Mid-Week Post

 

Concordia University and York University (the same that backed BDS movements and where hostility exists for Jewish or pro-Israel students and let's not forget surah 4:34) required police presence today:

Montreal police are investigating after a letter was sent to media outlets Wednesday threatening to set off bombs targeting Muslim students in two Concordia University buildings.

**

Police are investigating after swastikas were found in a classroom at York University.

The university says “hate graffiti” and an anti-Semitic statement was found around 8 a.m. in a classroom at its north Toronto campus Monday.

And:

A suspected arson attempt at a Toronto Islamic centre came as a surprise to the administrator, who said the mosque had never had any troubles in the past.

“Honestly, I have no idea who could have done something like this but if it was intentional and a hate crime then this is unacceptable,” Muneeb Aden said Wednesday.

 
You don't?

The Reign of Islaamic Da’wah Center is associated with the Masjidul-Furqaan and Islamic Centre which holds these delightful opinions:

An admonition is included concerning those Parents who send their children to the schools of the non-Muslims. The ‘suicide’ contained in such a decision, as the children will be affected by those whom they accompany, and if it is not permitted to accompany ‘ahlul-bidah’ and disliked to allow our children to accompany the foolish children (from amongst the Muslims), then what more for allowing our children to accompany children raised upon kufr, shrik, shahawaat, shubuhaat and the vile characteristics of Western society?

Sit back and watch these train wrecks.


(Paws up)



It's called desperation:

In Calgary Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will confirm a unique pattern he began last fall in Medicine Hat — a sitting prime minister who will jump right in and openly campaign for any underdogs flying the Liberal flag in a by-election. ...

During a general election campaign, an incumbent prime minister — like other party leaders — will campaign using a chartered commercial jet flown by commercial pilots. The cost of that aircraft is borne exclusively by political parties and not by the taxpayer.

Moreover, Trudeau, during his short time in office, has already flown at least twice on a non-military aircraft. As the National Post first reported, during his Christmas holiday, he and his family used the personal helicopter of the Aga Khan to make the 110-km journey between Nassau and the Aga Khan’s private island in the Bahamas.

If the party had to account for the full cost of flying Trudeau to Calgary and back on the Challenger — Trudeau has no publicly announced official events there other than the campaign appearances — the bill could easily top $35,000.

That would go against the national party’s anticipated spending limit of about $450,000 for the five by-elections currently underway. (In addition to the two in Calgary, there is one each in Markham, Ottawa, and Montreal.)

Spend money to spend more money.




A Canadian pastor held in North Korea will meet with the Swedish ambassador:

A Canadian pastor serving a life sentence in North Korea has been allowed to meet with the Swedish ambassador in Pyongyang and telephone his family.

Hyeon Soo Lim, a pastor with the Light Korean Presbyterian Church of Mississauga, Ont., was sentenced in December 2015 by a North Korean court to life in prison with hard labour for what it called crimes against the state.

Swedish Ambassador Torkel Stiernlof says he met Lim for 40 minutes last week. He said they discussed Lim's health and other matters, but refused to comment further.

The ambassador said in an email to The Associated Press on Wednesday that he and Lim "weren't rushed."

He said there were two North Korean officials in civilian clothes and an official photographer present throughout the meeting, which was held in a conference room at a Pyongyang hotel.

"He was escorted in and out of the room without handcuffs by uniformed guards," Stiernlof said. "We discussed his health and other things, of course, but I refrain from commenting on these matters."

He said Lim spoke over the phone with his family last Friday.

Lim's family confirmed the call but wouldn't provide details of the conversation.

"We would like to extend our deepest gratitude to Swedish Ambassador Torkel Stiernlof for representing the Canadian government in Pyongyang and helping make this meaningful phone call happen," the family said in a statement.

"We take this as an encouraging sign that diplomatic efforts are bearing fruit and we hope to see Reverend Lim return home as soon as possible."

I shudder to think what might be given to North Korea to get Pastor Lim back.




Two women have been formally charged with Kim Jong-Nam's murder:

Malaysia on Wednesday charged two women, an Indonesian and a Vietnamese, with murdering the estranged half brother of North Korea's leader in a bizarre airport assassination using a super-toxic nerve agent that killed in minutes.

Siti Aishah, a 25-year-old mother of one from Jakarta, and Doan Thi Huong, 28, from rural northern Vietnam, could be hanged if they are convicted of the killing of Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Feb. 13.

Police brought the two women to court handcuffed. As they left, they were made to wear bullet-proof vests, reflecting Malaysian authorities' fears that others involved in the killing could want the women silenced.

No plea was recorded after the charges were read out.

But Aishah and Huong have told diplomats who visited them in custody that they were unwitting pawns in an assassination that U.S. officials and South Korean intelligence have said was organized by North Korean agents.

  
Oh, I'm sure they were. 




President Trump embarrassed a few (million) people with a speech many felt was a powerhouse one:

President Donald Trump briefly broke through the deep animosity in Congress when he invoked the heroism of fallen Navy SEAL Ryan Owens, and his grieving widow looked toward the heavens.

**

“We’re also taking strong measures to protect our nation from radical Islamic terrorism,” Trump said in his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, with Republicans and one Democrat, Rep. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), responding with a standing ovation.

“According to data provided by the Department of Justice, the vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country,” Trump said.

“We have seen the attacks at home from Boston to San Bernardino to the Pentagon and, yes, even the World Trade Center,” Trump said. “We have seen the attacks in France, in Belgium, in Germany, and all over the world.

“It is not compassion but reckless to allow uncontrolled entry from places where proper vetting cannot occur,” Trump said.

A far cry from "workplace violence".




But... but... the Narrative!

That's why it is so simultaneously amazing and refreshing that there is now a film out called I Am Michael, based on the true story of Michael Glatze, who left his gay identity over a decade ago and has since become a pastor and married.  According to World Net Daily, neither the cast nor the initial exposure to the film is obscure:

Boasting A-list actors James Franco, Zachary Quinto and Emma Roberts – with a cameo by Darryl Hannah – "I Am Michael" debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in February 2015 but was released for distribution just three weeks ago.

 


That is how it is done:

In a remarkable police takedown captured on surveillance video, a California police officer performed a perfect tackle of a man armed with a baseball bat.

Watch the video. It's amazing.




Remarkable:

An experimental gene therapy that turns a patient’s own blood cells into cancer killers worked in a major study, with more than one-third of very sick lymphoma patients showing no sign of disease six months after a single treatment, its maker said Tuesday.

In all, 82 per cent of patients had their cancer shrink at least by half at some point in the study.

For a Tuesday

Yep...




Once more, the Ontario government finds ways to ruin small businesses:

Businesses in Ontario are spooked by the wide scope of possible changes to the province's labour and employment laws. 

The Liberal government is about to receive recommendations that could lead to the most significant reforms to Ontario's employment laws since the 1990s.

Mandatory sick pay, shifting the threshold for overtime, boosting the minimum paid vacation, advance scheduling, and making it easier to join a union are all under consideration. 

"We're challenging whether or not such sweeping reforms are necessary," said Karl Baldauf, vice-president of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. Its 60,000 members employ some two million people in the province.

"We have to make sure that you're not putting businesses in a position where they will actually be less inclined to hire or less inclined to expand as a result of new, onerous regulations," Baldauf said in an interview with CBC News. 

Baldauf met with Ontario's Labour Minister Kevin Flynn on Monday to urge the government not to make changes without solid evidence about the costs and benefits. 

 
Is it contempt for businessmen? Is it incompetence?

I say a mixture of both.

The manufacturing sector has all but disappeared from Ontario due to its horrendous energy policies. That the government sees fit to drain what little money small businesses can make has to be a cross between malice and stupidity. De-fanging unions, competitive salaries and fewer things like paid sick leave would actually make the private sector grow and - you know- re-build this province.

Crazy ideas, I know.

This chart shows how prices will change if wages are hiked to $15 an hour. There should be a similar chart showing who loses jobs because of that wage hike.

Also:

Will the carbon tax reduce the amount of Alberta’s emissions? Perhaps. In principle yes — put a tax on something and people will buy less of it, all else being equal. Part of the reason that energy demand in Ontario has gone down is because the price of energy has risen rapidly, though not due to a tax, but rather massive mismanagement of energy policy.

One could argue that carbon taxes are part and parcel of that mismanagement. One runs out of money, one invents a crisis, one demands money to deal with that crisis, a new crisis emerges.

Rinse, repeat.




And:

Irving Shipbuilding officials were recently in Ottawa making a pitch to the Liberal government to provide the company with more work to deal with the “gap” that will emerge between major projects such as the Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships and the upcoming Canadian Surface Combatants. Without that extra work, Irving officials suggested they might have to lay off employees. “Significant layoffs” was the term being used.

Then came Andrea Gunn of the Chronicle Herald newspaper in Halifax, who broke several stories about how Irving Shipbuilding was hiring outside of Canada for various positions. There was recruitment in Poland, reported Gunn.

She followed that up with an article about a subcontract Irving has with the Spanish firm Gabadi LC – that involves Spanish carpenters brought in to work on the Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships in Halifax.

Irving has now issued a statement that the suggestion by the Chronicle Herald that Irving is hiring outside of Canada for positions that could be filled by Canadians is “false.”

It’s a strange response from Irving.

Actually, it isn't.

It's always about money.




Oh, I'll bet they are:

A high-level North Korean delegation arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday seeking the body of leader Kim Jong Un’s half brother, the victim of a nerve-agent attack that many suspect the North itself of orchestrating.

The body of Kim Jong Nam, killed Feb. 13 at Kuala Lumpur’s airport, is at the centre of a heated diplomatic battle between North Korea and Malaysia. North Korea opposed Malaysian officials even conducting an autopsy, while Malaysia has resisted giving up the body without getting DNA samples and confirmation from next of kin.

The delegation includes Ri Tong Il, a former North Korean deputy ambassador to the United Nations, who told reporters Tuesday outside the North Korean Embassy that the diplomats were in Malaysia to retrieve the body and seek the release of a North Korean arrested in the case. He said the delegation also wants “development of the friendly relationship” between North Korea and Malaysia.

 
Muhammad Parvez, the man who murdered his sixteen year old daughter, Aqsa, is dead:

Parvez was serving a life sentence for second-degree murder in the death of his daughter, Aqsa, in Mississauga. He began serving his sentence in June 2010.

His son, Waqas, 26, was also sentenced to life for second-degree murder. Both the father and the son pleaded guilty.

But did they feel guilty?

Smart money says no.




It is Islamophobic to decry anti-semitism from prominent imams:

A Montreal mosque where an imam had prayed for Jews to be killed “one by one” is facing fresh calls for an investigation after more videos surfaced online showing anti-Semitic preaching.

The Middle East Media Research Institute released a video on Tuesday of sermons in which an imam at the Al Andalous Islamic Centre conveyed conspiracy theories about Jews, their history and their origins.

Sheikh Wael Al-Ghitawi is shown in the video clips claiming that Jews were “people who slayed the prophets, shed their blood and cursed the Lord,” reported MEMRI, which translated the Friday sermons.

That must be embarrassing to people who insist that guys like these are as gentle as basketfuls of kittens.


There is a reason why motions like Motion 37 and Motion 103 exist.





Deporting troublesome individuals would save the courts dilemmas like these:

Five separate decisions by the Immigration and Refugee Board to release an imprisoned refugee — who is considered a danger for sexual assault and randomly attacking people on the street — have been overturned by the Chief Justice of the Federal Court, revealing growing conflict over how to handle violent refugees who cannot be deported.

In overruling release decisions for a man who has been in prison for more than three years because he won’t co-operate with his deportation, Chief Justice Paul S. Crampton issued a call to reconcile “the tensions in this court’s jurisprudence” on the thorny issue.

He landed soundly on the side of detention.

To do otherwise, he wrote, “would have the perverse effect of rewarding the detainee for his failure to co-operate with his removal.”

Such immigration conundrums are emerging with increasing frequency, with each individual case appearing as a bizarre oddity where a refugee is ordered out of Canada but cannot be deported.

As the cases accumulate, however, the IRB and the Federal Court are grappling with how long an unremovable non-citizen can be incarcerated before the government throws in the towel and lets him out.

Is one an environmentalist if one abandons puppies to the elements?

As officers moved in, and protesters moved out, garbage wasn’t the only thing abandoned.

Two dogs and six puppies were found and rescued at the main Dakota Access Pipeline Camp by furry Friends Rockin Rescue.

The rescue has been working hard to catch ALL the animals that were left behind at the camp, but Furry Friends Rockin Rescue isn’t giving up on these abandoned pets.

Puppy-hating b@$#@rds.





An Inuit veteran's memoirs are finally published:

Eddy Weealtuk was born on Strutton Island in James Bay in 1932. As was the practice at the time, the government of Canada issued him what was called an Eskimo disc number. His was E9-422. It was engraved on a small, metal disc and was to be worn at all times.

He grew up thinking Inuit weren’t allowed to leave the north. This wasn’t quite true, but an understandable assumption based on way his people were treated by the government: why would he have to wear a number if not as a means of restricting movement? But Weetaltuk wanted adventure, so he snuck out, changed his name to Eddy Vital to throw off pursuit that wasn’t coming, and eventually joined the army.

They gave him a new number – SC-17515 – as well as all the adventure a young man could want: shipping him to fight in the Korean War, Japan and occupied Germany, where he ended up with another number – Detainee 24 – after running afoul of the military police. After returning home, Weetaltuk decided his was a story worth telling, which began the four-decades long process of getting this book into print.

In 1975, Weetaltuk submitted the manuscript, as well as a handful of drawings, to the National Museum of Man. They were interested in it, but wanted him to add scenes of traditional Inuit life (presumably because, at the time, you couldn’t have a book by an Inuit author without dog sleds and whaling). Weetlaltuk complied, the Museum dithered, lost the drawings for a time, and eventually archived the manuscript.

(Sidebar: I'm sure there are any number of multicultural fetishists who would feel the same way.)





Archaeologists in Iraq are rushing to preserve what remains of ancient ruins and artefacts ISIS partially destroyed:

Archeologists documenting ISIL’s destruction of the ruins of the tomb of the prophet Jonah say they have made an unexpected discovery that could help our understanding of the world’s first empire.

The Nebi Yunus shrine — containing what Muslims and Christians believe to be the tomb of Jonah, as he was known in the Bible, or Yunus in the Qur’an — was blown up by ISIL militants soon after they seized swaths of northern Iraq in 2014.

The shrine is on top of a hill in eastern Mosul called Nebi Yunus — one of two mounds that form part of the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh. The Iraqi army retook the area from ISIL last month, revealing the extensive damage wrought by the jihadists.

Local archeologists say ISIL also dug tunnels deep under the demolished shrine and into a previously undiscovered and untouched 600 BC palace.

Inside one of the tunnels, Layla Salih, an Iraqi archeologist, discovered a marble cuneiform inscription of King Esarhaddon thought to date back to the Assyrian empire in 672 BC.

Tempus Fugit

... when in the midst of amusement...



Unbelievable:

Convicted killer Kelly Ellard has been granted temporary escorted absences from prison to attend doctor's appointments and parenting programs for her baby.

Presumably so she can learn that mashing out a cigarette on a baby's head is bad for him.





On the Korean Peninsula:

South Korean intelligence believes suspects wanted for the murder of the half-brother of North Korea's leader included several officials who worked for the reclusive state's foreign and security ministries, according to lawmakers in Seoul.

Kim Jong Nam was killed earlier this month at a Malaysian airport by assassins using VX nerve agent, a chemical capable of killing in minutes and listed by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction.

South Korea is acutely sensitive to developments in its unpredictable nuclear-armed neighbor, and intelligence agency officials have briefed lawmakers on the sensational killing of the estranged half-brother of the North's leader Kim Jong Un.

North Korea has not acknowledged the victim is Kim Jong Nam. But South Korean and U.S. officials believe Kim, who had criticized his family's control of the isolated state, was assassinated by agents of the North.

"Among eight suspects in this case four are from the ministry of state security and two who actually took action are from the foreign ministry," Lee Cheol-woo, one of the lawmakers briefed by South Korean intelligence, told reporters.

"That is why it is a case of terrorism led by the state, directly organized by the ministry of state security and the foreign ministry," Lee added. 

Also:

While the size of the North’s stockpile is notoriously difficult to ascertain, the U.S.-based nonprofit Nuclear Threat Initiative, says the country is believed to be among the world’s largest possessors of chemical weapons. It estimates that the North ranks third — after the United States and Russia — with between 2,500 and 5,000 metric tons in its arsenal, the majority of which are nerve agents such as sarin and VX. At maximum capacity, the North is thought to be capable of producing up to 12,000 tons of the weapons.

But despite the massive amount, concerns over the North’s chemical threat have in recent years been largely drowned out by its growing nuclear weapons and missile capabilities.

Pyongyang conducted two nuclear tests last year and Kim Jong Un said in January that the country was in the final stages of preparations for an intercontinental ballistic missile test.

“The North’s chemical program has kind of fallen under the radar in most analysis about the threat perceptions emanating from the North, as most concerns — rightfully so — focus on the conventional programs and also the nuclear and missile efforts,” said J. Berkshire Miller, a Tokyo-based international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“That said,” Miller added, “intelligence communities in the West and South Korea have warned for years about the dangers of the North’s chemical and biological weapons program and their potential use in asymmetric ways should the Kim regime feel threatened.”

While nuclear weapons are seen as a strategic deterrent meant to maintain the Kim dynasty’s grip on power, chemical arms would likely have an operational role in any wartime scenario, analysts say. Its rockets and missiles, including the intermediate-range Rodong with a range of 1,000-1,500 km, could be tipped with a chemical-laden warhead for strikes on much of Japan.

“It is possible that North Korea could target Japan with the missiles it has tested,” said Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former commander of the U.K.’s chemical and biological regiment who now works as a private consultant. “It is much easier to put VX in a warhead on a missile than to put a nuclear warhead on it. They could have a payload of up to 500 kg, which would be a considerable amount of VX and if fired at a city could create many casualties.”

If that is the case, the South Koreans and the Japanese have a new problem on their hands.



And:

China is developing hypersonic weapons with an eye to piercing the missile defense shields of Japan and East Asian neighbors, according to a magazine specializing in Chinese military affairs.

The so-called Rocket Force of China’s People’s Liberation Army has recently devised a hypersonic weapons development program in light of Japanese and Taiwanese missile defense systems, as well as South Korea’s planned deployment of a U.S. missile shield, according to the Canada-based Kanwa Defense Review.

Hypersonic weapons are next-generation maneuvering strike vehicles launched atop ballistic missiles that travel at speeds of up to Mach 10, or 10 times the speed of sound. They maneuver and glide along the edge of space, making them very difficult for missile defenses to shoot down.

The United States and Russia have also been aggressive about developing hypersonic strike capability. It is thought that Japan’s antimissile system could be made impotent if Beijing’s development of hypersonic weapons advances.

This is why Japan needs to nuclearise.

Or develop its gigantic robot technology.




One of the few remaining Bataan Death march survivors has passed away at age ninety-six:

Lester Tenney, a former U.S. prisoner of war held by the Imperial Japanese Army and a survivor of the notorious 1942 Bataan Death March, died at a nursing facility Friday in Carlsbad, California, a local newspaper reported. He was 96.

The Chicago native was one of 60,000 to 80,000 U.S. and Filipino POWs forced to march more than 100 km (60 miles) to a prison camp on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines during World War II. 

Many died on the journey from malnutrition, thirst and abuse or rampant torture and murder. The event was later judged as a war crime.

He was forced to work at a coal mine in southwestern Japan from 1943 until the end of the war in 1945. After returning to the U.S., he became a college professor.

When he visited Japan in 2010, then-Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada apologized to Tenney for the inhumane treatment he suffered at the hands of his captors.

Civilians run for their lives as Iraqi forces seize a bridge into Mosul:

Iraqi forces seized a damaged Mosul bridge on Monday which could link up their units on either side of the Tigris river, as thousands of civilians fled the fighting for Islamic State's remaining stronghold in the west of the city.

U.S.-backed army and police units advanced through populated western districts, fighting tough street battles, and announced they had captured Mosul's southernmost bridge.

Once repaired, the bridge could help bring reinforcements and supplies from the eastern side, piling pressure on the militants dug in the western side among 750,000 civilians.

 



A sinkhole in Iraq is perhaps one of the largest mass graves where ISIS dropped the bodies of its victims:

The sinkhole that could be the largest mass grave in Iraq's latest conflict is barely visible from the road, nothing more than a small depression behind a desert ridge near Mosul.
The place known as the Khasfah (an Arabic word for a crack or a hole that opens up in the ground) was once a local curiosity, a natural formation that many locals believe was caused by a meteorite.

But the Islamic State group transformed it into a "place of death" after capturing the area in June 2014, using it as an execution site and a mass grave where they disposed of victims, according to local residents.

"They would bring them blindfolded, their hands tied behind their backs. The Khasfah would be in front of them, they would make them kneel down, shoot them in the head and push them in," said Mohamed Yassin, 56, a resident of the nearby town of Hammam al-Alil.

A retired soldier, he said he saw people being executed at the site on several occasions after IS captured the area in June 2014.

He was in the area regularly, transporting oil from a site just metres away, and said he saw executions there at least six times.

Most of those killed, he said, were policeman, soldiers or government employees, judged guilty for their association with the Iraqi state.

"People became afraid of the place, it became a place of death, a place where you'd be executed."

Not even all Muslims want Iqra Khalid's censorship motion to pass:

The term Islamophobia was created in the 1990s, when groups affiliated to the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood decided to play victim for the purpose of beating down critics. It is also in sync with a constant push by the OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) to turn any criticism of Islam or Muslims into blasphemy. Is this what we want in Canada? Blasphemy laws?

As a Canadian Muslim, I am very concerned about the direction we are headed in. My family and I came to Canada 29 years ago to embrace the values of a liberal democracy, of which freedom of speech is the most vital. M-103 will threaten free speech and goes directly against Canadian values. Canadians must speak out against this attack on their democratic values. But in many cases, people who are not prejudiced against any race or religion, but have concerns about this motion, are probably already feeling intimidated and may well choose to remain silent. This is the problem with motions like M-103. They cannot help but have a chilling effect on free speech and open debate. One need not be a cynic to suspect that’s actually the point, rather than a side effect.

It’s not laws, however, that will stop the rise of hate and bigotry. I believe that a motion like M-103 will only increase the frustration of ordinary Canadian who want (and have the right) to ask uncomfortable but necessary questions. Being concerned about creeping sharia is not phobic; questioning honour-based violence and FGM in Muslim-majority societies is not phobic. Furthermore, every citizen has the right to be concerned about the safety and security of their country. If they ask questions about radicalization leading to terrorism, that is not Islamophobic, but a reasonable response to the very real threat posed by Islamist terror groups to Canada and all other Western nations.

