“She actually let these children get off of this bus and beat me and my family for at least three minutes, then let them get back on, get weapons, get back off and back on again, and then took off with every one of them that did it,” victim Kristina Gibson told 11 News reporter Lowell Melser.
Reader Tips
Tonight we listen to the incomparable Arthur Rubenstein’s 1965 recording of Chopin’s Nocturne in in Eb minor, Op.9 No.2.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
“Ahmad the Convert”
RCMP statement on St-Jean-sur-Richelieu suspect Martin Couture-Rouleau: "clear indications that [he] had become radicalized."
— Tu Thanh Ha (@TuThanhHa) October 20, 2014
Is There Nothing That Obama Can’t Do?
It’s come to this: Voters in battleground states think President Obama is worse at “managing the basic functions of the federal government” than his predecessor George W. Bush, according to a POLITICO poll released Monday. In other words, voters think Obama is a less effective manager than the man he stills blames for his failures.
Bottom Gun
Via email;
Referring to the latest reports about some jihadists learning how to fly in ISIS, there is a video about an air crash, probably in Tobruk, in the last few weeks.
Considering all the things happening in Libya now and the way the MIG-21 plane was shown flying and crashing, it quite likely was an inexperienced and overly cocky pilot.
My guess is it could have been an under trained jihad pilot.
Check out the video here
Birds Do It, Bees Do It
But Microbrachius dicki did it first.
Y2Kyoto: Our Disappearing Wetlands
Saskatoon Star Phoenix, June 2006;
On June 5, the United Nations Environment Programme announced a study that shows the world’s desert and arid regions are at risk of becoming even more parched. Research at the University of Saskatchewan supports this, showing the Canadian Prairies could be drying out due to more moderate winters.
Disappearing wetland, December 2009

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Disappearing wetland, October 2014.
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Check back in another five. I’ll take some shots from the new bridge.
From the comments;
I remember when Dr. John Pomeroy [Director for Hydrology, UofS] arrived to much fanfare, one of his first pronouncements was that the Saskatchewan water table was so low that it would take decades to ever recover to “normal” levels. And, of course, because of Global Warming [as it was then known] such recovery was impossible.
The World Is Being Run By Crazy People
The rubber plantation has 8,000 workers with 71,000 dependents. It is an hour north-east of Monrovia, surrounded by Ebola outbreaks. The virus arrived on the plantation in March. Knowing that the UN and the Liberian government were not going to save them, the managers sat around a rubber tree and googled “Ebola” and learned on the run instead.
h/t John Lewis
Renegade Regulator
RestoreCSA has a copy of a PowerPoint presentation given to CSA executives on the subject of potential fallout from false certification. Within this document, the CSA is fretting that they had to disclose “test results to confirm compliance.” Why were they worried? Because the test results didn’t exist. The presentation plainly acknowledges that consumer products are being certified despite “a lack of test data to support compliance.” Separately, we have a CSA executive’s handwritten notes from that meeting, and they’re impressive too. This executive indicates concern about “failing results” being noticed by government regulators. And they were under heavy scrutiny. As though the government was on to them, the notes refer to worries about “the need to report by tomorrow.” The notes also use the term “Gianluca.” What do you suppose that means?
In this crooked context, the victim was falling fast. The CSA kept threatening him with termination unless he started signing documents that he knew he shouldn’t sign. In one heart-rending discussion, we were told of the pressures he experienced at CSA. “He kept refusing, he just… I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m… I just need a moment.” And after a moment, the core of the problem: “he was raised honest, it’s just how he was.”
At the end of his days, “he was very worried about not having any money for bills.” He had no job. The CSA had “eliminated” him, apparently he wasn’t cooperative enough. Of CSA’s engineers, one insider confirms, they “run [the new engineers] through in about two-year intervals just to keep enough ‘paper’ on file to maintain the certifications. Then they get rid of them before they learn too much about how we operate to where they could be a threat.” The victim, it seems, caught on to CSA’s system too quickly. And worse, “he was talking about CSA too much afterward to others.”
Employer Repellent
It’s just a bigger hole than what society has considered to be “standard”… If there wasn’t such a pointlessly negative view on stretched ears, people like teachers and professional golf players wouldn’t have to get them sewn up.
Observer readers discover that not all employers favour the Urban Bush Warrior look.
Let Me Fix That Headline For You
Reader Tips
“Oh, listen to the jingle, the rumour and the roar…” ♫
That there’s the Carter Family.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
Honey, I Finished The Internet
Niche Appetite
Fees at the parlour are priced at 1,000 yen for every five minutes.
In The Mail
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In 2016 the United Kingdom is a decayed subsidiary of the European Union. A group of entrepreneurs plans an insurrection… |
Reader Tips
Tonight you’re in for the biggest thrill ride of your life, as Ivor Cutler recounts Life in a Scots Sitting Room #2, Episode 1.
If you start hyperventilating, try breathing into a paper bag.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Media Party
This is aardvarking unbelievable.
The online webpage of Toronto newspaper the Star is running a free 4-minute promo-piece/campaign ad for Justin Trudeau that auto-plays when you click on the link to what appears to be a newspaper article.
The blatant campaign ad – because that’s what it is – is titled “Justin Trudeau’s intimate conversation with Susan Delacourt”. It’s a curious title, because Delacourt is not seen or heard once in the entire four minute promo piece, which has on-screen chapter headings, brief moments showing Trudeau reading from his own memoir, and a video-scrapbook of lovingly presented images, processed with the Ken Burns effect, set to Trudeau’s practiced, pandering voiceover.
This raises some serious questions.
Alternate Title
No, Really, I’m Just like You
When you’re privileged and done nothing of note your entire life and you want people to relate to you, what do you do? Write about nothing. That’s what Trudeau and his team think of you. Nobodies who’ve done nothing.
Vomit inducing.
It’s “Hi, I’m Iggy and I drink Tim Horton’s and watch hockey too” all over again.
The “W” Word
Back in 2010, OkCupid selected around 500,000 profiles created by self-described “white” people, then “isolated the words and phrases” that made them “distinct” from those of other races. The most commonly Caucasian-used words were displayed in tag-cloud style infographics that had the uncanny appeal of found poetry.
That’s why I’m starting to wonder about my genetic makeup, because according to OkCupid, white women are very, very interested in … the Boston Red Sox. Then in someone named “Jodi Picoult.”
Riding Mass Transit Is Like Inviting 20 Random Hitchhikers Into Your Car
And that’s why you should always keep a bat handy.



