Meme - Soyjak: "I fucking love science!"
"Science says that nuclear power, GM crops, and Glyphosate are safe, stereotypes are usually accurate, IQ is the best predictor of success in life, sex differences are real and innate, populations grouped by ancestry have different average IQs, climate change is not an existential risk, fireplaces and wood stoves cause dangerous amounts of air pollution, unarmed black men are more likely to be struck by lightning than being killed by the police in the US"
Soyjak: *upset*
Meme - Cabot Phillips @cabot_phillips: "The blind community is going to be so touched when they see this"
"Tonight, the @Orioles became the first pro team to wear uniforms with Braille lettering. Awesome. #BiggerThanBasebal!"
Meme - Alexander Kruel: ""This one graph is more informative than most sociology degrees." -- @AporiaMagazine
Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41539-017-0005-6
Height, BMI, Years of Schooling, Cognitive Skills, Socioemotional Skills
Monozygotic, Dizygotic, Full Sibs Together, Full Sibs Apart, Half Sibs Together, Half Sibs Apart, Adoptees
*decreasing correlation as the children become decreasingly related*"
The power of socialisation!
Accused Toronto Mafia boss says he's a victim of anti-Italian ethnic profiling - "Accused Toronto Mafia boss Vincenzo DeMaria says ethnic profiling and anti-Italian stereotypes are behind efforts to deport him from Canada for organized criminal activity."
Structural racism may contribute to mass shootings, study says - "Researchers intended to find whether mass shootings are a consequence of structural racism, which they described as “the normalized and legitimized range of policies, practices, and attitudes that routinely produce cumulative and chronic adverse outcomes for people of color.” They correlated the cities’ Black-White segregation index, demographic data, poverty rates, educational attainment and crime rates. Chicago had the greatest number of mass shootings during that period with 141, which led to 97 deaths and 583 injuries. According to the study, Milwaukee had the highest segregation index, which tracks racial disparities in schools and neighborhoods, while Baltimore had the highest unemployment rate. Cleveland had the greatest income inequality. Researchers said the study did not find a link between income and mass shooting events, but further research may be needed to define how income equality and poverty have an influence in mass shootings."
Association Between Markers of Structural Racism and Mass Shooting Events in Major US Cities - "On linear regression, structural racism, as measured by percentage of the MSA population comprising Black individuals, was associated with MSEs (β = 0.10; 95% CI, 0.05 to 0.14; P < .001). Segregation index (β = 0.02, 95% CI, −0.03 to 0.06; P = .53), children in a single-parent household (β = −0.04, 95% CI, −0.11 to 0.04; P = .28), and Gini income coefficient (β = −1.02; 95% CI, −11.97 to 9.93; P = .93) were not associated with MSEs on linear regression."
Clearly they need more soft-on-crime policies, lowered educational standards, welfare for single mothers
I like how "structural racism" is defined as an area having a higher black population. But really, they wouldn't have been able to put it any other way. If they'd said that areas with more black people had more mass shootings, the paper would either have not been published or it'd have been retracted
This reminds me of Nazi science - the methodology and data seem OK. But the conceptual framework and the conclusions are nonsense
Joey Mannarino on Twitter - "Video from Minneapolis Pride. Even if you vote for Joe Biden, you can't possibly think that having kids watch this man with more hair on his back than his head twerk is appropriate. What kind of man decides that he wants to twerk for children anyway? This is a total stain on the LGBTQ+ community and if they don't remove this stuff from their parades, they want it there."
Damn far right!
Toronto principal bullied over false charge of racism dies from suicide - "Bilkszto’s career as an educator spanned 24 years, in which time he was an advocate for anti-discrimination and public education. Last Thursday, he took his own life. He was 60 years old. His stellar career took on a sour note after he was bullied in a diversity, equity and inclusion training session for Toronto District School Board (TDSB) administrators in 2021, according to a lawsuit Bilkszto filed in court. His sin, in the eyes of facilitators at the KOJO Institute, was his questioning of their claim that Canada was a more racist place than the United States. Canada wasn’t perfect, he said, but it still offers a lot of good. For the rest of the training session, and throughout a follow-up training session the week after, facilitators repeatedly referred to Bilkszto’s comments as examples of white supremacy. The experience was humiliating — particularly because Bilkszto placed a great emphasis on equality and anti-discrimination during his career. Instead of offering support to Bilkszto and protection in these training sessions, the school board distanced itself from him. One colleague, who has since been made an education director in Hamilton, thanked the facilitator for “modelling the discomfort.” A day after the second training session, Bilkszto fell into a mental health crisis so bad that he had to spend more than a month away from work — for which he won a successful workers’ compensation claim for lost earnings. Shortly after his leave began, his association of education administrators asked the board to investigate the bullying incident, but the board refused. When Bilkszto returned to work, the TDSB further refused to reinstate him to the role he was in prior to taking leave; it also revoked a work contract he had been awarded for the upcoming year. Finally, the board disinvited him from attending a graduation ceremony. As a last resort for accountability, Bilkszto launched a lawsuit against TDSB administrators... Bilkszto was anxious over an anticipated backlash over the legal proceedings. The events that unfolded in 2021 weighed on him... Aside from his work as an educator, Bilkszto was an advocate. He was a member of the Toronto chapter of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), an advocacy organization dedicated to civil rights and anti-discrimination, which he took the lead in establishing. In education specifically, he was a member of SOS TDSB, an organization working to preserve the district’s merit-based admissions system for specialty programs (the TDSB recently began using a lottery system to admit students, to the ire of many)... Michael Teper, a representative of SOS TDSB, described Bilkszto’s philosophy as a classical liberal approach — he believed in providing equal opportunities to all, and offering outreach to underserved communities. He opposed the use of “artificial means to produce an equal outcome” and the use of racial stereotyping in hiring and school admissions... There appears to exist a pattern at TDSB of failing to support their own when baseless accusations of racism fly. In 2019, a principal and vice-principal were put on leave after an allegedly racially-charged scuffle between two students evolved into a social media storm. The student responsible was punished with a five-day suspension, but that wasn’t enough — threats still made their way in and the board responded by punishing the principal. The incident was so bad that 14 staff members eventually ended up on leave. Sentence first, verdict afterwards. This March, a parent group accused a TDSB school of locking a six-year-old Black boy in a small room near the principal’s office — resulting in an apology from TDSB and the principal, vice-principal and a teacher was placed on leave. The Ontario Principal’s Council pushed back against the move, challenging the racism narrative deployed by the parent group, which told CTV that it does not second-guess allegations of racism. The council was troubled by the TDSB’s apology, as the investigation was not complete. We can’t know what was on Bilkszto’s mind in the past few weeks. We do know, however, that he was awarded workplace compensation for workplace harassment and bullying. We do know that he was made to feel humiliated before his colleagues. We do know that there is a pattern in education of disciplining staff before a proper investigation into the facts has been completed... Bilkszto’s death is a harsh reminder to all of us that hasty, vitriolic accusations of racism can contribute to real trauma experienced by real people — including those who spent their careers promoting multiculturalism and fighting discrimination. The public sector needs to seriously reconsider its practice of using taxpayer dollars to fund the disruption and confrontation of staff."
Wokeness kills. The woke weaponise allegations of "bullying" when people disagree with them, but they are the true bullies
Naturally, on reddit liberals were sliming the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism as far right and promoting racism
Principal berated for 'white supremacy' sues TDSB over equity training - "While TDSB wasn’t helpful, Toronto School Administrators’ Association and the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) supported his claim... “Based on the information on file, I am satisfied that the conduct of the speaker … was abusive, egregious and vexatious, and rises to the level of workplace harassment and bullying,” wrote the worker’s compensation decision... WSIB’s view was that the DEI trainer intended to “cause reputational damage and to ‘make an example’” of the principal. TDSB didn’t dispute Bilkszto’s recollection of events to the compensation board, nor did it appeal the compensation board’s award (the deadline for disputing the claim has passed). Despite the school board’s lack of support for its longtime principal, TDSB’s statement of claim against the KOJO Institute seems to take Bilkszto’s side. The school board alleges that the DEI consulting firm was negligent and in breach of contract by making Bilkszto feel harassed, humiliated and defamed... the court filings launching these lawsuits paint a picture of how workplace DEI training relies on coercion and ridicule to force employees to bend the knee to a certain set of racialist, sometimes ahistorical, beliefs. Those who don’t comply just might end up in a struggle session."
School principal's death is a stain on the conscience of this nation - "As if that wasn’t enough, Bilkszto was then harangued by superiors for his “white male privilege.”... Meanwhile, other actors in this appalling tragedy thrive. The KOJO Institute appears to have received at least $100,000 from the federal government for offering three courses. But its list of clients reveals its reach to be long and extensive in Canada: TD Bank, the National Ballet School, Loblaws, the Ontario government, the RCMP, the CBC, Rogers, school boards across Ontario, and many others. Corporate Canada and many civil institutions pay out millions to get someone to tell their employees how racist they are. And, unless you are Richard Bilkszto, employees sit there and take it. Sheryl Robinson Petrazzini, the TDSB superintendent who thanked KOJO for “modelling discomfort,” has since gone on to join Ontario’s Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board as director of education. The woke agitators might say that one man’s death means nothing when you are dismantling white supremacy and the patriarchy. But don’t listen to them. Poet and cleric John Donne wrote in the 17th century that no man is an island. “Any man’s death diminishes me/because I am involved in mankind./And therefore never send to know for whom/the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” Richard Bilkszto stood alone. And in the end he couldn’t endure. But what might have happened if one person had stood with him? Just one? It is to be hoped that Bilkszto’s sacrifice serves as an example to others. And if we find ourselves not brave enough like Richard Bilkszto to stand up to the woke zealots, then let us pray we at least find the courage to stand next to people like him. Ask not for whom the bell tolls."
After principal's death, Lecce orders review of school board training | Toronto Sun - "“We are here to talk about anti-Black racism, but you in your whiteness think that you can tell me what’s really going on for Black people?” Ojo-Thompson is alleged to have said in reply. According to the lawsuit, Bilkszto never denied racism is real, that it needs to be dealt with, but he disagreed with the facilitator, Ojo-Thompson, the owner of the KOJO Institute, on her cross-border comparison. The lawsuit alleges that as she and fellow facilitators berated him in front of colleagues, no one from the TDSB spoke up to defend Bilkszto, to keep the discussion respectful, they stayed silent... Bilkszto was never able to regain his position with the TDSB, his regular work reduced to a few days here and there... In the wake of Bilkszto’s death by suicide, there are calls for the Ministry of Education to investigate how TDSB handled this case and the general issue of diversity, equity and inclusion training. The Toronto School Administrators’ Association, representing over 1,000 principals and vice-principals, which supported Bilkszto is leading the charge."
LILLEY: Ontario education system is a mess, needs full overhaul - "Remember, it wasn’t that long ago that the Ford government had to revise a curriculum that taught that math was inherently racist. “Mathematics has been used to normalize racism and marginalization of non-Eurocentric mathematical knowledges, and a decolonial, anti-racist approach to mathematics education makes visible its historical roots and social constructions,” the 2021 curriculum revision stated . When kids aren’t being taught that math is racist, or everyone in history is racist or that they are racist, there are legitimate concerns about gender ideology in the classroom. The idea that we should be teaching young children that gender is fluid, that you can change your gender, before they even fully understand the concept of gender. There are also policies in place at school boards across the province to tell teachers not to inform parents of children, as young as four, who tell a teacher they want to change their gender. The school policy, far too often, is to do what the child wants and exclude the parents. We’ve also had bans on schools allowing police officers into classrooms, especially in uniform, even for kids who wanted to bring their parent for career day. None of these issues are driven by what is best for the students, it’s driven by politics. Education Minister Stephen Lecce has played whack-a-mole in tamping down on some of this craziness but he needs to do more."
Tasha Kheiriddin: Principal's death shows that schools are focusing on the wrong things - "Bilkszto’s story resonates so deeply because it is an incitement of the failure of DEI training to achieve one of its stated goals: inclusion. Instead of making space for all voices, Bilkszto was shut down because of his race. Worse yet, in our schools, this type of “training” is now competing for scarce resources with priorities such as safety and academic performance. Recently in Winnipeg, a school administrator defended his district’s annual spending of nearly $850,000 on DEI programs , saying, “We want our children to be anti-racist because you’re either a racist, or you’re an anti-racist.” In British Columbia, a government official stated that the province’s anti-racism plan for K-12 “is an important part of our work to decolonize our institutions and build a better B.C. for everyone.” But is this “decolonization” and anti-racism education improving interpersonal relations between teachers and students? In B.C., nine in 10 teachers report experiencing violence or bullying on the job. The aforementioned school district in Manitoba, Louis Riel, saw a 263 per cent increase in unsafe behaviour by students last year. In Nova Scotia, 87 per cent of teachers say that school violence has increased since 2018 and over half have been victims of violence or threats. And in Toronto, the TDSB is projected to have its most violent year since it started collecting data in 2000. Meanwhile, student performance is declining. While Canada continues to perform well compared to other OECD countries, between 2000 and 2018, Canada recorded a 14-point decline in standardized reading scores, as well as declines in math and science scores classified as “steadily negative.”"
Clearly, proof that even more anti-racist policies are needed
DEI teacher mocked principal Richard Bilkszto who later killed himself: audio - "An anti-racism instructor was recorded mocking and laughing at a beloved Toronto principal who challenged her teachings — holding him up as an example of white supremacy “resistance”... “One of the ways that white supremacy is upheld, protected, reproduced, upkept, defended is through resistance and, like I said … I’m so lucky,” she said before laughing. “Who would’ve thought my luck would show up so well last week that we got perfect evidence, a wonderful example of resistance that you all got to bear witness to, so we’re going to talk about it, because, I mean, it doesn’t get better than this,” she continued as others chimed in to back her up."
Inside a DEI Training Led by Consultants Who Humiliated School Principal before His Suicide | National Review - "While the recordings of Bilkszto’s encounter have yet to be fully released, National Review obtained more than ten hours of footage from four identical training seminars led by Ojo-Thompson in the neighboring York Region school district just two weeks before her interaction with Bilkszto... a principal in attendance encourages her colleagues to have “the courage to go rogue” and potentially disregard district policy in an effort to dismantle racism... When Ojo-Thompson led that seminar with York Region administrators, she challenged them to consider whether democracy is insufficient to redress racial wrongs... a local principal said Ojo-Thompson’s comments had “illuminated” that “consensus . . . is really problematic.” “What is she saying about democracy? How dare she? Doesn’t she understand what democracy is? How good it’s been to the planet?” Ojo-Thompson says, playing the role of her critics. “Sure, but two things can be true at the same time: Democracy has been helpful in some contexts and, in this context with regards to anti-racist change, organizational change, it is harmful as long as we are continuously working within spaces where the numerical majority does not represent those who are impacted by the experience.”... “People in Canada have a posture of ‘we are better and we’re different.’ The U.S. had slavery and we freed slaves. Well, we didn’t free slaves. We had the underground railroad,” she says before contradicting herself in the next sentence. “But, first and foremost, we had 206 years of slavery.” Ojo-Thompson also falsely claims that Canadian slaveholders were compensated following abolition. Marcel Trudel, a notable Canadian historian, found that barely over 4,000 slaves lived across the vast Canadian expanse between 1671 and 1834 when the practice ended, two-thirds of whom were indigenous. In 1960, just two-tenths of one percent of Canadians were black. By 2021, only 3.5 percent of Canadians identified as black, the vast majority of whom are immigrants or the descendants of immigrants... Ojo-Thompson then explains her carrot-and-stick approach to anti-racism, arguing that those who resist her worldview should be punished while those who embrace it should be rewarded with professional advancement... Ojo-Thompson runs through a cursory overview of slavery before introducing a radically new definition of lynching and accusing the York school district as well as the provincial public education system, more broadly, of “state-sanctioned violence.” “We do lynchings in many, many, ways. Most of you were thinking of a lynching as the noose around neck and hanging from a tree,” she says. “Lynching is anytime you’re coming for a group targeting a group to their demise. And we see that happening in school boards across Ontario. Multiple school boards are lynching African descent people on a regular basis. Slowly little drips and drops of lynchings here and there. That is state-sanctioned violence.” In KOJO’s third seminar, “Whiteness, White Supremacy and Organizational Culture,” the following week, Ojo-Thompson argues that those who question her philosophy or pushback in any way are themselves “bullies.” After one principal in attendance explains how she’s had a hard time convincing her colleagues to embrace anti-racism, Ojo-Thompson suggests that such people are engaged in “anti-intellectualism.”... “Nobody’s holding white people accountable. White people don’t hold white people accountable. Racialized people don’t hold white people accountable,” she says as the session draws to a close. “When it comes to white supremacy and our boards, I mean, our boards are rampant with white supremacy.”"
‘Solidarity with Kike Ojo-Thompson,’ NDP MP defends controversial diversity consultancy - "Hamilton Centre NDP MP Matthew Green defended the controversial “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) consultancy KOJO Institute and its founder Kike Ojo-Thompson, claiming they are being targeted by “right wing media pundits” and “the violence of white supremacy.”... At a pro-DEI press conference held in Hamilton last Friday, Green, who describes himself on X (formerly Twitter) as an “antiracist” and “antifascist,” claimed that “right wing media pundits” are seeking to “weaponize this moment of tragedy against Kike and the KOJO Institute.” Green went on to say that “every single speaker” at the DEI press conference “could have been Kike, could have been the KOJO Institute, could have been targeted by the violence of white supremacy, online and in our communities.” The NDP MP thanked Ojo-Thompson for her DEI work, as well as everyone who has stood in solidarity with her amid the backlash she has received. “Thank you… Kike and the KOJO Institute, and all those who stood in solidarity with her in that moment.” Green also said that Bilkszto’s death will not be allowed to be used as an opportunity “to roll back the decades of hard fought work in our communities,” and that DEI activists “are not going anywhere.” “We will continue to stand firm in the face of the ignorance and the violence that is out there.”... Green is not the only NDP politician to defend DEI amid the ideology and its training being under intense scrutiny. Ontario NDP leader Marit Stiles also urged Ford not to “roll back anti-racism work in schools”... “Anti-racism training directly corresponds to safer learning environments for Black and racialized students. We share in advocates’ concerns that the review of this unfortunate death will lead to a rollback of important equity work underway in school boards across the province. This work includes equity training and having courageous conversations about race”... She added that her party has “long called for a comprehensive anti-racism strategy for schools that addresses and fights anti-Black racism, anti-Indigenous racism, anti-Asian racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism.”"
When you just hate white people
Apparently white people commiting suicide makes the learning environment safer for black students and bullying white people is courageous
Meme - Blue Dog: "Kill pink dogs!"
Pink Dog: "He is not talking about actual pink dogs, its about destroying harnful pink-dog systens of oppression. I am open minded to ideas, i am not a fragile pink dog"
Crescent Moon: "Kill blue dogs!"
Blue Dog: "OH MY GOD! HE WANTS TO KILL ME AND ALL THE OTHER BLUE DOGS"
The left's violent language is always a joke, satire or parody. The right's violent language is always dangerous and proof they need to be arrested
Meme - "THEN
Child sex trafficking rife in Colombia's picturesque Cartagena
The historic city is cracking down on an industry that targets children and young women from poor neighbourhoods
NOW
Sound of Freedom: the QAnon-adjacent thriller seducing America
Jim Caviezel stars as a hero trying to stop child traffickers in a paranoid new movie turning into a surprise box-office"
Wokeness as Saddam Statues: The Case of the Tesla Elevator Operator - "the US military captured a lot of documents from Saddam’s regime, along with recordings of his meetings. And from what I’ve seen of them, Saddam was a lot more interested in the day-to-day working of government than building a personality cult. Stephen Kotkin says something similar in the second volume of his Stalin biography... I would guess many personality cults are created like this. They are emergent phenomena, not the result of a conscious plan coming from the top. Similarly, few regulators and lawmakers responsible for the state of civil rights law intended to create a world where schools are teaching that punctuality and hard work are racist. But by getting government into the field of social engineering and making hurt feelings a matter of law, they set us on the path to modern wokeness... civil rights law is a form of class warfare, in which elites take their preoccupations and hangups about race and enlist powerful institutions to force these standards on everyone else. A black father and son named Owen Diaz and Demetric Di-az (not sure what happened with the last names) worked at a Tesla plant in Fremont, California in 2015 and 2016. They sued the company for racial discrimination, though in the end only the father’s claims made it to trial. Diaz in particular seems to have been a malcontent who couldn’t get along with anyone... Throughout their time at the factory, Hispanic and black co-workers would occasionally use the n-word, though there are no allegations of whites doing so in the record... The entire debate over “cancel culture” revolves around what it is or isn’t reasonable to be offended about. For corporations and non-profits, this is a legal question. But although being too aggressive in rooting out “racism” will never cost you $137 million, being not anti-racist enough might. In addition, notice that that the law depends on what a typical member of the protected class thinks, not any kind of universal standard. If one race or sex is particularly sensitive – or more importantly, if judges and bureaucrats think they are – then this has legal significance. As polling on the word “Latinx” shows, educated liberals often have wrong ideas about the preferences and beliefs of groups they claim to speak for and represent. Corporations therefore aren’t required to be inoffensive to minorities or women, but to the versions of women and minorities that exist in the heads of educated liberals. Given the triumph of wokeness, what made working class Mexicans in California believe that they could use anti-black slurs? Some people reading this might be surprised to learn that the lower classes aren’t as sensitive as they are when it comes to race... I look back at that time, how cool everyone was, and compare it to how contemptibly weak most people I see talking about race in the press or academia are. I sometimes wonder whether the late 1990s was a completely different world, or this is just a class thing, and out there in Real America there are still Mexican and black guys who call each other racial slurs and nobody’s feelings get hurt, that is at least until the lawyers get called in?... racial and cultural differences are such an obvious source of potential tension that you really have two choices. You can either have a culture where everyone is chill about it, or one of hyper paranoia. One poll result I always found fascinating was just how many Americans believe discrimination against whites is as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities. In 2016, 57% of whites, 29% of blacks, and 38% of Hispanics said that it was. This is a view that no one would have dared to express in any college classroom I was ever in. It has absolutely no representation on CNN or MSNBC, and I doubt many writers at National Review would openly say it. Yet 5 years ago it was believed by about half of all Americans!... a feminized and neurotic elite is using the power of government to push its rules and norms onto a lower class with a different cognitive profile... One of the main limiting factors preventing the complete triumph of wokeness seems to be that there aren’t enough lawyers and journalists to make sure the paranoid style of race relations dominates in every workplace and profession in the country. The fact that they tend to focus on the deepest pockets helps explain why the biggest corporations are usually the most woke. Tesla rested its defense on the idea that there could be an environment in which racial slurs were used in a friendly way... Despite Elon Musk being a pioneer in developing green technology, I have a feeling that this is why the elite hate him so much. They sense that he’s too autistic or high testosterone to internalize their rules of conduct, and the kind of guy who would build a mega corporation that might put out a statement implying that the working class has generally gotten race relations right, where elites have failed... They could at least make those rules clear enough to give businesses some certainty going forward, but that would take away the power of judges, bureaucrats and HR professionals to continue to make it up as they go along and instead force them to spell out much of what they would rather leave implicit (i.e., the criminalization of jokes and different standards based on whether one is white, black, or other). If you told businesses all they had to do to be non-discriminatory was to do X, they would all do X and the entire civil rights industry would collapse... The First Amendment won’t let you arrest people for racist cartoons. So civil rights law found a workaround. It doesn’t go after who was most responsible, but instead after those with the deepest pockets, and forces them to be constantly proving that they are not only not racist, but taking whatever steps are necessary to make sure those who are under their control behave themselves. Corporations have the resources and power to civilize the lower classes by forcing them to sit in diversity seminars and adopt the cultural hangups and pathologies of American elites. They can declare certain types of relationships forbidden, and create financial incentives for them to take their racial identities seriously, and assume everyone else does too... If they had fired black people for using the n-word too, would that have helped or hurt them in trying to avoid a lawsuit? It’s difficult to say, and that’s sort of the point."
