Mid-Week Post

Aaahhh, glorious June!

A murder-suicide at UCLA:

A murder-suicide at a UCLA engineering building Wednesday drew hundreds of heavily armed officers who swarmed the sprawling Los Angeles campus, where students close to summer break barricaded themselves in classrooms as best they could before being evacuated with their hands up.

The black boxes of doomed flight Egypt Air 804 may have been found:

A French ship searching the Mediterranean has detected black box signals from a missing EgyptAir flight in the waters between the Greek island of Crete and the Egyptian coast, a development that could help solve the mystery of why the aircraft crashed into the sea last month, killing all 66 on board.

The discovery, announced Wednesday, could help guide search teams to the wreckage and the flight's data and cockpit voice recorders, which if retrieved unharmed could reveal whether a mechanical fault or a hijacking or bomb caused the disaster.

The first groups of Fort McMurray residents have been allowed to return:

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley says Fort McMurray residents will need every ounce of the courage they've already shown since a vicious wildfire tore through parts of their city.

Notley says many hard days still lie ahead as the community rebuilds and evacuees who are returning won't find a normal life waiting for them.

She says it will take years to recover from the wildfire that destroyed nearly one-tenth of the city, but promises the province will be there to help.

Notley was in Fort McMurray to welcome back the first of more than 80,000 people who had to flee when the fire hit May 3.

Just a reminder: Premier Rachel Notley gutted Alberta's wildfire-fighting budget. 

The Soylent Green laws are poised to pass:

The federal government's controversial bill on assisted dying sailed through the House of Commons on Tuesday, approved by a vote of 186-137.

(Sidebar: there is no assisted dying. Everyone dies on their own. Some people are just helped on their way. To wit, when looking after people becomes too expensive, the Canadian government will allow you to kill them off. This way, more money can be allocated to burgeoning and heartless bureaucracies that keep money-wasting governments afloat.)

Also:

The House of Commons is debating an effort by dying Liberal Mauril Belanger to render the national anthem gender-neutral, by replacing the line in the English version "in all thy sons command" with "in all of us command."

When at first you don't succeed, trot out the crippled guy again. Make people feel badly for ignoring his horrendous pleas to change an otherwise good anthem to suit the PC police. This tactic has to work eventually. Then "O Canada" can be phased out for the anthem the Liberals really want: "God Bless America" (the Russians won't allow anyone to use their anthem.).

None of this looks good:

The NDP is planning to force debate on a special committee on Canada’s electoral system Thursday, proposing a new model that would put the Liberals in a minority position — and the government minister responsible says she’s looking forward to the discussion. 
 
The move comes after weeks of repeated stonewalling by the minister of democratic institutions, Maryam Monsef, in question period — and, according to the NDP’s critic, Nathan Cullen, a “totally odd” private meeting Tuesday. 

If the NDP’s motion is adopted Thursday, the proposed committee to study first-past-the-post alternatives would be required to convene within 10 sitting days.

 
On one hand, you have the Liberals who would stack the Senate with their friends. On the other, you have the NDP ensuring that Canada becomes another failed socialist state.




Oh, God....

As Canada continues to settle thousands of Syrian refugees, the UN's refugee agency is hopeful Canada will renew its commitment to another population — Colombians.

More than 17,000 Colombian refugees have arrived in Canada over the last ten years seeking a safe haven from the five decades of war in that country.

The current agreement between Canada and the UN to resettle 900 Colombians currently in Ecuador expires at the end of his year.

 
Yet another voters block.




No, Elbowgate isn't over, no more than PM Trulander's false knowledge about quantum computing is over. The Canadian electorate has to understand that they elected a temperamental moron and his backers into the House of Commons. The electorate needs to be reminded everyday as it slowly sinks into financial ruin and succumbs to a velvet gloved iron fist that its choice of leader was an exceptionally poor one:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will not have to deliver any more apologies or face any parliamentary sanctions for knocking into a New Democrat with his elbow.

NDP MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau, who is travelling in China on parliamentary business, said in a statement she wants everyone to move on.

