Thursday, July 31, 2014 -( 61°F / 16°C @ 9:30 am & raining in Ithaca )-
This morning’s headlines from CBC.ca/news : { These are not links, they’re hints of what the CBC thinks are most Newsworthy this morning. }
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“Offbeat”:
Dexter the cat rescued from debris of burned-out warehouse
No jokes, all plot: YouTuber strips the funny from Seinfeld and Friends
Say cheese! 12 great celebrity photobombs
$1M wording mistake leads to refund of 2,574 Winnipeg photo radar fines
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“Most Viewed”
Marijuana advocate Marc Emery vows ‘political revenge’ against Tories { “Tories” refers to the Conservative Party of Canada, who are now in power with a “Majority Government” under Stephen Harper, Prime Minister. I thought that if one party did not get at least 50% + 1 of the popular vote either the other two might form a coalition government and share power, as long as they had more than 50% together, or the party with the most votes would have to form a coalition/partnership with one of the other parties. Nope, not up there in Canada, that’s a European model. If the party with the most votes has something like 37% of the seats in Parliament, they form the government, they call this a ‘minority government,’ & that might not last a full five years, I think it’s five years-? And they have to pass laws and do stuff that does not anger the other two strongest parties (right now I think the Green Party might have one seat? One “MP” ((member of parliament)) / representative. I’ll have to ask somebody.) If a budget bill is not approved they might have to call on the “Governor General” (Representative of the Queen, I think this person, at least lately, is always a Canadian citizen chosen by the Prime Minister and I think somebody has to approve this person for that position before it is final.) When the prime minister calls on the Governor General (or “G.G.”) and asks to have Parliament dissolved, and gets the approval, they set a date, usually within a month, or just slightly longer than a month. The current ‘Tory’ government would be scheduled to expire next year, 2015, unless somebody, probably enough somebodies, call for and pass a no-confidence vote or too many sitting MPs and/or Ministers and/or Senators get caught with their hands in the wrong cookie jars or something like that (Senators are appointed, not elected; -appointed by the sitting Prime Minister) Sitting Prime Ministers sometimes call for an election when they believe their chances are really good to wing more seats than last time, or hang on to enough seats to remain in control, if they see something ominous down the road ahead.. Most of the Canadians I know can’t wait for a change to get rid of this prime minister and his lackeys. My friends up there claim they know too many people who would vote for a dead goat as long as it was a registered member of the Conservative Party of Canada. Others, like most of the people I know, wouldn’t vote for anybody or anything Conservative if their lives depended on it. But then, I think I did meet a few people up there who believed they had reason to hate and never vote for any member of one party or another, and the scales are not quite balanced, but I got to realize that people everywhere have reasonable and sometimes anti-reasonable ‘reasons’ for their political likes and dislikes. This is the lead story, their are several links to earlier stories featuring Marc Emory below the main teaser. }
Girl, 15, dies after accident on Bradford soccer field { Bradford is north of Toronto, Ontario, and the soccer goal with its netting fell over on her. The metal post is what apparently did the damage. Police don’t know how it could have happened. }
Fire in the sky: ‘Apocalypse’ thunderstorm rolls into Yellowknife { Storm clouds mixed with smoke from wild forest fires made for some eerie photographs and video. If you want to, go to the CBC News web site this article has some eerie photographs that don’t involve lightening or pouring rain. }
Summer anomaly brings chilly days to residents between sweltering coasts { Weird Weather”: Hotter than usual on the coasts, cooler than usual in the middle. }
Gaza conflict: Israel calls up 16,000 more reserves { “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel will destroy the Hamas tunnel network in the Gaza Strip “With or without a ceasefire,-” (and more) I’m interested in the matter of fact way this is reported. Definitely not Fox News. I’m also wondering if the order these links appear on the CBC site are planned, or just happen depending on which story came to their web people and when. }
Seattle cop issues 80% of city’s marijuana tickets in 2014 { One officer issued 66 of the 83 tickets issued in the first half of 2014 and was reassigned to something else inside the department. The Chief of Police said that changes in the marijuana law were ‘Silly’. }
Winnipeg armed standoff ‘resolved’ police give no further details { Winnipeg police received information that someone was threatening to harm police officers and himself, surrounded the house and after a “17 hour standoff” the situation was ‘resolved’ I don’t have any more details either. }
Mr Big stings: Supreme Court to rule on admissibility of evidence { A “Mr Big Sting” involves police officers pretending to be recruiting someone to join a criminal organization. The ‘Mr Big’ / Crime boss supposedly wants to meet the ‘perpetrator’ in person and hear his version of the crimes he committed, then the cuffs and badges come out and all the cops pretending to be bad guys are ready to give testimony about the ‘confessions’ obtained in this manner (as well as video evidence which might not always be admissible, depending on the judge in the case?) The Supreme Court of Canada is listening to arguments and probably asking each other for opinions. It may be interesting to find out what they decide and why- }
Ukraine conflict: Investigators reach Malaysia Airlines MH17 crash site { Yesterday, the investigators couldn’t get to the crash site because there was armed conflict too close to the site, happening between the Ukrainian Loyal troops and the Russian sympathizers ((Or sympathizers mixed in with Russian Army infiltrators? I don’t know for sure- We may never know. )) But then, most of you already read, saw or heard this story. }
Bacon Nation: Toronto restaurant caters to bacon-loving foodies { I’m not sure whether it was in Canada- but I heard on the television news one time I was up there, One restaurant had anybody who ordered special items from their menu sign a waiver, releasing the restaurant from liability if the customer died from a heart attack and the hamburger or whatever else they ate seemed likely to have triggered that heart attack. Canadians like their bacon. }
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Under “More Headlines”
Sleeping in darkness improves effectiveness of breast cancer drug
Can whales be healthy and happy in an aquarium? Scientists weigh in { A friend from Connecticut treated my daughter and me to a trip to the Mystic Aquarium where we watched one of the shows they put on indoors with dolphins and a couple varieties of small whales, all of whom seemed happy to do tricks and show off for the people there. We went in early and were allowed to walk around and take any photographs we wanted to. My friend had an Olympus OM-2 with a flash unit that ran on 4 AA batteries and whined while it was charging. When one of the dolphins who was playing in the rather large indoor pool heard the whining, he or she looked at us, and with a big smile on his or her face jumped at lest six feet out of the water, right at us. My friend’s flash hadn’t finished recharging so he missed that shot. But it felt to me like that Dolphin was enjoying himself. After the show Rachel wanted to get closer to the Dolphins again. There was a whale we couldn’t see making interesting noises and my friend asked one of the trainers what that was all about. The trainer, an energetic young woman with a delighted look in her eyes, said, “Oh, that’s [whatsiname]. the Beluga Whale. He’s complaining because we didn’t let him come out here and show off with the others, it’s his turn next time.” I had gone there during a rough time in my life with a serious case of the ‘Why Me?’s- feeling like I might never find anything to feel happy about again in my life, and just being in that area with those Dolphins and Whales, I felt amazingly good for a change. My friend had read books by Dr John C Lilly who had done research with Dolphins and later, we heard about ‘swimming with Dolphins’ programs (in which patients, usually kids with chronic health issues get to swim with Dolphins and hyper vigilant adults who protect kids from dolphins and dolphins from kids, and either it was the Dolphins’ ‘radar’ or ‘sonar’ -but something works and these kids get healthier and sometimes really bad problems ‘go away’). My friend told me he’d heard one researcher say she believed these Dolphins chose to do what they were doing. One animal ‘psychic’ said performing Dolphins volunteer for their life and love what they’re doing. And when he told me that, I remembered the trip to that Aquarium and yeah, it felt like the Dolphins and Whales who were there loved what they were doing. Maybe they took on the job of ‘beaming good vibrations’ to people they took a liking to? I got the silly idea that they came from a higher civilization to ease along toward our own Spiritual growth. }
Alison Redford’s flight scandal ‘defies explanation’ ally says { Alison Redford was the Conservative Premier of Alberta, a Conservative strong-hold of a province out west, with the oil sands and all that. She resigned amid accusations that she’d misused her privileges, over spent on items for personal use with taxpayer money, and over used the government aircraft flight privileges. Last night there was something on the CBC web site about her booking fictitious passengers as part of her party so she and her entourage could have a whole plain to themselves after the fictitious passengers didn’t show up. Opposition types say Albertan taxpayers are ‘justifiably upset’ and defenders seem to believe she didn’t do anything that others from all political parties up there haven’t done before. I don’t know- I’m an American (as if Canada wasn’t part of North America?) I’m not in Alberta. The oil sands lovers up there claim they’re trying to save the province’s economy, and coincidentally, the whole country’s economy while anti oil sands people say they’re killing the country under the pretext of saving it. Don’t get me started on Fracking…. But Alison Redford? I don’t know enough about her to form an opinion. }}
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“Analysis”
Russia-U.S. relations are chilly, but is this a Cold War?
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“Local” (?) { I still think I get New Brunswick news here in New York State because there might be a cookie in this browser that thinks I’m still up there, over there, visiting. 🙂 }
Growlers to be sold at 3 NB Liquor stores. { “Growlers” are 64 ounce ‘jugs’ of beer produced by small specialty brewers. They used to be able to sell these ‘growlers’ to people who came for a tour at their small independent breweries. A provincial law passed recently, required small time brewers to sell 10,000 litres of their beer in province-owned liquor stores before they would be allowed to sell their “growlers” at their breweries. Some of these breweries do not produce that much beer in a year. So now I’m not sure whether they will be allowed to sell their stuff at their breweries or not, but the article goes on to say that if the pilot program is successful, it will be expanded from 3 stores to 10 or 15. }
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— It’s 12:14 pm and I might have spent a lot more time on this one little task than I thought I would – I think yesterday’s similar exercise netted me more praise than I expected, and if you think this is a waste of our time, let me know. Thanks-
———djo———