For A Thursday

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Twenty-three thousand people attended the March for Life in Ottawa.

Quite the number in Alberta. More info to come.

Stick it, Trudeau.

As of this writing, the Liberal Party mouth-piece, CBC, has some blather about two unimportant chicks, not the monumental number of people witnessing for life. I won't link to it.  This is why the CBC should be de-funded now. A better network actually covered the March for Life in more detail. When you have thousands of people converge on the nation's capital, one would think a news agency would cover it, not focus on twits who couldn't flash their way out of a paper bag.

Whatever.


Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne hopes that pitting herself against PM Stephen Harper will make people magically forget her lies and incompetence:

And Wynne made the link to the provincial Conservatives clear.

“How can Ontarians trust Tim Hudak to confront Stephen Harper when he shares so many of his values, ideals and policies?” she asked.

Did either Hudak or Harper lie to Ontarians about cancelled and costly gas plants, Miss Wynne?


Moving on...


Even the Chinese are thinking ahead:

Contingency planners from China's People's Liberation Army have formulated a set of emergency measures to cope with the ramifications of a collapse of North Korea's regime for the border area, including a possible massive influx of refugees, according to internal PLA documents.

The documents -- which Chinese military sources say were compiled in the summer of last year, or several months after North Korea carried out its third nuclear test -- call for boosting China's monitoring capacity along the two countries' 1,416-kilometer-long border.

They also call for setting up camps on the Chinese side of the border to handle any influx of North Korean refugees.

The crisis management plans do not mention North Korea by name but refer to it otherwise, such as "our country's northeastern neighbor."

Among the scenarios deemed possible is an attack on North Korea by foreign forces leading to the collapse of political control and triggering a massive outflow of refugees and military personnel across the border into China.

In such an event, the plans call for special groups be sent to border areas to ascertain the situation, investigate new arrivals, block entry to any deemed dangerous or undesirable, and counter oppositional forces.

To cope with an influx of refugees, camps with a capacity of 1,500 people each should be set up in counties along the border, the documents say.

According to the documents, any important North Korean political or military figures who could be targeted for assassination should be given protection. But at the same time, they should be placed in special camps where their activities could be monitored to prevent them from directing military operations or engaging in other activities that could be detrimental to China's interests.

If accurate, this wouldn't surprise me. China is desperate to contain North Korea. It must know that a crisis, either humanitarian or military, is imminent.


A "tactical error" is moving your car into the express lane that just experienced a greater and slower influx of badly-driven cars. Boko Haram's kidnapping of girls and murder of boys were monstrous acts the world just didn't care about until now:

Boko Haram, the militant group that denounces Western education and wishes to establish an independent Islamist state in northern Nigeria, has been waging violent attacks in the country for the last five years.

But some analysts believe the group's recent kidnapping of nearly 300 schoolgirls — coupled with a pledge that they would be sold into slavery — was not only outrageous but a tactical error that has been denounced even by prominent Sunni Muslim authorities.

FYI:

Islam institutionalized slavery.  Muhammad began to take slaves after he moved to Medina, and had power.  Slaves were usually taken in raids on nearby Arab tribes, or war, either through offensive or defensive actions.  Islam allows the taking of slaves as "booty", or reward for fighting.  This has led to numerous "jihads" by Muslim states and tribes to attack other non-Muslim groups and obtain slaves. 

And now, some news on a rare shark:

The Japan Daily Press reported Thursday that scientists performed an autopsy on the 1,500-pound female shark in front of onlookers at the Marine Science Museum in Shizuoka City. The shark was reportedly caught from a depth of about 2,600 feet. It's unclear precisely when it was nabbed, according to the report.

Mid-Week Post

The crucible of the week...


March for Life: it's happening, so screw you, Trudeau.


Author Farley Mowat has died. He was ninety-two.


It's Ontario. It's not like one has to choose between MacDonald or Laurier here:

It will be a little easier being Green after the June 12 provincial election, Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner says.

Schreiner said he expects the party to pick up one or two seats in this campaign, despite past shutouts.

But the Nigerians already have the Islamist-removing equipment. They're called guns. What good would a milquetoast response do? I mean- it's not like people are going to point out that Islamism is the problem or anything:

The federal New Democrats are calling for an emergency debate in Parliament over Canada's response to the abduction of hundreds of Nigerian teenage girls by Islamic extremists.

The request comes amid reports that Nigeria is asking Canada to supply surveillance equipment to battle terrorism in the wake of the April kidnappings by the Boko Haram rebel group.

NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar made the request Wednesday in a letter to House of Commons speaker Andrew Scheer.

"These girls were taken while writing a high school physics exam, an indication of the extent to which Boko Haram terrorists seek to undermine the education of young Nigerians, particularly girls," Dewar wrote.

(Sidebar: says the guy who thinks terms like "Islamist terrorism” are harsh and that we can work with "moderates"in Islamist-run countries.)

"Hundreds of young innocent lives are at stake, along with the political and social direction of a country and the region. Parliamentarians need an opportunity to discuss an appropriate Canadian response to this crisis."

Nigeria's vice-president reportedly issued a statement Wednesday after meeting with Canadian Development Minister Christian Paradis in the Nigerian capital of Abuja a day earlier. It said Vice-President Namadi Sambo asked for Canada to supply "surveillance equipment and other vital security hardware" to help Nigeria battle the Boko Haram insurgency.

Though the Canadian government did declare IRFAN a terrorist entity, so...


Also:

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird promised assistance from Canada to help rescue more than 250 Nigerian school girls who were abducted by Islamist group Boko Haram more than a week ago.

"I think I speak for all members of the House that strongly stand up and condemn actions by Boko Haram," Baird said in the House of Commons Tuesday. "Quite simply, their actions are repugnant. Our hearts go out to these young girls and to their families."

Baird said International Development Minister Ed Fast "recently offered Canada's full assistance to Nigerian authorities as they work to secure the release of these young girls."

He didn't explain exactly what that assistance could include.

I wouldn't call this a "breakthrough" but a re-grouping. Putin has been overwhelmed with roving mobs and sanctions. When things cool, Putin will be as iron-fisted as ever.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called on pro-Moscow separatists in Ukraine to postpone a vote on secession just five days before it was to be held, potentially pulling Ukraine back from the brink of violent dismemberment.

It was the first sign the Kremlin leader has given that he would not endorse a referendum planned for Sunday by pro-Russian rebels seeking independence for two provinces in the east, and Russian analysts said they believed the rebels would heed Putin's call to put off the vote.

In what could be a breakthrough in the worst crisis between East and West since the Cold War, Putin also announced he was pulling Russian troops back from the Ukrainian border.

However, NATO, the Pentagon and the White House said they had not seen any signs of a Russian pull-back from the frontier, where Moscow has massed tens of thousands of troops, proclaiming the right to invade Ukraine to protect Russian speakers.

"We call on the representatives of southeastern Ukraine, the supporters of the federalization of the country, to postpone the referendum planned for May 11," Putin said.

He said this would create conditions for dialogue between the Ukrainian authorities in Kiev and the separatists.

"Emergency meetings" wouldn't be necessary if the following were the happen-  parents got off their duffs and paid attention to what their children were learning and who was teaching what; curricula were based on academic excellence, not absurd and inflammatory exercises; teachers and other staff were carefully selected for their skills, not their ability to read from textbooks and spout out political crap; and finally, school board trustees were so afraid of this kind of crap that they saw to it that nothing like this would ever happen:

Rialto school board members will hold an emergency meeting Wednesday in response to widespread criticism of an eighth-grade writing assignment that asked students to consider sources that contend the Holocaust never happened.

A group of teachers and the district’s educational services division created the assignment, in which students were asked to research and write an argumentative essay about whether the Holocaust actually occurred or whether it was "merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain wealth." ...

In the aftermath of the blowback, a spokeswoman for the Rialto Unified School District told The Times that interim Supt. Mohammad Z. Islam was not aware of its topic until school officials received an email about it.

Syeda Jafri said he was “deeply disturbed” by the assignment and acted swiftly, but declined to comment on whether the teachers involved faced any disciplinary action, citing confidential personnel matters.

Gee, one would think one wanted to put this beastly Benghazi business behind one:

Secretary of State John Kerry will be traveling to Mexico later this month, making him unavailable to testify before a congressional committee hearing on Benghazi that he has been subpoenaed to attend, the State Department said Wednesday.

Kerry will be in Mexico for two days, starting on May 21, the department said. That means he will miss the scheduled hearing that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has set for the same day. Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., last week issued a subpoena for Kerry to appear.

Kerry said Tuesday he would comply with "whatever responsibilities" he has to Congress. It was not immediately clear whether the committee had rescheduled the hearing or other arrangements had been made for Kerry's appearance.

 

And now, boat-jousting: it's on.

Monday Post

A merry Cinco de Children's Day to you all.


Children's Day is not a happy one this year:

Twelve more bodies were retrieved from the sunken ferry Sewol on Monday, raising the death toll to 262 and lowering the number of those missing to 40, 19 days after the ship sank off South Korea's southwest coast. ...

Mourners, meanwhile, visited memorial altars across the nation to pay their respects to the dead. Children could be spotted with their parents as Monday was a public holiday. May 5 is celebrated as Children's Day in South Korea.

When your empire is currently helmed by a moron and held in siege by greedy unions that have backed said moron, this kind of thing was bound to happen:
  

China is set to overtake the U.S. as the world's number one economy, while India has jumped into third place ahead of Japan, according to a new study from the world's leading statistical agencies.

  
Also, mismanagement, slave labour, and currency manipulation don't help.


Vietnam claims China is illegally exploring the South China Sea for oil:

Vietnam demanded China stop oil drilling operations in a disputed patch of the South China Sea, saying on Monday that Beijing's decision to deploy a deep sea rig over the weekend was illegal.

China's move was the latest in a series of provocative actions aimed at asserting its sovereignty in potentially oil and gas-rich waters that have raised tensions with Vietnam, the Philippines and other claimants.

The thing is this Boko Haram moron will probably get himself killed. I'm guessing accidentally getting shot.


Doing the dirty work Putin won't do:

Pro-Russian rebels shot down a Ukrainian helicopter in fierce fighting near the eastern town of Slaviansk on Monday, and Kiev drafted police special forces to the southwestern port city of Odessa to halt a feared westward spread of rebellion.

