Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Media Ethics a Nicety Not Supported by Print Media Bottom Line?

Unverified but alleged crack cocaine phantom video hearsay and apparently viewed in the back seat of a car as suggested by Toronto Star employees for their alleged story DOES NOT MEET the SMELL TEST of RELIABILITY!

However, it does sell newspapers in the media’s never-ending attempt at character assassination politically directed at Toronto’s Mayor Ford!

So-called journalists or reports and their media bosses know what they are doing is reckless and shows no respect for their readers or the public in general.

It has become more than obvious to all Canadians that ethics within print media today is a nicety that their bottom line cannot afford!

According to one Rosie DiManno of the Toronto Star journalistic ethics regarding printing and reprinting of unverifiable alleged allegations of unverifiable video audio stories from self-proclaimed drug dealers supposedly involving Toronto’s Mayor Ford on the sole word of two Toronto Star employees, it’s “Ethics Shmethics”!

Jonathan Kay from the National Post is no better.

His latest story article, based on this phantom video supposedly provided by crack cocaine drug dealers on a staged video for profit from the proceeds of crime which is an illegal offence in Canada to Toronto Star reports insinuates without any proof whatsoever that Toronto’s Mayor Ford is a crack head who should leave office before being proven guilty of any offence in a court of law?

Unless this guy Kay has some substantiated and verified law enforcement-backed legal and factual proof for his libellous and defamatory remarks about Mayor Ford he could be in a heap of legal trouble.

Perhaps now Toronto lawyer Clayton Ruby in the interests of the public and law enforcement might come to the defence of Toronto’s Mayor on a pro bono basis in the interest of fair play, transparency and of course the public good like he has done and claimed to represent in the past?

In my opinion, these two Toronto Star employees who broke this story about the Mayor have some unanswered questions that need answering in the interests of law enforcement, journalistic ethics and accountability for their actions.

The Star’s very questionable, unverified and dubious story shall remain as such in the minds and eyes of public opinion until these two reporters and employees of the Toronto Star come clean and confessed to the motives behind their dealings with drug dealers and criminal types.

As such profit schemes that are based on unverified and phantom video movies and hearsay recordings as to he said she said allegations for a very questionable, unverifiable dubious headline story and follow-up articles to increase circulation is NOT journalism in Canada. And as such it must be investigated by the proper legal authorities for the protection of all public or private citizens.

Peter Clarke

Toronto

clarketoronto@gmail.com

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Video Image Manipulation a Shutter Thought for Editorials or Journalism!

The Criminal code and other Canadian legislation are quite specific "Everyone commits an offence who uses or transfers (republishes) the possession of, sends, or delivers to any person or place, transports transmit, (articles) alters, disposes of any property is guilty of a criminal offence?

Today anyone can make a video from pictures of you that are floating around on the internet and put it stories in a seemingly compromising position for illegal gain, character assassination and breaking news stories between feuding political views.

There are many tools like www.ezvid.com/, iMovie (www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/), photoshop and using special effects for motion like the Ken Burns with Fotomagico by Boinx. or others for making a series of staged videos or pictures that would appear to be you doing anything that might come to the dealers or journalists minds.

Until this phantom unverified video, currently being ransomed for a drug dealer’s profit and a sleazy gossip blog site has been forensically photo analyzed by an appropriate law enforcement agency the editorial board of the Toronto Star, their two reporters along with the entire world of public opinion Do NOT know if the video or photo is authentic or a doctored ruse.

No media corporation including the Toronto Star has the legal, moral or ethical rights to publish stories or editorials based on a phantom unverified video, currently being ransomed for drug dealers' profit and a sleazy gossip blog site that has NOT been verified and forensically photo analyzed by an appropriate law enforcement agency.

Media corporations that decide to take it upon themselves to be the police, judge, and jury then pronounce sentencing based on a staged cell phone video that is legally unverifiable and being ransomed for millions of dollars to the highest bidder by self-confessed Toronto Somali drug dealers’ needs to be reigned-in and investigated.

These so-called journalists, reporters along with their media bosses know that what they are doing is reckless and shows no respect for the public, or readers in general. It has become more than obvious of late to all Canadians as elsewhere that ethics within the print media, in general, today is a nicety that their financial bottom line cannot afford and thus does not support.

For close to two months this media organization, after being contacted by these self-confessed scumbags, neither informed the authorities (police) nor had the ethics to first seek confirmation and substantiate or verify such political character assassination attempts for money.

Why since May 3, 2013, or prior did the Toronto Star’s media corporation NOT make any attempts to privately confront the Mayor about such public defamatory allegations or the police about the illegal video for-profit scam?

Here are questions that must be answered by these reports and their employers!

1. For how long and how intimate have these two reporters known these self-proclaimed dealers and their sources?

2. Has either of these two reporters ever smoked crack cocaine?

3. Has either of these two reporters ever bought crack cocaine or other illegal drugs?

4. Did the Star or these two reporters pay to see the staged video or at any time purchase drugs from their sources?

5. Was either of these two reporters the anonymous voice on the staged cell phone video asking the questions?

6. Did either of these two reports participate in any way in the making of this phantom cell phone video?

7. Did any Toronto Star reporter, journalist or employee participate in any way in the making of this unverified video or attempt to entrap the Mayor to create a story for enhancing circulation and sales?

8. Did these two reporters at any time prior to the release of their story advise the police about their ongoing contacts with these or other drug dealers in Toronto?

It is apparent to this individual at least that the Toronto Star has had a political axe to grind with this Mayor since his election as Mayor.

With this latest story from the Star about the Mayor it is my opinion that the Toronto Star media corporation has not ensured that this video and related unverifiable information from such dubious sources whose motives are in question have not been grounded in fact and have in no way been verified independently by the journalist as stated in their own Section 1: Ethics and Excellence: or Accuracy and Corrections or Fair Play and Payments to Sources.

The reality of this ongoing story rests with the very questionable and dubious sources and motives for monetary gain at the direct expense of the mayor's public person and his political reputation.

For the Star’s editorial to be stating “Time to go, Mr. Mayor “ before their own reporters have themselves answered some very pointed questions relating to their own involvement in this unverifiable staged cell phone video does not itself in any way meet an editorial or journalistic smell test.

With that in mind to me, it is obvious that once again the Star media corporation has backed a muckraking article and rushed to judgment based on their frenzy mob rule reporting by pronouncing by reference that the Mayor must be guilty and sentenced by the media to resign from a political public office before the Mayor has had the right to a legal trial based on permitted and factual allowable evidence in our courts of law?

Do editorial ethics even exist at the Toronto Star or are they just words on paper?

Apparently NOT according to Rosie DiManno's printed statement," Ethics Shmethics" that sums up for her and her employer!

Media corporations and their employees are NOT above the law!

Source

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/05/21/to_end_the_uncertainty_we_need_to_buy_the_ford_video_rosie_dimanno.html

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2013/05/18/rob_ford_crack_scandal_time_for_mayor_to_step_down_editorial.html

Up Date

Analysis of Clap Trap you decide @

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/05/18/rob_ford_will_his_latest_trouble_crack_ford_nation.html

rob_ford_crack_scandal_star_reporters_tell_their_side_of_story.html

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Guilty until Proven Innocent by Toronto Star and Mayor must Go!

Has journalistic ethics gone amuck at the Toronto Star?

A media corporation that has decided to take it upon themselves to be the police, judge, and jury and pronounce sentencing based on a staged cell phone video, that is legally unverifiable and ransomed for millions of dollars to the highest bidder by self-confessed Toronto Somali drug dealers.

For close to two months this media organization, after being contacted by these self-confessed scumbags, neither informed the authorities (police) nor had the ethics to first seek confirmation and substantiate or verify such political character assassination attempts for money.

Why since May 3, 2013, or prior did the Toronto Star’s media corporation NOT make any attempts to privately confront the Mayor about such public defamatory allegations?

Here are questions that must be answered by these reports and their employers!

1. For how long and how intimate have these two reporters known these self-proclaimed dealers and their sources?

2. Has either of these two reporters ever smoked crack cocaine?

3. Has either of these two reporters ever bought crack cocaine or other illegal drugs?

4. Did the Star or these two reporters pay to see the staged video or purchase drugs from these or other sources?

5. Was either of these two reporters the anonymous voice on the staged cell phone video asking the questions?

6. Did either of these two reporters participate in the making of this cell phone video?

8. Did these two reporters at any time prior to the release of the story advise the police about their ongoing contacts with these or other drug dealers in Toronto?

It is apparent to this individual at least that the Toronto Star has had a political axe to grind with this Mayor since his election as Mayor.

With this latest story from the Star about the Mayor it is my opinion that the Toronto Star media corporation has not ensured that this video and related unverifiable information from such dubious sources whose motives are in the question has not been grounded in fact and has in no way been verified independently by the journalist as stated in their own Section 1: Ethics and Excellence: or Accuracy and Corrections or Fair Play and Payments to Sources.

The reality of this ongoing story rests with the very questionable and dubious sources and motives for monetary gain at the direct expense of the mayor's public persona and his political reputation.

We all must be mindful that the Star has had an ongoing public vendetta against this Mayor since his election based on a political platform that is contrary to that of the Star’s collective liberal socialism.

With that in mind to me, it is obvious that once again the Star media corporation has backed a muckraking article and rushed to judgment based on their frenzy mob rule reporting by pronouncing by a reference that the Mayor must be guilty and sentenced by the media to resign from a political public office before the Mayor has had the right to a legal trial based on permitted and factual allowable evidence in our courts of law?

Do editorial ethics even exist at the Toronto Star or are they just words on paper?

Source

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2013/05/18/rob_ford_crack_scandal_time_for_mayor_to_step_down_editorial.html

Up Date

Analysis or Clap Trap you decide @

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/05/18/rob_ford_will_his_latest_trouble_crack_ford_nation.html

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Time to Amalgamate GTHA Transit Authorities and Systems.

In all honesty, it is the Premier and elected members of her liberal political party’s government who are not being fully transparent, as usual, and playing a chaotic game of dodgeball concerning tax increases or new additional taxes for transit!

This editorial opinion, from the Toronto Star, fails to mention the fact that the Premier, her Transpiration Minister, the liberal party and the 23 MPPs, who supposedly were elected to represent the City and others elected to represent the GTHA all have not, had an adult conversation or taken a public position on their preferred tax increases and additional taxes (revenue sources) for funding transit being considered by the provinces own agency Metrolinx?

The legislative authority for such proposed tax increases and new additional taxes is the sole responsibility of the current Premier along with all members of the Provincial legislature and NOT the city of Toronto’s elected career politicians or the non-elected city bureaucrats and technocrats.

These provincial politicians, the Premier and her Liberal party’s scandalous government have once again been revealed as feckless, inept and reckless.

They are the ones who forfeited their standing in the debate on transit expansion and how best to pay for it as they preferred to wait and see what political recommendations Metrolinx makes to them!

And not only in E-health, Orange, Canceled Gas Plants, Energy Policies or the Chemo Drug scandal but now in their refusal to take a stand and advise the voters of Ontario as to their position on any funding proposals (taxes) for the future of regional transit throughout the GTHA regions!

As a Provincial agency, Metrolinx gets its funding from the province and thus is NOT at all impartial to the funding decisions that must and can only be decided by the Province.

Unfortunately for the past 40 years, all political parties and their incumbent career politicians from all three levels of government have mismanaged and failed our cities when it comes to transportation infrastructure and funding.

Further, the current makeup of its Board members that excludes the Mayors from Ontario’s 3 cities within the GTHA makes it politically impossible for this agency to effectively coordinate the region’s transit and transportation needs.

The amalgamation of all the GTHA area public transit authorities, especially the TTC, systems and operations of GO, TTC, Halton, Peel, York, Durham and HSR into one Regional Transit Authority for this region is a must.

This revised Provincial and Federal Metrolinx ( GTHA) Regional Transit Authority must have a Board of Directors that includes 2 elected political representatives from the Province, the Federal government; the Mayors of Mississauga and Toronto. Along with 1 elected political representative from Halton, Peel, York, Durham and the Mayor of the City of Hamilton.

In addition, this amalgamated transit authority would be directly responsible for all public transportation, subways, Go operations, systems, and financing. The GTHA would be under the control of the above elected Board members and directors of a CEO and COO who must have professional transportation qualifications from within the world's private and public transpiration systems and industries.

All three levels of our government elected and non-elected alike must completely once and for all understand that public transit and transit infrastructure must come from a lasting financial commitment in the form of a 1% or 2% transit levy on corporations or a 1% or 2% increase in the GST.

Such funds must be designated for transit only as per legislation from both the provincial and federal governments.

Source
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2013/05/12/toronto_city_council_bungles_the_transit_file_editorial.html

Saturday, May 11, 2013

REIT a Misrepresented and Bad Investment?

Along with many others, it is my opinion that prospective investors proceed with extreme caution when considering or presented with a non-traded REIT investment proposal.

Non-traded or traded REITs are basically real estate investment trust that has pooled the capital of investors into various forms of income-producing properties structured to regularly generate and distribute cash by unit investors.

All speculative investments including a REIT require that investors be extremely careful as in buyer beware and do their due diligence

Canadian companies most recently Canadian Tire and Loblaws have jumped on the REIT bandwagon to unlock the literally BILLIONS of asset dollars of their property holdings!

In my opinion, these investments are similar to mortgage-backed securities. And one drawback among others is that once pooled it is conceivable that a company’s most valuable owned real estate properties could be left out of a REIT through lack of regulatory, bureaucratic and directors oversight that could enrich opportunistic financial institutions, traders, lawyers and politicians?

As values of the real asset, in a traded or non-traded real estate investment trust even though they supposedly are of “high quality and in a strategic location,” have been so accredited for their asset values and unit price by the very corporations creating the REIT?

And then conceivably further endorsed or given a worthy investment rating value by the same financial institutions that are marketing these securities to investors through stock exchanges controlled by the appropriate provincial securities commission.

Who have conceivably acknowledged and confirmed that all of the criteria for regulatory and director approvals have been met for all REIT IPOs for marketing purposes for those investors looking for a higher rate of return or a way to hopefully secure income amidst the erratic market and current prolonged low-interest rate conditions.

Please read more of Peter Beck’s and Simon Romano’s

Canadian Income Funds @

http://www.scribd.com/doc/25919167/Canadian-Income-Funds-Your-Complete-Guide-to-Income-Trusts-Royalty-Trusts-and-Real-Estate-Investment-Trusts

Up to Date

http://www.thestar.com/business/real_estate/2013/05/13/jim_flaherty_says_real_estate_trust_wave_is_not_a_concern.html

"REITs, which receive preferential tax treatment from the government, are companies that invest in income-producing real estate and payout most of their income to investors through unit distributions. They have raised $760 million from six Canadian IPOs this year, including Milestone Apartments REIT and Agellan Commercial REIT, to account for 74 percent of $1.03 billion raised from initial offerings this year in the country, data compiled by Bloomberg show."

"Canadian REITs raised almost $500 million in seven IPOs last year, more than any other industry in Canada, the data show. The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Capped REIT Index soared 165 percent from a five-year low on March 9, 2009, through May 10. The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index rose 66 percent over the same period."

Sources:

http://www.sitefind.com/links/REITs/more2.html

http://www.investingthesis.com/equities/buy-sell-or-hold-canadian-reit-ref-un/

http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/artis-announces-offering-cumulative-rate-151615802.html

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Ontario's $281 Billion Debt, Breach of Fiduciary Duty and Lack of Due Diligence?

Ten years ago the Ontario liberal party’s government took over the reins of fiscal responsibility and power on behalf of their party and the taxpayers were on the hook for $140 Billion Dollars in total Debt.

Today that total debt has ballooned to $281 Billion of debt and within 3 to 4 years shall reach a projected $300 Billion!

The fastest expense increase for programs now goes to interest payments for debt, courtesy of this liberal party’s government, and Ontario residents are on the hook for $12. 2 Billion Up from $10.4 Billion!

This profound endless diversion of taxpayer funds, from much-needed Ontario infrastructure programs of public transit, upgrades, repairs and expansions, to pay for this never-ending rise of borrowing and interest on debt servicing costs for unsustainable programs & services will within a year consume 12% of government existing tax revenue sources!

When the cost of holding on to political party power is motivated through appeasement and carefully crafted budgetary imagery the political party’s government has abdicated the right to govern.

The finance minister loudly proclaims that “eliminating the deficit is the single most important step we can take to grow the economy and create jobs,” then presents Ontarians with a $1.9 Billion dollar deficit increase?

In addition to a $3.7 Billion spending increase from $124 Billion to his budgeted projection of $127.6 Billion in one year!

A minimum decrease of $2.9 Billion in spending alone each year for and every year over the next four years in spending alone would be required to eliminate this liberal party government’s deficit that has more than doubled since they gained control of the Ontario government.

In my humble opinion as a mere mortal, this budget is a sham and yet another breach of fiduciary duty and lack of due diligence on the part of both the NDP and the Liberal Political Parties.

It seems they both continue to set aside any semblance of prudence or good government that political party governments have the legal, moral and ethical obligations to act honestly, in good faith and in the BEST interest of citizens and NOT the self-serving interests of political parties and career politicians.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/05/02/ontario-budget-2013-2/

Ontario budget 2013

http://timestoronto.blogspot.ca/2013/04/increased-taxes-and-new-revenues-tools.html

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Wynne's Liberal Party's Hypocritical Position on Transit Funding Supported by Media

Media Demands Mayor Ford, the Executive and city Council must Speak up on Transit Funding but NOT Wynne and her Liberal Transportation Minister?

The liberal party’s leader and un-elected premier along with her transportation minister both have clearly stated that they both will not now speak up on transit funding for increased taxes or additional tax sources.

As they are the provincial politicians in charge, unlike the regional and city councils and councillors, both politically boast that they do not wish to pre-empt Metrolinx or make any political decision regarding any increased taxes or "additional taxes" that she Wynne, as leader of the liberal party, wants or he as her minister of transportation prefer.

Yet any increased taxes or additional taxes (new revenue sources) are clearly their responsibility as elected provincial officials. While media outlets all are lambasting Mayor Ford, for taking the exact same political stand off waiting to hear from Metrolinx the provinces transportation agency NOT Toronto councils?

Our media outlets no longer report just the facts or news but now attempt to sway the public with their biased non political positions, views and opinions by continually supporting and headlining their political party's position at the expense of others through favoring those issues that they and their party wish to have forced upon the electorate and citizens. That is the way I see it in humble opinion as a mere mortal!

UPDATE INFO on TAXES

The average family with a gross income of 74,113 pays 42.7% for existing taxes.

Based on gross revenues CIBC paid 7.45% in taxes for 2011, RBC 3.3%, in 2012, TD Canada Trust 5.8% and Rogers in 2011 paid $99 Million in taxes on gross revenues of $12.4 BILLION and in 2010 $152 Million is taxes on gross revenues of $12.1 BILLION. (7.9% and 12.6%)

@ http://www.fraserinstitute.org/research-news/display.aspx?id=19578

Sources:

1. http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2013/04/25/toronto_city_council_must_speak_up_on_funding_transit_editorial.html