Sadly, the tragedy in Quebec is being used for political purposes to further the implementation of M-103. If there is to be any lesson learned from the murderous attack on innocent worshippers, it is that we need more intra-faith dialogue, discussion and debate. If M-103 is passed, it will silence constructive criticism and widen the gulf between Muslim and non-Muslim Canadians. It will hurt, not help, our efforts to build a more peaceful, tolerant and equal Canada. For these reasons, it is not phobic to oppose M-103. It is, in fact, the duty of every citizen of our democracy.

Mrs. Raza raises an interesting point which will no doubt be quashed: if there was ever a possibility for revision or reformation of Islam, it will never come to pass because no one is allowed to talk about it.

It will be Nathalie Des Rosiers and Iqra Khalid's fault.

It would not be right to place the blame entirely on them, however.

It is also the fault of those who voted for them, the Islamist groups that support this, the weak-willed populace that does nothing while the ruling party erodes its rights and freedoms away.


Also upsetting to the aforementioned censors:

One Christian man, Esam, from Qaraqosh, related what ISIS did after his sister's husband refused to convert to Islam: "He was crucified and tortured in front of his wife and children, who were forced to watch. They [ISIS] told him that if he loved Jesus that much, he would die like Jesus." The Islamic militants tortured his brother-in-law from 6 in the evening until 11: "[T]hey cut his stomach open and shot him before leaving him hanging, crucified." Two other members of Esam's family, a Christian couple, were abducted and separated by ISIS. To this day, the husband does not know where his wife is; he only knows that she was turned into a concubine, a sex-slave.

Karlus, a 29-year-old Christian, told how ISIS members broke into his elderly father's home in Batnaya and began to destroy crosses and tear up a picture of Christ. When Karlus tried to stop them, he was taken and tortured: they "hung him from the ceiling of the jail he was held in, by a rope attached to his left foot. As blood poured from his foot, they beat and kicked him, rubbing salt into his wounds. He was sexually abused in prison by three women wearing niqabs [black veils]. He was told he would be shot dead," said the report. Seven weeks later he was released.

Another handful of Christians told how they "were threatened, forced to spit on a crucifix or convert to Islam," but they "miraculously survived more than two years under Islamic State group rule."

Mentioning these human rights abuses is Islamophobic. It is even more Islamophobic be a Christian in regions that were once Christian but, due to Mohammad's persuasive violence, are now Muslim.




It is perfectly reasonable to point out that some cultures are antediluvian and this is why:

Salimata was always told she should be proud to come from a family of wife beaters.

“You’re the daughter of a woman whose husband broke her hands. Your grandmother’s legs were fractured by her husband. You must be loved,” Salimata said, citing her mother’s words.

The 19-year-old woman from Mauritania’s Soninke ethnic group, married to a man who also beats her, said she taught herself to believe what her mother told her.

“I felt like an animal that had to be disciplined,” she said. “As time passed, I came to believe that my husband beats me only when he is at the peak of his love for me.”

I maintain that most schools in Canada are no better than puppy mills that do a great disservice to their students:

“Inflated grades create a lose-lose situation,” Tachynski told the board. Students whose teachers are administering more rigorous challenges may understand the material better, but have a lower grade on their transcript.

On the flip side, students with artificially high grades may flounder when admitted to college and university programs, he said.

There are any number of reasons why this is: administrative pressure to pass students who may or may not have earned the grades, no clear benchmarks or marking rubrics, parental pressure, teacher indolence.

The result is the same: students are not ready to deal with the challenges ahead.

But everything else looks good on paper.

And now, the sakura blossoms in Japan. Enjoy:

(source)