I remember writing around New Year’s that although cases in the U.S. were exploding, deaths had actually dropped slightly over the preceding two weeks. That was evidence that the new variant wasn’t just milder than its predecessors but a hopeful sign that it might be supplanting Delta in the population, driving the old variant to extinction.
If you are an adult Canadian who has not received a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, you are barred from virtually all forms of government employment. By federal mandate, hundreds of unvaccinated police officers, health-care workers, bus drivers and firefighters were placed onto unpaid leave just before Christmas and are explicitly barred from collecting Employment Insurance.
One of the largest hospital systems in the country is dropping its policy that counted race as a more important factor in determining COVID-19 treatment options than diabetes, obesity, asthma, and hypertension combined.
This silliness was allowed at SSM Health, a nominally Catholic health system that operates 23 hospitals across Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin. All hospital patients are “scored” as a means of triage in order to give those most in need priority treatment. SSM Health ignored the severity of a patient’s conditions in order to make race a weightier determining factor.
By Thursday, The 355’s per-screen average had dumped to $91. Intrigued by its historic box office failure last weekend, I decided to give it a look Thursday. Could any movie with that kind of star power really be as bad as advertised?
Well, I will say this … I was never bored
Growing clamour for royal to lose dukedom and taxpayer-funded Scotland Yard security detail
The Duke of York faces calls to pay for his own security and relinquish his dukedom after being stripped of his military affiliations and royal patronages in the fallout over the civil sexual assault case against him.
The calls come as his accuser, Virginia Giuffre, welcomed the New York court ruling that paved the way for her lawsuit against Prince Andrew to proceed to trial, as she pledged to “continue to expose the truth”.
The Queen going “Climate Woke” may have been a calculated move designed to mitigate blowback from Andy and Harry’s escapades.
One would have thought that after a repeat felon out on a $1,000 bail is alleged to have driven his car into a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, killing six people and injuring countless others, those who have sought to dismantle our criminal justice system would have recognized how their actions have created murderous carnage across the nation.
But that is far from the case and the lawless cannot believe their good fortune.
In America’s most important city, New York, and within Manhattan, its most famous borough, there is now a District Attorney who, in changing what his office will prosecute, has essentially redefined evil.
Customer in an Etobicoke Costco is arrested and hauled away by cops for not wearing a mask despite having a medical exemption.
Allegedly one of the managers of the store is detaining the man alongside police.
It's for your health. pic.twitter.com/dvI3jo2oeU
— Efron Monsanto 🇨🇦 (@realmonsanto) January 15, 2022
Career crook Tito ibn Sheikh appeared in the dock at Southwark Crown Court this week.
But his crime — plotting to launder hundreds of thousands of pounds of stolen money for which he was sentenced to nearly four years — was perhaps less shocking than his notorious family background.
He was born Hamza Mustafa Kamel before changing his name to Tito ibn Sheikh, which roughly translated means ‘son of a venerable man’ in Arabic.
Photos and videos showing piles of empty boxes littered alongside rail tracks in Los Angeles County, California have gone viral as shipping companies say they’ve seen a dramatic spike in railroad theft. Some of the boxes are packages from companies like UPS, Amazon and FedEx.
Union Pacific, one of the country’s largest railroad companies, says it may avoid operating in Los Angeles County following the spike in thefts, which it blames on lax prosecution of crimes. The containers and trains are locked, but can be broken into.
Union Pacific said last month in a letter to the Los Angeles District Attorney that it saw a 160% year-over-year increase in theft in LA county. The company claims that a December 2020 special directive issued by District Attorney George Gascón that changed how low-level offenses are prosecuted has contributed to the uptick.
Keep hearing of train burglaries in LA on the scanner so went to #LincolnHeights to see it all. And… there’s looted packages as far as the eye can see. Amazon packages, @UPS boxes, unused Covid tests, fishing lures, epi pens. Cargo containers left busted open on trains. @CBSLA pic.twitter.com/JvNF4UVy2K
— John Schreiber (@johnschreiber) January 13, 2022
U-Haul Literally Ran Out of Trucks Leaving California – and unfortunately they bring their politics with them.
Town goes dark amid massive bug infestation
The Argentinean town of Santa Isabel has been forced to shut off its lights for several days in an effort to persuade the millions of bugs that have invaded its streets to leave and look for another place to stay.
#ARGENTINA 🇦🇷
Impresionante invasión de escarabajos (cascarudos) afectó la localidad de Santa Isabel, en La Pampa. 📹 @chematierrahttps://t.co/j1nuqCzO2Z pic.twitter.com/08vUASa8ai— C e n t i n e l a 3 5 (@QuakeChaser35) January 10, 2022
Canada can and should be more engaged in de-escalation efforts at the Ukraine border where Russia is amassing troops but must focus on its diplomatic strengths, says national security experts.
In an interview on CTV’s Question Period airing Sunday, Richard Fadden, former CSIS director and national security adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, said that includes calling out Russian aggression and threatening further sanctions, in union with NATO allies.
“We should be out there beating the bushes with our allies arguing, maybe send some more troops on a rotational basis, make sure sanctions that are now in place are fully respected, argue for bigger sanctions, but I don’t think we can do a great deal on our own,” he said.
There is nothing material that Canada can do either alone or with our paper tiger NATO.
Sanctions like taxes are for the little people to suffer not Oligarchs.
No one wants a war over this latter day Czechoslovakia, not even Putin. Well maybe Freeland.
Putin will grandstand and wring some gains while showing up NATO for the farce it is.
Joe Biden will get his 10% and Germany will get its Russian gas.
It’s doubtful the western Euro’s would or even could defend themselves if attacked so I see little stomach for a war over Ukraine.
The Ukraine crisis may herald the beginning of a New Europe.
If the EU defence force is still on the table it may signal the end of NATO allowing the refinement of coordinated Eurocentric mass surrender skills untainted by American hegemony.
Good Grief. Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly to visit Ukraine as it faces threat of Russian invasion
Ontario reports 43 new COVID-19 deaths; record 3,957 hospitalizations
Ontario reported 43 new COVID-19 deaths as the province hit another record number of hospitalizations due to the Omicron variant.
The Ministry of Health says there are 3,957 patients in hospitals across the province due to the virus, breaking yesterday’s record of 3,814 and up from 2,594 a week ago.
Individuals who are fully vaccinated represent 78.3% of Ontario’s total population.
There are 10,732 new cases of #COVID19.
Today’s numbers will be available at 10:30 a.m. at https://t.co/ypmgZbVRvn.
— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) January 15, 2022
Canadian COVID-19 vaccine study seized on by anti-vaxxers — highlighting dangers of early research in pandemic
A Canadian study that vastly underestimated the protection COVID-19 vaccines provide against the Omicron variant is being revised — but not before it spread widely on social media by anti-vaxxers, academics and even the creators of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine.
The Ontario preprint study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, suggested that any three doses of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were just 37 per cent effective against Omicron infection, while two doses actually showed negative protection.
The preprint has been shared on Twitter more than 15,000 times in the two weeks since it’s been published, according to Altmetric, a company that tracks where published research is posted online. That’s in the top five per cent of all research it’s ever tracked.
PACIFIC: Tsunami confirmed from volcanic eruption in Tonga. TSUNAMI ADVISORY for Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. Move out of the water, off the beach, and away from harbors. (Source: PTWC)
— U.S. Emergency Alert (@ENSAlerts) January 15, 2022
President Joe Biden finally delivered his “voting rights” speech in Atlanta, telling a crowd:
“The next few days, when these bills come to a vote, will mark a turning point in this nation’s history. Will we choose democracy over autocracy, light over shadows, justice over injustice? I know where I stand. I will not yield. I will not flinch. I will defend your right to vote, our democracy against all enemies foreign and domestic. And the question is: Where will the institution of the United States Senate stand?”
These were little more than the mendacious ravings of a demagogue.
Too many people in this country are afraid to compete, and would rather the government keep everyone at a lower level. This is a key cause of our distorted and increasingly moribund economy.
