Justin Trudeau is not just a pretty face. He’s also two-faced. Mr. Environment, save-the-world back-peddled big time yesterday when Canada put forth its budget. His government cancelled the public transit tax credits that allowed commuters to claim a non-refundable tax credit equal to 15% of their bus or transit pass. What does this mean in real life?
Well, in Toronto a Metropass costs $146.25 per month, which works out to a discount of $21.94 for one pass, or $263.25 for a year’s worth. While that may not seem like a lot of money, the relevance goes way past the money.
If we are supposed to be saving the climate and the world and the trees and the whales, he’s taking away that incentive not only by taking away the tax refund, but by showing that his talk is cheap and not real. Oh wait, have we said that before? Now you know it’s true. Gentlemen and ladies – start your engines.
We hope nobody is surprised that the perpetrator of yesterday’s sick attack in London was done by someone born and bred there. What is most chilling is that there is pretty well no way to stop these attacks. All someone needs is a car and kitchen knife to put other people’s lives to an end.
No matter how hard people will try to tell us that not all muslims are terrorists, until muslims get a handle on their own people, they will be all be lumped in together. And by getting handle on their own, that means going into mosques and getting rid of hate-spewing imams. Either deport them or do what they must to stop them from talking. Duck tape will do.
If home-grown terrorists hate their birth country so much, why don’t they just move to some Arab country where they can hear minarets day and night, pray to their hearts content and practice sharia law openly? Why must they take out their anger on innocent people? Something is very sick about the religion of islam and this seems to be one of the key points.
Quel surprise – Quebec’c Department of Transport is dysfunctional as stated by Quebec’s auditor general. Blanche, don’t you wonder how much money somebody got paid to figure that out?
Instead of fixing a problem they were told about in 2009, they dug their heels in deeper and created a world of secrecy and deception. Get this one: they have a 64-step process to determine whether a situation constitutes an emergency. Now you know why nobody came to the aid of the hundreds of drivers stuck on the highway in a snowstorm two weeks ago. By the time they got to step 43 it was the next morning.
Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the entire department should be closed, everyone fired and reopen it under another name without bureaucrats. Rather, with people who actually have their pulse on what is happening on the roads etc.
Yesterday, a young woman of 22 years old begged the police in the small town she lived to protect her from her ex-boyfriend who she knew wanted to kill her. They did not protect her and he killed her.
Do we want to hear what a terrible childhood he had? Or that his father beat him? Or his mother left him? Nobody cares, none of the above matters and no excuse in the world gives him the right to murder someone who doesn’t like him.
He deserves to go to jail for the rest of his life. And the police who didn’t take this woman seriously and literally sent her to the wolves need to be on permanent leave until they understand that when a woman says someone is out to kill her, they take her seriously.
In the end, it was a Jewish teenager in Israel who made the wave of threats to Jewish institutions in the United States and other countries in recent months. He was arrested today.
The 18-year-old suspect, who holds dual Israeli and American citizenship, suffers from a brain tumor that can affect his behavior. Seems his tumor is of the type that can affect his cognitive abilities and lead to “irrational” behavior. We would say so.
There is an even sicker part of the story here. White nationalists are now vindicated because a Jew is the main suspect in the bomb threats. The arrest played neatly into the anti-Semitic depiction of Jews as duplicitous and controlling. We told you it’s sick.
In the last blog, we told you about the Arab countries who’s travelers are no longer allowed to bring anything larger than a smart-phone on the plane. Don’t say Blanche doesn’t give you travel tips. Here are the top things they can do while the ban is in effect, which could be for a very long time, so we suggest they memorize the list:
1. Read a book. 2. Say hello to the person next to you. 3. Appreciate the miracle of the flight. 4. Pretend the tray is a keyboard. 5. Analyze the meaning of life. We saved the best for last: 6. Meditate on the reasons you are no longer allowed to bring your devices on the plane.
There was a great article in today’s paper about the idiocy of the gluten-free frenzy. May we remind you, as the article pointed out, when french bread and jelly beans were considered good weight-loss options because they were low in fat and avocados and eggs were going to kill you?
Blanche, do you know why gluten free products became so popular? Because .0001 of the population has celiac disease. And what are the symptoms? When people with celiac disease eat gluten (a protein found in wheat, rye and barley), their body mounts an immune response that attacks the small intestine.
Exactly how many people do you know with this disease? One? Two? You may know people with an intolerance to wheat, but they won’t die from eating it. To over-compensate and in the latest food-crazed fad, gluten has become verboten.
Here’s what we found: Gluten itself doesn’t offer special nutritional benefits. But the many whole grains that contain gluten do. They’re rich in an array of vitamins and minerals, such as B vitamins and iron, as well as fiber. Studies show that whole grain foods, as part of a healthy diet, may help lower risk of heart disease, type-2 diabetes, and some forms of cancer.
The bottom line: Be sensible and don’t pretend that a gluten-free diet is good for you unless you have been tested by a doctor. Get a grip, wheat is not enemy number one.
Good Shabbos we’ll talk…