Independent Canadian News

Category: World

Tuesday, 19 August, 2014 – CBC News Headlines –

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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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Police in riot gear in Ferguson, MO
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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Hitch-hiking robot.
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. }

Ukraine crisis: 15 bodies recovered from refugee convoy attack   {  }

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———  }

We’ve got a very interesting new subscriber

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Monday, 18 August, 2014.

We received notification that ‘consumer2savlives‘ <— Link<<< is following us. This site is so interesting I’m going to see if we can get permission to repost most of what is posted there.

Here’s a sample – on their blog  : Americas Big Pharma Chemistry Project

Or this one:  Eugenics Theory – Male Sterilization

Or: Women of America Health Alert by CABIRI and Hooman Noorchashm MD, PHD

———djo———

CBC News Healines – 18 August, 2014

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by

Monday, 18 August, 2014.  -( 61°F / 16°C & cloudy @ 9:30 am near Ithaca, NY, USA )-

{ & 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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“Lead Stories”

Missouri governor sends National Guard to Ferguson to restore order   {   }

Julian Assange says health has suffered while in London embassy   { How about all the good people in this world pray for a healing for this guy? —> This is how it seems to me: He stuck his neck out, thinking he was doing something morally right and the C.I.A., NSA and other alphabet soup ice-holes saw to it that he was framed for an immoral act ? }

WikiLeaks founder says he’ll leave embassy in London soon   {  }

TSB says Grand Manan, N.B. air ambulance crash a mystery   { Grand Manan is an Island off the southern coast of New Brunswick }

burned up railroad cars and vehicle.
This was the scene last July when the ‘deadly derailment’ at Lac-Megantic killed 47 people, many of them in a pub enjoying the summer evening.

 

Regulatory gaps partly to blame for Lac-Mégantic: CCPA   { ‘CCPA = Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, which is a group that is calling for an independent public inquiry into the accident that killed 47 people in the centre of town when the train derailed and burst into flames. The CCPA doesn’t believe the Transportation Safetry Board will go far enough to expose government regulatory failures. }

Intruder’s note left atop 5 or 6 knives at Trudeau home   {  Now that’s creepy. I should put a poll in here: How many people think this is political dirty tricks? }

Private autopsy finds Michael Brown shot 6 times: NYT   { NYT, I suppose that means New York Times, not the Monty Python Knights who go “Nyt!” [wink] }

Dying Sierra Leone doctor never told Ebola drug was at his bedside   {  }

Analysis- Harper’s latest northern tour: Is government’s approach to ‘the great treasure house’ failing?   { Harper’s trying to win votes without appearing to campaign for them? I bet that’s not what he meant when he said something about ‘transparency in government’. }

 

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“Offbeat”

Montreal resident a magnet for Russian mail   {  }

 

Derek Jeter's Likeness in a cornfield
Nobody’s claiming this might be a crop circle that was put there by aliens.

Derek Jeter’s head profiled in New Jersey corn maze   { Somebody went to a lot of trouble to do this.  }

Messy summer festivals in Japan   { Rain and floods messed up the area. }

 

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“Most Viewed”

Rolf Buchholz, man with horn implants and 400 piercings, denied entry to Dubai   {  }

Drone video shows stubborness, severity of Goodridge Street fire   { Goodridge Street is in Saint John’s, Newfoundland. They have a video of a ‘Snorkle’ type fire engine at work trying to put the fire out. }

Second Union Station subway platform opens today    {  }

{ Everything else in this category relisted from “Lead Stories” }

 

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“Other”

Analysis – Year of record recalls: how concerned should car drivers be?   {  }

Updated –  Iraq forces say they’ve retaken Mosul Dam, but militants deny claim   {  }

5-day Gaza ceasefire ends tonight between Israelis and Palestinians   {  }

Quarantine creates ‘plaque villages’ in Ebola epicentre   {  }

Ukraine claims rebels fire on civilian convoy   {  }

OPP did not have ‘leading role’ in CBSA immigration arrests   {  }

Video – 911 call service often includes access to interpreters   {  }

180 dead as floods wash away homes in Nepal, India   {  }

– Blog – Teacher’s online campaign raises $40K to feed hungry kids in Ferguson   {  }

A hitch hiking robot?
This is ‘HitchBot’s face.

HitchBot completes 6,000 kn cross-Canada trip   {  }

Strange looking armored lizards
Indian pangolins -From India- this is one of the species that are being killed or smuggled out of India.

Indian poachers threaten lesser-known animals   {  }

{ &  Somewhere: I saw a blurb about a 6.2 earthquake in southern Iran }

 

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“Local” / “New Brunswick”

Grand Manan mayor says plane crash victims will be missed   { Grand Manan is an island off the southern coast of New Brunswick }

Grand Manan plane crash site offers few clues about cause   {  }

Anglophone East district standardizes school supply list   { ‘Anglophone’ means ‘English speaking’. Parents of students receiving standardized list of items teachers expect students to show up with voice mixed opinions on this matter. }

14 year old Nova Scotia woman in Northumberland Strait charity swim: Youngest ever   {  }

 

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{ Posted at 11:30 am EDST Updated here at Independent Canadian News after the captions failed to load with the photos ———djo——— }

 

Friday Morning, August 1st, 2014 – CBC Morning Headlines

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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. )))

We’ve Moved, and changed the Title of this Blog to Reflect a Broader Perspective (?)

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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?).

———Thanks,

———The Editor——

Canadian Senate Scandals, Another Malaysian Jet Down, and Troubles in the Middle East

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Monday, 21 July, 2014.

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?

John Oliver has my vote.

——— Aerendel ——

I thought we were hacked, oops, my mistake…

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Monday, July 21, 2014.  -( 20°C / 68°F @ 10:15 pm, Halifax Time)

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.

Yay!

—————Aerendel

 

G.M.O. Horror Stories — Part One.

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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!)

————— Jim