March 2016

In celebration of women who fight to win

Image: Screenshot of Kurdish women soldiers from RT documentary, Women Vs ISIS.

By Carl Dow
Editor and Publisher
True North Perspective/True North Humanist Perspective

At True North Perspective/True North Humanist Perspective every day is Women's Day. Therefore, it makes me feel a little uneasy, if not embarrassed, to offer special, favourable acknowledgement of the complementary sex on Tuesday 8 March because it should go without saying. However, considering a world-wide context wherein so many women are brutally treated simply because they are women prompts me to put aside my personal reluctance and bow to custom.

But herein we don't offer stories about women as victims. Our emphasis is on women who fight and win. Click here to read more and to watch an important video on the heroic women battling ISIS in Syria!


Beware The Gender Trap

Image: Detail of illustration by Jared Rodriguez via Truthout.

Hillary Clinton's Faux Feminism

By Carl Dow
Editor and Publisher
True North Perspective
True North Humanist Perspective

Below is a piece by Liza Featherstone, editor of False Choices: The Faux Feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Liza Featherstone soberly draws attention to Clinton's dishonesty and betrayal of women's interests in the United States.

It's also important to take a quick look at Clinton's aggression and betrayal of women's interests off shore. (More)

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E-mails reveal Hilary Clinton's role in destruction

of democracy and military coup in Honduras (More)


 
The Old Man's Last Sauna
 
'Life is scary, frustrating and sometimes funny. All of these themes are explored in Carl Dow’s collection of short stories, told with the pristine elegance that we haven’t seen since the likes of Stephen Leacock or even Pierre Berton.'
— Award-winning author Emily-Jane Hills Orford
 
Image: Cover of The Old Man's Last Sauna, by Carl Dow.
 


Click here for True North Humanist Perspective

Brilliant director, writer of critical analyses in prose and poetry

Lia Tarachansky

A Jew reports from Israel and Palestine

The Wife Of The Accused

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Syria is shipping 700,000 tons of oranges to Russia

_________

To understand U.S. politics be sure to read

this profound backgrounder by Matt Taibbi

_______

‘Russians made peace possible’

Ex-NATO military committee chief praises Syria op

_______

A mini world war rages in the fields of Aleppo

_______

'Ukraine: moral, political black hole on brink of collapse'

_______

  Max Keiser:

'. . . enough of George Soros and his ride to nowhere?'

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YOU'LL FIND ALL THIS AND MORE BY CLICKING HERE FOR

TrueNorth Humanist Perspective


True North Perspective publishes in
the best traditions of Canadian journalism
If you think it's too radical, please rea
 
Wisdom is a result of a happy marriage between intelligence and experience
Carl Dow, Editor and Publisher, True North Perspective
 
True North Perspective
Vol. 11, No. 04 (364)
March 2016
 

Editor's Notes

Two rational voices from the Conservative

side of the international political spectrum

Image: True North Perspective Editor and Publisher Carl Dow. Photo by the Phantom Phographer.

Simon Heffer, recently writing in the London, England, Conservative The Sunday Telegraph, lamented the fall from grace of the United States of America on the international stage.

Heffer wrote: "Since George H.W. Bush left office in 1993, America has been ruled by a spin-obsessed sex addict, a dangerous halfwit, and a clever incompetent. They all bore the imprimatur of their respective party machines. For much of America, Barack Obama is the last straw. He is the creator of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. If one of them becomes president — and I wouldn't rule it out — and the world doesn't like it, they know whom to blame."

Simon Heffer restores some dignity to the Conservative cause. Another voice from the ranks of the rational political right is that of Lieutenant General Harald Kujat, who was chief of staff of the Bundeswehr (German armed forces) from 2000-2002, and served as NATO’s Military Committee chairman from 2002-2005.

During an interview on the Syrian crisis with Passauer Neue Presse newspaper Kujat said Russia was the first to lay the groundwork for peace in Syria by launching its anti-IS bombing operation 30 September 2015, while both Washington and Brussels lacked any kind of strategy.

“The Russians have made the peace process [in Syria] possible,” he told the newspaper on Friday 12 February.

The West was at standstill until September 2015, Kujat said: “Neither the Americans nor the Europeans had any strategy for a peaceful Syria. Both weren’t prepared to be really involved. The Russians did it and opened a window for political solution.”

Credit where credit due, as they say.

It's reassuring to experience this kind of honest appraisal rising out of a churning sea of face-saving propaganda permeated by lies that is unashamedly spewed by the neo-con controlled Washington of today.

Thanks for your donations but more have to step up to the plate

Cover of The Old Man's Last Sauna, by Carl Dow. Click to purchase.Meanwhile, we worker bees at True North Perspective/True North Humanist Perspective have been encouraged by the response to our appeal for money. To those of you who have come through we offer our heartfelt thanks.

To the majority of our readers who are holding back, we urge you, shake loose some change and send it to us. This money is our lifeblood. Without this nourishment we'll simply die.

And a unique news and news analysis service will evaporate.

Meanwhile, we'll see you in April, so take it easy, but take it.

Looking forward

Carl Dow

Editor and Publisher
True North Perspective
True North Humanist Perspective

Without bias we are determined

to uncover the truth and pass it on to you

But we can only keep doing it with your help!

Your donation - be it $10, $25, $100 or whatever you can afford - will help ensure we will be able to get you the accurate information you need to understand the rapidly-changing world around you, news and analysis you won't get from the corporate-owned mainstream media.

Donate now!

 
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From the Desk of Nick Aplin, Contributing Editor

Op Ed

Mark Carney’s 'last chance saloon' warning

on the global economy, future of capitalism

Image: Detail of photo of Mark Carney speaking in 2016, via Channel4.com.

' . . . only a co-ordinated turn to policies that revive growth by governments will prevent a 1930s style exit into deglobalisation.'

By Paul Mason
Channel 4 News, England

26 February 2016 — Thursday 25 February, Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, issued a stark warning about the future of capitalism. Here is what he said:  “The global economy risks becoming trapped in a low growth, low inflation, low interest rate equilibrium.”

I would concur with that except for the word “equilibrium”. If growth collapses; if you can’t earn interest on capital invested; and if inflation cannot be relied on to erode the world’s 270 trillion dollar debts, the last thing you’re going to get is anything like equilibrium.

In fact you’re going to get a second financial collapse, starting in China and the emerging markets where debt has rocketed, and this time the monetary policy tools central bankers have used to revived the economy after 2008 will be – as Carney admits – of very limited use. (More)


The Binkley Report

Alex Binkley is a foremost political and economic analyst, whose website is www.alexbinkley.com. Readers will be aware that his columns in True North Perspective have foreseen political and economic developments in Canada. In this issue ...

The hungry Elephant in the Room

Canada's agri-business can meet challenge of climate change

By Alex Binkley
True North Perspective

In all the hype and spin about the potential benefits of new free trade agreements, there’s rarely any mention of what should be a fact of life for farmers and the food industry.Image: Cover of Humanity's Saving Grace, a novel by Alex Binkley. Click to purchase at Amazon.ca

Thirty five years from now, the global population will exceed 9.5 billion compared to the 7 billion plus of today, notes Bill Kerr from the University of Saskatchewan. “That will require a 35% increase in the food supply from what the world currently is producing.” Not just more food but better quality products for increasingly demanding consumers in developing countries.

Kerr has no explanation for why the growing demand for food has become the elephant in the room in political and business discussions about the importance of trade agreements. It and the impact of climate change on farmers around the world deserve at least as much attention as tariff rates and market access rules negotiated in trade deals. (More)


From the Desk of Dennis Carr, Sustainable Development Editor

Site C Is a Climate-Change Disaster, Says Suzuki

Image: Detail of photo of David Suzuki and Grand Chief Stewart Phillip at a media scrum outside the B.C. Superior Court Monday morning. Photo by Mychaylo Prystupa via TheTyee.ca.

'We have to rethink everything' says noted environmentalist

By Mychaylo Prystupa
The Tyee

23 February 2016 — Flooding valuable farmland to build the Site C dam undermines Canada's commitment to meet international climate-change targets, environmentalist David Suzuki said outside a B.C. courtroom this week.

The farmland is needed to reduce B.C.'s dependence on imported foods, Suzuki said, and eliminate the huge amounts of carbon fuels needed to bring those foods here.

"It seems to me crazy to put farmland in the north underwater," he said. "We live in a food chain now in which food grows on average 3,000 kilometres from where it's consumed. The transport of all that food is dependent on fossil fuels. (More)


Canada's wild rice wars

Image: Detail of photo of the wild rice at Pigeon Lake, Larry Wood via Aljazeera.com.

How a conflict over wild ricing on Pigeon Lake is drawing attention to Indigenous rights and traditional foods

By Lisa Jackson
Al Jazeera

20 February 2016, ENNISMORE, Ontario — Owners of cottages near Canada's Pigeon Lake have a bone to pick with James Whetung.

For years, Whetung has been seeding the lake with wild rice. He harvests the crop and then sells packaged products through his company, Black Duck Wild Rice. But some cottage owners aren't happy.

Pigeon Lake is one of the 250 lakes and waterways in the Kawartha Lakes region of Ontario, Canada. Located two hours east of Toronto, it is a popular destination for summer getaways, fishing, hiking, recreational boating, and building cottages.

Since 2007, a group of residents of Pigeon Lake have been fighting Whetung's seeding of wild rice, claiming their shorelines are filled with the marshy plant that makes boating difficult. They've protested, held community meetings, contacted politicians, petitioned, and formed a group called Save Pigeon Lake.

Whetung, however, insists that his interests are not entrepreneurial and that his aboriginal treaty rights allow him to harvest the rice. As a member of Curve Lake First Nation, he says it is part of a wider effort to revive the local indigenous culture, which was undermined by colonisation.

"Our people have been using the rice for thousands of years," says Whetung. "The rice was decimated by the government, by other groups. Whenever they are building cottages or homes along the shore, they would dredge out the shoreline, [destroying the] rice." (More)


Great Lakes water in jeopardy

IJC urges 'rigorous' efforts to maintain water levels

By Kenneth Pole
Editor, Environment Policy & Law
 
Environment Policy & Law is published and edited by Kenneth Pole (613-282-7270 or Kenpole@bell.net) and Randy Ray (613-425-3873 or randyray@rogers.com) both of Ottawa, Canada.

An inability to accurately track Canadian withdrawals of irreplaceable water from the Great Lakes basin has prompted the International Joint Commission (IJC) to call on governments with a direct stake in the watershed to make better monitoring a high priority and “rigorously” minimize loss.

“For the U.S. as a whole, total withdrawals declined by 13% from 2005 to 2010,” the IJC says in reviewing developments since its Protection of the Waters of the Great Lakes report in February 2000. That report recommended, among other things, against removal of water unless the proponents could demonstrate that it would not endanger the ecosystem’s integrity. That report followed up on a 1985 study, commissioned by the Canadian and US governments, that called for improved information on consumption and “a process of notice and consultation before additional new or changed diversions are approved.”

The Great Lakes Charter, signed by the two federal governments, requires provinces and states to not approve or permit major new or increased diversion or consumption without notifying all the other affected jurisdictions. A key element of the Charter was that each jurisdiction had to be able to provide accurate and comparable information on withdrawals. (More)


Bits and Bites of Everyday Life

Let there be love!

“Love is life… and if you miss love, you miss life.” (Leo Buscaglia)

By Alberte Villeneuve-Sinclair
True North Perspective

Alberte Villeneuve-Sinclair is the author of The Neglected Garden and two French novels. Visit her website to learn more www.albertevilleneuve.ca.

Image: Detail of photo of Alberte Villeuneuve-SinclairImage: Detail of photo a colorful bird, provided by the author.Valentine’s Day and Family Day always linger in my heart for a long time. For some, love is but a fleeting notion and for others, it is a lifelong journey. My local newspaper reported there had been 21 different domestic dispute incidents in the span of three weeks in Russell County. Sad!

Why does love so often turn sour? Why do lovers so often become adversaries? As I wrote in 2011, learning to love is a lifelong journey. Confusion, mixed messages, loneliness, past neglect will often limit a person’s capacity to really love. Our culture, our society and our parents have a powerful influence on how we love during our life.

Love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved one.”  (More)


ParkTales

City sends in inspectors after Parkdale tenants act to

expose slum conditions at Wynn Queen St. Properties

By Frances Sedgwick
True North Perspective
 
Frances Sedgwick's keen eye and ear for the human condition reveals the heart and soul of Parkdale in southwest Toronto, one of the country's most turbulent urban areas where the best traditions of human kindness prevail against powerful forces that would grind them down. True North Perspective proudly presents a column by writer Frances Sedgwick. Her critical observation combined with a tender sense of humour will provide you with something to think about ... and something to talk about.

ParkTales Image, smallImage: Tenants protest in front of Westlodge Towers in Toronto's Parkdale neighbourhoon on 20 February 2016. Photo by Frances Sedgwick.1 March 2016 — Parkdale Tenants continue to organize, this time against one of the most notorious slum landlords in Parkdale, the Wynn Properties.

Located at 103 and 105 West Lodge Ave., just south of Queen St. West, the buildings have 720 units.

The conditions in their units are so bad residents held a rally in front of the two buildings on February 20 to draw attention to their unacceptable living conditions. (More)


Social housing is having its moment and CHRA’s new

Executive Director Jeff Morrison intends to make it last

Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association

March 2016

With seven marathons under his belt, Jeff Morrison, new Executive Director of Canada Housing Renewal Association, clearly isn’t one to shy away from a long and perhaps even painful process.

“I’ve got a weird sporting mix,” he says, which includes marathons, ultimate frisbee, curling, and softball. He is also the chair of Ottawa’s first-ever national capital pride run, and on the boards of Bruce House and Operation Come Home.

After spending nine years working in the health care and built environment industries, Morrison became familiar with the housing sector from the outside. At the same time he was running for city council and volunteering for non-profit organizations, and with each role he heard about the need for affordable housing.

Now at the helm of Canada’s national housing organization, Morrison is ready to seize emerging opportunities and keep housing at the forefront of the federal government’s agenda. (More)


Electoral reform in Canada

A fresh take on proportional representation

By Nigel Aplin
True North Perspective

The Globe and Mail ran an editorial series a few weeks ago on electoral reform. Among other things, it questioned the need for any electoral reform at all and, if there is any improvement to be made in the way we elect governments, it called for a national referendum to decide on a new system rather than simply the creation of a parliamentary bill passed in the usual course. I tend to agree with the latter point but certainly not with the former.

I have been increasingly dissatisfied with the first-past-the-post system over recent elections and, in our multi-party system, with the relative ease with which parties have been able to win the majority of seats in parliament (and in provincial legislatures) while receiving significantly less than a majority of the popular vote. Take the recent federal election where the Liberal party received 39.5% of the vote but earned 54% of the 338 seats. With its parliamentary majority, it now has 100% of the legislative power. The 2011 election produced almost identical results in favour of the Conservatives. In Ontario in 1990, the NDP won a majority government with about 37% of the vote. I would like to see a significant change to this system and I favour the introduction of a form of proportional representation (PR) as a way to modify our election results to better reflect the wishes of Canadian voters and to, quite simply, make majority governments significantly more difficult to win.

Most proposed models of PR involve the creation of a new block of seats and members of parliament to be allocated to political parties based on their aggregated national vote totals. These new seats/members would be added to the existing 338 members elected through the existing first-past-the-post system. This would increase the size of the legislature as has been done in Germany starting in the 1980s. Some of the key questions asked by skeptics of this concept include (1) how many new seats/members should we add (and how do we decide on what the right number is)?. (2) who would occupy these seats? and (3) since the new members would not represent or be responsible to a specific geographic constituency, what specific duties would they have in a new and larger Parliament? I have a proposal which resolves questions (2) and (3) while offering some options to consider for question (1). 

My proposal is this: rather than actually creating a block of new seats to be occupied by new members put forth by the political parties, why not simply create a new block of "votes" in parliament to be allocated to the parties according to the aggregated national popular vote results from each election? Strict party discipline is a fact of life in our parliamentary system and this proposal presumes and requires that it continue to be. Blocks of votes in Parliament would be allocated to the political parties based on their respective share of the popular vote with no need to create new "seats" or corresponding parliamentary "members" at all. Under this system, if it were in place for the most recent election in October, the Liberal Party would receive 39.5% of the new parliamentary votes, the Conservative Party 31%, the NDP 19%, the BQ 4.6% and the Green Party 3.5% — exactly reflecting the breakdown of the popular vote. So, no new seats would be required and therefore — obviously — no consideration need be given to who would occupy them or what these new members would do with their time. (More)


Mexico roundup by Isabella Tandutella, Contributing Editor, Mexico City

Low apprehension and conviction rates

contribute to Mexico's high and rising crime numbers

Crime is among the most urgent concerns facing Mexico, as Mexican drug trafficking rings play a major role in the flow of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana transiting between Latin America and the United States. Drug trafficking has led to corruption, which has had a deleterious effect on Mexico's Federal Representative Republic. Drug trafficking and organized crime have also been a major source of violent crime in Mexico.

Mexico has experienced increasingly high crime rates, especially in major urban centers. The country's great economic polarization has stimulated criminal activity in the lower socioeconomic strata, which include the majority of the country's population. Crime continues at high levels, and is repeatedly marked by violence, especially in the cities of Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez, and the states of Baja California, Durango, Sinaloa, Guerrero, Chihuahua, Michoacán, Tamaulipas, and Nuevo León.[1] Other metropolitan areas have lower, yet still serious, levels of crime. Low apprehension and conviction rates contribute to the high crime rate. (More)


 

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From the Desk of Darren Jerome

A continuing update on the war against WikiLeaks transparency

Please be advised that the below is not just the same old thing. By clicking on it you'll find the petition in support of Julian Assange and discover fascinating on-going reports and videos related to one of the most important events in modern history, and the desperate attempts to put a lid on information that everyone should know. Don't miss this special opportunity to stay informed.


From the Desk of Helen Johansen

Chinese miner sues B.C. government

over land transfer to Kaska Dena Council

Image: Photo of equipment on a China Minerals site on Kaska Dena territory in Northern B.C. via DogwoodInitiative.org.

Possibly a harbinger of legal wars to come

By Will Horter
Dogwood Initiative
 
You never know where the next huge story is going to come from. I remember the first time I saw Enbridge’s proposal for a West Coast oil tanker port mentioned in a tiny newspaper article 15 years ago, and we know what happened with that.
 
The other day I saw a short piece in the Globe and Mail about how a small Chinese mining corporation had filed a lawsuit against the B.C. government to kybosh a land transfer to the Kaska Dena Council. It’s picked up zero media interest since, but this dispute between a Chinese corporation on one side and the province and First Nations on the other could be the thin edge of a very big and complicated wedge. (More)

There can be no life without laughter

From the Desk of Nick Aplin, Contributing Editor

Report: Getting out of bed in the morning sharply increases the risk of things getting even worse.

• Area teen quickly running out of chances to be first openly Gay anything

If attacked by a mob of clowns, go for the juggler.

In just two days from now, tomorrow will be yesterday.

• As a senior citizen was driving down the freeway, his car phone rang.
Answering, he heard his wife's voice urgently warning him, "Herman, I just heard on the news that there's a car going the wrong way on 280 Interstate. Please be careful!"

"It's not just one car," said Herman. "It's hundreds of them!"

I want to die while asleep like my grandfather, not screaming in terror like the passengers in his car.

• Impossibilities in the world
1 - You can't count your hair.
2 - You can't wash your eyes with soap.
3 - You can't breathe when your tongue is out.

 — Please put your tongue back inside your mouth ……. you look silly.


Rona Ambrose Twitter Q&A train-wreck demonstrates Conservative Party of Canada's mastery of social media

Image: Screenshot of Conservative Party of Canada Interim Leader Rona Ambrose's Twitter announcement of upcoming online questiona and answer session.

PressProgress.ca

March 1 2016 — Interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose hosted a question and answer session at Twitter headquarters Tuesday afternoon.

How did that go?

Well, you can't say there wasn't a reaction: 

Unfortunately for Ambrose, you can't say the reaction was positive either.

Here is a sampling of some of the questions that helped #AskAmbrose become the top trending hashtag in Canada: (Read Am I old stock or new stock?)\


Classic Quiz

By Mark Kearney and Randy Ray

Mark Kearney of London, Ont. and Randy Ray of Ottawa are the authors of nine books about Canada, with best-seller sales of more than 50,000. Their Web site is: www.triviaguys.com

Big Book of Canadian Trivia cover

Questions

1. This April will be the 99th anniversary of this important World War I event involving Canadians.  Is it

a) Battle of the Somme   b)  Battle of Vimy Ridge  c) the creation of the Canadian Air Force  d) the first soldier to win a Victoria Cross
 
2. What parts of Canada don’t change to daylight savings time in March?

a)  B.C. and Saskatchewan   b) Yukon and Northwest Territories   c) Newfoundland and Nunavut   d) Saskatchewan and Nunavut

3. True or false.  The mines in and around Labrador City account for almost half of Canada’s iron ore.

Answers

_______________________________________________
 
Randy Ray, publicist / speaker agent / author
www.randyray.ca  www.triviaguys.com

 (613) 425-3873 - (613) 816-3873 (c)


O Canada! Getting to know you!

This is one of a series on the heartbeat of Canada

From the Desk of Frances Sedgwick, Toronto

One hundred years ago Manitoba led the way

by being first in giving women full rights to vote

Aboriginal women would wait for another half century

Manitoba was the first province in Canada to grant women the right to vote: this year, 2016, marks the one hundredth anniversary of this signal advance in the ongoing struggle for women’s rights. This article tells the story of the achievement, with a particular focus on some of the women who led the suffrage movement in Manitoba. A number of these women play a prominent part as well in the most recent book by Mildred and Harry Gutkin, Profiles in Dissent: The Shaping of Radical Thought in the Canadian West. (More)

"News is what (certain) people want to keep hidden. Everything else is just publicity."
-- PBS journalist Bill Moyers.
 
Your support makes it possible for True North to clear the fog of "publicity" and keep you informed on what's really happening in the world today. Please send your donation to:
 
Carl Dow, True North Perspective, Station E, P.O. Box 4814, Ottawa ON Canada K1S 5H9.
 
Or use our new Paypal system! Just click the secure link below —
and if you're paying by credit card, you don't need a PayPal account to make a donation!

 

Media Watch

Canadian journalist hurt ducking Turkey shelling

Image: Screenshot of people taking cover from snipers behind a Russian armoured vehicle, via RT.com.

RT

1 March 2016 — Veteran Radio-Canada correspondent Raymond Saint-Pierre grazed his hand, knee and elbow, when panic erupted.

"We had to escape very fast, and I didn't want to hold up my colleagues, so I fell on the ground. It's always scary when you don't know where the explosion is coming from," he told RT.

RT Spanish reporter Boris Kuznetsov, RT Arabic reporter Hassan Nasr, RT cameramen Khaled Eldera and Ruptly cameraman Aleksandr Tikhomirov were shelled in Syria, while filming an area-captured from the rebels. In total 4 journalists were lightly wounded. (Full story and video of journalists using an armoured vehicle for cover is HERE.)

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'Spotlight' Gets Investigative Journalism Right

Image: Poster for Spotlight film.

By Stephen Engelberg
ProPublica | Film Review

01 March 2016 There's a moment in almost every movie when people in the audience who really know the line of work depicted on screen cry out in frustration and say: "Oh, come on!" "Absurd." "Never happens."

Over the decades, Hollywood screenwriters have taken liberties with every imaginable profession and craft, from doctors to lawyers to spies to police detectives. Rocky Balboa survives punches that would decapitate an ordinary boxer. The car chases in The Bourne Identity defy physics. John McClane, the hard-boiled cop in the Die Hard series, displays a supernatural ability to evade bullets.

Journalism movies have had their share of utterly improbable moments. In the 1994 film The Paper, the city editor of a New York City tabloid gets into a fist fight with his female boss as he tries to stop the presses. (Not a great career move.) More recently, the first season of HBO's television series "The Newsroom" showed a producer landing a series of astounding scoops in the first hours after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon. The reporter's information came from miraculously well-placed sources — a sister who worked at Halliburton and a close friend who happened to be a junior BP executive attending all the key crisis meetings.

All of this makes Spotlight, the film based on the Boston Globe's investigation of the Catholic Church, a remarkable achievement. (More)

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Please give Samantha Bee 'The Daily Show'

They squandered Jon Stewart's legacy

by giving the show to the wrong host

The Daily Show could have chosen Samantha Bee

to replace Jon Stewart. They chose Trevor Noah instead

 
By Steve Almond
Salon
 
March 1, 2016 — A decade ago, former President George Bush (the tall awkward one) staged one of the strangest and most memorable scenes in recent political memory. Speaking before the Florida Legislature, Bush the elder began weeping, rather uncontrollably, as he recalled how his second son, Jeb, had lost an election as governor 12 years earlier.

The psychological back story to this moment was painfully obvious. Bush the Elder had gotten all choked up because Jeb’s loss had foiled his grand scheme, which was to see Jeb elected president in 2000, rather than his ne’er-do-well big brother, George W., who had (as you’ll recall) joy-ridden America into a ditch by 2006. The old man was mourning the impending death of the Bush dynasty.

I know it’s a weird and inexact association, but I kept thinking about this clip as I considered the recent fortunes of “The Daily Show.” I couldn’t help imagining that somewhere high up in Comedy Central headquarters there’s an executive sobbing with the same intensity as old Poppy Bush. Because over the past month it’s become painfully obvious that “The Daily Show” squandered its shot at a political comedy dynasty by betting on the wrong host. (More)

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Watch Video

Samantha Bee Celebrates the Burial of the GOP

'Men are just too emotional to be president'

Bee pretends to vomit when Trump brags about his penis

By Kali Holloway

AlterNet

08 March 2016

 

Daily Show alum and current Full Frontal host Samantha Bee proved again last night that she is one of our country’s national treasures. In a segment where she pretty much rounded all the bases of taking down the GOP’s ridiculous current state of the affairs, Bee declared the party dead, saying its demise began just after its last shitshow of a debate.

“The death throes started Thursday morning, when the Republican establishment suddenly woke up and realized Donald Trump was doing to their brand what his asshole son does to real elephants,” Bee announced. As she spoke, a photo of “big game hunter” Trump Jr. proudly displaying the severed tail of some poor elephant he paid lots of money to kill flashed on the screen.

From there, Bee mockingly took down Mitt Romney’s too-little-too-late repudiation of Trump and John McCain’s insults toward the frontrunner, pointing out his own role in getting us to where we are today.

“Don’t you even dare!” Bee scolded the senator. “The guy who gave us Trump 1.0 does not get to complain about the latest upgrade,” Bee said against the backdrop photo of Sarah “You Betcha” Palin.

Be sure to watch the whole clip below, which includes Bee talking about that gross thing on Ted Cruz’s lip during the debate; Bee pretending to vomit all over the camera when Trump talked about his penis; and Bee perfectly assessing the deeper implication of the bickering between the Donald and Marco Rubio: “I don’t mean to sound sexist, but I think men are just too emotional to be president.”

 


Health Watch

Cancer-causing HPV rates fall dramatically in teenage girls following vaccine

Image: Photo of girl receiving HPV vaccine.
By Alfredo Carpineti
IFLScience

24 February, 2016 — Vaccines are the best resource in our fight against preventable diseases, and sometimes they work even better than we could have hoped for. This seems to be the emerging case for the human papillomavirus, or HPV, vaccine, which was introduced just a decade ago to combat the virus that causes cervical cancer, among others.

According to a new study, published in Pediatrics, in the last 10 years the prevalence of the virus, or more specifically these four types, in teenage girls has fallen by 64 percent in the U.S., concomitant with the release of the vaccine. The study also highlights that among women aged 20 to 24, who had on average lower vaccination rates, the most dangerous strains of the virus fell by 34 percent. The vaccine is usually administered before puberty because HPV is sexually transmittable. (More)

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Surprise, surprise! New study shows 'vaping' may be just as dangerous as cigarettes - maybe worse

Image: Top, ynne Friedmann (left) moderates a panel of researchers, Daniel Conklin, Judith Zelikoff, and Ilona Jaspers, who revealed new data on the health effects of alternative tobacco products. | Ashley Gilleland/AAAS. Bottom, detail of a man smoking an electronic cigarette, via mic.com.

By Andrea Korte
American Association for the Advancement of Science

12 February 2016 — E-cigarettes may not be safer than traditional tobacco cigarettes, according to new results presented by a trio of researchers at an 11 February press briefing at the 2016 AAAS Annual Meeting.

The researchers announced results from human and animal studies that found biomarkers of harmful cardiac, pulmonary, and reproductive effects from exposure to alternative tobacco products — a growing market of constantly evolving products including electronic cigarettes, hookah, and smokeless tobacco like snuff and gutkha.

Research has already shown that immune response provided by nasal mucous membranes is compromised in cigarette smokers, which causes them to be more susceptible to the outcomes of a viral infection, said Ilona Jaspers, deputy director of the Center for Environmental Medicine Asthma and Lung Biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, but her new research revealed even more immune suppression effects in e-cigarette users than in smokers of traditional cigarettes. (More)

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World-first Australian stem cell marvel that regrows damaged cartilage could make joint surgery unnecessary

Image: Detail of photo of Dr. Freitag, who is leading the world-first study where stem cells are being used to regrow damaged knee cartilage. Picture: Eugene Hyland, vis HeraldSun.com.au.

By Grant McArthur
Herald Sun

28 February, 2016 — EXCLUSIVE: STEM cells are being used to regrow damaged knee cartilage in world-first Melbourne trials it is hoped will make many joint replacements and other surgery unnecessary.

Doctors have halted damage caused by degenerative conditions, and even reversed it, in one of the first studies to use stem cells to rebuild cartilage in humans.

In initial results, half of those treated at Melbourne Stem Cell Centre saw a three-quarters reduction in pain and vastly improved knee function.

Two separate trials involving 70 patients have now shown stunning results. (More)

(The video below comes via the 7 News Sydney Facebook page.)

Joint Effort

The breakthrough that could mean the end of hip and knee replacements. www.7News.com.au 0#7News

Posted by 7 News Sydney on Monday, 29 February 2016


George Soros: A psychopath’s psychopath
Image: Detail of photo of Georges Soros, Chairman of Soros Fund Management © Charles Platiau / Reuters via RT.com
 
By Sam Gerrans
RT

13 February 2016 — According to Soros, Russia’s strategy is to “avoid collapse by making the EU implode first – by exacerbating the migration crisis and stoking Islamophobia”.

On February 11, the Guardian ran an article by George Soros which had run a day earlier here entitled “Putin is a bigger threat to Europe’s existence than Isis.”

After a quick check of my vital signs, I confirmed that I was indeed awake and the article was real and in the Guardian not The Onion. Before I look at the tissue of untruths which make up the substance of Soros’ article, a few general words about psychopaths are in order. (More)


Science

Pluto’s ‘Hulk-like’ moon Charon: A possible ancient ocean?

Image: A close-up of the canyons on Charon, Pluto's big moon, taken by New Horizons during its close approach to the Pluto system last July. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

18 February 2016 — Pluto’s largest moon may have gotten too big for its own skin.

Images from NASA’s New Horizons mission suggest that Pluto’s moon Charon once had a subsurface ocean that has long since frozen and expanded, pushing outward and causing the moon’s surface to stretch and fracture on a massive scale.

The side of Pluto’s largest moon viewed by NASA’s passing New Horizons spacecraft in July 2015 is characterized by a system of “pull apart” tectonic faults, which are expressed as ridges, scarps and valleys—the latter sometimes reaching more than 4 miles (6.5 kilometers) deep. Charon’s tectonic landscape shows that, somehow, the moon expanded in its past, and – like Bruce Banner tearing his shirt as he becomes the Incredible Hulk – Charon’s surface fractured as it stretched. (More)


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