The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Friday Night - The Age of Innocence

The Salmon Principle

Your tax dollars at work:

Jeffery John of Gander has been fined for catching and retaining a salmon longer than 63 centimetres.

Mr. John was convicted on October 21 in Gander Provincial Court. He was apprehended with a salmon longer than 63 centimetres on the Gander River near Glenwood on July 18.

Penalties

• Fined $1000 to be paid within one year
• Forfeiture of one salmon, one fishing rod, reel and line
• Prohibited from recreational fishing for one year

Note the wording: "retaining a salmon". The federal government fined the man a thousand dollars and then boasted about it in a press release for taking a single salmon. I also suspect they misspelled his name as Jeffery rather than Jeffrey. But heck when you wreck a man's day there's no point remembering silly things like names.

Since absurdity is merely a prelude to obnoxiousness for our federal government the press release continues:

The Government of Canada is committed to safeguarding the long-term health and productivity of Canada’s fisheries resources, and the habitat that supports them, for generations to come. Fisheries and Oceans Canada has a mandate to protect and conserve marine resources and to prosecute offenders under the Fisheries Act. It ensures and promotes compliance with the Act and other laws and regulations through a combination of land, air, and sea patrols, as well education and awareness activities.

With that in mind you realize that Mr John got off easy. Next time a drone strike would seem the only suitable punishment. 

Scenes From The Imperial Capital

Julie Please Go

Is the Caledonia bruiser about to get turfed?

No one seems to be happy with Julian Fantino’s recent announcement that the Conservative government will spend $200 million on mental health initiatives for soldiers/veterans.

Some veterans were calling the money, too little, too late. Others questioned whether this was a shell game, noting that Fantino’s department returned $1.1 billion to the Treasury over the years (unspent money).

While Big Julie has hardly distinguishing himself at Veterans Affairs, admittedly not the most glamorous portfolio, the PM is unlikely to kick the former OPP comish to the curb. The Badly Coiffed One is loath to admit any weakness in the face of the Opposition and Julie, for all his many sins, is still a star candidate. That an officer responsible for so much of the Caledonia tragedy should sit in Cabinet is disgusting. It is one of the least remarked upon moral crimes of the Harper era. 

Thursday Night - The Dirty Dozen

The Most Incompetent Lawyer in the World

Who dressed like Thomas Jefferson:

That appears to be the dictionary definition of “inexplicable incompetence.” The only case that can remotely compete in the inexplicable incompetence department with Hawver’s handling of Cheatham’s defense is when he represented himself. The Kansas Supreme Court unsurprisingly took disciplinary action against Hawver in order to disbar him. During a disciplinary hearing earlier this year, Hawver represented himself before the court—dressed as Thomas Jefferson. The Capital-Journal reported from inside the courtroom, and it wasn’t pretty.

Scenes From The Imperial Capital

The Last Days of a Grand Duchess

In the east end of Toronto:

Listed last week on MLS, the modest two-story Riverdale semidetached was the final residence of the Tsar Nicholas II’s last surviving sibling, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandranova. The highest ranking member of the Russian imperial family to emigrate to North America, Olga convalesced in the care of Russian friends who ran the beauty shop on the main floor.

She was bedridden for a year and ate nothing but ice cream, according to Nick Barisheff, who was 15 when the 78-year-old duchess succumbed to cancer in his family’s apartment. She died in the upstairs front bedroom Nov. 24, 1960, 54 years ago this coming Monday.

What are we when ceremony and circumstance is stripped away? In the case of Olga Alexandranova a mild mannered old lady. 

Wednesday Night - SCTV

Something Both Important and Useful is Happening in Quebec

Apparently the French do have a word for entrepreneur:

If there is a revolution to come in agriculture, it might well be from here — a non-descript block of a building in a field off Quebec’s Laurentienne autoroute, just a hike from the near-abandoned Mirabel Airport.

Inside, lettuce, basil, kale, and a variety of micro greens on rotating rotisserie-like trays are being nurtured under blue LED lights, using only drops of water. In fact, 94% less water than conventional farm methods.

Scenes From The Imperial Capital

"the cleverest living Englishman"

Hannan on Scruton:

If he were on the Left, Roger Scruton would be recognised as one of our towering public intellectuals; but it’s a peculiarity of our age that conservative thinkers occupy a space beyond the mental horizons of most commissioning editors. There will always be Rightist columnists of the Richard Littlejohn variety, I’m delighted to say; but a Rightist professor whose writings range from German philosophy to the oddities of common law, from religious art to country sports, is likely to be regarded as an eccentric class traitor.

Tuesday Night - Auntie Mame

Meanwhile Back In The Old Country

I have to say this is a wonderful idea:

Portuguese police have arrested former Socialist prime minister José Sócrates and three other people in an investigation of suspected tax fraud, corruption and money-laundering, the prosecutor general’s office said on Saturday.

The detention, the first involving a former premier in Portugal under democracy, follows arrests of other high-ranking officials or prominent people in separate inquiries in the past few months as prosecutors intensify a fight against corruption in a country notorious for its slow justice system.

It's not slow. It's just Latin. And let's not knock it either. The Portuguese are arresting socialists and we're dumb enough to keep electing them. 

Scenes From The Imperial Capital