{"id":29004,"date":"2017-08-20T03:10:03","date_gmt":"2017-08-20T10:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=29004"},"modified":"2017-08-20T03:19:34","modified_gmt":"2017-08-20T10:19:34","slug":"squatchs-open-thread-20-august-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/20\/squatchs-open-thread-20-august-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Squatch&#8217;s Open Thread 20 August 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Today has been one of those days.\u00a0 I did something I have never done before &#8212; I slept in until 1450 hours!\u00a0 My furbabes did not even wake me up even though they were hungry!\u00a0 Within 40 minutes, I showered, dressed, fed the babes and was half way to the bakery to pick up some bread before going to my favourite eatery to say goodbye to one of the hostesses who was leaving.\u00a0 She is a wonderful young lady who will be finishing high school this coming year (Bye Andy) and says she will be checking into the blog.\u00a0 Fortunately our temperatures have moderated here in Metro Vancouver so it has been quite pleasant this past week.\u00a0 Nights have been quite cool so I think that autumn is truly on the way.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-ca\/health\/familyhealth\/iceland-close-to-becoming-first-country-where-no-downs-syndrome-children-are-born\/ar-AAqfL1W?ocid=spartanntp\"><strong>The Independent<\/strong><\/a> &#8212;<\/span>\u00a0Iceland is close to becoming the first country where no-one gives birth to a child with Down&#8217;s syndrome.<\/p>\n<p>Pre-natal tests were introduced in the early 2000s, and the vast majority who receive a positive test have terminated their pregnancy.<\/p>\n<p>While the tests are optional, all expectant mothers are informed about their availability, and up to 85 per cent choose to take it.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s called the Combination Test, and uses ultrasound and blood tests \u2013 as well as factoring in the mother\u2019s age.<br \/>\nThis determines whether the foetus will have a chromosome abnormality, the most common of which results in Down&#8217;s syndrome.<\/p>\n<p>The law in Iceland allows for abortion after 16 weeks if the foetus has a deformity, and Down&#8217;s syndrome is included in this category.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"695\" height=\"390\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dailymotion.com\/embed\/video\/x5x0hew\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">There is another video at the beginning of the article which I would recommend watching only after reading the article and watching the above video.\u00a0 It is from Faux Noise (need I say more?) and is an interview with Tony Perkins (now I know I need not say more!).\u00a0 To be clear, Iceland does not have a cure for downs syndrome, a genetic condition.\u00a0 What they do have is a different way of looking at abortion than in the US.\u00a0 As the Icelandic counsellor said:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">\u201cWe ended a possible life that may have had a huge complication&#8230; preventing suffering for the child and for the family. And I think that is more right than seeing it as a murder &#8212; that&#8217;s so black and white.&#8221;<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">\u201cLife isn&#8217;t black and white. Life is grey.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Personally, I am closer to the Icelandic view than the American view.\u00a0 I believe it is up to each woman to decide what is right for her, and make that decision in consultation with her partner and her doctor.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/british-columbia\/anti-racism-rally-vancouver-city-hall-1.4253117?cmp=rss\"><strong>CBC<\/strong><\/a> &#8212;\u00a0<\/span>Around 4,000 people showed up at\u00a0Vancouver City Hall to protest against a far-right rally\u00a0on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>Tensions rose briefly as protesters from opposing sides began yelling at\u00a0each other, but Vancouver police quickly escorted several\u00a0far-right demonstrators\u00a0away\u00a0from the crowd. One protester\u00a0was in handcuffs.\u00a0 &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/anti-racism-rally-vancouver.jpg\" \/> \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Thousands showed up to protest an anti-Islam rally planned for Saturday afternoon at Vancouver City Hall. (Tina Lovgreen\/CBC)<\/p>\n<p>Plans for the far-right demonstration\u00a0began circulating on social media earlier in the week, not long after <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/world\/trump-charlottesville-al-left-blame-violence-1.4248466\">a deadly\u00a0white nationalist march<\/a> in Charlottesville, Va.<\/p>\n<p>According to a Facebook page for the event, the rally is protesting Islam and the Canadian\u00a0government&#8217;s immigration policies. The page is no longer live, but the demonstration was expected to begin around 2 p.m. PT.<\/p>\n<p>By 3 p.m., a handful of far-right protesters appeared to have gathered. They held confederate flags and the &#8220;alt-right&#8221; symbols for Pepe and Kekistan. One wore a shirt\u00a0in support of U.S. President Donald Trump.\u00a0 &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Rowe-Codner\u00a0said the coalition saw some pushback about the rally earlier in the week, and not just from the far-right.<br \/>\n&#8220;A lot of people [who lean left and central] are saying, maybe if you ignore this situation they&#8217;ll go away &#8230; But there are a lot of people and communities out there that face white supremacy and who can&#8217;t ignore it,&#8221; she\u00a0said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/resist_2.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Ignoring the problem is the same as silence.\u00a0 Silence is consent and THAT is just plain unacceptable!\u00a0 I was very happy to see the numbers in attendance.\u00a0 I had wanted to go but had another commitment.\u00a0 Quite clearly, Charlottesville is having its effects felt far and wide.\u00a0 It encourages me to see more people coming out in support of diversity than those showing up in support of a closed society.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.alternet.org\/news-amp-politics\/trumps-longtime-business-partner-told-family-he-and-potus-are-going-prison-report\"><strong>AlterNet<\/strong><\/a> &#8212; \u00a0<\/span>Felix Sater, one of Donald Trump\u2019s shadiest former business partners, is reportedly preparing for prison time \u2014 and he says the president will be joining him behind bars.<\/p>\n<p>Sources\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spectator.co.uk\/2017\/08\/forget-charlottesville-russia-is-still-the-true-trump-scandal\/\">told\u00a0<em>The Spectator<\/em>\u2018s Paul Wood<\/a>\u00a0that Special Counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s deep dive into Trump\u2019s business practices may be yielding results.<\/p>\n<p>Trump recently made remarks that could point to a money laundering scheme, Wood reported.<\/p>\n<div class=\"in_content_ad_container hide_on_mobile ad_3\">\n<div class=\"proper-ad-unit\">\n<div id=\"proper-ad-alternet_content_1\" data-google-query-id=\"CJyMv4yi5dUCFYSNfgod6xcLAw\">\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/5376056\/alternet_content_1_0__container__\">&#8220;I mean, it\u2019s possible there\u2019s a condo or something, so, you know, I sell a lot of condo units, and somebody from Russia buys a condo, who knows?\u201d the president said.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Sater, who has a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/https-thinkprogress-org-felix-sater-news-bad-for-trump-99e4ebe9a1ad\/\">long history of legal troubles<\/a>\u00a0and cooperating with law enforcement, was one of the major players responsible to for selling Trump\u2019s condos to the Russians.<\/p>\n<p>And according to Wood\u2019s sources, Sater may have already flipped and given prosecutors the evidence they need to make a case against Trump.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>For several weeks there have been rumours that Sater is ready to rat again, agreeing to help Mueller. \u2018He has told family and friends he knows he and POTUS are going to prison,\u2019 someone talking to Mueller\u2019s investigators informed me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Sater hinted in an interview earlier this month that he may cooperating with both Mueller\u2019s investigation and congressional probes of Trump.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Read through to get an idea of a possible timeline.\u00a0 If Sater&#8217;s timeline is correct, there could be a change in the leadership in the US before too long.\u00a0 Of course, due process must playout.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/world\/anti-racism-rally-boston-1.4254282?cmp=rss\"><strong>CBC<\/strong><\/a> &#8212;\u00a0<\/span>Thousands of people took to the streets of Boston on Saturday to protest hate speech a week after a woman was killed at a Virginia white-supremacist demonstration, and their shouts drowned out the &#8220;Free Speech&#8221; rally that sparked the counter-protest.<\/p>\n<p>Organizers of the rally had invited several far-right speakers, who were confined to a small pen that police set up in the historic Boston Common park to keep the two sides separate.<\/p>\n<p>Police estimate that as many as 40,000 people packed into the streets around Boston Common.\u00a0 &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, Trump on Twitter praised the Boston protesters.<br \/>\n&#8220;I want to applaud the many protestors in Boston who are\u00a0speaking out against bigotry and hate. Our country will soon\u00a0come together as one!&#8221; Trump tweeted.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Boston was peaceful this weekend as a &#8220;free speech&#8221; rally mostly fizzled from poor planning, and a larger, louder counter protest in support of diversity.\u00a0 Charlottesville this was not, thankfully!\u00a0 However Trump&#8217;s response was in direct contrast to his response to the Charlottesville riot.\u00a0 Where he talked in support of white nationalists in Charlottesville, he applauded those that spoke out against bigotry and hate in Boston.\u00a0 He is at odds with himself but I am inclined to believe that his response to Charlottesville is his true nature.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/toronto\/palliative-care-virtual-reality-1.4254087?cmp=rss\"><strong>CBC<\/strong><\/a> &#8212;\u00a0<\/span>Meike Muzzi is\u00a0not dressed for travel.<\/p>\n<p>Hospital bracelets in all three primary colours encircle her wrinkled right forearm,\u00a0a gold\u00a0bangle on\u00a0the left.<\/p>\n<p>But she says she&#8217;s ready for today&#8217;s trip \u2014 the promise of an escape from the Toronto palliative care ward in which she&#8217;s spent the past five weeks waiting to die.<\/p>\n<p>David Parker\u00a0is there to fulfil\u00a0that promise\u00a0with the help of his virtual reality goggles.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What you&#8217;ve brought me so far has been beautiful,&#8221; Muzzi says, settling the soft black material of the goggles into the creases around her eyes.<\/p>\n<p>The pair has already\u00a0travelled together through the plains of Africa. And Muzzi reminds her guest that she would have liked to linger longer with the elephants.<\/p>\n<p>Parker already knows this.<\/p>\n<p>He listens to her stories,\u00a0interviewing Muzzi and all the patients he visits at Bridgepoint\u00a0Health in Riverdale, so he can store\u00a0the information away and use it to help them revisit the moments of particular meaning in their lives.<\/p>\n<p>Parker&#8217;s idea to offer virtual reality therapy began at Christmas.<\/p>\n<p>The IT consultant received the headset as a gift. He first used them to take his wife&#8217;s grandmother to Venice, gliding through the canals on a gondola. Then he\u00a0realized he could offer the same experience to those in hospice or having\u00a0long-term hospital stays.<\/p>\n<p>That idea has bloomed into both a pilot project at Bridgepoint\u00a0and a passion project for Parker. Right now\u00a0he donates his time and the equipment, but says that \u2014\u00a0even though\u00a0he runs a creative agency \u2014\u00a0he can see this becoming his life&#8217;s work.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">One of the things that I learned while I looked after my mother was that quality of life is most important.\u00a0 Quantity means nothing if there is no quality.\u00a0 And what makes quality often depends on the person and their situation.\u00a0 For my mother, it was sitting quietly as I brush her hair for hours.\u00a0 For Muzzi, it is travelling and seeing things that gave her joy.\u00a0 Click through for the rest of the story and watch the short video of what Muzzi was viewing.\u00a0 Unfortunately, I could not embed the video properly so that you could see it all.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>My Universe<\/strong> <\/span>&#8212;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"695\" height=\"391\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TayIfVa0QPs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today has been one of those days.\u00a0 I did something I have never done before &#8212; I slept in until 1450 hours!\u00a0 My furbabes did not even wake me up even though they were hungry!\u00a0 Within 40 minutes, I showered, dressed, fed the babes and was half way to the bakery to pick up some <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/20\/squatchs-open-thread-20-august-2017\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-politics","category-35-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29004\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}