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Often, there is...



Today in Canadian political corruption news:

One of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s closest friends is benefiting from an exclusive agreement between his data analytics company and the Liberal Party of Canada.

Data Sciences Inc, run by Trudeau’s boyhood friend, Tom Pitfield, is providing the party with “digital engagement” and support services for its powerful voter-contact database, Liberalist.

Neither the party nor Pitfield would say how much the agreement is worth to the firm, which Pitfield set up after his friend was elected party leader.

Pitfield’s wife, Anna Gainey, is the president of the Liberal Party and also a close friend of Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Gregoire. The two families vacationed together at the Aga Khan’s resort in Bahamas over the Christmas holidays.

A spokesman for the Liberal Party of Canada says Gainey does not get involved in decisions involving her husband’s company.

(Sidebar: oh, sure.)

**

A Fraser Institute report released Thursday details the ballooning of Ontario’s net debt under the Liberals — which has almost doubled since ’07 and is tracking toward a record $318 billion.

**

Environment Canada told Catherine McKenna early in her mandate as minister that a price on carbon would have to go as high as $300 per tonne in 2050 for Canada to meet its climate targets, a secret briefing document shows.

Keep telling one's self that it's just money.




The senator who opined that residential schools did some good now wants an account of how money is spent on First Nations reservations:

After hearing testimony about the atrocities committed in residential schools, Senator Lynn Beyak asked survivors at the Senate's Aboriginal peoples committee Wednesday what they thought about her plan for a national audit on all First Nations spending.

Beyak asked John Morrisseau and Doris Young, two elderly Indigenous people who faced abuse in school, if they thought it was appropriate to be spending money on renaming buildings, like Ottawa's Langevin Block, named after one of the architects of the residential schools, when there are children on reserve without clean drinking water.

Well, why not? 

Isn't clean running water more important than renaming a building?

I know this is a wrench in the shame-inducing works but people have to prioritise.

Wouldn't it then be teachers who are violating students' privacy?

Alberta Education Minister David Eggen said Wednesday that he was “disturbed” by new Progressive Conservative Leader Jason Kenney’s comments on gay-straight alliances in schools.

Reacting to Kenney’s comments Tuesday that parents should be informed when their child joins a gay-straight alliance in school unless the parents are abusive, Eggen posted on Facebook that Kenney has shown himself as an “extremist.”

“We work very closely with parents, but let’s not forget gay-straight alliances are support groups for students who are in a very vulnerable position,” said Eggen.

“If the government is compelling people to out those students in a very compromised situation, then they’re only serving to make the situation worse.”

How would the teachers know about their students? Are they prying into their lives?

How badly do we need to wipe out future generations?

The abortion pill is available in less than half of all Canadian provinces and territories three months after it first went on sale in Canada. 

Medical experts and advocates had hoped Mifegymiso — the official name of the two-medication drug also know as mifepristone or RU-486 — would help close the gaping urban-rural divide in access to abortion care services in Canada. But three months in, experts warn a strict regulatory regime could further entrench that divide and only existing abortion providers will be willing or able to distribute the pill. 

Yes, about that:

Cross-referencing demographic data, the Finnish researchers found that the risk of hemorrhage increased among aborting women using RU486 who were aged 20–24, who have had a previous birth, from a lower socio-economic class, and were living in a densely populated or rural area. Risk factors associated with an incomplete abortion were the same, but also included those having a previous abortion, unmarried, or having an advanced gestation.

In comparison to surgical abortion, the risk of hemorrhage with RU486 was nearly eight times higher, while the likelihood of an incomplete abortion was five times higher.

On the Korean Peninsula -


Did China, the country that enables North Korea to pursue its nuclear ambitions, help North Korea steal from the Federal Reserve?

Last February, cybercriminals stole $81 million from the account of the central bank of Bangladesh at the New York Federal Reserve Bank, one of the biggest bank heists ever. U.S. officials are now pointing the finger to North Korea as the culprit.

North Korea, if it is the culprit, almost certainly did not act on its own. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Federal prosecutors are investigating certain Chinese middlemen, who may have helped the North “orchestrate the theft.”

If such middlemen were involved, Chinese financial institutions were almost certainly complicit. If these institutions were complicit, Beijing must be supporting the criminal attacks. ...

The Journal reported last week that U.S. investigators think North Koreans were the ones behind the theft from Bangladesh because of the similarity of the code used in that cyberattack to the code employed in the 2014 attacks on Sony Pictures Entertainment. The Sony attacks have been attributed to, among others, North Korean hackers based in China.

Again, why aren't we lighting a fire under China?


Also - I doubt it will come to nukes:

The United States should be prepared to pre-empt a North Korean nuclear attack by using its own atomic weapons, a former head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has said.

James Woolsey, who was a senior adviser to then-President-elect Donald Trump before abruptly resigning in January, accused "the press and public officials" of ignoring or under-reporting the threat from the dynastic dictatorship.

In a hawkish joint column for The Hill he also claimed the Kim Jong-un regime could use a warhead-triggered electromagnetic pulse (EMP) to kill 90 per cent of Americans by knocking out the "national electric grid and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures for over a year", following a strike from space.

Satellite images taken over the weekend suggest North Korea could be in the final stages of preparation for its sixth nuclear test. Washington-based 38 North, a website that monitors North Korea, said the images showed the continued presence of vehicles and trailers at the Punggye-ri test site and signs that communications cables may have been laid to a test tunnel.

A lack of activity elsewhere at the site "may mean that test preparations are in their final stages," the report said, although it added: "Since North Korea knows the world is watching and is capable of deception, caution should be used before declaring that a nuclear test is imminent."

One cannot under-estimate what Kim Jong-Un might do or is capable of doing. But where his father was calculating, the younger Kim is a mad dog.

I'm thinking ... coup.

It is better to be a general of an overthrown dictator than a possible recipient of retaliation.




And now, melting candy. Enjoy.

This Post Is Islamophobic, Part Deux

Check it out:

Note the shrill cry of the virtue-signaller in her native environment - any arena with an audience. Her floppy hat and large white coat make her appear larger to the other species around her. With several thrusts of her pointed finger, she seems to say: "Beware! If I don't kill you with one blow of my tongue, my ear drum-piercing sanctimony will!"


You're not a hero, sweetheart.


If that guy ripped up a Bible, would you be shrieking at him then?

Smart money says no.

And one certainly does not hear any outrage over the desecrated religious texts, churches, temples, statues and homes of religious minorities in Muslim-majority countries. Surely that deserves outcries heard all around the world.


For an ostensibly secular school board to allow services where girls are relegated to the back of a gathering and where students can submit any sermon they like at prayers services that should not even be taking place, the Peel District School Board is decidedly partisan. Do things get as heated when Christmas rolls around?

Oh, wait...


Does the Peel District School Board feel, as at least one student does, that "God only loves Muslims"?

Would expecting secular schools to be completely secular be considered Islamophobic and require punishment?

On Mar. 24, 2017, an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan placed three online bloggers in the custody of a security agency, so they could be investigated and interrogated on blasphemy charges, resulting from what M-103 would define as their “Islamophobic” comments on social media.

Pakistan’s anti-blasphemy laws include a maximum sentence of imprisonment for life for insulting the Qur'an.

The punishment for insulting Prophet Mohammad can be the death penalty, although it has never been imposed by a court.

At times, however, the interpretation of what constitutes an insult to the Qur’an or Mohammad in Pakistan is not decided in court, but left in the hands of street mobs, zealots, and any Muslim who feels offended by what someone else has said or done.

Just as “Islamophobia” remains undefined in the M-103 motion passed in the Parliament of Canada, what constitutes an act of “insulting the Qur’an” in Pakistan is often arbitrary.

Haven't the powers-that-be sorted that out yet? People could be doing a kazillion Islamophobic things and could be getting away with it.


I'm sure that by even posting this, I'm making Baby Iqra Khalid cry but I don't think that I am alone in pointing out the cultural, logical and political dissonance it takes to elevate a pernicious ideology over all else and call it equality. It will certainly not score the Peel District School Board any points as it is slowly digested by the thing it allows, not reasonable accommodation but capitulation.



(Paws up)

Mid-Week Post

Your middle-of-the-week joy...



Every time people malign these guys, they become more and more attractive:

Video showing Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch at a meeting with members of a group that protested outside a Toronto mosque last month was called “deeply troubling” on Wednesday.

(Sidebar: was Iqra Khalid's presidency of the Muslim Student Association and her meeting with Islamist lobbyists not at all troubling? Is the Trudeau Foundation's sponsorship of a Liberal MP and its foreign donations in any way a concern?)


**

The Trudeau Liberals, it seems to me, have been having a slightly tougher time finding that ‘hot button’ sweet spot. Until the 2015 election, their go-to hot button was Stephen Harper himself.  But now, in power, they need a new bad guy to get their base upset enough to make a donation. Well, hello there Brad Trost. Trost is a Conservative who has been returned in five general elections by the voters of the riding now known as Saskatoon–University to be their member of Parliament.

Ask him — as I’ve done — and he’ll describe himself as to the right of Attila the Hun. He is a proud social conservative and a constant presence in the annual right-to-life anti-abortion demonstrations on the Hill. And, as my colleague Marie-Danielle Smith reported this week, he’s “not entirely comfortable with the whole gay thing.” 

Oh — and Trost is also running to be the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada which, one assumes, would be his first step to running for Prime Minister of Canada. 

That, pretty much,  is all the brain trust at Liberal Party HQ needs. Trost could not be more of the exact opposite of everything the Liberal leader (and prime minister) Justin Trudeau stands for. And when you get that kind of polarity, well, time to fire off a hot button fundraising email.

Seriously, just have a billboard saying vote for these guys or anyone like them. The more they are savaged, the more they appeal to people whose patience for corruption - both political and moral - has run out.




Why bother? Will it bring Phoenix Sinclair back from the dead?

The federal government is giving the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs $550,000 to consult with First Nations communities across the province on how to reform Child and Family Services.

Manitoba has more than 10,000 children in care and apprehends an average of one newborn baby a day. The vast majority — around 90 per cent — of children in care are indigenous.

Also:

Indigenous Affairs bureaucrats are deliberately flouting ATIP requests by not putting information in email. We know this because they said it themselves—in emails.

In documents obtained exclusively by The Rebel on an investigation into the audit of the Nunavut Planning Commission, there were a number of examples of staffers citing ATIP laws as reasons not to do or say certain things.

And:

A killer father in one of Canada’s worst cases of child abuse has won escorted temporary absences for six months.

“I know I’ve been described as a monster and I’m not quarrelling with that,” Edward (Tony) Dooley said at the conclusion of his parole board hearing at the Beaver Creek Institution — a minimum- and medium-security jail.

Dooley, 51, has been a model inmate while serving a life sentence for murdering his seven-year-old son, Randal, in 1998.

According to the parole board, Dooley will be able to go out on a series of day-passes which enable him to work on a supervised inmate crew doing painting, carpentry and general labour work at some non-profit community agencies.

“I loved my sons and I failed all of them miserably,” Dooley said at the hearing.

“We are the biggest contributors to the dysfunction in our families — absentee fathers — who are emotionally disconnected,” said Dooley.

The murderer added he spent long periods dealing drugs in the southern United States while he left his young sons with pregnant Marcia Dooley in Scarborough.

Another son, Teego, 26, lives in Brampton and the Dooleys’ youngest, Tyreek, was adopted.

Randal was born in Jamaica and came to Canada with his brother to live with his father and stepmother in Toronto in November 1997, 11 months before his death.

He had wasted to just 41 pounds and had 13 fractured ribs, a lacerated liver, four brain injuries, and head-to-toe bruises when he died in 1998.

 
This is bullsh--.




If North Korea can deliver Japan its third nuclear payload, why should a lightweight like Canada carry on with the pretense that it can avert that potential crisis?

A former Canadian ambassador for nuclear disarmament is accusing the Trudeau government of “irresponsible leadership” as Canada skips out on “historic” talks at the United Nations this week.

Douglas Roche, also a former parliamentarian, said in an interview Tuesday that if Canada wants a seat on the UN Security Council, it shouldn’t be so “fearful” of the United States. He also said the issue should be debated in the House of Commons, a sentiment echoed by an NDP MP who is in New York for the proceedings.

More than 100 countries are sitting down this week to negotiate “a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination,” according to a General Assembly resolution passed in December. The United States, United Kingdom, France, China and other nuclear powers are not participating.

By not having Canada in the room, the Liberal government has “turned their back on the track record that Canada itself has established in nuclear disarmament, over many years,” Roche said.

You over-estimate the Liberals' ability and concern, sir.




If it generates so much money for the city, it can generate money to run itself:

A Toronto councillor concerned over the exclusion of police officers from the Pride parade is looking to strip the event of its city funding unless organizers reconsider.

John Campbell said the city provides a $260,000 annual grant to Pride, as well as an estimated $750,000 in free services, the bulk of that policing costs.

He wants that funding tied to Pride’s agreement to welcome police participation.

“The motivation is for council to make a statement, I hope, that they do not agree with the tactics that were used to exclude the police from the Pride festivities,” the councillor said Tuesday. “When we issue grant money to organizations, there should be certain conditions and stipulations tied to that, and one of those is values of equity and diversity and inclusion.

“In fact, one of Pride’s core values is inclusivity. So this is hardly acting in an inclusive manner when they’re excluding the police,” he said.

A woman is in custody after a bizarre incident near the Capitol:

U.S. Capitol Police officers have apprehended a female driver after she struck another vehicle and nearly hit several officers near the Capitol, police said this morning. 

At 9:22 a.m., Capitol Police officers observed an "erratic and aggressive driver" in the vicinity of 100 Independence Ave., according to Eva Malecki, the communications director for the United States Capitol Police, who briefed reporters near the scene at Bartholdi Park in Washington. 

As the officers tried to stop the vehicle, the driver made a U-turn and fled the scene, apparently striking another vehicle and nearly hitting officers. A brief pursuit ensued. Her car was stopped at Washington and Independence avenues, near the U.S. Botanic Garden and the Rayburn House Office Building, and the driver fled on foot, police said.

The Center for Medical Progress has been charged with fifteen counts of recording private conversations such as this one:

There are often times when words fail to adequately convey the disgust one feels watching these videos or even referencing the system that penalises those who report on things like this.

Related: Stem Express dropped its lawsuit against the Center for Medical Progress. In case those still defending these baby-eating organisations are baffled.




Oh, burn:

Declaring “the start of a new era” in energy production, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that he said would revive the coal industry and create jobs.

The move makes good on his campaign pledge to unravel former President Barack Obama’s plan to curb global warming. The order seeks to suspend, rescind or flag for review more than a half-dozen measures in an effort to boost domestic energy production in the form of fossil fuels.

 
Dismantling Obama's legacy one bit at a time.




I keep saying things like this:

But what Putin and his fellow oligarchs consider Russia’s national interests are probably not what ordinary Russians think they are. For all its military might, Russia is a very poor country with huge demographic problems. A year ago, nearly 20 million Russians (13.4 percent of the population) were reportedly living in poverty, on less than $139 a month. Last year saw a spike in labor protests, mostly related to unpaid wages. Some 82 percent of Russians say they can feel the effects of their country’s economic decline, up from 61 percent in 2014.

In this context, do ordinary Russians think that propping up the Assad regime in Syria, or preventing Ukraine from joining NATO, or meddling in other countries’ elections, are core national interests? Probably not, although we’ll never know because Putin’s Russia, like any run-of-the-mill autocratic regime, isn’t all that interested in what ordinary people think.

Conservatives are fooling themselves if they think that they have a friend in Putin.

 Also:

He added, “What makes the Podesta case clear is there was a transfer of money and there was a transfer of a lot of money that stood to make John Podesta a lot of money. That is unique and that’s extremely troubling because at the time that transfer is taking place he is advising Hillary Clinton at the State Department. We know that from the Podesta emails that he is helping her make personnel decisions, speech decisions, policy decisions. He is meeting with her monthly. It’s a transfer of money from a foreign government, at the time that he is advising America’s chief diplomat, Hillary Clinton.”

Too late, France. You had your chance:

A new Ipsos poll finds that 61 percent of adults say Islam is incompatible with French society, compared to just 17 percent who say the same about Judaism and 6 percent who believe Catholicism is incompatible with French society.

If they get rid of periwinkle, I shall be most displeased:

The world’s most famous crayon-maker is planning to make this year’s National Crayon Day—which arrives on Friday, March 31—one for the record books. As TIME reports, Crayola is planning to retire a classic color from its 24-pack crayon box for the first time in a century. 

Getting the Government You Deserve

 

 

Reading the comments that follow a news article is a good way of gauging its impact or veracity. The popular press is essentially a pack of regurgitating tools, anyway, and what better way to illustrate that than their audience's reaction.

Is the reader thinking on his or her feet or is he or she a parrot frightened of his or her shadow?

You decide.

The pudding's proof, as it were:

Conservative Party leadership candidate Brad Trost’s campaign is not backing down after controversial comments Tuesday about his discomfort with the idea of people being gay.

“In case you haven’t noticed, Brad’s not entirely comfortable with the whole gay thing. And if you haven’t noticed, you have not been paying attention,” campaign spokesman Mike Patton said in a “campaign update” video put out on social media Tuesday.

The campaign had sent a fundraising email Monday evening that promised Trost would never participate in gay pride events, and as a political leader would never subsidize such events.

“For sure, Brad is not a big fan of the gay lifestyle. But what you do in private is your business. What you literally do in the middle of the street needs to conform to some basic community standards,” Patton said. He called some behaviour in pride parades over-sexualized and “so inappropriate for public viewing.”

Watch the readership soil its collective shorties:

 

To be fair, not everyone flipped out on what is actually a mainstream opinion. Most people are indifferent to people's choice of lifestyle. They simply don't want it hammered into them nor do they want it flaunted in their kids' face.

The big deal is for people incapable of social, emotional or political nuance in opinions, things Mr. Trost is still allowed to express before the true defenders of a mad theocratic state - the ones who rammed through Motion 103, for example - clamp down on them.

So much for defending political or social conservatism, alleged followers of fashion.

And if his opinions are so noxious that one would rather vote for anyone but Trost (or whoever), then get used to a government one claims to hate. If one is not willing to unseat the cream of the crap, do everyone a favour and stow it. You sound like naggy old women worried that the sky will fall.



Yes, because parents:

Alberta Education Minister David Eggen says Jason Kenney's position that parents should be notified if their children join a gay-straight alliance is an "extremist" view.

"Jason Kenney has shown, once you scratch the paint off a little bit, you find the extremist that he actually is," he said.

Kenney, the newly elected Alberta Progressive Conservative leader, made the comments during an editorial board meeting with Postmedia in Calgary on Tuesday.

"I do, however, think that parents have a right to know what's going on with their kids in the schools unless the parents are abusive," Kenney said.

"I don't think it's right to keep secrets from parents about challenges their kids are going through."

Question: why is speaking to parents "extremist"? Is informing them of the goings-on at school an act to difficult to stomach? Wouldn't it be better for students to have their parents - people who understand them - openly discuss such matters?



Now, everybody is a Nazi:

This story originally and incorrectly reported that the gun appeared to be 9mm semi-automatic Walther P-38, the same handgun used by the German Army in World War II, based on confirmation from two gun experts. But the owner of the handgun contacted The Hill Times and identified the gun as a 1972 Walther P1. The story has been updated and corrected. The Hill Times apologizes for this error. 

Oops.

This just makes Miss Leitch a more fascinating candidate.



By the way, the former snowboard instructor's father supported both the Nazis and the communists. His foreign affairs minister hid the fact that her grandfather supported the Nazis.

So, is firing a mistaken gun worse than supporting dictatorial regimes?



Speaking of the snowboard instructor:

Justin Trudeau's news conference at a Winnipeg daycare was interrupted by a protester who called the prime minister a scumbag.

Staff from the Prime Minister's Office say the man gained entry to the event claiming to be a member of the "world alternative media."

He carried a camcorder as he heckled Trudeau about the carbon tax while the prime minister answered other questions. 

He also railed against what he called Trudeau's "globalist counterparts."

Security eventually led the man out of the room without incident.

Trudeau was in Winnipeg to tout child-care investments his government announced in last week's budget.

"Shame on you and your globalist counterparts," the man said as security kept a close eye on him. "You're scumbags. You are an absolute scumbag."

Thirty-nine percent of voters thought this billowy-headed moron would fit the bill.

They can own him.



(Paws up)

For A Monday

Before I begin, a merci to all y'all who have visited.

Much obliged.

And now, the news...




The US and Britain are among the nations who have skipped nuclear weapon ban talks:

The United States, Britain and France are among almost 40 countries that will not join talks on a nuclear weapons ban treaty starting at the United Nations on Monday, said U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley.

Haley told reporters the countries skipping the negotiations are instead committed to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which entered into force in 1970 and is aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology.

"There is nothing I want more for my family than a world with no nuclear weapons. But we have to be realistic. Is there anyone that believes that North Korea would agree to a ban on nuclear weapons?" Haley told reporters. 

Indeed. Why go through the virtue-signalling pretense when North Korea would have no compunction launching a third nuclear payload on Japan?




Putin is far more dangerous to his own people than any American election.

Case in point:

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was handed a 15-day jail sentence on Monday for his part in a big anti-government protest in Moscow which buoyed the liberal opposition's morale a year before a presidential election.

Sunday's protest and others like it across Russia were estimated to be the largest since 2012 and foreshadow a presidential election which Vladimir Putin is expected to contest.

Opinion polls suggest Navalny, who hopes to run against Putin, has little chance of unseating the Russian leader, who enjoys high ratings. But Navalny and his supporters hope to channel public discontent over corruption to get more support.

Navalny, who will appeal the court's verdict, was found guilty of disobeying a police officer at Sunday's Moscow protest and sentenced to 15 days in jail. He was also fined for organizing the protest, which the authorities said was illegal.

Navalny told reporters in the Moscow courtroom that he and his allies would not give up.

"You can’t detain tens of thousands of people," he said. "Yesterday we saw the authorities can only go so far."

(Sidebar: but they've been doing it since tsarist times, so...)




Israel is on high alert after the death of an Islamist leader:

Hamas closed its only civilian border crossing with Israel on Sunday, and Israeli troops were on high alert as tensions between the two enemies continued to rise, two days after a senior Hamas operative was mysteriously shot dead at point-blank range in the parking garage of his home.

Hamas has accused Israel of being behind the killing of Mazen Fuqaha, 38, a senior commander in the militant Islamist movement’s military wing. He spent nine years in an Israeli jail for his part in planning numerous suicide bombings that killed multiple Israeli civilians during the second Intifada in the early 2000s.

One hires a hacker for this sort of thing:

Security services must be allowed to crack into encrypted messaging services or terrorists will enjoy a digital “place to hide,” Britain’s top security official said Sunday, re-igniting a fiery debate over privacy on the Internet.

Amber Rudd, the U.K.’s home secretary, made the comments after police discovered that London’s Westminster attacker had sent a text via WhatsApp just before his rampage.

Rudd said investigators have been unable to access the message sent on the hugely popular service. 

WhatsApp is equipped with end-to-end encryption, meaning the company – now owned by Facebook – has no way to intercept its users’ communications, even if police present them with a warrant.

After having been caught funnelling money to Hamas, IRFAN hopes to be removed from a list of terrorist entities:

A Muslim relief group allegedly linked to Hamas has launched a legal challenge in Federal Court in an attempt to be taken off the Canadian government’s list of “terrorist entities.”

The International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy Canada has asked to be removed from the terrorist list and also wants the entire listing process struck down as unconstitutional.

This is the second time the Mississauga, Ont.-based group has gone to court in the hope of being de-listed. It last tried in 2014 but the case was discontinued the following year.

Fifty-three factions — including al-Qaida, ISIL and Hezbollah — are currently on Canada’s list of designated terrorist groups, which effectively makes them illegal organizations.

IRFAN-Canada’s troubles with the government began in 2011 when its charity status was revoked after federal auditors concluded it was an “integral part” of the Hamas fundraising network.

Investigators had also found videos at the group’s office that “demonize Israel, characterize the Arab-Israeli conflict as a religious war, appeal for all Arab and Muslim nations to join in the struggle against Israel and glorify martyrdom,” the Canada Revenue Agency wrote.

In 2012, Justin Trudeau, then a candidate for the Liberal leadership, was criticized for speaking at a Toronto Islamic conference sponsored by the group. Two years later IRFAN-Canada was added to the federal list of terror groups.

Also:

Imams in Canadian mosques have been inciting the killing of "infidels", primarily Jews, for years. This agitation appears to have had no visible impact on Canadian parliamentarians, evidently too busy with petitions and motions banning alleged "Islamophobia".

In 2009, for example, Toronto-area imam Said Rageah, at the Abu Huraira Centre, called on Allah to "destroy" the enemies of Islam from within and "damn" the "infidel" Jews and Christians.

"Allah protect us from the fitna [sedition, affliction] of these people; Allah protect us from the evil agenda of these people; Allah destroy them from within themselves, and do not allow them to raise their heads" prayed the imam.

In 2012, Sheikh Abdulqani Mursal, imam at Masjid Al Hikma mosque in Toronto, explained that Jews are destined to be killed by the Muslims. Citing text from a hadith, he said:

"You will fight against the Jews and you will kill them... Muslims [will] kill them until the Jews [will] hide themselves... and a stone or a tree [will] say: Muslim... there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him...."

In 2014, imam Sayed AlGhitawi, at Al Andalous Islamic Center in Montreal, prayed for success in jihad and the total destruction of the Jews:

"O Allah, give victory to our brothers who engage in jihad... destroy the accursed Jews... make their children orphans and their women widows... kill them one by one... do not leave any of them [alive]".

During the Muslim holiday of Ramadan in 2016, Imam Ayman Elkasrawy, of the Masjid Toronto mosque, said the following:

"...O Allah! Count their number; slay them one by one and spare not one of them... Give us victory over the disbelieving people... Give victory to Islam... humiliate the ...polytheists... Destroy anyone who displaced the sons of the Muslims...Count their number; slay them one by one and spare not one of them... Purify Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews!"

Another imam in Toronto, Shaykh Abdool Hamid, recited similar prayers on at least eight occasions in 2015 and 2016.

In February 2017, after being exposed as an extremist by CIJ News, imam Ayman Elkasrawy apologized for his words, which, despite being posted on YouTube, were apparently not meant to reach non-Arabic speaking Canadians:

"Neither I, Masjid Toronto or the congregation harbour any form of hate towards Jews. And so I wish to apologize unreservedly for misspeaking during prayer last Ramadan... "

The head of the mosque, Dr. El-Tantawy Attia, assured the Toronto Sun that his mosque was not a radical mosque:

"It was a mistake. It was not authorized. It should not have happened and we have apologized and I have personally reached out to my Jewish friends... I was so upset. I was surprised. In 45 years here, I had never heard anything like that."

He also assured the Toronto Sun that he and the mosque would "get to the bottom of this through their own investigation". He also said that, pending the probe, the imam had been "suspended". The head of the mosque, however, then said that he doubts if Ayman Elkasrawy "really meant it". "We are about peace", he added.

(Sidebar: this was super-Islamophobic. One should never question the obvious Jew-hatred that goes on unchecked in Canadian mosques. Instead, one should pretend that such things don't exist ... or else.)




But ... but ... the Narrative!

Fewer Canadians are being turned away at the U.S. land border in recent months despite mounting concerns that Donald Trump's immigration policies are making it much harder to cross, The Canadian Press has learned.

Refusals of Canadians at American land crossings dropped 8.5 per cent between October and the end of February compared with the same five-month period a year earlier, according to U.S. government statistics.

The total number of Canadian travellers denied entry also dropped: 6,875 out of 12,991,027 were refused entry, a refusal rate of 0.05 per cent.

Between October 2015 and February 2016, 7,619 out of 13,173,100 Canadian travellers were denied entry to the U.S., a refusal rate of 0.06 per cent.

The figures, confirmed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, contrast with recent anecdotal reports of Canadians denied entry into the U.S., with many placing the blame on the policies of the Trump administration, including its controversial attempts to ban arrivals from several predominantly Muslim countries.

The same government that promised to help families with small children has thrown them the smallest bone it can, just enough to get re-elected:

The federal government just allotted $7 billion over 10 years for “child care.” Who will benefit? The vast majority of families will benefit little if at all.

Daycare advocates have ensured that policies contain discriminatory definitions that explicitly exclude parental child care and preferentially fund institutional group care spaces. This is despite the fact that institutional group care is the most costly, least preferred and the most problematic for children’s mental and physical health.

The billions will flow in two ways: system subsidies like capital costs, operating grants, bureaucracy and advocacy, and fee subsidies to reduce parents’ expenses, typically paid on behalf of moderate or lower income families. Tax deductions will be available for up to about $7,000 in fees per child, $4,000 until age 15. (You read that right: daycare deductions for 15-year-olds.)

For a family with two parents in the top tax bracket with two young children in a daycare centre, the tax subsidy alone is worth over $6,500 per year. Add to that the value of the system subsidies at a super-subsidized daycare and clearly some families will be receiving public child care funding worth many tens of thousands of dollars every year while other families receive none at all.

Currently only about 15 per cent of Canadian children 0-5 are in daycare centres. Statistics Canada reports that higher-income families are more likely to use this arrangement.Taxpayers are funding higher-income families with huge subsidies for institutional child care at the expense of lower income families — including single parents — who prioritize parental child care.

One could make it so that people can look after their kids at home but that would just be nutty.




Who killed Otzi?

“The aim of the offender was to kill him, and he decides to take a long-distance shot — could be a learning effect from what happened one or two days before,” Horn said. “Which is pretty much what you see all the time nowadays. Most homicides are personal, and follow violence and an escalation of violence. I want to follow him, find him and kill him. All the emotions we have in homicide, these things have not died out in all these years.”

Robbery can certainly be ruled out, he said. Otzi had a copper ax, a valuable artifact only rarely seen in burials of the period. His clothing and kit were a match for the harsh alpine climate, and probably valuable, made from the leather and fur of at least 10 animals of six species.

“This was not a robbery gone bad or something,” Horn said; clearly, the killer was trying to cover up his act. “You go back to your village with this unusual ax, it would be pretty obvious what had happened.”

And now, even though his owner is dead, a dog walks the same route he and his owner had always walked:

When his owner Claudio Cantarelli died in 2015, Thor was so heartbroken that he stopped eating and would lie in the courtyard without moving for days. But, thanks to a loving neighbor who took him in, Thor is now doing better and has started walking the same route again.

"He [Claudio] walked every day and had his lunch. He was an artist and was everyone's friend - and now, Thor makes the same walk. I notice that the dog always stops at the same places. It's impressive," hairdresser Airton Oliveira said to RBS TV [in Portuguese].

Thor even made the same stop at the lottery office, where Claudio went almost every day. There, he waited for a while as if hoping for his owner to come out from the establishment to continue on their journey together.

This Post Is Islamophobic

So drenched with whatever Islamophobia is supposed to mean that I must warn everyone who reads it.


Yesterday, two hundred and one MPs voted for a motion that considers opposition to Islamism "racist" (even though Islam is not a race) and will monitor and collate any possible criticism of Islamism above all other creeds:

... collect data to contextualize hate crime reports ...

Meaning that even long ago-written and vague criticism could be sought, collected and later subject to action.

This motion was authored by MP Iqra Khalid:

... Irqa Khalid was President of the Muslim Student Association when she was a student at York University (early 2000s).  The Muslim Student Association was founded by adherents of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1963.  The Muslim Student Association has a series of alumni who have become suicide bombers, ISIS fighters and ISIS propagandists.
 
The Muslim Student Association at York University handed out a book at Islam Awareness Week with the title “Women in Islam & Refutation of some Common Misconceptions.”  The chapter on WIFE DISCIPLINING (page 99 of the online version) makes the following observation:  Submissive or subdued women. These women may even enjoy being beaten at times as a sign of love and concern.

Surah 4:34 in the Koran endorses what was in that chapter:

Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend [for maintenance] from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in [the husband's] absence what Allah would have them guard. But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance - [first] advise them; [then if they persist], forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them. But if they obey you [once more], seek no means against them. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted and Grand.

Iqra Khalid was in the Canadian delegation that met with Islamist lobbyists before the motion was passed:

On February 8, Liberal MP Iqra Khalid “reconnected” with Islamist lobby NCCM / CAIR-CAN, Montreal-based AMAL-Québec co-president Haroun Bouazzi and Islamic Relief Executive Manager Abdelbasset Benaissa for a discussion about Motion 103. She was accompanied by fellow MPs Salma Zahid and Frank Baylis for the occasion. Motion 103 aims at “develop[ing] a whole-of-government approach” to target so-called Islamophobia.

The gentleman in the middle is Immigration minister, Ahmed Hussen.

Only 14% of polled Canadians supported what is tantamount to a blasphemy and censorship motion (soon to be bill).

And what will this motion accomplish?

There is also concern that the motion will, in some manner, chill valid criticism of Islamist terror, or will not make allowance for legitimate criticism or analysis of Islam. Such criticism would now be forced to wear the degrading mantle of Islamophobia. Given this welter of mixed impressions and varied understandings of the very point of the motion, how effective can it be?

There is the key term itself, Islamophobia. As I have suggested in an earlier piece, this recent coinage, Islamophobia, is itself a contested term. The minister piloting the motion sees Islamophobia as “the irrational hatred of Muslims that leads to discrimination.”

That’s not as clear as at first glance it might seem. If the fear is “irrational,” then the ambition to reduce it by means of a distant parliamentary motion is a curious if not a wild response. Irrational fears are by definition those not subject to reason. We eliminate those only by therapy or medicine. We do not argue them away. Hence, we have never had a motion deploring claustrophobia.

The cruel deeds, by a terrorist, at the British Parliament this week give sombre point to these concerns. Should we not have some moderate response of caution and concern after London? Is that irrational? There is nothing irrational in having a reasoned or limited fear towards a group publicly committed to terrorism, and self-declared perpetrators of it, in the name of Islam. Nor is there bigotry, Islamophobia, in seeing the declared connection with Islam in these kinds of terror acts. If there is an Islamic connection, and it is declared ,even insisted upon, by the actors themselves, it is surely not phobic both to see the connection, and heed the declaration.

Then too, there is the rhetorical or forensic deployment of the term. A person who criticizes Islam, or who reasonably makes a connection between current terrorism and certain groups within Islam will, in some circles, very quickly be labelled Islamophobic.

No one likes to be called a bigot, and thus people — under fear of such a charge, mute their speech, trim their thoughts and withhold honest criticism because of the weight of this word, Islamophobe, being placed on their shoulders. Plainly put, sometimes the charge of Islamophobia is merely a harsh and dishonest way of shutting down an argument, or expelling all discussion. Who argues with bigots?

Yet there is an even wider reason to question the motion’s value.

Time and again it was stressed that it was not a law, not a piece of legislation, but a mere motion. It therefore mandated precisely nothing. It had no penalties for people who choose to ignore it, brought into being no requirements in action. So, it must be presumed, its point was merely to place on parliamentary record the sentiment of the House of Commons on a sensitive manner.

And, to be blunt, what will that likely achieve? Will it perhaps launch one of Parliament’s dubious and protracted studies? Will it change the social or moral landscape of the country in any detectable way? Its proponents make such a case for its innocuousness, such a point of repeating it is not legislation, and how it will not alter existing laws or behaviours. So what will it do? What is it for?

It is for what people correctly fear: that the government will put in place whatever it takes to silence critics and raise above all else a culture that proves time and time again how antithetical it is Western civilisation, even in its decrepit post-modern form. Indeed, had Western civilisation operated at full strength, this would not be entertained. There would be no need as the West has provisions for respect for all citizens and the ability to properly discriminate against things that cause the civilisation harm, namely cultures that openly revile others and get away with it.

Liberal voters, even if they claim to be disgusted by this motion, will continue voting Liberal regardless. The Liberals' antipathy to autistic children and penchant for corruption would have changed their minds before this motion ever came into being had the voters been so easy to ethically sway. When they become irrelevant, new voters blocks of unvetted migrants will take their places and motions like this will be commonplace.



Related - scratch a lazy-@$$ Liberal and one will find a petty, cowardly woman-hater every time:

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of losing "his sh*t" in the House of Commons Wednesday after he was questioned on the government's proposed changes to Parliament's rules.

(Sidebar: Michelle Rempel embarrassed the Liberals into acting for the Yazidis.)

During a particularly raucous question period — and just hours before the government unveiled its second budget — Rempel rose in the House to ask Trudeau about his reaction to an earlier question from fellow Tory MP Candice Bergen.

"This prime minister purports to be a feminist," Rempel said. "Yet when a strong, confident woman dares to question his arrogance and unilaterally changing the fundamentals of Canadian democracy, he tries to stare her down and yell at her."

Justin doesn't do well when challenged:

(Sidebar: the above was Islamophobic. Or something.)


And - Putin also doesn't like being challenged:

In the 1990s, Nemtsov was a political star of post-Soviet Russia’s “young reformers.” He became deputy prime minister and was, for a while, seen as possible presidential material – but it was Putin who succeeded former president Boris Yeltsin in 2000. Nemtsov publicly supported the choice, but he grew increasingly critical as Putin rolled back civil liberties and was eventually pushed to the margins of Russian political life. Nemstov led massive street rallies in protest of the 2011 parliamentary election results and wrote reports on official corruption. He also was arrested several times as the Kremlin cracked down on opposition rallies. In Feb. 2015, just hours after urging the public to join a march against Russia’s military involvement in Ukraine, Nemtsov was shot four times in the back by an unknown assailant within view of the Kremlin. Putin took “personal control” of the investigation into Nemtsov’s murder, but the killer remains at large.

The man who killed four people was under surveillance before the attacks in London:

British born, his birth name was Adrian Elms, dropping it for the Islamic name Khalid Masood when he converted.

Police believe that conversion happened in prison where he spent time for violent offences after his first run in with the law that resulted in a conviction in 1983, and his last conviction believed to have been in 2003.

Masood faced charges and convictions for weapons charges, disturbing the peace, assault and causing grievous bodily harm.

This was a man that was well known to police, and at one point, he was also on the radar of MI5 as a “peripheral” figure in a terrorism investigation.

And he was not monitored any further.

Oops.




Indonesian police use tear gas on thugs who threatened to destroy a Catholic church:

Indonesian police fired tear gas on Friday to disperse hard-line Muslims protesting against the construction of a Catholic church in a satellite city of the capital, Jakarta.

Several hundred protesters from a group called Forum for Bekasi Muslim Friendship staged a rowdy demonstration in front of the Santa Clara church in Kaliabang, a neighborhood of Bekasi city, after Friday prayers.

Witnesses said police fired tear gas as the protesters tried to force their way into the church, which has been under construction since November. Some also threw rocks and bottles into the site.

Raymundus Sianipar, a Catholic priest, said police asked him to leave the area for safety reasons.

That church is Islamophobic simply by being there.




The struggles of the Chinese faithful:

Freedom House’s investigators have concluded that controls over religion in China have been increasing since 2012, seeping into new areas of daily life and triggering growing resistance from believers. At least 100 million people — nearly one-third of estimated believers in China — belong to four religious groups facing high levels of persecution: Protestant Christians, Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur Muslims and Falun Gong.

China is Trudeau's favourite country.




Thanks to the struggles of previous immigrants, those sneaking in will not feel any crushing defeat:

Despite our treasured national mythos as a promised land of wealth and opportunity, our history is littered with tales of people crying or screaming with anguish after taking their first steps in the True North.

All systems go for the Keystone Pipeline:

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration approved TransCanada Corp's Keystone XL pipeline on Friday, cheering the oil industry and angering environmentalists even as further hurdles for the controversial project loom.

The approval reverses a decision by former President Barack Obama to reject the project, but the company still needs to win financing, acquire local permits, and fend off likely legal challenges for the pipeline to be built.

What that means for Canada:
 

Most of the employee compensation benefits from Keystone XL would be concentrated in Alberta. But other provinces would also see an uptick in activity. A report in July 2012 by the Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI) found that worker compensation in Ontario—mostly in its manufacturing sector—would rise nearly $10.68 billion between 2011 and 2035 if the project goes ahead.

Kathleen Wynne will find a way to stymy this. Guaranteed.




And now, filthy damn Islamophobic spinach.