FORT MCMURRAY ADVENTURES7 unread articles // actions
New Territory
I started out the year with the goal of getting big numbers for my birding list. One of my challenges is that, while I do tend to see a lot of birds, I tend to be a bit limited on the number of species I see. There are a few reasons for this, some of which are under my control. One of the things I started doing last year was moving around more and exploring other locations. (Two trips to BC reall
Fat Cats
I didn't realize it was possible to be even more cynical of politicians until learning the news that our city council decided to give itself a nice little pay raise . To be fair, not everyone on council is accepting this rather generous perk, including our mayor, but the mere fact that a cabal of politicians unilaterally decided to do this with no study or public input is pretty outrageous and ce
River Valley
One of the first places I wanted to take a look at when I returned to town earlier this month was the trail system along the west side of the river. Not only is it the closest and best way for me to access the valley from my house but it is also an area where the forest fire raged and marks the closest point "The Beast" got to my street, which lies less than two blocks away. It had actu
Heading Back to Normal
Yesterday was my first official day back to work after being evacuated because of the forest fire. The events of May led to the biggest work disruption in the history of the oil patch. Slowly we are getting back to the work that has slowly been piling up, held in a state of suspended animation. Six weeks is a long time to be off from work and I am slowly rediscovering muscles and tendons that wen
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GEEZERPOWER3 unread articles // actions
These are strange times folks. We have a Secretary of Defense that doesn't understand what a uniform is. Ashe Carter se...
These are strange times folks. We have a Secretary of Defense that doesn't understand what a uniform is. Ashe Carter seems to think that we should have a different kind of military that he calls "The Force of the Future'. A military that resembles the IDF, which involves every citizen in Israel. It calls for the involvement of every family member in the defense of our country, which goes far
As part of the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Che Guevara, the National Security Archive's Cuba Documentation Pr...
As part of the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Che Guevara, the National Security Archive's Cuba Documentation Project is posting a selection of key CIA, State Department, and Pentagon documentation relating to Guevara and his death. This electronic documents book is compiled from declassified records obtained by the National Security Archive, and by authors of two new books on Guevara: Jor
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VAGABOND SCHOLAR1 unread article // actions
Independence Day 2016
Happy Independence Day! Normally, I post some songs and other pieces (such as a reading of the Declaration of Independence). This year, given Donald Trump's dogwhistle call to "Take America Back" and his mix of cloaked and overt appeals to bigotry, misogyny, hatred, fear and ignorance – and that he's the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States – I thought anothe
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A CLOSER LOOK: JODY PATERSON3 unread articles // actions
When good words go bad: The usurping of trafficking as a weapon against sex workers
Were I a cartoon character, I expect I'd have big red flags and maybe some small explosions coming out of my head these days after reading the Ontario government's news release this week about its big new anti-trafficking initiative. I'm all for ending trafficking, of course. But the issue is increasingly emerging as some kind of stealth instrument for attacking people working in the sex industry
When good words go bad: The usurping of trafficking as a weapon against sex workers
If I were a cartoon character, I expect I'd have big red flags and maybe some small explosions coming out of my head these days after reading the Ontario government's news release this week about its big new anti-trafficking initiative. I'm all for ending trafficking, of course. But the issue is increasingly emerging as some kind of stealth weapon for attacking people working in the sex industry,
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VACCINE AWAKENING1 unread article // actions
Defending the Religious Exemption to Vaccination
Posted: 6/28/2016 By Barbara Loe Fisher To activate and view hyperlinked references, please click here once and then click any superscripted number below to access a hyperlinked reference, or scroll down to the bottom of the article to view all hyperlinked references. Every summer, Americans celebrate the 4 th of July to mark the day in 1776 when the American colonies agreed they would no longer b
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KILLING MOTHER6 unread articles // actions
Michigan's Upper Peninsula and the Ironies of Tourism
6 July 2016 Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is a complex landscape, where environmental, social and economic factors converge, creating a sense of surrealism. Surrounded on three sides by Great Lakes Huron, Michigan and Superior. It feels like an island in a vast ocean, rather than a finger of land protruding into freshwater lakes. Towering sand dunes, long stretches of white-sand beaches and crystal-
Kirtland's Warblers and Other Natural Surprises
5 July 2016 Michigan is a state of contrasts. Venturing from south to north, post-industrial gloom gives way to sweeping vistas of rolling hills and forests. Like most other areas in the eastern United States, Michigan’s forests were logged relentlessly, although isolated pockets of old growth are still found. At the Hartwick Pines State Park near Grayling, a mosaic of old and new growth forests
Michigan - Flint and Rust
4 July 2016 Today was mostly a travel day, moving from near Columbus, OH to Roscommon, MI. Unable to find a campground last night, I pulled exhausted into a Walmart parking lot late, where I noticed a number of other voyagers doing the same. That night I dreamed that I woke up in the morning and was served free muffins and coffee by Walmart staff. In my dream, I was thinking This is very humanita
Michigan - Flint and Rust
4 July 2016 Today was mostly a travel day, moving from near Columbus, OH to Roscommon, MI. Unable to find a campground last night, I pulled exhausted into a Walmart parking lot late, where I noticed a number of other voyagers doing the same. That night I dreamed that I woke up in the morning and was served free muffins and coffee by Walmart staff. In my dream, I was thinking This is very humanita
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THWAP'S SCHOOLYARD1 unread article // actions
June Post
I've had five days straight off of work and a lot's been happening in the world. Blogging is a waste of time but I've got time to waste today so ... "Elbow-gate": - Ramming through legislation without debate is icky. NDP working with the Conservatives for any purpose is icky. The delaying tactics were silly. But Liberals do them too. Trudeau's choice of words showed that he lost his tem
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MIDDLE CLASS POLITICAL ECONOMIST1 unread article // actions
New book on investment incentives will help shape policies debates for years to come
This past week I received my chapter author's copy of a new book from Columbia University Press, Rethinking Investment Incentives: Trends and Policy Options . Based initially on the November 2013 conference on investment incentives at Columbia Law School, the contributors were put through their paces to upgrade their conference presentations into proper papers. The result is what Theodore Moran of
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NEWS FROM ATLANTIS.3 unread articles // actions
Jo Cox snuffed out to boost EU Remain campaign
Jo Cox is dead. She was killed in Batley by a man who it is claimed is a neo-nazi. The motive? Why, because she was campaigning for the UK to remain trapped in the EU concentration camp! Seriously - we are supposed to believe that some lunatic nazi shot her dead because killing a puppet politician would change things in the UK! But would killing an MP have an impact upon public life? Well, if the
The invasion of Europe as a weapon to smash sovereignty world-wide
Alex Jones and David Icke have been working in the 'conspiracy' arena for decades. Jones was infamous for his 'Germanic Death Cults' disinfo, Icke for his 'Shape-shifting Interdimensional Reptilians. Jones was at the forefront of exposing the Saudi role in the 11th September 2001 massacre at the New York World Trade Centre, Icke propelled the Rothschilds beyond fringe politics and into the public
The Sanity of Anti-Globalism versus the Lunacy of Nationalist Supremacism
I have been active politically for longer than I care to think about! I have seen groups come, I have seen them go. It is an unspoken rule amongst Nationalists to be generous to a fault when dealing with anyone who appears to be against the globalist agenda. This has seen serious scum tolerated just because they happen to have a few points of ideology which are useful in confronting the forces as
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@ THE CHALK FACE8 unread articles // actions
@SOSMarch What else could we do with conference fees?
I recently read a blog article on the expense of conference fees for academics. As a former college professor and graduate student, I remember trying to earn those crucial lines on my CV by traveling to just about any conference that I could apply for. The big name ones were naturally the most expensive and […]
Do stressed teachers lead to stressed students?
Education Week reports on a study that adds to the literature on linkages between teacher and student stress. First, let me get this out of the way. For the study, researchers surveyed 17 teachers in grades 4 to 7 on their potential burnout, and then tested over 400 students in those teachers’ classrooms for stress […]
Large increases in test scores shouldn’t impress anyone
NPR put out a recent article on Rocketship charter schools. I teach in Southeast DC and a Rocketship is set to open in the vicinity, like a bunch of other charter schools. I’ve had, maybe, two students so far tell me they’re going there. It’s funny. One student in particular, who didn’t earn their choice […]
A testing culture is a toxic one
Education that values metrics over meaning is toxic. I’m being cute with “metrics over meaning.” What am I getting at here? Success as a student and a teacher is reduced annually to numbers. Each school year, as new metrics are invented and policies are aligned to value numbers, the power and control of quantitative values […]
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THE STRAIGHT GOODS7 unread articles // actions
Christy Clark's 2017 Election Gambit(LNG Redux) and The Stunning Display of Postmedia Publishing Rubbish..A Straight Goods Special
Written by Grant G It absolutely amazes me, no matter how stupid, how outrageous, no matter what this BC liberal government says or does all we hear from our employed by Postmedia or employed by Global/CTV legislative media is.....not much, usually nothing.. Vaughn Palmer..Michael Smyth..Keith Baldrey....last week education minister Mike Bernier threw a hail Bernie Madoff pass, eer, I mean a Hail
British Columbia And Imperial Globalization. Part IV
British Columbia And Imperial Globalization. Part IV Written by Robin Mathews June 2016 Attention across the world is, at last, focussing more and more on what is called ‘ imperial globalization’ – the growing power of unchecked international capital to poison grand attempts at democratic community such as the ones struggling in the European Community and the Mercosur countries of South America .
Postmedia Defends the Indefensable, Site C Dam Boondoggle and Defunct British Columbia LNG Industry
Written by Grant G Ross K likes to use fanciful verbiage when describing British Columbia's media and BC's provincial Liberal government..." lotusland...Clarkland..Clarklandia " etc etc etc .. And if one really thinks about it....Ross K's descriptors are the most accurate around... Is there any better way to describe our legislative reporting gang..?..Perhaps..The in need of polident de
Seeing Canada’s Direction? Imperial Globalization. Part III
Seeing Canada’s Direction? Imperial Globalization. Part III. Written by Robin Mathews Something strange is occurring in Ottawa… something more than ordinarily strange. Call it, for short, The Canadian Infrastructure Bank … an apparently totally unnecessary (and expensive) idea being moved toward existence by the Liberal government headed by Justin Trudeau. The work of such a ‘ Bank ’ can be done
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THE ORIGINAL BLOGGER TIPS AND TRICKS2 unread articles // actions
Hyperlink: Internal link, link to another spot in the same post
Suppose you are writing a long post and you want to link from a particular spot A to another spot B in the same post/webpage. The way to do this is (you will have to use the HTML mode of the post editor): At A, write the code some words to describe spot B For example, I want to link this spot to a spot with title Chapter 1 below. Here I write Chapter 1 (
Signed into Blogger but cannot find blog? Solution
There are lots of bloggers complaining when they sign into www.blogger.com they 1. cannot find their blog 2. cannot edit 3. cannot publish new post, etc. One likely cause is this very common confusion due to the gmail ADD ACCOUNT feature. If you click your Google profile photo/avatar when you are signed into your gmail account, you will see a drop down which would have a tab ADD ACCOUNT And if you
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PESTICIDE ACTION NETWORK8 unread articles // actions
Wins for bees in the Golden State
Earlier this month, dozens of pesticide and industrial agriculture lobbyists filled the halls of California’s Capitol as they worked to defeat the Pollinator Protection Act (SB 1282) on the Senate floor. If passed, this bill that would have created new protections for bees from harmful pesticides, along with ensuring that seeds and plants pre-treated with neonicotinoid pesticides be labeled as su
Bayer: Keep the Hives Alive!
Outside Bayer’s North Carolina headquarters this week, a beekeeper stood with 2.5 million dead bees — a symbol for the number of kills U.S. beekeepers face across the country annually — thanks in part to the bee-harming pesticides that Bayer and others manufacture. This was one stop on the beekeeper-led Keep the Hives Alive Tour , which made its way across the country during National Pollinator W
Let's protect rural kids from drift
Pesticide drift happens all too frequently, especially in rural California where homes, schools and agricultural fields can be nextdoor neighbors. Children — the most vulnerable members of these communities — are often the first to experience drift exposure and its resulting health impacts. Unfortunately, our regulatory process is so weak and broken that those responsible for drift too often get
Long-awaited action on atrazine (maybe)
EPA recently released its assessement of the ecological risks posed by the widely used herbicide atrazine. Agency scientists found that current exposures greatly exceed its "levels of concern" for chronic risk for birds, mammals and fish — by 22, 198, and 62 times, respectively. When it comes to wildlife harms, these new findings on atrazine are pretty damning. This Ecological Risk Asse
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THE HIGH-FAT HEP C DIET2 unread articles // actions
Atkins, ketones, methylglyoxal and cancer
What you lose on the swings you make up for on the roundabouts. Recently this study enjoyed a bit a revival as it was used in a presentation at a DAA meet. I'm not sure of the exact context but the Dietitians Association of Australia has been outstandingly fossilised in its attitude to low carb diets. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2005 Jun;1043:201-10. Ketosis leads to increased methylglyoxal production on t
#Context - Butter, eggs, and the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease and diabetes
When Ancel Keys started work on his hypothesis, in 1955, he reported that butter only accounted for 4.8% of fats consumed in the USA.[1] Remember that. It’s well-known that eggs are associated with type 2 diabetes in the USA, but there’s no such association in the rest of the world, and in Finland eggs have protective association with type 2 diabetes. “When stratified by geographic area, there wa
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REAL HISTORY BLOG1 unread article // actions
When you say #ImWithHer, this is what I hear, and it isn't pretty
I just want you to understand what I hear when you say "I'm with her." I hear: You support fracking. You support lying to people routinely. You support allowing government officials to deliberately circumvent Freedom of Information Act statutes for the preservation and accessibilty of records. You support wars against people who never attacked us and had no means to attack us. You are ok
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THE GALLOPING BEAVER3 unread articles // actions
Threats? Oh dear.
Often, people who issue threats are betraying the precarity of the own position. As a major potential F-35 customer, a lack of or continued postponement a Canadian order likely increases the cost of the F-35 for other customers, perhaps prohibitively. This could be terminal to the program as it would also impact US orders. More to the point, Canadians generally find naked threats terribly
Events unfold, the centre cannot hold
Sometimes things just happen. In the UK just a short time ago, prime minister David Cameron created a monster in the form of a suggestion that, despite being publicly pro-EU, he would open a conversation, and later a referendum about Britain's withdrawal from it. Lord knows just what he was thinking (my own view is that he thinks very hard but finds thinking very hard). Fear of UKIP's fear of
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SCREW YOU GUYS, I'M GOING HOME1 unread article // actions
10 Things Every Teen And Young Adult Should Know About Workplace Rights
If you're in high school or college, odds are you're looking for or starting a summer job or internship. Maybe you're even working during the school year. Of course, your school gave you detailed preparation on what your legal rights are when you work. Right? Ha. Not a chance. Schools do roughly zip to prepare teens for the real world workplace. You have to figure this stuff out on your own. If yo
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SYRIA COMMENT5 unread articles // actions
In the Line of Fire — the War Against the UN in Syria
In the Line of Fire — the War Against the UN in Syria By Cyrus Mahboubian, an NGO worker in Damascus (Pseudonym) For Syria Comment , July 4, 2016 Since the war in Syria began, aid delivery has been politicized. The anti-regime camp rejected the very notion of delivering aid through government held areas. Western countries who backed the insurgency and supported regime change pushed for most aid t
Quwat al-Ghadab: A Pro-Assad Christian Militia in Suqaylabiyah
By Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi Social media graphic for Quwat al-Ghadab (no official insignia/emblems in existence). Another appellation used in reference to these forces is Junud al-Masih (‘Soldiers of Christ’). Christians in the east of Syria, where Syriac liturgy denominations constitute the majority of Christians, are primarily known to have joined militias of Syriac orientation , such as the pro-
“Why the Islamic State Is Losing, and Why It Still Hopes to Win”
I have just published a new paper on the war against the so-called Islamic State over at The Century Foundation , arguing that the group is now clearly losing the war on the ground in Syria and Iraq. But the tide may turn, depending on what happens in the Syrian Civil War, among the rival Kurdish factions in northern Iraq, and with the increasingly tense situation in Baghdad. The introduction is
“The Asad Petition of 1936: Bashar’s Grandfather Was Pro-Unionist,” By Stefan Winter
The Asad Petition of 1936: Bashar’s Grandfather Was Pro-Unionist By Stefan Winter For Syria Comment , June 14, 2016 This week marks the 80th anniversary of a now famous petition, supposedly addressed by six ‘Alawi notables from the Latakia region—including Hafiz al-Asad’s grandfather Sulayman al-Asad—to French prime minister Léon Blum on 15 June 1936. The six ‘Alawi notables criticize the negotia
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THE EXISTENTIALIST COWBOY1 unread article // actions
A Genius, A Saint, and SCOTUS Agree: Conspiracies Exist! by Len Hart The right wing spent the 1950s trying to convince ...
A Genius, A Saint, and SCOTUS Agree: Conspiracies Exist! by Len Hart The right wing spent the 1950s trying to convince the nation that it was threatened by a vast world wide communist conspiracy. Now the right wing is trying to convince the nation that conspiracies don't exist at all! Right wingers have targeted Tin Foil Hatters for ridicule when it was not so long ago that the term applied bette
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THE ERGOSPHERE5 unread articles // actions
What KQED and FAIR aren't fair to
Straight talk. I posted this to KQED's discussion of the Diablo Canyon shutdown last night: But as more renewable energy comes online, running renewables, natural gas and other power sources all together sometimes creates more power than the state needs. At those times, the California ISO has to switch off solar farms to avoid overloading the grid. Retiring Diablo Canyon could help with that
Radiophobia continues to keep people from their homes - NOT Japan either!
In the Marshall Islands. Here's the money quote from the abstract of a paper on the continued "unsafety" of living on the former nuclear test site: Measurable excess radiation could be expected from the decay of 137Cs produced by the US nuclear testing program there from 1946 to 1958. These recordings are of relevance to safety of human habitation and resettlement... and relatively high
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THE EARTH AND MAN: SETTING THE STAGE7 unread articles // actions
Global "Climate Change" Is a Lie, and Must Be Denied
Climatedepot continues to inform about the political war against "climate deniers", with a post, "Newsweek: Does Exxon Have a Constitutional Right to Deny Climate Change?" My reaction: Does anyone have a Constitutional right to deny a lie? That is what the political phrase "climate change" is. And never mind "Constitutional", Newsweek, the question should b
A "Climate-Political Nightmare", But So Much More
The notrickszone site has a post, on the "climate-political nightmare" of Brexit (Britain leaving the European Union, due to a referendum of its outraged population, not its feckless political leaders). My response: Here's a new word (I haven't seen it used yet, anyway), to describe the situation: Dementia. Total dementia, being "serious" about "climate policy". The
What Incompetent Climate Science Has Wrought: A Criminal Conspiracy on the Left, an Elitist Disregard on the Right
I want to write only about science here (and I won't take any political comments), but I have found that I cannot. Suppressive, false dogmas are ascendant, not just among scientists, but among our political leaders. And the latter need to be addressed, and reined in from what has become, on one side at least, criminal activity at the highest level against the fundamental right of freedom of speec
No Getting Around It
The notrickszone site has a post debunking an AGW alarmist's theory about a slowdown in the Atlantic ocean circulation, to which I responded: Yet this article (quoting from climatecentral.org) still says: "...greenhouse gas pollution causes ice sheets to melt, which prior research has shown is causing the circulation to slow overall." So it doesn't even touch the core delusion, that the
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A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE5 unread articles // actions
Chasing Footnotes, Jesse Marcel and the Gouge
In the last few days I have been in communication with a number of friends about the Roswell case and what I have discovered in my reinvestigation of it. At one point I had mentioned that the description of the gouge on the debris field was problematic because there was only Bill Brazel who had reported it. The response was there were three other witnesses who had described the gouge complete wit
Ramey Memo and the $10,000 Reward
In recent posts about the Ramey Memo, there have been complaints about the lack of progress in clarifying the text so that much of it can be read to most people's satisfaction. It is quite possible we will never be able to fully clarify the text but that won’t stop us trying. Photo copyright by the University of Texas at Arlington. Many people who visit here will be aware of David Rudiak’s on-goi
Ed Ruppelt's Anti-UFO Crash Statement
As many of you know, my book Roswell in the 21 st Century is out in a few weeks. Captain Ed Ruppelt While reviewing the case files, documentation, witness interviews, the hundreds of video and audio tapes, and books and magazine articles, I had my eyes open for something new in the way of documentation. While I didn’t find any that mentioned Roswell specifically, I did find a few that referred to
Fort Itaipu and Olavo Fontes Revisited
My recent postings on Fort Itaipu has ignited a firestorm of controversy. Well, not exactly. It sparked a semi-heated debate about the incident that seems to be more directed at the use of the term “fraudulent” in conjunction with information developed by Dr. Olavo Fontes than it was the facts of the case. It seems the alleged “character assassination” of Fontes was the source of the annoyance. D
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GREG MANKIW'S BLOG9 unread articles // actions
Some Questions for Mr Trump
I see you recently opened up a golf course in Scotland. I presume that part of your business plan is for some Americans to take vacations to play there. But this raises some thorny questions. You complain constantly about American firms moving jobs overseas. But couldn't you have opened up your golf course here in the United States? Wouldn't that have created jobs for American caddies and groundsk
On the Alesina Hypothesis
In my recent NY Times article , I explored several hypotheses to explain slow growth. One was based on work by Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna suggesting that the standard Keynesian view of tax and spending multipliers is inconsistent with the international evidence. Paul Krugman says the Alesina-Ardagna work has been "refuted." Nothing could be further from the truth. See this recent
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WELCOME BACK TO POTTERSVILLE26 unread articles // actions
The Two Biggest Takeaways from the Comey Hearing
The newest takeaway from the #ComeyHearing ... pic.twitter.com/eaUh7J6otp — Robert Crawford (@jurassicpork59) July 7, 2016 Takeaways from the #ComeyHearing : Private email servers are set up accidentally & old women can't understand how email works. — Robert Crawford (@jurassicpork59) July 7, 2016 Consider this an open thread. Mrs. JP and I will be in and out all day since today's her birthda
The Banality of Stupidity
(Those of you who are active on social media probably are well aware of the firestorm that resulted when someone on Donald Trump's digital media team decided to use a Star of David in calling out Hillary Clinton on her corruption. Dana Schwartz, Entertainment writer for the Observer , owned by Trump's son in law Jared Kushner, wrote an open letter to her boss entitled "An Open Letter to Jare
The Fix is In
Yep. The FBI is all in for Clinton. The fix is in. https://t.co/Otr9SKme4l pic.twitter.com/WeAsatCB3M — Robert Crawford (@jurassicpork59) July 5, 2016 Yes, folks. For the first time in American history, the federal government just declared a woman too stupid and incompetent to use email is suffering from Affluenza and in the process has cleared the way to the White House where more secrets and nu
4th of July Drunk Bloggong
OK, I've been guilty of drunk blogging once or twice in my 11 year-long history of blogging but I have a philosophy about that that I borrowed from Denis Leary: "If I wanna smear my naked body with Lime Jello-O and smoke a cigar the size of Cincinnati I can and you wanna know why? The US. fucking. Constitution. O. Kay ...?" (That's a paraphrase but a close one.) So, if I wanna get drunk
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MORTON'S MUSINGS11 unread articles // actions
Private Prosecutions
Most criminal cases are started when someone complains to the police and, following investigation, the police lay charges. The police will lay a charge when they conclude there are grounds to believe an offence has occurred, they believe they know who is responsible and there are no good reasons not to proceed. Sometimes the police decline to lay a charge even though it is possible a valid charge
Personal Liability of Counsel for Costs
Rule 57.07 provides: LIABILITY OF LAWYER FOR COSTS 57.07 (1) Where a lawyer for a party has caused costs to be incurred without reasonable cause or to be wasted by undue delay, negligence or other default, the court may make an order, … (c) requiring the lawyer personally to pay the costs of any party. O. Reg. 575/07, s. 26. The law on the personal liability of counsel for costs is not normally s
Fundamental Freedoms and Limits on Rights and Freedoms
The Canadian Constitution protects specific "fundamental freedoms"; these freedoms are seen as the core of Canadian liberty and are protected against governmental infringement at any level. The fundamental freedoms are freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of belief, freedom of peaceful assembly, and freedom of association. These freedoms are seen as be
Three years delay for a three day trial excessive
Today's brief Supreme Court decision in R. v. Vassell, 2016 SCC 26 is important and makes clear the issue of unreasonable delay is still very real: [ 3] Turning to the s. 11 ( b ) issue, when a violation is raised, courts must be careful not to miss the forest for the trees ( R. v. Godin , 2009 SCC 26, [2009] 2 S.C.R. 3, at para. 18). The forest in this case is plain as day. At every opportunity,
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MUSINGS ON IRAQ25 unread articles // actions
Iraq’s Revenues Up Despite Decline In Oil Exports
Iraq’s oil exports declined for a second month in a row in June 2016. Ironically, prices continued to rise leading to an increase in revenue. Unfortunately the country was still not able to earn enough to meet its minimum budget requirements. In June Iraq exported an average of 3.175 million barrels a day. That was down from May’s 3.2 million, and April’s 3.363, and was the lowest amount of the y
How Did Fallujah Fall So Quickly To Iraq’s Forces?
The Iraqi forces were able to free Fallujah in an amazingly quick time. The earlier Ramadi campaign took a total of four months to fully secure the city. In comparison, the fight for Fallujah lasted just five weeks. This was a huge surprise since the Islamic State had been in the city since January 2014, which gave it ample time to build up its usual defense in depth like it had in Tikrit and Ram
Security In Iraq, Jun 22-28, 2016
The fourth week of June 2016 saw a dip in violence in Iraq. That is part of the ebb and flow of security in the country. During the week Fallujah was declared completely freed, while operations were continuing in the surrounding areas and the rest of Anbar, along with new ones in Ninewa and Salahaddin. There were 118 incidents from June 22-28. That was the lowest amount for the month and the year
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NEW ORLEANS LADDER12 unread articles // actions
Bob Dylan's New Orleans, in Oil on Canvas ~ David Alm, Forbes
Bob Dylan's New Orleans, in Oil on Canvas ~ David Alm, Forbes
Bayou Benediction: A Taste of Chef Melissa Martin’s Mosquito Supper Club ~Monica Willis, Modern Farmer
Bayou Benediction: A Taste of Chef Melissa Martin’s Mosquito Supper Club ~Monica Willis, Modern Farmer
"Hey, Tidy, whada'ya in for?" "Me? *Artifyin." Are those painted electrical boxes outlaw art? ~ Dou...
"Hey, Tidy, whada'ya in for?" "Me? *Artifyin." Are those painted electrical boxes outlaw art? ~ Doug MacCash ~Tidy claims she had an informal hand-shake arrangement with the former Public Works director when she started the project in 2010, and she is a bit bewildered that municipal leaders allowed 104 of the city's electrical boxes to be *artified* , as she puts it, without o
Happy 3rd of July at City Park! Happy 3rd of July Happy 3rd of July Happy 3rd of July Happy 3rd of July Happy 3rd of Ju...
Happy 3rd of July at City Park! Happy 3rd of July Happy 3rd of July Happy 3rd of July Happy 3rd of July Happy 3rd of July
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NORTHERN REFLECTIONS31 unread articles // actions
Making Matters Worse
When bigots and buffoons -- like Nigel Farage and Donald Trump -- oppose world trade deals, Linda McQuaig writes , they give the globalizers plenty of ammunition: Having such a collection of bigots and boors opposing “globalization” may turn out to be a boon for those promoting globalization — that is, the laws that govern the global economy. This is unfortunate, since these laws — and the intern
Wandering In The Desert
Jason Kenny is going home to Alberta. What's that mean? Michael den Tandt writes : One possible answer is that Kenney has already been there, done that, having effectively put Harper over the top in 2011 with his tireless outreach to new Canadians (the former PM gave partial credit for the victory to Kenney, explicitly, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal in September of 2014). Another i
Harbingers Of The Future?
Nigel Farage has resigned. But the arrogance and hypocrisy he leaves behind will not depart with him. His speech to the European Parliament on the day after the Brexit vote was teeming with his usual swill. Dan Leger writes : Farage’s gloating oration in Brussels followed the victory by anti-EU forces in the U.K.’s ill-considered Brexit referendum. In the speech, Farage repeatedly insulted his fe
Turning Swimming Pools Into Cesspools
Bill Clinton did Hillary no favours last week when he "accidentally" met with U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch. But he did give Donald Trump lots of ammunition to use against "crooked Hillary:" Michael Harris writes : The way Trump tells it, Hillary is a kind of entrepreneurial Benedict Arnold, personally raking in millions along with her famous husband under the guise of p
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FREE PLANET20 unread articles // actions
Aston Martin and Adrian Newey - AM RB 001 - oops, bit of a mangasm happened
Aston Martin and Adrian Newey have gone insane with this new £2,000,000 V12-engined hybridised reverse gear'd 1,000 bhp supercar...
Athanasios Komianos - The Future Diaries of Paul Amadeus Dienach - Free Planet not due until 2396
this is kinda interesting... in 1922, Paul Amadeus Dienach, slipped into a narcoleptic coma for almost a year. When he came out of it, he started to fill a (vast) diary with the experiences he said happened to him while he was in this state. These diary entries tell the story of how Dienach spent his time in the future, to be exact the year 3906 AD. His visions of the current time are exceptional
Mike Philbin - Introversions paintings - three new 50cm by 50cm smooth-smear abstracts....
so, where to go now with this conceptual Philbin-hands art style? As soon as I finished these three latest abstracts, below, I was very happy with the results. The spontaneity, the bravery, the flow of the colour scheme through the three non-connected works. Well, connected via red, purple, blue as a range scheme idea plaything concept. But not really ever intended to be a triptych or three parts
abstract artist - Puran Khadka - Wholeness
enough of all this politics, what a Free Planet needs is more contemplative philosophers aka artists. One of the most stylistically tenacious I've stumbled across accidentally whilst grazing is 35-year professional abstract artist Puran Khandka who uses four colours in his work. Red. Grey. Black. White. And while this offers a Mondrian-like machine-metric to the emotio-visual experience for both
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