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This seems like a totally reasonable fatwa to me

A married man who believes his wife to be ugly may take cannabis before having sexual relations with her, according to a new fatwa from a Salafi Moroccan imam...

It's not like we don't have the same tradition over here.

Which reminds me of an old joke:

A guy is sitting at a bar. He's had a couple of drinks and the bartender asks him if he wants another.

The man at the bar takes out his wallet, opens it, closes it, then says, "Yeah, I'll have another."

After that drink is finished, and the bartender asks him if he wants a refill, the man goes through the same process of first opening and looking at his wallet.

After this goes on a few times, the bartender finally asks, "Why do you keep looking at the inside flap of your wallet every time I ask you if you want another drink?"

The man answers: "I've got a picture of my wife inside. When she starts to look good, I know I've had enough."

11-year-old rape victim who was denied an abortion gives birth in Paraguay

An 11-year-old girl who was denied an abortion after being raped gave birth Thursday, the culmination of a case that put a spotlight on child rape in this poor South American nation and drew criticism from human rights groups.

Elizabeth Torales, a lawyer for the girl's mother, told The Associated Press that the minor gave birth to a baby girl via cesarean in a Red Cross hospital in Asuncion, Paraguay's capital. She said reported there were no complications and both the mother and baby were resting.

"The baby doesn't yet have a name," said Torales, who added that her client and the girl's grandmother had requested custody of the infant.

Hospital director Mario Villalba told reporters outside the hospital that the birth took about 35 minutes. She said the girl would remain in the hospital for three or four days, "like any other patient who has had a cesarean." She said the minor was currently accompanied by her grandmother, but declined to give more details.

The girl was allegedly raped and impregnated by her stepfather when she was 10. The stepfather has been arrested and is awaiting trial. The girl's mother has been charged with negligence...

A new Toronto Zanta sighting!

Coming home from St. Lawrence Market a couple of weeks ago, I heard lots of honking and observed some disruption at the corner of Yonge and Gould Streets in downtown Toronto.

Blocking traffic was a familiar figure doing push-ups in the middle of the northbound lane of Yonge Street.

It was Zanta!

Zanta had disappeared for a while, but he he was a fixture in the city for years, ubiquitously appearing in public, shirtless and wearing his all-season Santa hat, while raving and purposelessly performing push-ups.

Then he disappeared.

And now, he's back.

American Campus Idiocy Update

Is it any wonder we're producing a generation of idiots? North American Universities are staffed by imbeciles. Here are some of the latest travesties:

...(UC Santa Barbara) maintains a website, SexInfo Online, apparently curated by students. These students “have studied advanced topics in human sexuality,” according to the website—a depressing state of affairs, given how uninformed the website is. A webpage, “Different Types of Sexual Assault,” asserts that sexual assault is a “continuum” of behaviors so broad it is virtually certain that all women will be assaulted at some point—not just on campus, but everywhere. According to the website:

Sexual assault includes any unwanted sexual contact, be it verbal, visual, or physical.  It is a continuum rather than a single type of behavior with a set definition.  When one examines the sexual assault continuum, it can be assumed that every woman will experience some form of sexual assault.  The following list contains the terms and definitions that make up the sexual assault continuum in alphabetical order.  However, the sexual assault continuum is not necessarily limited to this list.

and:

A University of Kansas student was expelled for calling his ex-girlfriend a “psycho bitch” on Twitter. The tweet, which did not mention the woman by the name—and was not visible to her—is disallowed under Title IX, KU has argued.

The matter is now before the Kansas Court of Appeals. Both the American Civil Liberties Union and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education have filed briefs in support of the former student...

And in one of the most stunning examples of University administration idiocy you'll ever see:

It was supposed to be a stunt to point out the silliness of banning unwanted activity by decree, but a college conservative group in Oregon was stunned at the reason school officials killed their proposed “murder free zone.”

Portland State University’s College Republicans chapter sought permission to set up a table on campus to generate support for the idea, but school officials said their effort could promote violence against them. Now the group and First Amendment advocates say it is school officials who need to study up – on the Constitution.

“In the murder-free zone we were looking to create, nobody will be killed with guns, knives, sticks, or anything of the sort,” said Christian Britschgi, political director of Oregon’s College Republican Federation chapter....

Catching up with Robert Vaughn, the original man from U.N.C.L.E

If you’re under the age of 50, it’s possible you aren’t even aware that Guy Ritchie’s new Cold War spy thriller The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is another Hollywood reboot. Henry Cavill plays Napoleon Solo, a Mad Men-era secret agent who becomes reluctant partners with Armie Hammer’s Soviet superspy after a rogue organization threatens the world with a live nuke.

But Robert Vaughn was the original Napoleon Solo, an American 007 in the age of Kennedy. For four seasons beginning in 1964, he teamed with David McCallum’s Ilya Kuryakin and helped the secret United Network Command for Law and Enforcement organization thwart evildoers named with Bond-like acronymns like T.H.R.U.S.H. Riding the wave of Bond mania, the show became an instant hit for NBC before flaming out nearly as quickly, but it left a mark on the culture — and certainly on Vaughn’s career. Now 82, Vaughn had been nominated for an Oscar in The Young Philadelphians and appeared in The Magnificent Seven, but playing Solo made him a household name. He would go on to a steady career, with popular highlights that included reuniting with hisMagnificent Seven costar Steve McQueen in Bullitt and playing the villainous corporate titan in Superman III.

If you think the new U.N.C.L.E. gives off the vibe of a more playful Bond film — one of the Roger Moore’s installments, perhaps — well, you’re right. And Vaughn, who recently appeared in an episode ofLaw & Order: Special Victims Unit, explains that the original show was conceived in much the same way, with Ian Fleming’s blessing. Fifty years later, the proud grandfather is still plenty pleased with his days as an international man of mystery...

Despite their Quiet, Gulf States Remain Uneasy about Iran Deal

The Obama administration insists that “99% of the world” supports the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal with Iran, maintaining that Israel is the only government in the world that has expressed opposition to the agreement. This weekend, however, President Obama appeared to walk back that statement, conceding that several other U.S. partners in the region are privately uneasy about the agreement’s terms...

Kathleen Wynne doubles down on pension plan that will cost TBD and solve (insert)

On Tuesday morning, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne stood in front of a group of reporters as they asked her questions about the new provincial pension plan, to be rolled out in phases between 2017 and 2020. The premier had just delivered a near 20-minute monologue about the accolades of the new program, despite the fact that many of the specifics will surely depend on who forms the new federal government after the October election. Indeed, it probably would have made more sense to give an update in the fall, but why put off until tomorrow when you can remind Ontarians that Stephen Harper is “standing in the way” of comfortable retirement today?

Tuesday marked the first time Wynne clarified some of the exemption rules of the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan (ORPP), which the Liberals campaigned on during last year’s provincial election. As of 2017, companies with more than 500 employees will be required to start contributing to the plan, unless they already offer comparable mandatory defined benefit or contribution pension plans. Those without will be required to contribute 1.9 per cent of each employee’s salary up to $90,000, which combined with an equal contribution from employees will mean a total of 3.8 per cent. According to briefing documents, those earning $45,000 would contribute $2.16 per day to the plan, whereas an employee earning the maximum amount — $90,000 —would contribute $4.50 per day. By the time the program is fully implemented to include all employers by 2020, the government expects 3.5 million Ontarians will be covered by the ORRP.

Naturally, the briefing left some questions unanswered: How will the ORPP incorporate self-employed Ontarians? Would the Ontario government scrap the program if the federal government expands CPP? And what will be the administrative costs of rolling out the program?

The answer, in each case, was essentially a shrug...

Tony Blair: "Even if you hate me, please don’t take Labour over the cliff edge"

The Labour party is in danger more mortal today than at any point in the over 100 years of its existence. I say this as someone who led the party for 13 years and has been a member for more than 40. The leadership electionhas turned into something far more significant than who is the next leader. It is now about whether Labour remains a party of government.

Governments can change a country. Protest movements simply agitate against those who govern. Labour in government changed this country. I don’t just mean the minimum wage, civil partnerships, massive investment in public services, lifting millions out of poverty, or peace in Northern Ireland. I mean we changed the nation’s zeitgeist. We forced change on the Tories. We gave a voice to those who previously had none. We led and shaped the public discourse. And, yes, governments do things people don’t like, and in time they lose power. That is the nature of democracy.

But in a thousand ways, small or large, which anyone in government can describe, being in power can make a difference to those we represent. The reality is that in the last three months the Labour party has been changed. Its membership has virtually doubled. Some will have joined in shock at the election result; many more are now joining specifically to support the Jeremy Corbyn campaign; some with heavy organisation behind them. These last two groups are not many in number, relative to the population. But, relative to the membership of a political party, they’re easily big enough to mount a partial takeover. The truth is they don’t really think it matters whether Labour wins an election or not. Some actually disdain government.

So this is directed to longstanding members and those who have joined but without an agenda. They’re still a majority and they have to exercise leadership now to save the party. It doesn’t matter whether you’re on the left, right or centre of the party, whether you used to support me or hate me. But please understand the danger we are in. 

The party is walking eyes shut, arms outstretched, over the cliff’s edge to the jagged rocks below...

Obama intervenes on behalf of terrorists, pitting State Dept against Justice Dept

The Obama administration, citing the potential for economic and political harm to the Palestinian Authority and the broader peace process, asked a judge on Monday to “carefully consider” the size of the bond he requires for the authority to appeal a huge damages award for its role in six terrorist attacks in Israel that killed and injured Americans.

The Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization were found liable in the attacks after a lengthy civil trial in Manhattan that ended in February. The antiterrorism law under which the case was brought provided for the tripling of the jury’s award of $218.5 million, leading to a total of $655.5 million.

The plaintiffs included 10 families, comprising about three dozen members, eight of whom suffered physical injuries in the attacks, which occurred from 2002 to 2004.
Defense lawyers had argued that the Palestinian Authority could not afford to post the appeal bond, which they said was typically 111 percent of the judgment, and asked that the judge waive the bond requirement altogether.

The plaintiffs sharply opposed the request, and late Monday night the administration took the unusual step of filing a formal “Statement of Interest of the United States of America” with the judge, George B. Daniels of Federal District Court, with the government’s view on the matter.

“The United States strongly supports the rights of victims of terrorism to vindicate their interests in federal court and to receive just compensation for their injuries,” the Justice Department said in the document.

The filing also included a declaration by Antony J. Blinken, the deputy secretary of state, elaborating on the government’s concerns about the impact of requiring a high bond. Depriving the Palestinian Authority of “a significant portion of its revenues would likely severely compromise the P.A.’s ability to operate as a governmental authority,” he wrote.

“A P.A. insolvency and collapse would harm current and future U.S.-led efforts to achieve a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he added.
The declaration also included a strong endorsement of the rights of terror victims to seek and receive “just compensation” from terrorists and sponsors of terrorism, and said the government was not taking a position on the merits of the case, only the impact of the bond.

The case has been a source of tremendous friction between the State Department and the Justice Department, according to federal officials involved in the discussions...

If you're a woman mad at "pick-up guru" Roosh V's misogyny, telling him "eat my c%nt!" may not be the wisest choice of words

Some strange American "pick-up guru," which of itself is a remarkably sleazy concept, has created an idiotic distraction in Canada this week.

Canada has its own domestic creeps and oddballs selling "seduction skills," such as the so-called Dimitri the Lover, who profit from the incredibly insecure and gullible.  Mostly they go unnoticed.

However an online petition generated media attention leading to statements by Toronto's mayor John Tory announcing that one of these characters, who goes by the moniker Roosh V, is not welcome in Canada's most populous metropolis.

Roosh V. is particularly controversial in that he has sarcastically advocated that rape should be made legal on private property. Whether he is serious about all he says or it's all a form of bizarre performance art is unknown. What is known is that thanks to the activists and politicians who are so upset about Roosh V coming to Canada, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of free publicity has been generated  for what otherwise would have been a barely-noticed oddity.

A few days ago, Roosh V was spotted at a bar in Montreal, where he was confronted by an angry mob who threw drinks on him and chased him down a street. In a rather absurd paradox, one of the furious females hurling invective at Roosh V, enraged at his sexualization of women, yelled at him, "eat my cunt!"

I would imagine that's the sort of result Roosh V would see as proof that his techniques work.

The Iran deal will unchain top ayatollah’s terror slush fund

Hundreds of bad actors are set to be expunged from the US Treasury’s sanctions list as a result of the Iran nuclear deal signed last month in Vienna. Yet the most high-profile among them has gone strangely unnoticed: the country’s dictator since 1989, Ali Khamenei.

According to the deal, within six to 12 months, Treasury will de-list more than three dozen banks, oil companies and other investments belonging to the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order, a k a EIKO. Reportedly worth more than $95 billion, EIKO is controlled by the supreme leader.

EIKO was founded with the mandate of confiscating property from individuals linked to the shah’s system after the Islamic revolution of 1979.

Khamenei broadened the mandate in 1991 to confiscate property from dissidents, too. EIKO officials have included some of Iran’s worst human-rights abusers...

Linda McQuaig and the media’s blind spot for left-wing extremism

Media-types push the flattering narrative that Canadians are an inherently moderate people repulsed by extremes on “either side.”  Yet the comparatively scant revulsion the press encourages towards the bozo eruptions of the far-left suggests the real phenomenon is a journalistic class prone to assuming their personal bugaboos regarding Christian fundamentalists and the like are more widely shared than they actually are.

Linda McQuaig, the NDP candidate in Toronto Centre, is the Platonic ideal of a left-wing extremist.  She has written several cranky books decrying free-market capitalism (the economic system this country uses, for those keeping track) and has likened it to slavery on more than one occasion.  Of “Israeli Apartheid Week,” the invented campus holiday for airing grievances against the Jewish state that range from nuttily conspiratorial to openly anti-Semitic, she’s said “there’s nothing odious.”  There’s a photo of her shaking the hand of Venezuelan despot Hugo Chavez with an enormous grin on her face, and she praised him lavishly when he died.  She believes Canada broke international law by overthrowing the Taliban in Afghanistan, and of Canadian-American relations once quipped “we are not dealing with a best friend” but hungry imperialists who crave our conquest.

The Conservative Party deserves criticism for not making this woman a household name, but the media equally so.  After all, if we are to believe the press holds moral obligation to spotlight deviant politicians that threaten Canadian normalcy, then surely McQuaig deserves a sound shaming...

See also:   NDP Toronto-Centre Candidate Donates To Violent Anarchist Group

City of Toronto blows almost a million dollars on idiotic study saying we need more corrupt politicians

Okay, they didn't use the word "corrupt" in the study, but considering what we have in Toronto, it should be inferred.

President Obama's Iran Deal Nuclear Meltdown

WHEN SEN. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) decided he would vote against President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, he explained his reasoning in a 1,700-word essay. On balance, he concluded, “the very real risk that Iran will not moderate and will, instead, use the agreement to pursue its nefarious goals is too great.” We disagree with that conclusion, but not with serene confidence; we share the senator’s concern that Iran will use the lifting of sanctions to intensify its toxic behavior in the region. We understand and respect Mr. Schumer’s decision; also, it’s generally better to treat policy disagreements in good faith.

That has not been the spirit in which Mr. Obama and his team have met his Iran-deal critics. The president has countered them with certitude and ad hominem attacks, the combined import of which is that there are no alternatives to his policy, that support for the deal is an obvious call and that nearly anyone who suggests otherwise is motivated by politics or ideology. Mr. Obama’s rhetoric reached its low point when he observed that the deal’s opponents value war over diplomacy and that Iranian extremists were “making common cause with the Republican caucus.”...

Obama Signed Off on Iran’s Right to Nuclear Program in Secret 2011 Talks

President Barack Obama approved of Iran’s right to operate a nuclear program in 2011 during secret meetings with Iranian officials, according to new disclosures by Iran’s Supreme Leader.

The comments, made earlier this year by Ali Khamenei, dispute claims by the Obama administration that it only began talking to Iran after the election of President Hassan Rouhani.

Khamenei revealed in a recent speech that talks began in secret with anti-Semitic, Holocaust denying former President Mahmoud Ahmadenejad. At this time, Obama told the Iranians he endorses Iran’s right to have a nuclear program.

“The issue of negotiating with the Americans is related to the term of the previous [Ahmadinejad] government, and to the dispatching of a mediator to Tehran to request talks,” Khamenei said in a recent speech translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)...

Murdering Jewish children is for Allah, according to the Palestinian Authority

...On March 11, 2011, five members of the Fogel family were killed in their home by Palestinian terrorists from the Awad family. Hakim Awad led the attack, killing the parents, Ehud and Ruth, and three of their children, aged 11, four and two months.

From the day Awad was arrested the PA rewarded him with a monthly salary, which eventually will reach $3,000 a month, four times the average Palestinian civil servant’s salary. Official PA TV then invited his mother and aunt to talk on the PA TV program dedicated to honoring and sending greetings to imprisoned terrorists. They referred to Awad and his accomplices as “heroes” and Hakim Awad himself was called “the hero, the legend.” The PA TV host added: “We, for our part, also convey our greetings to them.”

Dalal Mughrabi led a terrorist attack in which 12 children and 25 adults were murdered in a bus hijacking. To teach Palestinian children the value it places on murdering a large number of Israeli children the PA has named dozens of places in her honor, including three schools, summer camps, sporting events, a town square and much more.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas himself funded a computer center named after her and sponsored a birthday party in her honor, as the banner shown on PA TV highlighted: “Under the auspices of President Mahmoud Abbas: The Political and National Education Authority Ceremony on the anniversary of the birth of the bride of the cosmos, The Martyr Dalal Mughrabi.”

On March 29, 2002, 17-year-old suicide bomber Ayyat Akhras murdered a 17-year-old Israeli girl named Rachel Levy. To make sure Palestinian children understand how valuable it is to murder Israeli teens, the PA placed a picture of Akhras over the door of the Artas High School for Girls near Bethlehem. The caption to the picture reads: “The Heroic Martyr.”

In May 2013, Palestinian Media Watch reported that official PA TV had honored three Palestinian terrorists responsible for many gruesome suicide bombings that in all claimed the lives of 156 Israeli civilians, including many children. The bombings included the Passover Seder bombing, killing 31; Sbarro restaurant bombing, 15 (eight children); Hebrew University, nine; Cafe Moment, 12; Cafe Hillel, seven; Zion Square in Jerusalem, 11.

PA TV responded the next week with outrage at PMW: “Palestinian Media Watch... slandered these heroes and claimed that they are terrorists... If they see Abdallah Barghouti [67 life sentences] as a terrorist, Abbas al-Sayid [35 life sentences] as a terrorist and Ibrahim Hamed [54 life sentences], if they see all these prisoners as terrorists – we see them as heroes... I salute you, all you heroic fighter prisoners, and of course, I always wish you freedom” (PA TV [Fatah], June 27, 2013)...

"A vote for this deal means more Iranian terrorism" - Iraq Vets Take On Obama Over Iran Deal

A group of Iraq war veterans is launching a million-dollar effort to oppose President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, trying to counter the president's argument that those who are against the deal are in favor of war.

Obama has said recently that there are only two camps: those who support the deal versus those who would prefer a bloody and costly war like the conflict in Iraq. The new ad campaign complicates that, asserting that the deal itself will lead to more war. And the voices putting forth that case do not prefer war; they are soldiers who have had enough of it.

The group, Veterans Against the Deal, was founded last month as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, and it does not disclose its donors. Its national campaign starts today, including television ads in states whose members of Congress are undecided on the Iran deal. Lawmakers will vote on it in September.

The first of the group’s videos features retired staff sergeant Robert Bartlett, who was badly injured by an Iranian bomb while serving in Iraq in 2005. “Every politician who is involved in this will be held accountable, they will have blood on their hands,” he says in the ad. “A vote for this deal means more money for Iranian terrorism. What do you think they are going to do when they get more money?”...

Janelle Monae in Toronto: Not since Bonaparte has a tiny powerhouse had a crowd of thousands so totally under command

She's a sexy CoverGirl model, which is of itself impressive for a five-foot tall woman. Beautiful as she is, Janelle Monae is no typical woman, The modern soul singer performed for a packed Nathan Phillips Square on Sunday night and not since Napoleon Bonaparte has a teeny, tiny powerhouse had a crowd of thousands so totally under command.

Some friends talked me into going to Janelle Monae's performance last night, and I'm glad they did. Some crappy local lead-up acts which should never have gotten beyond a high school talent show didn't create much optimism for the main event. Any pessimism about what was to come next was misplaced. Even the warm up moments for Monae, led by her own band's MC, kicked up the energy well above anything in the preceding hour.

Invoking Jazz great Cab Calloway's Minnie the Moocher, Monae had different sections of the throngs signing hidey hidey ho's as well as parts of her hit. Electric Lady. Reaching back to the 1960's, she belted out high-energy covers of The Jackson 5's I Want You Back, and James Brown's I Feel Good.

The onstage performance was as thoroughly compelling and included a very direct homage to Brown throughout the entire show. From the horn players twirling trombones before snatching them out of the air to blast chords, to the cape being draped on a kneeling Monae, to the dancing back-up babes, to the high-energy gyrations, to the band performing a resurrection of the lead singer who played dead, to her signature girl-pompadour hairstyle, it was like watching a successful audition for the role of the new Godmother of Soul.

Even if she couldn't sing a note, she's compelling and alluring. But capping the main performance off with her hit Tightrope and then an encore, Janelle Monae was more of a blast than the impressive fireworks that illuminated Toronto's City Hall when she was done.

Kelly McParland: Kathleen Wynne helps no one with her outbursts about Harper

...“If Stephen Harper had been the Prime Minister instead of Sir John A. Macdonald and B.C. had said ’well we need a railway,’ he would have said ‘well, you know, we’re not going to help you with that, build it yourself,”’ Wynne said while appearing with Bill Blair, the former Toronto police chief who is running as one of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal candidates in the October election.

This is an odd statement, considering the considerable efforts Ottawa has put into convincing Ontario to get behind Energy East, the transcontinental pipeline that would move crude from Alberta and Saskatchewan to Saint John. It’s a truly national project, it would work to the benefit of the country as a whole, would create jobs and expand domestic refining activity, and the provinces at the east and west ends of the pipeline are strongly in favour. It would unite an NDP government in Alberta with a Liberal government in New Brunswick, but is being held up by the Liberal governments in two provinces in the middle – Ontario and Quebec – which have no real skin in the game except for the fact the pipeline would cross through their territory. The Ontario leg already exists, in fact. TransCanada Corp., the builder, would simply reverse the direction of flow. Canada has been building pipelines for decades; there is no question of our expertise. There is no reason to hold up the project, in fact, but narrow provincial political gamesmanship, which is exactly what Wynne is practicing...