Saturday Night Special

 

Not in my backyard:

Police were called to the home of Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne on Friday after protesters with the Black Lives Matter Toronto group staged a vigil outside her residence the night before and left a tent and other items on her driveway.

(Sidebar: no one wanted wind turbines in their backyard, Kathleen.)

Don't take sides. Watch either party run the train off of the rails.


Also:

One day after the CBC revealed that the Ottawa Police Services Board has been discussing police business behind closed doors at secret committee meetings for years, Premier Kathleen Wynne said she expects those meetings to be public.

Where are those gas plant e-mails, Kathleen?





Rob Ford died March 22nd:

Toronto’s taxpayers didn’t foot the bill for former mayor Rob Ford’s funeral, but they did contribute $18,676 for the visitation beforehand, city staff has confirmed.

To wit:

Last year’s state funeral for Jack Layton came with a sizable price tag, newly released figures show.

The late NDP leader’s final farewell last summer cost taxpayers $368,326 — more than the total bill for the recent state funerals of two former governors-general.

**

Last year, Chow claimed $530,000 in expenses, Layton claimed $629,000. Both are above average and a little surprising given that both represent Toronto ridings. 

**

Recent cabinet orders revealed the appointment of two “special assistants” at the Prime Minister’s residence who have been seen caring for Mr. Trudeau’s children, prompting critics to ask why the Prime Minister is billing taxpayers for nanny expenses after claiming his wealthy family did not need public daycare funding.

Cabinet orders state that the two women, both Canadians, will be paid $15 to $20 an hour during the day and $11 to $13 for the night shift.

The minimum wage in Ontario is $11.25.

I suppose these inconvenient facts went down the Toronto elite vulture memory-hole.




Let me understand something - companies that don't want to lose money have to stay so that the premier of Alberta can save face?

Utilities won’t be able to dump money-losing contracts for coal-fired power, if Premier Rachel Notley has her way.

Notley told reporters at McDougall Centre Thursday the companies shouldn’t be able to escape their power purchase arrangements (PPAs) on the basis there was a change in law that made them unprofitable because the law hasn’t changed yet.

You can own this, Albertans.




Whatever, Austrian-Boy:

President Barack Obama said Friday that suggestions from people like Donald Trump that nuclear weapons would help South Korea and Japan show a lack of understanding of the world.

The best thing Japan and South Korea could do is weapon up.

China and its vassal-state, North Korea, ringing a bell, Barry?



Also:

So after the deal — after Obama legitimized the Iranian dictatorship, and threw Iranian democratic reformers into despair; after Obama danced to Iran’s demands for years; after Obama pushed the deal on America, through a trick — by doing it through executive order, instead of through a formal treaty because the U.S. Constitution Article 2 section 2 says that the president "shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur” — and he knew the Senate would never go along with it, so he gave up everything on his own, including $150B dollars in payments to Iran.

So all this — and the humiliation just weeks ago of Iran seizing U.S. military personnel and degrading them and parading them before the cameras as a propaganda victory — all this, and Iran still has a nuclear program, able to break out to a bomb in 12 months?

Your move, PM Hair-Boy. I'm sure your stuttering baffle-gab will mean nothing to a real leader who has a nuclear Pakistan to contend with.





Oh, I'm sure this happens in equal measure all across the board:

A Los Angeles prosecutor has accused a 69-year-old man of killing his son for being gay.

Shehada Issa was arrested Tuesday after police were called to his Los Angeles home and found the bodies of Amir Issa, 29, and his mother, whose name has not been released by authorities, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office told the Associated Press that Issa had threatened to kill his son in the past.

“The murder was committed because of the victim’s sexual orientation and because of the defendant’s perception of that status and the victims’ association with a person and a group of that status,” prosecutors said in a statement, according to the AP.

A second Viking settlement found in Newfoundland:

A thousand years after the Vikings braved the icy seas from Greenland to the New World in search of timber and plunder, satellite technology has found intriguing evidence of a long-elusive prize in archaeology — a second Norse settlement in North America, farther south than ever known.

The new Canadian site, with telltale signs of iron-working, was discovered last summer after infrared images from 400 miles in space showed possible man-made shapes under discolored vegetation.

The site is on the southwest coast of Newfoundland, about 300 miles south of L’Anse aux Meadows, the first and only confirmed Viking settlement in North America, discovered in 1960.

Once hidden off of Newfoundland's coast, a German navy captain's records offer a rare glimpse of the war that crept near Canada:

Rolf Ruggeberg loved Newfoundland.

He took photos of its rugged terrain and its quaint harbours. He recorded its daily weather. He made pencil drawings and charted the course of thousands of icebergs rubbing up against its rocky shores.

He did all this peering through the periscope of a Nazi submarine during the Second World War.

Only one spot in North America was hit by enemy fire during the Second World War and little Bell Island in Newfoundland and Labrador’s Conception Bay was the victim.

Captain Ruggeberg sank two freighters anchored at Bell Island waiting to load the world’s richest iron ore.

He also destroyed the loading docks on Bell Island with his torpedoes.

Adolf Hitler sent Ruggeberg a letter of commendation for sinking the freighters, plus he was awarded two Iron Crosses, Germany’s highest military recognition during the war.

Ironically, the medals were likely made of iron from Bell Island as Germany was one of its biggest customers before war erupted.

On Bell Island today you can read Hitler’s letter, see Ruggeberg’s Iron Crosses and read his logs and diary marvelling at Newfoundland.

Ruggeberg’s war memorabilia was donated to the Bell Island Community Museum by his daughter, who knew nothing of her father’s role in the war until he died.

And now you know the rest of the story:

... Library and Archives Canada announced early Friday their acquisition of the declassified journals and military records of one James “Logan” Howlett, also known as the sharply clawed Wolverine.

He stands on guard for thee, bub.

Just make a Loki movie, already:

Tom Hiddleston, pulling a Loki — minus the wig and the horns — offered some colour commentary on the burst of bad weather hitting the midwest, which, obviously, is totally Thor’s fault.

A fifty percent chance of awesome.