Monday Post

Quickly now...


Attempting to humanise the man who killed thirty-nine people:

On Wednesday, Saif Rezgui sat down with friends in his Tunisian hometown to chat about his favorite soccer team, girls and his break-dance skills over coffee and cigarettes.

On Thursday, he met up with his uncle in Gaafour, catching up on family matters, on a break from his master’s studies in the nearby historic town of Kairouan.

A day later, Resgui walked calmly though the Imperial Marhaba beach hotel on Tunisia’s Mediterranean coast opening fire with a Kalashnikov, and in more than five minutes slaughtered 39 foreign tourists in the name of Islamic State. 

Once again, Tunisia is in shock over how one of its young men with little warning turned from what appeared to be a normal life to hardline violent ideology of Islamic jihad.

Again, a well-educated Tunisian from a middle class family appears in a short time to have fallen prey to radical recruiters who turned him away from a life of soccer and music to become a militant Islamist.

Yes, about that:

Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.

**

...Mohamed Atta was the mastermind behind the September 11th terrorist attacks in 2001. He was the youngest son of a lawyer. Raised in a suburb of Cairo, Atta has been described as a shy and polite child. His father felt like Atta was spoiled by his mother, according to an interview with The New York Times. "I used to tell her that she is raising him as a girl," Mohamed al-Amir Atta Sr. said.

Atta came from a modern Muslim family. His older sisters went on to careers in medicine and academia. Atta pursued an engineering degree at Cairo University and graduated in 1990. Under pressure from his father, he continued his studies overseas at the Hamburg Technical University in Germany.

 
So there's that.


People take crazy pills (ultra-redux):

A video of the Saturday performance drew some angry comments on YouTube. In the highly charged political atmosphere ahead of a fall federal election, it was Prime Minister Stephen Harper who took the brunt of blame for the militaristic display.

“Thanks Harper, this is super easy and fun to explain to children,” ElectricPhase wrote.

“This is a disgusting display to have in front of children. Militarized police performing for entertainment is what happens in North Korea… not Canada,” wrote a user identified as Israfil Smith.

**

About 20 children, appearing to be kindergarten age, were given front row seating at Toronto’s “Gay Pride” flag raising ceremony this week at city hall. During one city councilor’s speech, she spoke directly to them and told them to “make sure the work is carried forward” of promoting the acceptance of homosexuality in society.  ...

The children, who were led to the event by two activists dressed as fruits — a kiwi and a blueberry — were handed mini gay pride flags and were used by the mayor and other homosexual activists for a photo op.

We need a new war.


Greek banks were shut down after austerity talks failed:

Tens of thousands of Greeks rallied on Monday to back their leftwing government's rejection of a tough international bailout after a clash with foreign lenders pushed Greece close to financial chaos and forced a shutdown of its banking system.

Israeli navy stopped a Swedish vessel in its yearly attempt at pretending that Gaza is a prison-state:

Israel's navy intercepted a Swedish vessel attempting to breach a naval blockade of the Gaza Strip early Monday and brought it to an Israeli port, where it said the foreign activists would be questioned before they are sent back to their home countries.

The military said that after exhausting all diplomatic efforts, the government ordered it to block the vessel. Israeli naval forces boarded the Marianne and searched it in international waters without needing to use any force, the military said.

Yawn.


And now, there was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run...

Sunday Post

Why Justin Trudeau's proposal regarding ISIS is just wrong:





The EU needs to kick Greece out:

Greece will introduce capital controls and keep its banks closed on Monday after international creditors refused to extend the country's bailout and savers queued to withdraw cash, taking Athens' standoff to a dangerous new level.

The Athens stock exchange will also be closed as the government tries to manage the financial fallout of the disagreement with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

Greece's banks, kept afloat by emergency funding from the European Central Bank, are on the front line as Athens moves towards defaulting on a 1.6 billion euros (£1.13 billion) payment due to the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday.

Greece blamed the ECB, which had made it difficult for the banks to open because it froze the level of funding support rather than increasing it to cover a rise in withdrawals from worried depositors, for the moves.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said the decision to reject Greece's request for a short extension of the bailout programme was "an unprecedented act" that called into question the ability of a country to decide an issue affecting its sovereign rights. "This decision led the ECB today to limit the liquidity of Greek banks and forced the central bank of Greece to propose a bank holiday and a restriction on bank withdrawals," he said in a televised address.

Amid drama in Greece, where a clear majority of people want to remain inside the euro, the next few days present a major challenge to the integrity of the 16-year-old euro zone currency bloc. The consequences for markets and the wider financial system are unclear.

Scratch that. The EU needs to dissolve. It's looking more and more like Germany and Some Hangers-On.

Though this has nothing to do with Islam, a man in France accused of cutting off his boss' head and taking a self-photo (selfie) with it had ties to Islamist groups:

The top suspect in the beheading of a businessman that French authorities are calling a terrorist attack took a "selfie" photo with the slain victim and sent the image via WhatsApp to a Canadian mobile phone number, officials said Saturday.

French investigators were working to determine the recipient's identity, but weren't able to immediately confirm media reports that it was an unspecified person now in Syria, where the radical Islamic State group has seized territory, the security officials said.

The revelation added a macabre twist to an investigation that has not turned up a solid link to radical or foreign groups, but has revived concerns about terrorism in France less than six months after deadly attacks in the Paris area.

Top suspect Yassine Salhi, a truck driver with a history of radical Islamic ties, as well as his sister and wife remained in police custody in the city of Lyon, a day after he allegedly crashed a truck into a U.S.-owned chemical warehouse and hung his employer's severed head on a factory gate, officials said.

Protests in Armenia over electricity:

Police in Armenia's capital on Sunday ordered thousands of demonstrators to disperse, moving to end a protest against higher electricity rates that has blocked a main avenue in Yerevan for nearly a week.

Some protesters obeyed and left for a nearby square, but thousands remained on the street after dark in defiance of both the police and the main protest organizers.

