dialamah

What a jerk.

1. It happened to my son, 17 stab wounds. I sat with him in the hospital, kept him company when he was too terrified to sleep or wait for coffee in Tim Hortons. He's ok now, thanks for asking, but it was a tough time for everybody. 2. The relevance is in the cherry picking of certain events to demonize a demographic that you don't like. Its a logical error known as Association Fallacy, and looks like this: If A = C and A = X then C = X, where A is an individual, X is a criminal, C is a certain color, (or group if you prefer). This is the logical fallacy you make almost daily on these forums.

Its easy to cherry pick a particular crime and use that to demonize an entire group. I can do it too. A third generation Canadian male, with White skin, attacked and almost killed my son. He was found "not criminally responsible" and his only punishment was being sent to a cushy psychiatric facility for a couple of years. Thats how White people are protected from the crimes they commit, and how the Justice system shows preference to White people. He should have been convicted of attempted murder and in jail for a minimum of 4 years. Instead, he got off almost scott free.

The fantasy world is inhabited by people who assume their passing knowledge of any particular topic trumps the knowledge of those who've spent years training for and working in the field. People in the real world are able to recognize that experts are experts for a reason, and don't assume their own knowledge is greater.

A surgical mask is not a "rag over your face", and is used by medical professionals in many settings to protect patients. A cloth mask made to specifications suggested by professionals is not a "rag over your face". Cloth masks can rival surgical masks in limiting aerosol exhalations. Using the term "rag over your face" is your attempt to minimize the proven effectiveness of masking, and betrays the weakness of your argument. There's no denying that full PPE is highly superior to either surgical masks or cloth masks for protection from Covid. Nonetheless, even with full PPE, people have contracted Covid. Should they not wear PPE because it's only extremely effective, and not 100% effective? Medical workers are in high risk situations that the public is not. Is it reasonable to insist that low-risk situations must have the same safety protocols as high-risk situations or "don't bother"? Several studies have confirmed that masks help reduce the spread of Covid. No studies have said they'll prevent Covid. People who argue against masks because they aren't as good as N95 masks or because people don't wear them perfectly are undermining a useful tool that can help prevent more deaths, more shutdowns and more economic pain. They should stop it.

I work in a legal capacity with the Provincial Government and in that role provide information to the public. That doesn't make me a lawyer. In the same way, your position as a 'technical advisor' for PPE doesn't make you a medical professional or a researcher. I'll take their word over yours, and their word is - "Masks are an important tool to help reduce the spread of Covid".

I don't believe you.

Thank you for your clear and understandable explanation. I like the way you've presented these systems as not being 'good or bad' in and of themselves; it's refreshing. I'm afraid my response is not going to give your explanation justice, other than to say that I believe that almost any system is subject to corruption and unequal (or even dishonest) results because people are involved. I wonder if there is a system that would work to provide a decent standard of living for all citizens, without also limiting the drive and ambition of those who want more than a 'decent' standard of living. I think it's valid to ask why, in a rich country such as Canada, there are still homeless people or people who are not food secure. I suppose that's what the 'Great Reset' is supposed to be about, but even assuming it's a completely foolproof plan, there'll be enough pushback, using true and false arguments, to scuttle it altogether or create a watered down version that would end up with the same extreme wealth inequality we have now.

Over the late spring/summer, people gained a false sense of security due to the success of the near-blanket shutdowns; as a result, people increased their social interactions, while reducing mitigating efforts. This continued into the fall, because people still felt safe, and gave the virus an opening to spread quickly. Positive tests went up, but people are sick of staying home and not having any fun, 'nobody knew anyone who was sick', 'it mostly kills old people' and 'it's 99% survival rate' touted by deniers justified a certain group of people to decide they didn't need to be careful - specifically, the group between 20 and 40; this is where the infections are spreading the fastest. After weeks of begging people to take precautions and follow public health advise and having so many people ignore them, masks have been mandated (in BC and other places) as, I presume, the final step before another near-blanket lockdown. And these mitigation efforts aren't really to save lives; once again, it's to prevent our health system from becoming completely overwhelmed by people in the hospital with Covid, even if they don't die - they'll take up a bed from between a few days to several weeks. The argument that 'masks don't work because cases continue to rise even though people wear masks' fails because masks haven't been "required" anywhere in Canada till very recently - well after cases started rising very quickly, so plenty of people didn't bother - and because masks aren't (and nobody has claimed they are) 100% preventative. They're a tool that helps, not a guarantee of success.

In the same vein: few people have died of the flu; it's noted as only a contributing factor or was merely present when the patient died of other causes; few people have died from actual car accidents; the major cause of death is blunt force trauma, of which the car accident itself is only a contributing factor; The fact that these people would have lived had they not caught the flu or been in a car accident is irrelevant, since neither car accidents nor the flu actually kill very many people. /s

Cite.

