Happy afternoon, Saskatoon! It’s a gorgeous day, 13°C, with hours left before sunset (7:48 p.m.). How about some news? I found this on the Internet for you…
1. EFFICIENCY IS MAGIC Worried about the epic devastation caused by budget cuts? You can stop. The government will fix everything with changes to the Education Act. Phew!
2. LIBRARY LAMENT Provincial cuts to library funding are devastating. Here’s the Saskatoon situation. This is what we get from a bunch of boom bungling politicians, I guess.
3. ENTER THE APP WayToPark lets Saskatoon drivers pay for parking with their cellphones. Sounds civilized.
4. PROTESTS FOR COLTEN BOUSHIE CONTINUE The RCMP have scaled back their presence outside North Battlefield’s provincial court after demonstrators called it “intimidating”: “[The RCMP is] protecting who, and from what exactly? That’s not clear to us, especially with the history my family’s had thus far with the RCMP,” Boushie’s cousin told CBC. Good question.
5. “ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT” Canada ranks 10 out of 16 “peer countries” on a Conference Board Of Canada report. Norway, Sweden and Denmark, which a certain nasty ex-Prime Minister dismissed as “northern European welfare states”, rock, as usual. Also, the United States is hilariously disastrous on the Income Inequality chart.
6. WELCOME BACK BRIAN, I GUESS Justin Trudeau’s federal Liberal will gather ’round the cabinet table for a special performance from Canada’s favourite former prime minister, Lyin’ Brian Mulroney. The sad thing is, ol’ “envelopes stuffed with bills” probably has useful insights. Sigh.
7. CELL PHONE SPY DEVICES DISCOVERED AT MONTREAL AIRPORT Who’s behind it? Nobody’s taking responsibility.
8. BANNON BOOTED President Donald Jerkwad Trump has removed his political adviser, former Breitbart boss Steve Bannon, from the National Security Council. Trump’s administration continues to be an unprecedented shambles.
9. WHO GASSED CIVILIANS? Russia and Syria say it was Syrian rebels but pretty much everyone else says it was the Syrian regime. I’ll put my nickel on the latter. If Bashir al Assad had retired to Moscow after the 2011 mass protests the country wouldn’t be rubble and 470,000 people would still be alive. The brutality seems never-ending. Monstrous.
A PARROT TURNS 30 AND IT IS CUTE Here’s Einstein, the Knoxville Zoo’s smartypants African Grey parrot. Squawk!