this website is great because a super famous movie star like bette midler can get ratioed by [checks notes] uhh, jorts the cat pic.twitter.com/vwAAWaYCvA— the hype (@TheHyyyype) May 14, 2022 This is priceless shade, too: The only thing Melania wanted …

Mother’s Day is coming up so here are some photos I have been collecting showing some of the children in Ukraine: 7-year-old Angelina, just arrived from Russian-occupied territory pic.twitter.com/3jxeI8FcXd— Matthew Luxmoore (@mjluxmoore) May 2, 2022 H…

Steven Novella, in Science Based Medicine, on why we cannot and should not withhold medical care from the unvaccinated. 
Sarah Zhang, in The Atlantic, on why Omicron’s explosive growth is so concerning. 
Andrew Pekosz, in The New York Times,…

Jonathan Howard, in Science Based Medicine, more politely asks how did normal expand to include kids dying from vaccine preventable diseases?
Bill Hanage, in The Guardian, explains what “learning to live with COVID” should mean. 
BC Human Rights …

First, this:

Just a batch of somewhat-random tweets tonight, sorted into some topic areas.   Ontario Election:I didn’t watch the debate but I saw a few funny tweets coming out of it: Michael De Adder: Debate notes https://t.co/6b4fWU0u0g via @torontostar—…

Mark Kline, in The Advocate, on kids’ COVID myths.Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on Monkeypox.Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on healthcare’s devastation.
      Related StoriesSaturday Stories: Correlations, Trolling,…

Orac, in Respectful Insolence, on the baked in failure of the Great Barrington Declaration.
Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on how climate change may be underwriting this and future pandemics. 
      Related StoriesSaturda…

I can’t help it. I am comparing the sympathetic media reaction today toward Singh, after a few jerks screamed curses at him as he was moving toward his vehicle after a campaign event, with the cynical media reaction last September toward Trudeau, …

Selena Simmons-Duffin, in NPR, drawing from HIV to explain how having the tools to beat a virus isn’t the same thing as using them.
STAT staff, in, yes, STAT, with 6 COVID mysteries that have yet to be solved.
Donald K. Milton, Edward A. Nardell and D…

it’s not the ocean you hear when you hold a seashell to your ear, or your own heartbeat drumming and echoing back at you. it’s the ones you’ve lost calling to let you know they made it to the other side and they’ll be waiting around the campfire unti…

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on how we’ve become numb to the ongoing deaths.
Zeynep Tufecki, in The New York Times, on the lessons we still haven’t learned that could have saved millions of lives. 
      Related Stories…

Katherine J. Wu, in The Atlantic, discusses the American shift to individualized COVID responses – a shift that is also being felt across much of Canada
Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, in Medium, covering the folly of “focused protection”.
   &…

The editorial board of Nature on the folly of stopping the tracking of COVID.
Abigail Cartus and Justin Feldman, in Protean, on the privileged attack on public education in the name of “normal”.
Katherine J. Wu, in the Atlantic, on how the looming wav…

A draft SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe V Wade on a 5-4 vote leaked tonight, and of course we saw the usual pearl-clutching toonight about how unseemly it is to leak a draft Supreme Court decisions:What is that line from Shakespeare? Oh yes, “Fuck thei…

Just a few miscellaneous but somewhat funny tweets today: Mr. Squirrel approves of the new Ukrainian postage stamp. pic.twitter.com/Vm6cXomrnc— Lorenzo The Cat (@LorenzoTheCat) May 1, 2022 ‘landlord’ and ‘landlady’ are needlessly gendered words. pls …

Busy day today so its not a long post tonight. First of all, here’s a great news story: On May 18, 2022Saskatoon Tribal Council had the pleasure of witnessing the unveiling of the Fred Sasakamoose statue at the SaskTel Centre in Saskatoon.https://…

Jacob Stern and Katherine J. Wu, in The Atlantic, on the meaninglessness of endemicity.
John M. Barry, in The New York Times, on learning from 1918 the risks of pretending it’s over before it is.
Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on the state of our hospitals…

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on the disaster being wrought by governments giving up on COVID control. 
The late and great Paul Farmer, in Noēma, on social medicine for a better future.
      Related StoriesSaturday Stor…

A 1972 Merle “Ting” Tingley cartoonToday turned out to be the perfect day for this old cartoonThe original remark, from 1971: pic.twitter.com/aLLy1r13Q1— Sarah Sears (@iamSas) May 4, 2022  Trudeau dropped the f-bomb when he apparently got fed up w…

