"Allahu akbar!" in SanFran: berserk Afghan terminated by cops

Last Wednessday, in beautiful downtown San Francisco, a man screaming "Allahu akbar!" charged at police with a large kitchen knife and was shot multiple times with a handgun and beanbag projectiles. 

According to AP, Ajmal Amani had previously threatened to kill a man in his residential hotel with the same large knife, and later died of his wounds. He was "a former Afghan interpreter for U.S. special forces who had been shot several times during more than five years of service and struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder."

PJ Media's Robert Spencer, who authored this report, sez: That is a tragedy, but it's also a warning: how many of the tens of thousands of unvetted Afghans who have been brought to the U.S. by Old Joe Biden’s handlers are a similar threat?

Where are they now?

Yesterday we devoted this space to an article written 36 years ago by Nat Hentoff, decrying the hypocrisy of the liberal elites. Mr Hentoff accused the gliberals of trying to silence all views that did not reflect the politically correct orthodoxy of the day. I promised I'd give you an update on what became of the organizations mentioned in his rant, so here it is.

According to Wikipedia, the National Organization for Women is one of the main liberal feminist organizations in the USA, and primarily lobbies for gender equality within the existing political system. One supposes they are still awaiting the election of the first female president. Who do they support now? Karmala Harris? Hellery Clinton (again)? Or the one the DNC insiders are plotting to nominate? [Who do you mean? Ed.]

The Progressive, which Wikipedia calls "an American magazine and website of politics, culture and progressivism with a left-leaning perspective", is still publishing. "It supports civil rights and civil liberties, gender equality, immigrant rights, labor rights, environmentalism, criminal justice reform, and democratic reform." You still can't buy an ad to promote the pro-life cause. 

Eagle Forum is still a voice for conservatives. It is the parent organization of the Eagle Forum Education and Legal Defense Fund and the Eagle Forum PAC. The Eagle Forum focuses on social issues and describes itself as pro-family. Wikipedia, on the other hand, calls it "socially conservative and anti-feminist." No bias there, of course. 

Feminists for Life of America is still out there, fighting the pro-life battle. The organization describes itself as "shaped by the core feminist values of justice, non-discrimination, and non-violence". It publishes a biannual magazine, The American Feminist, and aims to reach young women, particularly college students. Wikipedia can't resist pointing out that FFL's anti-abortion positions have been criticized by feminists. 

According to its website, the Funding Exchange, "a pioneer in social justics philanthrophy", was a national network of social justice foundations created in 1979 by "young activists with inherited wealth who had a 'change, not charity' vision of how they felt their money could make a difference."

The founding members sowed the wind by "involving community activists in grantmaking decisions", and reaped the whirlwind. The Funding Exchange was legally dissolved effective November 21, 2018, because of (among other things), "challenging conversations about race,"

A quick read of the organization's official history, p. 46 ff, reveals that it fell apart because of... wait for it... divisions over race! How American is that?! Seems the white gliberals couldn't get along with the BLM types, and vice-versa. Here's a quote from the history, which I'm including because I love seeing the liberals eat their own.

[One of the foundations] would bring a large contingent to board meetings, basically packing the room. Board meetings...were taken up with contentious anti-racism sessions, separate white and people of color caucuses, and political discussions that never seemed to resolve anything. There was a sense that a lot of time was wasted on infighting and spinning of wheels. As a result, several member funds began to opt in and out of participating in board meetings.

So the Funding Exchange is gone, but the SJWs, BLMers and other looney leftists still have plenty of money, quite apart from the grant money and other "reparations" they get from the Brandon maladministration. (Does the name George Soros mean anything to you?) 

But our side has money too, and the fight goes on. The voices of conservatism and common sense have not been silenced. On the issue of abortion, those who advocate women's "rights" to kill their babies, without regard to the rights of the unborn babies, are running scared now. Roe v. Wade could be overturned even before President Trump is re-elected in 2024. Keep fighting ladies (and gentlemen!) and God bless you!

Nat Hentoff: Why I'm mad at liberal hypocrites

Nat Hentoff? Isn't he dead? Well yes. Since 2017. Before that, Mr Hentoff was an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media. He was a staff writer for the New Yorker, and columnist for The Village Voice from 1958 to 2009. He wrote some fine books, including The First Freedom: The Tumultuous History of Free Speech in America. This article -- even more relevant now than 36 years ago -- appeared in the November 1985 "Mad as Hell Issue" of National Lampoon, on sale here.

Nothing gets me madder than liberals who condemn those right-wingers who attempt to suppress contrary opinions, while those very same liberals do the same thing. 

Item: The National Organization for Women (NOW) passed a resolution two years ago that prevents anyone from being invited to address the annual NOW convention if that person has any point of view that disagrees with any of NOW's policies. If Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum had passed such a resolution, every member of NOW would chortle at those right-wingers showing again how rigid and narrow they were. 

Item: The Progressive, a monthly out of Madison, Wisconsin, is one of the most exuberantly independent of all American political journals. It never caves in to anyone, least of all the government.... Like most irreverent political journals, The Progressive is in chronic need of money. It's been helped, now and then, by the Funding Exchange, a consortium of foundations created by the "rich kids" -- the scions of families with huge, rapaciously acquired fortunes who want to do good in penance.

On the question of abortion, the editors of The Progressive, like the staff, are pro-choice. But the editor believes that anybody who wants to talk to the readers in the advertising columns is entitled to, providing that what he's advocating is legal.

A small radical pro-life group in Kansas City, Missouri, Feminists for Life of America, put a tiny ad in the magazine for three issues running. The ad showed an eight-week foetus and advised pregnant women to think twice or maybe three times before killing him or her. That's all she wrote. The president of Feminists for Life of America, by the way, has been busted both for protesting abortion and for protesting nuclear power plants. And she runs a magazine that is far more to the economic left than those rich kids with their foundations.

Well, the executive director of the Funding Exchange (the rich kids' consortium) cancelled their subscription to The Progressive and also said she and her staff would not help raise any more money for the magazine. To be "progressive" enough for the liberal rich kids, The Progressive would have to keep its pages utterly clean of anything deviating from the pro-abortion orthodoxy.

Liberals -- especially if they're rich -- want to stifle ideas they find offensive, yet go on pretending they're the ones who are truly open to dialogue.

Then there are those librarians who, while they defend the books in their libraries from outside censors, do a pretty mean-spirited censoring job of their own. Some will not order "controversial" books -- a foolproof way of ensuring they won't get into trouble with pressure groups in the community. Others create their own system of banning books that have somehow gotten into the library. 

Consider a library center in upstate New York that provides books to school libraries in Albany, Schenectady, etc. This is the advice the hip, liberal librarians in upstate New York give to their colleagues in the schools. "Place a warning label on biased material: WARNING: IT HAS BEEN DETERMINED THAT THESE MATERIALS ARE SEX-STEREOTYPED AND MAY LIMIT YOUR SENSE OF FREEDOM AND CHOICE."

That's a hell of a turn for librarians to take -- labelling books as "bad" for readers. And who determined that those materials are "sex-stereotyped"? By what criteria?" Which novels by Faulkner, Dostoyevsky, and Mark Twain will have to be burned in the schoolyard? And what is this about limiting my sense of freedom and choice? Just who is doing that? Could it be these liberal librarians? 

But let me show you what gets me maddest of all in this ceaseless abundance of liberal hypocrisy. A political science professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz invites to his class one of South Africa's representatives to the United Nations. The professor wants his students to hear and to test the real thing -- a true believer in apartheid. The professor figures they'd learn more from an exchange with someone in the racist South African government than from simply reading about that government.

The South African was never able to say a word to the class. An integrated mob of fifty students made it impossible for the rest of the 150 students in the auditorium to hear the visitor. They so yelled and screamed that the South African had no choice but to leave. The students who had been waiting to ask him some very sharp questions about his government had been silenced just as effectively as had the South African. As the South African left the campus, a student yelled, "Let the story go out that students would not allow a racist to speak on this campus!"

That's the only part of the story that got out. The rest of it was that some American students, like the government of South Africa, do not permit views to be heard that are contrary to their own. But I'm sure the students who prevented the South African from speaking consider themselves to be authentic liberals.

There's a term -- "liberal" -- that used to have some integrity to it. Increasingly, though, liberals lust to censor just as fervently as reactionaries. And just like reactionaries, liberals deny that's what they're doing.

Mr Hentoff was never anyone's idea of a conservative, let alone a right-winger. His rant shows that the hypocrisy of the liberal elites was known, even if not admitted, within their own ranks. Well said, sir! In my next post, I'll let you know what happened to NOW, the Eagle Forum, The Progressive, and Feminists for Life of America. Stay tuned.

Funniest cartoon I've seen in ages

I confess that in the days when I subscribed to the New Yorker, I didn't read all of the articles, but always look at all of the "drawings", as they called cartoons by, among others, Tom Cheney, who a contributing artist for 42 years. 

Mr Cheney's work has also appeared in over 500 other reputable (and disreputable) publications in the US and other countries, including Esquire, National Lampoon, The Harvard Business Review, Mad Magazine, Penthouse, The Wall Street Journal, Punch, Barron's Magazine, Hustler Magazine, and the "Commies From Mars" comic book series.

He was the 1985 winner of the Charles M. Schulz Outstanding Cartoonist Award for his work in magazine cartooning. His cartoons have been spotlighted on ABC Nightline, CNN, CBS 60 Minutes, and NBC News. Originals of his work are on permanent display at the Museum of Cartoon Art, the New-York Historical Society, the headquarters of the United Nations, and the Empire State Building, as well as in numerous private collections.

I just stumbled on this one, in the December 1985 issue of National Lampoon, on sale here. Since Mr Cheney has already won loads of awards, he has no need of our Wally award, but we award it anyway!

Caption (for those who have trouble reading it): Oh Cecil, Cecil, Cecil... if only you'd read the instructions that came with your chain saw!"

Hope that brightened up your dull November day. Be careful with that chain saw, eh!

Too many snowflakes to make a snowman, nowadays

Ed. here. We are pleased to welcome a new agent -- hereafter Agent 19 -- who contributed this recent diary entry.

Received about 2 inches of snow yesterday and at 8:00 am: I made a snowman. 

8:10 - A feminist passed by and asked me why I didn't make a snow woman. 

8:15 - So, I made a snow woman. 

8:17 - My feminist neighbor complained about the snow woman's voluptuous chest saying it objectified women everywhere. 

8:20 - The gay couple living nearby threw a hissy fit and moaned it could have been two snowmen instead. 

8:22 - The transgender man.. woman...person asked why I didn't just make one snow person with detachable parts. 

8:25 - The vegans at the end of the lane complained about the carrot nose, as veggies are food and are not used to decorate snow figures. 

8:28 - I was being called a racist because the snow couple is white. 

8:30 - I used food coloring to make one of the snow couple a different color and be more racially inclusive. 

8:37 - Then accused of using a black face on the snowperson.

8:39 - The Muslim gent across the road demanded the snow woman be completely covered. 

8:40 - The police arrived saying someone had been offended. 

8:42 - The feminist neighbor complained again that the broomstick of the snow woman needed to be removed because it depicted women in a domestic role. 

8:43 - The "council on equality" officer arrived and threatened me with eviction.

8:45 - TV news crew from ABC showed up. I was asked if I know the difference between snowmen and snow-women? I replied "Snowballs" and am now a sexist. 

9:00 - I was on the news as a suspected terrorist, racist, homophobe, and sensibility offender, bent on stirring up trouble during difficult weather.

9:10 - I was asked if I have any accomplices. My children were taken by social services.

9:29 - Far left protesters offended by everything marched down the street demanding that I be arrested. 9:45 - The boss called and fired me because of the negative association with work that had been all over social media.

10:00 - I cry into my drink because all I wanted to do was build a snowman. 

Moral: There's no moral to this story. It just showswhat this world has become because of a bunch of snowflakes.

Walt explains Canadian politics: 50 shades of red

One thing Americans can be thankful for today is the two-party system which has been the norm in US politics for most of the country's 240 (give or take) years. With only two parties to choose from, you have a clear choice. You know where they stand. You know where you stand. Do what you think is right.

The downside of having just two parties -- right (ish) and left (ish) -- is that those two parties have to accommodate a wide range of right(ish) and left(ish) opinions and policies with their "big tents". The Republicans have to deal with the raving right, including (some say), the alt-right. The Democrats have to pander to the growing numbers of looney lefties, including the likes of the Squad.

The result is a lot of division, or divisiveness, or, dare we say it, polarization. There's a lot of rancor in the air these days. You can even see it. The way things are now, even the colour of your hat makes a political statement. It's no longer white hats vs black hats, like in the old westerns, but Red Hats vs Blue Hats. 

How the Republicans wound up being officially Red, and the Democrats Blue, is a mystery. In the rest of the world, blue is the colour of the right -- Britain's Conservatives, for example -- and red is the colour of the left, from Britain's Labour Party to (of course) the Communists, everywhere. 

It's the same in Canada. Blue is the official colour of the so-called Conservative Party of Canada, and red is that of the Natural Governing Party, which is what Canada's Liberals call themselves. But there are other parties -- four others, unless you work for the CBC (Canadian Propaganda Corporation), in which case you recognize only three.

The only truly conservative party in Canada is Maxime Bernier's People's Party of Canada. That's the one the CBC wouldn't recognize until they started to poll  higher than the Greens. Their official colour is purple, which is the colour of PPC members' faces whenever Liberal Prime Minister Just In Trudeau is mentioned.

The other five parties -- counting only those with over 2% of the popular vote in Canada's last federal election -- are all liberal. Their official colous don't disguise the fact that their policies range in hue from pale red to deep red.

Just slightly in the red (policy-wise) are the aforementioned Conservatives, who, under leader Erin O'Tool, moved well to the left of centre to attract "progressive" voters who don't care for Mr Socks. All they managed to do was alienate their conservative base, which is why they lost the election. 

