October 5, 2020
In 1981, John Hinckley Jr. attempted to assassinate president Ronald Regan. He opened fire from short range, seriously injuring both Reagan and, even more critically, White House Press Secretary James Brady. Also caught in the crossfire were police officer Thomas Delahanty and Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy.
Tim McCarthy wasn’t even supposed to be working that day. When an extra agent was needed, he and a co-worker flipped a coin. McCarthy lost the toss, and he was the one who, when the shooting started, got in front of president Reagan, made himself as big a shield as he could (while another agent shoved Reagan into the car)… and then, literally, took a bullet for the president. That is indeed part of the job description, and he did it admirably and heroically, for which he was greatly admired and celebrated. It takes quite a mindset and commitment to serve and protect in that capacity.
It brings to mind the guys currently tasked with the job, who might be wondering when they signed up for this particular detail, if taking a bullet from the president was part of it. Throwing a couple of secret service agents into a hermetically sealed and bullet-proof car, as masked and protected as they may have been – just so the president can go for a joyride? Not the heroism they were expecting.
The lunacy of all of this has brought up comparisons with movies; all of them comedies. “Weekend at Bernie’s” comes to mind; how long they’d maintain the charade if he actually died, taking a page out of the Soviet dead-leader playbook. As stated, it’s hard to figure out the truth. The cocktail of medicine administered to Trump has the flavour of “throw everything at him” despair… the antibodies, the remdesivir, the dexamethasone (which has been shown to be life-saving in the sickest of C19 patients, but risky and potentially dangerous if taken earlier in the course of the disease). All of that on top of the other vitamins and medicine he’s been on, perhaps still hydrochloroquine. And don’t forget the Clorox/Ajax/UV IV… all of this implying he’s really sick; on the flipside, he’s demanding to go home, and might already be back at the White House by the time you read this. If this were a movie, you’d be walking out of thinking… “this would never happen.”
Actually, another movie that comes to mind is the 1993 movie “Dave”, with Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver, where the president falls into a coma and a temporary look-alike suddenly finds himself in a more permanent role.
But my favourite movie, on this related topic, goes back to 1988 – a movie called “Moon Over Parador”. If you haven’t seen it, there’s tonight’s movie for you. Richard Dreyfuss, Sonia Braga… and many surprising cameos.
Indeed, all of these movies are comedies… and while Abraham Lincoln never actually said, “Don’t believe everything you see on the internet”, he did say this: “I laugh because I must not cry”
It helps to laugh, if for no other reason than it deflects attention away, at least briefly, from the emerging multi-faceted tragedy that the president seems to like to mock… and ignore.
Closer to home, let’s not ignore the rising numbers… which unfortunately we may have to get used to, as the weather gets worse. Canada was averaging less than 600 new cases a day at the start of September. That number is now over 1,800.
October 4, 2020
The messaging coming out of the White House is so contradictory, it’s not even worth trying to figure it out. There’s internal disagreement with what they’re trying to say (forget the truth; that’s irrelevant – this is just about the picture they’re trying to paint). Doctored videos, pictures supposedly taken throughout the day but actually taken 10 minutes apart…. Trump hard at work… signing blank pieces of paper. He’s going home soon; he’s staying in the hospital for a while. Enough already; this isn’t news… just failed propaganda.
Does anyone remember the Soviet leaders that came after Brezhnev (and before Gorbachev)? First there was Yuri Andropov. One day he was fine; the next day, the Kremlin reported he had a bit of a cold. The next day he was dead. Following him came Konstantin Chernenko… fine one day, caught a little cold, died the next day.
We can excuse all that because that was the former Soviet Union, where there was no semblance of free press, and the only source of news came from the government… it wasn’t a question of truth. The “truth” that was rammed down everyone’s throat and expected to be accepted.
That’s not so easy to pull off these days, and it’s making the White House look ridiculous… and questioning the credibility of a number of people, including Trump’s own doctor.
No useful information emerging from there, and nothing too useful around here either since it’s the weekend. Tomorrow, we’ll get an informative over-the-weekend update – for Canada. For the U.S… don’t hold your breath.
