Your middle-of-the-week caffeine jolt ...
As of this writing, eleven thousand people have been killed in Turkey and Syria:
With hope fading to find survivors, stretched rescue teams toiled through the night in Turkey and Syria, searching for signs of life in the rubble of thousands of buildings toppled by a catastrophic earthquake. The death toll rose Wednesday to more than 11,000 in the deadliest quake worldwide in more than a decade.
There are, however, some good stories:
A 2-month-old baby was rescued alive from the earthquake rubble in Türkiye’s Hatay province🙏🏻
— nftbadger (@nftbadger) February 7, 2023
pic.twitter.com/mGz9vbL79A
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She is a great sister awwwwww ❤️
— The Figen (@TheFigen_) February 7, 2023
They were rescued, Syria!
pic.twitter.com/6judJTeyZZ
And - as usual, Israel steps it up:
The two earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria on February 5 have left over 5,000 people dead and tens of thousands of wounded. The devastation to infrastructure has been huge. Israel immediately sent humanitarian aid to Turkey, hardest hit of the two countries. And Syria on February 6 asked for assistance from Israel. Despite Syria having participated in three wars – in 1948, 1967, and 1973 – to destroy the Jewish state, the Israeli government did not hesitate. On the same day it received the request, it announced that that aid for Syria is on its way.
The economy people voted for:
The federal government is “broken” and bungles basic tasks with little cabinet scrutiny, Budget Officer Yves Giroux said yesterday. “There needs to be a crack of the whip, big time,” he said: “Hold the government to account. I cannot do this just by myself.”
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Cabinet is on the wrong track and appears overwhelmed by events, Canadians tell pollsters in Privy Council in-house research. Participants in federal focus groups also gave cabinet a failing grade in tackling inflation: “Very few participants believed the Government of Canada was currently on the right track.”
In a spot of good news, however:
The Commons yesterday by a unanimous 320 to 0 vote ordered a special audit of federal contracts to McKinsey & Company, a global consulting firm formerly led by a friend of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland. Liberal MPs endorsed the Conservative motion amid complaints the Opposition was looking for evidence of corruption: “We have a right to know what is going on.”
I'm sure that the end is pre-determined but the Liberals must be desperate to throw their friends under the proverbial bus.
I refer one to the case of Him versus Me.
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One-third (33%) of Canadian households say their financial situation is worse today than it was a year ago, according to a new poll by Leger.
While a majority of respondents (58%) said their financial situation is about the same as it was in early 2021, a total of 34% said they're financially worse off than last year due to inflation and rising interest rates.
People in lower income brackets were more likely to report feeling the impacts of inflation, the poll found.
Among Canadian households earning less than $40,000, 42% reported that their financial situation has worsened. That compares with 25% of households earning $100,000 or more.
High inflation and rising interest rates continue to put a damper on Canadians' finances, particularly their disposable income.
Oh, it gets better:
Macklem used a speech in Quebec City on Feb. 7 to reiterate that the central bank would be taking a conditional pause on rate hikes over the months ahead to determine if enough has been done to reverse inflation. However, the governor was definitive that policymakers aren’t planning on cuts anytime soon.
Also - grocery stores didn't cause inflation but whatever:
The heads of Canada’s top supermarket chains have so far snubbed parliamentarians investigating allegations of profiteering in the grocery business, exacerbating tensions with politicians who appear keen to confront the country’s oligopolies over inflation.
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If you treat people like snowflakes, this is what they will be:
LifeWorks, a leading provider of digital and in-person total wellbeing solutions supported by TELUS Health, today released its monthly Mental Health Index™ revealing that Canadians under 40 are 60 per cent more likely than those over 50 to lack confidence in their ability to cope with stressors at work. Additionally, one-third of Canadians surveyed said that inflation is their biggest concern.**
Three years ago, Teck was going to spend $20 billion on its Frontier Oil Sands Mine. On Feb. 2, it announced it had “completed the sale of its 21.3 per cent interest in the Fort Hills Energy Limited Partnership to Suncor Energy Inc. and TotalEnergies EP Canada Ltd. , a subsidiary of TotalEnergies SE. Teck received aggregate cash proceeds of approximately $1 billion and does not anticipate any tax payable on the disposition.”
One of Canada’s largest miners was going to go big on oils sands, but now it is going home, driven away by the federal government’s anti-oil stance.
Getting the government one voted for:
The federal government is offering the provinces and territories a health funding deal worth $196.1 billion over 10 years, including $46.2 billion in new money.
No. Money.
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Ottawa is spending $2 million for an international organization to provide Indigenous communities with options around identifying possible human remains buried near former residential school sites.
Options?
Did you accuse an entire nation of genocide?
Dig the bodies up today.
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Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough yesterday disclosed she was never told dozens of department employees were under investigation for fraud. Qualtrough said she only learned after the fact that 49 were fired for cheating the Canada Emergency Response Benefit program: “No one brought to your attention specifically that there were employees being investigated within your department?”
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Electric vehicles (EVs) can lose up to 30 per cent of their range in freezing temperatures, according to a U.S. firm that tested range loss in 7,000 cars.
Again why are we trading with China?:
Communist Party agents cost a Conservative MP his seat in Parliament, the House affairs committee was told yesterday. MP Kenny Chiu (Steveston-Richmond East, B.C.) was targeted by a “massive campaign of disinformation,” testified an investigator who looked at the case: “If had not been for that disinformation Mr. Chiu would still be in Parliament.”
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If the federal government can push to remove one foreign state broadcaster, it can do so for others, argues the Conservative foreign affairs critic.
At the Special Committee on Canada-China relations in Ottawa Monday evening, Michael Chong grilled Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino on why state-owned Chinese broadcasters are still available in Canada, despite being removed in other countries over concerns about disinformation and human-rights abuses.
“Authoritarian state-controlled broadcasters, which spread propaganda and disinformation, should not be on the list of non-Canadian programming services and stations authorized for distribution,” Chong told the Star afterward. “That is our call for action.”
He pointed out the government took direct measures to remove a Russian broadcaster last year over concerns it was spreading hate against Ukrainians. Now, Chong wants Ottawa to create policies to require that the Canadian Radio-television Communications Commission (CRTC) not let such broadcasters be available in Canada.
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The Liberals have promised to eventually launch consultations on a foreign agent registry, which would require people to publicly report when they are doing paid work on behalf of another state, under threat of fines or jail time.
But Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino warned on Monday that such a database must be carefully considered, as it could stigmatize communities who have felt targeted by security agencies in the past.
Former ambassador to China David Mulroney says that the bigger threat comes from foreign agents threatening residents’ families back home and meddling in Canadian politics.
Mulroney told a House of Commons committee that Canada is enabling Chinese interference by not implementing a registry and getting serious about the issue.
Charles Burton, another former diplomat posted in China, added that the registry should be communicated as being directed at the broad issue of interference, instead of the meddling of just one country.
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The RCMP sent in officers to show a “visible presence” to Chinese police stations operating in Canada, commissioner Brenda Lucki told a House of Commons committee.
Only in Canada can someone like Brenda Lucki fail upwards.
Lametti must be terribly upset.
He can't sell Canadians on killing the mentally ill (yet) and now he has to release internal e-mails as evidence:
Attorney General David Lametti has lost a key Federal Court ruling on his use of emergency powers against the Freedom Convoy. A judge ordered that internal emails contradicting cabinet claims of a national crisis must be admitted into evidence: ‘It was not disclosed despite repeated requests.’
Let's be clear - the Charter is not a document to help the citizen. It was written by a communist:
It happens every day: someone on Twitter gets fed up with criticism or abuse from another user of the social media platform and blocks the person from their feed.
But what if the Twitter account belongs to a federal cabinet minister, and jamming the other individual essentially cuts off access to a form of government communication?
That question is at the heart of an intriguing constitutional challenge by right-wing provocateur Ezra Levant, who alleges that Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault violated his constitutional right to free expression when he Twitter-blocked the Rebel News head.
Levant called Guilbeault a “convicted criminal,” incompetent and stupid in responding to the minister’s posts on Twitter, but says he had a right to follow and comment on the minister.
His application to the Federal Court says section 2(b) of the Charter, which guarantees free expression and freedom of the press, also protects access to government information in order that “meaningful” discussion about it is possible.
The case has yet to get a full hearing in court, but already is raising novel questions about government use of a social media platform often called a digital public square.
Fred Kozak, a leading Alberta media lawyer who has acted both for and against Levant, said he doesn’t always agree with Rebel’s opinions or tactics, but believes there’s merit to the Twitter argument.
The courts have interpreted the free expression section as a “bundle” of rights that covers more than just actual expression, he said.
“I don’t think you can identify and use a communications and access mechanism, and then deny access to somebody who disagrees with your perspective,” said Kozak. “That is not how democracies are supposed to operate.”
Levant is a lion, a vocal, brash lion.
Well, this is terribly inconvenient to the Narrative:
A suicide bomber who killed 101 people at a decades-old mosque in northwest Pakistan this week had disguised himself in a police uniform and did not raise suspicion among guards, the provincial police chief said on Thursday.
Also:
Last week, on Spain’s southernmost outpost of Algeciras, 25-year-old Moroccan national Yassine Kanjaa left his apartment to head into town. He had been illegally squatting there for three years, but it was clear that he would not be returning any time soon.
After vandalising artefacts and verbally abusing parishioners at a nearby church, Kanjaa, armed with a machete, stabbed and seriously injured a priest. Later, at another church in the area, he chased down a sexton and slit the man’s throat in a nearby square whilst crying “Allahu Akbar”, all videotaped by shocked onlookers. The church worker, Diego Valencia, died on the spot.
Hey! Leave something for the Palestinians to do!:
An American tourist was arrested in Jerusalem after allegedly pulling down a statue of Jesus inside a church in the city.
Israeli police say that the incident took place inside the Church of the Flagellation, a Roman Catholic Church and pilgrimage site on the city’s Via Dolorosa, reported The Associated Press.
The Via Dolorosa is the route believed to have been walked by Jesus to his crucifixion.
Images posted on social media reportedly show the statue knocked off its plinth and laying on its side on the floor of the church. And in social media video, the suspect can reportedly be heard saying “You can’t have idols in Jerusalem,” and “This is the holy city.”
Have we reached peak depravity? Because I feel as though we have:
Should brain dead women be used as surrogates?
That's the outrageously controversial concept floated by one philosopher.
The move — which the Norwegian writer herself admits is 'undoubtedly disturbing' — would help 'prospective parents who wish to have children but cannot', such as gay and infertile couples.
But Dr Anna Smajdor, an associate professor in philosophy at the University of Oslo, also claimed it could be a viable option for women who 'prefer not to' carry a child.
Fred La Marmotte did not kill himself:
Fred la Marmotte, Quebec’s beloved groundhog who predicted whether spring would come early, was found dead early Thursday, just hours before he was supposed to perform his annual ritual.
I swear he knew nothing about the Clintons.
The school in question is Jean Steckle Public School. Named for a prominent local nutritionist, it’s an elementary school in Kitchener, Ont., comprising roughly 750 students. In previous years, Valentine’s Day has been prominently featured on the Jean Steckle school calendar, and was typically observed with crafts, decorations and the exchange of cards. In 2015, the school even organized a Valentine’s Day dance for students in grades seven and eight.
In 2021, however, the school banned the bringing of paper valentines onto school property on the grounds that they were “non-essential materials” that could act as a vector for infectious disease. For this year, however, it was reasons of health and equity that inspired a similar order.
After several Kitchener parents approached local media to complain, a spokesperson with the Waterloo Region District School Board explained to CTV that Valentine’s Day imposes a “financial strain” on families who feel forced to “purchase cards or sweets.”
The spokesperson added that the holiday’s promotion of candy was “inconsistent with the Healthy Schools approach.”
Healthy Schools, as described on the Region of Waterloo’s official website, is a program to “decrease health inequities among the student population.”
In short, publicly-funded bullsh--.
Josh Alexander was arrested by police Monday afternoon for breaching an exclusion order, but the real crime that the student is being punished for is upholding his Catholic beliefs and doing so in what some would no doubt think is a defiant and troublesome manner.
That there are TWO biological sexes (not gender as gender is a grammatical construction) is not a Christian matter but a matter of fact.
Why should a teen-ager have to point this out?
If schools of whatever flavour are incapable of teaching that, then there is no point in funding them.
What happened to Cardinal Pell could happen to anyone. People should remember that:
I made the long trip to Australia for the funeral of a mentor and spiritual father who became a dear friend, Cardinal George Pell, a colossus of the Catholic Church, both at home and abroad, and one of the most consequential figures in Australian public life.
The funeral for this fearless Christian pastor was a moment of great national significance; his chosen motto was the frequent biblical exhortation, “Be not afraid!”
“He was never one to mince his words,” said former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott. “To the smug, to the venal, to the lazy, to the wayward and to the intellectually sloppy, he was an existential reproach. And because that’s all of us, in some way, it’s hardly surprising that he became a target.”
His detractors — led by the Australian state-funded TV network ABC — despised him. Finally, the corrupt criminal justice system in the state of Victoria determined to put him in jail.
They succeeded, and he spent 404 days in solitary confinement for a crime that he didn’t commit, until exonerated by a unanimous High Court decision, which simply recognized what was manifest to all — that the jury erred, as it took a witness account at face value and failed to consider evidence to the contrary. I have detailed that, and other, monstrous travesties of Australian justice in these pages.
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