1. People say this, but is it true? My experience has been that mask wearers are more conscious of keeping distance. But my experience isn't data, so what is the data on this claim? 2. Medical professionals work closely with infected patients and are exposed to a lot of virus in small areas, so they need better protection. Still, they do get sick. If the goal is 100% protection or its no good, should medical professionals not wear any protection at all? Interestingly, they could get great protection if the patients themselves wore surgical masks, per a study I posted a few days ago, but putting masks on sick people is perhaps not the best idea. For the general public, wearing a mask in indoor spaces helps keep the viral load in the environment low. Wearing a mask further reduces the viral load for the wearer. The lower the viral load a person is exposed to, the less likely they are to get sick, and the less sick they'll be, if they do get sick. Wearing a mask isn't 100% protection, but it can effectively slow the spread. That's been demonstrated by numerous studies.

You missed the point. I didn't say any of that was "ok", I said it was par for the course, he's no better or worse than most other PMs. Hyperbolic descriptions (good or bad) of almost any politician is driven by emotions, not facts, most of the time. Trump is the only "politician" that I'd agree deserved extremelt negative descriptions.

I'm happy to bow to your superior knowledge on this; I'm not being sarcastic, either, I'm not very versed in economic systems and you've always struck me as someone who is. So will you provide your definition of capitalism?

The document under discussion, posted by Beaver, was filed in Georgia. The one you've linked to was filed in Michigan. Different courts and different plaintiffs. ______________________ In any case, the complaint linked to in Beaver's post has been cleaned up -- https://defendingtherepublic.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/COMPLAINT-CJ-PEARSON-V.-KEMP-11.25.2020.pdf, So it looks like you were right in that it was a preliminary document, not yet filed.

Harper lied about Duffy. The point is that Trudeau is nothing more than 'average'. He's not the disaster you intimate. I know hyperbole is your style, but sometimes it doesn't hurt to take a step back to gain some perspective.

Capitalism is also supposed to "make things better for everyone", and while that worked for a while, it seems to be going in the opposite direction now. The problem with any human-devised system is that people are involved, and people are prone to human failings, resulting in grasping for power and privilege at the expense of others. IMO.

Good question.

All politicians love attention - they have to. Harper outright lied, according to plenty of people. But whether he did or not is in the eye of the beholder; same can be said of Trudeau. If Trudeau mishandled this pandemic, so did pretty much every world leader. Trudeau may not have been the best, but he's far from the worst. So yeah, like I said - pretty average over all. Nothing special, but not a disaster. But we can agree to disagree on this.

I work with legal documents every day. What's really of highest importance is that these documents say exactly what you mean to say, nothing more or less. A typo or single spelling error might not be a problem, but multiple errors, poor grammer and weird, incomplete sentences would be unacceptable. Spelling errors may not bother you, but it bothers competant people. Those spelling errors, combined with the other errors, displays a stunning amount of incompetance or stupidity or maybe substance abuse.

That's opinion based on feelings, not supported by fact. JT is not a great leader and he's accomplished little of note that I can see, but that could be said of many leaders. Yes, there've been scandals, just like there've been scandals for virtually every PM that I can remember. He's pretty average, really, but he's not a disaster by any stretch.

The Great Reset is an idea to reconfigure the world economy to make it better for everyone. There's a book and here's a link: https://www.weforum.org/great-reset My opinion is that it has a snowball's chance in hell, but it does provide great fodder for conspiracy theorists to fearmonger about our imminent societal destruction.

Yeah, I was struck by that too.

So do I. One of them is in very dire straits. I have sorrow for that person, and we help him as much as we can. I won't be surprised if he's found dead one morning, either. I have three girlfriends, all single and living alone, two in apartments, with no basement or yard. They're all struggling with lack of contact with family and friends. They're also more concerned with following the public health guidelines than I am. They're all liberal, btw, so instead of whining about how unfair it all is, and how everyone is being scaredy cats, they buck up and do their best not to be part of the problem. I also couldn't get counselling when I needed it, because yeah - they're very busy. So that sucks, but it doesn't inspire me to advocate against efforts to mitigate the virus spread. So, I don't personally know anyone who has died of cancer or in a car accident. So I guess the numbers of those deaths are not important, because "for me" they're barely noticeable. And if the government did little or nothing, and people were dying by the 100s or 1000s per day, you'd not be any happier. I don't know how it is in other places, but in BC, single people can visit another household - recognition that single people find isolation particularly tough. Kids are still going to school - in part because it's recognized that school is also good for kids mental health. Restaurants and bars are still operating, with restrictions. Funerals/weddings can have up to 10 guests - because people still die and get married. Targeted restrictions, with allowances for mental health and special events. Short term, only extended if cases don't decrease. This is a lot different from what happened in the Spring and reflects the government learning and changing its approach. But of course, you are still stuck where you were months ago.

Mask mandates wouldn't be required if the moronic minority weren't advocating against masks and social distancing. There wouldn't need to be businesses closed down or curfews if people, even the young and "invulnerable" had paid attention to Public Health advice to avoid crowds and wear a mask. Its the irresponsible among us that ultimately requires mandates and causes businesses to have to shutter.