cold – mackaycartoons

Thursday January 31, 2019

February 7, 2019 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday January 31, 2019

Trump is the most polarizing president on record — and almost nobody’s opinion of him is changing

Gallup’s Jeffrey Jones put things succinctly.

November 3, 2018

“Extreme partisan views of presidents are the new norm in politics,” he wrote in presenting new data on the partisan gulf in approval of President Trump. “The past 15 presidential years account for 14 of the top 15 most polarized years since Gallup began regularly measuring both job approval and party identification in the 1950s.”

The exception? 1996, when President Bill Clinton had an approval rating of 85 percent from Democrats and 24 percent from Republicans. To which the natural reaction is: His approval rating among Republicans was that high?

Since 2010, the average presidential approval rating from an opposing party in a year hasn’t topped 13 percent — and that was in 2010, when President Barack Obama’s approval rating was still slipping from his post-inauguration high.

The gap now is 79 points, 21 points shy of the maximum possible gap.

Who knows. Maybe we’ll get there.

But there’s another interesting aspect to Trump’s approval ratings that is worth isolating. The gap in 2017, according to Gallup, was only slightly narrower. Unlike Obama, Trump didn’t enjoy a period of broader support at the time of his inauguration. Views of Trump have been remarkably consistent by party since he took office.

There’s some movement, but not a lot. Data released Tuesday by Quinnipiac University make that clear. In Quinnipiac’s first poll of Trump’s favorability, taken less than a week after his inauguration, about a fifth of Americans had no opinion of his job performance. In the next poll, taken in early February 2017, 42 percent approved of his performance (including 88 percent of Republicans), and 51 percent disapproved (including 90 percent of Democrats). In Tuesday’s poll? Forty-one percent approve (including 86 percent of Republicans), and 55 percent disapprove (including 93 percent of Democrats).

Polar Vortex Animated Version!

What’s more, we’d normally expect some movement within those groups, as people who strongly supported the president became less enthusiastic or those who opposed him a bit grew more fervent. But while there are some isolated examples of shifts within each group in Quinnipiac’s polling, how strongly people view Trump has been steady over the course of the presidency. (Washington Post)

Wednesday November 25, 2015

November 24, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday November 25, 2015

10,000 Syrian refugees to be resettled by year’s end, 15,000 more by February

The Liberal government will not meet its Dec. 31 deadline to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees and now says it aims to complete the program by February.

The new target is to bring 10,000 people to Canada by year’s end and the remainder in the first two months of 2016.

The group will be a mix of government-assisted and privately sponsored refugees, all of whom will be identified by the end of next month.

The Canadian government is working with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as well as the Turkish government to find suitable candidates.

Priority for government refugees will be given to complete families, women at risk, members of sexual minorities and single men only if they are identified as gay, bisexual or transgender or are travelling as part of a family.

Private sponsors have no restrictions on whom they can bring over and the majority of refugees expected to arrive by the end of the year will be coming via private groups.

All health and security screening will take place overseas and once that’s complete, refugees will be flown to Toronto and Montreal, largely on chartered aircraft.

From there, they will be spread across 36 different destination cities which already have resettlement programs in place.

Temporary accommodation will be provided by the military if required, but the government aims to have lodging in place in the host cities and towns.

The federal government cost for the program is an estimated $678 million over the next six years but doesn’t include additional funding that could be necessary for provinces and territories.

More than 500 officials have been assigned to work on the massive resettlement program, one of the largest of its kind in the world as it relates to the Syrian refugee crisis. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Wednesday February 25, 2015

February 24, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

Wednesday February 26, 2015 Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday February 25, 2015

The ‘sophisticated’ Toronto ‘mystery tunnel’ no one can explain

It’s damp. It’s dim. It’s underground. Welcome to the Toronto “mystery tunnel.”

On Monday afternoon, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation released a breathless dispatch soaked in intrigue, underground hovels and mystery. They had found a tunnel! And no one knows why it’s there!

Nearly eight feet tall, the tunnel extended more than 20 feet near York University in north Toronto. Sitting close to the Rexall Center, which will host the Pan American Games this summer, the tunnel was equipped with lights, a power generator, reinforced walls and ceiling.

Unnamed sources told the Canadian journalists that unknown persons had spent weeks of work on the tunnel of unknown origin. The operators had hauled away the dirt to veil their tunnel-making process. The National Post, another Canadian news outlet that hopped on the story in terrorism-rattled Canada, estimated someone had spent “thousands of dollars” on the tunnel.

So who was behind it? Well-heeled drug dealers looking for a secluded spot to cultivate a drug empire? No, the CBC found. Not that: “Authorities have essentially ruled out the possibility that the tunnel was going to be used as a drug lab or marijuana grow-op, according to sources…Toronto police have refused to comment on the mystery tunnel.”

Many questions went unanswered. “First and foremost is the question around the context of the tunnel – where is it positioned?” Ray Boisvert, a Canadian security intelligence expert, asked the CBC. “How deep was it? How accessible was it? And what sort of things could be sent through that tunnel, being people or material?”

Boisvert discerned darkness in the mystery tunnel. It seemed to be too close to the Rexall Center. “I would want to be able able to have some sense that we know what the purpose of that particular tunnel was and who was likely – if not who, precisely – was behind it,” he said.

The mystery tunnel, which the CBC called “sophisticated” and has since been filled in, was discovered when a member of the grounds crew saw a slab of corrugated steel and inspected further. He lifted the metal and found a tunnel nearly nine feet beneath the surface. A snow-trodden path led to a nearby tear in a fence, pictures showed.

Authorities are holding a news conference today to discuss the tunnel. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

November 19, 2014 by Graeme MacKay

Illustration by Graeme MacKay – Wednesday, November 19, 2014

The Polar Vortex Cometh

A blast of Arctic air is expected to push across many regions of North America this week, including Western Canada and typically temperate areas in the U.S. Last winter, meteorologists referred to the dreaded “polar vortex” as temperatures plunged to punishingly low levels. Some theorized the cold snap was linked to the weakening of a polar vortex spinning above the North Pole.

Some scientists theorize that cold air spills out of the weakened whirlpool above the Arctic. The cold air then travels south across North America. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration notes, however, that extreme winter weather is often influenced by a host of atmospheric factors. (Continued: CBC News) http://www.cbc.ca/news/multimedia/what-is-a-polar-vortex-1.2829763

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

January 7, 2014 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Add polar vortex — or ‘polar pig’ — to our winter lexicon

The so-called “polar vortex,” a pipeline of cold Arctic air pummeling the central part of the continent, is dominating headlines as it plunges various areas into record-low temperatures.

The vortex is a whirlpool of cold air making its way from Nunavut down through Manitoba and Saskatchewan and into the United States, setting many record temperatures along the way. States as far south as Georgia and Florida are being hit.

It’s also affecting Ontario, where there are widespread wind chill warnings in effect. Powerful snow squall activity around Georgian Bay and Lake Huron has resulted in blizzard warnings.

“With the depth of cold air that we’re looking at, it is a possibility that a number of cold-temperature records could be broken in southwestern Ontario,” said Geoff Coulson, meteorologist with Environment Canada.
“In Toronto, we’re going to be in the depth of cold through until Wednesday . . . The polar vortex will no longer be an issue as we head into the weekend.”

Although Canadians are not strangers to these blasts of frigid air and rapid temperature drops, the term polar vortex isn’t commonly used here, said Coulson. Rather, it’s being used in earnest by Americans to explain the cold Canadian air that’s currently invading the U.S.
The vortex has even garnered the nickname “polar pig” after the term was used to describe a bulge of cold air, during an interview last week.
“It definitely looks like one heck of a ‘polar pig’ shot,” Kyle Cooper, director of research with IAF Advisors in Houston, told Bloomberg News on Friday.

Other wacky terms being coined include “Chiberia,” to describe record-low temperatures in Chicago. (On Monday morning, temperatures there dropped to a record -27C. The wind chill makes it feel like -50C.) (Source: Toronto Star)

Cartoon inspired by the reverse of the one drawn last July: