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Techie fired for tweeting that guys behind her in conference were making sexist jokes.

by Jamilah King

By now you’ve probably heard at least one version of the story about Adria Richards, the black technology evangelist who was fired from her job at SendGrid last week for tweeting a picture of two white guys who were sitting behind her making sexually charged jokes at a major tech conference.

Richards’s tweets from PyCon, which bills itself as the largest annual gathering of Python programmers and users, immediately drew the ire of trolls and their attacks intensified after the “big dongles” jokesters were canned….

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The parties have forged an uneasy axis in pursuit of rural votes.

from NOW

"For casino foes, there was an important vote in the legislature Thursday afternoon, March 28 — that is, if you believe in symbolic gestures. Then again, it may be something more, even the out the Libs are looking for to kill Paul Godfrey’s gamble with Toronto’s future.

"The PCs joined the NDP to pass a motion calling on the Liberal government to delay its implementation of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation’s (OLG) so-called “modernization” (read privatization) plan until the 2014 municipal elections. That’s so municipalities that may want a casino can add that question to the ballot.

"It was a rare bit of cooperation.

"But if Torontonians can get behind the NDP’s effort on the casino issue, and forgive an axis with the evil Tories (despite the fact that Hudak & Co. want to sell us even further down the privatization river), it’s harder to justify the party’s teaming up with the PCs to support Bill 3, aka the Gasoline Tax Fairness For All Act. …"

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Three dozen foreign workers from Latin America will get the wages they say they deserve.

from the CBC

"About 40 temporary foreign workers from Latin America have finally been paid the tens-of-thousands-of-dollars they were each owed for building the Canada Line rapid transit link between Vancouver and Richmond, BC

"The payout brings to an end a five-year-long battle between SELI Canada, SNC Lavalin and the workers, whom the BC Human Rights Tribunal ruled in 2008 were discriminated against in wages, accommodation, meals and expenses when compared to their European colleagues. …"

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Buses reduce carbon emissions, noise, and local pollution.

from the Vancouver Observer

"If someone asked you about what technologies have the greatest potential to reduce the carbon pollution that is destabilizing our climate and turning our oceans acid, what would pop into your head first? Many people would mention wind turbines, solar photovoltaic panels, electric cars, and perhaps even bicycles lanes or light rail. But there is a potential climate superhero quietly patrolling the streets of Vancouver, Burnaby and about 300 other cities, the seldom-noticed electric trolley bus.

"Part of what makes the trolley bus such a potential game changer is that it not a new and unproven invention; like the bicycle and electric streetcar the basic design has been refined gradually for over a century. The first trolley buses in regular service were very basic, like the electric streetcars that came into regular service about a decade earlier. Trolley buses have gradually been refined to be highly sophisticated forms of transportation with a solid track record, the largest carry up to 200 people in buses with three sections. …"

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