Hey whitey! You'll never work for the CBC again!

Canadians who listen to the CBC -- and yes, there are many -- are aware of its blatant liberal (and Liberal) bias in favour of all things politically correct.

Examples include CBC Radio's Toronto flagship station, proudly "sounding like Toronto looks", which means speaking with incomprehensible Caribbean and South Asian accents. For a while there they couldn't figure out how to pander to the LGBT community, but recently they've hired a couple of audibly gay "news reporters" -- Jermaine and Trevor -- who lisp their way through their cute little stories.

Even Hockey Night in Canada -- happy 60th anniversary!!! -- has a PC lineup of "analysts", including one blonde bimbo who seems unfamiliar with the players, and one black ex-player who is very careful not to sound too black.

That's right, nobody celebrates diversity like the CBC. But now we finally  have confirmation of our suspicions that diversity and "minorities" are being promoted to the exclusion of straight white males. If you're one of those -- now an endangered species in Toronto -- you can forget about working for the CBC.

Where's Walt's proof? Why, right here!

That's a recruitment ad for the host of a children’s show -- Patty and Mamma Yama. It was placed on Craigslist by Larissa Mair Casting and Associates Inc., a casting agency hired by "Kids'CBC", whose logo appears in the ad.


In case you're having trouble reading it, the ad says you should "...only submit [an audition tape] if you match the following criteria: Male between the ages of 23-35 years; Any race except Caucasian."

A new version of the ad removes the race reference, but maintains the sex and age criteria, which Agent 3 says is contrary to Ontario's labour standards laws and the province's human rights code.

Why would the casting agency flout the laws enacted years ago to protect everyone from discrimination on the basis of gender, race, religion, age etc etc? Larissa Mair, the agency's chief cook and bottlewasher, is prepared to take the fall. She told the National Post "We were asked to seek a cast of diversity. We mistakenly took that to mean that the production was not seeking Caucasian actors. This was a mistake that was made entirely by the casting company."

Pretty big of Ms Mair to carry the can, because the truth is that the original ad is right on the money in its description of the kind of on-air personalities the CBC wants -- any race except white! Let's hear from Chuck "Chuck" Thompson, head of media relations for CBC English Services:
"At CBC, inclusion and diversity is a priority. This means reflecting Canada and its regions as well as the country’s multicultural and multiracial nature... We are now reaching out to our partners in production to ensure that a concerted and documented effort be made…to cast actors who reflect Canada’s diversity."

In other words, no whites need apply. Any white man who has applied for this or any other in-front-of-the-camera job at CBC and got as far as the interview stage is invited to let Walt know. I'm always happy to set the record straight. (Lifetime pct .990)

Update: Further proof positive of the CBC's anti-white anti-male bias emerged today. Check out "The CBC’s ‘no whites’ policy is a mistake, but no accident" by Matt Gurney, in today's National Post. Matt! Take it to the Human Rights Commission!

And just by coincidence... the mailman [letter carrier! Ed.] brought Walt's Economist today. Its cover story is a "briefing" called "Time to scrap affirmative action". There's an editorial (or "leader", as the Brits say) with the same title. Here's a quote: "If Barack Obama's daughters apply to a university, judge them on their academic prowess, not the colour of their skin." More on this anon.

Gosnell not the only abortionist willing to kill babies born alive

Today a Philadelphia jury heard closing arguments in the murder trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, an abortionist accused of murdering babies born alive and viable, by snipping the spinal cords at the back of their tiny necks. The defence contends that the state prosecutors are hyping this up, making Gosnell's actions seem more horrendous than they really are (if that's possible). "No biggie" is what they're saying.

Meanwhile, pro-abortion publicists -- for that's what the "reproductive rights" gang really are -- say Gosnell and his "House of Horrors" clinic represent an extreme, not the kind of caring and humane service to wimmin that Roe v. Wade was meant to ensure, yada yada yada.

Well, guess what? Kermit isn't the only doctor [Could we put that word in quotes? Ed.] who'll happily snuff out a new life, in exchange for a modest fee. The pro-life campaigners Live Action have just released a new video in which an abortionist in Washington DC says he'll do his best to assure the death of a baby who somehow survived an abortion. Here's the video.



If for some reason you didn't watch the video, abortionist Cesare Santangelo -- good Catholic name, that -- says that the law would require him to provide life-saving help to a child who survived an abortion attempt. But he assured the undercover investigator (a pregnant woman posing as someone who wanted a late-term abortion) that he could assure her the child would not survive. He said that his clinic would not take steps to save the baby's life.

Click here to read the full article on the LiveAction website.

Memo from Walt to Dr. Santangelo: Have you been to confession lately?

Black people killing each other for no reason, sez Toronto teen

15-year-old Zack Issa is a student at Toronto's Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School. Thursday night one of his best friends, 20-year-old Kwada "Kojo" Mensah, was shot and killed by unknown assailants in a public housing co-op -- in America it might be called a "project" -- on the other side of the city.

Zack told the Toronto Star, "I was just shocked! I didn’t know what to do. He always told me to be careful where I go and stay good." The teen added, "[Kojo] was a nice guy and had lots of patience. People are killing each other for no reason."

Issa went on to say that he didn’t know why Mensah was in the notorious Malvern area, as he rarely left his "hood" in the equally notorious Jane-Finch district of west Toronto.   Maybe Zack didn't know, but Toronto cops have a clue. [Snide comment deleted. Ed.] Police say further investigation has found that Mensah’s death was connected to another shooting that occurred later on the same day.  

Just before midnight, a 32-year-old black man arrived at a hospital with a gunshot wound to his lower body. He said he had been shot in Scarborough earlier in the evening. Toronto's finest are searching for a suspect, described as "a black man with medium complexion, between 18 and 20, and about 5’9” with a medium build and short black hair", which narrows it down to about 100,000 denizens of the GTA.

So far this story doesn't rate much attention, even in the Toronto media. SSDD. That it's getting any play at all is due to the fact that Kojo was a former player for the Don Bosco Eagles, a football team for deprived (i.e. black) youths sponsored and coached by controversial Toronto mayor Rob Ford.

Hizzoner told the Toronto Sun he remembered coaching Mensah. “Someone called to tell me Kojo Mensah was shot and I just said ‘I can’t believe it.' ... He was one of my kids. It just kills me.” End of quote.

Eating your nose goblins could be good for you!

If you don’t know what a "nose goblin" is, you haven't been watching Ren & Stimpy! Yes, gentle readers, the videos that were too gross for kids TV are still out there. But if you don't like that kind of thing, this story is snot for you.

Canadian Press reports today that an associate professor of biochemistry at the University of Saskatchewan is trying to get more students interested in science by looking at the health benefits of picking your nose and eating it.

Prof S. Napper -- no kidding: his first name is "Scott" -- says nature pushes us to do different things because it is to our advantage to have certain behaviours, to consume different types of foods. Mucus traps germs and stops them from getting into our body, but if we consume that mucus, it could help train our immune system by exposing it to the germs. So he says when children have the urge to pick their nose and eat it, parents shouldn’t get upset.

Dr. Napper says he hopes to conduct a study where some type of molecule is inserted in people’s noses and then half the participants pick their nose and eat it and the other half don’t.
“I think the challenge would be getting volunteers to participate in this experiment,” he says with a laugh. [A snort, possibly. Ed.] “Especially if you didn’t know which group you were going to fall into.”

Napper also says making science more humorous and fun keeps students interested and engaged.
“I don’t try to convert them all to biochemistry. My goal is always if I can teach you one thing that you’re going to tell somebody else about outside the scope of this class, then I’ve prompted you to think a little bit, to question these things and I think with this example, it probably succeeded in that.”

Walt must admit that he always found such experiments fascinating, back in his school days. Haven't we all -- all the boys at least -- tried to find out if it's true that you can ignite a fart? We even had songs and poems about flatulence and other excretions... like this one...

Everybody's doin' it, doin' it, doin' it
Pickin' their nose and chewin' it, chewin' it.
They think it's candy
But it's not.

UN human rights rapporteur links Boston Marathon bombings to US "global domination project"

Dr. Richard Falk, a citizen of the Excited States of America, is Professor Emeritus of international law at Princeton University. He is also the Disunited Nations' special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, reporting to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

And what does the good doctor think of the state of human rights in America's dear ally, Israel? Not much. He has compared Israel's treatment of Palestinians with the horrors of Nazi Germany. Expressing this sentiment earned Dr. Falk the distinction of being one of the few American Jews permanently banned from setting foot in the Zionist entity.

This week Dr. Falk garnered a huge round of Bronx cheers from the usual suspects for having the temerity to suggest that the Boston Marathon bombings were the result of the United States "global domination project" and Washington's policy on Israel.

He made these controversial remarks in a commentary published in Foreign Policy Journal on April 21st. You will note that there is no link to his article. The Journal's website -- www.foreignpolicyjournal.com -- seems to be unavailable this evening. Of course we know there's no censorship in America, so it must be some kind of technical glitch. However, Ed. was able to locate a critical article in The Jewish Daily Forward, from which he pulled these quotes from Dr. Falk's commentary.

"The American global domination project is bound to generate all kinds of resistance in the post-colonial world....

"In some respects, the United States has been fortunate not to experience worse blowbacks, and these may yet happen, especially if there is no disposition to rethink U.S. relations to others in the world," Dr. Falk wrote.

[Hold the presses! Ed. -- I've always wanted to say that...]

Ed. has just located an earlier version of Dr. Falk's commentary, posted on his own blog on April 19th.

Readers of WWW may want to compare his comments with Walt's post "'We don't know who did it or why...'", published on April 16th. Perhaps Dr. Falk is another of Walt's regular readers?

Cynical about politics and terrorism? Me?

Yesterday, in "The friend of mine enemy is likewise mine enemy", I expressed shock -- shock, I tell you -- at the Canadian government's sudden discovery of an Islamic terrorist plot to blow up a VIA Rail train somewhere between Toronto and New York, and its sudden rush to push forward draconian anti-terrorism legislation that had been languishing on the order paper for a year.

Some have accused me of being cynical, for having suggested that it was more than a coincidence that this should have happened on the very day Canada's House of Commons was supposed to debate a motion which would have allowed MPs to speak more freely about the issues of the day.

OK, call me a cynic, but don't say I'm the only one who discerns a hidden agenda in the pronouncements and actions of "Call me Steve" Harper and his toady Toews. Check out  "Conservative anti-terror bill and arrests match up beautifully, don’t they", by Heather Mallick, in today's Toronto Star.

Ms Mallick calls the anti-terror bill shameful, and the arrests dubious. She states (as the fact is) that the tip from the alleged terrorists' imam, on which the Mounties acted, was a year old -- just like the legislation itself.

"How odd," she writes. "The week after the Boston bombings, the Conservative government had MPs suddenly debating an anti-terror bill that had long been hanging around with its hands in its pockets. The very same day, conveniently, the RCMP arrested two alleged terrorists."

Odd indeed. Enough to make even Walt cynical.

Canadians follow American policies, provoke same terrorist response

The burden of Walt's recent posts about the Boston Marathon bombing and now the alleged plot to blow up a VIA Rail train has been that Islamic extremists -- homegrown as well as imported -- are doing their damnable thing to protest American policies and actions in the Middle East.

As American presidents from Teddy Roosevelt onwards have not yet learned, if you keep on playing the bully -- trying to impose your ideas of what's right and good on other countries and other cultures by force of arms -- the 97-pound weakling will eventually fight back.

Walt doesn't know all his readers and followers by name [but he knows where some of you live! Ed.] but notes with delight sympathetic comments that appear on the Net and in the Twitterverse. One such was released into the ether yesterday by a possible "Waltist" -- Max Depontailler, a staffer for Céline Hervieux-Payette, former leader of the Liberal opposition in the Canadian Senate. Here's a screen grab of a comment M. Depontailler immediately regretted making.

This was posted yesterday, following news of the arrest of two Muslim fundamentalists who were allegedly plotting to blow up a VIA Rail train at the Whirlpool bridge near Niagara Falls.  M. Depontailler thought he was tweeting from his own account. Too bad for him he was still on the account of his boss! He deleted the post almost immediately, but it still appears on a number of cached sites.

Mme Hervieux-Payette hasn't commented publicly, nor is she likely to, since in times past she has expressed similar sentiments herself. In 2006 she wrote to American critics of the seal hunt that what she finds horrible is ”the daily massacre of innocent people in Iraq, the execution of prisoners – mainly blacks – in American prisons, the massive sale of handguns to Americans, and the destabilization of the entire world by the American government’s aggressive foreign policy, etc.”

Which brings us back to Walt's (and Max's) point. As Americans (and Canadians) search for the root causes of the terrorist attacks on their countries, they might well start by looking in the mirror.

"Call me Steve" Harper might well ask himself why he would choose to ally Canada so closely with the USA, given the ROTW's resentment of American political and cultural imperialism. He might just as well sew a great big red-and-white target on the maple leaf flag.

The friend of mine enemy is likewise mine enemy

The Boston Marathon bombing has provoked a fit of "terrorist target envy" in the Great White North. Canada's Prime Minister, "Call me Steve" Harper, is seriously vexed. He and his bumboy John "Nancy" Baird have been so vocal in their attacks on the enemies of Israel, yet the Islamic extremists keep targetting the Excited States of America. Tain't fair!

Sergeant Dudley Dooright of the RCMP and Col. Beau Gosse of CSIS (Canada's feckless "intelligence" agency) were duly summoned to Ottawa and told they'd better discover ["manufacture", surely. Ed.] some kind of Islamic fundamentalist threat to the Land of the Maple Leaf and Home of the Bieber right sharpish.

Right on cue, Canuck police and intelligence services arrested two men with beards yesterday, accusing them of plotting to attack a VIA Rail passenger train "with the intention of inflicting mass casualities and causing terror on Canadian soil". All this with the "direction and guidance" of "al-Qaeda elements in Iran", of course.

"Had this plot been carried out, it would have resulted in people being killed or seriously injured," a Mounted Police spokesthingy told the press yesterday. He was apparently referring to VIA's passengers -- Tyler and Tracy Luney of Pickering ON -- and innocent people passing the train on bicycles and skateboards.

The RCMP said the suspects had scouted railroads in the Toronto area as part of their preparations. The pair had been under investigation for an extended period of time and investigators said they were ready to act if they went into action. [I know it's early, but can you try to write more coherently? Ed.]

The Mounties also said that the suspects "are not Canadian citizens". Doubtless someone -- perhaps Immigration Minister Jason Kenney -- knows where they came from and how they got into Canada, but this information has, errr, not been forthcoming.

Yesterday's arrests come at an auspicious time for the Harpoon government, as Canada's House of Commons gets set to debate a bill that would strengthen Canada's anti-terrorism laws.

The timing of the debate is more than a little suspect. The "new" bill S-7, which will authorize such things as arrest without trial, was introduced in Canada's Senate a year ago. That august body (Hello, Senator Puffy!) gave it some quasi-sober thought and sent it to the Commons, errr, four months ago.

Why the sudden urgency to proceed with it now? Well, Monday was supposed to be an "opposition day" on which newly-crowned Liberal leader Justin Trudeau was to introduce a motion to limit the powers of the party whips to control which MPs could speak and on what issues. Since the governing Conservatives are grappling with a backbench rebellion on that very issue, the draconian anti-terrorism bill suddenly took priority.

Speaking from behind his moustache, Canada's Public Safety Minister Vic Toews averred that, "Today's arrest shows that terrorism continues to be a real threat to Canada. The success...is due to the fact that Canada works very closely with its international partners to combat terrorism."

Walt says it's the "international partners" that are the problem. The threat of terrorist attacks on Canada and Canadians increases proportionately as the Harper government's support of Zionism and American adventurism in the Middle East. If, when al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremists point their guns at the USA, Canada is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Uncle Sam [and Uncle Bibi. Ed.], Canada is bound to get hit. Call it "collateral damage".

Further reading: "Don't call in an air strike just yet!" (WWW 19/4/13) and "Walt's solution to the threat of terrorism" (WWW 16/4/13).

American women! Get your Flashbang Bra Holster today!

The holster has three different length straps to accommodate your bra. It hooks to the middle of the bra between the cups. The muzzle of the holster tucks up into the bottom of the bra cup. They don't work with sports bras. If you are right handed the muzzle tucks into the left cup. Left hand versions are available on special order. You don't have to leave the shirt untucked but that method is obviously much faster to deploy the pistol.

Hope you enjoyed the demo. Thanks to Agent 6 for this tempest in a D-cup.

Words of wisdom from Thomas Jefferson

About a year ago, on a visit to Washington DC, Walt spent some time in the Library of Congress. I wanted to see if their copy of the Gutenberg Bible was better than mine, and sure enough, it is. Mine has marginal notes in it, written by someone named Luther. But I digress...

Within the Library of Congress building is the library of Thomas Jefferson. Believe it or not, this collection -- now on permanent exhibition -- is only about a third of the 6487 volumes purchased from President Jefferson following the British burning of the Library of Congress in 1814. [Don't mention the War of 1812! Ed.] Over 4000 books and manuscripts were lost in a second fire in 1851.

Jefferson's library was always critically important to him. Books provided the little-travelled president with a broader knowledge of the contemporary and ancient worlds than most of his contemporaries enjoyed, despite broader personal experience.

Jefferson was a voracious reader, and developed a deep understanding of the nature of God and man, of God's laws and previous failed or flawed attempts by men to govern themselves. He himself wrote extensively on matters of history and politics. Agent 6 has sent along a few select quotes from one of America's greatest founding fathers.

• When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
• Democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
• It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
• I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
• My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government
• No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
• The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
• The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
• To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

Click here to read John Petrie's collection of Thomas Jefferson quotes on politics, government, philosophy, religion, and life in general -- "a voice from the past to lead us in the future".

The connection between the Marathon Bombing, the Reichstag Fire... and this man

Reports today are that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, "Suspect No. 2" in the Boston Marathon bombing, may never be able to tell us why he did it, and who else was involved. He is in a Boston hospital in "serious condition" from wounds suffered when the Law opened fire on the pleasure boat in which he was hiding. He might die before being able to answer questions. Just like Lee Harvey Oswald.

Which brings me to the topic of the Reichstag Fire. For those who don't remember, the Reichstag was the name for the German parliament and the building which housed it. By early 1933, Adolf Hitler had risen to the position of Chancellor -- equivalent to prime minister -- of the German republic. But the ageing Paul von Hindenburg, the President, stood between Hitler and supreme power.

On 27 February 1933 the Reichstag suddenly and mysteriously caught fire. The police noticed a young man named Marinus van der Lubbe warming his hands at the scene. Herr van der Lubbe was, in today's PC phrase, "intellectually challenged". After a little "enhanced interrogation" by the Gestapo, he confessed to starting the fire. However he denied that he was part of any conspiracy.

Van der Lubbe's denial notwithstanding, Hitler claimed the event was part and proof of a Communist conspiracy, and ordered that all leaders of Germany's Communist party "be hanged that very night." President Hindenburg countermanded that order, but did agree that Hitler should take "dictatorial powers" immediately.

Less than a month later, the Reichstag (meeting in temporary quarters, presumably) passed the Enabling Bill, which banned the Communist and Social Democractic parties from contesting part in future election campaigns.

In April, Nazis were put in charge of all local government in the provinces. In May, trade unions were abolished, their funds taken and their leaders put in prison. In July, a law was passed making the Nazi Party the only legal political party in Germany.

Thus "Reichstag Fire" became a metaphor for an event staged to provoke or legitimize a seizure of power. Or more power.

Two-thirds of a century after the Reichstag Fire came the atrocity of 9/11. America abounds in conspiracy theories, one of the most enduring of which is the claim that 9/11 was staged (and then covered up) by Dubya's government to strengthen its grip on power and take away the freedoms of the American people.

Walt thinks that theory is bullshit. But... there can be no doubt that, in the aftermath of 9/11, the freedom of Americans (and Brits and Canadians and Aussies and so on) has been drastically curtailed. The USA now has the "protection" of the Department of Homeland Security, for instance.

How many terrorists have they caught? And how many harmless citizens have been investigated and/or detained and interrogated for no other reason than (again for instance) having an Arabic-sounding name?

And let's not forget the Transport Security Administration -- TSA -- the folks who like to look at your junk at the airport. How many people have been denied boarding an American aircraft because they "look like the kind of person who would do something like that"?

Speaking of which... Whatever happened to the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution?

That's the one which supposedly guarantees Americans freedom from "unreasonable searches and seizures". Walt wonders how many residents of Watertown MA asked the cops who knocked on their doors to produce a warrant.

But that's the way it is, nowadays, in the Land of the Free and Home of the Fearful. Sure, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. But is it really necessary for our governments to make us prisoners in our own countries, just because of the cowardly acts of a couple of misfits who (for all we know) may indeed have been acting on their own?

Fourth Amendment Footnote: To see what happens to someone who stands on his rights, read the true story of Aaron Tobey, who wrote an abbreviated version of the Fourth Amendment on his body and stripped to his shorts at a Richmond VA airport security screening area.

What should be done with killers like the Tsarnaevs?

Tamerlan Tsarnaev is dead, killed in a shootout with Boston police about 36 hours ago. The elder of the two terrorist brothers was named for the infamous "Tamerlane", a vicious conqueror who razed ancient cities to the ground and put entire populations to the sword. Tamerlan is the one who said "I don't have a single American friend. I don't understand them."

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger brother of Tamerlan, was apparently wounded in Thursday night's gun battle. He was discovered yesterday evening, hiding in a boat in someone's driveway. He is now in custody in a Boston hospital, where he is said to be in serious condition.

"Why did they do it?" -- assuming that they did do it -- has already been asked by everyone from Walt to the Prez and back again. If Dzokhar lives -- well, who knows? --  he will doubtless be asked that very question. Do not expect a particularly rational answer. Rather we may hear something along the lines of "I was mad at the world, so I decided to kill some Americans".

It may be that the two brothers "suffered" from anomie or alienation or weltschmerz or all of the above. It may also be that they were agents of a foreign power -- Russia, for instance -- or a foreign "religion of peace". They certainly didn't try very hard to cover their tracks or escape. Perhaps they were looking forward to martyrdom for Islam, and the delights of the 72 virgins awaiting them in the Muslim heaven.

But let's go with the first possibility -- that they were acting on their own for no better reason than dissatisfaction with their lives in the country that welcomed them as refugees and gave them the opportunity to get an education and a better life than they could ever have had in Kyrgystan or Dagestan or anywhere else in the miserable part of the world from which they came.

What should be done with someone who would commit a cowardly, dastardly and ultimately meaningless act of that nature? How about strapping a pressure cooker filled with shrapnel to his back and then...

1000s of voices will be raised -- Walt can hear them already -- calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty, at least for acts of terrorism. But was the Boston Marathon bombing an act of terrorism? Or just plain, senseless murder? Assuming the brothers Tsarnaev were not directed or controlled by outside forces, how is their crime any different from that of, say, Adam Lanza?

So Walt asks again, what is to be done with murderers? The Church teaches that we must follow the Sixth Commandment: Thou shalt not kill. What remains, then, is to remove murderers -- including terrorists -- from our society, not so much as punishment as for our protection and the (possible) deterrent effect on other killer wannabes.

Back in the 18th and 19th centuries, the British used to transport their worst offenders to Australia. The French gave their a one-way ticket to Devil's Island. Such places seemed so remote, in those days, that there was no way criminals could ever return to "civilization".

Do similar places of exile still exist? Well, Alaska has a lot of cold, empty space. And there are several flyspecks in the Pacific still under the flag of the USA. How about a nice trip to the South Seas for Mr. Tsarnaev? Maybe he wouldn't find 72 virgins there, but America would be rid of him.

Footnote: Walt hasn't forgotten about due process. Put Tsarnaev on trial before putting him on a slow boat to Guam.

Food for thought: Last week's Economist had an article, "Not dead yet", pointing out that the USA executed 43 criminals in 2012, less than half the number killed in 1999, when capital punishment peaked in America. Luckily for Adam Lanza, last April Connecticut became the 17th state to abolish the deah penalty.

More food for thought: Should America (and Britain and Canada) really be opening the doors to "refugees" from places like Chechnya, a part of the Middle East that has spawned decades of violence -- from separatist wars to suicide attacks, blood feuds and hostage sieges. See "How did Chechnya's culture of terror come to Boston?"

Don't call in an air strike just yet!

Events are moving so quickly in Boston that Walt has to get up earlier than usual to learn the latest. Could the FBI not manage to make arrests during the daylight hours so we could turn off the TV and get an uninterrupted 8 hours zzzzz?

OK, seriously, the breaking news is that the FBI, police et al. have shot one of two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings -- "the one in the black hat" -- and are closing in on the other. These are (or were) the two backpack-toting men whose pictures were released yesterday afternoon.

It is not clear whether anyone has asked either of them any questions, but asking before shooting wouldn't be the American way, would it. Besides, as one blogger wrote yesterday, they look like the kind of people who would do that kind of thing!

And what kind of people would they be? Chechens, that's what kind. So that explains it. Oh, you don't know about Chechens? When they're at home, they occupy a tiny republic on the north border of Georgia. [The other Georgia -- the one in Asia. Ed.] The language they speak is Chechen [Well, DUH! Ed.]  And the religion of most Chechens is... wait for it... Islam.

Just as we assume (but will never know for sure) that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he shot JFK, let's assume (but will never know for sure) that these two Chechens were foreigners living in the USA and acted in concert to perpetrate the outrage at Boston. And let's assume they are (or were) Muslims. Why did they do it?!

The new leader of the Canada's Liberal Party, Justin Trudeau -- son of Himself -- may have read Walt's post of Tuesday, for he dared yesterday to express the view that there are lots of people, including native-born Americans, who have a bone to pick with the supremacist policies of the US government. He argued that the motives of the bombers needed to be understood and considered, for until their grievances -- real or imagined -- are addressed, America and Americans will continue to be the target of terrorists both overseas and right around home. (That's Walt's paraphrase, not M. Trudeau's actual words.)

Canada's Bully-in-Chief, Stephen Harper, begged to differ. [Oh c'mon. Harper would never beg! Ed.] Apparently Mr. Harpoon belongs to the George W. Bush school of (semi)thought. It doesn't matter who they are or why they did it, he said. Stand up for America, hit them hard and make them pay!

We should be thankful that Steve only heads the government of Canada, rather than a truly powerful nation, otherwise the B52s would likely be en route to Chechnya even as we speak. Walt trusts that Barack Hussein Obama will show a little more restraint. Perhaps he might even read Walt's analysis and have a little think about the unintended consequences of his dubious foreign policy.

How a geezer got the police to help him defend his home and property

At least two of Walt's agents -- numbers 3 and 17 -- have expressed concern about a citizen's inability to defend his home by shooting intruders, or at least shooting at them, without being charged by The Authorities with a firearms offence or worse. Agent 17 has sent us a cute little story which makes the point.

George Phillips, an elderly man from Walled Lake MI, was going up to bed, when his wife told him that he'd left the light on in the garden shed, which she could see from the bedroom window. George opened the back door to go turn off the light, but saw that there were people in the shed stealing things.

He phoned the police, who asked "Is someone in your house?"
George said "No, but some people are breaking into my garden shed and stealing from me."
Then the police dispatcher said "All patrols are busy. You should lock your doors and an officer will be along when one is available."
George said, "Okay."

Then George hung up the phone, counted to 30, and phoned the police again.
"Hello," he said, "I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people stealing things from my shed. Well, you don't have to worry about them now because I just shot and killed them both. My dogs are eating them right now," and he hung up.

Within five minutes, six police cars, a SWAT team, a helicopter, two fire trucks, a paramedic and an ambulance showed up at the Phillips' residence, and caught the burglars red-handed.
One of the policemen said to George, "I thought you said you'd shot them!"
George said, "I thought you said there was nobody available!"

Great story, eh! But it does have the air of the urban myth -- like the vanishing hitchiker and the exploding toilet. And sure enough, Snopes.com reported this one way back in 2001, at which time it was supposed to have been a report in the Meridian (MS) Star.  Still "George Phillips" though!

Walt also heard a variation on this story a couple of times while residing in Ha-ha-harare, the fun capital of Africa, where the reason for the cops' non-attendance was supposed to have been lack of transportation.

Still a great story, and never let anyone tell you there's no truth in it. Ask Agent 3 who once took a potshot at an intruder -- a warning shot across the bow, as it were -- and quickly found himself being Further Dealt With According to the Law.

Pope Francis to move on Third Secret of Fatima?

Walt found it passing strange that Father Nicholas Gruner, founder director of an Apostolate dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima, should have been so positive about the election of Pope Francis. Successive popes from Pius XI to Benedict XVI have been perplexed by the Third Secret revealed by Our Lady to the late Sister Lucia. The closer it got to 1960 -- the year by which Our Lady said the Secret must be revealed -- the more nervous the Vatican got.

Fatima experts, such as Walt's old buddy Christopher A. Ferrara, Esquire, believe that the Third Secret foretells the apostasy and corruption which stain the mainstream Roman Catholic Church today. We can call the collapse of the Church and the departure from the True Faith the poisoned fruits of Vatican II. But Pope John XXIII, who instigated the Council, read the secret and in his wisdom (?) set it aside, saying the Blessed Virgin must have been talking about somebody else or some other time.

That's been the Vatican party line ever since. We've seen more than half a century of lies and cover-ups orchestrated by the Vatican Secretaries of State, notably Cardinals Casaroli, Sodano and the evil Bertone. And all of the post-Conciliar popes have toed the line. That includes Paul VI, who famously said that, through Vatican II, "the smoke of Satan has entered the Church"...but did nothing about it.

The Message of Fatima does not just concern the ruination of the Church. Our Lady warned of wars and other catastrophes -- manmade and natural -- which would result in the annihilation of millions of souls. Unless, that is, the Pope (in union with all of the bishops, acting together at the same time) fulfilled a very simple request. She asks them to consecrate Russia (specifically) to Her Immaculate Heart. If that is done, She promises, Russia will be converted to the Faith and become an instrument of peace.

Because of the Vatican's policy of Ostpolitik (devised by the Secretariat of State, not by any pope), not one of the popes who have known of Our Lady's request have dared to do as She asks. During World War II, Pius XII attempted a consecration of "the world". John Paul II performed another act of consecration of the world in 1984, but on 25 March of that year admitted in a prayer to the Blessed Virgin that the consecration of Russia remained undone.

Fast forward to 26 June 2000, when the then Secretary of State, Cardinal Sodano, released his "interpretation" of the Third Secret of Fatima, with an introduction by Cardinal Bertone. Cardinal Ratzinger (as he then was) followed Sodano in pronouncing the Fatima prophecy "a thing of the past". The intent of this tale about "the bishop dressed in white" was clearly (in Mr. Ferrara's words) "to consign Fatima to the dustbin of history".

Strangely enough, after he became Benedict XVI, Pope Ratzinger reversed himself. On 11 May 2010, en route to Portugal for a visit to the Fatima shrine, the Holy Father rejected "the universally disbelieved Sodano/Bertone 'interpretation'". (Ferrara's words)

Rather, said Benedict, the Third Secret prophesies what is happening in the Church today, and predicts future events in the Church which are still developing day by day. "The greatest persecution of the Church does not come from enemies outside, but arises from sin in the Church." Sin in the Church... the smoke of Satan... just as Paul VI said!

