Blazingcatfur – Page 3456

Basic income isn’t the best way to create a just and inclusive society

By the end of the Second World War, the thoughts of many Canadians were turning to how to build a better society. The sacrifices made and the spirit for change led to the creation of Canada’s social safety net, although its main elements – nationalized health care, public pensions, and unemployment insurance – took decades longer to fully create.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath seem eerily similar. Again, there were calls for “building back better.” Again, the hoped-for responses were muted by fiscal, inflationary and possible recessionary realities. But we believe the same desire for fundamental change exists today. The key is deciding how to move forward.

The author argues against basic income but expects to achieve a more equitable result in part by building strong communities.

I’m not sure that is possible in a low trust society like Canada which the government is determined to destroy by identity politics and mass immigration.

by Blazingcatfur•May 7, 2023May 6, 2023•0•"Good Intentions Paving Company"

8 victims and gunman confirmed dead, 7 others injured in Texas mall shooting: authorities

Eight people were killed and seven wounded by a gunman dressed in black tactical gear who got out of his car at a Texas mall Saturday and opened fire in the parking lot — before being shot dead himself by a police officer at the scene, officials said.

The deadly mass shooting unfolded at 3:36 p.m. at the Allen Premium Outlets — about 30 minutes north of Dallas — when a lone gunman got out of a vehicle and began firing, according to police and footage from the parking lot.

Still no ID on the shooter.

Someone knows … Police searching Texas mall shooter’s home where he lived with parents: report

More … First person on scene of Texas mall massacre – in which eight were killed – reveals he felt for little girl’s pulse before realizing…

by Blazingcatfur•May 7, 2023May 7, 2023•0•"Mass Shooting"

Provincial state of emergency declared in Alberta as wildfires spread and more residents flee

The Alberta government has declared a provincial state of emergency as out-of-control wildfires force more residents from their homes.

Premier Danielle Smith made the announcement at a media briefing Saturday afternoon.

Earlier in the day, at another media briefing about wildfire conditions, Smith suggested the province was considering a state of emergency.

Not the spectacle you were looking for?

It sure goes well with the choir singing on the telly right now. #AlbertaWildfires #Coronation pic.twitter.com/ZrYGcDjSKh

— Jack Lowe (@MrJackLowe) May 6, 2023

by Blazingcatfur•May 7, 2023May 7, 2023•0•"Mother Nature Hates You", Canada

Kentucky man gets record-setting 14 year sentence for role in Capitol attack

A Kentucky man with a long criminal record has been sentenced to a record-setting 14 years in prison for attacking police officers with pepper spray and a chair as he stormed the US Capitol with his wife.

Peter Schwartz’s prison sentence is the longest so far among hundreds of Capitol riot cases. The judge who sentenced Schwartz on Friday also handed down the previous longest sentence – 10 years – to a retired New York police department officer who assaulted a police officer outside the Capitol on 6 January.

by Blazingcatfur•May 7, 2023May 6, 2023•0•Trump Derangement Syndrome

Race Shouldn’t Stop Us from Tackling Recidivism and Mental Illness

Pace drama queen AOC, Jordan Neely was not murdered. Yet, he did die at the hands of another man. The circumstances under which that happened are complicated. Of those circumstances, the dangerous setting that Neely further imperiled before his fateful confrontation is probably the most consequential: an under-policed New York City subway system that is regressing to late 20th century mayhem — except with the add-on of a mental-health crisis decades in the making.

The least consequential of the circumstances, at least in the decisive moments, was race.

by Blazingcatfur•May 7, 2023May 6, 2023•0•"Identity Politics", Batshit Crazy Progressive Racists, Crime

Reporters Rage as Free Speech Heroes Bill Maher, Elon Musk Meet

Late-night hosts kiss up to their guests all the time. It’s in the job description.

That’s how you treat celebrity guests, one of the few elements today’s far-left hosts retain from the Johnny Carson blueprint of yore.

by Blazingcatfur•May 7, 2023May 6, 2023•0•The Media, The Media Lies, The Media's Preferred Narrative

‘We’ve discovered the secret of immortality. The bad news is it’s not for us’: why the godfather of AI fears for humanity

The first thing Geoffrey Hinton says when we start talking, and the last thing he repeats before I turn off my recorder, is that he left Google, his employer of the past decade, on good terms. “I have no objection to what Google has done or is doing, but obviously the media would love to spin me as ‘a disgruntled Google employee’. It’s not like that.”

It’s an important clarification to make, because it’s easy to conclude the opposite. After all, when most people calmly describe their former employer as being one of a small group of companies charting a course that is alarmingly likely to wipe out humanity itself, they do so with a sense of opprobrium. But to listen to Hinton, we’re about to sleepwalk towards an existential threat to civilisation without anyone involved acting maliciously at all.

by Blazingcatfur•May 7, 2023May 6, 2023•0•"AI - Artificial Intelligence"

Tucker Carlson the Augustinian

Two days before Tucker Carlson was ousted from the Fox News team, he gave a speech at the 50th anniversary event of the Heritage Foundation, arguably America’s most celebrated conservative public policy think tank. The speech was a remarkable example of gripping content delivered with rhetorical excellence, as he combined a reflective—almost rambling—style with acute lucidity. In his address, Carlson suggested that the political tradition which the Anglosphere largely perfected, namely that of ongoing democratic negotiation by various factions who together represent both the unity and divisions of the whole polity, was rapidly waning. Now, he claimed, politics is about good and evil.

by Blazingcatfur•May 7, 2023May 6, 2023•0•Culture Wars

China Wants Killer Robots to Fight the Next War

War grips the world and the most powerful nations on earth go to battle once more. This time, however, it is machines that do the killing, operating free from all human oversight and accountability.

It’s a grim picture of future conflicts, but one that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is nevertheless working to make a reality.

The CCP is investing in artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled platforms that it hopes will one day conduct lethal missions in wartime, wholly without human input or control.

by Blazingcatfur•May 7, 2023May 6, 2023•0•"AI - Artificial Intelligence", "China - Communist Slave State"

Prof Who Claimed Americans Made Indians Fat Lied About Being Indian

I’m starting to suspect there are more fake Indians teaching at colleges than actual American Indians. And I don’t just mean Elizabeth Warren. Here’s another Elizabeth who shares Warren’s ancestry from the fabled Fakeaho people who roamed the plains and hallways of the Ivy League and hunted jackalopes in Atlantis.

There seems little real shame in this one.

by Blazingcatfur•May 6, 2023May 6, 2023•0•"Cultural Appropriation"

San Francisco’s Heart of Darkness

If you search “San Francisco crime spike” on the internet, you will find countless stories—going back years—about how the city’s problems are no big deal or are due to forces beyond the control of its policymakers.

The problem isn’t crime, it’s cr i me rhetoric, they say.

But rhetoric didn’t cause a cascade of businesses to close and flee the city.

I recently wrote about how San Francisco’s policies—born of the left-wing ideology that drives the city’s leadership class—are leading directly to its woes. The City by the Bay is on a road to perdition of its own making.

This is Toronto’s future.

by Blazingcatfur•May 6, 2023May 6, 2023•0•"Progressive Paradise"

Islamist antisemitism is flying under the Jewish communal radar

When far-right extremists attacked synagogues in Pittsburgh in 2018 and Poway, Calif., in 2019 with deadly results, these incidents generated the kind of fear among American Jews that had not been felt in living memory. Communities were galvanized into action to better protect Jewish institutions. More than that, these acts of domestic terrorism served to create a sense of genuine alarm about Jewish security in the United States that was felt even among people who rarely, if ever, walked into a house of worship.

But more than a year after another synagogue was attacked in Colleyville, Texas, in January 2022, the very different reaction to that crime is still worth thinking about.

Anti-semitism being mainstreamed? You don’t say! How could the Islamist-Liberal Left alliance possibly be a revelation to anyone not living under a rock?

by Blazingcatfur•May 6, 2023May 6, 2023•0•"Islamophobia", Anti-Semitism and the Left, Islam, Islam and hatred of Israel, Islam and hatred of Jews, Islam and violence, Islamization of the West

Terence Corcoran: The railway hit Gordon Lightfoot could not write today

Canadian Railroad Trilogy, the late songwriter’s hymn to progress, would not make it past CBC gatekeepers today

On the northernmost point of Tudhope Park, on a narrow peninsula reaching into Lake Couchiching just outside the Ontario town of Orillia, 150 kilometres due north of Toronto, stands a statue of Gordon Lightfoot, the Canadian singer and songwriter who died Monday at the age of 84. The park, which is home to the Mariposa Folk Festival, is not far from where Lightfoot was born.

by Blazingcatfur•May 6, 2023May 6, 2023•0•"Cancel Culture", "Peak Woke", Canada

Hamilton police should halt drone program, Ontario-wide investigation needed: former privacy commissioner

Ontario’s former privacy commissioner says the current commissioner should launch a province-wide investigation on how police services are using drones, and programs like the one by Hamilton Police Service (HPS) should shut down until that’s done.

“What Hamilton police is doing with these drones is appalling,” Ann Cavoukian told CBC Hamilton.

“I don’t believe the value of it is greater than the harm it introduces.”

by Blazingcatfur•May 6, 2023May 6, 2023•0•"Surveillance Society"