Slow Clap Movement

A man spits into the face of an Air Canada baggage handler during a wildcat walkout at Toronto's Pearson International Airport early Friday. The job action began Thursday evening and left hundreds of passengers in limbo after they had to disembark from several flights already on the tarmac. (Victor Biro/Canadian Press)


Seriously.

The wildcat strike started after the airline, which has had bitter and continuing labour problems over the past year with its pilots, mechanics, flight attendants and now ground crews, suspended three workers at Pearson International Airport on Thursday evening, setting off a chain of events.

The workers had apparently applauded sarcastically as Labour Minister Lisa Raitt walked through the airport on Thursday evening.

The employees were suspended for 72 hours. The striking workers said Friday morning that's how long they'll keep up their protest.

We Canadians are not a demonstrative people. We embraced jazz hands and/or twinkle fingers in places where failed kindergarten teachers Council Speakers banned actual sounds from onlookers.

But, now it appears we're getting seriously uppity-er. Making real noise. Real threatening noise.

Let your voice sarcasm be heard. Join the #SlowClap movement.

Re-arranging the deck chairs on the HMS Titanic

As C.C. points out in Doing the Harpo-Con shuffle, Harper's Most Spectacularly Titanical are being re-deployed, a few deserving the back benches of the House of Commons where the sun never shines and MPs get coal in their slippers at St-Nicholasmas.

So far, nothing indicates that the Minister for Empty Suits is going to enjoy a come-back.

As for Lisa Raitt, I sure hope she didn't spend a whole lot of money on a designer wardrobe because the effect will be lost in the nosebleed section of the venues where the Owe-lympic events will be held.

Stevie Spiteful and his NEW! Improved! flock of Attack Parrots™© - another photo opportunity, at taxpayers' expense.

Hot spin?

Yesterday Hot Shit Minister for Natural Resources Lisa "I bathe in Evian" Raitt told the opposition in the House of Commons that the CNSC had assured her that the radiation was linked to medical isotopes and had nothing to do with a Dec. 5 leak at the Chalk River nuclear plant 185 kilometres northwest of Ottawa. That nuclear facility is located upstream of the Ottawa River.

From the CBC:

The sludge that was recently quarantined near the Canadian border tested positive for radiation because of the presence of a medical isotope, according to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. ...

Since then, the sludge has been stored at Third High Farms, a waste storage facility in Iroquois, Ont., and consultants have been called in to investigate. The culprit appears to be the isotope iodine 131. The CNSC has said the isotope, which is used for medical procedures, is most likely the source of the radiation detected in the sludge.

More information here.

Still, nowhere does it say if truckloads of biosolids have been refused entry to the US previously, because of radioactive levels. Presumably, iodine 131 has been flushed consistently into the sewage system for decades now. What caused the recent spike?

Behold the Stephen Harper Excrematorium.

Isolated biosolids discarded by the city of Ottawa’s water treatment facility have been refused entry into the US for disposal because they were found to be radioactive.

More here. I'm betting that Lisa Raitt has been drinking and bathing in bottled water since December.

How to go about suggesting that the nation’s capital raw sewage treatment plant be re-named the Stephen Harper Excrematorium …?

Update: Make that the Stephen J Harper Excrematorium. That J. adds gravitas, don't you think? The Ottawa Citizen has more today.

eh. The city is hiring a "nuclear sleuth", a Toronto expert on radiation.

I'm still betting on Hot Shit Minister (thanks pseudz!) for Natural Resources Lisa "I bathe in Evian" Raitt to stage a diversion away from the Chalk River facility.

"Over there!!! Look!!! A shiny, radiating, terrist object!!!"

Further update: Hot Shit Minister for Natural Resources Lisa "I bathe in Evian" Raitt scolded the opposition for creating public panic when she was asked whether there was a connection between the radioactive biosolids produced by the Stephen J Harper Excrematorium and leaks reported at the nuclear reactor. She said "there is almost certainly no connection between radioactive sludge in Ottawa and a reactor leak at Chalk River some 200 kilometres upriver." Almost certainly no connection ... And she hammered the point home by adding: How do I know? The Bible Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission tells me so.

Wow, I feel so much better already.

Grand merci to J.A.Baker for the idea.