"Something magical happens when people break bread together and there's this shared experience of, you may completely disagree with the person sitting next to you, but then you're still going to humbly ask them to pass the butter, you know ?"
Jason Atkinson, Film Maker and Writer
The Epoch Times, December 2, 2020
“When things are chaotic to the extreme, order must be restored.”
The Virtue of the Brush in a Time of Chaos
(Needs to be scrolled down)
“Art is not a pleasure, a solace, or an amusement; art is a great matter. Only through the influence of art the peaceful cooperation of man will come about, and all violence will be set aside.”
An interesting biographical snippet:
It may surprise some readers to learn that of all art forms, the great Leo Tolstoy, the great man of letters, was most moved by music. His son, Serge, a composer, said that no man he had ever known was so deeply affected by music as his father. Notable people witnessed his reaction to music as well. The great Russian basso Feodor Chaliapin recalled that when he came to sing for Tolstoy, Sofia Tolstoya drew him aside saying: “It might be that when you sing, my husband will shed tears. Please try not to notice, as he would feel terribly ashamed.” Tchaikovsky also noted in his diary: “Perhaps I have never in my life been so gratified and my creative ambition so touched as when L.N. Tolstoy, sitting beside me and listening to the andante of my First String Quartet, burst into tears.”
Raymond Beegle
Complete Article:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/truth-tellers-leo-tolstoy-in-love-with-truth_3533979.html
When there appears more than one interesting item each day it seemed that this format is suitable -- I hope that you agree.
(a) Puppies -- Sick dogs trigger questions about imported pets, respected purebred Puppy List. As Canada faces a surge of thousands of puppies imported from eastern Europe, where puppy mills are rampant, the very organization Canadians might expect to be cracking down appears to be lending legitimacy to questionable sellers.
(b) Immigrants -- Today marks a day of both hope and anxiety for immigrants desperate to bring their parents or grandparents to live permanently in Canada, as a controversial lottery process for family reunification opens.
I am very grateful to John for bringing this very important video to our attention.
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Housing prices are skyrocketing in cities around the world. Incomes are not. Push sheds light on a new kind of faceless landlord, increasingly unliveable cities, and an escalating housing crisis. The film follows Leilani Farha, the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, as she's travelling the globe, trying to understand who's being pushed out of the city and why.
https://www.tvo.org/video/documentaries/push-feature-version
tvo
Most of the riots that racked the United States within the last few months were organized by two socialist organizations which have close ties with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), said Trevor Loudon, author, and filmmaker, who has been researching radical and terrorist groups and their covert influence on mainstream politics for more than 30 years.
The Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) based out of Minneapolis, an openly pro-CCP organization, and Bay Area-based Liberation Road, with very close ties to the Chinese consulate there and the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA), are behind the recent riots, Loudon said in a recent interview on Epoch Times’ Crossroads program.
""Under this socialist revolution, there is no need to confiscate your property
— they can simply redistribute your wealth."
Leslyn Lewis
National Post
Canada is quietly going through a socialist coup.
If I had written these words just one year ago, it would have been deemed conspiratorial. But I have heard from too many Canadians over the past six months about what they have seen taking place. Ever since Justin Trudeau tried to grant himself king-like powers at the beginning of the COVID crisis, what we have been witnessing in Canada is a socialist coup that we, the taxpayers, are funding.
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Technical Publication Trends
A recent article, published in Aerospace Week Intelligence Network, drew my attention as it focussed on the subject of my professional career … the production of technical publications.
Firstly, I shall reproduce excerpts that address specific content related to my personal experiences, i.e., Technical Author (FISTC), Publications Manager, and Teacher of English as a Foreign Language, before I follow with my own comments.
“Technical publications supporting the operations and maintenance of complex assets in the aerospace and defense industries play an instrumental role in operational enablement and mission achievement. These tech pubs represent the organization's institutional knowledge. As senior staff retire and take a wealth of knowledge with them, these organizations realize technical publications are critical to sustaining newer team members' productivity. Luckily, modern technologies are enabling new ways to utilize tech pubs in productive and innovative ways.”
“Historically, tech pubs have been used passively in the maintenance process. An issue or task arises, a work order is generated with the parts and tools required and the tech is assigned to complete the effort. The technician accesses the tech pub as a reference, either on paper or in the IETM. In other words, the information is passively pulled into the process, not proactively pushed.”
“As we move further into the fourth industrial revolution, assets are becoming more intelligent with innovations like IoT, AI, big data analytics, remote diagnostics and other emerging technologies. Proactive delivery of technical knowledge is possible as the assets themselves can now communicate intelligently with digitalized content. For example, our customers have embedded our technology into asset platforms so the diagnostics data in the tech pub can work with the onboard monitoring systems to identify emerging issues. There is a lot more to this topic than I can cover here, so I suggest checking out my white paper that explains how technical content can assist in predictive and Condition Based Maintenance Plus (CBM+).”
“On top of the labor shortage, 80% of operational, maintenance and support personnel in the global aerospace and defense industry are non-native English speakers, but all aviation industry technical documentation is in English. Did you know it takes up to two years to train non-native English speakers to build competence in Simplified Technical English or STE?”
“As a result, I had several of my defense manufacturing clients look at advances in Machine Translation to deliver dual language technical publications within their Foreign Military Sales or FMS programs. FMS product support is another example because email, live chat and document translation are now vital when exchanging information between FMS customers and their Factory Support Representatives.”
By Bob Hogg, Director A&D Market Strategy - SDL
As a non-academic student of linguistics, I wince at the intent of the language usage prescribed above. I assume that we have all used our iPhone to translate “Hello” to “Ni hao” or asked “Siri” for “Tomorrow’s weather”, but please, not to replace and adjust microscopic tolerances of a gas-turbine engine, etc. !
Why ? Because the terms A.I., S.T.E. and Machine Translation imply the eventual removal of human technical language academics. Professionals who remember hundreds of instances when near-fatal (and fatal) accidents occurred that resulted from poorly-written user guides or maintenance manuals. For example, the Airbus that had insufficient fuel, or the Challenger that activated reverse-thrust instead of flaps. Imagine yourself as the captain in a cockpit when emergency lamps are flashing and a robot is screaming “PULL UP. PULL UP” at you. There are hundreds (thousands) of these examples … and they continue. Personally, I remember working with Chinese technicians (in China) on G.E. gas-turbines, who worked diligently … as best that they were able … but ….
Are you surprised by my wincing at the thought ?
From Houston to the small town of Esbjerg in Denmark, the Chinese regime has its eyes on Chinese nationals and foreigners around the world—people it hopes to influence into furthering Beijing’s interests.
The list, disclosed in a leaked government document that was recently obtained by The Epoch Times, revealed that the Chinese regime seeks to “cultivate talent” in a wide breadth of sectors and countries.
For decades, Beijing has maintained such talent-recruitment programs, such as the widely scrutinized “Thousand Talents Plan,” which lures overseas Chinese and foreign experts into working in China’s science and tech sectors—to help fulfill its ambition of turning China into a high-tech manufacturing powerhouse.
The internal list offers a glimpse into the scale of Beijing’s influence operations and also reveals that they stretch across diverse fields.
Another set of documents revealed that amid the COVID-19 pandemic, authorities have begun tracking expatriates living in China and monitoring their health status.
A third set exposed how authorities keep a tight leash on citizens who travel abroad.
Spices have been eaten for millennia. Turmeric and chilli, in particular, have been researched extensively in recent decades. And while consuming them is correlated with some health benefits, those benefits – and the reasons for them – are not what you might think.
This long article, but very interesting, may be read in its entirety by clicking here:
I feel obliged to mention that having agreed to accept Google's imperfect and annoying, non-lucrative, AdSense on my Blog, the appearance of advertising is self-decided. The Ads. are selected as a result of your own Internet usage, i.e., your choice of browsing controls the advertising ... unless you use Ad-Blocking software.
Caution; The use of "blocking" software may, on occasions, have a deleterious affect on enjoyable usage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKWDy2g-Tvs
Hi Bernie
The stories in the Epoch Times video are interesting. The question is of their truthiness. The newspaper is apparently a Falun Gong organization for which I have sympathy however how can we extract fake news from propaganda? Oops, it's all propaganda with a twist.
Do you think Xi Jinping can be overthrown?
The publishers are Trump supporters and he knows fake news when he sees it on TV. ha ha.
Thanks for sending it.
John
Firstly, your reply surprised me in that the quotation sent to you was just a cut-n-paste of one sentence from an article of Epoch Times. It was not an http link … at least it wasn’t intended to be. The intention being that if interested, I would copy the whole article to you. I guess that the unnoticed underlining of the sentence should have been a ‘giveaway’. Sorry.
"Gov. Gen. Julie Payette's disregard for the Mounties paid to protect her has resulted in added security risks and unnecessary taxpayer costs, according to RCMP and Rideau Hall sources. Payette's secrecy and resistance to working with the RCMP routinely sends her protective detail scrambling to fulfil last-minute requests and drives up spending on overtime, hotel and plane tickets, multiple sources told CBC News. Payette has even made repeated attempts to slip away from her protectors in Canada and abroad, sources say. The RCMP has also had to apologize for her behaviour to foreign security abroad because she treated them so poorly, said sources. The latest revelations come as the Governor General's office is under an extraordinary workplace review by the Privy Council Office after CBC News reported claims Payette has belittled, berated and publicly humiliated employees."
CBC
My Conclusion
The "knives" are out, and a "not guilty until proven" argument is being presented. In my opinion, the "Where there's smoke ..." theory, should rule the Privy Council review. The Prime Minister appointed Ms. Payette while rejecting Stephen Harper's request for the usual advisory board selection process and, now, he should whisper our request for her resignation. Permitting her a further embarrassing three years in position could be seen as excessive (If Prince Harry is able to resign, why not Ms. Payette ?).
It could permit the long-awaited nomination of someone from the indigenous community, perhaps.
"Global Affairs Canada tasked a Chinese state-owned company with installing X-ray machines in Canadian embassies around the world. The National Post's John Ivison, who broke that story last week, offered a significant update yesterday when he wrote that a Canadian firm submitted a lower bid—and Nuctech still won the contract. Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne ordered a review of purchasing practices and says no X-ray machines were ordered. Spare a thought for whichever public servant gave the green light to Nuctech in the first place."
Macleans
Readers are enjoying the humour of words from the Internet -- I hope that you will also enjoy these examples:
The countries most affected by CoviD-19 are the USA. Brazil, Russia, Spain, the UK, Italy and France
The prime minister [Canadian] should be congratulated for refusing to be bullied by the People’s Republic of China into returning Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou to China, though she is being detained in Vancouver for extradition on a demand from the United States for alleged commercial offences. And while we should probably extradite Meng to the United States, we should not ratify an extension of the extradition treaty with the U.S., not because of this particular case, but because we should not be sending anyone to a jurisdiction where practically all prosecutions are successful. In its criminal law, the United States is not a society of laws, it is a prosecutocracy, and we should not feed it. Nor should we be concerned about the non-return to Canada of people whom we believe to have committed crimes. If they did, we don’t want them back; if they did not, they should come back and establish that fact. But we should have no part in stoking the fetishistic American criminal justice apparatus.
The Meng case is a side show and no one disputes that China is an important country and a great historic civilization, and few have any desire to withhold from the Chinese the deference due to them as, along with the Indians, the world’s most numerous nationality, and next to the United States, the largest economy in the world. (Edited for brevity)
China’s Communist government has exploited the coronavirus crisis, which it was itself responsible for inflicting upon the world, as cover for shredding its treaty with Great Britain over Hong Kong and imposing what amounts to a hobnailed jackboot on the windpipe of that splendid and enterprising city. (Edited for brevity)
This all constitutes a clear and disturbing pattern of sociopathic behaviour and a reversion to Chinese conceptions of their natural right to impose their will on their neighbours, exact tribute from smaller countries and generally require a level of deference to their wishes that’s incompatible with concepts of international law that have arisen and been generally embraced since the last time China was ruled by a strong government, 400 years ago. (Edited for brevity)
We are certainly not dealing with another Nazi Germany or even a Soviet Russia. (Edited for brevity)
Of course, China has to be accommodated up to a point. (Edited for brevity)
Practically the whole world bought into the wishful theory that if China was facilitated in its quest for prosperity, it would become a co-operative and reasonable member at the top table of the family of nations. This was not how Germany, Russia or Japan developed. There is no serious justification for the policy of the Western states led by the G7, including Canada, to have been so indulgent of China’s excesses and provocations for so long. The major countries of South Asia, Australasia, Europe and the Americas should all concert on trade and sanctions policies and related matters, including the reported targeting of some Chinese nationals studying at Western universities to be potential spies. Many of China’s foreign trade and diplomatic posts are simply places of espionage. The United States in particular possesses a vast arsenal of potential measures for achieving its goals with China, including encouraging a definitive statement of Taiwanese independence, raising the American naval presence in the Formosa Strait in the South China Sea, cancelling many or all of the 300,000 Chinese student visas in the United States and closer co-operation in economic and military matters with the leading states in the Far East and South Asia, especially Japan, Indonesia and India. Those and neighbouring countries comprise a huge block whose economic and military strength substantially exceeds China’s. There is a role for Canada as the fourth Pacific Ocean economy (after the U.S., China and Japan), in developing a system of incentives for the world’s major countries to adopt to help the moderate and constructively internationalist forces prevail in Beijing.
Conrad Black -- National Post
