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Farewell to the United States
Posted September 19, 2020 by Anonymous
Its difficult to realize that a governmental system that seemed to be so strong and healthy is actually so weak and brittle that the election of one man and the death of one woman could destroy it. But that’s the way I feel right now about t…
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Saturday Stories: Antarctically Cold Vaccines, Cancelling Thanksgiving, And How Vermont Succeeded
Posted November 21, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Selinia Simmons-Duffin, in NPR Shots, on why Pfizer’s vaccine needs to be kept at temperatures lower than an Antarctic winter.James Hamblin, in The Atlantic, on honouring the meaning of the Thanksgiving holiday by cancelling it this year.Julia Belluz,…
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Saturday Stories: Considering Risk and Great Fences
Posted September 19, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Aaron E. Carroll, in The New York Times, with a useful read on how most of us have been considering and responding to risk backwards.
Tomás Pueyo, also in The New York Times, on the need for great fences.
Photo: Ongayo / CC BY-SA (https://creativeco…
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Of course its a matter of confidence
Posted October 20, 2020 by Anonymous
Promoting the conceit that setting up a “corruption committee” to harass the Trudeau government isn’t really an issue of confidence in the government is just silly. Of course it is. The Tories had initially billed the committee as one focused on “…
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RDs! We’re Hiring! Looking To Fill A Full-Time Permanent Position With My New Venture Constant Health (Telecommuters Welcome!)
Posted October 22, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Since 2004, Constant Health’s expert team has been at the forefront behavioural weight management, and now, by leveraging the best that technology has to offer, the goal is to share that expertise while eliminating geographic boundaries. Our headquart…
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Norway’s Supreme Court to Decide on Climate Lawsuit Challenging Offshore Arctic Oil Drilling
Posted November 13, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 5 minsThe Supreme Court of Norway is set to rule in a high-profile climate change lawsuit challenging the Norwegian government’s licensing of new offshore oil drilling in the fragile and rapidly warming Arctic region. The forthcoming decisio…
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End of August Doldrums
Posted August 31, 2020 by Anonymous
What a strange week!
I’ve been trying to decide what to post here for this week, and haven’t really got anything organized.
Down South, the Republican Convention came in like a lamb and left like a lamb too, and nobody seems to really remember anything about it.
Hurricane Laura came and went too, leaving death and destruction in its wake. Two more hurricanes are on their way. Oh, great!
More Black people were shot needlessly, and more protests are underway, and now Trump is talking about going to Wisconsin and nobody wants to see him there. I wonder if he ever gets embarrassed by how useless he is at any kind of leadership?
Following the example of the Kenosha shooter – who was just “helping the police” by killing two people and wounding a third – we are seeing more MAGA people driving their pickup trucks and waving their flags at the protests, and so more people are getting shot. This isn’t going to end well.
As Twitter keeps mentioning, it’s bizarre for Trump to be talking about how the protest violence is Biden’s fault, when it is happening under Trump’s watch. Of course, Trump never takes responsibility for anything so why would he ever take responsibility for the violence of his own supporters?
And here in Canada we have a new Conservative leader — Erin (AKA Eric) is not making a good first impression as he refuses to confront the haters in his own party. You know, I seem to remember that it was Trudeau, who is supposedly just a whimpy drama teacher according to the Cons, who didn’t hesitate to boot people out of the Liberal caucus for any accusation of misconduct, and who refused to let anyone run under the Liberal banner if they were not pro-choice, and who refused to give federal money for student employment to any organizations that preached against abortion.
O’Toole doesn’t seem to realize that a leader who goes along with jerks and assholes because he doesn’t want to offend anyone is not a leader that Canadians will respect or support.
And now school is getting underway, and it will be a disaster. Give it a week or two, for COVID to start passing between children and teachers and the families, infecting and killing across Canada.
COVID is the honey badger – it don’t care.
Everybody basically KNOWS this is going to happen. But we all seem to be in some sort of mass-hypnosis fugue Tinker Bell state where we think if we just BELIEVE hard enough and WISH hard enough and HOPE hard enough then everything will be JUST FINE.
Yesterday the Saskatchewan’s chief medical health officer said we have to change our “summer bubbles” when school starts — basically, what he was saying in an incredibly convoluted and indirect way, is that Grandma and Grandpa have will have to stop seeing the grandkids once they go back to school.
Oh, what a week!
But then I watch this:
Some things you need to stand back and just watch. Bald eagle 🦅 being released back into the wild. 🤩 pic.twitter.com/HgziUJ2Dbo
— Jim Osman (@EdgeCGroup) August 8, 2020
and this
I’m melting seeing them. pic.twitter.com/JlJ5IeccLX
— Life on Earth (@planetpng) August 22, 2020
Now I feel better.
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US Now Officially Out of the Paris Climate Agreement
Posted November 4, 2020 by guest
Read time: 3 minsBy Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch. Reposted with permission from EcoWatch.
The U.S. has officially left the Paris climate agreement.
However, the permanence of its departure hangs on the still-uncertain outcome of Tuesday’s U.S. presidentia…
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Climate Deniers Are Claiming EVs Are Bad for the Environment — Again. Here’s Why They’re Wrong.
Posted November 17, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 8 minsA new paper published Tuesday, November 17, by the conservative think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), raises environmental concerns with electric vehicles in what appears to be the latest attempt by organizations assoc…
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Court Tosses Youth Climate Lawsuit Against Canada
Posted October 30, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 5 minsThe Federal Court of Canada has decided to dismiss a climate lawsuit based on constitutional rights and brought by 15 young Canadians against the federal government. The decision, issued October 27, effectively denies the youths the ch…
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New ‘No Corporate Cabinet’ Campaign Pushes Biden to Pick People Who Will Advance Public Good
Posted November 21, 2020 by guest
Read time: 5 minsBy Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams. Originally published on Common Dreams under CC BY-SA 3.0 US.
With two months until Inauguration Day and President Donald Trump apparently hellbent on lighting more figurative fires on his way out of …
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Saturday Stories: Vitamin D, The New England Journal of Medicine, Toxic Masculinity, And Super-Spreading
Posted October 10, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Gid M-K, in Medium, tells us what we do and don’t know about Vitamin D and COVIDThe Editors of and in The New England Journal of Medicine, on with paragraphs of fire regarding the coming American election.Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on how toxic masculi…
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We are the world
Posted June 6, 2020 by Anonymous
Its been quite a week, hasn’t it? Even here in Saskatoon, the George Floyd rally on Thursday was attended by hundreds of people, all races and colours.
And its been like this all around the world. Yes, we have seen Black Lives Matter and police abuse protests before, but this time it feels different. I am amazed that protests about the Floyd homicide have been continuing day after day, and that they have spread so far, so fast.
So now I am wondering if our shared COVID-19 pandemic experience has changed us in ways we could not have predicted.
For the first time in history, all of the peoples of the world shared the same experience – a two-month shutdown that was virtually unique in our human experience.
Yes, we were forced to be alone and isolated. We couldn’t go out, we couldn’t see our family and friends. But everyone around the world was, for the first time ever, dealing with the same emotions, the same fears, the same questions and concerns, the same depths of despair, the same glimmers of hope.
After this experience, I think the peoples of the world understand each other in a more profound way than we ever did before.
And perhaps this is why now millions of us are on the same side of these protests. We get it.
People are standing up in solidarity for Black Lives Matter and against police brutality, in numbers I have never seen before – generals are apologizing for ever working with Trump, sports leaders like Sydney Crosby are speaking up, Harry and Meghan are too, bike manufactures are suspending sales to police, corporations are making statements, even the NFL is apologizing for the way they treated Kaepernick.
Wow. Its truly remarkable. This is the way the world changes.
I’ve been watching politics closely for a long time, and I’ve never seen any entity get its ass kicked as badly in a PR/political battle as the country’s metro police are right now.
Only rival is the Catholic Church, and both relied on their wide popularity for their power.
— Martin Longman (@BooMan23) June 5, 2020
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Saturday Stories: The Election, The World Series, And The Expectations
Posted October 31, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, predicts what the future of COVID in America will look like following a Biden or a Trump election win.Jeff Passan, in ESPN, discusses how this year’s World Series was a metaphor for 2020 America.Helen Branswell, in STAT, on h…
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Trump Approved Shipping Tar Sands by Rail to Alaska. The Project’s Owners Are Banking on a Melting Arctic
Posted October 30, 2020 by Steve Horn
Read time: 9 minsOn September 28, President Donald Trump signed a presidential permit to ship Alberta’s tar sands oil via a proposed 1,600-mile private rail line across the U.S.-Canada border into Alaska.
The permit, given to the company Alaska-Alber…
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just look on the sunny side of life
Posted October 5, 2020 by Anonymous
You have to be creative to stay in business during a pandemic. pic.twitter.com/cKmA1xXxrT— You Had One Job! (@_youhadonejob1) October 5, 2020 Lincolnshire Wildlife Park has recently been forced to remove five African grey parrots from the main p…
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We’ve got a goddamn plan!
Posted August 22, 2020 by Anonymous
Chrystia Freeland is going to be a great Finance minister.
The first thing she will have to do it get a grip on the pro-Morneau leaks from her department.
Like the one this week about Trudeau Chief of Staff Katie Telford’s husband Ron Silver phoning up to see if the Finance Department would change some part of the pandemic benefit programs to benefit his employer:
The most bonkers part about this story isn’t the content itself (though it’s a legit thing). It’s that very few people could have provided the info. And the fact that they chose to, which burns (if indirectly) the PMO, is kinda … wow.
Someone is not happy with the boss. https://t.co/NVTk3eHOdo
— Matt Gurney (@mattgurney) August 21, 2020
At Routine Proceedings, Dale Smith writes:
For the past two weeks, as the leaks about Bill Morneau started coming out in advance of his departure, we also saw a number of warnings over social media about Liberals being their own worst enemies and that now was really not a good time for a civil war within the party. The fact that there were anonymous leaks to both VICE and the National Post about this incident shows that someone is suddenly awfully keen to talk, hoping to possibly embarrass PMO in some way, and considering that the leakers are showing how virtuous they were in standing up to Silver might make one assume that those leakers are loyalists of Morneau who are trying to, if not burnish his reputation, then certainly tarnish his detractors. I do wonder if this is a limited screw-you to Trudeau, because I haven’t yet seen camps loyal to Chrystia Freeland and François-Philippe Champagne forming and trying to oust Trudeau so that one of them can take over just yet. That said, this year has proven to be full of surprises, so we’ll see.
I don’t expect Freeland will have any difficulty with the Finance bureaucrats. Listen to her putting down David Akin for being annoyed on behalf of the opposition parties who are being forced to put up or shut up:
Global News reporter David Akin asks Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland why she hasn’t tabled a budget yet
I mean she has been Finance Minister for
48 Hours!
Plenty of time according to Akin #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/rEqbEm2LLH
— G.T. Lem (@gtlem) August 20, 2020
The next thing Freeland will do is get to work on Trudeau’s grand plan for Canada. I do believe there is an untold and unnoticed (by the WE-obsessed Canadian media) story of the Moreau resignation: Trudeau intends to use the COVID crisis to greatly improve Canada’s social welfare system. Moreau wouldn’t do it, but Freeland will.
I think the Morneau resignation, whether forced or not, provided an opportunity for Trudeau to make changes to Canada that he has long wanted to make — I wondered if Morneau was resisting these changes, and THAT, as much as the WE issue, was why he had to leave.
Here’s Trudeau using a reporter’s question about government pandemic support to talk about his plans:
A winning message from @JustinTrudeau . If the opposition parties want to force an election this fall, this is the Liberal plan they will be objecting to. https://t.co/RTckSWqjIL
— Cathie from Canada 🇨🇦 😷🏳️🌈 (@CathieCanada) August 22, 2020
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Voting for delusion
Posted September 12, 2020 by Anonymous
As I read this short piece at No More Mister Nice Guy, I felt increasingly horrified:
It’s often said that Trump’s approach to everything is “transactional.” I think Trump’s approach to reality is transactional. The truth is the truth when it serves his purposes. In those moments, Trump believes in reality. But in other moments, not only does he walk out to a podium and contradict reality, he does so without necessarily believing that he’s lying. As I’ve said in the past, Trump doesn’t believe in truth. There are (as we see them) facts, lies, and true and false interpretations of reality, but to Trump they’re all equally valid. He’ll use any of them to shape reality, and he’ll believe whatever he’s saying at the time, even if it contradicts what he said six hours ago. In part this is because, as Yastreblyansky says, he believes in the Power of Positive Thinking and therefore thinks confidence can shape reality. In part it’s because it’s important to him to be his audience’s daddy, someone who dominates us the way his father dominated him.
This is the man that millions of Americans voted for. And will vote for again.
I’m reading more stories now about Americans who don’t believe COVID is actually real – they think its all a Democratic plot, and that millions of Americans are just getting the flu, and hundreds of thousands are dying of something they already had like heart disease.
I don’t know what they think people are getting sick from in other countries around the world, but probably they aren’t even aware that other countries actually exist.
And I’m reading stories now about how people in small towns in Oregon and Washington and California think that Antifa, not campers or lightning, is the cause of the fires that are destroying their homes.
I hear from friends in Oregon that, per local media, some claims ‘antifa is starting forest fires’ have been traced to magabros hearing ‘blm’ on radio scanners and not realizing it means Bureau of Land Management
— David Burbach (@dburbach) September 11, 2020
Its absolutely crazy.
Anyone else make this mistake recently? 😳#climatechange #wildfires #apocalypse2020 #motordumb #yycbike pic.twitter.com/Gn1TljmSgu
— REWORKS (@ReWorksYYC) September 12, 2020
Apparently AP style now says you can use “less” even when “fewer” is correct and so 2020 continues to plumb new depths.
— Jonathan Gitlin (@drgitlin) September 11, 2020
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Detroit Knew: GM and Ford Were Aware of Climate Risks Decades Ago Too, Investigation Reveals
Posted October 28, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 10 minsGroundbreaking reporting this week by E&E News revealed that, similar to major oil companies like Exxon, American automakers Ford and General Motors (GM) engaged in early cutting-edge climate science research and that the companie…
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Thankful
Posted October 13, 2020 by Anonymous
This is the best public health messaging I’ve seen all year. #Covid19 pic.twitter.com/Oc5iMMJVx8— Gerald Butts 🇨🇦 😷🖐🧼🤚 (@gmbutts) October 9, 2020 Well, as a matter of fact I DO know what to do with a pencil and a cassette tape. But we survived our…
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Anti-pollution Advocates Cheer as Army Corps Reviews Formosa Plastics Permit in Louisiana
Posted November 5, 2020 by Julie Dermansky
Read time: 6 minsEnvironmental and community groups in Louisiana are elated after what they see as two back-to-back wins in their fight to protect fenceline communities from additional petrochemical industry pollution. This week, a key federal permit f…
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Can You Go to Canada if You Have a DUI?
Posted November 16, 2020 by Ben
Many Americans are surprised to learn that entering Canada with a DUI can be extremely difficult. This is because a DUI is a felony north of the border, and can consequently result in a visitor being considered “criminally inadmissible” and denied entry at the Canadian border. In December 2018, Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Government of […]
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Faculty and Alumni Demand that University of Arizona Kick Koch Money Off Campus
Posted October 31, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 5 minsThis week, Kochs Off Campus!, a grassroots organisation of faculty members and alumni at the University of Arizona and local Tucson residents, staged a day of action to highlight the encroachment of corporate influences on public insti…
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‘Historic’ Court Ruling Will Force France To Justify Its Climate Targets
Posted November 20, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 5 minsA French court this week issued what climate campaigners are calling a “historic decision” in the fight to hold national governments accountable for insufficient action to address the climate crisis.
Tags: Franceclimate lawsuitPar…
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Polling Shows Growing Climate Concern Among Americans. But Outsized Influence of Deniers Remains a Roadblock
Posted October 22, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 9 minsMore Americans than ever before — 54 percent, recent polling data shows — are alarmed or concerned about climate change, which scientists warn is a planetary emergency unfolding in the form of searing heat, prolonged drought, massive w…
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State Backers of Anti-Protest Bills Received Campaign Funding from Oil and Gas Industry, Report Finds
Posted October 31, 2020 by Sharon Kelly
Read time: 9 minsPoliticians responsible for drafting laws criminalizing pipeline protests in Louisiana, West Virginia, and Minnesota did so after receiving significant funding from the fossil fuel industry, according to a new report by the Institute f…
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Button, button, who’s got the button?
Posted July 26, 2020 by Anonymous
Well, this is a little strange.
Today the Globe and Mail published a story about how Canada’s pandemic early warning system within the Public Health Agency of Canada has been muzzled under the Harper Conservatives in 2014, and how the Liberals had said they would change this but then they never did. So as a result, the epidemiologists in the early warning system, called the Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN), were silenced just when Canada needed them the most.
Other than not actually telling us which the individuals or offices are responsible for the muzzling, its an explosive article:
Early detection is as much an art as it is a science.The disease is hiding, but the signals are detectable.Acting quickly can have a big impact on the outcome. With COVID-19, the signals began small, but grew louder.“We all had enough warning,” she said. “We saw what happened in China, in Italy,” Dr. St. John agrees. “The signal was there,” he said.However, few people outside GPHIN knew Canada’s early warning alert system had effectively stopped working, just when it was needed most.When Ms. Thornton, the vice-president in charge of the alerts, appeared before a House of Commons committee in May to face questions about Canada’s handling of the pandemic, she was asked how the government had tracked the spread of the virus.Ms. Thornton referenced GPHIN and the work it did. Though she made no mention that GPHIN had not issued a single alert in the previous 12 months. Nor did she mention that analysts had been assigned to other work, or that GPHIN had not sounded any further alarms on COVID-19 developments after the outbreak became known – even though the department’s own guidelines required as much.As far as the committee knew, Canada’s surveillance system had been operating as it always had.It’s not easy to know the consequences of such decisions, but Mr. Garner, the former senior science adviser at Public Health, says he believes Canada’s early response to the outbreak – which has been criticized for being slow and disorganized – was a product of the many changes he saw made to the department.Those changes helped move Public Health’s focus away from science, he said, which slowed down its ability to react effectively – and with maximum urgency.“All of these things have tragically come home to roost,” Mr. Garner said.“Not to be overdramatic, but Canadians have died because of this.”
A pretty damning indictment of the Public Health Agency of Canada, and of the Canadian government.
But then I also found this: in April, the CBC published a story that said GPHIN had been undergoing a technical upgrade in 2019, and that’s why it hadn’t issued alerts about COVID19 until the end of December.
CBC News has obtained a series of internal public health agency documents and slide-presentation decks — including one given by a senior epidemiologist from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) last November on the eve of a pandemic that has since killed tens of thousands and crippled the world economy.
The documents bring into sharper focus the kind of information key decision-makers had at their fingertips as the outbreak started in China and raise questions about how seriously global pandemic preparedness was being taken within the federal government.The records show GPHIN was in the middle of a long-overdue technology upgrade as the virus was spreading.Despite almost four years of work with the National Research Council of Canada, the early warning system was — as of last fall — still in need of “improvement in the geographical and time tagging algorithm,” according to a Nov 12, 2019 presentation to a WHO conference in Seoul, South Korea by senior epidemiologist Florence Tanguay.That algorithm is crucial to the system’s ability to sort through as many as 7,000 online articles per day to spot disease outbreaks around the globe.The network also was awaiting an “expansion to new data sources,” such as social media feeds.From its inception in the late 1990s, GPHIN had relied on news wire services and later local media articles posted online.
So now I’m not sure what was going on in Canada last January and February.
Maybe GPHIN was issuing timely and accurate reports on the emerging virus but Public Health Canada was minimizing their analysis and not sending the reports up the ladder to government.
Or maybe because GPHIN was basing its alerts on wire services, its reports were no longer regarded as reliable enough for PHAC and government to count on.
Either way, it does sound like somebody maybe dropped the ball, doesn’t it?
And I hope there might now be some attempt to figure out what really happened.
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Dumkirk
Posted September 7, 2020 by Anonymous
Yes, I know in the overall scheme of things, the sinking of some of the boats in Trump’s boating parade this weekend is pretty trivial.
