When the family dog died, Mrs Hongcouver cried herself to sleep for two weeks. The idea that pets are just property has never made sense to me cbc.ca/news/canada/br…
Oh yeah, sorry, I refer to my wife here as Mrs Hongcouver because I’m Mr Hongcouver, as author of the Hongcouver blog for @SCMPNews
I sometimes forget that not everyone in the world is familiar with everything I have previously said or thought. Easy mistake
And this is our beloved Scruffy, who lives on as Mrs H’s phone home screen
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Westbank wants to boost density to approved plan, to make it "feasible in the light of current conditions such as ...a changing residential mkt". So, density deemed appropriate must change, because developer got the mkt wrong? Good to know, good to know vancouversun.com/news/developer…
Mortgage holders who face unexpected expenses or lose their jobs should try going to the bank to seek lower interest rates to make the relationship ""feasible in the light of current conditions"
Or maybe folk should go to City Hall and ask to stop paying property tax to make continued tenure in the city "feasible in the light of current conditions"
Any one of the things in this thread about a single speech would be one of the weirdest things ever to occur during a US presidency, had they occurred during any other US presidency
"President Carter stunned onlookers today when he branded [insert network here] "dumb bastards" and suggested they were exaggerating the global pandemic in a conspiracy to subvert the upcoming presidential election."
"President Eisenhower yesterday mocked Democrat opponent Adlai Stevenson for following the advice of the nation's top health official, prompting his supporters to demand that the men be imprisoned."
Every few years on the Vancouver-China beat I stumble on a story so bizarre, impactful & lurid it barely seems possible to have gone untold. The tale of Li Bolun, dubbed “the greatest adventurer of Chinese media” by People’s Daily, is one such tale... scmp.com/magazines/post…
In the early 2000s Li was one of the most powerful figures in Chinese showbiz, prez of the media/entertainment arm of CITIC, the Chinese govt’s investment behemoth, one of the world's biggest state-owned firms. A monster, now w/ US$1 trillion+ in assets... citic.com/en/
He made movies, TV shows, invested in talent & beauty pageants, magazines, sports events and more. He was the CCP’s very own media mogul, a made man, a protégé of the all-powerful Wang Jun, CITIC group’s princeling chairman...
#MengWanzhou's lawyer used a weird analogy about Meng’s hair colour to suggest it didn't matter whether or not she lied in parts of a presentation to a HSBC banker, that forms the basis of US fraud charges scmp.com/news/china/soc… via @SCMPNews
HSBC could not have been defrauded, Frank Addario argued, because the bank must have known after Meng's presentation that both Huawei and Skycom were working in Iran...
“A mere lie, if she’s asked in that meeting, ‘is your hair naturally blonde or naturally brunette’ and she lies about it – it’s not material to US sanctions risk. Even if [HSBC] said ‘we are only going to deal with brunettes’ …
I gotta say that AG lawyer Robert Frater at the #MengWanzhou extradition hearing is no mincer of words. Eg: Meng's applications should be "cut off at the knee"...
Tells Mdm Justice Heather Holmes she should "refuse to waste precious court time on processes that have no hope of success"...
Also tells her: "Your duty is not to let this proceeding become a trial...It is not to admit extra evidence on causality in US sanctions law…so that you can decide an issue on which, with the greatest of respect, you have no expertise”...
All nightclubs and banquet halls are ordered CLOSED by Dr Bonnie Henry. All liquor sales at bars and restaurants to cease at 10pm
Party's over. Loud music in venues ordered to cease (as Yoda might say: loud music leads to shouting, shouting leads to droplets, droplets lead to covid)
I've wondered when more focus would be paid to the simple fact that being LOUD - singing in a choir, shouting at a stripper, praising the Lord - can be risky