Friday Post

Nine people are dead after a gunman burst onto a gun-free campus, asked people their religion and shot them accordingly:

As the horrific details of the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., slowly came together on Thursday evening like a grisly jigsaw puzzle, one crucial piece remained missing: a portrait of the shooter.

Federal law enforcement officials identified the gunman, who was killed by police, as 26-year-old Chris Harper Mercer of the nearby town of Winchester.

According to survivors, Mercer asked his hostages if they were Christians.

“The shooter was lining people up and asking if they were Christian. If they said yes, then they were shot in the head. If they said no or didn’t answer, they were shot in the legs,” a witness said in a text message to the Roseburg Beacon News, according to its publisher.

Obama says something middling about "random folks". Whatever.

No one cares what he says.

Case in point:

If it had the wit, the Obama administration would be not angered, but appropriately humiliated. President Obama has, once again, been totally outmaneuvered by Vladimir Putin. Two days earlier at the United Nations, Obama had welcomed the return, in force, of the Russian military to the Middle East — for the first time in decades — in order to help fight the Islamic State. ...

The whole point of Russian intervention is to maintain Assad in power. Putin has no interest in fighting the Islamic State. Indeed, the second round of Russian air attacks was on rival insurgents opposed to the Islamic State. The Islamic State is nothing but a pretense for Russian intervention. And Obama fell for it.

Just three weeks ago, Obama chided Russia for its military buildup, wagging his finger that it was “doomed to failure.” Yet by Monday he was publicly welcoming Russia to join the fight against the Islamic State. He not only acquiesced to the Russian buildup, he held an ostentatious meeting with Putin on the subject, thereby marking the ignominious collapse of Obama’s vaunted campaign to isolate Putin diplomatically over Crimea.

Putin then showed his utter contempt for Obama by launching his air campaign against our erstwhile anti-Assad allies not 48 hours after meeting Obama. Which the U.S. found out about when a Russian general knocked on the door of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and delivered a brusque demarche announcing that the attack would begin within an hour and warning the U.S. to get out of the way.

But I'm sure this was Obama's plan all along.

What a stupid @$$hole.



Speaking of stupid @$$holes, the ever-defensive Kathleen Wynne leads a province that is in decline:

Ontarians are clearly having buyer’s remorse after re-electing its Liberal government last year, with two-thirds now believing that Ontario is headed in the wrong direction. An exasperated Kathleen Wynne recently asked “What is it that especially disqualifies me for the job I’m doing?” as Premier of Ontario. Well, since she asked, let’s list the problems the Liberal government has created. ...

Population trends show that people in Canada and around the world understand Ontario’s economy is floundering, even if its own government does not. Ontario was once the beacon for both immigrants arriving in Canada and people moving within Canada. However, for 11 straight years there has been a net exodus from Ontario to other provinces as people “vote with their feet” and leave for greener pastures. Meanwhile, Ontario’s share of immigrants arriving from outside Canada has fallen from 60 per cent to a record low of 38 per cent. The result is an aging population saddled with a high debt burden and slow economic growth. ...

In response to this long litany of under-performance, the Wynne government continues to work through its check-list of growth-killing policies designed to raise the cost of doing business in Ontario. It raised corporate taxes, depressing business investment. It boosted the minimum wage faster than median wages, contributing to massive youth unemployment averaging 16 per cent last year despite their above average levels of education.

More broadly, the Wynne government does not understand that it is prosperity that lifts wages and not higher wages that leads to prosperity. In fact, high wages will hamper growth if not justified by high productivity. Ontario has above average unemployment partly because it has the highest unit labour costs in Canada. High labour costs reflect the hikes to the minimum wage, chronically weak business investment and growing government regulations – introducing a new paid holiday during the worst of the recession in 2009 demonstrates a mind-boggling lack of understanding of how business operates. These costs are before the new provincial pension plan adds to both the direct cost of labour and the indirect cost to firms of complying with an entirely new set of government levies.

The Wynne government has compounded the highest electricity costs in North America with uncertainty about the precise design of its announced plan to adapt a new cap-and-trade carbon pricing system. Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard said it was “remarkably easy” to persuade Wynne to join the plan, suggesting little thought was given to how it would affect Ontario’s competitiveness. No wonder a Chamber of Commerce survey found that one in 20 firms in Ontario expect to shut its doors in the next five years due to the high cost of electricity.

Disgraced CBC host Jian Ghomeshi pleaded not guilty:

Disgraced former broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi pleaded not guilty Thursday to five charges, including four counts of sexual assault and one count of overcoming resistance by choking.

 

This isn't a badge of honour and it's not a slump that can be climbed overnight:

Declining fertility rates have combined with increased life expectancy to create a Canada in which there are more seniors than children 14 and younger.

And projections released by Statistics Canada Tuesday show that gap will only increase over the next 40 years, leading to slower economic growth and a growing demand for social support, demographics expert David Foot says.

Policy-makers could consider Tuesday's news a wake-up call, although the University of Toronto economics professor said these trends have been ignored for decades.

"With that massive baby boom generation now entering their late 60s, inevitably, they're going to start" to retire, Foot said.  "We're going to have slower workforce growth — and that will affect the economy."

