Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

White supremacy is terrorism.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

He really is that stupid.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

I also would like a pony to improve my balloon juice experience.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

An almost top 10,000 blog!

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Please don’t feed the bears.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

The jury literally has a bell they can ring to force Trump to show up on command. Greatest thing ever!

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Because of wow. / Meanwhile In Canada…

Meanwhile In Canada…

by | 136 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

Apparently since all of the Canadian teams have been eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs, there’s not a whole lot going on in the Great White North…

From The Ottawa Citizen:

An apparently dog-tired pooch diverted traffic in Oxford Mills on the weekend until police picked him up to continue his snooze in the back of an OPP cruiser.

Grenville County officers got the report at 3:30 p.m. Saturday of a large dog lying in the middle of Water Street.

“The dog appeared content and refused to move, thus causing vehicles to drive around him,” officers noted.

“Fortunately, police were able to persuade the uninjured dog to continue his apparent much-needed rest in the back of the cruiser.”

Officers returned the pup to his home in the village about 50 km southwest of Ottawa where he’d escaped from a fenced backyard.

“The dog was happily reunited with his owners but sadly missed by the officers,” police said.

The dog, having successfully slept on the yellow line, is now a member in good standing of the local outlaw motorcycle club!//

Open thread, if you can stay awake.

Reader Interactions

136Comments

  3. 3.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Saw someone from Ontario on FB (a person I don’t know) saying, in very colourful language, that the Ford administration has (as of April 1) cut way back on — and will eliminate within the next year — all pain-management clinics and services. Any of our Ontarian Jackals here know if that has a scrap of truth to it? Dog knows I’m no Doug Ford fan, but it seems such a policy would have generated a bit of commentary before now.

  7. 7.

    Spanky

    Haven’t checked earlier threads, but I mourn the passing of Chewbacca. Peter Mayhew has died at 74.

  8. 8.

    Major Major Major Major

    The NYT has a hilariously droll article making fun of Twitter’s CEO: Jack Dorsey Is Gwyneth Paltrow for Silicon Valley

    Young men are staggering around, hungry for days. They are throwing themselves into ice baths and cryotherapy pods. There are not enough beds at the silent vegan meditation centers to accommodate them. They need more near-infrared bulbs.

    They are the followers of Jack Dorsey, Silicon Valley’s answer to the mega-influencer Gwyneth Paltrow. The lithe, 42-year-old tech founder has become a one-man Goop.
    […]
    Many of the activities Mr. Dorsey endorses are not inherently fun, and so his personal seal of approval makes a big difference.

    “It’s such a strange service — who wants to be in the cold? You need to hear about it from someone you trust,” said Michael Garrett, the head of Reboot, a spa that offers cryotherapy around the Bay Area. (Cryotherapy is when you make yourself get cold.) “And now people are getting their information from C.E.O.s. That’s where the culture is going. Mr. Dorsey’s a successful guy. So you listen.”
    […]
    But no community has embraced Mr. Dorsey as their guru more than the fasters, who spend days on end just not eating. Mr. Dorsey’s very public endorsements of this movement have led to criticism that he is endorsing eating disorders.

    The WeFast community, started in 2015, now has around 25,000 members across its closed Slack and Facebook groups. They share about fasting and their blood ketone levels. There is also a private WhatsApp group for Silicon Valley power players who fast.

    “WeFast!” At least we live in one of the cyberpunk dystopias that’s sometimes amusing.

  10. 10.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Spanky:

    RIP, Chewie. What a great character.

    I hope Peter Mayhew was no relation to our own Richard Mayhew, but in case there’s a connection, RM has my condolences.

  11. 11.

    TenguPhule

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Young men are staggering around, hungry for days. They are throwing themselves into ice baths and cryotherapy pods. There are not enough beds at the silent vegan meditation centers to accommodate them. They need more near-infrared bulbs.

    This reads like a bad satire of a dystopia.

  12. 12.

    Steve in the ATL

    @SiubhanDuinne: speaking of Ford and Ontario, I was driving to Chattanooga this morning and there were two Ford F-150’s with Ontario plates doing 75 in the left lane where the speed limit was 70. I now hate all of Canada.

  15. 15.

    Aleta

    @SiubhanDuinne: All I know is that Ford is doing a lot of bad stuff (specifics I don’t remember) right now. I still can’t get over his election.

    And Chewbacca died. (Peter Mayhew).

    I had a cat who sounded just like a Wookiee. He would converse back and forth with us. He (the cat) also won Miss Congeniality of the House year after year.

  17. 17.

    Immanentize

    @Spanky:

    Peter Mayhew has died

    The guy here on B-J who writes those awesome posts on Obamacare? Oh how sad.

  24. 24.

    Mr. Kite

    I think the fucking internet was a mistake and I’ve spent the last 25 years keeping servers running for web companies.

  25. 25.

    TenguPhule

    Senate Democrats ask NRA execs, PR firm for documents related to alleged self-dealing

    Alexa, place an order for popcorn. Lots of popcorn.

    Three Senate Democrats have asked current and former National Rifle Association executives and the organization’s public relations firm to turn over letters, third-party audits, memos and other materials as they look into allegations of self-dealing and examine the NRA’s nonprofit status.

    Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), members of the Senate Committee on Finance, sent letters Thursday to NRA Executive Vice President and CEO Wayne LaPierre, former NRA president Oliver North and Ackerman McQueen, the group’s longtime public relations firm. It has asked the men and the firm to hand over all requested documents by May 16.

    The inquiries come after internal drama at the organization roiled the NRA’s annual meeting last weekend in Indianapolis. In a letter to the NRA’s board, LaPierre claimed North had tried to extort him by threatening to allege a “devastating account” of the NRA’s financial status unless LaPierre resigned from his position and withdrew the NRA from a lawsuit it had filed against Ackerman.

  29. 29.

    TenguPhule

    Leave my family out of it’: Nurse turned legislator gets death threat over controversial vaccine bill

    Its 2019. In the USA.

    Kyle Mullica, a freshman member of Colorado’s House, came into office this past January with a sense of mission.

    An emergency-room nurse, he had run a campaign based on his experience in the world of medicine, in an era where anxiety about health care is high. Even with his experience, he was surprised when during an introductory meeting with an official from the state’s Department of Public Health and Environment, he was told that Colorado was at the bottom nationwide for the percentage of children in kindergarten who were vaccinated against diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella. He had seen people coming into the ER with “vaccine-preventable” diseases like whooping cough, he said, but he was still shocked.

    “That was extremely concerning to me,” he said in a phone interview this week. “I wanted to make sure we were doing something about that.”

    Mullica, a Democrat who represents a district in the Denver area, said he started looking at options to improve this. This week, a bill he sponsored to tighten vaccination protocols for parents raised hopes among public health groups. It died in the state Senate on Thursday afternoon.

    But being the face of a political effort to tackle this pressing public health issue has made Mullica the target of threats. Mullica received an email that likened him to a Nazi doctor and said that he deserved to die after the bill passed the state’s House on Saturday.

    “The world would be better if your home burned down with you and your family in it,” it read in part, according to a copy published by CBS.

  31. 31.

    Mo MacArbie

    @TaMara (HFG): Before I clicked, it looked like he was sitting at a piano about to break into “Open Invitation to the Blues”, or something.

  32. 32.

    NotMax

    @TenguPhule

    Another jump, another chase
    Another race through outer space
    To pass such quests best
    The plot suggests best
    Takin’ Wookiee.

  33. 33.

    chris

    @SiubhanDuinne: Don’t know about pain management stuff but it may not be on the list yet. You can read the list here. The poor, the sick and the old, standard “conservative” targets. Kids, too, of course.

    I’m so pleased to see the site working again!

  36. 36.

    plato

    Cruise ship quarantined over confirmed measles case; ship is not allowed to leave port; nearly 300 passengers and crew can't disembark. https://t.co/DDPhGyUcbV— NBC News (@NBCNews) May 1, 2019

    It's the Scientology Sea Org vessel. I doubt it would have been a fun cruise even if they hadn't gotten quarantined by measles.— Rosalind (@Rosal1ndRu553ll) May 1, 2019

  45. 45.

    Mr. Kite

    A scientologist cruise ship. Sounds like the perfect holiday. Except when they won’t let you disembark before you turn your house over to them.

  48. 48.

    danielx

    @Mr. Kite:

    Considering how tired it’s making me just reading the news, you’ve convinced me. Is Trump Exhaustion Syndrome a real thing?

  53. 53.

    Steeplejack

    Despite a twinge of “fiddling while Rome burns” because of the news trend this week, I’m overjoyed to report that I got an excellent deal today on my new phone, a Samsung Galaxy S10e. Best Buy is running a sale on all the S10 models (maybe on some others, too)—$200 off if you buy an unlocked model but activate it at the time of purchase. Sounded kind of screwy, but I researched it and couldn’t find any pitfalls.

    So I retired my first-gen Moto X (in service since January 2014) and successfully hooked up the S10e to my Verizon account. Everything seems is working fine, although there is enough different in the interface that I’m fumbling around a bit. Verizon will bill me for a $30 activation fee, but that’s it, allegedly.

    I got the ice-blue model with 6 GB of RAM and 256 GB of internal storage for $650, down from $850. Sweet.

    If you’re in the market for a new phone, you might check it out. Dunno how long the sale will go.

  55. 55.

    Fair Economist

    @TenguPhule:

    Young men are staggering around, hungry for days. They are throwing themselves into ice baths and cryotherapy pods. There are not enough beds at the silent vegan meditation centers to accommodate them. They need more near-infrared bulbs.

    This reads like a bad satire of a dystopia.

    I’d call it a good satire. I thought even the real-world article was funny. I think you could get a very funny satire from this kind of material.

    That said, intermittent fasting isn’t really kooky and there is a good amount of evidence it could be good for you, especially in our 24/7 food culture. It’s a very functional version of calorie restriction in animal models. The super-overpriced substitutes for a Finnish sauna, well kind of kooky although probably not harmful.

  60. 60.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @chris: Not really. Drunk Canadian girl stumbled into me as I was walking her to her hotel room. I fell and landed on my right elbow. That arm doubled in size overnight. Since I wasn’t going to go to a random doctor on a Greek island. I self medicated with Ouzo for the next five days and had someone look at it when I got back to Germany. It took nearly 20 years before I could completely straighten that arm.

  62. 62.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @germy:

    Blankenship is suing Don Jr. ?

    So let it be written, so let it be done. :-D

    Actually, haven’t heard a thing about this until now. I feel like rooting for the meteor. Is that about right?

  64. 64.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mr. Kite: It isn’t used for luxury cruises, though I’m sure everyone on board is well catered to. This cruise ship is the only Scientology facility where a scientologist can get the highest level training: Operating Thetan (Level) VIII. The training and certification cost very, very large amounts of money and, of course, to reach that level, a scientologist will have already spent very, very, very large sums of money on levels I to VII.

    What’s amusing, for lack of a better term, for the non-scientologists, is that those who are deemed ready for Operating Thetan VIII training and certification are, because of their achievements as a scientologists, supposed to be immune to most diseases.

  66. 66.

    Adam L Silverman

    @germy: Defamation!
    https://www.wtap.com/content/news/Blankenship-files-defamation-lawsuit-against-Trump-Jr–509200051.html

    By WTAP Staff | Posted: Mon 1:52 AM, Apr 29, 2019
    MINGO COUNTY, W.Va (WTAP) – Former Massy Energy CEO and U.S Senate candidate Don Blankenship has filed a defamation lawsuit against one of the president’s sons.

    In a press release issued on Sunday, Blankenship outlined that he is suing Trump JR. for quote “his role in spreading what President Trump calls “fake news”.

    Blankenship claims a tweet sent out by Trump Jr. was part of a conspiracy in the Republican party to sabotage his campaign for United States senate in 2018.

    The press release also went on to say that Blankenship was falsely charged with three felonies which came on the heels of a deadly mining explosion that killed 29 at the Upper Big Branch mine.

    Blankenship was found guilty in 2015 of a misdemeanor charge of conspiring to willfully violate mine safety and health standards.

    Blankenship is asking for damages for defamation, false light invasion of privacy, and an injunction against trump junior to have the tweet removed from public access.

    The complete lawsuit has been added to this article in the related document section.

    Some of the tweets mentioned in the lawsuit can be found below:

  72. 72.

    chris

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    self medicated with Ouzo

    Tried that once, worst hangover ever! The retsina probably didn’t help…

    Good story, glad you recovered.

  73. 73.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    @Steve in the ATL: That’s really none of your business.

    That’s clearly the case, but please break it to me gently if I’m out of consideration due to my gender.

  74. 74.

    plato

    bbc

    Results are coming in after local elections in England and Northern Ireland, with disillusionment about Brexit expected to be a big factor.

    Voting took place for 248 English councils, six mayors and all 11 councils in Northern Ireland.

    Minister James Cleverly said it would be a “tough night” for the Tories, who expect to lose hundreds of seats.

    Labour councillors have also warned of a “very difficult night” for their party, with both sides blaming Brexit.

    Results for 108 English councils are expected before 06:00, with the other 140 results expected throughout Friday.

    So far the Tories have lost six councils and Labour two.

    Live results.

  75. 75.

    Adam L Silverman

    @plato: First off, I’d like the dead results. I want to know the casualty numbers. Secondly, if both the Tories and Labour are expecting to get obliterated, who, exactly, is going to be winning?

  76. 76.

    Steeplejack

    @plato:

    If Labour and the Tories are both losing, who’s winning the seats? Not some Wodehousian far-right party, I hope.

  77. 77.

    Jay

    Devin Nunes’ cow ? Retweeted

    Ricky Davila
    @TheRickyDavila
    Stephen Taubert, the MAGA Cultist who threatened to hang and kill Auntie Maxine Waters and President Barack Obama was sentenced to almost 4 years in prison.

    Hate comes with a price racists.

  81. 81.

    Bill Arnold

    I was hopeful for a moment:
    A National Day of Prayer guest drove the demons out of the White House (Heather Timmons, May 2, 2019)

    “We declare right now that there is a hedge of protection over our president, first lady,…

    Checked. Nope, there are still demons in the White House. (No obvious metaphysical hedge either.)
    Comey’s language in his op-ed yesterday:
    And then you are lost. He has eaten your soul.
    The Abrahamic religions, and many other religions, have words for beings that gain enjoyment and sustenance from the process of corrupting people. “Demons” is one of them.
    Comey’s language was not for us; it was for Trump supporters, especially religious supporters.

    (That’s only partly an attempt at dark humor. :-)

  98. 98.

    Barbara

    @plato: That would be a best case scenario. These are the local elections, but there are new pro-Brexit parties that will be participating in the EU elections.

  100. 100.

    plato

    Indies (+94) also making big gains so far on par with libdems (+99). Wake up call for both the parties.

  109. 109.

    laura

    @lamh36: I’m guessing you’re going to feel just like that dancing kid from yesterday’s post when you turn in the last paper. Congratulations on your acheivement. What a year you’ve had and by the time you arrive in London, it’s going to be all kinds of Royal Baby Sussex stuff. Please come home with a commemorative tea towel!

  112. 112.

    The Pale Scot

    Adam,
    What service do you use to watch the Pro14 matches? I’m tired of using the gambling streaming sites. Shitty video and uncertain time slots. RugbyPass seems to just have southern hemisphere matches

    Thnx

  113. 113.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @Steve in the ATL:

    @SiubhanDuinne: how do you say “roofie” in Greek?

    That’s not an especially gentlemanly to imply about my beloved Omnes. I thought you were from the South?

    @Steve in the ATL:

    @Major Major Major Major:

    try and

    Try *to*

    Thank you!

    Adam, can we please have a weekly grammar and usage thread? USD could be involved.
    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Spoken like an true historian.

    You hate me.

  115. 115.

    Adam L Silverman

    @The Pale Scot: I watch it on cable. ESPN2HD. There’s a match being broadcast this Saturday – Munster V Benetton. It’s on at 10 AM EDT. One word of caution, for some reason they broadcast some sort of racing qualifying for the first half of last week’s game. I do not know why. I’ll check with Yarrow for you though as he’s got a list of all the places you can stream these games.

  116. 116.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @The Pale Scot: RugbyPass seems to have British rugby this weekend. And couple of weekends ago, one of the NBC sports (non-subscription) channels had a Racing 92 match.

    You might want to ask Yarrow if you come across him; he’s another fan.

  117. 117.

    plato

    With about 30% in, cons (-185) have lost more than 3 times the seats as much as labour (-54).

  131. 131.

    Adam L Silverman

    @The Pale Scot: Here’s what Yarrow said:

    In the US they’re on the ESPN+ app (https://plus.espn.com/). You can download it on smart TVs or watch it on a tablet, phone or computer. It’s not free but at $4.99/month, which includes past matches going back 30 days, it’s not a bad deal. You can cancel the subscription at any time.

    Occasionally they’ll broadcast one on ESPN2, like the match you mentioned, but if you want to see all of them the ESPN+ app is the way to go.

  132. 132.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: That’s NBCSportsHD. They run at least on Premiership game a week. Unless the European Championship is being played. And they have the contract for the Rugby World Cup as they did for the Six Nations. Their Gold Pass is $75 a year and you get every Premiership game, every European Cup championship game, and every Rugby World Cup game.

    This weekend NBCSportsHD has one Premiership game, Saracens V Exeter, on Saturday night at at 7:30 EDT. The following weekend is the European Cup Championship. And ESPN2HD has the Pro14 game this Saturday AM at 10:00 AM EDT.

  135. 135.

    The Pale Scot

    @Omnes Omnibus: Hmm.., I’m at different location at the moment and the RugbyPass website looks different, I could never find a 6 nation game before.

    I’ve been using VIP Leåg¨ue, all the games but the quality varies. And I’ve yet to figure out how the starting times are listed. I wake up early Sat. morning and find absolutely wrong about when the matches start.

    Edit, thnx Yarrow for the ESPN + tip, that seems the way to go. It’s a great deal me thinks.

    Look at the prices for a playoff match,
    http://www.glasgowwarriors.org/match-day-hospitality

    Scotch Ambassador, I’m on that team…

    Sorry, got called away, thanks for the info folks, Adam I don’t have my laptop mapped into that mailbox, I’ll get tomorrow

  136. 136.

    The Pale Scot

    @Adam L Silverman:

    What’s amusing, for lack of a better term, for the non-scientologists, is that those who are deemed ready for Operating Thetan VIII training and certification are, because of their achievements as a scientologists, supposed to be immune to most diseases.

    I had a notion that was the case.

    And just how much time have you spent in Clearwater?

Comments are closed.