Father Nicholas Gruner, RIP

Walt is deeply saddened to have received, this morning, the following notice from the Fatima Center.

The Management Team of the Fatima Center sadly announces the death of Father Nicholas Gruner, who passed away suddenly yesterday evening. Father died at his office, working to his last breath on the goals to which he dedicated his 38 years in the priesthood — the promotion of the Message of Fatima, especially the release of the full Third Secret and the Consecration of Russia to Our Lady's Immaculate Heart.

Details concerning the visitation and funeral for Father will be announced in the upcoming days. For now, in your charity, please pray for Father and for his Apostolate, which will continue to seek to bring his life's work to a successful conclusion.

Please visit the Fatima Network website for details and updates.

If you don't know about Father Gruner and his work, have a look at my review of Crucial Truths to Save Your Soul. Reading it is like having a conversation with Father Gruner about what his work has meant and what he has learned over the years. One of my dear Catholic friends told me "I learned things I should have known before, which became perfectly clear to me as I read this book."

VIDEO: Physical feats Walt wouldn't even attempt

I must be getting old. Some of these make me cringe just looking at them -- particularly the guy with the unicycle.

Thanks to Agent 6 for the link.

Why cops shoot so many black Americans

As Walt told you earlier today, President Obama has asked Americans to search their souls about the terrible treatment given by (mostly white) American cops to "African-Americans". In what he called "a slow-rolling crisis", he referred to "troubling police interactions with black citizens". Here are some specifics, as recorded by the FBI and reported in the current Economist.

No-one knows how many people die in contact with America's roughly 18,000 law enforcement officers. Incomplete FBI figures (police forces are not required to submit data) show that at least 461 people died in "justifiable homicides" in 2013, an increase of 33% since 2005. Other sources suggest the true number could be as high as twice that.

Here are the stats from one of America's most violent cities, Chicago. The Windy City's cops shoot dead about 50 "suspects" each and every year. Over 75% of them are black. The police are mostly white or Hispanic.

Why does this happen? Craig Futterman of the University of Chicago's Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project* did some research -- or maybe it was soul-searching -- and came up with the amazing conclusion that, consciously or otherwise, the mostly white police tend to associate blacks with criminality. Fancy that!

Why do they do that? Well, about 70% of murders in Chicago are committed by "African-Americans", who account for about 33% of the city's population. Is it any wonder that, according to a 2014 survey by the ACLU, black Chicagoans were subjected to 72% of all stop-and-frisk searches. And, as surely as night follows day, a disproportionate share of take-downs and police killings.

Where, then, does the problem lie? With the police or with the so-called black community? As the Prez sez, search your souls, folks.

Worth reading: "Baltimore shows police killings America's real state of emergency" - Neil Macdonald (WM, 58), senior Washington correspondent for CBC News, explains why American police scare him.

* Note from Ed.: It's a good thing the U of Chicago stuck "Police" in the name of that project, otherwise it would have had an awkward acronym.

Gay teachers push LGBTQ agenda constantly, not just in sex ed

This morning Walt told you about the growing backlash against the new pro-queer sex education -- read "indoctrination" -- curriculum being foisted on the people of Ontario by their Liberal government and lesbian premier, Kathleen Wynne. "How Ontario's pro-LGBT sex education plan could derail Justin Trudeau's election bid" explains how parental outrage, especially in the "ethnic" ridings surrounding Toronto, could work against the federal Liberals in the election due later this year. A Liberal is a liberal, eh.

Now Agent 3 has sent us the link to a related story: Lesbian: I use math class to teach young kids about homosexuality so I can 'hide' it from parents.

LifeSite reporter Pete Baklinski wrote a few days ago that a lesbian teacher "married" to another woman -- like Ontario's premier -- told a pro-gay teachers' conference earlier this month how she teaches grade 4-5 students to accept homosexuality through what she called "social justice" math.

Alicia Gunn, an elementary public school teacher in Mississauga ON, told attendees at the April 10th conference in Toronto's City Hall that injecting LGBTQ issues into the classroom, especially in math, helps students as young as nine "disrupt the single story that many of our kids have about LGBTQ families."

"Social justice math happens when students are solving problems using real, engaging, and meaningful numbers. Social justice issues happening in their school, community, or even globally become the context for the math that the students are doing," she said.

If all that liberal bafflegab sounds reasonable and (of course) progressive to you, here's a quote which reveals Ms Gunn's true intentions. "If you don’t want to send your kid to school on the Day of Pink, that’s OK. But they’re going to get it all the days before."

The "Day of Pink", in case you didn't know, was another arrow from the quiver of the pro-queer lobby. Kids were supposed to wear pink sweaters/shirts/pants/whatever to school to show their support for the "anti-bullying" campaign, which is a thinly-disguised ploy to get people -- even impressionable children -- to believe that "it's OK to be gay!"

You think Walt is kidding? The LifeSite report -- which includes a video as proof -- says that Ms Gunn told attendees in her workshop how she used the situation of students calling a young female student "lesbian" as a springboard to introduce the class into what she called "conversations about gay stuff".

Gunn, who is featured in a teacher resource put out by ServiceOntario (an agency of the Liberal government), related how she first spoke with the female student, telling her that it was "OK to be gay." Ms Gunn told attendees, "And when I spoke to her about it, what she kept saying to me was, 'Mrs. Gunn, I swear I’m not gay. I’m not gay!' And I kept saying back to her, 'I don’t care if you’re gay. It should be OK to be gay.'"

So there you are. That's the kind of propaganda for "alternative" -- read "DEVIANT" -- lifestyles, being crammed down the throats of Ontario pupils in every class, every day, by "progressive educators" like Alicia Gunn and her bosses, Lez Sandals and Kathleen Wynne. Taking the kiddos out of sex ed class won't keep them from learning that "it's OK to be gay"...and worse.

THIS JUST IN: Walt has just (this afternoon) received a phone call from an agent in Peel Region, which has seen the biggest and loudest protests against the pro-queer sex education curriculum. My agent reports that the Minister of Education has agreed to some sort of meeting with the region's public school board to "clarify" the content of the curriculum, and the difference between the curriculum itself and what Ms Sandals now calls "prompts" given to tell teachers how to respond to questions about things like anal sex, should such questions arise. Whether parents will be allowed to attend the meeting is unclear. Looks to me like the government has blinked!

Note from Ed.: Walt told me to print the preceding paragraph in shocking pink. Isn't that clever?

Prez calls for "soul searching" in wake of Baltimore race riot

Tuesday morning in Baltimore. The sun rises over deserted streetscapes, boarded-up windows of looted business, shells of burnt-out police cars, and the trash and debris left over from a day and a night of... what? Of fighting for justice for Freddie Gray, of course! Don't you read the lamestream media?

Well, yes, certain of the meeja did use the word "riot". And what kind of riot was it? Why, a "police riot" of course! Those thuggish Baltimore police were just provoking and attacking those poor, downtrodden, innocent "African-American" chillun, as you can see clearly in this picture.

Oh... wait... You don't see any police? Just a mob of black folks running wild, stomping on cars? But there were lots of cops around, dressed in full riot gear, armed with guns, batons, teargas and other WMDs. The police certainly had their work cut out for them. Rioters set police cars and buildings on fire in several neighbourhoods, looted a mall and liquor stores and threw rocks at police, who responded occasionally with pepper spray.

So it was all the cops' fault, right? Errr, not exactly. Seems the cops were targetted by a coalition of black gangs -- Bloods, Crips, and others. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (of the coloured persuasion herself) called last night one of her city's "darkest days" ["nights", surely. Ed.], and said these actions of "thugs" had nothing to do with protests. "We cannot allow our city to devolve into chaos because of a small group of criminals that are moving throughout our city."

Right. It's a few "thugs" that are causing all the trouble, not the black folks shown in this picture demonstrating for justice for Freddie Gray.

Yep, fighting for justice... and loot... just like the old joke about the Irish lawyer who said all he wanted for his client was justice... with costs, of course.

Justice for Freddie Gray... Mr. Gray was taken into custody by Baltimore police on April 12th after "making eye contact" with officers -- an offence Walt never heard of until now -- and then running away. He was held down, handcuffed and loaded into a van without a seat belt. Leg cuffs were put on him inside the van when he became irate, for some reason. Less than an hour later, he was dead.

The latest victim of a police killing was not just Gray but black. No surprise there. Police have declined to specify the race(s) of the six officers involved in his arrest, all of whom have been suspended while they are under investigation. With pay, of course.

Mr. Gray's death comes amid a national debate over police use of deadly force following the high-profile deaths of several black men in encounters with police, from the Brown death in Ferguson MO to the deaths of Eric Garner in New York and Walter Scott in North Charleston, SC. Black people are angry. Walt understands that. So does Mayor Rawlings-Blake. "I understand anger, but what we're seeing isn't anger," she said. "It's disruption of a community. The same community they say they care about, they're destroying. You can't have it both ways."

Indeed. What we're seeing in Baltimore is not only the venting of anger and legitimate protest against injustice, but criminal violence, destruction and, yes, looting. Fifty years ago, when such things happened in Watts, Harlem and Detroit, we called them "race riots". But in 2015 that term is no longer politically correct.

UPDATE: The Head Soul Brother, Barack Hussein Obama, says all Americans need to do a lot of soul searching to understand what's been going down in Baltimore. Of course the police are to blame. The Prez said today there have been too many "troubling police interactions with black citizens" in what he called "a slow-rolling crisis."

But, he said, there was no excuse for rioters to engage in senseless violence. In a remarkable moment of clarity, Mr. Obama said those who stole from businesses and burned buildings and cars should be treated as criminals. "There's no excuse for the kind of violence that we saw yesterday," he told a White House press conference. "When individuals get crowbars and start prying open doors to loot, they're not protesting, they're not making a statement. They're stealing."

A  man in the street, Leroy "Kwame" Jones, responded, "Excuse? Excuse? Whuffo we needs an excuse?!"

UPDATED: How Ontario's pro-LGBT sex education plan could derail Justin Trudeau's election bid

To recap and "set the table" for what follows... Under Canada's constitution, education is the exclusive responsibility of the provinces. The Liberal government of the province of Ontario is headed by Kathleen Wynne, a lesbian who's "out" and proud of it. Her education minister is Liz Sandals, who's not. Ms Wynne and Ms Sandals have decided that it's time to reintroduce a "new and improved" sex education curriculum which was first proposed some years ago, when Ms Wynne was the education minister. See "Pro-LGBT sex ed coming back to Ontario schools"

Why does Walt say "pro-LGBT"? One of the chief drafters and proponents of the new curriculum was now-disgraced Dr. Benjamin Levin, a paedophile recently convicted on charges of making written child pornography, counselling a person to commit a sexual assault, and possession of child pornography. See "Lesbian premier of Ontario pretends not to notice as pervert who drafted new sex ed curriculum pleads guilty to kiddy porn charges".

Ontario parents are understandably concerned -- very concerned -- about what kind of "information" Dr. Levin and his liberal secular humanist friends might insert into the new curriculum. Would it be a vehicle for pushing the pro-LGBT agenda -- homosexuality is OK, "gay marriage" is OK, alternative lifestyles are OK, etc -- to children as young as six? Answer: absolutely!

Ontario's new sex ed plan is being touted as "appropriate to a tolerant and digitally connected society". [What does "digitally connected" mean? Didn't that used to be a kind of sexual behaviour? Ed.] It introduces the topic of same-sex "marriage" in Grade 3 (typical age of students = 8) and "sexting" in Grade 7 (typical age = 12). Groups such as Parents Alliance of Ontario and Parents As First Educators claim it offers how-to lessons on masturbation, homosexuality, oral and anal sex. Check out "What's really in Ontario's new sex ed curriculum", with a video featuring Ezra Levant.

Ontario parents, particularly those from religious and "ethnic" communities are incensed. Some 5000 parents of them, largely in the Greater Toronto Area, where immigrants from Asia and Africa are in the majority, have joined a Facebook group calling for a boycott of classes next week to express opposition to the curriculum.

Firani Siddiqui will keep her two younger children home to protest the curriculum which she says breaches her right to decide when her children learn sensitive sexual information. "I don’t want teachers to tell my children that masturbation is a healthy thing — it’s a no no! Maybe I don’t want her to think it’s a healthy practice," Ms Siddiqui told an interviewer. She said she is not anti-gay [even worse than being anti-immigrant, apparently. Ed.] but simply believes the new curriculum gets too explicit too early. "I don’t want a stranger telling my kids about oral and anal sex."

Miriam Ali operates a daycare centre that caters to the children of new Canadians from Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. In her opinion, the new sex-ed curriculum "corrupts the morals of our children. Our parents are very concerned about this. Sexual education should be taught by parents."

So many parents in Peel Region, Toronto's neighbour to the west, have expressed concerns over the curriculum that the public school board fears hundreds of parents in their region alone -- as many as 200 to 300 in some neighbourhoods -- will ask that their children be exempt from sex-education classes next fall.

And that's where the threat to Justin Trudeau, the federal Liberal Party's "shiny pony", comes in. Although the new curriculum is being introduced by the provincial government, that government is a Liberal government, and parents like Ms Siddiqui and Ms Ali hold Justin Trudeau partly to blame. That makes JT's dear friend and ally in the fight for gay rights, Kathleen Wynne, a key combatant in the federal election due no later than October 19th, whether she or he like it or not.

Parents rightly associate M. Trudeau with the programme just because of the Liberal party name. Conversely, the Conservative Party, presently in power in Ottawa, is aggressively positioning itself as the champion of family values. (This is not a little hypocritical, since the Tory and Liberal positions on abortion and gay "marriage" are indistinguishable, but never mind.)

Unfortunately for M. Trudeau and Ms Wynne, many immigrant Canadians from India, Pakistan, China, the Philippines and the sandpits of the Middle East are socially more conservative than their born-in-Canada counterparts, even the modernist Catholics and evangelical Protestants. And they voted for Steve Harper’s Conservatives in the 2011 federal election.

A senior Conservative strategist, told the Globe and Mail "on background", that his party will stress during the coming election campaign that "immigrant values are Conservative values" -- a remarkable sentiment for a pro-Canada party to be espousing -- and that Mr. Harper believes parents should be left to do the job of parenting. Presumably that includes teaching their kids about the rights and wrongs of things like gay "marriage", and oral and anal sex. The morality or otherwise of such things is not a part of Ontario's new sex education curriculum.

THIS JUST IN: Walt has just (this afternoon) received a phone call from an agent in Peel Region, which has seen the biggest and loudest protests against the pro-queer sex education curriculum, who reports that the Minister of Education, Lez Sandals, has agreed to some sort of meeting with the region's public school board to "clarify" the content of the curriculum, and the difference between the curriculum itself and what Ms Sandals now calls "prompts" given to tell teachers how to respond to questions about things like anal sex, should such questions arise. Whether parents will be allowed to attend the meeting is unclear. Looks to me like the government has blinked!

How our governments gull us into supporting unjust, unwinnable and STUPID wars

"Gull" is defined in Ed.'s Annadales's English Dictionary as "v.t. To make a fool of; to trick; to mislead by deception". Gulling the voters is a black art practised since time immemorial by politicians throughout the world. Abraham Lincoln said, "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." But he and his successors have mostly succeeded in fooling most of the people most of the time.

This is particularly true when it comes to persuading peace-loving people that making war is in their best interests. Walt believes that most people would prefer not spend their fortunes and lives and fortunes waging war, not to kill or be killed. But our so-called leaders -- Obama, Bush, Harper, Clinton, Nixon, Johnson, Blair, Cameron, Harper (choose the one(s) you've been gulled into voting for -- tell us doing so is in the national interest, which means in our best interests. Total bullshit, but most of the people buy it, most of the time.

The sad thing is, they get away with it -- with sending our boys (and girls and "others") where they themselves would never go, with spending your (not their) tax dollars by the billions -- so easily. How do they do it? Here's a quote from Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring:

Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship....

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brough to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country greater danger. It works the same way in any country.

Herr Göring said that in 1946, shortly before he was sentenced to death by hanging for crimes against humanity. The quote appears at p. 215 of Jon Krakauer's Where Men Win Glory (Doubleday 2009), which Walt recommends highly.

Where Men Win Glory is the story of Patrick Daniel "Pat" Tillman, RIP, killed by members of his own platoon on 22 April 2004 while on patrol in eastern Afghanistan. Before enlisting in the US Army, Corporal Tillman (he was promoted posthumously from the rank of Specialist) was a football player, who had a pretty good run in college ball and then in the NFL. He walked away from this $3.6-million NFL contract because he was deeply troubled by 9/11, and felt a strong moral obligation to join the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

In other words, he was gulled by Bush II, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and all the others who dragged America into the Muslim civil wars for the sake of... of what? Oil? Bringing civilization and democracy to the heathens? Or... what?

When Mr. Tillman signed on, the US military and its propagandists (Hello, Jim Wilkinson!) tried to make Tillman an inspirational emblem for their "Global War on Terror", but he refused to do any media interviews. Soon after beginning his first tour of duty in Iraq, the scales fell of his eyes. He openly declared the war was "illegal as hell". The more he saw of the American invasions of Iraq -- the "battle" of Nasiriyah, for instance -- and Afghanistan, the more disgusted he got, but he was determined to finish his three-year hitch as matter of duty and honour. Sadly, an inexperienced and trigger-happy US Ranger ended his life.

But did the US military's propaganda machine relent? Nooooooo! At first, the Army told credulous reporters that Corp. Tillman had been killed by enemy fire. It wasn't until 28 May 2004 that the Pentagon notified his family that he had died as a result of a friendly fire incident. The family and other critics allege that the Department of Defense delayed the disclosure for weeks out of a desire to protect the image of the US armed forces and portray Corp. Tillman as a hero of a just war.

In Chapter 33 of Where Men Win Glory, we read:
The White House was frantic to come up with something to divert attention from the deadly quagmire that Iraq had become, precisely as Osama bin Laden had gleefully forecast. The president [Bush II] was facing an increasingly tough campaign to win a second term in the White House, the election was barely six months away, and his approval ratings were plummeting. When Tillman was killed, White House perception managers saw an opportunity not unlike the one provided by the Jessica Lynch debacle thirteen months earlier....

Following Tillman's death, there was nothing to prevent the Bush administration from using his celebrity to advance its political agenda. [Jim Wilkinson's successors] wasted no time in concocting a narrative about Tillman that they hoped would distract the American public in the same way that Wilkinson's fable about Lynch had....

While he was alive, Tillman had been the object of tremendous public fascination, and White House officials guessed that selling him as a fallen war hero would send the media into an orgy of adulatory coverage. They were not disappointed.

Well, the Bush Wars in the sandpits of Iraq and Afghanistan are over. It's hard to say who won, but not so hard to say who list -- the people of America and the other members of the "Coalition of the Willing". And the American wars of empire (or oil, or whatever) didn't really end. They only morphed into the Obama War against terrorism, another "just war" to bring the benefits of civilization and democracy to the benighted... wait, didn't I write that before? Yes, we've seen this movie before -- there actually is a made-for-TV movie: The Tillman Story -- and we'll see it again... and again... until we listen to real leaders like Ron Paul and refuse to be gulled any more!

VIDEO: Habs defeat Cinderella Senators, advance to second round

Poor Len Canayen here, with a couple of thoughts about the NHL playoff series between the Montréal Canadiens and the Ottawa Senators -- the ones people like, not the ones who infest Parliament Hill.

The hard-working Senators [not the ones who infest, etc. Ed.] did their best, last night, to prolong the series, outshooting La Sainte Flanelle 43-20. Sadly for them, Carey Price -- hereinafter TBGITW (The Best Goalie In The World) -- stopped all 43 of the Sens' shots, whereas Ottawa's Craig Anderson, no slouch himself, allowed one to get by him. Result: Montréal 2 - Ottawa 0. (The Habs second goal was scored into an empty net with 3/10ths of a second left.) Montréal wins the series 4 games to 2, and goes on to the second round against either Tampa Bay or Detroit.

To call Carey Price TBGITW is, IMHO, no understatement. Here's just one example of the several "saves of substance" he made last night.



Naturally, Hockey Night in Canada selected TBGITW for a quick post-game interview, before he left the ice. Mr. Price was his usual modest self, attributing the win to the hard work of his teammates and a couple of lucky bounces. He might have mentioned a quick whistle in the second period which resulted in an Ottawa goal being disallowed, but we won't quibble about that.

What burned my ring last night was the way TPWMNBC -- The Player Who May Not Be Criticized, a.k.a. P.K. Subban -- inserted himself in the interview to make sure viewers knew who the real star was, is, and will always be, as long as the Montreal Gazette's alleged sports writers (Hello, Dave Stubbs!) think the sun, moon and stars shine out of Subban's arse.

Stubbsy will have a hard time singing the praises of TPWMNBC in relation to last night's game though, for Subban contributed nothing to the Habs' win. (That's him, #76, lying on the ice in front of Price in the video clip.) But, by jumping into the interview, he did manage to answer the question posed here just under a year ago. That article has drawn quite a few hits this month. Real hockey fans know who the real heroes are.

VIDEO: Strippers at funerals a matter of grave concern to Chinese

Interesting news out of China, a country ruled by a political party with no sense of humour -- none whatever. According to AFP, Communist Chinese authorities today bared the details of their latest battle against vice. Specifically, they intend to stamp out the hiring strippers to entertain at funerals.

In a statement posted on its website, China's Ministry of Culture pledged a "crackdown" [Don't go for any more cheap puns. Ed.] on the practice, which it said has become increasingly common in rural areas. "From time to time, 'stripteases' and other illegal performances have occurred in the countryside," the statement said, adding that authorities will "promptly investigate and punish" businesses and individuals involved in the risque shows.

China's official Xinhua news agency said such performances are typically organized in order to draw a larger crowd at last rites. One example cited by the Ministry of Culture was a funeral in north China's Hebei province. "Two strippers wearing revealing clothes danced on a stage at a public square in our village at night on February 15," an eyewitness told the state-run Global Times newspaper earlier this month.

"They first danced passionately and then took off their clothes piece by piece," the man said. "Behind them, an electronic screen was displaying a picture of the deceased with elegiac couplets on either side." And yes, we do have a picture, scraped off Weibo, the popular Chinese microblog site.

In another case later that month, a troupe in east China's Jiangsu province was detained for funeral performances that drew crowds of as many as 500 local residents. The troupe engaged in "erotic performances on the stage with sexual organs exposed and imitating sexual acts," police officer Tang Jinyang told xichu.net, a provincial news site.

According to China's Ministry of Culture, such shows "disrupt the order of the rural cultural market and corrupt the social atmosphere." Yeah, right... The hundreds of spectators who turn out must be shocked, shocked!

Walt's Chinese agents say the Party has an uphill battle to put an end to traditions which have been observed for centuries, if not millennia. Processions and entertainment have always been a part of Chinese celebrations, they say, no matter whether it's a wedding or a funeral.

The point is made in the video below, posted on the National Geographic website in 2012. This mini-documentary shows a funeral procession in Taiwan, which some say isn't part of China. But the participants look Chinese to me, and appear to be having a pretty good time too. What a way to go out!

Land of rape and honey ???

Let's be clear about this. "Rape" has a meaning other than forced sexual intercourse. It can also refer to rapeseed -- Brassica napus -- a bright-yellow flowering member of the mustard or cabbage family. It is variously known as rape, oilseed rape, rapa, rappi, rapaseed, and, in the case of one particular group of cultivars, canola. Yes, Virginia, the "canola" from which your margarine and cooking oil may be made.

In China, where it is consumed as a vegetable, rape is called 油菜. Forced sexual intercourse or violation is 强奸. (Thanks to Agent 78 for this.) So in Chinese there's no confusion, but in English, well, people other than agriculturists might be baffled on driving into the northeastern Saskatchewan town of Tisdale (hard by Star City and down the road from Lilac) and seeing this sign.

Or this one.

Apparently it never occurred to the city fathers, many of whom raised rape as a cash crop, that the "Land of Rape and Honey" slogan might upset people whose filthy minds think first of sexual assault.

Having heard gasps and guffaws for the sixty-odd years the slogan has been used, the Tisdale town council is having another think. Statistics from the federal and provincial agricultural departments show that organic rapeseed now accounts for less than one (1) per cent of the crops grown in the region. Canola is now king. And honey production has decreased significantly as well.

So the council is asking residents for their opinions on the suitability of a number of alternative slogans, including:

"Hub of the Northeast" (But Saskatchewan is in the West, eh?)

"A Place to Grow" (As in growing canola, Walt guesses. You don't grow honey.)

"A Place to Bee" (Geddit? As you can see, Tisdale actually has a Big Bee.)

Or how about "Land of Canola and Honey".

To encourage participation in the survey, the council is offering prizes. Top prize is a barbecue. There are also, errr, lesser prizes. Walt doesn't know if non-residents are allowed to enter, but if you have an opinion, send it on a postcard to "The Big Bee, Tisdale, SK, Canada - S0E 1T0". Tell `em Walt told ya.

Clintons' wealth secrets revealed

The Hellery 2016 campaign is less than two weeks old, but Her Highness's supporters are already getting nervous. The proximate cause of their latest anxiety attack is the imminent (May 5th) release by Harper Collins of Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. [Doesn't anyone know how to write a short and pithy book title any more? Ed.]

The author of Clinton Cash is Peter Schweizer, a former "speechwriting consultant" [Not the same as a speechwriter? Ed.] for President George Bush I, a fellow of the Hoover Institution (a California-based think tank), president of the Government Accountability Institute, and a senior editor-at-large for the news and opinion website Breitbart.com. (Click here to see the Breitbart promo, with a Fox News video.)

Mr. Schweizer's argument is made clear by the book's title. He alleges that while Ms Clinton was Secretary of State during the first Obama maladministration, her family's non-profit organization, the Clinton Foundation, was accepting donations from foreign interests. And her husband -- Clinton I, as he will be known if she wins in 2016 -- laughed as he banked six-figure fees for speeches overseas, all this in exchange for special considerations and favours.

One example of mutually advantageous dealings between the Clinton Foundation, foreign donors and the US government was given by the International Business Times earlier this month in "As Colombian Oil Money Flowed To Clintons, State Department Took No Action To Prevent Labor Violations". The article sheds some harsh light on the sheds into the Clintons' relations with Colombian petroleum company Pacific Rubiales and its founder, Canadian-born billionaire Frank Giustra, who just happens to sit on the board of... wait for it... the Clinton Foundation.

Conservative/Republican pols have been talking about Clinton Cash for some time. Senator Rand Paul alluded to the "big news" when he began his presidential campaign a couple of weeks ago. And the liberal chattering classes are soiling their shorts in advance. In New Book, ‘Clinton Cash,’ Questions Foreign Donations to Foundation, Amy Chozick of the New York Times calls Mr. Schweizer's work the "most anticipated and feared book" of the presidential cycle so far.

Walt has already rushed down to the Fort Mudge library to reserved his copy of Clinton Cash, and suggests you do likewise.

ABC nations finally sending military help to Ukraine

The government of Steve Harper finally acknowledged this week that there's a war going on of more importance to Canadians than the Islamic civil war. The Canucks are joining the Brits and the Yankees in sending military advisors and trainers, as well as materiel, to Ukraine. The total number of ABC troops helping the Ukrainians preserve their freedom will now be 1075: 800 Americans, 200 Canadians and, errr, just 75 Britons. Something disproportionate about those numbers, but never mind.

Canuck Defence Minister Jason Kenney -- who spends 1000s of dollars a year on loafer lightener -- was at pains to reassure that his nervous countrypersons that the Canadians will be stationed in the western Ukraine, just a few miles from the Polish border.* With an election looming, Mr. Harper isn't going to make the mistake of putting them in harm's way, as he did in Iraq. Meanwhile, the Dear Leader has ensured the re-election of Conservative MPs in Vegreville and other Ukey areas of western Canada. Brilliant.

* Ed. here. I'm reminded of an old Ukrainian joke...
Only half an hour after the beginning of classes at school, the teacher sees little Walter falling asleep at his desk. "What's the matter with you?", she asks him. "Aren't you feeling well?"
"No, I'm not," says the kid. "I didn't get any breakfast before I came to school this morning."
Later, the teacher asks Walter a geography question. "Where is the Polish border?"
"In bed with Mama!" answers Walter. "That's why I didn't get any breakfast!"

"Ol' Duff" on trial at last

As I write, lawyers for the Crown and the Honourable Mike Duffy are on their feet in an Ottawa courtroom, beginning the third week of the trial of the Canadian Senator (suspended) on over 30 charges of bribery, fraud, corruption, premeditated flatulence and mopery in the first degree. Click here to see Walt's previous post (11 April) with links to comments by Chris Hall and Rick Salutin.

Last week's proceedings focused on some of the expenses claimed by the Puffster -- that's him on the right -- lauded by Prime Minister Steve Harper -- on the left. [Strange place for him? Ed.] "To Duff, a great journalist and a great senator," reads an endorsement written by Mr. Harpoon on one photo entered into evidence.

"Thanks for being one of my best, hardest-working appointments ever."-- as "my hardest-working senator" and "one of my best appointments".

"Ol' Duff" -- as he likes to call himself, as opposed to "fat f[that's enough! Ed.] -- got the Canadian taxpayer to pay for:
- framed enlargements of pictures of Barbara Bush and his (Duffy's) children
- the services of a makeup artist to prettify himself and Mr. Harpoon for the picture above
- massages and workouts with a fitness trainer, which evidently didn't have any effect

It's not the piddling amounts spent on these things that's at issue. [You call $10,000 for the trainer "piddling"? Ed.] It's the way the bills were paid. Last week we learned that Senator Puffy couldn't get the expenses approved by the beancounters in the Senate's admin department, so he gave a contract to a cement-forming company -- really -- run by his old buddy from the CTV days, Gerry Donohue. Mr. Donohue was paid 10s of 1000s of dollars per year -- whatever part of Duffy's budget hadn't been already used up yet -- out of which Donohue paid the trainer, the makeup artist, the picture-framer and several others.

What Mr. Donohue operated was a personal slush fund to pay whatever Ol' Duff wanted paid, with no oversight and no accountability. Very much at issue is the question of intent. The position of the defence is that the Senate's rules regarding expenses were vague and hard to understand, and that the honourable senator thought he was following the rules, although a few trifling mistakes may have been made.

If that's the case, why did he direct payment out of the monies which Donohue received for doing "editorial and research consulting"? If the expenses were not allowable under Senate rules, why would Duffy not pay them out of his own pocket? Walt is waiting for the honourable senator (suspended) to take the stand and answer those and similar questions.

Footnote: The presiding judge, Charles Vaillancourt, said last week that, at the rate the evidence is going in, there's no way the trial is going to finish in June, as was hoped. We may have to wait until the fall -- September or October -- to hear from Senator Puffy. Having him tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth -- hah! -- could be extremely embarrassing for the Dear Leader, who should be in the stretch drive of his campaign for re-election by then. Unless of course Steve calls a snap election after tabling his government's budget... tomorrow!

Migrant crisis: Boat people wash up on Europe's shores

Pictured below, being offloaded from the Italian coast guard vessel AMB Gregoretti is one of the hundreds of victims of what authorities are now calling "the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean".

Over the weekend, hundreds of would-be refugees were drowned lamestream media when two rickety boats operated by human traffickers capsized while trying to reach safety in Italy, Malta or Greece, in flight from the Islamic civil war (not to mention poverty) afflicting northeast Africa.

As Walt writes, foreign ministers of the European Union are gathered for an emergency meeting on the growing crisis as migrants flee the instability in Africa and the Middle East at unprecedented rates. Some are calling for a naval blockade to intercept smugglers' boats as they leave ports in Libya. Others are going so far as to call for another invasion [a re-invasion? Ed.] of Libya to restore order to the failed state left behind by the previous NATO meddling.

Premier Matteo Renzi today told an Italian radio station today he will ask his EU counterparts to confront instability in Libya more decisively than in the past, but, "At this moment to intervene with international forces on the ground is a risk that is absolutely excessive. We cannot think about sending tens of thousands of men without a strategy, on a wave of emotion."

"Sending troops without a strategy on a wave of emotion..." Wasn't that what Britain, France, Italy, Canada and the USA did the first time? Isn't that what America and its camp followers are doing in Iraq and Syria? And yet, something must be done to stop Europe from being inundated by a tidal wave of Muslim refugees. Here are some numbers, published today by the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR).

13,500 - Migrants rescued in just one week (10-17 April), now the burden of Italian taxpayers

1,600 - Migrants thought to have died attempting the crossing so far this year

35,000 - Migrants from North Africa landed in Europe (mainly Italy) so far this year

218,000 - Estimated to have crossed the Mediterranean (mainly to Italy) last year

3,500 - Migrants died attempting the crossing last year

What with all the commotion, hand-wringing and appeals to humanitarianism, little mention is being made of what it is that all these Africans, Arabs (and yes, south Asians) are running away from. That would be militant Islamists. Just yesterday, the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) released a new video purportedly showing the killing in Libya -- by gunshot or beheading -- of two groups of Ethiopian Christians in Libya. The jihad continues.

Walt's playoff recap: Montréal Canadiens vs Ottawa Senators

Ed. here. Walt's mind and/or heart has been elsewhere this week, hence the dire dearth of new posts on WWW. From wherever he is, he has sent a number of dispatches, of which this is the first.

Walt and Poor Len were MIA for several hours on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday evenings, watching their beloved Montréal Canadiens defeat the Ottawa Senators in the first three games of one the eight NHL playoff series. Scores were 4-3, 3-2 (in overtime) and, last night, 2-1 (also in overtime). The Habs gave up the first goal and trailed 1-0 at the end of the first period in all three games, but came back to win.

Regular readers of WWW will know that Poor Len watches carefully the every move of P.K. Subban, the PC winner of the Norris Trophy a couple of years ago, the one whom the Montreal Gazette's Dave Stubbs thinks -- even now -- is a "transcendant" defenceman. Here's what we saw this week.

In Game 1, Mr. Subban led the team in penalties, the second being a 5-minute major plus a game misconduct for a vicious two-handed lumberjack slash on Ottawa's Mark Stone, causing a hairline fracture of the Stoney wrist. Les Glorieux managed to win the game without Subban, with Jeff Petry filling the gap without doing anything stupid.

In Game 2, P.K. whistled a cannonading slapshot [Hello Danny Gallivan, wherever you are! Ed.] past Andrew Hammond to score the Habs' second goal. The Hamburglar heard the 85-mph rocket coming at actually ducked to avoid being decapitated. Very good. But Montréal fans and coach Michel Thérrien still wish that Subban would pass the puck occasionally, especially on the power play, which continues to struggle.

Last night, Mr. Stubbs's home boy was, as usual, out of position when Ottawa scored its lone goal. P.K. took a high, hard, open-ice check from Ottawa's Patrick Wiercioch. Bent on revenge, he charged over to the boards in an attempt to crunch Sens star Erik Karlsson. That left Subban's buddy Andrei Markov -- who planted a kiss on P.K. after the Friday night goal -- alone against two attackers. Result, Ottawa goal.

Poor Len stands by his recent re-evaluations of P.K. Subban, and adds that if he (Subban) ever learns to play defence, he'll become an asset to the Canadiens, rather than the liability he is now.

Pervert responsible for Ontario sex ed curriculum claimed he had sex with pre-teen daughters, court hears

WARNING FROM WALT: This detailed report of court proceedings, published in the National Post, contains coarse language and graphic descriptions of sex acts with children which can only be considered both illegal and immoral. I'm posting it, just as it appeared in the newspaper, to make you aware of the kind of person who thinks that "progressive" and "modern" ideas about sex should be taught in state schools, beginning in Grade 1.

If you're seeing this for the first time, Dr. Benjamin Levin was a Deputy Minister of Education in the Ontario government of Dalton McGuinty (aka "Premier Dad), while Kathleen Wynne (a lesbian and proud of it) was the Minister. Dr. Levin was hugely influential in the development of a new and "up-to-date" sex education curriculum, which was rolled out back in 2010, then withdrawn in the face of a storm of public protest.

After Ms Wynne became Premier and (surprisingly) won re-election, she introduced the new "improved" curriculum again. This time, she says, there's no going back. Ontario grade school kids are going to learn about anal sex, oral sex, the beauty of same-sex relationships, the benefits of having two daddies or two mommies -- the whole disgusting ball of wax -- whether their parents like it or not.

Just after Ms Wynne announced that the new curriculum would be taught beginning in September, Dr. Levin quietly pled guilty to three of seven charges in the nature of child pornography and child abuse, viz: making of written child pornography, possession of child pornography and counselling to commit sexual assault on a child.

Dr. Levin's sentencing hearing began in Toronto this week. At the same time, 1000s of angry parents gathered at "the Pink Palace" -- the legislature building just up the street from the courthouse -- to protest the new curriculum. Check out "Angry parents protest new sex ed curriculum at Queen's Park" (includes video).

Now, here's the National Post report on yesterday's proceedings.

Benjamin Levin was consistent and “realistic” in his descriptions of sexual assault of children during online chats and never once stressed that it was all for fantasy, the Crown argued during day two of his sentencing hearing on child porn charges.

Crown counsel Allison Dellandrea read aloud several extremely graphic chat exchanges the former Ontario deputy minister of education had with undercover officers he believed were submissive mothers interested in having sex with their own children.

The 63-year-old married father of three repeatedly and consistently claimed to have had sex with his own daughters, starting at age 12 (though, as he told one of the officers, “I wish we’d started younger.”).

Levin — who was a member of Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne’s transition team — has pleaded guilty to the making of written child pornography, possession of child pornography and counseling to commit sexual assault on a child. He has not been charged with actually carrying out a sexual assault on a child.

But the Crown worked hard to convince Justice Heather McArthur that through his persona as a “master, or even a mentor” on adult “alternative sexual lifestyle” incest chat rooms, he had significant influence in counseling to commit.

Dellandrea asked the judge to consider a prison sentence of 3 1/2 years — one for the making child pornography charge, six months for possession and two for the more serious counsel to commit. Defence is asking for just two years in prison.

Dellandrea took the court on a tour of the “depraved” online world the formerly well-respected education expert inhabited, suggesting he “wasn’t just dabbling in the child sexual abuse online world, he was a leader” there.

“He essentially boasted about having achieved sexual contact with all three of his children and successfully gotten away with it as had his wife,” Dellandrea said. “That’s an extraordinary feature of the counsel to commit.”

Levin’s wife, Barbara, whom he referenced often in his online exchanges — and even claimed his online profile that she was just involved in the child sex play — knew nothing about her husband’s activities online.

It’s rare in child porn cases to see such frequent descriptions of sado-masochistic sexual acts carried out on children, Dellandrea said. And yet they were all over Levin’s chats with undercover officers.

“‘I pushed two fingers in her mouth” one undercover officer told him of her fictional daughter. “Make her gag on them…I want to make her suck cock,” Levin wrote back. When the undercover officer wrote that she stopped when her daughter began to gag, Levin wrote “Why are you stopping?”

He also suggested the officer kiss her daughter “between blows.” This child was described as being 10 years old.

Court also learned that Levin engaged with at least one more fake persona created by Toronto Police child exploitation unit officer Detective Constable Janelle Blackadar. Her exchanges with Levin led to the counsel to commit charge.

He raised many examples with Blackadar of his experience sexually assaulting his own daughters.

“We had many wonderful years,” he said when he told her their sexual activities together faded out. “Wish we had started earlier.”

There was also discussion of “sharing” children for sexual abuse purposes. Levin even expressed interest in possibly one day sexually abusing his future grandchildren.

As the sentencing got underway Tuesday, so too did a protest against Ontario’s revised sex-ed curriculum at Queen’s Park downtown. Critics of the Liberal government’s update to what students will learn in school about sex believe Levin’s paedophilic interest influenced the update — a charge the government denies.

Walt has published several posts on Ontario's new sex education curriculum and the influence of the evil Dr. Levin, including:
Lesbian premier of Ontario pretends not to notice as pervert who drafted new sex ed curriculum pleads guilty to kiddy porn charges
VIDEO: What's really in Ontario's new sex ed curriculum
UPDATED: Anger mounts at "graphic revisions" to ON sex ed curriculum

The Crown says Dr. Levin was "a leader" in a depraved Internet community. Walt adds that he was also a leader in Kathleen Wynne's Ministry of Education. Why would any parent trust people like him to teach their children about sex and morality?

Hellery Clinton, champion of everyday Americans

Once again, Walt is unable to resist the temptation to share an excellent editorial cartoon by the Globe and Mail's Brian Gable.

Canuck readers will geddit instantly. For those south of the world's longest undefended (?) border, "The Camembert is cold" refers to the complaint of a fat, old, privileged, lesbian Canadian senator, who was criticized by auditors for having billed taxpayers for a breakfast, when (the beancounters said) she could have eaten the breakfast served on the airline as she flew from Toronto to Ottawa. To which Nancy Ruth (née Jackman) -- for it was she -- replied, channelling Marie Antoinette, "Those breakfasts are pretty awful. If you want ice-cold Camembert with broken crackers, have it."

Any suggestion that any of the adjectives used by Walt to describe Ms Ruth are meant to apply to Ms Clinton is, of course, completely without foundation.

"I can't bake you a cake, because I love you"

Suppose you're a Christian -- a committed Christian who takes seriously the teachings of the Bible and the Church, including the teaching that homosexual sexual acts are morally wrong and will lead those who perform them to face the judgment of God.

And suppose you're a baker, one whose business it is to create, among other things, wedding cakes for couples who are about to celebrate their marriage. According to the politically correct laws of the land -- many US states and all of Canada -- that would include gay couples intent on entering into a same-sex "marriage".

Advocates of same-sex "marriage" -- Walt puts the word in quotes because a union between two men or two women cannot be a valid "marriage" sanctioned and blessed by God -- want to force Christian bakers to bake cakes celebrating such "marriages". If they don't, they face civil or even criminal penalties for refusing to do what their religion and conscience forbid them to do.

In "I Can't Bake Your Cake, Because I Love You", published yesterdary on Aleteia, a website for searchers for the truth, Dr. Dennis Bonnette argues that the Christian's refusal to accept the custom of a homosexual couple is not an act of homophobia or hate, the PC lamestream media would have us believe, but an act of love.

Dr. Bonnette has been mentioned before here on WWW. Until his retirement in 2003, he was a Full Professor of Philosophy at Niagara University in Lewiston NY. He is the author of Aquinas' Proofs for God's Existence and Origin of the Human Species: Third Edition. He is presently teaching free courses in philosophy at the Aquinas School of Philosophy in Lewiston. Agent 10 (to whom much thanks for sharing this) attends regularly, and will send you details if you let me know your e-address.

Also by Dr. Bonnette: "What Marriage Is and Isn't, and What to Expect from a Redefinition"

Worth reading again on WWW: "Homosexuality condemned in the Word of God"

Walt explains his silence, reflects on this week's political events

Ed. has been giving me excrement for not posting anything since the post-Easter flurry at the beginning of the week. After three days with no new articles, he was forced (he says) to run the stupid cat story yesterday. It's not even a real phenomenon, like the gold/blue dress. It's just an optical illusion, something M.C. Esher
might have drawn, like this one.

The stupid cat is all over the Internet, and on TV too, so (Ed. sez), we might as well have it too.

Then, with still nothing from Walt left on  his escritoire in the corner, Ed. got on the horn to Poor Len Canayen and prevailed on  him to write the piece  on the Montréal Canadiens salute to Dollard St. Laurent and (especially) Elmer Lach. Very nice if you're a fan of Canada's team, but we know not all our readers are such. One or two are even fans of the Toronto team. To them, Walt can only say that we know it's spring, because the Leafs are out!

But OK, I get the message. I shouldn't let an entire week go by without some trenchant observations on matters of greater importance than cats and hockey. [What could be of more importance than hockey? Poor Len]  Herewith, then, three capsule comments.

The Obama-Kerry deal with Iran looks increasingly unlikely of being ratified by the US Congress. Good. Even if you're not paranoid about Iran (and all the other craziness of the Muslim world) you have to admit that any agreement which is time limited can only be described as a temporary cessation of hostilities. The Prez admitted as much when he said that after 12 years -- assuming the mad mullahs keep their word for even that long -- a nuclear-armed Iran will be some other president's problem. Indeed.

The only reason Walt can think of for Obarmy's relentless pursuit of the Iran deal was his felt need to do something, before leaving office, to earn the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded in advance. Bah.

It is understood that the starting gun will be fired today for Hellery Clinton's run for the White House. More bah! [Maybe "meh" would be better? Ed.] If La Clinton had tried harder to wrest the nomination from Obama eight years ago... or if she had refused to accept the poisoned chalice he handed her (appointment as Secretary of State)... she'd have had a better shot.  As it is, she has to run not on but against her record of incompetence and arrogance in that office, not to mention the legacy of the failed Obama presidensity.

The only reason no-one's going to challenge Hellery for the nomination is that no other serious candidate wants it.

The one item that has really captured Walt's interest this week is the long-awaited trial of Canadian Senator Mike Puffy ["Duffy", shurely! Ed.] on over thirty (30) charges of bribery, fraud, corruption, premeditated flatulence and mopery in the first degree. Since Canadian courts don't allow video or audio feeds, Walt has been relying on press reports and tweets from Agent 3, who is running a book on the outcome.

The trial began with opening statements by the Crown and defence on Tuesday, and adjourned Friday afternoon, having heard from just one (1) witness, the former law clerk to the Senate, who agreed with defence counsel  that the Senate's rules are fuzzy and hard to understand, on a par with Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.

The best line of the week was uttered yesterday by the Crown attorney, responding to the suggestion by the defence that because Steve Harper appoint the Duffster as a senator from Prince Edward Island, he effectively became a resident of that province, even though he really isn't. (With us so far?) The Crown asked whether, if Mr. Harpoon appointed Justin Bieber (aged 21) to the Senate, that would make Mr. Bieber effectively 30 (the minimum age requirement). Good one!

For more on the Duffy trial and its ramifications, Walt suggests "Mike Duffy's the one on trial, but blame and shame abound", by the CBC's National Affairs Editor, Chris Hall.

For a really scathing review of the political career of the hypocritical, fat-faced liar, who Steve Harper called "one of my best appointments", check out "Mike Duffy's finest hour", by Rick Salutin in today's Toronto Star. Wish I'd written that!

Habs honour greats Elmer Lach and Dollard St. Laurent, RIP

Poor Len here. Dave Stubbs, of the Montreal Gazette, thinks I am racist, because I have no time for P.K. Subban, who Mr. Stubbs maintains is "transcendant". He is wrong about Subban, and wrong about me. I am not a racist, just a realist.

However, Mr. Stubbs is quite correct when he writes, today, that "No one does history better than the Canadiens, in part because theirs is so rich; no one does these farewells more elegantly, in part because the Habs sadly have too much experience recognizing their lost heroes."

He was referring to memorial moments planned by Canada's team for former players Elmer Lach and Dollard St. Laurent, both of whom passed away earlier this week. Sadly, the pre-game tributes planned for Thursday night were nixed by the National Hockey League (New York lawyer G. Bettman, Prop.) because they would take up too much time, in a game of great importance to at least one of the competing teams.

The magnanimous Mr. Bettman allowed the Habs two (2) minutes before the national anthems in which to say a few words. Very few, since it works out to one minute for each of the departed. But the Canadiens' management didn't let their lovingly prepared video tribute to Elmer Lach go to waste. It was screened during the first intermission, and posted on the team's website. Ed. was unable to get to the embed code to work [Désolé. Ed.] so click here to see it.

Elmer Lach played for les Glorieux from 1940 to 1954. At the time of his death, he was the oldest living member of the NHL as well as the Hockey Hall of Fame. When Mr. Lach's was born, the NHL itself had been in existence for a mere 57 days, and the Montréal Canadiens for some eight years.

Mr. Stubbs calls Dollard St. Laurent "a template for the blue-line pillars of his Original Six era, part of the bedrock of the Canadiens’ glorious clubs of the 1950s and a beloved member of the hockey community long after he’d hung up his skates." He was all of that, for sure, and also a model stay-at-home defenceman, the kind who (unlike certain present-day players who shall remain nameless) could be counted on to play his position and put the team ahead of himself.

CONGRATULATORY FOOTNOTES: A tip of Len's toque to:
Carey Price, the best goalie in the world, who won his 43rd game last night, breaking the old club record shared by Jacques Plante and Ken Dryden, and
Habs coach Michel Thérrien, inducted this week into the Québec Major Junior Hockey League Hall of Fame, and
Carey Price (again) for winning, for the fifth time in a row, the Molson Cup, awarded to the player most often selected as one of the three stars of the game, and
Dale Weise, winner of the Jacques Beauchamp Trophy as the team's "fourth star" -- the unsung hero.
Ils ont gagné leurs épaulettes!

"The cat on the stairs" = the new "The Dress"

Is this cat going up the stairs or down the stairs?

The viral image website 9gag is largely responsible for this latest optical illusion. A version of the image was uploaded there on March 29th under the title "Forget about the golden dress".

