A lot of kids live in our neighborhood now and the weekends are filled with the sounds of their laughter, the little rascals. It’s a fantastic soundtrack
Long debate between siblings yesterday about whether it would be safe to twist the local tree swing and then ride it while it unspiraled. Boy: it’ll be great. Girl: you’re SUCH an idiot
Boy went ahead and tried it anyway but bailed out during the twisting process when he became aware of the tremendous forces at play (I suspect)
The seat was lifted a long way off the ground by this stage so his feet didn’t touch and he had to crawl/fall out which was pretty funny
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An addendum: I feel I should explain the timeline of how I finally got hold of these ATIP results, which were delivered in the form of an 85-page PDF which was burned onto a DVD, which was sent to me in the mail, which is a TOTALLY NORMAL way to send a small digital document
After taking 5 YEARS (!!) to answer my freedom-of-info request, @CanRevAgency has released a secret study confirming millionaire migrants made 90% of lux home purchases in two Metro Vancouver municipalities while declaring refugee-level incomes 2/ scmp.com/news/china/dip…
A whistleblower auditor said the study was covered up in 1996. CRA refused to acknowledge it existed. But it did, and today @SCMPNews publishes the results on the anniversary of my August 30 2016 ATIP request 3/
The released docs incl spreadsheets listing dozens of new immigrant buyers and their absurdly low incomes. It suggests systematic tax cheating. Eg: Here’s one rich newcomer, who bought a Burnaby home for C$2.88m. That year he/she declared total global income of C$174. 4/
So, it turns out BMW is chasing smugglers clear across Canada after they lease/buy luxe cars in Ontario, then immediately send them to Vancouver to load onto ships for China without paying. It's insane, with bailiffs hunting cars via GPS scmp.com/news/china/mon… via @scmpnews
Particularly shocking: the ease with which bogus buyers get C$100,000+ cars, based on fake credentials, bank accs, jobs. The IDs dissolve under cursory scrutiny, by then car & buyer are gone. Here's a fake work permit: identical #, used by 2 buyers in SAME DEALERSHIP a week apart
In one of the court cases I examined, a $114K BMW M5 was given to 19-yr-old, purportedly a karaoke bar manager earning $72K/yr + $30K in 'family support'. But his job & work permit were fake. He admitted this to me after I tracked him down: he's a Chinese int student
DO NOT BE AFRAID! We will join hands to crush segregationists. We will fine them in Safeway, we will fight them in the HOV lanes, fight fight fight!
*What? Yes I'm sure. Of course I know what people mean when they say segregation is bigly evil. I for one will NEVER bow to segregation, I know a hate symbol when I see one*
So, apropos of nothing, if you're interested in the Chinese wuxia genre, but hate old movies just BECAUSE, I commend to you "Shadow", the gorgeous 2018 take by Zhang Yimou that employs the best of the genre while avoiding the, umm, less-accessible bits
And while I'm at it: the best modern samurai film I've seen (& I've seen a LOT of samurai films) must be "13 Assassins", which whiplashes from serene idiomatic exchanges to horrific/imaginative/bloody battle. Magnificent madness in this Takeshi Miike redo