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| Lousy Smarch weather... |
Satellite images on a Chinese government website show suspected debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner floating off the southern tip of Vietnam, near the plane's original flight path, China's Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.Missing passports are connected to two Iranian men purportedly using them for entrance into Germany:
The revelation could provide searchers with a focus that has eluded them since the plane disappeared with 239 people aboard early Saturday.
The Xinhua report said the images from around 11 a.m. on Sunday appear to show "three suspected floating objects" of varying sizes, the largest about 24 metres (79 feet) by 22 metres (72 feet).
The report includes co-ordinates of a location in the sea off the southern tip of Vietnam and east of Malaysia. The images originally were posted on a national defence technology website.
No other governments have confirmed the Xinhua report, which did not say when Chinese officials became aware of the images and associated them with the missing plane.
Mr. Mehrdad and Mr. Delavar traveled from Tehran to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, using legitimate passports, Interpol says. But there, they booked tickets to travel to Beijing and from Beijing to Amsterdam and later to Germany. Authorities say the passports they used for those bookings were stolen in Thailand from an Italian and Austrian.
Both passports had been reported to the SLTD database and therefore would have shown up if a search had been made.
Countries’ reluctance to rely more fully on SLTD data means what happened on Flight 370 is a common occurrence. About 4 of every 10 international passengers are not screened using the SLTD database, Interpol says. The screening identifies people identified as war criminals, terrorists, and murderers, as well as listening stolen passports. There are currently more than 40 million entries, and these have resulted in more than 60,000 successful hits.
"A tragedy of the worst kind" happened thirteen years ago. Stop milking the drama, Kaiser Bill:
A massive explosion followed by a fire at a pair of apartment buildings in upper Manhattan on Wednesday has left two people dead and at least 36 injured, officials say. ...
"This is a tragedy of the worst kind," de Blasio said. "There was no indication in time to save people." ...
“I’ve never had anything this horrific that’s happened in my community since I’ve been in Washington,” Rep. Charles Rangel, who represents Harlem, told NBC's New York affiliate. “This is a very serious thing. It’s our community’s 9/11, even though we don’t know how it started."
Did every Democrat forget what happened in 2001? How is the tragedy of three dead and several others injured parallel with a planned terrorist attack that killed thousands and was met with slow and ineffective response?
Canada has ended its twelve year mission in Afghanistan, a troubled country where the Taliban still have lease.
Obama's alienation of its allies continues:
Bruce Heyman was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Wednesday as the next ambassador to Canada, six months after U.S. President Barack Obama nominated him for the job.
Obama, once indifferent to his northern neighbour, now has nothing but contempt for its natural resources and leader. Canada isn't Liechtenstein. It's a major trading partner. It's quite easy to believe that Obama is a moron incapable of speaking without a teleprompter but do consider that this is the same man who used the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre to push his failed gun legislation and would have gladly let the country he was elected to lead declare bankruptcy rather than set a budget and reduce debt.
He's a piece of crap, is my point.
(Sidebar: sorry, Liechtenstein. Friends?)
Did anyone tell the Koreans that the reason why Ontario has a diminished manufacturing sector is because of McGuinty and Wynne's unscrupulous deception, inexplicable reliance on "green" energy which not only doesn't work but is incredibly expensive and that unions are a form of mafia? I think we owe the Koreans the truth.
The president of the Canadian Labour Congress says the trade deal with South Korea signed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper on March 11 was negotiated behind closed doors and that it could further hollow out Canada's industrial sector.
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| The more people stall on this deal, the less time we have to construct a much-needed Robot Taekwon V to fight our future wars. |
Olivia Chow, widow of champagne socialist Jack Layton (with whom she lived in housing meant for low-income families), has resigned as NDP MP for Trinity-Spadina and declared that she will run for mayor of Toronto:
Olivia Chow resigned her seat in Parliament on Wednesday to launch her bid to replace Rob Ford as mayor of the country's largest city.
The long-time New Democrat MP and former city councillor made her entry into the mayoralty race official by filing her nomination papers hours after submitting her resignation as MP to the Speaker of the House of Commons.
She wouldn't be the first woman with a famous dead husband.
Go ahead and leave, Quebec, and take your debt with you:
Interestingly, one thing the separatists in that province often seem to disregard is how an independent Quebec might fare with regard to its finances.
A series of Fraser Institute reports this week is shedding some light on that.
The studies collectively titled "The State of Quebec Indebtedness" claim that the province owes $175.5 billion (as of 2012-13), representing 49 per cent of Quebec’s GDP and the highest level of debt in the country.
"The failure of successive Quebec governments to control spending has added significantly to the province’s debt load and today saddles Quebec taxpayers with more than $9 billion in interest payments," Filip Palda, Fraser Institute senior fellow and professor at the École nationale d'administration publique, noted in a press release accompanying the study.
"That’s money unavailable for health care, education or other social services."
The pro free-market think-tank also compared Quebec's indebtedness to other jurisdictions in North America. Not surprisingly, they don't fair very well: When compared to the 24 benchmark states in the United States, including New York, they finish dead last.
And, the 'story' gets worse.
It's widely assumed that, if Quebec does separate, they would have to take on their share of the federal debt. According to the Fraser Institute, that share is estimated at $121.2 billion.
"Combining Quebec's estimated share of federal net direct debt with the provincial amount ($175.5 billion) results in a total federal-provincial net direct debt of $296.7 billion which equals 82.9 per cent of provincial GDP," notes the report.
82.9 per cent?
That would put Quebec in the upper-echelon of indebted 'countries' in the world.
And finally, on the revenue side, an independent Quebec wouldn't have the luxury of federal equalization payments.
Ugh:
A mother who left her young children at home alone in a filthy apartment while she went drinking has been sentenced to one year of house arrest.
Court heard the two kids were locked, naked, in separate rooms in November 2012.
Officers who went to the Winnipeg suite said it was covered in dog and cat feces and was infested with bedbugs and flies from a stack of dirty dishes.
An anonymous tip led police to the children, who remain in foster care.
The woman, who pleaded guilty to child abandonment, is also to serve a year of probation with a long list of conditions. ...
Defence lawyer Ian McNaught said the woman was young and had limited education.
Thomas outlined how Child and Family Services got an anonymous tip about the unsupervised kids and called police. Security let officers into the suite.
The children, one of whom is disabled, were checked out at the Winnipeg Children's Hospital. One was found to be anemic and the other had bedbug bites.
Thomas told the judge that the woman got word that police were at her home and went back to the suite.
When police told her to stay away from the children, she returned to the bar.
That showed the woman's "absolute callous disregard for the welfare of her children,'' Thomas said.
The Crown acknowledged that the woman had made efforts to address her issues in the hope of getting her children back some day.
McNaught argued that the "naive and impressionable'' mom wasn't being callous by returning to the bar.
"She couldn't see the kids. She had nowhere else to go,'' the defence lawyer said.
"She didn't want to be in the house in the state that it was in, so she went back to the bar.''
McNaught agreed that it was a "stupid decision'' to go out that night, but he said the woman was nearing "the end of her rope'' caring for the kids and needed a break. She made efforts to find a babysitter but that fell through, he added.
When are we going to elect our judges? When are we going to get better lawyers? The "mother" is a total write-off.
Remember- Israel is the bad guy here:
Militants in the Gaza Strip fired dozens of rockets Wednesday into southern Israel, sending civilians rushing into bomb shelters but causing no casualties. The Israeli military said it was the largest rocket barrage since 2012, when it launched an eight-day air campaign in Gaza it said was aimed at stopping the attacks.
Don't use the word "bossy". Broads don't like it:
Is bossy a bad word? Celebrities are joining the Ban Bossy campaign to encourage girls to take on leadership roles.
If this sort of infantilism is what gains purchase in the post-modern world then we have no right to be surprised at how stupid people have become. Banning any word, particularly one that means "dictatorial" (someone one hopes a boss would not be), doesn't remove its existence nor does it change its meaning. The English language is bigger than any one person, especially a self-important celebrity who sips soy milk lattes between useless pontifications.
Stop being so bossy.
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| Lucy Van Pelt: people call her the Boss or feel the wrath of her iron fist. |
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