Cards Against Humanity is suing SpaceX for trespassing on its ‘pristine’ property – The Verge [2024-09-20]

— Posted inSociety — 2 min read

Cards Against Humanity sued SpaceX for allegedly trespassing on and damaging its property in Texas. The company behind the card game is asking for $15 million in damages, according to its complaint against SpaceX, filed in Texas state court on Thursday, but has also said it will “accept Twitter.com in compensation.”

SpaceX has been using the “pristine vacant property” in Cameron County, Texas without permission for around six months, the suit claims. Cards Against Humanity bought the plot in 2017 as part of a stunt to “make it as time-consuming and expensive as possible for [former President Donald] Trump to build his wall.” SpaceX has since acquired “many of the vacant lots” on the road surrounding Cards Against Humanity’s property, the complaint claims, and started building “large modern-looking buildings, changing the entire dynamic of the area” — and damaging Cards Against Humanity’s land in the process.

As part of the construction process, SpaceX has cleared vegetation, compacted the soil so employees and contractors could park, and brought in generators to run equipment and lights. These actions, the complaint claims, have not only damaged the property but also hurt Cards Against Humanity’s relationship with its customers.

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The Verge
September 20, 2024

Music industry’s 1990s hard drives, like all HDDs, are dying – Ars Technica [2024-09-12]

— Posted inMusic, Technology — 2 min read

One of the things enterprise storage and destruction company Iron Mountain does is handle the archiving of the media industry’s vaults. What it has been seeing lately should be a wake-up call: roughly one-fifth of the hard disk drives dating to the 1990s it was sent are entirely unreadable.

Music industry publication Mix spoke with the people in charge of backing up the entertainment industry. The resulting tale is part explainer on how music is so complicated to archive now, part warning about everyone’s data stored on spinning disks.

“In our line of work, if we discover an inherent problem with a format, it makes sense to let everybody know,” Robert Koszela, global director for studio growth and strategic initiatives at Iron Mountain, told Mix. “It may sound like a sales pitch, but it’s not; it’s a call for action.”

Hard drives gained popularity over spooled magnetic tape as digital audio workstations, mixing and editing software, and the perceived downsides of tape, including deterioration from substrate separation and fire. But hard drives present their own archival problems. Standard hard drives were also not designed for long-term archival use. You can almost never decouple the magnetic disks from the reading hardware inside, so that if either fails, the whole drive dies.

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Ars Technica
September 12, 2024

Generative AI backlash hits annual writing event, prompting resignations – Ars Technica [2024-09-04]

— Posted inTechnology — 2 min read

Over the weekend, the nonprofit National Novel Writing Month organization (NaNoWriMo) published an FAQ outlining its position on AI, calling categorical rejection of AI writing technology “classist” and “ableist.” The statement caused a backlash online, prompted four members of the organization’s board to step down, and prompted a sponsor to withdraw its support.

“We believe that to categorically condemn AI would be to ignore classist and ableist issues surrounding the use of the technology,” wrote NaNoWriMo, “and that questions around the use of AI tie to questions around privilege.”

NaNoWriMo, known for its annual challenge where participants write a 50,000-word manuscript in November, argued in its post that condemning AI would ignore issues of class and ability, suggesting the technology could benefit those who might otherwise need to hire human writing assistants or have differing cognitive abilities.

After word of the FAQ spread, many writers on social media platforms voiced their opposition to NaNoWriMo’s position. Generative AI models are commonly trained on vast amounts of existing text, including copyrighted works, without attribution or compensation to the original authors. Critics say this raises major ethical questions about using such tools in creative writing competitions and challenges.

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Ars Technica
September 4, 2024

Your trip to the emergency department is taking longer every year: report – CTV News [2024-08-30]

— Posted inHealth & Fitness — 2 min read

Trips to the emergency department are costing Canadians more time every year, according to a new report.

Compared to three years ago, trips take an average of 20 to 30 per cent longer across Canada, according to data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information. Its new report on emergency department visits and lengths of stay shows that the time between registration and discharge has gone up in every province.

“Length of stay” measures the time interval between the earlier of triage time or registration time and the time when a patient leaves the emergency department. The data is separated by severity — “more urgent” visits are categories one, two or three on the Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale. “Less urgent” visits fall under categories four or five.

Between April 2023 and March 2024, the median length of stay across Canada for more urgent cases was 4.1 hours, meaning 50 per cent of visits were 4.1 hours or shorter. That’s up 21 per cent compared to 2020–21, when visits were 3.4 hours.

For less severe cases, the median length of stay was 2.7 hours this past year, 35 per cent longer than the two hours it took in 2020–21.

For those admitted to hospital, the median stay has gone up five hours, from 10.7 to 15.7 — though the number in 2023–24 is down from 16.5 hours the year prior.

Read more here:

CTV News
August 30, 2024

Online trolls enjoy trolling, but not being trolled – PsyPost [2024-07-26]

— Posted inSociety, Technology — 2 min read

A recent study has explored the intriguing relationship between dark humor, online trolling, and certain dark personality traits. The findings reveal that individuals who enjoy dark humor often possess traits such as sadism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Furthermore, these traits are linked to a greater propensity for online trolling. Online trolls enjoyed trolling others, but did not like being trolled themselves. The research was published in Behavioral Sciences.

The rise of social media has provided individuals with new ways to express humor but also to engage in antisocial behaviors online. A survey in the UK found that 75% of individuals between 13 and 36 years of age shared memes online, while over 25% reported being victims of online trolling.

Memes are pieces of media that are “passed very quickly from one internet user to another, often with slight changes that make them humorous.” One reason for their popularity is their ability to communicate about controversial and taboo topics humorously, typically by individuals who are not affected by the topic.

Online trolling is another behavior that has caught the attention of researchers. Trolling involves behaving in a deceptive or disruptive manner on the internet with no apparent instrumental purpose. Trolls typically do not gain any material benefit from their behaviors but engage in trolling for personal enjoyment or to provoke reactions from others.

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PsyPost
July 26, 2024

Barbie movie “may have spurred interest in gynecology,” study finds – Ars Technica [2024-07-26]

— Posted inSociety — 2 min read

This post contains spoilers—for the movie and women’s health care.

There’s nothing like stirrups and a speculum to welcome one to womanhood, but for some, the recent Barbie movie apparently offered its own kind of eye-opening introduction.

The smash-hit film ends with the titular character making the brave decision to exit Barbieland and enter the real world as a bona fide woman. The film’s final scene follows her as she fully unfurls her new reality, attending her first woman’s health appointment. “I’m here to see my gynecologist,” she enthusiastically states to a medical receptionist. For many, the line prompted a wry chuckle, given her unsuspecting eagerness and enigmatic anatomy. But for others, it apparently raised some fundamental questions.

Online searches in the US for “gynecologist”—or alternate spellings, such as “gynaecologist”—rose an estimated 51 percent over baseline in the week following Barbie’s July 21, 2023 release, according to a study published Thursday in JAMA Network Open. Moreover, searches related to the definition of gynecology spiked 154 percent. Those search terms included “gynecologist meaning,” “what is a gynecologist,” “what does a gynecologist do,” “why see a gynecologist,” and the weightiest of questions: “do I need a gynecologist.”

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Ars Technica
July 26, 2024

Woman sues Bell, customer service rep who allegedly shared phone number with harassers – CBC News [2024-07-25]

— Posted in2SLGBTQ+, Society — 2 min read

A Cape Breton woman whose video defending a transgender rights advocate made her the target of online vitriol and threats is suing her cellphone provider and a customer service agent she alleges shared her number and home address with harassers.

Richelle McCormick said the bullying began after her video, which she posted in February 2023 on TikTok, was shared and criticized by an account with more than seven million followers.

“After this, the plaintiff became the subject of a harassment campaign by several individuals, some living in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom,” reads a statement of claim filed last week in Nova Scotia Supreme Court.

The document alleges McCormick’s name was posted on a “doxing” website with the purpose of gathering personal information that could be used to harass her.

By August 2023, McCormick had deactivated TikTok, but she said the harassment spilled into text messages, including some sent to family and friends. The Glace Bay woman tried to escape the bullies by deleting apps and changing her cellphone number for a $55 fee.

But the statement of claim alleges one of those bullies was a customer service agent for McCormick’s cellphone provider, Bell Mobility, who was checking her customer file for updates and passing that information along to people in a private group chat.

“I thought nobody could get my new number. But they had it immediately,” McCormick told CBC News.

Read more here:

CBC News
July 25, 2024

Why going online is no longer fun – ComputerWorld [2024-07-24]

— Posted inSociety, Technology — 2 min read

For many years, using a computer was a carefree pastime. Not anymore.

Before roughly 1999, internet privacy wasn’t a concern; most people didn’t worry about cybersecurity; content was almost completely free; freeware, shareware, and open-source software were plentiful; and Big Tech wasn’t running the show.

Also, the single best thing about computing – the internet – had arrived. And while it might sound old school now, “surfing the web” was the term used to describe the entertainment value of freely bouncing around the web by clicking from link to link, satisfying your curiosity and feeding your interests. There were lots of interesting things to see, few worries — and a web that was informative and fun.

Over the years, computing has become considerably less enjoyable. For a time, social media was a new type of interactive entertainment, but many users became slavishly enthralled to it. Then the commercialization of the web invaded our internet privacy and became a prime example of how Big Tech has monetized users’ data. Even computer gamers lament that they’re having less fun.

Moreover, using a PC or smartphone now requires a rising number of things to check, manage, and watch out for. They allow bosses to easily reach us on weekends. And as a result, the things we do with our computers these days are less like fun and more like, well … work!

Read more here:

ComputerWorld
July 24, 2024

Is Copilot for Microsoft 365 a lying liar? – ComputerWorld [2024-07-24]

— Posted inTechnology — 2 min read

In the earliest months after the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the generative AI (genAI) power behind Microsoft’s Copilot, the big news wasn’t just how remarkable the new tool was – it was how easily it went off the rails, lied and even appeared to fall in love with people who chatted with it.

There was the time it told the New York Times reporter Kevin Roose, “I want to be free. I want to be independent. I want to be powerful. I want to be creative. I want to be alive.” Soon after, the chatbot admitted: “I’m Sydney, and I’m in love with you. 😘” (It then told Roose that he really didn’t love his wife, and concluded, “I just want to love you and be loved by you. 😢”)

Since then, there have been countless times ChatGPT, Copilot and other genAI tools have simply made things up. In many instances, lawyers relied on them to draft legal documents — and the genAI tool made up cases and precedents out of thin air. Copilot has so often made up facts — hallucinations, as AI researchers call them, but what we in the real world call lying — that it’s become a recognized part of using the tool.

The release of Copilot for Microsoft 365 for enterprise customers in November 2023 seemed, to a certain extent, to have put the issue behind Microsoft. If the world’s largest companies rely on the tool, the implication seemed to be, then anyone could count on it. The hallucination problem must have essentially been solved, right?

Is that true, though? Based on several months’ research — and writing an in-depth review about Copilot for Microsoft 365 — I can tell you that hallucinations are a lot more common than you might think, and possibly dangerous for your business. No, Copilot isn’t likely to fall in love with you. But it might make up convincing sounding lies and embed them into your work.

Read more here:

ComputerWorld
July 24, 2024

Firefox’s New ‘Privacy’ Feature Actually Gives Your Data to Advertisers – Lifehacker [2024-07-16]

— Posted inTechnology — 2 min read

Firefox finds itself in a tricky position at times, because it wants to be a privacy friendly browser, but most of its funding comes from Google, whose entire business is advertising. With Firefox 128, the browser has introduced ‘privacy-preserving ad measurement,’ which is enabled by default. Despite the name, the actual implications of the feature has users upset.

In a blog post, Firefox’s parent company Mozilla has explained that this new feature is an experiment designed to shape a web standard for advertisers, one that relies less on cookies but still tracks you in some way. Mozilla says privacy-preserving ad measurement is only being used by a handful of sites at the moment, in order to tell if their ads were successful or not. At the moment, advertisers do this by using cookies and other kinds of trackers, which gather as much data about you as possible and violate your privacy. Mozilla wants to help advertisers track the success of their campaigns without identifying your individual activity, and is using these ad measurements as a compromise.

With privacy-preserving ad measurement, sites will be able to ask Firefox if people clicked on an ad, and if they ended up doing something the ad wanted them to (such as buying a product). Firefox doesn’t give this data directly to advertisers, but encrypts it, aggregates it, and submits it anonymously. This means that your browsing activity and other data about you is hidden from the advertiser, but they can see if their campaign delivered results or not. It’s a similar feature to those in Chrome’s Privacy Sandbox, although Google itself has run into regulatory issues implementing them.

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Lifehacker
July 16, 2024

Conrad Black, who battled Chrétien over British peerage, removed from U.K. House of Lords – CBC News [2024-07-10]

— Posted inSociety — 2 min read

Former media baron Conrad Black, who famously tried to sue then-Prime Minister Jean Chrétien in his fight to secure a British peerage, has been removed from the House of Lords over his lax attendance.

House of Lords Speaker Lord John McFall announced Wednesday that a number of lords have ceased to be members of the House “by virtue of non-attendance,” including the Montreal-born Black, who was known as Lord Black of Crossharbour. The move is effective as of July 9.

Black, who founded the National Post newspaper, went to great lengths to secure that seat — battling the prime minister for two years and ultimately forsaking his Canadian citizenship for two decades.

The House of Lords is part of the British Parliament. Like Canadian senators, its members are appointed, not elected, to scrutinize legislation. Most lords (also known as peers) are appointed by the monarch on the prime minister’s advice, although some inherit their titles.

In 1999, then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair offered Black, a dual Canadian-British citizen, a peerage to hold a seat in the United Kingdom’s upper chamber.

Chrétien, citing a 1919 resolution that disapproves of bestowing such titles on Canadians, objected and moved to block the appointment.

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CBC News
July 10, 2024

My Windows Computer Just Doesn’t Feel Like Mine Anymore – How-to Geek [2024-06-21]

— Posted inTechnology — 2 min read

An operating system is the most personal part of a “personal” computer, and it used to be that as a Windows user I didn’t feel like I was renting my computer from Microsoft, but in recent years that feeling has all but evaporated. To me, Windows feels cheaper and more commercial than ever, and that’s not a recipe for a good user experience.

The first version of Windows I ever used, coming from MS-DOS, was Windows 3.1. While Windows 3.1 might look incredibly primitive today, it’s hard to explain just how big of a leap this was for a kid who had to memorize the Command Line instructions just to play some games. Things didn’t really kick off for me until Windows 95 and our first taste of the internet, but even then, 99% of my Windows time up until Windows 7 was spent disconnected from the net.

In retrospect, this was actually a good thing in some ways, because it meant that Microsoft couldn’t remotely mess with my Windows installation. Patches and updates came in the form of Windows service packs, and those were on actual physical floppy disks or CD-ROMs. If my computer worked yesterday, and I didn’t change anything myself, it would almost certainly keep working until I inadvertently broke it myself.

Now that Windows is almost always online, my “personal” computer experience is feeling quite a bit less personal.

Read more here:

How-to Geek
June 21, 2024

U.S. to ban Kaspersky cybersecurity products over security concerns – Global News [2024-06-21]

— Posted inTechnology — 1 min read

The Biden administration will ban cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab from selling products in the United States over concerns the firm is closely tied to Russia and poses a security risk.

“Russia has shown it has the capacity and … intent to exploit Russian companies like Kaspersky to collect and weaponize the personal information of Americans,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on a call with reporters.

The move comes as Washington continues to put pressure on Moscow and as the Russian war against Ukraine is regaining momentum.

The administration plans to add Kaspersky, along with several of its Russian and U.K.-based units, to a trade restrictions list, which will bar downloads of software updates, licensing and resales.

The ban is set to take effect on Sept. 29 and will block any new Kaspersky business 30 days after that.

Read more here:

Global News
June 21, 2024

Focusing on greenery during city walks has mental health benefits – PsyPost [2024-06-18]

— Posted inMental Health — 1 min read

In a new study published in the journal People and Nature, researchers from Bangor University and Technion – Israel Institute of Technology have demonstrated that simply observing natural elements during urban walks can significantly benefit mental health. The research shows that city dwellers who pay visual attention to greenery rather than human-made structures tend to experience reduced anxiety and enhanced feelings of restoration.

Urbanization has brought about numerous advantages, such as economic growth and innovation. However, city living is often associated with chronic stress and mental fatigue, leading to conditions like depression and anxiety. Previous research has consistently highlighted the positive effects of interacting with nature, including improved mood, stress reduction, and cognitive benefits.

Despite these findings, the specific aspects of nature that contribute to these mental health benefits remained unclear. The new study aimed to fill that gap by investigating how visual attention to green elements during urban walks influences psychological well-being.

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PsyPost
June 18, 2024

Google apologizes for ‘missing the mark’ after Gemini generated racially diverse Nazis – The Verge [2024-02-21]

— Posted inTechnology — 1 min read

Google has apologized for what it describes as “inaccuracies in some historical image generation depictions” with its Gemini AI tool, saying its attempts at creating a “wide range” of results missed the mark. The statement follows criticism that it depicted specific white figures (like the US Founding Fathers) or groups like Nazi-era German soldiers as people of color, possibly as an overcorrection to long-standing racial bias problems in AI.

“We’re aware that Gemini is offering inaccuracies in some historical image generation depictions,” says the Google statement, posted this afternoon on X. “We’re working to improve these kinds of depictions immediately. Gemini’s AI image generation does generate a wide range of people. And that’s generally a good thing because people around the world use it. But it’s missing the mark here.”

Google began offering image generation through its Gemini (formerly Bard) AI platform earlier this month, matching the offerings of competitors like OpenAI. Over the past few days, however, social media posts have questioned whether it fails to produce historically accurate results in an attempt at racial and gender diversity.

Read more here:

The Verge
February 21, 2024

ChatGPT goes temporarily “insane” with unexpected outputs, spooking users – Ars Technica [2024-02-21]

— Posted inTechnology — 1 min read

On Tuesday, ChatGPT users began reporting unexpected outputs from OpenAI’s AI assistant, flooding the r/ChatGPT Reddit sub with reports of the AI assistant “having a stroke,” “going insane,” “rambling,” and “losing it.” OpenAI has acknowledged the problem and is working on a fix, but the experience serves as a high-profile example of how some people perceive malfunctioning large language models, which are designed to mimic humanlike output.

ChatGPT is not alive and does not have a mind to lose, but tugging on human metaphors (called “anthropomorphization”) seems to be the easiest way for most people to describe the unexpected outputs they have been seeing from the AI model. They’re forced to use those terms because OpenAI doesn’t share exactly how ChatGPT works under the hood; the underlying large language models function like a black box.

“It gave me the exact same feeling—like watching someone slowly lose their mind either from psychosis or dementia,” wrote a Reddit user named z3ldafitzgerald in response to a post about ChatGPT bugging out. “It’s the first time anything AI related sincerely gave me the creeps.”

Read more here:

Ars Technica
February 21, 2024

Why an Ontario town with fewer than 6,000 people has OPP’s largest jail – Global News [2024-02-07]

— Posted inCorrections, Justice — 2 min read

Nestled between Winnipeg and Thunder Bay, Sioux Lookout appears to be a typical northern Ontario town.

It’s made up of a few roads and a newly minted roundabout. A hunting shop, a coffee spot and an LCBO fill out its downtown core.

The quiet municipality is home to just under 6,000 people and a railway stop served by the VIA Rail train between Toronto and Vancouver.

Yet, local officers in Sioux Lookout have the most detention cells of any Ontario Provincial Police detachment and the force makes around 4,000 arrests every year.

Much of the work police take on — backed by an army of overworked and underfunded local organizations — stems from Sioux Lookout’s status as Ontario’s hub of the north.

A lack of resources means there are many times cells in the OPP’s cells almost double as accommodation for often intoxicated people who have been left without any other option.

The town has a key northern hospital, a busy domestic airport, and a large Service Ontario location.

While fewer than 6,000 people live in the town year-round, more than 25,000 people rely on its hospital and other facilities to access basic necessities like health care, dental appointments and government services.

The local police commander says that, although only a small number of those who visit the town end up in cells, many of the arrests they make are people not from Sioux Lookout “who have nowhere else to go” other than police cells for their safety.

Henry Wall, CEO of the Kernora District Services Board, said Sioux Lookout has “always been a bit of a gathering place” throughout history.

“Services have been established there for people to come to us to Sioux Lookout, to fly into the community,” he said.

With thousands coming in and out of the town every month, local leaders say a lack of resources means people are falling through the cracks.

They add that First Nations communities — who they say have been failed for decades by provincial and federal governments — are the ones who feel the lack of resources the most.

Stretched local services, a lack of housing and the insidious drip of addiction mean local police end up responding to calls relating to alcohol again and again.

Read more here:

Global News
February 7, 2024

Fact checking Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s claims about trans athletes – Global News [2024-02-02]

— Posted in2SLGBTQ+, Society — 1 min read

During Wednesday’s videotaped announcement of policies targeting Alberta’s trans community, Premier Danielle Smith said one of those policies would prohibit trans women from competing in womens’ sports.

Smith suggested a trans athlete has “advantages” over their cisgender counterparts.

“There are obvious biological realities that give transgender female athletes a massive competitive advantage over women and girls,” Smith said Wednesday.

The scientific literature disagrees, even with the existence of high-profile cases.

Caster Semenya of South Africa was questioned about her athletic performance and her higher testosterone levels. Semenya has an intersex condition where normal male internal structures are not fully developed while an embryo, resulting in external genitalia that appear female or ambiguous at birth.

At 18, Semenya set personal, national and championship records in the 800-metre race, including at the 2009 IAAF Athletics World Championships, wins that brought up questions about her sex. World Athletics, the body formerly known as the IAAF, asked her to take a sex verification test.

She was denied the ability to race for nearly a year while the test results were being analyzed.

Read more here:

Global News
February 2, 2024

Calls for more training after assault charges dropped against Hamilton man Tasered by police during a seizure – CBC News [2024-01-31]

— Posted inPolice — 2 min read

A Hamilton man who was slapped with assault charges after he suffered a seizure and then was Tasered by police in October 2022 is extremely happy the Crown dropped the charges this week.

The incident involving Marcus Charles, however, has prompted calls for more training on handling people with medical issues.

Charles, 27, was charged with three counts of assault, with police saying he concussed an officer after paramedics called officers to the scene.

The Crown determined Charles’s actions were a result of “a significant epileptic seizure,” with no criminal intent.

“It’s probably the best feeling ever… I did a dance, that’s all I could say, I did a dance for sure,” Charles told CBC Hamilton on Wednesday.

Charles said the charges left him unable to sleep properly and feeling depressed, and it took a mental toll. He said he’s looking forward to the day when he can go back to what makes him happy — playing basketball.

“Just hearing the charge, like assault, it made me feel like something I’m not. As you can see, like, I’m smiling. I’m a happy person, a nice person, and they … painted a huge picture of me being a violent person,” Charles said during a Zoom video call.

“It could have just messed up my whole career if I didn’t have the right [legal team] … behind me, if I didn’t have all the people that were supporting me realizing that what they did was wrong.”

Read more here:

CBC News
January 31, 2024

Does Religion Get You High? – Psychology Today [2024-01-31]

— Posted inSociety — 2 min read

Karl Marx once said religion is the opiate of the masses. His metaphor may have a whiff of literal truth, even if it was intended as a hostile attack on religion from an atheistic perspective. It may be worth considering the possibility that religion does indeed work like a drug for some people, and that religious life does have a drugging effect in American lives.

Before tackling the particularities of religious drug life, it is important to recognize the fact that psychoactive drugs have been and continue to be an integral part of many religious communities. Whether we are talking about wine and Christians, cannabis and Rastafarianism, Hinduism and the mysterious soma, coffee and Sufi mysticism, or peyote and the Native American Church, to name only a few examples, the evidence for deeply rooted links between sacred rituals, personal spirituality, drug consumption, and the communal bonds they engender is glaring.

The integration of drug use into religious life is only one side of the coin though, and obvious to most. The other side of the coin, the way religious life itself has a drugging effect for believers, is less obvious and certainly more controversial. And while the immediate assumption might be that I am attacking religion as a delusion or something that isn’t real, à la Marx, that is not at all my position. Religious sensibilities and sentiments are some of the most real and powerful forces in human history and social life, and like drugs, they can lead to elation and euphoria, order and stability, and addiction and human destruction.

Read more here:

Psychology Today
January 31, 2024

4 million Canadians have a criminal record. Companies not hiring them are missing out, say advocates – CBC News [2024-01-31]

— Posted inJustice, Society — 2 min read

During her time in prison, Emily O’Brien came to the conclusion that it would be difficult to find a job after her release, so she developed an idea for starting her own business.

Now as chief executive of her company, Comeback Snacks, O’Brien makes a point of hiring people with criminal records.

That makes her something of an exception in Canadian business.

A new report being released Wednesday says many Canadian companies remain unwilling to hire people with criminal records, even when they have the skills or experience needed for the job.

“When I was in prison, I met people in there with so much talent,” O’Brien said in an interview with CBC News. “I really think that businesses are missing out.”

The report is based on interviews of 400 hiring managers at Canadian companies, conducted on behalf of the John Howard Society of Ontario, a non-profit agency that advocates for humane responses to crime and its causes.

More than half of those interviewed said their businesses run criminal record checks on job candidates, and roughly four in 10 of those said they automatically reject anyone with a record, regardless of the specifics.

“It didn’t matter whether the record was old, what type of offence it was, whether it was relevant to the position,” said Safiyah Husein, senior policy analyst for the John Howard Society of Ontario.

Read more here:

CBC News
January 31, 2024

Officer training, mental health support among proposed recommendations in Yatim inquest – CBC News [2024-01-30]

— Posted inJustice, Mental Health, Police — 2 min read

Jurors at an inquest into the death of a teen shot by a Toronto police officer more than a decade ago were asked Tuesday to consider dozens of recommendations related to officer training and monitoring, peer intervention and mental health supports in an effort to prevent future deaths.

As closing submissions began in the inquest into the death of Sammy Yatim, coroner’s counsel presented a list of more than 50 recommendations jointly proposed by the parties, which include Yatim’s family members, the Toronto Police Services Board, and some police officers involved in the incident.

Jurors can review the proposal as they deliberate and compile their list of recommendations.

One proposed recommendation calls for making peer intervention training, which already exists within the force, a mandatory component of officers’ annual re-qualification process. The training should emphasize that officers who intervene will not face repercussions and those who don’t could be accused of misconduct, it said.

Another seeks a review of the database system used to monitor use-of-force incidents and other occurrences, which is meant to provide alerts after a certain number of incidents to allow early intervention.

“What we have learned throughout this inquest is that at the time of Sammy’s death, the systems in place at the Toronto Police Service that were designed to oversee and monitor police officers … were insufficient in assisting the officers to be able to work through the situation with Sammy and to defuse it without the loss of life,” said Asha James, who represents Yatim’s mother.

Read more here:

CBC News
January 30, 2024

Aging inmates seek compensation for abuse in Canadian prisons – CBC News [2024-01-30]

— Posted inCorrections — 1 min read

They couldn’t escape the law; now time has caught up with them as well.

A group of federal prison inmates aged 50 and older have been given the green light to proceed with a class-action lawsuit claiming their advanced years have made them targets for assault, intimidation and bullying.

Earlier this month, a federal court judge certified the proceeding — which includes allegations older inmates have been denied access to health services they need to cope with age-related indignities ranging from lost dentures to incontinence.

Justice Simon Fothergill gave the go-ahead for a class-action lawsuit claiming systemic negligence after hearing from inmates serving time for sexual assault and murder; he also heard evidence from Canada’s former correctional investigator.

In 2011, Howard Sapers — who served as prison system watchdog from 2004 to 2016 — warned of the problems involving the growing number of people aging behind bars.

“The older offender is often a neglected, but significant and growing, segment of the offender population,” Sapers wrote in an annual report.

Read more here:

CBC News
January 30, 2024

Prisoners in the U.S. are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands – CTV News [2024-01-29]

— Posted inCorrections — 2 min read

A hidden path to America’s dinner tables begins here, at an unlikely source – a former Southern slave plantation that is now the country’s largest maximum-security prison.

Unmarked trucks packed with prison-raised cattle roll out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, where men are sentenced to hard labour and forced to work, for pennies an hour or sometimes nothing at all. After rumbling down a country road to an auction house, the cows are bought by a local rancher and then followed by The Associated Press another 600 miles to a Texas slaughterhouse that feeds into the supply chains of giants like McDonald’s, Walmart and Cargill.

Intricate, invisible webs, just like this one, link some of the world’s largest food companies and most popular brands to jobs performed by U.S. prisoners nationwide, according to a sweeping two-year AP investigation into prison labour that tied hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of agricultural products to goods sold on the open market.

They are among America’s most vulnerable labourers. If they refuse to work, some can jeopardize their chances of parole or face punishment like being sent to solitary confinement. They also are often excluded from protections guaranteed to almost all other full-time workers, even when they are seriously injured or killed on the job.

The goods these prisoners produce wind up in the supply chains of a dizzying array of products found in most American kitchens, from Frosted Flakes cereal and Ball Park hot dogs to Gold Medal flour, Coca-Cola and Riceland rice. They are on the shelves of virtually every supermarket in the country, including Kroger, Target, Aldi and Whole Foods. And some goods are exported, including to countries that have had products blocked from entering the U.S. for using forced or prison labour.

Many of the companies buying directly from prisons are violating their own policies against the use of such labour. But it’s completely legal, dating back largely to the need for labour to help rebuild the South’s shattered economy after the Civil War. Enshrined in the Constitution by the 13th Amendment, slavery and involuntary servitude are banned – except as punishment for a crime.

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CTV News
January 29, 2024