OTTAWA — The Royal Canadian Mounted Police on Monday announced the arrest of two men who are accused of planning to derail a passenger train in an Al Qaeda-linked plot. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Canada
Canada: Al-Qaeda linked with train derailment plot
Canada: Your taxes at play
Succinct and utterly damning. Continue reading
Canada: Now EVERYONE wants to get into the act!
105-year-old Zen master accused of sexually assaulting students. Continue reading
Canada: Green guru calls for cash, books buxom bodyguards
We all know David Suzuki is a saint. Especially now that he’s 76, and refers to himself in the third person, as “an elder.” Recently, Suzuki told his fellow CBC employee George Stromboulopoulos, ” I feel though, at my age, no one can accuse me of wanting more fame or power or money.”
That’s what he says. But what does he do? Suzuki’s visit to a small junior college in Montreal last October paints a different picture. Continue reading
Canada: If it’s Thursday, then it must be Ask A Confabulist Day!
Dead kids, good God — what’s up with that?
Ask the Religion Experts: How can we explain a tragedy like the Newtown shootings?
It’s appropriate, because these guys wrote the book on crazy! Here’s a summary, so you don’t have to read it:
Jews: Dunno.
Anglicans: ‘Cos people are shite and God hates us.
Sikhs: God knows, we don’t.
Muslims: Can we have more time, please?
Bah’ai: God? What God?
Hindus: See Sikhs above.
Atheists: Stupid question!
Buddhism: Dunno why it happened, but Buddhism could have prevented it.
Catholics: God gave us this great stuff, so dodge the question.
Fundamentalist Christians: God da man, dude! Don’t give him no shit, yo!
How come they didn’t ask any Satanists?
Update: I didn’t realise, but at the Ottawa Citizen every Thursday is Ask A Confabulist Day!
US, Canada: Green scammers play trains with your taxes
CBC News received several tips after a recent story about a company shipping the same load of biodiesel back and forth by CN Rail at a cost of $2.6 million in the summer of 2010. It turns out the shipments were part of a deal by a Toronto-based company, which made several million dollars importing and exporting the fuel to exploit a loophole in a U.S. green energy program…
The company that organized the train shipment was Bioversel Trading Inc. of Toronto. Its principal, Arie Mazur, gave CBC a detailed explanation this week explaining that the trip was all about RINs — renewable identification numbers — the credits set up by the EPA to promote and track production and importation of renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel…
..one of the companies Bioversel approached to be the ‘importer of record’—Northern Biodiesel Inc. of Ontario, N.Y. — discovered that the same fuel was going back and forth across the border and the same gallons were being used to repeatedly generate new RINs under their company’s name.
This is why economists don’t approve of market distortions: they open up loopholes for the smart and unscrupulous.
Canada: What could possibly go wrong?
History Exam, Grade 4: Explain why we lost the Second World War
Canadian Islamic school sources its teaching materials from Iran.
A Toronto Islamic school whose teaching materials disparaged Jews and encouraged boys to keep fit for jihad will not face criminal charges but police said their investigation had identified passages of syllabus books they found concerning.
A York Regional Police report outlining the hate crimes investigation of the East End Madrassah said a review of 30 school syllabus books found portions that “challenged some of Canada’s core values” and “suggested intolerance,” even if they were not criminal.
The report also confirmed some of the school materials originated from books published by Iranian foundations, one of which is an alleged front for the Islamic regime. The Iranian-origin passages referred to Jews as “crafty” and “treacherous,” and contrasted Islam with “the Jews and the Nazis.”
Police held Principal Masuma Jessa and Imam Syed Mohammed Rizvi responsible. “As leaders in their respective roles the two must accept responsibility for failing to appropriately screen the learning material. Although not held criminally responsible, the complaint has raised a legitimate concern and has prompted change.”
Until the next time…
Canada: Lies and manipulation..
Just part of the modern environmentalist’s toolkit.
An American entrepreneur with a controversial past in geoengineering dumped the iron dust into the Pacific near the Haida Gwaii islands in July after allegedly telling local villagers that the “experiment” was a salmon restoration project, according to ETC Group, an international environmental watchdog with offices in Canada.
Russ George, a U.S. businessman, “blatantly violated” two international moratoria when he dumped the iron dust, Jim Thomas of ETC told the Star on Monday — a UN convention and the London Convention on the disposal of wastes at sea.
“There are very clear international agreements that there is (to be) no ocean fertilization,” he said. “Except if the permit (is) granted in very limited set of circumstances. It didn’t happen in this case.”
Canada: Another ‘honour’ killing?
If you have not heard of Randjida Khairi, whose throat was slit, don’t blame yourself.
Unlike the Shafia honour killings, this death was kept under tight wraps by newspapers. That is, until the Sun broke the story Saturday.
The parallels between the Shafia murders and the Khairi killing are uncanny.
In both cases the mothers were Afghan women who died after permitting their children to embrace Canada’s freedoms and live a “westernized” lifestyle.
Canada: Prisoners, turn to your Christian chaplains!
Because, you know, they’re right.
The federal government is cancelling the contracts of non-Christian chaplains at federal prisons, CBC News has learned.
Inmates of other faiths, such as Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jews, will be expected to turn to Christian prison chaplains for religious counsel and guidance, according to the office of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, who is also responsible for Canada’s penitentiaries.
Toews made headlines in September when he ordered the cancellation of a tender issued for a Wiccan priest for federal prisons in B.C…
In an email to CBC News, Toews’ office says that as a result of the review, the part-time non-Christian chaplains will be let go and the remaining full-time chaplains in prisons will now provide interfaith services and counselling to all inmates.
Let us know how that works out for you.
Canada: In Arabic, ‘multiculturalism’…
…means ‘kill everyone not like us’.
[A] Calgary conference has invited Bilal Philips as the top speaker; Philips has repeatedly said homosexuals should be executed. Get the name of the conference – The Power of Unity: Islam in a MultiCultural Canada. Some unity!
And there’s a slew of other craps, too.
Munir El-Kassem, a dentist from London, Ont., wrote a column back in 2001 that condemned the West as hypocritical and defended the Taliban regime for destroying the sixth-century Buddha statues in Bamiyan…
Shaykh Hatem Alhaj recently lost his job at the Mayo Clinic because he wrote papers in support of female circumcision. He later tried to clarify his position by saying he only supports nicking the clitoris, not cutting it right off.
US: Climate crazy working on martyrdom
This man knows more than you do. No, really.
After missing the cut for Darfur, will Jay the Emaciated be AGW’s first saint?
On a patch of pavement outside the Canadian Embassy, Jay McGinley is trying to starve himself to death.
After drinking nothing but water for more than 30 days, he appears close to achieving his goal. When he stands up, his dark blue sweater hangs from a wasted frame.
On the 21st day of his hunger strike, May 15, McGinley was hospitalized briefly when his kidneys almost failed. He returned to his post the next day. Wednesday would be his 36th day without food.
He demands that the United States stop using fossil fuels, particularly those harvested from tar sands deposits in Canada. He is confident that if 1,000 people were to die for his cause, the government would act.
“I need to get us from 1,000 to 999 as fast as possible,” he said. “I need to blaze that trail.”
I wonder who decided his kidneys had ‘almost failed’? Perhaps it was McGinley himself: he seems to have had experience of that sort of thing.
Update 2012-06-17: The website is down, but the LA Times apparently reports that McGinley ended his hunger strike on June 4. He now says a ‘mass strike’ would be better, presumably because it wouldn’t require him to do anything uncomfortable or embarassing.
Australia: Gosh, atheists must REALLY not exist…
A well-known non-existent atheist commented: “I have nothing to say at this time.”
… a Catholic ‘legal philosopher’ says so.
”Atheists, agnostics and religious of all forms are believers and all have faith. The question is not whether they are believers but rather, what they believe in,” he says and insists the “new atheists” such as the late Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins, who pride themselves on “not having any beliefs,” are wrong.
“Atheists are men and women of faith. Their faiths are different but they are still faiths and their beliefs still beliefs, no matter how much Dawkins and those like him wish it was different. Humans are stuck being believers, and that’s all there is to it,” he says.
Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney – News.
Ooookay… but gee, it helps a whole shitload if the stuff you believe in works. I would have thought an ‘internationally renowned legal philosopher’ (have you ever heard of him?) might have picked up on that little point there.
I wonder if he defends his legal clients on religious principles? “Your Honour, I accept that fourteen witnesses claim to have seen my client robbing the liquor store, but I have a made-up story written on an actual piece of paper that says he didn’t!”
If I ever need a lawyer, remind me to hire one who believes in evidence.
UK: ‘Tolerance’ = ‘not challenging’ belief in witchcraft
"THEY dressed me up like this!" "Did you?" "Well, a bit..."
Detective Superintendent Chris Bourlet, of the Metropolitan Police leads Project Violet. a program to prevent religiously-motivated child abuse. Bourlet said: “the aim will be prevention, working with churches and communities – not to challenge their beliefs but to raise their awareness of child abuse.” A group of about five officers will gather intelligence on the problem and try and persuade churches to follow child protection procedures.
There may be similarities between the current case and the abuse of Victoria Climbe. Her relatives believed that she was possessed by evil spirits. She was subjected to physical abuse to drive out her demons. She was eventually murdered. Dr Richard Hoskins: “It was sheer chance that this little girl [AB] was rescued in time. If she hadn’t been then the injuries and abuse would in all probability have escalated and she could well have ended up as the next Victoria Climbie.”
Yes, that’s what happens when you don’t ‘challenge’ stupid beliefs.
Canada: Now the good news — Imams condemn ‘honour’ killings
Feeling abandoned by your religion? At least you have your family! Oh...
More than 30 North American imams have signed a fatwa condemning honour killings, after a Canadian court convicted Afghan immigrants of murdering four women relatives who had supposedly damaged the family’s reputation.
”There is no justification for honour killings, domestic violence and misogyny in Islam,” said the religious order issued by the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada and signed by 34 imams from Canada and the US.
Such violence, including spousal abuse and child abuse in all forms, is ”forbidden”, it said. ”The relationship between the husband and wife is based upon mutual love and kindness.”
Now wait for the fatwa on the fatwa…
Canada: Denial and delusion…
…or how an accused daughter-killer’s brother defends his ‘simple Afghan wisdom’.
At this trial, this is a habit of Afghan witnesses: They dole out like precious jewels the most trite expressions, surely known round the world, as if they were invented in Kabul and used only in Afghanistan.
So, Mr. Laarhuis had been going over all that with him and asked, “You’re certainly not saying Afghan men would be calling girls such bad names?”
“I can’t say that,” Dr. Yaqubi said. “In Afghan culture, in order to train your family, fathers use bad words — those people [children] must know their limits.
“This,” he offered with tangible self-satisfaction, “is a time you realize the differences between cultures.”
Yes, indeed.
Netherlands: Catholic church covers up ‘tens of thousands’ of child abuse cases
Tens of thousands of children have been victims of sexual abuse by the Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands since 1945, an independent commission said on Friday, criticizing what it called the church’s cover-up and culture of silence…
The commission estimated that 10,000 to 20,000 minors were sexually abused in Catholic orphanages, boarding schools and seminaries between 1945 and 1981, with offences ranging from very mild to serious, including rape.
Canada: Murdering swine ‘happy’ he killed wife and daughters
A father accused of the “honour killings” of four family members – including his three teenage daughters – was recorded on police wiretaps saying he was “happy” they were dead and that he would “do the same again”, a Canadian court has heard.
Mohammad Shafia, 58, his second wife Tooba Mahommad Yahya, 41, and their son Hamed, 20, are on trial for the first-degree murder of Zainab Shafia, 19, Sahar Shafia, 17, Geeti Shafia, 13, and his first wife Rona Amir Mohammad, 50, in 2009.
Prosecutors told the Ontario court their deaths were “honour killings” committed to remove the perceived shame the women brought on their family, such as by having boyfriends….
There have been 13 such killings in Canada since 2002, said Amin Muhammed, a psychiatry professor at Memorial University in Saint John’s, Newfoundland.
Let’s be quite clear: your God wants this? Your God lets people do this? Your God tells them to do it? Then your God is a bloodthirsty psychopath, and anyone who cares for their sons, wives, husbands or daughters will keep them as far away from him and his raving lunatic ‘followers’ as possible.
Canada: Come on, people! Grovel!!
…New Catholic missal reveals ‘awesomeness’ of self-loathing toadyism.
When Catholics begin using the new Roman Missal on the first Sunday of Advent, they will find an “awesomeness” to the new translation that maybe wasn’t as present in the previous incarnation, said Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast.
The Roman Missal’s new translation will mark the shift from using current principles of “dynamic equivalence” to “formal equivalence” on the first Sunday of Advent. Its aim is an improvement of the liturgy, said the Ottawa archbishop.
“It’s a historic moment in the life of the Church and the English-speaking world,” said Prendergast.
Here’s a quote from this ‘awesome’ document:
“We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you, we give thanks for your great glory, Lord God, heavenly king, O God, almighty Father, Lord Jesus Christ, Only Begotten Son, Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us, you take away the sins of the world, receive our prayer; you are seated at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us.”
This is really sick. Can any sane person honestly believe that a loving God wants his believers to fawn and grovel in this nauseating way? And if he does, does he deserve to be worshipped? This is people getting their rocks off on raw power. And it’s ugly.
Canada: End of the world in 52 days, say environmentalists
…so there’s no reason to believe it.
Runaway Global Warming promises to literally burn-up agricultural areas into dust worldwide by 2012, causing global famine, anarchy, diseases, and war on a global scale as military powers including the U.S., Russia, and China, fight for control of the Earth’s remaining resources.
US: A triumph for theism — dying baby suffers for five extra months
Joseph Maraachli, who became known to the world as Baby Joseph, died Tuesday at home with his parents, five months after receiving a tracheotomy at a hospital in St. Louis, Mo., because London Health Sciences Centre refused to perform the procedure. He was buried beside his sister, Zina, at Greenlawn Memorial Gardens.
Baby Joseph suffered from a degenerative neurological disorder and had breathed with a ventilator. His parents, Moe Maraachli and Sana Nader, wanted doctors to perform the tracheotomy, an incision in his throat to insert a breathing tube, so they could take him home to die.
Because if there’s anything God really gets off on, it’s a baby suffering. Here come the vultures:
Twenty-month-old Baby Joseph began having trouble breathing the last several days, said O’Donnell, major superior at Franciscan Brothers of Peace who became a friend of the family.
Why do I feel that ‘friend’ should have quotes around it there?
Canada: Police finally investigate Internet death threats from crazy theist…
…and it only took 4,000 emails to get them to do it.
Following a deluge of thousands of complaints from around the world, Montreal police have launched an investigation into a St. Laurent man accused of making hundreds, if not thousands of deadly threats.
The man is believed to be Dennis Markuze, but uses a variety of pseudonyms when online, including David Mabus and Hebert Marxuxe.
Complainants say that he creates accounts on Twitter or on message boards then starts insulting, harassing, and threatening atheists, scientists, and journalists with profanity-laden messages telling people that they will be executed and subjected to the judgement of God.
Canada: Female Pakistani activist strangled in front of 2-year-old son
Between 1 and 2 a.m. on July 22, neighbours in the building at 3131 Eglinton Ave. E. heard the shrill screaming of a child that went on for 15 minutes. And then silence. More than 15 hours later, Shahdady’s distraught father discovered his 2-year-old grandson alone in the apartment with his daughter’s dead body. She had been strangled on her bed.
Her estranged husband Abdul Malik Rustam, 27, turned himself in to police the next morning. He’s been charged with first-degree murder.
“Absolutely, it was an honour killing,” contends Fatah. “This is the fundamental issue here that no one wants to address. Nobody wants to tell Muslim men that women are not their possessions. It’s about women’s sexuality and men who say they own the franchise to it.”
Canada: Menstruating girls, move to the back of the class
The [Muslim] prayer services have also raised the issue of gender rights. One Toronto trustee is concerned about girls being forced to sit at the back of the room, adding the board’s gender equity policy “should be respected.”
Trustee Michael Coteau doesn’t oppose the services but believes the board needs a transparent, consistent policy about what’s allowed given the “mixed messages” of the Education Act, the Charter and human rights code.
Earlier this year, the Star visited Valley Park to observe the prayer service, which runs every Friday from November to March for 30 to 40 minutes during class time after lunch.
Volunteers erected barriers dividing the cafeteria. Boys entered at the front, removed their shoes, forming rows four deep. Girls entered at the back, removed their shoes, donned head scarves and shawls to cover their heads and arms, and assembled behind the barrier.
Menstruating girls sat at the back, permitted to listen but not take part.
And the Education Department is OK with this, because they are learning… what? That girls are subhuman, and menstruating girls are sub-subhuman?
Canada: Gays should be killed, say speakers at Muslim conference
The most virulently anti-gay speaker this year is Bilal Philips, a charismatic Jamaican-Canadian religious scholar who embraced Islam in 1972 in Toronto, where he was raised. In a Thursday interview, Philips cheerfully advocated death as a punishment for males who “confess” to homosexual behaviour, or are seen performing homosexual acts by four reliable witnesses, in countries governed by Islamic law.
Lesbians should only get lashes, he said. In secular countries like Canada, he said, even gays should not be punished. But the word of the Qur’an must be followed in Islamic countries, he said, and the Qur’an says gays must be killed.
And clearly countries which follow the Qur’an are much more peaceful, prosperous, enlightened and advanced than, say, Canada.
For one thing, they don’t allow dissent.
Canada: Catholic ex-bishop pleads guilty to possession of child pornography
Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops
“The Most Reverend Raymond Lahey, former Bishop of Antigonish, has pled guilty to possession of child pornography. The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops condemns all forms of sexual exploitation, especially involving minors, and continues to work to prevent such behaviour and to bring healing to the victims and their families.
“Recognizing the confusion and anger that this case has engendered among many of the faithful, we underscore our pastoral concern for those who have experienced great pain as a result of these events. In a special way our thoughts and prayers are with the people of the Diocese of Antigonish and all the Atlantic region.
‘Engendered confusion’? On the contrary. People were confused: now they know the truth.
US: Can’t pay, won’t pay — Catholic order files for bankruptcy
SMH.
The Christian Brothers in North America, the religious order that runs schools around the country, has filed for bankruptcy, becoming the second Catholic order in the US to do so because of sexual abuse claims.
The order did not say how many claims were pending against the order, and that information was not immediately available. Victims’ lawyers estimate there are more than 50 claims.
How much were the Pope’s Gucci slippers again? Selling a couple of Vatican Michaelangelos ought to cover it comfortably. But I forgot — the Catholic Church is only ‘universal’ when it’s expedient.
Canada: Honour killings not ‘barbaric’, says MP
Liberal MP Justin Trudeau said the government should not call honour killings “barbaric” in a study guide for would-be Canadian citizens.
On Monday, the federal government updated its Discover Canada guide, a pamphlet given to new immigrants to help explain life in Canada and prepare them for the citizenship test.
But the guide also says: “Canada’s openness and generosity do not extend to barbaric cultural practices that tolerate spousal abuse, ‘honour killings,’ female genital mutilation, forced marriage or other gender-based violence.”
Don’t laugh — there are places where they’re not even illegal.
Canada: Keep suffering doomed baby alive, say theists
The hospital treating Joseph Maraachli – a 13 month old Canadian boy with a progressively deteriorating neurological condition whose parents are fighting to have him transferred to the U.S. for care- has launched a public information campaign to address what hospital officials say are “outrageous and defamatory” allegations.
…
The Maraachlis … want their son to receive a tracheotomy and be transferred home, where he can die in the care of family instead of in a hospital. Joseph’s aunt, Samar Nadar, says that in 2002 the Maraachlis’ daughter, Zeina, died at home with a tracheotomy after suffering similar complications. The family is of Lebanese descent and has looked into the genetic histories on both sides, but there is no background of this condition.
Suck up to God — or end your child’s suffering? It’s a no-brainer. So are the parents.
Canada: Islamic police connive at death threats
…Within hours, two uniformed policemen from 51 Division came to interview me in hospital. However, barely one minute later, we were interrupted. Two men entered the room and told everybody else to leave. They did not identify themselves, but five minutes into what amounted to a two-hour interrogation, I realized they were police intelligence officers. One of them, I recognized by reputation – a Muslim officer who had shut down a previous investigation into a death threat against me in 2008, and another one against a partner in liberal Islam, Tahir Gora.
…
Gora alerted Toronto police and within days he was visited by two plainclothes officers. Both were Muslim. Gora showed the lead officer all the posts, but despite the mountain of evidence, the officer showed little interest.
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