Not three years later, Benedict XVI found himself physically and mentally incapable of resisting the enemies with in the Church any longer, and threw the torch to whoever might be his successor. Perhaps it was through divine intervention that Cardinal Bergoglio was chosen, for it turns out that Pope Francis is a friend of Our Lady of Fatima. One of his first acts, the day after his election, was to go to pray at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore.

We do not know what the Pope said to the Blessed Virgin or what She made him understand. But this week we learn, from Vatican Insider (written by leading Vaticanista Andrea Tornielli) that the Holy Father has asked José Cardinal Policarpo, Archbishop of Lisbon, to dedicate his pontificate to Our Lady of Fatima!

Cardinal Policarpo confirmed the Pope’s request at a meeting of the Portuguese bishops’ conference. He said that the Pontiff had twice asked him to make the consecration. The cardinal suggested that the entire bishops’ conference could join in the act of consecration.

This is an extremely significant move by the Holy Father. It shows that he believes in the Fatima Message, and acknowledges the correctness of what Benedict XVI said, that the Message of Fatima is still valid today.  (Tornielli says the prophecy could apply not only to the Church's struggle against the totalitarian regimes of the East, but the paedophilia scandal as well.)

What will be Pope Francis' next step? Could it be that he will finally command all the world's bishops to join him in the Act of Consecration of Russia that Our Lady of Fatima requested? Let us pray so, because that is Heaven's Key to World Peace.

Further reading: "A Prelude to the Consecration of Russia?" by Christopher A. Ferrara, Esquire.

Recommended blog: Fr. West's Catholic Blog, and in particular "Queen Esther and Our Lady of Fatima - Homily for Thursday of the First Week of Lent"

Walt's solution to the threat of terrorism

Walt would like to see the latest annual report of the Department of Homeland Security. (It may be available online somewhere, but Ed. is too lazy to look. Or maybe not. Maybe it's "classified", or even "top secret".) Walt would like to know how many terrorists -- imported or domestic -- they've apprehended in the last year. Walt would like to know how they spend billions of taxpayers' dollars and yet are unable to prevent incidents like the Boston Marathon bombings.

Here is my offer to the Department. For just a small fraction of one year's allocation -- let's say 10% -- I will show you how to drastically reduce the likelihood of further attacks on America and Americans.

Later...
Ed. tells me I should present my plan for free, for the common good, and trust the Prez to compensate me once the benefit of my foolproof strategy is realized. OK then...

What America should do, to get the Islamic extremists off our backs, is leave them alone.

Follow Ron Paul's advice* and put an end to our foreign adventurism and entanglements. Bring the troops home. All of them. Let the USA get out of the Middle East and the ROTW entirely. Let the Shites and Sunnies and Wasabis fight each other, if they get off on that kind of thing, and good luck to them.

Do I hear objections? Yes, you wrapped in the Stars and Stripes... "Americans can't run from a fight!" I hear you bray. My dear patriot, Walt is not talking about running from a fight. Walt is talking about running to a fight!

If America is attacked, certainly she must defend herself. But there has been no attack on the landmass of the USA in nearly 200 years. [Don't mention the War of 1812! Ed.] It's the bellicose United States that keeps invading such threats -- to "world peace", not America directly -- as Grenada, Cuba, Mexico, the Philippines, Libya [That's enough. We get it. Ed.]

Another cavil? "What about the security of our [sic] oil supply?", asks the gentleman from Texas. "What if there isn't enough gas for my Hummer?"

Dear guzzler, do you really believe that Iran or Iraq or Libya, if left to themselves, would refuse to sell any more oil to their biggest customer? And even if they did, there are other sources. Canada, for instance, has all kinds of oil it would be happy to ship south if the econazis would cease their sky-is-falling squawking about the Keystone pipeline. Getting oil is never going to be a problem for the USA. (Lifetime pct .980.)

So there you have it, gentle readers. Leave them alone and they'll stay home. And Americans can stop living in fear. You're welcome.

* Recommended reading: "Ron Paul to John Kerry: Foreign Interventionism Bankrupts America and Turns the World Against Us".

"We don't know who did it, or why..."

The words of President Barack Hussein Obama in response to the Boston Marathon bombings, which the White House is calling "an act of terror". But why would "they" do that... to Americans??!! Walt will tell you why.

Let's assume that the bomber is not just one deranged Unabomber wannabe. There were two bombs, suggesting at least two terrorists acting in concert. And let's assume, from the somewhat lame and amateurish quality of the attacks, that they were amateurs, not professionals. Walt believe what we have, then, is an act of domestic terrorism with an international connection.

Putting it another way, if the identities of the bombers are ever learned, they'll likely turn out to be local Muslims acting in sympathy with their co-religionists in the Middle East and Africa. Lifetime pct .980.

Most of the ROTW (Rest Of The World) hates Americans, but none more so than the Muslims of Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Iran [That's enough. Ed.] Why? It's not just envy of America's riches. Other countries -- Norway for instance -- enjoy larger per capita incomes and better standards of living. But you don't see the Islamic extremists targetting Norwegians.

Walt suggests that the main reason why Muslims -- especially the Islamic fundamentalists -- hate Americans is because the government of the USA keeps trying to impose its versions of democracy, justice, "culture" and the other blessings of the American way of life on the Islamic society which rejects those ideals.

Worse, America keeps trying to extend its economic and cultural empire by force of arms. The USA keeps on bullying and attacking smaller and weaker countries -- every country other than Russia and China -- whose politics or social systems it disagrees with: Vietnam, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Libya [That's enough. Ed.], yet Americans wonder why they are hated. 

Three Americans were killed yesterday, and the Prez promises those responsible will be brought to "justice". But just over a year, an American soldier decided to shoot up an Afghan village, for target practice or just for the hell of it. 16 Afghans, including women and children, were killed. Has he been brought to justice yet?

It seems to the ROTW that Americans regard non-Americans as some lesser form of life. If Americans kill unarmed civilians -- men, women and children -- in large numbers, it really doesn't matter, as long as they're foreigners, like "gooks" (Vietnam) or "towel-heads" (the Middle East).

Just one (particularly egregious) example of American disregard for others. This is taken from the chapter headed "Friend or Foe" in Christopher Dickey's recommendable book Expats: Travels in Arabia from Tripoli to Teheran (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990).

Iran Air Flight 655 was a civilian airliner, an A300B2, flying from Bandar Abbas, Iran to Dubai on 3 July 1988. That's a 140-mile, 35-minute milk run. Conditions in the Gulf were such, at the time, that civilian aircraft were restricted to a 20-mile-wide commercial air corridor, within Iranian airspace. Flight 655 was flying right down the middle of that airway, at the correct height and in the approved manner, when it was shot down by a guided missile fired from the US Navy cruiser Vincennes.

All 290 on board including 66 children perished -- the highest death toll of any aviation incident in the Indian Ocean, and the ninth-deadliest disasters in aviation history. The ensuing enquiry determined that the crew of the Vincennes somehow mistook the jumbo jet, which was climbing, for a much smaller F14 Tomcat fighter diving to attack them.

The commander of the Vincennes was exonerated. American investigators -- Iranians had no say in the matter -- recommended that one junior officer receive a "nonpunitive letter of censure", the mildest reprimand in the US military. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the US Secretary of Defense rejected that recommendation. Officially, no-one was to blame.

Dickey quotes Iranian Brigadier General Mansour Satary (who was trained in the USA) as saying that he didn't think the Americans actually intended to shoot down an unarmed civilian aircraft. They just didn't care enough to be careful enough not to do it.

It is that attitude -- that nothing matters except the security and prosperity of America -- that rankles the ROTW. It makes the ROTW feel threatened and insecure. In Walt's opinion, the goal of the terrorists is to make Americans feel equally threatened and insecure. As well they might.

Why is the lamestream media ignoring the trial of Kermit the Babykiller

On March 20th, Walt told you -- for the second time -- about the horrors perpetrated in the abortuary of Doctor Kermit Gosnell, the black American abortionist now on trial for murdering babies born alive and viable. He (or staff "operating" under his direction) did it by cutting through the children's spinal columns just below their heads. End of life.

More shocking details of Gosnell's “House of Horrors” were presented to a Philadelphia jury this week.  murder trial of doctor Kermit Gosnell heard from one of his assistants, who said on five occasions she saw babies moving and breathing following abortions. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Ashley Baldwin, who began working at the clinic when she was just 15, said in one case she heard a baby “screeching” after the "procedure".

Gosnell's trial for the murder of one female patient and seven babies has been reported on AP and in the local (Philadelphia/New York/New Jersey) papers, but is not getting much play nation-wide, even though it has all the elements of front-page news: murder, abortion, racism, exploited women, not to mention government failures (or wilful ignorance). It should be front page news! But it isn't...

"Why isn't [this trial] being covered more?" is the thought-provoking question asked by Conor Friedersdorf, writing in The Atlantic said, “The news value is undeniable," he says. "To sum up, this story has numerous elements any one of which would normally make it a major story. And setting aside conventions, which are flawed, this ought to be a big story on the merits."

Mr. Friedersdorf tells us his question occurred to him as he read a USA Today column by Kirsten Powers, who wrote, "This should be front page news. When Rush Limbaugh attacked Sandra Fluke [for advocating insurance coverage of contraceptives], there was non-stop media hysteria. Yet, accusations of babies having their heads severed — a major human rights story if there ever was one — doesn’t make the cut. The deafening silence of too much of the media, once a force for justice in America, is a disgrace." [My emphasis. Walt]

And so it is. But what is behind this studied silence? It's the same aggressive secularism and political correctness that keeps us from even discussing the evils and perversions of our post-Christian society. Nothing is "wrong" any more, because we -- or at least our "progressive thinkers" and opinion-makers -- have lost the ability to distinguish between wrong and right.

If whatever you are or whatever you're doing seems right to you, then who are we to criticize? That's their argument. It's the moral -- "immoral" would be a better word -- equivalent of religious relativism. There is no "right way" and therefore no "wrong way" to think or act, unless of course you're old-fashioned enough to believe in the Ten Commandments or some other moral code written hundreds of years ago.

Unfortunately, if  you believe in such moral precepts as "Thou shalt not kill" -- that's the entire commandment, by the way, no qualifications -- you are  now an "extremist".  That's the politically correct view of your righteous notions. As Walt told you earlier this week, that's the view espoused by Obama's government and its armed forces. And, of course, the liberal-controlled lamestream media.  

Exposed! The Vatican's tastes in porn!

If Walt remembers his catechism correctly, making known the hidden faults of your neighbour is a violation of the Eighth Commandment. However, if your neighbours' faults -- for example, their penchant for downloading porn from the Internet -- have already been revealed... would that, then, be a sin, Father? (That's the way we used to bug the priests who gave us religious instruction.)

If your neighbours happen to be the folks in Vatican City, it doesn't seem so wrong, somehow, that their sins and hypocrisy be exposed to the light of day. At least, that must be the reason why the downloaders' favourite website, TorrentFreak, published download stats from a certain IP address a few days ago.

From an anti-piracy site called ScanEye, TorrentFreak got details (shown in screen grabs in its article) of the viewing habits of someone in the Vatican. Could be a member of the Swiss Guard... or a gay priest... or a gay bishop... or a cardinal... or... who knows?

Whoever it may be, his (or their) top pornographic searches range from lesbian and "mature" porn to "amateur" and anal scenes. Not to mention a website called Wet and Puffy ("Become a member now for FULL length videos!). [Thought you weren't going to mention it! Ed.] 

The top-searched porn star is Milly D'Abbraccio, a former Miss Teenager Italy and 2008 Socialist Party candidate, whose curriculum vitae includes the non-Oscar-winning film Sex Animals. They're also fond of Rebeca Linares, a Spanish porn actress and co-star (with Ron Jeremy) of Homo Erectus, which Walt would have taken for a documentary of an anthropological nature.

This enquiry into the porn habits of the denizens of the Holy See comes after the revelation that someone there recently downloaded a film starring Tiffany Starr, who promises "some of the hottest transsexual porn" on the Internet. Does this mean that the lovely "lady" pictured above is actually a member of the LGBT community? In that case viewing such a film might come under the heading of research into motivation for abnormal behaviour, presumably in furtherance of better pastoral care.

Further reading... or viewing, actually: "Lea Lexis, Tiffany Starr Call Vatican Porn Downloaders 'Hypocrites'", from HuffPost. (Yes, there's a video, but Walt couldn't get the embed code.)

And let that be a warning to all of you one-handed typists! That ad that says your computer is broadcasting information about you? It's true!

Answer to yesterday's word quiz

Yesterday's challenge -- set by Agent 6 -- was to discern the feature common to the following seven words.

1. Banana

2. Dresser

3. Grammar

4. Potato

5. Revive

6. Uneven

7. Assess

What is it that these words have in common? It's this. In all of the words listed, if you take the first letter, place it at the end of the word, and then spell the word backwards, it will be the same word.

Did you figure it out? If so, congratulations, and please satisfy Walt's curiosite on a related point.

There is a name for words which are spelled the same backwards and forwards, e.g. "radar" and "poop". They are called palindromes. But is there a name for the words listed above? If you know of a cromulent appellation, please e-mail Walt at the usual address.

Word play -- the quiz that stumped Walt [and Ed.!]

Walt loves playing with words. Anagrams, crosswords, palindromes, obscure and archaic words... bring it on. If the topic has to do with our beautiful English language, you would want me on your side in a pub quiz. Indeed, I dare say I am a cunning linguist.

Once in a while though, someone sends me a test that leaves me... well... lost for words. One such arrived today in an e-mail from Agent 6. (Welcome back, 6!) Here it is.

The following seven words have something in common. See if you can figure out what it is.

1. Banana

2. Dresser

3. Grammar

4. Potato

5. Revive

6. Uneven

7. Assess

Need a clue? Well, the solution has nothing to do with anagrams. Nor is it the repetition of at least one consonant. It's something else... something so simple that you'll kick yourself when I tell you... which I'll do tomorrow!

US Army brands Walt and Ed. "extremists"

Yes, dear readers, we've finally been outed. Walt [and Ed. Ed.] are members of a group of dangerous extremists. So says "Extremism and Extremist Organizations" -- a slide presentation used in training US Army Reserves in Pennsylvania.

Please don't check your calendar. April Fools Day has come and gone, but this Army training material is real! Click on the link and check it out for yourself. Scroll through to Slide 24 and you'll find a list of 17 forms or types of "religious extremism", such as the Ku Klux Klan and National of Islam. Also included are "Catholicism" and -- at the top of the list, no less "evangelical Christianity".

The text below the slide explains that “Every religion has some followers that believe that their beliefs, customs, and traditions are the only ‘right way’ and that all others are practicing their faith ‘the wrong way,’ seeing and believing that their faith/religion superior to all others.” [sic]

Well, DUH. If you don't believe your faith is "the right way", then why would you hold to that faith? Practising Christians -- and Jews and Muslims and Hindus and so forth -- cling to the tenets and practices of their religions precisely because they believe that doing so will make them better people/please God/save their souls/whatever. That's what they -- I should say "we" -- believe.

Last time I looked at the Constitution of the US of A -- not to mention that of other so-called "Christian" nations -- freedom of religion was guaranteed. An American, Aussie, Brit or Canuck [That's enough citizenships. Ed.] is free to believe whatever he or she pleases...even if he or she is wrong.

You would think, wouldn't you, that the Army of the US of A would be required to uphold and protect the principle of religious freedom. Apparently not. Slide 4 says, “Extremist organizations’ goals are inconsistent with the Army’s goals, beliefs, and values with regard to equal opportunity.”

Which means that, in the words of Slide 5, "Soldiers are prohibited from participating in an extremist organization’s public demonstration or rally, taking a visible leadership role in the organization, or distributing literature on behalf of the organization." That part about "a visible leadership role" would seem to place Army chaplains in an invidious position, to say the least. And God help the evangelical Christian soldier who distributes Bibles!

The slide presentation prompted a protest from the (US) Archdiocese for the Military Services. Its call for a review of Army training materials states "The Archdiocese is astounded that Catholics were listed alongside groups that are, by their very mission and nature, violent and extremist." Sounds to Walt like that's extremist language right there!

What the slide presentation really is is yet another example of the aggressive secularism and extreme political correctness which permeates the US government -- every root and every branch -- under Barack Hussein Obama.

The Archdiocese "calls on the Department of Defense to review these materials and to ensure that taxpayer funds are never again used to present blatantly anti-religious material to the men and women in uniform." If you're American and you agree, write to your Congressperson... as if it will do any good.

Footnote: According to Slide 24, "Mormans" [sic] are extremists too. Walt and Ed. are not "Mormans" or even "Mormons". And we wish they'd stop knocking on the door of our log cabin. But we think they're entitled to believe in the golden plates and all that without being demonized by the US Army.

Gay students seek to oust Catholic chaplain for being, errr, Catholic

Unlike Gonzaga University -- see previous post -- George Washington University doesn't hold itself out to be a Catholic institution. (It is, however, within spitting distance of Georgetown University, which is about as "Catholic" as Gonzaga.) Although a private, non-denominational school, GWU has a Newman Center, complete with chapel in which Catholic students are free to worship. Non-Catholics are welcome to join in devotions if they wish, so there's no discrimination there, right?

Errr, well, not according to at least a dozen GWU students, including seniors Damian Legacy and Blake Bergen, who say they have left the Newman Center because its chaplain, Rev. Fr. Greg Shaffer, is "anti-gay" and "anti-abortion". Imagine that! Next thing you know, they'll be saying he's actually Catholic!

According to a report in The GW Hatchet, the students lambasted Father Shaffer’s counseling sessions, in which he is said to have advised students who are attracted to members of the same sex to remain celibate for the rest of their lives. They also criticized the priest for a blog post he wrote last May, calling gay relationships "unnatural and immoral" (in response to the Prez's support of same-sex marriage).

Here's what Father Shaffer actually said: "As Vatican II states, God is the author of marriage. He has defined marriage as between a man and a woman. So, marriage is between a man and a woman. Period. This is not just divine law, it is natural law (the law imprinted on each of our hearts about good and evil). Every single rational person knows that sexual relationships between persons of the same sex are unnatural and immoral. They know it in their hearts."

Hey, this is Obama's America! The gay gang doesn't have to take those insults bending over! ["Lying down", surely. Ed.] And the offended LGBT types are doing a lot more than just throwing a hissy!  They've started a campaign to have Father Shaffer removed from not the Newman Center and any connection whatsoever with GWU.

They're also going to complain to Cardinal Wuerl, the Archbishop of Washington, in hopes of getting Father Shaffer run right out of the Archdiocese, if not burned at the stake. Will they be successful? Is the Pope a Jesuit? Oh... wait...

Catholic university won't recognize K of C because it admits only Catholics

The forces of aggressive secularism and political correctness have scored another victory over Christianity. This in the Excited States of America, where freedom of religion and freedom of association are guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. This in... wait for it... a so-called "Catholic" university.

The institution in question is Gonzaga University, in Spokane, which is run by the Jesuits. (Hello, Pope Bergoglio!) According to Catholic Education Daily, the university has denied an application by some students to have their Knights of Columbus group recognized as an official student organization. The reason? Because they admit only Catholics!

The Knights were told that they could not be formally affiliated with the university because their rules for membership are "inconsistent with the policy and practice of student organization recognition at Gonzaga University, as well as the University’s commitment to non-discrimination based on certain characteristics, one of which is religion."

To make matters worse, the Knights is for men only. The applicants thought they had that covered by proposing the formation of a Catholic Daughters group, but that didn't get them around the "Catholic" university's commitment to diversity, inclusivity and all the other politically correct bullshit that even the Jesuits feel bound to put ahead of any commitment they might have to their religion.

Walt is waiting for Gonzaga University to be renamed. Something like "The Mohammed Luther Hebrew Institute of Secular Humanism" would fit nicely.

How not to win at dodgebull

This amazing video features several bulls and numerous jackasses.



From it we learn two things. First, death or injury won't be any less painful if you're smoking a cigarette when it happens. Secondly, as we see in the final clip, if you're going to escape the horns of an enraged bull, it's better not to be wearing a belt.

Thanks to Agent 9, who must be wondering if these bull-dodgers went to confession beforehand. Or possibly afterwards, as in "Forgive me, Father, for I have acted foolishly."

Aggressive secularism trumps Christianity in Ohio

Portraits of Our Lord Jesus Christ similar to this one are to be found in thousands, perhaps millions of homes and churches around the world. And in some schools too. One such used to hang in Jackson (Ohio) Middle School from 1947 until... this Easter.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation devoted to attacking all religions and all displays of religious faith, got a student and two parents to bring a lawsuit against Jackson City Schools, demanding removal of the "offending" painting, which they called "an unconstitutional endorsement of Christianity". The militant secularists were supported by... wait for it... The American Civil Liberties Union.

Jackson City Schools at first resisted the challenge, saying that the portrait of Jesus was private student speech displayed in a "limited public forum" and was not school-endorsed "governmental speech."

But, at a hearing in the US District Court yesterday, the school board threw in the towel, and agreed to remove the painting. Although they said they believe in the school's right to keep the painting up, they simply can't afford to fight the court battle, nor can they pay for insurance against costs which might be awarded against them.

Today's report from the Columbus Dispatch quotes a statement from Superintendent Phil Howard saying that "our insurance company denied coverage, and we cannot risk taxpayer money at this time."

The painting has now been removed from its place of honour, and placed in a storeroom -- out of sight and, sadly, out of mind.

Fake "obeah man" cons Jamaican murderers into confessing

Walt's favourite court-watcher, Agent 3, has been following a murder case wending its way through the courts of Ontario, Canada's most populous province. As those who know the Greater [sic] Toronto Area would expect, race and religion are involved.

The victim of a 2004 shooting in Brampton, Ontario -- an increasingly dark bedroom community northwest of Toronto -- was Youhan Oraha, a drug dealer. The three accused were Evol Robinson, his differently-surnamed brother Jahmar Welsh, and their friend Ruben Pinnock. All of the accused are, errr, Jamaican-Canadians.

In their trial before Mr. Justice Terrance O'Connor of the Ontario Superior Court, the evidence which did them in was that of an undercover cop who posed as an "obeah spiritual advisor", to whom the accused gave what amounted to a confession.

A confession given to a Catholic priest would have been inadmissible under Canadian law. Sadly for the accused, obeah has nothing to do with Christianity. It centres on mysticism and spiritualism and is commonly practised by people of Caribbean descent. The word "voodoo" comes to mind, but at the trial four defence experts at trial called obeah "a form of religious practice".

Judge O'Connor questioned the sincerity of the accused's religious beliefs, and allowed the fake testimony of "Leon de Obeah Man". The bogus spiritualist had told the boys that the Robinson family was cursed by an evil spirit, a "white boy" who had drawn police and the judiciary to them. He offered to protect them, so they spilled their guts to him. "Guilty, guilty, guilty!" Said the judge.

Was that the end of it? Is the Pope Catholic? [Apparently not. Ed.] Enter the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the African-Canadian Legal Clinic, organizations funded by charitable donations and tax dollars willingly and unwillingly provided by whities. These assiduous opponents of racism and champions of religious freedom put to the Ontario Court of Appeal the argument that the religious rights of the accused were breached by the racist police, in sending "Leon" to extract incriminating information that the accused otherwise wouldn't have given.

The CCLA intervention argued that allowing police to impersonate religious advisers "shocks the conscience of Canadians." The African Canadian Legal Clinic said the police trickery "preyed on the Robinson family's deep-seated mistrust of the criminal justice system". Well, duh!

The appeal court disagreed with the appeal to political correctness. In a judgement released yesterday, three white judges wrote: "We conclude that any religious element in the Obeah sessions with Leon is properly characterized as trivial, insubstantial and dwarfed by the corrupt motives that induced the appellants to participate in and fall for the elaborate scheme of deception practised upon them."

Furthermore, the court found police did not compel any action for a religious purpose. "Leon encouraged the appellants to adopt Obeah practices, but encouragement short of compulsion does not infringe" religious rights, said the judges.

Nor did the judges accept that the applicants were "unfairly targeted because of they are black and of Jamaican heritage". Rather, they were singled out because they were suspected of murder. Well said. Let's see the liberal activist lawyers get the Supreme Court of Canada to reverse that one!

Queer students campaign against Christian law school

Yesterday Walt passed on a report that 2/3 of the self-identified Christians in Notsogreat Britain felt they have become a persecuted minority in their own land. Persecuted, that is, by "aggressive secularists" supported by their own government, headed by "Conservative" Prime Minister David Cameron.

Today we look at Canada, where one would think freedom of speech, freedom of religion and, indeed, freedom of thought, would be guaranteed by the Charter of Rights, thus safe from the predations of political correctness. One would be wrong.

Walt takes you now to Langley, British Columbia, the home of Trinity Western University.

TWU is a small(ish) university compared with behemoths like UBC, but it has a wide range of programmes, offering undergrad and graduate degrees in the humanities, education, even medicine. It would like to start a faculty of law, but its attempt so to do is meeting with opposition from the usual gang of social activitsts and secular humanists.

Why the fuss? It's because Trinity Western University is... wait for it... a "faith-based" institution of higher learning. That right, dear reader. Those people are religious!

The idea of having a law school where students would be taught real ethics and religious ideals is being challenged in a petition by students from eight other Canadian law schools. Their reasoning (if such it can be called) is that TWU's Christian policies discriminate against... wait for it (again)... the LGBT (queer) "community".

The homophiliacs' petition asks the Federation of Law Societies of Canada and the BC Ministry of Advanced Education, Innovation and Technology [Why do the names of these government departments get longer and more complex every year? Ed.] to reject the accreditation of TWU's proposed law school, claiming parts of the university's student handbook are contrary to the rights of LGBT students, faculty and staff.

Here's the deal. If you want to study or work at TWU, you're asked to sign a Community Covenant Agreement, outlining the university's conduct expectations, and your rights and duties as a member of the institution. OK so far? It's normal, surely, for a school, company, social club, government agency -- any organization -- to have policies and procedures which you must accept, either explicitly or implicitly, if you want to belong.

But... TWU's Community Covenant Agreement contains a clause that requires community members to abstain from "sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman." Shock! Horror!

The handbook says that if a student fails to comply with the agreement after signing it, the university "reserves the right to discipline, dismiss, or refuse a student's re-admission to the University". In other words, if you break the agreement you signed, you exclude yourself from the organization.

But OUTlaw -- a group representing the LGBT gang at the University of Alberta -- doesn't see it that way. A spokesthingy, Christopher Ghesquier, told CBC Radio (natch!) "This discriminatory policy really does not represent Canadian law. I think it definitely does offer a less welcoming environment for LGBT students to attend [TWU]... Despite the fact that the law recognizes same-sex marriages, the school seems not to."

To which Walt says, so what, Chrissy?! You don't have to go to TWU if you don't think you will be welcome there. And you are already going to the University of Alberta law school, eh? So what's it to ya?!

Trinity Western was a little more moderate in its response. Their statement regarding the petition says the agreement being challenged was "rigorously researched and developed" after consultation with legal experts. "While we value and respect differing views, we trust that a faith-based community still has the religious freedom in Canada to maintain its beliefs and participate fully in society."

Walt hopes TWU's trust that Canadian law societies and governments uphold the rights of religious minorities -- such as practising Christians -- is not misplaced. Walt hopes... but will not bet. Lifetime pct, like freedom of religion in our secular society, does not apply.

If you love Elmo, crap your hands!

One of the things Walt misses about no longer living in China [Just in case any readers were wondering. Ed.] is the amusement of reading notices, signs and other documents written in Chingrish.

Chingrish, for those not familiar with the term, is a strange and hilarious amalgam of misspellings and mistranslations used by Chinese who believe that they can speak/write English. "Of cos I speak good Engrish! I got CET-4!"

One example that always made me smile was the little sign in the Renrenle supermarket showing shoppers where to find the "CHEWING GUN".

Perhaps the product was to be found just an aisle or two over from the "Rocking Elmo" pictured here. To be fair, though, I believe the admonition to "Crap Your Hands" is actually Japlish, first cousin to Chinglish.

The picture was posted on the ChairmanLOL website, which has hundreds of similar examples. Mind you, the Chinese and Japanese are not the only ones to mangle the language of Shakespeare and Churchill. Horrible examples of "Engrish" as she is spoken around the world -- including so-called English-speaking countries -- can be found at Engrish.com. Walt invites to read, laugh, and see if you can do any better!

"I am not worthy...": Pope Francis resigns

The Roman Catholic Church, indeed the entire world, was shocked -- shocked! -- this morning when, after a humble breakfast of dry toast and a cup of steam, Pope Francis, clad only in a sackcloth robe, announced that he would hand the Keys to the Kingdom back to his predecessor at noon today.

"I am much too humble for the exalted office that the cardinals thrust on me," said the soon-to-be-ex-Pontiff. "I couldn't accept all those things... the red shoes, the fancy clothes, the crown. And now they wanted me to move into a luxury apartment when I could be perfectly happy to live in a hostel and eat at a soup kitchen. It's just too much!"

[Ed., I'm going to run this even though we don't have a second source as yet. Could you please make some phone calls? And try to find out where Bertone got our phone number. Thanks. Walt]

Seriously... isn't the New and Improved Holy Father's "humble shtick" getting to be a bit much? Driving through the crowd in St. Peter's Square in his Popemobile, kissing babies and invalids... You'd think he was running for the presidency of Italy. (Not such a bad idea, perhaps.) Here's one cartoonist's view.

I look at the signs and portents of the early days of Francis' papacy, and, in the immortal words of Indiana Jones, "I've got a bad feeling about this."

Cardinal Roger Mahony -- disgraced to the point of having to absent himself from the Conclave that elected Bergoglio -- exstatic. Towards the end of last week, during the "installation" of the new Pope, he Tweeted:

“SIMPLE is IN, extravagant is out!! Pope Francis is doing more for proclaiming Jesus Christ than thousands of ‘professionals’–praise God!”

“So long, Papal ermine and fancy lace! Welcome, simple cassock, and hopefully, ordinary black shoes! St. Francis must be overjoyed!!”
“Mass with Pope Francis: moving from HIGH Church to LOW and humble Church! What a blessing that we are encountering Jesus without trappings!”

If the paedophiles' protector approves, Walt should not be the only one to disapprove. What Pope Francis is showing, in his every word and action, is a desire to ignore the extremely modest steps back to Tradition of his last two predecessors, and to return to the novelties and outright heresies of Vatican II.

Pope Francis is, in his own words, very much imbued with the spirit of Vatican II. And unlike Benedict XVI, he appears less concerned with continuity with the past and more intent on moving ahead with what he still regards as the Council’s correct agenda. So there is cause for concern... much concern.

Meanwhile, the Curia -- including Bertone -- remains in place, "for the time being", i.e. during the first formative days of the Bergoglio papacy. So what the Church has, in Francis, is a sheep amongst wolves, skipping his humble way down the Protestant path to perdition.

Fortunately, the grace of office has significantly changed the mindset and policies of popes of the past. Pope Pius IX -- the "Pio Nono" of Vatican I -- started his papacy as a liberal, but quickly became a staunch defender of Tradition.

The best thing faithful Catholics can do at the moment is to pray for the Pope, as Our Lady told us to do. And pray that the Holy Spirit will, as our Lord promised, preserve the Church from Her enemies... without and within.

Recommended reading: "Could the Criticism Have Merit?", by Louie Verrecchio, in Catholic Exchange.