Sunday Post

Lots going on....




Syrian representatives accept UN principles at peace talks:

The Syrian opposition has provisionally accepted 12 principles given to delegates by the United Nations at the end of an eight-day round of peace talks, chief negotiator Nasr al-Hariri said.


The general principles on the future of Syria were derived from points set out by U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura last year, Hariri told reporters after the final meeting of the round of U.N.-led talks in Geneva, the first in 10 months.

He said the round had ended without clear results but for the first time issues related to political transition had been discussed in acceptable depth.

 


Malaysian authorities have released a suspect in the murder of Kim Jong-Nam:

Malaysia released on Friday a North Korean suspect in the murder of the estranged half-brother of North Korea's leader and prepared to deport him, while police issued an arrest warrant for another North Korean wanted in connection with the killing.

Kim Jong Nam was murdered on Feb. 13 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, after being assaulted by two women who Malaysian police believe smeared his face with VX, a chemical classified by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction.

The women, one from Indonesia and the other from Vietnam, were later detained and were charged this week with murder.

A North Korean man, Ri Jong Chol, was also arrested days after the murder, but he was released from police detention on Friday. He was taken from detention to an immigration office wearing a bullet proof vest to be processed before being sent back to Pyongyang.

"He, accompanied by two representatives of the North Korean embassy, are scheduled to depart to their native country today," Mustafar Ali, director general of the Immigration Department said in a statement.

Malaysia's attorney-general told Reuters on Thursday he was being released due to insufficient evidence.

God help us:

Voting at 16 years old. Giving some non-citizens the vote. A preferential ballot.

New Brunswick's Commission on Electoral Reform issued 24 sweeping recommendations Friday to the way people vote in the province.

One commission member suggested a preferential ballot could be in place by next year's election, but Premier Brian Gallant said he won't make major reforms without first putting it to a referendum or seeking a mandate from voters in an election.

Under a preferential ballot, voters choose their favourite candidate and then rank their second, third, and further choices. Those choices would come into play if no one was able to get 51 per cent of the vote on the first ballot.

Commission member Bev Harrison said such a system tends to take some of the nastiness out of elections.

"This is an opportunity for candidates to be more civilized in their approach, because you are trying to get second and third ballot support in case you don't make it the first time," he said.

 
There are fifty year old people I wouldn't let vote let alone sixteen year olds!





Speaking of Liberal rigamaroles:

A candidate pulled out of a Liberal nomination fight for a federal byelection in Ontario on Thursday, days after she said the race was set up to favour one of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s aides.

Juanita Nathan issued a statement saying her efforts to appeal to the party’s leadership have fallen on deaf ears and that she won’t try for the nomination in the Toronto-area riding of Markham Thornhill.

“Given that the nomination process in Markham-Thornhill is neither open nor fair, I am unable to validate the process as it stands,” the statement said. “Therefore, I have no choice but to withdraw my candidacy.”

Nathan was competing for the party’s nomination against Mary Ng, one of Trudeau’s senior staffers.

Earlier this week she complained about the cutoff date to register new party members for a nomination vote that was to take place this Saturday.

She said more than 2,000 people she has registered as Liberals are considered ineligible because the party retroactively set the registration cut-off date for Feb. 14 — the day before she started entering names into the system.

Ng’s campaign has said it learned of the deadline on Feb. 20, the same as everyone else, and also lost out on registering hundreds of supporters. Another candidate, Nadeem Qureshi, shared similar concerns with the Hill Times newspaper.

Trudeau was asked about the controversy earlier Thursday before Nathan’s announcement, suggesting conflicts are part of an open nomination progress.

“People will try and speculate and create conflicts, but ultimately I have a tremendous amount of faith in the local Liberal membership,” Trudeau told a B.C. news conference.

I'll bet you do.





The reason why this will be a costly generational farce is because people are determined to make it so by voting in the same corrupt lot as before:

Trusting Premier Kathleen Wynne and the Liberals to fix the hydro mess they’ve created is like trusting rabbits to guard the lettuce patch.

It requires an unshakeable belief, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that the same people who caused today’s runaway electricity prices know how to fix them.

And that the Liberals will keep their promise to lower hydro rates if they win next year’s election, the same party which came to power under Dalton McGuinty in 2003 solemnly promising not to raise our taxes.

McGuinty even signed a pledge during that election not to do so.

And we all know what happened next.

His boldness and adherence to reason makes him a very good candidate for the position:

A University of Toronto professor known for his controversial views against genderless pronouns will face off against far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos and others in a race to become the next rector at Scotland’s largest university. 

A group of 10 students at the University of Glasgow nominated Jordan Peterson to replace Edward Snowden as the school’s rector in an election to take place among students on March 20-21. As rector, Peterson, Yiannopoulos or one of the 10 other candidates put forward by students would be responsible for representing the student population and bringing their issues to the school’s management in a role that dates to the 17th century. 

The clinical psychology professor insists he can represent the entire student population — including the university’s LGBTQ community — despite his refusal to acknowledge his students by pronouns preferred by the trans community. 

“I’m a reasonable person and I’m certainly willing to listen to people as long as they don’t babble ideological nonsense at me,” Peterson said. “I would rather talk to a person than a puppet who is possessed by ideas I already understand and isn’t offering me anything of their personal experience.”

Peterson used a lecture posted on YouTube to take a stand against the use of pronouns such as “ze,” “zir” and “they,” arguing that a person cannot be anything but male or female. He said he would not use such pronouns, even if it was requested by a non-binary student, and being forced to do so would rob him of freedom of speech.

As a result, members of Canada’s transgender community continue to protest Peterson’s public appearances, recently vying to have a March 8 appearance at the National Gallery of Canada cancelled.

(Sidebar: I don't know about Milo...)





Pretending that Christendom's past crimes are on par with Islamist violence in the past and present does a great disservice not only to adherents of either religion but to the keen scrutiny of history and religion, as well. Nothing in Christianity advocates or excuses such blanket violence. Christianity has also inhabits a different place in post-modern society. To pretend that it is a bloodthirsty octopus simply reveals one to be a narrow-minded reactionary rather than a serious student of history and culture:

The Christian secular and religious leaders were not blameless, but they were authentic and distinguished defenders of the civilization Nazism assaulted, and it is not the place of Dr. Sussman or anyone else to assimilate them to the Pagan and diabolical evil of Nazism, under the spurious rubric of them all being Christians of different factions. Nor does a glance at Islamic history or a perusal of the Koran and the New Testament sustain for an instant his preposterous claim that Christianity is more violent than Islam. Not that it is particularly relevant, but when the Jews had their own jurisdictions, before being overborne by more numerous neighbours, they were not averse to violence themselves, including David and Solomon. And the Christians were subject to a good deal more violent (and relatively unprovoked) oppression than were the Jews by the Romans, until most of the Romans, and most of the Jews, chose to become Christians. The Christian democratic leaders of the West in the 20th century secured the destruction of Nazism and the implosion of international Communism, the liberation of occupied Europe, the salvation of the Jews, and the redemption of Germany from Nazi evil. Canada played a distinguished part in all of this.

Because hucksters lace themselves with Teflon. That's why:

All of which should really and finally put some skepticism into reporting on green plans and the visionaries who tout them, they who threaten doom and promise paradise, and then get the terms of each reversed so perfectly. The politicians who gave Canadians the one tonne challenge and the tacky boy scoutism of one million acts of green have never been called to account for the feeble results of either. As for Ontario’s latest $25 billion debacle — you could shut down a lot of gas plants for $25 billion! — they won’t be around when that explodes either.