Mid-Week Post

After a devastating attack on Palm Sunday, the Diocese of Minya - the chief diocese of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt - has cancelled Easter celebrations:

The main Christian diocese in Egypt has announced that it will not hold Easter celebrations this year, in mourning for the 46 Coptic Christians killed in the Palm Sunday massacre brought about by twin jihadist bombings.

The Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Minya, located in southern Egypt, said Tuesday that commemorations of the Resurrection of Jesus will be limited to the liturgical prayers “without any festive manifestations” out of respect for the faithful who were slain by suicide bombers of the Islamic State.

The Minya province has the highest Coptic Christian population in the country and Christians there traditionally hold Easter Vigil services on Saturday evening and then spend Easter Sunday on large meals and family visits.

Christians in Minya have lived in constant fear of attacks from the area’s large Salafi Muslim population. In certain local villages, the faithful celebrate Mass before a cross drawn on a wall, making it easy to erase quickly in order to avoid attacks.

Police sources said that 28 people have been arrested for their possible ties to the planning and financing of Sunday’s attacks.

 
ISIS is attempting to separate Christians from their worship. They and other flavours of Islamist are the leaking, pussy anal sores of humanity.

American Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell and the like-minded Jew-haters of the Nation of Islam.

(Sidebar: the above affront is considered Islamophobic and makes Baby Iqra Khalid cry.)


Also:

Much of the anti-Coptic hatred found among Egyptian children stems from school lessons that say "Christians are infidels destined for Hell," Al-Masry Al-Youm columnist Fathia Al-Dakhakhni wrote Feb. 26.

"Fanaticism in Egypt is a matter of education, so there is need to reform the education received by [the members of our] society, who are raised on the concept of discrimination against the other," Al-Dakhakhni wrote. "[The change] must start in school – because fanaticism begins with religion classes that separate Muslims from Christians, so that the child discovers in his earliest formative years that there is an 'other' who is different and who must be shunned."

And - when he's right, he's right:

Morgan went on to say that ISIS made it “absolutely clear” that these attacks were part of  a “war on the cross,” and that singling out of a specific religion should be significant to the media. 

“I think this is a huge story. This is the kind of story that ought to be dominating cable news in America. It should be dominating headlines around the world,” Morgan stated. “ISIS have [sic] declared war on Christianity. I'm not seeing that being covered enough,” he added.

Burn down. The jungle:

At least nine people were killed Tuesday in a gunbattle between Philippine forces and suspected Abu Sayyaf militants on a central resort island, far from the extremists' southern jungle bases and in a region where the U.S. government has warned that the gunmen may be plotting kidnappings, officials said.

A UN sex ring is uncovered:

An Associated Press investigation of U.N. missions during the past 12 years found nearly 2,000 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers and other personnel around the world — signalling the crisis is much larger than previously known. More than 300 of the allegations involved children, the AP found, but only a fraction of the alleged perpetrators served jail time.

Legally, the U.N. is in a bind. It has no jurisdiction over peacekeepers, leaving punishment to the countries that contribute the troops.

The AP interviewed alleged victims, current and former U.N. officials and investigators and sought answers from 23 countries on the number of peacekeepers who faced such allegations and, what if anything, was done to investigate. With rare exceptions, few nations responded to repeated requests, while the names of those found guilty are kept confidential, making accountability impossible to determine.

Without agreement for widespread reform and accountability from the U.N.'s member states, solutions remain elusive.

This sounds achingly familiar.


Also:

Russia blocked a Western-led effort at the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday to condemn last week's deadly gas attack in Syria and push Moscow's ally President Bashar al-Assad to cooperate with international inquiries into the incident.

It was the eighth time during Syria's six-year-old civil war that Moscow has used its veto power on the Security Council to shield Assad's government.

 
I have no idea why we won't withdraw from this useless organisation.


Vaguely related: the US accuses Russia of covering up the recent gas attack in Syria.




Gee, that's not what you said before, Donald:

Backing away from a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump said Wednesday that his administration won’t label China a currency manipulator in a report due this week, though he does think the U.S. dollar “is getting too strong.”

Well, I'm not surprised (SEE: back, scratch, mine, yours):

The number of Ontario teachers earning more than $100,000 a year has nearly tripled under Premier Kathleen Wynne, according to a National Post analysis, and that’s before new contracts guaranteeing a four per cent raise kick in. 

In 2014 — one year after Wynne succeeded Dalton McGuinty — 2,517 people listed as teachers made the so-called Sunshine List of public servants earning six figures. Two years later, that number rose to 7,066. The Toronto District School Board had the largest increase,  ballooning to 1,022 teachers on the list from fewer than 200 three years ago.

As a result, taxpayers were left with a $765-million bill to pay the salaries of the teachers who made the list in 2016, compared with $263 million in 2014.  ...

In January 2013, the government lifted a freeze on teacher salaries; Wynne’s political opponents accused her of catering to a powerful bloc of voters one year before an election. According to the auditor general’s report in 2014, that move resulted in Wynne handing $468 million back to teachers. Six months later, the government agreed to boost the salaries of teachers under the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario by two per cent.

Leitch has a point. Marijuana is god-awful and makes people do stupid things like vote in snowboard instructors:

Marijuana is a "dangerous drug," Conservative leadership hopeful Kellie Leitch said Tuesday as she promised to undo the Liberal government's efforts to legalize it, should she become her party's leader and eventually prime minister.

If these broads are against it, I'm for it. After all, my tax dollars pay their salaries and everything else:

The federal government’s youth summer jobs program will reportedly provide tens of thousands of dollars to organizations that advocate against abortion rights and LGBTQ rights.

The financial support for organizations like the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, which runs a campaign that compares abortion to the Holocaust, counters the strongly pro-choice statements made recently by Liberal cabinet ministers Maryam Monsef, Patricia Hajdu, and Jane Philpott.

The purpose of the Canada Summer Jobs Program is “to focus on local priorities, while helping both students and their communities,” according to the website for Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC). The program provides funding for not-for-profits, public-sector employers, and small businesses across the country.

Of course, the government could get out of this funding racket but that would just be nutty.

It is not China's job to make peace or unify Korea. They want a buffer state and screw everybody else:

China is increasingly angry at Koreans in general for not showing sufficient respect. The biggest (and growing) problem is North Korea. China wants a stable communist dictatorship in North Korea, not a failed government that would send several million starving refugees fleeing across the border.

(Sidebar: too late.)

China also does not want North Korea to collapse and get absorbed by South Korea. That would put a democracy on China's border and give many Chinese a view of how things might be much better with a different political system in China. Koreans are seen as "younger brothers" to China, and it's embarrassing if the younger brother outdoes his older sibling. South Korean democracy is played down in China, but that would be difficult if a democratic, united, Korea were right on the border.  

Hence the buffer state.




Former Mountie jailed for horrific abuse against his son:

The former Ottawa Mountie who restrained, sexually abused and tortured his young son in the basement of their family home in what police called the worst case of abuse they had ever seen was sentenced today to 15 years in prison.

Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger condemned the former Mountie for torturing, shackling and starving his own child.

Maranger said the evidence was "unequivocal and overwhelming."

"This trial was difficult to sit through and what happened to this victim was outrageous," Maranger said at the long-awaited sentencing following hearings that ended a month ago.

The former Mountie, who cannot be named in order to protect his son's identity, was given credit for time served. He will serve another 13 years and two months behind bars.

Thirteen years?

Bullcrap.

No, showing up on time is standard. It is courteous and shows an eagerness to complete tasks, meet various persons and fulfill obligations. Any other way of thinking is screwy and should be pointed out as such:

If you want to schedule a meeting at Clemson University that starts on time … well, that’s not going to happen.

The university warns faculty not to enforce start times for gatherings in an online training featuring “fictional characters,” made public by Campus Reform:

On another slide, a character named Alejandro schedules a 9:00 a.m. meeting between two groups of foreign professors and students. The first group arrived fifteen minutes early, while the second arrived ten minutes late [and wanted to “socialize” first]. According to the answers, it is wrong for Alejandro to “politely ask the second group to apologize,” or explain that “in our country, 9:00 a.m. means 9:00 a.m.”

It disrespects other people’s cultures to ask them to follow American conventions of appointments starting when they are literally scheduled to start ...

Easter, like many holidays, is a time for children. As such, adults should not screw that up by being pushy @$$holes:

A Pennsylvania volunteer fire company says it has cancelled this year’s Easter egg hunt for children because of “unruly” parents in past years.

Peter Cottontail is not pleased.

(Paws up)