Sunday, December 11, 2022

Today's News: Yes, I am still wearing my mask

This is the time of year I gather cartoons and here are two that seem to represent what we went through in 2022.
First, the beginning of 2022:

And second, the end:

This is from this outstanding article by University of Waterloo statistician Bill Comeau, taking about the importance of wearing masks to combat the tridemic we are now dealing with. He concludes with these recommendations for where masks are needed most urgently now:
... the three C’s of Crowded places, Closed spaces, and Close-contact settings, and areas with greater vulnerable populations: schools, universities, public transit, congregate living, health-related settings like doctor’s offices, pharmacies, grocery stores, concerts and other mass indoor event areas, indoor weddings and funerals, and stores subject to crowding during holiday shopping season. It would be good if employers recommended workplace masking during this time as well. 
 For mask mandates to work, there needs to be strong and committed leadership from the top to ensure there is timely action and targeting, clear goals, transparent sharing of science and evidence, helpful public education, widespread and active messaging, and ongoing communication.
... No one step will solve everything, but as Yogi Berra might say, doing nothing accomplishes nothing.
Credit this tweet for alerting me to this article. I am glad that MedTwitter still seems to be functioning even as the rest of Twitter begins to collapse. Here is a photo I will never forget -- I first saw it in mid-2020, I think -- an exhausted emergency room doctor, kneeling on the floor, as he phones someone to tell them their loved one has died of Covid: We will be getting boosters and wearing masks for the indefinite future -- all the Covid revisionism and wishful thinking is not going to change that:
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Friday, December 09, 2022

Today's News: From the Substacks

Before I get into the rest of this piece, I just have to follow up my previous Tridemic post with this terrible story: “This baby died on the floor, on the floor of the Emergency Room because there were no stretchers. When I put my dog down it sounded more ethical and beautiful than what happened to this child” The Ontario coroner is now investigating what happened. No matter what details may get changed a little, it is a tragedy.

Now that Twitter is dying, I really can't do my "From the Bookmarks" posts very well anymore. 
But I have taken advantage of Substack free subscriptions to check out a bunch of substacks - I go through their sometimes-daily newsletters to gather news and views. 
 And yes, its sorta amusing, really, that what is old becomes new again: Here are the stories I have been noticing lately: 
Paul Wells: Paul Wells is doing an OUTSTANDING job covering what is happening at the National Gallery lately, where four of Canada's most respected art curators were fired in November, apparently because they can't get behind a new "strategic plan" apparently drafted by an "interim" gallery director who has no actual curatorial experience.
(On a side note, one of the reasons I was looking forward to retirement was so I never had to hear the words "strategic plan" ever again - because no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy!)
What is happening at the Gallery sounds pretty bad to me. Wells reports today that Heritage minister Pablo Rodriguez is being deluged with letters from the Canadian art world - both staff unions, private art galleries across Canada, major donors, former members of the gallery's board, former curators -- all complaining about the chaos, as he reports in National Gallery of Canada: It's Unanimous:
... I am aware of no public correspondenc by anyone with long knowledge of the Gallery who supports the board or the new staff leadership.
Senator Patricia Bovey has some advice for Rodriguez. Bovey, a Trudeau appointee from Manitoba, is a former director of the Winnipeg Art Gallery and a former board member of the NGC. So she knows board responsibilities, the work of a museum CEO, and the legislative process. She’s just sitting there in the East Block waiting for someone to ask for advice. What’s her advice for Rodriguez? The prompt creation of a search committee to look for a new permanent director of the NGC. Public announcement of that committee’s members, who should include people with superb records in art history and museology.
Honestly at this point, the minister shouldn’t need to be told to do that. But Sen. Bovey has another tip: Rodriguez should meet, and publicly announce he has met, the seven former senior curators who wrote him to sound the alarm. Mostly so they’ll feel heard. Also because they are heroes of Canadian art. They include Diana Nemiroff, who co-curated the Gallery’s first major Indigenous survey exhibition 30 years ago and who literally wrote the book on women leaders of the Gallery. And Charlie Hill, who was the Gallery’s chief curator of Canadian art for 34 years and who marched for gay rights on Parliament Hill in 1971. Hill has spent his life seeking — and not shying away from — brave conversations. I remember when a minister of Canadian Heritage would have met a group like this in the first few days of a national controversy.
Scrimshaw Unscripted: Evan Scrimshaw is talking about next Monday's federal byelection in Mississauga-Lakeshore:
...The Federal Liberals are defending their least-safe Mississauga seat, won by just over 6% in 2019. If the Tories are going to win the next election, they don’t have to win this seat, and anyone who claims that a theoretical Liberal win says very much about Poilievre’s appeal is full of shit, but they need to win some number of seats kind of close to this. It’s a suburban seat, obviously, and the kind of seat where the Tories have struggled in recent years because of the Global Fucking Realignment (start the drinking game now, I guess).
My instinct is the Liberals will win it, but that it doesn’t matter. The Liberals are running Charles Sousa, Kathleen Wynne’s former Finance Minister and MPP for the seat, while the Conservatives are running a cop of seemingly limited notoriety. Byelections in recent years have been wonky...
...Poilievre has been nowhere recently and Lakeshore isn’t exactly fertile ground for Skippy’s brand of conservatism.
...A Conservative win is absolutely possible for two reasons – it’s the kind of seat that would be very close on provincial swing and byelection turnout effects are wild and can be extremely variable – but there’s nothing that makes me think that this potential result would be indicative of much....
To be entirely consistent, however, a Liberal win is nothing to write home about and shouldn’t be taken to mean fuck all for 2025.
Routine Proceedings: Dale Smith is covering the arguments between the Auditor General and the CRA over whether Canadians have really been doing so much cheating with pandemic government support funds - The Auditor-General is not Infallible:
...My bigger problem is the fact that this disagreement is somehow scandalising because we have an unhealthy veneration of Officers of Parliament and the Auditor General most especially in this country. A virtual cult has been built around them, particularly by media, who love nothing more than watching the AG go to town on criticising the government of the day, no matter which stripe of government it is, and they will uncritically believe absolutely everything the AG says because they are independent, and therefore must be inherently credible. There are similar problems with this lack of critical engagement with the Parliamentary Budget Officer (and the current one has been a real problem around that, as he picks methodologies out of thin air), and again, his word is gospel. But they’re not infallible. The previous AG ballsed up the Senate audit really badly, and it was an absolute mess, but nobody wanted to talk about it because you can’t badmouth the Auditor General. It’s like a cardinal sin in this city. And departments should be allowed to have disagreements, because the AG isn’t going to get it right every time. That’s just a physical impossibility, and we should acknowledge that fact, but as we see, when it happens, it’s like heresy. People need to grow up, and media needs to be more critical of these Officers, because media is the only check they have.
For all of their flaws, the federal pandemic support programs were both outstanding and absolutely necessary:
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Wednesday, December 07, 2022

Today's news: Its a "Tridemic" now

I guess they're calling it a "tridemic" now -- the triple hammer of Covid, flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) that is destroying our hospitals. 
This time, its the children: But we KNOW what to do to help people avoid getting sick - we just have to DO IT! The enduring tragedy of 2020-21 was the deaths of millions of old people due to Covid in Long Term Care facilities across Canada and throughout the world. 
And this is still happening - read this whole thread:
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Tuesday, December 06, 2022

Today's News: What we learned

This weekend there was a fascinating article in the Globe and Mail summarizing what was learned from the Emergencies Act testimony at the POEC. Here are some revelations of note: 

