It’s Friday!

A lot in the news…..

Uh-oh:

The IDF has issued emergency call up orders to six reserve battalions in light of new dangers on the Egyptian and Syrian borders. And the Knesset has given the IDF permission to summon a further 16 reserve battalions if necessary, Israeli media reported on Wednesday.

China-related items:

The time to help Chen Guancheng is now:

Chen Guangcheng spoke live via telephone today at an emergency Congressional hearing today in the U.S. House about his situation and how he desires to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

At the end of a hearing today, in which several top activists fighting for human rights and freedom for Chen and his supporters pressing the case against forced abortions, Bob Fu, the president of ChinaAid, got Chen on the phone for the members of Congress in attendance to hear.

After the witnesses had all testified, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) asked if anyone had been in touch with Chen since Wednesday. A short time later, Fu and CECC chairman Chris Smith (R-NJ) telephoned Chen and were able to have him speak directly to the hearing.

Chen, from a room at the hospital where he is getting medical care, told members of the panel that he wanted to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and that he hoped he could get help from her and meet her face to face to talk about his situation. Chen said he did not realize the extent of the danger he faces until he left the U.S. Embassy.

“I want to meet with Secretary Clinton. I hope I can get more help from her,” he said.

Chen told the panel he is worried about the safety of his family, his brothers and supporters who helped rescue him from home detention. He said immediately after he was discovered missing, his daughter was banned from going to school.

The “Starbucks/backpack-wearing” crack won’t be so funny when India marches China into the sea:

One of China’s main official newspapers accused blind dissident Chen Guangcheng on Friday of serving as a “tool” for American subversion of Communist Party power and called the U.S. ambassador a backpack-wearing, Starbucks-sipping troublemaker.

The commentary in the Beijing Daily was the strongest Chinese state media condemnation yet of the U.S. administration in a standoff over Chen, who sought protection in the U.S. embassy in Beijing, then left, and has now said he regrets that choice and wants exile in the United States.

The paper, main mouthpiece of the Beijing city Communist Party authorities, accused the U.S. embassy and U.S. ambassador Gary Locke of engineering incidents intended to sully the Chinese government’s reputation and to foment social discontent.

It said the embassy’s sheltering of Chen was the most recent and most egregious example of this.

“This so-called ‘rights defence hero’ has been packaged by the United States and Western media and given an eye-catching political label, (and) set up as a representative figure against society and against the system,” the paper said of Chen.

“Chen Guangcheng has become a tool and a pawn for American politicians to blacken China,” it added.

Chen and his demands for protection, it said, “fully demonstrate just how desperate American politicians are in sparing no effort to cause trouble for Chinese society.” [...]

 

Trespassing is a crime, no matter what newspaper you work for.

David Menzies makes fun of Occupests ™.

Who is the worst premier of all time? I'd say Bob Rae or Dalton McGuinty. Both are pretty stinky.

 

There's a Harper/Santorum Axis now?  This is why people like Mark Steyn and Rex Murphy. They are upfront, witty and razor-sharp. This article is as imaginative and logical as any kind of fairy tale. Axis? Oil? Evangelical?  This kind of emotional idiocy distracts the reader from the real issues at hand:

Is it a coincidence that the Harper government referred to “radical environmentalists” just more than a week after Santorum did? Perhaps, but there are other interesting parallels between the Harper and Santorum approaches to opponents of increased fossil-fuel use.

Santorum went further than Harper in vilifying opponents. “It has nothing to do with a pipeline. It has to do with an ideology, a religion of its own that’s being pushed on the American public,” Santorum proclaimed in a message that was not widely reported.

Three weeks later, when Obama announced he was not approving Keystone – at least until he was safely re-elected – Santorum enlarged the “radical environmentalist” frame to include Obama himself. But Santorum’s remarks didn’t go viral until Feb. 20, when, at a campaign stop in Ohio, he accused Obama of believing in “some phony ideal, some phony theology. Not a theology based on the Bible.”

A biblical view, said Santorum, would be “about the belief that man is – should be – in charge of the Earth and have dominion over it and be good stewards of it,” whereas the “radical environmentalist” believes that “man is here to serve the Earth, as opposed to husband its resources and be good stewards of the Earth. And I think that is a phony ideal.”

So, what is the real deal, according to Santorum? On the third day, God raised the dry land up from the waters below the heavens, and commanded the Earth to bring forth all plants and create the bitumen. God saw that it was good.

On the sixth day, God commanded the Earth to bring forth all kinds of living creatures, and he saw that it was good. God then said, “Let us make man in our own image.” So God created man and woman in his own likeness and gave them dominion over all living things, as well as bitumen extraction.

For evangelicals like Santorum, it’s a simple proposition: Resisting bitumen extraction and transport by pipeline is a denial of God’s law.

Santorum is up front with his radical conservative religious beliefs. In contrast, though the influence of evangelicals and social conservatives in his government is a matter of record, Harper keeps his views to himself. Nevertheless, since 2006, Harper has been a member of Ottawa’s Eastgate Alliance church, which is affiliated with the Christian and Missionary Alliance...

Catholics aren't evangelicals, Harper isn't a social conservative and one is more than welcome to walk everywhere if ethical Canadian oil is beneath one's slippery morality.

There are real fanatics about, not lurking in the shadows but in the daylight. They are open and active because they know "writers" like the one who put out such drivel as above will never fortify themselves and write about the things that truly matter. Instead, they imagine things that just aren't there. Santorum isn't running for president any longer and Harper is as socially conservative as any Liberal Party member.

But why let facts get in the way?

(enormous thumbs up)

Write your own headline for this. The topic is quite an open field:

In eastern Paktya province, six Taliban militants were killed and two others wounded Thursday when the roadside bomb they were building in a mosque exploded, said Roullah Samon, a spokesman for the provincial governor. He said four of those killed were foreign fighters.

(with thanks)

Jesús is Spanish for Jesus just like Che Guevara is Spanish for “boy-killer” and “get stuffed” is English for “grow the hell up, you thin-skinned pantywaists”!

A Christian student suspended from a high school in Nova Scotia for sporting a T-shirt with the slogan "Life is wasted without Jesus" vows to wear it when he returns to class next week.

William Swinimer, who's in Grade 12, was suspended from Forest Heights Community School in Chester Basin in Lunenburg County for five days. He's due to return to class on Monday.

The devout Christian says the T-shirt is an expression of his beliefs, and he won't stop wearing it.

"I believe there are things that are bigger than me. And I think that I need to stand up for the rights of people in this country, and religious rights and freedom of speech," he told CBC.

Officials with the South Shore Regional School Board plan to meet with Swinimer to hopefully reach a compromise.

Nancy Pynch-Worthylake, board superintendent, said some students and teachers found the T-shirt offensive.

"When one is able or others are able to interpret it as, 'If you don't share my belief then your life is wasted,' that can be interpreted by some as being inappropriate," she said.

Just like the intellectual and emotional midgets who spell Christians “xtians” or cannot bring themselves to capitalise God or Jesus even though English grammar demands that you do it, these school board officials cannot bring themselves to be adults at any time.

(Muchas gracias)

How is embryonic stem cell research promising again?

Human embryonic stem cells give a whole new meaning to the phrase “taking one for the team.” Unlike any other known human cell type, hESCs are primed to immediately throw themselves on the sword if they experience any DNA damage, according to research published online today (May 3) in Molecular Cell.

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) form the early embryo and eventually give rise to every cell type in the body. Because of this, a rapid self-destruct mechanism activated by DNA damage may prevent potentially dangerous mutations from spreading through the developing organism, the authors concluded.

The data is “convincing,” wrote Christopher Navara, who studies stem cells at the University of Texas at San Antonio and was not involved in the research, in an email to The Scientist. “hES cells have adopted a number of unique cell cycle and cell death regulatory mechanisms” to balance their rapid proliferation with maintaining a stable, healthy genome, he wrote.

Four years ago, Mohanish Deshmukh and colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that neurons—which, unlike stem cells, do not divide—restrict apoptosis, or cell death, allowing them to survive through periods of stress or cell damage that might otherwise stimulate apoptosis. To explore apoptosis at the other end of the development spectrum, the researchers next analyzed human ESCs, which constantly divide.

They had two hypotheses: the hESCs would be highly resistant to apoptosis since there are only about 50 of them in the early embryo and thus each is valuable; or they would be highly sensitive to apoptosis since DNA damage in even a single cell would quickly spread through an embryo. “We figured it could go either way,” said Deshmukh. “We were very curious.”

First, the team doused hESCs in a chemotherapy drug that causes DNA damage. Almost 100 percent of the hESCs died in just 5 hours, compared to 24 hours for fibroblasts. The finding is “consistent with what we and others have observed regarding sensitivity to DNA damage in hES cells,” said Navara.

When Deshmukh’s team stressed the ESCs in other ways, such as damaging the cytoskeleton, the cells did not die as quickly, demonstrating their acute sensitivity to DNA damage. “DNA damage is the one insult these embryonic stem calls can’t tolerate,” said Deshmukh. “It’s catastrophic for them. Any mutations they occur will be propagated rapidly through the system.”

Apoptosis is traditionally a lengthy process that involves the activation of a protein called Bax, which travels to the mitochondria and initiates the release of caspases, or “executioner” proteins that cause cell death. To investigate how hESCs initiate the process so rapidly, the researchers tagged Bax with an antibody that lights up when the protein is active. They were surprised to find that Bax is already active in healthy hESCs, unlike every other cell type in which Bax is activated only when a cell is damaged or dying. “I was stunned,” said Deshmukh. “I thought something was wrong. We spent a lot of time convincing ourselves that these cells were healthy and not actively dying.”

This is Julia. Obama thinks Julia is useless without him. Others think Julia is a ploy worthy of parody. Enjoy. It’s Friday.

Related: the Chosen One has a rather poor resources and jobs record:

A month after the BP (BP) spill the agency debuted new safety rules, under pressure by green groups. The May 2010 announcement included a six-month gulf drilling ban, which shut 33 deep wells.

The decision arguably hurt the region worse than the spill itself, says Joe Mason, a senior fellow at the Wharton School. "Job losses were not too bad until the moratorium," he told IBD.

Interior's estimate was that well closures temporarily cost 8,000-12,000 jobs and $1.2 billion in economic activity. Mason put job losses at 13,000-19,000, lost wages at $800 million and lost tax revenue at $200 million.

When Interior said the engineers backed the ban, the engineers were shocked. The idea of a moratorium never came up in their sessions and was not recommended, five of the seven told IBD. There was no need to stop other wells, they said.

The panel members' colleagues thought they had lost their minds when the news broke, one said. "My phones started melting," recalled Robert Bea, a retired University of California at Berkeley professor.

They issued a joint letter to the administration and gulf-area politicians. "A moratorium was added after the final review and was never agreed to by the contributors," it said. "It will not measurably reduce risk further, and it will have a lasting impact on the nation's economy, which may be greater than that of the oil spill."

The administration said then, and continues to say now, that safety was paramount. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar recognized that the U.S. "could neither afford the risk nor respond to a second catastrophic spill in the gulf," department spokesman Adam Fletcher said. The oil and gas industry "needed to make immediate safety upgrades before resuming deep-water drilling."

But two of the seven engineers told IBD that the moratorium was actually the more dangerous option. "Starting and stopping operations is unsafe in itself," said Ford Brett, a drilling consultant.

(with thanks)

Police Cat SHOULD be a cop show and we all know it.

(paws up)

 

May the Fourth Be With You…

… always….

Stars Wars crafts here.

Mid-Week Post

Quickly now...


If Parks Canada must be under the purview of the government, give it the money one would otherwise waste on "green" projects that go nowhere:

A prominent tourism operator in eastern Newfoundland says federal cuts to Parks Canada fly in the face of the Conservatives' goal of having the private sector take a stronger role in rural economies.

"Economically, this is very harmful," said Trinity-based John Fisher, who operates an inn in Newfoundland's Trinity Bay, reacting to news that Parks Canada will be eliminating jobs and reducing the operating seasons for national parks and historic sites....

Federal Environment Minister Peter Kent defended the cuts.

“Our government is sensitive to the concerns of the tourism industry and its importance to the national and regional economies,” Kent said in a prepared statement emailed to CBC News. “That is why the changes we are making ensure that staff are there when the most visitors come to our parks.”

Kent says Ottawa has “greatly expanded” the country’s parks and marine protection areas, and launched a tourism strategy to help maximize the economic growth and job creation in this sector. 

“Canada’s national parks and historic sites such as Gros Morne are among Canada’s greatest tourism attractions,” Kent said. “We hope more people will experience the natural beauty of our parks.”

This would be a costly moral mistake if action is not taken:

Activist Chen Guangcheng told AFP on Thursday he did not feel safe in China despite assurances made under a deal to remove him from the US embassy, pleading for American help to take him abroad.

"I want to go overseas. I want the US to help me and my family leave China," Chen said by phone from a Beijing hospital where he is being treated for a foot injury suffered during a daring escape from house arrest on April 22.

"I don't feel safe here. I want to leave."

Chen, who riled Chinese authorities by exposing forced abortions and sterilisations under the "one-child" population control policy, fled his heavily guarded eastern China home and gained refuge in the US embassy, where he demanded assurances on his freedom.

He left the embassy Wednesday and was reunited with family members at the hospital after the US said it had received "assurances" from China that he would be safe from reprisals.

But US-based rights group China Aid has said Chen had "reluctantly" left the embassy and that it had been told by "reliable sources" that Beijing had made threats against his relatives over the affair.

Chen said he did not initially want to seek asylum overseas but changed his mind Wednesday after emerging from the embassy amid concern for his safety and that of his family.

"I did not make the final decision at the US embassy, I made it yesterday. I don't think the US is protecting me," he said.

Chen will never be heard from again if action is not taken now.



Because he's John Bolton:

While America may be unable to exert a decisive influence either on China’s future domestic affairs or its external behavior, we should not be ambiguous here. We should grant Chen asylum, insist that his family in China be protected, speak out against the “one child” policy and much, much more.

America must not be a well-bred doormat on Chen’s asylum request or on any other bilateral issue with China.

Guess what they're teaching at the Centre Madrasah:

If the child of an unbeliever is captured by Muslims, and his father, paternal grandfather or maternal grandfather is not with him, he becomes Pak. In both the cases, the child becomes Pak by subjection, on the condition that if it has attained the age of understanding and discerning, it does not show inclination to Kufr.

The "dreadful" Americans take in an endangered Afghan girl:

In a remote part of Afghanistan early last year, a girl was sentenced to death. Her crime was possession of a cellphone. Her executioners were to be her brothers. They suspected her of talking on the phone with a boy. 
The girl, in her late teens, had dishonored the family, her brothers said.

"My older brother took the cellphone from me and beat me very badly. It was dinnertime. They told me that they would execute me after dinner. They said to me this would be my last meal," says "Lina," a pseudonym....

But saving a teenage girl was not part of the battle plan for U.S. forces in Afghanistan — it might even have jeopardized that mission.

Afghan advisers told Americans at the base very bluntly: To keep peace with the community, Lina had to go home, even if it meant her death. Her original "crime" now paled in comparison to the fact that Lina had spent weeks living with non-Muslim soldiers, says Huma Safi, a women's rights advocate in Kabul.

"In Afghan society, women stay with their families. When they spend nights in other places, it's a dishonor for their families. It's not just the military base ... they don't want their daughters to spend the night anywhere," says Safi.

An elder from the community stayed on the base with Lina, but he stopped speaking to her once she said she wanted to stay with the foreigners. Her family also tried to convince her to come home, but Lina knew it was a trick, says Larsen.

"The hard part was as I watched her sister beg her to come home. Even her niece and nephew, who were very young, were there as well," Larsen says. "She was glad to see them, she hugged them and kissed them. 

But as soon as her sister even suggested that she come back home, the whole meeting came to a screeching halt. She had no time for her sister, and she asked her to leave. It was hard to watch. At that moment, an interpreter was unnecessary."

Lina also saw her brothers again — they surprised her by showing up at a meeting near the base. Larsen says she feared the brothers might try to kidnap Lina or even throw acid on her at the meeting. Lina says she knew her family planned to lure her home to kill her.

"My brothers pleaded with me to return home. I told them no. They said they would let me marry whoever makes me happy. I asked them, 'Why would I ever believe you?' " Lina says.

This is where the story in Afghanistan often ends: The woman is sent home, and later killed by her family to cleanse the dishonor.

But Lina's tale has a rare happy ending. U.S. officials helped fly her to a women's shelter in a larger city, while Afghan officials in her province agreed to look the other way.

This "difference" of culture has seemed to escape the notice of the allegedly progressive.



(with thanks)



If you didn't do any of the heavy lifting, you probably shouldn't take credit for it.



(with thanks)



And now, a chocolate candle for a chocolate cake.

You’re Mentioned in the Third Paragraph

A few things….

The first of May has for the longest time been a special day for those who still don't understand what a tremendous failure communism has been the world over.

And they say leftists are smart. 

A mohawk-wearing anarchist nicknamed “Cyco” was among five men arrested after allegedly conspiring to blow up a bridge about 15 miles south of Cleveland, the FBI said Tuesday.

Douglas L. Wright, 26, joined alleged co-conspirators Brandon L. Baxter, 20, a.k.a. “Skabby,” and Anthony Hayne, 35, a.k.a. “Tony” and “Billy,” in a plot that authorities say honed in on the Brecksville-Northfield High Level Bridge, which spans the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and carries a four-lane highway.

The men have been charged with conspiracy and attempted use of explosive materials to damage physical property affecting interstate commerce.

(with thanks)

China wants the US and Russia to make drastic reductions in their arms:

China called on the United States and Russia - which hold the vast majority of the world's nuclear warheads - on Monday to make further "drastic" cuts in their atomic arsenals.

A senior Chinese diplomat also told a meeting in Vienna that the development of missile defense systems which "disrupt" the global strategic balance should be abandoned, a possible reference to U.S. plans in Europe that have angered Russia.

A new U.S.-Russian arms reduction treaty will cut long-range, strategic nuclear weapons deployed by the two Cold War-era foes to no more than 1,550 on each side within seven years after it came into force in February 2011.

But they still have by far the most nuclear arms - a fact stressed by the Chinese representative on the opening day of a two-week conference to discuss the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a 1970 pact to prevent the spread of atomic bombs.

China, Britain and France are the other three recognized nuclear weapons states. But the size of their arsenals are in the low hundreds, well below those of the United States and Russia which have thousands of nuclear warheads.

Ambassador Cheng Jingye, head of the Chinese delegation, said all nuclear weapons states should publicly undertake "not to seek permanent possession" of atomic bombs.

"As countries with (the) largest nuclear arsenals, U.S. and Russia should continue to make drastic reductions in their nuclear arsenals in a verifiable and irreversible manner," he said, according to a copy of his statement.

"Other nuclear weapon states, when conditions are ripe, should also join the multilateral negotiations on nuclear disarmament," Cheng added, apparently referring to the five recognized nuclear-armed countries.

India and Pakistan - which also have nuclear arms - are not part of the NPT. Israel, widely believed to have weapons arms, is also outside the treaty, as is North Korea, which is believed to be preparing for a third nuclear test.

The Non-Aligned Movement of developing and other states also called on the United States and Russia to cut their arsenals, expressing concern that nuclear weapon modernization undermines the "minimal reductions" agreed by them.

Now why would China want to short-change Russia?

Petitions to sign:

Keep Khadr out of Canada

Support Motion 312

Please do. They are so important.

Watch as teen-agers walk out on professional douchebag and columnist, Dan Savage, for being a bully, creep and just plain disgusting.

I’m sure they meant that Saint Brendan sailed here first:

The debate over how Europeans came to "discover" the Americas has gained fresh impetus among historians thanks to new research into the voyages of John Cabot, according to Postmedia News.

Prof. Francesco Guidi-Bruscoli of the University of Florence found intriguing tidbits of evidence that suggest Italian-born John Cabot, thought to have been the first to reach what is now Canada (Newfoundland) in 1497, may have had prior knowledge before he set sail.

The clue turned up as Guidi-Bruscoli researched the financing of a series of voyages between 1496 and 1498, when he disappeared.

The historian, working with British researchers, found a brief reference in a 516-year-old accounting ledger that points to support from a bank in Florence for Cabot's expedition to find "the new land." 

The revelation suggests the voyage was not a strictly English enterprise, as has been generally accepted.

"It opens a whole new chapter in Cabot scholarship, introducing an unexpected European dimension and posing new questions for the field," Guidi-Bruscoli writes in an article published in the scholarly journal Historical Research.

God guard thee, Newfoundland....

And the next Star Trek villain is.....

Actor Ricardo Montalban delivered that hammy line with the right amount of cheese in the 1982 film "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan."

Now, we're learning the villain in the upcoming "Star Trek" sequel will be none other than Khan Noonien Singh.