Mid-Week Post

Merry Birthday!

Four people are dead and twenty injured in what is now being considered a terrorist attack:

A knife-wielding man went on a deadly rampage at the heart of Britain’s seat of power Wednesday, mowing down pedestrians on London’s Westminster Bridge before stabbing an armed police officer to death inside the gates of Parliament. Four people were killed, including the attacker, and about 20 others were injured.

Lawmakers, lords, staff and visitors were locked down as the man was shot by police within the perimeter of Parliament and just metres from entrances to the building itself. He died, as did two pedestrians on the bridge, and the police officer.

A doctor who treated the wounded said some had “catastrophic” injuries.

In the House of Commons, deputy Speaker Lindsay Hoyle announced that the sitting was being suspended and told lawmakers not to leave.

Police said they were treating the attacks as a terrorist incident and had launched a full counterterrorism investigation. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

“We are satisfied at this stage that it looks like there was only on attacker,” said Metropolitan Police counterterrorism chief Mark Rowley. “But it would be foolish to be overconfident early on.”

The threat level for international terrorism in the U.K. was already listed at severe, meaning an attack is “highly likely.”

Ahem:

“Times have changed and we should learn to live with terrorism..."

Because:

Sadiq Khan has said he believes the threat of terror attacks are “part and parcel of living in a big city” and encouraged Londoners to be vigilant to combat dangers.

And:

After that day, it emerged that the attacks were carried out by four guys who were Muslim. That’s what hit me more. Being a Muslim myself, I thought: “Well, why? Why would you do that? What ideology did you possess?” If they’d known their religion, it clearly states that to kill one innocent life is killing all humanity.

Yes, about that:

"I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them"

**

"O Prophet, exhort the believers to fight..."

Yep.

Europeans are awfully good at adapting to this sort of thing as it happens SO often these days.




Prior to the October 2015 election, Justin Trudeau promised three periods of debt.

People voted for him anyway.

And now today:

The future is coming at you, fast, and the Liberal government says it knows you're getting anxious — and potentially angry.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau delivered a federal budget Wednesday that aims to get Canadians ready for a changing world and potentially shield the Liberals from the forces that brought U.S. President Donald Trump to power.

"Everyday folks who work hard to provide for their families are worried about the future," Morneau said in his speech to the House of Commons as he tabled the 2017 federal budget, the second since the Liberals formed a majority government in 2015.

"They're worried that rapid technological change, the seemingly never-ending need for new skills and growing demands on our time will mean that their kids won't have the same opportunities that they had. And who can blame them?" Morneau said.

After setting up the doom and the gloom, Morneau spoke of the good news: Canadians have always been able to adapt to changing circumstances.

The budget, which projects a deficit of $28.6 billion this coming fiscal year, including a contingency reserve, is designed to help them get there.

What's $28.6 billion between friends?




Was it something they said?

The row between Seoul and Beijing over the deployment of a U.S. missile-defense system has seen China overtake even former colonizer Japan in the ranking of South Koreans’ least-favored countries, a survey shows.

Or did?

Seoul was blanketed with toxic haze on Tuesday morning, with air pollution at one point reaching the second worst in the world. 

The density of ultrafine or PM2.5 particles reached over 100 ㎍/㎥ per hour in the capital. The air quality in Seoul has hovered between 51 and 100 ㎍/㎥, or even worse for four days. Skies in most parts of Gyeonggi Province were also obscured by toxic haze all morning.

Seoul's air quality index at one point reached 179, the second worst in the world after New Delhi, according to AirVisual, a website that measures and compares pollutant levels in major cities around the world. ...

"It's possible that more fine dust accumulated this year as migratory anticyclones from China have hovered near the Korean Peninsula," said Chang Im-suk at the institute. "Another possible reason is that smog has worsened in China as factories resumed operations in the Beijing area once the annual sessions of the National People's Congress and the Politburo came to a close on March 15."

These things happen. Now let have no more talk about this bizarre cover-up:

A lawyer representing the family of Sergei L. Magnitsky, a Russian auditor and lawyer who died in prison in 2009 after uncovering a $308 million fraud targeting an American-born financier, suffered severe head injuries Tuesday after plunging from his Moscow apartment building.

Russian news organizations said the lawyer, Nikolai Gorokhov, fell while helping movers carry a hot tub up to his fourth floor apartment. They showed photographs of a shattered tub outside the building.

But the financier, William F. Browder, said Gorokhov was to appear in a Moscow court on Wednesday to appeal on behalf of Magnitsky’s mother for an investigation into new evidence relating to the fraud scheme first exposed by Magnitsky.

Oh, this must be embarrassing:

North Carolina may have lost out on the NCAA championships, the NBA All-Star Game and Bruce Springsteen thanks to its hotly contested transgender bathroom law, but the state’s economy didn’t miss a beat.

Economic indicators released for 2016 show that the boycott has failed to derail North Carolina as a regional and national powerhouse, despite the loss of high-profile performances and sporting events in response to House Bill 2, signed March 23 by then-Gov. Pat McCrory.

Once again, dogs prove to be better people than people:

A former shelter dog in Michigan is being credited with saving the life of a 3-year-old girl who was found naked and alone in freezing weather.

The Delta Animal Shelter shared a letter on Facebook from the family of Peanut, an abused dog that arrived at the shelter nearly a year ago. The family writes that Peanut alerted her owner that she wanted to go outside Friday and took him to a field behind the house on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

The owner found the little girl, brought her inside and called 911.

The Delta County Sheriff’s Office confirms the story and says the girl is OK.

Authorities say they found the parents nearby in a residence with “unsafe and unsanitary living conditions.”

The girl and another young girl were removed from the home. Prosecutors are reviewing the case.