*** Why I think President Trump has made the world a much worse place on Day One of his presidency *** //I respect my FB friend for his professional work but I disagree with him. Here is my comment (with added web links & slight updates).//
XXXX, One day I would love to chat in person. Until then, here is my wordy take of why I think President Trump has made the world a much worse place on Day One. Starting with the least damaging (the mere “monetary” damages). Trump said the following in his Inauguration Speech and he has said all of these during the campaign so they are not new.
2) “Subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military;”
>>> Forgoing defence of NATO, Japan, etc?? Should they pay? How much? Think like a foreign leader for a moment. Which sovereign leader is stupid enough to be held hostage for a king’s ransom for its defence? This will force the world into an arms race? EU politicians are taking notice and starting to distrust US. Putin’s mission accomplished in Day One of Trump’s presidency. Fantastic!
Some Americans have very short memory. On one sunny 9/11 day years ago, some evil people thought of turning planes into high-tech guided missiles with built-in human collateral protection. In that uncertain time, Canada let ~200 flights fully loaded with people (potential terrorists flown missiles) diverted to our major cities like Vancouver, Halifax, Montreal and Toronto (all with millions of people).
The “Others” we Canadians put “First” happened to be thousands of Americans and people visiting US! I would say the probability of me winning the lottery last night is higher than Trump coming to aid of Canadians if the shoes were swapped.
I’m human but I try to live by the Golden Rule when I can. What kind of horrible world we live in if we always and only put ourselves first?!
Right now, with “America First”, it feels like a great friend has flipped and become a psychopath.
And 1, 2, 3 and many more are the reasons why Trump Day One is the worst day of any US President’s Day One!
Happy belated 102nd Birthday to Nobel Economics Laureate Professor Ronald Coase. Wishing professor Coase good health and all the best in 2013!
In 2009, I took the initiative to spend a few days to download, process, upload, transcribe (small part of), and time-code professor Coase‘s 2003 Coase Lecture (a massive .mov file) to share on YouTube (6 clips in a playlist) to allow interested people from around the world to watch and learn as a way to celebrate professor Coase‘s 99th birthday.
For the last few birthdays of professor Coase, I mainly reshare the above video clips (with a new text interview in 2011). This time around, I’ve taken a new initiative to honour professor Coase‘s 102nd birthday. You see, a few years ago I went to the University of Calgary Law Library to conduct some US patent research for a client. As a bonus/treat for myself, I spent some time to download quite a few academic papers by professor Coase.
To celebrate professor Coase‘s 102nd birthday, I’ve uploaded the following three important papers plus a bonus paper as a special gift to readers of professor Coase‘s ideas.
“The only support I got was from my contemporaries. […] If this tale has any general significance, it is that new ideas are most likely to come from the young who are also the group most likely to recognize the significance of those ideas.”
For me personally, I received these important papers for free from the Law Library. And I see them (Firm, FCC, Lighthouse) deserve to be read by as many people as possible instead of under the messed up limited JSTOR manner. The bottom line, to me, by having these papers available by a single click here is that this save people’s physical travel time to go down to their local university libraries where these papers can be downloaded for free anyway!
It has not escaped my attention and noticed the paradox that The Lighthouse in Economics is a paper that disprove, with facts, the incorrect belief by many people (including my former MBA classmate who has a B.A. degree in Economics) that Lighthouse services cannot be charged thus has to be made freely available by the governments!
*** Concluding thoughts ***
I want to emphasize that I totally agree with the many academics in the #PDFtribute movement and Aaron that it is about time we in Canada and US require academic papers to be made publicly downloadable for FREE in perpetuity if any part (or whole) of their research funding come from any level of government (thus tax payers’ money, our money)!
Alison Klayman, director of Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, was very nice and cool to do her first post-Oscar-shortlist video interview with me on the day after she came back from a Bangkok film festival trip. Here is my video interview with Alison.
I just noticed on the back wall in the following film still, the pictures are the concept drawings that lead to the Remembering (2009), an installation for the Façade of the House of German Art.
Alison and I talked about the middle finger salute in the interview. To me, it is a show of defiance to the powerful, be it the one-party ruled Chinese government or any other governments or powerful institutions.
As I watched the #HK71 massive July 1st, 2012 street protests (on the day of the 15th anniversary of the hangover of HK to Chinese government, and the swearing-in of the new Chief Executive of HK, CY Leung), I can no longer pretend to be just a happy man on #CanadaDay. In fact, as I see massive problems in HK, I have to be honest and admit that I see Canada is full of our own problems as well when I tweeted,
To point out one bright spot. I’ve been searching for **ANY** LIVE broadcast by citizens re the #HK71 street protests, I finally found the following clip(s) in a channel!
P.S. Re Canada – I love you. In Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom, when news anchor Will McAvoy was asked,
“What makes America the greatest country in the world.”
Executive Producer MacKenzie McHale as an audience member (without McAvoy knowing if she was there), wrote on a card and signal to McAvoy on stage, “IT’S NOT” On the next card, McHale wrote “BUT IT CAN BE.“
The same question can be asked of Canada. And I submit the same answer applies.
*******
I am happy that feng37’s solution of using bambuser (which I also used in my AB election report) was much easier to handle (just an app on a mobile phone, iPhone/Android/etc) to film LIVE #HK31 street protests have given us some great footage to watch without Television stations’ filtering.
*******
The following are what I’ve tweeted earlier tonight. And I am happy that they have been superseded by the above broadcasted clips.
*******
Tweeted the following tonight for #hk71 street protest.
Anyone streaming LIVE video of #hk71 street protest? Can someone post links so people can watch? If not, here is a guide how anyone can do it
9 Steps to LIVE broadcast #hk71 street protest Step1:Get 3G wireless USB stick & plug into laptop Step2:From gmail, get free Google+ AC
Step3 to LIVE broadcast #hk71 install G+ Hangout video plugin Step4:Link YouTube account to G+ Step5:Start Hangout On Air Step6:Broadccast
Step7 to LIVE broadcast #hk71 Share YouTube live video link on social media channels:Twitter,FB,G+,etc Bring extra batteries 4 #democracy
In response to CTV reporter question re integrity of the leadership vote, NDP Brad Lavigne (Principal Secretary to the Leader of the Official Opposition) stated “No possible way to get into their process.“
Really, is Brad serious? He should really read the October 2010 Washington Post article “Hacker infiltration ends D.C. online voting trial” for a change and stop the “No possible way” misguided claim at least (or delusional at worst)! Absolute declarative statement like “No possible way” is a sign of NOT understanding the complexity of security matters especially surrounding internet voting.
The original team of robocall scandal breaking reporters Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher have published their latest report “Elections Canada probing spending records of Conservative campaign in robocall scandal“. Based on the evidences presented in the article, Canadians need some further information from a Guelph, Ontario election campaign. In particular, further explanation of missing election expenses invoices from Andrew Prescott, the deputy campaign manager of Conservative candidate Marty Burke in Guelph, Ontario.
Here is an excerpt from the article (with emphasis and additional link added), I highly recommend you read the full article. It is a great read.
“Prescott said Monday that he had given his campaign manager invoices for the calls but could not explain why the expenses did not appear on the financial report sent to Elections Canada.
He said he used a RackNine account he held through his own company, Prescoan, to place the automated calls announcing Burke campaign events. He said he then submitted invoices to the campaign for these costs.
“I gave them to the campaign manager,” Prescott said. “There was definitely no effort to hide anything or obscure anything.”
“One of the hotly debated issues around the bill, around how educators are able to use copyrighted materials, has now popped up before the Supreme Court.
The justices will be hearing a case about whether grade school teachers who make copies of textbooks for their students should be shielded from paying tariffs.
The same issue came up before the Commons committee last March. Groups who represent educators and provincial ministers of education would like to see more explicit protection for classroom copying included in the “fair dealing” section of the Act, while those who represent publishers say they deserve to be compensated for the textbooks they create.
NDP heritage critic Charlie Angus said the government should be listening to criticism of the bill and making changes before it is forced to by the courts.
“There are problems that need to be fixed and we can do this in a collaborative way or a confrontational way, but I would prefer to get this bill done,” Angus said.
“I want to know that they’re actually listening to the witnesses, because witnesses have identified some serious shortfalls with the bill that can be fixed.” […]
Internal U.S. embassy cables posted by Wikileaks this year suggested former industry minister Maxime Bernier offered to show American officials a previous copyright bill before it was tabled in Parliament.
The cables also detailed how the office of another former industry minister, Tony Clement, suggested Washington include Canada on an international piracy watchlist in order to push legislative efforts along.“
At this point, I believe allegations of illegal dealings against Murdoch‘s vast media empire should be fully investigated in both UK and US. It is important the UK public inquiries and all the legal authorities to uncover all the problems hidden over the years.
As I tweeted and I mean it, especially the last bit. (with notes added)
PR: Rupert Murdoch meets with family of murdered schoolgirl. #failLove to be a fly at Edelman / inside minds of @richardwedelman [global CEO and President of Edelman] @sambrook [leader of Edelman‘s Global Crisis and Issues practice]
As a passionate Canadian, I am shocked and disparaged by the lack of respect for democracy and ethics by Stephen Harper. In these dark hours, the student-organized Vote Mobs across Canada shine a bright light and reminds me there is still hope in Canadian democracy.
“The veteran political comedian says it is refreshing young people are taking action in a brand new way, and explains how the recent ‘vote mobs’ show the kids are alright and getting engaged.”
Plain and simple with some solid source reference articles about Sh*t Harper Did.
“Stephen Harper thinks that what doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger. Unless it kills you.
In 2008, Luc Pomerleau, a biologist at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, discovered secret government plans to weaken regulations & allow corporate food producers to conduct their own safety inspections. Pomerleau leaked the news and was immediately fired. Then the listeriosis meat outbreak killed 17 Canadians.
We are a million dollar ad agency. Wait, no we’re a socialist-communist-liberal conspiracy unit. Wait, no we’re scruffy hipster types. Wait, no, we’re an oft overlooked, disregarded and actively ignored demographic of Canadian voters who want attention by swearing so you’ll ground us. But then at least we’ll be part of the cool swearing kids, right? Those kids smoke. Actually we’re a group of young Canadian artists (comedians, musicians, filmmakers and designers). […]
The following news articles explain why (for just 10-15 minutes) I was unable to edit or access my site kempton.wordpress.com yesterday (March 3rd, 2011). Looks like WordPress.com is under new attacks today (March 4th, 2011) even they have been quickly resolved. (See LIVE status update here.)
Feel great! Finally got around to send in my Bill C-32 submission to the parliamentary committee (Committee’s mailbox at CC32@parl.gc.ca) three days before the 31 Jan, 2011 deadline!
“In order for briefs on Bill C-32 to be considered by the Committee in a timely fashion, the document should be submitted to the Committee’s mailbox at CC32@parl.gc.ca by the end of January, 2011. A brief which is longer than 5 pages should be accompanied by a 1 page executive summary and in any event should not exceed 10 pages in length.“
“The House of Commons has a right to order the government to produce uncensored documents related to the treatment of Afghan detainees, Speaker Peter Milliken has ruled.”
[Lee:] The precedent here today is the clear, unequivocal, benchmarked statement of authority of the House to send for papers and records and it is absolute. And he says the House has never acted to curtail its powers. It was always absolute and it still is. So that’s the rule, that’s the law.
The government members took it quite well. It maybe wasn’t a cold shower, I don’t know. I mean, I wrote a book on this, it wasn’t new to me. But to some of them, to hear that said, it would be a bit of a cold shower.
There seemed, at first, points for each side. Halfway through, the tally might have been said to be tied. Then, the will of Parliament began to run up the score.
“Before us are issues that question the very foundations upon which our parliamentary system is built,” Mr. Milliken observed. “In a system of responsible government, the fundamental right of the House of Commons to hold the government to account for its actions is an indisputable privilege and, in fact, obligation.”
Then came the reference to Bourinot. Then references to Maingot, Erksine, McGee and Odgers. Then this.
“It is the view of the chair,” Mr. Milliken said, “that accepting an unconditional authority of the executive to censor the information provided to Parliament would in fact jeopardize the very separation of powers that is purported to lie at the heart of our parliamentary system and the independence of its constituent parts.”
MPs on the opposition side applauded. The Speaker continued. ”Therefore,” he said, “the chair must conclude that it is perfectly within the existing privileges of the House to order production of the documents in question.”
A cry of “yes!” came from the far end of the room.
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