Friday Night Special

A de-radicalisation expert demands the prosecution of a returned ISIS thug:

De-radicalization expert Mubin Shaikh is urging Canadian authorities to attempt to prosecute former Canadian ISIS fighter Huzaifa, a man he said he has personally counselled since his return to Canada more than two years ago.

"Let's not be risk averse. Maybe you can try it. We can still make an attempt to charge him with something and, you know, see what sticks," Shaikh said in an interview with host Vassy Kapelos on CBC News Network's Power & Politics Thursday.

"He has been pushing back on some of the counselling attempts I am making. He is getting a bit arrogant. He believes that he got off and Canada can't do anything against him," said Shaikh.

Huzaifa returned to Canada in 2016, but a new New York Times podcast has since drawn renewed attention to his story. The former ISIS member gave detailed accounts to Times reporter Rukmini Callimachi of how he carried out two execution-style killings while a member of ISIS in Syria.

(Sidebar: arrogant? Why would he think that? Could it be that he firmly believes he had the right to engage in terrorist acts and that the Liberal government refuses to do anything about him?)

As of this writing, Huzaifa has not been arrested nor has he been charged with colluding with a known terrorist organisation.

To wit:

Everyone who leaves or attempts to leave Canada, or goes or attempts to go on board a conveyance with the intent to leave Canada, for the purpose of committing an act or omission outside Canada that, if committed in Canada, would be an offence under subsection 83.18(1) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than 10 years.

Thick as thieves:

China has virtually lifted a ban on travel to North Korea as ties strengthened with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's two recent visits. 

Chinese online travel agencies have resumed selling package tours to the North, and direct charter flights connect Chinese provincial towns with Pyongyang. The travel ban was not mandated by the UN, but China took the initiative late last year under pressure from the U.S.  

Qunar, a leading Chinese online travel agency, is promoting packages that take tourists on a tour of Pyongyang, Kaesong, Mt. Myohyang and Mt. Kumgang after arriving in Pyongyang on an Air Koryo flight or by a train. They cost between 3,180 and 9,999 yuan. 

Signs that China would lift the ban were already detected in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, where a dozen travel agencies began selling group tour programs to North Korea around the time of Kim's second visit to China in May. 

**

Kim and Xi held a second day of talks at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, whose grounds China's official Xinhua News Agency described in unusually lyrical terms as being full of "verdant greenery and splendid flowers," adding to what the propaganda outlet said was the "close and friendly atmosphere" of the talks.

The pomp and circumstance looked geared toward showing off the major improvement in relations between the communist neighbours , along with China's important role in keeping North Korea on track. But it cast no new light on the main question that hangs over the previously reclusive North Korean leader's surge in diplomatic activity in recent months: What next steps, if any, will Kim take to dismantle his country's nuclear program?

(Kamsahamnida)

Unless the Vatican and the Vatican alone appoints bishops, there is no free church in China:

Pope Francis has voiced optimism for improved ties between the Vatican and China, rejecting criticism that the Holy See may be selling out Catholics to Beijing's communist government.

The Vatican and China are in advanced talks to resolve a dispute over the appointment of bishops in China, one of the biggest obstacles to resuming diplomatic ties that were cut almost 70 years ago.

"We are at a good point," the pope told Reuters in an interview at his Vatican residence.

China's estimated 12 million Catholics are split between an underground Church that swears loyalty to the Vatican and the state-supervised Catholic Patriotic Association.

Pope Francis did not comment in the interview on the details under discussion but said dialogue was the best way forward.

"Dialogue is a risk, but I prefer risk rather than the certain defeat that comes with not holding dialogue," he said.

"As for the timing, some people say it's 'Chinese time'. I say it's God's time. Let's move forward serenely."

Gerald Butts doesn't want the Canadian public to know this but he is the man directing things behind the curtain.

Case in point:

Doug Ford isn’t even Ontario’s premier yet and already Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s courtiers are slagging him about climate change.

Leading the charge has been Trudeau’s principal secretary, Gerald Butts, and Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna.

Both have been tweeting their outrage over the incoming Progressive Conservative Ontario premier promising to do post-election what he said he would do during the election.

This Gerald Butts:

While Butts’ name has largely kept out of the filibuster coverage, that wasn’t the case with a scandal he caused last month, this one entirely of his own making. After the world laughed at Trudeau over his “peoplekind” mansplaining, Butts took to social media to immaturely chastise the PM’s critics as Nazis.

“Calling your critics Nazis denigrates the true victims of Nazism,” wrote Jewish human rights activist Sam Eskanasi. “Canadians deserve a higher level of discourse from their political and social leaders.”

And don’t forget there were the stories about how much money he and chief of staff Katie Telford billed to taxpayers for their move from Toronto to Ottawa.

Butts simply should never have allowed himself to become the story in any of these, Liberal sources tell me. “No one cares who some staffer is to the PM,” a top Liberal said on background, discussing how most Liberals other than those in Trudeau’s echo chamber are growing increasingly frustrated with Butts.

He's awfully busy for a man who is supposed to be standing in the back.




Why not have a referendum on carbon taxes? What could go wrong?:

Support for carbon taxes appears to be falling as people finally realize what these plans will actually cost them in the wallet.

