Links - 19th February 2020 (3)

Ontario landlords aren't the problem, the Landlord and Tenant Board is - The Post Millennial - "Despite what you might have seen In the media, most landlords aren’t raising rents in a get-rich quick scheme. In fact, in today’s rental climate, many landlords of small- to medium-sized properties are barely breaking even. If rental rates are based solely on greed, where was the greed prior to 2006 when rents were more affordable?... Like homeowners, landlords are facing the pressures of rising house prices, property taxes, mortgage rates, and utility charges. The Landlord and Tenant Board  (LTB) in Ontario was created in 2006 to help establish and enforce the rights and responsibilities of tenants and landlords alike. The aims of the board are to help mediate landlord-tenant disputes, resolve eviction cases, and keep all parties informed of their rights and responsibilities. It came into existence to try to avoid the very issues currently plaguing the system. The problem is, the LTB is broken... The broken LTB system allows bad tenants to go six to twelve months with no payment of rent, leaving small landlords with on average $30,000 in arrears, legal costs, and often damages to the home. Frustration has caused both parties to take the system into their own hands–with professional tenants not paying rent, knowing evictions will take upwards of a year and landlords offering buyouts or sidestepping the system to come to an early resolution and then turning their longterm unit into an Airbnb where they are granted protections, insurance and guaranteed collection of fees, all of which are not offered by the LTB. Landlords are often left with the cost of a bad tenancy and are instructed by the LTB to shoulder the burden of a non-paying tenant until it is deemed no longer financially reasonable to before granting eviction. Many scorned landlords are just simply selling off and removing the supply completely from the market and driving rents up for everyone else as supply shrinks in this already tight market."
Of course, liberals will say that tenants need even more protections, thus constraining the market even more and making things worse for prospective tenants

The Yaboiposting - Posts - "I'm always shocked at white people's ability to nonchalantly walk in the rain like it's not raining. But I guess when you're bathed in bloodshed for centuries, a little water doesn't really change much."
This racist is saying that non-white people aren't even able to walk in the rain

'Waiter, there's excrement in my pig intestine,' Chinese diner complains - "A restaurant customer in northeastern China is demanding higher compensation after he was served pig intestine filled with excrement at a well-known chain then offered a sum he considered inadequate... The diner, identified only by his surname Wang, was enjoying a pot of rice noodles with pig intestine on Friday when he found a piece that was tougher to chew, he said.  He complained to staff at the restaurant, a branch of Axiang Rice Noodles in a mall in Changchun, Jilin province, and it was established that there were pieces of excrement in the meal... The manager telephoned Wang, offering to compensate him with an amount equivalent to 10 times the value of the dish, in line with consumer rights regulations - which would give Wang up to 500 yuan (S$96.80). But Wang said he felt insulted by the offer and asked for 30,000 yuan."I'd like to invite their boss to come over and have a try - I can pay him a few hundred yuan for every piece of excrement he eats""

Julio Blue on Twitter - "Twitter: $17.99/month Snapchat: $9.99/month Youtube: $19.99/month Netflix: $4.99/per movie Google: $1.99/per search If you don't want to pay extra for your favorite sites you need to be supporting #NetNeutrality"
From Dec 2017. This aged well

An0maly - Posts - "Vox: "Gig workers' win in California is a victory for workers everywhere"
"Vox Media to cut hundreds of freelance jobs ahead of changes in California gig economy laws"
"When the media company promoting big government overreach gets smacked by the liberal policies it promotes."

California's new employment law is starting to crush freelancers - "Assembly Bill 5 passed in California and Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it into law on Sept. 18. The law requires most companies to reclassify contract, freelance and contingent workers — the backbone of the gig economy —as full-time employees eligible for benefits, a guaranteed $12–$13 state minimum wage and protections under the state's employment law. LaBrash, based in Los Angeles, suddenly found potential projects drying up when he submitted onboarding paperwork to potential clients and they discovered he lived in California... He has seen a 40% decline in his freelance income since the law passed in September. "My savings are stagnant," says LaBrash. "I really can't look into buying a house. The housing market here is hard already."  Even if employers hire him for freelance work, he is limited to 35 annual submissions per client before they have to put him on payroll, he notes. It's a limit under the law. That's not a large amount for regular contributors to media companies. "You're going to hit your quota and they won't want to hire you"... Franchisors are also worried that their franchisees could be reclassified from their traditional designation as independent contractors to employees... "I don't believe legislators realized the impact this had"... many freelancers work independently by choice on terms they prefer. Many are concerned that they'll have to trade in their freedom for structure, potentially losing their ability to set their own hours. "There are people that want to be independent contractors," says Zaino. "They want the freedom and the choice and don't want their clients to be afraid to use them."  And California's new regulation is expected to have a ripple effect throughout the nation's $1 trillion gig economy. Many employers and freelancers are concerned that other blue states, such as New York and New Jersey, will usher in similar laws... Legislators didn't seem to understand that companies often hire people from out of state as remote freelancers, putting freelancers in California at a disadvantage... Professional Independent Consultants of America, which opposes the law, has advised its members to form an LLC or S Corp, get a business license, create a business infrastructure that includes elements such as a separate business bank account, create a website and a business email address at a domain only used for business, advertise, use written contracts and submit invoices for all work, not time sheets, according to Liz Steblay, co-founder. "Effectively, this law means that to be paid as a business, a freelancer or solo professional is going to have to be set up like a business and act like a business""

Mayor Pete Backs Gig Economy Law Currently Ravaging California - "In fact, he's calling for a federal version... These kinds of regulations defeat the entire purpose of the gig economy. Companies like Uber and Lyft have provided workers a new opportunity to make a quick buck on their own schedules, choosing when to work and when not to work. Some drivers choose to work at "surge" times, when demand is high, to make more money. This flexible work helps the customers, the companies, and the independent contractors — who can come and go as they wish. Driving for Uber and Lyft works great as supplemental income and as an opportunity between jobs... [This] undermines the very flexibility that makes gig economy jobs attractive to the workers.Interestingly, some have argued that this flexibility is particularly good for women, people of color, and those who identify as LGBT. The American Society of Journalists and Authors, which has filed a lawsuit to challenge A.B. 5 on the grounds that it discriminates against journalists, made exactly the kind of argument Buttigieg would listen to. "In a shrinking media landscape where hiring executives are still mostly white and male, AB5 places additional restrictions and burdens on women, people of color and the LGBTQ+ community by forcing many of us to seek staff jobs," Los Angeles freelance writer and author JoBeth McDaniel, chair of ASJA’s First Amendment Committee, said in a statement. "Many journalists choose to freelance because we encountered discrimination, harassment and bullying in staff positions. Others — such as parents, caregivers and the disabled — need the flexibility of setting their own schedules and workloads.""

External images are accessed violating privacy and security – Got an idea? - "Outlook automatically fetches external images in email I have received. This is a privacy issue because it may tell the sender that the email reached me. This is a security issue because may of these messages, from senders both trustworthy (i.e. financial institutions with which I do business) and untrustworthy (marketing email) disclose sufficient information in web bugs and other external references to allow a third party to capture PII... Outlook 2016 does this right. It reports "To help protect your privacy, Outlook prevented automatic download of some pictures in this message""
"there is indeed an option to block images from loading from anyone not on your safe sender list.  Go into the Settings, select Junk Mail and look under the filter section. The second option will block all images from loading unless you explicitly say."

Zoo Security Drills: When Animals Escape - The Atlantic - "In some zoos in Japan and China, staff members perform regular security drills to practice their response to a large animal escape by using costumed zookeepers as the fugitive animals. Individuals in furry costumes or pairs in full-size mockups of larger animals run through zoo property, sometimes inflicting mock injuries, as fellow zookeepers work to surround, subdue, and recapture them"

You can now go to jail for insulting Anna Soubry - "MPs are now part of a protected class who it is illegal to insult and protest against... while Soubry (by then in the Independent Group) was giving an interview to BBC Newsnight in the central lobby at Westminster, Dalla Mura was there again. She interrupted to say, ‘Anna Soubry is traitor’. ‘Get the police’, said Soubry.  You might think this was just part of the political rough-and-tumble. Far from it. The police now have a special unit called PLAIT – the parliamentary liaison and investigations team – dedicated to dealing with ‘attacks’ on MPs... the ‘safeguarding’ of democracy apparently now means that MPs and politicians must be given a special protected status. They must have the right – unlike the rest of us – to protection from stinging insults under threat of imprisonment."

Is it against the law to protest against Anna Soubry? - "Left-wing people frequently invade public meetings and shout down Tory speakers. Filming oneself confronting a politician is now par for the course in public life. Shouting things at politicians as they give live TV interviews has become perfectly normal in recent years. Consider the Stop Brexit man, Steve Bray, who has been standing outside Westminster for ages and barking stupid slogans at every pro-Brexit politician who is speaking to the TV cameras. Is that harassment too? Is that oppressive and unacceptable?"

FUREY: Facebook ‘fact check’ censors Sun column critiquing Liberals - "The post was trouble, it was fake news and doing this sort of thing again could result in consequences for the CCMBC page... Jocelyn Bamford, the president and founder of CCMBC, isn’t happy with what unfolded. “I was stunned when I was informed that the Coalition’s Facebook page was being censored for posting an article from a respected news source. It speaks to me of censorship and the loss of critical discourse and free speech that is being threatened in our country”"

Pro-HIV Senator Wants Illegal Immigrants To Run for Office - National File - "Senator Scott Wiener (D – San Francisco), who made his name in international news in 2017 for masterminding the downgrade of the knowing transmission of the HIV virus from a felony to a misdemeanor, has announced a bill to allow illegal immigrants to run for Democratic Party seats...
'A long list of other Democrats support Wiener’s bill.'"
Given that some liberals want to give illegal immigrants the vote, this is just the next step

Lurking inside? Tens of cobras terrorize toilets in West Jakarta - "“Not long ago, my neighbors found a large snake, also in their toilet. They saw the snake’s head appear from the toilet,” she said, adding that she also once saw a hatchling snake creep into her bedroom.Over the past few weeks, discoveries of creeping cobras were also reported in Ciracas, East Jakarta and in Bogor regency, West Java."

Japan has world's best passport, but few go abroad - Nikkei Asian Review - "The Japanese passport was again named as the "world's most powerful" by a British consultancy this year, but the Japanese themselves seem little interested in taking advantage, with only 23% holding passports -- a sign that the nation has become increasingly inward-looking in the era of globalization.In the U.S., the share of people with a passport has jumped 17 percentage points over the past 12 years, to about 44% by 2019, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau and State Department. Meanwhile, the proportion of Japanese with a passport is the lowest among the Group of Seven industrialized nations. Japanese passports were rated the world's most powerful for the second year running... Singapore tied with Japan for first place, followed by South Korea, whose passport holders can visit 188 countries and territories visa-free. The U.S. and the U.K. ranked 15th. Countries in Europe, North America and East Asia topped the list... As of October, Japanese passport holders could visit 190 countries and regions visa-free, or by applying for one on arrival. However, Japanese have shown comparatively little interest in traveling abroad. The number of Japanese students studying overseas has fallen from its peak, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. And relatively few Japanese work for international organizations, given the size of its economy and population"

Man robs caricature artist, forgets to take portrait with him, police say - "A California man who posed for a caricature grabbed about $500 from the artist, but left behind what might be incriminating evidence - the cartoon image of himself that police are using in efforts to identify the suspect."