Saturday Night Special

Христoс воскрес!

The massive bomb dropped in Afghanistan on Thursday is said to have killed thirty-six terrorists:

The biggest non-nuclear bomb ever dropped in combat by the U.S. military killed 36 militants in eastern Afghanistan, officials said Friday, and villagers in the remote, mountainous area described being terrified by the "earsplitting blast."

The strike using the Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, or MOAB, was carried out Thursday morning against an Islamic State group tunnel complex carved in the mountains that Afghan forces have tried to assault repeatedly in recent weeks in fierce fighting in Nangarhar province, Afghan officials said.

U.S. and Afghan forces have been battling the Taliban insurgency for more than 15 years. But the U.S. military brought out the biggest conventional bomb in its arsenal for the first time to hit the Islamic State, which has a far smaller but growing presence in Afghanistan. That apparently reflects President Donald Trump's vow for a more aggressive campaign against the group.

The bomb — known officially as a GBU-43B but nicknamed the "mother of all bombs" — unleashes 11 tons of explosives. Pentagon video showed the bomb striking a mountainside overlooking a river valley with a giant blast that overwhelms the landscape and sent up a massive column of black smoke. Agricultural terraces are visible in the footage, but no population centres .

The Afghan Defence Ministry said in a statement that the bomb destroyed several IS caves and ammunition caches.

Gen. Daulat Waziri, a ministry spokesman, said 36 IS fighters were killed, and that the death toll could likely rise. He said Afghan forces were at the tunnel complex assessing the damage.

Also: Josh Fox, "Gasland" liar extraordinaire, has issued his own sanctimonious condemnation of this ISIS-killing bomb if one cares to read it.

A Briton is stabbed to death on a train in Jerusalem:

A Palestinian man fatally stabbed a British student on Jerusalem's transit network on Friday, Israeli police said.

Israel's ambassador to Britain, Mark Regev, named the victim as Hannah Bladon on his Twitter account, adding that she was "murdered in a senseless act of terror."

The incident occurred in a train carriage on the light rail network near the walled Old City. TV footage showed blood on the floor of the carriage with police officers restraining a man and carrying him away.

A paramedic for the Magen David Adom ambulance service said the woman had suffered multiple stab wounds and was pronounced dead in hospital.

It was all Israel's fault, or so one is told.

What ISIS does not complete, thugs taught to hate will:

While the Palm Sunday suicide bombings were claimed by the Islamic State-Sinai affiliate, the attacks on Christians near Minya on Thursday were by local villagers, upset that Copts were allowed to pray inside the village ...

Also:

The horrific bombings carried out by the Islamic State against churches in Tanta and Alexandria, Egypt on Palm Sunday, April 9, 2017, killed at least 45 and injured 100 more. These attacks underscore the nature of the growing Jihadist threat to religious minorities in the Middle East. Among the online Jihadists in the region celebrating the death toll, one ISIS supporter on Telegram described "Copts, Zionists, Magians [a pejorative word referring to Zoroastrians but referring to Shia Muslims in this case], and atheists" as a "Satanic brotherhood" and "accursed [people] who have no religion."

And:
  

ISIS is the application of what is taught. It’s not outside Islam, or something invented. No, they are applying Islam. When we hear it has nothing to do with Islam — that it means salaam; that it means peace — this is all false. It’s not true. ISIS is not doing anything which is neither in the Quran nor in the Mohammedan tradition. Everything is taken after a decision taken by an imam. A mufti and imam will say this is or is not allowed.

(Sidebar: criticising Islamist violence violates the spirit of Motion 103.)





 Remember - all cultures have something equally positive to add to the community:

A Detroit doctor is facing life in prison after being charged with performing female genital mutilation (FGM) on two young girls.

Dr Jumana Nagarwala, 44, is alleged to have performed the “horrifying” practice on young children for 12 years.

The federal case is the first of its kind in the US, where FGM was banned in 1996.

An investigation began after the authorities were informed of Dr Nagarwala’s alleged activities.

Boko Haram delende est:

Islamist group Boko Haram is increasingly forcing children to carry out suicide bombings - often drugging them before missions, according to UNICEF.

At least 117 suicide attacks have been carried out by young people in the Lake Chad basin region since 2014, with nearly 80% of the bombs strapped to girls, a new report says.

It's a good thing we're letting these guys drift in:

Nearly half of the asylum seekers crossing the Manitoba border illegally in the last few weeks are being detained because of serious criminal records, suggesting the profile of would-be refugee claimants is changing, according to the union representing border patrol officers.

One of them assaulted a female Canadian Border Services Agency officer as he was being sent to lock-up at the Emerson, Man., port-of-entry last weekend, said Jean-Pierre Fortin, National President of the Customs and Immigration Union.

"She got hurt. I haven't seen the bruises but it's serious enough. But her life was not in danger," Fortin said, adding she has returned to work and does not want to be interviewed about her experience.

The RCMP confirms a 37-year-old man had illegally crossed the border at about 1 a.m. on Apr. 8. He was apprehended by RCMP officers before being searched, identified and screened. The man was taken to file his refugee claim at the CBSA office at Emerson.

As he was being sent to a cell, he threatened to harm CBSA officers, then physically assaulted one of them. He also damaged the fire sprinkler inside his cell.

Ahmed Aden Ali, from Minneapolis, was charged with two counts of Uttering Threats, Mischief Over $5,000 and Assault Peace Officer. He is being held in custody.

 
Wearing pink t-shirts is virtue-signalling uselessness at its best. Teaching tae kwon do, on the other hand, actually serves a purpose. It gives the potentially bullied child the chance to defend himself and to build confidence.

But that would just be nutty. Dealing with X problem wouldn't allow for real bullies to tack on their causes-du-jour:

If it’s tricky to see the connection between the International Day of Pink (It’s Time to Talk About Bullying, Homophobia, Transphobia) and what Eric Brazau was trying to say in court Thursday, it still feels as though there is one.

The Day of Pink was celebrated this week at, among other places, the Toronto District School Board, the biggest one in the country.

At most, if not all schools, teachers were “encouraged” to wear pink T-shirts (were there any who didn’t?) and special assemblies held, all in the effort as the board put it on its website, “to stop homophobia, transphobia, transmisogyny (I presume this is showing prejudice against transgendered women) and all forms of bullying.”

Speaking of bullies ...

Hugh Freeze is a terrific football coach. He has taken the University of Mississippi from the lower ranks of the SEC to a contender nearly every year.

Freeze is also a man of deep faith who cares about his players and the Ole Miss family. ...

Pretty innocuous stuff, isn't it? Well, not to the Godless Gestapo that is the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Those busybodies -- for whom the phrase "live and let live" has no meaning -- think that Freeze tweets too much about God, and they've issued a press release and letter to Ole Miss chancellor Jeffrey Vitter demanding that Freeze and fellow coach Maurice Harris stop.

This is a world map:

As one can see, the United States (situated under the Islamic Fascist Dominion of Canada) is the light green country. There, people are entitled to express their thoughts, sectarian or  otherwise, without hindrance. North Korea, on the other hand, restricts people's rights to free expression, belief and even to eat.

Perhaps the Nativity-banning censors at the Freedom From Religion Foundation would like to move there? Their crowning achievements in life could be realised in a country where freedom has no lease.




Speaking of North Korea ...

China said on Friday tension over North Korea had to be stopped from reaching an "irreversible and unmanageable stage" as a U.S. aircraft carrier group steamed toward the region amid fears the North may conduct a sixth nuclear weapons test.

This is the same country that will never let North Korea go as a buffer state. This is why Kim Jong-Un can threaten as he does and why he lives in a dynastic dictatorship that is all smoke and mirrors. China is truly feeling squeezed.

It needs to actually be squeezed.





No one asked me if I wanted to dodge cars driven by potheads who voted to be taxed:

Canada was on track to legalize recreational marijuana by July 2018 after the government put forward legislation on Thursday that will see it regulate production but left the details of how the drug will be sold up to the provinces.

Also - drink your milk and eat your bacon-wrapped veggies, kids:

A cult of clean eating is a “ticking timebomb” that could leave young people with weak bones, the National Osteoporosis Society has warned.

Research by the charity shows that four in ten of those aged between 18 and 24 have tried such regimes, which are now coming under attack for cutting out major food groups, such as dairy.

The diets have become increasingly fashionable, and are associated with a number of celebrities, who have boasted how they have cut out gluten, dairy, grains and refined sugars.

But the charity said many of those following the trends had no idea that cutting out major food groups could jeopardise their long-term health, with bones still developing in early adulthood.

No, Virginia, there is no Easter Bunny:

A Christian couple says two foster children were removed from their home and their eligibility as foster parents cancelled by the Hamilton Children’s Aid Society because they refused to say the Easter Bunny was real.

I'm sure that was not only the reason but a valid one at that, too.





A poll suggests that Canadians are not as Godless as was suggested:

The poll classifies 21 per cent of Canadians as religiously committed, meaning they hold a strong belief in God or a higher power and regularly attend religious services. At the other end of the spectrum, 19 per cent of Canadians are pure non-believers.

It is the swath in between, equally divided between what the pollster terms “privately faithful” and “spiritually uncertain,” that offers the greatest insight into Canadians’ evolving beliefs and practices.

The privately faithful, 30 per cent of respondents, “are people who actually believe in God, believe in heaven, believe in an afterlife,” said Angus Reid, the institute’s founder and chairman. “They have largely not been involved in organized religion. They will go to funerals and weddings and that sort of thing, but their faith is largely a private matter, and it’s really driven by their prayer. They pray on a regular basis.”

Sorry but that's lazy.

One does not claim to be a committed sports-player but never, ever plays.

(sigh)




And now, welcoming the Bridegroom for Easter: