Haters share one thing

— 03.21.2019 05:15 AM

…they love guns. White supremacists, neo-Nazis, homophobes, Holocaust deniers, Islamophobes, committed racists all share one thing: they are gun nuts. Back when the Heritage Front was the largest and most active hate group on the planet, they made holding a valid Canadian Firearms Acquisition Certificate a condition of membership.

So, what New Zealand has done here, in less than a week, is a big and positive step. The gun nuts will say that it won’t eliminate illegal guns, and they’re right, but they’re fundamentally dishonest, too. They know it will mean fewer assault weapons – weapons that are simply designed to hunt humans – getting into the wrong hands.

So, kudos, Kiwis. Your Prime Minister is pretty amazing, I’d say.

(CNN) — All military-style semi-automatic weapons, assault rifles and high-capacity magazines will be banned in New Zealand following the mass shootings at two Christchurch mosques that killed 50 people, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on Thursday.

“On 15 March our history changed forever. Now our laws will too. We are announcing action today on behalf of all New Zealanders to strengthen our gun laws and make our country a safer place,” Ardern said at a press conference in the capital Wellington.

The announcement came after the country’s cabinet agreed to overhaul the law and ban military-style semi-automatics and assault rifles 72 hours after the Christchurch attacks. 

“Every semi-automatic weapon used in the terror attack on Friday will be banned,” Ardern continued, adding that she hoped the law would be in place by April 11. “This legislation will be drafted and introduced in urgency.”


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In A Dark Time

— 03.20.2019 05:20 PM

Roethke has always been my favourite poet.

In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood—
A lord of nature weeping to a tree.
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

What’s madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day’s on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.
That place among the rocks—is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.

A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is—
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.

Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.


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Because it’s 2019

— 03.20.2019 02:00 PM

Good on her. She’s got guts and integrity to spare.

We haven’t heard the last from Celina.

Whitby, Ont. MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes has quit the Liberal caucus and will sit as an independent.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the decision after the weekly caucus meeting.

“I have just been notified by my office that Celina Caesar-Chavannes has decided to sit as an independent. I want to thank her for her service to the Liberal Party and to her constituents, and wish her the best in her continued service to her constituents,” he said.

Caesar-Chavannes already had announced she will not seek re-election in the October election.

She told the Globe and Mail that when she first told Trudeau about her plan not to run, he became hostile towards her.

“He was yelling. He was yelling that I didn’t appreciate him, that he’d given me so much,” Caesar-Chavannes told the newspaper.

The Prime Minister’s Office insisted that Trudeau displayed “absolutely no hostility” in the exchange.


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The budget reviewed, in tweets

— 03.19.2019 04:12 PM


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#LavScam coverup: Liberals shut down Justice Committee

— 03.19.2019 05:23 AM

The Liberals are right about one thing: Canadians have “reached a conclusion” in the #LavScam scandal.

It’s a “conclusion” they won’t like on Election Day, however.


Comments (7)