Saturday Post

Lots to talk about...


Oh, you don't know the real reason why Tashfeen Malik killed fourteen people? Really?

FBI officials, family lawyers and others said they know little about the 29-year-old housewife and mother, apart from what came to light on Friday: that Malik had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group on Facebook as she and her American-born husband, Syed Farook, 28, went on their rampage.

Let's run around in circles some more. That's always productive.


Also:

It only took hours for the cramped killing factory — once full of ammo and pipe bombs — to become a live media circus.

TV crews and a swarm of reporters burst into the California rental home of Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, on Friday — pawing through their belongings and holding items up for the cameras.

The FBI said it was no longer a crime scene as of Thursday night — just a day after the murderous couple killed 14 and wounded 21 on a bloody rampage in San Bernardino. Even as dozens of journalists filled the place, some talking heads and critics questioned the wisdom of opening the apartment to reporters while the mass killing was still under investigation.

 
Incompetence at the very, very least.




As always, dignity can be bought if one's hand is out far enough:

A 51-year-old document discovered in Canada's national archives is giving new life to a Mi'kmaq legal fight with the federal government over social assistance benefits.

The battle began in 2011 when the Harper government tried to impose a change on social assistance rates on Mi'kmaq reserves in the Maritimes and demanded parity with provincial programs.

This change would have resulted in a 40 to 60 per cent reduction in rates, which the bands say would have caused extreme hardship.

Twenty-six Mi'kmaq bands pooled their resources and asked for a federal judicial review. The case worked its way through the legal system, but the bands lost in front of the Federal Court of Appeal. 

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne defends her favouritism to the auditor-general:

The Wynne government is defending its multi-million-dollar program of grants to businesses in the wake of sharp criticism from Ontario's auditor general.

In her report this week, Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk probed the Ministry of Economic Development's grants to businesses over the past decade.  

Lysyk examined the $1.45 billion that Liberal governments have pumped into high-tech, manufacturing and automotive firms since 2004 and found the money disproportionately went to big business.

She said the government has no idea if the money actually boosts employment in the long term, and questioned the fairness and transparency of how the grants are awarded.

The Ministry "has not attempted to measure whether the $1.4 billion it has provided to Ontario businesses since 2004 actually strengthened the economy," Lysyk wrote in the report.

She warned that the government "has no information on whether jobs created or retained are long-lasting."

Government figures say the funding has created 12,298 jobs and helped retain another 59,289.

"They have no idea if it has done anything to actually help people who are looking for work," NDP deputy leader Jagmeet Singh told a news conference at Queen's Park on Friday.

But Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid said 94% of the businesses funded through the grants hit their job-creation targets. To defend the programs, he pointed to the auto industry. "That's 500,000 jobs that would've been at risk had we not been a government that partners with the business sector," he told reporters Friday.

The auditor criticized the government for giving away 80% of the funding without an open public process. In her report, she said this system "lacks fairness and transparency."

 

A scathing criticism only matters of the party being criticised actually cares (which it doesn't):

Provincial ministers are now under fire for their inaction after the Ontario auditor general's searing report Wednesday slammed the Liberal government for ignoring past recommendations on issues ranging from child welfare to Hydro One service.

The report from Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk says that the government has made little or no progress on action she called for two years ago, including failing to ensure that nutrition and physical activity guidelines were being followed in the province's schools to help curb obesity, improving security at women's shelters, and lowering fees at ServiceOntario.

Also:

Shaukat Khan waits until customers walk through the doors of his Indian restaurant in Windsor, Ont. before turning on the lights.

He readily admits his energy saving system isn't ideal, but he has to do something. He said his hydro bills are just too high.

"I understand everything goes up, but...especially hydro has no boundary, no limit, it's going up and up and up," Khan said. "If this keeps going on and on...I have to shut the business down."

Business owners throughout the region have similar concerns about hydro rates that cut deep into their operating costs. To come up with strategies to reduce expensive energy bills, representatives from a host of employment sectors gathered Thursday in downtown Windsor.

 
Ontario has the government it voted for.




Hashtags aren't a good substitute for action or thought and especially when they crudely mirror the original reason for them:

After the Paris attacks and subsequent hate crimes against Muslim women in Canada and elsewhere, an Islamic cultural group has launched the #JeSuisHijabi campaign to promote tolerance and educate non-Muslims about the religion.

Does Canada need more tolerance and understanding from a group that repeatedly insists that not only is it peaceful, that it respects the rights of women, even women who refuse to cover up, and shows deference to Mary, Mother of Jesus the Jew?

Political multiculturalism, the socio-cultural wing of moral relativism, has made the West dull in the face of obvious differences apparent in the un-assimilated masses. Otherwise citizens therein would point out what complete crocks Islamism, its alleged respect for women, Jews and Mary really are. People would also insist that head coverings are deliberate thumbs-to-the-eyes of the popular culture and not demands of a religion.

But why get in the way of a good hashtag, the modern symbol of preening and little else?




Montenegro joins NATO. Russia does not like it:

NATO offered to take in Montenegro on Wednesday and thus expand its reach in southeast Europe, prompting a brisk Russian threat of retaliatory measures against the tiny Slavic country.

Suck it up, Russia.