The numbers and charts, as incomplete as they will be for today, will be posted shortly… for now, you get a picture of my dog… who also looks like he’s worried about what the heck is going on…
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October 3, 2020
Sometimes, I write these posts in the morning… sometimes, at the last minute… a few times, the day before. I get the impression I’m going to have to back off trying to be too current, because the news changes almost as fast as I can type… and by the time you’re reading this, it could be largely out of date. In any event, I’m writing this earlier in the day and it might be longer than usual to make up for the fact that I won’t have much time tomorrow… so let’s pack two day’s worth of thoughts into one…
First thing… on this side of the 49th… Ontario increased its C19 death numbers significantly… 111 deaths in two days… but no, it’s not so dire. The vast majority of those were re-classifications from deaths earlier in the year.
South of the border… in the news, and changing by the minute, is the remarkable irony of the White House event which was intended to be the grand introduction of Trump’s Supreme Court nominee… but could turn out to be the very reason why Judge Amy Coney Barrett doesn’t ascend to the Supreme Court… that being that there may not be sufficient votes in person to achieve confirmation… because too many Republican senators will be sick and/or quarantining.
I’ve never been to a White House event, but I can only imagine it’s the sort of get-together that involves exotic teas and tiered platters with egg and cucumber sandwiches (no crust, of course), yummy pastries, scones, whipped butter, jam… you get the idea. The poshest of the posh. Side-note, that really made me hungry – any recommendations for local fancy tea places?
Anyway, that particular event will not go down in history for the fine food that was served, nor for the fine China upon which it was presented. Instead, it will be forever known as the Covid-19 Super-Spreader event that changed the course of American history.
It’s only been a few days, but now we’re getting a very accurate account of how fast this virus spreads when it’s in our midst and not taken seriously. Those Republicans, scoffing at the notion of wearing a mask — lest they be ridiculed by their Fearless Leader – may have screwed themselves out of contention. Their reckless, holier-than-thou attitude was evidenced at the “debate” where the entire Trump entourage, having entered the seating area all wearing masks as required, dramatically and contemptuously removed them in unison, with appropriate contemptible smirks to go along with their heroic acts of independence and freedom.
At the White House ceremony, same thing… most guests arrived in masks, but many removed them. There are hundreds of pictures and videos showing what went on. If you zoom up really, really close, like 150,000,000x, you can see the C19 virus balls flying all around, out of this mouth, into that nostril, and so on.
At this very moment, around noon, here’s the known infection roster:
Hope Hicks
Donald Trump
Melania Trump
Senator Mike Lee
Senator Thom Tillis
RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel
Advisor Kellyanne Conway
Advisor Chris Christie
Campaign manager Bill Stepien
Notre Dame president Rev. John Jenkins
3 White House reporters
Conflicting numbers re White House staffers… one or more
Another senator that wasn’t there, Ron Johnson, has also tested positive.
AG William Barr, who was there too — and was recorded having a long, close conversation with Kellyanne Conway — hasn’t tested positive and is refusing to quarantine. By the time he tests positive, we’ll have a good idea who he’s likely infected as well.
And, for what it’s worth, NBC correspondent Garrett Haake tweeted this: “Tillis and Lee are both on Judiciary. I stuck my head into their hearing midweek and basically none of the senators were masked. The staffers around the edge of the large conference room were.”
Obviously, all of the senators in that meeting should be isolating for two weeks… but we all know that’s not happening. Add to that… Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is demanding all senators show up by Monday, Oct. 19th so things can move along. He needs them in person to have the required quorum.
Good luck, Mitch… and, might I add… I remember very well a different Monday, Oct. 19th… back in 1987. That was Black Monday, when the stock market crashed and burned and sent the financial world into a tailspin.
The only thing that might crash and burn this Oct. 19th is Mitch McConnell’s dream of installing a new Supreme Court Justice. As you may recall, Mitch McConnell was the one responsible for blocking Obama from installing a new Justice seven months before the end of his term, saying, at the time, “One of my proudest moments was when I looked Barack Obama in the eye and I said, 'Mr. President, you will not fill the Supreme Court vacancy.'" Notwithstanding the remarkable and blatant hypocrisy with respect to what’s going on now, you know what… Karma’s a bitch, Mitch.