All Blackie McBlackface had to do to win was to remind people he that he's the liberal Liberal. Colour him Red.

Farther to the left are Canada's "New" Democrats, founded 60 years ago, hence the quote marks around "New". Their colour is orange, to match one of their leader's turbans. Their whole campaign pitch was that their social democratic (or democratic socialist) policies would ruin the country even faster than the Trudeau Liberals. Didn't work, and having a Sikh at the helm didn't help them much outside of the "little Khalistans" of Toronto and Vancouver.

The official colour of the Bloc Québécois is powder blue. The colour of their policies is pink, but not quite as pink as those of the NDP. Most Canadians don't know what the BQ stands for, since they only field candidates in Québec, and explain themselves only in French. 

That brings us the sixth and last party, the darling of the controlled media but dead last in the hearts and minds of Canadians -- the Green Party. Their official colour is... well, you already figured that out. But their policies are the reddest of red, so much so that their last leader upset the party members who chose her by not being sufficiently anti-Israel.

The last Green leader was Enemy [Annamie, shurely! Ed.] Paul, a black Jewish woman -- ticking three boxes right there -- who finished a distant fourth in her own riding. The party managed to elect just two Members of Parliament, the same as in the last House. One of those won by default after the Liberal candidate in his riding got MeTooed.

Ms Paul resigned before she could be fired, but not without trying for a green parachute and blaming her troubles on racism and sexism... and maybe anti-Semitism too. No surprises there. Anyway, she's gone, and the Greens have now chosen an interim leader, in the person of  Amita Kuttner -- pictured at left. [Geddit? Ed.] Kuttner describes herself as a "nonbinary astrophysicist" and "an expert in black holes". Seriously. You can look it up on the CBC website.

At the tender age of 30, Kuttner will be the youngest person as well as the first trans person to lead a federal political party. In a statement, Kuttner said they were "honoured to have been selected ... during this time of transition and renewal."

What? "Kuttner said they were honoured..."? Referring to whom? Ah... pronoun problems. Since Kuttner is "trans", no-one, including the CBC knows whether to say "xim", "xe", "xer","xis" or... whatever. 

Similarly, we don't know which honorific to use. [Maybe "Mr/s" or "Ms/r"? Ed.] All the same, Kuttner, like her predecessor-but-one, the tired and over-refreshed Elizabeth May, will be the darling of the lamestream media, as if "they" were head of a real party. And "they" will be the butt of the same old joke, "Kuttner? Party of one?"

Happy Thanksgiving Day

Ed. here. It would have been very, very easy for us to use this space to make a political statment, but we will take the high road....

Walt Whiteman, Poor Len Canayen

[and Ed.! Ed.]

wish all our American friends and readers

The inglorious Bleu-Blanc-et-Rouge - Q1 report

Poor Len Canayen here [over there, in the corner. Ed.] with my take on the worst first quarter of any Montréal Canadiens team that I can remember. And my memory goes waaaaay back!

La Sainte Flannelle have played 20 games out of their 82-game NHL schedule. They sit at 7th in the 8-team Atlantic Division, 29th overall. They have 5 (count `em, five) wins, 13 losses, and 2 overtime losses worth a point each, for a not-so-grand total of 12 points and a .300 average. 

In the Atlantic Division, only the Ottawa Senators have a worse record than the Habs, but the Sens have four games in hand! The rest of the horrible stats: Goals for: 44, goals against: 70, for a plus/minus differential of -26. Remember what I said at the start of the season, that they wouldl need to score 4 goals per game, because they were going to allow 3? In fact the GA average is 3.5!

What's the matter with the Canadiens? GM Marc Bergevin admitted, in a recent press conference, that to get into the post-season you have to have a first-rate goalie and a robust defence. Unfortunately the Habs have had neither, so far this year. Carey Price and Jake Allen were supposed to be 1A and 1B. Price has yet to play a game and is currently "day-to-day" on paper, but yet to take part in a practice. Jake Allen got run over by two 200-pounders a few days ago. It is hoped (but only that) that he will be well enough to play sometime in the three games scheduled for this week.

For the last three games, then, it's been 1C and 1D -- Samuel Montembault and Cayden Primeau. Both have done their best, but have been unable to stop 30 to 40 shots (or more) per game, which is what the defence is allowing. And they haven't had any goal support either. At least Primeau got a win before being sent back to Laval. 

The defence woes come down to the absence of Shea Weber and Joel Edmundson. Edmundson has been slow to recover from injuries and surgery, but at least he's on the ice, and may return before Christmas. Weber is likely to be gone for good -- an absolute lock for the Hall of Fame, but leaving big skates to be filled.

It wouldn't be so bad if veteran D-men Jeff Petry and Ben Chiarot had been a reliable top two defence pair. But they haven't. It's hard to say what's wrong with Petry. Last year he was solid on defence, but also (knowing that he had partner Edmundson backing him up) a real threat on the power play, with almost 60 points, after three consecutive seasons of more than 40 points. So far this year he has two assists -- that's all.

Chris Wideman was one of the "expendables", as I called them, hired by Marc Bergevin to pu their fingers in the dike. Wideman has been helpful on the power play, but is risky defensively. The same can be said of David Savard, who has failed to live up to expectations. Brett Kulak, a holdover from last year, is doing no worse than expected, but no better either. Alexandre Romanov has improved, learning to throw those big checks like the second coming of Alexei Emelin, without getting caught out of position on more than one or two goals... per game. 

All in all, a dismal defence, made worse by the absence of Phillip Danault, whose lack of scoring last year seems to have caused Bergie to forget how important he was at the faceoff dot. He didn't get the new contract he deserved, and jumped to the LA Kings. His loss has been a greater factor than any other in the Canadiens' poor showing so far this season.

Not only did M Marc underestimate Danault, but he overestimated the capability of his replacement, Christian Dvorak. He has contributed very little to the attack -- 3 goals and 5 assists in 20 games -- and has proved a liability on defence. You can put that down to the difficulty of adjusting to a new team, but he's not the only forward having problems.

Because of departures -- my, how we miss Corey Perry! -- and injuries, the Habs have had seven newcomers in the lineup. That's more than a third of the team!  But instead of keeping lines constant and giving the new guys a chance to find some chemistry with the veterans, coach Dominique Ducharme keeps mixing them up -- looking for an instant miracle perhaps -- to the point where guys don't know who they're playing with, not from game to game but from shift to shift!

Jake Evans, who was supposed to be the Danault-in-waiting, has been better this season, but still not good for 6 or 7 out of 10 faceoff draws. Nick Suzuki also isn't reliable at the dot, but is showing real talent otherwise. He and Tyler Toffoli are Habs' scoring leaders. Cole Caufield, still technically a rookie, had his confidence checked out of him at the start and has just rejoined the team after a few games in Laval. 

The Habs' heart-and-soul, Brendan Gallagher, is giving his all, but is slowing down, and has but 4 goals and 9 points in 19 games, the same as Josh Anderson in 20. Artturi Lehkonen and Joel Armia have a goal each, while the once-great-hope Ryan Poehling got 2 in one game out of the three in which he's played. 

In short, the Canadiens' ship is sinking, and this year's crew is unable to bail fast enough. The conventional wisdom is that a team that isn't holding a playoff spot by American Thanksgiving isn't going to climb into one in the remaining three-quarters of a season. Anyone who wants to bet the Habs will make it should contact Walt at the usual address. Odds 50-1. Lifetime pct .992.

VIDEO: Hottest gift for Christmas: the singing, dancing cactus

Gifting toys to your kids and seeing their happiness can be one of the most pleasurable moments for every parent. If your kids like moving toys, this Electronic Dancing Singing Cactus Education Toy is the best option to choose!

They will definitely enjoy dancing and singing with this cactus. Children really like to touch the soft plush, knitting during the playing, and interact with the toy.

Since launched, Our Cactus has gone viral all over TikTok and Instagram! Proudly been featured in the newspaper - The Sun, UK - where mums share the new "'genius' toy to soothe tantrums and stop tears!"

Source: online ad from mytalkingcactustoy.com. The toy comes in Mexican, American, "original" (plain) and Santa Claus styles, and the ad says you can choose from 120 different songs. But according to Pat Foran, of Canada's CTV News, you'd better be careful which songs you select. The Polish version, for instance, sends a message you might not want your impressionable sprog to hear!

  

Despite a number of unfavourable reviews, the amazing singing, dancing cactus is still on sale, not just at Walmart, but on Amazon and many othr websites. Hurry, hurry, hurry, before they're all gone. Bah, humbug!

UPDATED: Waukesha WI: accident or "incident"?

Walt was dismayed, yesterday afternoon. to hear of an "incident" which occurred at a "holiday parade" in Waukesha WI. A red SUV roared down the parade route, hurling bodies of marchers and spectators into the air. The death toll, at midnight CST, stood at 5 killed and over 40 injured.

Waukesha police have the vehicle, and they have a "person of interest" in custody. They have so far refused to identify the "person". Here's a report from Fox News.

You heard the police officer. A "person of interest" = a suspect, more or less. Yet we are given no name. No address. No "known to police" or otherwise. Similarly, no race or ethnicity. No immigration status. 

Likewise, no comment on a possible motive for the "incident", which word I've chosen since it certainly doesn't look like an accident! Walt notes that in woke America, such parades are increasingly known as "holiday parades", rather than "Thanksgiving Day parades" or "Christmas parades", so that no offence will be given to people who don't share our Christian/Western values. 

What kind of people (I hear you ask) could possibly be opposed to celebrations of Thanksgiving or Christmas? [Due to a shortage of space, we are obliged to end this article at this point. Ed.]

UPDATE ADDED at 0800: Four senior law enforcement officials told AP that a person of interest who may have a significant criminal history was being questioned overnight. He has been identified as Darrell Brooks, age 39, and yes, we do have a photo. 

Investigators are looking into the possibility that the driver of the red SUV had been fleeing an earlier incident involving a knife fight. Waukesha is more than 50 miles from Kenosha, so... nothing to do with the Kyle Rittenhouse acquittal or BLM or anything like that. That's OK then.

UPDATE ADDED at 0900: Well guess what? Turns out Mr Brooks is an aspiring rap artist. Check this out!

The person who found this on YouTube points out that they removed the original "music" video,  featuring "BLM Terrorist Darrell E. Brooks." Seems his Facebook posts about killing white people are still floating around in cyberspace.

Get your 2024 election bets down now!

Online pollster InteractivePolls shows President Trump the clear favourite to win the 2024 presidential election. Their aggregation of recent polls gives the Donald a 21.28% chance of being re-elected, with the President Brandon well behind with only 14.71%, and the first WOC vice-president even farther behind at 11.11%. Here's how the trend-lines look, graphically.

Following Camela Harris was Ron DeSantis at 8.70%, Nikki Haley 4.35%, and Pete Buttgag bringing up the rear [Careful... Ed.] with 3.70%. Oops, I misspoke. Mike Pence was actually last, at 3.12%.

Citizen Trump has either tied or edged out Sleepy Joe in a number of hypothetical 2024 general election matchups. An Emerson College survey released this month showed Mr Trump edging out Mr Brandon, 45% to 43%. An I&I/TIPP poll released in October showed Old Joe behind The Donald in every part of the US of A except the northeast.

Back in June, Breitbart News reported the phenomenon of Governor. DeSantis’s rise in presidential betting markets. At the time, USsportsbonus.com found that both men had 4/1 odds to be the Republican nominee in 2024 (20% implied probability), making them tied for the favorite position. However, Mr Trump’s 7/1 odds to win the 2024 Presidential Election (12.5%) are better than Mr DeSantis's 12/1 odds (7.7%).

Mr Trump recently suggested that Mr DeSantis would be a good running mate. Smart thinking, since, according to Sportsbonus, the Florida Governor is the biggest threat (within the GOP) to the former President. US Sportsbonus gambling industry analyst Jay Sanin wrote, "DeSantis has improved significantly in both markets since February, when he was a distant 40/1 to win the election and 12/1 to be the Republican nominee."

That's the state of play just a year after the fake election that put Mr Brandon in the Oval Office. A yeaer from now, after Republicans regain control of both the House and the Senate (lifetime pct .991), Sleepy Joe will be the lamest of lame ducks, a true occasion for Thanksgiving.

UPDATED: Feds mull "civil rights" charges after Rittenhouse acquittal

A Wisconsin jury has acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse on all charges arising from the killing of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, and the wounding of Gaige Grosskreutz during a "mostly peaceful protest" in Kenosha WI in August of 2020. 

The "protests" erupted after a white police officer shot a black man. The now-customary riots, vandalism and looting ensured, prompting an online call for armed patriots to come to the city to protect lives and property. 

Mr Rittenhouse, who answered the call, is white. The three people he shot were/are also white. Nevertheless, this being America, you can expect further rioting, vandalism, looting ["reparations shopping", shurely. Ed.] and general mayhem. not just in Kenosha but across the country, in the name of "justice" for those who were shot. Businesses are already boarding up their windows. 

I'm happy for Mr Rittenhouse, but caution him and his defence team to keep their guard up. The federal Department of Justice has yet to weigh in, so expect charges under the Civil Rights Act to be filed very shortly. Lifetime pct .991.

UPDATE ADDED 20/11/21: As Walt predicted (lifetime pct .992), Democrats are now calling  on the Brandon Department of Justice for Some to consider federal charges against Kyle Rittenhouse. Within hours of the announcement of the not guilty verdict, Rep. (((Jerry Nadler))) (D-NY), who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, tweeted his call for a federal review.

Many of the "progressive activists" (read: loonie Social Justice Whiners), who so nonchalantly and callously dismiss the damage done to people and property by BLM and Antifa, support Mr Nadler’s call for a federal investigation. 

Why? Because Democrats are so accustomed to things going their way that they can't handle it when they lose. Legal Insurrection warns Mr Nadler to step away from his emotions over the verdict, and think about the repercussions of pushing the narrative that Kyle Rittenhouse was a white supremacist who violated the civil rights of his attackers. 

The Democrats, from Sleepy Joe on down, and their propagandists in the controlled media failed to make that case. And a basic lesson of military strategy is that you shouldn't reinforce failure!

VIDEO: The latest Wally Award for Excellence in Advertising

Yesterday, Mrs Walt came home with a brand new Blendtec blender. It's very powerful. It has already shredded 700 of Walt's hard-earned dollars. "Why," I enquired, "would you spend that kind of money on a blender, when you could have got one for a hundred bucks or so?" 

"My dear Walt," she answered sweetly, "this one is recommended by Laura Vitale! You like Laura, don't you?" Having watched Laura in the Kitchen more than once... more than once... I could only answer in the affirmative. 

"Besides," she added, "it'll blend anything! Haven't you seen the videos?" I had to admit that I had not, with the result that I as introduced to the "Will It Blend?" series, starring Blendtec blenders and the company's founder, Tom Dickson. These have been on YouTube since October 2006, but being a man, I hadn't noticed. Here's a sample.

 

Did you like that? I did, so much so that I hereby award Blendtec and Mr Dickson the coveted Wally Award for Excellence in Advertising for... well, let's say 2020, since we already gave out an award for 2021 for a commercial which, sadly, has been removed from YouTube. 

In his recommendable book The Age of Persuasion (Knopf Canada 2009) Canadian marketing guru Terry O'Reilly calls Mr Dickson "a graduate (with honours) of the 'Mister Robers' school of TV demeanour). "What sets 'Will It Blend?' apart", Mr O'Reilly writes, "is its style and packaging.

"Dickson's deliciously dry and slightly stiff presentatin is exactly what makes the videos work. Each episode also contains a surprise and is authentic -- both hall marks of a great ad campaign. The viewer is left with little doubt that the Blendtec blender can actually grind up a Wii remote, a picket sign, a baseball, or a fifteen-foot garden hose -- and it can't hurt to know this, given that a high-end Blendtgec might run you to $800."

Worked with Mrs Walt. Thanks, Tom.

Suspicions confirmed: Liverpool bomber was a Mohammedan

If followers of Jesus Christ are called "Christians", what do you call followers of othe Prophet of the "Religion of Peace"? Why, "Mohammedans", of course.

Mohammedan (also spelled Muhammadan, Mahommedan, Mahomedan or Mahometan) is a term for a follower of Mohammed, the Prophet of Islam. It is used as both a noun and an adjective, meaning belonging or relating to, either Muhammad or the religion, doctrines, institutions and practices that he established. For some reason, the term "Mohammedan" has fallen into disuse, replaced nowadaysa by "Muslims", and sometimes "Islamists", although the latter term has a whiff of the Islamophobic about it. 

We mention "Islamists", in the sense of "Islamic terrorists", just in case it's not clear who Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the Disunited Kingdom, had in mind when he urged Brits to "be vigilant", as he announced that the UK's terror threat level was raised to '"severe" following the unintended suicide of a man who was trapped in a Liverpool taxi when the IED he was holding went off prematurely.

Why the alarm? Well, as Walt predicted (lifetime pct .990), the "man" turned out to be one Emad Jamil Al Swealmeen,a failed asylum seeker of Syrian and Iraqi heritage. He washed up on the shores of the UK several years ago, and in his bid to stay, changed his name to Enzo Almeni, in order to sound "more western". He also swore that he had converted to Christianity.

The late Mr Almeni (or Mr Al Swealmeen, whatever) was a pizza chef who police said had been living at a hostel for asylum seekers in Sutcliffe Street, Liverpool, for some time before renting what they called a "bomb factory" two miles away.

The sincerity of his conversion has no doubt already been tested in the next life, where, if the whole thing was a trick to gain entry to Europe for the purpose of killing infidels, he is doubtless being serviced by 72 virgins, even as we speak. 

But there will certainly be others. Inspector Knacker has advised Prime Minister Johnson that another attack on British soil is now "highly likely." This one came exactly a month after Conservative MP Sir David Amess was fatally stabbed during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. Let's see what happens in the two weeks or so before Christmas.

Remembrance Day bomber blown up in Liverpool taxi - "Allahu akbar!"?

 Since November 11th was a Thursday, the Brits decided to mark Remembrance Day today, Sunday. Queen Elizabeth II was supposed to attend a special church service but sprained her back so couldn't make it. Meanwhile, in Liverpool, this happened.

Inside a burning taxicab a "suspected terrorist" [Notice he didn't say "Islamic"... yet... Ed.] is being roasted, trapped there by a hero taxi driver who bailed out of the car and locked the doors moment before a bomb he was carrying exploded outside Liverpool Women's Hospital.

Britain's Sun newspaper reports that cabbie Dave Perry is in the hospoital, in stable condition with burns and shrapnel injuries, including damage to his ear. A colleague told the paper, "The driver is my mate, and spotted the passenger acting suspiciously, so he jumped out the car. This guy blew himself up, but my friend is OK."

Inspector Knacker of the Yard confirmed three men aged 21, 26 and 29 were later arrested under the Terrorism Act, elsewhere in Liverpoole. Being careful not to provoke Islamopohobia, detectives have not yet declared the blast a ­terrorist attack, but said "all options are on the table." 

A major investigation is under way as the bobbies try to find out the identity of the dead passenger to establish if he had appeared on any intelligence-led lists of terror suspects. Hint from Walt: try "Mohammed"! Lifetime pct .981.

Remembering the veterans who fought for our flag

 Last Wednesday was Veterans Day. President Brandon a speech somewhere. I didn't hear all of it [Did you hear any of it? Ed.] but understand he paid homage to all the men and women who fought and died under the American flag, not just in the Great War, but in all the wars in which Americans fought and died. 

I wonder if that includes the Glorious War of the Secession, aka the Civil War aka the War Between The States. Assuming that to be the case, I wonder which flag he was referring to. Was it this one?

I hope Sleepy Joe hasn't forgotten [Go on... Ed.] that, while over 360,000 Americans went to war under the Stars and Stripes and never came back, some 258,000 other Americans died fighting for this flag.

Yes, those people were Americans, and just as patriotic as those who fought for the Union. They deserve to be remembered.

Yet statues of Confederate soldiers and leaders are being pulled down all across the South, and the display of the Confederate battle flag is prohibited, because it's "hateful", unlike the Stars and Stripes, which is only called "hateful" in this Babylon Bee spoof.   

Such is life in today's ultra-woke America. Pity.

Footnote: The statues of Confederate and Union soldiers erected in parks and village squares across America were largely produced by one manufacturer. They were identical, but for one detail: On the soldier’s belt buckle, the "U.S." is replaced by a "C.S." for "Confederate States." To the Monumental Bronze Co., of Bridgeport CT, it was all just business. Union or Confederate, a customer was a customer, another $450 for a zinc statue that could mean whatever you needed it to mean. Source: WaPo.

A year after the fake election, where's Brandon?

From the cover of last week's Economist. And they like the guy!

[All well and good, but are you going to write anything, anytime soon? Ed.]

The logic of "outing" someone's "offensive" e-mails, tweets, etc

 It's now SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for the aggrieved liberals, social justice warriors and other denizens of the swamp to dredge up social media posts of those they don't like, and republish them so all the world can see that how horrible those racist (etc etc) conservatives are. 

Never mind how old the e-mail or tweet or Facebook comment was, or that it was made in confidence, or in jest, if it could possible be construed as offensive, the person who wrote it is guilty, guilty, guilty! There's no Statute of Limitations on "hate crime" and "haters"... right? Or should I say "left?"

Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert (which Walt reads every day!) had a very good comment on this today. I trust he won't mind our reposting it.

MUSIC VIDEO: Mo Ghille Mear (My Gallant Hero)

Ed. here. While looking for a good recording of "The Green Fields of France" for yesterday's Remembrance Day video, I found this traditional Irish song, sung by the Choral Scholars of University College Dublin. The Gaelic title is "Mo Ghille Mear", which means "My Gallant Hero".

 

The arrangement is by Desmond Earley, with lyrics by Seán Clárach Mac Dómhnaill. The soloist is Mark Waters. Tristan Rosenstock plays the bodhrán on the track, but it's Brian Garvin you see in the visual.

This lovely song is from the album "Invisible Stars – Choral Works from Ireland and Scotland", directed by Desmond Earley. 

Remembrance Day 2021

Some call it by its old name: Armistice Day. Others call it Remembrance Day. Still others know it only as November 11th. No matter what you call it, November 11th is, or should be more than just a date. It's a day to remember those who gave their lives for our countries in a number of wars.

The exact number of wars is debatable. Depends which country you're talking about, and who's counting. But they were all "good wars"... "just wars"... right? They all needed to be fought, right? To preserve freedom and democracy and equality and all those other Good Things. Right? Maybe it's all debatable.

The "Armistice" in Armistice Day refers to the truce proclaimed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 -- the armistice that ended the Great War, the war that would end all wars. But, as the ballad "The Green Fields of France" says, it all happened again... And again... And again.

 

This song, sung here by Niall Hanna and Niamh Farrell, is also known as "The Ballad of William McBride". It should be heard every year at this time... in remembrance not just of the wars of the 20th and 21st centuries, but of those that preceded them. 

Following the battle of Antietam, General Robert E. Lee said to General James Longstreet, "It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it." That's something that we seemed to forget, too easily and too often.

We seem to scarcely finish one war before starting another. Sometimes we don't even wait for the first war to end, so we can fight two or three or four wars all at the same time. All for freedom, democracy, equality, human rights, and generally to make the world a better place. For "our side", at least.

Not all of the thousands upon thousands who died fighting our "good wars" did so for the sake of freedom and all that. Some of them did, sure, but some of them died because they obeyed orders and went unflinchingly to the death to which they were sent. It is those men and women -- the ones who didn't want to be there and shouldn't have been there in the first place -- whom Walt wishes to remember today.

Footnote: Joe Warmington, writing yesterday in the Toronto Sun, reports that very few people in the Little Apple are wearing poppies. That's what Don Cherry said two years ago, in what was to be his final appearance on the Coach's Corner segment on Hockey Night in Canada. He called out "those people" who come to our countries to enjoy our "milk and honey" but don't honour those who fought and died to keep us free. For that, he got fired.

Recommended reading for Canadians: Operation Jubilee: Dieppe, 1942: The Folly and the Sacrifice, by Patrick Bishop, published just last month by Viking. Walt gives it ***** (five stars). In spite of the debacle of Dieppe, Canadian governments of both stripes keep looking for foreign wars, like the Muslim civil war in the Middle East, to which Canadians may be sent to die... for what! 

Do you really believe this?

One meme is worth 1000 words of argument. [Also a big help to someone too lazy to write! Ed.] Thanks and a tip o' the touque to Agent 6.

#LGB rally in VT on Saturday, Nov. 13th - Be there!

Nononoooo... Not that LGB, as in LGBTQ2Setc. We're talking #LGB as in Let's go, Brandon!

Breitbart News reports that Vermont Republicans will be taking the “Let’s Go, Brandon” chant to a literal level by hosting a rally in the city of Brandon, Vermont. It straddles US7, east of the Brandon Swamp and Otter Creek. You otter see it. [Get on with the story. Ed.]

Hmph. OK... The rally will be held on Saturday, November 13, and will largely serve as a celebration of the latest Republican victories and a repudiation of the Joe Biden presidency. See "VA: Good news from the Clinton News Network" (WWW 3/11/21) and "'Stupid wokeness' is what's beating Democrats: Carville" (WWW 4/11/21).

Brandon is the hometown of newly-elected state GOP Chair Paul Dame, who told the meeja "We have a lot of work to do over before the session starts in VT, but...we are going to start with a little fun. This Saturday we are hosting a 'Let’s Go Brandon' Rally in Central Park in Brandon. We are having hats, T-shirts and bumper stickers designed and printed as locally as possible as our first step to make a small contribution to the local economy."

Mr Dame [Kind of a funny juxtaposition, isn't it. Ed.] didn't say anything about dresses. That nice red one was worn by US Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO) on a recent visit to Mar-a-Lago. 

The state of Vermont went heavily for Sleepy Joe Biden during the 2020 election. But, said Mr Dame, "Biden's first year in office has proved to be the worst of any president in my lifetime. Gas prices are nearly double what they were a year ago. The reports on the costs of an average Thanksgiving meal is nearly double what it was a year ago."

The good people of Vermont, and most of the rest of America are waking up to the cold reality of the abject failure of the Brandon administration. The mid-term elections are just a year away. The campaign to oust the Dumbocrats from the halls of power started on a week ago. If  you want to save America, get on the #LGB team!

"Allahu akbar!" - Algerian stabs French cop "in the name of the Prophet"

News of attacks on Europeans by would-be jihadis is so commonplace that I don't even try to post all the incidents. There was one somewhere in Europe last week in which a civilian was wounded by a Muslim wielding a knife, but it was just the one victim, who the "authorities" said was mentally unstable, yada yada yada, so no biggie. But today it's a cop, so I guess that rates a report. 

From the French city of Cannes, famous for its film festival, comes news that police have shot "a man" who attacked a group of them with a knife. One against many doesn't seem like a good idea, but no-one ever said these Islamic extremists were rational. 

Quite the contrary. What's unusual about this case is that security sources have told the meeja that the attack appears to have been motivated by Islamist terrorism. Inspector Clouseau of the local gendarmerie said the attacker claimed to have been acting "in the name of the Prophet." No kidding! 

 The attacker, a 37-year-old Algerian who reportedly got into Italy as a "refugee", opened the door of a police car stationed in front of the Cannes central police station, before stabbing the officer in the driver's seat. He then tried to attack a second policeman in the vehicle but a third officer fired his weapon, seriously injuring the attacker. Sounds to me like a defence of insanity might be mounted, but that's wearing a little thin. 

The attack coincides with the trial of Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of an ISIS cell responsible for the killing of 130 people in gun and bomb attacks on entertainment venues in Paris in November of 2015. Worries over violent crime and terrorism -- almost always the work of Islamic extremists welcomed into Europe as "refugees" and asylum-seekers -- feature among voters' main concerns in the run-up to the 2022 French presidential election. 

Thank goodness Americans and Canadians don't have to worry about Islamic extremists being allowed into their countries by too-liberal governments. Oh... wait... 

Further reading: "Referendum on immigration? What a novel idea!", WWW 10/10/21.

6 good reasons to STOP selling on eBay

Just four days short of eight years ago [! Ed.] I wrote "Fed up with eBay? There IS an alternative!" (WWW 12/11/13). It was the third or fourth in a series detailing the frustrations and pitfalls of buying/selling on eBay and dealing with its then partner, PayPal. One might think that the self-proclaimed leader in the online auction/sales market would try to raise its customer satisfaction level, but empirical and anecdotal evidence suggests the opposite.

This is what I've heard from a long-time follower who didn't heed my advice but continued selling on eBay until this spring when he finally weaned himself off that addiction. I should point out that the complainant [This sounds like a legal document! Ed.] is not running a business, trying to make a lot of money. He's jus an old guy who's got a houseful of junk which he's trying to dispose of to eke out his retirement income.

Here, from our disgruntled reader and other sources, are 5 good reasons to close your eBay account and find another place to buy and sell online.

1. eBay's new(ish) "managed payments system"

eBay used to own PayPal, which meant that money paid by purchasers through PayPal went straight into the seller's PayPal account. PayPal deducted a service charge immediately, and eBay billed the seller for their commission as well as insertion and other fees. So sellers lost up to 20% of the money they expected to get.

Now eBay has divested itself of PayPal and is forcing sellers into their managed payments sytem. That means giving eBay access to the seller's bank account, so that payments can be deposited directly, after deduction of eBay's ever-increasing fees. And payments will no longer be transferred immediately, but after a delay of, typically, a week.

2. Buyers now have to deal with eBay (only) to get their money back

Under the old payments system, if you bought something on eBay and didn't get what you paid for, or were dissatisfied, you could get your money back after going through a long and tortuous "customer service" process with eBay. 

If eBay found your complaint was justified, they would direct PayPal (which they owned, remember) to give your money back. 

You could also start the process by filing a dispute through your PayPal account. PayPal would buck it over to eBay, so it still took time.

Now that eBay has cut PayPal out of its "system", you have no choice but to complain to eBay and allow weeks for their system to deal with it. Your refund will come out of money they haven't yet paid to the vendor.

The only good news in that, for buyers, is that eBay almost always takes the buyer's side, even where the seller can make a good argument that they're being scammed by a buyer who says they never got the goods. How can you prove that? That's why a lot of sellers refuse to ship to south Asia or Africa.

3. eBay are now acting as tax collectors

American and Canadian governments -- federal, state and provincial -- have been itching for years to grab a chunk of all that money that's changing hands through online transactions, especially those that cross borders. eBay has caved under political pressure, and now charges sales tax, rated according to the residence of the buyer.

For example, suppose you live in New York state and buy something from a vendor in Ontario, Canada. The applicable tax in Ontario would be 13%, but the tax rate on foreign sales is 0.00% -- no tax. All the same, eBay will add the NY tax to your invoice.

4. And they snitch on you to your government

There are a lot of people and corporations doing business -- big business -- on the Internet. And yes, it's only fair that they should pay taxes on their profits, just like the bricks-and-mortar stores. But, there are also 1000s of people like the old guy described in the second paragraph above, trying to turn their junk into cash. Should they have to give Uncle Sam (or Mr Socks) a cut of the pittance they get for collectibles, craft items and suchlike, on which they make next to nothing after they pay eBay's commission and other fees?

Put it another way... Suppose you cleaned out your attic and held a garage sale or a yard sale. Would you be happy if, at the end of the day, an agent of the IRS or CRA came to your door to collect the sales and income taxes -- part of the money you got for selling your "treasures" -- which they would then give to such needy folks as illegal immigrants?

Under its managed payments system, eBay now has access to not just your sales records, but your banking information. They can and will give that information to the government on request, and if you think the government won't ask, LOL.

5. eBay's customer service sucks

See that meme above? eBay's customer service is actually worse than that! The chances of your having a phone conversation with a real person are slim and none. If you have a question or complaint and click on any of the "help" links, you will be directed to a list of possible problems, then to page after page of "solutions", which you've likely already tried or aren't relevant. 

You can go around in circles like that for hours. If you look hard enough, you might find an e-mail form which you can submit, but good luck with finding a phone number, and if you do somehow find a contact number, be prepared to be "on hold forever".

Before "managed payments", if you were dealing with PayPal, you could (with slightly less difficulty) contact their payment resolution centre or help desk, and you eventually got an answer. PayPal's bias is also towards buyers, but at least sellers get a chance to tell their side of the story.

6. There are alternatives

Our assiduous reader has looked at and tried a number of alternatives and has come up with four that can be recommended. None of them has as big a "reach" as eBay, but all of them are better than dealing with the Big Tech monster.

Etsy Inc. - American e-commerce company focused on handmade or vintage items and craft supplies. These items fall under a wide range of categories, including jewelry, bags, clothing, home décor and furniture, toys, art, as well as craft supplies and tools. Not so strong on collectibles (stamps. coins, comics etc). Has its own managed payments system, with the same drawbacks as eBay's.

Webstore - US-based FREE online marketplace. Free, how? Webstore is currently supported by donations and ad revenues. They say they are "operated as a free public service so that our members may benefit from a professional, feature filled, FREE community in which to buy and sell goods and services without all the common fees of most auction sites and online marketplaces." Website cluttered and clunky, but user support is very good (according to our reader), with text exchanges with a real named person.

Delcampe - European website launched in 2000, "to provide a suitable environment for collectors to buy and sell their collectibles." More than 180 nationalities are present on the site, 1000s of new collectibles are being listed every day. Claims over a million active users, but little-known in USA. Easy-to-use site. Has its own managed payment method, but doesn't insist you use it.

eBid - British company created in 1998. It markets itself as an eBay competitor with the main difference being the vast difference in fees charged to sellers. If you sign up for a lifetime membership fees are minimal or even free if you settle for limited options. Very user-friendly site. They leave it up to you if you want to charge sales tax, and let you receive payment through PayPal (or whatever). They claim a monthly average of 8 million page impressions, and a daily traffic volume of around 60,000 visitors, but that's still just a fraction of the business eBay does in a single day.

So there you have it, folks. If you buy and sell online, don't put up with the hassles of eBay one second longer. Consider the alternatives and if you're scared to leave eBay, remember that there's no law that says you can only use one e-commerce platform! 

