Friday Post

The final Friday of the year ...


(sigh)


Anyway ...



Two are killed by a roadside bomb in Egypt:

Egyptian security officials say a roadside bomb has hit a tourist bus in an area near the Giza Pyramids, killing at least two people and wounding 10 others.

The officials said the bus was traveling Friday in the Marioutiyah area near the pyramids when the roadside bomb went off.

If Canada point-blank refuses to turn back illegal migrants, why would it stop this?:

The federal government is pledging a review of border laws and their effect on Indigenous rights. 

One Liberal MP involved is calling the U.S./Canada border an "onerous imposition" and "undue burden" on Indigenous nations whose territory extends into both Canada and the U.S.

Marc Miller, parliamentary secretary for Crown-Indigenous Relations, says he believes the border has had the effect of "impeding on cultural and traditional activities, which include hunting, cultural exchanges and simple mobility." 

He says the government is open to considering changes.

During the War of 1812, aboriginal warriors forced back invading American forces and sent them to their territory.

How things have changed.



It's definitely an election year:

Flush with party fundraising cash and facing two opposition parties still in rebuilding mode, Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister is not ruling out a snap election call well in advance of the scheduled date of Oct. 6, 2020.

In a year-end interview with The Canadian Press, Pallister would not commit to stick to the date.

"Why would I give my opponent that advantage? I'll just say 2020 is what it's scheduled for," Pallister said. "I was in sports too long. I'm not giving away whatever minor advantages I may have. I'm not giving them away."

** 

Bernier, 55, who represents the federal riding of Beauce, south of Quebec City, slammed the door on the Conservative party on the eve of its August convention. The Tories, he said, were "too intellectually and morally corrupt to be reformed," and on Sept. 14 he launched the PPC.

"It's a challenge to do politics differently," Bernier told The Canadian Press during a recent interview in Montreal. "You saw the reactions of those pundits when I expressed a totally normal point of view," he said referring to his pipeline stance.

While he calls his policies normal, they are designed to upend the Canadian order. He proposes a drastic reduction in immigration to Canada, cutting levels by more than 40 per cent from the Liberal government's current target of 330,000 people in 2019. "I'm the only one who is saying, 'Let's take fewer immigrants,' " he said. "We want people to integrate, we don't want ghettos in Canada."

He calls his policies "smart populism," promising to shrink the size the federal government to such an extent that provinces would have no choice but to develop their own natural resources or find other ways of creating wealth. A PPC government would stop transfers to fund provincial health care.

Instead, it would give tax points to the provinces so they can collect their own health revenues. And it would not use federal dollars to pay for local infrastructure projects. Ontarians shouldn't be paying for provincial roads in New Brunswick, he says.

My God! It's like he's making sense! 

 

“Why are we still fighting against certain veterans’ groups in court? Because they are asking for more than we are able to give right now,” Trudeau said ... :

"The purchases Trudeau ordered bureaucrats to make to top-up the existing fleet at his lake house included: One 17 foot prospector canoe specifically in red, one flat water kayak and one river kayak, two paddleboards, a windsurfer, a sailboat, a pontoon boat, and a ski boat" https://t.co/SsIX4Zy4Ot

— Sheila Gunn Reid 🐀 (@SheilaGunnReid) December 28, 2018

 

Why, this sounds like a GoFundMe challenge:

Hey does everyone remember @Laurier profs Rambukkana and Pimlott, who brought me into a discliplinary meeting (which I recorded) where they accused me of transphobia & threatening trans ppl & breaking the law becuz I played a clip from public television?

They're suing me! pic.twitter.com/x0y4dAbULC

— Lindsay Shepherd (@NewWorldHominin) December 28, 2018

 

Furious that Lindsay Shepherd had the presence of mind to record their tyrannical absurdity, these cowards are swinging back.

Canada had the same culture of silence and incompetence when Sikh extremists blew up Air India 182. Why should anything change?:

Asked whether his force is any closer to understanding what may have motivated the man who killed two females and wounded 13 in a horrific mass shooting on the Danforth in July, at first Saunders completely ignored the question, indicating their frontline officers were on scene in three minutes and 30 seconds.

Then he claimed he doesn’t want to “get into the minutiae (of the investigation) right now” — that there are still “some more things” that need to be looked at before they come to any conclusions.

Faisal Hussain, 29, turned his gun on himself after the rampage, which occurred while citizens were enjoying coffee, a meal or a drink at outdoor cafes along the popular Greektown corridor on a hot Sunday night.

As the Sun’s Anthony Furey revealed in the days following the shooting, a Muslim activist who has apparently committed himself to “framing a new narrative of Muslims in Canada” issued a statement on behalf of the Hussain family shortly after the shooting — indicating the young man had “severe mental health challenges.”

In September, unsealed police documents showed that officers seized the shooter’s electronic devices searching for “any plans for the offences, contacts, substances that could be used to build bombs or any literature or documents depicting hate, extremism, terrorism or a similar belief or following.”

The police documents also indicate that Faisal’s only companions appeared to be his parents — and that in the hours before the shooting, his fraternal twin brother pleaded with him “to get his life together.”

No details were contained in the documents as to what the searches found.

Asked whether the media and the public will ever get an account of what was behind the shooting, Saunders responded:  “I’m sure there will be an opportunity to present whatever we can to the public but it’s not going to be today.”

Oh, that is what is causing the solar panel industry to flounder - red tape, not the fact that daylight lasts anywhere from five to eight hours in most places in Canada during the winter. Of course!:

Since the Ontario government cancelled more than 738 solar rooftop projects earlier this year, the solar industry has been urging the government to create a new free-market regulatory regime in the province.

All but the largest projects are on hold until the red tape that surrounds connecting to the grid in Ontario can be trimmed or eliminated, according to John Gorman, president of the Canadian Solar Industries Association.

Concerned about the cost of Ontario electricity, the Doug Ford government cancelled 759 solar and wind projects in June and ended the Green Energy Act — which was paying higher rates for renewable energy that was fed into the provincial grid — in December.

The previous Liberal government's feed-in tariff for renewable electricity offered contracts at a fixed price above market rates in an effort to encourage the building of renewable systems — starting at 80 cents per KW/h for the first to sign such contracts in 2009, with the amount offered gradually reduced to about 22 cents.

That's still higher than the rate actually paid by Ontario residents, which ranges from seven to 18 cents per KW/h. 

But Gorman argues solar has the potential to be the cheapest power on offer, if the process of connecting to the grid can be streamlined.

Trump can't get his wall built. The Koreans won't get their railroad built nor close off underground crenels. Canada can't get its oil out of the ground and to markets where it is needed. What a lazy year:

Can Canada build anything?

That’s the rather embarrassing question which lingers as these last days of 2018 trickle away. For the next decade at least, that question will be punctuated with an exclamation point in the form of the Peace Tower of Parliament, the Centre Block of which will lay vacant until literally God-knows-when. Certainly the government doesn’t know.

Speaking of Korea:

North Korea has sent a Christmas video message to South Korean churches, according to the Unification Ministry on Tuesday. 

The North's Korean Council of Religionists sent the 98-second video to the Commission on Faith and Order of Korean Churches, a combined organization of Catholic and Protestant churches. 

It was played at a Christmas concert in Seoul Anglican Cathedral last Friday.

Indeed:

North Korean state media have published images of Christmas worship in the isolated country in an apparent effort to rebut U.S. accusations that it suppresses religion. 

Ryomyong, a website run by the North's National Reconciliation Council, on Wednesday reported on Christmas worship at the Bongsu and Chilgol churches in Pyongyang. 

"Prayers were said... wishing that the hard-won mood of peace on the Korean Peninsula wouldn't be disturbed by Satanists' obstructive maneuvers," it claimed.

"The religious freedom is certainly legally guaranteed in our republic," another post said. "Why is the U.S. haughtily presumptuous as if it were 'an inquisitor?'"

 

Yes, about all of that:

North Korea once again tops the charts as the world’s worst persecutor of Christians, according to a recent report by Open Doors USA.

**

“In one incident he recounted a woman, in prison because she was a Christian, was kicked repeatedly and left for days because a prison guard overheard her praying for a child (Yes, children are in prison camps because the regime imprisons three generations of a family for the transgression of one member),” IRD reported.

“In prison factories, guards poured molten steel on Christians to kill them because believing in God instead of Kim Il-sung was the biggest crime in the eyes of the officials.”

** 

North Korea is in the midst of another purge of "impure elements," corrupt officials and military officers who resist his reform efforts ahead of elections to the Politburo and the 75th anniversary of the Workers Party. 

"The targets of the hunt are people whose relatives have been imprisoned for serious crimes and family members of defectors," a source said. 

The suspect families are apparently being driven out of Pyongyang into internal exile. But the party's organizational department is also investigating corruption by officials in Pyongyang and the provinces in a widespread probe. 

The purge was expected when the state media started a campaign against the evils of corruption recently. The Rodong Sinmun daily reported on Dec. 19 that corruption is tantamount to "treason."  

The source said, "Kim Jong-un ordered the Workers Party to strengthen the fight against crime at the end of the year."  

Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat, wrote on his blog, "It looks like Kim Jong-un has become very angry at the discovery of many instances of corruption among members of the Supreme Guard Command, which is responsible for his security." 

"It appears that Kim Jong-un is increasingly disappointed by the North Korean military." Thae said his view was supported by the fact that no military officers accompanied Kim when he visited the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun on Dec. 17 to mark the seventh anniversary of his father Kim Jong-il's death.

 

Kim Jong-Un has help persecuting people he doesn't like:

The government has been accused of illegally spying on executives at major state-run businesses whom they suspect of being too close to the Park Geun-hye administration and setting special investigators on their trail. 

Kim Tae-woo, a former member of the inspection team-turned-whistleblower, on Wednesday claimed that the government illegally collected information on the heads and auditors of 330 state-run companies and agencies to see "if they were appointed by the former administration and what their political affiliations are." 

Kim added that a blacklist was completed in the middle of last year, and the head of the presidential inspection team "ordered targeted checks saying many new positions have to be created" for supporters of President Moon Jae-in. 

**

The North Korean government does not know the identities of all citizens who have defected. Some may be considered "missing persons" or they may have even been registered as dead. 

Some 997 North Korean defectors have now been informed that their names, birth dates and addresses have been leaked but it is not clear what impact this will have. 

Analysts say there are some concerns that the leak could endanger the defectors' family members who remain in North Korea. 

Sokeel Park, South Korea Country Director for Liberty in North Korea, an international NGO that assists North Korean defectors, says this hack will make other defectors feel less safe living in South Korea. They may change their names, phone numbers and home addresses. 

Investigations by the unification ministry and the police are currently ongoing, with the ministry saying it would "do its best to prevent such an incident from happening again".

On 19 December, the ministry became aware of the leak after they found a malicious program installed on a desktop at a centre in North Gyeongsang province. 

The ministry said that no computers at other Hana (resettlement) centres across the country had been hacked.

One expert on North Korean cyber-warfare, Simon Choi, believes that this might not be the first time a Hana centre has been hacked.

"[There is a North Korean hacking] group [that] mainly targets [the] North Korean defector community... we are aware that [this group] tried to hack a Hana centre last year," he told the BBC.

However, he added that it was not yet clear if any North Korean groups were responsible for the latest attack.

 

Cultural enrichment and so forth:

 

German prosecutors have indicted a woman alleged to have belonged to the Islamic State group’s “morality police” in Iraq and to have let a small girl she and her husband held as a slave die of thirst.

The suspect, a 27-year-old German identified only as Jennifer W. in line with local privacy rules, was deported from Turkey to Germany in 2016. She was arrested in June and is now charged with murder and committing a war crime.

Federal prosecutors said Friday that the woman was recruited to a vice squad of the militant group’s self-styled morality police and patrolled parks in Fallujah and Mosul in 2015, ensuring women adhered to IS dress and behaviour codes.

The jihadists seized Mosul in June 2014 and proclaimed it their “capital” before they were driven out by Iraqi government forces in July 2017.

“Her task was to ensure that women comply with the behavioural and clothing regulations established by the terrorist organisation,” said the prosecutors in a  statement.

“For intimidation, the accused carried an assault rifle of the type Kalashnikov, a pistol and an explosives vest.”

In January 2016, months after the child’s death, W. visited the German embassy in Ankara to apply for new identity papers.

When she left the mission, she was arrested by Turkish security services and extradited several days later to Germany.

**

“She confessed her crime in front of them, how can they forgive her?” asked Mohammad Bota, the 50-year-old elder brother of Mohammad Idris. Villagers in Ittan Wali were open, hospitable and insisted their village was not backward. But they were also uncompromising when it came to the former neighbour who had lived in a small house with a blue painted gate.

All maintained that Asia Bibi had confessed to insulting the Prophet Mohammed during a quarrel with Muslim co-workers and her conviction should stand. If Pakistan’s harsh anti-blasphemy laws decree it, she should hang, they said.

“I would die in the name of my religion and if someone has committed blasphemy, then they are not forgiven,” said Shawkat Ali, a 62-year-old farmer. “If the supreme court has some faith in religion and if they are Muslims, they should execute her.”

Jizya - not just for Islamists anymore:

When Germans file their annual tax returns, religion matters a great deal. If you’re Catholic, tax authorities will likely collect an income tax surcharge of about 10 percent on behalf of your local church. The same applies to most Protestants.

The tax applies to almost all baptized Christians, and church representatives say that the state-enforced payments are crucial in financing cemeteries and community work.

So far, practising Muslims have been excluded from that rule, but some leading members of the German government’s coalition parties appear determined to change that. Despite criticism from some Muslim communities, they maintain that a state-collected tax for all Muslims would help to boost moderate interpretations of Islam and counter the appeal of wealthy foreign donors who promote more radical interpretations.

I doubt that part. It would, however, decrease welfare rolls.



The bloody victory at Ortona:

He remembers the Germans having filled the narrow streets of Ortona with enormous piles of rubble from demolished buildings. Prevented from moving forward in the clogged streets, the Canadians were in effect funnelled into the few unclogged streets – a trap – where they were mowed down with MG42 machine guns, capable of firing 1,200 bullets a minute, or blown up in booby-trapped buildings. To avoid the streets, the Canadians pioneered "mouse-holing,” which saw them blast holes through the walls of adjoining houses so they could flush out the Germans and keep moving through the town.

 
This might explain some things:

But a new study from Norway, which examines IQ scores from 730,000 men (standardized tests are part of military service there) disproves all these ideas, because it shows IQ dropping within the same families. Men born in 1991 score, on average, five points lower than men born in 1975. There must, in other words, be an environmental explanation, and the chronology throws up a clear suspect: the rise in screen-time. 

Kids brought up with Facebook and Instagram are more politically bigoted, not because they don’t hear alternative opinions, but because they don’t learn the concentration necessary to listen to opponents — a difficult and unnatural skill.

Mummering - Newfoundland's Halloween ... or something:

Nobody is quite sure when mummering — called mumming or janneying in some areas — began in Newfoundland and Labrador.

There is documentation of the practice dating back to the early 1800s, though, says Larry Dohey, director of programming and public engagement at The Rooms in St. John's.

"It's just like many of the customs that we had," Dohey said, explaining the tradition was brought by British and Irish settlers and then morphed and became part of the community over time.

Mummering traditionally runs from the Feast of St. Stephen on Dec. 26 to the Old Twelfth Day on Jan. 6. In the best-known variation of the tradition, people hide their identities by disguising their faces and bodies and modify their speech and behaviour while visiting neighbours' homes.

 

Billions of years of evolution:

I am laughing way too hard at this. pic.twitter.com/4PVP185KIS

— Sean T at RCP (@SeanTrende) December 21, 2018

Why can't families of capybaras get along?!:

On September 27, our resident capybara “Maruo” passed away. We wrote about this a little in the May edition of our zoo blog, but his relations with his older brother “Mochi” worsened to the point where they became locked in desperate battle with each other. After tending to their wounds we attempted to re-introduce them, but as it resulted in more injury we decided to keep them separate.
Right while we were debating whether we could let them go outside together once the fresh wounds had healed, it transpired that the capybaras had managed to break through the partition in between the enclosures and had fought again. We discovered Maruo dead that morning.”

How does it feel to have killed your own brother? ... He's devastated.

 

(Merci beaucoup and kamsahamnida)