Mid-Week Post

It's like "Game of Thrones" but nothing at all like it...


There are ten more days until Easter.


Says the the school board that would take children to simulated sex-fests:

A warning to parents in Toronto: if you want to chaperone your kid's field trip to the zoo, you may soon be subjected to a criminal-background check.

If today's proposal is approved, the Toronto District School Board will require all school volunteers to get clearance from the police.

Yes, everyone. Even pizza-lunch supervisors and library helpers.

Teachers and volunteer coaches already go through the "vulnerable sector screening," as they have greater contact with the students.

Why are they bothering? They frame their support for the perverted Pride parade as "gay rights" (homosexuals are still hanged in Iran, by the way) yet are adamant that a parent the teachers know very well undergo a police check.

Do naked people simulating sex act undergo similar police checks?

What a farce.


Uh-oh:

The Canada Revenue Agency says it expects its website to be down until the weekend because of a security vulnerability related to the Heartbleed bug.

The tax agency's website took away the public's ability to log in late Tuesday evening, which raised concerns about a the privacy of sensitive taxpayer data.

"We are currently working on a remedy for restoring online services and, at this time, anticipate that services will resume over the weekend," the tax agency said on its website Wednesday afternoon. 

"The CRA recognizes that this problem may represent a significant inconvenience for individual Canadians who count on the CRA for online information and services. Recognizing this, the minister of national revenue has confirmed that individual taxpayers will not be penalized for this service interruption."

Rest assured the tax people will always get their money, bug or not.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles.


But I thought you had Ukraine where you wanted it, Putin?

Russian President Vladimir Putin told state-controlled natural gas producer Gazprom on Wednesday to hold off on demanding Ukraine pay up front for natural gas supplies from Russia.

Some North Korean news-

Persecution of Christians in North Korea (again):

North Korea recently lured two Korean-Chinese civilians in China back to North Korea and forcibly transferred them to Pyongyang, Daily NK has learned. It is alleged that Korean-Chinese families remaining in North Korea are being used to entice specific targets, who are suspected of Christian proselytizing, back across the Sino-North Korean border so that they can be detained.

A source from the border city of Sinuiju in North Pyongan Province reported the news to Daily NK on March 2nd, explaining, “Recently, two Korean-Chinese were captured and taken off to Pyongyang. The word among traders is that evidence emerged that the two had been introducing [North Koreans] to churches.”

Slavery is not dead:

Last month, an important paper by Marcus Noland added strong support to long-standing suspicions about the exploitative arrangements at the Kaesong Industrial Park, the flagship of the Sunshine Policy and the largest surviving “engagement” project.

To the extent the newspapers noticed it, they mostly noticed Noland’s most sensational conclusion — that each North Korean worker there nets as little as $2 a month, out of average of $130 in “wages” and “bonuses” for overtime. Noland isn’t pleased with the media focus on this point (for example), although I’d argue that it’s an important one that deserved even more attention and introspection than it got.

What the Korean press largely missed, however, was Noland’s deeper conclusion that North Korea has negotiated its way to pan-opticon control over Kaesong’s work force, negating the very reformist forces that Kaesong’s promoters once promised.

 

Read the whole thing.

(Kamsahamnida)


At least I know one place is safe:

Days after a ranking system determined Regina was a relatively safe haven in the event of a zombie apocalypse, people in the Prairie city are noting the distinction with a sense of pride.

"This is probably the last place zombies would travel," one Regina resident told CBC News reporter Adrien Cheung Wednesday.

The ranking system was devised by an engineering student from Alberta, Michael Ross, who noted Regina scored well, in part, because of the climate and sparse population.

"It's quite cold, colder than the average Canadian city," Ross said. "It's very lowly densely populated, which is a good thing."

Ross devised the ranking system as a fun project based on the current popularity of zombie-themed movies, TV shows and other pop culture.

Ross evaluated such factors as geography, climate and the availability of weaponry to thwart zombies.
His rankings made sense to many.

"There's so much farm land," another Regina citizen noted, approvingly. "That's my plan: grab the family and go to the farm."

Why doesn't Rick Grimes move his people up north?

But Wait! There's More!

There usually is....


Former Quebec Premier Pauline Marois has had to resign following a disastrous campaign and election defeat:

Pauline Marois announced her departure after Monday's defeat and very likely became the last PQ leader who will have served alongside Levesque, the party's founding father.

Well, this must be embarrassing:

Attawapiskat First Nation promises it will co-operate "in any and all ways possible" after former co-manager Clayton Kennedy was charged with theft and fraud.

Kennedy, 62, was co-manager of the band's finances between July 2010 and the end of the summer of 2012. He's also the partner of Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence.

Did anyone expect honesty from anyone associated with Chief Double-Dipping-Double-Chin?


Who needs "Hockey Night in Canada", anyway?

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation plans to hold an all-employee meeting to discuss its financial future and layoffs are expected, with deep cuts in the sports division likely.

The broadcaster will lose its marquee program Hockey Night in Canada later this year when Rogers Communications Inc. takes over responsibility for the broadcast as part of the $5.2-billion 12-year exclusive deal with the National Hockey League it struck last November.

