As governments suppressed the data, so news would have less to report about the pandemic, more people died than before, as the public became less cautious and more likely to consume and mingle in public spaces like bars and stores. The federal government is doing as much harm as provincial Conservative ones.
“You Do You” doesn’t work for Public Health.
Corb Lund is among the Albertans who’ve had to fight mountaintop mining to maintain drinking water safety for Alberta and Saskatchewan. SaskPower is eager to find a path to creating social acceptance of nuclear power. Nuclear power is costly, and is planned to be delivered too late to address the climate crisis, even before we get to addressing its other serious problems or potential benefits. If they can convince people that it’s not important to maintain drinking water availability, that would aid their goal in promoting water-thirsty nuclear power.
Monopoly utilities conscript beholden ratepayers into partisan fights against the climate and our ecosystem. David Roberts of Dr. Volts podcast discusses the problem from an American perspective. The problem clearly extends well beyond Saskatchewan’s Crown corporation (monopoly) SaskPower. Here, Chris highlights how SaskPower’s utility bill serves as anti-Trudeau and anti-carbon price propaganda for its SaskParty masters:
This is not a new problem. Here’s a tweet from 4 years ago about the Sask Government’s Crown utilities interfering in a transition to renewable energy as they fought in court against the price on carbon required by the federal government.
Pun is from a friend. What are all 3 of these ex-executive dorks doing with classified documents in their homes anyway??
One of the best doctors in the country, not only for the health services he provides, but for his outreach regarding the climate crisis, is Dr. Joe Vipond. Here he is explaining the current health crisis and what can be done about it, while many others in his field shirk their responsibility to clearly communicate.
It wasn’t even 3 years ago that everyone made an effort to #FlattenTheCurve as our healthcare workers faced impossible odds to help everyone through a crisis like no other. Now, with Conservative governments sworn to avoid public health measures to satisfy their anti-masker bases, we’re amplifying an already bad situation and children are suffering because of it.
@trudykeil Β· “I can tell you why leaders aren’t saying the “A” (airborne) word.. capitalism and pressure from the far right. Conspiracy theorists were loud, obnoxious, and threatening and politicians weakly bent to their will. Now here we are in dystopia as kids get sick and few people care.”
@AndersonBooz Β· “Speaking the uncomfortable truth: politicians and other adults refuse to protect children because it is inconvenient to do so. They say sentimental things like “Kids are our future” but then their actions betray their self-interest.”
It shouldn’t be limited to only people reading my blog, or following the best people on Twitter, to know that science has answers to the current crisis.
@Sitarj Β· “Safety culture was one of the defining Canadian characteristics that I used to point to in contrast to Mexico and COVID absolutely murdered that. Iβm looking at you @WorkSafeBC.”
@ProHealth4MyKid Β· “You summarized 3 years of complete failure & strategic misinformation in a few minute interview. Well said & well done.Iβm so tired of living in this vile society that forces children to be repeatedly infected with viruses when the tools are in front of us.”
We don’t hear Conservative Premiers back down from their ultimatums against public health protections, even when kids’ lives are on the line. They can’t bear the taste of crow, not even to save kids? It’s hard to imagine more ideologically despicable human beings.
If they gave a damn, here’s what would happen:
They’d have a TV suppertime announcement with a public health leader explaining that COVID-19 is airborne, and infected people need to be isolated while the source of their infection is traced. They’d required people wear respirators in public indoor spaces, and start distributing them. They’d issue a cell phone alert advising people to wear respirators, and limit social contacts for a few weeks. They’d admit that COVID-19 is an ongoing pandemic emergency that is not over and pretending it is done has caused harm.
Possibly Close The Schools temporarily. Offer UBI or CERB to parents losing income to care for their children. Extend sick leave benefits.
We’ve done it before, we know it works to delay infections and give the healthcare workers time to catch up.
Fox News would like its viewers to think that political assassination is an everyday occurrence, and the perps walk the next day.
Here’s an interesting expedition to the equator.
And a modern English presentation of the trip, which was basically a Wikipedia reading and dramatization, with a VPN ad at the end:
The RCMP put out a disgraceful press release following a vehicle attack on First Nation people rallying near a Residential School site.
A long thread on Twitter of the Twitter Space hosted by Prairie Tara:
Hundreds tuned in, and dozens spoke.
I was too busy making notes like I used to for live events of interesting forums like this one was to add myself to the speakers list.
Had I, I would have probably said how in my life I’ve organized for the Saskatchewan Green Party, I’ve also run a campaign for a Sask Liberals candidate, and I don’t think electoral politics will work to fix the issues. I’ve been much less involved in it following my temporary death and subsequence failure of the Greens to make a breakthrough.
There is the possibility that a rebranded NDP with a weakened Saskatchewan Party, because of a right-wing challenger party, could change the calculus that leaves us presently subject to a terrible right-wing party. That party doesn’t really care who lives or dies, it only sees dollar signs.
What Moe said about the origin of the convoy was a lie too. It was orgnaized by far right hate groups as an insurrection, and they sucked anti-waxxers in for extra goons and cover. Moe gives them cover.
There’s a wind blowing in Canada, and it’s blowing away from public health measures that have kept most Canadians healthy and safe from the pandemic crisis primary driver, the SARS-CoV2 virus. Somewhere between 1010 Saskatchewanians and about 4000 have perished in the last 2 years from the virus, while more than a tenth of the population has directly experienced infection.
With the world not rising to the occasion, and failing to equitably produce and distribute vaccines to all people, variants have arisen and shaken the resolve of public officials and the public at large. I had several anti-waxxers on Saturday questioning me specifically about why I’d want a vaccine that wasn’t “100% effective”. They didn’t seem educated enough to have ever heard that perfect is the enemy of good.
“Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.” ββConfucius, [1]
So, we have Dr. Tam and others saying that we’ll have to pretend the crisis is over and accept routine crippling sickness spreading through our air(ports) and beyond.
“For better or for worse, this is what’s going to happen across the whole country,” said Dr. Alexander Wong, an infectious diseases physician at Regina General Hospital and associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan.
“The question is, why are we in such a rush to do all of this? It’s clearly political.”
It sure as heck isn’t a very rational, or scientific approach to getting our lives back to an old normal where the biggest reason people would be uncomfortable about going to a restaurant was the tab at the end of the night, instead of the dread of life crippling/ending infection discovered days later. Then, watching that infection spread through your family and friends…
I see this as analogous to how we handle the climate crisis also, with politics, but not science informing those political decisions. Experts explain how masses of ice poised to swamp every global coastal city are on the knife’s edge, and municipal, provincial, and federal politicians still want to build more fossil fuel pipelines and highways. Just keep piling those straws onto our camel’s back, it’s worked so far.
Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff 