NYC

January 27, 2024

Facebook is kind enough, on a daily basis, to remind me of what I wrote three years ago.

In light of what’s going on on in the world, I thought it’d be worth sharing this one… because it certainly shows us that the more things change, the more they stay the same. History indeed seems doomed to repeat itself.

On this particular day three years ago, I wasn’t writing about Covid. I was writing about it being Holocaust Remembrance Day, and its importance. I was also writing about Donald Trump and what a disaster he is; that hasn’t changed much. But what has changed is the concerning recent rise in global antisemitism.

I wrote about Holocaust deniers, and the absurdity of people denying something so recent and so well-documented in history. How can that even be a thing? And yet, today, we have people denying the horrific events of Oct 7th. Notwithstanding that Hamas recorded and live-streamed their barbaric attack, and have continually announced to the world how proud they are of what they achieved, still there are those who insist it didn’t happen. Some of those people are educators. Indeed, locally, we have a recently-fired Langara instructor praising those attacks as “amazing” and “brilliant”.

If there was ever a time to repeat the relevance of Holocaust Remembrance Day, it’s today.

We will never stop talking about it. We will never forget.

Never Again.

By |2024-02-01T17:16:09-08:00February 1st, 2024|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |1 Comment
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August 15, 2023

It won’t surprise too many people to hear that I’m a numbers guy. Images, words, ideas… sure, I can work with all of them. But numbers are what I understand more fundamentally than anything, and it’s also what I remember and correlate best.

As a result, there are numbers that instantly remind me of multiple things in my past, and often those things have nothing to do with each other… except the number, which binds everything together.

I have countless examples, none of which I’ll bore you with… except one… and that is the number 19.

Nineteen is a pretty important number in Canada… suddenly, you can drink, you can gamble and you’re recognized as an adult in every way. We get a two-year head start on our American cousins in that regard. I remember when that Paul Hardcastle song came out, talking about how the average age of American soldiers in Vietnam was nineteen. N-n-n-n-nineteen. And how ludicrous it was in my mind, that you could send a 19-year-old into battle where he will kill or be killed, but that same solider can’t drink a beer with his buddies or place a $2 bet at Santa Anita.

I remember my own countdown to my 19th birthday… which landed on a Tuesday.

And… there’s another Tuesday I’d like to talk about, and that is 9/11. On Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, nineteen terrorists changed the course of the world (and especially America) forever. It’s not just all the Homeland Security and TSA nonsense… it’s the fundamental stripping away of constitutional rights in the name of security. Sure, as an American, your constitution and its amendments will ostensibly protect your rights, but if you’re suspected of being a terrorist? It all goes out the window. And you don’t have to be Arab or Muslim to have that distinction bestowed upon you, as many innocent people have learned over the last 22 years.

When I see the number 19, that’s mostly what I think of. 9/11, and those 19 terrorists that wrecked the country. So, naturally, reading the news headlines last night and seeing the number 19 and being reminded of all of this; that’s what led me to write what you’re presently reading.

Nineteen is the number of people recently indicted under the Racketeer, Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

If the name of that Act feels a little contrived, you’re right. Americans love their acronyms, and if you have to shoe-horn the words to fit the intended target, so be it. Imagine the brainpower consumed by the guy who came up with “Maritime Augmented Guidance with Integrated Controls for Carrier Approach and Recovery Precision Enabling Technologies”. Really. It’s a thing. I’ll let you figure it out.

So… some guy was tasked with naming the Act to do with organized crime. At the time, when you thought of organized crime, you thought of the Mafia. And the Mafia made you think of Italians… so hey, hahaha, let’s name the Act after an Italian. It could just as easily have been the Murder, Aggression, Racketeering, Intimidation and Obstruction Act. But it’s RICO, and when you think of RICO, you also think of Al Capone and John Gotti and Tony Soprano.

What you probably don’t think of, at least until now, is a former President of the United States and his former Chief of Staff and a disgraced former New York City mayor. Not exactly what the guys who came up with RICO had in mind. Yet, here were… those three, plus sixteen others – all charged with differing offences, but all of them, at the very least, individually charged with violating the RICO Act.

On 9/11, nineteen terrorists managed to permanently scar the fabric that makes up the United States. Nineteen years later, a different group of nineteen – ok, we won’t call them terrorists, because they’re not. What’s the right word? Traitors? Yeah, that’ll do.

Nineteen traitors tried to subvert what’s at the bottom level, the ground zero of the
Foundation of the United States. Democracy. That a former president is involved is almost unbelievable, but not quite. The truth is, this sort of nonsense goes on all around the world on a near-continual basis. We take it for granted that elections are fair, and that losing candidates will genuinely bless their opponent, thank those who voted for them, and ride into the sunset gracefully. They will always wax poetic on how the people have spoken, and how proud they are to have been part of this timeless process, even if they lost. Certainly, having watched numerous Canadian elections at every level, whether municipal or provincial or federal, I sincerely don’t ever remember hearing what I’d call a sore loser.

For Trump to be a sore loser is really no big surprise. For Trump to question the election results is also no big surprise. He was doing it before he won in 2016, ready to arm the cannons with “Election Fraud!!” if he’d lost. Long before the 2020 election, he was already screaming the same thing. Either he wins, or it’s fixed. Yawn. We all heard it a million times.

Then came all the post-election bullshit. Then came January 6th. Then came yesterday’s indictments.

So, here we are. It’s not my 19th birthday and it’s not 9/11… but it’s a Tuesday, and many people will remember it forever… the Tuesday they learned a former president and his cronies, his crime family… are on par with the Al Capones and John Gottis and Tony Sopranos of the world.

But here’s the thing, the actual thing that I simply can’t wrap my head around. This guy, Donald Trump, has a very reasonable chance of winning the next election. There are more than seventy-million people who’d vote for a man who tried to steal an election and then try to cover it all up when he failed.

So now, we are in what’s known in the horse-racing world as a match race. It’s a two-horse race, winner takes all. One horse is Donald Trump, racing towards an election which might save him from prison. The other horse is Fulton Country District Attorney Fani Willis, a name none of us had heard till now, but you’ll be hearing it a lot for the foreseeable future. Fani Willis is tasked with prosecuting these 19.

Unlike an actual match race, though, this one has many layers. It’s important to note that the RICO Act under which these 19 are indicted is not the federal one; it’s the State of Georgia’s own version, meaning all of the federal protections typically granted a US President don’t apply. If he’s found guilty and sentenced to prison, in theory, there’s nothing he can do to prevent it. But Donald Trump doesn’t think that’s the case.

Of course, this is all uncharted territory. What if he’s found guilty, sentenced to prison, but elected President before his prison term starts? Would he serve from behind bars? Would he wear an ankle bracelet in the White House?

There are 19,000 “What-if?” questions that can be asked, and it’s a waste of time trying to unravel it all because nobody knows. The most knowledgeable jurists, constitutionalists, judges, lawyers… nobody knows. We’ll deal with it when we have to.

It worries me greatly that Trump might wind up winning, and, if that happens, it’s certainly the last free election in the US for a very, very long time. At least until everyone facing criminal charges (and there may be some, waiting in the wings, for Trump’s kids) is out of the picture. If he wins, he’d try to find his way out of prison and pardon whoever he can, and he’d make sure the Trump dynasty… Don Jr, Eric, Ivanka, Tiffany, Barron — were all in the line of succession. It’d turn into a weird mix of North Korea and Russia.

You know, Russia… did you know that Vladimir Putin was elected, in 2000, to a 4-year term? No problem. Then, in 2004, he was re-elected to another 4-year term, a resounding victory with 71% of the popular vote. All good. Then, in 2012, it was time for a fresh face. Much like in the United States, two presidential terms is all you get in Russia. So, gracefully, Vladimir Putin stepped down in favour of welcoming a new…

Oh, wait. Yeah… no. That’s not what happened. I will skip the details, but the end result is that Putin has been in power since then, and will remain in office until he’s dead… election shenanigans, private-deal shenanigans, corruption shenanigans all notwithstanding. He plowed his way to a permanent presidency, and here we are. On the edge of WW III because nobody managed to figure out how to pull the emergency brake.

Could that ever happen here? Putin is a lot smarter than Trump. Putin, like a Russian chess grandmaster, has always been five moves ahead. Trump is the proverbial bull in the china shop, and the storekeeper has finally had enough. But is it enough?

Al Capone was a gangster who was famously ultimately nailed by a different federal act, one to do with tax evasion. Capone was convicted and sent off to prison, where his brain, plagued by syphilis and gonorrhoea and cocaine withdrawal, ultimately left him very sick and confused and with the mental acuity of a child. John Gotti was ultimately convicted and died in prison. Tony Soprano – well, I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t seen the series. Highly recommended.

What’s to become of Trump? Fasten your seatbelts… we’re going from zero to 100 in a lot less than 19 seconds.

By |2023-08-15T17:16:50-07:00August 15th, 2023|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |3 Comments
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April 10, 2023

A few days ago, I opened up Facebook and was met with one of those questions that’s asked of thousands of people, usually a somewhat ambiguous one that’s sure to cause differing opinions.

In this case, it was a simple math question: What is…

48 / 8(14-8) ?

The answer is 1, and if you got that (or don’t care), skip the next paragraph. If you got 36 and are wondering why you’re wrong, read on…

The issue is that 8(14-8) is not the same thing as 8 x (14-8). It just so happens that what’s inside the brackets simplifies quickly to a 6, so if you think that latter expression is correct, then you wind up with 48 / 8 x 6 which, indeed, as per BODMAS or PEDMAS or whatever acronym you learned, is 36. But you can’t do that. The expression of 8(14-8) written out with variables looks like this: N(Y-X) which you can convert, using distribution, to NY – NX… so, you either wind up with 8(6) which is 48, or you wind up with 8×14 – 8×8 which is 112-64 which is, again, 48… which is the right answer, and then 48 / 48 is, of course, 1. You can’t just solve for what’s in the brackets (6) and then go left-to-right, 48 / 8 x 6… which does equal 36, but is simply wrong.

Anyway, I saw this equation, typed in “1” along with a small explanation, and moved on.

Wow… wrong move. Not since the days of the height of the pandemic, where I was writing daily, either explaining the benefits of fresh air, masks and vaccines and/or bashing Trump – that I received such a response of negativity. In some cases, I expanded my answer, with well-versed, simple examples and explanations. Only to be met with “You’re wrong” or, even better, “Your an idiot.”

Sticks and stones, etc… I’ve been involved with internet “discussions” for over 30 years, and I’ve heard far worse. But there’s a difference these days.

Back then, people engaged in “Flame Wars”. A flame war is exactly what it sounds like… two differing opinions starting off with relatively civil discourse, but eventually it starts heating up and eventually the flame-throwers come out. There are two sides, represented by an ever-growing number of people whose passion and anger is also ever-growing. The responses get more terse, and instead of taking days, they take hours… and, eventually, it’s one-word insults going back and forth, measured in minutes. At that point, eventually, the whole thing flames out when everyone realizes it’s pointless. One additional aspect of it… a flame war can come to an instant end when Godwin’s Law is invoked, which is simply that, as soon as you bring nazis into the discussion, whichever side did it – loses. You wouldn’t think a discussion arguing what’s better, the old Star Trek or the new Star Trek, would invoke that… but you’d be surprised.

But these days, you don’t seem to get good old-fashioned flame wars. It seems to cut to the chase immediately.

Question… “You know, I wonder… now that it’s there, why not leave the bike lane in Stanley Park?”

Answer… “You’re a f@!#’n idiot!” or “You’re letting the nazis in City Hall rule us!”

Hmm.

We’re in this day and age of instant gratification, where the dopamine hits, which years ago took some effort to generate, now are measured in seconds. The zombie-like scrolling of Instagram stories and TikTok posts are geared exactly to keep you engaged just long enough to go on to the next one. Once you’re in that loop, it can be hard to get out of it, and I’ve found myself caught up in it many times… someone sends you something, it’s amusing, it scrolls to something similar and almost as amusing, and then you look at a few more and now the algorithm knows you well enough to keep you engaged, clip after clip, the dopamine slowly dripping its way into your brain. There’s rarely anything of value there; it’s stimulus/response, and it works. And frankly, a few minutes of that vs. the few minutes it takes to eat a hot-fudge sundae… which is also stimulus/response… at least one doesn’t cause you to gain weight and/or spike your sugar levels.

But that’s also what a lot of internet “conversation” seems to have devolved to… it’s not a question of learning anything new or discussing a differing opinion… it’s more like “here’s what I have to say, who cares if it’s meaningless – take it!!”, and then instantly moving on to the next target upon whom to impose opinion and abuse. It’s not like this is trolling – another fun activity that’s been around for ages – where you post something that you know will inflame the masses. Sticking to the theme, go to a Calgary Flames forum and post a question like, “Hey guys, honestly, how come the Canucks are so much better than you…?” – and you’ll see what happens: the “two-for-one special” trolling flambé.

I guess I’m old-school… I get my online dopamine trickle from actual discussion, especially when my more-often-than-not humble opinion makes its way into someone’s brain and gives them an “aha!” moment. But that’s becoming more and more rare, because it seems people would rather snipe and move along, than stick around for something more profound. People claiming to have multiple degrees in math and physics, high-school math teachers, accountants, etc… all calling me names, and without any counter-example as to why I may be wrong. Nope… I’m just an idiot. And I’m not sure what’s worse – like if these people are think they know what they’re talking about, or not. Not sure what to make of a math teacher telling me I’m wrong, and he should know – he’s been teaching it this way for almost 30 years. Yikes. Expert indeed.

But while we’re here, let’s talk about two actual experts and what they had to say.

Last week, those two voices that had us hanging on every word three years ago… announced it’s over. Minister Adrian Dix and Dr. Bonnie Henry, in front of a much smaller gaggle of reporters than what they’d been facing on a daily basis for almost two years, announced the lifting of the final pair of restrictions – those that had to do with visitor restrictions in long-term care, assisted living and other healthcare facilities. If you happened to blink at the wrong moment, you likely missed the announcement.

So that’s it… and for those who love numerology, especially the 11:11 crowd, get this… if the initial state of emergency was announced March 19th and enacted March 20th of 2020… and the April 6th 2023 lifting of the final restrictions was decided-upon the previous day before the announcement, the length of this pandemic in this province was… 1,111 days.

Yes, indeed … that first C19 state of emergency, a temporary measure initially expected to last two weeks, haha… and by the way, did you know income tax was also a temporary measure enacted in WW2? And those ugly power-line towers down the middle-median of Boundary Rd. as you head north towards the water/wilderness? Also temporary, haha!!

The pandemic may be over, and I may never write about it again (we can only hope!), but while I’m here referencing the past… and the pandemic, and getting roasted by flamethrowers from all over America, I can’t just not mention Donald Trump.

I took a lot of heat over the last few years for what I said about Trump, so here’s a little more.

I said a while back, and I’ve said it many times… once the dominos start falling, they will keep going. There are a lot directions for the Trump dominos to fall, and New York State became the first to flick the initial domino, where 30 quickly fell. The state of Georgia is next in line, and those indictments will soon see the light of day. Then what? Who knows… but one thing is clear: After all this time (and it certainly seems to have taken a lot more time than one would’ve thought), you can expect that every single one of those initial 30 charges has been scrutinized down to the atomic level. Same with the Georgia prosecutors, and same with the ongoing Mar-a-Lago investigation. Plenty more to fall, and now that it’s begun, there will be plenty to topple.

But what’s clear is that they’re only going to go in legal directions where they’re sure they can stick the landing. Al Capone was as well-known mobster – racketeer, smuggler and murderer… but it was tax-evasion that finally took him down. Somewhere in the Trump dossier there is at least one tiny piece of incontrovertible evidence of wrong-doing. At a superficial level, there’s plenty… but these guys need it to be perfect down to tiniest of details, and I’m curious to see what it’ll be, but one thing is for sure… when it’s revealed, I’ll write about it…

…and then I will get roasted… flamed, in a glorious fashion. But what can I say… thanks to AI and the picture it generated (see attached), I’m ready!

By |2023-04-10T17:32:20-07:00April 10th, 2023|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Movies, Music & Entertainment|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |11 Comments
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March 12, 2021

Our last dose of local numbers until Monday, and, as usual, they tell a mixed message… hospitalizations up by 11, ICU cases down by 1. Case numbers rose by 648, the largest one-day jump since Janurary 7th. But also, nobody died of C19 in the last 24 hours… which hasn’t happened since November 5th. As per yesterday’s post, it depends how you look at it. You’ll find disagreement with respect to what it means.

On the other hand, it’s rare for Republicans, Democrats, Liberals, Conservatives, the NDP… pretty much everyone… to all agree on something… but there’s a topic that keeps coming up twice a year, and I have never heard anyone speak in favour of it. Everyone is opposed to it, yet it’s still around… and all of the aforementioned have the power to once and for all to deal with it, but for some reason simply haven’t.

Wouldn’t we all be a lot better off without the constant, biannual Daylight Savings nonsense? Pick one or the other and just leave it there… and by the way, the right answer is to leave it ON – when we move our clocks forward tomorrow, that is the setting they should stay on… forever.

Are you getting up at 4:30am to spread manure on the fields? Me neither. What a load of crap. But what’s ironic is that, unlike what we’ve all been hearing forever, it was not the farmers that wanted DST… they initially opposed it. Saskatchewan is effectively all farms, and they’ve never been a part of this nonsense.

DST was created during WWI as an effort to conserve fuel. In fact, it was the Germans who came up with it… and much of the world involved in WWI went along with it, the U.S. and Canada included. And although most of North America and Europe still does the clock flipping, the rest of the world has abandoned it… or never did it in the first place.

Studies have repeatedly shown that when you stop screwing around with the clocks twice a year, there are reductions in crime, depression, childhood obesity, energy consumption and car accidents. Economic activity goes up… and, might I suggest, the next 6 months will be wonderful with the extra hour of afternoon sunshine… but, after that, just in time for Winter comes the flip back, and 5pm darkness… wouldn’t every single economy benefit from that one extra hour? No more flipping back. Nobody is getting up early to go have breakfast on a patio somewhere at 6:30am… but all the pubs and restaurants would love an extra hour of “afternoon/evening crowd.”

Like I said, nobody likes DST. The issue seems to be that unless everyone decides this in unison, it’s problematic. I take it for granted that L.A. is the same time as us, and that Toronto and New York are three hours ahead. I don’t ever want to have to devote a single brain cell to that calculation. It’s already annoying enough for places that flip the opposite direction, and now, at different times. Sometimes Chile is 3 hours ahead… sometimes they’re 5 hours ahead. On paper, they’re supposed to be 4 hours ahead but it’s rarely the case because both places are haphazardly moving their clocks back and forth.

Enough already. It’s time for a change. Or not, I guess.

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By |2021-03-19T16:21:25-07:00March 12th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Business & Economics|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |6 Comments
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February 18, 2021

Around five years go, Donald Trump famously said that he was so popular, he could stand on Fifth Avenue in New York and shoot someone, and not lose any voters. Indeed, I have to agree… anyone today who’d consider again voting for Trump is certainly someone whose mind is made up to the point where him murdering someone in cold blood would do little to change it.

What’s presently left of the Republican Party is full of people like that, who realize that no matter what, they’re now dealing with an unshakable core… and, therefore, anything goes. While it was Trump who took that limelight for the better part of four years, he’s presently faded from the forefront, some it’s up to some other despicable full-of-crap demagogue to step up.

Enter Ted Cruz, who didn’t hesitate to show America (and the world) where his loyalties lie. He fully supported Trump’s insurrection from start to finish, if for no other reason than to hold on to that core for his potential 2024 run.

But don’t let it fool you. Cruz, like Trump, cares about nothing but what matters to him… and realizing that he can do no evil, will simply do whatever the hell he wants. So… while his great state of Texas is greatly suffering from bitter storms and power outages, off he went to sunny Cancun.

Hypocrisy is nothing new for these guys, but sometimes… the “Are you kidding me?” factor is just too much. In a radio interview on Monday, Cruz told people to “stay home” and “not risk it”. And to “Keep your family safe and just stay home and hug your kids.” That was a few hours before he and his kids jetted off to the sunshine of Mexico. Cruz, who in the past has criticized other public officials for vacationing or golfing during times of crisis. Cruz, who violated a travel ban. Cruz, who works for a government that at present is telling everyone that Mexico is out of bounds.

Pandemic, ice storms, freezing cold, no power, people dying in the streets. Their vaccine distribution infrastructure paralyzed. More than 2,000 new C19 cases today. Whatever.

Texas is in a heap of trouble because they’re fiercely independent and their power grid doesn’t connect to the rest of the U.S… and as much as others might like to help, the infrastructure doesn’t support it. That’s a whole other story, but there are plenty of people who’d argue Texas isn’t a state but its own independent whatever that never actually whatever’d their way into the U.S. It reminds me a bit of Quebec and how every so often, likes once every generation, the “Vive le Québec Libre” bullshit fires up. When you dig into it, Québec would be an instant 3rd-world country if that were to happen… because if you’re truly independent, a lot of national things you take for granted go away.

So Texas wants their own power infrastructure; here’s an issue that might come up. But don’t worry about it… as long as their fearless leaders can jet off and leave the problems behind, no problem. Nobody will care, and Cruz will get re-elected because… well, because “Republicans” I guess, though that word has now achieved a completely new meaning. This group of “leaders” needs a different word than the same one attributed to the likes of Lincoln, Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Reagan. And their present group of followers… don’t get me started.

24 Likes, 5 Shares

By |2021-02-18T17:03:42-08:00February 18th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |6 Comments
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February 13, 2021

Snow day!! No school!! And also, no local numbers… which of course, snow or not, is always the case over the weekend. And, can I just say… back in the day when it snowed enough to actually cancel school, why did the big snow-dump always happen on a weekend? Not fair.

But, briefly, speaking of numbers and things that are not fair… New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is going to be facing some tough questions. The explanations are inconsistent and the story changes, but the bottom line is that in NY, Covid-19 deaths were underreported with respect to nursing home residents at the height of the pandemic. At its most fundamental level, this is just politics trumping science. Cuomo just didn’t want to look bad to the Trump government and face all the noise that’d be coming his way.

It’s ironic… in that the Trump loyalists, especially at the time, were always the ones claiming it’s a hoax and nobody is dying; that death numbers were being inflated and, anyway, old people are going to die. Had all of this come out sooner, they would’ve been faced with an interesting contradiction… how does one complain that deaths are being overstated… while at the same time, have proof – actual numbers that would provide you with actual evidence to justifiably criticize your opponents – that say the exact opposite?

Except among the truly deluded, long gone are the “Covid death rate is 0.000243%!!!” posts. The nonsense that the flu kills more people, etc. If you’re curious… these days, more people in the U.S. die from C19 in any rolling 10-day period than typically die from flu in an entire 12-month cycle. And this year, that ratio will be sharply higher because flu cases (and deaths) are way down.

Excess deaths in the U.S were around 300,000 between January and October last year… and Covid-19 deaths during that time averaged 975 per day. Since then, C19 deaths have averaged close to 2,500 daily.

At least this explains something that head-scratchingly wasn’t adding up… what are all these American excess deaths attributable to, if not C19?

Yeah… it turns out it was C19 after all.

Oh, some breaking news… I’ll conveniently provide it in the form of a poem:

It’s snowy and peaceful
And time for a book
The Senate acquitted
But Trump’s still a crook

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By |2021-02-13T17:03:01-08:00February 13th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , |4 Comments
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January 13, 2021

I can’t wait till the end of the week… and I don’t mean Friday, a couple of days from now… I mean a full week… because, by this point a week from now, Donald Trump will no longer be president. Perhaps, having overthrown the United States of America, he’ll be The Emperor of the newly-crowned nation of Trumperica… or, perhaps, he’ll be in the process of being mug-shotted, fingerprinted and thrown into a jail cell.

Those are two very different outcomes, and neither are too likely… but, as we’ve learned from recent events, nothing is impossible. That being said, if I had to bet on either alternative, I’d go with the latter.

It must be gut-wrenchingly difficult for some staunch Republicans (not Trump supporters, just Republicans) to see what a tattered mess they’re a part of. Those that get it, and the associated implications, have been jumping ship as fast as they can; even with no lifeboat below them, they’ll toss their fortunes into the icy waters and hope for the best… because staying on this boat now is a quick journey to the depths of the ocean… from which there is no return. Hopefully they can somehow get back to shore and start the process of rebuilding. But first, they have to survive.

And by the way, I’m talking about regular people, your run-of-the-mill American who’s finally coming to terms with what they helped create. I’m certainly not talking about the 197 House Republicans who voted earlier today to *not* impeach Donald Trump. To be sure, the vote passed, 232-197 – an excellent outcome, because now it goes to trial, and even if he gets tossed after he officially leaves office (which is what would happen, because it won’t go to the senate before at least next week), he will lose every privilege granted to former presidents. No old-president’s club, no secret service detail, no Trump 2024 and no pension. That’ll need a two-thirds majority, which is certainly not guaranteed… and I shake my head… even after all of this, after their guy led the charge to overthrow the government – the very political system they’re a part of – 197 of them are still behind him. Add those 197 names to what needs purging from the American political system.

And, it’s not just political… Trump and his organization are being abandoned. The City of New York is cancelling its contracts. Deutsche Bank and Signature Bank will no longer do business with him. His online credit card processor Stripe has dropped him. Shopify had been operating some online stores for the organization but have dropped him. The 2022 PGA Championship won’t be played at a Trump course, as had been previously scheduled. The list goes on and the list will grow. Good.

Unlike every other president in the history of the U.S., this one deservedly leaves power with a lot less than what he entered with… and a very uncertain future. If it were just bankruptcy he were facing, he might be able to claw his way out of it, now armed with his army of tens of millions of brainwashed devotees who’d do anything for their near-mythical cult leader. Ten bucks a month times tens of millions of people should keep the doors open for a while. But it’s not just that.

After the Watergate scandal, president Richard Nixon resigned… but subsequent president Gerald Ford pardoned him. That pardon cost Gerald Ford the re-election, an election he narrowly lost to Jimmy Carter. Enough people were pissed off about it; “you shouldn’t let him get away with it”… and that lesson has hopefully been learned. All of this “we have to come together as a nation” and “we need to move on” and “it’s a huge distraction while we have far more important things to worry about…”

No… that is totally wrong. The most important thing now, by far, is setting an example for the future. Every single person that was responsible or was a part of this insurrection should face the maximum that the law can throw at them. It’s remarkable what we’re hearing now about how much of an “inside job” this was… how actual leading Republicans not only knew what was going on, and not only were encouraging it, but may actually have had a leading role in planning it. As time goes on, we’re hearing more and more details about what went down, and how much worse it could actually have been. A bunch of misguided hooligans breaking into a sacred building and suddenly realizing “oh shit, what are we doing” is a lot different than calmly walking in there with guns and handcuffs, ready to take hostages. There should be no little slaps on the wrist for the Cruz’s and Hawley’s of the world; they need to fully face the consequences of their actions, and those consequences need to be significant.

You’ll recall the Stanley Cup Riots of 2011 here; it’s disputed how many actual ringleaders there were (at most a few hundred) and how many people (tens of thousands) just got caught up in the moment. There’s a big difference between looting The Bay because suddenly everyone around you is doing it… and having shown up there with a knapsack full of matches, rags, gasoline and bottles, ready to cause some real damage. Both are very wrong, completely unacceptable, and need to be prosecuted (and kudos to the VPD who spent years meticulously tracking down every single identifiable participant that they could). Not everyone went to jail, but everyone who could be identified was held accountable for their actions.

Similarly, down south… even though there’s a difference between an explanation and an excuse, every single one of them needs to be made an example of… so that future generations understand, at least in the U.S. with its first amendment and rights of free speech; go ahead and say whatever you want… but if you actually start trying to mess with the infrastructure that’s been in place since 1789, you will pay the steepest price possible. There’s no explaining or excusing or pardoning… treason.

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By |2021-01-13T17:02:39-08:00January 13th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics|Tags: , , , , , , |4 Comments
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November 29, 2020

As the Trump presidency slowly comes to a sputtering halt, one lingering question in the “Now what?” department has to do with the forthcoming legal entanglements in which the soon-to-be-former-president will find himself.

To begin with, there is the idea that he’d pardon himself, but that’s far from trivial.

First of all, there’s the question of whether he can actually do that. There isn’t agreement on that point, but it doesn’t matter. That pesky issue can be easily sidestepped… just resign a few hours before noon on January 20th, swear-in Mike Pence for what would be the shortest presidency in history, and have him do it.

But that doesn’t really address the salient issue of pardoning him… which is, of what? Both Trump and his diehard minions have been telling us for years… it’s all smoke… no fire here… move along. That being the case, there’d be nothing to pardon. To some extent, they’re right. You can’t preemptively pardon someone for crimes they haven’t committed, nor admitted to, nor been charged with. There’s no blanket pardon he can grant for the future… “Just in case…” – it doesn’t work that way. So… for any of this to work, Trump would have to admit to the crimes for which he’s seeking a pardon. It’s a magnificent Catch-22.

A lingering question over the last several years has been about just how feasible it actually is to indict a sitting president, and where might those cases go. It seems nobody wanted to test those waters, so it’s been a holding pattern for four years. There were rumours before the 2016 election of what was coming down the line… that, had Trump lost the election, new charges and allegations would’ve been forthcoming. All of that was put on hold.. except there has been an additional four years of opportunity to investigate.

For decades, Donald Trump was synonymous with New York. His real-estate projects, his towers, his skating rink, his reality show, his presence… everywhere. You may have noticed Trump has significantly soured on New York, and the same can be said vice-versa. Trump has made it clear he’ll be moving to Florida and that he’s done with New York. Donald Trump may be done with New York, but New York certainly isn’t done with him. Waiting in the wings, there may be both civil and criminal charges. Trump has been under investigation by both the Manhattan District Attorney and the New York State Attorney General. There are also the numerous allegations of sexual assault. There are lingering tax questions. From civic to state to federal… and from civil to criminal, Trump may be facing a wall of legal problems.

And, with all of that in mind, it’s important to note… presidents can only pardon federal crimes. Nothing at the state level and nothing at the civic level.
A lot of people want their day in court, and many of them will get their wish… in what order, who knows… but I suspect the afternoon of January 20th, 2021 will be a busy one for the filing clerks.

Traditionally, after the new president is sworn in, the former president gets a helicopter ride from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base, and from there, one final ride in Air Force One… to wherever he wants to go. Right around the time a flurry of lawsuits are being filed, Trump will be boarding that plane. The flight plan will already have been filed, but you can always file more than one, just in case… and perhaps, right at that point, he’ll have a difficult decision to make. I wonder if he’ll have on him a little list of alternates… some welcoming places around the world that don’t have extradition treaties… maybe China? No. Russia? Nah. Qatar and the UAE are not unreasonable choices… you can live very well there if you have money.

Or, Georgia. The country… not the state.

By |2020-11-29T23:07:10-08:00November 29th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Humour|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |11 Comments
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November 19, 2020

Earlier today, Dr. Henry laid down the law… a detailed and lengthy list of restrictions, which are now in place for at least two weeks (Dec 7th)… and this now applies to the entire province. The whole thing can be read at www.bccdc.ca – but here’s the summary… go back to how you were doing things in March and April: No social gatherings outside your immediate bubble. No non-essential travel. And by the way, masks are now mandatory. Finally, some clout behind the good sense. If you’re out in public, indoors, wear a mask. It’s that simple, and every business and every person walking into a business… needs to respect that.

As heavy-handed as it sounds, it’s with a finish line on the horizon… and the idea is to get there without overwhelming our medical system. The numbers don’t lie; if we don’t change course, we will run out of hospital beds and equipment before we get there… yet, we know there are people who won’t follow the rules. We know there are people who held lavish parties over the weekend. Heck, I know we’re not supposed to talk about it, but police in New York busted an actual Fight Club, with 200 fighters and numerous participants all crowded together. The U.S. went over 12,000,000 cases today… over 2,000 deaths today, for the first time. Almost 200,000 new cases today. Ouch.

It takes a while to see the effects of these orders… so, again, like back in March/April… we sit and wait… and hope things don’t spiral out of control.

From a flattening-the-curve point of view, when we’d actually flattened it… back in June, the cases Time To Double was 175 days. That dropped to 100 in July. In October, cases were doubling every 43 days. In the first week of November, that number dropped to 26. In the second week of November, down to 24. Right now it’s at 23. I’d be surprised and delighted if it managed to stay above 20, but nothing changed till today, so the trend that got us here is likely to continue before it turns around. Now, we just wait and see how much worse it gets before it gets better.

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By |2020-11-19T21:11:30-08:00November 19th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments
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October 30, 2020

You’ll notice below that I’ve added Saskatchewan to the numbers and graphs. While their absolute numbers aren’t looking too bad, their trend isn’t great… and, unfortunately, they’ll soon be a relevant part of the national picture. But what’s worse is that they’re sandwiched between Alberta and Manitoba, and looking at how things are going in those two places, it’s starting to turn that corner from concerning to frightening.

Let’s recap a bit, starting with the fact that a Covid-19 infection takes up to two weeks to kick in, and that Thanksgiving in Canada was a couple of weeks ago. What effect was there from everyone who somehow thinks they’re above getting sick or being infectious or “having their freedom taken away”? To hell with this hoax, it’s just a flu, it’s just the government trying to control us, etc etc. Let’s get together and celebrate; it’s no big deal.

Listen… I don’t mind being that guy, the one that you consider to be nagging or preaching or whatever. Standing on my little soapbox, inciting panic by spewing the government lies. Telling you what to do like I’m holier than thou. Maybe that’s the way you see it.

I really don’t care how you view this message… but, to be clear, I’m no different than you – I can get just as sick and infectious as anyone else. I’m trying hard to avoid becoming either of those things, but, evidently, many of you are not trying as hard. Here it is again, in the plainest English possible: if you don’t wear a mask when you should, and if you don’t socially distance, and if you don’t wash your hands and sanitize and do everything you’ve heard 1,000 times from everyone around you that understands the implications of not doing so, this thing will spread. And it will spread exponentially. And we will *all* suffer as a result.

Last three days in Alberta: +410, +477, +622
Last three days in Manitoba: +169, +193, +480

Winnipeg will soon be starting a full-on lockdown; shutting it all down till this can once again be brought under control. The tipping point is unfortunately near, with ICUs at over 90%. When you spill past 100%, that’s where you have patients in hallways, in lobbies and out in the street, dying. Listen to first-hand accounts from ER doctors… pleas of despair from places like Italy, Spain and New York, when that’s what happened. And that was in the spring… let’s not try to imagine what this looks like when it’s 25 below zero… as it’ll be in Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg in the not-too-distant future. Yes, in the past, this was far away… the other side of the Pacific, then the other side of the Atlantic, then south of the border. It is now knocking on the door… “it” being the point of no return.

Sure, call me alarmist. Feel free to point fingers back at me and laugh in a few months when the world didn’t fall apart. Don’t worry, I can take it. And, if in any small way, getting this message out actually helped prevent that emerging disaster, great. I guess we’ll never know; I don’t care. I’ll happily join in your mask-burning bonfires, happily admitting I was wrong… even if perhaps I wasn’t. But that’s not the point… the point is, we can’t afford to be wrong in the other direction.

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By |2020-11-02T20:23:56-08:00October 30th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |9 Comments
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