Riot police lined up across the road banged their truncheons against their shields in warning, but made no immediate move. Behind them stood water cannons and armoured vehicles.

Protest organizer Vaghinak Shushanian appealed to the demonstrators on Sunday to end their standoff with police in response to a promise by the Armenian president to suspend the 17-per cent rate hike pending an audit of the Russian-owned power company.

The unrest is the most serious that the impoverished former Soviet nation has seen in years, posing a challenge to President Serzh Sargsyan and causing great concern in Moscow. Russia maintains a military base in Armenia and Russian companies control most of its major industries.

After a week in which the number of protesters grew steadily to reach about 15,000, Sargsyan announced late Saturday that the government would bear the burden of the higher electricity costs until an international audit of the power company could be done. The protesters claim the Russian-owned utility is riddled with corruption.

(Sidebar: is that so?)

Maybe the people should blame the Electric Company.



Ukraine seeks to fill the media void with Canadian programming after removing biased Russian programming:

"The Littlest Hobo," "Anne of Green Gables," maybe even "Flashpoint" could find a new lease on life in Ukraine as the country's broadcasting council scrambles to fill TV screens with something other than Russian programming, says a senior Ukrainian official.

To counter — both real and perceived — propaganda throughout the war-torn country, President Petro Poroshenko's government pulled the plug on the Russian signals, leaving a dramatic hole in entertainment and information schedules, said Iurii Artemenko.

The country needs both hardware to improve its own radio and television signals and replacement programming.

"We try to find something," Artemenko said in an interview with The Canadian Press. He recently returned from a trip to South Korea, where he was pleading for content.

"We need high-quality content, shows, dramas, movies, cultural programs," he said at the same time as expressing his fondness for Quebec cinema.

Artemenko says Canadian programs — dramas and comedies — would welcome and an important uplift for an anxious population. ....

(Sidebar: "The Littlest Hobo" was our Lassie and he was awesome!)


Just in time for Canada Day Week, a Canadian geography quiz:




 

The Times We Live In

Let us go back in time for a moment:

(Source)

Let's jump to today:

Scratch a leftist, as they say.

I suppose in the rush to pretend that one is just like everyone else, they forgot how to be civil, and by civil, I mean non-racist. Just as the post-modern decadent West conveniently forgot about the tumult in the Middle East, France and in northern Africa for a handful of a handful.

No wedding cakes for this guy.

I guess it's fitting that someone is raining on one's sparsely attended hate parade.


(Paws up)

(Hat tip: Mauser)

Friday Freakout

On the week-end before Canada Day...

Have you been around?

How well do you know Canada?

Once liberal Americans realise that there is no welcome mat when they arrive at the longest undefended border in the world, they tend to not want to immigrate to Canada after all:

Do any Americans actually try to emigrate after elections?

A small number do. However, "threats to move northward end up falling flat as Americans confront the hoops they need to jump through to get in," says Emily Sohn at Discovery News. "Statistically, numbers of immigrants don't actually peak every four years." The last time there was a significant immigration wave from America to Canada was during the Vietnam War, when many fled to escape the draft.

Friday Post

Lots in the news....


A man is beheaded in France:

A terror suspect has been arrested for beheading his boss and setting off an explosion at a chemical factory in France, prosecutors say.

The victim's severed head had Arabic writing scrawled across it and was found on a fence next to two jihadi banners at the premises in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier in southeastern France.

Yassin Salhi, 35, drove a delivery van into gas canisters at the factory, triggering the explosion, prosecutors said.

He was apprehended at the scene by a firefighter.

His sister, wife and one other individual have since been arrested.

Salhi, a father-of-three, worked for the 55-year-old victim, who was in charge of a local transportation company.

The attack happened shortly before a gunman killed tourists, including Britons, at a Tunisian resort popular and a mosque was blown up in Kuwait .

(Sidebar: link separately provided.)


As usual, this has nothing to do with Islam.



If joining unions is mandatory and if unions take union dues and use them for political purposes then yes, they should disclose their records:

Bill C-377 has been stalled for days as Liberal senators conduct a filibuster they're prepared to continue, if necessary, until Parliament is dissolved for this fall's election, thereby killing the legislation.

But on Thursday, the government's deputy leader in the Senate, Yonah Martin, gave notice of a motion aimed at cutting off debate and forcing a final vote on the bill, likely early next week.

However, Senate rules allow the government to limit debate only on government business, not on private member's bills such as the union disclosure bill. ...

Hassan Yussuf, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, blasted the Conservatives for throwing the rules out the window in their zeal to pursue what he deemed an ideological vendetta against labour unions.

"They have no intention of abiding by any rules. They make the rules up as they go along," Yussuf said in an interview, adding that the latest turn of events "speaks volumes (about) the hatred and venom which this government spews every day" against labour unions.

The bill would require unions to publicly disclose any spending of $5,000 or more and any salary of more than $100,000. It's been widely denounced as undemocratic and an invasion of privacy.

I would regard any attempt to support unions' mafia-like control a "vendetta" against the Canadian people who must bear the consequences of the labour unions' political actions.

Case in point:

Who put Kathleen Wynne into office?

The unions did.

Who has offered no support for mentally disabled children?

The Liberals:

In Ontario, parents of children with autism face long waiting lists for special education programs and extraordinary bills, all while navigating a system that, to this day, remains remarkably deficient in light of the demands placed upon it.

It’s a reality that Serena Thompson knows all too well through her experiences with her son, Daniel, who has autism. “When your child is diagnosed with autism (in Ontario), you’re given a diagnosis and then just sort of sent on your way,” she says. “That diagnosis changed everything for us.”

She describes having to push hard to get her son seen by a developmental pediatrician. “(The doctor) spent about 40 minutes with my son and I, and on a piece of paper wrote, ‘ABA Therapy, the Hanen Program, Early Intervention,’” she recalls. “He said, ‘Look into those things and I will forward a report off to your doctor.’ ...

It was through their own research that Thompson and her husband found a therapist to work with Daniel at home, then placed him into a therapy centre. The cost to put him there was $7,000/month, which was paid for entirely out-of-pocket. Government assistance is available for families with autistic children; however, it is severely limited, with waiting lists as long as three years or more . And while Queen’s Park has pledged $800 million to address the backlog, there’s still a long way to go.

And if this slight and waiting times for treatment seem too long, wait until one sees how Premier Kathleen Wynne feels about this:

Premier Kathleen Wynne says the lengthy wait times transgender people in Ontario face for gender reassignment surgeries are "of concern."

That's right. If your kid has autism or you require treatment to prolong your life, you can go fornicate yourself with an iron stick as far as the Ontario government and their supporters are concerned. Kathleen Wynne and everyone who voted for her don't care. Non-essential services for people who are clearly mentally ill take precedence over people who genuinely need help.

This is why things like union transparency laws matter. Any union who would support a person like Kathleen Wynne is part of the problem and it's time that they stop.

If one is stupid enough to stay in an area without clean water for seventeen years when one lives in a First World country and could have left at any time, sympathy is not what you need:

Shoal Lake 40 First Nation, which provides Winnipeg with water through an aqueduct, has been under a boil-water advisory for 17 years. Chuck Wright said it’s time Winnipeg residents learned more about the cost of their drinking water.

Is it right to have filthy water in a First World country? No. Is right to whine until someone you hate fixes your problem? Also no.



On the sixty-fifth anniversary of the Korean War- started when Soviet and Chinese-backed North Korea invaded South Korea- Kim Jong-Un calls on brainwashed loyal North Koreans to rally against the "fatty" Americans:

North Korea marked the 65th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War on Thursday with a 100,000-strong rally in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Stadium, and a statement condemning the "fatty monster US imperialists". 

The "Pyongyang Mass Rally on the Day of the Struggle Against the US," was a carefully orchestrated display of angry speeches, fist-pumping and calls for blood revenge. 

Anything to distract the starving masses from the troubles at home, I suppose.

Not fatty, just big-boned.

(Paws up)


The word is きんたま :

A Japanese military patrol plane circled over disputed parts of the South China Sea on Tuesday at the start of an exercise with the Philippine military that has irked China.

According to Japanese and Philippine officials, the Japanese P3-C Orion surveillance plane, with three Filipino guest crew members, flew at 5,000 feet (1,524 m) above the edge of Reed Bank, an energy-rich area that is claimed by both China and the Philippines. It was accompanied by a smaller Philippine patrol aircraft.

The disputed waters are close to the Spratly Islands, which the Philippines also claims, where China is building a series of man-made islands. 

"We practiced search and rescue patterns, which are essential in any humanitarian assistance and disaster response operations," Marine Colonel Jonas Lumawag said at Puerta Princesa International Airport on Palawan island, the operations base for the drill 50 miles (80 km) to the west. 

"This is our first time here and also with this kind of activity with the Philippines," Maritime Self Defense Force Commander Hiromi Hamano, head of the Japanese navy contingent, said after the P3-C returned to Palawan.

Japan's presence in what it considers international waters may be seen by Beijing as tacit support for ownership claims made by the Philippines.

Who would have thought that Japan and the Philippines could ever co-operate?

It must have been something the Chinese said and did.

Right on!

Mid-Week Post

The nexus of the work-week...


On June 23rd, 1985, Sikh extremists put a bomb in a suitcase and checked it onto an Air India flight after an unidentified man badgered a flight agent. The bomb later went off killing three hundred and twenty-nine people, two hundred and sixty-eight of them Canadians and eighty-three of them children. After much dithering and incompetence and only one of the eight suspects in this terrorist attack ever convicted, the families of the victims are still haunted by the celebration of these terrorists thirty years later:

"Does anyone — does Canada herself — remember the faces of the murdered?" asks Shipra Rana, writing from Toronto to mark the day when she lost her sister in the bombing.

Do people realize even now, she wonders, that the 329 victims were mostly Canadian citizens? And yet, Rana writes, there are people in Canada who still openly revere the men who placed the bomb.

"Today, we see such propaganda being passed around."

Then, she resorts to all-caps to convey her feelings: "NO ONE HAS THE GUTS TO STOP THEM." ...

Here's part of what she's talking about: the large poster placed outside a temple in Surrey, B.C., in honour of — yes, in honour of — Talwinder Singh Parmar.

The poster is a permanent fixture on the exterior of the Dasmesh Darbar Temple. The photograph of it was taken last Friday, June 19. To passers-by, it's just another portrait of some saintly stalwart of the Sikh religion.

Actually, about the only thing the defence, the prosecution and the judge all agreed on at the Air India trial in Vancouver was that Parmar was the mastermind of the Air India bombing.

That makes him the worst mass murderer in Canadian history, by far. And he is publicly celebrated to this day as a shaheed — a martyr — by his devotees.

Parmar was never put on trial for the massacre he designed with great care and determination. Although India had previously tried to extradite him for the murder of two policemen, Canada had refused. He settled in Burnaby, B.C., where he assembled a team to place bombs on two planes connecting with Air India flights.

The families of the victims live out the rest of their lives knowing that there will be no legal retribution for this crime. Every other Canadian must prepare themselves for the leaden reality that such a terrorist act could not only happen again but will never be avenged.

That's Canadian justice for you.



I think Justin Trudeau wants to fail:

If the Liberal Party claims victory in the next federal election, Justin Trudeau says, his government would end Canada's bombing mission against ISIS in Iraq and Syria and restore diplomatic relations with Iran, in a dramatic departure from the path taken by the Harper government on foreign policy.

Yep.

Just like his "admiration for the basic dictatorship" of China, Trudeau would attempt to restore relations with the mad theocratic state responsible for the death of Zahra Kazemi and halt the liquidation of bloodthirsty child-rapists. As if he has the ability to do anything he says. As if Iran or ISIS can be reasoned with or that American-backed Iraqi troops can be trusted to stand their ground.

One must wonder if Justin Trudeau is morally corrupt or just a moron.


Related: embattled Kurds close in the ISIS "capital":

Backed by U.S.-led airstrikes and buoyed by battlefield successes, Kurdish fighters kept up an offensive through northern Syria on Tuesday, driving Islamic State militants out of a town near the extremists' de facto capital of Raqqa.

The capture of Ein Issa came just hours after the Kurdish forces had overrun a nearby military base, increasing the pressure on the Islamic State group less than two weeks after it lost the strategically located town of Tal Abyad on the Turkish border, severing a vital supply line.

The advances by the Kurdish fighters in Syria as well as in northern Iraq has been credited largely to a high level of co-ordination between the ground forces and the nearly year-old air campaign being led by Washington against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL in English and by its Arabic acronym, Daesh.

Like Obama, Trudeau must expect the more-tanned residents of the Middle East to do all the heavy lifting he won't.

Never let a good crisis or disintegrating socialist quagmire go to waste:

Five years after Chinese home appliance maker Haier agreed to build a $912 million factory in Venezuela, its washing machines and refrigerators are almost the only ones available in the country's department stores. 

Those appliances, however, are not made in Venezuela. 

They are instead imported from Haier factories in China and paid for through an oil-for-loans deal dating from 2007 under which China lends cash and is repaid in crude and fuel. 

The cost of leaving Haier's facility idle is primarily borne by Venezuela's socialist government, because its construction was bankrolled with $800 million borrowed from China.

While most foreign firms are being battered by Venezuela's currency controls and product shortages, Chinese companies like Haier are doing brisk business thanks to cooperation deals that give them privileged access to the OPEC nation's economy but leave business risks in the government's hands. 

The Chinese loans - some $50 billion since 2007 - have shored up Venezuelan finances at a time when low oil prices have prompted default concerns and effectively shut the country out of global capital markets.

But Venezuela is struggling to make good on promises that Chinese financing would spur new industries and reduce its century-old dependence on the oil industry. 

China, on the other hand, has won a steady supply of oil for its economy and lucrative contracts for its companies to export goods to Venezuela, sometimes in the shadow of China-backed factories meant to produce those very goods locally...

Going through the faulty science of "Laudato Si":

There are many major errors in the document, but one is sufficient as it is so wrong it negates all other claims. It is in the section labeled “Pollution and Climate Change”. The title is a variation on the incorrect link made in comments by President Obama about “carbon pollution.” Carbon is a solid and CO2 is a gas. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) identifies CO2 as the major cause of climate change, not carbon. CO2 is essential to plant life directly and animal life indirectly through the production of oxygen – it is not a pollutant. The misuse of these terms indicates a lack of understanding of the science but creates confusion for political gain.

But in all this hoopla, the wags forgot this little item:

The acceptance of our bodies as God’s gift is vital for welcoming and accepting the entire world as a gift from the Father and our common home, whereas thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation. Learning to accept our body, to care for it and to respect its fullest meaning, is an essential element of any genuine human ecology. Also, valuing one’s own body in its femininity or masculinity is necessary if I am going to be able to recognize myself in an encounter with someone who is different. In this way we can joyfully accept the specific gifts of another man or woman, the work of God the Creator, and find mutual enrichment. It is not a healthy attitude which would seek “to cancel out sexual difference because it no longer knows how to confront it”.

Oh, heavens to Betsy! What will the fluid-brains think?!



And now, nature at its cloudiest. Enjoy.

Monday Post

On this, the second day of summer...



The Taliban attacked the Afghan parliament building:

The Taliban launched a complex attack on the Afghan parliament Monday, with a suicide car bomber striking at the entrance and gunmen battling police as lawmakers were meeting inside to confirm the appointment of a defence minister, police and witnesses said.

Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said the attack began with a car bomb explosion near the entrance. Gunmen then attempted to storm the compound but were pushed back by security forces and eventually took refuge in a nearby building under construction, he said.

Sediqqi later said all seven attackers were killed by police. He said no members of parliament were wounded in the incident. "It is over now," he said.

Health Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ismail Kahousi said 18 civilians were wounded, including two women and two children.

Sidiqa Mubarez, a member of parliament, said the building was rocked by a large explosion and that some people were wounded by flying glass. She said the explosion happened shortly after Masoom Stanekzai had arrived to be confirmed as defence minister, a post that has been vacant for nine months.

The Taliban said in a statement that they carried out a suicide bombing outside parliament.

The left, being irrational and completely without perspective, would attack Harper even if he handed them everything they wanted on a silver platter. Obviously Stephen Harper is not Hitler or anything like him. Making such comparisons is beyond childish. If one really wanted to hit leftist unions where they live, demand they be completely transparent and turn over their accounts. Then watch as they turn purple:

Conservatives have formed a political action committee to counter attacks against Prime Minister Stephen Harper from progressive groups and labour unions.

A group of former ministerial aides have created HarperPAC, a vehicle that allows Conservatives to raise and spend money beyond the limits and disclosure rules imposed on political parties.

HarperPAC is a direct response to Engage Canada, a group of veteran Liberal and NDP strategists who have been collecting money from unions and other groups to run a concerted campaign against Harper's re-election.

Engage Canada's first television ad began running earlier this month, asserting that income inequality has skyrocketed under Harper and that his Conservatives "won't be there for you."

HarperPAC spokesperson Stephen Taylor says his group is needed to counter what he calls the "tide of cash from professional leftist agitators and big union bosses" aiming to take down the Harper government.

The one simple thing Ontario parents could have done to avoid this awful sex education program was to never let Kathleen Wynne back into office:
 

Concerned Ontarians who come from all walks of life, have been attending protests to make their concerns known, but they are all dismissed by the Premier as homophobic and by Education Minister Sandal as "misinformed".

This disdain for parents' legitimate concerns explains why more of them are opting for alternatives to the public education system.

For your pre-Canada Day enjoyment, watch as people struggle through a Canadian history quiz:



Okay, so why isn't Canadian history taught?

Oh, yeah- no student can fail a grade.

(sigh)

On This, The First Day of Summer

Time for ice cream

Ah, glorious Juuuuune....


The importance of the word "father":

That’s when Sir William Jones, a British language scholar and judge who had been posted to Calcutta, suggested in a speech to the Asiatic Society that the classical Indian language Sanskrit had such strong similarities to classical Latin and Greek that

no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists; there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanskrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family.

The similarities could be seen when comparing Sanskrit to various Latin and Greek words, but they were most striking when all three languages overlapped, as they did for the word father ...

Darth Father

Patron saints of fathers whose paternal loads were arguably more weighty but rewarding.


Historical photographs of dads.


Parenting advice from Homer Simpson.


Public service announcement: Shark Week arrives earlier this year.

 
Camping hacks for your summer getaway.

Sunday Post

Two-thirds of senators accused of extraordinary expenses have elected to use an arbiter to challenge the claims:

Almost two-thirds of senators flagged with problematic expenses by the auditor general have opted to challenge the findings before a special arbitrator.

Included in that group are six whose paperwork has been referred to the RCMP for a criminal review.

Friday marked the end of a 10-day grace period for the 30 sitting and former senators named by auditor general Michael Ferguson to decide whether to repay their questioned claims, or seek to have them quashed by former Supreme Court justice Ian Binnie.

In all, Binnie will handle 19 cases that are worth about $540,000 combined, according to data posted Friday afternoon to the Senate's website.

So far, those named by Ferguson have repaid almost $126,000 of the nearly $1 million flagged in a critical audit of Senate spending earlier this month. That amount includes about $30,000 in partial repayments from four senators whose files are being sent to the RCMP for review.

If these senators had worked for private companies, they would have been given pink slips before the week-end.



An RCMP report stating that aboriginal women are more often than not the victims of violence at the hands of relatives or familiar men is dismissed by one family who didn't read the report:

Lorna Martin’s mother went missing in October 1987.

She hasn’t read the RCMP’s updated report on missing and murdered Aboriginal women. She doesn’t know what the statistics released this week have to say about the thousands of Indigenous women who have been killed or disappeared.

What she does know is that when her mother, Mary Jane Kreiser, was reported missing in Edmonton by her sister, the police officer didn’t seem very concerned.

This makes for a nice emotional article but disregarding facts is as helpful as a multi-million dollar inquiry that will lead to nowhere.



If the EU knew what was good for it, it would cut its losses with Greece and kick it to the curb. The EU is never getting its money back:

Greece and its creditors publicly blamed one another for an impasse in bailout talks Wednesday, on the eve of a eurozone finance ministers' meeting billed as key to their outcome.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras lashed at rescue lenders for demanding pension cuts, and got support from thousands of Greeks who hit the streets in Athens to protest against any further austerity measures.

"If Europe insists in this incomprehensible option — if its political leadership insists — then they must bear the cost of developments that will not be beneficial for anyone in Europe," he said after meeting in Athens with Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann.

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis was defiant ahead of Thursday's meeting of finance chiefs from the eurozone. Asked during a visit to Paris on Wednesday whether the meeting could produce an agreement, Varoufakis said, "I do not believe so," and criticized the group for not making enough "preparations" to solve Greece's "incapacitating debt crisis."

Greece needs to get more loans from its creditors before June 30, when its bailout program expires and it is scheduled to make a 1.6 billion euro ($1.8 billion) debt repayment to the International Monetary Fund.

European Union officials said they have already made major concessions, dropping a budget surplus target from 3 per cent to 1 per cent this year.

Athens still needed to come up with a more realistic plan, EU Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said.

We need another war:

Millions of yoga enthusiasts across the world bent and twisted their bodies in complex postures Sunday to mark International Yoga Day. ...

"We are not only celebrating a day, but we are training the human mind to begin a new era of peace and harmony," Modi told participants. "This is a program for the benefit of mankind, for a tension-free world and to spread the message of harmony."

Friday Post

Just in time for the week-end...



This is why the NDP will never run the country:

The NDP government put its imprint on Alberta's wallet Thursday, spending $624 million on schools, hospitals, and social care and introducing a bill to increase taxes on large businesses and the wealthy.

The bill, tabled by Finance Minister Joe Ceci, proposes increasing the tax rate on large corporations to 12 per cent from 10 per cent effective July 1.

It also moves to hike income taxes on anyone making more than $125,000 a year effective Oct. 1.

The tax changes are forecast to bring in up to $800 million in this fiscal year and up to $1.5 billion in the next.

Ceci said the changes will not have an impact on 93 per cent of Alberta's tax filers.

As of 2005, there were 100,775 people who earned $100,000 in Alberta. As of last year, government employees in Alberta earned anywhere from $100, 000 to more than $400, 000. Is the NDP going to tax this sprinkling of the Albertan population?

Let the battles begin.



It might have something to do with the fact that politicians are just straight-up corrupt:

It’s hard to gauge whether scandals in Canada’s Upper Chamber affect how Canadians view leaders in the House of Commons or other levels of government. Jane Hilderman, incoming executive director of non-profit Samara, said the news of Meredith’s personal conduct isn’t likely to strengthen trust in political leaders.

“It may confirm what Canadians already have as a dominant opinion, which is that generally those elected to office aren’t very well trusted,” Jane Hilderman said in an interview with Yahoo Canada News.

“That’s going to be a very hard thing to shift over time.”

Because Canadians are so damn weak-willed and will never hold their corrupt politicians to account, those in power will continue to be liars and thieves.

YOU VOTED FOR THEM, Canada. Suck it up.

If Pope Francis' encyclical on so-called "climate change" does have a bright spot, it's that he calls carbon trades what they are- a scam:

The strategy of buying and selling “carbon credits” can lead to a new form of speculation which would not help reduce the emission of polluting gases worldwide. This system seems to provide a quick and easy solution under the guise of a certain commitment to the environment, but in no way does it allow for the radical change which present circumstances require. Rather, it may simply become a ploy which permits maintaining the excessive consumption of some countries and sectors.

Related: because some people are retards and need to be informed:

In regard to their history, there are two main points to be considered. It is in the first place constantly assumed, especially at the present day, that the opposition which Copernicanism encountered at the hands of ecclesiastical authority was prompted by hatred of science and a desire to keep the minds of men in the darkness of ignorance. To suppose that any body of men could deliberately adopt such a course is ridiculous, especially a body which, with whatever defects of method, had for so long been the only one which concerned itself with science at all. ...

Nevertheless it was a churchman, Nicholas Copernicus, who first advanced the contrary doctrine that the sun and not the earth is the centre of our system, round which our planet revolves, rotating on its own axis. His great work, "De Revolutionibus orbium coelestium", was published at the earnest solicitation of two distinguished churchmen, Cardinal Schömberg and Tiedemann Giese, Bishop of Culm. It was dedicated by permission to Pope Paul III in order, as Copernicus explained, that it might be thus protected from the attacks which it was sure to encounter on the part of the "mathematicians" (i.e. philosophers) for its apparent contradiction of the evidence of our senses, and even of common sense. He added that he made no account of objections which might be brought by ignorant wiseacres on Scriptural grounds. Indeed, for nearly three quarters of a century no such difficulties were raised on the Catholic side, although Luther and Melanchthon condemned the work of Copernicus in unmeasured terms. Neither Paul III, nor any of the nine popes who followed him, nor the Roman Congregations raised any alarm, and, as has been seen, Galileo himself in 1597, speaking of the risks he might run by an advocacy of Copernicanism, mentioned ridicule only and said nothing of persecution. Even when he had made his famous discoveries, no change occurred in this respect. On the contrary, coming to Rome in 1611, he was received in triumph; all the world, clerical and lay, flocked to see him, and, setting up his telescope in the Quirinal Garden belonging to Cardinal Bandim, he exhibited the sunspots and other objects to an admiring throng.

**

The conference logically began by clearing up the myths that still surround Galileo and his relationship with the Church. Dr. Owen J. Gingerich, a former research professor of astronomy and of the history of science at Harvard University, laid out the history of the controversy.

He swiftly ruled out the most famous and seemingly irrefutable accusation: that Galileo was tortured by the Church. The Italian astronomer was sent a letter, Gingerich said, which stated he was to be "interrogated for vehement expression of heresy" and that included "legally being shown the instruments of torture."

But Gingerich said Galileo "was certainly not tortured and I suspect also not shown the instruments of torture, but he was on his third interrogation when he realised there was to be no discussion, that he wasn't going to be able to argue that the Copernican system should be taken seriously." He therefore was willing to "confess in any way that was required, put under house arrest and sent back to Florence."

Professor Gingerich said it was particularly important to view the Galileo case in context. "You must understand that the great majority of people thought the Copernican system was completely ridiculous," he explained. "It was not a matter of only the Catholic hierarchy thinking it was ridiculous; nobody else wanted to adopt the Copernican system."

**

The Church is not anti-scientific. It has supported scientific endeavors for centuries. During Galileo’s time, the Jesuits had a highly respected group of astronomers and scientists in Rome. In addition, many notable scientists received encouragement and funding from the Church and from individual Church officials. Many of the scientific advances during this period were made either by clerics or as a result of Church funding. 

Nicolaus Copernicus dedicated his most famous work, On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs, in which he gave an excellent account of heliocentricity, to Pope Paul III. Copernicus entrusted this work to Andreas Osiander, a Lutheran clergyman who knew that Protestant reaction to it would be negative, since Martin Luther seemed to have condemned the new theory, and, as a result, the book would be condemned. Osiander wrote a preface to the book, in which heliocentrism was presented only as a theory that would account for the movements of the planets more simply than geocentrism did—something Copernicus did not intend. 

Ten years prior to Galileo, Johannes Kepler published a heliocentric work that expanded on Copernicus’ work. As a result, Kepler also found opposition among his fellow Protestants for his heliocentric views and found a welcome reception among some Jesuits who were known for their scientific achievements.

**

“The worst that happened to men of science was that Galileo suffered an honourable detention and a mild reproof, before dying peacefully in his own bed.”

Dylann Storm Roof was a sad lone wolf on drugs. There is no need to rush out and blame drugs, guns, white people or the Illuminati.




A country that cannot feed itself has managed to cure MERS:

North Korea says it has succeeded where the greatest minds in science have failed.

The authoritarian, impoverished nation better known for pursuing a nuclear program despite global criticism announced Friday it has a drug can prevent and cure MERS, Ebola, SARS and AIDS.

The secretive state did not provide proof, and the claim is likely to provoke widespread skepticism.

The official Korean Central News Agency said scientists developed Kumdang-2 from ginseng grown from fertilizer mixed with rare-earth elements. According to the pro-North Korea website Minjok Tongshin, the drug was originally produced in 1996.

"Malicious virus infections like SARS, Ebola and MERS are diseases that are related to immune systems, so they can be easily treated by Kumdang-2 injection drug, which is a strong immune reviver," KCNA said.

North Korea shut out foreign tourists for half a year with some of the world's strictest Ebola controls, even though no cases of the disease were reported anywhere near the country, before lifting the restrictions earlier this year.

It is believed to be struggling to combat diseases such as tuberculosis, and respiratory infections are among its most common causes of death, according to the World Health Organization.

Sure....



Strange. Putin normally acts as though he does not need the G7:

Russia appears to be angling to make it the G-8 once again and President Vladimir Putin suggests it’s something Prime Minister Stephen Harper will just have to accept.

"I don't want to offend anyone, but if the United States says Russia should be returned to the G8, the prime minister will change his opinion,” Putin told The Canadian Press during a meeting with the heads of world news agencies at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

And now, frightening prehistoric sea monsters:

Megalodon is probably the best-known creature in the list; it’s hard to keep the idea of a shark the size of a school bus out of pop culture. Plus, science-minded entertainment sources like the Discovery Channel love creatures that could pass for a movie monster. Despite the popular idea that Megalodon coexisted with dinosaurs, they lived from 25 to 1.5 million years ago, meaning that at best they missed the last dinosaur by 40 million years.

