For a Friday

The last Friday of the year...




What the mad theocratic state of Iran has received in sanctions relief:

In the three years since a preliminary nuclear deal was struck with Iran, Tehran has received more than $10 billion in sanctions relief from around the world in the form of cash and gold, according to current and former U.S. officials.

The large shipments of gold and cash, from oil funds unfrozen in numerous countries, represents the kind of financial relief that made Iran’s leaders eager to complete the international nuclear accord. 

Some of the cash and gold went to Iran while the U.S. and other world powers negotiated with Tehran on a final nuclear deal. More shipments took place after final deal went into effect last January.

This tallying of the sanctions relief to date includes payments previously announced and others that haven’t been. In one previously unreported payment, the U.S. authorized Iran to receive $1.4 billion in sanctions relief between when the final deal was struck in July 2015 and when it took effect, according to the U.S. officials.

Some U.S. lawmakers and Middle East allies contend that the shipments of cash and gold, a highly liquid form of money, can be used to fund Iran’s allies in the region, including the Assad regime in Syria, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and the Houthi political movement in Yemen.

Trudeau's party was tipped off in 2013 that a benefactor was wanted in China for corruption:

The Liberal Party of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was tipped off in 2013 that a wealthy party benefactor was wanted by China for corruption, long before the news became public, in an email that has been leaked to the South China Morning Post by a former party executive.

The former executive said they were assured at the time that the anonymous email and its startling claims about Vancouver developer Michael Ching Mo Yeung had been “dealt with”. But the party kept quiet and continued to accept donations and support from Ching and a pro-Trudeau political organisation, Tru-Youths United Association, set up in his office.

It would accept thousands of dollars from Ching in 2014 and 2015, while Tru-Youths helped staged massive Liberal fundraisers, including a 1,300-seat event in Toronto in June 2014.

It was not until April 2015 that the SCMP broke the news that Ching was in fact Cheng Muyang, the wanted son of corrupt Chinese communist party official Cheng Weigao.

Yet on December 15, 2013, the executive was among a group of Liberals who received a 1,500-word email from an anonymous tipster, identifying themselves only as “Snow White”. Ching’s teenage daughter, Linda, had just been elected unopposed as president of the Young Liberals in British Columbia, to the apparent concern of the emailer.

This guy:

“Michael Ching as far as I know got quite involved around the time of the Trudeau leadership,” the federal Liberal source said. “He had supported Raymond Chan before that, but most of his support (of the LPC) was after 2012. From a Liberal perspective, this guy is seemingly quite connected across business and politics in Greater Vancouver.” ...

China’s deputy consul general to Vancouver, Fan Xiaodong, said China and Canada have been working co-operatively on repatriating Chinese fugitives and those who are involved in serious corruption cases. He said the countries share similar attitudes toward fighting crime, noting Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said that Canada will not become a paradise for criminals.

Make no mistake who owns Canada. It is not Canadians. Not anymore.





The lot of North Korean children:

The children are eight or nine years old and work up to 10 hours a day in the heat of the blazing sun. Neither they nor their parents are compensated for this back-breaking labor.

As the newspaper points out, these are the children of North Korea’s working class. Familiar class stratification has emerged in North Korea, with the communist party and the government employees at the top, and the underclass at the bottom.

The children of the former attend newly-constructed schools and enjoy, as much as they can in the Hermit Kingdom, a semblance of a normal life. The latter are barely surviving in a state of abject poverty and servitude. So much, then, for the communist commitment to equality. 

An explanation for John Kerry's anti-semitic comments:

The protocol states that Kerry and Rice told the Palestinian delegation that the current US administration under President Barack Obama would be willing to cooperate with them in the UN Security Council given that the resolution would be a balanced one. The added that they have instructed US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power to be in contact with Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations Riyad Mansour.


  During the meeting, Kerry and Rice were reportedly both severely critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of wanting to destroy the possibility of a two-state solution. They also praised Erekat for predicting Netanyahu's policy trajectory four years ago—namely, one of maintaining the status quo while making minor adjustments. 

Kerry said that he could present ideas for a possible permanent solution on the condition that the Palestinians would endorse them upon their publication. Furthermore, he apparently advised the Palestinians to send a representative to Riyadh in order to share the suggestions with the Saudis. 

There is the back-stabbing.


Also: Canada is not Israel's friend anymore and PM Hair-Boy will prove it:

The questions for our Prime Minister are where he stands on both the motion itself, and the motives behind it. Does he agree that among all the nations within the UN it is Israel that most deserves this censure from the Security Council? Does he think Israel deserves the animus and antagonism of a departing U.S. president? Is this resolution in accord with Trudeau’s own views on the Middle East? 

Most particularly, does he see the censure as part of that move to a “more balanced policy” on the Middle East, which was a highlight of the Liberals’ election campaign? Does it stand as a needed “corrective” to his predecessor Stephen Harper’s abiding and full-hearted support of Israel? Would Trudeau support this motion to assist his desire to be perceived as a “more honest broker” (than Harper) in the Middle East? Perhaps when the exequies of Carrie Fisher are done, these questions might claim his attention.

(Sidebar: not bloody likely.)





Putin, once Obama's best friend, responds to impotent girly-man rage:

In a head-spinning turn of events on Friday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia announced that he would not retaliate against the United States’ decision to expel Russian diplomats and impose new sanctions — hours after his foreign minister recommended doing just that.

Putin, betting on improved relations with the next American president, said he would not eject 35 diplomats or close any diplomatic facilities, rejecting a tit-for-tat response to actions taken by the Obama administration on Thursday.

In an statement on the Kremlin’s website, Putin said he did not want to deprive children of access to a recreational area on an island in the Moscow River that his foreign minister had recommended closing. He went one step further, inviting all children of American diplomats accredited in Russia to participate in the traditional New Year and the Russian Orthodox Christmas parties at the Kremlin.

“While we reserve the right to take reciprocal measures, we’re not going to downgrade ourselves to the level of irresponsible ‘kitchen’ diplomacy,” his statement said, using a common Russian idiom for quarrelsome and unseemly acts.

The KGB agent knows how to play it cool.

In February, this might blow over.


Also:

To understand the pride and fierce devotion that Vladimir Putin inspires among Russians today, it is necessary to understand the Wild West that the dictator from St. Petersburg inherited when he took over from Yeltsin on Dec. 31, 1999 and his desire to erase the humiliation of the end of the Soviet Union and, to borrow a phrase, make Russia great again.

What should be humiliating is that Russia was a totalitarian state that oppressed and murdered its own people and others. It was a bully state that had to be dragged by its own people (and Saint John Paul II) into some vague semblance of democracy.

Putin would erase all that.





The Neanderthals had quite the appetite:

A new archaeological find proves our early relatives resorted to cannibalism, breaking open each others’ bones and feasting on the marrow.

Cave specialists discovered the 40,000-year-old bones of a newborn, a child and four adults or teenagers in Goyet, Belgium on Dec. 19. AFP reports the bones show clear signs they were cracked and cut open in order to extract the marrow.

And now, I will wrap up this post not with the many, many remembrances of  this past year but with a spark that maybe this coming year might bring some glad tidings.

Stay safe and healthy and thanks to everyone who reads here.

(Merci beaucoup)

Mid-Week Post

Oh, how times flies...



Not wishing to upset his master, John Kerry further insults Israel:

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday said Israel's building of settlements on occupied land was endangering Middle East peace, voicing unusually frank frustration with America's longtime ally.

In a swiftly issued statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Kerry of bias. He said Israel did not need to be lectured to by foreign leaders and looked forward to working with incoming President-elect Donald Trump, who has vowed to pursue more pro-Israeli policies.

In a 70-minute speech with mere weeks left in his tenure, Kerry said Israel "will never have true peace" with the Arab world if it does not reach an accord based on Israelis and Palestinians living in their own states.

(Sidebar: the Palestinians are actually Jordanian. Carry on.)


John Kerry further be-clowned himself by admonishing Israel for being both Jewish and democratic, something of a rarity in a region ruled by absolutist monarchs or ayatollahs who tend to despise those whose religious leanings are not their own.
 

A sizeable chunk of Israel is somehow not Israel because milquetoasts like Kerry carved it up and handed it to murderous fanatics.




Frustrated by Israel's recent treatment, soon-to-be president Donald Trump lashed out at the Obama administration for its condensed vitriol against the only democratic state in the Middle East:

President-elect Donald Trump accused President Barack Obama on Wednesday of throwing up “inflammatory” roadblocks during the transition of power and his administration of treating Israel with “total disdain,” further straining the veneer of civility between the incoming and outgoing leaders.

Speaking of carving up countries:

Syria would be divided into informal zones of regional power influence and Bashar al-Assad would remain president for at least a few years under an outline deal between Russia, Turkey and Iran, sources say.

Oh, this won't end well. 



I object to this, as well. Apes have been shown to be intelligent creatures that can be taught things. How do you teach a class b!#ch anything? 

The director of a West Virginia nonprofit agency who called first lady Michelle Obama "an ape in heels" in a Facebook post has been fired and the institution put under outside management, state officials said on Tuesday. 

Getting screwed in the new year:

Under changes enacted by the previous government, the tax treatment of universal life insurance policies will be less favourable starting Jan. 1. New policy holders will see a decrease in their ability to build up investment gains above death benefit premiums on a tax-free basis.

The new formula for calculating insurance will make policies a little more expensive or reduce death benefits, says Jason Safar, a PricewaterhouseCoopers partner specializing in personal taxes.
Business owners, large and small, will gain less from the sale of their operations as assets such as goodwill and trademarks will become fully taxable as investment income. Currently, half of the proceeds can be distributed tax-free as a dividend.

Investors will also no longer be able to rebalance their non-registered mutual fund investments in corporations structured as "switch funds" on a tax-deferred basis. As of the new year, capital gains from such moves will be taxed in the same way as equities.

(Sidebar: and let's not forget carbon taxes.)


**

When the prime minister indicated his preference for the ranked ballot, it was a clear indication of his intention to adopt a voting system that unfairly favours Liberal politicians. A CBC analysis shows that a ranked or “preferential” ballot would help the Liberals win more elections. That kind of advantage should never be obtained through secretive cabinet processes or in the absence of the consent of Canadians. But from the beginning, the Liberal approach to electoral reform has been opaque, inadequate and worthy of mockery.

People actually voted for this.




Yes, this actually happened:

A Canadian man punched a cougar in the face to stop it attacking his dog in a wooded area near a fast food store in Whitecourt, central Alberta, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said on Wednesday.

Standard Holiday Post

 

 

With the rush of Christmas Day over...



Oh, dear:

Actress Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia in Star Wars, has died at age 60, her daughter’s publicist says.

Fisher, known best for her role as Princess Leia Organa in Star Wars, suffered what was described by witnesses as a massive heart attack on a plane from London to Los Angeles on Dec. 23. 

Family spokesman Simon Halls released a statement about Fisher’s death on behalf of her daughter, Billie Lourd, saying she will be “missed profoundly.”

 

It is now believed that a wing malfunction caused a Russian plane to go down two minutes after take-off:

Russian investigators looking into the crash of a military plane that crashed, killing all 92 on board, believe a fault with its wing flaps was the reason it plunged into the Black Sea, an investigative source told the Interfax news agency on Tuesday.

The plane, a Tupolev-154 belonging to the Defence Ministry, disappeared from radar screens two minutes after taking off on Sunday from Sochi in southern Russia, killing dozens of Red Army Choir singers and dancers en route to Syria to entertain Russian troops in the run-up to the New Year.

German investigators believe that a Polish truck driver was murdered well before a Tunisian terrorist plowed into a Christmas market in Berlin:

A Polish truck driver whose hijacked vehicle was used to crash into a Berlin Christmas market was shot in the head several hours before the attack and could not have attempted to foil it as previously thought, Bild newspaper reported on Tuesday.


The newspaper quoted a confidential coroners report that said driver Lukasz Urban, 37, had suffered not only knife wounds in a battle in the truck cabin but also a gun shot wound to the head some 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 hours before the 8 p.m. attack.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is set to deliver a speech at Pearl Harbour:

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is scheduled to deliver remarks Tuesday at Pearl Harbor in a visit aimed at strengthening U.S.-Japan ties. Alongside President Barack Obama, Abe will speak some 75 years after Japan attacked the naval base in Pearl Harbor killing thousands and sparking the U.S. entry into World War II.

"The meeting will be an opportunity for the two leaders to review our joint efforts over the past four years to strengthen the U.S.-Japan alliance, including our close cooperation on a number of security, economic, and global challenges," the White House said about Abe's visit to the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor in statement. "The two leaders’ visit will showcase the power of reconciliation that has turned former adversaries into the closest of allies, united by common interests and shared values."

Abe will be the fourth Japanese prime minister to visit Pearl Harbor, but the first to visit the Arizona, a massive battleship that sunk after it was bombed, killing 1,177 Marines and sailors.  Abe's visit is a show of reciprocation after Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, one of the Japanese cities on which the U.S. dropped a nuclear bomb in 1945.

Oh, stop being such a girl's blouse. The Obamas are insufferable cretins who no one really likes and everyone will be glad once King George the Narcissist Israel-Hater is out of office penning memoirs justifying his crappy presidency that will eventually find its way into the bargain bins at Amazon:

A former Donald Trump campaign official who wrote that he wanted to see Barack Obama dead of mad cow disease and Michelle Obama living with a gorilla in Africa now says those comments weren't meant for publication but were nevertheless "inappropriate."

Carl Paladino, a millionaire developer, one-time Republican candidate for governor and co-chairman of Trump's New York campaign, issued a statement expressing regret for the insults Tuesday, four days after their publication in the local publication Artvoice.

"I never intended to hurt the minority community who I spent years trying to help out of the cycle of poverty in our inner cities. To them I apologize," Paladino wrote.

But in the lengthy statement, Paladino also took fresh aim at the president, calling him a "traitor to American values," and said he wouldn't resign from Buffalo's school board, which called a special meeting later in the week to discuss his comments.

"I don't intend to yield to the fanatics among my adversaries. I certainly am not a racist," he wrote.

What Carl Paladino said and should never apologise for:

Artvoice asked Carl Paladino what he wanted to see happen in 2017. Paladino responded with: “Obama catches mad cow disease after being caught having relations with a Herford.” He also wished for Michelle Obama to “return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe.” His comments were verified to the Buffalo News on Friday morning.
Paladino was heard on WBEN Radio explaining that his comments were written to be funny.
"It used to be called humor, okay?" said Paladino. "There was a humor at one time." ...

"This is in response to my comments published in Artvoice:

"It has nothing to do with race.  That’s the typical stance of the press when they can’t otherwise defend the acts of the person being attacked. 

"It’s about 2 progressive elitist ingrates who have hated their country so badly and destroyed its fabric in so many respects in 8 years.

"It’s about them diminishing the respect for their country on the world scene, surrendering its status as the protector of human rights, disgracing the memory of its veterans who gave so much.

"It’s about demeaning and weakening what was the most powerful military in the world, firing hundreds of good soldier Generals and Admirals who refused Barack’s illegal and irresponsible dictates.

"Michelle hated America before her husband won.  She then enjoyed all the attention, the multi -million dollar vacations, the huge staff and other benefits.  Then when Hillary lost, she and Barack realized that without Hillary, there was no one to protect the little, if any, legacy he had.  That’s when Michelle came out and said there is no hope for America.  Good, let her leave and go someplace she will be happy. 

"As for Barack, he’s a yellow-bellied coward who left thousands to die in Syria and especially Aleppo and he gets on TV and says he feels bad he couldn’t do anything about it.

"He supported the mass migration without vetting of people from Muslim countries and the open borders, not for the people, but to expand the democratic base to a permanent majority. 

"He couldn’t care less about the people.  He just commuted the sentences of another 650 drug pushers responsible for selling poison to our kids.

"It’s about the middle class, silent majority, rising up to destroy the Republican and Democrat establishment in America. 

"It’s about the end of an era when the people took all their information from the main street media, letting them tell us what the issues are and how to resolve those issues. People no longer trust the press.

"It’s about that fraudulent, shadow government with a lazy ass president who allowed non-Americans like Valerie Jarret to run the government on a day to day basis and order the Stand down in Benghazi and the later cover-up that does matter.

"It’s about Lois Lerner and the head of the IRS and the other criminal officials who haven’t been prosecuted or even investigated because the leaders of the progressive movement are above the law.

"It’s about the end of the progressive movement and reset of the direction of America for the next 30 years. 

"It’s about a president who interfered in a presidential election for his successor so flagrantly that he called Trump unfit for office. 

"It’s about a president who for 8 years did absolutely nothing for black children in our urban centers held prisoner by the cycle of poverty and illegitimate black leadership more interested in power and preserving their voting base by keeping them hungry and uneducated in the inner cities.

"And yes, it’s about a little deprecating humor which America lost for a long time. ..."

The situation in South Korea is poised to go from bad to "Oh my God!  They're going to drive off of a cliff!":

Dozens of lawmakers split from the conservative ruling party and likely will try to create a party fielding outgoing U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as its presidential candidate. Ban's potential rivals reacted by questioning his presidential credentials and touting their own ideas, including significant policy changes in regard with relations with nuclear-armed North Korea and allies United States and Japan.

Choung Byoung-gug, one of the 29- lawmakers who left the Saenuri Party accused President Park Geun-hye's loyalists in the party's leadership of "neglecting the values of real conservatism" and "shamelessly defending the historically worst infringement of constitutional values." More Saenuri lawmakers may leave the party in the coming weeks.

The split came as investigators widened their inquiry into the scandal surrounding Park, who has been accused of allowing a longtime confidante of manipulating government affairs and colluding with the friend to extort money and favours from the country's biggest companies. The investigators summoned a former presidential aide as well as the former health minister over the decision to support the merger of two Samsung affiliates.

 

A Chinese businessman is actually moving to the US to do business:

Overall speaking, the tax burden for manufacturers in China is 35% higher than in the U.S., Cao Dewang told China Business Network in an interview. He added that a combination of cheap land, reasonable energy prices and other incentives means that, despite higher manufacturing costs, he can still make more money by making glass in the U.S. than by exporting Chinese-made panes to the U.S. market.

A really bizarre incidence of road rage:

The violent encounter between Quebec police and an axe-throwing, machete-swinging motorist, which left an officer injured and the motorist dead, began in the middle of the night on Tuesday.

It was around 2:30 a.m. when the man refused to stop his car for police in Lévis, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, just upstream from Quebec.

It ended less than half an hour later in Sainte-Foy on the north shore, near Université Laval, after a dramatic high-speed chase that is now being investigated by Quebec’s police watchdog.

The 39-year-old man, who has not yet been publicly identified, managed to evade pursuing police cars as he crossed the Pierre Laporte bridge and even drove over spike belts designed to puncture tires. By that point, police from Lévis were joined in the pursuit by officers from Quebec City and the provincial force.

The Institute for Research on Public Policy was proposed by Pierre Eliot Trudeau in 1968. Carry on:

In the minds of Canadians, their country’s reputation on the world stage has improved under the Trudeau Liberals, according to a new poll from Nanos Research and the Institute for Research on Public Policy.

The same survey showed an increased number of respondents see federal-provincial relations improving under the Liberals compared with the previous Conservative government.

But the finding also indicates the Liberals are no better off than the Conservatives were at similar times during their mandates when it comes to whether Canada is headed in the right direction, or how well the government is performing.

One would think that if people did not go to church that they would at least watch the Charlie Brown Christmas special:

When Matthew Dowd of ABC News attempted to portray Mary and Joseph as “immigrants” who were “turned away by many,” the Twitterverse promptly swatted down the assertion from the network’s chief political analyst and mercilessly mocked his bungling butchery of the Christmas story.

Dowd, attempting to link the Biblical story of the birth of Christ to the contentious political issue of immigration, pointed to Mary and Joseph’s journey from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem in Judea. ...

As Luke 2:1-7 reveals, Mary and Joseph began their journey in Nazareth and concluded it in Bethlehem. Did these two cities exist a considerable distance apart? Sure. But Mary and Joseph weren't immigrants at all.

As the Gospel of Luke reads, "In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn."

In Dowd's effort to politicize the Christmas story and presumably issue a subtle jab at President-elect Donald Trump's immigration and refugee policies, facts didn't seem to matter -- since Mary and Joseph travelled from one city to another in the same country.

It's like Planned Parenthood enjoys scraping the bottom of the moral barrel:

Showalter writes that spurred on by videos exposing the sale of baby body parts by Planned Parenthood, the Senate Judiciary Committee dug into the matter and has now published a report outlining in detail the scope of aborted baby body parts profiteering, investigating biotech firms that were caught illegally selling tissue from aborted babies.

He reports:

    " ‘It's all there documented, classic invoice format, the skins of a Down Syndrome baby, brains of a baby, Fedex'ed overnight priority for $120. People just don't know this is going on,’ ...

 

(Merci)




And now, the South Koreans have built a robot they believe can used for industrial or military purposes:

Christmas Week: Tidings of Great Joy

 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

(Luke 2:9-14)



For all, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and do enjoy yourselves.

Friday Freakout

Your festive freakout...

Ba-ruch A-tah Ado-nai E-lo-he-nu Me-lech ha-olam a-sher ki-de-sha-nu be-mitz-vo-tav ve-tzi-va-nu le-had-lik ner Cha-nu-kah.

Blessed are You, Lord our G‑d, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments, and commanded us to kindle the Chanukah light.

English Christmas customs explained:

Crackers stem from a Victorian confectioner named Tom Smith, who was on a visit to Paris in 1840 when he noticed how the French wrapped bon-bons in colored tissue paper and decided to try selling a similar product in Britain. After middling sales, inspiration hit him one evening by the fireplace when the crackling sounds caused him to imagine opening bon-bons with a bang (he was really into bon-bons). After finding the perfect mix of chemicals for his explosive new packaging, their popularity grew and grew.

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen...




Why are red and green Christmas colours? 

As with many other old Christmas traditions, there’s no hard-and-fast event that deemed red and green the Official Colors of Christmas™. But there are theories—the green may have derived from the evergreen tradition that dates back to before Christianity, and the red may be from holly berries. While they’re winter-hardy, just like evergreens, they also have a religious implication: The red berries have been associated with the blood of Christ.

'Trappings of popery and rags of the beast'.  

No one cares what Oliver Cromwell (Lord Protector of England, Puritan), that pie-hating freak, thought.




And now, let us revel in the letters of children to Santa Claus, in all their purity and innocence:

 

Christmas Week: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Because it is.
 

Case in point:

The suspect in the Berlin Christmas market attack was shot dead Friday at a Milan checkpoint by an Italian police trainee, bringing an end to an international manhunt for the 24-year-old Tunisian that had kept the continent on edge as the holidays approached.

Anis Amri was killed following a dramatic encounter in the Piazza I Maggio in the Sesto San Giovanni area outside Milan, after a two-man patrol stopped him for questioning around after 3 a.m. on suspicion of burglary. One of the officers requested his identification. Amri responded by pulling a gun, shooting one officer in the shoulder.

The second patrolman — trainee Luca Scata — fired back, killing Amri, according to Italian officials.
When encountered by police, Amri pulled a gun and shot one officer, before being shot dead. His identity was confirmed via a fingerprint match.

“He was the most wanted man in Europe,” said Minniti. “There is absolutely no doubt that the person killed is Anis Amri.”

Unconfirmed reports state that Amri travelled from Germany on a train through France and into Italy, arriving at a Milan train station at around 3:00 a.m. local time.

The news comes as German police said they had thwarted a new terror attack planned against a shopping mall and arrested two brothers from Kosovo, as Germany and Europe are on high alert for the holidays.

 
The Italians had to do Germany's job.

If one is unclear what motivated this poor little lamb, let this edify one:

Anis Amri, the suspect believed to have carried out the terror attack in Berlin that killed 12 people on Monday, pledged allegiance to ISIS in a new video released by the group’s Amaq News Agency on Friday.

The video features Amri, named by ISIS as “Abu al-Baraa al-Tunisi,” standing in a public place and pledging allegiance to ISIS’ leader Abu Baker al-Baghdadi. He says the attack “sends a message to the Crusaders who bomb Muslims every day.” He adds, “We came to slaughter you pigs.”

Note to self: send Italy a fruitcake for a job well done.

Grazie.

Despite all this Yule tide turmoil perpetrated by one set of emotionally retarded thugs, there is still hope and joy motivated by what happened in a stable centuries ago:

From the ruins of a home in this deserted, once overwhelmingly Christian town, a trio of scavengers had plucked what was a sorry-looking Christmas tree and were spiriting it away in a pickup truck.

The tree was the sole hint of Christmas cheer on the eastern outskirts of Mosul. With savage fighting between Iraqi troops and ISIL continuing in Iraq’s second-largest city, this venerable cradle of Christianity on the Nineveh plains will be almost bereft of worshippers at Christmas Mass for the third consecutive winter after what had been an uninterrupted but increasingly problematic run of nearly 2,000 years.

Signs of ISIL’s attempts to destroy Christianity in Iraq are to be found everywhere in these recently liberated towns. The courtyard of a damaged Syriac Catholic Church in the Christian town of Khidr Elias that ISIL used as its regional headquarters was filled with graffiti glorifying jihad. Painted over, but still legible, were words in praise of ISIL, quotations from the Qur’an and an elegant riff comparing Islam to a palm tree in the desert.

Christian militiamen who now squatted triumphantly on the church grounds had counter-attacked with graffiti of their own mocking ISIL’s propaganda about ruling for eternity. The new messaging was clear: Christianity was back to stay.

Despite the recent defeat of ISIL from some of the Christian areas in northwestern Iraq, “we will not have a light Christmas,” said Sister Diana, a member of the Syriac Catholic Church.

The nun said she had been meditating about the nature of the Christmas celebration. “Despite what we have suffered, we will have a real Christmas of understanding of the birth of Jesus on a cold night at a difficult time. Because that, too, is our situation,” she said.

 

 Of course the UN did:

The United States on Friday allowed the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlements, defying pressure from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, Israel and some U.S. lawmakers who urged Washington to wield its veto.

(Sidebar: in case one was unsure of how much of a vindictive douchebag Obama is, let this make one certain.)

Preserving this anti-Semitic, dictator-supporting toothless organisation defies reason and countries should withdraw from it. 


Also: Netanyahu is far classier than that Jew-hating douchebag the Americans voted in twice:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today released a video wishing Christians around the world a Merry Christmas and inviting them to visit Israel...

Note to self: send Israel a fruitcake for a job well done.




No one in the popular press wants to admit that some screeching pansy accosted a woman and her children on a plane:

Two men were ejected from a JetBlue flight Thursday for reportedly harassing Ivanka Trump and her three children.

We know about the alleged incident because one of the men tweeted about it in real-time, and JetBlue confirmed in a statement that there was indeed a "conflict" aboard one of its planes.

But despite the airline's statement, and the fact that one of the men involved specifically used the word "harass," some headlines have sanitized the reported incident to the point where it's basically a story about nothing.

Here is what Twitter user and Hunter College professor Matthew Lasner tweeted Thursday morning about his husband: "Ivanka and [her husband Jared Kushner] at JFK T5, flying commercial. My husband chasing them down to harass them. #banalityofevil."

He then tweeted picture of Trump's daughter, with the caption, "Ivanka just before [JetBlue] kicked us off our flight when a flt attendant overheard my husband expressing displeasure about flying w/ Trumps."

"Ivanka and Jared on our flight. My husband expressed displeasure in a calm tone, JetBlue staff overheard, and they kicked us off the plane," he concluded.

Lasner later deleted the tweets, and he appears to have suspended his Twitter account altogether following the incident. ...

What's really remarkable here is that even though media's coverage of the incident has centered almost entirely on Lasner's say-so, many headlines have omitted any sort of allusion to his own use of the word "harass."

From the Associated Press: "Man says he and husband removed from JetBlue flight after 'expressing displeasure' that Ivanka Trump was aboard."

From Yahoo News: "Man kicked off JetBlue flight for questioning why Ivanka Trump was on it."

From the Atlanta Journal Constitution: "Passengers kicked off flight after run-in with Ivanka Trump."

From the Washington Post: "Passenger who confronted Ivanka Trump gets kicked off Jet Blue flight."

Who generates "fake news"? They do.




As the year winds down, let us not forget the sad state of our economy and who put us there:

The Canadian economy retreated in October due to widespread weakness in the manufacturing sector and a decline in oil and gas extraction.

The gross domestic product was down 0.3 per cent in October, data from Statistics Canada showed on Friday, falling below economists’ expectations for no growth. September was revised slightly higher to growth of 0.4 per cent from the 0.3 per cent that was first reported.

“The GDP report is an ugly snowball of reality to the face of the economy to end the year after a nice run earlier in the fall,” said Douglas Porter, BMO chief economist.

**

The federal government ran a budgetary deficit of $1.5 billion in October as increases in spending on programs outpaced increases in tax revenues.

The Finance Department’s monthly fiscal monitor also says the federal government has a deficit of $9.3 billion since the 2016-17 fiscal year started in April.

That figure for the April-to-October period is a swing from the $600 million surplus the Finance Department reported during the same stretch in the 2015-16 fiscal year.

The monthly check on government spending shows that revenues rose by 11.3 per cent, or $2.5 billion, compared to the same time last year, with more money coming in from personal income, corporate and excise taxes.

Personal income tax revenue rose by 7.6 per cent, corporate tax revenue rose by 16 per cent and GST revenues rose by $600 million.

Christmas Week: A Merry Christmas

I was channel surfing when I caught this - an episode of Archbishop Fulton Sheen in which he ties Superman, Batman and Christmas together.

Definitely worth a watch (get some hot cider):

When you go from this:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reimbursed taxpayers at least $38,000 for personal and family expenses during his first year in office, with extra childcare for his three kids topping the list.

To this:

Members of the Chinese community have been asked for payments of as much as $5,000 to attend private cash-for-access functions with the Prime Minister, amounts that exceed federal contribution limits.

The former is all attention-deflecting bunk.

Not buying it, Hair-Boy. It's chump change for the ruination of this country.





Some pansy-boy screamed at Ivanka Trump on an airplane and cannot for the life of him imagine why he was kicked off:

A male passenger was removed from a JetBlue flight on Thursday morning after reportedly “berating” Ivanka Trump and her family shortly before takeoff at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.

According to TMZ, the unruly passenger spotted the president-elect’s daughter in coach on the Florida-bound flight.

“Your father is ruining the country,” the man told Trump, according to TMZ. “Why is she on our flight? She should be flying private.”

As JetBlue personnel escorted him off the plane, he purportedly protested, screaming, “You’re kicking me off for expressing my opinion?”

Also in "let's leave liberals in Syria and watch what happens" news:

Ottawa school board trustee Donna Blackburn prides herself on being outspoken, but even she agrees that a personal text she sent to fellow trustee Erica Braunovan was a mistake.

In the profanity-laden text, she accused Braunovan of enjoying white privilege and of “buying” her children.

Braunovan and her husband have two young daughters they adopted from Guyana.

The insult came during a testy exchange over the seemingly innocuous topic of school board officials touring an unused part of Broadview Public School to consider what could be done with it.

But at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, there can be nasty politics. And these days, Blackburn is at war with some of her colleagues. Since the board adopted a code of conduct last spring that allows trustees to discipline each other for bad behaviour, four complaints have been filed against Blackburn, including one from Braunovan over the text exchange.

“I’ve jumped through hoops trying to work with this woman,” said Braunovan. “She’s called me names so many times I can’t keep count.” But the text about her children was the last straw, Braunovan told the Citizen. “This is starting to affect my family. I have these two beautiful little girls. My husband and I fought for years to bring these girls into our home. I don’t need that kind of negativity.”

The girls, 6 and 9, have already had to deal with comments from other children about how Braunovan isn’t their “real mom” since their skin colours don’t match, she said. Braunovan and her husband have talked to their girls about some of the stereotypes surrounding adoption, and reassured them they chose to build their family that way. “It’s something that’s very sensitive to my kids.”

They adopted the girls at the same time, four years ago, said Braunovan. “I’ve been a social worker my entire life. As long as there are kids out there who need a home, we wanted to (create a family) that way.”

Braunovan said she never expected she’d have to tell a fellow school board trustee not to say that adopted children are purchased.

The text exchange took a personal turn after Blackburn told Braunovan to drop the idea of touring the Broadview school property. The backdrop: Blackburn prides herself on voting in favour of rebuilding Broadview even though it wasn’t in her district, but she opposes renovating an unused older part of the school. Braunovan is the trustee for the ward where the school is located.

In the text, Blackburn warned of another “political firestorm” over Broadview. She advised Braunovan not to follow the lead of trustee Shawn Menard because he’s an “idiot all of the time.” A year ago, Blackburn got in trouble and apologized for calling Menard and other trustees “whackjobs,” which prompted the board to adopt a code-of-conduct policy. ...

“I am soooo tired of ur white pivelged bullshit,” Blackburn replied. “I bought a coupla kids. So ya take me on.”

 
See - this is one of the reasons why teachers' unions should be abolished. No one this unpleasant and racist should be allowed to remain anywhere near children.






Oh, this must be embarrassing:

McClinton, church and law enforcement officials told the AP, is an African American member of the burned church. According to authorities, the blaze was not motivated by the presidential race.

Oh, I'm sure I know what the motivation was.





So goes Berlin, so goes Melbourne:

Police say they have arrested seven suspects who allegedly planned a series of bomb attacks in the heart of Australia’s second largest city on Christmas.

Victoria state Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton told reporters on Friday the seven had been inspired by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and had planned attacks on Melbourne’s Flinders Street train station, neighbouring Federation Square and St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Ashton says police had been watching the alleged plotters for some time, and believed they were preparing to use explosives and other weapons.

Police said they believed the threat had been neutralized through the raids on Thursday night and Friday morning.

I wouldn't hold my breath.






Today in "are we still afraid of 'climate change'?" news:

Habibullo Abdussamatov, the head of space research at Pulkovo and the author of the study, has been predicting the arrival of another little ice age since 2003, based on his study of the behaviour of the Sun’s different cycles and the solar activity that then results. His model — informed by Earth’s 18 earlier little ice ages over the past 7,500 years, six of them in the last thousand years — led to his prediction more than a decade ago that the next little ice age would occur between 2012 and 2015. Unlike the global warming models of scientists, which were soon disproved by actual measurements, Abdussamatov’s models have been affirmed by actual events, including the rise of the oceans and the measurable irradiance sent earthward by the sun. This record of accuracy — which he has repeatedly demonstrated in studies between 2003 and now — leads him to now confidently state that in 2014–15, we began our entry into the 19^th Little Ice Age.

**

The Italian name for the caldera – Campi Flegrei, or “burning fields”- is apt. The 7.5-mile-wide cauldron is the collapsed top of an ancient volcano, formed when the magma within finally blew. Though half of it is obscured beneath the crystal blue waters of the Mediterranean, the other half is studded with cinder cones and calderas from smaller eruptions. And the whole area seethes with hydrothermal activity: Sulfuric acid spews from active fumaroles; geysers spout water and steam and the ground froths with boiling mud; and earthquake swarms shudder through the region, 125 miles south of Rome.

And things seem to be heating up. Writing in the journal Nature on Tuesday, scientists report that the caldera is nearing a critical point at which decreased pressure on rising magma triggers a runaway release of gas and fluid, potentially leading to an eruption.

**

The second major mistake in the government studies is the way in which they frame the social costs of carbon. As all champions of cost/benefit analysis understand, it is a mistake to look at costs in isolation from benefits, or benefits apart from costs. Yet that appears to be the approach taken in these reports. In dealing with various objections to its reports, the IWG noted in its July 2015 response that “some commenters felt that the SCC estimates should include the value to society of the goods and services whose production is associated with CO₂ emissions.” Their evasive response has to be quoted in full to be believed: “Rigorous evaluation of benefits and costs is a core tenet of the rulemaking process. The IWG agrees that these are important issues that may be relevant to assessing the impacts of policies that reduce CO₂ emissions. However, these issues are not relevant to the SCC itself. The SCC is an estimate of the net economic damages resulting from CO₂ emissions, and therefore is used to estimate the benefit of reducing those emissions.”

Read the rest of this essay.






But being smug is what Canadians do best:

It’s not that Canadians shouldn’t be proud of Canadian society. They certainly should. But if I could enforce a new year’s resolution on this country, it would be to be mindful of and thankful for what dumb luck has bestowed upon us, and to dial down the smugness a long, long way.

It won't happen, even after someone's legs get blown off.

If Putin gets one bomb, Trump will get two! 

President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday called for the United States to expand its nuclear arsenal, after Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country’s nuclear potential needs fortifying, in what would reverse decades of efforts to reduce the number and size of the two countries’ nuclear weapons.

And now, Noel Nouvelet. Enjoy:

(Merci)

Christmas Week: Mid-Week Post

 

On the first day of winter, my true love gave to me...
 


The suspect wanted for killing twelve people at Christmas market in Berlin was meant to be deported:

A Tunisian man wanted in connection with the deadly truck attack on a crowd at a Berlin Christmas market had been previously investigated over an earlier terror plot, a senior German official has said.

It emerged that Anis Amri had been under covert surveillance for months but German police called off the operation in September.

Ralf Jäger, the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state, said an investigation had been launched against as Amri, who was due to be deported, earlier this year on suspicion of "preparing a serious crime endangering national safety".

He moved around Germany and lived in several places, Mr Jäger said. Since February this year he lived mostly in Berlin, but he had been back in North Rhine-Westphalia recently.

The man is aged 21 or 23 and known by three different names, according to reports in the daily Allgemeine Zeitung and the Bild newspaper.

Both said asylum office papers believed to belong to the man were found in the cab of the truck.

The documents, which announced a stay of deportation, were found under the driver's seat of the 40-tonne lorry that barrelled through the Christmas market in the heart of the German capital.

How many cement barricades will solve that?





A sad ending for the first victim of yet another terrorist attack in Europe:

Lukasz Urban would have been safely on his way home on Monday afternoon but for a hitch that meant he had to stay overnight in Berlin.

The Polish truck driver had been due to unload his trailer shortly after he arrived in the German capital at 7 a.m., but phoned his wife to say the delivery had been delayed until Tuesday. After a week and a half on the road, he had been looking forward to seeing his wife and son and was annoyed that he would have to stay.

Having bought a kebab for lunch, he went back to his truck in Friedrich Krauze Ufer, and was last in contact with his family at 3 p.m. When his wife tried to call him back at 4 p.m, there was no answer.

“The phone was just silent, silent. He should have picked up if he was on a break, particularly if his wife was calling,” said his cousin Ariel Zurawski, who was also his boss at the trucking company.

In that intervening hour, 37-year-old Urban had been hijacked by an armed assailant who would later use the truck to carry out a murderous attack on a packed Christmas market.

Urban would be found dead in the cab, shot and stabbed by the hijacker as he fought for his life, the first victim of the carnage.

Thanks, Angela Merkel.


#PolishLivesMatter





Also: damn vans!

A burning van has hit the headquarters of an Australian Christian lobby group, with the organisation's head saying on Thursday that the group had received death threats this year.

Do you know who else wanted the Keystone Pipeline? Stephen Harper:

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Wednesday that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump was "very supportive" of TransCanada Corp's proposed Keystone XL crude oil pipeline in their first conversation after the U.S. election.

"He actually brought up Keystone XL and indicated that he was very supportive of it," Trudeau told an event in Calgary, Canada's oil capital. "I’m confident that the right decisions will be taken."

 


  
But if someone cuts off Trudeau's slush fund, how can he buy more product for his hair?

The federal Conservatives are calling on the Trudeau Foundation to stop accepting foreign donations after a National Post analysis showed foreign donations increased ten-fold since Justin Trudeau won the Liberal leadership.

“I think if the Prime Minister had the wisdom that I hope he does have, that he would tell his family foundation to stop taking the foreign donations until Canadians can be assured that there’s no dirty dealings happening,” said Conservative house leader Candice Bergen.

Last week the National Post reported that about forty per cent of 108 donors, directors and members of the foundation since 2014 — or one in six when not counting academic institutions — have affiliations with organizations that currently lobby the federal government. Overall donations have increased four-fold since Trudeau won the Liberal leadership in April 2013.

The Trudeau Foundation says that the “vast majority” of the foreign donations were made by Canadian citizens living abroad. As the Post reported, the majority of foreign-donated funds came from the Switzerland-based McCall MacBain Foundation, founded by Marcy McCall MacBain and her husband John McCall MacBain, a Canadian and the Trudeau Foundation’s chair and the 75th richest person in Canada according to Canadian Business magazine. The McCall MacBains have donated more than $25,000 to the Liberal party over the past decade.

The donation that has received the most attention is from Chinese national Bin Zhang, who, along with a partner, made a $200,000 gift to the Trudeau Foundation after he attended a cash-for-access fundraiser with Justin Trudeau in May 2016.

Interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose asked ethics commissioner Mary Dawson to look into that donation to determine whether Trudeau had broken the law. Last Tuesday, Dawson wrote a letter to Ambrose saying she would question Trudeau about some cash-for-access events, but would not ask him about the Trudeau Foundation.

“In relation to the donation to the Trudeau Foundation, at this time I have found no evidence that Mr. Bin [Zhang] has dealings with or is seeking funding from the Government of Canada or that Mr. Trudeau had any involvement in soliciting the funds from Mr. Bin [Zhang],” wrote Dawson.

(Sidebar: it's called your job. Do it.)

Bin Zhang is a Communist Party official who helps spread Chinese influence as president of the China Culture Industry Association, a group that is supervised by the Ministry of Culture and tasked with building international ties for Beijing. Other members of the group include senior leaders from the navy, the army, and China’s ruling Communist Party.

Zhang’s $200,000 donation will fund conferences and events. “It is expected that many of these events will explore the evolving role of China in the world and Canada-China relations,” according to an Aug. 17 post on the foundation’s website.

I'd say that is a very big fish worth investigating.




They kicked out Santa:

A Cape Breton fire chief says members of his department — including one dressed as Santa — were just trying to bring some holiday cheer to a local school when they were politely asked to leave because of an ongoing labour dispute.

A Chinese school was closed due to smog:

Despite school closings in areas under a smog-induced red alerts, photos shared widely on Chinese social media showed more than 400 students sitting an exam on a football pitch after their school was forced to close — while shrouded in a grey haze.

State media reported the school principal was suspended “for causing a bad impact on society.”

 
But what about all of that pristine Chinese air I kept hearing so much about?

Can you imagine what it’s like for a woman, 30 weeks pregnant, to have to seek a lawyer to end her pregnancy? Awful.

Yeah, I can and it sickens me. Abortion eliminates one human being and rots the soul of another.

How badly can one person want her kid dead?

Oh, this will definitely be embarrassing:

Thae Yong-ho, North Korea’s former Deputy Ambassador to the U.K., who defected to Seoul earlier this year with his wife and two sons, is leaving the protection of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service and entering South Korean society, where he will not remain silent. - See more at: http://freekorea.us/2016/12/19/citizens-of-pyongyang-my-name-is-thae-yong-ho-part-2/#sthash.sydwSw1p.dpuf

Thae Yong-ho, North Korea’s former Deputy Ambassador to the U.K., who defected to Seoul earlier this year with his wife and two sons, is leaving the protection of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service and entering South Korean society, where he will not remain silent.

The North Korean dictator and those who fear him cannot claim that Thae was an embezzler or some other kind of traitor once Mr. Thae debunks those awful rumours.

And what other secrets might he divulge...?

(Kamasahamnida)  

And now, let us celebrate winter with huskies, God's way of giving us more fur than we can deal with:

Huskies often run long distances on very little food. When humans attempt this, we start to use our body’s glycogen and fat and eventually get fatigued. But huskies burn a lot of calories without ever tapping into these other energy stores—and they do this by regulating their metabolism.