On a Tuesday

Lots to talk about...


Trudeau is promising to let the Supreme Court self-staff:

Canada will change the way it fills vacancies on its top court, letting qualified lawyers and judges nominate themselves for Supreme Court openings and using a nonpartisan advisory board to recommend candidates, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Tuesday.

There is a looming vacancy on the nine-member Supreme Court, with Justice Thomas Cromwell announcing he will retire in September, giving Trudeau his first chance to appoint a member of the court since becoming prime minister last November.

Supreme Court justices in Canada are picked by the prime minister. The prime minister's appointments do not require parliamentary approval, in contrast to the required Senate confirmation for appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The change, announced in a government press release, creates a new system for determining candidates for the court. Justices can serve until the court's mandatory retirement age of 75.

 
Ladies and gentlemen, it was bad enough that unelected judges found themselves elevated to the highest judicial office of the land thanks to favouritism. Prepare for the law-deciding oligarchy to get worse.




An Ontario man, debilitated by a stroke, claims that age discrimination is the reason why he is not getting treatment:

An Ontario man is accusing the government of age discrimination in health care. The post-stoke patient is not eligible for the same therapy as youths and seniors.

Ontario is awfully good at age discrimination.




During Obama's eight years in office, unemployment has risen, Iran has the bomb, racial strife has tripled and American citizens have been murdered with impunity. Trump may not be a statesman but he doesn't smug about with a sh-- eating grin the way the unvetted Barry does:

In a searing denouncement, President Barack Obama slammed Donald Trump as "unfit" and "woefully unprepared" to serve in the White House on Tuesday. He challenged Republican lawmakers to drop their support for their party's nominee, declaring "There has to come a point at which you say enough."

An anthrax outbreak in Russia has claimed the life of a twelve year-old boy:

An anthrax outbreak in remote western Siberia has led to the hospitalization of at least 90 people in the Arctic town of Salekhard, with at least 20 confirmed cases of the illness. One person, a 12-year-old boy, has died from anthrax according to the TASS News Agency and other media reports. 

The outbreak has hit local reindeer populations especially hard, with at least 2,300 animals reported dead.

The anthrax outbreak, a rare though not unheard of event in Russia, may be just the latest sign of how global warming is transforming the planet's coldest regions.

The article warns in the usual ominous tones that "global warming" is the possible cause of this outbreak. However, naturally-occurring anthrax is spread from cattle (in this case, reindeer) to humans via open cuts on skin, inhaling spores or eating infected meat.


Sorry to burst the paranoia bubble.




Pope Francis gets it:

Pope Francis has lamented that children, as he puts it, are being taught at school that gender can be a choice.

Francis said: "Today, in schools they are teaching this to children -- to children! -- that everyone can choose their gender."

Without specifying, he blamed this on textbooks supplied by "persons and institutions who donate money."

Francis weighed in during a closed-door meeting last week with bishops from Poland during his pilgrimage there. The Vatican released a transcript Tuesday of those private remarks.

The pope blamed what he called "ideological colonizing" backed by "very influential countries" which he didn't identify.

(Sidebar: you can say Canada, Pope Francis. You would be right.)

And now, why music sends chills up one's spine:

About 50 percent of people get chills when listening to music. Research shows that’s because music stimulates an ancient reward pathway in the brain, encouraging dopamine to flood the striatum—a part of the forebrain activated by addiction, reward, and motivation. 

And:

A ninja school opened in Nagoya Castle in Nagoya’s Naka Ward earlier this month, attracting tourists from at home and abroad.

Tourists can take an hour lesson from Hattori Hanzo and the Ninjas, a group of men and women dressed in ninja outfits and tasked with boosting tourism in Aichi, and receive a certificate as a ninja apprentice.

Majoring in standing and staring at the city at night.