October 9, 2015

4 men stabbed, 1 woman hit at Jimmy's Famous Seafood in Southeast Baltimore

Source: Baltimore Sun

Four men were stabbed or cut with a knife and a woman was struck in the face during an altercation at a Southeast Baltimore seafood restaurant early Friday morning, according to Baltimore Police.

Police responded to Jimmy's Famous Seafood in the 6500 block of Holabird Avenue about 1:30 a.m. for a report of a cutting and located five victims — a 29-year-old man cut in the hand, a 24-year-old man cut in the neck, a 27-year-old man cut in the left thigh and left torso, a 22-year-old man cut in the wrist and abdomen, and a 24-year-old woman who was struck in the nose, police said.

The five victims were transported to an area hospital for treatment of injuries considered to be non-life-threatening, police said.

Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/blog/bs-md-jimmys-seafood-20151009-story.html

September 23, 2015

XPost from Canada group: Article: Because I am Christian, I'm not voting Conservative

From the Toronto Star:
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2015/09/08/voting-conservative-not-the-christian-thing-to-do.html

I will not be voting Conservative at the forthcoming election. Not because I am committed to party politics — far from it — and nor because I am convinced of the righteousness of any particular politicians — I am certainly not — but for one very simple reason. I am a Christian. Yes, I will not be voting Conservative because I am a Christian.

My own conservative credentials began to evaporate more than 18 months ago when I embraced equal marriage and once the door is unlocked it has a habit of opening wide. The journey from legalism to love, or religion to relationship, isn’t directly political as such and it’s dangerous and facile to overly politicize faith. But it’s also downright naïve to think that religion and politics have no mutual hinge. Cue the usual attacks because someone has dared to change his mind, as though evolution is a sin and ideological and spiritual stubbornness a virtue.

In terms of environmental protection and ecological concern the argument is almost axiomatic. Contrary to how even other conservative parties and administrations have behaved, the Harper government has allowed ideology to triumph over scientific reality and has empowered deniers who are not given table-room elsewhere. I interviewed many of them over the years and while they’re not always the big oil puppets their opponents claim, they are generally politicians more than experts.

The poor and marginalized? The government’s taxation policies have reversed a long-standing tradition of redistribution and have encouraged the perception that tax is a burden rather than a duty. We’ve heard too much about “the other” and of the so-called undeserving and this is as un-Christian as it is un-Canadian. We share therefore we are.

I feel like Harper's going to die the death of 1000 cuts with articles like this. Just little things constantly picking away at his base and pushing him further and further out of the mainstream.

I'm still aiming at the NDP slate in my riding, but it's been an NDP stronghold for ages. I'm not changing much where I live, though this will be my husband's first federal election since he gained citizenship (immigrated from the USA).

The topic sort of dovetails with what's happening in the USA right now, especially with the Pope visiting and such.

September 23, 2015

Article: Because I am Christian, I'm not voting Conservative

From the Toronto Star:
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2015/09/08/voting-conservative-not-the-christian-thing-to-do.html

I will not be voting Conservative at the forthcoming election. Not because I am committed to party politics — far from it — and nor because I am convinced of the righteousness of any particular politicians — I am certainly not — but for one very simple reason. I am a Christian. Yes, I will not be voting Conservative because I am a Christian.

My own conservative credentials began to evaporate more than 18 months ago when I embraced equal marriage and once the door is unlocked it has a habit of opening wide. The journey from legalism to love, or religion to relationship, isn’t directly political as such and it’s dangerous and facile to overly politicize faith. But it’s also downright naïve to think that religion and politics have no mutual hinge. Cue the usual attacks because someone has dared to change his mind, as though evolution is a sin and ideological and spiritual stubbornness a virtue.

In terms of environmental protection and ecological concern the argument is almost axiomatic. Contrary to how even other conservative parties and administrations have behaved, the Harper government has allowed ideology to triumph over scientific reality and has empowered deniers who are not given table-room elsewhere. I interviewed many of them over the years and while they’re not always the big oil puppets their opponents claim, they are generally politicians more than experts.

The poor and marginalized? The government’s taxation policies have reversed a long-standing tradition of redistribution and have encouraged the perception that tax is a burden rather than a duty. We’ve heard too much about “the other” and of the so-called undeserving and this is as un-Christian as it is un-Canadian. We share therefore we are.

I feel like Harper's going to die the death of 1000 cuts with articles like this. Just little things constantly picking away at his base and pushing him further and further out of the mainstream.

I'm still aiming at the NDP slate in my riding, but it's been an NDP stronghold for ages. I'm not changing much where I live, though this will be my husband's first federal election since he gained citizenship (immigrated from the USA).

August 18, 2015

Atlantic columnist asks Trump supporters why they support Trump

...and it's about as terrible as you might expect:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/08/donald-trump-voters/401408/

From self-proclaimed anarchists who think he might just be the final straw that burns the whole system down to self-proclaimed liberals who think he's the perfect tonic to political correctness run amok *gag*.

From the lede:

Last week, I asked Donald Trump supporters why they believe that the billionaire real-estate developer will treat them any better than the career politicians they mistrust.

The dozens of replies that I received from across the United States make up the largest collection I’ve encountered of Trump supporters setting forth their thinking in their own words. And having read through this non-representative sample, I understand the candidate’s rise better than I did before. Broadly speaking, the men and women who wrote fall into two categories: Those who earnestly believe that Trump is the best choice to lead America and those who are motivated by giddyness at the chaotic spectacle of his success. Of course, anyone polling at the top of a major party is going to have supporters with all sorts of backgrounds and world views, and while the correspondence below includes several recurring themes, many of the rationales are singular.

The media's not going to slow down their coverage on him as long as he shifts units and captures eyeballs, so we as progressives have to make sure that every time some nugget drops from those lips, it's refuted with fact-checking and sound policy. Let's not let him turn into the next Reagan, for heaven's sake!

August 3, 2015

The writ is dropped

As everyone knew it would be, yesterday:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-stephen-harper-confirms-start-of-11-week-federal-campaign-1.3175136

Stephen Harper has started a long and cynical campaign, and the pundits and analysts are off and running. Who will benefit from the long campaign? Who's in danger? Who's secure? Who has money? Who's going to win the debates?

Substantive discussion on actual policy and platform is a little thin, of course. Election campaigns are all PR and marketing, now. But count on CBC et. al. to give us day-to-day updates of what everyone's doing:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-live-campaign-begins-1.3177165

We've got 11 weeks to ditch Harper, folks. Let's show him the door with authority. Many ridings have been redistricted to give more ridings to the now denser suburbs, so make sure you know your riding, make sure you know your candidates.

July 28, 2015

Heads up, Canada! Ridings are being redistricted.

Last night, the new NDP candidate for our riding was pounding the pavement, handing out flyers. I live in Kensington Market in Toronto, which has, up until now, been in the riding of Trinity-Spadina. Well, she was handing out flyers for University-Rosedale. I was wondering if maybe she had wandered across a riding barrier and not realized it, but also, I had never heard of Univeristy-Rosedale before. So, I went to the Elections Canada website. You can see what your current riding is, and what your riding will be for the upcoming federal election here:

http://www.elections.ca/Scripts/vis/ChooseED?L=e&QID=-1&PAGEID=20

Yeah, turns out I'm in a new riding called University-Rosedale that is such obvious gerrymandering.

http://www.elections.ca/Scripts/vis/Map338?L=e&ED=35110&EV=99&EV_TYPE=6&PC=M5T2N5&PROV=ON&PROVID=35&QID=-1&PAGEID=27

Looks to me like they're trying to balance out us hippies, commies, and liberals in Kensington/Univeristy/Little Portugal/Little Italy with the rich conservative voters up in Rosedale.

Heads up. Make sure you know what your riding is for the upcoming federal election!

July 20, 2015

The Breathtaking Hypocrisy Of The Republican Freak Out About John McCain, In One Letter

From ThinkProgress:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/07/20/3682278/breathtaking-hypocrisy-republican-freak-john-mccain/

I mean, really, it's the usual Republican hypocrisy that we see constantly, but when you run into those people who insist that the GOP really supports those veterans, it's a great idea to remind them just how disrespectful they have been, and continue to be, so long as it is politically expedient. It's great to watch them turn on each other and beat each other up in the GOP primaries, but let's keep this sort of thing in the front of everyone's minds.

July 10, 2015

XPost from Canada group: ICYMI: Desmond Cole is bravely attacking racism in Toronto

Desmond Cole is a columnist for The Torontoist:

http://torontoist.com/author/desmondcole/

and Toronto Life:

http://www.torontolife.com/author/desmondcole/

ignited a bit of a firestorm when Toronto Life published his article attacking the Toronto Police Services practice of carding, and its incredibly racist implementation in this article:

http://www.torontolife.com/informer/features/2015/04/21/skin-im-ive-interrogated-police-50-times-im-black/

People would love to imagine Canada as a serene, post-racial society without this kind of trouble, but POC are still dying in Canada. It's overshadowed a little by the massive troubles that are erupting throughout the USA for the same problems, but it's still an issue, here. Since the article was posted, he's been talking about it non-stop on his Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/DesmondCole and finding a great deal of support and a bizarre amount of resistance.

It's worth your time to read the article and do some browsing of his Twitter feed.

Remember that carding is not simply "collecting data." Each instance of carding is recorded as a "non-arrest police interaction" which is something that can show up on a background check. Toronto Star did an article about this last year: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/05/17/no_charges_no_trial_but_presumed_guilty.html outlining the problem of people being denied jobs and housing based on things like these non-arrest interactions showing up on background checks.

July 10, 2015

ICYMI: Desmond Cole is bravely attacking racism in Toronto

Desmond Cole is a columnist for The Torontoist:

http://torontoist.com/author/desmondcole/

and Toronto Life:

http://www.torontolife.com/author/desmondcole/

ignited a bit of a firestorm when Toronto Life published his article attacking the Toronto Police Services practice of carding, and its incredibly racist implementation in this article:

http://www.torontolife.com/informer/features/2015/04/21/skin-im-ive-interrogated-police-50-times-im-black/

People would love to imagine Canada as a serene, post-racial society without this kind of trouble, but POC are still dying in Canada. It's overshadowed a little by the massive troubles that are erupting throughout the USA for the same problems, but it's still an issue, here. Since the article was posted, he's been talking about it non-stop on his Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/DesmondCole and finding a great deal of support and a bizarre amount of resistance.

It's worth your time to read the article and do some browsing of his Twitter feed.

Remember that carding is not simply "collecting data." Each instance of carding is recorded as a "non-arrest police interaction" which is something that can show up on a background check. Toronto Star did an article about this last year: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/05/17/no_charges_no_trial_but_presumed_guilty.html outlining the problem of people being denied jobs and housing based on things like these non-arrest interactions showing up on background checks.

June 23, 2015

AP Says Shots of Gun Pointed at Ted Cruz’s Head Not Intended to be Negative

But it sure is funny!

From PetaPixel: http://petapixel.com/2015/06/23/ap-says-shots-of-gun-pointed-at-ted-cruzs-head-not-intended-to-be-negative/

The photographer took a series of 14 photos, and I just can't help but think it's a subtle (maybe no-so-subtle) political jab. Great framing in my book!