But there’s nothing like trivial to make Twitter come alive.
The hashtag of the event is #Dumkirk:
Over the weekend, five boats sank at an event put on by Trump supporters near Austin, Texas. The traffic created choppy waters that submerged several boats. https://t.co/BUX5nDp1sK
— NPR (@NPR) September 7, 2020
This is the worst defeat the Confederacy has suffered in 155 years. https://t.co/VrpmNB0Zxq
— Charlotte Clymer 🏳️🌈 (@cmclymer) September 6, 2020
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) September 7, 2020
“Cascading failure through unintended consequences is a perfect metaphor for the Trump presidency.” https://t.co/9NuEzs8tjW
— Jacqueline Keeler (@jfkeeler) September 6, 2020
Boater fraud? https://t.co/yJZXlZGWkF
— Tea Pain (@TeaPainUSA) September 6, 2020
The new Trump ad needs work.#Dumkirk #TrumpBoatParade #BoatersForTrump #LakeTravis #BoatParade #sink #Texas #MAGA #laketravisboatparade #MAGAts pic.twitter.com/cWMlHiDGyZ
— John Óg (@johnogpdx) September 6, 2020
FUNNY ALERT
DEVONS ( MY SON) DAD IS MAGA , HE TOLD DEVON TO START GOFUNDME FOR SURGERY , HE’D HELP , HE DIDNT !!!
WELL .. YESTERDAY , HIS FECKING BOAT SANK IN LAKE TRAVIS ! 🤭🤭😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
TALK ABOUT GOOD KARMA
😂😂😂😂😂😂🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂💞!— CeCeResistance (@gumboqueen3030) September 6, 2020
I have never loved a picture more. pic.twitter.com/hrcZsuUJM6
— Lauren Hough (@laurenthehough) September 7, 2020
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Trump is unwell
Posted June 14, 2020 by Anonymous
After yesterday’s West Point debacle – the water glass, the inability to say “McArthur”, the ramp, the tweet ABOUT the ramp – #TrumpIsUnwell is trending this morning on twitter.
Along with all the jokes, there is this:
The media’s failure to meaningfully cover Trump’s cognitive and physical decline after obsessing about Hillary’s health is evidence of open misogyny at this point.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) June 14, 2020
Personally, I believe that Trump has a minor stroke last November – remember the fast and unscheduled “tour” of Walter Reed? – and he still has impairments on his right side.
On a lighter note, #ObamaDay is also trending twitter:
You’d think Republicans would be more worried about protecting the Constitution.
It’s the only thing preventing Barack Obama from being president again.#ObamaDayJune14th
— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) June 14, 2020
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August funny
Posted August 2, 2020 by Anonymous
OK, its been one of those weeks, so here’s some funny stuff:
My son is wearing a MAGMA cap and a Vote Trump 2020 button. He’s been spat on, punched and verbally abused. I hate to think what will happen when he leaves the house.
— Humanist. (@kennuck) August 1, 2020
I sunburn easily. https://t.co/k9APKRxFn9
— Brent Butt (@BrentButt) August 2, 2020
Republican politician Louie Gohmert, who claims to have caught COVID-19 from wearing a mask, is now claiming he got pregnant after several people told him to go fuck himself.
— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) July 30, 2020
If you are not wearing a mask because you are afraid your brain won’t get enough oxygen, I’m sorry to tell you, that ship has sailed.
— Chip Franklin (@chipfranklin) July 29, 2020
“Jesus Christ, what’s Trump done NOW?” https://t.co/5ZhOGjnKWr
— Harry Turtledove (@HNTurtledove) July 24, 2020
#MeanwhileInCanada pic.twitter.com/tY1gFbE1f6
— Meanwhile in Canada (@MeanwhileinCana) July 30, 2020
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Oh happy day
Posted November 8, 2020 by Anonymous
HEY, NEIGHBOUR
✌️❤️🇨🇦🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/9niMTfDPi8— Brittlestar (@brittlestar) November 7, 2020
#BestEpisode_EVER pic.twitter.com/n7oJx9BrhE
— Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) November 7, 2020
You may want to mute this account for a while because I feel I may have to individually insult every member of the outgoing administration in crude and personal ways
— Hari Kunzru (@harikunzru) November 7, 2020
I drew this thinking of Georgia and Arizona. #Election2020 #TrumpIsLosing #TrumpMeltdown pic.twitter.com/5zBKjyDHwk
— Michael de Adder (@deAdder) November 7, 2020
People were ecstatic when Obama won too, but the energy was really different. That was like we were all on the cusp of a bright new future. This is more like we just beat the Nazis.
— Jan in the Pan (@mswhatsit) November 8, 2020
No joke: I’m in rural Mexico and cheers just erupted throughout the town
— Justin C. Cohen (@juscohen) November 7, 2020
From church bells in Paris to fireworks in London, Europe & beyond, America’s allies across the world are celebrating Donald Trump’s defeat and the election of President Biden and VP Harris! ❤️🎉🍾 pic.twitter.com/SYtIEgLTQ8
— Minh Ngo (@minhtngo) November 7, 2020
And finally, this:
Reminder: Hillary Clinton gets to cast one of the electoral votes that throws him out of office. 🙃https://t.co/yPlwzCgaJU
— Dennis Mersereau (@wxdam) November 7, 2020
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Saturday Story: Just One This Week. A Must Read If You Haven’t Yet
Posted August 8, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Ed Yong, in the Atlantic, with the sadly all too believable (yet still unbelievable) story of how SARS-CoV2 defeated America
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- Saturday Stories: Vaccine Reality Check, Early Warning Failure, And Maybe We Should Talk About Ventilation
- Saturday Stories: COVID Orphans, A Must Read Piece, The Currency of Risk, And COVID19 Vaccine Side Effects
- Saturday Stories: Herd Immunity Is Up To Us, #SchoolsBeforeBars, Another Pandemic, And The American Dumpster Fire
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A Right-Wing Think Tank Is Behind the Controversial Great Barrington Declaration Calling for COVID-19 Herd Immunity
Posted October 26, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 12 minsAn open letter that emerged earlier this month opposing COVID-19 shutdowns and calling for a “herd immunity” approach to addressing the coronavirus — which already has claimed over 220,000 American lives — is one of the latest example…
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Saturday Stories: Herd Immunity Is Up To Us, #SchoolsBeforeBars, Another Pandemic, And The American Dumpster Fire
Posted July 18, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
James Hamblin, in The Atlantic, with an explainer on how herd immunity might only require 20% of us to be immune (whether by vaccine or infection) if we are diligent with our behaviours.
Paul Krugman, in The New York Times, on how the rush to open bars before schools threatens our kids’ education.
Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, considers what might happen were we to be facing another pandemic before we’ve figured out how to deal with COVID
Helen Branswell, in STAT, on how to fix the American dumpster fire that is their response to COVID to date.
U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Levi Riendeau / Public domain
Related Stories
- Saturday Stories: Is It Airborne?, Exhausted Experts, Sweden, Cancer During COVID, And Schools
- Saturday Stories: No Heroes In Science, Selflessness, School Reopening, And Vaccine Developments
- Saturday Stories: Peer Review, #Masks4All, Talking To Kids, And The Public Health Of Protests
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Biden Urged to Be #ClimatePresident by Taking These 10 ‘Game-Changing’ Steps in First 10 Days in Office
Posted November 9, 2020 by guest
Read time: 5 minsBy Julia Conley, Common Dreams. Originally published on Common Dreams under CC BY-SA 3.0 US.
With Democrats anxious about the probability that President-elect Joe Biden will be forced to grapple with a Republican-led Senate after taki…
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Sports will be back, sort of
Posted June 25, 2020 by Anonymous
I think the realities of getting back to sports are becoming clearer as we begin to understand that Corona Virus is not going away any time soon.
Yes, we are going to be able to play and watch sports again!
But no, we won’t actually be able to watch the games in person — though maybe eventually we can as long as absolutely everyone wears a mask absolutely all the time. And no shouting!
Hmm — would that even work?
Or would the silence just be too creepy, like those bizarre photos of a chamber orchestra playing to a theatre full of plants?
I’ve been watching the Ultimate Tennis Showdown and its fun to see a newer, quicker version of tennis, though its a little odd to hear the fake crowd noises after each shot.
Likely when sports do get going again, each sport will have to deal with continual interruptions as individual athletes come down with COVID-19 and stop playing until they are well again.
There is one thing about the sports shutdown that I will miss — the #LifeCommentaries on twitter, when sports announcers kept themselves busy by posting videos narrating ordinary life as sporting events:
Dogging.#LifeCommentary #LiveCommentary pic.twitter.com/05A64OcSKP
— Twittbr3 (@Twittbr3) June 18, 2020
1500mm Heat#LifeCommentary #LiveCommentary pic.twitter.com/fmsIWfcfAK
— Nick Heath (@nickheathsport) April 14, 2020
Sooty looking for a clean sweep in the Regional Common Gymnastics pic.twitter.com/ycInWuMVTH
— Ladbrokes (@Ladbrokes) June 15, 2020
Commentators have been turning their hands (and socks) to absolutely anything lately! pic.twitter.com/xj86k27LUI
— Ladbrokes (@Ladbrokes) June 14, 2020
Some sports are slower. More about the strategy. pic.twitter.com/JMBaGJ1tSd
— Andrew Cotter (@MrAndrewCotter) April 9, 2020
International 4×4 Pushchair Formation Final. Live. #LifeCommentary #LiveCommentary pic.twitter.com/BGGh01m1k1
— Nick Heath (@nickheathsport) March 17, 2020
LIVE SPORT!
Today’s episode is based largely on me chasing our dog Yogi round the garden. Enjoy! 😂
Chin up people; hope you have a good weekend. 🐶😊#lifecommentary #goodboy #youbaddog pic.twitter.com/kvcgoYSr3N
— Andrew Coley (@Andrew_Coley) March 20, 2020
It was an honour to be asked to appear on this year’s unique USA @ESPYS show on @espn.
Among some incredibly poignant films, I helped provide a spot of levity as @mPinoe introduced my take on the likes of @rogerfederer @serenawilliams @lindseyvonn and @SebToots in lockdown. 🎙 pic.twitter.com/Jo1bptLV5z
— Nick Heath (@nickheathsport) June 23, 2020
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Saturday Stories: We Know How To Control The Virus, There Is No Casedemic, And There Won’t Be Natural Herd Immunity
Posted November 14, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Tomas Pueyo, in Medium, explains what could be done by countries like Canada and the US to control the virus if they actually wanted to do so as evidenced by the successes of Japan, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, New Zealand, Austra…
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Saturday Stories: Racist Pulse Oximeters, Convalescent Plasma Politics, Rapid Testing, And Immunity
Posted August 29, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Amy Moran-Thomas, in Boston Review, on how pulse oximeters, integral to the care of a COVID19 patient, encode systemic racism.
Craig Spencer, in The Atlantic, discusses convalescent plasma politics from his very unique vantage point as both a New York ER physician, and as someone who received convalescent plasma (to treat Ebola) as an experimental treatment.
Katherine Harmon Courage, in Vox, with the lowdown on how inexpensive rapid testing might bring back a semblance of normal sooner than vaccines.
Helen Branswell, in Stat, with 4 different types of immunity and their ramifications.
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Saturday Stories: Vaccine Reality Check, Early Warning Failure, And Maybe We Should Talk About Ventilation
Posted August 1, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Sarah Zhang, in The Atlantic, with a vaccine reality check.
Grant Robertson, in The Globe and Mail, on how Canada’s pandemic early warning system failed with COVID19.
Zeynep Tufecki, in The Atlantic, wonders why we’re not talking more about ventilation
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Saturday Stories: The Scamedemic, The “Great” Barrington Declaration, Sweden, And The John Snow Memorandum
Posted October 17, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Tony Scott, in SFGate, on how he used to call it the ‘scamedemic’. He doesn’t anymore. Marc Lipsitch, Gregg Gonsalves, Carlos del Rio, and Rochelle P. Walensky, in The Washington Post, on the why the so-called Great Barrington Declaration i…