CBC will continue to air the program on Saturday nights and for playoff games for the next four years, but the revenues will disappear. Losing the NHL rights, along with other high-profile sports rights in recent years, leaves a gaping hole in the CBC’s budget, which has already been hit hard by government funding cuts.

There is no satire that could be written for this:

Greenpeace Canada has asked Elections Canada to probe whether the Conservative government colluded with a pro-industry group known as Ethical Oil in contravention of the country’s election laws.

.... says the activist group that takes foreign funding.



Jacob, we hardly knew ye:

 Actor Mark Pellegrino currently costars in “The Tomorrow People” and is most recognized for his roles as Jacob on “Lost,” Bishop on “Being Human” and Lucifer on “Supernatural.” He’s also a rarity in the entertainment industry: a working actor whose Twitter feed doesn’t march in Hollywood leftist lockstep.

For A Monday

Yep.


The PQ has been shut out:

Philippe Couillard's Liberals have won a majority government in the province of Quebec.

As of 9:45 p.m. (EST), Liberal candidates are leading or elected in 72 ridings, compared to the Parti Quebecois in 31 ridings, the Coalition Avenir Quebec in 19 and the Quebec Solidaire in three.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

One month ago, PQ leader Pauline Marois met with her province's Lieutenant-Governor to dissolve the National Assembly in an effort to turn her minority government into a majority.

But after a campaign full of missteps and unfocused messaging, which included a lot of talk about a referendum that Quebecers weren't interested in, PQ support plummeted in the opinion polls and now they're on the outside looking in.

Not much of a difference, really.

Speaking of douchebags:

Trudeau condemned Canada’s decision to shut down its embassy in Iran. (At the same time, Canada kicked out Iranian diplomats in Ottawa.) Iranian refugees in Canada had reported they were harassed by Iranian agents directed from there. ...

And then Trudeau talked about the Jews.

When he’s courting donations in Montreal, Trudeau claims to be a friend of Israel. He appointed one of Montreal’s richest Jews, billionaire Stephen Bronfman, to head up his fundraising.

But when he’s alone in a room with an Iranian newspaper, he nods along as his hosts bad-mouth Canada’s foreign policy, including Harper’s pro-Israel stance. And then he says this: “whether it’s his positioning around Israel, or position around working closely with the United States, he’s very, very much focused on what is going to play well at the ballot box.”

Yes, there are people who want to vote him in.


Wait. Seriously? This is a real question:

Call it the million-worker mystery. 

A large chunk of American adults are no longer in the labor force. That has left economists divided over how many of them are voluntarily not working-or even looking for work-because they wanted to retire, go to school or take care of family members, versus how many have been forced out because they couldn't find a job.

This might fill in a blank or two:

The CBO report concludes that the equivalent of 2.5 million jobs will be lost due to Obamacare, primarily because of decisions made by workers. But, like Holmes's dog that didn't bark, the report may be even more damning because of what isn't there.

The CBO minimizes -- and even willfully ignores in some cases -- decisions that employers will make about jobs because of Obamacare provisions that punish them: penalties for not providing insurance, or insurance that doesn't carry the Obamacare stamp of approval; higher costs to provide expanded, and sometimes unnecessary, coverage; costs of maintaining and reporting Obamacare documentation, etc.

And this:

The math is depressing. In March more than 9 million native-born Americans were unemployed. At the current rate of job creation it will be 7.5 years before all these native-born unemployed find jobs. By then, of course, the population will be larger. And we haven’t even considered the millions who have avoided unemployment by dropping out of the labor force.

Another Great Wall of China:

Thousands of Christians have formed a human shield around a newly constructed church in Zhejiang province in China after authorities earlier this week threatened to demolish the building. The Sanjiang Christian Church reportedly cost more than $4.8 million to construct and was built over a six-year period in Wenzhou, one of China's most Christianized cities.

Friday evening, the Telegraph reported that hundreds of Christians, including elderly and disabled church members, had stationed themselves inside the church to block access to demolition teams during the night.

Over at the Fur: Obama insists on abusing his ability to issue executive orders (rather like George III) and demand that government contractors reveal salary by gender and race (because that is the most pressing issue of the day, Race huckster-in-Chief); Russian troops amass along Ukrainian border; also, the corruption of Putin; why no compromise can be reached with the left; while everyone is mad at Brendan Eich, Egypt jailed four homosexuals (bake a cake!); the Trial of Ezra Levant; some common sense from Arab groups who don't mind Easter egg hunts for children, and much, much more!


An uplifting story:

22-year-old Errol Samuels from Queens, New York, who lost the use of his legs in 2012 after a roof collapsed onto him at an off-campus house party near where he was attending college in upstate New York, walks with a ReWalk electric powered exoskeletal suit during a therapy session with Alexandra Voigt, a clinical research coordinator and therapist, at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City March 26, 2014. Made by the Israeli company Argo Medical Technologies, ReWalk is a computer controlled device that powers the hips and knees to help those with lower limb disabilities and paralysis to walk upright using crutches. Allan Kozlowski, assistant professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai hospital, where patients like Samuels are enrolled in his clinical trials of the ReWalk and another exoskeleton, the Ekso (Ekso Bionics) hopes machines like these will soon offer victims of paralysis new hope for a dramatically improved quality of life and mobility.

Friday Post

Pour yourself a beverage for the week-end is upon us.


There are sixteen more days until Easter.


One hopes that Canadians of Persian descent remember which party it was that let Zahra Kazemi's death go unavenged (yes- unavenged):

Trudeau accused Harper of pursuing a staunchly pro-Israel foreign policy so as to gain Jewish votes, during an interview last Thursday with the Farsi-language weekly newspaper Salaam Toronto. The paper is read by Iranian-Canadians, and is widely recognized as being supportive of the Liberal party.

"Until the prime minister was chosen to be prime minister, he practically didn't travel abroad, and his position on foreign policy was from the point of view of 'can it advance my election campaign or not,'" claimed Trudeau to the paper, reports Shalom Toronto.

"His (Harper's) position on issues tied to Israel or to the United Nations is very much based on what can affect his standing in the ballot box," charged Trudeau.

The Liberal party leader attacked Harper further, saying the crisis in Ukraine troubled him because of the presence of a large Ukrainian community in Canada that is worried about the crisis. Trudeau claimed Harper's visit with Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird to Ukraine was meant as a photo opportunity to gain more votes.

(Sidebar: Trudeau's shameless pandering is for what purpose? Who loves China's dictatorship and jokes about Ukraine? Who was that, Trudeau?)


Do you know what mocks motherhood, Kim Jong-Un, you fat, repugnant toad? Forced abortions and infanticide:

One of the most grotesque and inhumane issues that the Human Rights Commission found was the widespread practice of forced abortion and infanticide against North Korean women and their babies.  The report specifically addresses these abuses directed against woman who have been “repatriated” to North Korea from China – meaning they have managed to escape from North Korea into China and were then send back by Chinese officials.  The report notes, “Despite the torture, arbitrary imprisonment and other gross human rights violations awaiting forcibly repatriated persons in the DPRK, China pursues a rigorous policy of forced repatriation of DPRK citizens.” According to the UN Report, the vast majority of forced abortions and infanticides are perpetrated on women repatriated from China and their children.

These forced abortions and infanticides can take place in interrogation and detention centers as well as in prison camps.  Many of these forced abortions are performed under the rationale that the racial “purity” of the baby is unclear and “pure Korean blood” is an important concept in North Korea. One former North Korean official testified that having a child who was not “100 per cent” Korean made a woman “less than human.”

One witness told the Commission how she was forced to undergo an abortion without anesthetic by a woman who used rusty equipment. When the witness screamed, she was told to be quiet. Her dead baby was tossed in a bucket afterwards and she later found that she became infertile due to this procedure.

Another witness, Ms. Jee Heon A, recounted to the Commission how she witnessed a mother forced to drown her newborn baby. Ms. Jee testified:

“…there was this pregnant woman who was about 9 months pregnant. She worked all day. The babies who were born were usually dead, but in this case the baby was born alive. The baby was crying as it was born; we were so curious, this was the first time we saw a baby being born. So we were watching this baby and we were so happy. But suddenly we heard the footsteps. The security agent came in and … this agent told us to put the baby in the water upside down. So the mother was begging. ‘I was told that I would not be able to have the baby, but I actually got lucky and got pregnant so let me keep the baby, please forgive me,’ but this agent kept beating this woman, the mother who just gave birth. And the baby, since it was just born, it was just crying. And the mother, with her shaking hands she picked up the baby and she put the baby face down in the water. The baby stopped crying and we saw this water bubble coming out of the mouth of the baby.”

Please, someone take out this fat monster.

Related: please give here. It's more than a worthwhile story.


Oh look- people who don't know what they are talking about and like their "savages" "noble" are attacking an Inuit artist for her "SEALfie":

But it was Inuit singing star Tanya Tagaq's provocative "sealfie" that's sparked a furious social-media brouhaha. She's come under fire for tweeting a photo of her baby lying next to a dead adult seal, its blood splashed inches from the child's head.

The shot, taken near Tagaq's Cambridge Bay, Nunavut home, and tweeted March 28, sent anti-sealing activists and their supporters into a spitting rage.

The invective took a nasty turn.

"If they have the mentality 2 murder a seal like that, they could easily murder humans," read one tweet, which has since been deleted.

The attacks, including one woman's petition to have her baby taken away, shocked Tagaq.

“It became quite hurtful,” Tagaq told CBC News. “Right now, actually there's a woman who has my picture up on her Twitter and the things that people are saying about myself and my baby. It's just complete harassment. It's not OK.”

Yes, but that is the left for you, Miss Tagaq.

Now, run out and support Miss Tagaq's music.


And now,  a hard-working cat:

There is only one employee who works at Kishi train station in Kinokawa City, Japan... and she's a cat.

Tama is an aging cat who works as a train station master bringing in hordes of tourists, mostly from Hong Kong and Taiwan, and has helped revive the economy of the rural area.

She turns 15 this month and has been working at the station for seven years, since her appointment in 2007.
Tama's job is pretty relaxing. She only works four days a week and mostly just sits around on her cat bed wearing her gold-lined hat looking cute while tourists take pictures of her.

"The idea is clever, as the cat has become the symbol of the railway, attracting many tourists," Ka Wing Wu, a 22-year- old university student from Hong Kong, tells the Wall Street Journal.

Tama has caused a boom in the local economy of 1.1 billion yen revenue from train ticket sales, memorabilia and commercial appearances. During the first year of Tama's appointment there was a 10 per cent jump in train ticket sales.

Visitors from Hong Kong and Taiwan increased 240 percent from April to September last year, according to the railway company that owns the train station, Wakayama Electric Railway.


"The moment I met eyes with Tama, I was immediately struck with an image of Tama as station master," says company president Mitsunobu Kojima.

He envisioned her as a "maneki-neko", a Japanese lucky charm that would bring good business.

(Merci)

Mid-Week Post

It's the postiest!


This is what Poland and Europe should be doing:

Poland opened its first gas link from the West on Tuesday as part of a European Union drive to ensure greater supply security that has taken on new urgency after Russia annexed Crimea and reignited fears about deliveries to Europe.

Building new links and upgrading infrastructure to enable flows eastward gained renewed focus in the EU following a contract dispute between Moscow and Kiev in 2009 that stopped gas flows via Ukraine to much of central and southeastern Europe in the middle of winter.

Russia's seizure of Crimea and the escalating crisis with Ukraine has increased pressure on the West to find ways to wean off the supplies from state-controlled Gazprom that meet about one third of European demand.

Moscow also announced on Tuesday a more than 40 percent increase in the price Ukraine must pay for gas, stepping up economic pressure on Kiev in its political standoff with Moscow and underlining the potential threat to European deliveries.

(Sidebar: wait until fall when Ukraine makes a deal with Poland or uses its own resources.)


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

Bulgaria has put on high alert or deployed its air force about 30 times in two months in response to a recent spike in Russian military aircraft flying near its aerial borders on the Black Sea, its defence minister said on Tuesday.

Both the West and Russia have carried out a series of military drills as a show of force in the worsening standoff over Russia's annexation of Crimea, which has sparked retaliatory sanctions from Washington and Brussels.

NATO said it was "considering all options" as it studied new steps to bolster its military presence in eastern Europe on Tuesday, while saying it saw no sign that Russia was withdrawing tens of thousands of troops from the Ukranian boarder.

Despite its longstanding friendship with former Cold War ally Russia, Bulgaria joined NATO 10 years ago and has twice participated in navy drills with a U.S. warship in the Black Sea since the Ukraine crisis. It is also currently hosting a two-week military exercise that includes Ukrainian and U.S. forces.

"I can only guess what is the goal of these flights," said Defence Minister Angel Naidenov. "But when we have about 30 cases which promoted either takeoffs or bringing our jets on higher alert in the last couple of months, it is worth to be very vigilant," Angelov told reporters.

President Rosen Plevneliev, who is also commander in chief of the Bulgarian army, said Bulgaria's ageing Mig-29 jet fighters had been deployed 2-3 times a week in recent months, compared with a previous rate of 2-3 times a year.

Russia may be deliberately provoking such flights to exhaust the flying capacity of Bulgaria and other's Russian-made jets, Plevneliev said, adding that Romania, Turkey and Bulgaria should boost their cooperation in air policing.

Oh look- another incidence of "workplace violence":

Several people were killed and at least 14 injured on Wednesday when a gunman opened fire at a U.S. Army base in Fort Hood, Texas, the site of another rampage in 2009, U.S. officials said.

The same man who promised to meet Iran without pre-conditions in 2008 and let Iran go sanctions-free shouldn't have a problem with this:

The United States has a veto in the United Nations Security Council by virtue of being one of the council’s five permanent members granted that power by the institution’s charter. But should the US be able to veto a country’s selection of its ambassador to the UN in New York simply because UN headquarters is located on American soil?

Traditionally the US has recognized that it has no right to intervene in a country’s choice of a UN ambassador – but that stance is being tested with the news that Iran intends to send a diplomat who was involved in the 1979 hostage-taking at the American Embassy in Tehran as its representative in New York.

I honestly have no idea why parents insist on buying devices and appliances for their kids knowing somewhere in the recesses of their minds that doing so is a costly, spoiling and isolating exercise:

“Parents often feel out of control when it comes to screen time — like they’re either taking a shot in the dark or should just give up,” lead researcher Douglas Gentile, a developmental psychologist and assistant professor of psychology at Iowa State, tells Yahoo Shine. “But what this study shows is that even that shot in the dark is really powerful. Parents have a much more of a profound effect on their child’s wellbeing than they realize.”

For the study, researchers analyzed the media habits of more than 1,300 Iowa and Minnesota schoolchildren already participating in an obesity-prevention program. They collected data from students, parents, teachers, and nurses on topics including screen-time limits, exposure to violent media, bedtimes, behavior, grades, and height and weights data — first at the start of the study and then again seven months later. “What we saw was this kind of ripple effect,” Gentile says, explaining that limits on screen time — specifically, watching shows or movies in any form, and playing video games — improved kids’ sleep, academics, pro-social behavior, and even body mass index. That seven months wound up being a sufficient amount of time to see differences between kids who had screen-time limits and those who did not was a happy surprise to researchers, particularly since the effects were small. 

And now, things you might not know about Raiders of the Lost Ark:

While developing the film with Spielberg and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, Lucas named the main character “Indiana Smith.” But Spielberg protested that it was too similar to the 1966 Steve McQueen western Nevada Smith and requested a change. The three agreed that the last name should be as universal and nondescript as “Smith,” so Lucas threw out “Jones” as a possibility. Indiana came from Lucas’ dog, an Alaskan malamute named Indiana. The big, hairy pup was also the inspiration for Chewbacca from Star Wars.

Once again, dogs change the course of human history.

For A Monday

This could have been used last night.

She wouldn't dare:

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is challenging Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak to either back up his “false” and “defamatory” allegations that she oversaw the purging of government documents or face legal action.

Ms. Wynne has said that her predecessor’s chief of staff – the individual at the centre of a criminal case into the alleged destruction of government records – never worked in her office. Nor did she instruct anyone to destroy information.

The Tories have seized on information contained in police documents describing Dalton McGuinty’s final days in office. The documents, unsealed by an Ottawa judge last week, show that Mr. McGuinty’s former chief of staff, David Livingston, had obtained extraordinary access to computers in the premier’s office for a six-week period that extended into Ms. Wynne’s time in office.

There is nothing in the documents that suggests any records were deleted after Ms. Wynne was sworn into office on Feb. 11, 2013. Mr. Livingston resigned the same day she took power, according to the documents, which have not been tested in court.

Fact: under former Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga were cancelled, costing taxpayers at least $828 million.

Fact: Premier Kathleen Wynne denied knowing the full cost of the cancelled gas plants. She would later apologise for something she said she knew nothing about.

Fact: after being "misinformed" that certain e-mails could not be recovered, two e-mails from then chief of staff Craig MacLennan were recovered. Privacy Commissioner Dr. Ann Cavoukian found the deliberate deletion of e-mails violated Archives and Recordkeeping Act.

Fact: the (alleged) computer hack who (allegedly) wiped computers clean of evidence has been in the employ of the Liberal Party until this past week-end.

E-mails don't just delete themselves and nothing goes on without even the peripheral knowledge of the boss. If Premier Wynne thinks Tim Hudak is out-of-line with his accusations, then she can air out the truth in open court.

If she dares.

Is she confident there is nothing left on which to hang her?


Stay classy, Fils:

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau used some decidedly un-prime ministerial language when speaking publicly at the Fight for the Cure charity boxing match in Gatineau, Que. on Saturday night.

Invited by the ring announcer at the Hilton Lac Leamy, Trudeau climb through the ropes and took the microphone to say a few words about the event at which, two years ago, he thrashed a much larger Sen. Patrick Brazeau. (The two mens’ career trajectories since the fight are documented in a Citizen piece this weekend.)

“I’m going tell you, there is no experience like stepping into this ring and measuring yourself,” he said.

“All the — your name, your fortune, your intelligence, your beauty — none of that fucking matters.”

The f-bomb drew some cries from the high-spirited crowd.

While it’s unusual to hear someone who hopes to be prime minister swearing into an open microphone — at a cancer fundraiser, no less — stranger still might the words that  preceeded it.

It sound as if Trudeau is referring to himself and not some abstract pugilist when he said ”your” name, fortune, intelligence and beauty — three or possibly four qualities that Trudeau inherited at birth.

People would actually vote for this guy.

North Korea threatens a nuclear test after firing missiles in the Korean Peninsula:

On Monday, North Korea began live-fire drills off the western coast of the peninsula after declaring a no-fly, no-sail zone in the area, according to South Korean media.

The move comes just hours after North Korea’s state media warned on Sunday that the country “would not rule out a new form of nuclear test for bolstering up its nuclear deterrence.”

That warning, issued by the country’s Foreign Ministry through the state-controlled Korea Central News Agency, helps keep fears alive that North Korea has mastered making uranium bombs – a second route to nuclear weapons alongside its existing plutonium-based program.

In the past few weeks, North Korea has also launched a series of short- and mid-range ballistic missiles off its east coast, which the United Nations Security Council condemned in a statement last Thursday as having violated multiple Security Council resolutions. North Korea’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday said the U.N. response was an “illegal action.”

It is becoming more and more important for South Korea, Japan and other Asian nations to arm themselves and form alliances. Even if Obama wasn't a completely useless eater, the time for the US to step back and let nations it has advertently or inadvertently declawed take responsibility for their own defense would come eventually. Taking matters into their own hands is an inevitable step.

Case in point:

The Philippine government vessel made a dash for shallow waters around the disputed reef in the South China Sea, evading two Chinese coastguard ships trying to block its path to deliver food, water and fresh troops to a military outpost on the shoal.

This cat represents the Philippines.

