Ontario’s sex education debate turns ugly at Queen’s Park
(Progressive Conservative MPP and leadership hopeful Monte McNaughton is among those leading his party’s charge against the province’s revised sex-ed curriculum. image credit: Torstar News Service)
As several hundred social conservative protesters loudly rallied against Ontario’s new sex education curriculum outside the legislature, the debate inside was even more heated.
Progressive Conservative MPP Monte McNaughton (Lambton-Kent-Essex), a leadership hopeful, attacked Premier Kathleen Wynne on Tuesday for not doing enough to consult parents before implementing the new syllabus that takes effect in September.
McNaughton told the house that the premier should not be imposing views upon mothers and fathers concerned about the revised program designed to protect children by better informing them about sex.
Wynne, Ontario’s first openly lesbian premier, suggested the Tory MPP was being homophobic.
She rhetorically shot back at McNaughton that perhaps he thought she wasn’t qualified to weigh in on the subject because she’s a woman, a mother, a grandmother, a former school trustee, a past education minister or that she has a masters of education.
As Wynne thundered at the Tory member, Liberal MPPs heckled that that wasn’t “the real reason” he was complaining.
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[related tweet:
Ontario’s sex curriculum tells Grade 8s to make a “personal plan” about “sexual activity”. They’re 13 for God’s sake. http://t.co/9YCzl2RgOb
— Ezra Levant (@ezralevant) February 24, 2015
]
BREAKING — Dell Expands Bitcoin Payments to UK and Canada
CoinDesk
Published on February 19, 2015 at 15:35 GMT
UPDATE (19th February, 2015 17:00 GMT): Updated with comment from Dell CIO Paul Walsh.
Dell has announced it has expanded its bitcoin payments program to consumers in the UK and Canada.
The announcement was revealed today at eTail West, an annual e-commerce conference, during a keynote address by CIO Paul Walsh.
In remarks, Walsh suggested that the decision was prompted by customer demand and the positive feedback the company had so far received for its US offering.
Walsh said:
“We’re hearing from our customers around the world that they want the option to use bitcoin when buying Dell products, so we are excited to deliver bitcoin as a payment method on Dell.com to our customers in Canada and the UK.”
Dell has been accepting bitcoin for purchases via its US store since July 2014. The company will continue to receive local currency from Coinbase in exchange for bitcoin orders, in this case GBP and the Canadian dollar.
Earning $56.9bn in revenue in 2013, Dell remained the largest merchant in the bitcoin space until December when it was replaced by tech giant Microsoft.
The news also follows the decision by e-commerce leader Overstock to expand its bitcoin payment option to global consumers, though it has since reported struggles encouraging international customers to use bitcoin.
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UN Presses for “Truce” to Save Embattled Terrorists in Aleppo
Syria is winning the war and has absolutely no reason to show mercy for opponents that have no intention to show any for it and its people.
February 18, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci – LD) – Curious is the United Nation and NATO’s sudden interest in peace. Both organizations are suing for truces on two separate battlefields, one in Ukraine in Eastern Europe, and another in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo amid a regional conflagration in the Middle East. It is curious because talks of “truces” were completely absent just as recently as 2011, when both organizations, the UN and NATO, backed hordes of terrorists sweeping across Libya, committing abhorrent atrocities including the systematic, genocidal extermination of Libya’s black communities.
Image: No “ceasefire” or “truce” was proposed by the UN or NATO, because the terrorists they were backing were winning. Such calls are meant not to alleviate human suffering, but to preserve, buy time for, and rebuild forces committed to expanding such suffering.
There was also the encirclement, intentional starvation, and denial of humanitarian aid, along with the bombardment of Libyan cities like Sirte, which also saw no protests or calls for “ceasefires” by the UN or NATO. In fact, as terrorists enforced blockades on the ground to starve residents to death, NATO bombed the encircled cities relentlessly from the air for weeks. The eventual fall of Sirte, for example, would leave behind an utterly devastate city and a decimated, scattered population. Other cities, like Tawarga, had their entire populations, down to the last resident, either killed or forced to flee.
Is Soros Preparing A Color Revolution For Greece?
by Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post
Feb 10, 2015
With the recent victory of Syriza in Greece, opponents of austerity the world over have been rejoicing. The news from a country crushed by austerity policies, the European Central Bank, the IMF, and corrupt oligarchs is now heralding a shift in direction toward a “third way” that does not simply involve trading one austerity oligarch and his party for another.
For many in Greece, the signal is clear – help seems to be on the way.
For those watching the developments from afar, the hope is that the spark in Greece will light the brushfire across Europe and the rest of the world that says “No!” to austerity and banker domination of national economies.
Yet, while the signs coming out of Greece may seem positive at first, there is an ominous cloud approaching – the cloud of George Soros and his color revolution apparatus.
If Syriza is truly as anti-austerity, anti-banker, and anti-troika as its rhetoric and even its first actions seem to indicate, then the Greek oligarchs, international bankers, corporate boards, and secret societies will undoubtedly respond as soon as they are able to mount a calculated strategy.
George Soros and his color revolution networks may just be the response these oligarchs are ready to mount.
Indeed, Soros has been founding and opening his infamous “Solidarity Centres” in Greece since January, 2014 using philanthropy and economic relief as justification for the opening of the centers. Because of Soros’ track record, one would be justified in wondering whether or not Soros’ Solidarity Centres’ grand openings were for the purposes of misdirecting the growing Greek discontent with austerity policies or if it was more in anticipation of a Syriza victory in the coming elections.
Regardless, the places are already being set. Alexis Tsipras had better start watching his back.
Indeed, the knives are already being sharpened by the color revolution apparatus and history has clearly shown that those who control it are willing to stab their target in the front as well as the back.
As The Guardian reported in January, 2014
George Soros has extended his financial support for Greece by establishing the first in a series of “solidarity centres” for those worst-hit by the country’s economic crisis.
The opening of the centre in the northern city of Thessaloniki comes as ever more Greeks are forced to turn to charities for help.
“Greece, to a great degree, has become a failed state,” said Aliki Mouriki, a sociologist at the National Centre for Social Research. “It is unable to provide basic facilities for its citizens because of budget cuts.
“In the absence of public welfare, and with around one and a half million officially unemployed, growing numbers are looking for substitutes elsewhere.”
The centre – a hub for NGOs offering health care and legal counsel – has been deluged with requests only days after opening its doors.
Soros committed $1m for heating oil last year after local mayors, unable to heat schools, appealed for help. Among them was Tassos Karabatos, mayor of Naoussa, also in northern Greece, who turned to the US investor after taking the unprecedented step of shutting down all 54 schools in his municipality when he saw that oil tanks were running dry.
While Soros’ donations may seem at first to be an act of incredible generosity, it would take gross naivete and ignorance of the billionaire’s history across the world to believe that he has anything remotely resembling good intentions for Greece.
Notice that, while Soros has bought some watery-eyed loyalty with his donations, it is also true that his “Solidarity Centres” are also “a hub for NGOs,” a necessary part of any color revolution. In fact, the currency speculator Soros has funded a number of color revolutions through his “democracy” and “civil society” NGOs in Europe and even the United States.
Of course, some Greeks were not as foolish as to look toward the Soros machine for help. A number of school parents’ associations refused to endorse any of the Soros funds. The presence of mind of the Greek people earned them condemnation from many of their local leaders, however.
Indeed, Soros is most well-known for playing a major role in the funding and facilitating of the “Bulldozer Revolution” in Serbia that overthrew Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, Georgia’s “Rose Revolution” of 2003, the 2006 push to move Turkey toward a more Islamist governing structure, and even the Occupy movement in the United States among a great many others.
Chapel Hill shooting and western media bigotry
via Brandon Martinez
Non-Aligned Media
Feb 11, 2015
Chapel Hill shooting and western media bigotry
By Mohamad Elmasry
The religious identity of violent perpetrators is only highlighted when they’re Muslim.
Three Muslim Americans were murdered on Tuesday in a University of North Carolina dorm room. The crime came on the heels of recent anti-Muslim attacks in Europe, carried out in apparent response to the January murders (committed by Muslims) of Charlie Hebdo journalists in Paris.
Western media outlets will likely frame the most recent perpetrator of what some speculate is an anti-Muslim crime in the same way they frame most anti-Muslim criminals – as crazed, misguided bigots who acted alone. If past coverage is any indication, there will likely be very little suggestion that the killer acted on the basis of an ideology or as part of any larger pattern or system.
But what if acts of anti-Muslim violence are consistent with at least some strands of current western ideology? What if Islamophobia has become so commonplace, so accepted, that it now represents a hegemonic system of thought, at least for relatively large pockets of people in some regions of the West?
Portraying Islam
Given what we know both about western media portrayals of Islam and Muslims on the one hand, and media effects and theory on the other hand, it would be foolish to dismiss western media representations as potential causal factors in anti-Muslim sentiment and crime. In fact, it is likely that anti-Muslim sentiment and crime are, at least in part, driven by one-sided, narrow, sensationalistic, and arguably bigoted western media portrayals of Islam and Muslims.
Many scholars – including Edward Said, Elizabeth Poole, Kai Hafez, Milly Williamson, Karim Karim, Teun Van Dijk, Kimberly Powell, and Dina Ibrahim, among others – have carried out academic studies examining western news coverage of Islam and Muslims.
Results suggest that Muslims are often portrayed in western news media as violent, backwards, fundamentalist and as threats to western civilisation. Western news coverage rarely highlights Islam except to show its possible relation to some atrocity, and Muslims are rarely mentioned in the context of news that is positive or benign.
Several studies have found that Muslims are portrayed as a homogenised body, lacking diversity and difference, with other analyses showing that news coverage of violent conflicts in the Muslim-majority world ignores context and circumstances, implying that Muslims are inherently violent and prone to conflict.
Inconsistent coverage
Other studies show inconsistent coverage of violent global and regional conflicts. When Christians, Jews and other non-Muslims are killed by Muslims, Islam is identified as playing a direct role. When Muslims are killed by Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims, however, the religious identity of the violent perpetrators is downplayed or ignored.
The ongoing conflict in Burma represents a good case-in-point. There has been little western news coverage on the recent persecution faced by Rohingya Muslims, who Human Rights Watch says have been subjected to mass killings; “crimes against humanity” and “ethnic cleansing”.
5 Reasons Police Body Cameras Are a Terrible Idea
by Activist Post
Dec 26, 2014
Police abuse is a major problem not because of a few bad apples but because of the training, equipment, and tactics.
The establishment wants the public arguing about who the victims are of police brutality instead of focusing on the actions police routinely get away with. And they get away with it because it’s protocol, or standard operating procedure.
Police are somehow anointed with special privileges that regular citizens do not have. They are allowed to break into people’s homes, spy on them, harass them in the street, confiscate suspicious cash, and murder citizens if they do not comply with their demands.
These actions are obviously wrong and illegal if anyone except “authorities” carries them out. If 2014 proved anything, it’s that police can get away with murder while average citizens can’t exchange cigarettes without a license.
This has caused protests and riots throughout the country and the solution being offered is not to change the laws to remove these absurd privileges from cops, but to put a camera on every single officer.
On the surface, cameras seem like they’ll add a layer of accountability to the system. However, civil liberties groups who advocate this approach seem to be shortsighted.
Here are 5 reasons to oppose body cameras for cops:
Video didn’t matter in publicized cases: In the case of Eric Garner, the NY man who was choked to death for selling loose cigarettes, clear video footage did not matter. In the court’s eyes disobeying officers is grounds for using lethal force. Case closed, at least until laws are changed.
Privacy, facial recognition: Technology already exists for cameras to be equipped with facial recognition software that could immediately identify anyone the cop comes in contact with. And with new threat level analysis of social media and other “watch list” mechanisms, cops will be motivated to stop someone without actual probable cause. This is extremely dangerous for liberty. This alone should halt your support for mandatory police cameras.
Boondoggle – Just like Michael Chertoff cashed in on naked body scanners following the sketchy underwear bomber, several cronies will make big bucks outfitting all police with these cameras and for providing supposed oversight.
Ends being let off with a warning: Remember the good cops who let you off on warnings for minor infractions? Say goodbye to that. Police cameras will be used to hold police accountable to their bosses more than to the public.
Cops can turn them off: Cops can easily turn the cameras off, and precincts can delete or edit footage in their favor. Cameras are as good as useless if people don’t trust the system to preserve and use the footage wisely.
Cameras may prevent some good cops from acting like complete thugs; however, when thuggish behavior is not just tolerated but legal in the eyes of the system, does it really matter if we have that behavior on video or not?
VIDEO — Andreas Antonopoulos: The Future Of Crypto-Currency
Terry Wilson
Apr 16, 2014
Andreas Antonopoulos shares what he believes will be the evolution of Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies and what it could mean for the future.
Presented at the 2014 Bitcoin Expo in Toronto.
PN 