August 18, 2020
Here’s an interesting coincidence… the adult human body has 206 bones; the earth has 206 sovereign nations. If you were to map each bone to a country, what would that look like? For example, I imagine all those little wrist bones might relate to all those little South Pacific Island Nations. Few people really know what’s there or what they’re called or what function they serve… but they’re a very relevant part of the bigger picture.
But let’s worry about what’s more important; the entire human body doesn’t work well without a solid, healthy backbone. You could say the same about the geo-political stability and general health of the entire planet.
There are 33 vertebrae in the human body, so we hopefully have 33 solid countries inhabiting this planet which, to some extent, the rest need to be able to rely upon… because the whole thing falls apart, or, at least, is in great pain… when those 33 are out of alignment.
There is no dispute what 33 bones make up the human backbone, and while there would be discussion as to what countries round out the bottom of the list, the top of that 33 would be pretty straightforward; all of North America, most of Europe, some of South America… the big players in Asia, perhaps a few in Africa… etc.
Indisputably, the U.S. would be near the top. There was a time in the late 1940s where, without a doubt, they were number one. They’re still top 5, probably top 3… but here’s the thing; they’re presently in pain. Like with a fractured vertebra, and the discomfort that causes. A pain we’re all feeling.
Back problems have treatment, but it’s not always straightforward. You can go visit your local friendly physiatrist or chiropractor or rheumatologist or whatever it might take. There’s a specialist out there who’s very familiar with what’s causing your back pain, and she’ll do what she can to fix it.
But, here’s the thing… if you’ve been visiting the same medical specialist for almost 4 years, and your pain not only hasn’t gotten any better, but it’s gotten notably worse… well, perhaps it’s time to move on. Even though you were told by others that this specialist was terrific, tremendous, the best ever… it may be that you need to reach your own conclusions. Your health and well-being depend on it. And, as per above, the whole world’s as well.
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August 17, 2020
By popular demand, and because their numbers are very relevant to the overall picture, please welcome Alberta to the party. As you can see, they now get their own 4 columns and graph.
Alberta had that awful last two weeks of April… then things settled down for a while, until mid-July… when they took a turn for the worse. They’ve since started to slow down… sort of… their numbers jump around a lot, but at least they seem to be trending downward. Those graphs can be a bit misleading, because the scales are all different. If you were to overlay B.C. and Alberta, pretty much all of B.C. fits “under” the Alberta activity. Their down-trending case counts are similar to B.C. numbers these days… so I guess we’ll see where things go.
From a “trend” point of view, the B.C. graph really looks awful in comparison to the others, but it’s worth noting the Y-axis. We still have some wiggle room… our numbers are good if you compare things, simply apples-to-apples. Saturday’s 100 new cases was the worst day we’ve ever had… but our cases and deaths per 1M of population continue to be way ahead of other provinces.
There will be more to say about this in the near future; we're using up all the "goodwill" we earned leading up to this… and while it's not too late, everyone needs to take some responsibility… for how we got here, and… more importantly… where we go from here.
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August 16, 2020
Update…
Today was supposed to be a socially-distanced backyard get-together with some good friends… which went sideways shortly before they arrived, when the dog evidently swallowed a wine cork. We rushed to the vet, but the x-ray couldn’t see anything… and while they were about to prep him for an endoscopy, the friends arrived and started trying to help in crawling around the garden looking for it “just in case”… and found it. Well-chewed but not swallowed. So now we take the pup home with a huge wave of relief… and since today there are no B.C. numbers anyway, let’s forget the numbers and charts till tomorrow. Instead, you get a picture of me and this bestest boi.
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August 16, 2020
No update for the moment (will post the graphs and data later)… dealing with a doggy vet emergency ☹️
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August 15, 2020
No numbers here in B.C. today or tomorrow… so notwithstanding the famous “lies, damned lies, and statistics” quote… I’m going to intelligently extrapolate some numbers… and will correct them on Monday. Until then, both our local and national numbers are just good guesses.
The average new case count in B.C. over the last 5 days averages to 67, so let’s just go with that. For what it’s worth, one standard deviation would make it plus or minus 21 (so somewhere between 46 and 88 new cases). Actually, the 90% confidence interval (15) defines the potential range as between 52 and 82… so it’ll be interesting to see what things look like by Monday. If we’re within this range, we’re sort of stable. If we’re growing… well, I guess we’ll know that too. Take it all with a grain of salt. And that’s enough math for a Saturday.
It’s also enough writing for a Saturday, because it’s a beautiful day and I’m going to take advantage of it… but it seems like a good opportunity to plug the blog where all of these posts are going, in case you feel like you missed something. If you visit www.kemeny.ca and click on the red seal, everything I’ve written here recently (like, every single day since March 17th) can be found there.
Hope you’re enjoying this beautiful day… in an appropriately-masked socially-distanced and well-sunscreened sort of way.
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August 14, 2020
Here are some sets of numbers: 84, 87, 92. Or how about 78, 78, 104. Or maybe 85, 95, 95.
What are these numbers? They’re new case counts for Quebec, Ontario and B.C… for today, and for the last couple of days. Which is which? Well, it doesn’t matter… and that’s the point… because we here, with our 5 million in population, are seeing the same sorts of new-case numbers as our fellow provinces with populations of 8.5 million and 14.7 million.
Ce n'est pas bien. 不是很好。Isto não é bom. ਇਹ ਚੰਗਾ ਨਹੀਂ ਹੈ. No está bien. これは良くない。Hindi ito maganda. Ez nem jó. این خوب نیست. Questo non è buono. Αυτό δεν είναι καλό. Dit is niet goed. זה לא טוב. Tämä ei ole hyvä. Das ist nicht gut. यह अच्छा नहीं है।Bu iyi değil. Dette er ikke bra. Điều này không tốt.
This is not good.
If Google Translate knew the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh language, I’d have written it in that as well. As it is, I’m sure I missed a few key languages… we’re a very diverse group up here… but these days, we clearly have something very much in common, no matter how you spell it out… we are headed in the wrong direction, after so long of doing it right.
I really don’t want to see these numbers keep climbing, and neither do you, because at some point, they start translating into hospitalizations and ICU admissions and deaths. And lockdowns and isolation and now… you know, it’s not Spring. It’s not chilling and crafts and making bread and Tiger King and reflection. Everyone has had enough… but we haven’t yet done enough, and we risk slipping back and giving up everything we achieved. Quitting the race as you approach the finish line is worse than not having run the race to begin with. Let’s not let it happen. There is that finish line, and we are actually getting closer to it… but we will keep pushing it back if we keep acting irresponsibly. That is the message, no matter in which language you need to hear it.
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August 13, 2020
There was an interesting battle going on during WWII, in the skies above England… and no, I’m not talking about the RAF vs. the Luftwaffe…
Back then, the British launched a very ambitious operation. They dropped thousands of homing pigeons behind enemy lines. The pigeons were in little crates, which, besides the bird, contained paper, and pen and a canister. Whoever found it was asked to fill out the questionnaire, roll it into the canister, attach it to the pigeon… and let it fly home, back to England, with the information. Sixteen thousand pigeons were dropped over France, Holland and Belgium. Something like 10% of them came back, many with useful information, detailing what life was like under German occupation, and indicating what they could about German troop movements. Some of these pigeons were so successful, over numerous trips, that they were decorated with medals. One directed a rescue crew to where a British bomber had ditched in the ocean. Another one saved more than 1,000 lives when it successfully delivered a message that a certain town had been re-captured by the British… a town that was about to be bombed.
The Germans quickly discovered this was happening, and started planting pigeons of their own, with a bit of a different questionnaire (and a pack of British cigarettes, to make it look legit), trying to sniff out local patriots to the allies.
Above and beyond that, the Germans had a little army of their own, trained Hawks and Falcons, whose job it was to take down the British pigeons. How has this not been made into a movie?
Our hero, the British pigeon, already battered and mangled, trying to fend off numerous attacks, struggling to get home… bleeding, missing the tip of one wing… suddenly spotted by a German Hawk… who, with his little goggles and leather helmet (emblazoned with a swastika) swoops down for the attack.. and just as he’s about to make contact, our hero pigeon crosses into British airspace where the hawk is instantly taken down by a sniper from MI14. Yes indeed, the British Secret Service set up a detachment, whose job it was to drive up and down the coast, monitoring bird activity and shooting down those killer German birds.
It’s an interesting little story, detailing one particular battle — amongst a sea of other battles — that constituted the Second World War. A small but important battle.
And that’s how it is with all battles, big or small. It’s not just one big fight. It’s lots of little ones, many of which we’ll never hear about… whether we’re fighting a World War, a virus, or an election… etc etc.
It’s something to consider for the near future, because lots of battles are heating up, and some of them, big and small, are going to get ugly. It’s important to consider their part in the bigger picture, not just the individual pieces… because in this era of self-serving propaganda and misinformation, many of these battles are, as they say… for the birds.
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August 12, 2020
If you followed WWF professional wrestling in the 80s, perhaps you remember the masked wrestler “Kamala” – ostensibly a fearsome Ugandan warrior. In reality, he was an American athlete/performer by the name of James Harris. And right around the time Joe Biden was deciding on Kamala Harris as his VP running mate, James “Kamala” Harris passed away, aged 70, of COVID-19. It’s one of those weird coincidences that mean nothing… but still make you say, “Huh.”
I have a suggestion for Biden/Harris. They need a catchy campaign slogan, and it should be this: MAAA – for two reasons.
First of all, "MAAA!!!" is the scream little kids yell out when they’re lost, looking for a parent… like the little kid who, when he was 6 years old, accompanied his parents to buy a new washer/dryer and decided to wander out of the store and walk around the block, not realizing that they were on Kingsway somewhere, and blocks around there are tri-angled and non-conforming, and if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can easily get lost… but fortunately, while the little kid was standing outside screaming "MAAA!!!", a kind stranger asked him what’s wrong and guided him back to the store where he composed himself and approached his parents who were just finishing up buying a new washer and dryer.
And the U.S. seems kind of lost these days, and needs someone to guide them back to where they belong. Like half the country is screaming "MAAA!!!"
The second reason is that it stands for what I think makes a lot of sense: Make America America Again. MAAA.
It’s my personal opinion that our neighbour to the south wasn’t so badly broken that it needed fixing to be “Great” again, but boy, did that slogan ever take off. I’ve never heard a good answer to the question though, from the people that support that sentiment… what exact Greatness are you hoping to recapture? When was America “Great” to the extent it’s not “Great” now? And frankly, however you define it, it seems to be a lot less Great today than it ever was.
What’s clear is that America, once feared and respected around the world… is now ridiculed and pitied. And unless you’re delusional in thinking things are going “Great”, then forget that particular adjective; you probably just want to see an America that used to exist and is, for the moment — like I was, wandering the streets around Kingsway all those years ago — lost. It won’t be as easy to find as I was… my MAAA campaign lasted maybe 30 minutes, during which time I really missed my parents. And at the moment, I’m really missing the America I’ve known most of my life. I’m not the only one.
This will be a lot tougher, but it has to start somewhere. Someone crank out a few million blue hats with that MAAA on them, and get on with it.
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December 28, 2020
Here’s an interesting fact that means nothing but is an interesting coincidence… the vast majority (ie. 49 out of 50) U.S. states are mostly south of us. South of what? The 49th parallel. Forty-nine states are south of the forty-ninth parallel. Yes, I’d never realized that. Yes, Puerto Rico would like a word with me. Yes, it’s spelled forty, not fourty… even north of the forty-ninth.
Comparisons to our neighbours (not neighbors) to the south get made all the time, and this pandemic is no exception. “At least it’s better here than in the states” is often heard, and it’s true… but that’s not a great comparison, because nobody on the planet is doing worse than the U.S.
But apples-to-apples, exactly how do we compare? Where would we fit in?
If you look at the daily new cases per million (DNCpM) of population for each particular state or province, here’s how it looks…
First of all, similar to how difficult it is for Canadian musicians to establish themselves in the American market, pandemically-speaking, we haven’t cracked the Top-40… not even close. If Quebec, our worst-performing province, were a U.S. state, it’d barely make the Top-50… being out-performed only by Washington, Oregon, Vermont & Hawaii.
The worst three states have DNCpMs that look like this:
California: 985
Tennessee: 927
Arizona: 800
North of the 49th, it’s this:
Quebec: 265
Alberta: 235
Saskatchewan: 152
For comparison, B.C. is 58
So… 50 states plus 10 provinces plus 3 territories… bundle them all together and what do you get? With the exception of a little bit of overlap in the 48 to 52 range, the U.S. occupies the entire top of the chart, and Canada, the bottom. You can literally draw a thick line through spot 49 and it would cleanly separate the two countries. Another interesting yet meaningless coincidence.
Except it’s not so meaningless… especially because while these numbers are an interesting snapshot today, they will soon change, possibly rather drastically as news arrives that the far-more contagious U.K. variant is here. We’re not exactly sure when it flew into town, though likely Dec. 15th… but it’s arrived, and undoubtedly the Boxing Day crowds (including the one-hour-plus lineups to get into the airport’s shopping mall) aren’t going to help things.
The numbers are expected to go up anyway, but this 70%-more-contagious curve-ball will likely affect the models. By how … [Continue Reading]
December 27, 2020
Here’s another word you may not have heard of… though it’s been very relevant this year, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. The word is: Agnorant
Interestingly, the word has been around for a while… more than ten years. Somehow, I never heard it till recently… though I’ve been dealing with what it describes for a lot longer than that. We all have.
“Agnorant” is simply a combination of Arrogant and Ignorant… and wow, are there many examples, especially these days… and the primary topic-du-jour is vaccines, where, magically, thousands of people who’ve researched it (if research means sitting on the toilet scrolling through curated, nonsensical content) have decided they know more than real experts, and will happily and arrogantly shove down your throats the results of said research.
“Did you know the vaccine has mercury in it? Mercury is toxic… why would you knowingly inject yourself with something toxic?”
There’s a lot wrong with that statement, but just for fun, and especially if someone says that to you, here is the response:
“The mercury found in vaccines is in a compound called Thimerosal. Actually, the mercury component of that is itself a compound call ethylmercury… which the body has no problem eliminating quickly and efficiently. Unlike the mercury in fish, the accumulation of which can certainly be toxic, it’s not a concern in this case.
“But it still has mercury in it.”
“And table salt has Sodium, which on its own will kill you. And it has Chlorine, which on its own will kill you. But as a compound of Sodium Chloride, it’s salt. That’s the beauty of chemistry; they characteristics of elements change significantly when you combine them.”
“Yeah, that’s what they want you to think. That it’s safe, but I know it’s not. I read this whole thing about how Bill Gates is making billions off this vaccine. You’re just a brainwashed sheeple like the rest of them.”
“Sure. Also, the Covid-19 vaccines don’t have Thimerosal in them.”
“That’s what they want you to think.”
If you’re reading this carefully, perhaps you caught the moment where it turned the corner from rational discussion to all-out conspiracy nonsense. But either way, the Agnorance is there.
The comments sections below many of these posts have some excellent Agnorant content… but then again, and all comments sections these days … [Continue Reading]
December 26, 2020
Happy Boxing Day! Now that you’ve unboxed the gifts and boxed up the Christmas, you can relax… and hopefully Santa was good to you. Hopefully you got something meaningful that’ll last a long time; some gift that keeps on giving.
You know what’s an excellent gift that keeps on giving? It occurred to me while running up and down McDonald Beach with the dog… that great dog-beach near the airport.
The people who run the airport, the Vancouver Airport Authority, have never stopped charging the Airport Improvement Fee.
To backtrack a bit… back in the early 90s, YVR realized that with the projected passenger loads expected in the future, the airport was woefully undersized. Vast improvements were needed to deal with the post Expo’86 crowds… and the ever-increasing traffic to-and-from Asia. And they needed to get the money from that somewhere, because, believe it or not, the airport gets no government money.
So, they implemented a simple AIF… a little user-fee tax sort of thing. If you were flying out of YVR, you paid $5 to destinations within B.C, $10 within Canada and $15 everywhere else. These little kiosks popped-up, and you’d line up and wait and buy a little ticket that’d be collected when you went through security. A bit of grumbling ensued by an annoyed public who felt they were once-again getting shafted and wasting time.
Not soon after, they finally figured out how to integrate the AIF into the cost of an airline ticket. No more separate line-ups… it was all transparent. And, oh, how the money rolled in. Twenty million passengers a year times an average of ten dollars each equals a lot. More than $2 billion dollars and counting.
Where’s the money going? Well, it’s gone towards building the best airport in North America ten years in a row. A few years ago, some governing body voted it the best airport in the world. The fact is, whether it’s the new terminal, the new runway, the new outlet mall or just the quiet little museum piece you get to walk through if you land at one of those distant E-gates – the trees and birds and canoe on the water thing – it seems to be money very-well spent.
The AIF was supposed to be temporary but so was income tax during … [Continue Reading]
December 25, 2020
Some of you stuffed yourself full of turkey last night. Some, this afternoon. Some are about to.
Whatever your path to tryptophan overdose, that point when your brain reaches a state where you have to read something three times for it to sink in… ok, I won’t make you do that. Nothing too deep today, just a simple observation… starting with the fact that there are no new numbers to report today. It’s Christmas, of course, and no one is working. Well, curiously, not totally true. Some guy in New Brunswick showed up to work… to report one new case. And that’s all we know, across the entire country. Half the U.S. isn’t reporting either… so, no numbers there either… just annoying yellow boxes till I sort it all out over the next few days… and I’ll back-fill what I can… though who knows what that’ll look like as it’s also the weekend. By next Tuesday, we’ll see where we’re at, and a week after that, we’ll really start seeing where things stand.
But, for the moment, numbers don’t lie… and the graphs reflect that. West of Ontario, the significant efforts being made are making a notable difference. Like I said, we won’t know what it all looks like till the after-effects of the holidays pan out, but this at least is like… well, to put it in Canadian terms, heading into the third period with a one-goal lead. A month ago, at the start of the second period, we were down a few goals… nice comeback. It doesn’t mean we’ve won, but we’ve got some momentum. Let’s hope it carries through to the end of the game. It could be a scrappy third.
Happy turkey recovery! And there’s no hockey to watch, but a nap right about now sounds pretty good…
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December 24, 2020
For all my friends who are celebrating Christmas tonight and tomorrow… may it be happy and joyous and merry and… well, I won’t say memorable… because that’s a given.
I think my Christmas wish for everyone is that next year’s Christmas be as similar as possible to last year’s. And, as far as this year is concerned — and much that came with it… may it one day be nothing more than a distant memory that we can look back upon and smile and be grateful for what we presently have.
This year, everything that’s usually been “a given” and was suddenly taken away has come with the obvious silver lining; you don’t appreciate it till it it’s gone. After that, when it comes back, it’s a lot more meaningful.
This year, there are many empty seats around what would be the usual big Christmas get-togethers. Next year, those seats will be filled… more than anything, with tremendous appreciation for what that represents.
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