Finally, on top of all of that, there are conflicting messages coming out of the White House and Walter Reed hospital… Trump is good, Trump is not so good, Trump is breathing fine, Trump is on oxygen, he’ll be going home soon, the next 48 hours are critical, he’s responding well, we’re not sure how well he’s responding. You can throw this paragraph away, because it’s entirely meaningless, other than to punctuate with some clarity one of two possibilities… nobody really knows what’s going on… or they don’t really want us to know.
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October 2, 2020
Given the way he conducts himself in public, it’s surprising it took this long for Donald Trump to test positive. It should’ve happened months ago, but rumour has it that when no one’s looking, he’s a lot more careful. There are those quotes from Bob Woodward that would lead one to believe Trump clearly understood the severity and risks of C19 long ago. Of course, it’s not his outward-facing message… even recently mocking Joe Biden and his big mask… but behind closed doors, he’s been terrified of getting it… as well he should be, since he’s in that high-risk category, for a few reasons, not the least of which are his age, obesity and heart disease.
His people would like you to think he has a 0.0002% chance of dying from it, but the truth is not so favourable. Given the demographic within which he falls, mitigated by the fact that he’s got the most sophisticated medical care at his disposal… and given what’s been learned with respect to treatment… his resolved-case survival rate is probably around 95%, which means a 1 in 20 chance of dying from this. Also concerning is how many important and influential people he’s been around, with his usual wanton recklessness. More than 20 for sure, so within the next couple of weeks, don’t be too surprised at the news of a concerning hospitalization or two.
For now, we wait and see… there are of course a lot of obvious questions… but it’s not really worth wandering down the paths of speculation. What if Biden also got it? What if Trump dies a week before the election? A week after? What if he’s alive but incapacitated but lucid enough to refuse to transfer power? What if he’s really sick and then Pence gets sick? What if this, what if that. There are actually answers to all of the way-out-there possibilities, but all of them would be challenged… in the courts and on the streets.
In any event, it’s a volatile situation that can change by the minute. As I’m writing this, the president is being rushed to the Walter Reed Medical Centre… a trip he’d usually make via a 30-minute drive… but today, it’s a 4-minute helicopter ride.
Up to this moment, nobody is saying much… he was fatigued, he has a cough… he woke up with a fever… so, out of an abundance of caution, etc, etc. He looked and sounded ok on a brief Twitter video, and also seemed fine walking to the helicopter, but, on the flipside, they’ve got him on a fancy IV cocktail of experimental drugs (not yet approved for the public), being used to try to stimulate an immune response. You wouldn’t typically do that, unless… unless what. Who knows… there’s a lot we don’t know because they’re not saying much.
How long will he be in the hospital? We’re told, a few days. If things get worse, longer. And there’s a 5% chance that it will be for the rest of his life.
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October 1, 2020
I just got back from the track a few minutes ago (it’s closing day of a very memorably-odd 25-day season… but it was great to see some familiar faces), where I watched my horse “Blueprint” run 2nd in one of the most prestigious races of the year… so that’s good. But that “2” is about the only good number around.
Canada, today, saw its 160,000th C19 case… and recorded 22 deaths, the largest 24-hour total since July. When you look at the chart below, at the Canadian growth numbers, you’ll see them all above 1% over the last 5 days. And if you look further back, you’ll see them all below 1%… going all the way back to May. We slowed it down from the end of May onward, and now it’s crawled back… and, if you look at the corresponding graph, it’s crawling rather steeply.
It’s interesting to look at the trends of the other charts, too. Notably, B.C., which briefly looked like it was going to spiral out of control… hasn’t. Things have tailed off recently. That meteoric rise has slowed and backed off. Maybe Dr. Henry managed to scare us back into order.
Alberta is fighting to keep its growth flat, and while things could be better, they could also be worse. They’re fighting to keep their spread in schools under control, and it’s not looking great; let’s hope for the best.
So what’s driving this national growth? The usual, of course… Ontario and Quebec… who both, at some point, were looking to have things well under control. Not anymore. The numbers, the graphs, the deaths; none of it is good. Everything sliding in the wrong direction.
My horse “Blueprint”, to be honest, is probably not destined for greatness. He really stepped it up today and I’m proud of him… especially because there’s only so much you can do. Our very excellent trainer Dino does what he can to prepare the horse, but once the starting gate springs open, anything can happen.
Similarly, the national blueprint for handling a pandemic requires the involvement of everyone. The trainer does what he can; the jockey does what he can. But it’s ultimately up to the horse… and horses, like people… they can be stubborn.
You can lead a horse to water… you can even jam his face into it and hold it down… but if he’s stubborn enough, he’ll drown before he’ll drink any. It doesn’t make any sense. But neither does not sticking with a blueprint that’s been shown to work.
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September 30, 2020
I should take a step back writing about Donald Trump. I’d been planning to watch the debate and then comment on it, but of course, there was no debate. There was a schoolyard bully, flailing around aimlessly, aggressively, disgustingly and frighteningly. I know the majority of people reading this were as horrified as I was, watching that shitshow… and for those who think otherwise… well, there’s really nothing I can tell you. In talking about Trump, I’m either preaching to the choir or talking to a brick wall. Either way, to a great extent, I’m wasting my time discussing it. All I can say is that if you still support that deplorable, awful excuse of a president, there’s nothing anyone can say that will change your mind. Therefore, I will leave it at that, with one final point:
I’ve said before I don’t watch a lot of TV – not because I don’t want to, but because I just don’t have time. I’d binge watch 12 hours a day for a few weeks, given the opportunity. My “to watch” list grows a lot faster than I can get through it.
As a result, at the moment, I’m a few years behind… and watching the second season of the excellent adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s “A Handmaid’s Tale”.
It’s very good… and very relevant. It deals with a dystopian future, where the first season’s episodes flash forwards and backwards – dystopian future/normal past… but, unlike most SciFi of that genre, the dystopia is not in the distant future; rather, it’s probably no more than 5 years apart… and it all takes place “now”… it could be 2005 to 2010 or it could be 2018 to 2023.
A lot has changed in those 5 years, and the differences are made clear in the first season. But now, in the second season, it’s starting to fill in the blanks… how exactly do we go from a normal society, to a messed-up fascist military occupation based on religious zealotry?
It doesn’t happen overnight, but it doesn’t take long. It’s frightening to see the fiction of the show and compare it to the realities of the U.S. today. While it might sound a little alarmist, if things really derail, it will be impossible for anyone to actually say, “Jeez… didn’t see that coming.” All of the signs are there… signs that history has seen time and time again.
Let me assure you, when the president is doing the wink-wink-nudge-nudge to a group of neo-nazi white supremacists who’ve waited all their lives to unleash their violent hatred… well, unfortunately, anything is possible. And he’s so arrogant, so flagrant, so unapologetically offensive – because he knows he can get away with it. Because it empowers him. Because that’s the kind of person he is, and because it’s what his unshakable core of people want to hear.
The real question looming on the horizon for that potentially-soon-to-be-formerly-great country is pretty simple, and it will be answered on election day… just exactly how many people out there want to see it all crash and burn? Hopefully, the quieter majority (who most definitely do not)… will finally stand up and do something about it.
For the moment, the U.S. is still a democracy, one that many people lost their lives creating and defending. To see it slip away, especially like this, would be unforgivable.
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September 29, 2020
Leona Helmsley was a wealthy hotelier, back in the 1980s. In discussing herself and her husband, she once famously said, “We don’t pay taxes; on the little people pay taxes.” Leona was ultimately sentenced to 16 years in prison for federal income tax evasion. And, as you may already know, Al Capone, guilty of every organized crime known to man (bootlegging, prostitution, racketeering, murder, etc.) was ultimately only charged and sentenced for one thing… income tax evasion… which landed him in prison for the rest of his life.
More recently, like a few months ago, I was staring at a math formula that I needed to plug into a spreadsheet. I needed the formula in terms of x, but unfortunately, x was an exponent in an expression that was under a square-root sign, and all of that was the numerator in a bigger expression. After staring at it for a minute, I asked my son, who was sitting nearby, if it he could figure it out… and he promptly did.
In hindsight, perhaps I could’ve paid him a consulting fee. What was that worth? Well, like the old joke… from the old “50 cents to push the button, and $999.50 to know which button to push” school-of-thought, $20 wouldn’t have been out of place. Even $100, since I needed it right away.
Wait… maybe I need a mathematician on payroll… I could hire him as a consultant on a monthly retainer. $1,000 a month? How about $10,000, because now I’m thinking tax benefits. How about $500,000,000 a year, and I get to deduct chunks of it for the rest of my life… and since I’m not paying him all of it, it’s of no tax consequence to him. And for me… some fancy accounting showing the liability due, and then claiming the annual credit of $10,000,000 – wow, I’ll never pay taxes again!!
Welcome to the slippery slope of how tax avoidance (totally legal) slides into tax evasion (totally not).
Setting aside the cushy job she got in her daddy’s organization, Ivanka Trump was paid an extra $750,000 in consulting fees. Giving your kids money is no crime. Claiming it as a business expense, however, is quite a different story. What’s slowly coming to light is how many tens of millions of dollars Donald Trump “consulted“ away… when actually, he was just keeping money in the family, but paying no tax on it.
As per emerging facts imply, as bad a businessman as Donald Trump may be, there’s still income from his numerous properties. The ones he didn’t already bankrupt (how do you bankrupt a casino) do generate some sort of revenue. That they’ve all lost money year after year probably means he doesn’t run them too efficiently… and whatever they do make is outweighed by the generous deductions he claims. Again, they either genuinely lose millions of dollars a year of his father’s hard-earned money that he’s slowly squandering… or, they make a bit, and he “cleanly” hides the profits.
As per above, you don’t mess around with the IRS. Around here, the CRA. Same thing… they want their cut, and they’re not happy when you try to hide it, or dance around it. They understand you’re allowed to pay as little tax as possible, as long as it’s legal… but there’s a line, and sometimes, its crossing is just way too blatant.
If Donald Trump doesn’t get re-elected, among the long list of lawsuits he’ll be slammed with… is likely to be the IRS, seeking what they feel is owed to them. Whether it’s criminal tax evasion, or a simple slashing of a bunch of bullshit deductions ($70,000 a year for hair care?)… remains to be seen. Taxes owed, interest, penalties… on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars of loans he has to repay in the not-too-distant future… to be clear, Donald Trump can’t ride off into the sunset, even if he wants to. He desperately needs the four years of presidential immunity that comes with the job.
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September 28, 2020
I’m not sure where our family tradition came from… the one where you break this fast, after 24 hours of no food or drink… with a shot of liquor. Single-malt scotch in my case. Let me tell you, that’s one way to shock the system.
Anyway, it’s been a day… did… I… miss… anything?
Exactly a month ago, my closing paragraph was this:
“The President of the United States may not be aware that there are two things in life that are a certainty… death and taxes. You can’t escape either….and history will not be kind in exposing his attempts to cheat on both.”
The gist of that article was more to do with the fake numbers he was now controlling, to direct the C19 narrative… things aren’t so bad, things are getting better, numbers are going down… and so on. Sure they are, Mr. President… they can say whatever you want, when you’re managing it.
I haven’t dug into it yet, but a superficial read on these recent stories implies one of two things: Donald Trump is either among the world’s worst businessmen… or, he ruthlessly cheats on his taxes. I suspect it’s a bit of both, but I’m curious which version his die-hard supporters would prefer? That they were sold a pack of lies? Like the ones who like saying, “Yeah, ok, he’s an abrasive asshole, but at least he knows business and deal-making and all that.”
Or… how about this: “Hey, hardworking American labourer who’s single and made $18,000 last year…you paid more in taxes than your “billionaire” president.
Pick your poison, Trumpers… what do you prefer? The (brutally) inept businessman? Or the ruthless, uncaring tax evader? Tough decision… but, if you have any sort of critical thinking ability left, what shouldn’t be a tough choice is the one you face on November 3rd.
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January 27, 2021
Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day… recognized every January 27th because it was on this day in 1945 that the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp was liberated.
For all my Jewish friends and family, there isn’t much I could write here that they don’t already know… but this is going out more to everyone else, because I want to touch on the topic in a way that involves everyone… because, at the end of the day, this affects everyone, not just the unfortunate 6,000,000.
In second place to the most easily disprovable conspiracy theory (flat earth being number one) is holocaust denial. And while flat earthers just amuse me and make me a little sad, holocaust deniers get me angry. Very angry. There’s a video clip somewhere of some idiot “Moon Landings Were Faked” conspiracy theorist hounding Buzz Aldrin on the street, trying to shove a bible in his face and trying to make him swear on it that he actually walked on the moon. Calling him a liar and a thief. Buzz tries to get away from him, can’t… and eventually loses his cool and punches the guy in the face. I get it. It’s what anyone can expect from me as well if you question something that’s, unfortunately, far too close to home; going back on both sides of my family, more perished than survived the holocaust… and some entire branches in Auschwitz itself.
Hearing the nonsensical “here’s an aerial view of the camp… there’s no way that blah blah blah….” type of arguments… and setting aside the overwhelming quantities of first-hand evidence and eyewitness accounts… here’s a simple question in return: The well-documented and widely published European census of 1933 counted 9.5 million Jews. In 1945, that number was around 3.5 million. It’s really a very simple question… where did all those people go? If this was a big conspiracy, where did they all hide? Six million people is a lot… where are their kids and grandkids? The world population of Jews was 16.6 million just before WWII, and it still hasn’t recovered. Today, it’s still less than 15 million.
At the insurrection at The Capitol three weeks ago, there was a guy with a “Camp Auschwitz” t-shirt. There was a guy with a shirt that stated “6 million wasn’t enough”… and that right … [Continue Reading]
January 26, 2021
There’s an episode of Star Trek:TNG where Captain Picard and the gang happen upon an odd planet… completely devoid of life, save for a small but picturesque patch of land where a peaceful, old couple (of humans) are living.
This guy (let’s call him Kevin) and his wife tell Picard that an alien race came by and wiped out everyone… except, for some unknown reason, them.
There’s far more to the story, but as it turns out, the alien who did the real wiping out was Kevin himself… who only looks human, but actually isn’t. Some aliens did come by and attack the colony… and Kevin’s wife was killed in the attack. Kevin, who’s actually a very powerful alien, took it upon himself to exact revenge by wiping out all of the aliens… and not just the ones that had attacked him, but he scoured the universe and found them all. Fifty billion aliens; the entire species wiped out. And now he was just trying to live his eternal life on this patch of land with a reconstructed illusion of his wife.
What do you do with a being that wipes out 50 billion others? Picard concludes that they, humans, are not qualified to be his judge… because there are no laws to fit the magnitude of the crime. Picard and The Enterprise leave, and he puts out the word to Starfleet; stay away from this planet. Leave Kevin alone. You really don’t want to piss him off.
Indeed, the punishment needs to fit the crime… and there are places in this world where that’s the case. Finland, for example… where in 2015, a successful businessman by the name of Reima Kuisla was caught doing 64MPH in a 50MPH zone… which translates to doing 103km/h in an 80 zone. That’s not even excessive speeding, and I’m sure more than one of you reading this today were on a highway today, where the limit is 80, and where you were exceeding 100. You’re lucky you didn’t get caught; that’s a $173 fine and 3 points.
Mr. Kuisla wasn’t so lucky… he got caught, and because of his Ten Million Dollar income, paid a fine of $80,000. To scale it down, that’s like someone making $50,000 a year being fined $400. Sounds about right… proportional fines, depending … [Continue Reading]
January 25, 2021
A year ago today, a man who’d recently returned from Wuhan, China, wasn’t feeling well… and wound up at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital, where he became Canada’s first test-positive C19 case.
Hearing that this morning made me think back… what was I doing at the time? Thanks to modern technology, it doesn’t take much to scroll back through recent history.
A year ago last night, I was at the Chan Centre watching my talented nephew, acting in a very engaging and entertaining theatre production. It was excellent, and so, appropriately, the venue was jammed.
A year ago today was a Saturday, and, at 10am, we were back at UBC — at TRIUMF this time — for a couple of lectures. One was about earthquakes – the famous impending “big one” that will hit the south coast, sometime between tonight and 500 years from now. The other was about black holes, cosmic collisions and sensing gravitational waves. Takeaway: If a large earthquake shows up off the south coast, don’t be in Tofino. And, I guess, if a black hole shows up off the south coast, don’t be in Tofino either… but you won’t have much too time to worry about it.
These lectures are super-interesting if you’re into this sort of thing, so, accordingly, it was crowded. Sold out in fact. So sold out we couldn’t get tickets online, and just crashed the venue, hoping we could sneak in. The tickets are free, but seating is limited; fortunately, some people didn’t show up and they let us in.
The kids were there too, and perhaps it took a bit of gentle bartering to get one of them there as well, because we wound up going out for dinner that night, to Kobe. Kobe is excellent, and always crowded as well; you end up sharing a table/cooking surface with complete strangers for a couple of hours.
Talk about taking stuff for granted. Three very different things, but all had one thing in common; hanging out in close proximity with strangers… and thinking nothing of it. That’s how it was.
So, what’s happened in that one year… today also marks another milestone; today, the world went over 100,000,000 known C19 cases. There have been over 2,000,000 deaths. There have also been over 72,000,000 recoveries. In Canada, more … [Continue Reading]
January 24, 2021
Weird things happen when you’re dealing with big numbers, but when you get to them slowly. Here’s a very basic example, speaking purely with respect to financial wealth:
A man whose net worth is only $1 is not rich. Far from it. Let’s call him poor.
If you take a man who’s poor and give him $1, he’s still poor.
Given those two starting premises, start a little loop. Give the guy another dollar. Is he rich now? No. $3? No. $4? No. But you loop a billion times, and of course, now he is. Somewhere along the line, he went from being poor to being stable… and, continuing, at some point he went from being stable to being well-off. Then he graduated to financially secure… on his way to rich. A dollar a time, he crossed all those lines.
The thing is… it’s difficult to figure out where to draw those lines, because they’re big, wide and blurry. And I don’t mean because everyone would have different definitions and opinions. I mean just you. Pick a number where you’d consider the guy to be unarguably in one of those categories. Now think of a number that’d plant him squarely in the next category up. Those two numbers are far apart. Even if you try to bring them closer together, you’ll still never get to a point where it flips by $1.
This same concept is what plays with our minds in elections. What difference does my one vote make? We keep getting told that it makes all the difference; every vote counts, etc. But the truth is… all other things being equal, your one little vote doesn’t matter. It’s quite a paradox. Take the last election, wherever you are. Change nothing except your one vote… remove it from the election. Did that change anything? Of course not. But also, of course, everything changes if more people start thinking like that. Many elections went the other way (Hilary 2016 comes to mind) because so many people become convinced that their one little vote wouldn’t matter (like people in Michigan) that they didn’t bother voting. At some point, even though it got there one missed vote at a time, it made a difference.
I’ve been accused of being a bit preachy and/or being a little shame-bashing on … [Continue Reading]
January 23, 2021
We watched a movie the other night… I thought it’d be a waste of time, but the kids really wanted to see it. OK… I can spare an hour and forty minutes, and who knows… it might be amusing. It’s called “Behind the Curve” (Netflix), and it’s all about Flat Earthers – the society whose members genuinely believe that the earth is flat. Or, pretend to. Or, are members for other reasons. OK, queue it up.
My assumption was that it’d be 100 minutes of idiots espousing theories that make no sense. Certainly, that was part of it. But above all that, there’s a genuine sadness to it, and some enlightening points that are incredibly relevant to today.
Of all the conspiracy theories out there, this is the one that’s most easily disprovable. For more than a thousand years, intelligent people have been devising experiments based on heights, distances, shadows and trigonometry… that show that the earth is a sphere. So good were some of these ancient experiments, that they were pretty-accurately able to calculate the diameter and circumference. This throws a bit of a wrench into the flat-earth conspiracy where millions of scientists, NASA employees and pilots are all in on it. You’d have to add Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle and Archimedes to the list, among many others.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter – the details of how a flat earth could even be possible don’t add up, to the extent there’s disagreement within the group. Is there a giant dome, snow-globe-like, covering the heavens? If not, what are all the stars and planets attached to? Queue the internal bickering.
Shortly into the movie, you realize that there’s something a little off about these people. They’re not dangerously crazy… just… off. Something emotional that comes across as almost child-like… and then it becomes obvious. This is a support group for like-minded people who’ve found each other. They feel like they’re part of something big. They feel they get it, and everyone else doesn’t… and it’s their mission to educate the poor, ignorant masses.
They don’t mind being called stupid idiots by the rest of the world… not only because they’re used to it, but because, to some extent, they bask in it. Us versus them. We know. You don’t. And this is where the bigger-picture … [Continue Reading]