However, the photo goes back at least 2+ years. It was uploaded to the Arabic website fay3.com in 2012 with a title that roughly translates as "Cat is neither climbing nor descending."

The debate over the cat on the stairs brings to mind #TheDress question that captivated social media, the Internet and the media at large in February. Walt still says the dress was gold and white.

Prof calls new ON sex ed curriculum "lethal for the health of society"

Another voice has been raised against the LGBT-positive sex education curriculum being forced on the people of Ontario by that province's Liberal government and its lesbian Premier Kathleen Wynne. In "Why the Critics of the Ontario Sex-Ed Curriculum are Right" Professor Scott Masson, of Tyndale College in Toronto, argues that the new sex-ed curriculum vastly expands the teaching role of the state at the expense of parental authority.

Prof. Masson accuses the new curriculum of promoting a libertine attitude toward adolescent sex, which is lethal for the health of any society. From the beginning of the disciplines of anthropology and sociology up to now, he says, studies have concluded time and again that societies thrive to the extent that they nurture sexual restraint and monogamous marriage.

Here are some of the very strong points made by Prof. Masson, with emphasis by Walt.

The critics of this curriculum are right because it is nothing other than an experiment on their children by the children of the sexual revolution. Without any consideration for love or marriage - there is nary a mention of either in this infamous 244 page document - it speaks of sex in the anodyne consumerist terms of choice, of sex without moral, religious or societal consequences.

It is the teaching not of a just society, but of a perverted individualism that separates children not only from the values of the parents that bore, love and nurture them, but the idea that they too will one day be responsible for children when this government and its philosopher-kings lie on the ash heap of history.

At least since Plato, philosophers have argued that parents are naturally unfit to educate their children. In an ideal state, philosopher-kings such as he ought to usurp their role. Plato had no children. But the enlightened Rousseau, whose ideas ground modern educational theory, was so enamoured with the idea of the state’s responsibility in administering social justice, and in absolving himself of parental responsibility, that he placed the five children he conceived out of wedlock in state orphanages.

In his 1935 BBC radio debate with another statist educator, philosopher Bertrand Russell, G.K. Chesterton wryly retorted what every reasonable person recognizes. The immoral example of exceptional men like Rousseau proves the rule: Parents are by nature best positioned to bring up their children. They don’t raise themselves.

In the United Nations' declaration on Rights of the Child (1959), parents were declared to have primary responsibility in educating their children. The declaration was meant to set a hedge of protection for families against the totalitarian impulse of philosopher-kings.

Cambridge anthropologist J.D. Unwin's monumental work Sex and Culture (1934) studied 80 primitive tribes and six known civilizations over 5000 years of history. It strongly correlated the success of a civilization to the degree of sexual restraint it observed. "Any human society is free to choose either to display great energy or to enjoy sexual freedom; the evidence is that it cannot do both for more than one generation."

The life or death of a civilization, which is at stake in the Christian teaching of natural sexual monogamy [argues] in favour of teaching that monogamy [is] essential to the health of the individual and to creating a more just society.

[Chesterton and Russell debated] the age-old question of which adults, which individuals capable of moral responsibility, were fit to do the task of creating a just society. Was it parents in the natural family unit, or the experts, the philosopher-kings?

This brings us to the Ontario sexual education curriculum, whose convictions on human sexual health are not liberating but deleterious. Once again, the debate lies between parental and state jurisdiction in creating a just society. But at the heart of the Ontario sex-ed curriculum is buried the perverse claim that children raise themselves.

This is explicit from the very outset of the curriculum, which commences with the teaching of consent to six-year-olds. To teach children what consent means, even in the rudimentary terms the premier gives of “reading facial expressions and emotions,” is to assume that they have the capacity for moral responsibility to exercise it. This is why the legal age of consent is connected to the moral responsibility of adults.... [Yet] by six, the human eye has not even fully developed.

"Consent" is...to be understood in the cultural Marxist terms of autonomous sexual freedom, and even sexual identity. They are the terms of men from Herbert Marcuse to Michel Foucault, the favourites of the philosopher-kings of our day, whose autonomy is declared precisely against the natural family.

It must not be imposed on the only people whose consent is required, the parents of children in Ontario.

In case you missed it: "VIDEO: What's really in Ontario's new sex ed curriculum", explained by Ezra Levant

VIDEO: "Debt Bomb" : Dominic Frisby explains the global financial crisis

Dominic Frisby is a good name for a stand-up comedian (I guess), but an unlikely name for someone who wishes to be taken seriously as a "fiancial bod" (whatever that is) and "voice of many things". A quick look at his website shows that "many things" includes geopolitics and economics in general, and in particular the debt trap with which the banks enslave individuals and nations alike.

Dominic Frisby thus has joined the ranks of those who, like Walt's buddy Ron McPherson, creator of "Facilitism", believe it's high time the world's financial "system" was reformed, or scrapped altogether!

Thanks to Agent 6 for making us aware of Mr. Frisby, and providing the link to this short but powerful argument that the system has to be changed, if we are to avoid worldwide financial ruin.



Further reading (and viewing) on WWW:
"Book review: 'A Better World for All'"
"VIDEO: Enslaved by our banks: 12-year-old Canuck explains"

VIDEO: US Navy Blue Angels inside the cockpit - WILD

The Blue Angels are the precision aerobatic team of the United States Navy, often the featured attraction and always a big hit at airshows across the USA. Walt saw them for the first time, along with Agent 17, back in the 70s at Harlingen TX, at the terrific show put on by the Confederate Air Force.*

Here we have a video taken over Seattle, Lake Washington and Boeing Field. It takes training and ability to handle the extremely high emotional and physical stress levels incurred in this kind of flying. There's no room for errors or second-guessing.

In this video, you'll see the "slot man" in the diamond formation -- toughest flying due to wingtip vortices, etc. Notice the rest of the formation in the pilot's reflective goggles. When he "smiles", he is pulling some serious "G" forces. The grimace is part of tensing his body to stop blood pooling and having a grey- or blackout -- even with a G-suit!

Towards the end, the pilot holds both hands in the air. He must have had the aircraft very well trimmed, and/or be just a tad reckless. Do you really want to do this in a formation?!

This may be one of the best "in the cockpit" videos currently on YouTube. Go full screen, but you might want to turn OFF the sound.



Thanks and a thumbs up to a friend of Agent 17, and the US Navy and Blue Angels.

And... in case you missed it... here's the link to "Two minutes of aviation majesty".

* Footnote: Need I tell you that the Confederate Air Force was renamed the "Commemorative Air Force" -- another casualty of political correctness. They're still flying though! If you're a warplanes buff and want to join, you'll find a link on their website.

We wish you a Happy Easter

Christ is risen!

Indeed, He has risen!

Walt, Poor Len [and Ed. Ed.]

wish all our readers

a Happy Easter

Answer to the March 25th rebus

R R R R R D

O O O O O N

U U U U U U

N N N N N O

D D D D D R

The clue was: The place every cowboy eventually heads for.

And the answer is... may I have the envelope please...

the last round-up.

Walt feels your pain.

Good Friday

As a meditation for this most solemn day, Walt recommends viewing The Passion of the Christ.