Everyone wants a clean environment; that’s not the issue. What is at issue is the cost to peoples’ bank accounts and to the economy and if there are more economical and effective ways of protecting the environment (spoiler alert: there are).

Ontario premier-designate Doug Ford openly campaigned during the recent election to scrap Ontario’s current cap-and-trade system. Ford opponents will cite that he only received 40% of the popular vote, meaning that 60% voted against his party and their plans for Ontario.

While true, this 60% is split between three other parties for whom voters likely voted for them for reasons that go beyond just supporting a carbon tax.

So to help clarify exactly which side this 60% falls on, PM Trudeau ought to hold a referendum on the issue.

However, this challenge comes with the condition that Trudeau lays out all the facts about his carbon-tax policy, verified by independent, impartial evaluators. Canadians must be clearly told the total cost of the carbon tax, along with an iron-clad audited guarantee of where the carbon tax money is to be spent. ...

Trudeau and Environment Minister Catherine McKenna should also stop saying that carbon dioxide is a pollutant. Carbon dioxide is the food of life; it’s an essential component of photosynthesis. Some experts, such as Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore, who unlike Trudeau and Gerry Butts is an ecologist, argue that the Earth is actually carbon deficient; that even prior to the advent of the industrial revolution, we actually had higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and lush green forests feeding off the CO2.

Also:

At least since 2014, the news has been dire: The West Antarctic ice sheet is losing ice, and its retreat may be unstoppable. It may be only a matter of time (granted, maybe a very long time) before it adds as much as 10 feet to global sea-level rise. Already, ice loss in the region is accelerating, nearly tripling in the past 10 years alone.

But on Thursday, scientists reported they may have discovered a possible mitigating factor, one that could slow or even prevent the ice sheet’s full collapse into the ocean.

Namely, Earth’s mantle deep beneath several key West Antarctic glaciers appears to be rebounding, rising upward as the weight of ice on top of it lifts — and doing so at a rapid rate of 41 millimeters per year, or just over 1½ inches.

What? A Liberal acted like a self-important bully? NO!:

A three-page complaint filed by the Canadian Red Cross to the federal government, and obtained by The Canadian Press, says Liberal backbencher MaryAnn Mihychuk ignored protocol and the reality of the situation last September 7, when she visited a Winnipeg shelter housing evacuees who had been flown in from the Garden Hill First Nation.

“Mihychuk verbally abused Red Cross volunteers and staff at the shelter and on the phone, using abusive and bullying language,” the complaint alleges.

“For the evacuees, many of whom had just arrived from another shelter, the chaos and confusion caused by Mihychuk and (Manitoba Liberal legislature member Judy) Klassen stirring up the evacuees and misleading them about hotel rooms, only caused to multiply the stress the evacuees are already under.”

In a statement, Klassen said she was trying to get residents what they needed.

Mihychuk said Thursday she never acted out of line.

“I find the accusations surprising, actually, and inaccurate,” she said.

“I will always stand up for people who are in trouble and victimized, and that was the circumstance of the Indigenous evacuees.”

Oh, she only acts like a b!#ch when evacuees are indigenous.

Way to single people out, MaryAnn.




It is said that a sucker emerges into the world every sixty seconds, or so one is told:

A Vancouver man who sold bottles of “Hot Dog Water” for nearly $40 each says he was trying to see how marketing of health claims backed by supposed science amounts to quick sales.

Douglas Bevans said he boiled about 100 organic beef hot dogs and put each one in a bottle of the water he sold at an annual car-free event.

Each bottle of the “keto-compatible,” unfiltered water sold for $37.99, but two bottles cost only $75 because of a special deal last Sunday at his booth, where he wore a hot dog onesie and promoted himself as CEO of Hot Dog Water.

Bevans promised the water would lead to increased brain function, weight loss and a youthful appearance, even erasing crow’s feet when applied to the face in the form of a lip balm, which he also happened to sell.

“We noticed that some people were rubbing lip balm on their crow’s feet and they were swearing their crow’s feet were disappearing before their eyes,” he said.

One man who rubbed the lip balm on his “dome” sent him photos suggesting it promoted hair growth, Bevans said.

While many people laughed, he said others were impressed by the health benefits they’d experience with his unique products, including body spray and “Hot Dog Water breath freshener.”

Bevans said he sold 60 litres worth of the products.

And now, chill to the sounds of ancient Greek hymns to the gods:

Hymns sung to the Greek gods thousands of years ago resonated from ancient musical instruments in Athens on Thursday, transporting a transfixed audience to antiquity.

The phorminx, the kitharis, the krotala and the aulos - string and wind instruments reconstructed by musical group Lyravlos - echoed among marble statues in Athens's National Archaeological Museum as part of World Music Day celebrations.

A family of musicians, Lyravlos have recreated exact replicas of the ancient instruments from natural materials including animal shells, bones, hides and horns.

Music was an integral part of almost every aspect of ancient Greek society, from religious, to social to athletic events. Today only some 60 written scores of ancient Greek music have survived, said Lyravlos member Michael Stefos.

Stefos said they interpret them as best they can, relying on the accuracy of their recreated instruments.

"Joking aside, ancient CDs have never been found," he said.