Mid-Week Post

Still burning from his expected unseating and replaced with someone as idiotic and simpering as he, Stephane Dion leaves politics:

On Tuesday, Dion, the MP for Saint-Laurent (formerly Saint-Laurent-Cartierville) since 1996, chose to quit politics after being dumped from cabinet by Trudeau.

Further burn:

He will not be missed at foreign affairs. Apparently unequal to the task, he had nothing compelling to offer in the face of the most pressing issues. He shut down the Office of Religious Freedom as massacres of believers mounted, offering vague affirmations of tolerance in the face of jihadi terror. By the end of Trudeau’s first year of alighting at capitals the world over, Dion was reduced to fanboy status, boasting that in light of the American presidential race, “the world is counting on Canada to have a positive influence on the United States, especially when the most prominent and popular political figure on the planet is our prime minister.” Perhaps Trudeau didn’t want Dion telling Trump that in person.

I'm sure Trudeau's backers warned the dauphin that Dion was too stupid even for Canadians. There are only so many incidences of corruption and conflict-of-interests that a gullible electorate is willing to take.


Also: the liar Maryam Monsef has been assigned to the redundant and possibly less controversial status of women post.




A government's reach extends even into the private arena:

Vincent Oliva, the president of the Quebec association of radiologists, said the majority of private clinics are reluctant to make any new appointments, given the uncertainty of the new system, which he says was brought in hastily by Barrette, a health minister regularly at odds with doctors in the province.

The issue is not about revenue or salaries for the province’s radiologists, Oliva insisted — radiologists are paid the same salary whether they are working in hospitals or in private clinics. (In fact they are the third best paid specialists in Quebec, after ophthalmologists and cardiologists).

It’s about how the government plans to cover the other expenses incurred in private clinics — the overhead and the equipment, for example — and ultimately the viability of the clinics themselves, Oliva said.

Acting as though people who seek private care are all big whales and/or just plain irritable from having crippling knee pain or metastasizing tumours is a breath-taking arrogance and apathy rooted in the belief that only the government can fix anything.

It hasn't done a good job yet.




Okay - who did you vote for?

One woman's plea for the Ontario government to give people a break on hydro rates has resonated with thousands of people.

Libby Keenan, who operates Sunhall Equestrian Center in Amherstburg, Ont., has seen her hydro rates skyrocket. Her latest bill was nearly $600, compared to the $140 she paid several years ago.

In an open letter to Premier Kathleen Wynne, which was posted to Facebook, Keenan candidly shared her frustrations with taxes, tolls, government fees and hydro.

"I work hard, seven days a week," she wrote. "I live exceptionally frugally, I have spent 30 years paying off a mortgage on a beautiful farm I can barely afford to keep. My heating and hydro costs are much higher per month than my mortgage."

Her post has been shared more than 20,000 times and has drawn nearly 3,000 comments. 

"I was a little surprised, then I was a little overwhelmed," Keenan said about the popularity of her letter. 

Keenan was also taken back by the number of women her age that had similar stories about struggling to pay their hydro bills. Dozens of women between the ages of 58 and 69 reached out to Keenan, sharing their experience.

Before the overwhelming response to her letter, Keenan felt a level of shame as she realized she was slowly moving out of the middle class to being more poverty stricken. 

"What I realized is how many people in this province are going through the very same thing," she said. "I felt much less alone, for one thing."

Others who voted for Kathleen Wynne will also join you.

Forced to rub elbows with the simple folk, the president of Trudeau's favourite country will pick up PM Hair-Boy's slack and promote globalisation at Davos:

China's President Xi Jinping will promote "inclusive globalization" at this month's World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos and will warn that populist approaches can lead to "war and poverty", Chinese officials said on Wednesday.

(Sidebar: ... says the guy who warned Trump from Taiwan.) 




Presumptive virtue-signallers troll for signatures and, for some reason, are not told to go away:

The Sault Ste. Marie and Area Local Immigration Partnership (LIP) is proud to launch the ‘Take the Pledge against Racism and Discrimination’ campaign.

Visit discoverthesault.ca to ‘Take the Pledge’ and print your certificate.

By taking this online pledge, supporters are making a personal commitment to understand, stand against, and act to eliminate racism and discrimination.

(Sidebar: oh, yes, because everyone loves being racist.)

See - there is a reason why I do not refer to leftists as "progressive" because nothing they say or do gives one the impression that they are advancing the cause of progress for humanity.

Cases in point:

**

MTV News culture reporter Ira Madison III sparked social media outrage after he mocked Senator Jeff Sessions’ Asian-American granddaughter, tweeting that Sessions stole her from Toys “R” Us.

 
**

Kindly correct me if I’m wrong. But in this Chicago kidnapping/torture case, the perpetrators mention race over and over and over.

Sample comments uttered by this dusky quartet of blockheads as recorded by their own dumb hands:

Fuck Donald Trump, nigga! Fuck white people, boy! Fuck white people, boy! 

This nigga right here—he represents Trump.

His ass deserve it. His ass from Europe.

400 years done stopped two years ago.

If he sit in the sun all day, he will perish. If he sit in the sun all day, he gonna die.

His ass a parasite. He a bug. Literally. He don’t belong on this earth.

Goof-ass white man.

 
I wonder when the LIP is going to make these guys sign a pledge. Their racism is certainly showing.

The "poor" are the rich Jesus warned us about and right now, it looks like He is going to drill a pledge-signing "progressive" right in the face.

Oh, this must be embarrassing:

Let’s be clear: Hillary Clinton did not lose the 2016 election because of Russian meddling or WikiLeaks. And here is the proof: WikiLeaks began publishing its trove of Democratic National Committee emails on July 22, 2016, three days before the Democratic National Convention. By then, Hillary Clinton was already in a deep hole with American voters. ...

Which is why it is so puzzling the Trump team keeps trying to call into question the ODNI report’s conclusions that Russia was behind the DNC hacking effort. Trump should embrace those conclusions instead. He should point out that the report is a searing indictment not of him, but of Obama, and that Russia’s actions are a direct result of Obama’s weakness on the world stage. That would be a much smarter approach than questioning the integrity of the intelligence community he will have to lead in less than two weeks.

I don't believe that the Russians rigged the election or destroyed Hillary Clinton's career. They didn't need to do any of that because the Americans could handle that on their own.

But it's not like Putin will lose any sleep over this.




A Swiss human rights court rules that Muslim girls must swim with the boys:

Europe’s court of human rights has rejected an appeal by a Turkish-born couple who were fined in Switzerland for keeping their daughters out of mixed-gender, mandatory public-school swimming lessons for reasons linked to their Muslim faith.

The European Court of Human Rights decision upholds a Swiss federal court ruling that education officials had not violated the family’s rights of freedom of conscience and religion in the case in Basel dating to 2008.

Also:

Delegations at the Peel District School Board's Tuesday, Jan. 10 meeting descended into a spectacle that encapsulated the tension surging through the room. ...

One aspect that Brazau found worrisome was how sermons for Friday prayer must be in English, save for any parts of the Qur'an cited in Arabic. 

Up next was a delegate who identified as Ron Banerj. He did much of the same, but decided to say things like "Islam is poison" and tell agitated spectators to "shut up." 

In an effort to stop Banerj, McDougald referenced the previous delegates: "If you want to discuss this with respect, take a little lesson from our students." 

(Sidebar: what? The ones who sit in the back?)

A woman then stood up and started waving a book and shouting at everyone. Amid the commotion, she appeared to be denouncing Islam. 

Peel police officers quickly waded through the audience and removed the woman. 

Board communications staff confirmed that the woman wasn't arrested, but was made to leave the property. 

The chaos immediately paused the meeting.

And now, God bless America ... in Japan:

 On 3 January this year, that store shut its doors, marking the end of an era, and adding to the increasingly long list of Krispy Kreme store closures around the country. The doughnut and coffeehouse chain is hoping things will pick up in the near future, though, with a brand new limited-edition collection doing its very best to make lovers of sweets weak at the knees.