Police seeking help identifying ‘intentionally dismembered’ human remains found at Cherry Beach
If you can help the authorities out with this please do, but what I need is more information on all of the human remains that end up hacked apart, wrapped in plastic bags and floating in the harbour by accident. I assume there must be a lot of them. Why else would it have been so important to mention twice that in this case it definitely happened on purpose?
On Oct. 9, 2023, two human thighs were located on the water’s edge at Cherry Beach. Police responded to a call from a civilian who made the initial discovery, said Det-Sgt. Tiffany Castell.
Toronto police later discovered a human torso, partially wrapped in a black plastic bag, in the outer Toronto harbour area of Lake Ontario on Oct. 30, according to the news release.
The torso had on a generic necklace and a light-coloured, size small t-shirt from the brand ‘Cotton Best,’ police said.
DNA testing confirmed that the body parts belong to the same individual. Police said the remains had been “intentionally dismembered.”
Technically speaking that’s not true since there were Joe Clark, Pierre Trudeau and John turner before him, but Brian Mulroney is my first Prime Minister in the sense that he’s the first one I remember actually being in the job. When I started getting old enough to notice the news and when we began learning about politics in school, he was the guy. I think that’s why I was so unexpectedly shocked when I heard that he had gone. We don’t write so long posts here as often as we used to, but this one has stuck with me since it happened, so I feel like I ought to at least note it.
My strongest memory of Mulroney was him being so deeply unpopular that he resigned before the end of his second term and set the stage for his majority government to be reduced to two people, but he was certainly much more than that, for better or worse. He was, as I would discover as the years went by, not a typical conservative or even your typical politician. He had big ideas and wasn’t afraid to take a risk. And some of his policies (acid rain treaty, working to end apartheid) were actually good. He also took big swings with the GST, national unity and North American free trade, enormously complex issues that cost him politically and absolutely changed the country forever.
“Whether one agrees with our solutions or not, none will accuse us of having chosen to evade our responsibilities by side-stepping the most controversial issues of our time,” he said when he stepped down in 1993, in a way summing himself up better than anyone else could, minus the bribery scandals and whatnot.
I have no idea how the world is going to remember Brian Mulroney. Probably somewhere between skilled politician and asshole who taxed us all to death and sent our jobs to Mexico, if I had to guess. But if there’s only one thing that I’ll take away from him, it won’t be something he said, but rather something I’ve heard said about him many times by people across the political spectrum. During this process, I called Brian Mulroney for advice, or while all of this was going on, Brian Mulroney called me to offer his help and encouragement. That’s pretty cool, and it’s how I’ve always tried my best to see the world. People who don’t see things your way often suck and are wrong, but not always. Sometimes it’s worth the effort it takes to listen to them, to try to help them, to find some common ground and to use that to make things better for everyone. We’re all in this life together, whether we want to be or not. Brian Mulroney certainly didn’t teach me that, but he’s at times been a nice reminder that it’s possible.
Enjoy this video of Milton Berle getting absolutely roasted by Statler and Waldorf on the Muppet Show in 1977. Funniest thing I’ve seen today, and it’s not close. Sorry, very good late-night monologues and Daily Show segments I’ve also been watching this morning.
Five people have been killed and 10 wounded in Gaza when a parachute on a humanitarian airdrop package failed to deploy properly and the parcel fell on them, a witness has said.
The casualties were taken to Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, the emergency room’s head nurse, Mohammed al-Sheikh, said. The airdrop took place north of the coastal Al-Shati refugee camp, he added.
A witness from the camp said he and his brother had followed the parachuted aid in the hope of getting “a bag of flour”. “Then, all of a sudden, the parachute didn’t open and fell down like a rocket on the roof of one of the houses,” said Mohammed al-Ghoul.
“Ten minutes later I saw people transferring three martyrs and others injured, who were staying on the roof of the house where the aid packages fell,” he said.
Honest question to which I sadly think I know the answer: Israel is, eventually, going to be charged with war crimes, right? That’s not me endorsing Hamas or being antisemitic, it’s just a weird moral thing I have where it bothers me very much when someone responds to an awful thing by being even more awful. It shouldn’t be this hard to tell which side of a conflict is the terrorist group, and it shouldn’t be controversial to say that.
As for this specific story, I’m surprised it isn’t one we hear more. Is that because it doesn’t happen, because it isn’t usually covered when it does or because I just don’t see it?
Also, when I shared the article from my phone to my computer, the first option I saw was “AirDrop”, but I went with mail just to be safe.
I’m bringing some erotic reptiles to your surprise party! See you th…uh-oh.
And today must be starting off ok. I wrote the word February without mistyping or having to think about how to spell it. Well, at least I did the first time. The second one almost ended up being Febuarary when I lost control of my fingers for a second. I’m so glad it’s March now.
As satisfying as it is to watch the Prime Minister of Canada absolutely torch Bell and others for the way they do business at all of our expense, I have to say that it would be much more satisfying if someone…anyone in government with any sort of real power had said some version of it decades ago instead of quietly allowing the sort of market conditions that create this very thing to do what they were designed to do while pretending they were doing the opposite. Both sides of the aisle have been so afraid to tell corporations “no, you can’t buy that” or “no, you’re not the ones setting policy” in any meaningful way that now we’re dealing with this in broadcasting, telecom, groceries, banking, you name it. And it’s only going to get worse if we don’t go beyond some tough words that feel good in the moment. These industries have gotten so big that they’re governing us instead of it being the other way round, and they don’t have to care what we think about it.
A fired-up Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unleashed on Bell on Friday, calling its move to layoff thousands of employees — including hundreds of journalists — a “garbage decision.”
“I’m pretty pissed off about what’s just happened,” Trudeau said during a press conference in Toronto.
“This is the erosion not just of journalism, of quality local journalism at a time where people need it more than ever, given misinformation and disinformation…. It’s eroding our very democracy, our abilities to tell stories to each other.”
“I’m furious. This was a garbage decision by a corporation that should know better,” said Trudeau.
“We need those local voices and over the past years, corporate Canada — and there are many culprits on this — have abdicated their responsibility toward the communities that they have always made very good profits off of in various ways.”
“We have been stepping up over the past years, fighting for local journalism, fighting for investments that we can have, while all the while fending off attacks from Conservatives and others who say, ‘No, no, no, you’re trying to buy off journalists,'” he said.
Trudeau suggested his government will be “demanding” better from corporations like Bell, but it’s not yet clear what that would look like.
Police say that on Feb. 2, the man attended the Superior Court of Justice to obtain help completing family court documents. After staff advised they are not permitted to provide legal assistance or help completing the documents, he called 911. A special constable working at the courthouse spoke to the man and cautioned him about misuse of 911.
On Wednesday, the man attended the same office and was again told staff could not assist. He told another special constable he was going to call 911 for help with the paperwork and was told if he did so he would be charged with mischief.
Immediately after receiving this warning, the man called 911.
And yes, he was charged with mischief.
I don’t know how complicated that paperwork is, but somebody probably ought to be expecting a call any time now.
I like this Daily Show segment because it gets at a media tendency that’s really been getting on my nerves. This thing where anyone on the Republican side who isn’t completely out of his fucking mind is a moderate. No. Stop. Being less insane than the most insane option does not make you not insane. Packaging doesn’t determine your moderateness. Your policies and positions do. Quit trying to make people like Nikki Haley into something they aren’t and in her case, something she says herself that she doesn’t even want to be. It’s extremely dangerous. You should all know this by now.
When we stopped overpaying Bell for a landline in favour of only overpaying Rogers for cell service (what a country we live in), by far our biggest logistical hurdle was making sure that Carin and I both had access to our building’s buzzer so that either one of us could open the door if the other wasn’t around. In that post, I explained how I had stumbled onto a service called Easy Buzzer, and did a bit of excited raving about how promising it was and how nice the people were. Years later, all of that is still true…but not for much longer. Well, I’m sure the people will still be lovely, but they’re going to have to be lovely somewhere else, unfortunately.
A few nights ago, because she is a human calendar, it crossed Carin’s mind that it would soon be time for me to pay Easy Buzzer again. So when I got an email from them last night, I thought it was just going to be a renewal reminder. But since in my experience renewal reminders don’t tend to carry subject lines like “Easy Buzzer is Shutting Down”, that thought was quickly put aside and replaced with oh no, that sucks, what are we going to do now?
I suppose the first thing we’ll do is take a look at Ringo as suggested in the goodbye email and hope that we can talk about it without breaking into song every time.
Early returns suggest that we cannot.
And if anyone else has any alternatives or experiences with Ringo, we’d love to hear them, of course.
But for now, a big thanks to Daniel Fraser and everyone else who had a hand in Easy Buzzer over the years. Thank you for being so open to feedback and responsive when we needed you. We didn’t need you much, which is a testament to how well your system worked. It was truly the definition of set it and forget it. When there were problems, we could always count on them being our building not having its shit together. Whatever may have gone wrong with you folks was always cleared up before we even noticed it. I’m sorry to see it end, but congratulations on a nice run for a service that’s going to be hard to replace.
Hello,
Unfortunately due to changing personal circumstances, I will no longer be able to support the Easy Buzzer and EveryDoor projects. Easy Buzzer and EveryDoor will be shut down permanently on April 1 2024. Please prepare as soon as you can to change your buzzer phone number at your building away from your Easy Buzzer phone number. The number will be deactivated and your buzzer system will no longer function. Billing will stop on March 1. In April, any yearly payments will be refunded for the remaining months. I suggest Ringo (useringo.com) as an alternative which has similar capability as Easy Buzzer, but there are many alternatives that are easy to find with Google.
If you would like to shut down your Easy Buzzer account now, prior to the end-of-service, you can do so here: https://www.easybuzzer.com/account/deactivate
I started Easy Buzzer in 2012 as a simple way to share the ability to answer and use my buzzer with my roommate living in Vancouver. Since then, Easy Buzzer has been used to buzz-in many thousands of food orders, party guests, students, short-term-rental guests, cleaners, dog walkers, and more. Years ago, we raised a small angel round of funding and launched a business product called EveryDoor, which helped companies manage AirBNB rentals and small hotels around North America.
Ultimately, I will be unable to continue to meet the obligations of running a reliable, secure, and useful service without investing a significant effort for which I don’t have the resources anymore. So, the best path will unfortunately be to shutter the service with enough time for everyone to change out their phone numbers before the call systems stop functioning.
Thank you to everyone who encouraged, guided, and invested money or effort into the company. But most of all thank you to the customers, some of whom have used Easy Buzzer over 10 years, for entrusting us with the security and capability of part of your home. We had some highly supportive customers over the years who helped with testing and accessibility that helped make the experience better for everyone.
Please direct any questions to help@easybuzzer.com which will be monitored until shutdown and refund activities have completed.