Good Luck with That

Vincent J. Curtis

20 Sept 20

Nearly twenty-five years ago there was a guided discussion concerning the dangers of “western hate groups” infiltrating the Canadian Forces.  In those days, the Heritage Front, founded in 1989 by Wolfgang Droege, Gary Lincoln, and CSIS agent Grant Bristow, was the most infamous of Canada’s “far-right.”  The Heritage Front was, by then, practically defunct, and went officially defunct in 2005.

After some discussion, one of the course candidates said that he knew a couple of members of a “western hate group.”

“Really?”  asked the instructor.  “Tell us about it.”

“Well,” replied the candidate quietly, “they have guns.  They wear these uniforms, and they practice fighting in the woods.”

The other candidates leaned in, eyes widening.

“Can you tell us who they are?”  asked the instructor.

“I don’t know the name of the group, but their initials are P-P-C-L-I.”

Everybody laughed.  They liked the association of western Canada’s Regular Force infantry regiment with ‘western hate group.’ 

The Canadian military has dealt with “far-right” “hate groups” before.  The promise by Lt-Gen Wayne Eyre, the new Commander of the Canadian Army, to deal with the “infiltration” of “far-right” “hate groups” is ploughing old ground.

Eyre told CBC News that he wants to rid the army of soldiers who are “suspected of hateful conduct and extremism.”  (One wonders if killing people, destroying things, and the practicing thereof are acts hateful conduct and extremism.  But, I digress.)

Eyre faces legal obstacles.  The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees freedom of thought, belief, expression; peaceful assembly, and association.  On the face of it, holding unpopular political beliefs is protected by the Charter and protected from disciplinary or administrative action under the National Defense Act.  So long as the member causes no disciplinary issues and acts on his beliefs lawfully on his own time, he should be in the clear.  Reservists especially.

This crusade for ideological purity began with Corey Hurren’s mad-cap attack on Rideau Hall, where the Governor-General resides and Prime Minister Trudeau currently has a hovel.  Hurren allegedly had firearms in his truck.  Nobody was hurt, Hurren arrested, and neither the GG nor PM were on the property at the time.  It so happened that Hurren was a member of a Canadian Ranger Patrol, and a rather good one at that.  Being a Ranger was all the hook needed for the CBC to associate the Canadian Armed Forces with an alleged attempt on the lives of Julie Payette and Justin Trudeau.  Hurren’s alleged connection with “far-right” “hate-groups” juiced the story.

Then, in hot pursuit of ideological enemies, the CBC revealed that Erik Myggland not only supported two “far-right” groups, but was allowed to continue as a Ranger.in northern B.C.  after a counterint investigation.

It gets worse.  Former reservist sapper Patrik Mathews allegedly became a member of “The Base” (al-Qaeda in Arabic), another alleged “far-right” “neo-Nazi” group.  A naval reservist in Calgary, Boris Mihajlovic, reportedly administered a neo-Nazi hate forum that gave rise to a group called “Atomwaffen Division,” both now defunct.

The harassed Lt-Gen Eyre admitted to the CBC that “the army has a growing problem of “right-wing extremism,” and reiterated his determination to “crush hateful ideology and acts in the ranks.”  He expressed his disappointment at members who hold Nazism as a way of life.

“There is absolutely no place in the Canadian Army for those who hold hateful beliefs and express these beliefs through hateful behaviour.”

The CBC, the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and no doubt Superior Commanders are pressuring Eyre for “action.”  However, high-handed and possibly unconstitutional disciplinary action to eradicate certain political beliefs sets precedent for morale crushing hypocrisy as other, politically sensitive, beliefs are allowed.  BLM, Islam, anyone?

Perhaps education in how the Canadian Army kicked Nazi ass in Sicily, Italy, and from Juno Beach to Wismar might get the point across.  Or is that culturally insensitive?  An over-reaction to mollify the far-left by savaging a small number of losers could be worse than patiently letting the problem disappear on its own. 

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They know not what they do

Vincent J. Curtis

30 Nov 20

RE: Hamilton surpasses 500 active COVID-19 cases.  Hamilton Spectator of this date.

With 500 COVID cases, having fun with statistics becomes easy, given that Hamilton has a population of 500,000.  It’s worth exploring why the Health Nazis limit us as to crowd size.

Assuming all 500 COVID cases are wondering the streets of Hamilton, there is a 1 in 1000 chance that the next person you meet with be a case.  If Hamiltonians were grouped into blocks of 50, there is a 95 percent chance (or 2-σ) that no one in your group will be a case.  And if you are in the unlucky group, given that the transmission ratio Re is only 1.1, the chances of your not getting the virus from the case is 98 percent.

But the panicky pills in Queen’s Park have limited group sizes to 5.  Grouping Hamiltonians into blocks of 5 means that there is a 99.5 percent chance (or 3-σ) that the group you’re in will have no cases, but if you’re in an unlucky group the chances of your not getting the virus is down to 75 percent.  What you gain by reducing group size, you lose in greater likelihood of catching it because of small group size.

The picture gets much better if many of the COVID cases are grouped together and aren’t wandering the streets.

This illustration shows two things.  First, that the doctors fixed on a 3-σ probability to determine group size for reasons so-far not explained; and, second, that reducing group size doesn’t help after a certain point.  That’s why the pandemic rises and falls despite what the doctors have ordered.  They really don’t understand statistics or the law of diminishing returns, and won’t hire a mathematician to help them.

