A disabled veteran in Canada has slammed her government for offering to euthanize her when she grew frustrated at delays in having a wheelchair lift installed in her home.
Retired Army Corporal Christine Gauthier, a former Paralympian, testified in Parliament on Thursday that a Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) caseworker made the assisted suicide offer.
After years of frustrating delays in getting the home lift, Gauthier says the caseworker told her: ‘Madam, if you are really so desperate, we can give you medical assistance in dying now.’
The fruits of the new agreement between the U.S. men’s and women’s soccer teams is about to pay off.
Under the equal-pay agreement signed this year, the teams will split the prize money for the World Cup. That means that both teams will get $6.5 million for the men’s team advancing to the Round of 16 and will continue to split the prize money down the middle.
The terms, agreed to in May and formally signed in September, put both teams on the same payment model through 2028.
Hunters registered 203,295 white-tailed deer during the 2022 Wisconsin nine-day gun deer season, an increase of 14% from the previous year and 8% above the five-year average, according to a preliminary report issued Tuesday by the state Department of Natural Resources.
The 2022 kill included 98,397 bucks (up 15% from 2021) and 104,898 antlerless deer (up 14%).
All four deer management regions showed higher deer registrations, with the highest year-over-year increase in the central forest (up 31%), followed by the northern forest (19%), central farmland (14%) and southern farmland (10%).
by Owen | 1900, 21 Nov 2222 | Culture | 3 Comments
I remain adamant that this is one of our nation’s stupidest traditions. Be American… slaughter that turkey and enjoy the blessings of tryptophan while watching football.
Fresh off several weeks of celebrations for his family and political party, a jovial President Joe Biden expressed thanks on Monday as he took part in the annual White House tradition of pardoning turkeys from becoming Thanksgiving dinner.
Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News this week.
As I sit writing this column, it has been five days since the election, and we still do not know the outcome of several critical races. It is unacceptable that our elections have become so sloppy and rife with opportunities for fraud that we can no longer trust that the outcomes reflect the true will of the people. Irrespective of who ends up winning, the losing side will rightfully question the results and the steady erosion of our civic society will continue apace.
In the aftermath of another contentious election, I once again find myself lamenting the emotional investment that so many of us have in the outcome. Why does the outcome of this election matter so much to so many people? Why does it matter at such a personal, emotional level? Why do we think that the outcome will have an impact on our daily lives? Why is it so easy to appreciate why people would be willing to risk ruin and cheat in order to bend elections their way?
We care so much because it does matter so much, but it shouldn’t. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. We were not supposed to live our lives so much under the boot of government that every election feels like we are making irrevocable life-altering decisions. If, as Henry David Thoreau said, “that government is best which governs least,” then our government is very far from being the best.
Over the decades we have allowed our government at all levels to increasingly encroach on our lives. It is the natural progression of government to grow, and it has often been done with good intentions. When there is a problem in our society, whether it be poverty, pollution, or poultry, our political leaders look to try to solve them. Solving problems, or pretending to solve problems, is how politicians garner support to further their political careers and the only tool at their disposal to solve problems is government.
From this impetus we get government programs to “solve” poverty. We get regulations, programs, and subsidies designed to reduce pollution. We get more regulations, programs, and subsidies to ensure that our Thanksgiving turkeys are safe to eat. While each regulation, program, tax, subsidy, prohibition, and mandate might be argued on its relative merits, the cumulative effect is a government that has its beak in everything we do.
The last few years revealed the raw power and brute force that we have allowed our government to accumulate. With the wave of a hand, our government locked us out of our jobs, forced unproven medicines into our veins at penalty of being excluded from society, crippled our kids’ education and development for years, and looted the next generation’s wealth. It happened while we were told that it was for our benefit and that the government was looking out for our best interests.
Underneath all of that altruism, entities used the same levers of government for ill intent. We saw regulations applied unevenly based on political favoritism. For example, leftist protests were allowed to continue unabated while churches were closed. We witnessed Governor Evers and other governors doling out COVID relief money for personal political impact instead of actual need. We will be tracking for decades the incredible amount of fraud and corruption that is taking place as the federal government prints and spends money with little or no oversight.
We have allowed our governments at all levels to be too big, too intrusive, too powerful, too coercive, and too corrosive. As long as this is the case, our elections will continue to be battles in a passionate ideological warfare where the combatants are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to win because the consequences of losing are too dire. Such warfare will continue to rend our civic society along the many seams of our polycultural society.
If we want a return to normalcy, or, at least, if we want to avoid the inevitable slide into further despotism, we must drastically push our government back to the fringes of our lives. The purpose of our government is to protect individual liberty. That’s it. Nothing more. It is not the purpose of government to manage the economy, dictate our culture, or regulate our personal lives. The longer we allow our government to stray from its purpose, the more our society will devolve into irreconcilable factions that lurch for power.
I find myself rereading General Washington’s prophetic farewell address in 1796 and anticipating our future with dread:
“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”
Soccer fans reacted with a mix of anger and resignation to Qatar’s ban on alcohol inside World Cup stadiums.
Alcohol is prohibited inside stadiums during the 2022 World Cup, FIFA announced Friday. The last-minute U-turn came just two days before the tournament is set to begin.
The World Cup is the first to be held in a conservative Muslim country with strict controls on alcohol, the consumption of which is banned in public, and the reversal has raised questions among some supporters about the host country’s ability to deliver on promises to fans.
As I sit writing this column, it has been five days since the election, and we still do not know the outcome of several critical races. It is unacceptable that our elections have become so sloppy and rife with opportunities for fraud that we can no longer trust that the outcomes reflect the true will of the people. Irrespective of who ends up winning, the losing side will rightfully question the results and the steady erosion of our civic society will continue apace.
In the aftermath of another contentious election, I once again find myself lamenting the emotional investment that so many of us have in the outcome. Why does the outcome of this election matter so much to so many people? Why does it matter at such a personal, emotional level? Why do we think that the outcome will have an impact on our daily lives? Why is it so easy to appreciate why people would be willing to risk ruin and cheat in order to bend elections their way?
We care so much because it does matter so much, but it shouldn’t. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. We were not supposed to live our lives so much under the boot of government that every election feels like we are making irrevocable life-altering decisions. If, as Henry David Thoreau said, “that government is best which governs least,” then our government is very far from being the best.
[…]
We have allowed our governments at all levels to be too big, too intrusive, too powerful, too coercive, and too corrosive. As long as this is the case, our elections will continue to be battles in a passionate ideological warfare where the combatants are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to win because the consequences of losing are too dire. Such warfare will continue to rend our civic society along the many seams of our polycultural society.
If we want a return to normalcy, or, at least, if we want to avoid the inevitable slide into further despotism, we must drastically push our government back to the fringes of our lives. The purpose of our government is to protect individual liberty. That’s it. Nothing more. It is not the purpose of government to manage the economy, dictate our culture, or regulate our personal lives. The longer we allow our government to stray from its purpose, the more our society will devolve into irreconcilable factions that lurch for power.
by Owen | 1016, 13 Nov 2222 | Culture | 0 Comments
I won’t be alive to see it, but the implications are enormous. We have seen how even the slowing of growth and aging of our population is having huge implications on our nation’s politics and social contract. Right now, we already have geriatric politicians fleecing their grandchildren to sustain their way of life.
The UN’s latest projections, released earlier this year, suggest the world will house about 9.7 billion humans in 2050.
“Demographic projections are highly accurate, and it has to do with the fact that most of the people who will be alive in 30 years have already been born,” the UN’s population division director, John Willmoth, says.
“But when you start getting 70, 80 years down the road, there’s much more uncertainty.”
Under its most likely scenario, the UN projects the world population will reach about 10.4 billion in the 2080s.
From there, it’s set to plateau for a couple of decades, before falling around the turn of the 22nd century.
[…]
The magic “replacement number” is 2.1: If women on average have more children than that each, the population of the world grows. If fertility rates are lower, the population shrinks.
And that’s where we’re heading.
“We have now reached peak child,” Dr Charles-Edwards says. “There will never be more children alive on the Earth than there is today.”
Fertility peaked in the 1950s when women were, on average, having five children each.
That number varied dramatically between regions of the world.
But since then, fertility rates have reliably fallen. In fact, in some parts of the world, including Australia, Europe, North America, and some parts of Asia, fertility rates are already below that replacement number.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A large section of the destroyed space shuttle Challenger has been found buried in sand at the bottom of the Atlantic, more than three decades after the tragedy that killed a schoolteacher and six others.
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center announced the discovery Thursday.
“Of course, the emotions come back, right?” said Michael Ciannilli, a NASA manager who confirmed the remnant’s authenticity. When he saw the underwater video footage, “My heart skipped a beat, I must say, and it brought me right back to 1986 … and what we all went through as a nation.”
It’s one of the biggest pieces of Challenger found in the decades since the acciden t, according to Ciannilli, and the first remnant to be discovered since two fragments from the left wing washed ashore in 1996.
Divers for a TV documentary first spotted the piece in March while looking for wreckage of a World War II plane. NASA verified through video a few months ago that the piece was part of the shuttle that broke apart shortly after liftoff on Jan. 28, 1986. All seven on board were killed, including the first schoolteacher bound for space, Christa McAuliffe.
KFC has apologised after sending a promotional message to customers in Germany, urging them to commemorate Kristallnacht with cheesy chicken.
The Nazi-led series of attacks in the country in 1938 left more than 90 people dead, and destroyed Jewish-owned businesses and places of worship.
It is widely seen as the beginning of the Holocaust.
The message, heavily criticised for its insensitivity, was later blamed on “an error in our system”.
The fast food chain sent an app alert on Wednesday, saying: “It’s memorial day for Kristallnacht! Treat yourself with more tender cheese on your crispy chicken. Now at KFCheese!”
A noose was discovered at the site of the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park on Thursday morning, according to the group overseeing the center’s construction.
“This morning, we were informed that an act of hate was discovered at the project site,” Lakeside Alliance said in a statement, adding that operations on the site have been suspended. “We reported the incident to the police and will provide any assistance required to identify those responsible.”
The circumstances of the discovery weren’t clear. Chicago police didn’t immediately respond to a request for details.
[…]
Lakeside Alliance said it was offering a $100,000 reward for help in finding those responsible for “this shameful act.” It is also holding anti-bias training for staff and workers.
First, there’s a 96% chance that this is a hoax. The last 20 years has shown us that this kind of stuff is almost always a hoax.
Second, isn’t the reaction waaaaaaay out of proportion? Let’s say that a worker found a noose and it isn’t a hoax. What is a reasonable response? Maybe call the cops to report it and then go on with your day? Or perhaps just throw it away and get on with your day? But is it really a reasonable response to halt construction, offer a $100k reward, force all employees into sensitivity training, and have the mayor and governor weigh in? How many LEO resources will be committed to this investigation compared to the murders and assaults happening nightly down the street?
What a tool. A lot of “little people” were negatively impacted by the collapse in ratings and revenue to appease his vanity. ABC execs should be canned for allowing their product to be destroyed.
It appears the execs once spoke to Kimmel about laying off Trump in order to not alienate Republican viewers. Kimmel said ABC execs were right in their apprehension, as he estimates he lost around half of his audience due to Trump jokes.
“There was one time, right around the beginning of this whole Trump thing… maybe not quite [eight years ago],” Kimmel said when asked if ABC ever expressed concern to him about attacking Trump. “I said listen, I get it, you’re right. I have lost half of my fanbase, maybe more. Ten years ago, among Republicans I was the most popular talk show. At least according to the research they did.”
Have you noticed how (1) rare that this kind of hate is real, and (2) how often it is a hoax perpetrated by a lefty?
WEST BEND — Michael J. Miecielica, a 38-year-old West Bend man, has been charged for allegedly posting in downtown West Bend notes containing hate speech and threats to Democratic candidates in the Wisconsin gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races, as well as sending notes via email to Senator Ron Johnson’s campaign, on Monday.
Miecielica was charged with three counts of disorderly conduct and two counts of computer message- threaten/obscenity by the Washington County District Attorney’s office on Thursday. Each charge is a Class B misdemeanor, with a maximum penalty upon conviction of a $1,000 fine, 90 days’ imprisonment or both.
[…]
According to the criminal complaint, Miecielica’s alleged notes contained slurs about the African American, Latin American, Jewish and LGBTQ+ communities and women, as well as referencing hanging Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes from a tree.
The notes allegedly contained “88,” which is meant to represent “HH” for “Heil Hitler,” and “14 Words,” which represents a white nationalist slogan about securing a future for white children.
According to the criminal complaint, Miecielica claimed that “he was exercising his 1st Amendment Right and said the messages were not what he personally believed in. The defendant said he was a ‘flaming liberal’ and identified as LGBT. The defendant said his intention was to cause a ‘dust up’ to hurt Republicans.”
According to the complaint, Miecielica also stated he had a “Master’s Degree in philosophy, so he knew he did not cross the line with his messages.”
by Owen | 1234, 30 Oct 2222 | Culture | 2 Comments
I’d fire every one of them. They do not have the commitment to free speech and hearing diverse voices that good publishing demands.
The letter claims its signatories “care deeply about freedom of speech” and “recognize that harm is done to a democracy not only in the form of censorship, but also in the form of assault on inalienable human rights.”
“As such, we are calling on Penguin Random House to recognize its own history and corporate responsibility commitments by reevaluating its decision to move forward with publishing Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s forthcoming book,” the letter said.
“The ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health that overturned Roe hinged on exactly what Coney Barrett’s book is reportedly about—the judiciary’s role and ‘how judges are not supposed to bring their personal feelings into how they rule,’” the letter said. “Yet, it seems this is exactly what Coney Barrett has done, inflicting her own religious and moral agenda upon all Americans while appropriating the rhetoric of even-handedness—and Penguin Random House has agreed to pay her a sum of $2 million to do it.”
The letter argues that publishing the book would violate both Penguin Random House’s Code of Conduct and international human rights.
To the editor: Last week I got my yard signs up in support of Governor Evers and Mandela Barnes. Hardly remarkable in this season of yard signs and bumper stickers. Except for one thing: As a Washington County resident, it felt like an act of courage. We decided on no yard signs because of the open political hostility. It seemed prudent not to advertise our brand in our decidedly red neighborhood. During dinner with friends, I admitted my fear of putting up signs. When the conversation moved on, one friend said, “We mustn’t forget the women in Iran.”
That sentence was like a slap in the face. Immediately I felt ashamed of my cowardice. If a woman in Iran could face death for refusing the hijab, surely I could find courage to place yard signs. What good is it to live in America if I live in fear of expressing my beliefs?
I talked it over with my husband, sharing with him my thought that the same patriarchy which feels justified in killing Mahsa Amini operates here. Denying a woman’s right to choose comes from the same need to subjugate women, whether it’s the morality police or white Christian nationalism. I cannot let the patriarchy rule me; I must be part of the resistance. We posted the signs.
Always a person to speak my mind, I have been silent. My silence plays into the pathology of white Christian nationalism, which seeks to impose its interpretation of Christianity on us all. This view denies the rights of women, LGBTQ, people of color and those of a different religion.
I have recovered my voice. I invite you to join me in taking a courageous stand for human rights and using your voice to resist the patriarchy in all its forms. Your vote is your voice.
There were two high school girls from Milton and one from another district. The girls from Milton claimed they were in college, but the teacher knew the third girl was a minor, according to police.
“A small part of the conversations could be considered risqué but would not be inappropriate if the conversation was happening between two adults,” according to the press release.
Three of the messages were shared throughout the community. They include an image of man in an orange shirt with the following captions:
“Damn you’re cute. Have a boyfriend?”
“Been single for about a month. But you’re hot too. What class are you in?”
“I can stop bothering you if you’d prefer. But I’d like to see more of you.”
Parents identified the man as 8th grade math teacher David Kroeze. He was also a soccer coach and an advisor for the “Genders & Sexualities Alliances” club. Given the content of the messages, parents find it hard to believe Kroeze did not recognize the girls as minors.
In a news release Wednesday, tribal leaders called the decision “an act of genocide to attempt to erase the history and connection of the tribe to these lands.”
“These new monuments are an abomination and demonstrate manifest disregard and disrespect of the Ute Indian Tribe’s treaty rights and sovereign status as a federally recognized Indian Tribe,” said Shaun Chapoose, chairman of the tribe’s business committee and an Uncompahgre Band member.
Biden used his authority under the Antiquities Act to designate the new 53,804-acre monument, which includes Camp Hale, a former Army base where the 10th Mountain Division trained to fight in World War II. It is located within the homelands of the tribe’s Uncompahgre Band, who were forced out of the area by the U.S. in 1880.
The Ute Indian Tribe is one of three Ute Nation tribes in the western U.S. with ancestral ties to the land. Both the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute have spoken in favor of the monument and attended the proclamation ceremony on Wednesday.
While the figures include a few officers killed by accidental gunfire, the number of ambushes in which police were injured or killed in surprise attacks with little chance to defend themselves has soared since 2020 and accounts for nearly half the officers killed this year.
Such an attack apparently struck Wednesday in Bristol, Connecticut, where the state police said Bristol Police Sgt. Dustin Demonte and Officer Alex Hamzy were killed and Officer Alec Iurato was wounded when they responded to a 911 call that appears to have been “a deliberate act to lure law enforcement to the scene.”
At least 11 police officers were shot around the country this week, including one fatally in Greenville, Mississippi, and another in Las Vegas.
Chicagoans swear an average of 17 times per day, well behind the nation’s most foul-mouthed city. That would be, darn it, Columbus, Ohio, where residents curse 36 times a day, according to the survey, which was conducted by the language learning app Preply using data from 1,500 residents in 30 cities.
Chicago’s ranking didn’t sit well with Roberta “Poochie” Jackson, a longtime employee of the Weiners Circle hot dog stand and perhaps the city’s most prolific swearsmith since former Mayor Rahm Emanuel left town to serve as ambassador to Japan.
“Not sure what f—ing suburb they surveyed, but we all know Chicago is No. 1,” she said.
Kopp’s Frozen Custard has issued an apology after linking “National Pro-Life Cupcake Day” to one of their Flavor of the Day offerings this month, according to a statement the business shared on social media Monday afternoon.
The iconic Milwaukee purveyor of flavors became the subject of online buzz Monday morning when it posted a calendar of upcoming holiday-themed flavors for October. It included “National Pro-Life Cupcake Day” on Oct. 9, featuring the flavor “Hey Cupcake.”
In the statement, Kopp’s said linking “National Pro-Life Cupcake Day” with its long-running flavor “Hey Cupcake” was an “oversight” and “an honest mistake.”
