Mid-Week Post

Rich, filling and with no after-taste....


The Northern Gateway pipeline has been approved after a four year-long review:

The federal government approved the Northern Gateway project Tuesday, a confirmation that had already riled pipeline foes before the decision was announced.

Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford's announcement opened Round 2 of what will become a lengthy legal skirmish with some aboriginal bands and environmentalists threatening to disrupt the $7-billion project.

The pipeline had already won the first round: approval in December from the National Energy Board and Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency after 18 months of public hearings.

Regulators imposed 209 conditions on builder Enbridge before shovels break ground on the twin 1,177-km pipeline from Alberta to the BC coastal municipality of Kitimat, where super-tankers are to ship diluted bitumen to Asia.

The pipeline is still subject to two hundred and nine conditions, as well as absurd oppositions that propose no feasible alternatives or economy-boosting solutions.

Canada is a resource-rich country. It is disastrous not to rely on these resources for our own and for others' benefit. Anyone who proposes not to do so is mad.


I'm sure e-mails on government servers get lost all the time:

The agency revealed Friday it had lost two years of potentially incriminating e-mails from Lois Lerner, the former IRS official who has been at the center of the investigation, and on Tuesday, the House Ways and Means Committee found that five more IRS employees had also lost e-mail correspondence.

It's time for some prison sentences.


Two hundred and seventy-five troops against the al Qaeda offshoot, ISIS, just won't cut it:

President Barack Obama told Congress on Monday the United States was deploying up to 275 military personnel to provide support and security for U.S. personnel and the country's embassy in Baghdad after militants seized control of the north of the country.

Much like anything he has done, this proposal is window-dressing from a president who prefers to golf rather than do anything constructive. The situation in Iraq is well out-of-hand. At this point, it is Iran versus a handful of Middle Eastern oil magnates still standing. The entire region is a hot zone.

Time to hit the links.


We don't have to trade with China:

A cheap brand of Chinese-made smartphones carried by major online retailers comes preinstalled with espionage software, a German security firm said Tuesday.

G Data Software said it found malicious code hidden deep in the propriety software of the Star N9500 when it ordered the handset from a website late last month. The find is the latest in a series of incidents where smartphones have appeared preloaded with malicious software.

The Chinese government continues to crackdown on Christians:

Chinese authorities completed their task of removing yet another cross from a church today, nearly a week after a group of Christians tried to stop the government's anti-church campaign.

As The Telegraph’s Tom Phillips reports from Shanghai, on early Tuesday morning a red cross was removed from the top of Guantou church, located in Wenzhou, a city known as "China’s Jerusalem." Last Wednesday, members of the church successfully stopped a demolition crew from removing the cross, but it was removed with a crane in secret this morning, according to Zheng Legou, a local church leader who spoke with Phillips. 

There are more than 67 million Christians in China, according to the Pew Research Center, but a Chinese official for religious affairs said the spread of the religion was “too excessive and too haphazard” in an address to Communist Party members. 

This morning’s action has renewed fears that China is cracking down on mainstream religion as Christianity moves across the country. In April, authorities razed an entire megachurch in Wenzhou, which is known for its large Christian population, and in March 2013, the Zhejiang government launched a three-year “Three Rectifications and One Demolition” campaign to “rectify” and destroy what they considered to be “illegal structures.” The United States' Congressional-Executive Commission on China released a statement on June 6 saying the program “contravenes international norms and Chinese regulations governing religious affairs.”

But... but...

Pope Francis strongly condemned “gender ideology” in a private conversation with Austrian Bishop Andreas Laun earlier this year, the bishop related in a recent essay.

In doing so, the pope follows in the footsteps of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. Nearing the end of his pontificate, the pope emeritus spoke twice about gender ideology as “a negative trend for humankind,” and a “profound falsehood,” which “it is the duty of pastors of the Church” to put the faithful “on guard against.”

Bishop Laun, auxiliary bishop of Salzburg, wrote about the words of Pope Francis in March in an essay for the German Catholic news publication Kath.net. Bishop Laun told LifeSiteNews that he met the pope briefly on January 30 as part of the Austrian bishops’ ad limina visit, a meeting with the pope that bishops must do every five years.  Laun added that he was the last of the bishops to speak with the Holy Father. 

“In response to my questioning, Pope Francis said, ‘Gender ideology is demonic!’” Laun wrote in his essay, adding that the pope was not exaggerating in his comment.  “Indeed, gender ideology is the destruction of persons, which is why Pope Francis was justified in calling it demonic,” he said.

It is refreshing to hear the gurgling sounds of American leftists and anti-Catholics (both equally stupid) choking on their own delusions. If anyone was expecting this pope to be to the far left, it is wonderful to disappoint them.



This should be mandatory reading material:

2. WE ARE A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS
 
No, we’re not. We’re a nation of citizens. This country was built on legal immigration, and the ones who made it through learned the language and assimilated. Many didn’t get in. Today’s scenario is 15 million illegals ridiculing those of us who played by the rules. My green card took 15 years to get and I brought a ton of jobs with me. The Statue of Liberty doesn’t say “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, and all their relatives.” 
Oh, and don’t give me that old “They’re doing jobs Americans won’t do” line. They’re doing jobs Americans won’t do—for that price. In Canada, there are no Mexicans and the landscaping still gets done. We use teenagers....

6. WOMEN MAKE LESS THAN MEN
Obama Tweeted this old wives’ tale recently. Does anyone in the White House have a fucking computer? Women choose to make less than men because they’d rather be at their daughter’s piano recital than stay at the office all night working on a proposal. When they don’t have kids, they actually make more than men. If women were cheaper labor, we’d hire them as often as we hire illegal aliens.
On The Independents recently, Jill Filipovic told me that resumes with female names do worse than the same ones with male names. I’m willing to accept that, but it’s not prejudice. It’s postjudice. Employers have noticed their male employees are more likely to stay at the office all night working, even when their daughter does have a piano recital.

7. PRO-LIFERS ARE SEXIST
Most women are pro-life. To ignore their rights while touting abortion is sexist. Also, gender-based abortion is becoming more popular. We’ve seen how that goes for women in China. It ain’t pretty. So stop using abortion rights as some kind of proof there’s a war on women when the opposite is true. ...

10. CHRISTIANS ARE ANTI-SCIENCE
Maybe one in ten Americans believes the earth is only a few thousand years old, and most of those people are old ladies and dirt-poor farmers. They’re not shutting down schools and canceling Cosmos. The other 90% of us are totally okay with the big bang theory. Even the pope supports it. We understand there’s evolution and an incredible universe. We just think God is the one who set the whole thing up. 
Also, if you love science so much, stop refusing vaccinations for your kid. You’re literally making us sick....

 

Read the whole thing. Myths that are trotted out are begging to be dispelled.

And now, as majestic as they may seem, leave the bears alone:

Monday Post

So begins the work-week...


Premier Kathleen Wynne to re-introduce the May 1st budget when the legislature returns on July 2nd:

Speaking to reporters at Queen’s Park, Wynne said she is “very excited” to implement the budget. She also stuck to her promise of eliminating the $12.5-billion deficit by 2017-18.

The Liberal budget, presented on May 1, includes a 10-year, $2.5-billion jobs plan, $15 billion for transit projects in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton areas and $14 billion for infrastructure projects.

Remember- the province of Detroit Ontario's debt is over $271 billion. The manufacturing sector is depleting. Ontario also has some of the highest energy costs in the country. Its "sunshine list" has expanded by eleven percent. There is no money to pay for these projects, pay down the debt and not freeze the wages of public servants.

Ontario Liberal voters, this is your government.

In 2008, Obama declared he would meet with Iran without pre-conditions. During student protests in 2009, Obama offered neither material or moral support. His top adviser, Valerie Jarrett, held secret talks with representatives of Ayatollah Khamenei. Sanctions lifted against Iran neither stopped enrichment of nuclear material nor did hinder the state's ability to do business abroad or finance its programs. Now Iran has stepped in and offered its dubious support for its former enemy, Iraq:

 

The Obama administration is willing to talk with Iran over deteriorating security conditions in Iraq and is not ruling out potential U.S.-Iranian military cooperation in stemming the advance of Sunni extremists, Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday.

Now, I think it's not a matter of Obama's idiocy, weakness or indifference. There is no way one cannot see this as an attempt to empower Iran and destabilise the region or at least remove any vestige of American influence and authority on the global stage. One can conclude that was Obama's endgame. It seems clear given his weak posturing and overtures to dictators and his platitudes to the ignorant electorate. Obama withdrew from Iraq. He even gave a time-table. He has never responded to any crisis or threat in the region the way previous leaders had and has no intention of doing so. Iraqi soldiers simply walk away leaving behind American material for ISIS. Yet another humanitarian crisis erupts in the Middle East. Yet, with a crippled American economy, he still insists on the use of foreign (ie- Venezuelan or Saudi) oil, further empowering dictatorial regimes.

Impeach him. Now.

It's time for Ukraine to frack its own gas:

Further aggravating already tense relations between Russia and Ukraine, the Russian energy giant Gazprom cut off natural gas supplies to its neighbor on Monday, warning that the reduction could diminish the amount of gas flowing to Europe.

 

And now, Pixel Trek will take you where no pixel has gone before.

Happy Father's Day

To the man who could not ignore:

Can we have ice cream, Dad?
Can we have ice cream, Dad?
Can we have ice cream, Dad?

This day is for you.

Surely not!

Ontario Is Taking Crazy Pills

Good Lord:

The ballots have been cast and counted: Ontario has a new Liberal majority government.

There is nothing a Liberal voter will care about at all.


Meanwhile, Tim Hudak (the one who ran a principled campaign) has stepped down.


Rest assured Kathleen Wynne will come after those she hates the most: the people of Ontario.

Energy costs are going to go up, the bureaucracy will be bloated to Baron Harkonnen proportions and no manufacturing jobs (or any private sector jobs, really) will be created.

Prove me wrong, Liberal voters. Prove me wrong.

Mid-Week Post

On the other side of Narnia…

Trinity Western University’s plans to open its own law school, which would require students sign a pledge not to engage in activities deemed contrary to Judeo-Christian beliefs, have been delayed because of a motion rejecting the institution:

Lawyers in British Columbia have rejected a Christian university's plans to open a law school — a result that, while not binding, represents a strong rebuke of the school's policies forbidding sex outside heterosexual marriage.

The vote is the latest setback for Trinity Western University, a school with about 4,000 students in B.C.'s Fraser Valley, and is sure to amplify an ongoing debate over the rights of a private institution to impose its religious views about homosexuality on students.

The university, which plans to open a law school in the fall of 2016, requires students to sign a so-called community covenant. The document includes a passage that forbids sex outside of marriage, defined as between a man and a woman, and students can be disciplined for violating it.

(Sidebar: the pledge also cautions against alcohol and tobacco abuse.)

The Federation of Law Societies of Canada and the Law Society of B.C.'s benchers have already voted to accept graduates of Trinity Western, which has also been accredited by the province's Advanced Education Ministry.

But more than a thousand B.C. lawyers signed a petition asking that the issue be put to the B.C. society's general membership, which happened at various locations throughout the province on Tuesday.

Lawyers voted 3,210 to 968 in favour of a motion calling on the society's benchers to reject the school.

The vote doesn't have any immediate effect, but the results will likely put considerable pressure on the law society's benchers to reconsider their earlier decision.

If the benchers don't substantially implement the results of the vote within a year, lawyers can submit another petition that could trigger a binding referendum.

University president Bob Kuhn described the results as "highly disturbing" and said the vote was driven by emotion rather than the law.

"It's effectively a rejection of freedom of religion in the context of equality rights," Kuhn said in an interview shortly after the results were announced.

"I think the decision is one of the majority and it's failing to protect the minority. ... It was simply: same-sex relationships trump religious freedom every time."

Trinity Western has also faced resistance elsewhere.

The Law Society of Upper Canada's board of directors voted not to accredit graduates from the school, while the council of Nova Scotia's law society voted not to accredit graduates unless the school either exempts law students from its covenant or removes the offending passage from the document.

The school has launched legal challenges of the decisions in Ontario and Nova Scotia.

If the B.C. law society's benchers implement Tuesday's vote, a similar challenge is almost certain to be filed in the province, though Kuhn said it was too early to speculate about whether that would happen. In addition, Toronto lawyer Clayton Ruby has filed a lawsuit in B.C. objecting to the provincial government's decision to accredit the school.

The issue could very well end up at the Supreme Court of Canada, which has previously ruled in the school's favour on the very same issue.

I find it discriminatory to take student fees and then declare that the student body of X university is “pro-choice” or that Israel should be boycotted and Israeli professors should be banned. I find extremely disturbing that a body can ban a competent lawyer from practising simply because of the university they chose to attend. As there are several schools of law one can attend in Canada and codes of student conduct are no indicator of one’s fitness as a lawyer, the purpose of banning a law school (yes, banning) because of a pledge that some reduce to discrimination against homosexuals (wait- are gay relationships about love or sex?) is not just discriminatory but self-defeating. The academic and professional fate of any one student should not be in the hands of a cultural oligarchy. The expense of competent professionals will prove to be too high sooner rather than later.

A poll finds Canadians wary of trade with China:

China is seen more as a trade threat than an opportunity, according to Canadian respondents of an online survey conducted on behalf of the Asia Pacific Foundation.

The annual survey, in its tenth year, was conducted by the Angus Reid polling firm, between Feb. 25 and March 7, 2014, and received responses from 3,487 Canadian adults.

The participant responses suggest that uncertainty about closer trade ties extends to all of Asia. …

The poll also suggests a disconnect between the trade relationships respondents believe are important, and the actual economic impact of Canada's trade relationships.

About a quarter of respondents view Australia as "very important" to Canada's prosperity, while half that amount felt the same way about South Korea.

Australia is not even among Canada's top 10 trading partners, while South Korea ranks seventh.

China is Canada's second largest trading partner, behind the United States.

"We may have a situation here where Canadian attitudes and perceptions are not in sync with the economic realities," said Yuen Pau Woo, president of the Asia Pacific Foundation.

This year, the survey delved into the reasons behind the shrinking support for trade with China and Asia overall.

The concerns range from a loss of Canadian jobs, to human rights, to national security.

"In short, I would say we fear or we are hesitant or reticent about things we don't know and don't understand," Woo said.

But Woo said Canada needs China and more trade with Asia overall for its own economic security in the future.

(Sidebar: what about female infanticide don’t people understand?)

If Canadians see China as a threat to trade, then why do it? The saturation of cheaply-produced Chinese products has been made possible by craven governments on both sides of the Pacific as well as indifferent consumers.

That and the fact that the tiger is truly a paper one. Mr. Woo’s statement that Canada needs China isn’t wholly accurate. It’s quite the other way around.

No, Ted! We could have made beautiful music together!

Canadian-born U.S. Senator Ted Cruz has made good on a promise to renounce his birth country’s citizenship, amid speculation he could make a run at the White House in 2016.

Sad Cat is inconsolable.

Tom Steyer produces another fabrication reason why he opposes the beneficial Keystone Pipeline:

Hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer, a climate change activist and staunch opponent of the prospective 1,179-mile pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to Cushing, Okla., has hired retired Navy SEAL chief David “Dave” Cooper to assess how vulnerable the Keystone XL might be to deliberate sabotage.

Did Mr. Steyer pour money into determining how railways or oilfields could be prone to terrorist attacks?

This looks like grasping at straws. I would expect someone of his wealth to panic more convincingly.

But of course:

The Obama administration only finalized the exchange of the last remaining U.S. prisoner of war in Afghanistan for five Taliban detainees at Guantanamo a day before the June 1 swap, a top Democratic lawmaker said Tuesday. He said American officials didn't learn the pickup location for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl until an hour ahead of time.

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2-ranked Democrat, presented the timeline as an explanation for why President Barack Obama didn't inform Congress 30 days before the deal. Republicans and some Democrats have sharply criticized the president for failing to notify them and claim he broke the law. Obama says he acted legally. 

"They knew a day ahead of time the transfer was going to take place," Durbin told reporters in the Capitol, where military officials briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee behind closed doors. "They knew an hour ahead of time where it was going to take place."

But wait! There’s more!

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel – not President Obama – executed the administration’s final call to proceed with the prisoner exchange of five ranking Taliban detainees for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, administration officials told Congress today in a classified briefing today.

The Teflon Don-in-Chief doesn’t just hand things off just like stand-down orders don't disappear in a puff of smoke or that things are fine in Iraq.

It’s time to impeach the b@$#@^%.

I’d be upset, too, if I couldn’t buy that solid-gold jet I’d always wanted:

“We came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt,” Clinton said. “We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages, for houses, for Chelsea’s education. You know, it was not easy.”

Any effort to humanise Hillary Clinton is going to be a failed one. This woman has nothing on Lady MacBeth.

An American high school student is banned from the prom because he left pro-democracy messages while on a trip to China:

(Sidebar: China? Really? Weren’t there any democracies to go to?)

Newton North High School senior Henry DeGroot was visiting a school outside Beijing on a semester abroad this year when he decided to have some fun and also make a point by writing prodemocracy messages in the notebook of a Chinese student.

“Democracy is for cool kids,” he recalls writing. “Don’t believe the lies your school and government tell you,” said another message, and “It’s right to rebel.” 

But when Chinese school officials found out, he had to serve five hours of detention. And when he returned home, it got worse: Newton school officials barred DeGroot from his prom.

Newton school officials say he violated semester abroad rules, embarrassed the principal of the Chinese school that was hosting Newton students, and showed so much disrespect for the Chinese that the longstanding relationship with the school may be harmed.

DeGroot sees it differently.

He says his rights were abridged by the Newton school system. The school system, he says, taught him the importance of civil disobedience and speaking his mind, but then punished him when he practiced what he learned.

Instead of the prom, DeGroot said he and his date, dressed in formal attire, went to Five Guys, the local burger restaurant. “I’m missing a lifetime of memories,’’ he said. 

(Another sidebar: a much better use of time.)

As someone who didn’t go to the prom, I can’t say young Master DeGroot is missing much... or anything. Why not stay home and get drunk? And, really, is some trumped-up dance the pinnacle of your life? If that is how one sees it, that’s so pathetic that it needs to be fed Xanax and booze. Life is much bigger than a dance. It is a passage and a myriad of experiences and people that shape you and form your memories. No bundle of streamers and crappy pop music can do that. (Shut up. It’s true.)

That being said, banning someone from a school dance because he left pro-democracy messages in a craphole communist dictatorship (hi- Tiananmen Square) is appalling and baffling. It should be rewarded, not punished.

Home-schooling and charter schools look better by the minute.

Wait- is Angelina Jolie Chinese?

Disney’s most popular villainess may have made herself a new enemy. While in China, on a promotional tour for Maleficent, Angelina Jolie sparked an international kerfuffle by referring to China and Taiwan as if they were separate countries. The controversial statement came up when Jolie was asked to name her favorite Chinese director; she identified Life of Pidirector Ang Lee, who is Taiwanese-American.

“I am not sure if you consider Ang Lee Chinese, he’s Taiwanese, but he does many Chinese-language films with many Chinese artists and actors,” Jolie answered. “And I think his works and the actors in his films are the ones I am most familiar with and very fond of.”

Chinese social media has since reportedly blown up, with comments  calling Jolie “traitorous” and a “deranged Taiwan independence supporter.” Some threatened to boycott her for, in the words of one user, “disrespecting Chinese sovereignty.” Meanwhile, Taiwanese internet users are said to be praising the actress, with one calling her a “brave and brilliant woman.”

Taiwan: these colours don't run.

And now,  two-ingredient popsicle recipes. Enjoy.

For A Monday

Quickly now...


Twenty-seven people were killed when the Taliban attacked Pakistan's largest airport:

Their backpacks stuffed with food and ammunition, a squad of highly trained Taliban fighters attacked Pakistan's biggest airport in what they clearly expected to be a protracted siege.

Seven fighters were shot dead by Pakistani forces after five hours of intense gunfire at Karachi's Jinnah International Airport. Three died after detonating their suicide-bomb belts.

The Pakistani Taliban said they carried out the attack in response to air strikes in their strongholds near the Afghan border and that their mission was to hijack a passenger plane.

"The main goal of this attack was to damage the government, including by hijacking planes and destroying state installations," said Shahidullah Shahid, a Taliban spokesman.

"This was just an example of what we are capable of and there is more to come. The government should be ready for even worse attacks."

At least 27 people, including 10 militants, were killed.

The Islamist government is insufficient for the Taliban (which should give one an idea of how badly this will all end). Western nations must sever aid to Pakistan today.


I'm going to believe the reports of greater ice coverage on the Great Lakes rather than the "consensus" that global warming climate change is a way to tax everyone back into the Stone Age real:

Stephen Harper solidified his government's like-mindedness with Australia's hard-right Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Monday as the two meshed their views on the environment, job creation and political manoeuvring.

There's not a single country in the world that would take action on climate change at the expense of its own economy, Harper said as the two leaders held a joint news conference in Ottawa.

Canada wants to deal with climate change without crippling the economy, Harper said.

"No country is going to undertake actions on climate change, no matter what they say ... that is going to deliberately destroy jobs and growth in their country," he said.

"We are just a little more frank about that, but that is the approach that every country is seeking."

For his part, Abbott made clear that while his government recognizes the issue, it does not consider tackling climate change a top priority.

"We think that climate change is a significant problem. It's not the only or even the most important that the world faces, but it is a significant problem," he said.

"It's important that every country should take the action that it thinks is best to reduce emissions, because we should rest lightly on the planet."

Still, Abbott told a business roundtable later in the day that, much like the Harper Conservatives have done, he will take further actions to reduce the "regulatory burden" that often gets in the way of job creation, and pointed to the number of environmental hurdles that have been overcome for Australian business by his government over the past nine months.

When one promises to arrest a director of some obscure Youtube video rather than acknowledge that an attack on an embassy was a planned one by a terrorist group one's boss declared was "on the run" and then cried "what difference does it make?" at a hearing, one's decision to run for office must be a masochist one:

Hillary Rodham Clinton said in an interview Monday that she feels emboldened to run for president because of Republican criticism of her handling of the deadly 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

And now, Reagan the Liberator. Enjoy.

Friday Post

Quickly now...


While the West celebrates the seventieth anniversary of D-Day, South Koreans remember their war dead.

A Memorial Day from a couple of years but still moving.


Screw you, North Korea:

North Korea has detained a 56-year old man from Ohio, accusing him of an unspecified crime after he traveled to the communist-led country as a tourist, the nation's state news agency and the man's family said Friday. The North is now holding three Americans.

The state Korean Central News Agency identified the latest detainee as Jeffrey Edward Fowle. It said he arrived in North Korea on April 29 and authorities were investigating him for committing acts inconsistent with the purpose of a tourist visit. It did not give details.

U.S. officials confirmed the detention but didn't identify the person for privacy reasons, nor comment on reports that he was held after leaving a Bible in his hotel room.

A spokesman for the family said, Fowle, who is married with three children, was not on a mission for his church.

One of the other two U.S. detainees is Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae, who has been held since November 2012, and is serving 15 years of hard labor for what the North says were hostile acts against the state.

Every defector is a middle finger to the Kim regime:

Joo Yang, who defected from North Korea in 2010, did an "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit Wednesday and explained what it was like to leave the oppressive country and experience life in the outside world.

North Korean defectors have to escape the country covertly. Some of them were basically brainwashed by propaganda growing up — one defector who spoke to UK newspaper The Independent said she was raised to believe that Kim Jong-il was a god who could read her mind.

Yang joined her family in South Korea in 2011. An NGO helped her travel through a "modern-day underground railroad" to escape North Korea. ...

Q: What kind of feelings did you have when you arrived in South Korea and saw the quality of life that many people have? How did you adjust to this?

When I got here I felt like South Koreans could eat the kind of food that North Koreans eat on special occasions (명절, festival days) even every day.

Most ordinary North Koreans eat 'corn-rice' as their staple food, but that is rough. But on special days like Kim Il-sung's birthday some people can eat white rice. In fact some people can't even eat white rice on those special days.

But in South Korea, even homeless people eat white rice!

As for how I adjusted... well it tastes pretty good, so I'm adjusting well! Even though sometimes I miss North Korean food too... 

How many fingers am I holding up, Kim Jong-Un?

Well, what do you know?

Mothers tend to get more satisfaction than fathers from talking to their children, and more kids translate into greater happiness for parents, according to a study by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs.

The study by Park Jong-suh puts the "satisfaction level" of mothers talking to their kids at 69.7 percent, but that of men at only 54.7 percent. The older the father, the less time he is likely to have for the conversation of children, with dads in their 50s stretching to 49.4 percent and those in their 60s barely bothering to pretend at 44.2 percent.

The study was conducted last year among 9,350 married men and women.

But for both parents, a greater number of children means greater happiness. For families of two to four people, parents' satisfaction with their kids was scored at 68.8 percent, but in families of five or more people it rose to 73.2 percent.

Low birthrate and the possibility of an attack from North Korea makes South Koreans unhappy.


Moving on....


Caught:

Justin Bourque, the 24-year-old fugitive who announced “I’m done” when arrested early Friday in a resident’s dark backyard, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder, and two counts of attempted murder.

He appeared in court, packed with about 70 people, under heavy guard. Bourque was remanded to appear in court July 3 after the Crown and defence asked for a month to prepare.

His appearance lasted about five minutes and Bourque did not speak or show any emotion, staring forward at the judge while he was in court. A tactical officer armed with an automatic rifle stood at the back of the courtroom.

After three local RCMP officers were shot dead Wednesday evening followed by more than 24 hours of a massive manhunt in which parts of this city of 70,000 were in lockdown, police zeroed in on the unarmed Bourque and took him into custody.

The resident in whose backyard the dramatic arrest took place said Bourque stated, “I’m done” when officers cornered him.

At an early morning news conference Friday, spokespeople for RCMP New Brunswick said it was a “miracle” the ordeal ended with no further injury or death.

Now, let the pointless debates about our already strict gun laws and Bourque's motivations begin.


Wow, I bet that Bergdahl deal really fixed everything:

This morning, TIME Magazine featured a chilling interview with an Haqqani network-affiliated Taliban commander who was intimately involved in negotiations with the U.S. over the release of Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. The takeaway: More kidnappings are “definitely” to come as a result of the deal.

“It’s better to kidnap one person like Bergdahl than kidnapping hundreds of useless people,” the unnamed commander told TIME by telephone. “It has encouraged our people. Now everybody will work hard to capture such an important bird.”

I'm sure Putin will listen:

U.S. President Barack Obama urged Russia's Vladimir Putin during a brief informal meeting in France on Friday to seize the opportunity to ease tensions in Ukraine after the election of Petro Poroshenko as president, a White House official said.

Obama must realise by now that his words are meaningless.


Will the gas plant scandal go away before June 12th?

Late Thursday, the Ottawa Citizen reported that OPP detectives served a court order at Queen's Park asking staff to hand over key records regarding the alleged cover-up of the Liberal government's $1.1 billion decision to cancel the construction of two power plants during the 2011 election campaign. ...

 The police also indicated that, as part of their due dilligence to obtain the court order, they had interviewed former premier Dalton McGuinty, in April.

Nope.


Despite having Quebec physicians sign a petition against euthanasia, the Quebec legislature voted 94-22 to allow active euthanasia, once more underlying how Quebecois politicians are so out-of-touch with the average Quebecker.


And now, let us end this day on a mellow note- animals of the Great War.

D-Day

One hundred yards.

That was the distance the 3rd Canadian Infantry and the 2nd Canadian Amoured Division had to clear on Juno Beach, divided into two sectors, Nan and Mike, after disembarking from landing craft tanks (LCT) in choppy seas on June 6th, 1944.

If the LCTs weren't taken out by weather, rocks, mortars or anti-tank guns, the first-wave of soldiers had to wade ashore, dodge mines and the fire of machine guns and 75 and 88 mm guns.

Yet that's what they did with a loss of three hundred and fifty-nine dead and five hundred and seventy-five wounded. The success of the Canadian drive inland marked the beginning of the end of the Nazi war machine (the Allies would have to wait nearly a year before Germany capitulated).

The Canadians, British and the Americans weren't the only ones who participated on D-Day. Poles, Norwegians, French and Australians, too, participated in what is still the largest amphibious invasion in military history.

And today, we remember them.

Ladies and gentlemen, Vera Lynn.

Mid-Week Post

Just in: three police officers have been killed in Moncton, New Brunswick.


Thousands of people in Hong Kong commemorated the massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators twenty-five years ago:

Thousands of people marched through downtown Hong Kong on Sunday to remember the bloody crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing, days before the 25th anniversary of the tumultuous event.

The demonstrators marched from a large park to Hong Kong government headquarters, while a separate group continued on to the Chinese central government's liaison office.

They renewed their long-standing demand for China's Communist Party to overturn its official verdict that the protests that ended in bloodshed on the night of June 4, 1989, were a "counterrevolutionary riot."

We still trade with China. Let's change that.


The provincial leaders of the main political parties squared off in their only debate yesterday.

The highlights:

- Kathleen Wynne did not answer either Andrea Horwath nor Tim Hudak's questions about the scandals that have plagued her term in office

- Andrea Horwath went on the attack against Wynne but still promises tax-guzzling programs

-Tim Hudak will not fire anyone but simply will not replace the excess bureaucrats who are to retire in the next few years

Also: while the popular press wasn't looking, accused pervert and former adviser to Kathleen Wynne will have a second trial in August.


Moving on....


The now-released purported deserter Bowe Bergdahl has his detractors who are now being savaged:

Wow @chucktodd reporting on @TheTodayShow WH aides telling him "we didn't know they (Bergdahl's platoon) was going to swift boat him."”

North Korea appears something of a terrible joke:

As I toured the Joint Security Area along the Demilitarized Zone, I was acutely aware of the armed guards on the other side of the border. They seemed acutely aware of me as well. The picture shows what happens when you don’t draw the curtains, and your neighbor is a mad dictator.

Before this trip, I had plenty of academic knowledge about communist regimes, drawn from histories, testimony, books, and news reports. But it is one thing to know that North Korea is controlled by a reckless tyrant and a danger to both its neighbors and the global community. It is another to come face-to-face with this particular brand of evil in the real world.

It struck me that these soldiers are not really on the outside looking in. Rather, they are trapped on the inside looking out.

They may be ordered to take pictures of foreign visitors touring the DMZ, but they dare not turn the camera upon their own leaders. Their fellow citizens cannot record the excess and injustice of the regime—or even the most mundane facts about their day-to-day lives.

In a nation forbidden from self-examination, there is no free press. There is an old camera stuck through the window to inform Kim Jong-un about what the neighbors are doing.

And in that moment, the fearsome vanguard of a movement which has murdered 100 million people and enslaved countless others looked small and pathetic.

An older article: Cham Muslims in Cambodia stand to lose their mosques due to time and demographics:

The Chvea ethnic group, who moved to O-Trav from Kampot in the 19th century, brought with them Islamic teachings that have been handed down to the present day. The village is home to one of the country’s oldest mosques – the pre-Khmer Rouge Al Mubarak – which, until this week, looked likely to be destroyed.

Cham Muslims are an ethnic minority in Cambodia. Once recruited by the Khmer Rouge in 1970 (where they numbered 250, 000), they were then targeted and murdered after 1974. Cambodian Catholics were all but eliminated and their churches destroyed. Buddhists, too, were murdered and Angkor Wat badly damaged and looted. The enemy now is time.

( SEE: The Black Book of Communism)


Remember- militant atheists are supposed to be smarter than you:

Fairy tales and believing in Father Christmas could cause children harm.

This is according to controversial biologist Richard Dawkins who warned an audience at the Cheltenham Science Festival about the dangers of make-believe. 

In typically incendiary style, Dawkins suggested it was 'pernicious to instil in a child the view that the world is shaped by supernaturalism'.

 
Does Dawkins really mean to say that people still believe the fables they read as children?

What a maroon, as Bugs Bunny might say.


Don't forget this little guy.

And this guy.


This is beyond unconscionable:

Pressure from government officials and eminent researchers appears to have pushed a federal agency to postpone enforcement action on violations it found in a government-financed experiment on extremely premature babies.

The agency, which polices ethics in health studies, says the controversy over the study of preemies highlights a “fundamental difference between the obligations of clinicians and those of researchers.”

That ethics body, called the Office for Human Research Protections, is part of the Department of Health and Human Services. The sponsor of the controversial experiment, the National Institutes of Health, is also part of HHS. Officials at both HHS and NIH provided “input” leading to the office’s delay in enforcement.

At issue is SUPPORT, a study in which researchers at two dozen academic institutions randomly manipulated the oxygen levels of 1,316 extremely premature infants without providing their parents the full details of the methods and risks.

It's sick.


And now, set your phasers to fun:

The Calgary Stampede Parade become one Tuesday, when they announced that the Grand Marshal of the 2014 Stampede Parade will be none other than William Shatner, a.k.a. Star Trek’s original Captain Kirk.

(Merci to all)

On A Monday

Here it is...


The same people who have a problem with Toronto mayor Rob Ford's peccadilloes don't have a problem with Liberal scandals:

"The media tends to over-play the importance of scandals when it comes to voter attitudes. First off, most voters aren't paying that much attention to the news so they are only vaguely aware of scandalous behaviour; secondly, voters can actually be forgiving of even the most egregious scandal if they believe the scandalous politicians in charge also happen to be the most competent," ...

(Sidebar: I wouldn't regard the current premier as competent.)

Everything the Liberals have done up until this point has directed the province of Ontario down. That the voters are unwilling to see this shows a shocking indifference that one can term suicidal. Kathleen Wynne isn't principled or competent. Should she win this election, her respite from gloating will be to further bankrupt this province.

Count on it.


Twenty-five years ago, pro-democracy demonstrators were killed in Tienanmen Square:

The subsequent scene remains seared into his memory, a quarter-century later. He recalls the tanks, and soldiers with AK-47s.

"(They) were randomly shooting at the protesters as they chanted slogans and tried to hold their ground," Xiong recalls.

"The sound of the bullets, shooting, crying and the tanks — (all) blended in together...

"As we continued to move forward, we saw a horrific scene of students, citizens, who were ... 
wounded, dying. Few knew First Aid. I remember having feelings of helplessness, as the people cried out for medical assistance."

Throughout the night, and into the early morning, he used a public phone to call updates into the student radio station. He was eventually placed on the list of 21 most wanted student leaders, got arrested, and spent almost two years in prison.

Xiong eventually immigrated to the U.S. in 1992, became an American citizen, converted to Christianity and now works as a military chaplain. So the Tiananmen Square dissident is now U.S. Army Maj. Yan Xiong.

He was among five witnesses invited to testify last Friday at a U.S. House of Representatives hearing to mark the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, where a historic democratic protest ended with hundreds dead.

We don't have to trade with China.


It is no coincidence that a president who has made overtures to Iran and Islamism, has apologised for the mere existence of the US and whose administration declared that a deserter did, indeed, desert, would eventually have him freed.

No surprise there.


I'm surprised why Russia didn't just declare it and make it so:

After months of blocking any Security Council action on Ukraine, Russia called an emergency meeting of the U.N.'s most powerful body Monday to introduce a resolution demanding an immediate halt to deadly clashes in eastern Ukraine.

Why is Russia bothering?  It didn't step in when pro-Russian thugs were killing Ukrainians.

Look for an ulterior motive, maybe deflection from its inaction in Syria.


How is a cake a human right?

A Colorado board has ruled that a Christian business owner must make wedding cakes for homosexual "marriages" despite his religious objections.

The same government that has no place in the bedroom has a place in private business.


And now, is Superman a great Batman foe?

It’s a storytelling standard that the villain thinks he’s the good guy in any plot worth watching. And that’s doubly true of Superman because he is usually right. One of the reasons DC loves pitting Superman and Batman against each other is that Batman has to struggle with his limits and the moral greys of crimefighting, and Superman can just make an executive decision and act on it. This is right, that is wrong, and what are you going to do, tell Superman no?

Open Dare

To all the "brave" little darlings whose parents never saw fit to dress them properly, this is for you:

Wear your short shorts, skirts, "slutwear" and uncovered heads at the nearest mosque AND give the adherents therein the same sophomoric, sanctimonious speeches you give your soft-target teachers, classmates, co-workers et al and do it ON VIDEO. If dress codes and decorum are just too passe for you, don't stop in areas where it is safe to dress like a street walker. Be bold and daring. Wave your shamelessness in parts of the world where acid attacks and rapes are common. Stand up for your principles. After all, women who do so in those areas are often maimed and killed for their beliefs or simply for being a woman. Don't let your "white privilege" hold you back from really making a statement.

Go on.

What are you waiting for?