Mid-Week Post

Stuff in the news....


Support for the NDP is rising and for the Liberals it is falling:





This doesn't surprise one:

Michael Chan, one of Premier Kathleen Wynne's cabinet ministers, is under investigation by CSIS, who suspect he is being influenced by the communist government of the People's Republic of China.

British Columbia is the latest province to make aboriginal history and culture mandatory in schools:

Changing that is one of the many recommendations to come from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report released earlier this month, and British Columbia says it will introduce a new K-12 curriculum this fall that includes the history and legacy of residential schools.

But education is a provincial jurisdiction and across the country, there’s a wide range when it comes to aboriginal history in classrooms.

“In some provinces, they’re doing really well. Others, they’re failing miserably,” says Carlie Chase, executive director of the Legacy of Hope Foundation, an aboriginal charity that aims to get indigenous history into Canadian classrooms.

In B.C., the new curriculum will include history, culture and First Nations perspectives across subject areas and grade levels.

For example, kindergarten student will learn about aboriginal uses of plants and animals while Grade 5 students will learn about indigenous concepts of environmental stewardship, says education ministry spokesman Scott Sutherland.

I think that is a tremendous idea.

Here are some cultural and historical facts that I'm sure would be of great use to students:

- many aboriginal tribes employed the use of slavery whether from other tribes or runaway black American slaves. In fact, the Slavey tribe got its name from such an institution.

-prior to the arrival of horses from Europe, dogs or aboriginal women carried or pulled belongings across the Prairies.

- the Iroquois either killed or dispersed the Huron (or Wendat) tribe.

- there is evidence to suggest that the Thule Inuit killed Viking settlers. This was after killing off the Dorset Inuit.

- despite the tragic spread of diseases like smallpox which were unknown to the New World prior to the arrival of the Europeans, indigenous plants used by aboriginal tribes had no effect on stopping them. Perhaps if everyone had an understanding of how diseases spread and had vaccinations, things would have been quite different.

Teaching history, warts and all, is a fantastic plan, especially when one segregates things along socio-cultural lines so that everyone can feel bad and not a part of a greater nation-state that should- ostensibly- ignore the circumstances of one's birth and include one in a greater fraternity.

But that would just be nutty!

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission: keeping the Victimhood Industry alive!



Home-schooling in Canada on the rise.

Considering the puppy-mills that are Canadian schools, who can blame parents?



I'm sure this has nothing to do with Islamism:

U.S. authorities have accused a New York City college student of plotting to set off a pressure cooker bomb in the city in support of the militant group Islamic State, according to court documents made public on Tuesday.

Munther Omar Saleh, 20, was arrested early on Saturday morning after he and another man got out of their car and ran toward a surveillance vehicle that had been tracking their movements, according to documents filed in federal court in Brooklyn.

A defense lawyer for Saleh could not be identified on Tuesday. The other man, who was also arrested, was not named in the court documents and could not immediately be identified.

U.S. authorities have charged a number of so-called “lone wolf” plotters in recent months who have apparently been inspired by Islamic State, and authorities have said they are pursuing similar cases in all 50 states.

A Chinese millionaire loses her fortune adopting children:

A woman who made millions out of coal mining investments is now hundreds of thousands of pounds in debt after she spent her fortune adopting 75 orphans.

Li Lijuan has spent the past 19 years using the money she made from her investments in the 1980s to house the abandoned children.

The former garment business owner from Wu’an County, China, adopted her first orphan in 1994 and went on to adopt dozens more who either lost their parents or were abandoned because of illness or disabilities.

The 46-year-old lost her entire life savings when the coal mine she invested in shut down and she was no longer able to meet the costs of her large family.

She is now some £200,000 in debt – but it hasn’t stopped her raising her adopted children. Lijuan has taken to selling her properties as well as other valuables she possessed.

While volunteers have stepped forward give Lijuan’s foster children new homes, strict adoption laws in China mean the former millionaire has no choice but to refuse their offers.

All of her foster children are registered under her name and were never formally declared orphans, meaning they cannot be adopted by other families under strict Chinese laws.

Lijuan also receives donations from charities, but the cost of raising her children, many of whom require extensive operations for disabilities and other birth defects, far outweighs the money she receives.

This used to be called "grandparents looking after grandchildren":

A nursing home in Seattle has come up with a way to care for the growing-up, and the growing-old, while simultaneously bridging the gap between generations.  

More than 400 elderly citizens call Mount St. Vincent their home. But what makes this nursing home unique is that it doubles as a preschool. 

Every day, the elders and the children join together and engage in activities that range from dancing to storytelling to arts and crafts - or just to eat lunch.

 

(Insert own lamentation on declining birthrate and expanding elderly population here)

And now, the Chinese certainly know how keep graduation light and/or freaky.

Monday Post

To wit...


Good luck with that:

Alberta's New Democrats launched the post-Tory period of provincial politics Monday with a throne speech announcing bills to ban corporate and union political donations and to increase taxes on large corporations and the wealthy.

The bills follow through on promises made in last month's election campaign which ended with Rachel Notley and the NDP toppling a nearly 44-year-long Progressive Conservative dynasty.

Yes, about that:

If energy companies are skittish about investing in Alberta, they’re welcome to set up shop next door, Saskatchewan’s economy minister said Wednesday.

Bill Boyd said he’s been watching the political debate in neighbouring Alberta over the newly elected NDP government’s plans to review oil and gas royalties.

Boyd said he’s been hearing “a fair bit of concern” from companies at the Global Petroleum Show, a massive exhibition in Calgary this week with some 50,000 attendees from around the world.

“During this period of time where there’s some degree of instability, I think they’re a little bit worried as to what may eventually transpire,” he said in an interview.

“A little bit more serious than that, though, is they are certainly pulling back in terms of investment. I don’t think new investment decisions are going to be made until that climate is known.”