Being in the graying ranks of Japan and much of Europe is disheartening and disastrous.

Swedes embrace a six hour workday:

Swedish employers are moving towards offering workers a six hour day in a bid to increase happiness, health and productivity.

Maybe because the more "restive" of their population mostly comes out at night. Mostly.

Well, that's funny because it looked like support:

Davis, the elected clerk of Rowan County, initially refused to grant marriage licenses to gay couples and then stopped issuing them to gay or straight couples, claiming that doing so would violate her Christian religious values after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled same-sex couples have a right to marry.
Davis told ABC News she met the pope Sept. 24 at the Vatican embassy in Washington. “I put my hand out and he reached and he grabbed it, and I hugged him and he hugged me,” Davis told ABC News. “And he said, ‘Thank you for your courage.’“
Father Lombardi initially issued a statement saying he did “not deny the meeting took place, but I have no comments to add.”
However, since the private meeting between the pope and Davis “has continued to provoke comments and discussion,” Father Lombardi wrote Oct. 2, he provided a clarification “in order to contribute to an objective understanding of what transpired.”
Basilian Father Thomas Rosica, who assists Father Lombardi with the English-speaking press, told reporters later that depending on what people say after meeting the pope, it is clear “it could be distorted or manipulated; it could be exaggerated.”
He added, “I would find it hard to believe” that Davis and her husband had 15 minutes with the pope; it was more likely that the pope greeted a group of people, including the Davis’, and that all those greetings took 15 minutes or less.
Father Rosica said his personal opinion was that the meeting with Davis had a negative impact on Pope Francis’ visit to the United States, which otherwise was “extraordinary.”
“To allow this to overshadow it would be very unfortunate,” he said. “This was one very small, small part of a much greater visit.”
Davis had told ABC News that a “church official” phoned and invited her to meet the pope; later reports attributed the invitation to Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the Vatican nuncio in the United States, who hosted the pope during his stay in Washington.
Although Davis’ name was not used, Pope Francis was asked about her case during his news conference Sept. 27 on the flight back to Rome.
“I cannot know all of the cases of conscientious objection that exist,” he said. “But yes, I can say that conscientious objection is a right that is part of human rights.”
“If a person is not allowed to exercise conscientious objection, he is denied a right,” the pope told reporters.
As a follow-up, the reporter asked if that should apply to a government official, and the pope replied, “It is a human right. If the government functionary is a human person, he has that right.”
- See more at: http://www.catholicreview.org/article/home/vatican-says-popes-meeting-with-kentucky-clerk-is-not-endorsement#sthash.HNVrP0Ny.dpuf

Davis, the elected clerk of Rowan County, initially refused to grant marriage licenses to gay couples and then stopped issuing them to gay or straight couples, claiming that doing so would violate her Christian religious values after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled same-sex couples have a right to marry.

Davis told ABC News she met the pope Sept. 24 at the Vatican embassy in Washington. “I put my hand out and he reached and he grabbed it, and I hugged him and he hugged me,” Davis told ABC News. “And he said, ‘Thank you for your courage.’“

Father Lombardi initially issued a statement saying he did “not deny the meeting took place, but I have no comments to add.”

However, since the private meeting between the pope and Davis “has continued to provoke comments and discussion,” Father Lombardi wrote Oct. 2, he provided a clarification “in order to contribute to an objective understanding of what transpired.”

Basilian Father Thomas Rosica, who assists Father Lombardi with the English-speaking press, told reporters later that depending on what people say after meeting the pope, it is clear “it could be distorted or manipulated; it could be exaggerated.”

He added, “I would find it hard to believe” that Davis and her husband had 15 minutes with the pope; it was more likely that the pope greeted a group of people, including the Davis’, and that all those greetings took 15 minutes or less.

Father Rosica said his personal opinion was that the meeting with Davis had a negative impact on Pope Francis’ visit to the United States, which otherwise was “extraordinary.”

“To allow this to overshadow it would be very unfortunate,” he said. “This was one very small, small part of a much greater visit.”

Davis had told ABC News that a “church official” phoned and invited her to meet the pope; later reports attributed the invitation to Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the Vatican nuncio in the United States, who hosted the pope during his stay in Washington.

Although Davis’ name was not used, Pope Francis was asked about her case during his news conference Sept. 27 on the flight back to Rome.

“I cannot know all of the cases of conscientious objection that exist,” he said. “But yes, I can say that conscientious objection is a right that is part of human rights.”

“If a person is not allowed to exercise conscientious objection, he is denied a right,” the pope told reporters.

As a follow-up, the reporter asked if that should apply to a government official, and the pope replied, “It is a human right. If the government functionary is a human person, he has that right.”

In other news, a new bishop has been elected for Ispahan, Iran:

Pope Francis has confirmed the election of Rev. Sarkis Davidian as Armenian bishop of Ispahan, Iran.

Sarkis Davidian was born in 1943 in Aleppo, Syria, and was ordained a priest in 1970. He has served as parish priest in France and Lebanon, and currently exercises his ministry as pastor in Armenia.

According to Vatican statistics, the diocese has  2,000 Catholics with one priest and a dozen religious.