, Japan, United Kingdom, South Africa, and Germany.

And now, the beef-stuffed onion ring is a real thing.