Cartoon: A chance of snow... flake

The weather guy said 50 percent chance of flurries - I wonder where the other one landed?

This week's The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest drawing by Christopher Weyant.

Enter the contest (Entry must be received by January 30, 2011).



mh

Great Cartoon from this week's slide show at The New Yorker

A more poignant cartoon there could not be, so don't even try --- well OK, try...

Cartoon's URL:  http://www.newyorker.com/images/2011/01/31/cartoons/110131_cartoon_045_a15510_p465.gif

Link to the cartoon in The New Yorker.

Watch a slide show of all the Cartoons from this issue (2011/01/31) of The New Yorker



mh

Ontario Ombudsman, André Marin says G-20 Peaceful Demonstrators were lead into a Police Trap

Ontario Ombudsman, André Marin:

"Responsible protesters and civil rights groups who took the trouble to educate themselves about their rights prior to the G-20 had no way of knowing they were literally walking into in a trap. They were literally caught in the act, an act of public entrapment."

For what it's worth, From The Real News Network, the Ontario Ombudsman report on G-20 policing.





And, from the Ontario Ombudsman Channel on Youtube, a video of entire press conference by Ontario Ombudsman, André Marin:

Caught in the Act: Ontario Ombudsman's special report on G20 regulation

"Ontario Ombudsman finds G20 regulation of "dubious legality"; Citizens unfairly trapped by secret expansion of police powers. TORONTO (December 7, 2010) The Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services quietly promoted the use of a likely illegal regulation to grant police "extravagant" powers on the eve of the G20 summit, Ontario Ombudsman André Marin says in his latest report."

Also, see the press release at the Ontario Ombudsman's website.

I think it is important to pay close attention to what Ontario Ombudsman, André Marin says at the press conference in the second video. "Responsible protesters and civil rights groups who took the trouble to educate themselves about their rights prior to the G-20 had no way of knowing they were literally walking into in a trap. They were literally caught in the act, an act of public entrapment."

A review the weeks events revels to me, a disturbing practice run for martial law - that was carefully prepared and carried out by a combined force of the RCMP, the OPP and Toronto Police as well as members of police forces from across the country - a dry run where a central command in Barrie, in a Colorado type CENTCOM war fighting communications and command centre directed police on the ground through a massive multi-million dollar phalanx of information gathering systems, including aerial surveillance, and the networking of public and private security cameras - to harass large groups of peaceful demonstrators, and then, to apply force in the form of crowd control techniques like boxing-in, then illegal detention, and finally illegal arrests of large groups of legally demonstrating citizens.

The most interesting example of this was on the Sunday at Queen and Soho where neighbourhood people who, at the beginning, were calling out support to police as they boxed in peaceful demonstrators at Queen and Spadina, (about 400 metres away), were then themselves victims of another boxing-in attempt by riot police as Barrie Command and Control decided the situation was an excellent opportunity to practice a counter flanking tactic.

***

I wonder how people who were not here, from across Canada who supported the police actions on that weekend and commented online at many newspaper websites that I read - especially at CTVglobemedia Inc. owned entities that spun the spectacle of lawlessness and disorder seemingly in order to confuse rather than inform - will respond to this report after much time has passed, and confusion about the weekend has been better digested?

Do the images of the burning police car, repeated over and over and over, and the oft re-run images of the handful of 'black block' children who were allowed by police to smash the windows of businesses from Queen to College on Young street that Saturday, via a mysterious 45 minute black-out of Toronto Police communications --- those activities that police then used to arrest any one they felt like in an area bigger than most provincial capitals occupy --- still, in their minds, did the situation demand such police powers that to suspended Canadian's right to peacefully protest was justified?

To sum up, for you who see see nothing peculiar in all this, the actions of less than 100 'black block' demonstrators - in the midst of peaceful demonstrators numbering in the tens of thousands - were used as a pretext to illegally arrest 1,000 people, detain them, in some cases assault them, allowed a combined police operation of police forces from across the country to practice de facto Martial Law for 48 hours in the centre of Canada's largest city.

If based on these facts, if you still think this was necessary, you still don't see a hidden agenda, a paranoid delusion by our government about the people of this country (or perhaps it alludes to their plans for us?) then politicians should have stood up in Provincial Parliament and passed such laws in full public view. Laws that would allow our police forces to act in a legal way because the national security called for it --- instead of using trickery, like the Saturday black-out in communications, and secret laws expanded to encompass situations they were not intended to be applied to, and surreptitiously training officers on how to skirt the law, and as well as instructing them incorrectly about their rights and responsibilities during the lead up the the G-20 week - and as such leaving individual officers at risk of prosecution and civil suit, as well as codifying a culture of lawlessness in many police forces across the country and leaving good officers bewildered as actions they're being ordered to do they know are illegal but forcing them for fear of their careers to break their personal moral codes, they're reason for being an officer in the first place, tattered and trampled under they're own boots?

All these things in my mind, points to a disturbing lack of confidence by our elected representatives about whether they believed in what they were doing, about they're ability to reason and lead. About they're understanding of what we have built in this great land, this great liberal democracy -  a land of good people who care for one another even if they may disagree one thing or another. What place did this lawless come from? What cultural diaspora did this weekend from hell come out of?

From some rotten, dusty, paranoid corner of some old tower on Parliament Hill?

Near the Prime Ministers Office?

No one's saying a thing from that corner - as usual.



mh

Julian Assange's Lawyer lays out Fake Rape Allegations time-line

Who raped WHO? Julian Assange (left) - Anna Ardin.


This bears repeating...

From Thursday, 2 December 2010, crikey.com.au:

When it comes to Assange rape case, the Swedes are making it up as they go along

by Melbourne barrister James D. Catlin, who acted for Julian Assange in London in October.

Apparently having consensual sex in Sweden without a condom is punishable by a term of imprisonment of a minimum of two years for rape. That is the basis for a reinstitution of rape charges against WikiLeaks figurehead Julian Assange that is destined to make Sweden and its justice system the laughing stock of the world and dramatically damage its reputation as a model of modernity.

Sweden’s Public Prosecutor’s Office was embarrassed in August this year when it leaked to the media that it was seeking to arrest Assange for rape, then on the same day withdrew the arrest warrant because in its own words there was “no evidence”. The damage to Assange’s reputation is incalculable. More than three quarters of internet references to his name refer to rape. Now, three months on and three prosecutors later, the Swedes seem to be clear on their basis to proceed. Consensual sex that started out with a condom ended up without one, ergo, the sex was not consensual.

For three months Assange had been waiting in vain to hear whether media statements by and for the two female “victims” that there was no fear or violence were going to be embellished so the charges might be carried forward due to greater seriousness. Such statements would stop a rape charge in any Western country dead in its tracks. Rape is a crime of violence, duress or deception. You can rape someone by deluding them into thinking you are someone else or by drugging them or by reason of their young age but essentially it’s a crime of violence.

The women here are near to and over 30 and have international experience, some of it working in Swedish government embassies. There is no suggestion of drugs nor identity concealment. Far from it. Both women boasted of their celebrity connection to Assange after the events that they would now see him destroyed for.

That further evidence hasn’t been confected to make the charges less absurd does Sweden no credit because it has no choice in the matter. The phenomena of social networking through the internet and mobile phones constrains Swedish authorities from augmenting the evidence against Assange because it would look even less credible in the face of tweets by Anna Ardin and SMS texts by Sofia Wilén boasting of their respective conquests after the “crimes”.

In the case of Ardin it is clear that she has thrown a party in Assange’s honour at her flat after the “crime” and tweeted to her followers that she is with the “the world’s coolest smartest people, it’s amazing!”. Go on the internet and see for yourself. That Ardin has sought unsuccessfully to delete these exculpatory tweets from the public record should be a matter of grave concern. That she has published on the internet a guide on how to get revenge on cheating boyfriends ever graver. The exact content of Wilén’s mobile phone texts is not yet known but their bragging and exculpatory character has been confirmed by Swedish prosecutors. Niether Wilén’s nor Ardin’s texts complain of rape.

But then neither Arden nor Wilén complained to the police but rather “sought advice”, a technique in Sweden enabling citizens to avoid just punishment for making false complaints. They sought advice together, having collaborated and irrevocably tainted each other’s evidence beforehand. Their SMS texts to each other show a plan to contact the Swedish newspaper Expressen beforehand in order to maximise the damage to Assange. They belong to the same political group and attended a public lecture given by Assange and organised by them. You can see Wilén on the YouTube video of the event even now.

[...]

*James D. Catlin is a Melbourne barrister who acted for Julian Assange in London during October.

Read the rest...



References:

Photos of Julian Assange and Anna Ardin from celebgalz.com.

Via Crikey.com: "When it comes to Assange rape case, the Swedes are making it up as they go along"
(http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/12/02/when-it-comes-to-assange-r-pe-case-the-swedes-are-making-it-up-as-they-go-along/)



mh

End of the World Tour: Bob Wiseman with a Piano - I did not know...

Discovered Bob Wiseman via Tomboyfriend site (don't know how - but I did).

Listen to this experiment. He sets up what I believe is a straight E harmonic and then plays the bass part around it, carefully avoiding hitting the E note. No wait that's a low, low A, I think. I can sing with it but it's as low as I can go. Then the babbling brook changes the harmonic to a higher A. I think he's playing with-in a schematic diagram as he moves to higher and higher tones. Then he plays with percussion type stuff with that thing; yeah the piano thing, thing - and the stool too.



Glenn Gould.


Bob Wiseman's Youtube Channel.

Website:
http://www.bobwiseman.com

Bob TV.



mh

Look Out!!! It's the Pillsbury Dough Boy!!!

This is Perfect



Look Out!!! It's the Pillsbury Dough Boy!!!

Rothejfunk's Channel in Youtube via Joseph Travers at Facebook.



mh

Video: Snowing in Toronto, Ontario, Canada - January 8th, 2011 - 8 AM

This is the first good snowfall of the winter here in Toronto.

This is Jones Avenue, Leslieville, in the south-east of Toronto - on the eastern Don River Delta - looking south out my bay windows towards Queen Street. There is about 2 cm on the ground; Environment Canada Toronto Island Weather Office is calling for 5-10 cm as of 7:31 AM EST.

Down here by the shore of Lake Ontario we could get more than that due to local climate created by the combination of the City of Toronto and the Great Lake, which is ice-free at this point.





mh