Friday Post

Just in time for the week-end ...



It's probably because Trudeau is a lying sack of sh -- :

Trudeau’s disapproval (47%) now exceeds his approval (42%), a net favourable score (approve minus disapprove) of -5, which a stark contrast from six months ago when his score was positively in double digits. (10%) say they don’t know whether they approve or disapprove.

Read more at: http://poll.forumresearch.com/post/2715/trudeau-unpopular/
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Trudeau’s disapproval (47%) now exceeds his approval (42%), a net favourable score (approve minus disapprove) of -5, which a stark contrast from six months ago when his score was positively in double digits. (10%) say they don’t know whether they approve or disapprove.

(Sidebar: but Liberal voters don't disapprove. Ever.)

This ouija board made an afterlife call to Justin's dad.

Trump should start taking his election promises seriously.


PM Hair-Boy did:

The — let us say — originality of the Trumpian approach to foreign and trade relations is already well-noted. What is perhaps less appreciated is how deeply contingent Canadian politics and Canadian policy are on America’s. How many of the Trudeau government’s goals and endeavours — from carbon taxes to social policy to pot legislation, from taxation to defence — can withstand a radically divergent approach and substance from the administration to the South?

Trudeau's handlers must have told him what would happen if Trump scrapped NAFTA (as he promised he would).

Selfies can buy only so much electoral good will.




Europeans have rested far too long on the laurels of their past and extolled the virtues of socialism while the rest of the West didn't.

The chickens have come home to roost:

It is one of the ironies of modern international politics that the French, one of the most avaricious, individualistic and imaginative peoples in the world, have been so seduced by a hopeless, inert, desiccated socialism. When Richelieu, otherwise one of the greatest statesmen in European history, imposed an absolute and centralized government in the 17th century, he almost aborted democracy and doomed France to a struggle ever since between an over-mighty state and revolutionary libertarianism.

 
North Korea has test-fired yet another missile:

North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile early on Saturday from a region north of its capital, Pyongyang, Yonhap news agency reported citing South Korea's military.


There were no immediate details about the missile or its flight, Yonhap said.

 


I keep saying this: China not only helped keep North Korea divided, it benefited from it. Its interest in North Korea is as a buffer zone. It will do the bare minimum of calming North Korea's third dynastic dictator before returning to the status quo - one of letting that totalitarian state continue black-mailing the world and threaten its neighbours.

Squeeze China. Hold it accountable for propping up North Korea. That, or leave it alone and watch as North Korea crumbles from within and China, which everyone thinks has such altruistic designs on Korea, riddles starving North Koran refugees with bullets.

Don't think that the Chinese bear their Korean neighbours any affection.

The United States and China offered starkly different strategies Friday for addressing North Korea’s escalating nuclear threat as President Donald Trump’s top diplomat demanded full enforcement of economic sanctions on Pyongyang and urged new penalties. Stepping back from suggestions of U.S. military action, he even offered aid to North Korea if it ends its nuclear weapons program.

The range of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s suggestions, which over a span of 24 hours also included restarting negotiations, reflected America’s failure to halt North Korea’s nuclear advances despite decades of U.S.-led sanctions, military threats and stop-and-go rounds of diplomatic engagement. As the North approaches the capability to hit the U.S. mainland with a nuclear-tipped missile, the Trump administration feels it is running out of time.

Pope Francis readies to celebrate Mass in Cairo where, hopefully, he will call out the plight of Egyptian Christians:

Pope Francis celebrates a Mass in a military stadium on Saturday, the last of a two-day visit to Cairo where he has called for leaders of all faiths to reject religious violence and denounce intolerance.

Now Hear This

 

Budget? No, unicorns:

Beyond these shell games, the Liberals are massively increasing borrowing over the next three years, hiking it by $18 billion to $96.5 billion. That’s 23% higher than the $78.5 billion the Liberals said they would need just one year ago.

This, no doubt, will be part of their political slush fund for bribing us with our own money in Wynne’s next budget, which will come down shortly before next year’s election in June.

It’s the same trick Wynne is using to “lower” our electricity bills starting June 1 by 17% (plus the earlier 8% HST cut on Jan. 1) by racking up $25 billion in new debt to be paid back by taxpayers.

Despite Wynne’s claim of balancing the budget this year, Ontario’s total debt will still increase by $11.5 billion in 2017-18 to $311.9 billion, with another hike of $12 billion next year, because of debt servicing costs.

So the promises for universal drug plans for the under-24s (how will they pay for it? Oh, yes! Killing off the elderly and the pre-elderly!) and these spaces that magically opened at child-minding centres is about as plausible as an opera-singing unicorn that has fielded questions on this debt-creating budget.

Unicorns fly, too.

The most transparent government in the land:

Ethics commissioner Mary Dawson is no longer investigating Justin Trudeau’s controversial cash-for-access fundraisers, although she refused to answer questions on why she seems to have questioned only the prime minister and not anyone else involved in the alleged ethical breaches.

The National Post obtained copies of letters Dawson sent to interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose and then-NDP ethics critic Alexandre Boulerice, both of whom submitted formal complaints about the prime minister’s fundraisers. In the letters, Dawson says she asked Trudeau for a list of fundraiser attendees as well as a description of his and his staff’s discussions with the wealthy businesspeople who attended his events and then received favourable decisions from the Trudeau government.

“After carefully reviewing the information and documents provided by Mr. Trudeau in response to my request … I will not be looking further into this matter and so informed Mr. Trudeau,” Dawson wrote in her letter to Ambrose dated Feb. 14.

 
I repeat myself:

... the same ethics commissioner who cleared Trudeau's speaking engagements and fees taken from non-profit organisations and schools is the same person whose term has been recently renewed and who must now decide if the prime minister did anything wrong meeting with a billionaire who has received huge amounts of money from the current government.

Also in Liberal corruption news:

Canadian ministers had high-level discussions and a private dinner this week with powerful Chinese officials, including the vice-premier who was seated next to President Xi Jinping at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-lago resort at the beginning of the month.

(Sidebar: yeah, that sounds familiar.)


**

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has apologized to Canadian, American and Afghan troops that he served with in Afghanistan for claiming that he was the “architect” of Canada’s most famous and bloodiest combat operation of that war.

So that this corruption can carry on for another few years:

To deal with the unprecedented spike in landed asylum claims from aspiring refugees to Canada, Trudeau government officials are working on a plan to accelerate refugee applications by bypassing some of the important screening and vetting measures currently used by Canadian officials.

According to two senior sources — both former high-ranking officials in the department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the new policy would fast-track and quickly accept asylum claims from countries with historically high acceptance rates into Canada by the Immigration Refugee Board (IRB).

Examples of countries that could fall under this category include Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and Eritrea.

According to a notice quietly posted on the IRB website last month, the government is working to fast-track applications.

“As a result of rapidly increasing refugee claims, global instability and a backlog of new refugee claims, the IRB will be changing its approach for scheduling RPD (Refugee Protection Division) hearings beginning at the end of March 2017,” the notice says.

It goes on to state that, under the new forthcoming process, “certain claims identified by the RPD as straight forward will be scheduled for a short hearing.”

Did Trump relent or did Trudeau blink?

President Donald Trump said on Thursday he pulled back from the brink of killing the 23-year-old trade pact with Canada and Mexico after requests from their leaders and expressed optimism about winning better U.S. terms in a renegotiated deal.

I'm betting on the blink thing.

A smart leader would ask some hard and fast questions about protectionism, trade and tariffs.

But we have Trudeau, so ...





Ann Coulter should give her speech with a bullhorn on a rooftop:

Ann Coulter says she was forced to cancel her speaking event Thursday at the University of California, Berkeley amid concerns of violence but might still “swing by to say hello” to all her supporters.

Police and university officials said they were bracing for possible trouble whether Coulter comes to campus or not, citing intelligence and online chatter by groups threatening to instigate violence.

If the police and the university don't want to do their jobs, then there is no need to give them money.





What will happen is that a woman will bleed out after administering her post-coital birth control and then some jackanapes will demand more publicly-funded abortuaries:

An international advocacy group concerned about restrictive laws in the United States plans to help women self-induce abortions at home, offering online advice and counseling about how to use medications that can terminate their pregnancies.

What Pope Francis needs is his Pope Benedict moment:

The theological challenge is less delicate but more important in the long run. El-Sisi gave a landmark address in January 2015 in which he called for reform in Islam, specifically to address the cancer of religious violence — directed not only at Christians but within the house of Islam itself. It is significant that the president would recognize the need for theological reform, but it is a task that is beyond his competence.

Whoever owns a car in North Korea races to the pumps before China cuts them off:

An acute shortage of gasoline in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang that has sparked price hikes and hoarding is raising fears of potentially crippling pain at the pumps if things don’t get better soon — and driving rumours that China is to blame.

The shortage, which is extremely unusual if not unprecedented, began last week when signs went up at gas stations around the city informing customers that restrictions on sales would be put in place until further notice. With no indication as of Wednesday night of when the restrictions might be lifted — or why they have been imposed — drivers continue to scramble to fill up their tanks and whatever other containers they can find.

The capital Pyongyang

It is to laugh:

Mid-Week Post

The spring in mid-step ...



Kevin O'Leary is out of the race:

Celebrity investor and reality-TV star Kevin O’Leary, who rattled Conservative cages three months ago when he joined the party’s leadership race, did it again Wednesday by quitting a contest observers believe he had every chance of winning.

O’Leary’s stunning news — he’s throwing his support behind Quebec rival Maxime Bernier —  appeared to catch even some members of his campaign team off-guard as they gathered to prepare for Wednesday’s final leadership debate.

Behind the scenes, however, O’Leary been mulling the idea for about a week, say sources, ever more convinced that as leader, he might never be able to rally enough support in Quebec to deliver a majority Conservative mandate in 2019.

 
In truth, he was nothing more than a Liberal in disguise.

Good riddance.





Then it's not really progress, is it?

Canada and the United States have made progress in recent days on a dispute over Canadian lumber exports "but we are not there yet", Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Wednesday.

In the 2015 election, the Liberals won key ridings due to the immigrant vote.

It is no surprise, therefore, why Trudeau is rigging the system now:

To block officials from interfering with immigration rules and laws, PM Trudeau’s government is going through an ideological purge that will remove adjudicators from the refugee and immigration board.
 
So far, 14 adjudicators have been removed and it’s expected that at least 39 more members will be let go. Adjudicators, who were removed, were taken in by the last government and these changes are worrying people. Those being removed were called “seasoned decision-makers” and people fear that this purge will throw the system into disarray.  
 
A member from Ontario’s Refugee Lawyer’s Association said that the main concern is the government that is having governor-in-council meeting for the appointments that is discretionary and political. He believes that a transparent process will help appoint candidates who are more competent and suitable, efficient, fair-minded and judicious.


He also said it’s possible that the quality and efficiency of decisions can be compromised if candidates are not judicious or have the right expertise. There are in total 58 positions on the refugee and immigration board and out of these, 23 are unfilled.

Xavier Becerra, the attorney-general for California, believes that Trump is wrong about punishing so-called sanctuary cities:

Xavier Becerra, former chairman of the House Democratic Caucus who was appointed to fill the attorney general's post vacated by now-Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), told CNN on Tuesday after a federal judge granted an injunction against the administration's vow to strip all federal funding from sanctuary cities that the White House is "in denial."

"You just have to read the constitution. It's very simple. You can't force states to do things that the constitution lets them do. And public safety is one of those items that a state has the responsibility to take care of, not the federal government," he said.

 
But is entering a country illegally protected by the Constitution?

Nope.




Punish China, cripple North Korea -  as I've often said:

In addition to supporting allies and increasing sanctions against North Korea, he said, "we have to keep pressure on China so that they are serious about putting pressure on North Korea."

What Mr. Panetta does not bear in mind is how often containment does not work and hasn't since 1953.


Related:

Hours after a display of North Korean military power, rival South Korea announced Wednesday the installation of key parts of a contentious U.S. missile defence system meant to counter the North.

South Korea’s trumpeting of progress in setting up the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence system, or THAAD, comes as high-powered U.S. military vessels converge on the Korean Peninsula and as a combative North Korea signals possible nuclear and missile testing.

North Korea conducted live-fire artillery drills on Tuesday, the 85th anniversary of the founding of its million-person Korean People’s Army. On the same day, a U.S. guided-missile submarine docked in South Korea. And the USS Carl Vinson aircraft supercarrier is also headed toward the peninsula for a joint exercise with South Korea.

The moves to set up THAAD within this year have angered not only North Korea, but also China, the country that the Trump administration hopes to work with to rid the North of nuclear weapons. China, which has grown increasingly frustrated with North Korea, its ally, and Russia see the system’s powerful radars as a security threat.

Yes, I'm sure China and Russia would see South Korea's self-protection as threatening.


And:

Why, after this eight-year charade, anyone would believe North Korean “commitments” to renounce nuclear weapons is hard to understand. The real problem is that many otherwise sensible people are prepared to believe that agreements constitute reality, rather than actual behaviour. Reporters and diplomats often say things like “the agreement ended (fill-in the blank)’s nuclear program.” Needless to say, no agreement does any such thing, only the verified conduct of the parties themselves.

The contemporary lessons are plain. In the past, while American true believers were kneeling in prayer and lighting incense candles to fanciful agreements with North Korea, Iran, Syria and their ilk, these rogue states were committing (as T.S. Eliot entitled his play) murder in the cathedral. Time to face reality instead.

Again: he revealed that because he is simultaneously a moron and an @$$hole. It's a genetic trait he got from his dad:

Mulcair took aim at Trudeau for his assertion that he wants to make things fairer for those facing pot-possession charges once marijuana becomes legal next year — a comment he made during a segment with Vice Canada on Monday. ...

“When you’re of that background and you’re privileged and you’ve always had everything given to you and you are treated differently, that’s what he is used to, isn’t it?” he said.

“He doesn’t find it at all abnormal that he can admit to smoking marijuana while he was a member of Parliament and at the same time say, ‘The law is the law and you will be prosecuted if you smoke marijuana.’

“That is abject hypocrisy by Justin Trudeau.”

Trudeau also shared a story during the Monday interview about an incident in which his late brother Michel faced marijuana possession charges.

Trudeau said his father, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, was able to bring the family’s resources to bear on the problem, including turning to friends in the legal community to help make the charges go away.

Also:

Catherine McKenna was trying to mark World Penguin Day with a simple tweet accompanied by a cute video of penguins frolicking in the wild.

Problem is, those weren't penguins in the video, but puffins — the squat, distinctive-looking seabirds that make their homes on islands and coastlines in the north Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

Oops.




Diversity is strength ... or some such thing:

Canadian women immigrants from India whose mother tongue is Punjabi are aborting their daughters in favor of sons, a bias so entrenched it doesn’t change no matter how long the women have lived in Canada, a new study reveals.

(Sidebar: feminists will decry this practice soon. Where did all of these crickets come from?)


Also - Planned Parenthood employees are a strange mixture of stupid and evil:

A new Center for Medical Progress (CMP) video shows a Planned Parenthood senior executive haggling over pricing for aborted babies' body parts, which she says she's "committed" to selling.

The video is of a conversation CMP investigators had with Dr. Mary Gatter at a Planned Parenthood conference evening reception. Gatter, who in another CMP video, joked, "I want a Lamborghini" when negotiating prices of baby parts, explains that she's "committed" to selling the bodies of aborted babies and "I think it’s a great idea."

This woman's idiocy and wickedness is matched by morons who insist that the overwhelming proof doesn't exist.




The same country that gave light sentences to three men who gang-raped a woman and broadcast it on Facebook is incredibly hard on a pro-life midwife:

Swedish midwife Ellinor Grimmark has decided to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights over Sweden’s hard line on conscientious objection.
The Swedish Appeals Court decided earlier this month that the government can force medical professionals to perform and cooperate in abortions, or else be forced out of their profession. Because the ruling in Grimmark v. Landstinget i Jönköpings Län appears to contradict international law protecting conscientious objection, Grimmark wants to appeal to Strasbourg.
Three different medical clinics denied her employment because she will not assist with abortions. In Sweden, midwives are essentially nurses who specialize in pregnancy and child birth and seldom do abortions. It would have been relatively easy to find a way to accommodate Grimmark’s preferences.
However, the clinics’ intransigence has meant that Grimmark and her family have had to move to neighbouring Norway. “In the beginning, I was hoping to stay in Sweden,” she told Fox News. “But we have now made Norway home. I have a job here where they are not concerned with my beliefs.”
- See more at: https://www.mercatornet.com/features/view/swedish-midwife-opposed-to-abortion-appeals-to-european-court-of-human-righ/19694#sthash.ckTwtDaR.dpuf

Swedish midwife Ellinor Grimmark has decided to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights over Sweden’s hard line on conscientious objection.

The Swedish Appeals Court decided earlier this month that the government can force medical professionals to perform and cooperate in abortions, or else be forced out of their profession. Because the ruling in Grimmark v. Landstinget i Jönköpings Län appears to contradict international law protecting conscientious objection, Grimmark wants to appeal to Strasbourg.

Three different medical clinics denied her employment because she will not assist with abortions. In Sweden, midwives are essentially nurses who specialize in pregnancy and child birth and seldom do abortions. It would have been relatively easy to find a way to accommodate Grimmark’s preferences.

However, the clinics’ intransigence has meant that Grimmark and her family have had to move to neighbouring Norway. “In the beginning, I was hoping to stay in Sweden,” she told Fox News. “But we have now made Norway home. I have a job here where they are not concerned with my beliefs.”

 
Priorities, eh, Sweden?




If the medical community wants to be taken seriously, then it can start telling the whole truth:

But HPV is not just another communicable disease, like those against which pre-teens are currently vaccinated in the US. They can’t pick it up from the soil, like tetanus, or from other kids coughing around them, like diphtheria and whooping cough; it is transmitted by skin to skin contact, typically through sexual intercourse or behaviour leading to or imitating sexual intercourse.
Parents who wish to protect their adolescent children not only from STIs but from the emotional and moral harms of premature sexual activity would no doubt appreciate hearing all the facts about HPV from their doctor before they agree to vaccinating their 11-year-old.
- See more at: https://www.mercatornet.com/features/view/the-truthiness-behind-the-hpv-vaccine-campaign/19697#sthash.E2zDtPbj.dpuf

But HPV is not just another communicable disease, like those against which pre-teens are currently vaccinated in the US. They can’t pick it up from the soil, like tetanus, or from other kids coughing around them, like diphtheria and whooping cough; it is transmitted by skin to skin contact, typically through sexual intercourse or behaviour leading to or imitating sexual intercourse.

Parents who wish to protect their adolescent children not only from STIs but from the emotional and moral harms of premature sexual activity would no doubt appreciate hearing all the facts about HPV from their doctor before they agree to vaccinating their 11-year-old.

Caving into bullies empowers them. It's especially humiliating when these bullies are as stupid as bags of hammers:

Coulter was invited to speak by the Berkeley College Republicans, Young America’s Foundation (YAF), and a student dialogue group called BridgeCal. The event was set for April 27, but the UC Berkeley administration canceled the event. It offered alternative dates, ostensibly because they would be more manageable from a security standpoint. But Coulter refused to bow to the “heckler’s veto” — or, more accurately, “rioter’s veto” — over when she would speak.

Now, Coulter is planning to show up on campus Thursday regardless. She is expected to speak outdoors in Sproul Plaza, which is a designated free speech area on campus, and the site of the 1964 demonstrations that launched the Free Speech Movement. (No time has yet been set for the speech.) Fox reports that police are bracing for riots by leftists, anarchists, and so-called “anti-fascist” activists, whether or not Coulter actually appears on campus and tries to speak.

Iran's dissidents:

Fariba Kamalabadi. Jamaloddin Khanjani. Afif Naeimi. Saeid Rezaie. Mahvash Sabet. Behrouz Tavakkoli. Vahid Tizfahm. 

On May 14, these seven people will mark the beginning of their 10th year in prison for the crime of being leading members of Iran’s viciously persecuted and harmlessly devout Baha’i community.

These seven people formed the entirety of the Yaran, the “Friends,” in Persian, a group that that looked after the needs of Iran’s Baha’is — in the Baha’i tradition there is no clergy. The Friends served as the successor group to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of Iran, an administrative group whose several members were “disappeared” during the Khomeinist revolution of 1979. The last eight members of the Spiritual Assembly were executed by firing squad on Dec. 27, 1981.

And now,  growing brain circuits:

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have successfully grown the first-ever working 3D brain circuits in a petri dish. Writing in the journal Nature, they say the network of living cells will allow us to study how the human brain develops.

(Paws up)

The Story So Far

Thusly:



Australians and New Zealanders remember the landing in Gallipoli.




Furious that Trump would predictably rock the lumber tariff boat, Canada threatens vengeance ... or something:

Wilbur Ross, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, said stiff new tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber demonstrate the readiness of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to crack down on what it considers to be unfair trade policies.

“This administration is much more enforcement-oriented than the previous one,” Ross said in an interview on Bloomberg Television on Tuesday. “Enforcement is very much on the forefront in this administration.”

The U.S. Commerce Department has slapped import duties ranging from three per cent to 24 per cent on U.S.-bound shipments from Canadian forestry companies.

Canadian industry officials say the Trump Administration’s move is illegal and vow to fight. They dismiss the Commerce Department’s measures as posturing ahead of future trade talks. 

That's nice, but PM Hair-Boy has neither the finesse nor the wherewithal to do anything to head this off at the pass.

He wasn't elected because of his financial savvy.

If there is ever a finger to be pointed at anyone it is Canada and its protectionist policies that have only recently been revisited, long after Americans have benefitted from our products before our countrymen have. Then there are the subsidies and supply boards.

How the hell can anyone do business in this country let alone business with the Americans?

It is quite possible that Trump is posturing and it is also possible that this will bite the Americans in the end but not before it further reveals Trudeau's incompetence and his reliance on backers to fix what he was elected ostensibly to do.


Also - he is not just a total moron but arrogant and comfortable in the knowledge that no one will hold him to account. That's why he can be a struck-up @$$hole who answers an English question in French:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his younger brother, Michel, was able to avoid a criminal record after he was caught with marijuana because of his father’s connections.

(Sidebar: just like getting elected PM.)

**

A photo of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau posing with Veluppillai Thangavelu, the former vice-president of a group on Canada’s list of outlawed terrorist organizations, has underscored the pitfalls of selfie politics.

(Sidebar: another one?)




Harper didn't de-fund the CBC when he had the chance. That error still haunts us:

In its original form, the CBC article referred to Barghouti only as the “best-known” of the imprisoned Palestinians and a “popular choice” to replace Palestinian President Abbas, noting that he was arrested for his “role” in Palestinian uprisings, and that he’s serving multiple life terms, without explaining why.

From April 21 on, though, the CBC article included this paragraph: “Barghouti was arrested in 2002 during the violent Palestinian uprising and convicted on multiple counts of murder. Israel charged him with directing suicide bombings against its citizens and he was sentenced to five life terms.” These words come verbatim from the Associated Press story from which the CBC article was sourced.

The context-providing paragraph was only inserted following a complaint to the CBC’s editor-in-chief Jennifer McGuire by Mike Fegelman of HonestReporting Canada (HRC), which monitors Canadian media bias against Israel. As well, an editorial comment explaining the update, which should not have needed a prompt, was only issued following an added complaint from Fegelman. Even then, the clarification cryptically read: “This story has been updated to include additional information on Marwan Barghouti.” It doesn’t say, as the NYT’s clarification did, that the “additional information” comprised the crucial facts about Barghouti’s terrorist background.

 
And Phoenix Sinclair should have been a precautionary tale:

This time it was Edmonton and Anthony Joseph Raine, but it’s an old story in which the plot line is too familiar and nothing changes.

Nothing ever changes.

A child is killed. The mandatory teddy bear memorial springs up. Social media is alive both with sugary tributes to the dead baby and illiterate blind rage at those accused of killing him.

The former, for instance, say Anthony was a “sweet angel.” He was a boy who could “light up a room” with his smiles. He was “always happy.”

In fact, according to Edmonton Police Homicide Staff Sergeant Duane Hunter, it’s unlikely the 19-month-old baby was ever happy. He lived a hideous life of abuse, “a terrible life full of violence,” as Hunter put it at a news conference late Monday.

Anthony’s body was covered in bruises.

Charged in his death are Joey Crier, 26, identified by family members as Anthony’s biological father, and his girlfriend, Tasha-Lee Mack, 25.

They are each accused of second-degree murder, criminal negligence causing death, failure to provide the necessaries of life and assault. Crier is additionally charged with assault causing bodily harm.

The charges suggest that Anthony had injuries both recent and not, that his death, the result of head trauma according to Hunter, was not the result of a sudden single burst of temper, but rather part of ongoing treatment, and that Crier and Mack also failed to get him medical attention.

An ambulance refuses to pick up child suffering from an allergic reaction:

When her 16-month old baby had a lick of peanut butter last week, Marina Byezhanova wasn’t particularly concerned.

Axel had had peanut butter before, and was just fine.

But this time, within seconds, the infant broke out in hives, started screaming inconsolably, and began to scratch his arms, chest and face until he drew blood.

Byezhanova called 911.

But the response she got from Urgences Santé was far from urgent.

“They said they would send an ambulance but we would have to wait up to three hours for it,” Byezhanova said. “We asked them to repeat that twice. They said if anything changes to call them back, but we knew if something else happened it would be that he was choking and it would be too late.”

Byezhanova and her husband hung up the phone and rushed the baby to Ste-Justine hospital in Montreal themselves, shaking at the wheel.

A triage nurse spotted them from down the corridor and immediately took the baby to inject him with a shot of epinephrine. They would spend the next five hours at the hospital, monitoring the baby and getting Benadryl and a prescription for an Epi-Pen to administer at home.

It was only later that Byezhanova thought about what might have happened if they had simply waited.

 
In 2008, Obama promised to meet Iran without pre-conditions.

In  2016, his pandering to Iran would almost pale Jimmy Carter's:

Obama released Iranians who were allegedly part of an “illegal procurement network supplying Iran with U.S.-made microelectronics” that would help create surface-to-air and cruise missiles. 

Information that will come in handy. In seven years, “all the sanctions, even arms embargoes and missile-related sanctions… would all be lifted,” Hassan Rouhani correctly noted during the post-deal Iranian celebration.

According to Politico, the Justice Department dropped charges and international arrest warrants against 14 men, most of them alleged spies. At least one of them sought supplies for Iran’s proxy Hezbollah, a Justice Department-designated terrorist organization that is also allied to Bashar al-Assad. Another one of these men was serving an eight-year sentence for “conspiring to supply Iran with satellite technology and hardware.” And Seyed Abolfazl Shahab Jamili had been charged with participating in conspiracy to procuring “thousands of parts with nuclear applications” that Iran supposedly didn’t care about anymore.

In the 2016 prisoner swap, the administration claimed that it was able “winnow” a big ask “down to these seven individuals, six of whom are Iranian-Americans.” This was a lie of omission, not to mention a distraction.

Read the whole thing.




Is that so, Mr. Ma?

Ma, 52, also hit out at the traditional banking industry, saying that lending must be available to more members of society. ...

Ma also called for traditional industries to stop complaining about the internet's effects on the economy. He said Alibaba critics ignore that Alibaba's consumer shopping offshoot, Taobao, has created "millions" of jobs.

Hhmmm ...

An anti-counterfeiting coalition is suspending Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba from its group after backlash from companies on May 13.

The companies view Alibaba as the largest marketplace for fakes in the world. 

Japan needs to nuclearise:

North Korea might be talking about building missiles that can reach the United States, but Kim Jong Un’s regime already has lots of missiles that can reach Japan. So the Japanese government is preparing its citizens to be ready in case a missile comes their way — something that could come with less than 10 minutes’ warning.

The prime minister’s office issued new “actions to protect yourself” guidelines this week, including for the first time instructions on how to respond if a North Korean ballistic missile is heading toward Japan.

And now, if she hadn't taken the dare, we would never have had that opportunity to appreciate her magnificent voice:

At the time, radio was booming and Harlem was a hotbed of black variety acts, theater, and street performance. Ella, who could both sing and dance, made the occasional nickel dancing on street corners, but when she learned about the Apollo Theater’s new amateur night competition, she was intrigued. She went to the theater with two girlfriends, who dared her to go onstage—as a dancer. "It was a bet," she said later. "We just put our names in … We never thought we’d get the call." The plan: Impersonate Earl "Snakehips" Tucker, a dancer renowned in Harlem for a routine in which he did a boneless-seeming dance people compared to a boa constrictor.

But when a gawky, homeless, poorly clothed Ella got ready to do her snake-like dance, things started to go wrong. She realized that a pair of well-known dancers, the Edwards Sisters—whom Ella once referred to as "the dancingest sisters in the world"—would go on before her as the final main-show act and that their costumes and routine were much fancier than her run-down gear and street-corner performance style. At the last minute, she chickened out and decided to sing instead.

"She was far from chic," recalled someone who was in the audience that night. "So we started booing … like the bunch of rowdy kids we were." The amateur night’s emcee had to beg the heckling audience for a bit of compassion to restore order before a discomposed Ella—who was "jumpy and unnerved," as the emcee reported—started to sing. After a rough start, Ella's clear, precise vocals—her calling card throughout her career—came through, and she won the crowd over. When she walked off the stage, it was in triumph.