Saturday Special

A would-be terrorist is shot after stealing a soldier's gun:

Security forces shot dead a man who tried to seize a soldier's gun at Paris Orly airport on Saturday, forcing the evacuation of the busy airport and putting security back in the spotlight in the middle of France's presidential election campaign.

The man, identified as a 39-year-old radicalised Muslim who was already on the radar of police and intelligence services, had earlier shot and wounded a police officer with an air gun after a routine traffic stop north of Paris, officials said.

Get used to it, France.




China runs interference for North Korea:

China urged the United States to remain “coolheaded” over North Korea and not to turn its back on dialogue, as visiting Secretary of State Rex Tillerson expressed a “sense of urgency” to curb dangerous levels of tension on the Korea peninsula.

As usual, China will implore everyone to back off while North Korea continues growing its arsenal.

It's time to put sanctions on China.


And:

Six North Korean defectors were arrested in China's Hebei Province last weekend and are at risk of being sent back to the repressive state. They were arrested with two other people who were helping them. Last month, another two South Koreans who help North Korean defectors were arrested in China. 

There are fears that Chinese authorities could come down harder on people fleeing North Korea amid a spat with South Korea over the stationing of a U.S. Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense battery here.

This decision.


Also:

The Japanese government held its first-ever drill Friday to protect citizens in case a ballistic missile is launched toward Japan.

More than 100 residents and schoolchildren of the coastal city of Oga in northern Japan participated in the drill. Loudspeakers warned them of a possible missile threat and urged them to seek shelter indoors because missile parts might fall.

The drill assumed a scenario of a hypothetical country firing a missile that falls into Japanese territorial waters off the coast of Akita prefecture. It came amid increasing missile threats from North Korea.

Earlier this month, North Korea fired four missiles, of which three landed in the 200-nautical mile offshore area where Tokyo has sovereign rights to explore and exploit resources.

And this:

The low birthrate is now starting to shrink high-school classes across the nation and in some cases shutting down some subjects completely.

Education Ministry data last week show that the number of new students entering high school this year dwindled by around 60,000 or 11 percent. A total of 525,300 students finished middle school last year and are entering senior high school this year, compared to 591,845 last year. And next year, only 460,000 are expected, down another 12.2 percent. 

"We've been reducing classes since 2004 and will have to sharply lower them again this year," a ministry spokesman said. 

The drop has prompted major changes. The same thing happened in middle schools in 2014 and elementary schools in 2008. 

The student-teacher ratio fell to 27.4 last year. The number of teachers allocated to middle schools has dropped since 2014, when it peaked at 113,349, reaching 109,525 last year. Now it is the turn of high school teachers to be weeded out.

The Europeans have depended on the US for so long that when anyone suggests that it should reimburse the US for costs, it is an earth-shattering event:

President Donald Trump said Saturday that Germany owes "vast sums of money" to NATO and the U.S. "must be paid more" for providing defence , reiterating his stance that European allies need to meet their end of the bargain if they are to continue benefiting from the military alliance.

No wonder they want a wall:

It seems that an army of Canadian citizens — despite coming from a place of relative affluence and opportunity – live illicitly in the U.S. One research institute estimates the total at 100,000, while a recent American government report said nearly that many Canadians outstayed their legal welcome — and failed to leave – in one year alone.

Iran does not wish to abide by the deal Obama helped broker.

Case in point:

Iran has challenged the need for it to ship sensitive material abroad if its stock exceeds a limit set by its nuclear deal with major powers.

The challenge raises the prospect of a confrontation with the new U.S. administration of President Donald Trump because diplomats say Iran is only months away from reaching that cap.

The 2015 deal restricts Iran's atomic activities in exchange for the lifting of sanctions against Tehran.

One restriction is on its stock of heavy water, a moderator used in a type of reactor that can produce plutonium, like an unfinished one at Arak that had its core removed under the accord.

Iran has already exceeded the 130-tonne limit on its heavy water stock twice. The latest standoff with Washington over the issue was only defused in December when Iran shipped the excess amount to Oman, where the heavy water is being stored until a buyer can be found.

In a letter to the U.N. nuclear watchdog circulated to member states on Thursday and posted on the agency's website, however, Iran argued that the deal does not require it to ship excess heavy water out of the country.

"Nothing in the (agreement) requires Iran to ship out the excess heavy water which is made available to the international market but has not yet found an actual buyer to which the heavy water needs to be delivered," Iran said.

The deal says all excess heavy water "will be made available for export to the international market based on international prices and delivered to the international buyer".

Israel intercepts Syrian missile:

Syria launched anti-aircraft missiles Friday at Israeli jets returning home from a bombing run over central Syria, marking a serious escalation between the two Middle East foes.

In a rare communique, in which Israel took responsibility for the usually clandestine airstrikes, the Israeli Air Force confirmed that its warplanes had struck several targets in neighboring Syria.

The guy who used to run this country has something to say:

“The reason Canada has not experienced these divisions is really rather simple: in Canada, at least until recently, we had middle class and working class income growth over the past couple of decades,” he said. “Should that change, I predict our politics here will change along the same lines.”

Before the election, Justin Trudeau could not identify who was middle-class or what made them so.


Also - Trudeau called prioritising Yazidis as refugees into Canada "disgusting":

Yazda, an international organization that advocates for the Yazidis, estimates that at least 35 mass grave sites of Yazidis have been identified. Those who escaped killing or enslavement eventually reached ramshackle refugee camps in Turkey and Greece.

Canadian border guards are detaining more voters blocks Mexican migrants than before:

Canada's border authorities detained more Mexicans in the first 67 days of 2017 than they did annually in any of the three previous years, according to statistics obtained by Reuters.

The spike comes immediately after Canada's federal government lifted its visa requirement for Mexican citizens in December.

Many Mexicans looking north have shifted their focus from the United States to Canada as President Donald Trump vows to crack down on America's undocumented immigrants, about half of whom are Mexican. On Friday, Reuters reported, immigration judges were reassigned to 12 U.S. cities to speed up deportation.

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) said it detained 444 Mexican nationals between Jan. 1 and March 8, compared with 410 for all of 2016, 351 for 2015, and 399 for 2014.

The CBSA can detain foreign nationals if it is believed they pose a danger to the public, if their identity is unclear or if they are deemed unlikely to appear for removal or for a proceeding.

The number of Mexicans turned back at the airport has risen, too - to 313 in January, more than any January since 2012 and more than the annual totals for 2012, 2013 and 2014.

With the visa requirement lifted, all that Mexicans need to come to Canada is an Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA), obtainable online in a matter of minutes. But they cannot work without a work permit, and the eTA does not guarantee entry.

Canada issued 72,450 travel authorizations to Mexican citizens between Dec. 1, 2016, and March 10, 2017 - a significant increase compared with a similar period when visas were required.

Canada's Immigration and Refugee Minister Ahmed Hussen has said his department is monitoring the situation.  

(Sidebar: like fun it is.)





This is why one rule of law is better:
 

People living in First Nations communities now have the same emergency protections against domestic violence as other Nova Scotians.

The provincial Justice Department said Wednesday that a First Nations family seeking immediate protection against an abusive spouse, for example, can now apply for an emergency protection order.

The short-term, temporary orders can be put in place immediately and last for up to 30 days. They are issued by justices of the peace and family and provincial court judges under the province's Domestic Violence Intervention Act.

That law, however, does not extend to First Nations communities.

Under the changes announced Wednesday, emergency protection orders can now be issued under federal or First Nations laws.

One might suggest that referring to that chubby political dilettante known as Beyonce would either repel anyone with an excess of brain cells or draw those with a deficiency to one:

But back from these lofty heights, lest we faint, to our theme. Ashton, a proud leftist, was innocently underlining her “leftness” and burnishing those feminist credentials already alluded to, by citing Beyoncé. Beyoncé is herself a declared feminist (fleshpants and booty division) who lodged the ode Bootylicious into the common stock of human memory with lines only a Cheese poet could envy: “I don’t think you ready for this jelly.”

Ashton’s tribute, however, captured the hair-trigger ire of a monitor from the BLM Vancouver diocese, who instantly let fire one of those bolts from Twitter’s angry cloud that are so frequent these days, flailing Ashton for “appropriating Black culture,” requesting an immediate “Delete” and scorching her for a callous affront to the ineffable ideals of “intersectional feminism.”

Also in "the West has dumbed down" news:

Common Core is usually considered a national K-12 education initiative, but it is more than that. Federal and state regulations loop all the key parts of American education into Common Core, so it affects all levels of our education.

Unfortunately, Common Core undermines students’ intellectual growth (as I argue in my book The Education Invasion) and leaves many graduates unprepared for true college-level work, as opposed to career training.

**

The New York State Board of Regents, which supervises public education, has decided it will no longer be necessary for would-be teachers to pass an Academic Literacy Skills Test. The reason? The test was producing racially disparate results: Only 41 percent of black candidates and 46 percent of Hispanic candidates had passed the exam on their first attempt, compared to 64 percent of white candidates.

**

The ads likely wouldn’t have been approved under old government advertising rules, said auditor general Bonnie Lysyk, who has said changes the Liberals enacted in 2015 reduced her office to a rubber stamp.

“Under the previous legislation it would likely not have passed because it does convey a positive impression of the current government and it’s more like a pat-on-the-back type of advertisement,” she said.

And now, puppies versus couches - the struggle is real:

Saint Patrick's Week: Lá Fhéile Pádraig

 

Merry Saint Patrick's Day!


Also a feast day: Saint Gertrude of Nivelles.


Blue is actually the true colour of Saint Patrick's Day and many more facts that you may not have known.


Slainte.

Saint Patrick's Week: The Greenening

 

On this Saint Patrick's Day Eve... 



The Netherlands had a chance to staunch the tide of ignorance and destruction.

Had: 

While mainstream parties may be relieved that Wilders made only modest gains in Wednesday's vote, few of them have cause for celebration.

Wilders finished second, but he gained five seats in the 150-member Dutch parliament; Rutte lost eight seats to 33, while his pro-Europe junior coalition partner Labour suffered the worst defeat in its history, falling from 38 to 9 seats.

Experts said there were several reasons why more voters didn't flock to Wilders, but chief among them is that unlike with the Brexit vote or the U.S. election, which were essentially binary choices, Dutch voters had a wide array of ways to voice discontent.

Boukje Cuelenaere, head of survey Research at Centerdata, said voters' concerns were not confined to support or opposition to migrants or the EU. "In terms of topics, for the people we asked there were a lot of different issues involved," she said.

While voters who oppose immigration could chose from among Wilders' PVV, Rutte's VVD or the CDA, a new right wing party also won two seats.

Voters angry over inaction on climate change voted for Green Left, while the pro-European D-66 gained as the primary critic of Wilders' anti-Islam rhetoric.

The hard-left Socialist Party, the Party for the Animals, and Denk, a party for the country's ethnic minorities were all also able to soak up protest votes.

"One votes for the environment, another over immigration, a third over animal rights or the elderly – we have parties for each. Soon there will be one party for each seat in parliament,” joked De Hond.

 


A letter bomb injures a female IMF worker:

A female employee of the International Monetary Fund suffered injuries to her face and arms on Thursday when a letter bomb mailed from Greece and addressed to the world lender's European representative blew up as she opened it, officials said.

The talks will be bilateral if the US walks out:

Canada is committed to keeping the North American Free Trade Agreement as a trilateral accord, Canada's trade minister said on Thursday, in a sign of support for Mexico as it prepares for tough negotiations with the new U.S. administration. 

None of what he says surprises me:

A judge has quashed a wrongful dismissal lawsuit by Ontario’s former ombudsman against the legislature and his former office.

Andre Marin was not reappointed in 2015 after serving two five-year terms and alleged in a lawsuit that he was fired without cause and without notice — he said a two-year notice period would have been “reasonable.”

He alleged that Premier Kathleen Wynne and the Liberals “orchestrated” his removal from public office because he was so critical of them.

The legislature asked the Ontario Superior Court to dismiss the suit against it due to lack of jurisdiction, and the ombudsman’s office asked the court to strike Marin’s statement of claim because there was “no reasonable cause of action.”

He should not only resign but leave the country:

Embattled Sen. Don Meredith begged forgiveness for his “moral failing” over his sexual relationship with a teenager but said Thursday he was not ready to resign.

Canadians do not understand where money comes from or how it works. The government gets money from taxpayers. These taxpayers are sometimes parishioners at churches. Churches get money from these parishioners because there are no money orchards at the Vatican.

How the hell will churches pay bills? 

Ontario’s soaring electricity prices are emptying the charitable coffers of churches in the southwestern part of the province that are being tapped by parishioners unable to pay their power bills.

 



No, bacon-eating, whiskey-swilling indentured servants were nothing like stabby inbred thugs who make their women wear shrouds and smash artefacts but thanks for playing:

While there are limits to the comparisons that can be drawn between the religious clashes during Confederation and today’s race and religious animosities, such comparisons cannot be neglected. It might even be said that the Irish Catholics in Canada of the 1860s were the Muslims of their time.

And now, a walk through wisteria:

(source)

Saint Patrick's Week: Mid-Week Post

Lousy Snowmageddon...




I've said this before:

It’s time for a tax revolt in Canada – and not just the phony tax revolt promised (and long since forgotten) by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the 2015 federal election campaign.

The problem with taxes in Canada is not that they are too high on the middle class and not high enough on the “rich.”

That was Trudeau’s phony tax revolt. The rich, he charged, were skipping out on their obligations to society by avoiding the level of taxes imposed on those of us who can’t afford tricky lawyers and accountants to exploit loopholes.

Trudeau promised his revolt would make those lazy, greedy fat cats pay their “fair share,” so he could give tax relief to hard-working, overburdened middle-income Canadians. It was dishonest. It ignored the reality of Canada’s progressive tax system.

The top 1% of income earners in Canada (there are about 260,000) earn a minimum of $190,000 a year and an average of $361,000. Together, they earn about 11% of all the income in the country. And their income comes mostly from practicing their professions, running businesses (their own or corporations) or working in the senior public service. It is not mostly from inheritance or investment dividends.

And, importantly, the One Percenters pay more than 23% of all federal and provincial income tax.

The top 10% – those who earn over $80,000 – earn 35% of all income, and pay 55% of income taxes.

By comparison, the bottom 50% of Canadian income earners (those earning under $35,000) earn nearly a third of all income, yet pay just 4% of all income tax.

So if the rich are already paying their fair share, how come we middle-classers aren’t getting ahead?

Trudeau couldn't define what or who was middle-class prior to the election. After the election, he continued trotting it out as a tired, oft-repeated campaign promise as a distraction from the fact that he was running the country into the ground (like rehashing the dead Mike Duffy affair instead of answering for his pandering to Aga Khan). It is the middle and working-classes who will end up bearing the brunt of the insane carbon taxes, inflation and the ever-growing debt Trudeau is amassing.

If those classes were smart, they would let Trudeau know with whom he is messing.





But ... but ... the Narrative!

It has come to my attention that despite my best efforts to divert you from my disastrous economic record by playing the “Islamophobia” card, too many of you still aren’t getting the message.

Why, just the other day I read the results of a Forum Research poll that said 44% of you believe that we should not allow asylum seekers who enter Canada illegally to seek asylum in Canada.

That compares to only 36% of you who believe we should allow asylum seekers who enter Canada illegally to seek asylum in Canada, and 20% of you who are undecided.

**

Hyper-sensitive to criticism that the Trudeau government is doing nothing to secure Canada’s borders, Goodale told CTV’s Question Period Sunday: “I guess what the Conservatives are saying is maybe we should line up the RCMP at the border, they should all link arms and shoo people away, or maybe [use] fire hoses or whatever, to keep people from crossing at the border.”

Fire hoses?

First, no one is saying that. Second, the concerns aren’t confined to Conservatives.

Jean-Pierre Fortin, president of the Customs and Immigration Union, told Postmedia Network’s Anthony Furey last week on National Post Radio: “Right now the world is watching us. People are saying, ‘We didn’t know it was that easy to come across the border’ ... I can tell you that my members are calling me on a daily basis and it’s a crisis. The government and senior management are saying this is business as usual – it is not.”

But Goodale’s response is standard operating procedure for the Liberals when they are criticized on just about anything, which is to demonize their critics as Islamophobic, bigoted, racist, heartless, etc.

The reason thousands of asylum seekers are entering Canada illegally at unmanned border crossings in Quebec and Manitoba is due to a quirk in Canadian law.

If they show up at manned border crossings, they’re turned back under our Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S.

But if they cross at unmanned sites, they can launch their refugee claim in Canada and remain here while it slowly goes through the system.

This is protected by the 1985 Supreme Court of Canada Singh decision, which said if an asylum seeker gets a foot inside Canada, the Charter applies to his or her refugee claim.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau didn’t help the situation when, virtue signalling during the controversy over U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration bans, he tweeted Canadians will welcome refugees, regardless of their religious faith.

Except most of these people aren’t refugees.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Friday during meetings with Trudeau’s government in Ottawa, that most were in the U.S. legally and, “many ... have only been in the United States a few days, before they made the trek north ...”

Fortin said of the Quebec crossings: “People are leaving from different countries and flying into New York City and they’re taking a bus”.

The bus lets them off near the Canada-U.S. boundary, at which point they take a cab up to the unmanned border and walk across.

So they’re not exactly the wretched of the Earth.

Instead of addressing this problem and others, Goodale, Trudeau and the Liberals attack the people pointing them out.

They condemn opposition to their “Islamophobia” motion (M-103) as bigotry, despite the fact a recent Forum Poll found 71% of Canadians surveyed disagree with its wording, compared to 14% who support it.

Ditto Tory leadership contender Kellie Leitch’s call for screening potential immigrants, refugees and visitors for anti-Canadian values, which a Forum poll last year showed two-thirds of Canadians support.

What’s next? Will Trudeau, Goodale and Co. start calling Canadians who disagree with them “a basket of deplorables?”

Short answer: yes.

When facts are not on one's side and no one is guilted into anything, it's time to pull out the big baby guns.





The demands of the workplace and the nature of learning will necessitate how people are educated and trained. To demand that students sit for seven hours in front of a unionised teacher who may or many not have an agenda (if not drive and ability to teach) is unrealistic and unfair to students for whom school is either a baby-minding centre or a puppy-mill:

In several other provinces, if parents send their child to an independent school, the provincial government helps defray the costs by contributing about 50% of the operating cost of educating a student in the government-run school system.

This puts independent alternatives within the financial reach of more families.

This lowering of financial barriers is likely one reason that one in eight students in British Columbia attends an independent school compared to one in 20 in Ontario, where independent school parents receive no support and must pay full cost for their child’s schooling — as well as the full tax bill they pay to support government-run schools.

It’s impossible to say definitively whether social justice education is good or bad.

It likely depends on specific teacher approaches and the needs of specific children.

But for families who do not feel well served by this approach in the classroom, or the government-run system generally, Ontario could do much more to make other options financially viable.

It's time to stop letting the corrupt, incompetent government take one's money and hand it out as an allowance. Parents should control their money and educate their children as they see fit.





In case one still thinks that China is just a frustrated parent to its North Korean enfant terrible:

Someone, presumably the U.S. Navy, recovered the pieces of a Kwangmyongsong missile North Korea launched in February 2016 and found that it contained “ball bearings and engraved Cyrillic characters … identical to those from the 2012 Unha-3, and a “camera [and] EMI filter” from a “Chinese manufacturer, Beijing East Exhibition High-Tech Technology Co. Ltd.” (Paras. 57-58.) That “someone” also discovered the Pyongyang had imported pressure transmitters from the U.K. and Ireland, via the manufacturer’s distributor in China, via middlemen in China. (Para. 59.) This suggests several layers of violations — China’s failure to expel North Korean representatives of sanctioned entities, to enforce export controls, or to inspect cargo going to North Korea.

(Kamsahamnida)

The now-ousted President Guen-Hye Park has made yet another dog's breakfast.

No, really:

It was hard to imagine that ousted President Park Geun-hye could get any more unpopular in South Korea — until she moved out of the presidential palace and left her nine dogs behind.

Just days after being removed from office by the constitutional court over a massive corruption scandal, an animal rights group accused Park of animal abandonment for not bringing the dogs with her.

Park’s neighbours had given her a pair of Jindo dogs, a Korean breed of hunting dogs, when she left for the presidential Blue House in 2013. The dogs recently gave birth to seven puppies, which are now considered too young to be separated from their mother, Kim Dong-jo, a Blue House spokesman, said Wednesday.

Kim said the dogs would continue to stay at the presidential palace until they’re ready to be sent to new owners. Park told staff members to take good care of the dogs before vacating the Blue House on Sunday, he said.

Kim Ae Ra, who heads the Korea Alliance for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said the group filed a complaint Monday with South Korea’s Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission over Park’s dogs. The commission then asked the National Police Agency to look into the matter. Officials from the police agency couldn’t immediately confirm how the case would be treated.

It appears unlikely that Park not taking the dogs with her would qualify as abandonment under South Korea’s animal protection law, which defines lost or abandoned animals as those “wandering without an owner in public places” or “left deserted in paper boxes or other containers.”
 

Oh, let it go.  If your government turns leftist, Kim Jong-Un will turn those pups into fur coats.





No one has yet offered an alternative to Trump's ban other than to leave the doors wide open:

A federal judge in Hawaii has frozen President Trump’s new executive order temporarily barring the issuance of new visas to citizens of six-Muslim majority countries and suspending the admission of new refugees.

U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson froze the order nationwide.

Whatever federal monies going to states with these "sanctuary" cities or sympathetic judges should cease.




And now, quokkas because quokkas:

Saint Patrick's Week: The Life of Pie

A merry Pi Day to all y'all...

Enjoy some pie... 

 

North Korean workers in Malaysia will be deported:

Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said Tuesday that the body of Kim Jong Nam, who was killed last month, has been embalmed to better preserve it, and that about 50 North Koreans whose work permits have expired will be deported.

News of the deportations was a surprise as the countries have barred each other’s citizen from leaving amid a diplomatic standoff over Kim’s death.

 
If the Malaysians were wise and compassionate, they would renew the visas of these slaves workers and use them for good publicity.

Malaysia doesn't kill North Koreans. North Korean leaders do.



Also:

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson faces a tough first trip to Asia this week when the former oil executive will seek to reassure nervous allies facing North Korea's growing nuclear and missile threat and press China to do more on perhaps the most serious security challenge confronting President Donald Trump.

Tillerson will visit Japan and South Korea before heading to Beijing, where he is expected to firm up a U.S. visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping next month to meet Trump as the leaders of the word's two largest economies.

But the chances of Tillerson persuading China to do more to curb North Korea's weapons programs while in Beijing appear scant, given China's anger at the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system in South Korea last week, and Trump's repeated threats to impose punitive tariffs on Beijing to correct a large trade imbalance.

Tillerson faces a delicate task in South Korea, which is in political turmoil after former President Park Geun-hye was ousted last week in a corruption scandal.

The prospects of a victory by South Korea's liberal opposition in elections to be held within two months, has raised questions about the future there of the U.S.-made Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system, which China objects to as its radar can penetrate China’s territory.

Beijing has sought to pressure Seoul to drop THAAD. 

Beijing will convince North Korea to behave the way a fly will convince a spider not to consume it.

No one is willing to treat China as the instigator of global ill will, an exploiter of slave labour (which even those in the West turn a blind eye to) and an octopus. Even Japan is launching its largest warship in a sabre-rattling gesture against Chinese militarism. This as China continues building bases on islands in the South China Sea. As long as Asian countries rely on cheap Chinese labour and trade, they can expect more belligerence and a staunched economy as China's paper dragon inflates.



And:

Acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn on Tuesday turned down senior presidential aides' resignation offers, citing the need to address urgent security and economic issues facing the nation.

That guy has a full plate.




Trust the Russians to deflect blame from themselves to anyone but them.

Who had a revolution again, one spearheaded by bloodthirsty tyrants?

The First World War was going badly (given the nature of that conflict, that is an understatement). Russia was in the midst of upheaval and Germany was in a stalemate. One way or another, Germany wanted Russia to withdraw.

In came Vladimir Lenin, financed by a bank in New York, hated by some of the people who shared his ideologies, who then went on to be one of the worst butchers in Russian history and then died of syphilis.

But don't let Russian Orthodox believers dissuade one from seeing this atheist butcher for what he was and the Russian people's culpability in letting him assume power:

Religious leaders have denounced Russia's 1917 communist revolution as a “Western plot” to destroy the country.

The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR), an autonomous branch of the Russian Orthodox Church, claimed that Russian elites brain-washed by “Westernism” plunged Russia into political turmoil.

“[Western-educated elites] pushed Russia into the abyss with suicidal persistence,” the ROCOR bishops' synod said in a statement. “They persuaded the Russian people to renounce their faith, their king and their homeland."

The church also called for the body of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin to be removed from Moscow's Red Square as “a symbol of reconciliation” to mark 100 years since the revolution.

It said Moscow should be “liberated” from the body of “the greatest persecutor and tormentor of the twentieth century.”

The church isn't alone in suspecting the 1917 revolutions were part of a western plot. In an online poll conducted by Russia's Komsomolkaya Pravda newspaper, 32.7 percent of respondents said they believed that Western agents were the main cause of the 1917 February revolution, which triggered the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II.

ISIS commander killed in Mosul:

Iraqi government forces killed the Islamic State commander of Mosul's Old City on Tuesday as the battle for the militants' last stronghold in Iraq focused on a bridge crossing the Tigris river.

If people were serious about how their governments spent money, they would make politicians' pensions and payouts conditional to their service. That means someone like Justin Trudeau would still have to rely on daddy's money:

Capital gains taxes are imposed on the sale of assets, like stocks and property other than a principal residence, that have increased in value in non-registered accounts. Currently, 50 per cent of gains are included in taxable income, so that the rate is effectively half the marginal rate. The speculation is that the inclusion might be moved to 75 per cent, resulting in an alarming 50-per-cent increase in the tax rate. If it were increased instead to two-thirds, that would drive up the tax by one-third, still a brutal hike.

You would think that a government that professes to be concerned about the adequacy of retirement savings would avoid discouraging savings. Yet a capital gains tax does precisely that. The Liberals clearly prefer government pensions and income supplements to private savings, the nanny state over the private sector. Furthermore, a capital gains tax unfairly taxes appreciation resulting from inflation. People will see their net worth decline in inflation-adjusted terms because of a government whose profligacy has pushed up prices. Taxing capital gains also imposes double taxation. Alienating investors and job-creators is rarely conducive to economic growth.

The Liberal government is earnestly searching for funds for its ever-escalating social programs and much ballyhooed and elusive infrastructure spending, much of which has not been for infrastructure at all. The deficit has almost tripled from the “modest” $10 billion promised in the election platform. The Finance Department projects deficits continuing past mid-century, with debt ballooning to $1.5 trillion by 2045. Meanwhile, growth remains modest, in spite of the stimulus spending. So the minister of finance is in a squeeze and is looking avariciously at anyone who may want to realize a gain on their investments.

You voted for it, Alberta:

Fifty-eight per cent of Albertans think the government’s handling of the economy is “poor” or “very poor,” according to the poll for Postmedia by Mainstreet Research. The “very poor” category is fully 47 per cent.

Yes, Mrs. Kay. This is Islamophobic. Report to Nathalie Desrosiers and Iqra Khalid for corrective punishment:

Wood, an Arabic-speaking scholar of Islamic history, has spent years immersed in extended relationships with Islamic State (ISIL) jihadis in their “diaspora” — places like Egypt, Australia, America, England and Norway. In this instructive and often entertaining book exploring his experiences (an elaboration on his feature 2015 Atlantic magazine article, “What ISIS Really Wants”), Wood shares his impatience with the ostrich-like approach to contemporary jihadism exemplified in M-103.

Wood writes: “The reality is that the Islamic State (IS) is Islamic. Very Islamic.” The strain of Salafist Islam jihadists embrace derives “from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.” Salafis — all jihadis are Salafist, but not all Salafists are jihadis, who represent, it bears emphasizing, tens of  thousands out of 1.4 billion Muslims — “read the Koran attentively, and on certain matters, they occupy ground at least as solid as that of their opponents.” It therefore won’t do, he says, to pretend jihadists are misrepresenting their religion.

Unrepentant terrorist and scumbag Omar Khadr has Canadians pay for surgery on his shoulder, a shoulder he injured while killing American and Canadian soldiers:

Former Guantanamo Bay inmate Omar Khadr is recovering from a 19-hour operation on a shoulder that was badly injured in Afghanistan 15 years ago, his lawyer said Monday.

Putting a bit of perspective on how the government sees useless air-thief Khadr and children with autism:

Fourteen days. A Mississauga family believes if their son was born just two weeks earlier, he would be getting treatment for autism. Instead he’s receiving nothing.

Arman Baig turned five on April 28. Exactly two weeks later — after having to wait six months before he could see a specialist — he was diagnosed.

The timing is critical; if Arman was diagnosed before his birthday, he could have been put on a waiting list for Intensive Behavioural Intervention (IBI). Instead, he was put on a list for Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA), a less intensive therapy.

“We were left with no choice. So, he was put on the ABA list,” said his father, Sajjad Baig. “The wait time for that is at least two to three years. Now, there is no therapy for him.”

Arman’s parents can’t afford to pay for ABA on their own. His mother Snovia Jamil said there is no way the family can cover the cost which is about $3,000 a month.

Teen "cured" of sickle-cell anemia:

Doctors at the Necker Children’s Hospital in Paris achieved these results by first draining the 13-year-old’s bone marrow. They then “infected” the marrow with a virus containing genetic instructions to correctly manufacture healthy red blood cells, instead of the deformed ones that blocked blood flow.

After the insertion of the edited bone marrow into the teenager 15 months ago, the youth was able to stop taking medication and has shown no symptoms of sickle cell disease since.

Specialists are reluctant to call this procedure a “cure” since more tests need to be conducted, however the triumph has raised hope for millions of people suffering from the same disease.

Really? How is that working out for one?

Well-intentioned donor organisations working to assist the disabled often adopt an approach that is ineffectual in Cambodia, according to the doctoral research of Cambodian scholar Monyrath Nuth.
Based at RMIT University in Australia, Nuth authored an extensive case study examining whether the “rights-based” approach to disabilities promoted by international donors is applicable in developing countries like Cambodia. His research concluded that the situation of disabled people in the Kingdom was not effectively improved due to the prioritising of Western concepts of human rights and inclusion. 

“This unconscious privileging of Western assumptions embedded in policy practice resulted in program outcomes that were not sustainable and produced limited opportunities for Cambodians with disabilities to thrive,” Nuth wrote, adding that this “thwarted any hope Cambodians with disabilities may have had for realizing their rights and equality”. 

In developed countries such as the United States and Australia, an approach to disabilities known as the “social model” has been widely endorsed and adopted. This approach aims to separate the concept of disability from a person’s physical impairment, and instead focus on changing the ways relationships and interactions fail to enable the participation of disabled people in society. 

The UN’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which came into force in 2008, obliges signatories to adopt this approach. 

But Nuth argues that traditional beliefs in Cambodia are often at odds with this agenda. 

For example, religious belief in Cambodia has helped form an understanding of disability as a limitation to physical or cognitive functions alone. A longstanding belief that disabilities arise from bad karma permits people to accept their impairments as fate, and to accept this as an abnormality. 

This belief also obligates family members to care for their disabled relatives. 

Hoping to shield their relatives from shame or judgment, many family members believe it is immoral to allow disabled relatives to engage in complex physical activities in public. 

“This view contradicts the dominant Western conceptions of social inclusion that put emphasis on employment and accessibility to all public spaces as a key aspiration relating to inclusion,” Nuth writes. 

Instead of lobbying for accessibility, some Cambodians instead perform ceremonies for their disabled relatives in order to improve their karma.

 
I respect that people draw on faith for comfort and strength but reason helps, too. A disability usually is the result of an injury or illness and should be treated as such, not something to be hidden.



 
People will believe anything:

 Pope Francis didn’t say that God had told him to revise the Ten Commandments as claimed in a widely shared story. Francis never made the purported comments and has not changed or added to the Ten Commandments. He has no authority to do that, given that the core moral teachings of Christianity and Judaism were said to have been revealed to Moses by God and are written in the Bible.

The story said Francis made the announcement July 6, 2015, in Guayaquil, Ecuador, during his first Mass at the start of a three-nation South American tour. It said Francis had revised the biblical teaching to cover children raised by same-sex parents and removed prohibitions on adultery. It said Francis had added new commandments to forbid genetic engineering and self-glorification and said the Vatican was having a new set of commandments etched into marble.

The pope did indeed celebrate his first Mass in Ecuador on July 6, 2015, but his homily focused on the Virgin Mary and the joy of families. At no time during the trip, or at any other point in his four-year pontificate, has Francis changed the Ten Commandments.

The story appeared on a site called Real News Right Now, which is listed on media watch lists as a hoax site. The purported author, R. Hobbus J.D., is identified on the website as an investigative journalist who has won awards that don’t exist, including the “Oscar Mayer Award for Journalistic Excellence.”

And now, finding your birthday in Pi:

Like, say, your birthday. To verify this, we wrote a program to scan the first million digits of Pi and identify the first instance of all 366 days of the year, represented like "314," with the month followed by the day ("704" for July 4th for example, or "1225" for Christmas Day"). The program found the final date — Dec. 3, or "1203" — beginning at the 60,873rd digit. 

 

Saint Patrick's Week: Trek Into Greenness

Lousy Smarch weather...

 
I'm sure that this is nothing to be concerned about:

Canada's government said on Monday that it shut down its website for filing federal taxes after hackers broke into a web server at the nation's statistics bureau last week by exploiting a newly disclosed software bug. 


Statistics Canada, which said it stopped the intrusion before hackers stole any data, is the first high-profile organization to say it was hacked due to a new security bug in software known as Apache Struts 2. The software is commonly used in websites of governments, banks, retailers and other large organizations.

Other victims have not yet come forth, although security firms said they expect more attacks to surface after details on the easy-to-exploit vulnerability were posted on security forums and hacking websites last week.

Who is running this zoo exactly?


Also:

Stoltenberg’s report said Canada saw a small bump in defence spending in 2016, which pushed the percentage of its GDP spent on defence to 1.02 from 0.98.

The increase helped Canada move up to 20th from 23rd in terms of spending among NATO’s 28 allies, putting it in a three-way tie with Hungary and Slovenia.

But it was still the smallest share of GDP that Canada has spent on defence since 2012, while only Belgium, the Czech Republic, Iceland, Luxembourg and Spain spent less.

The figures have taken on new importance following the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has complained about NATO allies not spending enough on defence.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appeared to all but dismiss the two per cent target during a visit to Germany last month, saying: “There are many ways of evaluating one’s contribution to NATO.”

 
Cheapskate.

Just like dad. Let the Americans do the heavy lifting.




Why? Because the logical dissonance of the electorate borders on complete brain removal. That's why:

People like to be stroked. Provincial leaders enjoy having Ottawa put on a show of respect, even while working feverishly to outflank them. It’s probably far too late in the game for Tories to start presenting themselves as boy scouts ever on the lookout for kittens to rescue. They’d probably never be able to maintain the sincere visage needed to put across the ruse in any case. The Liberals got there long before them, and are so skilled in the performance that most of them probably believe they really mean it. That’s the sort of deception that’s really hard to beat.

Trump to meet Merkel:

President Trump is set to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel this week at the White House, marking the first face-to-face encounter between the new U.S. commander in chief and the woman known as “Europe’s decider.” When they meet, the two leaders with little in common will find themselves belatedly moving to forge a relationship that could determine the future of transatlantic ties.

Trust me - this will still be trotted out time and time again. When you have no theological, historical or academic leg to stand on, this is the go-to:

The news about the Houses of Life is only surprising because the truth about the Church and the Jewish people in the Second World War has been suppressed. Several aides of the wartime pope, Pius XII, acknowledged that they had worked to rescue Jews on his direct instructions. They included two future popes – Mgr Angelo Roncalli (John XXIII) and Mgr Giovanni Battista Montini (Paul VI). Pius XII himself sheltered Jews both in the Vatican itself and at Castel Gandolfo.

This is a good moment to mark the Church’s witness against Nazism. Eighty years ago, on March 14, 1937, Pope Pius XI issued Mit Brennender Sorge (“With Burning Anxiety”), an encyclical, pointedly written in German, condemning Nazism. “Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the state, and divinises them to an idolatrous level, perverts an order of the world created by God,” the pope wrote.

Many insisted that Putin was just there to help:

Russia appears to have deployed special forces to an airbase in western Egypt near the border with Libya in recent days, U.S., Egyptian and diplomatic sources say, a move that would add to U.S. concerns about Moscow's deepening role in Libya.

The U.S. and diplomatic officials said any such Russian deployment might be part of a bid to support Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar, who suffered a setback with an attack on March 3 by the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB) on oil ports controlled by his forces.

Rather, Putin is extending his reach.




Perhaps Turkey should be reminded that the Netherlands, despite its faults, feeds and houses many Turkish migrants and doesn't want Erdogan's g-d- opinion:

Turkey said on Monday it would suspend high-level diplomatic relations with the Netherlands after Dutch authorities prevented its ministers from speaking at rallies of expatriate Turks, deepening the row between the two NATO allies.

The sanctions - which include a ban on the Dutch ambassador and diplomatic flights from the Netherlands but do not appear to include economic measures or travel restrictions for ordinary citizens - mark another low point in relations between Turkey and the European Union, which it still officially aims to join.

President Tayyip Erdogan, who is seeking Turkish voters' support in an April 16 referendum on boosting his powers as head of state, has previously accused the Dutch government of acting like "Nazi remnants" for barring his ministers from addressing expatriate Turks to drum up votes. ...

On Sunday, Dutch police used dogs and water cannon to disperse hundreds of protesters waving Turkish flags outside the consulate in Rotterdam. Some protesters threw bottles and stones and several demonstrators were beaten by police with batons, a Reuters witness said. Mounted police officers charged the crowd.

"The Turkish community and our citizens were subject to bad treatment, with inhumane and humiliating methods used in disproportionate intervention against people exercising their right to peaceful assembly," a statement attributed to ministry sources said.

The Dutch government barred Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu from flying to Rotterdam on Saturday and later stopped Family Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya from entering the Turkish consulate there, before escorting her back to Germany.

Protests then erupted in Turkey and the Netherlands.

Several European countries have stopped Turkish politicians holding rallies, due to fears that tensions in Turkey might spill over into their expatriate communities.

Some 400,000 Turkish citizens live in the Netherlands and an estimated 1.5 million Turkish voters live in Germany.

On Monday evening Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern said he would try to prohibit Turkish ministers from campaigning in his country too for "reasons of public security".

The Dutch government said the visits were untimely ahead of a national election on Wednesday, in which polls suggest it may lose about half its seats due to expected big gains by the anti-Islam party of Geert Wilders.

Speaking of whom:

Even if Wilders is barred from power by the wide range of parties that are refusing to cooperate with him, he already has tugged his nation’s political discourse toward a far harder line on immigrants. Anxious to capture Wilders voters, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said this year that immigrants needed to work harder to fit into Dutch society or they should leave — a stark departure from a centuries-old Dutch tradition of acceptance.

The article might as well have been written by Wilders' opponents for all of its negativity towards the wildly popular Dutch politician whose major faux pas has been the audacity to insist that those who immigrate to the Netherlands blend in, something that has caught on in Canada but far too late:

Three Canadians out of four believe immigrants to this country should be tested for “anti-Canadian” values, a survey conducted for Radio-Canada suggests.

The findings of the survey, carried by the CROP polling for the French-language service of the CBC, indicate that despite criticism from the media and within political circles, the controversial position taken by Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch that immigrants be tested for an appreciation of “Canadian” values has traction with 74 per cent of Canadians. Inside Quebec, support for testing immigrants stood at 75 per cent.

The poll also suggests that 60 per cent of Canadians — and 67 per cent of those polled in Quebec — believe immigrants should put aside their own cultures and adopt that of Canada once they settle here.

In case people are still wondering why any of this is a discussion, it must be said simply: culture matters. Political multiculturalism might hold that all cultures are equally wonderful but that is demonstrably false. Nor does it bear away the simple fact that cohesion though language, custom and law create stable and prosperous environments. No one cares what food one makes at home; one does care when one believes some members of society deserve to be second-class citizens because some archaic belief says so.


Also:

The RCMP does keep track of the people intercepted crossing the border irregularly, but not all of them necessarily are asylum-seekers. With that caveat, here are the number of irregular border crossers caught by the RCMP this year:

290 in Quebec (Feb 1 – Feb. 21)
202 in Manitoba (Jan. 1 – March 8)
51 in B.C. (Feb. 1 – Feb. 21)

Just return them.




If he does, I do not blame him:

Trump’s immigration policies appear to be working. That’s great for the majority of Americans who are opposed to open immigration, and for Trump’s re-election prospects, which depend on his delivering on his campaign promise to control illegal immigrants crossing the U.S. border.

But that isn’t great for Canada. Trump’s immigration policies — and our government’s response to them — point to peril for us. The peril includes harm to our trading relationship, ill will towards Canadians by Americans and the prospect of a wall on America’s northern border.

But... but... the polar bears!

Over the past year or so, First Nations residents living along the James Bay coast in northern Ontario have reported an alarming rise in polar bear sightings. Experts suspect climate change and the related change in ice flows and currents are likely driving the phenomenon.

Uh, weren't they all supposed to be drowning and dying off?


Also:

Great white sharks are discovering what tourists have known for years: Cape Cod is a great place to spend the summer.

The latest data from a multiyear study of the ocean predators found that the number of sharks in waters off the vacation haven appears to be on the rise, said Greg Skomal, a senior scientist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, and the state’s top shark expert.

But that’s no reason to cancel vacation. The sharks are after seals, not humans, and towns are using the information from the study to keep it that way.

But sharks often confuse bathers with seals, so, you know - caution.




And now, a place where each day is Valentine's Day even on Saint Patrick's Day:

John Sprat was an Irish Carmelite that was known for both his abilities as a preacher and dedicated work with the destitute in the city of Dublin. While visiting Rome, his fame had apparently preceded him, and he became hot on the Jesuit circuit, giving sermons and receiving tokens of esteem from his peers.

One of the more impressive tokens he was gifted was the remains of Saint Valentine by Pope Gregory XVI, which had recently been uncovered during grave restorations. Sprat brought the Reliquary containing the relics to his Whitefriar Street Church in Dublin, where they remained popular until the death of their popular procurer. With the death of Sprat, the relics went into storage and were not venerated until the church went through restorations in the 1950’s/1960’s. Both an altar and shrine were created and are now watched over by a statue depicting the saint holding a crocus (carved by Irene Broe).

Today the shrine is popular with couples who come to pray for St. Valentine to watch over their lives together, and to celebrate the feast day of February 14th which includes the Blessings of the Rings for those about to marry. The reliquary is placed on the high altar and venerated at the Masses.

 

Saint Patrick's Week: Green One

Quickly now...


After a South Korean constitutional court finally removed (now) former president Park Geun-Hye from power, many are not at all pleased:

Ousted South Korean President Park Geun-hye expressed defiance toward the corruption allegations against her as she vacated the presidential palace and returned to her home on Sunday, two days after the constitutional Court removed her from office.

In her first public comments since the court’s ruling, Park said in statement, “Although it will take time, I believe the truth will certainly come out.”

Park will likely face a direct investigation soon by prosecutors who already consider her a criminal suspect over suspicions that she colluded with a confidante to extort money and favours from companies and allowed the friend to secretly interfere with state affairs.

Upon her return home, Park was greeted by hundreds of supporters who thunderously chanted her name and waved the South Korean flag as her bodyguard-flanked black sedan slowly rolled into a path near the house. Park, dressed in a dark blue coat and her hair tied in a bun, smiled and waved from inside the car. She then stepped out and shook hands and exchanged brief words with members of her political party before going inside the house.

In her statement, which was read to reporters by Min Kyungwook, a lawmaker from her conservative party and her former spokesman, Park also expressed gratitude to her supporters and apologized for “failing to fulfil my duty as president.”

If she had been anyone else, she would have blamed people by now.




PM Gerald Butts Justin Trudeau has an irrepressible belief that he is winning when losing:

In the House of Commons, a newly muscular Liberal backbench had just voted against the wishes of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau not once, but twice in the same night.

Meanwhile, in a reception hall in Montreal, grassroots Liberals were overruling the wishes of the party brass by refusing to nominate Trudeau’s preferred pick to be the candidate in a byelection to replace Stéphane Dion.

Was a caucus revolt underway? Were the grassroots rebelling against Trudeau and his “sunny ways” approach to politics?

Hardly.

“All in all a strong day for democracy in Canada. In Parliament and on the ground,” wrote one of Trudeau’s closest confidants, Gerald Butts, on Twitter. “Promises kept.”

Indeed, in on-the-record interviews at the end of the week with several Liberals, there was a clear message: This was a feature, not a bug. Liberals had campaigned in the past election to allow more free votes in the House of Commons, and Trudeau himself had committed to allowing the grassroots to choose local candidates rather than have candidates forced on them by party HQ.

But there have been more than a few Liberals — in Parliament and on the ground — who have been grumbling privately that Trudeau, his close advisers and the party brass have not been living up to their own rhetoric.

Just a little over a week ago, in Markham, Ont., Mary Ng had won the Liberal nomination in Markham—Thornhill. Ng had quit her job in the PMO and had been parachuted into the riding over the objection of many local Liberals.

There were angry accusations that the party had rigged the process in favour of the leader’s favourite rather than the riding’s favourite.

(Sidebar: corruption? NO!)


Also:

The Trudeau government is in the bizarre position of preparing to go to the Supreme Court to argue against a federal law passed with the support of its own MPs.

That’s the result of Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould’s announcement that the government intends to seek the top court’s advice on the constitutionality of a bill aimed at preventing genetic discrimination.

More than 100 Liberal backbenchers joined Conservatives and New Democrats to give final approval to the bill Wednesday, despite warnings from Wilson-Raybould and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that it is unconstitutional.

Brexit reignites tensions in Northern Ireland:

Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, a border poll can only be called if it’s clear that a majority of representatives want one. The unionists aren’t about to grant that and Adams knows it. But he figures it’s worth pressing: Northern Ireland voted nearly 56 to 44 to remain in the European Union in the Brexit referendum. Of those who consider themselves nationalists, 88 per cent voted to stay in the EU. That presents an added layer of complexity and uncertainty to sectarian issues.

I'd think EU or public service issues like pensions would be a bigger problem.




Oh, this is terrible:

A Marmora, Ont. mother says she will sue Quinte Health Care after her infant fell – fracturing his skull – while a nurse at Belleville General Hospital was feeding him.

Apologetic hospital officials say they are investigating the “unusual and unfortunate incident” involving a “very experienced, highly-qualified, great nurse.”

Only in SOME countries can one be considered a hero if schoolgirls are killed:

A Jordanian soldier who killed seven Israeli schoolgirls has been freed after serving 20 years in prison, with many Jordanians celebrating his release and calling him a national hero, witnesses and family sources said on Sunday.

Japan aided Malaysia in the investigation of the murder of Kim Jong-Nam:

Japan provided Malaysia with fingerprint data for Kim Jong Nam, the half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, needed for the investigation into his murder last month at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, sources close to the matter said Sunday.

The data was obtained when the Japanese immigration officials detained him in 2001 at Narita International Airport when he tried to enter the country on a false passport. He told Japanese authorities at the time he wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland.

The disclosure marks the first time that Japan’s assistance has come to light in the investigation into the fatal poison attack, which is widely believed to have been orchestrated by North Korea.

And now, a guy with too much time on his hands: