Your mid-point to Easter ...
New York City police said Tuesday evening they had identified a “person of interest” in the mass shooting that occurred during morning rush hour on a crowded subway.
At a press conference at police headquarters, NYPD officials said they are seeking Frank James, a 62-year-old Black male with known addresses in Philadelphia and Wisconsin.
Police said keys from a U-Haul van that James rented in Philadelphia were found in the subway and authorities were working to determine whether he was the suspect in the shooting. The unoccupied van was later located in Brooklyn and a bomb squad was sent to inspect the vehicle.
“We have no one in custody,” NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig told reporters. “We are looking for Frank James. We know Mr. James rented that van in Philadelphia.”
Justin wonders why no one likes him:
At no point before February 14 when the Emergencies Act was invoked did a judge declare the protest illegal. The media and federal government labeled the protest an illegal occupation or a siege, but the court order against honking included language that the protest had the legal right to continue to protest. The Freedom Convoy was declared illegal only by the prime minister after he had the authority to do so because of the Emergencies Act. The emergency statute declares that the measures do not apply to a lawful assembly or dissent. If a judge ruled that the protest was legal, wouldn’t that make the application of the statute to the protesters illegal?
Protests are alright as long as Justin doesn't have to run away from them or have Europeans point out what a tyrant he is.
**
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau criticized the Alberta government Tuesday for not addressing the opioid epidemic in ways that have proven to be effective elsewhere.
I'll just leave this right here:
During the first year of the pandemic, there was a 95% increase in apparent opioid toxicity deaths (April 2020 – March 2021, 7,224 deaths), compared to the year before (April 2019 – March 2020, 3,711 deaths). Since then, deaths have remained high.
• A total of 5,368 apparent opioid toxicity deaths occurred so far in 2021 (January – September). This is approximately 20 deaths per day. For a similar timeframe in the years prior to the pandemic, there were between 7 (in 2016) and 12 (in 2018) deaths per day.
• A number of factors may have contributed to a worsening of the overdose crisis over the course of the pandemic, including the increasingly toxic drug supply, increased feelings of isolation, stress and anxiety, and changes in the availability or accessibility of services for people who use drugs. ...
• Several jurisdictions have observed record-breaking numbers and rates in relation to the wider impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• So far in 2021 (January – September), 88% of all accidental apparent opioid toxicity deaths occurred in British Columbia, Alberta, or Ontario.
• Elevated rates have also been observed in other areas, including Yukon and Saskatchewan.
**
The federal government is prepared to put more money into health care, but the no-strings attached approach premiers have been demanding is off the table, as the Liberals are prepared to tie their dollars to results, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says.
So, who gets cut off, Justin?
Another reason to embrace private healthcare.
**
"This is going to be a difficult time": Prime Minister Trudeau warns of food shortages and rising energy costs as his gov't is set to increase the carbon tax on April 1.
**
A Calgary lawyer wants Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to release all of the documents behind the historic invocation of the Emergencies Act, the first of likely many demands for transparency around the Liberals’ unprecedented decision to use the act’s extraordinary powers to quell a protest.
Unlikely.
In better news, however, Tamara Lich has a new lawyer.
HOORAY!
**
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took questions at a press conference on Monday he said that his government's immigration policies have been a key contributor to Canada's housing crisis.
"Population growth in this country hasn't been matched by an equivalent growth in housing supply," said Trudeau, in British Columbia.
But, you know, voters blocks.
He is such a thoughtless, unfeeling @$$hole.
Also a thoughtless, unfeeling @$$hole ... :
The former climate activist and tower climber did get to oversee the latest increase in the carbon tax, confirming the Liberals’ conviction that pushing up prices for people struggling to pay their gasoline bills is the route to meeting climate goals. But whatever satisfaction he may have gained had to be dampened by the announcement Ottawa had given the green light to a Norwegian company to set up a massive drilling project 500 km off Newfoundland in the Atlantic Ocean.
The go-ahead of the $12 billion Bay du Nord project means Guilbeault now finds himself as the front man for a government that is building a hideously expensive pipeline across western provinces — which it bought to ensure the project is completed and the cost of which has tripled to more than $21 billion — and a deep-sea drilling venture intended to produce lots more oil for Newfoundland at the same time the Liberals are supposedly trying to get Alberta to wean itself off the stuff.
Newfoundland is a Liberal stronghold. Alberta is not.
So there's that.
Also - what recharges these ineffective electric toys? The grid does:
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he wants to make it easier for more Canadians to drive electric vehicles and he isn’t ruling out nuclear power as a cleaner source of energy.
**
In 2017, Rob and Kim Nelson, both professors at the University of Windsor, bought their first electric car, a Chevrolet Bolt. To charge its battery, they ran a charging cable from a standard socket in their garage to the driveway where they parked the Bolt.
Last September, in the dead of night, someone cut the cable and made off with it, likely to sell the copper that was inside. To replace it would cost at least $800, so the Nelsons decided to upgrade to a Level 2 charger, which was only a couple of hundred dollars more and much faster (30 km of range per hour of charging on average).
Level 2 chargers are quite common, but installing one wasn’t as easy as the Nelsons had thought. Level 2s have about the same electrical needs as a dryer or stove—240 volts/30 amps—and the Nelsons’ house, like most older Canadian homes, was only wired for 100 amps. They also have a pool and air conditioning, and in the middle of summer, with both the pool pump and the AC running, charging the Bolt could overload their electrical panel. They needed to upgrade to 200 amps, meaning several thousand more dollars and digging up their yard to lay in the proper electrical service.
(Sidebar: excuse me, but pools and air conditioning are symbols of white patriarchal privilege and only serve to feed the Russo-Israeli military complex that kills polar bears with shoes that once belonged to residential school children. Or so I've been told.)
Then the Nelsons’ contractor gave them worse news. If three or four houses on the block all did the same upgrade, he said, pointing to a nearby transformer, the system would blow. “Basically, he said that hasn’t changed,” Rob Nelson recalled. “This whole infrastructure would need to be changed if all these houses go to 200 amps.”
At least they saved themselves:
Ex-army interpreters yesterday pleaded with MPs for help in rescuing families trapped in Afghanistan. The appeals followed disclosures Canada’s ambassador and his staff fled the Taliban aboard a half-empty military plane: ‘We lost. We failed. Look at us now.’
It's just money:
The Treasury Board in a “March madness” spending spree burned through a third of a million to mark the end of the fiscal year, according to Access To Information records. The annual ritual sees managers spend unused budgets for fear of losing their parliamentary appropriation: “You spend money you have rather than let it lapse even if you don’t absolutely need the money.”
**
The federal government pre-paid $20 million for COVID-19 tests from Ottawa-based Spartan Bioscience that it never received because they never worked as promised, according to new documents.
Now, the Public Health Agency of Canada says it is writing off the amount as a loss pending the company’s liquidation, according to information recently tabled in the House of Commons and in the 2021 federal public accounts.
“The company went through insolvency proceedings and is now being liquidated. By law, once a person or a company is in the insolvency process, no one can sue or attempt any other form of recovery. No litigation is allowed and all procedures go through the Trustee and is a public process,” reads the document.
**
Actually, what Canada needs is less government. Less borrowing. Less taxation. Less inflation. Less regulation. Less nonsense about politicians telling entrepreneurs how to innovate. So for starters we could have plunked that $15 billion right onto our “COVID debts” if insanity did not mean thinking the solution to too much government is more government.
Too much government spending? Lavish new programs. Too much government meddling? Investment strategy. Too much government arrogance? Aim higher. I mean, it’s gotta work eventually, right?
They just can’t help themselves.
**
Internal human resources reports detail dysfunction in senior management at the Canada Revenue Agency including one executive who hired Facebook friends and was suspected of billing taxpayers for junkets abroad. “A certain level of dysfunction exists within the existing working relationships,” read a Briefing Note For The Director General: “Further action will likely be required in order to remedy the apparent toxic nature of the workplace.”**
Internal memos name senior Canada Revenue Agency executives suspected of arranging “sweetheart tax treatment” for large corporations. Managers in one case were alleged to manipulate preferential treatment for an unidentified company and then had employees “rubber stamp the deal.”
Stupidity or malice? YOU decide:
Public Sector Integrity Commissioner Joe Friday has named names in a massive breach of confidentiality under his own Act. The Commissioner mistakenly released 2,324 pages of records detailing whistleblower investigations at the Canada Revenue Agency: “Fear of reprisal exists. This fear is very real.”
There is not a single Liberal voter in the hamlet of Big Beaver, Sask., one of a dozen municipalities nationwide where cabinet went scoreless in the last campaign, according to Elections Canada data. The outcome in the riding of Souris-Moose Mountain was the most lopsided in the country: “To those who say politicians do not have a heart — “
It takes energy to trample elderly ladies:
The RCMP billed taxpayers nearly a quarter-million dollars for buffets at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier while officers cracked down on Freedom Convoy protesters in Ottawa this February.
An Access to Information and Privacy request obtained by True North reveals that the total costs for breakfast, lunch and dinner buffets in the luxury hotel’s Canadian Room was $234,995.79.
“The enclosed invoice for the lodgement of RCMP officers, other police services and staff at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier totals $234,995.79 and consists of costs pertaining to meals provided in conference rooms used as shelter/down rooms from February 11th to 25th,” the RCMPs National Division of Financial Management told True North. ”At no time did RCMP members stay in accommodations at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier between January 20, 2022 and March 3, 2022.”
Since officers did not use accommodations at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier, the total bill for their stay in Ottawa is likely much higher.
This:
Beneath the layers of total codswallop is the actual truth:
Efforts were made to hire local counters for Indigenous communities, but that workforce saw fewer than 1,000 out of some 2,200 available positions filled.
Over that summer, Indigenous Services officials flagged lagging census participation as an issue for First Nations and Inuit communities.
Also - the Church owes you nothing:
This, more than anything, summarizes the failure of the Catholic Church to get it right: instead of building relationships, they sent soldiers to do battle. When it comes to owning up to the role the churches played in the Indian residential school system, Catholic officials have a uniquely bad reputation. If I were a parishioner, I’d be depressed and outraged, knowing the reputational damage my leaders were doing.
Who just added another apology on top of other apologies for the Trudeau government policy of residential schools, moron?
People got jabbed for nothing:
Covid vaccines offer little to no protection after five months, a federal scientific panel said yesterday. The Public Health Agency said all Canadians should get a booster but stopped short of mandating it: “Would you like to see the definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ changed so it requires everyone to have at least three shots?”
Also:
Another positive test!! This time, tap water. pic.twitter.com/N52ROmripZ
— Scotty 🇨🇦 (@RightOfEast) April 12, 2022
And - China totally has a handle on this:
Desperate Shanghai residents who are under strict lockdown over a COVID-19 outbreak are protesting food shortages, chanting “we want supplies” from their apartments, video shows.
Footage posted to Twitter showed people in the locked-down city banging pots on their balconies to decry a lack of food and other items, France24 reported.
“We want supplies,” the quarantined residents reportedly chanted.
In another video posted to the Chinese social media platform Weibo, a drone appears to warn the residents to cease protesting.
“Please comply with COVID restrictions. Control your soul’s desire for freedom. Do not open the window or sing,” the message from the drone said.
(Sidebar: one should be reminded that this is Justin's favourite country.)
**
The situation has grown increasingly dire: Two people who tried to leave their apartment to walk their dog were confronted by a COVID prevention worker who they ended up attacking. At least one man allegedly tried to get the cops to apprehend him so he could at least have food to eat. Meanwhile, people who end up in central quarantine—state-administered facilities where COVID-positive people are sometimes sent so others in their apartment buildings don't get sick—complain about the fact that it's so unhygienic, it may well be facilitating greater spread of the virus (or even reinfection). Shared rooms, no running water, broken toilets (or disgusting ones shared by hundreds of people), and people crammed into overflow beds in hospital hallways have grown to be expected by the city's increasingly angry residents.
**
Children who tested positive for the virus were separated from their parents, though that policy was loosened after an outcry.
**
China is the gold standard of NPI implementation. They have
— Sandra Rao (@drsandypants) April 5, 2022
- Quarantine facilities
- Mask mandates
- Rigorous testing and tracing + QR Checkpoints
- Harsh lockdowns
- Border restrictions
All implemented simultaneously without regard for civil liberties. And still it failed
Speaking of China:
China on Wednesday denounced Taiwan's efforts to prevent Chinese companies from poaching talent and stealing chip secrets as a provocative "smear", saying this could not prevent interactions between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.
How dare they!
**
Chinese officials are eyeing ways to take over Taiwan relatively fast by targeting the island’s communications hubs and major political institutions, some analysts believe. They say China would need more logistical support for any amphibious attack on the island that’s 160 kilometers away, and a media message to back up any invasion.
“China at least would learn that they’ll need to better prepare for sufficient logistics support for the amphibious operation, as well as a great number of munitions, such as artillery and missiles, if China decides to attack Taiwan,” said Chen Yi-fan, assistant professor of diplomacy and international relations at Tamkang University in Taiwan.
“Most importantly, China needs to command the moral high ground through cognitive warfare and media discourse,” he said.
People are perfectly happy trading with China despite its plethora of human rights abuses.
I'm sure someone will justify the wholesale slaughter of Taiwanese in no time.
**
About 40 out of Africa's 54 countries participate in China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the global infrastructure and economic development project that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched in 2013. BRI aims to build an economic and infrastructure network connecting China with Europe, Africa and beyond, and has already strengthened China's global influence from East Asia to Europe by making countries worldwide increasingly dependent on China.
While China has been increasing its annual Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) in Africa -- its FDI flows grew from just $75 million in 2003 to $4.2 billion in 2020 -- annual American FDI flows to Africa have been heading the other way. "Chinese FDI flows to Africa have exceeded those from the U.S. since 2013, as U.S. FDI flows have generally been declining since 2010," according to the China Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.
Poland and the Baltic states meet to discuss Ukraine:
The presidents of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday to meet Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Polish leader's office said.
The four join a growing number of European politicians to visit the Ukrainian capital since Russian forces were driven away from the country's north earlier this month.
"Heading to Kyiv with a strong message of political support and military assistance," Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda tweeted on Wednesday, along with a picture of the presidents next to a train.
The Polish president's office confirmed on Twitter that they had arrived in Kyiv.
The meeting will focus on ways to assist civilians and the military in Ukraine, as well as with investigations of war crimes, said a spokesperson for Estonian President Alar Karis.
Oh, Russia has always sent people to Siberia:
Russia plans to send nearly 100,000 Ukrainians as far as Siberia and the Arctic Circle, UK newspaper The i reported, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned of "special filtration camps" for captured people.
A Kremlin document, cited by The i, shows Russia made an emergency order last month to forcibly move 95,739 Ukrainians to far-away regions in Russia.
The document suggests that Ukrainians will not be sent to major cities like Moscow or St. Petersburg, but rather to remote areas located thousands of miles away from their homes.
The areas include the Siberian town of Magadan, the Arctic port of Murmansk, and the Caucasus regions of Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Dagestan, according to The i.
Also:
Last spring, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Canada and other Western Arctic stakeholders — the US, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland — that all the resources beneath the ice melting in the Arctic Sea belong to the Russian government. “It has been absolutely clear for everyone for a long time that this is our territory, this is our land,” Lavrov stated at a Moscow press conference. It would be stupid at this point to delude ourselves into believing he is blowing smoke regarding the Arctic as we assumed, for too long, was the case with Ukraine. We should assume he means what he says.
According to a 2021 report by Marcus Kolga of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, the Kremlin claims a right over the Arctic Ocean’s undersea continental shelf, which contains vast amounts of oil, right up to the 200-nautical-mile exclusion zone around Canada’s Arctic coast. The Kremlin established an Arctic command in 2014 that includes 14 new military airfields and 16 deep-water ports in the far North. Russia has a range of new “super-weapons,” like the Poseidon 2M39 nuclear-powered long-range stealth torpedo that can deliver a thermonuclear warhead to coastal targets. Putin wants what he wants, and he has the means to get it from us.
South Korea's President-elect Yoon plans to do away with "Korean age":
South Korea's population may become a year younger on paper if the country's president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol succeeds in abolishing the concept of the "Korean age."
Lee Yong-ho, chief of Yoon's transition team's political, judicial, and administrative subcommittee, said during a press conference on Monday that they are pushing to standardize the way age is counted in South Korea, per Yonhap News. The change is being pursued for practical reasons, Lee noted.
"Due to the different calculations of legal and social age, we have experienced unnecessary social and economic costs from persistent confusion and disputes over calculating age when receiving social, welfare and other administrative services or signing or interpreting various contracts," he said.
South Korea currently has several ways of counting one's age.
One of them is the "Korean age" system that Yoon's government is looking to do away with, which involves South Koreans being labeled as one year old at birth and adding another year upon the New Year. This is because the nine months a child spends in the womb — rounded up to one year — is counted as the first year of the child's life, per the system.
No comments:
Post a Comment