Links - 21st January 2023 (2 - Migrants [including Sweden])

Short film about foreign worker telling his son how great S'pore is suddenly too real

The activists will be very upset

Liaison Officer for foreign worker dormitories S11 shares the other side of the story amid criticism - "Unlike what most of these troublemakers have claimed, the anonymous netizen said a lot of work has gone into improving the living conditions. Cleaning is happening more frequently, medical stations are available to treat sick workers, do swabs and isolate those who require it. Wifi services are available too...   Having 10-12 men to a room may seem absurd, but it is what it is. The Government wouldn’t have had to place them in these purpose-built dormitories in the first place if Singaporeans didn’t treat them like the plague.  However, it is also their culture whereby these foreign workers would prefer sitting on the floor for their meals even if you offer them seats. Even the packed lorries you see headed to Little India, more often than not, these are illegal transportation by other enterprising migrant workers to earn a quick $2 per head per trip.  Also, sanitation could have been better – but that wouldn’t be possible without outsourced cleaners. “Why not?” you ask, but the cost to engage cleaners would then be passed down to the consumers. Therefore, foreign workers have to do the cleaning themselves, with their standard of hygiene probably different from many of us.   Vanessa cautioned that while it is very easy to feel instant sympathy when the media decides to cover such sob-story now, she also reminded Singaporeans that not too long ago, the same media also featured purpose-built dorms, gyms, cinemas, a beer garden and monthly entertainment events which no one was interested in back then... All the criticism comes from a place of disconnect which unfortunately undermines the persistent hardwork of many people in dormitories."

Singapore is 'top choice' for migrant workers, says contractors association chief - "The statement by SCAL president Ng Yek Meng was in response to what he called “unfair comments” regarding the treatment of migrant workers here... “Though we acknowledge that the housing conditions here can be improved, by comparison, they are one of the best in the region.”... “Workers here earn significantly more than they would in their home countries. For some, their annual salary in Singapore is 10 times more than what they would typically receive in their home country,” said Ng. Singapore provides the workers with good working opportunities and stable living conditions, according to him.  Ng also claimed that the majority of workers choose to stay on in Singapore after completing their contracts, with many staying for over 10 years and encouraging their family members to join them here.  “Many employers encourage their workers to take on educational courses and training, on top of providing medical benefits and accommodation. Workers with work experience in Singapore are much sought after in other countries such as Australia and New Zealand”... Singapore employers also have a good reputation, while the country is known for being safe as well as providing workers protection under the law.  “Throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, despite disruptions and challenges to the construction industry, (workers) have been paid, food have been provided for those under quarantine, and those who needed medical attention have been attended to promptly,” said Ng.  Employers are legally compelled to treat their workers fairly and that it is also in their interests to ensure their workers are “kept happy, healthy, motivated and productive”. Regarding the calls for reducing the number of migrant workers, Ng said the country is not ready for such a move and warned that it would have a “corresponding impact” on the economy and on the livelihoods of Singaporeans... He also observed that a reduction in the migrant worker pool would lead to a rise in construction costs, which would have a trickle-down effect, leading to a rise in housing prices. It would also lead to delay in the construction of new HDB flats"
Ironic if all the liberals' noises cause fewer migrant workers to be hired in Singapore, and they go to Dubai to be abused far worse than they ever would be in Singapore

Why aren’t we talking about the Islamist uprising in Sweden? - "Right now, in Europe, mobs of people are rioting. They’re hurling rocks and stones at police officers and setting fire to cars. Several cities have been shaken to their core by this riotous fury. A police chief says they are the most violent street disturbances he has ever known. Worse, this is an entirely regressive riot. It is not an angry uprising for democracy or liberty, but its polar opposite – it’s a screech of religious rage against the expression of certain ‘blasphemous’ ideas; it’s a fiery effort to suppress ‘offensive’ speech. Some of the worst riots in a country’s living memory, all to the end of defending archaic religious beliefs from challenge or criticism... Sweden’s national police chief, Anders Thornberg, says he has ‘never seen such violent riots’. He says the rioters ‘tried to kill police officers’... Even where there has been mainstream media coverage of the riots – apparently some of the worst riots Sweden has ever witnessed, remember – it has tended to obscure rather than enlighten. Euphemism abounds. The BBC refers to it as ‘unrest’. It labels the rioters as ‘counter-demonstrators’, imbuing them, whether intentionally or not, with a political legitimacy they surely do not deserve. Much of the coverage gives the impression that the true cause of the violence is Mr Paludan, which is incredibly infantilising of the rioters. Mr Paludan may well hold repugnant beliefs, but he has not thrown missiles at the police or set fire to cars or smashed shop and school windows. That has been done by the people who take umbrage at his speech, who feel alarmed by his blather. These people – mostly Muslims – are not children, however much the paternalism and pity that motor identity politics might try to convince us otherwise. No, they made a decision to use physical force in response to speech... To their credit, the Swedish police seem to have some understanding of this point of principle. Can you imagine a British police force giving permission to a far-right rally with a public burning of the Koran? Swedish police chiefs have said that all people in Sweden must be free to ‘use their constitutionally protected rights’ both ‘to express their opinion’ and ‘to demonstrate’... For decades, American warriors for freedom of speech have insisted on the right of people to burn the Stars and Stripes because, in the words of Nadine Strossen, even ‘deeply unpopular [and] offensive’ speech should be free speech... Whether it’s schoolteachers being hounded into hiding in the UK or cartoonists being murdered in France or far-right politicians being rioted against in Sweden, we are witnessing a rise in violent Islamist intolerance. Our response should be to defend freedom of speech to the hilt, for everyone and against everything – including Islam.   The true problem here is an unwillingness among the European intelligentsia and political class to stand up for freedom and to make it clear to all social groups that their feelings carry less moral weight than the principles of freedom. In fact, too often the elites do the opposite – they send the message that some forms of speech are so hurtful, so ‘erasing’, that they may be legitimately sidelined or squashed, whether it’s ‘transphobic’ feminism, un-PC humour or mockery of Muhammad. This gives a green light to violent fury against allegedly ‘violent’ speech... Public discussion about Sweden is too often suppressed. Remember the trouble Donald Trump got into when he said Sweden was experiencing certain social problems? And yet he was right. A culture of instability is palpable in Sweden. Particular crimes rose following the influx of large numbers of migrants in 2015. There is an unprecedented number of gun and grenade attacks. And now there has been nearly a week of rioting because someone made fun of a religious book"
At least the media didn't call them mostly peaceful protests. But the reaction compared to the Ottawa Truckers Convoy is instructive. Of course, if it were Christians rioting about religious offence...

Dozens arrested at Sweden riots sparked by planned Quran burnings - "Saudi Arabia has condemned what it called the "deliberate abuse of the holy Quran by some extremists in Sweden, and provocation and incitement against Muslims".  Iran and Iraq earlier summoned the Swedish ambassadors to lodge protests."
If Muslim nations protest this, does this mean protesting about Islam can be a way to protest against these countries (just like firebombing a synagogue is just protesting Israel)?

Swedish PM: Immigrant integration failed, led to gang crime - "Sweden has failed to integrate the vast numbers of immigrants it has taken in over the past two decades, leading to parallel societies and gang violence, Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said on Thursday, as she launched a series of initiatives to combat organized crime. Many Swedes were shocked earlier this month after violent riots left more than 100 police injured... Andersson blamed criminals and said both Islamism and right-wing extremism had been allowed to fester in Sweden, in unusually frank and self-critical comments...   The number of people in Sweden born abroad has doubled in the last two decades to 2 million, or a fifth of the population. Andersson's Social Democrats have been in power for 28 of the last 40 years, including the last eight...   "Integration has been too poor at the same time as we have had a large immigration. Society has been too weak, resources for the police and social services have been too weak," she said.  Sweden, which holds a general election later this year, has radically tightened its immigration policies since taking in more people per capita than any other European Union country during the migration crisis in 2015. It now has one of the bloc's most restrictive policies."
Damn far right spreading fake news and inciting racism and violence!
I remember this Swede who claimed that all the grenades going off were just firecrackers and only racists would be worried about them

Sweden and the crisis of integration - "Something is rotten in the state of Sweden. Grenade attacks have soared in recent years. Sweden is now the only country other than Mexico in which police record the number of grenade attacks. Explosions in general are on the rise. ‘Sweden’s 100 explosions this year: What’s going on?’, a bamboozled BBC asked in 2019. In 2020 there were more than 200 explosions and 360 shootings. The murder rate for 2020 was Sweden’s highest in 18 years: 124 people were killed and 39 per cent of the killings involved guns. Sweden is the only country in Europe in which fatal shootings have surged since the year 2000. Even the once Sweden-adoring Guardian has had to admit, with not a little perplexion, that Sweden has gone from having ‘one of the lowest rates of gun violence on the continent to one of the highest in less than a decade’. Then there are the riots. In 2017, the Rinkeby suburb of Stockholm was rocked by rioting after cops tried to arrest someone on suspicion of dealing drugs. In 2020 riots shook the southern cities of Malmo and Ronneby, following the burning of a Koran by right-wing extremists. Mobs threw rocks at the police and burnt down bus shelters, some of them chanting ‘Allahu akbar!’ as they did so. There were even worse riots this year... Sweden’s national police chief said he had ‘never seen such violent riots’. Unprecedented bombings, shootings and rioting – what is going on in this nation once so widely praised as a social-democratic paradise?... As Sweden’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was forced to admit last year, in response to global interest in the seeming destabilisation of Sweden, ‘People born abroad are 2.5 times as likely to be registered as a crime suspect as people born in Sweden to two native-born parents’. Swedish police say that much of the bomb and gun violence of recent years has been the work of criminal gangs made up of foreign-born youths – ‘criminal clans that have a completely different culture’. Or consider Sweden’s sexual-offence stats. Four esteemed social scientists in Sweden studied the rape trends of the past two decades. They found that of those convicted of rape, 40.8 per cent were Swedish-born with Swedish-born parents, while 47.7 per cent were born outside of Sweden. Of the foreign-born men convicted of rape, 34.5 per cent were from the Middle East and North Africa, and 19.1 per cent were from other parts of Africa. This is unquestionably striking. One problem, of course, is that facts like these are too often easily and lazily folded into pre-existing narratives, usually about the folly of any form of immigration or the evil of Muslim men... Then there is the other response to Sweden’s undoubted crisis of integration, which, if anything, is even worse. That is, to pretend it isn’t happening, to look the other way, to stay silent... The Western woke elites’ silence on Sweden really has been alarming. In fact, they have actively discouraged discussion of Sweden’s segregation problems, branding it ‘fake news’ put about by racists and xenophobes. When Donald Trump and others said there were no-go zones in Sweden, where the authorities and others didn’t dare to tread, they were roundly mocked. Yet now Sweden’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledges the existence of ‘61 areas around the country that have become increasingly exposed to crime, social unrest and insecurity’ and the Swedish prime minister raises concerns about ‘parallel societies’. Now that the PM herself has said that certain communities in Sweden live in ‘completely different realities’, will the woke set admit they were wrong to say all is fine in this Nordic heaven? I suspect not.   The crisis of integration is real. Too many European societies bristle at the very idea of integrating immigrants, considering it far too judgemental and maybe even racist a thing to do. As for ‘assimilation’ – that is looked upon as a borderline fascistic idea. European societies now actively send the signal that they are not worth integrating into. We are horrible, racist, Islamophobic nations with checkered histories and problematic popualtions – that’s the cry of significant sections of Europe’s intellectual classes. ‘Stay on the outside, in your own communities, you’ll be safer and happier there’ – this is the divisive, destructive message unwittingly sent to immigrant communities courtesy of this national self-loathing that’s now rife among the great and the good. To accept huge numbers of immigrants while signalling to these immigrants that the countries they’re coming to are horrible places full of bigots and gammon is a recipe for exactly the kind of instability we have seen in Sweden and elsewhere in recent years. That so many in the cultural elite made a great, noisy display of their openness to mass immigration in 2015 but have said virtually nothing about the practical struggles of integration tells us all we need to know. For many of these people, being pro-immigration seems to be little more than an opportunity for virtue-signalling, for advertising to the world how caring you are. What those immigrants actually do when they get here – how they might become members of the community, embrace our value system, learn our language and traditions – is immaterial, it seems. The virtue has been signalled, and all the rest is unimportant. This is the callousness of the post-borders posturing of Europe’s woke establishments, of their silence on Sweden and other nations experiencing social tension. Promoting integration is not racist – it is essential, both for the integrity of our communities and for the social wellbeing of immigrants themselves."

Swedish Towns Slashing Basic Services to Support Migrants - "Many municipalities across Sweden will be reallocating funding and slashing basic services in order to cope with the flood of state-dependent migrants... A survey conducted by SVT Nyheter found that 8 in 10 municipalities will be “forced to save” in the coming year and half plan to cut assistance for the disabled and family care as their economies suffer... Bengtsfors faces a budget deficit of SEK 25 million (~$2.6 mil), which it hopes to bridge by dialing back social services and maintenance costs.  “In order to reduce their expenses ... an LSS housing and a daily activity for the mentally disabled will be closed down, 2.5 million less will be given to preschools, reduction of student health care, review the number of playgrounds, reduce street lighting by 20 percent, let it snow more before paving the roads, and also reduce politicians' wages by five percent”... Filipstad, a locality in south-central Sweden which had only about 6,000 residents as of 2010, now reportedly boasts a population of roughly 10,000, including some 2,000 "overseas" migrants, at least 80 percent of whom are unemployed."

Swedish police respond to soaring numbers of migrant sex attacks with... bracelets - "Festival-goers have been ordered to wear the accessories because officers believe it will “draw attention to the issue of sexual assault and urge those affected to report”.   However it remains to be seen how effective these wristbands are really going to be as the majority of perpetrators are said to be recent migrants who have landed in Sweden that can’t read them.   And in early signs the measures will clearly not work, it emerged a young woman was sexually assaulted by a mob of migrant men ironically wearing the “don’t grope” wristbands at Bravalla music festival. Her horrifying ordeal comes after girls as young as 12 were some of the 23 females who reported attacks carried out by a gang of seven to eight men at the Putte i Parken festival. Swedish Police are under growing pressure to do more to tackle the horrifying number of sex attacks at musical festivals.   They have previously blamed Scandinavian teenage girls' “Nordic alcohol culture” and Western behaviour for a steep rise in sex attacks carried out by migrants.  A damning police report, which examined why Sweden has the worst rates of physical and sexual violence committed against women and girls in Europe, has also excused refugees who it says “cannot handle the alcohol”.   Shockingly, the report revealed the majority of sex attack victims were under the age 15. Officers dismiss the criticism saying police are powerless to act when the attacks take place in crowded and dark places."
From 2016

Sweden Democrats Reflect Europe’s Rightward Trend - WSJ - "Every nation believes it is exceptional, and some of them actually are. In the decades after World War II, Sweden’s Social Democrats created a middle-class socialist paradise called the Folkhem, “the People’s Home.” Exceptional in its level of taxation and spending even for Western Europe, it became the gold standard for welfare-state social democracy. That era ended in Sunday night’s elections with a double shock.  Not only did the Social Democrat-led alliance fail to win its customary majority; the right-wing alliance is now radically altered, too. It may still be fronted by the center-right Moderates, but its largest component is now the hard-right Sweden Democrats... It may still be fronted by the center-right Moderates, but its largest component is now the hard-right Sweden Democrats... the taboos that governed political affiliation in what was until very recently a high-consensus, highly conformist society have been breached. As recently as the 2018 elections, the Sweden Democrats were beyond the pale. The problem wasn’t only that, like most of Europe’s “new right” parties, they originated on the neofascist fringe in the ’80s. It was more that their leader, Jimmie Åkesson, who moved them to the center, also alienated the Moderates by speaking so bluntly about immigration, Islamism and crime. As a result, the Moderates refused to consider an alliance after Mr. Åkesson received the third-largest share of the votes in 2018. That allowed the Social Democrats to form an incoherent government whose unifying principle was demonizing Mr. Åkesson and the Sweden Democrats as racist. Not long ago, Sweden was so notoriously safe that it might even have been a bit dull. Today, it is exceptional in all the wrong ways. Between 2013 and 2017, Sweden had Europe’s highest number of reported rapes per capita. In 2021, according to Sweden’s National Council for Crime Prevention, Sweden had the second-highest number of deadly shootings per capita among 22 European nations (after Croatia) for the preceding four years. Ten years ago, Gothenburg University’s annual survey, “Society, Opinion and Media,” found that law and order was Swedes’ lowest priority. This year, it is their top priority at 41%. Next comes healthcare at 33% and “integration and immigration” at 31%. These three concerns are effectively a single issue, the cascade effects of immigration. The end of the Cold War changed Sweden from the hermit kingdom of Scandinavia into a sought-after destination for immigrants. The Swedes had an exceptionally high confidence in two contradictory values, the superiority of the Swedish way and the desirability of multiculturalism. They expected that their mostly Muslim immigrants would sooner or later assimilate into Sweden’s culture of pacifist homogeneity, so their mosques and southward-pointing satellite dishes would soon fade away. They were wrong. Sweden, like most European Union states, is now socially balkanized. One reason the Social Democrats lost on Sunday is that a new Islamist party, Nuance, took as much as a quarter of the vote in some inner-city districts.  In 2014 a Moderate prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, told Swedes to “open their hearts.” Sweden proceeded to accept more immigrants per capita than any other European country. The asylum system, schools, hospitals, police and courts are overwhelmed. Sweden’s population, which was less than nine million in 2000, has surpassed 10 million for the first time in its history. The public’s hearts have hardened. Support for the Sweden Democrats has risen for nine consecutive elections. Mr. Åkesson is still described as “far right,” but he campaigned on the centrist consensus: The exceptional aspects of Swedish life won’t survive without tighter immigration, stronger policing and sentencing, and assertive policies on culture and integration. Even the centrist parties now grudgingly agree. Magdalena Andersson, leader of the Social Democrats, has called Mr. Åkesson a racist but also decried the breakdown of Swedish society into ethnic enclaves that she called “Somalitown” and “Chinatown.” The right’s margin of victory would be wider if the Center Party, an amalgam of free-market farmers and metropolitan liberals, had sided with its natural partners to the right... The losers of the left alliance view the triumph of the Sweden Democrats much as the Romans viewed the arrival of Attila’s hordes. Really, Sweden was exceptional in holding off this moment for so long. Their neighbors in Denmark have already domesticated their new right party into government. The Danish People’s Party served in a right-liberal coalition government from 2001 to 2011, and the 2015 elections made it Denmark’s second-largest party. It seems Sweden is no longer an exception to Europe’s new rule."
The usual cope for the rape rate is that it's because Sweden counts rapes very generously i.e. an issue of methodology (even if other research finds that the high rape rate isn't due to that [since victim surveys/victimisation surveys also find a rise in rape] and a lot of it is due to migrants). Presumably the newest cope will be that Sweden counts deadly shootings differently too

Sweden’s gun violence rate has soared due to gangs, report says - "Sweden is the only European country where fatal shootings have risen significantly since 2000, leaping from one of the lowest rates of gun violence on the continent to one of the highest in less than a decade, a report has found.  The report, by the Swedish national council for crime prevention (BRA), said the Scandinavian country had overtaken Italy and eastern European countries primarily because of the violent activities of organised criminal gangs.  “The rate in Sweden ranks very high in relation to other European countries, at approximately four deaths per million inhabitants per year. The average for Europe is approximately 1.6 deaths per million inhabitants”... “None of the other countries included in the study have experienced comparable increases.” The report said a decline in other forms of deadly violence, including knife crime, had masked the rise in fatal shootings. The report said more than eight out of 10 shootings were linked to organised crime, a significantly higher proportion than in other countries, and cited gang wars, the drugs trade and low confidence towards the police as potential factors."

The truth about the migrant crisis isn't what you think | The Spectator - "we all know what’s going on. Not from the mainstream media who eagerly line the dock side waiting for exhausted looking women and children being brought off the boats. We all know the reality from alternative media and independent reporters that have filled the void.  I’ve covered the migrant crisis for more than five years and worked on the ground in more than eight countries. I’ve visited dozens of refugee camps and illegal migrant encampments. I’ve spent hundreds of hours with refugees and migrants listening to their stories and trying to make sense of this crisis. The picture I see in the news does not reflect my experience and that of many others.  Over my time on the refugee trail, I’ve noticed that the majority of people making the journey to Europe are males between the age of 18-35. In fact I’d estimate up to 85 per cent of the migrant influx is comprised of young men. I always found it difficult to turn on the TV and see women clutching their infants and fathers weeping as they landed on the shores of Greece. Difficult because of the humanitarian empathy that wells up within us all, but also difficult because it’s not a reality I’m seeing on the ground. What I found over five years across the Balkans and Europe is not what’s written about in the papers, it’s not the stuff that wins journalism awards. It’s the painful reality that the refugee crisis is more complex than we are led to believe. 'Everyone who needs asylum should be given a safe place,' a leftist volunteer once told me. That’s true and it’s a nice notion to live life by, however the reality is starkly different.  What I’ve witnessed over the years is people, who by their own admission are not refugees, taking advantage of European gullibility and generosity. In 2015, when Merkel declared anyone who came will be welcomed in Germany, the door was truly opened. A green light lit up across the Middle East, Africa and other more far-flung parts of the world. With the aid of Google and volunteer organisations people knew exactly what type of persecution, sexual persuasion, religious or ethnic identity would secure them a ticket into Europe.  I don’t mean to be flippant on the subject of fraudulent asylum claims but it seems all too common. In warehouse refugee camps I’ve witnessed men from Egypt studying maps of Damascus to fabricate their identity. I’ve seen North Africans all claim to be Syrians and coincidently all from Damascus. Around a fire on the Serbian-Croatian border I’ve shared cigarettes and fruit with middle class, metropolitan Iranians who are taking their chances on reaching Europe. 'We will say we are Christians and suffer problems because of that. I have had friends who say they’re gay and it worked. The funny thing was when he arrived in Berlin they housed him with other gay refugees.'  Countless stories that don’t fit the narrative pushed on the evening telly fall by the way side. Violence, drugs, alcohol, disease and criminality are the bleak reality I saw on Europe’s borders. I shared the hardship to an extent to understand what truly drives people to pack up everything and come to Europe. Thousands and thousands of genuine refugees suffer in the Balkan barbed wire... How do we protect public health with an influx of uncontrolled migration? How do we address the elephant in the room: integration? What about family reunification? The numbers are vast! If Germany has six million new arrivals then how many more will come if their families are allowed to join them? How will Europe cope with all these people?... Across the world, there are hundreds of millions who would qualify for EU asylum. The question we are all going to have to ask is how much is enough? How many people can the West really take?"
Liberals believe that people don't respond to incentives. We see this with trans mania too

Europe's Nigerian Mafia - "One of the fastest growing criminal networks in Europe is now the Nigerian mafia, which is spreading its criminal activities across the continent. It consists of rival groups such as Black Axe, Vikings and Maphite. Most recently, authorities in Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Malta conducted an international operation directed at two of the major Nigerian mafia groups. Police accused the gangs of human-trafficking, drug trafficking, robbery, extortion, sexual violence and prostitution... The Nigerian mafia, according to the report, is "trafficking women by the tens of thousands". Italian intelligence has named the group "the most structured and dynamic" of any foreign crime entity operating in Italy...        It is no wonder that the Nigerian group has become so prominent in Italy: the country has been one of Europe's front doors for migrants entering Europe.  What distinguishes the Nigerian crime networks is their severe brutality -- Italian police have described them as using "urban guerilla warfare" to hold on to territory in Italy -- and their use of voodoo rituals...   The Nigerian mafia has not limited its operations to just Italy. It has spread as far north in Europe as Germany and Sweden. In London, a trio of Black Axe members was found guilty of laundering almost £1 million, which had been stolen through phone and email fraud. The Nigerian mafia, specifically the group Black Axe, has also spread to Canada, where a 2015 report by the Globe and Mail described it as a "death cult" originating in Nigeria, where it has been linked to "decades of murders and rapes, and its members are said to swear a blood oath". In the US, the FBI recently linked a series of financial frauds to Black Axe. According to the news report, "In the United States and around the world, the group is responsible for the loss of millions of dollars through a variety of elaborate cons".  In Sweden, police has described Black Axe as "one of the world's most effective crime syndicates". Swedish media recently ran a story that shows how Black Axe operates: A 16-year-old Nigerian girl was promised a job in Sweden as a hair stylist. When she arrived, Black Axe forced her to work as a prostitute, after she had gone through a voodoo ritual. "We have your blood now", Black Axe members told her, "If you run we will always find you"...        In Sweden, migrant gang crime has become an almost insurmountable problem: some commentators there have described the situation as "war". Denmark is increasingly fighting migrant gang crime. In Germany, where the migrant gangs are known as criminal family clans, authorities expect to be fighting the problem for decades to come.  In policy debates, the detrimental effects of migration on crime, particularly gang crime, do not receive nearly the attention -- if any -- they deserve. They should."

Illinois Gov Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lightfoot welcome illegal migrants sent by Texas to Cook County, then sends them out to suburbs in Du Page County

DC mayor declares public emergency over migrant arrivals from Arizona and Texas
So much for the "myth" of the dirty migrant

ICE Arrests Illegal Alien Pedophile After Sanctuary City Released Him Six Times - "Gamez had previously been arrested in 2016 for felony sex with a minor, but was released by San Francisco County Jail due to San Francisco’s sanctuary city policies, ignoring the ICE request for a voluntary transfer of Gamez to its custody. He was then arrested a further four times in 2017 and released by San Francisco County Jail each time. In 2018, he was arrested for domestic violence and convicted of battery, before being released yet again."

Opinion | There Is No Good Reason You Should Have to Be a Citizen to Vote - The New York Times - "Considering the Supreme Court’s recent decision undermining voting rights and Republicans’ efforts to suppress, redistrict and manipulate their way to electoral security, it’s time for Democrats to radically expand the electorate... allowing noncitizens to vote in federal, state and municipal elections would help revitalize American democracy at a time when enthusiasm and trust are lacking. While 2020 was considered a high-turnout election, only about 65 percent of eligible voters cast ballots. Compare that to Germany, where turnout was 76 percent in the last general election."
When liberals proclaim why they love illegal immigration
Apparently knowing that your vote is being diluted will increase enthusiasm and trust about elections

'No-go' zones for women: How a group of activists are taking back the streets of France - Ventures Africa - "In some streets in the outskirt of Paris like Servan, ‘it does matter’ if you don’t wait outside cafes, it does matter if you walk on some streets, it does matter if all you want to do is buy a cup of coffee or sit down and talk in a restaurant. Why? Because you are a woman. Imagine the absurdity?  Somewhere in Lyon France, a Muslim dominated area, men have laid a ban to gender mixing in some streets and some cafes. This means that women are not allowed to be on the same street as men, and not allowed to use the same cafes or restaurants as men. And when women dare to go to these cafes, they are either intimidated, ridiculed or the men treat them like a contagious disease and simply leave the cafe. This habit, fostered by culture and religion, has obviously not resonated with French women and they have launched a fight to take back areas of the country that have been turned into no-go zones by Muslim men.  A women’s rights campaign group has started to organize marches and protests, through walking on the streets that men have deemed illegal, and visiting cafes, that have obviously been built for male domination and total occupancy. Why? Because the owners of these cafes have set the precedence, or just followed it. These measures taken by women activists who will simply not accept a status quo that is demeaning, and frankly oppressive, is to retake these streets that fragile men have marked for their domination to feed their and foster their fragile masculinity.   In Lyon and some other parts of France, women are not only intimidated off the streets, they are also made to dress conservatively, even going as far as not wearing red lipstick, so as not to be threatened or abused by Muslim men"
From 2017. Weird. A few years before this, we were told that no go zones were a lie propagated by the "far right"

Ali / Nipple Sweater / Nobody is happy with what they have

3 more blocked by ifunny:

"Nobody is happy with what they have
Woman with small breasts: I wish I had bigger boobs
Woman with big breasts: I wish I had smaller boobs
Man with small penis: I wish I had a bigger penis
Man with big penis: I wish I had a bigger penis"

"Take that community Standards *woman wearing sweater with many pink areolae*"
Ironic/fitting that ifunny blocked this...

"Ali 19
I like chick-fil-a and missionary"

Links - 21st January 2023 (1 - Homelessness)

Homeless Los Angeles man builds wooden house on Hollywood Boulevard sidewalk - "A homeless man in Los Angeles has built a small wooden house with wheels on busy Hollywood Boulevard amid frustrations with the city asking him to take down his tent.   The man, who goes by “Q,” told Fox Los Angeles he constructed a house on wheels using wood tossed away from construction sites and help from friends."

Man accused of murdering Const. Shaelyn Yang was wanted on warrant, documents show - "The man accused of stabbing Const. Shaelyn Yang to death in Burnaby, B.C., this week was wanted on a warrant for a previous assault charge... Yang, who was a member of the Burnaby RCMP's mental health and homeless outreach team, and a bylaw officer had approached a man camped out at Broadview Park on Tuesday to inform him he would have to leave. "They weren't there to remove him at the time, they were just there to notify him of that""
Suspect charged with first-degree murder in fatal stabbing of B.C. RCMP officer - The Globe and Mail - "Constable Yang, 31, was part of the force’s mental health and homeless outreach team, and had been paired with a municipal parks employee on Tuesday morning to check on a man in a tent at Broadview Park"
Man charged in Burnaby RCMP officer's death was wanted for assault - "Mayors from cities including Burnaby have complained publicly about the so-called "catch and release" justice system — criticism that has drawn a sharp rebuke from B.C.'s Crown Prosecution Service.  Dhaliwal said he sees a lot as a delivery driver.  "Burnaby's getting pretty [bad] right now. It's scary. It's not good. Especially if the police can get hurt and get killed, then regular people like me got no chance.""
According to the pro-homeless people, it's her fault because they should just have left him alone. The defund the police people are not going to be happy either (then again, they hate the police, so they may secretly cheer her death)

Meme - "Vancouver elected a right of centre Asian dude to become mayor. This is how some in the NDP are responding. What a fucking imbecile"
Vvonne Hanson @YVR_Hanson: "Vancouverites are really so terrified of homeless people that they will elect a fascist government just to avoid having to look at them. Wild."

Vancouver rejects left-wing activists profiting off the homeless - "Vancouver overwhelmingly elected the pro-police A Better City party to power. Every ABC candidate won their seat, giving the party control over the mayor’s office, city council, school board and park board. The party’s election is a rebuke to the city’s soft-on-crime status quo and a challenge to the homeless industrial complex. Surging crime was on everyone’s mind — over the past several years, assaults, stabbings, thefts and vandalism have plagued downtown Vancouver, particularly Chinatown. Rather than invest in public safety, the city enabled public drug abuse while converting hotels into woefully substandard supportive housing. In the leadup to the election, the city’s radical activists and progressive politicians denied or minimized the crime wave. Evidently, this did not sit well with voters. Now ABC has vowed to reinstate order while improving affordable housing. However, success here requires tackling the “homeless industrial complex” — the ecosystem of bureaucrats, NGOs and corporations that claim to aid the marginalized, but actually do little beyond profiting off the perpetuation of homelessness, poverty and addiction... when governments outsource the construction and maintenance of supportive housing to the private sector, corporations can fleece taxpayers by providing substandard housing at inflated costs... attempts to reign in costs or improve efficiency are often portrayed as anti-homeless. The end result resembles for-profit prison systems, where service providers are incentivized to preserve social ills and, lobbying accordingly, create a black hole of waste and misery... Residents themselves deserve some blame for these conditions, due to their neglect and vandalism of their accommodations (i.e. setting fires, smearing showers with feces). However, it also seems that these SROs are being neglected by property owners and managers... Ramsay resigned from BC Housing this September after a damning Ernst and Young Review found that millions of dollars in contracts had been awarded without clear documentation of decision-making processes.  Ramsay’s public resignation letter did not address corruption allegations and instead blamed public safety advocates — apparently, Ramsay had been robbed of the confidence to do his job because he was disturbed by encampment evictions and public anger at homeless crime, which, according to him, was the real problem. Incidentally, Vancouver mayor Kennedy Stewart, who championed heavy investment into SROs until his defeat last Saturday, is married to Atira board member Jeanette Ashe... In 1971, economist William Arthur Niskanen theorized that bureaucrats, being self-interested like anyone else, tend to maximize their own budgets rather than provide maximally effective services. Larger budgets mean greater job security and potential salary growth. A large body of academic literature has since explored this problem. Bureaucracies that administer programs for the homeless seem particularly vulnerable to this phenomenon, because the effectiveness of these programs are difficult to measure, and because criticism of such programs invite indignant pushback... This critique can also be applied to addictions services that refuse to nudge people towards rehab and instead enable addicts through over-permissive “harm reduction.” By fostering dependency, these NGOs guarantee and grow demand for their services."

‘It’s a Miracle’: Helsinki’s Radical Solution to Homelessness - "It is important that they are tenants: each has a contract, pays rent and (if they need to) applies for housing benefit. That, after all, is all part of having a home – and part of a housing policy that has now made Finland the only EU country where homelessness is falling... Housing First’s early goal was to create 2,500 new homes. It has created 3,500. Since its launch in 2008, the number of long-term homeless people in Finland has fallen by more than 35 percent. Rough sleeping has been all but eradicated in Helsinki, where only one 50-bed night shelter remains, and where winter temperatures can plunge to -20C...  But Housing First is not just about housing. “Services have been crucial,” says Helsinki’s mayor, Jan Vapaavuori, who was housing minister when the original scheme was launched. “Many long-term homeless people have addictions, mental health issues, medical conditions that need ongoing care. The support has to be there.”...  Hardly any of the tenants come straight from the street, Haapa says, and those who do can take time to adjust to living indoors. But after a three-month trial, tenants’ contracts are permanent – they can’t be moved unless they break the rules (Rukkila does not allow drug or alcohol use; some other Housing First units do) or fail to pay the rent... Housing First costs money, of course: Finland has spent €250m creating new homes and hiring 300 extra support workers. But a recent study showed the savings in emergency healthcare, social services and the justice system totalled as much as €15,000 a year for every homeless person in properly supported housing...  But if Housing First is working in Helsinki, where half the country’s homeless people live, it is also because it is part of a much broader housing policy. More pilot schemes serve little real purpose, says Kaakinen: “We know what works. You can have all sorts of projects, but if you don’t have the actual homes … A sufficient supply of social housing is just crucial.”  And there, the Finnish capital is fortunate. Helsinki owns 60,000 social housing units; one in seven residents live in city-owned housing. It also owns 70 percent of the land within the city limits, runs its own construction company, and has a current target of building 7,000 more new homes – of all categories – a year. In each new district, the city maintains a strict housing mix to limit social segregation: 25 percent social housing, 30 percent subsidised purchase, and 45 percent private sector. Helsinki also insists on no visible external differences between private and public housing stock, and sets no maximum income ceiling on its social housing tenants.  It has invested heavily, too, in homelessness prevention, setting up special teams to advise and help tenants in danger of losing their homes and halving the number of evictions from city-owned and social housing from 2008 to 2016."

Is giving out free money the best way to help homeless people? - "The people who received cash transfers moved into stable housing faster and saved enough money to maintain financial security over the year of follow-up. They decreased spending on drugs, tobacco, and alcohol by 39 percent on average, and increased spending on food, clothes, and rent... Enabling 50 people to move into housing faster saved the shelter system $8,100 per person over the year, for a total savings of $405,000. That’s more than the value of the cash transfers, which means the transfers pay for themselves... “The research shows that if you give people a larger sum of cash upfront, it triggers long-term thinking,” as opposed to just keeping people in survival mode, Williams explained. “You can’t think about maybe registering for a course to advance your life when you don’t have enough money to put food on the table. The big lump sum at the front end gives people a lot more agency.”... Not everyone was eligible for a cash transfer, however. The study only enrolled participants who’d been homeless for under two years, with the idea that early intervention most effectively reduces the risk of people incurring trauma as a result of living without a home. And people with severe mental health or substance use issues were screened out of the initiative. Williams said this was not out of a belief that there are “deserving poor” and “undeserving poor” — a woefully persistent frame on poverty — but out of a desire to avoid creating a risk of harm and to ensure the highest likelihood of success."
Of course, people who champion giving money to the poor and/or homeless ignore all the caveats of the studies and insist everyone would benefit from getting money, even when the researchers themselves admit that not everyone would benefit from the intervention. Good luck excluding people because "stigma"

The Meme Policeman - Posts | Facebook - "a private non-profit group called Foundations For Social Change did. They have an initiative called the New Leaf project... Days of Homelessness- the cash group rapidly declined in the first month, while the no-cash group increased. Not particularly surprising, since they just received $7,500. But after a year, both groups declined substantially, more than halving their levels of homelessness, and ended up at almost identical levels (~25%). This study could just as easily be spun to say, after 1 year, homelessness was unchanged regardless of cash transfers.
Money Management- the study touts that after a month, the cash group had an additional $4K in savings. Not surprising after getting $7.5K! It also highlights that the cash recipients retained $1K even after 12 months, so they didn’t blow it all. But what they DON’T mention, is that the non-cash group ended up with more money in savings after a year than the cash group! Amazingly, this wasn’t even mentioned. This finding could be spun as saying, the cash group ended up with less savings after a year than the no-cash group. Food Security- the cash group’s “food security” shot up in the first month, more than doubling. Again, not surprising. But then it fell and remained mostly flat for the rest of the year. Meanwhile, the non-cash group steadily increased over the year. Both groups had substantially higher food security by the end of the year, although the cash group remained higher. This is perhaps the study’s strongest finding, but still unremarkable.
Monthly spending- the cash group spent more money on every category, again not surprising since they had more cash to spend. But what’s misleading about highlighting the 39% drop in drug and alcohol spending, is the NON-CASH group spent less on drugs and alcohol! $117/month vs $130. This could be spun to say “cash group spends 11% more on drugs and alcohol.”
Overall, the study didn’t show anything remarkable, except that the non-cash group also dramatically improved in most metrics. Whether or not money was given, these homeless people improved substantially. Which is likely due to them carefully screening for those most likely to succeed anyway. But this tells us little about how large cash payments would work for the broader homeless population, particularly the unsheltered homeless. The overwhelming percentage of unsheltered homeless suffer from mental illness and/or addiction. Even the LA Times admitted that 76% of those living outside on their streets suffered from serious health issues, and 67% had mental illness and/or addiction."

Portland considers "mandatory rest spaces" for the homeless on private property

Homeless man spent two years sheltering in Calgary airport: 'I’d buy a Starbucks and blend in' - "The Calgarian said he tired of the daily drudgery of finding a spot to sleep in shelters and abandoned buildings, and during a visit to the airport was impressed by an acquaintance’s ingenuity in using one of the washrooms to his living advantage.  A trick to remaining undetected was never getting to know airport-based employees too well...   He’d also spend some nights sleeping elsewhere, such as a downtown hostel, and working by day well away from the airport... the obvious high security offered by the airport’s environs — a far cry from the dangers of the street.  “It’s clean, it’s tidy, you don’t have to worry about things going missing”"

Michael Shellenberger on Twitter - "People say high rent causes homelessness but Ben, who has been homeless in San Francisco for 7 years, says the “vast majority” are homeless due to addiction. Just 6-7% are from SF. Ben says he "boosts" (shoplifts) and breaks into cars to pay for his $60/day heroin habit."
Michael Shellenberger on Twitter - "People say lack of housing forces local residents into the streets, but James says he came from Texas to San Francisco for the drugs, the non-enforcement of anti-camping laws, and the $820/month in welfare & food stamps. James says he sold fentanyl, 2 weeks ago, to a 15-year-old."
Michael Shellenberger on Twitter - "Progressives say it's wrong to require the homeless to sleep in shelters, but nearly every homeless person @lwoodhouse and I interview has been a victim of violence. James in Fresno said he has been assaulted, shot at, and witnessed a rape. He says most homeless are armed."
Michael Shellenberger on Twitter - "Just listen to this damning testimony from a former Housing First worker He was explicitly told not to address addiction, even though it was what was causing their homelessness Gov. @GavinNewsom himself defends this pessimistic & deadly addiction maintenance approach"

EXCLUSIVE: Seattle's homeless say the city is providing them drug paraphernalia instead of treatment and housing - "In August 2020, the Seattle City Council voted to defund the city’s Navigation Team, a joint venture of Seattle Police, social workers and Waste Management, which provided services to Seattle’s massive homeless population... Since the defunding, encampments and crime grew exponentially across the city. Many Seattle parks are now occupied by homeless encampments. Neighbors have reported spiking crime and almost no police response, due to the overall defunding of the police department... I can’t understand what they think they’re accomplishing other than continuing to pursue an agenda of affordable housing or bust.  Problem is, the homeless appear to be their pawns"

LEVY: Tent city homeless used as pawns in affordable housing fight | Toronto Sun - "The world has indeed gone mad when activists — allegedly trying to fight for the safety of the homeless — encourage them not to accept shelter and remain in tents in parks."

26 arrested after violence erupts as police clear out homeless encampment in Toronto park - "Supporters of the encampment residents created a barricade with wooden pallets, chanting “we will not give up the fight,” but officers knocked that down as they worked their way through the area...   Joey Mauger was among the encampment residents who didn’t want to leave the park.  “Me and my friends, we don’t bother anybody,” he said from behind the orange fence set up around the encampment earlier in the day. “We like it here, we don’t want to go and we don’t know where we’re going to go.”  Mauger said he and his partner had been living at the park for six months. He said he was previously put up in a hotel by the city but left because he didn’t feel safe due to random check-ins"
Some people do indeed choose to camp in parks rather than accept shelter

It’s not cruel to clear park encampments - The Globe and Mail - "having groups of people living for months on end in public parks is not good, either for them or for the public. The parks have been getting heavy use during the pandemic, especially now that the warm weather is here. The camps are unhealthy and unsafe: Fires often break out among the tents, putting everyone at risk... Whenever authorities try to remove the camps, advocates for the homeless call them callous and uncaring... Listening to the rhetoric, you might think that police had stormed in to arrest the camp dwellers and haul them away. What actually took place is that officials approached them to say that the camp was being closed and ask whether they would accept an offer of safer housing in a shelter or hotel. Fourteen of the roughly two dozen occupants agreed.  The fences were set up to let city officials do their work without interference from the protesters who have disrupted attempts to remove other encampments. The last thing authorities wanted was a dangerous shoving match, or worse. The tactic appeared to work... Toronto’s approach to the camps from the start has been patient and cautious. For many months the city left the camps more or less alone. When it did act, it acted with care. Far from rousting the residents, it sent officials in again and again to offer them housing. The city says they have conducted more than 20,000 such visits. As a result, says a city release, “almost 1,730 people staying in encampments have been referred to safe inside spaces since April 2020.” The city hasn’t stopped there. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Toronto has seen what Mayor John Tory calls an “unprecedented wave of action” not just to shelter but to house the homeless, nearly doubling its spending. It has opened almost 250 new affordable and supportive housing units and built 100 units of rapidly constructed modular housing. To help shelter residents get into more secure accommodation, the city assigns each of them a housing worker. In the past year, according to city figures, close to 6,000 have moved into a permanent home.  Meanwhile, the city has improved conditions in the shelter system itself, expanding capacity, improving infection controls and stepping up testing. More than half of the shelter population has at least a first dose of vaccine. So it’s misleading to argue that the encampments must be allowed to stay because the residents have no other option but to live in a tent. There are alternatives now"
Of course if there's a fire or some kid gets pricked by a needle, the authorities will be blamed

Adam Zivo: Toronto homeless camp eviction a win for the city’s working class - "the City of Toronto evicted a major homeless encampment in Alexandra Park, a low-income neighbourhood in the downtown core. Pro-encampment voices have mobilized to spin the eviction as an attack on Toronto’s poor, but the opposite is true — this eviction will benefit low-income residents in the neighbourhood who, owing to the behaviour of predatory encampment dwellers, have been denied access to greenspace and social services. Scadding Court Community Centre (SCCC) is located adjacent to Alexandra Park and provides crucial social services to the neighbourhood’s low-income residents. “There’s violence associated with the encampment — 100 per cent. We see it every day,” says Herman Ellis Jr., SCCC’s executive director... Ellis detailed how encampment-related issues — such as drug dealing, physical fights, sexual assaults, nudity, public defecation and gun threats — have kept the park off-limits to other residents. As a result, Ellis states that it is “very clear” that nearby residents, who disproportionately live in poverty, no longer have local greenspace that they can safely enjoy. The problem is particularly bad for families as well as residents with mobility issues, such as the elderly and disabled. “There are a lot of folks living in poverty who don’t have a place to cool off,” Ellis says, noting that parks are a respite for low-income residents who find their own homes uncomfortable. The encampment, which had approximately 30 residents, was the main reason why the community centre had to cancel its in-person summer children’s programming, which primarily services low-income families, for a second year in a row. The park is no longer safe for children. Its play structure and splash pad have not been used all year due to fear of children coming into contact with needles.  SCCC considered running outdoor programming in Ryerson field, which is adjacent to Alexandra Park. This was nixed owing to several gun calls within the encampment over recent months. The standard practice during a gun call is to shepherd children to the community centre for safety. However, as Alexandra Park is between the field and SCCC, children would have had to run towards gun violence, rather than away, to reach refuge. Consequently, local children will have only virtual programming this summer while children in wealthier neighbourhoods enjoy the outdoors. Studies have shown that virtual programming is far less effective for low-income households, owing to technology deficits and limited home space.  Meanwhile, the neighbourhood has become infested with rats which have feasted on the encampment’s waste. Combatting the rats is difficult as they hide in the park’s overgrown grass, which, owing to safety concerns, is no longer safe for workers to cut.   According to Ellis, neighbours consistently complain about the rat problem to SCCC. The community garden, which many low-income citizens previously relied on for food support, is now closed as a result of the infestation. SCCC is investigating whether high volumes of rat droppings have made the garden’s produce unfit for human consumption...   Toronto’s largest homeless encampments each host, at most, a couple dozen people — yet thousands of low-income citizens have been deprived of access to public space, as well as associated services, while being subject to threats and harassment.  The eviction of these encampments is not a war against the poor — it is a victory for them. It is not about gentrification and bourgeois fragility, but rather about vulnerable citizens having the right to safely exist within their own neighbourhoods.  Of course, you’ll never hear about that from pro-encampment voices, who often inhabit neighbourhoods where crime is rarely anything more than an abstraction. Blinded by their privilege, activists instead romanticize and enable encampment dwellers — it’s easy when other, often poorer people pay the price. The notion that encampment evictions are a war on the poor is also patronizing — as if all poor people are synonymous with encampment dwellers; as if the working poor, just trying to get on with life with some peace, don’t exist. Apparently, only the rich have the right or desire to enjoy public spaces...   The City of Toronto has been offering free hotel rooms, food, showers, harm reduction and social services to evicted dwellers. Smaller, nonviolent encampments have mostly been left at peace (and rightfully so). The city has done this despite vilification from journalists who, with bleeding hearts and great naivete, cry for the rights of criminals while erasing low-income folks who simply want to live their lives without worrying about guns, needles, feces, verbal harassment and physical assault."
Since many homeless people refuse free shelter, how will giving them housing help?

Eviction of Trinity Bellwoods homeless encampment was a victory for community safety - "Torontonians routinely share stories of encampment residents behaving aggressively to passersby — testimonials of verbal harassment and threats of physical assault are abundant... Many of them refused free hotel rooms, citing “health” concerns to CBC reporters. An alternative explanation for their refusal emerges when one considers that: (a) following eviction, a City of Toronto news release indicated that thousands of used needles had been discovered at the Trinity Bellwoods site (for only a few dozen people, no less); and (b) hotels, unlike encampments, set rules on what counts as safe and acceptable behaviour... As the city had given advance warning of the eviction (coupled with yet more offers of safe rehousing), Toronto’s pro-encampment activists gathered by the hundreds to obstruct it. Shepherded by an ad hoc group known as the Encampment Safety Network (ESN), these activists formed human chains around the encampment’s structures. Clashes with police resulted in several arrests and three people being charged, one for allegedly assaulting an officer.  This isn’t the first time this has happened. When the city tried to clear another encampment in May, this one located in Lamport Stadium Park in Toronto’s Liberty Village neighbourhood, the ESN successfully used these tactics there, too, limiting the eviction to only a small part of the park and leaving three officers injured. ESN boasted about its success in an Instagram post and advocated replicating it at Trinity Bellwoods... Meanwhile, the ESN and its supporters, ignoring their own role in necessitating an outsized security presence, have been pushing the narrative that the eviction is proof of an over-militarized police state. In an impressive feat of projection, epitomized by the Twitter feed of Lorraine Lam (ESN’s primary spokesperson), they have fabricated a narrative that these evictions are violent and that they constitute human rights abuses, and that responsibility for any harm lies with the police... consistent with previous outreach attempts, evicted campers were being offered “safe, indoor space, with access to meals, showers and laundry, harm reduction, physical and mental health supports, and a housing worker.” As of now, over half of the evicted residents have accepted those supports... It is important to consider that not all encampments are the same. There is nothing really objectionable to encampments that harmoniously coexist with their surrounding communities"

Housing Codes, Homelessness, and Affordable Housing - "Much of the housing that low-income people can find is substandard in that it doesn’t meet modern fire and other safety codes. Because it doesn’t meet housing codes, it is often shut down and taken off the market. This well-intentioned policy has the unfortunate effect of reducing the supply of housing for low-income people, forcing them into worse alternatives such as remaining in abusive situations, staying in temporary shelters, living under bridges, forming illegal campsites, sleeping in doorways, etc.
Faced with this array of choices, many homeless people would prefer the risks of living in housing that isn’t up to code than the risks of living on the streets or other unsafe situations, but when risky, sub-standard places are shut down, some people choose to live on the streets.
While other programs are working to reduce homelessness in other ways, this paper suggests that reducing the stringency of many housing codes would also help reduce homelessness and increase the supply of affordable housing."
People respond to incentives, despite what liberals think

WARMINGTON: Some homeless prefer city parks over a luxury hotel suite | Toronto Sun - "“It’s not safe in a hotel,” a squatter known as Dreddz explained Friday. “I am never going to a hotel.”... The city has invested millions of dollars into helping the homeless, which includes getting them off the street and into temporary hotel shelters while they try to find them more permanent abodes. There are dozens of services offered to assist and Toronto puts forward endless care for the needy through volunteering and fundraising. Even in these camping areas where inhabitants are supposedly roughing it, six pizzas were delivered as well as a crate of water and even supplies from a rented moving truck, including couches, chairs and new mattresses for a more comfortable night’s sleep. There are some 30 tents pitched there now.  Meanwhile, all the complaining amongst the occupants about how hard it is for people staying at The Novotel has not gained much sympathy from the working class who could only ever dream of staying in such a posh location. A simple “thank you” the City of Toronto and its taxpayers would probably go over better...   No matter how it goes, it can’t be forgotten that those city parks and playgrounds are for families and not hardcore drug use, vagrancy and camping."

Even with winter coming, homeless people living in park encampments want to stay | The Star - "Like many of them, Saxida is steadfast in his refusal to go into the city’s shelter system. “I have the right to choose and I choose to stay,” he said, explaining he feels safer in the park, even with winter coming.  Saxida, who is 50 years old, said his 81-year-old father, Antonio, died earlier this year of COVID-19 after contracting the coronavirus in his nursing home. Saxida said he knows the dangers of congregate settings in the midst of a deadly pandemic and that’s why he prefers his tent. “I don’t want to end up like my Dad.”... Several speakers mentioned the city’s opening of the Better Living Centre for a 100-person respite centre this winter. The city recently posted photos of the space on Twitter, showing drab, plexiglass cubicles with a single, thin mattress. Speakers said the space looked like a “dystopian prison” and there were reports that the lights stayed on 24 hours a day, the showers had only cold water and there was constant surveillance from security cameras."
Some homeless advocates claim that shelters are unsafe. Even if we pretend that this has nothing to do with other shelter residents (why else have CCTV?), it's safe to say some of the homeless like the freedom of the streets
According to some homeless advocates, only the homeless have the right to use parks, and other people don't have the right to parks without needles

Gov. Gavin Newsom proposes court-ordered mental health treatment for homeless people - "California’s governor unveiled a plan Thursday to create mental health courts in every county, allowing treatment for more homeless people with severe mental health and addiction disorders but also compelling some of them into care, a move that many advocates of homeless people oppose as a violation of civil rights. Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a press conference that he has no intention of rounding people up and locking them away. Instead, he said his plan would offer a way for people to get court-ordered psychiatric treatment, medication and housing, preferably before they are arrested. Under the plan, which requires approval by the Legislature, all counties would have to set up a mental health branch in civil court and provide comprehensive and community-based treatment to those suffering from debilitating psychosis. People need not be homeless to be evaluated by a court.   But if approved, they would be obligated to accept the care or risk criminal charges, if those are pending, and if not, they would be subject to being held in psychiatric programs involuntarily or lengthier conservatorships in which the court appoints a person to make health decisions for someone who cannot... Nearly a quarter of California’s estimated 161,000 unhoused residents have a severe mental illness, according to a 2020 count of homeless people required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Nationally, the figure was just over 20% of an estimated 580,000 unhoused residents...   The governor said under his proposal, people would have a say in their treatment plan and have a public defender to represent them. Most importantly, the proposal allows a broader array of people, including family member or first responder, to refer the person for help, he said. Care could last up to 24 months."
It's also unjust to imprison the mentally ill, so the only solution is to allow the mentally ill to terrorise people

Neighbours in Yonge and Eglinton area at odds over new homeless shelters | The Star - "Some owners of property and businesses in the area want the hotel site closed down or for it to cater to a different clientele, such as single women with children or a facility for refugees... Local tensions have heightened after the stabbing of a city worker who was on her shift last week at the Broadway site. A resident of the building was charged with assault with a weapon and other offences.  And this week a 25-year-old man identified as a resident of the shelter was arrested by Toronto police and faces multiple firearms charges after a modified pellet gun containing ammunition was located in the area, according to investigators.  There have been other incidents at the site including the overdose death of a client and a fire... Much of the division over the shelters is playing out on the private, 4,000-member strong Facebook group called Community Safety — Midtown Toronto, which launched about three weeks ago.  That’s where some community members are complaining that the shelters have brought unwanted crime including break-ins, bike thefts and drug dealing, along with litter, discarded dirty needles, public urination and other problems.  But critics of the Facebook group who have reached out to the Star, including Rankin who was recently kicked out of the forum, say many of the comments from members are often toxic, elitist, closed-minded, “NIMBY” (not in my backyard)-driven and hostile... Ward, the administrator of the Facebook group, says she deletes comments from the forum if they are personal attacks or rude. She says she has kicked out members if they are “calling us NIMBYs” or being a troll... One member, who, for fear of being harassed, asked she be identified only by her first name — Jenny — said she decided this week to “step away” from the “bad energy on both sides” of the online discussion.  “It was making me miserable,” she says, adding that her husband recommended she take a breather from the group after noticing a change in her demeanour.  Several of the online comments complain about the city signing a lease extension on the hotel without telling the community."
Apparently the homeless are not a good enough demographic for virtue signalling

Links - 20th January 2023 (2 - Women)

Meme - T. Becket Adams @BecketAdams: "women will literally draw dozens of passive aggressive cartoons seething at their husbands instead of going to couples therapy."

Meme - Powerline.co.ke: "I am every man's weakness. I can snatch every woman's husband."

Meme - "Destini, 25
Credit score must be 800 or better"

Fiercely Virgo on Twitter - "90% of Sisterhood & female friendships are fake because you can never criticize a woman with super honesty & also be friends with her no matter how well the criticism serves for her in long term. Women just cannot prioritize harshness of the truth, it's just how most of them are. Only the outlier women who prioritize truth and stand honesty or women who can risk their friendships for honesty can form long term friendships with each other otherwise most female friendships go downhill in few years due to the resentment that their fakeness breeds."

Planet Sex: Cara Delevingne suggests men lack ‘right tools’ to pleasure women - "Speaking in the first episode of her BBC documentary Planet Sex with Cara Delevingne, which premiered yesterday (1 December), the supermodel discussed “the orgasm gap”, where 95 per cent of straight men orgasm during intercourse, but only 65 per cent of straight women achieve orgasm.  “I do feel that generally men are not equipped with the right tools to be able to handle women, especially sexually,” said Delevingne in the six-part documentary."
Lesbian Bed Death says hi

Explaining the gender gap in sickness absence - "In many western countries, women have a much higher rate of sickness absence than men. To what degree the gender differences in sickness absence are caused by gender differences in health is largely unknown... Despite adjusting for a large number of factors, including both previously well-studied factors (e.g. health, job control/demands) and lesser-studied factors (parent–child conflict and sexual assault), this study found that most of the gender gap in sickness absence remains unexplained. Gender differences in health and stressors account for only part of the differences in sickness absence. Other factors must, therefore, exist outside the domains of health, work and family stressors... In many countries, including Norway, women’s sickness absence is about 50% higher than men’s. These gender differences in sickness absence may lead to negative long-term outcomes for women such as reduced income and career opportunities, stigmatization and long-term labour market exclusion"
So much for mocking the "man flu". The cope will be that women really are more sick due to sexism (despite the study ruling that out), or that men irresponsibly go to work when sick. But the doublethink that men are simultaneously babies pretending they are sick will still exist
Another factor explaining the gender wage gap

Meme - Theheauxmentor: "Exactly one year ago, my sugar daddy Brad passed away. He was 47 and died because of a heart attack and untreated diabetes. We had an incredibly toxic relationship and ultimately I wish I never met him. As horrible as he was, I am sitting here and trying to dig up a good memory to remember him on this day. So here it is: Brad, you bought me my first pair of Louboutins, my first Birkin and my first and only race horse. You understood the value of my time and for that, I honor you with my time today by making this post for you. I still don’t forgive you for taking me out of the will after you attacked me while you were on whippets. However, you knew i would always be okay and yes....l’ve been living a double life this whole time with the guy you thought was my gay bodyguard and I’m also an author and serial entrepreneur. So, let's call it even. i will finally visit you one of these days, Rest In Peace, PS please don't haunt me again. -Demanda"

Sheriff’s office: Texas woman burns down boyfriend’s house in Atascosa - "The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office arrested a woman they alleged burned down her boyfriend’s house after another woman answered his phone.  Senaida Soto, 23, was arrested Monday on charges of burglary and arson...   Soto was reportedly in a romantic relationship with a family member of the homeowner, the post stated.  According to the Sheriff’s Office, Soto FaceTimed her boyfriend and a woman answered the call — the woman turned out to be a relative of the boyfriend."

Meme - "Strong independent women when I start sprinting towards them at night"

Meme - "On a 23 hour drive with 3 kids. Venmo @Sarah-Barton-I for coffee"

Meme - "Recevoir une photo de ton penis, c'est comme quand mon chat m'apporte une souris morte: je peux comprendre que t'es ben fier, mais ca veut pas dire que je vais y toucher"

Body image and the foreign female in Japan: survey shows frustration with one-size-fits-all thinking | The Japan Times - "Mari Suzuki from the Japan Association for Eating Disorders (JAED) says that the percentage of underweight women in the 30-50 age range is rising...  Half the women responded that their confidence in how they look has worsened since coming to Japan and that “living in Japan has been a major contributing factor to this situation.” On the other hand, 21 percent said the opposite was true, and that life here has contributed significantly to improving their body image. When asked to respond to a number of statements to reflect their experiences and opinions, 85 percent agreed that Japanese media tends to promote the idea that “skinny is healthy”, and that heavier/curvier women are rarely seen. When they are, it is normally in a comedic or derogatory context... For some foreign women, Japan can seem like a paradise. Take Claire, who is in her 40s: “I’m already naturally tiny at 162 centimeters tall and 46 kilograms, so living in Japan was actually a godsend for me! I could get clothes to fit me well, unlike back home in the U.K., and I felt great for the most part”... Claire’s problem, however, was having large breasts for her slight frame, which drew unwanted attention and comments from both men and women. “I tried to hide my shape with slouching but it caused a lot of neck, back and shoulder pain,” she recalled. The issue became so bad that she eventually took her physiotherapist’s advice and got a breast reduction. Claire reports that her self-confidence has soared as a result. More than 75 percent of the women have put up with unsolicited comments from people they know about their body or weight... only 10 percent of Japanese women in their 20s and 30s engage in regular exercise (at least twice a week for 30 minutes). This was the lowest among all age groups for women.  Among participants who said their body image had generally improved since coming to Japan, some women mentioned Japanese eating habits, including smaller portions, a wider range of vegetables and less fat, as one factor that may help in maintaining a healthy weight... Japan’s “foodie culture” doesn’t win points with everyone. “The hypocrisy of body obsession and food obsession in the media here is sickening,” said one North American in her 40s. “There are foods and supplements ads on TV to curb appetites, while there are variety shows promoting all-you-can-eat buffets, super-sized menus and eating contest winners.”... As for those rail-thin Japanese women, JAED’s Suzuki predicts they may be paying the price down the line, with an increased risk of musculoskeletal disease known as “locomotive syndrome,” which may lead to osteoporosis and mobility issues in old age. “Along with metabolic syndrome and dementia, this will be a serious issue for elderly Japanese of the future”"

Even Men Born Blind Prefer a Low Waist to Hip Ratio in Women - "Previous research suggests that the majority of men prefer a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7 – meaning that the circumference of the waist is 70% of the circumference of the hips.  According to a study published in Evolution and Human Behavior in 2010, even blind men appear to prefer low waist-to-hip ratios.   The study was conducted by Johan C. Karremans, Willem E. Frankenhuis, and Sander Arons.  Although a large number of international studies have confirmed men’s preference for low waist-to-hip ratios, the majority of these studies have been conducted on consumers of Western media. This has lead to questions of whether this preference for a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7 exists independently of visual input from Western culture, particularly images of “attractive” women as portrayed by the media."
The power of patriarchy!

Judge orders woman to turn over album containing nudes to ex-husband | Toronto Sun - "There was a caveat that Marsh should go back to the photographer and edit the body of Lindsay Marsh, but the photographer refused.  The judge then ruled, in August this year, that Marsh must hand the album to a third party, who would edit the images... Chris Marsh told the Tribune the books were full of memories, inscriptions and photos, stressing they were not “inappropriate-type books.”"

Kim Kardashian widens 'vagina area' of Skims bodysuit for Khloé - "After complaining the crotch area of sister Kim Kardashian’s Skims brand bodysuits barely covered her “bigger vagina,” it sounds like Khloé Kardashian is getting her way... Khloé, 37 — who famously named her camel toe “Camille” — told Kim, 41, she had “a bone to pick” about the bodysuits.  “You know you guys make fun of me for having a bigger vagina than most,” the Good American Founder said to her sisters as they were seated at a restaurant."

Meme - "My senior year of high school *sweet girl*
Dropping out my 1st year of college *pink and green mullet, white face, leopard print top, looking like a clown*"

elayna on Twitter - "Why I like hanging out w/ guys more than girls: I was with a group of guys last night, and instead of talking about other people and gossiping, we had an hour long conversation about how if someone rear-ends your car and you shit yourself, you get paid twice the amount of money."
elayna on Twitter - "For every girl quoting this saying I need new friends, I simply was just saying guys are less drama and talk ab random af things. I still love my girl friends. Y’all feeling the need to reply to this is exactly my point saying lots of females like to create drama over nothing.🤦🏼‍♀️"

Marriage and children kill creativity in men - "Men do their best work in their younger years, but getting married and having children stalls their creativity...   "Scientific productivity indeed fades with age," Kanazawa said. "Two-thirds [of all scientists] will have made their most significant contributions before their mid-30s."  But, regardless of age, the great minds who married virtually kissed goodbye to making any further glorious additions to their CV. Within five years of making their nuptial vows, nearly a quarter of married scientists had made their last significant contribution to knowledge.   "Scientists rather quickly desist [from their careers] after their marriage, while unmarried scientists continue to make great scientific contributions later in their lives," said Kanazawa.   The energy of youth and the dampening effect of marriage, he added, are also remarkably similar among geniuses in music, painting and writing - and even among criminals.  Previous studies have documented that delinquents are overwhelmingly male, and usually start out on the road to crime in their teens. But those who marry will subsequently stop committing crime, whereas criminals at the same age who remain unmarried tend to continue their unlawful careers.   Kanazawa suggests "a single psychological mechanism" is responsible for this: the competitive edge among young men to fight for glory and gain the attention of women. That craving drives the all-important male hormone, testosterone.  After a man settles down, the testosterone level falls, as does his creative output, Kanazawa theorises."

Helen Skelton 'devastated' by ex-husband's 'insensitive' holiday snap with new flame - "Presenter Helen Skelton has reportedly been left "devastated" after ex-husband Richie Myler shared pictures of his romantic getaway with his new girlfriend online... "She feels like this is rubbing it in her face, and it's a knife to the heart. It just seems a bit insensitive.""
We're reaching levels of entitlement that shouldn't be possible

Halle Berry Compares Paying Child Support to Her Ex Gabriel Aubry to “Extortion” - "Halle Berry may be dutifully paying $16,000 a month in child support to her ex Gabriel Aubry to help with the costs of raising their 12-year-old daughter, Nahla, but the actor made it very clear on Instagram that she’s not at all happy about the situation.  Berry posted a quote to her Instagram account on Saturday that read “Women don’t owe you shit,” sparking a heated debate in the comment section about traditional gender roles and expectations. The actor reportedly replied in a since-deleted comment, writing, “it takes great strength eryday [sic] to pay it. And BTW it’s wrong and it’s extortion!”"
Silly guy. Doesn't he know that child support is something men pay women, not the reverse?

Woman brands men 'disgusting' after bloke only buys her one drink during two hour date - "The woman, whose first name is Shekinah, has said she is "done with men" and expected far more effort from her potential love match.  Shekinah was filmed complaining about her date by her pal Tasia Taderera, who posted the now-viral clip online."

Meme - "Bryce Dallas Howard: I Was Pressured to Lose Weight for latest 'Jurassic World'"
*Buff Chris Evans, Buff Chris Hemsworth, Buff Chris Pratt, Buff Paul Rudd*
Then she can go on to bitch about the "gender wage gap"

'I'm a female warehouse worker - men hit on me constantly but I love how easy the job is' - "A woman has claimed that she's always chatted up in the workplace, but continues to adore her job despite the flirtatious comments. Natasha Lauren Hutton raved about her warehouse job in a TikTok video, which has now surpassed a whopping 1.8 million views since posting.  Gushing about her job on the popular video-streaming platform, Natasha discussed the benefits of working in a warehouse. The female worker claims that she earns a good wage while dressing how she wants, and also choosing the hours that she wants to work.  Reaching out to women viewers, she encouraged girls to follow in her footsteps if they're "feeling down"... "You don't need experience, choose your hours, you'll make bank and can dress like a bum everyday and still get hit on."... "I used to work in warehouses and in shops. Comparing those two, prefer warehouse. You don't need to deal with customers.""

Meme - "previous owners: 2
miles: 2
year: 2001
condition: used
make: italian
model: brunette bad bch
stickers: 4
not available to buy but open for test drives!***"

Is It O.K. to Press Your Spouse to Have a Vasectomy Before You Ditch Him? - The New York Times - "Some time ago, a friend told me that she was planning to leave her husband but was waiting for him to get a vasectomy. She said she knew she’d have to hold his hand through it to make sure it happened. Once the procedure was done, she planned to break the news that she was going to end the marriage... She later reported that when she told her husband of her decision to end the marriage for good, he told her that he was upset to learn this after having had the vasectomy and that he believed it would hurt his chances of finding a new partner. Her response was that she was pretty sure that women weren’t going to be interested in having children with someone his age anyway (he’s middle-aged).  This woman is employed by an organization dedicated to reproductive choice and plans to work as a counselor" "there’s a significant body of research in social psychology suggesting that our conduct in one type of situation often doesn’t generalize to others. You can be an honest broker and a dishonest husband. That someone has done something awful in the context of a difficult marriage, then, doesn’t prove her to be an awful person in every other respect; and it certainly doesn’t establish that she’d be unable to discharge her professional obligations. Thinking that you can manipulate your about-to-be-ex-husband’s choices doesn’t entail thinking that it’s O.K. to do the same with a client."
Only women get reproductive choice
Weird. Liberals tell us that someone's private behavior can show that they can't do their job, e.g. a judge who uses racial slurs at burglars must resign because she's showed she's racist and can't be racially neutral at work

Meme - "My girlfriend got raped and beaten. I broke up with her right after she told me. This is what happened:
>Dating girlfriend for 7 months.
>She wants to go to this sleazy club with her friend.
>l told her I didn‘t want her to go.
>Had an argument about it. She was like "You don‘t own me and I can do what I want." and that bullshit.
>Told her if she went then I'm breaking up with her.
>She said she wouldn't go and dropped it.
>Saturday came.
>Hadn't heard from her all day.
>At 4AM on Sunday she calls me crying.
>She says she got raped and beat up.
>She went to the club anyway. Apparently she left alone with some guy and his friend to go to a party. They took her somewhere and beat her up and raped her.
>Had many feelings about this, none of them pleasant.
>l told her if she went to the club that l'd leave her and I told her we were over.
>She started freaking out and saying she needs me right now and that she was sorry.
>Told her never to call me again.
>Have been getting rabid hate from her friends and my friends think I was way too cold.
>She broke my trust, went somewhere I said not to, was probably going to end up cheating on me anyway and got raped and beaten over it and I'm suppose to feel sorry for her.
I saw her like yesterday and she was pretty beat up, she had bruises and a black eye and stuff. So I do believe she was raped but this wouldn't of happened if she had just listened to me. Everybody thinks I'm evil. My ex-girlfriend has been trying to talk to me but I have no desire to speak to her. You guys think I was too harsh? I just have a hard time feeling bad when I feel so right....."

S. Korean Twitch streamer calls for action after being harassed while livestreaming in India - "A South Korean Twitch streamer known online as Mhyochi is calling for Mumbai Police to take action after she was harassed by two men while livestreaming in Khar, India... One Twitch follower clipped the encounter from her stream and pointed out that Mhyochi was surrounded by “1000+ people.”... Another Twitter user was slammed for victim blaming after telling tourists to do some research before they roam the streets of the country they’re visiting."
How racist. As we know, men in third world countries behave no worse than those in the first world

Meme - "Anakin is the father, isn't he?"
"What do you mean "the father"? I'm not pregnant. "Are you saying I look FAT?!"
"Oh, shit."

Mia Khalifa blasts men who date 'undeveloped' 18-year-old girls as 'predators'
Mia Khalifa And Emily Ratajkowski Blast Men Who Date Younger Women
Time to raise the age of consent for women, as well as the age of voting for them

La Madre de Los Gatos 🇵🇷 on Twitter - "Women only get less attractive as they get older if you’re a pedophile"

Meme - elephant yam @suprnturl: "Wanting petite women is rooted in pedophilia but ok"

Wilfred Reilly on Twitter - "Eh. A lot of this seems to be virtue signaling, in reality. Women almost invariably cheer "Demi Moore" style sex symbols with much younger lovers, and seem to be as into MILF x hot young guy porn as the fellas are. What women seem to object to is men with young women."

Meme - "Megan 20
Woman
18 miles away
I'll make your whole week & you'll make my hole weak. I shoplift from yardales, I do not shave my armpits, no need to pull out im involved in an MMA fight ring and no fetus can reside within my womb, I am banned from all federal buildings, aldis, walmart, and I have outstanding warrants in Ohio, Minnesota, and California"

Woman blames herself for her husband's affair... because she only had sex once every two years - "I’d lost count of the times I’d rebuffed his sexual advances, closed my bedroom door on him and shut down any conversation around our love life.  Graham and I were having sex only once every two years, if that, and we’d made love maybe five times over the previous decade... If my daughter ever decides to get married I will be brutally honest with her about the physical side of married life.  I cannot understate how important this aspect is. Because if you aren’t having sex with your husband, there are plenty of women out there who will."

Meme - "Yeah... I am pregnant i missed my period"
"You gotta be kidding right?"
"No babe how can i joke about something like this?"
"Let me correct you... You're not pregnant, WE are pregnant... We're both responsrble for the baby. I will support you and our baby <3 <3 <3"
"It's not yours"

Meme - "Fun fact— The guy who wrote the song "gold digger" now pays $200k a month in child support"
Children are so expensive

Meme - "_____ , 25
Anesthesia Technician
7 miles away
'94 model
Small dual front airbags
Spotless interior
Suitable rear cargo
High mileage but works perfectly
No major accidents
Fantastic handling and performance
But don't just take it from me, here's a few statements from previous drivers:
-"Great cost to performance ratio!"
-Ex
"Loud when revved up. Can fit large fuel nozzles. Smaller and better in every way, compared to the much older, original version."
-Dad"

Meme - "Wassup"
"Did you nut in me"
"No why"
"Ok & nothing just asked"
"You pregnant?
"Yea but if you said you didn't do it then I know who did it"

Meme - "Sur le marché de Noël de Toulouse
'Fourrez moi comme la Dinde de Noël. Sara'"

Meme - "These men six rows away on the train had the audacity to laugh for an hour. Hearing men in this country laugh was enough to make me cry on the train for 20 mins. Must be nice to be able to laugh these days. I seriously never want to hear a man laugh ever again."
I'm sure she goes on about white fragility"

TIL the American artist Sarah Goodridge painted a miniature self-portrait of her breasts which she gave to her secret lover Daniel Webster in 1828, not long after his wife's death. : todayilearned

Meme - "LOOKING4HUSBND 44 I have gay friends and I know what grindr notifications sound like. Heard them coming from my husbands phone so I am looking for him on here"

Meme - Bhumika @thisisbhumika: "Men apply water on face and call it skincare routine."
Reshma Khan: "And We girls apply lots of makeup and call it natural beauty"

Meme - "allison 32
88 kilometres away
*34*"

Meme - "Guy at a party told me he got divorced during the pandemic and tried to organize his building, only to realize everyone living there was also a recently divorced guy. Thought he was exaggerating until I saw the building. *No curtains in any unit*"

D1 Women Gymnasts Try Men's Gymnastics - YouTube

Woman fakes her own WEDDING in an attempt to get ex's attention - only for him to ignore her - "A woman has admitted that she faked her own wedding - complete with a professional photoshoot and stand-in groom - in an attempt to get her ex-boyfriend's attention, only for him to see it and ignore her in the end. The Germany-based woman, who is named Jacqueline and goes by the username @dieschaklin online, revealed on TikTok that she pretended to get married in an attempt to get her ex to text her - but it didn't work... It appears that Jacqueline even rented out a venue to take the photos, had her hair done professionally, and paid to have a wedding cake made.   The pictures, which were taken by Alessandro Valeriani, certainly looked convincing, but unfortunately, the stunt was unsuccessful in the end... Some even revealed that they went through similar situations, and it worked for them.  'I did this, and he actually reached out and "stopped the wedding" and asked me to marry him,' one viewer said. 'All it takes is just the right amount of crazy, ladies.'  Another wrote, 'My sister-in-law told me that when she posted her wedding pictures, exes she hadn't talked to in years reached out regretting not picking her lol.'"

Coronation Street's Katie McGlynn pleads for help as she shares her 'big boobs struggle' - "Katie McGlynn has begged fans for their help after sharing her struggle with "big boobs".  The former Coronation Street actress, best known for playing Sinead Tinker in the ITV soap, took to Instagram on Wednesday to ask fans for clothing advice after saying she couldn't find dresses which fitted her."

Sex-mad bloke with eight wives admits 'bills are the worst thing about it' - "A sex-mad bigamist with eight wives and an intercouse schedule says his weekends with his partners are "a lot of fun," but joked the worst thing about having several spouses is the bills.  OnlyFans star Arthur O Urso, from Brazil, hit headlines last year after he married his nine wives in a joint ceremony... "The best thing is the sexual freedom and companionship we have together. Our weekends are a lot of fun."...   Arthur, who said his wives "all demand attention, affection and sex to be part of our everyday life", added that he still works on a sex schedule. "I still have a sex schedule so I can please everyone. We take turns in the room, as they don't always sleep together. We have a very complete agenda and we follow it rigidly," he added.  He added further that the wives never get jealous of each other because they're all friends."