Author: Blazingcatfur

Freedom of Speech: A Vulnerable Right

Social media has undoubtedly become the dominant form of communication in our society. Sixty-eight percent of U.S. adults identify themselves as Facebook users. Statistics show that people on average spend 2.5 hours per day on social networks and messaging. Also, 49 percent “of consumers depend on influencer recommendations on social media.” Social media boosters claim that this success shows that Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other platforms are fulfilling their promise to help build an interconnected world of free expression and solidarity in diversity of thought. But is this true?

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Surveillance Society"

Clubhouse In A Conflict Zone: Afghans Confront Taliban On Audio App

Kabul: As war rages across the countryside, young Afghans are plugging in their earphones and logging into audio-based app Clubhouse to argue with the Taliban and pitch counter-offensive tactics.

Launched in the United States at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the platform acts as a giant conference call and first found popularity among American tech entrepreneurs as a forum for discussing start-ups and cryptocurrencies.

In a conflict zone, it can have the rare power of connecting ordinary citizens with extremists waging fear and destruction.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Islamophobia", Afghanistan, Islam, Islam and violence, Taliban

WARMINGTON: Councillor calls for city to scrap ActiveTO

It has taken a Ford to call for the “end” of the ActiveTO program that frees up some Toronto roadways for runners and cyclists, but snarls traffic elsewhere.

It was like late mayor Rob Ford dropped in from heaven to drop a bomb on the woke Toronto political scene. Or to inject some long overdue, much-needed common sense into the debate.

To be honest I avoid going to downtown Toronto by any means unless compelled to so the traffic snarls are not a personal issue.

The people most inconvenienced likely voted for both Trudeau and Tory. Boo Hoo!

There are permanent Bike Lanes in front of my condo and I am not exaggerating when I say I have rarely seen a cyclist use them.

This sort of crap is so Toronto. “The few can feck over the many” should be the city motto.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Toronto - Canada's version of a Democrat run city"

Kamala Harris Is The Most Unpopular Vice President In 50 Years, Polls Show

Vice President Kamala Harris has only been in office for six months, but she is already the most unpopular vice president since at least the 1970s, according to recent polls.

The Los Angeles Times on Monday reported that as of July 27, “5% of registered voters had a favorable opinion of Harris and 48% had an unfavorable opinion — a net rating of -3 percentage points, according to a Times average.”

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inUSA

Commandos deployed as Afghan forces battle Taliban for control of cities

Afghan forces are battling to stop a first provincial city from falling to the Taliban following weekend offensives from the insurgents on urban centres in a major escalation in fighting.

Taliban fighters assaulted at least three provincial capitals overnight – Lashkar Gah, Kandahar and Herat – after a weekend of heavy fighting that resulted in thousands of civilians fleeing the advancing militants.

Fighting raged in Lashkar Gah, Helmand’s provincial capital, where the Taliban launched coordinated attacks on the city centre and its prison hours after the government announced the deployment of hundreds of commandos to the area.

The Taliban have rarely experienced difficulty handling Afghan forces.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inAfghanistan

Portland wants to walk back defunding the police but officers don’t want the jobs

Last June Portland’s Mayor Ted Wheeler, who is also the police commissioner, decided to put an end to the Gun Violence Reduction Team (GVRT) as part of an effort to reimagine policing. The $6 million that would have gone to the team was redirected ” toward communities of color.” Even at the time the assistant chief of police warned their could be serious consequences.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Depolicing"

Racism row at the Vegan Society: Five trustees quit over claim veganism is ‘cultural appropriation’ because it was founded by white man but uses foods and traditions from Africa and Asia

Five trustees quit the Vegan Society last month amid allegations of institutional racism and transphobia sparked by a bitter row over whether the word ‘veganism’ was ‘cultural appropriation’.

Last summer the society, which was established nearly eight decades ago, commissioned Ijeoma Omambala QC to investigate claims that the then vice chair, Eshe Kiama Zuri, had posted racist comments online.

Her report, which was published in June, found that Zuri had written two ‘unprofessional and inappropriate’ comments about the society, but that neither was racist.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Diversity", Batshit Crazy Militant Vegans, WTF?

Betraying the Cuban People, Again

“Elections? What for?”
— Fidel Castro, January 1960

“The United States stands with the brave Cubans who have taken to the streets to oppose 62 years of repression under a communist regime.”
— President Biden, July 22, 2021

Take a look at the opening quotes to this essay, pause, and think about them. There is a long litany of American miscalculations, cowardice, gamesmanship, indifference, condescension, and exploitation centered on Cuba, the Cuban people, and Cuban-Americans. It has been a bipartisan problem for decades, with a lot of American political rhetoric; one double-crossed, failed invasion attempt; and brutal communist intransigence.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCuba

Streatham terror attacker Sudesh Amman: Concern over ‘extremist’ knifeman before release from prison

A terrorist who stabbed two people in Streatham had been released from prison just days before the attack despite concerns he “retained extremist views”, an inquest has heard.

Sudesh Amman, 20, was shot dead by surveillance officers after the attack in Streatham High Road, south London, on 2 February 2020.

His two victims, a man and a woman, survived their injuries.

Police had asked the prison governor not to release Amman, an inquest heard.

Coroner Mr Justice Hilliard said Amman was arrested in May 2018 on suspicion of terror offences and was later jailed for 40 months.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Islamophobia", Islam, Islam and violence, Islamization of the West, UK

The truth is up there: how the Pentagon gave hope to Britain’s UFO spotters

People arrive at the Golden Lion in Todmorden and, rather than heading for the bar, walk upstairs to the attic room — haunted, I’m warned — and sit in a circle. This is not a seance: in the middle of the room stands Oscar, the group’s mascot, an 18in silver alien figure with black oval eyes. This is a meeting, convened by Colin Lyall, 63, secretary of the local UFO club, to discuss extraordinary events. After seven decades of discrediting sightings, the US military has recently confirmed that UFOs are a subject of concern. Its report did not find proof of alien visits to Earth but — this is the important bit for believers — nor did it rule them out.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"UFO's"

Academics of Chinese origin warn new national security screening for research funding could lead to ‘racial profiling’

Two organizations representing academics of Chinese origin in Canada are warning that new mandatory national security assessments for federal funding of university research could lead to “racial profiling Chinese researchers as foreign agents.”

The Canadian Academy of Chinese Professors and the Canadian Association of Chinese Professors recently released a statement, addressed to administrators at this country’s universities, saying they strongly oppose the new risk assessment process laid out in national security guidelines for research partnerships unveiled by Ottawa last month.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"China - Communist Slave State", Canada

How Canadian tourism sustains Cuba’s army and one-party state

Standing on a street corner in Montreal, Reinaldo Rodriguez has a message for Canadians.

“Canadian tourists are feeding the Cuban regime,” he told CBC News.

Rodriguez was part of a wave of protests that have swept Canada’s 30,000-strong Cuban community since unrest spread across the island on July 11.

“The people don’t see (the money),” he said. “The same as happens with the money the government makes from its doctors who work overseas. The Cuban hospitals are unsanitary, people don’t have medicines.”

Is the NDP still making their annual pilgrimage to the Cuban slave state? The Socialist Caucus used to send a crew every year.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, Cuba

Rantz: 7-year-old’s lemonade stand shuttered while nearby encampment remains

A park ranger shut down a 7-year-old girl’s lemonade stand in Everett. Yet, the city refuses to clear the nearby homeless encampments that neighbors have been complaining about.

It’s become a tradition for Elsa LaMaine to operate her lemonade stand at Rucker Hill Park. She even gives a portion of her profits to local nonprofit Everett Gospel Mission. So it was disappointing when a ranger came by to shutter her business and stomp on her entrepreneurial spirit.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inWTF?

Tokyo Olympics: That guy who calls himself Laurel Hubbard out of women’s weightlifting after failing to register successful lift

Transgender athlete Laurel Hubbard made Olympic history but failed to record a successful lift in the women’s +87kg weightlifting.

She became the first openly transgender athlete to compete at a Games in a different gender category to the one in which they were born.

But after a failed attempt to lift 120kg and two failed efforts at 125kg in the snatch, her competition ended.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Bread and Circuses"