Links - 17th February 2024 (2 - General Wokeness)

Cop who made discrimination allegations faced 3 investigations at time of death: Shanmugam - "At the time of his suicide, the late Sergeant Uvaraja Gopal had been facing three ongoing criminal and disciplinary investigations.  Just hours before his death, he made a series of claims against the Singapore Police Force (SPF) in a Facebook post.  Sgt Uvaraja had alleged workplace bullying, the cover-up of police misconduct, unfair treatment and ostracism. He had also claimed to have faced racial discrimination at work.  At the time of his death, Sgt Uvaraja was under criminal investigation for offences under the Penal Code and the Protection from Harassment Act.  He was also under two internal disciplinary investigations for disobeying orders.   In July 2023, he had left his home on multiple occasions despite being on medical leave.  In April 2023, he left his uncompleted work unattended and refused to return to finish it... the authorities investigated Sgt Uvaraja’s claims and found some to be true.  Mr Shanmugam said these allegations have been dealt with...   Internal investigations in 2015 found offensive language had indeed been used by the officers involved, but it was not directed at Sgt Uvaraja... 40 per cent of police officers are from minority races.  In 2019, Sgt Uvaraja claimed that his superior shredded his leave form and uploaded the act to a chat group.  Investigations found that he had applied for discretionary time off, which did not require a submission form. It was not the first time he had applied for time off at the last minute.  Previously, Sgt Uvaraja’s teammates, who were on leave, had to be recalled to cover for him.  Sgt Uvaraja’s superior admitted to shredding his leave form and uploading a recording to the team group chat.  The superior was reprimanded for not behaving professionally, and not managing the situation better.  Investigations found that Sgt Uvaraja’s claims that different superiors had used abusive language against him were not true...   Sgt Uvaraja claimed he was given unfair performance appraisals, which affected his career.  Mr Shanmugam said investigations found this to be untrue as Sgt Uvaraja was given opportunities to apply for postings.  At his request, he was transferred to six different work units in nine years.  Mr Shanmugam said: “Those who know about the police force will know that that is a significant number of postings. This is significantly more than what is normally given.”... Sergeant Uvaraja claimed he was treated as an outcast within his team. In his Facebook post, he claimed nobody from his team attended his wedding.  Investigations found that he had invited only his officer-in-charge, who was unable to attend as he fell ill that day... “Throughout his career as a police officer, he had frequently applied for medical leave for periods that sometimes ran into several months in a year.”... Beyond his health issues, Sgt Uvaraja seemingly had a tense relationship with his wife and family.  Investigations showed multiple police calls were made by them against Sgt Uvaraja between April and July in 2023.  In April 2023, his wife called the police after an argument. She claimed he had stopped her from leaving their matrimonial home.  In July 2023, his brother alleged that Sgt Uvaraja had assaulted him over a financial matter.  In the same month, his mother called the police, saying she feared for her safety. On the same day, his sister-in-law called the police as Sgt Uvaraja had appeared at her home to look for his parents... some officers helped to cover Sgt Uvaraja’s shifts when he was absent, even when they had prior leave plans.  The minister said: “Despite all that, he seemed to have externalised many of his issues onto his colleagues in the SPF. There is considerable sadness at that.”"
The cope will be the investigations were retaliation, and/or that his behavior was justified because he was discriminated against, and/or that his family problems were fabricated to distract from racism
If minorities are disproportionately represented in the Police, isn't that structural racism since there is no racial equity?

Meme - End Wokeness @EndWokeness: "According to Wikipedia: "Kill The Boer" = anti-apartheid song. "White Lives Matter" = neo-Nazi slogan"

MANDEL: What role should race play in sentencing of offenders? - "A Toronto judge who made headlines for giving a light sentence to a Black offender due to systemic racism has just done it again"
Structural racism is good when it benefits "minorities"

Welcome to Dearborn, America’s Jihad Capital - WSJ - "Thousands march in support of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. Protesters, many with kaffiyehs covering their faces, shout “Intifada, intifada,” “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “America is a terrorist state.” Local imams give fiery antisemitic sermons. This isn’t the Middle East. It’s the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Mich. Almost immediately after Oct. 7, and long before Israel began its ground offensive in Gaza, people were celebrating the horrific events of that day in pro-Hamas rallies and marches throughout Dearborn. A local headline describing an Oct. 10 event at the Ford Performing Arts Center read “Michigan rally cheers Hamas attack.” Imam Imran Salha of Dearborn’s Islamic Center of Detroit told the crowd that Israel’s past actions have put “fire in our hearts that will burn that state”—Israel— “until its demise.” In May 2023, Mr. Salha had urged his congregation to say “amen” in agreement with his prayer that Allah “eradicate from existence” the “sick, disgusting Zionist regime.” In October 2022, according to the Washington Free Beacon, his organization received $150,000 in funding from the Homeland Security Department’s nonprofit security grants program. At another rally, held Oct. 14 in front of the Henry Ford Centennial Library, Imam Usama Abdulghani also didn’t hide his support for Hamas’s terrorist actions. The American-born, Iranian-educated Shiite Islamic scholar called Oct. 7 “one of the days of God” and a “miracle come true.” He described the attackers as “honorable.” He said they were “lions” defending “the entire nation of Muhammad the messenger.” Local enthusiasm for jihad against Israel and the West extends beyond celebration of Hamas. The Islamic Center of America, a leading Dearborn mosque, held a memorial service on Dec. 30 for a Hezbollah operative killed in an Israeli airstrike. The Hadi Institute, which runs an Islamic Montessori school and bills itself as a youth community center, held a “Commemoration of the Martyrs” on Jan. 5. This event honored Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, leader of the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq. Both men were on the U.S. list of designated terrorists when they were killed in a U.S. airstrike on Jan. 3, 2020. The commemoration included poetry and praise, along with claims about ISIS being operated by both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Mossad. Imam Abdulghani used his remarks to express his “warmest congratulations” to “our very special leader, Imam Khamenei”—essentially declaring allegiance to the Iranian ayatollah who regularly calls for the destruction of the U.S. Support for terrorism in southern Michigan has long been a concern for U.S. counterterrorism officials. A 2001 Michigan State Police assessment submitted to the Justice Department after 9/11 called Dearborn “a major financial support center” and a “recruiting area and potential support base” for international terror groups, including possible sleeper cells. The assessment noted that most of the 28 State Department-identified terror groups were represented in Michigan. Many current or onetime Dearborn residents have been convicted of terror-related crimes in recent years. Ahmad Musa Jibril is perhaps the most influential English-speaking jihadi sheikh. From his home in Dearborn he promotes holy war to his tens of thousands of followers on Twitter and Telegram. On Oct. 7, the day Hamas slaughtered 1,200 Israelis and took almost 200 hostage, a Twitter account bearing his name retweeted a post that said, “The hearts haven’t been overjoyed like this in so long.” This account also posted a tweet imploring Allah to “purify the land from the aggression of the apes, swines, and hypocrites.” He later recorded a video calling on Muslims in the West to start normalizing the term “jihad” by using it frequently “on your social media, and in the mosques.” He has called President Biden a “senile pharaoh.” Dearborn’s radical politics are complicating Mr. Biden’s path to re-election... Rallies are now also expressing support for the Iran-backed Houthis, who are lobbing missiles at Israel and trying to sink commercial vessels in the Red Sea. What’s happening in Dearborn isn’t simply a political problem for Democrats. It’s potentially a national-security issue affecting all Americans. Counterterrorism agencies at all levels should pay close attention."

Meme - Rep. Elissa Slotkin @RepSlotkin: "Bigotry. Hatred. Anti-Arab and Anti-Muslim. If the headline was about any other minority - with the worst stereotype of that group - it would have never gotten through the editors at the WSJ."
Emily Zanotti @emzanotti: "Look, obviously not everyone living in Dearborn is a terrorist. But back when I I was in college our favorite middle eastern restaurant chain closed because the FBI discovered the owner was using the profits to directly fund Hezbollah and that doesn't happen in every city lol"
If you don't stick your head in the sand, you're racist. The problem is not the jihadists - it's those who point them out
We are still told that liberals don't hate their countries - when they criticise those who point out that jihadists want to destroy the US, instead of the jihadists
The headline wouldn't have gone through if it was about any other minority - because none of them have jihad... Also, the tacit admission that you can slime "majorities" as much as you want is telling

The narcissism of the Britain-bashers - "It has become fashionable in recent years to declare that you are ‘ashamed to be British’. This boast came to the fore during the Brexit debates... Such narcissistic displays of conspicuous compassion are now routine. The political has long been deemed the personal. Current affairs are about me...   Yet beyond such customary self-regard, there is something profoundly weird afoot. There dwells within the #FBPE / Remainiac / liberal mentality something disjointed, incoherent and even pathological. It’s a heady mixture of insecurity, petulance, vainglory, self-abasement and megalomania.  They seem to care and love their country very much, hence their desire to be ‘proud’ of it and their dread of being ‘ashamed’. Yet, simultaneously, they seize any opportunity to talk down and denigrate their country: superficial patriotism is blended with old-fashioned, liberal-left anti-patriotism.   They regard the views of most ordinary Britons with contempt – especially their unfashionable opinions about immigration. They look down with sullen fury on the uncouth mob for objecting to the dysfunctional EU, which still exists in the Remainers’ minds as a utopia.  These people love their country. They just hate the people who live in it. They urge us to love our proverbial neighbours, while hating their real neighbours.  It’s a schizoid mentality"

Ontario adding mandatory Black history learning to Grades 7, 8 and 10 history courses
Too bad for the minorities who are more populous and/or contributed more

Metropolitan Police on X - "While this tweet has been deleted, the claim about flags is still being shared.   The flags in the lower left photo are not those of ISIS.    They are the ‘shahada’ which is a declaration of faith in Islam.  ISIS flags may appear similar but are not the same.    We have specialist officers with knowledge of flags working on this operation to assist with these assessments.   We know the original poster received abuse following our earlier tweet. This is unacceptable. We have intentionally blocked out his name and X handle."
Khaled Hassan on X - "The Shahada and almost an identical flag is used by every Islamist terrorist organisation. If this is something between you and your God, why are you bringing it to a protest? I thought this was about a Free Palestine, not a religious war against Jews????"
Khaled Hassan on X - "I have never been as resentful of British public institutions, celebrities and police as I am today. You see, I have a big fucking problem. I was born a Muslim. I grew up in a Muslim family. My Muslim, Egyptian mother studied at Al Azhar University, the world's oldest Islamic educational institution, and I lived like any other Egyptian Muslim.   Not for once in my fucking life, from the day I was born in 1990 until I left Egypt in 2016, did I see any single Muslim say that there's something called the "shahada" flag. I knew ministers, Imams, and scholars, interviewed terrorists and radicals, and pretty much crossed paths with almost every kind of Egyptian/Arab you could think of. Not one of them ever spoke about a "shahada" flag. Let me tell you why.   The Shahada is a declaration of faith in one Gd, Allah. Understandably, no fucking one carries a flag of it around to show people that they believe in Allah. Why would you? No one gives a shit.   When you are declaring Jihad, however, you wave the banner of Jihad. This is why Bin Laden had the same "Shahada" flag. This is why ISIS had the same flag. So, what do you think? Do you think those waving this flag in London are doing it because they want the bloke next to them to congratulate them for believing in one Gd? Or, is it more likely that, when a Jihadist group, Hamas, is waging war on Jews, they are waving this banner in support of this Jihadist group and Jihad in general?   I can't get my head around this. I am in a situation where I have to either believe the Met police, and dismiss 25 years of firsthand experience of Islam in Egypt, or simply accept that the Met is either horrifically inept or, even worse, spinless. It's like watching someone refer to cancer as a "common cold" when you are an experienced doctor. You're telling them it's fucking cancer, and they're telling you "Nah, mate. It's just a cold. I'll take some paracetamol and I'll be fine".    I had quit smoking for about 3 years before Oct 7th. I am back to smoking now. It's getting absolutely fucking unreal!"