Ukraine said the Odessa force, based on "civil activists", would replace local police who had failed to tackle rebel actions at the weekend. Its dispatch was a clear signal from Kiev that, while tackling rebellion in the east, it would vigorously resist any sign of a slide to a broader civil war.

Odessa, with its ethnic mix from Russians to Ukrainians, Georgians to Tatars a cultural contrast to the pro-Russian east, was quiet on Monday. Ukrainian flags flew at half-staff for funerals of some of the dozens killed in clashes on Friday.

But in the east, fighting intensified around the pro-Russian stronghold of Slaviansk, a city of 118,000, where rebel fighters ambushed Ukrainian forces early in the day.

On the home-front...


The election campaign in Ontario begins Wednesday:

While the official campaign doesn't start until Wednesday, the leaders of Ontario's three major political parties have hit the ground running.

They spent the weekend touting their platforms and exchanging jabs while attending community events.

Chief Shawn Atleo has resigned:

The government is putting its First Nations education bill on hold until the Assembly of First Nations replaces Shawn Atleo, who resigned as national chief last week.

Atleo declined to take questions after he announced his resignation, but there was plenty of speculation his decision had something to do with significant tensions within First Nations communities over his support of Bill C-33, the First Nations Control over First Nations Education Act.

It's time for Pam Palmater to step up. No one understands the plight of the screwed-over aboriginal like a shrill activist.


And now, things to cook in the merry month of May.

But Wait! There's More!

There usually is...


Didn't I say this?

The budget calls for $130.4 billion in spending on programs and debt repayment in 2014-15, up $3.4 billion from the previous year.

The revenue that the treasury takes in will rise to $118.9 billion, up $3 billion, leaving a shortfall of $12.5 billion including a $1 billion reserve.

The government is predicting significant increases in revenue to bring the deficit down to zero by 2017-18.

Annual interest payments for paying off the province's ballooning debt will grow to $11 billion this year, $12 billion next year and $13.3 billion in 2016-17.

The debt -- the total amount Ontario owes -- will hit $317.2 billion in two years, which is $21,019 for every person in the province.

In 2003-04, when the Ontario Liberals first took over government, the net debt was $10,971 per person.

As previously announced, the government will retire the debt retirement charge bill as of Jan. 1, 2016, but with the end of the Ontario Clean Energy Benefit at the same time, average hydro customers will pay just over $120 more a year.

There are hydro cost breaks for low-income families and for more industrial users.

Ontario government plans to spend more than $130 billion over 10 years on infrastructure such as roads, bridges and public transit paid for with new borrowing, redirected taxes, the elimination of a small business tax deduction for large corporations and proceeds from high occupancy toll lanes.

Where does Wynne think all this money is going to come from? Where does she think industry is going to come from?


One would think that with childhood vaccinations and medical advances, the average person would get a clue. If they did, mandatory vaccinations wouldn't be an issue:

Canada's long, drawn-out series of measles outbreaks continued this week when Alberta health officials declared not one, not two, but three outbreaks in regions across the province.

The trio of declarations are just the latest instances of measles that have hit various parts of the country in recent months. Almost every province has had to address measles on some level. Save perhaps Quebec, where vaccinations are mandatory, and apparently quite effective.

Clayton Lockett raped, kidnapped, shot and buried alive Stephanie Nieman, as well as raped, beat and kidnap two other people as well as a baby.


People also thought Stalin/Khrushchev/Brezhnev/Gorbachev were right, too:

Russia staged a huge May Day parade on Moscow's Red Square for the first time since the Soviet era on Thursday, with workers holding banners proclaiming support for President Vladimir Putin after the seizure of territory from neighboring Ukraine.

Thousands of trade unionists marched with Russian flags and flags of Putin's ruling United Russia party onto the giant square beneath the Kremlin walls, past the red granite mausoleum of Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin.

Many banners displayed traditional slogans for the annual workers' holiday, like: "Peace, Labour, May". But others were more directly political, alluding to the crisis in neighboring former Soviet republic Ukraine, where Russian troops seized and annexed the Crimea peninsula in March, precipitating the biggest confrontation with the West since the Cold War.

"I am proud of my country," read one. "Putin is right," said another.

Unlike Kremlin leaders in Soviet times, Putin did not personally preside at the parade from atop the mausoleum. But he carried out another Soviet-era tradition by awarding "Hero of Labour" medals to five workers at a ceremony in the Kremlin. He revived the Stalin-era award a year ago.

I don't understand (particularly people who call themselves conservative) why people cannot see what an autocrat Putin is and how bad he is for Russia.


Speaking of autocrats, why not read up on Pyongyang's homophobia, manufactured famine and much, much more?


A video captures the last moments of teen-agers trapped on a sinking South Korean ferry:

Soon after the ferry began to tilt, there was nervous laughter, jokes about the Titanic and talk of selfies and Facebook posts from the doomed high school students huddled below deck.

But the lighthearted atmosphere soon turned serious as the listing worsened. Fear began building, and one student asked, "Am I really going to die?"

The shaky video (http://apne.ws/R7iRbX ) — at times poignant and heartbreaking as the teens said last words to their loved ones — was found on the cellphone belonging to 17-year-old Park Su-hyeon when his body was recovered after the disaster on the morning of April 16 off South Korea.

The boy's father, Park Jong-dae, provided it Thursday to The Associated Press, saying he wanted to show the world the conditions aboard the Sewol as it sank. He earlier released it to select South Korean media. Information such as video can be recovered from micro SD cards in cellphones even if the device is submerged.

More than 300 people are dead or missing in the disaster, which has plunged South Korea into mourning and touched off anger and shame. About 220 bodies, mostly from inside the submerged vessel, have been recovered. More than 80 per cent of the victims were students from a high school in Ansan, south of Seoul, on their way to the tourist island of Jeju for a school trip. ...

At the start of the video, a message blared from the ferry's loudspeakers: "Don't move away from your places and brace for any possible accidents."

In subsequent announcements, passengers were again told to stay put, even as some questioned whether they should flee.

The last message from the bridge came at 9:08: "We're again announcing: For passengers who can wear life vests, please wear them now. Never move away from your places."

That warning came eight minutes after a Sewol crew member told a marine traffic official, "The body of the ship has tilted, and it's impossible to move," according to a transcript of communications with the ferry.

After the passengers were ordered to stay in their cabins, Capt. Lee Joon-seok took at least a half-hour to order an evacuation. It is unclear whether that order was ever relayed to passengers. Lee has said he delayed the evacuation because of worries about sending passengers into cold waters and fast currents before rescuers arrived.

Lee could be seen in a separate video released by the coast guard leaping from the ferry in his underwear onto a rescue boat while many passengers were still in the sinking ship.

A Canadian filmmaker has been found dead in Cambodia:

The family of Dave Walker, a Canadian filmmaker who went missing in Cambodia in February, says he was found dead today.

A statement issued on behalf of Walker’s family says his body was reportedly discovered by a child at the Angkor Wat temples in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Cambodian law enforcement officials told the family it appeared Walker had died several weeks ago.
The statement says a doctor at the site was unable to determine a cause of death and an autopsy will be held to try to determine how and when Walker died.

Forensic officer Pheng Pich says authorities are waiting on DNA tests before an official confirmation of the body's identity can be made, but he says there are no initial signs of foul play.

Tith Narong, a senior officer with the Siem Reap provincial police, says friends and acquaintances identified Walker on the basis of his clothing.

Walker, who was 58, had been living in Cambodia for the past year and a half. He was staying at a guesthouse on Feb. 14, when he stepped out while a housekeeper tended to his room and was not seen again.

The disappearance baffled family and friends, who said Walker spoke the language, knew the streets and was familiar with the local culture. His phone, laptop computer, passport and other belongings were left behind at the guesthouse.

Walker and a partner had set up a film company in Siem Reap in July 2012 called Animist Farm Films. They had recently been working on a documentary about the Khmer Rouge regime, which left close to two million people dead.

Mid-Week Post

The focal point of the work-week...


On the first of May, Premier Kathleen Wynne will put out the provincial budget she hopes will spare her from an election.

What the budget is expected to entail:

• An income tax increase for those who earn greater than $150,000

• No new gas taxes or increases to the HST

• $29 billion, over 10 years, in transit and transportation investments

• Some Government of Ontario 'asset sales'

• A tax hike on aviation fuel

• An increase in tobacco taxes

• A rolling back of tax credits for corporations

• Personal support workers who take care of elderly will get a $4 pay increase over the next two years, from $12.50/hour to $16.50/hour.

• An infusion of $2.5 billion, over 10 years, for a “Jobs and Prosperity Fund”. The fund will dole out corporate grants to attract business to the province. (Source: CTV News)

• A cut in the “debt retirement charge” which currently appears on Ontario residents' Hydro bill. (Source: CTV News)

• An initial roll out of an Ontario Pension Plan

Why it won't work: putting aside Wynne and McGuinty's unbelievable deceptions (and Wynne's ties to Benjamin Levin), this budget will cost Ontarians more, not less (where does the public sector get its money, Miss Wynne?). Already buckling under a vanished manufacturing sector and high energy costs, this budget will attempt to succeed in getting blood out of stones.

Will it pass? Yes or Andrea Horvath will die trying.


Well, then, don't ship jobs out to slave labour countries like China and Bangladesh:

Canada is missing out on about $40 billion in export sales and could continue to do so for years to come as uncompetitive producers continue to lose market share, Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz said Tuesday.

The central banker, who was testifying before the Commons finance committee, said there are several factors for the significant drop-off — including poor productivity and a stronger loonie, as well as the disappearance of about 9,000 exporting firms since the recession.

But the bottom line is that the "wedge" that has opened up in the non-energy export sector is the new reality and is not going away in the near future, he said.

While I'm sure this is meant to be dismissive of Canada's oil resources, it does highlight the lack of productivity and manufacturing opportunities that could benefit the "have-nots". Knocking Canadian oil exports really is shooting the golden goose and I hope the wags realise that.


Two people have been shot dead at a sawmill in British Columbia:

Two people are dead after a shooting at a sawmill in British Columbia on Wednesday, the BC Coroners Service said, and police said a 47-year-old male suspect was in custody.

Police said four people had been shot and had been taken to hospital.

The coroner said that shortly after 7 a.m. (10.00 a.m. ET), two people were taken to hospital by ambulance from the Western Forest Products Inc mill in Nanaimo, a city of about 90,000 on Vancouver Island. Both were pronounced dead on arrival.

Police said they received several calls early in the morning about shots being fired at the mill.

The suspect was arrested without incident and police said it appeared that he acted alone.

Culture matters and so do its geopolitical effects:

The Chinese government wants the nation's single ladies to get over their silly notions of romance and just get hitched already!

In other Asian countries, women are marrying later in life, pursuing high-powered careers and prioritizing work life rather than home life.

Nervous that this trend will hit China, the government is going straight for the single gal's soft spot — and making her feel like she's running out of time.

"As women age they are worth less and less," says one piece of government propaganda. "So by the time they get their MA or PhD they are already old, like yellowed pearls."

(Sidebar: no sharp words for the chauvinist Chinese culture? None?)

No one's physical person gets better with age. What the article didn't address (or why) is the male-to-female ration in China stands at 122 boys born for every 100 girls. That leaves twenty-two bachelors without Chinese wives (assuming they all get married and the bachelors don't buy North Korean women). Imagine a whole slough of women just chucking marriage altogether. Whatever will the Chinese state do with those excess men?

Start a war in the East Sea or South China Sea, perhaps?


Also: 

On Monday night excavators laid waste to one of the city’s largest places of worship, the state-sanctioned Sanjiang church, amid accusations that the Communist Party was preparing to launch a nationwide assault against Christianity. 

At least 10 churches here in Zhejiang province have been ordered to remove their eye-catching red crosses or are facing partial or total demolition, activists claim. Already this month two churches, one Catholic, one Protestant, have been razed.

I would like to know where the human-rights activists are on this. Whenever a cake isn't being baked, they never shut up. Churches get razed and there are crickets.

Such is the commitment of the spoiled and cocooned left. 


Doing Putin's dirty work in Ukraine:

Ukraine's acting president vowed to create a special police force to staunch the spread of separatism in the country's east, vowing to overcome unrest he says is stoked by Russia and hold a May 25 election.

Following an expansion of sanctions against people and companies linked to Vladimir Putin's inner circle this week, the Russian president warned that further economic penalties over the crisis in Ukraine may lead his government to reconsider participation by U.S. and European Union companies in his country's energy and other key industries.

Saudi Arabia makes demands of Norway:

Norway's human rights record came in for sharp criticism during a UN hearing on Monday, with Saudi Arabia and Russia weighing in to highlight the country's shortcomings. 

Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries accused Norway of doing too little to protect its Muslim minority, with Saudi Arabia calling for all criticism of religions or their prophets to be made illegal. 

Meanwhile, Russia accused the country of allowing extremist groups to "operate freely" and of moving too quickly to separate children from their parents. 

Norwegian Foreign Minister Børge Brende was in Geneva on Monday to respond to criticisms from no fewer than 91 other country's during a session of the United Nations' Universal Periodic Review, under which UN members take turns to go under scrutiny. 

Before Monday's hearing, Brende conceded to Norway's NTB newswire that many of the countries collected together to criticise Norway themselves hardly had spotless human rights records. 

"It is a paradox that countries which do not support fundamental human rights have influence on the council, but that is the United Nations," he said. 

Human Rights Watch's latest report on Saudi Arabia noted that in 2012 the country had "stepped up arrests and trials of peaceful dissidents, and responded with force to demonstrations by citizens."

Don't give in, Norway. 

Norge: disse farger ikke kjører.

Gerry Adams, long-praised for his role in the Northern Irish peace processes, has been arrested under suspicion of murder:

Sinn Fein chief Gerry Adams, the warlord-turned-peacemaker of the Northern Ireland conflict, was being interrogated Thursday over the grisly slaying of a Belfast widow that has haunted his political career for decades.

Adams was arrested on suspicion of ordering the killing of Jean McConville, a mother of 10 in his Catholic west Belfast power base in 1972. That was the deadliest year in four decades of bloodshed, when the outlawed Irish Republican Army was committing killings daily — and Adams was already a commanding figure.

The IRA branded the 38-year-old woman a British spy but killed her secretly and told her children, who ranged in age from infants to teens, that she had abandoned them.

Lie your way out of that.


And now, another reason to love the Charlie Brown Christmas special:

A Charlie Brown Christmas was originally conceived as a 25-minute advertisement for Coca-Cola by a New York advertising agency that wanted Charles Schulz to write a quick and forgettable Christmas special for them. So it's no surprise that when he instead delivered a poignant story about the Christian origin of Christmas, the shocked admen nearly dropped their cigarettes on the backs of their secretaries' heads.

The Nativity scene was tentatively OKed, but everyone worried that the one-minute reading from the gospel of Luke by Linus would scare off sponsors. A decision was hastily made to cut the scene and bury it at the bottom of the Mariana Trench where it wouldn't be able to hurt any innocent profits ever again with its message of love and unity.

The religious Schulz unsurprisingly argued like crazy to save Linus' speech because he believed he really was fighting for the true meaning of Christmas. He might also have made the argument that the producers were acting like the villain in every Christmas special ever. The scene was eventually saved, and the special became an instant hit. 

(Paws up)

The Plot Thickens

Well, this must be embarrassing:

Newly released emails on the Benghazi terror attack suggest a senior White House aide played a central role in preparing former U.N. ambassador Susan Rice for her controversial Sunday show appearances -- where she wrongly blamed protests over an Internet video.

More than 100 pages of documents were released to the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Among them was a Sept. 14, 2012, email from Ben Rhodes, an assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for strategic communications.

The Rhodes email, with the subject line: "RE: PREP Call with Susan: Saturday at 4:00 pm ET," was sent to a dozen members of the administration's inner circle, including key members of the White House communications team such as Press Secretary Jay Carney.

In the email, Rhodes specifically draws attention to the anti-Islam Internet video, without distinguishing whether the Benghazi attack was different from protests elsewhere.

The email lists the following two goals, among others:

"To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy."

"To reinforce the President and Administration's strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges."

The email goes on to state that the U.S. government rejected the message of the Internet video. "We find it disgusting and reprehensible. But there is absolutely no justification at all for responding to this movie with violence," the email stated.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said the documents read like a PR strategy, not an effort to provide the best available intelligence to the American people.

"The goal of the White House was to do one thing primarily, which was to make the president look good. Blame it on the video and not [the] president's policies," he said.

The Rhodes email was not part of the 100 pages of emails released by the administration last May -- after Republicans refused to move forward with the confirmation of John Brennan as CIA director until the so-called "talking points" emails were made public.

The email is also significant because in congressional testimony in early April, former deputy CIA director Michael Morell told lawmakers it was Rice, in her Sunday show appearances, who linked the video to the Benghazi attack. Morell said the video was not part of the CIA analysis.

If this was a spontaneous reaction to a video no one saw, why the coaching or the cover-up?

Of course, the White House appears to have an answer for that:

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney today sought to defend a newly released email from a White House communications adviser, prepping then-U.S. ambassador to the UN Susan Rice for her round of interviews about the Benghazi attack.

"This document was not about Benghazi," Carney told ABC's Jonathan Karl.

(Sidebar: oh?!)

 

“It is often forgotten that during that time period there was an enormous amount of attention and focus, appropriately, on the fact that there were protesters, sometimes violent protesters, surrounding U.S. embassies, causing us to draw down personnel at those embassies, causing great concern, understandably, about the safety of American personnel at other diplomatic facilities around the Muslim world. And that was a focus of a great deal of press attention, and thus would be, as the promos indicate, one of the areas of focus of those Sunday shows.” 

(Sidebar: you mean the protests that weren't at the American embassy were four Americans were killed during which Obama could not be found?)

The e-mail from National Security Council communications adviser Ben Rhodes, lists as a "goal" of Rice's round of interviews "to show that these protests were rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy."

(Sidebar: that sounds like a lie to me.)

The American electorate should answer this with an impeachment.

For A Monday

So cool they made him a saint.

The opening pages of the work week...


It is official: Pope John Paul II is now Saint John Paul II along with Saint John XXIII much to the chagrin of idiot anti-Catholics and American leftists who try to out-douche one another.

Like this one:

The former Ambassador related one story that demonstrated how Clinton was not aligned with the Pope. Clinton would not take a call from John Paul II, who wanted Clinton’s support to denounce leftist agendas being espoused in an upcoming conference in Cairo, including the advocating for abortion worldwide. Flynn broke all Ambassadorial protocols and flew from Rome to the White House without approval or an appointment and waited for sixteen hours until the President came out to see him and agreed to take the Pope’s call. Flynn said Clinton then called the Pope. 

Speaking of irreligious douchebags:

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday that the rights of Myanmar's minority Muslim population were not being fully protected and warned that the Southeast Asian country would not succeed if Muslims there were oppressed.

Never mind that Muslims have more to fear from one another than anyone else. And then there's that pesky persecution of other religions. I have yet to hear Obama vociferously condemn that kind of persecution.


John Kerry insists his foot belongs in his mouth:

John Kerry has warned that Israel risks becoming an “apartheid state” if it fails conclude a historic peace deal with the Palestinians, in a graphic indication of his frustration at the collapse of his peace initiative. 

Israel has Arabs, Muslims, Druze and Christians living safely and equally within its borders. Neighbouring Arab states won't even treat the Palestinians with any sort of dignity. As usual, Kerry has no ruddy idea what he is talking about.


South Korean prime minister Chung Hong-Won resigns over a ferry disaster that has claimed over a hundred lives:

Prime Minister Chung Hong-won on Sunday resigned over the confused official response to the ferry disaster off the southwest coast on April 16 and the following days. ...

Chung took office just over a year ago and resigned 11 days after the Sewol sank with most of it passengers. He will stay in office until the salvage operation is complete and a candidate to succeed him has been named.

Well, this must be embarrassing:

Thousands of First Nations people became eligible for payments under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement for their experiences ranging from being deprived of their language and culture on up to physical and sexual abuse.

But a court is being told that many of the claimants allegedly have been strong-armed into handing over a large chunk of the money to lawyers and companies set up to help them fill out the complex forms needed to apply for part of the $1.9-billion settlement pool.

The charges do an end run around the court-mandated maximum fee that lawyers can levy for working on the most complex cases. The Globe and Mail reports the most that can be charged is 30 per cent of the settlement, supposedly including help with forms. The federal government pays up to 15 per cent of that fee, with the claimant responsible for the rest.

But so-called form-filling agencies have been set up at arms length from the law firms, allowing them to avoid scrutiny by adjudicators who assess whether the fees are fair and reasonable,...

I thought all of this was about justice.


Can anyone say "Phiesta"?

Two Greek organizations at Dartmouth College have canceled a fundraiser for cardiac care over concerns that the theme of the annual philanthropic event, "Phiesta," might be offensive, ...

Not the professionally aggrieved, I see.


Ladies and gentlemen, the Pogues.


Over at the Fur: it was only a matter of time before "reducing pets" for environmental reasons was suggested, more discoveries in the Valley of the Kings, a German court bans a student from wearing a face covering in class, and much, much more!

Safe Spaces and Free-Speech Zones

Screw that.

Behold the problems of the over-coddled and heavily infantilised residents of the post-modern West:

“I find it incredibly offensive. Gay pride is about acceptance and creating a safe space. Perpetuating stereotypes goes against that,” ....

**

The “public forum” sign above is part of an urgently needed community action campaign. Anyone can display the sign when they’re freely expressing themselves: being seen, being vocal, entertaining, engaging people, making protest, making light, frolicking! 

In fact paste it up as a self-fullfilling statement of one’s personal empowerment and to remind everyone including old mars, big business men, law makers (in businessmen’s pockets) and law enforcement that our public space is free for lots of things – besides corporate interest. 

The campaign asserts free speech rights in the public domain; a safe zone of expressive rights known as the Public Forum.

Has the West, perhaps the greatest civilisation man has known, become so childish that it has become regressive?

Unfortunately, it has. The veneer of ideological harm reduction is so thin that those who propose it ought not to hide their true intentions any longer. Are their intentions as obscenely authoritarian as those of the Cultural Revolution and Nazi Germany (yeah, I invoked Godwin- deal with it) or as squishy as the over-protected Western world? In any case, the entire mess is a wicked one because the end result is, as John Milton might say:

And yet on the other hand unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.

Even John Milton did not fear to utter the name of God, a being the post-modern West would rather forget existed and replaced with themselves.

But I digress...

The rights of the individual, of which philosophers of the past wrote so eloquently and have since been ignored, especially in an era when they are most needed, don't need to be defined or limited by so soft and so vulgar the expressions and intentions of "safe spaces" and "free-speech zones", expressions that insult peoples' intelligence (hi, aren't entire Western democracies "free speech zones, unlike, say, North Korea?) . An individual, aware of the world and in full possession of his faculties, does not need even a government to give him his rights as he already has them. They do need safeguarding without limitation save where physical liberty is at stake (SEE: speeding car, human body).

Freedom of expression and speech does not need such limitations- not words, not zones, not prohibitive laws. Consider that any one thing can be considered offensive. Should someone not declare that this or that political party is in error or that "Deep Space Nine" is the lesser Trek?

(Sidebar: I don't mean that.)

At what point do adults need spaces one would think belong to five year old children with ear infections? One opinion may seem innocuous or so inflammatory that one's blood boils but that is part of the human condition: to be offended or not. Nothing about that will change so why fight it? Why not deal with it? Doesn't the post-modern adult have the wherewithal to think or debate any longer? Perhaps not and there is the shame. How noble is man in faculty if limited from his earliest years and further limited in his adulthood? Not as noble as he should be and not as noble as those who just don't like people telling them what to say.

The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it.  If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth:  if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

Would John Stuart Mill's strategy for discourse be tolerated on university campuses where "safe spaces" and "free speech zones" are still subject to the kind of philistine brownshirt approval any decent society would be embarrassed to have? Any organisation or society that operates this way exhibits fear that its status quo could change. That's hardly a sign of confidence. It is a weakness right-minded people should exploit. The very notion of cocoons for adults is beyond ridiculous so much so that it would be laughed at had someone not instituted them in places of (ostensibly) higher learning. It should also be pointed out the West is a place where someone may not only say what they please but live as they please. Can one imagine "Midsummer Night's Dream" playing in Tehran let alone a billboard where "fairies" could mean more than winged creatures? For some reason, this never enters the discussion. There are no "safe spaces" for many in Iran. The problems of the coddled Westerner should not only pale in comparison; there should be no comparison. Even if a totalitarian theocratic state could never work its way into such an equation, the idea that people need to be protected from themselves (read: censored) is still an offensive one.

It's time for the post-modern West to grow up. No one can live with their mouths taped shut. No one should have a bean-counting bureaucrat or fluff-headed grievance-monger who has never left their own surroundings tell them what can be said or where it can be said. It's ridiculous.

Dare I say it, it's offensive.

Friday Post

Aaahhhh... spring....

In a word, yes, the alleged scandal is dead:

Elections Canada launched its investigation in 2012, following complaints about deceptive telephone calls in electoral districts in the last general election campaign.

"Investigators have been able to determine that incorrect poll locations were provided to some electors, and that some nuisance calls occurred," notes the report released on Thursday.

"However, the evidence does not establish that calls were made a) with the intention of preventing or attempting to prevent an elector from voting, or b) for the purpose of inducing an elector by some pretence or contrivance to vote or not vote, or to vote or not vote for a particular candidate.

"The data gathered in the investigation does not lend support to the existence of a conspiracy or conspiracies to interfere with the voting process."

