For a Thursday

Quite a bit of ground to cover ...



I don't understand why both Israel and the US won't just quit the UN entirely:

The United States announced Thursday it is pulling out of the U.N.'s educational, scientific and cultural agency because of what Washington sees as its anti-Israel bias and a need for "fundamental reform" in the agency.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel plans to follow suit.

The UN is not going to reform. It must be destroyed.


Also - this is an interesting development. Two groups that have been at each other's throats for ages are making peace. Israel must be huffing down their necks:

Rival groups Hamas and Fatah have reached a preliminary, partial agreement that could pave the way for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to resume governing the Gaza Strip, a decade after Hamas overran the territory, officials close to Egyptian-brokered negotiations said on Thursday.

Miffed at Boeing, the Trudeau government says it will buy fighter jets from Australia:

Canada has taken the first formal step toward buying used Australian FA-18 fighter jets, upping the ante in a trade dispute with U.S. defence giant Boeing.

Public Services and Procurement Canada quietly posted notice on its website over the holiday weekend that it has sent a formal letter expressing interest in the surplus warplanes.

The purchase, if it goes ahead, would mean there would be no need for the Liberal government to enter into a deal with the U.S. government to buy 18 advanced Super Hornet jets.

(Sidebar: " ... quietly posted ..."? Why not be man enough to say this Trump's face?)

 
One must remember that people voted for this sort of thoughtlessness and veiled bigotry:

“The National Holocaust Monument commemorates the millions of men, women and children murdered during the Holocaust and honours the survivors who persevered and were able to make their way to Canada after one of the darkest chapters in history. The monument recognizes the contribution these survivors have made to Canada and serves as a reminder that we must be vigilant in standing guard against hate, intolerance and discrimination.”

What drew international gasps was the fact that there was no explicit recognition of the uniquely Jewish aspect of the Holocaust. The plaque was hastily removed, to be revised, one assumes, to more appropriately reflect the proper historical significance of the Holocaust.

Still, some have asked, why is this so controversial? What’s the big deal? Didn’t many millions, not just Jews, perish during the Nazi years?

Why? Because the Holocaust was and remains singular. The Holocaust is a one-word shorthand specifically devised to refer to the Nazi obsession with murdering every last Jew on earth. This outcome — to make the world “judenfrei,” or “Jew-free,” was a core Nazi principle.

What should be pointed out was not the specificity of this particular plaque but that this was a repeated behaviour on the part of Trudeau whose open mouth constantly gathers feet:

The first time this happened was on Jan. 27, 2016, when, in issuing a statement commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Week, Trudeau failed to mention that six million Jews died in it.

Also - before one proceeds with this, it is important to remind one of this:

Trudeau, most members of his caucus and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May voted down a Conservative motion asking the House to declare ISIS guilty of genocide against Christians, Yazidis, Shia Muslims, women, and gays and lesbians.

And this:

"And to know that somewhere in the Prime Minister's Office staffers were poring through their personal files to try and see … which families would be suitable for a photo-op for the prime minister's re-election campaign. That's disgusting."

And this:

Michelle Rempel needs to get angry more often.

The 36-year-old former Conservative cabinet minister, now the Official Opposition critic for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, was the driving force behind Tuesday’s 313-0 House of Commons vote requiring Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government to get its act together and open Canada’s doors to the persecuted Yazidi minority of Iraqi Kurdistan.

**

Depraved ISIS thugs are little more than serial rapists who claim sex assault is a byproduct of implementing teachings of the Qur'an.

The grisly details are laid out in a new report by Nikita Malik called, “Trafficking Terror: How Modern Slavery and Sexual Violence Fund Terrorism.”

In it, a Yazidi survivor describes how ISIS henchman would line up young girls against walls before groping their chests.

“If they had breasts, they could be raped; if not, they would wait three months to check again,” Victim 1 said, according to an interview cited in the report.

The girls – many of them minors – were raped together in rooms as children looked on, she said after finally eluding ISIS’ grip.

Victim 1 also described how she was raped by six ISIS guards one night after attempting to flee.

“She was raped in every place possible," the report reads. "She was forced to do things that were disgusting to her and they kept her without clothes in this room so that anybody could come at any time and rape her.”

Yazidi women were told by brainwashed ISIS brides that they needed to be raped to become fully Muslim, according to the report.

They were often sold, but lost monetary value the more times they were purchased by men in Iraq and Syria.

The report also describes how sexual depravity continues to act as a pull factor for prospective terrorists

“Sexual slavery serves as an incentive for new recruits and foreign fighters, with the promise of wives and sex slaves.” writes Malik.

But people voted for this sort of over-taxation and fat government eating from one long bowl:

New data out from top pollster Ekos show Canadians are down on their own economic lot and feel their fortunes slipping.

Back in 2002, just over a fifth of Canadians considered themselves working-class. Yet now, based on answers given over Sept. 15-Oct. 1, that number sits at 37%.

Where has this growth come from?

A dropoff in the middle-class cohort. Almost 70% put themselves in that bracket 15 years ago, but now it’s plummeted to 43%.

Meanwhile, those who called themselves “poor” were previously in the single digits and now take up 13%.

The only constant? The upper class has stayed around 4% all of this time. Must be nice.

**

The Trudeau Liberals — led by a trust-fund prime minister who never had to worry about paying the rent, and by a finance minister who is even wealthier — have an ideological agenda based on the belief that borrowing billions for pet projects will make Canada’s economy blossom like a well-tended rose.

They have a belief that budgets will eventually balance themselves, and that no environmental argument exists to defend the use of fossil fuels — energy that heats our homes, keeps our lights on, fuels our cars, runs our industries, returns multi-billions in tax revenues and is decades away from any viable alternative.

They’re myopic to the point of blindness.

Their big spending habits now have them looking for money anywhere they can get it, and it is desperation akin to stealing candy from babies and checking under couch cushions for loose change.

At the same time, they have the gall to blame TransCanada for “making a business decision” to cancel the Energy East pipeline, but acknowledge no responsibility for suddenly saddling the company with stringent and expensive environmental regulations that apply to no foreign entity off-loading oil in our country.

So, TransCanada threw up its hands and said to hell with it.

And who could blame it?

If Patrick Brown wants to be a snake again, then he can lose again:

The leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives, a largely unknown politician who polls suggest could be the province’s next premier, says social conservative issues will be off limits at his party’s much anticipated policy convention.

It is not simply that guns are tightly controlled by a government that ignores the illegal gun trade. It is that the powers that be can punish one if one defends life and property:

A murder charge was dropped Thursday against a Newfoundland man accused of killing a home invader last year.

Gilbert Budgell was charged with second-degree murder in the shooting of one of two masked men who entered his Botwood house in central Newfoundland in April 2016.

The man later died in hospital.

Crown prosecutor Karen O'Reilly says the case — which included a second charge of unlawful possession of a firearm — couldn't go ahead without satisfactory belief it could be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

"When it gets to the judge's stage, he has to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that it happened, so he needs almost near certainty," O'Reilly told reporters Thursday in Grand Falls-Windsor, N.L.

Defence lawyer Bob Buckingham said the home invaders arrived wearing masks, and Budgell acted out of fear.

Many distinct groups were found to have occupied what is now Newfoundland and Labrador:

About 5,000 years ago, after massive ice sheets from the Last Glacial Maximum retreated, the Maritime Archaic peoples carved a living from the sea and woodlands on Newfoundland's west coast.

It's not clear where they came from or how they got there. But they left behind polished slate spears, stone axes and the remains of ancient fireplaces in rows along the beach that hint at how they hunted seals and wild game.

At Port au Choix, north of today's Gros Morne National Park, archeologists in 1968 recovered hundreds of artifacts. There were carved pendants resembling birds, shell beads, decorative stones, quartz and amethyst crystals suggesting spiritual rites of a well established culture.

This southern branch of the Maritime Archaic mysteriously vanish from the archeological record some 3,000 years ago.

Still, it was widely speculated they were related to the later Beothuks who thrived in Newfoundland for hundreds of years before Europeans arrived. They were gradually cut off from crucial fishing and hunting grounds before the last known Beothuk died of tuberculosis in 1829.

New genetic research published Thursday suggests the Maritime Archaic were in fact distinct from the Beothuk.

"This in turn implies that the island of Newfoundland was populated multiple times by distinct groups," says molecular anthropologist Ana Duggan, co-author of the study published in the journal "Current Biology."

If they are either extinct, intermarried or have moved off, whatever made them do so before the advent of massive European colonisation?





Perhaps if one took money from injection sites?

Jolly Old Saint Nick may have one less appearance on his itinerary this holiday season if the non-profit society that runs the annual Vancouver Santa Claus parade doesn't find some cash soon.

The annual event is short a sponsor after Rogers gave notice, more than a year ago, that it would no longer contribute the $150,000 for the spot of title sponsor.

"We're grateful for Roger's support over the years. They've been a tremendous partner for the parade and they've just changed their focus as corporations do over time," said Jessica Walker, president of the Santa Claus Parade Society.

Walker says it's been a struggle to to find a replacement sponsor. "We've just had a hard time filling [Roger's] shoes," she said.

The society spends $400,000 to put on the event with a large chunk of that going to pay for permitting and city fees, building floats, policing and traffic control and closures.

"We have over 300,000 people come down, so we have a lot of safety and traffic control protocols in place," said Walker.

The City of Vancouver has offered to contribute about one-third of the parade costs in kind, according to Walker.

The Greater Vancouver Food Bank is hoping someone will step up to save the event as it counts on donations at the parade to get through the year.

CEO Aart Schuurman Hess says over the years the parade has helped bring in $157,000 and 77,000 pounds of food. 

"We're $150,000 short and I'm pretty sure there's someone out there who says I'm going save Santa Claus," said Schuurman Hess.

The parade society has given itself two weeks to find a new sponsor or the parade will be cancelled.