For a Tuesday

Yep...

 
Human remains recovered from the debris of EgyptAir flight  804 indicate that there may have been an explosion:

An Egyptian forensic official says human remains from the crashed EgyptAir flight indicate there had been an explosion on board.

The official is part of the Egyptian investigative team and has personally examined the remains at a Cairo morgue. 

He said all 80 pieces brought to Cairo so far are small and that "there isn't even a whole body part, like an arm or a head".

The official added that "the logical explanation is that it was an explosion" but no traces of explosives have been found.

However, another forensics official said only a tiny number of remains had arrived so far and it was too early to specify whether there had been a bomb on board.

All 66 people on the plane were killed when the Airbus 320 crashed in the Mediterranean on 19 May while en route from Paris to Cairo.

An American court has rejected Omar Khadr's request to remove a judge:

An attempt by Canada's Omar Khadr to have a judge thrown off his appeal panel has raised important legal questions that U.S. President Barack Obama and Congress should deal with quickly, a court in Washington has ruled.

Nevertheless, the D.C. Circuit said it was not prepared at this time to grant the former Guantanamo Bay inmate's request.

"Although we deny the writ, we cannot deny that Khadr has raised some significant questions," the D.C. Circuit said.

"We encourage Congress and the executive branch to promptly attend to those issues."

At issue is Khadr's call to have the court toss presiding Judge William (Bill) Pollard from the panel hearing his appeal of his war crimes conviction. Khadr and his lawyers argue that Pollard's position on the panel is illegal based on federal statutes that prohibit a judge from continuing to work as a lawyer.

For an allegedly innocent child solider (read: a member of a terrorist family who has never condemned terrorism nor apologised for the death of Christopher Speer.), he is really grasping at straws.





The police are called on a mother whose autistic son has been deprived of care he sorely needs by the very government that started it all:

Melanie Palaypayon is taking a breather at her family’s Muskoka cottage to collect her thoughts after Peel Regional Police came to her door Friday morning.

She says the encounter left her intimidated and shaky.

The 35-year-old Mississauga mom was tired of being told by her local MPP Bob Delaney’s constituency office that he couldn’t meet with her due to scheduling conflicts. On Thursday morning, she picked up the phone and told the Liberal MPP’s staff she planned on squatting there and handing out flyers to protest against new provincial autism rules that mean her six-year-old son Xavier can no longer qualify for intensive behavioural intervention (IBI).

Around 8:50 a.m. Friday morning, the cops came to her door after Delaney’s office complained.

“I am shocked and intimidated,” she told the Sun in a telephone interview Saturday. “I asked myself, ‘Is protesting prohibited here?’ or ‘Are they making a statement that we can’t call MPPs now?’ Why are they sending two police officers. I am alone, I am a mom of an autistic kid. I told them I would not be holding the door. I did not swear. My tone is aggressive and I can be persistent ... but I am not a wrestler.”

A part-time nurse, Palaypayon, and her husband Clint, a computer programer, said the government’s move to cut children age five and older from being eligible for IBI paid by the province will mean more than 3,500 families who have been waiting half their lives for treatment will be removed from wait lists over the next two years.

This would put a $50,000 a year financial strain on those families to pay for private therapy.

“We’ve been waiting 3 1/2 years,” Palaypayon said, breaking down in tears. “We’ve been waiting half of his life for this treatment and they just cut it off. We’re going to be in huge debt. I will try my best to give Xavier what he needs. I see a lot of potential in him.”

Delaney claims his two staffers – one a mother and the other a grandmother – were verbally abused, but would not get into details, insisting “it’s between me and the constituent” when Palaypayon made over 10 calls to his office last week.

“We had one parent who was over the line with her actions,” he said. “The number of times she would call the office, essentially to have identically the same conversation. The tone and remarks she would use. (She) repeatedly used the word, ‘we’ ... and she is very clearly seeking a confrontation. We are not welcoming a confrontation with an unknown number of people.”

Delaney said he called police but didn’t realize they would go and visit her home. He denies it was an intimidation tactic, but rather he had an obligation to keep his office staff safe.

“Given the things she has given to my office staff and the treatment to women who are doing their level best to help her, none of these women deserve the treatment they received and I’m going to leave it that,” he said.

Peel Regional Police were unable to discuss the details of their visit to Palaypayon’s Mississauga home.

“We have a responsibility to follow up any complaint,” Const. Rachel Gibbs said Saturday. “But we can’t comment on this because it’s a private matter and there was no risk to public safety.”

(Sidebar: I have heard that this particular MPP chose to do his nails while families with autistic children pleaded their cases at Queen's Park. Like the leaders of his douchebag political party, he is set to apologise for using the police to intimidate this woman.)


What a brilliant case for privatising healthcare and education.  By giving the heartless Liberal government (any government, really) power over the general populace, they have made decision that have ruined families, especially the families that consistently vote Liberal. Until the electorate wakes the hell up, the Liberals will continue ruin people's lives and using the police to enforce their will.


Also:

Fresh from man-handling whips from other parties and elbowing women in the chest, PM Trulander stops short of  supporting Japan against the nation he most admires:

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said after meeting Tuesday with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that Canada had committed to supporting his country’s opposition to sweeping territorial clams, island-building and other aggressive measures widely regarded as a challenge by China to the rule of law in the South China Sea.

“On the South China Sea, we share serious concern over unilateral actions which heighten tension, including large-scale reclamation, building of outposts and military usage thereof,” Abe said. “We agreed to work closely to secure free and safe seas based on the rule of law.”

However, although the issue is of urgent and pressing importance to Japan and many of Canada’s other Asian allies as well as the U.S., Trudeau made no mention of it when he spoke moments later.

This is why Japan, South Korea, Taiwan et al must form a new pan-Asian alliance against China. Canada and the US do not give a care about them at the moment.


Also:

He’s taking Wednesday off work, to spend the day with his wife and celebrate their anniversary.

But actually, that’s a bit of a lie, too.

The Trudeaus’ anniversary is on May 28th. That’s on Saturday, after the G7 is over. They’d be back in Canada by then, because of the time zones.

But then they can’t have an exotic date night at taxpayers expense, can they?

Who in the real world gets to take their anniversary off from work?

He’s lazy, sure. Trudeau always had one of the lowest attendance records in Parliament as an MP. It bored him.

Trudeau's whole life has been this way. He was a substitute drama teacher, not even a full-time drama teacher, because a full-time job would get in the way of fun.

He dropped out of university where he was studying environmental something, because it was too much work.

Justin and Sophie Trudeau are a national disgrace, and an international embarrassment.

Oh, dear:

Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie is determined to “blow people’s minds” with a raucous Canadian tour in the wake of learning he has an incurable brain cancer, his managers said Tuesday as fans tried to digest the shocking announcement about the singer’s illness.

Outrage is alright when some people do it:

When it comes to standing up for gay rights, corporate outrage is rather selective. Large companies that have publicly denounced new laws in several southern U.S. states as “anti-gay” are quite happy to remain silent as they carry on business in countries that criminalize gay sex.

After North Carolina passed a law upholding separate male and female public washrooms, PayPal publicly cancelled its plans to build a new operations centre in that state, citing that law. Yet PayPal chooses to place its international headquarters in Singapore, where gay sex is punishable by two years in prison.

Calling trans-people mentally ill fascists and pointing out that their monomaniacal dreams of extreme surgical procedures are just sick and pointless ways to feed their delusions will be punishable for up to two years in prison:

Canada's Liberal Party government led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has introduced a bill that would ban transgender discrimination, including both gender identity and gender expression, with up to two years in prison for violators.

Leave the pretend girls alone. Stop judging them and their enablers for carrying out ridiculous fantasies which will only ruin people in the end.




And now, Bugs Bunny and his contribution to the opera world:

Like many other singers and crew staging the 17-hour, four-opera Wagner extravaganza at the Kennedy Center, Ms. Bishop got her first taste of opera from a cartoon rabbit and his speech-impaired nemesis.

“I could sing you the entire cartoon before I knew what opera really was,” says Ms. Bishop, who performs the part of Fricka, wife of Wotan, king of the gods.

The rabbit in question is Bugs Bunny, who, in the 1957 Warner Bros. cartoon “What’s Opera, Doc?” finds himself hunted by Elmer Fudd, in the part of the hero, Siegfried.

“Kiww the wabbit! Kiww the wabbit!” Elmer, in an ill-fitting magic helmet, sings to the urgent strains of Ride of the Valkyries as he jabs his spear into a rabbit hole.

Bugs flees, dons a breast plate and blond braids, climbs atop an obese white horse, and for two minutes and a ballet interlude, fools the smitten Elmer into thinking he is Brünnhilde. 

“Oh, Bwünnhilde, you’re so wovewy,” Elmer croons.

“Yes, I know it,” Bugs answers coquettishly. “I can’t help it.”

And just because: