Heat Day: University of Victoria Issues First Ever Closure Due to 'Extreme Heat'

University closed Monday due to extreme heat

by University of Victoria

 

Alert sent: Sunday, June 27, 2021

 

Stay safe during extreme heat. The University of Victoria will be closed Monday, June 28 due to extreme temperatures.

People will not be required to work on campus or remotely except in limited situations and to maintain services necessary for the continued operation and safety of campus. Cancellations include online classes. The Student Wellness Centre will be available for limited access to clinical health services only. Please call in advance to confirm availability and appointment times.

 

Read further for more information 

 

Celebrating Toronto G20's 11th Anniversary: "The Greatest Violation of Civil Rights in Canadian History"

Toronto G20 – A Model for Repressing Mass Protest

by Paul Jay - The Analysis.News

 

June 24, 2021 

 

Eleven years ago, the mass arrests at the Toronto G20 was a model for training police across North America in techniques for repressing peaceful mass protests. Led by the RCMP, the strategy was to arrest over one thousand people and later release them once their right to demonstrate had been eliminated.

The Ontario Ombudsman called it the greatest violation of civil rights in Canadian history. Alok Mukherjee, at the time was Chair of the Toronto Police Services Board, joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news.

Britain's Naval Escapades Embarrass Everyone

THE BRITISH NAVY’S CRIMEAN CAPE CAPER ENDS UP LIKE THE BORNHOLM BASH, BALTIC BLUFF, BLINKEN BLINK 

by John Helmer - Dances with Bears

@bears_with

 

June 24, 2021

 

The British Embassy’s Press Office has stopped answering its telephones in Moscow.  It is also refusing to respond to emailed requests like the name of the Embassy defence attaché, a naval officer, who appeared at the Russian Defence Ministry on Wednesday to listen to the official protest of HMS Defender’s 31-minute, 29-kilometre run into Russian territorial waters  that morning.  

It is in the small details that the meaning of the naval engagement off Cape Fiolent, Crimea,  can be found. In not lining up the small details so they corroborate the official interpretations, the British Government in London has demonstrated less competence than the Polish Government in Warsaw three months ago, when it sent fishing boats, a navy mine-layer and an anti-submarine patrol aircraft  against Russia’s Nord Stream-2 pipe-laying vessel, the Fortuna.  

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Steve Poikonen, Ron Ridenour June 24th, 2021

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

 

June 24, 2021

Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s Home Edition, recorded on the dates, June 13 and 19th, 2021.

Listen. Hear.

On June 11 agents working for the American government arrested American “hacktivist” and man behind the Anonymous mask in some of that entity’s early public releases, Commander X from his home in Mexico City. Chris Doyon had been on the run, evading charges of masterminding a denial of service attack against the computer systems of the town of Santa Cruz more than a decade ago. The size of the operation to take Doyon into custody is curious, given the minor nature of the action he’s accused of participating in and the many years passed. Regardless, Commander X is back in the USA and in federal custody.

Steve Poikonen is an activist and hosts the ‘Slow News Day‘ podcast, available at Rokfin. He’s also an organizer with Action4Assange, and co-host of the #FreeAssange Vigil and has participated in and helped organized multiple actions in Washington, D.C., to bring attention to the plight of the imprisoned journalist and publisher. Steve’s hosted Doyon several times on Slow News Day and is now organizing support for his release.

Steve Poikonen in the first half.

Weeks past election day and still there is no clear winner declared in Peru’s presidential election. The contest pitted convicted felon and daughter of former president, Alberto Fujimori (himself currently in prison) against leftist upstart and political novice, Pedro Castillo. Castillo had a lead going in to the second round of the poll, but that’s when things started to get funny. In what looks eerily similar to election reversals in Bolivia in 2019, and earlier this year in Ecuador, a leftist contender could be defeated when all the numbers were going his way.

Ron Ridenour is a journalist, author, editor, and peace and social justice activist. The ex-pat American has lived and worked in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Bolivia and currently calls Denmark home. He’s worked too as a special correspondent and freelancer for numerous publications in Europe the US, and Latin America, and served as press aid to Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales and the governments of Cuba and Nicaragua.

Some of Ridenour’s many book titles include: ‘The Russian Peace Threat: Pentagon on Alert’, ‘Cuba: Revolution in Action’, and ‘Backfire: The CIA’s Biggest Burn’. Ron’s articles also feature at numerous online sites, including on ThisCantBeHappening.net, and CovertAction Magazine, where his latest, ‘Left-Wing Populist, Pedro Castillo, Leads Polls Before June 6th Election in Peru’.

Ron Ridenour and will Pedro Castillo follow in the footsteps of Evo Morales and Andres Arauz? in the second half.

But first, Steve Poikonen and freeing the Commander.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com

The New Nuclear Cowboys: Biden's Big Bang Military Budget Leaves Trump in the Shade

Building more atomic bomb triggers is the ‘pits’: Time to Stop Modernizing America’s Nukes and to Start Negotiating Peace

by Dave Lindorff - This Can't Be Happening

 

June 18, 2021 

 

The Biden administration, in its proposed military budget, is calling for a restart of something the US arms industry has not produced in any significant quantity since 1992: nuclear “pits” — the spherical plutonium-based core of implosion bombs like that dropped on Nagasaki. 

 

A plutonium explosive ‘pit’ (l) and a ‘pit’ inside most of an assembled bomb core made of shaped explosive charges (r). (US government photos) 

In his record-breaking $753-billion National Security Budget, $715 billion of which is for the Pentagon, is another $38 billion for the portion of the Energy Department budget that is devoted to nuclear weapons and weapons production. It’s a figure that is higher than what the proposed 2022 military budget of the outgoing Trump administration would have been and is a record in constant dollars that exceeds any year of the Vietnam or Korean Wars and is only topped by World War II spending, when the US was fully mobilized in a global conflict.

Castillo Wins Peru...Or Does He?

Socialist Pedro Castillo Wins Peruvian Election Over Dictator Alberto Fujimori’s Daughter: Former Military Commanders Encourage Electoral Coup

by Ron Ridenour - CovertAction Magazine

 

June 20, 2021 

“The Peruvian people have raised their heads to say democratically that we are going to save this homeland,” farmer-turned-teacher, unionist organizer and socialist Pedro Castillo, 51, told supporters the evening of June 15, following the end of ten days of counting ballots.

“Tonight should not only be a night of joy and jubilation but also of great responsibility. We have to be cool because today begins the real battle to end the great inequalities,” Castillo said.

 

Home Run for Julian June 21

LIVE Tonight 7pm CST/8pm EST Our Editor-in-chief

@MnarMuh will be co-hosting the #HomeRun4Julian Assange event in Minneapolis alongside his father and brother Richard and Daniel and FBI whistleblower

@ColeenRowley, special song by@rogerwatersopening statement by@DanielEllsberg

 

 

A Brave New Reality Check

Manufacturing (New Normal) “Reality”

by CJ Hopkins - Consent Factory

 

June 20, 2021 

The ultimate goal of every totalitarian system is to establish complete control over society and every individual within it in order to achieve ideological uniformity and eliminate any and all deviation from it. 

This goal can never be achieved, of course, but it is the raison d’être of all totalitarian systems, regardless of what forms they take and ideologies they espouse. You can dress totalitarianism up in Hugo Boss-designed Nazi uniforms, Mao suits, or medical-looking face masks, its core desire remains the same: to remake the world in its paranoid image … to replace reality with its own “reality.”

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, J.B. MacKinnon, Eva Bartlett June 17, 2021

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

 

June 17, 2021 

Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s Home Edition, recorded June 10th and 12th, 2021

 

Listen. Hear.

After the shock, fear, and uncertainty had subsided somewhat, benefits of the pandemic soon became apparent. Who didn’t marvel in those early days at the serene stillness, the peace and quietude settling over the cites like a muffling snowfall; surprising commuters and putting a halt to our frantic everyday? And didn’t the stars seem closer; the air fresher? And, wasn’t there too an unaccustomed moment to hear ones thoughts; to take time to think?

Bestselling, award-winning Canadian author J.B. MacKinnon’s first book, ‘The 100-Mile Diet’, (co-written with Alisa Smith) was an international sensation, catalyzing the locavore movement. He followed that with ‘The Once and Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be’, the poignant examination of Nature’s past, the parlous anthropocene present, and our possible futures. His latest is ‘The Day the World Stops Shopping‘ a book he says began as a thought experiment and work of “imaginative reporting” that World events caught up with.

J.B. MacKinnon in the first half.

And; the result of last month’s Syrian presidential election was hardly surprising. The besieged country’s leader Bashar al-Assad won by a margin poll-watching cliches like “landslide victory” can’t do justice. Equally unsurprising was the Western press and “World Community” reaction to that victory.

Eva Bartlett is an independent Canadian journalist and activist who has lived in and reported extensively from Syria over the last decade. She’s been one of the few Western witnesses to the destruction of war from where the missiles and bombs land, and one of even fewer to fix properly the blame on those responsible for it. Eva was in Syria again witnessing both the reelection of Assad, and widespread celebration of national survival.

Eva Bartlett and Syria, still standing after a decade of war in the second half.

But first, J.B. MacKinnon and stopping what we must, and can’t, stop: Shopping.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Jonathan Latham, John Helmer June 10, 2021

This Week on GR

by C.L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

 

June 10, 2021

Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s Home Edition, recorded on the dates, June 3rd and 6th, 2021.

Listen. Hear.
 

Almost a year and half into the Covid-19 disaster there is still debate about how and from where the Sars-CoV-2 virus emanated. Recently the Biden administration reversed course, granting credence to the once discredited lab origin theory put forward by the former Republican president. But politics aside, the issue of origin is of vital interest to public health world-wide; and the fact is, in June of 2021 we still don’t have an answer to the trillion dollar question.

Dr. Jonathan Latham holds a Masters degree in Crop Genetics, a PhD in Virology and is, along with Dr. Allison Wilson, co-author of a trilogy of controversial articles seeking to both discover the origins of Covid-19. Latham is too co-founder and Executive Director of the Bioscience Resource Project, and Editor of Independent Science News, where his article, ‘A Chinese PhD Thesis Sheds Important New Light On The Origin of the COVID-19 Coronavirus’ appears.

Jonathan Latham in the first half.

And; it seems Russia has stolen America’s hamburgers. Last month, alleged Russian hackers brought a major U.S. oil pipeline to a standstill in a cyber-ransom attack. That was serious, but now the Slavic dastards have allegedly gone farther than too far. If the American government and western press is to be believed, Russians are “probably” behind the reported ransomware hack into meat supply giant JBS, bringing to a grinding halt the Brazilian-based transnational’s vital role feeding America’s summer barbecues. The reported attack comes just weeks before a scheduled meeting between Russian and American Big Salamis, Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden.

John Helmer is a journalist, author, broadcaster, former political advisor to government, and principal behind the news website, Dances with Bears. Among Helmer’s many books titles are, ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17’ ‘Skripal in Prison’, ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia’, and his latest, ‘Hitler Didn’t Die in Berlin – He Moved to Melbourne Where He Runs the State Government of Victoria: A True Covid-19 Thriller’. His recent article, ‘Russia Through the Looking-Glass of Anglo-American War examines alleged Russian “exceptionalism”. Imagine!

John Helmer and getting to the meat of what’s the matter with Russia/U.S relations in the second half.

But first, Jonathan Latham and proposing again an origin for SARS-CoV-2.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com

Understanding Gain of Function (GoF)

Understanding Gain of Function (GoF)

An Investigation of Meaning by Alina Chan (via Twitter)

 

June 12, 2021

 

Starting my 🧵 discussion of gain-of-function research based on yesterday's twitter survey.

This might be incredibly long so I will be using gifs and graphics to help keep people awake on a Saturday morning.https://t.co/nZAI7VBLw1

— Alina Chan (@Ayjchan) June 12, 2021

First things first. I made the survey yesterday morning to get a sense of the public perception of "gain of function" (GOF) research. This phrase has exploded in the media, even making its way into a congressional hearing. https://c-span.org/video/?c496233


 

It is clear that the public needs to know what GOF research means.

What does it mean when people say that the US might have funded GOF research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology?

— Alina Chan (@Ayjchan) June 12, 2021




 

 


https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4962333/senator-paul-dr-fauci-clash-research-funding-wuhan-lab


 


Ape in Need of New Home

Ape in Need of New Victoria Home

by C.L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

 

June 5, 2021 

Your corresponding Ape, Bride of Ape, and Cat Master of Apes are searching for an August 1st tenancy in Victoria. We're looking for a Unicorn: affordable, close-in, cat-friendly 1 bedroom + den, or 2 bedroom place with a jungle-yard for the tile Tiger.

Any tips, links, or suggestions welcome in comments, or at:

lex at highspeedplus dot com

SolarWinds Still Chilling U.S./Russia Relations

RUSSIAN CODE SUPREMACY MEANS THERE’S ONLY ONE SECRET THE US GOVERNMENT HAS LEFT – THAT THE GOVERNMENT HAS NO SECRETS FROM RUSSIA

by John Helmer - Dances with Bears 

  @bears_with

 

December 21st, 2020 

 

To believe what the US State Department is saying officially, and the Department is doing, the US is now at war with Russia; withdrawing from Russia as many of its personnel as possible; keeping this quiet.

Putin at Zapad 2017 military exercises, Leningrad region, 2017.

The Russian sources also believe the US intelligence gathered by Russian espionage will be especially negative for those Russian oligarchs who have been closest to Washington; that’s to say, the oligarchs on the US Treasury list of January 29, 2018, who have been shielded from sanctions in the two years since. Observe carefully the invitation and exclusion list of this year’s Kremlin Christmastime tea party, if there will be one.

 

Super Surreal British Columbia: Horgan Talks and Logs as Usual

SUPER-DUPER NON-COLONIAL PRESS CONFERENCE (a summary)

by Tasha Diaman

 

June 2, 2021

On June 1, 2021, BC Premier “Lie and Log” Horgan held a bogus press conference to “address” forestry issues. He said “fibre”and “value-added” a lot and talked about how fancy the Old Growth Strategic Review is—even though it came out last year and it recommended a deferral on old growth logging, but old growth logging went up 43% instead. 

 

This time stuff is really gonna happen in 2023! Forests Minister Katrine Conroy is excited!

 

Getting to the Bottom of 'Russian Exceptionalism'

RUSSIA THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS OF ANGLO-AMERICAN WAR

by John Helmer - Dances with Bears

@bears_with

May 31, 2021

“Vladimir Putin is not the president of my choice”.

 

 

This is how the daughter of a powerful apparatchik in Tatarstan begins the book she has just written from London, at a think-tank leading the propaganda war against Russia. The problem for Gulnaz Sharafutdinova (lead image, right), inside her mind, is “the gap between how many of my schoolmates, friends and family back home perceive Putin’s leadership, and how I perceive it.” The problem outside Sharafutdinova’s mind is that she is on the other side in the war against Russia, and she doesn’t want to admit it.   

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Selam Gebremeskel/Meron Dejene, Bill Johnston June 3rd, 2021

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

 

June 3, 2021

Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s Home Edition, recorded on the dates, May 31st and June 1st, 2021

 Listen. Hear.

Last November, the federal government of Ethiopia, in concert with the dictatorship of neighbouring Eritrea, launched a military invasion of Tigray. Since, millions have been displaced and millions more are in dire need of humanitarian assistance in what the Biden administration said last week is shaping up to become the greatest manufactured disaster since the Ethiopian famine of the 1980’s.

Last week, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mark Lowcock told the UN Security Council, president Abiy’s troops and its allies have, as well as committing “mass rapes and murder“, “attacked, obstructed or delayed [deliveries of] life-saving assistance… and killed at least 8 aid workers since November“.

Selamawit Gebremeskel is an Ethiopian emigre who has lived in Canada for nearly thirty years. Selam, now a health care professional in Victoria, has relatives in Tigray caught up in a war the government there is waging against its civilians.

 

Selam Gebremeskel and Meron Dejene in the first half.

And; Day 295 of Direct Action against timber company Teal Jones’ clear-cutting of the Fairy Creek watershed was marked by more than 2,000 blockaders joining the nine months-long campaign in defiance of a BC court injunction and the massive presence of Canada’s paramilitary federal police, the RCMP. Despite scores of protesters arrested to date, or perhaps because of it, the size of the blockade has continued to grow. And the stakes are high. According to the Rainforest Flying Squad in the face of biodiversity and climate crises the logging of old growth forests must stop. It’s just as British Columbia’s own Old Growth Strategic Review Panel recommended last year, but the cutting continues.

Bill Johnston is a retired officer of the Canadian Foreign Services and active Green Party member. He and partner Jan have been traveling up island to participate directly in the blockade. They were up there Saturday, just two of the more than two thousand that showed up to slow up the clear-cuts.

Bill Johnston and the fight to save Fairy Creek in the second half.

But first, Selam Gebremeskel, Meron Dejene and Ethiopia’s engineered catastrophe in Tigray.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com

Covid Origin Stories: RaTG13 Dogs Wuhan Institute of Virology

A Chinese PhD Thesis Sheds Important New Light On The Origin of the COVID-19 Coronavirus

by Jonathan Latham, PhD and Allison Wilson, PhD - Independent Science News

 

May 11, 2021

One of the very earliest scientific papers from the COVID-19 pandemic era now has over 11,000 citations. Appearing in the scientific journal Nature on February 3rd 2020, Zhou et al., 2020 reported the genome sequence of a novel coronavirus isolated from patients with atypical pneumonia in Wuhan, China. Its senior author was leading coronavirus researcher Zheng-li Shi of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (the WIV). 

 

Along with what we now call SARS-CoV-2, her paper also reported the genome sequence of a closely related (96.2% identical) bat virus. The authors called this virus RaTG13. To this day RaTG13 is still the closest known viral genome by far to SARS-CoV-2.

 Listen. Hear. Jonathan Latham discuss article findings here.

On Balance: "Don't Worry Forest, Old Growth INCREASING!"

WORKING TO COUNTER ANTI LOGGING PROTESTER MISINFORMATION & PROTECT OUR JOBS IN THE WORKING FORESTS

by USW Affiliated with AFL-CIO-CLC SERVING MEMBERS THROUGHOUT COASTAL BRITISH COLUMBIA

 

May 28, 2021

The United Steelworkers Local 1-1937is mindful of the history of anti-logging protests against the work our members perform in the working forests. While we strongly oppose illegal blockades, we acknowledge the rights of individuals to peacefully protest. 

 

We also want to be clear that in doing so, protestors must not endanger the lives of workers and should consider the danger they put themselves in when they illegally enter active logging areas. 

 

Stumped: B.C. Old Growth Forestry Policy Confounds Experts and Citizens Alike

Sierra Club BC reacts to expert old-growth report showing B.C.’s ancient giants logged to the brink

by Sierra Club of BC

 

June 4, 2020

 

An independent scientists’ report released today—B.C.’s Old-Growth Forest: A Last Stand for Biodiversity—shows in detail how shockingly little is left of B.C.’s most endangered old-growth forests, in particular those with very big trees. Of the little that remains, only a small fraction is protected from logging.

 

Photo: TJ Watt/Ancient Forest Alliance

“This report shows that things are worse than we thought for B.C.’s ancient giants,” said Jens Wieting, Sierra Club BC’s forest and climate campaigner. 

 

How the Horgan Regime Deserted Principled Stewardship

Open Letter to Horgan Regime North Coast MLA, Jennifer Rice: On your Silence and Complacency...

by Ingmar Lee 

May 29, 2021

to jennifer.rice@bcndp.ca

 

Dear Jennifer, last time we met in Bella Bella and walked down the street together, I mentioned that I appreciated your work and was glad to have voted for you. But since then, your John Horgan regime has just gotten worse, and of late, horrible is the only word.

 

 

I'm appalled at how absolutely useless John Horgan's "toolbox" against the dreadful "Justin Trudeau Pipeline" has been, and the shocking continuation of the "Site C Sucks" damn Mega-Folly just adds insult to injury. There was the seriously appalling racist RCMP violence at the forced-in Wet'suwet'en fracked gas pipeline demonstrations, and the full-bore disease-vectoring man-camps forging ahead, while all the rest of us endure strict COVID 19 restrictions.