As I said, good luck with that.



Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that Paul Watson is a fraud:

Paul Watson, a Canadian environmentalist and star of a reality television show, says Canada has effectively barred him from returning to the country since his passport was seized three years ago by German authorities.

Surely not!

The family advocate for First Nations families dealing with Child and Family Services is devastated after her first week on the job, working for the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs. 

The assembly created the position of family advocate to respond to mounting concerns about children in the care of CFS in Manitoba. More than 10,000 children are in care and roughly 90 per cent of them are aboriginal. ...

While Morgan said she believes the solution to the child welfare system involves revamped legislation, she also sees that current legislation allows for some actions to be taken that aren't happening at the moment. For example, she said she is skeptical about whether full investigations are conducted before a child is removed from a home. She also has not seen evidence of preventative measures being pursued.  

"Prior to this role I worked in the area of restorative justice and I would see how many children would come through our doors as a result of being in CFS care, and knowing what I've learned over the years and all of these intricacies of residential school effects, I, as a First Nations person, didn't want to look back 30 years from now and be here in this place and time, knowing that this was going on and I didn't do anything about it," Morgan said. 

The conclusions of an inquiry into Phoenix Sinclair's death, a child who did not attend any school, residential or otherwise, because her parents killed her and the CFS did not stop it:

Throughout her five years, Phoenix was in the care of the child welfare system for the first few months of her life, and again, for a time, at age three. She was shuffled between the homes of Kematch, Sinclair, his sisters, and his friends Kim Edwards and Rohan Stephenson, never attending daycare, nursery school, or any community programs. When Kematch and her new partner, Wesley Mackay, moved her from Winnipeg to Fisher River and then killed her, nobody knew she was missing, except the boy who saw her die. 

Meanwhile, at least 13 times throughout her life, Winnipeg Child and Family Services received notice of concerns for Phoenix’s safety and well-being from various sources, the last one coming three months before her death. Throughout, files were opened and closed, often without a social worker ever laying eyes on Phoenix.

Let's just blame things on residential schools and call it a day.


 
Greece is an unbelievable financial black-hole and I have no idea why anyone would want to be saddled with it:

Greece and its creditors hardened their stances on Monday after the collapse of talks aimed at preventing a default and possible euro exit, prompting Germany's EU commissioner to say the time had come to prepare for a "state of emergency".

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras ignored pleas from European leaders to act fast. Instead he blamed creditors for Sunday's breakdown of the cash-for-reform talks, the biggest setback in long-running negotiations to unlock aid. He said his government had a responsibility to defend Greece's dignity and would resist demands for further pension cuts.

"It is not a matter of ideological stubbornness. It has to do with democracy," said the 40-year-old leftist, who was elected on a pledge to end austerity.

(Sidebar: I think one can see a problem here.) 

Oil is  keeping Putin afloat:

Some of the world's most powerful oil executives will attend Russia's top investment show next week, once again helping the organizers shrug off a meager turnout from other leading Western industrialists and bankers.

Many CEOs and chairmen from major U.S. and European firms withdrew from last year's St Petersburg International Economic Forum because of tensions tied to Russia's annexation of Crimea and a separatist war in eastern Ukraine.

The political environment has calmed and a shaky ceasefire holds in Ukraine, but Western sanctions remain in place and most Western business chiefs have again decided to skip what used to be a key event in the international corporate calendar.

However, for the second year running, oil executives are showing up regardless, with the heads of BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Total flying into the home town of President Vladimir Putin.

BP's review of world energy supplies, published this month, estimated that Russian oil and gas reserves had jumped above 100 billion barrels for the first time, climbing to some 103 billion from 93 billion in the last review in 2013. This put it sixth in the global reserves league table.

Such an abundance makes it economically vital for major energy firms to maintain healthy ties with Moscow.

Why worry about Ukraine or downed jets?

A North Korean soldier crossed the heavily mined no-man's land to defect to South Korea:

A North Korean soldier has made a rare bid to defect to South Korea by crossing the demilitarised zone (DMZ) separating the two countries.

The teenager walked up to a South Korean guard post in Gangwon province's Hwacheon county around 8.00am local time (23.00 GMT) after walking across the world's most heavily militarised border.

No gunfire was exchanged as the soldier approached guards and expressed his wish to defect, officials from the South Korean Defence Ministry said.

"We've confirmed his will to defect after he reached our guard post," a ministry spokesman said.

The soldier was taken into custody and an investigation has been launched by South Korean officials.

More than 1,000 North Korean soldiers defect to the South every year, although it is rare for anybody to attempt to cross the heavily mined DMZ.

More about North Korean defections here.

Why Israel should withdraw from the UN:

Israel issued a report on Sunday arguing its 2014 Gaza offensive was lawful, a move aimed at pre-empting the release of findings of a U.N. war crimes investigation that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scorned as a waste of time.

The 277-page report, which cited Israel's internal probes and statements from Western leaders backing its right to self-defence, suggested the Netanyahu government hoped to defuse criticism from the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) inquiry in advance. 

Deeming the HRC biased, Israel boycotted its investigators as it did those from the council who looked into its 2008-09 Gaza offensive. That HRC inquiry accused Israel of war crimes. 

Launched last July after a surge of cross-border rocket fire by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, Israel's 50 days of shelling, air strikes and ground incursions in the congested enclave killed more than 2,256 Palestinians, including 1,563 civilians, a U.N. report said in March.

Sixty-seven Israeli soldiers and six civilians in Israel also died in the conflict. ...

In public remarks to his cabinet, Netanyahu again accused Hamas of hiding behind civilians by deliberately operating in Gaza's crowded districts.

"Whoever wants to continue with baseless blaming of the State of Israel, let them waste time reading the report by the U.N. commission. We, for our part, will continue protecting our soldiers. They will continue protecting us," he said.

And now, a blind Irish cat defies the odds by climbing a mountain:




To all those who say that blind Irish cats can't climb mountains, I say to you: Stevie did!