20170203 reading, video, audio list

CBC News, “Some Nexus cards revoked on both sides of border following U.S. executive order Border agencies in Canada and U.S. won’t confirm to CBC News travel ban on majority-Muslim countries to blame”

(audio) CBC Radio, “Orwell’s 1984 eerily predicts reality in the age of Trump, says author” FREE public domain version of Gutenberg Project of 1984.

CBC News, “U.S. judge temporarily blocks Trump’s travel ban White House responds by saying it will seek an emergency stay of the judge’s order”

KING 5 News, (start ~3:02) IMMIGRATION ORDER SUIT A federal judge in Seattle temporarily blocks President Trump’s ban on travelers from 7 majority-Muslim countries. (Expedia & Amazon filed motions to support Washington State)

Guardian, “Canadians form ‘rings of peace’ around mosques after Quebec shooting“

Guardian, “China accuses US of putting stability of Asia Pacific at risk”

Guardian, “EU leaders round on Trump and reject May’s bridge-building efforts”

“European leaders launched a series of attacks on Donald Trump over his anti-EU rhetoric on Friday, accusing him of a lack of respect, as Theresa May’s attempts to position herself as a bridge with the new US president were roundly rejected at a summit in Malta.

Trump’s conduct was scorned by prime ministers and presidents, with the French leader, François Hollande, warning there would be no future for Europe’s relations with the US “if this future isn’t defined in common”.”

Guardian, “Theresa May meanders around Malta but EU has already said adieu”

“On May’s other main subject, briefing other leaders on her visit last week to see Donald Trump, things went less smoothly. Before the talks had even begun, the idea of the UK being a “bridge” between a sceptical EU and Trump’s administration was ridiculed by the Lithuanian president, Dalia Grybauskaitė.

“I don’t think there is a necessity for a bridge,” Grybauskaitė said as she arrived at the historic Grand Master’s Palace in Valletta. “We communicate with the Americans on Twitter.””

NYT, “Uber C.E.O. to Leave Trump Advisory Council After Criticism”

K’s Notes: To me, Uber’s Mr. Kalanick was forced to make a calculated business move instead of a principled move himself. If the rate things are going is sped up even more, our beep-up world may want President Trump to have his own Oskar Schindler to save a few more souls.
Trump so far is so gung-ho in doing whatever he wants against any advices he may get, I doubt his Advisory Council has done much to stop him from doing crazy things.
Trump understands money & power, so Google creating $4 million crisis fund for immigration cause sends a strong signal. Google, Facebook, etc banding together to help fight the Muslim Ban in court may make some difference in Trump’s mind unless he went crazier and turn on even Google, Facebook, etc.
They say “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” Well, four years of making sure *everything* Trump done badly are called out (avoiding the daily “shiny object” distractions) is a small price to pay for Americans.
For the six Muslim Canadians that were murdered in Quebec city (and their wives and now orphaned children) by a reported Trump and alt-right admirer, things are already too late for them. Ref News: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/quebec-mosque-shooter-had-fascination-for-guns-extreme-right-beliefs-sources

(video) Charlie Rose, Friday 01/27/2017, An hour with Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway and Bill Gates of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, co-founders of the philanthropic cause the Giving Pledge. (~13:10 of talk with Charlie)

Bloomberg, 20170130, “Buffett Bought $12 Billion of Stock From Election Through Friday” (NOTE: Warren left the story of him losing money investing in USAir uncorrected. I think Warren wants to underplay how great an investor he is. He actually ended up making “hefty gain” on USAir. Ref Carol Loomis’ Tap Dancing to Work, pg 117 & 118 which also points to BRK 2007 annual report (see bottom).)

“Warren Buffett added to his stock portfolio at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. in a big way after Nov. 8.

“We’ve, net, bought $12 billion of common stocks since the election,” he said in an interview with Charlie Rose that aired on Friday. Buffett didn’t identify the securities that he picked.

Purchases of that magnitude represent a major pickup in activity for Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire. During the first nine months of last year, the company bought $5.2 billion and sold or redeemed roughly $20 billion worth of stocks, according to a regulatory filing. In 2015, Berkshire bought about $10 billion of equity securities.“

PolitiFact, “Spicer’s misleading claim that Trump’s National Security Council is ‘identical’ to Bush’s, Obama’s”

BBC News, “Trump’s Australian row: Is the US a liability for Australia?”

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FREE public domain version of Orwell’s 1984 at Gutenberg Project Canada.

#TwoMinutesHate //In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up and down in their places and shouting at the tops of their voices in an effort to drown the maddening bleating voice that came from the screen. The little sandy-haired woman had toned bright pink, and her mouth was opening and shutting like that of a landed fish. Even O’Brien’s heavy face was flushed. He was sitting very straight in his chair, his powerful chest swelling and quivering as though he were standing up to the assault of a wave. The dark-haired girl behind Winston had begun crying out “Swine! Swine! Swine!” and suddenly she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it at the screen. It struck Goldstein’s nose and bounced off; the voice continued inexorably. In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair. The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretense was always unnecessary.//

Bonus ref: BRK 2007 annual report (pg 8 of physical page) re that “hefty gain“.

“The airline industry’s demand for capital ever since that first flight has been insatiable. Investors have poured money into a bottomless pit, attracted by growth when they should have been repelled by it. And I, to my shame, participated in this foolishness when I had Berkshire buy U.S. Air preferred stock in 1989. As the ink was drying on our check, the company went into a tailspin, and before long our preferred dividend was no longer being paid. But we then got very lucky. In one of the recurrent, but always misguided, bursts of optimism for airlines, we were actually able to sell our shares in 1998 for a hefty gain. In the decade following our sale, the company went bankrupt. Twice.”

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Forbes (2014), In our dark time of the initial days of the Trump presidency, I did some fact-check reading about Oskar Schindler and I ended up reading “Oskar Schindler: The Untold Story“.

“While there will always be those who question the motives of others, those who have examined Schindler’s efforts find him heroic. “The defining measure of Schindler’s commitment to doing everything possible to save his Jewish workers came in the fall of 1944, when Oskar chose to risk everything to move his armaments factory to Brunnlitz,” writes David Crowe, citing Dr. Moshe Bejski, who was saved by Oskar Schindler during the Holocaust. “Oskar could easily have closed his Krakow operations and retreated westward with the profits he had already made. Instead, he chose to risk his life and his money to save as many Jews as he could.”

“At this point in the war and in his life, I think Oskar Schindler was absolutely determined to do everything he could to save as many Jews as he could regardless of the cost, either personal or financial,” writes Crowe. “During the last two years of the war, he had undergone a dramatic moral transformation, and, in many ways, he came more and more to associate himself with his Jews than with other Germans.”“