It’s time to admit it. The doomsday models from March on the COVID-19 pandemic were wrong.
We were led into a panic. We were told that even if we shut down the economy, we would still be looking at overwhelmed hospitals and countless deaths.
Week after week after week after week we were told that we were but a week away from being just like Italy.
Sweden has been demonized and shouted down on the world stage for their daring to break ranks and refusing a full lockdown. If the doomsayers were to be believed, Sweden should have been overwhelmed with infections and deaths weeks ago.
It simply hasn’t happened. While the death rate has been higher in Sweden than some of it’s neighbors, it is still 8th out of ten of its comparable neighbors and we are talking about 1000 people out of 10 million. Tragic for the families of the 1000 dead but not the overwhelming catastrophe that folks claimed was coming.
Clearly Italy is the outlier in things.
This isn’t to say that the virus is harmless by any means. It is killing thousands and we need to do everything within reason to mitigate the spread.
It would be dangerous and foolish to simply end all restrictions without a plan for how that would work and it would definitely have to be an incremental thing. We have enough information now and can see enough examples around the world to help us rationally approach ending this catastrophic shutdown. European nations have already begun to ease off and its time for us to follow suit.
Every day all I could see was more news of businesses going under while governments on all levels are running out of reasonable funding options to try and stave off mass poverty due to the shutdown.
It was refreshing to read this morning’s news to see that the Alberta government is putting together a plan to reopen the economy.
Kenney is basing the plan on the actions of Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea who are all on the downswing of the curve.
The focus appears to be on aggressive testing which makes sense. Identifying and quarantining the infected has proven around the world to be far more effective and is certainly less damaging than trying to mass quarantine the healthy for an indefinite period.
As a province we can’t close borders but we can certainly quarantine those who have come in from elsewhere and test them.
I am not thrilled with the plans to track folks through cell phones and such but do understand that when we have indeed identified infected people, we need to ensure that they can’t and won’t infect others. That is part of the plan as well and I can see how it will be effective. Again, it focuses on the infected rather than the healthy and low risk.
A timeline hasn’t been set but it appears that we will start to re-open soon.
Nobody wants your dear granny to get infected and die. Nobody wants to see a large spike in infections. We need to get realistic however and some hard cost/benefit analysis needs to be done.
We will never end all infections but we can mitigate them. That means using a rational plan using real world examples rather than flawed modeling.
It will take decades to recover from this but at least we may finally be seeing a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.
I don’t think I have seen people less interested or enthusiastic about a federal party leadership race than I have with the current Conservative Party of Canada one.
The pandemic has put the race on the back burner of people’s minds of course but the indifference to this race was evident well before the crisis hit.
While discontent with Trudeau is clearly widespread, it doesn’t seem to have inspired a large number of people to get involved in seeking a conservative replacement for him.
I ran a poll on Twitter yesterday and the results are interesting. I know that twitter polls come with a huge bias based on who is holding it but with my following being predominantly conservative and with nearly 2000 responding the results are worth examining.
Many responded by saying “none of the above” which I can understand. All the same, one of these people is going to be leading that party soon and will be the best hope of unseating the Liberal government in the next general election whether we like it or not.
The most striking thing is the lack of support for Peter MacKay.
MacKay was considered to be the heir apparent to the Conservative throne by many. This can be seen with the large and impressive list of endorsements he boasts with many sitting and former MPs and Senators in the mix. MacKay is clearly the establishment candidate.
Unfortunately for MacKay, grassroots type conservative minded folks tend to loath establishment candidates and it is showing.
Parties have moved away from delegate style leadership races and embraced one member, one vote systems. This has been a great evolution from a democratic point of view. This has been a terrible development for an establishment candidate such as MacKay. It really doesn’t matter who endorses him if the rank and file membership rejects him.
Mackay is going to have to really connect with ground level members if he hopes to win this race in the end. With the pandemic halting travel and large gatherings such as rallies, he is going to have a hell of a tough time trying to change the tide here. Face to face meetings with members in order to build grassroots support are impossible right now.
Erin O’Toole was the first MP out of the gates in pursuit of the leadership. He was able to hold gatherings and meetings with members before the pandemic and it appears to have paid off. While O’Toole has never been one of the most visible members of the Conservative caucus, he has been able to bring himself into the sights of the membership as the most viable MP seeking the leadership at this time. I think that the leadership could very well be his to lose at this point.
Leslyn Lewis was a virtual unknown before this race. She has run an impressive campaign so far and is building a good base of support. Her lack of a public, elected track record is a disadvantage right now though and I don’t know if she can overcome that. Lewis will have a strong finish nonetheless in this race and will have established herself. She is young and could very well end up leading the Conservatives in the future.
Derek Sloan is already in “also ran” status in this race. While he is young and energetic, his social views represent those held by the populace in the 1950s. He is endorsed by Campaign Life and will garner the support of those who feel compelled to support the most socially conservative candidate in the bunch no matter what. Thankfully that is a small segment of the party membership. Sloan provides a service in drawing the strongest of socons to himself so that the other candidates don’t have to deal with fringe supporters loudly demanding that they end gay marriage etc.
This is an important race despite public disinterest in it right now. I do hope that it gains steam and attention once the quarantine ends. We desperately need to replace Justin Trudeau in the next general election and who we choose to run against him will determine whether or not that is going to happen.
Hopefully the debates can light some fire under things when they come.
One consistent theme from the Trudeau Liberal government has been their relentless and incremental attacks on free speech. There is nothing an authoritarian state hates more than having people communicate ideas without the hand of government controlling it. Whether gagging election discourse through regulation or their attempts to battle “fake news”, the Liberals have dedicated a great deal of effort and time to trying to control discourse in Canada this last few years.
Yes, there are countless cranks and kooks out there on the internet who are pushing conspiracy theories and fake cures. Yes, some of these nuts are causing real damage.
Do you trust the government to sort between who the cranks are are and who aren’t though?
Do you trust the state to use these powers only to protect the interest of the citizens and not for the interest of the government?
That is what it always comes down to and no, I don’t trust the damn government and do not want to empower them further.
The COVID-19 pandemic is a fluid situation and things which were considered accurate last week are often not considered accurate today.
The pandemic modelling of a few weeks ago has proven to be hopelessly wrong and inaccurate. Would a person be charged for posting an out of date model showing those shitty infection curves?
Remember just a few weeks ago when Dr. Theresa Tam was saying that wearing masks would not help citizens reduce the spread of the virus? She has done a total flip-flop on that now. Could she conceivably be retroactively charged with spreading false information which put people at risk?
What about chloroquine as a potential treatment? It is considered as being controversial due to Trump mentioning it but it is considered promising enough that countries around the world are conducting trials on it. If the trials do indeed indicate that the drug is of no value in this application, will it then become illegal for people to mention it?
The consequences of this pandemic will last for generations. We can’t let government take advantage of this pandemic in order to erode our fundamental rights.
Once rights are given away, governments are always loathe to give them back no matter who is in power. Once free speech is gone, we lose our strongest tool in order to fight for every other right.
We need to be vigilant and never forget that the state almost always puts its own interests ahead of the citizens. We can’t let this legislation pass during this crisis.
Let’s face it. The WHO blew it big time. We are living in one of the very moments which this organization was formed to deal with and they have proven themselves to be hopelessly inept as they respond to every emergency slowly and appear to be trying to provide cover for China.
The WHO like most branches of the UN is simply a pit of patronage appointments for well connected bureaucrats.
The jet setting for that corrupted group is repugnant to say the least.
The bureaucrats blew $192 million dollars in high heeled travel in just one year!
For what? What on earth do they need to spend that kind of travel money on?
Hell, with that kind of jet setting one has to wonder how many exotic diseases were spread just by WHO staff alone.
That number is actually down.
In 2017, the AP reported that WHO was spending roughly $200 million each year on travel, including first-class airplane tickets and five-star hotels for its director-general.
The USA has suspended the $400 million per year that it gives to the WHO and with good reason.
These world organizations are little more than tax funded social clubs for the well connected.
Perhaps if countries start cutting funding and demanding results as the USA just did, those organizations would finally start working to do something useful.
There are few good things that may come from the COVID-19 pandemic but the extrication of nations from UN money pits such as the WHO may be one of them.
Hydroxychloroquine may or may not be an effective treatment for Covid-19. It will take testing and time before we can be sure. It has been in use as an effective malaria treatment for decades so it is not like this drug carries any unknown side effects.
Unfortunately, due to the massive case of Trump derangement syndrome among the mainstream media, testing on this drug has been delayed for precious weeks due to fears of backlash.
Back in March, Donald Trump spoke of the treatment potential of hydroxychloroquine. Immediately it became utterly politically incorrect to even consider that drug as a potential treatment for Covid-19 and the social media outrage mob mercilessly swarmed anybody who dared to suggest it.
Here in Alberta we saw it when local talk radio host, Danielle Smith simply tweeted a link to an article which touted the drug as a potential cure.
Smith was overwhelmed with hysteric social media abuse and deleted the tweet. People called for Smith’s resignation and demanded that the radio station fire Smith.
I was surprised not to see folks with torches and pitchforks outside of her home.
Canada’s State Broadcaster felt this tweet from Smith was a story worth reporting on.
OK, in all fairness the article that Smith tweeted a link to was overstating the results of this drug. It’s not like Smith wrote the damn thing though and the worst that really came about from tweeting it was in giving people some false hope on a quick cure. It did not merit the rage expressed at Smith.
Why such rage though?
Because Trump had mentioned the drug. Simple as that.
One idiot in Arizona killed himself by drinking aquarium cleaner. Trump was blamed of course.
If Trump mentioned that Tylenol is effective for treating headaches, would he be at fault if some moron hurt themselves by eating a whole bottle of the stuff?
Sadly the answer is yes.
Clinical trials for hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19 are being held all over the world including here in Alberta.
The reason for this is that there is some potential with this drug. If the drug is indeed useless though, the trials can prove this and researchers can move on to seeking other treatments.
Countries aren’t researching this drug on some bizarre point of principle. They really hope it may prove to reduce the death rate from the virus and I hope so to.
Meanwhile, CNN and others leading the Trump derangement charge are seeking out and publishing every possible story that they can in order to discredit the potential of hydroxychloroquine.
For crying out loud, these risks are already known. This is not a new drug and the potential side effects are well documented.
The Trump deranged don’t care.
They want this drug to fail simply because the Orange Man dared utter its potential.
This is a gross and dangerous attitude and we have to stop putting up with it.
You don’t have to like or support Trump. I certainly never will expect the deranged to do so.
Trump’s habit of spitting out bullshit certainly doesn’t help matters. That said, it can’t and shouldn’t be assumed that anything and everything that comes out of his mouth is wrong. That attitude is truly deranged, wrong and it is putting us all at risk.
This kind of derangement is not limited to Trump of course.
Here in Alberta we had dolts hysterically calling out Jason Kenney because he dared to share excess medical equipment with other provinces..Their derangement is so bad that they felt compelled to fabricate and ulterior motive on Kenney’s part.
When you hate a politician so dearly that you are rooting for a medication to fail or feel that sharing medical equipment with those in need is a bad thing, you are the problem. Look in the mirror and think about things a bit.
As the economic repercussions from the pandemic shutdown begin to pile up, we are starting to discover just how fragile our supply chains are. As the nation is plunged into unemployment numbers unseen since the Great Depression, we are hearing from agricultural producers raising the alarm that they are going to have a shortage of labor as the growing season approaches. How can this be?
The hard reality is that our society is spoiled and most of us simply don’t want those jobs. Most people won’t take them even if we aren’t earning otherwise. Temporary foreign workers happily fill the void as the jobs that we look down our noses upon are jobs which feed their families in their more challenged nations of origin.
I tweeted this yesterday and some people got pretty upset.
The truth hurts kids.
I understand the need for emergency funding for people put out of work with the shutdown. The problem is, as long as the payment for sitting at home is more than the payment for getting out to work, far too many people are going to choose to sit at home. This is the fundamental flaw of the concept of having a “guaranteed basic income” program and we are seeing it in action.
This issue is not unique to Canada by any means. European nations and the United States have the same issue.
Back in 2012, I managed the brush clearing and survey on a seismic (oil exploration) program in Steubenville Ohio.
Steubenville is a rust belt city which has been in decline since the 1980s. The population has contracted over the years as the skilled and ambitious people fled to larger centers.
I created the video below as it is such a striking city to look at. Half of the place is a standing ghost town.
While working down there, I needed to hire some laborers to aid with the bush clearing. Down there the role is known as being a “stick picker”. Essentially, all a person has to do is walk behind a chainsaw crew, carry the gas can and toss the cut bush aside so that a safe walking trail can be made through the bush. It is tough, sweaty work but it is pretty simple.
I went to the employment center in downtown Stuebenville to see about putting up a job posting. It was like being in a 1970s movie scene. The furniture and posters were period and the hippy-like counselor who greeted me fit the role. It was a snapshot of the past. Old motivational posters were pinned on the wall and a small bank of dated computers were available for job seekers to create resumes and send job applications from. It was a sad indicator of just how long this city had been in economic decline.
I explained to the counselor that I needed six to eight workers for a period of perhaps three months. I was going to pay around $4,500 per month for that period but it would involve working seven days per week for 28 day stretches (the same work schedule the rest of us were on). I wasn’t requiring any experience. My only condition was that I wanted to interview each applicant in person. I wanted to see their arms and teeth. Meth was an epidemic out there and I didn’t have time for managing addicts.
The counselor was quite excited and said that he would round up applicants.
Indeed, my email inbox was full of job applicants within a day. I picked what looked to be my best dozen applications and scheduled interviews with them at my hotel over a period of two days.
I sat at my hotel for two solid days and not a single applicant showed up for the interview!
I was called a few days later by the councilor and he asked if I had found some workers. I told him what happened and he said, “Yeah I was afraid that might happen”.
The issue was that the bulk of the people down there were collecting welfare in one form or another. In order to keep receiving payments, people needed to demonstrate that they were seeking work. They applied for my job posting but their greatest fear was that they would actually be hired so they made sure not to show up for the interview.
This wasn’t a matter of me not offering enough money. A person can buy a three bedroom home on half an acre in Stuebenville for less than $30,000. Making nearly $15,000 over a few months could set a person up quite well for awhile down there. I don’t know what welfare paid in that area but it surely wasn’t a hell of a lot. These people simply didn’t want to do the work!
People had been dependent on government income for so long that they had utterly lost the will to work even if it was available.
The majority of the project ended up being done by Mexican laborers who we brought up and doubtless some local fools where whining, “Them Mexicans is stealing our jobs!”
This is the welfare trap and a “guaranteed basic income” program would trap countless, thousands of people in it. It may seem unimaginable but there really are that many people out there who would simply go into retirement if they were given a basic income with no questions asked.
Ask this clown below who actually said he wants a guaranteed basic income so he can end his career student status and sit at home writing poetry for the rest of his life.
At least the bum was honest about it I guess.
I am sure that most agricultural producers would be more than happy to hire local labor rather than deal with the complicated and expensive process of bringing in temporary foreign workers.
TFWs are not cheap despite what many people claim. Oh they aren’t making millions by any means but the obligations and process required for producers to use them brings the cost per laborer well above minimum wage requirements (which do apply to TFWs despite popular myth).
Employers have to provide return transportation for the workers from their country of origin. They must provide housing which has been inspected by local authorities and can’t charge more than 30 percent for that housing and they have to provide transportation from the housing to the workplace. They also have to fully pay for private health insurance for every worker.
So if it is so much work and so expensive, why can’t producers simply raise hourly wages and bring in locals?
Again, it is because we are spoiled and won’t fill the jobs ourselves.
We are schooled to look down on the trades as it is within our increasingly elitist minded public education system. Kids have been trained that it is utterly shameful to do manual labor.
Along with that, we are spoiled with ready and cheap access to food items. The person bitching about how low the pay is for agricultural laborers is often the same one who bitches when the price of a loaf of bread goes up by 50 cents. Pressure to keep costs down is heavy on producers and they are in a low margin industry. How much higher do we want to make the cost of living in order to pay laborers more? We talk big but in reality we won’t put up with price shocks.
If we want our local population to fill these labor jobs, bringing in a guaranteed basic income is the worst thing we could do. It is a hard reality to face but far too many people are more than content to sit on their asses in perpetuity for a small welfare payment rather than get out and put in a hard day’s work.
Hard times are approaching and we are terribly spoiled in going into them.
Perhaps the hard realities which are coming will reduce that soft spoiled population in coming years. A tough way to correct the trend but effective.
The only way trends of the “woke” such as the #MeToo movement end is when they inevitably come around and bite the enlightened left in the ass.
It is unfortunate but it is a simple reality that “b” list celebrities are bigger drivers of public opinion on these sorts of issues than legal experts or policy makers. They drive the social media mob and the mainstream media gives them plenty of oxygen to work with.
The #MeToo hysteria hit a fever pitch during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings for his Supreme Court appointment and Alyssa Milano was holding a torch at the front of the parade.
The acting coming from Alyssa Milano during the hearings was her best work since Who’s the Boss as she appeared at every presser that she could find in order to emotionally demand that due process should be set aside when it comes to Kavanaugh.
Never mind that the allegations against Kavanaugh had no evidence to back them, were from decades ago and all came from people who appeared to have some strong political motivations behind them.
Milano and her cadre of social justice warriors had set the bar. The word of a self-proclaimed “survivor” was always to immediately be considered as being sacrosanct. Anybody daring to question the veracity of the accusations against Kavanaugh was to be swarmed and shut down as they were clearly misogynistic monsters who support sexual assault.
Thankfully the efforts of Milano and her associated mob failed. After having been dragged through the mud for weeks, due process won and Kavanaugh was appointed to the Supreme Court. It was found shortly afterwards that the allegations against him were indeed flimsy bullshit.
Alyssa Milano’s principles were put to the test this week and she failed dismally.
Creepy Uncle Joe Biden has emerged as the Great White Hope for the Democrats in this fall’s election. With years of bizarre behavior around women behind him, it wasn’t terribly shocking to see the sexual misconduct allegations surface shortly after his having gotten he Democratic nomination nod.
Former Joe Biden staffer Tara Reade has come forward with allegations that Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993.
Now with the bar having been set by Milano and her ilk, this should have immediately ended Biden’s bid for the Presidency no?
Reade’s allegations should be taken immediately and fully at face value and without question. That is the premise of #MeToo is it not? It doesn’t matter how long it has been. It doesn’t matter how little evidence there is. This has to be taken as gospel.
So how did Alyssa Milano respond?
She dismissed Tara Reade’s allegations as being bullshit and reaffirmed her support for Biden.
Suddenly she has discovered due process and feels that allegations should be investigated. For the sake of all women’s equality no less.
The hypocrisy was galling to the point where even the Hollywood types couldn’t hold back any longer.
Former Charmed co-star Rose McGowan brilliantly ripped Milano a new asshole on twitter.
Most of the social justice left simply went silent on the Biden issue. That may have let it run its course.
With Alyssa Milano diving neck deep into a pool of hypocritical bullshit on this one though, she has effectively dynamited the entire #MeToo movement.
People again have the ability to question allegations of sexual misconduct and they have the right to due process. Reputations do have value and accusers are no longer above critique.
Just as Justin Trudeau is to be thanked for ending the political witch hunt into people’s youthful past in order to find any glimmers of racism due to his blackface habit, we should thank Alyssa Milano for ending the #MeToo witch hunt.
Nobody in their right mind wants to see people get away with sexual misconduct.
That said, people in their right minds understand that due process and a presumption of innocence is critical in a just society.
Thanks to Alyssa Milano’s hysteric performance during the Kavanaugh affair and her unconscionable flip-flop during the Biden affair, folks in their right mind have taken control of the discussion again.
Not everybody is on Twitter. It can be a cesspool at times.
It is my favorite playground however as it really exposes the best in folks at times.
In but a few words, USA Today contributor Sally Kohn demonstrated just how profound the utter disconnect from even the most basic of economic reality is among the left leaning press.
I felt that I should share this gem here for those who aren’t on Twitter.
Millions of people in North America are out of work and idiots like Kohn feel that business owners simply chose to lay them off.
That’s right. Heartless, fat cat business owners have decided to decimate their income and the lives of the staff that they care for by “choosing” to lay them off to make a political point or something.
Yes you dolt! They were forced! They are broke. How do you keep staff when you have no revenue? Is it really that damned complicated?
As a business owner who has had to lay off staff before I can promise you that it is not a damned choice and we never want to do it.
To Sally Kohn I offer my most hearty welcome to go fuck yourself.
To those who are on Twitter, please feel free to send a little love her way. Maybe she will begin to clue in a bit though I hold little hope of it.
In desperately seeking any non-pandemic news, I came across this story which broke a few days ago.
It is just too comical and symbolic not to re-post for any who may have missed it.
A small German cruise ship called the RCGS Resolute encountered the Venezuelan warship Naiguata in the Caribbean Sea at the end of March.
There was a dispute between the ships over whether or not the Resolute was in Venezuelan waters. The hapless socialist Navy was probably navigating with an antique sextant so I am inclined to side with the private cruise company on this one.
The Naiguata then opened fire on the Resolute.
Apparently the Naiguata didn’t have adequate firepower to take on the cruise ship so they then tried ramming the ship.
This led to the warship Naiguata taking on water and sinking. All crew members were safely rescued.
The Resolute then carried on to port in Columbia.
Most of the stories of Venezuela’s failed socialism are pretty dark including their desperate citizens even breaking into zoos in order to eat the animals.
This story is more on the comical side but it does illustrate just how wretched socialism is. Despite having some of the richest oil reserves on the planet, Venezuela couldn’t even build a navy capable of taking on a small cruise ship.
We should bear these lessons in mind as we enter dark economic times.
There are still many fools who think socialism is the way to deal with our pending economic crisis and we can’t let those notions take root.
Remember when folks were calling for emptying Canada’s jail cells due to Coronavirus concerns were assuring us that it would only be “nonviolent” criminals who would be released?
Among those released, one was a getaway driver in a murder attempt, one pistol whipped and tasered two people and one was accused in a recent shooting.
I should clarify that these people were accused, not convicted. All the same, we incarcerate people accused of such violent crimes for good reason. There is a high likelihood that they will harm other people if they are free.
The thieves and drug dealers being released are not harmless either though some may consider them not to be violent.
What will these criminals do with their new found freedom? Seek jobs? Do volunteer work in the community?
For the most part these people have no stable network of friends and family to settle in with during the quarantine. They will be displaced, stressed and desperate. Then they will often try to rob people which can lead to some pretty dire results.
Our nation has put its law abiding citizens under house arrest and is releasing its violent offenders. What a gross and dangerous trend.
I suggest that folks who own firearms double check and ensure that their firearms are well maintained and ready for use. Those without firearms had best double check their home security and seek other ways to defend their families.
The pandemic shutdown has many associated impacts which can hurt people and crime will be one of them.
When the state refuses to protect the citizens, the citizens must protect themselves.
I hope this is remembered in the courts when the self-defense cases begin to roll in.