"It is my sincere hope that all members will work to ensure that we never see this conduct repeated, and also that we take this opportunity to recommit to improving the tone of debate in Parliament," said the statement, read out Tuesday to the Commons committee on procedure and House affairs.

New Democrat MP David Christopherson shared Brosseau's views as the all-party committee discussed how to respond to the May 18 incident, in which Trudeau tried to pull Conservative whip Gord Brown through a group of New Democrats who were standing in his way.

Trudeau knocked into Brosseau, who then missed a vote related to the Liberal government's proposed legislation on doctor-assisted dying.

(Sidebar: what did he promise you, Ruth?)

In 2008, Obama promised to meet the mad theocrats of Iran without pre-conditions. When elected president, he paved the way for Iran to carry on with its nuclear ambitions, for which he was praised.

This week, a North Korean column praised presidential candidate Donald Trump's wrong-headed approach to dealing with Kim Jong-Un, something the popular press attacks Trump for:

"The presidential candidate who U.S. citizens should vote for is not dull Hillary, who says she would pursue an 'Iran-type model' to solve the Korean Peninsula's nuclear problems, but Trump, who said he would solve problems by directly talking with North Korea," said the column attributed to a "China-based scholar."

In the lengthy column, Trump is described as a "wise politician and presidential candidate with foresight" for his comments about the U.S. potentially withdrawing its troops from South Korea if Seoul doesn't bear the costs. It also noted his public willingness to directly talk with the North Korean leadership if he becomes president.

Trump told The New York Times in March that South Korea and Japan should pay much more for the U.S. troops based in their countries — about 28,000 in South Korea and around 50,000 in Japan. In a more recent interview with the Reuters news agency, Trump said he was willing to meet with Kim.

"I would speak to him, I would have no problem speaking to him," he said.

The removal of U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula and direct talks with a U.S. president dovetail nicely with objectives Pyongyang has held for years — though undoubtedly for different reasons than the American real estate magnate.

The North wants the U.S. troops to leave because it sees them as a direct threat to the regime's security and has long wanted talks with Washington, ostensibly toward a peace treaty to end the 1950-53 Korean War, that would boost its international status and acknowledge that North Korea is a nuclear state.

"There are many 'positive aspects' to take away from Trump's 'inflammatory campaign promises,'" the writer says in the DPRK Today column, pointing out Trump's indications that Seoul should pay "100 per cent" of the cost for the American troops stationed in the South and, if not, Washington should pull them out.

"Yes, go away, now!" it says. "Who knew that the 'Yankee Go Home' slogan we shouted so enthusiastically could come true so easily like this? The day that the 'Yankee Go Home' slogan becomes reality would be the day of unification."

 
(Sidebar: did Mr. Trump think that such negotiations were never tried by not only the South Koreans and the Americans but the Japanese, as well? Did he bother checking the outcome of those negotiations?)

Question: if an open-door policy with one rogue nuclear state was considered progress, why would a similar approach with another rogue state be considered disastrous?

For eternally mad sphere of leftists, it is not what is done but who does it.



 
NATO cannot find a fourth country to be deployed in eastern Europe:

Six weeks before a critical summit meeting aimed at bolstering NATO’s deterrence against a resurgent Russia, the alliance is facing a long list of challenges. The first is to find a country to lead the last of four military units to be deployed in Poland and the three Baltic nations.

But that, analysts say, could be the least of its problems.

Security concerns are as high now as they have been since the end of the Cold War. As the immigration crisis has strained relations within the Continent, anxieties have been heightened by Russian military offensives in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, and a bombing campaign in Syria that has demonstrated Moscow’s rapidly increasing capabilities. Lately, Russia has talked openly about the utility of tactical nuclear weapons.

Despite the growing threats, many European countries still resist strong measures to strengthen NATO. Many remain reluctant to increase military spending, despite past pledges. Some, like Italy, are cutting back. France is reverting to its traditional skepticism toward the alliance, which it sees as an instrument of U.S. policy and an infringement on its sovereignty.

If Europeans are reluctant to spend money on their own safety, then there is little point in aiding them in anything. They are not going to like a Russified Europe anymore than they would an Islamified Europe.

You know what you're doing, Europeans.