Walt also recommends SaleHoo, "a powerful research tool, supplier directory, and online community for dropshippers, wholesalers, and e-commerce stores." If you've never sold online and don't know where or how to start, this is the place to learn.

Shock! Horror! Brandon farts in front of Duchess of Cornwall!

Mrs Charles Windsor, aka the Duchess of Cornwall, was reportedly blown away by US President Joe Brandon's massive eructation while they chatted during a reception at the COPOUT-26 climate summit last Monday.

In fact, she hasn't stopped talking about it! An informant told the Mail on Sunday that Camilla told her, "It was long and loud and impossible to ignore!"

Ironically, Sleepy Joe had earlier averred that one of the most important things society faces in the near term is to "reduce our methane emissions as quickly as possible." Walt sez, show some leadership, Joe!

Canadian residential schools controversy: the other side of the story

Canadians were shocked (or as shocked as they ever get over anything other than hockey) by the "discovery" last May of the graves of 215 people, mostly children, on the grounds at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, in British Columbia. See "Canadian residential school deaths: a calm look at the facts", WWW 7/6/21.

I put "discovery" in quotes because the existence of the graves was common knowledge. What was unknown was their exact location, so the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nationsaid it hired a specialist in ground-penetrating radar to find them, to bring some closure to the families and community from which the deceased people came. 

A statement from Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc Chief Rosanne Casimir said, "To our knowledge, these missing children are undocumented deaths. Some were as young as three years old. We sought out a way to confirm that knowing out of deepest respect and love for those lost children and their families, understanding that Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc is the final resting place of these children." 

This being the year... make that the decade... of Justice for the Indigenous Peoples of Canada, the liberal elites, governments and media fell all over themselves to apologize, and to denounce the residential schools and vilify those who ran them. From 1894 to 1947, the schools were funded by the Canadian government's Department of Indian Affairs and administered by Christian churches. Although the Anglican and other Protestant churches ran most of the schools, the majority were in the care of various orders of the Roman Catholic Church.

Attendance at the residential schools was mandatory. Conditions at the schools, most of which were in rural communities, were not much different from those at British boarding schools of that era. Spartan accommodations and strict discipline were the norm. Today, revisionist historians and SJWs charge that the school system was created to isolate Indigenous children from the influence of their own native culture and religion in order to assimilate them into the dominant Eurocentric Canadian culture.

Agent 6 has sent along a letter by an "indigenous related" person named Jim Bissell, which he wrote in reply to a Sun columnist who had written (correctly) that the backlash against the schools was leading to acts of vandalism and terrorism by mostly non-native people. Mr Bissell wrote:

The time has come for 70-year-old people like me to speak the truth. A little background. I grew up surrounded by four reserves and a large community of indigenous peoples. It was a community of wonderful, kind, very generous, very humorous people that remained that way even when very poor. I have a wonderful successful indigenous daughter with grandkids and great-granddaughters. I am not a Catholic and I do not belong to any church. I belong to me and my family but I like Christian values. 

It should be noted that the missionaries were very essential to our success in the northern communities at that time. I had my first TB test administered by a missionary trying to stop a TB outbreak. (I hated her at the time for the scratches on my back. LOL). I got my first stitches from a wonderful nun. I got my first tooth pulled by a missionary. My first X-ray by the nuns. 

My first teacher was an angel called Sister Rita. I will never forget her and her deep love of all the children she met and taught over the years. My best teacher ever and she was not qualified by Government standards. So although I have never been a Catholic, their church has been very good for me and although I now do know of one very bad priest, most of the people were wonderful. I can still see brother Filion who later became a priest working all by himself outside the school window making a wonderful merry-go-round for the schoolyard. 

There were two residential schools in the community. When I arrived in the community, there were no phones, very poor roads, mostly winter access, and not a lot of services other than the churches. The mission school was there long before my time. It has been told to me by elders that many small children, some way younger than school age, were dropped off at the missions sick, hoping the nuns could heal them. Sad to say many died from measles, diphtheria, TB, smallpox, flu and many other conditions of the poor. Just the reality of the north. 

Years ago most of the dead were placed in the trees so the birds and other animals could take them back to nature. It was the churches that convinced them that that part of their culture should be changed so that to stop the spread of disease so they started to bury the dead. If the dead were Christians, their grave was marked by a painted rock or a small wooden cross that rotted away in 25 years or so. No one could afford a headstone and if they could there was no one that made them at the time. 

Times were hard and in fact desperate in the ’30s. Many people owed their lives to the missionaries and we tend to forget that. They were not always right, no of course not, but they actually wanted to educate, feed and make the lives of all people better regardless of where they came from. The churches do not need to apologize for trying to educate the poor in the only system that would work for nomadic peoples. They need to say sorry, though, for protecting and moving about the few bad apples (priests). 

The Government saying they are sorry is meaningless. They didn't have a clue of the impact of their decisions at the time and they don't have now. Most of the older generation that did suffer are long dead and gone or have forgiven. It seems to me that many of the new generations just want to be victims and feel the money would solve their pain.

We need to understand that very few people wanted to live in the north under the isolated conditions at the time just to help out with a few indigenous peoples. After the federal government took over the school system, most of my junior high school teachers were immigrants from the British Commonwealth (India, England, Ireland and other countries) as no Alberta teachers wanted to live up there when they could live in or near a city with a doctor, bank, good grocery store, ambulance or even a policeman.

The quality of my education suffered because all of a sudden (in 1967) the nuns or even were not qualified to teach us. Thus I had to try and take lessons from teachers with a very heavy accent and hard to understand, who wanted to move close to the cities as soon as they could. Thank goodness the missionaries were there for the past 300 years. 

Were they all good? No, but many were wonderful and now that seems to be forgotten. How many of today's critics have relatives that went up to those communities in those times to try and help? Not many, I bet. The media today is only telling half the story, so I feel we as witnesses have to speak up and speak to the truth.

If you want I will take you to a sacred ground where hundreds of people were left in the ramps and trees or lay on the ground when they died. No one but historical memory marked their graves. Please believe me when I say that the missionaries were not a bunch of evil persons out to kill little children like it sounds in today's media. That is not what I witnessed.

The missionaries knew that the ancient peoples of our land could not continue to exist in a nomadic and isolated society, so they tried to educate them and of course change their culture to be more compatible with the conditions of the times. Were they right? Maybe, I don't know, but at least they were willing to try and help. Like I tell my children, I cannot become indigenous like them but they can become Canadians like me and they are. 

There are more success stories out there than even you realize. The missionaries did not just throw bodies into the ground. Most were marked by a small wooden cross made by the brothers of the mission or parents of the child. Those crosses are long gone. Sad but true. I can also take you to the unmarked graves of many people that were not indigenous as well if you want. That was the way of the north.

Sorry to ramble on for so long but many things need to be said and if the elders of our society lack the moral courage to say them, we are doomed anyway. Please encourage people to stand up and be heard for the good not just the bad. Thanks and keep writing. Jim Bissell