FOR GEAR-HEADS

Presenting 10 cool concept cars that should have made it to production.  While concept cars are rarely production ready, they frequently capture our imagination and make us wonder what it would be like if they actually made it out of the concept phase and down the production line.

CANADA WAGES WAR ON ITS OWN ECONOMY

Energy is by far the nation’s largest industry. And the federal government has decided to bleed it to death. What other possible explanation can there be for its refusal to even say that it thinks pipelines to get oil to tidewater are a good idea even – yes, yes, yes – with all the usual environmental caveats.

The Prime Minister, who only weeks ago said he thought the Keystone pipeline was a great idea, now refuses to say the same about Energy East, deciding that even though he just did,  prime ministers shouldn’t be promoting things they should just be refereeing them.

 

BERNIE SANDERS, THE BITTER LAYABOUT

Before he achieved political office, Bernie Sanders never had a steady paycheck in the first four decades of his life. Now, he aspires to the highest office in the land where he could play a decisive role in shaping the circumstances under which the rest of us work and receive (when we can) our paychecks. 
 The only thing he was good at was talking … non-stop … about socialism and how the rich were ripping everybody off. “The whole quality of life in America is based on greed,” the bitter layabout said. “I believe in the redistribution of wealth in this nation.”

QUESTIONING OBAMA'S JUDGEMENT

President Obama will pay a visit to his first US mosque this week in order to “celebrate the contributions Muslim Americans make to our nation and reaffirm the importance of religious freedom to our way of life.”

There's only one problem; the mosque the president has chosen to honor with his presence - the Islamic Society of Baltimore (ISB) - has a history of ties to extremist Muslim groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood.

 

CONCLUSION OF THE INTELLECTUAL ELITE AT DAVOS

Last week the world's intellectual elite met in Davos to, apparently, solve our economic ills. None too soon. We have a mountain of economic problems to challenge the brightest minds on the planet. But I’m a little bothered that they (the special people) have been at this for 45 years and the world economy seems to be getting worse. And what issue most occupied these great minds this time around? Jobs? Anemic economic growth? The collapse in commodity prices? The costs of war? The refugee crisis? Terrorism? Corrupt governments stealing the futures of their nations? None of these? Then surely it’s poverty? Wrong again. No, we are assured that it is inequality that we should be most concerned about. Seriously.

ABORIGINAL TITLE VS PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS IN BC

The muddy waters of aboriginal land claims and private property rights in British Columbia may have just cleared a little.On Jan. 15, the B.C. government stated its opposition to the Tk’emlups and Skeetchestn bands’ aboriginal title claim on land currently owned by private citizens and mining company KGHM- Ajax, saying it will “vigorously oppose a declaration that has the potential to create uncertainty over the land base and for private property owners across this territory,” which is near the city of Kamloops.

SORTING OUT SYRIA

A delegation from Syria's main opposition group arrived in Geneva on Saturday to join U.N.-mediated peace talks, demanding President Bashar al-Assad's government be made to comply with a U.N. resolution on humanitarian aid and human rights.

HORSE TRADING AT THE EUROPEAN UNION

The European Union needs an ambitious grand bargain at its next summit to rescue itself from an accumulation of crises that threaten to blow apart its model of integration.
Like children at a birthday party, each leader has to get a going-home present. And as with many children's parties,  there may be a tantrum along the way.Horse-trading to accommodate multiple national interests is a classic technique for advancing European integration and seems designed to break logjams in what Juncker calls a "polycrisis".

MIGRANT CRIME SOARING IN SWEDEN

Residents of at least one small town outside Gothenburg, Sweden's second largest city, are beginning to regret their country's open-arms policy.

Molndal is a quiet suburb of 63,000.  But in the last year, more than 4,000 refugees – most of them unaccompanied minors from the Middle East and Africa – have set off a crime wave that culminated in the murder of a social worker in a refugee center that has shocked Europe.

 

DEMS UNDERMINING & OBSTRUCTING BENGHAZI COMMITTEE

Democrats on the Select Committee on Benghazi would rather spend taxpayer dollars circling the wagons for Hillary Clinton than investigating what happened before, during, and after the September 11, 2012 terror attack that killed four Americans, according to fed-up Republicans on Capitol Hill.

PRISTINE QUEBEC WATERWAYS

Fearful of environmental problems Quebec said "NO" to the Energy East pipeline that would bring Alberta oil to Eastern Canada refineries. Merde.

EU WHITE-WASHING MIGRANT CRISIS

The European Commission has declared the Cologne sex attacks on New Year’s Eve have nothing to do with Europe’s ongoing migrant crisis, describing such links as “false associations”.

Internal minutes of a European Commission meeting held on January 13th illustrate the complacent attitude of senior European Union (EU) leaders to the Cologne sex attacks. They appear more concerned with limiting damage to the wider European project than facing problems caused by their own migration policies.

 

CHARGING A POLICING FEE ON TURBINES

More than six years after the turbines on Wolfe Island became operational, Frontenac Islands Township council was surprised in December when it received a bill for policing from the Leeds County Ontario Provincial Police.

“They charge us the same in this new policing formula for a wind tower as they do for a house,” Mayor Denis Doyle said. “It costs us a lot of money.”

 

DYED DIESEL: EXEMPTION OR SUBSIDY?

Saxe, Ontario's new environment commissioner stands by her use of the term ‘subsidy,’ which she attributes to the OECD (Organization of Economically Developed Countries) definition.

“By the international definition, (of a subsidy) a change in a rate of tax is a subsidy,” Saxe asserts. “It is not a moral judgement.”

Farm leaders have forcefully argued that the exemption from the road tax of which Saxe speaks is not a subsidy. It’s an exemption for farm machinery fuel from a tax that is in place to support road maintenance. The coloured fuel can also be used to fuel construction machinery and diesel engines that run generators.

 Call it what you will.  She's a Greenie from way back, and we know whose side she favours.  Prepare to fork over the dough.

 

LAUGH: THE NEW ERA OF CLIMATE

You’ve heard of the Holocene, and the Anthropocene…Well, hold onto your hats, er data.. Josh writes: Thanks to Robert B who thought up a great name for the era of climate science we are currently enduring…

ADHERE TO THE LAW OF THE DATA QUALITY ACT

"Regarding NOAA’s “pause buster”:   We, the undersigned, scientists, engineers, economists and others, who have looked carefully into the effects of carbon dioxide released by human activities, wish to record our support for the efforts of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology to ensure that federal agencies complied with federal guidelines that implemented the Data Quality Act,” some 300 scientists, engineers and other experts wrote to Chairman of the House Science Committee, Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith.

“In our opinion… NOAA has failed to observe the OMB [Office of Management and Budget] (and its own) guidelines, established in relation to the Data Quality Act.”

 

POLITICAL WILL

 A CFRA Ottawa caller named "Ron", a stroke victim, sums up why there is a lot of resentment about the refugees being brought to Canada.

**SPEAKERS ON TO LISTEN TO TAPE**

HOW WALL STREET CAME TO OWN THE CLINTONS

The use of bailouts should have also been a reason to heavily regulate Wall Street, to prevent behavior that would require a bailout. But the administration didn’t do that; instead they went the opposite direction and continued to deregulate it, culminating in the repeal of Glass Steagall in 1999.

Wall Street now had both political parties working for them, and really nobody holding them accountable. Now, no trade was too aggressive, no risk too crazy, no behavior too unethical and no loss too painful. It unleashed a boom that produced plenty of smaller crisis (Russia, Dotcom), before culminating in the housing and financial crisis of 2008.

 

$17 TRILLION IN STUDENT DEBT BY 2030

Student Loan Debt is a cancer for our society. This misconception that getting a college education equals a steady career has been dashed by the recession. For-profit colleges pray on undereducated and low-income individuals. Text book prices have risen exponentially while the cost of a quality education has as well. This industry of education is going backwards, and will one day burst – will that happen soon?

CONTROLLING THE WAR HAWKS

War Party On The Run - The Roots Of The Anti-Trump, Anti-Sanders Camps In Both Parties.

MIGRANT CRIME CRISIS IN EUROPE

This page documents incidents in the migrant crime wave in Europe. While the governments of some of the host countries are actively trying to control the situation, others are in denial, leaving their citizens in even more danger.

ISLAMIC INFILTRATION OF AMERICAN SCHOOLS

The parents of a Maryland teenager have launched a lawsuit against their daughter’s public high school, claiming the district forced the 16-year-old to take classes that promote Islam over Christianity and Judaism.  The student spent one day in a modern history class studying Christianity, followed by two weeks immersed in Islam.

WONDER WHY POLITICIANS GET NO RESPECT?

   You might expect a cabinet minister tabling legislation to have even the slightest clue what that legislation is about but not if we are talking about labour minister MaryAnn Mihychuk.

 

SWEDEN CENSORING THE MEDIA

This morning, people in Sweden woke up to find that they could not access specific articles on The Daily Mail.

Articles critical of immigration policy in Sweden, one describing the stabbing of a 22 year old girl by a refugee, and the other on a town that was effectively destroyed by migration. Swedes who tried to access these pages were shown an error page.

 

DESTROYING CANADA'S REPUTATION

National Post: This astonishing dismissal of Canada’s signature on an international agreement comes after copious boasting about how the Liberals would restore Canada’s reputation in the world, so egregiously damaged by that bad old Stephen Harper. The Liberals so far have restored our reputation to such lofty heights that Canada was excluded from a meeting of allied defence ministers planning the war against ISIL. Demotion to the minors is what they call it in sports. Rarely does it result from an improved reputation.

HELPING EPA UNDERMINE ITS CRITICS

Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer's trade association coordinated with the EPA to debunk a federally commissioned study that was critical of the EPA's impact on the power grid. 
Lawmakers want to determine if the groups involved cross the line from acting in an advisory capacity to coordinating issue advocacy with the EPA – a possible crime under federal law if the advocacy is determined to take place in the political arena.

DEGRADING THE INSTINCT OF SELF PRESERVATION

Ethical codes, embedded in us on a genetic level, would demand that we intervene on behalf of the women. Especially in a situation where normal adult men were more numerous than the rapists, and the rapists themselves were not terrorists, cyborgs or aliens, but mere street punks.

As it turned out, in Germany, Sweden, Austria and elsewhere, these codes were fatally violated. A great number of strong healthy men, having heard the girls screaming and crying, and having seen the crimes being committed, didn’t do anything to save the victims.

What has happened to the world when men, women, politicians, and the elite betray their daughters and children in order to please newcomers with their baser instincts and a cult of male power?

 LINK FIXED

SOME FACTS ON THE ZIKA VIRUS

You may have heard about the spreading Zika virus, a mosquito borne pathogen that can severely affect pregnant women and their children.

The head of the World Health Organization has called an emergency meeting for Monday to discuss what she is calling a "pandemic" with the virus "spreading explosively" throughout the Americas.

 

PLEA FOR GERMAN MEN TO PROTECT WOMEN

In her video, Wilhailm accuses Merkel of having “killed Germany.”

“I do not think you know what you have done," said Wilhailm. "You do not see how our lives have changed. Open your eyes! Is this normal? Should I, a 16-year-old who is almost 17 be scared to walk outside my house? No, it is not normal.”

Insightful for one so young, Wilhailm also realizes that the state no longer can, nor perhaps has the will, to protect its young women and children. As a result, she makes a desperate plea for Germany’s men to protect them, asking them to go out and patrol the streets

 

BANK OF JAPAN NEGATIVE INTEREST RATES

World shares jumped and the yen slumped on Friday after the Bank of Japan stunned markets by taking one of its main interest rates into negative territory, its boldest step yet to reinflate the economy.
The yield on Japanese benchmark government bonds plunged to record lows after the central said it would charge 0.1 percent for excess reserves parked with the institution, an aggressive policy pioneered by the European Central Bank.
 

THE DISINGENUOUS ALBERTA ENVIRONMENT MINISTER

Shannon Phillips, Alberta's Environment minister blamed the Harper Government for pipelines not getting built.  Phillips said in a press release that "we have made very little progress in that direction under the former federal governments rules."

She said this in response to the federal Liberals changing the way the pipeline process is reviewed in this country, wherein the Liberals have actually increased the barriers to pipeline construction. Apparently Phillips thinks more onerous and more subjective rules will get more projects approved and we know that’s crazy talk.

 

URBAN HOUSING MARKET: OVERPRICED & OVERBUILT?

No shit, Sherlock.

THE DEVIOUS CBC

A memo reveals CBC’s plans to regain control of leaders’ debates for 2019. Documents obtained through an access to information request reveal that our progressive, Liberal loving state broadcaster really believes they should be in control of elections by controlling the format of future election debates.

DON'T TURN YOUR BACK ON SKIPPY THE 'ROO

The Islamic State's ability to inspire individuals all around the world to commit acts of terror has been one of the most worrying aspects of the militant group's rise.  That point has been hammered home by the case of Sevdet Besim, a 19-year-old man on trial in Australia for allegedly planning to commit a terror attack in Melbourne last year. Besim has been accused of attempting an unusual method for a terror attack: packing a kangaroo full of explosives and setting it loose on Australian police officers.

BOMBARDIER GOING OFF THE RAILS

Shares of Bombardier Inc BBDb.TO, which closed below C$1 for the first time since 1991 on Wednesday, fell 10 percent further on Thursday as some funds dumped shares on fears that the train and plane maker may be ejected from Canada's main index.

DEMOCRAT MEDIA KNIVES OUT FOR SANDERS

The current CAUSE NUMBER ONE for the Democrats is electing our first female president, even if she is a thoroughly awful human being who enabled her husband's sexual assaults on other women and, oh by the way, had a casual disregard for classified material when she was secretary of State.

Bernie Sanders has unexpectedly gotten in the way of this mission and now the DMC/MSM has decided it's had enough.

 

USA LABELLING WEST BANK GOODS

In a step towards joining an Israel boycott, the U.S. is now requiring goods originating from the West Bank (also known as Judea and Samaria) to be labeled separately from products from the rest of Israel, following the European Union’s crackdown on products from the disputed territories.

REPULSIVE GOP WAR ON TRUMP

Geller: I Support Cruz; but the War on Trump is Extreme and Repulsive

RIDING IN TRUMP'S SLIPWIND

GOP presidential candidates former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who are participating in the earlier GOP debate on Thursday, say they want to attend GOP frontrunner Donald Trump’s event on Thursday night for veterans rather than the primetime GOP debate hosted by Fox News.

THROWBACK THURSDAY

Meet the "new" Minister of Public Services and Procurement: Judy Foote.

Renege should of been included under the Liberal "change" campaign slogan.

MERKEL'S IRRATIONALITY

One of Germany’s most celebrated psychoanalysts has said the refusal of Chancellor Angela Merkel to reverse her “completely irrational” migrant policy is evidence of a potential “mental breakdown” that endangers society.  Some would say the damage has already been done.

WOOD STOVE REGISTRY COMING YOUR WAY

"The one thing that almost no governments do is encourage householders to heat with wood. Fuelwood is the only renewable energy resource that most governments don't seem comfortable with."  In other words, even though wood is a renewable resource that could reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, it is being systematically outlawed by the authorities.
The only logical reason for this is that governments do not want to encourage self-sufficiency; they would rather keep us completely dependent on them and the energy companies they represent for all of our needs.

TEXAS GRAND JURY SHOOTS THE MESSENGER

It seems you don’t have to shoot the messenger any more, just get a Texas grand jury to forget about that ham sandwich and indict the messenger, in this case David Daleiden, director of the Center for Medical Progress, and another pro-life activist, Sandra S. Merritt, for their videos exposing Planned Parenthood’s booming business of selling the body parts of aborted babies for cash.What used to be called “investigative journalism” has been criminalized. Planned Parenthood was not indicted for selling baby body parts but in the parallel universe of this grand jury the filmmakers were indicted for engaging in an alleged criminal conspiracy to buy them.

THE DELICATE SENSIBILITY OF IRAN'S PRESIDENT

Italy is hosting a visit by the Iranian president. His itinery included a visit to a magnificent museum where some of the works of art show girl and boy bits prohibited by Islam. So the accommodating Italians placed panels in front of statues that revealed a little too much of the human body for the sensibilities of the Iranian president.

  Rouhani is in Italy to spend $18 billion - part of his European shopping spree resulting from the sudden gush of cash he's getting because of the lifting of sanctions. So I guess we see now the price Italy is willing to pay in order to get their hands on some of that sanctions money - prove to Rouhani that they can toss their heritage under the bus just like any other supplicant.

 

ONTARIO'S FARMLAND ACREAGE IN JEOPARDY?

The perception Ontario’s farmland is being urbanized at an alarming rate is unfounded, according to the Fraser Institute.  In a new report released Wednesday, the public policy think-tank says the area of farmland used to plant crops in Ontario has been essentially consistent since 1951. Others have a differing opinion.  From The Ontario Farmland Trust:

“Despite its obvious importance, Ontario is losing its agricultural land base at a rapid rate as many farms go out of production every year. Urban sprawl and rural non-farm development are contributing to the annual lose of thousands of acres of farmland.”

 

 

GETTING OFF THE BOOM & BUST ROLLER COASTER

Great pay and plenty of jobs attracted thousands to the province of Alberta, but as the decline in crude prices stretches on, some industry veterans are deciding they can no longer take the boom and bust roller-coaster.  

THE NEED TO DIVERSIFY CANADA'S OIL & GAS MARKETS

What's at stake if Liberals continue their war on pipelines?  Former Finance Minister Joe Oliver joins Ezra Levant to talk about all the other ways Trudeau and his Liberal allies are undermining Canada's energy industry.

ISRAEL NOT SHAKING IN ITS BOOTS

The United States, European Union and the United Nations have issued unusually stern criticism of Israel, provoking a sharp response from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and raising Palestinians' hopes of steps against their neighbor.

HOW OBAMA'S ADMINISTRATION CLINCHED IRAN PRISONER DEAL

Nader Modanlo was facing five more years in federal prison when he got an extraordinary offer: U.S. President Barack Obama was ready to commute his sentence as part of this month's historic and then still-secret prisoner swap with Iran. He said no.
         
 

THE USELESS UN

The secretary-general of the United Nations angered Israel with remarks to the Security Council today calling it "human nature" for Palestinians to lash out at "occupation" with stabbings and vehicular attacks.

"Sadly, 2016 has begun much like 2015 ended – with unacceptable levels of violence and a polarized public discourse across the spectrum in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory," Ban Ki-moon told the UNSC.

 

NULL AND VOID IN KENTUCKY

Kentucky state representative Kenny Imes (R-Murray) has introduced legislation that declares President Obama’s executive gun controls “null and void” within the state.  Imes’ contention is that Obama is trying to exercise powers that do not belong to him. Therefore, his actions are “not recognized” by Kentucky and will not be enforceable in Kentucky.

THE UNITED STATES OF CRAZY LAWS

The United States has a long and interesting history, and most of today’s current laws are appropriate to keep the peace. However, there are laws in all 50 states that are a bit “crazy” in today’s terms for a number of reasons. Some laws that may have been appropriate 100 years ago may have just fallen through the cracks, therefore they’re still on the books and seem pretty funny to us now.

DON'T BUILD IN A FLOOD PLAIN DARLIN'

Dr. Tim Ball;  It’s called a floodplain for a reason. The dangers of flooding mostly involve people living in dangerous places. Why are people allowed to live in these regions without being forced to accept full responsibility for their actions? They are encouraged by governments and insurance that enable bad practices, questionable, and unnecessary behavior.

There was a time when living near a river was important for transport, water supply, waste removal, and even food supply. We don’t need to live close to rivers or at least within the area identified as the floodplain.

 

10TH ANNIVERSARY OF GORE'S LIES

While preening at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2006 during the premiere of his “An Inconvenient Truth” fib-umentary, Gore made his grand declaration. The former vice president said, in the words of the AP reporter taking down his story, that “unless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases are taken within the next 10 years, the world will reach a point of no return.” In Gore’s own words, he claimed we were in “a true planetary emergency.”

 Ten years later, he’s probably hoping that everyone has forgotten about his categorical statement…

USA GOVERNMENT GUN GRAB

Obama has made it no secret that he intends to push hard for stricter gun control in his final stretch in office. He emphasized that determination by appearing to be overcome with emotion when discussing the Sandy Hook shooting in a speech on gun control on January 4. That tearful moment – staged or not – spoke powerfully to his fan base, because leftists are all about feelings rather than facts; they feel for the children lost to gun violence, and if you object to “commonsense gun laws” then you are obviously a heartless right-winger who doesn’t care if children die. Never mind that the measures they want to implement not only would not have prevented most mass shootings, but – like the impotency of “gun-free zones” – they are more likely to prevent law-abiding gun owners from defending themselves and their loved ones from mass shooters

RESISTANCE OF OPEC MEMBERS TO CUT SUPPLY

Oil rose more than 5 percent on Tuesday, with Brent going above $32 a barrel, on hopes OPEC and non-OPEC producers were inching closer to a deal to reduce output in the face of one of the biggest supply gluts in decades.
 

ITALY'S NIGHTMARE

As the Schengen treaty guaranteeing open internal European borders continues to crumble, Italy is gearing up for a tidal wave of as many as 400,000 immigrants “in the coming weeks,” according to Italian sources, and worse still, they will be coming to stay.

IMMIGRANTS OVERWHELMING HEALTHCARE IN GERMANY

If just 10 per cent of Germany’s total number of migrants claim for dental work, the bill would easily exceed €1bn.  Dental care is not the only public health area in which the migrant crisis is putting practitioners and facilities under unprecedented strain.
“German public health officials are now on the lookout for Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever, diphtheria, Ebola, hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, malaria, measles, meningitis, mumps, polio, scabies, tetanus, tuberculosis, typhus and whooping cough. As refugee shelters fill to overflowing, doctors are also on high alert for mass outbreaks of influenza and Norovirus”, says the report.

ATTACKING EVERYDAY AMERICANS

After the massive belly-flop that was the poorly thought out, very-poorly executed and way-late “Against Trump” diatribe last week, “National Review” is apparently still so bitter that on Monday morning another fatal decision was made — to attack everyday Americans as stupid homophobes.

With conservatives like these, who needs leftists, or the mainstream media?

 

ENSURING SUCCESSFUL REFUGEE INTEGRATION

Brian Lilley;  I speak with Candice Malcolm, Toronto Sun columnist and fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, about her column on the subject in which she provides the statistics and well-known reasons why privately sponsored refugees tend to integrate more successfully and fare better in the long run, just as the Harper government said.

THE LOWBROW SOPHIE GREGOIRE TRUDEAU

In 2002, our Prime Minister's wife starred in a fake infomercial about tablets that can flavour menstrual blood. I wish I was joking. I'm not.

The video is in French, so it's subtitled. And it's in the absolute poorest of taste. If you're someone with a weak stomach, this isn't for you. Actually, I don’t think this is for anybody. I can't imagine who this would be for. It's just that awful.

 

COUNTERING GREEN LIES ABOUT 2015 WEATHER

The data for the global temperature of 2015 is in, and its a shattering record. It is claimed that global warming has resurged, terminating the warming ‘pause’ for good. But an important factor has been downplayed and one ignored altogether.

THE HYPOCRACY OF WYNNE

Is this really the first time that Wynne and her cabinet are learning that there are colleges in Saudi Arabia that don’t allow women?

I explain why I find it hard to believe that the Premiere, who was the former Education Minister knew nothing about this and why, as someone who supported the wearing of the veil at citizenship ceremonies here in Canada, she’s being a hypocrite.

 

 

REWRITING HISTORY, LIBERAL STYLE

The controversial statement made by the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland was altered by his office.

SENDING HIGHLY CLASSIFIED INTEL TO HILLARY

“It takes a very conscious effort to move a classified e-mail or cable from the classified systems over to the unsecured open system and then send it to Hillary Clinton’s personal e-mail account,” said Raymond Fournier, a veteran Diplomatic Security Service special agent. “That’s no less than a two-conscious-step process.”

He says it’s clear from some of the classified e-mails made public that someone on Clinton’s staff essentially “cut and pasted” content from classified cables into the messages sent to her. The classified markings are gone, but the content is classified at the highest levels — and so sensitive in nature that “it would have been obvious to Clinton.”

 

E-MAIL "SHARE" FUNCTION UNLAWFUL

A German court has declared unlawful a feature that encourages Amazon customers to share links to products of the online shop with their contacts, confirming the ruling of a lower court.  The ruling comes after Germany's highest court ruled earlier this month that a similar feature that encourages Facebook users to market the social media network to their contacts as unlawful.

BOOM & BUST IN FORT MCMURRAY

Canada's northern oil hub Fort McMurray is learning the hard way that there is no such thing as simply going back to normal after a long boom that got cut short by the collapse in crude prices.

With prices down 70 percent over 18 months, producers have deferred costly new oil sands projects and laid off tens of thousands of mainly fly-in fly-out workers, who overwhelmed the city during the 15-year oil boom, but also bankrolled much of its prosperity.
 

A SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE IN BC

By arguing that publishing peer-viewed research conflicted with her role as an indigenous scholar, a former law professor has won her bid for a human rights tribunal hearing after losing her job at the University of British Columbia.

Lorna June McCue was denied tenure and ultimately dismissed after 11 years at the university in part because of her failure to submit a single piece of peer-reviewed research during that time.

 

HARVESTING CANADA'S RESOURCES

Rex Murphy:  From Davos this week PM Trudeau gave us this rhetorical crackerjack: “My predecessor wanted you to know Canada for its resources. I want you to know Canadians for our resourcefulness.”
The first difficulty with his statement is that it suggests there is a problem with having, you know, resources. If a country has an abundance of wheat, timber, coal, minerals, fish, oil, gas, farmland and livestock, and the work ethic to go along with making the most of them (this too is a great resource), then the usual response is “hallelujah” or “thank God.”

BUSINESS AS USUAL: LIBERALS APPEASING UNIONS

The Liberals are looking to show the public service some good will as Parliament resumes this week.

The Grits say they’ll quickly move to repeal legislation that gave government the power to impose a new sick-leave regime.

 

FALLOUT FROM PLUNGING ENERGY PRICES IN USA

 As we said two days ago when looking at the paltry recoveries on their total debt that bankrupt energy debtors are generating in liquidation and bankruptcy asset sales, "the energy bankruptcy party is only just starting." And sure enough, overnight we learned that another company is preparing to throw in the towel following a Reuters report that SandRidge Energy - a shale oil and gas producer in the Mid-Continent region of the U.S. - is exploring debt restructuring options.

 

PUTIN'S GAME IN SYRIA

Putin’s decision to intervene in Syria demonstrated a stark contrast to U.S. indecision regarding Syria. Whether or not the Syrian adventure becomes another Afghanistan for Moscow, it has forced all the other players in the Middle East to react.  For now at least, Putin’s Russia has become a major player in the Middle East.

DEAF LEFTARDS

ISIS’s brutality knows no bounds. Early medieval style beheadings, crucifixions, enslavement and rapes of women and young girls are ISIS’s calling cards. They have slaughtered or abducted thousands of civilians and have committed systematic genocide against Yazidis and Christians. Yet when reports of such acts of barbarism began to emerge in 2014, the progressive left either ignored the worst demonstrations of pure evil in our time or pooh-poohed them.

THEREBY COMMITTING THE OFFENCE OF DECENT EXPOSURE...

Paul Diessen does a great job of outing all the climate change bullshit in one article.
h/t Manitouwadge

STOP THE DENIAL; ACKNOWLEDGE THE FACTS

So if you happen to be a Democrat who is flummoxed at how Americans are increasingly rejecting Hillary and why the Democrat status quo was so firmly rebuked in 2014, you shouldn't be.  And there is absolutely no reason that it should have to be spelled out for you.

All you have to do is pull up a chair, open your eyes, and choose not to ignore what you see. 

 

NORWAY'S BIGGEST BANK DEMANDS CASH BAN

Why Now? Why are governments suddenly so keen to ban physical cash?
The answer appears to be that the banks and government authorities are anticipating bail-ins, steeply negative interest rates and hefty fees on cash, and they want to close any opening regular depositors might have to escape these forms of officially sanctioned theft. The escape mechanism from bail-ins and fees on cash deposits is physical cash, and hence the sudden flurry of calls to eliminate cash as a relic of a bygone age - that is an age when commoners had someway to safeguard their money from bail-ins and bankers' control.

DEMOCRACY DEFICIT OF THE EU

The EU’s seemingly suicidal policy deliberately aims to dilute the percentage of ethnic Europeans in their native countries, to empower the new Franco-German capital in Brussels. This is exactly what Otto von Bismarck did in the 1800s to destroy the provincial capitals of German-speaking Europe, and to centralize all power in one Reich in the Prussian capital of Berlin. Fanatical German nationalism, xenophobia and militarism in the 20^th century were a direct product of Bismarck’s imperial unification policy.

BUCK-TOOTHED BEAUTY STOLEN

EDMONTON - A metre-tall metal beaver surely didn't walk away from his longtime perch in Inglewood.

It would have taken a truck or heavy equipment to uproot the missing landmark street art and bench from David and Susan Holdsworth's front yard.

"I hope someone will return the beaver back to its lodge,"

 

JOHN TORY'S VIRTUES OF BACKTRACKING AND COMPROMISING

Fifteen months into his first term as Toronto’s mayor it’s clear what John Tory’s political brand is.

It has nothing to do with his campaign promises, many of which he’s broken, downsized or reversed.

Simply put, Tory’s brand is: “Not Rob Ford”.

 

GLARING CONFLICT OF INTEREST HIRING EGG HEIRESS

The federal Conservatives want the House of Commons’ agriculture committee to probe the hiring of a Canadian egg processing heiress as chief of staff to the ag minister.

Tory Agricultural Critic Chris Warkentin on Wednesday called on both Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay and his new chief of staff, Mary Jean McFall, to testify before the standing agriculture committee “at the earliest opportunity.”

 

THE ARROGANCE OF J TRUDEAU

But then there was that line that must have seemed too good to resist. “My predecessor,” he began, “wanted you to know Canada for its resources. I want you to know Canadians for our resourcefulness.”  The canard is so common, the underlying assumption so entrenched among those of a certain set, that many readers may have missed it. But of course: resources are just something we pull out of the dirt. That’s easy. Any idiot could do that. If that was the view the rest of the world had of us — simple resource extractors — well, Trudeau would soon put that right. He would remake Canada’s economic brand in his own image: stylish, hip, clev— er, well, resourceful, at any rate.

MRS. CLINTON'S FULL APPRECIATION OF ISLAM

As Hillary Clinton struggles to maintain frontrunner status in the Democratic primaries, she’s facing even more important issues. Islamic terrorism is sweeping the globe, yet mainstream media outlets seem reluctant to vet her foreign policy credentials.

In particular, the former Secretary of State isn’t being asked the tough questions about her closest colleague, Huma Abedin, who has links to people and groups the U.S. government says were involved in the funding of terrorism.

 

LAST DITCH EFFORT OF GOP

Dr. Theodore Roosevelt Malloch, Chairman and CEO of The Global Fiduciary Governance LLC, and great-grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, said that the Beltway-entrenched, right-leaning pundit class revealed how out of touch it’s become after National Review published a special issue dedicated to attacking GOP frontrunner Donald Trump’s populist and nationalist pitch for the presidency.  "What I said basically… I wasn’t surprised by these old, tired voices, including George Will, and all those in the NR, anti-Trump campaign. It’s essential a last-ditch effort to try to stop the inevitable."

UK: MORE WIVES, MORE BENEFITS

Polygamous marriages, which form a common thread in Islam, are recognised in Britain but only if they take place in countries where they are legal. Now a House of Commons library paper, published earlier this month, has highlighted a loophole that will allow additional wives coming to the UK to claim a full single person’s allowance while the husband and his first wife still receive their respective benefits.

CALAMITY IN CALAIS

Numerous calls have been made for the French to deploy their army in Calais after 50 migrants stormed a ferry last night, causing chaos and bringing the port to a standstill. Anarchist groups aiding the migrants co-ordinated the attack and a demonstration preceding it that saw statues and shops in the town centre daubed in graffiti.

NOTLEY-WYNNE PIPELINE CHEERLEADING

Premier Kathleen Wynne wants a pipeline for Alberta oil across Ontario, it’s now clearer than ever. She said it when Ontario was fading behind Western Canada’s powerhouse — but now she’s said it again with Alberta Premier Rachel Notley in Toronto as a supplicant rather than a patron.

NATIONALISM AND POPULISM HAVE OVERTAKEN CONSERVATISM

Steyn:  But what is "the Republican Party" in 2015? To a businessman, it looks like an unsellable product and an incompetent management ...but with a useful mailing list and a functioning network of branch offices. Why not mount a hostile takeover and re-launch it as something else?

TECHNOLOGICAL GLOBAL WARMING KILLED ALL THE ALIENS

Discovery has a theory as to why we haven’t discovered evidence of intelligent alien civilisations; According to Discovery, the handful of planets which have just the right characteristics for life to thrive, are eventually destroyed by a technological environmental cataclysm. 

ANTICIPATING THE BULLSH!T

Before pundits and poor scientists begin pronouncing the expected east coast winter “storm of the century” to be a direct product of global warming/climate change/climate disruption, one might take a lesson from historical climatology.

SUNNY DAYS PM LECTURES THE ATTENTION SEEKING HYPOCRITE

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged Leonardo DiCaprio to tone down his "inflammatory rhetoric" on climate change saying it was not helping those who have lost their oil-industry jobs.

QUEBEC GETS THE BENEFITS, WEST DOES THE WORK

Yesterday the mayor of Montreal, a Liberal named Denis Coderre, demanded that the Energy East pipeline proposal be blocked from passing over Quebec’s sacred territory.  It's a $15.7 billion infrastructure project, and that's just the construction.  The whole point of building is to bring in oil to feed Eastern Canadian refineries, to displace foreign, conflict oil that we now import from OPEC. But Denis Coderre doesn't care, because Quebec gets $21 billion a year right now in transfer payments, extracted in part from the oil industry in Alberta and Saskatchewan. . 

 

MERKEL IMPERVIOUS TO OTHERS' VIEWS

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel looked ever more isolated over her open-door policy on refugees on Saturday as it emerged that the leader of her party's Bavarian allies suggested this week she had become impervious to other people's views on the issue.

"Chancellors in an advanced stage of their office only believe in themselves," said Horst Seehofer.
 

THE EXTREME STUPIDITY OF FACEBOOK CENSORS

Levant:  Facebook's new plan to CENSOR "right wing hate speech" -- but not ISIS recruiters. 

Facebook says this new initiative is about "combating extremism and hate speech on the Internet.”

Oh, do they mean ISIS using social media to recruit terrorists?

Of course not!

 

GERMAN GOVERNMENT'S APPALLING LACK OF SECURITY

German government statistics show that more than 600,000 refugees seeking asylum have failed to make a formal application to remain in country and the government doesn't know where they are.

DENIS CODERRE, HYPOCRITE EXTRAORDINAIRE

Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre announced the city's official opposition to proposed Energy East pipeline project Thursday, saying the potential risks outweigh its possible economic benefits to communities including his.

In a statement, Brian Jean, leader of Alberta's Wildrose Party, called Coderre's position "disgraceful."

"While Mr. Coderre dumps a billion litres of raw sewage directly into his waterways and benefits from billions in equalization payments, his opposition to the Energy East pipeline is nothing short of hypocritical," Jean said.

 

NEW EXCUSES FOR FAILURES OF ONTARIO LIBS

Ontario’s Liberals have long excelled at offering up creative excuses for major policy failures. My favourite, up until now, has always been Dalton McGuinty’s, “It’s never too late to do the right thing.” The former premier deployed that one repeatedly over the years in the face of mounting criticism, and ever growing evidence, of the complete hash his government had made of the province’s electricity sector.

LIBERALS GETTING MORE $ OUT THE DOOR, FASTER

The Liberal infrastructure plan is shaping up to be the Wild West of funding opportunities. It'll be up to cities and special interests to scurry into the money pot quickly to call dibs on their allotment.

The Liberals are not only sticking to their plan to roll out an additional $60 billion of infrastructure cash over 10 years, but are trying to come up with ways to quickly spend an extra $10 billion this year that was left over by the previous government.

 

 

CRINGEWORTHY LIBERAL RECRUITMENT AD

Akin: The Liberal Party of Canada is hiring. Watch the recruitment video. This is a first for me. I’ve never seen anything like this from any other federal political party.

COST SHARING IN UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE COUNTRIES

Fraser Institute: A prominent feature of Canada’s health care system is the absence of any charge for publicly insured health care services at the point of consumption.  Most developed countries with universal coverage for health care services do not mandate first-dollar coverage. Rather, insurers (whether public or private) typically impose some type of cost sharing for the health care services they cover, including services that are similar to those that are covered by provincial health care plans in Canada.

HANGING UP ON TRUDEAU

  The husband of one of the Quebecers killed in the Burkina Faso terrorist attack says hanging up on Justin Trudeau "felt good" after the prime minister called him earlier this week.

Yves Richard told Montreal radio station 98.5 FM on Thursday he was frustrated in the hours after last week's tragedy with what he called Global Affairs Canada's lack of tact and empathy.

 

LIBERALS UNDOING JUSTICE SYSTEM REFORMS

The latest examples of their effort to get back to worrying about criminals instead of victims, was their promise to get rid of a pile of mandatory minimum sentences so criminals wouldn’t spend too much time in jail, and now they want to make wiping convictions away cheaper and easier.

It seems to bother Liberals that criminals are serving longer sentences and being held to account by society for their crimes, but why?

 

MASSIVE NEW EU MIGRANT WAVE COMING

A second wave of migrants is set to break across Europe as the wives and children of men who have already made the journey set out to join them. According to European Union law, migrants already settled in member states are entitled to bring their families to live with them in their adopted country as part of their right to a family life.

STIRRING THE CLIMATE WARMING POT

Delingpole:  Over the next few days and weeks you will hear lots and lots of stories about how 2015 was the “Hottest Year Evah”.

Every time you do so, reach for your Browning. Whoever makes this claim will be an idiot, a liar, a charlatan – or, in the case of many establishment climate scientists, most likely all three.

 

 

THROWBACK THURSDAY

Meet the "new" Minister of International Trade: Chrystia Freeland

She was first elected in 2013, in a by-election, to replace retiring MP Bob Rae. Freeland is one of 13 Canadians banned from travelling to Russia, under retaliatory sanctions, imposed by Russian President Putin in 2014.
Freeland wrote a book "Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else" that PM Trudeau often quotes from. She must be enthralled by every word he speaks.
In November 2015 she had an interesting panelist interview with  HBO's Bill Mather with  that interview  disappearing down a rabbit hole.

QUESTIONING THE SANITY OF JOHN MCCALLUM

John McCallum, the immigration minister, was in New Brunswick and said it was "a good thing" that 90% of the "refugees" coming to that province couldn't speak English or French.

THE SHALLOWNESS OF SOPHIE GREGOIRE

Gavin McInnis:  "What is she, Eva Peron?": Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau's bizarre song hijacks MLK Day

Prime Minister Zoolander's annoying wife decided the best way to recognize Martin Luther King Day (which we don't even celebrate in Canada) was to sing a song she wrote about her daughter.

Language warning. 

TARGETING TRUMP

Ann Coulter: We have never had total war against a candidate like we’re seeing with Donald Trump. All elements of national media are uniting to stop him.

Look for a fake Trump scandal to break — probably from a conservative news outlet — right before the Iowa caucus.

 

POLONIUM IN THE TEAPOT

President Vladimir Putin probably approved a Russian intelligence operation to murder ex-KBG agent Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210, a British inquiry into the 2006 killing in London concluded.
Litvinenko, 43, an outspoken critic of Putin who fled Russia, died after drinking green tea laced with the rare radioactive isotope at London's Millennium Hotel.
 

MIGRANTS BURN CALAIS CAMP

Footage has emerged of the Calais Jungle looking like a scene from a dystopian movie: fires burn as far as the eye can see while migrants let off fireworks and yell “f- you!”

Two videos have been posted to Facebook by the French group ‘Calais Libre’ along with the comment “Here are the expelled migrants in action last night, and you can hear the pretty words that they use”.

According to the group, 300 migrants also attacked police on the local highway in the early hours of this morning.

 

HALF MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS OVERSTAY VISAS IN USA LAST YEAR

The Department of Homeland Security has issued a report that says 527,127 aliens illegally overstayed their visas last year, while 482,000 are believed to be still in the country. 

Last year there were 219 illegal overstays from Afghanistan, 681 from Iraq, 564 from Iran, 56 from Libya, 1,435 from Pakistan, 440 from Syria, and 219 from Yemen, according to the report. Many are still in the United States illegally.  The statistics also do not encompass land ports, meaning those numbers compiled from Latin American could be higher as result of these types of border crossings.

 

THEORY: NORTH KOREA TESTING IRAN'S NUCLEAR BOMBS

American Thinker:  We believe, based on comments made by two remarkable experts on this subject,  that Iran already has the bomb and is working on figuring out how to get it into a vehicle and send it our way. It will not, however deliver annihilation to any single city or cities in the conventional sense. That would be pointless, futile and suicidal. Instead, working together with North Korea, they will seek to take out our electric infrastructure and anything electronic via satellites they already have in space and others they’ll put up into space.

TRUDEAU: A DANDIPRAT VERSION OF THE FATUOUS NONENTITY OBAMA

Canada’s most attention-grabbing personality is the new Liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau, whom a swooning electorate has just elevated to the highest office in the land. Possessing no relevant business or political experience and no demonstrable leadership qualities apart from name recognition and good looks, he is a dandiprat version of the fatuous nonentity America elected to lead them into a condition of weakness and insolvency. Many in the U.S. are now suffering Obama remorse and reassessing their folly.   H/T SDA   

RECOMMENDATION FOR INDICTMENT OF HILLARY?

Just when we were thinking it couldn't get much worse with Hillary's email scandal, an inspector general's unclassified letter to lawmakers tells us the former secretary of state was keeping the most classified of all intelligence material -- beyond "top secret" -- on her homebrew server.
 So why was this public letter sent now?  Although this does not come directly from the FBI, my sense is that we are being prepared for the recommendation of an indictment, probably indictments -- and that they will come soon, in all likelihood before we get too far into the primary season, possibly even before Iowa.

THE MAIN PROBLEM IN THE MIDDLE EAST IS NOT ISIS

The long awakening of political Islam as the dominant form of popular politics in the Middle East started decades ago. But the eclipse of the political order in the region, and of the nationalist dictatorships in Iraq, Syria, Egypt (temporarily), Tunisia, and Yemen in recent years, has brought it to a new level of intensity.

States, indifferent to any norms and rules, using terror and subversion to advance their interests, jihadi armed groups, and the refugee crises and disorder that result from all this are the practical manifestations of it.

 

 

GERMAN CARTOONS FIGHTING MUSLIM RAPE CULTURE

So get this. Instead of stopping the flow of single, Muslim men, local authorities are printing little posters with do’s and don’ts for Muslim migrants. They’re using these at swimming pools, and at festivals and carnivals, where groups of women might gather, and migrants might start getting that taharrush feeling.

IRANIAN HOSTAGE HEADING HOME TO USA

Marine veteran Amir Hekmati said his years in the Corps helped him keep his head up as he endured four and a half years in captivity in Iran -- and, as he told reporters in Landstuhl, Germany, he had mentally resigned himself to a 10-year sentence on trumped-up espionage charges.

OBAMACARE DEATH SPIRAL

UnitedHealth’s bombshell raised the specter, once thought safely in the grave, of the “adverse selection death spiral,” the phenomenon where sick people are more likely to buy insurance, which raises the average expenditure, which means higher premiums, which makes insurance a worse deal for the healthiest members of your insurance pool, which means they drop out, which means your pool is even sicker and average expenditure goes up even more … and there goes the insurance market.

 

 

OIL SLUMP ROCKS MARKET AGAIN

World stocks sank to their lowest levels since 2013 on Wednesday, hit by another tumble in oil to 13-year lows that kept equity markets on track for one of their worst monthly performances ever.

PALIN ENDORSES TRUMP

"Well I am here because like you I know that it is now or never. I’m in it to win it because we believe in America and we love our freedom. And if you love your freedom, think of that—think of that and know that the United States military deserves a Commander-in-Chief who loves our country passionately and will never apologize for this country, a new Commander-in-Chief who will never leave our men behind, a new Commander-in-Chief—one who will never lie to the families of the fallen."

THE USELESS UN

UN Plan to Prevent "Violent Extremism" Ignores its Primary Cause

Meanwhile, Iran, Saudi Arabia and ISIS fuel Islamic Jihad.

  United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is operating from the same playbook as President Obama when it comes to addressing the threat of global jihad. They both deny that such a religiously-based threat exists. Just like Obama, Ban Ki-moon uses the euphemism “violent extremism,” without linking it to its primary ideological source - Islam.

 

THE OLD "CASH FLOW CRISIS"

A short statement from Goodwill's CEO Keiko Nakamura blamed the closing of the 80-year-old charitable organization “on a number of factors affecting the retail environment. Goodwill is facing a cash flow crisis."  Nakamura is the former head of Toronto Community Housing who was fired from the city agency in 2011 in the fallout from a spending scandal.  ”The charity lists one employee as earning between $200,000 and $250,000 and another with a salary range of $120,000 to $150,000.  Nothing to see here folks, move along.

CAN'T IMAGINE WHY....

Canada has not been invited to a meeting of defence ministers in Paris this week to discuss the fight against ISIL militants, media reports say.

ONLY IN CANADA

A stateless man and convicted drug and gun trafficker fighting deportation for years has once again been charged with a drug crime after he was arrested in an anti-gang raid, the Citizen has learned.

WYNNE'S LATEST NOSE-STRETCHER

Premier Kathleen Wynne says her government’s target to cut auto insurance rates by 15 per cent by last year was a “stretch goal.”  The Liberals promised to reduce car insurance premiums an average of 15 per cent by August 2015 as part of a deal to get NDP support for the 2013 budget when they were still a minority government.  But August came and went with the government’s target not even halfway met.

GAS PUMP TAXES @ 40%

Fraser Institute:  Canadians pay about twice the amount of tax on gasoline compared to Americans. On average, Canadians pay about 39 cents a litre in taxes. In other words, 40 per cent of the price that consumers pay at the pump is simply taxes. . By contrast, Americans pay on average just 18 cents a litre in taxes.

PROVINCE FORCES HOSPITALS TO CUT PARKING RATES

The Ontario government has ordered hospitals to reduce parking prices.

On Oct. 1 hospitals that charge more than $10 a day for parking will be required to provide five, 10 and 30-day passes to hospital visitors and patients that will have to meet certain requirements.

 

IRAN AS STABILIZING FACTOR IN MIDDLE EAST

Germany wants to work with Iran to help calm regional conflicts now that the Islamic Republic is emerging from international isolation and also prevent tension escalating with regional rival Saudi Arabia, Germany's foreign minister said on Tuesday.

A GROTESQUE & FLAGRANT CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Burnbrae Farms egg heiress brushes off ‘perception’ of conflict as new chief of staff to agriculture minister.  Mary Jean McFall is a member of one of the most powerful families in the country’s agricultural sector.  The appointment has at least one critic raising questions about whether it is appropriate for someone to run the minister’s office who is so deeply invested, and who benefits so greatly, from Canada’s current quota system for eggs.

BRITS BLOCKING BORDERS AGAINST DISSENTING VOICES

Pamela Geller: What’s bitterly ironic is that Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron, a lapdog of Islamic supremacists, has just called on immigrants to learn English within two-and-a-half years of arriving in Britain, or face deportation. If Trump had said that, the British left would be working up another petition denouncing him. Will Cameron be banned from the country?

The nation that gave the world the Magna Carta is dead.

 

FEMENISTS' SILENCE ON COLOGNE

 Now, I wonder why the Left wing feminists have refused to say anything about the New Year’s Eve sexual attacks in Cologne? Perhaps it’s because the attacks were committed by more than one thousand men of “Arabic or North African” appearance who were undoubtedly Muslim “refugees”? It’s just a hunch. I also have a sneaky suspicion that these same people would have been at the forefront of the condemnation if these attacks were committed by white, Christian, German men.

FIRST WE HAD CHANGE

Now we have a "hope" inspired song song by Sophie Gregoire Trudeau. Joe Clark applauds.

THE RELIABILITY OF SATELLITE TEMPERATURES

As visitors here know there’s a video titled “How reliable are satellite temperatures?” with the usual suspects giving their expert opinions. WUWT has the link to the video.

SO MUCH LOST AT THE STROKE OF A PEN

Obama missed a great opportunity to use the tremendous leverage a decade of intensifying sanctions had bought him, and insisted that Iran release the hostages in exchange for the nuclear agreement.

Instead, he showed the world that the United States has become a Banana Republic, where the rule of law is subjected to the whims of the Leader.

 

POSTMEDIA $650M IN DEBT

Postmedia’s newspapers are now competing in an online market increasingly dominated by Google, Facebook and Apple, companies with hundreds of billions of dollars in market capitalization that are building their own platforms to deliver news. So can the promised new initiatives turn the tide?  The challenge remains of finding a way to keep up journalistic quality while generating enough cash to pay creditors.

THE DEMISE OF AL JAZEERA AMERICA

Levant:  Where will "second-tier Canadian journalists" go now that Al Jazeera America is gone?  Normally I don’t express joy when a media organization shuts down, even one whose views I strongly disagree with.   But Al Jazeera is not a real journalistic organization. It is owned by the dictatorship of Qatar, an OPEC emirate.

INTEGRATIONISTS VS SEPARATISTS

What inspired me, what inspired so many of us about Martin Luther King, is that he was an integrationist.  He wanted the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners to "be able to sit down at the table of brotherhood."

The "Black Lives Matter" people are separatists.  They are not the sons and daughters of MLK.  They are the sons and daughters of Stokely Carmichael and, to some extent, even Huey P. Newton.  They are an unhappy reprisal of the Black Power movement that rose up just about the time I was in South Carolina.

 

RAMIFICATIONS OF US-IRAN PRISONER SWAP

A top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee warned that not only will the prisoner swap embolden Iran, but most of those released by Tehran's request will remain in the United States to potentially commit additional crimes on behalf of the Islamic Republic.  "Iran got something very important. They are now able to inspire their network of terrorists and their network of illegal military procurement folks. They are able to tell their people, look, even if you get caught, we will get out.

THE RISE OF ROBOTS

 Disruptive labor market changes, including the rise of robots and artificial intelligence, will result in a net loss of 5.1 million jobs over the next five years in 15 leading countries, according to an analysis published in Davos on Monday.  The "Future of Jobs" report concluded that jobs would be displaced in every industry, although the impact would vary considerably, with the biggest negative losses likely to be in healthcare, reflecting the rise of telemedicine, followed by energy and financial services.

SAUDI - IRANIAN POLITICAL RIVALRY ESCALATES

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi officials have said little in public, but they fear the end of sanctions on Iran could boost what they see as its subversive activities in the Middle East while also enriching a diverse economy that the oil-dependent kingdom views as a major competitor for regional influence.

IS THIS HOW EUROPE ENDS?

Merkel, facing trouble among her conservative supporters as much as from opponents, called Europe “vulnerable” and the fate of the euro “directly linked” to resolving the migration crisis — highlighting the risk of at the very least serious economic turbulence if not a formal dismantling of EU institutions. 

CZECH PRESIDENT RIGHT AGAIN

It is impossible for Muslims to integrate into Western Europe, the Czech President Milos Zeman told local television Sunday. Mr. Zeman also blamed the New Years Eve sex attacks in Cologne, Germany, on “Muslim culture”.

LAUGH

Don't be drinking anything while you listen to this.

TROUBLED TIMES, NOT BETTER DAYS, IN EUROPE

Steyn:  There was a low turnout for the Charlie Hebdo anniversary observances in Paris. It's hard for the dead to retain their cool, and, as someone said six months ago, like, been there, done that. You can't play "Imagine" every week, or it might not seem so special, might it? So, until the next atrocity, life in France has returned to normal.

DR SUES OVER UNPLANNED PARENTHOOD

When a man and a woman of a certain age have unprotected sex, there is always the possibility a baby will be made.   Such are the facts of life with which, one would assume, a doctor is familiar.   And yet a 42-year-old Toronto physician recently tried to sue a woman with whom he'd had a casual sexual relationship for more than $4 million in damages, claiming "non-pathological emotional harm of an unplanned parenthood."

EPA EYEING OTHER TARGETS

“No country’s put a plan that’s going to get them there.(goals discussed at COP21 talks)  So we have to keep looking. For EPA, it’s looking at how we push the envelope on heavy duty vehicles. It’s getting a Montreal Protocol amendment and doing continued work on looking at hydrofluorocarbons and moving those out of the system or reducing those so that the impact is not as large as it has been,” McCarthy said.  “We’re going to keep looking at methane, oil and gas, and looking at whatever opportunities in that sector are available to us to begin to explore this year,” she added

CRUZ CRUSHES THE NEW YORK TIMES

Andrew Klavan:  What I love about this is the fact that he took the time to point out what many people still may not fully comprehend: the mainstream media are arms of the Democrat party. They are not news sources in the strict sense of the word. They are tendentious instruments of harm to Republican candidates. There is never a reason for a true conservative to respond to the New York Times and its ilk as anything but enemies of himself, the people and the Constitution. No Republican can win unless he defeats not just the Democrat candidate, but also the news media who are their first line of defense.

FROM THE SUNSHINE & LOLLIPOPS PLANET

"Today marks the moment that the Iran nuclear agreement transitions from an ambitious set of promises on paper to measurable action in progress," he added. "Today, as a result of the actions taken since last July, the United States, our friends and allies in the Middle East, and the entire world are safer because the threat of a nuclear weapon has been reduced. Today we can confidently say that each of the pathways that Iran had toward enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon has been verifiably closed down."

WELFARE FOR BILLIONAIRES

In the Obama Administration’s latest welfare for Silicon Valley billionaires, the President intends to ask Congress for $4 billion in federal subsidies and nationalization of transportation safety regulations in an effort to speed the deployment of driverless cars.

"COMPLEXITY OF THE IMMIGRATION PROBLEM" MY ASS

Two Dutch film makers have been attacked in the infamous Calais Jungle camp by migrants wielding pepper spray and a knife. Members of the Calais Migrant Solidarity group have urged them to remove the clip from the Internet, stating menacingly: “You are not doing yourself a favour by putting it online as I think this is not what you came for to Calais…”

ONTARIO'S FUTURE BIOECONOMY

Freshly back from the Climate Conference in Paris OFA President Don McCabe is bubbling over with how we will move from fossil based carbon to plant based carbon. What is interesting also is the mandate that there will be NO policy barriers (farm or forest) to making that move.

HOW MUCH IS THE ORANGE JUICE?

The Liberals are partying like it is 1929. But, alas, their BFF the media party can only press their noses against the window pane and aren't invited.

AUSTRALIAN BANKS WON'T LEND TO GREEN PROJECTS

In my view, this tells us all we need to know, about the possibility that green energy will achieve grid parity with fossil fuels. The merest hint of a threat that green subsidies could be cut again, at an unspecified time in the future, seems to be enough to demolish confidence in green energy investment.

SOME RELIGIONS MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

This week, in Alberta our Education Minister, David Eggen, has mandated that schools - including Catholic schools - adopt the NDP's new LGBTQ guidelines by March.

Have you noticed that any time the media reports on a story about gender and sexuality, they can find their way to a Catholic church or the Archbishop's office?

I wonder why the media couldn’t find their way to Edmonton Islamic Academy?

 

 

LEGAL GUNOWNERS IN RCMP CROSSHAIRS

During the election, the Liberals promised to give unelected, unaccountable police, not politicians, the power to determine which firearms are allowed for public use in Canada.

That made the Mounties happy because they don’t like civilians owning guns and seem to do all they can to thwart law abiding gun owners.