Back country sledding is great fun, but this year the event ended badly. Godspeed to the rescue crews.

Joe Settler’s suggestion:

And as we get closer to “Peace Talks”, Abbas and the PA raise their rhetoric, incitement, and violence.
Meanwhile it seems that Israel simply doesn’t know how to respond to these threats at all. I mean, not at all.
Well here is one idea.
Israel should announce a new policy of reciprocity.
Anytime the PA praises, awards or promotes a terrorist, a new outpost should be built.

Expelling the Jews from Gaza didn’t work. It can’t hurt to try something else.

Here’s Lubus Motls: Canadian Bastards reintroduce Visas:

A few TV programs on Czech TV stations that were aired after the Velvet Revolution and that showed happy gypsies in Canada – who don’t have to work too much but who have everything they want (it’s partly true because of the Canadian welfare system) – has created a special atmosphere in the community of the Czech gypsies. Many of them just decided to move on. Canada has become their new dreamland.
In average, this ethnic group is demonstrably less attached to the land, the culture, the political institutions, and the general economy than the “majority” white population. The minority’s unemployment rate is around 70%, an order of magnitude above the current 8% unemployment rate in Czechia (and it was lower a year ago). The crime rate is high.

Ten years ago, instead of introducing the visas, the Canadians placed some bureaucrats at the Prague International Airport who were doing the mostly racial profiling, to cap the inflow of the gypsies to Canada. This was of course a more convenient system for the “white” Czechs than the visa requirements. But it was a dirty system, too, especially if you combine it with the absurd Canadian proclamations about their treating everyone in the same way.

An interesting point of view, especially this little nugget:

Canada should understand – and publicly admit – that the high number of applications that follow a similar logic is mainly a result of their asylum system’s being too inviting and provoking people to profitably write similar stuff. The right solution is to adjust their asylum mechanisms so that the impact of this “loophole” is reduced (for example, by making the asylum applications of this kind more expensive, or by reducing welfare for fresh migrants).

This is the main point. There would be no reason to cause this diplomatic incident with a European ally if our refugee system could just reject these bogus claims out of hand. Since the end of communism the Czech republic has been a free and democratic country, not to mention an ally that fights with us in Afghanistan. Any claim to refugee status from a democratic European country is risible and should be dismissed with utter contempt. But our refugee system doesn’t do that – they actually grant many of these claims and the rest get dragged out for years.
That’s the part that should be fixed, not imposing visas on Czechs.

Before heading to the hospital, Pettengill carried the vase onto the temple grounds to the Enlightenment Stupa, a 36-foot-tall sacred structure. He walked clockwise around the stupa with the snake for about three minutes, offering “prayers for a higher rebirth,” Pettengill recalled.
Then, in a grassy area near a marsh, he turned over the vase and let the snake slither away.

I thought we’d be done with this sort of nuisance once the terrorist group they were supporting was decisively defeated, but no, the Tamils are back. With their flags.

Indeed:

On the Plains of Abraham the political fate of the northern part of North America was settled. Not the ethnic fate, the political fate. And it was settled in favour of democracy and toleration. The British government promised francophones “langue, loi et foi” and kept their word. Does anyone think a victorious enlarged New France would have respected the English language, Protestant religion, common law or for that matter self-government?
So what’s the problem? Are the Montcalmites sorry they missed their date with Robespierre and Madame Guillotine? Do they wish they had stood with Napoléon at Waterloo, and Napoléon III at Sedan? Quebec nationalists didn’t exactly rush to the colours when France was threatened in 1914 or needed rescuing after 1940. What’s wrong with British self-government, suppression of the slave trade and defeat of Hitler that you’d rather be part of, say, Vichy France?

Something that’s really not news – Guantánamo Meets Geneva Rules, Study Finds. Well of course it does. Sir Hopenchange has sprinkled it with his magic pixie dust, so everything’s kosher now.
This isn’t really news either: Bagram Detainees have no habeas rights. Of course not. Terrorists fighting out of uniform and violating all rules of war can be summarily executed and this would be perfectly within the rules of the Geneva conventions. Geneva conventions protect legitimate soldiers who follow the rules of war, not terrorists. And terrorists detained overseas certainly aren’t entitled to the rights of U.S. citizens.
And now that Bush isn’t president anymore maybe all can agree on that.

Slowly, we are starting to make an impression on politicians responsible for the kangaroo courts. It’s great to see some plain talk from a cabinet minister actually responsible for a provincial human rights commission. Here’s Alberta cabinet minister Lindsay Blackett:

It wasn’t about hurt feelings. The reason a lot of human rights commissions are disrespected across the country is because they’ve forgotten that.
We want the commission to be a quasi-judicial body that has some teeth, that has some credibility but doesn’t operate like a kangaroo court.

Bravo, Mr. Blackett. This is a step in the right direction, and by a man who is in a position to make a difference. Personally, I’d go further and abolish the commissions altogether, but reigning them in is a great step in the right direction.

France mobilized 35,000 police and 50,000 firefighters for the traditional new year’s eve Car-B-Q. And the evening was “rather calm without major incident”.
And about 1,147 cars were torched, which no longer qualifies as a major incident, apparently.

But I’m sure many would probably wish for this approach:

Riot police clubbed, kicked and detained dozens of people who gathered at a holiday celebration in Russia’s Far East Sunday as hundreds protested across the country over a hike in car import tariffs.
With domestic car production suffering, the government this month announced higher import tariffs on automobiles, prompting several protests.

If your customers don’t want to buy your cars, try clubbing them.