All Purpose Politics and News Thread

[Natalka]

I think Elizabeth May should resign - this is NOT what an MP does; decisions made by the government in power are to be accepted by MPs of all parties, for they serve the people of Canada.

We should NOT be continuing to pay her MP salary and expenses while she is on this journey of protest. Her saying she'll go to jail is just sickening, and makes a mockery of being a member of the House of Commons. Conduct is very unbecoming of someone who says she wants to become prime minister.

She should submit her resignation, then she can do whatever she wants with her spare time.



----

"Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has vowed to do everything in her power to stop Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline from being built -- and she’s willing to spend time behind bars.

“Of course I’ll go to jail. I’ll block pipelines, I’ll stand shoulder-to-shoulder with First Nations. This is not an issue you compromise on,” said May, a Vancouver Island MP and longstanding voice among Canadian environmentalists."

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/eliza...line-1.3182604

[Natalka]

PM Justin Trudeau and MJ

(italics mine)

“The promise we made around legalizing marijuana was done for two reasons … that I was very, very clear about: one, to better protect our kids from the easy access they have right now to marijuana; and, two, to remove the criminal elements that were profiting from marijuana,” he said.

(Kids will have a much easier time getting it once it's legalized.)

“So, I don’t know how much clearer we can be that we’re not legalizing marijuana to please recreational users,” he said.

(Of course he's doing it to 'please' recreational users, that was a huge part of his promise, which drew out young voters.)

While Trudeau said he had not yet pored over the McLellan panel’s report, he has clearly been thinking about the age limits for recreational marijuana use.
“It’s been highlighted many times that the effect of cannabis on the developing brain is particularly problematic,” the prime minister said.
“I’m not going to venture too much further into the science but I think there is a consensus that, yes, perhaps up until 21 or 25 it’s not as good as past that age. But I have a sense that the worst damage is in the 12-, 13-, 14-year-old range,” he said.

(Really, a 'sense' - how about you rely on some good science; no one cares what your sense of something is.)

https://www.thestar.com/news/queensp...marijuana.html

[lecale]

Gabriel Klein's tale hints at dark truth of chronic pot use on 'susceptible' young brains, doctor says
'The link between marijuana and psychosis is significant' says UBC psychiatrist Dr. Bill MacEwan
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britis...ness-1.3840718

[Natalka]

9h9 hours ago

Pipeline protestors are definitely concerned with the environment. Maybe clean up after your protests.

#DakotaAccessPipeline

[seylz_gurl]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...estroying-env/

Those familiar with the camps near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, increasingly are distressed over the pits of human waste and garbage pockmarking the formerly pristine prairie revered by the Standing Rock Sioux as sacred ancestral land.
Rob Keller, spokesman for the Morton County Sheriff’s Department, said the protesters are “saying one thing and doing another” when it comes to safeguarding the environment.

“We’ve seen pictures of trenches and the garbage thrown in there. So that’s protecting the land?” Mr. Keller said. “And then the snow came in, and I’m sure it’s just a muddy mess now, because that’s river-bottom water, which is silt. It will be a mess.”

[Ciel]

First woman on a Canadian banknote is revealed today: Viola Desmond

Saney said he hopes that as Canadians discover Desmond's story, they will come to learn that the unsanitized version of Canadian history includes dark chapters about colonialism, slavery and institutionalized racism.Thursday's short list included poet E. Pauline Johnson; Elsie MacGill, who received an electrical engineering degree from the University of Toronto in 1927; Quebec suffragette Idola Saint-Jean; and 1928 Olympic medallist Fanny Rosenfeld, a track and field athlete.
Famous Five activist Nellie McClung, the Alberta suffragette who fought in the 1920s for women to be legally recognized as persons in Canada, was for many Canadians the most obvious omission from the short list.
There were more than 26,000 submissions from the public, which was later whittled down to 461 eligible nominees who had Canadian citizenship and had been dead for at least 25 years.

http://www.hamiltonnews.com/news-sto...race-banknote/

[Natalka]

John Glenn, astronaut and senator, dead at age 95



As a Marine Corps pilot, he broke the transcontinental flight speed record before being the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962 and, 36 years later at age 77 in 1998, becoming the oldest man in space as a member of the seven-astronaut crew of the shuttle Discovery.

His history -

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stor...ohn-glenn.html

[Darth Penguin]

British man jailed for harassing Jewish MP

A man who subjected a Jewish MP to an online campaign of anti-Semitic abuse has been jailed for two years.
Joshua Bonehill-Paine, 24, wrote five hate-filled blogs about Luciana Berger in 2014.
Speaking earlier, the Liverpool Wavertree MP said she felt "unsafe" and was concerned that the far right is on the rise in the UK.
Bonehill-Paine was convicted of racially aggravated harassment at the Old Bailey on Wednesday.
'Gravely oppressive'

The judge told Bonehill-Paine he was responsible for a "cruel campaign of vile racist abuse" on his "obnoxious" online newspaper.
"This was gravely oppressive racially-aggravated harassment of the worst kind," Mr Justice Spencer said.
Speaking to the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire before the sentencing, Ms Berger said: "We're seeing it across Europe but we're seeing it in our country as well."
Government figures, she said, showed an increase in the number of people coming from a right-wing extremist ideology being referred to the government's counter-terrorism strategy Prevent programme.
"The concern is when that extremism also crosses the line into terrorism," Ms Berger said. "It also crosses the line into physical threats."

[lecale]

lol at some of the stuff donated to the Calgary Food Bank...sigh, I would eat that octopus...

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/ca...g-things-worse

[GoJays]

Ugh, I wouldn't touch that octopus. Nor the silkworm pupa right above it. I wonder if it was a joke or if the person or people who donated those items were meaning well.

[lecale]

Ugh, I wouldn't touch that octopus. Nor the silkworm pupa right above it. I wonder if it was a joke or if the person or people who donated those items were meaning well.

I bought a can of that silkworm pupa, that exact brand, once. I spent a month challenging everytone I knew to try them with me, and the only person who bit was a quadrapeligic guy I volunteered with who decided to live life on the wild side with me.


You know how when you swat a fly and all this yellow curdy stuff comes out of the abdomen? They are like that, with a hard leathery skin on them. They taste like earth (and sadly despite the soy marinade, don't taste salty at all!)

[GoJays]

Bleh

You're definitely more adventuresome than I am when it comes to food.

[Natalka]

Russian doping: McLaren report says more than 1,000 athletes implicated


More than 1,000 Russians - including Olympic medallists - benefited from a state-sponsored doping programme between 2011 and 2015, a report claims.
At least 30 sports, including football, covered up samples, the report says.

"It was a cover-up that evolved from uncontrolled chaos to an institutionalised and disciplined medal-winning conspiracy," said the report's author, Richard McLaren.
Lawyer McLaren said London 2012 was "corrupted on an unprecedented scale".
The report also implicates medallists at the 2013 World Athletics Championships in Moscow, and the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.


Writing in his latest report, McLaren says: "The desire to win medals superseded their collective moral and ethical compass and Olympic values of fair play."
He said international sports competitions had been "unknowingly hijacked by the Russians" and sports fans have been "deceived" for years.
"It is time that stops," he added.



Much more info here -

http://www.bbc.com/sport/38261608

[GoJays]

How long til Hollywood makes a movie out of that one?

[Ciel]

Indwell buys former tavern and will convert it to affordable housing (60 small units). I recall attending a couple of functions (wedding receptions @Granger ) in the 1980s. Hamilton needs more new affordable housing-great news.

http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story...-perfect-pads/