Actually Mod, I'm done here at this forum so do me a favour and ban "Hathaway' permanently.  Don't worry, I won't use my magic hacker wizardry to bypass your secure and re-register. 

You may not like strong language on your forum and that's your prerogative. But that doesn't take away from the hypocrisy of all of this.  Do you even get the precedent this sets?  Paypal is more than happy to cater to the whims of big business by blocking donations, funding etc.  Yet funding groups who openly advocate violence against others is fine?  Would it be so fine if you were a target Mod?  I don't get any of you people who just can't see the "bad news".  If you want to whitewash your life do so but I'm not adhering to the rules.  When you don't see the "real ugly" you become like the rest of society busy recreational shopping or hoping for "Hollywood" news on the morning show. 

Ban me. Immediately. 

@Fausto: Well there are no Bell, Rogers or Corus services in my household and I don't stare at a blank screen. 

@Bucky.  The original incarnation of this forum was shut down because someone posted that CFCA Waterloo was going to flip to Virgin Radio.  I suspect rather than face the legal & forensic headaches, the former moderator (who I know) shut it down.  A wise move. 



 

I was surprised not to see an Obit thread for Terry Wogan.  Wogan worked at Radio 1 & later Radio 2 (BBC).  He had a huge audience & a storied (and controversial past).  I remember Craig Smith being a fan. 

Personally I have trouble imaging this sudden change in policy is a Netflix thing. I think it's a major push from the content creators & copyright people.  Last year Netflix gave 0 fucks.  And hardly a surprise if it is. The "music/film/tv" industry are the only industry that actually punishes people who WANT to PAY for their product.  These people using VPN's, etc aren't stealing product.  They're willingly PAYING for it.  It's just continued arrogance from a industry that needs to get beaten up a little bit more.  

And the big machine is started. I  read recently a VPN service in Canada whose crime is allowing Canadian's to watch American Netflix was blacklisted by Paypal.  Excuse me?  White hate & other radicalized groups can use Paypal.  Clearly someone wanting to watch American TV in Canada is more of a villain than someone advocating "death to all n******".  

I guess Paypal has has a short memory . They tried the same thing with Wikileaks.  The result was, at the time, a monster DDoS wiped them offline for nearly a week.  In today's botnet free for all that could go on for much longer.  

Well Fausto, while we're on the topic of "taxpayers paying for things they don't want to" and perpetual bailouts, allow me to retort. 

I'm from Alberta. And while my province is currently enduring hard times over about the past 50 years has subsidized the rest of the country.  In the past 3-4 years that included billions to your province, Ontario. The economic train wreck that is Ontario is the fault of the voters & the government who lacked the foresight to plan ahead.  So while you take exception to tax dollars being used to subsidize the CBC, I shall take exception to MY tax dollars being used to inflate the Ontario economy. 

And ..on the topic of bailouts, I mean really?  Didn't we bail out the auto industry under the supreme leadership of Harper?  There ain't no train car loads of cash heading west for a oil bailout.  And, knowing the oil industry, I don't think they'd accept it. 

And do me a favour. Can you send the funds in Bitcoin please.  This way I avoid paying more taxes to line the coffers of Ms Wynne & crew.  




 

Fausto wrote:

Okay, here's a dumb question: If "All this information was in both parties hands prior to the start of the trial", and there was a great chance of discreditation, why didn't the respective lawyers of the (3 thus far) accusers suggest to their clients a withdrawal of their charges?

You said it earlier "presumed innocent until proven guilty".  Further, in American there is a document that starts "We the People" and in Canada it's called the Charter of Rights.  The right to a fair trial in front of a jury of your peers or an impartial judge.  One could ask should Bernardo have a trial?  Should Dell Millard have a trial?   All parties have access to the same information prior to the start of a trial.  The legal teams then use their arguments in the hopes of convincing a jury.  In the Ghomeshi case it's a judge (as chosen by Ghomeshi I believe).  

As for the statement that one doesn't have to be good when it's taxpayer funded state broadcasting.  That's absolutely nonsense.  The CBC produces great programming & some weak programming.  BBC does the same.  Regarding ratings, Radio 1 trumps both CFRB & AM640.  You confuse your emotional point of view with actual fact because your comments imply you dislike public broadcasting. It's like saying "look, that guy drives a Harley and has tattoo's, he MUST be a criminal".  

Finally, let me debunk your "Can-con" argument.  Recently much of the Top 10 in the USA was..Canadian music.  Canadian music can be world class and is, but only when it's signed to an international label.  If it's signed to a Canadian label it's the kiss of death even IF the songs are good. 

Now, is Cancon a failure?  Well yes and no.  A major part of the "yes it's a failure" is because radio was just outright lazy.  Rather than hire people that understand music, it took the easy route out.  It played what it was fed & had no time to even investigate other options.  Now, in a dial full of "

The common man isn't interested in it because they've already deemed him guilty.  What I find interesting is some media outlets seem very focused on the fact the alleged victims continued talking to Jian after the alleged sexual assaults. They seem to want to imply his innocence because of the actions of the female.  This ignores the reality that women often return to their abusers. It's like how male convicts get frequent visitors & female convicts do not.

Could Jian ever work again?  Most certainly he could, he'd just have to go to the "other side" aka the right wing.  Trump is a liar and manipulator & his fans adore him. Rob Ford is an admitted addict & overall scumbag.  He's IN office & still has his fan base.   It appears the right cares less about a person's criminal past & more about what they spend money on.  Why a station like AM 640 could well hire him as a talk show host & people would tune in.

My spider-sense (which comes with training in FACS, etc) says he's guilty.  I can't help but get the feeling he's one of those guys so lost in his own narcissism he can't imagine a woman not enjoying rough sex. God, I'd love to get his IP and pull up what type of porn he was streaming.  That said, I think this will be a difficult trial.  I suspect he will be found not-guilty or they'll try to nail him on something minor if they can't get a conviction. Toronto cops did the right thing by taking it public and asking for people to come forward.

In the end I think he'll need to leave Canada for his own safety. Holmoka returned to regular life.  Jian will too. The most ironic part?  He'll probably find himself swarmed in women who believe him.  They're the woman who start relationships with convicts. In their twisted mind they imagine they can nurture him back to normality & he's just understood.  I once met a woman who felt Robert Pickton was just "misunderstood".  Because raping, killing, butchering & feeding a couple dozen women to pigs is just a "misunderstandi

@Mike

That wouldn't be the first time a charity has refused money because it the charity didn't fundamentally agree with the source.  Hey, it's money, take it.

I don't have issue with the $6 million Bell raises.  I have never made mention of that.  I take issue to the continued degradation of the standards of humanity. Charity is the good will of people helping other people.  When the motivation for charity becomes something other than good will toward humankind we have an major issue.  It becomes "what's in it for me". 

And indeed, many charities are more like industry than charity. In some cases only a tiny fraction of the donation.  More money is spent on salaries & promotion.  It almost seems to defeat the purpose.  That's why I volunteered my time rather than donate cash. 

Some years back, while on street assignment I met a woman named Jen Allan.  Jen was a former addict, native & survival sex worker (street hooker).  Somehow, she managed to get herself clean & put her life together.  She opened Jen's Kitchen where she takes her own money & prepares sandwiches for street prostitutes.  She goes out on the street and gives the girls something to eat because having food in your system could stop you from making a "life at risk" decision.  Prior to moving to the mountains my wife and I used to go out to the low track hooker stroll on Christmas and hand out hot coffee & make up kits.  The make up kits were the girls because "looking pretty" mattered to them even when their lives were ravaged with drugs & addiction. 

Perhaps the Bell executives & staff should take a walk out of their office tower and studios & get out there on the street. 

Again Mark, please read what I said.  My issue was with Bell and their manufactured empathy & them using that to show society how awesome they are.  And, if you read my full post, I said the ONLY reason Bell did this was because it was part of the deal to purchase Astral.  AND, we also discussed using this as so called "news".

I don't have any issue with the money Mark.  I do expect a company to be truthful about WHY it does what it does.  If a major meth dealer in the Downtown East Side donated money to a charity, I would accept that cash as well. 

 

Well if shill was illegal man, they'd be hiring a lot more of the boys in kevlar for doing raids. Fundamentally I don't care of Bell owned media tells me Bell internet is faster.  That's because I refuse to use their product.  My internet is provided by a 3rd party provider.  

The real issue in something like this is the objectivity of the media as a whole. When CTV news becomes a mouthpiece/advertising conduit for questionable "facts" of another mothership - owned product well it simply takes away the credibility of the media.  Coincidentally, the same media is falling out of a favour by the populace. Perhaps integrity DOES matter.  

Commentary provided by media today is so predictable it's cliche. 

I don't have much to say about AM 640, but in the end the whole digital radio failed because the big radio mafia let it fail.  Now it's a technical "fix" beyond it's time. 

Music fans don't relate finding music with radio & they're the ones that HD radio would appeal to.  They're gone.  They won't come back.  Those who are left are casual fans of music & they're lucky to even know the station their listening too. 

And, unlike radio people seem to believe, they don't "tune in" a station.  They press a button on their car radio.  So during AM or PM drive, they have a half dozen buttons to press when a commercial comes on.

Maybe PPM should just monitor commercials. 

In theory the company knows when the system is done. BUT...you need to monitor that and that in itself takes money and staff.  You want to monitor 500,000 nodes well that takes real horsepower.  I'd like to tell you it's easy but it's not.  I built a Nagios system for 1500 Linux servers.  Took me a year, cost a shitload and once running required staff to monitor and repair. 

Truth is the whole cable/DSL thing is spaghetti. 

Cable will disappear. It will follow a model where u buy the show or subscribe to the network directly and stream it. Apple is starting that with the HBO app but any network could get on Apple TV.  Most networks and shows have a link to them already.

I think the answer to the question is pretty straight forward.  The major cable companies are publicly traded firms. These type of companies put shareholder value before customer service.  Helping your customers save money doesn't equate to shareholder value (at least in the short term).  

I think the whole pick and pay is a moot point anyway.  Those who are cord cutters (as I am) are not returning to cable for a "skinny" package. I don't watch sports & there is nothing local TV has that i can't get elsewhere.  Cable television is done. It was an overpriced "medium" to deliver content that was inflexible & served it's corporate masters needs first. 

If I absolutely HAD to watch the evening news, I'd hook up my HD antenna.  I might someday.  Apparently CTV has a repeater in my town. 

Equating it with crime lords isn't a bit of a journey. It's just an extreme example. Mostly.  But for you to imagine that somehow people don't cross the line knowingly is .. well .. naive.  Industrial espionage is rather commonplace.  Then there are those who manipulate social media to cause gyrations in the stock market & profit. And companies regularly do "penetration testing" and "social engineering" on their own staff but will do surveillance on rivals in the hopes of using the information for extortion and intimidation. Sound legal to you?

Some time back I had a Financial executive invite me out to have a chat.  Off the record.  Official business but off the record.  The individual was concerned because some person online was talking shit about the company.  I gathered the shit was a little bit too close to the truth.  The task at hand was way outside of my boundaries (and illegal).  Very illegal.  Of course I declined but there will be others who do not. There are lots of them.  You don't have to break a guys bones to take him down and ruin his life. 

The "legal line" is often very blurred.

As for the investment people I'm aware they're professionals & they're right. But I'm not interested. Do I need more money? Is the sum total of the game acquiring as much as possible?  I simply have no interest in supporting the concept.  I have one long term goal dude.  To get off the grid.  And stay off.  That's my retirement.  It can't come soon enough.

Almost all public companies = Great Satan.  When your priority is shareholders over customers you lack an understanding of capitalism.  The individuals paying for a service are ALWAYS more important than nameless, faceless "owners".  It works like this.

1. Customer
2. Staff (good staff make happy customers)
3. Shareholders. 

The Tesla is a beautiful car AND there are charging stations which allow me to travel to Vancouver (my federal masters are in Burnaby).  So travel would, in theory, be free as the charging stations are free.  Unfortunately the cars are too expensive especially with the dollar.

But gas is 69 cents anyway!