Protests, counter protests and the police removing flags | Mumsnet - "I saw a clip on Twitter the other day of a met police officer (them again) telling a couple of young men with a flag of St George to go away, they were being provocative and taking their flags off them.  They were protesting against the Palistinian protest march. The reason the police gave was that they were being "close to racist"."
We are still told that liberals don't hate their countries. A national flag gets you a verbal warning from the police, but a Jihad flag is defended by them
If the English flag is racist because racists use it, how come the flag jihadists use is okay?

The Whiteness of ‘Toy Story 4’ - "in many ways TS4′s worldview seems like an Eisenhower-era fantasy, a vision of America that might have come from the most die-hard reactionary: lovely if you’re wealthy and white, but alarming if you’re black or brown or gay or a member of any other minority — in other words, more than half the U.S. population. True, there are a few characters of color (including two supporting players voiced by Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele); but each of the leads is Caucasian, and not just the franchise regulars but a host of new ones including a very white fork (Tony Hale) that’s among the more memorable — and merchandisable — creations of this fourth iteration in the series.   As Matthew Cherry, the African American director of animated short Hair Love, recently told The Hollywood Reporter: “When you don’t see yourself represented and you don’t see people with your same type of hair seen as the hero and seen as loving and desired, it really does a number on your self-confidence.”  Nor is it just the near-absence of people of color that’s bothersome. It’s the absence of anything approximating life in America as most of us know it.   TS4’s main family lives in a big, brightly lit house in an ivory utopia; its daughter sleeps in a plush room packed with a U.S. Treasury’s worth of gizmos; they drive around in a gas-guzzling RV, stopping for carnivals and carnies that would be right at home in the 1940s or 1950s. Problems of prejudice, money and unemployment never seem to cross anyone’s mind.   This is a vision of suburbia right out of George Clooney’s Suburbicon (based on the real Levittown, where a black family’s arrival in 1957 led to waves of violence) and it’s set here and now. Not only is it unconnected to reality; it conveys the idea this is what reality should be.   I’d have expected no less in the days when John Lasseter was running Pixar, with his rearguard view of an idealized past that was only ideal if you weren’t black or Hispanic or poor. (He took a leave of absence November 2017 and officially left Disney-Pixar at the end of 2018, but shares story credit on the finished film.) Still, did nobody in the post-Lasseter era — either at Pixar or its parent company, the Walt Disney Co. — pipe up and say, “Hey! This has gotta change”?   Pixar has often repeated outmoded tropes with no visible awareness of doing so, and only occasionally has it gone the other way, as with 2017’s Coco. Take 2006’s Cars: its humor was based on all sorts of foreign stereotypes, inadvertently encouraging the anti-immigrant prejudice that’s now running rampant through the country...   If you’re white and middle-class, as I am, if you drive a nice car and have a safe job, all this may seem moot. But not if you’re the five-year-old, African American girl a friend of mine recently adopted. I was about to give her Toy Story 4 but I’ve changed my mind. Because it sends the worst sort of message for a child like her: you’re an outsider, kept at a distance from everything fuzzy and fun in American life."
When you need to shove politics in everything, and a story is never just a story
What's the race of a toy?
Five year olds are acutely sensitive to racial politics and look up the skin colours of voice actors for cartoons, apparently

What red light cameras may reveal about racial profiling – Chicago Tribune (2015) - "Cameras are ideal because they don’t come with baggage. They’re nonhuman, unbiased entities that have the advantage of being colorblind and yet capable of seeing what police officers see...   Researchers found that 62 percent of the red light violators were white, which was less than the population numbers, and 30 percent of the violators were black, a percentage far higher than the population numbers.  By looking at the red light cameras alone, one might surmise that black folks ran red lights at disproportionate rates. And that police officers would not be engaging in racial profiling if 30 percent of the tickets they gave went to blacks.  But researchers decided to dig deeper... What the team found was that race had nothing to do with who was more or less likely to run a red light. That sounds radical, right?  What mattered more than race was whether the driver lived near an intersection with a red light camera; the size of the driver’s household; how many children were in the home; how many vehicles the driver had; and whether the family lived in poverty.  And the findings were as follows: Drivers who lived closer to red light intersections and had more cars were more likely to run a red light. However, the more people who lived in the driver’s house, the more children he had and the poorer he was, the less likely he was to run a red light.   “We argue that the camera is an unbiased observer,” Eger told me. “It doesn’t know your race, how many kids are in your family. When you take the bias of the individual out, it says what’s most important about the people who run red lights is that those in poverty run red lights less and those with more vehicles run the red light more.”   He said the red light camera isn’t in sync with the human observer and sees something totally different.  “It says blacks don’t run red lights any more or less than anyone else,” Eger said. “What I find is that race has no effect. The county is misinforming me if it says 30 percent of blacks run the red light. But if I look at it from the block level, it says the other stuff matters much more than race.”"
Maybe in 2024 the new line is that red light camera algorithms are racist and catch black drivers more
Too bad when it comes to racial disparities that can be mined by grievance mongers, such detailed analysis is frowned upon. And of course, we are still told that red light cameras are racist
Just because analysis is done at one level but not at another does not mean that it is misinformation
Weird. We are told that red light cameras should be removed because they penalise the poor

NAACP pushes back on traffic legislation due to racial profiling
Red light cameras are racist

‘Biking while black’: Chicago minority areas see the most bike tickets - "As Chicago police ramp up their ticketing of bicyclists, more than twice as many citations are being written in African-American communities than in white or Latino areas, a Tribune review of police statistics has found."

Lucas Lynch | Facebook - "Almost no one actually celebrates Kwanzaa. In 2006 polling showed at best maybe 2.6% of African Americans celebrated it.   I remember growing up it was always liberal white people that were the ones going out of their way to stress it, and little has changed. In the real world, African Americans overwhelmingly celebrate Christmas, and a smaller portion the major Islamic holidays.   It is a reflection of the ability of the radical left, in this case a handful of people associated with the Black power movement, able to convince gullible, liberal, overwhelmingly white people, that they are some kind of ”authentic voice” of their community, when this is in fact a complete fiction."

Swiss writer who called journalist 'fat lesbian' sentenced to 60 days in prison - "A court in Switzerland sentenced a writer and commentator to 60 days in jail for calling a journalist a “fat lesbian,” and the decision is being lauded by LGBTQ+ groups.  On Monday, French-Swiss polemicist Alain Bonnet, who goes by Alain Soral, was sentenced by the Lausanne court for the crimes of defamation, discrimination and incitement to hatred after he criticized Catherine Macherel, a journalist for Swiss newspapers Tribune de Geneve and 24 Heures, in a Facebook video"
Ironic. Does this mean that the court thinks "fat" and "lesbian" are negative terms? Doesn't that "reinforce stereotypes"?

Meme - "WHEN YOU TELL A DEMOCRAT THEY CAN'T HAVE SEXUAL CONVERSATIONS WITH 4 YEAR OLDS IN SECRET *clenched fist/Arthur's Fist*"

Teaching Race in Kindergarten - "Under the colorblind approach, we were taught to view people as individuals, to emphasize our common humanity, and to avoid racial or ethnic generalizations. Under the new racialism, we are told that it is naïve to believe that transcending race is possible in a society where every institution is shaped by past and present racism; therefore, we need to acknowledge, emphasize, and place value on racial categories.  If you want to know how this new racialism manifests in the real world, look no further than Oregon’s Kindergarten 2021 Social Science Standards, which have been updated to integrate “ethnic studies.”... students are expected to be able to “engage in respectful dialogue with classmates to define diversity,” which includes “comparing and contrasting visible and invisible similarities and differences.” Teachers are tasked with making sure that students “develop an understanding of one’s own identity groups including, but not limited to, race, gender, family, ethnicity, culture, religion, and ability.”  Furthermore, students should be able to “make connections identifying similarities and differences including race, ethnicity, culture, disability, and gender between self and others,” “identify examples of unfairness or injustice towards individuals or groups,” and “identify possible solutions to injustices that demonstrate fairness and empathy.”  Reading over these standards, you have to wonder if the people who composed them have actually ever met your average five-year-old. Of course, kids do notice skin color. But skin color is distinct from race. The notion of race carries with it a set of preconceptions about someone’s culture, social class, and history based on whatever categorization we sort them into. The new approach encourages students to reify these stereotypes and groupings rather than treat their classmates as individuals.   Although kindergarteners aren’t literally colorblind, they are quite adept at practicing colorblindness. The typical five-year-old in a kindergarten class is much more interested in making a friend who enjoys the same toys than they are in making assumptions about their peers based on the color of their skin or the religion their family practices... why in the world does the state of Oregon think it’s a good idea to ask children at such an early stage of cognitive development to divide their classmates into sociological categories?   A five-year-old isn’t a social scientist. If you tell them that their skin color places them at a certain level in a social hierarchy, they’re likely to become anxious and afraid—especially towards classmates who check different identity boxes. There is a danger that children will come to identify strongly with racial labels and start segregating themselves based on them. Although there isn’t a lot of research on the impact of preaching racial categorization to such young children, we do know that viewing people as individuals is one of the best ways to counter stereotypical thinking. The Princeton psychologist Susan Fiske, who studies stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination, told me exactly this when I reported on her research in 2019. “It’s just much harder to view someone through the lens of a stereotype—good or bad—when you start to imagine their individual mind,” she said.   Oregon’s approach does just the opposite... If students choose to identify strongly with a racial or religious group and make that part of their identity as they age, so be it. But schools should not encourage impressionable kids to see themselves as defined by, and inseparable from, these categories. That’s not education. That’s indoctrination."

Succinct summary of the Israel-Palestine Conflict

Hillel Fuld on X

I often wonder what a conversation between a Hamas supporter and their child would look like…

Daughter: “Dad, where you going?”

Dad: “Going to a rally for an important cause.”

Daughter: “Cool. Can I join?”

Dad: “Probably not a good idea…”

Daughter: “Why not?”

Dad: “People get violent in these marches…”

Daughter: “That’s weird. Why are you supporting violence? I thought you taught me that violence is bad. What is this rally about?”

Dad: “I am marching for the Palestinians and their resistance against Israel and its racist government.”

Daughter: “Wait, I’m confused. I saw videos of Hamas, the organization that governs the Palestinians, murdering families, burning babies, and raping women. Is that who you’re marching for?”

Dad: “Well, yea, the Israelis have been oppressing the Palestinians for 75 years. This is the result.”

Daughter: “Dad, I’m really confused. Are you actually telling me you support those horrible acts? Would you support them if I was the one being raped?”

Dad: “Well, it’s not so much about me supporting Hamas as it is about protesting the state of Israel.”

Daughter: “What did Israel do that you’re so angry at them?”

Dad: “They stole land. From the Palestinians.”

Daughter: “Got it, got it. Makes sense. So they occupied an Arab state called Palestine?”

Dad: “Yep. Now you’re starting to get it.”

Daughter: “Cool. Cool. Tell me about this Arab state. When was it established?”

Dad: Crickets

Daughter: “Um… Was there an Arab state called Palestine? There must have been…”

Dad: “It’s not about a state. Israel ethnically cleansed the land from Arabs.”

Daughter: “But aren’t there millions of Arabs living in Israel, serving in the army, the parliament, the courts, and all other parts of Israeli society? What do you mean they kicked all the Arabs out?”

Dad: Crickets

Daughter: “Ok, I’m just trying to understand. There was never an Arab Palestinian state and no one kicked the Arabs out? So what are you marching for?”

Dad: “Ok, so they didn’t kick ALL the Arabs out; but they did kick many of them out of their homes.”

Daughter: “They just decided one day to kick them out?”

Dad: “No, the UN gave the Jews a state and the Arabs a state. The Arabs attacked the Jews and rejected the UN’s offer.”

Daughter: “So they attacked Israel and lost and then Israel took land?”

Dad: “Exactly! See how evil those Jews are?”

Daughter: “Didn’t we do the same thing in our country? Didn’t every country do that at some point in their history?”

Dad: Crickets

Daughter: “Besides, dad, where does the word Jew come from? Isn’t it from the word Judea, which we now call the West Bank? Weren’t the Jews always there? How can someone steal land that’s already theirs?”

Dad: Crickets

Daughter: “Dad, I’m sorry for all the questions. You always taught me to use critical thinking. I’m just really confused. So let me get this straight. The Jews, who were systematically murdered by Hitler in Europe were granted a state by the UN. The Arabs were too. Israel accepted, the Arabs rejected and attacked, and lost? Then Israel took land that was historically theirs, let Arabs live freely in their country, and were cruelly massacred on October 7th? And you’re going to march in support of that?”

Dad: Crickets

Daughter: “Please help me understand because I know you’re not a violent person so how can you march in favor of Hamas? Aren’t they terrorists?”

Dad: “Because Israel is committing genocide! They are killing tens of thousands of innocent people in Gaza. They are attacking indiscriminately.”

Daughter: “Oh, that makes sense. I’d love to examine the numbers. How many innocent people did Israel kill and how many terrorists? Also, what’s the source of the numbers?”

Dad: “Oh, they killed tens of thousands of innocents. Not sure about terrorists. The source? Hamas.”

Daughter: “Wait, what? You’re quoting Hamas, a terrorist organization, who says that every person Israel killed was innocent? So, according to the numbers you’re quoting, Israel killed zero terrorists? That doesn’t sound right.”

Dad: Crickets

Daughter: “Doesn’t Israel drop pamphlets and send messages to the innocent people to evacuate before attacking? Did we do that in our last war? If Israel warns the population before attacking, how can you say they’re killing indiscriminately?”

Dad: Crickets

Daughter: “So you’re going to march in solidarity of a group that raped women and beheaded babies because you’re protesting a state that was established legally, was attacked, won, built the only democracy in the region, let Arabs live peacefully, and has done everything to make sure innocent people aren’t killed in their attacks?”

Dad: “Well, now that you put it that way, it sounds bad, but Israel is a racist state that needs to given to the Arabs from the river to the sea.”

Daughter: “What river? What sea?”

Dad: Crickets

Daughter: “So where should those Israelis go once you give away their only country?”

Dad: “They should go back where they came from.”

Daughter: “Where is that?”

Dad: “Europe.”

Daughter: “All Jews in Israel came from Europe? Aren’t there Sephardic Jews who didn’t come from there? Aren’t there Jews who came from the East? Aren’t there Jews from Iran, Yemen, and Morocco? Also, weren’t those Jews kicked out of Europe, Iran, Yemen, and Morocco? You’re saying they should go back to the countries from which they were exiled? I’m not following.”

Dad: Crickets

Daughter: “I don’t mean to question you, Dad. I know you’re a moral person so help me understand what you’re going to this march for…”

Dad: “I’m calling for a global intifada and a ceasefire.”

Daughter: “A global intifada? One second, let me Google that. It says that intifada means a violence uprising. It says that in the last intifada, Arabs blew themselves up in the streets and murdered people on buses and in restaurants.. Is that what you’re calling for?”

Dad: “Well, that, and a cease fire…”

Daughter: “🤔 Aren’t those two things contradictory? A violent uprising and a ceasefire? How can you support both?”

Dad: Crickets

Dad: “Israel needs to stop attacking Gaza. They’ve caused massive destruction to a place that was previously beautiful!”

Daughter: “Didn’t you tell me a few months ago that Gaza was an air prison and that the Israelis are occupying Gaza, which is already an impossible place to live? So which one was it? An air prison or a beautiful place?”

Dad: Crickets

Daughter: “Sorry dad, I’m just trying to understand. What did Israel do wrong? Why are you going to march in protest of Israel?”

Dad: “The Palestinians deserve a state! You should learn to always fight for the underdog.”

Daughter: “Oh! That makes total sense. The Palestinians should have a state. But, dad, didn’t they have one in 1947? Didn’t Israel offer them a state over and over? Didn’t Israel leave Gaza in 2005 so that they can build a state? I’m confused. Also, how come the Palestinian leaders never talk about this state? Why are they always talking about killing Jews? Do they even want a state? I’ve never heard one Palestinian leader talk about the two state solution. All I hear is from the river to the sea. Do they want a state or do they want no Israel?”

Dad: Crickets

Daughter: “Dad, you know I love you but this is all really confusing to me. It seems you’re going to march in favor of a terrorist organization and in protest of a country that has done everything to achieve peace. It seems to me that the Palestinians want to annihilate the Jewish people and the Jewish people, after thousands of years of persecution, just want to live in peace. Why are you going to this march? It seems to be the opposite of everything you’ve ever taught me? Can you explain so I can understand?”

Dad: “You’re being fresh. Don’t mouth off to me. Go to your room. You’re grounded.”

Daughter: “🙄🥹🤔”

How did I do?

Links - 17th February 2024 (1)

Meme - "I disagree, the hateful laugh react is one of the worst things you can do to somebody. You are not only insulting them but also not taking them seriously, thus undermining their whole being."
Someone: *laugh*
"Thanks for solidifying his point"
Someone else: *3 laughs*

Tanner Watkins' Alleged "Facebook Laugh React" Murder - "Tanner Watkins' Alleged "Facebook Laugh React" Murder refers to 21-year-old Sikeston, Missouri resident Tanner Watkins allegedly shooting and killing 18-year-old Isiah Fitzgerald in April 2023, purportedly because Fitzgerald laugh-reacted to his Facebook photo, which was a selfie of Watkins and his girlfriend Alissa Musgrove"
Man acquitted of all charges in Sikeston Rotary Park shooting - "Tanner Watkins, 20, was acquitted on Wednesday, December 13 of all charges against him related to the April 25 shooting at Rotary Park in Sikeston... "As Tanner was leaving the park after having been shot at by the Morgan brothers, he realized that his brother’s car was not moving and was still being shot at by the Morgan brothers. It was only at this point that Tanner stopped his vehicle, stood in the open park drawing the fire off his brother’s car and onto himself, and then returned fire (with a gun that was always in his vehicle) to save his brother’s life and the life of his brother’s passenger. The actions of Tanner Watkins that day to save his brother’s life were selfless and heroic, not criminal”  “In addition, the evidence presented at trial failed to prove that Tanner actually shot either of the victims,” Oliver said. “It appeared from the evidence presented at trial that the victims were in fact inadvertently shot by the Morgan brothers as they wildly sprayed the park with bullets.”  “This case and the actions of Tanner Watkins that day was a clear lawful use of self-defense and defense of another,” he continued. “Anyone put in Tanner’s unfortunate position would have done whatever was necessary to save the life of his brother and his friend.”"

Woman who lost memory had to fall for her boyfriend twice - "It has taken a lot more than a love letter or bunch of flowers to win Jessica Sharman’s heart. She lost her memory following seizures one day last March. Jessica had no idea who family and friends were — or boyfriend Rich Bishop. He has since had to slowly woo her all over again.  Her memory has still not returned and Jessica, 20, has had to gradually get to know her parents and 25-year-old Rich from scratch...   When her confidence started to return in September, she got a call center job.  She says: “I was starting to leave the house more. People I’d known for years would approach me and start chatting. It was stressful admitting I had no idea who they were. It’s hard to explain losing 19 years’ experiences — and doctors say I may never get these back. I’ve had to relearn everything about those close to me — and doctors say there’s a 50 percent chance I could lose my memory all over again. But Rich was able to make me fall in love with him twice — so I know he could do it again.”"

Meme - "I visited a gun shop in Indiana once and had to use the bathroom; inside was a portrait of a naked man with a thick wooden board covering where his private part would be. Curiosity got the best of me and I tried to lift the board. It let off an air horn throughout the whole store"

Meme - Roshan Patel: "just got this resume ???
VO2 Max: 52 ml/kg/min, T-Level 900 ng/dL: Sperm COunt: 800 million"

Amish men ‘shunned’ after nationwide emergency alert outs them for having phones - "Members of the Amish community have been “shunned” by their church after the recent test of an emergency alert system outed them as having procured forbidden mobile phones."

Meme - "Aktion
-EWOCLEM-
Gummi. FUSSMATTE (Welcome mat)"

Meme - "Being a amber heard supporter is harder than being in the military"

CCU football coach responds to controversial Hawaii trip photo - "Coastal Carolina University's head football coach is responding after the team deleted a tweet showing him posing shirtless with the school's dance team in Hawaii... Coach Tim Beck is standing on the beach with Chauncey the Mascot and the dancers, all in teal bathing suits."

Reviewed Work: Foundations of Economic Analysis Paul Anthony Samuelson Review by: Kenneth May - "Paul Samuelson deservedly enjoys a high reputation among economists. Foundations of Economic Analysis reflects its author's competence in both economics and mathematics, and underlines the fact that a thorough training in the latter is prerequisite to dealing effectively with the former. The book is an essential for the serious student of contemporary economic theory. Whether or not contemporary economic theory has much to offer the non-specialist is another question, of course, and there is much in Samuelson's book to support a negative answer. In spite of its rather broad title, the book is concerned almost exclusively with formal mathematical structure, and, moreover, primarily with the formal foundations of only a limited sector of economics- mar- ginal statics and comparative statics. The late Leo Rogin once remarked that this type of theory reminded one of a painstaking scientific description of a unicorn, except that a unicorn is more like a horse than marginal theory is like the real world... By assuming that the old and new situations are both optimum equilibria, i.e., situations determined by a maximization (e.g., of profits) or a minimization (e.g., of cost), one can deduce theorems about the nature of the changes, provided these are not too large. This last limitation suggests the facetious definition of comparative statics as the study of what happens when nothing of importance happens...  the Foundations contains an implicit basic critique of orthodox theory which is as significant as its contributions in the field of unification and exposition. The work as a whole seems to strongly support the thesis that orthodox theory is by and large little more than a ritual with more emotional and political than scientific content, a ritual in worship of an undefined entity- free enterprise. There is even an explicit hint of this idea in the following quotation from the chapter on welfare economics: "Perhaps the bourgeois penchant for laissez-faire is the only case on record where a substantial number of individuals have made idols of partial derivatives, i.e., imputed marginal productivities""

Delts Don’t Lie - "In 1925, artist Bryson Burroughs analyzed Michelangelo’s draft drawings for the Sibyl and noted that the artist used a male model in depictions of her mostly unclothed body. On one side of the paper is a male figure with a hyper-muscular backside, the sort that might be expected in a portrayal of Hercules. But there’s empty space where the figure’s hair should be, as “nothing would have been gained by drawing the hair of this model in a study which was to serve for a female figure.” The reverse of the same sheet shows a pair of female legs. The final fresco is a sort of male-female chimera, something that Burroughs calls “beyond sex—beyond mankind.”  While The Libyan Sibyl is a popular example of this phenomenon, Michelangelo built a minor reputation for using male models to depict women in a manner that art historian Jill Burke has likened to “men with breasts.” In his Doni Tondo, the Virgin Mary’s biceps bulge as she lifts baby Jesus into the air, and the breasts on the sculpture Night look like a misshapen afterthought. It would have been scandalous for many women in Renaissance Italy to pose nude, but many scholars argue that these mores fail to offer sufficient explanation for the ongoing androgyny in Michelangelo’s oeuvre. Raphael and contemporaneous masters similarly used male models as the basis for many female figures, yet, as Raphael’s St. Catherine of Alexandria demonstrates, the artist nevertheless drew a classically feminine portrayal (compare Raphael’s work to Michelangelo’s depiction of the saint).  Pockets of Michelangelo’s artwork show that not all of his women possessed overt male qualities. He drew a female nude in preparation for his painting of the Entombment, and one need look no further than his sculpture of the Pietà to be persuaded that he could depict a woman with feminine attributes very convincingly. Instead of being for the sake of propriety or tradition, Michelangelo likely used male models and created masculine depictions intentionally... the next question is why?  Historian Yael Even explores this question with Renaissance-era patriarchy in mind. First, she considers the possibility that Michelangelo preferred male bodies over female ones because he found them more beautiful. While some scholars suggest this could be a reflection of the artist’s sexuality, it could also be a reflection of the time—women were commonly considered physiologically inferior to the “perfect” male form. The preference could also be because a lot of Michelangelo’s work was created for a completely-male audience. The Libyan Sibyl, for example, was created for the Sistine Chapel, a site of papal activity. Even also considers the possibility that Michelangelo inherently associated masculinity with power...   The use of masculinity to connote power goes further back in art history than the Renaissance. Athena offers an example from the ancient world. The Goddess of war and wisdom is seldom depicted in the same sensuous style as her sister Aphrodite, the Goddess of love and fertility...   A second (not mutually exclusive) possibility for Michelangelo’s practice was the growing popularity of androgynous depictions in circles of Renaissance Italy. After all, this was the era when humanist Mario Equicola wrote that, “the effeminate male and the manly female are graceful in almost every aspect.” Just as Michelangelo gave some of his women bulging muscles, other artists gave men younger, more effeminate faces and hips... Art historian Maya Corry argues that androgyny’s popularity in some circles was in part due to the era’s obsession with harmony between disparate elements, such as the balance of the four humors in the body or the balance of a figure’s body weight in the contrapposto pose.  In addition, androgynous figures bear a more religious, devotional undertone. Angels are unsexed in Christian thought"
Bizarrely, there was some trans ideology injected into the article after publication. Sadly, I can't find the original

Phone Numbers Were Never Meant as ID. Now We’re All At Risk | WIRED - "The use of phone numbers as both lock and key has led to the rise, in recent years, of so-called SIM swapping attacks, in which an attacker steals your phone number. When you add two-factor authentication to an account and receive your codes through SMS texts, they go to the attacker instead, along with any calls and texts intended for the victim. Sometimes attackers even use inside sources at carriers who will transfer numbers for them. "The issue being exposed with SIM swaps is that if you control the phone number you can take over the authenticator... Numerous undertakings have explored these problems, but past projects have faced inertia in working to implement changes. Again, look to credit cards; the international community used chip and pin for decades before the US finally transitioned over in 2015. And the US still didn't adopt PINs, opting for less secure signatures instead.  Substantive change likely won't come unless the government mandates it."

Meme - "IF LUCIFER WAS ABLE TO INCITE A REBELLION IN HEAVEN THAT MEANS JEALOUSY, ENVY, DECEPTION AND VIOLENCE CAN EXIST THERE, DESPITE THE PROMISE OF A PERFECT PARADISE."

CTV Question Period on X - "How should Canada prepare for another potential Trump presidency?  @Scaramucci  says Trump “will be an antagonist to your leadership” in part because “he’s very jealous of Prime Minister Trudeau. He’s younger and way better looking than the President.” #cdnpoli"
Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 on X - "Rebel News just spent a week scrumming oligarchs at the World Economic Forum. CTV is gossiping with a C-list celebrity who last saw Trump in 2017. It makes me laugh when they say we’re not real journalists."

Meme - Joe Wettlaufer: "THATS IT!! I will never help anyone again......EVER! I'm too kindhearted, or I'm too naive.... Yesterday it was so cold out that I took a man into our home, out of the kindness of my heart. I felt so sorry for him, poor thing was standing stiff and frozen out in the cold, but this morning he had just vanished. Not a word...not even a goodbye or a thank you for sheltering him. The last straw?!?! When I realized he had peed all over the floor! That's the “thank you” I get for being good to people?!?!?! Now I'm going to warn my friends to watch out for this man! He is heavy-set, wearing nothing but a scarf, he has a carrot-like nose, two black eyes, and his arms are stick skinny. Don't bring him into your house! What a mess he made on the floor.
Update: apparently he goes by the name of Frosty and has been spotted in numerous neighborhoods. Again, DON'T bring him inside no matter how cold he looks!"
What a monster! This is what's wrong with the world - no one wants to help anyone else! /s

Meme - "When people ask me why I'm always snacking on something
Cookie Monster: "Without my cookies, I'm just a monster.""

Meme - tia @dontfacetimeme: "my grandma was in the hospital but children weren't allowed to visit so my brother sat me on his shoulders with a long coat & we walked by security liked this. The nigga laughed n did not stop us"

Meme - "Bert was unimpressed that Ernie's "big surprise" was a run-of-the-mill knob job, but all of that changed when Ernie quickly pulled a tarantula hawk out of a specimen jar in his back pocket and pressed it against Bert's throbbing gans. The multiple stings drove all conscious thought from his mind and submerged him into a white- hot sea of agony. There was no Ernie, no house, nothing but pure, unadulturated pain and screams. When it finally subsided, Bert found himself covered in ropey strands of semen. His balls ached, not from the venom, but from blowing his load like a geyser at least a dozen times while he was out."

Meme - @Woccwontmiss: "This is still the craziest interaction on Twitter"
"I look so chinky and ugly with no lashes"
"Omg Girl Same I Look So Niggery and Ugly Without Mine"
Damn anti-blackness!

Meme - "Danby 36
If you have Asian fever, I'm perfect for you. If you don't, you will have it by our first date.
-NYC M&A attorney"

Meme - "THiS is soME GAY SHIT HIGHT HERE."

Video | Facebook - ""𝐔𝐩𝐭𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐤" - 𝐊𝐲𝐨𝐭𝐨 𝐓𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐚 𝐒𝐇𝐒 𝐁𝐚𝐧𝐝 - 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑"

Meme - "When you try to make Halloween Eyeball Cookies, but end up with a pile of titties!"

I decided to rent with an Indian family and I now regret it. : SingaporeRaw - "1. The inconsiderate attitude I can’t seem to do my laundry peacefully without it smelling like they’re cooking the next day. It’s seeps into every fibre of your clothes and you have no choice but to rewash everything, everytime. Even after multiple conversations, it’s always “that’s how our food smells like”. I’m not asking you NOT to cook, but just be considerate given I have one day in a week to wash my clothes!
They even wake up at 5.30am and use a blender. A fkn blender and pressure cooker which lets out a PSSSH sound every 30 seconds. There are days I’m awaken to spices getting fried entering my room.
2. Care for the house Since I’m renting a room, i also have to use the communal spaces. They leave their dirty dishes for hours, they don’t use the range hood and there are ants in all corners of the house. If I was the landlord, the state I’m taking this house back is going to be a write off.
I don’t know if what I’m experiencing is normal but they aren’t exactly uneducated or poor. They are both white collar professionals with big companies. How tf do they treat and live like this?!"
"I once asked an expat Indian about what he thought about landlords who asked for more rent from Indian tenants  He completely understood it was because Indians love to cook and their cooking smells strongly  He had no problems with paying more for the privilege of cooking his cuisine. I thought that was an extremely reasonable take."
"Sg Indian here. The main issue is the frying of spices in oil. Especially cumin. That thing is demonic.  Not every household does this. There's healthier Indian food that doesn't produce that strong smell. The style of cooking matters as well. If the person is doing a lot of frying and burning spices then it's going to be a nightmare. If you look at other culture cuisine, there's usually a few items that can have an overwhelming smell. Things like shrimp paste and fish sauce get similar complaints.  Ultimately, it's about being considerate and hygienic. Use proper ventilation, use the cooking hood, be aware of what spices are more pungent, clear away the oil, clean the floors/walls etc..  I know the struggle cause my dad LOVES that kind of cooking. I'm talking using up a bunch of oil that sticks to the floor. Fortunately I get him to cook only once a week so that I can clean and maintain my house properly. My mom on the hand, is extremely considerate and cleans up immediately after cooking. So you barely notice a thing.  All this is to say that it depends. I have relatives who are extremely hygienic and you won't smell a thing in their homes, but there are also families that are unhygienic. It's up to you if you want to vet and bring up the cooking/smell topic, or whether it's better to just avoid it altogether and stick to people of a similar culture. Either way, all these are things that will help you make a better choice next time."
"There's a reason stereotypes exists"
"I never believed in stereotypes until I experienced them ."
"Theres a reason the open minded and liberal types are young... the older and more experienced they get, the more likely they come across shit like this haha."
"I was also young and naive once, I thought that the old folks were just being racist and xenophobic by saying bad things about having motherland indians as colleagues. But holy shit after working with them for years (tech sector lol), I've also become racist and xenophobic against the motherland...
Agree to everything, but never get it done in the end
zero work quality. Requirements says need 5 things, only 2 gets implemented. The rest need to be at testing state then point out "eh why not in"
send meeting invitation to one fella, suddenly the whole village is invited, and none of these extra fellas have any input
work hours from 11am till 4pm India time. Except they are still out for lunch at 12 till like 2, and 3pm still go tea break
send an email asking for 2 things, only respond to the first thing in the email
hiring from own village, like literally flying people in from the motherland instead of hiring locally (the company I was in actually got in trouble with MOM twice for this while I was working there)
sexist, which sucks when your manager is from there. And caste-ist also, have seen them pick on local Indians cause local Indians tend to be decended from South India and all these clowns are North Indians
These are the main grievences lah. As people, they are nice people, friendly and good to have drinks with. But holy shit working with them is a nightmare."
"Worst people to work with. They can talk till cows come home, and at the end of the day, they don't know what they are supposed to do as the SME. I'm in tech sector."
"The absolute worst scenario is if you got PRC cooking mala and then Indian cooking back to back. Landlord would kiss their kitchen goodbye"
"It’s not racist when people don’t want to rent to Indians. My father is a property agent and he said once you rent to an Indian you can’t rent to other races in the future. The smell sticks to the walls and you can’t get rid of it. Indians are only like 10% of the population, it’s hard to find another Indian tenant once previous one moves out, and you end up losing thousands in rental income."
"Im Singaporean indian ,i also dont want to rent out to indians .Come to sg ,think hell of themselves.I rented out to 2 different couples, always showing bad attitude ."
Damn racism!

Desi cooking - How to deal with post-cooking odor in the air? : ABCDesis - "I am hoping to take a break from dating threads to seek advice for a more mundane problem. I love cooking desi food frequently (every other day usually). My apartment smells fantastic while cooking, but a few hours after that, the lingering masala smell is not very pleasant. It's not too bad in the summer/fall when I can open the windows and air the condo out, but not so great in the winter. What are a few cheap ways to get rid of the smell? I have tried the following -
Febreze - The mix of masala and febreze was even grosser
Activated Charcoal bags all around the condo to absorb odor - Not very effective
Fans everywhere - Moderately effective, but it takes forever for my condo to smell fresh
Incense - Moderately effective, but the smell of burning incense is pretty strong too
What are your/your parents' magic tricks to deal with this?"
"Place a glass bowl of vinegar close to your cooktop."

Ways to reduce the smell of cooking in house? : IndianFood

Sathi AD NR Balasingam's answer to How do I eliminate the Indian food odour at home? - Quora - "There are many suggestions for eliminating or reducing curry odour in Western style homes. The suggestions centre around the use of lemon peels, cinnamon, vanilla and more importantly vinegar ."

India’s Food-Security Problem Is Also the World’s - WSJ - "At present, the government sets price floors for two dozen crops, guarantees purchases of certain agricultural products, and provides subsidies to farmers for fertilizers, electricity and transportation. All that might seem positive for food security, but on net it probably hampers investment and food supply growth. Price floors mean that supply might sometimes exceed final buyers’ willingness to pay during slow times, leading to wastage. And restrictions on exports artificially depress domestic prices when global demand is hot.  The government’s own investigations have found that Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee laws, which regulate the trade of farmers’ produce by providing licenses to buyers, commission agents and private markets, lead to cartelization and reduced competition... India’s creaky agriculture infrastructure also needs work. According to the U.S. International Trade Administration, poor infrastructure in India is responsible for post-harvest losses of up to 40% for certain products.   Unfortunately, reforming the food-pricing system is politically perilous. Previous attempts to change domestic agricultural marketing regulations have been met with stiff resistance from farmers and political opponents, and coming general elections make any immediate relief unlikely."
Of course, the left will propose more regulation, and support Indian farmers trying to maintain protectionism, all while trying to ruin Western farmers

Meme - "This is some gay shit *rainbow coloured turd*"

Meme - "Invented everything" *pyramids with jets, and Egyptian garb*
"Whitey stole it!" *sailing ships*
*mud huts* "Cant invent again"

Meme - "With heartfelt sympathy
I'm sorry for your loss
Sending you warm thoughts and wishes right now for whatever will help you through this difficult journey
my last day will be September 20th"

Meme - "Lemme tell you a story. My Elf rogue once got a ring of anti-magic as a reward. It projected an anti-magic field so small it was only useful for picking magical locks. With my remaining gold, I bought 5 tons of cannonballs. Then I asked our party mage to shrink them. I treated the cannonballs as if they were bullets for my flintlock rifle. Here’s the kicker - I fitted the anti-magic ring at the end of my rifle barrel. Guess who now has a Ship Cannon as a portable weapon.
The DM:"

Meme - Square: "OH NO! THE HOLE Is A CIRCLE BUT I AM A SQUARE. HOW WILL I EVER FIT IN??"
Circle: "You COULD JusT GO IN SIDEWAYS."
Square: "YOU COULD JUST SHUT UP AND LET ME BE SPECIAL."

Links - 16th February 2024 (2 - George Floyd Unrest)

Change.org Removes Petition to Fire 'White Lives Don't Matter' Prof - "A petition to fire Cambridge professor Priyamvada Gopal, who was promoted after tweeting that “White Lives Don’t Matter. As white lives”, has been removed by Change.org after receiving over 20,000 signatures...   More than 20,000 people had signed a Change.org petition calling for her to be fired for what it described as “racist and hateful” statements — before it was taken down.  The professor had claimed she was “not personally especially fussed” by the petition — describing the comments attached to it as “a wonderful tale of white supremacy triggered”...   The professor also appears in a list of users who ‘liked’ a tweet thanking her for for “taking the fight to the #patriarchy and the whites” and branding them “a disease that needs to be cleansed from the earth, starting with decolonising their books”...   The legality of such messages in the United Kingdom, which does not enjoy the same constitutionally protected free speech rights as the United States, is questionable. There are several examples of people being convicted for sending messages deemed “grossly offensive” under the Communications Act of 2003 — with YouTube comic Markus Meechan, aka Count Dankula, being one of the most (in)famous.  Thousands of people petitioned for a British Free Speech Act in 2018, but it was rejected by the Tory government — then led by Theresa May — on grounds that “freedom cannot be an excuse to cause harm or spread hatred.”  Cambridgeshire Constabulary have indicated that it is their position that Professor Gopal’s tweet, specifically, “does not constitute an offence” — but they are “investigating all reports into the racist and threatening abuse that Professor Gopal has suffered”."

Black Lives Matter: Book judge axed over Twitter remarks - "The Western Mail's chief reporter has been asked to step down as a Wales Book of the Year judge over his comments about the Black Lives Matter protests.  Literature Wales said Martin Shipton's "aggressive language" was "detrimental" to the organisation's values.  Among dozens of tweets sent in response to several people, Mr Shipton asked why the demonstrations were being allowed to take place during lockdown. He said he was not asked to explain his comments.  "After expressing my concerns about the Black Lives Matter protest in Cardiff, which undoubtedly broke the Welsh Government's prohibition on public gatherings of more than two people, I was subjected on Twitter to a vicious tirade of abuse and bullying that lasted for days," he said. "Many of the tweets questioned my right to express an opinion, called into question my credentials as a journalist and attacked me on the basis of my age... The disease, he said, had taken "many more lives than the Minneapolis police."  "I just don't see what value there is in holding a demo in front of Cardiff Castle about the murder of a black man in Minneapolis," he tweeted.  "It's politically naive and virtue signalling". Mr Shipton insisted in the tweets he was not condoning police brutality, but had "been demonstrating my membership of the awkward squad by taking on some woke, group-think dogmatists"."
From 2020
Pointing out left wing hypocrisy is dangerous. The only thing that got the left more excited than covid was racism
Left wingers complain about "harassment" when people disagree with them online. But when they abuse those they disagree with, this is just "accountability"

Stu Peters: Manx Radio presenter cleared over Black Lives Matter comments - "A Manx radio presenter who questioned the issue of "white privilege" in relation to Black Lives Matter did not break rules, the media regulator said.  The Communications Commission said comments made by Stu Peters in a Manx Radio show could be deemed insensitive, but did not constitute a code breach.  But similar incidents may be "viewed in a different light" in future, it added.  Manx Radio managing director Chris Sully said the station would "learn" from the findings... Mr Peters was suspended by Manx Radio following a programme, broadcast on 3 June, in which a caller challenged him for writing "all lives matter" in an online forum.  He told the caller that he had "had no more privilege in my life than you have", adding: "I'm a white man, you're a black man.""
From 2020

Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts | Facebook - "The moral panic is continuing to spread across brands. Bon Appetit magazine is apologizing for all the times it published and supported recipes that crossed cultural boundaries.  As anyone whose tried ‘American BBQ’ in Europe can tell you, cross culture recipes can be an abomination but this world progresses when ideas are shared, adapted, and inspire. This idea that food, or any art, must be pure to the source is regressive and bigoted."
Making Our Recipes Better | Bon Appétit

Tou Thao Sentence: Double Standard of Justice - "Appropriately enough, given the Aztec-priestly attitude of at least the American Left toward issues such as climate change (“Our foe-men are changing the weather!”), the U.S. just witnessed a human sacrifice.  Minneapolis police officer Tou Thao, one of four sworn officers present during the May 2020 death of George Floyd, just received a 57-month sentence for “aiding and abetting” a felony crime — the restraint that led to Floyd’s death. The minority lawman gave a passionate and biblically loaded speech before the final verdict came down, refusing to admit to guilt, which he persuasively argued that he should not feel. However, the presiding judge — liberal Gopher State jurist Peter Cahill — remained unmoved, giving Thao the stiffest sentence received by any cop involved with the Floyd death other than Derek Chauvin himself.   This was, objectively speaking, an extremely bizarre outcome, whatever one might think of the lengthy sentence in Chauvin’s own case. Even there, little doubt exists that the behavior of external players such as Democratic congresswoman Maxine Waters, who flew to Minneapolis during the policeman’s trial and demanded that he be found liable specifically for murder, had some impact on Chauvin’s unusual conviction for both murder and manslaughter. And relevant new details of that case have become public knowledge following distribution of the Hennepin County coroner’s report on social media. However, no one would describe Chauvin’s knee-neck-hold restraint of the heavily intoxicated Floyd as an example of ideal policing.  Thao’s situation is very different. Thao quite literally never touched George Floyd. During the entirety of the fatal arrest, he was standing several yards away from Floyd and Chauvin, handling crowd control and directing traffic. The “abetting” charge reflects the fact that he did not physically force Chauvin — technically speaking, his superior officer — to stop restraining Floyd, or alternatively to allow unknown civilians into an active arrest scene to provide the arrestee with medical assistance. But it is difficult to imagine any on-the-job law-enforcement officer ever doing this. And, as noted, Thao’s sentence was longer than two of the three terms given to those cops who did restrain George Floyd — perhaps, one more than suspects, because of his defiant final speech to the bench.   Thao does not stand, or sit in jail, alone. Per all data, quite a few high-profile recent legal cases (mostly, but not entirely, brought from the political left) strike most citizens as partisan kabuki shows. Most obviously, Donald J. Trump currently faces no fewer than 91 separate felony charges in several different legal jurisdictions. Some of these are serious enough, even potentially crippling for the Donald: He did have those damn papers, after all. But others, such as hyper-partisan New York City district attorney Alvin Bragg’s attempt to stretch a campaign-finance law far enough to cover a years-old five-figure payment from Trump to a porn-star lover, are correctly seen by taxpayers as partisan nonsense... This Chinua Achebe–style “failure of the trustworthy systems” is dangerous — imagine an actual conviction and jailing of Trump in NYC — and almost certainly a cause of the toxic “national divorce” talk citizens have heard for the past several years."

George Floyd and the revenge of the elites - "we have to consider two things: the murder and the mania. The killing itself and what happened afterwards. For while these things seem to be linked – the riots and the corporate virtue-signalling and the institutional self-flagellation were all a response to Floyd’s death, right? – they are actually quite distinct. The murder of Floyd served as a catalyst for a political agenda and a moral narrative that had existed long before Floyd and Chauvin’s fateful encounter. Floyd’s death was a double tragedy in this sense. There was the tragedy of the thing itself, and there was the tragedy of the way it was recklessly used to unleash political forces that are still having a destructive impact in the US and elsewhere one year on...   How did understandable protests in response to an unjust killing acquire such an extraordinary and global momentum? The transformative element, the key, was the involvement of the elites. This is the most striking, and concerning, aspect of the past year of post-Floyd mania: the way the elites conferred legitimacy on the protests, even on the riots, helping to intensify and spread this strange and violent instability. It was extraordinary, and unprecedented in modern times. Vast swathes of the political class, the establishment media, the academy, social-media oligarchies and influencers throughout the West essentially gave a green light to an explosion of destructive rage and identitarian regression. We saw this in the way that many American politicians refused to condemn the rioters. In the way that establishment media outlets made excuses for looting, depicting it as a necessary expression of anger. In the way corporate giants – from Apple to Nike to Instagram – lined up behind Black Lives Matter. In the way that even the world of finance – step forward, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon – gave its knee-bending approval to the post-Floyd fury. And in the way that leading British politicians took the knee to BLM, and by extension to its divisive and pro-rioting ideologies. Consider this bizarre political and historical anomaly – the leader of the British Labour Party bowed down to a movement whose warped worldview was at that very moment stirring up the worst rioting America has experienced in decades. Nothing about this was normal.   The elite legitimation of the post-Floyd mania was significant for many reasons. It allowed the rioting to continue for longer than it might otherwise have done. It helped to globalise the destabilising dynamic. And it injected the violent fallout from the killing of Floyd with a certain political momentum, too. This is why the supposedly radical street uprisings in response to the killing of Floyd – as some romantic leftists depicted it – actually came to be infused very quickly with the concerns and ideologies of the new clerisy.   The tumbling of statues; the attempt to rewrite the past by erasing problematic individuals and cultural artefacts; the obsession with ‘white privilege’ and ‘black victimhood’; the cancellation of blasphemers against BLM; the obsession with correct-think and with punishing crimes like ‘cultural appropriation’ – all of these swirling post-Floyd activities have their origins not in the street culture of Minneapolis or Atlanta or Seattle, but in the rarefied climes of the academy, Silicon Valley, the think-tank world and the increasingly self-loathing cultural institutions of the West. However it started, the post-Floyd violence soon became the militant wing of the woke elites, a violent expression of the prescriptive, authoritarian ideologies of the new, anti-democratic Smart Set... Fury is easy to unleash, far more difficult to rein in. Having green-lit a culture that looks with horror upon modern Western history, which demands that every institution self-flagellate for its presumed moral errors, and which threatens and cancels anyone who refuses to submit to the tyranny of right-think, the new establishment might soon find that such violent censure can go in directions that it cannot control. Consider the assaults on Jews dining outside in Los Angeles or New York or the way in which BLM and pro-Palestine youths have brought schools to a halt in the UK. These are the grim wages of the militarisation of identity politics that has occurred since the killing of George Floyd.   It turns out that demonising Western history, undermining cultural authority and inflaming identitarian tensions is a recipe for social conflict and violence. Who could have guessed?"
Prescient, given the anti-Semitism following Hamas's October 2023 attack

Meme - "r/relationship_advice
My husband tried to kill me tonight
My (22f ) husband (24 m) tried to kill me tonight. I'm just really at a loss of words right now. This is the love of my life and my whole other half my best friend who I adore so so much. He had a bad day at work and came home, a fight sprung out after some tension (maybe it was my fault for pushing an argument knowingly that he had a really bad day at work) but the argument began to become more and more heated and suddenly I start crying because he pushed me and shoved me against the wall, pulled my hair hard, pinned me down the ground with his body weight on top of my back and continued to call me a fucking cunt and to leave his house. Every time I let out a cry because as I said his entire body weight was on my back he continued to shove my face into the carpet and when I got the strength to crawl away for the door he stepped on my hand crushing my fingers and grabbed my body and threw me once again against the wall I let out an even louder cry, at this point a screm and he begins to cover my mouth and nose with"
"Call the police now"
"I would rather refrain from getting police involved because he is black and that would just be a death sentence for him. I am looking into shelters however."

Did Black Lives Matter Save Black Lives? - "Given how many words have been written about the Black Lives Matter movement, it is remarkable how rarely BLM’s actual effects on society have been empirically measured.  Leaving aside questions about BLM’s suspicious finances and organizational structure, there are two obvious questions to ask about the anti-policing movement. First, has it worked? That’s to say, has BLM advocacy for undoing what was presented as a plague of unjustified police shootings reduced the rate at which U.S. citizens are shot by police—or, for that matter, reduced crime overall as trust in police officers has increased? Second, whatever the answer to the first question, what does improve police performance? In other words, are there police departments whose officers kill or shoot notably fewer civilians than apparent peers, and are there variables that explain why?  The first question has received some attention in the popular press merely because reporting on crime statistics is a long-standing journalistic practice. And the answer seems simply to be no. There is little if any evidence that rates of police shootings of citizens have declined since the 2014–15 beginning of the BLM movement... the rate of police-citizen violence actually increased slightly in recent years... Meanwhile, overall crime has soared through the roof during the BLM era... Jason Johnson, researcher and president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund... attributes (as we do) rising crime to the BLM-affiliated Defund the Police and Police Pullback movements, noting that deadly violence in America’s major cities rose “as engaged policing fell.” Cities that slashed policing budgets, says Johnson, “often saw the largest drop in active policing and…increases in homicide.” The data largely support this position: The homicide surge in New York City, in particular, followed a decrease in police stops and a remarkable 38 percent decline in officer-initiated arrests... The pattern here is not novel. During an earlier wave of BLM activism, a memorable 2016 headline on the Chicago page of the DNAinfo news site read: “Police Stops Down by 90 Percent as Gun Violence Skyrockets.” More broadly, Mona Charen and others have argued that the remarkable surge in U.S. violent crime between 1963 and 1993 (when murders increased from roughly 8,600 to 24,500) can be attributed almost entirely to policies such as more lenient criminal sentencing and the down-road effects of the Miranda and Escobedo cases, which mandated enhanced rights for accused criminals... Many police departments do excellent work... What accounts for high-quality urban policing? Distinct trackable variables, which curious people can readily measure. While it might seem obvious, most departments that perform well in terms of not shooting civilians dedicate time and energy to teaching nonlethal combat and the use of nonlethal weapons such as tasers...  Most high-quality police departments also tend to get very good at tracking data in real time, using tools such as COMPSTAT to observe when and where crimes happen, and then sending action-ready officers directly into these identified “hot zones.”  On an individual-department basis, specifically designated powers also help a given leadership team improve policing. NYPD commissioners, in particular, have long had an unusual level of internal power that almost any boss would envy... Another factor in good policing is the presence of a professional internal-affairs unit to investigate police misconduct... Even paperwork, the bane of every civil servant’s life, plays a role in the improvement of policing. An amusing finding from one of the rare works of social science that does study how to reduce police shootings was that simply requiring officers to file a lengthy paper-copy report every time they draw (not fire) their duty weapons tends to reduce police-involved shootings... the best way to assess the reforms and ideas pushed by Black Lives Matter is to consider them against a backdrop of hard numbers. If you do, you’ll find a record of failure that tragically undermines the movement’s chief goal of saving black lives. This explains why, until now, data-driven scholarship on the topic has been virtually nonexistent. For many in liberal-leaning academia, Black Lives Matter, as a passion and a cause, felt too just to fact-check. But this unquestioned sense of righteousness has come at a steep cost, and social scientists have abnegated their roles. Police departments across this great country certainly could do more to protect black—and all—lives, and scholars should help them do better."
So much for ACAB. The crowd which is usually against "stereotyping" loves to "stereotype" and blame all police and claim they're all bad
BLM is not really about saving black lives, so

Glenn Loury on X - "This week at TGS @JohnHMcWhorter and I speak with the filmmakers of the new documentary, "The Fall of Minneapolis" (on the death of George Floyd and its aftermath). Here's they state the heart of their case."
Wilfred Reilly on X - ""George Floyd was not murdered, and the country panicked over nothing" seems a fair summary of their thesis."

Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 on X - "3 teens beat a 53 year old father of 3 to death.  A witness describes them as “laughing and enjoying themselves” while fatally stomping, kicking, and punching him. They continued to beat him even after he was down.   They were stopped by an armed Good Samaritan but it was too late for the father. He later succumbed to his injuries."
Ian Miles Cheong on X - "If the races were swapped this would be a national outrage. The perpetrators would be facing as much media scrutiny as Derek Chauvin."

The Meme Policeman | Facebook - "The Palestinian movement has a lot in common with BLM, which is why there’s a lot of overlap between the two now. BLM takes what could be a legitimate complaint, that police are sometimes too violent against minorities, and creates an obsessive and toxic ideology around it that ends up making the problem worse. Nearly every time a minority is killed by police, the BLM movement tries to turn them into a martyr and start protests/riots before any facts are known. Ancillary violence is ignored or excused by its members. Nearly every time, it then turns out the martyr was a violent low life and the police action was justified in the context. Instead of focusing on the toxic culture in inner city minority communities that leads to a continual cycle of violence, BLM focuses on blaming “systemic racism” and more broadly, American capitalism and Western Civ. They end up turning criminals into the victims and seek to destroy the entire core of what’s made us civilized and relatively free.
Thus, whenever elements of BLM end up with autonomy over cities, things get worse. In particular, worse for minorities, who they claim to want to help. Just look at the spike of violence and deterioration of inner city schools after 2020, when BLM policies and culture were implemented in most major cities. The Palestinian cause is similar. They take what could be a legitimate grievance, create a toxic ideology to address it instead of criticizing and improving their own culture, and to the extent they are given any autonomy they turn their society into a cesspool and hurt the people they claim to help. The main difference is the Palestinian cause excuses and embraces violence to a much greater degree."

As America Falls Apart, Profits Soar - "Rittenhouse in other words became a symbol of so many things to so many people that the specifics of his legal case have ceased to be relevant. There seems to be no such thing as an editorialist who has negative feelings about, say, Rittenhouse posing with Proud Boys, yet also believes that incident can’t be evidence since it happened after the shooting. Everyone picks a side and stays there. Pundits are telling us that any opinion on how the jury should rule can only be understood as a reflection of racial attitudes. “If you’re defending Kyle Rittenhouse, you might be a white supremacist. Just sayin,” is how Tweeter-with-beard and sometimes-journalist David Leavitt puts it... Compared with how often you heard pundits rage about the “insurrection,” how regularly did you hear that billionaire wealth has risen 70% or $2.1 trillion since the pandemic began? How much did you hear about last year’s accelerated payments to defense contractors, who immediately poured the “rescue” cash into a buyback orgy, or about the record underwriting revenues for banks in 2020, or the “embarrassment of profits” for health carriers in the same year, or the huge rises in revenue for pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, all during a period of massive net job losses? The economic news at the top hasn’t just been good, it’s been record-setting good, during a time of severe cultural crisis.  Twenty or thirty years ago, the Big Lie was usually a patriotic fairy tale designed to cast America in a glow of beneficence. Nurtured in think-tanks, stumped by politicians, and amplified by Hollywood producers and media talking heads, these whoppers were everywhere: America would have won in Vietnam if not for the media, poverty didn’t exist (or at least, wasn’t shown on television), only the Soviets cuddled with dictators or toppled legitimate governments, etc. The concept wasn’t hard to understand: leaders were promoting unifying myths to keep the population satiated, dumb, and focused on their primary roles as workers and shoppers.  In the Trump era, all this has been turned upside down. There’s actually more depraved, dishonest propaganda than before, but the new legends are explicitly anti-unifying and anti-patriotic. The people who run this country seem less invested than ever in maintaining anything like social cohesion, maybe because they mostly live in wealth archipelagoes that might as well be separate nations (if they even live in America at all).  All sense of noblesse oblige is gone. The logic of our kleptocratic economy has gone beyond even the “Greed is Good” mantra of the fictional Gordon Gekko, who preached that pure self-interest would make America more efficient, better-run, less corrupt. Even on Wall Street, nobody believes that anymore. America is a sinking ship, and its CEO class is trying to salvage the wreck in advance, extracting every last dime before Battlefield Earth breaks out.  It’s only in this context that these endless cycles of hyper-divisive propaganda make sense. It’s time to start wondering if maybe it’s not a coincidence that politicians and pundits alike are pushing us closer and closer to actual civil war at exactly the moment when corporate wealth extraction is reaching its highest-ever levels of efficiency. Keeping the volk at each other’s throats instead of pitchforking the aristocrats is an old game, one that’s now gone digital and works better than ever. That might be worth remembering after the coming verdict, and ahead of whatever other hyper-publicized panic comes down the pipeline next."

Meme - "The Bee Explains. How to Identify a Peaceful Protester
Peaceful slogans: "Kill all cops"
Peaceful scowl of justice
Screams words of peace at everybody
Graciously serves free beverages to police *Molotov cocktail*
Tattoo of Russian symbol for peace *Hammer and sickle*
T-shirt with favorite peaceful dictator *Che Guevara*
Hands peacefully covered in other people's blood
Massive pile of peace-spreading bricks
Has liberated many HDTVs (for peace)"

Imperial College London’s Cancel Campaign Against Its Own Founders - "Imperial College London was founded in 1907. It is one of the top 20 universities in the world, and among the leading technical universities in Europe. Two individuals were central to its foundation.  The first is 19th-century English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, who became known as “Darwin’s Bulldog” due to his singularly strenuous advocacy of Charles Darwin’s ideas... The second main founder is Alfred Beit, a German Jew who made his fortune from diamond and gold mining in South Africa... Up to October 26th, 2021, when the Imperial History Group published a report aimed at examining “the history of the College through its links to the British Empire, and to report on the current understanding and reception of the College’s legacy and heritage in the context of its present-day mission,” Huxley had been revered by the College... The generosity of Alfred Beit, and the continuing generosity of the Beit family up to the present time, has been gratefully acknowledged at regular intervals... And yet, despite no new pertinent facts emerging, the History Group suddenly has proposed, among other things, that Imperial College disown its two main founders... A university that repudiates its founders raises the question of whether its fundamental purpose has changed... a comprehensive history of Imperial written by Hannah Gay for the centenary in 2007 was free of any such controversy.  Other universities have recently cancelled prominent figures who are central to their institutional history. These include David Hume at Edinburgh University, Robert Millikan at Caltech, and Woodrow Wilson at Princeton, with each of these cases focusing somewhat narrowly on particular actions or writings of the individuals concerned. A very different approach was taken by Yale in considering whether to rename Calhoun College, whose vice-presidential namesake, John C. Calhoun, was an adamant defender of slavery. In 2016, Yale President Peter Salovey set up a committee, chaired by law professor John Witt, to examine the issue of renaming in a general way, without reference to a particular individual or controversy, and to recommend principles that could be applied to any case that might arise. There is a distinct advantage to this approach, in that it is likely to channel a more objective view... the purpose of a university is to discover and disseminate knowledge; that erasing a university’s history is antithetical to the spirit of the institution; that history’s memorialisation of the past serves to express values that may change over time; that change is indispensable in a university; and that the genuine inclusion of all groups is necessary to ensure that a university maintain its stature as a centre for research and teaching in years to come... a general recommendation that emerged is that historical figures should be judged according to the times in which they lived, and that modern observers should focus on a person’s principal legacies, because no one is perfect. The idea was to create a decision framework that itself would stand the test of time, and would not simply be brushed aside in the future. The report warned that “hubris in undoing past decisions encourages future generations to disrespect the choices of the current generation.”... Huxley... fought against dogmatism and unquestioned authority, and he always challenged assertions unsupported by evidence. Second, he fought for the right of all people to receive the same treatment, and to have the same opportunities to reach their potential, whether they be working class, women, slaves in the United States, or freed slaves in Jamaica. Today, we would describe this as promoting inclusion... Concerning race, Huxley was an active slavery abolitionist. Despite the fact that two sons of his favourite sister Lizzie were fighting for the pro-slavery Confederate side in the US Civil War...  “In Europe and the United States one would be extremely hard pressed to find anyone in the sciences, not to mention the society at large in the nineteenth century, that did not have a hierarchical view of the races.”  The issue dividing society at the time was not whether there were differences between races, but whether such differences justified unequal treatment... The History Group rejected Desmond’s analysis, and has condemned Huxley for scientific racism. It has also judged that Huxley’s views fell “far short of Imperial’s modern values,” meaning that it has elected to judge Huxley by the standards of today rather than the standards of his time. Since Huxley’s views on this subject were entirely mainstream in 1865—and became, as Desmond wrote, more progressive than average with the passage of time—this amounts to condemning nearly every member of every 19th-century Western society...  Imperial College was quite happy to receive donations from the Beit family for over 100 years, before now suddenly being poised to repudiate it, even though no new facts have emerged. If such repudiation should occur, a moral imperative of reimbursement arguably applies. By way of comparison, one notes that the History Group report was published in the same year that Imperial College accepted a donation of £2.4m pounds from Max Mosley, and one is led to inquire whether his history measures up to “Imperial’s modern values”."

Allowed on Facebook: Calling someone "idiot"

"there are a lot more than two genders idiot"

Addendum: Odd. Facebook claims that you shouldn't "shame private individuals".

Links - 16th February 2024 (1 - Euthanasia in Canada)

Skyrocketing MAID deaths must prompt urgent reassessment - "Usually, governments welcome high adoption rates for new policies. But when that new policy is an exception within the Criminal Code for euthanasia and assisted suicide, which then sees more than 30 percent annual growth in use, no government should be celebrating. And when such rates shoot past Health Canada’s official projections by nearly a decade, any government should be deeply worried... This high rate of growth is more than a statistical curiosity. It should prompt policymakers and all Canadians to reflect seriously on what the data tells us about the practice of euthanasia.    For one, the legislation and regulations surrounding MAID aren’t terribly useful because the eligibility definitions are vague... Without more tightly defined criteria, we cannot ensure a consistent application of MAID. This is something Drs. Tang, Gaind, and Lau discuss in a recent scholarly book (see page 278). Vague criteria with multiple interpretations lead to a system where patients can “shop” for assessors and providers willing to euthanize them if at first they receive a rejection. Without an updated system that would inform MAID assessors of previous requests, they may be unaware of the request history. Without a review function where rejected applications can be sent and evaluated, patients may continue “shopping” until they reach their objective. Another built-in problem with the existing criteria for MAID is that it does not require patients to exhaust treatment options. They need only be “informed of” them, “offered consultations,” or “have discussed and given serious consideration” to them. While medical interventions do not require patients to exhaust their options, an intervention meant to cause an early end to a patient’s life is different. It requires a higher standard, particularly considering that patients may have had difficulty getting quality, timely health care already. Consider that the trend in the proportion of MAID requests considered ineligible continues to drop, year over year. In 2019, Health Canada reported 8 percent of requests were found ineligible, dropping to 4.1 percent in 2021, and just 3.5 percent in 2022. This suggests a weakness in euthanasia eligibility criteria. The federal monitoring and reporting system is based on conflicting interests, making enforcement of the system very difficult. The MAID assessors and providers self-report data. So, while those performing MAID do have criminal liability, they are also the ones reporting on whether all eligibility criteria and procedures were followed. Effectively, they oversee their own legal compliance. Sadly, there is no independent verification of compliance reports. As documented by Dr. Jaro Kotalik, a health-care ethicist, in his edited volume on MAID, the monitoring system was never intended to ensure compliance. It merely provides information for a “societal perspective ” according to the government. This is unlike other international approaches, including in the Benelux countries, which were pioneers in introducing euthanasia/assisted suicide. Instead, Canada’s federal monitoring via Health Canada has no review function and no ability to refer compliance issues for investigation...  This sort of growth is not, however, “destiny.” California, for instance, legalized assisted suicide also in 2016. Despite its slightly larger population size to Canada, only 3,344 Californians died by assisted suicide from legalization in 2015 through to 2021. By contrast, 31,664 Canadians died by euthanasia or assisted suicide within that same period."
Of course, I still see people pretending that nothing is wrong and that euthanasia just prevents the greater trauma of a messy suicide. Ironically, this is like gun lovers who claim that people who want to commit suicide will find a way regardless, i.e. that people don't respond to incentives (which is contrary to what the research tells us about suicide, e.g. the swtich away from gas ovens lowering suicide rates)

Number of assisted deaths jumped more than 30 per cent in 2022, report says - "A new Health Canada report says the number of medically assisted deaths in 2022 was more than 30 per cent higher than the year prior.  Medically assisted deaths constituted 4.1 per cent of all deaths in Canada last year... The new report comes as the federal government prepares to expand MAID eligibility to those whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness... Vachon, who said she was "very concerned" about the planned expansion, cited September polling data from Angus Reid in partnership with Cardus. In that poll, 82 per cent of respondents agreed that "MAID eligibility should not be expanded in Canada without improving access to mental health care first."... Downie said the upcoming expansion is "essential" because she thinks excluding people with mental disorders on the basis of their diagnosis is "discriminatory."  "To exclude in that way is stigmatizing, it's paternalistic," Downie said. "I don't think there's any justification for the exclusion.""
Apparently it is better to be killed than discriminated against

Our government is irresponsible and people are going to die as a result. : CanadaHousing2 - "It is the sixth leading cause of death, behind:
Malignant neoplasms: 24.7%
Diseases of heart: 17.2%
COVID-19: 5.9%
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 5.5%
Cerebrovascular diseases: 4.2%"

Canada's surge in deaths under MAID outpaces other countries - "The number of Canadians ending their lives through medically assisted death has grown at a speed that outpaces every other nation in the world.  As Canada is poised to expand eligibility criteria under medical assistance in dying (MAID) legislation, data from all 11 countries where the controversial end-of-life treatment exists shows Canada is the fastest-growing adopter in history, an analysis by the Investigative Journalism Bureau and the Toronto Star has found. Some experts see the rapid growth as a human rights triumph that allows Canadians to make their own choice about when they wish to die with the full support of the state and their doctors. Others fear that failures in the health-care system and social safety net may be contributing to the surge... “We’ve gone in a trajectory that no other country on the planet has gone,” says Dr. Sonu Gaind, chief of psychiatry at Sunnybrook Hospital. “We don't know what the full impact is going to be.”   At its current pace of growth, Canada’s percentage of MAID deaths is poised to lead the world as soon as next year — surpassing countries that have had similar laws for decades longer. More Canadians still are expected to pursue medically assisted death due to the federal government’s promise to expand eligibility in March to include Canadians whose sole underlying condition is a mental disorder.  One in five Canadians are impacted by mental health challenges.  The Netherlands — where assisted death has been legal for more than two decades — still has the highest global physician-assisted death rate at 5.1 per cent. Some Canadian provinces already exceed that. Quebec’s MAID mortality rate reached 6.6 per cent in 2022 and British Columbia’s rate was 5.5 per cent... It took 14 years for assisted death cases in the Netherlands to reach four per cent of deaths. And assisted dying rates for Switzerland and Belgium dating back to the early 2000s have never reached four per cent.  In Canada, it happened in six years... Canada’s unique legislative approach to assisted dying is largely responsible for the swelling numbers of Canadians seeking a state-sanctioned death, say many experts.  U.S. state laws typically require assisted death applicants to be within months of dying from their physical condition.  California, which has a similar population to Canada, launched its assisted death legislation in the same year as Canada with very different results. With eligibility in the state limited to terminal patients, assisted deaths in the state have remained below 0.3 per cent — a total of 3,275 since 2016, which is nearly 15 times lower than in Canada.  Meanwhile, unlike Dutch and Belgium laws, which require provision of MAID as a last resort option, “Canada does not,” says Kim from the Institutes of Health.  “Canadian law is unique. It gives doctors almost free reign on what to do if someone has a diagnosis and they’re miserable with it," he said. "Then you marry it to a very-well organized delivery system — your healthcare system. It gives the medical system and your sociopolitical system an out when you abandon people.”... Kim says the deliberations about the roll-out of MAID in Canada took place largely behind closed doors where physicians and lawyers appointed by the government pushed hard for broad accessibility to assisted death for Canadians.  “The aggressive philosophy of implementation, in coordination with advocacy groups rather than wide input from varying perspectives, has been truly astonishing.”... Only 31 per cent of Canadians said they support MAID for mental illness according to a February 2023 poll by the Angus Reid Institute. And 82 per cent of Canadians said access to mental health care should be improved before MAID eligibility is expanded to include mental illnesses... Jeff Kirby, a professor emeritus in the department of bioethics at Dalhousie University in Halifax, was a member of the federal expert panel tasked by the government in 2021 with drafting safeguards for the expansion of MAID into mental health.  While he isn’t opposed to the idea, he stepped down from the panel prior to its final report in May 2022, saying safeguards suggested by experts ought to be legally entrenched rather than simply guidance.  He remains fearful that the new rules welcoming mental health patients to seek MAID lack the rigor and protection to prevent tragedy.  “I really think that Canada as a whole will have lost if it proceeds to March 2024 with no changes,” he says. “I think we have lost a chance to adequately protect members of vulnerable, disadvantaged social groups in a way that we should have.”"

Canada’s Newest and Deadliest Human Right: Assisted Suicide for All - "What few controls it proposes to retain – such as restricting its use by those suffering solely from mental illness – are likely to be swept aside by human rights complaints given the fact every other limitation has already been removed...  this profoundly troubling bill was rushed through the House of Commons late last year while everyone was fixated on other matters and public gatherings largely forbidden. The proposed legislation now sits in the hands of the Senate where, in unusual fashion, hearings were held on the matter before the bill had even been passed by the House, in order to speed its passage... Curiously, the Truchon decision did not issue from the Supreme Court of Canada, or even an appeal court, as is usually the case with law-upending judgements. Rather it came from the Quebec Superior Court – a lower court. It is almost unheard-of for a lower court to direct Parliament in this way. And even more unheard-of for Parliament to meekly comply without at least an appeal to push back. Yet, according to federal Minister of Justice David Lametti, “We decided not to appeal the Truchon… because we agreed that medical assistance in dying should be available as a means to address intolerable suffering outside of the end-of-life context.” The government, in other words, changed its mind about its own legislation after just three years. And in doing so, put Parliament at the mercy of a precocious lower court’s timetable. The current race to meet a February deadline is thus a crisis of the Liberals’ own design. And the promised review of the situation-to-date is nowhere to be seen.       “There is so much negative about this law, it’s hard to know where to begin,” says critic Schadenberg. “But my main objection is its same-day death provision.” He points out that a person could choose a MAID option at 9 am and be dead by lunchtime. “It’s a well-established fact that people change their minds about wanting to die from one day to the next,” he says. “With this new law, you don’t get a chance to reconsider.” Schadenberg also worries that Bill C-7’s removal of the requirement that a person’s natural death be reasonably foreseeable will lead to people who are not terminally ill choosing to die by MAID... Some advocates claim that excluding those suffering from mental illness represents another intolerable form of discrimination. Helen Long, CEO of Dying With Dignity Canada, recently argued in the Toronto Star that even this one modest limitation “will continue to deny some Canadians their right to MAID.” The right to kill oneself must presumably be offered to all without limit. Not everyone agrees with Long, however. Krista Carr is executive vice-president of Inclusion Canada, a federation of advocacy groups for people with intellectual disabilities. She worries that those with mental illness will suffer discrimination from MAID for the entirely opposite reason. “Bill C-7 would allow people with disabilities – who are already undervalued in society – to die with medical assistance because they have a disability”... Carr’s fear is that people with disabilities will end up most at risk of being euthanized against their wishes, even those who can get effective medical treatments for their conditions; in a subsequent presentation to the House of Commons Justice Committee, she called the proposed legislation “our worst nightmare.”... The massive expansion in eligibility for MAID promised by Bill C-7 suggests that “slippery slope” concerns raised during previous debates were entirely justified. What was once supposed to be – and presented to Canadians as – a limited right for a few people on the very precipice of death is now about to be widened to include nearly everyone who might wish to end their life for almost any reason... “In every state or country in which the practice has been normalized, it has also, to some degree, become banalized, with eligibility criteria increasingly relaxed.”  Ardent MAID advocates continue to dismiss slippery slope arguments as irrelevant... Nazi Germany’s carefully worded euthanasia criteria quickly turned into “the systematic murder of institutionalized patients with disabilities in Germany” predating the Holocaust by several years... Ample evidence points to the rapid growth in assisted dying rates wherever it has been adopted... Conservative Senator Don Plett has discussed measures that would prevent health care professionals from bringing up the subject of MAID unless prompted by a patient, thus preventing its widespread use as a tool to empty out hospitals and long-term care homes on convenience arguments"
From 2021. Prescient, since exactly what was foreseen happened

Statement from Gabrielle Peters - "If the state offers me the choice to die but not the means to live, who is really making the decision?   I think this is where I am supposed to tell you my disability story – including the part where a healthcare professional sat at my beside and urged and then almost insisted I take her up on the consoling prospect of forever rest after my partner announced he was leaving me because I was too much of a burden and I no longer fit into the life he wanted."

CANADA: Medical Assistance In Dying Advocacy Group Calls On Government To Expand Eligibility To “Mature Minors” - "Despite facing pushback, a euthanasia advocacy group in Canada is continuing its efforts to have Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) eligibility expanded for children as young as 12.   Since 2021, Dying with Dignity Canada (DWDC), a national charity claiming to be dedicated to “improving the quality of dying,” has been lobbying the Canadian government to “amend the existing age requirement of 18 years of age to extend to persons at least 12 years of age and capable of making decisions with respect to their health.”...   In addition to experts sounding the alarm on the potential implications expanding assisted suicide for minors as young as 12 may have, many online were quick to point out that this extension could blur the lines of other age of consent laws... Others noted that referring to children as “mature minors” had sinister implications on its own"
One cope I've read for why trans mania doesn't erode sexual age of consent is that those pushing children to transition don't benefit from it - as if the medical establishment doesn't gain from "treatment" of minors (not to mention a lifelong income stream). For euthanasia they earn money too (minus the lifelong income stream)

Canadian health care should put patients first by ending faith-based refusals - The Globe and Mail
Just as I predicted, euthanasia (literally ending a life) is now "healthcare", just as happened to abortion

Ontario quadriplegic mother applies for MAID over lack of access to disability supports - "an Ontario quadriplegic mother of three says she has just days left before she can access medical assistance in dying (MAID) yet she is unable to access disability support.  “I have 12 days left on my medical assistance in dying application here in the province in Ontario. I’m a quadriplegic single mom raising 2 kids with disabilities,” said Rose Finlay in the video... Finlay suffered a severe spinal cord injury in her teens and has used a wheelchair ever since. She has always been self-sufficient, she said, but finds herself now needing help and falling ill while waiting to access it.  “The fact that it takes six to eight months to receive disability support and only 91 days to receive medical assistance in dying based on the fact that I have a permanent disability and decreased quality of life but my quality of life is decreased based on the level of support that I receive,” she said in her TikTok video.  Finlay said she was compelled to apply for MAID, not because she wants to die, but because her community is failing her, and she is afraid she is running out of options."

Meme - Troy Lindstrom #Disabilityarts #DisabilityRights @Tefrin: "Why isn't MAID in the statistics? 13200 died from the Medical assistance in dying program in 2022. why are they not counted? It should be 6th. It is important people know how many are choosing assisted suicide."
"In the database, the underlying cause of death is defined as the disease or injury that initiated the train of morbid events leading directly to death. As such, MAID deaths are coded to the underlying condition for which MAID was requested."
How to kill people while obfuscating the statistics. Presumably if someone is depressed about getting covid and commits suicide by cop, this is a covid death

National Review on X - "More than 13,000 Canadians were legally euthanized last year, representing 4.1% of all deaths in the country."
Wilfred Reilly on X - "To put this in context: when I did my "different groups, different pathologies" article, annual rates of suicide deaths for Caucasians and homicide deaths for Blacks generally maxed out at ~3%.  The Canadian GOVERNMENT is killing people at a 33% higher rate, with suicide and murder rates beyond that not much changed."
The "myth" of the slippery slope strikes again

Vancouver Woman Offered Euthanasia After Seeking Help for Suicidal Thoughts

Have Assisted Dying Laws Gone Too Far? - "Compared with disability support, medical assistance in dying, or MAID, seems relatively easy to request...   Until recently, most of the public discourse and reporting about MAID has described it in positive and, some would argue, romantic terms. (A 2015 editorial in The Walrus called MAID “the last human right.”)...   That rosy perception began to darken when, in 2021, the legislation was expanded to include people whose deaths are not considered reasonably foreseeable—an option now known as Track Two. The development particularly angered many disabled Canadians. The change in legislation made it possible for disabled people to qualify for MAID even if they weren’t terminally ill...   Concerns about the legislation aren’t new. Some say it was flawed from the outset and that Canada’s assisted dying laws have always singled out disabled people by listing “disability” as a type of medical condition that could guarantee eligibility. In 2019, before Track Two was legalized, Catalina Devandas-Aguilar, then UN special rapporteur for the rights of persons with disabilities, wrote that she was “extremely concerned about the implementation of the legislation on medical assistance in dying from a disability perspective.” In her report on the country’s compliance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities—which Canada ratified in 2010—she mentioned troubling accounts of people with disabilities who were institutionalized and offered MAID. She recommended the government investigate such claims and “establish adequate safeguards to ensure that persons with disabilities do not request assisted dying simply because there are no community-based alternatives or palliative care.”  In February 2021, three UN experts on the rights of seniors and people with disabilities as well as on human rights and extreme poverty wrote a letter to the federal government, urging it not to legalize Track Two. “There is a grave concern,” the letter stated, “that, if assisted dying is made available for all persons with a health condition or impairment, regardless of whether they are close to death, a social assumption might follow (or be subtly reinforced) that it is better to be dead than to live with a disability.”  The Canadian government nevertheless stayed its course...   For Duff, who is visually impaired, the way we talk about MAID expansions ignores the complexities and years it may take to treat conditions such as mental illness. The language we use around it is also euphemistic: “The title of the act is ‘medical assistance in dying,’” she says. “But these aren’t people who would otherwise be dying. We’re not just assisting them. We’re actually making it happen, which is very different.”...   “Canada has become a poster child for how bad MAID can become,” says Heidi Janz, a long-time disability rights activist and playwright... They tell her they don’t want to die yet the government seems to be pushing them to. “But the MAID system makes it all a perfect crime because the MAID regime destroys the evidence,” she says. “It destroys the lives of the people who were here to report their experience of poverty and alienation and stigmatization and devaluation.”...  Inclusion Canada, a secular organization that represents people with intellectual or developmental disabilities, has also called on the government to remove Track Two for MAID. Arch Disability Law Centre, another secular organization, has expressed similar concerns about Track Two.   In fact, ARPA disagrees with MAID wholesale. As a “foundational principle,” says Schutten, doctors should not be able to end patients’ lives. “When you say, ‘No, there are some situations where a doctor should have a licence to end the life of a patient,’ then it’s very difficult to say, ‘Well, in this situation, you can. In this situation, you can’t.’ Every safeguard becomes arbitrary in a sense.”... The looming expansion of MAID, under Track Two, to include people with mental illnesses has raised red flags for several psychiatrists, who say that allowing people with mental illnesses to die by MAID could rob them of the chance to find treatments that enhance their lives. According to Duff, it could violate the principles of suicide prevention. “One of the tools that we use to help prevent suicide is to eliminate the means”... There’s no consensus among psychiatrists that mental illnesses are irremediable, that they never get better. Maher argues that even patients with serious mental illnesses can improve; they often just need more time to find the right treatments that work for them—and for those treatments to be available to begin with"

Yuan Yi Zhu on Twitter - "Trouton, who now lives in Ontario, says she’s aware that some Canadians have received MAID even when the main cause of their suffering was a socio-economic factor not directly related to their qualifying medical condition. But that doesn’t technically make those cases ineligible. “The suffering and the irremediable disease don’t have to be the same,” says Trouton, citing the law’s language around safeguards: it does not explicitly state the need for suffering to be caused by a medical condition."
"The vice-president of the Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers now openly admits people have chosen euthanasia because of poverty, after her organization spent years calling anyone who said this a liar. But she says it's okay because it's not illegal per se."

Chris Selley: Canada is as unprepared to expand access to assisted suicide as it was to fight COVID-19 - "This is precisely the sort of situation people like, well, me assured Canadians would not or at least need not occur: Surely we were perfectly capable as a country of introducing a moderate euthanasia law that would be relatively infrequently used and not abused, we said. How bloody wrong we were. It is not being used infrequently: two per cent of all deaths in Canada in 2019 were medically assisted; 3.3 per cent in British Columbia. And it is being chosen by people in unconscionable situations.   Chris Gladders didn’t live in a tent. He lived in a squalid Hamilton, Ont., long-term care home, suffering from Fabry disease, a genetic condition that causes multiple organ failure. “The bedding hadn’t been changed for weeks. There was feces on the bed. There was urine on the bed. There was urine and feces on the floor,” NDP MPP Wayne Gates, who communicated with the family, told CBC. “The room was absolutely disgusting.” Gladders, 35, chose to die with medical assistance last week. Greycliff Manor, where he lived, has had its operating licence revoked — effective June 1... Jean Truchon, Gladu’s co-complainant, opted for an assisted death in April last year sooner than try to survive the pandemic in a long-term care home — and when you look at Quebec’s long-term care homes, it’s tough to argue he made a bad choice."

B.C. man opts for medically assisted death after cancer treatment delayed - "Dan Quayle marked his 52nd birthday on Oct. 7 in Victoria General Hospital waiting to find out when chemotherapy would start for an aggressive form of esophageal cancer. He would die waiting. After 10 weeks in hospital, Quayle, a gregarious grandfather who put on his best silly act for his two grandkids, was in so much pain, unable to eat or walk, he opted for a medically assisted death on Nov. 24. This was despite assurances from doctors that chemotherapy had the potential to prolong his life by a year... “There was never a timeline on that,” said Griffiths, who lives in Victoria. “Their exact words were, ‘We’re backlogged.'” Even as they are still grieving Quayle’s death and planning his celebration of life, the family felt compelled to speak out about his inadequate care, following the stories of two Vancouver Island women who went public with their decisions to seek treatment in the U.S. to avoid delays in B.C... Six months into the B.C. NDP government’s move to send breast cancer and prostate cancer patients to two clinics in Bellingham in Washington State to ease the treatment backlog in B.C., the province’s wait times have actually gotten worse."
This doesn't stop pro-euthanasia people pretending this never happens, or the left from insisting private healthcare must remain effectively banned so governments will improve the public system, or that the BC NDP is really conservative (then again, to the far left, anyone to the right of Stalin is "far right")