This is more than a little out of season, but good news is always good news, no matter how long it takes to travel to our corner of the forest.
An article which appeared in National Geographic confirms that the truths of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition can often be proven to the skeptical by the methodologies of modern science. An example of a recent find corroborating an ancient belief is the confirmation by archaeologists that early Roman Christians were correct in the location that they believed to be the tomb of Jesus Christ. The results of scientific tests appear to show that the limestone cave whose remains are enshrined within the venerable Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was in fact the burial site of Our Lord and Saviour.
Mortar sampled from between the original limestone surface of the tomb and a marble slab that covers it has been dated to around A.D. 345. According to historical accounts, the tomb was discovered by the Romans and enshrined around 326. Until now, however, the earliest architectural evidence found in and around the tomb complex dated to the Crusader period, making it no more than 1000 years old. But new dating results put the original construction of the tomb securely in the time of Constantine the Great (c. 306-337), Rome's first Christian emperor.
When Constantine's representatives arrived in Jerusalem around 325 to locate the tomb, they were allegedly directed to a Roman temple built some 200 years earlier. The Roman temple was razed and excavations beneath it revealed a tomb hewn from a limestone cave. The top of the cave was sheared off to expose the interior of the tomb, and the Aediculum (little house) was built around it. Inside the Aediculum is a long shelf, or "burial bed", which according to tradition was the place where the body of Jesus was laid out following His Crucifixion.
Here's a link to the National Geographic article (26/10/16), from which this video was taken.
Dear Catholic readers, the things we have always believed, on the foundation of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition -- dogmatically the two fonts of the Catholic Faith -- are every day being confirmed by modern science. We have nothing to fear from science. What we must fear, and pray for protection against, are the false teachings of those who would lead us into skepticism, or, worse, non-belief, or, worse yet, heretical denial of that which the Church has always declared to be true.
Thursday, December 21, 2017
Wednesday, December 20, 2017
Meanwhile, the investigation into "collusion" with Russia continues
While researching yesterday's post on the successes of President Trump, Ed. stumbled across a website we hadn't seen before: Indystar.com, which (to our surprise) is part of the USA Today network. They have a columnist and cartoonist -- there's a parlay for ya -- who goes by the name of Gary Varvel. From a quick read of some of his posts, Walt takes Mr Varvel for an evangelical Christian, which is almost as good as being a traditional Catholic.
Mr Varvel shares our views on President Trump. Click here to read "Trump’s successes have been underreported", which, by an amazing coincidence was posted yesterday. His list of the achievements of the Trump administration is more complete than ours [yet more succinct. Ed.]. [Whose fault is that? Walt]
If you liked that, you can sign up for Gary Varvel's e-newsletter Views from the Right. Tell him Walt sent ya, and wish him MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Best Remnant TV VIDEO... ever!
It seems like just yesterday that we featured Michael Matt, editor of The Remnant, talking about the latest stupidities emanating from the Vatican. [It was six days ago. Ed.] That was a fine video, but the one we're embedding today is even better. In fact, it may be (IMHO) the best video from down in the Catacombs that I have ever seen.
As Facebook blocks ads that include photos of the Vatican's weird Nativity scene -- for being sexually provocative! -- Mr Matt comments on this and other indicators that suggest a weakening of the gale force Modernist winds that have been blowing the Catholic Church off course for half a century or more.
Has Pope Francis gone too far? What are we to make of the latest news regarding Robert Cardinal Sarah? What about the New Mass? Has it contracted a terminal disease? Mr Matt thinks the winds of change are blowing this Christmas. They bring bad news, yes, but also clear signs of hope and a worldwide Catholic awakening.
Plus... you won't believe what William F. Buckley Jr thought of the Second Vatican Council and its New Mass. If I'd heard at the time what he said forty years ago, I'd have saved myself a lot of intellectual torment and emotional grief.
Dear Catholic readers, please listen up! And MERRY CHRISTMAS!
As Facebook blocks ads that include photos of the Vatican's weird Nativity scene -- for being sexually provocative! -- Mr Matt comments on this and other indicators that suggest a weakening of the gale force Modernist winds that have been blowing the Catholic Church off course for half a century or more.
Has Pope Francis gone too far? What are we to make of the latest news regarding Robert Cardinal Sarah? What about the New Mass? Has it contracted a terminal disease? Mr Matt thinks the winds of change are blowing this Christmas. They bring bad news, yes, but also clear signs of hope and a worldwide Catholic awakening.
Plus... you won't believe what William F. Buckley Jr thought of the Second Vatican Council and its New Mass. If I'd heard at the time what he said forty years ago, I'd have saved myself a lot of intellectual torment and emotional grief.
Dear Catholic readers, please listen up! And MERRY CHRISTMAS!
A year of accomplishment under President Trump
As we hit the 11-month mark in the first presidency of Donald J. Trump, let's be clear about one central truth. MAGA was never going to happen overnight. It will take years to undo the damage done by previous administrations, particularly that of President 0, and realize the hopes and dreams that inspired Americans to elect Mr Trump POTUS. That said, even the lamestream media must admit (although they probably won't) that President Trump has done a tremendous amount of good in the first year of his first term. In Walt's opinion, he fully deserves two thumbs up!
His many detractors, like CBC's Neil Macdonald, want President Trump to fail, even if America goes down with him. They can't bring themselves to admit or even talk about the many good things he's accomplished in less than a year: the small ones (like making it OK to say "MERRY CHRISTMAS!" again) or the big ones, like pushing through a much-needed tax reform in spite of the opposition of Democrats and the Republican establishment. The fact is that Mr Trump has, in less than a year, done more than his predecessor did in eight years and more than the Republican Establishment did in a decade of controlling Congress!
The aforementioned tax cut and simplification bill will excuse a majority of Americans from personal income tax altogether. 80% of taxpayers will be able to file their returns on a post card. The top personal rate goes down to 37% the corporate rate to 21%. Americans will be able to keep more of the money they earn and put that money back into the economy.
The Democrats keep saying the tax reform will drive the budgetary deficit out of sight. Walt calls BS on that. According to the Federal Reserve, the annual deficit will be eliminated in less than three years and the national debt (as a percentage of GDP) will start to shrink. GDP growth should be close to 4% -- roughly double that of Canada -- generating nearly a trillion dollars of additional production and transactions in 2018 with only minimal inflation.
The result will be the revival of the spirit of entrepreneurship and capitalism, and the end of the Prez's defeatist warnings that the USA must learn to live with a mere 1% annual growth rate and ever-rising numbers of Americans surviving by sucking on the government tit. And, even better, the gap between the USA and China will finally stop narrowing, as America increases its lead as the world's largest economy.
In the first year of President Trump's term, 2,500,000 jobs have been created -- 228,000 jobs last month alone. The jobless rate is at a 17-year low. In 2017, 171,000 manufacturing jobs were created, compared with 16,000 lost in 2016.The unemployment rate is at its lowest this century! And that's not just for whities like Walt, but for Latinos too. Their unemployment rate is down to 4.7%, the lowest since recording started 45 years ago.
And how about the stock market? Since Mr Trump was elected, the Dow has risen by some 5000 points -- almost 30%. New highs have been hit over 15 times, and Walt predicts the Dow will hit 25,000 by New Year's Eve. (Lifetime pct .988.) Energy production has been drastically deregulated and imports of petroleum reduced to a third of the country's needs and falling steadily. And just this week, the bunkum of "climate change" -- the "global warming" that was -- has been taken off the list of threats to America.
Getting the costs of America's so-called health care "system" under control has presented a challenge, sure enough. President Trump said he would sign any health care bill Congress could pass. They tried twice to come up with a replacement for Obamacare, and failed twice. That's not the President's fault, but that of the Republicans in Congress, some of whom (Hello! Mitch McConnell) are working against the President's agenda, for reasons which we can only guess.
In his draft report card on the first year of POTUS' administration, Scott Adams writes that the only way to get a good health care bill is by letting the Republican Congress fail a few times so they become flexible (more bipartisan) later. He predicts that President Trump's potential influence over health care will grow over time as both sides look at a failing Obamacare system and don't want to explain their failure to voters next year.
And finally -- this is just a partial list of achievements -- there's immigration. Prototypes for the components of the Wall have been built and displayed. It will be built! The Department of Homeland Security reports border patrol arrests have dropped to a 45-year low, down 25 percent from this time last year. The millions of aliens who are in the USA illegally or on sufferance are getting nervous and are starting to go home or, like the Haitian "refugees" who've been in America for a decade, heading for Canada, where they'll be welcomed by the Trudeau government, if not the Canadian people.
Neil Macdonald and the other bleeding hearts in the media should realize that American voters didn't elect Donald Trump to be nice. They elected him to get things done. And that's exactly what he's doing.
Footnote from Ed.: The source of most of the statistics presented in this post is this week's (16/12/17) issue of The Economist. Even they, guardians of the liberal progressive ideal, are forced to admit that the outlook for the USA in 2018 is, errr, positive.
His many detractors, like CBC's Neil Macdonald, want President Trump to fail, even if America goes down with him. They can't bring themselves to admit or even talk about the many good things he's accomplished in less than a year: the small ones (like making it OK to say "MERRY CHRISTMAS!" again) or the big ones, like pushing through a much-needed tax reform in spite of the opposition of Democrats and the Republican establishment. The fact is that Mr Trump has, in less than a year, done more than his predecessor did in eight years and more than the Republican Establishment did in a decade of controlling Congress!
The aforementioned tax cut and simplification bill will excuse a majority of Americans from personal income tax altogether. 80% of taxpayers will be able to file their returns on a post card. The top personal rate goes down to 37% the corporate rate to 21%. Americans will be able to keep more of the money they earn and put that money back into the economy.
The Democrats keep saying the tax reform will drive the budgetary deficit out of sight. Walt calls BS on that. According to the Federal Reserve, the annual deficit will be eliminated in less than three years and the national debt (as a percentage of GDP) will start to shrink. GDP growth should be close to 4% -- roughly double that of Canada -- generating nearly a trillion dollars of additional production and transactions in 2018 with only minimal inflation.
The result will be the revival of the spirit of entrepreneurship and capitalism, and the end of the Prez's defeatist warnings that the USA must learn to live with a mere 1% annual growth rate and ever-rising numbers of Americans surviving by sucking on the government tit. And, even better, the gap between the USA and China will finally stop narrowing, as America increases its lead as the world's largest economy.
In the first year of President Trump's term, 2,500,000 jobs have been created -- 228,000 jobs last month alone. The jobless rate is at a 17-year low. In 2017, 171,000 manufacturing jobs were created, compared with 16,000 lost in 2016.The unemployment rate is at its lowest this century! And that's not just for whities like Walt, but for Latinos too. Their unemployment rate is down to 4.7%, the lowest since recording started 45 years ago.
And how about the stock market? Since Mr Trump was elected, the Dow has risen by some 5000 points -- almost 30%. New highs have been hit over 15 times, and Walt predicts the Dow will hit 25,000 by New Year's Eve. (Lifetime pct .988.) Energy production has been drastically deregulated and imports of petroleum reduced to a third of the country's needs and falling steadily. And just this week, the bunkum of "climate change" -- the "global warming" that was -- has been taken off the list of threats to America.
Getting the costs of America's so-called health care "system" under control has presented a challenge, sure enough. President Trump said he would sign any health care bill Congress could pass. They tried twice to come up with a replacement for Obamacare, and failed twice. That's not the President's fault, but that of the Republicans in Congress, some of whom (Hello! Mitch McConnell) are working against the President's agenda, for reasons which we can only guess.
In his draft report card on the first year of POTUS' administration, Scott Adams writes that the only way to get a good health care bill is by letting the Republican Congress fail a few times so they become flexible (more bipartisan) later. He predicts that President Trump's potential influence over health care will grow over time as both sides look at a failing Obamacare system and don't want to explain their failure to voters next year.
And finally -- this is just a partial list of achievements -- there's immigration. Prototypes for the components of the Wall have been built and displayed. It will be built! The Department of Homeland Security reports border patrol arrests have dropped to a 45-year low, down 25 percent from this time last year. The millions of aliens who are in the USA illegally or on sufferance are getting nervous and are starting to go home or, like the Haitian "refugees" who've been in America for a decade, heading for Canada, where they'll be welcomed by the Trudeau government, if not the Canadian people.
Neil Macdonald and the other bleeding hearts in the media should realize that American voters didn't elect Donald Trump to be nice. They elected him to get things done. And that's exactly what he's doing.
Footnote from Ed.: The source of most of the statistics presented in this post is this week's (16/12/17) issue of The Economist. Even they, guardians of the liberal progressive ideal, are forced to admit that the outlook for the USA in 2018 is, errr, positive.
Sunday, December 17, 2017
Swedes to raise retirement age to pay for welfare for "refugees"
One of the Big Lies that the human rights and pro-migration industries tell you is that bringing in hundreds of thousands of immigrants is good for the economy. They will be working, they say, and buying stuff, and paying taxes, and the economic benefits far outweigh the initial costs of bringing them to our countries and looking after them while they "adjust".
Walt calls BS on that one, and, as proof of the lunacy of the claim that mass immigration is a wonderful opportunity, passes on a report from Expressen that the increasing costs of population growth in Sweden -- driven almost entirely mass immigration -- have forced the government to seriously consider raising the national retirement age to pay for the additional costs.
The Swedish newspaper says that Magdalena Andersson, the finance minister of the country's socialist government, announced in October that the retirement age would likely be raised in the near future in order to offset increased welfare costs. "Looking at those who start working at 30, there should be opportunities to work longer than 65." she said. "Opportunities to work..." Dontcha love it? Forget about freedom at 55 or even freedom at 65. Stay in your cubicle for a few more years, while those who the Muslim-loving socialist SJWs have invited into your country continue to live in the houses and eat the meals which you have so graciously provided.
Ms Andersson made her helpful suggestion following an economic report from Sweden's Local Authorities and County Council released earlier. According to that organization, because of the dramatic rise of Sweden's population, the welfare state would grow faster than revenue obtained through taxation. The rise in population is not due to a sudden desire by native-born Swedes to breed litters of blonde, blue-eyed offspring, but to the influx of mostly Muslim immigrants, who do not believe in birth control and who outbreed Swedes by a ratio of 4 or 5 to 1. Some Swedish cities, like the southern city of Malmö, owe their population growth almost entirely to mass migration from the sandpits of the Middle East.
While the 1000s of "refugees", asylum-seekers and economic migrants are increasing the cost of the Swedish welfare state in terms of added infrastructure and cost for services, many are unemployed and directly on welfare. A recent report showed that while the native Swedish unemployment rate was just under 4%, the figure for Swedish residents from foreign backgrounds stood at almost 22%.
Prof. Jan Tullberg of Stockholm University did some math. Based on welfare and housing costs, education costs and other factors, he calculated that the one-year cost of the migrant crisis for the Swedish taxpayer could amount to as much as 600 billion Swedish Kronor -- over 70 billion dollars in real money. That's enough to pay for the national armed forces for the next 14 years.
Comparable figures from the AABC countries (America, Australia, Britain and Canada) were not immediately available to Walt's research team. [That would be me. Ed.] We would like to know, from our political "leaders", how much longer we will be expected to keep working to fund the Welcome Wagon for our new (shudder) neighbours.
Footnote: Speaking of Malmö, just a few days ago I posted "Followers of "the religion of peace" express their opinions on American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital... in Sweden!" (WWW 11/15/17) which contained a video showing a crowd of Islamofascists in that city protesting the announcement by POTUS that the US of A formally recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. They were chanting anti-Semitic slogans and warning that "Jews should remember that the army of Muhammad will return." The video has since been removed by YouTube, presumably so as not to fan the flames of Islamophobia. So much for free speech on the Internet!
Further reading: "Sweden and the Politics of Denial", by Andrew Stuttaford, in the National Review, 15/12/17.
And, from eritre-chat.com (a website for Eritrean migrants!), "Sweden sends refugees back to Denmark or Germany – Europe Migrant Crisis". No, this is not a spoof. At least some of the Swedes are waking up and smelling the coffee -- and good Ethiopian/Eritrean coffee it is, too!
Walt calls BS on that one, and, as proof of the lunacy of the claim that mass immigration is a wonderful opportunity, passes on a report from Expressen that the increasing costs of population growth in Sweden -- driven almost entirely mass immigration -- have forced the government to seriously consider raising the national retirement age to pay for the additional costs. The Swedish newspaper says that Magdalena Andersson, the finance minister of the country's socialist government, announced in October that the retirement age would likely be raised in the near future in order to offset increased welfare costs. "Looking at those who start working at 30, there should be opportunities to work longer than 65." she said. "Opportunities to work..." Dontcha love it? Forget about freedom at 55 or even freedom at 65. Stay in your cubicle for a few more years, while those who the Muslim-loving socialist SJWs have invited into your country continue to live in the houses and eat the meals which you have so graciously provided.
Ms Andersson made her helpful suggestion following an economic report from Sweden's Local Authorities and County Council released earlier. According to that organization, because of the dramatic rise of Sweden's population, the welfare state would grow faster than revenue obtained through taxation. The rise in population is not due to a sudden desire by native-born Swedes to breed litters of blonde, blue-eyed offspring, but to the influx of mostly Muslim immigrants, who do not believe in birth control and who outbreed Swedes by a ratio of 4 or 5 to 1. Some Swedish cities, like the southern city of Malmö, owe their population growth almost entirely to mass migration from the sandpits of the Middle East.
While the 1000s of "refugees", asylum-seekers and economic migrants are increasing the cost of the Swedish welfare state in terms of added infrastructure and cost for services, many are unemployed and directly on welfare. A recent report showed that while the native Swedish unemployment rate was just under 4%, the figure for Swedish residents from foreign backgrounds stood at almost 22%.
Prof. Jan Tullberg of Stockholm University did some math. Based on welfare and housing costs, education costs and other factors, he calculated that the one-year cost of the migrant crisis for the Swedish taxpayer could amount to as much as 600 billion Swedish Kronor -- over 70 billion dollars in real money. That's enough to pay for the national armed forces for the next 14 years.
Comparable figures from the AABC countries (America, Australia, Britain and Canada) were not immediately available to Walt's research team. [That would be me. Ed.] We would like to know, from our political "leaders", how much longer we will be expected to keep working to fund the Welcome Wagon for our new (shudder) neighbours.
Footnote: Speaking of Malmö, just a few days ago I posted "Followers of "the religion of peace" express their opinions on American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital... in Sweden!" (WWW 11/15/17) which contained a video showing a crowd of Islamofascists in that city protesting the announcement by POTUS that the US of A formally recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. They were chanting anti-Semitic slogans and warning that "Jews should remember that the army of Muhammad will return." The video has since been removed by YouTube, presumably so as not to fan the flames of Islamophobia. So much for free speech on the Internet!
Further reading: "Sweden and the Politics of Denial", by Andrew Stuttaford, in the National Review, 15/12/17.
And, from eritre-chat.com (a website for Eritrean migrants!), "Sweden sends refugees back to Denmark or Germany – Europe Migrant Crisis". No, this is not a spoof. At least some of the Swedes are waking up and smelling the coffee -- and good Ethiopian/Eritrean coffee it is, too!
Friday, December 15, 2017
Canuck cops cover up terror attack outside Toronto
Agent 3 gave us this story yesterday but Ed. thought we should sit on it for 24 hours to see if the Canadian "authorities" would tell their people the whole truth, but they didn't, so we will!
Vaughan ON is a fast-growing bedroom community which sprawls along what was once good farmland to the north of Metropolitan Toronto. Apart from a third-rate theme park called "Canada's Wonderland" [not "Canada in Wonderland?" Ed.], it has the usual collection of ticky-tacky tract homes, strip malls and what have you. "What have you" includes a large population of immigrants and a minority of "old stock Canadians".
On Wednesday afternoon, a man walked into a bank branch in a strip mall in the Woodbridge area, just north of the boundary with Toronto, with a gun in his hand and, around his torso, a belt to which was fastened what appeared to be an explosive device of some kind. A serious armed robber, you might think, but nooooo....
Nasir Labib was standing in the doorway of his dental office at around 1300 Wednesday when a customer from the bank just across the plaza came looking for help. Dr Labib picks up the story. "She said there was a young guy inside the bank, had a gun in his hand and had a belt, I think with explosives. And he wasn't asking for money, he was asking for, I believe, a bag of drugs and to talk to Donald Trump by five o'clock or otherwise he's going to blow everybody away."
Dr Labib said the middle-aged woman was traumatized after coming face to face with the gunman, who then asked a customer to give him his cell phone so he could call police. Dr Labib again. "What the lady told me he made them sit down and tied their hands, but she wasn't tied. When I asked her, 'How did you run away?' she said, 'I wasn't tied and then he found out that my hands are free and he asked one of the tellers to tie my hands.' While the teller was doing that, the alarm went off. So her and the teller managed to run out from the fire exit and that's how we found her in front of the office here."
13 staff and customers were in the bank at the time of the incident. York Regional Police officers first on scene were able to get some of them out. The cops, including members of the emergency response unit -- that's what they call SWAT teams these days -- tried trying to negotiate with the suspect, while about 50 children from a daycare centre just a few doors down were escorted into Dr Labib's dental office.
Negotiations failed or at least broke down, so two York Region cops shot the suspect... fatally. And good for them, sez I. Now here's what we know about the deceased. He was a 25-year-old man who lived about 5 miles from the scene of the "incident". That's all the York Region PD would say. Their excuse for not naming the late perpetrator or saying anything about his ethnicity, religion or citizenship status was that the Ontario Special Investigations Unit was in charge of the case, investigating (of course) the conduct of the cops who shot the hostage-taker.
So we have a man armed with a gun and an explosive device entering a bank, not to rob it, but demanding to be put in touch with President Trump. (Some drugs too, please.) We also know that the RCMP were called in. In Ontario, the Mounties only get involved with things like, errr, threats to national security and, errr, terrorism. We also know that the so-called Greater Toronto Area is "home" to 1000s of "refugees", asylum-seekers and other migrants -- legal and illegal -- a large percentage of whom are followers of the Prophet. Mosques, halal butcheries and shawarma shops are springing up everywhere.
Can we then say with any degree of certainty that the attacker or hostage-taker was a "terrorist"? Certainly the lady who told her story to Dr Labib was terrified, as were the other hostages and innocent bystanders. OK, but was the perp an Islamic terrorist? Was he a "Mohammed"? None of those whose mission is "to serve and protect" (ha!) is saying. Perhaps they are constrained by M-103, a motion of the Canuck parliament intended to stop the spread of Islamophobia, by which they mean stopping anyone from saying anything negative about Muslims.
Fortunately for seekers of the truth, a reporter went to the suspect's home and got talking to a man outside of the house who identified himself as the 25-year-old's uncle. According to the uncle, the suspect was a young child when he came to Canada from Iran with his family. Walt will update this post as the truth leaks out. For now, that's all ye know and all ye need to know.
Vaughan ON is a fast-growing bedroom community which sprawls along what was once good farmland to the north of Metropolitan Toronto. Apart from a third-rate theme park called "Canada's Wonderland" [not "Canada in Wonderland?" Ed.], it has the usual collection of ticky-tacky tract homes, strip malls and what have you. "What have you" includes a large population of immigrants and a minority of "old stock Canadians".
On Wednesday afternoon, a man walked into a bank branch in a strip mall in the Woodbridge area, just north of the boundary with Toronto, with a gun in his hand and, around his torso, a belt to which was fastened what appeared to be an explosive device of some kind. A serious armed robber, you might think, but nooooo....
Nasir Labib was standing in the doorway of his dental office at around 1300 Wednesday when a customer from the bank just across the plaza came looking for help. Dr Labib picks up the story. "She said there was a young guy inside the bank, had a gun in his hand and had a belt, I think with explosives. And he wasn't asking for money, he was asking for, I believe, a bag of drugs and to talk to Donald Trump by five o'clock or otherwise he's going to blow everybody away."
Dr Labib said the middle-aged woman was traumatized after coming face to face with the gunman, who then asked a customer to give him his cell phone so he could call police. Dr Labib again. "What the lady told me he made them sit down and tied their hands, but she wasn't tied. When I asked her, 'How did you run away?' she said, 'I wasn't tied and then he found out that my hands are free and he asked one of the tellers to tie my hands.' While the teller was doing that, the alarm went off. So her and the teller managed to run out from the fire exit and that's how we found her in front of the office here."
13 staff and customers were in the bank at the time of the incident. York Regional Police officers first on scene were able to get some of them out. The cops, including members of the emergency response unit -- that's what they call SWAT teams these days -- tried trying to negotiate with the suspect, while about 50 children from a daycare centre just a few doors down were escorted into Dr Labib's dental office.
Negotiations failed or at least broke down, so two York Region cops shot the suspect... fatally. And good for them, sez I. Now here's what we know about the deceased. He was a 25-year-old man who lived about 5 miles from the scene of the "incident". That's all the York Region PD would say. Their excuse for not naming the late perpetrator or saying anything about his ethnicity, religion or citizenship status was that the Ontario Special Investigations Unit was in charge of the case, investigating (of course) the conduct of the cops who shot the hostage-taker.
So we have a man armed with a gun and an explosive device entering a bank, not to rob it, but demanding to be put in touch with President Trump. (Some drugs too, please.) We also know that the RCMP were called in. In Ontario, the Mounties only get involved with things like, errr, threats to national security and, errr, terrorism. We also know that the so-called Greater Toronto Area is "home" to 1000s of "refugees", asylum-seekers and other migrants -- legal and illegal -- a large percentage of whom are followers of the Prophet. Mosques, halal butcheries and shawarma shops are springing up everywhere.
Can we then say with any degree of certainty that the attacker or hostage-taker was a "terrorist"? Certainly the lady who told her story to Dr Labib was terrified, as were the other hostages and innocent bystanders. OK, but was the perp an Islamic terrorist? Was he a "Mohammed"? None of those whose mission is "to serve and protect" (ha!) is saying. Perhaps they are constrained by M-103, a motion of the Canuck parliament intended to stop the spread of Islamophobia, by which they mean stopping anyone from saying anything negative about Muslims.
Fortunately for seekers of the truth, a reporter went to the suspect's home and got talking to a man outside of the house who identified himself as the 25-year-old's uncle. According to the uncle, the suspect was a young child when he came to Canada from Iran with his family. Walt will update this post as the truth leaks out. For now, that's all ye know and all ye need to know.
Thursday, December 14, 2017
Academic illiteracy, African style
There is such a thing as "Zimbabwean English". You can look it up in the Oxford Companion to the English Language, which I'm sure you keep on your night table for bedtime reading. Or you can take my word for it. During my time in the land of bambazonke, I was often amused by the locutions peculiar to its denizens.The horrible white racists who settled and ran Zimbabwe in the colonial era -- it was known as Rhodesia in those days -- built lots of schools, with the result that the English literacy rate was one of the highest in sub-Saharan Africa.
Since independence in 1980, standards have slipped considerably. But Zimbabweans still have a great love of sesquipedelian words and grandiose phrases. If you know a lot of big words, they seem to think, you must be educated, and therefore not just fit but entitled to lead the country's institutions.
During the Mugabe era (April 1980 through December 2017) it was customary for businesses, government agencies, and individual public figures to insert huge advertisements in the local press, particularly the state-owned Herald of Truth, congratulating Comrade Bob on everything from his birthday to the opening of a new Blair toilet. To describe the messages which took up pages upon pages of newsprint as fawning would be an understatement. "Adulatory" would be a better word.
Following the (mostly) bloodless coup earlier this month, there is a new dictator in town, but the custom continues. But the quality of the English in the congratulatory ads, and in public speech generally, seems to have declined. Walt's old friend Dr CZ printed this egregious example in his column in today's Financial Gazette.
His Excellency Cde Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, The Principal, Eng T Madondo, Advisory Council, Management, Staff and Students of Harare Polytechnic joins the nation in congratulating Cde Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa on your appointment as Head of State and Government and Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces. You demonstrated resilience, tenacity and composure as you rose through the echelon and fastigium of presidency. The humility you portrayed revealed the axiologies and phronesis of a leader. Harare polytechnic shares the developmental trajectory you enunciated on your inauguration and is ready to hit the ground running.
I cannot add my "amen" because he can't figure out what the principal of Harare Polytechnic (or whoever wrote this for him) is trying to say. [I'm working on it. Always like to increase my vocabulary! Ed.] So all I can do is encourage Comrade ED (no relation to our Ed.) to take Eng Madondo's words for what they're worth -- about $1.98.
Dr CZ ends his column with some words of wisdom which I will copy here, since it seems to me their application is not restricted to the Dark Continent.
The African education system has many surprising outcomes. The smartest students pass with first class marks and get admission to medical and engineering schools. The second class students get MBAs and LLBs to manage the first class students. The third class students enter politics, and rule both first and second class students. The failures join the army and control politicians who, if they are not happy with, they kick or kill. Best of all, those who did not attend any school, become prophets and witch doctors, and everybody follows them!
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