Europe 2024: New Year, New War Zone

In response to the carnage, our leaders appear to agree on one thing: it’s best to lie.

As a child of the ’80s, I recall with great fondness the Christmases of my youth: full of stinging cold winters and reassuring fireside warmings up; snowball fights and tobogganing; turkey dinners and endless festivities. They provided the perfect segue into the new year, with its accompaniment of bonfires, piping hot jacket potatoes, and mesmerising firework displays. I don’t think it’s naïve to say I cannot recall a single violent episode, save for a very British exhibition of tutting one year, over the lack of queuing etiquette witnessed at the hotdog stand.

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Toronto leaders call on feds to investigate arson at Jewish-owned deli as a possible act of terrorism

Days after a Jewish-owned deli in North York was set on fire in a suspected hate crime, a Toronto deputy mayor and city councillor are calling on the federal government to investigate the incident as a possible act of terrorism.

“We’re trying to emphasize the need to treat what happened here last week as an incredible escalation of what’s happening in the city. An incredible tipping point,” Deputy Mayor Michael Colle said at a news conference Monday alongside Coun. James Pasternak, calling the arson an act of “hideous, targeted intimidation.”

Terrorism? So are 100 torched churches come to think of it. But the law is never applied equally in Canada.

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Muhammad Ashan Naseer who allegedly shot five in ‘random’ Toronto drive-by shouldn’t have got bail, judge rules

A Toronto man facing multiple counts of attempted murder for an alleged drive-by shooting in Scarborough is back in jail after a judge found that a justice of the peace was wrong to release him on bail pending his trial.

Superior Court Justice Llana Nakonechny ruled Friday that public confidence in the justice system “would be undermined” if Muhammad Ashan Naseer was allowed to remain out on bail. She also found that his release plan was weak.

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Calls mount for cops to enforce law on disruptive anti-Israel protests after coffee-delivery video

Video of Toronto police officers delivering coffee to anti-Israel protesters illegally occupying a major thoroughfare has intensified calls for cops to enforce the law on disruptive demonstrations.

Video posted online showed Toronto cops delivering a cardboard urn of Tim Hortons coffee to protesters occupying the Avenue Road bridge over Hwy. 401 on Saturday. The bridge has become a favourite of the anti-Israel demonstrators in recent weeks, and is located near some of Toronto’s largest Jewish neighbourhoods, which many have interpreted as an intimidation tactic against Jewish people.

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The case of the Indigo 11: How an act of vandalism became a flashpoint in Toronto

Did police overreach with charges that followed the pro-Palestinian protest against Heather Reisman? How the actions of the “Indigo 11” are being judged.

Under the cover of darkness, a group gathered in downtown Toronto with posters, paint and a plan.

The pro-Palestinian activists were there to make a splash — something that would visibly link an iconic Canadian business to the killing of thousands of civilians in the Gaza Strip.

They had picked a target long linked to support of Israel: Indigo and its CEO, Heather Reisman.

Related …

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Have we just discovered aliens?

It’s one of the greatest puzzles of the universe, and one that has vexed humanity ever since we first gazed at the stars and thought of other worlds. Is our Earth the sole place that harbours life, or might it be found elsewhere, among the trillions of planets, star systems and galaxies? As Arthur C. Clarke put it: ‘Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.’

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Freeland looks like she’s enjoying it …

She is despicable.

h/t Everyone

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Despotism Goes Global: Support for Hamas’s October atrocities flows from opposition to the West itself.

Like the Covid shutdowns and the riots of 2020 before them, the Hamas atrocities of October 7 revealed the ongoing moral and political catastrophe of the West. Hamas initiated a war against Israel that immediately turned into a war against Jews everywhere. That much was clear when its opening salvo—an orgy of rape, torture, murder, and kidnapping—received fervent support among leftists worldwide. From London to Sydney and points in between, the intifada, as Lee Smith observes, has gone global. 

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Former president of northern B.C. pride organization charged with committing child-sex crimes

The former president of a northern British Columbia pride organization has been arrested and charged with committing sex crimes against children under 16, according to the B.C. Prosecution Service.

The charges against Sean Gravells, 39, include touching a person under 16 for sexual purposes, sexual interference of a person under 16, possession of child pornography, and importing or distributing child pornography, BCPS spokesperson Dan McLaughlin told CBC News in an emailed statement on Monday.

h/t XC

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NYPD possess magic powers that allows them to arrest Hamas supporters!

NYPD possess magic powers that allows them to arrest Hamas supporters!

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How Biden Can Immediately End Iranian-backed Attacks in the Red Sea

If the Biden administration is really serious about tackling the threat posed by Iran-backed Houthi rebels to international shipping in the Red Sea, it needs to authorise the type of decisive military action that will deter the Iranian proxy from undertaking further attacks.

At a time when Iran is reluctant to provoke a direct confrontation with the US and its allies in response to the Gaza crisis, Tehran has instead opted to use its various proxies in the Middle East to do its dirty work.

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New rules to protect women from trans predators in prison ‘are even worse than before’

New Scottish transgender prison rules are “sexist” and will lead to vulnerable women being traumatised, MSPs have been warned.

Campaigners are calling on Holyrood politicians to block new guidelines, introduced in the wake of the Isla Bryson scandal, from coming into force, amid claims they are worse than the policy they replaced.

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) plans to allow even trans criminals with a history of violence against women to be housed in female jails if it is deemed there is “compelling” evidence that they do not pose “an unacceptable risk of harm”.

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