Monday, 25 August, 2014 -( 77˚F / 25˚C with a couple clouds in Ithaca @ 11:30 am ET )-
{ & again, these are not links. If you want to read these stories, listen to sound clips, or see any video -if there is any video- go to CBC dot CA/news. —Thanks. ———djo——— }
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Tim Hortons and Burger King are talking about a merger.
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-Live- Michael Brown funeral gets underway in St. Louis { This is today’s lead story, but I didn’t want to post a big picture of someone who may have been murdered by police for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The most damning – and unverified – tweet I saw on Michael Brown’s death was a comparison of the video from the convenience store compared with the photo of Michael Brown dead on the ground & the tweeter said something along these lines: – Okay, right, he changed his shoes and went from having his head shaved bald to sporting a full head of hair in two minutes – So of course he needed to be shot dead in the streets. }
Thousands attend funeral for Michael Brown in Missouri { }
Tim Horton, Burger King shares rise on merger talks { The headquarters would be in Canada }
B.C. teachers resume picketing 1 week before Labour Day { }
Napa residents pick up pieces after California quake { }
U.S. strikes on Syrian ISIS targets need permission: Syria { }
French president dissolves government as cabinet feuds { }
-New- ‘I feel you all especially when I pray’: Read James Foley’s last letter to family { Looks like the manipulators want to keep you in a high level of stress by repeating something from these stories every day. }
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“Offbeat”
LobsterCam in Halifax is live once again { }
400 garden gnomes missing in Austria { On one visit to the outskirts of Ottawa, a friend told me that kids had stolen hundreds of gnomes from people’s front yards in that suburban Ontario town, and had been caught. The police were keeping the gnomes under surveillance at police headquarters until they were claimed by people who owned them }
& Two repeat articles from the weekend
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“Most Viewed”
Ronald Stan, Ontario man missing since 1977, found in U.S. { He disappeared after a fire in 1977. He is now 69 years old and living under an assumed named in the states. }
Decker Glacier at Whistler a sign of melt to come { Photos down a couple lines. }
Michael Lumahang called a hero after drowning trying to save boy { The boy was in the Ottawa River }
Ebola outbreak: Why Liberia’s quarantine in West Point slum will fail { }
Tories keep 4 Challenger jets airborne due to VIP scheduling conflicts { P.M. Harper had promised to decommission the jets, but it looks like he also promised rides to ‘important people’. }
Iceland volcano: Bardarbunga remains quiet { Yesterday they reported an eruption beneath a glacier. Last night they reported 2 more quakes around the volcano. }
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“Other”
‘He needs me to fight for him’: Woman stabbed by son says legal system [is] failing him { Alberta: The mother of a man with a psychotic illness is frustrated [because] her son, who has been charged with attempted murder after she was stabbed more than a year ago, is in jail with dangerous criminals instead of receiving treatment at an Alberta hospital. }
“Before & After”
‘Quite scary’ before and after melt of Whistler, B.C.’s Decker Glacier { “What was cold white in 2006 is now a stunning blue.” }
Mexican woman in Montreal may be deported without her 2 children { }
Why it’s hard to stop a peeping drone { }
Comedy is the new drama: Orange is the New Black takes on Modern Family at the Emmys { }
-Photos- Beyonce owns the MTV Video Music Awards, Miley Cyrus wins Video of the year { }
-Must Watch- Hotel’s colourful implosion { “A demolition company in New York sets off fireworks and colourful smoke to signal hotel’s demise in Albany.” }
-Must Watch- SUV runs over boy in China { The 6-year-old survived. }
Gaza airstrikes resume with no end in sight { }
Harassment, bullying continues in national police force: Liberal MP { }
Sony PlayStation Network back online after weekend cyberattack { }
Ancient Mayan cities uncovered in Mexican jungle { }
Mayan ruins that were found and lost have been found again.
Richard Attenborough dead at 90 { }
Germany outlasts Nigeria to win U-20 Women’s World Cup { “U-20” = ‘under-20-years-old’ }
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“Local” / “New Brunswick”
Brian Gallant’s abortion stance offers opportunity and risk { Abortion-rights activists say the Liberal provincial leader hasn’t gone far enough to win their support, Unlike Justin Trudeau, Brian Gallant has not said that pro-abortion candidates cannot run for office under the Liberal Party of New Brunswick banner. }
Swarm of bees from Moncton hotel rooftop create a buzz { }
Decision on Moncton’s surplus military homes delayed { }
Politicians challenged for straight answers on finances { They should be challenged for straight answers on anything. }
“New Brunswick Votes 2014”
Campaign slogans hinder real debate about fiscal crisis { }
+ Plus 2 repeat articles from above +
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& “What’s Not Here” { I heard there was a 7.0 earthquake in South America last night }
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{ 12:50 pm : Beginning colorization and typo search. 1:30 ready to rock and roll. ———djo——— }
Sunday, 24 August, 2014 -( 64˚F / 18˚C with scattered clouds in Ithaca @ 9:30 am ET )-
{ & again, these are not links. If you want to read these stories, listen to sound clips, or see any video -if there is any video- go to CBC dot CA/news. —Thanks. ———djo——— }
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A 6.0 magnitude earthquake centered north of San Francisco ‘shook thousands awake’ this morning. “Thousands without power.”
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“Lead Stories”
Magnitude 6.0 earthquake rocks San Francisco Bay area { }
Ukraine’s president vows to boost military spending by $3B { }
2 quakes rattle Iceland volcano day after red alert issued { }
Winnie, the bear behind Winnie the Poo turns 100 { Another headline indicates ‘The story’ turns 100 years old. }
Parliament has not properly debated assisted suicide: Tory MP { }
Harper ‘on wrong side of history’ with aboriginal women comments, Trudeau says { In the ‘Most Viewed’ section, “Trudeau calls Harper ‘out of touch‘ -over comments we reported on yesterday. This is the first day I haven’t seen Justin Trudeau mentioned in a headline that didn’t look biased to me. —djo— }
-Photos- Bao Bao, rare captive-bred panda, gets 1st birthday cake at National Zoo { }
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“Offbeat”
-Bao Bao story made it to the top in the offbeat section-
Peeing in the ocean is good for the environment, scientists say { This headline was actually under the “Technology & Science” heading. }
-other stories are repeats from yesterday-
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“Most Viewed”
[Orca] pod rallies around orca trapped in fisherman’s net { I replaced “Killer Whale” with [Orca] —djo— }
-Blog- Indian Status: 5 things you need to know { “Filmmaker dispels myths and misconceptions about [First Nations] status in new film” }
Run-down Labrador highway destroyed motorhome, says couple { * If politicians, after being sued over issues such as fraudulent tax assessments, overcharging for municipality services, such as water if the town or city ‘owns’ the water supply, not being completely honest about where their money comes from -& how much money they’ve hidden from the public, allowing infrastructure decay, -and other things I don’t have time to list here- -& if they lose the court case – had to pay out of their own pockets and could not raise taxes to cover their losses, would this keep the not-so-public-minded from running for office? * }
3D printers widely accessible at libraries, makerspaces { “Makerspaces” might be internet cafés with 3D printers available for public use. }
Diner en Blanc pops up in Halifax courtyard { ‘Diner en Blanc’ appears to be a kind of ‘happening’ where, in this case, nearly 1,000 participants found out where the event would take place ‘moments before the event’. Diners are asked to wear only white and bring their own food, chairs and dishes. Looks like everybody brought white folding chairs. This took place in the quad at the University of King’s College. }
Iceland volcano: Bardarbunga eruption begins { I’ve seen no pictures yet, they said the eruption began beneath the ice of Iceland’s largest glacier. }
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“Other”
‘This is something we shouldn’t forget,’ Ferguson protesters say { }
Lev Tahor sect quietly moves from Chatham, Ontario, to Guatemala { Members of Lev Tahor have been accused of abusing their children and been threatened with having children removed from their custody by Child Protective Services. They’ve also been accused of moving away from more than one area to avoid prosecution, or, from their perspective, to escape persecution. If I had absolute proof that they systematically abuse their children I bet I would feel differently —djo— }
2 days of deadly attacks in Iraq threaten fragile government transition { }
Montreal photographer calls report on journalist’s kidnapping ‘personal attack’ { “Photographer Yves Choquette says he did not compromise the safety of American journalist Steven Sotloff, who was kidnapped in Syria last year and also appeared in a recent jihadist video in which fellow U.S. journalist James Foley was executed.” }
China’s toxic soil { “A once-secret government study says that nearly 20% of all farmland is polluted, causing danger to people working on the fields and those buying its products.” }
Where’s the fire pole? { “A more than 100-year-old tradition is slowly fading into history, as the fire pole is being phased out from fire halls across the country.” }
Alberta’s proposed tuition hikes could see increases of almost 60% in some [institutions] { Their headline said “-in some falculties’. ] }
Painkillers prescribed chronically to many Americans on disability { }
How bad news effects your brain: Day 6 { There are live links in the following Copied and Pasted feature: >>—-> “Awful, emotionally wrenching stories are dominating the summer news cycle – from violence in Iraq, protests in Ferguson, Ebola in West Africa and mounting deaths in Israel and Gaza. Though most of us are watching these stories unfold at a safe distance, that doesn’t mean we’re not affected. Brent speaks to Mary McNaughton-Cassill, a psychology professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, about the relationship between bad news and stress.” *** There are more interesting details on the page with the above, Link >>—-> “How to keep bad news from bringing you down” }
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“Local” / “New Brunswick”
Firefighter hurt in Rothesay house fire { }
Human remains found in Sheffield { }
&&&&& From an ad type box on the side: Links included: >>—->
Friday, 22 August, 2014 -( 67˚F / 19˚C & cloudy in Ithaca @ 9:45 am ET )-
{ & again, these are not links. If you want to read these stories, listen to sound clips, or see any video -if there is any video- go to CBC dot CA/news. —Thanks. ———djo——— }
— Somebody just re-tweeted a nearly whited out photo: – See Below, I hope – “Malek Jandali @MalekJandali – My name is Katya: I am one of 17,000+ #Syria children killed by brutal #dictator #Assad war crimes against #humanity” — Looks like somebody is escalating the propaganda campaign to psyche you into ‘wanting’ their next war.
$431,000 stolen in armoured truck heist in Montreal subburb { ‘Halloween-masked thieves pepper-spray 2 armoured car guards and steal what another link calls ‘Nearly $400K’ }
Winnipeg cleans up after mall, roads, basements flooded { }
Canada’s inflation rate slows to 2.1% in July as gas price hikes cool: StatsCan { }
Russian aid convoy rolls into Ukraine without permission { }
Hamas kills 18 suspected informers for Israel in Gaza { }
How lessons from other cities may help Ferguson heal after Michael Brown shooting { }
-Updated- At least 30 dead in militia attack on Sunni mosque { }
Looks like a Tanker to me
& the story below popped up when I hit ‘refresh’:
-New- -12 Turkish sailors stranded on ship in Quebec a ‘barbaric’ situation { ‘Twelve Turkish sailors are stranded on a ship in Sorel, Que., say they haven’t been paid for two months and are now out of food, a situation called “barbaric and beyond comprehension.” 9:47 AM ET }
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“Offbeat”
Exploding rabbit population vexes residents in Sudbury neighbourhood { Exploding rabbits? Has Monty Python been seen near Sudbury? }
Thunderstorm send Winnipeggers into streets with canoes, snorkels { }
Spider-Woman’s butt sparks conversation about sexism in comics { Oh, you think men and women with impossibly sexy physiques wearing ridiculous costumes might have something to do with sexism? I think I remember young women reading ‘Archie’ comics while most boys were ‘reading’ superman and batman and I got hooked on Spiderman, X-men and the Fantastic 4. Marvel in those days was more about angst and cute tricks -a bank manager named “Ben Dover”?- but, yeah, women in comic books looked like women in television commercials might if college nerds could have digitally ‘enhanced’ them and altered their clothing. }
‘Facebook drug task force’ hoax dupes thousands of stoners { 100,000 people send messages on facebook to warn others about a rumored campaign to intercept messages with keywords that might indicate that somebody was setting up a drug sale on-line and get those messages to local police. }
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“Most Viewed”
Ukraine crisis: Russian aid convoy crosses border without Kyiv OK { }
Workers not to blame for Quebec pension problem: Don Pittis { }
Montague homicide victims, suspect not acquainted, say RCMP { The victims were a father and his adult son. A suspect is charged with two counts of first degree murder. I’m not as confused about this one as some others, but, if the accused didn’t know the victims, how is that ‘pre-meditated’? Did he plot to kill people who drove the wrong colour of the wrong model car? Or something equally irritating to the alleged killer? }
Video of Rockliffe prowling person of interest released by police { On Twitter – Somebody retweeted this photo with the caption “It’s Pierre Poutine” – a reference to the guy recently convicted in the Conservative robocall scandal – I thought the photo was too blurry to be certain. }
Cliché alert: Grits ‘rolling up their sleeves’ for Canada { ‘Grits’ is the nickname for the Liberal Party. This seems to me to be another headline written by somebody who doesn’t like Justin Trudeau or has an anti-Liberal bias. – unlike me- I have an anti-politician bias. The party in power has the biggest virtual target painted on their foreheads at the moment. }
James Foley killing: Why ISIS beheaded the U.S. journalist { In the article, a reported ex-C.I.A. analyst says ISIS believes the publicity will help their cause and attract many more supporters. The article also says there are amputations taking place and people being crucified in ISIS held territory. There is a mention of a ransom under a photo at the top of the article and the only ransom-like detail I read was -If the U.S. stops the airstrikes in Iraq, we’ll stop beheading U.S. journalists.- sounds like a win-win situation for both sides. ISIS gets to brag that they’re powerful enough to either kill U.S. citizens or blackmail the U.S. into stopping the bombing and the C.I.A. has a really nasty looking ‘enemy’ to protect U.S. citizens from- and has the opportunity to get rid of a couple pesky investigative journalists in the process. }
Iceland volcano: Bardarbunga shaken by 3 earthquakes { }
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“Other”
-Analysis- Canadian pension tension: Don’t blame the workers writes Don Pittis { The link in the ‘Most Viewed’ hinted that it was Quebec’s problem and that headline didn’t have as creative liguistics. }
Fewer jobs for students in federal public service, think-tank says { Okay, they won’t hire anybody so that ensures that they can point their fingers at the federal agencies and accuse them of not doing their jobs properly when major catastrophes take place, but if, for instance, Transport Canada wants to hire more and better qualified inspectors in order to properly do their job and they are told, ‘Hiring more people or more expensive people is not in the budget.’ – Who do you suppose should get the blame next time? }
Hiker in B.C. rescued days after fleeing bear in tree { You have to sit through commercials before and after you get to see the real video. A twenty five year old hiker climbed a tree to escape a bear. The bear did not immediately leave. The hiker fell asleep and fell out of the tree, suffered a severe concussion and a back injury, and may have been in and out of consciousness for as many as 4 days while people were searching for him. A man walking his dog found the injured hiker, face down, on the ground and said the injured hiker was ‘aware, but not lucid,’ then added, ‘he was quite groggy’. An expert on bears says you should freeze and talk in a nice calm voice, climbing a tree is not a very good idea. If you speak nice and calm and friendly, bear will ‘probably’ become bored with you and walk away. }
Death toll of Syrian civil war nearly 190,000, UN says { }
‘Everything is on fire’: Lac-Mégantic train engineer’s calls from night of disaster released { }
Are wearable camera companies going to cash in after Ferguson? { Probably not- if the people who are plotting to destroy the buying power of your currency have their way. The U.S. economy is scheduled to crash this autumn. People will starve to death and those who depend on electricity for home medical devices will be terminally out of luck. Link >>—-> Half Past Human Tweet >>—-> @clif_high }
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“Local” / “New Brunswick”
Fracking wastewater clean enough for Dieppe sewer, says company { A Nova Scotia based company that wants to ship as much as 30 million litres of fracking wastewater to New Brunswick says the water is clean. ***But the process is not safe. It doesn’t matter how clean the water is that you want to use for fracking, the process of fracking destroys the purity of ground water and can lead to flammable gas coming into your home through your pipes with what you thought was clean, drinkable water. Haven’t you seen the video of flames shooting out of faucets in people’s kitchen sinks? Don’t let yourself be duped. & If you’re determined to commit suicide and want to be fracked to death, please move a million miles away from any neighbors, and frack yourself. }
Photo of Poster = # of jobs per Million $ invested – Jim W took this photo in a hurry when he saw the poster.
Many voters say jobs and economy are top priority { Party hacks for the sitting government might want you to believe that jobs and the economy are your most important issue, but this article starts out naming voters with other top priorities, a man in Moncton says health care is most important and believes a system modeled after a combination of the English and French medical systems should be implemented here. One woman from Beresford believes the environment is most her most important concern, ‘If the environment goes, we’re not here anymore.’ Another woman says government accountability is her most important issue and she would like to see more transparency. I saw photos of a Poster, “Jobs per million $ invested / You do the math” *** Jim W sent me the poster photo. (above) }
4 parties launch election campaigns { The ‘Progressive Conservatives‘ -*does anybody else seem to realize that ‘-looking or moving forward – while -looking or moving backward’ doesn’t make sense as a name for a political party that stands for anything but the status quo?- The PC party is ‘banking’ on voters being stupid enough to vote to hand their government over to those who want to Frack them to death. The Liberals -who currently enjoy a big lead in the polls we’ve seen- say they would support an oil exporting facility, the Energy East Pipeline, and Sisson Brook and other mining opportunities. The NDP -New Democratic Party- say that neither the PC nor Liberal Party can give ‘New Bunswickers’ the government they deserve because both front running parties are indebted to special interests -Big Business- The NDP wants to ‘create the best education system’ to help N.B.-ers get high paying jobs, and also wants to ‘fix the health care system’, ‘lift rural communities out of poverty’, ‘give an equal voice to all communities’ and ‘eliminate patronage from government’. The Green Party has criticized the Premier for saying he would not meet the Green Party Candidate in CBC televized debates, and said the party will release their platform on September 3rd. There is a mention of a fifth party down at the bottom of this article. The People’s Alliance, but no mention of the party’s ideals or philosophy was included here. On the People’s Alliance web site there are 4 press releases talking about their ideas that changing Motor Vehicle registration and cutting the requirement for vehicles to have front license plates will save taxpayers money. Their policies page is blank. }
Rothesay police used reasonable force in fatal shooting, RCMP say { }
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{ 1:06 pm ET : Proofreading and colorizing / 1:43 pm EDT = ready to Publish ———djo——— }
Thursday, 21 August, 2014 -( 77˚F / 25˚C & thunderstorming in Ithaca @ 12:50 pm ET )-
{ & again, these are not links. If you want to read these stories, listen to sound clips, or see any video -if there is any video- go to CBC dot CA/news. —Thanks. ———djo——— }
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{ I’ve been really busy tracking down leads and ‘tweets’ about journalists being, at least, threatened by police and other officials. Sorry I’m later than usual with this. }
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The Lead Story has a photo of James Foley staring at me. a related story reports: “James Foley profile: A ‘committed and brave journalist’ Aug 20” { There may be video with this. }
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“Lead Stories”
Ontario police say motorcycle deaths could hit 7-year high { }
New rules on mechanically tenderized beef take effect { Because there may be an increased risk of bacteria resulting from this form of ‘tenderizing’ – the packaging must contain a warning that the beef must be properly cooked to a certain temperature that I couldn’t find while reading the article. }
RCMP investigate double homicide near Montaque , PEI { }
American doctor infected with Ebola recovers in Atlanta { }
Interpol says co-ordinated effort needed against ISIS { A couple years ago, remote viewers told us the U.S. would become involved in a war with Syria. Maybe just ‘in’ Syria. I’d rather see a war against disinformation and government manipulation of the truth in order to manipulate the population. Remember- Governments killed more of their own people in the last century than all those horrific wars we went through- combined. }
Fighters traveling to conflict zones pose terror threat { Buzz word = terror- Be careful- They’re trying to pull something over our eyes. }
U.S. says troops tried to rescue James Foley in Syria { See above comment. }
Hamas says 3 military leaders killed in Israeli airstrikes { }
U.S. AG tells Missouri he understands mistrust of police { ‘AG’ = Attorney General }
Protests in Ferguson smaller with no tear gas fired { }
-Analysis- A ‘great training tool’ for police chiefs: How Ferguson botched crowd control { Before Ian Punnet had to leave Coast to Coast am because of the ringing in his ears, he interviewed a retired police officer who believes that part of the problem with people seeing what they believe is inappropriate use of force by police officers- is that the officers have been trained to believe that they must ‘maintain control of the situation’. That advice sometimes leads to the officers going a bit too far. We need to rethink this. }
How Ottawa’s $24M ad campaign to sell Keystone in the U.S. fell flat { }
B.C. woman with dementia leaves final right-to-die plea { I found out she died while I was reading another headline farther down the web site. }
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“Offbeat”
Tooth fairy pays premium for teeth in Atlantic Canada { This report estimates that kids in Atlantic Canada receive an average of $3.46 per tooth? Kids in Ontario receive an average of $2.80? }
Historic Thunder Bay buildings rendered in Lego { }
Killer whale tosses ‘sea lion’ 6 metres into the air { There is a video. I have issues – #1- They’re Orcas- stop calling them ‘killer whales’. #2- I don’t want to see anything being tortured or killed. #3- If we showed video of beef cattle being slaughtered, do you think we’d all become vegetarians? }
Giant Rubber Duck sails into L.A. port { Okay, now this one I’d probably like to see. }
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“Most Viewed”
Jacinda and Janika Hodder get mystery illness diagnosed in U.S. { It took 20 years and $50,000.00 in donations for 2 sisters from Newfoundland to learn the diagnosis for a ‘brain disorder’ they’ve been suffering from all this time. Their disorder is called ‘Cerebellar Ataxia’ – ‘damage, degeneration, or loss of nerve cells in the cerebellum- the part of the brain that controls muscle co-ordination. They were hoping they’d find out it was something there might be a cure for. }
Liberals edge back from the brink under Justin Trudeau { For the last couple days, I’ve been seeing headlines that seem to be aimed at undermining the electorate’s confidence in Justine Trudeau’s chances of being elected Prime Minister. Okay, Canadians do not elect a Prime Minister directly. They elect Members of Parliament, and the ‘Leader’ of the party with the most Members of Parliament gets to be Prime Minister. If no party has more than half the members elected to Parliament under its banner, The one with the most members elected will still get to ‘form the government’ and their ‘Leader’ is then the Prime Minister, they call this a ‘minority government’. Under a minority government a lot of compromises have to be made, and if a ‘confidence vote’ is called for and the minority government does not win that vote- it will be time to have a new federal election. To say that Liberals were almost at the ‘brink’ -you’d have to forget that in the 1993 election the ‘Progressive Conservative’ only party ‘won’ only 2 seats. }
Iceland volcano: Bardarbunga volcano remains poised to erupt { Last night on teevee news somebody said that there have been earthquakes related to the volcano, but no lava was seen as coming near the surface, yet. }
{ The rest of the reports here are repeats from “Lead Stories” above. }
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“Other”
-Analysis- Justin Trudeau fulfilling Liberal hopes ahead of 2015 election { Okay- I don’t see any ‘loaded’ words in this headline. -I am not a Liberal- I am not a Conservative -I am an independent (small i) Nobody floats my boat. I used to have a bumper sticker, “Don’t Vote – It only encourages them.” My boss made me get rid of it because he was afraid somebody might see me get out of my car in uniform and associate the uniform with the bumper sticker. I would really like to see a politician appear from anywhere that I could believe in. Maybe not in this life. The Conservative party of Canada has already run commercials featuring unflattering photos and video of Justin Trudeau. They are trying to portray him as an irresponsible youngster who couldn’t be trusted to head a government. I thought these commercials were remarkably mean spirited. But, apparently- the Conservative Party of Canada is still afraid that Justin might be popular enough to unseat them. The people I trust to look ahead have told me they’re confident the Canadian electorate will see through the Conservative Party, will see the ‘Leaders’ of this party for what they are and hand them their walking papers. I don’t know- but for now, I can only hope that the campaign, and the pre- campaign shenanigans, do not paint either party as junior high school bullies who never grew up, pointing their finger at their opponents and making faces and sticking their tongues out and acting like barely pubescent boys (and girls?) I mean, jeeze- acting like a twelve year old while accusing your opponent of not being mature enough to take your job away from you is just plain silly. }
Transport Canada’s lax safety practices go beyond rail { Transport Canada is the victim of the current government’s attempt to make it impossible for Transport Canada to enforce its regulations because the current government is in bed with big business and wants to take all oversight away- period. They want to convince us that Big Business will be able to ‘police themselves’ better than any government regulatory body. We saw how well that worked last year in Lac-Mégantic. And then, at the press conference, yesterday, they tried to make it look like Transport Canada was at least as guilty as the MM&R railroad. If the government won’t allow Transport Canada the funds it would need to hire enough qualified inspectors, how in hell could they expect TC to do their job effectively? It’s the conservative agenda: un-fund programs, then tell the world those programs aren’t working, try to disband those agencies that protect the population from unscrupulous corporations and other businesses- and then what? Hide in your bunker while the world falls apart? -Hold the bloody government responsible. They’re lying to you. Investigate what they’re really up to and do not believe their argument that they can’t tell you the truth because national security is at stake. Their security is at stake. If you knew what your government is up to, you’d go nuts and try to rip their heads from their shoulders (without any form of pain killers being offered them). Oops, somebody help me down from this soap box? }
-New- Have Alward’s Torries been ‘proven through fire’? N.B. voters will decide Sept. 22 { Alward’s Conservative government is banking on the belief that they can convince a lot of people that ‘Fracking means jobs for you’ and ‘We should let Big Business cut down any tree they want to, because they have our best interest at heart’ and ‘You really don’t want to protect the water you drink from being poisoned, because we need to ‘Frack’ for jobs, and let mining waste ooze into your drinking, cleaning and recreation waters because those nice people who are fleecing you of your natural resources shouldn’t have to be careful about the toxic sludge they leave behind in their quest to frack you where it hurts’- -Anybody remember the newest incarnation of ‘Battlestar Gallactica’? remember what they meant when they used the word ‘Frack’? -Don’t bend over in front of a mother fracker- I saw video that Jim W took in which a First Nations elder said that the elemental beings -like leprachauns- that we’ve been sharing this planet with allalong started the fires that burned several old police vehicles while the police were arresting protesters at anti-fracking roadblocks last year. -I saw the vehicles and was ready to believe that the police set their own aging vehicles on fire to both get new vehicles and make the protesters look bad. I wasn’t there, I didn’t see who did or did not set any fires. Jim did nothing with his video because one of the First Nations people in the background looked up and said he did not want to be in any video. Fracking is dangerous to your health. It really looks like fracking is part of a plot to destroy your ability to live anywhere that has been fracked. Somebody has an agenda. }
‘This country is capable of change,’ U.S. Attorney General says in Ferguson { Can I quote a folk rocker? “Nothing is quite as sure as change-‘ John Phillips, -of the Mamas & Papas }
Neanderthals, humans may have coexisted for thousands of years { Maybe we interbred to the point where we’ve become one race? Maybe they’re hiding somewhere, waiting for the humans to self-destruct? }
Air Canada accused of discriminating against Muslim man { }
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“Local” / “New Brunswick”
New Brunswick election: Voters challenged to choose on resources, jobs { They want you to choose between having safe drinking water, clean water to swim in and wash yourself and your clothes in — and allowing big energy companies to frack for natural gas, ruin your environment to make a couple fat cats richer than they already are? Do Not Believe that fracking will do anything but make your life more miserable. }
Government cancels First Nation tax and gaming deals { Brilliant- Looks like the current N.B. government doesn’t believe they need the votes of any First Nations People. }
McCains Pizza sale leaves Grand Falls wondering about jobs { ‘McCain sold their pizza plant to Dr Oetker- the new owners say they will keep all the current employees, operate under the McCain name for two years and then switch to the ‘Dr Oetker’ name on their packaging’ – Jim W -in his email message asking if I was sick and needed him to do this today. }
Blogger feud continues with Fredericton City Hall {Chris MacPherson, Fredericton’s chief administration officer, asked Google to shut down a blog because thate blog contained ‘inaccurate and hurtful content about Fredericton police.’ Charles LeBlanc, the blogger, says he never accused the Fredericton police of being pedophiles, merely asked a question and said, ‘somebody is’. & “I’m just shooting back what they did to me. They’re the one that started this, not me.” He said that if he had received an apology from the police department he would have removed the posts that upset the police and the local government. – In 2012, officers seized computer equipment from Charles LeBlanc’s home. An independent review later found that police misused a request form for that raid, used a form reserved for child exploitation offenses. No charges were ever laid against Charles LeBlanc. }
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{ Ack! This isn’t supposed to take me all day- it’s 3:45 pm, I had to get up and answer the phone several times, get my night-time ‘day job’ stuff done and here we are- double ‘Ack’ I finished checking for typos and colorizing the headlines and now it’s 4:24 pm. ———djo——— }
Tuesday, 19 August, 2014 -(49˚F / 9˚C & clear in Ithaca @ 6:30 am ET )- -( Happy Birthday Bill Clinton (?) )-
{ & again, these are not links. If you want to read these stories, listen to sound clips, or see any video -if there is any video- go to CBC dot CA/news. —Thanks. ———djo——— }
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The National Guard arrived in Ferguson but kept its distance from the streets where police clashed again protesters, as clouds of tear gas and smoke hung over the St. Louis suburb where an 18-year-old was fatally shot by a police officer. 5:55 AM ET
-New- 2 shot, 31 arrested in Ferguson during clashes with police { Last night I watched television interviews with interested parties on both sides of this issue. African Americans don’t trust the police, and believe the police will kill them without reason and get their friends to back up their ‘self-defense’ stories. The police are afraid for their lives, those police officers who were brought up bigoted believe they are trying to protect themselves from a drug crazed mob of sub human animals who might have been stirred up by enemies of the state. Not a nice friendly way to spend a Monday night in Middle America. The question to ask is: “Who benefits from a situation like this?” And if everybody suddenly realized that their strings were being pulled, that their buttons were being pushed- by evil men with an agenda hiding behind a curtain somewhere, could both sides wake up and give each other bear hugs and turn around, hunt down and eliminated the ice-holes who get their jollies by planning this divide-and-conquer b.s.? And, if there are no evil manipulating enemies of freedom and all things wonderful in the U.S.A.- Is it something in the food we’ve been fed since Monsanto began to poison us that is putting us into a constant state of fear? Werner Von Braun warned his friends that things like this can happen. Anti-Social control freaks will plot and plan to keep everybody in a state of fear because people in that state of fear will surrender their hard won rights and freedoms for the promise of safety and security. Only the ice-holes who want total control will never give anybody any safety of security. The founding fathers of the U.S. of A. warned us with advice to the effect that “Freedom has to be earned in every generation.” Reaching for the nearest weapon and going on a rampage probably isn’t going to bring that freedom, or equality- ya think? Maybe the hardest way to fight for Freedom, Peace of Mind, Equality, and all those things we really want and need, is to know when to step back, take a breath and say- “What the bleep is going on here, and how can we fix this?” }
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“Lead Stories”
Body of 15-year-old girl found in bag in Red River { }
Obama urges Ferguson, Mo., protesters to remain peaceful { }
Winnipeg’s ‘homeless hero’ found dead in river { This time I’m giving you a link: >>—-> Homeless Hero found dead in Red River in Winnipeg. This guy was given an award for saving a teen-ager from drowning in 2011 and later beaten up by people who recognized him from the media attention he got. There must have been a monetary award with the ‘Mayor’s Medal of Valor’ because he donated $1,000.00 to a Winnipeg homeless shelter. }
Health minister says anti-drug campaign is not political { Sunday’s headline was, ‘Canada’s doctors refuse to join anti-marijuana campaign’. *Let me blow your mind with this one: I don’t like marijuana. When I grew up it was impossible not to be exposed to it and I don’t know anybody who didn’t try it at least once. Some people should never go near the stuff. Not because they will instantly become homicidal maniacs or loose all touch with the consensus reality and run around indiscriminately raping underage boys and girls anywhere he or she sees one, but because they may become dependent on the stuff too easily and spend all their time and effort getting ‘high’- to the point where they may resort to stealing and other unethical and dangerous practices in order to get the stuff. Unscrupulous people will recruit vulnerable people who believe they need marijuana and get them to sell it for them and then force them to sell and use much more dangerous chemicals, we know that. Let me quote a friend from high school,”Every single alcoholic I know started out on milk. You don’t see anybody trying to make milk illegal do you?” & One of my favourite people on this planet tells me she could not have survived her dysfunctional/abused childhood without it (and she doesn’t smoke any now) There is medical evidence that the stuff helps many people. Autism Spectrum Disorder people can often find relaxation and relief they can’t get through normal channels by ‘toking up’ now and then. There are more serious medical conditions that have been treated with marijuana with remarkably good results. I’m just not one of those people who needs it. With the epidemic of physical, emotional, spiritual and intellectual conditions that are prevalent these days, I see marijuana as the least of way too many evils. Genetically Modified Organisms in your food cause a whole lot more problems than marijuana does. The drugs that medical doctors have been conned into believing are needed for quite a few conditions and ailments do much more harm that the weed does. Go check out >>>—-> Dr Peter Breggin’s web site if you don’t want to take my word for any of this. Seeing medical professionals argue like this – one group says they will not be suckered into taking sides against something that has not been thoroughly and properly researched and the other side stamping their feet and turning red in the face and calling people names- in public- makes me feel like I fell through a black hole and woke up in a cosmic luney bin -where the keepers might be crazier than their patients. 😉 }
Taking dam from from ISIS a ‘major step forward’, says Obama { }
Tattoo removal business booming a inked teens grow up { }
-New- ‘Who is going to pay for it?’ Federal party leaders and security { After somebody broke into the home of Justin Trudeau, the head of the Liberal Party of Canada- The dialog was opened, “Should public officials have more security?” Some voices were heard to say, “We like not being a police state where cops in kevlar are not standing around on every street corner with the latest high tech machine guns at the ready.” One head of security said, -when he took that head of security for Parliament position, he looked at the lawn in front of the Parliament Building and saw peaceful people tossing a frisbee around. He wanted to continue seeing that sort of thing as long as he was in that office.- A loaded line like “Who is going to pay for it?” is a trademark of corrupt politicians who do not need tax money, but ant it all for themselves anyway. Governments could stop collecting taxes right now this minute and see to it that the citizens of Canada and the U.S.A. and every other ‘free’ country on this planet got more and better services than they do now. Everybody! Wake up and take back your governments. They are not serving you. Do you feel like the people you elect to office are there to make your life more comfortable? Or do you feel like those ‘elected officials’ believe that you are here to serve them? }
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HitchBot. Looks like this might be the most positive story line I’ve seen lately.
{ I found a full photograph of HitchBot on the Coast to Coast am web site and snitched it from there, no, I didn’t say that- I mean- an image of the HitchBot got a ride to this web site. Jee – He just showed up, hmmm- How cool is that? }
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“Offbeat”
Alabama hunters haul in 459-kilogram alligator { 459 kg = 1,011 pounds }
Miss Texas new contender for worst opening pitch { At a baseball game, I bet- }
repeat- Rolf Buchholz, German man with horn implants and 400 piercings, denied entry to Dubai { I might think twice about letting that guy into my house if his car broke down within sight, I might let him use a cell phone- }
Montreal resident a magnet for Russian mail { Along with a postcard addressed to the Montreal resident, Canada Post delivered a whole bundle of mail -maybe with a rubber band around it? Mail in that bundle was addressed to other destinations all across Canada. }
-Blog- Mom’s ‘ignore no more’ app forces kids to call back. { I think somebody has created an app that removes the ‘ignore’ button from cell phones- or disables it. }
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“Most Viewed”
Justin Trudeau’s home break-in: Do party leaders need more security? { In my tirade, above, I neglected to mention that Justin Trudeau was away on party business and his wife and children were in the home at the time of the break-in. Nobody claiming to be a plumber in a ‘Land-Shark’ suit knocked on the door first. }
Ice Bucket Challenge: Charlie Sheen dumps cold, hard cash -instead of ice water- { Ya know? That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard him say or do in a while. }
Pope Francis urges peace in South Korea trip { This one is slide show with 8 photos, you can either see of hide the captions. I think I like this Pope. -and isn’t that the height of egotism? }
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“Other”
Mars 2020 rover’s RIMFAX radar will ‘see’ deep underground { }
Analysis- Why London Mayor Boris Johnson could be on way to No. 10 { London, England. London’s mayor -who may be nicknamed ‘BoJo’- is apparently quite a character, with quite a sense of humour, I bet Toronto would swap for this guy in a second, but I doubt that the British Londoners would accept that- }
New- Ebola outbreak: Africans understandably wary about promised cures { Hey- Since we’ve learned that a well respected doctor in U.S. America’s southwest held a press conference to show how safe polio vaccine was by injecting his grandchildren in public – and within 48 hours one child was dead and the other had full blown polio- Do you blame them? ‘Big Pharma’ puts profit ahead of people, puts profit ahead of health, puts profit ahead of everything. -Charging thousands of dollars for pills that cost them less than a penny apiece to produce- squashing therapies that work against some cancers because their poisonous chemicals bring them such nice big bucks, for a much longer time than an easy cure would? When these Big Pharma crooks are brought to justice, what punishment do you believe would fit their crimes? }
Israel-Gaza conflict: Talks resume on Gaza deal { The last I heard on this the ceasefire had been extended. }
NEW- Lac-Mégantic derailment investigation findings released today { }
Khurram Sher terror trial verdict expected today { “Khurram Sher should find out in an Ottawa courtroom today whether he has been found guilty of planning al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist activities. -The former London, Ont., pathologist was arrested Aug. 6, 2010 and charged with conspiring to knowingly facilitate a terrorist activity. He was charged about two weeks after a wiretapped meeting at the centre of the trial. }
How the defensive shift and big data are changing baseball { }
PC leadership candidates face off over free memberships { ‘PC’ = ‘Progressive Conservatives’ -sound like an oxymoron to you?- I have long believed that if a politician opens his or her mouth and the word ‘leadership’ dribbles out, they are robotically repeating some b.s. line they’ve been taught to recite and it would be a total waste of your time to listen any further. }
Intruding 10-foot snake tries to hide under a couch { It took two big guys from ‘Animal Control’ and a camera crew to capture the Burmese Python and get it into a crate that looked like an oversized cat taxi. A boy in his teens discovered the snake when he came home and thought he saw or heard something behind the couch. }
Solar plant sets birds on fire as they fly overhead { The people who run that plant will have to reincarnate as birds and incinerated themselves a whole lot of times to make up for this. }
Facebook’s new ‘satire’ tag identifies fake news articles { If they come up with a ‘stupid’ or ‘why bother?’ tag they would be in danger of discovering what people think of their ‘social media’ site. effbook is one ‘Stupid’ waste of time and energy! }
Alberta dinosaur egg excavation could yield rare fossilized babies { 🙁 }
Calgary family celebrates after starring in Emmy-winning Apple ad { Now, if only Apple lived up to its earlier reputation and dropped the planned obsolescence and ‘change everything you can as often as you can so they have to buy new adapters etc all the time” b.s.- I might think about liking them again. }
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“Local” / “New Brunswick”
Provincial ombudsman calls piece of waterway legislation useless { Conservationists and First Nations groups have voiced concerns about such things as mines’ toxic wastes and fracking’s disastrous consequences possibly ruining drinking water, as well as water used for recreation and by wildlife. The Provincial Ombudsman says the current regulations protecting New Brunswick’s waterways are worse than useless. He compared that legislation as requiring smoke detectors in every house without batteries. Political appointees can ignore the regulations any time they feel like it. }
Judge reserves decision on forestry plan challenge by First Nations chiefs { The deepest issue here may be that First Nations legally own the land, with all resource and mineral -and other- rights that federal, provincial, and local politicians believe they can sell off the rights to, or just plain sell off. }
Grand Manan air ambulance service restored after fatal crash { }
UNB professors upset by president’s contract { }
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{ 9:40 am – I usually type and edit this in “Radio Free Earth News” first and then copy and paste to a couple other blogs. But today, I started here. -Time to colorize and edit for typos ———djo——— }
Friday, August 1st, 2014. -( 65°F / 18°C & Clear @ 9:15 am in Ithaca, New York )-
((I’m posting this in three places, here, on my own “Radio Free Earth News” and at “Inter World News” – so forgive me for explaining stuff that you might already know. – I’m a ‘USAtian’ [US citizen and resident] who likes reading and listening to Canadian (((and British, BBC, and Radio Netherlands— and–))) news to see what the ‘free world’ press is reporting these days and how they’re reporting it. ))
((& I guess I’m pretty much committed to trying to pop these headlines from the CBC up here every morning, or pretty much every morning, until further notice.))
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“Offbeat”
Plastic surgeon’s ‘fat-shaming’ muffin top billboard vandalized { Somebody crossed over “Friends don’t let friends Muffin Top” and scrawled/painted “You’re Beautiful!” in purple paint and drew squiggles over what might be the name of the Plastic Surgeons firm. }
Should Costco be selling Christmas goods in July? { “Marketing professor links early Christmas shopping to American ownership of big box stores” In Canada, if you opened two coffee shops fairly close to each other, served identical products with the same ingredients in both and called one “Great American Donut Shop” and the other “Canada’s Best Donuts & Coffee”, my bet is the ‘Great American-‘ branded place would go bankrupt in no time flat. }
5 vintage fire trucks up for sale in Calgary
Oyster shucking world record attempted at festival
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“New”
Ottawa man faces nearly 200 international cyberbullying charges { A 42 year old man faces charges including identity fraud, defamation and criminal harassment which he allegedly aimed at 38 people in Canada, the U.S. and U.K }
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“Most Viewed”
Burlington Skyway crash: What you need to know { The Skyway is an elevated stretch of a limited access highway above Burlington, Ontario. It’s a lot like the turnpike in New Jersey. A “Large Truck” crashed into and damaged the skyway. If you go to the web site you might find out whether the truck was on the Skyway or hit one of the supports. }
Burlington Skyway crash: Driver charged with impaired driving
Mountie who played ‘Mr Big’ upset with Nelson Hart decision { The Canadian Supreme Court put limits on a practice that would be seen as entrapment down here in the U.S. The case they heard involved a man who allegedly murdered his two daughters and the photos of the two cute little girls were all over media articles. Apparently, the mounty (“RCMP Officer”) who acted the part of the crime boss (and got the alleged perpetrator to brag about his alleged crime in order for the perpetrator to secure a lucrative position inside the fictitious crime family) believed he had done what needed to be done to protect law abiding citizens from criminals and other monsters. }
Why Republicans suing Obama is a good thing for Democrats { “Democrats believe their base is energized by lawsuit and impeachment threat” —It’s fun to see what Canadians really think about U.S. politics. I’m surprised they let the media get away with calling citizens of the U.S. “Americans”, Canada is part of America, ya know- Canadian weather maps acknowledge the fact that there might be something besides a plain grey nothingness south of their borders. Are we really too smug to realize we’re making ‘arses’ of ourselves? }
B.C. chief Ron Giesbrecht’s $1M pay ‘very troubling’, minister’s office says { The Chief of the Kwikwetiem First Nation (we call them ‘Native Americans’ does anybody ask them what they call themselves?) was paid “$914,219.” last year. The ‘very troubling’ statement came from the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development’s office. This is a cabinet level appointment (We call them Secretaries of whatever, Canadians call them Ministers of whatever.) The current Prime Minister and just about all of his appointees have the same party line and philosophy that believes it is perfectly correct to seize the property of a laid off worker who can’t pay his taxes (& whose 25 years with a company ((that closed down their Canadian operation and moved to some country where unions don’t stand a chance and virtual slavery in ‘employment’ is encouraged))– left him without a job and without a prayer for any kind of compensation, sometimes even without a pension ((although Canadians can get an ‘Old Age Pension’, supplemented income— for now anyway— unless the Conservatives get their way))- ), but they won’t touch corporations who thumb their noses at regulations and owe thousands of times more money in unpaid taxes and fees. }
Gaza conflict: Israeli soldier reportedly captured as ceasefire unravels
Crystal Palace closure leaves some tourists ‘pretty mad’ { The Crystal Palace Amusement Park is in Dieppe, New Brunswick. The “Cadillac Fairview Corporation” wants to open one of its “Bass Pro Shops” either on the site of the Amusement Park or beside it. The Amusement Park is scheduled to close down on September 1st. The Ramada Inn Crystal Palace Hotel and Convention Centre and the McGinnis Landing Restaurant are scheduled to close down on October 31st. The rides from the Amusement Park “have been aquired by the Maritime Fun group of companies, which includes Magic Mountain Waterpark and will soon have a new Moncton (NB) home.” (((—Sounds like it’s greedy bad guys vs innocent kids who want to go on having fun and guess who wins? But in all honesty, I do not know the whole story behind this. ))) }
Perseid meteor shower: Watch now to beat supermoon’s brightness { Radio Station WPKN FM in Bridgeport, Connecticut (<— Link ) has had a volunteer programmer (the uninformed would probably call him a ‘deejay’) who has for years has dedicated part of his Friday evening program to a a segment he calls “The Skies Of Bridgeport” – When a friend who was originally from the Bridgeport area ‘turned me on’ to this program I learned how to pronouce “Perseid” properly (( persie-id )) & it’s nice to know a ‘supermoon’ event is coming. 🙂 }
Why Argentina’s default feels like American bullying: Don Pittis { This article has the subtitle: “Why did courts side with hedge funds that bought up bonds supposedly restructured in 2001?” —I believe I heard something on Coast to Coast am last night that sounded like one extraordinary ‘Psychic’ believes that the ‘banksters’ are about to be blindsided out of their perceived victorious grip on the world’s resources. }
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“Other” / “More Headlines”
Canada Post thefts halt Lens Rentals Canada service { The ‘current government’ ((regime?)) in Canada wants to dismantle Canada Post (their postal service) the same way the conservative Republicans in the US would like to dismantle the US Postal Service and sell off the rights to deliver mail and parcels to ‘Private Business Interests’. [ Remember that the definition of a Fascist Government is one that is in bed with Corporate Powers ((a.k.a. : “Banksters”)) ] So I’m a bit suspicious here…. Lens Rentals Canada is a company that rents high-end camera lenses and other equipment to photographers across the country. Several of its packages that had been mailed through the Canada Post were apparently stolen out of a Canada Post facility in Mississauga, Ontario, ((In the western reaches of the ‘Greater Toronto Area’)). Lens Rental Canada has stopped taking orders and is shipping stuff that has already been ordered through Purolator, which is ‘majority owned by Canada Post’ but does not share any aspects of the Canada Post delivery network. }
HitchBOT takes a ‘botnap’ in Toronto during cross-Canada trek { “HitchBot” is a cutesy creation that looks like a cross between the robot on “Lost in Space” and a muppet. A subtitle in the article says, “Experiment looks at the interaction between people and technology” Farther down inside the article we read: “A talking robot hithiking its way across Canada is taking a rest in Toronto.” You can follow this experiment through twitter (( @hitchBOT )) }
Sanctions against Russia in phase 3, but is Vladimir Putin listening?
Pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine discovering pros and cons of social media in war
Uganda anti-gay law invalidated by constitutional court
“Exclusive” Canada to clinch trade deal with EU in September
‘A keen patriotic desire’: Why Canadian media embraced censorship during WWI { “Ideas”, a long running conversational and interview program on CBC radio one, which airs at 9 pm Eastern Time weekdays recently aired a series about the rise of propaganda and censorship and traced both back to World War One efforts to control the news that was reaching the public at large by using the media as a propaganda agency/arm of the government.
American aid worker with Ebola to be brought to U.S. for treatment
(( & There is a slide show: )) = “Taiwan city rocked by gas explosions“
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“Must Watch” ((Videos waiting for web site visitor activation))
Dog stuck in wall { “Firefighters, police and the Arizona Human Society work to free ‘Chip’ the dog” — Looks like a two tone brown, six month old puppy (my guess) got his head stuck through a ventilation type decorative cement block in an outside wall of mostly solid cement blocks. It has a happy looking ending. }
Double wingsuit jump
Bavarian crop circle { An aerial shot of a 75 meter geometric pattern that appeared in a farmer’s field next to the largest interplanetary monitoring station in Germany. }
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“Local”
Moncton puts final touches on FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup
Soldiers with PTSD waiting up to 6 months for help { I do believe I know Viet Nam veterans down here who would have loved to wait only 6 months for help with issues they came home with. But- maybe it’s hopeful that somebody somewhere is taking PTSD and the nightmares of returning Armed Forces people seriously. There has been an epidemic of suicides among returning soldiers in Canada as well as the USA. In Canada, many veterans have allegedly been separated from service just before they would become eligible for extended years of benefits. }
2 in hospital after domestic trailer park dispute
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((( I had one catestrophic systems crash and still finished earlier than yesterday- it is now 11:57 am in Ithaca. )))
Wednesday, 23 July, 2014. -( Severe Storm Warnings up in Atlantic Canada )-
We probably should have changed the title of this blog before we did. Originally, Two of our founding ‘reporters’ / administrators lived in Arnprior, Ontario.
They Moved out of Province last September, and have been really busy with ‘Real World Stuff’. Noting that gas prices are just as crazy everywhere in Canada, and wonderful new neighbours were as worried about G.M.O. foods and Chem-Trails in the sky (“I don’t feel so weird when a 70 year old who’s acted like I’ve been his best friend since kindergarten looks up in the sky and says, ‘There were weird patterns of jet trails last Friday, then we had all that rain, and everybody I know has been sick since Sunday, really sick- What the heck do you think they’re doing?’.”) in their ‘new’ Province as they are back in Arnprior. Maybe more so-
So now, instead of “The Arnprior News”, We are “Independent Canadian News”.
Let us know what you’re thinking- and feeling- and if you’ve got anything to smile about, we can use a bit of optimism now and then… (like, maybe, every day?).
Looks like another crazy week in the ‘Real World’.
—Dishonoured (& unseated) ex-Canadian Senator Mike Duffy had 31 criminal charges read to him related to his alleged misuse of taxpayers’ dollars.
—Somebody apparently shot down a Malaysian passenger jet over Ukraine.
— Israel launched a ‘ground offensive’ into Palastinian Gaza, because they were tired of dodging rockets launched from what may have been cynically chosen spots in Gaza, showed the world drone video of what they said were Hamas insurgents entering tunnels to sneak into Israel, intending to emerge and create havoc, kill innocent people and sneak back underground before they got caught.
I think John Oliver showed archive footage of Anderson Cooper giving basically the same report from Israel 4 times in the past 8 years. I like John Oliver, he makes me laugh and then feel guilty for laughing, but he hits newsworthy nails on their newsworthy heads when he says stuff something like, “CNN could save a lot of money if they told Anderson Cooper to just stay home and played the old footage as if it was new.” (Not quite a word for word quote, but it is true to his intent, I think…)
I’m still not sure why all the news broadcasts on all the networks I’m able to get went so crazy about covering the search for the first Malaysian Jet that resonated so deeply with news addicts’ consciousness, every night for much longer than would have seemed reasonable to me a couple years ago. And now that everybody is in shock again about what may have been a mistakenly shot down passenger jet over a war zone (in an area where I’m wondering why would they fly that close to danger in the first place?) We’re hearing that Russian Backed militias in Ukraine are grabbing evidence that might tell investigators what really happened and the Russians are hearing that Ukrainians caused this to happen. ((((( If what we ‘ve been told that Vladimir Putin say is true, I get the impression that what he is actually saying is along the lines of, “If those stupid Ukrainians would just pull down their pants and bend over for us we wouldn’t have to be training insurgents and sending goons and high-tech weaponry { and maybe skilled technicians to use that stuff } into their country, kill Ukrainian citizens and blame it on their government…” )))))
More and more every day, I get the feeling that we can’t trust the news we’re getting. “Bubble headed bleached blonds” smiling as they read scripts that sound to me like 85% propaganda, 10% B.S. and less than 5% actual ‘news’ grates on my nerves.
My best guess, if we can believe anything we’ve heard and seen on teevee and on the web, coming to us through ‘main stream media’ is Russian-sympathizing rebels in Ukraine thought they saw a blip on radar that looked like a military target and had well trained technicians shoot a couple high tech missiles at it, hit it and bring it down and then went, “Oops- Not a good military target…”
And the timing- having a major propaganda opportunity “Ooops” happen while Israel would be really happy if the world press was focused elsewhere ( “Anywhere but Gaza… please”) – that could seem more than a little bit suspicious. Ya think? )
But then again, somebody suggested that the real down and dirty manipulators on this planet have been successfully driving wedges between peoples, stirring up hornets’ nests and keeping everybody off centre and easily pushed in fear and anger, and if Israel has always been one of their targets, they (if ‘they’ actually exist) certainly have done their jobs well.
(((( And, on the subject of hornets’ nests, the mayor of a Quebec town or city south of Montreal stepped on a hornets’ nest and died from the shock of being stung numerous times, that made today’s news up here. ))))
& Back to John Oliver, his comment on the downing of the Malaysian Jet was something like “You get this list of surcharges whenever you fly, $35.00 for this and $39.00 for that- Why not offer another option, “$35.00 per person to stay the [ eff ] out of air space near a war zone.”?
On a kind of round table discussion of current hot news topics today on the CBC one participant answered a question about the controversy in the Ukraine with, “— I am glad that our Prime Minister —” Another participant in this discussion immediately tore a strip off this with “We don’t need any cheap shots like that clouding this issue, this is a serious subject and-” And the first speaker in this paragraph responded with, “I was just trying to say that we need leadership-” —And the sirens went off in my head, screaming, “If a politician opens his or her mouth and you hear words like “jobs”, “leadership”, “taxpayers dollars” or any one of a dozen party line catch phrases- you might as well plug your ears, because you aren’t going to hear anything like the truth-”
Senator Duffy:
The (Conservative) Prime Minister of Canada has gone on the record as saying he would like to get rid of the Canadian Senate. He appointed Mr Duffy, who was originally from Prince Edward Island, but hadn’t had a real primary residence there in years, as the Senator from P.E.I. I think the other two Senators who were humiliated in public and thrown to the wolves were also appointed by the current Prime Minister. When the fit hit the shan, Duffy was accused of falsifying his residence and accepting a travel allowance that he never used because his primary residence was in Ottawa, he didn’t have to fly home on weekends. When the RCMP came out with formal charges against Mr Duffy last week (Friday?) He was accused of accepting a bribe (the $90,000.00 ((Canadian $’s)) check written by the Prime Minister’s right hand guy) But the guy who wrote the check was not accused of bribing a Senator. (He was allowed to resign over the incident.) Some of the 31 charges in the list sound a lot like bargaining chips to be used in a legal chess match, something like, “If you plead guilty to the lesser charges and keep this out of the courts (( and don’t spoil the Prime Minister’s bid for re-election coming up soon )) we’ll spank you on the wrist and say, ‘Shame on you for defrauding the taxpayers out of their hard earned tax money…’ and you can sneak off to some resort and enjoy your life. If you drag this through the courts we’ll do everything we can to make you look like an evil child eating monster who needs to be drawn and quartered on prime time television…”
My gut feeling is, Mr Duffy did nothing that a whole lot of other politicians haven’t done up here for years. He even claims to have checked with party officials to be sure he was not committing anything unethical. If you remember the speech he gave on the Senate Floor, he told us he’d asked for advice and was assured that he was doing the right things in the right way and there should be no problems here.
Mr Duffy had been a reporter for the CBC for many years and had covered political things and political scandals before the current Prime Minister appointed him to the Senate. While he was in the Senate, he was useful to the Prime Minister et al as a fund raiser, a real money maker for the Conservative Party.
We may never know what went on behind closed doors and all that, and why the Prime Minister and his staff went after Mr Duffy and two other Senators and saw that they were summarily shown the door from the privileged areas of the Canadian Senate and told never to come back.
But I know what I saw on the fringes of “The Greater Ottawa Area”. I was employed by a news gathering organization there, outside of Ottawa, in an area that was a little too rural for Rogers Cable Executives to support with their presence. I worked for the company that Rogers sold their rights to in that area. I didn’t do much news gathering, but my friends and co-workers did. I was more or less a back up reporter whose main job was to program the local access channel and record and play back Town Council Meetings and make sure the station was on the air if any one of our numerous black outs happened. (I’d have to run or drive in and restart a couple computers, make sure the clocks were all in sync, make sure the radio station that played along with the bulletin board was on the correct station and tuned in as well as it could be.) I was asked to put together one 30 minute video per month for about a year and then asked to drop that and concentrate on keeping the web site up to date, take new still photographs to cycle through with the bulletin board and make sure everything ran smoothly. Once every blue moon I would be asked to get a couple minutes of interview with somebody or get a bit of video if a major fire broke out or something. I was part time and frankly, I hardly had enough time to do the “Master Control” taping, editing and rebroadcasting the council meetings with introductions and PSAs and sometimes Army News and Local News Programming that was done in the two other stations in our area, and keeping the web stuff current and covering the few special events we had to cover every year (like the Santa Claus Parade, Youth Athletic Awards, Volunteer Appreciation Dinners, and things like that.)
Okay, now for you in the “Lower 48”: MPs are more or less the Canadian equivalent of Members elected to the House of Representatives in the USA. The area I lived and worked in had an MP who was often described as a loose cannon. A minor loose cannon, nowhere near the caliber of the current Toronto Mayor, but still apt to blurt out truths that made the Prime Minister uncomfortable.
A local lawyer who may have had “Conservative Party” brightly printed on his underwear, described our MP as “An [ effing ] idiot, but definitely ‘Our’ effing idiot.” One close friend of mine said, “The people around here would elect a dead goat if it ran under the Conservative Party of Canada banner.”
But when elections were coming around. The Prime Minister had a hand picked ‘handler’ traveling around with the MP, keeping that MP from televised debates in front of an audience that just might have an interesting question that the MP might blurt out the ‘wrong’ answer to. Local Mayors would get a phone call saying, “The MP will be at your facility in an hour, these are the reporters we will allow to be there, we will be there for twenty minutes, have a good photo op and then be gone. No questions from the Press-”
How do you spell “Micro-Manager”? { “S-t-e-p-h-e-n H-a-r-p-e-r” }
Last week’s tweets and comments from News Professionals included a lot of things along the lines of reminders that the person who wrote the infamous cheque (en USA = ‘check’ ) had said something like “I have to clear this with the top people first” and then something else like, “I got the okay to go ahead from the top-” before he wrote that cheque/check.
We probably would not be dealing with this as a news story if a CBC reporter hadn’t gotten wind of this and broke the story on National Television. It would have happily been swept under a rug somewhere.
We also heard, last week, that Mr Duffy is indicating that he will stick to his guns, and if he gives blockbuster testimony under oath, it’s my gut feeling that there will not be many Conservative MPs coming to Ottawa after next year’s election.
I’m not alone. A lot of respected news people up here and several of my respectable friends, have said that this looks like a no win situation for the Conservatives in the next election.
One of the things the Conservative Party of Canada does best up here is IMPLODE. After a couple Conservative Administrations in recent memory of people over 30, only one or two Conservative MPs politically survived election day.
So who might actually emerge victorious from all this?
I went a bit nuts this morning, thinking we’d been hacked and somebody’d reset all the accounts to “Author” that had been given Administration level access. (I couldn’t find the password to this account and the other one I had set up as a back door in case my absent mindedness left me in a strange place without my password book and I had something important to write about.)
So I contacted Doug Otterson, who I thought had admin access and he logged in and couldn’t get the full menu, couldn’t do appearance changes or invite new authors or check through the spam files to see if something on hold was actually a decent comment from somewhere. So I was close to 99% sure we’d been hacked. ((I stopped wondering why anybody would want to hack this silly newsy blog a long time ago when somebody from Turkey hacked into an even sillier guestbook, left me some really nice photos of dolphins and a huge headline, “Ha Ha, you’ve been hacked, We OWN You!” I took a screen shot because I liked the dolphins and scratched my head and wondered why anybody would bother- I mean if that was a feather in some Turkish hacker’s hat, that person’s goals could not have been set too high….))
I had a couple mundane tasks to get through and things that had to be done kept me busy until I stumbled across an older password book, that I’d copied stuff from with cryptic little notes to myself so anybody who got a hold of the book would not have an easy time trying to log into anything important and would probably be locked out after a certain number of bogus attempts. I flipped to the right page, saw the not-cryptic password and went, “AHA! That’s what those underlines and asterisks meant.”
And *!* the password worked, and I got in at the admin level and I could actually see the “Users” icon in the left side panel of the dashboard… I don’t have to go crazy looking for a way to contact wordpress dot com, prove who I am ((( like, did I have a secret answer to a secret question written down somewhere that the dog might have eaten or the visiting cat had diarrhea all over…? )))
So, I’m not exactly doing a happy dance (((( the dog might want to dance with me and he could get a bit over zealous and do real damage with his claws. He still wants to be the world’s first five hundred pound Labrador Retriever… ))))
Yay! It works. I got something good done today. ( I accomplished a couple good things today, but now the day is not clouded by the feeling that I failed as a wannabe geek by suffering the humiliation of being hacked by a nine year old whose parents blocked him from getting to porn sites and, well, he had to take his frustrations out on somebody-)
We are back out there in digital ones and zeros world of the not quite so free as we thought it was… internet.
And here we are, feeling like the poster child for “egg on the face” (and if you remember anybody actually using that expression, you’re probably older than I am)
And this silly blog might see a little bit of action that might actually mean something to somebody, somewhere… the world did not end in a cloud of dust or a gasp of shame.
Thursday, 23 May, 2013. 13˚C & raining off and on today in this neck of the woods.
Personally, I began noticing symptoms like IBS, chronic fatigue, food sensitivities and aggravated allergies in 1987. I think I just read that Genetically Modified Organisms entered our store-bought food in 1986. At first I figured it was due to stress generated from the toxic atmosphere where I had worked prior to 1987. Maybe not—
We started hearing about Monsanto back then- the grocer to the world was supposedly on a crusade to feed the world. The more we look into Monsanto the more we realize that their food, their seeds, their research, their unspoken mission (at least they don’t speak about this in public) = The stuff they’re forcing into the food chain is hurting production (their seeds are producing less per acre than seeds that were not modified / were not tampered with / were not manipulated on the molecular level.) Beyond the production issues, there is a rising mountain of evidence that Genetically Modified Food is making people and animals sick, shortening our life spans, destroying our quality of life and probably causing or at least increasing the high suicide rate in Indian (as in: Asian subcontinent) Cotton Farmers, and driving South American farmers into bankruptcy, extreme poverty and starvation. Spokesmonsters like Bill Gates smile at the camera and say “This is the way to better feed the world.” But they have been overheard (and recorded) saying, “We need to reduce the world’s population by at least one third.
Farmers noticed that cattle fed genetically modified corn and other GMO feeds were a lot less healthy than the same cattle fed non-GMO feeds. Autopsies on dead animals showed weakened intestinal walls. Animals slaughtered to feed us hungry humans had a much higher chance to have their intestines burst, releasing ecoli bacteria and causing the kind of food related sickness and death we’ve seen too much of in the past couple decades.
The farmers who stopped using GMO feeds saw immediate improvement in their livestock’s health.
In Canada- when GMO crops were chased out of the Western Provinces, Monsanto began a high powered, much moneyed campaign to convince legislatures in the Eastern Provinces that their crops were a really good and ‘natural’ alternative to crops that have been doing fine for centuries, if not millenniae.
In the USA, Monsanto lobbyists have convinced the government to label Genetically Modified Food additives as “Natural Flavorings”.
Go to YouTube and look up and then watch “The World according to Monsanto”
Read this Blog: http://thepersonnexttoyou.wordpress.com/ & pay attention to the GMO related entries.
And come back soon for more GMO Horror Stories (Bwa hahahahahahaha!)
