Links - 12th April 2025 (2)

The sorry truth is that the virus of anti-Semitism has infected the British Muslim community - "If tomorrow, God forbid, I were to cause the death of an innocent man with my car, minutes after sending a series of texts on my mobile phone, I’m guessing I’d spend the rest of my life riddled with guilt. What I wouldn’t do is go on television and lay the blame for my subsequent 12-week imprisonment at the door of . . . wait for it . . . the Jews. Yet that’s what the Labour peer Nazir Ahmed did in April 2012 – less than five years after causing a car crash on the M1 in which Martin Gombar, aged 28, was killed.  “My case became more critical because I went to Gaza to support Palestinians,” he says to his Pakistani interviewer in Urdu, in a video recording obtained by the Times. “My Jewish friends who own newspapers and TV channels opposed this.” The judge who put him behind bars, Lord Ahmed claims, was appointed to the high court after helping a “Jewish colleague” of Tony Blair’s during “an important case”.  To claim that your jail sentence for dangerous driving is the result of a Jewish plot is bigoted and stupid. The peer has since been suspended from the Labour Party and forced to stand down as a trustee of the Joseph Interfaith Foundation. I’m not sure how many “Jewish friends” he has left – if, that is, he had any to begin with.  Full disclosure: I know Lord Ahmed and have defended him in the past. In 2007, he flew out to Sudan to help free the schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons from the clutches of the odious Islamist regime in Khartoum. In 2009, an Appeal Court judge noted how the peer had “risked his life trying to flag down other vehicles to stop them colliding with . . . his car”. He is not a latter-day Goebbels. But herein lies the problem. There are thousands of Lord Ahmeds out there: mild-mannered and well-integrated British Muslims who nevertheless harbour deeply anti-Semitic views.   It pains me to have to admit this but anti-Semitism isn’t just tolerated in some sections of the British Muslim community; it’s routine and commonplace. Any Muslims reading this article – if they are honest with themselves – will know instantly what I am referring to. It’s our dirty little secret. You could call it the banality of Muslim anti-Semitism.  I can’t keep count of the number of Muslims I have come across – from close friends and relatives to perfect strangers – for whom weird and wacky anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are the default explanation for a range of national and international events. Who killed Diana and Dodi? The Mossad, say many Muslims. They didn’t want the British heir to the throne having an Arab stepfather. What about 9/11? Definitely those damn Yehudis. I mean, why else were 4,000 Jews in New York told to stay home from work on the morning of 11 September 2001? How about the financial crisis? Er, Jewish bankers. Obviously. Oh, and the Holocaust? Don’t be silly. Never happened.   Growing up, I always assumed that this obsession with “the Jews” was a hallmark of the “first-generation” immigrants from the subcontinent. In recent years, I’ve been depressed to discover that there are plenty of “second-generation” Muslim youths, born and bred in multiracial Britain, who have drunk the anti-Semitic Kool-Aid. I’m often attacked by them for working in the “Jewish owned media”...   It is sheer hypocrisy for Muslims to complain of Islamophobia in every nook and cranny of British public life, to denounce the newspapers for running Muslim-baiting headlines, and yet ignore the rampant anti-Semitism in our own backyard. We cannot credibly fight Islamophobia while making excuses for Judaeophobia... I’m well aware that this column will also be held up by some of my fellow Muslims as “proof” that “Mehdi Hasan has sold out to the Jews”."
Of course, we all know that he really meant "Zionists", not Jews

Man in China obsessed with KOL spends US$550,000 on gifts, hopes she will call him ‘brother’ | South China Morning Post - "A man in China became the target of ridicule on mainland social media after spending over 4 million yuan (US$550,000) on tipping a live-streaming anchor, all in a desperate attempt to hear her call him “brother”.  He resorted to eating plain steamed buns to survive amid his financial ruin.  The man, whose surname is Hong, hails from Ningbo in Zhejiang province in southeastern China... Initially, he drained his family’s savings, prompting them to restrict his access to funds.  Undeterred, Hong continued to exploit his position to finance his addiction."
Chinese man sends $550K & family’s life savings to streamer so she’d call him “bro” - "The man, who was making deliveries as part of his family’s hardware business, began stealing copper materials and sold the items to waste recycling stations.  However, when a significant amount of copper went missing, a factory contacted the police, and Hong ended up turning himself in."

Amouranth fan sends her $70k cash, bodyguards and “self-defense” gifts

Kim Jong-un bans hotdogs for North Koreans, cooking them an act of treason - "Kim has banned North Koreans from eating hotdogs as part of a crackdown on Western culture slowly oozing its way into the hermit nation... Kim has also forbidden the sale of budae-jjigae, a South Korean-American fusion dish made from an umami-rich broth, Korean hot pepper paste, flakes, kimchi, and American Spam, beans, and sausage.  The hotpot dish, which means “army base stew”, contains hotdog meat or spam which has been banned in the North.  The fusion dish appears to have crossed the border into North Korea around 2017, more than 50 years after its creation in the South... North Korea has also banned steamed rice cakes tteokbokki which is a popular street food in South Korea.  Food isn’t the only thing the hermit nation is cracking down on. Reports emerged in December that claim people who get divorced in North Korea are facing one to six months in labour camps for their “crimes”.  Divorce is considered an anti-socialist act and anyone who wishes to divorce needs the Government to sign off on any requests.  According to RFA, a divorced woman claimed she served three months of labour and said that women receive harsher sentences than the men."

My wife fried a 60-day dry-aged ribeye... in slices. : r/mildlyinfuriating - "Years ago in the podunk town near where I grew up there was a diner that always had the prime rib special on Saturday.  Sunday they had steak sandwiches.  Monday was hamburgers.  Tuesday was meatloaf.  Wednesday was spaghetti and meatballs.  Thursday was chili."

Woman Who Warned Social Media Not to Fall for Keanu Reeves Romance Scam Becomes Homeless After Falling for Keanu Reeves Romance Scam - "Katherine Goodson's story began in 2022 when she was initially tricked by an individual posing as Reeves, KNSD-TV reported.  Goodson explained how she was convinced to send a $500 gift card to the fake Reeves to prove she wasn't interested in his money.  She realized it was a scam and blocked him. After posting a warning about it, another profile reached out to Goodson pretending to be Reeves.  They claimed they were attempting to console her about the previous scam attempt. The woman fell for it and eventually felt the two were in love... "Unfortunately, I wasn't maybe listening to the warning signs," Goodson said. "I don't blame anyone but myself."  She ended up sending Bitcoin, gift cards and wire transfers to the imposter over a period of two years, believing she was helping Reeves with supposed financial issues.  "I was lonely," Goodson admits"

The iPhone 16 is still banned in Indonesia, for a bizarre reason - "The governments of populous countries are getting increasingly savvy about seeking a quid pro quo for giving Apple access to their markets, demanding inward investment in return.  For example, India famously refused permission for Apple stores in the country until the iPhone maker set up large-scale manufacturing within the country.   Indonesia started out with a more modest demand for Apple to invest $109M in a developer academy there, with a further $10M manufacturing spend. However, when this target wasn’t quite hit, the government upped the ante dramatically. It banned the iPhone 16 from sale, and demanded a far larger investment.  Apple initially offered $100M, but the government said that wasn’t enough. It then said it wanted a billion dollar manufacturing spend in the country. We heard last month that Apple had agreed to this, and it was subsequently revealed that this would take the form of large-scale AirTag manufacturing. However, despite Apple agreeing to the request sum, Reuters reports that the government still refuses to un-ban the iPhone 16 – for a bizarre reason.  That reason? Indonesia now specifically insists that Apple manufacture iPhone parts in the country; AirTags don’t count."
A billion dollars later, the iPhone 16 is still banned in Indonesia, for a bizarre reason : r/iphone - "It’s time for Apple to just leave Indonesia. Their corruption and greed is out of this world lol.  Btw Indonesia also banned the sale of Google pixel phones for the same reason. Bunch of fucking scammers.  It’s common for Indonesians to buy iPhones outside the country like in Singapore. Because it’s cheaper there than in Indonesia.  This benefits no one except those goat fucking maffia leaders in government, the country has been ruled for decades by the same family. Fucking fuckers."
Naturally, there were people defending this

Two death row inmates reject Biden's commutation of their life sentences : r/nottheonion - "The men believe that having their sentences commuted would put them at a legal disadvantage as they seek to appeal their cases based on claims of innocence."

Why is there an app for literally everything in Malaysia : r/malaysia - "Not to mention the parking app on every states.  I was in Johor yesterday, and to pay for parking, I need to download the Johor state parking app, reload minimum RM20 just to pay for RM0.40 parking fee.  Now the app has RM19.40 inside, and I not gonna visit Johor anytime soon, so the money is basically burned."
"Wait till you find out there are 2 different parking apps in Johor, one for the JB council specifically, one for the rest of the council. It's like every local government are trying to sakau as much money as possible. Dunno why they are so reluctant to just integrate with TNG app"
"Everyone has the KPI for digitalisation. Also, obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/927/"
"You think that's bad? We have 3 separate parking apps in Kota Kinabalu alone. Of the 3 municipalities on the west coast, they have their own parking app (Penampang - Flexi, DBKK - Sabah Smart Parking, & Putatan - MDPTN Pay).  It's beyond idiotic."
"At that rate, it's cheaper to illegally park and pay the RM10 fine"
"idk about other states but Melaka's parking app is especially fucked.  they've changed the app like 3 times already, and if you have balance in the previous app and didn't realize they've abandoned the app already you're shit out of luck"

Why is there an app for literally everything in Malaysia : r/malaysia - "I don't want apps. I want working websites. You used to be able to go to the website and buy tickets and order food delivery etc etc without downloading an app, registering and then allowing them access to your notifications, contacts, locations, camera and the list goes on and on and on and on. Make it stop already."
Why is there an app for literally everything in Malaysia : r/malaysia - "IMO, Malaysia is rushing too much being a first world country. The idea is there but the execution is like a preschool mini project."

New York City has imposed a congestion charge on drivers entering Manhattan. Should Toronto follow suit? : r/ontario - "Reddit skews pretty heavily to the tech/IT/office/white-collar crowd who are easily able to just call up the boss in the event the TTC shuts down and say "hey the subway's out, I'm just going to work from home today" without the reply being "if you're not here on time, you're fired"."
"Naw. It’s more the people that either don’t work or work at the Starbucks down the street."

Meme - "Me to my husband: im not in the mood tonight, lets do it in the morning
My husband the next morning as soon as I open my eyes:
Aragorn to the King and Army of the Dead: I summon you to fulfill your oath"

Meme - "HEAR THE MUSIC - MP3
SEE THE MUSIC - MP4
FEEL THE MUSIC - MP5"

‘Tone deaf’ Pakistan Airlines slammed over advert for first Paris flight in four years - "Pakistan’s national carrier is facing flak online for a “tone deaf” advertisement showing an aircraft flying towards the Eiffel Tower.  The Pakistan International Airlines released the advertisement on Friday to celebrate the resumption of flights to Paris that same day... Critics claimed that the ad was poorly thought out given the accusations against Pakistan of allowing its soil to be used by terrorist groups like al Qaeda. “Is this a threat?” one social media user asked... The EU had barred the airline after one of its planes crashed in Karachi, killing 97 people. An investigation revealed that the crash was caused by pilot error. It also found that a third of Pakistani pilots were in possession of fake licences or had cheated in exams."

Richard Hanania on X - "Somebody left a comment that said Tiananmen Square started because Chinese men were upset at black men having sex with Chinese women. I thought this was typical social media nonsense but it was so creative I asked for evidence. And as it turns out oh my god it’s actually true."

Emil Kirkegaard on X - "Eugenics: from taboo to published in Nature in a few years. Vibe shift real. Very large potential gains in long-term health from completely removing certain bad alleles present in our collective gene pool."

Lunkhead on X - "Met a guy in Iraq, Copt born and raised in Alexandria. Stabbed in grade school by Muslim gangs—his classmates—on two separate occasions. He showed me the scars. Parents didn’t go to work for weeks after 9/11 because Muslim gangs were celebrating by hunting Christians. The same also kidnap Coptic women and girls for grooming, rape and forced marriage/conversion—a lot. And not just the gangs either, even the “unaffiliated” are known to take advantage when the opportunity arises—maybe one takes a liking to his Christian neighbor’s 12 year old daughter, say. Maybe his brothers and cousins join in too. Sound familiar?  It’s not “bullying,” it’s not even crime, it’s low-level ethnoreligious violence, and there are enormous swathes of the world where it’s entirely common and unremarkable. In many places even today it’s just the default state. It doesn’t make the news like Rotherham did (eventually). It’s not a story at all and there’s no reason it ever would be—except when Western media deigns to cover it. It’s just part of the landscape. Rotherham was merely a little window into what Pakistan is like normally."
FHousebunny on X - "Yesterday, my son was threatened to be stabbed by a group of Pakistani boys at College. He hasn't been there long. It seems my son standing up for himself didn't go down well. He's been bullied for being  the "Posh white four eyes" boy and his female friend is the object of it all. They asked for her snap chat and she refused. My son didn't white Knight, he's been taught better. But they switched their anger at their egos being bruised to him.   No knife was presented. Just the threat. I am unsure of what to do exactly, but I urge you all to get your sons into some form of martial arts, boxing. I am wanting to take him out of this place but he's refusing, he wants to face it. I can't begin to describe what I've gone through in 24 hours. Especially given what I do and the understanding I have on these topics. How can I ever relax when he leaves the house?!   He's built up, tall, and unfortunately stands out, so he is obviously an easy target. But he's only just turned 17, he looks older than he is. I'd take him out but the course he's on is niche. I would move across the country but I won't take him away from his father. Apparently, I'm being over the top over a threat. But put yourself in my shoes for just one second."

Jonno on X - "I used to work with a Coptic Christian from Egypt. Gentlest guy ever. Reminded me of Bambi. I remember his reaction when there was a news article about a large number of Muslim brotherhood members being executed. “Good. They should kill all of them.” He must have had a reason."
Super Nintendo Chalmers on X - "The Muslim Brotherhood relentlessly terrorized and persecuted the Copts in Egypt. All of my Arabic teachers at DLI who were Copts had been through some pretty heinous shit"

Chow pushes for another tax hike, nearly 30% over 4 years - "We’ve had a tax hike of 29.5% over the last four years and to compare that to inflation, we would need to go back to 2014. Yes, we are seeing tax hikes of 29.5% over four years, but according to the Bank of Canada Inflation Calculator, prices have only risen 29% since 2014 when Rob Ford was still mayor.   Does anyone think the city is running better than a decade ago?  Toronto can’t get the basic services right. We can’t collect the garbage properly and keep the streets clean.   Over the last year or so I have visited Chicago, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Palm Springs, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and cities across Canada, and none are as filthy and disgusting as Toronto. Despite huge tax increases over the last several years, we can’t get the basics right in Toronto.   Toronto is dirty, it stinks of pot on far too many street corners, there are homeless encampments that can only be rivaled by Los Angeles. Nowhere stinks of pot quite like Toronto, even in areas where it is legal... Elections have consequences; the consequence of electing Olivia Chow is that tax hikes will always be above inflation, and they will come each year like clockwork."
Left wingers just claim that taxes have been too low for years, even though they only look at the tax rate as a percentage of assessed value rather than the dollar value paid, and want to force everyone into the city, claiming it's more efficient (in reality, it makes it easier to push the left wing agenda)

LEVY: Another Toronto tax hike – DEI and wokeness don’t come cheap - "I still remember how Tory resigned in early 2023 but stayed on until mid-February to shepherd his budget and the 7% tax hike through council. That was of course after spending with reckless abandon during the COVID years, including on bike lanes we didn’t need...   I always have to remind people that doesn’t include our extra water and garbage rates, which were taken off the property tax by another socialist, David Miller, nearly 20 years ago to make our property tax rate appear lower...  then there’s her plan to increase access to cultural initiatives — local arts, festivals and events.  I sense more funding for diversity events which she can attend dressed in another costume.  But seriously these priorities all reek of a politician trapped in the Year 2000.  Chow has not progressed since then and has no understanding of the needs and priorities of Torontonians in 2025.  For the 24% extra I’ve paid over the past three years, I don’t feel 24% safer.   In fact, I feel very unsafe in antisemitic Toronto where Chow and police chief Myron Demkiw have enabled and escalated the illegal protests and prayer sessions on our streets by turning a blind eye to the harassment, threats and assaults on innocent Jews by the Hamasniks.  The Toronto Police Service’s most recent variance report (which is a few months old) says it all.  To the end of September, the police have attended 2,000 unplanned events (those without a permit) and it appears the extra policing costs to simply keep the peace will amount to close to $20-million by the end of 2024.   Can you imagine how much Chow and her Hamas sympathizers on council could save if they simply gave the police the directive to remove the terrorist sympathizers and prayer crowd from our streets...   Chow and her fellow Marxists seem unable to get it through their thick heads that bike lanes, all manner of traffic calming, endless uncoordinated construction and a crappy crime-laden TTC create more drivers.  I haven’t even mentioned the plethora of drug addicts, beggars and unhoused camped out in our parks and on our sidewalks—or the illegal migrants who continue to flock to our Sanctuary City because Chow and her fellow Marxists on council would never say no.   What tourists must think when they come to “safe and affordable” (according to Chow) Toronto and see Hamasniks praying on our major streets or protesters dancing and blocking the streets outside the Toronto Eaton Centre or Sankofa Square only home to drug addicts.  I look around the city of which I was once proud and only feel disgust at what our politicians have created.  If anything, our quality of life has declined 24% — if not more — in the past three years."

Mark Towhey on X - "TORONTO MAYOR Olivia Chow says families can skip one meal a week to pay for her higher office budget. WHICH OF YOUR KIDS will lose a meal this week to pay your tax bill? Why does the mayor’s office need a bigger budget? “It’s just the cost of a Big Mac a week!”"
Good luck to any right wing politician saying such a thing

Meme - Jonathan Kay @jonkay: "“Holding steady”" *Conservatives with maybe under 1% fall in support, at just under 40%, Liberals at like 17%*
Toronto Star @TorontoStar: "Days after Justin Trudeau announced his decision to step down as Liberal Party leader, the latest poll shows the Conservatives down slightly and the Liberals holding steady."
If you criticise the (left wing) media, you're a fascist

Meme - Aella @Aella_Girl: "Does anybody have a private field I could borrow?"
Wilfred Reilly @wil_da_beast630: "Maybe. For what?"
Aella @Aella_Girl: "Capture the flag except the flags are women"
CEO Expunging His Checkmark (9/1...: "what happens when you capture them"
Aella @Aella_Girl: "You have to cum in her before the other team captures her back"

Meme - "A generation of pussies"
"Gen Z and Alcohol: A Fading Bond. Annual expenditure on alcoholic beverages in the United States, by generation $25.09B Boomers $23.148 Generation X $23.45B Millennials $3.13B Gen Z. Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics"
"i knew there is a gap but not this gap...explains a lot tbh"
"explains what"
"Explains why they're not getting laid"

Meme - Peachy Keenan @KeenanPeachy: "The Nation. Why Is the Right Obsessed With Epic Poetry?"
Auron MacIntyre @AuronMacintyre: "A good reminder that the left has turned elite taste into low garbage and a lot of high culture is sitting in the gutter begging the right to pick it up and make it their own
For a long time conservatives couldn't compete in the cultural space because they had nothing to say  But now that the left has deconstructed every copy of a copy, the right's reverence and connection to the past gives it exclusive access to the true and transcendent"
Matthew Sablan on X - "Hah. In my lifetime, we've gone from "the rightoids can't even read" to "conservative's obsession with reading is problematic.""
Beauty is bourgeois and tacky, after all
Left wingers still claim right wingers can't read, so

Meme - christoph @Halalcoholism: "American Muslim Twitter vs UK Muslim Twitter"
Yassin @Yassin_Falafel: "I come here 7 years ago with nothing applied for an asylum got married,got my green card,open tow store having 30 employees, building future for our community and my kids, all what I have is was because of people like YOU who believed in the American dream and value. Thank you <3"
Amaar @amaaralmadani: "The kuffar took slavery and concubines away from us. Slavery isn't the same when it's done by the kuffar and when it's done following the islamic laws and teachings. Slavery in Islam isn't isn't about racism, it's captives from battles that the Muslims win. Reinstate slavery."

Meme - *Woman breastfeeding baby, with lamb coming up to suck on her other breast*

Meme - Chauro @atchauro: "Hijab for Allah and hot shorts for Abdullah 😂 *3 girls with hijabs and hot shorts*"

Meme - *Goofy Cartoon Snake* "NO ONE'S TREADING ON YOU, SWEETIE"
Godless Mom: "no one."
"Complains that we have a fascist dictator in charge but also no one is treading on them... ? Sweetie make up your mind"
"Rriiiiight that's why you people desperately try to get people cancelled and fired from their jobs for having different opinions."

Meme - "(Computer) Ports"
"Optical Audio "Toslink"
USB A 1.0/1.1/2.0
Firewire 4 pin iLink
Firewire 400 1394g
Firewire 800/3200 1394b/c
Ethernet 8P8C common:RJ-45
Modem RJ-11
Apple Desktop Bus - ADB
Mac Serial
PS/2
Future. USB A 3.0
DE-9F
DB-25 Serial/Com Port
DE-9 Serial RS232
e-SATA
Centronics Parallel 36pin
Centronics SCSI 50pin
AT Keyboard
50 pin SCSI 2
Surround sound
stereo/Headphones. Line In. Msc
Digital Audio RCA plug style
AAUI
Composite Audio/Video
S-Video
Component Video
F-Connector RF/COAX
Parallel Port/SCSI 1/DB-25F
Mac Video/MIDI/gameport/AUI/DA-15
Mini DisplayPort
Mini-DVI
Mini-VGA
Apple Hi-Density Video HDI-45
Apple Display Connector - ADC
LFH60 (dual DVI-D)
DMS59 (dual DVI-D)
HDMI
Micro-DVI
DisplayPort
DVI Video
DE-15/HD-15 VGA/SVGA"

On why Deporting Mahmoud Khalil is Legal

In which Harisiades v. Shaughnessy (1952), Turner v. Williams (1904), Trump v. Hawaii (2018) and Kleindienst v. Mandel (1972) are cited in affirming that deporting non-citizens for their views does not violate the First Amendment or otherwise violate their rights (not to mention how even if he were a citizen, he would still not be in the clear):

Mahmoud KHALIL v William P. JOYCE, in his official capacity as Acting Field Office Director of New York, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, et al., BRIEF OF AMICUS CURIAE THE NATIONAL JEWISH ADVOCACY CENTER IN SUPPORT OF RESPONDENTS

"Petitioner Mahmoud Khalil acted as a lead negotiator and spokesperson for Columbia University-based student groups that espoused support for Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization (“FTO”). Petitioner facilitated and advocated on behalf of students who took over buildings and committed extensive violent acts, including destruction of property, criminal possession of a weapon, false imprisonment, and others. Petitioner has advocated for “resistance by any means necessary,” a euphemism for engaging in violence against innocent civilians to achieve a political objective—namely, the destruction of the State of Israel...

Petitioner’s deportation is amply supported by the law.

First, the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) supports petitioner’s deportation and does not contain a First Amendment exception. Because noncitizens do not enjoy the same First Amendment rights as citizens, Petitioner’s First Amendment claims are subject to only the “facially legitimate and bona fide” standard of review, a highly deferential standard deeming that courts may not look behind the exercise of that discretion, nor test it by balancing its justification’ against the asserted constitutional interests of U.S. citizens.

Second, even if strict scrutiny applies, the Government amply satisfies that standard because the INA’s speech restrictions are narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest in national security. The INA’s speech restrictions constitute content-based restrictions, not viewpoint-based restrictions. The INA’s limitations on speech supporting terrorist organizations satisfies a compelling government interest.

Third, the INA was designed to ensure that individuals like Petitioner could not reap the benefits of American residency while subverting important foreign policy and other values. Espousing support for terrorist organizations and leading groups of students who violated a slew of laws constitutes impermissible conduct for citizens and noncitizens alike. Petitioner’s conduct violated the Anti-Terrorism Act, a provision that would apply to him whether he was a citizen or not...

The Government cites 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(4)(C)(i) as its basis for removing Petitioner. See Resp. Opp. to Motion for P.I. (ECF No. 156 at 4). This provision gives the Secretary of State the power to order the deportation of an alien if “the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe [that Petitioner’s presence or activities in the United States] would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences. . . .” 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(4)(C)(i). This section incorporates by reference the exception found in Section 1182(a)(3)(C)(iii), which ordinarily governs exclusion of aliens outside the United States and makes it equally applicable to deportations under Section 1227.

The exception in Section 1182 (sometimes referred to in part as the “Foreign Policy Bar”) prevents the Government from refusing entry or deporting an alien “because of [an] alien’s past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations, if such beliefs, statements, or associations would be lawful within the United States, unless the Secretary of State personally determines that the alien’s admission would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.”... Since the Government relies upon the Secretary’s determination for its action, the 1182 exception is simply inapplicable...

It is well-established that citizens and noncitizens do not enjoy legal parity.

Under our law, the alien in several respects stands on an equal footing with citizens, but in others has never been conceded legal parity with the citizen. Most importantly, to protract this ambiguous status within the country is not his right but is a matter of permission and tolerance. The Government’s power to terminate its hospitality has been asserted and sustained by this Court since the question first arose.

Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U.S. 580, 586-87 (1952); see also Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U.S. 667, 702 (2018) (recognizing the inherent power of the “Government’s political departments” to admit or exclude foreign nationals, because these types of questions are “largely immune from judicial control.”...

Speech restrictions are no exception to this rule. The fact that Petitioner is subject to heightened speech restrictions as compared to a naturalized U.S. citizen has been continually recognized by the courts in varying context for more than 100 years. The Supreme Court has long acknowledged that U.S. residents with varying immigration statuses can be subject to varying degrees of First Amendment protection to serve compelling government interests. See, e.g., Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310, 420-22 (2010)...

Turner is a particularly informative case. In Turner v. Williams, 194 U.S. 279, 293 (1904), the Supreme Court affirmed that the First Amendment is no bar to the deportation of an alien. The Court in Turner considered whether the government could deport alien John Turner because of his anarchist beliefs and advocacy for the violent overthrow of government...

The principles elucidated in Turner have stood the test of time. In Trump v. Hawaii, the Court again explored the reach of the Executive’s power in matters relating to national security and immigration...

Mandel—as overwhelmingly approved of in Hawaii—articulated the sweeping power of the executive as applicable to both denials of entry and deportations. Mandel, 408 U.S. 766 (relying on the deportation case Galvan v. Press, 347 U.S. 522, 531-33 (1954)) (“Policies pertaining to the entry of aliens and their right to remain here are peculiarly concerned with the political conduct of government. . . . [T]he formulation of these policies is entrusted to Congress has become about as firmly embedded in the legislative and judicial tissues of our body politic as any aspect of our government. . . .”))...

Furthermore, the language of Hawaii itself targets its holding to immigration law more broadly, not simply entry, when citing approvingly multiple cases that either address or make reference to the broad power of either Congress or the Executive (i.e. the political branches) to deport aliens...

Finally, the construction of the INA itself incorporates the statutory reasons for denying entry as suitable reasons for deportation...

The Secretary of State, in his discretion, determined that Petitioner remining in the United States was adverse to American foreign policy interests. This Court cannot, therefore, “look behind” the Government’s decision to exercise its discretion to remove Petitioner, which is based on facially legitimate and bona fide foreign policy concerns. This court, therefore, may not weigh the Government’s justification for removing Petitioner against any First Amendment concerns.

As such, the fact that Petitioner is subject to more stringent speech restrictions than a U.S. citizen does not raise, and has never raised, a serious First Amendment issue. Petitioner’s removal is constitutional.

Even if the Court were to apply the same standard that it would to a U.S. citizen, requiring a strict scrutiny analysis, the INA’s speech prohibitions would still be constitutional because they are supported by a compelling government interest.

The INA rules in question survive strict scrutiny because they are narrowly tailored to achieve the government’s compelling interest in national security. The INA permits deportation of an alien based on his endorsement, espousal, or persuasion of others to endorse or espouse terrorist activities or support a terrorist organization, or his role as a representative or spokesperson for an organization that endorses or espouses terrorist activity...

The INA considers support for any terrorist organization as grounds for deportation or exclusion, with no consideration of what the terrorist group believes, endorses, or seeks to accomplish...

To survive strict scrutiny, a regulation must be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest. Unlike the anarchist views held by Mr. Turner, see supra at 7, no speculation is required as to what the impact of Petitioner’s speech or political beliefs might be. Petitioner’s actions have already proven dangerous to the well-being of the American public by leading a radical, pro-terrorist movement that has committed unlawful actions on college campuses throughout the United States, provoking a nationwide swell of support within the U.S. for the terrorist acts committed by Hamas on October 7, and creating a hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students at Columbia University and elsewhere.

Notably, the protests and encampments at Columbia University acted as the model for many other college campuses. The Columbia protests were organized by at least two terror- supporting groups, including Students for Justice in Palestine (“SJP”) and Columbia University Apartheid Divest (“CUAD”). Petitioner was a self-described leader of these groups and the lead negotiator for the groups and their “demands” during the April 2024 Gaza Solidarity Encampment (“Encampment”). (ECF No. 162 at ¶ 1). His actions during the Encampment and its subsequent impacts put the dangers of Petitioner’s presence in the United States on full display. See, e.g., infra at Section II. If the Government has a compelling governmental interest in removing aliens like Mr. Turner, who generally oppose all organized government, it certainly has a much greater interest in removing Petitioner, who has led and represented groups that endorse and espouse terrorism and played a central role in persuading members of the American public to endorse and espouse the same, while also calling for the “total eradication of Western civilization.”...

As it relates to the government’s invocation of 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(4)(C)(i) as its basis for removing Petitioner, it is hard to imagine a greater foreign policy interest than not allowing an organization literally designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the State Department to gain a solid foothold in our country. But Petitioner’s speech would be unlawful even if he were a citizen.

Even if Petitioner were a citizen, his speech would still violate the law. The First Amendment is not absolute, and all residents of the United States–including naturalized citizens– are subject to speech restrictions. For example, even a citizen who engages in advocacy in coordination with or provides material support to terrorist organizations can be subject to criminal penalties. See generally, Holder, 561 U.S. at 45; see also 18 U.S.C. § 2339B(a)-(b) (creates civil and criminal penalties for providing “material support” to terrorist organizations). There is also compelling reason to believe that Petitioner and the student groups he led, collaborated directly with Hamas, knowingly participated in Hamas’ global propaganda campaign, and had advance knowledge of Hamas’ plans to commit mass murder on October 7. See generally, Haggai et al v. Kiswani et al, 25-02400 (S.D.N.Y. filed March 24, 2025), Complaint (ECF No. 1) (alleging Columbia SJP, CUAD, and affiliated groups coordinated with Hamas and its affiliates prior to October 7 and take direct instructions from Hamas regarding the spread of pro-Hamas and pro- terror propaganda in the United States in furtherance of Hamas’ stated goals). If true, these allegations likely violate the Anti-Terrorism Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2333(d)(2), which provides grounds for imprisonment of up to 20 years (or life, in some cases) and fines of up to $250,000. Therefore, Petitioner’s speech would not be constitutionally protected even if he were a naturalized citizen. Petitioner’s actions are exactly the sort that the INA seeks to restrict...

Aside from making their support for Hamas abundantly clear with chants of “Hamas we love you,” “we are all Hamas,” and “long live Hamas,” the coalition of student groups obstructed campus operations, and engaged in all manner of illegal activity, including trespass, assault, vandalism, robbery, destruction of property, arson, criminal possession of a weapon, burglary, false imprisonment and intimidation. Petitioner was one of their leaders and acted as their representative and spokesperson. Dozens of his followers were arrested for committing crimes...

In addition to universities and the UNRWA, Hamas has successfully gained influence in some corners of the non-profit world and news media, such as the Washington State-based “news” service known as the Palestine Chronicle. As detailed in a lawsuit brought by three former hostages of the October 7 attack, an employee of the Palestine Chronicle (employed since 2019) is alleged to have personally held at least three hostages during this time, worked directly with Hamas, and published pro-Hamas propaganda through the Palestine Chronicle while actively coordinating with his affiliates in the media and on college campuses... One of the freed hostages has reported that during his captivity Hamas would brag to him about their operatives on American campuses.

Petitioner’s employment by UNRWA is not a benign indicator of his desire to provide aid to struggling Palestinian civilians. Rather, it is an indicator of his long-term relationship and comfort with Hamas and its terroristic ideologies, which undoubtedly endanger national security and the fabric of American civil society...

Petitioner, through his leadership of CUAD and full-throated support for the “Palestinian resistance” by “any means necessary” has openly endorsed terrorist activity and sought to persuade others to do the same. When SJP published a letter affirming their ardent support of the October 7th attack, Petitioner was one of their leaders. When members of the Encampment shouted, “we are Hamas,” “Hamas we love you,” “burn Tel Aviv to the ground,” and shouted at their Jewish classmates, “the 7th of October will be every day for you,” Petitioner was their spokesperson. There is no question that Petitioner’s speech and conduct render him removable under 8 U.S.C. §§ 1182 and 1227."

Links - 12th April 2025 (1 - Mark Carney)

Tablesalt 🇨🇦 on X - "Mark Carney stole Poilievre's entire platform:
-Got rid of DEI ministers
-"Canceled" carbon tax
-Arctic defense spending
-pledges to fix immigration
LIberal voters LOVE Carney for the same policies they hated Pierre for because it's a cult."

Joel Kotkin: If Carney brings Canada closer to Europe, financial ruin would follow - "A tilt towards Europe would be natural for Liberal Leader Mark Carney , the former pre-Brexit head of the Bank of England. He’s an advocate of the very environmental, social and economic policies that have led the EU — and, to some extent, Canada — into economic and social decline. Carney is the ultimate product of the Euro-Atlantic elite, with affiliations with the World Economic Forum, the Bilderberg Group and the Group of Thirty. Recently, he travelled to Europe in a search of “reliable allies” — that is, people who think alike. He has identified as a “ European ” in the past, and holds British and Irish citizenship. In office, we can expect him to epitomize the bureaucratic spirit of the profoundly dysfunctional EU. The central organizing principle of the EU is disregard for nation-states. Recent antidemocratic moves to remove troublesome populists in Romania and take out a leading presidential aspirant in France suggests Europe’s most outspoken defenders of democracy frequently toss out results when disappointed. The rest of the European agenda is no bargain, either. It prioritizes an ever-expanding welfare state, as well as climate, social and immigration policies now rejected in the United States. Its politics, and economics, centre on stasis. This is a swan song Canadians need to resist. Under the government of former prime minister Justin Trudeau, Canada was already succumbing to the essentials of Euro-politics: high trade barriers , net-zero climate policies, essentially open borders and the systematic undermining of the country’s past... If elected, we could see growing unrest in places like Alberta, whose economy propels what’s left of Canadian competitiveness. Industrial workers in places like southern Ontario who are already facing the consequences of Trump’s tariff tirades will particularly be threatened. Europe’s “energy leadership” on climate and its net-zero policies are undermining its fading industrial economy , all to the benefit of China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gasses. In Europe, strict adherence to climate policy amounts to energy suicide . Late last year, Germany’s economy suffered greatly due to a combination of cold weather, cloud cover and light winds, which forced it to import power from Scandinavian countries due to its over-reliance on wind and solar. Overall, Europe remains a consistent laggard in terms of economic growth and entrepreneurship. Embracing European policies all but guarantees that Canada, too, will lag behind the United States on tech and innovation. Equally concerning, Canada already seems eager to ape Europe on censorship and even imposing financial penalties on those who, for example, disagreed with COVID policies. The embrace of censorship across social media , already proposed by Trudeau, follows typically European lines. Trump and his ilk may seem illiberal at times, but it’s the EU that seeks to control speech, strictly regulate foreign firms and remove opponents by force. Canada under Trudeau also embraced Europe’s adoption of essentially open borders, opening the doors to anyone who has a good story, rather than judging newcomers primarily on what they can offer the country. As in Europe, Canada now gets more people but less per capita wealth , while elements with illiberal ideas and even murderous ideologies come in with ease. Finally, there is the always-dodgy issue of Canadian identity. Canada has long worried about annexation from its bumptious and sometimes hyper-aggressive neighbour. Long ago, it adopted European ideas that benefit many, notably on health care. But Canadian identity has been battered by an increased assault on Canada’s past and its designation as an essentially racist, genocidal entity. This represents a threat to Canada’s complex identity and its social cohesion."

EDITORIAL: Carney’s wrong on pipeline law - "Liberal Leader Mark Carney confirmed this week that his party will not repeal Bill C-69 if his party forms the next government. The legislation makes the regulatory burden greater and more complicated for new resource projects. It’s been dubbed the “no more pipelines” law and challenged in both the Alberta Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada, both of which ruled it unconstitutional. The Alberta court called it “a constitutional Trojan Horse” and said it “tears apart the constitutional division of power.” The Supreme Court of Canada agreed. Carney is “thumbing his nose at the Constitution,” said former Alberta premier and former federal cabinet minister Jason Kenney. “Complying with the Constitution isn’t partisan. It’s not ideological. It’s not optional. It’s mandatory,” he posted on X. It’s also a foolish policy for this country to pursue. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith posted a dire warning on X: “Make no mistake. If this law stays, there will be few, if any, large-scale energy infrastructure projects built in this country and Alberta and Saskatchewan will be cut off from international markets. This means Canada will become more vulnerable to and overly dependent on the United States.” Those living in Eastern Canada should worry because, in order for oil and gas to get to them from the West, it passes through the U.S., so we don’t have control of our own energy supply. If we’ve learned anything over the past few months, it’s that this country has to aim for energy security and self-reliance in all aspects of our economy. All those brave words about “Elbows Up” and “Canada Strong” are just hot air and slogans if we’re not prepared to fight for our survival with every weapon at our disposal. Carney’s farcical “Net Zero” fantasy is just bunk. It will consign this country to third-world status at a time when our neighbour is promising to “drill, baby, drill!” It steps on provincial toes and is harmful and divisive."

LILLEY: In the battle for build Canada's economy up, Poilievre wins - "Consider that in 2022, 76% of all Canadian exports went to the United States. In 1896, when Canada was part of the British Empire, we exported 60% of our goods to the empire. We are more reliant on the Americans than we were on the British at the height of Pax Britannia... Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said that Carney’s comments now don’t align with what he told her recently. “Less than two weeks ago, Mark Carney told me in person that C-69 was a barrier to large national energy projects and needed to be dealt with. Now he says he has no intention to do anything with it,” Smith posted. Smith said keeping this law in place will mean fewer large-scale projects developed and that Canada will become more reliant on the United States."

Election Power Meter: Local media gets Carney's cold shoulder - "local media was prevented from covering the Liberal leader’s event to open his own campaign office. “ This is the only time I’ve ever been barred access to a political event by a party leader,” tweeted Charlie Senack, the managing editor of the Kitchissippi Times. Senack said the Liberals quickly got in touch with him after that, calling it “a miscommunication” and offered a formal apology. He was surprised to find out, though, that Carney’s next two events in the riding were also closed to the media."

Jesse Kline: Mark Carney's five-year plan for Soviet-style housing - "“We used to build things in this country,” lamented Liberal Leader Mark Carney in an online campaign ad released earlier this week. “It’s time your government got back into the business of building affordable homes.” You heard that right, folks: the government that was years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget building the Trans Mountain pipeline , the same one that still hasn’t managed to construct a single deepwater port in the Arctic that was supposed to be completed in 2012, thinks it would be better at developing houses than the private sector. On Monday, the Liberals unveiled what they’re dubbing the “most ambitious housing plan since the Second World War.” It promises to build 500,000 homes a year, both through the private sector and a newly created, and unimaginatively named, agency called “Build Canada Homes” (BCH), which appears to be modelled off the Crown corporations responsible for building cookie-cutter houses and state-owned rental complexes during and after the war. BCH will “act as a developer,” developing and managing projects, provide “financing to affordable home-builders,” acquire land to “add to Canada’s affordable housing stock” and provide $26 billion in debt and equity financing to prefab home manufacturers, from whom it will place “bulk orders” to “create sustained demand.” In addition, the agency will provide $10 billion in subsidies and loans to affordable home-builders. While the Liberals claim to have lifted the strategy straight out of the playbook of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, it could more accurately be described as a mix of ideas taken from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, and ones that would feel right at home in an NDP platform... In the 2021 election, the Grits promised to “build or revitalize” 62,500 homes per year, “on top of the 285,000 homes currently being built each year.” Yet according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) data , new housing construction starts haven’t even met that baseline of 285,000 in the years since. In fact, they’ve fallen from 244,650 in 2021, to just under 228,000 last year. And this year looks even worse: in February, the CMHC reported that, “Actual housing starts were down 17 per cent year-over-year” in urban centres, while “Vancouver recorded a 48 per cent decrease and starts in Toronto fell 68 per cent from February 2024.” In late 2023, Liberal housing minister Sean Fraser also took a page from the postwar playbook, announcing that the government would be compiling a catalogue of standardized blueprints to reduce the cost and time it takes to build new homes. Over a year later, the CMHC finally released its catalogue of 50 low-rise designs this month, which has already been criticized for lacking many of the amenities of modern homes and being unlikely to “move the needle” on affordability. But if you want an idea of what Carney’s government-built houses — or “Carneykas,” as I like to call them — will look like, the government’s “ Housing Design Catalogue ” is probably a good place to start. The Liberal policy document does contain some good ideas, such as cutting “municipal development charges in half for multi-unit residential housing” and reducing “housing bureaucracy, zoning restrictions and other red tape,” though these are basically the same policies Poilievre has been pitching for years. Again, the question comes down to: who do we trust to actually get things done? The Liberals have made it abundantly clear over their nearly 10 years in office that they’ve never met a problem they don’t think can be solved with a massive influx of taxpayer money and new layers of government bureaucracy. And now, despite selling himself as a fresh face with new ideas, Carney is proposing creating a new federal bureaucracy in the BCH and engaging in a Soviet-style building project that’s sure to cost taxpayers a pretty penny. Just how much remains unknown, but a 2023 report from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute said a “conservative” estimate of how much it would cost to build enough units to meet “a minimum of Canada’s housing needs” was between $196- and $300-billion. And that’s on top of the tens of billions in subsidies and loans the Carney Liberals are promising to developers. And where exactly is this money going to come from? The Liberals have already more than doubled the national debt and are running $60-billion deficits . Meanwhile, the country is facing a tariff-induced recession that will reduce government revenues and increase the cost of social supports, and Carney is pledging to cut taxes without a clear plan for how to make up the lost revenue. The Liberals seem to be operating off the old adage that, “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” But this is a party whose own law, the Impact Assessment Act, makes it next to impossible to so much as change a light bulb in a national park."
Left wingers should be very happy, since they keep calling for the government to build housing. But who will they blame if this is tried and fails?
Time for all the left wingers who used to crow about housing being provincial jurisdiction (because they wanted to blame conservatives) to go on about how the federal government should be in charge

Terence Corcoran: Will centrist Liberals turn against Carney? New housing plan could pull trigger - "Early in the Second World War, Ottawa created a new crown corporation, Wartime Housing Ltd., under the War Measures Act, to build temporary rental houses for war workers and soldiers. With a head office in Toronto, by 1945 it had 51 branch offices at work in 73 municipalities. But at the end of the war, Liberal cabinet minister C.D. Howe rejected a proposal to convert Wartime Housing Ltd. from a home builder for soldiers into a national public housing authority. Apparently the prospect of the federal government “becoming landlord to even more Canadian families horrified a Liberal government that was dedicated to private enterprise and would do almost anything to avoid getting into a policy of public housing.” Under the Carney economic model, however, no amount of economic intervention is objectionable, never mind horrifying... In keeping with Carney’s carbon control objectives, BCH will “build sustainably” by using certified wood, recycled content and “low-emission materials.” Another idea recycled from history is a tax incentive cost allowance to spur new rental housing. Known as a Multiple Unit Rental Building (MURB), it was a high-profile but mostly ineffectual tax incentive hauled out of the 1970s housing policy swamp. Numerous studies commissioned by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) described the MURB and other federal interventions as failures. A 1988 evaluation of the MURB program by Clayton Research Associates found that “MURB is an expensive subsidy policy that is ineffective as a housing assistance program.” A summary of another Clayton study in 1984 stated that it “concurred with the majority of housing analysts that there should be a resolve on the part of governments not to interfere unduly in the operation of the private rental market.”... If Carney is willing to go this far into the housing market, what are his plans for all the other woes, real and imagined, now on the agenda?"
This doesn't stop left wingers rewriting history by claiming that when the government built housing, it was very effective at doing so

Large majority of Canadians want Carney to disclose business interests: poll - "Two-thirds of Canadians think Liberal leader Mark Carney should proactively reveal his business interests before election day, according to a new poll... Carney has so far refused to disclose the assets he says he put into a blind trust weeks ago, or his potential conflicts of interest... Carney also previously dismissed a reporter’s suggestion that he might have conflicts of interest after spending years working in the private sector, before later acknowledging he expects to recuse himself from his past work as chairman at Brookfield Asset Management... Since the beginning of the campaign, Conservatives have harped on about Carney being “just like Justin” Trudeau. According to the poll, the same proportion of respondents (42 per cent) agreed and disagreed that Carney is like Trudeau... Carney and the Liberals have run advertisements and messaging comparing Poilievre to Trump, a message that appears to be catching on slightly more. Nearly half of poll respondents said Poilievre is like Trump, whereas 35 per cent disagreed... The poll suggests both leaders score roughly the same (6/10 for Carney, 5.9/10 for Poilievre) when respondents are asked how much each is considered a “Canadian patriot.” Enns said he expected Carney to score better than in light of the Liberals’ recent boost in the polls led by their response to Trump. Voters also appear skeptical of Poilievre and Carney’s proximity to the common man, scoring both a 5.9/10 when asked to rate how much each is “in touch” with the typical Canadian voter."

KLEIN: Canada remains leaderless, even after Carney’s coronation - "Mark Carney is now the Prime Minister of Canada. Not because you voted for him. Not because there was a general election. It’s because a small group of political insiders decided it was his turn. Carney was handed the reins of our country, not by the Canadian people, but by the backroom dealers of the Liberal Party and their allies on the left. This is not how democracy is supposed to work. Let’s start with the so-called leadership “race.” If you believe the headlines from CBC and other legacy media outlets, this was some kind of sweeping movement of Canadians demanding Mark Carney take over. The facts tell a different story. According to reports, the Liberals boast about 400,000 registered party members. In the end, however, only 267,000 were deemed eligible to cast a ballot. That’s more than one-third — over 130,000 people —disqualified, shut out of the process. Why? What happened? No one seems interested in asking that question, especially not the media covering Carney like he’s a rock star on tour. For all the talk of inclusion, openness, and fairness, it’s clear that this leadership race was carefully managed, controlled, and sanitized. Carney didn’t invite independent media into his events. He answered few, if any, real questions. His campaign was rolled out like a pre-packaged product, polished for mass consumption but light on substance. That’s probably why he spent most of his time behind closed doors, speaking to select audiences and donors. Meanwhile, the CBC — our state-funded broadcaster — played its part, pumping out endless glowing coverage. No scrutiny, no hard questions. Compare that to the way conservative candidates are treated in this country. Pierre Poilievre can fill arenas, hold town halls, and face tough questions head-on. Yet the coverage is negative, dismissive, or ignored altogether. We are witnessing social engineering in real time. It’s a manipulation of public opinion through selective coverage and media bias. This is about control. Control of our economy, control of our industry, control of our borders, and ultimately, control of our democracy. It’s all happening in plain sight. Take the current trade fight with the United States. Carney and his allies act as if they’re standing up for Canadian interests. They use patriotic language to rally support. However, we all know the truth. They’re not interested in defending Canadian businesses or jobs. They’re interested in virtue-signaling and ideological posturing... Meanwhile, Canadian businesses are struggling. Investment is leaving the country. According to Statistics Canada, foreign direct investment (FDI) into Canada fell sharply after 2015, coinciding with Trudeau’s first term. In 2014, FDI inflows totaled $53 billion. By 2020, they had dropped to $24 billion. That’s less than half. And it’s not just foreign investment leaving — Canadian capital is going abroad. In 2020, Canadian direct investment abroad hit $1.6 trillion, nearly double what it was in 2010. Why? Because our regulatory environment has become hostile. Because the policies of Trudeau’s Liberals — and now, Carney’s — have made Canada a bad place to do business. They killed the Energy East pipeline, which would have brought billions in investment and created thousands of jobs. They created impossible obstacles to mining projects that are essential to the green energy transition they claim to support. According to the Fraser Institute, Canada’s mining attractiveness ranking has dropped significantly since 2015. Permitting delays, regulatory uncertainty, and high taxes are pushing mining companies to look elsewhere. Carney’s Liberals would rather demonize their critics than admit failure. They accuse conservatives of being “un-Canadian” for questioning their policies. This is the same crowd that spent years apologizing for Canada’s history, opening our borders to anyone and everyone, and driving up demand for housing beyond what the market could handle. Today, we have a housing crisis. We have crime rates rising in every major city. According to Statistics Canada, the country’s Crime Severity Index rose for the second consecutive year in 2022. Violent crime increased by 5%, with homicides reaching their highest level since 1992. These aren’t accidents. They are the predictable outcomes of deliberate policy choices made by the Liberal government. And let’s not forget Jagmeet Singh and the NDP, who kept the Liberals in power long after their legitimacy was gone... Liberal policies have hollowed out our economy. They’ve driven away investment and opportunity. They’ve made energy more expensive, housing less affordable, and our cities less safe. They’ve created a Canada that many of us barely recognize. Carney may be the new face, but it’s the same old party. The same policies. The same ideology. And the same contempt for anyone who disagrees with them."

FIRST READING: Mark Carney's not really supposed to be doing anything - "No appointments. No new spending or taxes. No foreign policy commitments. Nothing at all that isn’t “routine,” “non-controversial” and “reversible.” It’s all part of the “caretaker convention,” a longstanding parliamentary tradition which holds that until a prime minister is able to “command the confidence of the House of Commons,” he’s not allowed to wield the full powers of his office. In fact, he’s not supposed to do almost any of the things Canadians typically associate with their prime minister. “Avoid participating in high-profile government-related domestic and international events,” reads an official Privy Council guide to the caretaker convention. It adds that this includes “international visits, and the signing of treaties and agreements.” Caretaker prime ministers are also asked to steer clear of “appointments,” “policy decisions,” “new spending,” “negotiations or consultations,” “non-routine contracts,” and “grants and contributions.” The only real exception to this is anything that could be deemed “urgent and in the public interest.” But in his first hours as prime minister, Carney is already acting beyond the limits of a caretaker. Shortly after his swearing-in, he signed an order to get rid of the consumer carbon tax. Next week, he is planning to travel to the U.K. and France on official business. When asked by a reporter when he would be convening the House of Commons, he brushed it off... Unlike, say, the U.S. presidency, the office of prime minister is not a directly elected position. The position isn’t even mentioned in the British North America Act, Canada’s founding constitution. Instead, it refers only to the executive powers of the Governor General, who acts on the “advice” of the Privy Council. Only in practice did this become a system in which the Governor General defers to the executive decisions of the prime minister — provided that the prime minister has the legitimacy to govern. One of the only times a Governor General ever slapped down a prime minister, in fact, was over charges that the prime minister was attempting to govern without the confidence of the House. When Charles Tupper lost an election to Liberal leader Wilfrid Laurier in 1896, he refused to cede power or convene Parliament, and was ultimately forced to resign by Governor General Lord Aberdeen after attempting to push through some patronage appointments. Carney isn’t the first non-MP to be sworn-in as Canadian prime minister, but he is the first without any parliamentary experience whatsoever. Contrary to popular belief, the prime minister doesn’t have to be a parliamentarian or even a Canadian citizen — it’s anyone who can command the confidence of the House of Commons. But no such vote can occur until Parliament is recalled... former Conservative staffer Howard Anglin argued that until Carney has “met the House and secured its confidence,” the Governor General should ignore him if he tries to do anything beyond the basics... Carleton University Westminster expert Philippe Lagassé agreed, telling National Post, “This is a new ministry and it’s not evident that it will hold confidence, so caretaker should apply until there is a confidence vote.”"

Carney’s showing his weaknesses. But so is Poilievre: Selley - "Mark Carney had clearly been thinking about becoming prime minister of Canada for quite some time before it happened. To say the least, this wasn’t some spur of the moment decision. So, it is some kind of minor mystery that he managed to wander into a press conference in London, England on Monday and come off like a brittle, entitled arriviste... When the Globe and Mail’s Stephanie Levitz, one of the most no-nonsense reporters in the parliamentary press gallery, pressed Carney on the timeline for disclosing his assets with respect to the (presumably) forthcoming election, Carney seemed incredulous even to be asked, insisting he was “following the rules.” “What possible conflict would (I) have, Stephanie?” Carney asked. Seriously? The former vice-chair of Brookfield Asset Management, which boasts of “over US $1 trillion of assets under management”? About which Carney — at the very least — got cute with the truth with respect to the timing of his resignation and the company’s headquarters moving to the United States? After our recent experience with very rich men wandering into politics? (Remember Bill Morneau’s chateau in France? Morneau apparently didn’t.) After our recent experience with a considerably less rich man who nevertheless enjoyed the perks of genealogy and office to the tune of a miles-offside vacation on the Aga Khan’s private island? The same guy who stood amidst the smouldering wreckage of the Kielburger/WE Charity catastrophe and accused NDP leader Jagmeet Singh of “cynicism … in regards to supporting students”?... When CBC’s Rosemary Barton began questioning Carney along the same lines, the prime minister suggested she was bringing “ill will” into the discussion and implored her to “look inside yourself” to find … well, presumably evidence of Carney’s all-encompassing benevolence. How is it possible that over the months of cogitation and planning and second-guessing, no one screen-tested this guy in a press conference?... I can’t help noticing the Liberals seem to have kept on the same sad-sack social-media team that bombarded users with shameless hypocrisy for the better part of 10 years. You want to cultivate cynicism in Canadian politics? How about setting the consumer carbon tax you’ve for years been insisting is key to the future of the planet to zero, and then moments later crowing about it on X. “Mark Carney cancelled the carbon tax,” the Liberals tweeted."

David Staples: Mark Carney's economic plan? Trudeau's plan on steroids - "Justin Trudeau’s economic policies are now widely disliked and rejected. The Canadian public and business experts alike see them as a cause of inflation and the flight of business investment from Canada.   Hold my beer, says Mark Carney.  Carney, the front-runner to replace Trudeau and become Canada’s next prime minister, has spent the first weeks of his campaign describing an economic plan that sounds like everything Trudeau did, only on steroids. Carbon taxes? Yes, as much as ever.  Government subsides to private companies? More than ever, so long as they’re favoured “clean energy” companies, like battery plants in Ontario and Quebec where the Liberals are spending tens of billions.  The federal government pushing ahead with economic policy no matter what? Yes, even if the plans stomp all over free enterprise, not to mention provincial rights and sovereignty. Carney promises to use extraordinary powers to get his way. As he put it in a Kelowna speech this week, “My government is going use all of the powers of the federal government, including the emergency powers of the federal government, to accelerate the major projects that we need in order to build this economy.”  And what kind of projects does he think we need? “We will speed up approvals of clean energy projects,” he said in a recent Halifax speech. Carney, who has been called the architect of pushing green investment policy, still thinks carbon taxes are good, but admits the consumer carbon tax is “very divisive.” He’ll change it, he said, shifting the burden on to Canada’s already struggling industrial sector.  “The issue wasn’t — to coin a phrase — whether to ‘axe the tax.’ The issue was how to change it,” he said in a Kelowna speech this week.  Under Carney, citizens will still get carbon rebate cheques and big business will pay for it: “We’re making the large companies pay for everybody,” Carney said. “The taxpayer is not going to pay. Our companies, our largest companies, are going to pay.”   Essentially our industrial sector — huge employers, huge creators of export wealth and government taxes — now face the possible double whammy of Carney carbon taxes and Trump tariffs. Of course, they can avoid both if they move their factories to the United States, which is exactly what many will do.  Calgary financier Martin Pelletier has outlined the following scenario: “Carney wins. Goes all-in on securing a formalized deal with the EU (European Union) and mirrors their disastrous regulatory and environmental policies. Aggressively goes after oil and gas sector, imposing a large production cap and phaseout policy. Raises income tax tier and goes after small and medium businesses. Canadian dollar goes to 60 cents. I’m telling you. There will be a mass exodus of wealthy Canadians.”  In true bizarro Trudeau fashion, Carney has insisted there will be no losers his Carbon Tax 2.0, not consumers, not even big business. When CTV host Todd Battis asked him if the carbon tax on big business would trickle down to consumers, Carney said, “No, because what the big companies are producing by and large are not products that we are consuming. There is some element of that. But, by and large, you know, a steel company, how much steel are you using these days, Todd?” It’s hard to know what to make of such a nonsensical response other than it’s similar to the magical thinking that we saw regularly from Trudeau, where the federal budget was to miraculously balance itself, as opposed to doubling in size to $1.2 trillion during his 10 years in power.  But whatever Trudeau, Carney and a handful of green-obsessed governments in Europe believe, the rest of the world is pushing ever harder to gobble up and utilize as much energy as possible, including the unprecedented burning of coal, so it can to build up industry and prosperity.   In coming months, you’ll hear Carney repeatedly demonize the USA as some kind of weird outlier caught up in a “fever” that sees them reject his views on emissions reduction. But Americans are simply sick of losing jobs to China, India and other nations. As the ambitious developing world sees it, there’s one surefire way of building an economy — using cheap and abundant energy to drive down prices and make farming and manufacturing economical.  For all his smarts and boasts of pragmatism, Carney refuses to embrace this path. Instead he plans to outpace Trudeau. Canada is already a weakling among nations, pushed around by China and the USA. It’s hard to imagine us still standing if we accelerate Trudeau’s plans, but that’s the national dream Carney intends to force-feed us."
Weird. I thought he was economically literate. But he thinks companies don't pass on costs to consumers

Meme - *Liberal carbon tax as canned soup*
Mark Carney thinking: "... 'Reheat and serve.'"

Links - 11th April 2025 (2 [including Suburbs])

Meme - "r/cozyplaces
This post is locked. You won't be able to comment.
Suburbia ain't so bad
*People watching TV in a backyard on a projection screen*
Mod: Right, we've had enough. This post has only been up for 4 hours and the comments are the most toxic we've ever seen on this sub. We debated removing the whole post but that's not fair to OP so we're locking the comments instead.
Edit: We're really sorry u/thompsonwoodworks but we are going to have to remove your post. Despite locking the comments we are now getting a flood of comments on here reported. Even this moderator comment has been reported several times."
Time to mock conservative men for being afraid of cities
Left wingers just hate freedom, individuality and responsibility
This is a good case study in reddit censorship too

Meme - Bennett's Phylactery @extradeadjcb: "US suburbs are fortifications built in the aftermath of ethnic cleansing  They are optimized for keeping kids safe & alive when it's illegal to protect them properly" Mark R. Brown, AICP @CompletedStreet: "Most U.S. suburbs are inhospitable to children."
"A Modern child's conundrum"
"Get off the computer and go outside!"
"Stranger danger"
"Mal-Wart no loitering"
"Dead store. Mall no loitering. dying store. upscale grocery. Fake downtown."
Park: "Cars only"
"Gated community. useless decorative pond. Private golf club. Even more useless pond."

Meme - Covfefe Anon @CovfefeAnon: ""Suburbs" are refugee camps for whites who were ethnically cleansed from cities They lack "walkability" because that is a barrier to the same ethnic groups that removed whites from cities to begin with Suburbs lacking "walkability" are a cost, the lack of murders is the feature"
Mark R. Brown, AICP @CompletedStreet: "Suburbs are a relatively recent invention that pretend to be both rural without the farm land and a small town without the charm and walkability"
"affect: civilization likeness (category membership) - Farm, Small town, uncanny valley: Suburb, Mature city"

The Pandemic is Making the Suburbs Even More Appealing - The Atlantic - "Suburbia was never as bad as anyone said it was. Now it’s looking even better."

Suburbia is Subsidized: Here's the Math [ST07] - YouTube
It's not surprising he is demonising suburbs with misinformation again. He only looks at revenues based on property tax alone and expenditure on infrastructure alone to make the claim that poor people are subsidising rich people, ignoring the fact that the categories of revenue and expenditure are much broader than that. For example, in Lafayette (the first city he looks at), property taxes made up only 26% of total government revenue in the year ending October 2023, and public works accounted for only 12% of government expenditure (16.5% if you exclude capital outlay). Plus he assumes that people don't work, shop or otherwise generate money somewhere other than where they live (e.g. many suburban residents work and shop in the city, which means they are financing municpal revenue attributed to the city even though they don't live there).

Contra Strong Towns - Better Cities Project - "Strong Towns is an advocacy organization with substantial impact on urbanism in discourse and policy. Their focus areas are varied and there is a lot to like about the organization, but they have also been affiliated with a particular argument about the unsustainability of suburban sprawl. They are mainly known for an argument that the lifecycle infrastructure costs of suburban areas make them literally Ponzi schemes draining the vitality from urban centers.  You see these claims around all the time around urbanist discourse broadly, but they haven’t attracted as much academic engagement one way or the other.  I think this thesis is broadly misguided and does more harm than good: suburbs are not Ponzi schemes, they are not inherently fiscally unsustainable, and in fact cities are the ones host to a lot of cost bloat issues. It would be better for advocates to tone down the more inflammatory aspects of their rhetoric in favor of their more balanced policy agenda (which does not require the Ponzi language); or else do the data work to actually support these strong claims... The argument is that suburban sprawl literally does not pay for itself when considered on a lifecycle basis: that the deferred maintenance and lifecycle costs of suburban developments are higher than the benefits, such that bankruptcy is inevitable. More development can generate short-term cash, but the long-term trajectory is the whole system collapsing.  The costs that Strong Towns advocates focus on relate to lower economies of scale with respect to suburban developments. Lower densities require sprawling road networks, and high repair costs. Service provision costs for things such as snow removal, police, fire, etc. all snowball, so the argument goes, as the service area expands.  These economies of scale imply, for Strong Towns advocates, that dense urban development is inherently sustainable, while suburban sprawl is inherently unsustainable and can only be propped up in the short-run. The first basic reason this narrative overstates suburban gloom is the simple reality that government budgets — at federal, state, and local levels alike — are primarily about social spending, rather than infrastructure.  judge Glock and Tracy Loh pass along this Urban Institute report, which shows that all road and highway spending accounts for just 5.6% of state and local budgets. Per capita spending growth has been fairly low in this category so the budgetary share is actually down over time, even as the past infrastructure backlog has gotten somewhat addressed. Similarly, sanitation (3%) and sewerage (2%) are small items as well.  What do local governments spend money on instead? The main categories of expense you should be thinking about are social services like schools, police, and healthcare... it’s hard to tell a story about the inevitability of suburban doom when main drivers are just fundamentally pretty small potatoes in the overall budget.  Strong Towns advocates typically do not provide straightforward math here to back their claims — and there are important questions about the validity of the numbers they do provide — but you can multiply highway spending by 2 or 3x without eroding suburban budgets completely... The real crux of the issue however, is that infrastructure costs are typically higher in urban areas than suburban ones... So whatever are the theoretical benefits of amortizing infrastructure spend over a more densely packed population; in general cities have greater diseconomies of scale which lead to both higher infrastructure spending as well as more spending in the main social service categories.  The sources of excess urban expenditures are varied. For things like sewers and water — a lot of the costs seem to stem from things like environmental review, permitting, and so forth — which are really regulatory barriers and not so much about the nuts and bolts of just building the infrastructure. Urban wages are higher, especially union wages which are going to be more binding in urban areas. And then finally you just have greater cost bloat and inefficiencies in urban governments in general, which face fewer competitive pressures relative to their suburban counterparts. Or in Philadelphia; you see that streets and sanitation are just $155m out of a budget of about $5 billion; with the largest item reflecting benefits and pensions.   Here in New York City for instance, we are on track to spend $39k per pupil in K-12 schools. This is not even counting the capital budget. Even though NYC has the best transportation system in the country, which handles 7/8ths of the students in public schools — the busing expenses for the 1/8 of other students takes up over $10k a student traveling on bus, exceeding the total education budget of many states. We also see all the time the costs of dealing with and maintaining legacy infrastructure.  Now, there may well be good reasons for cities to spend more than suburban areas. Perhaps cities take care of different populations or offer more in the way of public services. This point is debatable — there are good reasons to think social mobility and even social integration can be good in many suburban areas.  But if the question is one of pure fiscal sustainability, on average, the answer is pretty clear: cities are more costly to run than suburbs. The pro-urban bias of Strong Towns advocates leads them to obfuscate this basic fact in favor of a doomer narrative of suburbs which lacks a strong foundation... Whether you like it or not, most Americans live in suburbs — they do so because they find it an attractive and low cost of living. Many people would rather live in cities instead, but are dissuaded by low housing inventory, high taxes, high costs of living, and other aspects of poor urban government. The competition between suburbs and cities is one of the main restraining forces keeping cities as functional as they are."

Disparate impact is the abolition of private property - "“Urban planning nerds” love to hate the suburbs.  They’re sterile, isolated, badly constructed, tasteless, expensive, inefficient, car-dependent, etc.  All of this is true — and yet half of Americans choose to live in the suburbs. In particular, something like 85% of American children are growing up in a suburb.  Americans hate commuting intensely — but they spend 4 hours and 40 minutes doing it every week... the sterility and wastefulness of the suburbs is the point.  It’s a distortionary outgrowth of the abolition of community property, which strongly disincentivizes Americans from investing in, protecting, and enjoying common spaces.  We’d rather bowl alone than live in spaces where we have no recourse against violence and social defection.  This is especially true of Americans with families. For a young single person, the economic and social advantages of urban network effects clearly outweigh the dangers of life in the city. You can make more money. The social opportunities are a lot more interesting. The food generally is better.  (This is why liberals in Portland and San Francisco love to ostentatiously pretend not to know what you’re talking about when you describe the problems of living there: it’s a flex.)  But when people have kids, they quickly lose their confidence that they can fly above the social dysfunction indefinitely. All sorts of abstract, macro policy problems suddenly don’t feel so abstract."

Elon Musk asks this question at every interview to spot a liar—science says it works - "He asks each candidate he interviews the same question: “Tell me about some of the most difficult problems you worked on and how you solved them.”  Because “the people who really solved the problem know exactly how they solved it,” he said. “They know and can describe the little details.”  Musk’s method hinges on the idea that someone making a false claim will lack the ability to back it up convincingly, so he wants to hear them talk about how they worked through a thorny issue, step by step... using the AIM method can increase the likelihood of detecting liars by nearly 70%"

Chinese man has lived in an airport for 14 YEARS so he can get away from his family - "Living with family can be overbearing sometimes, and many may feel annoyed and trapped by constant pestering.  For Wei Jianguo, a Chinese man who is in his 60s, the solution has been to move to Beijing Capital International Airport, where he is understood to have been living for 14 years now, so that he can smoke and drink as much as he likes.  Mirroring Tom Hanks' Viktor Navorsk in the 2004 movie The Terminal - where a tourist is forced to live at JFK airport - Mr Wei  has a set up of his food, belongings, and sleeping bag in a waiting area. He said he won't return home because then, he'll be forced to quit drinking and smoking - a habit he supplies with his monthly government allowance.  In 2018 he told China Daily: 'I can't go back home because I have no freedom there.  'My family told me if I wanted to stay, I had to quit smoking and drinking.  If I couldn't do that, I had to give them all my monthly government allowance of 1,000 yuan (£119.43). But then how would I buy my cigarettes and alcohol?'... The outlet also talked to staff at the airport, who said Mr Wei is harmless, albeit being a loud drunk.  One worker said that Mr Wei had been encouraged to leave a few times, but 'every time we mentioned it he was drunk and lost his temper'.   He added that the airport dweller doesn't bother other passengers and - with the terminals being warm - doesn't 'freeze' in the Shunyi Disctrict's cold winters, in which temperatures can plunge as low as -13C(8.6F).  According to China Daily, Mr Wei is not the airport's only resident, and in 2018 as many as six people were thought to be living like him - with one man 'notorious' for blasting Chinese opera music from his radio.  The world's most famous airport dweller is Iranian Mehran Karimi Nasseri, who lived in the Terminal One of the Paris Charles de Gaulle for a whopping 18 years - from 1988 until 2006 when he became hospitalised. Refugee Mehran Karimi Nasseri, on whom the 2004 film The Terminal is based on, was forced to take up residence in the Parisian airport after being sent here, his last port of departure, by the British authorities due to a failure in seeking entry into Britain.  The French authority also refused his entry, leaving him stuck in the terminal.  While 18 years is a long time, Bayram Tepeli, from Turkey, spent a staggering 27 years at Ataturk Airport, where he moved in 1991 due to problems with his family, before it closed in 2019, according to Daily Sabah."

Meme - Tucker Carlson: "Mr. Putin, why did you invade Ukraine?"
Putin: "I am just coming to that. You see on May 28th, 2016, a gorilla was shot at the Cincinnati zoo..."

How Six Sigma's history set the stage for its demise - "as GE began a long, slow decline, so did the popularity of Six Sigma. Once synonymous with management excellence, GE’s reputation in the business world plummeted in concert with its share price... The company’s market cap, which reached a high of nearly $600 billion in mid-2000, sank to around $60 billion late last year.  And as GE’s fortunes diminished, so has interest in Six Sigma... It’s since been surpassed by Agile, a management process that emerged from the world of software development. Was Six Sigma’s decline inevitable?  Eric Abrahamson, a Columbia business professor who studies management trends, distinguishes between fads and fashions. While fads bubble up organically, management fashions are manufactured and promulgated by consultants and business schools who profit from their adoption. Six Sigma was a classic management fashion, Abrahamson says, and GE was its leading model, a high-performing company touted by consultants eager to help other firms implement the system. As a result, it spread widely. “The merchants of Six Sigma wanted to keep expanding the market,” Abrahamson says. “You don’t want to just sell it to manufacturing firms, you want to sell it to service firms, to financial firms, to government agencies, to nonprofits.” And as with all fashions, once Six Sigma was picked up by the masses, fashionable companies lost interest and moved on to the next big thing. “These things have a life cycle: They get popular and then people start looking for something else,” says Art Swersey, a professor emeritus of operations research at the Yale School of Management. “These things run their course, and it has run its course.”  Six Sigma’s decline was also a symptom of a broader change in the corporate world, where innovation became more valued than efficiency, and technical precision was no longer a differentiator. Silicon Valley’s culture of “move fast and break things” meant business leaders were less concerned with reliability and more focused on game-changing discoveries. An obsession with efficiency, researchers have discovered (pdf), can come at the expense of invention... Perhaps nothing represented the decline of Six Sigma as much as a 2009 episode of 30 Rock—a satirical show running on NBC, then owned by GE as it happens—when Jack Donaghy, the head of NBC programming played by Alec Baldwin, travels to a GE corporate retreat. There, he meets the Six Sigmas, six men, each of whom “embodies a pillar of the Six Sigma business philosophy: teamwork, insight, brutality, male enhancement, hand-shakefulness, and play-hard.” Further mockery of business jargon and corporate training exercises ensues.  While GE hummed along for years under Immelt, its earnings were propped up by its financial services business, which under Welch had become the company’s single-largest segment. That over-reliance proved ruinous during the financial crisis of 2008, almost crippling the company... Ultimately, GE’s problems were not due to the problems of quality Six Sigma was intended to solve, but with a failure to innovate in a global economy increasingly dominated by technology companies. Six Sigma could get the company only so far, according to Jim Clifton, CEO of Gallup, the polling and consulting company. “Jack Welch was the king of process innovation,” said Clifton. “But when Jeff Immelt took over, he had a problem—there was nothing left for him to Six Sigma.” While GE’s management was hitting the limits of Six Sigma inside the company, outside it the system was spreading far and wide. It quickly became unmoored from its manufacturing origins, and was sold as an instant fix for companies and careers mired in mediocrity... Six Sigma became “ritualistic and cultish” because its practitioners focused on its nomenclature and methods without understanding the theories undergirding them, according to Steven Spear, a lecturer in organization at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.  “You take the tools that help you manage uncertainty and you get rid of the underlying thinking, and you’re left with just the tools,” he says. “That’s how you get to be ritualistic.”  It didn’t help that Six Sigma has no owner, accreditor, or even a commonly agreed upon body of knowledge... Six Sigma could be pretty much whatever you wanted it to be, Harry, who died in 2017, explained in an interview with Quality Digest magazine. “Six Sigma is not an absolute; it’s a vision,” he said. In its first iteration, at Motorola, Six Sigma was about defect reduction, he said. Its second act, at GE, was about cost reduction. “Six Sigma Generation III” was a system of value creation applicable to anyone... The rise in popularity of Lean, a parallel system of Japanese-inspired process improvement that focuses on reducing waste, has led to a blending of the two, and an even greater proliferation of courses and certifications... Elsewhere, interest in Six Sigma has waned in part because it was successful: American manufacturing has reduced its defects, and quality is no longer a top-level concern... Systems like Six Sigma appeal to managers because they are rooted in the pursuit of predictability, and all managers crave predictability"

Math for Future Scientists: Require Statistics, Not Calculus - "Charles Darwin is a classic example of a genius naturalist who was not a natural at math. As a young man, he sailed around the world aboard the HMS Beagle and explored the giant tortoises and iguanas of the Galapagos, the rainforests of Brazil, and the coral reefs of the South Pacific. From these sorts of direct engagements with nature, he developed his theory of evolution, which revolutionized science. But Darwin wrote in his autobiography that after studying math as a young man, he found that “it was repugnant to me.” When statistics stumped Darwin during his experiments investigating the advantages of crossbreeding plants, he called his cousin, the statistician Francis Galton, to try to make sense of the numbers.  Similarly, Thomas Edison said that as a boy he had a “distaste for mathematics.” But this did not stop him from becoming one of the most famous scientific inventors of all time. “I can always hire a mathematician,” said Edison, “but they can’t hire me.” Edison was so interested in chemistry that at the age of 13, when he got a job as a newsboy and concessionaire on the Grand Trunk Railroad, he brought a chemistry set aboard so he could do experiments during layovers. Math and science are distinctly different fields, and a talent for one does not imply a talent for the other.  According to professor emeritus Andrew Hacker of Queens College of the City University of New York, less than five percent of Americans will ever use any higher math at all in their jobs, including not only calculus but algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. And less than one percent will ever use calculus on the job. Born in 1929 and holding a PhD from Princeton, Hacker taught college political science for decades and has also been a math professor. His book The Math Myth: And Other STEM Delusions argues that not only college students but high school students should not be required to take algebra, geometry, trigonometry, or calculus at all. Hacker points out that not passing ninth grade algebra is the foremost academic indicator that a student will drop out of high school... Hacker’s larger argument is that both high schools and colleges should switch to teaching more useful types of math that can help students navigate the real world. He says American schools teach basic arithmetic well up to around middle school, but they stop there when they should continue teaching what he calls “adult arithmetic” or “sophisticated arithmetic” rather than veer off into more abstract types of math.  What if, for example, instead of spending months learning about derivatives, quadratic equations, and the interior angles of rhombuses, students learned how to interpret financial and medical reports and climate, demographic, and electoral statistics? They would graduate far better equipped to understand math in the real world and to use math to make important life decisions later on. So, how did calculus become the gatekeeper for majoring in science? In his essay, “Why Defending America’s National Security Requires Calculus and Critical Thinking,” the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin explains that it was the Cold War Space Race against the Soviet Union that ushered in the rise of calculus in American education...  We are now in the Information Age, and preparing students to build rockets is not as essential for the majority of science majors as learning to interpret and prioritize a sea of information. And far more scientific information circulates in the form of statistics than in any form related to calculus. Rubin goes on to illustrate how, in the 1980s, American educators began to suggest that statistics might be more important for the future than calculus, which led to the first AP Statistics exams in 1997. He says a college educator told him that this introduction of AP Statistics “occurred despite the best efforts of ‘the calculus mafia.’” The calculus mafia is, unfortunately, still alive and well today: In 2021, roughly 375,000 students took the AP Calculus AB or BC exams, while only about 183,000 took the AP Statistics exam... Why should passing calculus be required to major in biology any more than passing biology should be required to major in math?  Hacker says one of the most common arguments colleges make for maintaining calculus requirements is that they put “rigor” into the curriculum. But he argues that there is no evidence that calculus involves any unique rigor. To which I would add that the perceived difficulty of calculus is due largely to the way it is taught, which is highly fragmented, abstract, and divorced from its real-world applications. Students often learn very little about what calculus is actually used for. They are taught to memorize long series of steps in which they manipulate symbols and numbers to produce an answer that has very little meaning to them. Even students who pass calculus with flying colors often leave with little understanding of what the purpose of calculus is—which, ironically, is the most important thing they need to know about calculus... the evidence on the history books is that many of the best scientists have struggled with math, from Darwin to Edison to Alexander Graham Bell, Michael Faraday, and E.O. Wilson"

Austrian criminal Josef Fritzl insists on house with basement if released - "Austrian criminal Josef Fritzl, infamous for his incestuous crimes, is reportedly insisting on a house with a basement if he is granted release.  Now 89, Fritzl asserts that he no longer feels comfortable driving, hence the need for a residence near a train line equipped with a basement... Austria's most notorious inmate, now suffering from dementia, has his prison cell cluttered with folders and boxes filled with documents. He insists he would require a cellar to store these items in anticipation of his potential release, reportedly stating: "You know, I have so many files, documents, and memories."  Fritzl has been confined in psychiatric detention in a high-security unit at Stein prison since receiving a life sentence in 2009. He fathered seven children with his daughter Elisabeth while holding her captive as a sex slave in the basement of their family home in Amstetten.  In a strange turn of events, he claimed to be a good father during a parole hearing in January despite having imprisoned his daughter for 24 years. This perplexing statement was made in a letter to the parole board."

Malaysian police rescue 187 children victimized in Islamic business group’s alleged sex abuse ring - "Malaysian police announced that officers rescued an additional 187 children after conducting raids at various locations across the country associated with an Islamic business organization currently under investigation for alleged child sex abuse crimes.  The children were rescued from welfare homes linked to Global Ikhwan Services and Business (GISB Holdings). At least 572 children under the age of 18 have been rescued since the case began earlier this month, National police chief Razarudin Husain said... Of the 187 children who were recently rescued, 59 of them were under the age of 5, police said. Online videos obtained by authorities showed physical assaults on the children, including a young boy being caned and another child getting stepped on. Police arrested 156 additional suspects during the most recent operation, Husain said.  While living at these GISB properties, according to police, children were reportedly sodomized, instructed to sexually assault one another, denied medical care, and burned with hot metal spoons as a form of punishment. Medical screenings revealed that at least 13 children were sodomized, and 172 children sustained long-term emotional and physical injuries.  According to the police, the victims are primarily children of GISB employees who have been confined to their homes since they were infants. They are believed to have been indoctrinated from a young age to be loyal to the Islamic group.  The GISB is dedicated to promoting an Islamic lifestyle in Malaysia and abroad. The group owns mini-markets, pharmacies, restaurants, bakeries, and other enterprises. Its origins can be traced back to the Al Arqam Islamic sect, which was declared heretical and prohibited by the government in 1994.   Police detained members of GISB's senior management, including CEO Narsirudding Mohamad Ali, two of his wives, and two of his children, last week. Additionally, certain relatives of Ashaari Mohamad, who served as the executive director of Al Arqam prior to his passing in 2010, were apprehended, as per the network.  The police chief stated that an estimated 10,000 employees and officials of GISB were believed to be practicing the Al Arqam teachings, and indicated that Islamic authorities have launched an investigation."

“What makes Baba Nyonya descendants less deserving for Bumi status than Indian Muslims?” - "IN the wake of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim stating that applications from Indian Muslims for Bumiputera status would be assessed individually, a netizen has wondered shouldn’t the Peranakan Chinese, too, be accorded a similar status given the Baba Nyonya heritage represents a true ‘assimilation’ of both Malay and Chinese cultures.  Given that they have a distinct culture which is not Chinese nor Malay, ng(Gua+Pi) (@xgpingx) who claims to be from a Luk Kreung ancestry (Siamese and Chinese) reckoned that “forcibly categorising Baba Nyonya descendants as Chinese is a form of cultural genocide”.  “You may not agree with me but you will never change the fact the Baba Nyonya, Sino-Kadazans, the Peranakan Jawi (Straits Indians) and Hokkien Siamese like me have Bumiputera heritage in our blood,” he penned on his X account.   Referring to a Sinar Daily report, ng(Gua+Pi) further claimed that the Peranakan Chinese were stripped of their Bumiputera status as the “Baba” ethnicity status recognised in their birth certificates during the 1940s but was omitted soon after...   Beyond the Baba Nyonya community, ng(Gua+Pi) also shared that there are other ethnicities in Malaysia who are products of assimilation between Bumiputera and the non-Bumiputera ethnics.  Notable groups include:
Kristang (European + Malay)
Jawi Peranakan (Indian + Malay)
Sino-Native (Sabah Dayaks + Chinese)
Sino-Dayak (Sarawak Dayaks + Chinese)
Luk Kreung (Siamese + Chinese...
 This led to a pro-Pakatan Harapan (PH) current issue observer pointing out that little wonder “why some of the second-generation Indian Muslims, Indonesians, Pakistanis or Middle Eastern origin citizens end up having Bumi status due to religion and marriage”.   “But six generations of non-Muslim Malaysians who had worked hard for the country are still treated as second-class citizens,” lamented Hector of Sector 470 (@BigJoe470)."

Restaurant threatening to sue over bad Google review : r/canadianlaw - "People in the restaurant business have famously large egos and can take things very personally, especially since they often go into severe debt and stretch themselves way too thin to keep their business running."