For A Monday

A lot going on ...




Someone who sits behind a desk believes that "terrorist travellers" can be rehabilitated:

A leading researcher on terrorist travellers says returnees to Canada can be rehabilitated, since those who come back to their home countries are often disillusioned or traumatized.

Others feel they have done their duty to defend Muslim lands and want to lead a more normal life, says Lorne Dawson, a sociology professor at the University of Waterloo and project director for the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society. ...

Dawson's network receives money for research on foreign fighters through a fund administered by the federal Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence, established by the federal Liberals.

(Sidebar: these Liberals.)

Professor Dawson wrote a paper based on the interviews of only twenty interviewees all of whom were fighting in Iraq and Syria for ISIS, the ideologies of which come directly from the Koran.

He has yet to provide any evidence that these people who set fire to a Jordanian pilot, crucified teen-agers, raped Yazidi girls and women and beheaded countless numbers of people - all finding roots in Islamism - will cease their murderous ways or not radicalise others.

Has Professor Dawson explained why convicted terrorist Omar Khadr has never denounced Islamism or how Islamist sexual deviancy recidivism is different from other recidivism? 

I guess he did not have time to speculate on that from the comfort of his office.

Also:

Over sips of mint tea, she spoke admiringly of her militant husband and the comrades she met in the Islamic State’s all-female brigade. Calling herself Zarah – she declined to give her family name because she had traveled to Syria in secret – she vowed that her children would someday reclaim the Islamist paradise she believes was stolen from her family.

“We will bring up strong sons and daughters and tell them about the life in the caliphate,” she said, fingering her teacup through black gloves. “Even if we hadn’t been able to keep it, our children will one day get it back.”

I'm sure stuff like this won't come back to haunt Professor Dawson.



And:

Mr. Al-Dhamadi is one of thousands of Yemeni-Canadians who have watched with terror as their country devolves into a humanitarian disaster. Nearly three years of war have caused tens of thousands to flee the country. Those who stay behind face relentless bombing from Saudi forces and a cholera epidemic preying on people weakened by hunger and the ravages of war. ...

While permanent residency applications for Yemeni families were left unanswered, Canada welcomed more than 40,000 Syrian refugees. In 2016, Canada accepted a total of nearly 47,000 refugees from around the world. That same year, 344 Yemenis filed refugee claims for resettlement in Canada. Only five were accepted. 

Yemenis applying for permanent residency in Canada face wait times of more than two years. Given this reality, the Yemeni-Canadian community has a simple question for the Canadian government: "Why the Syrians, but not us?"

Because you didn't get enough press. That's why. 

Justin Trudeau, who openly admires the "basic dictatorship of China" where women undergo forced abortions, female infanticide and child abandonment are common, where North Korean women are used as sex slaves and who refused to call honour killings barbaric or prioritise Yazidi girls and woman as refugees so as to protect them from rape and abuse and who elbowed a woman in the chest and whose government made mediocre but expensive gestures to ignore how aboriginal women are more likely to be abused by aboriginal men than strangers, calls for men to stop abuse of women (but not from cultures who vote Liberal):

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says men must do more to put an end to gender-based violence against women and girls.

What an @$$hole.




From the most "transparent" government in the country:

Hydro One customers will be able to opt in or out of a proposed program to “pre-pay” electric bills, Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault insists. ...

And in fact, on page 2,038 of a 2,076-page application, under the title of “Collection Enhancements,” Hydro One specifically cites the rising number of customers in default as justification for pre-paid meters.

“The cost of electricity in Ontario has been steadily increasing,” Hydro One points out. “This has resulted in a number of customers having difficulty in paying their bills on time.”

**

Premier Kathleen Wynne’s trade mission to China has so far secured more than $1 billion in agreements between Ontario and Chinese companies.

(Sidebar: why stop there? Why not just hand the entire country to the currency-fixers?)


**

Skyrocketing hydro rates are forcing many Ontario manufacturers to close, lay off employees or move south of the border. 

Hydro rates have increased so dramatically under Ontario’s Liberal government, that the province’s once-cheap electricity prices are now the highest in the country. As a consequence, officials from American states are wooing Ontario businesses.

