A Post For A Thursday

Lots to talk about...


James Holmes was found guilty for a theatre shooting in which twelve people were killed:

A jury convicted Colorado movie theater shooter James Holmes on Thursday in the 2012 massacre that killed 12 people and injured 70, and he could now face the death penalty.  Jurors rejected defense argument that Holmes was insane and driven by delusions during the attack, where he entered a packed showing of a Batman film wearing body armor and opened fire.

Arapahoe County District Chief Judge Carlos Samour Jr. revealed the verdict at 4:15 p.m. local time after jurors reviewed the 165 charges against Holmes for about 14 hours over the course of two days. The verdict comes nearly three years to the day after the July 20, 2012 mass shooting.

The same jury panel will now reconvene for a penalty phase to decide if Holmes should be sentenced to death.

"Workplace violence" by a "lone wolf" that has nothing to do with Islamism:

The FBI confirmed 24-year-old Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez was the shooter who opened fire on a military recruiting center and reserve center in Chattanooga on Thursday morning. 

Military might and economic stability go hand-in-hand:

According to Robert Dannenberg, a Goldman Sachs security analyst and CIA veteran, Russia's President Vladimir Putin recognizes the importance of gaining power through international economic agencies. 

"Putin is conservative and nostalgic, but he also understands that it takes more than just rebuilding or modernizing your nuclear arsenal to create a bi-polar world. You need to have economic power," Dannenberg said during a Q&A in a Goldman note.

Russia seems far from realizing these goals. Lowered oil prices and economic sanctions by NATO due to the Ukraine conflict have crippled the Russian economy in the past few years.

The country's bonds have been downgraded to junk status, and its GDP contracted 1.9% in the first quarter of 2015. It does not seem that Russia is ready to flex its economic muscle. 

In spite of the weak economy, Russia is attempting to boost its fortune by allying with more friendly economic powers, particularly China, and burgeoning markets.

According to Dannenberg, Putin's plan is twofold. The first objective is to create closer formal ties with countries that have similar economic interests. 

Last week Russia hosted the BRICS summit, a meeting of economic and political leaders from the growing powers of Brazil, India, China and South Africa. Russia is also a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which has 14 members including China, India, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey.

They've even begun to court Greece as an economic partner in Europe.

Obviously based on those membership lists, Russia's main focus is maintaining strong ties with China. Dannenberg highlighted this the most important part of Putin's economic plan. 

This isn't really news. Russia has had good relations with China for a long time. Now that sanctions have been lifted off of Iran, Russia will see more money in its coffers.

Related: scapegoat:

A Ukrainian military pilot, Nadia Savchenko, who has been held in Russia since June 2014, faces a 25-year prison term, according to reports.

Though a deal with Obama's pet project, Iran, has been struck, such a deal seems unlikely for North Korea:

A deal with North Korea isn’t a legacy-maker. It’s a well-established pattern that lame-duck Presidents grasp for “accomplishments” abroad as their power wanes at home. There’s no better president to negotiate with than one who knows he’ll be safely ensconced in his presidential library by the time the deal falls apart. North Korea’s track record tells us it will cheat, and when it does, the next president will come under strong pressure to walk away. I suspect that the administration has been involved in secret talks with North Korea periodically, but there’s usually at least some warning before a deal is announced. I first got wind of Chris Hill closing a deal with the North Koreans in Berlin in late 2006, and the deal was announced the following February. But then, how often do you hear George W. Bush boast about Agreed Framework 2? And even assuming this were possible, how long would it last under a future president? Probably not much longer than the Leap Day Deal itself. That’s a pretty dubious foundation for a legacy.

 

Read the whole thing.



Some South Koreans have clearly learned nothing from the UN, China and Russia's permanent seats on the security council, the failed Kaesong Industrial Complex and what a disaster North Korea is:

Judging by state-run Yonhap’s report, the reporter sees nothing wrong with this splendid idea, either. He (or she) never cites any of the U.N. Security Council resolutions or quotes their text, nor does he seek comment from any legal experts or South Korean government officials about the legality of this. Least of all, no one bothers to ask a South Korean labor activist about the ethics of this, not that you’d easily find one who isn’t under Pyongyang’s substantial influence anyway.

Instead, everyone seems to blithely accept circumventing U.N. sanctions and enslaving North Korean workers as a swell ideas. What’s not clear is whether they simply don’t care, because they assume China and South Korea won’t enforce the sanctions, or whether they think they’ve found a neat little loophole.

Sometimes losing money is all these bozos understand.

(Kamsahamnida)

And now, inside out peppermint patties because deliciousness. Enjoy.

Panty-Waist-in-Chief

Watch as the man who was twice elected to lead the free world snaps at a reporter for asking a legitimate question:



I actually can't imagine any other leader getting away with that. I really can't. I mean- Justin Trudeau is snotty and rude but Obama was just a petulant little sh-- who glowered because a reporter had the audacity to pose a legitimate question. He stammers out a venomous response (he still hasn't learned that part of his job is knowing how to actually speak) and glares at Major Garrett for having him put le roi on the spot like that.

That's King George III Redux for you.


It gets better and by better I mean baffling and irritating:

“We take all shootings very seriously,” Obama said. “Obviously when you have an attack on a U.S. military facility then we have to make sure we have all the information necessary to make an assessment in terms of how this attack took place.”

Here is a montage of all the times Obama has taken shootings and other tragedies seriously:

For years, the Obama administration has maintained that the victims of the 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, for which Islamist Maj. Hidal Hasan is charged, simply were in the crosshairs of a situation of “workplace violence.”

The victims – 13 people were killed and nearly another three dozen were injured when, according to witnesses, Hasan shouted “Allahu Akbar” and started firing at people – have been denied benefits and combat honors because the government insisted there was no link to terror. ...

When asked by the judge, Col. Tara Osborn, to identify those he was “protecting,” Hasan said, “The leadership of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban” and its leader, Mullah Omar.

 

**

On the first day after a sitting US Ambassador was assassinated in a terrorist attack on 9/11, this president skipped his daily intelligence briefing in favor of attending a Las Vegas campaign stop.

**

Four Jews were murdered in a kosher supermarket in Paris last month, after an Islamist terrorist claiming loyalty to Islamic State (ISIS) took the Hyper Cacher store hostage before police raided it and shot him - but according to US President Barack Obama the attack was "random."

In calling the attack random during an interview with Vox on Monday, Obama in fact did not even identify the victims as Jews, instead terming them "a bunch of folks."

**




Obama is a thin-skinned, bumbling, conniving @$$hole. The Americans will forever be ashamed that they even put him on the ballot.

Mid-Week Post

The epicentre of the work-week...

 
Convicted terrorist Chiheb Esseghaier was removed from the court room after another outburst:

A man convicted of plotting to derail a passenger train was removed from court Tuesday after he lay down in the prisoner dock to protest the "lies" of a psychiatrist who testified the man was schizophrenic.

Dr. Lisa Ramshaw also told a sentencing hearing that Chiheb Esseghaier's delusional thoughts have developed over time, including his psychotic beliefs about the trial and his role in the court.

"He has indicated that he is not actually here as a criminal but as a visitor of the court to disseminate the information about the true ways of Islam."

Esseghaier took exception to the doctor's testimony.

Question: is his sudden insanity (a) a clever legal ploy  (b) an actual mental disturbance  (c) feature, not a bug, of one who adheres to jihad?

Related:

An Iranian immigrant who regularly raped his wife and beat his children during their 16-year marriage is going back to jail after Ontario's top court on Wednesday increased his sentence.

In doing so, the Court of Appeal said the lower court judge who handed the man an 18-month term was wrong to assume cultural differences were a mitigating factor — even though the defence never raised the issue.

The man, who cannot be identified by court order to protect his now ex-wife and children, will instead have to serve a four-year term, the Appeal Court decided.

"Cultural norms that condone or tolerate conduct contrary to Canadian criminal law must not be considered a mitigating factor on sentencing," the Appeal Court ruled.

"To hold otherwise undermines the equality of all individuals before and under the law."

In fact, the higher court said, cultural beliefs may even be an aggravating factor when it comes to sentencing.

In June last year, Judge William Gorewich of the court of justice in Newmarket, Ont., convicted the man of sexual assault and four counts of assault for offences that occurred after the family's move from Iran to Canada in 2009. The judge accepted there had been "long-standing and ongoing" abuse.

Evidence was that the man forced his wife to have sex with him by hitting her, pulling her hair, pinching her, and forcefully removing her clothes.

"The sex was painful. She cried out quietly so the children would not hear. She suffered painful bruises to her legs and sides," according to court documents.

He also abused their two children — now teenagers — by slapping, kicking, punching or strapping them. He once locked them outside on a snowy day while they were barefoot and wearing only shorts and T-shirts.

The abuse, which only came to light after the younger child talked to a teacher, continued even after he moved in with another woman.

"The younger boy became so terrified that he took to sleeping with a knife," court documents say.
In sentencing him to 18 months, Gorewich referenced the "cultural impact" of the family's immigration. 

Among other things, he took into account the wife's victim impact statement in which she expressed surprise at the serious legal consequences of her husband's conduct.

Her statement suggested a "significant cultural gap" between what is acceptable in Canada versus in Iran, Gorewich said.

"In Iran if she complained about any abuse she would be ignored — it is a different culture, it is a different society," Gorewich said.

"Those cultural differences moved with them from Iran to Canada."

On appeal, the Crown argued the judge's reasoning was flawed and the sentence manifestly unfit.

 
Nope. Culture does not matter here.

Also, let's elect our judges.


 
Because Canada doesn't subscribe to the Juche philosophy, every other crappy economy is going to have some effect on ours. Unless you want a trustifarian who thinks that budgets balance themselves, I wouldn't be so quick to abandon ship:

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper went on the attack on Wednesday after the country's central bank cut interest rates to combat a shrinking economy, with his spokesman saying Harper's rivals cannot be trusted to govern in such difficult times.

The Bank of Canada cut its benchmark rate for the second time this year, driving the Canadian dollar to a six-year low, saying the economy had contracted in the first half of 2015.

"The global economy remains fragile and is being dragged down by forces beyond our borders such as global oil prices, the European debt crisis, and China's economic slowdown," Harper spokesman Stephen Lecce said in a statement.

 
To be clear:

(b) Solicitation or acceptance of tissue as directed donation for use in transplantation 
 

It shall be unlawful for any person to solicit or knowingly acquire, receive, or accept a donation of human fetal tissue for the purpose of transplantation of such tissue into another person if the donation affects interstate commerce, the tissue will be or is obtained pursuant to an induced abortion, and—

(1) the donation will be or is made pursuant to a promise to the donating individual that the donated tissue will be transplanted into a recipient specified by such individual;

(2) the donated tissue will be transplanted into a relative of the donating individual; or

(3) the person who solicits or knowingly acquires, receives, or accepts the donation has provided valuable consideration for the costs associated with such abortion.

**

Buyer: So, the main thing, well, not the main thing that Iwould like to discuss is, I’d really like to connect with people who feel theydon’t know we’re out there. They don’t know there’s this opportunity. And thatcould be a little touchy, for them more for us, and I want to be delicate toany reservations.

PP: Yeah, you know, I don’t think it’s a reservations issue so much as a perception issue, because I think every provider has had patients who want to donate their tissue, and they absolutely want to accommodate them. They just want to do it in a way that is not perceived as, ‘This clinic is selling tissue, this clinic is making money off of this.’ I know in the Planned Parenthood world they’re very very sensitive to that. And before an affiliate is gonna do that, they need to, obviously, they’re not—some might do it for free—but they want to come to a number that doesn’t look like they’re making money. They want to come to a number that looks like it is a reasonable number for the effort that is allotted on their part. I think with private providers, private clinics, they’ll have much less of a problem with that.

Buyer: Okay, so, when you are, or the affiliate is determining what that monetary—so that it doesn’t create, raising a question of this is what it’sabout, this is the main—what price range, would you—?

PP: You know, I would throw a number out, I would say it’s probably anywhere from $30 to $100 [per specimen], depending on the facility and what’s involved. It just has to do with space issues, are you sending someone there who’s going to be doing everything, is there shipping involved, is somebody gonna have to take it out. You know, I think everybody just wants, it’s really just about if anyone were ever to ask them, “What do you do for this $60? How can you justify that? Or are you basically just doing something completely egregious, that you should be doing for free.” So it just needs to be justifiable. And, look, we have 67 affiliates. They all have different practice environments, different staff, and so that number—

Buyer: Did you say 67?

PP: 67.

Buyer: Okay. And so of that number, how much would personality of the personnel in there, would play into it as far as how we’re speaking to them—

PP: I think for affiliates, at the end of the day, they’re a non-profit, they just don’t want to—they want to break even. And if they can do a little better than break even, and do so in a way that seems reasonable, they’re happy to do that.

**

Nucatola specifically states, in fact, that these changes don’t violate the consent forms Planned Parenthood has mothers sign before their abortions. She interprets the laws guiding organ procurement broadly, saying that there would only be need for a new consent form if the “procedure may take an extra day, or I might be here extra hours.” Since changing the presentation or using ultrasounds doesn’t take extra days, she thinks she’s legally in the clear. Further, she doesn’t believe the woman who have signed the consent forms stating that there will be no changes to the procedure need to know how their abortion procedure will be changed to accommodate organ sales.

**

A number of family members of Falun Gong practitioners whodied in detention reported seeing the corpses of their loved ones with surgicalincisions and body parts missing. The authorities gave no coherent explanationfor these mutilated corpses.

**

According to Im, experiments on humans date back to the late 1960s and one of the first facilities used for chemical and biological weapons tests on humans was constructed on the military controlled island of Mayang-do, just off the east coast port of Sinpo, which is also North Korea's most important submarine base. A second facility was subsequently constructed on an island off the west coast of the peninsula, while a third is in operation alongside a political prison camp outside the city of Hyanghari, the defector claims.

"They use anthrax bacterium as well as 40 different types of chemical weapons that the regime has developed itself," Im said. "Through these experiments, they know the effects of the weapons and the amounts to be used."

To give the regime's actions legitimacy, children born with mental or physical disabilities are not taken away by force - although, in reality, few citizens of North Korea have the right to resist the authorities' will, says Im.

"They want to do it 'legally' and they don't want to lose the support of the people, so they buy disabled children from their parents for a few kilograms of rice," he said. "The officials say they will take care of the children."

And we have come full circle.
 

 
After much time-wasting debate,  the Greek parliament has passed austerity laws:

Greek lawmakers voted overwhelmingly early Thursday to approve a harsh austerity bill demanded by bailout creditors, despite significant dissent from members of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' left-wing party.

The bill, which imposes sweeping tax hikes and spending cuts, fueled anger in the governing Syriza party and led to a revolt against Tsipras, who has insisted the deal forged after a marathon weekend eurozone summit was the best he could do to prevent Greece from catastrophically crashing out of Europe's joint currency.

The bill was approved with 229 votes in favour, 64 against and six abstentions — and won the support of three pro-European opposition parties.

Some examples of how bad Greece is and why it is the way it is:

Many Greek families won’t register the death of a loved one, so they can continue to collect his or her state payments.

Civil service pensions survive the death of the bureaucrat who earned them, as well as the death of his or her spouse. They even continue to be paid to public-sector workers’ daughters for as long as they remain unmarried.

So thousands of middle-aged daughters of deceased bus drivers, teachers, civil service clerks and soldiers remain officially unmarried, just so they can collect their dead mother’s or father’s generous pension.

Many Greeks have one or more questionable sources of income.

 
Gee, I guess there was a reason to go to the Pan-Am Games:

Four Cuban rowers have defected from the Pan American Games and travelled to the United States, their coach said Wednesday.

And now, snacks for the lazy person. Enjoy.

But Wait! There's More!

There usually is....


While many in Iran and even the usual wags will see the new deal with Iran as just a political setback for Benjamin Netanyahu, they should remember that this deal, which has been envisioned since 2008, doesn't require Iran to stop enriching nuclear material, allows arms deals with China and Russia and there is no way to make Iran accountable should it break the agreement.



How embarrassing:

For believers in deep green ideology, humans are merely a harmful cancer on the planet which is why Elizabeth May and her Green Party devised policy on global population control.

So far, the policy may not be as draconian as China's "one child" policy.  For now, they are content to use tax credits and government payments in a manner that will see additional funding denied to families with more than two children. Clearly aware of how awful this sounds when said out loud, she's already back-pedalling away from this foul idea. 

There's no bigot like a loudmouth bigot.



The Red Toronto Star beclowns itself:



It's embarrassing that the left still shills for the multitude of lone wolves who are motivated by Islamism to commit acts of terror.



Behold medical science:

Thanks to Amant's team's efforts and those of others inspired by him, there is a now a standardized list of chemotherapy drugs that can and cannot be used during pregnancy. As well, Amant's group has compiled evidence dispelling the belief that pregnancy per se reduces the chances of success for cancer treatment. "Initially, though," he admits, "it was hard to get grants to do this work as funders just did not think it was realistic."

(sigh)

Some people value their possessions more than their kids:

A mom has sparked outrage after she refused to allow firefighters to break into her car to save her toddler son from the heat because the vehicle was too expensive to damage.

The unnamed mother was unable to open the door of her BMW when it accidentally locked itself.

Her three-year-old son was trapped inside and was suffering in the heat as no windows were open.

Firefighters who arrived at the scene in Yiwu city, China, were about to break the glass to rescue the boy - but his mum told them she wanted to wait for a locksmith instead so the car would not be damaged.

Just Disgusting

I am convinced that there is some sort of contest to see who can be the most revolting, immoral human being imaginable:




Oh, it gets worse:

At no point in the video does Nucatola say Planned Parenthood actually sells body parts, fetal or otherwise, though the center has claimed Planned Parenthood is involved in the "illegal trafficking of aborted fetal parts." Similarly, she does not admit to selling tissue, either personally or through the organization.

 
**

What sparked that rely to Cosmopolitan’s Jill Filopovic? Well, she tried to deflect and defend Planned Parenthood’s butchery, exposed by a video released Tuesday. 

(Sidebar: Newsweek and the rest of the popular press, do yourself a favour and don't help Planned Parenthood deny this. Just don't. Save your skins on this. Either cover this story honestly or don't even mention it but don't cram your foot into your fool yap in an effort to pretend that this isn't happening and if it is happening it's no big deal because 'science'. I'm sure you would go nuts if someone used your cell phones. Imagine having a part of your body lopped in some abandoned factory somewhere and then sold on e-Bay because 'science'.)

What does one do with used 'baby parts''? Sell them for medical research? I cannot think of anything else that is plausible,although Jindal would like us to believe they're being eaten on top of fresh spring greens with a vinaigrette...Since abortions comprise only approximately 3% of the services provided by Planned Parenthood, what are we really talking about here? Looking forward to PP's response, although it is a shame they have to spend their resources defending themselves against defamation by a radical "pro-life" undercover organization.

(Sidebar: this was just ONE out of many ignorant comments that both deny basic biological humanity of "the fetus" while still arguing for the ghoulish harvesting of his or her organs. Some people can't even keep their bullsh-- straight.)


And there is society collapsed under the weight of its own evil.

Yeah, evil.

How low does one have to be to sell human beings, alive or dead, while sipping wine? How wrapped up in a pernicious ideology does one have to be to deny and ultimately excuse it?



(Gracias and Merci)

A Post For Monday

The story so far...


The defense for convicted terrorist Raed Jasser argues that drugs, not Islamism, was the motivation of his attempted crime:

Raed Jaser, convicted in March of conspiracy to murder in the Via Rail case, is not a terrorist ideologue and had no intention nor motivation to hurt anyone, according to a psychologist’s testimony in a bitterly contested sentencing hearing.

On the contrary, Jaser was a drug-addicted, psychologically broken “con-man” whose dealings with an undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation agent posing as a terrorist financier were solely aimed at scamming money from fellow Muslims to feed a habit that cost as much as $2,000 a week.

One must note that it is never culture that is the driving force behind these many lone wolf attacks in which Islamism is clearly involved.

Is the left ever embarrassed at its attempts to white-wash Islamism?

One just has to ask.



Because Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne's failed "green" policies, businesses point-blank refuse to open shop in Ontario:

Concerns expressed by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Sergio Marchionne over Ontario’s hydro costs have been echoed by Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens.

On Friday at the Toronto Global Forum, Marchionne said the province needs to change the playing field for business.

“I think you need to create the conditions to be competitive,” Marchionne said after sitting beside Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne during the conference luncheon.

“We’re fully aware of the fact that this proposal on pensions and cap and trade and all this stuff … these are all things that add cost to the running of operations, they don’t come for free.”

Ontario Liberal voters have no problem with this.


Greek Prime Minister Alex Tspiras faces opposition in his own party after mismanaging one of the economic crises Greece has ever seen:

Greece's leftwing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras faces a showdown with rebels in his own party on Tuesday furious at his capitulation to German demands for one of the most sweeping austerity packages ever demanded of a euro zone government.

Just hours after a deal that saw Greece surrender much of its sovereignty to outside supervision in return for agreeing to talks on an 86 billion euro ($95 billion) bailout, doubts were already emerging about whether Tsipras would be able to hold his government together.

The terms imposed by international lenders led by Germany in all-night talks at an emergency summit obliged Tsipras to abandon promises of ending austerity.

Instead he must pass legislation to cut pensions, increase value added tax, clamp down on collective bargaining agreements and put in place quasi-automatic spending constraints. In addition, he must set 50 billion euros of public sector assets aside to be sold off under the supervision of foreign lenders and get the whole package through parliament by Wednesday. 

Tsipras himself, elected five months ago to end five years of suffocating austerity, said he had "fought a tough battle" and "averted the plan for financial strangulation".

But to get the accord through parliament by Wednesday's deadline, he will have to rely on votes from pro-European opposition parties, raising big questions over the future of his government and opening the prospect of snap elections.

Those who believed that a United States of Europe would be a disaster must think themselves vindicated when looking at this trouble Greece is foisting on others. If there are any sensible parties left in the EU, they should kick Greece out and let Tspiras own this mess.

France agrees to compensate Russia for a cancelled helicopter plan:

Russia and France have reached a tentative agreement on compensation payable to Moscow as a result of Paris' decision to cancel the delivery of two Mistral helicopter carriers.

The cancellation of the Mistral deal reportedly will cost France about $1.3 billion. The agreement still must be signed by both Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Francois Hollande, according to media reports.

It's not like Russia (read: Putin) doesn't need the cash.

But... but... global warming!

Earth could be heading for a ‘mini ice age’ within 15 years, scientists have warned.

A new model that tracks solar patterns predicts that the sun’s activity will drop by 60% during the 2030s, leading to a cold weather snap not experienced since the 18th Century.

The last time such weather was seen was when a phenomenon known as the Maunder Minimum plunged the Northern Hemipshere into a series of bitterly cold winters - also known as the ‘Little Ice Age’ - between 1645 and 1715, causing London’s River Thames to completely freeze over.

During the The Maunder Minimum, observers noted that solar activity was at a minimum.

Rather than a period of unremitting cold, the Little Ice Age consisted of many bitterly cold winters combined with some much milder ones.

Once again, abortion hides child sexual abuse:

A legal and human rights expert wants to know how a Winnipeg girl could have been impregnated by her stepfather twice and had two abortions before she was 13, yet not have been deemed a victim of sexual assault.

The offences took place in 2011 and 2012, but only came to light after the stepfather, now 35 years old, was arrested for assaults against two other people.

He has since pleaded guilty to multiple counts of sexual assault as well as other charges.

"In my view, if a child presents at a hospital pregnant, there's questions. There's reason for red flags to be raised," said Karen Busby, a University of Manitoba law professor and a director of the university's Centre for Human Rights Research. "Because technically speaking, an offence has occurred."

At the time, her stepfather had sole custody of her and repeatedly sexually assaulted her.

Both times she was pregnant, she had an abortion — once at a Winnipeg hospital and once at a hospital out of province.

Court documents show the girl was instructed to tell medical staff her boyfriend was the father.

According to the Criminal Code of Canada, the age of consent for sexual activity is 16, but Busby said if both partners are younger and both agreed to it, it's unlikely criminal charges would be laid.

She added even if that was her explanation, officials should have investigated it further.

 
Why did it happen? Because a powerful pro-abortion lobby that campaigns against parental notification and coerced abortion did not want to lose any abortion to adoption. That's why. I guarantee no one will be losing his or her job over this. Had this girl been eating a peanut butter sandwich at school or turned up in an emergency room with signs of physical abuse, heads would roll.



An exhibit on the Entebbe raid opens in Israel:

It was perhaps the most daring Israeli military exploit ever — a rescue raid in Africa that inspired Hollywood films and became etched in Israeli history.

Nearly four decades later, a first-of-its-kind exhibit showcases the story behind the July 1976 freeing of hostages from a hijacked plane at Entebbe, Uganda. The display includes a copy of the original order to launch the operation and the original combat vest worn by the lone casualty among the Israeli troops: Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, brother of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. ...

The crisis began on June 27, 1976, when four hijackers armed with guns and grenades boarded an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris during a stopover in Athens and then took over the plane. After a brief refuelling in Benghazi, Libya, the plane was flown to Entebbe, where they were welcomed by Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.

The hijackers, two Palestinians and two Germans, then separated about 100 Jewish and Israeli passengers from the rest and threatened to kill them if Israel did not free dozens of Palestinian prisoners. A feverish week of negotiations followed.

On July 4, Israel launched "Operation Thunderbolt" in which some 200 soldiers took part in an airborne raid on Entebbe airport that killed the hijackers, freed nearly all the hostages and was off the ground in less than an hour.

Three passengers were killed in crossfire during the rescue mission while a fourth, who had been evacuated to a local hospital, was later killed on orders from an enraged Amin.

Is it the one true ring of power?

One lucky metal detectorist uncovered the ring in South Creake, Norfolk in February which dates back to 14th century.

The 600-year old gold ring engraved with St George and the Dragon brings new insight to the saint's medieval followers in Norwich, an expert has told the BBC.

Coin expert at Norwich Castle Museum, Dr Adrian Marsden, said: "The ring has on it St George spearing a dragon. That is unusual and interesting because St George was a very popular saint in Norwich."

The ring, which dates back to the 14th Century, was found alongside 10 pennies, one half-penny and three farthings from the Edward I era, relics which have attracted the interest of Norwich Castle Museum and the British Museum in London.

Precioussssss......

And now, a touching story about a kitten that thinks it's a husky:

Rosie was re-homed by three sisters, after their co-worker found her abandoned and living on the streets of California.

They paired her with one of their pet huskies, Lilo, who has raised the kitten as one of her own.

Now, the ‘kitten-husky cross’ sneaks dog food, follows her husky pals around the house and goes on walks with the pack.

Friday Post

Don't forget the poll to the right.



Of course he would say this:

The Harper government is underfunding aboriginal schools and depriving First Nations children of any real chance of success, former prime minister Paul Martin said Thursday.

First of all, it should be noted who has control over education on the northern ghettos reservations:

The federal government has unveiled a retooled education plan for First Nations that it says recognizes aboriginal control over schooling.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in Alberta today where he announced the proposed changes that will be tabled under the First Nations control of First Nations education act.

Harper also promised an additional $1.9 billion in funding for aboriginal education starting in 2015. ...

The government says it has designated $1.25 billion over three years for aboriginal schools across Canada beginning in 2016 — an amount that he pledged would increase by 4.5 per cent each year after.

An additional $160 million for an implementation fund and $500 million for new infrastructure on reserves over seven years is also expected to start in 2015.

The proposed legislation promises to give First Nations control of their education system and enables the incorporation of language and culture programming in the curriculum.

It would repeal the provisions in the Indian Act related to residential schools, which is largely a symbolic gesture that follows the apology made by Harper in 2008.

What the government currently gives and who is responsible for it:

First Nations and their regional organizations have responsibility for managing and delivering education programs and services in a number of band-operated schools on reserve across Canada. In addition, AANDC delivers services directly on reserve in seven federally operated schools and covers the tuition costs for First Nation students living on reserve but attending provincial schools off reserve.

Elementary and secondary school support for First Nation students living off reserve, as well as Métis, Inuit and non-status Indians, is provided through provincial and territorial school systems.

In 2012-2013, AANDC invested $1.62 billion in First Nation kindergarten to grade 12 education and more than $331 million in post-secondary education to support First Nation and Inuit students across Canada. This funding was in addition to the approximately $226 million in 2012-2013 to support infrastructure costs for education facilities. This funding supported some 113,000 full-time equivalent First Nation students, ordinarily resident on reserve, in their elementary or secondary education and about 22,000 post-secondary students.

**

The Conservative government's budget, which was tabled on Tuesday, earmarks $200 million over five years starting in 2015-16 "to help support First Nations to achieve better education outcomes, including building partnerships with provincial school systems."
 
But that amount falls short of the $1.9 billion that Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced in February 2014, says Rebecca Chartrand, an aboriginal education consultant with the Seven Oaks School Division.

Do the math. How much off is it for the population and the amount of off-reservation students who successfully complete high school?

It's a cheap shot for a failing candidate before the October election.



Pope Francis is not amused:

When leftist Bolivian president Evo Morales on Thursday presented Pope Francis with a “communist crucifix” – a carving of Christ crucified on the hammer of a hammer and sickle – the Pope appeared to say, “This is not ok,” while shaking his head.

Nope. Not a happy pontiff.



One would think that with all the rapes, Norwegian police would use their weapons more often:

Norway’s latest statistics has attracted international attention.

Last month, the government released data pertaining to the country’s police department and their use of guns in recent years.

According to the report, Police Threat or Use of Firearms 2002-2014, Norway’s police only fired two bullets over the entire year. There were no fatalities or wounded, either.

Ladies and gentlemen, Omar Sharif:

Mid-Week Post

Paul Watson, who wrote about the discovery of the HMS Erebeus, has resigned from the Red Toronto Star because the newspaper allegedly refused to the story about it:

Paul Watson, who won a Pulitzer prize in 1994, has quit the Toronto Star over that paper’s “refusal to publish a story of significant public interest” — an allegation the paper denies. ...

The article Watson says he couldn’t publish at the Star centres on the search for the lost ships of the 1845 Franklin expedition, an initiative led by Parks Canada that had significant input and personal investment by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The discovery of one of the Franklin ships, the HMS Erebus, was announced by the prime minister in September of 2014.

Watson says experts and civil servants who worked on the 2014 Victoria Strait Expedition that found the wreck of the Erebus are outraged at what they see as “distorted and inaccurate accounts” of that discovery, which allegedly originated with a person close to the Prime Minister’s Office who also has influence within the Star.

Watson’s says his efforts to report on that person’s influence were stymied, and that editors put him under “a six-week reporting ban” he only broke free of upon his resignation.

“People are sick and tired of a government that is destroying our democracy by intimidating experts into silence so the politically connected and the powerful can fill that information vacuum,” Watson said in an interview posted on the Canadaland website on Wednesday.

“You might have thought this was a simple feel-good story, an effort to answer a mystery the world has been following for the last 170 years. But you’d be shocked at how much political sleaze that can generate,” Watson added.

One would think that the Toronto Star would take any potshot at Stephen Harper. Most so-called journalists and special-interest groups do.


Related: the Fils opens his mouth about something in order to get back potential votes he has lost:

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau says the federal government has "abandoned its responsibility" to a First Nation cut off from the outside world and living under one of the longest boil-water advisories in Canada.

Maybe the trust-fund baby would like to sponsor these reservations himself?



More reasons to withdraw from the UN today:

The Canadian Human Rights Commission has told a United Nations panel that the plight of Canada's aboriginal people is one of the country's most urgent civil rights issues.

**

Russia has vetoed a United Nations resolution that would have described the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica as "genocide."

I'm sure this all just a coincidence:

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was taken offline on Wednesday at 11:32 a.m. due to an alleged glitch in its networks. While officials said a cyberattack is not suspected, many in the cybersecurity community said they’d need more evidence to be able to fully write off foul play.

Among the skeptics is the hacker collective Anonymous. A prominent member of the group, who goes by the moniker “Strudalz,” said attacks such as this “are becoming more and more frequent, and when there’s even the tiniest of gap for information disclosure, these serious issues for the most part come back to China.”

The NYSE wasn’t the only major network taken offline on Wednesday. United Airlines and the Wall Street Journal suffered similar outages.

NYSE announced through Twitter that a cyberattack is not suspected, and CNN reported “based what’s known now, it’s highly unlikely to be the result of a coordinated cyberattack.”

(Sidebar: not that Anonymous is a bastion of honesty or proper conduct or anything.)

While all Western eyes remain firmly focused on Greece, a potentially much more significant financial crisis is developing on the other side of world. In some quarters, it’s already being called China’s 1929 – the year of the most infamous stock market crash in history and the start of the economic catastrophe of the Great Depression. 

In any normal summer, a 30pc fall in the Chinese stock market – a loss of value roughly equivalent to the UK’s entire economic output last year – after an ascent which had seen share prices more than double within the space of a year would have been front page news across the globe. 

The dramatic series of government interventions to stem the panic – hitherto unsuccessful, it should be added – would similarly have been up there at the top of the news agenda. Yet the pantomime of the Greek debt talks, together with the tragi-comedy of will they, won’t they leave the euro, has relegated the story to little more than a footnote - even though 940 companies, more than a third, have now suspended trading on China’s two main indices. 

Some insight on this developing economic train wreck:

Why should China’s leaders feel so uneasy? Incredibly, they publicly took credit for rising stock prices—a bubble unconnected to corporate earnings or economic growth—even when it was evident that there would be a reckoning at some point. Now that prices are in fast retreat, they do not want the blame that inevitably follows.

Not worth a Slut Walk:

Two Yazidi women have told of the unimaginable cruelty they suffered at the hands of ISIS fighters who kept them as their sex slaves after raiding their homes in Iraq.

One, a 19-year-old mother, says she allowed her first captor who 'bought her' to rape her 'whenever he wanted' because he would beat her one-year-old baby son if she resisted. Her son was the only thing stopping her from taking her own life. Her second jailer raped an elderly mother and her daughter.

The second woman, 25, was sold again and again to a string of cruel fanatics who tied her to the bed and drugged her with morphine to keep her 'silent'. She was beaten so badly that she could not walk for two months.

Ten years after the July 7th attacks in Britain killed fifty-two people, Britain shows little sign that it will ever tackle Islamism:

Polling company ICM conducted a poll for the newspaper of 2,016 people, who rated their feelings on the Islamic State.

Support for the world’s most notorious terrorist group had risen compared to last year’s poll. Last year, two percent rated their feelings towards ISIS as ‘very favorable’ with five percent regarding the group ‘somewhat favorably.’

This year those numbers have risen with three percent feeling ‘very favorable’ towards the Islamic State and six percent feeling ‘somewhat favorable.’  

Oh, please. Putin has journalists killed all the time:

Russian investigators have upgraded the charges against Nadia Savchenko, the Ukrainian helicopter pilot jailed in Russia, as her lawyers said they expected her trial to begin this summer.

Savchenko, 34, now stands accused of the murder of two Russian journalists, investigators in Moscow have said.

She was previously charged with complicity in the deaths of Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin, two employees of Russia’s state owned VGTRK television holding who died while covering the war in Ukraine last year.

“They have toughened the charges — the prosecutors have changed their concept,” Ilya Novikov, one of Savchenko’s defence lawyers, said on Tuesday.

Savchenko, a lieutenant in the Ukrainian army and the country’s first female combat pilot, was captured by pro-Russian separatists while fighting alongside the Aidar volunteer battalion near the city of Luhansk on June 18 last year. Russian prosecutors say she subsequently voluntarily crossed the border and attempted to seek asylum in Russia, where she was arrested and charged with acting as a spotter for a mortar attack that killed Kornelyuk and Voloshin on the same day.

