On a Monday

So it goes...



An Islamist terrorist attack results in the death of eleven people:

A bomb blast tore through a subway train deep under Russia’s second-largest city Monday, killing 11 people and wounding more than 40 in a chaotic scene that left victims sprawled on a smoky platform. Hours later, anguish and fear rose again when police found and defused a shrapnel-packed explosive device at another St. Petersburg station.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which came while President Vladimir Putin was visiting the city, his hometown. In the past two decades, Russian trains and planes have been frequent targets of terrorism, usually blamed on Islamic militants.

News reports initially said police were searching for two suspects, and Russian state television showed a photo of one suspect wearing what appeared to be a skullcap characteristic of Russia’s Muslim regions. However, the Interfax news agency later cited unspecified sources as saying police now suspect the blast was the work of a suicide bomber linked to radical Islamists.

Also:

A respected Russian newspaper says it has uncovered information that police in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya have rounded up more than 100 men suspected of homosexuality and that at least three have been killed.

The Saturday report in Novaya Gazeta said it had confirmed the information with sources in the Chechen police and government, but gave no details.

The report was denied by Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov’s spokesman, who suggested there are no homosexuals in the Muslim-majority region. Ali Karimov said, according to the state news agency RIA Novosti, “it’s impossible to persecute those who are not in the republic.”

“If such people existed in Chechnya, law enforcement would not have to worry about them, as their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return,” Karimov was quoted in the New York Times as saying.

Iran has said the same thing.




Yeah, that must be the reason:

China is steadfastly opposed to the deployment of advanced U.S. anti-missile radars in South Korea because it does not know whether the defenses, intended for North Korean missiles, are capable of tracking and countering Beijing's own nuclear program, experts say.

Of course.

I'm sure Trump will believe China, too.

And what will China say when South Korea, worried about North Korea's nuclear arms and a potential war, uses the system to defend itself.

It must chap China that other east Asian countries would rather drink hot wax than belong to it.




PM Hair-Boy is pouty over Bombardier's pay hikes:

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday he was "not pleased" with Bombardier's plan to raise compensation for its senior executives, a move that caused a public furor that forced the company to back down.

You're not the only greedy one, Hair-Boy.




It turns out that people don't like it when you attempt to stymy them:

The opposition members were just settling in for the fifth day of their filibuster when they discovered that the committee examining the Liberal government’s suggested changes to the standing orders had been suspended before they’d even popped a throat lozenge.

The Liberals came in like lions last month, thrusting a “discussion paper” of reforms to parliament under the noses of the opposition and imposing a deadline on the study of the proposed changes.

But it looks like the whole kerfuffle will go out like a lamb, with yet another government climb-down. The opposition claimed the changes to the standing orders are a power grab, an attempt to alter the rules to their own advantage using their parliamentary majority.

Yes, it is a carbon tax - a tax people will vote and pay for because they are too dull to do anything else:

What does Climate Change Minister Glen Murray’s announcement Monday that Ontario sold out its first cap-and-trade auction of carbon credits mean to you?

It means Ontario businesses have just paid a new charge of $472 million to the Wynne government in a government-run quarterly auction of carbon permits to industry, through which the government hopes to raise $1.9 billion annually in new revenue.

That $1.9 billion annually will be paid for by all Ontarians, in the form of higher retail prices for most goods and services.

Because culture matters:

For too many years now, Canadians have been poorly served by the working definitions of Canadian values and Canadian identity that have been on offer.

“Diversity is our strength” is a mantra that’s been repeated so often it’s lost meaning.

Meanwhile, “Hockey and Tim Hortons” reduces us to nothing more than...well, than hockey and Tim Hortons. With no alternatives on offer, we’ve become cynical.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau only made matters worse when he told the world via The New York Times the other year that “there is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada” and this makes us “the first post-national state”. ...

(Sidebar: that is because he is a douchebag.)

Then along comes Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch with her proposal to screen newcomers for “Canadian values”. It’s not much, but it’s something at a time when nothing else is on offer. No wonder it got everyone talking.

The liberal consensus looked down their noses at Leitch and tried to paint her as some intolerant ogre. Even though she was clear from day one that her definition of those values includes embracing diversity of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, etc. Even though countries in northern Europe do exactly as she’s proposing. Even though the numbers show a majority of Canadians across the political spectrum support the idea.

Sure, Leitch is a one-trick candidate and her idea is, for all the press it’s getting, not that well developed. But so what? It’s a conversation starter. Credit her that much.

People can have the naive attitudes that they do because a framework of rule and law and infrastructure (roads, running water and electricity, for example) have been laid out for them. When those gradually disappear or when "white flight" happens, what will their attitudes be then? What will they think when their casual anti-semitism in the form of BDS becomes particularly nasty or when women are assaulted with impunity (pick a place in Europe)? They can afford to be liberal because everyone else around them feels that way. When there is no one left, will their chattering stop?




No government funding should also mean no governmental interference:

University of Toronto psychology professor Dr. Jordan Peterson has had a federal research grant application denied for the first time in his long and distinguished academic career.

And he’s certain that the rejection from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the government agency that supports post-secondary research, is linked to the controversy surrounding his stand on gender-neutral pronouns such as “zie” and “zher,” and the modern notion of gender as being fluid.

Whose idea was it to make the girls' blouses in charge of anything?




And now, random facts:

A group of pugs is called a grumble.

Good to know.

**

Everyone knows the painting depicts Jesus' last meal with his apostles before he was captured and crucified. But more specifically, da Vinci wanted to capture the instant just after Jesus reveals that one of his friends will betray him, complete with reactions of shock and rage from the apostles. In da Vinci's interpretation, the moment also takes place just before the birth of the Eucharist, with Jesus reaching for the bread and a glass of wine that would be the key symbols of this Christian sacrament.

**

The island’s Kizhi Pogost (pogost means enclosed cemetery) contains two adjoining churches and an octagonal bell tower. Each seems to glimmer silver in the sun, but no metal was used. The 120-foot-high Church of the Transfiguration is the island’s largest structure, crowned with 22 domes, while the smaller Church of the Intercession stands 105 feet and has nine domes. Both were built in the 18th century; the 98-foot bell tower, erected in 1862, was a later addition. All were constructed without nails or steel reinforcement, as by tradition Russian carpenters of the era only used wooden logs with interlocking corners.

Sunday Post

 

Yes, good luck with that:

The Liberal cabinet is set to consider retaliation against the Trump administration if it expands “Buy American” policies that threaten Canadian jobs.

The national debt stands at $ 637,200,491,017.12 . Its unemployment rate stands at 6.6% because fewer people were looking for work. The trade deals with China Trudeau breathlessly gushed about may end up with China importing its own workers to Canada.

And the Liberals are going to make Trump pay.

Sure, they will.

Will these be the individuals Trudeau will force to pay their "fair share"?

The Sunshine list keeps on growing. But it’s not the executives who steal the spotlight for their scaled salaries. Instead, it’s the incredibly wide range of gigs that Ontarians are occupying that brings this list out into the spotlight. These are not the jobs they told you about in careers class.

Lunchroom Supervisor: Wai Loo at the Toronto District School Board, earning $111,949.67
Janitor: Michael Osso at Ontario Power Generation, earning 105,562.17
Manager, Caribou Conservation: Hilary Gignac at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, earning $103,859.63
Stage carpenter: Will Sutton at Ryerson University, earning 102,818.48
Utility Person “A”: Jeff Cline at the City of Kitchener, earning $117,536.43
Manager, Parliamentary Protocol: John Anderson at the Legislative Assembly, earning $102,482.49
Manager, 89 Chestnut residence: Paul Readings at the University of Toronto, earning $135,061.06
Ethicist: Paula Majorie Chidwick at William Osler Health System, earning $161,908.38 (That’s the highest of any medical ethicist in Ontario)

Also in "corrupt government class" news:

Canada’s military ombudsman has dropped the gloves in what appears to have become a tense battle with National Defence, accusing officials of “insidious” attacks whenever his office releases a report critical of the department.

Gary Walbourne said those attacks have affected his ability to hold the Defence Department to account, which by extension is having a negative impact on the military personnel he is working to help.

The ombudsman said the best way to solve the problem is to make his office, which was created in the aftermath of the Somalia Inquiry, fully independent from the department.

“I think this office should report to Parliament,” Walbourne told The Canadian Press. “That way there is a certain standard and process that has to be respected.”

The Trudeau government has so far rejected Walbourne’s request, with Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan encouraging the two sides to work together to resolve their differences.

**

A Liberal member of parliament whose trip to Tanzania was paid for by a registered lobbyist appeared to violate the Prime Minister’s ethics code barring parliamentary secretaries from accepting such gifts — and she wasn’t the only one.

Brampton MP Kamal Khera was the parliamentary secretary to the minister of health in April 2016 when World Vision Canada spent $5,210.50 to take her on a seven-day trip to Tanzania.

On Tuesday the National Post reported that the Trudeau Foundation paid for Toronto MP Arif Virani’s travel to London, England from Feb. 29 to Mar. 1 2016. Virani’s trip was the first time in the foundation’s 16-year history that it sponsored an MP’s travel.

Both Virani and Khera appear to be in violation of the Prime Minister’s Guide for Parliamentary Secretaries which bars those parliamentarians from allowing outside groups to pay for their travel and warns that: “As a parliamentary secretary, you are subject to increased public scrutiny and your actions reflect on the reputation of your minister and of the Government as a whole.”

Oh, this must be embarrassing:

The number of American citizens turned away at the Canadian border has jumped significantly in recent years. 

Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) figures obtained by Montreal newspaper La Presse suggest 31% more US citizens were turned away last year than in 2015. 

In 2016, 30,233 Americans were sent back at the boundary compared to 23,052 the year before.
The report comes amid concerns in Canada about travel to the US.

 
I thought Canada's borders were so open and free.




Terrible:

Families and rescuers searched desperately on Sunday through mud-plastered rubble for victims of flooding and landslides in Colombia that have killed at least 210 people, injured hundreds and devastated entire neighborhoods.

Several rivers burst their banks near the southwestern city of Mocoa in the early hours of Saturday, sending water, mud and debris crashing down streets and into houses as people slept.

 


Political foment in Venezuela:

Venezuela's opposition lawmakers said on Sunday they will push for the removal of Supreme Court judges whom they accuse of acting on behalf of the ruling Socialists after the top tribunal briefly assumed control of congress last week.

While the move by the opposition-led congress would only be symbolic because it remains powerless, it could add to pressure on unpopular president Nicolas Maduro as he tries to defuse the furor over what critics saw as a lurch into dictatorship.

The Supreme Court's ruling last week that it would take over functions of the National Assembly triggered international condemnation and opposition protests at home.

Even the country's attorney general, a longtime government ally, said the decision was unconstitutional in a rare public rebuke from Maduro's ranks. On Saturday, at the request of the government, the Supreme Court eliminated the offending ruling.

But Maduro opponents said no one should believe that row- back meant democracy had been restored in the nation of 30 million people with the world's largest oil reserves.

Thousands of Chinese migrants protest after French police gunned down an elderly man they say attacked them:

A group of a few hundred Chinese youth and police officers clashed as the rally ended.

Police called to Liu's building over reports of a man with a knife burst into his apartment on March 26. Police say he attacked an officer with scissors before another officer fatally shot him.

Relatives are disputing the police account; they say Liu was holding kitchen shears because he was cooking.

Trump declares that he will act against North Korea if China will not:

The United States is prepared to respond to North Korean nuclear threats on its own if China fails to pressure Pyongyang, President Donald Trump said in an interview with the Financial Times on Sunday.

"Well if China is not going to solve North Korea, We will. That is all I am telling you," he was quoted as telling the newspaper.

Ousted Park Gye-Heun has been detained by police:

Ousted South Korean leader Park Geun-hye was behind bars in the Seoul Detention Centre on Friday after her arrest, on charges including bribery, in a corruption scandal that has brought low some of the country's business and political elite.

In a dramatic fall from power, Park, 65, became South Korea's first democratically elected leader to be thrown out of office. She is accused of colluding with a friend, Choi Soon-sil, to pressure big businesses to contribute funds to foundations that backed her policy initiatives.

She and Choi, who is already in custody and on trial, deny any wrongdoing.

 

Finally:

Two, possibly three, North Koreans wanted for questioning over the murder of the estranged half-brother of their country's leader were believed to have accompanied the coffin of the victim on a flight from Kuala Lumpur after Malaysia agreed a swap deal with the reclusive state.


Photographs obtained by Reuters from Japan's Kyodo news agency show Hyon Kwang Song, the second secretary at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, and Kim Uk Il, a staff member of North Korea’s state airline Air Koryo were on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on Thursday evening.

The pictures match those released by the Malaysian police earlier. The coffin carrying the body of Kim Jong Nam was also believed to have been on the same flight, though this has not been confirmed by authorities.

Malaysian media reported that the third North Korean, Ri Ji U, also known as James, who had been hiding with them at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur was also allowed to go home. The three men and the coffin are expected to be transferred to a flight to Pyongyang.

Malaysian authorities released the body Kim Jong Nam to North Korea on Thursday, in a deal that secured the release of nine Malaysian citizens held in Pyongyang after a drawn out diplomatic spat. 

You can run to the fridge, Kim Jong-Un, but you can't run away from the truth - you had your own brother killed.
 



Russia's designs on Montenegro:

If the Assad regime falls in Syria, Russia may lose its only Mediterranean port. And since Montenegro is gearing up to join NATO, Russia could be stuck without a backup forever because it’s the only place along the entire northern shore of that sea that doesn’t already belong to the West.

The world is not enough ... for Putin.


Also - the duck stops here:

The reason the ducks are funny is that they are a classic symbol of over-the-top political corruption.

One target is Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who stood in as the Potemkin president from 2008-12 because Putin couldn’t serve a third consecutive term (speaking of grimly funny political humour, chess-mad Russians dubbed this transparent manoeuvre to protect the real king “castling”… and yes, if I have to explain the joke it dies on the operating table).

During his time in politics and in Putin’s pocket, Medvedev has mysteriously become a millionaire with fancy houses including a refurbished 18th-century manor filmed by a drone showing a duck pond plus duck house. This footage, publicized by courageous anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny, recalled the embarrassing case of British MP Sir Peter Viggers, who tried to expense a “floating duck island” in magnificently out-of-touch “qu’ils mangent les brioches” style. (Putin, incidentally, appears to be a billionaire.)

Eating duck a l’orange and billing taxpayers would be bad enough, especially if the orange costs, say, $18 a glass. But when you start treating yourself to elaborate rustic idylls on the public ruble the jokes almost write themselves. Add a rubber duck and they do. People put Medvedev’s duck on the Forbes list of wealthiest Russians and so forth.

What’s even better is the paranoid reaction to the duck-waving protesters by Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, a Putin ally who refused to sanction Russia for destabilizing Ukraine and annexing Crimea.

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” he said. “If someone tells me that different people have thought of the same symbol in Belgrade, Brazil and Moscow, don’t expect me to believe it.”

Looking after small children, particularly in public, is no easy feat.

That is why parents either leave the children at home until they are old enough to behave independently or they can get off of their @$$es and do some parenting.

Having kids means more than giving them a stupid trendy name and buying them Chinese-made lead-laced toys:

The debate surrounding the bans invokes larger questions about sociology, class and parenting trends, with some researchers saying they are the natural result of a culture of overtaxed parents desperate to spend as much time as possible with their children, even if that one-on-one time occurs over a fine bottle of wine at the expense of other diners around them.

Also:

The ma’am-haters are correct to object when the title is meant to diminish. But in driving it wholesale from the vernacular, we are raising children who have no tool of language with which to convey respect. And never seeing respect in action, they’re less likely to have it at all.

Thank God Periwinkle was off the block:

The world’s most famous crayon-maker is making this year’s National Crayon Day (today!) one for the record books by announcing the retirement of a classic color from its 24-pack crayon box for the first time in a century. When we reported on the story earlier this week, we asked: "Is dandelion facing certain death? Could blue violet be waving bye-bye? Is scarlet saying see you later?" Well, we were right the first time: Dandelion is bidding its place in the crayon box adieu.

Sorry, Dandelion-lovers.




Troubled by what else to celebrate in April? Be troubled no more!

APRIL 26: HUG AN AUSTRALIAN DAY

(Sidebar: it is a very good idea to let Australians know in advance that one will hug them.)

But Wait! There's More!

Often, there is...



Today in Canadian political corruption news:

One of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s closest friends is benefiting from an exclusive agreement between his data analytics company and the Liberal Party of Canada.

Data Sciences Inc, run by Trudeau’s boyhood friend, Tom Pitfield, is providing the party with “digital engagement” and support services for its powerful voter-contact database, Liberalist.

Neither the party nor Pitfield would say how much the agreement is worth to the firm, which Pitfield set up after his friend was elected party leader.

Pitfield’s wife, Anna Gainey, is the president of the Liberal Party and also a close friend of Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Gregoire. The two families vacationed together at the Aga Khan’s resort in Bahamas over the Christmas holidays.

A spokesman for the Liberal Party of Canada says Gainey does not get involved in decisions involving her husband’s company.

(Sidebar: oh, sure.)

**

A Fraser Institute report released Thursday details the ballooning of Ontario’s net debt under the Liberals — which has almost doubled since ’07 and is tracking toward a record $318 billion.

**

Environment Canada told Catherine McKenna early in her mandate as minister that a price on carbon would have to go as high as $300 per tonne in 2050 for Canada to meet its climate targets, a secret briefing document shows.

Keep telling one's self that it's just money.




The senator who opined that residential schools did some good now wants an account of how money is spent on First Nations reservations:

After hearing testimony about the atrocities committed in residential schools, Senator Lynn Beyak asked survivors at the Senate's Aboriginal peoples committee Wednesday what they thought about her plan for a national audit on all First Nations spending.

Beyak asked John Morrisseau and Doris Young, two elderly Indigenous people who faced abuse in school, if they thought it was appropriate to be spending money on renaming buildings, like Ottawa's Langevin Block, named after one of the architects of the residential schools, when there are children on reserve without clean drinking water.

Well, why not? 

Isn't clean running water more important than renaming a building?

I know this is a wrench in the shame-inducing works but people have to prioritise.

Wouldn't it then be teachers who are violating students' privacy?

Alberta Education Minister David Eggen said Wednesday that he was “disturbed” by new Progressive Conservative Leader Jason Kenney’s comments on gay-straight alliances in schools.

Reacting to Kenney’s comments Tuesday that parents should be informed when their child joins a gay-straight alliance in school unless the parents are abusive, Eggen posted on Facebook that Kenney has shown himself as an “extremist.”

“We work very closely with parents, but let’s not forget gay-straight alliances are support groups for students who are in a very vulnerable position,” said Eggen.

“If the government is compelling people to out those students in a very compromised situation, then they’re only serving to make the situation worse.”

How would the teachers know about their students? Are they prying into their lives?

How badly do we need to wipe out future generations?

The abortion pill is available in less than half of all Canadian provinces and territories three months after it first went on sale in Canada. 

Medical experts and advocates had hoped Mifegymiso — the official name of the two-medication drug also know as mifepristone or RU-486 — would help close the gaping urban-rural divide in access to abortion care services in Canada. But three months in, experts warn a strict regulatory regime could further entrench that divide and only existing abortion providers will be willing or able to distribute the pill. 

Yes, about that:

Cross-referencing demographic data, the Finnish researchers found that the risk of hemorrhage increased among aborting women using RU486 who were aged 20–24, who have had a previous birth, from a lower socio-economic class, and were living in a densely populated or rural area. Risk factors associated with an incomplete abortion were the same, but also included those having a previous abortion, unmarried, or having an advanced gestation.

In comparison to surgical abortion, the risk of hemorrhage with RU486 was nearly eight times higher, while the likelihood of an incomplete abortion was five times higher.

On the Korean Peninsula -


Did China, the country that enables North Korea to pursue its nuclear ambitions, help North Korea steal from the Federal Reserve?

Last February, cybercriminals stole $81 million from the account of the central bank of Bangladesh at the New York Federal Reserve Bank, one of the biggest bank heists ever. U.S. officials are now pointing the finger to North Korea as the culprit.

North Korea, if it is the culprit, almost certainly did not act on its own. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Federal prosecutors are investigating certain Chinese middlemen, who may have helped the North “orchestrate the theft.”

If such middlemen were involved, Chinese financial institutions were almost certainly complicit. If these institutions were complicit, Beijing must be supporting the criminal attacks. ...

The Journal reported last week that U.S. investigators think North Koreans were the ones behind the theft from Bangladesh because of the similarity of the code used in that cyberattack to the code employed in the 2014 attacks on Sony Pictures Entertainment. The Sony attacks have been attributed to, among others, North Korean hackers based in China.

Again, why aren't we lighting a fire under China?


Also - I doubt it will come to nukes:

The United States should be prepared to pre-empt a North Korean nuclear attack by using its own atomic weapons, a former head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has said.

James Woolsey, who was a senior adviser to then-President-elect Donald Trump before abruptly resigning in January, accused "the press and public officials" of ignoring or under-reporting the threat from the dynastic dictatorship.

In a hawkish joint column for The Hill he also claimed the Kim Jong-un regime could use a warhead-triggered electromagnetic pulse (EMP) to kill 90 per cent of Americans by knocking out the "national electric grid and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures for over a year", following a strike from space.

Satellite images taken over the weekend suggest North Korea could be in the final stages of preparation for its sixth nuclear test. Washington-based 38 North, a website that monitors North Korea, said the images showed the continued presence of vehicles and trailers at the Punggye-ri test site and signs that communications cables may have been laid to a test tunnel.

A lack of activity elsewhere at the site "may mean that test preparations are in their final stages," the report said, although it added: "Since North Korea knows the world is watching and is capable of deception, caution should be used before declaring that a nuclear test is imminent."

One cannot under-estimate what Kim Jong-Un might do or is capable of doing. But where his father was calculating, the younger Kim is a mad dog.

I'm thinking ... coup.

It is better to be a general of an overthrown dictator than a possible recipient of retaliation.




And now, melting candy. Enjoy.

This Post Is Islamophobic, Part Deux

Check it out:

Note the shrill cry of the virtue-signaller in her native environment - any arena with an audience. Her floppy hat and large white coat make her appear larger to the other species around her. With several thrusts of her pointed finger, she seems to say: "Beware! If I don't kill you with one blow of my tongue, my ear drum-piercing sanctimony will!"


You're not a hero, sweetheart.


If that guy ripped up a Bible, would you be shrieking at him then?

Smart money says no.

And one certainly does not hear any outrage over the desecrated religious texts, churches, temples, statues and homes of religious minorities in Muslim-majority countries. Surely that deserves outcries heard all around the world.


For an ostensibly secular school board to allow services where girls are relegated to the back of a gathering and where students can submit any sermon they like at prayers services that should not even be taking place, the Peel District School Board is decidedly partisan. Do things get as heated when Christmas rolls around?

Oh, wait...


Does the Peel District School Board feel, as at least one student does, that "God only loves Muslims"?

Would expecting secular schools to be completely secular be considered Islamophobic and require punishment?

On Mar. 24, 2017, an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan placed three online bloggers in the custody of a security agency, so they could be investigated and interrogated on blasphemy charges, resulting from what M-103 would define as their “Islamophobic” comments on social media.

Pakistan’s anti-blasphemy laws include a maximum sentence of imprisonment for life for insulting the Qur'an.

The punishment for insulting Prophet Mohammad can be the death penalty, although it has never been imposed by a court.

At times, however, the interpretation of what constitutes an insult to the Qur’an or Mohammad in Pakistan is not decided in court, but left in the hands of street mobs, zealots, and any Muslim who feels offended by what someone else has said or done.

Just as “Islamophobia” remains undefined in the M-103 motion passed in the Parliament of Canada, what constitutes an act of “insulting the Qur’an” in Pakistan is often arbitrary.

Haven't the powers-that-be sorted that out yet? People could be doing a kazillion Islamophobic things and could be getting away with it.


I'm sure that by even posting this, I'm making Baby Iqra Khalid cry but I don't think that I am alone in pointing out the cultural, logical and political dissonance it takes to elevate a pernicious ideology over all else and call it equality. It will certainly not score the Peel District School Board any points as it is slowly digested by the thing it allows, not reasonable accommodation but capitulation.



(Paws up)

Mid-Week Post

Your middle-of-the-week joy...



Every time people malign these guys, they become more and more attractive:

Video showing Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch at a meeting with members of a group that protested outside a Toronto mosque last month was called “deeply troubling” on Wednesday.

(Sidebar: was Iqra Khalid's presidency of the Muslim Student Association and her meeting with Islamist lobbyists not at all troubling? Is the Trudeau Foundation's sponsorship of a Liberal MP and its foreign donations in any way a concern?)


**

The Trudeau Liberals, it seems to me, have been having a slightly tougher time finding that ‘hot button’ sweet spot. Until the 2015 election, their go-to hot button was Stephen Harper himself.  But now, in power, they need a new bad guy to get their base upset enough to make a donation. Well, hello there Brad Trost. Trost is a Conservative who has been returned in five general elections by the voters of the riding now known as Saskatoon–University to be their member of Parliament.

Ask him — as I’ve done — and he’ll describe himself as to the right of Attila the Hun. He is a proud social conservative and a constant presence in the annual right-to-life anti-abortion demonstrations on the Hill. And, as my colleague Marie-Danielle Smith reported this week, he’s “not entirely comfortable with the whole gay thing.” 

Oh — and Trost is also running to be the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada which, one assumes, would be his first step to running for Prime Minister of Canada. 

That, pretty much,  is all the brain trust at Liberal Party HQ needs. Trost could not be more of the exact opposite of everything the Liberal leader (and prime minister) Justin Trudeau stands for. And when you get that kind of polarity, well, time to fire off a hot button fundraising email.

Seriously, just have a billboard saying vote for these guys or anyone like them. The more they are savaged, the more they appeal to people whose patience for corruption - both political and moral - has run out.




Why bother? Will it bring Phoenix Sinclair back from the dead?

The federal government is giving the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs $550,000 to consult with First Nations communities across the province on how to reform Child and Family Services.

Manitoba has more than 10,000 children in care and apprehends an average of one newborn baby a day. The vast majority — around 90 per cent — of children in care are indigenous.

Also:

Indigenous Affairs bureaucrats are deliberately flouting ATIP requests by not putting information in email. We know this because they said it themselves—in emails.

In documents obtained exclusively by The Rebel on an investigation into the audit of the Nunavut Planning Commission, there were a number of examples of staffers citing ATIP laws as reasons not to do or say certain things.

And:

A killer father in one of Canada’s worst cases of child abuse has won escorted temporary absences for six months.

“I know I’ve been described as a monster and I’m not quarrelling with that,” Edward (Tony) Dooley said at the conclusion of his parole board hearing at the Beaver Creek Institution — a minimum- and medium-security jail.

Dooley, 51, has been a model inmate while serving a life sentence for murdering his seven-year-old son, Randal, in 1998.

According to the parole board, Dooley will be able to go out on a series of day-passes which enable him to work on a supervised inmate crew doing painting, carpentry and general labour work at some non-profit community agencies.

“I loved my sons and I failed all of them miserably,” Dooley said at the hearing.

“We are the biggest contributors to the dysfunction in our families — absentee fathers — who are emotionally disconnected,” said Dooley.

The murderer added he spent long periods dealing drugs in the southern United States while he left his young sons with pregnant Marcia Dooley in Scarborough.

Another son, Teego, 26, lives in Brampton and the Dooleys’ youngest, Tyreek, was adopted.

Randal was born in Jamaica and came to Canada with his brother to live with his father and stepmother in Toronto in November 1997, 11 months before his death.

He had wasted to just 41 pounds and had 13 fractured ribs, a lacerated liver, four brain injuries, and head-to-toe bruises when he died in 1998.

 
This is bullsh--.




If North Korea can deliver Japan its third nuclear payload, why should a lightweight like Canada carry on with the pretense that it can avert that potential crisis?

A former Canadian ambassador for nuclear disarmament is accusing the Trudeau government of “irresponsible leadership” as Canada skips out on “historic” talks at the United Nations this week.

Douglas Roche, also a former parliamentarian, said in an interview Tuesday that if Canada wants a seat on the UN Security Council, it shouldn’t be so “fearful” of the United States. He also said the issue should be debated in the House of Commons, a sentiment echoed by an NDP MP who is in New York for the proceedings.

More than 100 countries are sitting down this week to negotiate “a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination,” according to a General Assembly resolution passed in December. The United States, United Kingdom, France, China and other nuclear powers are not participating.

By not having Canada in the room, the Liberal government has “turned their back on the track record that Canada itself has established in nuclear disarmament, over many years,” Roche said.

You over-estimate the Liberals' ability and concern, sir.




If it generates so much money for the city, it can generate money to run itself:

A Toronto councillor concerned over the exclusion of police officers from the Pride parade is looking to strip the event of its city funding unless organizers reconsider.

John Campbell said the city provides a $260,000 annual grant to Pride, as well as an estimated $750,000 in free services, the bulk of that policing costs.

He wants that funding tied to Pride’s agreement to welcome police participation.

“The motivation is for council to make a statement, I hope, that they do not agree with the tactics that were used to exclude the police from the Pride festivities,” the councillor said Tuesday. “When we issue grant money to organizations, there should be certain conditions and stipulations tied to that, and one of those is values of equity and diversity and inclusion.

“In fact, one of Pride’s core values is inclusivity. So this is hardly acting in an inclusive manner when they’re excluding the police,” he said.

A woman is in custody after a bizarre incident near the Capitol:

U.S. Capitol Police officers have apprehended a female driver after she struck another vehicle and nearly hit several officers near the Capitol, police said this morning. 

At 9:22 a.m., Capitol Police officers observed an "erratic and aggressive driver" in the vicinity of 100 Independence Ave., according to Eva Malecki, the communications director for the United States Capitol Police, who briefed reporters near the scene at Bartholdi Park in Washington. 

As the officers tried to stop the vehicle, the driver made a U-turn and fled the scene, apparently striking another vehicle and nearly hitting officers. A brief pursuit ensued. Her car was stopped at Washington and Independence avenues, near the U.S. Botanic Garden and the Rayburn House Office Building, and the driver fled on foot, police said.

The Center for Medical Progress has been charged with fifteen counts of recording private conversations such as this one:

There are often times when words fail to adequately convey the disgust one feels watching these videos or even referencing the system that penalises those who report on things like this.

Related: Stem Express dropped its lawsuit against the Center for Medical Progress. In case those still defending these baby-eating organisations are baffled.




Oh, burn:

Declaring “the start of a new era” in energy production, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that he said would revive the coal industry and create jobs.

The move makes good on his campaign pledge to unravel former President Barack Obama’s plan to curb global warming. The order seeks to suspend, rescind or flag for review more than a half-dozen measures in an effort to boost domestic energy production in the form of fossil fuels.

 
Dismantling Obama's legacy one bit at a time.




I keep saying things like this:

But what Putin and his fellow oligarchs consider Russia’s national interests are probably not what ordinary Russians think they are. For all its military might, Russia is a very poor country with huge demographic problems. A year ago, nearly 20 million Russians (13.4 percent of the population) were reportedly living in poverty, on less than $139 a month. Last year saw a spike in labor protests, mostly related to unpaid wages. Some 82 percent of Russians say they can feel the effects of their country’s economic decline, up from 61 percent in 2014.

In this context, do ordinary Russians think that propping up the Assad regime in Syria, or preventing Ukraine from joining NATO, or meddling in other countries’ elections, are core national interests? Probably not, although we’ll never know because Putin’s Russia, like any run-of-the-mill autocratic regime, isn’t all that interested in what ordinary people think.

Conservatives are fooling themselves if they think that they have a friend in Putin.

 Also:

He added, “What makes the Podesta case clear is there was a transfer of money and there was a transfer of a lot of money that stood to make John Podesta a lot of money. That is unique and that’s extremely troubling because at the time that transfer is taking place he is advising Hillary Clinton at the State Department. We know that from the Podesta emails that he is helping her make personnel decisions, speech decisions, policy decisions. He is meeting with her monthly. It’s a transfer of money from a foreign government, at the time that he is advising America’s chief diplomat, Hillary Clinton.”

Too late, France. You had your chance:

A new Ipsos poll finds that 61 percent of adults say Islam is incompatible with French society, compared to just 17 percent who say the same about Judaism and 6 percent who believe Catholicism is incompatible with French society.

If they get rid of periwinkle, I shall be most displeased:

The world’s most famous crayon-maker is planning to make this year’s National Crayon Day—which arrives on Friday, March 31—one for the record books. As TIME reports, Crayola is planning to retire a classic color from its 24-pack crayon box for the first time in a century. 

Getting the Government You Deserve

 

 

Reading the comments that follow a news article is a good way of gauging its impact or veracity. The popular press is essentially a pack of regurgitating tools, anyway, and what better way to illustrate that than their audience's reaction.

Is the reader thinking on his or her feet or is he or she a parrot frightened of his or her shadow?

You decide.

The pudding's proof, as it were:

Conservative Party leadership candidate Brad Trost’s campaign is not backing down after controversial comments Tuesday about his discomfort with the idea of people being gay.

“In case you haven’t noticed, Brad’s not entirely comfortable with the whole gay thing. And if you haven’t noticed, you have not been paying attention,” campaign spokesman Mike Patton said in a “campaign update” video put out on social media Tuesday.

The campaign had sent a fundraising email Monday evening that promised Trost would never participate in gay pride events, and as a political leader would never subsidize such events.

“For sure, Brad is not a big fan of the gay lifestyle. But what you do in private is your business. What you literally do in the middle of the street needs to conform to some basic community standards,” Patton said. He called some behaviour in pride parades over-sexualized and “so inappropriate for public viewing.”

Watch the readership soil its collective shorties:

 

To be fair, not everyone flipped out on what is actually a mainstream opinion. Most people are indifferent to people's choice of lifestyle. They simply don't want it hammered into them nor do they want it flaunted in their kids' face.

The big deal is for people incapable of social, emotional or political nuance in opinions, things Mr. Trost is still allowed to express before the true defenders of a mad theocratic state - the ones who rammed through Motion 103, for example - clamp down on them.

So much for defending political or social conservatism, alleged followers of fashion.

And if his opinions are so noxious that one would rather vote for anyone but Trost (or whoever), then get used to a government one claims to hate. If one is not willing to unseat the cream of the crap, do everyone a favour and stow it. You sound like naggy old women worried that the sky will fall.



Yes, because parents:

Alberta Education Minister David Eggen says Jason Kenney's position that parents should be notified if their children join a gay-straight alliance is an "extremist" view.

"Jason Kenney has shown, once you scratch the paint off a little bit, you find the extremist that he actually is," he said.

Kenney, the newly elected Alberta Progressive Conservative leader, made the comments during an editorial board meeting with Postmedia in Calgary on Tuesday.

"I do, however, think that parents have a right to know what's going on with their kids in the schools unless the parents are abusive," Kenney said.

"I don't think it's right to keep secrets from parents about challenges their kids are going through."

Question: why is speaking to parents "extremist"? Is informing them of the goings-on at school an act to difficult to stomach? Wouldn't it be better for students to have their parents - people who understand them - openly discuss such matters?



Now, everybody is a Nazi:

This story originally and incorrectly reported that the gun appeared to be 9mm semi-automatic Walther P-38, the same handgun used by the German Army in World War II, based on confirmation from two gun experts. But the owner of the handgun contacted The Hill Times and identified the gun as a 1972 Walther P1. The story has been updated and corrected. The Hill Times apologizes for this error. 

Oops.

This just makes Miss Leitch a more fascinating candidate.



By the way, the former snowboard instructor's father supported both the Nazis and the communists. His foreign affairs minister hid the fact that her grandfather supported the Nazis.

So, is firing a mistaken gun worse than supporting dictatorial regimes?



Speaking of the snowboard instructor:

Justin Trudeau's news conference at a Winnipeg daycare was interrupted by a protester who called the prime minister a scumbag.

Staff from the Prime Minister's Office say the man gained entry to the event claiming to be a member of the "world alternative media."

He carried a camcorder as he heckled Trudeau about the carbon tax while the prime minister answered other questions. 

He also railed against what he called Trudeau's "globalist counterparts."

Security eventually led the man out of the room without incident.

Trudeau was in Winnipeg to tout child-care investments his government announced in last week's budget.

"Shame on you and your globalist counterparts," the man said as security kept a close eye on him. "You're scumbags. You are an absolute scumbag."

Thirty-nine percent of voters thought this billowy-headed moron would fit the bill.

They can own him.



(Paws up)

For A Monday

Before I begin, a merci to all y'all who have visited.

Much obliged.

And now, the news...




The US and Britain are among the nations who have skipped nuclear weapon ban talks:

The United States, Britain and France are among almost 40 countries that will not join talks on a nuclear weapons ban treaty starting at the United Nations on Monday, said U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley.

Haley told reporters the countries skipping the negotiations are instead committed to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which entered into force in 1970 and is aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology.

"There is nothing I want more for my family than a world with no nuclear weapons. But we have to be realistic. Is there anyone that believes that North Korea would agree to a ban on nuclear weapons?" Haley told reporters. 

Indeed. Why go through the virtue-signalling pretense when North Korea would have no compunction launching a third nuclear payload on Japan?




Putin is far more dangerous to his own people than any American election.

Case in point:

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was handed a 15-day jail sentence on Monday for his part in a big anti-government protest in Moscow which buoyed the liberal opposition's morale a year before a presidential election.

Sunday's protest and others like it across Russia were estimated to be the largest since 2012 and foreshadow a presidential election which Vladimir Putin is expected to contest.

Opinion polls suggest Navalny, who hopes to run against Putin, has little chance of unseating the Russian leader, who enjoys high ratings. But Navalny and his supporters hope to channel public discontent over corruption to get more support.

Navalny, who will appeal the court's verdict, was found guilty of disobeying a police officer at Sunday's Moscow protest and sentenced to 15 days in jail. He was also fined for organizing the protest, which the authorities said was illegal.

Navalny told reporters in the Moscow courtroom that he and his allies would not give up.

"You can’t detain tens of thousands of people," he said. "Yesterday we saw the authorities can only go so far."

(Sidebar: but they've been doing it since tsarist times, so...)




Israel is on high alert after the death of an Islamist leader:

Hamas closed its only civilian border crossing with Israel on Sunday, and Israeli troops were on high alert as tensions between the two enemies continued to rise, two days after a senior Hamas operative was mysteriously shot dead at point-blank range in the parking garage of his home.

Hamas has accused Israel of being behind the killing of Mazen Fuqaha, 38, a senior commander in the militant Islamist movement’s military wing. He spent nine years in an Israeli jail for his part in planning numerous suicide bombings that killed multiple Israeli civilians during the second Intifada in the early 2000s.

One hires a hacker for this sort of thing:

Security services must be allowed to crack into encrypted messaging services or terrorists will enjoy a digital “place to hide,” Britain’s top security official said Sunday, re-igniting a fiery debate over privacy on the Internet.

Amber Rudd, the U.K.’s home secretary, made the comments after police discovered that London’s Westminster attacker had sent a text via WhatsApp just before his rampage.

Rudd said investigators have been unable to access the message sent on the hugely popular service. 

WhatsApp is equipped with end-to-end encryption, meaning the company – now owned by Facebook – has no way to intercept its users’ communications, even if police present them with a warrant.

After having been caught funnelling money to Hamas, IRFAN hopes to be removed from a list of terrorist entities:

A Muslim relief group allegedly linked to Hamas has launched a legal challenge in Federal Court in an attempt to be taken off the Canadian government’s list of “terrorist entities.”

The International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy Canada has asked to be removed from the terrorist list and also wants the entire listing process struck down as unconstitutional.

This is the second time the Mississauga, Ont.-based group has gone to court in the hope of being de-listed. It last tried in 2014 but the case was discontinued the following year.

Fifty-three factions — including al-Qaida, ISIL and Hezbollah — are currently on Canada’s list of designated terrorist groups, which effectively makes them illegal organizations.

IRFAN-Canada’s troubles with the government began in 2011 when its charity status was revoked after federal auditors concluded it was an “integral part” of the Hamas fundraising network.

Investigators had also found videos at the group’s office that “demonize Israel, characterize the Arab-Israeli conflict as a religious war, appeal for all Arab and Muslim nations to join in the struggle against Israel and glorify martyrdom,” the Canada Revenue Agency wrote.

In 2012, Justin Trudeau, then a candidate for the Liberal leadership, was criticized for speaking at a Toronto Islamic conference sponsored by the group. Two years later IRFAN-Canada was added to the federal list of terror groups.

Also:

Imams in Canadian mosques have been inciting the killing of "infidels", primarily Jews, for years. This agitation appears to have had no visible impact on Canadian parliamentarians, evidently too busy with petitions and motions banning alleged "Islamophobia".

In 2009, for example, Toronto-area imam Said Rageah, at the Abu Huraira Centre, called on Allah to "destroy" the enemies of Islam from within and "damn" the "infidel" Jews and Christians.

"Allah protect us from the fitna [sedition, affliction] of these people; Allah protect us from the evil agenda of these people; Allah destroy them from within themselves, and do not allow them to raise their heads" prayed the imam.

In 2012, Sheikh Abdulqani Mursal, imam at Masjid Al Hikma mosque in Toronto, explained that Jews are destined to be killed by the Muslims. Citing text from a hadith, he said:

"You will fight against the Jews and you will kill them... Muslims [will] kill them until the Jews [will] hide themselves... and a stone or a tree [will] say: Muslim... there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him...."

In 2014, imam Sayed AlGhitawi, at Al Andalous Islamic Center in Montreal, prayed for success in jihad and the total destruction of the Jews:

"O Allah, give victory to our brothers who engage in jihad... destroy the accursed Jews... make their children orphans and their women widows... kill them one by one... do not leave any of them [alive]".

During the Muslim holiday of Ramadan in 2016, Imam Ayman Elkasrawy, of the Masjid Toronto mosque, said the following:

"...O Allah! Count their number; slay them one by one and spare not one of them... Give us victory over the disbelieving people... Give victory to Islam... humiliate the ...polytheists... Destroy anyone who displaced the sons of the Muslims...Count their number; slay them one by one and spare not one of them... Purify Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews!"

Another imam in Toronto, Shaykh Abdool Hamid, recited similar prayers on at least eight occasions in 2015 and 2016.

In February 2017, after being exposed as an extremist by CIJ News, imam Ayman Elkasrawy apologized for his words, which, despite being posted on YouTube, were apparently not meant to reach non-Arabic speaking Canadians:

"Neither I, Masjid Toronto or the congregation harbour any form of hate towards Jews. And so I wish to apologize unreservedly for misspeaking during prayer last Ramadan... "

The head of the mosque, Dr. El-Tantawy Attia, assured the Toronto Sun that his mosque was not a radical mosque:

"It was a mistake. It was not authorized. It should not have happened and we have apologized and I have personally reached out to my Jewish friends... I was so upset. I was surprised. In 45 years here, I had never heard anything like that."

He also assured the Toronto Sun that he and the mosque would "get to the bottom of this through their own investigation". He also said that, pending the probe, the imam had been "suspended". The head of the mosque, however, then said that he doubts if Ayman Elkasrawy "really meant it". "We are about peace", he added.

(Sidebar: this was super-Islamophobic. One should never question the obvious Jew-hatred that goes on unchecked in Canadian mosques. Instead, one should pretend that such things don't exist ... or else.)




But ... but ... the Narrative!

Fewer Canadians are being turned away at the U.S. land border in recent months despite mounting concerns that Donald Trump's immigration policies are making it much harder to cross, The Canadian Press has learned.

Refusals of Canadians at American land crossings dropped 8.5 per cent between October and the end of February compared with the same five-month period a year earlier, according to U.S. government statistics.

The total number of Canadian travellers denied entry also dropped: 6,875 out of 12,991,027 were refused entry, a refusal rate of 0.05 per cent.

Between October 2015 and February 2016, 7,619 out of 13,173,100 Canadian travellers were denied entry to the U.S., a refusal rate of 0.06 per cent.

The figures, confirmed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, contrast with recent anecdotal reports of Canadians denied entry into the U.S., with many placing the blame on the policies of the Trump administration, including its controversial attempts to ban arrivals from several predominantly Muslim countries.

The same government that promised to help families with small children has thrown them the smallest bone it can, just enough to get re-elected:

The federal government just allotted $7 billion over 10 years for “child care.” Who will benefit? The vast majority of families will benefit little if at all.

Daycare advocates have ensured that policies contain discriminatory definitions that explicitly exclude parental child care and preferentially fund institutional group care spaces. This is despite the fact that institutional group care is the most costly, least preferred and the most problematic for children’s mental and physical health.

The billions will flow in two ways: system subsidies like capital costs, operating grants, bureaucracy and advocacy, and fee subsidies to reduce parents’ expenses, typically paid on behalf of moderate or lower income families. Tax deductions will be available for up to about $7,000 in fees per child, $4,000 until age 15. (You read that right: daycare deductions for 15-year-olds.)

For a family with two parents in the top tax bracket with two young children in a daycare centre, the tax subsidy alone is worth over $6,500 per year. Add to that the value of the system subsidies at a super-subsidized daycare and clearly some families will be receiving public child care funding worth many tens of thousands of dollars every year while other families receive none at all.

Currently only about 15 per cent of Canadian children 0-5 are in daycare centres. Statistics Canada reports that higher-income families are more likely to use this arrangement.Taxpayers are funding higher-income families with huge subsidies for institutional child care at the expense of lower income families — including single parents — who prioritize parental child care.

One could make it so that people can look after their kids at home but that would just be nutty.




Who killed Otzi?

“The aim of the offender was to kill him, and he decides to take a long-distance shot — could be a learning effect from what happened one or two days before,” Horn said. “Which is pretty much what you see all the time nowadays. Most homicides are personal, and follow violence and an escalation of violence. I want to follow him, find him and kill him. All the emotions we have in homicide, these things have not died out in all these years.”

Robbery can certainly be ruled out, he said. Otzi had a copper ax, a valuable artifact only rarely seen in burials of the period. His clothing and kit were a match for the harsh alpine climate, and probably valuable, made from the leather and fur of at least 10 animals of six species.

“This was not a robbery gone bad or something,” Horn said; clearly, the killer was trying to cover up his act. “You go back to your village with this unusual ax, it would be pretty obvious what had happened.”

And now, even though his owner is dead, a dog walks the same route he and his owner had always walked:

When his owner Claudio Cantarelli died in 2015, Thor was so heartbroken that he stopped eating and would lie in the courtyard without moving for days. But, thanks to a loving neighbor who took him in, Thor is now doing better and has started walking the same route again.

"He [Claudio] walked every day and had his lunch. He was an artist and was everyone's friend - and now, Thor makes the same walk. I notice that the dog always stops at the same places. It's impressive," hairdresser Airton Oliveira said to RBS TV [in Portuguese].

Thor even made the same stop at the lottery office, where Claudio went almost every day. There, he waited for a while as if hoping for his owner to come out from the establishment to continue on their journey together.