On a Monday

A zoo worker was savagely attacked by a lion in Quebec:

A worker at the Granby Zoo in Quebec is being treated for serious injuries, including cuts to the lower body and a cervical fracture, after being mauled by a lion.

Paul Gosselin, the director of the zoo, located about 80 kilometres east of Montreal, said the woman was alone with the animal when the attack happened. 

The attack has at least one expert questioning whether the zoo properly followed standard safety protocols for zoos.

The woman, in her early 20s, was bitten in the back while preparing the lion's food early Monday morning, Gosselin said.

Another zookeeper used carbon dioxide and a high-pressure water hose to separate the lion from the worker. 

"We're still in shock about what happened," Gossellin told a news conference.

Never turn one's back on a predatory feline.




At least seventy people have been killed by a suicide bomber in Pakistan:

Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in Pakistan that killed at least 70 people and wounded more than a hundred on Monday in an attack on mourners gathered at a hospital in Quetta, the group's Amaq news agency reported.

"A martyr from the Islamic State detonated his explosive belt at a gathering of justice ministry employees and Pakistani policemen in the city of Quetta," Amaq said.

The Pakistani Taliban faction Jamaat-ur-Ahrar has also claimed responsibility for the attack.

(Sidebar: well, you both can't claim responsibility.)

The useless barbarian who did this chose a hospital to exhibit how wonderful his vile ideology is.

It's time to let India do what it must to Pakistan.




It's time for a new pan-Asian alliance:

Tokyo lodged a protest with China on Saturday after spotting 230 Chinese vessels swarming waters near the Japan-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, an unusually large number, the Foreign Ministry said.

The roughly 230 fishing boats and six China Coast Guard vessels were confirmed in a contiguous zone near the uninhabited islets, which are also claimed by China.

The extended tragedy of the Sagamihara murders:

Thus there has been some controversy over the Kanagawa Prefectural Police’s decision to not disclose the names of the victims. Usually, the police always name murder victims, but, according to the Mainichi Shimbun, this time they decided not to since “the families feel that they don’t want the names released.”

There is only one way to interpret this one-off policy: Families of the victims don’t want the public to know that their loved ones have disabilities. On the surface, the move comes across as a means of protecting privacy, though it can also be seen as a way of keeping people with disabilities out of the public eye. ...

Takaaki Hattori, a professor of media studies, told the Sankei that the decision to disclose names is the job of the press, not the authorities. By not revealing the victims’ identities, the police are effectively denying that they ever existed. Yoshiro Ishihara, a Japanese prisoner of war in Siberia after World War II, once wrote that the most terrifying thing about genocide is the facelessness of the individual victims.

Uematsu, who admired Hitler, took this premise for granted when he wrote about his abominable project. If a person’s death has no special meaning, then their life didn’t either.

Ahmed Mohamed, who made a false bomb out a disassembled clock that he then put in a pencil case, who had a series of suspensions prior to his bomb hoax, whose sister was suspended for threatening to blow up her school, whose Islamist father removed the family from Texas to Qatar where they lived off of the Qatari riyal, is suing his former school:

The lawsuit filed Monday claims that Ahmed’s civil rights were violated in the incident that made the 9th grader go viral last September.

Being a little sh-- must a thing with his family.


Also:

August 6: Machete attack in Belgium –
A machete-wielding man shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) attacks two policewomen in Charleroi, southern Belgium, badly injuring one in the face before being shot dead by a third officer.
Investigators give the initials of the assailant as K.B., describing him as a 33-year-old Algerian who had been living in Belgium since 2012.

The following day, IS says the attacker acted “in response to (its) calls to target citizens” of countries in the US-led coalition bombing IS in Syria and Iraq.

– July 26: French priest killed –
Attackers slit an elderly priest’s throat in a hostage-taking at his church in the Normandy town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.

French President Francois Hollande says the two attackers, killed by police, claimed to be from IS, while the group says they were its “soldiers”.

– July 24: German suicide blast –
A failed Syrian asylum-seeker blows himself up outside a music festival in the German city of Ansbach, wounding 15 others. The Bavarian interior minister says the man “pledged allegiance” to IS, while the jihadist-linked Amaq news agency said he was a “soldier” of the group.

– July 18: German train attack –
A 17-year-old asylum-seeker, believed to have been Afghan or Pakistani, attacks passengers on a Bavarian train with an axe, injuring five people, two of them critically. He is shot dead by police.
IS releases a video the following day purportedly featuring the attacker announcing he would carry out an “operation” in Germany.

– July 14: Nice lorry attack –
Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian, rams a 19-tonne truck into people celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, killing 84 people and wounding more than 300.

IS said Bouhlel staged the attack “in response to calls to target nations of coalition states” fighting the jihadist group.

– June 28: Istanbul airport attack –
 A triple suicide attack at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport kills 47 people. Authorities blame IS, though there is no claim of responsibility.

– June 13: French police couple killed –
A man claiming allegiance to IS stabs a police officer to death before slitting his partner’s throat in front of their young son at their home in Magnanville, west of Paris.

– June 12: Orlando gay bar shooting –
A gunman claiming allegiance to IS opens fire inside a gay bar in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 people in the deadliest mass shooting in US history.

– March 22: Brussels attacks –
Suicide attacks claimed by IS kill 32 people and wound more than 340 at Brussels airport and Maelbeek metro station, near the European Union headquarters.

The attackers have links to the cell that carried out the November 2015 jihadist attacks in Paris.

– January 12: Tourists die in Istanbul –
Twelve German tourists are killed in a suicide attack in central Istanbul. On March 19, three Israeli tourists and an Iranian are killed by a suicide bomber at an Istanbul shopping centre. Turkish authorities attribute both attacks to IS.

– December 2, 2015: San Bernardino shooting –
Syed Farook and his Pakistani wife Tashfeen Malik open fire at a Christmas party in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 people. IS hails the attack, but does not claim direct responsibility.

– November 13, 2015: Paris attacks –
Coordinated suicide attacks in Paris kill 130 people and wound more than 350 at a concert hall, cafes and the national stadium. IS claims responsibility.

– October 31, 2015: Russian jet bombed –
An Airbus passenger jet owned by a Russian company crashes in the Sinai desert after a bomb rips a hole in the plane, killing all 224 people on board. IS claims responsibility.

– June 26, 2015: Tunisia beach attack –
Gunmen kill 38 people, including 30 British tourists, at a beach hotel in Sousse, a little more than three months after a similar attack at the Bardo museum in Tunis kills 22 people, including 21 foreign tourists. IS claims both attacks.

– January 7-8, 2015: Paris shootings –
Gunman Amedy Coulibaly, claiming allegiance to IS, kills a policewoman in a Paris suburb before attacking a Jewish supermarket the next day, where he kills four more people. He is killed in a police assault.

On January 7, the Al-Qaeda-linked Kouachi brothers had killed 12 people at the headquarters of the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly in Paris.

In case one lost count.




There should be a baseline of knowledge that every student must rise to. Otherwise, one would have Clinton or Trudeau voters crammed to the rafters. However, one should start with the teachers first:

As if the first day of school wasn’t stressful enough for parents, one Tennessee elementary school is causing a stir with a checklist sent out to parents of skills required for their child to be “ready” for kindergarten.

“I have failed my son for kindergarten,” wrote Reddit user Lucas Hatcher underneath an image of the checklist. His five year old son Jackson will be heading to the Hamilton County school this coming September and can currently do everything on the list — except “identify 30+ letters.”

The alphabet only has 26 letters.

Ah, so. 

Yep:

One pernicious effect of literacy has gone largely unnoticed: writing subliminally fosters a patriarchal outlook. Writing of any kind, but especially its alphabetic form, diminishes feminine values and with them, women’s power in the culture. […]

Literacy has promoted the subjugation of women by men throughout all but the very recent history of the West. Misogyny and patriarchy rise and fall with the fortunes of the alphabetic written word.

Social media is to idiots what honey is to flies:

South Korean gymnast Lee Eun-Ju and and North Korean gymnast Hong Un-Jong took a quick selfie yesterday during the women's gymnastics qualifying competition in Rio.

The photo was just an innocent snap between two world-class athletes, but it's causing quite a happy stir across social media.

 
North Korea is a Third World dictatorship that isolates its people and South Koreans do not want to pick up the economic cost of reunification.

And that is if one does not factor in what will happen to this girl and her family when she returns to North Korea:

Minbyun has demanded the right to interrogate the women — publicly, before the eyes of the North Korean authorities who hold their loved ones as hostages — about their intentions to defect. This would be in flagrant violation of a refugee’s absolute right to confidentiality, a right the U.N. High Commission for Refugees has long affirmed. When the judge correctly dismissed Minbyun’s petition, Minbyun demanded that the judge be removed from the case. Since then, an appellate court has refused to remove the judge.

(Kamsahamnida)


Also:

A priest who helped North Korean defectors flee their repressive homeland has been found dead in north-east China, with human rights activists suggesting that Pyongyang's security service may have had a hand in his death.

Chinese police have launched an investigation into the death of the priest, named as Han Choong-ryul, an ethnic Korean with Chinese citizenship.

Mr Han was a priest at Changbai Church, in China's Jilin Province, and well-known for assisting defectors after they had crossed the border.

Где любовь?

A highly specific poll put out Monday by Russia’s independent Levada Center said Russians are feeling less “delight” and “sympathy” for their iron-fisted leader — and more “indifferent” toward him — than they have in years.

As opposed to American polls — whether usually stick to simple approval or disapproval — the Levada poll asks Russians to assign emotional descriptors of their president.

The poll said only 8% of respondents now feel “delight” over Putin — a drop of 2% from last year, and his lowest delight rating since 2008.

Likewise, “sympathy” for Putin has fallen all the way to 29% — eight points down from last March, and his lowest score for sympathy points since 2013.

Meanwhile, 17% felt “neutral, indifferent” toward Putin — the biggest shrug Russians have given him since March 2013, when 22% felt that way.

Meanwhile, the majority of Russians — 31% — still say they “cannot say anything bad about him.” And Putin’s “disgust” rating remained unchanged from last year — 1%.

(Sidebar: something tells me that the last number is larger. How about it, Levada?)
 




And now, a baby panda: