Tanabata is a star festival celebrated on the seventh day of either July or August (depending on which calendar you follow or which region you live in). At this time of year, two stars, Altair and Vega, meet. On this day, people write wishes on tanzaku- small, coloured pieces of paper.
A Lebanese-born Canadian man on the FBI's most wanted list of terror suspects is accused of using a fake passport in an attempt to enter Israel and conduct a bombing on behalf of the Islamic militant group Hezbollah, according to an indictment unsealed in U.S. federal court in Detroit.
Airlines are being warned by the government that terrorists are considering surgically hiding bombs inside humans to evade airport security. As a result, travellers may find themselves subjected to more scrutiny when flying in the heart of summer vacation season, especially to the U.S. from abroad.
The founder of Pakistan's nuclear bomb program claims the North Korean government bribed top military officials in Pakistan to obtain access to sensitive nuclear technology in the late 1990s, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.
Abdul Qadeer Khan made available documents that he said supported his claim that he transferred more than $3 million in payments by North Korea to senior officers in the Pakistani military, the newspaper said on its website. Khan said the Pakistani military later approved his sharing of technical know-how and equipment with North Korean scientists.
Canada's new official Opposition appealed directly to Israel not to harm a boatload of Canadian protesters determined to break the Gaza Strip blockade.
NDP Leader Jack Layton and foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar delivered that plea directly to Israel's ambassador to Canada, Miriam Ziv, during a meeting at the opposition leader's office in early June.
They were trying to prevent a repeat of last year's tragedy when nine activists taking part in a similar flotilla on a Turkish boat were killed in a raid by Israeli commandos.
"Obviously, when there's a loss of lives involved everyone should take heed," Dewar said in an interview Tuesday.
He and Layton urged Israel to observe "an abundance of caution and care dealing with the flotilla because it was pretty clear it was going to be happening." Dewar said Ziv listened politely. She was not available for an interview.
The NDP meeting came shortly after Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird issued a statement criticizing the flotilla, saying "unauthorized efforts to deliver aid are provocative and, ultimately, unhelpful to the people of Gaza."
The Canadian-owned vessel, the Tahrir, carrying at least 30 Canadians, left a port on the island of Crete on Monday and was boarded 15 minutes later by armed officers from the Greek coast guard. The Tahrir was towed back to port after unsuccessfully trying to breach Israel's sea blockade of Gaza in an attempt to deliver humanitarian aid.
Greek authorities charged and released two Canadians on Tuesday for taking part in the aborted attempt to reach the Gaza Strip.
They arrested Soha Kneen, 40, of Ottawa and Sandra Ruch, 50, of Toronto, along with an Australian man.
Kneen and Australian Michael Coleman were arrested in kayaks after trying to block the pursuit of the Greek coast guard vessel. They are to be given suspended sentences in a court appearance on Wednesday, a statement on the ship's website said.
Who are the bigger idiots? Sometimes that's hard to gauge.
In one corner, we have Jack Layton, champagne socialist extraordinaire, and his pet monkey colleague, Paul Dewar, demonising the state of Israel by begging it "not to harm a boatload of Canadian protesters". Is Israel in the habit of harming people on a regular basis? The flotilla participants (a loosely used term) think so and that's one thing. It is quite another when the elected members of a state ostensibly on Israel's side paint Israel as a country which needs "an abundance of caution and care dealing with the flotilla..."
Quite so, as a video showing last year's flotilla crew attacking the IDF clearly shows:
It's not hard to see which side the NDP are on, particularly if they feel pity for people who willingly thrust themselves into the international limelight with inflammatory and unfounded claims of massive human rights violations.
The flotilla participants' purpose (so they claim) is to break the blockade under the premise of delivering much-needed aid to what has been referred to as "an open-air prison".
How does one stroll into a prison, anyway?
There has been a blockade of Gaza by both Israel and Egypt since 2007, chiefly because of Hamas' deliberate targetting of civilians with rockets. Israel's reaction can hardly be seen as extreme unless one has no idea what it is like to run from a missile. Considering this, its blockade of Gaza is sensible and not as draconian as some may believe. In fact, Egypt's blockade is far more dire and bloody with a major breach occurring in January 2008.
Humanitarian aid to the Palestinians still pours into Gaza from Israel:
Despite attacks by Hamas, Israel maintains an ongoing humanitarian corridor for the transfer of perishable and staple food items to Gaza. This conduit is used by internationally recognized organizations including the United Nations and the Red Cross.
Well over a million tons of humanitarian supplies entered Gaza from Israel over the last 18 months equaling nearly a ton of aid for every man, woman and child in Gaza. Millions of dollars worth of international food aid continually flows through the Israeli humanitarian apparatus, ensuring that there is no food shortage in Gaza.
Since the end of the IDF operation in Gaza (18 Jan 2009) until 5 June 2010, 1,025,686 tons of aid, 49,610 tons of cooking gas and 136,097,330 liters of fuel have been delivered to the Gaza Strip.
Food and supplies are shipped from Israel to Gaza six days a week. These items were channeled through aid organizations or via Gaza's private sector.
