April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

Debra

CAPs: The final episode?

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The government seems bent on destroying access, even as more and more government programs and educational programs move to online access only.

For immediate release

The end of Public Access to the Internet?

Ottawa, November 19th, 2007 -Despite the obvious needs and
demonstrated success of Internet community access programs, there has
been no announcement concerning their future funding or renewal. All
requests sent to the Honorable Minister Jim Prentice of Industry Canada,
ministry responsible for this program, have gone unanswered. Without any
renewal budget, these programs will end March 31st.

The Community Access Program (CAP) ensures the maintenance of computer
equipment and the training of employees and volunteers in the non-profit
sector. The CAP´s Youth Initiative (CAP-YI) provides employment
opportunities for countless young men and women while also offering
affordable Internet access to thousands of Canadians. Training sessions
are given by young facilitators in schools, libraries, community centers
to promote the development of basic skills in the use of information and
communication technologies (ICTs), enabling many people to become active
members of society in the Information Age. The PAC also offers special
training programs to people with disabilities and people with literacy
issues to take into account their special needs.

The Community Access Program provides access to those people who might
not have computers or Internet access in their homes or workplaces.
These people are mostly senior citizens, First Nations, immigrants, the
unemployed, people facing literacy challenges, the homeless, people with
disabilities, people living with mental health issues, in short, a large
segment of the population facing exclusion in part because of new
technologies.
[Read more…] about CAPs: The final episode?

Blogging for Choice

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Today Americians who believe in freedom and democracy celebrate the day that women were given a right to reproductive liberty.

At a time when so much talk centres around bringing democracy, freedom, women’s rights, to other countries, it is ironic that those things are being scaled back in America itself.

{The death of habeas corpus
Wire Tapping
limiting abortion rights
Indifference to equal pay just a small sampling}

The vocal minorities and special interest groups have organized while decent people just assumed that what was obviously right would continue. Unfortunately the courts and various places of political representation are now stacked with those who would have America become a theocracy. Whose idea of reproductive choice is whether to do it with the lights off or on. And who would happily revert to days when scores of women were on drugs in order to cope with the drudgery and danger which was their lives.

The slanderous sexist and misogynist comments around Hilary Clintons’ campaign is a glaring example of low esteem in which these right-wing, anti-choice, anti-democratic types hold women. It may be amusing for those women in the anti-choice to see their political foes treated thusly, however, they need to bear in mind that these men think pretty much the same way about them.

It is time to fight back. It is time to remember the women who died because they had no choice, because a piece of flesh within her was considered more important than her life. A time when constant pregnancy made women weak and many succumbed to death from hemorrhage.
The step family is not a new invention, men remarried, families blended, this is not an invention of feminism as the misinformed would like to believe.

Birth control is also under attack. There will be no peace until women have lost all the rights so long fought for. It may start with glurgy soft focus pictures of pregnancy and newborns, but it will end only when the jackboot of patriarchy is once again firmly lodged on the throats of women everywhere.

It is your body, your choice, your life, your future. Defend it!

Gangs or… “Torture? What Torture?”

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This is the write up on gang signals from wiki. Bolded text and links are mine.

Gangs often establish distinctive, characteristic identifiers including graffiti tags[18] colors (red, white and blue), hand-signals, clothing, jewelry, hair styles, fingernails, slogans[911,support the troops,], signs such as the swastika, the noose, or the burning cross[20], flags for example the Confederate flag, secret greetings (or meetings), slurs(terrorists, liberals), or code words (freedom, WMD,intelligence) and other group-specific symbols associated with the gang’s common beliefs, rituals, and mythologies to define and differentiate themselves from rival groups and gangs.[]As an alternative language, signs, symbols, and slurs in speech, graffiti, print, music, or other mediums communicate specific informational cues used to threaten, disparage, taunt, harass, intimidate, alarm, influence[23], or exact specific responses including obedience, submission, fear, or terror. One study focused on terrorism and symbols states: “… Symbolism is important because it plays a part in impelling the terrorist to act and then in defining the targets of their actions.”[24] Displaying a gang sign, such as the noose, as a symbolic act can be construed as “… a threat to commit violence communicated with the intent to terrorize another, to cause evacuation of a building, or to cause serious public inconvenience, in reckless disregard of the risk of causing such terror or inconvenience…an offense against property or involving danger to another person that may include but is not limited to recklessly endangering another person, harassment, stalking, ethnic intimidation, and criminal mischief.”[25] [Read more…] about Gangs or… “Torture? What Torture?”

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

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An article in The Star today tells us to stop focusing on headlines (ironic no? ) and recognize that things make the headlines because they are less likely to happen on a regular basis;

A: I call that “headline bias” – when something makes the news, people think it happens a lot. But the reason something makes the headlines is because it doesn’t happen a lot.

To my mind, public reaction is not in co-ordination with the actual statistics.

Toronto is actually quite a safe city, better than most American and Canadian cities. And the level of violent crime has stayed pretty steady over the past few years.

Having moved from fairly small Lindsay to fairly big Hamilton, I can’t say I feel any less safe here. And so in the spirit of the article enjoy some Bobby Mcferrin;

Keen on covering their asses

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Linda Keen was fired last night.

The sacking of Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission president Linda Keen will put more pressure on Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, already under fire from opposition legislators and the media for his handling of the affair.

Keen lost her job for refusing to allow a 50-year-old reactor at the Chalk River facility in Ontario to reopen after regular maintenance in November. The reactor makes more than two-thirds of the global supply of medical isotopes.

{LINK}

Carol Goar pulls no punches in her assessment of the situation;

If they held auditions on Parliament Hill for a hot-tempered bully and his thuggish sidekick, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn would be shoo-ins.

Their month-long attack on Linda Keen, the president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, has been ugly, unwarranted and unfair.

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion would be perfect for the role of hypocritical scold. In his rush to demand Lunn’s resignation, he overlooked the fact that his own party had ignored warnings of serious deficiencies at the Chalk River nuclear reactor site for years.

Yet this blundering trio may have done the nation an inadvertent service.

At long last, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL), the crown corporation at the centre of the medical isotope scandal, is getting public scrutiny. Finally, the red lights that have been flashing since at least 2000 are attracting some attention.

For more info and background see

Politics n Poetry

POGGE

The Galloping Beaver

The Canadian F-word Blog Awards

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Hey all you ball breaking, castrating, impolite, uncivil, vitriol dripping, hairylegged, humourless, radical feminists out there. Have you ever wondered where the awards for all the hard work nastiness you put out there are?

Well look no further! The CFB is the answer to your question.

“Nominations graciously accepted from January 25 to February 8”