And now, kids are smarter than we give them credit for:

The litany of frighteningly stupid Common Core math worksheets never ends. Perhaps now, though, kids are starting to fight back in satisfyingly creative ways.

An alert reader sent The Daily Caller this image of her seven-year-old son’s perfectly reasonable homework answer. The boy attends a public elementary school in San Jose, Calif. He is in the second grade. ...

Resolutions

Yeah, I'm doing this.

Before I go on, some things may be slightly SPOILER-ish for season four, so, caution, ect.

*
*
*

- when a supplies' party first heard about Terminus, did they think to check it out at some point or mention it to anyone?

- didn't anyone piece together Lizzie's feeding the zombies with the dead rat found in the prison and her killing a rabbit?

-is the beheaded body the Governor stumbled upon related to the goings-on at Terminus?

-are the paintings Michonne saw related to Terminus? The house and its occupants, as well?

-where's Beth?

-will anyone discover that Eugene Porter is full of crap?


I do hope some of these things are cleared up soon.

Saturday Night Special

I'm taking this Earth Hour to type this post on a computer, the shell of which is acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (a petroleum product), with the lights on while doing some laundry. Nature outside is doing just fine no matter what I do.

Some food for thought during this Earth Hour:

But climate policies carry an even larger cost in the developing world, where three billion people lack access to cheap and plentiful energy, perpetuating their poverty. They cook and keep warm by burning twigs and dung, producing indoor air pollution that causes 3.5 million deaths per year – by far the world’s biggest environmental problem.

Access to electricity could solve that problem, while allowing families to read at night, own a refrigerator to keep food from spoiling, or use a computer to connect with the world. It would also allow businesses to produce more competitively, creating jobs and economic growth.

Consider Pakistan and South Africa, where a dearth of generating capacity means recurrent blackouts that wreak havoc on businesses and cost jobs. Yet the funding of new coal-fired power plants in both countries has been widely opposed by well-meaning Westerners and governments. Instead, they suggest renewables as the solution.

But this is hypocritical. The rich world gets just 1.2% of its energy from hugely expensive solar and wind technologies, and we would never accept having power only when the wind was blowing. Over the next two years, Germany will build ten new coal-fired power plants to keep the lights on.

If this isn't a deliberate plan to keep the poor in poverty, I would like someone to explain to me what is.


Now, onto North Korea, the satellite image of which has become a symbol of how hollow Earth Hour really is....

Oh, snap! (to China):

Mr. Xi does not need to go to far-off Berlin to learn the lesson of the historic pledge, “Never again.”  He only has to travel to the detention centre in the Chinese border city of Tumen.  This is the holding place for desperate North Korean refugees caught in China’s security dragnet.  There they wait for forced repatriation across the river to North Korea.  And what awaits them there? As the BBC noted on February 21st,“the United Nations report on North Korea's crimes against humanity is not for the faint of heart. It contains gruesome details of systematic extermination, torture, rape, forced abortions and starvation.”

If Mr. Xi is concerned over the sexual exploitation of women and children, he does not need to visit the new Comfort Women museum in Nanjing commemorating human rights atrocities from over seventy years ago. The tragedy of North Korean women being sexually trafficked in China is not history -- it is happening today. And it is a situation, unlike Nanjing, where Mr. Xi could take immediate action.  The best way to pay homage to the Korean Comfort Women would be to assure that their North Korean sisters in China today are not sexually exploited.       

        

And on the question of hunting down those in hiding, Mr. Xi does not need to consult the Diary of Anne Frank.  It is not the Gestapo, but Mr. Xi’s own security forces, that today hunt down North Korean refugees in China. President Xi would also not need to visit the concentration camp near Dachau to comprehend the horrors within.  On a future trip to Pyongyang, he could ask to see one of North Korea’s kwaliso camps -- perhaps the camp whose horrors were so graphically described by North Korean defector Shin Dong-hyuk in the recent best-selling book, Escape from Camp14.

And yet we still trade with this paper tiger.

Read this over and over again:

A man in his 60s who was mobilized to demolish a camp for political prisoners said: "The bones of children were dug up from the ground. There were also tools designed for children, so it appears they were forced into labor."

More Chinese censorship, this time outside of Hollywood:

Bloomberg News editor Ben Richardson has quit the organization in protest of the editors’ handling of an investigative piece on China.

 “I left Bloomberg because of the way the story was mishandled, and because of how the company made misleading statements in the global press and senior executives disparaged the team that worked so hard to execute an incredibly demanding story," Richardson, who served as editor-at-large for Asia news, told Jim Romenesko on Monday.

The story in question was written by reporter Michael Forstyhe, who left Bloomberg for the New York Times after anonymous Bloomberg employees revealed that top editors did not publish Forstyhe's investigative article on Chinese elites due to fears that Bloomberg would be expelled from the country. Bloomberg relies heavily on sales of its financial data terminals in the country.

Let's just say this wouldn't surprise me:

Russia threatened several Eastern European and Central Asian states with retaliation if they voted in favor of a United Nations General Assembly resolution this week declaring invalid Crimea's referendum on seceding from Ukraine, U.N. diplomats said.

The disclosures about Russian threats came after Moscow accused Western countries of using "shameless pressure, up to the point of political blackmail and economic threats," in an attempt to coerce the United Nations' 193 member states to join it in supporting the non-binding resolution on the Ukraine crisis.

According to interviews with U.N. diplomats, most of whom preferred to speak on condition of anonymity for fear of angering Moscow, the targets of Russian threats included Moldova, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan as well as a number of African countries. 

A spokesman for Russia's Mission to the U.N. denied that Moscow threatened any country with retaliation if it supported the resolution, saying: "We never threaten anyone. We just explain the situation."

(Sidebar: oh, I'll bet you do.)


I don't even know why Russia is denying this or this (if true). Who is going to stop it? Obama? He's too busy sucking up to his bosses.


If you give autonomy to one, they'll all want it:

In the Tatars historic capital of Bakhchisaray, the assembly representing the 300,000-strong indigenous Muslim minority voted in favour of seeking "ethnic and territorial autonomy" in Crimea. They make up less than 15 percent of Crimea's population of 2 million and have been overwhelmingly opposed to Russia's annexation of the territory.

From the mosqueteria to this:

An east Windsor community centre has received a grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation to hire a youth sports coordinator and purchase a new air conditioning unit. 

The Rose City Islamic Centre, the base of Windsor’s chapter of the Muslim Association of Canada, has received $309,200, which will be spent over three years. About $120,000 will go towards the air conditioner and the rest will pay for the sports coordinator’s salary and other programming expenses. 

I'm sure this is all a coincidence and not at all favouritism of any kind.

It's alright when this guy says it:

But the money moment came when Maher quoted “Ryan”: “Too many of our young people just can’t be bothered. They’re sitting on couches for hours playing video games, watching TV, instead of dreaming of being a teacher or a lawyer or a business leader, they’re fantasizing about being a baller or a rapper.”

When he revealed that it was Michelle Obama who said it rather than Ryan, he was greeted with a “hushed silence.”

“Is something less true if a white person says it about black people?”  Maher asked.

Bell’s answer was classic liberal doublespeak.

“A truth is a truth and a lie is a lie,” he said, before asking about the context of the first lady’s speech. Told it was a commencement address at Bowie State University, the historically black college in Maryland, he visibly relaxed.

“She’s talking to black people,” he explained. “We talk to each other differently than we talk to you.”

I'll bet he does.

Thanks for cementing your status as a liar and hypocrite.


And now,  some rather lovely libraries. Enjoy.

(With thanks to all)

 

Celebrity Apartheid Week: The Seventh Seal

 

See what I did there?


Ellen DeGeneres sold her famous Oscars group self-photo (selfies, as those crazy kids call them) and gave the proceeds to the Humane Society which has taken a harsh stance against Inuit seal hunting.

Not content to let a sheltered white liberal define them through the 'noble savage' prism, the Inuit of Canada's North have shot back with SEALfies:

Canadian Inuit are taking on Ellen DeGeneres’ famous selfie photo from the Oscars after the celebrity gave some of the money raised from the star-studded pic to a group that fights seal hunting.

DeGeneres donated $1.5-million of the money raised by the photo to the Humane Society of the United States, one of the loudest voices against the seal hunt.

In response, Inuit from across Nunavut are using social media sites to post “sealfies” — pictures of themselves wearing sealskin clothes, standing beside freshly killed seals or looking forward to enjoying a tasty seal meal.

One could have a discussion on the sustainability of any lifestyle, modern or not, but that is not the issue. The issue is the insularity of a celebrity who thinks he or she speaks with authority. I'll wager Miss DeGeneres had not been to Canada's North. I will also wager she does not know how hunting of seals or otherwise is how people feed and clothe themselves. It wouldn't be the first time a Hollywood celebrity made assumptions about the life of the little people who watch their movies and it won't be the last. Had Miss DeGeneres done five minutes of intellectual effort, she would know that hunting is how many people live, that animals are killed as quickly as possible and that people don't take kindly to someone way outside their sphere casting aspersions on them. But knowing breaks down barriers and when one has a stake in an ideological position, those barriers had better stay up. It's embarrassing otherwise.

That, surprisingly, is not good enough for the Inuit but good enough for people who don't live as they do.

It's a good thing the latter don't live where the Inuit do.

Happy hunting.

Friday Post

Just in time for the week-end...


There have been revolutions over things like these:

The ranks of Ontario’s top-paid government workers grew 9 per cent over the past year, with everyone from electricity executives to subway fare collectors to a television talk show host swelling the ranks of the so-called Sunshine List.

The annual disclosure of public-sector workers who earned more than $100,000 in 2013, released Friday, grew to roughly 96,500 people in 2013, up from 88,412 the previous year. The average salary on the list decreased slightly, from $127,576 to $127,433.

The release also reveals a substantial severance for Dalton McGuinty’s former chief of staff who, it was revealed this week, is under police investigation for allegedly orchestrating the destruction of documents in the former premier’s office. An even heftier payout – more than $240,000 – went to Chris Spence, the Toronto District School Board education director who resigned in January 2013 over a plagiarism scandal.

And, it turns out, Premier Kathleen Wynne’s chief of staff, Tom Teahan, not only made a lot more than she did, he even pulled in bigger bucks than U.S. President Barack Obama’s chief of staff.

 
When you're at home tomorrow night drinking a hot or cold beverage and thanking God for not getting polio, take a moment to remember why you're not doing this:

Few cries for attention are less effective than turning off the lights and sitting in the dark for an hour. Who can watch if they cannot see? Nevertheless, the World Wide Fund for Nature is encouraging people around the world to honor, or celebrate, or mourn, or whatever, during “Earth Hour,” Saturday night between 8:30 and 9:30.

The idea is to persuade everybody to renounce technology with the flick of a switch, raising “awareness” of the need for big government to rescue the globe, indeed even the universe, from the scourge of global warming. ...

Earth Hour paints humanity as the villain pillaging Mother Earth and perpetuates the Luddite myth that modern technology is the enemy of nature. That’s not even close to being true.

Advances in science have kept the skies and water cleaner than ever, contributing to sustainable practices that make humans thrive, and plants soak up the abundant carbon dioxide to grow ever taller and greener. ...

That’s the idea behind Human Achievement Hour, the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s response to Earth Hour. Rather than sitting in the dark on Saturday night, Human Achievement Hour encourages people to “celebrate a human achievement that has improved their lives — everything from indoor plumbing to computer technology, to access to consumer goods and affordable energy.”

The free-market think tank encourages people to participate by enjoying a warm (or even hot) shower, to crack open a cold beer, watch a basketball game on TV, text a friend on a smartphone or enjoy any of the simple joys of life made possible by the energy and innovation of free men.

More of the world’s problems have been solved by human ingenuity and the free market than by sitting around in the dark and feeling guilty (for the wrong things) for an hour.

Related:

See what Dora just did there? He used the shock value of the WHO's pollution death figures to slip three Big Lies under the impressionable reader's radar.

First, he's trying to make out that outdoor pollution is as big a problem as indoor pollution. It isn't: nowhere near. Many of the deaths the WHO links to the former are very likely the result of the latter (cooking and heating in poorly ventilated rooms using dung, wood, and coal) which, by nature, is much more intense.

Secondly, he's implying that economic development is to blame. In fact, it's economic development we have to thank for the fact that there are so many fewer pollution deaths than there used to be. As Bjorn Lomborg has noted, over the 20th century as poverty receded and clean fuels got cheaper, the risk of dying of pollution decreased eight-fold. In 1900, air pollution cost 23 per cent of global GDP; today it is 6 per cent, and by 2050 it will be 4 per cent.

But the third and by far the biggest of the lies is the implication that the UN's policies on climate change are helping to alleviate the problem.

Remember when Obamacare was supposed to be good for everyone?

Just how costly are the Obamacare plans for young beneficiaries?

We ran the numbers. Here are our results:

Overall, the Federal government reports that 32% of on-exchange enrollees as of March 1st are under the age of 34. And many of these are teenagers who are part of family policies, not the young yuppies that Obamacare is fervently targeting. Earlier estimates showed only 20% of enrollees were between the ages 18 and 34.

The final number of young enrollees is well below the required cohort. Premiums will rise next year as a result of the adverse selection of older, and probably less healthy consumers. Why are young adults staying away? In one word, economics.

Obamacare is asking young adults to effectively subsidize the healthcare costs of older Americans. So far, Millennials are resisting this age-based transfer of wealth. Many are clearly opting instead to remain uninsured, or else they are buying cheaper health plans that don’t conform to Obamacare’s regulatory dictates.

So this is how they are ramping up numbers:

Health Care insurance navigator groups hosted an Obamacare enrollment fair on Tuesday in the Mexican Consulate’s Brownsville office, The Rio Grande Guardian reported last Friday, where Mexican nationals among others were counseled about enrolling in the ACA.

“The Mexican consulate is a very reliable source of information to the Latino community. And therefore when they host their events, yesterday being the health fair, there are several hundred people that show up,” Medrano said.

Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), undocumented immigrants aren't supposed to be receiving government-run health benefits or subsidized coverage. However, President Barack Obama told Latinos in early March that the Healthcare.gov website would not be used to find out about an individual’s immigration status. 

“None of the information that is provided in order for you to obtain health insurance is in any way transferred to immigration services,” he said.

Yeah, I don't think so:

Controversial billboards in Columbus, Ohio, reading "Jesus is Muslim" and "Mohammed is in the Bible" are drawing protests from local Christians who say Muslims are "hijacking" the name of Jesus. 

This would be the same Jesus who is: not the Son of God (Surah 4:171), only a prophet (Surah 5:75), did not die on the cross for the salvation of man (Surah 4:157) and, the most impardonable sin, is a Jew.

Yeshua ben Yosef: not a Muslim

Over at the Fur: hospitals in England are accused of fudging their statistics; Trudeau panders to the Islamic vote (rather like someone on the US one might know) by claiming that Harper's support of Israel is insincere; an Irish judge tells it like it is; could some schools in Nigeria be recruiting terrorists? Possibly; and much, much more!



And now, bears doing human things. Enjoy.