How many prisons have well-fed inmates? One of the biggest health concerns in the Gaza Strip is actually obesity. Palestinian men ranked eighth and Palestinian women ranked third in a WHO study on obesity (Canada ranked twenty-fourth). Photos taken in Gaza and elsewhere in the Palestinian Authority show a completely different picture than what many claim to be true. Shops LADEN with goods. No starving bodies.
It's hard to understand why some would side with people who send their children to be human bombs. Perhaps their lives are as empty as their heads. One thing is clear, however, and that is this is a great embarrassment to Israel. Imagine sending tons of aid to the very people who would wipe you off of the map if they could only to be accused of human rights violations by people who didn't know Israel existed until two days ago. It's hard to combat foreign idiocy and intervention. If five minutes of intellectual effort can't be made or even a few moments of empathic consideration can't be done, what more can be said? How does one convince someone that Gaza isn't an "open-air prison" but a strip of land occupied by people who have no love of life or willingness to live in peace?
What's a North Korean apparatchik to think when he's both welcomed and told to quit by Canada after assuming the presidency of a key United Nations disarmament body?
The naming of North Korea's Ambassador So Se Pyong as chair of the UN's Conference on Disarmament drew sharp criticism from Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird on Thursday.
"North Korea is simply not a credible chair of a disarmament body," he said of the bellicose nuclear-armed state, which faced UN accusations as recently as May of trading missile know-how with Iran....
Marius Grinius, a veteran diplomat whose inevitable bow tie makes him easily recognizable, used his farewell address to the conference to deliver the acknowledgment.
"Mr. President, first let me congratulate you on assuming the tasks of the presidency at this critical juncture in the Conference on Disarmament's history," Grinius began, according to a printed text available through the UN.
Now if he'd quickly moved on to committee business, such an opening might have been excused as an obligatory diplomatic nicety.
But Grinius went on to recall his memories of visiting Pyongyang, capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
"It is appropriate that my last statement in open plenary take place under your presidency," Grinius's text says.
"Prior to Geneva, I had the privilege of being the ambassador to the Republic of Korea with concurrent cross-accreditation to the DPRK. In Pyongyang, I was fortunate to have various opportunities to exchange views with high-level government officials, senior military representatives, party cadres and academics."
What a tool. What a complete, utter tool. Grinius' insufferable sycophancy makes North Korea's chairmanship of the conference on disarmament an even bigger slap in the face to those who dread Kim's itchy trigger finger. Kow-towing to China's Stalinist lapdog is the limit.
China's monopoly over rare-earth metals could be challenged by the discovery of massive deposits of these hi-tech minerals in mud on the Pacific floor, a study on Sunday suggests....
But a new study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, points to an extraordinary concentration of rare-earth elements in thick mud at great depths on the Pacific floor.
Japanese geologists studied samples from 78 sites covering a major portion of the centre-eastern Pacific between 120 and 180 degrees longitude.
Drills extracted sedimentary cores to depths that in place were more than 50 metres (165 feet) below the sea bed.
More than 2,000 of these cores were chemically tested for content in rare-earth elements.
The scientists found rich deposits in samples taken more than 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) from the Pacific's mid-ocean ridges....
In an email exchange with AFP, lead author Yasuhiro Kato, a professor of economic geology and geochemistry at the University of Tokyo, said the response from mining companies was as yet unknown, "because nobody knows the presence of the (rare-earth) -rich mud that we have discovered."
"I am not an engineer, just a geoscientist," Kato said. "But about 30 years ago, a German mining company succeeded in recovering deep-sea mud from the Red Sea. So I believe positively that our deep-sea mud is technologically developable as a mineral resource."...
Japanese industry sources also said China temporarily cut off exports last year during a territorial row between Asia's two largest economies.
A treasure trove of gold and silver jewelry, coins and precious stones said to be worth billions of dollars has been found in a Hindu temple in southern India, officials said.
The valuables have an estimated preliminary worth of over 500 billion rupees ($11.2 billion), said Kerala Chief Secretary K. Jayakumar, catapulting the temple into the league of India's richest temples.
The original series had Montreal native William Shatner in the captain's chair and the late great James Doohan as Scotty, who- despite his awesomery- could not change the laws of physics.
But that's not all.
How could we forget the late great John Colicos as Kor (who then made a terrific villain in the original Battlestar Galactica with another Canadian, the late great Lorne Greene).
Bet you didn't know he was Canadian.
And where would Star Trek 6 be without Christopher Plummer or Kim Cattrall?
That rounds off the original series but what of the others in the franchise?
The Next Generation had William Riker as second-in-command. But he was from Alaska, you say. That's Sarah Palin territory. Come now. We know what country Alaska really belongs to.
I not only can see Russia from the bridge of the Enterprise, Tina Fey, I can fire a photon torpedo at you.
Saul Rubinek and Gwyneth Walsh also flexed their arch-villain muscles on The Next Generation as Fajoy the sinister collector and B'Etor, one of Duras' sisters who either did not know or care how Worf dispatched with his enemies.
Then there is Deep Space Nine, the darker and more stationary of the Star Trek franchise. Nicole de Boer wriggled onto the scene as the new Dax incarnation, Ezri. SCTV veteran Andrea Martin starred as Ishka, Quark's mum, and one could certainly see the resemblance.
Voyager was light but not entirely bereft of Canadian references, much to its great detriment. Derek McGrath donned blue paint to play the chatty Chel and what might have been had Genevieve Bujold stayed on?
And let's not forget the Northwest Passage in the episode, "Scorpion".
Enterprise, an unfortunately forgotten part of the Star Trek family, had two tenuous connections to Canada. Captain Archer promised to take Hoshi to Canada after the Xindi mission and Dominic Keating, who played the rigidly martial Lt. Malcolm Reed, shares a birthday with Canada. Many happy returns the both of you.
Bruce Greenwood played the doomed Christopher Pike in the latest Star Trek movie, which was either amazing or completely uncanonical, depending on how vested in the franchise you are.
This is, by no means, an exhaustive list of Star Trek connection but it is an admiring one.
For many more Star Trek references, please go here or here.
In the days before and after July 1, the Chinese people are being urged over and over again "to love the Party, love the nation and love socialism."
The country's propaganda czar, Li Changchun, recently ordered the official state media to create "a dense atmosphere of solemnity and ardour, joy and peace, unity and advancement and scientific development."
The communist mandates are always gilded with heavy abstracts like "peace" and "scientific development". If only they were genuine.
"We are solemn in our efforts to take over the globe."
Canada's natural wealth stood at about $3-trillion in 2009 -triple its value in 1990 -due in large part to the high price of the oil that is trapped in the country's vast oil sands reserves, Statistics Canada reported Tuesday.
Imagine all the health care and CBC funding this could bring those who hate the tar sands.
Gay rights, thankfully, are an established fact of modern society. And we should stop pretending that gay-pride events are something solemn and politically necessary. They are big racy parties for adults. And politicians shouldn’t have to come to big, racy parties.
"Brock-Tecumseh Day" would speak to our history and some of its proudest moments. It has the additional virtue of recognizing the enormous contribution that aboriginal peoples have made to our history and to the defeat of our enemies in the War of 1812. The fact that the bicentennial of that conflict is fast approaching makes this change all the more timely. July 1, 2012 would be the ideal date on which to give our national holiday a new and meaningful name: Brock-Tecumseh Day.
The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) Equitable and Inclusive Schools, Students,
Parent and Community acknowledges and values the days of significance of different
faiths / creed and organizations. This is a collection of dates that are notable for either
equity or educational focus, recognized by the United Nations, the Federal Government
of Canada, the Province of Ontario, the City of Toronto, the Interfaith Calendar and the
Multifaith Council of Ontario. It is not meant to be an exhaustive list.
There is nothing wrong with individuals celebrating certain events in their own homes. There is something wrong when a public school does it because it wants to appear to be "equal" and "inclusive".
How inclusive will the participants of Eid al Adha be with International Transgender Day of Remembrance? I imagine as cool people would be with Christmas.
Reports in South Korea indicated that the government in Pyongyang on Monday ordered all universities to cancel classes until April of next year. The only exemptions are for students who will be graduating in the next few months and foreign students.
The reports suggested that the students will be put to work on construction projects in major cities while there are also indications that repair work may be needed in agricultural regions that were affected by a major typhoon recently.
Analysts in Japan claim there may be other reasons behind the decision to disperse the students across the country.
One reason is that there is a possibility of demonstrations at university campuses," said Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor at Tokyo's Waseda University and author of a number of books on the North Korean leadership.
"The leadership has seen the 'Jasmine Revolution' in Africa and it is very frightened that the same thing could happen in North Korea," he said. "They fear it could start in the universities."
Professor Shigemura also said that North Korea has purchased anti-riot equipment from China in recent months, including tear gas and batons, while there has been an increased police presence at key points in Pyongyang in recent months.
It's not just a collapsed economy; it's possible revolt.
Even after the Stanley Cup rioters gave Vancouver a nasty black eye (and perhaps a few chipped teeth) earlier this month, the B.C. metropolis still easily topped the rankings in a nationwide survey that asked Canadians to name the country’s “nicest” city.
Is Vancouver a five year old child in need of consoling? No. It apparently is a silly, empty-headed adolescent who just loves animals, though!
The rainbow flag marking Pride Week is up at City Hall, but Mayor Rob Ford's conspicuous absence from major events celebrating gay culture continue to overshadow the festival.
Mayor Ford, who is skipping this Sunday's Pride Parade in favour of going to the cottage with his family, sent council speaker Frances Nunziata to represent him at the ceremonial flag-raising at Nathan Phillips Square on Monday, while he toured the Air Canada Centre with Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke....
.... Kristyn Wong-Tam, an openly gay city councillor, tried to calm the crowd down, saying, "We are here today to celebrate the beginning of Pride Week," and eliciting cheers. Richard Warner, another heckler, yelled: "And the Mayor should be part of it! The Mayor should be part of it!"
How it must completely fry the less than one percent of the population that a man would rather spend his Canada Day week-end (the timing of which with the compulsory gay "pride" week is completely coincidental, I'm sure) with his family.