Convoy leaders egged on the protestors but did not risk their own trucks:
...only through the inquiry did the public learn that while the leaders encouraged others to put their trucks – and therefore their livelihoods – on the line, most of the convoy leaders did not. Mr. Barber removed his truck, ‘Big Red,’ from the “red zone” after the second weekend. Mr. King left his motorhome in a “secure location” and hitched a ride downtown. Ms. Belton left her big rig at home, as did Mr. Dichter.
Stephanie Carvin, an associate professor at Carleton University and a former federal intelligence analyst, said the convoy leaders have shown – at the protests and in the inquiry – that “they see reality entirely differently.”
“They’re not delusional,” she said, but added, “I’m not sure anything would have convinced them that they were causing harm.”
Ottawa police failed:
...In an emergency situation, a police services board and a police chief are the only ones that can ask the OPP to take over when a police force is not providing “adequate and effective” policing, Prof. Kempa said. Mr. Sloly’s senior commanders believed he thought that other police services coming to Ottawa to help craft an enforcement plan illustrated a plot against him, the inquiry has heard.
Police stood by as protesters formed supply lines of fuel-filled jerry cans and indiscriminately set off fireworks near condos and office buildings. Yet Mr. Sloly testified that the chaos never met the threshold where he should have relinquished command. And then-Ottawa police board chair Diane Deans testified that she couldn’t recall if the board ever considered making a request to the OPP.
The chaos should have triggered an automatic threshold for the OPP to take control, but no such mechanism exists, Prof. Kempa said.
The Ontario government failed:
...the Emergencies Act assumes all parties do their jobs, as expected, not that the Ottawa police would be “dysfunctional” or that Mr. Ford would decide “he didn’t want to get involved and kick it up to the federal government.”
“It assumed that the Ontario government would be working and solving this and it wasn’t. So what do you do?” she said.
And Canadian intelligence agencies weren't as helpful as they could have been:
...The inquiry has heard that the protests in Ottawa and elsewhere did not rise to the level of a national-security threat, under the CSIS Act. Yet CSIS director David Vigneault testified that he recommended the act’s invocation – after receiving a legal opinion from the Justice Department that the Emergencies Act could take a broader interpretation than the CSIS Act.
On Feb. 14, about an hour before the act’s invocation was announced, Mr. Trudeau received a memo from Canada’s top public servant recommending the act’s use. A detailed threat assessment was meant to follow “under separate cover,” but it did not. Jody Thomas, national security and intelligence adviser, had sought that threat assessment earlier that day but she testified that it “fell through the cracks and we were overtaken by events.”
I'm not sure what the POEC will make of all this, except perhaps to conclude that Mulroney and Beatty were maybe indulging in a bit of wishful thinking back in 1987 when they thought the process of declaring a state of emergency would be polite, orderly, and unencumbered by bureaucratic incompetence at several levels.

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Monday, December 05, 2022

🤣🤣🤣

From TG, this is the funniest summary ever of the #TwitterGate #TwitterFiles Musk-Tabbi story. 
I'm so glad somebody invented emojis:

https://twitter.com/TG22110/status/1599129264670257152?s=20&t=htuZp-y6WT9qaqDjI4E3mg




  I am doing this as an image, rather than embedding the tweets, because the Twitter Bird needs to show.
To follow the whole thread, click here 
The Daily Mail reports that Musk is furious that his Friday story wasn't covered by the New York Times, the Washington Post, CBS or ABC. 
I think Tucker had a bit about it on Fox - of course. 
The New York Times is actually running an article Monday, in Section B, page 5.


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Saturday, December 03, 2022

From the bookmarks - Elon, Matt, Ye, and the gang....

https://mastodon.art/@welshpixie/109444553191698521

I loved this! Found it on Mastodon, hand-made by @welshpixie@mastodon.art  

Tonight the world of Twitter waited with bated breath for Musk's big Hunter Biden reveal. Pffft (a wet sqibb sound)!

What a pointless attempt at "got-ya!" journalism. 

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Thursday, December 01, 2022

Today's News: WTF is a Henry the 8th act?

The most useful thread I saw today, explaining what a "Henry the 8th" clause is and how it works: Here is a key tweet: And the thread ends here: This is why Premier Loon thinks she can pass a Sovereignty Act that will permit Cabinet ministers to change Alberta laws without having to get a vote in the Alberta legislature for them.
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Wednesday, November 30, 2022

Today's News: Feeling so misunderstood

 
I don't understand why Alberta and Saskatchewan feel so misunderstood and persecuted and hard-done-by all the time. 

Fact of life: Canada's population is not fairly distributed across the country and it never will be. Most of our people live in Ontario and Quebec, with several million more in Vancouver. The Prairies have just 20 per cent of the country. 

Fact of life: A quarter of Canada lives here - in the Ontario Golden Horseshoe:

Fact of life: That's also where much of Canada's money is made, too - industry, banks, manufacturing, transportation, etc. -- though when it comes to the economy, this year the Prairies are actually expected to do a little better than anywhere else in the country:

Alberta and Saskatchewan, quit yer bitchin'! We're not living in the Red Wedding, no matter how much our politicians want us to trash the East.  We are, actually, great places to live (for most of the year anyway) with friendly people, beautiful scenery, a terrific economy. 
Please can't we just stop all this pissing and moaning and complaining?
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Monday, November 28, 2022

Beautiful

There was some beautiful stuff happening here: And this was beautiful too: And here some other great stuff: This discussion about cats and dogs reminds me of one of my all-time favorites:




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Saturday, November 26, 2022

Today's News: FluTruxKlan hearings wrap up

Hey everyone -- first of all, please forgive the lack of posts these days - along with thousands of others, I have been searching for a social media platform to keep up with the day's commentary, as Twitter continues to implode into a racist hellhole. 
But the Twitter platform is miles ahead of all the other social media sits for a blogger like me - no wonder they had so many staff to keep it going. I have been using their Bookmarks, Lists, and Embed Post functions just about every day, and unfortunately the other social media sites just don't offer these features in such an easily usable format. 
I am still searching -- Mastodon does have some of the twitter features, but I am still finding it too clunky to use easily.  Tribel looks good but has no way to save posts so they can be retrieved later. Instagram and TikToc don't have political posts as far as I can understand them. Just yesterday I got accepted onto the Post platform, and it looks promising. 
Also, a large number of the people I follow now have their own Substacks or daily newsletters so this is promising too.  Many of them are navigating to the Post too, so that platform will be more useful I think.
Anyway, I will get it sorted out as soon as I am able. 

In the meantime, Canadian news yesterday and today was full of the testimonies at the FluTruxKlan inquiry (AKA the Public Emergency Order Commission). Overall, Trudeau and the other cabinet ministers and PMO staff did a good job explaining why they turned to the Emergency order to resolve the crisis last February:

This thread from pundit Scott Reid sums it up:
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Thursday, November 24, 2022

Great stuff!

Here's some of the funny stuff I have collected recently.

Can you find both the rabbit and the mouse? Dogs, bruh!
 
https://doggo.tube/post/701771764593770496/sunny-the-rescue-dog-growing-up-with-his-favorite
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Monday, November 21, 2022

Today's News: Update about the war in Ukraine

I haven't posted as much about Ukraine lately so I wanted to assemble an update now. 

First, this remarkable photo: When this war is over, and Ukraine has won, I expect Ukrainians will create a mile-wide border of salted soil, so they never have anything to do with Russia ever again. 
As Adam Silverman said in his Balloon Juice post last night: 
I just want to take a moment and note, again, that what Russia is doing and has been doing since the start of the re-invasion, is the systemic targeting of civilians, civilian residential areas, civilian infrastructure such as power generation, power transmission, water treatment facilities, reservoirs, railways, agriculture, hospitals, schools, cultural facilities, the widespread mining of Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia, the kidnapping of Ukrainian children to Russia, the use of Ukrainian citizens as hostages, etc. The vast majority of Russia’s targeting in the re-invasion constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. ....the news media regularly fails to make this clear. 
A powerful statement.
In regard to progress in the war itself, it appears that the war is in a lull phase at the moment, until the mud is frozen and heavy trucks can move again: But Russians are still dying: I read Silverman's account tonight expressing concerns about Russia increasing its alliances with Iran and with Syria - previously my concern was whether the Russia-Ukraine war would spread to Europe, but a spread to involve the Middle East might also be problematic. Canada hosted the Halifax International Security Forum this weekend, described as the world's leading security conference for democracies: Here is more detail on what Zelenskyy said:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on Canada to help spearhead a long-term peace plan with Russia, as the nearly 10-month war in Ukraine enters a critical phase with the approach of winter.
The Ukrainian leader threw down the gauntlet in a pre-recorded video address to the Halifax International Security Forum, where senior government and military officials from Canada and around the world are gathering this weekend.
Zelenskyy, whose country was invaded by Russia in February, told participants that real and enduring peace between Kyiv and Moscow will require agreement on 10 different areas.
Those include the withdrawal of Russian forces, the release of prisoners, the securing of Ukraine's nuclear, food and energy security, the restoration of his country's territorial integrity and a tribunal to hold those responsible to account.
The Ukrainian president went on to encourage countries to "choose which item you can help with," adding: "I believe that Canada, which strongly supports us, will also choose one of the peace formula items for itself and will show all strands of leadership."

And I wonder how those Russian soldiers will do after this war, too: Here is some sad news: Finally a couple of posts about some of the ways Canada continues to help Ukraine:
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Sunday, November 20, 2022

Cold weather blues and other news

So pending Twitter's possible demise, I have now signed up at Mastodon and at Tribel -- I'm not sure either of them can work as easily as Twitter did so we'll see how it goes. 
Here are my links to these sites, if you have to find me someday soon: 
I haven't made many posts on these sites yet and I'm not sure how much I will be able to use them, because they don't seem to have easy ways to save posts or to embed them here on Blogger. 

Moving on to today's news, here in Saskatchewan tonight, its COLD. Damned cold.
People have already died of exposure in Saskatchewan this winter: To humanize and publicize the problem,Yann Martel writes of his 36-hour "homeless" experience: 
Over and over, I met people who showed me the respect and dignity that poverty and homelessness so quickly strip you of. 
That’s how we begin to deal with homelessness in our city, by re-humanizing people from whom so much has been taken. Homelessness is not a cancer. It’s the suffering of fellow citizens, and if we don’t help them, we’re all brought down, the homeless and everyone around them, residents, business owners, the city, everyone. 

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Friday, November 18, 2022

Today's News: Sometimes I wanna go Where a few hundred people know my name...


After ordering everyone back to work, Musk has now locked up his office buildings and ordered everyone to stay home for a few days. 
Nobody knows whether Twitter will reopen or just disappear. 
So the feeling on Twitter tonight is gloomy. 
I know Twitter wasn't perfect, but I liked it -- met some great people there, and I even got followed by a few hundred good folks too.  
I would be sad to see it all disintegrate.
So tonight I tried out my Mastodon account - here it is:  
It took me FOREVER to find where I could turn off the "dark mode" that Mastodon apparently defaults to - I find it too difficult to read white print on black background all the time - but I notice here when I embed a toot it is coming through in Dark mode still.
Anyway, for anyone interested in following me there, my Mastodon name is:
I will add it to the side column as soon as I can figure out how to do this. 
UPDATE: Just had to share this one, too:
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Thursday, November 17, 2022

Today's News: Christ, what an asshole!

Time for this week's edition of "Christ, what an asshole!" 

So this happened: Leading, of course to this: Here's the reference:
   

 Speaking of perfection: And here's the reference:
   

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