Mid-Week Post

Five more shopping days until Chuseok ...


Lots to talk about ...




Then you can die:

President Moon Jae-in on Thursday ruled out the redeployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea. In an interview with CNN on the eve of his trip to the U.S. he said, "I do not agree that South Korea needs to develop our own nuclear weapons or relocate tactical nuclear weapons in the face of North Korea's nuclear threat."

"To respond to North Korea by having our own nuclear weapons will not maintain peace on the Korean Peninsula and could lead to a nuclear arms race in Northeast Asia," he added. Moon's comments seem surprisingly oblivious to the grave threat we face from North Korea.

Kim Jong-Un is not even remotely as lenient.

The South Koreans sure do know how to pick 'em.


Also - China should not be involved in what happens to North Korea now or when there is actually a regime change. It already forces North Koreans to return. Economic refugees shouldn't be that hard to boot, except there will be no firing squads waiting for them:

From China’s perspective, officially broaching the issue could alarm its neighboir, which has received Beijing’s backing since the Korean War in the 1950s. There’s also a fear that it would give the U.S. an advantage in one day reunifying the Korean peninsula on its terms. 

“When we first started these efforts, the Chinese told us — and many other people, including U.S. officials — that if they engaged in such discussions with the United States it would come out, it would get leaked, North Korea would find out and they would retaliate,” Glaser said. ...

Any incursion by Chinese troops into North Korea risks drawing in South Korea, whose constitution covers the entire peninsula. Similar to China, authorities in Seoul would also be worried about large flows of refugees who might flee, particularly if war leads to shortages of food and other essential goods.

Jia Qingguo, dean of the School of International Studies of Peking University, wrote in a Sept. 11 article for the East Asia Forum that China’s military should consider creating a safety zone within North Korea to prevent a large flow of people into its northeastern provinces.

(Sidebar: that sounds like an occupation to me.)




Why am I not surprised?

Police say they expect no charges to be laid following an investigation into a small Southwestern Ontario First Nation’s powwow that was flagged in an audit demanded by angry band members.

The Liberals and their opaque form of governance are part of the reason why this sort of thing can happen again and again.



Speaking of which:

The Liberals are blaming the previous Harper government for the failing grade they received in an independent audit of compliance with the Access to Information Act, saying the Conservatives left behind a badly damaged system. ...

The audit was funded by national industry group News Media Canada, which represents more than 800 print and digital titles across the country. It was researched and prepared independently by a team headed by lead author Fred Vallance-Jones, who teaches journalism at University of King's College in Halifax. 

A total of 428 requests sent to different levels of government were included in the analysis.

In their 2015 platform on open and transparent government, Trudeau's Liberals stated that transparent government is good government, the report notes. "It's a sentiment shared by just about every opposition party that seeks power, but often falls out of favour once power is achieved."

The federal access act allows people who pay $5 to request records ranging from correspondence and studies to expense reports and meeting minutes. Agencies must answer requests within 30 days or provide a reason why more time is needed.

The researchers found the federal system continues to be far slower and less responsive than provincial and municipal freedom of information regimes.

 
Indeed:

Taxpayers are on the hook for more than $215,000 for the prime minister's jaunt to the Bahamas over the Christmas holidays, CBC reports.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his family were guests of the Aga Khan on his privately-owned Bell Island and was joined by a number of staff.

While Parliament originally said the trip cost $127,187, according to a document the broadcaster obtained through an access to information request, the total cost was actually $215,398. This includes costs to cover RCMP, defence staff, Global Affairs Canada and Privy's Council staff who accompanied the prime minister on the trip.

Part of the reason for this higher number is money for the RCMP security detail. Parliament originally said the cost was $71,988 - which covered both overtime and travel costs. However, CBC reports the new document puts that "total cost of all expenses incurred" for the RCMP detail at $153,504.

The CBC said RCMP had told Parliament $71,988 only covered costs up to Feb. 1 and confirmed to the broadcaster in an email that some of the expenses had not been processed when it reported that figure.

Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson is currently conducting a probe into the 2016 trip. 

(Sidebar: this Mary Dawson.)


And:

The Liberal government is heading into the second half of its mandate with a number of big legislative priorities they are eager to move through Parliament.

And they are ready to curtail debate if they think the opposition parties are dragging their feet — especially since the will of the increasingly independent Senate is becoming harder to predict.

However:

A Conservative bid for an emergency debate on the Liberal government's controversial small business tax proposal was thwarted Wednesday, but that does not mean they — nor the public — are out of options for sharing their views.

"Parliament, and not the government, is the final authority on taxation," Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre said as he called for a House of Commons debate on the proposed changes before consultations wrap up next week.

Deputy Speaker Bruce Stanton, a Conservative MP, ruled the request did not meet the criteria and turned him down.

The proposals, unveiled this summer by Finance Minister Bill Morneau, would eliminate small business tax provisions that the Liberals argue allow some wealthy Canadians to avoid paying their fair share.

That includes restricting the ability of business owners to lower their tax rate by sprinkling income to family members, even if they do no work for the business, and curbing the ability to convert regular income into capital gains, which are typically taxed at a lower rate.

The proposed changes would also limit private corporations from making passive investments in things like real estate or stocks.

They have sparked a revolt by doctors, farmers, small business owners and even some backbench Liberal MPs, who have spoken publicly about the complaints they have been hearing from their constituents.

Amid the ensuing uproar, the government has insisted they are listening to concerns and open to changes — with several sources suggesting they are open to going back to the drawing board.

The Liberals say they have no intention of extending the Oct. 2 deadline for consultations, but a government source who spoke on condition of anonymity said that does not mean everything will be a done deal by then.

And then there's this little doozy right here:

The Privy Council Office says it has launched an investigation into who leaked confidential information about settlement money paid to former Guantanamo Bay inmate Omar Khadr. ...

The fact that a settlement had been reached with Khadr in his civil suit against the Canadian government, along with the alleged amount of that settlement ($10.5 million), was initially leaked to the media in early July.

News of the payout quickly became a political nightmare for the governing Liberals, prompting a backlash from the opposition Conservatives, the families of the American soldiers Khadr is alleged to have killed and injured in 2002, and broad segments of the Canadian population.

By transparency, I'm sure the Liberals meant to say that they were clear about lying to everyone.

I think that was it.


Also:

When it comes to intolerance, look no further than the Liberal and NDP MPs who walked out of a meeting simply because the meeting’s chair, Rachael Harder, opposes abortion and backed a bill to impose stricter penalties for crimes committed against pregnant women.

Intolerant NDP and Liberal MPs refused to be in the room with Harder simply because she holds a different view — a view shared by millions of Canadians of all political stripes.

They don’t want to talk about it, they just want to shut her out and take away her voice — and that of Lethbridge voters who elected Harder to represent them in Ottawa.

Sure, these leftist MPs were exercising their own freedoms, but this act of political theatre sets an example that you can silence and exclude those with different opinions.

Childish MPs weren’t the only example of a refusal to engage honestly on issues of the day.
Earlier this week, I wrote a column critiquing a CBC article over its claim Sharia law is already in place here in Canada.

When CBC News shared their article on Twitter, they wrote “Shariah is already in Canada.”

My column — “Stop normalizing Sharia law in Canada” — refuted the idea “Sharia is already in Canada”, and encouraged freedom-loving Canadians to join forces with moderate Muslim activists in campaigning against Sharia creeping into our society.

Sharia is more than just a set of spiritual guidelines for Muslims.

There is no separation of mosque and state in Islamic societies, and therefore, Sharia governs both private and public life.

But rather than having an honest discussion about Sharia and our secular Canadian society, rather than challenging my points and perhaps explaining how the two might be compatible, leftist critics simply attacked me and mischaracterized my argument.

They accused me of fear-mongering by saying Sharia is already in Canada — a claim made by the CBC, not me.

A Huffington Post article took my words out of context to promote the Trudeau government’s agenda and to demonize conservatives.

These tactics work to intimidate would-be critics and silence those with opposing views. They undermine the freedom of speech and civil discourse necessary in a healthy democracy.

If we cannot have an honest discussion about the realities of Sharia law, how can we safeguard our society against it?

When we allow freedom of speech to be curtailed for short-term partisan objectives, in the long run, other freedoms become collateral damage.

Because, my dear Mrs. Malcolm, that is how the fascist ball bounces in Trudeau's Canada.



Speaking of fascists:

The federal Liberals are working on an apology for the Canadian government’s decision in 1939 to turn away a boat of German Jews hoping to seek asylum in Canada, The Canadian Press has learned.

Some wanted the apology for the MS St. Louis to come in concert with today’s inauguration of the National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will instead only make reference to the issue in his speech.

(Sidebar: coward.)

The ship bearing 900 Jews was turned away from both Cuba and the United States before a group of Canadians tried to convince then-prime minister Mackenize King’s government to let it dock in Halifax.

 
Too late. They're already dead and MacKenzie King helped kill them.




Just like with Rachael Harder, it is never about individualism:

Women who have been impacted by pregnancy from rape have been forced to change a speaking venue because the hotel which had taken the booking feared pro-abortion protests.

The three women are speaking in Dublin and Cork as part of the “Ending the Silence: women impacted by pregnancy from rape speak out” initiative organised by Unbroken Ireland, which aims to give voice to those affected by pregnancy after rape. Two of the women are rape survivors, while one of the speakers was conceived in rape.

The Life Institute, which is co-hosting the event, said that it was absolutely shameful that the Gibson Hotel had apparently bowed to pro-abortion bullies who wanted to silence rape survivors.

Niamh Uí Bhriain said that this was the second pro-life event which had been cancelled in Dublin within a week because of threats of pro-abortion protests, with a different event in the Aisling Hotel cancelled after intimidation from abortion campaigners.

“It is absolutely shameful that pro-abortion campaigners feel that they can shout everyone down, and that the Gibson Hotel have effectively let repeal the 8th extremists silence women who have been raped,” she said.

“These women know at first hand the trauma of becoming pregnant from rape, and the stigma attached to children who are conceived in this way. They say that women like them they are too-often silenced by the stigma and shame they are made to feel, and that only the rapist, who is a criminal, should feel this stigma,” said Ms Uí Bhriain.

“Whatever your views on abortion, I think most people would recognise that these women have an important part to play in the debate – and that their voices are rarely heard. It is frankly disgusting that abortion campaigners want to silence them,” the Life Institute spokeswoman said.

(Sidebar: but I thought that women should be believed ... unless they refuse to abort or are Yazidi or kidnapped by Boko Haram ...)


But don't just take their word for it:

Blaming the victim

This is why I refuse to call such people "pro-choice". No matter what happens to a pregnant woman and her child (that genetically separate being whose size fries the hell out of people) or what her circumstances, the answer for pro-abortionists is unrestricted abortion without one moment's hesitation or self-reflection. And if that opinion differs even slightly, the knives (and worse - the melodrama) come out.


Also in "self-made conservative women are so g-d- uppity. Why can't they just shut up so that wealthy white Liberal men can continue wasting everybody's money?" news:

Calling for Sen. Beyak’s head is just the old Liberal trick of creating a bogeyman to divert attention from the real issue.

Like the Liberals’ Inquiry Into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, already a train wreck, which was preceded by at least 29 other inquiries and reports on this issue since 1996, which made over 500 recommendations, to no avail.

What do Sen. Beyak’s views have to do with that?

And:

The NY Times, the paper that ignored the crimes against humanity committed by Stalin as they were happening, is now looking to provide the same treatment retroactively to Mao Zedong. ...

“The Communists did many terrible things,” my grandmother always says at the end of her reminiscences. “But they made women’s lives much better.”

That often-repeated dictum sums up the popular perception of Mao Zedong’s legacy regarding women in China. As every Chinese schoolchild learns in history class, the Communists rescued peasant daughters from urban brothels and ushered cloistered wives into factories, liberating them from the oppression of Confucian patriarchy and imperialist threat.

Only to force abortions on both Chinese and North Korean women (who are forced into brothels if not being forcibly returned), arrest dissidents, starve, evict and use as cheap labour.

Hell of a deal!

The Trudeaus must be tickled communist pink!




Never doubt the power of prayer:

Poland’s bishops have urged the nation’s Catholics to join a massive rosary prayer crusade along the country’s 2,000-mile border to pray for the salvation of their country.

Organizers say they expect up to a million people to participate in the “Rosary on the Borders” event on October 7, the anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto, where “the Christian fleet overcame the Muslim armada, saving Europe from Islamization.”

The Catholic Feast of the Holy Rosary was established by Pope Pius V in 1571 as “Our Lady of Victory” after the so-called Holy League won a landmark victory over the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Lepanto.

On October 7th, 1571, a fleet of ships assembled by a coalition of Christian nations fought an intense battle against the forces of the invading Ottoman Empire. The unexpected victory of the so-called “Holy League” radically curbed efforts by the Ottoman Turks to control the Mediterranean, “causing a seismic shift in international relations from East to West.” As Fr. Steve Grunow, CEO of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, has written, “the world that we know came into being with this victory.”

In preparation for this decisive encounter, Pope Pius V ordered the churches of Rome opened for prayer day and night, and urged the faithful to invoke the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary through the prayer of the Rosary. On hearing of the Christian victory, the Pope established a new feast day in the Roman Liturgical Calendar, which would come to be known as the feast of the Holy Rosary.

“We believe that if the rosary is prayed by about a million Poles along the borders of the country, it may not only change the course of events, but open hearts of our compatriots to the grace of God,” the organisers say on their website.

“The powerful prayer of the Rosary can affect the fate of Poland, Europe, and even the whole world,” it reads.

The “Rosary on the Borders” event will also mark the end of the Fatima centenary, celebrating 100 years since the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal, in the spring of 1917.

The Polish bishops’ conference has endorsed the event, and asked all Catholics to join the rosary prayer for “the intentions of Poland and the whole world,” even if they are physically unable to make it to the border.

“Families may pray in their homes, sick in hospitals, and parish communities in their churches,” they said.

“A hundred years ago, Mary gave these three Portuguese children a message of salvation: repent, give reparation for sins against my Immaculate Heart and pray the rosary,” the bishops said. Rosary on the Borders is a “special opportunity” to fulfil that calling.

 
(Sidebar: I'm sure Breitbart meant to say "Catholics" but many there believe that the adherents of the true Church have a form of cooties.)

... swieta Mario, Matko Boza, módl sie za nami grzesznymi teraz i w godzine Smierci naszej.

Tuesday Post

It's not about fairness, Mr. Fatah. It's a show trial. If it were any more of a show trial, Lenin himself would spring out and accuse you of attempting to undermine the Revolution:

Leading up to my testimony at the House of Commons Heritage Committee last week, I had expected MPs to have some degree of interest in what a Muslim had to say about M-103 and the loaded word “Islamophobia”.

Instead, I felt a tangible hostility from the phalanx of Liberal MPs, as well as the chair, MP Hedy Fry.

Their body language, and refusal to address anything I had said as a witness made it evident to me this was not a “hearing”, but an exercise to rubber stamp a pre-determined outcome.

This wasn’t the first time I had seen what appeared to me as a kangaroo court.

Nearly 50 years ago in 1970, I was brought in handcuffs before a Martial Law Court in Karachi, Pakistan where a military colonel presided over my sentencing, even before I had spoken.

Nothing I could have said would have mattered in the day’s proceedings that sent me to a hill top prison in Balochistan.

Of course, my committee appearance in Ottawa was not that bad and my freedom was not at stake.

But the attitude of the chair reminded me of the Pakistani colonel.

Fry was not there to hear me, in my view, but to time me and interrupt me, so that I could not complete my thoughts or respond to attacks on me by Liberal MP Arif Virani.

While I spoke, many of the MPs helped themselves to sandwiches and instead of taking notes, munched away. At one stage, Fry scolded me, telling me to not respond to Virani’s question directly, but to address her, and that it was only through the chair that I could answer questions.

(Sidebar: ... for you are a chap who would dare thwart the revolution.)

Could this be interpreted in any other way than a show trial where the verdict is already known and those in charge are alternately at ease or attempting to instill fear in those being tried?





Saudi Arabia claims that it is giving women the right to drive, seventeen years into the latest century:

Women will be allowed to drive for the first time next summer in Saudi Arabia, the ultra-conservative kingdom announced Tuesday, marking a significant expansion of women's rights in the only the country that barred them from getting behind the wheel.

Also - a fool he was:

A senior education official in Saudi Arabia has been fired after a school textbook erroneously included a digitally altered image of the late King Faisal that showed him sitting next to Yoda, a character from the “Star Wars” movie series, according to reports in the Saudi media.

Edit or do not. There is no Photoshop.

Trudeau's favourite country tortures its political dissidents and forcibly returns North Korean defectors:

Canada, which has been accused of sharing intelligence that led to the torture of prisoners abroad, on Monday issued rules to prevent its security agencies from disclosing or requesting information from other countries if it would result in mistreatment.

The rules also prohibit Canada's spy agency, border services agents and federal police from using information likely obtained through torture, unless it is necessary to prevent death or significant injuries.

The Obama administration told the Warmbier family to keep quiet during their son's North Korean captivity:

The parents of a young Ohioan who was detained in North Korea for more than a year and died soon after being released said Tuesday he was “jerking violently,” howling, and “staring blankly” when he returned home on a medical flight.

Fred and Cindy Warmbier appeared on Fox News’ Fox & Friends morning TV show amid an escalating war of words between the Trump administration and North Korea. A North Korean official has claimed President Donald Trump has, in effect, declared war, which the White House denied.

Otto Warmbier’s father said they wanted to speak out about his condition after hearing North Korea claiming to be a victim that’s being picked on.

“North Korea is not a victim. They’re terrorists,” he said. “They kidnapped Otto. They tortured him. They intentionally injured him. They are not victims.”

The parents described the condition his family found him in when they went aboard an air ambulance that arrived June 13 in Cincinnati. They said Warmbier, a 22-year-old University of Virginia student, was howling, making an “involuntary, inhuman sound,” “staring blankly into space jerking violently,” and was blind and deaf with his head shaved. Fred Warmbier said his mouth “looked like someone had taken a pair of pliers and rearranged his bottom teeth.”

Also:

Kim Jong-un had 11 musicians executed with anti-aircraft guns and orders aides to pick out sex slaves from North Korea’s schools, a defector has claimed.

The Trump administration is now claiming that it is not seeking a regime change in North Korea:

The Trump administration said Monday it's not seeking to overthrow North Korea's government after the president tweeted that Kim Jong Un "won't be around much longer" and called Pyongyang's assertion absurd that Donald Trump's comment amounted to a declaration of war.

Trump is doing what his predecessors did: kicking the can down the road.

The North Koreans cannot wait that long, I'm afraid.

If there is no regime change, then everything Trump has said, done and tweeted is wasteful bluster.




The world has often decried the sale of arms to Iran:

Russian parliamentarians are objecting to Canada’s stated plans to eventually sell weapons to Ukraine.

After a Friday meeting with visiting Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada is beginning the lengthy process to certify Ukraine to buy Canadian weapons.

Harper gave material aid to Ukraine. Trudeau is just stuck with it ... for now.




But ... but ... they're not victims!

Hindu Rohingya women are reporting that they are being forced to remove sindoor (a traditional vermilion red powder worn by married women along the parting of their hair) break their bangles, and marry Muslim men, converting religion in the process.

 

(Sidebar: "The Wrath of Khan" joke is imminent.):

The Toronto Sun recently published a column by Omar Khan, former senior staffer to several Ontario Liberal cabinet ministers (“Wynne is actually doing the province some good”, Sept. 23).

Khan, now a Vice President for Public Affairs at Hill+Knowlton and a member of the Ontario Liberal Party campaign steering committee, defends the record of Premier Kathleen Wynne, rejecting the notion he says has been put forward by “firebrand columnists” that Ontario policies are producing something close to a “second Bolshevik revolution”. ...

Ontario, once you factor in federal taxes, maintains one of the highest top marginal income rates in the developed world. Top earners face a tax rate of 53.5% on any additional earnings.

Economic research shows such punitive taxes undermine growth and make it harder for Ontario to attract top talent.

A recent study by Ontario’s Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity notes some CEOs, when recruiting top international talent, report they often receive little more than a “courtesy call” in reply, due largely to Ontario’s high tax rates.

Ontario also carries a huge public debt.

The cost of servicing this debt makes it harder for the provincial government to consider tax relief, at least without prolonged spending restraint or cuts.

And debt is an obstacle to tax competitiveness.

Why bother complaining about opioid abuse?

The first city-run supervised injection site will open in the ByWard Market Tuesday afternoon to fight the growing opioid crisis, as the volunteer group that has been running an unsanctioned site only a few streets away says it will continue to operate.

A witness in the gas plant scandal trial proves problematic:

In an email sent to OPP investigators on Feb. 22, 2015, Gagnon suggested new charges be considered against David Livingston and Laura Miller.

(As it turned out, detectives were already considering those charges.)

The two were respectively then Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s chief of staff and deputy chief of staff at the time that two gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga were cancelled and relocated at enormous public expense.

Gagnon appeared to be suggesting a motive for why Livingston might have wanted emails and documents relating to the cancelled plants to disappear.

“Livingston was leaving public service,” Gagnon told the Project Hampden team, “but had to protect his reputation and that of the party for any future employment elsewhere and the parties (sic) future election.”

If such a view was probably as common as mother’s milk at Queen’s Park at the time, and perhaps even among a cynical electorate, it is a problematic statement from an expert at a time when expert witnesses are being held to ever-higher standards by Canadian courts.

But is it untrue?

I'm sure it is common for investigators to colour their findings with speculation. after all, they do have to guess as motives. If Livingston did, in fact, delete e-mails at the behest of his party, then Gagnon is not saying anything that the jury cannot conclude themselves.




This is the same party that refused let pro-life MPs run:

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer is accusing Liberals of a “lack of respect” for parliament after a kerfuffle in the status of women committee Tuesday morning.

Liberals and New Democrats oppose the Tories’ nomination of an apparently pro-life MP for committee chair, a role traditionally held by a member of the official opposition. After Rachael Harder was put forward for the role, Liberals vacated their seats in protest and forced the committee meeting to adjourn.

There is no "pro-choice", only pro-abortion (as one can plainly see from the childish behaviour above - like all women always worry about abortion!).

People will defend that shibboleth to the end.

From a party known for its horrendous treatment of women, this is typically melodramatic of them.



Also - perhaps people are finally sick of Trudeau's crap:

If a federal election was held today, the Conservatives would be narrowly voted in over the Liberals.

So says a new Forum Research poll, which found of 1,350 decided and leaning voters, 39% would support the Tories and 35% would back the Liberals.

The same poll found the NDP got 15% of the vote, while the Bloc Quebecois and the Green Party got a mere 5% and 4%, respectively.

Specifically, the poll found if an election were held today, the Conservatives would get a 169 seat minority government, while the Liberals would win 130 seats. The NDP, BQ, and Green Party would get 26, 12 and one respectively.

The poll also found is that Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s performance approval is down.

 
But never discount the congenitally stupid.




It is not reconciliation. It is obeisance:

Staff and students at Memorial University are striving towards reconciliation with the province's Indigenous population with a short declaration at the start of many on-campus events.

If you've attended anything at MUN so far this school year, you've probably heard it.

"We respectfully acknowledge the territory in which we gather as the ancestral homelands of the Beothuk, and the island of Newfoundland as the ancestral homelands of the Mi'kmaq and Beothuk," the declaration begins.

It also goes on to acknowledge the Inuit and Innu populations as the original inhabitants of Labrador.

Were there universities before the dreadful Europeans came?


Also:

The chief and a band councillor from a small Southwestern Ontario First Nation have been removed from office in the fallout of a nearly $600,000 band powwow, an audit of which found much of the spending wasn’t backed up.

That kind of reconciliation can be expensive.




And - to be filed under "a damned inexcusable travesty":

Jack Anawak was eight years old in 1956, the year the doctors came to his family’s home in their tiny Arctic community and took his mother south to treat her tuberculosis.

Two years later, she died in hospital and was buried, somewhere.

The family was never told where and for nearly 60 years the mystery has sat in Anawak’s heart like a dark hole in the sea ice that never freezes smoothly over.

(Sidebar: oh, please ...)

“It left a question mark,” said Anawak, who became a prominent Inuit leader and Liberal MP.

“Where is she buried? Where did this happen?

“You’re always wondering where your loved one is. To me it’s really important we close that final chapter of our lives, to finally realize you can go and visit your mom or your dad.”

Anawak may finally get some answers.

After nearly 10 years of work, the federal government is preparing to release a database holding everything that is known about what happened to people who were taken south for tuberculosis treatment.

And now, just in time for Halloween:

Halloween has exploded in popularity in Japan over the past few years, which has made celebrating one of my favorite holidays here all the easier, with fun events being held in major cities and delicious Halloween-themed treats being sold at restaurants and chains across the country.

Not to be left out, this year conveyor-belt sushi chain Kurazushi will be joining in the festivities with its own ghoulishly themed menu, featuring two savory items and two desserts.

For a Friday

 

On this lovely first day of autumn ...




The UN is a colossal failure and it is high-time that we withdrew from it:

Remember Rwanda, where Canadian Major-General Romeo Dallaire, as he then was, and his tiny, ill-equipped and mostly ill-prepared band of peacekeepers — 10 of whom were slaughtered along with 800,000 Rwandans, most of them Tutsis and about a third of them children — became the ghastly symbol of all that is terribly wrong with the UN. ...

The political staff and civilian police both worked only 8-5, with the usual two-hour break for lunch.

The UN logistics system, which was supposed to supply the soldiers, was an abysmal failure.

Of 300 military vehicles shipped to Rwanda, 220 were broken when they arrived, and the other 80 couldn’t be fixed when they broke down because there were no spare parts and the mission had no mechanics.

The promised helicopters never arrived.

By the time the genocide was in full sweep, Dallaire’s only professional troops, the Belgians, were pulled out by their government, the UN civilians were quick to flee, the UN-hired civilian pilots wouldn’t fly into Rwanda, and the UN Security Council couldn’t even decide upon the wording of its next resolution.

Pugliese quoted from a Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs report on the genocide written the following year: Mobs went door to door, festively beating drums and blowing whistles as they hacked Tutsis to death with machetes.

 
Also - PM Hair-Boy did not tell the UN how he refused to let in Yazidi refugees until embarrassed into doing so:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s speech to the United Nations general assembly Thursday focused largely on domestic issues, even including his finance minister’s proposed tax reforms, but didn’t get much into geopolitics.

Because that stuff is too hard to think about.

For him, anyway.

Trudeau didn't want to "trivialise" the word genocide when those being killed weren't in his riding.




It's only money:

As part of the much-scrutinized process that led to Madeleine Meilleur being nominated as Canada’s official languages commissioner this spring, the federal government spent almost $77,000 on a headhunting firm, part of more than $2 million spent on “executive search” services this year alone.

Much-delayed ethics, lobbying and information commissioner positions are also being supported by such services, the government has confirmed.

An Ottawa headhunting firm was just one cog in what many viewed as a botched appointment. It all started just before the previous official languages commissioner, Graham Fraser, resigned after a decade on the job.

It's only illegal when someone else does it:

The deletion of thousands of documents related to the politically explosive decision to cancel two gas plants near Toronto was a deliberate act that breached the public trust, the trial of two former top aides in the Ontario premier's office heard Friday.

The long-awaited and delayed trial began with the prosecution outlining the case against David Livingston and Laura Miller, and the defence chipping away at whether a critical Crown witness could be qualified as an expert.

Livingston, the chief of staff to former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty, and Miller, his deputy, have pleaded not guilty to charges of breach of trust, mischief, and unlawful use of a computer.

Oh, this must hurt:

From a number of venues normally in robotic lockstep with the great consensus of settled science, the London Times, the Washington Post, and even the maniacally warmist The Independent, a story emerges that the famous models of the global warming industry may have overstated the degree of global warming in the past two decades. 

They do not say this on their own, mind you. That would localize the heresy, and no organ of respectable journalistic opinion is willing to go full apostate on the creed of the Ecopocalypse without external backup.

We don't have a justice system, only a legal one:

Indian media reports say police from the Punjab were already in Vancouver and had taken custody of the pair when the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled Thursday that it would hear a new challenge of the extradition — leading to an extraordinary last-minute intervention at the Vancouver airport, after Sidhu and Badesha had already been loaded onto the airplane that was to return them to India.

To remind one:

Liberal MP Justin Trudeau said the government should not call honour killings "barbaric" in a study guide for would-be Canadian citizens.

Was it something they said?

Hundreds of Buddhists in Burma tried to block a shipment of aid to Muslims in Rakhine state where the United Nations has accused the military of ethnic cleansing, with a witness saying protesters threw petrol bombs before police dispersed them by firing into the air.

I am not angry but I am very disappointed:

“My casting says that the sky is the limit for all of us. I think what we’re seeing now in our media is this push to diminish and to devalue and to make people feel that the sky is not the limit for them, that they are meant for the ground,” says Martin-Green, a force of energy so bubbly and exuberant, its hard to imagine she was chosen to play a human raised as a Vulcan. Not only chosen, but actively waited on; production halted until her Walking Dead contract ran out.

“So having me as the first black female lead of a Star Trek just blasts that into a million pieces. I am eternally grateful that the diverse casting of our show means that we are now a part of the conversation and hopefully a part of making the world a better place, as cliché as this sounds. Because I really believe it and think its vital for us all right now,” she says, the spectre of Trump lurking unspoken.

There is no new ground here, really:

Captain Shaft Benjamin Sisko, reputed to be a bad mother --

His wife, Kassidy, the only one who understood him

Uhura, the real trailblazer

Geordi who loves a good book

(sigh)

And now, some genuine heroes: