Merry New Year!

 

The last post of the year ... (sigh)



Currently:

One deputy was killed and four others wounded after a suspect possibly laying in wait fired more than 100 rounds at them as they responded to the scene of a reported domestic dispute.

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said via its Twitter account that shots were fired in the course of the investigation and “multiple” deputies were injured. The shooting happened at the Copper Canyon Apartments in Highlands Ranch. The landscaped apartment complex is 16 miles (28 kilometres) south of Denver.

A follow-up tweet indicated that five deputies were shot by a suspect, with one confirmed dead. Two civilians were also shot by the suspect, who is “believed to be dead and no longer a threat.”

**

Anti-government protesters demonstrated in Iran on Sunday in defiance of a warning by authorities of a tough crackdown, extending for a fourth day one of the most audacious challenges to the clerical leadership since pro-reform unrest in 2009. 

(Sidebar: according to established wags, these anti-government dissenters are mere hiccups.)

(Merci)

**

South Korean authorities have seized a Panama-flagged vessel suspected of transferring oil products to North Korea in violation of international sanctions, a customs official said on Sunday. 

There is a pattern of this:

China on Friday denied reports it had been illicitly selling oil products to North Korea in violation of U.N. sanctions, after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was unhappy that China had allowed oil to reach the isolated nation. 

This North Korea:

A North Korean nuclear scientist deported back to his home country after defecting to China has reportedly committed suicide in his prison cell hours before he was due to be interrogated.

The defector, who is in his 50s, was a lead researcher in the physics centre of the State Academy of Sciences in Pyongyang. He was identified by Radio Free Asia as Hyun Cheol-huh, although it is not known if this was his real name.

A source in North Hamgyong province told RFA that he was forced back on November 17 and placed in solitary confinement at the state security department in Sinuiju city, where he consumed poison.

“He died before he could be questioned about the reasons for his escape, who had helped him and what his route had been,” he said. ...

Reports have suggested that Mr Hyun had attempted to join up with other defectors and that the Chinese were unaware of his true identity when they were tipped off by North Korean intelligence.

Despite building evidence of human rights atrocities, there has been a reported surge in deportations back to the North from China, the most common escape route for defectors.

It's time to penalise China big-time.

**

Changes are coming to the way drunk drivers are policed and prosecuted in Alberta with the provincial government set to issue a directive to police that will largely decriminalize impaired driving, CBC News has learned. 

Officers will be given wide discretion whether to criminally charge those who blow over the legal limit. But, for the most part, first time offenders will see roadside administrative sanctions rather than face criminal charges according to CBC sources.

The model Alberta is working toward looks much like British Columbia's, with fines, roadside towing and licence suspensions issued by police instead of criminal charges being laid.

The changes follow an Alberta Court of Appeal decision in May that struck down existing drunk driving laws. The province's top court found tying the suspension of a driver's licence to the outcome of their court case was unconstitutional.

(Sidebar: how could this go wrong?) 

**

Beyond the controversial $14 minimum wage that will be in place Jan. 1, other sweeping changes are set to revamp the Ontario labour and health landscape starting next week.

The new laws introduce free prescriptions for people under 25 and offer paid sick days to most workers, while abolishing the right for workplaces to request the much-maligned doctor's note when taking time off for health reasons. 

(Sidebar: things aren't free. The money to pay for these things will come from the now part-time workers and their heavily taxed incomes.)

**

An American Indigenous man's right to hunt in Canada has been upheld by a B.C. Supreme Court judge because his ancestors traditionally hunted in this country.

(Sidebar: now when Americans shoot Canadians, it is because an unelected judge let them.)

And now, one's year in review ...

Why didn't Stephen Harper gut the Supreme Court? I don't know:

At Wagner’s hearing before MPs, the Toronto Star reported, he “drew a clear line between the work of judges, which he said is to interpret laws, and that of parliamentarians, which is to make laws” — something for conservatives to cheer, perhaps, and perhaps something for liberals to fear. Progressive Canadians place much stock in the courts’ guidance on Charter issues, and in recent years that guidance has been music to their ears — on same-sex marriage, prostitution and many other issues. 

But Wagner also made clear that, like most Canadian jurists, he sees the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as a living, breathing document, not one frozen in amber.

That wasn’t such good news for conservatives. There hasn’t been much good news for conservatives at the Supreme Court in a long time.

A year with Gerald Butts' hand-puppet:

The last impression many Canadians have of Justin Trudeau in this year of Our Lord, 2017, was of him, shock-faced, rattled and babbling incoherently for a TV eternity of a minute and a half. 

For all the sense he made, he could have been speaking Njerep ( I have a Masters in Google search) a language that survives only on the tongues of four people in the entire world, the youngest of whom is already 60.

It’s not because the question was tough, nor could it possibly have been unforeseen. He had been found guilty by the ethics commissioner of, not one, but four provisions of the conflict of interest law.

And, naturally, he was asked, how could a prime minister not have known that hopping on private helicopters on a “vacation” to the Aga Khan’s private island, with buddies and Liberal party personnel in tow, was not — to use a word much in favour at Wilfrid Laurier U — problematic?

This was not quantum mechanics. It was a hot issue for the PMO for all of 2017. Yet there he was in the Commons foyer, having been asked the inevitable question, looking gobsmacked and wounded, stammering like an old outboard motor on the last pint of gas, and stacking up enough non sequiturs and platitudes to fill a Costco warehouse. How bad was he? For that 90 seconds, he made George Bush look like the oratorical son of Martin Luther King Jr. and Margaret Thatcher.

That was the last impression for public view Mr. Trudeau left for the year now gliding into its final hours. In the Star Wars Yoda-tongue: Ill, it will bode for him. Not smart, it will seem.

Really? Because most people remember the sesquicentennial as boring, uninspiring, wasteful and just plain awful:

Heritage Minister Melanie Joly is the first to acknowledge Canada 150 had its share of ups and downs.

She doesn't shy away from mentioning the torrential rains that flooded Parliament Hill's Canada Day show and tries to laugh off the frosty temperatures that forced the cancellation of many New Year's Eve events, including musical shows planned for Parliament Hill.

"We're Canadians," she says. "We're used to dealing with Mother Nature."

(Sidebar: like crying because it's cold outside?) 

Finally, may this new year greet one as it did these dogs - with high-pitched noises and howling:

 

But Wait! There's More!

Often, there is ...




How could this go wrong? :

There was a spike in applications for Canadian citizenship after the government relaxed the rules around residency requirements and language proficiency this fall.

Figures from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship provided to CBC News show there was an average of 3,653 applications a week in the six months before changes were brought in Oct. 11.

The number shot up to 17,500 applications the week after the new requirements kicked in. There were 12,530 applications submitted the week after that, but data for subsequent weeks is not yet available.

"Reducing the physical presence requirement gives more flexibility to applicants to meet the requirements for citizenship and encourages more immigrants to take the path to citizenship," said Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship spokeswoman Nancy Caron. "This helps individuals who have already begun building lives in Canada achieve citizenship faster."

Because being in Canada means more votes for the "post-national" party. 

We're not a country. We're an airport, a land-mass for which citizenship and civic duty are cheap commodities that benefit the Laurentian one-percenters.

Yeah, I said one-percenters.

These @$$holes:

What’s your favourite Canada 150 moment? The $5.6-million temporary Ottawa skating rink that bans hockey, figure skating, cellphones and roughhousing? The tedious CBC series that supposedly “snubbed” Nova Scotia and French-Canadians? The “Cultural Appropriation Prize” and subsequent white-guilt meltdown? The Duck To Nowhere? So many memories.

Caricatures of caricatures. A land-mass so in love with its stultifying social flatulence that it's embarrassing.

Putin is out for blood:

Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed a crackdown after a supermarket bomb injured 10 people in St. Petersburg, the latest in a series of attacks linked to Islamic extremists that have targeted his home city.

Putin said Thursday that he’d ordered the head of the Federal Security Service, in case of a threat to officers’ lives, “to act decisively, not to take any prisoners, to liquidate bandits on the spot,” in remarks at a televised ceremony with veterans of Russia’s military campaign in Syria.

One would think that this would be shouted everywhere:

ISIS retains historically low numbers of fighters, controls little territory and has lost much of its command and control facilities in Iraq and Syria. The vast majority of the military progress against the group occurred in 2017.

“During 2017 over 60,000 square kilometers were liberated from ISIS across Iraq and Syria,” British Army Maj. Gen. Felix Gedney told the Pentagon press corps Wednesday, explaining that “more than 98 percent of the land once claimed by the terrorist group has been returned to the people.” This estimate means ISIS lost nearly 60 percent of the territory it once controlled in 2017.

They're not dead enough, though.



 
The Moon government's efforts to dismantle the disgraced former president Park Geun-Hye's government are roaring along:

The closure of the inter-Korean Kaesong industrial park last year was a unilateral decision made by former President Park Geun-hye, a civilian panel tasked with reviewing unification policies said Thursday.

The panel also said that unification policies should be codified, and that the Ministry of Unification should be given more independence and its views given more weight in setting related policies. 

“Contrary to the former administration’s announcement, it has been confirmed that (former) President Park Geun-hye ordered (South Korean entities) to withdraw from the Kaesong complex on Feb. 8, before the National Security Council meeting on Feb. 10,” the panel said.

According to the panel, Park’s Foreign Policy Secretary Kim Kyu-hyun informed then-Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo of Park’s decision to shut the complex down on Feb. 8.

The NSC, led by former Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin at the time, convened later in the day. Related plans were drawn up and announced on Feb. 10.

The Park administration had said that the decision was made by the NSC on Feb. 10. The complex was shut down in response to North Korea’s fourth nuclear test and long-range missile launch conducted on Jan. 6 and Feb. 7, respectively.  

This Kaesong complex:

South Korea said on Thursday it “humbly accepts” there is no evidence North Korea diverted wages paid to its workers by South Korean firms in a now-closed border industrial park to bankroll its weapons programs as the previous government asserted.  

The South’s unification ministry was responding to the findings of a panel which contradicted claims of money being transferred by North Korea as it pursues its nuclear and missile programs in defiance of U.N. sanctions. 

It said would take follow-up steps to boost transparency and public trust in its policy towards the North.

Yes, about that:

At the time of its closure in April 2013, the minimum wage at the KIC was $67.05 per month, and once all payments and bonuses were accounted for, the average wage was $130.  Workers, however, were not receiving the full $130 per month; the North Korean government was thought to retain roughly 30 to 40 percent of this payment, ostensibly to cover social security payments, transportation, and other in-kind benefits. More importantly, while South Korean firms pay in US dollars, North Korea pays the workers in North Korean won converted at the wildly overvalued official exchange rate. Evaluated at the more realistic black-market rate, North Korean workers may have been netting less than $2 per month (if the entire dollar amount were converted into won at the black market exchange rate). …

No firms reported paying tips. This is slightly amusing insofar as Choco-Pies, a South Korean snack similar to American Moon Pies, emerged as a kind of parallel currency in the city of Kaesong. Originally providing Choco-Pies to workers as a snack, South Korean firms, unable to vary wage rates or reward particularly productive workers, began using extra allocations of the snacks as a way to lure workers away from their competitors. (The cakes circulated as a kind of parallel currency in the environs of Kaesong, so that providing workers with extra cakes that could be sold outside the KIC effectively amounted to granting them a bonus.  The North Korean government became sufficiently concerned over these developments that in November 2011, North Korean officials, the South Korean KIC management committee, and the employers agreed to rules to limit the distribution of the snacks. …

(Sidebar: b@$#@rds.)

Given that wages are usually paid to the North Korean government, the firms hiring via the government were asked if they knew exactly how much money their workers were in turn receiving from the government. A majority of the employers refused to answer the question. Of those that did, their responses were split nearly evenly between those that said they knew (21 percent) and those that said they did not (18 percent). In other words, only one in five firms indicated that they knew how much their workers were actually paid. Remarkably, none of the firms that reported paying piecework rates indicated that they knew how much the workers were paid—they simply paid their North Korean counterparty and left it at that. However, when asked the follow-up question whether they believed that the government took a large amount of money that was supposed to go to their employees, a majority responded affirmatively (76 percent overall, 77 percent in the KIC, 71 percent outside the KIC). The implication is that those firms claiming to be paying piecework wages cannot know for sure if they actually are.

**

 

The UN estimated in September that 100,000 North Koreans work abroad and send some $500 million in wages back to the authoritarian regime each year. ...

Across the world, they work 12-hour to 16-hour days, with only one or two days off per month. The North Korean government takes between 70 and 90 per cent of their monthly wages, which range from US$300 to US$1,000, according to the US State Department.

**

“If you pay three Chinese yuan or half a U.S. dollar, you can officially take one day off,” RFA quoted an anonymous source in the country’s Yanggang province as saying. While that doesn’t sound like much, it represents twice what the average North Korean earns in a month.

**

The average annual income in North Korea according to a 2013 estimate, is thought be $1,000 to $2,000.

**

Quoting data by the China National Tourism Administration, the broadcaster said that the number of North Korean workers in China increased from about 50-thousand in 2006, when the North conducted its first nuclear test, to 94-thousand-200 in 2015, earning the regime billions of yuan, or hundreds of billions of won, a year.

So, if the North Korean government is taking the meagre earnings (wherever they work) and even the snacks of their workers (again, b@$#@rds) and South Korean firms aren't sure how much the workers got paid, does it move the Moon administration to belabour any point on this matter, moot or pertinent?


If the North Koreans worked in a free economy as their southern cousins do, Kim Jong-Un would be on a platter with an apple stuffed in his mouth by now, not using wages to fund his nuclear program.

 

Moving on ...




South Korea is displeased with a prior arrangement with Japan on the comfort women issue:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on Thursday that a 2015 agreement with Japan over South Korean “comfort women” forced to work in wartime brothels was seriously flawed after Japan said any attempt to revise it could damage relations.  

Japan does not see it that way:

Japan is sticking to its position on a deal with South Korea concerning Korean women forced to work in Japan’s wartime military brothels as so-called comfort women, a government source said Thursday, even after South Korean President Moon Jae-in called the deal “flawed.”

Japan must make amends for its past brutality and the Moon government cannot draw this out any longer if it hopes to compensate the now elderly women violated by the militaristic Japanese.


Keep the statues where they are and hand out a lump sum. Stop using people to score points off of one another.

Furthermore, there are far greater issues to be worried about at present. Compensation won't matter if people are standing in rubble from a North Korean attack.




North Korean defectors may have been exposed to radiation:

At least four defectors from North Korea have shown signs of radiation exposure, the South Korean government said on Wednesday, although researchers could not confirm if the cases are related to Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

If these people were not exposed to radiation from working on the nuclear weapons program, then it may be that there are villages or swaths of land that South Korea may have to clean up at a later date.


Also:

“The question that has long been raised is: Did North Korea get this technology from a [Russian] fire sale?” asked David Wright, a missiles expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Did they get plans years ago and are just now at the point where they can build these things?”

Interesting question.




A Filipino survivor of the Bataan Death March has passed away at age one hundred:

A San Francisco Bay Area man who survived the infamous 1942 Bataan Death March and symbolized the thousands of unheralded Filipinos who fought alongside American forces during World War II has died. He was 100.

Ramon Regalado died Dec. 16 in El Cerrito, California, said Cecilia I. Gaerlan, executive director of the Bataan Legacy Historical Society, which has fought to honor Regalado and others. ...

Regalado was born in 1917 in the Philippines. He was a machine gun operator with the Philippine Scouts under U.S. Army Forces when troops were forced to surrender in 1942 to the Japanese after a grueling three-month battle.

The prisoners were forced to march some 65 miles (105 km) to a camp. Many died during the Bataan Death March, killed by Japanese soldiers or simply unable to make the trek. The majority of the troops were Filipino.

Regalado survived and slipped away with two others — all of them sick with malaria. They encountered a farmer who cared for them, but only Regalado lived.

Afterward, he joined a guerrilla resistance movement against the Japanese and later moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to work as a civilian for the U.S. military.

In his later years, he gave countless interviews to promote the wartime heroics of Filipinos, who were promised benefits and U.S. citizenship but saw those promises disappear after the war ended.

Mid-Week Post

One hopes one's Christmas Day was most enjoyable ...



Just in - an explosion at a Christmas market in Saint Petersburg:

A homemade bomb blast at a supermarket in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg injured 10 people Wednesday, officials said.

"According to preliminary information, an explosion of an unidentified object occurred in a store," Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said in a statement. 

The blast was caused by a "homemade explosive device with the power equivalent to 200 grammes of TNT filled with lethal fragments," she said.

"The investigation is looking at all possible causes of what happened," she said, adding that a probe for attempted murder had been launched.

"Ten people have been hospitalised, their lives are not in danger," said the head of Saint Petersburg investigative unit Alexander Klaus, Interfax news agency reported.

An AFP correspondent at the scene observed first responders and police as well as a car belonging the Federal Security Service (FSB), which investigates acts of terror.

Police said the blast occurred in a supermarket northeast of the city centre, with sources telling Russian agencies that the explosive device had been placed in a storage locker.

"About 6:30pm there was the sound of a blast. As a result, several people have been injured," the Saint Petersburg police said, giving the incident's location.

"There is no fire. All shoppers have been evacuated," an emergencies ministry representative told Interfax.

Witness Artur Yeritsyan told TASS news agency that he heard the blast and saw smoke in the shop, but that there were not a lot of customers at the time, with some victims being taken away by ambulances.

Russia's second city Saint Petersburg was the target of a metro bombing in April, which lead to fourteen deaths and dozens of people wounded.

The bombing was claimed by a group linked to Al-Qaeda which said it was a message to countries engaged in war with Muslims.

 More to come.



Also in Russia:

Aleksei A. Navalny, a Russian anticorruption activist, would have no real chance of defeating President Vladimir V. Putin in an election. The authorities have cast him as an utterly irrelevant showboat.

But on Monday the Kremlin barred him from running for president in March. Then on Tuesday, threatening legal action, it warned him against organizing a boycott of the election.

In one surreal turn after another, the Russian authorities have dismissed Mr. Navalny, a charismatic and canny street politician, as a nonentity — and then have done everything in their power to make sure that is the case.

The boycott warning came from Mr. Putin’s spokesman, and was issued the same day the president, who has been in power for almost 18 years, was formally nominated to seek a fourth term.

**

President Trump’s long-delayed decision to provide Ukraine with defensive lethal weapons signaled a new willingness to oppose Russian intervention in its neighbor, but has made European allies nervous that a recent hike in fighting could escalate.

**

 President Vladimir Putin is using the threat of additional U.S. sanctions to encourage wealthy Russians to repatriate some of their overseas assets, which exceed $1 trillion USD by one estimate.

Putin told lawmakers late Monday that a new capital amnesty program was needed “given the foreign restrictions, which instead of lessening are now worsening,” according to a transcript posted on the Kremlin’s website. This “should stimulate the return of capital to Russia,” the president said, without specifying how long the measure will last.

“People should feel comfortable and secure and it shouldn’t involve additional expenses,” Putin said Tuesday at a Cabinet meeting where he ordered officials to finalize the plan.

In Russia, one calls that ОТЧАЯНИЕ.




Canadians, no doubt horrified that child rapists could be driving their snowflakes' school buses, differ from Hair-Boy's government's position and demand prosecution and rehabilitation for the larger than sixty number of returned ISIS terrorists:

Nearly two-thirds of Canadians say the government should prosecute and lay criminal charges against individuals suspected of being involved with jihadi groups overseas, instead of focusing on rehabilitating them when they return to Canada, according to a new survey.

A Nanos poll found that 62 per cent of respondents support prosecution of Canadians suspected of jihadi involvement abroad, as opposed to 28 per cent who say the government should prioritize rehabilitation and deradicalization; 10 per cent said they were unsure.

The survey raises questions about the Trudeau government's multifaceted approach to dealing with returning suspected jihadis, which includes enforcement, surveillance and deprogramming individuals.

"I think the message for the Prime Minister should be that, yes, deprogramming should be a priority but that we should not lose sight of the security interests of Canadians, and Canadians wanting to make sure that if someone is suspected of being involved with jihadi groups, that this is primarily a legal matter first and then a rehabilitation matter second," pollster Nik Nanos said.

The poll, commissioned by The Globe and Mail, asked 1,000 respondents how the government should deal with Canadians when they return from overseas and are suspected of being involved with jihadi groups, such as the Islamic State: "Should the government prioritize prosecution and criminal charges against them or focus on rehabilitating and deradicalizing them?"

Lorne Dawson, director of the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society, an independent research organization, took issue with the survey question itself.

"The question suggests 'either or,' when in fact I would say it's both, meaning we should prosecute whenever we can but have to realistically recognize we're not going to be able to prosecute a lot of the time. So if you can't prosecute, wouldn't you like to have some kind of rehabilitation or deradicalization option available?" he said.

(Sidebar: this Lorne Dawson.  His tattered reputation is on the line.)

How does one go about rehabilitating this?

A baby was fed to its own unwitting mother by Isis, who also raped a ten-year-old girl to death in front of her own family, an Iraqi MP has claimed. 

Also - this criminal who committed a crime in the US and was tried fairly there can "reform" himself where he is:

The federal government says a Canadian who has been on death row in the United States for more than three decades should be granted clemency because he has "reformed his life" and received poor legal counsel when he was convicted.

Ronald Smith, 60, and originally from Red Deer, Alta., has been on death row since 1983 after fatally shooting two young men while he was high on LSD and alcohol near East Glacier, Mont.

He refused a plea deal and pleaded guilty. His request for the death penalty was granted.

He has all the filling of a puppet and just as much sway over his backers:

The prime minister doesn’t have business meetings. He has relationship sessions.

That’s the view Justin Trudeau outlined to the ethics commissioner during her probe of Trudeau’s family vacations to the Aga Khan’s private island, which ended with Mary Dawson finding the prime minister violated four parts of the conflict of interest act.

But her report also offers a glimpse into how Trudeau views the job as prime minister and how that shapes the inner workings of his government.

Some prime ministers view themselves as a CEO who set ideas and are the face of the government, leaving the heavy lifting to their ministers or senior civil servants. Others consider themselves the CEO types who are more involved in the day-to-day operations.

Experts say Dawson’s report points to the former model for Trudeau.

Then that would mean Trudeau knew damn well what he was doing and is entirely responsible for his fraud.


This Trudeau:

Trudeau was never terribly qualified to be prime minister. Before his quick political rise, he was known simply as the wealthy, dilettantish son of a popular ex-prime minister who had trouble choosing a career. First elected to Parliament in 2008, he was abruptly made Liberal boss in 2013 in what was dubbed a “personality cult” gimmick by a party whose popularity had slumped to record lows.

Trudeau’s initial steps on the national stage were defined by George W. Bush-style gaffes, such as expressing envy for the efficiency of China’s “basic dictatorship.” During his inauguration, it was revealed he didn’t know how to pronounce the word “heir.” To this day, he still stumbles when forced to express opinions outside his talking-point comfort zone (watch, for example, his painful attempt to articulate thoughts on North Korea). Carefully staged photo ops, such as Trudeau’s supposed “off-the-cuff” description of quantum computing, can be seen as a deliberate effort to reassure voters that their leader actually has something under that carefully coiffed hair.

His handlers cannot walk back on Trudeau's alleged innocence in the Aga Khan affair and claim that he is a serious broker after it has been established by Hair-Boy himself that he was just long overdue for a visit with his favourite uncle.




It would probably help if cities with a leftist bent got a clue and stopped handing out drugs, hospitalised the truly mentally ill and allowed tent cities to form in the first place:

Just outside the city centre, this semi-industrial neighbourhood — home to strip malls, a bottle recycling depot and a branch of the Royal Canadian Legion — has long had a homeless presence. But over the past year, the camp along 135A Street has more than doubled in size to about 90 tents and 130 occupants, according to police. Two 40-bed shelters on the street are at capacity.

Like Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, The Strip has become a potent symbol of the province’s growing housing inequality, opioid addiction crisis and lack of mental health resources.

Also - welfare isn't charity. It is money the government takes from the taxpayer and hands out to people it thinks will keep them in power year after year. Welfare creates dependency and reduces people's ability to cope in the real world. That, coupled with cultural and moral relativism, create a culture that believes helping is someone else's responsibility. No one can expect anyone to save the world but one can do what one can. Not here, however:

Boxing Day is losing its meaning in Canada.

Traditionally, the idea was that on the day after Christmas the well-to-do would give gifts to those of less fortunate means; a day of charity.

But charity is less important to Canadians today.

The Fraser Institute recently said, “the percentage of Ontario tax-filers reporting charitable donations fell by 19.4% from 2005 to 2015 — the largest decline of any province.”

Volunteerism is down across Canada as well.

The Calgary Sun quoted Abe Brown, executive director of Inn from the Cold, which assists homeless children and families.

“A tougher economy means people have less to share. Corporate donations in particular have struggled,” he said. 

“It makes sense because when you’re laying off 50 people, it’s pretty tough to write a charity a cheque for $50,000. Companies have had to make tough decisions about how they keep their businesses running and, unfortunately, part of that means that charities can often be left behind.”

Ontario’s Liberal government has instituted policies putting companies in exactly the position Brown laments.

A recent study by Angus Reid with the Charitable Impact Foundation noted, “previous research has indicated that while they are unable to give as much in a raw dollar amount, lower-income individuals are often more generous with their money – in terms of the percentage they donate – than wealthier people.”

That speaks well of low-income people, who are closer to the problems of those in need.

But conceivably, those paying the highest share of tax feel they are already giving huge amounts of money to the government, which promises to fix social ills.

So the government has taken over responsibility for the care of the poor. Or at least it says it has.

Why not train more professionals in Canada and make the transition of said-professionals from different provinces or territories easier? Then one could concern one's self with an experienced foreign professional willing to be Canadian.


Oh, but that would just make sense:

If you’ve spent any time in taxis, you’ve probably met the proverbial over-educated but underemployed immigrant: the lawyer or doctor toiling away as a cab driver because he’s been unable to qualify as a professional here. Canada admits these immigrants into the country—in large part on the strength of their credentials. To what extent does it then owe them help in landing professional jobs when they arrive?

(Sidebar: yes, about that ...)

For fairly obvious reasons, the government can’t guarantee educated immigrants jobs in their occupation of training; it can’t even offer this to Canadians educated here. But surely it does owe them a level playing field—that is, a process for becoming licensed and employed that’s roughly comparable to the one Canadian-educated professionals face. Foreigners shouldn’t be penalized because their credentials are foreign.

If a domestically trained Canadian could not get a job because his degree and references were obtained in the next province over, why should it be easier for anyone else?




What is so amusing is that he still gets people bent out of shape:

On the Shepherd incident being an anomaly
“No, no… that is precisely the state of the universities which is exactly why this got so much attention.”

On whether Shepherd’s professors were victims, too
“They could easily make the claim that we had to go down this route because that’s what the legislation demands and the policies that the university put into place demands.”

No more Mr. Nice Guy:

The United States government has claimed to have negotiated a significant cut to the United Nations budget.

The US Mission to the UN said the 2018/19 budget would be slashed by over $285m (£213m) and reductions would also be made to the UN’s management and support functions.

Just withdraw already.


Also:

President Jimmy Morales’ top diplomat defended his decision to move Guatemala’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, rejecting on Tuesday international and domestic criticism after he followed Washington’s lead in announcing a switch.

Foreign Minister Sandra Jovel said the change amounts to “a foreign policy decision, therefore sovereign,” and there is no intention to reverse it.

“What we are doing is being coherent with our foreign policy and the ally we have been for Israel,” she said.

 
This Israel:

Hatred of Israel, and Jew-hatred, run so deep at the UN that the real news was that 65 countries opposed (9), abstained (35), or skipped the vote (21), after the U.S. said it would remember how nations cast their ballots.

Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the UN, tweeted her thanks to all 65, including Canada, which abstained, noting: “We appreciate these countries for not falling to the irresponsible ways of the @UN.”

Canada’s UN ambassador, Marc-André Blanchard, will attend a reception hosted by Haley Jan. 3, thanking these countries for their “friendship” with the U.S.

Canada’s abstention was the best supporters of Israel could have expected given Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s lobbying for a two-year seat on the UN Security Council, with that vote taking place in 2020.

In the modern era, Conservative PMs have been far more supportive of Israel than Liberal ones, especially Stephen Harper, and Brian Mulroney.

Same goes for Republican presidents, including Trump, George H. W. Bush, who successfully campaigned in 1991 to revoke the UN’s loathsome 1975, Soviet-backed resolution equating Zionism with racism, and Richard Nixon, who provided Israel with military supplies at a crucial moment in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war that turned the tide in Israel’s favour.

The UN, ironically, was instrumental in creating Israel in 1948.

But ever since it has treated the Jewish state with open contempt, driven largely by the 22-nation Arab League and the 57 member countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

With ill and anthrax-vaccinated soldiers defecting like crazy, Kim Jong-Un has no choice but to rely on family:

The younger sister of Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator, appears to have cemented her position at the heart of his inner circle after making a rare public appearance next to top officials at a Worker’s Party congress. 

A photo which appeared in the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed Kim Yo-jong, believed to be 28-30, in the front row of an all-male line-up of senior party officials, clapping as her brother addressed the room. 

Ms. Kim is seen next to Choe Ryong-hae, her brother’s right-hand man and party vice-chairman, and Kim Pyong-hae and O Su-yong, the Worker’s Party secretaries, reported the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo. In a country known for its staged optics, the seating arrangement suggested her quiet promotion and the growing importance of her role in navigating the hermit kingdom through an international crisis.

And China:

China’s foreign ministry has defended its enforcement of U.N. sanctions against North Korea following reports Chinese ships improperly transferred oil to North Korean vessels at sea.

A ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, said Wednesday she had no information about the latest report. But she said China has “completely and strictly” enforced trade restrictions aimed at discouraging North Korea from developing nuclear and missile technology.

(Sidebar: except for the oil tankers.)
 

This China:

The death toll from the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre was at least 10,000 people, killed by a Chinese army unit whose troops were likened to “primitives”, a secret British diplomatic cable alleged.

The newly declassified document, written little more than 24 hours after the massacre, gives a much higher death toll than the most commonly used estimates which only go up to about 3,000.

It also provides horrific detail of the massacre, alleging that wounded female students were bayoneted as they begged for their lives, human remains were “hosed down the drains”, and a mother was shot as she tried to go to the aid of her injured three-year-old daughter.

And now, a baby sea turtle on a tread mill. Enjoy: