Mid- Week Post

The last for August ...

(sigh)



Terrible:

Tropical Storm Harvey spun across southeastern Texas into Louisiana on Wednesday, sending more people fleeing for shelter after swamping Houston with record rains and flooding that killed at least 25 and drove tens of thousands from their homes. 

The slow-moving storm has forced 32,000 people to seek shelter since coming ashore on Friday near Corpus Christi, Texas, as the most powerful hurricane to hit Texas in more than half a century. On Wednesday, it pummeled a stretch of coast from Port Arthur, Texas, to Lake Charles, Louisiana. 

Among the latest deaths reported were two people who drowned while driving through high water near Simonton, Texas, 40 miles (64 km) west of Houston, Major Chad Norvell of the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office said on Twitter. 

Houston’s KHOU-TV reported that an infant girl was swept away by floodwaters as her parents were driving from Houston toward Louisiana on Highway 150. Police in Harris County, home to Houston, said 17 people remained missing.

One should consider that dialogue with no promise of denuclearising on North Korea's part has been tried. As long as China protects North Korea, talk is cheap:

President Donald Trump on Wednesday declared “talking is not the answer” to the tense standoff with North Korea over its nuclear missile development, but his defense chief swiftly asserted that diplomatic options remain, and Russia demanded U.S. restraint. 

Trump’s comment, a day after Pyongyang fired a ballistic missile over Japan that drew U.N. and other international condemnation, renewed his tough rhetoric toward reclusive, nuclear-armed and increasingly isolated North Korea. 

“The U.S. has been talking to North Korea, and paying them extortion money, for 25 years,” Trump, who just last week said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was “starting to respect” the United States, wrote on Twitter. “Talking is not the answer!” 

When asked by reporters just hours later if the United States was out of diplomatic solutions with North Korea amid rising tensions after a series of missile tests by Pyongyang, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis replied: “No.” 

“We are never out of diplomatic solutions,” Mattis said before a meeting with his South Korean counterpart at the Pentagon. “We continue to work together, and the minister and I share a responsibility to provide for the protection of our nations, our populations and our interests.”

Well, this must be embarrassing:

Liberal MP Darshan Kang is vehemently denying allegations that he repeatedly sexually harassed a young female staffer in his Calgary constituency office and is vowing to defend his reputation "at all costs."

Kang issued a statement Tuesday proclaiming his innocence even as a damning new allegation surfaced that he tried to buy the woman's silence and the NDP demanded that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau immediately suspend the Calgary MP from the Liberal caucus until an investigation is completed.

For the second consecutive day, Trudeau refused to comment on the matter, saying only that it's being handled through a recently created independent process for resolving such misconduct complaints and that he'll let the process "unfold as it should."

Say what? 

A Saskatchewan man who viciously beat a homeless woman before setting her on fire will not be declared a dangerous offender.

Judge Stanley Loewen ruled Wednesday that Leslie Black will not get the designation which would have kept him in prison indefinitely.

Loewen recommended Black be sentenced to a lengthy prison term, followed by a long-term supervision order which would mean Black would be monitored for up to 10 years.

Black pleaded guilty to attempted murder in the sexual assault of Marlene Bird, who was attacked in Prince Albert in 2014. Her injuries were so serious both legs had to be amputated and she lost much of her eyesight.

Bird told court in handwritten letters she now can’t do anything on her own, including simple things such as picking a blueberry or going to the bathroom.

She said she has to wear adult diapers, can’t control her bowels and feels disgusted with herself when she can’t make it to the bathroom in time. Bird said she also fears entering the city because of the attack.

At the hearing, Black said if he could go back to the night he attacked Bird, he would have taken his father’s advice and stayed home.

In a brief statement, which Black read despite a stutter he has had since witnessing his mother’s murder when he was a child, Black said he understands that Bird and her family have not forgiven him.

“I apologize for what I did,” he said. “I still can’t forgive myself.”

Black said he is not a violent person and wants to get the help he needs to succeed in life.

“I’m usually a happy-go-lucky guy.”

Of course, the court agrees with his assessment.

Naomi Klein is a fat harridan and a champagne socialist:

Some have since said that Klein’s proposal was not serious. She was joking. Maybe, but as I recall from my reading of Klein’s 2014 book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate—and having followed her work through well beyond her own term limits as a leftist crank—humour is not a big part of her repertoire. When Klein proposes submitting aging columnists she doesn’t like for review before some undefined tribunal—other than the market for free expression—I think she’s serious. God help me if I had suggested publishers stop publishing her books and others by other writers of equal menace. Remember Klein’s infatuation with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez?

But ... but ... money fixes everything!

Math test scores among public elementary school students in Ontario have not improved — in some cases they have decreased slightly — despite a $60-million "renewed math strategy" the government had hoped would help solve the problem.

The latest results of the province's standardized tests — conducted by the Education Quality and Accountability Office — show that only half of Grade 6 students met the provincial standard in math, unchanged from the previous year. In 2013, about 57 per cent of Grade 6 students met the standard.

And among Grade 3 students, 62 per cent met the provincial standard in math, a one-percentage-point decrease since last year.

Norah Marsh, the CEO of EQAO, said math scores remain a concern and digging deeper reveals one area the province would like to focus on.

"For the students who met the standard in Grade 3, not as many are meeting it in Grade 6," she said. 

"Certainly, that's an area of focus as far as intervention between Grades 3 and 6 so they can achieve better results."

One might suggest that parents take an active role or that the curriculum return to the basics but that would just be nutty.




But if it did have ties to Iran, it could create a lasting peace:

Ask a few people from Thunder Bay what to do while you’re in town and you’ll get some different answers — see the Terry Fox monument, go to the Hoito, hike the Sleeping Giant, have you seen our amazing/horrible new lakefront? — but inevitably, everyone will agree that you need to eat a Persian.

Relax. In Lakehead lingo, a Persian is a sweet, fried cinnamon roll slathered in bright pink icing. The esteemed pastry takes up one of ten spots in the Wikipedia category “Culture of Thunder Bay” and is clearly a local point of pride — an eating contest earlier this year drew dozens to watch and compete in a quintessentially Lakeheadian pastry bonanza.

Mmm ... Persian donut ... possibly ...