However, people can see how little availing these medical directives actually help.  People can see the doctors are down to trial and error and won't admit it.

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Paper calls for Adam Skelly to be destroyed

Vincent J. Curtis

30 Nov 20

RE: The laws we protest must still be obeyed.  Hamilton Spectator editorial of this date.

If any more proof were needed that progressivism fries the brain, that editorial was it.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is rolling over in his grave at its publication.  Somewhere, Jim Crow is smiling.

Never mind the contrast between the sympathetic editorial treatment given to the defund the police protesters in Hamilton and the lower the boom treatment allotted to Adam Skelly, the editorial never explained why it’s okay for Costco to have its food services open and have a full parking lot, but it’s not okay for Skelly to sell his food to willing customers.

Translated from the original German, the reason for destroying Adam Skelly is that he wasn’t following orders.

Skelly did not force any of the hundreds of people who flocked to his store to go there, or buy food.  Yet, somehow, Skelly is responsible for the spread of COVID.  Oh, only potentially responsible?  His fines and imprisonment aren’t potential.  Since Skelly isn’t contagious, how can he be even potentially responsible for spreading COVID?  This chain of causation is getting long and improbable.  He's kept closed because of the possibility of COVID spread, but the same business carried on in Costco, a mere 400 meters down the road, is open, operating, and making money in a perfectly safe way?  Nobody's paying Skelly CERB.  But he's expected to suck it up for the good of the whole, while those paid out of the public purse (including federally funded journos) poo-poo his disobedience and shoot spit-balls at him.

Completely ignored in the editorial are the criminal aspects of the enforcement.  A hundred police swooped in on the orders of Dr. Eileen de Villa, an unelected, unaccountable official, not upon the writ of a judge as required by law.  Skelly’s premises were seized illegally, again on the orders of de Villa.  The Act doesn’t contemplate the seizure of business premises, so not even a judge can order that, never mind de Villa.

Adam Skelly’s real crime boils down to his not having lobbyists like Costco and Walmart have.

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They blew their brains out in the spring

Vincent J. Curtis

27 Nov 20

The cases curve says it all.  The medical experts had Alberta shoot all its bullets at the wrong time.  They have nothing left for the second wave.

In March and April, Alberta went full Chinese Communist and locked down the province, except that there was practically no virus around.  The New Cases in Alberta curve shows a small bump of fewer than 100 cases per day at the beginning of April, followed by a slightly larger bump of about 225 cases per day at the end of April. Then, cases dropped practically to zero by the end of May.  All this time, schools were closed, small businesses were closed, and the economy devastated.  People grew exhausted of lockdown tyranny.  Then, things were allowed gradually to reopen.  There is no evidence in the curve that the lockdown did anything.  Nor should we expect to find effects, since the virus was so scarce, the cause had nothing to work on.

In the middle of October, the virus began to show up in force, and by the end of November cases per day approached 1300.  There is no more patience for lockdown measures.  The boy who cried wolf in March is crying it again, but there is no more room to accommodate it.  The economic, social, and educational devastation of the spring exhausted Alberta’s reserves and now schools and businesses have to stay open because crisis of another lockdown can’t be survived.  That cure is worse than the disease, even in this worse case.

What happened is that the medical experts over-reacted the first time.  They reacted like sheep, just following the lead of other jurisdictions without looking at Alberta’s special case, and the political leadership didn’t push back.

This is an object lesson of the folly of rule by expert.  We are still lacking in evidence that lockdown does anything anyway.

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Compared to drugs, COVID a 'boutique' concern.

Vincent J. Curtis

26 Nov 20

RE: Five people die every day from drugs in B.C.  Canadian Press report of today.

It’s a tale of two stats.  The B.C. Coroners Service reported that in October 162 people died of overdoses of toxic, illicit drugs, and that on average five people die every day in B.C. from that cause.  A bit of math indicates that since March 15, 1280 people have died of drug overdoses in B.C.

By contrast, over that same period only 371 people have died from COVID-19 in B.C.

Just for laughs, let’s attribute half of the drug overdose deaths to normal, background noise of deaths.  That still leaves 640 deaths in excess, nearly twice as many deaths as from COVID.  Nearly twice as many deaths from this one cause alone originating in the lockdown and social isolation, than from the pandemic.  The cure, by this one measure alone, has been nearly twice as deadly as the pandemic it was saving us from.

B.C. is freaking out over an upsurge in “cases.”  They’re afraid those cases will translate into an overloading of the “system.”  At least those dying of overdose have the decency not to clog up the system, and so the boutique concerns about COVID can hold center stage.

Next time you watch the authorities gush piusly about COVID and express their disappointment that some of us aren’t similarly inclined, remember that their cure is causing at least twice as many deaths as the pandemic they’re saving us from.

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MAN sleep-overs hit Hamilton City Hall

Vincent J. Curtis

24 Nov 20

RE: We’re not going anywhere.  Hamilton Spectator 24 Nov 20. 

The children have come home to roost.  All those years of teaching that all society’s ills were caused by white male supremacism is being taken seriously.  Most importantly, the method of protesting, with the assumption of great moral superiority, is now being applied against those who hoped to be eaten last.

