For a Thursday

Because America ... or something.

Is Trump backing off of tariffs on China or is this a bait-and-switch tactic?:

World shares were trading in a narrow range Thursday after major U.S. indexes hit record highs in a pre-Independence Day rally, buoyed by the easing of trade tensions between the U.S. and China.

The detente reached by U.S. President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping and their agreement to refrain from new tariffs pending a new round of negotiations has relieved some pressure on markets. But the trade war is still overshadowing the global economic outlook. 

Trump should not let up. China is relentless in its goal in toppling the US as the driver of the global economy.

People will rue the day Pax Americana is replaced by Pax Sinae.




Meanwhile, Canada shows the world how it's done when dealing with China by cowering like frightened farm animals:

As Kovrig has his eyeglasses taken by his Communist China jailers, as both he and Spavor and are held in rooms with the lights on 24 hours a day – in addition to whatever other horrors the Communists are putting them through – there are two Trudeau government officials in the country bragging about ice cream instead of trying to help their fellow citizens.

**

Jim Carr, Trudeau’s international trade minister, was asked if – given the horrible treatment of Canadians by the Communist State – Canadian ministers should be visiting the country.

Here was his response:

“We’re waiting to be invited to China to be offered ministerial visas so we can talk about a whole range of important issues” – International Trade Minister Jim Carr, on if Minister’s should be visiting China while the two Micheal’s are in jail”

Don't be kept waiting too long, Jim.

(source)

Also:

Hong Kong police have announced their first arrest in connection with Monday’s assault on the territory’s legislative building, as protesters gird themselves for the possibility of more detentions and what they fear will be a citywide dragnet.

The police said in a statement Wednesday night that they had detained a 31-year-old man on charges that included forcible entry into the building that houses the Legislative Council, as well as causing damage to the premises and attacking the police. The man was identified only by his surname, Poon.

Several hundred demonstrators broke into the legislature on Monday night after a day of protests, centered on an unpopular bill that would allow extradition to mainland China. Some of them defaced portraits, destroyed surveillance cameras and spray-painted political slogans on walls, as riot police officers looked on. Hundreds of thousands of other people marched peacefully on Monday in a separate demonstration.

Hong Kong, a semiautonomous Chinese territory, has been roiled by protests since the city’s leaders tried last month to push the extradition bill through the legislature. The bill would make it possible for criminal suspects to be sent to the mainland, where the courts are controlled by the Communist Party, and many residents believe it would put dissidents and others in jeopardy and mark an alarming new development in the erosion of the former British colony’s civil liberties.

Just your average basic dictatorship.




The Liberal Party cheerleaders in the bribed press cannot feign objectivity now, especially after the numerous pro-Islamist fiascos this government has thrown on the country:

Canadian officials have still not interviewed Ali. Officials say that, even if it were possible to leave Syria, former ISIL fighters would likely be detained in neighbouring countries like Turkey. Bell recently noted that Turkey, a NATO ally, is open to allowing ISIL members transit through, so they can return to Canada.

There appear to be some preparations being made in the shadows. But, as usual, Canadians will be the last to know if jihadis are walking among them.

In the meantime, they are being asked to swallow the line the situation is too dangerous and muddy for the government to act — at least this side of an election.

They could be charged with treason but, you know, election, so ...




Foreign money dictates what resources can be mined and the government g-d- knows it:

Zurich recently threatened to drop Canadian oilsands producers, pipeline companies and crude-by-rail facilities if within two years they didn’t show their investment plans are consistent with global efforts to reduce the impact of climate change. But the effect of its withdrawal will be to penalize high-performing environmental innovators like Canada and reward unsavoury suppliers like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela — with no net global environmental benefit and maybe even a loss.

After all, global demand for oil continues to grow, and that demand is sure to be met by the global supply pool, whether or not Canada is part of it. Wouldn’t it make more sense from a sustainability perspective to ensure a responsible supplier like Canada stays in the game? ...

But every story needs a counter-example. The Canadian energy sector could learn from a respected forest products company with deep roots in Quebec. Resolute Forest Products found out the hard way that Greenpeace’s public attacks on it were — in Greenpeace’s own words — not to be taken literally. 

“A funny thing happened when Greenpeace and allies were forced to account for their claims in court,” Resolute explains in a blog post. “Their condemnations of our forestry practices ‘do not hew to strict literalism or scientific precision,’ ” (they conceded in legal findings). “Their accusations against Resolute were instead ‘hyperbole,’ ‘heated rhetoric,’ and ‘non-verifiable statements of subjective opinion’ that should not be taken ‘literally’ or expose them to any legal liability.”

Now Greenpeace and other donations-driven activist groups have doubled down on targeting banks and other financial institutions until they cave and issue anti-oilsands statements. With no research, no discussion and no policy in place to help tell real sustainability issues from bogus ones, the institutions fold like so many cheap suits.

Also - isn't getting stuck in the ice an impossibility because (insert term here) has melted it all and taken the polar bears with it?:

Cranes hoist cargo onto the deck, power tools scream out and workers bustle through the maze of passageways inside the German icebreaker RV Polarstern, preparations for a yearlong voyage that organizers say is unprecedented in scale and ambition.

In a couple of months, the hulking ship will set out for the Arctic packed with supplies and scientific equipment for a mission to explore the planet’s frigid far north. The icebreaker will be the base for scientists from 17 nations studying the impact of climate change on the Arctic and how it could affect the rest of the world.

The Arctic? Like where the new Kursk has sunk?:

Russian President Vladimir Putin disclosed on Thursday for the first time that a secret military submarine hit by a fatal fire three days ago was nuclear-powered, prompting Russia’s defense minister to assure him its reactor had been safely contained.

Russian officials have faced accusations of trying to cover up the full details of the accident that killed 14 sailors as they were carrying out what the defence ministry called a survey of the sea floor near the Arctic.

Moscow’s slow release of information about the incident has drawn comparisons with the opaque way the Soviet Union handled the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power station disaster, and another deadly submarine accident — the 2000 sinking of the nuclear-powered Kursk, which claimed 118 lives.

Russia, which says the details of the submarine involved in the latest accident are classified, said the fire took place on Monday, although it was only officially disclosed late on Tuesday.

I'm sure the Russians have this all sorted out as they did with Chernobyl and the Kursk.

Oh, wait ...


Also - this would be the same Vatican that helped leak out Doctor Zhivago and helped bring down communism in eastern Europe:

President Vladimir Putin met Pope Francis in the Vatican on Thursday, amid signs of closer ties between the Kremlin and the Roman Catholic Church.

The meeting came a day before the Pope is due to hold talks in Rome with leaders of Ukraine’s Greek-Catholic Church to discuss the conflict in that country. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church last year formally split from the Russian Orthodox Church amid tensions between Kiev and Moscow over the war in eastern Ukraine.

The Kremlin said before Putin’s visit that the meeting with Francis will focus on Syria and Ukraine. The meeting is the third between the two leaders, with the last such encounter in 2015. The head of 1.2 billion Catholics also had an historic encounter with Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, in Cuba in 2016. Putin will also meet Italian leaders including Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte during his one-day visit to Rome.

A "post-national state" produces "post-national" rubbish:

Under normal circumstances, a three-year planning dispute in Ottawa wouldn’t make the national news.

But when it involves the landmark Chateau Laurier hotel, the turreted jewel of the postcard landscape alongside the Parliament buildings and the Rideau Canal, the stakes get higher.

“This is going to, as it currently stands, disfigure an iconic, famous, important, beautiful scene at the heart of our capital city,” said Peter Coffman, an architectural historian and professor at Carleton University. “And I honestly can’t think of another country in the world, at least not one that I’ve ever visited, that would allow this to happen.”

The battle is over an addition to the back of the Chateau Laurier that would add 147 hotel rooms. But while the main part of the hotel, built in 1912 and expanded in 1927, is in the French chateau style — with towers and turrets and steep copper roofs — the addition is designed as a modern-style box.

Critics have variously described it as a “shipping container,” a “radiator,” and an “air-conditioning unit.”

There is much to be said about art, architecture and modern garbage.




Oh, I'm sure he is loony:

The 27-year-old man who stabbed Rev. Claude Grou during a mass at Saint Joseph's Oratory on March 22 was found not criminally responsible on Wednesday at the Montreal courthouse.

The ruling follows the conclusions of the psychiatrist who evaluated Vlad Cristian Eremia after the incident.

On the morning of the stabbing, Eremia went to mass armed with a knife with a 30-centimetre blade. He stood up from his pew, charged up to the priest and stabbed the priest twice, inflicting shallow wounds.

Eremia was quickly wrestled to the floor by security guards, and Montreal police showed up a short time later to arrest him.

Grou returned to the oratory a week after the attack, telling congregants that he had never seen the man who stabbed him before but he was open to meeting him.

"I have no resentment toward that person. On the contrary, I feel he is a person who needs help, and I'm sure he will get the help he needs, and I pray the Lord will assist him in his progress," Grou said.

Unelected judges need to be removed. 

Former Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and her willing stooges painted Tim Hudak as a man who would fire nurses. Nurses ended up being laid off under her government, anyway:

Have you seen those full-page newspaper ads from the Ontario Nurses’ Association?

One features a wrecking ball and asserts that Premier Doug Ford is “breaking our health-care system apart with no clear idea about what comes next, leaving the hard details to everyone else to figure out. It’s a failure of leadership and an affront to the people of Ontario.” The second ad shows a beer can labelled “Health Care Lite” and claims that Ford’s priority is cheap beer in corner stores, not health care.

The union stops short of saying everyone is going to die, but you get the picture. The intent of the ad campaign is to alarm the public and persuade them to demand that Ford stop doing whatever it is the nurses don’t like. The ads are rather non-specific in that regard.