Tuesday, January 31, 2017

We broke the Panama Papers story. Here's how to investigate Donald Trump

onald Trump is now president. This challenges many of us, not least members of the press. Countless reporters are still shaken and stunned by how he singled out a CNN reporter, one of the most respected news outlets in the world, to attack and humiliate him during his first press conference since winning the elections. Worryingly, none of his fellow journalists in the room stood up for him at the time.

This wasn’t Trump’s first attack on the press, and it certainly won’t be his last. The first White House press briefing, held on Saturday, featured bullying, threats and unproven claims. That is why a new level of solidarity and cooperation is needed among the fourth estate.

American journalists should stop him from dividing their ranks – however hard their professional competition may be. They should do the opposite: unite, share and collaborate. Even if doing so would mean embracing something quite unfamiliar and new to American journalism.

The Panama Papers has showed that a formerly unthinkable project of collaboration can work. When we shared the data of the papers with a team of 400 reporters worldwide, we brought together a vast number of investigative reporters who typically compete which each other. The main reason why our newspaper, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, shared the story with competitors was simply that it was too big and too important to do alone.

Now, once again, we are faced with a story that is too big and too important to handle on our own: Donald Trump’s impact on the democracy of the United States of America.

Of course, American media can’t approach this the way we did for the Panama Papers, when the Washington DC-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) coordinated the work of 107 news outlets around the world. But there’s a wide range of possibilities for how news outlets could work together.

This first step could be showing concrete solidarity. The next time Donald Trump tries to single out a reporter, or doesn’t answer a question, the next reporter who’s allowed to speak should repeat the question of the journalist Trump has snubbed.

The Netherlands welcomes Trump in his own words

Thanks Ed

Louis Armstrong, What a Wonderful World by Vincent van Hessen - busking ...

21 phrases you may have been saying wrong for your entire life.

21 phrases you've been saying wrong your entire life

www.aol.com

We’ve listed the most commonly mispronounced words and terms in the English language -- and you'd be surprised how many of these you’ve been saying wrong.

Click the link…

https://www.aol.com/article/finance/2016/06/09/21-phrases-you-ve-been-saying-wrong-your-entire-ife/21392471/#slide=3918602#fullscreen

Thanks Randy

Steve Irwin Kissing A Gorilla

Thanks Sylvia

Graphic Footage of Lioness Mauled by Buffalo

Thanks Sylvia

President Trump: Destined to be the worst President in American history

Monday, January 30, 2017

Monday's Ride - 1960 Daimler Dart SP250 for Sale

Alternative facts from Kevin O'Leary and Lying like Patrick Brown

"No matter, because facts don’t matter. Brown keeps repeating what he knows to be untrue, and now O’Leary is getting in on the act — knowingly or out of ignorance."

Why Kevin O'Leary is a gift to Kathleen Wynne: Cohn

Alternative facts are the disruptive innovation of politics — less factual than the facts, but just enough truthiness to make the sale and club the competition.

Spoiling for a fight, Kathleen Wynne has finally found a foil.

Kevin O’Leary is the opponent she dreams of taking down.

When he trash-talks Ontario, it’s music to her well-worn ears — those ears having been bent out of shape by angry voters, and pinched by her provincial opponents.

The premier can’t push back against senior citizens with quavering voices, and it’s tough to pin down her invisible opposition rivals — akin to fighting phantoms.

O’Leary, however, is right out of central casting. The long-running TV personality is now running for the federal Tory leadership, but he went off script by taking a run at Ontario with the usual pot shots.

Not just high hydro bills, but high taxes allegedly driving away auto plants.

Which is why the premier couldn’t resist engaging him — not on a Tory campaign stage, but on the Facebook platform that now hosts fake news and faux debates. The better to bend our ears and bait our eyeballs.

“Dear Mr. O’Leary,” begins her cheeky Facebook post, followed by warm congratulations for entering the den of fire-breathing politicians.

The premier proceeds to pick apart his rhetoric from a talk radio interview in which he claimed carmakers will move to Michigan to pay “30 per cent less in tax, no regulations, no carbon tax.”

But as Republican candidate Mitt Romney reminded Americans in the 2012 presidential debate, Canadian corporate taxes are well below U.S. rates (thanks to dubious reductions by both Stephen Harper’s Conservatives in Ottawa and Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals in Ontario). As Wynne pointed out, the combined federal-provincial rate here is 28.5 per cent, well below the 38.9 per cent that Michigan car makers pay.

CBC has lost it's way

TRUMP WANNABES AND ENABLERS

It’s time to drain the swamp at CBC News

Kevin O’Leary and Rex Murphy are proof our public broadcaster’s been hijacked

It’s time to reclaim our public broadcaster’s national TV news from a gang of myopic journalists and apparatchiks who have transformed a stellar, enlightened institution into a forum for intellectually bankrupt charlatans who worship themselves, along with money and the political influence it buys above all else.

It’s time to resist the continued devolution of CBC News into a comfortable haven for agreeable centrists and libertarians at the expense of progressive Canadians who reject their insular, Lord-of-the-Flies-like views, and who have also been rendered extinct from the public broadcaster’s airwaves of which they are, lest we forget, the majority owners.

Powerful read

How to Culture Jam a Populist in Four Easy Steps

By Andrés Miguel Rondón -

The whole world’s eyes are on Washington today, and not in a good way. As Venezuelans, we’re looking North with more trepidation than most today, even though — in fairness — the panic over Trump-as-northern-Chávez is premature. A politician is to be judged by what it does in office, not by what he says before he gets there. Beating Chávez historic economic demolition of the richest oil country in the world, during the biggest oil bonanza ever, leaving behind an inflation-ridden, bullet-stricken, hungry, ailing country — is quite an ask. But let’s see what happens.

Because in one way, Trump and Chávez are identical: they are masters of Populism.

There’s something soothing in all that anger. Though full of hatred, it promises redemption.

The recipe is universal. Find a wound common to many, someone to blame for it and a good story to tell. Mix it all together. Tell the wounded you know how they feel. That you found the bad guys. Label them: the minorities, the politicians, the businessmen. Cartoon them. As vermin, evil masterminds, flavourless hipsters, you name it. Then paint yourself as the saviour. Capture their imagination. Forget about policies and plans, just enrapture them with a good story. One that starts in anger and ends in vengeance. A vengeance they can participate in.

That’s how it becomes a movement. There’s something soothing in all that anger. Though full of hatred, it promises redemption. Populism can’t cure your suffering, but it can do something almost as good — better in some ways: it can build a satisfying narrative around it. A fictionalized account of your misery. A promise to make sense of your hurt. It is them. It’s been them all along.

For all those who listen, Populism is built on the irresistible allure of simplicity. The narcotic of the simple answer to an intractable question. The problem is now made simple. The problem is you.

How do I know? Because I grew up as the ‘you’ Trump is about to turn you into. I was cast in the role of the enemy in the political struggle that followed the arrival of Chávez, and watched in frustration year after year as the Opposition tried and failed to do anything about the catastrophe unfolding all around. Only later did I realize this failure was, in a significant way, self-inflicted.

And so, some advice:

To young, to soon

Russ Johnson

January 21 at 10:06am

To be honest, I’m not sure how to go about writing something like this, so I’ll just present my truths as best I know them and hope this message reaches the people it is intended for, beginning with friends, family and loved ones…and extending to anyone whose eyes get this far and read on.

The last time I publicly touched on the subject of having cancer, was also the first time. Everyone has their own way of dealing with the disease, and I believed in a pretty private route for myself, mostly because I did not want to deal with a lot of questions about cancer while I was dealing with having it. And so, I quietly did my time in chemo and radiation last year, then very happily went into remission and moved on with my life.

Along for the turbulent ride in the worst of times last year, was the comfort of a dear friend of mine who not only proved to me that short, meaningful moments can last and light up a lifetime, but that well-formed friendships help form who we are.

Her name was Elizabeth.

When we met she was funny and full of smiles, laughter and life. We were sitting in the same airport lobby in Halifax, in 1991, and my teammates and I were heading home from an interprovincial basketball tournament that was held out in Nova Scotia. Since we played for the Quebec team, we were all wearing baby blue travel attire with the province’s name all over it. Elizabeth’s family came and sat down in the same area as us, and like the brave nine year old kid she was, she jumped into a conversation with the team almost immediately. It went something like this:

“Hey, are you guys from Montreal?” she asked with a huge excited smile.

“Most of us are kiddo.” I replied.

“I just got back from the best concert ever in Montreal! New Kids On the Block!”

The sentence burst out of her with infectious joy that got my teammates laughing… and then just like that, for the next two hours I had a little buddy.

She made fun of my arcade game skills, and I made fun of her musical tastes. We played some cards, and shared some jokes, laughs and stories… and then, just before we parted ways at our boarding call, her mom brought her daughter over to me, and I got two huge hugs; one from Elizabeth and then another from her mom.

Elizabeth’s mom held me tightly for a good minute, whispering quickly and quietly in my ear about how her daughter had cancer, and that things were uncertain. They had gone to Montreal as a family to see the concert and make Elizabeth’s dual dream of flying in a plane and seeing her favourite boy-band happen all at once. The family had learned to not take any chances or anything for granted when it came to Elizabeth’s healthier days, and they wanted to give her as many happy memories as possible….just in case.

Her mom thanked me for spending time with her daughter and for making Elizabeth laugh, and then handed me an address on a piece of paper, asking if I’d be willing to stay in touch. I can still see the piece of paper in my mind, over 25 years later.

Elizabeth Jane Giddings
65 Lilac Ave,
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
Canada
CIA-___

While my memory may fade at the last three spots on the postal code, it magnifies the little time I shared with her.

I remember once we’d boarded and were seated on the plane, to becoming overwhelmed with sadness at the injustice of cancer, life and fate going after a little kid like that; a happy, funny, sweet little kid, who should’ve had everything to look forward to, like her tenth birthday or staying out of trouble in school. I can remember fearing the worst might happen, and what it would be like to be in her shoes at such a young age. I can also remember thinking “Man, at least I got to 19 and got to live a little,” not yet really realizing that Elizabeth had already taught me a very valuable lesson.

Instead of a healthy future, Elizabeth had more treatments coming.

We wrote back and forth, and saw one another twice more over the next two years… and then, Elizabeth Jane Giddings was gone from the world.

Twenty six years later she remains one of life’s great gifts to me, and her spirit’s presence in my memory remains an occasional and absolute warrior on behalf of my sanity, in the toughest of times. It can be easy to slide into feeling sorry for yourself and into depression when you are puking from chemotherapy, dealing with the aftermath of radiation, or just trying to rest in the stillness of the night, hoping and waiting for horrible cures to kill off a worse disease. During my treatment journey there were times when life bordered on suffering and mere existence: It was in those darkest of moments that Elizabeth would visit me, in my mind’s eye -smiling and laughing- to remind me of what real courage looked like.

With her visits she brought the conviction in my mind that I needed to truly remember that every single year that has gone by in my life since we crossed paths, has made me an increasingly fortunate soul to have had the time and experiences many others never got the chance to have. In other words, Elizabeth Jane Giddings left behind the lessons she personified on her short path through life, and taught me that it is on our most trying days that we need to be most thankful: That may sound like a hollow platitude-and maybe it is- until truly trying days come your way.

While I certainly can’t pretend to be one of those magical people that is “always on,” and always “grabbing life by the tail,” I’ve absolutely no doubt I have been, and remain, a very. very lucky man.

But as it happens in life, and with cancer, it looks like luck may not be enough… and I may just need a visit from Elizabeth again someday, not too far away.

Just before this past Christmas -just like the Christmas before- I was sat down and told by my doctor that cancer was present in my body, and that remission had given way to re-admission: The very simple truth is that a very intense surgery and rehabilitation period is going to be needed to save my life, and without usage of any hyperbole, there are no guarantees on if, or how long the surgery will work in terms of life expectancy, among other concerns.

In layman’s terms, I’m a bit of a mess… and find myself in what amounts to being a “do or die, and we’ll have to see” type scenario from here on out. The surgery got bumped up, and is now less than a week away.

That stated, it is fair and reasonable to say that I may never be as healthy again as I am today, and will be until next week’s complicated surgery in Montreal: That’s just a fact of my reality, and I truthfully don’t need a “you need to stay positive,” lecture from anyone, which I really do get as a concept, and absolutely do not deny. I actually do remain hopeful about what is coming, and I certainly wouldn’t be doing the surgery if the risks involved far outweighed the potential benefits, BUT there is a very big difference between morbid thinking/being consumed by death, and not only being prepared for it, but at peace with it when it stares you in the eye… and so I’d like to offer some words on that final train of thought, if you will permit and read on.

The one thing that binds us as people is that we all meet the same ultimate fate in this life, and to be perfectly honest as an individual human being right now, I’m a little scared (sometimes a lot), and a little sad (sometimes a lot)…but I very much want my friends and loved ones to know –well above it all- I just feel very grateful and peaceful as I head towards a lot of unknowns right now. Even the occasional tears that drop in are more than welcome, because they seem to be accompanied by a reminder of all the beauty and love I’ve been allotted and allowed in this life, and I am more than thankful for it all, and for the friends, and for the adventures along the way.

And so my friends, in the short term what it comes down to is this:

For a guy who is dealing with cancer, I actually feel pretty damn good and oddly healthy, all things considered. The surgery is in a week, so it’s definitely a positive that I got a chance to get “healthy” again after the last go-around of treatments before this next step, because even if all goes very well next week, the several months of recovery isn’t going to be a cakewalk…so, just like Elizabeth, I really want to take advantage of the “healthy days,” and the chance to see some friends in Montreal if they can make it – I know Monday’s may suck in a lot of ways as a day in the week, and I know it’s last minute notice, but if any of you are around the city I’ll be heading down to Grumpy’s on Bishop St to hang out and have some laughs with any buddies who can make the swing, between 4pm-11pm or so. The bartender is a good guy, and they have some great live music Monday nights. It’s basically just going to be chatting and ordering pizza for dinner, and anyone so inclined is more than welcome to come by for a laugh, and a chat.

If you can't make the swing, absolutely no worries. Life is life and sometimes other things get in the way, or maybe you’re just not that into me (and no one can understand that more than me

:-) )...so just do me a favour and wish me any luck and love you might have to offer, and know I send it right back.

Thanks for reading, and all the best to you all.
I’m hoping to see you all soon.
With love,
Russ

"Sheep Who Think They're Dogs Compilation" || CFS

LA Police

Thanks Ivan

petit Robert 2017

Etre au bout du rouleau: Situation très peu confortable, surtout quand on est aux toilettes.

Facebook: Le seul endroit où tu parles à un mur sans être ridicule.

·GPS: Seule femme que les hommes écoutent pour trouver leur chemin.

·Autobus: Véhicule qui roule deux fois plus vite quand on court après que quand on est assis dedans.

·Mozart: Célèbre compositeur que l'on écoute le plus souvent dans les pizzerias car on sent bien que ‘’mozzarella’’.

·Porte-clefs: Invention très pratique qui permet de perdre toutes ses clefs d'un seul coup au lieu de les perdre une par une.

·Voiture: Invention ingénieuse, permettant de contenir 110 chevaux dans le moteur et un âne au volant.

·Egalité des sexes: Nouveau concept créé par les hommes pour ne plus payer le restaurant.

·Suppositoire: Invention qui restera dans les annales.

·"Oui chérie" : Expression employée pour gagner du temps

·Les ex :C'est comme la prison, si tu y retournes c'est que tu n'as pas compris la leçon.

·Aide internationale : Aide payée par les pauvres des pays riches pour aider les riches des pays pauvres.

·Pharmacie :Confiserie pour aîné(e)s .

·Un meurtre de sang froid: Un ice crime

·Sentiments partagés :Quand votre belle-mère est en train de reculer dans le ravin avec votre voiture toute neuve.

·Archipel: Outil pour creuser des archi- trous

·Cellulite :Couche graisseuse qui enveloppe souvent les femmes mais emballe rarement les hommes.

·Les ciseaux à bois :Les chiens aussi.

·Femme :C'est comme le café, au début ça excite mais trop, ça énerve.

·L'amour: C'est comme un jeu de cartes, si tu n'as pas un bon partenaire, il vaut mieux avoir une bonne main.

·Le Gospel: C'est quand ton gamin a pris un coup de soleil

·Femme facile :Femme ayant les mêmes besoins sexuels qu'un homme

· Amour pour toujours : Expression datant du 15ème siècle, lorsque l'espérance de vie était de 35 ans.

Thanks Ivan

New Health Study

Thanks Norman

Sunday, January 29, 2017

George sums up class structure and the purpose media divisiveness

Sunday's Ride - 1950 Oldsmobile Rocket 88 Futuramic "Hot Rod"

January 21st 2017 was a wakeup call for men everywhere

This day will go down in history as the greatest statement of unity by women Worldwide that they will no longer take a back seat to their man, to any man. But more than that is was a statement against bigotry, misogyny and abuse of humanity, female or male.

This has to be, by and far, the most impressive march I have witnessed in my 72 years.

Men, a word of caution, perhaps your mother, your wife or your sister didn’t attend the march but believe me for every one that did attend there are ten that wish they had and even more who silently admire what these women did.

Gentleman this is the beginning of a new era and for many it will mean that you damn well better learn that they have a voice, they will be heard and you damn well better listen.

I am so damn proud of these women. So forget white supremacy, forget male dominance and be a part of the solution rather than a source of the problem.

Long but an excellent read

To Christy on Facebook, who doesn’t need the Women’s March

In response to the millions of women who marched yesterday, there’s a Facebook rebuttal going around by a woman named Christy. Apparently, there are quite a few women who agree with her.

The summary: Christy doesn’t need this march. Why do any women need this march? This is America, I have everything I need, and if you don’t, it’s your own fault, and marching won’t fix that for you.

Here is my response to Christy, and by association, all the women who agreed with her:

Hi Christy. We don’t know each other, but your #notmymarch post is getting shared a lot today. It showed up in my feed, thanks to a few of my friends who like what you’re saying.

Say thank you

You Are Not Equal. I’m Sorry.

A post is making rounds on social media, in response to the Women’s March on Saturday, January 21, 2017. It starts with “I am not a “disgrace to women” because I don’t support the women’s march. I do not feel I am a “second class citizen” because I am a woman….”

This is my response to that post.

Say Thank You

Say thank you. Say thank you to the women who gave you a voice. Say thank you to the women who were arrested and imprisoned and beaten and gassed for you to have a voice. Say thank you to the women who refused to back down, to the women who fought tirelessly to give you a voice. Say thank you to the women who put their lives on hold, who –lucky for you — did not have “better things to do” than to march and protest and rally for your voice. So you don’t feel like a “second class citizen.” So you get to feel “equal.”

Thank Susan B. Anthony and Alice Paul for your right to vote.

Thank Elizabeth Stanton for your right to work.

Thank Maud Wood Park for your prenatal care and your identity outside of your husband.

Thank Rose Schneiderman for your humane working conditions.

Thank Eleanor Roosevelt and Molly Dewson for your ability to work in politics and affect policy.

Thank Margaret Sanger for your legal birth control.

Thank Carol Downer for your reproductive healthcare rights.

Thank Sarah Muller for your equal education.

Thank Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Shannon Turner, Gloria Steinem, Zelda Kingoff Nordlinger, Rosa Parks, Angela Davis, Malika Saada Saar, Wagatwe Wanjuki, Ida B. Wells, Malala Yousafzai. Thank your mother, your grandmother, your great-grandmother who did not have half of the rights you have now.

The Eco - Senior

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