Friday Post

One day, the snow will melt...


But not because of global warming:

• There has been no increase in the Earth’s average surface temperature since the late 20th century.
• Every measure of pre-industrial carbon dioxide, not derived from Antarctic ice cores, indicates a higher and more variable atmospheric concentration.
• The total lack of predictive skill in AGW climate models.
• An ever-growing body of observation-based studies indicating that the climate sensitivity is in the range of 0.5 to 2.5°C with a best estimate of 1.5 to 2°C, and is very unlikely to be more than 2°C.
• Clear evidence that the dogmatic insistence of scientific unanimity is at best highly contrived and at worst fraudulent.

(Gracias)


In other news....


Raed Jaser and Chiheb Esseghaier have been found guilty of eight out of nine charges:

Raed Jaser and Chiheb Esseghaier, two men accused of plotting to derail a Via passenger train travelling between Canada and the U.S., have been found guilty on eight of nine terror-related charges.

Esseghaier was found guilty on all five terrorism charges against him. But the jury was deadlocked on one of the four charges that Jaser was facing.

On Friday, the 10th day of deliberations, after the jury said it was 'irrevocably deadlocked" on that one charge, Judge Michael Code told jurors he has the power to accept their unanimous decisions on the eight other charges.

Among the charges, both men were found guilty of:

• Conspiring to commit murder for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a terrorist group.
• Two counts of participating in, or contributing to the activity of a terrorist group.

Esseghaier was also found guilty of:

• Conspiring to damage transportation property with the intent to endanger safety for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a terrorist group.

The jury was deadlocked on that same charge for Jaser. Code called a mistrial on that one specific charge.

Suicide bombers have killed at least one hundred and thirty-seven people in at a mosque in Yemen:

Suicide bombers attacked a pair of mosques Friday in the Yemeni capital, unleashing monstrous blasts that ripped through worshippers and killed 137 people in the deadliest assault yet targeting Shiite rebels who have taken over large parts of the rapidly fragmenting nation. At least 13 children were among the dead.

A purported affiliate of the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the bombings, which also wounded 357 people — raising the alarming possibility the extremist group has expanded its presence to Yemen after already setting up a branch in Libya. Earlier this week, the group claimed responsibility for a bloody attack on Western tourists in Tunisia that authorities said was carried out by militants trained in Libya.

And yet, this is the news the White House- still irritated by Netanyahu's election win -calls "chilling":

Almost all of the 436 mosques in the Central African Republic have been destroyed by months of vicious fighting between Christians and Muslims, the US ambassador to the United Nations said.

Samantha Power spoke to reporters on Tuesday after a Security Council visit last week to the country, calling the devastation "kind of crazy, chilling".

She expressed concern about an upcoming possible security vacuum as European Union and French forces pull out and a UN peacekeeping force is still not at full strength.

At least 5,000 people have been killed since Central African Republic exploded into unprecedented violence in December 2013.

Nearly one million of the country's 4.5 million residents have been displaced. Many of those who have fled are Muslim.

Power said 417 of the country's mosques have been destroyed. She visited the one remaining Muslim neighbourhood in the capital, Bangui, and described the residents as "a terrified population".

Destroying houses of worship and murdering those of any religion should be abhorrent to those who call themselves a part of the civilised, sane world.

So why is this tolerated?

The recent bulldozing by the Islamic State (ISIS) of the ancient cities of Nimrud, Hatra, and Korsabad, three of the world's greatest archaeological and cultural sites, is just this group latest round of assaults across the large area under its control. Since January 2014, the flamboyantly barbaric ISIS has blown up Shi'i mosques, bulldozed churches, pulverized shrines, and plundered museums.

Worse, the ISIS record fits into an old and common pattern of destruction of historical artifacts by Muslims.

Some attacks target the works of other, rival religions, such as Orthodox churches in northern Cyprus (since 1974), the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan (in 2001), the Ghriba synagogue in Tunisia (2002), an historic Hindu temple in Malaysia (2006), and the Assyrian antiquities ("idols") in Mosul (2015). On a personal level, a Saudi national smashed historic statues at the Senso-Ji Buddhist temple in Tokyo in 2014. Nor is this danger over: Islamic leaders have bruited plans to destroy Persepolis in Iran, St. Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai, and the Great Pyramids of Egypt. ...

Ancient artifacts might even be demolished because their space is needed for something deemed urgent. The Palestinian Authority threw out precious Temple Mount archeological remains as mere rubble in 2000 to build a mosque. In 2013, Hamas bulldozed part of the 3,000-year-old Anthedon Harbor in Gaza for military purposes and the Turkish authorities damaged the Byzantine-era walls of the Yedikule Gardens to build a decorative pool. ...

Why does Islam inspire its adherents to annihilate their own patrimony? Because humiliation establishes and reinforces one's superiority. Destruction of infidel remains confirms the superior power of Muslims and, by implication, the truth of Islam. In parallel, eliminating the vestiges of Muslim rivals establishes the superiority of Islamism over other, less assertive interpretations of Islam.

Go screw yourselves, Obama administration, and the post-modern West. You've sold out your birthrights to a yodelling crowd of culture-destroying murderers.


Also:

Soldiers from Niger and Chad who liberated the Nigerian town of Damasak from Boko Haram militants have discovered the bodies of at least 70 people, many with their throats slit, scattered under a bridge, a Reuters witness said.

In what appeared to be an execution site for the Islamist group, the bodies were strewn beneath the concrete bridge on one of the main roads leading out of the town. At least one had its head completely severed.

The bodies were partially mummified by the dry desert air, suggesting that the killings had taken place some time ago.

(Paws up)


Unless one is willing to vote out the very bodies who waste taxpayer money, the minimum wage will be a joke:

An increase in Ontario’s minimum wage, announced by the province Thursday morning, might seem like good news for people wrestling to pay their bills and to make ends meet.

Anti-poverty advocates, however, say the increase of 25 cents won’t do much to alleviate financial woes and will still leave poverty-stricken Ontarians in the dust.

Says you, Lackey to Kim Fatty:

Hyun Hak-bong also hit out at allegations made against his country days after the United Nations launched yet another investigation into North Korea's human rights record.

The diplomat was asked about allegations made to Sky News last year by North Koreans living in the South Korean capital Seoul. They claim to have been tortured and beaten in their own country.

He said: "Those allegations are based on fabricated stories by the defectors from the North."

"Do you know the difference between human beings and animals? Human beings have a conscience and morality. If they do not have a conscience and a morality the are like nothing.

"They're animals. That is why we call the defectors animals. They are no better than animals. They're human scum."

Where is the love?


This is pretty disturbing:

“Research tells us that fewer than 10 percent of doctors actually recognize trafficking victims, and fewer than 3 percent of ER doctors had received training in recognition and action,” Chin says. “There is a huge disparity in the number of victims seeking help and the number of doctors who could recognize them.”

Gee, I guess the kids aren't alright:

Growing up, and even into my 20s, I supported and advocated for gay marriage. It’s only with some time and distance from my childhood that I’m able to reflect on my experiences and recognize the long-term consequences that same-sex parenting had on me. And it’s only now, as I watch my children loving and being loved by their father each day, that I can see the beauty and wisdom in traditional marriage and parenting.

Same-sex marriage and parenting withholds either a mother or father from a child while telling him or her that it doesn’t matter. That it’s all the same. But it’s not. A lot of us, a lot of your kids, are hurting. My father’s absence created a huge hole in me, and I ached every day for a dad. I loved my mom’s partner, but another mom could never have replaced the father I lost.

A feel-good story:

Eloise Charet can't forget the horrific scene at the orphanage she walked into in Cambodia in 1975.

"One of the rooms had all these children that were left to die," says Charet. "You could see ants crawling all over their bodies, flies, everything, devouring them while they were still alive."

March marks 40 years since Charet and her sister Anna helped approximately 55 orphaned babies and children escape from the terror ofPol Pot's Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

At the time, the horror of the Khmer Rouge was escalating — more than 1.5 million Cambodians would die in the next four years in one of the most notorious genocides in history.

Charet and her sister had gone to Cambodia to start an orphanage in Phnom Penh. They called the orphanage Canada House.

She's been trying to find all the children she saved. She was recently reunited with one of them, Sam Nakatsu, over the phone when CBC's Radio West spoke to them about the anniversary.

Does this include Putin's secret bank accounts?

Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he and almost everyone working for him would take a 10% pay cut because of mounting economic sanctions imposed on his country.

Whether Putin and his staff will actually feel the slash in their salaries is debatable, considering Putin says he is unaware of the amount printed on his paychecks. "Frankly, I don't even know my own salary; they just give it to me, and I put it away in my account," he reportedly said to a group of reporters during his annual Q&A session in December.

Putin's official salary is chump change compared with that of a prime minister of an island nation smaller than New York City.

Singapore's Lee Hsien Loong earns 12 1/2 times as much as Putin at a whooping $1.7 million. Loong's salary is large enough to pay for the combined salaries of the leaders of India, Brazil, Italy, Russia, France, Turkey, Japan, United Kingdom, South Africa, and Germany.

And now, the beef-stuffed onion ring is a real thing.

Mid-Week Post

A scintillating evening...


The jury is still out on two men accused of plotting to derail a VIA train:

Jurors in the trial of Raed Jaser and Chiheb Esseghaier, two men accused of plotting to derail a Via passenger train travelling between Canada and the U.S., have halted deliberations for the night and are set to start a ninth day of deliberations Thursday as they try to reach a verdict on all charges. 

Jaser is facing four terrorism-related charges while Esseghaier is also facing a fifth terrorism-related charge.

Earlier Wednesday, jurors told Judge Michael Code that they had reached agreement on charges for one of the accused, but were at an impasse on some charges for the other man.

It’s not clear what verdict they reached, or whom it related to.

A Tale of Two Leaders:

Harper congratulated Netanyahu’s victory on Twitter Wednesday afternoon, noting that “Israel has no greater friend” than Canada.

**

(credit here)

 
I'm just joshing. Obama isn't a leader!

Mark my words- Obama will concede to Iran like it's going out of style.

Also: "cautiously"? Obama hates Netanyahu so much that he can taste stabbing. Look for increased concessions to Iran:

After six years of testy relations, U.S. President Barack Obama may have to resign himself to the likelihood that he has not seen the last of Benjamin Netanyahu.

A better-than-expected showing by the Israeli prime minister in Tuesday’s closely fought election raises the prospect that he could remain a thorn in Obama’s side, with the two men increasingly at odds over Iran diplomacy and Middle East peacemaking.

U.S. officials responded cautiously as they waited to see whether Netanyahu or his center-left challenger, Isaac Herzog, would get the nod from Israel’s president to begin the long and messy coalition-building process.

Clearly the result that many of Obama’s supporters had hoped for – a repudiation by Israeli voters of Netanyahu’s hard-line approach – was not to be. Exit polls showed that his Likud party had erased its rival’s pre-election lead, putting the two sides in a dead heat. 

“Looks like the White House will need to let the champagne chill a bit longer,” Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator for Republican and Democratic administrations, tweeted about the election outcome.

The election came just two weeks after Netanyahu defied Obama with a politically divisive speech to Congress attacking U.S.-led nuclear talks with Iran. The final days of campaigning only served to deepen tensions between the right-wing leader and Washington.

More instability in northern Africa, this time in Tunisia where a terrorist attack has claimed  twenty lives:

At least 20 people have been killed in a shooting attack at the Bardo Museum in Tunisia, including 17 foreign nationals, Tunisian officials said today. 

In addition, two attackers have also been killed, Prime Minister Habib Essid said, calling it a "cowardly terrorist operation" that targeted tourists. 

The tourists were attacked while they were getting off a bus to enter the museum, Essid said, noting this is the first attack there targeting tourists. 

The attackers were wearing military fatigues, and when the tourists ran toward the museum to avoid the shooting, the attackers pursued them, Essid said. 

Among the 17 tourists killed, the nationalities included Polish, German, Italian and Spanish, Essid said. 

An additional 22 tourists and two Tunisians were injured, he said. 

Radek Sikorski, speaker of Polish Parliament, said seven Polish tourists were dead and three were in in critical condition. And the Italian Foreign Ministry told ABC News that three Italians were dead and six were wounded.

More "degradation" for ISIS:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the government will present a motion in the House of Commons next week to extend and expand the current military mission in Iraq.

But while he mentioned expanding the current mission, Harper wouldn't say whether that would include Canadian troops going into Syria.

Unless, by "degradation" one means "total annihilation", this may be a pointless venture.


By "historical roots", I'm sure Putin means the former Soviet Union circa Stalin:

Speaking to tens of thousands of cheering supporters just outside the Kremlin walls, President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday described Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula as a move to protect ethnic Russians there and regain the nation's "historic roots."

Addressing a rally marking the anniversary of the annexation, Putin also vowed to stand up to the West, which responded to the Russian move by slapping painful sanctions on Russia. ...

He went on to say that he continues to think that "Russians and Ukrainians are one people," and voiced hope that the Ukrainians would come to condemn "extreme nationalists" and the two nations could restore normal relations.

Fighting that flared up in eastern Ukraine between Moscow-backed separatists and government troops shortly after the annexation of Crimea has claimed more than 6,000 lives, according to the United Nations. Ukraine and the West have accused Russia of fueling the mutiny with troops and weapons, accusations Moscow has denied.

 
Big words from a tyrant who will no doubt go into hiding once even his own people turn on him.


Oh, so NOW annexing South Ossetia has broken some rules:

Russia's new treaty with Georgia's breakaway South Ossetia region breaks international law and hampers efforts to strengthen regional security, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday.

Culture: it matters:

The head of India's Catholic bishops, speaking out after a nun was raped in the east of the country last week, has said the country should be as concerned about the welfare of its people as it is about its cows.

The comments appeared directed against hardline Hindu nationalists who have stirred up animosity against India's Christian and Muslim minorities, while successfully lobbying for tougher laws against killing cows.

Cows are considered sacred by many Indians, but beef is eaten by some poor and lower-caste Hindus as well as by Christians and Muslims. Campaigns to protect cattle are often used to vilify religious minorities.

"The country has a responsibility towards all of us — every human being — and not just cows," Cardinal Baselios Cleemis told journalists. The comments, reported in newspapers on Wednesday, were confirmed by his office.

The western state of Maharashtra banned the selling of beef in February and the northern state of Haryana has since imposed stringent penalties for cow slaughter.

Cleemis spoke before visiting the hospitalized nun who was raped at a convent school in West Bengal, an attack which has triggered protests on city streets and in parliament. 

Police have not established whether the assault motive was religion or money. Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said he was "deeply concerned" and demanded a detailed report into what happened.

The attack was the most serious in a series of incidents that have spread fear among Christians since activists, emboldened by Modi's election victory last year, began their "ghar wapsi" (homecoming) campaign to convert followers of "foreign religions" to Hinduism.

Indian Christians emphasize their religion's long history in India and say it is an integral part of the country. Some Hindu hardliners, however, are seeking to define the country as primarily an Hindu nation, in which other religions are guests.

And now, an illustrated history of Americanised Chinese food, the diet soft drink of Chinese food.

Tuesday Post

For this glorious Saint Patrick's Day! 


I don't know why one would apologise for telling niqab-wearing women to go back to countries where not wearing these woman-covering garments would get one a face full of acid but whatever:

Larry Miller, the MP for Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, is facing significant backlash and accusations of racism from comments he made Monday on a local riding radio station about the ongoing niqab debate, and he quickly retracted (some of) his statements Tuesday morning.

People who go out of their way never to acclimatise or assimilate to Canadian life don't want to be Canadian but they do want to be in Canada. It must have something to do with running water, plumbing, First World medicine and less head-chopping.


Look- if the police are far too busy with fraud or lying about seized weapons or even giving a premier of a corrupt government time to formulate complete prison-saving pig crap, it stands to reason that the aforementioned police don't care about the safety of the very people who pay their salaries:

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair has called Prime Minister Stephen Harper irresponsible for encouraging people to arm themselves if they live too far from a police station.

Mulcair was referring to comments Harper recently made in Saskatoon where he was questioned at a meeting of rural municipal leaders about the government's priorities in dealing with firearms.

"It's a tool that many people use in their lives, obviously in their livelihoods," the prime minister told the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities.

"My wife's from a rural area, gun ownership wasn't just for the farm, it was also for a certain level of security when you're ways away from police, immediate police assistance.

"But also it's something people use for recreation and the vast, vast majority do so safely and, as you know, in many parts of the country, (it's) an important business."

In Montreal on Tuesday, Mulcair accused Harper of "using the firearms dossier to divide Canadians."

"This time it's an attempt to divide the rural world from the world that lives in cities," he said.

The NDP leader added he was "quite astonished" to hear the prime minister tell people to use their own weapons to protect themselves.

Yes, God forbid that law-abiding people who have some proficiency using guns ever use them in a state of need.

And this is why the NDP will never lead the country.

Is it Netanyahu?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Twitter, claimed a "great victory" in Israel's election on Tuesday, after exit polls showed his right-wing Likud party even with its main opponent, the center-left Zionist Union.

More bellicosity from Putin:

More than 45,000 Russian troops as well as war planes and submarines started military exercises across much of the country on Monday in one of the Kremlin's biggest shows of force since its ties with the West plunged to Cold War-lows.

President Vladimir Putin called the Navy's Northern Fleet to full combat readiness in exercises in Russia's Arctic North apparently aimed at dwarfing military drills in neighboring Norway, a NATO member.

"New challenges and threats to military security require the armed forces to further boost their military capabilities. Special attention must be paid to newly created strategic formations in the north," Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said, quoted by RIA news agency.

Shoigu said the order came from Putin, who has promised to spend more than 21 trillion rubles ($340 billion) by the end of the decade to overhaul Russia's fighting forces.

When one is attempting (poorly) to hide one's involvement in the invasion of Ukraine and pretending that sanctions aren't really hurting the economy,  one is not helping one's cause by pushing for more war.

Ladies and gentlemen, Tommy Makem.

Friday Post

Just in time for the week-end...


It turns out that people really do want uncovered faces during citizenship ceremonies:

The niqab debate is raging in Ottawa.

Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair say the Conservative government is simply fear-mongering.  Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the “overwhelming majority” of Canadians, including moderate Muslims, support the Conservative government’s opposition to face veils at citizenship ceremonies.  Some new polls suggest he might be right. ...

Stephen Harper also called the niqab “anti-woman” in the House of Commons on Tuesday.  His comments gave rise to the derisive hashtag #DressCodePM on twitter.  But what do Canadians think?

This same poll found that a plurality of Torontonians agree the niqab is a symbol of oppression.  46% agree it oppresses women, whereas 25% disagree.  Among those who identify as ‘Muslim and Middle Eastern,’ 25% agree it oppresses women, and 26% disagree.  

It gets better:

Even results from the CBC’s Power and Politics’ completely unscientific ballot box question found that overwhelmingly, a whopping 73% of Canadians believe the niqab is an insult to the dignity of women. ...

 
So much for pathetic political ploys and socio-historical revisionism.

Also:




ISIS restricts people fleeing from Mosul:

Freedom from the Islamic State group comes at a steep price, as one newly wedded couple recently discovered. Eager to live a normal life, away from the harsh dominion of the militants’ self-styled caliphate, the young pair is searching for ways to bypass the extremists’ newly-implemented departure taxes and escape the IS-held city of Mosul. ...

Fearing the city might simply empty of civilians, or that fleeing residents may join the fight against them, the Islamic State extremists are imposing tough measures to prevent people from leaving their territory.

Several residents, who spoke to The Associated Press by telephone on condition of anonymity to ensure their safety, said anyone seeking to leave must submit the title for their family home or car – if the vehicle is worth more than $20,000 – to be granted permission to leave for two weeks. If they fail to return within that period, their property will be confiscated.

Once one arrives at the conclusion that the UN is a toothless organisation that actually helps Russia and China, then Russia's helping North Korea with its nuclear weapons program seems less an affront and more of a foregone conclusion:

Under Section 104(a) of the NKSEA, the Russian institute concerned would be subject to mandatory asset blocking, and possibly to criminal prosecution leading to the forfeiture of its U.S.-based assets. Unless, of course, the institute was unwise enough to have kept its funds in Euros or (may God help them) Rubles. In which case, the question would shift to which bank the Institute uses.

The POE stops short of concluding that Russia is in violation, but says it will continue to investigate. The POE is also investigating that recent report that Russia invited North Korean representatives to attend a weapons trade fair. All in all, it’s a promising candidacy for the Axis of Evil.

 
(Kamsahamnida)


Stick to recipes, Buzz Feed:

In 23 states, the school districts with the most poor students spend less money per student than districts with the lowest level of poor students, creating stark funding gaps, according to data released today by the Education Department.

In Pennsylvania, the department said, the gap is particularly large: The wealthiest districts spend 30% more per student than their counterparts with large numbers of poor students. In Vermont, poor school districts spend 18% less on their students than the wealthiest districts.

