And the Rest of It

A bit going on ...




A very close call:

An American Airlines mechanic appeared in federal court Friday on a sabotage charge accusing him of disabling a navigation system on a flight with 150 people aboard before it was scheduled to take off from Miami International Airport earlier this summer. 

The reason, according to a criminal complaint filed in Miami federal court: Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani, a veteran employee, was upset over stalled union contract negotiations.

None of the passengers and crew on the flight to Nassau were injured because his tampering with the so-called air data module caused an error alert as the pilots powered up the plane’s engines on the runway July 17, according to the complaint affidavit.

As a result, flight No. 2834 was aborted and taken out of service for routine maintenance at American’s hangar at MIA, which is when the tampering with the ADM system was discovered during an inspection. An AA mechanic found a loosely connected tube in front of the nose gear underneath the cockpit that had been deliberately obstructed with some sort of hard foam material.

 
(WARNING: revolutionary thought approaching):

Ke gave a hint of his worldview in a 2016 interview with the Ming Pao newspaper, promoting a new travel document for Chinese expatriates.

“A 10-year visa is still looking at overseas Chinese people as foreigners; the feeling is not the same,” Ke is quoted as saying. “We are the same as our compatriots from Hong Kong and Taiwan; we are all Chinese people. With an Overseas Compatriot Identity Card we could go back to our country more conveniently, without any visa.”

Hong Kong is part of China, Taiwan a territory that Beijing claims as its own.

Ke’s connections to the Chinese regime — at a time when Beijing is devoting unprecedented resources to its worldwide influence campaign — raise questions about how close a Canadian politician should get to a foreign power.

Premier Doug Ford praises Ke as an important part of his government; others are wary about the sort of links he has to China.

“The function of an MPP is to represent the interests of the constituents,” says Charles Burton, a former Canadian diplomat in Beijing and China expert at Ontario’s Brock University. “I don’t think a close relationship with a foreign government is something that should be encouraged …If you are going to be a Canadian, I think you should be fully loyal to Canada, and not have any residual loyalties to another place.”

Can the current Canadian political climate accept loyalty to Canada only and not to a Third-World dictatorship?

NOPE LASER GIF from Nope GIFs

Really? Do you think so?:

A new Ipsos poll reveals a full two-thirds of Canadians saying “Canada’s economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful,” a theme that will certainly factor into the upcoming election campaign.

Douchebag does something douchey:

Leaving an event, Trudeau was asked “will you keep your promise to Grass Narrows?”

His response?

“Thanks for being here.”

Stay classy, Justin.




That's alright. They were just trying to be good brownshirts:

Parliament’s security service has apologized to an Alberta oil executive after his shirt expressing love for Canadian oil was deemed too risqué for a Senate tour.

William Lacey, chief financial officer for Calgary-based Steelhead Petroleum, told the National Post he was trying to tour the Senate on Monday with his family when he was stopped by a security guard.

At the time he was wearing a shirt that says “I love Canadian oil and gas” on the front (using symbols for words), and “The world needs more Canadian energy” on the back. The shirt is produced by a group called Canada Action.

“The guard looked at me and he said, ‘Sir, I’m gonna have to ask you to remove your shirt because some people may be offended by the message,’” Lacey said. He said the guard gave him two options: turn the shirt inside out, or leave.

Lacey said the guard wasn’t overly aggressive, but it was also clear the matter wasn’t up for discussion. Given he was with his family and there were other people waiting to go in, he decided to turn the shirt inside out and take the tour.

If the teachers of Ontario have time and resources to hate Doug Ford then maybe they are not busy enough and perhaps to generously compensated:

It’s true that Ontario does have low per capita spending on many services, but education isn’t one of them. A report this week for the Alberta government compares education budgets in the four largest provinces. Ontario spends $17,077 per student, almost $5,000 more than its nearest comparator in Quebec and nearly double what B.C. spends. Ontario also has the highest administrative spending of the four provinces, at just over 27 per cent of the education budget.

There is ample opportunity to slow the rate of education spending growth, and to do it without hurting kids. Teachers could help. Instead, Ontario’s largest teachers’ union is stirring up fear based on exceptionally weak arguments. That’s a disservice to the children the union says it wants to protect.

Read the whole thing.




When these people are done with this girl, will she return to the only man who gave a single care about her?:

A father who opposes his transgender child’s pursuit of testosterone therapy showed behaviour that went beyond mere expressions of disapproval but was coercive and intimidating — and thus was a clear act of family violence, B.C.’s top court was told Thursday.

The article does not state once what this violence was, only that the father strenuously objected and still objects to his daughter's radical transformation at the hands of quacks, lawyers and her own mother.


Also - quackery and junk science don't end with suicidal surgery nuts:

While one per cent of Canadians (350,000) have celiac disease — an immune response to eating gluten — and six per cent (2.1 million) gluten sensitivity, upwards of 20 per cent (more than 7 million) steer clear of the proteins as a lifestyle choice.

The findings of a U.K. study published in the September issue of the journal Gastroenterology may give some of these “lifestylers” pause: For most people, eating a gluten-free diet is unnecessary.

Oh, my! This must be humiliating for the industry!:

NAF Vice President of External Affairs Melissa Fowler also testified she recognized StemExpress—a human tissue procurement lab exposed in Daleiden’s undercover videos that is now under federal investigation—as a repeat vendor of her for-profit organization. NAF is a third-party abortion trade group.

So you were trading in human body parts?

Wow. No wonder the industry wants those admissions blotted out from the public arena.




I'll say. It's like handing over the prime minister's office to some frat-boy because he's the son of a former prime minister:

At issue are scholarships and other perks granted to the daughter of the nominee, Cho Kuk, allegedly out of line with her academic performance. 

The scandal has struck a chord in South Korea where young people, who compete furiously through school and university, are increasingly finding themselves scrambling for a dwindling number of positions in a slack job market, in a system they see as plagued by systemic unfairness and bias in favor of the elite. 

The scandal surrounding Cho, who faced a parliament confirmation hearing on Friday, has caused a media sensation and sparked protests since Moon nominated him in early August. 

At the hearing on Friday, Cho did not deny his daughter’s academic perks and expressed his “deepest apologies to the younger generation” for the disappointment that he caused them. 

But he said his responsibility was to complete the reform of the justice ministry and prosecution, and would consider a way to make amends to young people who don’t have the same opportunities. 

Throwing bones to distract people completely works in Canada but I don't think it works in South Korea.




Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe states his case for Russian-controlled Japanese islands. Putin doesn't care:

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called on Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday to step up efforts to resolve a long-standing territorial dispute between their countries and sign a postwar peace treaty, calling it their “historical duty.”

“The new relationship of cooperation between Japan and Russia is becoming more apparent thanks to our work,” Abe said in a speech at a regional economic forum in Vladivostok in the Russian Far East.

“And beyond that, we have a historical duty to sign a peace treaty. Let’s fulfill our responsibility to history. Let’s sign a peace treaty and set free the unlimited potential of our people,” the prime minister said.

Japan and Russia are engaged in a row over the sovereignty of four Russian-held islands lying off Hokkaido, which has prevented them from signing a formal peace treaty since the end of World War II.

Putin on Thursday confirmed his agreement with Abe last year to accelerate peace treaty talks based on a 1956 joint declaration, which mentions Moscow handing over two of the four islands. The Soviet Union took control of the islands — collectively called the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kurils in Russia — after Japan’s surrender in the war. But Moscow has recently hardened its stance on the issue. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev last month visited the largest of the islands, Etorofu, drawing protests from Tokyo.

Earlier Thursday, Putin hailed the opening of a seafood processing factory on Shikotan by sending a video message to a ceremony marking the start of operations, a move seen as flaunting Russia’s control of the islands.

Also:

Japan wants to start using the traditional order for Japanese names in English in official documents, with family names first, a switch from the Westernized custom the country adopted more than a century ago.

The idea has been floated for years, most recently by foreign and education ministers in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe‘s ultra-conservative Cabinet.