Author: Blazingcatfur
When Will The Woke Go Full Caligula?
The other day, I was scrolling through Twitter when I happened upon this particular tweet, directed against the former New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss:
“Imagine if @bariweiss offered 10% of the defense she gives white supremacy to all the antifascist, Jewish-allied, Black and brown women of color she has made a career putting in danger,” it said. “NYT staff of color felt so unsafe around her that she had to resign.”
Failure Factory: Buffalo’s school district tells students that “all white people play a part in perpetuating systemic racism”—while presiding over miserable student outcomes.
The story of Buffalo Public Schools is a sad and familiar one: a dying industrial town, underperforming inner-city schools, and high rates of failure among racial minorities. Instead of focusing on improving academic achievement, however, Buffalo school administrators have adopted fashionable new pedagogies: “culturally responsive teaching,” “pedagogy of liberation,” “equity-based instructional strategies,” and an “emancipatory curriculum.”
Trump Appeals Suspension to Rejoin Facebook, Instagram
Former President Donald Trump has submitted a statement of appeal to an oversight board funded by Facebook in a bid to rejoin the platform. The decision is expected to take around two and a half months.
Former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who is a co-chair of the oversight board, told UK’s Channel 4 News that they are currently looking into the appeal concerning Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. The board was set up to be an independent group to hear users’ appeals and is comprised of 19 former politicians, journalists, and academics.
John Robson: Justin Trudeau and his cabinet show cowardice by hiding from genocide vote
Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt supposedly roasted President John F. Kennedy’s inaction on civil rights by wishing the author of the 1956 Pulitzer-prize-winning Profiles in Courage would show less profile and more courage. A crack that surely also applies to our prime minister, a fearless social justice warrior when there’s nothing to fear but a bit of a coward when the going gets tough. For instance on this Uyghur genocide business.
Belgium To Try 14 People For Alleged Aid to Extremists in Paris 2015 Terror Acts
A Belgium court on Wednesday referred 14 people suspected of aiding and abetting extremists behind the 2015 Paris terror attacks to the criminal court, media reported.
According to the broadcaster RTBF, Brussels’ council chamber, the first level of general jurisdiction, referred 14 suspects out of the 20 initially indicted in the so-called Paris bis case after a probe into the logistical assistance to the terrorists who carried out attacks in Paris in November 2015. Cases against five others were dismissed, and one defendant is to be tried separately for a different case, the media outlet added.
In ‘very significant’ move for Canada, Facebook reinstates news sharing in Australia
Canadian media organizations are heralding Facebook’s decision to back away from its news sharing ban in Australia as a win for financially struggling news publishers across the world.
Australia has been at the front-line of governments pushing to make digital platforms pay for journalism and Facebook’s decision is “very significant” for Canada, said John Hinds, president of News Media Canada, a lobbying group.
“I think once these agreements have been made, and once the platforms agree in principle, it really is about moving to the mechanisms of how it’s going to be applied in Canada,” said Hinds, who supports Canada’s adopting a model like Australia’s.
I dunno, this doesn’t sound like much of a win.
International travelers are walking out of Mississauga’s Pearson Airport and ignoring quarantine rules
International travelers arriving at Mississauga’s Pearson Airport are bypassing new government hotel quarantine protocols by simply walking out of the airport or by choosing to take a fine.
Peel Police have confirmed they are not detaining or arresting people who leave the arrival area. As well, others who refuse to take the mandatory COVID-19 test or book the quarantine hotel upon arrival, are opting to receive a fine that is cheaper than the quarantine cost and then are released to go home. The fines are usually in the $820 range while staying at an approved quarantine hotel could cost up to $2,000.
h/t Mauser
Britain Leads The World: Harshest Lockdown In The West But Significant Death Rates
People in the United Kingdom live under one of the strictest lockdowns in the world, an Oxford observatory has found, but this appears to have had a questionable impact on health outcomes for the country, which has one of the highest known coronavirus fatality rates worldwide.
Ex-aide Lindsay Boylan details sexual harassment allegations against Gov. Cuomo
A former aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday provided new details to back up her claims of sexual harassment — including an allegation that New York’s top elected official kissed her “on the lips” without warning inside his Manhattan office.
Lindsey Boylan — now a Democratic candidate for Manhattan borough president — made the stunning allegation in an essay posted on the Medium website.
Boylan said the incident took place after her 2018 promotion to be Cuomo’s deputy secretary for economic development and special advisor to the governor — a job she initially turned down “because I didn’t want to be near him.”
How Ottawa’s mistakes ensured you’ll likely be vaccinated six months later than everyone else
As you might have noticed if you’re a Canadian, not many of us are vaccinated against COVID-19 right now. As of publication, a mere 2.8% of us have gotten the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, and only 1% of us have gotten both doses. So, in all of Canada, the amount of people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 (400,000) is roughly equivalent to the population of London, Ont.
Chicago lawmaker calls to BAN Grand Theft Auto in new bill, blaming ‘violent video games’ for spike in carjackings
A Democratic lawmaker in Chicago is pushing to ban the sale of all violent video games, claiming the graphic ‘Grand Theft Auto’ series – which debuted more than 20 years ago – is to blame for a wave of carjackings around the city.
State lawmaker Marcus Evans Jr. introduced an amendment on Monday that would “prohibit the sale of all violent video games,” including those that depict “motor vehicle theft with a driver or passenger present inside the vehicle when the theft begins.” He singled out GTA by name during a Monday press conference.
This is fool proof!
GUNTER: The need to hold chief medical officers accountable
As the old saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt.
The Angus Reid Institute has been tracking public approval of each province’s chief public health officer since the early days of the pandemic last April. Most provinces’ top docs are currently noticeably less popular than they were nearly a year ago.
Biden Gun Control Plan Would ‘Criminalize’ up to 105 Million People: Gun-rights Group
A gun-rights organization said that President Joe Biden’s gun control proposal would potentially make about 105 million law-abiding gun owners into criminals.
“While we can agree that there are several ‘common sense’ and long overdue changes needed to our nation’s gun laws, we firmly believe that the path forward should be focused on supporting and protecting responsible, law-abiding Americans—not criminalizing and punishing them,” the U.S. Concealed Carry Association said in a letter to Biden this week.
Germany: Covid-19 Triggers New Wave of Anti-Semitism
“Why are the majority of anti-Semitic acts attributed to ‘right-wing’ German perpetrators? One can see a political motive behind this — growing anti-Semitism can be used politically as a weapon ‘against the right.'” — Tichys Einblick.
… A 2017 survey of German Jews by the University of Bielefeld found that 60% of anti-Semitic attacks were said to have been carried out by Muslims, compared to 19% by far-left extremists and 19% by far-right perpetrators. Muslims were also said to be responsible for 81% of anti-Semitic attacks involving physical violence. The survey found that 70% of German Jews believe that mass migration from the Muslim world has fueled anti-Semitism in Germany.
Nevertheless, German police, possibly under orders from political authorities, systematically assign unsolved anti-Semitic hate crimes to the far right. In one well-known case, police blamed far-right extremists for chanting the Nazi slogan “Sieg Heil” at an Islamist al-Quds rally in Berlin.