I sort of suspected it might be snowing when I looked out the window that day. But you know, it could have been just a big wedding with lots of confetti. Or possibly a celebration of Mr. Irving being named to another hall of fame for philan---philiant....you know...
But Wednesday's front page headline broke the real story. "Metro Blasted By Snow". So there.
Moving right along, A3 had a photo that looked familiar, a photo of firemen looking at a fire. Sure enough. it was almost identical to a photo that appeared Tuesday of the same fire, but this time with more firemen looking at it. The second story was briefer, though. It just said that the fire wasn't suspicious.
A6 has a really big, suitable for hanging photo of premier Gallant. It accompanies a half-page story that he's going to give a speech on the economy. The story said that he said what he was going to stay in his speech.
And, in this province in which we are all, rich and poor, equal, tickets to hear him in Fredericton went up to $235. Or there were tables at which you could sit to watch him on a big screen at the Casino for only $825 a table. (That information just about two paragraphs above where the premier is quoted about his concern for "...helping families that are struggling across the province.")
This, of course, will be reassuring for struggling Monctonians with $825 to share a table.
If there is anything worth reading on the editorial or op ed pages for Wednesday, please let me know.
_____________________________________________________________________
In Thursday's A section the pace picks up. "Gallant talks tough in address". Wow! Wednesday's story was right. Gallant did give a speech. And A9 has more of the speech (and another photo in case you've forgotten what he looked like.). And he did talk tough and right to the point when he said things like, 'We need to believe in ourselves.' And we can be sure that he did talk tough because he said, "we need to be tough."
Way to lay it on the line, baby.
Alec Bruce has an excellent column on early childhood education.
Norbert has a column praising the New Brunswick Health Council, a group that, essentially, represents the interests of the rich (sorry - entrepreneurs and their expensive families.) It's his usual line that governments, civil servants, doctors are congenitally stupid. But rich people (sorry, entrepreneurs) know everything about everything - and that must be in the genes, too, because it runs in families. (Get off your knees, Norbert. the next one has a rear end that's really high.)
Rod Allen is back to writing pointless columns that dazzle us with how very, very clever he is. Beth Lyons is more useful with a 'good news' column about the improving status of women.
_________________________________________________________________________
To turn to NewsToday for both days,Wednesdays' B1 has a photo of Auschwhitz death camp with the headline, "Jewish leader warns that Jews are again being demonized". That's not quite facing reality.
Certainly, the old, anti-semitism is still there. It never completely left. That's true in Canada, the US, and very true in much of Europe. But the most recent rise in hostility does not come from the old anti-semites. It comes from the behaviour of Israel. Many, many Jews in Europe, the US, Canada and in Israel, itself, are furious about racism, bullying, and aggression by the state of Israel. They have a movement called Peace Now which includes large numbers of Zionists (people who support the idea of a Jewish homeland in Israel).
The Israeli government supports powerful lobbies throughout the western world to make sure that only the official Israeli view gets known. Jews who oppose it often find themselves isolated. Jewish organizations have been infiltrated to put out a consistent 'Israel is always right' message. Politicians like Harper support all this because there are votes in supporting it. As one result, Canadian can curse, denigrate, badmouth native peoples all they like. English and French in Quebec can happily discriminate against each other. Chinese, Japanese, Blacks are pretty much fair game. But criticize Israel, and you could be in legal trouble.
Read the story on Wednesday B1 about this anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945. Notice that it says almost nothing about the camp. (There was an excellent story about a survivor that appeared in the Irving press a few days ago.) But Wednesday's story is all about hatreds - of Muslims, Russians...
In a touch of irony it tells of a survivor who was in tears as he pleaded with world leaders to fight for tolerance. But that was one sentence. The rest of the story was about who we should hate.
Do you think that the Irving press would have the courage (or even the intelligence) to write a headline "Palesitnians are being demonized by Jews"?
In the same issue, there is a story on B4. The B1 story made a big issue of Putin not being at Auschwitz. In fact, Obama wasn't there, either. We find him on B4 paying respect for deceased King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the world's champion beheader and denier of human rights, the man who supplied the Syrian "rebels" and ISIL with money.
But Obama says it's best to deal with issues like human right by being nice and talking to people. Yes. But sometimes, of course, you can't talk. You have to kill a million or so. They've been talking to the kings of Saudi Arabia for almost a hundred years with no results. I'm so happy to see Obama is still being patient, and talking.
Funny, though. When Cuba kicked out its dictator, it didn't take away human rights. (There were no such rights to take away - and the US certainly never asked the dictator to restore them.) Indeed, Cuba gave its people rights Americans didn't have yet - free education all the way to university, medicare, basic income help.... And the US didn't talk. It sponsored an invasions, terrorist attacks (no. they couldn't have. Only Muslims do that.) and they imposed an (illegal) trade embargo that kept Cuba poor.
B6 has a great story "Obama says laws must ensure drones are safe and don't violate privacy." And I'm sure he's for real. But the US violates privacy of its citizens more than any country in history, and part of it is the use of drones. As for safety, drones are used daily to murder people, including civilians, in other countries.
Any thoughts, Rod? Hump?
B5 has a brief story about Ukraine, told entirely from the point of view of the Kyiv government. This story is one that actually should be a prominent one - that tells us something. The US seems to be moving troops in on the ground (as advisors, of course). It is also building up its forces in the region. Only a fool could fail to realize that the US wants a war with Russia. And the government of Ukraine wants the US - and Europe and us in a war with Russia. We already have military units there.
The US is doing it to protect Ukraine from Russia? Get real. No major country goes to war for any reason but to satisfy the wishes of its leaders. The leaders who determine American foreign policy are greedy capitalists (sorry, highly motivated entrepreneurs - and philanthropists). Ideally, they would like Putin to back off and give them whatever they want. That is not likely to happen. What is more likely is the forming of a huge coalition to put an end to centuries of western dictation. And that could well decide "our" leaders to go for a war that would almost certainly become nuclear.
_______________________________________________________________________
NewsToday is even feebler in the Thursday edition.
My eye was caught by a story on B3 about how angry Afghanistan veterans are that medical help promised to them has not only been ignored by the Harper government, but it has spent $700,000 fighting the veterans in court. That's odd. Veterans have a record of voting Conservative, and nobody pays attention to voting blocs the way Harper does. So why is he ignoring and even harrassing the veterans?
Because there aren't enough of them to matter in an election. It's as simple as that. Harper is crafty. But he's also obvious. We owe it to the veterans to remember that on election day.
B3 has a small story that should be a big one. 'Scientists say "loopy" jet stream behind recent weird weather". Apparently, warmer weather is turning our prairie provinces into dry, brushland. The same jet stream is turning Texaas cold. (There wasn't room for those last sentence in the story. I got them from other sources.)
So, climate change is happening, climate changes which mean, at the least, enormous changes in national economies, huge shifts in population, mass starvation....... Any comment from our columnists? Any entrepreneurs or other "community leaders" working on answers?
Any chance of the Irving press giving rather more attention to these changes? Any idea what's causing these changes? And don't waste time and effort questioning those stupid scientists and bureaucrats. Go to an expert who can solve any problem. Ask Mr. Irving.
There are also stories about 'extremists' and 'terrorists'. Exactly what do those words mean? Is someone who makes billions of dollars out of making millions of people poor an extremist? Is someone who terrorizes a whole society a terrorist? Let's see, our side killed. tortured, starved, drone-bombed millions of people just since the start of this young century. We've killed or impoverished millions in the Congo, Guatemala, in fact, in a good deal of Africa and Latin America. We've supported Saudi Arabia with its worst record in human rights in the world.
But no, that's not extremism or terrorism. That's just good entrepeneurship. And the Kings of Saudi Arabia have not been murderous or cruel - well, except for dealing with witches and and women who drive cars.. (Indeed, Saudi kings are almost the only Muslims who have not been extremists and terrorists. So it must be genetics that make Saudis a superior race, almost like us Christians.)
But our news media routinely use the words extremist and terrorist - and we all know what they mean by them. And that's very good propaganda.
B3 also has a story about how our spy agency spies on all of us. Don't worry, though. Our government would never allow it to intrude on our privacy. They only look at terrorist stuff. (It is worrying, though, that there must be millions of terrorists in Canada. How else to explain the huge list of files downloaded?)
And what is a terrorist? Well, it depends - but our government isn't telling us that, either. However, we do know that our spies report to a council of business leaders twice a year. That makes sense because business leaders know more about foreign affairs and terrorism than bureaucrats do. And it's very good of the business leaders to take off time to deal with these problems.
Oh, a special target is the smartphone. Canada is a world leader in spying on smartphones. I guess a smartphone is a sure giveaway that you're a extremist terrorist.
None of the above information comes from our government. It comes from a whistleblower. Of course, it's hard to trust whistleblowers because so many end up in jail. How unlike, how very unlike our business leaders.
The reality is that we live in a police state. That's not calling names like extremist and terrorist. It is actually what police state means.
Oh, on B4, France wants Canada to be on the UN Security Council, a position held for many years by Canada in the days when the world took us seriously. We were defeated in our last try because we're so obviously toadies to the US government. To make it worse, nobody with any knowledge of foreign affairs takes Harper seriously. Add to that the fact that world alliance changes are happening very, very quickly.
And we aren't.
But Wednesday's front page headline broke the real story. "Metro Blasted By Snow". So there.
Moving right along, A3 had a photo that looked familiar, a photo of firemen looking at a fire. Sure enough. it was almost identical to a photo that appeared Tuesday of the same fire, but this time with more firemen looking at it. The second story was briefer, though. It just said that the fire wasn't suspicious.
A6 has a really big, suitable for hanging photo of premier Gallant. It accompanies a half-page story that he's going to give a speech on the economy. The story said that he said what he was going to stay in his speech.
And, in this province in which we are all, rich and poor, equal, tickets to hear him in Fredericton went up to $235. Or there were tables at which you could sit to watch him on a big screen at the Casino for only $825 a table. (That information just about two paragraphs above where the premier is quoted about his concern for "...helping families that are struggling across the province.")
This, of course, will be reassuring for struggling Monctonians with $825 to share a table.
If there is anything worth reading on the editorial or op ed pages for Wednesday, please let me know.
_____________________________________________________________________
In Thursday's A section the pace picks up. "Gallant talks tough in address". Wow! Wednesday's story was right. Gallant did give a speech. And A9 has more of the speech (and another photo in case you've forgotten what he looked like.). And he did talk tough and right to the point when he said things like, 'We need to believe in ourselves.' And we can be sure that he did talk tough because he said, "we need to be tough."
Way to lay it on the line, baby.
Alec Bruce has an excellent column on early childhood education.
Norbert has a column praising the New Brunswick Health Council, a group that, essentially, represents the interests of the rich (sorry - entrepreneurs and their expensive families.) It's his usual line that governments, civil servants, doctors are congenitally stupid. But rich people (sorry, entrepreneurs) know everything about everything - and that must be in the genes, too, because it runs in families. (Get off your knees, Norbert. the next one has a rear end that's really high.)
Rod Allen is back to writing pointless columns that dazzle us with how very, very clever he is. Beth Lyons is more useful with a 'good news' column about the improving status of women.
_________________________________________________________________________
To turn to NewsToday for both days,Wednesdays' B1 has a photo of Auschwhitz death camp with the headline, "Jewish leader warns that Jews are again being demonized". That's not quite facing reality.
Certainly, the old, anti-semitism is still there. It never completely left. That's true in Canada, the US, and very true in much of Europe. But the most recent rise in hostility does not come from the old anti-semites. It comes from the behaviour of Israel. Many, many Jews in Europe, the US, Canada and in Israel, itself, are furious about racism, bullying, and aggression by the state of Israel. They have a movement called Peace Now which includes large numbers of Zionists (people who support the idea of a Jewish homeland in Israel).
The Israeli government supports powerful lobbies throughout the western world to make sure that only the official Israeli view gets known. Jews who oppose it often find themselves isolated. Jewish organizations have been infiltrated to put out a consistent 'Israel is always right' message. Politicians like Harper support all this because there are votes in supporting it. As one result, Canadian can curse, denigrate, badmouth native peoples all they like. English and French in Quebec can happily discriminate against each other. Chinese, Japanese, Blacks are pretty much fair game. But criticize Israel, and you could be in legal trouble.
Read the story on Wednesday B1 about this anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945. Notice that it says almost nothing about the camp. (There was an excellent story about a survivor that appeared in the Irving press a few days ago.) But Wednesday's story is all about hatreds - of Muslims, Russians...
In a touch of irony it tells of a survivor who was in tears as he pleaded with world leaders to fight for tolerance. But that was one sentence. The rest of the story was about who we should hate.
Do you think that the Irving press would have the courage (or even the intelligence) to write a headline "Palesitnians are being demonized by Jews"?
In the same issue, there is a story on B4. The B1 story made a big issue of Putin not being at Auschwitz. In fact, Obama wasn't there, either. We find him on B4 paying respect for deceased King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the world's champion beheader and denier of human rights, the man who supplied the Syrian "rebels" and ISIL with money.
But Obama says it's best to deal with issues like human right by being nice and talking to people. Yes. But sometimes, of course, you can't talk. You have to kill a million or so. They've been talking to the kings of Saudi Arabia for almost a hundred years with no results. I'm so happy to see Obama is still being patient, and talking.
Funny, though. When Cuba kicked out its dictator, it didn't take away human rights. (There were no such rights to take away - and the US certainly never asked the dictator to restore them.) Indeed, Cuba gave its people rights Americans didn't have yet - free education all the way to university, medicare, basic income help.... And the US didn't talk. It sponsored an invasions, terrorist attacks (no. they couldn't have. Only Muslims do that.) and they imposed an (illegal) trade embargo that kept Cuba poor.
B6 has a great story "Obama says laws must ensure drones are safe and don't violate privacy." And I'm sure he's for real. But the US violates privacy of its citizens more than any country in history, and part of it is the use of drones. As for safety, drones are used daily to murder people, including civilians, in other countries.
Any thoughts, Rod? Hump?
B5 has a brief story about Ukraine, told entirely from the point of view of the Kyiv government. This story is one that actually should be a prominent one - that tells us something. The US seems to be moving troops in on the ground (as advisors, of course). It is also building up its forces in the region. Only a fool could fail to realize that the US wants a war with Russia. And the government of Ukraine wants the US - and Europe and us in a war with Russia. We already have military units there.
The US is doing it to protect Ukraine from Russia? Get real. No major country goes to war for any reason but to satisfy the wishes of its leaders. The leaders who determine American foreign policy are greedy capitalists (sorry, highly motivated entrepreneurs - and philanthropists). Ideally, they would like Putin to back off and give them whatever they want. That is not likely to happen. What is more likely is the forming of a huge coalition to put an end to centuries of western dictation. And that could well decide "our" leaders to go for a war that would almost certainly become nuclear.
_______________________________________________________________________
NewsToday is even feebler in the Thursday edition.
My eye was caught by a story on B3 about how angry Afghanistan veterans are that medical help promised to them has not only been ignored by the Harper government, but it has spent $700,000 fighting the veterans in court. That's odd. Veterans have a record of voting Conservative, and nobody pays attention to voting blocs the way Harper does. So why is he ignoring and even harrassing the veterans?
Because there aren't enough of them to matter in an election. It's as simple as that. Harper is crafty. But he's also obvious. We owe it to the veterans to remember that on election day.
B3 has a small story that should be a big one. 'Scientists say "loopy" jet stream behind recent weird weather". Apparently, warmer weather is turning our prairie provinces into dry, brushland. The same jet stream is turning Texaas cold. (There wasn't room for those last sentence in the story. I got them from other sources.)
So, climate change is happening, climate changes which mean, at the least, enormous changes in national economies, huge shifts in population, mass starvation....... Any comment from our columnists? Any entrepreneurs or other "community leaders" working on answers?
Any chance of the Irving press giving rather more attention to these changes? Any idea what's causing these changes? And don't waste time and effort questioning those stupid scientists and bureaucrats. Go to an expert who can solve any problem. Ask Mr. Irving.
There are also stories about 'extremists' and 'terrorists'. Exactly what do those words mean? Is someone who makes billions of dollars out of making millions of people poor an extremist? Is someone who terrorizes a whole society a terrorist? Let's see, our side killed. tortured, starved, drone-bombed millions of people just since the start of this young century. We've killed or impoverished millions in the Congo, Guatemala, in fact, in a good deal of Africa and Latin America. We've supported Saudi Arabia with its worst record in human rights in the world.
But no, that's not extremism or terrorism. That's just good entrepeneurship. And the Kings of Saudi Arabia have not been murderous or cruel - well, except for dealing with witches and and women who drive cars.. (Indeed, Saudi kings are almost the only Muslims who have not been extremists and terrorists. So it must be genetics that make Saudis a superior race, almost like us Christians.)
But our news media routinely use the words extremist and terrorist - and we all know what they mean by them. And that's very good propaganda.
B3 also has a story about how our spy agency spies on all of us. Don't worry, though. Our government would never allow it to intrude on our privacy. They only look at terrorist stuff. (It is worrying, though, that there must be millions of terrorists in Canada. How else to explain the huge list of files downloaded?)
And what is a terrorist? Well, it depends - but our government isn't telling us that, either. However, we do know that our spies report to a council of business leaders twice a year. That makes sense because business leaders know more about foreign affairs and terrorism than bureaucrats do. And it's very good of the business leaders to take off time to deal with these problems.
Oh, a special target is the smartphone. Canada is a world leader in spying on smartphones. I guess a smartphone is a sure giveaway that you're a extremist terrorist.
None of the above information comes from our government. It comes from a whistleblower. Of course, it's hard to trust whistleblowers because so many end up in jail. How unlike, how very unlike our business leaders.
The reality is that we live in a police state. That's not calling names like extremist and terrorist. It is actually what police state means.
Oh, on B4, France wants Canada to be on the UN Security Council, a position held for many years by Canada in the days when the world took us seriously. We were defeated in our last try because we're so obviously toadies to the US government. To make it worse, nobody with any knowledge of foreign affairs takes Harper seriously. Add to that the fact that world alliance changes are happening very, very quickly.
And we aren't.
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