Your mid-week eve of Saint Patrick's Day ...
In case you had forgotten which country you live in:
In Ottawa, @justintrudeau was arresting people for waving Canadian flags. https://t.co/YqJeaqVQ8R
— Mike McMullen (@ppclondonwest) March 15, 2022
So subversive ...
A kakistocracy AND a plutocracy:
Banks are eligible for taxpayers’ subsidies under a Freedom Convoy compensation fund for small business. The Commons finance committee has complained of poorly-designed aid programs that benefit publicly-traded corporations: “There were wide ranging consequences of this demonstration.”
Robber-barons.
I'm sure it's nothing to be concerned about:
Ahead of Statistic Canada’s monthly consumer price index report, economists are warning Canadians that things are about to get even more expensive if inflation levels show an anticipated 30-year-high.
“The list of factors driving inflation is so long that it’s easier to name the few things that aren’t escalating. Relative to last year, there aren’t many categories where prices look tame,” CIBC chief economist Avery Shenfeld told the Toronto Star.
Prices are expected to rise anywhere between 5.5% and 6% compared to last year, slightly higher than January’s spike of 5.1%.
Several regions throughout Canada saw fuel at the pumps reach an all-time high as the conflict in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia placed a strain on the industry. In March, gas in Metro Vancouver surpassed $2 per litre, while gas in Toronto reached $1.67 per litre.
Grocery prices have also surged, and industry groups have warned that the high costs of transportation and fertilizer will mean that farmers will have to pass the difference onto consumers.
(Sidebar: let this country never be tempted to produce whatever goods it can. That is the first sign of capitulation.)
I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time. You know, before we were told to hate Russians:
The Department of Foreign Affairs yesterday would not explain a 2021 subsidy it gave to a pro-Russia business group whose directors included a former Canadian ambassador to Moscow. The five-figure subsidy was to “stimulate the engagement of Canadian industry” in Russia: “Is it done by well paid lobbyists? Who knows.”
The thing is, we have always noticed how useless and stuttering Justin is. It's just that now the Europeans have really grown tired of him. His craven need for attention, his failure to meet even benchmark commitments and his cowardly attacks on Canadian citizens have made the Europeans sour on him like someone who has bitten into an earthworm sandwich:
It doesn’t matter what the question is. It doesn’t matter how direct it is, how worthy or the importance of the matter at hand. It doesn’t matter how desperately the Canadian people deserve an answer. The prime minister is going to say whatever he has chosen to say. The reporter’s question is just the prompt.
There’s no point being frustrated about it anymore. The general public doesn’t particularly care about the plight of the media, and the inability of the media to get questions answered understandably ranks fairly low on the average Canadian’s list of concerns. Still, it’s worth bringing up all the same.
But that's the problem.
Justin has gotten away with things that Canadians would find tiresome and unacceptable in their co-workers.
Were he to be held to account by a perceptive press or electorate, Justin would still be on the supply list.
You get what you vote for, Canada.
Unlike Canada's empty platitudes and general uselessness, Poland suggests something constructive:
“I think that it is necessary to have a peace mission – NATO, possibly some wider international structure – but a mission that will be able to defend itself, which will operate on Ukrainian territory,” Kaczynski told a news conference.
“It will be a mission that will strive for peace, to give humanitarian aid, but at the same time it will also be protected by appropriate forces, armed forces,” said Kaczynski, who is seen as the main decision-maker in Poland. ...
The Czech Republic and Poland, former communist countries that are members of both the EU and NATO, have been among the strongest backers of Ukraine in Europe since the Russian invasion.
Before the meeting, Morawiecki tweeted that “it is here, in war-torn Kyiv, that history is being made. It is here, that freedom fights against the world of tyranny. It is here that the future of us all hangs in the balance.”
The idea of the trip was agreed at an EU leaders’ summit in Versailles in France last week, Polish prime ministerial aide Michal Dworczyk said.
But an EU official said there was no “formal mandate” extended by Brussels.
I guess you can't count on the EU, Poland.
Why not seeking out alternative forms of education and not sealing off Quebec from land, sea and air is detrimental to the survival of the nation:
The advancement of Ontario’s Racial Equity in the Education System Act to third reading has alarmed critics, who say the legislation would entrench critical race theory (CRT) in schools and could lead to its adoption across Canada.
Because the country isn't divided enough without this in the mix:
New section 277.28.1 provides that performance appraisals shall include competencies related to a teacher’s anti-racism awareness and efforts to promote racial equity. New subsection 301 (7.1.1) requires the Minister to establish policies and guidelines with respect to promoting racial equity in schools. New section 303.4 requires boards to establish and implement racial equity plans.
Amendments to the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario Act, 2005 include new subsections 2 (5.1) to (5.3) which provide that at least one member of the Council shall be a person who has expertise in racial equity in the post-education sector and that all members must have a proven commitment to racial equity or take anti-racism training. Section 6 of the Act is amended to add racial equity-related requirements to the functions of the Council. ...
Despite anything in a regulation made under this Act, a performance appraisal of a teacher shall include competencies related to a teacher’s anti-racism awareness and the teacher’s efforts to promote racial equity. ...
(Sidebar: so, go through the motions and hire a Karen to make sure that people are going through the motions? Also, get paid accordingly. Right ...)
**
Karahalios rejected the idea education systems are systemically racist as “opinion grounded in a political ideology meant to attack liberalism and the liberal democratic values that our country is founded on,” replacing it with a structure that defines people by their collective identity.
Stories of teachers telling black students to go into basketball rather than math and Indigenous students feeling uncomfortable in class because of the way history is taught are examples Lindo points to as rooted in systemic racism.
These things happened when?
Is it better to teach that the Haida had slaves, too, so the aboriginal students don't feel left out?
Or teachers could simply get on with teaching their usual subjects.
I know it's a mad idea ...
To wit:
equity: justice according to natural law or right specifically : freedom from bias or favoritism
equality: the quality or state of being equal (or like in quality, nature, or status)
Why say racial equity instead of racial equality?
No one is refused an education because of his or her background.
Or is equity a backdoor to equality of outcomes? Let's give everyone a high mark?
Oh, this will end well ...
**
Ukrainian refugee children who come to Quebec will not be permitted to attend English public schools, the Legault government said Tuesday in response to a request from the Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA).
Quebecois French doesn't get you a job anywhere else in the world so why not learn English and live in another province?
One is only allowed to stay for two years, anyway.
Canadians, especially, children are now fearful of throat-clearing and keen to wear oxygen-depriving masks.
The damage is done and it was easy to do:
Two years have passed since governments first imposed lockdown measures across Canada in mid-March 2020, among other COVID-19 restrictions. The measures continued on an off over the two years, which is a deviation from the initial order of “two weeks to flatten the curve” and calls for an apology from officials, a constitutional rights group says.
If Harper had sold the CBC when he had a chance, this would not be an issue now:
The CBC has been ordered to pay more than a quarter million in legal fees in what is now the costliest defamation case in Manitoba history. A Winnipeg judge earlier noted the Crown broadcaster failed in its duty to be fair, balanced and responsible: “The CBC took very strong positions during the course of the trial that were not supported by the facts.”
Aaahh, the great "Christian" savior of the West:
Russia is trying to hire Syrian mercenaries experienced in urban combat because it lacks the forces to capture and hold big cities in Ukraine, Western security sources believe.
Since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Feb 24 invasion his forces have sustained heavy losses and have been unable to seize the capital Kyiv and major cities such as Odesa and Mariupol. However, up to 40,000 foreign fighters have reportedly volunteered to aid Moscow’s efforts.
“Putin needs more troops than he thought he would. And he needs irregular troops because this war is becoming insurrectional,” a Western security source said.
“Russia now needs massive reinforcements in terms of equipment and troops (to continue the war),” said Mathieu Boulegue, a research fellow specializing in Russia at the Chatham House think tank.
The Kremlin announced last Friday that it was seeking foreign volunteers to fight in Ukraine. In Syria, where Russia’s military bolstered the government of President Bashar al-Assad, 11 years of civil war has produced a generation of men with fighting experience but few employment options.
Also:
After her five seconds on Channel One’s 9 p.m. news program, Marina Ovsyannikova, who has worked for state television for most of her life, was detained by onsite guards and taken to a police station next to Moscow’s sprawling TV headquarters where she was kept overnight. Yesterday afternoon a court fined her 30,000 roubles ($300 Cdn.) for an anti-war video statement which she had recorded before stepping on the set.
Ovsyannikova, 44, could still face a decade in prison on charges of treason, stemming from a new draconian law that restricts reporting of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The woman was not a random intruder angry at Russian state TV’s news coverage but the flesh and blood of the Kremlin’s propaganda machine, a trusted employee.
**
The Ukrainian Postal Service has introduced a new postage stamp that memorializes the moment Ukrainian soldiers told a Russian warship “go f— yourself” when asked to surrender.
“Ukraine national mail service reveals new postage stamp titled ‘Russian warship, go f— yourself!‘” reads a March 13 post on the official Ukrposhta Facebook page.
Lithuania's president has said his country is willing to stop importing Russian oil and gas in the latest sign of how some EU countries plan to tighten penalties on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.
"It would create some problems, but those problems would not be critical," President Gitanas Nauseda said of any decision to cut off Russian supplies.
**
A planned summit between China and the European Union should be canceled until Beijing shows whether it stands with Russia or the West over the conflict in Ukraine, a senior Lithuanian official said on Wednesday.
The 27-nation EU, of which Lithuania is a member, has said it plans to hold the top-level, likely virtual, meeting with China on April 1 to diffuse growing tensions between the two sides, but Lithuanian vice foreign minister Mantas Adomenas told Reuters that it was "not the time for normalization."
"In our assessment it is very ill-timed. In view of recent developments, it should be called off, or at least postponed significantly until we see which side China is on," Adomenas said in an interview during a visit to Washington.
"It is the time to show China that we mean business – that they cannot expect to occupy this ambiguous role, on one hand supporting Russia, on one hand using trading opportunities with the West – European Union, and expect no consequences," he said.
South Korea reports a failed North Korean missile launch:
North Korea’s latest weapons launch on Wednesday apparently ended in failure, South Korea’s military said, amid speculation that the North could soon launch its biggest long-range missile in its most significant provocation in years.
It wasn’t immediately clear what North Korea launched on Wednesday morning or at what stage it had an apparent failure. But the launch, the 10th of its kind this year, shows North Korea is determined to press ahead on its push to modernize its weapons arsenal and pressure its rivals into making concessions amid dormant denuclearization talks.
A powerful 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Fukushima in northern Japan on Wednesday evening, triggering a tsunami advisory and plunging more than 2 million homes in the Tokyo area into darkness.
The region is part of northern Japan that was devastated by a deadly 9.0 quake and tsunami 11 years ago that also caused nuclear plant meltdowns.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was no longer a tsunami threat though the Japan Meteorological Agency kept its low risk advisory in place. NHK national television said tsunami waves of 20 centimeters (8 inches) already reached shore in one area.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, which operates the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant where the cooling systems failed after the 2011 disaster, said workers found no abnormalities at the site, which was in the process of being decommissioned.
The alleged mastermind of the Sept 11 terrorist attacks and those claimed to be his accomplices could escape the death penalty as part of a plea deal being negotiated with U.S. prosecutors.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four others have been held in Guantanamo Bay since 2006 over their alleged role in the 2001 attacks which killed nearly 3,000 people. The long-running case has been mired by legal and logistical hurdles, in particular pre-trial proceedings examining the CIA’s use of torture to obtain testimony from the five men.
Prosecutors were partly motivated to discuss a plea deal after a military jury condemned the torture of another Guantanamo inmate as “a stain on the moral fibre of America,” according to The New York Times, which first reported the negotiations.
It comes nearly a decade after the five terror suspects’ arraignment and more than 20 years after the 9/11 attacks, the worst terror attack in the U.S.
Is this apology going to be a yearly thing? Is it a movable feast like Easter or Thanksgiving?:
Indigenous leaders say they will push for a papal apology for the trauma inflicted on Indigenous families by residential schools when they visit the Vatican later this month.
Yeah, I don't think the Pope is going to waste his time.
The team that found Ernest Shackleton's lost ship, Endurance, on the Antarctic seafloor will get home on Saturday.
The Endurance22 project would have returned to Cape Town earlier but diverted to the island of South Georgia to honour the 20th Century explorer.
Shackleton is buried in an old whalers cemetery at Grytviken on the British Overseas Territory.
Endurance22 wanted to commemorate the life and achievements of the man who was referred to simply as "The Boss".
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