Friday Post

Time for the week-end...


Someone (read: Putin) can't be happy about this:

Over Russia's objections, Ukraine's new president on Friday signed a free-trade deal binding his country more closely to Western Europe, sealing the very agreement that triggered the bloodshed and political convulsions of the past seven months.

Either the Ukrainians drive the wedge between themselves and Putin's iron grip or it can count itself as another impoverished neo-Russian state. It and Poland should have developed their shale gas that would have released it from energy dependence from Russia and possibly given other European countries a chance to do the same.


Meriam Ibrahim has finally been freed:

Ibrahim grew up Christian, but was charged with apostasy from Islam because her estranged father is Muslim. She was sentenced to 100 lashes and to hang. She was pregnant at the time of her sentencing. She was freed this week after a court canceled her sentence, and then rearrested as she tried to leave Sudan with her family. Her husband, Daniel Wani, is a US citizen.

The penalties for apostasy are part of Islamic sharia law. Her own family members turned her over to the government for prosecution. The US State Department says that it met with Sudanese officials and pressed for Ibrahim’s release, and that she be allowed to leave Sudan “as swiftly as possible.”

Apparently, a chunk of British Columbia belongs to six Indian bands:

The Supreme Court of Canada, in the most important aboriginal rights case in the nation’s history, ruled that the Tsilhqot’in First Nation has title – or owns – 1,750 square kilometres of land in south central B.C.

The landmark ruling will provide a clear and less onerous roadmap for all unresolved land claims in B.C. and throughout Canada involving First Nations seeking to negotiate modern treaties – or to fight for their land rights in court.

“Aboriginal title confers the right to use and control the land and to reap the benefits flowing from it,” Justice Beverley McLachlin ruled in the 8-0 decision. ...

In B.C.’s case, due to a technicality, the provincial forests act will have to be amended in order to maintain that authority.

Future economic activity on title lands, involving anything from mines and logging to pipelines and hydroelectric projects, will require the “consent” of title-holding First Nations.

But the court also said the Crown can justify “infringement” of that title, when consent is absent, under specific circumstances. ...

Legal analysts have said a ruling such as Thursday’s would significantly strengthen the hand of First Nations in B.C. or Alberta who want to file a land claim on territory along the Gateway route, and hope to obtain an injunction preventing construction while that claim is heard.

The judgment, because it was dealing with a semi-nomadic people who only seasonally occupied many parts of the claimed territory, established a less onerous test to establish title.

The 2012 ruling declared that title required proof of intensive, site-specific use that was sufficient, exclusive and had some semblance of continuity from the time British sovereignty was established – in B.C. it was 1846 – to the present day.

But Thursday’s ruling recognized a more flexible test than that spelled out by the three B.C. appellate judges. It also explained in greater detain than in past cases how judges and negotiators should in the future marry the differing perspectives of Aboriginal and common laws.

“Rather, a culturally sensitive approach suggests that regular use of territories for hunting, fishing, trapping and foraging is ‘sufficient’ use to ground Aboriginal title, provided that such use, on the facts of a particular case, evinces an intention on the part of the Aboriginal group to hold or possess the land in a manner comparable to what would be required to establish title at common law.”

The Tsilhqot’in First Nation is made up of six Indian Act bands. The trial, which began in 2002, lasted 339 days and included a visit by Judge Vickers to the claimed territory.

What the Supreme Court has done has given an oligarchy the power to stymy economic progress in what can be a real-estate nightmare.

Interesting times.....


Find another damn doctor:

A doctor at a walk-in clinic in southwest Calgary is refusing to prescribe birth control due to her personal beliefs.

Chantal Barry of Westglen Medical Centre does not prescribe contraception. A sign at the facility’s front desk reads, “The physician on duty today will not prescribe the birth control pill.”

A receptionist at the clinic confirmed the policy is based on Barry’s personal preferences and said patients looking for birth control are provided a list of other offices in the city that prescribe it. Westglen only has one doctor available to walk-in patients at any given time.

It won't be funny if the Republicans win in November:

President Obama is denouncing House Republican plans to sue him over the use of executive actions, saying they are legal responses to inaction by GOP lawmakers.

This is the same absolutist who had his own Supreme Court rein him in.

Enjoy your downfall, Moron-in-Chief.


Journalists are failed writers whose pathological need to make the world fit their vision matches their realisation that they aren't the scribes they think they are:

Ever notice that when you read an article on something you know a lot about, they’ve got 50% of the facts wrong? Whether it’s a story about your hometown or your favorite band, it’s always shocking how half-assed the journalists are. Apparently, lots of people have noticed this. Last week, we learned of a Gallup poll that said confidence in the media had plummeted to 22%. In 1979 it was 51%. This is because we’ve gone from investigators hitting the pavement to ideologues pounding their keyboards. A reporter used to go where the story led him. Now he starts with the story and crams in facts until it fits.

And now, popsicles that are just cocktails on a stick (don't lick and drive). Enjoy.