Mid-Week Post

Your post-Christmas Day bloat ...



What a Christmas Day it has been!:

Pilgrims from around the world flocked to Bethlehem on Monday for what was believed to be the biblical West Bank city's largest Christmas celebrations in years.

Hundreds of locals and foreign visitors milled in Manger Square as bagpipe-playing Palestinian Scouts paraded past a giant Christmas tree. Crowds flooded the Church of the Nativity, venerated as the traditional site of Jesus's birth, and waited to descend into the ancient grotto.

Palestinian Tourism Minister Rula Maaya said all Bethlehem hotels were fully booked, and the city was preparing to host an "astounding" 10,000 tourists overnight.

"We haven't seen numbers like this in years," she said, adding that the 3 million visitors to Bethlehem this year exceeded last year's count by hundreds of thousands.

Also:

Christians remain the most persecuted religious group on the planet, and heart-breaking stories of violence and hostility occur on a regular basis, across the Middle East but also in places, such as Pakistan, China and even Europe.

In the Middle East, the birthplace of Christ and the biblical homeland for Christians, Islamist warlords, jihadist extremists and majority Muslim populations have engaged in violence, intimidation, ethnic cleansing and genocide for decades.

They’ve all but wiped out the region’s diverse Christian populations.

As a result, Christians from Egypt to Iran and Turkey to Yemen are fleeing and disappearing in record numbers. Following the first world war, it’s estimated that about one in five people in the Middle East were Christian. Today, it’s less than 4%.

In once tolerant and diverse countries, such as Turkey and Iran, Christian populations simply no longer exist. Iraq’s once vibrant Christian population fell from 1.4 million in 2003, to less than 200,000 today.

In Europe, home of the world’s most beautiful cathedrals and the birthplace to many of our Christmas traditions, Christians are suddenly feeling under attack.

In recent years, ISIS has targeted and waged deadly attacks at Europe’s iconic Christmas markets.

On Dec. 19, 2016, an ISIS agent deliberately drove a large truck through the market at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin, killing 12 innocent people and injuring 56 more. He was a failed asylum seeker from Tunisia who worked with ISIS to wage his cowardly act of war.

On Dec. 11, 2018, an Islamist gunman opened fire at the Christmas market in Strasbourg, France while shouting “Allahu Akbar.” He killed five people and left 12 more wounded.

The terrorist gunman was known to security officials in Europe, and yet, he was able to carry out his gruesome attack against unsuspected Christians in Europe’s capital.

And - this is the same country that refused to strip convicted terrorists of Canadian citizenship:

The Federal Court has overturned a Canadian visa officer’s decision to refuse permanent residence to a former Iraqi government official under Saddam Hussein’s regime, in a case that could have larger implications for how Canada decides whether to accept refugees with ties to dictatorships.

The homeless want more than what Ottawa can afford to take from them and hand out to illegal migrants and future Liberal voters blocks:

This year’s homeless count proves what we’ve been hearing for a year: That the influx of refugees and asylum seekers have taken a huge toll on Toronto’s shelter system.

The city’s recently released $250,000 Street Needs Assessment (SNA) — conducted the evening of April 26 and the fourth such survey since 2006 — showed that 2,618, or 40%, of the city-administered shelter spaces are occupied by refugees or asylum seekers.

In fact, minus the tremendous influx of refugees, the actual number of homeless using city shelter spaces increased by about 600 since the last survey in 2013.

This contrasts to the 2,400 shelter/motel beds, 600 24-hour respite site spaces and 102 shelter beds added in the past year or two.

The city report indicates that the 2,400 shelter/motel beds (at $105 per night) have been added “primarily to respond to increased demand from refugee/asylum seekers.”

According to a city statement released at the same time as the SNA report, only 11% of shelter spaces were occupied by refugees in 2016. That jumped to 25% at the end of 2017.

And the survey showed the top cause of homelessness in Toronto in 2018 is — not surprisingly — migration, followed by an inability to pay housing costs.

If one has followed Vivian Krause and her stellar work in uncovering the foreign influences in the anti-oil movement in Canada, one would know that this is not wholly Canadian:

“My main fear is that other nations will continue to produce at market price and Canada will be left behind,” said Duncan Au, chief executive of CWC Energy Services Corp. The well drilling company has cut about 70 employees, or nearly 10 per cent, since the beginning of 2018.

“This is a made-in-Canada crisis,” Au said.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe is right to not meet with anyone illegally camped out at parliamentary buildings. Big Aboriginal doesn't want meetings but it does want upper hand$:

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe says he's never met with anyone protesting outside the legislature and didn't see a need to make an exception when Indigenous protesters set up a camp this past fall.

Moe said cabinet members were more than capable of working through some of the protesters' concerns.

"I don't know if it would have resolved it in a quicker fashion or not. The fact of the matter is ... those individuals were engaged with on multiple occasions with multiple members of the cabinet," he said in a year-end interview with The Canadian Press.

Oh, sure:

A Canadian citizen is set to be tried on drug charges in the Chinese port city of Dalian, Chinese state media reported amid already-heightened tensions between Beijing and Ottawa.

Also - just remember that Meng is a real victim here:

Chinese police detained a well-known Marxist at a top university on Wednesday, a witness said, on the sensitive anniversary of the 125th birthday of the founder of modern China, Mao Zedong, whose legacy remains deeply contested.

Qiu Zhanxuan, head of the Peking University Marxist Society, was grabbed and forced into a black car outside the east gate of Peking University by a group of heavy-set men who identified themselves as police, a student told Reuters.

Kim Jong-Un is as likely to pay as Justin is likely to surrender his pension for being such a crappy prime minister:

A federal court judge on Monday ordered North Korea to pay the parents of Otto Warmbier more than $500 million, holding the country accountable for the “barbaric mistreatment” and death of the University of Virginia student.

The feast of Stephen:

And they stoned Stephen, invoking, and saying: Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

 And falling on his knees, he cried with a loud voice, saying: Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep in the Lord. And Saul was consenting to his death.