Tim Laengert

@Open_TO Hi, thanks for the data. I'm using it for this: torontoshelter.info

28,522 downloads in Q1.... We still don't know who most of you are. Hi.... We don't track users. We don't ask you to sign up or log in. We don't know who's downloading the data and for what purposes. So tell us....who are you? Introduce yourself.

@BigMeanInternet 90% accuracy is useful in some cases if you can easily know which are correct. When you don't know which 10% are errors or in what way, that's a different story.

I think people are thinking about this wrong. It's not like "What if refrigerators only worked 90% of the time?" It's not that kind of tool.

NEW: Police Chief Plays Loose with the Truth on Radio Call-in Show Toronto’s chief of police got grilled on excessive use of force at Palestine solidarity protests, and he defended the police breaking people’s bones and inflicting concussions. thegrindmag.ca/police-chief-p…

Inexplicable discrepancies exist between Canadian government assurances that arms have stopped flowing to Israel, and both Israeli import data and publicly-available shipping records and tracking data. cbc.ca/news/politics/…

@lorrainelamchop Imagine hating people enough to endure cold rainy misery solely for the sake of inflicting cold rainy misery on others

IMAGINE HAVING TO BE OUTSIDE IN THE COLD AND RAIN

@lorrainelamchop 14,000 bottles is about one per person for the whole weekend. Congratulations to the mayor on clearing the lowest possible bar. One of the world's richest cities on one of the world's biggest freshwater lakes and we can't manage to provide publicly accessible drinking water.

1. the folks i know outside arent going to a city pool to cooldown 2. why wasn’t the water ready to go at orgs BEFORE this heat wave?! we knew it was coming! 3. not all these civic centres constantly calling the cops on unhoused ppl. 4. 100 surge spaces; yall closed 1000 in apr

it feels like 44C out here. i’ve been out here 45 min and it’s so hot and lots of people are hiding in the shade but so many have asked for water. there are no cooling centres. the city has no water out for people. the heat is dangerous.

going into a heatwave and the city’s plan to support unhoused people is the “heat relief network”, telling people to stay cool by going to malls, splash pads, pools… this is absurd. bring back cooling centres. deploy water trucks.

Breaking: Private investigators have been poking around two Toronto supervised consumption sites of late. Staff worried they were hired by the Ford government to bolster its arguments against the sites. They were right. #onpoli #topoli thetrillium.ca/news/social-se…

Toronto Public Health & Toronto Police in their infinite wisdom have decided paying 3 police $90 an hr plus a nurse to do basic outreach is a good use of public money. You can see the 3 police twiddling their thumbs & walking in circles. The red backpack belongs to a TPH nurse…

@Toronto_TODAY5 @AshleyFoxRPN @DanforthTweets We need more social housing and safe shelter spaces. But before deciding someone can't have autonomy I would ask: were there enough spaces? Did this person know about them? Could they get to them? If yes and they're still outside, I bet most, if asked, can give a good reason why.

@MumbledVanities @AshleyFoxRPN @DanforthTweets What's your plan?

The older homeless woman that was usually found seated bundled up by the parking lot of the Shoppers Drug Mart at Danforth and Coxwell; passed away overnight in the freezing cold last night #RIP

@Toronto_TODAY5 @AshleyFoxRPN @DanforthTweets The idea that most people are refusing to go inside because they lack the mental capacity to do what's best for their own health is a harmful lie designed to make it the person's own fault while absolving three inept levels of government and an uncaring society.

@Toronto_TODAY5 @AshleyFoxRPN @DanforthTweets I know there are many times more people living outside than there are inside spaces. What's your plan? Send the cops around when it's cold outside to scoop up hundreds of people? Or are they permanently incarcerated and confined to their little cots?

@Toronto_TODAY5 @AshleyFoxRPN @DanforthTweets Yes, a handful of small warming centres that open. The closest one is 4km away. There are a thousand rational reasons someone might not want to or be able to access one. Maybe we should look at the reasons before forcefully institutionalizing people in spaces that don't exist.

@MumbledVanities @AshleyFoxRPN @DanforthTweets WRONG, there are addl. protocols at -5 and -15, but you likely know that.

@Toronto_TODAY5 @AshleyFoxRPN @DanforthTweets toronto.ca/city-governmen… This is not a fact. The city's own data shows they still turn away hundreds of people per night who *want* to enter shelters, and that doesn't include the people who have given up because they know they're full.

@AshleyFoxRPN @DanforthTweets I know for a fact that all homeless that showed up or phoned for input were taken in, my spouse works in the system. I know for a fact nobody can be moved indoors if they choose not to, no matter how unstable or irrational they are.

@reggcohn "By provoking a fierce counteroffensive, while leaving Gazans defenceless, he created the conditions for self-eradication" "Self-eradication"? Do you hear yourself? This is genocide apologia.

The death of yet another Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, may not bring an end to the war anytime soon. But it has diminished the war against peace. My wknd column thestar.com/politics/polit…

Just recently, the Federal Court compelled IRCC to disclose internal memos about the decision to give "exceptional" immigration measures to Ukrainians but not to "other countries experiencing war, civil unrest, or other life threatening emergencies" 1/5 thestar.com/news/canada/fe…

Why is Toronto Public Health partnering with the Toronto Police? This will have really harmful consequences. It will discourage people from accessing medical supports. It will destroy the trust that outreach workers have spent years building with unhoused people...

The Lemkin Institute has had it with the cynical lies and propaganda from Israel and the USA. One can have different views about the definition of genocide, but one may not use definitional disputes to deny genocide. If a genocide may be occurring, every nation is compelled by customary law to try to stop it. Let us be clear: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The US is complicit in genocide. These are not political statements. They are statements that are made from knowledge and experience. Nevertheless, you do not need a PhD , a law degree, or X-ray vision to see the genocidal dimensions of Israel’s carnage in Gaza. It is clear in the behavior of the state and its military, on full display in yesterday’s horrific bombardment of a Rafah camp. But even if there were legitimate doubts about Israel’s genocide, there is no doubt that Israel is committing atrocity crimes of the most barbaric kind. Israel must be stopped. Israel must be stopped now. We are disgusted by Western leaders, especially in the USA, Germany, and the UK. They have demonstrated not only that they don’t care one bit about genocide prevention and human rights, but also that they are willing to allow an ally to commit atrocity crimes while they offer material and diplomatic support. It is reprehensible and the individuals involved in this gaslighting campaign should be deeply ashamed. They should also be put on trial. Humanity has a choice: Either we decide that our children can all be killed whenever a superior force alleges that “terrorists” are among us, or we decide that under no circumstances will we allow these superior forces to lay waste to our world any longer. We each must choose and act accordingly. The watershed moment is now.

@Cain The same applies to regular text documents too of course -- a text-based pdf full of emails is much more useful than an image-based pdf. Specifying "machine-readable" in almost any FOI request ends up being a must. But obviously that doesn't help if they choose to be difficult.