1 Killed, 4 Injured in Shooting at ZombiCon
Posted: October 18, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Collier County, Florida, Fort Myers, Fort Myers Beach, Ontario, Shooting, Southwest Florida, Zombicon, Zombie Leave a comment
Police say a shooting at the annual ZombiCon gathering in Florida has left one person dead and five more injured, causing a chaotic scene that sent throngs of zombie-dressed revelers running through the streets.
The shooting happened around 11:45 p.m. Saturday night, just 15 minutes before the event officially ended. However, large crowds were still in the streets and authorities quickly cleared out nearby bars and set up crime scene tape, while others patrolled the area with rifles searching for a suspect.
Fort Myers Police Lt. Victor Medico said Expavious Tyrell Taylor, a 20-year-old who played football at a local junior college, died at the scene, but no other details about his death were released.
Four others were taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries and one additional victim refused medical attention, authorities said.
Authorities said the suspect or suspects is still at large and did not release any information about a possible motive.
“There were a lot of witnesses down here, there were a lot of people taking pictures, videos with their cellphone,” Medico told the News-Press. “Anything that could help with this investigation would be greatly appreciated.”
Police did not immediately return email and phone call messages on Sunday seeking additional details. Medico told reporters the agency had been inundated with national media requests and would not be making any comments “as we tirelessly investigate this incident and gather as many facts as possible.”
The annual festival had been expected to draw more than 20,000 fans dressed as zombies, the newspaper said. Medico said the scene was described as “shoulder to shoulder.” Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Outlets & Plugs: Why Are Boys and Girls Different? Chinese Sex Education Video
Posted: May 11, 2015 Filed under: Asia, China, Health and Social Issues, Humor, Mediasphere | Tags: Abstinence, Abstinence-only sex education, Board of Education, Chlamydia infection, Curriculum, Fifty Shades of Grey, Middle school, New York University, Ontario, Sex education Leave a commentTea Leaf Nation‘s Liz Carter writes:
…These slickly produced videos, which depict a hand drawing cartoon figures, are likely not aimed at young ones, but instead at parents searching for narratives to pass on to their children: The rapid-fire voiceovers use some high-school level vocabulary, including two bleeped cusswords hopefully outside most primary school students’ lexicon. Given a widespread reluctance to talk birds and bees — in China’s version of the stork story, parents often tell children that they were picked up “out of a garbage dump” — the Nutcracker narrator is something of a myth-buster for the young and for the ill-informed. The language and visual illustrations have amused adult viewers with hilariously off-color comparisons: In the first video, the narrator explains insemination by comparing it to an injection received at a hospital. The second clip, called “Why Are Boys and Girls Different?” addresses anatomical differences by likening male and female reproductive organs to electrical outlets and plugs. (The caption on the photo, from the second video, states: “Why does that boy have a little pee-pee and you don’t?”)
Because of China’s long-standing need for accessible, accurate sex ed, young adults might also find them edifying. On Sept. 29 Hu Zhen, an academic specializing in sex education issues, told China’s largest state-run news agency, Xinhua, that sex education in Chinese schools lagged “at least 60 years behind” Sweden and other developed countries, and emphasized that only about ten of China’s 180,000 primary schools, and only 500 to 600 of China’s approximately 500,000 secondary schools, were providing sex education.
Read the rest of this entry »
Men More Likely Than Women To Go Back In Time And Kill Hitler
Posted: April 9, 2015 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, History, Think Tank | Tags: Adolf Hitler, American Association of University Women, Canada, Colgate University, Emotion, Ethical dilemma, NPR, Ontario, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, University of Cologne, University of Texas at Austin, Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University, World War II 1 Comment
The Hitler question was among a range of moral questions asked of 6,100 people in a study conducted by U.S., Canadian and German researchers.
Jim Algar writes: Here’s a question; if you could go back in time and kill Hitler – likely saving millions of lives – would you do it? Your answer, researchers were surprised to find, might depend on your gender.
New research published by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology suggests that, given such a question, men seem more willing to accept the need for harmful actions for the sake of the greater good than do women.
“Women were more likely to fall into the deontology camp and agonize for a long time over a decision, while men were somewhat more likely to lean toward utilitarianism and make a quick decision.”
The Hitler question was among a range of moral questions asked of 6,100 people in a study conducted by U.S., Canadian and German researchers.
“Women seem to be more likely to have this negative, emotional, gut-level reaction to causing harm to people in the dilemmas to the one person, whereas men were less likely to express this strong emotional reaction to harm.”
— Lead research author Rebecca Friesdorf
Although both men and women carefully considered the consequences of their potential decision, women said they found it harder to commit murder and were more likely to let Hitler survive, the study found.
“Women seem to be more likely to have this negative, emotional, gut-level reaction to causing harm to people in the dilemmas to the one person, whereas men were less likely to express this strong emotional reaction to harm,” says lead research author Rebecca Friesdorf. A master’s degree student in social psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Friesdorf analyzed 40 data sets from previous studies.
“Although both men and women carefully considered the consequences of their potential decision, women said they found it harder to commit murder and were more likely to let Hitler survive.”
In the study participants were asked 20 questions, all of them involving a moral dilemma centering on such things as murder, torture, abortion, lying or the morality of animal research. Read the rest of this entry »
The New Campus Sex Puritans
Posted: October 2, 2014 Filed under: Education, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Brock University, Campus, George Washington University, Jami Coughler, Jerry Brown, MARGARET WENTE, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ontario, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, University of Michigan 1 Comment
The neo-puritans want to bureaucratize your sex life, and criminalize incorrect behavior. Will the progressive left have any better luck regulating sexual behaviour than the puritanical right did?
Margaret Wente writes: Sixty years ago, sexual behaviour among the young caused deep alarm among the puritanical religious right. Today, it causes deep alarm among the puritanical progressive left. Like their forebears, they are doing their best to restrict and regulate it.
This weekend, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that makes universities redefine consensual sex. From now on, students must effectively obtain the “affirmative consent” of their partners, which must be “ongoing” every step of the way.
“Sexual violence is anything that makes someone feel unsafe; it could be catcalls, peer pressure to act a certain way in a situation, verbal harassment and unwanted touching. Many of these things occur daily without anyone giving a second thought to them.”
— Jami Coughler, program co-ordinator of the sexual violence support centre at Ontario’s Brock University
Those accused of violating the consent rule will be judged on the 
preponderance of the evidence. Perpetrators face suspension or expulsion, and universities face heavy penalties for failure to enforce.
“…sexual violence includes such offences as ‘criticizing the partner sexually’ and ‘withholding sex and affection’ – things that in my day were known as ‘being in a bad relationship.'”
The new measure is designed to stem a tidal wave of rape on campus that, in fact, does not exist. (Violent crime, including sexual assault, has been in decline for 20 years.) Even so, universities across North America have set up vast new administrative apparatuses to deal with the crisis. Many of them have also expanded the meaning of “sexual violence” to include anything that makes you feel bad. Read the rest of this entry »
Quote of the Day: George Lopez
Posted: February 28, 2014 Filed under: Entertainment, Food & Drink | Tags: Arrest, Associated Press, Caesars Windsor, Casino, George Lopez, Lopez, Ontario, Public intoxication, Public space, TMZ (website) 2 Comments
“…I was trying to sleep it off, unfortunately, it was on the casino floor.”
Comedian George Lopez was arrested at Caesars Windsor Thursday night.
The scary thing is, I recognize the pattern of that carpet. If it’s like the Ceasar’s in Vegas, I recall it’s pretty comfortable, and inviting. Who hasn’t slept one off on a Casino floor? Since when is that cause for arrest? Anyone who’s been to Ceasar’s understands that George didn’t do anything worth involving law enforcement. Maybe things are different in Ontario. If it was Las Vegas? We wouldn’t be reading about it. What happens in Ontario apparently doesn’t stay in Ontario.
The Associated Press reports: Provincial police say officers stationed at the casino in Ontario arrested Lopez for allegedly being intoxicated in a public place, then turned him over to local police. Windsor police say only that a man was arrested at the casino but later released with no charges laid.
..Lopez says in a statement via his publicist, Ina Treciokas: “Tied one on last night. Not feeling great this morning. I was trying to sleep it off, unfortunately, it was on the casino floor.”
Canadian Neo-Cubist Braves Sub-Zero Temperatures to Build a Giant Colored Ice Fort
Posted: January 15, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Art, Canada, Cubism, Environment Canada, Ice, Northwestern Ontario, Ontario, Reddit, Sculpture, Thunder Bay 1 Comment
Construction of this amazing wall took 5 to 6 nights in temperatures ranging from -28 to -35C. Unspeakablefilth / Reddit
While it’s certainly been a cold winter stateside, our neighbors to the north know what a real chill actually looks like. Reddit user Unspeakablefilth lives in Northwestern Ontario, where the averaged a daytime high was -25 degrees celsius or colder for about a month.
[GALLERY OF FROZEN NEO-CUBIST LUMINOUS WONDER]
Why Surveillance Cameras Might Be Bad for Creative Economies
Posted: October 9, 2013 Filed under: Mediasphere, Reading Room, Think Tank | Tags: Ann Cavoukian, Atlantic, CCTV, Christian Science Monitor, Manhattan, New York Times, Ontario, Pacific Standard Leave a comment
Surveillance cameras now exist – often unseen – on city streets in the hundreds, mounted over ATMs, from street lights, at the entrances to private apartment buildings and in public parks. Efforts to map them in Manhattan, for example, have counted more than 2,000 such cameras, each adding to an increasingly comprehensive network that is creating – depending on your point of view – either safer streets or a surveillance state.
Critics of this increasingly ubiquitous technology argue that so many electronic eyes have become invasive. They violate your privacy. They’re redefining what it means to walk through public space. But here is one more novel argument that might cause unconvinced politicians to reconsider the social costs of heightened security: What if surveillance cameras are also bad for creativity and innovation? Read the rest of this entry »
Largest bust in Ontario history nets about eleventy-gazillion pills worth of primo meth
Posted: September 5, 2013 Filed under: Crime & Corruption | Tags: Canada, Greater Toronto Area, Methamphetamine, Ontario, Ontario Court of Justice, Organized crime Leave a comment
VAUGHAN, Ont. — Five Ontario residents are facing numerous drug-related charges after what police are calling the largest seizure of methamphetamine and clandestine drug labs in Ontario’s history.
Members of the Asian Organized Crime Task Force — which includes police forces from across Ontario and Canada — revealed details Thursday of the investigation into a crime ring they allege involved large-scale production of methamphetamine. Read the rest of this entry »
pundit from another planet 