“Authoritarian leaders are the antichrists of our time.”
Left-wing Jesuit priest Thomas Reese has just accused former President Donald Trump of being a form of the “antichrist.” Ordinarily, Reese spouts opinions and ideas more inane than those held by the oft-caricatured tin-foil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorist but with a progressive bent almost comical in its extremity.
The Cybertruck is here. Finally. Maybe. Sort of.
Thursday was the “Cybertruck Delivery Event,” where they finally rolled off the production line and were handed over to waiting customers. Musk served as chaperone, host and speaker, and the event was a hype-fest for fanboys. As the presentation started, it was hard to tell whether some in the crowd were shouting “Elon” or “hallelujah” (I think the latter). He presented a polished marketing video, markedly sparse on specs, but promised that the Cybertruck was one of those rare products that change how we see the world; that it is “more truck than truck,” while also being “a better sports car than a sports car” and the best product Tesla had ever made.
Over the last month and a half, Jews around the world have gotten incredible clarity on the status of global antisemitism.
The view from Canada is chilling. Massive pro-Palestinian and even pro-Hamas protests feature thousands of furious people calling unequivocally for genocide – the extermination of Israel “from the river to the sea.”
NBC’s entertainment correspondent Chloe Melas intended to do a report on how people on both sides of Hollywood’s Israel-Hamas War debate are facing blowback for their opinions for Saturday’s edition of Today. However, what she actually ended up doing was lamenting that Hollywood’s anti-Semites are facing consequences for their actions by making false equivalency between Holocaust distortion and false accusations of genocide by Israel with Israel supporters comparing Hamas to ISIS.
Thirsting for a bit of good news in these bad times of war, Ukraine’s media headlined what it saw as a victory: The return to Kiev of a haul of artefacts from Crimea that had been on exhibit in European cities before Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014.
The return came after a ten-year legal battle in which Russia claimed that it should receive the artefacts because they were made before the 1950s when the then Soviet ruler Nikita Khrushchev “handed Crimea over to Ukraine.” Ukraine counter-argued that the artefacts were loaned to a Dutch museum before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s troops annexed Crimea.
Well, in every war even the tiniest bit of good news could help divert attention, even momentarily, from bigger bad news.
On the evening of November 25, three young men of Palestinian descent were accosted by Jason Eaton in Burlington Vermont and shot. All three men survived their wounds. Their attorneys and the mother of one of the victims claim that the shootings should be investigated as a hate crime.
You can tell the federal Liberals are desperate. They have entered full scaremonger mode in an effort to boost their crumbling poll numbers. If they can’t win voters over with their policies then, by George, they’re going to frighten them away from the Conservatives with extreme allegations.
ROME — Pope Francis sent a message Saturday to the COP28 United Nations climate summit decrying the “unbridled exploitation” of the environment by first world nations.
Climate change “greatly endangers all human beings,” the pontiff said in his sternly worded address, and “time is short” to react to the current ecological crisis.
Canada’s labor market is stronger than expected, but most weren’t expecting much. Today’s Statistics Canada (Stat Can) Labor Force Survey (LFS) update shows the economy added more jobs than expected in November. However, the data also revealed more laborers were added than work, boosting unemployment. The trend is seen continuing near-term, with recent immigrants bearing the brunt. Most were struggling to find the relevant work they were sold on at record low unemployment. It doesn’t get easier as competition rises for roles in a downturn.
We are a Banana Republic.
Police were “surrounded” by demonstrators and prevented from leaving after making two arrests at a pro-Palestine march in London, the Met Police said.
The force said it arrested one man for a racially aggravated public order offence in Windrush Square, Brixton, because of a placard he was carrying.
When police attempted to leave the area with him, protesters blocked their path before they were removed by other officers.
The Canada Border Services Agency has denied entry to dozens of senior Iranian regime officials and is investigating about 100 people with status in Canada for potential ties to Tehran.
The agency also has referred the cases of nine individuals with status in Canada to the Immigration and Refugee Board to determine their admissibility to Canada.
The denials at the border and the investigations stem from a measure the Liberal government adopted last year in the midst of widespread protests in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman. Amini died while in the custody of Iran’s “morality police.”
A US warship and multiple commercial vessels were attacked in the Red Sea on Sunday, the Pentagon said — a frightening development ratcheting up maritime tensions in the Middle East during the Israel-Hamas war.
The USS Carney — which previously shot down missiles and drones aimed at it as it escorted a commercial vessel through the war-torn region — was targeted along with at least two other commercial ships starting around 10 a.m. local time in an assault that lasted about five hours, the Pentagon and an unnamed US official said, according to The Associated Press. It was not immediately clear whether the American warship was struck.
h/t Mauser
Guy Felicella was 12 years old when he first tried drugs – sharing a joint with some buddies. Marijuana quickly led to LSD. LSD led to cocaine, which led to heroin. Harder drugs led to a harder life. He became involved with gangs. His rap sheet would eventually reflect the unrelenting hold narcotics had on him, one that thwarted many attempts to leave drugs behind.
His criminal record includes 55 convictions, all drug-related, all for possession for the purpose of selling or simply consuming himself. Including the time he spent in juvenile detention centres, Mr. Felicella figures he has spent seven to eight years of his life in jails of one sort or another.
It feeds into everything that’s been reported about Israel’s Arab neighbors and why they don’t want Palestinian refugees roaming wild in their country: they bring trouble. The late King Hussein had to declare war on them and successfully drove them out. The problem is the Palestinian Liberation Organization set up shop in Lebanon, where they caused problems for the government while also attacking Israel from the southern part of the country. Israel had to invade in 1982 and remained in Southern Lebanon until 2000. Egypt has closed its border with the Gaza Strip in Rafah due to terrorism concerns.
h/t X — Formerly IB_Joe
Large fissures are appearing in the “ Green Transition” story climate crusaders tell themselves. They are trying to foist it on a reluctant public and sceptical business world.
One recent such crack is the carve-out on carbon taxes for heating oil in the politically- fickle Atlantic provinces. Provincial premiers are trying to get the same treatment for other heating fuels.
Yet, politicians who still hew to the climate crisis orthodoxy remain unrepentant. Montreal ’ s city council has announced that all new buildings of three stories or less will not be permitted to use natural gas heating. Taller buildings would face the ban later. Several cities and states in the United States are also trying to restrict natural gas use. Their efforts seem desperate.
