Friday Post

For a lovely autumn day...

Let's make something clear: Zunera Ishaq is a citizen in Canada, not a Canadian citizen. No Canadian citizen would express such contempt for a culture that has the rule of law and respect for the dignity of the person. Zunera Ishaq and the Islamist culture from which she sprang has none of that. She is now free to sponge off of Canadians' hard work and decency and thumb her nose at a populace that frowns upon an emotionally retarded ummah that cherishes violence above all else.

And no one stopped her:

The woman who won the legal right to wear a niqab during her citizenship oath has officially become Canadian.

Zunera Ishaq, 29, was granted citizenship Friday afternoon in a private ceremony in Mississauga, west of Toronto, said her lawyer Lorne Waldman.

"It was a very emotional ceremony," he said.

Before the oath, "she was taken into a room and identified herself and took off her veil in front of a female officer," he said.

"After that, we went into the office of the judge and performed the full ceremony," Waldman said.

"The judge made a very moving statement about what it means to be a Canadian...and then she was given her certificate, she signed her oath card, which every Canadian has to do, and then after that we all sang O Canada."

Media photos show Ishaq taking the oath wearing a floral-patterned niqab. She had previously said she wished to obtain citizenship in time to vote in the federal election on Oct. 19.

Perhaps Justin Trudeau is unaware that the little people will have to live with the unvetted voters block he desperately wants into the country:

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is spitting mad about reports that the Prime Minister's Office played a role in vetting Syrian refugees.

The Conservative government ordered a review of some cases this summer as a result of intelligence reports that warned of possible security threats. ...

Trudeau says the PMO was making sure it could take political advantage of those families that were being accepted, something he calls "disgusting."

He says a Liberal government would "absolutely not" prioritize religious and ethnic minorities.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the audit was ordered simply to ensure the most vulnerable were being selected without compromising national security, and insists his staff members were not involved in the selection process.

Even though his promises of flexibility were "transmitted" to Putin, Obama is powerless to stop Putin's surgical removal of ISIS from key pipeline areas in Syria:

In the eyes of former CIA director James Woolsey, Russian President Vladimir Putin is like the farmer Abraham Lincoln once recalled, who said he wasn’t greedy for land, he only wanted what adjoined what he already owned.

“That’s Putin,” Woolsey said.

That imperial impulse drove Putin to annex Crimea from Ukraine, and one of the Baltic states is “quite possibly next,” said Woolsey, who attributes Russia’s audacity partly to a U.S. administration that lacks the appetite to keep it in check.

“Since (U.S. President Barack) Obama backs down and backs down and backs down and backs down, it is virtually certain, from Russia’s point of view, that Obama’s not going to stand up to them, so they have plenty of leeway to use force.” ...

From airstrips in Syria and warships in the Caspian Sea, Russia has conducted more than 100 missile strikes since Sept. 30, and while Moscow claims it is targeting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and al-Qaida, it has also bombed insurgent forces fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, including those that make up the Free Syrian Army.

“They’re not going after ISIS, they’re going after the groups the CIA has had a hand in training because they don’t want to have any entity or group that supports the United States being strong,” Woolsey said after speaking to the Mackenzie Institute security think-tank.

Because John Robson:

It’s bad enough that we’re sending messages while they’re sending troops, to Ukraine, Syria and perhaps elsewhere. What this reflexive pattern of grandiose empty gestures really conveys is that the West, including Canada, doesn’t know the difference between words and deeds. Showing military capabilities we have no intention of using and no plan for using tells Putin and other interested observers aggression will go unopposed except by vain gestures and loftily inappropriate speeches. That’s the message we’re sending loud and clear and we don’t even know it.

 
Anyone expecting the UN to do something solid against North Korea is sadly in error:

The Special Rapporteur reminds the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea of its obligation under article 8 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights not to engage in forced labour. He stresses that companies hiring overseas workers from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea become complicit in an unacceptable system of forced labour. They should report any abuses to the local authorities, which have the obligation to investigate thoroughly, and end such partnership. 

That's not going to happen, not unless there are severe financial repercussions against companies and countries that use such slave labour. 

(Kamsahamnida)

I knew there was a reason why I liked elephants:

Elephants may hold the key to fighting cancer after scientists found that they carry a large number of genes that suppress tumours.

Researchers have long puzzled over why elephants do not develop cancer, even though they have lifespans that are similar to humans, living for around 70 years.

Now a team at the University of Chicago has found that elephants carry 20 copies of a tumour-suppressing gene called TP53. Most other species, including humans, only carry one copy.

The scientists found that the extra copies of the gene heightened sensitivity to DNA damage, which causes the cells to quickly die off when damaged before they can go on to reproduce and form deadly tumours.

The study also found that when the same genes were activated in mice, they developed the same cancer resistance as elephants.

Dr Vincent Lynch, the study author, said: “A major constraint on the evolution of large body sizes in animals is an increased risk of developing cancer.

“If all cells have a similar risk of malignant transformation an organism with many cells should have a higher risk of developing cancer than organisms with fewer cells. Organisms with long lifespans have more time to accumulate cancer-causing mutations than organisms with shorter lifespans and therefore should be at an increased risk of developing cancer.”

However elephants do not face an increased risk of cancer — a discovery dubbed “Peto’s Paradox” named after Sir Richard Peto, the Oxford University scientist who found that the incidence of cancer does not correlate with the number of cells in an organism.

Now scientists believe they know why. Elephants are the first species found to have 20 copies of the TP53 gene, which stops cancer growth by spotting when cells are damaged.

“These results suggest that an increase in the copy number of TP53 may have played a direct role in the evolution of very large body sizes,” added Dr Lynch.

The researchers hope it may now be possible to use this newly discovered protein to develop new treatments that can help stop cancers from spreading or even developing in the first place.

His cuddly fatigue alone could cure humanity.

And now, are you worried about pairing the wrong beer with the wrong cat this Thanksgiving holiday?

Worry no more!

(source)