visual laurel 2022-06-18 01:59:33

Bad Words: Sanction

According to Oxford Languages (via Google)

sanc·tion

/ˈsaNG(k)SH(ə)n/

noun

1. a threatened penalty for disobeying a law or rule.

‘a range of sanctions aimed at deterring insider abuse’

synonyms: penalty, punishment, deterrent, punitive action, discipline, penalization, correction, retribution, embargo, ban, prohibition, boycott, barrier, restriction, tariff

2. official permission or approval for an action.

'he appealed to the bishop for his sanction’

synonyms: authorization, consent, leave, permission, authority, warrant, license, dispensation, assent, acquiescence, agreement, approval, seal/stamp of approval, approbation, recognition, endorsement, accreditation, confirmation, ratification, validation, blessing, imprimatur, clearance, acceptance, allowance, the go-ahead, the thumbs up, the OK, the green light, say-so, permit

verb

give official permission or approval for (an action).

'only two treatments have been sanctioned by the Food and Drug Administration’

synonyms: authorize, consent to, permit, allow, give leave for, give permission for, warrant, accredit, license, give assent to, endorse, agree to, approve, accept, give one’s blessing to, back, support, give the thumbs up to, give the green light to, OK, approbate

2. impose a sanction or penalty on.

'foreigners in France illegally should be sent home, their employers sanctioned and border controls tightened upl

synonyms: punish, discipline someone for

visual laurel 2022-06-17 08:38:56

Ontario Election 2022

A Toronto Star Opinion Piece by Martin Reg Conn desperately tries to justify the Ontario election result in “Get Over It: Doug Ford’s Victory was an example of how democracy is supposed to work.”

But is it really?

The purpose of Democracy is to give people a say in our own governance. In a Direct Democracy that would mean citizens themselves directly make laws and government policies. As in a referendum.

But ours is a Representative Democracy, which means citizens choose representatives to represent us when making laws and policies in Parliament.

This is not that.

visual laurel 2022-05-29 03:50:23

Mike Schreiner accurately characterizes the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) as legislated poverty.

How would you help Ontarians living with disabilities? "We would double ODSP." — Mike Schreiner, Green Party of Ontario "They should get a job." — Doug Ford, Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario ALT
"It's time to end legislated poverty in Ontario by giving persons living with disabilities the support they need." Mike Schreiner, Green Party of Ontario Leader speaking at the 2022 Northern Ontario Leaders Debate. ALT
Greens will double ODSP. [Green Party of Ontario logo] A person relying on ODSP receives a monthly income of $1,169 GRAPH showing the increased rate of funding to ODSP recipients offered by the four major Ontario political parties. Progressive Conservative $1,227 per month Liberal $1,285 per month NDP $1,403 per month Green Party of Ontario $2,338 per month. Dotted line bisects the graph above the PC, Liberal and NDP promised rates and through the Greens promised rate. Text above the line states: 1 Bedroom Apartment Average Rent $1,800 per monthALT

TORONTO STAR (April 26th, 2013):

It’s time to end the erosion of public assistance in Ontario

Welfare has eroded to the point that it would take a 56-per-cent rate increase to bring the single rate back to where it was in 1993.

By John Stapleton

“The year was 1993… the last time social assistance in Ontario increased in real (inflation-adjusted) terms.

"For the record, the Rae [NDP] government established a single welfare rate of $663 a month in 1993 — the high water mark. He then froze social assistance rates in both 1994 and 1995, the first two-year freeze since 1973. Mike Harris cut rates by 21.6 per cent, establishing a single rate of $520 a month and let it stay there until Dalton McGuinty took over eight years later. That low $520 single rate, if adjusted for inflation, would now be $617 a month but the current rates stands at just $606 a month.”

For the last 20 years, social assistance has eroded to the point that it would take a 56-per-cent rate increase to bring the single rate back to where it was in 1993.

“For a single person with disabilities, a 22.2-per-cent increase would be required to restore purchasing power to levels paid in 1993. Harris and Eves did not cut rates for people with disabilities but they didn’t raise them either.”

Opinion | It’s time to end the erosion of public assistance in Ontario

The 1993 Ontario NDP set the (inflation adjusted) $1,729 amount paid to people living with disabilities.

Even if you think paying Ontario Works (OW) recipients less than they need to live on (either to punish them because you think they are lazy, or perhaps trying to defraud the system, or because you think it will give them an incentive to get a job), such Dickensian attitudes of blaming or punishing people for their own poverty should not extend to people living with disabilities.

No amount of fortitude, resilience or incentives will lift people out of disability.

Whether genetic or the result of illness or accident, disabilities are not a choice. There is simply no possible rationale or justification for forcing people whose disabilities prevent them from working for a living to live well below the poverty line.

The unequivocal Green commitment to raising ODSP rates pushed the other major parties to raise their own platform commitments, with the NDP agreeing to follow the Green lead by doubling ODSP in the 2nd year. No matter what the composition of the Ontario Legislature looks like after this election, the more Greens we send to Queens Park, the better.

If we are very lucky, Ontario voters will deliver a minority government. If you care about our social safety net, you will agree that our best hope lays with electing more Green and NDP MPPs.

Election Day in Ontario is June 2nd, 2022. Please Vote. And encourage non voters to vote, too.

(Almost twice as many eligible voters didn’t vote as voted PC in 2018!)

And please: don’t encourage so-called “strategic voting” which only props up the status quo and helps FPTP suppress the vote.

Don’t waste your vote by voting for what somebody else wants.

Vote for what you want.

Our future depends on it.

andromeda3116: God, but the entire “Watch House Riots” sequence in Night Watch is such an excellent…

andromeda3116:

God, but the entire “Watch House Riots” sequence in Night Watch is such an excellent lesson in not just how to de-escalate but the importance of de-escalation. The way Vimes insists upon members of the “mob” coming in and watching the surgeon care for the injured man, the insistence on two copies of Lawn’s statement about what happened, the way he made sure to humanize the officers and made good and damn sure that none of them had a weapon – that he did not have a weapon, nobody could say he had a weapon.

Because this was a delicate situation, and it was up to him – the present person of authority – to ensure that the situation did not turn into a riot. It wasn’t up to the untrained civilians, it wasn’t up to the green newbies who didn’t know what they were doing, it wasn’t up to anyone above him. It was on him, to look at the crowd and prevent a riot from breaking out.

Everywhere else, you got people reacting, people panicking, people acting in fear and making things worse and getting people killed – but at Treacle Mine Road, the doors were open and the lights were on and nobody was armed and everything was above-board and the only person who got hurt was a self-inflicted injury he made a full recovery from.

I just… I think that’s such an important sequence, and it – almost more than any of Vimes’s other Moments of Awesome – really shows just why Sam Vimes is such a good policeman, even more than just a good man.