OTTAWA — Almost one-sixth of guests at a major AIDS conference in Montreal last year who received Canadian visas ended up claiming asylum, according to internal data obtained by The Canadian Press.
The documents also show Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada struggled to work with the International AIDS Society as both tried to avoid a mass refusal of visas.
God forbid they actually did their jobs.
Cis people should do errands and give money to trans people to help with the burden of life and being trans pic.twitter.com/edYthEsQhF
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 23, 2023
We are edging into the third month of the strike by the Writers Guild of America, called because of shrivelling residual royalty payments from streaming movies and TV, as well as concern about AI such as ChatGPT being used to generate story ideas – and indeed to write scripts. Hollywood’s screenwriters have now been joined by the 150,000 members of the Screen Actors Guild, which was demonstrated very visibly by the cast of Oppenheimer walking out of its UK premiere last week. ‘We are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines,’ said union president Fran Drescher. Susan Sarandon has said of AI: ‘I would hope that in the future people understand the difference between real people making real choices and something that’s basically animation.’
But here’s an uncomfortable fact. When it comes to scripts, I’m not sure using AI instead of flesh and blood writers would make a whole lot of difference.
U.S. and Kyiv knew of shortfalls but Kyiv still launched offensive
BRUSSELS—When Ukraine launched its big counteroffensive this spring, Western military officials knew Kyiv didn’t have all the training or weapons—from shells to warplanes—that it needed to dislodge Russian forces. But they hoped Ukrainian courage and resourcefulness would carry the day.
They haven’t. Deep and deadly minefields, extensive fortifications and Russian air power have combined to largely block significant advances by Ukrainian troops. Instead, the campaign risks descending into a stalemate with the potential to burn through lives and equipment without a major shift in momentum.
If the high risk of failure was known then it’s fair to ask if Biden’s handlers pushed for the launch of an ill-prepared offensive hoping to have the war “resolved” prior to the election campaign.
#Ukraine: A Russian BMP-3 IFV was destroyed by a Ukrainian FPV loitering munition in Marinka, #Donetsk Oblast, with the ammunition on board exploding and tearing the vehicle apart. pic.twitter.com/uDyNWubb0d
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) July 23, 2023
Disney CEO Bob Iger hinted this month that he might sell some of the company’s cable channels on the heels of thousands of layoffs across the business’s empire. Its stock has fallen by more than half in the past two years, and its streaming service is losing billions of dollars annually.
There’s no question that streaming has disrupted the economics of the TV and film industries, but Disney’s forthcoming live-action remake of the 1937 animated classic “Snow White” illustrates another business problem: Disney has elevated progressive pieties over originality and tradition, which may be alienating its customer base.
In March last year a video appeared to show President Volodymyr Zelensky telling the people of Ukraine to lay down their arms and surrender to Russia.
It was a pretty obvious deepfake – a type of fake video that uses artificial intelligence to swap faces or create a digital version of someone.
But as AI developments make deepfakes easier to produce, detecting them quickly has become all the more important.
Intel believes it has a solution, and it is all about blood in your face.
Big Tech companies are deliberately manipulating the outcomes of our elections and the thinking and beliefs of our children. And they are having an enormous impact.
If you doubt that, consider this latest snippet of data from my lab, the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology (AIBRT).
Consider this: The GOP currently has a slim 10-seat majority in the House of Representatives. Without Google’s interference in 2022, it would likely now have a majority of between 27 and 59 seats.
The 2022 midterm elections that gave the Democrats a two-vote majority in the U.S. Senate had quite a bit of help from Google, and, to a lesser extent, from a couple of other major tech companies.
The Los Angeles Times published an op/ed Friday in which it perhaps unintentionally poses the central proposition of the mythical energy transition: “whether our expectations should evolve in the name of preventing climate catastrophe.”
The op/ed is appropriately titled, “Would an Occasional Blackout Help Solve Climate Change?” It is a headline that tacitly admits a truth about the transition that boosters of renewable energy have been careful not to publicize: That the notion that generation sources with extremely low energy density like wind and solar cannot hope to be viable alternatives to generation with extremely high energy density like natural gas, nuclear and coal. It is a notion that defies the laws of thermodynamics and physics, and those are laws, not suggestions that can be discarded as a matter of convenience or, as in this case, in pursuit of a hyper-political agenda.
Cops have reportedly found a soundproof room in the basement of accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann’s home where they believe at least one woman may have been killed — and brought in cadaver dogs, a backhoe and ground-penetrating radar to try to locate possible bodies and “trophies” in his back yard.
New York State troopers and Suffolk County police have been scouring the accused killer’s family home, yard and storage sites for the 11 days since the hulking architect was charged in the deaths of three women and publicly named a prime suspect in the fourth — all part of the infamous 13-year-old “Gilgo Four” slayings.
Bud Light and its parent firm Anheuser Busch continue to dominate the headlines over the Dylan Mulvaney scandal – but its far from the only drama to roil the company since it began brewing beer in 1876.
Former owner Billy Busch’s book Family Reigns details the marriages, divorces, deaths and boardroom sagas that have rocked the firm – and ultimately saw his family lose control of their empire thanks to a 2008 hostile takeover.
Much of the drama came courtesy of Billy’s father, former chairman Augustus ‘Gussie’ Busch Jr, who served as chairman between 1946 and 1975 – and whose grandfather Adolphus Busch created the brand.
I’ve written frequently in this space on one of the great ironies of Canadian politics: that the most socially conservative communities — often Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu communities — usually vote for the most radical, progressive politicians. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party has, since coming to power in 2015, spearheaded an unprecedented and aggressive campaign of liberalization on virtually every social issue, undermining parental and religious rights with their “conversion therapy ban,” championing abortion at home and abroad, and pushing a euthanasia regime that is breathtakingly cruel in singling out the mentally ill, sick, and disabled.
Mississauga, Ont.: Muslims protesting against #trans and LGBTQIA2S+ education in schools on Saturday held up an anti-Justin Trudeau banner. Photo by @BethBaisch/@TPostMillennial: pic.twitter.com/ycsZ6j69T4
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) July 15, 2023
The most likely result of this interfaith alliance is that concessions will be made to accommodate the Muslims. Christians will be denied the same treatment.
We know how government works in Canada. Anyone who reads this blog knows about the TDSB’s Mosqueteria where Muslim children hold prayers on TDSB school property.
The TDSB has even allowed the Muslim community to segregate menstruating Muslim girls from their kindred faith members during these prayers because they are considered “unclean”.
Can you imagine the uproar if Christians even asked for prayer space in our so called secular school system?
Israel is in the headlines, evoking tumultuous debate. Yet one topic remains largely unmentionable, so let me gingerly raise it: Is it time to think about phasing out American aid for Israel down the road?
This is not about whacking Israel. But does it really make sense for the United States to provide the enormous sum of $3.8 billion annually to another wealthy country?
I don’t think any change should happen abruptly or in a way that jeopardizes Israeli security. The reason to rethink American aid is not to seek leverage over Israel — although I do think we should be tougher on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is extinguishing any hope of a two-state solution and is, in the words of former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, “determined to degrade Israel into a corrupt and racist dictatorship that will crumble society.”
Oddly in agreement with Caroline Glick but for different reasons …
Israel and the new America – It’s time to wean Israel off U.S. military aid.
… The analysis focused on Robert Malley, Biden’s envoy for negotiations with Iran and Obama’s chief Middle East strategist, who was recently compelled to leave his position due to undisclosed security breaches.
The article showed first that Malley is the product of a radical anti-American upbringing. Second, it demonstrated that Malley’s radical views have become the establishment views of the Democratic Party.
Malley’s father Simon Malley was a leading advocate and true believer in Leninist anti-imperialism, which perceived the U.S. and its allies—as well as the Jews of Israel—as evil corruptors of mankind. Malley’s father championed anti-American Third World dictators and terrorists including Yasser Arafat as paragons of the new humanity who would purify the world of its Western imperialist roots
Inflation is down, officially, but consumers will be forgiven for not celebrating.
While Canada’s consumer price index fell from 3.4% in May to 2.8% in June, the cost of groceries was 9.1% above where it had been a year earlier.
True, the rate of inflation on groceries was 10.4% in January, so 9.1% today is better. But excuse me if I’m not all that grateful, given that essential groceries such as eggs, pasta, butter and meat are as much as 40% above where they were this time last year.
A mercenary who took part in the attempted mutiny against Russian President Vladimir Putin says he and his fellow fighters “didn’t have a clue” what was going on.
In the space of just 24 hours, the leader of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, staged an insurrection, sending troops into the southern city of Rostov, then further on towards Moscow.
Wagner fighters rarely talk to the media, but BBC Russian spoke to a junior commander who found himself in the middle of the action.
For years it was possible for a politically neutral, reasonably well-informed Canadian or American to believe that prescribing puberty blockers to “pause” natural physical changes in gender-confused children was an ethical means of soothing their distress. It was even possible to believe that without that pause, a child’s distress might lead to suicidal ideation. Thus there was a case to be made for rapid transition affirmation.
No more. Engaged observers are aware that the affirmation model has fallen out of favour in many European countries. The reasons why are spelled out in such documents as the Cass Review’s 2022 interim report in the United Kingdom, which resulted in the closure of England’s premier gender-identity clinic.
I would be OK if it was decided that the death penalty was on the table for the butchers.