Katherine J. Wu, Ed Yong, and Sarah Zhang, in The Atlantic, on how our response to Omicron to date represents all of our past mistakes on fast forward.
      Related StoriesSaturday Story: Ed Yong on OmicronSaturday Storie…

No particular theme today – so let’s get going! Too late, Candice – that ship has sailed: WHAT?#CPC leader Candice Bergen is worried about this?”And lastly I promised caucus I would not do anything and we would not do anything that would make the …

Yes, it was Mother’s Day. And lots of political tweets that relate: Are we still calling it Mother’s Day or is it now just Domestic Infant Supplier Day?— Keri Blakinger (@keribla) May 8, 2022 The slope, it is slippery. https://t.co/VLXjIVDtJN— Helen…

Lots of comments tonight about the first Conservative debate — apparently not an “official” debate though I’m not sure why that mattered. The big loser was, I think, Patrick Brown — this would have been his first opportunity to introduce himself…

Nans Florens, Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, Jérôme Barriere, Eric Billy, Fabrice Frank, Véronique Saada, Alexander Samuel, Barbara Seitz-Polski, Kyle Sheldrick, and Lonni Besançon, in OCF Preprints ask should we publish every correlation during the COV…

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on why it’s a terrible idea not to treat the unvaccinated.
Katherine J. Wu, also in The Atlantic, on whether Omicron infections will translate into widespread immunity.
The Agenda, with a great segment on how COVID is airborn…

Katherine J. Wu, in the Atlantic, on the dumpster fire that is America’s COVID rules (and for Canadian readers, much overlap with ours).
Gregg Gonsalves, in The Nation, on the impact of COVID fatigue on our morality. 
Ed Yong, in The Atlanti…

Andrew Nikiforuk, in The Tyee, on Sweden’s deadly COVID failures (which are playing out now here all over North America) Nathaniel Basen, in TVO, interviews Janine McCready on what more we could be doing to protect children during and after this …

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on how the #UrgencyofNormal/done with COVID talk condemns the immunocompromisedRamnath Subbaraman,  Michelle Holmes,  and Lakshmi Ganapathi, in Common Dream, on the privilege required to state that you’re done with …

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on the immeasurable grief. Don’t look away. 
      Related StoriesSaturday Stories: Sweden’s Failure, More For Kids, And What Does Endemic MeanSaturday Stories: Normal?, Living?, Human Rights…

Rex Chapman titles many of his dog videos “Dogs, bruh” so I thought I would use it for this post: Good boy loves fireworks 💥 pic.twitter.com/XB0UJzIkBq— CCTV_IDIOTS (@cctv_idiots) May 15, 2022 short dog problems pic.twitter.com/Bk0DFSD3Mi— ᴘᴀᴠʟᴏᴠ ᴛʜ…

Just a short posting tonight, but it appears that the tide in Ukraine is turning: Long story short. Russia seems to be pulling out of the area to the north of Kharkiv entirely, and still cant make significant advances in the Donbas. https://t.co/DE1Fc…

I guess expecting Canadian Conservative voters to listen to an actual DEBATE is just too much to ask of the Youngs today, not to mention really B-O-R-I-N-G, man!  Brother Wells over on his Substack: “Well, that was a national disgrace.” #cpcldrdeb…

Ed Yong, the best science journalist of this pandemic, in the Atlantic, discusses Omicron and how we’re definitely not ready for it. It’s so good it’s the only story I’m posting this week. 
      Related StoriesSatur…

I still find it hard to believe that a lot of people in Ontario are still intending to vote for Ford and the Conservative party, in spite of his awful performance as premier. Then again, I also find it hard to believe that so many people in Saskat…

I have been struck by the number of outstanding photos I am seeing of the brave soldiers fighting for Ukraine. I have been collecting these now for more than a month, and tonight I thought I would post some of the best:

Here are members of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces hold Easter cakes near the trenches, outside Kyiv on April 23.

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

This is Fedir Shandor. He’s fighting for #Ukraine.
In a peaceful life, he’s my colleague — uni lecturer & the Head of the Department of Sociology at Uzhhorod National University.
In the photo, he’s giving online lectures to his students, from the trench on the front line. pic.twitter.com/NPIPAGKWFm

— Inna Sovsun (@InnaSovsun) May 16, 2022

This picture from #Azovstal! #SaveAzovstal #SaveMariupol pic.twitter.com/C7ADl6STyx

— Anonymous Operations (@AnonOpsSE) May 16, 2022

The first female navigator of @UA_NAVY
Eugenia Bakay: “Now you just need to decide – are you ready to defend your country or not”.
(1/4) pic.twitter.com/aocqkMd7K7

— ArmyInform (@armyinformcomua) May 13, 2022

Damn, what a scary but beautifully written report from @mschwirtz accompanied by incredible photos from @lynseyaddario. I’m so glad you guys are safe!https://t.co/Yo0u6SIT2X

— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) May 11, 2022

Each region in 🇺🇦has its costumes, cuisine&traditions. But, 🇺🇦is united & ONE in face of🇷🇺

💪So say soldiers of 128 Brigade-Zakarpattia Legion as they proudly display traditional bartka-chiseled shepherd’s axe, lethal weapons & trembita +embroidered Hutsul vest for their spirit! pic.twitter.com/Jc8EMBottZ

— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) May 4, 2022

A Ukrainian and A French sniper fighting together against Russian invaders. I feel so much gratitude to the volunteers from different countries who came here to help us fight. pic.twitter.com/Z41XM5QM1A

— Nika Melkozerova (@NikaMelkozerova) May 1, 2022

🔥The darkest time is always before dawn‼️‼️‼️#StandWithUkraine #ArmUkraineNow https://t.co/KbSvKqbu0a pic.twitter.com/PyunGdg33D

— Cargo-200🇺🇦 (@RF200_NOW) April 25, 2022

A fighter in one of the #Ukrainian Special Forces in front of a destroyed #Russian T-72B3.

Glory to #Ukraine 🇺🇦✊🏻 pic.twitter.com/0otwiF5z5A

— Canadian Ukrainian Volunteer 🇺🇦🇨🇦✊🏻 (@CanadianUkrain1) April 22, 2022

An amazing photo: Fighters from the Ukrainian army’s 30th Brigade take their positions in a trench in eastern Ukraine -photo by Ukraine photojournalist Maxim Dondyuk
https://t.co/5D37YpRVfA

— Cathie from Canada 🇨🇦 😷🏳️‍🌈 (@CathieCanada) April 20, 2022

Olena is an officer in Ukraine’s 128th Mountain Assault Brigade – the Transcarpathian Legion. pic.twitter.com/Gku8eMDYDh

— Michael MacKay (@mhmck) April 18, 2022

As of now #Ukraine is winning #Russia‘s war against #NATO. pic.twitter.com/oPRCnedKCT

— Linas Linkevicius (@LinkeviciusL) April 10, 2022

A #Ukrainian lioness with an important message.

Glory to #Ukraine! Glory to the Heroes, women and men ✊🏻🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/Wys3QMooIS

— Canadian Ukrainian Volunteer 🇺🇦🇨🇦✊🏻 (@CanadianUkrain1) April 7, 2022

I am so impressed by this young soldier, in a photo taken outside Kyiv as the Russians were leaving earlier in April:

 Marcus Yam/ LA Times
How beautiful is this?

This mural was painted on the wall of the Military Academy of🇱🇹in Vilnius by an artist Linas Kaziulionis
It was inspired by a📷by Andriy Andriyenko, which captures a moment of farewell of🇺🇦border guard Vitaliy and his wife at Kramatorsk railway station https://t.co/juApw7Vpwr pic.twitter.com/5GWIt3XAuw

— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) April 30, 2022

There are so many other First Responders worth highlighting too — here’s a firefighter taking a break:

Emilio Morenatti/AP

Moving back to Canada for a moment, I couldn’t resist retweeting this classic:

Freedom? They are literally dancing and PARTYING in the streets in Ottawa right now. People using the word “dictator” and “tyranny” have zero idea. pic.twitter.com/uzaL7q6w67

— Dan MacDonald (@danmac800) May 1, 2022

Here’s the cover photo of 2010 book about the SlutWalk Movement — just thought I should help out that Ottawa school trying to “measure” the shorts and skirts of its female students today.Maybe if they used this photo as their guide, then their female …

Tonight I wanted to conclude my coverage of the visit to Saskatchewan by the Archbishop of Canterbury the Reverend Justin Welby, and his apology for the residential schools. The Anglican Church committed grievous sins against the Indigenous, Inuit and…

Chuck Wendig, in TerribleMinds, on our great surrender and how we let COVID win.Bruce Arthur, in The Toronto Star, on the myth of mild Omicron.Katherine J. Wu, in The Atlantic, on how we’re long past the point of hoping ‘mild’ Omicron will spare us.Ed…

(Photo of Supreme Court protest today, by Jabin Botsford, WashPost)Today lots of comments and discussions about how the United States is criminalizing abortion again.I’m not sure which Justice the Washington Post Editorial Board is trying to speak to w…