In the August Hours....

... in June....


Despite some people's insistence that Islamists wouldn't hurt a fly, it is believed that the recent murder of a Hindu priest was committed by a man from Windsor:

After the near-decapitated body of a 68-year-old Hindu priest was found in western Bangladesh on Tuesday, the local ISIL affiliate claimed responsibility in a communiqué that vowed to “cleanse” the country of “filth.”

It was the latest in a wave of sectarian killings in Bangladesh — many of them attributed to a regional franchise of ISIL that is reportedly led by a Canadian and former southwestern Ontario resident named Tamim Chowdhury.

“He is from Windsor,” said Prof. Amarnath Amarasingam, a post-doctoral fellow at Dalhousie University’s Resilience Research Centre. “People who knew him say he was a quiet guy. Not much else is known about him at the moment.”

According to a report in the Beirut Daily Star, Chowdhury now uses the alias Shaykh Abu Ibrahim Al-Hanif, who was identified in the latest edition of the ISIL propaganda magazine Dabiq as the “emir” of its branch in Bangladesh.

In the magazine, distributed in April, Al-Hanif comes across as a violent hatemonger, referring to Hinduism as a “filthy, cow-worshipping religion” and threatening to “slaughter” those who did not subscribe to his militant version of Islam.

“We let our actions do the talking,” the lengthy interview quoted him saying. “And our soldiers are presently sharpening their knives to slaughter the atheists, the mockers of the prophet and every other apostate in the region.”

 Terrible news:

The baby who was delivered prematurely last month after her mother was fatally shot in Toronto has died.

Toronto police issued a brief statement saying the infant son of Candice Rochelle Bobb died Sunday night in hospital.

The statement said the family is asking for privacy.

Bobb, 35, was five months pregnant when she was shot in Toronto’s northwest end while returning home from watching a basketball game on May 15.

If Canadians are too fat, should we be offing them for their organs?

Cadaver organs aren’t what they used to be: New Canadian research suggests growing rates of obesity and its related diseases may be leading to suboptimal organs for transplant.

Given that Russia and China have designs on half of the globe, why haven't upgrades or revivals of any military craft been considered?

Now, Congress has ignited a flicker of hope for fans of the pricey airplane. A House subcommittee asked the U.S. air force to investigate what it would cost to put the tactical fighter back into production. By many accounts, no other fighter can match the F-22’s range of capabilities — many of which remain classified — for speed, agility, stealth, and battlefield sensor power.

With 183 in service, a reboot could mean, theoretically, the delivery of 194 additional planes that were planned before the program was cancelled. But at roughly US$67 billion, the F-22 program was ferociously expensive even by military contracting standards. The per-hour cost to fly it is higher than that of most of the Pentagon’s air fleet, including the newer, equally pricey F-35 Lightning II.

Measured against these near-insurmountable fiscal realities is newly aggressive behaviour and military upgrades by China and Russia. This year, Russia deployed its most advanced striker, the Sukhoi Su-35, for combat operations in Syria and is working to sell versions to China, Pakistan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Venezuela and Brazil.

China has begun marketing its advanced FC-31 tactical fighter, which analysts believe is based largely on data stolen in an April 2009 hack of Lockheed Martin systems related to the F-35 program.

Find something cost-effective if one must but do it quickly. Russia and China will wait for only so long.


Also:

Anakonda and Baltops 2016 are scheduled just weeks before NATO’s July summit in Warsaw, where it is expected that NATO will agree to deploy almost 5,000 troops from Britain, the United States and Germany to Poland. Polish President Andrzej Duda, in light of recent Russian activity in the region, has been calling for a permanent NATO presence in Poland since January.

Anakonda’s size and location has already rankled some officials in Russia, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov telling his Finnish counterpart Monday that his country would respond to NATO and the United States’ increased activity in the Baltic region, though he did not go into specifics.

“We will invoke Russia’s sovereign right to guarantee its security with measures proportionate to the current risks,” Lavrov told reporters after the meeting.

(Sidebar: I'm sure Mr. Lavrov meant that Russia reserves the right to invade whatever country it wishes.)




Good:

For 12 of the 13 years Danny Papadatos has chaired the Saskatoon Pride Festival, the city’s mayor — who’s been in office for that entire time — has declined invitations to march in the event’s parade. (The first year Papadatos was in the role of chair, the mayor wasn’t sent an invite.)

This year will be no different, as Mayor Don Atchison won’t be able to attend since it falls on the same day as his father’s 90^th birthday. Atchison isn’t the only mayor to not attend Pride parades.

Toronto’s former mayor, the late Rob Ford, was heavily criticized for skipping the city’s Pride festivities every year he was in office, even when it played host to the World Pride festival in 2014.  

Last year, Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro barred the Italian city from hosting a Pride parade, saying it was the “height of kitsch.” 

(Sidebar: Che menefrighista!)

Maybe the components of the self-important sexual sub-culture alphabet soup will get over themselves and stop demanding that everyone treat them as though they were all that.

It's not like the mayor is bucking Canada Day or anything.


Speaking of Canada....

Niki Ashton, the jet-setting MP who lent herself to the Bernie campaign, was similarly nonplussed about the mini-furor that erupted in Canada, pointing out the House of Commons doesn’t sit on Sundays and she was back in Ottawa for when it did Monday. But while Ashton and the average American might not think her little vacation was a big deal, their apathy doesn’t make the notion of a legislator from one country butting into the electoral process of another country any more palatable.

This isn't the first time a sitting member of Parliament went against Canadian interests. First, there was Justin's dad supported Hitler and then Mao Tse Tung (his son followed suit and China couldn't be happier). Then there was fellow NDP member and then environment critic Megan Leslie who went to Washington to campaign against the Keystone Pipeline. Keeping Canada a reputable and economically stable global powerhouse means not lauding dictators, crippling major industries that provide jobs or campaigning for socialists in other countries.

But this is asking too much for the post-modern Canadian statesman, the one who opts to divide and conquer in order to win elections, the one who sees no conflict-of-interest in propping up foreign bodies or deriding interests that matter to the whole, the one who thinks that an undeserved sense of entitlement (TM - HH) alone should result in being given what one wants:

DiNovo made that clear Tuesday when she announced her candidacy for leadership of the federal party, in place of the departing Thomas Mulcair. Though she wants the job, she said, she’s not about to pay the $30,000 required to register as a candidate. Because she doesn’t believe in it.

“I just feel, in principle, that’s wrong — that for the leadership of a democratic, socialist party, it shouldn’t be about the money,” DiNovo said. “Money should not in anyway be a barrier for the leadership of a Democratic Socialist Party.”

Nor should money be a barrier to anything else. DiNovo advocates free post-secondary education, free dental care and free pharmacare. She wants the party to sign the Leap Manifesto and pursue every one of its ambitions and expensive goals.

In short, DiNovo believes you should have the things you want, but you shouldn’t have to pay for them. If you want to be party leader, you shouldn’t have to pay, even if the law says you must. If you want an education, you shouldn’t have to pay. If you want a warm house in winter, you should have heat, but you shouldn’t have to produce it or transport it through any means other than those that satisfy your principles, no matter how expensive that may be. If you have a child, you should have childcare, whether you can afford it or not. The minimum wage should be $15, or higher if that’s not enough.

“It sounds radical, but there’s nothing radical about any of this,” she insisted. “Paying for it is the least of our problems.”

No, paying for it is your problem, Miss DiNovo. If you derive more satisfaction from forcing people to pay for your stuff than you do acquiring it through hard work and ingenuity then what it says about you isn't flattering. Like the trust-fund baby who expected to get a cushy job because his dad was prime minister, your lack of consideration is as infuriating as Miss Ashton's apathy to the very country that gave her succour merely because she wanted to "feel the Bern".

Feel the burn when the public grows tired of your juvenile grubbing.




What crooks!

A Kingsville, Ontario greenhouse operation and two top executives were slapped with fines totalling $1.5 million Monday for selling foreign-sourced vegetables — mostly from Mexico — that were falsely labelled as being from Canada.

Come on, guys. Can't we all just get along and renovate Jesus' tomb as brothers?

A team of experts began a historic renovation on Monday at the spot where Christians believe Jesus was buried, overcoming longstanding religious rivalries to carry out the first repairs at the site in more than 200 years.

The project is focused on reinforcing and preserving the Edicule — the ancient chamber housing Jesus’ tomb in Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It is the first such work at the tomb since 1810, when the shrine was restored and given its current shape following a fire. ...

The Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian churches are responsible for maintaining separate sections, and each denomination jealously guards its domain. While the clergymen who work and pray at the church generally get along, tensions can rise to the surface. In 2008, an argument between Greek Orthodox and Armenian monks erupted into a brawl.

This time, the clergymen put aside their differences — a reflection of the dire need for the repairs. Last year, Israeli police briefly shut down the building after Israel’s Antiquities Authority deemed it unsafe, prompting the Christian denominations to join forces.

“We equally decided the required renovation was necessary to be done, so we agreed upon it”, said the Rev. Samuel Aghoyan, the top Armenian official at the church.

And now, Bretagne, the last known September 11th rescue dog, is gone: