changed the lives of millions for the better:
The Man Who Disobeyed His Boss And Opened The Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall fell on Nov. 9, 1989, 25 years ago this weekend. East Germans flooded into West Berlin after border guard Harald Jaeger ignored orders and opened the gate for the huge, unruly crowd.
Alain Nogues/Sygma/Corbis
A wonderful moment, without a single shot being fired. If you have never watched
you are in for a serious treat. [Sorry for the ads, guess that’s capitalism for you!]
I was all geared up for a cynical rant about the Ottawa Walking School Bus, but that will have to wait for my sarcasm to rebuild in the face of actual history. Have a peaceful Monday, but if you do see a school bus with legs, please take a photo, preferably a selfie with the bus, a sort of us-ie when there are two of you, or in this case a busie, and send it to me. It only cost forty-four thousand loonies, so it should be easy to catch.
This would be a good book title:
History: it was all just an accident.
For the economics nerds in the crowd, I thought this article had a lot of good food for thought. It’s not a rant of any kind. Simply an attempt to piece together where we are, and why, and what comes next, without a real partisan bent at all, as far as I can tell. Particularly in the context of why the stock market is so strong while the economy for Average Joe is so crappy. The bottom line is that this trend is likely to continue.
The very long run equity bull market
One of the things wrong with the currency wars theory was the assumption that governments are hostile behind closed doors when it comes to money. There is a lot of fairly repugnant cooperation amongst the super powers while they posture in public. Just look at Russia hosting the Olympics and then invading the Crimea. We have a long standing economic relationship with China, one of the world’s worst human rights offenders. There is organ transplant tourism to China from British Columbia, because organs are strangely cheap in China, prisoners being plenty. We know this because doctors in BC end up treating people who have complications following surgery. But Candu reactors must be sold, and huge dams that displace literally millions of people must be built. Our PM is there now, shaking hands and kissing babies. And he will come home and blather on about freedom while building super prisons and passing minimum sentencing laws. So Japan buying bonds when the US isn’t – yes. A quick phone call between central bank heads and all is well.
Good Morning. I feel a little jumpy.
I find Remembrance Day very odd. It is one thing to rue the fallen soldier, which one does daily, but another to celebrate military hardware, and the two have become inextricably joined.
Excuse my simplistic mind:
But that’s what I listened to our kids sing at public school ceremonies for years and the lyrics have finally sunk in. Was talking about just this this morning with hubby and how religion is always divisive especially when part of a state institution. We had a huge fight here years ago when other religions wanted to get in on the public education trough. Ontario made a terrible bargain for reasons that make me think the Illuminati still stalk the halls of education to have four systems: secular english and secular french and catholic english and catholic french. I mean what the f? So I stood on the rain on Parliament Hill and people called for no religion or all religions but no favouritism, and other than you cannot get rid of the Catholics, we didn’t let anyone else in. It is super bizarre. But why should Catholics have their own “public” school board? Anyhow, a Humanist spoke and he was extremely compelling.
The Minimum International definition of Humanism, from the International Humanist and Ethical Association
from the Ontario Humanist website
This War acceptable