Who has to attend Trinity Western University? What part of Canada is North Korea?

Nova Scotia’s law society has voted to approve accreditation of Trinity Western University law school, but only if it drops the controversial policy prohibiting same-sex intimacy that some say is discriminatory.

It's also discriminatory to damn people for their opinions or choice of university. Does this go down well with the Muslims, Sikhs or Hindus, whose views on homosexuality aren't as liberal as fenced-in white liberals believe?


I ask: can undocumented Americans vote in Canadian elections?

The government is prepared to remove the requirement for all voters to show residency identification in the next election, he said, responding to widespread criticism of his plan to kill the "failsafe" of vouching for voters lacking full documentation.

This shouldn't be an issue. Let's ask again who benefits from undocumented voters. It's probably not the party pushing this legislation.


Tom Steyer, the billionaire who has Obama's leash ear, likes his fossil fuels and politicians lining his own pockets:

The key player in that effort was Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmental extremist who has pledged to give $100 million to Democratic candidates who do his bidding. Though President Obama has flirted at times with doing the right thing and letting the project proceed, the result of the push from Steyer and the rest of the global warming alarmist crowd was as predictable as it was politically motivated. In a Friday afternoon news dump to guarantee minimal news coverage, the State Department announced that it would indefinitely postpone the decision on approval of Keystone.

Honestly, when was the last time a Palestinian was evicted from his tent in Jordan?

Oh wait....

A pro-Palestinian NYU group targeted Jewish classmates with threatening “eviction” notices that were slid under dorm-room doors in the dead of night, students said Thursday.

“If you do not vacate the premise by midnight on 25 April, 2014 we reserve the right to destroy all remaining belongings. We cannot be held responsible for property or persons remaining inside the premises,” read the notices, which were delivered by members of the Students for Justice in Palestine.

I'm sure the South Koreans were being polite in their pretending to listen to the Windbag-in-Chief. It's not like he matters anymore:

President Barack Obama warned North Korea on Saturday that the United States "will not hesitate to use our military might" to defend allies, showcasing U.S. power in the region amid China's growing influence and Pyongyang's unpredictable nuclear threats.

If the event wasn't tragic enough...

South Korea admitted Friday that some bodies from a ferry disaster were misidentified and sent home to the wrong families, an error that was only caught after many of the remains were brought to a funeral home.

And now, commemorating ANZAC Day.

Mid-Week Post

The nucleus of the work-week...


Well, this must be embarrassing:

The US middle class, long a symbol of the nation's economic might and proof that the "American Dream" was more than just a dream, is no longer the world's wealthiest. 

 

Citizens of other advanced nations have received "considerably larger raises" over the past 30 years, with after-tax middle class incomes in Canada, which lagged substantially behind the US in 2000, now surpassing those south of the border, the New York Times reports. Also, poor individuals in much of Europe are now earning more than poor Americans.

Whatever will Justin Trudeau do now that one of his chief talking points is officially utter crap?


Hhmmmm....

Young children may learn more by listening to their parents describe a picture book than by reading a book meant to teach new words, a new Canadian study has found.

The researchers from the University of Waterloo in Ontario asked 25 mothers to read two books to their toddlers, each featuring six animals.

In one book, the animals were part of a story told in pictures, while in the second book, the animals were presented on a black background in the usual style of "vocabulary learning" books.

When reading the picture books, the mothers tended to use generic language to talk about the animal, such as saying, "Giraffes have long necks." This taught children about all giraffes.

The mothers also tended to give more details about the animals in the picture book than when they read the vocabulary-style book.

 
I think the last sentence gets to the crux of the finding. A word is just a word when the concept is not adequately explained. Once the child gets what a giraffe is and looks like, its spelling should come naturally.

Note the baby giraffe's broad smile, brown, blotchy fur, knobbly legs and long-necked cuteness.

But will these non-resident new citizens pay the taxes that keep the tanks rolling into Estonia, Poland, the rest of Ukraine...?

Russian President Vladimir Putin approved on Monday legal amendments to make it simpler for Russian speakers in the former Soviet Union to acquire Russian citizenship, the Kremlin said on Monday.

The evils of "green" energy:

The British Columbia Health Ministry has admitted that the remains of babies destroyed by abortion in B.C. facilities are ending up in a waste-to-power facility in the United States, providing electricity for residents of Oregon.

If you can kill, using bodies for fuel is the next macabre step.


Personally, I thought this was amusing:

An Opera company in St. John’s have taken down a billboard promoting their run of A Midsummer’s Night Dream that some say used homophobic language.

The ad from Opera on the Avalon read, “Filled with more fairies than St. John’s on Pride Day,” in reference to the city’s annual LGBTQ celebration with “fairies” being a double entendre for both gay men and magical woodland creatures. Given that we don’t live in a bubble where the gay community is free of persecution and men don’t face harassment for displaying traditionally feminine traits, the ad struck a nerve.

“I find it incredibly offensive. Gay pride is about acceptance and creating a safe space. Perpetuating stereotypes goes against that,” Erin Alexis wrote on the company’s Facebook page.

(Sidebar: people who use words like "safe space" are probably pants-wetters. Did I go too far?)


It's called a joke. People used to tell them without getting into trouble.



And now, celebrate the Bard's birthday with food:

"O! my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee.