Sunday, April 21, 2024

Links - 21st April 2024 (1 - General Wokeness)

Full video shows Auckland’s Karangahape Rd rainbow crossing being painted over - "Full video has emerged of three people vandalising Auckland’s Karangahape Rd rainbow crossing with white paint in what police are slamming as an apparent “hate crime”... Police said earlier said they had executed a search warrant in the east Auckland suburb of Flat Bush in relation to the crime and released images of a vehicle and suspect.  Now a four-minute video has been posted to social media site TikTok showing three hooded and masked figures vandalising the crossing... Auckland City Central area commander Inspector Grant Tetzlaf yesterday said the Flat Bush home they searched was believed to be linked to the owners of a registered car the suspects used... Police said they were aware of the “hurt and confusion” from the community at what occurred and reassured they are committed to holding those involved to account.  “Police have no tolerance for reports of this nature, which appear to directly target a particular sector of our diverse community, and we are treating this as a hate crime,” Tetzlaff said. Local leaders were “very disappointed” by the act, Auckland mayor Wayne Brown calling it “disgraceful”.  Destiny Church leader Brain Tamaki earlier said he “doesn’t know” if his members were involved. Police said the vandals went to great lengths to hide their identities, removing their registration plates and concealing their faces with balaclavas."
Crime on the rise? Aucklanders feeling less safe - "Many Aucklanders have been feeling less safe due to crime rates recently increasing, with some blaming political policies.  Auckland has been seeing an increase in violent crimes, car theft and ram raids, with a high level of youth offending.  According to data analysed by Newshub, recorded crimes in Auckland have increased by 20.03 per cent from March 2022.  A recent online survey conducted by AUT journalism students found that 88.5 percent of respondents believe Auckland is more dangerous now than it was last year... One respondent said that the government needs “to implement more preventative measures.  “Sort out housing and food prices, decrease sentences, and put offenders in rehabilitative, culturally-safe programs.”  This sentiment has been echoed in recent political debate, particularly focusing on the Labour party’s policy of decreasing the prison population.  NZ Police’s crime snapshot reveals there has been a 29 per cent decrease in prison population from 2018 to 2022, while the overall crime rate has been climbing."
Amazing what they can do when there's political will
"Why are the police hunting for those highly responsible people? They should do their jobs and hunt real criminals, like those who painted that grotesque monstrosity rainbow flag on tax payer's land. The people who painted over that grotesque flag should get a medal, at least they have back bone, not like the governement."

Manhunt underway in New Zealand after three men paint over rainbow crosswalk. Watch the video here. - "A manhunt in New Zealand for a few guys who painted over a gay pride flag. Like, this is what they consider the crime of all crimes right here."
Luckily they didn't do something harmless, like kill someone

Meme - *Rioters tearing down statue*
Media: "PEACEFUL PROTEST"
*pickup truck making tire marks on rainbow crosswalk*
Media: "HATE CRIME!!"

Meme - "NZ POLICE:
*No* Attending burglaries and auto theft calls
*Yes* Hunting down unsafe crossing repainters."

The Redbaiter on X - "In 2019 rainbow crossings were declared a safety hazard by the NZ Transport Agency.   The govt agency in charge of road safety objected strongly to the painting of a rainbow pedestrian crossing in Cuba St Wellington.   They said "There is a high risk of confusion and a dazzling and distracting effect, and marking the road to celebrate LGBTQI diversity conflicted with another rule, which prohibited markings intended to be used for advertising or other purposes not connected with the use of the road."  Police also indicated they had safety concerns. They emailed NZTA saying-  "This proposal poses risks of death and serious injury for road users- pedestrians in particular."  How times change.  @NZNationalParty   @actparty   @nzfirst"
Dave on X - "NZTA have a lot to answer for. IF it was a safety issue they caved in for ideological reasons. Can ANY of NZTA's decisions be trusted?"
A lot of left wingers were going on about how it was legal because there was a traffic light, and those who disagreed were ignorant

Meme - "The New Zealand Herald. NZ Transport Agency ready to ask police to stop Rainbow Crossing being painted, documents reveal. 28 Jan, 2019
In a draft letter never sent to the council, NZTA gave formal notification it prohibited the installation of the crossing and that should it proceed, the agency would ask police to pre- vent the installation and remove the markings. The draft letter and related emails show NZTA found the crossing to be in breach of Land Transport Rules."

Opposition to Wellington's Rainbow Crossing nearly led to police intervention - "The NZ Transport Agency was prepared to call in police to stop Wellington's Rainbow Crossing being painted, documents reveal.  The crossing was painted on the first weekend of October, after Wellington City Council signed off on the idea in a quest for the capital to be "more deliberately LGBTQI-friendly".  But documents released under the Official Information Act show months of to-ing and fro-ing between NZTA and the council over the legality and safety of the crossing.  In a draft letter never sent to the council, NZTA gave formal notification it prohibited the installation of the crossing and that should it proceed, the agency would ask police to prevent the installation and remove the markings.  "The agency supports the celebration of LGBT diversity, but not at the expense of road safety."  The draft letter and related emails show NZTA found the crossing to be in breach of Land Transport Rules.  The location of the crossing is at the intersection of Cuba and Dixon Sts, where there are already traffic control signals.  The letter outlined how the Rainbow Crossing could be confusing for motorists and pedestrians determining right of way because it looked like a pedestrian crossing.  "There is a high risk of confusion and a dazzling and distracting effect."  The letter also said marking the road to celebrate LGBTQI diversity conflicted with another one of the rules, which prohibited markings intended to be used for advertising or other purposes not connected with the use of the road.  In an email to NZTA, police also indicated they had safety concerns.  "This proposal poses risks of death and serious injury for road users- pedestrians in particular."... Emails between the council and NZTA show the matter remained unresolved days before the crossing was scheduled to be painted. NZTA regional relationships Wellington director Emma Speight wrote to the council urging it to send a final design and safety assessment as soon as possible in order to consider an exemption to the rules.  NZTA received that information the following week, after the crossing was painted, even though an exemption had not been granted."

Meme - Pridetimes @Pridetimes: "Satan is an ally"
Soyjak: "Satan is an ally"
Chad: "We know."

Meme - *Uno*
"stop blaming white people for your problems OR draw 25"
"Democrats and black people" *lots of cards*

DEI Consultancy NNESAGA And Kotaku Senior Editor Alyssa Mercante Call For Former 'World Of Warcraft' Team Lead Mark Kern To Be Blacklisted From Video Game Industry - "DEI Consultancy organization NNESAGA issued a call for former World of Warcraft Team Lead Mark Kern to be blacklisted from the video game industry. NNESAGA’s call to blacklist Kern comes after Kern shared screenshots from former Destiny 2 Community Manager and current Community Manager for Prime Video’s upcoming Fallout series Liana Ruppert claiming that non-white people cannot be racist against white people among other posts denigrating individuals because of their skin color. Specifically, Ruppert made the claim that non-white people cannot be racist while attempting to defend Star Wars host Krystina Arielle’s anti-white posts and the responses she received after they were made public back in 2021... Not included in Kern’s original post, Ruppert provided instructions for rioters back in 2020, “Make sure not to wear distinctive clothing. Keep a hood on, all black if possible. Gloves as well, tear gas is hot so if you have to toss back, do it safely. Be safe out there!”...   Kotaku Senior Editor Alyssa Mercante reacted to Kern’s original post writing, “This absolute toe nail is trying to sic any of his followers on WOMEN/POCs/QUEER FOLX in the industry. Every single person in a position of power should be speaking out against this with their entire chest. Ban this man from events. Support your employees. Period.” NNESAGA reacted to Mercante’s post writing, “He needs to be blacklisted because this has gone way too far.” NNESAGA notes on their website that the company was founded by Stephanie Ijoma in 2015 because she saw “a dire need for change in the games and entertainment space.”  It adds, “Our fundamental values ensure that we prioritise diversity, inclusion, representation and equity in the pillars we dominate. Whilst continuing to create safe spaces and shifting the narratives, NNESAGA is an influential force that has created impact beyond gaming and more across many verticals.”"
The woke love to complain about being accused of racism for "pointing out racism" (when in reality they sic racist cyber mobs on those they disagree with). But when someone points out genuine racism, that is unacceptable. Because that threatens the left wing agenda
Racist employees need to be supported
Tweet mirror

Joe Oliver: Irrational 'progressive' policies are driving dystopian results - "Toronto’s fiscal situation is so dire it has just increased property taxes by 9.5 per cent. Yet its TransformTO 2022 Annual Report says that reaching net-zero goals by 2050 will require a $145-billion investment — though Toronto’s GHG emissions amount to 0.114 per cent of the global total. The U.S. government says that since 1850 the Earth’s temperature has risen 0.06C degrees per decade. That means Toronto contributes less than 0.00001 of a degree annually to global warming. This is the same Toronto that is re-naming Dundas Street, which honoured a British abolitionist, after an African tribe prominent in the slave trade. Virtue-signalling trumping common sense is clearly rampant. The cost for Canada to reach net zero by 2050 will be at least $2 trillion — about $180,000 for a family of four. The prime minister’s claim we must act now to avoid extreme weather is simply misinformation. Canada’s contribution to the annual increase in the globe’s temperature is less than a thousandth of a degree. And the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change tells us that in fact extreme weather events have not increased in severity or frequency. Despite incessant warnings from governments and media about a climate crisis, most people are unwilling to pay much to alleviate it. The climate consensus currently unravelling in Europe never caught on in the developing world. An overarching concern for many Canadians is that their income has not kept up with inflation, yet the feds double down on profligate spending and ignore stalled productivity growth. They are also exacerbating a severe housing crisis by promoting the largest immigration levels since 1957 and one of the highest immigration rates in the world.  But the grand prize for cognitive dissonance goes to “Gays for Palestine,” who would be at high risk of arrest or defenestration in Gaza or the West Bank, though not in Tel Aviv, one of the world’s best places to celebrate pride. It is tragically ironic that students obsessed about micro-aggressions protest on behalf of a terrorist organization that advocates genocide. The double standard Israel faces has many rationalizations, but antisemitism has been a constant for millennia. Canada’s recent parliamentary vote calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza rewarded Hamas for its murderous rampage, which broke what was already a ceasefire. On the criminal justice front, moving serial killer Paul Bernardo to a medium-security prison outraged most Canadians, but is hardly an anomaly: fewer than 14 per cent of “dangerous offenders” are confined in maximum security prisons. More generally, catch-and-release and lenient parole defy logic, put the public at risk and fuel the growing problem of urban crime. Males who identify as women and use women’s washrooms and compete against women in sports are hailed as avatars of progress while anyone who points out that this could put women at risk or female athletes at a disadvantage can have their career destroyed. Get ready for complaints brought under the deeply flawed “Online Harms Bill,” C-63, which could impose sentences of up to life imprisonment for speech crimes."

Meme - "LIBERAL VIRTUE SIGNALING
*HATE HAS NO HOME HERE*
UNLESS ITS HATE FOR TRUMP, HIS SUPPORTERS, WHITE MEN, CHRISTIANS + CONSERVATIVES"

Meme - "Sooo, I recently zinged some antiwoke people for falling for a fake "prejudice against cannibalism is bad" headline, and it turns out that this screenshot was spoofing an actual @newscientist article? oookay then"
"OPINION Dear Racists, Cannibals Are People Too. Cannibalism is a practice historically observed in various cultures and ethnicities. However, racists only seem to have an issue with it when people of color enjoy the controversial meal.
BY A. CARAAN"
New Scientist @newscientist: "Cannibalism was surprisingly common among prehistoric humans. And new ways of analysing the leftovers challenge our negative stereotypes about this taboo subject."

Meme - arctotherium @arctotherium42: "One of the nuttiest charts I've seen. After 9/11, American opinion of Muslims spiked, with the jump being sharpest among conservative Republicans. Frontlash in action."
Clearly Republicans are Islamophobic

Meme - DONALD TRUMP IS MENTALLY DISTURBED: Donald Jacobs: "Whenever I see a vehicle or house flying the "Don't Tread On Me" snake flag, my first thought is: That's a NAZI. No question about it if they are also flying a huge American flag."
We're still told that the left don't hate their countries

Meme - "Everything I don't like is GENOCIDE. A guide to discourse for online cosplaying leftists"

Meme - Tariq Nasheed: "So Josh how is that logistically possible that only 14% of the population can commit over 50% of the crimes?"
"What's the average of an African IQ of an African American"
"The average IQ of African Americans is 85. However, it's essential to note that individual intelligence varies greatly among people, regardless of their race."
"What IQ is required to understand per capita statistics?
"A basic understanding of per capita statistics generally requires an IQ of around 90. However, the ability to interpret and analyze advanced per capita statistics may require a higher IQ, depending on the complexity of the data and the context in which it is being used."
If you "perpetuate harmful stereotypes" based on your own idiocy, do you still blame white people?

Jamie Sarkonak: Ontario schools blame social media after years of failing to educate - "Over the past couple decades, Ontario school boards have chosen experimental teaching methods over the safe and proven, embraced mandated diversity over merit and have sometimes failed to secure the safety of students and staff. It’s no wonder that students are learning less. But, because it’s easier to scapegoat than to fix oneself, these school boards are taking to the courts to pin their failings on social media, specifically Facebook/Instagram, SnapChat and TikTok. The boards — Toronto District School Board (TDSB), Peel District School Board (PDSB), Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB), and Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) — are claiming that social media products are “negligently designed for compulsive use” and “have rewired the way children think, behave and learn, leaving educators and schools to manage the fallout,” according to a news release by their lawyers. The strength of the suit doesn’t look great; it will be difficult for the school boards to establish that they’ve been harmed, and that this harm can safely be said to have been caused by social media. In the meantime, because we know that courts take excruciatingly long to accomplish just about anything, we have plenty of time to reflect on how the schools have sabotaged the quality education they’re supposed to provide. In math, for example, Ontario schools didn’t require students to memorize basic facts — a key element of numeracy — from 2005 to 2020. The past couple decades have seen provinces turning to the trendy “discovery math” program, and in that time, math performance has been on a steady decline . In Ontario, Premier Doug Ford intervened and re-instituted traditional math in 2020, and most new students now have to memorize their times tables up to 12. Performance still isn’t up, no doubt because of the after-effects of lengthy ( largely ineffectual ) COVID closures, which deprived Ontario students of precious in-person learning and no doubt damaged their long-term academic performance . It also doesn’t help that a nonzero number of the province’s math teachers take a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) approach to math, inserting socialist and identitarian principles into classes that should be about numeracy. Reading proficiency is another tragic victim of Ontario’s poor judgment. The province abandoned the teaching of phonics — the sounding-out of letters, syllables and words — for the inferior “whole language” model and its so-called “three-cuing system,” which encourages kids to guess words from the context. The three-cuing system led to such astonishingly poor results that in 2022, the Ontario Human Rights Commission inquired into the province’s language education and concluded that a return to evidence-based phonics was needed. “The program does not pay enough attention to instruction in foundational word reading skills,” wrote the commission of the curriculum. On school boards, it found shortcomings as well: “With a few small exceptions, boards do not promote an explicit and systematic approach to phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding and word reading fluency.”... Looking outside the curriculum, Ontario has worsened the classroom experience in a number of other fantastically ignorant ways. In 2020, it ended “streaming” — the separation of students by academic performance — in Grade 9, which once offered high-performers the benefit of a focused learning environment with similar-minded peers. The reason for doing this? Discrimination. The morally righteous, privilege-aware faction of education-influencer-land complained that the racial makeup of the academically-proficient classes was inadequate, leading Education Minister Stephen Lecce to end the “systemic, racist, discriminatory” practice. Sorry, smart kids. Yet, our four litigious schools insist that it’s SnapChat and Instagram that’s disrupting the focus of the youth. In addition to all that, TDSB ended its merit-based specialty programs in schools, opting for a racially-quota’d lottery system . It has put great effort into theorizing about the power and privilege in the education system and contemplating the sexual orientations of their students, rather than teaching them to read. Meanwhile it has high schools that have descended into chaos in recent years. At PDSB, violence and rampant misbehaviour have been reported by frustrated teachers. This is the same school district famous for purging books from its shelves under the guise of “equity.” PDSB explicitly asks that “anti-racist, anti-oppressive and anti-colonial” principles are used as “foundations for classroom instructional practice.” The same school administrators who have deprived students of long-loved classics for ideological reasons are now turning around and blaming the internet for killing the drive to read. OCDSB, meanwhile, is currently looking to hire “equity coaches,” that is, staff who are explicitly hired to support “Palestinian, Muslim, Arab or Arabic-speaking” students. It’s also the place where classrooms as young as Grade 1 are taught that “there is no such thing as boys and girls.” It would follow that a school district that can’t get basic facts straight might struggle to teach. Nevertheless, these troubled schools will easily forget all the rakes they’ve stepped into by insisting that technology rewires the brain of children"

Meme - "r/Atheism when you criticize Islam instead of Christianity.
20 hr. ago [deleted]
Islam has no place in western society
Locked post.
New comments cannot be posted.
Sorry, this post was deleted by the person who originally posted it."

Billy Dee Williams says actors should be able to do blackface - "The Star Wars actor shared his thoughts during this week's episode of Bill Maher's Club Random podcast while discussing the late actor and director Laurence Olivier, who famously used blackface in the title role of 1965's Othello.  Praising Olivier's performance, Williams said, "When he did Othello I fell out laughing. He stuck his ass out and walked around because Black people are supposed to have big asses."...   "Why not? You should do it," Williams replied. "If you’re an actor, you should do anything you want to do." "The point is," Williams added, "you don’t go through life feeling like, 'I’m a victim.' I refuse to go through life saying to the world, 'I'm pissed off.' I'm not gonna be pissed off 24 hours a day."

Billy Dee Williams: ‘At this stage in my life, I don’t need to apologise for anything’ - "He was a trailblazer in Hollywood and broke the colour barrier in Star Wars. But Black History Month or not, there is one role that Billy Dee Williams has no intention of playing: racial justice warrior.  “I don’t think about all that stuff,” the 86-year-old actor and painter says by phone. “I’ll let everybody else think about it. I’ve led a very eclectic life. I see myself as the full spectrum of colours and, when you’re a painter, you learn a lot more about that perspective.” As he tours live venues and TV studios to promote his memoir, What Have We Here?, Williams shows no desire to be a celebrity advocate or spokesman for Black empowerment, even if it means disappointing progressive America.  “I can’t spend my time going, like, ‘Fuck the whites,’” he told an audience at the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Library in Washington last week, raising one fist after another with a wry smile. At the same event Williams described former president Donald Trump as “a very charming man”, with a mischievous laugh... “George at that time was getting a lot of flak about Darth Vader being this big black evil figure. But what he was trying to express was the old cowboy symbolism: the guy in the white hat as opposed to the guy in the black hat. That’s basically what he was all about.” Williams goes on: “I signed for two movies and it was a great contract so it was a great opportunity for me, especially when I heard the name Calrissian: I thought, well, that’s interesting, it’s an Armenian name, so I decided I’m gonna see what I can do with that, play around with that whole idea. And when I got the cape, that was Errol Flynn time so I decided to do something that was interesting and bigger than life with the character.” Fame was a double-edged lightsaber. Han Solo, a lovable rogue played by Harrison Ford, ended The Empire Strikes Back frozen in carbonite and set to become a prisoner of slug-like gangster Jabba the Hutt. Some fans blamed Calrissian. Picking up his daughter from school, Williams would be confronted by kids in the playground demanding: “Did you betray Han Solo?” Flight attendants would ask him the same question. (Adam Driver, whose character actually kills Solo in The Force Awakens, is still getting harassed about it.) Although Darth Vader was voiced by the African American actor James Earl Jones, Williams played the first Black character in the Star Wars universe. But he is not eager to embrace the status of pioneer or receive the kind of accolades that Nichelle Nichols did from Martin Luther King for her role in television’s Star Trek.  “I never think of myself in terms of the only Black character. Everybody else might think of it that way. In my reasoning in my own head, I’m just a character. A character has certain qualities that make a character a winning character in a movie or a character that is not able to translate very well. I’ve been able to translate very well across the board.  “As I said, I don’t really think in terms of Black. I couldn’t care less about all that garbage.”... Next month’s Oscars will again shine a spotlight on how much progress Hollywood has made in diversity and representation – and how far it still has to go. Williams, who lives in Los Angeles, reflects: “I see a lot of Black actors working so I would imagine things are moving along. It all depends on: to whose satisfaction?  “When you when you’re living in a world that’s been a European western value system for centuries and it dominates all of the literature, the arts, politics, wars and everything, it’s not something that you can just simply dismiss. Everything will have its moment or moments.”  But Williams, whose life spans Jim Crow and Barack Obama, defies contemporary expectations that African American artists will parlay the barriers they had to overcome into a morality tale or rallying cry. Would it be fair to describe him as apolitical? “I couldn’t care less,” he replies. “Everybody else, if they want to go through the machinations, if they want to spend most of their time pissed off, that’s their prerogative. There are other ways to deal with situations. You take a negative and you make it into a positive.”"

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