Make no mistake: gay "pride" events are mandatory. If a city or town does not have one, expect the mayor to be brought before a kangaroo court human rights tribunal and fined. We should also not lose perspective. How many homosexuals are publicly hanged in Canada? None, of course, but why let a fact like that get in the way of a good anti-bullying campaign? Marriage has become a three-ring circus for those whose conscious choice of lifestyle initially eschewed such an institution. These things considered, the non-attendance of the mayor for long-standing reasons should be a non-issue. But it is because the issue was never tolerance but acceptance or else.
Why would anyone in his or her right mind spend a week being screamed at and then being forced to watch half-naked people?
The four most senior surviving members of Cambodia's murderous Khmer Rouge regime went on trial for war crimes Monday, three decades after their "year zero" revolution marked one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century.
The accused, all now elderly and infirm, were among the inner circle of Pol Pot, the French-educated architect of the Khmer Rouge's ultra-Maoist Killing Fields revolution that killed about 1.7 million people in 1975-79.
Dressed casually, "Brother No. 2" Nuon Chea, former president Khieu Samphan, ex-foreign minister Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith, a former social affairs minister, showed no emotion as opening statements to the UN-backed tribunal were read before a packed auditorium in proceedings screened on national television.
Almost 25% of Cambodia's population was wiped out by the Khmer Rouge through torture, execution, starvation and exhaustion. Virtually every Cambodian alive today lost family and many want to know why.
"I lost three children, my father and husband," said Som Hoeun, 66, as she lined up to get into the court.
She said it was worth the wait to see Pol Pot's top cadres brought to book: "No matter what how long it has been, I'm always hopeful there will be justice."
In case we thought communism was a victimless crime.
Actress Michelle Yeoh, who stars as released political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi in an upcoming film, has been deported from Burma.
The former Bond girl arrived in Yangon on June 22 but was denied entry because she is on a blacklist.
A government official says, "She did not have the chance to enter... She was deported straight away on the first flight after arriving at Yangon (Rangoon) International Airport."
Yeoh previously visited the country in December to shadow democracy campaigner Suu Kyi and research her role in Luc Besson's forthcoming movie The Lady, to be released later this year.
The officer’s use of words may not be appropriate; however, it is a fact that the dress of early twentieth century’s European sluts is now the fashion of the day of Europe and North America. Society at large accepted this perversion as a norm.
Where is your courage, useless, pudgy girls of the world? Where is your lingerie now?
Dutch populist politician Geert Wilders was acquitted of inciting hatred of Muslims in a court ruling on Thursday that may strengthen his political influence and exacerbate tensions over immigration policy.
The case was seen by some as a test of free speech in a country which has a long tradition of tolerance and blunt talk, but where opposition to immigration, particularly from Muslim or predominantly Muslim countries, is on the rise....
The presiding judge said Wilders's remarks were sometimes "hurtful," "shocking" or "offensive," but that they were made in the context of a public debate about Muslim integration and multi-culturalism, and therefore not a criminal act.
"I am extremely pleased and happy," Wilders told reporters after the ruling. "This is not so much a win for myself, but a victory for freedom of speech. Fortunately you can criticize Islam and not be gagged in public debate."
The fact that you can not only take this man to court for whatshould be obvious to the Dutch and then attempt to hang him with it is beyond insanity.
Nevertheless, as in all these cases, the process is the punishment. The intent is to make it more and more difficult for apostates of the multiculti state to broaden the terms of political discourse. Very few Europeans would have had the stomach to go through what Wilders did — and the British Government’s refusal to permit a Dutch Member of Parliament to land at Heathrow testifies to how easily the craven squishes of the broader political culture fall into line.
And at the end the awkward fact remains: Geert Wilders lives under 24-hour armed guard because of explicit death threats made against him by the killer of Theo van Gogh and by other Muslims. Yet he’s the one who gets puts on trial.
The knives that are out for Mr. Ford have nothing to do with this particular decision, though. The exaltation of homosexuality is second only to the reverence paid to unfettered abortion as a litmus test for political correctness amongst our cognitive and cultural elites. Rob Ford’s sin is that he does not believe in mixing politics with sexuality pride. Rob Ford is not a homophobe, but nor on the other hand does he think it is any particular honour to be homosexual. Many Canadians not schooled in the catechism of gender correctness agree with him.
It's ridiculous enough that the homosexual subculture has been so elevated to the status of an endangered species or the Dalai Lama that they deserve an entire week before Canada Day (or else!) but that they can demand your attendance to their simulated sex-fest parade. It isn't tolerance they want; it's acceptance at a choke hold.
The U.N. war crimes tribunal for Rwanda sentenced former minister Pauline Nyiramasuhuko to life in prison on Friday, the first time a woman has been found guilty of genocide by an international court.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) found Pauline Nyiramasuhuko and her son, Arsene Shalom Ntahobali, who was also jailed for life, guilty of atrocities committed in Rwanda's southern Butare region during the 1994 massacre.
"The chamber convicts Pauline Nyiramasuhuko of conspiracy to commit genocide, crimes against humanity, extermination, rape, persecution and ... and violence to life and outrages upon personal dignity," read the ruling by the trial's three judges.
