Wednesday, October 11, 2023

Mid-Week Post

Your middle-of-the-week outrage ...

 

Sickening:

Every few minutes, soldiers broke the silence to announce that more dead people had been discovered. Some said that up to 40 babies’ corpses had been found among entire families who were shot dead as they slept. The children, in particular, appear to have suffered gruesome deaths, and there were claims that some had had their throats cut.

“I’ve served as a combat soldier and officer for 39 years,” Major-General Itai Veruv told The Times as he stood with red-rimmed eyes at the entrance to the kibbutz. “I’ve never seen anything which comes close to this. It’s not even something that our parents knew. This is something out of the world of grandfathers back in Europe, from the pogroms and the Holocaust.”

As more bodies emerged, it seemed likely that Kfar Aza would turn out to be the scene of the biggest massacre of this war, the greatest loss of civilian life in a terrorist attack in Israeli history. It was part of Hamas’s assault on more than 15 communities, kibbutz and towns on Saturday morning. An estimated 1,000 Israelis were killed and scores more, including women, elderly people and small children, were kidnapped.

In Kfar Aza, officers were cautious not to give numbers of the dead on record, but privately the expect the worst. Yesterday more than 100 bodies were found in Kibbutz Be’eri, to the south. “This one is probably worse,” one officer told The Times. “We are afraid we’ll find hundreds of bodies.”

 

Even more sickening, CUPE: 

In the true tradition of trade unionism, CUPE Ontario will always choose justice over injustice, side with the powerless over the powerful, and support the colonized over the colonizer. Throughout the world, CUPE Ontario’s International Solidarity Committee (ISC) links members to workers’ global struggles so that we may stand in solidarity with all oppressed peoples.

From this foundation, we do not hesitate to condemn the terrible violence in southern Israel and Gaza that took place over this past weekend, and that continues to escalate, with no end in sight. CUPE Ontario members have shared the world’s shock and horror at the attack on Israeli civilians by Hamas fighters and at the subsequent Israeli military assault on the people of Gaza. Violence and death visited on civilians is deplorable and CUPE Ontario mourns the brutal loss of innocent lives. We offer our condolences especially to those CUPE members who have ties to Israel and Palestine, and echo calls for an immediate cease and discussions that lead to a just peace.

However, in these volatile times, the same principles that guide us also make us targets of others’ hate and intolerance. Recently, CUPE Ontario became the focus of far-right extremist hate because of our role in the counter-protests to the September 20 anti-trans demonstrations. Now we find ourselves targeted by a different set of trolls, this time a highly organized pro-Israel lobby that seeks to control the anti-Palestinian narrative fed to Canadians and intimidate any person or organization that fails to comply with its agenda.

This lobby rejects any attempt or even reference to context, nuance or appeal to even-handedness in the history of Israel/Palestine. True to form, it has targeted CUPE Ontario President Fred Hahn and CUPE 3906 for their recognition of Palestinians’ rights under international law to resist occupation through armed struggle. Support for these rights has guided the creation of CUPE Ontario’s policy against the apartheid policy of the state of Israel; that policy, often led by CUPE post-secondary locals, also forms part of our proud history of work against all forms of oppression and injustice.

These discussions are made even more challenging in our country given the one-sided media coverage and our current political environment. In news stories, Palestinians are routinely dehumanized and openly threatened with annihilation by members of Israel’s government; yet these displays of racism and threats of genocide have received no condemnation from any official quarter in Canada.

 

It's all the Jews' fault, eh, CUPE?


Also:


 

India has expelled at least forty Canadian diplomats:

Tensions have ramped up yet again. An Indian official reports that Canada has been told to remove about 40 of its 62 diplomats from its embassy in Delhi.

Ottawa has been told by New Delhi that it must repatriate roughly 40 diplomats by October 10, said people familiar with the demand. One person said India had threatened to revoke the diplomatic immunity of diplomats who remain after that date.

[Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau on Tuesday did not confirm how many diplomats had been told to leave but highlighted the importance of having a diplomatic presence in New Delhi because of the dispute between the countries.

“Obviously, we are going through an extremely challenging time with India right now, but that’s why it is so important for us to have diplomats on the ground working with the Indian government and there to support Canadians and Canadian families,” he said.

 

Whatever you do, don't be honest about wasted money:

Budget Officer Yves Giroux yesterday defended research indicating cabinet misled taxpayers on the recovery of green technology subsidies. “I don’t have a vested interest,” Giroux told the Commons industry committee: “As soon as we publish a report that sets the record straight there are accusations we have not understood the problem or have a bone to pick.”