On a local level, the gap between rich and poor districts happens in part because school districts in wealthier areas receive more money from taxes. State budgets are often unable to fully make up the difference by funneling extra money into poor areas.

Yes, about that:

The fewer taxes there are, the less anything can be done with them. Simple math.

Secondly, Pennsylvania and Vermont (blue or leaning towards the Democrats) have lower SAT scores than states that spend marginally lower or higher on education. South Korea and Finland spend less per student yet yield better test scores. If education was simply a matter of money, than South Korea and Finland should score lower than the US. So why don't they? Perhaps one should ask what work the students, the parents and the teachers put in rather than assume money is the cure-all.


Also:

An Indian bride walked out of her wedding ceremony after the groom failed to solve a simple math problem, police said Friday.

The bride tested the groom on his math skills and when he got the sum wrong, she walked out.

The question she asked: How much is 15 plus six?

His reply: 17.

The incident took place late Wednesday in Rasoolabad village near the industrial town of Kanpur in northern Uttar Pradesh state, local police officer Rakesh Kumar said Friday.

The groom's family tried persuading the bride to return, but she refused. She said the groom had misled them about his education.

"The groom's family kept us in the dark about his poor education," said Mohar Singh, the bride's father. "Even a first grader can answer this."

Local police mediated between the families and both sides returned all the gifts and jewelry that had been exchanged before the wedding, Kumar said.

When I read this:

Laura MacKeigan recently discovered a piece of jewellery on her walk home from work. At an intersection on Portland Street in Dartmouth, she looked down to make sure her footing was OK, but spotted something that caught her eye.

“I saw this circular thing in the ice and kind of started kicking at it and eventually what appeared was a ring,” she said.

MacKeigan hopes someone will come forward to claim it and she will have the owner describe it to her before she hands it over.

Goldsmith Glenn Fawcett says the value of the cubic zirconium ring lies in sentimentality.

I think of this:

Mid-Week Post

Twenty-four more days until Easter....

Nothing to do with Islam:

Last fall, counterterrorism agents trained their investigative crosshairs on a 33-year-old Pakistani man who had spent a decade residing in Toronto. Detectives secured the services of an undercover officer, and put him in place to win the target’s confidence.

During the course of the six-month probe, authorities allege that the globetrotting suspect made many incriminating admissions. He boasted of taking “weapons, combat and landmine training” in Libya, according to a synopsis. He even is alleged to have wanted to bring the undercover officer in on a scheme “to blow up the U.S. consulate and other buildings in the financial district in Toronto.”

The ultimate result of all these admissions? Not one single criminal charge.

Instead, the case has become a government bid to deport the man to his native Pakistan, on the grounds that he poses a potential security threat to Canada.

This is a relatively constrained legal approach to a sensational set of allegations. The strange case against Jahanzeb Malik, 33, came to light during a hearing on Wednesday. Dressed in an orange jumpsuit and sporting a thick black beard, he appeared via videolink from a jail in Lindsay, Ont., where he has been jailed since Monday.

During this first appearance, Mr. Malik kept his head lowered as he heard the charges. When he asked to speak, he was told he could not address the tribunal. His defence strategy is not known at this time.

Under Canada’s immigration laws, the government can kick out a non-citizen if authorities can prove that he or she might engage in acts of violence. “Mass destruction or possibly the loss of life would have been the result,” a government representative told the tribunal.

It’s not known why a criminal prosecution against Mr. Malik was not deemed to be viable. But authorities have released no information suggesting he took any concrete steps toward wreaking violence within Canada.

The tribunal did hear that he openly sympathized with jihadis. For example, Mr. Malik was said to have proudly shown the undercover officer the Islamic State’s infamous beheading videos. It’s also alleged that he claimed to have been in communications contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, the al-Qaeda suspect who was killed in Yemen by a 2011 U.S. Central Intelligence Agency drone strike.

After news of the case broke in Toronto, federal Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney spoke from Ottawa to laud federal agents for neutralizing a man who was said to be “promoting jihadi ideology.” And with that, the minister starting promoting the Conservative government’s 2015 Anti-Terrorism Act. This legislation would make it a criminal offence for anyone in Canada to openly glorify terrorism.

(Sidebar: any idiot can bang the drum for terrorism. What does it say about a government that already has the power to remove a dangerous individual and does not?)

 What took them so long and why should anyone listen?

Imam Syed Soharwardy and 37 other Muslim leaders from across the country have issued an Islamic edict called a fatwa against the militant group currently trying to attract supporters to its war in Syria and Iraq.

Soharwardy, the founder of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, said Wednesday the Islamic State is violating Muslim law. As a result, the group and anyone supporting them, will no longer be considered to be Muslim.

"They have been excommunicated from the Muslim community and those who will join them — they should be excommunicated from the Muslim community and they cannot be considered as Muslims at all," said Soharwardy.

That's nice except there is no excommunication in the religion that preaches jihad, only apostasy, for which the punishment is death.


A verdict is expected in the trial of Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jasser:

The fate of two men accused of plotting to derail a passenger train travelling between Canada and the U.S. now rests in the hands of a jury.

Justice Michael Code spent three and a half days delivering nearly 300 pages of instructions to jurors in the case of Raed Jaser and Chiheb Esseghaier.

Jaser is facing four terror-related charges while Esseghaier is facing five. Not guilty pleas have been entered for both men.