"She is sentenced to life imprisonment."
Nyiramasuhuko, 65, and a former families minister, was found guilty of seven out of 11 charges. The trial lasted 10 years.
Ethnic Hutu militia and soldiers butchered 800,000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus over 100 days between April and June 1994.
In its verdict, the court said Nyiramasuhuko was guilty of genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity for ordering the killing of scores of Tutsis taking refuge from the slaughter at a local government office in Butare.
I'm sure there is a white liberal feminist out there to find this a perverse milestone. I guess not all women are "maternal" or "caring", are they?
At any given time there are less than 50 MPs taking part in the debate and few have been present the whole time. But there were signs that the much ballyhooed outbreak of civility is wearing thin.....
A bit of light relief ensued around hour 18 when Ruth Ellen Brosseau, who spent much of the election in Las Vegas, made her maiden speech and proved she can at least read French. It turned out that her facility with the language was less dexterous when she didn’t have a text in front of her and she reverted to English to answer questions. Her solution to the knotty problem of collective bargaining was simple — “Let’s work together. Let’s just do it,” she said — en anglais.
Bob Rae summed up the whole ludicrous situation quite nicely when he called the NDP’s stance “shambolism,” defined as a symbolic act that is a sham. He dismissed the filibuster as two ideological parties locking horns, which is about right. Unfortunately for Mr. Rae, he comes across like the medieval knight in the Far Side cartoon, who rises above the melee of swords and maces to shout: “Stop this or someone’s going to get hurt.” The someone is probably Mr. Rae...
But while the filibuster is a sham and merely symbolic, symbolism matters. Jack Layton’s party has shown that it is prepared to speak up for its supporters and offer an alternative vision of how the country should be run.
For those that feel the government has violated the postal union’s collective bargaining rights, the NDP’s stand is a virtuous one.
For the (one suspects) far greater number of Canadians who see no reason why the taxpayer should continue to subsidize the banking of sick days by lavish union benefit plans, the prospect of the pro-big labour NDP running the country one day is a scary prospect indeed.
Opposition parties kept debate going all Thursday night in Parliament on a bill to force an end to a postal-service work stoppage, while Prime Minister Stephen Harper slept on his office couch and a legislator serenaded colleagues in the lobby with a guitar .
An activist for democracy who was released from prison and deported to the United States is vowing to continue her campaign for human rights in Vietnam.
Tran Khai Thanh Thuy arrived in San Francisco with her teenage daughter on Thursday, a day after Vietnam released the dissident writer on humanitarian grounds after she spent more than a year in prison.
Thuy is among a small circle of dissidents in Vietnam who have promoted a multiparty system, which is not tolerated by the Communist government.
Last year, Thuy was convicted of assaulting two people in a traffic dispute outside her Hanoi home and sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison.
In an interview Friday, she accused the authorities of fabricating the charges to punish her for her political activities.
No, China, the head of operations for the Catholic Church is in Rome, not in Beijing:
The Vatican has deemed the ordinations "illicit," and Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said this represents "a grave violation of freedom of religion and freedom of conscience."
A small, remote-controlled camera lowered into an early Mayan tomb in southern Mexico has revealed an apparently intact funeral chamber with offerings and red-painted wall murals, researchers said Thursday.
Footage of the approximately 1,500-year-old tomb at the Palenque archaeological site showed a series of nine figures depicted in black on a vivid, blood-red background. Archaeologists say the images from one of the earliest ruler's tombs found at Palenque will shed new light on the early years of the once-great city state.
I know a lot of you don’t believe me, but the truth is that I take full responsibility for my actions and am sincerely apologetic for what I did. What I did was completely out of character for me, but I did it because I was influenced by mob mentality. I want to shed light onto the thought process that was in my head so that maybe you can all get a little bit of an understanding and sympathize for people like me, who made wrong decisions but have now become victims of this social media form of mob mentality.
Why don’t I think I deserve all this treatment?
Because for one, I’ve admitted to my mistakes, two, I am ready to deal with the consequences in a judicial manner, and three, because (may I remind you that) I am responsible for theft – a fairly minor action compared to vandalism and arson. Please remember and understand that I am not responsible for the riot.
What a vain, silly girl she is! It's not an apology. It's a failed justification for her immaturity and thoughtlessness. Where does one even begin to describe how maddening this faux-apology is? She didn't turn herself in; she was caught. She certainly shouldn't be congratulated for it or excused for her overall revolting behaviour, which includes this "apology". How, pray, is the need for adrenaline far greater than the responsibility of proper social conduct? The stupid girl stole two pairs of men's trousers. What do I care if she started the riot or not? That doesn't excuse this useless child. I won't even get to the trees.
After all, modern science arose in one place and one time only: It arose out of medieval Europe, during a period when its intellectual life was thoroughly permeated with a Christian worldview. Other great cultures, such as the Chinese and the Indian, often developed a higher level of technology and engineering. But their expertise tended to consist of practical know-how and rules of thumb. They did not develop what we know as experimental science–testable theories organized into coherent systems. Science in this sense has appeared only once in history. As historian Edward Grant writes, “It is indisputable that modern science emerged in the seventeenth century in Western Europe and nowhere else.”
This fact is certainly suggestive, and it has prompted scholars to ask why it is that modern science emerged only out of medieval Europe. Sociologist of religion Rodney Stark identified the 52 figures who made the most significant contributions to the scientific revolution, then researched biographical sources to discover their religious views. He found that among the top contributors to science, surprisingly only two were skeptics (Paracelsus and Edmund Halley).
Stark then subdivided his subjects once again into those who were “conventional” in their religious views (that is, their writings exhibit the conventional religious views of the time), and those who were “devout” (their writings express a strong personal investment). The resulting numbers show that more than 60 percent of those who jumpstarted the scientific revolution were religiously “devout.” Clearly, holding a Christian worldview posed no barrier to doing excellent scientific work, and even seems to have provided a positive inspiration.
Read the whole thing.
Saying with some wobbly certitude that nothing exists beyond the physical and that organised religion hates science just makes you look stupid.
Just when you thought buying things made in China was bad. It gets worse:
The North Korean authorities are reportedly reacting more strictly than normal to overt sales of products from South Korea in the country’s domestic markets.
One Korean-Chinese man engaged in business in Pyongan and Hwanghae Provinces told The Daily NK on June 11th, “They’re cracking down hard on products from the Kaesong Industrial Complex in the jangmadang, and are reacting more strongly than before to South Korean products, too. There are no South Korean goods on sale openly.”
Sources say that in many cases this means that traders are being told to remove tags indicating South Korean origin.
The same trader explained, “Community watch guards come to the jangmadang and tell us to remove tags written in Chosun then sell them. They are thoroughly cracking down on things saying ‘Made in Korea’. Even though the clothes are of good quality, and therefore clearly South Korean, if there is no tag, then they are not prohibited.”
Currently, used clothes are said to be selling better than new ones, however. This is partly because people have little cash and are gravitating towards the cheaper prices, and partly because they don’t trust new products.
The trader explained, “The image of South Korean clothes is good as far as used clothes selling better than new ones goes. People think that new clothes are of poor quality and really expensive.” He explained the reason for the low quality, saying, “Currently, producers are buying fabric in China to bring back and manufacture clothes in Chosun, and then they put ‘Made in China’ tags on them.”
Not that a tag reading "Made in China" was ever a selling point for me but one that read "Made in North Korea" would be abysmal.
Trevor Phillips warned that "an old time religion incompatible with modern society" is driving the revival in the Anglican and Catholic Churches and clashing with mainstream views, especially on homosexuality.
He accused Christians, particularly evangelicals, of being more militant than Muslims in complaining about discrimination, arguing that many of the claims are motivated by a desire for greater political influence....
In a wide-ranging intervention into the debate over the role of religion in modern Britain, Mr Phillips:
* warned it had become "fashionable" to attack and mock religion, singling out atheist polemicist Richard Dawkins for his views;
* said faith groups should be free from interference in their own affairs, meaning churches should be allowed to block women and homosexuals from being priests and bishops;
* attacked hardline Christian groups which he said were picking fights - particularly on the issue of homosexuality - for their own political ends;
* told churches and religious institutions they had to comply with equality legislation when they delivered services to the public as a whole.
The report, published by the Commission tomorrow, says that some religious groups have been the victims of rising discrimination over the last decade. ...
While the equalities boss promised to fight for the rights of Christians, he expressed concern that many cases were driven by fundamentalist Christians who are holding increasing sway over the mainstream churches because of the influence of African and Caribbean immigrants with "intolerant" views.
In contrast, Muslims are less vociferous because they are trying to integrate into British "liberal democracy", he said.
"I think there's an awful lot of noise about the Church being persecuted but there is a more real issue that the conventional churches face that the people who are really driving their revival and success believe in an old time religion which in my view is incompatible with a modern, multi-ethnic, multicultural society," Phillips said.
"Muslim communities in this country are doing their damnedest to try to come to terms with their neighbours to try to integrate and they're doing their best to try to develop an idea of Islam that is compatible with living in a modern liberal democracy.
"The most likely victim of actual religious discrimination in British society is a Muslim but the person who is most likely to feel slighted because of their religion is an evangelical Christian."
Oh really?
It's one thing to completely ignore the militant strain of secularism and its role in reducing the United Kingdom to an even bigger cesspool; it's quite another to say outright that Muslims are victims who just want to get along and not hurt anyone. That's not what the news tells me everyday.
It doesn't help that the Alpha Flight members appear to have been created by some dreadful, politically correct parliamentary subcommittee of the federal heritage department and not, as the comic book claims, by Department H, a fictitious arm of Canada's Department of National Defence, which may as well be.
Scarlett Johansson wasn't smart enough for Sean Penn, according to the fantasy world that Sean Penn lives in....
Is this guy actually telling someone else they should study more about politics? Pot meet kettle. That's like Kirstie Alley telling someone they should go on a diet or Lindsay Lohan preaching about AA. Sean Penn's views on politics are so out of whack, Scarlett should consider herself lucky she got out when she did.
My parents (whoever they were) have done their utmost to do zero parenting. They indulged my every whim and refused to discipline me in any way, shape or form. I, therefore, grew up believing I should spare no thought for others except myself and also eat with the same hands I never washed while exiting the bathroom.
I am a Vancouver rioter.
I refuse to work hard at anything other seeking my own pleasure. I get drunk, eat fatty foods and blow smoke in the faces of small children and asthmatics.
I am a Vancouver rioter.
I have devoted huge sections of my life to things that don't matter, like sports, the latest media trends and adjusting the bass of my car stereo which I play as loudly as possible because I like sharing my terrible taste in music with everyone else.
I am a Vancouver rioter.
Like a total douchebag, I have no personality of my own. I grunt, make rude noises and follow the trends everyone else around me, including that bizarre social experiment called Facebook upon which I gleefully uploaded my criminal activities for all to see. I don't care how others see me only that they do see me. I need the attention that badly. I have absolutely no shame at all.
I am a Vancouver rioter.
I want to be a part of a happening. Yes, I took my photo in front of the store I vandalised. Everyone else was doing it, too, and I would hate to not follow the leader.
I am a Vancouver rioter.
I smash things for no reason. I overturn cars. I pick fights, especially with people who have a shred of dignity. I hate those people. They remind me of the human person I should be but can never be because I'm a total jackhole who thinks of nothing and no one but himself. I am grossly immature and cannot deal with the fact that my hockey team, which I only like because it is named after the city I don't deserve to live in and because of those nifty looking made-in-China jerseys, lost a game. I probably would have rioted if they won, anyway, because, as I said, I am thoughtless, destructive and want to be a part of a happening.
I am a Vancouver rioter.
I cannot understand why people frown on my destructive, jerkish behaviour or why the cops are after me.
The United Nations on Tuesday strongly denied that it had ordered Cambodia war crimes judges to reject a new case involving the Khmer Rouge.
With the country gearing up for a major Khmer Rouge era trial this month, Cambodian media reports said five UN staff have resigned in protest at a decision to close the new case without properly investigating the charges.
The UN-backed war crimes court has threatened legal action in a bid to prevent publication of leaked details of the case.
"The United Nations categorically rejects media speculation that we have instructed the co-investigating judges to dismiss Case Three," said UN spokesman Martin Nesirky of the new Khmer Rouge inquiry.
The names of the suspects in the case have not been made public, but they are thought to be two ex-commanders from the brutal 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime blamed for up to two million deaths....
The Cambodia war crimes court's second trial starts on June 27. Among the four defendants are Khieu Samphan, the former Khmer Rouge head of state, and Nuon Chea, the deputy to notorious regime leader Pol Pot.
Prime Minister Hun Sen has repeatedly voiced his objection to further trials, however, saying they could plunge the country into civil war.
The international court's investigating judges have been under fire ever since they announced in April they had concluded their investigations into case three, without questioning the suspects.
International co-prosecutor Andrew Cayley -- without the backing of his Cambodian colleague -- demanded the suspects be interviewed and more crime scenes examined but the judges rejected his request last week on technicalities.
Nesirky said the UN will "not comment on issues which remain the subject of judicial consideration, nor speculate on actions that should or should not be taken by the judges or prosecutors in any case."
It is wise to navigate through the news and elite wisdom through two landmarks: anything that Barack Obama says will be airbrushed, improved, or modified to fit facts post facto; anything Sarah Palin says or does will be contextualized in Neanderthal terms. Teams of Post and Times volunteers now sort through Sarah Palin’s email; not a reporter in the world is curious about what Barack Obama once said about Rashid Khalidi or the Columbia University GPA that won him entrance to Harvard Law School. Accept that asymmetry and almost everything not only makes sense about these two cultural guideposts, but can, by extension, explain the 1860-like division in American itself.
Tina Fey has spoken out regarding Tracy Morgan's homophobic remarks (made during the actor's comedy show in Nashville last week), calling her "30 Rock" co-star's comments "disturbing."
"Stand-up comics may have the right to 'work out' their material in its ugliest and rawest form in front of an audience, but the violent imagery of Tracy's rant was disturbing to me," Fey said in a statement released to Access Hollywood ....
"It also doesn't line up with the Tracy Morgan I know, who is not a hateful man and is generally much too sleepy and self-centered to ever hurt another person," the statement continued. "I hope for his sake that Tracy's apology will be accepted as sincere by his gay and lesbian coworkers at '30 Rock,' without whom Tracy would not have lines to say, clothes to wear, sets to stand on, scene partners to act with, or a printed-out paycheck from accounting to put in his pocket."
Thanks for standing by your friend, third-rate Sarah Palin impressionist Tina Fey. Jodie Foster looks positively angelic next to you.
I'm not defending Tracy Morgan or Mel Gibson, two grown men who threw themselves off the cliff of poor decision-making, but I certainly won't applaud Tracy Morgan's forced march to a re-education camp, either.
My particular beef now is how someone who is presumably his friend took so long to give a milquetoast statement saying how dreadful he is to have crossed a line in an arena where there presumably is no line, which is really just a stab in the back. Had Tracy Morgan joked about stabbing white Alaskan politicians, I'm sure it would have sent the leftist room into a roar. But now that he has offended the gilded sexual minority, he has gone so far that not even Tina Fey has the courage to save him.
This is why celebrities, not Israel, should be boycotted. Why should mediocre talents and people who are clearly not willing to be principled, or stand by principles, be the moral and social focus of an entire civilisation? It's one thing to find Mr. Morgan jokes utterly unfunny and/or tasteless. It's quite another to throw him under the bus because you don't want the stink of not being "one of the gang" on you.
As one of the deadliest battles of the war in Afghanistan raged, Afghan soldiers ran, hid, and even stole personal items from the American soldiers fighting and dying at a remote outpost.
When the Oct. 3, 2009, firefight at Combat Outpost Keating ended near the Pakistan border, eight US soldiers were dead and 22 more were wounded. A military investigation released yesterday said the 53 Americans at Keating fought heroically, repelling hundreds of insurgents, but the investigation also faulted US commanders for leaving their troops in a vulnerable position. And the Afghan soldiers got a withering appraisal from soldiers interviewed by investigators.
The United States has spent billions since 2001 training and equipping the Afghan army and police. Afghan security forces capable of defeating insurgents and terrorists are an essential ingredient in the Obama administration’s plans to begin withdrawing American forces, and senior US national security officials speak optimistically of progress.
But first-hand accounts from the battle at Keating, detailed in witness statements included in the investigation, provide a different, highly critical view.
One of the harshest came from two Latvian soldiers stationed at Keating and responsible for mentoring the three dozen Afghan troops at the base in Nuristan Province. The Latvians told the US investigators that the Afghan soldiers lacked “discipline, motivation, and initiative.’’
Close to 300 insurgents attacked Keating at dawn with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, and guns. As the chaos of combat enveloped the base, the Latvians said they saw three Afghan soldiers at the aid station waiting to be treated for minor scratches and cuts. An Afghan platoon sergeant was in a corner of the station, curled up in a fetal position, they told investigators.
Later, they opened a door to one of the buildings and found several other soldiers and Afghan security guards sitting on beds “anxiously waiting.’’ None of them had weapons at the ready or made an aggressive move when the door swung open.
In other buildings, they found Afghan soldiers “in ones and twos, hiding under blankets in the fetal position.’’
Protein drinks, digital cameras, and other personal items that belonged to the Americans were found in the overstuffed duffel bags of Afghan soldiers as they were being moved to another base on an Army helicopter after the battle had ended, investigators were told.
“A majority of the duffels contained materials that had been pillaged from the US soldiers’ barracks rooms,’’ said a memo summarizing comments.
Unbelievable. You know it's bad when even the Latvians find fault (not to disparage Latvia or its people but it isn't a major power though it is a player).
Americans and Canadians are risking their lives for people who have more energy to throw acid in schoolgirls' faces than in defending their country. How low can this get?
An estimated 9,000 Hmong, mainly Catholics and Protestant Christians, gathered in the Muong Nhe district in North Vietnam's Dien Bien province on May 1 to honor the beatification of Pope John Paul II. According to Catholic sources, the late "Polish Pope," who had opposed both fascist Nazis forces and communist totalitarianism, is a source of inspiration to many Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian, and Hmong Christian believers due to the courageous moral conduct of his life and his powerful call to "be not afraid" in challenging social injustice and Stalinist-type regimes around the world.
The religious services honoring the pope evolved into peaceful protests by Hmong seeking religious freedom and the cessation of human rights abuses, institutional corruption, social injustice, and land-grabbing. Dien Bien is one of Vietnam's poorest provinces, located in the remote and mountainous area bordering Laos and China. The province's estimated 170,000 Hmong represent 35 percent of its population (1.24% of VN's total), with the Hmong earning less than a tenth of the average annual income of the Vietnamese.
As was the case during similar protests by Montagnard Christians in 2001 in the Central Highlands, and in true fascist form, communist officials overreacted by deploying thousands of troops, special police, and MI-24 "Hind" helicopter gunships. All outside communication was shut down, the electricity was cut off, the province was cordoned off to prevent anyone from entering or leaving, and all news media and foreigners were banned from the area. Some Hmong demonstrators were able to escape into the nearby mountains, where they were hunted by heliborne "Dac Cong" Special Forces units. Some of the fleeing Hmong are reported to have been summarily executed when caught. At least two Hmong mountain villages and several enclaves suspected of harboring fleeing protesters were attacked by the gunships armed with rockets, cannons, and Gatling guns. It is not known how many were killed or wounded.
One message sent by someone in Juneau, Alaska on Sept 17, 2008 said the governor should be "shot from one of the planes that shoot the very wolves that you ordered."
Five days earlier an email landed in her in-box saying she "must be killed."
It said: "She doesn't belong to the NRA to support the right of each citizen to have weapons in an aim of self-defence, but just to support the right of every southern white citizen to shoot all non-white people legally! Sarah Palin MUST BE KILLED!"
Oh, of course not! Conservative, self-made women deserve to be hounded, not protected. What was I thinking?
