Merry New Year!

 

The last post of the year ... (sigh)



Currently:

One deputy was killed and four others wounded after a suspect possibly laying in wait fired more than 100 rounds at them as they responded to the scene of a reported domestic dispute.

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said via its Twitter account that shots were fired in the course of the investigation and “multiple” deputies were injured. The shooting happened at the Copper Canyon Apartments in Highlands Ranch. The landscaped apartment complex is 16 miles (28 kilometres) south of Denver.

A follow-up tweet indicated that five deputies were shot by a suspect, with one confirmed dead. Two civilians were also shot by the suspect, who is “believed to be dead and no longer a threat.”

**

Anti-government protesters demonstrated in Iran on Sunday in defiance of a warning by authorities of a tough crackdown, extending for a fourth day one of the most audacious challenges to the clerical leadership since pro-reform unrest in 2009. 

(Sidebar: according to established wags, these anti-government dissenters are mere hiccups.)

(Merci)

**

South Korean authorities have seized a Panama-flagged vessel suspected of transferring oil products to North Korea in violation of international sanctions, a customs official said on Sunday. 

There is a pattern of this:

China on Friday denied reports it had been illicitly selling oil products to North Korea in violation of U.N. sanctions, after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was unhappy that China had allowed oil to reach the isolated nation. 

This North Korea:

A North Korean nuclear scientist deported back to his home country after defecting to China has reportedly committed suicide in his prison cell hours before he was due to be interrogated.

The defector, who is in his 50s, was a lead researcher in the physics centre of the State Academy of Sciences in Pyongyang. He was identified by Radio Free Asia as Hyun Cheol-huh, although it is not known if this was his real name.

A source in North Hamgyong province told RFA that he was forced back on November 17 and placed in solitary confinement at the state security department in Sinuiju city, where he consumed poison.

“He died before he could be questioned about the reasons for his escape, who had helped him and what his route had been,” he said. ...

Reports have suggested that Mr Hyun had attempted to join up with other defectors and that the Chinese were unaware of his true identity when they were tipped off by North Korean intelligence.

Despite building evidence of human rights atrocities, there has been a reported surge in deportations back to the North from China, the most common escape route for defectors.

It's time to penalise China big-time.

**

Changes are coming to the way drunk drivers are policed and prosecuted in Alberta with the provincial government set to issue a directive to police that will largely decriminalize impaired driving, CBC News has learned. 

Officers will be given wide discretion whether to criminally charge those who blow over the legal limit. But, for the most part, first time offenders will see roadside administrative sanctions rather than face criminal charges according to CBC sources.

The model Alberta is working toward looks much like British Columbia's, with fines, roadside towing and licence suspensions issued by police instead of criminal charges being laid.

The changes follow an Alberta Court of Appeal decision in May that struck down existing drunk driving laws. The province's top court found tying the suspension of a driver's licence to the outcome of their court case was unconstitutional.

(Sidebar: how could this go wrong?) 

**

Beyond the controversial $14 minimum wage that will be in place Jan. 1, other sweeping changes are set to revamp the Ontario labour and health landscape starting next week.

The new laws introduce free prescriptions for people under 25 and offer paid sick days to most workers, while abolishing the right for workplaces to request the much-maligned doctor's note when taking time off for health reasons. 

(Sidebar: things aren't free. The money to pay for these things will come from the now part-time workers and their heavily taxed incomes.)

**

An American Indigenous man's right to hunt in Canada has been upheld by a B.C. Supreme Court judge because his ancestors traditionally hunted in this country.

(Sidebar: now when Americans shoot Canadians, it is because an unelected judge let them.)

And now, one's year in review ...

Why didn't Stephen Harper gut the Supreme Court? I don't know:

At Wagner’s hearing before MPs, the Toronto Star reported, he “drew a clear line between the work of judges, which he said is to interpret laws, and that of parliamentarians, which is to make laws” — something for conservatives to cheer, perhaps, and perhaps something for liberals to fear. Progressive Canadians place much stock in the courts’ guidance on Charter issues, and in recent years that guidance has been music to their ears — on same-sex marriage, prostitution and many other issues. 

But Wagner also made clear that, like most Canadian jurists, he sees the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as a living, breathing document, not one frozen in amber.

That wasn’t such good news for conservatives. There hasn’t been much good news for conservatives at the Supreme Court in a long time.

A year with Gerald Butts' hand-puppet:

The last impression many Canadians have of Justin Trudeau in this year of Our Lord, 2017, was of him, shock-faced, rattled and babbling incoherently for a TV eternity of a minute and a half. 

For all the sense he made, he could have been speaking Njerep ( I have a Masters in Google search) a language that survives only on the tongues of four people in the entire world, the youngest of whom is already 60.

It’s not because the question was tough, nor could it possibly have been unforeseen. He had been found guilty by the ethics commissioner of, not one, but four provisions of the conflict of interest law.

And, naturally, he was asked, how could a prime minister not have known that hopping on private helicopters on a “vacation” to the Aga Khan’s private island, with buddies and Liberal party personnel in tow, was not — to use a word much in favour at Wilfrid Laurier U — problematic?

This was not quantum mechanics. It was a hot issue for the PMO for all of 2017. Yet there he was in the Commons foyer, having been asked the inevitable question, looking gobsmacked and wounded, stammering like an old outboard motor on the last pint of gas, and stacking up enough non sequiturs and platitudes to fill a Costco warehouse. How bad was he? For that 90 seconds, he made George Bush look like the oratorical son of Martin Luther King Jr. and Margaret Thatcher.

That was the last impression for public view Mr. Trudeau left for the year now gliding into its final hours. In the Star Wars Yoda-tongue: Ill, it will bode for him. Not smart, it will seem.

Really? Because most people remember the sesquicentennial as boring, uninspiring, wasteful and just plain awful:

Heritage Minister Melanie Joly is the first to acknowledge Canada 150 had its share of ups and downs.

She doesn't shy away from mentioning the torrential rains that flooded Parliament Hill's Canada Day show and tries to laugh off the frosty temperatures that forced the cancellation of many New Year's Eve events, including musical shows planned for Parliament Hill.

"We're Canadians," she says. "We're used to dealing with Mother Nature."

(Sidebar: like crying because it's cold outside?) 

Finally, may this new year greet one as it did these dogs - with high-pitched noises and howling: