Friday Post

The first post of the year.


Much of the country is in a deep freeze:

It appears Southern Ontario's weekend reprieve from harsh winter weather will be shorter than first expected.

Environment Canada issued a special weather statement late Friday afternoon that heavy snow is expected for the region on Sunday night, which will be followed by bitter cold and strong winds when kids go back to school Monday morning.

This is more bad news for residents in Toronto and surrounding areas who are still recovering from a Christmas Eve ice storm and bitterly cold temperatures over the past week.

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After first enduring a bitter deep freeze of the past couple of days, Atlantic Canada is now being hit by blizzard conditions caused by a major winter storm pushing in that's already caused major travel headaches throughout the US Northeast.

Wind chills across Nova Scotia dipped into the -30s throughout the day Thursday, forcing residents across the province to hunker down for the day or bundle up against the cold. However, conditions overnight turned far worse as Winter Storm Hercules (as the US's Weather Channel has dubbed it) swept in. This storm already dumped up to 60 cm of snow across parts of the U.S. Northeast, causing hundreds of flight cancellations and forcing the closure of major highways. Now combining with the frigid cold and powerful, gusting winds already affecting the Atlantic provinces, the storm has produced the first blizzard of 2014 for Canada's East Coast.

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Colder than the North Pole and even Mars, Winnipeg, Canada rang in the New Year at temperatures that dropped to a low of -37.9 C (-36.22 F).

 

Damn you, global warming! First, you trap environmentalists in ice they say is disappearing and now this! You won't rest until you have our blood, will you?!


One way to secure proper mental health is to provide jobs, ergo, purpose:

Several federal departments are working with local First Nations and the Ontario government on community health, social services and skills training. Health Canada has funded projects in nine First Nations communities to try to curb prescription drug abuse. There's also work underway to address mental-health issues and prevent suicides.

Addressing these social problems is necessary if First Nations are going to be involved in the Ring of Fire project, the document says.

"Physical and mental health are determinants for job and economic readiness," it says.

"Recognizing the impact that socio-economic challenges have on economic development, the government of Canada has prioritized the building of social infrastructure in these communities as a critical precursor to supporting their participation in the opportunities afforded by the Ring of Fire developments."

The Ring of Fire, located more than 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, Ont., is a treasure trove of minerals and contains the largest deposit of chromite — a key ingredient in stainless steel — ever discovered in North America.

Both the federal and provincial governments have high hopes for billions of dollars of investment in the Ring of Fire — development they hope will bring prosperity to struggling First Nations and royalties to their own coffers.

Federal and provincial ministers have compared the region to the Alberta oilsands in terms of its potential to produce wealth and development.

Health Canada didn't immediately make it clear how the situation developed where existing social programs might not meet growing needs.

Okay....

Any company willing to jump through the flamed bureaucratic hoops put up by band chiefs and the Ontario government must know there is a veritable pit of cash in this mine. Its not getting off the ground adds to yet another litany of misery (sometimes self-imposed) bogging down reservation-dwellers. The opportunity is there and, with it, hope for a better life. This is a no-brainer. Either the company can get itself set up with minimal interference or the powers that be can start compiling more statistics of people who either won't take an opportunity or must watch it dwindle away.


As of the first of this new year, one cannot purchase incandescent bulbs but must instead buy light bulbs made in China and made with mercury which can cause various neurological impairments.

You can thank your government.


Kim Jong-Un, the third in the mad dynastic line of North Korea's communist dictators, alleges he executed his uncle by literally throwing him to the dogs:

Unlike previous executions of political prisoners which were carried out by firing squads with machine guns, the Hong Kong Wen Wei Po reports Jang Song Thaek was stripped naked and thrown into a cage, along with his five closest aides.

"Then 120 hounds, starved for three days, were allowed to prey on them until they were completely eaten up. This is called "quan jue", or execution by dogs," the article reads. ...

Unlike previous executions of political prisoners which were carried out by firing squads with machine guns, the Hong Kong Wen Wei Po reports Jang Song Thaek was stripped naked and thrown into a cage, along with his five closest aides.

"Then 120 hounds, starved for three days, were allowed to prey on them until they were completely eaten up. This is called "quan jue", or execution by dogs," the article reads.

Doubtful, I think. It's more than likely he shot his scheming uncle and then fed him to the dogs.

But anything can happen.


I wish he wouldn't do this:

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz vowed months ago to renounce his Canadian citizenship. It's now 2014, and the Calgary-born Republican lawmaker is still a dual citizen.

"I have retained counsel that is preparing the paperwork to renounce the citizenship," the junior Texas senator, who's eyeing a run for president in 2016, said in a recent interview with the Dallas Morning News.

He didn't dispute holding dual citizenship: "Not at this point," Cruz told the paper.

If not President Cruz, then Prime Minister Cruz.


Qaplah!

North Carolina politician has chosen a memorable way to step down from his Town Council seat, an event notable less for what he said than for how he said it: The resignation was submitted in Klingon. ...

In order to make it accessible to those not fluent in Klingon, he included a translation of the resignation. It read:

"Teach (the) city (the) constitution / I will return next time to (witness) victory. / Resignation occurs in 2014 the 31st of January. Perhaps today is a good day (to) resign."

Alvarez, however, wasn't amused, the paper said. "It's an embarrassment for Indian Trail, and it's an embarrassment for North Carolina," the town's mayor was quoted as saying.

Waddell did post a lengthier, non-Klingon explanation on his Facebook page detailing why he was leaving the council.

"The past year on the Indian Trail Town Council was filled with more deception, conflict of interest issues, being left in the dark on what’s going on, crony capitalism, runaway development and requests for public information being refused or stonewalled for months," he wrote.

His seat, the Observer reported, was set to end in December 2015. His last day in office will be at the end of this month.

Waddell doesn't appear entirely finished yet with elected office though. In the longer letter he wrote, he said he's going to make a bid for the U.S. Senate as a write-in candidate with the Constitution Party. It isn't known how many members of the nation's Senate speak Klingon.