Monday, July 10, 2023

Links - 10th July 2023 (1)

How to Unblock Reddit in Indonesia? [TUTORIAL] - "Reddit, a popular community and discussion platform, has been under a strict ban under the Indonesian "Healthy Internet" (Internet Sehat) Program. It was an effort to protect Indonesians from explicit content and pirated media. The problem with this restriction is that not all websites are wholly explicit or cause moral damage. In the case of Reddit, there were only countable subreddits with explicit content, but the whole of Reddit got blocked in Indonesia."

Arjun Singh: Left wing values have invaded Canada's legal system and diminished our charter rights - "one would expect the courts, upon petition, to step in and stop government overreach, being the constitution’s supposedly “non-partisan” referees. Until 1986, in Canada, that was true — until left-wing jurists, after rewriting the law, captured the judiciary that interpreted them. That year the Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision by Trudeau appointees, established the Oakes Test in R. v. Oakes to determine what restrictions on charter rights were “reasonable.” Among others, it allowed the curbing of charter freedoms in the name of “a commitment to social justice and equality” and “respect for cultural and group identity.” With this decision, a faction of activist judges — seeing the constitution as a ‘living tree’ to be pruned without the people’s consent — reset the foundations of freedom overnight, bending them towards progressive politics. Instead of having minimal restraints for public order, all charter freedoms could now be legally impeded in the name of contested left-wing concepts like “social justice” and protecting “group identity.”  Worse, neither did the court define what these terms meant, enabling the left — via its dominance of social science academia — to influence their meanings, suiting the moment’s political objectives. As its late Chief Justice, Antonio Lamer, himself said, Section 1 empowered judges to “make essentially … a political call.” In effect, the constitutional “referees” changed the rules mid-game, to ensure their side would always win.  Thus, with Oakes, the dangers of Section 1 were fully unleashed, and have since beat a toll on Canadians’ civil liberties — capturing our constitution for the supremacy of “woke” social mores. “Whoever would overthrow a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech,” said Benjamin Franklin; and, true to form, it was one of the first casualties. In the Keegstra and Andrews decisions, the Supreme Court used Section 1 to allow the criminalization of speech “inciting hatred” — an ambiguous offence, at best, which effectively curbs free speech for the sake of hurt feelings. Once more, in the Little Sisters case, Section 1 rubber-stamped the Chretien Liberals’ banning of LGBTQ books’ import for their “obscenity.” This spate has continued, with governments and courts in concert over the years using Section 1 to curb the presumption of innocence until proven guilty (R. v. Stone), conservatives’ participation in elections (Harper v. Canada) and, most recently, to ban travel by citizens during COVID-19 (Taylor v. The Queen).  In defending such overreach on the charter, the progressive establishment has often asserted the notion of “collective rights” as the reason for restraining individuals, e.g., “safe spaces” precluding free speech to avoid public offence. There are few greater absurdities than this; “rights” exist to protect individuals and minorities from tyranny of the majority, which — with strength in numbers — needs no further safety in a democracy. By claiming a “collective right” of any kind, the Canadian left turns the very notion of rights on its head. It is legal fiction at best, and a neo-Marxist praxis at worst — a desperate attempt to stir up “class conflict” between the majority and minority where none ought to exist.  In the future, it’s highly likely that Section 1 will be used again to uphold encroachments upon citizens’ rights — from vaccine passports to online censorship (e.g., Bill C-10) and others. Canadians must, hence, stand on guard for thee and expunge this threat — regardless of the high bar for constitutional change. If Section 1 is the end of charter rights, we must end it, first."

Carson Jerema: Pierre Poilievre listens to the alienated — his unhinged critics can't handle that - "Pierre Poilievre deserves credit, not opprobrium, for his willingness to speak and listen to those who are feeling angry and alienated, rather than immediately dismissing their concerns as illegitimate. This sometimes leads him down a path where he risks turning himself into a populist caricature, but providing a mainstream avenue to channel this anger is undoubtedly better than letting it fester.  For Poilievre’s most unhinged critics, this is too much of a deviation. His opposition to vaccine mandates and empathy for vaccine refusers somehow disqualifies him for high office, despite it being the identical position held by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a year ago. Rather than question why a certain segment of the population is so untrusting of political institutions, Poilievre’s detractors cast him and his supporters as grave threats to Canada itself... Mason captures what passes for much of the criticism levelled against Poilievre — namely, that he’s not only wrong or over-the-top, but that he’s a dangerous harbinger of violence.  This ignores the fact that angry conspiracy-addled protesters long predate Poilievre’s leadership campaign and have been increasingly common throughout the pandemic. As Mason notes himself, rocks were thrown at Trudeau during the federal election last fall...  the more Poilievre is scolded, especially with zanier arguments like Mason’s, for having the gall to listen to people who are angry, the more it reinforces their sense of exclusion... Poilievre’s most ardent opponents are not content to challenge his views or his wisdom. Instead, they insist on doing the political equivalent of drawing horns and a tail on his picture and pretending he is actually the devil, and acting shocked when others don’t buy it...   What Poilievre does better than most anyone else is to correctly identify the source of people’s discontent. He is not speaking in abstractions about making the world a better place when he talks about housing prices, the carbon tax, inflation or civil liberties. People clearly feel that he is articulating their very real frustrations and unrealized dreams. Trust in our institutions have been declining for years and during the pandemic just about every public institution failed Canadians: a brittle health-care system under constant threat of collapse; long-term care homes where thousands died needlessly; politicians who took away people’s livelihoods and ordered them to stay away from friends and family, without any plan beyond lockdowns; a court system that moved much too slowly and, when it did, sided with the government as if civil rights don’t exist; and soaring inflation rates devaluing paycheques as a direct result of federal government policies and Bank of Canada failures.  This doesn’t excuse the intensity of the anger out there, but that it is there is hardly surprising.  When institutions fail as badly as they have in recent years, why do they still deserve reverence? Why is only polite disagreement acceptable?   Demanding they work as advertised, even doing so crudely, and breaking deferential norms, should not be considered taboo. If public institutions are so fragile that they cannot withstand Poilievre’s bombast, that is only further proof of their failure."
To liberals, deplorables need to be ignored

Conrad Black: Poilievre has a real chance to break the Liberal status quo — and that has his enemies trembling - "The political establishment of Canada has been thoroughly addicted to a gelatinous soft-leftishness that permeates the political media, most public policy discussion, the entire public service and most conventional political wisdom in the country, to the point where it is, to say the least, monotonous. Poilievre’s professed respect for, and pursuit of, liberty frustrates them, as no one can attack liberty as a concept, and Poilievre is both sincere and agile in his defence of it. To the extent that Poilievre threatens some change to the comfortable Liberal status quo built on durable advantages in Quebec and urban Ontario, Poilievre renders the political establishment uneasy. And they respond in the only way they know — by slinging muck at him, attempting to paint him as an extremist and an uncaring person. This is very tiresome and it is also somewhat imitative of the extraordinary decline in the quality of public discourse in the United States... During Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s time in office, average per capita GDP growth has been less than half the average of the Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper years; and in the Justin Trudeau years, Canadian investment in foreign countries has exceeded foreign investment in Canada by about $400 billion. We are propelling ourselves over a cliff to second-rate status among the world’s nations."
Nowadays liberty is considered a far right, white supremacist concept by the left, so

The non-scandal over Poilievre's YouTube tags and our contempt for men - "An invisible search engine optimization tag that was promptly removed from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s YouTube videos after its discovery doesn’t amount to a scandal. The attempt to spin it into one, however, reveals society’s contempt for men and a collective inability to cope with criticism of feminism. Global News reported earlier this month that, since 2018, the Conservative leader’s online videos had been tagged with “#mgtow,” which stands for “men going their own way.” It refers to a loose movement of men online who choose to avoid relationships with women and focus on self-improvement instead. Poilievre’s office has since condemned the movement and removed the tags... MGTOW originated on Reddit...  The Reddit ban would hold more significance if other communities faced similar consequences, but they don’t. The site’s radical feminist dating advice community, for example, often objectifies men while airing frustrations about relationship failures. Similarly, MGTOW commonly included discussions about marriage breakdowns and divorce. They’re more cynical and sad than they are hateful.  Even so, Poilievre’s #mgtow tag isn’t scandal-worthy because it appears to have been unintentional.  Global reported that the tags were generally recycled from one video to the next. This was confirmed by epidemiologist and data blogger Jean-Paul R. Soucy, who conducted his own analysis...   The term “MGTOW” was most popular around 2017 and 2018. Google’s records show it was frequently more popular than “metoo” — the feminist movement against sexual assault. In other words, there’s a good chance that the software Poilievre’s team was using back then could have automatically generated the tag. Regardless, the record shows that little attention was paid to his video tags over the years. Regardless of intent, the mere appearance of appealing to a nonviolent men’s movement shouldn’t be considered a scandal. As with women, minorities, Indigenous groups, religious groups and so on, it shouldn’t be a risk for politicians to try to appeal to men.  The Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC) says that MGTOW is a men’s movement that espouses the hateful ideology of “male supremacy.” The SPLC is a left-wing advocacy organization geared towards social justice and hate group monitoring. It demonizes criticism of the feminist movement as being anti-woman and appears to have taken isolated examples of violence to paint a fairly moderate group as a bunch of extremists.  Canadian intelligence officials have warned that extreme misogyny can constitute a national security threat. But lumping MGTOW in with male terrorists would be like criticizing all Muslims because Islamic groups make up the majority of listed terrorist entities in Canada. It’s unfair and divisive to paint a large group as violent criminals because of an extreme few. That’s what happened in the House of Commons after the Global story was published, though... Of course, it isn’t necessarily misogynistic to criticize feminism (it has plenty of flaws, and survey data shows it’s falling out of favour with younger progressives and conservatives alike). Another Liberal MP, Jennifer O’Connell, said Poilievre had been trying to “connect with and target incel, right-wing, anti-women, violent rhetoric for their own personal and political gain” — people, she said, who promote the murder of single women. Which is like saying it’s murderous and violent for women to swear off dating men. Maybe it’s childish or maybe it’s completely rational, but either way, it’s not “anti-woman” to choose to be alone. Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said the Conservatives were “exploiting technology to proliferate hate.” That’s a stretch. Indeed, proliferating hate probably looks more like actively funding a raging antisemite... ences.” It’s remarkable that a movement about independence and finding a way to be comfortable with one’s masculinity is being cast as some sort of far-right scourge. Men make up the majority of suicide and opioid deaths in Canada. Loneliness is a growing concern, as well, as men are living alone in increasing numbers. Heck, the Supreme Court recently ruled that biological fatherhood is considered a minimal factor in deciding the household in which a child should live.  Men are more and more likely to be looking at a future of living alone without a family, being priced out of the housing market and facing fewer opportunities due to diversity quotas that systemically discriminate on the basis of gender. There isn’t a lot to look forward to for some, despite all the preaching about male privilege.  It’s not so bad for a politician to appeal to a generation of younger men who see their future prospects declining. Attempts to make this into something shameful are misguided and out of touch."

Poilievre perceived to be more competent than Trudeau: national poll - "Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is seen as more competent and having better judgment than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a new poll suggests, but the PM is perceived to be kinder and less extreme than his rival... when respondents were asked whether Trudeau and Poilievre hide their true views to make them more acceptable, the difference was huge: 56 per cent believe Trudeau does, and only 40 per cent think Poilievre does.  And when asked whether Trudeau and Poilievre understand what “life is like for people like you,” only 30 per cent think the PM does, while 40 per cent think the Conservative leader “The poll results indicate that the Liberals and Trudeau have a challenging road ahead when competing against Poilievre,” said Abacus Data’s David Coletto in a note accompanying the poll.  “Many people have not yet paid much attention to their political choices, but among those who have formed an opinion, Poilievre maintains a considerably stronger image than Trudeau""

EDITORIAL: CBC president opens mouth, inserts foot - "It’s hard to know what CBC President and CEO Catherine Tait was thinking when she came up with the idea of defending the publicly funded broadcaster’s ostensible journalistic objectivity by attacking Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.  Perhaps she wasn’t thinking."
Anyone who believes in CBC bias is a deluded far right conservative

Meme - "Zeewiththetea is with Author Quan Millz.
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Emmett Brown's answer to Can you fake fainting in the hospital in the ER or will the doctors know? - Quora - "Eyelashes don’t lie.  The best trick I ever learned for figuring out if someone was faking or not was the old eyelash trick.  You can try this on a friend without harming them:  Have you friend close their eyes and pretend to be unconscious. Take the tip of your finger and touch or flick one of their eye lashes. Your friend’s eye lid will twitch to show you very obviously that they are NOT unconscious.  Actual unconscious people’s eye lids won’t twitch when you do that.  There, now you have a way to tell if someone is faking or not.
EDIT: Thanks for all the upvotes. I used to teach new clinicians to use this as their go-to first before any of the pain response techniques as there is little to no risk of injury. I’ve seen too many sternal rubs and the pen on the finger leave marks. And honestly I think it’s more accurate. People who have “committed” to being unconscious will sometimes take it too far by resisting the pain. And honestly our job isn’t to call them out on their faking - it’s only to determine if we need to intervene or not."

Meme - "Congratulations EA. You have earned one star. Additional stars can be bought for $5.49 each."
"You dare use my own spells against me, Potter?"

Richard Hanania on Twitter - "Paul Ehrlich demanded coercion against the global poor to limit population growth. He got the US, World Bank to enforce his ideas on India, which ended up sterilizing 8 million. Those opposed to efforts to sterilize them were accused by the media of spreading misinformation."

Meme - Wilfred X. Reilly, Californian @wil_ da beast630: "How is this, from my casual buddy @KonstantinKisin, "bad stat" - or really even controversial at all?"
bad stats @thebadstats: "13 This man is actually so stupid and self righteous he almost makes me forget about the Weinsteins"
Konstantin Kisin: "I am not a conservative because I believe change and disruption are not only inevitable but also essential. am not a progressive because I don't make the mistake of thinking all change and disruption is progress."

Meme - Google Chrome: "WHICH WEBSITE WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE?"
Man: "I DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW"
Google Chrome with Hand Puppet: "WHAT ABOUT TELLING MR. INCOGNITO?"
Man: "OKAY!"

Is 'Cum Park Plaza' a Real Place? | Snopes.com - "What's True
Cum-Park Plaza is the name of a real shopping center in Burlington, North Carolina.
What's False
Signs for stores such as Hooters, Dick's Sporting Goods, Beaver Liquors, and Kum & Go were digitally added to the meme image for humorous effect...
While this plaza's name may have certain NSFW ("not safe for work") connotations for some, this name actually refers to the two people who developed the plaza in the 1960s: Carl Parks and Hugh Cummings. While the name of this plaza is displayed as "Cum Park Plaza" on the sign, news reports about the shopping center add a hyphen between "Cum" and "Park.""

Cathay needs to boost staff morale, union says, after "blanket-carpet" furore - "Cathay Pacific needs to address staff and resource shortages and raise pay to boost morale, its flight attendant union said, after three staff were fired for allegedly mocking passengers who could not speak English.  A passenger on the CX987 flight from the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu to Hong Kong on Sunday wrote in an online post that flight attendants had made fun of passengers for asking for a carpet instead of a blanket in English... The passenger on CX987 on Sunday wrote that flight attendants complained about passengers amongst themselves in English and Cantonese.  "If you cannot say blanket in English, you cannot have it ... Carpet is on the floor. Feel free if you want to lie on it," a flight attendant said, according to a recording"

Meme - *Under-sink Drain Pipes with Mario and King Koopa/Bowser*

Sainsbury's worker wins £8,000 after 'being sacked for calling boss a young idiot' - "A Sainsbury’s worker who called her boss a “young idiot” has been awarded more than £8,000 after an employment tribunal ruled she’d been unfairly dismissed.  The ex-employee, known only as Miss A Spence, aged 68, made the comment about her manager on Facebook.  Miss Spence - who had worked for the supermarket for 24 years - argued that she didn’t realise the message could be seen publicly, and thought she was contacting a former colleague privately.  The tribunal heard she was later fired after she questioned whether the disciplinary manager was in a romantic relationship with the manager referenced in the Facebook comment.   Miss Spence told the hearing that her Facebook profile had been set up by her daughter in 2017, and she thought all her posts would be private. She had also asked her daughter to remove references of her Sainsbury’s employment online, but she didn’t... only seven other people could see the post, but the message was screenshotted by another manager who shared it with the senior management team...   The tribunal ruled Sainsbury’s “did not follow its processes” when dealing with her grievances as there were no meetings held.  Speaking to her union representative in January 2019, Miss Spence later raised concerns that the manager she wrote about was in a relationship with the customer trading manager who chaired her disciplinary hearing...   The judge said even a final written warning was “manifestly inappropriate”."

The Market for Real Estate Porn Is As Hot as Ever - "“The real estate agent is practically a mythical figure in pop culture and local lore: often a hot woman, perhaps a little older (cougar type), and flashy,” porn scholar and author of Alice in Pornoland Laura Helen Marks told me. “As an English person moving to the U.S., I was really weirded out and fascinated by the real estate agent billboards—the huge photoshopped faces of women with tons of makeup and big hair. It was almost as though the woman herself was a selling point. The process, too, relies on a high degree of performance and getting the client to like you.”... a tenant sued her landlord for trying to include a clause in her lease that would require her to have sex with the property manager."
This seems like it would be shitty but is actually pretty good. Typical VICE though

Meme - "When your dog casts a level 4 protection spell *dog in pentagram surrounded by pigeons*"

Man's life saved by stranger's note after she spotted warning sign at hockey game - "A man has thanked the complete stranger who saved his life after spotting a mole on his neck and encouraging him to see a doctor.  Nadia Popovici, 22, was watching her favourite ice hockey team, the Vancouver Canucks, play in October when she saw the dark spot on Brian Hamilton's neck.  As a medical student, Nadia recognised the mark on the Canucks' assistant equipment manager's body could be dangerous.  But, sitting in the stands just behind the team bench, she struggled to get his attention throughout the match.  Eventually, she had the idea to write a note on her phone, which she hoped Brian would see...  tests revealed mole was type-2 malignant melanoma and had to be removed... "The words out of the doctor’s mouth where if I ignored that for four to five years, I wouldn’t be here," he said.  Nadia, who is just about to start medical school, said she spent time volunteering in hospitals and was "surrounded with a lot of melanomas," which helped her spot the warning signs on Brian's neck.  In particular, she pointed out the raised shape of the mole, its large diameter, and "irregular border.""

Meme - "I was born in the wrong generation: I don't want to do schoolwork anymore. Send me to the coal mine."

Meme - Beth: "helpmyspacebarbrokecanyou comeoverandgivemeanalternative"
"Sure but what does 'ternative' mean?"

I feel bad for Anne Frank. She had her diary published for all the world to read, which is every girl's worst nightmare. And she didn't get paid for it, which is every Jew's worst nightmare.

Meme - ""Go play outside" *Gaming party on road*"

Meme - "EVERYTHING REMIND ME OF HER. *draping between two poles looks like panties*"

Meme - "I'm guessing from your spelling "realise" that you're not native to America and quite possibly English is a second language to you. In any case, I hope you're not annoyed by this, just trying to help."
"I'm British."

Do not bring your whole self to work - "no one should actually bring their whole selves to work. People are a melange of traits, some good and some bad. Many of them should be kept well away from the workplace. Your professional self displays commitment to the job and eats lunch at a desk. Your whole self is planning the next holiday and binges ice cream on the sofa. Your professional self makes presentations to the board and says things like: “Let’s get the analytics team to kick the tyres on this.” Your whole self cannot operate a toaster and says things like: “Has anyone seen my socks?” Pretending to be someone you are not is not a problem; it’s essential. For the same reasons, your employer may say it wants you to bring your whole self to work but doesn’t really mean it. A company is a hierarchy, in which even the most understanding bosses expect people to follow orders rather than their hearts. Say something that causes your firm embarrassment, as a senior hsbc executive did last month by making fun of apocalyptic warnings about climate change, and you will end up being disowned rather than lauded for authenticity... Any job that involves a uniform is by definition asking employees to subsume their personalities, not express them. When times are tough or performance is shoddy, an employee is an individual second and a line item in the budget first. If the circumstances require it, he will be asked to leave and take his whole self with him.  As a result, the bringing of whole selves is carefully circumscribed. Candidates for jobs typically feel obliged to tell interviewers a few things about themselves in order to show that they are rounded human beings. Without fail those things are along the lines of “I have a dog called Casaubon, run a local food bank and love to go sea kayaking.” They are never “I hate animals, exercise and my fellow humans.”  Lots of executives, too, deal in whole-selfery of a very synthetic kind. As a rule of thumb, if you are taking advice on how to be authentic, you are not being authentic. And if you are scheduling meetings in order to display vulnerability, you are mainly showing controlled cunning.  One of the attractions of the workplace is that it is a place where there is a shared endeavour"

Meme - "The leader Singapore football deserves. Comments on the post where this comment was made have now been disabled.
THE LEADER OF THE FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION OF SINGAPORE AFTER A 7-0 DEFEAT TO MALAYSIA. ZERO ACCOUNTABILITY.
bernardtanfas: "Nic. I don't get paid. One time offer. Instead of abusing me here. Abuse me face to face. Let's meet. Drop me a mail at bernard@fas.org.sg. I will leave your comment for 24 hours. After which I will delete you. Its my wall."

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