For a Sunday

Before I comment on a couple of articles, I feel it necessary to re-quote the very astute insight of Ibn Warraq:

An obsession with conspiracies leads to fatalism, a refusal to take charge of one's own destiny or to take responsibility for the manifest backwardness of one's own culture.

(Warraq, Ibn. Why the West Is the Best. Encounter Books, 2011. pg. 159)


Now:

While the law does not mention a particular religion, many say it unfairly targets Muslim women who wear religious face coverings.

Ahmad says the bill could technically stop her from attending university, although she's hoping that won't happen since most of the faculty members she's spoken to have said they'll support her.

She also takes buses and the subway to get around, both to school and social engagements.

In the future, she says she expects to have to stay home more often.

**

On Wednesday, the Liberal majority passed into law Bill 62, which singles out the small number of Muslim women who wear face-covering niqabs or burkas and bans them from receiving government services, right down to a bus ride or a library card.

“Rather than facilitating inclusion, this legislation excludes citizens from the public sphere, it reinforces the marginalization of Canadian Muslims, and it risks emboldening those seeking to sow division and hatred between Canadians,” Eve Torres of the National Council of Canadian Muslims said in reaction.

Now, let's see: Pierre's son refused to call honour-killings barbaric, would not refer to the Boston bombing as an act of terror without excuse, regarded the prioritisation of the persecuted Yazidis for refugee status as "disgusting", has been known to frequent a mosque that has terrorist connections, has been the personal guest of a wealthy Islamist, has gone out of his way to pander to the Islamist community, voted for a motion of censorship, has ceased to strip convicted terrorists of Canadian citizenship, has rewarded a convicted terrorist and does not regard Canada as a separate and sovereign nation with an identity of its own.


This is not satisfactory?


Well, not if one belongs to an emotionally retarded culture that assumes a supine response whenever it cannot sway with anger or threats (reason is too much to expect).


This is why it is important to remember Ibn Warraq's (himself a former Muslim) words and to disregard with one's every impulse the notion that Islamists are the perpetual victims in Western countries where they are not only granted the ability and right to live in the manner they always have but are lauded for it and, when caught doing something wrong, are quickly excused for it.


When women in Iran were forced to wear the hijab after the 1979 revolution, they turned out in the streets in the thousands:

The penalty for their not wearing any covering - then and now - is severe.


Afghanistan (if one can believe it) was fairly modern in the 1950's and 1960's:

One cannot say the same now.


If these countries had already bucked these misogynist coverings through a natural cultural evolution, why return to a regressive state? Why force an established Western nation-state to accept things for which (one assumes) people immigrated to flee from? The answer to that question is that some people are fleeing to a place where they are placated, not where they must re-invent themselves and build a new life, as so many have done before them. Canada, in their eyes, must be transformed into a backward hole with which they are familiar and comfortable, even at the expense of liberties all enjoy.

Does the hijab crowd speak for her?

Well, it took over two weeks but Trudeau eventually got around to checking if Constable Mike Chernyk was okay:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau praised an Edmonton police officer for his "exemplary'' actions during an attack in which he was run down and then stabbed.

Trudeau met with Const. Mike Chernyk on Saturday during a visit to the Alberta capital and thanked the officer for his efforts, which the Prime Minister said helped save lives.

"It is a testament to his strength, but also to his training and just to the excellence of first-responders right across this country that he was able to keep a cool head in the most chaotic and violent of circumstances," Trudeau said.

Chernyk had been working crowd control outside a Canadian Football League game at Commonwealth Stadium on Sept. 30 when he was hit by a car that rammed through a barrier and sent him flying through the air.

The driver then got out, pulled out a large knife and began stabbing Chernyk, who fought back as he was lying on the ground.

Hours after Chernyk was injured, a cube van with police cars in pursuit drove down Jasper Avenue and hit four pedestrians.

Trudeau just oozes with concern for his political future.


Also - I would say the anniversary passed very quietly:

Sunday was a lovely, warm and above all peaceful day around Parliament Hill, in stark contrast to the chilly day exactly three years earlier when a terrorist killed Cpl. Nathan Cirillo.

As anniversaries go, this one couldn’t have been quieter. No announcements, no speeches, no military displays.

Crowds waited for tours of the Centre Block, posing for photos on the sunny lawn near the door where Michael Zehaf-Bibeau shot his way into the building. Some walked dogs; two young men kicked a soccer ball. (The tours skip over any mention of the shootings unless a visitor brings it up.)

The flag on the Peace Tower has been at half-staff for days, but that, as a Senate website made clear, was to honour the late Gord Downie.

Just another quiet day on the Hill, a Mountie observed.

While no one was looking or caring:

At least 54 policemen, including 20 officers and 34 conscripts, were killed when a raid on a militant hideout southwest of Cairo was ambushed, officials said Saturday. The ensuing firefight was one of the deadliest for Egyptian security forces in recent years.