It doesn’t really matter what the cause de jure is.  Defund the Police, more public housing, black lives matter – whatever.  Professional organizers arranged with a small coterie of activists, with nothing else going on in their lives, to create chaos in the public square.  Sarah Jama has her own website, which says she is a professional community organizer, employed by the Hamilton Center for Civic Inclusion, and was once connected to Matthew Green, MP.  The occupation of the city hall forecourt is yet another manifestation of Marxism, Anarchism, and Nihilism at work.  And it’s not going to stop until city council takes frim action to put it down.  It has the power to do so, but so far lacks the political will.

With left wing groups, the issue is never the issue, the issue is always power.  Sarah Jama and her friends are in a battle of wills with city council, and they are going to demonstrate superior will-power by making city council do something.  It won’t be defunding the police, but some gesture by council will be extracted.

The more weakness council shows, the more often these demonstrations will occur.

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Ford Blows Toronto Lockdown

 Vincent J. Curtis\

20 Nov 20

The deceptiveness of small numbers

Today, Premier Ford ordered the locking down of Toronto and Peel Region on the basis of rising case numbers, hospitalizations, and ICU usage.  To justify this action, he said that in the last eight days, the number of hospitalizations rose 22 percent, and ICU usage grew by nearly 50 percent.  This may seem alarming, and it was intended to, but the deceptiveness of percentages is that when you start with a small base, percentage increase can be deceptive.  An increase from 1 to 2 and from 500 to 1,000 are both doublings, but 2 is less impressive than 1,000.

Here are the actual numbers.  On November 12, COVID hospitalization in Ontario was 431 and ICU was 98.  On November 20, hospitalization was 518 and ICU 142.  The percentage increases are as Mr. Ford said, but there are over 460 hospitals in Ontario, and probably a couple thousand ICU beds.  In addition, these latter numbers are actually down from a peak of 535 hospitalizations on November 18 and 146 ICU cases on November 19.

Ontario medical officials have had six months to figure out a way of handling localized spikes, and developing surge capacity.  They could have prepared to set up temporary care centres just for COVID patients. It appears they haven’t.  So instead of the inexpensive way of coping with local spikes in hospitalizations by deploying surge capacity, Ontario goes through the expensive way of locking down business and confining every single person to their homes in Toronto and Peel, with a total population of nearly 4 million.

Premier Ford is not being well advised, and apparently doesn’t think of this stuff himself.

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Pandemic growth models are failing

Vincent J. Curtis

20 Nov 20

The good news is that the forecast of five percent per day growth in numbers of cases in Ontario is failing.  The bad news is that the authorities are pretending it isn’t.

On November 12th, the Ontario Medical Officer of Health forecasted a growth rate in cases of five percent per day, and by mid-December anticipated 6,500 cases per day.  Every day since that forecast, the actual numbers haven’t just been below forecast, they have flat.  They haven’t grown at all.

After one week, the model forecasted a daily case number of around 2,100; and after two weeks, around 3,000.  But in the first week, Ontario saw daily case numbers of: 1248, 1487, 1249, 1417, 1210, and 1418.  The zero rate of growth is what might be called a “flattening of the curve.”  The flattening is a point of inflection; growth can resume or start to decline.  Time will tell.  But for the moment, the actual data won’t support more stringent lockdown measures.  They’re proving the modelling wrong.  Badly wrong.

Premier Ford looks grave enough at his press conferences that he must be weighing more stringent measures against the real prospect of civil disobedience.  When widespread civil disobedience breaks out, there’s no putting humpty-dumpty back together again.

For all the admonishment to “follow the science” let’s understand that modelling isn’t science, and actual data is the only beginning of science.  The data so far won’t support allegedly scientific lockdowns.

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English words are for English Speakers

Vincent J. Curtis

19 Nov 20

RE: Halifax to review use of ‘Micmac’ on street signs and buildings.  Report by Keith Doucette of the Canadian Press.  “It’s an anglicized version of the Indigenous word for Mi’kmaq First Nation.”

Could there be anything more ridiculous than the debate over the use of Mi’kmaq versus Micmac?  The criticism is that Micmac is an Anglicization of the word the Micmacs had for themselves.

Of course it is!  They both are!  Mi’kmaq and Micmac are pronounced the same; only the spelling is different.  The Micmacs had no written language, and if they did it would odd that they used Roman letters.  Both words are literal renderings of sounds to an English speaker’s ear.  One rendering is spelt in the direct English way, while the other is some prissy P.C. contrivance that makes the simple complex.  (We could spell Iraq Irak if we agreed to, and we once did.)

To say that Mi’kmaq is preferred over Micmac requires a polite explanation other than that one suits polite society while the other doesn’t.

The effort by Halifax to make nice to the First Nation is bound to fail.  The professional leaders of the First Nation have a vested interest in maintaining hostilities.  Since the other criticism is that assimilation is bad, Halifax would be better of simply replacing all references to Micmac and Mi’qmak.  The word “Cornwallis” springs to mind.

English words are for English speakers!

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Economics do matter, even in a pandemic.

Vincent J. Curtis

18 Nov 20

RE: Some pandemic policies don’t make sense.  Spectator editorial of today.  The Marxists again complain that the elected official, i.e. Premier Doug Ford isn’t simply surrendering his discretion to the panel of medical experts.  In brief, the paper wants to forecast another lockdown.

With such an inviting title, I hoped I’d find myself in agreement with the Spectator for once.  Alas!  It was not to be.

The problem with “rule by experts,” which is what the editorial endorses, is that you’ve got to have the right set of experts.  In Premier Ford’s case, his team of experts is lacking in economists and even mathematicians.  All he seems to have are doctors, and to a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.  When the editorial remarks that Ford isn’t making public health paramount, even ahead of economic concerns, this is where an economist would come it.

An economist would ask, “at what cost?” and say, “there are only trade-offs.”  He would observe that after eight months of pandemic, Canada experienced 173,000 deaths from all causes, while COVID accounts for only 11,000 deaths, so what’s with the fixation on, the ‘paramountcy’ of, this one cause of death?  The economist would observe that the health effects of the restrictions are now causing more health issues than the pandemic itself.

The problem with making COVID paramount is that the costs are too high.  The trade-off in prospect is that we learn to live with it, having to endure another cause of death at least until the vaccines are distributed.  But we end our social isolation, our children get educated, financial derangement can end.

Premier Ford is the elected generalist who gets to make the final call.  Saying he has to surrender his decision to a panel of experts is plain wrong.

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Ontario Rate of Growth Estimates Breaking Down

Vincent J. Curtis

17 Nov 20

The last official pandemic modelling is breaking down.  On November 12, the Provincial Medical Officer of Health forecasted a growth rate of five percent per day, and expected a daily case rate of 6,500 by the middle of December.  Already, the numbers aren’t panning out.

After less than a week, the daily case number ought to be over 2,200 and the seven-day average over 1,800.  However, Ontario hasn’t seen a daily case number above 1,581, meaning all the others are less when they should have been more.  The seven-day average of daily cases has been rising, but not at the rate forecasted, being less than 1,500 as of this writing.

The failure to rise could mean that the second wave is finally peaking.  If we see a few more days of flat case numbers, then Ontario is at an inflection point. Normal statistical behavior of these things would indicate a slow but steady decline afterwards.

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Canada's Pay Equity Act

Vincent J. Curtis

16 Nov 20

RE: Advancing gender equality in Canadian workplaces.  Hamilton Spectator 16 Nov 20 Op-ed written by Federal Minister of Labour Filomena Tassi and Treasury Board President Jean-Yves Duclos.  Note the illicit substitutions of equality for equity, and equal pay for work of equal value instead of equal pay for equal work, which the current law.

If nothing else, the work by Filomena Tassi and Jean-Yves Duclos shows that some people never learn, especially when the lesson is not to their political advantage.  The very concept that the “average woman” is paid less than the “average man” was exploded decades ago by, among others, the American economist Thomas Sowell.

Let me give you a personal example.  For the 1984 federal election I did an analysis of the Hamilton Mountain riding for one of the candidates, and used the most recent data from Statistics Canada.  It showed that forty percent of working women worked in retail while thirty-three percent of men worked in unionized jobs.  Given that retail wages were close to minimum while union wages were good in those days, the “average man” received higher income than the “average woman!”  In order to achieve something like equality, not only did women working in retail have to become steelworkers, but a lot of steelworkers had to change jobs and work in retail.

When Sowell learned that young male doctors earned more than young female doctors, he looked deeper and found that on average the young male doctor worked five hundred more hours per year than young female doctors.  Well, if you work more you get paid more.  He also learned that among tenured professors, women who never married earned more than men who never married.

This whole business of gender pay equity is nonsense on stilts; you have to control for a lot of factors.

The principle is equal pay for equal work, but Tassi and Duclos call for equal pay for work of “equal value.”  Who is to determine what work is of “equal value?”  The commander of the Canadian army earns less than many pilots and experienced surgeons.  How do you compare the relative value of those jobs?  What is the relative value of teaching grade 4’s as compared to grade 12’s?  Is a principled answer even possible?  Generally, people get paid for their experience, but if a person of less experience is doing the same job, shouldn’t he or she get paid the same as the more experienced person?

There is no principle by which one can determine what work is of equal value, especially across widely disparate occupations.  Only the marketplace can determine that; a government bureaucrat cannot.  The effect of implementing the monetary penalties regime is already known: it will reduce the tendency of employers to hire women, indigenous, visible minorities, and the disabled because doing so will only cause them trouble.

The danger of putting too much power into the hands of government is that the hands of foolish do-gooders who haven’t done their research wind up hurting the very people they say they’re trying to help.

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Hugs over Masks

Vincent J. Curtis

14 Nov 20

Through social media, someone arranged for a "Hugs over Masks" protest. It took place at the City Hall forecourt last Saturday.  The number present must have exceeded 100 people, and the alleged organizer was consequently issued a summons for violating the Reopening Ontario Act, and is subject to a minimum $10,000 fine.  Minimum.

Who couldn’t use a hug, especially these days?  The charging of a person for organizing the “Hugs over Masks” event is so unconstitutional, only the brain-dead can’t see it.

Section 2b of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees freedom of peaceful assembly.  What could be more peaceful an assembly than a hug-fest on the forecourt of City Hall?  The Orwellian-named Reopen Ontario Act is subject to the Charter, and is blatantly unconstitutional on the matter is question.  Moreover, the charging of the alleged organizer is itself dubious under common law.

If the number of people had been below the sacred number, that person wouldn’t have been charged; but it did and he or she was.  The guilt of assembly therefore lies in the crowd, but an alleged “organizer” who has no coercive power or authority over these consenting adults is the one being charged.

If the crowd had assembled to chant “Black Lives Matter!” or to condemn anti-LGBT hate, the police would have left it alone.  But since the crowd assembled partially to mock those in authority, someone had to pay.

We’ll soon see if our Charter rights and common law rights are mere words, and the cry of “Havoc!” has bamboozled the courts also.

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Mask Testing Fallacies

Vincent J. Curtis

13 Nov 20

The CBC News show Marketplace reported on some testing it had done on twenty-four  different masks. The testing was to evaluate of the filtration ability of the various designs and materials, and was done in accordance with NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) protocols.

It is admirable that finally someone is evaluating for effectiveness the masks mandated by various governments.  It is my contention that the masks mandated are generally ineffective, and have the drawback of imparting a false sense of security.  Finally, the media is looking into the mask matter seriously.

The CBC report, however, contains two fallacies.  The first is that the test was of the effectiveness of the filtration material, not of the mask-as-worn.  While some materials performed quite well, if the mask is not well-fitting and allows air to follow the path of least resistance and pass around the filtration material, the mask is to that degree rendered ineffective.  Masks have to be close-fitting to work.

The second fallacy was the discounting of masks that have by-pass valves.  These valves allow exhausted air to by-pass the filtration portion of the mask and enter the atmosphere  unfiltered.  These masks are allegedly bad because they don’t protect the people around the wearer.  The fallacy is that the best masks, the canister-type respirators, and the N95 industrial dust masks – recognized as the best protection for the wearer – utilize these by-pass valves.  By the CBC standard, the NIOSH approved masks are bad because they don’t protect people around you from you.

It is good that finally the media are examining masks in light of the second wave, which continues to rise.  The best industrial masks provide the best protection for you, combining good filtration with a close fit to the face.  Now that it is recognized that the virus is transmitted as a dry dust, industrial dust masks should be turned to as the best means of protecting yourself.

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City Councillors bask in their moral righteousness

Vincent J. Curtis 

12 Nov 20

RE: City to Release Names of COVID rule-breaking businesses.  Hamilton Spectator 12 Nov 20.  Some self-righteous city councillors want the name of a particular restaurant in Stoney Creek that was fined $3,000 for violating COVID-19 related bylaws released to the public, as a means of shaming it and perhaps putting it under more economic stress. 

The moral and legal incoherence of naming names of businesses who allegedly violate COVID related rules just amazes.  In the case of the Stoney Creek restaurant, the owner is being fined for acts done by his patrons.  Ordinarily, when a person observes law breaking, one is encouraged to call police and not to deal with the situation yourself.  The owner was placed, without his consent, in the position of being a deputized police officer through the by-law since he was expected to enforce the law himself.  Failing in his imposed duty led to the fine.

The purpose of the bylaw is to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but there is no allegation that anyone picked up the coronavirus at the restaurant on the date in question.  So, the crime is not that anyone was infected, but that the precious bylaw was violated.

These bylaws have not been tested in court for their constitutionality, but many civil rights lawyers agree that they won’t stand legal scrutiny.  Freedom of association and freedom of peaceful assembly are Charter rights being violated by all sorts of alleged laws and bylaws justified on the basis of an alleged pandemic. (When over a thousand new cases per day are announced, but there are fewer than ten deaths per day reported, we are in flu season fatality rates.)

There is a self-satisfaction in the moral condemnation of others, and shaming restaurant owners may give some that frisson.  The rest of us should note the names of places where one can still have a good time.

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Blinded by one's own moral glitter

Vincent J. Curtis

12 Nov 20

RE: Yes, taking other people's land is unacceptable.  Letter to the editor by Karyn Callaghan.  Published in the Hamilton Spectator 12 Nov 20. This letter concerns the ongoing occupation by the Foxgate Development property in Caledonia by aboriginals and their allies.

You have to wonder if self-righteousness blinds people to their own incoherence.  The writer declares, “…those of us who have benefited from colonialism should stand in solidarity with Indigenous people…”  Will the writer take her own words seriously?

The writer is not Indigenous, or aboriginal.  She is a self-admitted colonialist.  If she truly thinks colonialism is wrong, then she should pack her bags and move to Europe.  Her call to stand in solidarity with Indigenous is disingenuous, she feeds others to the crocodile in the hopes it eats her last.

The writer appears to believe that the hereditary chiefs are the true guardians in some way of the Six Nations bands.  Never mind the elected band council.  Yet it was the hereditary chiefs who surrendered the land in question on December 18th, 1844, a matter of historical record.  And the reason the hereditary chiefs were able to surrender that land in the first place was because it was granted to them by the British Crown.  The Haudenosaunee aren’t indigenous to this area.

It is morally and intellectually incoherent to be a colonialist, to condemn colonialism, but to do nothing about it one’s self.  It is incoherent to say that hereditary chiefs aren’t bound by the agreements of their predecessors (If they're not, why should we honour the land grant of 1784?).  It is incoherent to choose the pretend authority of hereditary chiefs over the now legal authority of the elected band council.

When it costs you nothing, it’s easy to indulge in incoherent self-righteous moralizing.

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Dullard Doctors to Repeat Mistakes

Vincent J. Curtis

12 Nov 20

RE: Overdose deaths spike amid coronavirus.  Hamilton Spectator 11 Nov 20.

That the effects of the lockdown itself would cause more life-years lost than saved in potential coronavirus deaths was known and publicized in April.  The cure became worse than the disease after four weeks of lockdown.  Finally, authorities in Ontario are beginning to admit it.

It isn’t just opioid deaths that increased as a result of lockdown measures, it’s alcoholism, domestic violence, untreated and undiagnosed diseases and other conditions such as cancer, heart disease, strokes, and pneumonia.  Coronavirus is a disease of the elderly, and the average age of a person dying of it is 83.  Addictions and these other sicknesses are those of the young and middle aged.  A person of 25 who dies of an overdose had prospectively another fifty years of life ahead, while a person who died of coronavirus at 81 had prospectively two years of life ahead.  Hence, measured in life-years, the death of twenty-five elderly equals one death of a young overdose victim.

The math is hard, but it points to a policy of protecting the elderly while leaving everyone else to live their normal lives.  But that isn’t what was done.  The W.H.O. now advises against lockdowns, but the uncomprehending medical overlords are moving to lock us down again in the face of rising…..cases.  Not deaths, cases.

One can only look on in amazement at this disaster of centralized planning and control.

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The Arrogance and Ignorance of Vandals

Vincent J. Curtis

10 Nov 20

The statue to Sir John A. Macdonald in Hamilton's Gore Part was vandalized last night by pouring red paint all over it, and painting "Land Back" on the sidewalk in front of it.  The statue to Macdonald was erected in 1893 and was one of the first in Canada erected to hi memory.  "Land Back" is the slogan of the aboriginal protesters occupying land in Caledonia that is under development for new housing and is not actually being claimed by anyone.  So far, no arrests, but it must have taken a lot of work to vandalize the statue.  No witnesses have as yet come forward.  This is one of the busiest places in Hamilton.  The Spectator reporter described Macdonald as below.

Sir John A. Macdonald was described as “a controversial historical figure” who just happens to be remembered as a founder of Canada.  His cause of infamy is that he was Prime Minister of the government that founded residential schools for Indians.  Since education is a provincial responsibility, but Indian affairs a federal one, the federal government had to take on the responsibility of education of Indian children in the vast North West Territories, even after the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba were carved out of it.

Macdonald must have spent no more than an afternoon considering the policy of educating Indians.  As Prime Minister, his more important task was to ensure Western Canada was populated with Europeans and in general to make sure that Americans did not try to occupy Canadian territory.

By the time Macdonald died in 1891, the residential school system had hardly begun, and enrollment numbered in the low hundreds.  The system was carried on until 1991, and expanded and continued under such Liberal luminaries as Wilfred Laurier, William Lyon Mackenzie-King, Louis St. Laurent, Lester Pearson, and Pierre Trudeau.  It was Mr. Trudeau who proposed abolition of the status of Indian altogether in preparation for the Charter of Rights.  The White Paper of 1969 remained the quasi-official position of the Liberal Party until officially revoked by Justin Trudeau in 2014.

Cancelling Macdonald uniquely for the excesses of residential schools, especially those after his death, is an exhibition of arrogance and ignorance.

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Not Good News

Vincent J. Curtis

9 Nov 20

The COVID-19 cases curve is not peaking.  Daily cases continue to rise, and the unresolved cases accumulate.  Nevertheless, deaths, hospitalizations, numbers in ICU and on ventilators are dropping even as cases rise.

Deaths, hospitalizations, and numbers in ICU and on ventilators on this wave are far below the numbers of the first wave, in spite of the fact that this wave is far larger than the first.  COVID-19 is a disease for those over 70, and in the first wave not enough precautions were taken to protect the elderly.  Unsurprisingly, the average age of a person who died in the first wave was 83.  The statistics of the second wave are lower due to better care being taken in light of experience, and because many of the most vulnerable were taken in the first wave.

There is nothing that can be done to force the cases curve to peak, and even efforts at flattening only prolong the crisis.  It is obvious that the health care system won’t collapse due to numbers of COVID patients, and perhaps a strategy of “ripping the scab off” ought to be contemplated.  Continue to protect the elderly, but let people resume ordinary life.  End the restrictions.  Stop traumatizing society.

We would see a rapid rise in cases, but little rise in the other statistics because of the demographics of those who would become cases.  A vaccine may be coming, but can we really wait until June, 2021, to get a shot?

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Yielding to fanatics gains you no peace

 Vincent J. Curtis

6 Nov 20

RE: City’s lack of detail, action on climate lamented.  The Hamilton Spectator 6 Nov 20.

At the height of the blitz in 1940, Winston Churchill visited his old school, Harrow, and gave this advice to the assembled students, “Never give in.  Never, never, never, never, except to good sense.”

When City Council was asked to declare a climate emergency, a declaration which they had no competence to determine, to issue, or to do anything about, Councillors surrendered to tomfoolery in the hope they go home and live a quiet life.  Not so fast.  Having admitted the premise of the climate fanatics (a fanatic is a person who can’t change their mind and won’t change the subject) Council is now being castigated for not taking seriously the climate crisis they themselves declared.

Councillor Lloyd Ferguson said that he was tired of special interest groups coming before council and being critical.  Environmental groups are special interests that engage in special pleading, except that environmentalists can say that they are pleading on behalf of everyone.

Economists are fond of asking, “at what cost?” and saying, “there are only trade-offs.”  A climate emergency doesn’t relieve anyone of analyzing the costs and trade-offs concerning the actions demanded by environmentalists.  There is nothing Hamilton can do about the coal-fired power plants planned and operating in China, India, and South Korea..  What Hamilton can do is nothing compared to these, and achievement is overwhelmed by costs.

The mistake of Council was to yield to the demand to declare a "climate emergency" in the first place, and not to recognize the fanaticism before them.

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The mask slips

 Vincent J. Curtis

5 Nov 20

RE: Comorbidities in COVID-19 deaths show lockdowns aren’t the best way to stop spread.  By Keith Grafton.  Hamilton Spectator op-ed of 5 Nov 20.  Mr. Grafton describes himself as “a writer living by the river in Alymer, Que., just downwind from Parliament Hill, with global executive experience in engineering and telecommunications.  He makes the following points: that 94 percent of COVID-19 deaths occur with comorbidities; that age is a significant factor, with 97 percent of deaths in Canada occurring in people over the age of 60; only 291 deaths in Canada occurred in people under the age of 60 with 94 percent of these being in people with comorbidities.  He concludes that draconian lockdown measures are a self-protective regulatory dynamic run amok.  It is difficult to justify closing schools, manufacturing plants, the prohibition of private gatherings in private homes, clubs, and to justify Theresa Tam’s recommendation to wear a mask during sex.  Since the W.H.O. no longer recommends lockdowns as the primary means of controlling the virus, authorities need to come up with targeted protections and avoid devastating the economy any further.

All this is preaching to this choir, as numerous article in this blog have same the same things, only much soon.. 

This article by Ken Grafton is unremarkable, except for one thing.  The facts in the article have been known for weeks and months.  What is remarkable is that the article was published at all.  It doesn’t conform to The Narrative.  I guess, now that the U.S. election is over, the lockdown and panic over COVID-19 have lost their usefulness.

Now that the facts are on the table, we can say that a lot of people in and out of media owe Sam Oosterhoff a big apology.  Yahoo nation is owed a big, fat apology starting with Doug Ford.  The people protesting lockdown restrictions every weekend at Queen’s Park were right all along.  The young car rallyists who met in Ancaster one Sunday evening and were condemned by every political figure above dogcatcher were right.  All the schoolmarm-ish medical experts were wrong on the big picture and hurt society a great deal.  And, judging from Dr. Theresa Tam, they’re not going to stop unless they are stopped.

The central facts of COVID-19 were known in mid-March: that it affected almost exclusively those over eighty and those with pre-existing conditions.  Consequently, general restrictions and lockdowns, the closure of schools, etc. were unjustified after April Fool’s Day.  The harm is incalculable.

There were plenty of voices crying out in the wilderness, but these voices were suppressed.  Big Tech and Big Media suppressed.

Now that the U.S. election is over, we ought to move quickly back to normalcy.

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New masking guidelines are coming.

Vincent J. Curtis

4 Nov 20

Dr. Theresa Tam let her mask of pretension slip momentarily, but nobody noticed.  She admitted she was wrong, and then adroitly distracted attention from that fact.

Let’s review.  Masking is only useful when social distancing is not maintained.  Masking is intended to protect others from you.  Cloth masks are not virus filters; they are droplet and aerosol filters.

So, where did Tam admit she was wrong?  She began by specifying the construction of a mask: two layers of tightly woven cotton or linen and a layer of a “filtration” material like polypropylene all arranged to be close fitting around the nose and mouth and comfortable.  Where Tam got her expertise in filtration design nobody asked, but she could have said concisely, an N95 mask, but didn’t.  She then said, but don’t throw out what you have.  So, which is correct – what you have or the Tam N95?

The confusion is all due to face coverings being an area of “evolving science,” she said.  “We’re still learning about droplets and aerosols.”

Except it isn’t, and we’re not.  The W.H.O. dropped masking recommendations because cloth masks were proven not to stop the transmission of the flu virus.

To summarize, masking has been a panacea since day one.  Masking justified the ending of the lockdown, and may have contributed to overconfidence.  The experts are at a loss, the virus is out of their control, and it’s making them look bad.

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A little Sowell food will cure that ailment

Vincent J. Curtis

4 Nov 20

RE: Ottawa should accept the call to test basic income.  Spectator editorial 4 Nov 20.  Basic income has been a hobby horse for the People's Daily ever since Premier Doug Ford cancelled the test program a couple years ago.

I don’t understand this fixation on “universal basic income,” as if the idea hasn’t been tested and studied thoroughly before.  It has been tested thoroughly, and American economist Thomas Sowell has written extensively on its adverse social impacts.  We have around us many examples of guaranteed basic income.

The Great Society programs broke up the Black family because of its perverse economic incentives.  Single mothers got more money raising kids without a father in the house.  The result is single parent Black families living in poverty and with no example of a man working for a living.  Now, 71 percent of Black children in America are born out of wedlock.

A person living on Canada Pension is more likely to adapt his or her lifestyle to the income rather than go out and find work.

The purpose of the CERB money was to quench the desire to look for work after the government put people out of work.

Look at the many social ills of aboriginal bands which survive on government money.  Poverty, crime, drugs, trouble all arise because the need to work for a living is eliminated.  Canada’s aboriginals are classic examples of the perverse consequences of guaranteed income.

Examples of universal basic income abound, there are studies aplenty, and there is no reason to create more examples.  Digest a little Sowell food: the social consequences of guaranteed income are not good.

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Consenting Adults

Vincent J. Curtis

1 Nov 20

RE: Sorry, Sam Oosterhoff, you're apology isn't good enough.  An Op-ed in the Spectator of 31 Oct 20 by Keith Leslie, who may have been somebody as some time, but I forgot.  Sam Oosterhoff is a political phenom in the Conservative Party, and is a social conservative.  He published a picture recently in of him with a group of forty other young people, none of whom were wearing masks.  

Apparently this pandemic has extinguished the idea, at least selectively extinguished the idea, of “consenting adults.”  Sam Oosterhoff, MPP for Niagara West, and parliamentary assistant to the minister of education, had his picture taken with forty other consenting adults, and no one wore a mask! (gasp!).

“Hypocrisy!” cried Keith Leslie.  “It was foolhardy!”  Oosterhoff’s apology isn’t good enough!  Restaurant and banquet business have suffered terribly during the pandemic.  He should be fired as PA to the MoE to prove that violating pandemic protocols has consequences!

Oosterhoof’s mistake was apologizing in the first place.  (Actually, his first mistake was publishing the picture, but never mind.)  No, it isn’t foolhardy for a young man of 23 to pose with other young people, because, at the height of this pandemic, there is a only one in fifty chance that one of those forty people is an active case of COVID-19.  And in his demographic, there are no COVID deaths in Ontario; and even if somehow he became infected, he would be asymptomatic.  Oosterhoff was at no measureable risk.

Sure, restaurants and banquet halls have suffered in the pandemic – because of government orders to close them up, then reopen under uneconomic conditions.  Out of fear of what the clients would do, not the restauranteurs. .

Young people are quaking in rebellion at the stupidity of masking and the other regulations.  It’s the realization that the Emperor has no clothes that strikes fear into the hearts of people like Leslie, and why he calls for humiliating Sam Oosterhoff.

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Lazy insinuations of racism

Vincent J. Curtis

28 Oct 20

RE: And then there were two. 28 Oct 20.   A Spectator editorial-as-news piece saying that a Black Hamilton Fire Fighter was retiring, leaving only two on the force.  This was portrayed as a problem for lack of representativeness of the community, and possibly a sign of racism.

What could be worse than the Spectator affirming prejudice?  What could be worse than affirming prejudice in the face of overwhelming evidence that has been in the public domain for fifty years?  The “And then there were two” editorial-cum-news article affirmed prejudice that was refuted decades ago and the evidence is still readily available.

The great American economist Thomas Sowell put paid to all these insinuations of prejudice and racism in books, lectures, newspaper columns, and YouTube videos beginning decades ago.  Put simply, the reason different groups are different is because….they’re different!  Differences between groups is the norm.  There is no reason to assume that Blacks are equally attracted and qualified to serve as firefighters, than to assume that white people are equally qualified to play in the NBA as tall Black men.

Indeed, if the explanation for a non-quantitative representation of Blacks as firefighters is prejudice, that case still needs to be proven.  Mere observation of empirical facts does not establish the case.  No more than observing planetary motion proves Ptolemy’s theory of it.  Nor is there any reason to believe that the Fire Department is in some kind of trouble because racial composition doesn’t meet somebody’s assumption of what it ought to be.  The Department would be in trouble if it failed to fight fires successfully.

The case is that different groups are different, and this difference is reflected in choices.  The onus is on the accuser to prove prejudice.

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STFU

Vincent J. Curtis

29 Oct 20

RE: Walking the walk.  Another obnoxious Spectator editorial in which these self-admitted non-experts deign to scold those who don't don't do as the editors think they ought are lectured for not being good. It's the usual progressive technique of saying shut up, don't argue, and just do as you're told, because we can't explain why.

“Shut up and do as you’re told!”  That’s the standard progressive argument for everything.  It saves them the burden using their reason, which went undeveloped at school.  In this case, the command is mandatory masking.

What if the masks you’re supposed to wear are ineffective against viruses?  Then, wearing a mask won’t help, and may give you a false sense of security.  Is it any wonder that the second wave of the pandemic occurred after masking became mandatory?

The masks mandated are nothing but symbols of compliance.  You might as well carry a rabbit’s foot, because you’ll have better luck with it.

The reason people are exhausted with masking and lockdowns is because the powers that be are overly fixated on the virus and none of their dire predictions are noticeable.  In six months on average, 130,000 Canadians die of all causes, and the virus has caused 10,000.  This is a blip, statistically compared to the average.  By far most people who get the virus get over it easily.  If 1,000 people per day caught the virus in Ontario, it would only take 40 years to infect the entire population of 14.6 million.  At the height of the second wave, only one in 2,000 are active cases, most of whom are asymptomatic.

Public health officials are like the boy who cried wolf too often.  They’ve lost their credibility, and commands to obey are sparking acts of defiance.

So, Spectator: STFU! The people know better.

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