And it’s working.

**

The federal government could eventually rake in up to $6 billion annually in new revenue as a result of a proposed change in the tax rules for incorporated small businesses, Parliament’s budget watchdog estimated Thursday.

A parliamentary budget office report concluded changes to passive investment rules would add up to $1 billion to federal coffers in the first couple of years, rising to as much as $4 billion in 10 years and as much as $6 billion in 20 years.

**

Apart from the addition of yet another right to the swelling list of things Canadians are told are theirs by birth, the premiers are worried about more practical matters. The plan’s ambitious budget presumes they will happily kick in billions of dollars to make the program come true. Much of the federal share consists of previously-announced programs, while the “new” money only gets spent if the provinces agree to share at least $12 billion worth of costs.

People actually voted for this.




A former NDP MP has-been accuses the Canadian armed forces of  war crimes in Afghanistan:

Craig Scott, an Osgoode Hall law professor who was defeated in the 2015 election, will hand deliver a 90-page brief to the court in the Hague, arguing that successive federal governments "abdicated" their responsibility to investigate reports of torture.   

He is urging Fatou Bensouda, who has been the ICC's chief prosecutor since 2012, to make key Canadian politicians and military officers "central to any investigation."

The filing, a copy of which was obtained by CBC News, says the current Liberal government and the former Conservative administration had many opportunities to investigate claims that suspected Taliban militants, captured by Canadians but handed over to Afghanistan's notorious intelligence agency, had been tortured.

"Canada cannot now be trusted with second chances," Scott wrote.

(Sidebar: “It is from the Canadians that we learned how to treat prisoners of war,” he said. “All of our foot soldiers now know this. The Canadians taught us how to behave according to democratic principles.” . So there's that. I suppose it is the Canadian armed forces' fault that terrorists soiled themselves after being arrested by people who regularly abused children?)

Will he implicate terrorist lottery winners, as well?




South Korea's foreign minister completely disregards Chinese media's calls to restrict the THAAD deployment:

 Kang Kyung-wha also reiterated that Seoul has just reaffirmed to Beijing its existing stance against three issues -- deploying additional Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems, joining the U.S.-led global missile defense program and developing a security alliance with the United States and Japan -- rather than making any official consent for them.

   "Our government is not mulling any restriction on the operation of the THAAD system," Kang told a parliamentary session. "The issue of its operations is based upon a decision by the (South Korea-U.S.) alliance."

Also:

No foreign government should has the right to demand access another country's defenses. This is a violation of its sovereign right. Yet the government was only too keen to agree to China's demands. Beijing's behavior clearly shows the high price Seoul will have to pay for the decision. Now China is demanding that Moon and Kang deal with the THAAD issue "in stages." A high-ranking government official said, "China used the phrase 'at the current state' to refer to the need for the issue to be put to rest." But that makes no sense, and really suggests that the issue is at some sort of interim stage of development instead of being over, and China intends to keep telling Korea what to do. 

China has no history of dealing with foreign countries on an equal basis. It historically only understands vassal states and enemies, nothing else. That means that when a country deals with China, it needs to stick to its principles. But there are no principles visible in the way the government here is kowtowing to the bullies. Seoul does not have to do this. It is a mystery why the government is taking this approach.

  Pope Francis met with the head of Burma's military on the first day of his papal visit:

A few hours after his arrival in Myanmar (Burma) on November 27, 2017, Pope Francis received a “courtesy visit” from the head of the Burmese Army, General Min Aung Hlaing at the Archbishopric of Yangon. ...

It was Cardinal Charles Bo, Archbishop of Yangon, who suggested this interview when he met with Pope Francis last November 18. The end is “not to promote what [the General] has done, but to have a dialogue with him…Perhaps it can soften his heart and this might be, perhaps, the first step towards peace,” he explained.

Pope Francis has been asked not to mention the Rohingya in order not to inflame an already difficult situation.




See, militant atheists, this is why people don't like you:

According to a piece on NJ.com, an atheist group has filed suit to stop the Catholic blessing of animals at a county-run shelter, claiming the blessings violate the First and Fourth amendments.

(Merci beaucoup)