**

A man with a knife attacked eight people in Munich on Saturday and then fled, police said. The suspected assailant, a local German already known to police for theft and other offences, was arrested a few hours later.

**

Anti-Christian persecution is at an all-time high world-wide, according to a recent report from the international Catholic charity, Aid to the Church in Need. The report, which tracks worldwide persecution from 2015-2017, found that 75 percent of religious persecution was directed at Christians.

The report also found that “in 12 of the 13 countries reviewed, the situation for Christians was worse in overall terms in the period 2015-17 than within the preceding two years.”

 
If the Liberals can't get their money from those grubby little hoarders in the waitressing and farming professions, they will damn well get it from the diabetics:

Health groups joined forces on Sunday with the Conservative opposition to accuse the Liberal government of trying to raise tax revenue on the backs of vulnerable diabetics.

The accusation opened a new front in the ongoing opposition waged war on government taxation policy, amid the backdrop of the conflict-of-interest controversy dogging Finance Minister Bill Morneau over whether he's properly distanced himself from millions of dollars of private sector assets.

Diabetes Canada was among the groups that joined Conservative politicians to publicly denounce what they say is a clawback of a long-standing disability tax credit to help them manage a disease that can cost the average sufferer $15,000 annually.

Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre branded it as one more example of an out-of-touch Liberal government that he characterized as unfairly targeting the hardworking middle class people it claims to support.

Speaking of out-of-touch:

This is more than a hint that the prime minister doesn’t really understand the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. Commissioner Mary Dawson is NOT the first or last authority on the ethics of the House or its members. They are. The House is. And the prime minister as government leader is, or should be, the first guardian and watchdog over the behaviour of his ministers and members. Mary Dawson is just a source of prudent backup. The attempts of the prime minister and finance minister to outsource their ethical standards to a parliamentary office, to position Dawson as somehow responsible for the deep pit they have so zealously excavated for themselves, is an outrage.

Also:

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has been badly shaken by a conflict-of-interest controversy about his finance minister, but the Liberal government’s upcoming fiscal update offers an opportunity to reset the public focus on Canada’s strong economy, political observers say. 

How? Does he have a pair of socks for that?


And:

Ontario’s Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk revealed this week that Kathleen Wynne’s government hid the cost of its “Fair Hydro Plan” from taxpayers.

This fat, unimportant little so-and-so wrote what she wrote because she knew that no one would be up in her grill about her bigotry and the fact that if she was caught using social media in Afghanistan, she would end up on the business end of a rifle:

A Dalhousie University student leader says she’s facing a backlash for criticizing “white fragility” and standing with Indigenous Peoples on Canada 150 celebrations.

Masuma Khan, a member of the student council executive, is under investigation for an online post that another student alleges discriminated against white people.

The issue stems from a Dalhousie Student Union decision not to endorse Canada Day celebrations or hold celebratory events on campus.

The decision prompted outcry from some groups, like the Nova Scotia Young Progressive Conservatives, who said in a Facebook post the student union “should be helping instill pride in our country, not boycott it on our most significant national holiday.”

Khan, a fourth-year international development studies student, called the celebrations an ongoing “act of colonialism” and used a hashtag that referred to “white fragility.”

“At this point, f–k you all. I stand by the motion I put forward. I stand by Indigenous students. … Be proud of this country? For what, over 400 years of genocide? #unlearn150 #whitefragilitycankissmyass #yourwhitetearsarentsacredthislandis” – Masuma Khan

“Be proud of this country? For what, over 400 years of genocide?” she said. “I stand by the motion I put forward. I stand by Indigenous students.”

Her post prompted Michael Smith, a graduate student in history at Dalhousie, to pen an opinion piece for the National Post newspaper.

“Canada is a welcoming country. We are blessed to be one of the most tolerant and multicultural nations in the world, where all individuals are free to pursue their dreams, regardless of their backgrounds,” he said in the op-ed. “Canadians have much to be proud of, and plenty to celebrate on this 150th year.”

Khan, a Muslim woman of colour who wears a hijab, said implicit in these comments is that she isn’t from Canada.

Enjoy your fifteen minutes of fame, fatty.




Bergdahl should be thankful that firing squads are in short supply these days:

Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. Army sergeant who pleaded guilty Monday to deserting his post in Afghanistan in 2009, says his Taliban captors were more “honest” with him than the Army has been since his release three years ago.

He is vaguely like some other traitors who have occupied portions of the news.




Harvey Weinstein's sentencing circle rehabilitation is apparently finished. He is free to be a pervert again:

Disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein has completed his one-week sex rehab program.

A psychologist taking part in his treatment told TMZ that Weinstein would remain in Arizona for a month or so after his week of outpatient 'intensive therapy' ends on Saturday.

Weinstein was 'invested in the program' and had focused on 'dealing with his anger, his attitude toward others, boundary work and the beginnings of work on empathy,' the psychologist told the outlet with Weinstein's permission.