Ce carnet fait relâche: Chardonnay coast (Eric Christensen)

Cette toile de l'artiste Eric Christensen est inspirée d'une photo prise dans la baie de Monterey en Californie. Elle me semble parfaite pour illustrer l'état d'esprit dans lequel je baigne au moment de débuter mes vacances d'été. Christensen décrit ainsi son art: "Life is hard enough as it is, so I try to paint the things that make me happy. Through my subject matter and all of its nuances and detail I want to convey all the complexities, colors and creativity of miracles that life gives to us on a daily basis." Comment résister!

 Le carnet web Les Tours de Laliberté a été très fréquenté cette année et la fréquentation totale dépasse maintenant les 300 000 visites. J'y reviendrai peut-être si des événements majeurs devaient se produire, sinon je l'animerai régulièrement dès la mi-août. Un très bel été à tous et à toutes!!!!!

Caricature voiture et technologie...

Caricature de STEVE SACK, THE MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE

Caricature pluie de scandales

Caricature de GARY MCCOY, CAGLE CARTOONS

Caricature prof évalué en fonction des résultats!

Caricature de DARYL CAGLE, CAGLECARTOONS.COM

Caricature Snowden en Chine

Caricature de JEFF DARCY, THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER

Caricature fête des pères tous les jours

Caricature de KAP, SPAIN

Caricature fête des père

Caricature de DAVE GRANLUND, POLITICALCARTOONS.COM

Caricature Obama premier et second mandat: évolution...

Caricature de BOB ENGLEHART, THE HARTFORD COURANT

Caricature Obama: miroir, miroir...

Caricature de MILT PRIGGEE, WWW.MILTPRIGGEE.COM

Caricature Erdogan et la Turquie: quel est le problème?

Caricature de BOB ENGLEHART, THE HARTFORD COURANT

Caricature Obama et vos courriels

Caricature de JEREMY NELL, THE NEW AGE, SOUTH AFRICA

Caricature George Orwell

Caricature de TAYLOR JONES, HOOVER DIGEST

NSA et surveillance: une menace pour la démocratie selon le New York Times

Difficile de ne pas considérer l'opinion émise ici...

 "The surreptitious collection of “metadata” — every bit of information about every phone call except the word-by-word content of conversations — fundamentally alters the relationship between individuals and their government.

Tracking whom Americans are calling, for how long they speak, and from where, can reveal deeply personal information about an individual. Using such data, the government can discover intimate details about a person’s lifestyle and beliefs — political leanings and associations, medical issues, sexual orientation, habits of religious worship, and even marital infidelities. Daniel Solove, a professor at George Washington University Law School and a privacy expert, likens this program to a Seurat painting. A single dot may seem like no big deal, but many together create a nuanced portrait.

The effect is to undermine constitutional principles of personal privacy and freedom from constant government monitoring. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on Tuesday, challenging the program’s constitutionality, and it was right to do so.

 The government’s capacity to build extensive, secret digital dossiers on such a mass scale is totally at odds with the vision and intention of the nation’s framers who crafted the Fourth Amendment precisely to outlaw indiscriminate searches that cast a wide net to see what can be caught. It also attacks First Amendment values of free speech and association.

 La totalité du texte:
  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/opinion/surveillance-a-threat-to-democracy.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130612

Turban, soccer et Québec dans le New York Times

La question controversée du port du turban se retrouve maintenant dans le grand quotidien new yorkais.

 "The turban ban has played out against a familiar backdrop. Quebec’s French-speaking majority long ago went from being dominated politically and socially by the Roman Catholic church to being the most secular people in Canada. Only about 15 percent of Quebecers attend church, and most people in the province long ago rejected its teachings on birth control, same-sex marriage and abortion.

 But the question of how to deal with immigrants’ cultural religious practices remains a thorny issue in the province, where there are about 9,200 Sikhs, according to recent census data. Months of public hearings on the subject in 2007 and 2008 showed that many French-speaking Quebecers felt anxious that their identity and language would be threatened by making allowances for the ways of others. The special commission called that a crisis of perception, and the evidence suggested that the worry was strongest in parts of the province with relatively few immigrants.

 L'article au complet:
  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/sports/soccer/canadian-soccer-rift-grows-out-of-quebec-federations-turban-ban.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130612

Sénat américain: le premier discours en espagnol de l'histoire!

Si on considère la croissance démographique des hispanophones, ce n'était une question de temps. C'est le sénateur démocrate de Virginie Tim Kaine qui devient le premier à faire un discours entièrement en espagnol.

 "“We are going to have hours upon hours of debate about this on the floor of the Senate, and taking 15 minutes to explain the bill in Spanish just seemed like a good idea,” Mr. Kaine said. “Latinos have so much invested in the outcome of the bill, people ought to know what the bill is about.”

According to records from the Senate Library, Mr. Kaine was the first senator to give a speech all in Spanish on the Senate floor. Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, spoke Spanish in brief statements on the floor in 2003 and 2005, and former Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida, did the same in 2005.

 Mr. Kaine, who learned Spanish when he lived in Honduras and helped run a Roman Catholic school with Jesuit missionaries, said he had started planning the speech six weeks ago and had written it with the help of two staff members who speak Spanish.

“I think people were probably surprised,” Mr. Kaine said. “One of my people got a call by a Latino staffer in the House and said, ‘I have waited 20 years to see this happen.’ ”

 Mr. Kaine, a former governor of Virginia, said he used to speak Spanish only every four to five months, but now found himself speaking it every day. “It is a sign of the changing nature of Virginia,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/us/politics/tim-kaines-immigration-speech-in-spanish-is-a-first-for-the-senate.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130612

George W. Bush grimpe dans les sondages

Dans mes souvenirs de l'assermentation de Barack Obama à laquelle j'ai assistée en 2008, il y aura toujours une place pour la colère manifestée par les 1,8 millions de personnes à l'endroit de George W. Bush. On le tournait en ridicule par une salve d'applaudissements lorsque l'hélicoptère qui le ramenait au Texas s'est élevé. Il semble qu'avec le temps (et/ou la performance d'Obama...)ses concitoyens l'apprécient un peu plus. Selon ce sondage Gallup 49% de nos voisins du sud ont maintenant une opinion favorable de leur ancien Président. Il faut préciser que les américains sont généralement plus tendres avec leurs anciens leaders.

 "Bush has maintained a fairly low profile in the four years since he left office. However, he returned to the public eye this year with the April opening of his presidential library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

 Bush left office with 40% viewing him favorably and 59% unfavorably in January 2009. That worsened to 35% favorable and 63% unfavorable in March 2009, but his favorable rating recovered to the mid-40% range by 2010.

 The June 1-4 poll shows further improvement in Americans' ratings of Bush, which had not been more positive than negative since April 2005. Prior to then, Americans had always viewed Bush more favorably than unfavorably, including an 87% favorable rating in November 2001 after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That is one percentage point below the all-time high Gallup has measured for any public figure, shared by Colin Powell (2002) and Tiger Woods (2000).

 Bush's lowest favorable rating was 32% in April 2008, as the economy was in recession and gas prices were headed toward record highs in the U.S. Also at the time, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were engaged in a spirited campaign to become the Democratic nominee who would run for president to succeed Bush.

 http://www.gallup.com/poll/163022/former-president-george-bush-image-ratings-improve.aspx

L'hermite du Maine 27 ans plus tard

Il aurait passé 27 ans seul en forêt... À l'exception de quelques larcins! La célébrité et la justice l'attendent.

 "Residents and second-home owners here in the Belgrade Lakes area of central Maine were relieved to learn of the arrest of the hermit, Christopher Knight, 47. But they were unnerved that a local legend of a hermit-burglar had turned out to be true, that someone really had been lurking in the woods all this time watching them and studying their habits: when they would be home, when they would stock their freezers.

 But to some, he was a figure of sympathy, like Boo Radley, the recluse in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Like Boo, Mr. Knight was initially feared but came to be seen not as someone who was dangerous but as someone who needed to be protected.

 The extensive media coverage of Mr. Knight’s emergence from 27 years of solitude captured the imagination of people around the world, who began sending him bail money and even marriage proposals.

 He had lived in someone else’s woods, undetected under camouflage-colored tarps and completely off the grid; he paid no taxes, had no address and never used a cellphone. He told the police that he had not spoken during his decades of self-exile except for one day in the 1990s when he uttered a greeting to a passing hiker.

L'histoire au complet:
  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/us/hermit-in-maine-is-legend-to-some-thief-to-others.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130612&_r=0

Caricature Mitch Mc Connell la tortue...

Caricature de CHRISTOPHER WEYANT, THE HILL

Caricature Obama, la Chine et les renseignements!

Caricature de JOHN COLE, THE SCRANTON TIMES-TRIBUNE

Caricature Edward Snowden le héros

Caricature de DAVID FITZSIMMONS, THE ARIZONA STAR

Caricature Tim Tebow chez les Patriots

Caricature de DAVE GRANLUND, POLITICALCARTOONS.COM

Edward Snowden: héros ou traître? Opinion dans le Washington Post

 Sur le fond, Matt Miller a raison...

 "Is there potential for abuse? Of course. An Internet-era J. Edgar Hoover is frightening to conjure. But what Snowden exposed was not some rogue government-inside-the-government conspiracy. It’s a program that’s legal, reviewed by Congress and subject to court oversight.

The conversation would be entirely different today if we’d had a series of attacks since Sept. 11, 2001. As the Wall Street Journal editorial page (with which I don’t usually nod in agreement) wrote, if the nation suffered another 9/11 or an attack with weapons of mass destruction, “the political responses could include biometric national ID cards, curfews, surveillance drones over the homeland, and even mass roundups of ethnic or religious groups.” Practices like data mining, the Journal added, “protect us against far greater intrusions on individual freedom.”

 But because vigilance and luck have left us safe thus far from more massive attacks, Snowden felt entitled to indulge the call of his precious conscience. Has any leaker ever been armed with more perfectly crafted sound bites as “the architecture of oppression” and “turnkey tyranny”?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/matt-miller-edward-snowdens-grandiosity/2013/06/11/b87876e6-d292-11e2-8cbe-1bcbee06f8f8_story.html?hpid=z2

Qui est Edward Snowden?

 Un peu plus d'informations sur le responsable de la fuite de renseignements de la NSA:

  http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/10-things-to-know-about-edward-snowden-92491.html?ml=po_r

Edward Snowden parle et Obama demeure silencieux...

Edward Snowden est celui par qui le scandale arrive. Celui qui a livré des informations sur les pratiques de la NSA et orchestré une des fuites les plus importantes de l'histoire américaine continue de parler alors que le Président américain est plutôt discret.

 "Instead, Obama is taking the well-worn path of moving on to other issues — on Tuesday, he applauded the Senate’s progress on immigration reform and met with Peru’s president — even as he faces shouted questions about a storyline that sizzles just about everywhere else.

And it isn’t just the president who’s steering clear of Snowden.

The White House press office has been directing requests for comment to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or the Justice Department, or just about anywhere other than the West Wing. At his daily briefings, press secretary Jay Carney has repeatedly declined to comment.

 “I am not going to discuss the subject of a recently opened investigation. So the whereabouts of this individual, his status, any details about the investigation, I would refer to — questions about those matters, I would refer to the Department of Justice and the FBI,” he said Tuesday, echoing what he said the previous day as well.

 Even when asked whether Obama had viewed The Guardian’s video interview with Snowden, Carney was vague, saying only that the president had been briefed on the leaker’s identity when it first emerged in news reports.

La suite:
 http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/edward-snowden-obama-92580.html?hp=t1_3

Daily show: première émission de John Oliver!

 Le lien pour l'émission du lundi 10 juin. Il s'agit de la première édition du Dailay show en l'absence de Jon Stewart. Pas mal du tout: http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/shows/thedailyshow?videoPackage=135306

Caricature BushObama: d'un espion à l'autre...

Caricature de J.D. CROWE, MOBILE REGISTER

Caricature George Orwell et NSA: nouvelle édition de 1984?

Caricature de JIMMY MARGULIES, THE RECORD OF HACKENSACK, NJ

Caricature baseball et dopage: The un-Natural!

Caricature de BILL SCHORR, CAGLE CARTOONS Schorr réfère ici au film de baseball (un classique) The Natural avec Robert Redford dont voici un extrait:

Caricature NSA: un service à l'écoute des citoyens

Caricature de PATRICK CHAPPATTE, THE INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE

Caricature Assad sauvé par le Hezbollah

Caricature de PATRICK CHAPPATTE, THE INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE

Caricature femmes dans l'armée américaine: nouveaux uniformes...

Caricature de AREND VAN DAM, POLITICALCARTOONS.COM

Caricature Obama nous espionne!

Caricature de ERIC ALLIE, CAGLECARTOONS.COM

Caricature téléphone cellulaire et forfait à vie

Caricature de JOE HELLER, GREEN BAY PRESS-GAZETTE

Caricature Bush et Obama: problème d'écoute...

Caricature de STEVE SACK, THE MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE

Baseball: le plus gros scandale à ce jour?

On croyait peut-être que le pire était passé, mais on se trompait lourdement... Le baseball majeur s'apprêterait à suspendre une vingtaine de joueurs.

 "Tony Bosch, founder of the now-shuttered Biogenesis of America, reached an agreement this week to cooperate with MLB's investigation, two sources told "Outside the Lines," giving MLB the ammunition officials believe they need to suspend the players.

 One source familiar with the case said the commissioner's office might seek 100-game suspensions for Rodriguez, Braun and other players, the penalty for a second doping offense. The argument, the source said, is the players' connection to Bosch constitutes one offense, and previous statements to MLB officials denying any such connection or the use of PEDs constitute another.

 Bosch and his attorneys did not return several calls. MLB officials refused to comment when reached Tuesday.

 Sources said Bosch will meet with MLB officials in New York on Friday to begin sharing information and materials. He is expected to meet with lawyers and investigators for several days. The announcement of suspensions could follow within two weeks.

 http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/9301536/major-league-baseball-suspend-20-players-including-alex-rodriguez-ryan-braun-part-miami-investigation

Caricature Penguins vs Bruins: hibernation?

Caricature de RANDY BISH, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Caricature police et prélèvements d'ADN: forces spéciales!

Caricature de DAVE GRANLUND, POLITICALCARTOONS.COM

Caricature "courage under fire": agressions sexuelles dans l'armée américaine

Caricature de CHRISTOPHER WEYANT, THE HILL

Caricature la Cour suprême "statue" sur le recours aux échantillons d'ADN

Caricature de JEFF PARKER, FLORIDA TODAY AND THE FORT MYERS NEWS-PRESS

Caricature Cour suprême et ADN

 Caricature de JIMMY MARGULIES, THE RECORD OF HACKENSACK, NJ

 La Cour suprême des États-Unis vient tout juste de se prononcer sur la constitutionnalité de la preuve à l'aide d'échantillons d'ADN.

Caricature Obama et les scandales: change you can believe in?

Caricature de NATE BEELER, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Caricature agressions militaires dans l'armée: Iwo Jima revisitée...

Caricature de BILL SCHORR, CAGLE CARTOONS

 Clin d'oeil de Schorr à un monument célèbre et un peu plus glorieux, celui de la bataille d'Iwo Jima.

 

Chronique à Radio-Canada cet après-midi

http://www.radio-canada.ca/emissions/radio-canada_cet_apres-midi/2011-2012/chronique.asp?idChronique=296326

Caricature Erdogan sur Facebook

Caricature de CHRISTO KOMARNITSKI, BULGARIA

Caricature Erdogan le magnifique!

Caricature de AREND VAN DAM, POLITICALCARTOONS.COM

Baby boomers: hausse alarmante de suicides aux États-Unis

 A-t-on appliqué à la lettre cette chanson des Who "I hope I die before I get old"? Cet article du Washington post s'intéresse à une situation alarmante et tente de relever les principales causes.

 "There are no large-scale studies yet fleshing out the reasons behind the increase in boomer suicides. Part of it is likely tied to the recent economic downturn — financial recessions are in general associated with an uptick in suicides. But the trend started a decade before the 2008 recession, and psychologists and academics say it likely stems from a complex matrix of issues particular to a generation that vowed not to trust anyone older than 30 and who rocked out to lyrics such as, “I hope I die before I get old.” “We’ve been a pretty youth- oriented generation,” said Bob Knight, professor of gerontology and psychology at the University of Southern California, who is also a baby boomer. “We haven’t idealized growing up and getting mature in the same way that other cohorts have.”

 Even as they become grandparents and deal with normal signs of getting old, such as hearing and vision losses, many boomers are reluctant to accept the realities of aging, Knight said.To those growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, America seemed to promise a limitless array of possibilities. The Great Depression and World War II were over; medical innovations such as the polio vaccine and antibiotics appeared to wipe out disease and disability; the birth-control pill sparked a sexual revolution. The economy was thriving, and as they came of age, boomers embraced new ways of living — as civil rights activists, as hippies, as feminists, as war protesters.

 “There was a sense of rebelliousness, of ‘I don’t want to live the way my parents did or their parents did,’ ” said Patrick Arbore, director and founder of the Center for Elderly Suicide Prevention at San Francisco’s Institute on Aging. “There was a lot of movement to different parts of the country. With that came a lot of freedom, but there also came a loss of connections. It was not uncommon to see people married three or four times.”

 How did a generation that started out with so much going for it end up so despondent in midlife? It could be that those very advantages made it harder to cope with setbacks, said Barry Jacobs, director of behavioral sciences at the Crozer-Keystone Family Medicine Residency Program in Pennsylvania.

La suite:
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/baby-boomers-are-killing-themselves-at-an-alarming-rate-begging-question-why/2013/06/03/d98acc7a-c41f-11e2-8c3b-0b5e9247e8ca_print.html

Caricature John Kerry et les retombées des négociations au Moyen-Orient...

Caricature de STEVE GREENBERG, FREELANCE, LOS ANGELES

La Chine et l'or noir de l'Irak

 Belle couverture du New York Times. La Chine est maintenant le plus grand consommateur de pétrole de l'Irak. La Chine bénéficie indirectement de la "protection" américaine...

 "China already buys nearly half the oil that Iraq produces, nearly 1.5 million barrels a day, and is angling for an even bigger share, bidding for a stake now owned by Exxon Mobil in one of Iraq’s largest oil fields.

“The Chinese are the biggest beneficiary of this post-Saddam oil boom in Iraq,” said Denise Natali, a Middle East expert at the National Defense University in Washington. “They need energy, and they want to get into the market.”

 Before the invasion, Iraq’s oil industry was sputtering, largely walled off from world markets by international sanctions against the government of Saddam Hussein, so his overthrow always carried the promise of renewed access to the country’s immense reserves. Chinese state-owned companies seized the opportunity, pouring more than $2 billion a year and hundreds of workers into Iraq, and just as important, showing a willingness to play by the new Iraqi government’s rules and to accept lower profits to win contracts.

“We lost out,” said Michael Makovsky, a former Defense Department official in the Bush administration who worked on Iraq oil policy. “The Chinese had nothing to do with the war, but from an economic standpoint they are benefiting from it, and our Fifth Fleet and air forces are helping to assure their supply.”

 La suite
: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/03/world/middleeast/china-reaps-biggest-benefits-of-iraq-oil-boom.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0

Marathon de Boston: la dernière victime quitte l'hôpital

 La traque pour trouver les frères Tsarnaev a fait un peu oublier le sort des victimes de l'explosion. Une dernière victime quittait l'hôpital aujourd'hui .  Si on devait accorder une grande couverture médiatique aux deux frères et aux recherches des services de renseignements, ce petit reportage nous ramène vers le volet profondément humain de la catastrophe.

 "Erika Brannock, 29, a Baltimore area pre-school teacher who lost a leg, became the last Boston Marathon bombing survivor to be released from the hospital on Monday. Brannock and her sister, Nicole Gross, were waiting at the finish line for their mother to finish the race when the bombs went off."

 On peut voir une courte entrevue en cliquant sur le lien: http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/last-boston-marathon-bombing-victim-released-from-hospital?ref=fpb

Nouveau "monument" à Washington D.C.: the flood wall

Reconnaissance des retombées des changements climatiques? La ville de Washington a déjà subi sa part d'inondations dans l'histoire et les experts considèrent comme absolument nécessaires les travaux qui s'achèvent pour éviter une catastrophe. L'auteur de l'article auquel je réfère considère qu'il était plus que temps de réagir.

 "So my question to Congress is, now that you know about it, are some of you going to say that we should tear down this wall? The new wall on the Mall sits right in the middle of the concentration of national monuments the American public visits most. Americans are going to see this wall and ask questions. Soon, the new wall on the Mall may be recognized as a monument itself, a rallying point for climate education, if Congress does not act quickly to remove it.

 Of course, there is another way to go. The Congress could act responsibly, so someday plaques might be affixed to the wall noting that in 2013, the completion of the wall marked the beginning of the nation’s turnaround in addressing climate disruption. Our descendants, reading these words a century or more from now, when greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere may begin to fall, will feel grateful to us. But they may also wonder why we did so little about the problem for so long.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/new-dc-monument-the-mall-flood-wall-92150_Page2.html