The new charges were announced as investigators moved to bring the case to trial after a year of pre-trial detention. Russia’s chief investigator said on Monday that the investigation had been completed and had been sent to prosecutors for confirmation of the indictment before submission to a court for consideration.

Vladimir Markin, the head of Russia’s powerful Investigative Committee, said Savchenko’s case had been made part of a broader criminal investigation into “acts of genocide and use of illegal weapons and methods of warfare by the Ukrainian armed forces.”

And now, tough talk from some cinematic bad-@$$es and just in time for Shark Week, it's Shark Wahlberg:

Monday Post

A lot in the news...



Thousands are evacuated from wildfires in Saskatchewan:

The Western Canadian province of Saskatchewan said on Sunday it was evacuating an additional 8,000 people from the far north of the province, as wildfires continue to spread and threaten homes.

The provincial government said that as of Saturday there were 114 active fires in the province. More than 5,000 residents have already been moved out of the area in the past week. 

The latest evacuations are around the town of La Ronge, roughly 600 km (370 miles) north of the provincial capital, Regina.

 
Rich people who live in big houses and dirty hippies complain about something at Queen's Park.

Related:

Ontario’s long-term credit rating has been downgraded by Standard and Poor’s after years of warnings the province needed to control its spending.

The long-term rating was lowered from AA- to A+, but Ontario’s short-term A-1+ rating was affirmed and its outlook remains stable. That means there will be few short-term costs to the provincial treasury but in the long-run the downgrade could drive up Ontario’s borrowing rate when interest payments already eat up the third largest chunk of its $132-billion budget.

This is the second time S&P has downgraded Ontario since it started running deficits after the recession. Though the agency notes Ontario is set to balance its books by 2018 — as promised by Finance Minister Charles Sousa — it worries about how much capital spending the Liberal government has committed.

Hey! We're not controlled by a Zionist cabal!

You probably didn't realize the reason Canadians are oblivious to the international Zionist conspiracy that has taken over their country is because they're hedonists perpetually drunk and stoned on pot.

Neither did I, and I've lived in Canada virtually all my life.

That bizarre tidbit of supposed information didn't come from one of the weirdo characters on the comedy show, The Trailer Park Boys, nor was it a clever satirist doing a Wayne's World style parody of our beer-and-hockey culture.

It was said in deadly seriousness by the Canadian contributor to Iran's state-owned propaganda network Press TV, Joshua Blakeney.

 
Having voted 'no' in a referendum held over the week-end, Germany believes that Greece may be beyond financial redemption:

Germany's deputy chancellor has said new negotiations with Greece are "difficult to imagine" after the No vote in the referendum.

Sigmar Gabriel told the Tagesspiegel newspaper: "With the rejection of the rules of the eurozone... negotiations about a programme worth billions are barely conceivable."

He said Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras and his Syriza government were "leading the Greek people on a path of bitter abandonment and hopelessness".

Mr Gabriel, who is also Germany's economics minister, said Mr Tsipras had "torn down the last bridges on which Greece and Europe could have moved towards a compromise".

His Social Democratic Party shares power with German chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats.

Several senior EU figures had suggested a No vote could lead to Greece leaving the 19-member eurozone, or even leaving the European Union.

Mr Tsipras, however, has insisted that the No vote would strengthen his hand in fresh negotiations.

 
Kick Greece to the curb.



Obama: moron or evil? You decide.

President Obama declared “Ideologies are not defeated with guns, they’re defeated by better ideas” and that investing in education is one of many things that can be a “powerful” counter to “extremist ideologies” in a speech at the Pentagon on Monday.

Only this guy could defeat Hitler.

Not worth a Slut Walk:

At least 150 Yazidi women and girls killed themselves after they were forced to become Islamic State sex slaves, according to a woman working with some of the survivors who managed to escape.

In one of the most comprehensive accounts of the effects of Islamic State brutality, details emerged of the ordeals faced by hundreds of Yazidi women, very often after their male relatives were butchered by Islamic State members.

Irifan Mahdi, who is trying to help the women rehabilitate into some semblance of normative society spoke of the horrors in an interview with the Sputnik news organization’s Arabic website.

She told the story of Jilan Barjess-Naif, 17, “a beautiful green-eyed girl, with rare blonde hair, who slashed her own wrists in a public bathhouse near Mosul, northern Iraq, which is under Islamic State control.”

She was separated from the less attractive girls and singled out for special rape treatment before being put up for sale in a sex market.

After she committed suicide, Islamic State members threw her body from the bathhouse into the nearest garbage dumpster.

Jilan’s sister, Jihan, committed suicide a few days after being captured and transferred, along with other girls, to A-Raqqa, the Islamic State’s capital, in order to be sold at a slave market.

 

Silence. That's fat Western feminists for you.



And now, fear the night. Fear Batman.... Turkey.

The city of Batman is situated in, and is also the capital of, the province of Batman in the Anatolia region of southeastern Turkey. The city lies in a plateau near the confluence of the Batman River and the River Tigris.

Only he can bring order to chaos... and also baklava.

(Merci)