Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Mid-Week Post

 

 

Your mid-week cute-nap ...


Was it something he said?:

 

Naturally:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called a group of protesters who swarmed him outside a Hamilton, Ont. restaurant on Tuesday a “handful of angry people.”

 

When have we heard this before?

Ah, yes: 

In the Sep. 16, 2021 interview which aired on the French-language program La semaine des 4 Julie, Trudeau referred to unvaccinated Canadians as “extremists,” among other derogatory terms.

** 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau referred to the nation’s truck convoy headed to Ottawa as a “fringe minority” as thousands of people are reportedly headed toward the nation’s capital in opposition to the nation’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for truck drivers.

 **

Pierre Poilievre recently put out a viral video mocking Trudeau now trying to imply his massive unpopularity has to do with “racism” and intolerance among the Canadian population. 

He is a spoiled little narcissist and coward, incapable of even a moment's self-reflection. 

No one is angry WITH but AT you, Justin.

Three guesses why.


It could also be something he did:

We’ve already seen the effect on average Canadians. Under the “waste” component of the 2030 emissions reduction plan, the government mandated single-use plastics out of existence for most people. The actual bans kicked in at the end of 2022, so if you’re still running on hoarded plastic ware, straws and coffee stirrers, you’ll want to make it last. And yet, an analysis of Canada’s net-zero plastics plan proves it’s a net loser. By the government’s own admission, the bans address a virtual non-problem (99% of plastic waste in Canada was already disposed of safely, from a public and environmental perspective). But the government will spend more of your money on the program than it will save you in averted environmental, health or safety damages. And of course, according to predictions from the government itself, substitute materials will actually increase the mass of waste you’ll pay to dispose of and be more harmful to the environment.

On the housing front, the government’s 2030 emissions reduction plan calls for emissions from homes and commercial buildings to fall 42% (from 2019 levels) by 2030. This is wildly unrealistic. If you’d like some numbers, C.D. Howe economists estimate “total annual retrofit costs, just to households, would run from $4.5 billion to $6.3 billion.” That’s roughly the cost of building two or three modern hospitals per year.

Finally, net-zero measures are pending for Canada’s oil and gas sector and the agricultural sector (fertilizer), which will put a massive hurt on Western Canada and raise questions about the sanity of some folks in Ottawa. In case you didn’t know, natural gas is critically important for A) producing electricity at affordable costs, B) stabilizing global energy flows and C) displacing more-polluting forms of electricity generation such as coal and wood. And without fertilizer, you can’t grow crops in modern agriculture, certainly not in a country such as Canada.


But Justin isn't the only wasteful, thoughtless moron out there.

The whole government is filled with them: 

Canada’s economy is facing a “turbulent” year, but the federal government still has some spending room for big priorities including a new health-care deal with the provinces, Associate Finance Minister Randy Boissonnault said Tuesday.

 

And where is this money, Randy?

Chrystia has no ruddy idea where it is because she is a journalist of some sort, not an economist, and Climate Barbie was equally as clueless

Here is Canada's debt as of this writing:

 

Is the money there, Randy?

**

Dozens of MPs working from home didn’t have to worry about the extra cost of downloads and Zoom calls during the pandemic because they shifted the cost of their home internet onto taxpayers.

MPs from most of the major parties billed taxpayers for the internet at their primary residences, while others also covered the cost of their employees’ internet bills, according to expense reports the National Post reviewed.

** 

Social Development Minister Karina Gould yesterday rejected any compensation for travelers left out of pocket due to extraordinary delays at passport offices. Gould to date has not explained why passport managers ignored 2021 warnings to prepare for a flood of new applications for travel documents: “What recourse do they have?”


And let's not forget the federal government's valuable organs:

On January 19th, CBC published a story claiming the Alberta Premier’s office contacted a Crown Prosecutor in relation to a court case regarding border protests:

“A staffer in Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s office sent a series of emails to the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service, challenging prosecutors’ assessment and direction on cases stemming from the Coutts border blockades and protests, CBC News has learned.”

But, CBC neglected to mention something quite important:

They did not actually see the emails.

Now, four days later, they’ve issued an ‘update’:

“Editor’s note: The original version of this story, published Jan. 19, neglected to note that CBC News has not seen the emails in question.”

The CBC story now includes this line:

“The emails were sent last fall, according to sources whom CBC has agreed not to identify because they fear they could lose their jobs. CBC has not seen the emails.”

However, between the story being published and this significant correction being made, an entire news cycle of breathless reporting ensued, with attempts to turn the story into a major scandal.

 

Which is why this is not a tragedy:

Newspapers have cut so many jobs that subsidies contingent on numbers of newsroom employees are 43 percent under budget. Taxpayers’ payroll rebates of $13,750 per staffer could not avert layoffs, data show: “The loss of even just one job is a tragedy.”



The economy Canadians voted for:

The pinch of high inflation and interest rates has more Canadians, and women especially, saying their budgets are at a breaking point according to a new poll.

Ipsos Public Affairs polling conducted exclusively for Global News suggests a growing proportion of Canadians (22 per cent) are “completely out of money” to the degree that they would not be able to pay more for household necessities.

That figure is up three percentage points from similar polling conducted in October and rises to 28 per cent among women.

**


Remember - these guys -
 
Transport Minister Omar Alghabra and several other MPs have issued statements after going to a reception in Parliament attended by the editor of a publication that has called the Holocaust a hoax and referred to Judaism as a terrorist religion. ...
 
In November, Liberal MP Anthony Housefather contacted Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez about a $2,000 federal grant to Meshwar Media, the community newspaper run by Mr. Khatatba. The money was intended to help the publication during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shortly afterward, Mr. Rodriguez asked Mr. Khatatba to return the funding.

- want to ban free speech ostensibly to prevent this:
 
  • Nearly half (48 percent) say something like the Holocaust could happen in other Western democracies today.
  • An alarming 52% of millennials cannot name even one concentration camp or ghetto and 62% of millennials did not know that six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.
  • 22% of millennials haven’t heard or are not sure if they have heard of the Holocaust.
  • Nearly one-quarter of all Canadians (23 percent) believe that substantially less than six million Jews were killed (two million or fewer) during the Holocaust, while another near-quarter (24 percent) were unsure of how many were killed.
  • Nearly six out of ten Canadians (57 percent) say fewer people seem to care about the Holocaust than they used to.
 
(Sidebar: the survey done in Canada and the US respectively and in the Netherlands, the once-home of Anne Frank, which also kills old people.)

(SEE: horse, barn, run out of; liars; anti-semites; tyrants; censorship)


It was never about a virus:
U.S. regulators sped up the approval of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to enable vaccine mandates, according to newly released emails.
Pfizer and BioNTech asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in May 2021 to approve their vaccine. Regulators said publicly that the review of the Biologics License Application would likely be done by January 2022, but behind the scenes top agency officials were pushing the Office of Vaccines Research and Review (OVRR) to quickly complete the review.
**
Emergency pandemic measures like vaccine mandates must not continue without lawful orders, says a privacy commissioner. The ruling came in the case of the Saskatoon Public Library that insisted employees continue to submit personal medical data long after mandates were lifted: “You are expecting me to comply with an invasion of my privacy.” 
**
A court has stayed a charge laid against former Ontario MPP Randy Hillier related to a May 2021 protest he was involved in, according to the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF).



But ... but ... the press said that he was evil!:

In an interview with the National Post, Poilievre said he has been listening to First Nations leaders who say they want less red tape and more control over their own resources and money, and he said his party will be consulting across the country on a plan to help them do exactly that.



Yes, I would say that killing someone with a machete is a terrorist attack:

Spanish authorities said they were investigating what they called a possible “terrorist” incident after a machete-wielding man attacked several people at two churches in the southern port city of Algeciras, killing at least one person.

The man attacked clergymen at two different churches – San Isidro and Nuestra Senora de La Palma, around 300 metres (1,000 feet) apart – just after 8pm on Wednesday evening in downtown Algeciras, a spokesperson for the city said. A source at Madrid’s High Court said the incident was being investigated as terrorism.

Police said the attacker had been arrested, and a police source shared footage showing two officers escorting a man in a hooded sports top in handcuffs through a police station. Police have not released details of his name or nationality. Local media, including El Pais newspaper, said he was a 25-year-old Moroccan.

 

Also - Atlanta is burning for perhaps the second time in its history but the police know who they will really arrest:

Father Fidelis Moscinski, who blocked access to a Planned Parenthood last year, could face up to one year in prison after being found guilty Monday of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. The priest has served jail time for his pro-life efforts before.


And:

On the night of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s funeral, Cardinal George Pell hosted a dinner in his apartment for a group of like-minded mourners, and all present were delighted that the heroic Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong, who had been permitted to attend the requiem by Hong’s Kong’s thugocracy, agreed to join the party. 

The company assembled at #1, Piazza della Città Leonina, could thus marvel at being in the presence of two contemporary “white-martyrs:” men who had suffered greatly for the faith but had remained unbroken and full of the joy of the Lord.

As Providence would have it, Cardinal Pell, in hosting that dinner, “provided his own Irish wake” (as one of those present remarked after Pell’s unexpected death five days later). It was an apt description of a magical evening, in which the predominant mood of profound gratitude for Benedict XVI animated hours of robust conversation, full of wit and laughter. And as Cardinal Pell remarked afterwards, “Cardinal Zen really was the star tonight, wasn’t he?” Indeed, he was.

At 91 years old and suffering irritating physical disabilities, the Shanghai-born Salesian cardinal remains incredibly energetic, and eagerly spoke about his work in the Hong Kong jail where the great Jimmy Lai and other political prisoners are held. The wardens, it seems, behave decently with Cardinal Zen, allow him to stay as long as he likes, and don’t (overtly) monitor his conversations with the prisoners. 

The cardinal told of making several converts in the prison and was asked what he used for catechetical materials. The answers were striking: the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, of course, but also Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. But perhaps the most remarkable moment of the evening came when, after Cardinal Pell offered a moving toast to his brother cardinal, the conversation turned to those times when the Lord seems to be deaf to the pleas of his people — times not unlike what many Catholics experience today. 

Cardinal Zen reminded the group of the appropriate verses of Psalm 44 (“Rouse thyself! Why sleepest thou, O Lord?/Awake! Do not cast us off forever!”); remembered that those verses had been part of the Introit for Sexagesima Sunday in the old Roman liturgical calendar — and then proceeded to chant, from memory and in impeccable Latin, that entire Introit!

Not unexpectedly, the conversation eventually touched on current Vatican China policy, of which Cardinal Zen has been a vocal and persistent critic. The issue, the Hong Kong prelate insisted, was the character of the Beijing regime, which lived in a different ethical universe, lied in negotiations, and could never be counted on to keep agreements it made. This, of course, was precisely what had turned the Vatican’s Ostpolitik in East-Central Europe in the 1970s into a fiasco: the Vatican negotiators’ refusing to concede the totalitarian “regime factor” involved, and therefore negotiating with communist governments as if they were run-of-the-mill authoritarians rather than mortal enemies of biblical religion. 

Confirmation of Cardinal Zen’s analysis of the built-in perfidy of the Chinese communist regime came at virtually the same time as that dinner, when the British publisher Allen Lane released The Hong Kong Diaries of Chris Patten, which the last British governor of the Crown Colony had kept from his arrival in 1992 until the British withdrawal in 1997. The leading China policy mandarin in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in those days, Sir Percy Cradock, had told Patten that, while the Chinese leaders “may be thuggish dictators,” they were also “men of their word and would stick by what they had promised to do.” To which Chris Patten, strongly suspecting otherwise, replied “I hope that’s true.”



First of all, it's not like she meant to catch these people skipping out on paying fares.

They made themselves quite obvious.

Their wrong-doings are overshadowed by the people who gradually accept dysfunction (and its acceleration) and growl at anyone who points it out:

I stumbled across this tweet by American Conservative editor Helen Andrews, in which she remarks on pausing her commute at the local Metro, in Washington, DC, and counting the number of fare-dodgers that could be spotted within a five-minute period. An exercise she repeated, with an average of 22 fare-dodgers and a peak of 40. In five minutes.

What stood out, however, were the tweeted replies, often from blue-ticked progressives and self-styled creatives with many flags in their bios, and ostentatious pronouns, and which conveyed a kind of pre-emptive disapproval of any thoughts along such lines.

“Do you literally have nothing better to do?” asked one film and TV director, adding, “Why don’t you stand outside a bank and interview business owners who steal wages from hourly employees?” Some insisted that an escalation of fare-dodging has no victims or unhappy social effects, and that fares are a “classist, racist” assault on “poor and BIPOC folks.” Others, including lecturers and lawyers, added “who cares?” or deployed the terms “narc” and “snitch,” again suggesting that certain observations are not to be aired. One “Oscar-nominated screenwriter” expressed his “exhausted rage” at such things being noticed at all. ...

Those expressing their disapproval of Certain Things Being Noticed didn’t seem at all concerned by the fragility of civilised behaviour, or the effects of a large and growing minority disregarding norms of behaviour, seemingly with impunity and with no expectation of ever being asked to behave otherwise. As if such exemptions couldn’t engender resentments, social friction, and an erosion of social trust and goodwill.

Assets that, once lost, are very difficult to retrieve.

 

 

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