Mid-Week Post

The winning numbers are...


Let the fun begin!

If Eve Adams becomes the federal Liberal candidate in the Toronto riding of Eglinton-Lawrence, local MPP Mike Colle says it will be over his dead body.

Colle, who's represented the riding provincially for the Liberals for 20 years, says the Conservative defector can't be allowed to simply parachute into a party and a constituency to which she has no ties.

"I just find the whole thing preposterous," Colle said in an interview Tuesday.

"I mean, that a Harper Tory from Mississauga all of a sudden is going to run here in the middle of Toronto with no connections and no awareness? You know, it's a real insult to the local Liberals in this community."

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau stunned many in his party on Monday when he announced that Adams, a lifelong Conservative who currently represents the riding of Mississauga-Brampton South, was crossing the floor to sit as a Liberal.

Adams said she hopes to carry the Liberal banner in a Toronto-area riding during the coming election, scheduled for October. She didn't identify the riding but is expected to seek the Liberal nomination in Eglinton-Lawrence, currently held by Finance Minister Joe Oliver.

Conservatives continued Tuesday to characterize Adams' defection as pure opportunism sparked by the governing party's decision late last month to bar her from running anywhere.

"It just seems very crass and opportunistic to me," said Justice Minister Peter MacKay.

It struck a lot of Liberals the same way.

Colle posted on Facebook his personal reaction to the prospect of Adams as the federal Liberal candidate in his riding: "Over my dead body."

He said he's spoken to many local Liberals.

"They're just saying, 'Where the hell did this come from?' ... They're just flabbergasted, basically,"' he said.

Oh, this is an old story. Trust me.


Do you know what would resolve this? Fracking:

With extremely cold weather hitting most of the province, many New Brunswickers who rely on pellet stoves to heat their homes are finding it harder to find the wood pellets they need for fuel.

Many retail stores in the are having a hard time keeping the wood pellets in stock.

One Canadian Tire Store in Saint John put 100 bags of pellets out Monday. Manager Randy Richards says they were sold out in about an hour.

He says the sudden cold weather and increased popularity in pellet stoves are playing a role in the shortage.

"It's a higher demand. Over the last two or three years we've seen a huge influx with pellet stove sales and that goes throughout the community," he said. "Without saying, people are looking for an alternate means of heating sources."

New Brunswick- Canada's chubby yet still photogenic daughter- voted against fracking. It must, therefore, freeze because of it.


For that reason alone, I would arm Ukraine and let the Russians watch me do it:

Alexei Pushkov, a leading Russian MP, was addressing about 100 MEPs in the parliament's foreign affairs committee. 

He was speaking after President Barack Obama said he had not ruled out sending arms to Kiev if diplomacy failed. 

The option of lethal defensive weapons was being examined, Mr Obama said.

Mr Pushkov, who is on the US sanctions blacklist, warned that American weapons could "expand the war and turn it into a real threat to the whole European security system" ...

The Russians are not pleased if someone interferes with their plans.

The captain of the doomed Costa Concordia is sentenced to sixteen years in prison:

The former captain of the Costa Concordia cruise liner was sentenced to 16 years in prison on Wednesday for his role in the 2012 shipwreck, which killed 32 people off the Tuscan holiday island of Giglio.

Francesco Schettino was commanding the vessel, a floating hotel as long as three football pitches, when it hit rocks off the island, tearing a hole in its side.

A court in the town of Grosseto found him guilty of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his passengers in one of the highest-profile shipping disasters in recent years.

However the judges rejected a request that Schettino begin his sentence immediately. They ruled instead that would not go to prison until the appeals process is completed, which can take years. 

(Sidebar: whaaaaat?!) 

Obama is a douchebag but one already knew this, so...

The White House and State Department struggled Tuesday to clarify President Barack Obama's suggestion that last month's deadly shooting at a kosher deli in Paris was random, despite the administration's earlier assertions that the attack was anti-Semitic.

Obama, in describing terror threats during a lengthy interview with the online news site Vox, said the American people were right to be concerned "when you've got a bunch of violent, vicious zealots who behead people or randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris."

Administration officials at first defended Obama's comments, with White House spokesman Josh Earnest saying that while the administration was aware of the "motivation" of the gunman, the president was making the point that those killed in the deli "were not targeted by name."

"There were people other than just Jews who were in that deli," Earnest said.

(Sidebar: there were also other people in the infamous death camp Auschwitz but that still didn't move Obama to go there.)

In 2008, Obama promised to meet Iran without pre-conditions.  A year later, he would not defend democracy activists in that same country. He would allow that rogue state to continue enriching uranium.

In 2009, Obama termed the terrorist shootings at Fort Hood as "workplace violence", something that would hinder survivors from getting proper benefits.

Among other nuisances, Obama demanded that Israel return to to its 1967 borders thus surrendering territory it won from the Syrians after the Six Day War.

Obama "urged restraint" on the part of Israel after it was repeatedly fired upon by Hamas.

Obama, missing during the attack on the American embassy in Benghazi, refused to call the attack an act of terrorism and then goes to a fundraiser in Las Vegas.

Obama returned to a golf game after being informed that American national James Foley was beheaded by ISIS (does one remember the "rebels" he once wanted to arm in Syria?).

Yes, there definitely is a pattern here.

But he's right:

Coun. Rob Ford was thrown out of Toronto city council on Wednesday afternoon, after he refused to apologize for comments he made about city staff.

"There's something wrong with how the city hall works," Ford said, speaking with reporters after he was asked to leave council chambers.

The controversy came after a report came to council about sending city staff and a city councillor on a trip to Italy, as part of an effort to promote the city as a potential site for a future Expo.

The $20,000 cost of the trip was absent from the report, which led to a moment where Ford suggested it was "very hard to believe" the omission was unintentional.

That began the process that saw the Speaker ask Ford to leave the meeting.

If one neglected to mention a $20,000 expense at one's place of work, one would soon be looking for another job. Why should it be different at city hall?


Oh my God! Common sense:

A teenager left paralyzed after falling from a favourite climbing tree in a public park has no grounds to sue the municipality, Ontario's top court has ruled.

In a unanimous ruling, the Court of Appeal said there was no way municipal authorities could reasonably have foreseen the tragedy and acted to prevent it.

"Trees, being by their very nature things which can be climbed and therefore fallen from, are potentially harmful," the court said.

"Any danger posed by this tree was an obvious one. If you chose to climb it, you could fall and be injured."

The incident occurred in 2001, when Eric Winters, then 16, and friends were hanging out at the Kinsmen Park in Cayuga, Ont. As generations of teens had done before, according to trial evidence, Winters climbed a healthy willow on the banks of the Grand River they had dubbed the "Chilling Tree."

For reasons not clear, he fell from a branch. He was left paraplegic. He sued.

In June 2013, Superior Court Justice Dale Parayeski dismissed the lawsuit.

White feminists don't have to care about other women's problems:

This week, I read that North Korea has granted permission for a group of women, including Gloria Steinem, and led by outspoken North Korean regime sympathizer Christine Ahn, to do a “peace march” across the DMZ. The group also intends to “hold international peace symposiums in Pyongyang and Seoul,” where Ahn will probably repeat one of her favorite falsehoods, that “crippling sanctions against the government make it difficult for ordinary people to access the basics needed for survival.” It’s a statement that could only have been written by a legal illiterate who has never read the actual sanctions, or by a hack who has spent at least a decade overlooking the real causes of hardship and starvation in North Korea.

Steinem, on the other hand, is known for her accomplishments fighting for the rights of women, so rather than rehash old arguments with Ahn, I’d prefer to focus on a point of potential agreement with Steinem — that the women of North Korea could really use the support of a fearless feminist. In that spirit, I decided to suggest a few questions that Steinem should ask her hosts in Pyongyang if she’s truly concerned about the status of women in North Korea ...

Yeah, like Steinem is really going to bat for North Korean women.

Sure.

(Kamsahamnida)