Sophisticat Posted May 25, 2012 Posted May 25, 2012 Leaders often need to make imperfect, immediate decisions, though. You're going to be biased for sure in such an instance, but it's still your best shot. But yes, kudos to Pedro! The man makes the community run like a well-oiled machine.
Brice Posted May 25, 2012 Posted May 25, 2012 (edited) So now is the time everyone will think of me as an activist. w/e. as pedro said i'll try to stay as neutral as much as i can lol. impossible but nonetheless, i'll try. problem began in 2010 when the government said they wanted to raise tuition fees for university. tuition fee were very low in quebec since the '70s partly because of the tranquil revolution and the fact that society wanted to have free health services and free education on all levels. they started with free health care (that everyone knows about) but they saw that doing it with the education would prove too heavy a burden for the whole society. nevermind this, they still wanted to get as cheap as possible so that everyone could access university, whatever social status they had. so from the 70's up till the 90's we had the cheapest university tuition fees in all of america iirc. and it was as low as +-500$CAN for a year with the fees being frozen even though the inflation bla bla bla because it was a decision that everyone made that we should have the education fees as low as possible if not free school on all levels. but in the 90's, the government said : ''welp, things are getting more and more expensive, we need to hike education fees, sorry''. bang 300% hike. going from 500$ to 2000$ a year. it passed. ok. now what? in 2007 they put up another hike. 100$ a year for the next 5 years. now totaling a ''small'' 2500$ for 2012. the hike they wanna pass now was back in 2010 1625$ more to the initial +-2500$ that would be the price in 2012. that's 75% hike after the 500$ hike we got from the now past 5 years. Students starts taking actions to put pressure on the government. now 2 years later we're back in 2012. After 2 years of escalating pressure on the government that started with letters and announces to the public students use their biggest measure against the government: striking. voting in assembly of all the student members of each association to put up a big vote to see if students were ready to not go to their classes and force the school to stop giving classes as a sign of protest and put pressure to the government. it's now more than 100 days that we started the strike. shit happened everywhere. students wanted to discuss asap with the government to see if there were better ways to fund university rather than straight down taking it from the students ex: putting back the tax on the capital to the banks that they abolished not so long ago (with this money, 0.4% of the capital they have, we could have total gratuity in university for everyone). now is the time i get less neutral i guess. it has been proven that universities don't lack funds, but that they don't use their funds correctly and that even while throwing money out of the window they don't even need more. that's been proven by the IRIS, if you wanna see what i'm talking about. it's in french sadly so if you don't understand french a small bit it's gonna be hard for you to understand, vocab they use is slightly difficult than what you read in h-stuff. after lots of protests and stuff government said ok we'll negotiate with you guys. the three big association regrouping pretty much everyone on strike right now go to negotiate. there's the FECQ the FEUQ and the CLASSE (FECQ represents cegep, FEUQ university and CLASSE a mix of both comprising more than 50% of all of the striking students) government doesn't wanna talk with the CLASSE for being too ''extremist''. yeah they are a bit rougher than the other two. meaning that the government ''negotiate'' with less than 50% of the students on strike. way to go. after a lot of debating we get what the gov has to propose to us. they now propose to put the hike from 5 years to 7 years. alright, so instead of paying 325$ more each year for 5 years for a total of 1625$ more on the fifth year, we'd pay 254$ a year for seven years. that's cool no? no. take out your calculator and type in 254 x 7. it won't say 1625 but 1778. now the hike feels less big on the first 3 years but on the last years it's bigger than the initial hike. reason invoked : since we put the hike on 7y instead of 5y we gotta index it by 2% to follow inflation. mixed opinions from everyone. but that's not all. we are proposed to have people looking if the hike will really affect accessibility to uni like students are saying, and we'll see if the uni is not throwing money out the windows. we also have a boost in our student financial aid with loans and grants. 39 millions $. it's cool but not everyone can access this and if your parents make more than (now 45 000) 35 000 at the time of this deal, you cannot even try to get one of those. also the 39 millions they inject in the aid is taken from the credit from taxes you get by going to school. so no fresh money for the students. however, that means that more people could technically get grants and loans to pay for their studies, but students are fighting to get less in debt by going to uni, thus making loans bigger to pay for bigger fees (a loan is a debt btw, for those that might not think it that way...) students in vast majority took this as an insult and are striking harder. media does a questionable work on covering the conflict. (i find it outrageous, if you could see what i saw with my eyes and what the mass media is showing you'd be crying right now [/biased]) government starts to worry about the sessions not ending on the allowed time and thus being a huge problem for next year. some students start feeling that way too. normal reaction. after some other protests and the like we get another time to negotiate.what we get is something similar but the hike is never talked about. what they offer us is a higher income from your parents to get financial aid, the now 45k$, and we also get to have a comity that will follow nearly every expense by universities and see if it's ''useless'' or not. if it is deemed useless and should not be done they take the money and lower the total fees by the amount. however, it will not be a lowering of the tuition fee, but the FIO (compulsory fees (thx google translate)), which are different for every uni. lowest is 70$ biggest is 1500 ish iirc. meaning that for the lowest one you could save a maximum of 70$ while the biggest one could save 1500$. initial hike is now 1778, so even if you go the the most expensive uni well it's impossible to cancel the effect of the hike. also, this small comity has 4 students, 4 members of syndicate and 10 people chosen by the government. the comity cannot force the admin from the uni to not do the deemed non-legit expense, and if they can't stop any non legit $$$ well the comity is dismissed next semester and students pay everything. mixed responses by everyone. students reject this deal by a crushing majority (i think only one or two schools said ok, while everyone else said FU) now on to the protest and why we are being watched by the world right now. (the first number for attendance is what the mass media said, second is what the organizers said, feel free to choose w/e number feels better for you) 22 november 2011 : 20-60k people in the streets are against the hike most cegep and uni are on strike for one day to go protest. 22 march 2012 : 100-200k people in the streets of mtl to protest against the hike iirc nearly every cegep and uni (except 1 or 2) are on strike to protest this day. that means more than 300k students on strike, we even see people from high school going to the protest and striking for this day. (biggest protest in the history of quebec). 22 april 2012 earth day: 150-300k people in the streets protesting for a better world and also most students join the fray to protest for both the earth and the tuition hike. 22 may 2012 : 250-500k people in the streets protesting against the special bill that the gov forcefully passed to break the students movement. and the tuition hike quebec passed a bill that most people consider going against the quebec and the canadian constitution by negating the possibility of protesting freely. extremely strict procedure to now protest. ex : you gotta tell the police 8 hours in advance if you are more than 50. police can choose to accept or not. if you don't follow the itinerary you told the police exactly, they can call your protest illegal and charge people with riot squad. if you get arrested its around 500-1k$ fines for a protester, up to 35k for the organizer, and if an association has been taken part in one of those, aka if one of your members choose to go to a protest and get arrested, the association can get fined up to 125k$ (remember that associations get their money from their members, usually 10-30$ from their members.)) also, the special bill forces schools to give classes either right now or in august 2012 to finish the semester. no one can stop people to go to their classes, can be fined the amounts above. so if for w/e reason you get blocked at the door to go to class by anyone in the world this person can get arrested and be fined. this is to break the striking lines. this time their is no mixed reactions, pretty much everyone is against this new bill, whether they are for the hike or not. ok bad stuff incoming. for now more than 30 days straight there has been night protests regrouping from a couple hundreds to 10+k people every night. always starts at the same time same place. it's not even announced anywhere, even on FB and twitter. people just know it and they still go. since no one is calling the shot, those protests are declared illegal even before the start because of this new law. btw the bar of quebec and most lawyers are finding this law to go against fundamental rights of people. most people think the same. those protests always finish in riots or near riot. police says they have been the target of either rocks, bottles or w/e. riot squads destroy everything and everyone no joke i've been there a couple times, getting a dozens of flashbangs over your head without warning is scary and seeing a riot squad ram through the people 5 meters away from you is not fun. most people are pacifist. but because a couple threw stuff or broke a bank window everyone gets to eat tearing gas, baton indefinitely, flashbangs and shield smack for diner. watching television to see the same 2 minutes of this night protest looping again and again for 2h. i only see the broken windows, a riot squad running to block a street, and people shouting that they are protesting. can't really see any violence from both sides. it has been more than 100 days and the people that i know are badly hurts from police only are as follow (correct me if im wrong) : one guy lost an eye due to a flashbang exploding less than a meter from his face, a girl had her teeth crushed and her jaw broke by a plastic bullet (not a rubber bullet, a hard plastic one), another guy lost an eye by a plastic bullet, someone got his liver punctured by batons and police bicycle, yeah a police rammed a protester with his bicycle while he was already on the ground there's video of this. someone had a cardiac arrest because of tear gas and the last that i know of got shot by another plastic bullet in the neck. dunno if he's paralyzed now. as for police officers, some got treated for light wounds as reported by the SPVM (mtl police) and one got kicked while on the ground by 4-5 people had bruises and light wounds as reported by police, thanks to his riot armor. 2 days ago, police arrested 518 people for being in an illegal protest. fined 600$ iirc, they trapped them in 2 lines of riot squad saying they had to disperse themselves by going on to the sidewalk, people try to get out by going on the sidewalk, only to get pushed back inside by riot squads blocking sidewalks. then they got arrested for not dispersing and being in an illegal protest. go figure. this was on national television though so i can't say i'm biased i watched this one on RDI. first time i saw something that i deemed of interest in the mass media [/biased] i'm missing a lot of stuff right now but i can show you what you can see in mtl every night for about 5-6 days http://www.universitv.tv/archives/1577 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJTXn8rEqEo http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=92Sn7lQTriI here we can see police officers breaking windows for no apparent reason but it's not really clear. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-HghmDydP0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwFE6WUzcfo here from a different angle. CUTV is the concordia university television. they stream live every night or so on the internet. they are always on the front lines so they are the only ones showing the atrocity that is going on here. you can follow them here: http://www.livestream.com/cutvmontreal rough stuff. obviously they're not on television and even though they are from the media they still get beat. since concordia is an english university they mainly speak in english during their streaming but you can hear lots of french too. i could go on and on showing you what's happening at night in mtl but i'd be dumping terabytes of videos... that's roughly what i see from my standpoint. we could argue that free education is a fundamental right and that it should not be debatable but i won't continue forever writing what i see on Dustloop. this is mainly my answer to what St1ckBuG asked so think what you want of it but be assured that what is shown in those videos i saw the same with my own eyes. EDIT: added paragraphs ~~ it was better looking in word pad lololol. Edited May 27, 2012 by Brice
Sophisticat Posted May 25, 2012 Posted May 25, 2012 Yo Brice, super cool write-up, mais paragraphes, man. @_@;
Brice Posted May 27, 2012 Posted May 27, 2012 gratz to Pedro for being the most baller of us all, nuff said... I jelly. as fuck. XD
Level5-Chan Posted May 28, 2012 Posted May 28, 2012 I can't take this anymore!!!! I want to go back to school...
pochp Posted May 28, 2012 Posted May 28, 2012 i shoulda gone to KAYBECK for uni engineering uni in quebec aren't on strike.
Sophisticat Posted May 28, 2012 Posted May 28, 2012 engineering uni in quebec aren't on strike. My bro who goes to ETS is quite proud of this fact, as he is keen to remind me. ------ Also, Pedro is mod now. Congrats! Guess that means you're moving up the skill ladder. I still remember a wee lil' player adamant his main was Lambda or Arakune or Platinum or whatever. And now he's all a grown man, building laser fortresses and shit. Brings a tear to my eye, it does. :'D
BladeOfJustice7 Posted May 29, 2012 Author Posted May 29, 2012 (edited) The fuck? Pedro's got the mod status? Good shit. Also Avengers tomorrow @ 6:20 p.m (2D showing). I would assume Brice mentioned it on sankishin. Edited May 29, 2012 by BladeOfJustice7
pochp Posted May 29, 2012 Posted May 29, 2012 Yeah... You might have missed this too, Blade, there's a new GG with rebalance and stuff. I hope they don't nerf 's retardedness, I might need to switch characters if they do.
space coyote Posted May 29, 2012 Posted May 29, 2012 quicker than wind and as still as the forest! hotter than flames and more magnificent than a mountain! it's bang shishigami, my new puppy. miss you, montreal!
kaeru Posted May 29, 2012 Posted May 29, 2012 whoa.. he even almost has the X shape on his forehead !
BladeOfJustice7 Posted May 30, 2012 Author Posted May 30, 2012 Yeah... You might have missed this too, Blade, there's a new GG with rebalance and stuff. I hope they don't nerf 's retardedness, I might need to switch characters if they do. Nice avi, and yea I'm aware lol, Brice messaged me at work about it. I need to see ky's damage output to give my word on it, I like the 236D214D into 236D4D input change, 3hs sounds useless if they simply added it into the game without making huge adjustments to it, frc 222hs has me unsure, wall pin rising javelin after vapor thrust is interesting. FB greed sever is interesting too. ^Though that is all from me taking into account AC properties are still intact (which obviously won't be the case), so I'll need to actually see things to get truly hype.
Bibiquadium Posted May 30, 2012 Posted May 30, 2012 You guys better be practicing, else once the game comes out, my A.B.A will be stomping you all.
Level5-Chan Posted May 30, 2012 Posted May 30, 2012 GGs everybody at Foonzo! God, the rain was so hard and big it got... ... Well, I hope it won't rain thursday. (Lol)
kaeru Posted May 30, 2012 Posted May 30, 2012 quicker than wind and as still as the forest! hotter than flames and more magnificent than a mountain! it's bang shishigami, my new puppy. miss you, montreal! Dat puppy ! so gdlk !! You guys better be practicing, else once the game comes out, my A.B.A will be stomping you all. Well said, Bibi. GGs everybody at Foonzo! God, the rain was so hard and big it got... ... Well, I hope it won't rain thursday. (Lol) I'm glad you got home alright. GGs to everyone ! Brice thank you for so many awsm matches Pedro, you're going to win ECT for sure Kirbstomp, let's have moar fite !! I was happy to see Steb and Calm and Blade for sure ! Even if we didnt play. I'm expecting all of you on thursday for some serious FITE !! goodnight dustloop
BladeOfJustice7 Posted May 30, 2012 Author Posted May 30, 2012 I was happy to see Steb and Calm and Blade for sure ! Even if we didnt play. I'm expecting all of you on thursday for some serious FITE !! goodnight dustloop Working until 8/9 pm thursday, 10 hour shift :/
kirbster Posted May 30, 2012 Posted May 30, 2012 quicker than wind and as still as the forest! hotter than flames and more magnificent than a mountain! it's bang shishigami, my new puppy. miss you, montreal! sup devi you actually named your dog bang shishigami? that's pretty sweet
Bibiquadium Posted May 30, 2012 Posted May 30, 2012 Looks like I missed yet another good meetup, it's always when I dodge that shit happens.
pochp Posted May 30, 2012 Posted May 30, 2012 lol nice, dat bang shishigami dog. Things sound better when you don't know the full story. Before I got there it was raining pretty hard and they got flooded. You were like crossing the street and trying to get to the other sidewalk before the water from the sewers invaded the street. When I left, the green line metro had a really long service interruption because of some smoke somewhere, I waited like 25 minutes then walked over to the orange line and got home an hour later than planned. I also heard the orange line was down earlier because of flooding. But no matter, on n'est pas fait en chocolat, the matches were hype, GGs guys. Ranbats thursday?
kirbster Posted May 30, 2012 Posted May 30, 2012 LES OSTI D'ÉTUDIANTS QUI INNONDENT LE CENTREVILLE, MTL SO DANGEROUS Not too sure I'll be able to make it in time for ranbats tomorrow but I'll see what I can do ._.
Bibiquadium Posted May 30, 2012 Posted May 30, 2012 Demain je vien tot et je vais drop mes streaming equipment mais je vais pas rester pour les ranbats, alors je vais clairement expliquer le stream pis comment je veux que mes chose sois emballer quand je revien les prendres en fds, j'ai un exam trop important vendredi matin.
kaeru Posted May 30, 2012 Posted May 30, 2012 LES OSTI D'ÉTUDIANTS QUI INNONDENT LE CENTREVILLE, MTL SO DANGEROUS HAHHAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA !!!! If they could, the media would TOTALY do this !!!
pochp Posted May 30, 2012 Posted May 30, 2012 Demain je vien tot et je vais drop mes streaming equipment mais je vais pas rester pour les ranbats, alors je vais clairement expliquer le stream pis comment je veux que mes chose sois emballer quand je revien les prendres en fds, j'ai un exam trop important vendredi matin. don't forget it's MAT this weekend.
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