Jaser’s lawyer has argued that the permanent resident of Palestinian descent was only feigning interest in the alleged terror plot as part of an elaborate con to extract money from his co-accused and an undercover FBI agent who befriended the men.

Esseghaier, a Tunisian national who was pursuing a PhD in Montreal when he was arrested in 2013, chose not to participate in his trial because he had wanted to be judged by the rules of the Qur’an.

Crown prosecutors argued that there was an “overwhelming” amount of evidence against the accused, and urged the jury to find them guilty on all counts.

This woman is an accomplished liar:

Hillary Clinton admitted today that the whole time she was Secretary of State, she never used a secure government email address.

Instead, she used a private server out of her home. ...

Unless Japan and South Korea are willing to nuclearise, I'd say little will be resolved:

The foreign ministers of South Korea, Japan and China are preparing to meet this month for their first talks in nearly three years in a bid to resolve tensions over Japan's wartime past and discuss a trilateral summit.

Japanese media reported that the foreign ministers would likely meet in Seoul on March 21 and 22. South Korea said a ministers' meeting is planned for this month, without confirming the dates.

"If the trilateral foreign ministers’ meeting is held soon, it will undoubtedly give us the opportunity to re-establish the groundwork for trust-building and common prosperity," South Korea's deputy foreign minister Lee Kyung-soo said.

Forget the Dokdo Islands. Start asking China how far its waters extend.


How curious:

Ezra Levant and Sen. Mike Duffy have appeared on each other's talk shows over the years — now they'll both be featured in one of the year's most-watched courtroom dramas.

Levant, the provocative political commentator formerly of Sun News, has been subpoenaed to testify at Duffy's upcoming fraud and bribery trial.

Levant confirmed to The Canadian Press that he's been summoned as a Crown witness for the case that begins in an Ottawa court April 7.

Levant, also a lawyer and columnist, said he wrote "a couple" of speeches for Duffy five or six years ago. He declined to comment on the subject matter of the speeches.

"...Out of respect for the court I don't propose to give my testimony in advance," Levant said an email.

 

Sverige, var är kärleken?

 

Saudi Arabia has recalled its ambassador from Sweden, widening a diplomatic rift between two countries with sharply contrasting views on everything from women's rights to criminal justice.

 

The move comes after Sweden refused to renew a 10-year-old weapons deal with Saudi Arabia and the Saudis blocked the Swedish foreign minister from giving a speech to the Arab League.

Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman Gabriel Wernstedt said Wednesday that the Saudis were recalling their ambassador because of "Sweden's criticism regarding human rights and democracy" in the ultra-conservative kingdom.

The official Saudi Press Agency reported that the Saudi Foreign Ministry recalled its diplomat because it considered remarks by Sweden's foreign minister about the kingdom as "blatant interference it its internal affairs."

Sweden, one of Europe's most egalitarian and secular countries, has little in common with deeply religious Saudi Arabia. Yet the countries have previously had friendly relations and Saudi Arabia has been one of the Middle East's biggest buyers of Swedish arms exports.

 

But... but... global warming:

 

Environment Canada statistics confirm what Canucks felt in their frozen bones — this winter has been a brutal beating from Mother Nature.

There are reports that the snow banks in Moncton, N.B. are three storeys high.

Three. Storeys. ...

NASA kindly pointed out on Jan. 8 that it was warmer in the Gale Crater on Mars than it was throughout much of Canada, and there was one day in January that Ottawa was the coldest capital city on Earth — colder than Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia, and Moscow, Russia.

Niagara Falls froze. ...

 

A blocked jet stream that created a ridge of mild temperatures over B.C. and the Yukon became a trough over the East.

 While the West Coast enjoyed seasonal temperatures 4-5°C above normal and the Yukon and western Alberta 3-4°C above, Ontario and provinces further east were stuck under a mass of cold air that, like a bad dinner guest, showed up early, empty-handed, and left late.

This winter wallop for Ontario and Quebec comes on the heels of last winter, which bore the dubious honour of being the coldest in 35 years.

And while the mercury may have been a bit more merciful on the East Coast, residents of the Atlantic provinces were hit by a “relentless” series of snow storms.

“P.E.I. and southern Newfoundland got hit the hardest,” MacDonald said.

Those two provinces saw 2.5 times their normal amount of snow. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia had double.

The Maritimes on average saw 400-500 centimetres of the white stuff.

And now, twelve recipes that involve Cadbury creme eggs in some way.

UK Will Not Charge Schoolgirls for Travelling to Syria to Join ISIS

Remember when Britain was on top of things like this and this kind of activity would be seen for what it is: aid and comfort to a pack of murderous child-rapists:

Three British schoolgirls who travelled to Syria to join the Islamic State group won't be prosecuted for terrorism if they return, a senior British police officer said Tuesday.

Police chiefs also defended their handling of the case, denying a lawmaker's allegation that the failure to stop the teens was "a huge blow" to the credibility of the force.

Mark Rowley, head of counterterrorism for the Metropolitan Police, told lawmakers that "we have no evidence to support (the teens') involvement in terrorism."

(Sidebar: yeah, teen-agers always go to Islamist hot-spots for a bit of fun.) 

I'm certainly not going to let the families off on this but the police might as well admit that they are eunuchs and utterly useless in counter-terrorism.

You might have been great once, Britain.

Once.

Oops

Just in time for Saint Patrick's Day:

Ecstasy, ketamine, and hundreds of other drugs are currently legal in Ireland for one day only thanks to an accidental loophole in the law, The Journal reports.

Ireland's 1977 Misuse of Drugs Act was found unconstitutional by the Irish Court of Appeal on Tuesday morning — meaning that the drugs currently prohibited in it are legal.

Drugs that are currently legal in Ireland reportedly include ecstasy, crystal meth and ketamine. 

So-called 'legal highs' are also no longer prohibited, along with more than 100 other drugs, according to News Talk.

Heroin, cocaine and cannabis are not affected.

The Irish government is now preparing emergency legislation to fix this loophole. But despite sitting late tonight to do so, the law "can only take effect on the day after its signed into law," according to The Journal, meaning ecstasy will remain legal in Ireland until 12AM Thursday at the earliest.

The Irish government has released a statement admitting that while it "does not affect existing laws regarding the supply, possession or sale" of heroin, cocaine and cannabis, "it does affect the possession of certain newer psychoative substances."

Opportunistic drug dealers should still be wary, however. "We are advised that the sale and supply of psychoative substances remains an offence under existing legislation," the statement adds.

Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel

A tactic the Liberals know all too well.


What Justin Trudeau said:

 “So we should all shudder to hear the same rhetoric that led to a ‘none is too many’ immigration policy toward Jews in the ’30s and ’40s being used today, to raise fears against Muslims today,” ...

It is in reference to this:

The federal government has carried through on its promise to appeal a court ruling that invalidated a policy forbidding women from covering their faces when being sworn in as citizens.

In a notice filed Monday with the Federal Court of Appeal, lawyers for the minister of citizenship and immigration said a federal judge committed several errors in fact and law, including “misapprehending, misconstruing or failing to consider the evidence before the court.” ...

In a court ruling last month, federal Judge Keith Boswell deemed the niqab ban to be unlawful because it “interferes with a citizenship judge’s duty to allow candidates for citizenship the greatest possible freedom in the religious solemnization or the solemn affirmation of the oath.”

That prompted Prime Minister Stephen Harper to vow to appeal the ruling because covering one’s face while being sworn in is “not how we do things here” and is “offensive.”

What Canadians think:

Both Quebecers and other Canadians are united in opposition to the following being worn at work by public employees:

The burka : 90% of Quebecers and 62% in the rest of the country ...

**

The requirement of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) to remove full face coverings during citizenship ceremonies is not onerous and is consistent with the customs and conventions of an open liberal democratic society such as ours. But the Federal Court, in a judgment delivered by Justice Keith M. Boswell, has now deemed this requirement unlawful.

The ruling was made in a case filed by Zunera Ishaq, a Pakistani national and a permanent resident in Canada since October 2008. Ms. Ishaq argued that removing her niqab (a full face covering worn by some Muslim women), as required by the CIC regulation, would be an infringement on her religious beliefs, which are protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. She claimed that as a devout Sunni Muslim who voluntarily follows the Hanafi school of fiqh, or jurisprudence, in Islam, her wearing of the niqab is a religious obligation and that its removal would infringe her religious freedom.

Ms. Ishaq asked the court to declare the CIC policy as inconsistent with the governing legislation under paragraph 2(a) and section 15(1) of the Charter. The relevant sections of the Charter refer to “freedom of conscience and religion” and equality rights.

But Ms. Ishaq’s claim that she is required as a matter of religious belief to wear the niqab is untrue. Neither Islam, nor Hanafi rites or jurisprudence as part of Islamic belief, make such a requirement obligatory for Muslim women. The wearing of the niqab by a small percentage of Muslim women is a modern custom turned into religious mandate and enforced by coercion in public by Muslim extremists in Pakistan and some other Muslim majority countries.

What the facts say:




What history says about Justin Trudeau's inflammatory accusation:

On May 13, 1939, the MS St. Louis of the Hamburg-America Line, set sail for Havana, Cuba, with 937 Jewish refugees from Nazi persecution among the passengers. Although they had all purchased legal visas, the Cuban government reversed its position due to the influence of the German government and, when the ship arrived in Havana, she was refused permission to berth. Confusion and panic spread aboard ship as many of the passengers knew what would likely happen to them should they have to return to Germany.

Captain Gustav Schroder made for Florida but despite the efforts of members of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s cabinet, the United States chose not to get involved, citing existing immigration guidelines pertaining to entry visas. In Canada, petitions were sent to Prime Minister MacKenzie King but once again, the quiet anti-Semitism of the era meant that the refugees were turned away.

**

In 1942, the 23-year-old Trudeau was a member of a "secret" revolutionary organization calling for a "national revolution." "The nation that will be reborn from the revolution" would be Catholic and French. Even in 1944, when reports of Nazi atrocities could no longer be dismissed as propaganda, Trudeau was full of admiration for the writing of the now infamous French anti-Semite Charles Maurras.

Also:

The future Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau came in 1960 and co-wrote a starry-eyed book, Two Innocents in Red China, which rejected reports of famine.

(transcribed from Mao: the Unknown Story, pg. 460)


What Jason Kenney said:

What day-to-day life for women not wearing any head coverings say:

A series of acid attacks on women in the historic Iranian city of Isfahan has raised fears and prompted rumors that the victims were targeted for not being properly veiled.

**

The Islamic State policing unit in Mosul severely disfigured the faces of 15 Iraqi women by pouring acid on them as a form of punishment after the women were caught without their faces being veiled appropriately, by ISIS standards, last weekend.

(photo credit here)

What could be a calculated jab at the Tories- specifically Harper-is just another unsubstantiated low-blow that might appeal to low-information voters but nauseate anyone else who can see what a shameful and stupid ploy this is.

Pathetic.

Monday Post

Quickly now...


Whatever you do, don't build a pipeline:

The federal government defended its efforts to boost rail safety Monday in the wake of a fiery derailment in northern Ontario that has stoked concerns over the transportation of crude oil by train.

Last Saturday's derailment of a CN train near Gogama was the second such incident near the community about 80 kilometres south of Timmins in less than a month, and the local member of provincial parliament said it left residents on edge.

Well, this is embarrassing:

The RCMP has searched offices of the top Ontario Provincial Police union leaders as part of a criminal investigation, prompting the senior officials to step aside.

Ontario Provincial Police Association president Jim Christie and vice-president Martin Bain have taken voluntary leaves of absence following the RCMP search of their offices in Barrie on Friday, the union said in a statement Monday.

That's curious because I remember a substitute drama teacher's father riding about with a German helmet and giving the Nazi salute during the war:

In 1939, the MS St. Louis was turned away from Canada.  915 Jewish refugees were sent back to Europe to face the horrors of Adolf Hitler’s concentration camps.  This is a stain on our nation’s history.  A time when the popular thought on Jewish immigration to Canada was “none is too many.”

Luckily, since that horrendous crime against humanity, Canada has become a welcoming mat for those who face persecution and genocide elsewhere.  The way we are today will never make up for the sins of the past.  But we can all be proud of what our nation has become. 

Almost all of us…

Justin Trudeau inexplicably compared the Conservative government’s policies with the anti-Semitic immigration policies of the 1930s and ‘40s.

“So we should all shudder to hear the same rhetoric that led to a ‘none is too many’ immigration policy toward Jews in the ’30s and ’40s being used today, to raise fears against Muslims today,” Trudeau said. 

What Trudeau is referring to is the Conservatives’ policy to ban the niqab during citizenship ceremonies.  One could legitimately oppose the Harper government’s decision to force all new citizens to show their face at citizenship ceremonies.  Although many Canadians, and in fact many Muslims, will agree with the government’s decision on this, it is possible to have a legitimate grievance with it.  Justin Trudeau’s hyperbole, and his comparing something that is quite legitimate to the fate that awaited those 915 refugees as they returned to Europe, is simply beyond the pale.

 
Whatever it takes to win, eh, Justin?


Oh, dear:

“Women provide 66% of the work, produce 50% of the food, but earn only 10% of the income and own 1% of the property. We can change this.” ...
 

Amazingly enough, most of this factoid — the 66 percent of work, 10 percent of income and 1 percent of property — dates back to some very fuzzy research from the late 1970s. Philip Cohen, a University of Maryland sociology professor, in 2011 traced it to a journal published by the International Labor Organization in 1978. Without any sourcing, the journal made this assertion:

“A world profile on women, using selected economic and social indicators, reveals that women constitute one half of the world population and one third of the official labor force; perform nearly two-thirds of work hours; but according to some estimates receive only one-tenth of the world income and possess less than one-hundredth of world property.”

So you can see right away that, whatever the provenance of this figure, it is surely somewhat dated nearly four decades later, especially given the movement of women into the workforce in many industrialized countries.

In 2007, Krishna Ahooja-Patel, an Indian lawyer who had worked for the United Nations for 25 years, wrote a book, “Development Has A Woman’s Face: Insights from Within the U.N,” in which she revealed she was responsible for the statistic.

We’ve embedded a copy of the relevant text at the end of the column, but her explanation is maddeningly imprecise. She says she relied on “various UN statistics,” “available global data,” and “fragmentary indicators at the time.” As Cohen put it, the statistics turned out to be “a guess based on an extrapolation wrapped round an estimate.” Yet Ahooja-Patel even suggested that women might own “much lower” than 1 percent of world assets.

**

In 2010, encouraged by a provincial initiative to encourage green energy, Blind River arranged to borrow $49.5-million from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. CMHC was offering low-interest loans for infrastructure projects as part of the federal government’s Economic Action Plan.

The town already had its own small hydro dam and a wind turbine. This loan would allow Blind River to build a massive solar farm that would create jobs – much needed in the area – and give its people low-cost, renewable and clean energy. All very admirable.

Quickly, however, the best-laid plans began to go wrong. The solar farm couldn’t get approval to hook into the provincial grid. Solving the conductivity problem would prove hugely expensive, so the town looked for an alternative. ...

(Merci beaucoup)


Are people really that stupid?

Two American tourists have been accused of carving their initials into Rome's Colosseum.

The women, from California, scratched the letters J and N with a coin in the 2,000-year-old stone of Rome's arena, local newspaper Il Messaggero reported.

Afterwards the pair, reported to be 21 and 25, took a selfie.

The women had broken away from their group to scratch the initials, which are each reported to be about 8cm (3in) long.

They were briefly held by Rome’s police and questioned.

Il Messaggero quoted the two as apologizing and saying they did not think it was a big deal, but they might still face penalties over the vandalism.

And now, copy-cat recipes. Ingest the salt.