 

Nursing shortages in Canada create extreme shortages in Ghana:

Canada has been looking outside its borders to fill a critical nurse shortage, but recruitment efforts are leaving Ghana’s hospitals short-staffed. Now Ghana’s nurse association says Canada should foot the bill for their training.

 

Why train and keep nurses in Canada when one can deprive an impoverished country of nurses who will only be badly treated here? 

 

 

Just a reminder:

 


And where are you going to put them, Marc?:

Canada is set to welcome 11,000 migrants from Colombia, Haiti and Venezuela this fall, immigration minister Marc Miller said.

In March of this year, Canada had promised it would welcome 15,000 migrants from the western hemisphere over the course of the year. On Tuesday, Miller said Canada was creating a “new humanitarian permanent residence pathway” for 11,000 migrants from three countries.

“Starting this fall, Colombian, Haitian and Venezuelan foreign nationals located in Central or South America or the Caribbean who have extended family connections in Canada will be eligible to apply for this new pathway,” Miller said in a statement.

The principal applicant, regardless of age, must be a child, grandchild, spouse, common-law partner, parent, grandparent or sibling of a Canadian citizen or permanent resident. New permanent residents under this program will be offered “enhanced pre-arrival services,” which include an employment skills assessment and a referral to a settlement provider organization in their intended community.

  


Why are people still sending their kids to public schools?:

**

**

Saskatchewan politicians are heading back to legislature, preparing for a pronoun fight that some political observers say could alter the province's electoral landscape.

The legislative assembly is set to resume Tuesday, with the Saskatchewan Party government planning to introduce legislation that would require children under 16 to receive parental consent if they want to change their names or pronouns at school.

Premier Scott Moe has said he plans to invoke the notwithstanding clause, a provision that allows governments to override certain Charter rights for up to five years.



I'd say it's because some people really don't like children:

The Canadian birth rate is continuing to drop to historical lows — a trend that is likely connected to the crushing price of housing for young people looking to start families.
Article content
Statistics Canada confirmed last week that 351,679 babies were born in 2022 — the lowest number of live births since 345,044 births were recorded in 2005.
The disparity is all the more notable given that Canada had just 32 million people in 2005, as compared to the 40 million it counted by the end of 2022. In 2005, it was already at historic lows for Canada to have a fertility rate of 1.57 births per woman. But given the 2022 figures, that fertility rate has now sunk to 1.33. ...

In a survey published last month, the agency found that more than a third of young Canadians were setting aside plans for a family due purely to financial reasons. Of Canadians in their 20s, Statistics Canada found that 38 per cent of them “did not believe they could afford to have a child in the next three years” — with about that same number (32 per cent) saying they doubted they’d be able to find “suitable housing” in which to care for a baby.

 

What about the other 62%? 

Yes, people have just given up ... owning a home, but let's not forget how selfish people are in the post-modern West.

 

Also:

Federal financing for energy refits of a luxury Toronto hotel is “grotesque,” says Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis (Haldimand-Norfolk, Ont.). The MP challenged the Minister of Housing to justify the funding when “Canadians are sleeping in garages.”


Some people are special:

A new Statistics Canada report says homicides of Indigenous women and girls are less likely to result in the most serious murder charges than cases in which victims were non-Indigenous.


I'll just leave this right here:

The truth is, as a country, we've been tiptoeing around this issue ever since the RCMP released its 2014 report on missing and murdered aboriginal women. It found most of the murder victims knew their killers. But the descriptions provided in the report were vague, including a finding that 30% of offenders were "acquaintances" of the victim, which told us very little.

And while the report was eager to highlight the ethnicity of the victims, it deliberately omitted the ethnicity of the offenders. RCMP brass later said it did so in the spirit of "bias-free policing," which was a cop-out and a pathetic attempt at political correctness.

However, when Bernard Valcourt -- the federal aboriginal affairs minister at the time -- said last year that RCMP data shows 70% of murdered aboriginal women were killed by aboriginal men, the Mounties publicly confirmed the number. Some First Nations chiefs balked at the figure and questioned how the data was collected. And there's been a debate about the veracity of the data ever since.

So, shouldn't this independent inquiry set the record straight on who the murderers are, including their ethnicity, and what their specific relationship was to their victims? Because failure to do so leaves the question hanging and only fuels further speculation about the extent to which race has played a role in these killings.

We need facts, not more politically charged speculation.

 **

In a move that has stirred controversy and sparked outrage, a councillor from Murray Harbour, P.E.I., has refused to resign over a inflammatory sign displayed on his property. The sign denies the existence of mass graves at former residential school sites, a claim that has been vehemently disputed and condemned by Indigenous leaders and politicians.

The councillor’s defiant stance comes amid growing calls for his resignation. Despite taking down the sign and expressing regret for any hurt caused, he has refused to step down from his position.

**

No one wants to talk about some actual genocide:

On October 2, National Review published another bombshell report by Alexander Raikin, one of the best journalists covering the euthanasia and assisted suicide file. Raikin’s reporting is filled with brutal revelations about how euthanasia activists are strategizing to expand the regime to children, the impoverished, and other vulnerable populations. One anecdote in particular stood out to me. In 2018, at the annual conference of the Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers (CAMAP), Raikin noted, the speakers – and activists with Dying with Dignity – laid out how they would undermine Christian institutions and push euthanasia. 

“Just two years into Canada’s euthanasia experiment,” he writes, “physicians were busy laying plans for how to expand euthanasia to children, especially Indigenous children, since they ‘are considered wise because they are closest to the ancestors.’” One panel discussed how to best provide “MAID to vulnerable, Indigenous, homeless, and frail elderly populations.” According to one panelist: “I have a First Nation patient who meets all the criteria for MAID, but much of their suffering is due to a life lived in poverty. If I could change their social determinants of health, their situation might improve.”  

In other words, if we could redefine their suffering, we could kill them legally by lethal injection.


Also:

Native American tribes in the continental United States engaged in slavery before and after 1776, far into the 19th century, and even owned black African slaves as well as enslaving one another. Many of these tribes sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War in order to preserve slavery.

This is well known to historians who bother with the subject, though it would elicit a long, blank stare if not full meltdown from the typical product of our morally bankrupt universities. Our young people have been taught to place on a pedestal any and every Native American as living a pure and perfect life — until the cruel Columbus and fellow white Europeans marched along to subjugate them.

Consider the example of the enslavement of blacks by the five so-called “Civilized Tribes” — i.e., the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole Indians.



It's about the coal:

A 200-metre-long bulk carrier just docked in Vancouver, filled up with coal, and is now headed back to Asia where the coal will be burned in steel plants.

That ship’s name? The MV Climate Justice.

Flagged in Cyprus and owned by the Monaco-based firm Safe Bulkers, the ship got its name because it’s reported to be cleaner-burning than its fellow bulk carriers.

But the MV Climate Justice does carry an awful lot of coal; between 30,000 and 40,000 tonnes. Once burned, that size of a load will produce between 60,000 and 80,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide — equivalent to about as much as the per-capita annual emissions of 5,000 Canadians.

**

China continues to move hundreds of millions of tons of coal across its railway system each year, drawing ire from Western pundits as other countries are forcing citizens to 'go green' and reduce their carbon footprint. 

Scottish journalist Andrew Neil recently ripped Western governments in the wake of China's projects, such as the Menghua Railway, which is the longest-coal transporting train in the world. 

The 1,141-mile railway moves 200million tons of coal each year as fossil fuel use - and traditional greenhouse gas emissions - continue to skyrocket in the communist nation. 

While China continues to see its demand for coal g leaders in countries such as the US and UK continue to impose restrictions on its citizens and push going green to reach 'net zero' emissions across the globe.



While the world is currently focusing on Israel, North Korea is reprocessing spent fuel rods:

North Korea has halted the nuclear reactor at its main atomic complex, probably to extract plutonium that could be used for weapons by reprocessing spent fuel rods, a South Korean news report said on Thursday, citing a government source.

The operation of the 5 megawatt nuclear reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear complex has been suspended since late September, according to intelligence assessment by U.S. and South Korean authorities, the report said.

"South Korea and the U.S. believe this could be a sign of reprocessing work being done to obtain weapons-grade plutonium," the Donga Ilbo newspaper quoted a government source as saying.

Reprocessing of spent fuel rods removed from a nuclear reactor is a step taken before plutonium is extracted. The Yongbyon nuclear complex is the North's main source of plutonium that it likely has used to build nuclear weapons.

North Korea has also operated uranium enrichment facilities, which is a separate source of material that could be used for nuclear weapons.

 

Also:

While the spirit of the joint declaration remains undiminished, the circumstances surrounding Japan and South Korea have changed radically.

It is said that the ties between the two countries, now on a par economically and in living standards, have transitioned from a “vertical relationship” to a “horizontal one.”

Japan and South Korea face some common challenges aside from aging populations with low birthrates. They included a security threat from North Korea and deepening U.S.-China conflict.

It is a time for the two neighbors to step up their efforts to forge a relationship fit for the new age of healthy competition and mutual learning for a better future.

 **

Israel was caught off guard by an attack from Hamas militants this weekend despite boasting top-level intelligence and air-defense capabilities. That attack teaches South Korea a valuable lesson by showing how a rudimentary offensive, if executed swiftly and determinedly, could overwhelm even the most sophisticated defense systems. 
 
When it pulled out of Gaza Strip in 2005, Israel built 6 m-high concrete walls draped in barbed wire on the border festooned with surveillance cameras and motion sensors, and remote-controlled machine gun turrets every 2 km. But Hamas easily managed to bypass that sophisticated defense system with simple explosives, paragliders and bulldozers and by digging tunnels.
 
South Korea military uses robots and unmanned systems in its frontline defense, but even such cutting-edge defense systems could be compromised by North Korea, which boasts far stronger firepower than Hamas, while the North's 200,000-strong special forces could invade with low-flying gliders that are impossible to detect by radar to wreak havoc behind the lines.
 
Seoul must analyze closely how Israel's state-of-the-art "Iron Dome" aerial defense system was breached. It is capable of engaging hundreds of rocket and missile attacks, but Hamas lobbed more than 5,000 rockets at Israel. At this moment, hundreds of North Korean long-range artillery guns are pointed at Seoul, and Pyongyang recently deployed new ballistic missiles along its frontlines. If the North uses all of those weapons at once, the South Korean and U.S. missile-defense systems may not be enough.
 
On top of that, the Moon Jae-in administration signed a military pact with North Korea in 2018 that halted artillery and other military exercises and reconnaissance operations along the inter-Korean border. That severely restricted the military's readiness. The latest Middle East conflict should be a wake-up call for the government to upgrade its defenses and stay alert at all times.

 
And let's not forget Yeonpyeong.

 

 

A so-called "neglect" bill gets scrapped::

A bill pending before the Saitama Prefectural Assembly that would have made it illegal for guardians to leave children unattended at home or let them play outside by themselves will be withdrawn following a public uproar.

The bill, which would have banned guardians from leaving their children unattended even for a short while, had been criticized by many parents in the prefecture and beyond as being too restrictive and impossible to follow.

 

This is why we need to inject reason into any debate.

Children have been playing by themselves for ages. Even walking to school in most areas is perfectly fine.

It would be better to focus on where children will be most vulnerable as opposed to living everyday life.



Uh-oh:

Nippon Ishin no Kai parted ways with Upper House lawmaker Muneo Suzuki on Tuesday over his surprise visit to Russia earlier this month.

"Suzuki met with party head Nobuyuki Baba and myself," Nippon Ishin Secretary-General Fumitake Fujita said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference. "He submitted a notice of resignation to Nippon Ishin, which was accepted, and he will leave the party."

Calls from within Nippon Ishin to punish Suzuki had been growing, especially after he gave an interview to Russian media in which he said he was convinced that Russia would be victorious in its war with Ukraine.

The central government also disapproved of Suzuki’s Oct. 1-5 trip. Last week, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno avoided openly criticizing the visit, but reiterated that Japan has urged people to avoid traveling to Russia, regardless of the reasons.

On Monday, Suzuki told reporters that he would accept Nippon Ishin’s final decision over his fate. But he fought back against criticism about his comments to the Russian media, saying he’d often said the same thing to the Japanese media as well.

“There has to be a cease-fire someday between Russia and Ukraine. At the same time, I am saying to all of you that Russia will not be defeated because of the difference in national power. I'm sure this has been broadcast in the domestic media, so why is it a problem to say the same thing in Russia?” he said at a news conference.

Fujita said Tuesday that some Nippon Ishin members criticized the trip, saying it went against party policy.

"But what was most problematic was that Suzuki went to Russia without a word of consultation with the party, especially with Baba," Fujita said.

 

 

Doddering, old creep beats animals:

The dog reportedly has been removed from the White House after its most recent attack on a Secret Service agent and other White House staff. According to a Judicial Watch source, President Biden has mistreated his dogs. Judicial Watch has learned he has punched and kicked his dogs.

 

 

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