Mid-Week Post

So much to talk about...


Wow. I didn't see the "bullied" defense coming:

A 17-year-old boy accused of shooting four people to death in a remote Saskatchewan community described himself as an “outcast” at home and victim of bullying at school, say his friends.

The teen, who made his first court appearance Monday, was known to hold his emotions inside and rarely spoke, even when hanging out with his high school buddies in La Loche.

“He was the black sheep of the family,” said Noel Desjarlais-Thomas, who described the accused as one of several friends who always hung out together.

The 16-year-old said the teen suspect would message the others in his circle of friends about not being treated equally or fairly by his family.

“He just said he was going to do something. He never really said much after that,” Desjarlais-Thomas said Monday.

“We’d ask ‘Why?’ He never really told much. After that, it would just go blank. The conversation would just stop and something else would happen, the subject would (change.) No one ever thought this was going to happen.”

Perry Herman, who also knows the accused, said the teen was teased about his large ears.

“So many of those times that those boys joked around with him about his ears and whatnot, he didn’t get up and say, `You boys stop talking to me like this, it’s hurting my feelings.’ He just bottled it up.”

Herman said the bullying must have been going on for a long time.

The suspect, who can’t be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and seven counts of attempted murder.

If PM Trulander had the wontons or the scruples (neither of which is credible) he would scrap the Indian Act and let the parents take charge of their own damn kids:

It will take a lot more than just lip service to put right the years of systemic discrimination and underfunding endured by First Nations children, an emotional group of indigenous advocates said Tuesday as their nine-year battle with Ottawa culminated in a landmark human rights decision.

Money — specifically, at least $200 million more a year in child welfare funding in order to close the fiscal gap — would be a good first start, said Cindy Blackstock, the social worker whose tireless crusade is at the heart of the ruling.

 
Or one could put them in institutions where they would be looked after and educated.

Heaven forbid.



No wonder someone hung up on this douchebag:

Ottawa's role is not to force cities such as Montreal to accept energy projects, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday, a day after his opponents demanded he tell the city's mayor to "smarten up" and accept the Energy East pipeline.

But putting raw sewage into the river is a good idea?




But who allowed it, Premier Wynne?

Ontario's Liberal government said Monday it had allowed two colleges to create male-only campuses in Saudi Arabia, but added that a gap found in the approval process will be closed.

Reza Moridi, minister of colleges and universities, said Niagara and Algonquin Colleges applied to his ministry to establish the two Saudi campuses, and were given the green light by a previous minister in 2008 and 2012.

However, Moridi said the province's responsibility was to approve financial plans for the two Saudi expansions and it was up to the colleges to determine who was admitted.

"We see there is a gap in the process between the parts that are left for the boards of governors at the colleges to approve and the other parts that are on the government's side to approve," he said.

"We want to talk with the sector to make sure that gap is eliminated."

Like fun it will be.

Also:

 

A two-year battle with York University led to a precedent-setting outcome for student Navi Dhanota after she fought a school policy that required students seeking academic accommodations to reveal their illness or disability to staff.

Dhanota first tried to get accommodations during her undergraduate studies. She needed to write her exams in a smaller room but was told she needed a psychiatric diagnosis to do so.

The process was overwhelming. One psychiatrist told her she could have six different mental illnesses, and after facing the same problem while trying to get academic accommodations during post-graduate studies at York, she decided to fight for change.

After filing a human rights complaint against the Toronto university, Dhanota’s efforts have forced the school to rewrite its guidelines for accessing accommodation, which could influence other universities across Canada.

“I think it will certainly change how universities determine accommodations for students,” said Cathy Rose, accessibility services co-ordinator at the University of Prince Edward Island.

Pampering our snowflakes one at a time. 

The audacity:

Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy is leading the call for a new law that would lay out how Canadian politicians and bureaucrats should proceed when citizens are detained overseas.

Just in time to remember the Holocaust:

Canada confirmed for the first time on Tuesday that it plans to lift its sanctions on Tehran and said that if Airbus is allowed to sell to Iran, then its aircraft maker Bombardier Inc should be allowed to export there as well.

This is the same Iran that has since 1979 been arresting dissidents, persecuting religious minorities, killed Zahra Kazemi and enriched uranium.

Canada used to be friends with Israel.




Thank you:

Maajid Nawaz, who was formally a member of radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, is now seeking to challenge the narrative of Islamic extremists and form a more moderate Islam.

Currently in Australia for a series of talks, Nawaz told Yahoo7 that everyone has a role to play in how Islam can be reformed.

“We need a rational conversation about reforming Islam,” Nawaz told Yahoo7.

“That begins by everyone – in the Left, Right and Centre of politics – feeling like it is our conversation to have.

“Just like with Christianity or Judaism, which we feel we can discuss as they are our religions in our society.”

Nawaz said even non-Muslims have a role to play in this reform.

“You don’t need to be black to challenge racism, you don’t need to be gay to challenge homophobia, and you don’t need to be a Muslim to challenge Islam.

“You don’t even need to know anything about Islam to know that it is wrong to enslave and rape women like ISIS are doing with the Yazidi women.

“Where there is a specific duty is with the theologians, because the lay Muslim and obviously the non-Muslim cannot do the actual reform work in the theology.

“So there is a role for Muslim theologians in firstly being honest and candid about some of the challenging parts of the scripture and accepting that there are challenging parts,” Nawaz said.

An alleged asylum-seeker is accused of allegedly stabbing to death a female refugee centre worker:

A young asylum seeker has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a female employee at a refugee centre in Sweden.

The 22-year-old victim was stabbed to death at a centre for youngsters aged between 14 and 17 in Molndal, near Gothenburg, on Monday.

She was taken to Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, but died of her wounds.

Swedish newspaper Expressen named her as Alexandra Mezher, whose family was originally from Lebanon.

She had reportedly only been working at the centre for a few months.

"It is so terrible. She was a person who wanted to do good," a cousin told the paper.

"We have cried a lot. She was such a nice person, warm and happy."

Her parents described her as "an angel".

Police spokesman Thomas Fuxborg said there were signs of a violent fight at the home.

Two people were holding down the male suspect when police arrived at the scene.

He did not give any details about the suspect's age or nationality.

(Sidebar: spoiler: he was a "migrant".)


Oh, it gets better, and by better, I mean shockingly worse:

The head of the Swedish police has sparked outrage by expressing sympathy with the teenage asylum seeker accused of murdering social worker Alexander Mezher.

National Police Commissioner Dan Eliasson, who has already admitted police cannot cope with the wave of migrant crime, said he has concerns about the ‘horrors’ and trauma the accused murderer may have witnessed.

He said he was ‘distraught’ on behalf of Miss Mezher’s family but also for the killer, saying: ‘What has that person been through? Under what circumstances has he grown up? What is the trauma he carries?’

It came as court documents showed the boy suspected of the killing is being held in a secure psychiatric that specialises in patients with psychotic illness, drug and alcohol addiction.

Now there's a country that knows how to separate the wheat from the chaff.


Also:

Denmark's parliament passed measures on Tuesday aimed at deterring refugees from seeking asylum, including confiscating valuables to pay for their stay, despite protests from international human rights organizations.

The measures, which also include extending family reunification among refugees from one year to three years, are the latest sign that the Nordic welcome for refugees is waning as large numbers flee war in Africa and Middle East for a better life in Europe.

 
I'll believe it when I see it.




And now, could these be the best superhero performances in movies? Discuss:

Hugh Jackman is Hugh Jackman. Need I really say more? As Wolverine, Jackman has found the role of his lifetime, as he has made the grouchy, rugged, and hard-nosed X-Men character into arguably the most popular superhero in movies today. It all comes down to the intensity that Jackman injects into each action he takes or line of dialouge he speaks as Wolverine. You can tell how seriously he takes the character, and thus, we as audiences, take him seriously as well and end up connecting with Wolverine just as much (if not more) than any other superhero that has come across the silver screen.